Floral screamed again in terror when she realized that the vigoroth was climbing up the tree. She tried going up higher, but they were already as high as they could without risking getting on the more brittle branches of the pine.
- Why is no adult coming in to help? Fitz said to me in a tense voice.
- I don't know. Maybe this is part of the exercise. Or maybe, I continued, there's something else going on that we don't know about. But we are the only ones who can help them right now.
Fitz didn't voice his reply, but the scared look he gave me was self-explanatory. We did have pokemons, albeit ones we never used before. And we were told they'd be able to execute moves we knew of which were mostly beginner moves. I pulled up my hand and looked inside it to the poochyena. The little guy stared back at me, in a way that felt like it understood the situation and wanted to help. It reached to the ground in his capsule and picked up something and showed it to me. The instant I saw the round blue berry, I understood it had more guts than both of us combined. I looked back at Fitz:
- Let's fight them. Right now, one is in the tree and focused on Bran and Floral. Let's take down the one at the base of the tree. The commotion will probably attract the second one so we gotta be quick.
- But our pokemons will never survive a fight against a vigoroth, even less against two! Fitz replied seriously doubtful.
I grabbed his hand and pulled it up to reveal the pokeball it was holding. As if it understood, the zigzagoon picked up its oran berry as well and proudly showed it to us.
- They have oran berries? Is this what Manchamp meant by use the resources you were given?
- I don't know, I replied, but we now stand a better chance.
Fitz nodded and started thinking of a plan because taking the vigoroth on the ground head-on was still suicide. I looked around and saw that the bush we were hiding behind grew away from the tree to a certain distance.
- Fitz, stay here. I will crawl under this bush till I am at a good distance of the vigoroth and then I'll attract his attention.
- Vigoroths are really fast, Fitz told me. It will be on you in no time.
- I am counting on it. It will probably attack in a rush, and I am hoping to exploit that. Wait for my signal, attack it from the back with all you've got.
Fitz didn't look too convinced, but suddenly, we heard another cry of despair from Floral. The creature was only a few feet away from her now and she had broken into tears. That was the deciding factor. Fitz just nodded and I nodded back, before going on all four and crawling away under the bush. I travelled maybe ten meters under the covers and reached its limits. I could hear the ocean waves crashing against the rocky cliffs, so we were probably in the eastern most side of the woods now. I took a deep breath and held the pokeball up to look at the poochyena.
- Little guy, you're up. I hope you're ready.
I jumped outside the cover and hailed "Hey you ugly vigoroth!". The vigoroth on the ground turned to me and paused, probably confused about me showing out of nowhere. The one up the tree also looked at me in similar confusion.
- Wesly, is that you?
Bran and Floral had also noticed me. Floral, still bawling her eyes out, weakly shouted "Wesly, please help us!". I shouted back to them:
- You two stay put and try to avoid contact with the other vigoroth. We're going to take them down.
Bran seemed confused as to what I meant by "we" when I was clearly alone, but he nodded and shouted a "Be careful!" back at me. The vigoroth on the ground snapped out his confusion and made itself imposing by standing on his back legs spreading its forearms upward. It screamed at me in anger, revealing four pointy teeth, sole denizens of its huge mouth. One thing that stood out to me was that its fur showed bruises and collision impacts. It must have fought something else before us. I clicked the button in the center of the pokeball I was holding, and I tossed it a meter in front of me, between us while saying "Let's go poochyena". It fell right on a patch of dirt of the wild grass, bounced up, opened, and in a flash of light, the poochyena was released on the dirt where the ball fell originally. The poochyena emitted a very low growling noise as it was released. The berry in its mouth was probably not helping. The ball rolled back to my feet, and I picked it up. The vigoroth gauged his new opponent for a bit. The poochyena, with its half-meter height was only the third of the height of its opponent, but it stood its ground by tossing the berry aside on the ground and howled up to the skies. From classes, I knew that a howl was a move that allowed some pokemons to brace themselves for battle, enhancing their attack. I didn't ask it to do that, but I guess a practice pokemon would help his trainer out. The vigoroth, visibly offended by the fact that such a small creature would dare to oppose him, screamed angrily once more then started galloping furiously towards the poochyena. The poochyena reacted by picking back up the berry and then standing its ground. I, a few feet behind reviewed my strategy in my mind. I decided to engage on a patch of dirt instead of the grass because I wanted to use a certain move. The vigoroth covered the distance between them in three quick bounds and jumped towards the poochyena with its right forearm raised over its shoulder. It was definitely going to try to scratch with its right. I extended my arm towards my pokemon and shouted:
- Poochyena, hold your ground and be ready to dodge at my signal.
The poochyena took one step back, and stopped, eyes still on the opponent. A second went by and then I shouted:
- Now! Jump sideways to avoid the hit!
In the next moment, I saw the sharp claws of the vigoroth falling from above unto the poochyena. Still with the oran berry in its mouth, it let out a small growl and jumped to the left of the falling vigoroth just as the claws were about to hit it. The vigoroth missed it by a literally a hair, crashed on the ground, rolled to recover and turned around to face the poochyena again. I started running to the right so that I didn't end up on the wrong side of the battle and too close to the vigoroth. A lesson that was drilled into us was that a pokemon battle only lasted as long as the trainer was safe.
- Sand Attack, poochyena!
Just as the vigoroth started raising his forearm again for another strike, the poochyena nimbly ran forward to meet it, and with a clinical scoop of its right forelimb paw, threw a handful of dirt and sent it straight up the opponent eyes. As the dirt spread onto its face, the vigoroth squealed angrily and tried shaking its head to get the sand off. With the little visibility it still had, it leapt towards the poochyena with an angry "vi-gorh" roar.
- Dodge and let's hit him again, I said while moving again to stay on the side of my pokemon.
The poochyena easily dodged the next scratch since it was a wide swing that only swept in his direction and didn't really target it. It probably couldn't see much with the dirt in its eyes. My poochyena waited for the vigoroth to turn and face it again and then leapt ahead and scooped another load of dirt straight up its eyes. The vigoroth squealed again and fell on its bottom frantically rubbing its face with its palms in an attempt to remove the sand. It was effectively blinded at this point. I clenched my fist and swung my whole forearm downward to me in an early celebration. So far, all was going according to plan, but we still needed to knock the lights out of the vigoroth to win.
- Now tackles on its flanks poochyena!
After responding with a low growl, the poochyena jumped around left and right towards the vigoroth. The vigoroth swung wide again to counterattack, but with its eyesight so diminished, it swung way too high. The poochyena swiftly slid under the arm, leapt headfirst towards the vigoroth, and firmly shoulder-bashed into the vigoroth's left side. The impact knocked the opponent of its bum and it rolled to the side. The poochyena didn't stop there but started running around the vigoroth to the left. The vigoroth squinting as much as it could tried yet again to fight back. It extended its left forearm frontward and raised the right one. When the poochyena was in range, it furiously swept down in its direction with its right arm's claws. The poochyena braked to stop itself, and the swing landed on the ground before it, while it quickly jumped around it to the left. The vigoroth swung its left arm next in low sweep. The poochyena swiftly jumped over that sweep then it bashed into the opponent's belly in another tackle. This knocked the opponent off its feet while causing it to squeal. I ran around to get to the back of my pokemon again. The vigoroth brought itself up, after a moment. It kept its head down while on all fours. Its breathing became chaotic, and I could tell just by looking at it that it was about to faint. I didn't expect that we'd be able to deal this much damage to it without taking a hit. My plan worked so well that I didn't want to give it a chance to fight back.
- Let's hit it one more time poochy! Let's take it down.
The poochyena, realizing it needed one good hit, dropped the berry at its feet and then sprung forward after leaning on its hind legs. As it approached, the vigoroth made no movement so I thought it gave up. But just as the poochyena initiated its tackle, the opponent suddenly turned to face the hit, raise both its forearms, and crossed them before itself in a defensive posture. The poochyena slammed into the lower end of its chest, causing it to grunt in pain but it did not faint as I expected. As soon as my pokemon fell back on its feet, I saw the chest of the vigoroth expand and it opened its arms. Using the air accumulated in its lungs, the vigoroth suddenly screamed out in the most horrible eardrum destroying voice ever. The shout was so strong that it blew the poochyena back several meters, violently ramming it on the ground multiple times and nearly knocking me off my feet. I had to cover my ears for a bit until I couldn't feel the force of the sound waves anymore. While my ears were still ringing from the loud noise, I opened my eyes and looked at my poochyena. I was laying on the ground a few meters away from me. Forgetting all common sense, I ran to it and knelt to see how it was doing. The poochyena grunted weakly as I touched it, and it rolled around to look at me before attempting to stand on its feet. It had lost some of the fur on its back and I could see contusions all over it. Thankfully, it didn't seem to have anything broken. I was at loss and unsure of what to do. A loud grunt brought me back to reality as I looked over to the vigoroth. It looked even weaker than earlier. It staggered around, trying to maintain balance on its hind legs, but failed and went back to supporting itself with all fours. But then, in between two choppy breaths, it angrily screamed at us two. It mechanically brought its two arms in a "x" shape again and restarted inhaling air. It was going to hit us with that move again, and I had no idea what to do. As its chest rose in volume, the poochyena mustered all its strength and managed to get back on its feet and stood up in front of me between us as if it was trying to protect me.
- Wesly, get out of there now! Bran screamed from the top of the tree. It caused an uproar, and it is probably going to do it again a couple more times.
If we got hit by that move again, not only the poochyena would faint, but I would surely not escape it unscathed. My brain went into overclocked mode, and I started looking for a way out. Could I grab the poochyena and run away? No there wasn't enough time. Maybe I could try and feeding it the oran berry. I looked around us but then realized that the attack earlier blew the berry far off behind us. We were out of options. Frozen, I looked in terror as the vigoroth's chest expansion came to a stop.
- Zigzagoon, use headbutt!
The next instant, a loud body slamming impact came from behind the vigoroth, and its face went from surprise to confusion to pain. Its eyes lost coloration as it fell forward on its belly and stayed on the ground. On its back, I saw a small ferret like creature with brown and black fur, which stood proudly on the body of the defeated vigoroth. Five meters behind him, Fitz was standing with a victory pose.
- I know you said to wait for your signal, but I think my timing was appropriate.
It took all my control to stop my tears. In the heat of the battle, I forgot that I had Fitz on standby. My original plan was to have him hit the vigoroth in the back just like he did it just now, but I got cocky because my plan went so well and instead, I tried to take it down on my own. I froze when the time came to call for help and if Fitz didn't jump in just now, things could have ended really bad.
- Fitz…
I couldn't say any more than his name before another angry "vi-gorh" came from up the pine. The second vigoroth which stayed an observer so far decided that it needed to intervene. It let itself off the trunk and fell loudly to the ground. That probably hurt it a bit, but it only stopped for a moment. Picking itself up, it stood up to face Fitz, who cringed and took a step back. The zigzagoon, sensing its master's distress ran back to him and positioned itself between the vigoroth and Fitz. Thanking Fitz would have to wait for us to take down the second vigoroth first. The vigoroth charged forward onto them, and I heard Fitz order his pokemon to dodge and use growl. Using his signature zigzag movements, the zigzagoon confounded the vigoroth into attacking a position where it never actually went to and used that successful feint to get in the opponent's back and growl at it. That strategy worked so they tried it a second time. But the distance between the vigoroth and the zigzagoon was greatly reduced in the initial run so the vigoroth was able to cover it in one quick bounce and his arms were already in the air and ready to strike. Both Fitz and his pokemon were taken by surprise. Fitz couldn't give any order, and the zigzagoon at the last minute tried to move out of the way, but it was too late. The vigoroth quickly scratched it on the left flank, knocking it to the right where the vigoroth's other arm was coming down in another swipe. The zigzagoon groaned in pain, and retreated a couple steps, but the vigoroth didn't let down. Like in a frenzy, the zigzagoon was caught in a series of left right clawing combos. Fitz, finally coming back to himself, ordered the zigzagoon to dodge, but it couldn't because the vigoroth already swept at it again from the right, in an upward motion that sent the zigzagoon flying into the air before it crashed on its flank next to Fitz. Fitz ran to it and crouched, and I saw him raising the zigzagoon's head and pulling up the oran berry from earlier in an attempt to feed it to the zigzagoon. It seems neither of us was taking the warning about trainer's safety seriously. The vigoroth, satisfied by its previous hits was slowly making its way to them for a finisher. So far, I was just watching, but I needed to distract the vigoroth somehow. My poochyena barked, drawing my attention to it then ran back away about twenty meters away behind us and then I saw it fetch something. It tossed it in the air with its mouth, before swallowing it, and chewing on it for a bit. Pokemons metabolism is particularly fast, and they could heal physical injuries rather quickly when exposed to the right nutrients. Oran berries were natural ingredients that quickened the healing process of pokemons, so I wasn't surprised when, as the poochyena ran past me again, most of the bruises I saw before were gone. I leapt off the ground myself.
- Poochyena use tackle! I commanded as it sneaked up on the vigoroth.
The vigoroth which attention was all on Fitz and the weakened zigzagoon, barely had a chance to look over to my poochyena before it shoulder-bashed into its right flank, causing it to grunt in pain and lose balance. The poochyena fell back on its feet, and as if it learned from what happened to zigzagoon, it quickly put more distance between the vigoroth and it. Taken aback for a moment, the vigoroth angrily turned to face poochyena and I and was about to charge towards us.
- Zigzagoon use Sand Attack!
Fitz' voice interrupted the vigoroth in its track and it stopped and turned to the zigzagoon once more, just to receive a good amount of sand in its eyes. It squealed in pain and tried to rub it off its eyes. It appears our distraction gave time to Fitz to heal his pokemon and they came back to help.
- Wesly, let's finish it off this time.
- Agreed. Poochyena, howl!
My poochyena howled loudly and then took an offensive stance. The vigoroth just finished rubbing some of the sand off its eyes and was looking back and forth at the zigzagoon and the poochyena.
- Zigzagoon, use headbutt! Fitz ordered.
Upon receiving the command, the zigzagoon started running in zigzags towards the vigoroth. The vigoroth took the same defensive stance that the other one had earlier when it endured my poochyena's tackle before counterattacking, but this time, I wasn't going to let him.
- Poochyena, tackle!
With its attention totally on the zigzagoon, the vigoroth didn't react to my poochyena. The poochyena shoulder-bashed into the opponent's right side a lot harder this time and threw it off its balance. It let out an angry "vi-gorh" as it locked eyes on my poochyena. But before it could regain its footing, it realized that the zigzagoon was right next to it now. The zigzags had delayed it so that poochyena could land the tackle and distract the vigoroth's attention, but it was still in the middle of executing the headbutt. It worked wonders. The zigzagoon slammed headfirst into the vigoroth's belly. The vigoroth squealed and fell on its back. A minute passed where we all just looked at it, wondering if it was going to leap back up or not but once it was clear that it had fainted, Fitz and I let out joyful exclamations.
- That was AWESOME! Fitz exclaimed. This was definitely the best battle of my life. Look at me, Fitz continued, while showing me his arms, I am still trembling with excitement.
I looked at my own arms and realized that I was shivering as well. I let myself down on my knees and exhaled. That was too much excitation for a P.P.E class.
- Are they both out?
Bran's voice came down the tree and took both of us by surprise. I guess at some point, we forgot about the two we engaged these vigoroth to rescue.
- Ah, yes. You can both come down.
As Bran made his way down, followed by Floral, Fitz and I with our pokemon we began making our way to the base of the pine tree. On the way, we passed the second vigoroth still laying there unmoving, and I glanced at it, simply out of fear of it waking up and grabbing me but that didn't happen. But what I did see where impacts on its lower abdomen, like it was stabbed multiple times by something thin and sturdy. A couple minutes later, they were both down with us. Floral ran to hug Fitz.
- I was so scared! She said, still tearing up.
- We really do owe you two our butts, Bran agreed.
- Don't sweat it Bran, I replied. I am just happy we could be of help. Plus, I get the feeling that you two weakened them already.
Fitz was trying to console Floral, but it sounded like she was bawling even more. She must have been very frightened. I think we were all pretty shook to be honest. That sound attack from the first vigoroth had me cornered. If it wasn't for Fitz intervention at that point…
- That was an uproar I think, Bran said while looking at me.
It was like he read my thoughts and knew I was rethinking about my earlier fight. Bran was a little shorter than Fitz and I had a buzz cut and glasses. Contrary to us two, he wanted to pursue pokemon research once he was in college. He was our class know-it-all on pokemons. Noticing that he had my attention, he continued:
- That vigoroth used a combination of endure, to survive your poochyena's hit and then used uproar which is a sound-based move. Not only is it more powerful than a scratch, but it's a special attack so it didn't need to physically touch the opponent. It was mostly blind, but I managed to get your poochyena close enough that its uproar would hit. It was a well-designed strategy.
- I thought it was a cornered creature, I said after a small pause, but I guess that's when they are most dangerous.
- The second one put up a fight too, Fitz added still consoling Floral. It used furry swipes the instant my zigzagoon was too close to escape its grasp. It only hit it four times with the combo. Once more and my zigzagoon was out.
- I think your zigzagoon only survived the 4-hit combo because you weakened it with your growl earlier, Bran noted. It made it conscious enough of your pokemon that it involuntarily held back. Those moves may be beginner moves, but they can greatly change the scales of the battle.
As he was finishing that sentence, I looked down his leg and I saw blood. The spooked expression that my face made caught the attention of Fitz who also looked at his left leg.
- Bran you are bleeding! Fitz exclaimed.
Floral, who was just starting to calm down, let go of Fitz, turned around and wiped off her tears. She looked upset as she stared down the Bran's lacerated thigh.
- Is this from earlier? She asked him, but he didn't really answer. You fool, you should have said something.
She violently forced him onto the ground and pulled out a white scarf from her back pocket, which she tightly tied around his leg, covering the clawing mark. After she neatly folded it into a ribbon shape, she came back up and said:
- One of the vigoroths tried to attack me earlier, but he jumped in to push me out of the way. I didn't know he got injured.
- It's okay Floral, Bran said. It's just a flesh wound. You didn't have to use the silk scarf on me.
- Well, I don't have a pokemon to use it on anymore, do I?
- Come to think of it, what happened to you guys?
Fitz' question was on point. I was also pretty curious to know how they ended up cornered by the vigoroths in the first place. My inquisitive eyes went from Bran's face to Floral's. They looked at each other, and Floral started explaining:
- We're not sure. We were sent off on our way to traverse the forest as per the exercise, she started recalling. We went through some tall grass patches and just finished fighting a shroomish and a wurmple when we heard a commotion ahead. We tried to go up to it, but we ran into two rangers who told us that there were some agitated pokemon ahead and that they were working on containing them. They asked us to go back the way we came and to exit the forest.
- And that's what we did, said Bran. We started going back, wondering if everyone else before us was okay, but then suddenly out of nowhere these two vigoroths appeared in front of us. They were wild pokemons and while I know they can be irritable, these two were clearly angry. Not at us specifically, but we ran into them and became the target of their anger. We were given a taillow and a zigzagoon, so we engaged them in a battle, but they quickly knocked out our pokemons before we could do any serious damage and then they came after us. I got injured and I couldn't really run anymore so I suggested we climb up that pine, where you two found us. And that about sums it up.
After hearing their story, I had a bad feeling. The rangers said there were agitated pokemon that they were trying to contain, but then they ran into some other agitated pokemon. What was up with that? Children have been running around in these woods for decades and I never heard of super aggressive pokemon attacks in here before. Was this an outbreak of some sort? Did the rangers fail to contain them, or were there more agitated creatures roaming the woods than they were aware of? Would we run into more of them? Floral and Bran summary of the situation triggered more questions than it answered for us. Breaking the silence, Fitz asked:
- Bran did you think these vigoroths were weird?
- Weird how?
My question stood unanswered for a moment while Bran, still sitting on the grass, put his right hand around his chin and kept thinking for a bit.
- You're probably talking about the color of their fur, right?
- Yes, Fitz said. What's up with the beige fur?
- What do you two mean, Floral asked.
I didn't know either and I was curious to know because Fitz was bothered by this ever since we met them. Bran took the floor and explained:
- So normally, vigoroths' body fur is white, except for the red patch on their forehead and the two dark-brown stripes on their back, that they share with their under-evolved form, slakoth. But the fur of these vigoroth was uniformly beige.
- Not any beige, Fitz added, but they had the exact shade of beige that a slakoth has. It's like they evolved but failed to change their fur accordingly.
- How does that make sense? Floral asked. I never heard of pokemon that keep their under-evolved colors after evolving.
A silence fell on the group. There was a lot going on and the more we learned, the more confused I got. But one thing was certain.
- Let's get out of the woods.
Everyone snapped out of their slumber and looked at me. I repeated myself.
- This place isn't safe. Fitz and I didn't see any rangers when we came in and the woods may be crawling with aggressive pokemons. Let's let the rangers deal with all this and get out of here like, I added pointing at Floral and Bran, they told you two to do.
They agreed with me and nodded in response. I went to Bran and asked him "Can you walk?" while giving him a hand.
- Yeah, he answered while grabbing my hand and using my help to get up on his feet.
- Great. Fitz, I continued, you know this forest like no one else here. Where do we go.
Fitz looked around for a minute and raised his hand to point at a direction:
- If we go this way, we should be out by the road to Rustboro City soon enough.
- Perfect. Lead the way.
As we were about to depart, I realized that the poochyena, and the zigzagoon were still out their balls. Aside from us four, the poochyena was licking its remaining bruises, while the zigzagoon was curiously exploring the grass around because that's what zigzagoons do. We called them over to us, and they ran back. Fitz took out the pokeball, to get his zigzagoon back into it, but I stopped him.
- Let's leave them out. We don't know if we will run into more action.
- You're right, Fitz agreed after a pause. It will save us the time to let them out again.
And so, we departed, Fitz in front, Floral behind him and Bran and I closing the procession, with the two pokemons going along freely in the steps of their trainers. For about five minutes, we walked in silence through the green meadow, with only the sound of our boots crushing the dried leaves and branches beneath them. Fitz noticed something ahead of us and got super excited:
- Hey look, it's the path that traverses the forest. If we follow this, it should take us out in no time.
Hearing the good news, we all started sprinting towards the path but as soon as we reached it, we all froze. On the other side of the path, a pair of angry eyes were looking at us. The creature was about as tall as a us, bipedal with a bulky body and elongated legs and two short arms all ending in a pair of giant red claws, a giant mushroom for a head decorated by huge black eyes, and a long tail ending in a cluster of either berries or seeds. It stood there and stared at us irritated.
- Is that a breloom? Bran asked out loud.
- You're the expert here, I replied. Shouldn't you know?
- No, he is right to be confused, Fitz said while cowering away from the creature. Its color pattern is totally wrong as well. It's all beige with green spots. That is the color scheme of shroomish, its under-evolved form.
The creature growled again and stepped angrily towards us, forcing us all to take a couple steps back. Both the zigzagoon and the poochyena who so far were following in our steps ran to make their stand in front of the group and they growled back at the foe. It wasn't per say cutting our path at the moment, but if we lost any more ground, we would be back in the thicket.
- Let's run for it! I suggested.
- I concur, Bran added. Your poochyena will help us with its runaway ability. It should allow us to escape safely.
We looked at each other, and it since no one challenged the plan, I screamed:
- Poochyena, let's run away.
The poochyena barked as if to signify it understood, but then it ran to the opponent breloom, and diverted its attention to it. It started jumping up and down while barking at the breloom, then with no warning, turned around pointing its back to the opponent and raised its fluffy grey tail. It spun around once, then a second time and then started spinning very quickly. The breloom which was looking directly at the whole thing looked confused but soon it started staggering and finally it tripped on its own feet and fell on its back.
- Everyone, run! Bran screamed.
We ran down the path as if our lives depended on it. I turned around just to check if the breloom was following us. It came back up on its feet but was still under the dizzy spell, so it was too busy trying to regain composure to chase us. We managed to escape it. We didn't quite get the time to celebrate though. An angry "bre-loooom" sound came from in front of us just as two more of the weirdly colored mushroom pokemons came out of the lush and cut our path. We all came to a rapid stop before the unbreakable wall of brelooms. Our pokemons took the lead again, trying to keep the foes at bay. I looked past them, and I saw the wooden stand Fitz and I departed from, what seemed to be an eternity ago now.
- Fudge, we almost made it! Fitz exclaimed.
- What do we do now? Floral asked, in a weak scared voice.
We needed a distraction that would last long enough to let us pass the brelooms. But what? The brelooms were coming straight at us, as angry as ever, forcing us to move step by step further and further back. I tripped on something and looked down to see a couple of grey stones. A crazy idea came to my mind, and I pondered it for a moment, reflecting in our situation before realizing that was the best we could do. I bent over and grabbed the two stones, then I started walking straight towards the brelooms.
- Wesly, what are you doing? Fitz asked as I passed him.
They were all watching me now, as each step got me closer to our foes. The brelooms didn't seem so happy to see that either, so they started growling at me. I was now only a few steps from them.
- You guys need to escape. Find Manchamp. He will know what to do.
- And what are you going to do? Fitz asked in a tense voice.
- I will distract them in the meantime.
I shouted at the brelooms to draw their attention then I tossed my rocks at them just as someone in my back screamed "Wesly, no don't!". If the brelooms were angry before, they were now pissed. Just what I wanted. I started running straight left from where I was, jumped over a bushy thicket and rushed into the wilderness. Several branches creaking and a loud growl in my back confirmed to me that I was now being chased. I sure hoped the two brelooms were behind me, but I didn't want to turn around to confirm it, in fear of tripping and falling over. We've all seen that scene in thrillers, right? Out of nowhere, I heard a rustling noise on the ground next to me then a bark at my feet. I lowered my gaze and saw my poochyena running in the same direction as me, the tongue out and staring. I guess it decided to stick with me since I was technically its trainer at the moment.
- Well, it's only you and me now little guy. Wanna see if we can find a way out of this unscathed?
The poochyena barked back as if it agreed, and we kept running away through the woods.