Chapter Nine

POV: Renee

6:30

After a few minutes, we arrived at a small village. It had around fifteen buildings that were made out of dark wood. There were various Pokemon of various types scurrying around, seemingly busy with Pokemon-life.

"Welcome to our little settlement!" Eevee yelled, " We have a cafeteria, an inn, a shop... But, for now, just ignore all of that and please follow me to the base."

"The... Base?" Clark asked.

"Our sort of military operation... We are at war, you know..." Eevee replied.

"Oh... right..." Clark said.

We all started following him to a large building near the enge of the village. It was made of the same kind of wood as the others, just on a larger scale. What we saw inside wouldn't be out of place in a war movie.

Inside, there were a bunch of tables, with about five Pokemon at each table. There was a large map, which I guessed was the region.

"Welcome," Eevee said, as he bowed his head, "I think you'll be getting to know this room quite a bit... Anyway, come here to the map. We have highlighted all of the places where we know Umbreon has struck. One of the reasons you're here is because I need you seven to go to these places, destroy Umbreon's camps, and purify the region."

"Ummm, one question..." Hope said.

"Yes?" Eevee responded.

"Well, ummm, why is Umbreon doing this, exactly?"

"Aah, good question, er... what's your name?" Eevee said.

"Wait, wait, wait," Clark said, "Do you not know our names?"

"Oh, I... well, I... I was a bit flustered with... stuff..." Eevee said, "But, I guess there's no better time than now to ask: What are your names?"

All of us exchanged looks. Some were confused, some were disappointed, and some were annoyed.

Clark, who seemed to love going first, pointed at himself, "Clark," he said.

"Geoff"

"Hope"

"Evangeline"

And everyone started saying their names.

"Renee," I said next.

"I'm Frederick," said Frederick.

There was a long pause.

"And... you are?" he asked Shandar.

"Shandar..." she mumbled it so illegibly that I could barely hear it.

Eevee looked at the rest of us, confused.

"Her name's Shandar," I spoke up.

"Erm, good! So now then, Hope," he said, "To answer your question... I have almost no idea! The only thing that I know is that he's planning something... something big..."

"So, wait, you destroyed the cruise we were on, brought us here, and partially turned us into Pokemon... and you still don't know what this 'Lord Umbreon' is planning to do?" Geoff asked, semi sarcastically, like he knew he was right.

"Well... I wasn't the one who destroyed your cruise- that was Umbreon- but we still need your help! Our leaders are all dead, you know," Eevee said.

"Yeah, dead and inside of us..." Geoff said bitterly.

"Moving on then," Eevee cut Geoff off, "Each province has its own palace, which the ruler of that area lives in, and they all hold great power. Umbreon seems to have been targeting these places, and replacing the power of the area's ruler with his own power... That is the only explanation that I have for what he's doing. The reason you're here is that I need you to go the palace of the ruler that has chosen you, and replace Umbreon's power with yours."

All of us exchanged glances. No one spoke up after that.

"Alright then, that's all I needed you in here for. Why don't you all explore the village?" Eevee said. Before any of us could say anything, Eevee had walked away and was talking to a Stoutland.

After that, we all walked outside and proceeded to split up...

POV: Geoff

7:00 PM

I started walking away from the 'Base' not really knowing where to go next. Night was starting to fall, but it was still light enough for me to see. I stopped when I heard crying, and someone bumped into me.

"What the...?" I turned around to see Clark, who had apparently been following me. But, I could see from his face that he wasn't the one crying.

"Oh, sorry Geoff," he said loudly, "I thought you knew I-" I clasped a hand over his mouth and held my index finger of my other hand up. I wanted to find the source of the crying.

I turned around slowly, hoping to see who it was coming from. I finally stopped when I saw a small shape that was sitting up against a tree. It was shaking in rythim to the crying noise, so I assumed that it was where the crying was coming from. I got a bit closer to it, and discovered that it was an Axew. It had a black eye, and it was covered in bruises and even a few cuts.

"Hey..." I spoke up in a soft voice. The Axew looked up, saw me, and curled up in a ball, whimpering.

"Whoa, hey little guy," I said, noticing that it seemed to be scared of me, "I'm not gonna hurt you."

The Axew sat up and looked into my eyes, still sniffling. I held my hand out, beckoning for it to come. It stood up, and walked in front of me.

"That's better," I said, "So... What's wrong?"

"Sniff... A group of big, scary Pokemon attacked me!" it screamed. I could tell from its voice that it was male. Judging by the pitch of his voice, he couldn't have been more that eight years old. "I was walking in the woods, trying to find some berries, and I saw a camp and then they came out and beat me up!" he started crying some more.

"What?! But you're only a child!" I yelled in shock.

"And... they said they'd be back to 'finish the job'! I'm scared!" he said.

"Don't worry," I said, "We're not going to let that happen, are we?" I turned to Clark, who had been silent this whole time. He nodded.

"R-really?" the Axew asked.

"Absolutely. We'll protect you." I paused for a moment, "So, what's your name?"

The Axew stopped crying. "I'm Yew!"

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked.

"I'm Yew!" he said again.

"You're me?" I asked.

He facepalmed, and then drew out in the dirt with his hand, "Y E W".

"Ohhhh, well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Yew, I'm Geoff!" I said.

There was a pause for a moment. All of a sudden, there were footsteps near by. Five Pokemon suddenly emerged from the shadows.

"Well, there the little punk is!" One of them, a Mightyena, said.

Yew saw them, screamed that it was 'them' and peeled off into the village. There was a Zweilous, a Bisharp, a Houndoom, a Pangoro, and the Mightyena, and they looked murderous.

"After him!" the Mightyena said. He turned to me and Clark, "You... get out of the way before..." he took a closer look at us, and his eyes widened, "Hold on, you're human... And you have the ears of Pokemon... Vaporeon and Jolteon to be exact..." he turned back to his group, "Oy! These are the ones that Umbreon told us about! Screw the Axew, we've gotta kill these ones!"

All of them started approaching us.

"Hey Clark?" I asked.

"W-What?" he said, whimpering, from behind me.

"Run!"

POV: Frederick

7:10 PM

I was eating dinner in the cafeteria with Jack. After I got these new ears, I've been able to understand him. Needless to say it's been... different, to say the least.

"So..." I said to jack, "How are you doing? I bet this is pretty strange for you..."

"Strange for me?" he said, "You should go look in a mirror, dear friend. You have orange fuzzy ears now and you're only concerned with how I'm coping with it? Oh, please."

Okay, I'm just going to say that, upon actaully getting to understand him, Jack is nothing like I expected him to be. I don't know if it's the fact that he has one eye, or maybe the fact that he always seemed so... confident, but I always pictured him sounding like some sort of muscle man or a pirate. As it turns out, he's very softspoken and calm most of the time.

"Oh, well," I said, "You are my best friend and-"

"FREDERICK HEEEEEEELP!" I turned to see Clark running with Geoff outside of the cafeteria. They were being chased by five Pokemon.

"Holy s***...!" I said, "Let's go Jack!"

POV: Clark

I didn't stop running when I heard Frederick's voice behind me.

"I'm comin', I'm comin!" he said.

I heard the Mightyena yell some sort of command, and then I heard Frederick scream, and then a thud.

I was starting to get tired of running, and I slowed down.

Before I could even think, the Pangore grabbed me and threw me. I landed on the hard earth with a thud, and writhed in pain. I looked up through tears to see that the five Pokemon had cornered Geoff against a building.

I started to pull myself up off the ground when I heard Renee's voice.

"Need some help getting up?"

I nodded and she grabbed my hand and pulled me up. She silently pointed at the group that was tormenting Geoff, and I nodded. She picked up a large stick from the nearby ground, and I grabbed a rock.

We both started sneaking up on them, and I heard a bunch of footstaps behind me. Frederick, Jack, Hope, and Evangeline were all following me and Renee, and all but Jack had makeshift weapons of their own. We finally get behind the group, and we all chose one to attack; I was behind Bisharp. The group of Pokemon was oblivious of our presence, and, even though he could see us, Geoff kept a perfect, scared Poker face.

"Don't be scared, child. We will dispach of you and end all of your worries now. I wouldn't try to fight back if you, as you're surrounded."

"You know what?" Geoff said with an evil grin.

"What?" the Mightyena asked, alarmed at how confident Geoff looked.

Frederick, who had chosen the Mightyena in the middle, put up his fingers and mouthed, "3... 2... 1..."

"...So are you.!"

I broght the rock up over my head, and smashed it into Bisharp's head. He crumpled to the ground immediately, along with Zweilous, whom Eve had hit in the back with a sharp stone. Frederick, Hope, and Renee weren't as fortunate, as they had hit their opponents with sticks, so the other three were only dazed. Geoff took this opportunity to run over to the rest of us, where he put his fists up in some sort of fighting stance.

"What the...?!" Mightyena said. He suddenly realized what was going on and, without missing a beat, lunged at Frederick and bit his arm. The other two, Houndoom and Pangoro, went after Hope and Eve.

Out of instinct, I started punching Mightyena to get him off of Frederick, and Geoff and Renee went to attack the others. Mightyena turned to me and started attacking me, and Frederick attacked Mightyena. This started to confuse Mightyena as he didn't know who to attack. I eventually let my guard down when my attention turned to Shandar, who was about twenty feet away. Her only contribution to this fight was screaming. When I let myself get distracted, Mightyena bit my arm, and knocked both Frederick and me over and stood over me, smiling.

"That's enough of that!" he said. I noticed that Houndoom and Pangoro had defeated their opponents as well, and the other two Pokemon were awake.

Then I remembered... Jack! I looked around to see if he was here to help, but he was nowhere to be found. Mightyena laughed, opened his mouth, and started to bring his head down to my chest for a final blow. I closed my eyes and prepared to get my chest ripped out... but nothing happened.

I opened my eyes again to see that the five Pokemon were gone, and Eevee was standing about ten feet away with Jack. Eevee's crown was glowing blue, and he had a furious expression on his face.

"Wha?! Eevee?!" Renee said.

"Where did those five Pokemon go?" Eve asked.

"Oh, you know, they were attacking you and all, so I sent them away," Eevee said.

"Where did you send them?" Geoff asked, "Won't they come back?"

"Don't worry about them, they won't be coming back. I just sent them on a nice little vacation in the middle of the ocean," Eevee said.

"Ummmm, thanks..." Geoff said.

"No problem," Eevee replied.

We all started getting up, and I went over to Geoff.

"You okay man?" I asked.

"Fine," he said, "You do realize that your arm is bleeding right?"

I looked down at my right arm, and saw a large bite mark.

I turned to Eevee. "Is there a place that I can put some sort of bandage... onnnnn... Thi- yawn,"

I suddenly felt VERY tired. I looked around to see that this effect was happening to all seven of us.

"Eevee...?" I said. "Why do I feel tired all of the sudden?"

"...Yeah," I heard Frederick say.

"Oh... I never told you, did I?" Eevee said.

"Tell us what?" Geoff sleepily said.

"Whenever you're about to change more, you'll fall asleep. It's to prevent the stress of changing while you're awake," Eevee said.

"Oh, that's good," I said loopily, "We did good guys...! I Think It's time to sleep now. Everyone... Take five...!"

I collapsed onto the ground and slipped into unconsciousness.

A/N: Sup everyone, Squirrel here. I apolize for how long it's been since I last updated, but I've been busy with school. I don't know when I'll be able to post another chapter, but until then, Squirrel out!