The Trengoswith

Chapter One

Anna was leaning on the balcony wqhen a stork flewup over the parapace, landed before her, and bowed. It unwrapped a cloth to reveal an egg, then held up a clipboard dfor Anna to check, hanmding her a piece of chalk with its talons.

Anna, a bit bemused by this, scribbled in a spiral her curious checkmark, having a flourish leading away from its back. Hen the sytork took off, leabvingf behinds the egg.

"This sure is curious," Anna said, examiinig it. She raised the egg to eye level, twosated it aboutm and took a step.

The egg shook rapidly, Then the shell cracked and a very strange bird appeared. It seemed to have ice for feathers, as though it had been made by Elsa.

"Snow-fitt!" the creature seemed to say. Anna watched it twist around her, when a hedgehog with a flower next its ear appeared. It shook the balcont ledge and Anna felt the ground tumble out from beneath her…she screamed, the palace was tilting, shefeared her dinnwer would go the wrong way…

And then a monster made of clouds blew its winds at her, she was being flipped about in thew arrow so much and only caught a glimpseof this nbeast, but was certain that's what she saw…

And then tumbling down a tree trunk that seemed to brise far above the ground…she saw cherries with facesj, possums and ferrets and some polar bear creature with an icicle coming out of its nose…

And a serpemt with giant red fangs…she dodged it…

Then she found herself on the ground in an awkward position. Untwisting her legs, she stood u and saw hewrsekf surriybsded by trees. How she had gfot there and what all those peculiar beasts were, she hadb't te knowledge of. The thing that astruck her the most was that she was far from home.

She was not one to be perturbed by this, though. She had to have come from some direction. And following it would lead her home.

Just when she had figured out the wat, as she surmised…for the adventure o falling down the tree seemed a little more the fruit of her active imagination than thee possibility of some being associated with the wind carrying her aloft for quite a distance…she started to traipse in the direction she surmised would take her b ack.

Then she was mesmerized by a pair of eyes. Red gleaming eyes, watching her from behind a cluster of bushes. Out leaped a very lean animal, whose ears she wanted to scratch it behind the ears, surmising that it would endear it to her., . She strode forward to do just that. When it made a noise.

Chitter-chitter-chitter.

She was just coming forth to pat it on the head when she saw it take a stone about eighty millimeters in diameter and hurl it at her.

"Hey, I'm just being friendly. No need to get vicious."

The slim creature rean toward the stone that had fallen and stared at Anna with an eye that glinted, its red being almost blindimng/ Once more it tossed the stone. She held up her arms to protect herself and ramn off into the forest.

The creature was known as a Watchog by those familiar with its species. Ir gad a name which it ccould only be knownm by once it had been "seen" enough to be noticed in the sport most peculiar to that world. And the girl running away somehow caused him a great deal of frustration.

"Hey you! Pikilitch! Get om the human Basll!"

"Are you chasing that girl?" the Pachirisy asked.

"I need a pikilitch for the tournament in Vognim Sand, and she looks lik the perfect candidate."

"You'll have good luck cartching her,": said the Pachirisu. "Hoyfen the Solrock called her heare. She's really quite something."

"You mean that she was summoned? From another world?"

"The ancient oadt, actually. And if Hoyfen summoned her, she likely hjas some kind of power that sets her apart from most other humans."

"Lisyen to you makes me want her more," said the Watchog. "And I will catch her. With this hHuman Ball."

"?Go ahead and try," the Paxchirisu said, sniggering. Her blue tail electrocuted a branch. She leaped to the nearest tree and looked back at Watchog onxce, amirking before continuing onward.

"Filthy Pachirisu," the Watchog said. "But I will capture that girl in this Human Ball if I have to swim in a river of mustard and kiss the toes of Livy the Snivy."

"You're going to have to race for her, then," said an Abomasnow wearing a pink scarf.

"What, you think I'm afraid of you catching that top-notch young lady? I bet you don't even have A Human Ball."

"I do, too," the Abamasnow said, taking Watchog's prized possession. "She'll be right cozy in here, I'd say."

"Give that back to me!"

"A first-rate human being belongs to a stellar Pokemon. And I'm afraid that Watchog don't fit the Ducklet bill slippers, if you know what I mean."

Watchog bared its fangs and advanced toward Abomasnow. The latter raised its verdant arms and caused ice shards to zoom toward Watchog.

"That takes care of your speed," the Abomasnow said. "And if I see you again while I'm in the process of capturing that pikilitch, I will use my frosty breath to ensnare you. So be sure you don't slige in my way."

Watchog struggled to get up, but the ice shards held it in place, like the sticky web a Spinarak had trapped it in after it had obtained the very Huuman Ball that had just been snatched from his ownership…

Author's Note: Abomasnow uses the word "slige" to refer to a Watchog's movements, the way one would say a Seviper slithers or a Stantler prances.