Difference and Acceptance

hope you're enjoying this! feel free to comment and review

A chilly wind blew across the land, blowing the now brown leaves off the trees. The cold wind woke Luna up. She stood up and shivered as another cold wind blew by. Fluffing her fur to stay warm, she looked around, her breath showing as little clouds in the cold air. She noticed Russell talking to some of the adults. "We'll leave early tomorrow morning, and take the path that we all know," he explained, "Maria and I will lead the group, you will keep an eye out for danger and protect the riolu if need be."

The lucario nodded their understanding. Dimitrius was nervous, he knew he needed to tell Luna about this after the meeting. His glasses started to slide down the bridge of his nose and he absentmindedly pushed them back up. Russell continued, "If any houndoom appear, one of you will gather the Riolu and then the others, myself included, will try to chase them off, and will only fight if necessary." He then dismissed them and they went to tell their families. Dimitrius got up and went to find Emerald and Roxas. On the way he spotted Luna and approached her.

Luna smiled as he approached. "Hi uncle Dimitrius!" she called as he came up to her. He smiled, "hello, little one. Where are your parents?" Luna pointed to where they were, sitting under a tree and talking. "Come on," he told her, "let's go talk to them." Luna nodded and grabbed his paw, walking over to the two lucario. "Hello Emerald," Dimitrius greeted the shiny lucario, who smiled at him, then he turned to his brother, "and hello, brother."

"Hello, Dimitrius," Roxas answered, "what brings you here?" he asked. Dimitrius sat down next to them, Luna sat down in his lap. "I wanted to talk to you about something. You know winter is approaching, right?" They nodded, "well, I know you two have gone on this journey several times, but I'm assuming Luna hasn't done this before." Luna looked up at her uncle, a confused look on her face, "never done what, uncle Dimitrius?" He looked down at her, she was so small, the journey might be difficult for her, especially since the houndoom pack saw her as a target for attack.

"When winter comes, we have to find shelter against the cold," Dimitrius explained to her, "so we go to these caves nearby to stay in during the winter. But we have to be careful, because houndoom tend to attack during that time, since they know when to look for us." Luna just buried her face into the fur on his chest, shaking a little. He looked down at Luna, then looked at Roxas, "her parent's were killed by houndoom," he explained, "so she's afraid of houndoom." "Poor thing," Dimitrius looked down at Luna sadly, "no wonder she's afraid." He gently rubbed her back and Luna peeked up at him, her pink eye showing from where she had her face buried. Luna smiled and wrapped her little arms around his waist.

Smiling, he ruffled her headfur and then wrapped her up in a hug. After a few minutes Dimitrius let Luna go and she happily ran off to talk to her friends while he stayed to talk to her parents some more. Coming up to John, Mick, Sabrina and Lucas, they were sitting in a circle. "hi guys!" she greeted them happily. "Hi Luna!" they answered. Luna sat next to Lucas, "so you know how we're going on a trip tomorrow? Lucas nodded, "I've done it a few times, most of the time there aren't any problems getting there, you'll be fine." Luna drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, hugging them. "I hope so." She shivered slightly from the cold.

The next morning, Roxas walked over to where Luna laid sleeping, crouched down and shook her gently, "wake up, Luna..." he whispered. Luna woke up and looked at him sleepily, "what daddy?" He helped her up, "It's time to go," he said and led her and Emerald to where everyone else was gathered. "All right, everyone!" Russell addressed the lucario, "Everyone grab something to carry and follow me." Luna shivered in the cold, but followed her father as he grabbed a basket of apples and joined the others. Once they all had something to carry, Russell, Maria and Lucas at the front of the group, they set off for the winter caves.

*At Shadowflame's pack*

"Ok, Everyone," Shadowflame said to his gathered pack, ignoring Riven, "The Lucario should be on the move, I, Annabelle and a few other's will go on the hunt and try to catch up to them. "If we can catch them off guard we might be able to bring a few down and have plenty of food." Harvey and Leo were excited, they were finally going to go with their father on the big hunt. "We'll leave in a few hours, so be ready by then." once he had dismissed everyone, Riven walked up to him, "you better not be hoping that I'll be coming with you." He growled, glaring through his one eye, the other closed with a scar over it. Shadowflame growled, "No, you're not coming with us, you're staying here."

"Good" Riven growled and then stalked away. Shadowflame just snarled at him and went to find Harvey and Leo. "Are you two ready for your first big hunt, boys?" Harvey was very excited, "Yes, Father! yes yes yes!" He jumped around excitedly, before pouncing on Leo, wrestling with him playfully. "Now, now boys, play nice," he told them, a hint of amusement in his voice. Meanwhile one of the poochyena had approached Riven, who was sulking in his cave away from the others. "What's wrong Mister?" he asked. Riven just snarled at him and the little poochyena ran away crying.

Annabelle watched as the poochyena ran by and was comforted by one of the female houndoom and then went over to Shadowflame. "Hi mom!" Leo greeted her from his position on his back, because Harvey had him pinned down. Annabelle smiled, Leo had recently started calling her mom, and since she was mates with Shadowflame now she didn't mind, she thought of Harvey and Leo as her own pups now, just like Nicky and his brother, the poochyena pups. "Harvey, please get off of your brother," she told him. He nodded and got off of Leo, who got up and shook the dirt off his fur. "Come on you two, we have to get ready." They nodded and followed her, Shadowflame following behind.

*a few hours later*

Once the pups were safe with the houndoom staying behind, the group prepared to leave, and took off.

*Back with the Lucario*

Luna walked with the group, talking with Lucas or just sticking by her parents. She didn't know the houndoom pack was heading their way. A pidgeotto landed on a branch and watched the large group of Lucario walk by, "ah, the Lucario migration, on time as usual," he chuckled and started preening his wings. Luna heard a noise and looked in the direction it came from but it was just a pachirisu gathering acorns. Lucas came to her side, grabbing her paw and squeezing it gently, he was there for her. Luna smiled at him and squeezed his paw back. They looked up and saw a flock of pidgey fly overhead, Luna wished she could fly like them.

As they got closer to their destination, the sun had slowly been descending in the sky and Luna was getting tired. Roxas noticed this and scooped her into his arms before starting to walk again. Despite the amount of Lucario carrying things they were walking pretty fast so it's no wonder Luna was having trouble keeping up. Once they could see the Lucario go by, Shadowflame reminded his sons, "now remember, we will not attack until we surprise them, since they'll be concerned with keeping their cubs safe, they might not be fast enough to fight back." They ran through the forest to get ahead of them and be ready to ambush them. Lucas thought he heard a rustling in the bushes and looked over, a houndoom burst through followed by several more.

Luna gasped as she saw the same houndoom she had seen that one time before. Roxas put her down and pushed her towards the group of riolu huddling behind Maria before going to join the others in confronting the houndoom. Shadowflame grinned evilly, his sharp fangs showing as he watched the Lucario, Harvey and Leo stood tall on either side of their father. "What do you want Shadowflame?" Russell yelled. Luna cowered in fear behind Maria's leg at the sight of the houndoom, she whimpered and buried her face so she didn't have to look. "Isn't it obvious?" Shadowflame barked, "we're here to fight!" Roxas fired off a warning shot in the form of an aura sphere at Annabelle, the force knocked her to the ground. "Mom!" Leo yelled before going to her side, Harvey growled.

"You'll pay for that!" Shadowflame howled as he launched himself at Roxas. Luna peeked out to look at what was happening but hid again when she saw Shadowflame, not wanting to see him attack again, a few tears tried to squeeze out of her tightly closed eyes. Roxas managed to dodge and glared at the Houndoom. Emerald placed herself in front of Roxas, giving Shadowflame a hard smack across his muzzle, leaving a few lightly bleeding scratches with her claws

Harvey opened his mouth and sent a flamethrower at Russell, but he dodged. Shadowflame howled signalling the others to attack and the two groups lunged at each other, a large group of the two packs attacking each other. The riolu were scared, they were crying or trying to hide from the horrible sight. Lucas went over to Luna and they hugged each other, eyes closed. As the battle raged around them, the two pack leaders faced each other. "You won't get anywhere this time, Shadowflame!" Russell yelled as he and Shadowflame circled each other. "Oh really? well we'll just see about that," he snapped.

Russell dodged as Shadowflame shot flamethrowers at him, "hold still!" Shadowflame barked. Shadowflame growled and attacked again, this time the flamethrower singed some of the fur on Russell's arm, he cried out in pain and gripped his arm. Luna couldn't stand seeing him be attacked anymore, she broke away from Lucas' grip and ran over to Shadowflame. "You're a big meanie!" she yelled and clamped her little jaws on Shadowflame's right leg. "Ow! get off of my you little brat!" He shook Luna until she flew off and landed a few feet away. "Luna!" Emerald yelled and ran over to her. "Are you ok, Luna?" she asked worridly as Luna struggled to get up before slowly getting to her feet. "I'm ok, Momma." Luna had a few bruises but was mostly ok.

Looking around, Shadowflame noticed several of his pack members where down and they were outnumbered. "You win this round," he growled and signaled to his pack they were leaving. Once all the houndoom were up, he limped off with his pack. When they were gone, the Lucario gathered the riolu and set off again. Russell, who was holding his arm still, said, "We aren't far now, just a little bit further. So they gathered their things and kept going. As the sun was setting Russell pushed through some bushes and there they were. "Alright everyone, here we are!" Russell exclaimed as The Lucario began going into the caves and setting the food down, using the smaller caves for storage and then going into the main cave.

Tune in next time to see what happens next! :3