Chapter 8

It turned out to be that Hogsmead was entirely different than Barry had imagined. He had expected a city with tall buildings and roads, but what he found instead could barely be considered a town. He started to come up with something to tell Joe. He had a feeling that fried chicken wouldn't be on the menu for that evening. However, as he was bracing for Joe's disappointment, Joe spoke.

"Hey, Barry, look, a candy store!" he said, pointing.

Barry's eyes moved to where Joe was pointing. "Honeydukes? Sounds like your kinda place Joe."

Ten minutes later, they were walking down the street, Joe with chocolate frogs in hand.

"I hope there aren't actual frogs in this." said Joe wearily.

"Maybe you should have considered that while we were still in the store."

"Well, I won't know until I try it," said Joe, opening one of the containers.

"Hey, what do you know? It's chocolate that looks like a frog." Joe said a moment before the frog leaped away.

"Hey! It's getting away!" Joe started to run after it. "Barry, help me catch it."

Barry knew how to deal with fast moving objects. Or, he knew who would deal with fast moving objects for him. "Go, Sonic!"

"Whoa, where are we? Where's the mountain we just came out of?"

"That was several days ago. Right now I need you to catch a frog made of chocolate." Barry said with urgency in his voice.

"What?" Sonic choked on his words. "What have you been doing all this time?!"

"Well I caught a couple Pokemon, so, we've made progress. Anyways, that chocolate frog is getting away…hmmm…actually, I don't want Joe to eat that."

In the distance Barry could see Joe zigzagging along the path to try and catch the agile frog to no avail.

"I guess I brought you out for no good reason." Barry started to reach for Sonic's Pokeball.

"Oh no you don't! You're not putting me back in there until I'm sure you have the machine we need."

"What machine?" asked Barry.

"What do you mean 'what machine?' We need a machine like Eggman's or else we can't use a single Chaos Emerald by itself."

"Why didn't you tell me this until now?" said Barry, slipping the Pokeball back on his belt.

"Because I've been inside a Pokeball this whole time! It's kind of hard to give you advice when I'm in there." Sonic said animatedly.

"Uh, that was kind of the point." Barry replied.

"Uhhhgggg" Sonic grumbled in frustration. "If we don't have a machine, then we can't beat Eggman. It's as simple as that."

"Well, tell me where they sell them and I'll go buy one." Barry offered.

"You can't buy it. You need a genius to make one." Sonic replied.

Barry looked at Sonic with impatient eyes. He struggled to come up with the right words for the contempt he felt for Sonic's plan. "Well, I guess were going with plan B then. Just fight without fancy machines."

"You won't stand a chance," Sonic said, certain of the failure.

"Well if it's so important to you I'll let you come out of your Pokeball if we find a Radioshack."

Sonic began "What is a—" but was recalled before he could finish asking what a Radioshack was.

Barry looked around for Joe. At the end of the street he could see him in a conversation with something, something that appeared to be a huge man. Barry had never seen anyone so tall. It reminded Barry of a bear. Barry walked toward the two eventually getting close enough to hear them.

"So yer not from around 'ere are yeh?" The large man said.

"No, I'm a Pokemon trainer out on an adventure." Joe replied to the man.

"A Pokemon trainer, eh? I've caught me some Pokemon too. Long time ago, even before Pokemon were around, I 'ad me a dragon. Norbert I called 'im. Though righ' now I just run the Pokemon daycare."

Joe turned to introduce Barry when he reached him. "Hey, let me introduce you to Hagrid."

"Well. Hello. Yeh must be Barry." Hagrid said cheerily.

Barry nodded. "I just heard you say you run a Pokemon daycare. What's that like?"

"Oh I wouldn' do anythin' else. 'S a wonderful job. Though today 's been nothin' but trouble. 'ad some no good thief try and steal a pokemon. Ad' to chase 'im of 'n he left this behind." Hagrid pulled from his cloak a strange looking machine with a gem shaped hole in the front.

Barry knew this had to be it. "Hey, we've been looking for a machine just like that!" he said.

"We have?" said Joe.

"Any chance you might decide to part with it?" asked Barry.

"Sorry, this is a suspicious objec'. I need to make sure it ain' goin' to cause trouble."

"But…can you give it to us after you do that?"

"I don' think so. 'S possible the Aurors will keep it if 'S used fer trouble."

Barry started to protest, but Hagrid quickly said his goodbyes and strode away.

Joe looked at Barry and asked: "Did we really need that?"

Barry paused before answering. "I…I don't know... It's no use now, we should just train for the tournament."

"I couldn't agree more," said Joe as the two made their way out of Hogsmead.