Kagura lacked the initiative that drove Chihiro to reach the cave's end, and spent the night inside the cave instead, she honestly wasn't all that distanced from Chihiro and Osaka. She was earlier to bed, and she was earlier to rise, the cave keeping it's atmosphere day or night, and of course Kagura had no one to keep watch. Her Pokeballs were kept close to her person, but her money, badge and other supplies were kept in a backpack. Said backpack was gone. As Kagura woke up she reached for it, and felt nothing but empty air fill her grasp. She jumped to her feet and scanned the area, "Crap crap crap, I can't lose my stuff, I left it right here!" She saw someone she hoped could help, it was a little girl with gracefully hanging blond curls and a pink dress, she was skipping along the cave. "There! Maybe she saw it!"
"Hey! Little girl! Did ya' see who took my stuff?" She called out.
The girl looked in her direction, "Hm? Your backpack? A Ghastly went off in that direction," She pointed behind Kagura, the direction that led to the cave's Cerulean exit, "He- I mean she was giggling while the backpack floated next to her," She paused before continuing, "If you see Chihiro say hello for me."
"Thanks!" Kagura turned and started off, but then a few questions came to mind. "Wait, she knows Chihiro? She also knows that I know her?" When Kagura looked back nobody was there to quench her curiosity. "Strange, but now that I think about it, how did she tell a Ghastly's gender by looks alone? And Ghastly giggle? I guess getting my stuff back is more important, and kicking butt while doing it I bet!" She traversed the same paths recently traversed by Chihiro and Osaka.
Her thoughts were taken by keeping a keen eye for any backpack carrying Ghastly, not many of the species were to be seen in Mount Moon, it was mostly Zubat and Parasect. Finally, one was spotted, it was in a small crevice just large enough to fit it and the backpack, and just above Kagura's height. She spotted it and used her hands to pull her head about level with the crevice. Up close it was seen that the Ghastly had unzipped a pouch, and was eating a moon pie while levitating a small mirror in front of him. "Ghost's eat things? You learn something new everyday I guess." The Ghastly turned to face her, and delivered a large lick to the face, causing Kagura to loose grip and fall to the floor, and a black streak from the moon pie to leave itself on her face.
"That does it, you're in for it Ghastly! Go Bolt!" A sleek, confident Pikachu found it's way from the red light, it was the only Pokemon Kagura had caught thus far. It scaled the wall and delivered a Thundershock into the crevice. Ghastly floated from the hole, and was hit by Thunderwave, casuing it to crash to the ground itself as Bolt landed steadily on his feet. The Thundershock caused the crevice to collapse though, and the back pack was no longer in sight. An idea struck however, "If I catch the ghastly he can float through and get it back for me!" She threw a Pokeball at the Ghastly and caught it.
"New Pokemon captured, Ghastly, Ghost-Poison Type" The Pokedex commented.
Kagura thought of nicknames for a moment. "Ghost? Way to plain. Haunter? Wait, no, it evolves into Haunter. Phantom, Dark, Shadow, Shade." She vocalized the last part, "Shade, that has a nice ring to it. Come out Shade!" The Ghastly came from the pokeball. Shade turned to face it's new trainer. She had heard of Telekinesis herself from John, but didn't catch on quite as quick, she would need a little more time with Ghastly to develop some things. "Go get the backpack you lost." Shade turned and stuck her tongue out. Along with her pokeballs, Kagura also kept her pokedex on her, she picked it from her pocket and, with intent to throw it at Shade, squeezed rather tightly.
"Pokemon Encylopedia function activated. State your subject or problem."
The voice stunned Kagura and stopped her from throwing it, she thought for a second and then replied, "Well, this Pokemon won't obey me."
"Pokemon Obedience: Some pokemon will not take orders readily from a trainer, usually they are stronger than what the trainer is adept to handle, but this is not always so. The Gym Badges have many purposes, one is that pokemon recognize something in their composition that shows dominance. The more badges a trainer has, the more likely they are to obtain obedience," Then, in lower voices, "Are you done recording? No, shh, I said be quiet." The Pokedex then silenced.
Kagura looked back to the Ghastly, "You know I have a Gym Badge right?" Shade raised her eyebrow critically. "Wha... eyebrow?"
"No seriously, it was a great match." The pokemon merely shook her head in disbelief.
"In fact, I've got three, just look in there and you can see," She claimed as she pointed to the bag, "If you find a badge, you have to obey from here on out, if there are less than three you can have another moon pie." Shade raised his head, as if in thought, then dashed through the rubble and returned with a bag in his teeth, she then hurled it towards Kagura.
"Oh lookie here, one badge," She said as she held it up, "I said if there were any badges you had to obey though, of course you still get a moonpie." She tossed the treat to Shade, who began eating right away. Both pokemon and snack were sent into Kagura's Pokeball.
...
The girls had slept a degree past sunrise, the feel of morning being deprived from their environment as they awoke. Well as Chihiro awakened, and Osaka slept soundly. The Ekan crawling through grasses were mostly relaxing at this point, and the number of Spearows had seemed to increase. Among the grasses Nidoran and Abra were also featured. North, and at a left from the exit of the mountain, was a river that had several Goldeen and Magikarp jumping out on occasion. The flow still enough to make nearly no noise.
"Sleeping on the ground might take a little getting used to," She declared, though to no one in particular. She got up slowly and began stretching before remembering Osaka needed to be woken from her slumber. She squatted next to her and began shaking her limp body.
"Hey, Osaka, rise and shine," She said, in a slightly lower than usual voice.
Osaka had been having another marvelous pokemon dream, one forgotten soon after slumber had ended though. She slowly began to rise to a sitting position, and then to her feet. It was almost painful for Chihiro to watch the venture that certainly took longer than it should have.
"Salad evolved," She told Chihiro as soon as she was properly awake. She had forgotten to recount this fact until now, her thoughts being taken by... well you remember.
"Wow really? Just what were doing while you were gone anyway?" Chihiro inquired, her original inference that it was Osaka being Osaka that caused the injury fading, the scratches were starting to look like a Pokemon must have done it.
"Oh, well this guy was going in this place in the cave, he looked weird so I followed him," Osaka began to recount, not quite using the vocabulary required to make it vivid, but still having said vocabulary present. "There was this really pretty part of the cave, a bunch of glowing rocks were in the walls, and he put a bomb on the wall, saying what he needed was just below the ground," Osaka paused in thought, making sure she was going to say what she needed to say, "He tried to attack me, but then Salad evolved and saved me." Neatly leaving out the conversation that she barely recalled and the fact that the bomb was in her bag.
Chihiro had remembered something when Osaka was talking, the appearance of the strange girl in the cave. Chihiro thought of recounting it to Osaka, but figured she would probably come out of the conversation more confused than going in, and suggested that they take their leave instead. This they did, and made their way down the somewhat rugged and wide road to Cerulean. They saw and battled a few pokemon, some of which put up a sizable fight, until at one point...
"Hey you two over there! The girl trainers!" A voice called from atop a hill. Both Chihiro and Osaka looked in that direction and saw the man. He was probably about middle aged and had what looked like a kung-fu outfit with ripped sleeves and a red headband on. His black hair was only long enough to line the top of his headband. He jumped to the position just in front of the girls and began a small speech.
"Me and my companion and rival just over the hill have been in heated debate for months over which move is better. The punch or the kick," He demanstated a basic move of each type. "We need neutral trainers such as yourselves to help us decide which exactly is better, and we can finally end our never ending heated debate of incredibly intelligent albeit never ending debatable subject of debate and non-endingness... in heat." All of which came out of his mouth at very high speeds.
Chihiro merely stood dumbfounded, she had a basic idea of what was going on, but honestly could scarcely follow. She was about to ask this astoundingly hyper martial arts enthusiast to repeat himself when Osaka spoke up instead.
"So you need us to follow you and give our opinions on which is better, punch or kick, in your never ending heated debate of incredibly inte- that thing?" Osaka inquired of the man. She could have recounted the whole thing, but found herself fed up with the very idea of it.
"Yes little girl, as reward we will let you learn the not so ancient techniques of ultimate punching and kicking or something else just as suitable, follow me."
"Go off with this completely insane stranger in the middle of a little traveled road to his camp over the hill and out of view?" Chihiro went over in her head while looking to the sky, "Does he think we're idiots?" She looked forward to see both Osaka and the man passing over the hill though, and hurried to catch up with the girl.
"Osaka are you nuts? We don't even know this guy!"
"Don't be ridiculous, if I was I'd be much crunchier."
"No, I mean are you mad?"
"I'm not mad at all, I'm happy as ever!"
"Osaka what I mean to say is..." She remembered what she meant to accomplish at the start, "forget it, the point was, we're-"
"We're here!" The man announced.
There were two tents set up around a shabbily made dojo. In front of one of them was a man who mirrored the one who had met Chihro and Osaka, only with brown hair. The tent to the right had a flag proclaiming "Kicking Rulez!" and the left read that "Punching Rockz!"
"Look we should really get going, Ceruluen is just down the road, and we were spending the night there and the Gym-" Chihiro began explaining.
"No need, certainly no need, I assume you have Pokemon that can learn Mega Punch and Mega Kick?" He asked the duo as he ruffled Chihro's hair.
Osaka thought for a second, "None of my Pokemon are bipedal, will that be a problem?" She inquired. The man merely shook his head in dissapointment.
The other man who had been standing near the Kicking Rulez! tent dashed over and began a speech in a voice sounding strangely like the original man. "Then we shall have a new solution, we shall each use one Pokemon who can only use either kicks or punches, the one that this girl defeats more quickly will be the one who is weaker than the other! Or the one that is defeated if only one is, or the one she lasts against longer if both are not defeated! With the reward of the Pokemon belonging to the loser at that!"
Osaka turned to Chihiro with a serious look on her face, "This is a challenge to find the answer to one of life's greatest questions. Will you, Chihiro, go forward and take the challenge, win the battles and reap your reward? Before you lays the door to martial arts and another lifelong freind! Are you ready?"
Chihiro was getting caught in the excitement stirred by the kicking enthusiast and Osaka, she replied in a quiet voice "I... I will."
Osaka started again, louder this time, "I said: Are You Ready!"
Chihiro raised her voice also, "Yes, yes I am!"
"I said: ARE YOU READY!"
"YES! Go Bubbles, destroy them!" She had been completely trapped in the unintentional random antics of Osaka, and was lusting for the battle.
The punching enthusiast spoke up, "Go Fist!" A Machop burst from the pokeball. The other let his pokemon out to battle soon after, another Machop was released.
Fist ran to Bubbles and let out a barrage of punches, all swiftly dodged by Bubbles, but the last, sending him up the hill in slight. Brick Break clashed with Mach Punch several times, until Bubbles went past and hit Fist in the face, and followed with water gun, which Fist ducked under, he then flipped over another and delivered and falling Mega Punch. He only hit the hard shell thanks to Withdraw, accurately aimed to send Bubbles flying to a post and rebound, bashing into Fist's and causing a cracking sound to ring as something in Fist cracked.
"17 Seconds!" Osaka had activated the timing system on the Pokedex, only god knows how though. Chihiro fed Bubbles a potion.
"Go Kick!" The other man yelled.
Kick started with a Low Kick which Bubbles jumped to avoid, opening the venue for a devastating Mega Kick which sent Bubbles crashing to the hill behing him. Kick ran to Bubbles with the intent to deliver a finishing move. Bubbles got up slowly.
"You can do this Bubbles!" Chihiro shouted out. Suddenly a light encompassed the Pokemon, his limbs and body grew out, his tail grew considerably and his skin darkened.
"Bubbles evolved into Wartortle, congratulations!"
As the Machop closed in on Bubbles he released a powerful Water Gun, sending Kick to the air. Bubbles hit it with a Tackle to finish, Kick staggered for a bit before he fell to the ground.
"17.5 Seconds!"
"YES YES YES!" The second man screamed in joy, "You've been defeated brother! The kick is indeed stronger!"
The first man walked to Chihiro and dropped to his knees before her, "You have fought brilliantly, for that you deserve my beloved Fist, I pray you use him better than I." Chihiro took the pokeball form the man. The two girls walked over the hill together, with the same air that one may walk away from a roller-coaster they had just ridden. Seemingly rushed and premature in leaving to them both.
"That was fun Osaka, I'm so glad we went," She revealed to the girl walking beside her. All of her original protest being forgotten in place of the exhileration associated with battle. Neither girl knew that Kagura had passed by the road beside the hill while they were inside, and she was heading towards Cerulean. They chatted through the rest of the journey, and reached Cerulean a few hours after the sun had set.
Author's Notes: Not so much to say about this one. I merely told some more adventure from the girls. I'm contagiously sick at the time of finishing(Dec. 9), so all of Friday will be spent at home and I hope to make good progress on this and Ohyama's Somewhat Improbable Memories. With nobody to read through what I have written, I post as is.