Research 001: Poison, Agriculture, and battle grounds

Plowing the fields was hard work, but hey, it paid bills.

Doug leaned against the hoe in his hands, having just finished tilling the soil of the farm. He wasn't much of a farmer, but even he could plow the fields with a little instruction.

The farmer that had hired him was sitting at his porch drinking some lemonade, happy to let a youngster take over the hard work for the day.

Doug couldn't begrudge the old man for taking it easy; at least he was paying.

He hadn't been in Rana Town for too long. He had been visiting Mikey, hanging out, trying to decide where he would be traveling next. The rainforest was looking specially promising, though the fact that it was quite literally on the other side of the country from where he stood made it a tad unnatractive as a destination.

The trip would be expensive and tiresome, more than likely, and he would need to start the gym challenge at some point. 

Sighing, the boy readjusted his strawhat to keep the sunlight off his head, pushing off the hoe before grasping it with both hands and swinging it over his head. 

Before he swung it back down, he thought he saw a short figure out the corner of his eye, approaching the large gate that led into the farm grounds.

Narrowing his eyes at the figure, he tried to make out details on the person before pursing his lips. He knew that scrawny silhouette. 

Tilting the strawhat so as to cover his face, the boy swung the hoe into the ground before leaning casually against it, keeping his gaze down onto the soil as he suddenly spoke to the researcher.

"Ya ain't from 'round tis parts, art'cha, pardnr?" He suddenly intoned with a heavy southern drawl, the cowboyness flowing off him in waves.

---

The 'farmer's son's' hand snapped up suddenly in response to the Salandit's sudden leap at him, latching onto the pokemon's muzzle and holding onto it tightly.

"Now now, whatcha trying to do, little punk?" He asked in the deep southern accent, before cocking his head at the other youth, offering him a familiar smirk. "Spending too much time reading to train your pokemon properly, Murassaki?" 

The boy threw the Salandit over his shoulder as he suddenly swung his leg at the other in swift roundhouse kick.

"Have you been training at all, you damn nerd?!" He asked with a grin, retrieving his leg swiftly with a snap before flipping back from the other trainer, his strawhat falling off his head and to his back, holding onto him by a string.

"So tell me, nerd. What brings you to Rana Town? This is pretty far away from your bedroom." He said teasingly, moving both of his arms to take a defensive stance. 

"You had better said your farewells to mom before you left; she'll have your ass on a platter if you didn't!" There was no leaving the dojo for an extended amount of time without the teacher's blessing, after all.

---

Doug's hand snapped up, catching the other boy's punch and holding tightly onto it, his palm throbbing in good ol' pain as he swung his other fist from under the other's chin, seeking to counter uppercut him as he answered.

"It's called honest work, you pampered leech. Maybe you should drop the books and try it sometime. Some of us work to fund our traveling." He said, squeezing tightly onto the other boy's fist before pushing away from him. "And that's rich coming from you, 'Purple Poison'. You really gonna talk trash with only two Poison pokemon on you?" He said, his hands serving as air quotes as he spoke.

He then produced 4 pokeballs from his belt, juggling them cockily.

"Reading books ain't doing you any good, Purple." He informed the shorter kid, catching the pokeballs and setting them back on his belt before slowly lowering himself into his stance, both arms raised in front of him with his palms open towards the other boy.

"Cool." He said as the other brought his lunch box out. "Put it on the side, we can eat it after I kick your ass all over the farm." He said cockily, his grin ever present even as he widened his stance, taking a deep breath before letting it come out slowly, his presence changing ever so slightly into a more focused one.

---

Doug blinked as his friend's head snapped back, actually surprised the uppercut had landed. He had been trashtalking, but he hadn't thought the guy had gotten that sloppy.

"Are you hungry or something?" Asked the boy to his friend, thin brow tilted. "Cause that was just disgraceful, what the hell. I was joking around here, have you really not been keeping up your training?"

Boy, his mother would have whooped Dokuro's ass if she saw this shameful display.

"Need to warm up or something, get the blood and adrenaline pumping?" He asked, right before his friend all but threw himself at him. "Guess not!" 

He guessed he had chosen the right stance; his friend was coming at him fierce. He never did like getting clocked in the face.

His hand swatted away the fist coming at his head, his knee moving up to slam into his friend's own as he swung it at his gut, the blow jarring to the bone as his other hand caught the elbow.

The blow sent him skidding back, his blocking palm bruised and throbbing, making him squeeze his fist tightly. He then waved his arm with a hiss. Shit, that hurt like a bitch.

Good ol' pain. Nothing like having an actual opponent for once. 

"Guess ya ain't that out of shape after all." He breathed out as he slowly settled into the defensive stance once more, considering his friend's later question as he minded his breathing. "If you are looking for Poison types, you'll not find 'em around here. The northern side of Stellara is rather devoid of 'em, unless you start searching for grass types." He informed the other boy.

He had been around the block a few times.

"You may have better luck down south; the rainforest specially. It's filled to the brim with poison pokemon." He commented as he slowly began to walk sideways around his friend, narrowing his eyes. "If any rare pokemon will do for you though... you could try the Helos Ruins. I ran into a friggin' Kommo-O in there the other day. Traumatic as all hell." He said, before grinning and slowly dropping his stance, grasping two pokeballs.

"All that aside, we can beat you into shape later. How's about a pokemon battle?" He asked the other, throwing a pokeball in his hand. "Gotta see if my rival's been sharp, ya know." He said, grasping the juggled pokeball and pointing it at the other boy. "So how about it? Up for some good ol' fashioned battle?"

---

The boy hummed in response as the Salandit took point, tilting a thin brow at his friend. So he really only had two pokemon on him. He guessed he would have to help him catch more later on. The Rain forest wasn't that far from Rana Town; just on the complete opposite side of the country.

No biggie.

For now though, if Purple would be testing a new member to his team, then so would he.

Hopefully this time things went a little better than before.

"Salandit, huh? Let's see how she handles herself this time." He said to himself as pressed the button at the center of the netball, the small catching device going from a ping-pong ball to a baseball. 

"Go!" He said as he swung his arm wide, his netball soaring high in the air before opening up just at the end of the throws arch, unleashing the pokemon within in a ray of light.

"Scyther." He finished in a subdued fashion as he caught the netball, his lip curled slightly. So, what would happen now, he wondered.

The Scyther scanned her surroundings wearily, before slowly bringing her eyes towards her 'trainer'.

The boy simply crossed his arms over his chest, tilting a thin brow at her expectantly.

She sighed, shaking her head before slowly moving her gaze to fixate it onto her opponent, narrowing her eyes at it before brandishing her scythes at it.

Doug sighed back.

"So it's gonna be like that, huh?" He muttered to himself, breathing out in disappointment. He didn't know why he had been expecting anything else really.

Well, at least the spectacle ought to be interesting.

The Scyther slowly lowered her posture into a more ready position, a low growl building up in her throat as she breathed out slowly, her wings beginning to flap swiftly behind her. 

Her arms tensed as an unexpected, visibly glint of sunlight shone over her blades, sliding up their curved length in sync in an almost unnatural fashion. Very suddenly, her scythes looked sharper and more dangerous than mere moments prior, almost as if she had just gone through a grindstone in mere seconds.

---

Scyther is using Focus Energy.

Doug was completely silent as opposed to Dokuro, not even bothering to order his pokemon around. 

It had never done any good before, wouldn't start doing so now, he figured.

She fancied herself too powerful and experienced to listen to him or something. He didn't friggin' know, he didn't talk pokemon gibberish. All he knew was that Scyther refused to take his commands no matter what and no amount of screaming, begging or foot stomping would help the situation.

The good thing was that, unlike a few members of his team, or some other unruly pokemon he had seen in the past, she wasn't just full of hot air. She did clearly know what she was doing, or at least, did an amazing job at making it look like she did, and had handled herself against wild pokemon well enough before.

It was time to see if she could handle herself against a trainer's pokemon as well.

Watching Dokuro struggle with his pokemon brought a small sense of relief to him. He would have been lying if he said he wasn't a tad glad to see he wasn't the only one having issues getting his pokemon to listen to him. At least it wasn't just something that happened to him specifically.

That said, he wasn't too happy to see that the Salandit was still set on grabbing his hat. 

His dad had given him the hat; had even made it himself; something he had learned while he was working on Alola or something. He was most definitely not giving it up to this weirdo lizard.

Scyther's eyes narrowed dangerously as the lizard spewed a mass of poisonous gas towards it, the dangerous substance surging towards her while she tracked the rapidly moving Salandit.

It was a subtle movement, one that Doug would never have caught if he hadn't seen it before, not only on this Scyther, but on countless of his mother's own pokemon.

A swift, sharp, arching movement of her blades that seemed to cut through wind currents themselves. With a swift movement, her scythes flashed as she suddenly swung her blades in wide arcs, one at the Salandit, the other at the Poisonous cloud.

Vortex of shockwaves seemed to be generated from where the Scyther cleanly cut through the air, one scythe sending the rippling waves towards the Salandit, the other sending the waves towards the cloud of poisonous gas, pushing it back and away from her in the process.

Doug flinched as the Vacuum waves slammed into the fences around them, heavily damaging them while at the same time spreading thin the poison over the general area, causing a general decay to come over the crops.

Ugh; this would bite him in the ass, he was sure of it.

---

Scyther is using Vacuum Wave.

Doug couldn't help the pleased smirk that graced his lips when the Salandit got smacked by the wave. That would hopefully teach it to stay away from his damn hat.

And hey, it seemed to be pissed off enough to focus on the battle now: bonus points. There was little point to a pokemon battle if you couldn't learn anything from it after all, and there was little to learn from an easy win.

Getting excited, Doug had to catch himself before bothering to issue an order, reminding himself that his pokemon wouldn't care for what he ordered no matter what. 

It was kind of like being an spectator in a pokemon battle... frankly, not that interesting. Maybe that would change once they got into the big leagues.

The cloud of poisonous gas the Salandit had spilled onto the battlefield had seemingly covered the Scyther, leaving her trapped and immobilized for fear of being poisoned, becoming an easy target for the emb- 

The Scyther jumped high, her wings buzzing rapidly as she rose several meters into the air. Doug didn't even know why he was surprised any more. Some days it felt like she was actually justified in thinking herself above ordering. She just friggin' knew what she was doing it seemed.

From its perch high in the sky, the Scyther's gaze latched itself onto the Salandit's swiftly moving form, her fangs bared as she realized that she was once again ignored.

She blasted down towards the moving Salandit swiftly, her scythe's flashing as she covered the ground in nearly the blink of an eye, swinging at the other pokemon.

Meanwhile, Doug saw the pokemon approaching and inwardly groaned, jumping out of the way as the pokemon tried to pull a fast one on him. 

"GODDAMN IT DOKURO!"

---

Scyther is using Quick Attack.