Chapter Ten: Into the Woods

The area of beach Brendan and I were at was surprisingly empty for a place so nice. It didn't seem all that secluded, but we didn't see another person the entire time we were there. Maybe it had something to do with us going on Monday afternoon, when people don't tend to take a lot of vacations, but that never stopped the beaches south of Sandgem Town from being full of people. Then again, in Hoenn, beach season isn't limited as much as it is in Sinnoh.

While Brendan and I were out in the water, Turtwig buried himself in the sand and slept in the sun. Mudkip wasn't as happy with the developments, and made himself a mud patch to spend the afternoon in away from the sun and heat. The warm water has a completely different experience than the water I was used to swimming in. Instead of having to move just to stay warm, I was able to just lounge in the water and float. Brendan saw me doing this and came over.

"Are you doing alright?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. "It's just so nice out here. Totally different than swimming back home. Normally you have to move or you'd freeze to death. I can actually enjoy it."

"That's good. It's good that we're doing something that you're enjoying."

We stayed out in the water for about two hours before going back to shore. Turtwig was happy to get going again, and started running around my feet as soon as we got back on to the beach. Brendan and I grabbed our shirts and packs before setting off to the north towards the Petalburg woods. The sun was just getting low in the sky when we got the woods, so we stopped to talk about whether we wanted to enter in the morning.

"Well," Brendan said, putting his shirt, which he'd kept off after we left the beach, back on, "We're going to have to deal with bugs whenever we go in, so I say we just start. It's more than a day's journey through the woods, so we might as well go while there's still light."

"I guess if we're going to have to camp in there either way, we should just stop at the first clearing we find." I said. "But, if we wait out here, we'll be able to know we can find a good place tomorrow instead of hoping that we find a place we can camp instead of being stuck out in the middle of the forest."

I stopped for a second, before continuing, "I guess it depends on how much time we have before it gets too dark to keep walking. If we have less than an hour until then, we might as well take our time. We've got plenty of supplies, after all."

Brendan looked over at the sky. "I don't know how much time we've got," he said, squinting, "But I'd say that we probably have an hour."

"Alright, then," I said, "Let's go on, then."

As soon as we walked into the woods, the temperature dropped noticeably. A slight breeze was blowing, making the entire forest sway in unison. It felt very similar to the woods that surrounded Lake Verity back in Sinnoh. It was like a little part of home, except that it was surrounded by, well, the rest of Hoenn.

There was a well-tread path, though it was clearly less used than the road we had used to travel from Petalburg. I remembered reading that Rustboro was the largest city in Hoenn, so I was surprised by the lack of good ways to get there.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Brendan said after we had been walking for a bit.

"I was just thinking about how little traffic there has been," I said. "I mean, wouldn't people want to get from Petalburg to Rustboro?"

"Well," he said, "This is Monday afternoon, so there aren't as many people trying to get from one place to another. Also, the Pokemon League Tournament is starting in just over a week, so most Trainers are taking a break for a while."

"But what about cars? I haven't seen any of them around."

Brendan smiled, "Oh, you didn't know about this? They must use a different system in Sinnoh. Anyway, here in Hoenn, there are actually two different ways to get from one city to another using the main roads. One of them, the one we're on, was designed for Trainers, though anybody walking or cycling from town to town can use them. It also cuts out a lot of the small settlements with just a few dozen people. Well, you can get to them, but you have to use some side paths that most people don't really know about. Most people who find them are just really lost. Anyway, there's a second system of roads just for cars and trucks, for people who actually need to be somewhere in a hurry. We're probably about three hours walk west of the other road now."

"Oh," I said. "We have a totally different system in Sinnoh. There's only one road, and it goes to just about every small village. Some of them have grown up off the road, but we just add to it so they're connected. Trainers have a path about 20 minutes from the main road, so we can't hear the traffic, but it loops back to meet the main road just before going into the villages."

"Wouldn't that just mean a lot of extra walking?" Brendan asked.

"It doesn't add too much," I said. "It's not like people decided to build their houses all in a straight line, so the looping doesn't take too much time. And the cars have to go out of their way more than the people walking do, since we're so much slower. They can do in just under an hour what I can do in a day, so naturally they get all the detours."

"Hm," Brendan said, stifling a yawn. He laughed at that. "Well, I guess this is a sign that we should stop when we find a good place."

"What about over there?" I asked, pointing to a small clearing right off the main path. It looked almost as though it had been made for camping for the night, and it wouldn't have surprised me if the Hoenn Pokemon League had created it.

"Yeah, that looks like a good spot," Brendan said, dropping his pack near the center of the clearing. "Let's get camp set up, then we can eat."

The sun set faster than we'd thought it would, and by the time we'd finished making our freeze-dried dinner, the only light was the fire. Brendan and I sat close to it in order to keep away the bugs that we'd noticed starting to move around in the forest behind us. As we sat and watched the fire flicker, with Mudkip at the ready to put it out if it got out of hand, Brendan looked at me.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Nothing, really," he shrugged, "Just thinking," He paused for a minute, then said, "How's Hoenn been?"

"Pretty good," I said. "It's different from Sinnoh. Hotter. More humid. But I wouldn't say it's bad. Just, different."

"So you've liked it so far?"

"I mean, it's not like I hate it here. I haven't spent the last two days really wishing I was back home," I said. Well, that wasn't entirely true. I didn't want to be back in Sinnoh as much as in Sandgem Town. "But I've been away from home for a couple weeks. Sure this is far away, but it's not really any different than being in Sinnoh. I'm still gone. Besides, you're here. You're not bad to be around."

"Only not bad?" He said, pretending to look hurt, and we laughed.

"Can't let you think you're too much of a good thing," I said.

Brendan shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something, but a yawn came out instead of words.

"Go to bed," I told him. "I'll have Mudkip stay up with me while I make sure everything is ready for the morning."

"Night, Lucas," he said. "And, hey, I've liked traveling with you so far. I hope it hasn't been too bad for you."

"There's a lot worse I could be doing," I said. Brendan smiled, and then ducked into his tent.

The next morning, I woke up before the sun rose. Turtwig was asleep on the ground next to me, and I almost kicked him accidentally when I went outside. Some predawn light snuck through the gaps between the trees. The forest was quiet, certainly much quieter than it had been the night before. I stood for a moment without moving before I moved toward the trees where Brendan had hung our packs the night. Breakfast wasn't going to make itself, after all.

It wasn't long before the smell of cooking food brought Brendan and the Pokémon out of the tents. Brendan went over to the packs of food to grab something for Mudkip. His Pokémon followed him closely, and eagerly ate the food set in front of him.

"So, what's cooking?" Brendan said, coming over to the fire I had built to cook the food.

"Your favorite," I said dryly. "Dehydrated eggs and oatmeal, thrown into two separate pots and left to work themselves into something edible."

"Hey," he said, "It's not that bad. They've done a pretty good job making this stuff pretend to be real food."

"All I can say is there's a reason Pokèmon Centers have both low quality food and hordes of hungry Trainers coming through the doors on a daily basis."

"Yeah," Brendan said with a smile, "We're all poor teenagers and they're offering food for free. That'll get Trainers to go almost anywhere."

"True enough. Now go and get me a couple of bowls."

"Yes, dear," he sighed over dramatically. I whacked him with my stirring spoon, which really didn't help anything but Brendan's domesticity jokes.

We walked pretty quietly for most of the morning, focusing our energy to get out of the forest by nightfall. Brendan still believed that we could reach Rustboro City by dark, but I just wanted to be out of the trees. I kept walking for a moment before I realized that Brendan wasn't beside me anymore.

I turned back to see what he was doing. "Why-?" I began, before he began to wave his hand back and forth. He motioned me closer.

"Look over there," he whispered, pointing to a gap between the trees. A Pokémon of some kind, with large grassy leaves and a beard that appeared to be made of fruit, was happily nibbling away at berries off a tree. It was taller than Brendan and I, but still about the size of a very tall man rather than being some enormous creature.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's a Tropius," he said. "I don't think you find them around here very often. See that fruit growing around its neck? It's really good. Come on, I'll see if we can get it to give us some."

"You think it'll just give it to you?" I asked.

"Yeah, they give them to kids all the time," he said, stepping off the path and walking towards the Tropius. The Pokèmon looked up as I followed him into the clearing where it stood.

"Hi, Tropius," Brendan said. "This is my friend Lucas. He's from Sinnoh, and hasn't seen a Tropius before. He also hasn't had a Tropius fruit before, and I saw your fruit looks ripe. Could we have one to share?"

The Tropius slowly walked over to us before dipping its head. Brendan reached out and gently picked one of the fruits off the Tropius' neck.

"Thank you," he said. The Tropius made a small noise and did not move. "Are you saying that we can take another one?" He asked, surprised. The Tropius made the same noise a second time, but still did not move. Brendan picked another fruit off the Tropius' neck and handed it to me.

The Tropius stood back up to its full height. It started to flap its wings, creating a strong breeze. A glint appeared in its eye, and it plucked my beret right off my head before it took off.

"Hey!" I said, chasing after it. I could have sworn it let out something like a laugh before it flew away.

"I wonder why it did that," Brendan said.

"I don't know, but I want my hat back. It feels weird to not have anything on my head."

"We can find you another hat once we get to Rustboro. They probably have even the same design as the one Tropius ran off with."

I was about to protest that I wanted my beret back when we heard a cry from further down the path. Brendan and I raced toward the sound. A man wearing a striped shirt and baggy blue pants stood over another man in a green suit, who had fallen on the path.

"Now, I'll just take that briefcase off your hands," the standing man said, prying a beat-up brown briefcase out of the hands of the fallen man. "Thank you very much for your cooperation," he said with a sneer.

The Poocheyna that was standing next to the man in the striped pants looked up at Brendan and I and let out a bark.

"Well, well, well," he said. "I guess we've got ourselves some kids who didn't need to be here." The Poocheyna growled happily. "Alright, you can go get them."

The Poocheyna came charging at us, though it wasn't exactly my definition of intimidating. Brendan and I let out Turtwig and Mudkip without saying anything, and the Poocheyna skidded to a stop in when they glared at it. Turtwig and Mudkip looked at each other before launching themselves at the Poocheyna, which promptly turned and ran back towards its Trainer.

"I think that's my cue to leave. Thank you for the package, once again. My boss will find this all quite useful." He then slipped off the path into the forest.

"Hey, kids," the man left on the ground said. "Thanks for that, even if you couldn't get the briefcase back." He stood up, relatively easily for someone who had just been robbed. "I'll have to tell my boss about this, which isn't going to go very well."

"What did he take from you?" Brendan asked.

"Preliminary research from the Devon Corporation. We're a firm in Rustboro that creates a lot of new technologies. That man, his boss, really, wants a prototype we're working on. And now they have it." He shook his head. "I'm going to get it when I get back to the office," he said. He turned and started to walk down a small footpath leading off the trail that I assumed went to the main road.

"Oh," he said, turning around. "Come and visit us sometime when you're in Rustboro. I'm sure Mr. Stone would be glad to spare a couple of minutes to thank you. Bye kids, and thanks again!"

"Should we say something about this?" I asked Brendan once the man had walked out of sight.

"I mean," he said, "I'm guessing that if Devon is involved then the police will hear about it sooner or later even if we don't say anything. I say we just let them take care of it."

I just shrugged and started walking down the path. Turtwig bounded around my feet, excited to get to stay out of his Pokéball for a while.

"Y'know," Brendan said later that day, as the sun pushed the shadows inland. "We haven't really let Wingull and Shinx out of their Pokéballs since Lillycove. I don't want to ruin these guys' fun, but it might be a good idea to let them out tomorrow in the city. It'll be good for them."

I thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, I think that is a good idea." I paused for a second before talking again. "If that guy came from Rustboro for the day, and it's what, noon? We can't be too far from the city, can we?"

"I think we're still a good few hours away," Brendan said. "Those two probably came by car and you could get out here from downtown in half an hour if traffic was good. It wouldn't surprise my if the guy from Devon was just taking an extended lunch break."

"Hm," I said. "So what I'm really asking is are we going to be there in time for dinner because real food sounds nice."

"Hey, the food you make's pretty good." Brendan said, nudging me with his shoulder.

"Thanks," I said, "But I like not cooking. And even though we've got pretty good stuff ourselves, we can't compete with a real kitchen."

"Speak for yourself," he said. "I like stuff that isn't made in portions of a hundred. We could probably make it without any real problem, but we should probably get other things to eat if we want to make aiming for dinner a regular habit."

"We can do that," I said. "It might be good to have some light things on hand anyway, just in case. We might even be able to get fresh food if we can find a good way to carry some."

"That's what we're doing tomorrow then," Brendan said.

I laughed. "There's no way that could take us more than a couple hours. Do we want to look around, or poke our heads in the Gym, or what?"

"I don't know. It would be nice to have a day where we don't really do anything." He said.

"Do you mean yesterday?"

"Yeah. That was nice. I'm absolutely ok with doing stuff like that more often."

"I don't see any harm in going and doing some sight-seeing or something. What?" I said, when Brendan gave me a look. "Don't tell me there's nothing to do there."

"I mean, it's not exactly a tourist hotspot," Brendan said, rubbing his elbow a bit. "The people there have to do something for entertainment, right?"

"For the love of- I'm not going to wander the city all day because you want to have a day off." I said, running my hand through my hair. "We need to actually have a plan or something."

"Fine, fine, I'll see if there's any ads for things at the Pokèmon Center. They're going to be complete tourist traps though, I'm warning you."

"Look, as long as there's something to do, I'm fine." I said. "We could even just find a place that we think will be good for lunch and go from there. But I'm not wandering around a city for no reason."

The trees were starting to thin out by now, and the city was coming into view. It was a small city on the south side, appearing to spring out of the ground a few miles out. When we got closer I realized that there was a hill south of the city that was obstructing my view, but here Rustboro seemed to not exist in its surroundings.

"What was that?" Brendan said, stopping and turning to look back over the forest.

"What was what?" I asked.

"I thought I heard something back in the forest." He said, scanning the treeline.

"Brendan," I snorted, "It's the forest. There's lots of things in the forest. I'd be more worried if you weren't hearing noises."

"Yeah," he said, not taking his eyes off the trees behind us. "Yeah, I guess you're right." No sooner had he turned around then I heard a faint yolp off in the distance. My first thought was that Brendan was right. My second thought was that this was very likely going to make us late for dinner.

"See?" Brendan said, eyes bright. "I told you I heard something!"

"So what is it?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," he said, pausing in between his words as though the conversation was barely capturing any of his attention. "Wait, I think I see something coming this way."

I turned back to look at the treetops, and saw a small figure outlined against the setting sun. Just as Brendan said, I could see it slowly getting larger. We stood, and watched as the figure's outline came into focus, and as soon as I recognized it:

"Hey! That's a Tropius! And it's wearing my beret!"

"Really?" Brendan said, squinting to get a better view of the Pokémon coming closer to us. "That looks like a Tropius alright, but why on you think it—oh," he stopped as the bump on the Tropius' head became more defined. The Tropius flew over the edge of the forest and slowed as it approached us. My hair was whipped around and across my face as it landed.

"What are you doing here?" I asked it, trying to add an edge to my voice. It didn't work. The Tropius looked at me, eyes shining as though it was laughing. It gracefully moved its neck so that its head rested just under my chin. My beret was right in front of my face. I reached out cautiously and picked it off of the Tropius' head.

As I was putting my beret back on, the Tropius moved its head back to look me in the eye. "I think it's apologizing?" Brendan said, as though he couldn't believe his own words. The Tropius let out a low rumble.

"Oh, well, it's fine," I said. "Don't worry about it." Tropius looked satisfied with my response, and stood up fully. Brendan and I waited for it to take off, but it stayed on the ground, watching me.

After standing there for a minute or two, Brendan opened his mouth then hesitated. After a moment he said, "Do you," then stopped, unsure of himself, "Do you want to come with us?"

The Tropius nodded its head vigorously and pawed at the ground with a foreleg. "Well," I said, "I guess if you want to you can come." I reached into my bag and pulled out a Poké ball. "Welcome aboard."

Brendan watched Tropius turn into a beam of red light and then turned back toward Rustboro. "Ready to get going?" he asked. I nodded, and we started walking as the sun started to sink beneath the waves.

I hadn't planned on taking six months to get this out, but that should tell you just how busy I've been. No matter how long these take though, I still have plans for many chapters down the line, and I'm always trying to take a little bit of time out to write. Thanks for your paitence. I know I get antsy after a month without updates, so I can understand thinking this was dead.

Anyway, on to the story itself. They're certainly settled into this routine nicely, even though it's been just a few days together. Next chapter is socializing in Rustboro, a day off, and a trip to school. And maybe a bit of homework, too.

Thanks for reading!

Fox