Water source secured

The purpose of the sandstorm was three fold in this situation. First was that it raised Gaia's evasion thanks to her sand veil ability. The second was that it put the pack of Poochyena on a time limit as the longer the fight lasted the worse the damage they would take from the sandstorm. The final purpose was to allow Gaia to get more familiar with the move. I was by no means a slow minded person so when I actually needed to strategizing was a piece of cake so long as I had a decent amount of information.-

Pokemon were usually pretty smart themselves so the pack also figured out at least the part of the plan that pertained to them pretty quickly. They growled and chuffed in irritation but refused to run away from the battle because this was their territory and we were the trespassers. I had assumed something like this would be true in reality so I wasn't surprised. I had never doubted the intelligence of pokemon but I had theorized before my transmigration that they would still behave much more like animals than people. Perhaps this was only true for some species but for now the theory held.-

Left with little choice in the matter one of the members of the pack grew impatient and glowed white again as it charged Gaia. Almost faster than my eye could follow Gaia side stepped the Poochyena and sank down on top of it with her open maw. A sickening "Crunch!" sounded out moments later and the Poochyena went limp. Gaia immediately let go of the corpse and went back to her waiting position. The other four members of the pack grew irritated and anxious seeing this and when the slightly larger member who I assume to be the leader let out a sound they all attacked at once.-

Gaia calmly watched on as they charged her with the white glow of the move on them and then did something that surprised me. A white glow shone on her mouth and she lunged forward with her mouth open. Instantly a wide energy projection of her mouth appeared in from of the real thing and closed around the whole body of one of the Poochyena. The unfortunate creature was immediately crushed splattering blood and organs from both ends. 'Do you mean to tell me she hasn't even been using the move this whole time!?' I thought in shock.-

Sure I had wondered why the tackle from the pack had a glow when her attack didn't but it had never dawned on me that Gaia was one shotting pokemon with only the raw strength of her jaws this whole time. I mean it sort of made sense given that she literally crushed rocks with those jaws but my experience from the games was starting to interfere with my perception of my new reality a bit. Maybe the pokedex entries implied that such things were actually normal but besides using moves you never actually see any of that.-

'That reminds me that I need to find some way to record my knowledge from the games before it fades from memory.' I thought seriously as Gaia dodged one of the other three attacks but got hit by the other two making her grunt. Before the three remaining members of the pack could retreat however Gaia managed to catch one of them by the leg and crush it's bones with her jaws. "AR AR AR AR!" the pokemon she caught cried out in pain for a few moments before Gaia finished it off with a bite to the neck rendering the area silent again save for the sandstorm.-

The last two members of the pack glare at Gaia for a moment before deciding to cut their losses and flee rather than stay in what is clearly a death sentence. With a mournful howl from the leader I watch as they run in opposite directions to prevent Gaia from chasing them. Gaia visibly relaxes at this point and allows the sandstorm to dissipate. "Good job Gaia! Now lets get our rightful prize." I said and she nods with a happy "Lar!".-

Walking over to the berry bush I reach out and hold one of the oran berries in my hand. It's a dark blue color tangerine shaped fruit with a apple like feel to it that was also about the size of an orange. Carefully snapping the small but sturdy connection between the fruit and bush I hand it to Gaia who immediately tossed it into her mouth. I then spent the next five minutes carefully plucking half the remaining fruits and storing them in the berry compartment of the bag giving me a total of three orans for later.-

Gaia reached level seven from that battle meaning we merely needed to get three more levels for her and find a water source to finish the quest. "Alright Gaia lead the way to the water and keep an eye out for stuff to fight. We don't need to kill all of our opponents but if they don't look like they think the same don't hesitate to end them." I say seriously and Gaia nods in agreement. We start walking in the direction we were originally going and I got more and more holes in my socks as they got caught on sticks and stones.-

It was quite painful for me but I powered through it as we walked and soon I heard the sound of moving water and knew we were getting close. As much as I wanted to rush the rest of the way I knew doing so would be a bad idea and resisted that urge. This proved to be a good thing as when we finally caught sight of the source of the sound I had to stop Gaia from going forwards as there at the edge of the stream was a group of seven Wingull.-

I remembered the sheer amount of headaches these things caused me playing emerald with my Torchic starter. They were one of the few pokemon species that collectively had access to an elemental attack immediately , specifically water gun. That move was four times super effective against Gaia since she was a rock and ground type until her final evolution that was a rock and dark type. I was not sure what a super effective move actually did in reality but considering the sheer number of the Wingull here I didn't want to either. "Lets move up the stream to see if there's a spot without these things." I say seriously. Gaia while skeptical of my concern over what looked to be weak opponents cooperates.-

Luckily for us we found the source of the stream at the foot of the mountain and it was almost totally unoccupied save for the small group of three Pidgey that Gaia knocked out but didn't kill. The source of the stream seemed to be the run off from the ice of the mountain melting and flowing down. Gaia an I helped ourselves to the crystal clear water and I even took a moment to rinse off some of the caked on sweat and dirt on me.