Perils of Petalburg Woods
Just as Mari promised, they packed up their camp and headed into the woods early in the morning. Tyson stormed ahead of the whole group, anxious to make it through to Rustboro City but more often than not Mari had to call him back and tell him to follow the right path. The woods were really, really dense and the path was narrow. The day had promised to be sunny but as soon as they were under the canopy almost all light was shut out and they were enclosed in a maze of trees, ferns and vines.
"Why is this road so twisty?" Tyson whinged, unable to hide how antsy he was feeling.
"We're in a forest, Tyson," Hilary snapped. "Of course the road is going to wind a bit. Stop getting all upset, everyone's doing the best they can here!"
"Who's upset? I'm not upset," Tyson mumbled agitatedly. "Mari, are you sure this is the right turn to take?"
"Yeah, super positive," Mari replied, giving them the thumbs up. It had taken a lot but they'd eventually convinced Tyson that it was best to let the person with the advanced GPS map take the lead.
"Because I'm pretty that that trail is actually going backwards, like, back towards Route 104."
"Who's got the PokéNav here?" Mari reminded him, waving the device over her shoulder.
"I just have this gut feeling and I'm positive that this is taking us way too long. Why don't we just make our own path through the woods? It can't be that hard. I don't know about you guys but I'm going north!"
Tyson stormed off the opposite direction Mari was taking them.
"What the hell?" Hilary growled. "How do you even know that direction is north? Get back here and stop being irrational!"
Hilary chased after him to try to drag him back. She managed to grab him by the back of his jacket but at that moment Tyson had charged through some of the fern undergrowth and the soft earth he stepped on gave away. He slipped down the eroded side of a gully. Hilary pulled back on his jacket but wasn't strong enough to pull him up. Ray jumped to her rescue but she'd already slipped too far for him to grab her from a stable footing. The soil gave under his weight too and Kai reached over to grab the closest thing he could (which, unfortunately, happened to be Ray's hair). Even he wasn't strong enough to lift three people, especially with one hand carrying a Togepi. He went over the gully and the four of them slipped and slid over damp earth, slimy mud and loose rocks until they all crashed on top of each other in a heap in the shallow, stony creek at the bottom of the gully.
Kai got up first, primarily concerning himself with Togepi only to find that she'd curled up and tucked in her arms and legs, assuming an egg-shape. When she felt the danger had passed, she warily unfurled her spikes and popped her limbs out of her shell. Tyson had ended up face down on the bottom of the pile, gargling muddy creek water.
"Oh Arceus! Are you okay?" Mari called down the gully.
"I think so," Ray answered, helping Hilary get up. He winced and rubbed the back of his head where he'd felt the sharp tug on his hair. "Geez, Kai. I think you scalped me."
"Are you bleeding?" the stoic boy asked.
Ray took his hand away from his head and looked at it. "No."
"Then you're fine."
Ray sighed at Kai's characteristic behaviour and looked to the other two. Hilary was rubbing a sore spot on hip where she might have bruised it but she was otherwise fine. "Tyson, are you okay?"
Tyson lifted his head and spluttered, spitting out water and sand.
"He's okay," Ray decided.
As Tyson was lifting himself out of the creek, Hilary gave him a swift kick in the side. "See? This is what happens when you get irrational, you moron! How are we going to get back up?"
"I don't think we can," Ray said dismally, testing the wall of the gully by pushing on it. "It's steep and it's mostly soft earth. Not to mention, we fell a long way down."
"What should we do?" Max asked.
"Um, try this rope," Mari said, taking a coiled length of rope out of her bag. It looked old and a little bit frayed; it had seen quite a few adventures already. "Though I'm not sure if it'll be long enough."
They tried the rope but it didn't reach the bottom of the gully. So they tried pulling down and tying some of the vines together but the vines weren't strong enough to hold someone's weight.
"Why don't we try braiding the vines to make stronger ones?" Max suggested.
"And be here all night?" Daichi countered. "Look how dark it is in here! Imagine how it's going to be if we get stuck here at night."
Mari crouched by her bag and tried to think. Down in the gully she could hear Tyson and Hilary start to bicker again until Ray snappishly interrupted them. An idea suddenly pinged in her head and she rushed over to the edge of the gully. "Ray! You still holding on to that town map?"
"You mean this?" Ray replied, taking the electronic map out of his bag.
"Yes! That map displays your location and to do that it needs the internet, which means it should have its own ISID. The code is usually scored on the bottom somewhere. Find it and tell me what it is."
Ray turned the gadget over and easily found the code. He read it out clearly while Mari made note of it. "What are you going to do with that?" he asked.
"Got a plan," Mari announced. "Listen up, from memory there's a shop on the outskirts of the northern edge of Petalburg Woods on the way to Rustboro City. It's called the Petal Pretty Flower Shop or something."
"Pretty Petal Flower Shop," Kai corrected.
"Kai? You've heard of it?" Mari said, looking puzzled.
"Someone mentioned it to me once," Kai answered flippantly.
"Uh-huh. Well, whatever. Point is, that's the shop that you'll come across when you exit this forest onto the rest of Route 104. We can go on ahead and get there with the PokéNav. You guys just try your best to get there but once we're there we can call the authorities in Rustboro City. They'll be able to lock onto your location by following the signal from your map using the ISID."
"That's a better but way more confusing plan than what I was thinking of," Daichi said.
"In that case, isn't it better to stay put?" Ray pointed out.
"Only if you like sleeping in a gully," Mari replied. "But with this plan we need to get to the flower shop as soon as we can, ideally before nightfall tonight. Better get a wiggle on."
Mari went to get her things back together. Max leaned over the slope and called down: "I guess that settles it. Hopefully, we'll see you at the flower shop and not have to call the police."
The two groups bid each other farewell as Mari, Max and Daichi finally left. The other four looked at each other.
"Okay, so what should we do now?" Hilary asked. "I suppose getting out of this gully is a priority for now." She looked at the walls of the gully and moaned. "We're not going to be able to climb out of here at all."
"We should follow the stream," Kai said.
"I was thinking the same thing," Ray agreed.
"How would you know if the stream took us to Rustboro or not?" Tyson inquired.
"I don't know if it would take us to Rustboro," Ray said, sighing with exasperation, "but I'm going by this rough topography guide on the map."
"Oh yeah, Mari said that thing shows our location, right?"
"Only vaguely. It can tell us that we're in the Petalburg Woods but it doesn't show us where in the Petalburg Woods we are. But see here, the part of the Petalburg Woods that the road runs through is at the top of the hill and water only runs downhill. So there's a good chance that if we follow the stream downhill it'll take us north to someplace a bit closer to Rustboro."
"That sounds like a good plan," Hilary nodded. She clicked her fingers, "actually, it's really great. If we stay close to some body of water then it should make searching for us easier."
"Especially if this stream feeds into a pond, lake or river," Ray added. He put the map away and tried to brush some of the mud off his bag and clothes but it just spread around a lot more. "Well, let's go then."
Tyson, Hilary, Ray and Kai followed the ankle-deep creek for what seemed like hours. They couldn't even tell the time of day by the sun. The gully only seemed to get deeper and deeper but the sides looked more stable and less steep. They even had ferns and bushes growing. The woods were silent save for their footsteps splashing in the stream and the occasional click or hum of insects. At some point Tyson had taken out the dowsing machine and started to fiddle with the buttons and functions. It had activated but it wasn't doing anything. It made him wonder if it even worked.
"Are you still playing with that stupid thing?" Hilary grumbled.
"I'm not 'playing'. I'm trying to figure out how it works," Tyson retorted. "This could be a useful device. If we find things around here then it might mean that other trainers have been through here and we could potentially follow their trail of lost stuff out of the woods."
"It could also mean other trainers have been lost out here," Hilary joked morbidly. "I'll keep an eye out for any human skeletons along the way."
"No, wait!" Tyson said as the device started to beep. "It's found something! It's leading me… over here!"
Tyson dived into a clump of low ferns to triumphantly retrieve his item. It was a Pokéball but this one wasn't an ordinary ball. It was green and yellow on the top instead of red. "Hey, check it out! If I hold it close to the prongs it can even tell me what it is. A Nest ball, huh? And it… only works on weak Pokémon." Tyson slumped and fell back onto the ground.
"Oh get up!" Hilary shouted. "You don't get to sulk because you're the reason we're in the mess in the first place! I'm wet and filthy and we're all lost thanks to you!"
"How can you guys be so calm, though?" Tyson bit back. "Every day we spend here could be an entire week we're missing at home and everyone just goes 'chill out, let's go to Rustboro City' as if that's not a big deal."
"Staying calm is the only way to make rational decisions," Ray said over his shoulder.
"Geez, it's not like the beyblades are going anywhere," Hilary muttered. "The championship will still be run the following year even if we miss it."
"It's not about the championship!" Tyson protested, standing up and catching up with the others. He put his Nest ball away despite thinking it was kind of lame. "Well, not entirely…"
"Then what is it?" Ray sighed.
"It's my grandpa and Hiro. What about Kenny and all of my school friends and the fans of the beyblading sport? I have been missing for months, having literally disappeared off the face of the earth."
"You think that that didn't cross my mind?" Hilary said. "I was wondering about how my parents would take it too. My mom told me to take care when I left the house on September 3rd and still hasn't heard a word of me in December. And I'm also worried about Kenny and Miss Kinkay and school but there's nothing we can do about it. You freaking out back there didn't help in the slightest."
Tyson hung his head. He felt guilty and responsible and absolutely terrible. Suddenly he felt someone clamp a hand down on his shoulder and grip hard. His heart leaped into his throat and he turned. With a sigh of relief, he realised that it was just Kai and the stoic teen wasn't even facing him.
"Man, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Could you give a little warning next time you decide to scare me like that? What are you looking at?"
Tyson tried to follow Kai's line of vision, which was a little difficult when he couldn't see the other's face. Eventually he spotted what Kai must have been seeing. There was a creature crawling on the trunk of a tree. It felt around blindly with its antennae. Even Tyson couldn't help but shiver at the sight of it. His eyes weren't playing tricks on him, he was definitely staring a giant bug. Did that classify as a Pokémon or were giant bugs just an ordinary feature of the world? Tyson consulted the Pokédex for the answer.
"Nincada, the trainee Pokémon. It grows underground, sensing its surroundings using antennae instead of its virtually blind eyes. It uses its sharp claws to carve the roots of trees and absorb moisture and nutrients."
"Ew…" Hilary whispered. "So not cute."
The Nincada disappeared under the fern cover and the group went still and quiet briefly.
"Do you think it's coming after us?" Tyson whispered.
"I doubt it," Ray replied. "It seemed like it was minding its own business so if you're not interested in catching it then keep going."
Kai gave Tyson a shove, roughly urging him forwards. They simply kept going like that. As they walked on either side of them they noticed strange things like sacs of silk with red eyes sometimes glaring at them from the branches, odd dark faces hanging from the leaves and the flutter of mysterious transparent wings. Occasionally they heard the deep, loud hum of what sounded like a giant pair of insect wings beating furiously.
Eventually they came across a huge log lying over the gully. It hung there quite stably but it was old, rotten and covered in moss. There were several holes in the bark, either from rot or from bugs crawling through it. They would trust it enough not to fall on them but certainly not to carry their weight. Yet as they approached it, another person appeared out of the woods on one side of the gully and with the grace of a fairy using all of the agility of a ballerina they stepped fearlessly onto the old, rickety log.
A/N: I'll leave it there for now because I should have gone to sleep 5 hours ago! :D
Please review! I am wracked with fits of delight with every review/comment I read.