Okay, first things first, I'm really sorry for not updating any sooner, I'm going to blame it both on marching band and just general laziness and also not having a computer readily available any time I feel like writing, but alas, as of this Saturday, I have a laptop! So, I'll try to update with less time in between, it makes me feel really bad to leave all you guys hanging for so long without a new chapter, so I honestly hope I can meet the goal of at least one chapter every two weeks, I'm not making any promises, but I will try my best to do this. So, enough of my rambling, enjoy the chapter you've been waiting a few months for!

Naruto and Red had reached Mt. Moon and were starting to go through. It was dark inside the cave you had to walk through so Red had called out her Charmander to lead the way as they walked so that the flame on its tail lit up the surrounding area in a warm orange-ish glow.

The rock of the cave was a light brown color and the jagged stone was damp to the touch from the slow drops of water coming through the ceiling. As a result of said water, stalagmites were protruding from the floor like massive columns and stalagtites dropped down from the ceiling, occasionally meeting up with the stalagmites.

"Hey, where are we going?" Naruto asked Red.

"Well, presumably out of the mountain," Red told him," However, this is a bit like a maze, so I'm not entirely sure where that is…" she trailed off.

"Um…, do you know where we are, or are we lost?" Naruto questioned.

"Maybe?" she answered.

"Maybe to what?"

"…Uh…either? I don't know!" Red seemed somewhat flustered at this…difficulty.

"Note to self; Red is bad with directions," Naruto said outloud.

"Hey! You're not any better, or else we'd be out by now!" She shouted.

"I never said I was," he said, giggling slightly to himself.

"Hmph," Red said, crossing her arms over her chest,"If you want to be all high and mighty about this, YOU find the way out."

"I'll try, there's no way I can be any worse than you."

Deciding not to answer to preserve her pride, Red let him take the lead, and didn't talk anymore to show she was brooding.

In the next few minutes, they made quite a large amount of progress – a whole lot further than Red had managed to lead them in the twenty minutes they'd been in the cave with her in the lead.

Still giving Naruto the silent treatment, Red heard something. It sounded like the muffled conversation of two people, and something about it seemed…off.

"Naruto," she said.

He looked back at her," What?"

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"It sounds like a few people talking."

All the Pokemon that were outside of their Pokeballs (Kunai, Kurama, and Charmander) all seemed to agree with her and seemed somewhat uneasy.

"Okay, I hear it now too," he said, he could definitely sense that something was up with the voices.

"What should we do? I don't know why, but the voices unnerve me."

Naruto thought for a few seconds, he knew what she meant, the voices did have a sort of malice to them," Wait here, I'll go check it out."

"Okay," she nodded," Just… just be careful and don't get hurt," there was a genuine note of concern in her voice as she spoke.

"Don't worry," he said, picking up on the tone," I'll be back in a few minutes, I promise, and I don't go back on my word because that's my way of ninja," he then gave his best impression of Rock Lee's "Good Guy" pose to go with the words that he always wanted to heed.

Red nodded, slightly assured by his confidence, as Naruto made his way forward, toward the voices.

As he came closer, he could begin to make out little snipits of the conversation," We …collect …Pokemon …in the big chamber to the left."

Then someone else responded," Good, I presume no one else knows what we're doing here today."

A third person then said," No, ma'am," Naruto imagined him giving a salute," Any trainers we found have all been caught and restrained with no idea of what's going on."

The person that was referred to as 'ma'am' spoke again," Good job, get back to work."

"Yes, ma'am," both people chorused.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a loud feminine scream echoed throughout the cave, and just as suddenly as it started, it was cut off.

Naruto was alarmed by this, even more so because the scream sounded familiar, it took but a moment for his brain to register why, it was Red's.

At that moment, two thoughts went through his head, one was the simple question of why she was screaming, the other was that he needed to find her and rescue her.

He managed to answer the first question in a few seconds after remembering what one of the men had said:

A third person then said," No, sir," Naruto imagined him giving a salute," Any trainers we found have all been caught and restrained with no idea of what's going on."

He figured someone must have found her there all alone and had snuck up behind her before grabbing her to make sure she didn't interfere with the schemes that the group was planning.

As for the second thing that went through his mind about saving her, he needed to not make rash decisions, if Kakashi-sensei were here or Erro-sennin (I think that's how you spell that), they'd think out a plan rationally after carefully analyzing the situation, it wouldn't do Red any good if he tried to save her only to get captured himself.

Naruto carefully hid in the shadows, waiting for Red's captor to come by. When he finally came by, Naruto felt a strange surge of anger, this man had attacked his friend and was now pulling her by the arm to a place where she'd presumably be imprisoned.

He looked at Red, her usually calm and composed face was filled with fear and confusion, her eyes were open unnaturally wide and her mouth was covered with a thin strip of white cloth tied tightly around her head, most likely to keep her from screaming or calling for help.

Naruto had to fight the strong urge he had to go and rescue her right now, he'd already made his decision to think up a strategy and be sure to save her – and possibly some more trainers and Pokemon – from whomever these people were.

Naruto took a deep breath and carefully assessed the situation, he wasn't the best at this, nor was he used to it, but he needed to try. The most logical course of action was to follow Red and her captor and see where she was being taken. There was one issue with that however, he needed to be quiet and sneaky and be a perfect role – model of a ninja that you'd find in history books. He was pretty confident that if he tried he could be sneaky, but the problem was his Pokemon. He wasn't convinced that they could be silent the entire time.

Kurama wouldn't have been an issue if his jacket was any other color, but the bright, almost neon orange would stand out in the dark fairly easily, so he needed to take it off, so that left both Kunai and Kurama without a place to be while he did this, and he wanted to have his Pokemon with him, just in case something went wrong. He realized the only option he had, neither Pokemon would like it, but they'd have to stay in their Pokeballs.

"Kurama, Kunai," Naruto whispered, and Kunai looked up at him and Kurama stuck its head out from Naruto's jacket," Okay, I know you don't like going into your Pokeballs, but I need to save Red and that's the only place you can be and make it so I'm not found out."

Kunai gave an understanding nod, and Kurama made a huffing noise, but Naruto took that as a good-to-go. He pulled out both of their Pokeballs and put them in their respective ones. He hooked the two now-filled Pokeballs onto his belt and then took his jacket off, placing it in the bag slung over his shoulder.

Silently, the blonde ninja followed Red and her captor into the room they'd gone into. Staying in the shadows the entire time was somewhat difficult, but Naruto somehow managed it. As he entered the room, it was made immediately clear who was behind all this.

There was a banner on the wall depicting a dog-like Pokemon with deep crimson blood dripping from its mouth – Team Blood Wolf. Naruto was expecting as much as they'd been the only criminal organization he'd heard of thus far and having TWO criminal organization would be a bit over the top.

The room he was in appeared to be some sort of HQ with a desk or two lying about as well as guards strategically stationed around the room to prevent anything from going awry. In the center of the room, there was a large pit, but Naruto couldn't quite see inside. Even though the room was lit with lanterns placed on the walls, the middle of the room was almost pitch-black, as if they wanted to make something suffer.

Just as he was thinking that, he heard a weak cry from something that sounded like a Pokemon, he couldn't quite make out what it was saying, so there was no way to guess what it was, but it did seem as though it was in pain and probably suffering.

Trying his best to ignore the cold feeling of dread welling up inside him with what they were doing to the poor creatures, he made his way out of the room. There were only two entrances to the room, the way he'd come in and then another to the left of the room.

There was no doubt in his mind which way he needed to go to find Red and he walked through the door on the left. He walked a few steps into the room adjoining the main one and saw a large prison cell with people he could assume to be trainers in it. He saw Red talking to someone near the back of the cell, it seemed as though some of her composure had returned.

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief that she was alright. He didn't want her to get hurt, after all, she was his friend.

He wanted to call out to her, but he really couldn't with the guards stationed around the perimeter of the cell. Luckily, he'd maintained enough sense when walking into the room to stay in the darkness, so no one had noticed him yet.

He was frustrated and confused about what to do next, he couldn't call out to her, he couldn't even get close to her without alerting the guards and that was what he wanted to avoid. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, trying to think of something to do to help Red, but he came up empty.

He opened his eyes," Oh, screw this," he said outloud, a few of the guards looked over to where his voice had come from, alarmed, but before they could do anything, Naruto had already sprung into action.

He made a hand symbol,"Kage Bunshiin no Jutsu," Naruto said.

To the guards, it looked as if twenty identical twins had just appeared out of nowhere and were now attacking them. Surprised by the sudden commotion, the trainers locked in the cell looked at the shadow clones in shock, only Red knew what was going on, and only vaguely.

Drawn out by the sudded action, Kurama and Kunai popped out of their Pokeballs, eager to help.

"Kurama, Kunai," one of the Narutos said," Just use whatever attacks you want, just have no mercy on them for attacking our friend, dattebayo!"

It was a few minutes later, and all the guards lay, incapacitated on the stone ground of the cave.

"Good job, Naruto!" the boy heard the cheer and in a few puffs of smoke, the shadow clones all dissipated.

Naruto smiled at the voice," Are you alright, Red?"

"Yeah, of course, but could you please let us out of here?" she asked sweetly.

"Oh, right," Naruto said, he'd completely forgotten about that while he was fighting the guards.

He looked around for a second, "Hey, do you know where the key is?" He directed the question at Red.

Red opened her mouth to answer him, but then a feminine voice came from behind him," Are you looking for this?" it asked.

Naruto looked around to see who it was…

Haha, first chapter in forever, and I'm leaving you with a cliffhanger, but if it makes you feel any better, because of the cliffhanger, I know what's going to happen next, so I'll be able to get a decent amount of progress done on the next chapter pretty easily. Oh, and by the way, it's really helpful if you have a study-hall time in school and nothing to do, because I wrote most of this chapter in school, so I guess that's a good reason for school to be alright.

Okay, and one last thing, I just want to give a shoutout to my best friend, she wrote the previous chapter and has helped me write before, and she finally has a fanfiction account! Her username on here is Persona's Kingdom, and as you might be able to tell from her name, she's currently obsessed with the video games in the Persona series (I am too). Currently, she only has one story up called Demon Ears and it's basically a re-telling of Persona 4 but with a bunch of new and cool twists. So, if you like Persona, I recommend you give her fic a shot, and if you've never heard of Persona, then look it up and then you can get obsessed with it like me!