Chapter 8 - Chapter 8 : A man is more dangerous when he has nothing to lose

i thought that we had it in the bag, Slowpoke was catching up and started doing decent damage if they could just hold a little longer, but that was to good to be true and misty ordered starmy to use recover and i had ran out of ideas

'if i let staryu recover it's over. It's all or nothing'

" Slowpoke last resort"

and just like that he vanished from his place and a countdown started,

'5'

slowpoke appeared behind staryu and blasted him with a confusion that sended him flying followed by a water gun and then dissapeared again

'4'

while staryu was flying over a platform slowpoke appeared in mid air and hit him with his tail downwards sending him to the platform and short after slowpoke fell over him

"staryu get out of there"

staryu shot a water gun that maneged to move slowpoke and went back to the water although considerably slower than before and jumped out of the water to launch a water gun where slowpoke previusly was only to recive a water gun on the back.

'3'

staryu was on the center of the bridge that connected misty and i and when he looked for where slowpoke was based on the angle of the water gun he recived only to find it empty

'2'

he knew he needed to move and he was lucky to have done so since a second later a slowpoke fell out of the sky creating a crack on the floor but it wasn't enough since short after he recived another water gun on the back and a confusion short after so he went back to the water even slower than the previus times

'1'

and this time he decided to try something diferent and jumped to one of the platforms only to find that slowpoke was already there and seemed to have been there for a while now if the strength of this water gun was anything to go by and that sended him directly at another platform so he braced himself for the impact the best he could

'0'

that had hurt. When he looked back up he found slowpoke looking at him and so he standed up and he recibed a headbutt and when he fell back to the water everything became black.

The silence would make you think you were deaf.

If it wasnt for the fact that i could still hear the rain drops it would have seemed that time had stopped, and only when you became awere of it it came back with full force if the applause was anything to go by and then i noticed slowpoke eyes were even less focused than usual only to decide this would be the best moment to sleep so he just laid down

'we were at seconds of loseing'

putting his tail on his face like a pillow he went to sleep so i just returned him to his pokeball while misty did the same with staryu and we went to the middle where the cracks slowpoke had left where and shaked hands.

"you know? i expected to see your second pokemon at least but that 'last resort' was something i wasnt expecting at all so i guess thats why you didnt fell the need to use your second pokemon right?"

When i heared that i laugh which seemed to make something click with misty

"you dont have a second one do you? thats why you didnt switch in the whole battle and why that slowpoke is that strong it makes sense if he was the one that took all your attention"

i just nodded and she seemed pleased with the answer

"Here, take the badge you more than earned it and before you go to the poke center go to the reception and they will give you the tm for water pulse you need to upgrade your arsenal and with how powerfull it was that water gun im sure you can do better with that move"

a thanks later and i left the gym with a badge and an TM in my bag and was walking to the poke center with a smile and then was stoped by 2 kids

"excuse me sir we just watched your battle and were wondering if you could give us your autograph?"

i didnt expect this any time soon and what's worse i somehow never created a firm on my past life(just writeing his name was enough) and he didnt have time to create one in this life so he just wrote Paul, trying to give it the most amount of style he could which in his opinion was pretty mid

"thanks sir"

and just like that they left

'i could grow used to this but first i need to celebrate with the one who deserves it the most'

so after 40 minutes he got his pokeball back and immediately left slowpoke out only to find him sleeping

' i guess celebration can wait'

so instead i went back 'home' for what would be last time and went to bed with Slowpoke and stayed for what would be my last dinner in this house, then i started preparing to leave and i heared that someone started talking behind me while i was looking at his bag

"you arent gonna wait till morning honey?"

"i wanna move on as soon as posible"

and then i recived a hug

"stay safe ok? if you feel that travel is not your thing you can always come back"

i froze and slowly gave a her a hug back

" i will be ok"

and with those last words i closed the door and left with slowpoke by my side and we started walking in the middle of the night till we found a lake that was reflecting the beauty of the moonlight while i looked at the keys of the house where i lived this past month

'im sorry for what happened to your son, but thats not me and would never me'

with that last thought a splash could be heared in the lake and i moved my head to see slowpoke looking at me.

"Let's go"

we then moved to the center of the city and you could see all the lights of different shops and people walking and i entered the poke mart and decided to buy a new pokeball and 10 oran berrys

'220 left'

and after that the travel to safron city started and after 2 hours of walking we found a Hoothoot looking at us

'They are Johto natives but migration patterns usualy bring some species from jhoto here'

he seemed friendly enough so i gave him a berry and he seemed to like it if the purr was anything to go by so he started following us

"sorry little guy but i barely can afford to feed slowpoke and i so i can't take you on my team, at least not yet"

he either didn't understood or didn't care because the next thing he did was fly and put his foot on my head so i sighed and did the next best thing i could think

"slowpoke use yawn"

and with that we kept walking while the Hoothoot stood on my head

'any minute now now'

a few minutes later

'aaaaany minute now'

'...'

after half an hour he didnt seem to fall sleep

'of course the only Hoothoot i found has insomnia'

so i sighed and kept walking

' i need to battle a lot more if i wanna keep him otherwise we would starve, and i only have food for a week since that was how long it would take us to get to safron.
the oran berrys i bought would give me a extra day or two but now we have to ration and speed up'

i could feel the grip on my head and it was starting to hurt so i decided to pick up Hoothoot and i put him in my bag and i saw that it had any barely any space left

'putting him there its not such a bright idea'

so instead i put him on my shoulder and felt his grip in the strap of my bag 'if he keeps doing this i would need to change straps once every two weeks'

he then began to grow comfortable so he laid down?

'his leg is not visible any more, it seems to be somewhere in his fur although i still feel the grip on the straps'

and then we went back to walking.
During the walk i saw a couple of rattatas and pidgeys sleeping and an abra that teleported as soon as i saw it

'he sleeps 18 hours a day and decided to be active at night? couldnt be me'

I thought while walking in the middle of the night...

Anyways after a couple more hours my shoulder was starting to feel the effects of the extra 20 kg of pure hoothoot

'how does ash keep pikachu there for so long will be a mystery that i would never know even now since he dosen't exist'

so i decided to sit down and prepare the tent and hoothoot seemed to just follow me around while slowpoke laid on the grass since he was probably tired too and hoothoot didnt seem to be leaving any time soon so i took the pokeball i bought before

'it was suposed to be used in a shiny emergency god damm it, but i guess that was wishfull thinking'

so i showed him the pokeball

"well hoothoot what do you say wanna be on board?"

"hoooot"

and with that he pecked the pokeball and a flash of red appeared and in a few seconds the click from capture could be heared and then i launched the pokeball and let Hoothoot out , he was smiling with his eyes at me so i smiled back

"welcome to the family Hoothoot"

i didnt feel paricularly tired but slowpoke was so i told him to go to the tent while i went training with Hoothoot and he seemed happy to comply and in a few seconds you could hear snore comeing from the tent

'at least this way he wont crush my legs when i wake up'

"let's go Hoothoot i dont wanna wake up slowpoke"

he flew back to my shoulder and we walked for a few minutes till we found another clear where i could start training

"well for starters show me your moves i need to see what i got to work with"

"hoot"

he went to the nearest tree and started pecking it and then looked back at me

"something else?"

he then, and im not jokeing , started started to use uproar and my hears started to hurt

"!STOP!"

so he stopped

'note for the next time buy ear plugs'

"who were your parents? that was pretty strong not gonna lie anything else you wanna show the class?"

he seemed to think for a second before a wild mankey came behind the trees and he seemed pissed probably for being awaken with the uproar or maybe that was his normal expresion, but i was not gonna think about it with a temperamental pokemon in front of me.

" i hoped to wait a little more but it seems this will be your first battle little padawan so prepare to battle and show me what you can do"

Hoothoot suddenly took a more serious face and started flying takeing the mankey's entire attencion on him and starting the battle.

The mankey jumped while hoothoot made a dive at him only to get a scratch while hoothoot started pecking him which only made him more angry.

"Hoothoot whatever you do dont use uproar again any other move is valid so if you didnt end your demostration now is a good time as any"

'last thing i want is to wake up more pokemon with uproar'

he went back to the air and started growling at the mankey which seemed to make him a little scared but he shake it off so Hoothoots eyes started to take the pinkish color that psychic attacks are known for but it didnt seem to do anything .

'what move that dosent do any damage and is psychic could be?'

suddenly the mankey jumped high enough to do a karate chop that brought hoothoot to the ground but he didnt seem to have taken much damage

'if the move doesn't do damage and doesn't seem to make any change of stats then this means the move failed but why? low precision? no, the mankey was standing still'

next a psychic aura was covering hoothoot and that move i did recognice and a few seconds later he launched a confusion while mankey was running at him

' if the move dosnt work then what does mankey have that makes him inmune?'

and that was when it hit me

'this mankey has vital spirit and hoothoot used hypnosis'

a scream was heared and when i started paying my full atencion again i found a mankey on the ground defeated and when i looked down i found hoothoot was in front of me expecting something so i did what i thought was more apropiated and started petting him and that seemed to do the trick

"good job out there you showed him who's the boss"

and then a few seconds later i could start hearing bigger steps and from out of the forest a primape came.

'... '

i determined that it was mankey's parent when it looked down finding the mankey fainted and then looked back at us and it let a scream that could almost rival hoothoots uproar so i only had one thing to say

"RUN FOR YOUR LIFE"

and with that the chase started with hoothoot flying by my side and i could hear how it was slowly getting closer and closer and when i knew we where near the tent i started screaming

"SLOWPOKE, SLOWPOKEEE WAKE UP... SLOWPOKEEEEEEEE"

And when we got to the tent i saw slowpoke going out of the tent slowly and look at our direction and he must have seen the primeape behind us because he took a more serious stance and disappeared form the view and a sudden scream could be heared along side the sound of water of a waterfall behind us that signaled that the battle already started and so the orders

"Hoothoot support slowpoke if you find an opening. Slowpoke confusion over water gun not both unless you get the time to charge "

'although slowpoke could do both at the same time, the multitasking slowed the use of confusion a few seconds that we did not have'.

the atencion of the primeape was compleatly in slowpoke which gave time to hoothoot to start pecking him and when it looked back it grabbed hoothoot and launched him against a tree.

Hoothoot started to look tired so i started looking for my bag for some oran berrys and called him while slowpoke was holdding the primeape

"eat"

after eating 2 he seemed ready for battle again and launched himself against the primeape with a tackle

"hoothoot stay out of range and use growl"

thankfully he seemed to listen since this time when primeape looked back hoothoot was out of range to grab him and so he decided that slowpoke was the bigger threat and slowpoke maneged to yawn and dissapeared when primeape launched a kick .

'6 remaining'

hoothoot kept growling at him, and this time when he looked back, he threw a punch that left hoothoot looking tired again and then followed up with a kick that this time left hoothoot K.O leaving only slowpoke to defend us so he started with a confusion on the back that made him look at him again and throw a punch against him again only to look back and find that there was no one there

'5'

this time he looked everywhere only to not find anyone there and then he was send to the ground by a water gun followed by a confusion, when he looked up he found slowpoke in a tree and after a few seconds decided to bring the tree down

'4'

imediatly he looked behind to recibe slowpoke with a punch that sended him flying against a tree and he didn't look like he could take a single hit more or even do another teleport but by then the countdown was over and primeape fell down unconcious so slowpoke walked slowly to me and i gave him a berry and returned him to his pokeball while i put the tent back as fast as i could and started jogging hopeing that the primeape would leave us alone and after 40 minutes i was out of breath and the adrenaline in my body had stopped pumping, so i decided to let my pokemon out and slowpoke went back to sleep while i treated the concusion of hoothoot and then went back to sleep, today was a wild ride and i needed to be ready for tomorrow