Chapter 237

Chapter 237: Chapter 237

Beedrill flew rapidly through the snowy mountain air until he reached the area Rotom had identified as the most likely location of the missing Snorunt.

After briefly coordinating with Gengar and Rotom, the three separated and began searching in different directions.

Beedrill descended closer to the ground, carefully examining the snow-covered terrain for anything that might reveal where Snorunt had been taken.

He paid particular attention to the bushes and trees scattered across the mountainside, although the continuing snowfall made the search considerably more unpleasant than he would have liked.

He hated snow almost as much as he hated taking baths.

The problem was that snowflakes constantly settled on his body, creating an uncomfortable sensation that he found extremely irritating.

Every so often, he had to stop flying and vigorously shake himself while swinging his lances to dislodge the accumulated snow. Unfortunately, it never took long for another layer to settle over him.

Beedrill released a quiet breath into the freezing air, steadied his wings, and resumed searching.

As he passed a particularly dense patch of bushes, however, a faint rustling sound caught his attention.

He immediately slowed the beating of his wings and slipped into the snow-covered branches of a nearby tree, concealing his large body among the white foliage.

His crimson eyes remained fixed on the bushes where the noise had originated.

He could sense a human nearby.

A short while later, a heavyset middle-aged man emerged from the undergrowth, dragging a sled fitted with an iron cage.

The man glanced around cautiously before muttering an irritated curse.

"Damn it. Got away again."

With that, he climbed onto the sled and continued on his way.

Hidden beneath the snow-covered branches, Beedrill narrowed his eyes as he watched the man leave.

He waited until there was enough distance between them before shaking the snow from his body and silently following.

Although Beedrill was considerably larger than an ordinary member of his species, his ability to conceal himself was also far superior.

He knew how to suppress his presence, reduce the frequency of his wingbeats, and take advantage of the surrounding terrain to hide his movements.

Even in an environment as exposed as a snowy mountainside, he could remain difficult to detect when he wanted to.

Beedrill followed the man for an unknown distance before the sled finally came to a stop.

He immediately concealed himself among the branches of another tree, keeping his crimson eyes trained on the man below.

Not long afterward, a Glalie floated out from beneath the very tree where Beedrill was hiding.

There was a Snorunt riding on Glalie’s back.

Beedrill’s eyes narrowed.

’Could that be the Snorunt Froslass is looking for?’

He couldn’t be certain yet, so he remained hidden and observed the situation.

The Glalie below appeared quite powerful, and Beedrill had no intention of carelessly revealing himself.

Mike had repeatedly taught his Pokémon that when dealing with dangerous people in the wild, there was no reason to insist on fighting fairly.

If an enemy could be defeated with a surprise attack, then there was no need to challenge them face-to-face.

Bad people weren’t entitled to the courtesy of an honorable duel.

Beedrill therefore waited patiently, searching for an opportunity to end the confrontation with a single decisive strike.

That was assuming, of course, that this really was the missing Snorunt.

...

The moment Snorunt spotted the heavyset man, they let out a frightened cry and immediately jumped from Glalie’s back, desperately trying to flee.

They barely managed to cover any distance before Glalie rushed forward and slammed into them.

Snorunt was sent flying and landed heavily in the snow with a pained cry.

When they looked up at Glalie hovering in front of them, their expression changed from fear to utter disbelief.

The warmth that had previously filled Glalie’s eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, indifferent stare.

Tears gathered in Snorunt’s eyes.

When Glalie had found them earlier, the larger Pokémon had promised to help them return to Froslass.

Snorunt had trusted that promise and willingly climbed onto Glalie’s back, never imagining that they were being delivered straight to the human they had been desperately trying to escape.

"Go on, then. Run!" the middle-aged man taunted as he walked toward the injured Snorunt. "You almost got away from me, didn’t you? Bet you didn’t expect that Glalie to be my Pokémon!"

Snorunt glared at him through their tears.

This was the same human who had tricked Froslass into leaving before capturing them, and now he had deceived them a second time.

Anger briefly overcame their fear.

Snorunt opened their mouth and released a stream of freezing powder snow toward the man.

Glalie immediately positioned themselves between the two and blew the attack away with a single breath.

"Put Snorunt in the cage," the man ordered.

Glalie began spinning and struck Snorunt again, sending the small Pokémon flying directly into the iron cage on the sled.

The man promptly closed and secured the door before climbing back onto his seat, evidently eager to leave before anything else went wrong.

He had only just started the sled when Beedrill moved.

His wings suddenly accelerated, and his hidden figure vanished from the tree.

In the blink of an eye, Beedrill appeared directly behind the man, one of his lances glowing purple as he drove it viciously toward the man’s back.

Poison Jab!

Glalie reacted almost instantly.

A shimmering Protect barrier appeared between Beedrill and the man, catching the poisoned lance before it could reach its intended target.

The impact produced a shrill scraping noise as Beedrill’s stinger pressed against the defensive barrier.

Realizing that his surprise attack had failed, Beedrill immediately used the recoil to propel himself backward and create some distance.

He hovered in the air, his crimson eyes fixed coldly on the man and Glalie below.

The middle-aged man turned around just in time to see the enormous Beedrill hovering behind his sled.

Cold sweat immediately broke out across his forehead.

Those lances were enormous. If Glalie hadn’t intervened, one of them would have pierced straight through his body.

He would almost certainly have died on the spot.

The realization quickly transformed his fear into anger.

"Glalie, knock that thing unconscious!" he ordered through clenched teeth.

Glalie obeyed immediately, opening their mouth and firing a brilliant Ice Beam toward Beedrill.

Beedrill activated Agility, his body becoming a blur as he slipped away from the freezing attack.

Rather than immediately counterattacking, he climbed higher into the air and began moving through the familiar motions of Swords Dance, swinging his lances in a precise, controlled rhythm.

By the time the dance ended, his physical power had risen dramatically.

Beedrill raised his head and released a piercing buzz.

"BZZZZT!!!"

The high-pitched cry carried across the otherwise quiet mountainside, spreading far beyond the immediate battlefield.

...

Some distance away, Gengar had just shoved one chubby hand into a Pachirisu’s tree hollow.

He was feeling around inside with considerable enthusiasm when Beedrill’s distant cry reached him.

Gengar immediately withdrew his hand and turned toward the sound.

Recognizing the signal, he abandoned his berry investigation and hurriedly floated off in Beedrill’s direction.

Rotom heard the same cry and immediately changed course, heading back to locate Mike.

Meanwhile, the Pachirisu watching from a branch above finally breathed a sigh of relief.

After making certain that the suspicious purple fatso was truly gone, Pachirisu jumped down from the tree and began hurriedly packing up everything worth keeping.

It was moving out.

Tonight!

Straight to its girlfriend’s place!

There was absolutely no way Pachirisu was staying here and risking that damn fat ghost coming back to steal all the Berries it had worked so hard to collect!

...

The middle-aged man also heard Beedrill’s piercing cry, and an ominous feeling immediately settled in his stomach.

"Glalie, hurry up and defeat it!"

Glalie spun rapidly through the air, using Ice Spinner to launch another attack.

Beedrill avoided the spinning Pokémon and glanced briefly toward the injured Snorunt trapped in the cage.

A flash of anger appeared in his crimson eyes, and he immediately accelerated toward Glalie with both lances raised.

Purple venomous energy coated the sharp weapons as Beedrill met Glalie’s spinning body head-on.

The impact sent both Pokémon flying backward.

Glalie tumbled across the snowy ground several times before regaining control and immediately unleashing Blizzard.

Freezing winds and razor-sharp snow swept toward Beedrill, but he refused to retreat.

Enduring the damage from the storm, he forced his way through the attack until he was directly in front of Glalie.

"BZZT!"

Beedrill crossed his lances and brought them down in a powerful X-Scissor, striking Glalie hard enough to send the Ice-type Pokémon flying again.

He immediately moved to pursue the opening.

Unfortunately, before he could launch another attack, a layer of ice suddenly spread across his body.

The freezing effect of Blizzard had taken hold.

Within moments, Beedrill was completely encased in ice.

His wings stopped moving, and the frozen Pokémon dropped from the air before landing heavily in the snow.

The middle-aged man stared at the immobilized Beedrill, then quickly waved toward Glalie.

"Forget it. Glalie, we’re leaving!"

He had no interest in wasting more time on a dangerous wild Beedrill.

Now that the Pokémon was frozen, the sensible thing was to take advantage of the opportunity and escape before another complication arose.

The man and Glalie had barely begun preparing to leave when a purple figure silently emerged from the surrounding forest.

Gengar drifted up directly behind Glalie.

With an enormous grin, he pressed a Shadow Ball against the unsuspecting Pokémon’s back.

BOOM!

"Glalie, what are you—"

The middle-aged man had only just turned around when his own Glalie flew past his face and crashed into the snow several yards away.

He stared in shock.

Gengar floated cheerfully in the air, offering the man a sunny smile before leaning forward and breathing a faint poisonous mist directly toward him.

The man opened his mouth to speak, only to feel his throat suddenly tighten.

His body stiffened.

A moment later, he fell from the sled and landed heavily in the snow, white foam bubbling from his mouth as his limbs began convulsing uncontrollably.

After consuming so many Toxic Orbs, Gengar had become frighteningly proficient at using Toxic.

Applying poison no longer required anything as obvious as a prolonged battle or a carefully announced attack.

A simple breath was more than enough.

Glalie struggled back into the air and immediately noticed their Trainer twitching helplessly in the snow.

Fury flashed through their eyes.

Glalie opened their mouth, unleashing another violent Blizzard that swept toward Gengar.

Gengar responded with Protect, calmly sheltering himself behind the defensive barrier until the storm had passed.

Once the attack subsided, he formed a cluster of eerie blue-purple flames in his hand and tossed it toward Glalie.

Will-O-Wisp!

The flames struck Glalie and burst apart, clinging to the icy outer shell and spreading across the Pokémon’s body.

Glalie let out a scream as the supernatural fire continued burning.

Gengar, meanwhile, was already gathering Dark-type energy between his hands.

Dark Pulse!

A powerful wave of dark energy slammed into Glalie, detonating with enough force to send the large Pokémon flying across the clearing.

Gengar raised one chubby hand above his eyes like a visor and watched Glalie soar through the air before crashing back into the snow.

Satisfied, he dusted off his hands.

"Gar—!"

[All done!]

With the immediate danger resolved, Gengar floated over to the sled, opened the iron cage, and carefully helped Snorunt out.

He took out some medicine and began treating the little Pokémon’s injuries, explaining that he and his companions had come to rescue them.

After reassuring Snorunt, Gengar finally turned his attention toward Beedrill, who was still trapped inside a solid block of ice.

Gengar approached his younger brother and summoned a small flame of Will-O-Wisp into his palm, preparing to melt the ice and free him.

The flame had almost reached the frozen surface when Gengar suddenly stopped.

A thought occurred to him.

Slowly, a thoroughly mischievous grin spread across his face.

’Hehehe...’

Beedrill, who could still see everything happening around him despite being frozen, immediately felt an ominous sense of dread when he noticed that smile.

He watched Gengar retrieve his thin bamboo staff and use it to draw a circle in the snow beneath a nearby tree.

Gengar carefully cleared the snow from inside the circle, gathered some dry wood from the surrounding area, and arranged it into a small pile.

Then he snapped his fingers.

A cluster of Will-O-Wisp flames dropped onto the wood, immediately igniting it in an eerie blue-purple fire.

Beedrill’s eyes widened.

’Wait...’

’Don’t tell me he’s planning to—’

∑(?囚?|||)!!!

Gengar held one hand over the fire to check the temperature.

Once he was satisfied, he secured the block of ice containing Beedrill with a length of silk and suspended it from a branch directly above the flames.

There.

A perfectly serviceable thawing setup.

Gengar settled beside the fire and began poking at the frozen Beedrill with his bamboo staff, occasionally adjusting the position of the ice block so that it would warm evenly.

Beedrill stared at his older brother with an expression of utter resignation.

’Of course.’

’He’s still exactly the same...’

This was the very same Gengar who had once used him to crack walnuts, cut Toxic Orbs, thrown him like a projectile, and even wielded him as a sword back when he was still a Weedle or Kakuna.

Apparently, evolving into Beedrill and becoming such a powerful fighter hadn’t changed the fundamental nature of their relationship.

Gengar was still Gengar in the end.

Behind them, the rescued Snorunt watched the enormous purple Pokémon roasting his own companion over an open flame.

Their tiny body began trembling again.

’Is... is he going to roast me next?’

’Is he going to eat me?’

Snorunt looked toward the Gengar who had just saved them and became so frightened that tears began rolling down their face.