Shadow was gliding in a lake full of unclear liquid. Clouds of bubbles rose up like they would in a bottle of ice cold champagne. Shadow wasn't particularly good at gliding in water. In fact, he was so bad at it that he fell straight to the bottom of the water without much effort.

Liepard looked into the water drearily. It was probably too late. Liepard wasn't much of a swimmer. The last time he had the pleasure of having deathly cold water enveloped around him was when Trouble had found himself some sort of tiny island in the middle of a lake. Since Shadow was asleep, Liepard took it upon himself to save the stubborn cat. They both ended up with colds.

Liepard opened his mouth, letting the warm air be sucked into his lungs. With his chest expanded, he reluctantly dived into the water. He instantly felt the cold liquid swirl around him. The water scratched at his eyes. He wanted to close them, but he couldn't.

Luckily for the big cat, Shadow was still sinking, very slowly. Liepard spotted him and clumsily swam, losing precious air bubbles with every stroke. He saw the dirty image of a cat dropping to the brown floor. Liepard swam faster; adrenaline fuelled his ambition to save the feline. His lungs wanted to burst; they were screaming at him to inhale again.

Liepard finally located the sunken cat. He hastily picked the washed-out cat up. Liepard flew in the water, bunglingly swimming to the top. He made his way out of the lake, gasping for air strenuously. His heart was beating like an oiled piston. Liepard almost toppled over… then he remembered about the cat. His eyes shifted over to Trouble. He inspected the body, realising it wasn't Trouble... it was Shadow.

It was too late.

Liepard tried to compress all of the information he had received from the fallen cat. He came to a conclusion: Shadow had drowned because Liepard had scared him, making him sink. Trouble was actually a potent swimmer; Liepard knew that Shadow hadn't swum at all in his life. It seemed he didn't yell for help at all.

He took another glance at the body. Liepard expected that he'd become some sort of Water type ghost or something. He threw the thoughts out of his mind. He had finally remembered to shake the water about; the dark green liquid was sliding off his sodden fur. His fur would never be the same again.

It was at that time that Liepard noticed there was a river connecting to the lake. A dark light bulb flickered in his head and he had a great idea.

Liepard took some twigs and sticks. He pieced them together shoddily, creating a makeshift raft. Looking around drearily, Liepard decided to place the cat's body onto the coffin raft. He pushed it quickly into the water, watching it bounce in the ripping water. Liepard watched as the crude raft floated around aimlessly in the lake. He thought it would eventually flow into the river.

Liepard sat down idly. He wondered… and then he remembered. Trouble! He had gotten into this mess because of him. His beautiful eyes sparked with incessant anger. His fangs stuck out as he began to walk again. He didn't look back to the wet corpse that would haunt his dreams at night. He would leave the tears for later.

Trouble's feet were squawking for help. They wanted a rest, but Trouble didn't let them have the well-deserved break they deserved to have. Trouble checked his surroundings for a certain bunny Pokémon, but there was no luck. He didn't even know what this 'Buneary' looked like, but he certainly would make sure he would find one. He blinked interestedly. This area had an open area with the occasional tree rooted in the ground. The extended roots were spread all over near the trees.

Trouble picked up a voice from somewhere. The sound waves winded around the forest and tickled his eardrums. "Wow! A new area! It sure looks like a lot of the other forests I've seen before." The voice sounded slightly bored and exhausted.

Trouble tried to remember what the voice came from. His thought bubble popped when he couldn't think of it. His curiosity got the better of him and he hopped over to the source, not aware of what it would be. His searching of the rabbit Pokémon would have to wait.

"Come on, Deino! Let's catch a new Pokémon!" It was a strangely pink humanoid. Trouble had heard them being called 'humans'. He donned a jet black cap. It was factory made, with aligned stitches creating the whole baseball cap. On the front of the cap was an emblem of a Pidove. It was obviously crafted with a machine. His long and messy brown hair was scattered under the hat. His expensive royal blue denim jacket and cotton yellow shirt stood out from the rest of the forest. The boy's light blue eyes shined vibrantly.

"Deino! Deino!" An energetic, young Deino yapped like a Lillipup. An exact copy of the cap the boy wore was tilted over his head, masking his blue hair. He wouldn't be able to see, but it didn't matter anyway, because Deinos are blind. Deino jumped about like an ostentatious Growlithe. The Trainer and the Pokémon had found Trouble looking around. The boy took it upon himself to follow the cat to see where it was going. Deino ebulliently tagged along.

Trouble walked away, thinking that the voice was in his head. He swung his head from side to side, beating the foul noise beast that didn't exist. The voice was real, and it was following him.

Liepard sensed danger, and his responsibility gauge was perking. He had to find Trouble.

Liepard would not be surprised if something like a Haxorus was stalking him, or even a Trainer following him, wanting to throw a red and white ball at him. Liepard shook the thoughts out of his head.

Liepard eventually discovered the nearby area after hours of walking; at least it seemed to him. His legs had gotten used to the never-ending walking, and were not prompting him to stop and have a lie down. He looked across the ground, thinking about Shadow. Where would the coffin be now? Probably still in that lake, he'd expect. He tried not to think about the drowned cat.

As he was walking, Liepard saw something he recognised. He walked backwards and fished for the memory that would have caused him to remember what these were. Paw prints. Liepard bent down to have a closer look. He immediately saw through the foot-induced marks scratched into the ground; they were courtesy of Trouble. The footprints matched his dirty paws. How did he know? There was quite an easy answer to that; Liepard's face had too many encounters with his claws.

Liepard sat down to inspect the area. The sky was concealed by countless arrays of leaves dancing in the wind. He squinted his eyes inquisitively and saw a black figure. It had a weird dog thing with a hat beside it. The two images disappeared, and Liepard disregarded it as nothing. He opened his eyes again and saw the view that he had seen before; a green and brown forest with the canopies rising quite high in the air.

Liepard's sensitive ears stood up like a loyal soldier when he heard a heavy sound. He identified it to be something flapping wildly.

Suddenly, an angered Crobat slammed out from the air. His face was slightly red, in two ways. With a large scratch going horizontally across with face, and with fired rage. With his previous encounter with the late Shadow, he wasn't taking any more chances with blue cats. His wings beat from side to side tenaciously. It had crimson on its teeth.

Liepard was readying his combat stance, just in case. He shrouded it so that the purple bat wouldn't see. He spoke to the bat first.

"Hey!" shouted Liepard. He spotted the blood. It was newly sucked. "Uh, have you seen a Purrloin around here? Small, blue cat, mischievous—"

"Two." The injured bat cut in.

"Where were they?"

"One beat me up—" Crobat pointed to his painful scar, "and I attacked another until its body was bruised enough for me to suck his blood out.

It was a quick defeat. The poor Crobat was on the floor drooling, because his face had been scratched quite a few times. He was incapable of doing anything else other than mumbling incomprehensible words and slowly trickling saliva cursed by defeat.

His resistance had been proven futile to Liepard, because he was already knocked out by the third attack. Liepard felt slightly sorry for him. Obviously he had gone through a lot. Liepard licked his tattered fur. That would need a few hours of washing.

15/07/14 – Here we go; the second chapter done.

I've doubled the word count again, because I'm a boss. Hah.