As the Grumpig went to work, Rudy was torn between looking away and watching, his worry and fear conflicting. He managed to keep his eyes on the procedure, but when the barb was finally removed, he could help but to shudder, turning away. He had yet to even consider that he was to be fixed up later down the line. As the Grumpig went to work on the Misdreavus, Rudy’s head was turned away to the others. Desmond, Velis, and Jason were all on the other side of the room, close to a captured grunt. Velis and Jason had taken out their opponents alone, hadn’t they? He had to admire them for a moment: there was a difference between normal Pokémon battles and this sort of conflict.

All these random thoughts were not meaningless: their true purpose was to help distract himself from his pain. The Berry had curbed it somewhat, and he was starting to feel faint. It was certainly unlike anything he’d experienced before. In fact, Rudy could not remember suffering any kind of injury.

As his thoughts began to drift back to his wound, he began to feel it more, and attempted to quell it by munching down the rest of his berry, before going over multiplication tables in his head, straining himself further. Every second seemed to last ages, but he was still standing...or well, figuratively.