Ch 23: Scalding Springs
Rocky Road ended up stretching throughout the northern mountains of Wintervale for quite a ways, making it so that Marvin and I were forced to camp several nights in the wilderness of the desolate mountainland filled with malnourished, primal pokemon struggling to find enough food to survive daily. As I'd learned long ago, I always had at least one pokemon stay awake and keep guard while others slept, and there was a rotation to keep things fair. I got a lot of training on my pokemon as well, especially after applying Marvin's tactics to push my pokemon to go beyond what was expected. After Tropius pulled out a win against a wild Hitmonlee and Sudowoodo, the others on my team each had their shining moments.
Drapion had fended off a prickly Cacturne that had attempted to rob us of our food in the night, batting the cactus pokemon away with a singular Poison Jab and sending it flying off into the midnight air. Even Haunter impressed Marvin during a battle that occured out of nowhere - while walking along the beaten path, Marvin in the lead, he had stepped on something incredibly sharp, piercing through his shoe even and almost stabbing into his foot - come to find Marvin had stepped on a sleeping Ferrothorn that had burrowed in the gravel. Haunter had been released from my ball instantly and he fired off a well-aimed Hypnosis that put the Ferrothorn to sleep, and Haunter bombarded the steel wall with Shadow Balls until the Ferrothorn was unconscious before he could even wake up. Marvin had a slight limp after that encounter, but he was perfectly fine otherwise.
It took about two weeks for Marvin and I to finally reach the end of Rocky Road, with plenty of encounters and battles against wild pokemon occuring in between and for the most part - I was pretty satisfied with the amount of battles all my team got in, and I noticed an increase in all of their reflexes, speed, and damage output on other pokemon. Drapion even learned how to fire Toxic Spikes from his stingers. I hardly got to see Marvin's pokemon in action other than his trusted Haxorus, which was noticeably colder and more standoffish to me than it had been as an Axew back in the cave outside Peltagrow, despite Marvin becoming so much more friendly since then. I didn't think too much about it as I was preoccupied with ensuring my own pokemon were doing well to care about Marvin's Haxorus and any potential angry feelings it might hold toward me for whatever reason.
The end of Rocky's Road's path trailed off from descending down the base of the furthest mountain to the east, with Rocky Road merging down into a ravine of water that was bubbling like it was on a heated stove - it was a hideaway of steaming hot springs, pools of warm water frothing with steam and all the more appealing since it was so out of the way of any kind of civilization, and there was no one around to take advantage of it but the two of us.
"It's called Scalding Springs," Marvin announced as I took in the appealing sight of hot water after being denied a bath for two weeks. "Very few people know about it. It remains the temperature it does because all the pokemon living in this habitat have naturally learned to use Scald in their movepool, and it's just become a part of their ecosystem for all of the water pokemon in the area to constantly Scald inside the hot springs to keep the temperature up, along with the natural heat from the earth, making it a perfect combination of heated water with multiple sources. It leads out to the ocean but right in this spot is where it's perfect."
"It's pretty amazing," I admitted, catching the sight of a bouncy Azumarill skipping along the ravine, pausing to Scald into the steaming pool of water, and then diving in to enjoy the warmth.
Wanting to get up closer, I asked Marvin if it'd be cool to head down to the ravine and take a jump in the water ourselves. He was game for it, so the two of us made our way down the last slippery turns of Rocky Road and at last made our way into the comforting steam emanating off of the Scalding Springs.
"How much further is Goldenleaf from here?" I asked.
"Well, to be real with you, I just had to make sure we stopped at Scalding Springs 'cause, like, it's probably the number one most relaxing spot in Ilragorn, bro. But, honestly, just at the end of the ravine, there's one more area we have to cross and then - bam - we're in Goldenleaf."
"Okay. So at the end of Scalding Springs, at the end of this ravine, what's there? Another Route?"
Marvin smiled nervously, as if he didn't quite want to answer. "Well, funny thing, it's actually called the Restricted Zone."
"What?"
"Well, some people call it the Restricted Zone, some call it No Man's Land. Point is - it's kind of an outlawed land where people aren't really supposed to be, civilian or trainer. Most people actually get to Goldenleaf through the buses or the main routes, but I took it upon us to take advantage of the fact that we're both strong trainers who probably wouldn't have much trouble with Rocky Road, Scalding Springs, or No Man's Land. So I took the journey that most trainers on this island probably couldn't manage - I just want to see what's over there - there's rumors that it's a legendary pokemon, maybe even tons of them, dude! There's bound to be some unique pokemon there if it's banned to the public."
The truth of the situation was a little disturbing, that Marvin intended the two of us to head into an unknown area very likely filled with dangerous wild pokemon. Having been trapped in a dangerous situation with Marvin Bloom before and watching him run away into the darkness to leave me to my own devices, I could say confidently that while I liked Marvin and he was winning me over, he wasn't the most reliable trainer I'd want with me in a battle.
"I mean it's restricted for a reason, though, right?" I said, unsure.
"That's just because these selfish government types want all the top pokemon to themselves, dude."
His arguments were flawed, but there was some truth to his beliefs. And there likely was something of great interest in No Man's Land - whether it was a pokemon or not remained to be seen, but at this point I had claimed two out of four badges to my name and had three very impressive pokemon on my belt. I was feeling more and more confident in my battling abilities every day.
Just as we reached the bubbling waters edge, the water rippled magnificently as the great blue head of a Lapras popped out of the water, though what usually contained a passive, pretty face instead displayed the face of a pokemon that was very much a fish out of water: this Lapras looked lost, disoriented, and like many of the pokemon we'd passed along Rocky Road - malnourished. Lapras was thrashing about wildy, the way a person in a pool with a hungry Sharpedo would probably swim.
"Whoa," Marvin commented, stopping short of approaching the waters edge. "What's up her butt?"
Thinking quickly, I tried to unravel what the situation was. Lapras looked very hot and uncomfortable, glistening with her own sweat rather than with natural hot spring water. At first, I thought she was being attacked by some other pokemon in the water but after a full 60 seconds of Lapras just having a panic attack along the surface of the water, I realized nothing was attacking this confused Lapras. It's eyes weren't even all white like those of the Unfezants, so I knew she wasn't infected with whatever had gotten to those.
"Lapras doesn't learn Scald!" I shouted triumphantly.
"Uh, what?"
"Lapras doesn't learn Scald!" I repeated as if that held all the answers. "You said all the pokemon in this ecosystem have Scald in their movepool in order to survive here!"
"Yeah...and?"
"Lapras can't learn Scald," I said, memorizing it from my many hours of reading up on pokemon knowledge. And here it was, helping me figure out what was happening in a horribly confusing situation. "She must have gotten swept out here to the ravine from the ocean. She can't survive in these hot springs. Her body's designed for the open ocean, not scalding hot water."
Without thinking about what I was doing, I snatched a pokeball off my belt and released Haunter, who had the best chance to make this so smoothly.
"Haunter, Hypnosis to calm her down," I said.
Haunter floated on over the bubbling waters to approach the crazed Lapras in order to best get off his 60% accurate sleep move. Haunter did as obeyed, firing off the small yellow hoops that would put Lapras to sleep, but Lapras dodged them long before they got close, and retaliated by firing off an Ice Beam from its mouth, which Haunter dodged under while sticking its tongue out.
"Thunderbolt until she goes down!" I tried instead. Sometimes getting damage off was better than getting the opponent statused.
Haunter fired off a series of strong bolts of electricity from his right hand, shocking Lapras and making her scream in pain with each consecutive strike of lightning. When Haunter relented the assault, the white bubbly steam of the hot springs was now replaced with the black ashy smoke of something burning, and Lapras was a charcoal black color instead of her cool blue, not quite knocked unconscious but just at the brink of awareness. Haunter had really hit her good. I used a pokeball on the Lapras, watching the red energy suck up the pokemon as she gave in to the energy of the pokeball with no fighting back, just wanting to rest now. I made a note to insert a hyper potion into the pokeball later on, which I had stocked up on in Wintervale and still had a few of in my backpack.
Marvin congratulated me on my newest capture, though questioned why I would pick a pokemon that would react so childishly to just being in some hot water and wondered how much competitive capability she really had. I didn't bother admitting to him that I had captured the Lapras to save it rather than to fill some kind of niche role on my team for battling purposes. Something about the helplessness in her eyes had struck a chord with me. Whether it reminded me of that girl Eliza in that nightmare, or in my own self, I didn't know. I just had to help her.
Marvin and I then spent the remainder of the day splashing about in the hot springs, soaking up the afternoon sun and commenting on the sights of the numerous water pokemon and their exploits around the ravine. Marvin didn't have any interest in letting his pokemon frolic in the waters, but I figured it wouldn't hurt mine to let my team all have a little break from the constant fighting.
Drapion was struggling to swim in the water while playing ball with Haunter and Tropius, who both preferred to fly over the water rather than submerge themselves in the springs, finding the steam of the water good enough. The "ball" the three were using to pass around was a Corsola that was actually enjoying the game, chuckling along with the pokemon as they swatted her back and forth, attempting to get one of the mons to drop her back into the water. I had used a hyper potion on Lapras and it took several hours and many invites from me along with the team, but Lapras finally slipped into the hot springs after just tanning herself along the waters edge, understandably nervous to get back into the water. Marvin was criticizing the way I went about getting Lapras into the water, saying I should have just pushed her into into the water and forced her to endure it rather than let her do it at her own pace, but by the end of the day Lapras was swimming confidently through Scalding Springs and had a better record of keeping Corsola out of the water than any of the other 3 on my team.