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Chapter 51 Facing a Friend
🕑 Added 2024-06-07 09:33:08 +0000 UTCChapter 51 – Facing a Friend
Larvesta shyly tried to butter up the newest addition to the team. Her and Houndour exchanged clicks and yips with each other. The bug type seemed to get along with Houndour well enough judging by the cadence of her words. Houndour seemed to realize early on in their conversation that she was communicating with a child and showed the appropriate amount of care not to upset the little tyke. I had no clue what the two were busy talking about since my usual translator seemed to be preoccupied with something else.
“This is weird! I can’t feel her.”
‘Houndour is a dark type, it's only natural that telepathy doesn’t work on her. That trait is also what will make her a great asset to our team.’
“How would I find her if she ever gets lost?”
‘Just use your other senses. You have a working set of eyes, and those big fluffy ears are useful for things other than relieving people’s stress.’
Halo and Houndour’s conversation winded down and it seemed she got a good impression of our little princess and by extension the rest of the team. The Houndour waddled over to me before resting her body on my lap. Tacitly giving her approval towards being added to the team.
‘Rena used to do this all the time. Now she only cares to lie on my lap when nobody else is watching. Having a dog Pokémon around is going to be great.’
“Arf!”
“That’s right, you are the bestest girl!”
“Pix Pix!”
I was busy giving my newest teammate some well deserved ear scratches when Rena decided to start pulling on my sleeve. Berating me for not paying enough attention to my older team members. I could already see the first signs of jealousy forming and now would be the best time to assuage Rena’s unfounded concerns.
“You are right, I should start paying more attention to you and Numsy. Onboarding our new teammates has taken much of my attention but I promise that I’ll make it up to the both of you starting today.”
“Pix…”
“Me and Flannery agreed to have a double battle with Phoebe. How would you like the opportunity to throw paws with one of her newly caught ghost types?”
“Vuuuul!”
The matter of me not being able to pay enough attention to her seemed to have been resolved. I’ve always wondered how other trainers managed to deal with issues like these. I knew for a fact that most professional trainers had at least a dozen teammates. Six on their person and depending on their needs at the time another six or even more at a corral. I wanted to avoid becoming one of those irresponsible trainers that caught a full team and once the season was over have them be taken care of at a lab or breeding facility. Each and every Pokémon partner made a conscious choice to be the companion of the person who caught them. Having them be wined and dined but feel emotionally neglected seemed borderline abusive to me. Technically with Houndour joining the team I crossed the six Pokémon carry limit but seeing as Victini never got registered with the Hoenn league association I could probably continue as is. Drake knew about our situation and I highly doubted that he was the type of person who was a stickler for rules.
Halo had somehow managed to position herself on top of Numsy’s neck again. He was the only member of the team who was large enough to carry around Halo without becoming uncomfortable. Unlike many other newborn Pokémon Halo was definitely a chunker already at the size of an average raticate and she was expected to grow even bigger until she reaches the size of a medium sized donphan. I thanked my lucky stars that she was still small and cute now, but it wouldn’t even take a year before she attained her full size. Pokémon on average grow up much faster than humans doubly so in the case of bug types.
While I was trying to settle matters with my team, Flannery was busy rehearsing moves with her newest addition. Personally, I found it a bit foolhardy to be that confident in facing off against an ace trainer like Phoebe, with a first day capture like that Houndour, but losing didn’t necessarily mean that her gambit to win his loyalty wouldn’t pay off. The way I saw it, this would be an excellent chance for the both of them to discover how far they’d have to go to be counted amongst the best of the best. That was why I decided to join the duo together with my temperamental fox, leaving the rest of my team to come and get to know my own Houndour.
“Egon this is going to be a cinch! Houndour here knows lots of fire type moves!”
“Hmm that’s fine and all, but make sure to not neglect his other typing. Dark type moves are particularly effective against Phoebe’s Pokémon. Have you gotten a good handle on those?”
“Just bite right?”
“Ruff…”
“No not just bite… a Houndour of his size and experience would most definitely know beat up and taunt. Not even mentioning all the moves he managed to learn on his own. Isn’t that right big guy?”
“Arf!”
“What’s beat up do?”
‘This is going to take a while…’
“Beat up is a move that most if not all dark types who live in large groupings learn naturally. The move gets more powerful the more members of your team Houndour here considers to be part of his pack. The only requirements are that they are close enough and in a conscious state. In the wild this is the most powerful move that he can learn on his own. Especially considering the size of his pack.”
“What?!”
“Since this is an unofficial battle Phoebe might slip up and let his entire pack come and watch. The resulting exchange would make for a memorable and teachable moment.”
“That’s how we’ll win! Your smarts are finally paying off Egon.”
“Uhm yeah sure… I wouldn’t bet on an ace trainer like Phoebe not knowing how beat up works. Besides, Houndour here must have a decent repertoire of dark type moves to show us. Taunt alone would already be very helpful to try and put a stop to Phoebe’s usual tactics. She isn’t a straightforward battler; most ghost type specialists aren’t. They like to make liberal use of status moves and pull all sorts of mental tricks to put their opponents on the backfoot. If Houndour here manages to execute a successful taunt on one of her Pokémon that would make the upcoming battle a lot easier.”
My advice seemed to have helped Flannery widen her perspective just a bit since she asked Houndour which other moves it had managed to learn by itself. Surprisingly he knew quite the number of moves. He first demonstrated his sound-based attacks like howl, roar and snarl and finally closed out his performance with an admirable smog attack. The only move in his repertoire that a houndour wouldn’t learn naturally was snarl. Wild Pokémon rarely managed to learn moves on their own but the ones that did could be said to be at least fairly talented. The leader’s performance made me look forward to finding out what my own Houndour had managed to learn during her time in the wild.
“I can tell what you are thinking but these puppers ain’t wild Pokémon.”
Old man Jack came out of the building to watch Flannery and her Houndour practice moves. All the howling and snarling must have gotten him out of that rocking chair to make sure everything was on the up and up.
“They aren’t?”
“Nah, we got them from a breeding facility that went bankrupt. The CEO had this lotad brained idea to have these houndour trained as security Pokémon who could stand watch at night. He didn’t factor into his plans on how unpopular houndour are around these parts. Not one company or institution would take these sweethearts out of his hands. Dark types are a bit unruly by nature and by extension making them more difficult to train. The fool would’ve done better selling these to individual trainers, but he didn’t have the heart to break them up.”
“I guess that makes sense. Any person would get emotionally attached to any Pokémon he has cared for since they hatched out of the egg. How is their old human doing nowadays?”
“That guy is a regular around here. His latest pet project is breeding Gulpin. He’s been thinking of trying to sell them to factories that need an environmentally friendly way to clean up any scrap iron or harmful chemicals.”
‘That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. Grimer are still technically treated as an invasive species. So, there wouldn’t be much competition around these parts.’
Having satisfied the old man’s curiosity I took Flannery aside to go over the do’s and don'ts while battling against ghost types. This being the only opportunity to discuss strategy with her without any overt onlookers. I knew Phoebe well enough to know that there was always a chance that one of her teammates was spying on us, nonetheless some things had to be discussed.
“Flannery is bringing out her Yamask and Lampent for this fight. Since you are probably not familiar with Unovan species, let me be the one to come up with an appropriate strategy.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ten minutes later*
Strangely enough the safari zone didn’t have any battle facilities. So, we had to face off against Phoebe outside near the front entrance. She was standing there in the trainer’s box we drew in the sand with the help of most of our teams. I recognized that look on her face, one filled with supreme confidence and a bit of glee since this was the first time the two of us actually engaged each other in battle. I always put it off with the excuse that I still hadn’t received my trainer’s license. Since I was now officially licensed it was only a matter of time until this happened.
“Are you two ready?”
Instead of replying enthusiastically I gave Phoebe a non-descript grunt. High level battles all had a psychological aspect to them and I wasn’t giving our more seasoned opponent any more ammunition to use against us. Flannery’s reaction differed ever so slightly from my own…
“Yeah! We practiced our secret strategy and are ready to beat the competition! Isn’t that right Houndy?”
“Arf…”
‘Poor doggo even the nickname she’s given him sounds juvenile…’
“Didn’t you do the same thing with Numsy?”
‘This and that are different! Besides, Numsy has never complained a single time about his given nickname.’
“Vuuuul!”
Noticing that I was distracted Rena gave me a warning to stay focused on our upcoming battle. She was responsible like that although there was a hint of trepidation on her face at the prospect of having to participate in a double battle with Flannery.
“Come on out you two!”
Phoebe released her Yamask and Lampent the two Pokémon hovering over our makeshift battlefield.
“Egon knows these two cuties already but these two will be joining my quest to dominate the ace rankings. Any fan of mine would be totally jealous of you two for getting a premier scoop like this.”
“Yaaa!”
Yamask recognizing me gave me an excited wave of his shadowy hand. It was good to see Phoebe hadn’t been able to subvert his childlike innocence. Lampent was much more stoic, ready to follow her trainer’s instructions.
“It’s good to see you too Yamask! How has Hoenn been so far?”
“Ya Ya!”
The little ghost type gave me a thumbs up. A human gesture he must have picked up while living on Mt. Pyre.
“I am sure you’ve made lots of friends who want to play with you!”
“Don’t get overly friendly with MY Pokémon!”
Phoebe didn’t appreciate me being so taken with her team member. The teenage girl didn’t like sharing friends even if it was with her other friends. She had developed quite the scarcity mentality over years of being widely considered a menace to society.
“I am protecting him from being turned into a no-good rogue like the rest of your team! This little angel needs positive reinforcement and good role models.”
“My ghost friends are the perfect role models! Smart, experienced and excellent battlers.”
“We’ll see about that… You can always stay with me if they make you do things you don’t want to do, okay Yamask?”
“Ya!”
“Hmpfff! I was planning on holding back a little bit but just for that I’ll give the two of you a full hazing.”
Old man Jack who had promised to referee our match was patiently sitting in an outdoor chair until we were done bickering with each other. Seeing as all three of us were ready to commence the battle he stood up and walked up to the sideline.
“This will be a modified double battle. No Pokémon substitutions are allowed by any trainer during the match. We won’t keep time, the contest will thus be decided only when one of the contestants finds both his or her Pokémon are unable to battle further. Let the battle begin!”
“Agility!” “Howl!”
“Imprison and Fake tears!”
‘Imprison?! She’s not pulling any punches. Once Lampent executes that move we’ll be locked out of a good deal of our fire type attacks.’
Imprison was a psychic type move that made an opposing Pokémon temporarily forget how to execute any shared move between the user and the target Pokémon. In double battles this was powerful since it meant both Pokémon from the opposing party no longer had access to common moves like protect or helping hand. Now I was fairly sure that Lampent, not being a psychic type and probably only having a single month to practice, would not be able to mentally block moves from a dark type like Houndour. Not even mentioning the fact that blocking higher skill ceiling fire type moves like fire spin and incinerate, which there are no technical machines for, would have required Phoebe to hire a move tutor, in this short a time frame that’d be impossible.
A pink glowing hue enveloped both Rena and Houndour but just like I suspected Houndour easily shrugged it off. Sadly, the same could not be said about my vulpix. While that was going on Rena increased her speed while Houndour let loose a howl. Howl was an interesting move in that it gave an adrenaline boost to the users allies, a staple tactic for pack hunting Pokémon like houndour.
‘No more using protect and flamethrower basically. I can work with that.’
Yamask started making crying sounds and I could even see droplets forming from its childlike mask. Its attention was mainly focused on Houndour softening up the dark type for any incoming attacking moves. With Rena’s physical prowess boosted it would be a waste not to make use of her extensive move pool especially since we were locked out of using ranged fire type attacks. The only two physical moves I bothered having Rena learn were dig and flame charge seeing as her normal type attack were useless in this matchup.
“Flame charge!” “Bite!”
“Shadow Ball, Night Shade!”
With pinpoint precision Phoebe’s Pokémon targeted Houndour first. As a dark type he could usually weather through any incoming ghost type attacks with ease but since he was still affected by Yamask’s fake tears these attacks would now damage him with their regular strength. Rena managed to collide first. Her agility boosted speed surpassing Yamask’s charge up time slamming into the little ghost with a modicum amount of force. While at the same time Houndour who was busy trying to get close to Lampent for a bite attack was pushed back when the Shadow Ball slammed into him staggering the canine Pokémon by a fair bit.
“Rena what are you?!”
“Haha! Do you like that? Yamask has already been taught how to activate its signature ability!”
Rena after colliding into Yamask was half wrapped into a fox burrito with a fabric that closely resembled linen. I immediately recognized what this was. Yamask and Cofagrigus only have the potential to develop one signature ability: Mummy. When making physical contact with other Pokémon they could choose to release their “curse” wrapping the other Pokémon in an ability suppressing cloth which could spread further to other Pokémon under the right conditions. Too bad for her that we didn’t have her ability trained up yet, so it made no difference. She did look pretty cute all wrapped up. I reminded myself to take a few pictures once the battle was finished.
‘Yamask seems to be the weak link. If I could take care of him quickly, we'd be able to support Houndour against Lampent.’
Somewhat reluctantly I ordered Rena to target Yamask again. In my mind liking a Pokémon became a secondary concern while in the midst of battle.
“Incinerate!” “Snarl!”
“Curse! Shadow Ball again!”
My assumptions that Lampent didn’t know some of the more technical fire type moves proved correct when Rena managed to unleash twirling balls of flame in the direction of the mask wearing ghost type. What I didn’t expect her to do was to basically give up on her Yamask to ensure that Houndour got taken out as quickly as possible. She must have figured that Rena wouldn’t be able to do anything against Lampent on her own. I’ve never witnessed a Pokémon making use of curse in the high level matches I frequently watched before earning my license. It was considered a low brow move trainers were loath to order their Pokémon to use curse for two reasons. In a format where switching out was allowed the move did more harm than good since the opposing trainer with the cursed Pokémon could always just recall the affected team member and secondly most trainers believed that using such a move was basically telling the world that you didn’t believe your Pokémon could win on their own merit. Since this was a single elimination battle, switching out wasn’t an option and Phoebe didn’t particularly care what random faces in the crowds thought of her, so I wasn’t surprised that she taught her Pokémon how to use this move.
While my fox Pokémon let loose a barrage of fire balls Houndour combined dark type TE with his impressively strong voice box to unleash a wave of dark type energy which covered Phoebe’s side of the field. Both ghosts were hit with super effective damage which also reduced their ability to perform special based attacks. Yamask having just used curse was on its last legs combined with the effective snarl and the incinerate colliding into him the ghost was done for. Yamask bravely tried to keep going but the small explosion caused by the last fireball did him in the ghost type slowly floating to ground having completely expended his energy. Meanwhile Lampent retaliated with a swift shadow ball to houndour’s face. Having taken significant damage from the earlier exchange Houndour was also on his last legs.
“You did great Yamask return! Lampent, we'll finish this up easy.”
“Why you! It’s now two on one no way Lampent is going to win!”
As Flannery was talking smack Houndour collapsed on the ground. His energy reserves expended. Turns out only a couple of seconds under the curse was enough to knock the big guy out. Flannery, ignoring her verbal scrap with Phoebe, rushed up to the panting dog to comfort him.
“Ruff…!”
“Don’t say anything! You did amazing Houndy.”
Flannery returned Houndour to his safari ball and ran off. Probably to pamper the big boy some more. Meanwhile it was just me against Lampent. Common sense told me I had no chance of beating this evolved fire type especially because Rena’s moves were still imprisoned but I didn’t want my team to adopt a quitter’s mentality, so we had to push forward.
“This is the first time we’ve ever had ourselves a standoff, Egon. You ready to lose?”
“Rena isn’t some standard vulpix you can just find anywhere. Even if the odds are against us we’ll pull through!”
“Shadow Ball!”
“Dig!”
Naturally my little fox was faster so before that shadow ball had a chance to slam into her, she dug a tunnel underground to escape the blast. Now the problem was Lampent are naturally buoyant using hot air to levitate from place to place. Which meant Rena would have no idea where and when to come up in order to hit the ghost type with a wallop of super effective damage.
“I can help with that.”
‘No that’s cheating. We’ll just have to improvise somehow…’
Just like that I was stuck trying to figure out what to do. Rena was positioned underground waiting for me to give her the sign to come back up. While Phoebe was impatiently staring at me.
‘Next time I’ll have my Pokémon learn some dark type moves. For now I’ll have to go all in on a gamble.’
“Come out and use Fire Spin!”
“Vuuul!”
My little fox burst out of the ground and quickly repositioned herself to unleash a torrent of flames in Lampent’s direction. Strangely enough Phoebe seemed content enough to let this happen without commanding her Pokémon to defend or retaliate. When the small fire tornado hit the ghost type the flames somehow got absorbed making the eerie flame in the middle of its body glow brighter.
‘Lampent has already learned how to use its Flash Fire ability. That means we have no effective means to hit it while Rena is still stuck under Imprison.’
“Lampy use Sha…!”
“We forfeit!”
Before Lampent had the chance to unnecessarily harm my Pokémon I forfeited the match. Fighting for that small chance at victory was one thing but I wouldn’t have Rena fight a battle where her odds at winning are zero percent.
“Pix?!”
“It’s okay next time we’ll be ready.”
“Mwuhahaha! You little kids had no chance from the start right Lampey?”
“Pent!”
I wasn’t concerned about Phoebe’s fake gloating. I knew she meant well. All she was trying to do was to stoke the fires of our competitive spirits.
Now that the match was over, I was eager to know if Flannery performed admirably enough to impress her Houndour. The one that I picked out for myself didn’t seem all that concerned about my competency as a trainer but having Flannery’s chosen partner refuse to come with her might force my own partner to remain in the safari zone out of concern for her pack mates.
“Everyone return!”
I activated the return mechanism of my Poké balls recalling Rena and the rest of my team sans Houndour who were watching from the sidelines before walking in the direction where Flannery sped off to. By my estimations she should have returned to the safari’s lounging area where the rest of the pack was dozing off. Phoebe was sensible enough to forbid the rest of the pack to come and watch our battle anticipating the beat-up shenanigans that would surely follow.
After walking inside the building I spotted a distressed Flannery doing everything in her power to pamper her Houndour. The canine Pokémon had already recovered from his fainting spell and was now acting standoffish while having Flannery fussing over him. The slight wiggle in his tail was a dead giveaway to Houndour’s true feelings.
“I know that I am still a novice as a trainer, but I’ll try my best to become the toughest gym leader in the whole region! Will you please stay with me as my Pokémon Houndour?”
The Houndour inspected her face for a bit before replying.
“Ruff…”
“Thank you! Thank you! You won’t regret it!”
Flannery proceeded to stroke Houndour’s backside while I tiptoed my way around the gathering of canine Pokémon until I joined back up with my own chosen Houndour. She was busy amusedly staring at the duo who had just confirmed their bonds with each other.
“Pretty cute right? Flannery might be rough around the edges, but her heart is in the right place.”
“Arf!”
“Say I haven’t yet had the chance to confirm your feelings but are you sure you want to travel with me and the gang? You’ll be separated from your pack aside from the occasional visit to the gym.”
“Ruff!”
“Houndour wants to experience everything the world has to offer and she knows that she won’t get that chance by staying with her dummies.”
“That’s great! We'll be traveling a lot visiting all sorts of new regions and unexplored areas. We might even encounter a legendary Pokémon or two. Thank you for choosing me. Just like Flanny I don’t have any intention of letting you down.”
Houndour gave my offered hand a quick lick before plopping down next to me content to spend our time together in peace.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Some time later*
“Are you two ready to go? My grandpa’s Xatu is ready to pick us up.”
“Yes, I can’t wait to see what the top of Mt. Pyre is like!”
“Don’t get your hopes up Flannery, the view is incredible but staying there for a prolonged period of time is bad for your heart. Even Phoebe has no control over all the wild ghost types that live up on the mountain top.”
“Wild ghosts?! Haven’t the mediums over there caught all the stray ones by now?”
Phoebe was the one to answer Flannery’s follow up questions.
“Naturally the wild ones that we keep up there know not to suck out the life force of any visitors. They are of no threat to anyone’s health.”
“That’s a lie! Even the captured ghosts that live in her family’s mansion will at every turn try to scare the pants off you. Just wait and see, do not hesitate to use that cleanse tag I gave you. It will be your only defense against being harassed at night. Also do not drink out of any receptacle whose contents you have not poured in yourself. The ghosts living in the mansion like to put laxatives and hot sauce into any unattended glasses or teacups.”
Flannery’s face grew paler with every accounting, but I didn’t stop until I was sure that she knew we were about to walk into a battle zone.
“Xaaaa!”
Looking up we saw Phoebe’s family Xatu perched on a nearby tree branch. He was looking at us without any visible emotions on his face. I was the first to initiate a conversation with him.
“Long time no see Xatu. How are things working out on the mountain?”
I felt that the bird was trying to form a mental connection with me. Seeing as we were about to meet up with my old acquaintance Xatu, I forewarned Victini to make some space in my skull cap so I could have casual conversation with the most interesting precognitive flying type that I’ve met so far.
“I stand watch over my master’s roost, nothing more or less.”
“Hey, did my observations from our last conversation closely resemble your visions of the future?”
We might have an interesting conversation on our hands.
Comments
Desidia
I wonder if Volcarona's big enough to fly and carry Egon around.
Wyatt Hilbert
Thanks for the chapter
