Chapter 16: Hardcore Training

Eric awoke with an itchy warm feeling originating from right above his nose. Luckily on this day Eric did not sit up and rub his eyes as he normally would. By simply opening his eyelids Eric exposed himself to a roar of violent yellows, murderous reds, and deranged oranges flickering above his face. When the flames finally stopped flowing, Eric looked over to the door leading out to the hallway. Sure enough he saw Blaze finishing off a Flamethrower. "I asked you to wake me up, not roast me!" complained Eric, but Blaze knew that he did not care for his tone was jovial and he was grinning.

After a brief shower (Blaze took one too, he was surprisingly tolerant of the water) Eric sat back down on his bed with his PDA and began to make himself a new get-up, starting with the shirt. It was tight, black had a large green slime background, and the words "The Muks" in spiked white font and a picture of a Muk holding a guitar on top of it. Though he did not revel in stereotypes, Eric admitted that he might come off as 'emo' if he made the pants tight too. He copied the pants from Roxie's original outfit for him and made them a bit baggier, he liked them more like that anyway. He put a key chain with the same Muk on his shirt at the end and he gave himself a black cap with the same Muk on the front. Eric decided to wear the cap backwards-fashion on his head.

Just as Eric hooked up the PDA to his leather jacket's pocked, Blaze walked into the room with a towel, drying off his lean fighting legs. As he looked up from his drying, Eric's transformation was complete and a look of jealousy spread across Blaze's face; at least that was how Eric interpreted the emotion. While walking up to Blaze with PDA in hand, Eric asked, "Now what's your problem?" Blaze's utensil for communication was not needed, however, because Eric was finally able to read Blaze's body language. "You… like The Muks too and you want stuff like what I have on?" questioned Eric cautiously. Blaze nodded energetically, a first for him Eric noticed. So Eric grabbed a hat identical to the one atop his head out of his backpack and placed it upon Blaze's skull sideways. It made a humorous effect, but Eric dared not to laugh for Blaze most likely would have wrecked him.

Together they walked out into the hallway and happened to pass by Rica. She was accompanied by a gray and black furred wold with a blaring red nose (that reminded Eric oddly of Rudolph the Red Nosed Stantler), uninterested ruby eyes, and a proud head always looking upward as if it was better than anything else. Rica was wearing the same clothes she had the day before though they were slightly ruffled and her eyes were bloodshot. After taking a sip of coffee Rica said, "Head over to the gym, Eric. The team that went to storm the other base last time has returned and since the type match-up obviously did not favor us with the last team we're shipping anyone who was here out. You're going to do a bit of training first though."

"You're not coming, are you? You need some rest, you'll be in no condition to leave today," Eric stated, concerned.

Before walking down the hallway with her Mightyena, Rica said, "I suppose you're right," with a sigh.

Blaze and Eric looked to each other, and both shrugged then continued toward the gymnasium. Blaze led the way because he had memorized the map from the day before. The gym was basic, four battle areas on a wooden and glazed floor, a Pokeball shape painted in black in the middle of each arena, and bleachers to both sides.

Everyone Eric has seen at the cafeteria the day before, including Brittany and Rica's drooling fan-base, had gathered in the center of the room. Some guy with messy, wavy dark brown hair, slightly tired copper eyes covered by large glasses with thin hazel-colored rims, a large baggy red shirt advertising some video game with a Pokemon battle simulator, light blue jeans and plain gray sneakers did a head count. Eric thought the guy looked a bit sloppy, but he was obviously organizing whatever this training was because he said, "Okay, everyone's here now so we can get started. This will be a single elimination tournament based on a style made popular in the Hoenn Region. You'll be mad known of three of the Pokemon that your opponent may use and choose the two that you will use based on that information. I'm sitting this out sine you'll have an even eight without me and I'm the only one qualified to judge these matches." Then he pushed his glasses up with a smile.

"First battle Brittany and Chandler. Go to that area," and he pointed "and share which three Pokemon you plan to use thought this tournament and any other information you feel should be included."

"Eric," Brittany whispered to Eric pleadingly.

"Huh… Oh!" Eric exclaimed before tossing the Pokeballs of the S-Series Pokemon to Brittany. "Wait… Won't you still be down one Pokemon?" pondered Eric.

"Nope. I found one yesterday wandering outside the base. No problem for an expert trainer like me," she said with a wink.

"Second battle Eric and Joshua," said the messy organizer as he pointed to another part of the stadium. A kid with short blonde hair in a plain white button-up dress shirt and tan dress slacks walked in the direction that the other guy had pointed in. Eric followed him and they met up at one end of their designated area.

"I have Medicham, a Lombre, and a Golduck. What about you?" Joshua asked casually.

"I have a Combusken," Which I obviously can't use since all of you Pokemon have a type advantage over it, Eric thought. ", a Kirlia, but its Psychic and Dark type, and a Tropius and that one is a Shadow Pokemon."

"…A Shadow Pokemon? You must already be on missions to have one those. I have a feeling that this is going to be an interesting battle…" Joshua did not give Eric a chance to reply before walking over to the opposite side of the arena. He took two Pokeballs that somehow clung to his shining black belt off and said, "Well, choose your two." Eric took out Antoinette's and S: 029's Pokeballs from his backpack. Each threw out their Pokeballs as Blaze sat down next to Eric's feet with a sigh. Out of Joshua's Pokeballs materialized a Medicham and a Lombre, some of the oddest Pokemon Eric had seen. The Medicham had a slim gray body, bold red lips, odd baggy red shorts (or was it part of the Pokemon's body?) with a yellow point on the knee, and an odd red hat (that also could have been part of its body) with three yellow points on the forehead similar to the ones on the knees. The Lombre most resembled a frog, but it had a giant lily pad on its head, had an oddly lanky body, and had a bill not dissimilar to a Psyduck's. Joshua did not waste a second after Eric's Pokemon appeared. He turned to his Medicham and said, "Try using Ice Punch on the Tropius!"

The Medicham grinned and pushed out its fist. A light blue aura curled over the hard for a couple seconds, then a solid layer of ice was left over the hand and the aura disappeared. The Medicham rushed up at its opponent, but the Tropius stayed where it was, not even flinching. Noticing that an Ice Punch would be double super effective against a flying and grass Pokemon, Eric screeched to his Tropius, "S: 029, Shadow Dart on the Medicham!" The Shadow Pokemon, however, continued to stick in its spot. That was until it looked like Medicham was a bout to make contact; that was when the Tropius rocketed into the air, avoiding the Medicham's attack. "Psychic to send the Medicham back," Eric said to Antoinette and she took telekinetic control of the Medicham, hovered it back to its corner on the arena, snapped, and let the Medicham come plummeting down to its doom.

The Medicham recovered quickly, however, and its trainer looked at both of his Pokemon curiously. "That Kirlia could be a nuisance… both of you, Dynamic Punch on it!" So both obeyed, and both ran up to Antoinette best they could, but Lombre was probably more used to water because it dawdled on slowly. Medicham made a swing and a miss; leaving Lombre wide open to slug Antoinette. As she landed next to Eric, Tropius swooped down at Medicham with a strong purple mist pointing like a dart building around it. Just as when Medicham was about to make contact with Tropius, when they were close to make contact again, it flew back to its place next to Eric. The large beam of shadow energy, however, crashed into Medicham's head and sent it wobbling back to its trainer.

By this point, Eric was feeling like an idiot. He left Antoinette open to an attack that inflicted confusion just when he realized that he had an attack up his sleeve that would have worked much more effectively on Medicham. Oh well, it was just going to have to be a risk he had to take, since he could not swap out Pokemon. "Antoinette, Shadow Ball on Medicham," he asked of her. She seemed to be following through well enough; she held out her palms and it looked as if energy from the room was being drained into a gain ball in them, but instead of launching the sphere at Medicham she smashed it into her own face like a clown with a pie. Blaze sighed and shook his head, but there was nothing else Eric could do.

"Medicham, try another Ice Punch on Tropius. Lombre, Astonish the Kirlia!" Lombre disappeared in a flash of smoke while Medicham frosted over another fist and ran toward the Shadow Pokemon. Lombre appeared before Antoinette and poked it quickly then ran back to its spot. The Kirlia was thoroughly surprised, surprised enough not to be able to attack on its turn.

Eric knew he should have Tropius Dart again, but the description that the PDA had given to Shadow Spore left much to be desired and Eric was interested. "S: 029, Shadow Spore when the Medicham is close!" Eric shrilled out to the plant Pokemon. Just as the ice scraped Tropius's leaf-wing, Tropius emitted a small cloud of dark spores. Medicham's face instantly turned green and it fell over, knocked out from poison.

Joshua gloomily returned his Pokemon in pale red light and said, "Ah… try a Hydro Pump on the Kirlia!" The Lombre opened its mouth and spit a long hard stream toward Antoinette, but at such a great distance accuracy was not guaranteed and the attack missed.

Then Eric saw his shot to finish it all off. "Antoinette, Psychic! S: 029, Shadow Rush!" Antoinette held the Lombre up in the air, flailing, while rammed into it head on. Joshua returned the Pokemon without checking to see how it was and told the judge that he was conceding the match. Eric also recalled his Pokemon after telling them that they did well. Eric and Joshua met up in the center of the gym to shake hands and Joshua said, "I look forward to another battle later…"

It seemed that everyone else's matches were over before Joshua had thrown the match and they had all been watching Eric's match from the bleachers. He noticed that some were at a healing machine and took his Pokemon there too. He hoped that no one had gleaned any battle style off of that, but then again he wasn't sure that he had one, mostly he just stuck to weaknesses and improvised. He was sure that someone would poke holes in that if they had the chance; not good. Eric too worried to notice that the judge had called his name and that Blaze was dragging him toward until he noticed that his opponent was Brittany. "I already know your three," and she paused to yawn "So the one I captured yesterday was a Girafarig."

"And I thought this would be easy if I just slugged your Pokemon with Blaze," Eric commented; Girafarig was the only Psychic and Normal Pokemon yet known. Even though part of it did have a disadvantage to Blaze, it was balanced out by its second type and it had an advantage if it was using a Psychic attack on Blaze. The advantage that he had was worth it, Eric decided, and said to Blaze, "Head on in, bud," with a smile and tossed out S: 029's Pokeball. From Brittany's side there came that puffball with a whip of hair on its forehead called Jigglypuff and the Girafarig. For the most part it looked like a normal giraffe; it had a long neck and that up-side-down pear-shaped head with to small hors that looked rather like antennae at the top. It, however, had a white face, red ripples down its spine, was colored yellow in the front with dark brown dots and bark brown in the back with yellow dots. In addition, its tail was actually a head, which very much resembled a Chain Chomp… if it was nearly one thousand times smaller. It was astounding; Eric had heard of Girafarig before, but it was nearly unconceivable up close. He wanted to remember it, so he took out his sketchbook and a pencil.

"Huh? What are you doing?" remarked Brittany, expecting Eric to bark off an attack to begin.

"I'm sketching your Girafarig; I'm a Pokemon Watcher," said Eric as he started on the tail.

"This isn't an art gallery, it's a battle!" whined Brittany before turning to her Pokemon. "Let's take care of that Combusken before it becomes a nuisance! S: 007, Shadow Roll! Girafarig, Flash!" The Jigglypuff curled itself into a ball and rolled with out moving on the floor, gaining momentum. With no warning it suddenly blasted at high speeds toward Blaze, it could prove to be a devastating attack. Then, suddenly, all Eric could see was white light lowing forcefully throughout the entire gymnasium. When it finally dimmed, Eric saw that the light did not originate from his opponent's Pokemon, but Blaze… Blaze had evolved. He had more than doubled in size, giving him a much meaner demeanor. The feathers on most of his body were dark, almost blood red and the feathers on the bottom of his leg were orange, the opposite from before. His eyes had changed from a fierce yellow to a concentrated yellow, his beak extended out in two directions, making a V in hi forehead and his head feathers had turned gray and grown longer, making an x symbol on his chest and an upside down.

Eric was so surprised by the change that he forgot that he muttered "C-counter," when Blaze put his right foot out. Jigglypuff ran right into the leg, and Blaze winced from the pain, but with a simple tap of the balloon Pokemon it flew back to its spot twice as fast as it had rolled over to Blaze and landed there with a crash. Eric did not see Girafarig do anything, but Blaze was starting to wobble so he figured that his opponent had mentally blinded Blaze. "Man, you evolved at just the right time Blaze! Okay Tropius, lets see if we can't get Jigglypuff out of this with a Shadow Spore!" Tropius let the purple shadow spores seep out of his body again and made a strong wind with its wings, sending the spares floating right into the opposing Shadow Pokemon's nose. It seemed unaffected, however, and then Eric thought that while Shadow Pokemon had obvious advantages in battle, they would have to have weaknesses, such as their attacks not working well on other Shadow Pokemon.

"I guess all cute guys are idiots," groaned Brittany with a dramatic pseudo sigh. "Oh well, all the better for me to win this. S: 007, Disable the overgrown poultry!" The little powder puff must have been purified enough the day before while battling the Girafarig to regain one of its attacks. It made a furious waddle over to the Blaziken, but he put his foot out again and tripped Jigglypuff so that rolled gently back to its spot; Disable was not well known for being an extremely accurate attack. "If I can't completely stop you from attacking, I might as well push chance in my favor. Girafarig, Flash again." Once again, nothing was seen, but Blaze became even tipsier.

Even so, Eric was not at all troubled to say to Blaze, "Lets give the Jigglypuff a Sky Uppercut!" Blaze no longer needed to run over to his opponents to strike, he leaped to the opposing Jigglypuff, picked it up, tossed it in the air, and gave it an amazingly swift uppercut that sent it nearly into the ceiling. It came down floating like a parachute, but Brittany knew that it was over for it and returned it. Eric realized then that Blaze had ridded the battle of the Pokemon it had an advantage over, so it did not matter if his attacks would hit or not. Still having curiosity for Shadow Spore's full effects, Eric asked for his Pokemon to try it out again. So the Tropius did as it had before, and the Girafarig gladly gobbled up the gas, both ends of it; Eric figured that the spores smelled appetizing so that it lured in Pokemon easily. Its tail-head's eyes turned pink, and in the shape of hearts while the other head had swirls in the eyes; both sides' heads were green. Poison, confusion, and infatuation, not bad, Eric thought.

"Oh, not good!" whimpered Brittany while she took a moment to think. "Gah… I need more time… Protect!" Then, suddenly, a giant white field appeared around Girafarig; unfortunately it imploded and shards of it fell onto the Pokemon, it must have attacked itself in confusion.

"Blaze, take it down with a Fire Blast!" Eric figured that if he was going to have a Pokemon with lowered accuracy he might as well try an attack that required luck in the first place. "S: 029, Shadow Whip!" While Blaze shot out a blast of fire that nearly mauled Brittany instead of her Pokemon and pair of vines came from Tropius and speed toward its opponent. One vine flipped its opponent into the air while the other slammed it back down to the spot where it had been before. Then one eye on both heads squinted, most likely because the poison was setting in… or maybe because it was in great pain from being slammed into the floor.

"Psybeam on the Tropius!" Brittany blurted, not having anything better to do. The Girafarig stood up, but did not move for its back end seemed to be gazing deeply into Tropius's eyes. Without Eric's instruction, Blaze blasted out another Fire Blast, which would have barely scorched the giraffe Pokemon's side had not it wobbled right into the attack at the last second. Then the Pokemon just fell over with X's replacing the swirls and hearts in its eyes. Brittany quietly returned her Pokemon and gruffly told the tournament organizer about her loss. She stormed over to Eric and said, "Good… match," through her teeth.

"Well that sounds amazingly sincere," Eric sarcastically whipped as he returned S:029. He saw Blaze nod is agreement, then smile. It was odd to see a Blaziken smile, Eric thought, for he had always thought of them as the ultimate hardened fighters. Another odd thing that he noticed about Blaze was that because his shape became a little more… human-like, the hat did not look so ridiculous on him.

Eric just barely made out Brittany saying "Sorry, I'm not so great with the sportsmanship…" through the roar of an attack from the other battle. "Usually I just wail out with my full power on opponents and shove it in their faces. Now that I'm with the 'good guys' I guess I have to 'reform' though," she pouted.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get used to it," replied Eric, almost completely unconfident. Blaze tried to hold back a chuckle as an awkward silence broke out and Brittany just walked away. "… Weird," commented Eric as he looked over to Blaze. "Hey, what's so funny?" he demanded. Blaze just shrugged as if to tell Eric never to mind. Eric aggravated Blaze over it until they came upon the healing machine, but Blaze said nothing else.

Eric had just set up for his next battle with by far the most powerful opponent he had met. In her possession there were two ghost Pokemon, a Gengar and a Dusclops and an Ice and Psychic Pokemon, Jynx. The downsides? Eric noticed the obvious; the ghost Pokemon would probably trump Antoinette while the Jynx could easily take care of Blaze and Tropius. If this was not enough, each of them were capable of learning multiple attacks not of their type that would deal super effective damage to his Pokemon. Eric had Antoinette against the ghosts, Blaze against Jynx, and Tropius against anything. It was a tough decision, but seeing that Blaze had just evolved, Eric wanted to help purify Tropius more and wanted to get experience toward evolving Antoinette. His opponent, an eleven-year-old girl in what looked like a school uniform with a long blue shirt and how had long silver hair and forest green eyes, chose Gengar and Jynx.

The Gengar was oddly shaped, but for some reason the word ghastly dwarf came to Eric's mind. It was small and pudgy like a dwarf, but the likeness ended there. It had large bright red eyes, a toothy smirk, large pointed ears, and ridges flowing down its back into a pointed tail. The Jynx was even more disturbing with its blobby, Ditto-like face, large red lips, short silver arms with pudgy purple hands at the ends, and an odd long red dress. What was worst, however, was the blonde bleached hair because Eric could not tell if it was natural hair or a wig. They were not ideal companions for a young girl, but certainly powerful guardians.

They were able to show their force at the beginning of the battle; the little girl said, "Okay Sprite, lets get it started with an Ice Punch on the Tropius!" with a giggle. "Kish, blow it away with a Blizzard!"

Smirking, Eric called out, "S: 029, Shadow Dart!" What Eric had forgotten was that if his opponents were faster, the attacks would hit anyway. The Jynx quickly spilled out a fury of sharp shards of ice that scratched against Tropius and blurred its vision. While it was disabled, the Gengar flew into the hailstorm and smacked S: 029 with an icy fist. When the blizzard finally subsided, Eric saw that his Tropius was limp and cold on the floor. With a sigh, Eric returned his Pokemon. "We're still in this with a bit of luck! Antoinette, Crunch the Gengar!" Antoinette somehow grabbed hold of the creature made of ectoplasm and sank her teeth into it. Normally a physical attack like that would not work on a ghost, but dark attacks were special, they had some quality that just tore through ghosts. Gengar, however, looked as if it was in a cakewalk.

Then Eric realized that there was nothing he could do, the Gengar would have to greatly out-level Antoinette to glance of an attack like that. "I forfeit!" Eric cried, not wanting to see Antoinette crushed like Tropius was. His opponent just nodded and returned her Jynx. While Eric sighed and returned Antoinette, the little girl wandered up to Eric.

"S-sorry about that…" she mumbled as her Gengar 'sat' on her head. It was really floating still, but right above the young lady's head.

Eric looked down at the girl and grinned. "Never apologize for winning." Just then Blaze held up a piece of paper on which he had written, "Especially when you far outclass someone." Eric groaned and said, "Ignore him. You really did deserve it."

"B-but it really wasn't fair. I only won because my Pokemon are stronger… you probably had a better strategy," whined the young'un.

"You had the better strategy outside of battle though. You can't have been training that long since you're pretty young, yet your Pokemon are the most powerful out of any of ours'."

"I guess I did have a pretty good training for these guys… My brother taught me how to train though."

"Your brother must be pretty good at brining up Pokemon then. I bet he's a pretty good breeder."

"He trained the Swalot that drums in The Muks"

"Whaaaaaaat!"

Eric would have asked the girl more, but the nerdy guy, it turned out that his name was Allan (Eric heard someone talking to him during his battle.), said, "Congrats on the win Kitty. I think you'll get something by the time this is all over, but I'm not really sure. Either way, everyone should just leave your Pokeballs here. I'll heal your Pokemon and you guys can grab some lunch. Then we're heading out."

Everyone handed Allan his or her Pokeballs and he looked rather ridiculous trying to balance himself under that pile. "Blaze, could you please help him? I'll grab some lunch for both of you." Blaze gave Eric an annoyed look, but he walked off and grabbed the pile out of Alan's hands. Eric shook his head, already confused by this day in general. All he wanted to do was grab lunch and get along with their invasion of the Red Base.

When Eric finally grabbed his lunch and looked around, not everyone was sitting at the same table as they had before. Nine more people were present too, though there were only ten people new to Eric; Rica was absent. Seeing Kitty and Brittany sitting together, Eric made his way to their table. When he sat down, Kitty greeted him by saying, "Oh hi Eric," with a smile while Brittany played with her mashed potatoes and a spoon.

"Howdy Kitty. Hey, do you know why all these people are here?"

"Oh, they were the group that came back."

"Ouch, no wonder they all look so… out of it. I hope we're not looking like that in two days."

"Don't worry. Everyone had good battles today so I'm sure we're all strong enough to make it."

"So you were saying back after our battle…"

"My brother? Yea, he trained that Swalot, and they still get together every once in a while. We even have some tickets for their next show, but we don't have any friends that can go and our parents think they're too old for it so…"

"No way! You're gonna give ME tickets?"

Kitty nodded happily and looked over to Brittany, "And you too, if you want to go." Brittany just responded by nodding and sticking a spoonful of spuds into her mouth. Eric was about to ask Brittany what the heck she was being so shy about when Blaze and Alan, with all the Pokeballs, entered and Sprite appeared next to Kitty's tray and started eating her food.

As Blaze pulled up a seat, sat at the table, and made disappointed faces at his food, Eric told him, "Guess what! Kitty has some tickets for a Muks' concert and she's hooking us up with some!"

Blaze looked up from his food quizzically from his food and right at Kitty. "…Aren't you a bit young to be into them?" he asked while sticking his fork though a piece of Tauros steak. Eric and Brittany stared at Blaze in total awe; how did he start speaking!

"Oh, I meant to tell you earlier when Eric said I was young too; I'm thirteen… I just look really little… and I'm shy at first." Now the other three were staring at Kitty, trying to figure out how she made herself look almost four years younger.

"This is getting way too weird," muttered Brittany as she got up, took her Pokeballs from Alan, and walked out of the cafeteria. Once Brittany was gone, the other three got down to talking. Blaze's vocal chords changed during evolution; it was not normal for a Blaziken, but it was the only way it could be explained. Kitty told Eric that all Pokemon were admitted free to the concert as long as trainers with tickets accompanied them. So Eric could take someone else too, hopefully Roxie.

Kitty was not all excited about talking about her appearance, but both Blaze and Kitty jumped in when Eric asked about Brittany's newly developed bashful nature. "I think she likes you," both of them said; though Blaze said it in a mocking, deep voice while Kitty tried whispering it to him shyly. Eric's faced flared red and he cupped his hand over his lips in astonishment. Did their chatting yesterday come out as flirting? What about their battle today; did she really think there was something between them from that? Worse yet, what would he tell Roxie?

Within the hour, the group of nine was out the door, freshly supplied and into a thick forest. Eric noticed that this was probably western Orre, because most of the rest of Orre was a complete desert. Blaze confirmed this by flying up into the trees and looking around. Sure enough there were enormous trees all around blocking view of the other team's base and oddly enough there were mountains surrounding the whole area. Everyone now knew why he or she had to be teleported in (or flown in some cases).

It was clear than Allan had been left in charge by Rica, he told everyone where to go, carried all the maps, and made sure everyone was okay as they traveled along. For all his skills, Eric wondered how adept Allan was in battle; he was somewhat disappointed that he would not be able to see for himself since they were on the same team. It was even more frustrating because Eric had not even had a chance to glance at one of Allan's Pokemon! How was he supposed to trust this guy in battle if they had some sort of confrontation with the other team?

When finally they came upon a clearing that was not overpopulated by insect and plant Pokemon, the group decided to set up camp. Everyone was supplied with a tent and Allan helped anyone who could not figure it out for him or herself. Quite a few people went out to collect firewood, and one poor soul was almost poisoned by a territorial Ariados who sprang out of a bush. Blaze started up the fire by unwrapping one of the bandages on his wrist part way, let the flames fly onto the wood, and wrapped the bandages back on. Everyone gathered around the fire to eat some disgustingly salty Pidgy jerky and a handful of sweet trail mix, but there was not much chitchat. Everyone was exhausted from walking through the dense, dark, depressing forest, keeping an eye out for dangerous Pokemon, and in some cases tripping over some critters.

Bedtime finally came and Eric told Blaze that he would have to return to his Pokeball, that there was no enough room in the tent for the both of them. Blaze protested incessantly, and Eric finally gave in because he figured that it was cold in the forest and that Blaze would supply more body heat than a person could. The duo arranged their tent so that they could lay down and rest without making physical contact with each other. It was relatively quiet, but Eric was restless and he could not figure out why for the longest time. Eventually he realized it, Blaze was such an unoriginal name for a Blaziken! Eric sat up and poked his companion in the stomach while asking, "Are you still awake?"

"I wouldn't be if you would leave me alone."

"I was just thinking that your nickname is a little… lame…"

"I was wondering when you would say something about it. Have any ideas?"

"Well… one, but I swear that you're going to hate it."

"Get on with it then."

"Chick Magnet?" Eric suggested shyly.

"Oi… Okay, but there's one condition."

"Are you serious?" Eric asked with a snicker.

"Sure, why not? But you have to call me Mag for short."

"Fine with me!"

So it was a peaceful night in the cramped little tent, but it made Eric wonder what he was even trying to do here. He did not feel like he had down anything of great significance for his group in the last two days, which irked him. At least it really was Blaze's name giving him the insomnia and not this; otherwise he would have been up for hours longer.

Comments:

-Sorry its been so long guys, but at least its finally here, right! XD

-Yes, I do believe that the breaks are still necessary even if I'm not adding in Roxie's half of the story as I originally planned.

-When I thought this chapter out, it sounded too much to me like filler… so I decided that with all this battling that Blaze/Mag was doing, he should evolve. That makes it important and not filler. 0

-I hope you guys don't care that Mag can talk now, or about his name change. w