C043 - Being stupid and lucky

The fight was a tie for the longest time as Pete watched with bated breath. Nidoking had a few bite marks and slashes. One of his arms lay limply from the surprising reveal that his enemy knew the move Thunder Fang, leaving the arm paralyzed for the moment.

Ariados had a few cracks and a nasty, bleeding dent on the exoskeleton of its torso from a point-black Rock Throw and a burn, rendering one of its legs unusable from a Fire Punch.

Pete looked with an anxious expression as the two brawled. If Nidoking didn't find a good chance to use Hyper Beam and land the hit squarely, he was sure the old Ariados had better stamina and would win a phyrric victory.

Pete still didn't leave and go back to his initial position among his team. Only Golurk covered for him as a sort of guardian. So far, he had not seen any duplicitous acts among pokemon, so he felt safe.

But that feeling quickly evaporated as Ariados with its back turned toward him jumped backward in his direction and shot spider webs at him with a noxious purple hue on it: Ariados signature move, Toxic Thread.

In its hasty execution, the thread was aimed at his arm and not his face, thankfully. It hit him regardless because Pete was just a regular human who could barely follow his pokemons' moves from a good distance away and it poisoned him upon contact.

The pain was instant and so was the discoloration. However, that was the least of his worries as the rest of the Ariados started attacking once more.

Golurk immediately sprang into action as it shoved Pete back with ground type energy. Once Pete was far away enough, both Nidoking, and the golem started Sandstorm once more as Golurk used Sand Tomb on the leading Ariados, who still had its back turned toward Pete and Golurk.

Caught off guard, the usually quick Ariados was hit by the move and was unable to move away. Nidoking ran over, used one arm to hold Ariados' head in place, and powered up a Hyper Beam right in its face with a very angry expression.

Ariados retaliated with Venom Drench, but Nidoking was undeterred for the moment.

The other Ariados were almost upon the Vileplume's and Pete's team when the earth suddenly rumbled and split open. Just as Nidoking was powering up Hyper Beam to take out the insidious leader, Golurk used up most of his remaining ground type energy by using the move Fissure.

The split-open earth behaved like hungering maws for a short moment as the splits closed and opened all over the place, effectively crushing over forty of the attacking foes to death in a short moment and crushing a limb or two for the rest.

Pete ran back to his pokemon with gritted teeth as he tried to get out an Antidote and a Pecha berry from his bag but he failed trying to do it with one arm. Solosis had used Heal Pulse on him in worry as Rapidash got a powerup from her son and Growlithe to unleash another devastating Inferno in anger.

When he reached his pokemon, the Minccino quickly went over to help get out the items from the bag. They were smart like that. Pete managed to eat the Pecha Berry and inhale the Antidote as well as apply it to his arm, but even with Heal Pulse, the recovery from his poisoned status was not instant.

Pete tried combating it with moving ground type energy through his body as that should be resistant to the poison type energy, but even with that, the pain and poison made his consciousness go blurry.

In all his anger, Nidoking's first ever use of Hyper Beam in real battle was devastatingly powerful. The caught Ariados leader stood no chance and was dead almost immediately so that Nidoking could aim the remaining Hyper Beam at the charging enemies.

After having unleashed a giant Inferno, Rapidash too started gathering energy for a Hyper Beam, but at that point, barely any Ariados were still alive after the Sandstorm and Fissure comboed with her initial Inferno. It still felt good to her, so she took out a good half of the remaining pokemon.

'People in this world have survived worse.'

That was what Pete's first thought was when he woke up once more. That didn't lessen the headache he was feeling or the terrible taste in his mouth, but it did reassure him that he would live through getting his arm poisoned since he used an Antidote almost immediately.

Solosis laid right next to his head in deep slumber as Pete slowly recognized his surroundings as his tent. The tent flap was open, and all his pokemon were close to him sleeping.

There was only one pokemon wide awake, Golurk. The giant golem slowly turned its head to look toward him. A feeling of gladness that Pete woke up was felt through their bond.

Pete's body ached over, but especially his right arm that was hit with the Toxic Thread was numb but at the same time burning up. When Pete looked at the arm, he noticed he was barely able to lift it. It was still a little purple, so Pete used his good arm to reach out to his bag, and he fumbled to get another Pecha Berry out of the special berry module, one of his first purchases in this world in New Bark Town.

Usually, Pete was stealthy enough in the mornings that all his pokemon stayed asleep except for maybe Rapidash, but this time, his rummaging woke up almost everyone.

Solosis, exhausted as she was, used Heal Pulse on him, Golurk and Nidoking a bunch more times and immediately fell asleep once more after Pete made her eat half an Oran and half a Leppa Berry to fight her exhaustion.

All his pokemon showed genuine concern for Pete's wellbeing, especially the old Miltank and Rapidash. Miltank first made the shiny Miltank fill up a glass of Moomoo Milk for their trainer before urging the other cow pokemon to help out in making a late breakfast.

Pete didn't shy away from letting his pokemon do all the work this morning, so he simply reclined on a chair in the shade of the hill and waited for food to be ready. The Miltank didn't have Pete's proficiency in cooking, so most of his pokemon were content with store-bought food that Pete had gotten in Goldenrod City.

What Pete got was a porridge with milk and berry mush, an easy recipe since it could be done without knives, and Rapidash had gladly helped cooking the food quickly.

"Why does this place look like a wake? And why are you all sleeping?"

A familiar voice roused Pete from the nap in his camping chair in the shade after breakfast.

"*Yawn* Sorry, what?"

"What happened to your arm?" Luna asked in worry as she got a good look at Pete's tired form

"I was mental enough to stay close to a fight between Nidoking and an Ariados tribe leader. It attacked me during a one-on-one fight for the rights to the meadow with Nidoking. They never wanted to agree in the first place," Pete tiredly explained without opening his eyes.

"Huh, that was pretty stupid. Do you have everything to cure that, or do you want to get a doctor? Maybe you should ask the Exeggutor to get you to the Goldenrod Hospital?"

Luna looked at Pete with furrowed brows, tapping her finger against her chin.

"I have Antidote and Pecha berries. Solosis used Heal Pulse a bunch of times. It's going to be okay. The Ariados was just very old, and it will take some time to get it out of my system," Pete explained in a soft voice. He was glad for the concern Luna showed, but it was nothing to worry about... in Pete's mind anyway.

They talked a little about what that meant for his farm, but Pete assured them that the Vileplume had the day shift security covered as the Ariados would never willingly walk into a hundred third-stage evolution grass pokemon using Solar Beam.

What it meant for Pete in the long run? He didn't know yet, but he was sure the giant car-sized Ariados was not the only leader in the large spider pokemon tribe. He would either have to try his luck with the next leader or fight as long as necessary to cull their numbers enough to be a non-threat to his farm.

The day went on and was very quiet for Pete. All his pokemon eventually got up from their sleep and aided with the construction. The only one truly chilling with Pete was Sunkern, but even the admittedly weakest of his pokemon was busy training his control over grass typing energy relentlessly.

A small fire was lit in his pokemon last night as they all used this day at the construction site to train their typing energies. Nidoking with the special project of creating a mushroom cave even decided to make the cave twice as big and intricate as previously decided just to get more training done.

After lunch, Pete decided to once more take a bath in the lake. The Marill family decided to follow immediately, and Solosis, Zorua, the two Minccino, and Growlithe followed along to protect Pete as well.

"Oh hey, the Feebas are back," Pete mumbled as he was busy enjoying the warm lake water with his pokemon.

"Solosis, can you float over my bag? I feel like sharing some berries with those four," Pete asked loudly instead of thinking his request so that the Feebas would hear it.

Berries floated on water, so instead of getting too close to the fish pokemon, Pete gently pushed four Oran Berries closer to the Feebas.

"Enjoy those berries and grow even more handsome and strong," Pete gently spoke with a warm smile. Making a Feebas feel pretty and appreciated so that it can evolve was definitely hard work.

Three of the Feebas immediately left like shy maiden who had seen a bare-chested for the first time, but one of them stayed behind, the smallest of the bunch.

"You want another berry so you can grow up to be big, beautiful, and strong like your friends?"

The Feebas cautiously swam closer with a nod, and Pete pushed over another Leppa Berry. When he did, Pete noticed that there were some scales missing and showing raw flesh on the Feebas' head. He remembered the evolution condition from the games and thought back to his loot from containers. There were a few scales that were likely a little too big to replace the missing ones, and he didn't have any 'scale glue', but could it hurt to try gifting one of them?

"You know, Feebas, I found this really pretty scale in my travels. I can give it to you if you promise you will protect this side of the lake in the future together with my pokemon," Pete offered as he finished going through all the miscellaneous things in his bag and pulled out a scale shining in many different colors in the early evening sun.