Back into the Woods

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Ace returned to the entrance of the forest. After returning back to Grassveil with Tom it hit him that he never quite finished his business in the forest. Find some treasure, or learn what awaits on the other end. And hopefully this time, he'll actually get to one of his goals. Without seeing anyone else, he began to walk into the woods, leafs crunching underneath his feet.

"Looking through the entire woods would be more or less a waste of time." Ace started as he realized he was falling behind a little, and slowly sped up his walk to catch up with Nate, but never going into a sprint, "I'm basically here to get to the other end of the forest to see if any good locations lie behind it, because my current options are a town, a pond, and two forests, nothing really cool."

"Well, if you want my opinion, around the area is a cave. It's called the serene cave. On the other side is Rainfront Town, and also Pricklemist hill. They're both nice places to go to. I've been meaning to head back there, but I got a bit...sidetracked." Nate said, chuckling about his and Tom's adventures inside there. "But of course, if you decide to stick around, there's always more parts of the woods to check out." He added. As he walked, there were some noises nearby, but Nate hadn't noticed them.

This dice is not existing.

"A cave you say?, I guessing I'm going to have to check that out." Ace smiled, "Besides, caves usually have more things of interest than forests, it's basically a rule by now. So I guess that's where I'll be leaving." his conversation was suddenly interrupted by a Nuzleaf jumping out of a nearby tree in front of the duo, and making a fighting pose of some sort.
"Well, at least this one is subtle about it." Ace rolled his eyes as he got ready for a battle.

Instead of stopping with Ace, Nate picked up speed and dashed at the Nuzkeaf, punching it directly in the face with Thunder Punch, before backing up to Ace. "As subtle as they can get at least." He replied, getting into a fighting position next to Ace, ready to fight the Nuzleaf.

"That's one way to start a battle." Ace smiled before firing Magical Leaf at the Nuzleaf sending it flying up in the air. But during the Pokemon's decent, it was able to regain it's balance and shoot a few Razor Leaves at the duo standing on the ground, Ace jumping out of the way of the incoming attack as the Nuzleaf lands on the ground.

"Well, I always go with a policy in my battles." Nate commented back at Ace, smirking and diving out of the way of the Razor Leaves, and rolling back to his feet so he could launch a Thundershock attack at the Nuzleaf, in one swift motion. "Don't wait for an attack to come when you can hit first." He finished.

"Well I know what you mean." Ace started as he shot another barrage of leaves at the Nuzleaf, "But my moves are pretty limited at the moment against another grass type." The Nuzleaf got hit by the leaves and went flying into the bushes, only the jump right back out again.

As the Nuzleaf was knocked back into the bush, Nate ran towards it again, readying another Thunder Punch. As it jumped back out of the bush Nate plowed his fist into its face again, knocking it back into the bushes. "Yeah, I get that." He replied to Ace, and stood in front of the bush to see if the Nuzleaf was coming back out.

Ace waited for a minute but nothing happened, "Ok...I think we got him." he said while dusting off whatever dirt got on his cape. "Anyhow, do you know how much further that cave you mentioned is compared to this place? Hopefully they'll be Pokemon there that my attacks aren't ineffective on."

Nate turned back to Ace, walking away from the bush with a smirk on his face. ""Yeah, that was interesting." He said, and looked around quickly. "The cave should be a little bit of a way ahead, not too far though. Let's go." He continued, and walked back to the bush they had knocked the nuzleaf into, when he noticed something in there. "Huh? I think I've found something." He commented.

This dice is not existing.

Ace looked ahead on the item on the ground, "It's...just an apple." he said with a tinge of disappointment in his voice, "The Nuzleaf probably dropped it..." he quickly recomposed himself and looked ahead on the trail, "We should probably just go the end if we're close now." he said as he began walking forward.

Nate picked up the apple, looking at it for a moment. He decided he wouldn't take it, and put it down next to the Nuzleaf. He had decided that he wouldn't take items off of wild pokemon anymore unless he really needed it. Not wasting another second, Nate nodded his head towards Ace and walked down the path with him.

Ace, finding the walk to be a little boring, decided to try and start a conversation.
"So, we've already established you don't have some tragic backstory or anything like that, but do you have any cool stories to tell? Ever go up against someone way out of your league for example?"

Nate continued to walk, not seeming very surprised at the sudden conversation. "Cool stories? Well, I do have a couple. I guess that's what I get for traveling around so much." He said, and thought about what he should say and what he shouldn't. "Well, there was this one time in the Black Spear Mountain Range, me and Li- a friend, got caught up in a fight with six Sableye." He shared, stopping himself from mentioning any names, and also knowing that there was more, but he wasn't going to say.

"Not bad...not bad." Ace mumbled before lifting his head up, "Isn't that Mountain Range the place where To-" he cut himself off mid sentence, "No, there's probably no connection between those things, but if there was that would be awfully interesting..." his sentence trailed off as he began to mutter to himself for a moment before going silent and continuing the walk.