Okay, so I've accidentally released Delia and yet again we're faced with the Misdreavus. At least we have Mesprit with Pip and me now… But anyway, back to the point.

There is a moment of utter silence as three pairs of red eyes and one pair of black ones (strangely enough, me, Delia and Mesprit all have red eyes? I wonder why) stare at each other.

"Who are you? Another friend of Ralf's?" Mesprit tilts her head questioningly. "Nice to meet you. I'm Mesprit."

A straining, tense moment of silence follows with Pip's face full of expectation of another attack, before Delia replies with: "I suppose you could say that."

"WHAT?" Pip's expectation implodes in a surprised cry, "YOU SUPPOSE YOU'RE OUR FRIEND?"

"Well, what did you want me to say?" Delia demands. "That perhaps I was your enemy who wanted to kill you both but was captured in that demeaning thing and after escaping and getting captured again got kicked out of the Association I dedicated my life to because of you idiots and am now dragged around like some unwitting slave?"

"Oh, so you're Delia? And you got caught by Ralf and Pip, was it? But now that the Association has rejected you, you have nothing to do but to follow them, especially trapped in the pokéball as you were. I see." Mesprit nods thoughtfully. I, on the other hand, have no idea how Mesprit can actually 'see' anything in that barrage of words Delia just spewed out. But what she's saying is true…

Hey, she's making me feel bad about the whole Association kicking-out thing! Is she trying to guilt-trip us? But then again, I guess Delia was just following orders or whatever, and we were in the way, which was why she attacked us in the first place…

"Hey! Ralf! Don't go sympathising with that dratted Misdreavus too now! Can't forget how she tried to kill us and hurt us and all!" Pip yells, shaking me by my shoulders. "She's not our friend! She will never be our friend! A Paras never changes its spots!"

"Come on! Since you're so afraid of letting me loose, you carry me around in a pokéball all the time. And for what, all eternity? Hey, I have feelings too you know! What would you feel like being imprisoned all the time?" Delia hovers over me, kind of pleadingly even.

Urgh, this argument with the two scariest Pokémon around is giving me a headache. Also, I'm a very nice person. Seriously. So I just say: "Let's just give Delia a chance, okay?"

"SERIOUS?!" Delia and Pip exclaim at the same time, looking at me in disbelief.

"I mean… she does have a point, right? If she was from the Association she might have some useful information… and uh, she's pretty strong and can help us out… if we give her a chance…?" I trail off hesitantly, kind of disturbed by the various emotions I'm feeling from them, including but not limited to: disbelief, incredulity, doubt, scepticism… Oh wait are those all the same thing? My bad.

"I agree with Ralf." Mesprit, my saviour! "It does seem that you are a strong Pokémon. And I'll be happy to get any help reaching my sibling Azelf at Lake Valour. If you're really sincere about coming with us, then I'm sure you wouldn't mind sharing whatever you know about the Association's plans with Azelf?"

I'm amazed. Delia is being driven into a corner by Mesprit, who has a welcoming and friendly smile on her face as she speaks to her… I guess her talent isn't just in her strong psychic powers after all! Meanwhile, the Misdreavus is starting to look uneasy at Mesprit's words. The pair of crimson eyes stare at Mesprit, then flickers momentarily to me, even to Pip, then back to the pink Pokémon. Considering, perhaps, whether her loyalty to the association she was in is worth giving up for this group of Pokémon who have always been hostile to her, that is up until now…

She hesitates again. And then finally replies.

"They're going to do the same thing that they did to you… obviously."

To make a long story short, Delia explained (after Mesprit's extreme interrogating) that she hadn't been in a very high-up position in the Association, so she didn't know why, when or how they were doing it (I think I saw Mesprit cringe a little at the "how" bit though… I sure can remember how painful it was), just that they were planning to do it to all three of the "lake guardians" and the plan would be completed very soon. Needless to say, our next goal was immediately decided (by a very worried Mesprit) to be to reach Azelf at Lake Valour as soon as possible. So to end off this short story, we are now standing in front– I mean, in an alley nearby where no one can see us, that is, of the Pokémon Centre after a good night's sleep and some breakfast. Oh and Pip is in a sulky mood.

"How is helping Mesprit supposed to help US find the Professor?! We're not here to help some lengendaries! We need to save the Professor and this ANNOYING BLOB won't tell us anything about him! I swear, you're just playing with us…" Pip scowls at Delia, who simply sticks out her tongue at him in return, hovering high above our heads. Mesprit is safely out of sight in a pokéball, but we don't know how to navigate this huge city to the route that supposedly leads us towards the lake, so Delia volunteered to be our "air support".

"Hmm… This is a little difficult." Totally ignoring Pip, Delia floats back down towards me, of course making sure she doesn't come anywhere in reach of the fuming Piplup. "It looks like the best way over there is to turn right here, and then just follow the path and we'll reach it. But it passes by a road that's really crowded for some reason, so it might not be a good idea, so…"

"WELL THEN THINK OF ONE DUMBASS! THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE OUT HERE FOR!" Before we know it, a pokéball is flying out towards Delia but a red aura envelops around it instantly, holding it in place before it meets its target. Sighing, I lower the pokéball down as Delia and Pip have yet another glaring contest. Can't those two just grow up a little? I mean, I actually have no idea what their real ages are and all but they're acting like newly-hatched grumpy siblings. "Cut it out. Delia, you were about to say something?"

Shooting one last glare at Pip, Delia turns back to me. "Thanks for that. Anyway, there's a small strip of woodland just over there," she nods at a patch of trees not far off, "they lead the same way and we can bypass the crowds too. Just that there are probably some Pokémon lurking in there too, but they won't cause us too much trouble if we're lucky."

"Hopefully you two won't make any trouble for them with all these fighting, you mean. Please, Pip, Delia. We're a team now," I remind them as I carefully replace Delia's pokéball into Pip's bag, which I then take away to carry it myself as Pip scowls at me. I totally felt that pokéball "attack" coming, and based on what I'm feeling from him right now, can't say there won't be another one soon if I let him hold on to it.

I let Delia lead the way while keeping Pip behind me as we leave the alley, instinctively creating my human disguise as we come onto the street. A few people walking around glance at us as we pass by, but it's definitely way less attention than we got yesterday. I guess Piplups and Misdreavus aren't as rare as a pink Drifloon, though I think I do get a few suspicious looks from Pokémon who were strolling alongside their trainers.

The crowd gradually thins, and it's not long before we reach the "strip of woodland" as Delia had put it, and it's much more of a forest than the one in Amity Square we were in previously. At least it seems the two aren't quarrelling anymore, what a relief. Glancing around to check if anyone's looking (a human and his Pokémon going into a forest when there's a perfectly fine but way-too-crowded road would seem a little weird, I think) I subtly use my Psychic to lift a branch out of the way and we all duck into the forest.

"It's a bit of forest framing the outskirts of the city, just a few minutes' walk and we should be coming out onto the proper route," explains Delia who drops behind a little as we stroll along. Pip on the other hand runs ahead as the forest gets a little thicker, every now and then I have to hold away overhanging branches with Psychic. Although my reflexes and psychic powers has always been okay-ish, I feel like they've improved somewhat ever since I started this journey. Even with me masquerading as a human, I've had way more chances to battle and practise my skills, just like how Sister was always pestering me to do… how ironic, when I think about it…

"YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!" A screech that is undeniably Pip's suddenly rings out. What the – wait, I'm alone? Which means the other two are ahead and-

"GRAAAAAAAAAHH! WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!"

"It's all YOUR fault!"

Oh boy. "What's HAPPENING here?!" Finally catching up with them, I see Pip and Delia, masks of anger on their faces, and beside them…

A drenched Gloom?...

SO should not have left those two alone. Now they've caused trouble again. And isn't that the Gloom me and Pip met yesterday?

"You Piplup… Ya brought your trainer along this time?" The Gloom is very obviously backing away from me. Trainer? Doesn't he recogn… oh. OH. That was stupid of me.

"That was kinda stupid of you. You should have just gotten rid of it once we came in here." Pip seemingly reads my mind (again) as I finally remember to drop the human disguise, causing the Gloom's expression of fear to turn into one of utter confusion (he feels like he's going to faint, I think).

"Well don't call me stupid! What did you and Delia do THIS time? Always acting like idiotic hatchlings!" I glare at him and Delia, and at least they have the decency to drop their gazes. Sigh, those two, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened. Pip launched attack, Gloom gets drenched, I break up the fight before those two go into a full-out catfight.

There's something else… The smell of… "POFFINS?" A whole bunch of them, just lying on the ground next to Gloom! "Can I take one thanks!" The poffin is already in my mouth before he can reply. Mmmm… smooth and sweet, I've missed this taste so much! It's a little disgusting though, all soaked and soggy for some reason.

"Y-you were just…! Why are ya eating my poffins, anyways?!" Gloom has recovered his speech at least, though he doesn't make a move to stop my poffin-eating. Standing there drenched, dripping and drooling, he looks even worse than before, but then he did get attacked by Pip… ohhh, wait. The poffins are the Gloom's? I guess they got caught in the attack too (not that tastes too bad now), why am I so slow right now? I feel like an idiot. And now yet another Pokemon has learnt my secret – a look of understanding is starting to dawn on Gloom's face, in rather stark contrast to the faces of irritation and annoyance glancing at each other behind him (despite having been scolded just a few seconds earlier! Those two!)

I chomp down on another poffin as the Gloom (wisely) steps out their line of attack. "Yer that Ralf I met that time with that cute Pip!" I'm not really liking that tone of voice. "So you've got some of those illusioning powers too? Psychic powers aren't bad. Better than blindly shootin' jets of water at innocent passer-by," at this point Gloom in all his wet glory glares at Pip, who thankfully (or not) is eyeing the equally distrustful Delia in anticipation of perhaps another attack/insult? So preoccupied with their childish task that he doesn't even notice he was called cute or blindly attacking. I guess there are some pros to them fighting….

"Well I'll have to apologise on their behalf…" I sigh.

The Gloom smirks, "An apology is nice and all, but how are you gonna make up for my ruined poffins? I need a more… sincere… apology."

"HUH? Your poffins are fine! They're just a little wet… They taste totally awesome! Makes me wish I could make some myself." The reaction I get from Gloom the next moment throws me off; smugness? Oh no did I say something wrong? I'm getting a bad feeling about this…

"That's great! You want to learn how to make poffins? Then I know just the place!" With a grin, Gloom grabs the strap of my (or Pip's I guess) bag and tugs me along as he strides off towards what I know is the Hearthome City edge of the forest. What is he trying to do? I panic and yank my bag back. "Stop it! What're you doing!"

The force of my pull abruptly jerks the bag back and the stuff inside – pokéballs, Pip's pokédex – flies out into the air to land at Gloom's feet. I curse my luck as the Gloom gingerly picks one up.

"Pokéballs? My, yer quite the naughty Pokémon to be carryin' this kind of things around! Sure matches that Trainer look of yours just now!" Gloom remarks, examining the pokéball. "Looks all new to me. Never seen one up close before, not that I want any of these things near me in the first place."

"Give it back!" By this time I've already levitated the rest of the stuff on the ground into my bag, but I'm not as sure about snatching away that pokéball in Gloom's hands for some reason, maybe for a fear of damaging it. Who knows how tightly he's holding to the pokéball? I can feel that it's definitely Mesprit's (curse my luck even more), and I've heard stories of how pokéballs can't release the Pokémon inside if they're damaged or something. Can't risk it!

By some miracle, Pip and co. actually notice what's going on. "Hey, that's OUR pokéball! Don't touch that, drippy head!" yells Pip, whose expression is showing his closeness to launching another attack. Delia follows suit with a menacing glare of her own: "Give that back and stop disturbing us! Like you actually want that kind of disgusting human trash anyway!"

"Nah you're right, I don't want it. But I do want a proper apology for all your rudeness, grumph! So whaddaya say?" Gloom waves the pokéball triumphantly at us, "your piece of human trash for a very sincere apology?"

It seems like I have no choice but to agree to his demands. "Can you all just calm down! We promise to make it up to you if you give us back the pokéball. But what exactly do you want us to do?"

"You ruined my poffins so it seems I need some new ones, which ain't soggy and disgusting. Unfortunately, I don't have any way to make more since I got no more fire or berries. Grumph!"

"So? What does that have to do with us? We don't exactly have fire or berries do we?" Pip rolls his eyes. "Just gimme back the pokéball already!"

Before pretty much anyone can react, Pip's dashing towards the Gloom and the pokéball is in his flippers. He turns to run off with his prize… but not before Gloom sneezes at him.

"FLOOF!" That isn't the usual sound a sneeze makes but trust me, that was what that sneeze sounded like. A bunch of yellowy powder fills the air around Gloom and Pip, making him stop in his tracks instantly, and I hear a weird sound: "Dam… y… ppy head!"

It takes a moment for the sneeze cloud to dissipate and when it does, Pip for some reason is still standing there and glaring daggers at Gloom, but not doing anything else. It's as if he's paralyzed to the spot, I think as the Gloom strolls over and takes the pokéball casually out of the blue flippers still holding on to it.

"DAMN YOU DRIPPY HEAD! What did you paralyze him for? I mean he does totally deserve it but not by some idiot like you!" Delia rushes over, her eyes glowing a menacing red. Wait, he is paralyzed? Wait even more, THAT'S NOT THE POINT! Is Delia trying to start a fight AGAIN?

Gloom backs away, "Hey hey, it was his fault for tryin' to take it. And I'm warning you, I can do it to ya too, so keep ya distance!"

"Oh sure I'm going to "keep me distance" from you!" A smirk forms on Delia's face as her eyes brighten… There's a red flash, and the next moment Pip is gone and I'm standing in front of the Gloom, scowl on my face and pokéball floating in a red aura next to me. The Misdreavus I'm facing blinks abruptly and the light in her eyes fade away. "Ralf? How'd you get there so fast-"

"Could you just cut it out? I can feel that Gloom really does need those poffins, and yeah he's being a bother but we're bothering him just as much. Let's just get those poffins whatever and get going!" I keep Pip's pokéball back into my bag. I know of some berries, red spicy ones that Mom once told me could cure paralysation, not that we'd ever had a chance to use them in that way. Gloom said he needed berries, so whatever he's going to have us do will probably let us find a few to treat Pip. I turn to Gloom, who's also looking shocked, probably over my speed. Truth is, along with my psychic powers and instincts, my speed and attack powers have been increasing too. Since I'm already thinking back about my family, I'm pretty sure Sister told me about this phenomenon, she called it "levelling up" that happened when I got more experience in battling. I don't know about battling… though I have been in a lot of scuffles lately (including Pip and Delia's impromptu fights). In any case, back to the point. I ask Gloom: "What exactly do want us to do, now?"

Gloom shuffles back a bit. "Well, yer one of those psychic illusionists aren't ya? There's this someplace in Hearthome where them humans let other humans make poffins. I've seen it before. Pokémon aren't allowed in without human companion though."

I sigh. "So you want me to go there and make poffins for you. Fine, but give back that pokéball first." Even as I say it, I can feel Delia's glare boring into me, probably accusing me of helping the Gloom despite all he's done. Gloom doesn't notice though.

"How am I gonna be sure yer won't just run away?"

"Don't test my patience DRIPPY HEAD!" Comes Delia's voice from above us, which seems to do the trick.

"My my, it really must be tough on you to be managing those two all the time." Gloom nods towards the Misdreavus floating a little behind us, who glares back at him. Even when Pip's not around, she's still in a bad mood…

"You see, Delia was our enemy just a while ago, so Pip's just being unhappy I decided to include her on our adventure. And it became a mutual thing I guess."

"Hey! Do you know how annoying to be treated like some criminal under supervision all the time by that fluffball?!" Delia butts in.

"Just a bit of advice here, but I'd seen even the worse of enemies become best of friends."

"Humph. You won't understand." Delia states angrily.

"Hey, how long will this take anyway?" The more time spent on this, the less time we can stop the Association and save the professor.

"Now, this won't take long. The humans over there, I've heard they'll let pretty much anyone make poffins for free… whatever that means," the Gloom states casually. "Here, I'll lead ya to it. Not far from 'ere." We've reached the edge of the forest again, it seems. Not only that, it comes out into a super crowded road that I'm pretty sure was exactly the same one we were trying to avoid in the first place. Sigh. Back to square one, only this time with a really troublesome Gloom, a paralyzed Pip and a stupid poffin-making task in tow.

"…Lead the way."

Okay hi! I'm back again after err... too long. Way too long. I'm sorry! Also, I do know that this chapter ends on a somewhat awkward way, mostly because I didn't want to use about another 2 weeks thinking of a way to end it more eloquently or something .

In order to (kind of) make up for the long wait I did finally get around to drawing a cover image for this thing, but I'm not any kind of pro so yeah, it's nothing special. In fact its kind of crappy, but hope yall like it ^~^

Err well, once again I will try my best for the next chapter so that this doesn't only get updated like every term... I think I'd be twenty by the time I finished this if I did that. Or older.

In any case, I also get that this whole chapter is generally seems to be zero story plot (like Ralf said, they're just back to where they started) but I wanted to show off his cool developing skills (and Gloom comes back) anddd there's going to be a fun human event that he's going to get mixed up in hehehe. Think about where he is and what he's going to do - that kinda gives you pretty big hints for what's gonna happen. Hopefully it happens soon... I promise I'll work harder!

Reviews are desperately needed, thanks!

~Emplatinum