"They will challenge anything, even strong opponents, without fear. Their frequent fights help them become stronger."
-Alpha Sapphire Pokedex

Talonflame was brave. Rufflet was not.

Talonflame took down every opponent that dared challenge his title as the strongest bird in the sky. Rufflet sat up in the trees like a coward.

Being part of a strong and proud species, every bird had expected Rufflet to attempt to fight Talonflame. After all, Rufflets were know to stupidly challenge opponents far stronger than them in an attempt to become stronger. Instead of living up to his species' renowned bravery, Rufflet chose to shy away from fights like a coward.

His mother disowned him at a young age when he proved unable to fly out of the nest like his siblings. That was the beginning of his cowardly life. The next act of cowardice was when he couldn't eat a Wrumple or a Weedle. Instead, he ate nuts and berries like a Pachirisu. He was a failure at being a bird and a failure at being a hunter. Worst of all, he couldn't fight like other Pokemon. The very idea of fighting made him sick to his stomach.

Instead, he chose to sit atop the trees and watch the fights from afar. He shied away from the gathered crowds of bird Pokemon in fear of falling out of the tree and revealing his horrible flying abilities. Or worse, his horrible battling abilities. In his time alone, he had mustered up enough flying skills to get by, but fighting was a whole different story.

Rufflet snapped back to reality as a figure swooped past him. A new challenger approached the branch Talonflame was sitting on, a powerful looking Braviary. Braviary screeched at Talonflame, and Talonflame screeched back. Rufflet had seen this scene unfold many times, if Talonflame deemed a challenger worthy, he would return their battle cry, then the two would take off into the sky. If Talonflame didn't think the challenger to be worth his time, he would ignore them until they flew away. Talonflame obviously felt Braviary was up to his level of skill, or else he would have ignore him.

The two took off into the sky. The scene continued to unfolded as it had many times before. The two birds circled each other once, twice, and a final third time before beginning the battle. Everyone knew when the fight officially began by the ear piercing cries of the two combatants.

Rufflet had memorized Talonflame's opening move after seeing him fight so many times. First, Talonflame would use tailwind. If Rufflet had to guess a secret behind Talonflame's swiftness in the early stages of a battle, he would guess it was because of this move. Without knowing it, Rufflet had surprisingly figured that one out just from watching and observing. Braviary responded to this with double team. An excellent strategy choice Rufflet decided, but he knew that Talonflame would still win. Rufflet had seen many opponents try this move and still lose.

Talonflame circled a few times and the flock of Braviary followed suit. After a few times around, Talonflame decided his course of action. His orange and black wings turned to a steely gray color. Steel wing. Rufflet thought. He had tried to mimic this move after watching Talonflame use it so many times to take down opponents with ease. Rufflet failed of course since he had no experience in fighting. He probably couldn't even use tackle if he tried.

Braviary decided to charge at Talonflame with take down. He spread out his copies vertically into a pentagon shape so Talonflame couldn't hit all of them at the same time. Talonflame realized exactly what Braviary was doing, but took the bait anyway. As soon as the first copy of Braviary was in range of Talonflame's wings, he swooped down under the copies then angled straight up into the sky. He promptly flipped and began tumbling back down towards Braviary with blinding speed.

Caught off guard by what just occurred, Braviary continued his attack straight forwards. He slammed into the tree where his opponent should have been. He slammed right into the tree Rufflet was perched in. Because Rufflet had his eyes trained skyward towards Talonflame, he was knocked off balance by the violent crash. After a second of teetering back and forth on his feet, Rufflet started tumbling to the ground.

As he fell, Talonflame came swooping past him and finished his brave bird attack on Braviary. The two went careening to the ground. Although Talonflame's attack had knocked Braviary out, he also suffered severe recoil damage from such an attack.

The birds in the nearby branches screamed with delight as Talonflame stood over the defeated Braviary. He got to keep his title for another fight.

Rufflet approached the ground with terrifying speed for a little chick. Screeching at the top of his lungs, Rufflet clamped his eyes shut as he fell the final few feet. Surely this was his end. With his final few moments, he wished that he had been more brave.

Instead of meeting with the cold hard ground, Rufflet landed on something warm, round, and feathered. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He certainly didn't feel dead. He could still hear ringing in his ears from the fall, and he felt something warm under his body. He also could see the bright light of the sun directly above him.

To add to the evidence that he was alive, he felt the thing under him move, and heard it groan. That was when Rufflet realized he was laying on top of a Pokemon pile up. He could hear the birds cheering around him, but he didn't know what for. He panted heavily and hopped up to his feet. Out of curiosity, he glanced down at what broke his fall.

What he saw startled him. He was standing on Talonflame's head. Rufflet jumped away from the immense predator and cowered in fear of what might happen to him once Talonflame realized who the sneak attacker was.

Then the pieces of the puzzle feel into place. The birds weren't cheering for Talonflame anymore, they were cheering for him. He had knocked Talonflame out. Birds circled around him over head, dropping berries and flowers at his feet. He had knocked Talonflame out and was therefore the official winner of the battle.

Rufflet stood paralyzed for a few moments, but then decided to milk it for all it was worth. He puffed out his chest and gave the loudest battle cry he could manage. The birds around him cheered again in response. He wanted to give another cry, but thought better of it when a wave of dizziness hit him. The fall had not left him entirely unhurt, but he pushed aside the pain in order to drink up the attention.

The fame went to Rufflet's head quickly. He could not wait for tomorrow when more opponents were supposed to challenge him. He wanted more of this fame and attention. But most importantly, he wanted more of the exhilaration of battle. Even if he didn't actually fight in today's battle, he thought it might be fun. Falling on an opponent's head was fun, so actually fighting should be ten times more fun.

Rufflet's whole world changed with one fall. He went from a stupidly cowardly Pokemon, to the bravest and strongest Pokemon in the sky.

Only problem was, he had to get stupidly lucky like he did today tomorrow. But that was tomorrow Rufflet's problem, he figured. Right now, he just had to keep being brave.