Route 37 was a nice change of pace for the boys. The dense forests of the previous route thinned out, allowing for long stretches of their journey to be through more open areas. The availability of more room allowed for the boys to train more easily with their pokemon before reaching Ecruteak City. Chance was very happy to give his onix a chance to stretch and train without destroying half a forest in the process.
Chance spent much of the next two days working with scyther and hoothoot. Scyther spent a lot of time working with its attack power, as well as spending time with Chance trying to get him to become more comfortable being around others, as he was still nervous around other people and pokemon. Hoothoot, who Chance was expecting to be the ace in his next gym battle, spent more time perfecting its confusion attack. The owl pokemon made significant progress, moving on from juggling berries with its mind to lifting small boulders and other objects, including staryu and elekid a few times.
On the other hand, Adrian largely worked with tentacool and elekid. Tentacool was working on mastering acid and turning the move into acid spray. The jellyfish pokemon was finding a decent amount of success in increasing the amount of acid it produced, as well as the potency of the vile ooze. Elekid was continuing to master its ability to release electricity in the form of thunder shock. The electric pokemon was now able to generate small sparks consistently, however, it was unable to channel those sparks into a sustainable, long range attack.
"Come on, Elekid. Try and store up more electricity before releasing it this time." Adrian encouraged the baby pokemon during one of their pit stops. He was met with an annoyed elekid rapidly spinning his arms while sparks flew between the two plugs on its head. The little pokemon let out a loud cry as it let out the stored electricity, unfortunately for it, the thunder shock struck scyther, who had been working on cutting through a thick log several yards away.
Scyther quickly recovered from the electricity that momentarily surged through its body and was on elekid within seconds, slashing wildly at the little pokemon. Elekid was quick to dodge each scythe that flew at its tiny body, as were both trainers in getting the two pokemon apart before any injury was sustained.
"Come on, Scyther! Enough!" Chance yelled at the mantis pokemon as he grabbed one arm, while snivy wrapped the other in its vines. Elekid took the moment of reprieve to retreat behind his trainer's legs. Scyther strained against his trainer and the vines, attempting to break free and continue its revenge on its attacker. "Scyther!" The redhead yelled loudly. "Calm down!"
Slowly the bug-type began to calm its body, its breathing began to slow to a more normal pace, yet it still glared at the electric pokemon. After a few minutes of scyther calming down, Chance and snivy released him, but made sure to stand between him and elekid.
"Elekid." Adrian said in a stern voice. "You need to apologize. You can't throw a tantrum because training is hard. You hurt one of your friends." Elekid looked up into the angry face of his trainer and immediately burst into tears, shocking his trainer. In the moment of surprise at that reaction, elekid turned and ran into the nearby trees, quickly disappearing from sight.
"Shit." The blonde mumbled before taking off after his baby pokemon. "Quilava, Nidoran, come on!" He called to his two land dwelling pokemon to help him looked.
"Hoothoot, mind helping them look from the air, please?" The redheaded trainer asked his flying pokemon. The little owl quickly nodded and soared off into the trees as well.
"Come on, Scyther. We are going to go help them, too." He motioned for the mantis pokemon to follow, but after a few steps he was sure the bug-type wasn't budging. He turned back and knelt before his pokemon. "Look, you guys might not belong to the same trainer, but you and elekid are still a team. Every pokemon that I own and every one that Adrian has are part of one big team. One big family. We might not always get along, but we still have to watch out for each other." As he spoke the bug-type's tense body relaxed a small bit. "I know you're young, energetic, and easily excitable, but you have to learn to be patient. Elekid is still learning. He is still just a baby. He needs strong pokemon like you to teach him how to control his own power and how to be strong and reliable. Think you can forgive him for his tantrum and help us find him?"
Scyther let his body relax a bit more and let out a slow nod. The mantis pokemon then took to the air and led his trainer and snivy into the forest. Chance called back to onix to watch over tentacool and staryu while they were gone, and quickly disappeared into the forest with his other two pokemon.
"See anything yet, Hoothoot?" Adrian called up to the owl pokemon who flew overhead.
"Hoo…" It cooed softly, landing above the blonde and shaking its head in the negative.
"Damn… Elekid where did you go?" He cursed softly, hitting the tree beside him in frustration. "Alright, Quilava and Nidoran, you two scout ahead. Hoothoot, mind doing a large loop in the sky for me?" The three pokemon nodded and sped off in their given directions. "Elekid…" He said softly, slowly following his pokemon forward.
Elekid continued to wander through the dense shrubbery of the forest floor. As he walked he lashed out at random sticks and stones that got in his way. He tried to convince himself that he was irritated at his trainer for constantly pushing him to master the release of electricity, but truthfully he was mad at himself. He felt like he was consistently letting down his trainer by not being able to master the most basic of electric-type moves. No matter how much he tried he could not focus the release of his thunder shock. The wild release of weak electricity was far from being a viable attack in any battle.
Elekid grumbled to himself as he pushed through another thick bush, swatting the foliage aside. As Elekid pushed through the last branches of the foliage only to quickly find itself walking into a string-like substance that stuck onto his body. Elekid began to struggle, but the squirming of his body only caused more of the white strings to wrap around him. The Electric pokemon looked up to see what was coating his body, only to see a large web with several large spider pokemon. The bug pokemon, alerted to the struggling, immediately started to crawl down the web and towards their smaller prey. The approach of the large spiders elicited a loud cry from the baby pokemon, who began to struggle once more.
"Any sign of Elekid, Scyther?" The redhead asked the mantis pokemon, who was cutting a path through the underbrush for his trainer. Before the bug-type could respond a loud cry was heard from deeper within the forest. "That was Elekid! It had to be!" Chance said, urgency laced his voice. Scyther immediately began to charge forward in the direction of the cry, followed closely by his trainer and Snivy.
Scyther's fury cutter was able to clear the brush out of the trio's way almost instantaneously as they ran towards the shrieks of the pokemon they were seeking. Within minutes they broke through some the bushes and came to the origin of the cries. As Scyther cut through the last large bush, the group saw three large, red spiders wrapping Elekid in their thread and pulling it higher into their web. The moment they broke into the clearing, Elekid began to struggle and scream once more, the appearance of his friends causing a rush of renewed energy in the little pokemon.
"Elekid!" Chance yelled out, accessing the situation he found the small pokemon in. "Scyther, get Elekid away from those Ariados! Quick attack!"
Scyther nodded before shooting through the air and slashing at the three Ariados and forcing them back from Elekid. Scyther slashed at the threads that held Elekid to the web and sent the wailing pokemon falling to the ground towards Chance's waiting arms.
"Elekid! Thank god you aren't hurt! Snivy, help me get these webs off." The redhead and Snivy quickly went to work trying to remove the thick threads that had been wrapped around the electric pokemon. As the two worked, Scyther continued to hold back the three opposing bug-types, but was quickly losing ground. Chance removed a large chunk of the webbing from Elekid, getting closer to freeing the pokemon. He reached for another section of the web, but was stopped as Scyther was slammed against a nearby tree by three dark black beams that were being fired into his body.
"Shit. Snivy, use leaf tornado to get them off Scyther. Quick!" He commanded his starter.
Snivy jumped in the air and began to rotate, sending a tornado of razor sharp leaves towards her foes. The attack worked to stop the three bugs from shooting the night shade attack from their eyes, but immediately drew their attention to the grass-type. Snivy found herself dodging around a large barrage of purple needles as the three spiders shot poison stings at the grass snake. She nimbly evaded several rounds of the onslaught, but was quickly subdued when a needle struck her leg and threw her off balance, allowing the rest of the needles to strike her and send her crashing to the ground before her trainer.
"Snivy!" Chance called as he rushed to his pokemon's aid. "Scyther, hold them off!" He yelled as he picked up his injured pokemon.
Scyther leapt forward and began using his fury cutter to hold back the opposing bug-types. The mantis pokemon did well holding off its three foes, causing a large amount of damage to the first one it hit once it returned to the battle, but the battle was slowly turning against it once more. Elekid, seeing this, let out a yell as it broke free from the remaining webbing that bound its body. As one of the Ariados moved forward to bite Scyther with its glowing mandibles, it was struck in the side by Elekid's quick attack and tossed off the web, hitting the forest floor hard.
"Nice job, Elekid!" Chance called out to the baby pokemon, returning his defeated starter. "Keep it up you two! You guys got this!"
Scyther continued to do its best to hold off the two spiders before it, but their long range attacks kept it at bay. Elekid quickly began to encounter the same problem, having to use its swift attack to block a barrage of poison stings.
The two pokemon were slowly being forced together by the three spiders, who were trying their best to regroup as a threesome to better press their advantage. One of the Ariados lurched forward once more with a glowing set of mandibles, hoping to bite down onto Elekid, but was thrown back when it was struck by a brown blur that had swept through the battlefield. Chance turned to see where the blur went after bolting through the battle, and was happy to see his Hoothoot leading Adrian and his pokemon into the area.
"Adrian! Elekid and Scyther need help!" The redhead called to his friend as he broke through the underbrush. The blonde's eyes swept across the battlefield to take in the scene, widening as they landed on his Elekid.
"Elekid!" He yelled out happily. "Quilava, go back them up! Use quick attack on the Ariados on the left! Nidoran, horn attack on the one on the right!" He commanded.
His two pokemon charged forward and joined the battle. Quilava got there first, slamming into an Ariados and knocking it away from Scyther. Nidoran quickly followed and forced a second Ariados away from Elekid. This left one Ariados to fight with Scyther, while Elekid ran to his trainer, who happily scooped up the baby pokemon.
"Elekid! I am so happy to see you're okay!" He hugged his pokemon while he spoke. "I am sorry I was so hard on you, buddy. I just want to help you get stronger."
Elekid returned the tight embrace of his trainer, but the reunion didn't last long, as Scyther was knocked back against a tree once more. Elekid watched the exhausted and injured mantis try to stand once more to fend off the rapidly approaching spider, but to no avail. Hoothoot had joined Nidoran in the effort to take down one of the other Ariados, and Quilava was busy with the third, leaving no other pokemon free to stop the spider from finishing off Scyther.
"Ele!" Elekid yelled out as he leapt from his trainer's arms and charged to Scyther's side. Elekid jumped over his fallen comrade and stood between the two bug-types. Ariados's mouth began to glow once more as it resumed its charge, much to Elekid's dismay.
"Come on, Elekid! You got this!" He heard his trainer call out as his foe neared.
"Ele…" He squeaked out in fear. He then saw Scyther fail to stand once more from the corner of his eye, causing him to steel himself once more. "Ele! Elekid!" He cried out as his arms spun beside him. Electricity began to quickly gather between his horns, which he then launched at the spider. The blast was strong enough to throw the bug-type several feet back and into the base of a nearby tree.
"Great job, Elekid!" Adrian shouted from behind him. Elekid quickly realized that it had successfully released a fully powered thunder shock attack. Elated at this fact, he charged forward, his arms spinning wildly beside him once more. He released a second thunder shock on the slowly recovering Ariados, forcing it back beside the one that was losing its battle against Hoothoot and Nidoran.
"Adrian, time to finish this up." Chance said to his friend as he knelt down beside his Scyther. Adrian responded with a quick nod.
"Quilava, force Ariados together with the other two and hit them all with a full power flame wheel!" He commanded his starter pokemon.
It was easy enough for Quilava to use his quick attack to toss his foe into the other two, causing a tangled jumble of angry legs flailing around in the air. The other pokemon took a step back as Quilava flipped into the air, the fire on his back erupting into a spinning inferno around his body. Quilava spun through the air and slammed into the three Ariados, sending them flying through the underbrush and crashing into a large rock. None of the three foes moved after this powerful attack.
The group took the time to recover after the battle. Chance used his remaining potions and antidotes to help his Snivy and Scyther recover from a few of their injuries. In the meantime, Adrian praised Elekid with his newfound ability to use thunder shock. An hour after the battle, the group had made it to their small camp and reunited with the pokemon that had remained there. The group decided that after the events of the day that it would be wise to take the rest of the day and rest, rather than continuing their journey to Ecruteak City.
While the two trainers took to setting up their camp for the evening and preparing their dinner, Elekid stayed close to Scyther. The baby electric pokemon had begun to see the mantis pokemon as a friend of sorts. He trusted Scyther, after the bug-type had worked so hard and sustained so much injury to rescue him. Scyther, in turn, liked the little yellow pokemon hanging around it. Scyther showed a lot of pride for Elekid overcoming its struggles with using electric attacks to help rescue him from danger. The two remained together for the rest of the evening. Elekid helping Scyther move around, as the mantis was sore from the sustained injuries, and the two seemed to talk in their own way and continue to bond. This sight made Chance happy, as Scyther really hadn't formed a truly strong bond with any of their other pokemon yet.
The sun slowly set over the group as they enjoyed the newfound closeness and the budding friendship between their pokemon. Both trainers saw these moments as a good omen for the upcoming gym battle.