Purpose Fulfilled

"Hey, kid! Yeah, you. Don't move one inch or my little friend here will get real nasty," The bigger man said, referring to the Purrloin at his side, "And raise your hands up. Slowly. I know you've got Pokemon so don't even try it."

Nova rolled his eyes and slowly took his hands out of his pocket, turning around and staring at the two as if they were idiots. They couldn't tell due to the mask, but the amount of disgust in his expression at the moment was impressive.

Raising his hand into the air, he looked down at the Panpour on the smaller man's shoulders before noticing something odd. These two were the same two people he saw fighting over some item before he was dragged into the scammer's shady tent.

'Why would they pretend to fight over something? What sort of clown act is this?' he couldn't help but think.

More importantly, he could tell these two didn't train their Pokemon well. Or at least the bigger man didn't. He had what looked like a shock collar on his Purrloin while the Panpour didn't have anything of the sort.

In fact, Panpour had a malicious smirk on their face, while Purrloin just looked tired.

Letting out a sigh and shaking his head, Nova snapped his fingers.

"Wha-"

Immediately, both men fell onto the floor as if struck by an unknown force. Purrloin looked as if they were used to it, resigned to their fate, while Panpour started to fall over and grit its teeth while struggling to push itself up.

Pawniard jumped off the fire escape from above and landed next to Nova.

"You guys are the biggest blockheads ever, I swear. Why would you wait almost a full minute before following me out? And why would you continue following, as you watched me go into an entirely different alleyway?" Nova asked, not really expecting an answer.

Nova only stole stealthily so he didn't have any experience mugging people, but he felt like it was offensive to muggers to associate these guys with them. They were just idiots.

The big one was frothing at the mouth while the smaller guy was silent. Every so often he would jitter a little on the floor. The Panpour was still attempting to get up, trying its absolute hardest to move.

This was the power of Thunder Wave.

Before the two muggers left the Black Market, he simply told Pawniard to wait and charge up its new Thunder Wave. The only time a status move wouldn't work on an opposing Pokemon is if the target was a much higher level.

Nova figured that they probably wouldn't have high-level Pokemon. If they did, why would they rob some random kid?

Plus, even if they were inexplicably a high-level trainer just robbing children, he'd be fucked either way. Might as well try and escape than just lay down and give up.

And he was right about them not being that high leveled. After scanning the two, it was just a D-Rank Panpour at level 10 and a D-Rank Purrloin at level 4. Not much.

'Ooh, jackpot.' Nova was currently rummaging through their pockets and even shoes, looking for things they might have. He found 2280 Pokedollars, pocketed them, and kept looking.

"iard!" he heard Pawniard yell and looked up.

What he didn't expect was to see a Water Gun from the paralyzed Panpour come straight at his face. Without enough time to dodge, he raised his arms into a block and took on the impact.

However, most of the impact wasn't taken by him, but by a green blob that suddenly appeared in front of him.

It slammed into him, pushing him a few feet away and slightly cracking the walls. It was now obvious that his arms were broken, looking like they'd had a hammer slam into them.

It wasn't enough to knock him unconscious, but the hit did rattle his brain. Disoriented and with now broken arms and a pained back, he attempted to blink away the confusion.

Yet he only became more confused when he finally refocused and a concerned green blob was fussing over him.

'A shiny? No, not important. Why did it save me? Didn't I lock the Pokeball?' he thought while still a little dazed.

It took a few seconds for him to actually regain focus.

On his chest was a green blob in the shape of his Hoppip, its first appearance being in this dingy alleyway. Below him he could see the grass growing and embracing him, slowly healing his wounds.

This was among the many reasons he decided to keep Hoppip. Free healing from Grassy Terrain at any time was invaluable and could be used in many different ways. Even if Hoppip wasn't the strongest, it was a great support Pokemon.

"Thanks, Hoppip. You really saved my ass," Nova said as he started to get up. He didn't know why Hoppip seemed so attached already, they hadn't even had a conversation yet, but for right now he wouldn't question it.

"Hoppip!" it squeaked back, before turning and glaring at the still paralyzed Panpour.

Nova thought it was a funny look on the Pokemon that could be blown away by a sneeze, but he didn't laugh as he didn't want to discourage its fighting spirit. It was both adorable and admirable that such a small and weak Pokemon wanted to protect him.

"Alright then, let's do this!" Hoppip nodded resolutely, which made its entire body roll forwards because of its weight.

Nova then lightly pushed Hoppip into the air, high enough that Panpour couldn't physically reach it.

Upon seeing Hoppip start to move, Panpour wasted no time in shooting a Water Gun straight at it. Hoppip was getting ready to dodge it despite its speed before it heard its trainer's voice.

"Don't try and dodge it, just let the wind take you," he said.

Without hesitation, Hoppip went limp in the air, not even trying to fight against the wind and inadvertently dodging the Water Gun. Of course, this was Nova's plan.

Hoppip's species was extremely light and blew away with a sneeze. By just letting him be taken by the wind, it would never be hit by most projectiles as the wind from the attack itself would push Hoppip out of harm's way.

"Pawniard, keep using Leer. Hoppip, you set up another grassy terrain."

Nova didn't plan on letting the Level 1 work that hard. It didn't have much energy to expend for moves so its next move would likely be its last for the day. Thus, its next attack would have to be a one-shot.

After many failed Water Guns, the Panpour was panting as it glared at Hoppip. At some point, Hoppip began to laugh and play, just enjoying the ride of the wind.

It was after the 6th Leer from Pawniard that Panpour was already on its knees. With as pitiful as it was being, even Nova could defeat it with a simple kick. It already used up all of its energy attacking, any more and it would start dying.

Still, he didn't hold back.

"Come down from there and use Seed Bomb! We can't let it heal up."

Nova was aware that grassy terrain healed everything in its vicinity, and didn't want to take any chances with Panpour suddenly having a second phase. In the same vein, he was aware that Hoppip couldn't take advantage of the grassy terrain without landing first.

Looking upwards, Hoppip blew into the air to push himself out of the sky. Landing in front of the spray Pokemon, its look turned from playful to serious.

Hoppip took a deep breath and blasted multiple orbs of light out of its mouth, striking Panpour straight into the head with lethal force. Nova watched as some motes of light shattered upon impact and the Seed Bomb went straight through its head.

He raised an eye at the shattering glass sound, making sure to keep that in mind for later.

Breathing a bit heavily, Hoppip sat down in the grass contently and promptly fell asleep.

'And that's that.' Nova thought, noticing the fact that Purrloin was just laying there, putting up no indication that it cared to fight whatsoever.

By now, the two men were lucid again, being healed by the terrain. The big one was looking straight at Nova while the smaller man was just looking into the clouds, probably contemplating his life.

Crouching in front of them, he once again began to go through their pockets while looking for things of value. Besides the money from earlier, the only item they had of value was a black piece of cloth.

At first glance, it seemed like junk to Nova, but when he could feel the thrum of power from it, he realized it must've been a held item. The sheer energy radiating off of it made him embarrassed that he even considered that a regular pair of glasses was a magical item.

'Black belt, maybe? No, it's gotta be an Expert Belt. It's seen too many battles to be just a black belt.' he thought, noticing how worn out the ends were. He decided to keep the belt as well.

Once again the big one started talking nonsense, "You're gonna regret this, I'm from the Shade gang and they don't just let anyone walk all over them in their turf." His face was smug as he watched Nova stop what he was doing and slowly look at him.

Standing up and shaking his head again, Nova dusted off his pants before picking up the Panpour by its tail.

"Yeah, that's right, you're fucked. Let me up and I might let you-" he couldn't finish his sentence because Nova slammed the Panpour's carcass into the man's fat gut to shut him up. Groaning, the man started spewing obscenities at Nova in outrage.

"Shh…" Nova shushed him while holding a finger to his mouth, "I don't like you in particular, but I'll give you a chance to survive this."

That sentence made both men look at him with wide eyes. The smaller man was looking with hope while the bigger one only stopped talking and just scowled at him.

"Good, you're finally quiet," Nova stopped and made sure there were no cameras around, before taking off his mask and putting on his glasses, "We're gonna do a little experiment. Survive the test, and I might let you go. If you don't, tough luck."

With that, he gestured towards Pawniard as he held up the Panpour by its tail. Getting the message, Pawniard cut off a chunk of the Panpour with a clean scratch.

Tossing the rest of the Panpour's carcass onto the ground near Hoppip's sleeping spot, Nova took the small chunk of Panpour's abdomen and showed it to the burly man.

"Eat this."

The man had a look of disgust, and opened his mouth to speak, "I know I'm bad but you're one sick fu-" before Nova shoved it in his mouth and smacked his cheek lightly.

Instead of speaking again, the man just silently chewed on the game before swallowing. Just in case something happened, Nova backed up a few paces.

The alleyway went almost dead silent as everyone except Hoppip watched, while Hoppip himself lightly snored. Every so often the middle of Hoppip's face would twitch as if it smelled something especially nasty, despite not having a nose.

Suddenly, the man's chest jerked upward as if he was going to throw up, and he closed his eyes in concentration. A few seconds later his eyes that were previously brown shot open with piercing blue clarity.

As if he wasn't paralyzed at all, he pushed off the ground and looked around with a calm look of curiosity. Any of the previous rage on his visage was completely gone. Nova noticed that the veins all over his body were visible and wildly pulsating.

All of the pulsating stopped as he looked at his hand while flexing it, seemingly trying to understand something. Then, the veins in his right arm started to surge blood into his hand as his hand began to glow with no visible source.

Sadly, whatever he was trying to do was too much for him as his eyes lost their sky blue and returned to brown. Immediately, the sclera in his eyes became red as veins all over his body went into overdrive.

When he started to fall to his knees, he coughed a massive amount of blood out and fell over. Lifeless.

"Welp, I would've had to kill him either way. At least with this, his death served a purpose."