Previously on Pokémon: The Lost Child, after our heroes fought off the attack of the members of the Brotherhood and found out who the leader was, they faced the prospect of having to deal with them directly. Meanwhile, at the base of The Brotherhood, its sinister leader was plotting to use his ultimate weapon to take them down, a mysterious Dark Empoleon. Empoleon and Sceptile will eventually need to face their toughest challenge yet.
At that moment, Empoleon and Sceptile were tracking through the woods. They had tried to keep track of their location but had managed to get lost. They were now wandering around the woods trying to find their way out but coming across nothing helpful.
"All it is is just trees over and over again. I feel I am going to go inside. We haven't found anything helpful in over an hour," Sceptile said.
"We need to stay a bit more positive Sceptile. Yeah, we are completely lost right now, but this won't go on forever. We have to find a way out of here eventually," Empoleon commented.
"Ugh, I guess you are right; it's just starting to get frustrating."
"Look on the bright side. While we are stuck here, The Brotherhood will have a harder time finding us," Empoleon said.
"I never really thought of it that way, but I guess that would be true."
While Empoleon and Sceptile were continuing to walk, they were being followed by another Pokémon. At first, the two got a strange feeling from this, but the presence kept growing stronger. Eventually, they heard the breaking of a branch, so they had to turn around to see what was going on. They didn't see anything at first, but when they looked on the ground, they saw a Pokémon crouching down.
Sceptile asked, "What are you doing?"
The Pokémon got up, revealing himself to be a Victreebel, and followed up by saying, "I'm sorry. I just noticed you two around here and I thought you might have been lost."
"We are lost. Do you know how to get out of this place?"
"Yes, I do. I live here, so I know these woods very well. Just follow me to my home and I will show you the way."
"Thank you so much," Empoleon paused, now that he knew who this was.
"My name is Victreebel. Nice to meet you two."
The three went to Victreebel's home, which was just a hollowed-out tree with some stuff shoved in or seemingly built like a fire to cook food with.
"So you just live in this forest?" Sceptile asked.
"Yeah, that is correct. I have lived here my entire life ever since my parents died. Arceus rest their souls," Victreebel said with a tone of sadness, remembering the loss of his parents.
"We understand how you feel, Victreebel. Both me and Sceptile lost our parents as well," Empoleon replied.
"I am sorry to hear that. Why don't you two sit down? I will go grab some food. You must be hungry from your trip." Victreebel leaves to go grab the food, as he said, while Empoleon and Sceptile sit down to talk.
"Poor guy," Empoleon commented.
"I can't imagine what it must have been like to live on your own for so long in the woods," Sceptile said.
"I wonder what food he'll give us; I'm guessing berries, which are probably plentiful around here," Empoleon observed.
"That is a good thought. I guess we will see when he returns."
Just as Sceptile was talking, Victreebel showed back up with bowls of food in them, saying, "Dinner is served." Empoleon and Sceptile grab their bowls and they aren't berries, they are some kind of weird mashed-up substances, with even Sceptile having no idea what it is, prompting him to ask, "What is this stuff, Victreebel?"
"Oh, it's a mixture of multiple different plants cooked up and mashed together. I know that sounds weird, but trust me, it tastes really good."
Empoleon and Sceptile somewhat reluctantly eat some of the food, and after they do, they both find the taste rather weird, not horrible but as if there is something off about it. Neither of them knew what to say. Empoleon first said, "It doesn't taste too bad."
Sceptile then followed up by saying, "Eh, I guess it's alright. Thanks for the food."
Both of them ate the entire bowl, still having this weird feeling that something was up with the way this thing tasted, but neither of them knew what.
"Thanks for the food, Victreebel," Empoleon said.
"So Victreebel, now that you are done, would you be willing to lead us out of the forest?" Sceptile asked, more eager to get out of here as something was giving him a bad feeling, but he couldn't place what it was.
"Oh yeah sure, just follow me. I will lead you two out."
Empoleon and Sceptile followed Victreebel. They went through his home inside the tree, heading into some sort of underground passage. Sceptile found this incredibly weird so he asked Victreebel, "Hey why are going this way to get out of the forest?"
"I have a secret underground passage that leads out of the forest. I sometimes use it."
"What do you use it for?" Sceptile asked.
"Oh, it's nothing important. Just follow me. We are getting close to arriving." Sceptile was starting to get an even worse feeling from all of this. Why was Victreebel being so evasive with his answers? Sceptile could tell Empoleon was feeling uncomfortable as well.
The two eventually arrived in some sort of room. It had an even larger fire and what looked like two dead Victreebels. Empoleon and Sceptile panicked instantly, but before they could do anything, they were hit on the head and both of them passed out.
After some time passed, both Empoleon and Sceptile woke up. Both of them were right next to each other, tied together in vines over the top of the same massive fire that they had seen before. Both of them were shocked and scared. "What in Arceus' sake is going on here?"
"It seems that you have finally woken up," Victreebel, off in the distance, said.
"What is going on, Victreebel, untie us this instant? This is not funny," Sceptile demanded.
"I don't think that you are in the position to be making demands like that, Sceptile. I will admit that you are more resilient than the rest of them were," Victreebel responded.
"What do you mean the rest?" Empoleon asked.
Victreebel was staring at the two dead bodies of the Victreebels. Victreebel then said, "My parents taught me about survival by all means necessary, they showed me how to survive by using other Pokémon for it. The Pokémon that travel through this place always bring a variety of items that I could use. They always bring stuff that is either attached to their bodies or stuff that they are carrying, be it natural or mechanical. I have lost track of how many have met this fate. They all start to blend together after a while. Food is especially something I need a lot of.
"Wait, so you have been killing Pokémon this entire time simply for food and other survival items. There has got to be a better way of doing that. Did you kill your parents as well? Was it all part of your survival plan?" Sceptile asked.
"How dare you insinuate that I killed them? My parents died so that I could keep living. I was starting to feel some level of sympathy for both of you, but now it is time for you to burn."
Victreebel would start lowering the vine that was holding them up, the one that was being controlled by some sort of power Victreebel had. Empoleon and Sceptile were getting closer to the fire, and they noticed that there were tons of bones inside, likely from Pokémon that had to meet the same fate as them.
Empoleon, however, knew how to get out of this easily. He shot water out of his mouth, putting out the fire, and then used his claws to slash up the vines with Sceptile, doing the same with his leaf blade. Victreebel was shocked that they managed to escape that, and not only that but escape it so easily, with him saying, "How is that possible? Nobody has been able to escape that before."
"You may have thought that combination was clever, but you have not dealt with Pokémon like us," Sceptile responded.
"It's time for you to be taught a lesson, Victreebel," Empoleon said.
The three of them got into a battle. Victreebel tried to put up a good fight but was very inexperienced with battling with how heavily he was struggling. Empoleon and Sceptile would gang up on Victreebel, pummelling him with attack after attack while always saving each other from anything Victreebel threw at them. Eventually, Sceptile managed to hit him with one last slice of his left blade, which penetrated directly through him and killed him instantly.
Sceptile did not exactly intend to kill him, and when Victreebel drooped dead on the ground, Sceptile initially assumed he had only fainted, "So Empoleon, what exactly are we going to do with him?"
Empoleon leaned down but couldn't hear any signs of life and concluded, "Sceptile, you killed him."
"Um, I did not intend that. He certainly deserved it, though I don't regret doing that."
"Maybe we shouldn't try to make a habit of that, though killing is still wrong," Empoleon responded.
"Whatever, we should find a way out of here," Sceptile shot back.
Empoleon took a look around for a bit and spotted a way out, "Hey look Sceptile, it's a tunnel that leads directly out of the forest."
"I guess that is the one thing that Victreebel didn't lie about. Well, let's get out of here."
Both Sceptile and Empoleon left through the tunnel, eventually making it to the surface and out of the forest. Empoleon and Sceptile would continue on their journey, but little did either of them know there was another Empoleon watching, this Dark Empoleon, and he had now located his prey.