Chapter Four: The Confession

"Wait…" said Julie stopping in the middle of the bridge.

"What's the matter?" asked Gloria. Joshua had already made it to the other side.

"I heard something crack- (scream! )" A plank of wood under Julie had snapped! Gloria rushed out and grabbed her hand.

"Don't look down!" she advised. "Joshua! Help me!"

Joshua tried to run over, but too late. The duo had tumbled over the edge of the bridge…

"NOOOOOOO!!!" he yelled taking an Escape Rope out of his backpack. He fastened it to a tree. "I'll save you…!"

Screaming, the two girls tumbled head over heels.

"Idea!" Gloria said grabbing a Pokéball out of her pocket. "I know you're weak little fella', but you have got to do it!" she released what was inside…

"Goldeen! Goldeen!" said the fish Pokémon.

"Surf, Goldeen, Surf!" Gloria commanded as they hit the water…

"Huff Gloria! Puff Julie! Where are you?!?!" Joshua called as he scanned the waves. He waded in the water for a better look. "To heck with the Seaking!" he thought. After all, he owed his pals one…

Meanwhile…

"Ow… Where are we?" Asked Julie. "Hey!! Gloria, where are ya'?"

"I'm over here…" she said weakly. Julie ran over to her friend. She gasped at what she saw. Gloria's dress was torn. Both of her shoes were missing. She had cuts and bruises all over herself. Gloria raised her head weakly, "Ouch…Fury Attack…Stupid Seaking… " She said.

"Whoa!" Joshua had been lifted from behind. "Put me… Yikes!" He realized he was being carried by an angry Seaking!

"Stop! Ouch! OUCH!!!" The Seaking's horn was poking him in the rear. "Put me down, NOW!!!"

"SEAKING!!!!!!" it stopped abruptly sending Joshua soaring toward the east coast of the river…

"Don't worry, Gloria." said Julie. "We'll get help…"

"Yahhhhhhhhhh!" a male voice yelled. Julie looked up to see Joshua flying toward the treetops!

"Hey!" Julie yelled as she ran a little ways to see where he landed. His backpack strap was caught on a tree limb.

"Guess I need your help!" he said trying to squirm free. The limb broke and he fell down in a pile of leaves.

"I guess not!" he said the limb still caught in his strap. "You okay-? Yikes!"

"Gloria needs help, but we're stuck in the middle of the Viridian Forest! What do we do now?" said Julie worriedly.

"I'm glad I brought this!" Joshua pulled a cell phone out of his backpack. "Call for help," he said giving the phone to her. "I'll keep watch!"

Joshua paced up and down the hall in the three-story Viridian City Hospital. "Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't I have done something sooner?"

"SNAP OUT OF IT!" Julie yelled. "You've said that for the past three hours! There's nothing we could have done…"

"You don't understand!" he snapped back. "She saved my life back by Saffron City…I have still yet to repay her for it too."

"What do you mean?" Julie asked. "Sit down for once and tell me all about it."

"Well…" he recalled his first encounter with Gloria in Saffron City. He remembered; it was one year, five months earlier, his Squirtle about ten levels lower.

He was walking out of the Pokémart, when he saw a girl leap out of a third-story window! She had landed in a bush and scurried away. He chased this mysterious girl, but she was too fast for him. He almost gave up when he saw who she running from, two Team Rocket members! (At that time, he didn't know their names.)

The two Rockets had her cornered in a dark, rarely used alley.

"Give up your belt!" the woman demanded. "NOW!"

"No!" the girl replied. "I know what you'd do with them…"

"So be it." Said the man. "Go Vileplume!"

"Leave her alone!" Joshua yelled. The Team Rockets turned toward Joshua.

"What business is it of yours?" demanded the man.

"I don't know, but if you don't leave her alone, I'll sic my Squirtle on ya'!"

The two looked at each other and laughed. "Hilarious…! " "Ooo my sides…!"

"HIIIIIIIIIYA!" the girl gave a high-heeled karate kick to the male Rocket, knocking him over. She then said to Joshua "Let's move it out of here!"

The woman just yelled back as they raced down the path, "I'll get you later, brat!"

When they could not see the Team Rockets, the girl spoke, "How can I ever thank you enough?"

"Think nothing of it." Joshua replied. "What's your name?"

"I'm Gloria Redwood. You are?"

"Joshua Carpenter. When I saw you leap out of that building, I knew you had to be in some kind of trouble."

"Hold on!" Julie said. "I thought she saved your life."

"She did." Joshua said. "That happened a little later."

He retold his encounter. He remembered he was hiking along Route 7, when he encountered a cliff.

Joshua knew the only way across was by roping the rocks on the other side and swinging over like Tarzan. So he took an Escape Rope out of his pack and roped a rock. As he swung from it, however, the rock broke loose and he fell to certain doom…

Certain that was, if it weren't for the fast thinking of Gloria. (She had been Flying to Celadon City on her Pidgeot.) She coincidentally had been Flying over the canyon when she saw this event occur. She swooped under Joshua and caught him as he fell.

"Long time, no see." She said with a smile.

"Say," Joshua said as they landed at the Celadon Mega Mart, " how's about you join me on my journey? "

"I was about to say something similar!" Gloria said with a grin.

"That's how it went." Joshua finished.

"I think I see how you feel, but you got to stop blaming yourself. There's nothing you or I could have done about it."

"Yeah, but if I could change the past…" Joshua said, his voice trailing off.