Percy congratulated Crash and had him use Rest to heal himself. He healed Ivysaur with a potion and waited for it to regain consciousness. After a few minutes of waiting, Ivysaur woke up and looked around confusedly. He realized that he lost and fell into a depression.
The reward of a potential increasing item was incredibly tempting to any Pokémon. For a Pokémon to find a potential increasing item naturally they would have to challenge a Pokémon of the same type who has much better potential or higher level. Then they would have to eat the Pokémon and absorb all the energy.
A Pokémon can slowly increase its potential by eating Pokémon but it would be extremely slow and ineffective. "Don't worry about giving Crash anything. You helped him learn Ice Punch and that's definitely worth it. That was a great battle. I'm sure you learned something from it and it wasn't completely useless."
Percy patted Ivysaur on the head before recalling Crash and going back to the group of Prodigies with the Ivysaur following. "You gotta battle against me sometime Percy. I'm sure it'll be great. Crash fits my style of fighting and I'm sure him and Charmeleon would get along great." At some point Haley had started watching the battle and ran up to Percy begging him for a battle. "Not right now. I'm sure you'd want to battle against us when we've fully recovered." Percy held his hands up in surrender.
He made up some bullshit excuse and turned toward Ash for help. Percy just plain did not see himself ever winning against Haley and didn't think that his ego needed a blow. Even if Percy knew that he didn't stand a chance his ego would still be hurt and that could negatively affect his future performance.
He was being a little dramatic though. There wasn't a one hundred percent chance that Percy would lose but being slightly pessimistic caused Percy to lower his chances subconsciously. Ash noticed Percys plea for saving and spoke up. "I think I've got an idea." A few minutes later every Prodigy surrounded Ash as he drew up a plan. He held a stick and drew a bunch of lines in the dirt. After a few minutes of what Ash considered to be in-depth drawing he finished his outline sketch. "Alright. So I've drawn a rough map of the forest and the surroundings." He explained.
Maybe if you squinted your eyes and tilted your head then maybe it'll look like a very rough sketch of the surrounding area. His eyes scanned the crowd of skeptical faces and looked back to the drawing. "Anyway I've drawn this and now I'll show you what I'm planning on doing." The map showed the forest that spanned across about 50 kilometers through its diameter.
It's a relatively small forest but it being controlled entirely by one colony of Pokémon is really impressive. What looked like a river lined the edge of the forest under a cliff. You wouldn't be able to see that in the dirt, but all of the Prodigies, being responsible and smart people, have already done research on the area and know the general layout. Ash traced along the edge of the forest. "We'll start on this side and sweep throughout the entire forest exploring every corner.
Eventually we're bound to find the main nest. Although it does concern me that the Honey City trainers were unable to find it. There must be a couple Elite trainers among them and I doubt we'd be able to find something they couldn't. Who knows it's pretty much the only thing I can think of, not that there's a different path. I thought we should start out traveling in one big group.
It doesn't make sense to split up when we are in unknown and dangerous territory." He sent a glance at some of the members of the Prodigies. Kushida, Grace, and Marcus fell under his glance as they were the worst at combat. Aurora was spared as she was a great healer and support. Percy got the feeling that Ash would've been fine with splitting up had these 3 not been there.
As the age old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. Although that's not completely true, any sort of burden can cause deaths and nobodies willing to take the risk for the sake of covering more ground faster. Not that Marcus, Grace or Kushida are useless in any way it's just that their strengths are in different areas and everybody understood that and respected it. The bigger group allows more people to react faster making them safer.
Plenty of deaths happen to trainers all the time and it isn't something that's uncommon. Even just in the past two weeks Percy has almost died 3 times. So dying can be sudden and unfortunate for any unprepared group of trainers. As Percy thought about it, it seemed like a miracle that nobody in Claire's group has died. In a group of 7 people there was bound to be a mistake.
The group of barely educated and poor trainers would be hard pressed to at least not take any major injuries. 'Perhaps there was a casualty and Claire just didn't want to share it.' Percy thought to himself. He didn't like the word casualty. It made being a trainer sound like war, which in a way is true. "I'll design the best formation for us to maximize safety and effectiveness and we'll go. We should pack up though as we will search for the nest until dusk." Ash explained and threw the stick he was expressively drawing with.
It was still only 1 in the afternoon and they could still get at least 5 hours before it starting getting dark. They wouldn't dare trying to do anything at night as that's when Spinarack and Ariados are at their best. Everybody packed up their tents and put out the fire. Crash put out the fire and the Prodigies assembled at the edge of the forest.
Ash stood in front and guided everybody to where they needed to be. "Percy and Haley will lead with their Pokémon in the front. We'll be moving in a diamond shape so there'll be some people in the middle. Ishigami will be behind and a little to the left of Percy and Baxter will be a little back and right of Haley.
Misty behind Baxter, Kai behind Misty and Zoe behind Kai. Jason will be behind Ishigami, me behind Jason, and Luna behind me. Marcus is in between Ishigami and Baxter, Kushida in between Misty and Jason, Aurora will be between Kai and me, and Grace will be in between Luna and Zoe. And finally Jasper you will take flank." Ash guided everybody to their spot and stepped back to observe his idea. The form looked something like this.
Percy Haley
Ishigami Marcus Baxter
Jason Kushida Misty
Ash Aurora Kai
Luna Grace Zoe
Jasper
Percy noticed how much brain power has actually been on it into this formation. Even the relationships in between trainers was taken consideration of. For example Grace was next to Luna, and Zoe and Aurora are next to Kai.
He also thought that Percy and Haley were in front because of the amount of attack power both of them had. They were easily fitted to frontal confrontation and Percy respected the planning that went into this.
He didn't forget to clip his axe to his belt as he had the suspicion he would have to use it. After everybody got into position they left into the forest following a very particular path. Ash had them follow the edge of the forest until they moved in deeper. He decided to go with a lawnmower style search through the forest. The forest wasn't exactly dense with trees but had a very specific type of tree.
It's called a Plora tree and it was known for the large and giant leaves. It's leaves spread far and blocked a lot of the sun from touching the ground. Plenty of webs could be seen occasionally and Percy even saw some with dead Pokémon on them. The sight caused Grace to gag in disgust as the blood had been sucked from it and the only thing he could see about it was that it used to have a tail. So most of the forest was dark and it's very possible for there to be plenty of Spinarack patrolling around the area.
Percy kept his eyes wide open and watched his surroundings carefully. Haley did the same and her head was always on a swivel. They walked at a brisk pace and made good time. Soon enough they bumped into a large group of Pokémon. 15 Spinarack and 1 Ariados descended from the tree branches. The Spinarack had an average level of 16 and the Ariados was leveled 25.
They hung on silk and looked at the group upside down aggressively. All of the Prodiges released their full arsenal of Pokémon and looked back at the Spinarack. Of course Pharaoh or Jormun weren't released. Some of the Prodigies brimmed with excitement while others shook in fear. Mostly Misty or Marcus as they both were deathly afraid of bugs. Suddenly the tension broke and everything started preparing moves.
The trainers finished their moves first and sent about 20 moves fly to different Pokémon. Fúria leaped up one of the trees and approached one of the Spinarack. Crash shot a Scald at a Spinarack and stuck by Percys side. A little bit later the Spinarack and Ariados finished their moves and shot it at their targets. Most of the Spinaracks used Poison Sting and about 30 white and purple needles flew toward the group.
Most of the attacks were targeting the Prodigies Pokémon but some of them shot at the trainers. Fortunately they shot the trainers around the edge. So they just used their respective weapons to deflect the attacks. All of them were talented and very physically capable so it was no big deal to deflect the attacks. Percy was unlucky enough to have two different needles shot at him so he had to do some improvising.
Crash wouldn't be able to move fast enough to block it nor could Percy dodge; the rest of the Prodigies were behind him and if he dodged, one might get hit. Percy flicked his axe off of his belt and imbued it and his body with aura. The needles were much closer than Percy previously thought and he didn't think he could deflect both of them. He bit the inside of his cheek and swung his axe deflecting one of the needles.
He turned his shoulder to take the hit with the least risk of fatal injury and prepared himself to take the hit. Suddenly a knife flicked out from his right and cut the needle in half. Percy looked over in surprise to see Haley's face smiling at him. "Thank you." He said, she only nodded and turned away to direct her Pokémon in the battle. Percy glanced behind him and saw Jasper deflect a needle with a kitchen knife and Ash deflect one with a bayonet.
In just that first volley 7 Spinarack were defeated and only 2 of the Prodigies Pokémon got hit. They quickly used more moves while protecting the weaker trainers in the middle. The rest of the Pokémon were wiped out by the Prodigies and all of them caught the Pokémon and retreated just out of the forest into the sun.
Only one Pokémon was hurt enough to require healing and Aurora healed it promptly with Chansey. Everybody checked the status of their Pokémon and rested for a couple of minutes. Ash addressed the group after everyone rested. "That went pretty well. Although there is something I missed in our formation.
I forgot that the Spinarack hide in trees and ambush their prey. If you guys don't mind it would be good if Fúria and Tyson could stay in the trees and keep an eye out for Spinarack and Ariados." Ash asked. Percy and Jasper nodded and sent their Pokémon into the trees. Then they set off again on their search.