12/28/19

10:01 am

Weird Woods

    Getting inside Weird Woods was a lot easier than I thought. In the human world, you had to crawl under a wired gate—which I barely fit through three years ago—just to get to the entrance of the forest. As for here, let's just say it was simple matter of walking in.

    The trees once again surrounded the two of us as the same layout three years ago was injected toward the scene. It was a nostalgia that I truly wanted to forget every single day of my life.

    And yet, here we are.

    "Cord, I really want an explanation of why we're here." After a while of walking he paid attention to what I said and stopped in the middle of the pathway. He sat down on top of his tail and spoke to me.

    "Lucas, let's face it. You don't have that much experience with being a Pokémon. So, I made the decision to come over here for a little training session. And due to the circumstances here, we might have a chance of doing this again."

    As Cord stood up again, I went right in front of him to explain. "What circumstances?" I asked.

"Well, how do I put it into words..." Cord started moving again while he was talking. "Let's say two Pokémon arrived here that weren't either of us. The procedure for this dungeon is that it literally checks each Pokémon's stats. The Pokémon whoever has the highest level will actually decrease to the other Pokémon's lower level."

Cord let out a weird pant soon after, making me realize that his stamina is somehow equal or lower than mine. "What the... That's impossible!"

"I know. But that's Weird Woods for you."

With the conversation about the "weirdness of Weird Woods"—see what I did there—we both arrived in a grassy plain. "Don't tell me. This is—."

"The place I disappeared in the human world. Yeah." Cord moved toward the center of the field, trying to hide a smile for some reason. "This is going to sound weird, but I want you to fight me." ...Wait, wait, wait. You want me? To fight you? When I've never fought as a Pokémon my entire life?

My best friend could already see me act completely surprised a few moments after that statement sunk in. "I'm going to go easy on you, Lucas!" he yelled.

"I am so screwed." I slowly walked up toward Cord, and took a deep breath... Soon after, one of my arms swung toward Cord without having the courtesy of aiming. The weird attack completely failed as my best friend turned opponent dodged it ever so slightly and returned the punch hardly.

My body ended up flying very far to the ground. I looked at where he hit me and groaned. This is going to be fun.

"Lucas, you left yourself open in that one. Try again."

While I stood up again, I did a quick moment of thought here. Obviously, hand to hand combat by itself is not going to work. And as far as I know, I have Quick Attack and Iron Tail as moves since I'm a Pokémon. So...

I hit the ground running. A tailwind appeared again, and Quick Attack was officially used. I'm pretty sure Cord knew what I was doing, but there was no backing out now.

The thing with Quick Attack is in that speed, attacks can theoretically become more powerful since the motion is quicker. With that, I was able to throw fast punches and kicks to Cord without wasting large amounts of stamina. And yet, Cord still dodged every one of my attacks.

"I know you can do better than that, Lucas!"

Right then and there, something weird happened. I tried to punch Cord, but my fist suddenly opened. What came out of it was an electric ball that immediately exploded between the two of us.

We were both sent flying—with Cord flying farther than me. Just before I hit the ground though, I stopped moving downward. I tried to do any type of movement, but I was frozen solid.

When I looked around the area, I noticed something weird and/or extraordinary. Cord's eyes were glowing, and he was making a hand movement. I suddenly started floating toward Cord's area, when I realized what it was. He was using Psychic.

Once I was close enough to him, he set me down right in front of me. "Well, I can't say I'm not surprised," I joked while looking down at my paw. It was a few seconds of electrical sparks before I could move my stubby fingers again.

"What... Was that?"

I couldn't respond to that question. "Can we just... You know."

"Absolutely." We continued training after that.

12/28/19

4:55 pm

Weird Woods

Stamina (noun)

The ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort.

This was something I never had.

After that weird first fight with Cord, I ended up more exhausted than I've felt since being here. We took a few minutes after to calm down from what happened and before going back to work. We did this every so often for the rest of the couple of hours until now. And in case you were wondering, yes, I didn't really stand a chance against Cord.

But at least I was trying.

"Okay, Lucas," the Raichu said with an exasperated inhale, "One more time, and we can leave."

Finally! I started grinning straight at Cord's face, and as it turned out, he was grinning too. I took three steps back and got into a ready position.

It was time to give it all I got.

I used Quick Attack as a start-up move to attack. Cord made a quick gesture and used Teleport to get a higher ground.  Since his tail can float, he can stay in the air, making my situation harder.

I jumped high above the air to try to use Iron Tail when...

It happened again. My arm thrust toward Cord, and my hand formed the same electric ball from earlier. But instead of it exploding between us, it actually hit Cord and sent him straight to the ground. I was speechless! I slowly dropped to the floor and waited for Cord to make his next move. But he just stood there.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Cord turned his attention toward the opposite direction.

"Something's in the trees."

What came out of the trees, was... let's just say it was weird, because I don't want to curse again. It was a Bisharp, but something felt off from it. Its supposedly golden axe was black and the blades from its arms were worn out. But this last feature raised a lot of red flags.

Its eyes had a fire trail ranging from dark red to black.

"Cord...?" I said while taking a few steps back. "How fast can we get out of here?"

"I used up all my teleports... Don't make any sudden movements." Cord reached for his bag and was able to grab it. He slowly opened the bag, and that's when the worst part happened.

The Bisharp started charging toward us.

"Cord!"

"I'm hurrying up, Lucas!" Just before the Bisharp jumped ahead to attack the two of us, he took out a green-ish orb and threw it to the ground. Both of us blacked out.

***

4:57 pm

Plains

"Chris!" A female Eevee wearing a blue scarf was walking down a random pathway when she saw a glowing light in the distance. She decided to follow that. It ultimately ended up leading her toward an empty field of grass. "Where are you, Chris?" And that's when her eye caught something.

It was a Pikachu and an Alolan Raichu.

She went to further inspect the damage and noticed the scrapes and bruises the two of them had. "You really took a beating, didn't you Lucas?" The Eevee moved her attention from the Pikachu and gave a inquisitive expression on the Raichu. "Huh, I guess Lucas recruited an Alolan Raichu to join our team!" She took out an Oran Berry from the Raichu's bag and tried to give it to the Pikachu. He quickly sniffed it and took a bite out of the berry.

The Pikachu's paws slowly started moving towards his head...

*Game File Saved*