Here's the next chapter! It's another long one...but I think that's about normal now... Anyway, this chapter introduces some new characters as the title implies. Oh yeah, and once they get to Meritina Town...you can expect a lot of chapters there...One more thing, when the Pokemon talk to their trainers, I'll have what they actually mean in parentheses. Remember: The trainers still can't understand the pokemon, or at least not through direct speech that is. With all said, Enjoy!

Chapter 21: New Recruits

Now just as determined as Sky, Sora flew into the rocky area they had declared as a battlefield and prepared for a fight while making a battle stance.

"Cool dude. Flower, let's get started." He said and released a green plant pokemon with two red flowers on it's head, and yellow and green petals covering it's waist and legs.

"Bella!" It cried happily and took it's position on the battlefield.

"Haven't seen this one before either..." Sky said and pulled out the dex again.

"Bellossom, the Flower Pokemon. When Bellossom gets exposed to plenty of sunlight, the leaves on it's body begin to spin around. This Pokemon's dancing is renowned in the southern lands." Dex explained.

Pearl's eyes lit up at the sight of the flower pokemon, who was now dancing in perfect rhythm with the song Gurdy was playing on his sitar. "I would love to have one of those!" Pearl shouted blissfully.

"You mean Flower here? She's been with me for a while now." Gurdy said.

"She's so cute!" Pearl shouted again happily.

Sky just shrugged and was about to place his PokeDex in his pocket but accidently hit another button.

"Evolutionary Info." The pokedex started showing pictures of Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume and Bellossom. It also showed pictures of a few peculiar stones Sky has never seen before.

Sky was a little curious after seeing the pictures and started to press a few more buttons. "Huh, I didn't know this thing had this kind of data..." He said and continued to exam the Dex.

"Does it say how to get a Bellossom?" Pearl asked hopefully.

"Here," Sky said as he threw her the Dex. "I still haven't completely figured out how that thing works. Torence should've given me an instruction manual for it or something." He said and then returned his attention to the battle.

Pearl caught the PokeDex and immediately started doing research on Bellossom. Since Sky hasn't caught one, there wasn't much detail but she found out Gloom evolve into Bellossom by exposure to a Sun Stone.

As Pearl continued reading, Scruf let himself out of his pokeball. Sky didn't notice since he was focusing on the battle. The orange dog felt a little groggy and let out a yawn, then turned around to look at the battlefield. He saw Sora fighting Bellossom, a pokemon he had never seen before, but that wasn't what he was concerned about. He was confused to the whereabouts of the Slowpoke he was fighting earlier, so he decided to get Flora to explain things to him as he walked over towards her.

Of course, Flora was happy to see him. "Hi Scruf!" She said excitedly and ran the rest of the way towards him.

"Hey." He replied in a casual tone of voice. "Anyway, did I miss something?" He asked and made a gesture with his head to the battlefield as he heard Sora's familiar Indian like battle cry. This match was close to over.

"Yeah, I was going to ask you the same thing. You just fell asleep in the middle of the match, what happened?"

"Not sure...I remember that pink thing yawning and that's about it..." He explained as he tried to remember.

"You are okay, right? I thought something was wrong since you just fell asleep all of a sudden." She asked and seemed worried.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied simply.

"Good," Flora said and nuzzled his chest passionately. "Wouldn't want anything happing to you." She said and smiled while resting her head on his chest. Since he was a fire type, natrually he was very warm. For once, Scruf didn't blush or freeze up, he ws used to it by now.

Pearl would've payed attention to the couple since she always thought they were cute together, but was to focused on the PokeDex and Bellossom to notice. She finally turned it off and grabbed a dark green backpack on the ground beside her.

"Hey Melena," She said while standing up.

Melena was feeding her Larvitar and Gloom but turned around to answer Pearl. "Yeah?"

"I'm going to go find an Oddish, I saw one in the forest last night. Tell Sky I'll be right back if I'm not back before his match is over."

"Can do." Melena said with a smile and turned back to Larvitar and Gloom.

"Let's get going, Flora." Pearl called and started towards the forest.

"Chika! (Coming!)" Flora called back then turned around to finish her chat with her new boyfriend. "Must be more training...Well, I'll be back soon Scruf."

"No problem. I would go with you in case anything goes wrong, but Sky probably doesn't want us wandering off again." He replied seeming a little sad since he wanted to be with her.

Flora giggled a little. "You worry to much..." She said and gave him a light kiss on the cheek then ran off to catch up with Pearl. "Bye Furball!" She called, leaving Scruf completely dazed. He stayed frozen for awhile in the same position he was in when Flora kissed him, before Spike snapped him back to reality.

"Earth to dog boy!" Spike called sounding irritated.

"Huh? Oh, hey Spike."He said after shaking his head to help him out of his daydreaming state.

Spike glared at him. "It took forever to snap you out of that!" Spike complained shouting.

"What are you..." Scruf started put trailed off after noticing Spike had somehow found a banana somewhere. He was utterly confused. "Where did you get that? They don't grow around here..." Scruf asked, since banana's don't usually grow in a forest near the middle of Fall.

"Oh this?" Spike asked with a grin. He was hoping Scruf would ask about it. "It wasn't easy, but I managed to get this off of -" Before Spike could start bragging, chaos struck.

"That's mine!" They heard a voice shout out before Spike was tackled by a ball of white fur and both pokes started wrestling on the ground.

"Spike!" Scruf shouted in surprise as he was about to help but then realized Spike must have stolen that banana from the thing that had just attacked him.

"Give it back!" The attacker shouted as it pinned Spike to the ground. Now that they had stopped moving, Scruf could get a better look at the Pokemon Spike was wrestling. The attacker had white fur except for it's hands and feet which were tipped with brown, a long tail that was also tipped brown, ears that reminded Scruf of cat ears, but what stood out the most, was it had a pink, pig-like nose right below it's angry red eye's.

"Nevers!" Spike replied holding the banana even further away from the pokemon before rolling over backwards and used his feet to kick the monkey pokemon off during mid-roll. Spike landed on his feet and used a claw to keep balance after landing, the angry monkey not to far from him.

"Nice move...but gimme my banana back!" The Mankey threatened.

"Make me ape face!" Came Spike's reply, hearing that was all the monkey needed before going into another charge. They collided head on and started another wrestling match, finally attracting attention as Melena happened to notice the fight. Sky was still too distracted.

"Is...that a Mankey...? What's it doing here?" She wondered aloud as she watch the two roll back and forth, punching and scratching all the way. "Sky? Spike's fighting a Mankey." Melena informed and pointed over at the two. Spike noticed Mankey's tail as an evil smile spread on his face, revealing his very - sharp - fangs.

"Knock it off Melena, I'm trying to battle here!" Sky replied not believing her or taking his eye's off the match.

Melena shot him a sharp glare, "I'm not kidding. There's a -" she was cut off by a very loud shriek of pain. Sky, along with Gurdy and Sora, stopped and turned they're attention to the source of the scream. Sure enough, Spike had bitten the Mankey's tail as it started to run around in circles, screaming. Spike held on through clenched teeth with no intention of letting go anytime soon.

"Most un-groovy." Gurdy said as he watched the crazy, yet comical scene. Bellossom would have noticed, if it weren't badly beaten and lying on the floor.

"Spike, knock it off! Let the monkey go!" Sky demanded but as always, Spike simply ignored him.

"Alright, alright! Keep the banana, just let go!" The mankey screeched in pain.

Instead of letting go, Spike decided to bite down even harder. Mankey screeched even louder and started a blind charge, straight for Sky.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Sky yelled and turned to try and start running, but Mankey and Spike crashed right into his back and knocked him off his feet. As he was knocked forward, a pokeball managed to slip out of his pocket and into the air as well. They all collapsed on the floor in a loud crash before the Pokeball landed directly on the now unconscious Mankey's head as it was sucked in by a red light. It shook for awhile before finally stopping with a clicking noise. Spike decided to take this as a victory.

"Oh yeah! Who's bad?" Spike bragged before he started to dance around happily with the banana.

Scruf walked over to him shaking his head, "All of that for a banana..."

Spike stopped dancing and turned to Scruf. "Huh? Oh I don't even like these things." He said and threw the banana aside.

Scruf was speechless from confusion. It was easy to tell from the look on his face.

"I just did that to show him who's boss!" Spike said and grinned happily.

"Uh...right...good for you..." Scruf said, he didn't understand Spike's insane behavior at all. "Maybe he had coffee again..."

Melena and Gurdy just stared in disbelief. Through all the confusion, Sky had captured a Mankey without really doing a thing. Melena wasn't sure if he even wanted the monkey pokemon, but decided walk over and help Sky up, since he was still on the floor.

"Uh..Sky? Are you okay?" She asked and looked down at the brown haired trainer who looked unconscious.

He groaned a little before sitting up and rubbing his head. "What the heck just happened?" He asked in a confused tone.

"Well...let's just say you've got a new friend." Melena said and pointed to the PokeBall on the floor.

This didn't help Sky's confusion much, before he realized the Mankey was gone before it all started to make sense to him. "Don't tell me..."

"Yep!" Melena confirmed in a cheerful tone. "Spike was fighting with that Mankey for some reason, I think it might have been because of that banana..." Melena mused while folding her arms to think.

"Be careful." Melena warned. "Mankey's have a short tempered nature, so I would wait until it settles down before -"

"Come on out!" Sky called and threw the Pokeball into the air. He had completely ignored Melena out of pure excitement and rushed to the PokeBall after he found out what was in it.

Melena was a little angry about being ignored, but decided to ignore it. "He'll find out for himself." She said to herself with a grin.

The red flash cleared to reveal one angry looking Mankey. Sky was starting to get overly excited about a new Pokemon, but managed to keep himself under control.

"Hey there! I'm Sky, your new trainer! I don't get how it happened, but your part of our team now!" He greeted happily.

Mankey glared.

"Um...how bout I call you...Tank? How's that sound?" He asked the pig-monkey pokemon.

Tank growled.

"Uh...Tank?"

In a sudden burst of rage, Tank jumped on Sky, clenched a fist, and started pounding away with his fist on Sky's head.

"Owowowowow! Are you crazy? Melena, help!" Sky shouted as he tried to pull the enraged monkey off his head.

Melena bursted into laughter. "Can't say I didn't warn you!"

"Help!"

Gurdy sat along a big, flat rock. He had been watching the whole thing since it started while playing a song on his sitar, something he never gets tired of doing. He had returned Bellossom awhile ago, since it was to weak to fight anymore.

"...Most un-cool..." He mumbled.

Pearl had been searching in the forest along with Pearl for awhile now. They had come across a few Rattata, Paras, Bellsprout, but no Oddish so far.

Pearl sighed and sat down by a tree, exhausted from searching. "Not one Oddish so far..." She said sadly and lowered her head.

"Chi..ka...(so...tired...)" Flora said between breaths, she had fought any Pokemon that came their way so far and was close to collapsing from exhaustion.

"Don't worry Flora, I haven't forgotten about you." Pearl said and reached in her backpack and pulled out three Oran berries and gave them to Flora.

"Chi chika! (Yes! I'm starved!)" Flora said happily and immediately started eating the berries. Pearl watched, and smiled. She didn't care too much about not finding an Oddish anymore. She was happy enough with Flora.

After Flora finished eating, they both had the energy to get up and decided it was time to leave. "Well Flora, let's head back. It doesn't look like any Oddish are around here..." She said and hoisted her backpack over her shoulders.

Flora nodded and followed Pearl as they started their walk back. Pearl, of course was disappointed during the trip back. Flora looked up at her sadly, but she didn't know what else she could do. Pearl pulled out Sky's pokedex that she borrowed and decided to look up Oddish again.

"Please target selected Pokemon." It said through an automated voice.

Pearl sighed and let the PokeDex fall to her side in her hands. "Can't get even a little info on it..."

They walked a little more before the PokeDex made a binging noise.

"Huh?" Pearl said and brought the PokeDex back up in front of her, surprisingly, there was a picture of Oddish on it.

"Oddish, the Weed Pokemon. During the daytime, Oddish buries itself in soil to absorb nutrients from the ground using it's entire body. The more fertile the soil, the glossier it's leaves become." The Dex explained and then shut itself off. Leaving Pearl confused.

"Why's it working now...? There aren't any Oddish..." She trailed off after remembering what the PokeDex had just said: Oddish bury themselves underground during the daytime.

With new found excitement, Pearl immediately started to search the ground around her, keeping a lookout for glossy looking leaves. After a moment of searching, she found a few familiar looking leaves from pictures in the PokeDex in overturned soil.

"Yes! This might be it!" Pearl said excitedly. "Now how to get it out..." She wondered and tried to think up an idea.

"The leaves are a part of it, right?" Flora wondered and walked over to the leaves, having an idea of her own. Pearl wondered what Flora was doing, but decided to just wait and see. "Here go's nothing..." Flora said and bit down on a leaf, which surprised Pearl a little bit.

"Flora, don't -" She cut herself off as she noticed the leaves started to stir in the soil. Flora backed up a little as the leaves burst out of the ground to reveal the rest of the Pokemon's body. It was blue all over, no arms, but it had feet at least. It glared angrily at Flora through beady red eyes for bitting it.

"Alright! Looks like we found what we came for! Ready Flora?" Pearl asked happily with a grin.

Flora nodded and got into a battle stance while glaring right back at the Oddish.

The Oddish decided to start things off as it shook around the leaves on it's head and pink spores floated through the air. Pearl reconized the attack immediately after seeing Melena's Gloom use the same move on Scruf before.

"It's using Sweet Scent...Flora use your leaf as a fan!" Pearl called.

Flora swayed the leaf on atop of her head as it created a gentle breeze to keep the spores at bay. Once the Oddish realized it's attack wasn't working, it decided to take a more offensive approach and charged straight for Flora.

"Okay, now use Tackle Flora!" Pearl ordered.

Flora started a charge as well as they both ran a collision course for each other. The two collided head on and Oddish was forced of it's feet with Flora taking on only slight damage.

"Good, now let's try Razor leaf!" Pearl called, forgetting that Razor Leaf was the same type of attack as Oddish.

Flora swayed her leaf around as a few more leafs spun quickly towards the Oddish. Having little experience in battles, the oddish was unable to dodge the attack in time as the razor sharp leaves cut away at the small weed pokemon. As uneffective as the type of attack was, the cuts it had from the leaves started to bleed a little as it felt like collapsing right there from pain.

"Now's my chance.." Thought Pearl as she pulled out a Pokeball from the ball pocket of her backpack, instead of keeping them in her pocket like Sky normally does. "Okay, here goes!" She said a hurled the PokeBall towards the injured Oddish. It collided into Oddish's side as the red light absorbed it into the ball. The ball fell to the ground and started shaking. Pearl held her breath as she waited to what was going to happen. The ball shook three times before it finally stopped, and clicked.

Pearl could hardly believe they're luck. "We did it! We caught Oddish!" She celebrated. Flora just as happy. Pearl ran over to pick up the ball. "Come on, let's go show the others!" Pearl said and started to run towards where they left the everyone.

"Chika chi! (Yeah, right behind you!)" She said and ran right after Pearl.

There you have it! Tank the Mankey and an Oddish will be joining the gang! You'll see Oddish's nickname next chapter, once I think one up that is...Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please Review, and I'll sing a pirate song!