Chapter 4 – The Stone

Snivy had very little recollection of the events of the previous night when he woke up the next morning, curled up beneath a tree alongside Squeak and Prince. The sun was filtering through the branches above them, dappling the ground with patches of sunlight. Somewhere to his left, Snivy could see what appeared to be a long pink caterpillar crawling over some leaves.

"Squeak, are…are you awake?" Snivy asked.

"Snivy!" Squeak sat up as though startled, "Where are we? What…oh." The events of the previous night returned to him and Snivy saw the look of hope in his eyes die as quickly as it had appeared, "Prince! Prince get up!"

"Huh?" Prince stirred and sat up, getting his bearings before rising to his feet and looking around.

"What do we do?" Have they gone?" Squeak leapt to his feet too and began pulling the end of his brother's wing hard.

"I…yeah, I reckon so." He looked around, "Is Snivy alright?"

"I'm fine." Snivy told him, "What were they?"

"I'm not sure." Prince frowned, "I have my suspicions but…we ought to get back to the village now, see what's happened."

"Where about are we?" Squeak asked, looking around the trees, "We ran a long way."

Err…good point." Prince looked around. All the trees seemed the same, and there was no way of telling which way they'd come from. Snivy noticed that both Squeak and Prince seemed rather jumpy, maybe because they knew that if a large number of grass Pokémon attacked them then they'd have little or no chance.

"Wait!" Squeak announced and pulled out the large sticker book still tucked under his arm.

"Squeak now?" Prince couldn't help but sound exasperated

"Look." Squeak seized the small pink caterpillar and held it up, "This is a wurmple, you only find these near Sandgem town I think, we've run almost all the way through the forest." Snivy and Prince both bent over to look. In the space beneath a large sticker reading 'Wurmple' was a squashed looking map, with green highlighting to show where I was found.

"Do you mind?" the Wurmple said irritably and Squeak hastily replaced it in the bushes where it quickly vanished from sight.

"Okay, we should head north then." Prince glanced up at the sky and spotted the tip of the large mountain sticking out above the trees, "Follow me."

They set off again, moving between the trees until they emerged into a large village clearing, leaving the Hoothoot forest behind them. The cl contained many small houses and Snivy could see many small brown Pokémon bustling busily around it, and many small grey birds mocking them from the treetops.

"You two wait here." Prince told them, "I'm going to ask for directions. We don't come out here very often."

"Alright." Squeak told him and the two of them watched Prince out of sight then, "Come on, this way!"

"Prince said…"

"Oh that's just Prinny and besides, we're not going far! There's a lovely beach down this way, I'll show you." Slightly tentatively, Snivy followed Squeak as he ran down a thin path onto the most beautiful sandy beach Snivy had ever seen. Squeak ran ahead and collapsed on the bay, breathing deeply. Snivy sat down beside him, straightening out his tail.

"Do you have beaches in Unova?" Squeak asked him, looking over

"Yeah!" Snivy was delighted to actually be able to answer a question, "There's this big town called Undella, and it's surrounded by beaches, it's like a holiday resort!"

"Cool!" Squeak sounded impressed, "We don't have anything like…hey! Look over there!" Snivy turned around to follow where Squeak was pointing and saw squashed beneath a rock what appeared to be something glowing. The two of them scrambled upright and crossed the beach to the rock.

"Let me." Snivy reached into the gap with his nimble hands and withdrew what appeared to be a small purple stone which was glowing gently in the sunlight. Squeak leant over to have a look and gasped.

"Cool! What do you reckon it is?"

"No idea." Snivy turned the tone over but it was completely unmarked aside from a small chip in the corner. It was a neat hexagon. The two of them looked at each other in curiosity.

"Squeak! Squeak where are you?"

"God, Prinny." Squeak whispered. Snivy pushed the stone into the leaves around his neck and secured it tightly before climbing to his feet taking off across the sand in the direction of the shouting.

"I'm sorry Prince." Squeak excused himself as he reached his brother, "I was just showing Snivy some of the beach, he was curious…"

"For god's sake Squeak now isn't the time!" Prince sounded both furious and terrified, "I've just heard about the village."

"What's happened?" Squeak asked eagerly.

"It's not a laughing matter!" Prince snapped at him, his face paling, "The current death toll is counted at one hundred and fifty, over two hundred still missing."

"All…all Piplup, Prinplup and Empoleon…" Squeak's voice sounded suddenly choked

"No." Prince shook his head, shaking, "There have also been Lapras, Hoothoots and some Gyarados have also been found dead."

"What about mum?" Squeak sounded suddenly panicked

"I…I don't know." Prince shook his head shakily

"Who would do that?" Snivy gasped in horror. Prince and Squeak both looked at him and shook their heads.

"No idea." Prince whispered, "But we've got to hurry back."

They began to run back down the path in the direction of Lake Verity. There seemed to be more Pokémon around than normal, all heading in the direction of the lake but they let no one stop or hinder them as they ran the lake growing ever larger in the distance.