A/N: yay, my 20th review! I'm happy thank you, EveChan170!, I won't put your OC in this chapter, but I promise she will be on the next. Anyway, this is more of a filler chapter, sorry about the delay (stupid school...) anyway, on with the story!
June sat a little uncomfortably on the ground, watching the beam from Aretha's flashlight get farther and farther away. The pain on her shoulder had almost completely faded away, which was great, she thought. She cast a glance over to Ukko who was seated down, looking in the same direction she had been looking, with a small frown on his face. "Hey Ukko" Ukko jumped in surprise, as if June had interrupted his thoughts.
"Shhiinx?" he said, his eyes briefly scanning June's face before returning to the path he had been staring at.
"I was just a little worried about Aretha" she said with a small smile. "But like she said, she'll only beat it down with water... right?" Ukko didn't reply, but the frown on his forehead increased. June sighed. "I hope she's okay..."
Meanwhile...
"Hmm... smell anything, Lazuli?"asked Aretha, as she parted a particularly long piece of foliage out of her way, the burning track had stopped and they were relying on Lazuli's sense of smell.
"Priiin" said Lazuli, sniffing the area thoroughly, but then she drooped disappointedly, she couldn't smell the faintest trace of the mysterious Pokémon.
"It's okay, I mean, prinplups don't have the best sense of smell there is, huh?" said Aretha, smiling encouragingly at her Pokémon, Lazuli perked up determinedly and began to try and smell for the Pokémon. She sniffed at a patch of grass and suddenly picked up a delicious, dry smelling scent. Lazuli licked her lips absent-mindedly and followed the smell to a thick bush. Grinning in anticipation; she parted the leaves as silently as she could and peered inside.
Inside the bush a small, round figure was crouched down in the dust, the only thing that Lazuli could make out of it was a large fin jutting from the top of the Pokémon, it picked up something that ruffled like a plastic bag and began ripping the plastic off like a spoiled child might unwrap a present. It hungrily picked up a round thing from it and stuck it in its mouth.
"What's up, Lazuli, found something?" said Aretha behind her, shining her torch on the Pokémon. Lazuli stopped her and put a flipper up to her mouth to tell her they should be very quiet. "Hey, a gible!" whispered Aretha excitedly. The gible didn't seem to notice the light filling her hiding spot, preferring to stuff another blue-cookie thing in her mouth.
"Priiin...pluuuh" whined Lazuli quietly as she watched the gible devour the whole bag.
"Well... I can always make you more poffins, don't worry about that" whispered Aretha. The gible suddenly jumped and Aretha thought for a second that she would turn around and rip her face off, but she just spat out the chewed up poffins in a very unappetizable blue mush.
"Uurgh... I don't think she's too into dry poffins... oh no" the gible raised a paw and slashed down on June's bag who had lain hidden in the shadows, leaving a huge gash. The gible hungrily stuck her hand inside the gash and pulled out June's special extra filled nutella sandwiches, stuffing them into her mouth without even taking the aluminium foil off them. "June's not going to be happy about that..."
The gible then reached deeper into the bag and found June's sinnoh dex, which miraculously wasn't making any random Pokémon identification. The gible sniffed it to see if it was edible but then she stopped and stared at the screen. Aretha frowned; there wasn't anything on the screen, so why was the gible so intently staring at the screen? Then she realised, the sinnoh dex was turned off and it reflected a little like a mirror and it was reflecting them.
The gible hissed and threw the sinnoh dex on the ground, jumping around to face her intruders with her raspy growl ringing ominously. She leaped into the air and attempted to dig her teeth into Aretha's face but Lazuli reacted just in time and beat the land shark Pokémon to the ground. The gible shook a little as it recovered from the hit and jumped again, this time aiming for Aretha's shoulder but lazuli hit her squarely, sending her skidding to the ground, three times she lunged, aiming for Aretha's head, her leg and finally her other shoulder, and every time Lazuli beat her down with a well aimed bubble beam. The gible tried to stand up again but her short legs buckled, her eyes glazed over and she fell to the ground, unconscious.
"Wow... that was scary" said Aretha, crouching over the fainted gible.
"Plup pluup" said Lazuli, picking up the items lining the ground, she picked up June and Aretha's bags and quickly began to make her way out of the field, but stopped when she saw that her trainer wasn't following. "Priup?"
Aretha stared at the gible for a while. "Uh... I don't think we should leave her out here... just like that" she then turned towards the prinplup. "Hey Lazuli, I'm catching her, what do you think?"
Lazuli's face changed from wonder to pure horror. "PLUUP? PLUPLUPLU!" she yelled, waving her flippers angrily.
"Aw, come on. Gibles are really rare and strong!" groaned Aretha, Lazuli just shook her head stubbornly and slumped down on the floor. "Fine, but I'm still catching her" Aretha looked through her bag and found a Poké ball. Grinning, she sent the familiar red beam which engulfed her momentarily, but the beam, instead of sucking her in, broke and returned to the Poké ball. "... Seems like she already has an owner" said Aretha, not bothering to hide the disappointment in her voice.
"Pluu, prin" said Lazuli victoriously, but Aretha gave her a smile.
"Aha! Since she's a trainer Pokémon, we OUGHT to bring her to the Pokémon centre and try and find her owner! And if we can't... guess I'll just have to keep her!" and, with a smirk on her face. Aretha released her onix. Obsie growled in surprise when he saw the fainted gible, but pressed his nose toward Aretha. "Obsie, to you mind carrying this gible in your mouth?"
"Oooonrrr" growled onix in response and scooped up the motionless gible in his mouth.
"Good! Now, don't bash her around too much okay?" Aretha said as she climbed atop the onix's head, she patted his head as Lazuli clambered up with a defeated look on her face, she sighed and slumped down on a flat piece of rock on Obsie's head, crossing her fins like a spoiled child. Aretha ignored her and sent a sharp command to Obsie and soon, they were speeding smoothly back to camp.
Later...
Obsie had no problem in skimming the crusty, dry ground and soon they had arrived at the campfire, Aretha thanked Obsie and motioned for him to stay motionless, then, gathering all the stolen supplies, she walked on to find June and Ukko crouched down, too absorbed in staring at a wonky grid with paw prints and hand-drawn crosses in the dirt to notice Aretha.
"Right, Ukko. See, the objective of the game is to match three in a row" said June, drawing another cross and running a thin line horizontally through three crosses. "Like this!" Ukko tilted his head and drew a zig-zaggy line through two paw prints and a cross. "No, see, you are playing paw prints, and you should match 3 paw prints in a straight line, okay?" said June.
"Hey, you lot" said Aretha appearing beside them.
June looked up and clapped her hands in delight. "Aretha, you're back! And pretty much in one piece, also..." she giggled nervously and then motioned to the grid. "I've been trying to teach Ukko to play noughts and crosses... er, paw prints and crosses, and he's improving!"
"Mmhmm" said Aretha, sitting down and laying the supplies on the ground.
June sighed happily as she caught sight of the crumpled up heap of gear. But her smile disappeared when she saw the huge gash across the side of her white bag. "Aretha...? What happened to my bag" June motioned to rip on the side.
"U-uh, well, you see... let's just say that gible was... kinda feisty" said Aretha, turning around to check that Obsie was still standing in the place she had left him, which he was. "But don't worry, I've heard of a good shop in Eterna that sells really nice looking patches..."
June sniffed. "Well... at least that evil monster won't bother us again"
Aretha gulped "Er... well, when I battled her, I made some...discoveries...?"
"What discoveries?" said June firmly, starting to not like the conversation.
"Well, the gible was a trainer Pokémon" said Aretha.
"Aaaand?"
"Well, since it was a trainer Pokémon I thought I might... return her to her owner" said Aretha, watching with slight amusement as June's face turned beetroot red.
"WHAT? You mean... THAT THING'S GONNA BE WITH US?"
"Calm down June!" said Aretha, trying to put her arms on June's shoulders, but when she did, Ukko began growling at her. "It's not such a big d-"
"OF COURSE ITS A BIG DEAL" roared June. "That thing almost bit my shoulder off!"
"Don't exaggerate, besides I can't really let a domesticated Pokémon starve"
"Domesticated? If you think that thing is domesticated you must be stark bonkers" said June, crossing her arms. "And where is it now anyway?"
Aretha sighed. "Okay Obsie, spit her out" Obsie, who had remained a quiet as a statue, slithered in. He looked at June, his eyebrows wobbling at her angry expression and spat out a very dusty gible, looking very pleased with himself.
The gible rolled out onto the dusty road, looking only half conscious. Although she hadn't done anything scarier than blinking around in a mid-daze, June screamed and Ukko lunged for the gible, sharp pointed teeth digging into her fin. She squealed and tried to shake the growling shinx off, looking a thousand times less menacing. It squealed pitifully and tried to scratch Ukko away, but he seemed so intent on trying to rip a chunk of her fin that he ignored her feeble claws.
"Hey, stop Ukko! He's tearing up that poor little dragon!" said Aretha
"Serves her right" said June moodily. "For ripping open my shoulder"
"Stop exaggerating, and besides, it's not her fault, she probably hasn't been recalled for such a long time that Sandgem sickness must have gotten to her" said Aretha. "Just like when Ukko goes aggressive, see? And I have an odd feeling that we might have robbed her of her berry stash, so stop Ukko. Now"
June puffed out her cheeks "Fiiine, but that thing so much as drools over me and I'll call my entire party out on her" then, with a swift hand motion, stopped Ukko. He glared at the gible, who was in a pitiful state, all roughed up as well as whimpering. And sat by June, determined to glare the gible down as much as he could. June sighed and rifled through the pile of supplies. "All this made me really hungry, I think I'll have one of my nutella sandwiches now..."
"Uh... you can't" said Aretha.
"Why not?"
"The gible ate them..."
"WHAT?"
A/N: don't mess with June's nutella sandwiches, ever. *shivers* anyway, please review! It'd be lovely to get some good advice on how I can improve. I don't mind constructive criticism, but please, no flames.