Chapter 8: The Long Way
By SmashUniverse64
Edited by crazedfoxmrn
Preread by ponyjesse, mandatorypanda, and Nitwitsworld
"Are we there yet?" Everyone in the group groaned as they continued walking along the side of the dirt path down the mountain. Aaron looked irritably to the anxious Ampharos who was lagging behind.
"Sparks, you literally asked that thirty seconds ago," the Dragonite hybrid said, glancing behind as he continued walking. "And we left the campsite five minutes ago." Sparks looked oblivious to this fact, tilting her head questioningly.
"Really? It doesn't feel like it." The morning sun had now gotten up a little more, looking about nine o'clock given its position. Of course, they weren't in the direct sunlight on the road, but instead in the underbrush alongside it. After all, Aaron kinda didn't look like any human anyone else had ever seen. They didn't want to risk being seen.
"We should be moving faster…" Blaze was at the front of the pack, trudging along with boredom. "Rin, Aaron. You both have wings. Why don't we just fly back to Twinleaf?" Rin shook her head.
"There is no way I'm letting Aaron fly back. He can barely control himself in the air even after getting the hang of it. That distance would be far too risky," Rin said, looking to Aaron with a non offensive expression. Aaron nodded, understanding her reasoning.
"Plus, a few of us don't have any Pokéballs to travel in," Zoey added, gesturing to herself and the little Eevee next to her. Blaze rolled her eyes and slumped forward comically.
"Ugh. Can we at least get some idea of where we are going?" Aaron reached into the reachable pocket in the backpack on his back and pulled out his old PokéNav. He had gotten it several years ago and it didn't have all of the new communication features that the new PokéNav Plus had. Even the Match Call feature was completely discontinued on the original. To think, he could have given someone a call if he had that. He opened the map application and checked their location.
"We are on the east side of the mountain and heading south." When he zoomed in on Sinnoh's map, he noticed something. "Looks like we'll be outside Hearthome City within an hour if we keep it up at this pace."
"A whole hour!?" Sparks and Blaze both shouted, stopping in their tracks. The other Pokémon and the hybrid continued walking past them, not bothering to address the two lazy bones.
"When you are done with your death wails, come on and catch up with us," Rin said, chuckling. Blaze and Sparks looked at each other with embarrassment before running to catch up with the pack.
"I just wish we had something to do. Walking is so boring," Blaze sulked. If they would have been paying more attention, they would have noticed the footsteps coming from the forest trail to their left.
"Danielle, come on!" two small female voices shouted as they sped up the trail. "We gotta check out the mountain!" A slightly older girl in a Pikachu-themed shirt and blue jeans chased after them.
"Lil, Emma! You gotta slow down," Danielle said, shaking her head and sprinting to keep up with the twins. "We have no idea what happened there! We shouldn't be going off by ourselves!" Lil and Emma, unmoved from their friend's warnings, kept running, their matching pink hoodies being shaken by the wind.
"Who cares? This will be fun for a change," Lil yelled back, turning around and running backwards to look at Danielle. Emma did the exact same thing, grinning.
"Yeah, we can only hang around on old Route 209 for so long. We've always wanted to do some exploring!" Danielle frowned, increasing her pace.
"And you two decided that running off into the woods and up the mountain into a situation was the best way to do that?"
"Well, obviously," the twins both said, turning back to the trail and speeding up.
"I can't believe those two." She recalled all of the antics she and the twins had gotten themselves into in the past. They lived in Hearthome City, so most of their playing was done in Amity Square or the nearby Route 209. That had been their hangout for several years now. In between school and bedtime back at home, they would come to the little pond of Route 209 and practice their Pokémon battling, even challenging random travelers who would come down the path. They had improved a lot in their battling skill, but there was still a lot to learn. Sometimes they would go for a swim too, but Fisherman Jenkins didn't like them disturbing the fish. Danielle was drawn out of her musings when she saw the twins slow down to a complete stop on the path.
"What's going on?" she asked as she stopped next to them, catching her breath.
"Don't be so loud," Lil said, pointing into the forest on the left side.
"There is something right there," Emma followed Lil's hand to the underbrush and shivered. "Looks like a bunch of Pokémon are back there!" She stood next to her sister and hugged her tightly. Danielle looked and saw that they were right. It looked like there was something out there. She moved to the twins and motioned them to get down.
"Keep your heads down. It could be something dangerous." Danielle focused intently on the shifting sounds in the forest. Her eyes widened when she heard the distinct cries of various Pokémon. "Dragonite, Blaziken, Ampharos, Zoroark, and Eevee." She listened closer. "They seem to be traveling together, given their dialect." She was very good at analysing the speech of Pokémon, given her high-ranking membership in the Hearthome Pokémon Fanclub.
"Are they with a trainer?" Emma asked quietly.
"If I had to guess. Some of these Pokémon aren't native to Sinnoh." Danielle, feeling a little brave, raised her head over the bush to get a look at the Pokémon on the other side. She counted them in her head, with Lil and Emma cowering under her and waiting for a report. "I was right. Dragonite, Blaziken, Ampharos, Zoroark, Eevee…" She stopped, her eyes widening.
"Danielle, what's wrong?" Lil and Emma both asked. Danielle motioned them to take a look themselves. They rose from their sitting position and they too stared in shock at what they saw.
"A Dragonite girl!?" Lil suddenly shouted. Danielle and Emma stared at her in horror. "Oops," she said quietly.
"A Dragonite girl!?" Aaron whipped his head around at the sound of a girl's voice.
"What the hell?" Sparks reacted in panic, running around frantically trying find a tree big enough to hide behind.
"Ah! We've been spotted! Hide me!" Blaze and Rin both dived to the ground into a bush. Aaron watched the pandemonium happening around him and mostly ignored it. They had obviously been seen by someone. He moved toward the general area where he heard the voice: the path they had been avoiding in the first place. Aaron spotted Zoey moving toward the pathway too, obviously trying to catch a glimpse of the people who had seen them.
"We are gonna have to convince them to not say anything. We don't need news of your transformation to get out." Aaron heard Zoey's voice in his head and nodded. He hoped they wouldn't have to do something drastic. Suddenly, Zoey disappeared from view, using a illusion to make herself seem invisible. Aaron realized he didn't know how to do that as a Zoroark. He would have to train with Zoey later.
"You see anyone?" Aaron whispered to Zoey. She didn't respond for a second. Aaron tilted his head. "What do you see?"
"Aaron. It's people we know."
"Danielle? Is that you?"
Danielle jumped a little as she heard a voice in her head, although she raised her head up a little bit from behind the bush.
"W-w-who are you?" She managed to stutter out.
"Surely you remember me." The voice giggled a little bit. "Well, I suppose it has been a while." Danielle's eyes suddenly widened as she remembered something. A big smile spread across her face as she stood up quickly, making the twins look at her oddly.
"Are you out of your mind, Danielle?" they both whispered, still trying to maintain their hidden stance even after Lil's outburst. Danielle leaped out of her place in the bush, grinning widely.
"Zoey!" The twins looked at her as she ran toward the edge of the forest. When they saw her get picked up by a strikingly familiar Zoroark, they both gasped.
"Lil! Emma!" The Zoroark said, waving at them as she embraced Danielle. "Remember me?"
"We've made contact," Aaron said from his hiding place on the edge of the forest. Blaze, Rin, Sparks, and Eevee nodded eagerly as Zoey laughed with the three familiar children. "Good. It seems like they remember her."
"Oh. You know those girls?" Eevee asked, looking at happy reunion with curiosity.
"Well, what did you expect?" Blaze said, smirking. "We came around good ol' 209 all the time when we stayed in Sinnoh all those years ago. These three were always here."
"It was always fun!" Sparks said. "Even if we caused a bit of trouble when we were around here."
"I remember when you accidently electrocuted all of us when we were taking a swim. Thank goodness it wasn't a Thunderbolt, or we probably would have crawled out of the river extra crispy," Rin giggled. Sparks looked at her with fire in her eyes.
"You know it wasn't my fault! If Danielle hadn't snuck up behind me and scared me, it wouldn't have happened!"
"Girls, Aaron, Eevee!" They all heard Zoey's voice in their heads, getting their attention. "Come on out! They want to see you!" All of the Pokémon nodded, bounding out to meet the three friends from the past. Except for Aaron. He hung back in the woods, looking down at his body and frowning.
"How are they gonna react to seeing me like this?" He put his arms under his breasts and lifted them. "They are definitely not going to recognize me looking like this. Will they freak out?" He heard the happy sounds of his Pokémon and the three human girls as they reunited. "Maybe I should just wait in here. I don't want to be seen like this yet."
"Aaron, I know you are in there,"he heard Zoey say in her natural voice. He watched her step into the wood, looking at him pleadingly. "I told them that you were here. They want to see you too."
"Zoey. You know how I feel about this body. We can't risk them telling people about this. Plus… it's just embarrassing," he said, looking sadly down as his Dragonite body. Zoey approached him with a tender smile.
"I told that you would be here too. Come on, Aaron. I'll be right there with you the whole time. They won't freak out, I know it."
"You don't know that!" Aaron said with desperation. When Zoey recoiled from his outburst, he looked very sad. "See? I can't even control my emotions anymore. This body is messing with me in more ways than one." Zoey shook her head and quickly grabbed Aaron's hand, making him gasp.
"You can't psyche yourself out so much. Here," she said, reaching to the Keystone on his horn. "Maybe this will help." As she made contact with his horn, he felt the bright light spread over him again, making his Dragonite form fall away to reveal his black and gray fur. He felt his long mane return too as his body shrank down back to the fairly modest proportions he had started with. He smiled as he felt the energy dissipate, looking into the Zoroark's eyes.
"Back to the basics, huh?" he said, looking over his Zoroark body once again. "You know, I do feel a little bit better." Zoey embraced him tightly, with him wrapping his arms around her too.
"We'll tell them what happened to you and they'll understand." Zoey looked him the eyes and smiled. "Let's go." He smiled back and held her hand tightly as they stepped out onto the path.
"Ah! Guys, my feet are killing me! Can we stop now?" Barry was complaining at the top of his lungs as they exited the forest. Dawn laughed at her friend's antics.
"Barry, we barely went anywhere. We just got to Sandgem if you didn't notice."
"If you're that tired already, maybe you should just stay here and rest at Rowan's house," Lucas said with a smirk.
"You two don't understand! I stayed up all night last night! I'm so beat already…"
"Sounds like you could use some coffee." The three friends turned their heads at the new voice. They saw an older man with white hair and a white beard approaching them. He gave them a little wave and a small smile. "Hello there, my friends." Barry, Lucas, and Dawn looked at each other and grinned.
"Hey, Professor Rowan!" Dawn said, waving back to him. "How are you?"
"Just fine, Dawn," he said as he walked up to them. "What are you kids doing on such a fine morning?"
"We're taking a little trip," Lucas said, pointing to Barry. "Barry saw some weird flashes of light coming from Mt. Coronet last night." Rowan nodded.
"I figured you kids would go to check that out." Barry comically shook his fist in anger.
"Kids? Oh, come on, Gramps! We aren't kids anymore!" Lucas laughed.
"Yeah, if you consider sixteen an adult age. Get real, dude," Lucas said. He only smiled when Barry started ranting angrily. Rowan shook his head, smiling too despite himself.
"Seems like nothing has changed after all these years." Dawn giggled as she approached her teacher.
"Professor, if you don't mind me asking, how did you know about the stuff happening at the mountain?"
"I stayed up all night watching the going-ons." He took a big swig of the coffee mug in his hand. "That's why this comes in handy."
"AHA!" Barry shouted, pointing at Lucas. "See? It wasn't just me that did stayed up all night!" Lucas rolled his eyes, still smiling wryly. Rowan turned his head to Barry.
"So you saw the other flashes too." Barry nodded. "Why are you going to Mt. Coronet in the first place?
"Weeeeeell," Barry hesitated. He looked at Lucas and Dawn, who both nodded for him to continue. "OK. We're worried about someone who is on the mountain right now. Remember Aaron?" Rowan nodded, knowing exactly who he was talking about. "Yeah. He's up there right now and we have no idea if he is alright or not."
"I see." Rowan started back to his house quickly, gesturing for the friends to follow him. "Come on in for a moment, all of you. Barry, I'll get you some coffee."
