Chapter 8: "So, what now?"
Eric and Roxie slipped around the lab quietly so as not to attract the attention of more 'Colorons' as they decided to call the two latex-clad men they had just defeated. Nothing at all was found in the uncoordinated lurking but a ring of no dust around on a dusty deck. With a bit of thought, Eric concluded that the ring was from a disk and that the Colorons had really just come for some information. As the pair strolled peacefully out of the run-down lab, Eric asked, "So what now?"

"You send a report to Wes," Roxie answered as she handed over her PDA to him. "And I'll help that Electabuzz you snagged earlier," she said before she somehow plucked the right Great Ball out of Eric's hands. She tossed out the Great Ball, and the Shadow Visor flew out over her eye again to show just how dangerous the Pokemon was. It was worse than what she had seen in the news and what she imagined from her sister's descriptions. The Pokemon seemed to glow in a purple-red haze that consumed and corrupted its so its soul. So that she could stand to look at the Electabuzz any longer, Roxie took the visor off and slipped it into her backpack.

Never in his life had Eric used a PDA, but it seemed easy enough. He was up to the e-mail manager when he suddenly drew a blank on Wes's email address. Roxie had given him the PDA, was he expected to know. After a few moments of fiddling around with the device, Blaze snapped it out of Eric's hands. For a long while, Eric just stood there, confused beyond belief. He looked down at Blaze an the emotion written on his face did not change at all. The chicken was typing, and if that wasn't enough, it was in proper English! Eric stared in wonder, but the strangeness soon lost its novelty. He wandered over to Roxie and sad down on a wrecked machine near her.

Roxie was incessantly whistling to the Electabuzz and calling out its name. Slowly yet surely the Electabuzz stomped over to her and looked at her wide-eyed and confused. In the soothing voice she had used when Eric first met her, Roxie said to the poor Pokemon, "Relax, I'm just going to give you a massage." Out of her backpack she pulled a bottle with a strong fragrance that wafted up into Eric's nostrils. It was cologne, Eric could tell because his father used to wear the same brand every day. "Why are you giving it a massage to it?" Eric asked with the most curious of eyes.

Roxie couldn't help but let her eyes wander over to Eric, it was always a treat for her eyes. In the brief time she spent with him, she found him to be a nice enough human being, plus Florina adored him. Florina only ever made friends with Roxie, Rui, and Wes before, and for pride, she never took battle orders from anyone else but Eric and Roxie. "Oh, it just makes a Pokemon relaxed and more comfortable with other… well, living things in general, exactly what you need to open up a Shadow's heart," she said as Florina gracefully hoped into Eric's lap.

"Wow, I never would have thought of it like that… but it does make sense. Um… Is Blaze supposed to know how to type?" Eric asked while he began to pet the Furret. It was odd to feel those mesh-like fins every time he passed his hands through, but he got accustomed to it.

Roxie chuckled and dripped the fragrant liquid onto her hands. "Oops, I forgot about that. Blaze used to be strictly information-gathering agent, without a trainer. He must be pretty good and summing up missions by now," she said as she did what seemed to be tugging on the dynamo's shoulders and rubbing the cologne on him. As the Pokemon let out a joyous sigh of relieved stress, Roxie looked back over to Eric who bore a bored expression. After tossing an plastic toy Pokeball to Eric, she smiled at him and said, "Why don't you play with Florina and the other Electabuzz?"

Eric almost fell as he caught the ball and Florina who started to stumble off of his lap. "Won't they be exhausted from the battle though?" he asked as he looked down at the snoozing ferret-Pokemon that was laying on him. He figured that the Electabuzz had been fairly worn out too, it would have to have received a good load of damage to be caught by a mere Great Ball.

"There should be a few potions in your bag… They aren't as good as what we could get at a Pokemon Center, but they should last until we can get to one," replied Roxie while she continued the massage.

Eric pulled out two bottles of spray marked 'Super Potion' and sprayed its contents on Florina. Happily startled, Florina popped up and licked Eric's face. The Furret's tongue tickled his face, and he fell into the warm sand, laughing. He managed to settle Florina down long enough to toss out the Great Ball of the Delta Electabuzz. This Pokemon was much more sociable than the Shadow that looked almost exactly like it. With the utmost of ease it let Eric spray the Super Potion on it too. It even played with Florina and Eric, and didn't hurt either of them.

So the routine went on for about an hour. Roxie soothed and calmed the poor Pokemon with the closed heart, Eric tossed the toy ball with Electabuzz and Florina, and Blaze stood impatiently with the PDA in his hands. When Roxie finally returned the Electabuzz back to its Great Ball to sleep the PDA rang out. The Combusken was startled; so he dropped the PDA in the sand and ran around incessantly repeating, "Com-bus! Com-bus!" Eric took a break from playing and returned Blaze and the second Electabuzz. When he looked at the PDA, a message from Wes was displayed across the screen. Roxie picked up Florina and cradled her in her arms. As she approached Eric, she asked, "So what does it say?"

Eric quickly skimmed over the message and replied, "Not much, just congratulating us for a mission well done and giving us a new one," As he read further on in the message, he gulped and said, "Our next mission is on a showboat… He found out the trainer ID's of those 2 guys from the Snag Machine changing it to my trainer ID, and those guys made reservations on the showboat. Wes still hasn't found someone to fund this project though, so he got us jobs on the ship. We're understudy singers in the show…" Although he did not like to admit it, Eric was a decent singer… He just had a problem with singing in public.

Roxie was one of the most horrible singers in Orre. She had even been kicked out of her chorus class once because the class wanted to see if they could sound at least mediocre without her. Because of her lack of singing talents, she chose to ignore most anything she heard about it. "It sounds nice…" she whispered as she thought of all the romantic movies she had seen that were set on boats or ships or any other type of sea vessel; there were almost too many to count.

Sensing what Roxie was thinking of, Eric instinctively blushed. He hadn't had the best of luck in his romantic prospects either… he had never even asked a girl to date him. Eric almost wished that Roxie would show no more signs of liking him so he wouldn't screw up their partnership by saying something stupid on the boat. With all of his thoughts concentrated on Roxie and the boat, Eric barely noticed that Florina was crawling onto his shoulders. Roxie saw this and thought, There's no ignoring it, Florina's a good judge of character, and laughed. Eric heard the laughing and snapped back into reality. After giving Florina a little pet, he handed her back to Roxie. "Well, we better set out to Gateon Port now. Do you know the way?"

Roxie put Florina in her sidecar while saying, "Yep, its a long way's ride from here, about the same time it took to get to that dinner from Wes's. At worst we should be there at about," and she paused to look at the Nintendours watch wrapped tightly around her left wrist, " five thirty." Roxie saddled up on her scooter and said, "Meet you there?"

Eric just nodded and smiled as he climbed up onto his own scooter. They both put away all of the gadgets that had helped them in the past few hours and rode off into the western, greener portion of Orre. Along the way, they noticed subtle differences in the environment that told the pair that hey were heading in the right direction. There were actually some wild Pokemon, though most of them were bug and grass type. When they finally reached their destination, the sun was just setting.

Eric was the first to get off his scooter and park it next to the steps that led into the port. He had always liked it here. There was some hustle-and-bustle because of the ships that passed through, but it wasn't nearly as rowdy as Pyrite. He looked upon the showboat he was sure that he and Roxie would soon be boarding with wide-eyed wonder. It was enormous, there was no way they would find the Colorons again… unless they were stupid enough to walk around in public with their costumes.

As Roxie walked up beside him, she noticed some blondie staring right into Eric's eyes, although he did not seem to notice her at all. With a touch of annoyance, she pulled Eric's arm around her shoulder. The girl, startled, walked away quickly and Eric's face flared up like a flame being fed. Eric could tell that this was going to be a long ride.

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Side Notes:
- Expect the blondie to come back in the next chapter. .
- Expect another battle in the next chapter. :3 Or if I can't get to it, the chapter after that.