Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Sam and Eva

Chapter 6 - Fighting and Moves

The next morning, Sam and I woke up feeling pretty good. We had spent a large part of the evening before talking about human things. Sam was pretty amazed at some of simple things we had, and the fact that we didn't have any types or special moves.

"So, let me get this straight..." Sam said as he finished his breakfast. "You guys don't battle each other in order to get stronger?"

I imagined two bulky men wrestling. "Not exactly." I answered him. "Some people exercise in order to get stronger, and we have many different types of competitive games to challenge each other, but we generally don't fight unless we have to."

"Fascinating..." Sam replied, lost in a train of thought. I imagine that he would be a scientist or Philosopher if he grew up on earth.

We finished eating, packed up everything, and headed out of the hotel room towards the front desk. When we got there, they said to stay while they checked the room. I guess they wanted to make sure that we didn't mess it up or break anything. After they found that all was in order, they gave Sam his 100 poke back, and we were on our way again, this time to Capkin town!

As we walked, Sam told me about moves. "Moves are like..." he thought for a moment. "Remember how I used ember on that pidgey? In the dungeon? Well, that was me using a move!"

"Oh... so if I were to use a move..." I started, thinking for an example. "Then I would have to swipe with my claws?"

"Kinda." Sam replied. "I don't know so much for normal types, but for me, in order to use a move I have to really dig deep down into what I'm feeling! Like with that pidgey, I felt you were in danger, and I knew that I had to do something! So I used ember to stop it from hurting us! Make sense?"

"I guess so..." I said, still somewhat confused. "So in order to use a move on something, I would have to believe it was going to hurt us?"

"Well.... no. I mean, it works like that sometimes, but you need to be able to use it whenever..." he trailed off. I got the feeling that he never really thought about how he uses his moves until now.

"Maybe I could try a few things?" I suggested. "See what works?"

Sam nodded, so I jumped up in front of a tree.

"Hey you! Tree! Stop picking on Sam!" I leapt at it, scratching it with my claws. After that attack, I stepped back to see how much damage I had done.

I was surprised, however, that I had barely done a scratch, so to speak. I had tried to leave deep cuts into the tree with my now canine claws, but there were only a couple scratches on the bark. I tried again, but with the same effect.

"How do I friggin scratch this harder? Don't normal type Pokémon have moves like this?"

"They do... I just, hrm..." Sam replied, still trying to figure out how to explain something he didn't quite understand himself. "Maybe we'll figure it out more as time goes on?"

"Yeah... I guess we'll have to." I said. We still needed to reach to Capkin town, and that would take at least a couple weeks I would guess. Maybe we could practice in the evenings before we go to bed? We kept walking.

After walking for probably another mile, I decided to ask Sam something that had been bothering me for a while. "Hey Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Your tail... does it hurt?"

"Huh? My tail? No, it doesn't hurt. Why'd you think that?"

"Well," I started. "Most animals where I'm from don't have fire on their tails... in fact, you're the first thing I've seen who's okay being on fire consistently."