C021 - Another find in the forest at night

In the end, Herbert naturally agreed to lend Exeggutor to Pete. It was just like the twins said. The pokemon would prefer to roam around nature compared to staying in the house for too long.

However, Herbert did make Pete promise he would take the twins to Goldenrod City at the very least. Sophie cheered at the opportunity to get out of the house and go shopping in the biggest port city of the Johto region.

Jasmine, on the other hand, calmly planned the whole trip in her mind beforehand and decided to go stock up on potions and other necessities in Violet City tomorrow before the trip.

Since Pete still wanted to at least visit the city before going, he invited himself to her trip, which made Sophie want to come as well. Pete didn't mind either way. He could probably use a guide.

In the game, the city only had a flying-type gym, a pokemart, a pokecenter, a pokemon school, the Sprout Tower, and two regular houses.

Naturally, the actual city was much bigger. The crossroads housing the gym and the school still had an entire shopping district extending from it toward the Sprout Tower in the north of the city, according to Sophie.

Before going to bed, Pete once again led his pokemon into the forest to collect some more moss. He kept open his psychic link with Solosis the entire time, though a much wider link than usual to train his psychic affinity.

It was tiresome, but not as much as extending his ground sense the first time around. Since humans were naturally more attuned to psychic energy, that made sense.

This time around, Pete and his pokemon found a few wild pokemon, but none of them attacked him this time. He was fighting his urge to catch most of these pokemon because there were a lot of wild grass and odd bug pokemon here.

From Bellsprout and its evolutions to Pineco and the occasional Exeggcute. Even a Sudowoodo was busy practicing its moves in the form of shadow boxing. It was a weird sight, but one that Pete didn't want to interrupt. Before he settled down, Pete would need to calm his urges to catch all of them.

However, as the night progressed and he had an entire bag once more filled with moss, Pete heard hurt wimpering on the way back to his camp at Herbert's mansion.

Pete looked to Rapidash with a nod. The giant flaming unicorn stepped forward as a vanguard while the rest fell back with Golett outside his ball guarding their backs.

Once they passed another tree, they found a clearing that looked like a warzone. Trees were charred and smoldering on every side. Rocks were smashed, and jagged pieces were strewn about everywhere. The ground was overturned and messy.

'This is barely half an hour away from the mansion. How have we not heard such a fight? A three-way fight no less,' Pete thought as he looked at the badly damaged corpses all over.

The most impressive corpse was no doubt that of a giant Arcanine, even bigger than Rapidash. It had blackened gashes all over its body and looked hurt all over. Then there were a dead Nidoqueen and a few dead Nidorina and Nidorino that had scratches and bite marks all over their bodies.

And who could forget the four human corpses among some Ekans, Rattatas, two Ratticates, a completely scorched Golbat, and the lumpy mess of two Wheezings?

"Team Rocket? What was their goal here? Why would they fight two smaller pokemon tribes with an Arcanine and a Nidoqueen?"

Pete looked around to see what their fight could have been about until he found what looked like a Moon Stone, which he had several off. But this stone somehow looked more impressive. A regular moon stone should be as dark as the sky. But this one, while still black, also shone like it held several little stars inside. It was dark though, and it could just be a mirage. Angled reflections on the jagged surface of the stone.

Seeing as he had nobody to stop him from picking it up, Pete did just that. The stone was almost as big as his head and weighed quite a bit. Once inside his bag, Pete concentrated on the wimpering. Rapidash seemed to have already found the source, so he stepped over.

A still breathing Growlithe was lying next to the giant Arcanine. It was the smallest among the three otherwise dead Growlithe here in the clearing, and its body had the least amount of visible injuries. However, one attack to its hindleg had poisoned it if the blackened blood in the fur was any indication.

But then Pete heard more wimpering and looked around because the whimper didn't come from Growlithe.

One of the Nidorino was lying in its blood and barely breathing. But its eyes still held a fierce glimmer in his eyes. It didn't want to die here. Pete stepped closer to it.

"Hey, Nidorino. I'm guessing these humans over there came here to steal the stone, right? While I wouldn't take the stone if it belonged to someone else, I took it now. I'll tell you this so there won't be any hard feelings when I'll heal you now. You look like a fighter, but please don't attack me in some last ditch effort," Pete said as he opened the bag with the pokegear and some emergency berries he brought for the excursion.

He applied some spray-on potion on the pokemon's body and covered the wounds in mushed up Oran berry. He fed the pokemon a bit of the mush but kept the Oran juice.

Once done with the minimum he felt he needed to do, Pete walked over to the Growlithe. Rapidash's gaze filled with pity for the clearly newborn pokemon meant he couldn't ignore it, even if he wanted.

Pete sat down the next to the hurt Growlithe and the dead Arcanine and was once again humbled by the giant corpse of the giant dog.

He placed the bowl with the Oran juice next to him and took out a knife and a Pecha berry for the poison. According to the book he had found in the cabin at route 27, Pecha berries were an allrounder in poison cures. You could ingest it, apply it to the wound. It works with the flesh of the fruit and the juice.

"Hey, Growlithe. I'm sorry about all of this. All I can do for you is tend to your wounds so that you can live on. I'm sure Arcanine and your siblings defended you to the last with that wish in mind. This might sting, I don't know, but please bear with it," Pete softly spoke to the mourning and exhausted little Growlithe.

The fiery dog only looked up with teary, empty eyes but didn't really react to Pete's words.

As delicately as he could, Pete cleaned Growlithe's poisoned wound and put a mix or Oran and Pecha berry mush on it. Then he put the bowl with the mixed juices in front of the pokemon.

"Go on, it'll help you recover. Don't want any scars marring this beautiful fur, no?"

Growlithe didn't react once more but still drank the juice slowly.

Pete slowly stood up to give the wounded pokemon some space.

"Look out for her, will you?" Pete softly asked Rapidash, who gave him a concerned nod.

Pete walked to the dead trainers he suspected to be Team Rocket members. They were covered in blackened burns all over, likely a last indiscriminate effort by Arcanine to take their attackers with them to their deaths.

He steeled his mind to see if he could anything in their pockets, but the smell and the visuals were too much for him. He was getting more and more nauseous the longer he stayed closer

'Solosis, sorry to ask this of you. Would you mind if they have anything in their pockets and get it out from there?'

The psychic cell pokemon readily complied, not understanding why Pete even apologized for the order.

What Pete got were blackened phones and wallets with their contents almost entirely destroyed. It left enough evidence to see their allegiance to Team Rocket, however. Only one of the four bags from the four trainers held contents that could still be used. Though, it was a regular backpack, not a bag of holding.

Pete would have suspected many things to be in there, but he did not expect there to be three greatly startled and battered Farfetch'd inside.

He opened the bag as wide as he could and slowly placed the backpack on the ground so that the bird pokemon could come out on their own. When they did, they lined up in a row and looked at Pete with tilted heads. Something looked odd about these brown duck pokemon with the V-shaped black 'eyebrow'.

"Ah! Your leeks are missing!" Pete suddenly shouted.

"Sorry you three, I didn't bring any emergency food with me, but I think I've seen fresh spring onions in Herbert's fridge. If you want you three can follow us?"

"Far!" One of the three ducks shouted and all the three ducks used one wing to salute Pete with a resounding quack from all three.

"What...?"