Yes... This was supposed to be a oneshot. But things changed. I got a little inspiration and found someone was interested in seeing more. It's been ages since I uploaded that 'oneshot' so dunno if they're still interested, but I might as well get myself back into writing fanfic, eh?

Anyhow, the style is gonna be linked oneshots, but not every inch of the joruney shall be covered. It'd be boring to cover every time Amber ran around to get places, hm? The next chapter will follow on from this one but from then on, things are going to be lightly linked.

Disclaimer- This may or may not be heavy with mood whiplash.

Amber and Treecko had decided to stay over at the Pokemon Center in Oldale, so it was very fortunate for Professor Birch when he rang her before she left the town.

Amber let out a loud yawn, watching Treecko sleep peacefully on her bed. As recent as the previous morning, she would have never imagined adopting him. She had never seen herself travelling with any kind of Pokemon again, however she felt fortunate that Treecko had the same kind of interests as her. They had stayed up the night before watching past Pokemon Contests and daydreaming until they both fell asleep.

She idly patted Treecko, seeing he did not stir as she pulled out her Pokedex. Professor Birch had additionally upgraded it with a 'Habitat list' that he had taken the code from Unova's Professor Juniper for. She would want to get a few new Pokemon so that Treecko did not feel lonely, but not too many that she would be overwhelmed. Bonding with one Pokemon was hard enough. Perhaps she'd stick to three Pokemon for her Contest team.

She searched the local routes. Route 202 hosted many Pokemon, including Poochyena, Seedot and Wurmple. She wasn't sure Treecko would be so keen on dealing with Poochyena again. Seedot was also a Grass type, so a little redundant if she got dragged into battle. However Wurmple could evolve into Beautifly or Dustox, both beautiful in their own way.

Her eyebrows shot up as she noticed the Ralts listed. She knew how powerful and beautiful Gardevoir was. And she hadn't had personal experience with Gallade but knew they were also just as elegant. Both would be great for her team, however she didn't feel like searching for hours for two Ralts. Whatever Ralts she came across, she would catch.

Treecko woke up, rubbing his eyes before looking at Amber. "Tree?"

"Morning sleepy," Amber whispered, patting his head as his tail wagged. "I'm just looking to see what to expect for the next route. Fancy getting some new teammates?"

Treecko stared at her and his eyes sparkled as his tail started to wag more furiously and he nodded eagerly. She giggled and showed him the dex entries for Ralts and Wurmple.

"We're going to especially be looking out for these two, okay?"

As Amber shrugged on her clothes, her Pokenav started ringing. She checked the name and frowned. "Professor Birch is calling me a little early," she murmured as Treecko stared at the Pokenav. She shrugged and answered it. "Hello, what's up?"

"A-Amber, where are you?!" Birch's rushed voice blurted, and she almost dropped the Pokenav.

"I'm in Oldale Town, why? You sound… Panicked."

"I-I am panicked!" the professor exclaimed. "Torchic and Mudkip are missing!"

Amber gawked at the screen before taking a deep breath. "Missing? What do you mean? Did they run off?"

"N-No, there was no way for them to run." She heard the faint clicking of keys. "My assistant and I are watching CCTV…" A muffled shriek left him. "Someone broke in and took them a few hours ago… Can you keep your eye out for a woman with long blue hair?"

Treecko gazed at her with pleading eyes as she took a deep breath. "Considering this is the Pokemon world, 'long blue hair' isn't exactly rare. But I'll see if I find her." Looking at Treecko, she whispered, "Don't worry, your friends will be safe. If we can't find her, we'll call the police, huh?" Saying goodbye to Birch, she grumbled under her breath. "Let's hope this bitch didn't take them far… Why did the professor call me over the police anyhow?"

Amber decided the best place to start would be asking the townsfolk if they had seen a suspicious girl pass by.

Treecko clung to her terrified as she questioned a few people, not all friendly.

"Blue haired girl? Nope, haven't seen anyone like that."

"Go away, I'm busy examining these footsteps!"

"Are you crazy? Don't barge into my house like that! Get out before I call the police!"

Amber and Treecko had bolted to route 102 after that, ignoring the footsteps-man. They had not got any useful information. But they had been threatened with an eight-foot-tall Mega Tyranitar.

"Well," Amber gasped as she glanced behind her, past the annoyed footsteps-man. Thankfully the Mega Tyranitar hadn't pursued her, probably because doing so would have destroyed its owner's door. "They were as useful as a chocolate teapot. Hey Tree, you grew up with Torchic and Mudkip, right? Would you be able to pick up their scent?"

Treecko looked uncertain but nodded, tail bobbing as he started crawling through the grass. As she heard a happy cry she ran over to pick up the feather he clutched in his mouth.

"Is this Torchic's feather?" Amber murmured, lightly fingering it. "Looks like that woman did go this way- Ay!" she exclaimed as sticky string snared her, binding her legs together and forcing her to faceplant into the grass. "T-The Hell?!"

Treecko shrieked, pawing at the string before dodging as something needle like and purple shot at him. And Amber looked to see a very angry looking Wurmple. It looked as angry as a Wurmple could look, anyhow.

Grumbling as she flailed in her string-prison, Amber pushed herself up with her, thankfully safe, arms. "Hey, what did we do to you?!" Wurmple answered by flinging another purple dart at her and she squeaked as it hit her arm. "D-Damn that hurts! Treecko, pound that motherfucker!" Treecko stared at her with a mix of concern and confusion. She sighed. "Treecko, use Pound. And keep doing so until its knocked down."

Treecko obliged, as the Pokemon engaged in an epic battle of Pound and Poison Sting. As Amber watched Treecko start to slow ever so slightly from being forced to dodge an enslaught of poison darts, she started to feel herself tire slightly. Was it the Poison Sting? It was a Wurmple, what could a Wurmple do to a human?

As Treecko hit the enraged Wurmple with a critical attack, she quickly grabbed an empty pokeball. "Now's our chance! Come here, you bitch!"

Wurmple screamed as the ball smashed into its side before it encased it in crimson light and dragged it inside.

Amber felt herself grow dizzy as she watched it shake.

And as the ball clicked, Treecko cried as Amber passed out.

Amber's muscles felt sore as she came to, Her eyes were heavy, as though she had slept for a long time, and they gazed unfocused at the sky. Or what was there instead of the sky she had expected. She had passed out in the outdoors, but she couldn't remember a ceiling made out of leaves.

Sitting up, she looked at her arm. No sign of injury. Hearing a familiar cry, she looked to see Treecko running towards her before he leapt on top of her. "T-Treecko, what happened?" she yelped, looking around then at the amused looking woman watching them. They appeared to be in some kind of hideout, and the woman was perched on a wooden stool sitting in what looked like an uncomfortable manner. She looked a little older than herself, with long purple hair and shiny golden eyes underlined with blue eyeliner. "W-Who are you? Where am I?"

The woman giggled, gazing at her with those bright eyes. "I saw you pass out so I took you back to my secret base to recover. You had a bit of a nasty time with Wurmple's Poison Sting, didn't you?"

Amber gaped at her before taking a deep breath, glancing around the base. It was fairly barebones, with only a chair and desk, the bed she was lying on, and a plush of a Poochyena on the floor. She could also see a laptop on the desk, open on what looked like a news site. "What happened to Wurmple? Did I catch it?"

The woman stared at her before giggling again. "You're odd. Yeah, you did. Don't worry, I brought the pokeball along with you and Treecko. You're lucky it was only a Wurmple, or I would have to have hauled your ass to the Pokemon Center."

What crude language from such an elegant looking girl, Amber mused. That dress she was wearing, a beautiful lilac and white blend, was not suitable to be traveling in. "Yeah, how lucky…" She put on a lopsided smile. "Thanks for dragging me here, I probably would have ended up as Mightyena meat."

The woman grinned and looked at the Poochyena doll in the corner. "Thank Ditto, they're the one that found you." As Amber stared at her then the doll confused, it changed form into a purple blob with a smiley face. "Treecko's your partner, correct? Dit's mine."

Amber peered at it before nodding. "Yeah… Thank you Ditto." The Pokemon cried its name joyfully and she looked at Treecko as he lightly batted her. "Treecko looks better too… Hey Miss, how long have I been here?"

She looked up, gazing at the leafy ceiling. Amber did a double-take as Ditto threw up a Pokeball and tossed it to her. "About an hour. That's Wurmple, by the way."

"Thanks," Amber mumbled, half-disgusted half-exasperated as she pocketed the ball. Thankfully it didn't have any gross goo on it. She wondered what Ditto actually felt like. "An hour… Guess that thief probably got away." The girl raised an eyebrow. "We got asked to find someone, we got jumped by that Wurmple on the way."

"I see," she said with a laugh, as Ditto hopped on her shoulder. "Do you mean the thief that robbed Professor Birch?" Amber stared at her. "It's flashing on the news right now. Reward for whoever finds her…" The woman flashed a grin. "So I guess you're lucky I found you, huh?"

Amber promptly fell off the bed, making Treecko cry out and try to pat her better. "You mean you're the- The professor said the woman had blue hair!"

"Technically he's half right, hm?" And the purple haired woman flashed her blue roots, revealing that her long hair was in fact a wig. Her voice did not change at all as she dropped another bomb. "Anddd he might have been wrong about me being a woman too."

Amber glanced the stranger over again, open-mouthed as she took in every dainty looking feature. Impossible. "W-What- Y-You're a guy?!"

"That's how I identify," he hummed, gold eyes gleaming mischievously. "I just decided my disguise for today should be beautiful, eh? I've mastered the art of cosplay."

Composing herself, she mumbled. "Okay so… You're the thief, you took Torchic and Mudkip, and you're a cosplayer. Why are you telling me this?"

He smirked, crouching down and brushing her hair out of her eyes. She couldn't help but blush. "Because you have no chance of beating me."

Amber swung her foot and he smoothly dodged, watching her flail in amusement. "Look here you arrogant- Give Torchic and Mudkip back or Treecko will Pound your ass into oblivion!"

"Didn't you just get that Treecko yesterday?" He nodded at Ditto and it transformed, making Treecko startle as it turned into a copy of him. "Ditto and I have been partners for 10 years now? You have a less than zero percent chance of beating me." As Amber hesitated, he chuckled. "I see you're smart enough to second guess this, huh? I guess losing a Pokemon teaches you not to rush into fights like this."

She tensed up, staring at him with wide green eyes as she felt a rush of emotion. A cocktail of shock, anger, sadness. And it was taking all her strength to keep it bottled up in front of this stranger. "H-How the fuck do you know about that?!"

The thief looked at Treecko, watching him gaze at his trainer with concern. She looked like she would burst into tears at any moment, he mused. "A few years back, I came across a girl crying over a Meganium in Shoal Cave. That wasn't you, was it?"

Feeling as though breathing was becoming more difficult, her arms instinctively hugged herself as her body started shivering. "It- It was so cold… Meganium… She wasn't moving… You were there that day?"

As Treecko started trying to comfort his trainer, the man bit on his lip. "Crap, now I feel kind of bad," he grumbled under his breath before coughing. "I was with a friend, we heard some weirdos were hanging around the cave and mass-poaching Spheal. Some Aqua creep ran out of the ice room and we saw you freezing in there."

"Someone helped me get back to land after that, was it you?" Amber murmured, nausea rising inside her. Swallowing hard, she blinked rapidly as she tried to look up at him again. "Wait… Aqua creep? What do you mean by that?"

The disguised thief opened up a file on his computer and showed her what looked like an emblem of a stylised A. "That man who killed your Meganium was part of Team Aqua. Surely you've heard of them now, right?"

"Aqua… You mean that group of vandalists that keep painting graffiti everywhere?" Amber murmured, tilting her head. She forced that sick feeling down again. "They paint 'Team Aqua rulez' then another 'team' keeps painting over it…"

Letting out a laugh, he shook his head watching her tremble slightly as she got back on her feet. "That's just the grunts having a turf war with ours." Amber stared at him. "Team Aqua wants to bring on a massive flood, Team Magma wants to stop that." He winked. "So we're the good guys."

Taking a shaky breath, she sat back on the bed feeling her strength instantly zap from her. "So that freak that took Meganium from me… Is in your rival gang? I wasn't doing anything to them though, why did he have to attack me back then…"

As Treecko hugged her, the transformed Ditto watched the girl before looking at its trainer. He looked very uncomfortable with Amber's emotional state. "I hate to say it Missy… But I think that grunt mistook you for being part of Team Magma. And so when they tried to get back at us… You got caught up in our mess."

At least he had the decency to look apologetic, Amber thought as she watched him avert his eyes. Although he had revealed himself to her, he kept up that disguised voice and she knew it was so she wouldn't recognise him later. If his group had indirectly gotten her Meganium killed, she would have every right to feel vengeful towards him, she realised. And so she steadied her voice, whispering. "Is there a reason you're telling me about this? Do you… Feel guilty?"

With a weak smile, he pulled a pokeball out of a bag. It definitely seemed suited for his disguise, a pretty inconspicuous design. And she realised what the pokeball contained as she noticed the sticker on it. A flame. "Perhaps, I felt like you deserved to know what happened, you know? So I thought I'd give you two chances." A smirk graced his face as he pressed the button. "If you can beat Torchic, I'll return it to you."

Torchic appeared, and Amber swallowed hard as Treecko gazed at his former friend with distress. The Torchic looked puzzled, and so she wondered if the poor thing realised it had been abducted in the first place. The new trainer was supposed to pick it up today, she heard. "What happened to Mudkip?"

He shrugged. "Lost it."

Amber tilted her head. "Lost it…? How the- How the hell did you lose a Pokemon?"

"It just… Kinda happened," he stated nonchalantly, however even with the makeup… making up… the disguise, she could see a faint red glow to his cheeks. And she wished Treecko could learn Vine Whip so she at least tell what his hair naturally looked like. How weird it was to fight someone face to face without seeing their true face. "I'll go back for it when someone finds it for me, eh? Never mind, let's take this battle outside."

What a competent yet somehow also incompetent thief.