Chapter 2 Part 1: The Flame of Justice
Standing before Route 202, Karen was overcome with a bubbling nervousness despite being excited just seconds ago. The route disappeared into the horizon and that alone was one of many things that caused her unease.
"M-Maybe everyone's start is like this..." Karen muttered to herself and patted her face in an attempt to relieve her anxiety. Taking in a few deep breaths, Karen tried to calm herself and within seconds, her anxiety dissipated leaving her with only a burning passion.
Taking a step onto the route, Karen finally started to walk on the path albeit slowly and eventually picked up her pace. She observed the path and the surrounding environment quickly and saw many different things. Rookie trainers was seen around battling their newly acquired pokemon against each other in attempts to showcase their abilities and pokemon, while off the beaten path, wild pokemon can be heard scurrying through the brush that hid them. Karen caught sight of a pair of Sentret observing her and others from behind the brush as they stood on their tails. Karen waved back but the two Sentret rushed away. Karen turned back and continued on. Some commotion was happening with a few trainers but Karen decided not to interfere for some unknown reason even she didn't know and passed by them.
It seemed so very interesting too. Karen thought to herself.
Walking for a good hour from her starting position, Karen had noticed that there were less trainers as she progressed further on Route 202 with only wild pokemon, such as Starly and Bidoofs, hiding among the high grass. With the path fading and only grass before her, Karen readied herself for any pokemon encounters. As she reached for the pokeball containing Dyle, her Totodile, a flash of light came from the very same pokeball, revealing the small crocodile-like Water pokemon. Dyle stretched itself and Karen stared at it.
"You should really wait until I call out for you..." Karen said with a hint of worry but Dyle looked away defiantly and began scanning his surroundings. Karen had forgotten what Professor Elm had said before but now she remembered clearly.
'You should let one of your pokemon out to travel with you. I'm sure you will be able to bond with each other much more instead of carrying it in your pokeball.' Karen looked up at the blue sky and then back at her small pokemon. Dyle was looking around glancing at all the different things before him in awe and curiousness just like a child that a smile made its way onto Karen's face as she watched her new companion.
A sharp snap came from the right of where Karen and Dyle was and it had frightened them both. Recovering quickly from the sudden shock, Karen checked in that direction to find a pair of Sentret that seemed familiar. She realized that it was the same pair that was observing her earlier, and Karen noticed what seemed to be red patches of fur and that both of them were heavily injured by someone or something. Dyle suddenly ran after them causing both Sentrets to flee.
"No, wait Dyle!" Karen shouted at her Water pokemon and pursued him as Dyle continued chasing the Sentrets through the brush.
Running into the brush and entering the nearby forest, Karen found herself in a wild goose chase as she followed the small blue pokemon ahead of her as it ran pass trees and wild bushes. Karen could barely see past some areas as the thicket was too dense and she only followed the sight of her pokemon who was unwilling to give up it's chase. After a few minutes of running, Karen found Dyle in a small spring hidden away within the deep forest. The scene was breathtaking as Karen stared at the beauty of nature before her. A single spring ran across the forest as the sun rays that pierced the forest's thick branches glistened upon the surface of the clear running water with a fallen and dead hollow tree log nearby with new plants growing upon it. Karen finally noticed something within the log as 2 pairs of eyes peeked from it. The two heavily wounded Sentret had taken shelter within it as they trembled with fear from the human and her companion before them. Karen could now clearly see bloodied patches of fur on both of them and one of them was tending to the other's leg as if it was heavily injured. A strong anger boiled in Karen as she began thinking how anyone could do such a thing to those poor pokemon.
"Dyle... Stay here. You might frighten them." Karen demanded and while Dyle didn't want to listen, he decided just that time to obey and stood there with arms crossed. Karen began digging through her dark blue backpack in hopes of finding some kind of potion that might be able to help the two Sentret and with luck, she pulled out two potions.
'I need to thank Professor Rowan when I see him again.' Karen thought to herself and placed her pack by Dyle. She began slowly walking towards the Sentrets trying not to alarm them.
"I'm not going to hurt you, okay?" Karen ensured them with a soft tone. "I'm just going to spray you two with these to make you feel much better." As Karen finally reached both of them, and though they were frightened, they clearly eased up a bit seeing as Karen hasn't attacked them yet. Karen slowly brought up the potions to both pokemon and sprayed the medicine on them. A sharp and painful cry came from both pokemon as the potion began to sting on contact with their wounds. As Karen finished, she smiled and reached out a left hand to the two Sentrets, whom were recovering slowly with the aid of the potions, when a single flaming fireball burned her hand suddenly causing Karen to retract it and clutch it in pain.
"GROOOOWL!" A sharp growl came out of nowhere and Karen stumbled backwards to find a small Growlithe that had jumped out from a nearby bush and took a defensive stance in between Karen and the Sentrets. Dyle had decided to enter the fray as well and jumped in front of Karen as it glared at the Growlithe. Still in pain, Karen looked at the protective puppy who made worried glances at the Sentret.
"You... must be one of their friends..." Karen said aloud and the Growlithe growled once more before the Sentrets began to converse with it. A small chatter went on between the Growlithe and Sentrets as they seem to be explaining the situation. Karen sat there listening intently to the unrecognizable language they used between each other. Karen then looked at Dyle.
"Do you know what they are saying?" Karen asked Dyle.
"Toto Totodile." He grunted with a nod. Dyle looked at Karen and then began doing strange gestures in an attempt to explain what was happening. Despite a few seconds of charades, Karen still couldn't comprehend and Dyle face-palmed himself, muttering something to himself. As they finished, the others finished as well. Growlithe wasn't as defensive as it now approached Karen and bowed to her as if to thank her. Karen stood up still clutching her left hand and smiled at the Growlithe.
"It's alright. I was only trying to help." Karen explained. Growlithe looked at Karen and then back at the two Sentret, who gave a nod. Turning it's attention back to Karen, Growlithe took a readied stance as if ready to battle. Karen looked at it confused before Dyle began doing his charades again of two small fists hitting each other. Then it came to Karen.
"Oh... So... You want to test me... Okay!" Karen shouted with enthusiasm. "Ready Dyle!? Let's go! Time to get us a new friend!" Dyle grinned and nodded with confidence and took a battle stance in front of Growlithe. "This fight won't be easy... But let's try our best!" With a fire in it's eyes, Growlithe made the first advance with a jump and a downward Ember shot.
"Dodge it, Dyle and use Dragon Dance!" Dyle responded with a quick dodge as Growlithe's fire attack missed charring the ground where it hit and Dyle began doing a meditated dance as he jumped twice and then stomped the ground using his Dragon Dance skill powering the Water pokemon's attack and speed. As Growlithe fell from it's jump, it quickly reacted with a loud Roar.
"Quick! Jump behind that rock and cover your ears!" Dyle dove for the rock with his increased speed and muffled his ears(?) as he tried to withstand the screeching roar. Luckily, the rock managed to part most of the sound waves without forcing Dyle to retreat in fear. The Roar died out and Dyle stood up as he peeked from the rock.
"Above you, Dyle!" Dyle looked up to see the Growlithe pouncing from above and it used a powerful Bite on Dyle's shoulder causing him to cry out from the sharp pain. "Dyle! Counter with a Scratch attack!" Dyle returned Growlithe's attack with one of his own as Dyle drew out his sharpened and powered up claws and swiped once across Growlithe's face. Growlithe howled in pain as it retreated with a jump from it's attack. Growlithe decided to keep it's distance from Dyle and his increased power and decided to chip away Dyle's health with Ember shots at a distance. Growlithe began a barrage of jumping Ember shots, trying not to hit trees so they won't catch fire, causing Dyle to defensively dodge them. A few hit Dyle and though they weren't as effective, more damage from them would soon overcome him. Karen quickly caught on to Growlithe's distance attack pattern but what could she do? Karen knew Dyle hadn't learned any Water type attacks yet and so having a type advantage was quite pointless if only to reduce damage taken. Karen began to look around in an attempt to find something she could use.
Sssssh~ The small and almost silent noise caught Karen's attention. It came from the running spring near the Sentrets.
"Spring.... ! The SPRING!" Karen shouted to herself as an idea came to her head. Dyle began to feel tired from the constant Ember dodging as he suffered from a few hits as well. "Dyle! Get it to the spring!" Karen called out to her pokemon. If Dyle couldn't use water attacks, maybe Karen can use the water from the spring to weaken Growlithe.
"Let's go! Dragon Dance once more!" Karen exclaimed and upon dodging another Ember barrage, Dyle once more began dancing and powered himself even more gaining more speed and power. With his increased abilities, Dyle closed in on Growlithe quickly.
"Alright! Scratch attack!" Dyle quickly swiped at Growlithe who dodged and took a Bite of Dyle's shoulder once more but with much more force this time. Dyle gritted his teeth to endure the pain and Karen saw the chance she was waiting for.
"Okay! Do it now! To the Spring!" Dyle used all his strength and pushed Growlithe towards the spring. With a powerful shove, Dyle pushed himself and Growlithe into the running water and the orange puppy cried out in pain as the water began to do it's job. Growlithe, however, still held on to Dyle with all of it's strength.
"Hang in there, Dyle! Finish it with another powered up Scratch!" Karen shouted once more. Dyle took a sweeping claw slash to Growlithe's underbelly taking the rest of it's sapping strength causing the puppy pokemon to fall weakly into the water. Dyle, at his limit as well, carried Growlithe from out of the spring and let it collapse to the floor as Dyle himself fell down and laid on his back, panting heavily. Growlithe weakly opened it's eyes and looked at Karen before it smiled in defeat. Karen, still keeping eye contact, nodded and brought out a small white and red pokeball. Enlargening it, Karen looked at the ball before she threw it at the almost weakened Growlithe. As the pokeball bounced off Growlithe's skin as if to register the pokemon, it opened and a bright light engulfed Growlithe before it sucked the orange puppy within.
Plop.... Rumble... Rumble... Rumble...
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((OOC: Well.. I finally got it in. [Hell... It's so long...] I was quite busy with class projects and exams so I wasn't able to do much but there you go. Now back to homework. X.X
Oh and I totally got the routes wrong and so I changed it as I wanted to head to Jubilife. Didn't know I was heading to that one town. *facepalms* And Growlithe.... will be female if possible! XDDD I hope I did good enough to qualify... Honestly not the best of my battle scenes. XO))