CHAPTER 3:

The Search Gets Underway

The next day, we three made it to Gateon Port, a large seaside trade center. An immense lighthouse stood isolated, but because of my "knowledge", I knew about the rotating bridges in the bay.

"Wow, that salty air really... ACHOO!" Brendan sneezed loudly. "...Cleans out your sinuses..." He wiped his nose.

"EEEW!" May cried.

"People, can we focus on the task at hand? Which would be exterminating Shadow Pokemon?" I asked, annoyed.

"Oh, yeah. That. Sure." Brendan replied. We all walked off in different directions; May to the Poke Mart; Brendan to the Pokemon Center to book some rooms; and me to the lighthouse, after rotating the passageways correctly. I took the elevator to the top. On the way, I fingered my Snag Machine, and more importantly, stared at my gloves, the ones Lovrina gave to me... They smelled like her perfume. Ugh! But, uh... Anyway, I stared at the gray C for a while, thinking to myself...

0o0o0o0o0o0

I got to the top, and saw someone wanting a battle from me. Since I had gotten in some practice with Totodile, I accepted. The guy's name was Kent. He had light blue hair, sky blue eyes, and a plain yellow outfit with brown boots, as well as a red cap. Very... "Far out."

"You ready to lose?" Kent antagonized.

"Within your reveries!" I replied calmly, getting a questioning look from him.

"Okay..." he said softly in a sarcastic tone. He threw a Poke Ball, calling out:

"Lileep, come forth!"

"Lil-il..." sighed Lileep, a Grass/ Rock-Type that looked like a flower. It had pink petals, a purple "root system" and "head", a black, invisible face with only yellow eyes visible, yellow designs along the "head" or whatever, and a yellow, striped "neck" between the top and bottom portions of its body.

"Totodile, you're up!"

Out of the Poke Ball I threw appeared a crocodile-like creature that stood on hind legs. Its body was blue, save for a yellow line on its belly and a red spike on its tail and three together on its back.

"Toto-DAAAH!" the Pokemon called out, sounding slightly like Donald Duck. It then blinked several times and ran to me, cowering behind me.

"Uh... Totodile? Aren't you going to...?" I gasped as the antennae and visor appeared in front of my eyes, reading and saying:

"Lileep. Level 7. Grass/ Rock Element. Shadow moves: Shadow Blitz and Shadow Hold. SHADOW POKEMON."

"What's some guy like you doin' with a Shadow Pokemon!" I called to my opponent.

"I joined some organization who gives out cool Pokemon."

I gritted my teeth. "Yeah, right... Totodile, I need you to battle. Please." I pleaded.

"To... Dah-dah." Totodile nodded anxiously.

"Thanks! Let's battle, you Dueling Monkey!" I growled, throwing in a Seto Kaiba-like voice. (Someone from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime who is the coolest of all the characters, except for Dartz.)

Battle statistics: This is a one-on-one Battle with no time limit or substitutions.

My Totodile vs. Kent's Lileep

BATTLE COMMENCE!

"Lileep, Shadow Blitz!" Kent shouted.

Lileep pried itself off from its location, jumping at Totodile, illuminated in an evil (Gack ack ack... GACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK... I have got to stop laughing evilly to myself.) purple aura.

"No ya don't! Totodile, use uh..."

'What were its special moves, again? I remember Prof. Krane saying it was one from Battlus...' I pondered.

- - - - -FLASHBACK- - - - -

"This Totodile has special moves, because it's from Battlus, Master of Mt. Battle." Krane explained to me.

"Its moves are Crunch, Scratch, Leer, and the super powerful Hydro Cannon."

- - - - -END FLASHBACK- - - - -

"Crunch, Scratch, Leer, and Hydro Cannon... Hydro Cannon's too powerful, and even with Leer, Scratch isn't very powerful... That leaves me with Crunch. Totodile, dodge and use Crunch!"

Totodile dodged Lileep's Shadow attack, and opened its mouth, sharp, white teeth glowing dark purple. It leapt over to Lileep and bit down on it. The Dark attack caused a fair amount of damage, and Kent was shocked at how my Pokemon knew Crunch at all, and especially at such a low level!

"Grr..." he growled after Totodile let go, returning to my side of the field.

"Awesome, Totodile!" I cheered.

"Toto-dah!" Totodile replied, clenching its fist in pride.

"Lileep, Shadow Blitz!"

Lileep became surrounded in its dark aura again, and rammed into Totodile, successful in hitting.

"Totodile, no! You okay?" I cried.

"Toto... DAAAAAHHHH!" Totodile bawled... A sweat drop appeared on my head.

"Totodile, don't cry! Get really mad! Get madder than ever! And then use Scratch!"

Totodile stopped crying, and snapped its eyes open. A dark, angry expression appeared on its face, and it slashed at Lileep, Scratch succeeding, and being critical! Since Lileep was very weak, I set my Snag Machine to work. I threw a Poke Ball from the hand the Snag Machine was on, after illuminating it in red/ purple. It sucked up Lileep in red light, and twitched three times, a maraca-like sound coming out from it whenever it shook. After some shakes, I knew I caught it, and I also won!

"Alright! I got Shadow Pokemon number three!" I recalled Totodile, him retreating in red light into its Ball.

"YOU THIEF!" Kent yelled.

"Kent, Kent... The "organization" you joined is evil! I Snagged your Shadow Pokemon! Which is good, because it could've contaminated you with evil!"

"Huh?"

"...Just be glad I Snagged it, okay? It's for a good cause."

"OK. Since you obviously won, take this. 257 Pokemon Dollars." Kent gave me rectangular pieces of currency, all with a certain number on them, their respective number and color, and a Poke Ball. The two hundreds were light yellow orange, the fifty dark blue, the five pink, and the two ones were white. (I used my Monopoly money colors for this. I DO NOT OWN.)

"Uh, thanks, Kent." I took the money, stuffing into a small, black wallet I had. I then noticed it had a dark gray C on it, like my gloves... It also had a green Poke Ball symbol.

0o0o0o0o0o0

After I got back to the plaza of Gateon, I met up with Brendan.

"Pat! Come quick! May's fighting someone with clothing like that big dude back at the Pokemon HQ Lab!" he called. I ran over to where the fray was occurring. Brendan was right; I saw some male with blonde hair, in black and white clothing like Gandog, the guy with Naps and Nexir. Only this guy was about 5' 4''. Gandog was about 6' 3''!

Anyway, I saw May's Eevee was about ready to give out. Her opponent's Pokemon was his only one; an Anorith; a Bug/ Rock Element with a scorpion-shaped body. It had two gray claws that were black tipped, a hammerhead shark-like, black and gray head with eyes out from the head, like a hammerhead, and eight white, red tipped plates, four on each side of the belly. Its tail, unlike a scorpion's, was split, with two sharp protrusions in an upward position. It was also taken down a bit.

The green visor zipped in front of my eyes, and it distinguished Anorith.

"Anorith. Level 7. Bug/ Rock Element. Shadow move: Shadow Blitz. SHADOW POKEMON."

"Huh... This Shadow Pokemon only has one Shadow move... Weird." I said to myself.

"May! Shadow Pokemon alert!" I called.

"'Kay, Pat. I'll weaken it a bit. Eevee, Tail Whip and Tackle!"

May's Eevee wagged its tail, lowering Anorith's Defense. It then rammed into the crayfish, lowering its HP more. I then threw an illuminated Poke Ball at it. It shook three times, a maraca sound sounding with each shake. It stopped, and I picked it up.

"You lose!" Brendan taunted the opponent.

"So what? You may have beaten me, Nixen. But you will never defeat the mighty, new-improved CIPHER!" Nixen ran away, out of Gateon.

"Cipher?" May repeated.

"Cipher: An evil organization bent on taking over the world with Shadow Pokemon. It was thwarted twice; once seven years ago, by a boy named Wes and a girl named Rui. And then two years ago, Michael defeated the Grand Master." I explained, getting questioning looks.

"OK... Well, we've dealt with that stuff before. Kinda. Team Aqua and Team Magma in Hoenn tried takin' over the world." Brendan said.

"Yeah, wow. Can we go now? Did we get supplies?" I asked.

"Yes." May and Brendan replied in unison.

We were about to leave Gateon, when May spotted something shiny that Nixen dropped. It turned out to be a pamphlet of info; about where they would strike next: RELIC FOREST!

"Oh no!" I cried when May read that. "That's one means of purifying Shadow Pokemon! If they destroy it, were sunk!"

"Yikes! Let's go! Uh... How do you know that, Pat?" Brendan questioned.

"I have my sources. Oh, uh... Agate Village and the Relic Forest are to the..." I paused, trying to remember the Pokemon XD map...

"From the entranceway Agate Village is to the... It's due east!"

We hopped on our motor-scooters Michael gave to us. They were no longer gray-white. Brendan's was metallic Ruby, May's was a sparkling Sapphire, and mine was Emerald; sparkly on the left and metallic on the right. (Note: I listed the colors in order I got the games; I also chose Brendan's character for Ruby, May's for Sapphire, and Brendan "2" for Emerald.)

We headed toward Agate Village, where we expected to find Cipher and the Relic Stone...

PM: Another hopefully worthwhile Chapter. R&R!