Windy Day Delays

Another day on the road but nobody seemed particularly up to this one. During the afternoon of the previous day a storm had started to blow in. It threatened to rain for the rest of the day and all through the night, motivating the trainers to put up a tarpaulin shelter but it didn't rain. The clouds were still hanging heavy overhead yet still it wouldn't rain. However, it was incredibly windy and that resulted in a cold, blustery night where it was hard to get any sleep. The leaves rustled noisily and the trees swayed so violently in such strong winds that branches were dropping right in front of them. The heavy wind was difficult to walk against so the group travelled along close to the trees on the side of the path.

Mari marched ahead, looking at her PokéNav and grumbling. "Sorry about this. Before we left this storm wasn't forecast for at least five days."

"So it blew in quicker than expected," Ray said with a shrug. "You can't control the weather. Are we at least close to Petalburg City?"

"Think we can make it in just a couple of hours."

"Thank goodness," Hilary sighed, holding her skirt down so the wind couldn't blow it around. "This wind is messing up my clothes and hair."

"Why worry about that when you haven't changed in over a week and haven't bathed in three days?" Tyson asked

"Shut up!"

"Keep moving and be quiet," Kai snapped, bringing up the rear with his scarf being blown haphazardly around him. It annoyed him a lot more than he dared to let on. Togepi snickered, like she was laughing at Hilary and Tyson for getting told off.

"Can you two please not fight?" Mari said exasperatedly. She looked up. "We're almost the—oh no." Hilary and Tyson were starting to bicker but they stopped and turned their attention to the front.

"What's wr—," Max started, looking ahead. "Oh… damn it."

Ahead of them was a road block. A couple workers with hard hats and high-visibility vests were standing in front of reflective fences weighted down with sandbags to stop the traffic before the huge trees lying across the road.

"Will we be able to keep going?" Max wondered as they approached the block.

"Excuse me," Mari said, getting one worker's attention. "Would we be able to pass through here?"

"Sorry, kids. The road's closed," he replied. His eyes darted to the device in her hand. "PokéNav might not have updated yet since we only just set up. Got reports of trees down and an investigation into some of the surrounding trees suggests that there's a risk of more of them falling if this wind keeps up. But you can still get to Petalburg City. There's a detour path marked through the forest that we believe doesn't pose as much of a risk." He pointed into the forest where the grass was longer and the light was lower. "Just follow the red and white tape and you'll do fine. Take you longer to get to Petalburg City but you can make it there before nightfall."

"Phew, that's good to know," Hilary muttered. "So what are we waiting for? Let's go."

The red and white caution tape stretched from tree to tree through the forest. There wasn't even a worn path yet and the dark clouds above ensured that the forest was even darker still. The tall trunks around them kept the wind at ground level to a minimum but the canopy roared viciously.

"Man, the only thing that could make this worse is if it was raining," Tyson muttered.

"Don't say it, you'll jinx it," Max said.

"At least it isn't so—,"

CRRAAACCKK!

The group paused and looked up just in time to see a huge bough falling upon them. It was about to land right on top of Tyson! Ever quick on his feet, Ray yanked Tyson out of harm's way. Everyone froze for a tense moment as the bough crashed heavily between them. Hearts raced and the whole group let out the breaths they were holding in.

"I-I…" Tyson stammered, staring at the bough in terror. He turned to Ray and leaped on him, wrapping his arms and legs around his Chinese friend. "Oh my god! Ray, I could have died! You literally saved my life!"

"Ack! Okay, I get it, you're grateful," Ray gasped, trying to pry Tyson's arms off his neck, "but please let me breathe."

"Such a big branch," Mari said. "Weather must be super bad."

Max patted his chest, attempting to soothe the heart palpitations. "In that case, we should get out of here."

Ray and Tyson climbed over the bough as the group started to get moving again, this time at a brisker pace.

"That's so weird, though," Daichi murmured as he followed his friends over the obstacle.

"How so?" Kai asked.

"It's so big." Daichi looked up in the direction it came from and spotted the tree that it had fallen from. The tree had once forked but not anymore. The only thing left of almost half of it was a splintery mess.

"Are you saying that something other than the wind knocked it down?" Kai inquired.

Daichi shrugged and crawled over the rest of the way. "I don't know. If we were still in our own world I would say the wind but if a herd of Lotads can do gardening then maybe there's a Pokémon that can knock down half a tree."

Kai narrowed his eyes at that. The group was trekking further into the forest and would eventually be lost. Togepi cheeped like a chick and looked between her trainer and the group, wondering why he wasn't following immediately. He decided he would be able to catch up with them a bit later. Instead, he checked out the fallen bough and immediately realised that there was something not right about it. The jagged edge where it broke was too dry for starters. He looked up at the tree. The branches it still had were alive with luscious green leaves that were swaying dangerously in the wind. Instead of leaking with sap and wet with water the bough that had fallen appeared to be dead. The opposite end of it didn't seem much different but was still odd. The leaves were still dark like they were healthy but they were dry and shrivelled.

It was weird that only half of a tree should be dead while the other half was alive, Daichi was right about that. Kai pondered the possibility that perhaps the tree had been diseased in some way. He was about to just leave and catch up with the group until Togepi squirmed a bit, cooing at him urgently. She was pointing at something. Kai looked in that direction, scanning over the branches until he suddenly spotted what Togepi must have seen. It was a huge acorn… a huge acorn with eyes and feet. It was lying in a clump of dry leaves and twigs between branches and had fallen unconscious when the bough broke. It was a deep, metallic bronze colour and had a shimmer to it like it was made of polished metal.

Kai took out his Pokédex and captured it on the camera, unsure if it would open in the main Pokédex or the Berrydex. "Seedot, the acorn Pokémon. It attaches itself to tree branches with the top of its head to suck moisture from the tree. The more water it drinks, the glossier its body becomes. While it dangles it remains completely still and is hard to distinguish from real nuts."

"It's… a Pokémon?" Kai murmured. He looked at the Seedot again. Yet another creature that didn't look like it should be real.

The leaves around it rustled as the Seedot shifted. Kai tensed and took out a Pokéball. The Seedot blinked and looked around as the fuzzy world came back into focus and spotted Kai. It wriggled in a panic and leaped onto a more stable branch, where it began to glow with a pulsing red colour. Unsure what it was doing, Kai put away his Pokéball and went back to his Pokédex. The Attackdex informed him: "Bide; the user takes hits and then retaliates with double the power."

"I see… so if I do nothing then it probably won't hurt me," Kai surmised, putting his Pokédex away.

He stood still and stared at the Seedot as it growled lowly and continued to bide its time. Eventually it couldn't stand powering up any more and burnt out with a sigh. It sat down on the branch, feeling a little lightheaded when all of that pent up pressure couldn't be released. The branch, however, was a little bit too thin and too dry. It cracked under Seedot's weight and the Pokémon began to slip. Its little legs flailed for a moment, until Kai caught it and picked it up before it could fall. He cradled it in his free arm and Togepi reached over to tickle it playfully.

"I'm surprised you survived such a big fall," he commented. The Seedot squirmed in frustration. "Calm down, I won't hurt you." Seedot stopped and gazed up at him from under the rim of its head. "Are there any more of you?"

Seedot turned to the front again and went still. Kai sighed and decided to just keep walking. They might encounter some more along the way.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group had continued along, following the tape-marked path through the forest. An unnerving walk through a dark forest had become boringly uneventful. The two girls decided to go way ahead of the group when the boys' conversations started to lean towards competitive beyblading. Mari was the first to be shut out because she didn't know what any of their terminology meant and Hilary quickly followed when Daichi snubbed her for a lack of technical knowledge.

"Hey, Daichi, leave Hilary alone!" Tyson snapped. "She's just trying to hang with us."

"But she keeps saying really stupid things," Daichi argued. "Hasn't she been friends with you guys long enough to know stuff about beyblading?"

"She's been learning," Ray said, "but I guess she must sometimes feel demoralised by the fact that all of the bladers she knows are pros."

"Why would she feel like that?" Tyson asked. "If she wanted to be a good beyblader she could have just asked any of us for help and we would have given it. Right, Kai?" He turned around and grinned but there was nothing but trees, bushes and grass. "Kai?"

"Don't tell me Kai just wandered off," Max said.

Ray groaned. "Really? Here? How didn't we notice after all this time?"

"Kai's always running off to do his own thing," Tyson grumbled. "He doesn't care about how anybody else feels. I bet he's fine."

"What if he gets lost?"

"The path is marked with candy-cane-coloured tape," Tyson pointed out. "I'm sure he'll find it. Besides, Kai's not the type of idiot who would willingly wander so far from the road that he gets lost." He turned to Daichi as he said that.

"Hey, don't look at me like that!"

Max stared at the forest behind them worriedly. "But what if he wasn't willingly pushed off the track?"

"Hey, boys!" Hilary called back to them. "Stop falling behind or we'll leave you. I'm serious!"

"Listen, Kai's going to be okay," Tyson asserted. "He does this kind of thing all the time but he knows how to take care of himself if there's trouble. Let's just keep going to Petalburg City and if he doesn't make it by – I don't know, let's say – midnight, then we should send a search party out for him. Otherwise the rest of us risk getting lost too."

The bladers nodded and jogged to catch up with the girls, hoping that Tyson was actually right about this one.

Kai honestly hadn't even been lost but he did realise that he'd fallen a lot further behind than he'd initially thought. An hour later he still hadn't caught up with the group. Not that he could say that he was trying particularly hard. Seedot hadn't protested being carried through the forest since its first outburst and Kai contemplated just putting it down and capturing it. Togepi was probably helping as she babbled near constantly the entire time.

Something dropped from the trees and zoomed past him, narrowly missing. It almost startled him and he stopped in his tracks to look down. Another Seedot got to its feet and scuttled backwards, growling at him with a voice that sounded like a handful of nuts being rattled together. Several more dropped out of the trees, some of them accidentally dragging branches down with them. All of them were a different colour to the one that Kai was carrying around with him, being tawny brown instead of bronze. An eerie chorus of rattly growls filled the forest around him. The Seedots glared at Kai and some of them even started to pulse and bulge with building energy.

The bronze Seedot jumped out of Kai's arm and shuffled towards the pod, clicking at them urgently. The others looked at each other, murmuring in contention. Most of them decided to continue to stand off against this human. The rest followed with the majority. After all, it couldn't be a coincidence that humans showed up and started putting ribbon everywhere so soon after their trees started to fall. The bronze Seedot jumped up and down in frustration. Togepi's baby talk was a little bit difficult to understand but it had gathered that the humans hadn't been around when the trees started to fall apart.

Kai could tell that there was going to be trouble and took a Pokéball out of his pocket. One of the Seedots ended the face-off by lunging at the bronze one. It pulsed red and took the attack head-on. Other Seedots started to join in the fray, all tackling the bronze one. They were suddenly all blown back when the bronze Seedot unleashed a terrific energy. Kai called out Poochyena, commanding her to use Howl and then Bite. She latched onto one of the foes with her massive fangs and shook it around violently before tossing it into one of its allies. A Seedot head-butted her in the side. She bounced and rolled on the ground.

"Don't give up!" Kai called to her as she was weakly staggering to her feet. "Use Assurance."

Poochyena leaped back into the battle, targeting the Seedot that head-butted her. She concentrated a large amount of dark energy in her left paw and swiped at it. It flew back at such a speed that it knocked over several others in its trajectory like bowling pins before crashing hard into a tree. Poochyena panted hard. She looked like she was about to faint. Kai crouched down beside her and fed her one of the Sitrus berries they'd kept from the trainer garden.

"You did a good job," he said, stroking her fur comfortingly.

The leading Seedot growled angrily. It charged towards Kai and Poochyena. Its body was shimmering with some impending attack and it leaped at them to unleash it. Poochyena had quite gotten her strength back yet and wasn't able to attack. Kai scooped her up and tried to move out of the way but he wouldn't get out of the range of the attack in time. The bronze Seedot jumped between them and from the tip of its stem it began to shoot a barrage of little, yellow seeds with bullet speed. The attacking Seedot was blown back by the machinegun-like fire and flew into the air where it exploded spectacularly.

Kai stared with a slack jaw and a flabbergasted expression. The Seedot's charred body dropped to the ground and went completely still. For once in recent years he couldn't keep the tide of emotion from showing on his face. He had never, ever seen a creature just randomly explode like that. The other Seedot all began to exchange glances and chatter again. Some of them decided to abandon the scrap altogether in favour of collecting their exploded comrade and scurrying away carrying it on their heads. The pod was significantly smaller but they quickly reverted to hostility. Kai put Poochyena back on her feet and stood up, ready to give commands and fight again.

BOOM!

There was a great flash as a large fork of lightning suddenly ripped across the sky and struck a tree in the forest. A large branch cracked and fell. The lightning had ignited it. Seeing fire, the Seedot all panicked. They scurried and scrambled back and forth, unsure of what to do. Some of them simply high-tailed it back into the undergrowth to get away from the flames before they spread. The bronze Seedot jumped from foot to foot and looked around frantically for a solution.

"Poochyena, use Sand Attack," Kai ordered. Poochyena began kicking on as much dirt as she could to smother the fire but as the grass around it began to catch alight, Kai knew her efforts alone wouldn't be able to do it. He picked up his second Pokéball and grimaced. She was so useless and he hadn't been able to successfully teach her in the past couple of days but he supposed it was worth a shot. He put Togepi down and released Magikarp. "Use Water Gun."

Magikarp wobbled in Kai's hands. He was about to sigh, thinking she wasn't going to do it but then she tensed up, squeezed her eyes shut and with a mighty blow let forth a little fountain of water. Kai sighed anyway. It was a start. At least he managed to tip enough water out of her to douse the flames where Poochyena's Sand Attack hadn't succeeded.

The bronze Seedot plonked itself down with a sighed with relief. It would seem that the forest was not going to burn down today. Kai returned Poochyena and Magikarp and picked up Togepi. He started to walk away and the bronze Seedot jumped to its feet and hurried after him. He looked down at it questioningly.

"What is it? Do you want to come with me?" he asked it. Seedot looked up at him hopefully. Kai turned away in a seemingly arrogant move. "Hn. I suppose if you want to be captured, that can be arranged. But I'll have you know that nobody gets a place on my team if they don't earn it first."

Seedout wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Kai released Poochyena again. She was a bit confused that she was being called out again so soon but raised her hackles when she saw the bronze Seedot begin the standoff with Bide.

The windows at the Petalburg City Pokémon Centre shuddered against the strong winds. Despite the lightning flashes and rumbling thunder there still wasn't any rain to go with this otherwise miserable weather. The beybladers were still up in the dead of night with the light still on in their borrowed room. A digital clock in the room showed that it was almost midnight and Kai was still yet to show up. Ray sat cross-legged on his bunk with his arms folded, looking pensive. On the bunk above him Max was taking his beyblade apart for the second time and reassembling it out of anxiety. Daichi sprawled out on his bunk while Tyson was staring at the ceiling twitching his foot nervously. Suddenly he sat up.

"It's been too long. We should go look for Kai."

"Agreed," Ray replied.

"Yes," said Max.

"Yep," Daichi nodded.

They all started to get up and put their shoes when there was a knock on their door. It swung open, revealing the pink egg Pokémon that was taking care of the late shift while the human nurse was off duty and a tall, blue-haired boy with a Togepi and very windswept hair.

"Kai!" they all exclaimed, rushing to the door.

"What took you so long?"

"Why did you fall behind?"

"Did something bad happen?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

Kai glared at them as they all fired off questions simultaneously and so rapidly that he couldn't even discern who was asking what question. Chansey was stunned by the sudden outburst.

"Shut up!" Kai snapped and the rest of the bladers went quiet. "I'm here now and that's all that matters."

"Like hell it is!" Tyson retorted. "We were getting seriously worried about you here!"

"That wasn't necessary," Kai said flippantly.

"You got stuck sleeping in the girls' room 'cause you were late," Daichi told him.

"Whatever."

Kai turned and walked away to find the room he was booked into. The rest of the team glared at him as he went.

"Why does he need to be such a jerk all the time?" Daichi wondered.

"Beats me," Ray muttered.

"Well, look on the bright side," Max said cheerily, "He's acting pretty normal right now so that must mean he's okay."

"I guess so," Tyson remarked. He yawned widely. "And this also means that we can finally go to bed. I'm beat."

The boys retreated back into their own room for the night, satisfied that the final member of their group was safe and sound.

A/N: 5 points for each attack you can identify that wasn't mentioned by name in this chapter. Also, Kai did manage to teach his Magikarp Water Gun but it's the most pathetic Water Gun to have ever been unleashed. You tried, Magikarp, you tried.