Chapter 4: Lessons Learned
Solestral found herself back in the same room, or so she thought. There were four pathways this time. She cautiously headed north. To her delight, two Pokémon were blocking her path. They looked like blue-coloured radishes so she assumed that they were of the Grass Type. Using the only fire attack she knows, she shot an Ember at them, and the attack crisped their leaves. As a result, they were knocked out, and were teleported away from the Dungeon. Solestral thought about the rules of the teleportation. If she was defeated here, would she be teleported out of the Dungeon, or somewhere else? In spite of the uncertainty that looms, she decided to continue her training throughout the rest of this Dungeon.
She explored all the corridors, till she managed to reach a room with stairs. Once she advanced to the next floor, she found two Oran Berries and five small twigs bundled together on the ground. She surveyed the twigs. The twigs gave off a green sparkle, and when she touched one of them, knowledge started seeping into her mind:
Warp Wand. It warps a foe, or ally, to a random area of the current dungeon floor. Its range is small, but it can warp any living Pokémon near the target away as well. To use it, direct the wand at the Pokémon.
She was flabbergasted. "Woah! Why did words appear in my head? That did not happen before. This feels weird, yet correct at the same time. Is this the payoff of my training? Is this… my first new ability?"
She decided to investigate her theory by touching the Oran Berry. As she suspected, words appeared in her head, but lengthier:
Oran Berry: A miraculous berry that needs to be consumed to recover the user's Health Points greatly. Take note. Health Points, or HP for short, are in fact, the Pokémon's endurance. Should the Health Points meter reaches zero, the Pokémon will faint. On the other hand, Power Points, or PP for short, are the Pokémon's energy requirements to use an attack, or buffs. Every Pokémon can only use four moves. Once the Power Points meter reaches zero, the Pokémon is unable to use them. To determine whether the foe has a low HP, look at its stance. The foe that is low on HP will tend to stand unsteadily. It is not easy to tell whether the foe is low on PP. However, if they try to use a move and nothing happens, that could mean that it is out of PP.
She was impressed, "Wow. All those words make me feel like I am in a game. This is, like, an ultimate cheat code! I wonder if the Dungeon is just a game that somebody made. Nah, there is no point pondering about this. I have to move on."
Solestral put the items in her backpack, and ventured off further in the dungeon. Along the way, she encountered more Pokémon residents. She defeated them easily, but there was a Cotton Pokémon that gave her a lot of trouble because it could use status ailments rapidly. Her tactic was to back away from the powders, and use Ember to burn them. Eventually, after depleting her stash of Oran Berries to recover her health, she reached the fifth floor.
This floor was unique; there was only one room, and a pond at the centre of it. There was a grey square tile at the back of the room as well. She strode towards the tile, but suddenly, she heard a loud splash.
She heard a menacing male voice that echoed around the chamber, "Pitiful adventurer… You can't use the Warp Tile until you have defeated me."
Solestral's heart was beating fast. The sound of the voice had her fur standing on end. Sweat was beginning to appear on her face and her bones were shivering. For a moment, she regretted coming into the Dungeon alone. She fearfully turned around, expecting a monstrous beast to stare at her into submission. Instead, she found a red fish with yellow whiskers surfacing out of the water. His face looked rather... dopey. Solestral could not help but giggle as all the built-up anxiety left her body.
"Ha ha ha! You have to be the silliest thing I have seen thus far! I can defeat you easily even though you are, probably what? A Water Type?"
"Yes, I am a Water Type," bellowed the creature. "But I would advise that insolent fools like you not to take me lightly, especially when I can do this."
He shot a powerful stream of water at Solestral. The attack hit, and she was drenched. Not only that, the attack was extremely painful. Solestral had never known that water could hurt so much. It was like being hit by a bowling ball. Furthermore, she felt weakened, like all the energy in her body had disappeared. As she struggled to stay on her feet, she now knew that she should not have mocked a Pokémon that looked dopey like him.
She shot an Ember at him. She understood that that attack would do little damage on him, but that was the only move she knew. The creature received the fire without flinching, and laughed at her pathetic attempt.
"Is that the best you got? What happened to all that bravado before? Were you not boasting about how you could easily defeat a Water Type like my brilliant self? An ignorant child should be taught be a lesson."
The creature shot out a volley of water projectiles at Solestral with deadly accuracy. While she managed to force her body to evade some of the attacks, a few of them hit, each eliciting a cry of pain. Despite the suffering, she continued to shoot Embers at the creature in the hopes of slowing his strikes. Sadly, none of her assaults proved effective. Instead of slowing him down, she was progressively getting slower from fatigue. When she could not move because of her arching muscles, the creature prepared a powerful attack and hit her in the face with a giant water ball.
The impact was so great that Solestral was flung onto her back. The force caused her to twirl across the ground with the contents of her backpack scattered across the floor.
The creature continued to chuckle arrogantly, "What is the matter? I thought cats were supposed to always land on their feet, not roll in the dirt! It would seem that you are so weak that your natural instincts have failed you! You are a disgrace to your kind!"
Solestral did not hear the insults. She was busy trying to differentiate the floor from the ceiling. She wanted to fall asleep, but a burning desire within her was encouraging her not to give up. Everything was a blur to her at the moment. However, a faint green sparkle garnered her attention. The glow was coming from a bunch of twigs on the floor next to her.
It was in that instant that a plan formulated in her head. While the creature was still distracted with his taunting, she quickly grabbed the Warp Wand and used it against him. He was warped away, and appeared at a corner of the room that had no water. There, he kept on flopping around.
"Oh no, I can't survive above water!" he cried.
She took this opportunity and shouted, "Now, the kitty gets the fishy! It is payback time! Screwdanae!"
It felt appropriate to shout out her self-made catchphrase. She only used it during times of great stress. Now was as good a moment as any.
She shot Embers at the creature repeatedly. The fish tried to use his water attacks to douse the fires before they hit. However, because he was flopping around, he was not able to. Each fire attack burned his shiny scales. While the attacks did not do much damage individually, the continuous barrage of fire strikes was wearing him down. His last ditch effort was to get back into the pond. He tried to angle himself and used a strong swipe of his tall to fling himself back into the water. Solestral saw this, and used all the energy in her legs to jump and tackle him on his left side. She was successful, and the red fish was knocked back. Before he touched the ground, Solestral blew the strongest Ember that she could muster into his face as retribution for his earlier attack against her. He landed on the ground hard, and fainted from the impact.
The force of her Ember was so great that Solestral was pushed back as well, but she managed to land on her feet like a cat normally would. Determined to leave the Dungeon, she frantically shook off the water off her fur and put her items back into her backpack. She staggered straight to the tile. On closer inspection, the tile had a purple orb imbedded in the centre. She stepped on it, and a voice sounded.
"This is the last floor of the Dungeon. Do you wish to return back to the outside world?"
She replied tiredly, "Yes."
She was teleported out of the dungeon, and unknowingly, appeared in front of Paul, Normad, and Mistress Bloomsle.
Looking at them, Solestral did not have the time or energy to come up with a logical response. So, she said, "Umm, yeah? What's up?"
Mistress Bloomsle was the first to reply, "Child! What happened to you? You are wet and hurt!"
"Well, I got into a boss battle with a red fish with a yellow whisker that looked wimpy. No, ignore that comment, he wasn't wimpy. He shot a strong water attack at me, but in the end, I won the battle."
"Red fish? You mean, a Magikarp? It should not exist in that dungeon at all! Furthermore, based on your description of his attack, he used Hydro Pump? This is a serious situation. I think I have to inform everyone in the village not to venture into portal. I will investigate this to find out the cause of this anomaly."
Paul interrupted and said, "Okay, that's it. I think you are tired. We shall bring you back to your home. Don't try to escape. Normad will be watching you."
Normad responded, "Well, they had… voted on me to monitor you. I don't mind. Please understand, it is… for your wellbeing."
Solestral sighed, "Yeah, yeah. I will take my kitty nap."
"Alright, we must go back to the Periwinkle Village now. It is close to noon." suggested Mistress Bloomsle. She quickly used the items that she had brought to heal Solestral to the best of her abilities.
The rest of the group climbed on top of Normad, and they made their way back to the village. Due to her recklessness and the imposed house-arrest, Solestral wondered whether there would be a mission for her tomorrow.
Yes! Finally, I am back on track! And here is another art I made.
art/Chapter-4-Water-vs-Fire-692789702
