CH8 (69), First Time On Route 4 (1)

I keep following the road leading to Route 4 and 10 km into my walk I reach the fringe area. I know that because I can see a sign that indicates as much. Until now my walk has been uninterrupted, and there haven't been any Pokemon stronger than the iron stage. According to what I have learned while preparing for my excursion, the fringe area of Route 4 is supposed to have Pokemon ranging from Stageless to (low) Silver-stage living in it. The central lane on the other hand has Pokemon ranging from Stageless to (low) Bronze-stage living in it. I consider that information for a bit and decide to call out Butterfree as well. "Alright, we have reached the fringe area of Route 4. There are Pokemon here that are as strong as Xatu. While that does not mean that we will encounter them, I still want all of you to be alert, at least until we reach the central area." I tell my Pokemon and start walking again. "Keep a lookout for anything that looks useful as well," I add a bit later.

I can see the occasional Rattata and Sentret running around. Caterpie and Weedle were crawling on the ground or trees and some Pidgey and Spearow were either resting on trees or flying through the air. So, nothing surprising, even if I keep checking the occasional Weedle to look at its potential. I still haven't given up the idea of raising a Beedrill or two. Unfortunately, there have been only duds until now, but I had all the time in the world, so that was okay. Thanks to my trusty companions the Pokemon have been keeping their distance from me, so my walk has been uninterrupted so far. "Eee. Veee." I hear Nyx calling me and look over. Since I asked them to tell me about anything useful they manage to spot, she keeps informing me about every berry tree she sees and when I see her expectant face telling me to praise her, I can't bring myself to tell her to stop. This has already been the 4th time in the last hour, but fortunately, it takes no more than a minute to look at whatever she finds.

I follow Nyx to another berry tree, and surprisingly it is one I haven't got yet. "Good job, Nyx. We don't have that one yet." I praise her and bend down to scratch her favorite spot. "Eeeeveeee." She puffs her chest out and brags cutely at my praise while throwing a challenging look at Butterfree and Xatu. I laugh a bit at her behavior before I straighten again and check what kind of berry it is that she found.

'Name: Nomel Berry

Type: Plant

Class: E

Uses: Contains nutrition and plant energy.

Can be eaten as food, its sour taste increases the eater's alertness for a while, it also clears any confusion.'

I nod after reading its uses. 'That could be useful. Who needs an energy drink when you can have a Nomel Berry.' I laugh a bit at my own joke and my Pokemon look at me because I randomly started laughing. "I am just happy. The berries Nyx found are quite useful." I tell them, which causes Nyx to metaphorically swell a little more. I ignore her antics and reach out to one of the berries to pluck it. "Raa. Tara." I hear a multitude of Rattata call out to me threateningly. Looking over to the source of the noise, I see a mischief of 4 Rattata. Xatu comes to stand beside me, and Butterfree comes to hover near me as well, so I use my telepathy to understand what they are screaming around for. They are clearly not sapient yet, because their thoughts are not as clear and orderly as sapient ones, but the gist of what they are doing is warning me to keep my hands off their food, which explains why my Pokemon moved so close to me.

"I am only going to take one berry, no need to get all aggressive on me. There are more than enough berries for you on that tree." I tell them, and it looks like they don't agree with my perfectly tactful sentence, because they give me another warning to keep my grubby hands off their food, otherwise they will attack me. Seeing their behavior I conclude that these guys won't let me take a berry without us whooping their collective asses, so I decide to check out their strength.

'Species: Rattata

Gender: Male

Type: Normal

Potential: Deep Orange

Stage: Iron-stage (high)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Run Away

Talents: None

Affinities: Neutral'

That's the strongest among them and the other 3 are at the (mid) iron-stage. Seeing that I deliberate over what to do. I could have Butterfree douse those critters with Sleep Powder, which would be fast and painless, or I could have Nyx beat the shit out of them. I will be honest, the Rattata managed to piss me off a bit, since they're still yelling at me threateningly even now. Besides together they are just strong enough to give Nyx a decent challenge without endangering her life, so it would be a good experience for her. Having come to a decision I address her, "Nyx you should be able to take them on all on your own, so go all out and have some fun. The bigger one in the middle is the strongest of them". Nyx agrees enthusiastically and fires Swift at the Rattata, before using Quick Attack to approach the Rattata on the right. Before the poor thing or any of the other Rattata could react, she seamlessly transitions into Iron Tail and delivers a devastating blow to its head. I hear something crack and reflexively flinch a bit at the sound.

After briefly confirming that the Rattata is down she aimed a Sand Attack at the eyes of the leader, before she repeated the Quick Iron combo on the unmolested Rattata on the left of the leader, quickly taking that one down as well. Now she was left with the leader and the Rattata that had to deal with the Swift she fired at the beginning. Both were over her moves and really angry because of her blitzing them. Meanwhile, I was quite impressed with Nyx's performance. I did not expect her to take down two of the underlings this fast, or easy, but the next part should be harder because the remaining two were much more alert now. Besides the leader was stronger than its underlings, so it should prove more challenging either way.

The two Rattata worked together quite well. They used Quick Attack to run around Nyx and attacked her simultaneously from two sides. Nyx dodged the attacks from her foes to the best of her abilities, and she was rather successful too since only the leader managed to land a glancing blow. Seeing that she would only be able to keep dodging if she kept focusing on both of her opponents, Nyx decided to get rid of the weaker Rattata first. During the next attack on her, she ignored the weaker Rattata and focused on the leader. While it was using Quick Attack to attack her, fully expecting her to dodge, it was doubtful when she didn't. Instead of dodging, Nyx waited for the perfect moment to use her Iron Tail to slap it away. I had to laugh a bit when she sends the Rattata leader flying. Since she had focused on slapping the leader, the other Rattata managed to land its Quick Attack on her, but she tanked the attack without a sound.

After successfully getting rid of the leader for the moment, she turned to the remaining Rattata, that had attacked her. By the time the leader came back, Nyx had taken out the last nuisance as well. The way she had taken it down was impressive as well if a bit brutal. She had fired a Swift at it and used a Quick Attack to follow along. While the Rattata was dodging the Swift, she appeared behind it and used Bite on its tail. After that she swung it around like a rag doll, slamming it from one side of the ground to another. After slamming it around 4 to 5 times she let the poor thing go. To me, it looked like she was a bit miffed that it had hit her with its Quick Attack. Anyway, the leader came back a few seconds after Nyx took down its last underling. It released an angry screech seeing its beaten underling.

Nyx totally ignores the scream and fires a Swift at it, forcing it to dodge. She repeatedly uses Sand-Attack to create a sand cloud to hamper the Rattata's view. While this would also hinder her view, that's irrelevant for what comes next. Using the cloud as a cover she fires a barrage of Swifts at her foe. Soon enough her visually impaired opponent is surrounded by homing stars. Not that it could see the sheer size of her attack thanks to the sand cloud. Still, it keeps getting successfully hit by two to three stars for every star it manages to dodge, and by the time the sand cloud settles, it is battered and tired. Seeing her foe's state Nyx stops firing Swift and runs at it instead. She releases a weak Sand Attack at Rattata and the poor thing flinches at the move, despite it being a practically harmless move that Nyx had used as a simple distraction. Well, distraction successful I would say. While Rattata flinches, Nyx aims an Iron Tail at its head, knocking it out.

*phewwww* I release a whistle after Nyx finishes her fight. I walk up to her and pet her head a bit before taking her into my arms, scratching her favorite spot. "You did a great job. Those were some good strategies and I am proud of you." I tell her and she puffs out her chest at the praise. "While you could have easily escaped the Quick Attack circle the two had formed by using Dig," I begin, and she releases a whine of protest at that before I can say the second part of my sentence. I simply continue while ignoring her protest, "I know that you did not use it because they could have ignored you and attacked us instead, specifically me." I finish, and she nods at that, confirming why she did not use Dig during the fight. "While we, I, would have been fine even if they did ignore you, your idea was right. So good job." I praise her again before letting her down again, to her disappointment.

I walk around the Rattata to check their condition and see that 3 of them, including the leader, are just knocked out as well as moderately battered, but the Rattata that has been slammed around like a sack of potatoes is seriously injured. To be honest I do not believe that this one would survive for long, because it would take quite some time to heal from its injuries without the aid of at least some medicine and better yet a visit at the PokeCenter. Since it has no access to those, it would take it a while to heal, even if they found a few high-class Sitrus berries, time that the other Rattata would have to keep it safe and feed it as well. Yeah, I don't see that happening, so it would most likely get eaten or starve, but that was not my problem.

None of them were good enough for me to take them with me, so if they died later because of their injuries or if they were eaten by someone while they were knocked out was irrelevant to me. The reason I checked up on them was to see if one of them had died since that would have been Nyx's first kill, but Pokemon had proven their resilience once more. With that out of the way, I ignored the Rattata and went over to the berry tree to pluck the reason all of this started in the first place. I did not tell any of my Pokemon to finish them off, because I was not ready to order the death of defenseless Pokemon yet. I do not know if I would ever be ready for something like that, but I wasn't right now, so we simply left the scene once I had my berry. What happened to the Rattata after we left I do not know, but I think I heard the cry of a Pidgey while walking away, must have been my imagination.

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