"Let's stay here for the night." Cordelia mentioned to Tony.
They were still quite a distance away from the mountain range that separated the two regions and that made Tony a bit uneasy.
"I'd rather keep moving, but I suppose we could camp here for now." Tony replied while surveying the clearing that they had stopped at.
A river cut through the clearing and on the other side of the river a number of berry producing trees and bushes grew.
"Charizard, Chikorita! Come on out." Tony exclaimed as he released his pokemon. As the two pokemon stood before him, he pointed out the plants. "How about getting some of those berries for us to eat?"
The two pokemon looked at him, then at each other and back at him. The looks on their faces said it all; "You expect me to cooperate with THAT pokemon?"
"Oh, come on!" Tony griped. "You'll have to start working with each other sooner or later and it might as well be now."
"Chikorita, chiko chik." Chikorita said as it shook its head in disgust.
Charizard snorted and turned its back towards Chikorita as if to say, "I'd rather it be later. How does the twelfth of never sound to you?"
Unfortunately, when Charizard turned, its tail sideswiped Chikorita's body, causing it to fall into the quick running river with a splash.
"Chiko!" Chickorita cried in alarm. A moment later, it let loose its vine whips to grab a hold of anything that it could so that it wouldn't be swept away in the current. Cordelia and Tony were quick enough to grab one vine, although the strength of the river was making them lose ground.
Through gritted teeth, Tony snapped, "Charizard, help us save Chikorita! Please!"
At first, Charizard considered disobeying Tony, but the look on Tony's face made it reconsider. Charizard didn't want to cause Tony more grief, so it grabbed onto the other vine and the three of them began to pull. They made very slow progress and were beginning to tucker out.
"Tony, what if we got Seaking to help?" Cordelia asked between exhausted gasps of air.
"I'm not sure if Seaking'll agree to it, but it's worth asking anyway." Tony said. With one hand still firmly holding onto the vine, Tony released Seaking from its pokeball. "Seaking, can you help us get Chikorita out of the river?"
"Seaking sea!" the water pokemon agreed as it submerged itself into the river and came up under Chikorita's body so all that Charizard had to do was swoop down and pick Chikorita up. As soon as Charizard landed, Tony sighed and sank to his knees. Cordelia glared at Chikorita and Charizard.
"I'm ashamed at you two. Tony asked you to do some simple task and you both behaved like spoiled brats!" Cordelia chided the two pokemon. "Now apologize to Tony and this time behave!"
That did it. One moment Chikorita and Charizard looked as shamefaced as a couple of children having just been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and the next moment, they were looking at Tony as if he had just lost his mind. For several long minutes, Tony was rolling around on the ground and laughing his head off.
"Sorry. I'm sorry." Tony said between large gasps of air. When he was able to talk normally, he said, "Really, I am sorry. It just seemed a bit hilarious that you were chiding them as if they were naughty human children. You'll make one heck of a mother if you ever decide to have children of your own."
At that, Cordelia was speechless as her whole face blushed a beet red in color. The compliment caught her off guard.
"Seaking. Thanks a lot for helping us get Chikorita out of the river." Tony said as he looked over at the water pokemon. Turning his attentions to his own pokemon he said, "Now, if you two will work together this time, we'll have some berries as a part of our dinner."
The next morning, Tony woke up more relaxed and energized than he had been in a long time. After a light breakfast, Cordelia, Tony and his two pokemon took a few moments to gather extra berries and refill their canteens with the water from the river before starting on the next part of their journey.
"Do you have any pokemon?" Tony asked Cordelia a short while later.
"No. I couldn't see the point in catching pokemon and training them to battle. Not that there's anything wrong in that for those who do. I would be just as happy befriending a wild pokemon as you might be when you've gained your pokemon's love, trust and devotion." she responded.
"I see. So how did you wind up in possession of that pokeball that you gave me?" Tony furrowed his eyebrows questioningly.
"I did a friend a favor and they insisted on giving me something as thanks. Before I could object, the pokeball was in my hands and they refused to take it back." Cordelia explained, happy now that Tony was opening up and asking questions. "What about you? How did you meet your Charizard?"
"Charizard? My mom gave him to me as a surprise present when we moved to Violet City - Of course it was only a Charmander then." Tony stopped walking as his gaze wandered off at the memory. Shaking his head to clear away the memory, Tony exclaimed as cheerily as he could muster, "Let's go! The sooner we get to Pallet Town, the sooner we can return Seaking to Professor Oak."
Taking a mental note of his brief glazed over expression, Cordelia wondered at the thoughts and memories that Tony kept bottled up. Past experience told her that one of these days, he just might let her in on some of his pent up secrets without using force or pushing him away. With a nod, Cordelia walked along beside Tony towards their next destination.