Chapter 8

Berries crushed by hooves served as a healing poultice. Juice from those same berries became a medicinal syrup to drink. The assisting Girafarig would freeze whenever the Iron Valiant moved, but, even as wary as they were, they still shared the bounty of their grove as a form of thanks.

Nick sat next to the Iron Valiant but snapped his head up at any unfamiliar noise. Though he wore a confident smile on his face, his reactions spoke of being just as wary as the Girafarig that surrounded them. When the three Farigiraf from before finally approached where the Iron Valiant and Nick rested under a tree, Nick immediately started to talk. The Iron Valiant felt as though Nick needed to speak.

“You need a way to defend yourselves.” The blurted-out phrase inspired bewilderment in the Farigiraf rather than any sense of ease or fright. “The Scream Tail out there—those primal, Jigglypuff things? They barely gathered any berries, but they proved that they could gather berries. Believe me, they will be back.”

Two of the Farigiraf exchanged a look, an unsure thing. The third let its helmet-like mouth close over its head. It was like it lowered a visor; it was purposefully hiding its expression. But, for the briefest of seconds, the Iron Valiant caught its shame.

“New moves would be good and all, but how long would it take you to pick them up? Not to be rude, but this... one is really skilled,” Nick said, gesturing toward the Iron Valiant. “Except, it still took them days to pick up even one attack, and I get the sense that’s not the standard.”

“No,” he said, continuing. “What you need is strategy. And I can help you with that. Just let us stay here for a bit, and I promise we can get you into shape.”

The Iron Valiant could tell what Nick was doing; berries from the grove would help offset the drain on his limited supplies, and resting in one place would let him recover the energy needed to continue his journey out. But really, Nick was nervous. Even now, with the confidence in his voice, he was tapping a leg. The Girafarig had no intention of attacking them here, but out there? Where other Pokémon still wandered about? The Iron Valiant knew it was strong, but both it and Nick had just witnessed how being outnumbered could make individual strength pointless.

Just remembering how the three Scream Tail were able to distract it and then run away grated at the Iron Valiant. It had withstood their attacks, but it had done so at a cost, and its targets had escaped with loot. It had been unable to do anything to seal a win.

Nick had already offered these Pokémon help with new moves, and the speech he was giving was a slight modification of his first offer. Truthfully, they had been allowed into the grove more as a gesture of thanks rather than acceptance, but Nick’s words were making a point—the Iron Valiant had performed the best out of any of them here, and it had still lost. No Pokémon here would be able to win as they were now. If Nick left without doing anything, the Pokémon of this grove would not be able to defend their home—and the Iron Valiant would not be able to defend Nick.

The Farigiraf trotted in place and turned to have a silent discussion, but Girafarig were already gathering around the nearby trees, watching both the Iron Valiant and Nick with a quiet curiosity. His words had sparked something in them, and the Iron Valiant was prepared to stand and point that out to convince the grove’s leaders. But it didn’t need to argue anything. Nick was already convincing enough.

The Farigiraf turned back around and all nodded at once.

They accepted the offer. Strength was something to be developed, and at least for the next little while, everyone here would be training together.

When it came to helping these Pokémon fight, the Iron Valiant learned that Girafarig and Farigiraf were a kind of variant fighter it had not expected. They were unlike most species underground as they used neither high physical defense nor speed to handle their opponents’ attacks. Rather, Nick put it succinctly when he described them as “skill-based” and “special” fighters. They would focus more on disrupting moves with kicks and sudden Psychic-type attacks. In a way, they fought in a way not too dissimilar to how the Iron Valiant wielded its weapon, but these Pokémon had to use an explicit move every time they tried to block or deflect a technique.

As the Iron Valiant needed time to heal, Nick was the first to volunteer for a spar. Far too eager for a human, he pulled out that rod he had assembled, and then he circled one weak volunteer of a Girafarig within an open space in the grove. Every click of the weapon’s trigger let electricity crackle at its top as a show of intimidation, but the opposing Girafarig only ever momentarily flinched. He would swing, and the Girafarig would jump back. As weak as it was, it easily outmatched a basic human, and a psychic beam slammed into his chest.

“Gah,” he said with an exhale, rubbing his face with his shirt, back pressed against the ground. “Feels like you just punched me right in the gut.”

Nick still stood right after that, and he tried to continue to fight even through the pain.

He lost every time.

But he predicted more and more of the Girafarig’s movements, and it eventually got to the point where he was more willing to talk while the Iron Valiant finally jumped in for training spars of its own.

“Alright,” Nick said as the Iron Valiant exchanged blows with a Farigiraf. It could not mimic how the Scream Tail fought, but it could at least help these Pokémon get used to fighting against a tougher foe. “The thing to remember here is that power is everything. Strategy only works if you have the strength to back it up, and when you do have that strength to back it up, you’re usually just better off landing a direct blow.”

“I would say you should try to learn something like Trick Room since I remember that being good for your species, but that’s a more strategy-based move, and I have no idea how to teach you that or even how to get you to figure it out yourselves,” he said as about a dozen Girafarig gathered around him. “From what I’ve seen—and experienced—you all are better off with the basic moves for species. Psybeam and Stomp, mostly. And then for Farigiraf, you should be practicing Twin Beam since that’s a strong attack you would have picked up to evolve.”

To the Iron Valiant, Nick’s words almost felt like rambling lies. He had never met Girafarig or Farigiraf before, but he was speaking to them with such confidence that he sounded like he had years of experience. He spouted off beliefs and ideas as if they were cold, hard fact, but once he got to his final point, everything came together. His point made perfect sense.

“You aren’t going to be strong enough to win on your own by the time the Scream Tail come back,” he said, his voice serious. “But, you won’t need to worry about it—your power comes from elsewhere. You aren’t individual Pokémon, but you’re an entire herd. Since all of you know ranged moves like Psybeam, practice those. Right now, your power comes as a group.”

The Girafarig looked among each other, and the Iron Valiant dodged a rear-hoof kick from a towering Farigiraf. Both of them paused to look over at Nick, and the Iron Valiant found Nick’s knowing smile curious.

“After all,” the human said, “there are a bunch of you. With your ranged attacks... Have you ever heard of something called a firing line?”

The Iron Valiant tried to use its spars to push itself. It remembered just how awful it felt to let the Scream Tail escape. It tried to take those feelings and inspire something electric within it, but whenever it tried, it would always fail, no matter how much Nick spoke of this being its best way forward.

“Definitely Electric Terrain,” he said to it, long after the Girafarig stopped practicing to rest with the sky having turned completely dark. “You felt like you weren’t strong or fast enough, so you need a boost that carries. Swords Dance or Agility are probably your best moves to do that, but it feels like a waste to work on single stat-boosting moves like that. What you really need to lean into is your ability, Quark Drive. Figure out Electric Terrain, and it’ll naturally boost what you’re already best at.”

The Iron Valiant fought to inspire the needed feeling and gather any kind of Electric-aligned energy, but nothing ever crackled to the surface. It would watch Nick’s personal spars against the weakest of the Girafarig, but even analyzing the lightning of his electric weapon, the Iron Valiant could not figure out how to bring that raw energy to the surface.

Time passed—the sky changed color. What was blue became black, and what was black became blue. Nick would swing his weapon against the Girafarig, and the Iron Valiant would swing its blades against the Farigiraf. What was intended to be a short stay turned into several days, and tension grew. Everyone knew they had limited time; the Scream Tail would be returning soon enough.

At one point, the full moon hung in the dead center of the sky. Clouds covered its glowing sides. Nick sat at the edge of the grove and stared out into the crater. He watched nothing at all, simply taking in the faint movement of distant Pokémon, and the Iron Valiant stood near him just in case. With how dark it was, it needed to remain on guard for any would-be attackers that might attempt to sneak in.

“Am I doing the right thing?” Nick’s voice was a whisper. “I wanted to get you a place to rest and heal, and I wanted to find some way I could train, myself. Except, I’m now working my butt off to make sure these Pokémon can fight. I even have the bruises to prove it!”

Nick let out a laugh.

“But... is this even helping? Half the time, it’s not even training. I’m just talking at them. Lecturing. I know facts and some tricks. I feel like I’ve jumped into the deep end of training Pokémon without any previous experience whatsoever.”

Behind Nick, the Iron Valiant bowed its head. It could tell that Nick’s actions were assisting with the Girafarig. As a human, he was only barely improving, and the Girafarig kept beating him. But his words, his smiles, and his relentless willingness to continue despite it all inspired something else: more and more each day, the Pokémon were brimming with confidence.

But Nick didn’t notice that. He didn’t turn around. He simply kept staring out into the distance and did not see the Iron Valiant’s reaction.

“If this was the show, the real solution here would be to recruit the Scream Tail to make friends that help defend the grove, but there’s no way that’s going to happen. Those Pokémon are crazy aggressive. They looked like they were prepared to start digging into each other, and they were supposed to be a group. And then, even if we fight them off here, they’ll still be around. Won't they just go and attack the next group of Pokémon that have food?”

Bringing his head into his hands, Nick let out an echoing groan. He then let himself fall back, where he rested on the ground and stared up at the sky.

Clouds drifted by. The moon continued to shine. The Iron Valiant watched the human lie there in silence.

For a while, Nick did not speak.

“I'll talk to someone,” he said eventually. “I already want to make some kind of deal with someone important, so as soon as I find them, I'll work out a way for them to send someone here. I never realized just how much of a mess this crater became with the Professor’s absence, but even if just one Pokémon Ranger sees this place...”

A small smile returned.

“Yeah. That’s the solution. That’s what I need to do. We just need to make sure the Girafarig can defend themselves, and we’ll worry about fixing all of this once we’re out. That means we still need to find a way to get out of here, but, in the meantime, we’ll just need to train.”

A few seconds passed. Quietly, he added, “That's the only way.”

He then got up and returned to set up a place to sleep within the grove.

As the spars continued, the Iron Valiant learned more and more about its faults—not from what Nick told it, but from how it analyzed how it moved. Its slashes were too telegraphed. Its movement took too much build-up. When it sparred against the Farigiraf, it became obvious that it had a weakness at range.

The inability to learn Electric Terrain burned at it. But, even more than that, losing the fleeing Scream Tails had hurt, and it was not a physical pain. The Iron Valiant had lost before, but never like that. It had never felt so helpless until that moment. It never wanted to feel that again.

Every day that passed was another day it threw itself into training. Since it had learned how to better control the energy that fueled its techniques, it could learn more about how to properly unleash those same techniques. Everything needed to come out faster. More powerful. Stronger.

In its spars, one Farigiraf became two.

Then two Farigiraf became three.

Eventually, it would face the Farigiraf while Girafarig circled the space in which it sparred. The unevolved Pokémon would fire off Psybeams during the fight that the Iron Valiant would have to deflect, block, and dodge.

And then, the sky became purple. Morning and night crossed the land several times over. After one long day of nothing but practice, Nick yawned, his hair a mess, his clothes stained with dirt, and a certain quiet fell over the clearing.

The clouds were building. The barest start of the night began to peek over the mountaintops. From where it was resting, the Iron Valiant stood to pull out its weapon and walked to the front of the grove.

Girafarig moved to take up positions in the bushes and between the trees. Evolved Farigiraf joined the Iron Valiant at its sides.

From behind them, Nick walked up to join them where they stood in the center, and everyone was ready to battle.

The entire grove stared out into the distance.

Silence stretched into the incoming night.

And a certain group of Scream Tail, perched at the top of a hillside, all stared right back.