Grendel’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the sweet, blue berry that had been rolled over to him.
Since he didn’t have access to the Miltank milk, he would’ve gladly accepted the Berry even if he wasn’t all smashed up.
After he crushed the berry with just two bites, he immediately began feeling it’s subtle affects. The deeper scratches along his body shallowed-out slightly, and his freshly formed bruises already looked as if they would start fading soon. He was nowhere near healed up- but the berry helped jumpstart the process.
Rappy and Dash both trotted over to Totodile and Grendel respectively, taking a fighting stance right next to them.
Dwspite having a thick cloud of smoke rolling off the left side of its body, Totodile chose to land a clean Aqua Jet along Ariados’ left abdomen. Unfortunately, the low power of the attack and the level gap led to the monstrous bug only being lightly jostled by the impact.
As all the smoke cleared out and the Ariados’ whole body became visible, Ria and the group could now see the bugs left side was powdered in a layer of crumbling clay.
Unfortunately for the Rapidash, their flamethrower was almost entirely absorbed by the thick layer of mud Ariados had previously fallen into.
“Call for backup!”
An unknown male voice could be heard screaming from good distance down the edge of the tree line.
Instantly, Ariados took note of this and faced its head towards the sky.
“Ariiiiiaaadossssss~“ Ariados let out a wicked cry, which would almost instantly lead to the faint sound of clicking and scratching. This faint sound would steadily grow louder and louder, heavier and heavier- like the sound of dozens of tiny feet swarming the trees around them.
At this point, the Thief had managed to avoid Miltank in the fog, and had ran Betty and Q in almost a full circle throughout the forest. All three burst through the smog only for Betty and Q to realize the thief had been planning to go right back to his Ariados the whole time!
“No! We had em!” Betty shouted in frustration as the thief slipped behind his massive Pokémon for protection.
“Ria! Are you alright?” Q scurried over to his traveling companion, who was still covered in a decent quantity of string.
Q gripped hood of the bindings tightly and gave a heavy tug- to no avail. The String Shot was like none he’d ever seen before.
“Lit…wiiiiik~” Lumos waltzed up to the webbing with a look of curiosity on her face. After a brief second of contemplating, the candle pokemon fired an Ember at the webbing just next to Ria.
Q looked on, curious himself to see if his weaker Pokémon had it in them. Unfortunately, Litwik’s flame just wasn’t hot enough yet to melt it. Q gave the area a rig to confirm it didn’t work, and to his surprise, the string shot felt significantly more pliable.
“Lumos! It’s okay- you don’t have to melt it. Just focus your Wmber along that spot!” Q gripped hold of the bindings just above Ria and tugged furiously whilst his Pokémon shot a constant blast of superheated air at the bindings just beside her.
With their combined efforts, the String Shot slowly warped, stretched, then snapped away like an elastic band, finally freeing Ria.
“Young’ns… we got a problem.” With the group finally being brought together and Ria being freed, it seemed as though things were going in their favor. But this was not the case.
As Q looked up, he would be met by the stare of no less that a dozen Spinarak, and maybe half that many Ariados, hanging from the surroundings trees. They were
all staring at the large Ariados the group had been fighting.
“Ria…d-did you keep the number that Ryhorn ruh-racer gave you…?”
