Chapter 86

CHAPTER 86

“Seriously Grace, I want you to talk to me about this stuff, alright?” Denzel said. “I didn’t know you needed help. It’s fine to call out.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied, petting Togetic’s head and basking in the fire’s warmth. She was sleeping on my lap while Tangela was at my side, dozing off with his vines wrapped all around me. Elekid was a few feet away, playing with Larvitar in the snow. The rock type ran clumsily, slipped, and Elekid tried to help her up before being hit away with her horn. She sniggered at him and let out a small roar to celebrate her victory. “Not too hard, sweetheart!” I yelled out. She stared back at me and nodded, but Elekid used the opportunity to throw a snowball at her, and the fighting resumed.

“Don’t apologize,” he said.

“We all apologize too much in general when it isn’t needed,” Cecilia said.

“That’s right,” Denzel smiled. “We’re among friends. Let’s lean on each other and help each other out.”

“I don’t know what happened,” I said before letting out a half sigh. “I was fine, and then I saw that Togetic was so worried, and I couldn’t hold anything back.”

Chase came back with his hands covered in blood, and I grimaced. I didn’t know where he learned to skin Pokemon, and I certainly didn’t want to ask, but he had brought back a small Swinub to roast on the fire.

“The job’s done. Here’s your knife, Pastel,” he said, extending his hand toward me.

“Just… leave it,” I said.

“I’ll clean it for you,” Denzel said. “The snow needs to finish melting, though.”

We had filled all of our empty water bottles up with snow and had set them up by the fire so that they could melt. Denzel said that it still wouldn’t be safe to drink unless we boiled it for ten minutes, but we had pots for that, and we could also use them to finally wash ourselves and clean other stuff, like my knife.

“Thanks,” I nodded.

“Oh, by the way, I don’t have a tent, so…” Chase started. “I need to sleep in yours,” he told Denzel.

“What? It’s going to be so fucking crammed in there, man!” He complained.

“Yeah, well, not my problem.”

“It’s my tent, so it is my problem—”

“I’ll give you mine,” Cecilia interrupted. “Just set it up yourself.”

“Great. I’ll just look through your bag. Williams, you get cooking.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he snapped. “This guy, I swear.”

“He’s gotten better,” I tried.

“Barely!”

“Barely is a win in my book,” I said. “Think about it, at this rate, he’ll be a nice person in six months,” I continued sarcastically.

“Six years,” Cece laughed.

“We’ll get there!” I smiled.

“Guys!” Chase called out. “Ri senses something.”

All of the fun we were having evaporated in a split second, and we stood up. I woke up Togetic and Tangela and called Elekid and Larvitar to my side. Houndoom had melted the snow around us like last time, so angel and honey would be usable, at least. Riolu closed his eyes for a few seconds and pointed to our left, and our heads spun toward there. Now that no one was talking, I could hear something. A faint sound, almost like leaves rustling, but it wasn’t coming from the trees. I hissed in pain as a piece of hail fell on my shoulder. Then another. Then another. Togetic used Extrasensory above us, altering the path of the hail. The sounds were getting closer, and I held my breath, expecting the worst. My heart pounded against my chest as I took a small step back.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the sound came from two Snover duking it out. Their fight had somehow brought them here, and one of them had the ability Snow Warning, or maybe both. Snow below one of the Snover rose and pelted the other, who responded by just hitting the ice type with its green fist. It was almost refreshing how low-stakes the battle was. There were no moves capable of causing untold amounts of damage, just two weaker Pokemon fighting one another. After a few minutes, the larger Snover hit its opponent with Razor Leaf, slammed its fist against its chest, and let out a victorious cry, which sounded like rustling leaves.

Chase started to approach it slowly, ignoring the pain from the hail.

“Chase! What are you doing, you idiot,” I yelled.

“I feel it. The pull,” he simply said, beckoning his Riolu and Houndoom to follow.

Snover watched suspiciously, but it wasn’t capable of much more. The previous fight had exhausted it, but it still gathered snow and threw it at Chase, but Houndoom completely neutered the attack with his flames.

“Hey,” Chase said, pointing his thumb at the unconscious Snover. “I see you took down your rival here.”

Snover stared at his previous opponent and gave a wary nod.

“The truth is that you’re still weak,” he continued, much to Snover’s protests, who slammed his fists against his chest menacingly. “It’s true. You can’t win against me, but I see potential in you. I see a drive to get stronger. Am I right?”

Snover nodded, keeping his eyes on Houndoom. The hail finally stopped, and Togetic canceled her Extrasensory.

Chase grabbed a Pokeball.

“Then come with me, and I’ll make you more powerful than you’ve ever imagined. I’ll put you through the wringer to bring you up to the others’ level, but I guarantee you that you can reach it with enough work. I would have challenged you to a battle one-on-one, but even if you hadn’t just been in a battle, I would have destroyed you.”

The grass type tilted its entire body, and after a pause, he gave a hesitant nod.

“Good,” he smiled, bumping the Pokeball on Snover, who let itself be caught. “Welcome to the team.”

“Well,” Denzel said. “That was something.”

“Are you okay?” I asked. “That was a lot of hail that fell onto you.”

“I’ll be fine, just some bruising,” Chase said. “I’ll be off bringing Snover up to speed and checking its moves. Call me when dinner’s ready.”

That reminded me that I hadn’t even checked Larvitar’s moves yet! I grabbed my Pokedex and scanned her with it.

Moves: Leer, Tackle, Horn Attack, Rock Throw, Payback.

“Not bad!” I smiled. I genuinely hadn’t been expecting Rock Throw or Payback to be there, since Larvitar hadn’t used those moves during our entire time together. She seemed to be a fan of Horn Attack, though, since she liked attacking Elekid with it so much to play.

“Larvi!” She said proudly. Was Elekid rubbing off on her? She had already adopted Frillish’s huffing too.

“Don’t get too excited. We’ve got to let you grow up a little first before we get you in any battles, alright?”

Larvitar hissed and angrily turned away from me. Tangela gently petted her head, and she smiled, but her smile turned to anger when Elekid laughed at her.

“Don’t bully her, hon,” I said. “You’ll catch up, don’t worry,” I told Larvitar, rubbing her hard cheek. Togetic was already back to sleep on my lap. She was too exhausted to even play with the others, which hurt me like an invisible stake was being driven through my chest. I knew how much she liked to fool around with the family.

We ate dinner, and I was content with my two granola bars. We stayed awake for a few more hours, and then set up our tents. It finally sunk in that I was going to sleep in the same tent as Cece. Of course, we had already slept close together, and we’d probably be in different sleeping bags, but now that we were dating, it was more nerve-wracking somehow.

Still, before going to sleep, there was one more topic to discuss. Denzel stepped past Frillish and into our tent.

“Did we have to do this in here? It’s so cramped…” he sighed.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have grown up so big, then,” I snarked, making him roll his eyes. “This is important. It’s about what we’re doing when we get to Snowpoint.”

“Right,” he said, his tone growing serious. “I was starting to think about that as well.”

“First thing’s first,” I said. “Calling the others is off the table for now, but I had a question for you, Cece. Your father’s a fucking sociopath, and we’ve established that he’d most likely bug the other’s phones—”

“What?” Denzel gasped.

“—but would he go after our parents too?” I finished. “Because the first thing I want to do is call mine.”

“I… I don’t know. A part of me thinks so. If he believes us to be dead and he wants to salvage his reputation, he might try to pay them a settlement to stop them from talking, depending on how much information has gotten out.”

“They wouldn’t accept,” I said. Denzel nodded.

“Still, I could ask Mark about it.”

“I thought about your brother too. Is that safe?” I asked.

“My father holds no power over him, and he only tolerates him because the company supplies Unova with a lot of its energy. Calling him would be safe,” Cece said. “He could have a few contacts in Sinnoh to check with your dad, although I don’t think he could send anyone to Twinleaf.”

Denzel let out a trembling sigh.

“I’m sure we can find out!” Cece stammered. “It’ll just take longer.”

“Sorry,” I told Denzel. “Look, if he hasn’t bothered my dad, odds are he hasn’t sent someone to your mom’s either, so let’s keep our spirits high.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Still, thinking about it, the other’s phones will definitely be compromised since they’ll want to control their communication either way.”

“Yeah, they’re probably living under house arrest right now,” I sighed.

“Still, I’ll also ask him for help about our Abel problem, but I don’t expect much,” she muttered.

“Why?” I asked. “I know you said he’s indifferent to your situation, but this is mind control we’re talking about!”

“Maybe he will help, I’ve just learned not to expect much when it comes to him,” she said. “But don’t expect him to come flying to save me. Like I said, father controls a lot of Unova’s energy, and trying to arrest him would open a whole can of worms, especially since he’s in Sinnoh right now. The situation isn’t as one-sided as it seems.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “I suppose that’s better than nothing. We’ll get more informed when we get to a city. Next up, we need to figure out where we’re going.”

“Staying in Snowpoint might be wise,” Cece said. “It’s the most isolated city in Sinnoh. My father will never look for us here, and we can use the opportunity to train.”

“Agreed, I just wanted to bring it up,” I said. “But you won’t be able to get any of your money from your account, otherwise your father will find out. That means money will be a bit of an issue for potions and stuff, but we can stay in Pokemon Centers. Nurse Joys are sworn to medical secrecy, I think they won’t expose us being alive.”

“Snowpoint will be pretty empty, too. Most trainers leave before the Circuit starts,” Denzel said.

Cece nodded. “That’s fine. I would rather be poor and free than rich and held by chains.”

I smiled and held her hand. “No gym battle is obvious, even though I would have liked to see what Candice was all about,” I said. “Unless we can find a way around the publicity it would bring. But when we finish training, we’ll have to go back into the world and expose your dad for the scumbag he is.”

Cecilia's face broke into an evil grin. “When we’re ready, I’ll retract as much money as possible into my trainer card, and we can take the ferry to Canalave and then book a flight somewhere.”

I nodded. We’d have to break one of the taboos of being a trainer, but at this point, I couldn’t really bother caring. If people wanted to trash-talk us after we made it out of Mount Coronet, they were free to. Their words wouldn’t affect me.

“We’ll figure that out. Circumstances might change which city we go to,” I said. “But right now, Sunyshore or Hearthome seem to be our best bet.”

“Why?” Denzel asked. “I would have said stick around in Canalave.”

“Canalave could work, but those two are huge and easy to hide in if needed, but there are also a lot of people. They’re Sinnoh’s second and third largest city. That means that doing something illegal and hiding it, like, you know, pulling out your Malamar and mind-controlling children in the middle of the street is going to be a hell of a lot harder. So long as we stay in public as much as possible, we’ll be fine, but that’s not it.”

“Stop teasing us!” Denzel groaned. “You like doing this too much.”

“Cece’s going to reveal herself to be alive. That means that she’ll get a lot of publicity— publicity that makes it impossible to hide, even if you’re laying low in a Pokemon Center. And so will we, to a lesser extent. More than she had even at the start of the Circuit. That means that when she speaks to the camera, she can expose her dad for the piece of shit he is like she tried to do in that second letter.”

“I love you and your devilish ideas,” Cece practically squealed. “They probably got their hands on that letter by now and are stopping the others from talking, but they can’t stop me from saying anything. I’ll make his stock price tank so much, oh Arceus, it’s going to be glorious.”

“What about Chase?” Denzel asked. “What’s he going to do?”

“Well, he’s not involved in any of this…” I said. “So he’ll probably stick around in Snowpoint for a bit, challenge Candice, and leave. We’ll talk to him about that when we get there.”

“I doubt he would care that much about our issues,” Cece said. “And even if he did, we can’t expect him to hold back his entire journey for us.”

I nodded. “It sucks to say, but you’re right. He’s been a great help, but we might not be together for much longer.”

“So now it’s about how good we can get, and how fast,” Denzel said. “Mount Coronet’s made us improve a whole bunch, but we need something to push ourselves to the next level.”

“The answer to that is simple,” Cece said. “Evolutions. If we push our teams to the next level, some of them are bound to evolve. Deino is on the cusp. I can feel it.”

“Yeah,” Denzel awkwardly said, scratching his head. “Eevee might have to wait, but you’re right for some others. Grace can finally start teaching Tangela Ancient Power so that he can evolve.”

“Excuse me?” I faltered, almost falling over.

“Um… Tangela evolves into Tangrowth by learning Ancient Power? Did you… did you not know this before wanting to catch him?” Denzel asked.

“I… did not,” I blushed before covering my face. Cece chuckled. “I thought he evolved normally!”

“How can you be so smart and thorough about stuff and yet fail at the most simple tasks?” Denzel joked. “That’s a superpower.”

“Shut up! How does that make any sense? How was I supposed to know?”

“Research, you idiot,” he said. “But anyway, I know Eevee could evolve any time now, but he’s still holding himself back. He’s uncertain. I’ll have to figure out something with him.”

“Have a heart-to-heart with him,” I nodded. “Oh, and one last thing! Cece, you said your brother could at least be trusted not to leak that you were alive when you called, so that got me thinking. Can he help us out… more? By sending money, I mean? Just enough to stock up on potions to train as much as we could.”

“He might. I’ll see when I call, nothing is set in stone.”

“Sounds good. All of this might become irrelevant depending on what happened back in Eterna anyway, I just hope the others are safe. Meeting’s over, now shoo!” I yelled at Denzel.

“Okay, okay, I’m leaving!” He exclaimed as he fumbled out of the tent. “You kids have fun, alright? Don’t make too much noise, or—”

“If you finish that sentence, I will kill you,” I said.

Arceus… it wasn’t like we were going to do anything. And it wasn’t like I wanted anything to happen! Totally not! We were just going to go to sleep, and—

“May I?” Cecilia asked, gently pushing me down.

She stayed atop of me, and we stared at each other until we both averted our eyes out of embarrassment. My heart was beating so quickly I thought it was going to jump out of my throat.

“Yes…” I whispered.

She lowered herself and started kissing my neck.

——

I woke up once I felt Cece shift around the sleeping bag that we had spontaneously decided to share. I stayed unmoving, unwilling to wake her up or Togetic, who I had released after we finished fooling around. She was hugging me from behind, and it felt so warm.

That certainly helped with the cold.

Around twenty to thirty minutes later— I wasn’t sure since I couldn’t count— Cece yawned and stretched, signaling that she was up.

“Morning,” I said, turning toward her.

“Grace, you’re already up?” She asked.

“I waited for you. I don’t think the others are up.”

We waited for a few seconds and heard no sound coming from outside.

“Yeah, they’re not up. Denzel sleeps like a log anyway, we’ll have to wake him up,” I continued.

“Um… sorry about last night. I said some… embarrassing things,” Cece said with a bit of uncertainty.

“No! It was the first time anyone’s ever complimented me so much before, I liked it a lot!” I hurriedly answered. “I mean… I like it when you call me h—hot.”

“It was new for me too, the words just came out,” she said. “Sorry about your neck too. There are… marks.”

I awkwardly shuffled in the sleeping bag and rubbed my neck. “Hickeys?”

“Yes,” she barely answered.

“That’ll be awkward, but I’m sure Chase won’t say anything. I hope. Denzel might make fun of us for it.”

“Well, so long as Chase doesn’t chastise us with an irritating comment, I’ll call that a victory,” she sighed. I kissed her and grabbed my Poketch to check the time. It was still barely nine in the morning.

“I only have twelve percent left in the tank,” I said before quickly turning it off. “Not like it’s much use out there anyway. There are some spots on routes where there’s reception, but the odds of that being true on route 216 and 217 are rather low.”

“Sinnoh really needs to invest into its route infrastructure,” she said. “This isn’t a problem in most of Unova.”

“Wait, you can just call people and browse the internet in the middle of routes?” I asked surprisingly.

“In most of the routes. Some still haven’t been built up enough. We pride ourselves on having the lowest trainer casualty rate, you know? Sinnoh is brutal in its nonchalance with trainer deaths.”

“Denzel probably would take offense to that, but I think Sinnoh should learn a few things from Unova, and especially that.”

“The weather, also,” Cece joked. “It’s still early…”

“Yeah,” I said as I climbed out of the sleeping bag. “But we’ve got to get going. Princess, wake up,” I said as I gently petted her.

“Prrri…” she lamented.

“I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to eat breakfast. Three meals a day!”

“To…”

“You can go back to sleep after eating,” I continued as I lifted her up. “Come on up!”

Togetic floated up for a few seconds with her eyes half-opened and then laid back down. At least she wasn’t sleeping... yet.

“Maybe you should give her a few more minutes,” Cece whispered as she grabbed me from behind.

“I don’t know…” I said playfully.

Cecilia started kissing my neck again.

“Not in front of—”

I glanced down, and Togetic had fallen asleep again.

Ah, screw it

.

——

I stood near Denzel’s tent with Elekid and Larvitar in tow. Togetic was hanging out with Frillish and Tangela near the center of the camp, while Chase and Cece had started to pack with their respective teams close by. There was one reason I had brought honey and sweetheart here with me.

They were mischievous pranksters. Elekid was more on the playful side of things, while Larvitar was more vicious, but I’d slowly try to wean off her aggressiveness down to a more manageable level. She often still liked to attack others out of the blue. It was fine when they were members of my team, but I didn’t want her to annoy the other Pokemon.

Still, we had a job to do.

“Ready?” I asked them.

“Tar!”

“Elekid!”

“You guys! Don’t be so loud!” I hissed. “He’ll wake up. Shhhh,” I continued with a finger on my mouth. “Follow my lead.”

I silently opened Denzel’s tent, hoping that the cold rush of air getting in wouldn’t wake him up. He looked so silly, drooling as he slept, and he had no idea what was coming. I motioned at my two Pokemon and grabbed a handful of snow. Elekid and Larvitar did the same, although they struggled to get a substantial amount. I wasn’t going to mold it into a snowball and throw it at him, I was going to place it directly on his face.

Why?

Well, I felt happy this morning, which was almost a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn compared to yesterday. Having a girlfriend was kind of like magic, somehow. Still, that wasn’t it. It was also a pre-emptive strike to all of the teasing that was no doubt going to be coming from him today. I could already see his goofy grin and his eyebrows wiggling.

I stepped into the tent, followed by my two accomplices, looked at them, and nodded before ramming all of the snow I had gathered on his face. He thrashed around and spat for a few seconds, and I broke down laughing. Elekid and Larvitar did the same, staring down at him.

“What the— Grace, what the hell?!” He screamed.

“Run!” I told my Pokemon.

We hurried out of the tent and ran toward the center of the camp, and I saw a snowball land right beside me.

“Learn how to aim, idiot!” I taunted.

“You’re dead!”

I quickly made it to where Cecilia and Chase were, and they shot me a curious look. I hid behind my girlfriend and stuck out my tongue to Denzel, who was carrying two massive snowballs in both of his hands.

“Cece, let me through. She deserves it,” he said.

“I don’t even know what happened.”

“She put snow all over my face when I was sleeping!”

“Where’s your proof? You just started attacking me out of nowhere,” I lied.

“This really isn’t the time to be playing around,” Chase complained.

“That’s right, man, it’s not the time to be playing. Go get ready already,” I smiled maliciously.

“What’s gotten into you today—” he started before stopping. “Oh. Oh. I see.”

“Don’t do it.”

Denzel started to smirk.

“Don’t.”

He gave me a thumbs-up and then pointed at my neck. “Cece’s more outgoing than I thought.”

Chase frowned. “What? What’s that on her neck?”

“Don’t worry about it, kiddo,” he replied.

“Don’t call me a fucking kid! What is it?!”

“Erm…” she muttered.

I felt the blood rush to my face and immediately crouched to grab a snowball of my own, but Denzel used the opportunity to angle his body to the side and throw his own snowballs at me. I yelped as snow covered my hair.

“Gotcha,” he smiled. “We’re even now, right?”

“Ugh, sure,” I groaned, crossing my fingers.

“Okay, I’m going to fold up my tent—”

I threw a snowball at his back, and Larvitar tried to imitate me. Hers didn’t go nearly as far, though.

“Okay,” he said, cracking his neck as he turned toward me. “You asked for this.”

“Spare me from any collateral damage, please,” Cece quickly added.

——

“Great job wasting so much time, idiots,” Chase scolded. “One hour wasted.”

“Sorry,” I genuinely said. “It got out of hand.”

“You got involved too by the end!” Denzel mocked.

“I did not, I was just hit by a stray shot and was forced into fighting back…”

We were back on the road, and getting closer to the route. According to Cece, Fletchinder had said we’d make it on route 216 by tonight or early tomorrow, which meant that we’d finally be able to relax and not face Pokemon way too strong for our level. That also meant I’d be able to start up training again, since we wouldn’t spend all of our Pokemon’s energy battling threats all day. Pokemon on the route would most likely be too scared to attack such a large group.

Of course, since we had no potions, I wouldn’t go back to making my Pokemon fight each other yet. I did want to have them work on new moves, though. It had been too long since any of them had learned anything new. Sure, that meant that they were really good with what they currently had, and they were able to push their current movesets to their limits, but I was desperately lacking in versatility. Whereas Cece was content with having her moves pack the most powerful punch, my Pokemon weren’t there yet. That meant I’d need a variable moveset to face upcoming threats, at least until my Pokemon evolved to be stronger. Right now, Tangela and Frillish were my heavy hitters, but Deino could easily overpower both of them.

I wanted to focus on angel first and foremost. Now that I knew he could evolve as soon as he learned Ancient Power, there was no way I’d let the opportunity slip past me. Of course, I already knew that it would take longer to teach him the move than it had taken with Togetic, especially since he was a little slow on new experiences, but I fully believed that we’d manage together. Plus, princess would be able to help him out this time, so we weren’t going to start from zero. Hopefully, his evolution would give me the firepower I still lacked.

With Elekid, I wanted to work on Shock Wave. I had already wanted to do so, but with how harrowing Mount Coronet had been, I got sidetracked. I knew he wouldn’t struggle much on the move though, so I also wanted to teach him Fire Punch, which, if we stuck around Snowpoint and its surroundings as we were currently planning, would be a great help.

Damn, I really wanted a fire type.

Next, I wanted Frillish to finally perfect Acid Armor and work on Shadow Ball and Recover. I knew I was giving him a lot of work, but I also knew he was up to the task. Acid Armor and Recover would allow him to gain an incredible amount of survivability in battle, and Shadow Ball would rival or even maybe beat Water Pulse in the amount of damage he could deal. It would take a long time, but hey, we were planning to stay here for a while.

For princess, I wanted her to work mainly on Air Cutter. We were severely lacking in flying type moves, and it would fill that gap. The move hit hard, was difficult to dodge, and would be quicker to use than a powerful Fairy Wind. Plus, I knew that it was a good segue into the devastating move Air Slash, which was still a far way off. Next, I wanted to work on Double Edge as well. I knew the move was so powerful that it hurt the user, but we desperately needed it as a last resort against Pokemon that were too fast for her, notably Fletchinder.

I did love Cece, but I wanted to beat her very badly, still.

Finally, Larvitar would just observe, eat, grow up, and run around with me and Elekid whenever we started those up again. She was too young to battle still, but I could still start getting her into shape and try out her current moves. I’d think about what new moves to work on with her later.

Riolu suddenly snapped me back to reality as he tapped on Chase shoulder and let out a warning.

“Another Pokemon?” Chase asked.

“Ri… Riolu.”

“More? A lot?”

The fighting type nodded, and my eyes darted in every direction, trying to tell what direction the threat would come from. There were no signs of life, however. No noise, or Pokemon coming out from behind any trees, which was the only place where they could have hidden. It was still daytime, which meant we should have been able to spot them.

“Are you sure?” Denzel whispered.

“Ri’s never wrong,” Chase snapped. “Which direction?”

Riolu’s eyes narrowed, and he began looking all around us.

I heard a hiss that made my neck hair stand on end, and I felt a bead of sweat trickle down to my chin. Then there were multiple. It was only now that I noticed the claw marks on the trees and the small rocks around us.

“Well, fuck,” Chase breathed out as he released Zangoose.

I swallowed as twenty Sneasel suddenly appeared all around us. Some had been hiding on top of the trees, while others peeked their head out from the thick layer of snow. The largest Sneasel shot us a wicked grin and honed its claws together.

“Stay close,” Cece told us.

“Chase,” I said, biting the inside of my mouth. “Get Houndoom to melt the snow around us.”

Chase nodded. “You heard her.”

The snowy environment was going to screw us up big time. A lot of our Pokemon were short and weren’t able to move around properly. We needed as many of them fighting as possible to survive the coming battle. Houndoom growled, and I felt sweat start to accumulate on my body as his body heated up, and he slowly used Incinerate, walking all around us to get the snow out of the way. The pack of Sneasel were incredibly fast, and adept at navigating through this terrain, so they dodged without much difficulty, but that was fine. We released our entire teams, except Larvitar and Snover, and waited for the coming attack.

It didn’t come. The leading Sneasel let out a vicious hiss, signaling to his pack to stay put.

“Elekid, Thundershock,” I ordered quietly. He grunted, spinning his arms and sent out a bolt of electricity toward the closest Sneasel, who got on all fours and clawed itself to the left before going to hide behind a tree.

“Burn that fucking tree down,” Chase spat.

Houndoom nodded and spat out another Incinerate, but the Sneasel was too quick— only slightly slower than Fletchinder was in the sky. They still didn’t attack.

“Okay, Grace,” Denzel exhaled, clearly nervous. I was too. “We Swifting or what?”

I nodded. “Not much else we can do. Aim for the leader.”

I ordered Elekid to send out an Electric Swift, and Eevee did the same, using the normal version of the move. Sneasel ran off, hissing at its pack. They all grouped up and blew an Icy Wind toward the flurry of stars, freezing them in place before clawing them apart.

I hadn’t even known that was possible.

We spent another minute trying to hit any Sneasel, but none of our attacks were connecting, and we didn’t want to risk sending our melee fighters. This group was clearly well coordinated and could employ strategy. This was my first fight of this kind. They didn’t rush in and attack like other wild Pokemon. They had a plan, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“What do we do?” Cecilia asked. Deino sent out another Incinerate their way, but the group just splintered and weaved out of the way. “Nothing is working. They aren’t even attacking.”

Denzel sighed. “I know what they’re doing. They’re waiting us out.”

“Huh?” Chase said.

“We’re stuck here. We can’t outrun them through the snow, we can’t hit them with any attacks.”

“Ah,” I said, finally understanding. “There isn’t any point risking themselves in a fight if they can just tire us out.”

“Won’t they get tired as well?” Chase asked.

“Look closely,” Denzel started. “They only move when they have to dodge an attack, and only use moves when they’re out of options. Meanwhile, we’ve been using our attacks over and over,” he explained.

“We shouldn’t attack then,” Cece agreed. “Not unless they rush in. Let’s have our fire types forge a path through the snow, maybe? That way, we can stay on the move.”

“I mean, I don’t see any other option,” I said. “If we stay here, nothing will change. Even though it’ll take days, eventually we’ll be exhausted, both mentally and physically, and someone will make a mistake. Someone, or a Pokemon, will slip up and get mortally injured or die."

“Let’s do this properly, though,” Cece warned. “Our most important assets here are our fire types. If we tire them out using fire moves on snow, they might sense weakness and strike.”

“Exactly,” I nodded. “Okay, let’s do it like this. We have Fletchinder, Deino’s Incinerate, Buneary’s Fire Punch, and Houndoom. Buneary’s Fire Punch is probably the slowest to melt snow, but she’ll be of less use against the Sneasel, so let’s start with her.”

Denzel nodded. “She can go for a while, we trained a lot with the move before our fight with Gardenia—”

Houndoom and Deino both melted another Icy Wind with their fire type attacks, causing us to jump, expecting their assault to be imminent. The ice types hissed all around us, but didn’t attack.

“They’re keeping us on our toes. Can’t get too relaxed,” Denzel said. He noticed my face, which was probably full of fear, and clapped my shoulder as Cece held my trembling hand. “We’ve got this.”

“We’ll make it out,” Cecilia added, clenching my hand tightly.

“I know,” I said, my voice quivering.

It seemed that no matter how many near-death experiences I was going to be in, the fear was never going to leave me.

But I had learned to mold it and use it to sharpen my wit, as I had with my nervousness. As long as it were only wild Pokemon we were facing, I’d be on top of my game.

——

“Your turn to keep watch.”

I woke up to Chase shaking my shoulder. I struggled to keep my eyelids open, but after a few seconds, I remembered the dire situation we were in and I woke up like he had just splashed me with cold water. I yawned as I stepped out of the tent, and I saw Denzel and Cece staring in the distance. The Sneasel pack had stalked us and harassed us the entire day, and they lurked in the darkness, ready to pounce at any sign of weakness. Riolu knew, and could let us know whenever they approached. We had come up with a system that at least let us sleep a little bit, by going on a rotational basis. One of us would sleep at a time, along with three of our Pokemon. Still, we’d be woken up every twenty minutes or so because the Sneasel would feint an attack on the group, making us yell at whoever was sleeping to wake up.

“It doesn’t feel like sleeping,” I whispered to them. “I feel like staying awake would probably get me less tired.”

“We’ll last longer like this,” Denzel said as he munched on a protein bar. Since we were being followed so closely, any hope of hunting wild Pokemon had gone off the window.

“Which isn’t long at all,” Cece grimaced. “Sooner or later we’ll have to make a move. Tomorrow morning, we reach the route. If they follow us, there will be less snow, meaning that we can cover more ground faster.”

“Or have better options to fight,” I nodded.

Denzel perked up. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a trainer on the route to help us.”

I sighed at the notion that we might have to involve someone else in this, but maybe seeing our numbers grow would make the Sneasel change their mind.

“I’d rather not, but we’ll see,” I said. “Either way we—”

Riolu barked, warning us that he sensed movement. Frillish’s head whirled to the right and he released a Water Pulse toward that direction. I heard a small hiss, and saw that three Sneasel had circled around us toward the tent. They were jumping at it and tearing it open. Riolu rushed toward Chase and kicked a Sneasel’s face in, staggering it and giving Charjabug the time to hit it with Thundershock. Chase rushed out of the torn-up tent, and a stream of fire type attacks consumed the other two Sneasel along with it. They were fast, but they weren’t sturdy, so they immediately went down—

I heard Deino bellow out as an Icy Wind hit him, along with Slowpoke and Eevee, while the rest of the Sneasel surrounded us and were attacking from all sides. This wasn’t just a distraction or a feint like the other attacks had been. They were making their play now.

“Elekid, light up the area! Togetic, help out with Ancient Power! Use it defensively!” I said in quick succession. I barely had the time to get the words out before Buneary took a Slash to the face, bloodying her, and Eevee kicked her assailant away with a Double Kick.

Elekid yelled and created a light source for us as he had done against Sableye in Mount Coronet. Light was crucial. The Sneasel were part dark type, meaning that even though they couldn’t sink in the shadows as Sableye could, they were still incredibly difficult to spot in the dark, and with Riolu too preoccupied with defending Chase—

“Houndoom, light ‘em up!” the trainer yelled, holding his arm. Two huge claw rakes had flashed across it, and he was bleeding profusely.

“Deino!” Cece screamed, now that the dragon had recovered from the icy type attack.

The two Incinerate combined into one, blasting away another Sneasel as its body turned into a smoking husk. I felt someone tackle me from behind and a snowy rock slammed into a Sneasel mid-air. It had been jumping at my throat. We continued to battle, using everything at our disposal. I was thinking so much, moving around, barely breathing— this was a test of everything we had learned so far.

I recalled Togetic when I heard her scream. Two Icy Winds had hit her in tandem, freezing her wings. Even though she didn’t need them to fly, she panicked and fell to the ground. It was safer to recall her before she could get jumped by the remaining Sneasel—

“Ele!”

I spun around and stared at Elekid, who had stopped generating his light and was locked in combat with two Sneasel. Two out of the remaining twelve. They had singled him out, since he was the only one that kept the area lit up. Charjabug had gone down minutes earlier. I looked around, desperately staring at who could help. Frillish was already helping Tangela and Budew, who had the type disadvantage, and the rest of the Pokemon were all occupied. I fumbled with trembling hands at Elekid’s Pokeball and—

Dropped it in shock. Sneasel had opened up a huge gash across his chest, barely missing his eye, and the other one was slowing him down with Icy Wind. I cursed, feeling tears stream down my face as I dropped to my knees and searched for the Pokeball. It was so dark, I couldn’t fucking find the Pokeball why couldn’t I find it where was it oh Arceus oh no—

Electricity rumbled across Elekid’s two fists as he managed to punch a Sneasel in the cheek. It was convulsing on the ground, having been paralyzed by his Static ability, but the other was still a threat.

“Frillish! Tangela!” I shrieked. Tangela tried to get to me but was knocked down by an attack while a Sneasel jumped on Frillish’s back, knocking him to the ground. I stared around blankly. Everyone was in the midst of their own life and death battle. Denzel was wrestling a Sneasel away from Buneary while Eevee kicked its arm, snapping it like a twig. Chase had already been wounded, and Cece’s Deino had fallen to the ground from all the ice type attacks it had taken.

Elekid’s muscle bulged as a blinding light surrounded him, revealing that a Sneasel had stolen his Pokeball and carried it away from me. I let out heavy breaths as I watched honey evolve into an Electabuzz. His face contorted into rage and he slammed a fist into the Sneasel’s nose, faster this time. The icy type was knocked over and Electabuzz lifted it up with a fist around its neck, shocking it with an attack that was too powerful to be Thundershock. The Sneasel went limp and Electabuzz let him go before blurring toward the Sneasel Slashing at Frillish and knocking him away. He was just as fast as they were now, and he could easily keep up.

With Elekid’s evolution, the tide had turned in our favor. It took another few minutes for Electabuzz and the rest of our remaining Pokemon to mop up the rest of the Sneasel, causing the rest of the icy types to cut their losses and flee. There were only five of them left, including the leader. We had knocked out all the rest, and two had apparently died to Houndoom’s flames.

Electabuzz approached me, blood mixing with the thunder-like motif on his chest. He was only a head shorter than me now, which was strange to see. Being close to him made all of my hair stand on end, not because I was scared, but because of the sheer volume of electricity he had in his body. Frillish’s face and body were barely recognizable, and Tangela appeared almost unscathed, except that he was running low on vines.

I sniffled and brought Electabuzz into a hug. I felt a small shock, and his blood got on my clothes, but I didn’t care.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I cried. “I was so scared, I’m— I’m sorry, your Pokeball, I dropped it. You were wounded because of me.”

Electabuzz returned my hug, awkwardly patting my back. He hadn’t lost his patting habit. I ended the hug, but kept my hands on his shoulders to get a good look at him.

“Look at you,” I sniffled. “My little honey’s all grown up.”

He was taller than an average Electabuzz, even though he had been average sized as an Elekid. Maybe it was because of the situation he had evolved in? It had been a life or death fight after all.

“Electabuzz,” he answered, flashing me a sharp smile. “Buzz.”

I let out a small laugh. “You’re so silly,” I smiled. “I told you that you’ve always been pulling your weight. There was no reason for you to feel… inadequate. Promise me, no more taking risks, alright? You should have stayed close to the group.”

He hung his head and let out a small sound to agree.

“Larvitar and Togetic are going to have to do a double-take the next time they see you,” I smiled. “But now it’s time to rest up in your Pokeball, alright? You were great.”

“Buzz!” He laughed.

“Of course, you’re always great,” I said as I walked toward his fallen Pokeball. I recalled him. “Get some sleep.”

I turned to Frillish. “You too, buddy. You’ve been out of the Pokeball for too long. I know you don’t sleep, but I also know you won’t let yourself relax if I leave you out of the ball. You took a beating.”

He was about to protest, but I already recalled him before he could. “Angel, you did great too. You’re with me. It’s going to be a long night.”

The grass type wriggled, blinking twice.

“Thanks,” I smiled.

I looked around, and it seemed like the others had finished talking to their teams and had recalled them. As it stood, we only had Houndoom, Riolu, Tangela, Fletchinder and Eevee well enough to fight. The battle had taken everything we and our teams had.

Cece was unharmed, but she pulled me into a warm hug and kissed me. She had been crying like I had, and was seemingly as rattled from the battle as I had been. Denzel sighed and stared at his palm, which had been cut by a Sneasel. It wasn’t that deep, however, and he’d recover rather quickly.

Chase was the one with the biggest problem. The entire length of his arm had been torn open by a Sneasel, and he was wobbling around from the loss of blood. Denzel sat him down and grabbed a towel to clean to wound, then a bandage to wrap his arm up and stop the bleeding. We went to sleep soon after, too exhausted to even have someone stand guard in case the Sneasel showed up again. The only Pokemon that was watching out for threats was Houndoom. We were being spread dangerously thin.

Luckily for us, the next morning, Togetic carefully lifted us down a cliff, and then we stepped through a thick tree line. We were finally on route 216.

The worst was finally behind us.