Episode 36: The owl's determination

In the run-up to their gym battle with Pryce in Mahogany Town, Niko and Fay spent most of their time training, often with Brittany and JJ helping out. Fay wanted to work on quilava's speed, while flaaffy worked on learning thunderpunch. Sudowoodo, on the other hand, had difficulty training, as it was far more interested in running around playfully, either terrorizing random pokémon on the mountainside or breaking trees or rocks. Fay also worked on teaching teddiursa faint attack with the help of JJ and umbreon, the latter of whom seemed to be getting much better at it.

Niko, on the other hand, primarily focused on hoothoot. Croconaw still refused to listen to him; this was made evident to him when he tried to teach it ice punch, but it bit his arm softly and laid under a tree to sleep. Yanma and magneton continued working on their sonicboom attacks on the edge of the mountain, so as to not disrupt anyone else's training. This left Niko to give his owl pokémon his full attention. Hoothoot was trying to learn steel wing, as well as get its hypnosis down, although the latter wasn't the primary focus.

"Alright hoothoot, let's try again!" Niko shouted on their third day of training since their encounter with Bruno. "Just hold your wings out straight…yeah, that's it…just do that and allow yourself to fly downwards…okay, that's fine, let's try it again!"

Hoothoot crashed into a tree.

"Don't give up hoothoot, you can do this!" Niko said, running over to his owl pokémon. Hoothoot stood up, looking dejected, and it lifted itself off of the ground and tried again. Niko smiled; he was glad hoothoot was not giving up on this.

Later that day, during dinner, the group was talking about the progress they had made that day while their pokémon ate as a group beside them, with the exception of croconaw, who preferred to eat alone since its evolution. The only other noticeable difference was hoothoot, who was still looking rather disappointed in itself.

"Is hoothoot alright, Niko?" JJ asked, leaning over and speaking in low tones to his friend.

"Yeah, I think it's just disappointed that it can't manage to learn steel wing."

"Can't blame it; learning moves outside of their natural type isn't that easy, right?" Niko nodded.

"Yeah, especially ones that aren't natural to begin with. Hoothoot doesn't naturally learn steel wing, so I guess it's particularly difficult for it."

The group continued talking for a bit, deciding that the following morning they would continue on down the mountain range. They figured that if they kept it up for the next day or so, they would reach Mahogany Town in a day and a half.

After everyone went to bed, returning their pokémon, Niko watched as hoothoot stood there perched on a tree overlooking the land beyond it. They were at a relatively high elevation at this point, with a forest that covered the mountainside rather nicely. The brown-haired trainer sat there watching hoothoot for a while, wondering what it was thinking. Niko could empathize; he had his own moments of self-introspection on his journey thus far, and trying to overcome difficult obstacles in his way seemed to become more natural the longer he was away from home. Hoothoot must have felt the same way. After what seemed to be an hour, Niko crashed down onto his sleeping bag and fell asleep rather quickly.

While everyone was asleep, hoothoot sat perched on the branch, trying to stay awake itself. It had been a long day of training, and the little owl had taken a fair amount of beatings from trees and wild branches as a result of failed attempts at steel wing. But despite this, hoothoot refused to give up; it didn't want to be the kind of pokémon that quit when life got hard. That's not how it lived its life before it met Niko, and that's certainly not how it wanted to live after joining his team. Sometimes, though, it felt the temptation to do quit; to convince Niko that it deserved to be released.

But it also understood how doing this might make its trainer feel. Niko believed in it, which is why he chose to catch it. It was never the kind to disappoint, and wanted to be included and feel important for not just the sake of its trainer and teammates, but for itself as well. However, recently there have been moments when it did feel worthless. It knew that Niko didn't want to use it in his rematch against Jasmine, since it would have been easily defeated by steelix on the grounds that it didn't know any moves that could defeat the iron snake. Hoothoot knew that Niko did this for its own good, to prevent it from getting hurt, but the owl couldn't help but think that if it had been stronger, it might have been of more use, and could put up a legitimate fight against steelix and helped Niko win the mineral badge the first time.

It also felt like a disappointment only a few days ago, when it was easily defeated by Bruno's hitmonlee. Sure, hoothoot understood that hitmonlee was an Elite 4-level pokémon, but it was smart enough to understand when it had the advantage and when it didn't. It prides itself in understanding battle strategy better than other pokémon might. With this in mind, it wanted to do better against a fighting type pokémon and prove its worth to its trainer.

Hoothoot slowly sighed, its eyes growing heavy. Taking a moment to look down at the forest below it, the owl pokémon took flight without hesitation. It continued to fall at an angle, gliding down the mountainside with its wings stiff. For a moment, hoothoot noticed its wings glowing, but the effect quickly stopped as it slammed headfirst into a rather think tree branch. The owl pokémon fell backwards on the ground, dazed and confused, but also frustrated.

Getting up, it decided to try again. And again. And again.

Niko woke up the following morning in a daze. There were times where he woke up with an amnesia of sorts, where it would take him a moment to remember where he was, what day it was, and what he had done the day before. Once he looked around and everything came back to him, he noticed that he hadn't put hoothoot back in its pokéball. Looking over to the tree it was sitting on the previous night, he realized the owl was gone.

Niko turned to his friends, who were making breakfast and packing some things up in preparation to leave. "Guys…? Has anyone seen hoothoot?"

"No, don't think so Niko. Did you forget to put it in its pokéball?" Fay asked, turning around after flipping a pancake.

He shook his head. "No, I let it sit outside for the night, figuring it would choose to sleep on that branch over there. But it's gone now…" Niko said, pointing to the tree near the ledge.

"Maybe it went to go hunt then…" Brittany asked, showing a look of concern on the same level of her friend's.

"Maybe. I'm going to go out looking for it. Shouldn't be too long," Niko said as he reached for yanma's pokéball and tossing it out. "Hey buddy, hoothoot is missing. Can you go on ahead and look for it? I'll be right behind you."

Yanma nodded, confused but looking dutiful. It flew off in the direction that Niko thought the owl might go, with its trainer following closely behind, nearly stumbling off the ledge in the process.

Meanwhile, hoothoot was still practicing steel wing, as it had been doing roughly all night. There were moments when it felt like it got the move down correctly, but the wings stopped glowing after a while, causing the owl to slam into another tree or rock. It took a couple hours in the late evening to rest, but was otherwise still at it when Niko started his search.

Hoothoot stood atop another branch and, opening its wings, glided down into the clearing, aiming for the closest tree. The wings began to glow, and they stayed that way. Did hoothoot finally master steel wing? Possibly, but the owl pokémon accidentally hit another tree, knocking out a flock of sleeping pidgeys and their mother, a pidgeot.

Hoothoot crashed into the ground and while it was still dazed looked up again to notice the pidgeot diving towards it. The owl quickly got out of the way but was pecked by the incoming flock of pidgeys. It finally got into the air, but collided with the pidgeot just after it took flight. All of the pidgeys were hovering over hoothoot, taking turns at pecking it.

"Yanma, sonicboom!" A familiar voice shouted out. Suddenly the pidgeys were blown away by the wave of sonic energy. Hoothoot looked up to see Niko and yanma standing there, ready to do battle with the pidgeot, who didn't seem to be too hurt by it. Yanma launched into a quick attack, striking at pidgeot who responded with a wing attack, quickly knocking the bug type down. "Hoothoot, are you alright?" Niko asked as he ran past the battle to his owl. Hoothoot nodded, but took flight and went after pidgeot.

Yanma took another wing attack to the face before pidgeot noticed hoothoot again. It turned around and rushed at the owl pokémon, its wing glowing. Hoothoot dodged the wing attack and made a U-turn as it went in for take down. It landed successfully, but pidgeot responded with gust, knocking hoothoot backwards and into a nearby tree trunk.

"Hoothoot! You can do it!" Niko shouted. "Hoothoot! Use steel wing!" He commanded, as if he understood why hoothoot had left in the first place.

The owl pokémon turned to yanma, and then to Niko, before getting back up and flying directly at pidgeot. The two bird pokémon spun around one another, each trying to land a wing-based attack. Pidgeot quickly gained the upper hand, slamming hoothoot with another wing attack and launching the owl pokémon through the air. However, as it did so, hoothoot began to glow a bright white color. It got significantly larger, its wings longer, and two feather-like horns above each eye. Suddenly, the much larger owl pokémon shot like a bullet at pidgeot, its wings glowing a light gray color. It slammed into pidgeot, sending the bird pokémon crashing into the ground, effectively knocking it out. It then turned to Niko, whose pokédex was already out:

"Noctowl, the owl pokémon. Normal and flying type. Its extremely soft feathers make no sound in flight. It silently sneaks up on prey without being detected."

"Hoot—I mean—noctowl, you did a great job! I'm so proud of you!" Niko said as noctowl landed and allowed its trainer to embrace it. "You evolved and learned steel wing! Now, c'mon, let's get yanma and head back up to the camp. We need to get going!"

After what seemed like an hour, the three finally made it back to their campsite up the mountain. The other three trainers were initially scared that something might have happened, but when they saw noctowl flying right next to him, they understood immediately.

"So…I take it you found hoothoot?" Fay asked, smirking in Niko's direction.

"Heh, yeah. It's noctowl though. But we found it, and I couldn't be happier."

"That's good. Now, we're all packed up and ready to go. We should be able to make it to Mahogany Town by tomorrow if we don't waste any time!" JJ said, motioning the group forward.