A/N: Wow guys! Thanks for all the nice comments in my story ^_^ and thank you for the grammar tips .
Markus and June stared blankly at the dusty curtain, some of the dust had settled but most of it kept swirling around, cloaking their Pokémon. And the wait was becoming unbearable.
June fidgeted anxiously with the buttons on her coat, if there was one thing she hated more than fire types it was waiting, especially when a friend of hers was in trouble. She sighed and looked at Markus, who had the same impatient look on his face.
"Uh... who do you think won?" said June, trying to relieve some of the tension building up in the battle field.
Markus jumped slightly when he heard her voice and June had the feeling she'd just interrupted his thoughts. "Um...I don't know... it wasn't that clear, was it?"
"No, it wasn't" June agreed. "But did you see ukko's tackle? It was awesome..."
"Yeah... but Keegan's ember was awesome too, did you see when keegan-"
"Pfft... just a bunch of pretty sparks..." said June, crossing her arms.
"Wait... are you calling Keegan weak?" said Markus, pointing his index finger at her.
"I didn't say he was weak, I said... hold on, I think I see keegan!" June pointed at the trunk of a nearby tree. At the foot of it, she could clearly see a faint reddish glow emanating from it.
Markus shot out towards the tree, unaware that there was still a lot of dust swirling around; June sighed and sped off, trying to find Ukko. It was way harder than she expected. the dust had covered just about everything in sight and the dust buffeted her in the face and got into her eyes and mouth. She spluttered and tried to feel her way until...
"SHIIYEEENX!"
"Oops... sorry Ukko" said June, blushing. "I didn't see your tail..."
Ukko shrugged and leapt into June's arms, emitting a soft whimper when he did so. June smiled and scratched him behind his ear but Ukko looked at June unhappily and showed her a piece of charred red cloth he had been clenching between his teeth
June took the piece of cloth and examined it carefully. "hold on... this is... well...was your neck scarf, wasn't it?" shinx nodded and buried his face in her chest, expecting to be told off for not guarding his present, but June smiled and reassured him it was no big deal.
After a quick bath at the Pokémon centre, June and Markus were already in the Pokémon centre lobby, eating a bagel and chatting happily about their battle, just like everyone else there.
"Did you see Keegan's ember? It looked like little fiery bullets!" said Markus, throwing a piece of ham towards keegan.
"Yeah, but Ukko's tackle was what won us the battle, wasn't it?" said June, giving Ukko a grateful squeeze.
"What do you mean, won us the battle" said Markus "you didn't win..."
"Yes I did, keegan fainted, so I win!" said June chirpily, giving Ukko a piece of cheese.
"Yeah, but Ukko fainted as well" replied Markus
"No he didn't, he was wide awake, weren't you? And besides, you'd still owe me a budew even if we hadn't won, don't you remember?"
Markus blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"The dare! Remember? You said that if I did it, you'd give me a Pokémon, so, hand the poke ball over"
"No way! I'm not giving you my first capture, ever!" said Markus, crossing his arms and pouting. "Besides, you got kicked out of the camp remember?"
"That makes no difference, now. GIVE ME MY BUDEW!" June tackled Markus without waiting for a reply and rummaged through his bag. She found the budew's poke ball and pocketed it, giving Markus a victorious grin.
Markus glared at her but didn't bother getting his budew back since everyone was staring at them. "Fine, but this won't be the last time you'll see me! I'm going to beat Cynthia before you and become SINNOH CHAMPION!"
"YEAH RIGHT! I'd like to see YOU try!" roared June, watching him leave the Pokémon centre in a huff. June smiled at Ukko and called out the budew, who started leaping around happily when she saw that her trainer wasn't that weird boy that wanted to call her grasspunch.
"Hello little buddy!" said June chirpily, grinning at the bud Pokémon. The budew squealed and started twirling in big circles around June euphorically. "Whoa... stop spinning around like that, you're making me dizzy!"June giggled, placing her hands on the budew's sides to calm her down; the budew stopped but kept grinning up at June.
"You're such a little dancer! Hey... that's a good name, dancer! Do you like that?" June said, tickling her, dancer nodded and giggled even louder. Ukko winked at dancer who returned the wink. "Right! Ok Roark, you better be ready 'cause dancer and Ukko are gonna beat your Pokémon and WIN THE COAL BADGE!" roared June, thrusting both of her fists into the air.
"Um... I don't think you'll be able to beat Roark just yet..."
June jumped and swung around to see who had spoken to her, it was a girl with long white hair and sparkly blue eyes, she smiled kindly and pointed at her team who had hidden behind June's legs.
"But why? Aren't my Pokémon strong enough?" June asked, sounding a little hurt.
"No, I mean yes but no, what I mean is that gym battles are three on three, so you'd need another one, see, also, electric types don't do well against rock types" said the girl, matter-of-factly."You should also train them up a bit, it would certainly help"
"o-oh, right" said June
Ukko ventured out of his hiding place and crept stealthily towards the girl. He sniffed curiously at her shoes, she smelt like a faraway place and treeckos.
"Aww... what a cute shinx!" said the girl, bending down to stroke Ukko who grinned and cuddled up to her. "Hey little budew, come! I don't bite!" the girl beckoned dancer forward but dancer decided that she was comfy where she was. The girl shrugged and got up, smiling at June. "Hey, I was just wondering... how about we train together? I thought red and I could train but it isn't much fun training against rocks and logs, y'know"
"sure! That'd be awesome... but I didn't catch your name, I'm June"
"I'm Yue, so... let's go!"
Within a few minutes, June and Yue had picked out the perfect battlefield free of dust and with a gentle breeze blowing through the field.
"Okay June, are you ready?" said Yue, holding out two poke balls with a steely glint in her eye
"Ready!" called out June happily
Yue took a deep breath and, taking advantage of the wind's direction, threw the poke balls high into the air, once airborne, the poke balls flashed red and two different Pokémon materialized out of them, a treecko and a swablu. June didn't need to throw her poke balls, since dancer had wanted to walk outside her poke ball towards the clearing.
"Ok" called out yue "Red, use pound, Alta, use peck"
"Ukko, tackle and dancer, absorb!" said June, a little too loudly.
Red and Alta flung themselves at their opponents, Red's fist and Alta's beak glowing an eerie white. Ukko managed to jump out of Red's way and tackle him from behind but dancer, who had used absorb, wasn't so lucky. Absorb, although it hit Alta, did nothing to stop her from jabbing her glowing beak into dancer.
"No, that's not right, you see when an opponent is going to attack your Pokémon you need to tell it to dodge or to counter with another move" said Yue
"-Sigh- ok then. Let's try that again, ok?" said June
"Right. Red, use-"
"Whoa... cool, a trainer battle! Hey, can I join in?"
June and yue turned around to see the boy that had just spoken, he had spiky red hair and green eyes, giving them a hopeful smile.
"Um..." began June "you see... we'd love to battle with you, but we're just-"
"Great! Ya ready, squirtle?" said the boy, chucking a poke ball high in the air, Yue sighed and recalled Alta, who gave a loud squawk in protest.
A squirtle materialised in the battle field, sticking his tongue out at Ukko cheekily. "Ok squirtle, use bubble!" the squirtle took a deep breath and blew bubbles all over June's team.
"Dancer! Stun spore, quick!" the two vines on the top of Dancer's head separated and little golden dust-like particles radiated out from them, heading for the bubbles. But the only thing the spores did was stick to the bubbles uselessly. But Dancer was ready for it, she separated her vines again and used stun spore, but instead of just standing there, Dancer spun round and round quickly, which created a mini golden tornado, the tornado swallowed the bubbles and with a quick flick of her vines, Dancer threw the tornado at her opponents and swallowed them too.
The tornado stopped whirling around and dropped the Pokémon in a heap, the remaining dust that wasn't blown by the wind lay on the ground like confetti, but amazingly, the Pokémon caught in the stun-tornado weren't paralyzed, only slightly dizzy.
They charged towards Dancer with very angry expressions on their faces, they had clearly not enjoyed their little trip; Red attacked Dancer furiously with pound while squirtle tackled her angrily. Ukko, who had somehow avoided the stun-tornado, took pity on Dancer and decided to help.
Ukko opened his jaws and closed them down on Red's tail. Red screamed and thumped his tail violently to try and dislodge Ukko, but Ukko wasn't having it, every time red threw his tail down, Ukko would bite with more and more strength until Red had collapsed. He turned towards the squirtle, who had been watching the whole thing, and bit his arm, but the squirtle was smarter, he blew bubbles in Ukko's face so hard Ukko nearly choked and had to let go to breathe, then the squirtle used tackle, sending Ukko flying.
Luckily. Dancer, wanting to repay Ukko, used absorb on the squirtle while he was gloating. Red orbs of light flew out of the squirtle's body and into budew, who absorbed them greedily. The squirtle did a frantic attempt to tackle Dancer but it was too late. Before the squirtle could make contact with Dancer's body he collapsed, his health drained.
The three trainers recalled their Pokémon with funny looks on their faces, yue looked like she was trying to understand what had just happened, the boy looked like he had just swallowed a bucketful of live eels and June looked like a magikarp, opening and closing her mouth without saying anything. Until the boy spoke up.
"Whoa, hey, how did you teach your budew to do that? The spinny dust thing?"
"Uh... I didn't" admitted June.
"Yeah, it sure looked cool, but there's something I just don't get" said the boy, cocking his head to one side. "I mean, why didn't it paralyze the Pokémon, stun spore never fails when it hits..."
"Maybe it was something to do with the wind" suggested June
"Or maybe my squirtle's bubbles washed the paralyzing away" said the boy
"Maybe they're all immune, the Pokémon, I mean" muttered June, "but I don't know... could be any of the three... hey Yue! What do you think?... Yue? "
Yue had wandered off and was looking at some blossoms on a nearby tree with a very funny look on her face, as if she had caught a fox undoing the latch on a chicken run. She then snapped off some of the delicate flowers and presented them proudly to June.
"Uh... very nice, Yue. Thanks..." said June stupidly.
"No, look, see these? Do you know what tree these blossoms belong to?" said Yue
"Uh... that tree?" said June, not too sure that was the answer Yue was looking for.
"Nope, these are Cheri berry blossoms, see" said Yue. "Cheri berries neutralize the paralyzing effects of stun spore and this..." Yue stuck her finger inside the flower and showed June the yellow pollen inside. "This is Cheri berry pollen, it must have been flitting around when Dancer did her attack and neutralised the paralysis" she said, grinning.
"Aah... so that's why it didn't work..." said June, smelling the flowers. They smelt a little spicy. "Look Ukko, smell these!" said June happily, throwing the blossoms onto the ground, Ukko went over to smell them, but sneezed.
"Well, it was lovely training with you, June, but I have to go now, mom should be wondering where I am" said Yue, giving June a sad smile.
"Yeah, same here. But maybe we'll meet again, right?" said the boy. "oh, by the way, my name's noel, hope we meet again soon!"
"You bet!" said June chirpily.
After waving goodbye to her new friends, June and her team set off towards oreburgh, hoping to find Pokémon on the way there.
"Look Ukko, abra are supposed to live around here" June chattered, showing Ukko a picture of an abra on her sinnoh dex. "Aren't they cute? They're also psychic, that could help us against Roark, don't you think?"
Ukko nodded, keeping his eyes peeled for any abra in the area...
"Shut up, stupid. She's gonna hear us"
Ukko blinked, had he heard something? He was sure he heard human voices somewhere...
"Shush, be quiet. I think her shinx heard us..."
Ha! He had heard something! He thought about alerting June but she would probably mess it up, he wanted to catch the two people alone. So, taking advantage of June, who was busy fawning over a bidoof she found 'cute', Ukko crept quietly towards the source of the sound.
Inside a big, plastic bush, Ukko found two of the most weird trainers he had ever seen before, they had mushroom-like hairstyles and both of them had dyed their hair to an odd shade of blue, they had funny space suits and white boots, one of them was holding a pair of binoculars and the other one had a twig stuck in his hair.
"Hey, are you sure she's gonna have valuable Pokémon?" asked the grunt with the binoculars.
"Sure, she'll probably have one of the starters, and besides, even if she has useless Pokémon we don't want to come back empty handed, right?" said the one with the twig on his hair.
"But how are we gonna steal her Pokémon?"
"Easy, we'll just tell her something or threaten her or something, and if she resists then we'll battle her and pick up her Pokémon when they faint before she can recall them"
These guys were going to steal June's Pokémon! Ukko had the sudden urge to sink his fangs into the robber's arms but they would catch him and dancer couldn't battle against their Pokémon alone and Ukko could sense at least three Pokémon in the robber's Pokémon. So Ukko decided to walk back to June and pretend he hadn't seen anything.
June hadn't missed Ukko the few seconds he was away, which was better, he thought. He didn't want to spoil June's mood before the battle. "Aww... did you see how the bidoof was holding his food with his little paws?" Ukko nodded, keeping his eye on the plastic bush.
Then suddenly, the two robbers scrambled out of their hiding place and up a tree. Ukko watched in fascination, how can they climb those trees so fast? Were they part-pachirisu? That would explain their blue hair colour...
June glanced at Ukko, who was staring at the top of a big tree. She looked up to see but there was nothing there, just leaves, braches and maybe a wurmple or two. "Hey Ukko, did you see an abra up there?" asked June. Ukko shook his head but still kept a close watch on the branches. June frowned and looked back at the same spot Ukko was looking at, but still saw nothing, she'd heard tales of luxray being able to see through walls... could shinxes see through foliage?
Before June could ask Ukko this, two figures fell out of the tree Ukko was looking at. They had funny space suit-like clothes and identical haircuts. One of them (who had a twig stuck in his hair) walked towards June with a false smile on his face.
"Hey... hey you little girl" he said. "We need your Pokémon for an experiment, orders from professor willow... uh, we're assistants"
"Why would professor willow need my Pokémon for?" June asked, eyeing sceptically the assistants' space suits.
"Uh... she needs them for... for making them super strong! That's it! Isn't that right, Dr. Logan?" the assistant with the twig on his head said, motioning for Dr. Logan to come closer.
"Oh yeah? Well... how come you don't have lab coats on?" said June. "When I went to the lab everyone was wearing lab coats..."
"W-well, that's because... um..." said the assistant with the twig on his head, jabbing Dr Logan in the ribs with his elbow.
"Ooow! Uh, you see, we use these clothes when we come out of the lab, they're filled with Pokémon repellent
"Oh yeah? Then, what about your hair? I didn't see anyone in the lab with that hair colour... actually Ukko, let's just leave these nutters and look for another way of getting out of here..."
"HEY! Hold on, little girly, you're not going anywhere" said the assistant, jabbing his gloved finger in June's chest, Ukko jumped in the middle of June and the assistant and growled, but the assistant just snarled and kicked Ukko hard.
"Hey! D-don't do that to Ukko!" said June, she was starting to get scared. The assistants didn't look friendly at all.
"We'll do anything we want, girly. We're team galactic and nothing can stop us! Now..." he said, his tone dropping dangerously soft. "You're going to give us all your poke balls, and if you cooperate nicely, we won't hurt you and we will just walk away, ok?"
June whimpered, and looked worriedly over to Ukko, who had gotten up and was walking towards June, feeling dizzy and bruised. She didn't want these 'galactic' guys to hurt her... but if she gave her Pokémon to them, they would hurt them even more, so, taking a deep breath and trying to sound as confident as she could she said:
"No, I'm not giving you anything"
The confident grin from the galactic guy's face wiped off and was replaced with a scowl. "Oh yeah? Then how about this, how about we battle you and when we win, we get your Pokémon, how's that?" and before June could say anything, the galactic guys threw two poke balls into the air, a glameow and a stunky materializing from them.
June had just commanded Dancer out when the stunky started attacking Ukko, raising both his paws and bringing them down harshly onto Ukko's back. But the glameow did nothing. She simply planted her bottom on the grass and watched.
"Glameow, attack! Use scratch!" said the galactic guy, but the glameow shook her head and refused to move, watching Ukko bite the stunky with much interest. "Glameow, NOW! I won't have this nonsense, scratch!" but the glameow refused to move. She hissed at him and lied down.
The galactic guy was furious. His face turned red (clashing oddly with his hair) and stamped his white boots into the ground, then, in a sudden flash of inspiration, he took a deep breath and kicked the glameow into the battlefield.
The glameow managed to stand up in shaky legs and looked at June pleadingly. June gasped, how can anyone be so mean to their Pokémon? She watched as the glameow shook her fur out and walked back towards the galactic guy determinedly.
Don't go. Thought June, he'll only kick you again, don't go. But the glameow paid no attention to June's pleads. The glameow's walk became a run and as soon as she got to the galactic guy she sat down in front of him, the puff on her tail flicking from side to side. The galactic guy smiled and bent down to scratch her head.
"Heh, I knew you'd come back pleading" he said, stroking the glameow's crescent shaped head, the glameow purred and scanned the man in front of her, looking for... something, until she found it.
The glameow leaped and went straight for his arm. She dug her claws onto his arm and while the galactic guy screamed, she picked up something from his hand in her mouth and leaped away from the guy, smacking his face with her tail in the process.
She sprinted towards June and dropped the thing in her mouth at June's feet. June picked it up, it was a poke ball.
The glameow winked at June and fluffed her fur up, ready for battle. Meanwhile, the galactic guy was throwing a tantrum. "NO! How DARE you leave team galactic? You're gonna pay for this, glameow"
The galactic guy threw a poke ball in the air, a zubat materializing from it. The zubat headed immediately for the glameow but she dodged and pinned the zubat down with her claws. Meanwhile, Ukko and Dancer ganged up on the stunky, dancer paralyzing it with stun spore and Ukko biting him in the back, the stunky gave one last cry and fainted.
Ukko clicked his tongue happily and ran over to help the glameow with the zubat. One bite to the neck was all it took to make the zubat faint; it was probably tired already from trying to escape from the glameow's claws.
June grinned, she picked up the glameow tenderly and stroked her crescent shaped head, the glameow purred, her tail flicking side to side, making the galactic guy stamp his white booted feet in anger, but he knew that no amount of yelling could ever bring his glameow back.
He shot June a filthy look and walked out of view, muttering something about glameows being useless and weak. June watched the two galactic guys walk away in a huff and grinned even more.
She turned towards the glameow and cuddled her. "Guess you're going to need a name, right?"
The glameow nodded, yeah, a name, that would be just fine...
"Ok, then... how about Moon? Do you like that?" moon nodded and purred happily. June smiled and recalled dancer and Moon back. Grinning her head off, she walked towards a rocky entrance with 'OREBURGH GATE' written in big iron letters.
Get ready Roark.