Nuzlocke: Hearts of Gold and Souls of Silver

“Sacrifices need to be made in order for a nation to continue, even if this means leaving all it's people hanging, or even destroy it. In the end, all of this was just a waste of time and resources. None of which was worth it.”

The morning had come, and I started getting up. Blackburn was down stairs paying for our stay, while Violet was in the restroom, making her wavy crimson hair up. The pain in my chest had finally stopped and I was feeling well enough to give the gym a run.

Like in the last town, the gym was another big dome. This time the gym was focused in Bug type pokemon. Bug would usually be weak against Flying, Fire and Rock I think, making it easy for me.

Violet had finished her make up, and came near me to start a conversation. This time, I wouldn't be all tired, so I would be able to give a calm and relaxing talk, even if I was still thinking of the events of last night.

“Good morning Atlas,” She began. “Did you have a good night of sleep?”

“Sure did.” I replied. “And how has you been along?”

“I've been fine.” She answered. “And Blackburn already provided food for all our pokemon, so you don't have to worry on feeding them.”

I look to where Blackburn was standing, and noticed he was looking at me, and waved his hoof wishing me a good morning, he then turned back to his business.

And so I decided to put on my saddlebags, and attach my unnamed gadget back in my right front hoof. I had all my pokemon back at their pokeballs and I was ready to move. Violet was also ready, she decided to ready up seeing we were leaving soon. Blackburn himself was ready since the moment he was awoken.

Moments later, with everything ready, we left the inn. The day was gorgeous, the sun was out, and I could hear bird pokemon singing from the trees around the city. Just like in Equestria, the landscape was filled with trees and little animals that lived around them.

Approaching the gym, we had found a group of ponies chatting in front of the gym. They were being loud and blocking our way in, so I decided to interfere in their talk.

“Could I ask what is going on here?”

one of the ponies looked and me and answered my question. “The gym is closed, that is it!”

I looked at my friends, and they looked more confused than me. How could the gym be closed, or more importantly, why would it?

“And why is that?” Blackburn asked.

“Well, apparently there is a problem in a well near here. We had sent people to check there yesterday, but they have no come back yet.”

I made a signal to my friend to come with me a few meters away so we could plan our next step.

“So, what now?”

“Next on our map, there is the Ilex forest, but we can't go in there with out the HM01, which is cut, that we would have received from the gym.” Blackburn replied. “But I could fly us around.”

“We can go back to route 34 and check the inn. If we're lucky enough, we might solve the problem.” Violet suggested

“Now, now, let's calm down. This isn't a race to see who gets to the league first. If it was, I bet there is people on the fourth gym already.” I shut my friends up so we could take time to see this through. “Well, since we can't really leave this place without defeating the gym, we should go to the inn and check it out. With that, the gym gets open, and we can battle it.”

“But what if we get lost like the ones that went there?” Blackburn asked.

I haven't thought about that option, but we would have to battle that gym one time or another. I was never capable of using teleportation, but I had the spell in my mind. Teleportation would be taught to unicorns in magic schools. As a unicorn, I got to learn how to use basics magic spells, but I wasn't as talented as unicorns from those schools, who mastered them out.

“I could try teleport us back” I told him back. “Or at least try, we know magic can be used here, so why not use it for our advantage?”

“You know that you would use all your magic to teleport just you right?” Violet spoke. “Unless you have studied the spell enough, you won't be able to teleport all of us, well, not without wasting yourself, and possibly causing some damage, both physical and mental, to you.”

Well, and there goes my plan.

“You should listen to our doctor here, Atlas.” Blackburn continued. “We don't want you to keep getting injured.”

“Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow. He seemed to be joking, but also giving me a warning. I got injured one time, and it wasn't really my fault, and he was blaming it on me. “The place isn't away from here, and so I won't have to learn how to teleport. All we need to do is fix whatever it is blocking us, what is the worst that could happen?”

“You told me the same thing before entering the Bellsprout Tower.” Blackburn commented before starting following me to Route 33, where the well was located.

As we arrived at the well, we had seen that it was empty, no water at all in it. It was very dark down the well, and it appeared to have  a cave located beneath it.

“So, we are going down there?” Blackburn asked.

“I suppose, there isn't much up here for us to check around.” I said it as I took a look around us. All I could see were tall grass, trees, and a few wild pokemon running around, and lastly, a sing.

I gave my friends a signal to wait, while I took a closed look at the sing. I approached it, and saw that there was something written on it.

Slowpoke Well

Also known as the Rainmaker Well. Locals believe that a SLOWPOKE's yawn summons the rain. Records show that a Slowpoke's yawn ended a drought 400 years ago.

“Why does every place here needs to be named after a pokemon?” I asked myself after reading the sing. It didn't give me enough information to discover what was happening around, but at least I got to know more about this place's history and the name of the place as well.

Coming back to my friends, we were ready to go down the cave, but I had just one question.

“And how am I supposed to climb back?”

The two pegasi looked at me, but just Blackburn gave out a laugh.

“Well, I have seen you levitate heavier things than you and me.” He joked, obviously referring to recent acts done by me. Violet looked at him, confused. “I was just joking. I can try carry you up, if you can't help yourself, obviously.”

Violet then flew down the well, while me and Blackburn waited for our turn. I decided to start a little conversation.

“And hows been you two love birds coming along?”

He looked at me, and rolled his eyes around. “Well, just like before. We don't have anything serious between us, yet, but I think I can work something out.” He then gave a small natural smile. “I got to admit she is one of the most beautiful mares I have seen, don't you think?”

“Well, purple coat with a crimson hair, huh?” I stopped to think of an answer. “Makes a good combination, but not the best I've seen. But she is all yours, I wish you luck.”

“Hey, thanks.” I now looked at me. “Now it's my turn to ask. How have you and the princess coming along?”

I froze for a moment, and I realized I was blushing. now I didn't have much to lose. “Well, we talked yesterday's night in one of my dreams, but nothing about that.”

We finished our conversation there, when we could go down the well. I would go in front of Blackburn.On my turn, I would have to use a rope that was on the well.

The cave was, like I said before, very dark, and so I had Pulse out with me to provide light to us, while Blackburn had his Charmeleon with him. The cave itself seemed very small, and we didn't found anything at the entrance of it, no clues to the situation we were in.

The three of us decided to venture ahead the cave.

“I though this place was supposed to be filled with Slowpokes,” Violet made a point. “Where are them?”

She was right, the sing told me this place had a few of them living around, but they were nowhere to be found.

After minutes of searching, we had finally found what had happened to the other trainers who had came down here. in the ground, there was a small trace of blood, following even deeper. I called my friends and told that we should stick together.

“Something in this place seems wrong.” Violet spoke with a scared tone. “I don't think Slowpokes would come in here if it was this dangerous.”

Blackburn saw the chance to calm the mare down, and took it. “Don't worry Violet, I'm sure that whatever it is, it isn't natural.”

“The trail ends here.” I noticed. “But there isn't anything to indicate to us the problem, just blood!” I then took a look around us, there wasn't much to see. All I could see were the wet walls of the cave, nothing else but a small hole which seemed to connect to another room.

I knelt down and lay my head in the ground, trying to see anything under the small passage. Despite all the darkness, I could see that the wall was thinner than I thought, but we didn't have anyway to break it.

“What do you see Atlas?” Blackburn asked.

“I can't see anything on the other side, But this is a thin wall.” I got up and looked at both of my friends. “Any of you got a suggestion?”

None of them said anything, they just stood trying to think in something. I didn't have such a brilliant plan as well, but I did have a stupid idea. Considering that it was such a small distance to travel, I could try teleporting us inside. I had the spell, the horn, and the concentration, all I don't have is the training. This plan wasn't the best option, but I didn't want us wasting time in this quest, and so I decided to put this on our table of ideas.

“Seeing that none of you have anything in mind,” I started. “How about we teleport?” They looked at me, both surprised. I didn't expect this to go through, but I didn't expect such a reaction.

“You told me you didn't knew how to teleport.” Violet pointed out.

“Yeah! What if you teleport us inside something?” Blackburn supported Violet's vision.

“Chill, there is no thing as going into a wall.” I countered. “We can't teleport unless it's into an space big enough for us. Also, just because I haven't trained teleportation, doesn't mean I can't do it.”

“Look, I studied medicine, both mental and physical, for a while now.” Violet continued. “I know you're capable of doing it, but you will over exhaust yourself, and by that I mean you won't have enough magic to use telekinesis or other spells, and you will be left dizzy.” Our doctor spoke.

Violet had told us the night before this about what he used to do. She and her friend used to go to and medicine course in Canterlot. Despite being around our age, both were very talented and decided to go with medicine.

“I know, you think I had never tried doing this before.” I confirmed her explanation. “But all I do is levitate stuff around. Even if I'm left with no magic, I'll still be able to use my mouth to do things, like you guys do, no offense.”

“None taken.” Blackburn replied.

Violet gave me a angry stare, and then rolled her eyes, and calmed herself. “Fine, I suppose it's worth a try. If that's what you must do, then do it.” She spoke with a certain tone that looked like sarcasm to me, so I wasn't sure if she gave up, or just wanted to burn me if I failed.

Failing. Well, that brought a thought. If I failed, I would still suffer the damage, but if I succeeded, I would suffer the damage. There wasn't much benefits coming out of this, but it was one of the ways.

I walked hole and stood, concetrating my magic in trying to move me and my two friends to the other side, without having to go through the wall. This was hard, and I was starting to feel sweat going down to my face, my vision was starting to blur, and I was starting to have a headache. I then closed my eyes and concentrated even more in my objective.

After a while I was feeling the energy glowing in my horn grow into a second tier, I apparently had a second energy field on my horn, but even if more energy was being concentrated, we haven't moved yet. Violet said that I wouldn't be able to use magic for a while, so I had to expect this. minutes later a third field appeared, and then a forth. at this point I was starting to feel my heart pumping my blood even faster, and I couldn't open my eyes, but the black I saw was starting to get red. My body was losing it force to stay put, it was starting to fall out, which got me worried, I could get myself knocked out, or even killed.

I was considering in stop before irreparable damage was caused, but that was when a fifth field came out and I could finally teleport to the other room. Upon getting on the other room, I stopped the magic, while Blackburn got his Charmeleon out again to provide light. I would try and get Pulse out to help, but after the magic worn off, my body felt on the ground, and leaving me exhausted enough so I could barely move. I reopened my eyes, and my vision was blurry, and I was seeing thing more red than before, I bet if I could see my eyeballs, I could see veins covering them.

“I told you!” Violet started teasing me with her warnings. “Now look at you, you can barely move and your eyes are all red. Well,at least we got here. Hope it has been worth it.”

“Hey, don't blame the boy,” Blackburn argued back. “He sacrificed that for us.”

“But he didn't thought this through. We don't have a way back.”

“Stop! Both of you are going to discuss the fact that I'm going to feel like shit for the next few hours or continue to do whatever we came here to do?” I stopped their discussion while forcing myself to get back up on my hooves. “Gosh! You two look like me discussing with myself!”

Before continuing, I finally had the energy to grab Pulse's pokeball on my saddlebags, this time using my mouth. Being with no magic was something I had never done before, and so this was a new experience to me, I felt like an earth pony with a horn.

With Pulse out, and with the help of Blackburn's Charmeleon, we had plenty of light back to help us continue to move forward. Our way was just like before, rocky walls everywhere, with a few pools of water scattered around, and this time, a small lake.

“How do the ponies of that town collect water from here?” Blackburn questioned. “I mean, the would have to go through a cave just to get a bucket of water?”

“I doubt so. This place may have been filled with water before, so they would only need the well. A drought might have happened here.” Violet said as she took a look around. “If that sing was right, this may have happened due to a disappearance of Slowpokes.”

I noticed she may be right, the sing told us that it is believed that a Slowpoke's yawn can cause rain. I haven't seen a slowpoke down here since the moment we came in.

We moved even further and found a white flesh tail laying in the ground, with a small pool of blood around it. Blackburn walked near it to inspect it, while he commanded his Charmeleon to stay put. His Charmeleon seemed to want to eat the little tail, but I suppose that was expected if the creature was carnivore.

“It's recent. This tail haven't been laying for very long.” He described it. “Whatever left it here, might be near us.”

“How do you know that?” Violet asked, very curious about Blackburn's skills.

“I'm a hunter. My cutie mark is a cross hair, and that means I'm good with weapons, how do you think I got it?”

Violet's jaw dropped. She was kind of shocked to discover about the backstory of his talent.

I remember when he got his cutie mark, he ran at me so happy just to tell me about the news, and that he was the first of us to discover his talent.

His dad had taken him to camp outside of Canterlot, and as his father was a gun collector, he always kept a revolver with him. During one of the camping nights, a bear had came to tear site in search of food. Apparently it was so hungry that it tried to attack Blackburn. With that in mind, Blackburn grabbed his father's .44 Magnum while his father slept, and aimed for the bear's head, and so he unloaded the clip right at it's face. He just told me that after that, he was covered in blood and some pink mushy flesh, and that the bears face was unrecognizable.

“I can't believe you're a hunter! I thought you were some kind of weapon dealer of owner, but not a hunter!” She went all out on him. “How can you do that to animals?!”

Blackburn backed of a few steps. “Whoa there! I just hunt to collect meat for some animal owner near the Everfree Forest. And I don't even have time to do that anymore, school has filled me up until now.” He tried to counter argument, but he couldn't hide the truth. Blackburn was not a liar.

“Maybe I'll go back to doing that since we don't have to go to school anymore. What you say about coming with me Atlas?” He started checking his possibilities about what to do after this. We have both graduated, and already had our small jobs. Thanks Celestia that we don't have to spend the rest of our lives on jobs on Equestria, and can enjoy a little more of it.

“Yeah, I guess we could do that.” I responded, not really knowing what I said since I was still very dizzy, and then looked over Violet, who gave me a death stare. I realized we were getting a little off topic here, and decided to stop before we wasted more time in this cave than we were supposed to. “Now, if the two love birds could stop discussing again and move, I would be very thankful.”

For the second time I had to stop them, and we haven't even gone ten minutes without interruptions. Apparently, the use of the word "love birds" caused them both to look away from each other's face, both blushing. It was obvious to me that they like each other.

With our nonsense out of the way, we continued to follow the only way we could go, since by our right was a rock wall, and by our left was a lake.

After some walking, we could see the end of the tunnel, as well as a pony shaped figure in the end, it had it's back turned to us, but seemed to notice us coming, since it turned it's head around to see. We came near it and then started to speak.

“Aw, not again. More ponies for me to battle.”

It had a male voice, and it's shape was just like of a colt, an earth pony colt. When I got to see it's from closer, it was a white colt, whit a messy light blue hair.

All of us stood looking at each other. We stood with no expression at all, and we knew this wasn't going to end well for any of us. He had shown to not be trusted by saying he was going to battle us.

“Who are you?” I asked, ready to do anything in case we went to hell in an instant, even though I was dizzy.

He looked me in the eyes. “My name is not important. And I know this will be my ending.”

“Why are you here?” Violet continued the interrogation.

“Who do you think you are? And why do you think I will answer you?” He then got in a battling position. He was going to try and battle one of us.

My gadget told me he was only with noe pokemon in total, a injured one. Whatever thing he was doing here, he had to battle it a lot to keep protected.

I was going to pick a pokeball up in my bag, to battle him, but was stopped by Blackburn's hoof, which touched my chest and stopped me. I looked to my friend, who was looking at me back.

“Atlas, I don't think you're in condition to battle, you're dizzy, and can barely stand.” He talked to me, worried of my well being. “I can handle one injured pokemon. You can sit back this one.”

I didn't want my friend thinking that I couldn't take care of myself, but he was somewhat right. I wasn't quite in the position of going to battles now, my mind was a little too wasted, and my body wasn't handling itself out.

I stepped back, while my friend went forward. The first pokemon the mysterious stallion put on battle was a very injured Koffing, a hovering purple ball with a weird face and a skull tattoo under it, and it also leaked a yellowish gas out of a few horns in it's body, and it appeared to be a toxic gas; Blackburn sent out his Charmeleon.

Blackburn was with a face of doubt over the enemy's Koffing, and so it decided to keep it safe and raise his Charmeleon defense by a maximum. The Koffing found itself over a similar situation as mine, barely standing. It was ordered to make a gas cloud around itself, and so it did, by leaking even more gas into the air of our tunnel.

Both playing it safe, but I didn't understand why Blackburn was doing it, he could easily finish it of with one attack. He then decided to switch to his Ratata, and end his turn there. The nameless pony had a depressed expression, he knew this was his ending, and so did his Koffing. It walked over to his Koffing and put it's hoof on the ball's head, and stood there holding without saying a single word.

Seconds later, he went back to his place, with it's back turned to us and his pokemon. He then turned his head to us with his eyes closed and opened his mouth. “Gas Leak, use Explosion.”

My dizziness didn't let me take a closer look at it. The only thing I could see was Violet starting to run behind me, and Blackburn jumping, trying to save his friend. My head had only now discovered that we were going to suffer something, and so it decided to react.

Or at least try. As I was turning, I grabbed Pulse with one of my hoofs, to try and keep him out of danger. The room lit up, and was fastly covered in a explosion. I didn't knew what happened to Blackburn, and I didn't knew if this was going to affect me. The blast threw me hardly against a wall, what was left of my vision was getting darker. I had hit my head.

“... No way of us escaping this place!”  I heard a female voice speaking, middle way through her phrasing, as my head had started to come back to life.

“Look, it's still morning, and it's already the worst day I had so far. I'm in no condition to get stuck here!” A male voice replied. I started to suspect it were Blackburn and Violet discussing once again

I could feel my body laying on the ground, I still had my eyes closed, and the only parts of me that were functioning were my ears and my mind, since I could think of things. One thing I was sure of was that I had been knocked off, since I don't remember getting up after I had hit my head,but something told me that I was out for at maximum a hour, since, by Blackburn's words, it was still morning.

“I suppose that we have no choice than to wait for Atlas to come back and teleport us out.” The female voice spoke again.

“And how do you expect him to teleport us out again? his mind is exhausted. I don't think that this rest he is taking will recharge all of his magic.” The male replied. Now I was sure that it was Blackburn and Violet.

“You're right. I don't expect his normal self to be able to.” Violet rethought her strategy. This conversation had now my full attention when she said "normal self", and so I perked my ears.

“Normal self? You're not planning in...” Blackburn paused. “Making him lose control, are you? If so, we can't be doing that, he could do something dangerous to us.”

That was it. If it was their plan just to get out, just thinking about themselves, I was not going to just stand, or lay, there and listen. I gave a waking mental slap on my hooves so could get up, and opened my eyes. As I was getting up , I was preparing to say what I thought about their plan, I was about to tell them to fuck off. That was until I realized I was getting up in the middle of Violet's response, and so interrupting it.

“It was just a thought, I don't really plan on doing it, he could suffer metal illness after that, being exhausted magically and ment-” Violet stopped and looked at me giving a relief smile. Blackburn turned to see what Violet was focusing on,  and saw me, and instantly gave a comforting smile, that also comforted me. “Atlas, it's so good to see that you're fine.” Violet said as she ran at me and gave me a hug.

I was taken by surprise by her action, and I could see Blackburn looking down, and his smile fading and turning into a frown. He was somewhat jealous. I could see this bringing problems to me later, so I stopped our hug as fast as I could and kept my angry face.

“I heard it, I'm not going insane to get us out of here.” I said on purpose so we could go back to thinking on a way to get out. Violet stopped our hug and looked with guilty at herself.

“I'm sorry, I didn't really meant to have you doing that, it was just a radical solution I had.” She apologized.

“What happened while I was gone?” I asked.

“Well, after that explosion, you went down and we continued further in the tunnel to see what was on the end.” Blackburn started. “We found out that the guy was cutting the tails out of Slowpokes so he could sell it. Apparently they go for a high price around restaurants. Apparently that was what was making the gym stay closed until now.”

My stomach froze, and I had a disgusting feeling on me. The fact that those tails were made out of flesh, since we could clearly see blood coming out of the one we found, and that they were sold for ponies to eat. I stopped my thought before I went into cannibalism. “And what happened to your Ratata?” I asked Blackburn back.

He had his head up since our my hug with Violet stopped, but went down again when I mentioned his Ratata. He closed his eyes and was forcing them closed. He appear to be trying to hide his tears. “Whiskers... didn't make it...” He then got up from the rock he was sitting on and turned around to the small passage that we came in, I could see that part of hist light blue coat on his back was burned by the explosion. “Celestia Dammit! I should have attacked with Parker on the first turn!” He started raging. For the first time I could see my friend lose control at a point to rage. I could see he starting to headbutt or buck the stone wall, but I started feeling guilty myself since I triggered it.

“Burn, calm yourself down, We all had losses, but we have to move on!” Violet tried to calm my friend, who was hitting the wall with his two front hooves. He stopped with one hoof landing on the wall with the passage as he listened to Violet. Violet looked down. “Death is a natural thing, and we should not be what brings others down, but that makes us happy. It's the signal that it accomplished what it was supposed to do on the world.”

Blackburn, still with his hoof on the wall stopped, looking down while standing in his rear legs and with his wings open. “How do you know such thing?” He asked.

“I...” Violet stopped as well, looking down to the ground, to form her phrase, I could see a tear dropping out of her left eye. “I lost my mother...” She said. my eyes widened, as I was on the presence of my friends sharing their lifes deeply with ourselves. Blackburn was untouched, and stood in the same position. “... after my birth, I left my mother too weak, and so she didn't resist. My father named me Violet after the flowers he had brought to her on the day of her death, and would put violets on her grave every month.” She added. Blackburn was still untouched, except that I could see one tear dropping from his eyes.

Now, with every member on our group sad, excluding our pokemon, we had emotional problems and environment problems to worry about.

We wall stood and stayed in the same place, until the moment was broke by Blackburn, who went back to staying four hooves and turned back to us.

“Aaaaaaargh!” Blackburn gave his last raging scream to my surprise, and bucked the wall with his rear legs.

BUUUMP

He had given it a hard enough hit to make the wall tremble for a small moment. The wall looked somewhat different to me than before, it's form had changed a little by the hit, but none of my friends seemed to notice since they were worried with their emotional sides.

After Blackburn bucked the wall, he ran at Violet, who seemed to be crying, and gave her a good hug to comfort her. I could see both of them letting their tears out, Blackburn specially, since he was holding his since he lost his Ratata.

“It's okay, you're with us now.” He said to calm her. I could see that both of them had stopped crying and were just hugging, and so I thought this was a signal of their relation growing even stronger.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, and watching two friends become closer, I decided to interrupt the moment. “Uhh... I don't mean to interrupt the moment we are having here, but I think the wall is fake.”

Their hug stopped and both looked at the wall, and this time seeing that it's form had changed. Blackburn looked the more surprised of all.

“It all makes sense now!” He said walking towards the wall. “Why would a trainer with wounded pokemon say he had battled other ponies when he was stuck here, and other ponies didn't have how to come in?”

“What?” I asked.

“He was putting this fake wall here to hide, so if other came around, he would slip by unnoticed. He probably was having trouble and decided to put this here in order to stop people from coming after him!” Blackburn continued his genius explanation about the trainer of before. “No wonder I didn't felt pain when kicking it.”

“So we can just break it?” Violet asked. Blackburn didn't respond, he just Bucked the wall another time

Buuuump!

The wall fell down, we were now free. “Yes, we can.” Blackburn responded as he opened wall for Violet to walk, making a pose that usually only high society stallions from Canterlot would do which represented the manner of "Ladies first". Now I was one hundred per cent sure that the both of them would be together by the end of our adventure.

And so, Violet walked out first, followed by Blackburn, and them followed by me. “Gosh, I bet you will be begging for some attention after they get together. How about you ask the princess on a date before you feel left out?” The other me suggested.

I had already get used to the lighting of the surface again, and now we were back at Azalea Town, and were heading to the gym. The gym wasn't far away from us since the town was very small, and with that I had took a moment to check if my pokemon were okay for battling, and since this was a bug type gym, I would focus on using Phoenix, Scout, and if needed, I would use my Nidoran that after some thinking I decided to name Venom.

Now, I was waiting for my turn to battle the gym leader, Bugsy, a teenager colt, who's specialty was Bug-type pokemon, and so making his cutie mark a horned black beetle. His coat was painted green, and his short hair was lavender colored, as well as his eyes.

Blackburn had fought it first, and now was Violet's turn, who was doing okay. During Blackburn's battle, I could have taken a closer look at pokemon Bugsy had. A Metapod and a Kakuna, both being shells for caterpillars to become a butterfly and a bee respectively; And a Scyther, which my gadget gave the following description: Scyther is a bipedal, insectoid creature. It is primarily green with cream accents between its body segments. On the back of its somewhat reptilian head are three points, and it has narrow eyes. Its forearms consist of large, white scythes, which it uses for hunting as well as fighting. On its thighs are spikes of fur, and it has three clawed toes on its large feet. Two pairs of cream-colored wings extend from its back. While these wings do allow Scyther to fly, it is rarely seen doing so. The abdomen of a female will be slightly larger than that of the male.

The two pods pokemon would be something very easy o take out, but the Scyther was somewhat difficult, even for Blackburn. The Scyther's speed was faster than scout's, and it's blades on it's arms would cause a lot of damage to Blackburn's pokemon. Fortunatly it was defeated with two fire attacks from his Charmeleon.

Violet had used her Kirlia and her Riolu , the two pokemon she used before. I had yet not discovered what other pokemon she had with her other than those two, but she looked to be handling herself with a Fighting and a Psych types. She used her Kirlia to defeat the two pod pokemon and switched to Riolu for the Scyther battle.

The Scyther dashed like a bullet on the little aura pokemon and got behind the creature, and right of attempted to use a back cut of it's arm blades.

Slash! Slash!

The Scyther slashed the air two times, missing the blue little wolf, which dodged it's attacks precisely. With it's attack, the Scyther had become vulnerable to a hit, and so the Riolu took advantage of it, jumping into the air and preparing a blue shining ball with it's paws.

Vroosh! Critical hit! Scyther fainted.

And with that, Violet easily won the battle, and got the Hive badge. She got her pokemon back to their pokeballs and sat on a bench besides Blackburn, the both now waiting for me to go. And so I got up, I had Scout up front to defeat the pods as fast as I could, and move to Phoenix, to finish the Scyther as fast as I could and trying to not take any kind of casualties. But I couldn't trust it all in me, since my plans haven't been exactly the best, but as long I trusted my pokemon, and kept calm, I belive we can do this.

The battle started, and I easily destroyed the two pod pokemon using Scout. The powerful air blades created by the wind of Scout's wings could easily take down a bug of grass pokemon, so nothing out of usual, just slashes on the bugs.

Finally, the moment had come. Now it was Phoenix standing in front of me, and on the dome's opposite side was Bugsy and her Scyther. Phoenix was ready, and so was I. Bugsy sent her Scyther into the field, and so beggining our duel. Fire against Bug.

Phoenix was on her fighting stance, standing of her four paws and prepared to give a strike. Scyther had a slightly higher speed than Phoenix, so physical attacks would leave her vulnerable, so I decided to go with ranged attacks.

I ordered Phoenix to stay in place and prepare a flaming spin, and wait for my signal for when to dodge and let the fire out. The scyther had a different way of battling, a more aggressive one. Charging at the speed of a bullet into Phoenix, and she was standing there, waiting for my signal. This was a team effort, so if one fail, the other goes down too.

The Scyther zig zagged his way to my feline companion, and gave a instant to attack. I saw that as the moment for our battle to really begin.

“Now Phoenix, use Fire Spin!” I screamed, my voice feeling the moment of adrenaline.

Woooosh!

Phoenix dodged the bash the Scyther did, making the air let out a sound showing me that it was a near miss.

Vroosh!

A circular arena made of fire walls was made, reducing the space between Scyther and Phoenix. The plan was to have Scyther a smaller area to run, reducing the whole arena to a small circle was the best way to put that into execution.

“Phoenix, use Ember!” I told my pokemon what to do. My heart was jumping into emotion. I haven't felt so much of this emotion when battling in ages.

Phoenix opened her jaws and started shot at Scyther.

Vroosh! Vroosh! Vroosh! Vroosh!

The fire balls went at the Scyther direction, which despite the small area to run, managed to dodge all of them while zig zaggin into my pokemon

“Scyther, use Take Down!” Bugsy commanded her pokemon.

“Phoenix, burst into flames!” I screamed back, countering her attack.

Vroosh! Pow!

Phoenix was launched a few steps way and had suffered a regular amount of damage, but still managed to keep up and land on her feet. Scyther had taken damage from his own attack, slightly less than Phoenix, and had also suffered from the burn, getting on a similar level of health as my pokemon.

“Phoenix, Fire wheel!”

Phoenix started running into the Scyther, while a small flame started covering her up into a wheel of flames. The Scyther saw it, and prepared to give a corporal strike. As Phoenix was about to hit Scyther, and about to take his hit, I changed idea.

“Now!” I screamed, feeling like me and Phoenix had a connection, and she knew what I meant when I commanded. She jumped into the air, dodging the arm blades of the Scyther, and flying over him. “Use Flamethrower!” Phoenix took the command and executed it instantly.

Phoenix covered the Scyther in flames, while landing back on the ground. There wasn't a thing to be seen of the Scyther, so I had just took that was a win.

Swoosh!

Suddenly, a little before Phoenix stopped the fire, a Razor Leaf flew out of the flames, almost hitting Phoenix, but making her stop the fire breath, and back up a few steps. The Scyther had survived the fire, but was very low on health. It was time for the final blow.

The Scyther still had power to keep up, and so it decided to go with ranged attacks. I decided to keep distance as well.

“Scyther, use Razor Leaf!” Bugsy screamed.

“Phoenix, Ember!” I screamed back.

At this point it was a battle of who would hit first, but the leafs were powerful enough to neutralize the flames from Phoenix. It was a war of fire and grass, each of one neutralizing the other, and the leaf which did not burst in flames would miss by a dodge from Phoenix.

I had to do something, or we would be stuck in this loop of neutral power. So I decided to bring Phoenix's fire power to a maximun.

“Phoenix, use Fire Blast!” I ordered, not sure if she could actually use it. Phoenix eyes widened, her eyes reflecting a live flame, which grew bigger in a instant. She close her eyes.

Right after, Phoenix opened her mouth and roared like a lion, letting fire out of her mouth. The ball of fire stopped in the middle of the air, and formed a star out of flames, hanging there. The Scyther saw it and tried to prepare to dodge it. Phoenix gave the permission for the attack to go on.

Swooooosh! Blast! It's super effective!

The foe's Scyther Fainted.

The flames caught with the Scyther in the moment it tried to dodge. The creature was covered in flames and lit the whole room in light. When I was able to see again, The Scyther had came back to it's pokeball, and Phoenix was standing, hardly breathing, since she made a big effort to use the attack. I made the signal for her to come back and take a rest, and so she ran at me and jumped in my back, leaning on my back and my saddlebags.

I walked up to Bugsy, who admitted we had a very good and balanced battle, and gave me the Hive badge, the second out of eight badges I had to get. I walked back to my friends, who seemed impressed with the battle.

“I haven't seen a battle so well balanced like this in ages.” Blackburn complimented. “You did well by reducing the Scyther's area, causing it's speed to stop being a factor that really mattered. I had a lot of trouble with it, I had some lucky shots.”

“Well, at least you didn't go all emotional when your pokemon took a hit, unlike the first gym.” Violet joked. I looked at her, surprised to know how she knew about that.

“Did Blackburn told you about that?” I asked. She rolled her eyes and nodded. I felt something telling me to hide from shame, since I had a completely different attitude here, but did not.

“Come on, we need to take our lunch before we leave the city, the next place we will have to pass is the Ilex Forest.” Blackburn said as he was getting up from the bench. Violet followed behind, and lastly me, we left the gym and went to a nearby restaurant.

“So, this is the forest?” Violet asked as we walked out of the cabin used as an entrance for the Ilex forest. “Why is it dark? I don't remember being nighttime when we entered here.”

“"Ilex Forest is so overgrown with trees that you can't see the sky. Please watch out for items that may have been dropped."” Blackburn answered, reading a sing right next to the cabin. “That is why.”

I opened the map on my hoof gadget. the forest seemed to occupy half of the way to the next city, Goldenrod city, the other half being Route 34. Goldenrod city was a big city, which held a train station leading to Kanto. It also held a building which sell a variety of items, and of course, the third gym.

“I think it's better for us to get moving, we have a lot of ground to cover.” I told my friends. And so we started to get moving. Side by side, together, entering the dark forest.

“Don't you fear, Atlas, Everything is going to turn out okay.”