The long road home

Narrator-POV:

On the 17th day, our hero and his very first pokemon enjoyed a much needed day of vacation.

Swole has spent the final hours of the day carefully reequipping his ghillie suit and both partners hid away from the cold night in their secret hideout.

With him sleeping in a squat position and not enough space left, Buneary had no choice but to eventually fall asleep on his lap, in his embrace. 

Trainer and pokemon are about to have sweeter dreams than ever before.

...

...

...

The next morning begins and Buneary wakes up early. 

Quickly realizing her compromised position, she decides to extract herself from her trainer's embrace as a priority and dives for the berry case in the bottomless bag.

Swole himself wakes up at the commotion and notices how cramped everything is so he removes the camouflage to let more light in and to give everyone more space to move in.

"What are you doing in the bag?" Buneary aggressively growls something indecipherable from within the bag. "Alright. I didn't want to know anyway. My bag is your bag, I guess. But I need to pull out breakfast." 

With that he lifts the bag with his pokemon still inside, out of the hole and rummages around too.

He takes out two portions of breakfast and Buneary emerges with the berry case before promptly retrieving a Tamato Berry for her breakfast. 

"You can just ask me for berries... No need to go fishing in the bag. Even though it's very cute."

"Bun. Buneary." Her response is undecipherable, but somehow still sassy. 

Surely it was some kind of insult. 

Not able to deal with sass in the morning, Swole answers with his own sass. "Never mind. I can't understand you. I guess you will just have to take a dive in the bag every morning."

After curing another fresh bruise with a bite of Oran Berry, our hero and his pokemon set up their breakfast and Swole takes that quiet opportunity to finally ask the questions that matter.

"So. Buneary. I know, you know the moves Pound, Double Kick and Quick Attack." She nods along.

"Do you also know Defense Curl or Baby-Doll Eyes?" Another nod. "Which one?" Two nods and a scowl in response. 

"Both. Ok... Have you learned Charm yet?" Her head shakes. "Damn that's not a lot to work with. I know the Buneary species can know a lot of moves, but most are through vigorous training and TMs." 

He mutters to himself but the bunny still hears him causing her face to frown with disappointment over her own skills.

"Do you know any other moves?" Enthusiastic head nodding in response.

She wants to prove her worth. "Great! Can you show me? The moves I asked about were all common ones your species should naturally learn over time."

Her resolve to prove herself fuels her actions and she shows off her remaining moves: By bouncing on the spot. With a slightly random pattern. 

It is Splash.

"That's Splash... please stop. I mean, do you know anything else that is useful?" At first Buneary looks angry in response to this, but then tears well up in the corners of her eyes and she presses her paws together in a very cute manner. 

"Oh no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it!" Just as suddenly, she darts in close and kisses Swole's cheek.

Swole was thoroughly confused by the rapid changes in her demeanor. But then he spots pink fairy energy glowing from his cheek.

For a short second he understood. 

He was hit with Sweet Kiss. 

After that time has passed, his world started spinning and turning upside down. Everything existed twice in his vision and his weak human body almost passed out to compensate with the erratic impulses.

In a stupor, he stands up only to stumble and fall back on his ass.

His suffering continued for a while with a laughing Buneary in the background. But eventually she decided she had enough fun and tried to wake him up. By showing off her final move: Flail.

A barrage of very weak slaps pummels Swole's face and he finally sobers up. "Woah... please don't use Sweet Kiss on me again. It's like my brain was upside down." He sits back down. 

"And I know you did something at the end, but I can't remember what happened. Was that another move?" 

His pokemon grins evilly and charges up normal type energy in her arms and ears to pounce on her trainer once more. 

"NOOOOOOoooo!" He screams in agony... before noticing that he is in no pain at all.

"Ohhh, it's just Flail!" He exclaims while more weak slaps hit his face uselessly. "It's power-- Oi. Stop that. The power of Flail depends on how hurt you are. Glad to know that you are as healthy as you can be." 

Satisfied with her prank, Buneary stops her onslaught and sits back down, waiting for an evaluation of her skills.

"To summarize, you know Defense Curl, Baby-Doll Eyes, Sweet Kiss, Pound, Quick Attack, Flail and Double Kick! And Splash, I guess... Did I miss anything?"

She thinks for a second before shaking her head. 

"That's actually a lot more than expected. The starter pokemon I could get from the pokemon professor only know two moves! You are really amazing, Buneary, you know that?" 

Buneary preens as her confidence is boosted to new heights.

"Alright! Then let's go home. It will take like a week on foot and we can battle wild pokemon on the way. Doesn't that just sound so cool?!" 

Caught up by his excitement, Buneary also looks forward to an adventure and so our hero and his first pokemon set out, heading south with utmost confidence with every step.

Goodbye!

"Did you say something just now?"

"Bunnie."

"Huh. Must have been the wind."

---

The dynamic duo has traveled for some time now but not a single pokemon entered their sights since they left the immediate surroundings of the lake.

Swole was wearing his full set of camouflage and they traveled with a quick pace along the edge of the thicket. Right at the edge between safety of the vegetation's cover and the openness of the creek. 

Buneary is walking a few steps ahead of him, seemingly taking the lead despite having no clue where she is or where she wants to be. 

He continues to let her feel in charge as long as they are heading south in a straight line.

Rain clouds move in from the horizon and the sun has passed its zenith hours ago. 

A rainy night is coming.

The first to stop their hike is Buneary. 

She spots a suspicious mound of bones. Shattered and bloody bones, stacked over a meter high. 

Buneary is rearing for a fight but her trainer's blood draining out of his face kills her enthusiasm.

Swole remembers what this place is. He remembers what he had spent hours listening to. And he remembers what he spent a whole night running away from.

"Shhh. We need to leave." He whispers and the unadulterated fear in his eyes manages to reach Buneary. "Under those bones is a monster. I saw it with my own eyes. The most terrifying Bidoof in the world." 

And he lost all the progress he made. Now she simply looks annoyed at his cowardice.

Scoffing at the thought of running away from a Bidoof of all things, she heads to the heap of bones.

"I can't convince her..." He mutters in resignation. "Buneary, please, at least use Defense Curl." His pathetic whimpering, whining and begging causes her to compromise and she prepares for the battle. 

"Another one." She stares at him, like he is a weak coward but relents and casts another Defense Curl with some difficulty. 

"Can you do a third?" Buneary scoffs again and continues her approach instead of listening.

"Please. Trust me, that thing is a monster. We are going to need every advantage we can get." His distrust is slowly beginning to chip away at her confidence and she reconsiders. 

"Trust me. If you can use another Defense Curl, then please, for the love of Arceus, cast it." But she does not trust her trainer yet.

She is sure of her own power. 

And she is resolved to fight Bidoof. She continues her approach without putting in the effort to max out her defenses.

"Alright... we'll do it your way. Bidoof is asleep in there. We can sneak up and you hit him with a Double Kick. Then don't give him a chance to recover. Just keep hitting him with Double Kicks. Alright?"

"Bun." She confirms as she slowly moves closer to the heap. 

Both her legs are charged with fighting type energy and she kicks once.

Boom!

The bones scatter and reveal... a Bibarel! 

"Shit! It evolved!" The second kick comes down.

Boom!

And hits Bibarel right in his face! 

Critical Hit! 

Buneary immediately charges up another Double Kick but Swole notices something is off. Far too quickly did Bibarel gather up dark energy in his mouth. 

"Bite."

But that move was far too strong to be called a Bite. Too strong, too pure, and too erratic was the dark type energy. It was more like a large hunk of power.

"Stop and retreat! Now!"

Buneary hears the command but she does not listen. Her first kick hits Bibarel's flank, but before she can finish the second kick, he turns and bites down on her ear. 

Hard. 

Despite multiple Defense Curls, she screams in pain and is forced to abort her plan.

Only after Crunch gives out can she finally jump away.

"What the fuck! That thing knows Crunch! Use Baby-Doll Eyes and stay away from this thing!"

With a limp left ear and tears welling up in her eyes, she charges her status move and two large, round, ethereal eyes appear in front of her.

Pink light gathered around Bibarel and the move worked. Bibarel's attack power was lowered.

But still, Bibarel rushes in with surprising speed and another Crunch is about to rain down hell. "Dodge it! And use another Baby-Doll Eyes!" Swole commands, only this time his pokemon actually listens.

Crush!

The attack barely misses and pulverizes the rocks where Buneary stood just a moment ago. 

Another set of ethereal eyes appear and pink light struggles - but succeeds - to enter Bibarel. 

"Fuck. He is as weak as he can be now. And Buneary did two Defense Curls..." He mutters as another Crunch misses its mark just barely. 

Still powerful enough to crush rocks easily.

"What can we do!? Pound is too weak, Quick Attack won't deal damage either, only Double Kick can do anything, but Bibarel even ignored that. What else... Flail? No, Buneary was only hurt once, it's not strong enough yet. Sweet Kiss? ..." He thinks loudly to himself. 

But a sudden shift in the fight interrupts his struggle to come up with a plan.

Bibarel stopped chasing the quicker bunny and decided to blow bubbles instead. "It's Yawn! Don't touch the bubbles or you will pass out!"

Remembering that he isn't just a useless onlooker, Swole picks up a hand-full of gravel and tosses them to pop the bubbles. 

Buneary quickly copies his idea and kicks gravel to clear the attack completely.

"Sweet kiss... This is risky, but I can't think of anything else. Otherwise we are stuck in a losing battle." He talks to himself before shouting out his decision, "Get in close with Quick Attack and then use Sweet Kiss!"

Buneary runs. But Bibarel recovers much quicker once again. 

Another stream of bubbles heads Buneary's way. Far more than the last time and all of Swole's efforts to clear the way for Buneary are not enough .

Buneary continues her dash anyway! 

She weaves past the bubbles, first left, then right! She slides below, picks up a few rocks, jumps over another bubble and tosses the rocks to clear a straight path to her goal. 

Her feet hit the ground and she sprints the rest of the way, giving everything she has to make it before he can react! 

Fairy energy gathers at her lips and she finally manages to deliver a kiss to the fat, slow turning, mobility restricted Bibarel on his cheek. 

The fairy energy seeps into his head! But a final bubble left Bibarel's mouth and burst against Buneary's limp ear when she tried to duck under it.

With confusion setting in, Bibarel begins to stomp around and cast Yawn over and over again. 

Swole can do nothing but uselessly throw rocks against the near-endless tide of bubbles.

... 

After a while the last bubble pops and the battlefield becomes fully visible again. Bibarel lays on the ground, his limbs sticking out in all directions. Asleep.

But Buneary lies next to him. 

Thinking the worst, Swole runs in as fast as he can, grabs his pokemon and then carries her to the safety of the thicket.

He quickly inspects her body. She got tossed around a little in Bibarel's rampage but is only asleep. He takes a closer look at Bibarel. "He's asleep too."

He racks his brain trying to think of the best option, countless thoughts whirl around, all moves are considered. He comes to a drastic decision.

"Fuck this." With that, he pulls Buneary into a hug and runs south. 

And not a moment too late. 

Just as he ran out of sight, the first rain drop struck his face. Right after, a terrifying roar echoes from an angry, hungry and fat Bibarel, who has no idea where his tasty meal has run off to.

---

Swole Solo is on the run. 

A Buneary held tightly in his arms. The rain presses down on him. The sun is long past the horizon and the moon is hidden behind the clouds.

He can barely see but he continues to run. 

His life and the life of his partner are on the line. The monster could be right behind him. "I have to run or the monster will get us." He thinks to himself.

Buneary is wide awake. She is hurt and her limp ear is in terrible pain. But she is safe now. Safe in her trainer's arms. 

Her working ear can easily pick up his heartbeat and she finds comfort in that. 

She is contemplating. Her overconfidence has almost ended their journey in their very first battle as partners. "I should have listened to him." She thinks to herself.

Resolving to be better the next time, she stirs for the first time since she woke up and notifies her wakefulness to Swole in the process.

"Hey, you. Huff. Huff. You're finally awake?" He jokes on reflex.

"Can you climb into the backpack and get a Sitrus Berry and an Oran Berry out?" 

The trainer stops pressing his pokemon to his chest in protection so she can move and with little effort, the pokemon climbs onto his back and then into the bag.

Swole does not break his stride.

After a few minutes of rummaging, a wet Buneary climbs back over Swole's shoulder and returns into his arms with two berries held in her strong ear.

Taking the Oran Berry and quickly scarfing it down, Swole motions to Buneary, "Eat the Sitrus Berry. You need to stay fit. What if that thing returns?" 

She knows the Bibarel is left far behind but listens anyway. 

She eats the berry and feels better immediately. It is not a full heal. A pang of pain remains in her ear. But it is bearable.

She decides to keep the pain to remind herself of her weakness.

"There is no shame in running away. We can always become stronger and come back later. Even if we run from a thousand battles, we can still become champions..." Rain is streaming down Swole's face. 

He is trying to cope with himself. To get rid of the pain of running away from the Bidoof not just once, but twice. 

His mind is focused on the run. And he knows he cannot be distracted with a growing sense of failure. Or else Bibarel is going to get him.

Buneary hears his coping and she decides to listen this time. There is no shame in running away. 

She shuts her eyes and listens to her trainer's heartbeat. Her trainer will protect her. 

And soon she falls asleep again. No nightmares about Bidoof or Bibarel will plague her as long as her trainer is with her.

...

...

...

The next morning, rain is still coming in hard but Swole has not stopped moving. 

He is still walking but has no energy left to run.

Buneary stirs awake again but he does not stop for a second. 

They continue to travel in the cold weather, Buneary tightly wrapped in her trainer's freezing cold arms.

Doing nothing but keeping him warm and occasionally climbing into his backpack to get food and berries for her trainer first and herself second.

Until the sun goes down again, they travel in silence.

...

...

...

When they finally stopped, it was at one of the holes Swole dug on his way to Lake Verity. The bottom contains a puddle of murky rain water but with a little bit of work it could be used again for a night.

They spent their next day in the hole, eating Aspear and Oran berries with their meals to survive in the cold conditions.

Swole occasionally sniffled with an oncoming cold while the rain continued to press down hard. 

An occasional thunder pierced the deafening silence.

"What is with all the rain? Did we take a wrong turn and end up in Hoenn? I'd rate this expedition 7.8 out of 10. Too much water." Buneary did not understand the joke but smiled anyway. 

She could tell her trainer needed a win to keep fighting.

---

Day 21. The rain has finally stopped and our hero awakens with a sneeze. 

But sick or healthy, our hero knows that he needs to get home soon. 

The rain cost him a full day but he realizes it could cost them even more days. 

Trainer school could be starting soon. He lost track of time and any moment wasted is a risk he is unwilling to take.

The duo eats their stale and monotone breakfast and then packs up to leave in relative silence.

The fight against Bibarel is still haunting them both in their own ways. 

Swole is haunted by his re-confrontation of his trauma and Buneary by her very first confrontation with defeat.

They travel for a few hours and stumble across the first wild pokemon since they left Bibarel's territory. 

A single Rattata is drinking from the creek.

"Psst. Buneary. Do three Defense Curls this time." Buneary listens immediately and does her Defense Curls. "Then close in with Quick Attack but hit him with Double Kick." She nods in between her sets.

"Double Kick is your strongest move against anything with a normal typing right now and we will abuse that. Keep Rattata on the defensive and don't let him react at all. If he manages to retaliate, get away with Quick Attack and use Baby-Doll Eyes from a distance." 

Struggling, but finishing, her third Defense Curl, Buneary looks up determinedly. She is ready to fight.

"Wait. Let's go over some contingencies." Her face changes to a slight frown, clearly not liking the infinite preparations for what should be a simple fight.

But she swallows her pride because of her display of utter failure against a Bibarel of all creatures. 

Buneary remains attentive to Swole's ideas.

"Rattata might chase you with his own Quick Attack if you leave his close range. If that happens, abort the Baby-Doll Eyes and dodge instead. Then you can easily strike him in the back with Double Kick." 

Buneary is starting to struggle with keeping the scenarios in her head but not for a lack of trying.

Pokemon, especially wild pokemon, only know how to attack, how to react and what their instincts has instilled in them.

Advanced planning is clearly beyond a simple, untrained Buneary.

"Another thing Rattata are famous for is Focus Energy. If it looks like Rattata has given up on the fight and looks like he is taking a shit instead," Buneary frowns at the image she imagined thanks to her crass trainer. "Then I want you to finish your Baby-Doll Eyes and hit him with Quick Attack. Then you need to aim and time Double Kicks carefully. The first kick should always counter any of Rattata's moves and the second kick will do the damage..."

"Did you get all of that?" Buneary nods very slowly. 

She has forgotten most of the strategy already.

"... I will call out what you need to do. You just focus on making clean hits and move-transitions. Alright?" A quicker and confident nod follows.

"Good. Ready? Quick Attack into Double Kick, now."

"Bun." She quietly responds and dashes into Rattata's backside. 

Before he even knew what hit him, a full combo of kicks landed on his back. "Raaa!" 

Rattata screams out in pain and flies for a few meters from the ambush.

Another one-two combo of kicks aimed for the face connects and the dazed Rattata is tossed right to the other side again. 

Without giving him a single chance to recover, Buneary kicks the downed Rattata in the stomach. One kick. And Rattata's eyes turn into swirls.

Rattata is KO.

Buneary wins.

"Stop!" Swole's voice echoes over the battlefield right before a final kick would have ended Rattata's life.

His pokemon loses her collected fighting type energy. "We won! You can stop the kicking."

But the savage Buneary dismisses her trainer's voice and re-charges a new double kick. "Seriously, wait Buneary! We can't kill every pokemon we see. If we do this on the routes or against another trainer's pokemon, then we will get tossed into prison!" He shouts and approaches the two pokemon.

This time Buneary stops the attack but only to look back at her trainer with a questioning frown. "Bune?"

"Prison means we get into very bad trouble. They will even separate us!"

"Bunnie!" At that she hops back from the KO'ed Rattata and back to her trainer's side.

With the fight resolved and Buneary's killer instincts doused, Swole bends down to pick up Buneary in one arm and the downed Rattata by the scruff of his neck in the other.

Buneary, realizing the compromising position she got herself into, swiftly climbs out of his weak hold and up to his shoulder where she hides herself between the branches of his camouflage.

Swole carries Rattata off to the thicket and drops him off unceremoniously in a bush. 

"If we leave him out in the open, we might as well have killed him. The poor guy is without a horde. Catch a break mate."

"Good job, Buneary." Swole starts and catches Buneary's attention. "That fight was perfect. You were truly amazing out there!"

"Buneary!" She responds in pride.

And like this, the spring days continue to pass while the hero and his partner travel further south. 

In their short journey, the new team has experienced loss, victory and hardship but they have grown much stronger along the way.

Over the coming days, the team had quickly ended most fights with their successful ambushes, but they still lost more and more time due to the occasional rainy day.

On a few days, Swole had even decided to march through the rain to make it back to Twinleaf Town faster.

To make it in time for this year's trainer school.

---

But all his effort was nearly wasted. For on the 29th day of Swole's adventure, their repetitive but peaceful sleep was interrupted early in the morning.

Buneary's ears twitch at the sound of a rustling bush and she wakes up. Instantly alert.

She shakes her trainer awake but covers his mouth with her ears to prevent him from making any noise.

He wakes up in a panic as Buneary makes shushing motions while pointing up. 

"Something is out there." Is the conclusion in his mind.

He whispers as quietly as he can past the furry ears. "Get ready. Use Defense Curl." 

But the sounds he made were enough to start the fight. 

A storm of razor sharp leaves rips away their camouflage cover and a few errand leaves cut deeply into Swole's arms, which he raised to protect his neck at the last moment.

Buneary aborts her Defense Curl and quickly jumps out of her trainers protective embrace, and out of the hole into the battle. 

Right into the path of a charging Nuzleaf. 

Nuzleaf gets the first strike with Tackle. Buneary is smashed away from the hole and bounces off a tree. 

Nuzleaf instantly starts running again, planning to smash Buneary into the tree with another Tackle and gaining the advantage of the fight as soon as possible.

"She's on the ground. Can't dodge like that... unless?" Swole mutters his options as usual before he orders, "Snap out of it! Use Splash to dodge!"

She shakes off her dizziness and looks up to a sprinting Nuzleaf who is coming right at her. 

Buneary uses Splash. 

All her limbs, charged with normal type energy, slap the ground, causing her to uselessly bounce up, right over Nuzleaf. 

He is surprised and unable to correct his course in time. He runs past his target and straight into the tree.

Smash.

"Follow up with Quick Attack. Smack him into the tree instead!" Shouts our hero from the safety of his impromptu battle trench. 

Buneary lands from her Splash and redirects her next bounce to start off her Quick Attack with even more speed.

"Buneary!" Smash!

The attack connects, the dazed Nuzleaf stood no chance and Buneary rams him back into the tree once again.

"Pound!" The next move is chained perfectly but countered with a hasty Razor Leaf. 

The attacks hit each other and as a result, both pokemon are flung away from each other. 

Nuzleaf once again kisses the tree while Buneary lands on her back near her trainer.

Both pokemon struggle back up, loud, labored breaths beginning to sound out with the heaving of their chests. Buneary overused her attacks and Nuzleaf took too much damage from repeatedly hitting a tree with his face.

He starts gathering grass type energy for another Razor Leaf.

"Keep your distance. Keep dodging Razor Leaf and hit him with Baby-Doll Eyes whenever you can." Swole orders and Buneary nods in confirmation.

Distance should make dodging projectiles easier, he reasons.

A barrage of razor sharp leaves is sent forth by Nuzleaf but Buneary dodges them easily by stepping to the side.

Two ethereal eyeballs appear and pink energy envelops Nuzleaf.

Nuzleaf tried again but the next barrage was already noticeably weaker and the dodging became easier as well.

Realizing that he is following a losing strategy, he curls up into a ball, as much as his bipedal body allows. "Huh? What is he doing? Defense Curl? It looks so weird. Buneary stay ready."

"Bun."

Swole finally notices the rock energy collecting itself around Nuzleaf and it clicks. "I got it! It's Rollout! Full power, Buneary, Double Kick!" 

But she doubts him. The move is slow enough to dodge it easily. 

"It's a safe trade! Trust me!"

"... Bun!" She nods, charges fighting type energy and runs into the path of Rollout. She jumps and drop kicks her opponent, both kicks landing at the same time.

BOOM!

The powers clashing against each other create a cloud of smoke and Nuzleaf rockets out of it with immense speed. Hitting the same tree for a fourth time, shaking its leaves to the core and almost toppling it over. 

Still, he struggles but manages to stand up. "Finish him off with Quick Attack!" Buneary runs out of the dust cloud and rams her body into Nuzleaf for another time and he knocks against the tree yet again. 

But Nuzleaf is still standing. One eye swollen shut, the leaf on his head broken and his nose dented at an angle.

"Don't relent! Use Pound!"

Nuzleaf stumbles. He's unable to put up even a semblance of a defense against the oncoming attack.

Boom.

He finally crumples to the ground and stays down.

Nuzleaf is KO.

Buneary wins.

"YES! We did it! Fuck yeah! We won!" Swole shouts out loud.

But Buneary shouts louder, letting the world hear her own enthusiasm. 

"WRRYYYYY!"

Her blood curdling victory cry leaves the entire thicket in dead silence.

Swole is shocked into silence and can only watch as she makes her way over to him and hops into her place on his shoulder.

Then she points down at the equipment in the hole. "Bu, bunny Bun!" Which roughly translates to 'now, make me some food!'

Swole understands and follows the orders of his pokemon dutifully.

He picks up the backpack and heads off, away from the battlefield to start their breakfast and berry-recovery far away from their knocked out enemy.

The final Sitrus Berry is used up to heal Buneary and the remaining Oran Berries fail to heal his arms completely. The wound closes up but the skin does not regenerate as new.

Our hero leaves his very first adventure with his very first battle scar.