Into The Forest Of Darkness

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[Energy: 19 - 10(Dungeon Entry) = 9]

The pitch black darkness that covered the area. That kind of feeling that some kind of woodland monster would kill you on sight. The questionable texture of the ground under his talons. The trees letting as little light touch the forest floor as physically possible. All of these things confirmed it; Horochi was in Shadowhue Forest. The reason for him being here was because he wanted to explore the Monochrome Falls. He had heard that they were just a colorless waterfall with nothing else special about it. However, Horochi wanted to know WHY they were colorless in the first place, so he decided to take it upon himself to explain this abnormal phenomenon.

Hidon charged forward and swung his strong fist...only to strike nothing but air. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized that he had failed to strike his target. He quickly tried to stumble to a stop, his own momentum carrying him farther than he'd intended. However, he didn't have a chance by the time Horochi's Ember attack fired off from above him. "Ngh...!" he grunted, wincing from the small fireballs colliding with his back. Thankfully, he resisted the attack as a Fire-type. Otherwise, that probably would have sent him tumbling to the ground yet again. But as it as, he managed to stay on his feet this time and spin around to face his foe once more.

Hidon growled and did not hesitate. He himself opened his mouth and unleashed a barrage of fireballs at the Torchic this time. His own Ember attack was not going to be as effective, but he didn't care in the slightest. This Torchic was fast and he needed to hit him quickly as well, preferably before he could jump away again. Plus, he was very confident that his attack would do more damage to Horochi than Horochi's had done to him.

"Gaah!" Horochi yelled as he was hit in the back by the charmander's more powerful ember attack, but used the pain from the attack to jump-start his reaction and sped around to his back as he unleashed another night slash on the back of his head.

This is what Horochi lived for; the adrenaline rush of both attacking and being attacked. The lack of any heavy thinking when reacting on a dime to a hostile force. The feeling of going all out against someone or something that was clearly more powerful than yourself. Yes, Horochi truly loved the feeling of battle.

Hidon smirked when he watched his Ember attack successfully connect with Horochi's back. But unfortunately, his victory was very short-lived. A moment later, the Torchic was already rushing behind him, ready to attack him again. But this time, the Charmander was ready. This Torchic wasn't too fast yet. He quickly ducked his head down, barely dodging the Night Slash this time. The attack was rather predictable...although he was lucky that the Torchic had not targeted his body, which would have been much harder to dodge. And it wouldn't leave Horochi open to a counterattack like this.

The Charmander grinned slightly and suddenly swept his tail around, attempting to smash it into Horochi's body as hard as he could. It wasn't an actual move...but the physical, basic attack was still going to be so satisfying regardless.

Horochi noticed a split second too late that his attack had missed and he was about to be smacked by the charmander's tail. It did a bit of damage for sure, but not only was Horochi's speed increasing by the second, his reaction time was doing the same. As Horochi was being whacked by the charmander's tail, he redirected his night slash behind him and let it dig into the organic torch, latching him to his opponent and keeping him from being flung anywhere by the blow.

Hidon's grin widened further when his tail smashing attack worked like a charm. That should teach the little runt a lesson or two! Or at least, that was what he thought before he realized that the Torchic had not been knocked back by his attack. Instead, the Fire-type Pokémon had utilized his Night Slash attack, using his talons to grip tightly onto his tail to prevent himself from being knocked back. The Charmander flinched slightly in pain as the talons dug into his additional limb. "H-hey, l-let go of my tail!" he growled, trying desperately to shake his tail in an attempt to throw Horochi off of it. Unfortunately for him, however, he did not have the necessary muscle strength in his tail to do that. All the time he'd spent training had been for his main body...he hadn't trained his tail at all, as it usually wasn't dexterous enough to do anything with. But now, he was regretting it. After all, he couldn't swing it much as long as he remained clinging to him. The best he could do was twist his body and swing it around like a club...but how would that help him!?

Whatever the case, he was stuck trying to work out how to force this Torchic to release him for now. One thing was for sure, though. Horochi had a huge opening to exploit at this moment.

Horochi noticed that while clinging to the charmander's tail that he had a clear shot at the rest of his body, and he sure wasn't about to let it go to waste. He set his sites on the charmander's back, and before he could launch another attack, Horochi landed yet another night slash clean on the reptilian fire-type's back, bouncing off of it and landing in front of his head, backing up a bit again in case something else occurred. "Well...yer definitely stronger than me, I'll give ya that, but I can easily evade almost any attack ya throw my way unless ya can read my movements." Horochi stated, gaining some new-found respect for the charmander. However, he didn't want him to let that just add on to his already huge ego.

Hidon struggled with his thoughts, trying to work something out. But unfortunately for him, he couldn't do that. He felt a powerful claw slash into his back, causing him to let out a loud cry of pain. His lower body was thrown forward, causing his upper body to fall backward. This resulted in him smacking rather ungracefully against the ground in a supine position. And to make things worse, the Torchic landed his talons directly on the ground in front of his head. Thankfully, the Torchic hadn't taken the opportunity to hit him while he was vulnerable like this...or even taunt him for that matter. In fact, when Horochi backed off, he actually paid him a slight compliment. The Charmander might have let that inflate his ego slightly if it weren't for his position in their battle right now.

"Tch...I don't need your help," he growled, rolling over onto his stomach and pushing himself back onto his feet. "I can guarantee that I'm going to beat you." He growled and clenched his fists again. He had to start matching this guy's speed. And he knew just how to do it! He then immediately began charging forward again, much like he had with his Dragon Rush before. But instead of that a bluish aura, flames came alive around his body, making him resemble a large bullet of flame. He rushed forward as quickly as he could, trying to slam his Flame Charge into Horochi's body.

"Whoa!" Horochi said as he barely dodged the charmander's attack. At this point, he couldn't just rely on his speed alone to beat this guy, since flame charge raised the user's speed every time they used it, and since Horochi couldn't control his speed boost ability, he decided to then adapt his strategy; as he came to a stop, he screamed out "Grrrrrrrr!" as he used growl to weaken all of the charmander's physical attacks. Spamming this would allow him to constantly make it easier for him to tank the fire-type's physical attacks, while his own fire-typing would hopefully handle ember for him.

"Tch!" Hidon growled with a click of his tongue, trying to follow Horochi's movements as the Torchic soared around his attack. Just as he'd suspected, it seemed like this smaller Pokémon was not going to be as easy to strike as he had hoped. But at least his own speed had been boosted by his Flame Charge attack. If he could just keep using this, he could hopefully keep up with the Torchic's speed, if nothing else. Unfortunately, though, in order to keep up, he would be having to constantly use the move...and that was going to make him far too predictable for a while, until he had used it enough. Still, though, it was a better situation than being too slow to keep up with Horochi at all, and allowing the Torchic to evade every attack he threw his way and get countered every time. He did not have much choice....

He quickly turned to face Horochi, but had to stop for a moment as the smaller Pokémon unleashed a Growl attack. He had to admit, for such a tiny thing, that was one menacing growl. It caused him to hesitate, but only for a mere moment. Of course, his physical attacks were going to be weaker now, making his Flame Charge even less ideal. Still, that didn't change the fact that he hardly had any choice in the matter anyway. With that determined in his mind, he charged forward again. Just like before, flames sparked to life around him as he attempted to deliver a fully-body Flame Charge tackling attack, trying to throw his shoulder into the small chicken Pokémon....

Horochi tried to dodge the oncoming flame charge again like he had before, but was a split second too late as the side of his back was struck by the fire-type attack, causing him to spin around for a bit, but once he managed to stop himself he managed to shout "Grrrrrrrr!" again and unleash another growl.

Hidon allowed a smug grin to return to his face. This time, he had managed to be successful in colliding into his foe's body with his Flame Charge...and he had no plans to let up. After all, even he was well aware that he couldn't keep up with the Torchic unless he could maintain his speed as well. For that reason, as soon as his attack was finished, he turned to face Horochi once more and began a third charge. At the same time, Horochi had unleashed another Growl, creating a repeat of the previous maneuver.

And so the battle continued in that manner for a short while. Hidon would rush at Horochi, who would in turn dodge every other strike, only to unleash a Growl countering his attack to further lower the physical damage he would deal. In the end, the exchange occurred a few more times, eventually resulting in Hidon having to stop to catch his breath. At this point, both of the Pokémon were moving as quickly as they possibly could, maxing out their individual speed. This battle was definitely starting to draw itself out. And it was taking a bit of a toll on the Charmander. He had landed most of the hits, but he had been the only one making actual attacks and he did most of the running around during these exchanges.

"Huff...huff...geez...is Growling at me all you're gonna do!?" he shouted over to Horochi. "I was hoping...you'd be more of a challenge!"

Horochi was getting tired of just trying to dodge all of the charmander's attacks and growling at him practically every other second, plus his speed had been increasing for so long that he had to be careful about where he went, or risk accidentally throwing himself into harm's way. "*pant*...*pant*...My thought's exactly." Horochi shouted right back. "Since even though ya've proven that yer more powerful than me, that same power's been reduced t' nothing more than a baby magikarp throwin' a tantrum, plus no matter how many times ya flame charge me, I'll always be faster than ya. So...wutsit gonna be, big boy? Continue fightin' a losin' battle, or call it off and forfeit?" Horochi felt confident that he could overpower the charmander's physical moves at this point with his sheer speed combined with his own power, along with the fact that momentum from his insane speed could artificially increase the power of his own physical attacks. Surely victory was right around the corner, but he pushed the thought out of his head, since the charmander could still have one last ace in the hole that he had yet to use.

Hidon scowled at the Torchic's words. He knew that Horochi had a point. Not only was Horochi faster than he was, but the Torchic was now even stronger than him, physically speaking. And his only special attack was one that was completely resisted by his foe. How was he supposed to win this fight? Maybe a smart fighter would surrender at this point and preserve their strength. After all, he still had a long way to go through these trees if he was going to make it to the heart of the forest and back. Even if he did find a way to win, would he have the strength to fight off any feral Pokémon that attacked him?

But Hidon was not a smart fighter. This Torchic had embarrassed him an made a mockery of his abilities for long enough. After those last words, he was never going to allow this Torchic to win until those talons were pressed down onto the chest or stomach of his knocked out body.

"I'll...show ya power!" he called out over to Horochi angrily. "And I'll show ya what it means to doubt the strength of a Pokémon like me!" And without another word, the Charmander began to rush forward once more. Unlike his last few moves, however, he did not coat himself in flames that were indicative of his Flame Charge. Instead, he was rushing forward, that familiar draconic aura beginning to form around his arm once again. This time, he planned on smashing that little chick Pokémon into the ground successfully with his Dragon Rush! He didn't care that his physical strength had been drastically weakened. He just wanted to show this runt what he could do, despite that handicap!

[Energy: 9 - 1(Dice Roll) = 8]

MagicalMario carried out 1 launched of one Shadowhue Forest :

After going up against countless flame charges, Horochi saw the dragon rush coming from a mile away, but since Horochi was afraid of hurling himself to who knows where, he decided to take it head on by launching himself forward, using the momentum to power up a night slash that he threw straight into the charmander's attack, placing the both of them in a power struggle between night slash and dragon rush.

{Energy: 11 + 1 (this new page) = 12}

Hidon was mildly surprised when he saw Horochi turn around and rush at him directly instead of running away this time. He couldn't help but smirk slightly at the sight. Although he was certain that he could overpower the smaller Pokémon, that wasn't the reason he was starting to grow excited. Rather, it was the fact that the Torchic had decided to face his attack head-on. Nothing was more exciting than a power struggle to determine the strongest. And there was no better way to determine who was truly the strongest between them. "You want a power struggle!?" Hidon called over to him. "You're on!" He then thrust his fist forwad, meeting Horochi's talons with a mighty blow, his Dragon Rush punch smashing right into his Night Slash kick.

The power struggle hung in the air for a few moments, but it did not last as long as Hidon had expected it to. Nor did it have a result he expected. His eyes widened as Horochi's talon broke through his Night Slash, knocking his arm well out of the way. This left him completely vulnerable to the Night Slash, which successfully struck him after overcoming his move. His eyes widened and he cried out in pain. He was driven down powerfully onto the ground, slamming against it with a crash. After a painful moment, the Charmander would find himself on his back at the Torchic's feet, limbs sprawled out. He was left wondering for the moment how he could have been overpowered like that....

Although, the truth of it was relatively simple. The constant Growls from Horochi before had drastically reduced his attack power. On top of this, the Torchic's species was actually slightly physically superior to the Charmander species. All of this together was apparently enough to overcome his slight experience advantage, even after being combined with the fact that he was using the more powerful attack.

But all Hidon knew was that he could be overpowered. So now, even his most powerful attack was starting to fail him in this battle...

Digizel carried out 10 launched of one Shadowhue Forest :

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