A/N: this chapter isn't one of my longest, but I hope you nevertheless enjoy reading it.
June, Aretha and the girl froze, staring at Obsie in surprise, June blinked and tried to look at his mouth and Obsie, seeing all the attention he was getting, thumped his tail on the ground proudly and growled out his name.
The girl, who was still in the bubble, showed the teeniest hint of a smile. "...Did your onix just eat those thieves? Just like that?"
"It seems..." said Aretha examining Obsie.
"Won't it hurt him? I mean, who knows if they have other weapons?" said June nervously. "And they still have our Pokémon and our eggs"
"Okay, Obsie, spit them out" said Aretha firmly.
"On-ix" said Obsie, turning away from Aretha stubbornly.
"Obsie, spit them OUT" said Aretha, even more firmly, Obsie growled but took a deep breath and sort-of coughed the two thieves out reluctantly. They landed with a dry thump in the grass, completely caked in stone dust and small chips of stone, as soon as they saw June, Aretha and the girl glaring at them they squeaked and inched back, but only to bump their heads on Obsie's jaw, sending them scuttling back.
"P-please don't h-h-hurt us! We were sent here by our leader!" whimpered the male, practically sobbing.
"Yeah! We're just... pawns! We oblige orders!" whined the female, inching away from the onix behind her.
"We won't hurt you... unless you release our friend" June motioned over to the girl. "And return our Pokémon and our eggs"
"Yeah, where have you hid them, scum!" screeched the girl, still trapped in her bubble. The two thieves muttered wistfully and took out four octagon-shaped boxes and gave them to June, June examined them closely, they had a small silver button on the top and the words: Pokémon snatcher 4000 on the top. Acting almost instinctively, June jabbed her finger on one of the boxes.
The box gave a horrible clattering sound and, with a mechanical whir, eight metal legs poked out of the sides and curled upwards, making it look like a huge dead metal spider. On the sides of the legs, a few blades curled out and bent so they were covering the gaps, making it look like a cannon and, from the top, a bubble began blowing itself out the top and, at last, the bubble sprung free, with Aretha's egg inside.
"My egg!" yelled Aretha, and dived for the egg. She caught it and sank her nails in the bubble's skin, trying to pop it, but the bubble remained solid, as if it was made of rubber, meanwhile, June had already released the other bubbles, her egg, Ukko and the girl's cubone.
"Siree!" screamed the girl. "Did these jerks hurt you? Are you okay?" the girl tried to claw her way out of the bubble, but the bubble refused to pop.
"Cu! Bo!" yelled Siree, beating the bubble's skin with her bone club, but nothing happened.
"Shiii! SHI SHI SHEE!" yelled Ukko, sinking his claws in the bubble and attempting to rip it apart to no avail.
June picked the bubble with the egg and Ukko and glared at the two thieves. "You! Release our Pokémon, eggs and our friend from this bubble NOW!" the two thieves looked at each other and, to June's amazement, smiled.
"Ha! You think we'll tell you that?" said the man.
"You must be crazy if you think we're going to tell you that!" said the woman with a sneer.
"Fine, then I'll tell my Obsie to..." began Aretha, an odd grin drawing up on her face.
"W-well, if that thing eats us, you won't EVER know how to get them out!" said the woman.
"I... that's true" said June, she looked over to Aretha questioningly but, to her surprise, her grinned widened.
"Oh, I'm not going to tell Obsie to eat you..." she purred, her smile beginning to look disturbing. She then pointed her finger at the thieves and whistled.
Obsie didn't need any other signal, as soon as Aretha's lips curled Obsie roared and lunged for the thieves, grabbing them by their coats. They screamed and flailed around but Obsie laughed and began to shake them like a puppy shakes a ragdoll, violently swinging his head from side to side.
"AAH! MAKE IT STOOOP!" screamed the woman. "WE'LL TELL YOU! STOOOP!" Aretha snickered quietly and raised her palm, halting Obsie, who stopped and leant forward so that the thieves' feet were just grazing the ground, they slumped forwards, almost as if they had fainted.
"Right, how do I get my friends out of the bubbles" hissed Aretha. The male squeaked and weakly withdrew what looked like a chunky black pencil with a glowing tip. Aretha said no more and snatched it off him. She looked at the bubble with her egg and jabbed the glowing point on it. The bubble popped as if it was a simple soap bubble, catching her egg, she hurled the pencil towards June, who caught it and freed Ukko, Siree and the girl.
"Ukko! Are you ok bud?" said June, burying her face in his azure fur.
"Siree... I'm so glad to see you..." said the girl cuddling her cubone, she let the little lonely Pokémon clamber onto her shoulder and turned to glare at the thieves, who Obsie was still holding by the scruffs of their coats. She growled and began to run towards them, her fists held high, but before she could get at them, the thieves sighed and dropped out of their coats, completely knocked out.
June frowned, looking at the odd clothes they were wearing, were they... spaceman suits? Then it suddenly hit her. They were like those other people who had wanted to steal her Pokémon when she had gotten Moon! They even had the same mushroom hair style.
"Hey... I've seen these people before!" said June. "Well... not these people, but others like them"
Aretha snorted. "Ah, so you've already met team galactic, huh?"
"Yeah, that what they said they were called..." said June, daydreaming.
Aretha nodded and recalled her onix. "Well, we'd better leave; their other friends will probably come looking for them and we don't want any trouble" with that said Aretha chucked her Poké balls inside her bag and, holding her egg carefully, began to walk out of the field.
June smiled and ran up to her "Hey, any ideas about where we're going?"
Aretha nodded "Of course! I was thinking about going through cycling road-"
"Excuse me" rang out a familiar voice. June and Aretha turned around in unison to face the girl with the cubone, who gave them a tiny smile.
"Yeah? What's up?" said June.
The girl cleared her throat "Um... I... thanks, I don't think I could have gotten Siree without your help..."
"No problem! Anyone else could have done that" said Aretha.
The girl nodded "I must leave now, but I hope I get to meet you again. My name's Eva, by the way" Eva turned and walked swiftly out of the field.
"My name's June and this is Aretha!" June cried out after Eva, they both watched as Eva took up speed and finally left their view. "Uh... you were saying something about a cycling road?"
"Oh right! Yes, I thought we might go to Eterna city and challenge Gardenia" said Aretha.
"But I don't have a bike now, and you can only get across cycling road with a bike, can't you?" said June.
Aretha grinned "That's the fun part, you see, I thought we might go under it, and get to Eterna by foot, there's a bunch of rare Pokémon there and I thought it'd be cool to go camping"
"We're going to need some supplies though" said June. "Sleeping bags, food, matches, clean water..."
With that said, June and Aretha set off to find a travel shop, and thankfully, they found one near the area they were in. They quickly stocked up on food, Pokémon food, repels, Poké balls, matches, water bottles and two warm sleeping bags, Aretha's navy, June's bright red. They came out of the shop, and began to travel towards the road.
A few hours later...
"Arethaaaa, we've been walking for houuuurs, I thought this was supposed to be fun..." moaned June. "My feet are killing me..."
"Fine, we'll stop to rest for a bit. But I don't see why you're complaining, Ukko doesn't seem to be tired at all" said Aretha, watching Ukko energetically trod on.
"He's wild, he's used to it" said June absentmindedly, plopping herself down on a fallen log.
"What? You mean he hasn't got a Poké ball?" said Aretha concernedly. "Isn't it a little dangerous?"
"Well, he didn't want one, and I'm not going to force him into one anytime" said June, closing her eyes and soaking up the brisk sunlight.
"But what if he goes aggressive around you? Wild Pokémon still are infected by the sandgem disease, y'know" insisted Aretha.
"Mmm... maybe, but I trust him" said June with a yawn. "Wow, I'm tired..."
"I know what will wake you up" said Aretha happily. "How about we go swimming on that spring over there? Looks pretty clean" she pointed over to a big spring a little way off.
June opened her eyes momentarily and shook her head. "Nah, I think I'll pass... Ukko, would you like to go swimming? Actually..." June stood up and handed Aretha her Poké balls. "I think everyone could do with a little swimming, except maybe Moon" she picked up a can of repel. "I think I'll take a nap, meet you in the spring"
Aretha nodded, and smiled at Ukko. "How about it? Fancy swimming? But promise not to shock anybody while they're in the spring, okay?" Ukko nodded and both of them began making for the spring, hearing a faint hiss come from June as she was spraying more repel on herself, after a few minutes of walking Aretha and Ukko got to the spring.
"Okay then, come on o- Ukko!" yelled Aretha as Ukko didn't wait for her and jumped in the pool; he resurfaced and gave Aretha a cheeky wave. "Aah, well, I'm not your trainer to tell you what to do, huh?" Ukko stuck his tongue out at her and smiled, diving under the clear water. Aretha laughed and released both her and June's Pokémon. "Right, you guys have fun while I go off to change, kay?" she picked up a bundle of clothes from her bag and disappeared in a thick group of trees.
"Wowee... this place is soo pretty!" squeaked Dancer, looking at the glittering spring.
"WATEEEER!" screamed Lazuli, before jumping into the spring gleefully.
"Ugh...I hate water, typical for out loser trainer to bring us here" meowed Moon, before avoiding neatly a huge wave of water courtesy of Lazuli. Meanwhile, Storm had grinned at the water and "dived" on it without creating the tiniest ripple and Obsie frowned at the water and slithered away from it. Dancer was trying out the water and, to her immense surprise and delight; she found that she could float perfectly in the water, her face peeping out comically from the waves.
"Aww, come on Moon! Stop being such a... a... a sourpuss!"Yelled Dancer, giggling at her own pun. Moon gave her a long stare before walking away, muttering darkly to herself.
"Ah, leave her" gasped Ukko, resurfacing beside Dancer "she's probably still sour because I totally kicked her butt that other time"
Moon stopped right in her tracks. "Listen you electrified ball of blue fur, that was a complete fluke-"
"Oh yeah? Want a rematch then?" yelled Ukko "Come and get me then!" he blew a raspberry at Moon, which caused her face to turn bright red.
"I'll shut you up" she growled, letting out a huge roar (That was pretty loud considering Moon was a glameow) she charged towards Ukko, but the instant her front feet touched the cold water she flinched, skidded and fell flat on her back unceremoniously on top of the watery sand. She skittered to her feet and ran away as far away from the water as possible, giving Ukko a humiliated glare.
"Wow Ukko, you're really cheerful today" said Dancer, waddling her stubby legs in an attempt to swim.
"Oh, it's because I love water" said Ukko, swimming in circles around Dancer. "It's been so long since I went swimming... my fur was all itchy yesterday"
"Hmm... where's Lazuli? She's been underwater for quite some time now, hasn't she?" said Dancer worriedly.
"Don't worry, she's built for holding her breath underwat- look! There she is!" Ukko pointed at the prinplup, who had jumped out of the water and dived on it. She stopped and swam incredibly fast towards them.
"Hey guys! Having fun? I sure am!" she said happily. "These new fins are soooo cool! I love evolution; I'm going to keep evolving no matter what!"
"Ok, I'm ready!" rang out a familiar voice. The Pokémon turned around to see Aretha dressed in a navy swimming suit with wavy aqua stripes in the middle. Grinning, she began to run and dived neatly in the water. "Gah, co-old!" she flailed around the cold water but her body soon got used to the chilly temperature. She swam happily alongside Ukko and even pushed Dancer along too.
"Say Ukko..." said Aretha, swimming alongside him "seen Moon around?"
"Shiin, shininx" said Ukko, pointing towards the sulking catty Pokémon.
"Buud bud" said Dancer, sort-of nodding her head.
"Yeah... I agree..." said Aretha, wishing for the umpteenth time she could understand Pokémon. "June was right, she doesn't like water..."
"Did somebody say my name?" trilled a voice. Aretha turned around to see June, fully dressed in an azumarill theme swimming dress, her hair tied up in a wonky ponytail. She gave them a grin, stepped back a little and cannonballed into the water. "Holy crap!" she gasped, rising to the surface. "It's so co-old!"
"You'll get used to it, don't worry" said Aretha, swimming closer to her friend. "Anyway, weren't you going to take a nap?"
"Er... I was, but I felt kinda bored afterwards" said June.
"You can't feel bored if you're asleep" pointed out Aretha.
"True, true. But..." June froze, her face paling suddenly, she looked down at her feet.
"What's wrong?" Said Aretha, examining June.
June gulped and, before anyone could stop her, began screaming like a maniac, flailing her arms around and sending water into Aretha's eyes. "AAH! SOMETHING'S GOT ME! SOMETHING'S GOT MEEE!"
"Wait, a Pokémon?" said Aretha, shielding her eyes from the massive splashing. "WAIT! No, Ukko. No shocking, you'll just shock June as well" she said quickly as she saw sparks rising out of Ukko's crest. "Lazuli! Come here!" Her prinplup quickly sped towards her as soon as her name was pronounced. Aretha reached out and hooked her arm around Lazuli's neck and clung forcefully to June's arm. "Ok Lazuli, head for the shore quickly!"
"Priiiin!" shrieked Lazuli obediently. She ducked herself under the water and began swimming energetically towards the shore, but they wouldn't budge. Puffing her feathers up determinedly, she swam as fast as her wings and legs would get her, but they only moved an inch, whatever was holding June's leg seemed to be pretty strong.
"Wait, I got an idea..." said Aretha, she glanced over to her sleeping onix. "Obsie, could you pick us up, please?" Obsie growled as he awoke and stared at his trainer and her friend. Making sure not to touch the water, Obsie craned his head over the surface of the water and picked his trainer up by her swimming dress. As both trainers were lifted out of the water, they could finally see what had been clinging on to June's leg...
"STORM!" screeched Aretha furiously, looking as the gas Pokémon detached himself from June's ankle sheepishly. "That prank just went TOO far!"
"Y-yeah... too far" said June weakly, her face still ashen from the shock.
Aretha growled and wriggled out of Obsie's grip, making both trainers fall in the water with a crash. Aretha swam quickly to the shore and picked storms Poké ball up and recalled him angrily, she then turned towards June. "I-I'm really sorry about that"
"Its okay" reassured June. "But I think I'll get out of the water now" June swam towards the shore and clambered on it, she picked a towel that matched her swimming outfit and cloaked herself in it. "We should start collecting sticks for the campfire, but let's let the Pokémon swim around in the water for a little longer"
A few hours later...
It had gotten quite dark soon, as well as cold. June was huddled around both of her two coats, her old green one and her new rainbow one, crouching a little too far away from the fire, she didn't like fire in general, she thought it was dangerous and she hated it when she got tiny burns on her fingers and was scared that she might fall in the campfire. Ukko was cuddling up to her, and she was holding her egg, which she noticed, was unusually warm. A rich, savoury smell reached her nostrils as Aretha heated soup in the fire.
"It's nearly done!" said Aretha, stirring the soup around. "Say, you are Ukko are pretty quiet tonight, I hope you're still not angry about the Storm incident"
June blinked in surprise "Oh no, of course not! It's just... I'm thinking..."
"About what?" asked Aretha, pouring soup in two bowls.
"Um... I don't know..." admitted June.
Aretha shook her head and thrust one of the bowls towards June. "Here, this should warm you up" June took the bowl gratefully and drank the soup slowly and quietly.
After drinking the warm soup, June made two mugs of chocolate with little pink and white marshmallows shaped like Poké balls. As she was halfway through drinking it an odd ringing sound began to come from her bag, she rummaged through it and pulled out her sinnoh dex and jabbed the 'answer video call' icon. The small square in the screen expanded to show her mother's face.
"Hello honey!" said her mother smiling at her daughter. "How is your journey going?"
"Fine mum" said June happily.
"Aww, that shinx you got there is so cute!" cooed June's mother. "Anyway, how are you honey?"
"Fine mum, just a little cold" said June.
"Ooh! And who's your friend there?" said June's mother.
"That's Aretha, we're travelling together" said June, tilting the sinnoh dex so her mother could see Aretha better. Aretha gave the screen a shy wave.
"Good good, anyway, did you say you were cold?" said June's mother. "I have a great recipe for a nice berry juice blend you can make in the wild if you get too cold" her mother wrote down something on the keyboard below the camera and a picture of two red berries popped out of the screen, one that resembled a small red bell pepper and another a spiky tomato. "Okay, you girls must get these two berries, two of each for a single serving. Just squish them up and mix them with juice, ok?"
"Ok" said June. "What are they called?"
"Chople and tamato" said her mother. "I have to go now, I wanted to check that you were ok"
"I am" said June happily. "Bye mom" her mother gave her one last smile and disappeared from the screen, putting her sinnoh dex back in her bag, she turned to Aretha. "Can we go look for the berries? Maybe we could put some in the hot chocolate!" Aretha nodded, and began taking out a small torch to light their way.
Finding berries, as opposed to June's initial belief, was a pretty difficult thing. And so far they had gotten only two chople berries and one tamato. The berry bushes they grew on were small and very rare.
"Smell any Ukko?" asked June as she searched another bush. Ukko took a deep breath to see if he could smell any of the spicy berries but he couldn't.
"Wait, I think I found some!... oh no... cheri again" muttered Aretha.
"Agh, this is hard" groaned June as she threw another branch filled with red poisonous berries. "Keep smelling Ukko" Ukko nodded and pointed his nose towards the wind, thinking that the wind might help carry the scent. Just as he was about to give up he noticed a tiny trickle of smell, coming from both berries. he alerted June and ran off in pursuit of the smell.
"Wait!" gasped June, running far behind Ukko. Aretha managed to catch up to him just as he was beginning to slow down. Ukko put down his nose on the ground, where had the smell gone? He took a deep sniff and began looking in the middle of a bush and found to his surprise a whole pile of berries! sniffing happily, he began to eat some bluk berries, since they weren't needed.
"Wow! Ukko's found a whole pile! How clever!" said June happily. She bent over and picked three tamato berries and two chople just as Ukko was helping himself to a pecha berry. After putting the remaining berries in the bag, June and Aretha began making for the camp, guided by the softly glowing fire.
Ukko was feeling fine. He walked happily by his trainer's side as she complimented him on his smelling techniques. Grinning, he withdrew another pecha berry he had impaled on his pointed tail and began munching on it.
Then Ukko picked up on the smell of another Pokémon. He didn't worry too much, since he could easily fight the Pokémon, but as they walked onwards Ukko noticed the smell getting stronger, so strong that he could even smell the Pokémon's type. Not that he knew what those types were; he had never smelled another Pokémon with those types. One smelled like deep, strong magic, smelling a little bitterer than psychic and a rough, dry scent, rock maybe? Ukko couldn't tell, but soon they reached the cam and Ukko quickly forgot about the odd smelling Pokémon.
"Finally! Ok" June picked up a good-sized bowl and tipped all the berries in it, and began to squish them with gusto. She mixed in some water and a little bit of sugar and poured the spicy mixture in two cups.
"Mmm... it's warm" said Aretha, taking one of the cups. She put it to her lips and took a big sip. Her eyes watered and she shut her eyes, but then the effect died down quickly. "Haah, hey... I feel warm inside!" said Aretha, taking another sip.
"Wait, I wanna try some!" June picked up her cup and almost downed the whole thing down, but she soon regretted that. The most horrible spicy sensation began blazing in her tongue and throat, even worse than the time she had mistook a jar filled with extra hot spicy sauce for her strawberry slush puppy. She coughed, but the air passing through her windpipe made the sensation worse so she cringed and tried not to breathe. But thankfully, the sensation quickly faded down and she was left with a nice, cosy warmth in her stomach.
"That was great! Well, after all the spicy burns down" said Aretha, sipping the last of her smoothie. June nodded and offered what was left to Ukko, who denied it almost immediately. June shrugged and tipped it on the ground. Ukko sighed thankfully.
As he did, he noticed something very eerie, the odd Pokémon smell he had smelt before was closer that it had ever been, and the creature was getting closer.
June frowned as Ukko suddenly sprang up from where he was sitting and began growling at a patch of grass, already his fur beginning to fizz with tiny zapping bolts of electricity. June motioned to Aretha and she nodded, releasing her prinplup silently to aid Ukko in battle. They all stood back to be ready for the mystery Pokémon.
Instead of a Pokémon, a huge purple and yellow beam of energy shot out from the patch of grass, scorching it. June and Ukko managed to dodge the first dragon rage but a second one shot out, almost hitting Lazuli in the process. Lazuli squawked in surprise and let out a narrow bubblebeam unintentionally, which put out the fire, leaving them with only the moon and Ukko's sparking coat as a light source.
A creature leapt from the grass and growled a horrible raspy snarl at Ukko. Ukko lunged forward and attempted to bite down on the creature, but it batted Ukko away with what June supposed was its tail, and before June could dodge, the thing growled and jumped on top on top of June, latching onto her shoulder.
June screamed and tried to shake the angry Pokémon off. She managed to catch a glimpse of its face, two small eyes, blazing with malice and a huge disproportioned mouth, with rows of razor sharp teeth. Ukko tried an electric attack but to his dismay it just bounced off from its hide. The Pokémon snarled and sank his fangs into June's shoulder, making her scream much louder and flail around more. Finally Lazuli sent a well aimed bubblebeam towards the creature, who screeched in pain as the bubbles impacted on its coat. He released June and scuttled away, picking up something in its mouth.
"Oh god. June, your shoulder!" said Aretha, examining June's shoulder which was bleeding.
June bit her lip and winced. "I-it hurts..." she whimpered, tears spiking her eyes. Aretha quickly searched a bag of supplies and found a type of potion made especially for humans. She sprayed it on June's wound and bandaged it carefully.
"Don't worry" said Aretha, tying the bandage. "This special potion makes scratches heal really quickly, in a few hours you'll be good as new"
"Thanks" said June, smiling. That was true; already the pain was leaving her quite fast. "At least that monster won't bother us again..."
"Oh no" said Aretha. "Our bags, they're gone! No!" Aretha groaned. "that thing must have stolen them..."
"Oh crap, our food supplies were in them!" said June with alarm. "How are we supposed to survive without food?"
"And our dexes, maps, spare Poké balls, Pokémon food, change of clothes, pyjamas... no, I have to follow that thing and get our bags back"
"NO!" said June quickly.
Aretha sighed "June, if I don't get our stuff back we won't be able to continue, we'll get stranded"
"Then I'll come with you" said June defiantly, but Aretha shook her head.
"You have to stay still for the potion to work properly, besides, I have the upper hand" said Aretha with a smile. "That thing is weak to water type moves, and I have Lazuli on my side" she motioned to her prinplup, who nodded.
"I... fine, but take my Pokémon to help defeat it" said June, offering her Poké balls to Aretha. Aretha nodded and took the Poké balls. Ukko immediately stepped forward but Aretha shook her head.
"Ukko, you must stay here and look after June, ok?" Ukko nodded reluctantly. Aretha picked up the flashlight. "Good thing it didn't take the flashlight, eh?"
"Yeah... oh, please be careful" said June concernedly.
Aretha grinned. "Don't worry, I'll just knock it out and grab our stuff before it gets back up" Aretha nodded goodbye to June and began to make her way through the grass, following the trail of scorched grass.
June scratched Ukko's scruff of fur "I just hope she's okay" they both watched as Aretha wandered out of their field of view, her torch being the only thing that June could see of her.
A/N: no comments here today lol.