Faller, Noun: Someone Experiencing Interesting Times - Chapter 20

“...Hello there.” Neil greeted belatedly, after a second of rubbing his eyes to make sure that yes, that was a Poochyena sitting in front of his tent staring at him, “One bark for food, two barks for just a spar, three barks for if you want to test me as a potential Trainer.”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised when the doglike Pokemon barked trice immediately.

The Dark Type had spunk that was for sure. Idly, Neil held open the tent’s flap, looking over his shoulder, “Aight, Maragda, you good to go?”

The aforementioned Mawile chirped something resembling a grudging agreement - the notes of morning tiredness obviously present providing the reason pretty much immediately. He could pretty safely intuit that his Starter would much prefer he wait a bit before engaging in battle, but wasn’t entirely opposed.

He chucked her a Chesto Berry and that worked just as well as a morning coffee to get her clearheaded and raring to go. Usually she preferred coffee, instead of treating Chesto Berries like trail mix handed over from Arceus himself like Neil did, but they were in a bit of a hurry here. With an amused grin towards Esmeraldina as she issued what could only be described as mock-disgust, he nodded towards the Poochyena. “Alright, let’s get a bit away from the tents so we don’t knock anything over with the battle.”

With a sharp, excited nod of understanding, the small dog trotted over to the vicinity of their firepit. If he did capture this one, he’d have to deal with a morning person, that was for sure.

It was honestly adorable how much Esmeraldina was grumbling under her breath - his partner either swearing a blue streak or muttering increasingly creative ways of showing her displeasure with being forced to function so early. Probably best to avoid any kind of morning events, especially battles, in the future. Esme would probably make an exception if it was the only timeslot in which they could go watch a performance or the like, but otherwise he’d never hear the end of it.

As they approached the ‘appointed’ location, Neil heard Raiko’s tent zipper open, the unmistakable sound briefly distracting the three of them from their impending battle.

“I thought I heard you two up and about.” His companion called, far too damned cheerful for the morning, Eevee slipping out of the tent with her normal self-assurance, the Pokemon and trainer pair making their way towards the extinguished firepit and their remaining firewood, “We’ll get started on breakfast, you three enjoy your battle!”

“Thanks, partner.” Neil replied with a sloppy two-finger salute, before settling into position together with Esmeraldina on the patch of the clearing they’d used for daily spars after setting camp yesterday. “Right, does until yield or knockdown sound good? Don’t think either of us can really afford a full on down and out knockout.”

“We’d have to go to a Pokemon Center for that, so veto’d on down and out.” Raiko called in agreement, “I’d appreciate Eevee not having to defend us alone in the unlikely but still possible event that shit goes down.”

Evidently, Poochyena agreed, given their quick bark of affirment. They - because he honestly couldn’t eyeball that sort of thing worth shit - also had to concern themselves with what happened after this, even if they did get caught, after all.

Soon enough, both of the Pokemon had settled into battling stances. Mawile adopting the classic stance of her species - her body facing towards Neil, false jaw facing her opponent, with her head turned just enough that she could see her opponent out of her peripheral vision. He’d read someone that eventually, she’d stop bothering to even do that - either because she trusted Neil enough to make judgement calls or because her other senses developed to the point that sight became redundant.

Either way, it meant that he could be a tricky son of a bitch and verbally call for Astonish so the Dark Type would get cocky thinking he didn’t know his Type matchups, when in actuality he was gesturing with his hand for Rock Tomb to dumpster the dog’s mobility. Esmeraldina wasn’t at the level of mastery of the Move where there was outright sorcery involved causing a weighting effect even after you broke clear of the rocks, but the boulders still had a way to make legs and wings specifically have a really bad day.

Perhaps not surprisingly for the obviously young Pokemon that had sought a human out specifically, the dog fell for it immediately. The widened eyes as they yelped and began desperately weaving around the Rock Tomb - with about as much grace as a particularly coordinated toddler - told him enough about the youngster’s general skill level.

Still, the fact that the dog managed to weave through that at all and with decent speed said there was a fair chunk of talent there waiting to be brought out. Now, time to see how far that went, a different hand gesture that Poochyena outright couldn’t see with all the kicked up dust calling for a Fairy Wind to dazzle the poor bastard and put in some hurt. Sure, Esme’s strength was in physical moves, but she was still a Fairy Type and that hit extra hard against Dark Types.

It really shouldn’t have surprised him that the Dark Type immediately called things there, barking sharply as they sat, visibly winded and in pain, but quite satisfied with themselves.

“You got some real speed in there, looking forward to polishing it and getting some feint game going.” Neil chuckled as he pulled out a bog-standard pokeball from his pocket, expanding it from golf ball size to filling his entire hand comfortably. A headbutt from the hyena pokemon and he had a new friend on the team.

“Congrats on your first capture!” Raiko called - she’d gotten a fire going pretty nicely, likely with some help from Eevee, and was already frying some eggs. Those got bad fast, after all, so she’d been going out of her way to use them as fast as possible, “Also, Eevee found some more rabbit. Feel like staying a bit? Both to get used to your new teammate and for me to make some smoked meat for the road?”

Before Neil could even think to respond, the cheerful replies from his two Pokemon made his decision for him, not that he’d have refused. Food was food and they’d been driving themselves pretty hard recently.