Horthy opened his eyes wide and raised his eyebrows in surprise, a genuine look of confusion washing over his face. Scott was standing before him, a smug grin across his face. The man was pointing a Pokéball directly at Horthy, a clear challenge hanging in the air. Horthy couldn't help but ask, his tone laced with confusion and a hint of disbelief.
"... what? Are you kidding me?" Even Eevee, perched on Horthy's shoulder, seemed surprised by the unexpected challenge, her ears twitching inquisitively. Lana, however, remained unfazed. She leaned against a nearby tree, her expression bored and indifferent.
"Do you really challenge someone who is just starting to train that Eevee?" Lana sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes in disdain, she saw Scott´s actions just stupid, as always. Finding a large fallen branch, she casually brushed it off and sat down, preparing to watch the unfolding scene with minimal interest as she called Luxray back to it´s pokeball. She already knew this would be a waste of time.
Scott laughed quietly, a sound that held a distinct edge of mockery. He continued to speak in a tone dripping with arrogance. "Oh come on... it's just a fight. Relax! Also, I'm not going to use any of my strongest Pokémon, don't worry, I'm just going to use one that I caught about 6 months ago. It will be a fair fight."
Horthy frowned, his initial surprise giving way to suspicion. He folded his arms across his chest, his eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher the man's motives, asking suspiciously.
"What's the trick in all this? What is the fine print? There has to be something you are not telling me." He waited for an explanation.
At the question, Scott's smile only grew larger, more unpleasant, and even a bit predatory at the sight of Horthy and Eevee's obvious inexperience. Scott pointed his Pokéball at the ground a few feet in front of him and touched the release button. With a flash of light, a Pokémon materialized onto the forest floor.
"Sneasel!" Sneasel screamed its name prudly and flexed its thin muscles.
Faced with the appearance of the ice/dark type Pokémon, Horthy was taken aback, but quickly regained his composure. He immediately took out his Pokedex to analyze it, hoping to gain some insight into the creature's strengths and weaknesses.
Pokemon: Sneasel Ice/dark type
Gender: Male
Estimated Strength: Experienced
Health: Healthy
Moves: Quick Attack, Bite, Slash, Cut, Dig, Fury Swipes, Icy Wind. Possible moves: Ice Beam, Metal Claw, Pursuit, Ice Shard.
After Horthy finished analyzing Sneasel, taking note of the potential moves it could use, Scott continued to speak arrogantly, convinced of his inevitable victory.
"If you win... and I mean *if*, I can give you a valuable high-quality and pure electric-type evo stone, now that we talk about the Surge theme. I am sure you will find good use of it." He paused for dramatic effect, "But if you lose... You'll have to be my first and most recruited slave when I'm promoted to admin."
Lana clicked her tongue and shook her head in disapproval. Although Scott is a trainer with potential and stronger than average trainers, he seriously overestimates himself if he thinks he will be an admin in the short term... plus, he would surely have long forgotten about this deal if Horthy accepted fo course.
Horthy frowned and thought about it carefully. If he accepted the battle, he could gain a pure evolutionary stone for Eevee, enhancing her potential and managing to evolve her into a Jolteon. But if he were to lose... He should serve the idiot in front of him. After thinking about it for about two minutes, Horthy came to a conclusion...
"I accept the challenge," he said with some doubt, sealing the dangerous pact with Scott. And if he were to lose... he could look for a long-term way to avoid being a lackey of his.
Scott opened his eyes in surprise, genuinely not thinking that Horthy would accept, rather than cowardly retreat, something that would have increased his pride. Without realizing it, he stared at Horthy with a stupid face, until a branch from Lana's direction hit him in his temple, and causing him to return to reality.
"Ouch... whatever." After caressing the beaten part and without delay, he gave Horthy a haughty look and turned around to take up position opposite Horthy about 20 meters away, with Sneasel on what would be the improvised battlefield.
Horthy only gave Eevee a few words of courage and let Eevee jump off his shoulder into the "combat arena", looking at the Sneasel, who had a vicious look and malicious smirk.
No one made any move for about a minute until Lana frowned at the lack of initiative from both of them, and threw a directed branch between Eevee and Sneasel. As soon as the branch finished falling, Scott quickly began to give orders, which put both Eevee and Horthy on full alert.
Sneasel quickly began to run with his claws glowing metallic in tone, which meant the move "metal claw". Horthy, without waiting another second, ordered Eevee to start running and try to escape from Sneasel. What he did not expect is that Sneasel would be so fast.
Whenever Eevee tried to dodge the metal claw, she narrowly missed, but she was always caught in both long and short runs, meaning Sneasel is faster and seemed to never get tired.
Horthy then decided to take a chance and attack while Sneasel lowered his guard to attack. Once again, Sneasel used his metallic-toned claws to attempt to slash Eevee, who instead of trying to jump to the side once more, used her tail to trip him up.
The movement " tail whip" was used on Sneasel´s legs and managed to make him lose his balance and so it´s defense, but not before having brushed Eevee's back with his claws, leaving a mark from which a few drops of blood came out.
Eevee ignored the burning sensation and, following Horthy's order, threw herself to bite her opponent while it was still off balance because of the speed that it employed, pinning him on the ground under his paws and obviously moving her head from side to side to maximize damage to the neck.
This didn't make Scott alert, in fact, he was quite calm while listening to his pokemon's moans.
"Ice shard, now," he ordered in a relaxed manner.
Sneasel, being pinned, managed to put his hands together with a small space between them, from which an ice crystal was generated as Eevee bite him with all her strengh.
Horthy didn't know what that move meant or how it worked, but seeing Scott so calm brought him a bad feeling, so he ordered Eevee to let Sneasel go.
"Let him go and run now!" Eevee tried to obey, but it was too late.
The ice shard flew from Sneasels little hands at a very short range, and hit Eevee in a critical hit, letting a deep wound on her chest, who flew about 4 meters before falling light on the grass.
Horthy opened his eyes with alert and concern, Eevee now finds herself severely injured and bleeding deeply from her chest. "Eevee no!"
Eevee struggled, but she managed to stand up again with great difficulty, a small pool of blood forming beneath her.
With tears in her eyes, but determined to keep fighting, she looked straight ahead at her adversary, whom wicked smile once more came to his face, even as his own neck bled deeply, though not as much as her chest.
Without waiting for Scott's order, Sneasel went straight for the kill. Horthy became even more alert, and before he could pull out her pokeball and bring Eevee back, she acted on her own...
The next thing that happened surprised everyone, as Eevee didnt faint or tried to escape. As Sneasel charged quickly towards Horthy´s pokemon, Eevee prepared an "Iron tail" and stood her ground, preparing to defend herself.
Sneasel didn't seem to care, but Scott was now alerted when he realized the movement that was being made, so he tried to get Sneasel to move away.
"No, don't attack now, stay away!" But Sneasel didn't listen, his predatory instinct seemed to take over his consciousness completely, so he used metal claw once again and jumped towards Eevee with both claws over his head, intending to cut her into multiple pieces.
But this was his fatal mistake, in the air and lowering his guard completely, he forgot about anything else to attack. Eevee although injured, she was able to execute her move and turning around, she wagged her tail and with the super effective move against Sneasel's Ice type, hit his neck as well in a direct blow before he could finish her.
Sneasel flew off a few meters and when he finished falling, it became impossible for him to breathe and he began to agonize. Not only was his neck bleeding deeply, now it could be that it was fractured... after receiving a direct hit from a super effective Iron Tail.
Even if Eevee is younger and weaker, a move under such circumstances and with relatively high power can do such damage, the type advantage is often one of the most important factors in low level battles as this one.
The battle evidently came to an end, and each trainer ran to their respective Pokemon, both seriously wounded.
Lana, whose face was one of boredom, changed to one of worry and jumped from the branch she was sitting on, from her belt she took out a pokéball and released one of her pokémon. "Kirlia, "heal pulse" in Sneasel now!"
A pokemon with the appearance of a dancer and no taller than a human girl, ran to Sneasel's side and observed the gravity of the situation, its large eyes opened even more in surprise and without hesitation, it began to channel its movement to save it.
Meanwhile, Horthy pressed on Eevee's vulnerable chest with one hand and his shirt on it, trying to stop the bleeding as much as possible, while his other hand reached into his backpack.
In the end he found the spray he was looking for (what we know as potions), and began to spray the wounds of his poor Eevee, slowly stopping the bleeding. Horthy sighed a little more calmly and returned Eevee to her pokeball.
He then turned to Scott and Lana, and saw that the man returned Sneasel to his pokeball as soon as he was stabilized by Kirlia.
Without looking back, either out of pride or haste, Scott began to walk on his way to the pokemon center without saying a word about it to either Horthy or Lana. She frowned and made Kirlia return to her pokeball.
"You know? It's better if you watch your back while being close to that pig, especially now that he had to swallow his pride," Lana finally said carelessly, watching as Scott's figure got lost in the trees.
Lana then turned to Horthy and said a few heartfelt words. "Good job, your Eevee has a lot of courage, and I can see you trained her well." She looked down at the pokeball on Horthy´s hand and her gaze softened. "She will be okay, I saw her while Kirlia was healing Sneasel.
Horthy´s expression also softened, but still had a bit of worry on his face as he also looked down at Eevee´s pokeball. "Thank you, I appreciate that..."
...
End of the chapter, this one came late! I´ve been busy this week. I hope you liked this one, I think that battles should be of this style, that the orders of the trainers are not written movement by movement, just to make the battles more dynamic. Training arc is coming, I am excited to write it! Have a good day and thanks for reading.