The dark night lit up as Oliver blew a plume of flames towards a shifting shadow swiftly moving to and fro in the dark. The warm glow bathed our surrounding in an orange light for a few seconds before it died back down and the uncomfortable hands of night returned with its unshakeable grip once more. During the day Route 110 was rather uneventful and exceptionally mundane. Now that I look back on it, I kind of miss the long boring hours of heat. I didn't feel as if I was being consistently hounded by some feral beast out to eat me. A rustle to my left slapped me out of my daze and Oliver sent another blast of flame toward the movement. Shadows danced the tango with Oliver's yellow flames as whatever the beast in the bush was devoured by the ferocious and indiscriminant fire.
"We need to stop and rest. Our Pokemon are in dire need at some sleep." Naomi gave her two cents as Ace the Absol panted heavily. She was right of course but the last time we stopped we were attacked by a group of marauding Zigzagoons (now I know why they have goon included into their horrid names).
"Fine, but we need to stay on our toes. I don't feel like having my ankle gnawed at again by some crazy Pokemon." I looked down at my ankle to examine the pin prick bite marks left by an exceptionally brave Zigzagoon expecting something to happen. Oliver collapsed with a sigh and practically hugged the ground with his nonexistent arms. In a matter of seconds a soft whistle like snore could be heard from his direction. Ace eyed a comfy looking spot, circled it once, and then laid down delicately.
"Since our main defense is resting maybe we should call out some more fire power." As she said that Naomi grabbed another Dusk Ball on her waist and released its contents. A small black bird emerged with what appeared to be witch's hat. "This girl right here is Peace the Murkrow." The black bird landed on Naomi's shoulder and squawked.
I grabbed the Ultra Ball on my waist and called out my unfriendly neighborhood Trapinch. He clicked noisily as his eyes or whatever they were adjusted to the dark surroundings.
Naomi and I both sat down back to back to keep us up right. And pretty much gave us a full view of everything on the ground. Trapinch could feel everything going on beneath the ground, and Peace had the view of everything in the air. We were secure. At least that's what we thought.
I shifted uncomfortably on the ground as rocks and sticks poked into my side. Restlessly I pulled myself up and started to stare north towards Mauville. I had only left home a little more than two weeks ago and I felt like I had accomplished so much. I looked towards Oliver and my Trapinch and a slight smile tugged at the corner of my lips. 'What a team we are' I thought to myself. Finally feeling a wave of sleepiness hit, I laid back down on the rather uncomfortable ground not really caring that I was literally sleeping on a mattress of rocks. Slowly, I started to drift into sleep.
Before sleep had full overcome me I noticed that to the side the water started rippling, then started bubbling, then eventually began frothing violently. A head with a star shaped ornament peered out of the agitated water at us. I sleepily dismissed it as a hallucination and returned to my thoughts of sleep. Just then the star started glowing and shot multiple dichromatic stars of blue and green from its headpiece towards us.
Ace, who took the figure of speech – sleeping with one eye open – literally, hopped up and took the Swift down with a well aimed Ice Beam. The stars froze solid then burst, littering the ground with broken ice. The beast brought itself completely out of the water onto the winding path. I didn't need my Pokedex to try and see what this Pokemon was. I immediately recognized the hideous creature as Crawdaunt, the infamous Rogue Pokemon.
While I was younger I was told never to go to close to the water's edge for if a Crawdaunt caught you in its territory, it would literally rip you to pieces. Now here I was no more than five feet away from one.
Trapinch clicked aggressively at our intruder. He adjusted himself then launched at the crustacean using a light speed Quick Attack. Despite my Trapinch being the size of one of the Crawdaunt's pincers, he still dealt a clean blow to the water fiend. The ferocious creature doubled back then launched a powerful Bubblebeam point blank at my Trapinch. For a second I thought he was down and out, but my rising doubts were cancelled when he got back up and clicked noisily.
Ace and Peace launched multiple Shadow Balls at the monster, and all the while Oliver continued to sleep, while I didn't do much more. Naomi ordered quick successive commands as I tried to adjust to what was going on.
"Use Thunder Wave!" Electricity started to cracking around the feathers of the dark bird. She then shot a blast of electrical energy of the shell covered behemoth. It cringed as its motor skills started to wane. Unfortunately the evil thing wasn't going down without a fight. A long, drawn out fight.
It slowly raised it claw above its head, and an orb of glowing blue water started forming above the pincer. It slammed its claw down and the ball went down as well with it smashing into the ground sending powerful vibrations throughout the ground. As it hit the ground a large wave formed then started washing towards us. I saw my Trapinch start running in the direction of the oncoming wave. I snapped to and chased after him, but stopped after three steps. I turned and saw my sleeping Torchic looking exceptionally vulnerable to the oncoming wave. I mustered a great strength and leapt an amazing distance, engulfing his downy mass with my body.
Just as I brought him to my chest the wave swept us up and brought us into the river. I struggled to stay afloat and keep Oliver out of the water, but it wasn't going so well. Naomi had been swept beside me with her Absol, while Peace crowed at the rowdy Crawdaunt from the skies. The only thing left on the path besides the aquatic demon was my Trapinch…
Wait my Trapinch was still standing after that. My water weak Trapinch!
I sloppily swam to a nearby boulder jutting out of the water forcing Oliver on the top of it and grabbing onto the side. Naomi quickly followed to the rock with her Absol not far behind. I gasped bobbing in and out of the water while trying to grab my Trapinch's Ultra Ball. I succeeded and tried to return him with no avail. Crap! I forgot the darn things went into a Standby like mode when they got wet to prevent the Pokemon inside from getting killed. The only problem was that, my Pokemon wasn't inside. Why couldn't they just make water proof Pokeballs?
I returned my attention to the fight to see that my Trapinch was still standing and fighting valiantly.
The Crawdaunt's claws then gained a bright metallic glow and it lunged at my Trapinch. It launched its Metal Claws in quick jabs trying to catch its opponent off guard, but its tactics failed. My Trapinch evaded each one and countered by latching on to one of its claws.
"Good job Trapinch, keep it up!" I yelled across the water to cheer on my outmatched Pokemon. If he couldn't win then Naomi and I would go down as another one of the countless trainers that have lost their lives while on a trainer's journey.
The Crawdaunt flailed wildly trying to get my Trapinch off, but I knew from experience that my little monster wouldn't let go unless you knock him senseless, and even then hardships would be encountered. Each time the Crawdaunt tried getting my Trapinch off, my little critter only tightened his grip on the Rogue Pokemon.
"How about you tell your Trapinch to do some moves?" Naomi yelled frantically as the battle seemed to be going nowhere anytime soon.
"How about you tell your Murkrow to do some moves?" I replied snappily. She looked at her bird of the night and saw that each attempt of it attacking failed. The only attack of Peace that had seemed to get through the armored Pokemon was Thunder Wave, but the paralysis was starting to wear off with each passing second.
"Peace, ummm, use Wing Attack!" The frightened bird started focusing energy into its left wing and it started glowing a bright white. She rushed towards the frantic Crawdaunt who cleverly took advantage of the situation by slamming the pincer with my Trapinch on it into Peace effectively knocking my Trapinch off and the powerful blow sent Peace skidding along the ground.
"A lot of good that did…" I said as our Pokemon struggled to get up. Then it hit me. We actually had a chance of fighting the demon when it was immobilized by Thunder Wave. If we could stop it completely then we could win. "Naomi! I got it! Have Peace launch as many Thunder Waves at the Crawdaunt as possible."
"But—"
"Just do it!"
"Alright! Peace, blast that crustacean with multiple Thunder Waves!" Naomi yelled spitting out water in the process.
"Okay Trapinch I need you to grapple that Crawdaunt with Sand Tomb." My desert demon looked at me as if I was crazy. It was practically screaming 'How dare you tell me what to do'. "Just do it!"
Peace was back in the air and she was firing multiple blasts of electricity at the beast in an attempt to subdue it, but all missed. The Crawdaunt landed right in front of my Trapinch and its right pincer started glowing bright blue with energy. It was about to use Crabhammer, its most powerful move. It brought the pincer down and my Trapinch narrowly avoided impact. But the sheer force of the attack still sent him flying.
But the Crawdaunt had made one fatal mistake. When it drove its pincer down using Crabhammer, it burrowed its claw into the sand. Before it could even react, tendrils of sand started wrapping themselves around the Crawdaunt's limbs and engulfing the raging beast. Now a still target Peace let loose a barrage of electrical pulses toward Crawdaunt who was drowned in electricity and sand. The sand continued to cocoon itself around the monster with the multiple Thunder Waves hardening it. Eventually it was completely covered and only resembled a mound of sand.
Naomi and I pulled ourselves ashore along with our Pokemon to congratulate our team members for a job well done. Despite my Trapinch's obvious disdain for everything me-related I enveloped him in a large hug accompanied with many cheeps of joy from Oliver. In all the noise of celebration I thought I heard a crack sound but I quickly shrugged it off, bringing my attention back to my present company.
Just then a louder crack was heard and everyone turned the origin of the noise. As soon as everyone turned towards the sand covered Crawdaunt it busted out moving at an above average speed towards us. No one knew how to react. No one except my Trapinch that is.
He situated himself quickly clicking with irritation. My little monster opened his mouth and started forming an orange ball of pure energy in between his Ursaring trap of a jaw. All other noise was drowned out by the buzzing of the energy formed by my Trapinch. He radiated with fighting spirit as the Crawdaunt advance upon us.
Then in a flash he blasted a stream of that pure, unrestrained energy towards the beast. When the cataclysmic beam hit the whole area lit up as if it were daytime. A loud *BOOM* sound was heard and the Crawdaunt was nowhere to be seen, surely having been blasted all the way to Kingdom Come.
The effect the blast had wore off and faded back into nighttime as I stared at my Trapinch in awe. He stared back in a proud way still radiating energy and fighting spirit. I kneeled down to him and pet his head and for once he didn't try to bite my hand off.
"I think I finally have a name for you." The desert dweller tilted his head to the side curious to what his new name could be. "Spirit." He clicked in approval and actually nuzzled against my hand in a similar way to what Oliver is famous for. "Now let's get out of here."