The team found themselves somewhere near the base of the foothills. When the Pokémon conscious for the event reflected on it later, they discovered that no one had any recollection of being moved out of the dungeon. One moment they were there, and the next they simply weren't. At that moment, however, their attention was split between being thankful for living and tending to the bloody Charmander. Unable to consciously chew and eat, Oscar instructed Gaia to mash up some Sitrus and Oran berries, and force feed the pulp to Cinder by massaging his throat so he would swallow by reflex. It worked, but it took their entire supply of healing berries to bring Cinder back to consciousness, and he still was not fully healed. The potency of the berries seemed to be lessened outside of the dungeons, Oscar noticed.
"What happened?" Cinder asked after collecting himself.
"Stumpy evolved, and used an Escape orb to get us out of there." Gaia said, patting the Mightyena on the head.
"I can see that. Congratulations Stumpy!" Cinder groaned a bit as he moved to embrace his partner, but was no less enthusiastic for it. "I'm happy for you."
"Thanks, guys. I'm just glad you are all okay." His voice was noticeably deeper, but still held the childlike cheer Oscar had come to associate with the Dark type.
"Of course the only one of us that didn't really care about evolving would be the first to." Cinder joked with his friend. Of course, Oscar agreed to himself. Could it have happened any other way?
"So what now?" He asked, breaking the others from their celebration. "Is there another way to the camp? Because unless we want to give the dungeon a second go…"
"No, no. I think that's a bad idea. There is another route, but it will add a couple days to the trip. How are we on food?" Cinder asked Gaia, moving to look through his bag for any food.
"Not too good." Gaia said after a moment of searching through her bag. "Maybe a day's worth here. You?"
"Only a few apples and a bit of water." He replied. "We can make it with what we have, but we should probably make an effort to hunt along the way just to be sure."
The group decided that they would rest for an hour or so before they moved out. It was almost the full moon, and there would be enough light to travel by night now that they were out of the forest, so making the most of the sun was not as essential as it had been earlier in their journey. They spent their time describing their perspective of the encounter at the end of the dungeon. When brainstorming what they could have done differently to avoid the situation, Cinder suggested that sometimes mystery dungeons would just throw you into situations you had no real hope of beating. The group reluctantly agreed with the conclusion, and Oscar simply suggested that moving forward critical survival items should be redundant and split between the party so such a situation didn't happen again. Cinder confessed that doing so was common practice in exploration teams, and that the error was an oversight on his part. As he took the worst of the punishment, no one saw the need to berate him for it. It was unlikely he would make the mistake again.
They moved on to asking Stumpy what it was like to evolve. He confessed he couldn't really tell them, as he was not at all focused on that at the time. He said that reflecting on it, he simply felt like more than he was before. Not really different on a fundamental level, just more. More powerful, more confident, more sure of his place in the world and what he could do in it. Oscar thought this sounded a lot like simply growing up, but figured that made perfect sense in this context.
After their rest, the group started on the alternate route to the hideout. It was as simple as navigating around the foothills that the mystery dungeon, which was apparently called the 'Dragon Den', but the trek would add days of travel in an environment with little food or water. They found no prey or water by the time they stopped to make camp, and they had to make do with an apple each before they slept. Cinder was sullen after the initial excitement of celebrating Stumpy's evolution, and let the Mightyena take point as he gave clipped directions now and then to direct where to go. He did not take being the only Pokémon in the group to be knocked out well, and Oscar could tell that he was falling into a depression.
Not at all equipped with the techniques or temperament to deal with that kind of thing, Oscar elected to take Stumpy aside before they left the next day and tell him of the situation. He hoped that the Charmander's oldest and best friend would have some insight on what to do. Stumpy was offended that Oscar would pry into something so personal without permission, and insisted that this was exactly the kind of thing that made psychics mistrusted. Oscar asked if he should have said nothing, and Stumpy reluctantly agreed that it was probably for the best, but please just ask in the future like a normal Pokémon? Oscar lied and said he would try to do better.
The group split into two after that, with Cinder and Stumpy as the leading pair while Oscar and Gaia took up the rear. Stumpy mostly just walked next to Cinder, occasionally probing with a tangential question or comment. Cinder mostly didn't speak unless to was to navigate, but would occasionally respond with a short discussion. Oscar couldn't make out what they were saying, and the Dark types proximity to the Charmander made it difficult to look into his mind. Oscar was not interested in any case, as he was more focused on his discussion with Gaia, which had been going on essentially since they left in the morning.
Oscar was disappointed, almost offended, at the Treecko's previous insinuation that if lots of people believed something it must be true. He started a mental discussion with here to preserve the silence for their other teammates. He lead with thought experiments asking if a double agent had reported to base and lied about the outcome of some event, would belief alone make the event true? Of course not, Treecko agreed. But you could get more information, verify the information in other ways, she countered. That wasn't the point, Oscar insisted. Did the belief in what happened have any bearing on the truth? No, of course not. But Treecko insisted that the Absol situation was different, that metaphysical powers were involved and you couldn't simply put a camera on one to see if they caused disasters or not. Lots of Pokémon had really weird powers, was it so hard to believe that Absol could cause disasters? Oscar admitted to himself that he didn't know for a fact if Absol caused disasters or not, being largely ignorant of the mechanism's behind Absol powers. Oscar admitted that this was possible, but challenged Gaia to consider if it was more likely that Absol had the power to cause these events, or if they had the power to predict them. Mika's Razor was a powerful rhetorical tool, and one that Oscar employed often to steer discussions where he wanted them to go. She confessed it seemed more likely they would predict them, as some disasters attributed to them could only be done by powerful legendries. But she stressed that they were never accused of causing the disasters directly, merely being the bad luck that acted as a catalyst for them. Oscar did not have a direct answer to the central point here, so he fell back on anecdote and reminded Gaia that the only Absol she really 'met' had not only explicitly warned them of an impending disaster, but told them what they needed to do to escape. He asked if that fit her preconceptions, and if not, what else about her preconceptions were wrong? She reluctantly agreed that maybe there were more to Absol than most Pokémon believed, that one didn't seem too bad. Oscar was a little disappointed he couldn't get her to acquiesce on first principles, but was happy enough to correct some small problem with her worldview no matter how it was done. He was never wrong after all, and it was his responsibility to do this kind of thing.
They spent the rest of the day mentally chatting about whatever stuck their fancy. When Gaia asked why Cinder seemed so down, he explained that the Charmander was struggling with lifelong feelings of inadequacy at being a disowned runt, and that the beating he took at the dungeon brought all these feelings back up. Gaia was empathetic but couldn't relate to the feeling. Oscar agreed and suggested that they simply let Stumpy sort it out, it seemed like he knew what he was doing.
Gaia asked him if he had any further thoughts on what it was like to be a Pokémon now that he had some more time to experience it. He said his answer was largely unchanged, but he was growing more used to relying on the enhanced senses than he was before. Smell was a large part of how Pokémon interacted with the world, and he was becoming more aware of this as time went on. He said he would often get odd, unexplained urges to perform certain actions, but that these things passed as quickly as they came and he wasn't sure what to make of them. Gaia speculated that these were more context dependent instincts and that he was probably subconsciously pushing them back. She explained that humans seemed almost unnaturally inclined to suppress their instincts and feelings, to the point where she often wondered if humans had instincts as Pokémon understood them in the first place. He assured her that they did, but that being able to control your instincts was essential to the proper functioning of a civilization. Gaia confessed she didn't know anything about that, but for Pokémon instincts were a large part of how they socialized and how they fought. This was probably why he had difficulty focusing his Aura into his claws to Scratch, she suggested.
Oscar thought this made a lot of sense, but wasn't sure how to move forward with that information. Gaia suggested that when they get the chance they should practice on 'unlearning' some of his subconscious control and that this may help him learn moves better. Oscar thought this was a good idea, and looked forward to the exercises.
Sometime later Oscar noticed the presence of some Cacnea, and altered the group to their presence. Stumpy motioned with his head that Gaia and Oscar should take care of it, and they did so. They were slow creatures and easy to hunt, and provided enough food and moisture to make it comfortably through the day.
Gaia spoke to Oscar out loud when they settled in after making camp for the night.
"When we were fighting the Cacnea earlier, why didn't you use any fire type moves?" She asked. "You just kind of held them down and let me bet them."
"So they would not get away, of course." He said, the answer obvious.
"But if you used Ember, they would have been taken out even faster and also not have gotten away. Fennekin are pure Fire type, right?"
"As far as I know."
"The why do you almost never use Fire type moves? I think I have seen you use it twice the entire time you have been a Pokémon, outside of practice."
"Yeah," Stumpy added, "That seems kinda weird. The Pokémon at the hideout will think the same thing. A Fire type not using fire at every available opportunity? Seems unnatural. What do you think, Cinder?"
"Yeah, it's weird. You should work on that." Cinder said, still a bit short but in a noticeably better mood since the morning. Oscar knew it was rare for Pokémon to be depressed as humans did unless they were particularly traumatized, perhaps it was in their nature to ger over these things quickly?
"I think it is just the instinct thing again. You were focused on efficiency and not just letting yourself fight." Gaia diagnosed. "It will get better with training." She concluded. When Stumpy asked what she meant by 'the instinct thing', she filled him in on the conversation they had earlier in the day. The other two Pokémon agreed that was probably what was going on.
"I noticed something else" Cinder said after a moment of silence, "you never seem to get in close with other Pokémon during battles. I have never seen a Fennekin before, but I don't know of any Fire types afraid to get in a scrap." The others had apparently noticed this as well, but chose not to comment on it up until now.
"Because when you get in close, you get hurt?" Obviously. "It is always better to beat something from far away. Up close is too messy."
"And if they get close to you?" Gaia asked.
"I run away, of course."
"And if they are faster than you?"
"Well then I die, I guess? It is up to me to not get into fights like that in the first place." Stumpy gave a lighthearted chuckle, and Gaia simply tsked.
"You are capable of a lot more than you give yourself credit for. I think you would say 'You would be surprised of what you can do when you are not afraid to get in close' or something like that."
"I not afraid!" He totally wasn't. "It just is not the smart way to go about it when I have other options."
"Sure, sure." Gaia waved him off. "But if you really want to 'try this Pokémon thing out' like you said, then you are going to have to learn how to take a hit at some point."
"I suppose…" Oscar was never wrong, but sometimes there were equally viable alternatives he simply wasn't aware of.
"She's right. I don't think my ears can handle your screaming if that's going to be a regular thing." Everyone but Oscar laughed at the joke. Oscar had a perfectly developed sense of humor, that just wasn't very funny.
"I don't know, I thought it sounded cute. eeeeeeeahh" Cinder imitated the shriek in the highest voice he could pull off, getting another chuckle. Well at least he was out of his funk now.
The group chatted a bit more after that, mostly small talk. Cinder told them they should make it to the hideout by afternoon the next day. When asked what it was like, Stumpy suggested they just wait and see for themselves, it was better going in blind he said. They went to bed after that, wanting to get an early start for the last day of their journey.
The next morning they had the last of their provisions for breakfast, and made for the hideout. The trip was without incident, and true to Cinder's word they came up to a large cavern low into the side of the first proper mountain past the foothill. When Oscar asked why there were no guards, Cinder said that they would be inside the cavern so it wasn't obvious from a glance that something important was being actively guarded from the outside. The trail opened up to a flat plateau about 200 meters in diameter before the entrance to the cave. The cave opening itself was about 10 meters wide, and looked to have been at least partially artificial from the uniformity of the opening and claw marks on the walls from the excavation.
The inside of the cave was illuminated by glowing blue-green mushrooms and weakly luminescent crystals larger than Stumpy. After a few minutes of walking the group came to a checkpoint, an Espeon and a Machoke playing some sort of card game on the cave floor. The Espeon was the first to notice them, and greeted the two lead Pokémon.
"Char, Po-Mightyena?" Her eyes widened at the canine Dark type came fully into view. "Huh."
"Good job, mon. I knew you were close." The Machoke said with a thumbs-up.
"Thanks Machoke! I'll have to tell you the story later." Stumpy said with a wag of his tail.
"Who are your 'friends'?" The Espeon moved past Cinder and Stumpy to look at the newcomers. She tried to simply barge into their minds to read their intentions. The only thing she got from either of them was disgust at the uncouth behavior. She took a step back in surprise, non-psychic types were not usually aware of the etiquette involved in this kind of thing. She tried again, this time with a gentle ping signaling her intent/need/job to see if they were a threat to the hideout. This time they let her in (not that she couldn't just brute-force it, but she did have manners) and found that the Fennekin did in fact have some psychic ability. Unusual, but not unheard of. The Treecko was simply trained to resist psychic probing, which was unheard of for anyone outside of silver-plus ranked guild teams or Guardian-employed exploration teams. From what she could see neither of them were here to cause problems and were in fact trying to join the outlaw group.
"Yes, they completed the job." She preempted the Machoke's question. "These two are here to join, and it looks like they brought tribute. Good, the boss will want to see you. Best get going."
Stumpy and Cinder bid the guards farewell and led the group further into the cave, which soon opened up into a large cavern. Tents and supply carts littered the cavern floor, illuminated by the cave's natural light sources and sporadic bonfires that gave off no smoke. Oscar did not see any Pokémon mulling about, not that he would have noticed if there were any. His attention was fixed to the back of the cavern, where there was an actual Pokémon center. It was in disrepair, with the signature Pokéball sign long since gone. But the layout and general design made it obvious what it was. To his amazement, it seemed like the lights in the center were at least partially on, suggesting it still had power after however long it had been here. How did it even get here? He had so many questions.
"Are you seeing this?" He asked Gaia, who shrugged.
"Seeing what? The building? Yeah it's kind of weird. How did it get here?" Right, she had never been to a Pokémon center, her medical needs were always handled on-base. They didn't have time to gawk, and Cinder led them into the center. At the reception desk, a Sableye sat and sorted through some papers. He looked up for a moment before returning his attention to the papers before him.
Cinder led them up the stairs and down the dilapidated halls to where the manager's office would normally be. The doors on most of the rooms were gone, the manager's office included. Cinder stopped at the threshold of the door, obscuring Oscar's view of the inside. He announced their presence, and after a moment a gruff voice called out.
"It's about time! Figured you got snicked. Get in here!" The group made their way into the office, where a Gabite, a Luxio and a Servine sat in the center of the room. It was furnished in the typical Pokémon style, with brightly colored walls and wooden statues of various dragon species along the wall. In the back of the room was a pile of poke large enough for the Gabite to sleep on. Presumably he did. "I heard you got the job done. Finally." He looked to Stumpy "Took you long enough Mightyena. Not surprised it was you who evolved first." Cinder flinched a bit, but otherwise did not acknowledge the comment. "I also heard you had help. Are they the reason you got something done right for once?" He gestured to the two Pokémon standing in the doorway.
"Uh, yeah." Cinder motioned for the two to move forward. "They helped out, pretty strong too. These are Fennekin and Treecko." They nodded at the Gabite as their names were said.
"Cool, cool." The Gabite nodded his head. "Gimme your bags." Cinder sighed, but complied. The Pokémon surrendered their bags and the Servine began to empty them of their contents. Oscar was a little disappointed in himself for not seeing this coming. What was he expecting to happen? These creatures clearly were not professionals, this was a terrible way to ensure loyalty.
"6 Poke and a Waterfall TM. Not bad." He said, tossing the Poke back onto his hoard and handing the TM to the Servine. "Eh, I don't care for the stuff." He said, referring to the bottle of alcohol and returning it. "What do you have around your neck, Fennekin?" Oscar spoke through his teeth.
"Efficient Bandana."
"Oh, those are useful. I'll take that too." He held out his wingarm expectantly. He didn't move, simply undoing the bandana and moving it over to the dragon telekinetically. "Good boy. And psychic, too. Most of your kind can't do that until their final evolution, maybe you will be useful. Still," he stood up, having been sitting for the entire exchange until this point "gotta find out for myself. We are going to have a friendly battle, so I can see what you are made of. To the mouth of the cave. Go, git." He shooed them out, but did not immediately follow.
"Oh, that's different." Stumpy said after they were out of earshot. "He didn't fight us before taking us in. I'm not sure what that means."
"He probably just wants to let out some aggression. You know how dragons are. He has been pretty upset about something lately." Cinder added as they walked.
"Anything we should know about how he fights?" Gaia asked.
"He likes to get in close, and he at least knows Tackle, Dragon Claw and Slash. He is also really fast." Stumpy said, looking to Oscar at the last statement.
"I can take him, probably." Gaia said confidently, her addition of 'probably' more due to being conditioned to make even a small uncertainty clear by Oscar than lack of faith in her abilities.
Oscar had not memorized the type chart, but he was pretty sure dragons didn't have a lot of weaknesses, and nothing to what he had. He didn't have Gaia's confidence, he was pretty sure both of them were going to lose this fight. But he figured they just needed to make a good showing, not actually win. That could hurt the Gabite's image, and there is no way the dragon would risk that. He couldn't come up with a concrete plan, knowing nothing about how the Gabite fought, so he decided he would just wing it and hope it didn't hurt too much.
They made it to the mouth of the cave, and waited near the center of the plateau for the Gabite to meet them. They didn't need to wait long, and five minutes later the Gabite exited the cave followed by the rest of the outlaws in the hideout. The Gabite swaggered up to the four waiting Pokémon, and stopped about five meters short of the group. "So," he said without fanfare "Who's first?" Oscar spoke up immediately.
"I will go. Let us get this over with." Gaia made to protest, but he added telepathically.
Pay attention, learn what he can do. You must make us look good. His plan now was to give Gaia, the superior close combat fighter, all the information he could give her and hope she put on a good show. If he was going to lose, might as well make the most out of it.
Okay, but be careful! She thought.
"Hmph, thought the Treecko would go first, she looks tougher. You three, back with the others." Once they had joined with the main group, the Luxio moved out to meet the two contenders.
"Battle between Boss and Fennekin. First to give up or get knocked out loses. No rules. Fight." The Luxio jumped back, and the Gabite lunged at Oscar faster than something his size had any business moving. Oscar acted on instinct, and let out an Ember. It was the same plan as with the Salamence, Ember to distract and buy time. The Gabite, who Oscar decided to simply call Boss until he wasn't, reacted as the Salamence did and brought up his wingwarm to shield his eyes while continuing with his charge. Oscar grabbed Boss telekinetically, but found the dragon's Aura was too powerful to overcome in this way. Unfortunately, he couldn't just throw the dragon around and smash him against things. Immediately accounting for the new information, Oscar instead pushed the dragon perpendicular to the direction of his movement while trying to pin the foot on the opposite side of the force down. This required a lot of focus, but he had practiced creating multiple focus points plenty of times over the last two weeks to pull it off.
The Boss was taken off guard, and crashed face first to the ground from the sudden change in momentum. Not at all hurt, but very pissed, the dragon shot Oscar a hateful look as the Fennekin took this opportunity to let out an Ember to his face and put some distance between them. The Boss roared and moved to get up, when a grapefruit sized rock flew to his face at high speed, shattering at the impact. His head whipped to the side, but he recovered fast enough to block the next rock. And the one after that. Oscar had retreated about 20 meters away, and the Gabite had some distance to close to get to the Fennekin.
"Coward!" Boss roared, and charged again. Faster than the first time. Again, Oscar brought him to the ground and Embered his as he went down, using the attack to give him time to retreat from the irate dragon. The Gabite looked a little worse for wear, but Oscar could tell he wasn't doing any serious damage. His move endurance was much higher here than in the dungeon, but after a few minutes of this dance Oscar could tell he would tire out well before the Gabite was defeated, he needed to switch tactics. He looked to the far side of the plateau and saw a few large, Gabite-sized boulders on the ground. They would have to do. He made his way to the rocks, tripping and confounding the Gabite's movement every step of the way. He turned around after passing two of the boulders, giving one a small tug with his telekinesis to make sure he could move it. He could, good. He turned to face Boss and taunted the dragon, hopefully it wouldn't catch on to his plan.
"I did not know dragons ate dirt. You learn something new every day!" He quipped with a smirk.
"I'll kill you!" Hmm, perhaps that wasn't the best idea. Still, the taunt worked and Boss did not notice Oscar pick up one of the boulders, rage blinding him to everything but the smug, cowardly Fennekin. Just as Boss passed the threshold of the boulders, Oscar flung the one he had been holding and pinned Boss between the two stones. The he smashed the dragon again, and again, and again. This looked like it hurt, and blood was coming out of the dragon's nose and mouth. Oscar had to progressively move closer to the dragon as he did this, the strain of moving the heavy rock rapidly depleting his power. But if he kept this up, maybe he could do this, he might actually win! When he was within a meter, the Gabite looking like he was about to pass out. Oscar straining under the effort, Boss suddenly lashed out with both wingarms and grabbed Oscar around the neck. Concentration broken, the Gabite was free.
Boss squeezed the fox and Oscar could already see his vision going black. He let out an Ember, but the short range, focused kind he first learned to use. The blue, torch-like lance of fire focused on the Gabites right wingarm, and after a few seconds the scales there started to blister and crack. Boss yelled and dropped Oscar, but turned to reaction into a dropkick at the last moment and sent the Fennekin hurtling towards a nearby boulder. The kick and impact had cracked ribs, and Oscar did not have any time to recover before Boss was on him, relentlessly pounding his head. After a few seconds of this, Oscar was unconscious. Boss kept hitting, and it was only the intercession of the Luxio that saved Oscar's life, as the electric Pokémon gently soothed the dragon and moved him away.
The Sableye moved to Oscar and applied the minimum aid to make sure he would live without permanent injury, but nothing more. After a few moments, Oscar was conscious but wishing he wasn't. Ribs fixed, concussion gone, but still sore all over. He was led by the Sableye back to the main group, limping all the way. Boss looked at Oscar with disgust in his eyes, but did not move to harm him further. Sableye tended to Boss next, and pulled out a potion that healed the Gabite completely. Oscar noted that while certainly hurt, the Gabite was nowhere close to passing out as he had thought earlier. Apparently even blinded by rage, the dragon was clever enough to feign severe injury to get the Fennekin to lower his guard.
Not too shabby. The Espeon thought to Oscar. If you were evolved you might even have beaten him.
Thanks.
"Haven't seen the Boss get that mad in a while. That thing with the rocks was clever, kid. Make sure you knock him out next time, though. He won't go easy on you again." The Luxio said to Oscar.
"It did not feel like he was going easy at the end there."
"Nah, you just have a glass jaw, is all."
"Treecko!" Boss barked, "You're up! You better not be a runner too."
"That's my cue." The Luxio said, walking off. "C'ya later newbie." He left with Boss and Gaia to the center of the plateau to start the fight. Oscar tried to mentally ask Gaia if she saw what she needed to in his fight, but found himself cut off by the Espeon.
Uh ah! No cheating.
What kind of outlaws are you? He teased.
The kind that like a good fight. Now shush and watch.
Like before, Luxio explained the rules and called the fight to start.
Both combatants charged straight at each other, getting a cheer from the crowd. Gaia opened with a Quick Attack into Pound, but Boss blocked her and followed up with a Slash. She ducked under the Slash and followed up with a jumping uppercut that connected as she Double Kicked off the Gabite's chest to make some distance. He caught her mid leap and slammed her into the ground before kicking her away.
"Not bad, newbie." He said after she got up, a little worse for wear but not seriously hurt.
"Don't insult me. You're holding back." Boss chuckled for a moment before explaining casually that it's bad practice to kill the new guys.
"I can take it. Fight me!" She yelled, and without further argument Boss obliged. He shot at her almost as fast as a Quick Attack and lashed out with a Dragon Claw. Gaia dodged just as the blow came down and tore the ground up where she had been standing. Without losing time, she let loose a potent Bullet Seed point blank before he could recover. He grunted at the impact but pushed on to close with her and let out a series of Slash attacks. She dodged these, but the last Slash had been a feint into a Tackle which caught Gaia off guard. She was launched 10 meters across the ground and bounced ungracefully a few times before recovering. Boss was right on her, keeping her on the defensive. He was aggressive, and consistently mixed up and feinted his moves to keep her unbalanced. When she did land a hit, it did not do enough damage to shift the initiative of the fight. The fight was over, it just hadn't been called yet.
Boss landed a brutal Slash on Gaia's chest, and the Treecko whimpered as she fell to the ground, bleeding deeply from the cut.
Boss was panting a bit from the nonstop onslaught, but aside from a few scratches and bruises looked unharmed. "Good show, newbie. But we're done here." He motioned for Sableye to tend to their wounds before he was interrupted.
"I'm, hah, not done yet." She stood up to face Boss. "Fight me, Sandeater." She said with a smirk.
"You're asking for it you little-" he was interrupted by another Quick Attack, this time paired with an Absorb. She hit boss in the jaw just as he was speaking, dislocating it. He roared and jumped back to buy time to set his jaw.
"So he does retreat." She taunted again, a smile more excited than smug. The Absorb had stopped the worst of the bleeding, but she still wasn't in top shape. Boss grunted and charged, but this time stopping abruptly and sweeping with his tail. Gaia moved to jump over it, but was a fraction of a second too late. She was unsteady when she landed back on her feet, and Boss tackled her to the ground, mounting her. Pinned under his weight, she could only hold her arms up to block the Slashes that were coming in rapid succession now. She would occasionally let out a Bullet Seed from her prone position to disrupt the attacks to buy time to get up, but she simply lacked the size and strength to capitalize on the openings. She kept getting hit, and what strength she had was waning. She had this, she had this. If she was only a little larger, a little stronger, there was so much more she could do. Frustration built up in her, and with a cry she let out the largest Bullet Seed of her life as she was enveloped in a white light.
Grovyle had the strength to capitalize on the momentarily dazed Boss, and bucked to launch the dragon off her. Boss was quick to recover, and laughed when he saw the newly evolved Pokémon before him.
"Good, that was getting boring."
"Let's fix that boredom then." They charged and began the fight anew.
The second bout of the fight did not last as long as the first. Gaia, while able to hurt Boss with her moves now, was still too tired, too injured, and too unused to her longer limbs and different timings to pull out a victory. With a final, vicious strike to the back of the head, Boss knocked Gaia out and she simply slumped to the ground. Pokemon were tough, and Oscar knew Gaia should be able to walk away from such a strike, but he was still concerned until she unsteadily got back up to her feet after the Sableye's ministrations.
Boss again got a spritz of potion to heal up, and he motioned for Gaia to be healed with it as well. Oscar couldn't help but be a little offended, where was his potion? Fine, he'd do it himself with Wish later.
"That was a great fight, Grovyle. I haven't had that much fun in a while! I think you will fit in great here." Boss said as he pat her on the back. Gaia laughed and offered he claw to shake.
"Call me Gaia, and same to you. I haven't battled much, but that was the best one a had." After they shook, she gestured to herself. "Obviously."
"Obviously." Luxio agreed, and congratulated her on her evolution. "But what do you mean you haven't battled much? You were that close to evolving, you must have had a lot of experience."
"No, my first real battle was last week. Before that I mostly, well just sparred I guess you could say." The others thought she was full of it, but Stumpy stepped in to explain the situation. She was an outlaw before, be focused on studying things. It was only when an accident landed her and her partner on the Air continent that they had the opportunity to battle.
"Well!" Boss said after hearing the story. "We won't ask you to do any dumb stuff like that here. We know how to have some fun. And speaking of fun, two newly evolved team members calls for a celebration, don't you think? Back to the ruins, you lot!" He commanded, and the rest of the outlaws followed. Cinder and Oscar trailed behind, both in a mood.
"Heh," Cinder chuckled. "Two evolutions in almost as many days. Wild huh?"
"They were old for being unevolved and had experienced very tough fights. It makes sense." Oscar replied, oblivious.
"Is that all Pokémon really care about? Hitting things harder than last time and getting into fights? Is this," he gestured to his bruised body, visible through the fur "all there is to it?"
"Yeah, basically." Cinder responded. They walked in silence for a moment before seeing the celebration already underway in the lobby of the Pokémon center.
"Firewater?" Oscar asked.
"Yeah." Cinder replied.