Leo crouched low to the ground, a hefty stick held loosely in one hand, and his prey in sight.
He crept forward, careful not to step on any breakable twigs, and trying not to rustle the dead grass around him too much.
It wasn’t very tall, maybe ankle height brown and green grass, but it did make a lot of noise if brushed against.
And unfortunately, the Rattata he was stalking seemed to have sensed something was up.
The purple rat paused in its scrabbling in the dirt to sniff the air and Leo froze, casting his eyes downward ever so slightly because the face was the most easily recognizable part of the body.
Sweat beaded on Leo’s forehead as he waited, stock still in an awkward position with the sun beating down on him from above.
After a second of holding his breath Leo looked up, adrenaline surging through his veins when he saw that the Rattata had turned its back to him – and it was in range.
Carefully Leo pulled back his arm, fingers clenching around the smooth grooves he had carved into the stick.
His heart hammered in his ears, his blood roared, and his muscles surged as he hurled his stick towards his prey.
The stick arced, spinning beautifully through the air at the unmoving Rattata only to sail right over its head and clatter against the ground, startling the Rattata so much it shot a foot in the air and scrambled off into the brush and safety.
Leo slumped in defeat, standing up and cursing at his aim.
He was so close too.
And at least his stalking skills were better than his tracking and trapping skills were.
Those were…abysmal, to say the least.
His tracking could be remedied with practice, but he wasn’t seeing much hope for trapping at the moment.
“Not that I ever got much practice with traps,” Leo grumbled to himself, striding over to his designated throwing stick.
The occasional sharp rock or thorn poked into the bare soles of his feet, but Leo persevered.
He wanted to toughen his feet up, in case he lost his shoes.
That, and really, being naked and covered in mud wasn’t really the same if he was wearing shoes.
If he was going to play the part of the savage wild-man, he might as well really look the part, right?
Angry chittering drew Leo’s attention, his gaze falling upon the Rattata he had missed.
It crouched not far in the budding brush to Leo’s right, its fur blending in rather well with the shadows and densely packed branches, its overlarge teeth gnashing at Leo angrily.
Leo narrowed his eyes at the creature.
Did it really want to play that game?
Fine.
He’d play that game.
Leo dropped his stick and picked up a hefty rock, hurling it at the Rattata and missing it by inches, mostly because it dodged out of the way and continued to chitter at him, pacing back and forth.
“You little – you’re taunting me, aren’t you?” Leo demanded, picking up his stick.
“Fine, let’s go buddy boy,” he said, advancing towards the brush.
The Rattata retreated further into the bush, but still chittered at Leo.
For a brief moment, Leo considered pushing into the brush.
It was taller than he was, with dense, albeit thin branches that would poke and prod him to no end.
It would be difficult, but was getting the rattata worth it…?
He poked experimentally at the bush, pressing against it and testing its resistance.
With blinding speed the Rattata darted forward, white light sparking off its little rat paws.
Leo yelped and jumped backwards in surprise, his quick reaction the only thing that saved him from the loud snap!
Of the Rattata’s jaws slamming shut where his feet had been but moments before.
Leo’s eyes widened and he hyper-focused, all thought fleeing his mind in lieu of one reaction – fight.
“Yaaaah!” Leo cried, kicking at the Rattata, who scrambled away and back into the bush, still chattering angrily.
Leo scowled at it and backpedaled away, locking himself into a stare down with the little creature.
The rat gnashed its teeth one more time, its curled tail waving back and forth, and Leo decided then and there that it wasn’t worth it to continue this fight.
He sighed and turned away, trudging back to his temporary home next to the lake, glancing down at his throwing stick.
He needed a better hunting method if traps were out, and his aim sucked.
It would be great if he could make a bow, but he had no idea where to even start there…But, Leo thought, looking down at his stick as he sorted through his memories.
I might be able to get the next best thing.
All I need is to figure out how to make cordage.
…
It took Leo three days to finally figure out the proper method of making cord or rope from plant fibers, and even then it wasn’t perfect.
Dead grasses seemed to work the best for his purposes, but he still thought he was missing a step or two somewhere – he was thinking he might have to figure out how to separate the fibers themselves from the plants.
How he would go about this he didn’t exactly know, but that was a step for another day.
Mainly because he had found a way to circumvent the need for cordage for the moment, a rather simple solution that had him feeling a little stupid.
But for now he had a working prototype weapon to test out.
Leo gripped the short, stiff length of wood with one hand, his index finger stretching up to hold a longer, more flexible length against a sharpened nub on the end of the short branch.
The longer piece of wood he had sharpened to a fine point and hardened in the fire, and was aimed into the wide open meadow Leo currently stood on the edge of.
“Atlatl test one, let’s see how this thing works,” Leo said to no one in particular.
He did a little hop-skip step and threw his arm forward like he was throwing a baseball, flicking the shorter length of wood as hard as he could, and sending his thin, impromptu “spear” through the air.
Leo whistled as he watched it fly, going at least fifty feet before embedding itself in the ground.
He glanced appreciatively at the base of his weapon, weighing it in one hand.
“That went better than expected.
I’ve got distance, now I just need to focus on how much power I’m getting, and my accuracy,”
That, however, would just take practice.
And, the way Leo saw it, he would be getting a lot of practice.
Mostly because he was dumb, and hadn’t realized what time of year it was when it was quite literally staring him in the face.
He tried hard not to acknowledge the budding flowers his spear – or dart, whatever it was called – had landed next to, pulling the ammunition out of the ground and looking at the sky.
The flowers hadn’t fully budded yet, not all of them, at least, which meant this was early to late spring.
Even the bush that the rattata had hid in wasn’t fully bloomed yet, and for that, Leo felt like a right idiot.
Here he was feeling all smart and proud for remembering about the atlatl, the ancient precursor to the bow that was stupid easy to make in the wild, and for finding a rock suitable for the flint-and-steel method of fire making, when he couldn’t even figure out what time of year it was based on freaking plant growth.
“Well, at least it keeps me humble,” Leo told himself, shaking his head and running his hands through his hair.
He let out a breath and looked around the meadow, eyes fixating themselves on a small patch of grass that was much shorter than the rest of the knee-high foliage.
This meadow was one he frequented because he found out the longer, yellow grasses helped make decent rope, but that one spot always worried him.
When he had investigated it a few days prior he had found evidence of ash and soot – which led him to think of a fire-type pokémon.
It wasn’t uniform enough to be a human’s work, and there was no evidence of a camp that he could find, so the only reasonable solution was a fire type.
Which could be both good and bad.
Mostly bad though, the majority of fire-type pokémon either seemed to live in volcanoes, or were predatory.
Charizard, Pyroar, and Houndoom all came to mind.
Leo shuddered and forced that idea out of his head.
He hadn’t run into any real predators yet, and he wasn’t prepared for an up-close and personal encounter.
Leo didn’t like his chances of winning a fight against a flying, fire-breathing dragon, or a fire breathing dog.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’d be so cool to see one, but let’s keep them at a distance for now,” Leo said to himself, swinging his atlatl spear, which was about half as tall as he was, around carelessly.
A gust of wind roared through the trees, whipping the grasses to the side as the slapped at Leo’s bare thigh.
Pine needles fell from the trees and waves of green pollen followed suit, filling the air to the point it looked like a fire was raging somewhere.
Leo sneezed and rubbed his nose, shielding his face as he looked up at the sky.
The sun was really harsh, and all this walking around naked or covered in mud was starting to annoy him.
He didn’t want to get even more sunburned than he already was.
“Yep, it’s time to make a hat,” Leo decided.
“And to put my clothes back on.
Now it’s getting a little silly,” he said, and laughed to himself, turning on his heel and marching off towards his temporary camp, singing the tune of Joy to the World by Three Dog Night as loudly as he could.
Today was a good day.