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The first thing Alexei encountered—well, it wasn’t a Drampa, but it was something… interesting.

Well there was something about having a variation of Pokémon—the recent Adventours had definitely showcased that—and so he shrugged at the sight of the Tauros that was running around some distance off.

“Alright, go,” he said to the Salamence as he summoned the draconid forward in a flash of red light. “Rock Slide, don’t let it out of your sight!”

The Salamence shot forward, flying up into the air and using Intimidate once it was close enough. Irritated, the Tauros then began to charge with a Double-Edge attack—only to end up hitting nothing. Snickering, the Salamence then proceeded to drop a Rock Slide around the Tauros.

Annoyed, the land bound Pokémon then proceeded to literally Thrash around, knocking the boulders away. A Flamethrower attack from the Salamence scorched the Tauros as it tried to get away, before another Rock Slide was dropped around the Tauros, cutting off any escape routes.

Approaching the pissy, angry Tauros, Alexei threw a Safari Ball at it.

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catching Tauros! three Safari Balls remain if capture is successful.

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[attr="class","wildtemp"]

The next Pokémon didn’t even need an introduction as it literally used Bounce on the Salamence’s back, forcing the draconid to let out a surprised roar as it frantically looked around, trying to figure out where the fuck the little shit was coming from.

“It’s above you!” Alexei called out before the Salamence executed a barrel roll before seeing the little shit snickering its way, coming down with a Headbutt. This was met with a Flamethrower attempt, scorching the incoming brown-colored missile.

The human down on the ground chuckled as the Buneary let out a squeal of pain and surprise before the Salamence lashed out with a Dragon Claw, meeting the Buneary’s incoming Focus Punch and knocking it off-course, swatting it down to the ground.

“Thanks, Gabe!” he called out, throwing a Safari Ball to catch the falling Buneary.

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catching Buneary! two Safari Balls remain if capture is successful.

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While he wasn’t meant to hang onto the Buneary (as he’d seen a wanted trading ad looking for one) the next Pokémon almost made him—oh, fucking shit!

“Oh no, why did it have to be you?!” he exclaimed, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling in terror as he saw the Duskull leering at him from behind a tree.

Ominous light coming from its one illuminated red eye he could see, he had half a mind to fucking flee the area and just look for the ‘grandpa dragon’, however this Duskull had made up its mind to follow him.

“Why me?!” he wailed, looking over his shoulder as he saw that the Ghost-type wasn’t going to have any of this behavior at all and continued to follow him as he went deeper into the Safari Zone. “Why did you have to follow me? What have I done to you?!” he continued, trying to shake off the little bugger—to no avail.

One Mean Look was enough to freeze him in his tracks, and by the fucking Djinni he wanted to scream and faint right then and there! This was terrible! What had he done that made this one stick to him like a stalker?!

“Agh, Arceus—no, no, not me, why me, whatever did I do to you—” he cried as he shook in panic, literally frozen to the spot as he ducked down and curled up into a ball out of fright.

Oh, shit, he was in for a nightmare.

“No, no, no, no, no!” he whimpered, sticking his fingers into his ears as the Duskull hovered really close to him—what was it with Ghost-types coming after him, anyway?! He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he just wanted to sink into the ground and be done with this misery!

Ghost-types reminded him of death too much, and his mind flashed back to the one time back home in Mistralton he’d followed a Litwick through the dark forests, only to realize that he was getting more and more lost the further he went, chasing the ominous purple light down.

Even if he knew that the Litwick didn’t mean any harm, still, his disappearance had caused enough of a fright that sent family and relatives searching for him throughout that one, dark evening…

Oh, fuck, was this it?

While the Duskull didn’t have the same soul-sucking story surrounding it (or so it seemed), Alexei didn’t realize that one of the two remaining Safari Balls in his pocket had fallen out, rolling close to where the Duskull was hovering near his head. The button had brushed it, too.

With a gleeful cackle, the Ghost-type allowed itself to be sucked into the beam of red light…

Oh, shit.

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(unintentionally) catching Duskull! one Safari Ball remains if capture is successful.

(look he needs to face this irrational fear head-on, this is plot-related reasons too! tagging Alethea Ivanova because this is going to be a hoot.)

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[attr="class","wildtemp"]

Alexei must’ve felt the utter embarrassment when he finally looked up and saw that—to his blessed relief (temporarily) there was no sign of the Duskull. Not until his eyes landed on the occupied Safari Ball did he realize…

He was in for a shitload of trouble.

“Oh, no!” he wailed, eyeing the now-occupied Safari Ball suspiciously, thinking of what to do next. There was no way in hell he was going to pick it up, however, fact of the matter was that he was now the unfortunate owner of a Duskull and there was nothing he could do about it.

Oh, Arceus, he was not going to hear the end of this…

A Chimchar caught his attention—however, he already had that one as well, so…

“N-not today,” he chattered, plucking the Duskull’s Safari Ball and standing up before heading deeper into the fields.

Hoo boy.

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passing on Chimchar, one Safari Ball remains.

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Thankfully, the next thing that he came across was the exact—the very reason he’d come out to the Safari Zone.

Alexei couldn’t have been more pleased to see the ‘grampa dragon’ as it was called, and had to resist the urge to just run up to it right away and give it a hug! It was that damned soft! And cuddly!

However there was something amiss.

The normally pristine Drampa fur was tinged with something—that should not be there.

“Who the fuck—” he remarked, quickly unballing the Ribombee and pointing at the Drampa. “Carina, go and help it out!” he exclaimed, quickly searching his pockets and pulling out the small satchel he carried with him—fitting in such dire times like this.

Hopefully with the approach of a Pokémon first, the Drampa wouldn’t lash out and hurt him. The Ribombee went right in, spinning several yellow-colored Pollen Puffs as it went, before flitting over to the Drampa and poking it in the cheek with the miniature assortment of Pollen Puffs.

“How is it?” he called out, hanging around apprehensively and waiting for the signal to approach. Once the Drampa had eaten through the offered Pollen Puffs, the Ribombee turned round to face him, waving him over and pointing to the matted ‘fur’.

“I know, Carina—I don’t know what the fuck attacked, but… I can’t leave this out here,” he continued, opening the satchel and digging through. Once he’d found the alcohol and disinfected his hands, he set to work.

Cleaning the fur took time, but once it didn’t look so matted and downright bloody, he moved on to dabbing the wound clean. Steeling himself to the sight of fucking blood had never been such a monumental task, but somehow, somewhat—he managed to get it done.

All the while, the Ribombee was keeping the Drampa distracted with more yellow Pollen Puffs while her human companion was busy. Even if he did look like he was going to pass out several times or turned even paler because of the sight of blood…

Well, there was that.

Eventually, the Drampa’s injury had been disinfected and wrapped up gently, before he sighed. “Honestly, who the fuck attacks these Pokémon…” he sighed, before looking at the Safari Ball and wondering if tapping it on the Drampa’s snout was a good idea…

“I’m getting you out of here.”

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catching Drampa!