Dan had only just gotten his breath back and felt a little better when one of the thugs challanged him, Dan was filled with confidence, sure he could beat this theif with ease.
"You might as well give up now, you won't win. Not against me!" He said boastfully, a confidence in the tone of his father.

He quickly picked out the ball that contained Rat and threw it onto the field

"Go! Rattata!" He said, as a small purple Rat emerged.

The theif had thrown out Raticate, the evolved form of Rat.
"Hm. You think you can win with him? Rat, use Super Fang!" Dan said as his Pokémon bit into the side of his opponent, the Pokémon quickly retaliated with the same move.
"Quick attack!" Rat leaped foward smashing his body in a frantic rush to get a hit off before the opponent did. This, Unfortunately, didn't finish off his opponent, the Raticate quickly crunching on Rat's spine finishing him off.
"What!? Rat, damn it, no!" He said as he withdrew his feinted Pokémon.

He quickly threw out Grotle, who used Curse, to decrease his opponents damage at a cost of his own speed, But this was met with a Super Fang cracking his soil shell and damaging him heavily.

He was able to tank a quick attack by the Raticate and retaliated with an absorb which didn't do nearly as much as Dan had hoped. But, finished off the Pokémon with a Razor Leaf.
"Yes! We got this Grotle." He said with confidence. 
He switched out his Grotle, noticing that the Thief had thrown out the fighting-type Machop.
Machop's fighting attacks wouldn't deal as much to a Bug-Type, that much Dan knew, so he threw out Burmy. While though, Burmy couldn't get hurt heavily by fighting attacks, he couldn't hurt the fighting attack easily, and thus was defeated at slight cost to the Machop's strength.


Only Twiggy remained. It was looking bad. Dan had one hurt Pokémon left while the opponent had two left.
"Twiggy, C'mon, lets finish this." He said with a quiver in his voice. Grotle had only gotten a single Razor Leaf out, which while though hurt Machop wasn't enough to win. 

One karate chop  on the shell and it was over, it felt like everything was in slow-motion to Dan as he watched his massive Pokémon fall to the ground, feinted, his legs straight out on each side, and his shell cracked and his bushes split.
"Grotle..." He said faintly as he reached ever so subtly to Grotle. 

"I...Lost?" He said, as Grotle withdrew into his ball, Dan fell to his knees, holding back tears.

"I'm sorry." He muttered, to Margo and Indy, looking towards the Thief.



                                                                            [color=ed145b]He'd [b]failed[/b][/color]