Finally, we were back on the road. Travelling north from Jubilife was an interesting experience. Ever since leaving Sandgem, we had been slowly, yet steadily, travelling uphill. From the coast, the land was rising towards the Coronal Mountains to the east of us, with some of their reaches stretching out to the sea, north of us. Those lower reaches were a lot less daunting and impressive than the mountains east of us, especially Mount Coronet at the centre of the mountain-chain, something I was grateful for.

It would take us another two days to get there, and on the next day, we’d have to keep an eye out for the landmarks Gym-Leader Bree had described to us. Missing the objective for our mission would be a pain.

“There’s another Bidoof coming.” Claire sighed, and I briefly focused on listening. There was the now familiar scrabbling sound coming from the woods and Claire stepped up, ready to send out Twiggy.

Since leaving Jubilife, battles had been a bit of a chore. The Pokémon we were facing were just too weak. No stronger than those we had faced right after leaving Twinleaf, and yet, we had to knock them around if they tried to attack us. Or start running like crazy but really, if we did that, we’d only get tired quickly.

Instead, we had decided to let the weakest of our four Pokémon take care of the battles as much as possible and with a bit of consideration, the burden fell to Twiggy. Not only had he yet to evolve, we both considered Vio the stronger Pokémon, simply due to her nasty habit of messing with her opponents mind.

“Twiggy, those leaves need to be sharper. Faster, like a razorblade!” Claire encouraged her partner, as the Bidoof started it’s attack. Again, the leaves on his head started to glow green, before shooting out a pair of projectiles. Looking at them, their training was paying off. In the beginning, the leaves shot out by his Leafage were a little slow and blunt, but now, they slowly started to morph into the sharp and swift projectiles Razorleaf was known for.

The Bidoof tried to barrel through the attack, It got roughly halfway through the attack before the glow of its Tackle faded away and it dropped, sliding a little along the ground, unconscious.

“Great, Twiggy. We might want to try holding back a little more, so you don’t waste energy, but it was a great attack.” Claire cheered for her partner, a proud smile on her face. Not for defeating the Bidoof, but for slowly mastering a new attack.

“Better try getting him to perfect it for use against actual enemies.” I warned her, getting a thoughtful nod in response.

“True.” she looked up for a moment, gazing at the sky.

“We might want to seek shelter.” she suggested and I followed her eyes, letting out a soft groan. The great weather of the last few weeks seemed to be turning. At first, while we were still in Jubilife, only a few clouds had dotted the sky but now, there was a dense, grey soup above us, giving the impression that torrential rains were coming.

“Let me think.” I replied, concentrating on the map Tara had shown us back in Jubilife and estimating our position based on the landmarks around us, and the time we had been travelling since seeing some of them. My musings were interrupted when the first drops of rain landed on the budding leaves above us.

“Urgh. I think I’ve got an idea.” I told Claire, remembering that there should be a shelter nearby, a cave that had been dug by a trainer in the past, as they had set up a small base in the wilds for their training.

“There should be a small cave dug into a nearby hill.” I explained, before pushing ahead, past the knocked-out Bidoof. If I could find the right landmark, we should get to the cave before the rain got too bad.

It took a little longer than I would have liked to find the landmark, a weirdly stacked-looking formation of rock, some distance away from the road. Using it as the basis for navigation, I was able to find the hill, though by that point, Claire and I were both wet and cold, despite having rain-gear.

The hill was neither tall nor steep, the cave more a hole dug into the side of it, creating a small overhang that could shelter us from the rain, at least from most of it.

“Looks comfy.” I grinned, stepping close to the wall and taking off my pack and raincoat. If nothing else, I wasn’t getting any wetter than I already was.

“Wonderful, makes one want to settle down and raise a bunch of kids. Only needs a white picket-fence and it would be a dream-home.” Claire snarked. But despite her snark, she happily moved into the sheltered area and took off her own raincoat.

For a moment, she hesitated, looking at me, before starting to strip off the rest of her clothes, all of which were somewhat damp.

“Could you ask your Prince to keep us warm?” she asked, shivering from the cold.

“Charm, your turn.” I instantly complied and decided that maybe, getting out of my clothes wouldn’t be too bad.

Not soon after, Claire and I were both dressed in dry clothes and sitting against our packs, with Prince Charming sitting between us, carefully keeping out of the rain. By now, it had turned into a veritable downpour, with enough water coming from the sky to severely limit visual range.

“It could be worse, right?” I asked, only for a distant thunderclap to roll over us, as if in confirmation.

“Please don’t say that.” Claire just pleaded, moving a little closer to Prince Charming.

“Hot chocolate, Walonian Waffles, Chai-Tea…” she muttered, almost as if trying to conjure up the food she was imagining with nothing else but her mind.

Around us, the afternoon was slowly turning into night, making a dreary day into something even worse.

Sitting there, my eyes mostly closed and drifting in and out of awareness, I heard a rustling sound. Shaking off my dazed state, I sat up, looking around carefully.

There, almost hidden by rain and twilight, was a small creature, staring at us with wide, angry eyes. Given that I could barely see the Pokémon, I quickly pointed my Pokédex at it, trying to get a reading. According to the Pokédex, the mostly hidden foe was a Seedot, the image showing an acorn-shaped monster, walking on two stubby feet

“Charm, we might get company.” I warned my partner, my voice shaking Claire awake.

Looking at the reading of the Pokédex again, I realised that the Seedot seemed to be rather interesting. Its power-level was utterly miserable, making me think that it had been forced out of its home-territory to the point that it had been starved of energy and food, but on the other hand, its innate growth-values were excellent.

“That one might be a suitable partner.” I muttered, before deciding that having a Pokémon that countered Prince Charming’s weaknesses was a worthwhile addition to the team.

Maybe it had felt my interest, maybe it simply had enough of waiting, but as I was getting up, the Seedot suddenly started to glow with a deep, eerie purple light. The attack was the same that Caspian’s Zubat had used. The moment the Seedot started to prepare it, Charm sprang into action.

“Charm, Dragon Breath.” I ordered, deciding to forgo the type-advantage of a fire-attack as the rain would dampen it, maybe even extinguish it completely.

My dear partner made me proud, despite the Seedot being the one to initiate the attack, he managed to get his Dragon Breath out before the Seedot could strike with Astonish. The deep crimson flames utterly ignored the pouring rain and struck the Seedot, which didn’t even try to dodge. Instead, it sent out its attack, forcing Prince Charming to step forward, to shield Claire and myself from it.

They exchanged attacks twice more, Charm unable to dodge because he wasn’t about to run into the rain and in the small space we three were in, any dodged attack would hit Claire or myself. On the other hand, the Seedot tried to dodge but Charm’s swift-moving Dragon Breath managed to catch it on both exchanges.

Finally, it started to wobble and as it tried to charge up yet another attack, I pulled out a Pokéball, primed and threw it.

There was the vortex of energy, dragging the Seedot into its depth before the Pokéball started to shake, trying to seal the Seedot’s energy into its matrix. I was about to cheer at the successful catch, when the Pokéball popped back open, the Seedot reappearing.

“Crud.” I let out a soft curse, before telling Charm to finish it off. Watching as yet another Dragon Breath struck the creature, I let out a sigh, disappointed that I had failed to catch it.