Chapter 11:
Floraroma Town was a small, peaceful little town that Dawn found much more to her liking than Jubilife or Oreburgh.
There was an array of different colored flowers stretching out as far as the eye could see, with small, charming and cute little houses littered near the flowers, or in the gorgeous field. In the middle of it, was a slightly larger building than the rest of the houses, rising up higher, and four berry plants swayed in the slight breeze that picked up. South of the larger building, which turned out to be a flower and accessory shop, was a Pokémon Center, and next to it was a Pokémon Mart, recognized by its blue roof. The lazy sound rushing of water could be heard far over to the left, and people were mulling about, chatting with one another and taking deep breaths of the fresh flower scent.
"Where's the ice cream shop?" Dawn asked Lucas curiously, but he had disappeared seemingly. Dawn blinked her blue eyes a couple of times, and glanced around to see if Lucas was anywhere. Nope, he had vanished, without a word, or trace, completely unexpected.
Miffed, Dawn readjusted her bag and started to walk towards the Pokémon Center, hoping to book a room perhaps, and heal her Pokémon, or else how would she venture to Eterna City and through the forest? So, deciding that she would eventaully run into Lucas, as Floraroma was a small town, she casually walked up to the automatic opening door of the Pokémon Center, where Nurse Joy stood attentively, waiting for someone to approach her.
"Hi!" Dawn greeted the nurse, walking up to the counter and rumaged through her bag and brought out her Pokeballs. "Do you mind if you can heal these up, just in case? I'll be back in an hour or so, to see if I need to book I room. I lost my friend, if that's even possible..."
"Of course, and what unfortunate luck!" Nurse Joy replied politely, and grabbed the Pokeballs and put them in the healing machine a foot away from her. The screen right above it lit up, and ten seconds later Nurse Joy handed back the balls, and Dawn put them away, muttering thank you to her, then setting out once more into the peaceful town.
There wasn't much to do, except watch the flowers and relax, which was something Dawn excelled at. But she wanted to see what was up with the river to the right of the town, and see the pathway to Eterna forest, so she could get a good look at what kind of path she was dealing with, and maybe see the trainers battling or positioning themselves, waiting for a wandering trainer to swoop by.
With the grass crunching under her pink boots, she decided to explore the river and route.
It was a sunny day out, the sun hitting down on the trees and town not too hard, but just enough to make one enjoy the pleasent weather. The route (Dawn couldn't remember the name of it) was just the same as any others, with the tan colored road and all. As she walked by, she saw the dark blue river, and the bridge that connected to it. The only problem was, there were two spacemen Galactic Grunts like the ones she and Lucas had battled in Jubilife. They had their arms crossed, and glared at her as she passed by them. A shiver went through her, Dawn did not like them one bit.
"Trainer!"
Dawn turned around as a small girl with a big red bow in her brown hair ran up to her, her brown eyes filled to the brim with worry. "Trainer please help! The blue haired men took my papa and I can't see him!"
"It's alright," Dawn patted the girls head. "I'm a Pokémon trainer, I can bust your dad out of...?"
"The building over there!" The small child pointed farther to the right. "Please trainer, please!"
"I'm off, don't you worry!" Dawn reassured her, and gave a small wave of her hand, and resumed again.
There were windmills churning just past the grunts, and Dawn recognized the wide building as a power plant, the Valley Windworks to be exact, grass all around it, and a honey tree right beside the door, which was, just like the river bridge, guarded by a grunt, except for the fact that he seemed really insecure, and kept twitching his nose, and glancing around warily. Maybe he's friendly, Dawn thought as she grew nearer to the grunt.
"What do you want?" He barked at her. "You're not to come into the power plant!"
"Why not?" Dawn asked, placing her hands on her hips as she looked at the grunt, who heaved a sigh and frowned at the bluenette. "Why can't I?!" She asked again, this time putting more oomph into the word.
"Well!" The grunt exclaimed. "There is serious business going on in here, and I have orders not to let anybody in! Or else I'll have to battle them!"
Dawn grinned. "Then battle me then, because I want to get into that power plant!"
From his belt, the grunt drew a Pokeball. Dawn grabbed a random ball from her bag, and their eyes met for a fleeting second, before they sent out their Pokémon at the same time. Very much expected, a Glameow was sitting comfortably on the ground, purring. In front of the cat was Piplup, looking rather prideful and ready to battle. The Glameows weren't that hard to beat when it came to the grunts, so it should be a blast to beat them.
"I'm going first!" The grunt yelled. "Glameow, use scratch!"
Glameow leapt up gracefully onto its paws, and started running at full speed towards Piplup. Its claws flashed dangerously, and Piplup jumped up, right as Glameow attempted to scratch Dawn's Pokémon.
"Peck, if you please!" Dawn exclaimed, and Piplup's small and yellow beak lit up silver with power of the move, and hit Glameow hard, sending it flying backwards, as that was the power of the move. Dawn craned her neck to get a better look at the fallen Glameow- it had fainting on contact with Piplup's awesome move. The grunt's face paled almost instantly.
"Well, I still have the key, and I can lock in from the inside!" He taunted, trying to let his disapointment hide. "The only other key is with my friend!" With that, he gathered up his, quote, "useless" Glameow, and ran inside. Dawn could hear the click of the lock, and she knew that she had no choice but to try and get that other key from his alleged friend. Now where would his alleged friend be...?
She passed the little girl, who was quietly picking at a flower, not noticing Dawn, and past those serious looking grunts, and back into Floraroma Town. Piplup trotted alongside her, its head held high at one-shotting the Glameow. "Now, don't get too full of yourself," Dawn waved a finger at her first Pokémon, and smiled fondly at it. She vaguely remembered when she first got it, way back when they were at Lake Verity...
That was not that long ago, but seemed like it was last year or something.
"You know, I do think I know where that grunt's friend, whose also probably a grunt as well, is hiding," Dawn said, snapping her fingers togetherm, her mind putting events together. "You ready to kick some more galactic butt with Luxio and Roselia?"
Piplup gave a proud little cry, and puffed out its chest haughtily.
"Come on, we have to go in these flowers in order to get there. I noticed this entrance when Lucas and I first stepped foot in Floraroma," Dawn waded past the multi-colored flowers, and edged towards the thicket of trees, just like the ones at Lake Verity. There was indeed an entrance there, as Dawn has assumed. She winked at Piplup, and the two of them walked past the trees, and into the field of flowers, which was pure heaven.
Standing in the way were two grunts, their backs turned to Dawn and facing a balding man, who held a jar of what seemed like honey in his arms protectively.
"Hand over the honey or you'll pay!" One of the two yelled at the man, and took a step forward to scare the poor guy into oblivion. "Or it will mean serious trouble for you!" The grunt alongside him nodded at his friend's fierce words.
Dawn coughed rather loudly, and the grunts whirled around on their heels and stared at her evilly, their faces lighting up with the prospect of hopefully a battle, but darkening in the evil way Team Galactic did.
"Well, well, well, looks like we have a little duck who wandered away from its mommy!" The second grunt exclaimed, giving a pouty face to Dawn. Her partner looked at her strangely. "Now, what do you want? We're trying to do business here!"
"Business?!" The man piped up, looking worriedly from one grunt to another to Dawn again. "So, is trying to steal honey without my consent, business!? I should think... not..." He faltered under the glare of the female grunt, the first one Dawn had seen. And here she though girls had common sense.
"Kid, we're going to have to force you away from here," The male shrugged, a sinister smile etched upon his face. "You'll be kept quiet after this."
Together as if they had practiced, two Pokeballs flew up in the air, and a Zubat and of course, a Glameow were posied, ready to battle. Dawn started to calculate the types and advantages in her head. If she sent out Roselia, Roselia first off didn't have that much training, and would be at a disadvantage with the Zubat. So, deciding she would do some one on one training with Roselia later, she sent out Luxio, who stood next to Piplup, who was already out of its Pokeball. But before Dawn could even open her mouth, one of the grunts had just sent out a Wing Attack with the Zubat.
Luxio quickly dodged it, its fur bristling with electricity. Piplup, without Dawn's orders, sent out a stream of Bubblebeam. "Piplup!" Dawn snapped, but grinned as she saw the Bubblebeam hit the Glameow. "Luxio, use Spark!"
Luxio emitted a low growl, and the spark ball was sent spiraling towards both Pokémon. It narrowly missed the Glameow, but hit the Zubat square in the stomach, its wings flapping furiously. The grunts grinned triumphantly as their Pokémon got back up, the attacks shaken off.
"Bite!" The Zubat's trainer commanded it.
"Glameow, use Fury Swipes immediatley!"
The two threw themselves as Luxio and Piplup, their faces fierce. Glameow started to claw at Piplup, and certainly was successful. Zubat bit Luxio, but only to get shocked. The Pokémon started moving backwards, their breathing heavy as Piplup and Luxio stared cold and hard at them. The male grunt bit the inside of his cheek, and whispered something in the female's ear.
"Retreat!" They yelled, and their Pokémon were sucked back into the Pokeballs.
The grunts ran around Dawn and out of the flower field.
"Hey, thanks so much!" The man exclaimed, his voice wavering. "Here, have this honey. Oh, and those hooligans dropped this, if you're interested."
Dawn smiled in thanks for the honey, and looked closely at what was placed in the man's outstretched hand. It was a silver key, with small, cramped writing on the yellow part of it. She grinned as she realized it said, "Galactic key," and was probably the key to the Valley Windworks, and that one of them was probably the other grunt's friend.
"This can come deeply in handy..."
Well, not much, but a chapter, nonetheless!
