A Deadly Ambush

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The purple psychic terrain enfolded them in its unearthly embrace.

Raihan supposed that Piers wouldn’t be afraid, with his dark type’s immunity to psychic moves. But the Dark type gym leader had an unreadable face as he scanned their opponents — a lot of Indeedee, Sinistea, Phantump, Oranguru, and Hattrem. They were a mix of psychic and ghost pokemon.

Anything is better than dealing with more fairy types, Raihan the dragon master thought. He had returned Torkoal by now, and now scooped up another ultra ball. “Go, Goodra!”

A cute pink dragon Pokemon appeared in a flash of white light. “Goo!”

Piers remarked, “Now don’t go strikin’ us all with Thunder, please. Arceus knows how these trees around us could conduct the electricity.”

His tone was biting, and Raihan didn’t blame him. He had been too impulsive earlier with Torkoal’s Lava Plume, and almost burned down the forest. But because of his pride, Raihan grinned and said, “Don’t worry, baby, I’ve got a much better idea.”

Piers’ long, black-and-white hair blocked his face from view, so Raihan couldn’t see the Dark type gym leader’s expression. But at least he didn’t voice any objections to Raihan calling him “baby.” Knowing Piers, he was probably just scoffing and ignoring him.

No matter. Goodra glanced at her trainer, and he said, “Muddy Water!”

“Goo, goo!” The dragon Pokemon lifted her hands as a torrent of mud-filled water lashed out all around them.

Their surrounding enemies let out a collective gasp and groan.

Piers snorted. “Not a bad pick. Some of them won’t be able to aim so well now.”

Raihan tried not to preen at his praise.

The Dark type gym leader took out a Dusk Ball and threw it into the air.

“Goon!” Piers’ ace partner, Obstagoon, appeared. The black-and-white muscular beast crossed its arms and whipped out its tongue in a menacing manner.

Raihan smiled. “Awesome! You’d be immune to both their psychic and ghost type moves!”

Piers laughed. “Yea, Goon was built for this with his Normal and Dark type immunity to Ghost and Psychic!” He pointed to the wild pokemon. “Obstagoon, use Obstruct.”

Despite the immunities mentioned above, several wild pokemon still tried to attack them. Their attacks landed on Obstagoon’s shield, and the Pokemon wailed as their defense stats harshly dropped.

“Great job, Obstagoon, now use Throat Chop!”

The black-and-white pokemon cried out with a ferocious sound. It went berserk, dishing out brutal chops at the swarm of wild pokemon.

Goodra helped by shooting off tons of muddy water, confounding their enemies and lowering their accuracy bit by bit.

At first, Piers and Raihan were having a party. Their teamwork made tons of wild pokemon faint from the strong, super effective Throat Chops.

The Indeedee that could use Disarming Voice — a fairy move that would hurt both dark type Obstagoon and dragon type Goodra — were disabled because Throat Chop prevented any sound moves.

Phantump and Sinistea tried to use grass moves, Horn Leech and Giga Drain. But Goodra’s Sap Sipper ability absorbed their grass moves, rendering them harmless. Her attack stat went up every time she absorbed a grass move, too.

Eventually, the wild pokemon wizened up. The Sinistea began using Memento. One by one, the ghostly teacups fainted. Their fainting created oval auras around Goodra and Obstagoon, lowering their attack and special attack.

Technically this wasn’t too bad, since Obstagoon and Goodra only needed to work harder to knock out the enemy pokemon. But the wild pokemon were numerous, and Goodra and Obstagoon were tiring out.

Soon, the Hattrem blasted Dazzling Gleams at them, and some Indeedee used Last Resort.

The pure psychic pokemon, Hattrem, didn’t have same type attack bonus for the fairy move, Dazzling Gleam. So their beams were much weaker than they could have been.

Nevertheless, as hardy as Goodra and Obstagoon were, the pair looked close to collapse from the continual onslaught and fatigue.

“Damn it,” Piers cursed. The Dark type gym leader returned his pokemon to its ball, murmuring a thank you, before throwing out another Dusk Ball.

Malamar, the psychic and dark Pokemon appeared. It waved its tentacles in warning at their enemies.

The Sinistea were still using Memento (just how many Sinistea were there?) But instead of lowering attack and special attack, they now raised Malamar’s stats because of its Contrary ability! Raihan wanted to toast Piers for his quick thinking.

“Malamar, use Night Slash!”

“Mar!” The pokemon’s tentacles glowed white, and whipped out at the wild pokemon around them.

Goodra looked like she couldn’t take another hit. So Raihan returned her. “Thank you, Goodra, you deserve a good rest.” He tossed out his next Pokemon.

Flygon the green sand dragon appeared. His red eyes narrowed at the commotion around them.

“Flygon, use Crunch!”

Flygon was Raihan’s only pokemon that had a dark move, and the dragon wasted no time in snapping at their enemies.

For a while, all seemed swell, especially with Malamar’s greatly boosted attack and special attack. The Sinistea didn’t seem to clue into how their Mementos were hurting their own team, but Malamar’s stats couldn’t go up forever, either. Flygon still got hit by the stat reductions, though.

Too long after, their opponents were down to only ten pokemon, thank Arceus. The Sinistea had all fainted by now. With a last tiring series of Crunches and Night Slashes, the gym leaders’ pokemon finally knocked out their last opponents. Malamar and Flygon panted from the exertion.

It was terrible, seeing the great cluster of fainted Pokemon bodies around them. It was like a massacre. Piers and Raihan hurriedly healed their pokemon with potions, ethers, elixirs, and leppa berries.

Piers mopped his forehead. “I don’t want to do that ever again.”

Raihan couldn’t agree more. Even though they technically restored both their pokemon’s health points and power points, that had been a long battering. They were lucky that the wild pokemon they faced weren’t that high level this time, while Piers and Raihan’s pokemon were all high levelled. But it was exhausting to deal with such a swarm of opponents nevertheless. It felt like waging an endless war.

The Dark type gym leader turned his cyan gaze on him. “We could be ambushed again at any time, though. Do you want to go further?”

The Dragon tamer tried to hide his nervousness with a joke. “What? Are you looking for permission to give up?”

The glare Piers sent him was vicious. “Raihan, you’re the one who asked — begged — me to come with you. The least you could do is show me some respect.”

Raihan winced, and he rubbed his neck. “I’m sorry. I can be an ass.”

“You are,” Piers confirmed.

Raihan chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah… Anyway, we should keep going. Who knows what other pokemon might lie in wait?”

Piers assessed him with a lingering stare, but he shook his head and began to march forward again.

The Dragon gym leader didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that Piers didn’t press him to talk more.

Piers already knew that his friend was an arrogant ass.

The Spikemuth gym leader normally didn’t care that much, since it was usually harmless banter. He knew that Raihan, for all his swagger, would never try to hurt anyone.

But sometimes, Raihan could really get on his nerves. Piers wasn’t dumb. He could tell that Raihan was especially prone to making “jokes” when he was anxious. Piers was pissed off, though, at how insensitive and demeaning those jests could come across. Whether Raihan meant it or not was beside the point.

Perhaps Piers was also too on edge with the whole situation. They had “won” against the barrage of wild pokemon, and even scared the psychic and fairy horses away earlier. But the wild pokemon’s behavior was too uncanny. The masses and masses of unconscious Pokemon bodies after their last fight, struck an unease deep inside him.

After the huge ambush earlier, it was eerie to be back to all this silence. Piers brushed his long hair back, watching and waiting for anything that could come up at them. For the humans’ protection, Obstagoon and Duraludon walked with them.

It turned out that nothing came up, but something came down.

A Galarian Weezing fell towards them, with pipes on its two heads, and green froth pouring out of its mouths.

It was a relief to see just one opponent rather than many, for once. Even if Weezing normally weren’t a part of Glimwood Tangle.

Without warning, the poison and fairy pokemon shot multi-colored gas at Obstagoon — it was Strange Steam!

When the steam cleared, the poor dark and normal pokemon had collapsed on the ground. Piers gritted his teeth and returned Obstagoon.

Meanwhile, Raihan called out, “Duraludon, Iron Head, now!”

The steel dragon roared and its body gleamed with a white light. Then it hurled itself at the Weezing.

Unfortunately, the poison and fairy pokemon managed to dodge, and it fired off more strange steam at the steel dragon. Duraludon wasn’t as nimble and got smacked in the face with the attack. But the dragon was still standing.

By this time, Piers had thrown out another Dusk Ball. Skuntank landed back into battle. “Quick, use Poison Jab!”

The poison and dark skunk leapt into the air and smashed the Weezing. This time, their enemy couldn’t dodge it, and got slammed into the ground.

But if they expected the battle to be over, they would be disappointed. Piers had expected as much if the Pokemon was strong enough to KO his Obstagoon in one shot. Besides, poison jab only did neutral damage to their poison and fairy foe.

The fairy chimney pokemon rose up like a balloon, then it threw up a thick cloud of smoke that flooded the area.

Piers groaned as he coughed. His companions were likewise suffering.

Raihan sighed and said, “Flygon, flap your wings and blow all the smoke away!”

He heard the cry of the sand dragon and a powerful whoosh of its wings.

A short while later, the smoke was finally clear and as expected, Weezing had vanished.

The Dragon tamer chuckled. “Figured that the Weezing didn’t have much to hit us, nothing that would do super effective damage anyway.”

As always, Piers was grateful to have Skuntank with its defensive typing. Being a dark and poison Pokemon meant that the skunk was only weak to ground moves. Plus, their opponent had only been one pokemon, not many.

“Are you tired?” Raihan suddenly asked.

Piers bristled and was about to snap back a response. But he saw the sincerity and concern in his friend’s eyes. Maybe Piers was too grouchy and quick to distrust sometimes. He paused before saying, “A little.” He gazed down at Skuntank and then across to Duraludon. “What say you to a bit of camping?”

His friend widened his eyes, and Piers added, “I know it’s dangerous to put up a tent in the middle of this dark forest, full of rogue wild pokemon. But our Pokemon could use a break. Worst comes to worst, wild pokemon attack us anyway and we’ll just counterattack.”

Raihan looked uncertain but nodded.

Piers took a deep breath and began setting up their tent.

Now was it just him, or did the air suddenly become dense and foggy?

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