12/31/10- This is the revised content edition of the first part.
I looked down from on top of a hill that overlooked a grassy field. There was barely a cloud in the sky, which let the sun shine brilliantly. A calm breeze met my face as I peered down the path, seeing a serene sight of a town.
"Well, here's our stop, Arrowroot Town!" I heard Brock say, behind me.
Brock stopped next to me along with Ash and Dawn. It felt weird being the tall one for once- Brock was the tallest between him, Ash and Dawn, and Brock was a few inches shorter than I was. Ash and Dawn looked like they were at the same height; around five feet and an inch or two?
Pikachu was perched onto Ash's shoulder and Piplup was being held by Dawn. A happy look seemed to appear on their faces as they both cried out in apparent delight to the news of arriving at a town; I still can't understand pokemon language. Umbreon brushed past me along with his little sister, Eevee.
When Team Rocket captured Umbreon, Eevee, Squirtle and me, Meowth conveniently translated the Eevees' words for me. They told me they were running from a Pokemon Hunter that tried catching them. In fact, that's where Squirtle came from- the same Squirtle that didn't trust me. Honestly, even though I don't know the details, I don't blame him, I mean, how would it feel to have to do a Pokemon Hunter's bidding? I turned to my right shoulder where Squirtle rode.
"Squirtle, how do you feel?" I asked him. Squirtle gave a plain look and gave a thumbs up. Guess he said he was okay. I wanted to try to connect with him, but I guess it would take more than a shining sun and a beautiful grassy scene to do that. I tried thinking of something that would help me connect with Squirtle better, when something stirred me out of my thoughts.
"Vee!" I saw Eevee jump up at me. I knew what she was gonna do; lick me to death. Luckily, I caught her with my hands before she reached my face.
"That was close..." I thought as I narrowly escaped a slobbery fate.
"Aww, I still think that's cute." I turned to see the blunette holding Piplup and turned back to face Eevee. Dawn did have a point; Eevee was kind of cute. Her brown eyes looked innocently into mine, and her soft fur reminded me of one of Carter's cats, but that's another story.
"Well, anyways, since you're up here, want a ride?" Eevee nodded and jumped onto my left shoulder.
"Hey, Brock, where's the Pokemon Center? I'm starving..." That's Ash, thinking with his stomach and as if on cue, it growled lowly. The others and I chuckled at the signal for food.
"It's near a research facility, somewhere on the east side of town." Brock said after looking in the guide book he was holding.
"Well, let's go!" Ash said, and Pikachu shot his arm up in agreement. He ran off, leaving me, Dawn, and Brock in the dust.
"Hey, wait up Ash!" Dawn, with Piplup in her arms, started running to catch up to him. She struggled to keep up with Ash.
"Wait!" Brock did the same, leaving me looking at Umbreon, wondering what we should do.
"I think we'd better go too." Umbreon nodded as I suggested the idea and we both ran in pursuit of Ash.
"Here we are, the Pokemon Center!" Brock said as the gang came up to the Pokemon Center doors. Ryan stared up at the giant red P over the front doors of the center, which was enormous.
The doors to the Pokemon Center were transparent, and appeared to slid open automatically due to a motion sensor near the bottom of the doors. The Pokemon Center rose to a couple of stories, but the length of the building was staggering. In comparison, it was about a quarter of the length of a football stadium back at home, for Ryan. The exterior walls were mostly filled with alternating tan and brown colored bricks.
"Wow, so this is a Pokemon Center," Ryan thought as he and the others walked through the sliding doors.
The interior was no slouch either! It reminded Ryan of a hospital back at home, but more homely, so to speak. A flat screen TV hung on a taupe colored wall with brown colored couches lined up in front of the TV, to the right of the entrance. An area to the left of the entrance had a bunch of tables and seats for lunch and where the gang was right now was the lobby, in front of the reception desk, where a pink curly haired woman stood. She donned a nurse's outfit with a white hat that had a red cross on the front. The woman turned from her work on the computer and welcomed the gang.
"Welcome to the Pokemon Center!" The woman greeted with a warm, welcoming voice.
"Oh!" Brock wasted no time getting to the reception desk. He quickly, but gently, grasped onto the woman's hands. Ryan looked on at the sight, dumbfounded he found another similarity between this Brock and the one back in the cartoon.
"Hello, my love," Ryan could have sworn Brock's eyes changed to a cheesy handsome version as his voice grew into a cheesier love tone.
"I welcome you to my heart, where you'll find-" Brock was cut off by a sudden purplish glowing arm that jabbed him on his back. Ryan jumped at the sudden appearance of a blue frog-like pokemon with white stripes on it's belly, and two orange spots on it's cheeks that seemed to be for breathing.
"Pain... lots of it..." Brock finished as he fell to the ground. The blue frog-like pokemon Ryan saw seemed to laugh as it dragged Brock outside. Ash and Dawn gingerly laughed as Ryan was left a bit confused.
"Uh... was that, Brock's pokemon?" Ryan asked Ash and Dawn, who finished their gingerly laugh.
"That was his Croagunk," Dawn told him.
"Croagunk, huh..." Ryan pulled his Pokedex out from his right pocket and opened it to get information on Croagunk.
CROAGUNK: THE TOXIC MOUTH POKEMON. FLUID SQUEEZED FROM ITS FINGER, ALBEIT POISONOUS, IS A SIGNIFICANT INGREDIENT IN REMEDIES FOR LOWER BACK PAIN.
"Well, that'll do wonders for Brock's back..." Ryan thought on the positive side. Considering Brock was a bit preoccupied, Ash walked up to the reception desk for him and asked Nurse Joy,
"Nurse Joy, what my friend was really askin' was if we could get a room for tonight?"
"Why of course!" Nurse Joy reached below the desk and pulled out a key attached to a small metal ring with a wooden block, with the number nine and a Pokeball symbol etched into it, attached to the ring as well. "Here's your room key." Nurse Joy handed the room key to Ash. "Room nine is down the hall to your left. And there will be two bunk beds for the four of you." She explained.
"Oh, I thought it was the one on the right?" Ryan asked Nurse Joy.
"That hall to the right leads to the rooms where we treat pokemon, and a few Operating Rooms." She explained to Ryan, who nodded at the explanation and thanked her.
"Thanks! And could you check our pokemon out?" Ash asked Nurse Joy.
"Of course, let me take your pokemon for a checkup," Nurse Joy brought up four trays with six sphere indents in them. Ash placed his five Pokeballs in one tray and Pikachu hopped onto the desk. Dawn also put her four Pokeballs in another tray, and Piplup jumped onto the desk; only to face plant himself on the desk. Brock popped out, out of nowhere and with renewed energy, and followed with his three Pokeballs in another tray. Ryan looked at the fourth tray and had a problem.
"Um, Nurse Joy, what if I don't have any Pokeballs?" Ryan asked her.
"You can have your pokemon follow me for their check up," Nurse Joy told him. Ryan nodded as he set Eevee and Squirtle gently onto the wooden floor to walk.
"Okay guys, Nurse Joy's gonna check on you guys, alright?" Umbreon nodded, Squirtle gave a small grunt, and Eevee had a sad look on her face.
"What's wrong?" Ryan asked, even though he knew the answer already. Eevee stared at him with a whimpering look, not wanting to leave Ryan. "It's okay," Ryan assured. "I'll be here waiting for you later," Eevee forcefully nodded and hopped onto the desk along with Pikachu and Piplup. Umbreon and Squirtle walked around the desk and to Nurse Joy.
"I'll have them back to you in an hour." Nurse Joy said to the gang. Three pink, round pokemon with white eggs in their front light pink pouches came and took the trays of Pokeballs and led the pokemon to the right corridor. Nurse Joy followed along.
"Hey, those are Chansey!" Ryan realized. They looked a lot smaller in person than he anticipated, as they reached halfway up to Nurse Joy's height. He decided not to pull his Pokedex out, since it was one of the original 151 pokemon that he was familiar with, and turned to Ash and the others. Now they needed something to do while Nurse Joy was doing a check up on the pokemon.
"Well, let's go check out the room!" Dawn suggested. There were no objections, so the four of them started walking towards the hall to the left of the reception desk, passing by a number of empty lunch tables.
"I wonder if anyone else is here, besides us?" Ryan thought as he noticed the emptiness of the area next to the lobby. He stopped for a quick second and looked at he other side to see if there were people there- no one in sight, and the TV was off.
"I guess not..." Ryan thought as he saw no one in sight. The teen turned to follow the others to the room where they were going to stay for the night. He caught up with the others as they traveled down the door filled hall. The wooden doors had brass knobs and were spaced accordingly, allowing for room between guests. On each door, a brass number labeled each door, which allowed people to tell which room was which. The color scheme matched the lobby, as Ryan noticed.
The gang stopped in front of the door marked with a brass number "9". Ash unlocked the door with the key in his hand, grasped the brass handle and twisted it counterclockwise. He pushed the door open, revealing a spacious room; like a hotel, Ryan compared.
The room marked number "9" contained two bunk beds with wooden frames that resembled Birch wood. The bunk beds were on opposite sides of the room, leaving a small table in the middle of the room. The table held a small vase with various flowers with the petals still in bloom. An unopened window with white drapes was opposite of the door. Sunlight shone through the window, allowing the gang to see in the room. It provided a, no pun intended, roomy atmosphere.
"I call the top!" Brock and Ash called out as they rushed to their "reserved" spots.
"Okay, I'll take the bottom," Dawn said as she placed her pack on her bed, took off her white beanie hat and placed it on the bed. Ash climbed to the top bed above Dawn's, placed his pack on his bed and came back down. Brock did the same with his pack, only on his bed. Ryan placed his pack on the bottom bunk, below Brock's.
"Well, what do we do now?" Ryan asked, now that they were accommodated.
"I have to run out and buy some supplies; we're running low on food and medicine," Brock said as he grabbed a paper that listed each individual supply he needed to purchase.
"Okay Brock, see ya later!" Ash waved as his friend went out through the door.
"See ya!" Brock said as he closed the door to the room. Ryan overheard Brock's outer thought through the door about asking Nurse Joy about the nearest Poke Mart. An idea from earlier today popped into Ryan's mind. He planned on doing something as soon as they stopped at Arrowroot, and now that there was some downtime, Ryan reasoned now would be the perfect time.
"Hmm... I'm gonna go out for a bit guys," Ryan said suddenly.
"Huh? Where?" Ash asked, curious as to why he was about to leave all of a sudden.
"Well, I'm gonna find out more about Sinnoh, and... about that Pokemon Hunter," Ryan explained to Ash as he turned, after opening the door, and looked at him.
Ash and Dawn both looked at each other and recalled a conversation from lunch they had with Ryan. They immediately understood and nodded.
"See ya guys!" Ryan waved as he left the room. Ash and Dawn both said the same as he closed the door.
"Okay, so... I wonder if this town has some sort of library or something..." Ryan thought as he walked through the corridor full of wooden doors and past the reception desk. Nurse Joy had returned from treating the pokemon and now sat at her desk.
"Wait, didn't Brock say he was gonna ask Nurse Joy for directions to a Poke Mart?" Ryan realized he should probably ask Nurse Joy to avoid being lost in town. He stopped and did a U-turn before he went out the door to ask Nurse Joy a question.
"Nurse Joy, do you know if there's a library, or some sort of database, in Arrowroot?" Ryan felt a little silly asking about a library; especially since the last time he went to one was when he was a little kid, in primary school.
"Yes, there is one next door in the research lab, open to the public. It'll take you a few minutes to get over there, however." She explained as she pointed to her right, or Ryan's left side.
"Alright, thanks!" Ryan went out through the doors of the Pokemon Center as they slid open for him. He looked in the direction Nurse Joy pointed and saw a tall building in the distance. Ryan figured since the Pokemon Center was in the outskirts of Arrowroot, judging from the lack of buildings next to the Pokemon Center itself, that building was the research lab that Nurse Joy was talking about. He started a brisk walk towards the building.
Along the way, Ryan laid eyes upon fields of grass, with occasional windmills and barns with shades of red painted on. The slight wind pushed the green grass in a slow motion in one direction, adding to the soothing and calming atmosphere of the path. The defined dirt path Ryan took led him past a couple of men. They both wore blue, jean overalls and both wore plaid long shirts underneath them. They also wore brown work boots and also work gloves that matched in color. The men appeared to be between the ages of thirty to forty, judging from the color and life filled mustaches and beards that the men had. Ryan noticed that they were around his height. As he passed the two men, he wondered if he was headed the right way, considering Ryan was busy looking at the scenery.
"Uh, excuse me?" Ryan asked as he walked back and up to the two men.
"Yes, young man, how can we help you?" A gruff voice from one of the men asked.
"I was wondering, where is the research lab?" Ryan asked.
"It would be that way," The other man answered, with a slightly higher voice than the other man, and pointed towards the direction Ryan was traveling already.
"Okay, thank you!" Ryan thanked as he prepared to go on the dirt road and waved good bye to the two men. At least he knew he was going the right way, Ryan reasoned in his head.
After a couple of minutes, Ryan approached the laboratory. The research lab was, Ryan estimated, approximately four stories high. The grey building, possibly made out of concrete, had the same sliding glass doors as the Pokemon Center did. Large windows were side to side, next to the front doors, showing a hotel lobby-like interior. Ryan went through the sliding glass doors as they opened, going into the front lobby of the lab. A woman, who had blond hair rolled up in a bun behind her head looked at Ryan as he approached her reception desk, which neatly contained a computer, various papers, and other objects.
"Uh, excuse me?" Ryan asked the woman. Now that he was closer, Ryan got a better look at her. She looked no older than twenty, her skin had a hint of tan, and she was dressed in a black work skirt with a red top, covered by a white lab coat. An identification card was clipped onto her bosom pocket, with her photo, and her name, Emily.
"Is there a library here?" Ryan continued to ask. Emily turned on her revolving chair and pointed to a hallway, to her right. A flight of stairs, with handrails in the middle of them, led up to the hall Emily pointed to.
"It's down that hall," Emily told him. "If you go straight up the stairs and straight through the hall- don't go through any of the doors on the side- the library will be there. The hallway will open up at the end, where it is, so you won't be able to miss it." Ryan took mental notes of her directions.
"Oh, okay. Thanks!" He thanked and went up the flight of stairs. Ryan noticed the floor and stairs were made out of marble, which gave a slight gleam. It also explained the slight echo Ryan heard as he was talking to Emily. As Ryan went disappeared from Emily's sight, she thought to herself.
"Wow, no one's used the library in ages; save for Matt, oops, I mean professor. I wonder what that kid's doing?" Emily shrugged, turned her revolving chair so she faced her computer once more in order to continue her work.
Ryan walked through the hallway Emily pointed him to, noting the presence of a red rug with yellow trim stretching down in the middle of the hallway. The rug lining was like a guide. A few wooden doors were on each side of the hallway, each leading to their own room; some of which were locked or restricted, due to the presence of a keypad lock.
As Ryan approached the end of the hallway, he saw the opening that Emily was talking about earlier. He emerged onto an open floor, with another rug lined hallway to his right. The two floor library was like a college campus' library; there was a window on the ceiling that acted as a skylight, letting the sunshine reach the wood plank floors of the library. The planks gleamed from the light. Ryan even noticed a chandelier at the very top of the high ceiling. A set of stairs led down to a bottom floor, which contained many wooden bookshelves, crammed with books of various sizes and thicknesses. The bookshelves were lined up next to each other in rows, ready for browsing.
Ryan looked at the floor he was currently on. The open floor of the library revolved around the bottom floor. The same type of brown stained wooden bookshelves lined up in rows graced the top floor of the library. There were brass colored labels, with what looked like numbers, on the ends of the bookcases, but from where Ryan was standing, he couldn't read them. He reasoned they were numbers for a system that made it easy to find books whenever needed.
"I wonder if there's an easier way of finding information..." Ryan thought as he went down the flight of stairs and towards the center of the bottom floor of the library. He looked around, only seeing the many wooden bookshelves, and the various wood trimmings on things like the railing on the stairs and the side rail on the top floor that prevented people from falling. Ryan decided to walk around the bottom floor and look around.
"You'd think a place called a lab would have- Hey, what is that?" Ryan noticed a screen in the corner of the room, that was hidden by the masses of bookshelves. As Ryan came closer to the screen, he noticed a small platform that held up a silver "querty" keyboard and a computer mouse of the same color.
"This must be a computer..." Ryan pieced together as he looked at the screen. A black screen saver was showing with the words in white, "Arrowroot Laboratory", scrolling across the screen. Ryan "woke" the computer up by shaking the mouse, revealing a search engine window for the laboratory. A blinking line sat in the box meant for typing search criterion.
"Now, what should I type in? I might find the Pokemon Hunter, but what could I do when I get him? I still don't know how to battle... Ooh, I got it!" Ryan started typing on the silver keyboard. When he was done, the words, "pokemon basics" remained in the text box. Ryan pressed the enter key on the keyboard, leading to a spinning circle, indicating the computer was searching the system. A message popped onto the screen.
"No matches found? Huh?" Ryan was a bit confused. "I'd think a library in the Pokemon World would at least have a picture book on pokemon..." Ryan looked around at the plentiful bookshelves. "Maybe it's searching for specific matches, and not general matches?" Ryan guessed as he looked around on the computer screen.
"How do I find a preference menu?" Ryan gave up after a few seconds of scanning the screen and decided to type another search criterion, "pokemon for dummies". Ryan hit the enter key and thought, "If something comes up, I'm gonna-"
One match found. The text popped up and a second later, the information on the book, "Pokemon for Dummies" appeared as well.
"Never mind..." Ryan was dumbfounded a book like that made it's way to a scientific library. He shook it off and examined the information.
"Let's see... 133.52." Ryan looked at the edge of the nearest bookshelf. A brass plaque on the edge read, "50.01-60.00"
"Well, I think I'm better off looking manually. And I'm positive I'll find that book... eventually." Ryan sighed as he turned around, preparing to tediously walk around, searching for information.
"Your pokemon are healthy and fighting fit!" Nurse Joy said as she transferred the trays of Pokeballs from her cart to the counter. Pikachu and Piplup were sitting on their trainer's respective trays. Pikachu leapt from the counter and onto Ash's shoulder and Dawn held Piplup on her head.
"Thanks Nurse Joy!" Ash and Dawn said as they re-clipped their Pokeballs onto their belts.
"Ryan?" Eevee was on the counter, looking apprehensively around for the teen. Umbreon was standing on the floor in front of the counter, looking up at his sister. Squirtle leaned back on the siding of the desk with his hands behind his head.
"Told you he couldn't be trusted," Umbreon gave Squirtle a sturdy nudge to his shell in reaction to his cold statement.
"You know you don't believe that," Umbreon knowingly said to him and looked up to Eevee."Besides, he's probably checking something out," Umbreon reasoned out for his sister, who hopped down next to him.
Ash looked over at the three pokemon and figured they were wondering where Ryan went. He called to them, "Oh, guys!" Eevee, Umbreon and Squirtle looked up. "Ryan went to look for information or somethin'..." Ash explained to them. Nurse Joy overheard Ash's explanation and jumped in.
"He's next door at the Arrowroot Lab; They have a large library full of resources," Nurse Joy said. Eevee wore a smile, now that she knew Ryan hadn't abandoned them and Umbreon wore a smug look on his face and looked at Squirtle.
"Told you so." Umbreon said to Squirtle, who faced the other way, hiding his embarrassment. First he let that human called Nurse Joy examine him, and now... He couldn't be growing to trust Ryan... could he? Squirtle shook off the thought- he couldn't be!
"Squirtle, is something wrong?" Eevee snapped Squirtle out of his thoughts.
"N-nothing." He quickly regained his composure. Eevee just shrugged her head and moved on.
"I wonder when Ryan's gonna get back?" She thought out loud. "What's he doing over at a library, anyways?" Pikachu jumped from Ash's shoulder and onto the ground next to Eevee. Piplup followed suit and gracefully landed on his feet... but that was before he slipped and face planted himself.
"Ow..." Piplup rubbed his pain filled face with his wing as he got up.
"You see, this morning, when Ash, Dawn, Ryan and Brock were having breakfast," Pikachu explained as Eevee, Umbreon and Piplup were attentively listening.
"Squirtle, don't you want to listen in?" Eevee asked Squirtle, who simply shrugged and faced away from the group of pokemon, leaning on the reception desk with his arm. However, Squirtle was secretly listening, even though he pretended he didn't care.
"Ash and Dawn asked him about what happened with Team Rocket..." Pikachu continued on with his story.
"Brock, even though I've had only a couple of your meals, I'm convinced- you're the best chef ever." Ryan happily said to Brock as he finished the delicious breakfast on his plate.
"Gee, thanks! Although it's a stretch to say I'm the best," Brock humbly shrugged off. He had seen plenty of praise for his cooking skills before.
"No way Brock! He's right!" Dawn agreed with Ryan's compliment. Ash nodded; it was all he could do, since he was busy scarfing down breakfast. Pikachu and Piplup were eating on top of the table along with their trainers while the rest of the pokemon ate on the picnic blanket. They nodded and gave a thumbs/wing up.
Brock just shrugged once more and accepted the compliments and went to clean the pans he used to cook breakfast. Dawn looked back at the pokemon eating at the picnic blanket. They looked overjoyed at the sight of the new pokemon. Eevee and Umbreon looked like they were conversing with Buneary and Cyndaquil. Squirtle was acting cool and stayed separated until Buizel walked up to him and started chatting. Dawn smiled at the sight; pokemon never ceased to amaze anyone. A thought popped into Dawn's head. She was curious as to what happened when Team Rocket captured Ryan the other night.
"By the way, Ryan..." Dawn started her question as Ryan turned his attention to her, while drinking some water. "What happened last night? It looked like you were talking to Meowth before we got there..."
"Yeah, I remember that; what was that about?" Ash added as he swallowed a mouthful of breakfast. Ryan finished his glass of water, set it down on the foldable table they ate on and began to explain to her and Ash.
"Well, I asked Meowth to translate their words, as I asked them questions." Ryan pointed to Squirtle, Umbreon and Eevee, who were still relaxing with the other pokemon on their picnic blanket.
"Questions? What about?" Ash and Dawn asked, curious to why Ryan needed to ask Eevee and Umbreon anything.
"I... wondered why Squirtle didn't exactly throw down the red carpet like the Eevee did," Ash and Dawn wore a slight confused look on their faces as Ryan used the expression. The teen took the hint and explained himself.
"Why Squirtle didn't warm up to me like they did." Ryan explained, and a sigh of realization hit Ash and Dawn as he continued.
"So, I asked why didn't he trust me, and he didn't answer. But, the Eevee told me parts of the story." Ash and Dawn listened more attentively as he began relaying the story. Pikachu's ears twitched as he also listened while Piplup was chowing down, too busy to listen.
"They told me they had a mother back in Kanto, but she was taken away by a Pokemon Hunter..." Ryan's fist tightened at the mention of the Pokemon Hunter.
"That's awful!" Dawn commented.
"But that's not all; it turns out, Squirtle was the Pokemon Hunter's pokemon!" Ryan went on.
"Really?" Ash asked.
"I think so. Tears from a pokemon, or anyone for that matter couldn't be faked... not like that." Ryan said as he remembered Eevee crying into his arms. His fist loosened its grip on the spoon he held; any tighter and there'd be a spoon imprint on his hand.
"Anyways, the Pokemon Hunter tried to catch the Eevee too, but apparently Squirtle stopped him and ran away with the Eevee. I would've found more out, but Jessie and James cut in..." Ryan finished.
"Wow..." That was the only thing said afterward by Dawn. Pikachu followed with the same thought. Astonishment filled the air around the breakfast table.
"And they ended up in Sinnoh... I wonder how?" Ash thought aloud.
"Yeah, I do too, but I know one thing; I'm gonna help them find their mother!"
"Really?" Brock came up and sat down. He was listening in on the conversation and decided to come I with a thought of his own.
"Yeah! I know what it's like to not have a mother- and I can't stand the thought of Umbreon and Eevee not seeing theirs." Ryan answered without thought. Brock crossed his arms and looked at Ryan.
"Did he just say what I think he said?" Dawn thought, but she dismissed the thought.
"Like I said before, do you have a plan?" Brock asked Ryan.
"Well..." A semi-solution popped into Ryan's head. "I could look for some information in the next town we stop in!" He answered, even thought he had no idea if there would be anything to look for.
"It sounds like a great idea, but who are you going to research on?" Brock pressed on, knowing Ryan had no clue.
"That's easy; the Pokemon Hunter." Ryan answered, not realizing what Brock meant.
"No, what I meant was... who is the Pokemon Hunter?" Ryan knew Brock was right; without the hunter's name, it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Brock knew he got his message across as a worried look appeared on Ryan's face as Ryan looked at the pokemon playing on the picnic blanket.
"But, then again, how many Pokemon Hunters could there be?" Ryan thought with a wondering look on his face.
"Afterward, we arrived here in Arrowroot." Pikachu finished his recollection.
"The human; Ryan's actually trying to help them out?" Squirtle thought to himself.
"He really said that?" Eevee delightedly asked Pikachu.
"Yeah, he even said that he wouldn't go home until he got you guys back to your mother." Squirtle nearly fell over hearing that.
"Okay, but is he gonna follow through on that?" Squirtle turned around and asked. The group of pokemon looked at Squirtle while Eevee wasted no time in responding.
"Of course! I know he meant it!" Squirtle looked at Eevee and at Umbreon, whose face was unreadable.
"You too?" Squirtle asked Umbreon, who nodded.
"I believe him." Umbreon answered with conviction. Squirtle couldn't believe how easily they could trust Ryan. He somewhat trusted Ryan, but a part of him still had doubts. Ash and Dawn were watching the pokemon talk in the meanwhile, and Ash decided to jump in after none of the pokemon talked for a few seconds.
"Hey guys," Ash started to ask."Wanna go next door to see Ryan?" Eevee jumped up and down, Umbreon nodded, and Squirtle grunted, believing he needed to be their bodyguards, just in case.
"Okay, let's go!" Dawn said as she picked Piplup up and held him. Pikachu hopped back onto Ash's shoulder and the group left the Pokemon Center through the sliding front doors. The group started walking on the same dirt path Ryan traveled on earlier.