“Did you feel that?”

High up within the peaks of Mount Coronet, a deep and melodic voice sounded. If there were a physical equivalent of this voice, it would be velvety chocolate drizzle, especially if it were paired with strawberries.

“Of course.” Within the peaks, a metallic voice that could be confused for that of a robot responded.

While the voice distinctly sounded like a robot at a base listen, a small hint of pity could be detected if you paid close attention.

“Hah,” The first sighed. “This does not bode well. Shall we step in?”

“My preparations are complete.” The second responded.

“Of course they are. They always are with you.”

***

Besides the bustling hub of Anville City that is connected with the rest of mainland Unova through the Spirit Subway, the majority of the Anville Forest is completely isolated and self contained.

Traveling from Anville City without using the Spirit Subway, the closest city would be Mistralton City to the southeast or Icirrus City to the east. But even though those are the closest, it could take months or years to traverse through the dense forest, even if an experienced Trainer traveled on the most optimal path.

If that were everything, then the forest would have already been conquered by Trainers. Instead, high level Pokémon dominated the region, making it difficult for humans to enter and create towns or cities.

But even though the territories of high level Pokémon were spread out throughout the entirety of the forest, there were still some pockets of land where humans had settled.

One of these settlements was Brightmoon Town. Just to the south of Anville City, it was created as an outpost for Pokémon Breeders to communicate with Pokémon, and was treated as a sanctuary for all types of Pokémon in need of assistance.

By far, the most common were injured Pokémon who arrived in order to get top of the line healing. It was much more reliable than waiting to recover out in the wilderness, and within the town there wasn’t much risk or danger.

In order for these Pokémon to receive their aid, dozens of Pokémon Breeders needed to venture out into the wilderness to acquire the medicinal ingredients necessary. They could farm some of them within the town, but more valuable and potent ingredients required stringent conditions to grow which could only be met in their natural habitats.

Within a small clearing, a small party of three humans and a Minccino were gathered around the smoldering embers of a campfire. They had covered the top of the flames in order to minimize the amount of smoke emitting, but it was difficult to completely contain it.

“What else do we need?” A man asked, draping a worn cloak over the shoulders of a sleeping woman. He looked to be a bit older than the other two members of the party, probably around thirty years of age, and his short cropped black hair framed his face neatly.

This man was George Blackwood. One of the only Trainers at the 1st Unity in Brightmoon Town. He also was one of the most diligent, coming out into the forest with novice Breeders for the past ten years in order to make sure they didn’t kill themselves accidentally.

But this would probably be his last mission for a while. His wife had announced her pregnancy a couple of months ago and wanted him to give up on this job, but he couldn’t give up on it when they needed more money for their child.

“We’ve gotten enough of the five main Berries for a while, and even found some of the rarer versions, so we’re good on those for now.” Sitting below another nearby tree, a short teenage boy with glasses sifted through a large backpack and counted out each individual Berry.

This boy was Cody Kineel, a novice Breeder, and after a moment a smile grew onto his face. “Yeah, it looks like we’re good on everything actually. Unless Lita ate some of hers.”

“Brilliant,” George grinned, thankful that it would be the last night of their mission.

He let Cody go to sleep after telling him he’d take the first watch, and briefly stoked the embers before putting them out with his boots. The fire had served its purpose after they cooked some of the common Berries for dinner, and leaving it overnight would only serve to attract trouble.

“Minn… Minnn…” (Come on… Can we go back… It’s cold….)

Sitting under another tree, George’s partner, Minccino, laid down under a thin blanket by his bag and hid from the chill of the night air.

“Yeah, we’ll be going back tomorrow morning, partner. Just hold on for tonight.”

They’d been in the forest for almost a week now searching for these Berries and other miscellaneous resources, but he just wanted to get back to his wife.

In fact, by counting down the approximate time she was expected to go into labor, he probably had less than a week. He knew it wasn’t the greatest time to be away from his pregnant wife, but she would understand, right?

George shivered, regretting giving away his cloak for the night.

***

For the next hour and a half, nothing interesting happened. Moonlight cascaded through the canopy of leaves, and due to the relative sparseness above the clearing there was much more moonlight than in the trees surrounding.

Occasionally, he could hear the faint cries of Pokémon in the shadows, but none of them approached close enough for him to detect their positions accurately.

But that didn’t mean George could afford to be thoughtless. Instead he needed to pay that much more attention to his surroundings to make sure nothing snuck up on them, or they’d have hell to pay. Still, he’d been up for almost twenty hours straight, and every second it was harder to concentrate.

Taking an Oran Berry out of the pocket of his bag, George popped it into his mouth and swallowed. Within his stomach, he could feel a warm current of energy spread through his veins and travel throughout his entire body.

It melted into his muscles and he felt refreshed, like he’d just gotten out of a warm bath.

Oran Berries were the most common type of Berry they collected, and right now they had anywhere from 150 to 300 split among them to bring back. Most notably, they had some minor healing and energy rejuvenating properties, making them excellent stimulants when taking into account their abundance.

Their growing conditions weren’t strict either, so Breeders could grow them within the confines of Brightmoon Town. But there wasn’t any reason to waste their limited carrying capacity when they were easily found in the wild.

Crack!

The sound of a branch snapping nearby alerted George, who immediately jumped to his feet and turned to face the noise. When his eyes landed on the new arrival, George could feel his heart sink into the pit of his stomach.

Standing at the edge of the clearing, a short bipedal sloth with a red tuft of fur on its forehead stared straight at them. It focused on their bags at first, but its attention quickly shifted to George himself. One of its arms propped itself up while it bounced up and down.

George hadn’t ever seen this type of Pokémon before, but there were more pressing issues at hand. The sloth was currently waiting, but George could feel the flow of ambient Essence gradually funneling towards it.

It was preparing a Move, and George didn’t want any part of it.

“Cody! Lita! Min!” George shouted, and immediately got in between the sloth and the two teenagers. “Wake up, now!”

“Viii!” The sloth shrieked and dashed straight at George. As it came closer, George noticed a thin layer of Essence had covered its claws, but the rest of its body stayed the same.

He didn’t have much time to think, and scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground before throwing it at the sloth’s eyes. Hopefully it would be enough to blind it for a moment, and with that opportunity they could strike and subdue it.

“Viiigor!” The sloth tried slicing through the sand with its claws, but that backfired as it expanded the cloud and flew into its eyes. In a panic and without vision, the sloth flailed its arms around wildly.

Each slash was powerful enough to create a small gust of wind, and George knew a single one could take him out for good, as long as it was placed well. But without vision, the sloth didn’t seem to have any other ways to detect him well, and he stayed a couple meters out of reach waiting for it to slow down.

“Now Min!” George yelled, hoping that Minccino had woken up and gotten in position, before checking on the two teenagers and making sure they’d gotten out of the way.

“Miiin! Miiiin!” (Stupid sloth! You interrupted my dream!)

Minccino’s shrill cry sounded from behind George, and she jumped towards the sloth while gathering Essence within her tail. She dodged the flailing arms of the sloth and maneuvered directly behind it, before spinning around and smacking it on the back of the head with three back-to-back-to-back reinforced Tail Slaps.

Slap! Slap! Slap!

The sloth stumbled after getting hit, but swiveled around and clawed in the direction the hits came from.

Swish!

Thankfully the residual sand still left its vision blurry, and it swung through air once more.

“Viiiiiiiii! Viiigoroth!” The sloth screeched, more from rage at being hit than in pain.

“Min! Stay at the edge of its reach and distact it!” George yelled, seeing that her attack did nothing besides piss the sloth off. He needed to come up with a better plan of attack, or they’d be screwed.

Cody and Lita had already disappeared to Arceus knows where, but they were probably hiding somewhere in the shadows around the clearing. They wouldn’t be able to make it back to Brightmoon Village easily without him, but they’d taken care of their roles and brought the bags with the goods away from the battle.

Without the distraction of protecting them, George’s mind changed tracks to try and generate a plan to defeat this sloth. Thinking of their current situation, Minccino probably had enough Essence for a dozen more Tail Slaps, but those didn’t have the damaging potential to subdue it.

Besides Tail Slap, Minccino only knew a handful of other Moves, but none of them dealt as much damage, so that was a bust.

George himself didn’t know many Moves either. In fact, he only knew two: Pound, and Sing. Like Tail Slap, Pound was a simple damaging attack that he learned how to use to power up his punches, but getting up close and personal with the sloth was like begging to be shredded into ribbons by those claws.

That just left Sing, which could put others to sleep as long as they heard his voice. George was honestly a bit confused how he managed to learn this Move. He learned it before Minccino did, but just chalked it up to his incredible musical genius.

Who could blame him for being too talented?

With those as the foundation, George felt like they might have a chance to escape from this sloth. Not beat, but if everything went according to plan and they were lucky as well then there was a sliver of hope.

All he needed to do was put the sloth to sleep. Simple enough. In fact, George thought he might be worrying too much. What sloth didn’t love sleep?

By now, the sloth had shaken the sand out of its eyes and turned its fiery gaze at George. It hadn’t gotten bored of Minccino yet, and probably wanted to put her down before settling its grievances with George, but who could say how long that would last.

He gulped and wanted to run, but Minccino was still distracting it so he couldn’t abandon her. Not to mention that running would be the quickest way to die in this situation.

“Close your ears!” George yelled, and began compressing all of the Essence remaining within his body into his throat. He could feel the thumping of his heartbeat within his throat, but he ignored it and began singing.

“Moonless nights, pass us by. Pretty baby, don’t you cry…”

As George began singing, the Essence stored in his throat spread through the clearing. With this new addition, the ambient Essence reverberated in harmony.

At first, it didn't seem like the lullaby worked, since George couldn’t see any signs of the sloth’s movements slowing. But when he looked closer at Minccino, he could tell her movements became sluggish compared to before.

Swish!

Minccino ducked under the sloth’s first swipe and tried dashing back to George. But now that the sloth didn’t have any sand in its eyes and Minccino’s speed had fallen, it wouldn’t just attack where Minccino was.

It could attack where she was going.

Slash!

“No!”

A spray of red blood spurted from Minccino’s back as the sloth’s claw connected, and George stopped singing as he sprinted towards them. Giving up on his lullaby was tantamount to giving up on escaping, but George gave up on it decisively. For some reason it didn’t seem to work on the sloth, and only made Minccino’s situation worse.

While the sloth stood over Minccino and prepared a finishing blow, George charged forward and dove at Minccino, hoping to wrap her up within his arms and shield her from the blow. In the best case scenario, he’d be able to

Dangerous, yes. He’d probably die if he got hit, But he’d partially caused her injury by slowing her down, and if she died he wouldn’t be able to bear living with himself.

Grabbing her within his arms, he could feel the sticky warmth from her back, and rolled sideways.

Shik! Shik!

“Fuck!” George reflexively cursed.

A searing pain coursed through his left shoulder as he rolled away, almost making him lose his concentration, but he kept moving. When he reached a couple meters of distance, he stood up with Minccino in his arm and looked back where he’d been.

The sloth pierced both of its claws into the ground right where Minccino had been before, and was struggling to pull them out.

George dabbed at his shoulder with his free hand, wincing when he touched it, and felt the same sticky warmth of blood. He broke into a cold sweat, not just from the cool night air.

If he hadn’t rolled away quickly enough, he would’ve died. Well, it’s not to say that he was safe at the moment. He still could very well die if nothing happened, and with the injuries he and Minccino sustained that was looking more and more likely.

Digging through his pockets, George hoped that he still kept any healing Berries to stave off Minccino’s rapidly declining health. Luckily, a handful of Oran’s were in his pocket, so he didn’t need to call for Cody and Lita.

George popped one into Minccino’s mouth, and could feel its energy disappear through Minccino’s body quickly. The bleeding slowed down slightly, but not enough to make a noticeable difference with how long had passed.

The sloth freed its first claw from the ground and began using it to pull the second out, so George only had a couple more seconds before it came for them again.

In that time, he fed Minccino another three Oran Berries, which stalled the bleeding to a minimal rate, but she still didn’t wake up. Then, he ate one himself to heal his busted shoulder.

“Rest now Min, you’ve done enough.” George laid Minccino down on the ground and got into a defensive position between her and the sloth again. His whole body was shaking, even after the energy boost from the Oran, but he couldn’t afford to make another mistake like before.

“Viiiiii!” The sloth pulled out its last claw and let out a shrill shriek, before barreling at George.

Compressing the last of his Essence reserves into his right arm, George gritted his teeth in pain as he prepared a final attack for when the sloth got into range. If his arm met the claws of the sloth, the best case scenario would be losing a hand, while the much more likely scenario would be his death.

‘Is this the end? Kira was right, I shouldn’t have taken this job. Did the kids escape at least?’

A torrent of regrets passed through his mind thinking about his wife and unborn child. Was the meager amount of money they’d get from selling the spoils worth his life? Was it worth never seeing his wife again? Was it worth leaving them a widow and an orphan?