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Before we could actually get any distance however, much to our surprise, there was another Electrike nearby. "I should have known that it wouldn't have been that easy." I said. "Electrike usually run in packs. That explains the electricity in the air."

"Then lets take this one out before more decides to run in and call for others to take vengeance." Freth said. "Hitmonchan, go." Hitmonchan runs ahead to square off against the newly found Electrike. "Hitmonchan! Use Mach Punch!" Freth called out. Quickly, the Hitmonchan rushed ahead and smashed the Electrike with the speedy punch.

The Electrike rolled a bit from the hefty hit but managed to get back on its feet, sparking up furiously and charging right back for Hitmonchan. Hitmonchan brought up its guard and braced for impact. The Electrike rammed right into the fighting type, electrocuting it with its spark attack. It would be to Hitmonchan's and Freth's fortune, they've yet to catch paralysis yet from the likes of this Electrike yet. "Hitmonchan! Mega Punch!" she commanded. Hitmonchan scooped up the Electrike and lobbed it up, all the while focusing its power in its free fist. Then as the Electrike came back down, Hitmonchan drilled its fist right into the Electrike's body, sending it off a good distance.

Tristen and I practically cringed at the sight of such a brutal hit. "Uh, Freth?"

"Don't even. Come on." Freth said.

KO's:
Blizzard w/ Torchic: 2
Tristen w/ Eevee: 2
Freth w/ Hitmonchan: 2

After incinerating yet another Grass type, the three of us and our Pokemon made our way around and eventually found our way to the direct opposite side from where we started. We noticed the lake divided by a bridge that lead to the opposite side and a stand out thing, one large gigantic rock that was nearly as large as the tower that we camped out near. "Well that looks like a place to go check out."

"At this rate, though, a thought that came to mind?" Freth spoke up.

"Whats that?"

"Maybe we should check those dens after all." Freth said.

"What? Why?" I asked. "I'm telling you, those Dynamax Pokemon are nothing to be screwed with."

"Well, with how our luck is, we might as well give it a shot just so we can say we've exhausted our options. Yea, its risky, but who knows, we might cash out pretty big too." Freth said.

"...I...still don't...honestly think its a good idea. We won't really know what we're getting into until we're actually down there and if we end up with something bad to fight against, then...well, screw us." I said. "I'd rather play it self. I'm pretty content in racking up the KOs the way we have been. Not to mention, still trying to get Torchic more used to battles. Should work on Mudkip as well sometime after this."

"...And Cubchoo. And Sigilyph. And Vulpix." Tristen spoke up, deadpan.

"...Look, I get it, I'm not perfect. And its why I am trying to do what I am doing now." I said.

As the three of us deliberated about our next move, from the waters near by out came what we were looking for this entire time. It was a new Pokemon. Though unfortunately, we were too caught up in our conversation to actually pay attention. In fact it wasn't until I started to feel a tugging...on my tailfeather. "Ack, the hell?" I shifted around trying to see what was pulling, seeing...a turtle Pokemon, not a Squirtle, but whatever it is, it was apparently a little too enticed with my tailfeather. "Hey hey hey! No. Nonononono. Stop!" Said turning around, fortunate that I am able to do that. I grabbed the unknown Pokemon trying to gingerly get my tailfeather out of this angry looking turtle's mouth, but there was no way to do so easily. This thing's jaws was like a vice.

"Well, we found something new..." Freth said, head tilting over the scene.

"A little help!? I'd rather not lose a tailfeather!" As Freth tried to help me unlatch this Pokemon from my tailfeather, Tristen took out the SNAG and started to take a look, trying to find any sort of information on this unknown Pokemon. "Chewtle...water type...huh."

"I THINK HE'S ACTUALLY GNAWING ON IT!"

I shouted. Tristen looked at the two of us trying to still pry the feather out of the Chewtle's mouth then looked back at the SNAG. "...huh, fitting." Tristen said.

"Tristen, come here!" Freth said. "You think you could maybe shock this thing off?"

"Wait, what!?"

"You'll be fine." Freth said.

Tristen stashed the SNAG and went over, trying to pick a spot to grab the Chewtle then grabbed it right at the sides, lightly electrocuting it. The Chewtle yelped, allowing me to snatch the feather out from its mouth. As it got shocked though, the Chewtle flailed in Tristen's hands prompting him to drop him in a hurry. I ended up pulling my tail feather up in front of me, seeing where the Chewtle took a bite at it. The feather...was mangled... "Freakin' hell..." Its not the first time that it got messed up, but geez, it takes a while for it to get back to normal.

The Chewtle on the other hand was not thrilled being shocked as it did. "I'll take care of this." Tristen said. Eevee hopped off of Tristen's shoulders and squared off against the Pokemon.

"Lets see what this thing got..." I said, trying to at least straighten out my tail feather.

"Blizzard...that's not going to help." Freth said.

"It helps me." I said.

"Eevee, use Body Slam!" Tristen commanded. The Eevee rushed forth and smashed itself right into the Chewtle. The Chewtle however was rather steadfast, barely budging from the attack. Worse, the Chewtle was going to do to Eevee what it did to my tailfeather. The Chewtle reached out and bit down hard upon one of Eevee's front legs, and it did not look like it was going to let go.

"EVUUUII!" Eevee shouted.

"You're kidding! Eevee! Hidden Power!" Tristen shouted. Not wanting Eevee to suffer the same fate as my tailfeather, Eevee conjured up more etheral powered Orbs, blasting it point blank to blast it off of the Chewtle, though unfortunately, such in close proximity of the attack caught Eevee up in its own attack. "Eevee, are you alright?" Tristen asked.

"Vui!" It spoke up, irritated now. Just what the heck was this thing and its compulsion to bite?

The Chewtle shook its head then reared its head back, firing off a Water Gun attack. At the very least, that was familiar, regardless of what Pokemon that uses such a move. The hard gush of water pelts Eevee, though Eevee manages to stand its ground for the time being. "Eevee, use another Body Slam!" Tristen commanded. The Eevee went back on the attack to cause more damage to the Chewtle, but then much to Tristen's, let alone Eevee's surprise, the Chewtle withdrew into its shell, protecting itself from the Eevee.

"Huh, it knows Protect. Should have probably seen that one coming." I noted.

"This thing seems annoying." Freth said.

"You're not the one battling it!" Tristen spoke up.

The Chewtle then sprang back out of its shell and once again attempted to clamp down upon the Eevee with its jaws. Eevee however, ready for such a ploy, managed to hop back out of the way. "Eevee! Headbutt!" Tristen commanded. The Eevee rushed forth and smashed its head into Chewtle's, finally causing the damage it needed to bring this thing down.

"Well, that seems to be it. You capturing it, Tristen?"

"As much as it wants to bite everything? I don't think so. I'm still trying to keep Rampardos from doing that." Tristen said.

"At least you got experience in doing that." Freth commented.

"...I'd really rather not." Tristen said.

"Well, if that's your choice, lets get moving...and maybe...stay away from the lake's edge." I said.


KO's
Blizzard w/ Torchic: 3
Tristen w/ Eevee: 3
Freth w/ Hitmonchan 2

After dealing with the Chewtle, we started our way across the bridge, towards the towering spire that was across the way. As we crossed though, I was still once again trying to 'nurse' my tail feather the Chewtle mangled for whatever reason. "Blizzard." Freth spoke up.

"What."

"Put your tail feather down."

"Its going to be days before this thing straightens back out again. And there's a glaring freakin' gap in the feather's vanes." I said. "Its going to look odd until it rights itself and I can only imagine getting poked fun of because I let a blasted Chewtle catch me off guard like that."

Freth slaps my hand to make me drop the tail feather. "It'll be fine if you don't call attention to it." She said. "Seriously, stop it, you look weird doing that."

"...bah..." I said, shoving my hands in my pockets now.

We finally crossed the bridge and started to explore the area. Apart from the massive spire, there was really nothing too far out of the ordinary, admittedly, at least opposed to most of the wild area we explored already. "Hey, Blizz, look." Tristen said, walking in a direction near the gigantic spire. It was one of those rock formations, similar to what Tristen and the rest of the Snagems ended up fighting the Shadow Metapod a couple of days ago. "Its one of those dens."

"There's...nothing in there, is it?"

"Uh...I don't think so. I don't hear anything." Tristen said.

"Its probably barren then." I said. "I wouldn't want to mess with it anyways."

"God forbid you have another freakout like when Tristen got caught up in one last time." I had to rub my eyes on that one...not exactly my proudest moment. Tristen went to back away from the den, but then took notice to some nearby movement out the corner of his eye. He took notice to a red fox looking Pokemon. Not a Vulpix, but it did vaguely seem similar to that hybrid they had to deal with the day before. "Blizz, Freth." Tristen spoke up, pointing out the fox.

"Oh, what do we have here?" I asked, pulling out my own SNAG now. "Nickit...huh. Interesting." I said.

"Nickit?" Freth asked.

"Dark type. Pretty much by what I am reading here, this thing is true to its name sake. A bit of a thief. Not too dissimilar to say things like Meowth or Furrets back home." I said.

"Really? Huh...well, either way. Guess its my turn then." Freth said, signaling to her Hitmonchan to take the lead.

"Hit-mon-chaa." Hitmonchan spoke up, rushing up and squaring off against the Nickit. Unlike a lot of the Pokemon we encountered thus far, this one apparently wise to what was about to happen. Before Freth could make the attack call, the Nickit made the about face and ran away.

"Oh yea, says here these things apparently have the Run Away ability..." I said.

"Now you tell me." Freth said.

"Well that's just energy saved, I guess." I said to Freth. "You can probably get the next one that shows up."

KO's
Blizzard w/ Torchic: 3
Tristen w/ Eevee: 3
Freth w/ Hitmonchan 2

[Area: Lower North Wild Area]

That searching would see Aden finding a Litwick, and him realizing roughly where he was now once the old tower came into view. But he'd back off, opting not to draw its attention if he could help it. "Yeah, let's not... I'd like to keep my life force today, thanks," he said to himself, turning to move away from the tower.

Hopefully very, very far away.

After that brief encounter with the fox, it only left Tristen to wonder what it was up to. "Guys, everything is where it should be for with you, right? Nothing taken?" Tristen asked. After dealing with Robin yesterday, he didn't want to take any chances, plus being confirmed that this thing was a bit of a thief by nature wasn't exactly kosher.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You said it was a thief right?"

"According to the dex entries; albeit presumably ripped from other dex sources." I said to Tristen. "Though it was saying that it usually goes after foodstuffs and the like." I said to him. "And that I know of, it didn't even come anywhere close to us in particular, or you."

"I guess." Tristen said. "Alright."

We continued on, making our way down the path, not really bothering to follow the Nickit we ended up running into. It'd probably still run like crazy to get away from us, assuming that its still not doing that right now. Perhaps the smart thing to do honestly, especially when the opposition was a Hitmonchan that could probably have broken it in two relatively easily. As we continued, much to our surprise there still wasn't a whole lot of to note again. We started to realize that this part of the wild area was coming out a bit of a bust. For the third time, yet another Seedot was found, much to our disappointment. Sure, we found a Chewtle and Nickit eventually in this trip thus far, but that wasn't really enough for any of us to go 'wow' or even give THAT much intrigue to warrant a capture.

"You want?" Freth asked me.

"You go. Your last mark bolted." I said.

"Okay. Hitmonchan." Freth said, signaling to her Hitmonchan once again.

The Hitmonchan squared off with the Seedot, ready to battle. "Hitmonchan! Fire Punch!" She called out.

The Hitmonchan rushed after the Seedot, its fist igniting then practically uppercutted the Seedot, causing pretty extreme damage to the Seedot. It would be right up until then I started to feel bad for just about any Pokemon that we end up coming across that ends up having to square off with Hitmonchan. With Torchic and Eevee in particular, at least they had some semblance of a fight, but good grief.

As the Seedot landed back on the ground with a scorched face from Hitmonchan's flaming fist, the Seedot grew infuriated, it was literally steaming. "Uh...that's...not normal." Tristen said, staring in confusion. "A Bide attack?"

The Seedot started to glow fiercely and each of our eyes grew wide. "No, its going kamikaze!" I shouted. "Hit the dirt!"

A massive explosion would echo through the wild area, but as for where we were, the whole lot of us were on the ground. I picked my head up out of the grass, looking up and behind me. "Is everyone alright?"

"I'm good." Freth said.

"Me too." Tristen said.

"Vuiii."

"Torrr."

"Hitmonchan?" Freth then spoke up. She looked over where she left Hitmonchan.

"Mooochaaa..." Hitmonchan was picking itself up off the ground, its head still ringing from the surprise attack. It took a pretty hefty bit of damage from that, much to our chargrin.

"Hitmonchan may want to just hang back a bit for a little while. That...was not good." I said.

"Yeaaahhh..." Freth said.

"Uh, while we are at it..." I then spoke up. "...should we move to another section of the wild area and see what we can shake up?" I asked. "I don't think at the very least we want to risk finding an Exploding Seedot again..."

"Yea, whatever." Freth said, sighing hard at what transpired. From there, we left the smoldering Seedot and made our way to the lower northern section of the Wild Area.



KOs:
Blizzard w/ Torchic: 3
Tristen w/ Eevee: 3
Freth w/ HItmonchan: 3

[Area: Lower North Wild Area]

A little bit more searching would see Aden in taller grass this time around, and a Togepi toddling around, barely able to be seen at all. Young as the Pokemon looked to be, however, he decided to leave them alone and continued what was effectively recon at this point.

It didn't take long for Keiko and William to come across another Pokemon, this one catching both of them by surprise. As Keiko pulled out her SNAG, William just stared at it. "I've never seen anything like that before. What an odd bloke."

"Iimpidimp," Keiko read, catching William's attention. " It's a Dark and Fairy type. Weaknesses are Poison, Steel, and... Fairy. Huh, the Fairy subtyping nullifies most of Dark's weaknesses pretty well," Keiko commented. "I wonder how Terashi would react to seeing this... eh, who am I kidding, he's probably read up on it already," she huffed.

"Er... how are you doing that?" William asked. Keiko, in response, showed him her SNAG. "All SNAGs have a Pokedex feature built in."

"Oh, bully!' William exclaimed excitedly, pulling his own SNAG out, but stopping short of finding its Pokedex feature. "Say... does Stasy have any damaging types of the moves it's weak to? Because Hydrangea does not," he warned.

"Eh..." Keiko trailed off, scanning Stasy with her SNAG. "...just one, and it's not the most accurate."

"Right. Perhaps we should move along and find a more agreeable Pokemon," William offered. Keiko felt a bit torn by that. She felt William's assessment of Impidimp was based more on it's appearance, which wasn't fair to the Pokemon itself, and she'd usually battle whatever she came across in Safari missions. That said, the fact that Stasy and Hydrangea were somewhat worn out weighed heavily on her mind.

"Yeah, I guess," Keiko sighed, following William away from the wild Impidimp.

[KOs]
[Keiko & Stasy: 3]
[William & Hydrangea: 1]

Brian and Elio moved on most Pokemon leaving them alone. It wasn't until they reached another small pond that they noticed another Pokemon they hadn't seen before. It looked like an octopus that was standing on three legs, with one wrapped around its waist, and the remaining four in the air. Taking out his SNAG, he activated the Pokedex function and discovered this Pokemon was called Grapploct, and to his surprise, it was a pure Fighting-type. This was odd, since it looked more like a Water-type Pokemon. Still, this could be very beneficial, especially since Elio only had one Pokemon on him. "Want to take it, Elio?" he asked, but to his surprise, the boy shook his head. "Nah, this one looks a bit too strong," he said. "Why don't you take this one, and I'll go for the next one."

Hearing the boy's words, Brian nodded and looked at Lu, who was already in a fighting stance. She sensed this Pokemon was stronger than she was, but that wouldn't stop her. As a fellow Fighting-type, she couldn't back down from a challenge, and this Grapploct certainly seemed willing to give her one. "Alright, Lu, let's keep a close eye on how it moves," he said, his voice calm. "This isn't one we've faced before, so it's an unkown." Lu gave a single nod, keeping quiet as she studied the Pokemon before her.

Brian knew this would be a difficult fight, since the Grapploct was nearly twice Lu's weight, and over twice her height. And with it being a pure Fighting-type, Lu's moves wouldn't do all that much damage to it. Still, perhaps there was a move or two they could use that would turn the tables in their favor. This being said, Brian gave a single command. "Quick Attack into Low Kick," he said, and the Riolu leaped forward, a stream of white energy following her as she executed a Quick Attack. Once she had reached the Grapploct, she slammed one of her hind paws into its legs with Low Kick, making the Grapploct roar out in pain before trying to grab the Riolu. Lu cried out in pain as Grapploct used Bind, pinning her in place until Brian called out another move. "Screech!" he commanded, and Lu let out the loudest yell he'd ever heard. The noise was such that the Grapploct couldn't keep its grip on her, releasing her as it tried in vain to cover its ears.

Once she was free, Lu quickly turned and landed another Low Kick before dashing back to Brian's side, leaving the Grapploct glaring after her before rushing forward to try and use Submission. "Not gonna happen," he said, exchanging a quick glance with Lu, who gave a nod. "Let's finish this, Lu. One more Low Kick!" Lu complied, and the move sent the Grapploct reeling back in pain, but before it could flee, a Great Ball was thrown and hit it in the head, sucking it inside in a beam of red light. Brian and Lu waited for several seconds, waiting to see if the capture would be successful.