Red's team:

Pikachu – Zeus

Munchlax – Atlas

Leaf's team:

Alolan Vulpix – Luna

Trapinch – Melody

Chapter 5

Red was tense. He had been for a few days now actually.

If there was one thing that he learned from reading hundreds of stories, then it was that murphy's law was impossible to avoid. And with him challenging said law, there was no chance that a Pokemon swarm wasn't going to attack them.

At least that's what he initially believed, but there were nearing Pewter City and there still wasn't an ambush!

"Stop fidgeting around already!" Leaf rolled her eyes. She had been getting progressively more annoyed with his 'paranoia'. "We passed the most dangerous areas already. There are no aggressive swarms this close to Pewter. We are not getting attacked, so calm down!"

Instead of calming him down like she intended him to, Red just stiffened up even more. Unintentionally, an exited grin formed on his face.

"What?" She questioned.

"You just jinxed it."

Before she could ask what a Jynx had to do with this, Luna came running.

"Ariados swarm!" she called the moment they were in hearing distance. "And Atlas is stuck in [Sand Tomb]!"

Red didn't hesitate to sprint into the direction of his team, barely pausing to instruct and translate to Leaf. "An Ariados swarm. Pack our remaining stuff, I'll get our mons!"

"Wait!" Leaf stopped him and threw him a Pokeball. "Melody is slow, returning her is quicker!"

He caught the Pokeball and took off again. While running, he simultaneously moving his aura to cloak his entire body, a level of aura control he thankfully reached a few days ago.

While running still consumed a good amount of his aura, barely allowing him to use it for more than maybe five minutes, it also allowed him to run at a pace that humans and slower Pokemon couldn't keep up with.

With his new speed, he managed to reach Zeus and Atlas in less than a minute.

Within moments, he analysed the situation; Atlas was trapped in quicksand – [Sand Tomb] if he remembered Melody's training correctly.

Zeus was zapping between the relatively slow Spinarak, who tried to hit him with [Poison Sting] and [String Shot].But with his increased stamina and speed, he switching between [Quick Attack] and normal running to dodge their attacks.

At every chance he got, he used [Discharge] to hit as many enemies as possible and if the horde of knocked out Spinarak were any indication, then it was working beautifully.

… If it weren't for the group of Ariados.

While the Spinarak were easily overwhelmed by his 'Area-of-Effect' attack and his speed, the Ariados either tanked or dodged it while also attacking him with more success than their pre-evolution.

"Retreat!" Red shouted after getting a feel for the situation. He returned Atlas into his Pokeball, which thankfully wasn't cancelled by the quicksand.

[Sand Tomb] and similar trapping moves were considered as 'non-escapable' moves in official Pokemon battles and it was forbidden to return a Pokemon while it was stuck, as those moves would otherwise lose most of their purpose.

But in reality, it didn't actually stop the trainer from returning his Pokemon.

With Atlas safe, Zeus turned to retreat after letting lose one more full-power [Discharge], actually managing to knock out three of the seven Ariados.

But his retreat was interrupted by the strongest of the Ariados, who had a scar stretching down its entire back.

Said Ariados seemingly teleported, moving at a speed even Red's aura enchanted eyes couldn't see, before hitting Zeus with a in dark type aura covered body.

'[Pursuit]!' Red realized before throwing any caution to the side.

There was no question that Zeus was unconscious from that attack and returning him was no option either; he left the Pokeball deep in his backpack as a sign of trust. 'From now on, I'll have his Pokeball with me. Doesn't matter if he doesn't want to get returned!'

But even with him sprinting in his aura enhanced state, he wasn't fast enough. The Ariados was already standing over his unconscious starter, about to land the finishing blow, when the ground under Ariados throat suddenly opened up.

The Ariados let out a horror inducing shriek as it was hit with powerful [Bite], by virtue of Melody who had been patiently waiting below the surface for the chance to attack.

Reacting quickly, he swept in and snatched Zeus, cradled under his arm. Simultaneously, he returned Melody before sprinting back towards Leaf.

But the swarm didn't give up and the remaining four Ariados swiftly followed him, led by the enraged leader of the group who was completely covered in bug type aura.

Thankfully, he was slightly faster than them. A relieve that faded the moment he had to dodge the first [String Shot], followed by a [Poison Sting].

At least he was able to see Leaf in the distance by now-!

"Fuck!" He cursed out loud, realizing to late that he should have run in the opposite direction of her; she wouldn't be able to keep up.

But the Ariados had already spotted her, and Luna wasn't anywhere near strong enough to fight multiple Ariados, even if they were injured.

Gritting his teeth, he continued to sprint towards her without slowing down.

"Red?!" Leaf exclaimed the moment he reached her. Not giving her the chance to complain, he threw her over his shoulder and continued to run.

Luckily, or unluckily as it weighed more, Leaf had both his and her backpack on her, so they wouldn't have to leave their stuff behind.

Annoyingly, the additional weight prompted his aura to help him in carrying her, further increasing his aura consumption.

'I barely have enough aura for two more minutes at most!' He glanced at Luna, who was running besides him, her short legs barely letting her to keep up.

"Luna, jump on my shoulder!" He hissed. She didn't hesitate and jumped onto him. "[Icy Wind] them; focus on the glowing one!"

He barely avoided another [String Shot], followed by multiple [Poison Stings] before sharply turning to the left – giving him the chance to see the state of his pursuers.

All of them were worn-out, with the leader easily the most drained. Considering he was hit with multiple [Discharges] and a critical hit [Bite], it was surprising that he was only in the Swarm range.

Even with that, he didn't feel confident in fighting them head on, but it was also extremely dangerous to continue running away; the moment the leader calmed down and remembered he had [Pursuit], it was over.

Luna's [Icy Wind] wasn't very effective either; him dodging their attacks prevented her from aiming correctly, allowing them to easily dodge the attack.

And all this didn't include how his aura was running low.

"Leaf, get ready to return Luna." He said, barely loud enough for her to hear while slowing down to let the Ariados get closer. "Luna, climb down my leg; we need you to hit the leader with [Aurora Beam]!"

Both gave a confirming grunt, with Luna awkwardly climbed down his moving leg.

Running with additional 10kg suddenly on his right leg didn't decrease the difficulty of the entire situation, but that problem didn't stay relevant for long.

The moment Luna reached his foot, he spun on his left leg and, with a kick that showed his childhood of playing football, he flung Luna directly at the rapidly approaching Ariados.

With acrobatics usually reserved for cats, Luna rightened herself within moments and before their pursuer managed to understand what just happened, she hit their leader with a close range [Aurora Beam], knocking out the most dangerous of the Ariados.

Pausing for only a moment, Red started running again while Leaf returned her starter.

"Turn right!" Leaf suddenly said, an instruction he immediately followed while barely dodging another [Poison Sting], hissing slightly from the new cut on his arm; it wasn't the first attacks he wasn't able to completely avoid.

"Do you have a plan?" He desperately asked, he barely had another thirty seconds of aura at most.

There was a slight chance that Atlas, Melody and Luna could fight the remaining three, but all of them – except Luna, were exhausted and injured. 'We need to establish new sparring rules while in the wild; had those two not fought beforehand, we wouldn't have to run!'

Before Leaf could answer, Red's stopped abruptly, his heart dropping from the sight before him. Hanging in the trees only a few meters before them was a freaking Galvantula!

"Finally!" Leaf exclamation was the only thing that prevented Red from turning around to charge the Ariados in a final suicide attack, to maybe knock them out with the combined power of their teams.

At least, it was a better option than entering a Galvantula's territory!

Still, despite his common sense screaming at him not to turn his back to the electric spider, he did so anyways and instantly sighed in relieve.

Standing beside the sleeping forms of the three Ariados was a trainer in his early twenties, calmly walking towards them.

He was about a head taller than the already tall Red and was wearing shinobi-esque clothing, while somehow making it look cool instead of nerdy.

Coupled with the freaking Katana that was tied to his side, he had possibly the coolest getup he has ever seen.

Furthermore, flying beside him was the Pokemon who put the Ariados to sleep; a Butterfree.

A shiny Butterfree.

"Can you put me down?" Leaf requested, which he didn't hesitate to do; his aura was already dangerously low and carrying her was drawing from his last reserves. She turned towards the approaching trainer and bowed slightly. "Thank you for helping us."

"You are welcome." The trainer replied, observing them intently before his gaze stopped at the Red. "Follow me, my home is only a few minutes away from here. The [Poison Sting] wounds don't look poisoned, but we better make sure."

Without waiting for their reply, he started walking deeper into the woods, with his Butterfree and the Galvantula silently following him.

Leaf gave Red a worried look, before they followed the still unnamed trainer.

After getting his wounds checked and treated – Red intentionally didn't use his aura to help heal the wounds, he didn't want a stranger to know that he had aura after all – Red invited him to eat with them as a thank you.

An offer Ray, their 'saviour', accepted.

"How did you find us anyways?" Red asked while preparing veggie burgers.

No longer eating meat was one of the greater changes he had to adjust to since waking up as Red.

But with combined effort of grass type Pokemon helping with the harvest and the probably magical fruits, food was not only extremely abundant and criminally cheap, it was also unusually delicious.

So, he didn't really miss it.

… Not that he could bring himself to eat sentient creatures even if he could; just the thought made him shiver slightly.

Leaf answered for Ray, showing Red her Pokedex. "I called for help!"

Red facepalmed; he didn't even think about using the Pokedex's emergency call for help. It contacts nearby trainers and sends a request for help. 'Then again, Leaf probably felt similarly after we didn't call for help with the Spearow…'

"It is my duty to keep the different swarms in the area relatively calm." Ray suddenly explained before bowing slightly. "I apologize for that. It may seem like an excuse for neglecting my duty, but a Scyther has been terrorizing the local swarms and they have been acting more aggressive as a result. The Scyther intentionally scars the strongest Pokemon of the swarm he attacks, similarly to the scar on the Ariados's back. It does so to both humiliate them and to show his ability to kill their strongest."

"They may have been overly aggressive." Zeus, who was still recovering, cut in. "But they only attacked after Melody's [Sandstorm] hit them."

"We were partly at fault as well." Red replied to Ray, carefully keeping his ability to understand Zeus a secret. "So don't worry about it."

Ray nodded in acceptance, leaving him and Leaf alone for now.

Curious about Ray's aura, he gathered his own around his eyes and nearly dropped his cooking utensils.

Compared to his and Leaf's pure aura, Ray's aura had no traces of the type-less aura left.

Instead, he had only bug type aura, indistinguishably to that of a bug Pokemon. The only difference was, that similarly to Leaf aura, Ray's aura wasn't awakened yet. But it was pushing against the 'membrane' that prevented the aura from spreading into his entire body.

'Definitely a bug type specialist.' Not that there was any real doubt with his Galvantula, Pinsir and shiny Butterfree; which was still really awesome, inhabiting Ray's house. 'And he seems close to naturally awakening his aura… Maybe aura isn't as rare as the league makes it out to be?'

He stopped thinking about it for the moment, but one thing was certain; he was going to observe every trainer he could. And the first chance he got; he was going to exchange notes with another aura user.

After a satisfying meal and some probing from Red and Leaf, Ray told them his 'story'.

Five years ago, within his first league year, Ray was oneof the most promising rookies of the year. With his Joltik as his starter, he managed to beat his first five gyms in a record time, especially for bug specialists who usually slowed down greatly after their second or third badge.

But, because he grew up in Vermillion city, the last gyms he had to face were the rock, fire and ground type gyms, who all had advantages over his strongest Pokemon.

After getting beat by the rock type gym leader, he retreated into the Veridian forest to train.

Only for the previous rock type gym leader to retire and hand his gym over to his oldest son before he could get his rematch.

"Call it stupid or overly prideful." Ray said in a nostalgic tone. "But I lost my drive after I heard that I wouldn't be able to avenge my first defeat."

Red and Leaf where silent at that, unsure on how to respond. Especially Leaf, who had already got her own taste of defeat, was torn between sympathy and annoyance.

While her defeat could be attributed to the lack of sportsmanship of her opponent, she still understood how he felt. But still, she felt weirdly irritated that he just… stopped instead of continuingly challenging himself.

Seeing that they were uncomfortable, Ray changed the topic.

"I could actually use you help." He pointed at their Pokemon; his eyes mainly focused on Trapinch. "As I said previously, I have a Scyther problem. It is extremely fast and managed to escape all of our capture attempts until now. I have been teaching Galvantula [Spider Web], but he will take another few days before he learned it."

He bowed slightly; his eyes focused on Leaf. "But with your Trapinch's [Sand Tomb], we should be able to trap it long enough for my Pokemon to defeat it."

"But Scyther is a flying type." Red interrupted.

"That won't be a problem." Ray answered easily. "My Pinsir knows [Smack Down]. If we plan it properly, Pinsir should be able to get a clean hit."

Red and Leaf looked at each other before nodding resolutely. The Ariados swarm attack was partly the Scyther's fault after all, and reducing the danger of traveling through the forest was always a good thing.

"So, what is the plan?" Leaf asked, motioning her Pokemon to join them. "And how do you plan to lure it out?"

"Butterfree already located its nest." He explained after giving them a thankful nod, before they started discussing their course of action.

After they finished coming up with a plan, Red couldn't help but grin excitedly, a notion that was echoed by his team.

It wasn't every day that you were involved in a plan to fight a wild Pokemon that could match a trainer with five badges.

It was in the middle of the night when they finally made their move.

Having split up beforehand, Ray was alone with Galvantula and Butterfree when he snuck into the Scyther's territory.

The entire clearing was artificially treeless, a phenomenon common to Scyther territories. In the middle of the clearing stood a lone tree; the Scyther's home.

Carefully and silently, his Galvantula started to cover the trees surrounding the clearing in [Sticky Web], leaving but one area open for the Scyther to freely 'escape'.

"[Whirlwind]." He ordered his Butterfree after receiving a text that Red and Leaf were ready. While Butterfree flew up to the lone tree in the clearing, he turned to Galvantula. "Try to hit it with [Electroweb], but prioritize leading it into the trap."

With an elegant but mighty flap of its wings, the Butterfree let a [Whirlwind] loose. The instant the wind reached the tree, a blur shot out towards the opposite direction.

While Ray wasn't able to keep up with its movement, Galvantula reacted nearly equally as fast and shot out his [Electroweb] towards the airborne Scyther while instantly dashing towards it.

The Scyther easily avoided the attack by suddenly gaining a downward momentum, signifying an advanced usage of [Quick Attack],by using said move in a different direction than it was moving towards.

Galvantula was actually a little bit faster than the Scyther, but it was that usage of [Quick Attack] that allowed it to out-speed the Ray's starter.

For a moment, just as it touched the ground, Ray was able to get a glimpse of the Scyther. But in a blink of an eye, it disappeared again.

It had fought them two time already, so it knew that it had no chance to win a direct fight. So, it went for the escape.

Ray let out a breath of relieve as he saw it leave towards the intended trap with Galvantula hot on its heel. He sent Red a quick text, warning him that they were coming, before quickly following them.

The short vibrating of his Pokedex was enough for him to know that the Scyther was coming.

"Get ready." He warned Luna and Zeus, who were responsible for the second phase of the plan.

With the Scyther occupied with shaking of Galvantula, they were in charge of slowing it down with a surprise attack.

With his aura enhanced eyes, he was able to see them quickly approaching and within moments they were nearly there.

"Now!" Red shouted, drawing the Scyther attention to himself. They simultaneously attacked from multiple different directions; Galvantula from the back, Luna from the side and Red, who threw a Pokeball at it, 'attacked' from the front.

It dodges the Pokeball easily, while simultaneously sidestepping the [Aurora Beam] and [Electroweb]. But its dodge turned its back to Zeus, who had kept hiding instead of releasing his [Thunder Wave]. Not expecting another attack, especially not from its blind spot, Zeus managed to hit the Scyther, paralysing it.

But the paralysis didn't stop it, and it continued to sprint away from them.

But it now visibly slower.

Galvantula chased after it, now faster than the Scyther but unwilling to risk letting it get away. So, it continued to kite it into the direction of their final trap.

Atlas was exited.

Originally, he didn't have a role in this plan; he was too slow to do anything. But Red, his super cool trainer, suggested something that made the others look at him weirdly.

So, that was how he ended here. Firmly held in Pinsir's pincers, fully boosted with [Curse], and about to be throw as the projectile for [Smack Down].

"It's coming!" Luna's trainer warned them and Atlas tensed up. He was still torn between using [Mega Punch] or [Mega Kick] while colliding with the fast bug Pokemon.

On one hand, he liked punching things more than kicking them, but his kick was stronger-

Without warning, the Pinsir threw him; probably to not alert the Scyther, and Atlas was approaching the Scyther fast while acutely aware of the rock type aura surrounding him.

Still, as weird as the different type of aura felt, he ignored it for now and focused on the more important decision; [Mega Punch] or [Mega Kick]?!

Still undecided, but about to hit the Scyther, he instinctively covered his entire body normal type aura instead, unintentionally using [Body Slam].

With a loud thud, he collided with the Scyther and both pummelled towards the ground. There, Melody was quickly forming [Sand Tomb], a trap Scyther was unable to avoid.

With the bug now trapped and dazed, Galvantula didn't give it the chance to recover and charged up a bright ball of electricity; an [Electro Ball], and slammed it into the Scyther.

Nearly knocked out now, all it took was an enthusiastic [Mega Punch] from Atlas, giving him the glory of knocking their prey unconscious.

A few minutes later, after Atlas was pulled out of the [Sand Tomb], the bug guy and Red arrived.

Early in the next morning, Red and Leaf were ready to leave for Pewter City.

"Again, thank you." Ray repeated seriously, holding the Scyther's Pokeball in his hands. "I owe you. If you have anything where I can help you, please don't hesitate to ask."

"Really, there is no need to thank us." Leaf replied, a little annoyed by Ray. He had been nearly demanding them to ask for something in exchange of keeping the Scyther.

Not like Red or Leaf even wanted the Scyther; it was both too strong for their respective teams and just didn't fit into what they planned.

Seeing that Ray was going on another preach about owning them a favour and how he was willing to do anything to settle that dept, she nudged the still sleepy Red, hissing at him. "Do something!"

Sighing, Red mused about possible uses for the favour before an idea came to him.

"Sure, there is something you can do for us." Ray looked at him gratefully, looking relieved that he wouldn't have to let that favour stay unfulfilled. "There are too few people who can keep up with us, so do us the favour of competing in this year's Indigo Plateau Conference. I don't want to win it too easily."

He didn't give him the chance to refute and turned around to leave, pulling the speechless Leaf after him. "See you on the battle field!"

Usually, only professional trainers who had been competing for multiple years managed to get into the top eight, all determined to challenge the Elite four to usurp their position.

But, while it was unheard of for a first-year trainer to go beyond the top 16, Red didn't doubt his ability to win the tournament for even a moment.

He was the protagonist after all, and victory was in his destiny.

'Time to get my first gym badge!'

I'm actually pretty satisfied with both action scenes this chapter! I'm getting the hang of it; at least with group fights. Let's see how the gym fights write themselves.

Next week is going to be battle intensive!

Thank you for reading and feel free to leave a review; if you want an answer to your questions though, please enable private messaging. I don't want to fill too much space in my story to answer questions :)