the hawlucha eyeballed the young trainer as though he held a long term grudge against him, but as far as xinyi could remember, he had not done anything in particular to earn the ire of any pokemon. he dug around in his pocket for a second before retrieving a cigarette, resting it in his mouth and lighting it with a matchstick.

"you've got a chip on your shoulder, don't you?" xinyi commented, putting the matchstick's flame out by giving it a brisk shake. "can't say i hate it," he added, slowly moving his hand into the satchel bag slung on his shoulders. he dropped the matchstick into the bag and gripped onto one of the pokeballs.

this guy was small but xinyi knew that he was a fighter. he couldn't risk one of the kids, so he decided to go with magnezone. hopefully, the electric/steel type wouldn't do too much damage to the birdlike luchador, since xinyi didn't have any potions on him. still, it wasn't as though there wasn't a pokemon center nearby.

hawlucha had the clear speed advantage, but it didn't seem to matter. magnezone endured hawlucha's flurry of attacks well while waiting patiently for xinyi's orders, and when the trainer called for thunderbolt, hawlucha was lucky enough to avoid it by the skin of his teeth. after that close shave, he didn't really seem interested in fighting anymore and used his impressive speed to get away.

''where are you going? don't you want to waste your life with us?" xinyi was almost offended, but decided that it wasn't worth it. instead of recalling magnezone, the pair of them continued to walk, searching for any other promising prospects.

tl;dr - hawlucha runs away

hawlucha's keen sense of self preservation had disappointed xinyi, and the expectations he had for the other pokemon in this area had dropped drastically. he supposed he couldn't really fault the hawlucha in the end. if you lost a fight in the wild, that'd probably be it for you. it was no wonder that most of them wouldn't want to pick a fight with stronger pokemon.

"oh, what's this?" xinyi and magnezone stopped in their tracks, as a monferno came out from the leaves to make himself known to the pair. unlike the previous pokemon, who was probably just looking for someone weaker to pick on and then dipped when he realized he was going to have an actual fight on his hands, this monferno looked as though he were ready to take on the world.

that was something xinyi could get behind

the fight began almost immediately with magnezone not even waiting for xinyi's instruction. it looked like he wanted to duke it out with monferno just as much as monferno wanted to fight him.

"come waste your life away with us," xinyi directed it towards the wild monferno, but he seemed to have no interest in talking with humans. perhaps a bad experience in the past had left him indifferent to the sound of human voices. in any case, all xinyi had to do was catch him. training would come afterwards.

monferno was confident in his abilities, and he had every reason to be. a taunt-mach punch combo had left magnezone winded; the electric-steel type was as stoic as they came, but even it was feeling the effects of monferno's relentless offense.

the type advantage monferno held over magnezone became apparent as well, and xinyi eventually decided to recall magnezone rather than allow him to take an even bigger beating. it wasn't as though monferno was completely fresh as well. there was no way to be sure, but he was likely paralyzed from one of magnezone's attacks.

xinyi decided to call upon jangmo-o next. the youngster was probably the most battle hardened of his first stage pokemon. although he was small, he was certainly fierce and monferno learned this the hard way when jangmo-o's headbutt sent him crashing into a tree. the fire pokemon had attempted a dodge, but he was not as agile as he was at the start of the fight.

"this is out of respect. don't hold a grudge," xinyi said, as he instructed jangmo-o to headbutt monferno against the tree again and again. only when the tree seemed in danger of falling did xinyi order jangmo-o to back off. to xinyi's(and jangmo-o's) amazement, the monferno was still trying to stand, but there was little chance of it being able to escape a pokeball at this stage.

with a single throw of a pokeball, it was all over.

tl;dr - caught monferno