28th Move: Stanting on Business

28th Move: Stanting on Business

Route 37, Johto.

My heavy pack laden with the ranger’s collected goodies from the apricorn grove made taking shallow breaths difficult. But Naoko and I kept the huffing and puffing to a minimum as we crept through the forest.

Vrm, vrm, vrm. Only the mechanical vibrations of my podedex’s scan function caused any level of discernable decibels. 

“We’re getting close…” My quest to locate the herd of displaced Stantler had entered its final phase. A stampede of footprints had left a winding trail of crushed grass and devastated growths of young foliage in its wake. 

A major issue in this pursuit, however, was that the larger group had fractured into smaller cells. So the route itself had transformed into a proverbial cutlery drawer with how many forks were messily strewn about. 

Still, my dex had yet to fail me. If I found one, I’d eventually find them all.

My Pokédex buzzed silently in my hand, signalling it had found fresh evidence. Squish. And with the suspiciously soft pile of muck I’d stepped on, so had I. I knelt. Discounting the mound making a sticky mess at the bottom of my shoe, I discovered several clusters of oblong, pink and brown-mottled pellets. Digging my pinky into one of them, I gauged its still-warm temperature. “Scat. Recently pooped.”

Naoko gurgled in suppressed disgust when I brought my digit up to my nose and sniffed the bouquet. “Perhaps it would be better to align your dedication towards something—anything other than defecation, Uki. This is most unsanitary!” 

I jerked my tongue to a stop as it barely crossed the threshold of my lips. Guess I wouldn’t be sampling. Too bad, I’d always wanted to try doing what I’d seen on teachy TV. “How else am I meant to confirm whether it was the Stantler who chewed that whole Pecha patch into cud, and not some other Pokémon?” I scooped up a handful of droppings and thrust it towards Naoko, who hurriedly flinched away. “Look at the discolouration. Pigmented pink—they’ve definitely been feasting on Pecha. Clearly not to their taste, though. Otherwise, they might’ve stuck around. Good news for us because this is proof positive that they’re searching for another glade of apricorns.” 

Sticking a finger in my mouth—a clean one—I slurped and coated my skin with saliva, then thrust it into the air. “Uki, dear, while I constantly endeavour to uncover more of your secrets; discovering your oral fixation in such a fashion is exquisitely disconcerting. Is it really too mundane a task for us simply to follow the tracks they’ve left?” 

“Sure. So long as you don’t mind them scattering when they catch our scent.” My palpable sarcasm had Naoko scrunching her nose more deeply than when I almost feasted on faeces. “C’mon, no more dawdling. Keeping upwind will give us a greater chance of sneaking up on them.”

My precaution proved valuable, because less than an hour later we successfully happened upon our intended prey. 

A straggler. Curled between the gnarled roots of a tree, lay a Stantler. A runt by the look of its diminutive size according to the information scrolling on the dex’s screen. Dwarfed antlers, a smaller frame, and a larger smattering of white spots on its beige fur. This was a young doe.

“It seems to be suffering.” More importantly, by her current condition, I needn’t have bothered with the ambush predator routine. The juvenile Stantler’s laboured wheezing was the loudest noise in the entire clearing. Evidently, she was either seriously hurt or sick, because the Pokémon barely spared us a half-lidded side-glance as we boldly approached her. An irritated snort was all the Stantler could manage until it was forced to return to its Koffing and Weezing. 

Which, by my diagnosis, probably wasn’t too far off the mark. “Shhh, shh.” Devoid of energy, the Pokémon remained unable to put up a fight as I placed my hand on it. The Stantler’s tense muscles slowly, warily un-tensed as I ran my nails soothingly across her raised hackles. Sufficiently calmed, I felt confident enough that she wouldn’t bite my hand. So, I reached for her snout and raised the skin over her jowls to reveal her gums and teeth. “Well, that explains their Pecha-heavy diet, doesn’t it?” Instead of its usual healthy tint; splotches of purple stained the entirety of the ‘mon’s mouth. “Chances are the whole herd’s afflicted to some degree; poor ol’ girl here just got the worst of it. Those Nido really did a number on ‘em when they kicked them outta the grove.” 

“Will you be rendering aid?”

Can’t hurt, can it? I’ve plenty of antidot—!” 

One moment I was reaching into my rucksack to grab an antidote; the next, an unseen power grabbed me. I went from crouching to getting yanked backwards and tumbling across the dirt near Naoko’s feet in the blink of an eye. “Stay back!”

I quickly scrambled onto my feet while sputtering and spitting–guess I got that taste of dirt after all. When, a split-second later, the clearing detonated with psychic energy.

A crackling wave of violet-pink aura slammed into where I’d just been, rippling the undergrowth with shimmering force. Bark exploded off the tree like confetti, causing the sickly Stantler to flinch and duck the shattered splinters raining down around her. 

Loping suddenly in from the darkened treeline, another Stantler stood protectively in front of the young doe, and us as a perceived threat. It was clearly a male this time. A big fuck-off buck poised to gore us. Especially with those massive antlers aimed directly at us, including the eerie black orbs swirling wildly suspended in the centre of them. Contemplating whether to charge us physically, or pop off another Extrasensory to mangle our brains.  

It chose both—the bastard!

It scraped its hoof challengingly on the ground, angled its antlers low, and covered its head in psychic aura. 

Though my initial response leaned toward defusing the situation; a wild Pokémon is a wild Pokémon and inclined to behave as such.  

I snatched the moon ball off my belt and tossed out Baloo right as the Stantler charged. Pop—snap—growl! My Teddiursa materialised from a red beam, claws and roars at the ready. “Sand Attack!” The abrupt geyser of loose dirt spraying in our attacker’s face gave Naoko and me ample opportunity to strafe out of the offending Zen Headbutt’s careening trajectory. Its temporary blindness was also critical for Baloo’s next debilitating attack. “Rototiller.”

Baloo slammed his paws down, and churning earth undulated beneath its trotters, trapping it like quicksand. Done and dusted!

The Stantler aggressively railed against its earthly bonds, but it was futile. Our safety secured, I stopped Baloo from pressing his advantage for a finisher. There wasn’t a need to knock it out since I had no intention of pissing it off further or capturing it. “Seems a rather cruel fate to leave them both as they are.” 

I shook my head at Naoko’s veiled suggestion–what kind of businessman would I be if I let such easy leverage slip through my ungreased fingers? “Wasn’t planning on leaving them high and dry.” Another pop, and I lured my Krabby out of his ball. “Shower time, Yecu.” His ferocious clamping subsided as soon as I poured water on his battle-readiness. Raising a pincer, he ejected a Water Sport, sending a gentle downpour that washed away the crud from the Stantler’s eyes. 

Slight mistake, because it refocused both its stare and floating antler bits at me to send a telepathic warning. Rapid flashes of progressively brutal visions of me getting maimed burrowed into my brain. 

Naoko came to my rescue with her own psychic probe when she saw me wince at my developing migraine. “My, my, quite the powerful latent psychic potential in this one!”

I kneaded my temple, which sent a jolt across my skull and down my spine. “And an Arceus-damned pain in my neck for it.” I snapped my fingers at the male Stantler to ensure he witnessed me heading over to the doe harmlessly so that he wouldn’t throw another tantrum. “Tuck that glare and watch! We’re trying to help.” I fished out the antidote from before, fed the nozzle inside the poisoned Stantler’s mouth, and pressed the release button to unload the full volume of the cure. 

It was an incredibly fast-acting agent, and far more formidable than Pecha berries at counteracting toxins. Given, of course, that its purpose was to stabilise a trainer’s Pokémon in dire emergencies and locations. A few minutes, and the doe had regained strength enough to wobble back onto her feet. 

I grandly waved my arm and gestured at the convalescing young Pokémon while looking pointedly at her trapped protector. My quirked eyebrow added emphasis to my unvocalised ‘satisfied?’. 

He chuffed through his nostrils, harrumphed with his head held high before reluctantly nodding. “I’ll take that as a good sign.” Wrongly assuming our business was done, he then imperiously jabbed his antlers at my Teddiursa to demand we release him. “Ah—ah—ah! Baloo’ll only set you free once we’ve settled our bill.”  

“Uh-oh, those poor souls. Perhaps surrendering them to their fate may have been a far kinder mistress than your hostile negotiation, Uki.”

I elbowed Naoko to shut her up, and whispered out the side of my mouth. “Hush! Don’t ruin my sales pitch!” A problem solver was what I was at heart. Specifically, one that charged for his services—and extra if you’re the source of said problem. “One full-dose antidote at market price plus a surcharge for, you know, attempting to skewer me into a shish-kebab. I’d say… a week’s unfettered access to wherever your herd’s current stash of apricorns are growing, sounds reasonably equitable.” 

Unfortunately, though, it seemed my clasped palms were the only things I’d be rubbing together since neither Stantler nor I had two coins between us. The buck’s ears twitched and his glowing antlers dimmed slightly, sending another lance of the Pokémon’s memories through my mind.

Groups of Stantler scattered through the forest, searching frantically for a food source as viable as their lost home. They were thinner now. Hungrier. Exhausted. Each split-off faction wandered farther away from the others to no avail. 

Then, a shift—a blur of purple and purpler poisons. 

An image of the Stantler himself leading the bulwark against a vicious-looking Nidoking at the head of its pack. “A valiant effort made to preserve their ancestral territory ended in a haze of acrid fog and acid rain. An impasse even you may not be able to traverse.” Naoko poetically summarised the sage we’d been made privy to. “Shall you concede this as a failed venture then, Uki?”

I paused, watching as the doe cantered to her protector and sidled beside him in relief. “He actually put up a pretty decent resistance, all things considered. His psychic prowess almost drove them back. He’s just really unrefined.” Once more plunging my appendages into my mouth, I circled my middle finger and thumb beneath my tongue and blew out a shrill whistle. “Hey! It’s pretty clear that we both want the same thing, but those moonstone-manic ‘mons are impeding it. So how about a compromise?”

The Stantler belligerently shook his head, refusing to listen to a syllable out of my mouth until it was unburied. 

“A hardheaded one, isn’t he?”

“Mhm. But that absolutely works to our favour. I have a plan for that thick skull of his as well as the potent psychic power that resides inside it. Fine. Baloo!” Heeding my order with a lazy flex of ground-type aura, Stantler was exhumed from his shallow grave. “There. Now, it’s your turn to hear me out. The fact that I haven’t chucked Pokéballs at the both of you and press-ganged you onto my team should tell you I’m not your average trainer.” 

He cautiously nodded, ceding my point. Good.

“Lucky for you, I’m a move tutor, and I know just the move to teach you. The perfect move for a forest guardian, and as far as your forgotten forefathers go, Stantler-specific. No more smashing a dead Rapidash, we’ll send those Nido packing with a Psyshield Bash!”