Finally, I'm updating again. I'm going to try to stick to the once-a-week schedule again, but school's so…insane this year, so I don't know for sure if it'll work out. Sorry sorry sorry, everyone, I know it's been a while.

allokai – You're right, lucky overhearings tend to happen a lot. I try to avoid it, but...often there's no other way of working it in. If it makes this seem more workable, remember the stuff Elliot tends to overhear isn't super secret plans or anything. The people aren't drawing attention to themselves, but they're not really hiding away either, and I don't think they'd care if they knew some eleven year old trainer happened to overhear. And, at least it's better than 'mysterious people mysteriously decide to go up to hero and mysteriously explain everything about their (formerly) mysterious plan', right? But yeah. I will try to watch it.

As to the cats/dogs/beasts/creatures/things, well, when I first saw them I thought 'dog' but later people talked about it and several people pointed out each one looked like a cat. Entei is a lion, Raikou a tiger, and Suicune a leopard. And once it was pointed out, that's how they looked to me each time I got a good look at them. But then when I see them together in a smaller picture, suddenly they look like dogs again. So I decided to just make up my own title for them. (Which is probably bad in itself...)

SunLight – Hello again! As to where the legendaries are – kids in Cianwood claimed Suicune was there recently (although kids in Ecruteak seem less credulous), and there are statues of Raikou and Entei down in the burned tower. Beyond that...sora wa himitsu desu:is killed for using Japanese:

Act – Gah! Fixed, thanks for pointing out. It's funny, doubled stuff seems like it'd be so obvious, but when I proofread I have a bad habit of skimming, so...

Negrek – I like your idea, it's interesting. A Johto version of the Aqua/Magma Sapphire/Ruby split…of course, it'd be much too easy for poor Elliot if there were only two groups he needed to keep track of.

MorriganFearn whose review is on the first story but says she's reading this one and who really, really deserves a response – Your review was wonderful, detailed, and made me feel very bad because you put so much effort into working out the title. So, um, you were sorta on the right track but wandered off. I'd tell you where, but you actually got a bit too close for comfort there, so...(gah, even that's a hint, isn't it?). Anyway, it probably won't make much sense yet if you do work it out. The idea should start getting worked into conversations in the story shortly. Also, I'm supremely happy you noticed something about the different pokemon people have.

And the poem was very cool, strangely appropriate-ish and makes me want to find some way of incorporating it.

And now that you're all ready to kill me for wasting a whole page on talking to people, on (finally) with the story!

Chapter 10: Berries and Battles

(x)

Between the small town Elliot was leaving and the main route to the next was a large grassy park-like area for trainers. He decided to stop, reasoning that his pokemon hadn't been out to play with other pokemon for a while.

A girl with two pink-striped white balls noticed him. "Cool," she said. "You've got one." At his blank look, she said. "A Premierball. From Hoenn Alliance."

"Oh. Yeah."

"Which one?"

"I got a poochyena," Elliot said, opening up the Premierball and then the rest. "She's evolved now."

"Wow, cool!" the girl said, bending over Din, whose ears bent back uncertainly. "The picture really doesn't look half this impressive. Fierce without being scary, somehow." She pointed to a large bird on her left. "I got a taillow back when I went, so it's evolved now. But I only just got my second one recently, so it's still a poochyena." She grinned. "I'm trying to find someone with the third one, zigzagoon, who wants to trade, so I can have all three."

Elliot thought suddenly of Mike. And those were, there weren't many built here. But the girl was chatting away about Goldenrod and murkrow like she was a native. Mike could've made a mistake, though. The places weren't very common. Especially in someplace as insanely, dizzyingly diverse as Johto, where walking between different areas was like going between worlds. So, Elliot reasoned, Hoenn Alliance buildings might just be in certain places. Nothing really important about it.

The poochyena barked and trotted over to sniff Din, who stood stiffly, not sure how to deal with it. It had a dim, inexplicable familiar feel to it, but more strongly, in her memories and experiences, it was purely alien, and all the more disturbing for the other feeling. She whined softly, backing up.

It might have moved to follow her, not understanding, but Prowler stepped between them, rubbing quickly against Din's neck and then turning to the puppy. It barked again, scattered baby words, sniffed one forepaw, and pounced clumsily on it. Elliot tensed, but she made no motion to swat at it. She bent instead and licked the top of its head, smoothing mussed fur. She looked remote suddenly. Resigned, Elliot thought.

Later, after they had left and walked and finally camped, he asked her about that. He fumbled for words, saying finally that it looked like penance, for the way she looked there, as if obligated, choosing.

She understood the meaning somehow, but it was not for her. ((No,)) she said. ((I – do not think of things like that.))

"But-" Elliot started.

((It is just what I must do,)) she said placidly. ((It has nothing to do with me.)) This seemed contradictory, and Elliot wondered if she was lying.

"Why?"

((Because it is how things are. It is not important to you.))

"Did something happen?"

((Things always happen. It is not why, Elliot.)) She looked at him for a moment. ((Besides,)) she said, perhaps meaning to explain why she denied the word he chose so completely, ((actions cannot be made up for anyway.))

(x)

"Ow!" Elliot whined, sitting on the ground. He had gone off the path a bit to a berry tree, following an odd, thin strip of brown dirt, similar to the main road but somehow different, bare, uneven and worn. It reminded him of the odd path in the odd forest to the north of Kanto, above Pewter. There was a hardness to the ground, rounded stones with their tops exposed in the dirt and woody ridges of tree roots that jutted across the path, creating a series of irregular, slanted steps.

It was on one of those steps, the dirt sloping away from the rounded tree root at a mild slope, that Elliot's foot had slipped, his ankle gave under him, and he found himself in his present situation.

His ankle was fine, just slightly sore. Elliot shifted his weight gingerly on and off it, deciding he was not that gravely injured.

Elliot had probably done this before, sometime back between his first steps and his current age, but the event was so minor he had forgotten. He did not know that the soreness was nothing.

Limping exaggeratedly, he found a grassy spot to camp.

(x)

As time passed, pokemon began to show up, coming for the laden berry tree. The tree was in the middle of a small field, and little cover was available, making those approaching clearly visible. Without much thought, Elliot ordered Sono or Discord to attack them.

Some of these pokemon simply turned and ran back into the forest when confronted by the diminutive bird or balloon-like fluffball. But the pokemon appearing were those who had already ignored the warning sight of a trainer and his freerunning pokemon. They were bold, or stupid, and a few of them, common ones, even came with the intention of a fight rather than a meal.

A short time past noon, a small pack of rattata showed up. A few would dart out first, attracting the attention and attacks of Sono and Discord, while the others made a run for the tree and snagged bright red berries from the lower branches. Meanwhile, first pokemon would run away to avoid attacks, Howler barking excitedly and running back and forth to chase them, sometimes diving into a bush in a futile effort to chase a fleeing rattata. The other two pokemon quickly realized what was going on and retired to nurse bruises from previous fights, but Howler kept it up until the pokemon had collected sufficient berries and vanished permanently. Then, his tail wagging proudly, he trotted back to Elliot and flopped down by his side, panting and seeming to grin. Elliot smiled and scratched the thick fur on Howler's neck absently, then looked up. Elliot noticed movement coming up the path, immediately recognizable, although he couldn't say why, as different from a pokemon.

The boy who stepped into the clearing was around Elliot's age, perhaps a year older or younger. It was hard to tell. He was scrawny and gangly, and the abnormally large net he carried with his backpack served only to confuse Elliot's perception of scale.

He was the sort of trainer interested, even obsessed, with the weaker bug pokemon, the kind of pokemon who one could reasonably expect to be caught in a net without destroying it, the surrounding area and the catcher. Bug catchers were the youngest class of pokemon studiers, as for younger children, the only wild pokemon that could be closely studied were the common bugs. They were not imposing figures nor serious trainers in the normal sense, but were often good enough, putting forth the same diligent effort into training as they did studying their weedle.

"Hi," Elliot said.

"Hi," answered the other boy. Then, stating the obvious, "You're a trainer, right? Let's have a battle."

"Sure," Elliot said, not thinking of Caw in his pokeball after being injured previously, of Prowler and Din having wandered off, of Sono and Discord's bruises, of Howler panting by his feet. "How many?"

"Three each okay?" At Elliot's nod, the boy three out an oddly colored pokeball that released a large, perfectly proportioned caterpie.

Howler hadn't fought any real battles that day. It had been Sono and Discord who Elliot ordered against the various pokemon. And the growlithe would have a type advantage. Thinking this far and no further, Elliot ordered him out.

Caterpie were understood to be pushover pokemon. Any one who was of reasonable strength would have well exceeded the level needed to evolve – it followed that a caterpie, by nature of being one, was not of reasonable strength.

Of course, trained pokemon could be surprising.

"Tackle!" Elliot yelled again. The caterpie spat out another sticky white thread onto a branch of the berry tree at an angle and yanked itself out of the way, then broke the thread, the momentum of the swing making it land behind Howler. It sent a second string at the growlithe, who already had a few stuck to his fur. The strings hadn't caused much impediment yet, but it was only a matter of time. On the third attack Elliot finally ordered an ember. The caterpie again tried to escape, but one of the ember attacks burnt through the string, causing the caterpie to fall back to the ground, small balls of flame striking it as it huddled against the turf. Howler's attack was poorly aimed and other small fireballs dropped into the empty grass, causing it to steam.

The other trainer switched tactics and the caterpie charged, slamming headfirst into Howler hard enough to knock him off his feet. He snapped at it in response and got a mouthful of stringshot.

Howler whined, sitting down and pawing, confused, at his mouth as his jaws strained to open. The caterpie tackled him again in the chest and he breathed out sharply, his breath containing a puff of clear flame. The stringshot burnt away in an instant.

"Flame it again," Elliot ordered, somewhat vaguely, and Howler produced a sort of unsustained flamethrower attack as he often did at this order. This attack was enough. The other boy recalled the caterpie and sent out a spinarak.

Without hesitation the new pokemon sent shot out webbing at Howler. Mounds built up around his legs and chest. The growlithe whined again, struggling. The spider circled a moment, perhaps not sure of what attack to use. As it came around to be in front of Howler, the growlithe paused in his attempts to escape to spit a flamethrower at it, hitting the bug type dead on and making it screech in pain, the sound horrible enough to make Howler's attack falter.

The other boy told it to stay back and wait, and, moving erratically as if in pain, it did so. Howler's attempts, meanwhile, grew more and more frantic. His breath shimmered with heat as his breathing speeded up and, inadvertently, caused the stringshot around his chest and forelegs to begin to shrivel. He began biting at them and they broke as his teeth touched them on either side of his muzzle, the heat making them shrink and snap. Within moments he was free again.

The spinarak hissed unhappily, an eerie, high-pitched sound, and shot a gob of something black and foul at Howler, who yelped in disgust as it hit him head-on, shaking himself and sending droplets flying everywhere. Whining and pawing again at his head, he was too absorbed in his own misery to pay attention as the other pokemon scurried up to bite him on one leg.

Howler jumped with his two front legs already in the air and wound up tangled and confused on the ground. Elliot recalled him with a sigh, feeling there was something wrong with Howler having so much trouble against a bug. He turned to Sono.

Again, the spinarak didn't hesitate or wait for orders before flinging webbing at her. Sono made an eeping sound and began frantically dodging, ignoring Elliot's order of wing attack. One strand brushed against her wing and she went down, overburdened and off balance. She struggled on the ground for a moment, her small wings beating furiously enough to dislodge feathers, and without thinking pecked at the strand. Within a minute she had wrapped herself in a tangled ball of stringshot and Elliot gave up and returned her as well.

Caw would be an obvious choice for the last pokemon, but he'd been savaged earlier after saying something about Din to Prowler. Elliot sent out Discord instead.

Discord, like the others, wound up buried in webbing.

"Uproar!" Elliot shouted. Discord inflated, the sticky strands stretching as he expanded. Elliot covered his ears as the attack began.

The spider trembled and ran sideways by reflex, stepping onto one of the blackened, smoldering patches from Howler's earlier ember attack. The legs that touched the area recoiled, curling under and it tripped, its momentum carrying it forward just enough. It flipped over and fell into the center of the spot and stayed there, its legs convulsively bending and unbending in the air. As Discord quieted, the sound of its chittering shrieks became audible. The other boy recalled it, looking down at the pokeball with a slightly worried expression for a moment.

The third pokemon the boy sent out was a surprise, given his earlier two, and to be expected, given everything else.

"Own own own!" it shouted, waving its bone for emphasis – of what, Elliot couldn't guess. It looked very much like all the other cubone Elliot had seen. A more astute observer than Elliot might have noticed it was in marginally better condition than the others, its frame more filled out in flesh and muscle, although it was far from the superb condition of the other two pokemon.

"Bone club," the other boy ordered firmly, seeming to take time to pronounce the words especially clearly. The cubone hefted its bone and charged at Discord, who inhaled and blasted out a second uproar, making the cubone falter. It struck him, but the blow was weak. Discord punched it in retaliation. His arms were mostly free and the webbing, although limiting how far out he could push, actually strengthened his attack by bracing him so that he wasn't pushed back himself. The cubone was knocked onto its back. It quickly stood again and walloped him hard, noticeably depressing the top of Discord's head for a moment.

How could Discord free himself? Elliot wondered. "Discord, rollout!"

Discord began to spin, winding the cords tighter and tighter until it seemed they'd break. But they didn't. Instead, Discord's spin suddenly reversed itself as the strands snapped back like rubber bands. Discord lay in the center limply, exhausted and dizzy. The cubone starting whacking him repeatedly over the head like a toddler trying to hammer in a peg.

Discord recovered somewhat and bellowed again. Startled, the cubone nearly dropped its club and then fumbled frantically a moment to catch it again. It hugged the bone to its chest anxiously.

"Discord, um, try to nail it with a punch!"

Discord reached out with his stubby arms. The cubone was just out of reach. He flailed comically for a moment, utterly ignored by the cubone, who was still hugging its bone like a child with a stuffed teddiursa. Annoyed, Discord inflated again.

"Shut it up!" yelled the other boy in frustration as the uproar attack began again. The cubone, startled, did the first thing that occurred to it – it whacked Discord in the face.

Discord wound up getting the club shoved down his throat. He choked and punched the cubone away, breaking its grip. It let out a horrified wail and scrambled at Discord as he, seeing an opportunity, puffed up again and swallowed the bone.

To Elliot and Discord's surprise, the cubone screamed hysterically, pounding at the jigglypuff with its tiny fists.

"Let's end the match," said the boy quickly to Elliot, who nodded.

"Discord, stop it," Elliot said, walking over. Discord relinquished the bone and the cubone snatched it and scrambled away, whimpering .

"Sorry about that," the boy said. "I got him recently as a present, and he's still a little high-strung."

(x)

The murkrow pulled roughly along a branch, stripping the leaves with the berries. Prowler cringed at the sound.

((Not going to eat any?)) he asked, stripping another section. She had been gone for several hours and reappeared inexplicably. He was glad she had shown up at all before the night – she was Elliot's pokemon, and he did not like that she left.

((We have eaten.)) Her eyes flicked up for a moment. ((Are you determined to cause as much damage as possible?))

Caw paused for a moment. Then he said, ((This? It'll grow right back. Berry trees are stripped all the time.))

Prowler did not argue. She knew the trees as near bushes, small, sickly things that grew rarely and died often. And in concept, she understood – what gave in abundance had least for itself. But she did not argue. The tree struck her as unnatural and she preferred not to think much of it.

Discord was being similarly destructive at a lower branch, although he was slower. He was crushing the berries for the juice rather than swallowing them whole, his throat sore.

Prowler sniffed the air and slid off again. Din noticed she was gone a moment after and looked around anxiously, but she did not know where Prowler had gone and could not follow.

(x)

The next morning Prowler returned with a struggling snubbull in her jaws.

"Why do you have that?" Elliot asked, feeling strangely uneasy for a moment.

((You wanted one, didn't you?)) she said.

"Oh. So that's for me?"

((Of course.)) She dropped it to the ground, pinning it under one paw almost as an afterthought. The snubbull's pink legs flailed about wildly.

"Um, okay," Elliot said, pulling a pokeball from his bag. "Thanks."

Next chapter: Elliot meets a new friend, gets to Goldenrod, and decides to enjoy the sights and watch a tournament. What, you don't believe me?