Chapter 1
It was a cool, crisp morning which Sentret and her family awoke to while their father had been standing guard during the night. Their burrow was warm and stuffed with fresh grass from the plains above for nesting. She shuffled around accidentally bumping her tail on her younger brothers when she pushed through the entrance and onto the surface. She muttered an apology, poking her nose through the hole and was swiped at by the younger Sentret. He was foul tempered compared to the rest of her pack and she always did her best to stay on his sweet side, but it wasn't always possible considering she was sharing a small burrow with four other Pokemon.
Sentret noticed a fresh pile of leaves, red, yellow and brown in colour which seemed to have something rustling inside. She scurried over to inspect the pile, prodding it with a paw and flinched when a white muzzle of a monster with sharp fangs protruded from it.
"I'm gonna eat you!" the monster howled, springing out of the leaves and tackling Sentret to the ground.
"D-Don't hurt me.." she whimpered, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and hoping one of her pack would come to her aid.
"You're such a girl," a familiar voice cackled from above her and let her up.
Sentret opened her beady black eyes which gazed up into the red eyes of the so called monster. She opened her mouth to complain when she realised it was her best friend Rattata, but she sighed in relief instead.
"You know I'm skittish," she whined, flattening down her floppy brown ears which only seemed to fuel Rattata's amusement.
"I'm doing you a favour," he assured her, flashing his white fangs in a cheeky grin as he playfully pawed at her face to get her to wrestle with him.
She pulled away from his pawing. "I have to ask my mother before I can go play. You know she worries," she said as she skittered back down into her burrow to find her mother. "Rattata's here," she murmured, seeing the long shape of her mother's body still curled within the nest around her younger siblings.
"Shh.. go and play Sentret," the Furret whispered in the darkness, beady eyes shimmering.
Sentret was about to ask if she was sure, but stopped when she noticed that her mother was already snoozing. 'Must have been up all night with the boys' she thought, feeling guilty for disturbing her.
On the way out of the burrow she came face to face with the broad shouldered Furret which was her father. He was warning Rattata not to upset Sentret otherwise they wouldn't play together any more. Sometimes she was grateful to have such concerned parents, but there were some days when she was barred from leaving the burrow. Sentret had an inkling that this was because something tragic had happened to Sentret's parents previous litter. It was hinted at a few times, but nothing definitive had been said. Only painful glances exchanged between both her mother and father when it was mentioned. Sentret knew better than to push the subject any further.
"Let's go," she squeaked to Rattata as she weaved her way through the long grass, beginning a game of chase.
Her purple friend dove through the grass, stomping with all his might as he pretended to be a monster once again. She caught sight of his curly tail and she creeped towards it, latching her teeth onto it gently. Rattata squealed like she had genuinely bitten him and whipped around fiercely.
"No fair. I thought you went that way," he complained, narrowing his crimson gaze at her.
"Totally fair," she argued back playfully, thumping her fluffy brown tail on the ground.
Unbeknownst to the two rodent Pokemon, a gang of men and women dressed it black lurked outside of the tall grass. Capturing each and every pokemon they saw, including their parents.
"Hurry up!" a woman hissed, throwing a pokeball at Sentret's weakened father who had been beaten into unconsciousness by the woman's pokemon, Rattacate. The red and white ball enveloped him in white and he was sucked inside. It bounced and clicked almost immediately. The Furret had been captured.
Sentret and Rattata had headed quite a distance away while this event occurred, searching for nuts and berries to bring back home.
"Everyone will be glad for these," she pointed out rather gleefully as she picked up a pawful of Oran berries.
Rattata nodded, whiskers quivering for some strange reason. He knew that it only seemed to happen when something bad had happened. "I hope so," he muttered, looking on into the distance. "I really hope so."