Natural Disasters

A couple of days after the events in Sinister Woods, the three unofficial rescuers were getting back to themselves. This meant that Persian was starting to prowl outside the house and speak with the neighbours, it meant that Poochyena had relocated his briefly dampened energy, and it meant that Dominic was, currently, asleep. Such activities were starting to feel like home to the unlikely trio.

Persian was in the Eastern Forest again. Originally, she had set out to visit Della, the Delcatty, and Arcanine, but she met many others in that region. Currently, she sat in a circle of other women from around the area. There was Della, of course. She never missed any social event. Butterfree, whose sons were Caterpie and Metapod. Persian had met them a couple times. Beautifly, who was Butterfree's neighbour. She had heard about Persian and had longed to meet the cat. Also, there were Stantler and Natu. All four of them met under the canopy of the tree's rich foliage.

"Have you heard, Miss Persian? The weather has been so odd these days. Instead of the usually gentle, sunny weather, there have been storms. It's become too difficult to leave the Forest these days!" Beautifly said.

"I had not heard, but I either spent my time in some sort of mountain or at home. I wonder what's causing these storms," Isabelle mused.

"That's not the only thing! It's snowing in the desert!" Stantler said, scraping the ground with her hoof in agitation. "Many Pokémon have had to flee because it has become too cold there to live for them. Poor dears."

"The rivers and lake beds are running dry, too. Never before has there been so little water in the rivers," Della piped in.

"Tiny earthquakes have been felt, too. The Diglett are not to blame; I asked," Natu said.

"Oh, this is terrible! What could have caused all this misery?" Butterfree exclaimed, sounding close to tears.

"Don't worry. I'll ask around. Surely someone knows how this happened and how to solve this," Persian said.

Dominic eventually woke to the sound of his smallest companion charging back and forth across the room. At each end, Poochyena would catch a small, squeezy, Voltorb toy, before flicking his head to toss it across the room and barrelling down to try and pounce on it. Back and forth and back and forth, the little pup played fetch with itself.

"Careful, Pooch," warned Dominic, foretelling… There was a crash. Poochyena, distracted by the voice of his mentor, had tangled over his own legs, tripped over the Voltorb ball, and crashed against the wall. "Else that will happen."

Poochyena wasn't hurt, and came bounding over to Dominic with a toothy grin. "Dom! I learnt to Bite! Did you see?" He gnashed into the air, and Dominic put his legs under himself to climb to all fours.

"I did. You're doing very well, Pooch. Do you know where Izzy went?"

Poochyena did a full circle when Dominic congratulated him, then rushed off to get the ball going once more. "Nuh uh! She went out to see her friends!" He pounced onto the ball and, though he caught it in his teeth, his body flipped over it. He landed on his back and, as far as Dom could see, all but bounced back to his feet. "Did you mean what you said, about me doing well?"

"Absolutely." Dominic came striding past, pausing just long enough for Poochyena to charge in front of him. "In Sinister Woods, you fought very bravely, and quite well. Both Izzy and I were very proud of you."

Speaking of the Persian, Izzy came in. The worried look on her face dampened the high spirits the two males had. "There's trouble," she said before explaining what she had heard.

Outside, in the afternoon, they worked a little, training themselves up. While Dom and Poochy worked on their Bites, Isabelle was trying something new. The attack was called Shadow Claw, which was a stronger attack than her own Scratch was, and also had a longer range. With the purple-aura claws, Isabelle easily impressed Poochyena, who was awed by what kind of cool attacks his mentor could use. While they occasionally failed and faded away, Persian was strong enough to cut through branches with the flick of her paw.

By evening, Poochyena had run himself ragged and he went to curl up in a small ball, in his bed to one side of the room. Dominic lay in bed, watching his beloved Isabelle drinking a little water before she would join him.

"Are you worried about the disasters, Izz?" He kept his voice low, so as not to disturb their youngest member.

"A little. You see, they said this started two weeks ago. They named the exact day we showed up here. Why is it that we have no memory of the time before two weeks ago, and all these natural disasters start happening?"

"I'm not sure, but it's unlikely that it's our fault. Our amnesia and the problems in the world might have a common cause, instead of us being the cause. We could not even walk very fast. How could we have caused snow in the desert?"

Isabelle sighed, lying down next to him. "I know. It just doesn't feel right."
As they curled up, neither of them saw the pair of red ears peeking up from the window.