Whitley propped her hands on her knees and lowered her head, then sat on her butt and looked at Rope with a bitter look on her face, "Rope! When will we get there???"
She was really exhausted and reached out her fists to pound her tired legs. She had been walking for three hours already, so to speak. Three hours of breathless walking and all you want to do is rest...
Rope glanced at the map, then tugged at the corners of her mouth...
[What's the point of looking at a map when you're already lost...]
That's right, in fact, they were already lost, and Rope didn't really know where she was at right now. After all, there were many ways to tell the direction in such a dense forest... but with Rotom, why would Rope need it?
Rotom could navigate by itself.
As for why they knew they were lost, but still didn't care?
Whitley's enthusiasm is good, after all. But even going normal they'd still be gone for a day or two.
"Rotom, come out and guide a flight."
Rope patted his backpack and said.
"Roger that! Rotom!"
Rotom flew out from Rope's backpack, then made a salute gesture, Rope also returned a salute gesture, then Rotom's screen showed the terrain analysis map of this place, Rope looked at the two small red dots on the map, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
[Good lord, the little girl is road-weary enough...this is off by more than a hair, it's almost as if she's not going backwards].
Rope was also helpless, it looked like she couldn't just let Whitley lead the way in the future, the little girl really didn't have much of a sense of direction.
Rope's finger was tracing along the red dotted line on the screen, that was their journey for the past three hours, the line showed that except for the beginning when they were going in the right direction, all the paths they took later on were getting themselves further and further away from Fuchsia City and the Safari Zone.
There was also a bitchy emoticon in the upper right corner of the map.
What bad intentions could Rotom have? He's just trying to taunt Rope for walking for nothing...
So Rope plays a game of discus throw...
"What are you throwing Rotom for?"
Whitley looked at Rotom as he spun off into the distance, Rotom's screams ringing in his ears.
"Nothing, he wanted to play with the windmill, I was too tired to throw my arms, so I simply threw him out, it's fine, he'll fly back in a bit."
Rope waved his hand, absently. Then he glanced at Whitley before saying, "No surprise, we've got a little over two more days of walking ahead of us..."
That little bit more is what you get for three hours...
Of course, that's something Rope didn't say out loud...
"Ahhhhhhhh~"
Whitley let out an agonized wail. Then all at once, he lay down.
"Don't go away! Don't go!!!"
Whitley was genuinely tired of walking, mainly because he had just walked too vigorously, coupled with the fact that he was not allowed to give vent to the righteous anger in his heart, so he appeared to be extraordinarily exhausted.
"So, calm down?"
Rope looked at Whitley, who was lying on the ground, and said with a flat expression.
Whitley inclined her head to look at Rope's bland, self-effacing face, and had the feeling as if everything had been expected of him.
She jerked up and frowned, "Rope...you counted on me?"
Rope spread his hands and shrugged, "Heaven and earth, you chose your own path, did I say a word?"
Whitley still looked at Rope without saying a word.
After a long time, Rope helplessly scratched his head, then said, "Okay, I admit, I was planning to teach you a lesson."
Whitley frowned and stretched, but still didn't say anything, staring straight into Rope's eyes with both eyes.
Rope tilted his head helplessly and sighed, then sat down next to Whitley before saying, "Actually, I only improvised to teach you a lesson after I saw how agitated you were."
He met Whitley's questioning look and said, "I just wanted you to learn to be calm... what should you do if, say, some vicious Pokémon over here suddenly comes out right now and attacks you? Like..."
A roar suddenly came from the bushes beside him.
A giant beast covered in purple suddenly appeared, a Nidoking, and it roared as it charged towards Rope and Whitley.
Whitley subconsciously grabbed Rope's right sleeve.
Rope swung his left hand hard with an expressionless face, as if slapping it across the room.
But unfortunately...it wasn't a slap in the air.
A red-colored flame formed into a hand in the air, and then fiercely smacked Nidoking's body, who was sent flying backwards in the air.
After crashing through two trees, Nidoking lost consciousness.
"Now."
Rope turned his head and looked at the frozen Whitley and shrugged his shoulders.
Whitley was dumbfounded for a moment... to be honest, following Rope along the way was the first time she had ever seen Rope strike.
That fight with Gold couldn't be considered a strike.
The huge wave of fire had been shocking, but it had flickered, and standing in the audience they hadn't been looking directly into the flames that were as crimson as blood.
Now, looking at the crimson flames burning at the corners of Rope's eyes, and the giant flaming hand that was congealed from the flames but was like a substance, together with the backdrop of the not-so-weak Nidoking just now, as well as the oncoming heat wave that baked one's lips dry, Whitley for the first time had a direct understanding of Rope's strength... "Rope... why did you even bother to take in Charmeleon and the others?"
Whitley was silent for a moment then asked a strange but reasonable question.
Seriously... Whitley had also seen Entei in action... and truthfully, she really didn't feel that Entei could beat Rope...
Then why did he still want to take in Pokémon?
"To participate in a tournament... it's not like I can go on the field by myself in a regular League tournament..."
Rope didn't shy away from it... honestly, with his current strength, he'd be able to hammer Diantha and Adeche to the ground on his own.
However, he still couldn't purely hang against others, he could only say that he could hand-to-hand, after all, Flame-Flame Fruit's elementalization was still too strong...
As for the point that taking in a Pokémon could strengthen one's own strength, Rope didn't mention it again... Honestly speaking, after taking in an Entei and receiving the To be honest, after taking in Entei and receiving Year's reinforcement, taking in ordinary Pokémon really didn't do much to boost Rope's strength.
Including Chimchar, who was subjugated not too long ago, the boost that Chimchar brings to Rope can only be said to be better than nothing...
Rope reckons that in order to have a significant boost to his abilities, he would need to subjugate a Tenno class Pokémon...
The problem is that subjugating wild Tenno-class Pokémon is actually quite uneconomical... The problem is that it's not cost-effective to take in a wild Tenno class Pokémon...
By the time you get to the Tenno class, everyone's battle patterns are basically fixed. It would be too difficult to change them.
"Why did this Nidoking suddenly attack us?"
Whitley suddenly thought of this, it was reasonable to say that although Nidoking's temper was short-tempered, this kind of randomly attacking humans usually still wouldn't occur.
"I don't know, but my intuition tells me...this might have something to do with our investigation."
Rope said with narrowed eyes as he looked at the unconscious Nidoking who was not far away.