The Moss Rock was a strange phenomenon; in select places throughout the world, chunks of a certain element could be found within rocks, and if those rocks were exposed to certain stimuli, an unusual compound would be released into the surrounding area. In the case of the Moss Rock, were any species of moss to grow on the rock, that moss would undergo a mutation and release a compound that affected the Eevee species; prolonged exposure would trigger their unusual genetics to force them to become Leafeon.
With the rarity of Moss Rocks, samples of the mutated moss that covered them were prized and coveted by many; and this and a request from a friend were what brought Charlie to Santalune Forest today.
“Ohdearohdearohdear-”
Or so the plan had been. In reality, the boy had been wandering about the forest for a few hours on a wild goose chase, looking for something that wasn’t really there. There were stories- perhaps apocryphal- that there was a Moss Rock somewhere in Kalos, in a forest nearby Santalune City.
And now it certainly seemed as if he’d been fed a shaggy Furfrou story; a solid few hours of searching had been utterly fruitless, and whilst he’d been into the forest before and was at least relatively familiar with the geography of the place, looking for that sodding rock had gotten him off of the beaten path.
And to make matters worse? He was slowly running out of repels.
“Phil..?” He called out to his companion, pausing and trailing off slightly as he went a few moments without any kind of response, “Where are you? Phi-”
A sudden crackle and acrid stench from behind him cut him off; and whilst this would be cause for concern for most people, it was a reassurance to him.
“There you are,” He said to the grinning Gastly floating a couple of meters away from him, as it floated about lazily, without a care in the world, “I think we should turn back, buddy. We haven’t found a single thing all day and-”
Again, the Gastly cut him off as it suddenly ejected something towards Charlie at high speed; and to his credit, he only jumped a little bit as the spherical object smacked into the ground and rolled towards his feet.
“... Okay, that’s cool and all, but it’s not a Moss Rock,” Charlie muttered towards the Gastly, which just seemed pleased with itself as its trainer squatted down to pick up the Pokeball it had found, “I think Jean lied to us, so let’s just try to get out of here before it gets dark.”
He spoke mostly firmly despite himself; but if anyone else were to listen in on him, they would pick up a hint of nervousness in his tone. Charlie was nervous by nature, but held up surprisingly well on his own; but now he’d gotten himself slightly out of his depth, that nervousness was creeping over him.
Fortunately for him, the Gastly didn’t give him any trouble; as he pulled his map out from the pack on his back, the little ball of gas and ectoplasm just followed suit, eyes darting about as it went.
________
As the boy walked throughout the woods, a pair of eyes followed him.
The odor surrounding him was fading quickly; whilst too faint for any human to pick out, the unmistakable stench of a repel lingered on him, dissuading the absolute majority of Pokemon from coming near him.
Elsewhere, the majority of Pokemon either hid or paid more mind to the other, larger party moving through the woods; but as the odor around the boy faded, the insect’s two eyes were drawn only to him.
And as the boy stopped to take something out of his pack, it made it’s move and leapt from its hiding place-
_______
As Charlie reached around for his pack to retrieve another Repel, he was suddenly and unpleasantly conscious of a stabbing sensation in his calf.
Taking him by surprise, he fell to the ground with a soundless yelp of shock; but when he looked down to set eyes upon his assailant, he just stopped in place.
There was a Scatterbug biting his leg. And now that the initial shock had cleared, it seemed it wasn’t even doing a good job of it.
“Scattascattascatta,” It growled incessantly as it sunk its one tiny little fang into Charlie’s leg, trying its best to seem intimidating-
As Charlie just pulled himself together and kicked it off.
_______
The insect went flying through the air, hitting the ground hard as the boy shook it off.
Just as soon as he was back on his feet, it pulled itself back together, bristling with fury and glaring at him as it charged, spewing out a cloud of yellow power as it went-
Before a purple cloud came from above and devoured it in one fell swoop.
The powder was blocked out and destroyed by the power of the cloud, and the insect froze up, coughing and spluttering as it felt the toxins force their way into its bloodstream…
_______
“Poor thing,” Charlie just muttered to himself as he watched the Scatterbug take the Smog attack from Gastly. His partner had been quick to react, and whilst the attack was extremely weak, it seemed as if it had worked; Scatterbug had taken a high amount of damage from the poisonous cloud and seemed to have been poisoned.
As said cloud cleared, Charlie just watched for a few moments as the Scatterbug collected itself and began to continue to move towards him; glaring at him some more with telltale signs of purple in its eyes from the poison.
______
It continued to move forwards despite its great pain, glaring at the boy some more as he was froze in place.
It was unfazed, it was strong-
It squeaked slightly as something spherical hit it on the head.
______
It hadn’t been a difficult capture; with Scatterbug already severely weakened and poisoned, the one Pokeball Charlie had on him had been enough to snag the little caterpillar.
“... I guess I could hang onto you for a bit,” Charlie mumbled to himself as he tried to make a bit more sense of what he had just done to himself, as Gastly shot down to the ground and, scooping up the ball with a tendril, threw it towards him, “At least, I could probably get you healed up before releasing you.”
Catching the ball, Charlie just did as he had meant to do before and, removing his pack from his bag, pulled out another repel and sprayed it about himself; and as Gastly stuck its tongue out in disgust at the smell, he took the ball in his hand and tucked it into his pack, before getting back up and looking off to his side-
Where, as luck would have it, he could see a speck of a figure at a few hundred meter’s distance.
“OhthankGod,” He mumbled to himself, hints of his nervousness creeping out now that he’d at least found someone who might have some vague idea of where he was, before he started moving towards them with Gastly in tow.
“Hey, uh-” He started up towards the figure after about 30 meter’s distance, now making out that it was a girl with a blue-ish shade of hair, “You couldn’t help me out, could you?”