Chapter 3: Oreburgh
She turned to see a boy with messy blond hair pull a pokeball out of the pocket of a brown overcoat he was wearing, which looked similar to the one that the odd lamppost man had been wearing earlier.
"Go Starly!" he shouted.
Tabitha started to fly off, to attack the Starly, but Ceres recalled the bird mid-flight. She selected her other pokeball instead, and threw it into the fray, saying, quite calmly, "Shelly, Bubble."
He Piplup appeared in a flash of white light, and shot an unsteady stream of bubbles at the Starly.
"Dodge it!" shouted the messy-haired blond boy.
The Starly was too close to the source of the attack to dodge, swerving inexpertly directly into the attack's path, taking a sort of critical hit before slamming into the ground.
"W-Well…let's see how well your stupid water type does against my Turtwig!" stammered the boy, recalling his Starly, and fumbling around in his overcoat pocket for his other pokeball. The pokeball fell from his hand, hitting the ground, and failing to release the Pokemon.
The boy blushed furiously, and bent down to pick up the pokeball, finally managing to successfully send out his Pokemon, with a cry of, "Turtwig, Absorb!"
A little turtle appeared, but had time to absorb no more than one or two little orbs of green energy from Shelly before the Piplup was recalled, and replaced once more with Tabitha.
"Quick Attack!" Ceres ordered. Tabitha began to perform the attack, but zoomed right past the Turtwig instead, hitting it with one wing, causing it to tumble onto its back, its stubby turtle legs waving frantically in the air. He doubled back then, the strike from his other wing sending the Turtwig flying a few feet into the air, before coming back down and hitting the ground with a dull thump, obviously having fainted.
"Wing Attack," Ceres observed, "Good, but try to follow orders next time."
Tabitha puffed up his feathers proudly, and flew back over to fly in place beside Ceres.
"I don't get it!" shouted the messy-haired boy in the brown overcoat, after he had recalled his Turtwig, "How could I, a junior member of the international police, training under the great Officer Looker, lose?"
"I thank you sincerely for telling me exactly who you are. I'll try to avoid you in the future," Ceres muttered, doubting she could be heard over the boy's disbelieving rambling. "Come Tabitha, I was supposed to be in the next town before the sun set. I needn't be any later than I already am…"
She turned away from the messy-haired boy and Jubilife City, and began to head once more for her destination.
"Wait! You're under arrest for assaulting a police officer!" shouted the boy from a ways behind her.
She smirked slightly, tossed a pokeball behind her, and muttered, "Shelly, Bubble."
Then she quickly began to walk, Tabitha flying nonchalantly alongside her, Shelly trying to do the same, but finding it difficult to ignore the screams of pain coming from the boy behind him and each of the semi-acidic bubbles from her attack popped near him.
Ceres must have had some reason to tell her to attack the human. Perhaps he was a bad person, trying to hurt her. At this thought, she spun, and unleashed another Bubble attacking before running off in the opposite direction to follow her trainer.
In moments, the three of them were gone, having disappeared into a cave connecting Jubilife and the town adjacent to it, Oreburgh.
A few junior trainers demanded that Ceres battle them, and were entirely ignored. She was in a hurry. A few followed her, intent on battling, but she was soon too far ahead of them in the murky blackness of the cave, and each one turned back eventually, perhaps afraid of getting lost if they strayed too far from the light leading to Jubilife.
By the time they reached the end of the cave, Shelly and Tabitha were struggling to keep up with their trainer, and even Ceres looked slightly tired.
She turned back to her Pokemon, held out their pokeballs, and said, "Return." Red beams of light from their respective pokeballs absorbed both Shelly and Tabitha. Then Ceres turned back towards her destination and kept walking.
She walked towards a rather fancy building, with a sign reading: 'Oreburgh Museum'. On the door were the times when the museum opened and closed for each respective day of the week. Thanks to the little incident at Sandgem Town's beach, she had about five minutes to complete her mission. She glared at the little sign, as if that would make the times change.
A moment later, she pushed open the doors of the museum, and ran inside.
"Um, excuse me, we're closing soon, so−"
She ignored the voice, and released on of her Pokemon, giving a short order, running ahead before the attack had a chance to take effect, and ignoring the startled and pained shouts from the people at the museum's admission gate.
She ran around, glancing at the exhibits, before finally finding the object she was looking for. She quickly picked up the object from its podium, thankful that no glass protected it, and ran through the remains of the fading cloud of bubbles Shelly had created, picking up her Piplup in the arm that didn't hold the artifact she had come for.
She ran out of the museum doors, almost running right into a man who looked as if he'd just come back from a coal mine.
"And just where do you think you're going?" he asked, scowling at her, and taking a pokeball off of his belt. "Stop her, Cranidos!"
She ran again, swerving around him, and dashing off quickly.
Looking over her shoulder, she spotted a small, dinosaur-like Pokemon about to catch up with her.
She stopped suddenly, but the Pokemon continued its charge.
Just as it was about to reach her, she jumped aside, and it crashed into a rock.
"Geodude, Onix, help Cranidos out!" shouted the miner, tossing two more pokeballs, from which a large, snake-like Pokemon, and what looked to be a floating boulder with arms appeared.
"Shelly, bubble!" she shouted, dropping the Piplup, who immediately fired a Bubble attack at the boulder creature.
"Geodude!" screamed the rock, falling to the ground with a dull thump.
The snake Pokemon known as Onix swung his rocky tail at Ceres and Shelly, and Ceres couldn't formulate any kind of logical plan in time to avoid the attack.
The Cranidos watched them smugly for a moment, before realizing that he was also in range of the attack, and dashing off. Luckily for him, he was a ways behind Ceres and Shelly, and actually had time to get away.
Suddenly, a Pokemon, nearly identical to the Geodude belonging to the miner, whose size utterly paled in comparison to that of giant rock creature, stopped the Onix's tail short. She cried out as she struggled to hold back the tail. She shouted something that sounded like 'run', and they did, just as the tail finally swept her back, sending her skidding across the dusty, rocky ground.
The Onix turned its attention away from the tiny Geodude, only to get a face full of a Bubble attack, powered up by Shelly's Torrent ability. The tired little Piplup began wheezing as the giant Onix collapsed with a roar, squashing a thankfully unoccupied half of the museum.
Shelly stared tiredly but proudly at the unconscious rock-type, and let out a victorious little chirp. She didn't see the Cranidos charging towards her. Ceres did, and quickly reached for Shelly's pokeball.
The Piplup began to disappear into the red light of her pokeball, but was abruptly stopped as the Cranidos slammed into her back before she could be fully recalled, a blackish aura about him. She was sent flying, and hit a nearby rock with a thump.
"Pursuit," the miner said coldly, standing beside his Pokemon, "Return the article, or your Piplup won't be the only one to die today."
Ceres clutched the artifact she held tightly, and gave the miner a defiant glare.
"Have it your way," the miner said with a shrug, "Cranidos, Headbutt."
The dinosaur Pokemon charged towards her, and she held her ground once more, although she truly hadn't the energy to jump out of its way once more.
Suddenly, the Cranidos was stopped, its head slamming into the palm of the Geodude who had earlier come to her rescue.
It muttered something, and she froze. It almost seemed as if…she pushed the thought away, and her expression turned once more to one of neutrality.
The Cranidos seemed to smirk at the Geodude, and reared back, before slamming into her palm once more.
The Geodude drifted back about an inch, in obvious pain, but not about to give up until the very end. Ceres could see however, that the end would be quick in coming. Tabitha didn't stand a chance against a Rock Type.
The Cranidos used Headbutt one more time, and this time, a loud crack accompanied it. The Geodude cried out in agony as her hand, and lower arm shattered.
"Now Cranidos, finish it with one more Headbutt," said the miner.
Cranidos reared back, ready to deal the finishing blow. The Geodude closed her eyes, in too much pain to do anything more than wait for death.
Suddenly something hit the Cranidos, sending it skidding across sharp pebbles, and directly into a rock, where it laid entirely still, a few bubbles still popping around it.
Ceres' gaze immediately fell on the source of the attack. Where her little Piplup had lay, there stood a powerful Prinplup, looking quite a bit more angry than she was tired; as she had before evolving.
"The tables have turned," Ceres said with a smirk.
The miner's face paled, and he ran, leaving his unconscious Pokemon behind.
Ceres nodded to Shelly, who walked, with a dignified air about her, back to her trainer.
The Prinplup resisted the urge to run to Ceres, and give her a hug like she'd always seen in movies when a Pokemon won an important battle. She knew her trainer would disapprove.
Ceres turned her attention away from her newly evolved Prinplup, as if the Pokemon had not just secured a spectacular victory, and focused instead on the injured Geodude lying painfully on the rocky ground.
The pokeball she threw made a soft clink sound as it hit the Geodude's rocky skin. Nonetheless, the Pokemon was absorbed by the ball, which shook only once before stopping, the Pokemon inside too tired to put up much of a fight.
Ceres walked over to pick up the Pokeball, muttering, "Soot," as she did so. She minimized the pokeball, dropped it into the little black bag with the other, and motioned to Shelly to follow her.
They left the town, one walking rather quickly, and the other sliding smoothly on her belly across pebble-free dirt, he new sleek feathers easing her travel. They moved quickly, and escaped just in time to avoid all the people who came running out of their houses to see what the commotion was about.
By the time the police arrived, they were hidden away in Jubilife City, Shelly resting, Tabitha out of his pokeball, complaining to her about missing the fight, and Ceres trying her best to ease the suffering of Soot, her new Geodude, while still keeping an eye on the object that she had stolen from the Oreburgh Museum.
She had found a half-full Super Potion in a nearby trashcan, and despite having her doubts about the benefits of using a potion someone had thrown away, on her Pokemon, she decided it would have to do. She wasn't about to look for a Pokemon Center, for fear of running into the police so soon after stealing from a somewhat well-known museum.
The half-Super Potion was doing wonders for Soot, who had stopped shouting, and was resting, only somewhat uncomfortably, against a molding cardboard box, balancing on her remaining arm.
"Tomorrow we'll set out for Sandgem Town," she muttered; ready to run the risk of encountering the police if it meant a chance at obtaining the local Professor's research notes. If they could harness the power of a Pokemon's evolution…
She smirked, glancing over at her newly evolved Prinplup, thinking of how much more powerful the tiny Piplup had become after evolving.
If she managed to steal the notes…they'd surely succeed.