Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49

Another two days had passed since Cece had caught Scyther, and she had only tried letting the monster out of his ball once. He was still heavily wounded, so he was way easier to handle, but there was still no cooperation possible between them for the foreseeable future. Scyther was a ball of pure rage concentrated into a Pokemon, like Budew on steroids, but at least I managed to scan him with my Pokedex. According to Cecilia, the reason he had suddenly gotten way stronger during our battle was that he had the ability ‘Swarm’, which boosted his power when he was on the verge of defeat. What a terrifying ability that was.

The attacks had apparently peaked already during our time spent outside of Scyther’s territory. Their frequency was lowering at a rapid pace, which meant that we were on the right track and had passed through the deepest parts of the forest. That kept our spirits up, but we were still tired, and I was still looking for a Tangela. Fighting for our lives so often had made me shift my priorities, but now that things were slowly becoming easier, I wanted to search harder, but leaving it to chance was leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

I stared at Justin, who was, as always, in front of the group with his Growlithe. Maybe…

No. Surely not.

But what if, right? I hurriedly walked up to him and called out his name.

“Justin, do you have a second?” I asked him.

“What is it?” He answered, not turning back. I paid it no mind. Our time in Eterna had made him become increasingly vigilant. He was always on the lookout for threats, even when we had Pokemon that could do the job.

“So your Growlithe,” I started. “When he smells something, would you say he’d always remember it?”

Growlithe cried out in indignation, apparently angry that I was even questioning his sense of smell.

“You heard him,” He said playfully. “Why?”

“Has he ever seen a Tangela before?” I asked, mentally crossing my fingers.

“Ah, you’ve decided on what grass type you want to catch?” Justin said. “You’re in luck. It was months ago, but I fought a trainer with one at the start of our journey in one of Jubilife’s arenas.”

Growlithe nodded and exhaled loudly.

I broke into a smile. “Thank you, thank you! Can you lead us to one?” I asked the fire type.

Growlithe looked up at his trainer, who nodded, and then he barked in agreement. I couldn’t contain my grin. The search had just gotten much easier. After informing the group about my new tactic, we continued for a few hours, and my heart trembled in anticipation. I was going to get a new member soon.

When the sun began to set, and the rays slipping through the foliage turned orange, Growlithe barked excitedly and veered toward the right with his nose stuck to the ground.

“This is it, I think,” Justin said. “He’s got a lead.”

“Yes!” I squealed.

It took Growlithe a few minutes, but he eventually led us to a clearing in the forest. I gasped as I looked up at the beautiful, orange sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. I felt emotions well up inside of me. It was my first time seeing the sky in… in more than a week.

“There’s your Tangela,” Justin said, pointing forward.

I wiped my eyes and squinted. It was seemingly asleep and soaking in the last remaining sunlight. Or at least it wasn’t moving, and it was facing away from us. The entire group was about to send their Pokemon to attack, but I stopped them, saying to only intervene if it attacked me directly. Denzel protested, but I quickly convinced him by saying that Tangela wasn’t a predator and wasn’t likely to attack unless I provoked it, which wasn’t how I wanted to catch the thing. I stared at Elekid, and we nodded at each other before carefully approaching the grass type. I circled around Tangela and showed myself.

“Hey,” I said hesitantly.

The grass type opened its eyes and just stared at me with its big, googly eyes. When it saw Elekid, two vines sprung out of its body, and it whipped him away further into the clearing.

“Shit! Are you okay?!” I asked worriedly. My Pokemon got up immediately and shook off the attack, and defiantly shook his arms, generating electricity.

“Calm down,” I told Elekid. “It’s just scared, I think.”

He listened and quieted down. Tangela didn’t retract its vines, but it didn’t attack further.

“Hey,” I said again, before pointing at Elekid. “That’s Elekid. He’s one of my partners. We travel together and— ah!”

I yelled as Tangela used its vines to touch me, even going under my clothes.

“Stop it!” I yelled. The grass type didn’t listen and kept touching my skin until it was satisfied. “Arceus… you can’t just go around doing stuff like that.”

It just stared at me with the same blank expression. This was probably one of its first times seeing a human, so maybe it got curious.

“Is this your spot?” I asked, looking around the clearing. “You’ve got a pretty sweet setup here. Easy to take in the sunlight. I’m surprised there aren’t any other grass types here.”

The Pokemon turned away and began touching Elekid now instead, who just laughed at the whole thing. Was it even listening to me? I slapped my forehead and grabbed an empty Pokeball.

“See this?” I said. “If you go in there, then we become partners. I tried telling you this earlier, but I’m traveling with others to try to become the strongest trainer. That means we train in battles and stuff, but we’re also one big family.”

The grass type placed a vine over the device and curiously felt at it. It flinched and retracted the appendage when it felt the metal, but it slowly brought it back and started caressing the ball and feeling its button and its crevices.

“I’m going to catch you, but if you want, you can break out, alright? You’re not wounded or anything, so it should be pretty easy.”

I was probably going to let it go if he didn’t stay in the ball. We had Growlithe, who’d be able to find other Tangela with his sense of smell, so it wouldn’t be a huge loss, even though I did kind of like how aloof this one was. I gently hit it with the ball, and he was absorbed into it. I stood back and watched as the Pokeball shook three times before letting out the familiar chime that indicated I had caught the grass type. I jumped up and down in excitement, celebrating before running back to the group. Cece was the first one to congratulate me.

“You did very well, Grace,” She said. “Many trainers would have just attacked that Tangela to catch it.”

“I don’t really like doing that,” I said. “Ever since Frillish and Denzel’s Budew, I kind of vowed never to catch a Pokemon against its will again. It just feels icky.”

She looked at me for a few seconds. “I can see what you mean, but alas, sometimes, if you want something, you need to take it.”

Denzel walked up to me and offered a high-five, which I enthusiastically took, and I also thanked Justin and Growlithe for their huge help. Before long, we were back on the road. That night, I let Tangela out of its Pokeball in an isolated part of camp and scanned it with my Pokedex. He was a male.

Tangela, the vine Pokemon. Tangela’s vines snap off easily if they are grabbed. This happens without pain, allowing it to make a quick getaway. The lost vines are replaced by newly grown vines the very next day.

Type: Grass

Moves: Vine Whip, Absorb, Mega Drain, Stun Spore, Bind, Poison Powder (click for more information)

Ability: Chlorophyll (click for more information)

“So your vines are like your hair?” I said. “I wonder what’s under there,” I smiled. He shook his entire body, making his vines move around as well. All I could see below the sea of vines was his bright, shiny eyes and some kind of darkened body. His feet were odd. They looked like shoes and felt like rubber to the touch. I tried softly pulling on one of his vines too, and saw that they seemingly extended forever. While I did this, Tangela returned the touching tenfold, feeling my clothes and my hair with multiple vines.

“Alright, alright, enough,” I said. Tangela quietly retracted his vines. “You’ve already met Elekid,” I said, pointing at my electric type.

“Kid!”

“Quiet down, hon. Oh right, I call him honey or hon too.”

“Kid!” He said, a little bit quieter.

“That’s better, I guess,” I said with a smile. “He’s pretty hyper, but he’s also kind to everyone he meets. He’ll be friends with anyone. Hell, he’s already forgiven you for attacking him earlier, I bet.”

“Ele!” He said, crossing his arms proudly.

“Yes, yes, I know, you’re great,” I told him.

I grabbed Togetic’s ball and released her. I’d better keep Frillish for last since I already knew he was going to be grumpy about this. Togetic immediately noticed our new member and chirped at him happily. Tangela responded by grabbing her with his vines and feeling her soft fur, tickling her. She laughed and squirmed around, trying to escape.

“That’s Togetic, or princess. She was my first Pokemon, and she’s still a baby, so be gentle with her,” I said. Tangela softened his grip on her, much to her chagrin. She escaped from his grasp and floated above me before grabbing my hair to protest.

“Alright, alright! You’re a big girl now, I’m sorry,” I laughed.

“Toge!”

“She loves playing around, so she’s probably going to love you and, um, your vines,” I said, before grabbing Frillish’s ball.

I released him, and he looked at me happily before noticing Tangela standing behind all of us. His stare turned sinister, and that wasn’t helped by the fact that Tangela immediately started extending his vines.

I immediately stood in between the two. “Hold on. Frillish is really sensitive about touching, so that’s not going to work,” I said. Tangela stared at me, his expression unchanging. “I know it must be weird for you since you really like it, but he’s just not like that.”

Frillish huffed, and I knew that if we weren’t in a place as dangerous as Eterna forest, he would have left and flown into the sky to brood already.

“So, yeah, that’s Frillish or buddy. He’s a little bit grumpy, but he’s a softie if you get past his rough exterior,” I said, grabbing one of his tentacles. He whipped it out of my hand in protest. “Don’t be such a child,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I hope you won’t do this every time we meet someone new.”

Frillish looked at me and lowered his head. “Fri…”

“Aw, thanks for apologizing, bud. You’ll be fine, just try to be a little bit less anti-social,” I said before looking at Tangela. “There you have it, that’s the entire family. Sorry to spring up all of that on you, but it’s good if you get acquainted as early as possible.”

He stared at me with that same unchanging expression. Hopefully, I’d be able to pick up some of his body language cues since they appeared to be much more subtle. This wasn’t going to be like Elekid, who behaved similarly to humans. Hell, he wasn’t even talking, which was something that could have helped.

“Everyone has a nickname,” I said. “Do you want one?”

He didn’t respond, but grabbed one of my hands with his vines and shook it as he blinked twice.

“That a yes?” I asked, before thinking. All of the other’s nicknames had come out pretty spontaneously, so I didn’t want to force anything.

“Tangela… hm… what’s a good nickname for a Tangela…” I trailed off. “Tangela… angel… angel!

What do you think about that?” I exclaimed, waiting for a reaction. There was none. “Well, you snooze, you lose. It’s corny, but I like it. Welcome to the team, angel.”

——

Another two days later, we were walking along an elevated portion of the forest. I had Togetic out with me after Elekid had taken a couple of nasty hits from a pair of Butterfree. It wasn’t anything threatening, but he needed to rest. We were getting more optimistic by the day. Even Pauline was being nicer to me, and Emilia was happy again. Denzel and Justin had estimated that in another few hours, we would probably finally leave this hell hole. I couldn’t wait to see the sun regularly again or to actually sleep in a bed in a heated room. The other side of the forest also had an outpost with rangers, a Center, and a few inhabitants, so it would be possible to rest there for a few days before setting off toward Eterna city proper, which would be another day away.

The good mood was shattered when we saw a Wurmple climbing a tree. Then two. Then three. We slowly stepped back, but a few Cascoon hissed behind us, their spikes dripping with poison. The Wurmple started to screech, and I feared they were calling out to the Dustox that cared for them. That fear was confirmed immediately when we heard the familiar, alien-like cry echoing in the woods. There were a lot of them coming.

“Fuck,” I hissed. “Can we run?”

“They’ll catch up,” Denzel said. “I say we fight.”

Cecilia shook her head, but Pauline was the one who talked.

“One Poison Sting could mean your death, and those aren’t stoppable with our psychics,” She explained. “Too many darts to keep track of at the same time. They aren’t that good yet.”

“Then what?!” Emilia cried. “Hurry up and decide!”

“We run,” Cece said.

She didn’t have to say it twice. We bolted away, watching our every step not to slip. Emilia wasn’t going fast enough on her own, and Justin dragged her by the hand.

“Push through the pain, Emi!” He screamed.

Behind us, the screeches were getting closer. I looked back for a second and saw at least eight Dustox chasing us, their alien, compound eyes and the red markings on their wings shining in the dark. I screamed in terror as I saw poisoned darts hit the tree to my right, and I redoubled my efforts. All those runs I had gone on were paying off. I was faster than before, and I felt like I’d be able to keep this speed going for at least ten minutes.

“What in the world is that?!” Louis yelled.

I looked in the direction he was looking and saw a huge mansion just sitting in the middle of this Arceus damned forest behind a run-down fence.

“I don’t care, just get in it! We can hold them out at the doors and the windows!” Pauline said.

Unable to stop his momentum, Louis slammed against the door. He desperately tried to open it, but it was locked.

“Move!” Denzel said, before kicking down the entire door. We hurried inside of the mansion.

“Stand behind anything!” Cecilia yelled. “Furniture, couches, it doesn’t matter. We hold them here!”

I jumped behind a bar, and Togetic hovered slightly above it.

“Try to hit them with Fairy Wind or Extrasensory if they get close,” I said before releasing Frillish. “Hey, we’re under attack by Dustox. Hit ‘em with all you’ve got.”

A shower of Poison Sting flew through the door and the windows, breaking the glass. The first two Dustox flew inside the building and were immediately battered with every move we had. Togetic slammed another one against the floor, and Growlithe finished it off with Fire Fang. Gothita and Beldum were our best match against the poison types, and soon enough, the rest fled. Inside of a building where we had cover, they weren’t as threatening.

“Holy shit,” Pauline said, kicking one of the Dustox we had knocked unconscious away. “I fucking hate this forest.”

“My leg…” Emilia groaned. She tried walking and whimpered. “I think I need to rest, I can’t put any weight on it.”

"Sorry," Justin apologized. "I pushed you too much, but there was no choice."

“That’s fine,” Louis said. “This place will work wonderfully as a shelter. I wonder who would build such a wonderful mansion inside of a forest as deadly as this one. And such marvelous architecture… it’s a shame it’s all run down.”

He was right. The entire mansion looked like a dozen battles had gone on inside of it, and that was before we had come in. Furniture was littered about, there were holes in the walls, and a part of the ceiling had a gaping hole in it. After checking ourselves for any potential wounds that we hadn’t noticed, we settled down and waited in the empty mansion for Emilia to recover.