Chapter 4: Introductions Part 2
"Wake up, Crue," Drew said to his unconscious friend. The Frillish was still bruised from the battle, his left eye was blackened and his left arm was slightly crumpled up. "It's no good, guys." Drew turned to his other two teammates who, due to their hard shells and extra resistance to the Flare Blitz, were all healed up.
"Why Crue no wake up?" Helm asked in a voice so sad that it dampened Drew's mood even more than it already was.
"I don't know little bro," Spiral said, putting on of her tentacles around him in a hug.
"Hello everyone!" Bartleby happily said, coming into the room with a frowning Sherman behind him. "Why is everyone so sad?"
"Sir, remember what I told you?" Sherman questioned his boss. "The incident in Magma Cave two days ago. Exploration Team Hydro got badly beaten and the leader, Crue the Tentacool, is still unconscious."
"Oh yeah! I know what to do! Get the nurses to Heal Pulse him!" Bartleby shouted.
"I tried it," the Gardevoir nurse said. "He seems to be immune to the healing effects.
"I got an idea!" Bartleby ran out of the room and came back in with a perfect apple. "He can eat this!"
"Sir Bartleby, I don't believe a perfect apple could do what a Healing Pulse couldn't." The Gardevoir sighed, but Bartleby went ahead and put the perfect apple to Crue's mouth. Crue's eyes opened up and he grabbed the apple.
"Thank you sir," Crue thanked, taking a bite out of the apple. "How long have I been out?"
"Two days, explorer Crue," Sherman strictly said. But, then his expression softened. "You worried everyone here. In fact, some of the people made gifts for you."
"Like what?" Crue tried to get up, but winced and got back down.
"Sola found you a white rose, Walt found you a Poison Barb, Raymond got struck by lightning but ended up getting you an Oran berry, and some other teams that returned actually got you some stuff too."
"Other teams got back? I'll have to go meet them." Crew tried getting up again, wincing when he reached halfway out of the bed, but he continued getting up.
"No Crue," Drew told the poison type, gently pushing him back into the bed. "You were seriously hurt by that Darmanitan and you need your rest. The two teams that got back can come in later."
"Get off me!" Crue pushed Drew, who stumbled back into a medicine cabinet.
"Crue!" Spiral shouted, letting go off Helm. "He was just trying to stop you from hurting yourself!" She left the room quickly, leaving Crue with a shocked expression of his face. Drew pulled himself up and silently followed Spiral.
"Meany!" Helm shouted before following the other two.
Crue's face turned into one of pure disgust. "Could you guys leave, I want to talk to Crue by myself," Sherman told Bartleby and the nurse.
"Okay pal," Bartleby replied with a smile, grabbing the Gardevoir and pulling him out of the room.
"I don't get paid enough for this!" the nurse yelled.
"Why'd you do that?" Crue asked the flying type.
"I recognized your expression and wanted to talk to you about it. I could sense the disgust, and not just any disgust. No, you were disgusted with yourself." Sherman sighed and frowned. "You couldn't believe that you somehow made even Helm hate you. Believe me, it won't last long. Your teammates are just worried about you. May I ask, what happened in the Magma Cave that ended with you in such bad condition?"
Crue took a deep breath before beginning. "Well, we had just gotten into the cave when we got attacked from behind by the criminals we were supposed to take out. They knocked out Spiral and Drew like nothing and grabbed me and Helm. When we got down to the Magma Pit, they put us down. I tried to create a distraction with my Supersonic and it distracted them long enough for Helm to make a break for it. After they recovered, they were really angry and they just beat me for no reason for almost five minutes without stopping. I almost passed out, but then they started talking about killing me and taking my jewels to sell. It scared me so much I just couldn't settle down.
"When they finished talking, they decided to track down Helm and took me with them. We got back up to the second floor when they stopped. I noticed Drew and we made eye contact. I was scared for their safety, so I used another Supersonic and told the others to escape, but the Darumaka recovered quickly and was able to stop out plans and alert his two teammates. The Darmanitan got really angry and rushed at my team. He jumped up when he got near them and then just slammed down with a fiery blast. When he did, a yellow aura surrounded me and I just passed out."
"That reminds me of a time back when I was an explorer, although it was just me and Bartleby." Sherman nodded his head and then turned it to stare directly into Crue's eyes. "You did the right thing; you tried to protect your team. But you also did the wrong thing. A team is no good without a leader; you should have run with Helm instead of staying behind. And why did you pick a rank B band of outlaws? It was your team's first mission, you should have gone with a rank E rescue mission, you shouldn't even be doing outlaw missions until you can handle rescue missions a level higher. I'd think that you, of all of you on your team, would know that."
"Sorry. I just really wanted to prove myself and I thought we might have been able to take these guys on because we all have an advantage over them, and two of us have a double advantage." Crue closed his eyes and put his tentacles over them. "I'm such an idiot."
"Yes you were," Sherman agreed. "But we all are every once in a while. I've had plenty off moments were I was an idiot, but I learned from them and improved. If you learn and improve from this, then you are very smart. But if you dwell on it and let it get to you, you might make worse mistakes."
"I'm sorry," Drew said sadness obvious in his voice.
"You don't need to apologize to me. Let me go get your team and get the two teams that returned ready to meet you." Sherman walked out of the room and, after a minute, Drew, Helm, and Spiral walked in.
"Sherman told us that you had something you wanted to tell us, what is it?" Drew angrily asked.
"I wanted to apologize. I purposely chose a hard mission that we couldn't handle because I was overconfident. I am so sorry that you guys had to get hurt for me to learn my lesson, and I'm also sorry for pushing you into the cabinet Drew. I wasn't thinking straight and just wanted to get out of this hospital wing. Even more-" Crue was cut off by Spiral crawling onto his bed and wrapping two of her tentacles around him.
"I forgive you Crue," she said.
"Group hug!" Helm jumped onto the bed and hugged the other two Pokemon with his claws.
"Might as well," Drew mused to himself before going up to the bed and wrapping his teammates in his arms.
"Thank you guys." Crue wrapped his tentacles around his teammates, finishing the hug.
"So sweet," Bartleby said to Sherman from the doorway, making sure to be quiet enough for Team Hydro not to hear him.
"I agree." Sherman replied just as quietly.
"I can see you guys," Crue told the two. "Come on, get in here you guys."
"Okay!" Bartleby grabbed Sherman and dragged him over by the kids before joining in on the hug.
"I'd rather not," Sherman said. He took a step back before Bartleby grabbed him and pulled him into the group hug.
"Are we intruding on something private?" a British accented voice asked. The six broke the hug to se three new Pokemon standing in a triangle. The one closest to them looked like a two foot tall, bipedal dog with large black feet. A flat blue tail and a small iron growth on the back of each hand. The top half of his body was black while the bottom half of his body, his arms, and the majority of his head were blue. He had fur in the shape of a black mask around his eyes and on the top of his nose along with two large, ovular ears of a matching color on the edges of his 'mask.' "What is taking you lot so bloody long, we were waiting outside for ten minutes."
"We were hugging for that long?' Crue questioned. "Didn't feel like ten minutes. And who are you?"
"I'm Ulric the Riolu, leader of Team Aura. And I'm guessing you all are Team Hydros." Ulric replied in his British accent.
"Team Hydro!" Helm corrected. "We are Team Hydro! The bestest exploration team ever!"
"Yeah right," a second one of them said in a feminine voice. She was almost a foot taller than Ulric and looked like a yellow weasel. He arms looked like oversized, red sleeves and her legs, the tip of her tail, and a stripe across her neck were also yellow. There was an ovular black spot above each of her red eyes and a small whisker grew out of both of her cheeks. "You lost to three fire types when you are all water type and two of you are rock types. You cannot be that good."
"Yumi!" the third Pokemon yelled in a squeaky voice. He looked like a small white egg with blue and red triangles on him. He had stubby tan arms and feet with no hands or legs. The top of the egg was missing and instead his head poked out, which looked like a tan crown with six points and a small face. "That was not nice."
"Indeed, Miss Yumi," Sherman said to the weasel Pokemon. "The targets were much stronger than Team Hydro. Do you think that just because you have a type advantage, you'd be able to take down any Delcatty, no matter how high their level? Especially if you were sucker punched like they were?"
"They would never have been able to surprise me, I'd sense them from a mile away," Yumi retorted egotistically.
"You three are dismissed," Bartleby grimly told Team Aura, scaring everyone in the room at how serious he was. After they left, the Wigglytuff turned back to Team Hydro with a huge grin. "Sorry about that, Yumi isn't usually so rude. She just has a little bit of a problem with people she sees weak. Hopefully she'll grow out of it. Thankfully, Odd, the Togepi who didn't actually get a chance to introduce himself, is nice enough to make up for her."
"You know, that was actually more normal then meeting Team Wishers. At least there were no thunderbolts from Arceus or anything." Drew laughed at his joke which the others didn't get because they were introduced to Team Wishers at a different time.
"I remember that," the nurse grumbled from outside the door.
"Uhh, didn't you say two teams, Shermy?" Bartleby asked, Sherman blushing from the embarrassment of the nickname. "Where is the other one?"
"Nurse Leslie send in the other team," Sherman called to the nurse outside.
"I hate my life. Go on in you three," Nurse Leslie ordered.
"Okay miss," a high-pitched voice said, eliciting a scream of annoyance from the nurse. "Was it something I said?"
"Go in now you brats!" Stomping could be heard from the hallway.
"Okay," a sweet voice replied. Three short Pokemon walked into the room. One was a Magby, who like the one that was with the Darmanitan, but he had a necklace with a small claw attached to it around his neck. The second was a yellow Pokemon slightly shorter than the Magby. He had a round body with plug-like horns. He had a black thunderbolt symbol on his chest, black stripes on his body, and black bands on his arms. He also had a fang necklace on.
The third Pokemon was significantly shorter, at about a foot and four inches, over half a foot shorter than both of her teammates. She looked like a little girl with blonde hair and large lips. Her head and the bottom of her body, which was slightly thicker than the top, were both pink while the top of her body, her arms, and her legs were cream. She also had a necklace, but hers was in the form of a blue eighth music note.
"Hello, I'm Remy," the Magby greeted in a squeaky voice. "I'm a Magby and I'm also the leader of Team-un. What is our team name again Kurt?"
"We're Team Awesome!" The yellow Pokemon enthusiastically yelled, swinging his arms around and making sparks jump between his horns.
"That's right. We're Team Awesome! Because we're awesome!" Remy yelled, smoke starting to come out of his snout. "Like I said, I'm Remy, leader of Team Awesome!"
"And I'm Kurt the Elekid. I'm the brawn of the team," the yellow Pokemon said.
"And I'm Kitty, the cute one," the third Pokemon said. "I'm the cutest little Smoochum ever. In fact, I'm the cutest Pokemon ever!"
"Oh, cute little kids," Spiral commented. "Hi kids, I'm Spiral."
"Hello!" Helm yelled, popping up behind Remy.
"Hi!" the fire type yelled, jumping behind Helm. "Who are you?"
"I'm Helm! Hi Team Awesome!"
"Yeah, hello. I'm Drew," Drew greeted. "You guys are really cute, but how old are you all? Five, six? How did you convince your parents to let you become a team?"
"We are eight!" Kurt yelled. "And we aren't actually allowed to go on missions, but our parents are explorer teams so we hang out here."
"I didn't know we had a daycare," Crue mused.
"We don't. Donna still is bugging me about that fact," Sherman said.
Crue yawned loudly and a Gardevoir walked into the room. "Hello everyone," the Gardevoir said in a happy, feminine voice, showing that she wasn't the same one as before. "I could hear that yawn from the hallway, it appears that the patient is in need of some rest, so will everyone please get out." Team Awesome, Sherman, and Bartleby walked out.
"Bye guys," Crue said, his eyelids drooping down. "See you tomorrow."
"Adieu Crue," Drew rhymed as he floated out of the room.
"Bye-bye." Spiral waved one of her tentacles as she crawled out of the room.
"Bye!" Helm yelled, jumping out of the room.
"Good friends you have there," the Gardevoir nurse noted. "It appears that you will be able to be released tomorrow, but you need your rest right now. Night."
"Night," Crue responded, closing his eyes. He quickly fell asleep and dreamt of a great treasure.