....
The Rattata running interference felt their Attack drop immediately.
Then Arbok turned the markings on its hood toward Patch.
"It's Glare. Look away. Do not meet its eyes."
"Scar, use Quick Attack to close the distance too, then break the move with Zen Headbutt. I'll support from the rear."
Julian linked every Rattata still fighting through telepathy at the same time.
With fewer battlers on the field, the strain was lighter than before.
The instant the order came, Scar and the other three older Rattata moved without hesitation. One after another, they flashed into white streaks and shot past Julian.
Julian stepped forward as well.
His promise to support them had not just been something he said to keep morale up.
Even a mascot could dream of a comeback.
Sure, being useless and comfortable had its appeal.
But if he was going to be a mascot, he refused to live like background decoration forever.
His sapphire-blue eyes widened slightly, and a soft pink glow flickered through them.
The Fairy-type support move, Baby-Doll Eyes.
The moment Arbok met his gaze, its movement stalled for a split second.
That split second was all they needed.
Scar and the others had already reached the front line with Quick Attack. Psychic energy surged over their heads, and in the next instant, all four of them slammed their Zen Headbutts straight into the hood markings on Arbok's neck.
Four heavy impacts landed in quick succession.
"Arbok."
The cobra hissed in pain, its flexible neck snapping backward before the rest of its body crashed to the ground.
Scar and the others did not linger.
They used Quick Attack to disengage at once and returned to Julian's side.
They had listened to every word.
Hit once, then get out.
At the same time, Julian sent another telepathic command to Patch and the younger Rattata still in position.
"Patch. Zen Headbutt now. Do not let it recover."
On the surface, Scar's group looked like the main strike force.
But the real core of the plan had always been Patch and the younger fighters.
The moment Arbok hit the ground, Patch and ten elite Rattata were already on top of it, hammering it into the dirt with repeated Zen Headbutts.
Unlike Scar's group, these ten had spent much longer mastering the move, and the difference in power showed immediately.
Against a Poison-type like Arbok, the Psychic damage was devastating.
It lost the ability to fight back almost at once.
After the first coordinated wave, it was already too badly hurt to rejoin the fight.
The waves that followed only made things worse.
Still, Scar and the others were not finished.
For every Rattata that had died as prey, Arbok had to pay with its life.
About five minutes later, Patch and the others finally stopped.
They sank to the ground, exhausted.
Arbok lay limp and crumpled in the grass, its poison-fanged mouth shut tight, its life already gone.
Compared to the threatening monster it had seemed at first, the body now looked almost pitiful.
Then the whole colony erupted.
Every Rattata that had hidden in the burrows poured out at once, and the clearing exploded into cheers.
The greatest immediate threat they had faced was gone.
That alone was worth celebrating.
Of course, killing one Arbok did not solve everything.
There were countless more Arbok in the world.
And this forest held plenty of other predators that would gladly make a meal of them.
But this was the first time they had killed the enemy with their own paws.
That mattered.
...
For the first time, they understood something real.
Even weak Pokemon could still fight for control of their life.
That changed everything.
Only now did Julian truly feel it.
The spirit that had been crushed by that earlier defeat had finally returned to the colony.
This time, he did not stop them from celebrating.
They had earned it.
Their nerves had been wound tight for too long, and today they needed to let that pressure break.
The stars of the feast were, naturally, Patch and Scar.
For the Rattata, the two of them represented two eras of the colony.
Seeing them fight side by side would be remembered for a long time. It was exactly the kind of story that turned into a pack legend.
Julian sat in the middle of the colony and looked over the piles of nuts and berries stacked in front of him.
They called it a feast, but there was still nothing especially luxurious about it.
After days of eating nothing but fruit and nuts, the part of him that had once been human was starting to protest.
Not because his body was having trouble.
It was more than ever time his eyes drifted toward Arbok's corpse, a very specific craving surfaced.
Meat.
He could not help it.
He found himself wondering, with uncomfortable seriousness, whether snake tasted any good.
"Sir."
Patch stepped up in front of him.
Julian had not shut down telepathy yet, and after spending so much time together, Patch had grown used to speaking to him that way.
Julian turned his head and looked at him.
A female Rattata stood beside Patch.
"Sir, I think I'm going to evolve into Raticate tonight and become the new leader of the Rattata colony. And this is my mate. She's Scar's daughter."
Julian blinked, surprised.
Not because of the evolution. He had been expecting that soon enough.
What caught him off guard was the family connection.
Scar's daughter was in the same generation as Patch.
Which meant Scar was probably older than Julian had first assumed.
Not just middle-aged.
More like pushing into old age.
Aside from that little surprise, the feast went smoothly.
The nearby Oddish even sent over a small but precious gift to help celebrate.
After all, Arbok's death benefited them, too.
Once the celebration ended, Julian recommended that Arbok's body be buried on the spot.
They turned over the blood-soaked soil and covered the corpse completely, muting the scent.
That was important.
Too much blood in the air could draw in something even bigger and nastier.
Then they sealed up Arbok's den.
If a wild Ekans or Arbok found an empty snake hole and judged by the scent that it had been abandoned for a while, there was a good chance it would move right in.
And that would only bring the Rattata more trouble.
By the time all of that was finished, the sun was already dropping low.
Because of their size and limited stamina, the work had taken nearly the whole day.
The evening light spread softly across the field, tinting the grass orange-red. When the wind moved through it, the clearing rippled in waves of warm color.
At the sight of it, Julian lowered himself beside the great tree and sat back against the trunk.
If this had been his old life, he would have taken a picture and saved it on his phone.
Now, all he could do was commit it to memory with his eyes and his mind.
It was the kind of peaceful view you could only really appreciate after surviving a hard fight.
Once the Rattata finished their own work, they copied Julian and gathered against the tree as well.
They could not quite imitate the way he sat, so most of them ended up half-sprawled in the grass, staring at the sky or the ground in tired silence.
Before long, soft snores started rising one after another from all around him.
"What a bunch of philistines."
Julian laughed under his breath.
Then he closed his eyes as well and let himself rest.
Today, more than any day since he woke up, felt like a milestone.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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