Chapter 10! Woo.

This chapter has more battle in it then the previous chapters. But still not that much, so if you don't like it don't worry.

It is funny to look back on my older writing, even my older versions of this story. I put so much emphasis on combat to the exclusion of so much else. I like how I have grown as a writer, even if most of you wouldn't have seen that growth :)

Location – Hoenn two badges.

Age – 13.

Route 119.

The day had started off on an interesting note.

Some time ago Felix had brought Tania back onto the team for a few days, as the time for team rotation had come up. He had sent Tyson and Emma back to Rowan and brought the troublesome weavile on with Shira.

He hadn't quite thought it through. Bringing his kleptomaniacal pokémon onto the team for the first time since capturing Malissa, herself rather cheeky, had been asking for trouble.

Shira was no help, preferring to laze about or practise for the next contest. She and Tania had a deal where they left each other alone, very little interaction and certainly no helping their poor trainer reign the other in.

Felix could only watch in dismay as Tania took Malissa under her wing and began teaching her things. A week later he reached the next day or rotation and sent the weavile and persian back, but the damage had been done.

Felix thanked the legends for the tiny mercy that was Malissa not becoming a kleptomaniac like Tania, but that was not any better than her true path. Merely different.

Malissa had little interest in accruing a horde of pointless objects, instead she set her diamond stare on only the best.

The human was seriously reconsidering letting his pokémon free to run about all the time every time after several museum thefts were reported. He never found them, but Malissa's grin made him uneasy.

To try and stop the rampant robbery, he had skipped several cities and was researching towns before entering, just to make sure they didn't have any obvious targets. Due to this, he had missed the last three gyms and was wandering aimlessly around Route 119.

He was trying to curb Malissa's new hobby before it grew any further, leading to camping out in a miserable clearing, tent barely protecting him as it rained.

Tristan had loved the rain and requested to sleep outside. Malissa had been awed by the rain herself, still getting used to life outside a cave even after these few months, and distracted for the night.

The next morning neither of them were st the campsite.

An interesting note to Felix, particularly considering the fact he currently had no other pokémon with him. This being a rare time he had only the teammates caught in the region with him.

"Uh... Tristan?" Felix called as he looked about. There were no tracks, anything having been washed away. "M-Malissa? Where are you?"

As the morning crept on and Felix grew more concerned he began to do mindless busy work to keep calm. Hoping that the pair would just return themselves, he began packing up the camp. It wasn't hard, only collapsing and storing his tent which had been done so many times he could do it in his sleep.

Which he had done on a few occasions.

Sighing at the realisation that no saviour would come and he'd have to traverse the wilderness alone, Felix strapped everything to him and took his first step out of the camp.

"FELIX!"

Only to freeze when a voice yelled from behind him.

"FELIX!"

The sounds of feet scrabbling through ferns and grass was unmistakable. He would have smiled, happily turning to greet his wayward pokémon with a gentle scolding for disappearing like that, but the urgency in both voices roused him to action.

"Tristan?" he called back, pivoting on a foot and marching back to the clearing. "Malissa? What is it?"

The mudkip and sableye slid to a stop before him, showering him with a unfortunate amount of mud, before Malissa grabbed his pant-leg.

"Quick! A human place is being attacked!" She pulled him with surprising strength, nearly pulling him over, before Felix steadied himself by falling into a jog.

"Where?" he asked. "Lead the way then."

Content he was following, both pokémon broke off into a run. Only for Felix with his long legs to immediately overtake them.

"Hurry," he said, but both were short, tired, and neither were much of an endurance runner. Knowing that time was of the essence, he picked both up, hooked them under his arms, and had them point the way as he ran the distance himself.

"Where?" he puffed. "Are we. Going?"

"Big funny human thing," Tristan answered. "Has lots of weird humans shooting water at it."

"Is it on fire?" Felix spluttered as he was wacked in the face with a tree branch.

"No they are hurting with Water type pokémon!"

"What?"

"Humans all with similar, and boring, looks have a horde of pokémon and are attacking the human dwelling," Malissa explained.

"Weird looks? Water pokémon? Are they in stripes and wearing bandannas?"

"Stripes? Yes." Malissa nodded.

"Bananas no." Tristan shook his head.

"No, heh, not fruit. This blue hat thing on their heads," Felix explained, pausing to puff for breath.

"Oh yeah!"

"I think that's Team Aqua." Felix grimaced, the land was growing more even and he thought he could see road. "Goodie."

"Not far now," Tristan said. "You're doing great, don't let up, we're almost there."

"Yeah," Malissa added drolly. "You can do it. You can do it."

"Don't make fun." Tristan frowned back. "He's being nice enough to carry us, without even putting us in the ball things."

"Yeah..." Malissa admitted. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Felix panted. "I can hear them now. Get ready for battle."

He reached the top of a small crest and received a perfect view of the carnage before him.

A bridge that connected the route to the next, over the raging river, had been destroyed, only a few remaining logs implied there was ever a bridge.

Over a dozen Team Aqua members had swarmed the building. An oddly shaped building with many windows and a pair of circular observatory decks jutting out like horns.

It was currently receiving a considerable amount of damage from the several dozen Water pokémon sending blasts of water into it.

From broken windows a small number of pokémon returned fire, but it was weak and scattered compared to what was being unleashed upon it.

As the trio crept closer, Felix still not having dropped his pokémon, the Aqua members managed to break down the door.

"Perfect," a more distinctive member said. A woman wearing goggles that held a gargantuan amount of hair out of her face. "Get in, spread out, get that information and grab all the castform. MOVE!"

"Hi ho," Her underlings chanted and stormed the building.

"Let's go," Felix whispered and bent down low. "Quiet," he shushed as he ran along, crouched down and still holding both pokémon in a tense, iron, grip.

The woman might have heard him, or simply turned to check the cost was clear, either way she spotted them.

Immediately, Felix dropped Malissa and gripped Tristan round the middle with both hands. "WATER GUN!" he shouted, pointing Tristan at her and squeezed.

Tristan, by affect of the order or by the squeezing, let loose the pressurized stream of water and knocked the woman down.

"GO GO GO!" Felix shrieked and sent his pokémon into a panic, rushing past the spluttering member of Team Aqua and into the building.

After getting up, the Aqua Admin was knocked down again when Malissa popped out of her shadow, tripped her, and snatched her pokéball's before disappearing again.

Team Aqua Admin Shelly let out a howl of fury, but the sableye was already gone.

Within the facility, chaos reigned supreme. Team Aqua grunts were breaking everything, tossing papers all about and bashing down doors. Thankfully, as the building was small, most didn't have many pokémon out. Destruction was not their aim, information was, and destroying the data or the castform would be received with considerable displeasure.

The criminal cult members didn't see Felix coming, however, and the short human was not shy about squeezing Water Gun's out of Tristan to knock the humans themselves over.

He was racing, sprinting to each room with barely a moment to pause, slapping grunts out of the way with Water Gun's until he found himself in a room with just the one criminal, two scientists, and one cowering amorphous, floating, cloud-blob-thing. Felix wasn't sure what it was or why it had balls on its chest.

"Tristan, tackle that guy!" Felix ordered, releasing Tristan and letting the mudkip charge forward. The grunt had barely the time to hear what the intruder had said before he was slammed and knocked to the ground with a gasp of pain.

A fierce growl told Felix he may have been too hasty with letting Tristan go forward, he hadn't seen any pokémon but he hadn't done more than look forward. Spinning to the position of the growl, Felix barely avoided being bitten by a poochyena. Before Tristan could right himself and turn back to fire water upon the attacker, Malissa appeared out of Felix's shadow gripping a triple set of pokéball's and smacked the poochyena on the snout.

"Back off," she hissed, tossing the balls to the side and putting up both fists. "You wanna be a coward and attack my trainer?" she growled, darting forward and punching the poochyena on the snout again.

"Ah, grr, he attacked MY trainer!" the pokémon retorted before his fangs glowed with purplish energy. He bit forward in a deadly Bite attack, but was intercepted by Tristan rushing back and tackling him before he could reach Malissa.

Malissa jumped back into Felix's shadow right as Tristan made contact. "Sleep!" She emerged from the poochyena's moving shadow and slammed it back the other way. Tristan hit it with a Water Gun before it could so much as fall to the ground and Malissa ducked, letting the poochyena fly out the door.

"There." Felix slammed the door shut and turned on the Team Aqua Grunt still present. "Stay down or Malissa will have you," he warned, the sableye picking her teeth with a Shadow Claw, the man visibly swallowed and stayed down.

"Oh thank you!" With the danger passed for the moment, the pair of scientists rushed to his side while their pokémon floated behind them, making sure itself was never closer to the Aqua Grunt than anyone else.

Thanking his hands, the pair thanked him. "Team Aqua has taken over the building!" one gasped.

"You must help," said the other. "Drive them out! Do not let them take our research, OR our castform."

"Yes! Yes!" agreed the first. "Go back out there and rout these crazy cultists out of our weather facility."

"Wait," Felix said, but they were already grabbing him. "Hold on now, hey, hey!" He shook himself free of them and glared. "Why do we have to do it ourselves. Don't you have some alarm to contact the police."

"But of course," one assured, nodding. "But they are here now. NOW! They must be stopped or else who knows what they may do with our information!"

"...weather reports?"

"Not just weather reports!" one snapped.

"Ways to manipulate the weather," the other explained, less heated than the first. "Rain Dance, Hail, Sunny Day. All but temporary, and localized, aspects to momentarily mimic actual weather. But with our information, castform, and their technology, who knows what Team Aqua could do!"

Felix looked to the Aqua Grunt sitting sullenly on the floor. "Well?" he asked. "What would you do?"

"Why are you asking me?" the grunt snapped. "You may be holding me hostage, but I'll NEVER spill the secrets of Team Aqua!"

"Yeah." Felix nodded, turning back to the scientists. "He has no idea."

"Hey!"

Everyone ignored that.

Before any calm and reasonable discussions of evicting apocalyptic cults could be made, the door was bashed down. Tristan and Malissa leaped back, both slamming into Felix and sending him down to the floor while the scientists shrieked.

"No!" one sobbed as Aqua Grunts poured in. "Castform! Protect us!" He grabbed the shaking castform and held it in front of himself while the second scientist gripped his shoulders, holding him out in front as well.

"Gosh darn pathetic." The Grunts separated to form a human passage as the woman Felix knocked down in front stomped in. "Ye yellow-bellied deckswabber's. Tis one thing to send a pokémon out to fight for ya, tis another to hold one in place like the worlds greenest cabin boy." Her foot hit a pokéball and she glanced down, then to the side where Felix was getting up. "Well ya tried," she said and grabbed her pokémon. "Now you face the full might of Team Aqua. Me names Shelly, what's yours land lover?"

Ignoring the quivering scientists, and crying castform, she focused on the trainer who had attacked her. Felix had gotten up and had both Tristan and Malissa in front of him, tensed and ready for combat.

Curling her lip, she gave a tiny shake to the man creeping up on Felix and he hesitated. "Get back over here," she demanded and the man bent his head and scittered past Felix, causing the kid to jump when he realised how close he had been.

"Ya ready?" she asked graciously. Felix glanced from side to side. "There's no room in here," he said but she scoffed. "This dump will be sinking soon, who cares if ter's a bit more wreckage to sift through after? Now." She sent all three pokémon she had out of their pokéball's. A mightyena, crawdaunt and carvanha, with the fish pokémon immediately wrapping itself in a bubble of water and floating in the air.

"Mary," she said to the mightyena. "Piranha." And the the carvanha. "For for his pokémon. Mr. Krabs, get that pokémon off the scientists."

Tristan and Malissa immediately began fighting back, sending streams of water and jumping in and out of shadows, or raking Ghost type-infused claws down scaly bodies. Neither could help as the scientists shrieked, releasing their castform as a pincer snapped threateningly at them, letting the crawdaunt grab the castform in its sharp grip.

Squealing in pain and terror, the castform tried to wriggle free, but there was no budging.

"Stop crying," Mr. Krabs hissed. "You'll only make it worse on yourself."

"Release him," Felix yelled. "Malissa, Confuse Ray on Mr. Krabs, Tristan, hold them up for a bit." Malissa darted off and flashed with a disoriantating light, while Tristan beat both attackers back with as strong of a Water Gun as he could, giving her time to send Mr. Krabs reeling in confusion.

"Get him out of there," Felix commanded before turning back to Tristan, confident that Malissa could do it. She stabbed a set of Shadow Claw talons into Mr. Krab's pincer and then bit down with teeth strong enough to chew rocks like grass, causing the confused crawdaunt to screech in pain and try and beat her back, loosening his grip on the castform enough that the jolt was enough to send him flying.

Felix dove and caught the castform as Tristan tackled the carvanha into Shelly, before Malissa came swooping back with a vengeance. Hitting the mightyena with enough force to send her flying out the window.

"Oh you cotten-picking," Shelly hissed. "Grunts, send your-"

"POLICE HAVE ARRIVED! The voice could be heard all through the building. A scientist with access to a window spotted the approaching law enforcers. "We are saved!"

"Oh blasted codgers," Shelly swore. "Get moving boys, don't let the normies grab ya, cause the captain ain't fishing you out. Let's go."

"Hi ho!" The Aqua Grunts agreed and tore off running, abandoning the room, then the facility, in seconds.

"Well," Felix said after blinking a few times. The room was still destroyed so he was confident he didn't imagine it. "That ended quickly."

"Oh thank you!" The scientists were all over him again, to Felix's displeasure. "You saved us, you saved everyone, our hero!"

"What?" Felix gasped. "No! I didn't, the police." But they weren't listening to them.

"WE WERE SAVED!" The scientists ran down the halls of their broken building, singing Felix's praises. "BRAVE YOUNG TRAINER HUZZAH!"

"Huzzah!" A frighteningly large amount of people chanted back.

"Let's just... leave," Felix said, edging out.

"Don't leave me," a voice none of them had heard when not crying squeaked. "You did save us, you saved me, please don't leave me with them." Felix, Tristan and Malissa turned to see the castform they had rescued floating up behind them. "Take me with you, please," he begged and Felix hesitated.

"Well I... I can't just take you," he said frowning. "That'd be stealing. That'd literally be what Team Aqua was here for, no way they'd let me take you."

"Oh!" Felix jumped as the scientists were back. They danced around him to the castform and then grabbed it, pushing it a little too hard into his chest. "Take this castform as our thanks, least we can do. Ta ta." And they were gone.

"Oh." Felix really didn't know what to say to that. Looking down, he pry'd the castform from his chest and looked down to its smiling face. "Well... alright then."

"Hooray!" the castform cheered, floating out of his hands and circling him a few times. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"I didn't get so easy a join," Malissa mumbled, crossing her arms.

"Because you had to dance around the topic," Tristan replied, smiling at the joy of the castform. "Also, Felix what name are you going to give our new teammate?"

"He's pretty excitable," Felix laughed as the castform nuzzled his cheek. "How about Joey?"

"Joey! Joey! Joey!" Joey, formally castform said. "That's my name, I have a name, hooray!"

It was a bit of a strange day, but Felix couldn't help but smile for the rest of it.

So a fun fact about the Hoenn team. It was the first I designed. Besides number 6 on this list, he's a recent addition. The others though have existed in some shape or thought for years and years.

Castform is a weird pokémon though. And it bothers me they never made a Sandstorm form for it.