Rat and I walked through the city, bypassing all the large buildings and eventually leaving the city behind as trees began to come into view. This kind of reminded me of the time I left Cherry Grove City and the events that occurred after my departure. And of course, the forest also reminded me of the situations I ended up in the last two times. But now, everything was different. I had someone with me going to this Saffron city to return the scope we had in our possession. I knew that it was going to be quite a number of days to walk, but hopefully this time, we wouldn't be sidetracked by anything.
"Wow!" said Rat, looking around, his eyes wide with wonder and excitement. "I never knew we had a forest outside of the city."
"You mean you've never been outside the tower until now?" I asked.
"Of course I have," Rat said. "I've just never been near the border before, let alone go beyond it. I've mostly just stuck close to the tower. This is my first time actually leaving the city and heading to another."
"How does it feel?" I asked.
"It feels... kind of wierd," Rat said, pasuing momentarily to find a good enough word to say. "Yet at the same time exciting. Who knows what kind of adventures we'll come across along the way to Goldenrod." I could imagine. With everything I've been through, I was surprised that I wasn't dead yet. I didn't want to think what would happen if I didn't have others there to help me.
And now that I thought about it, I began finding it kind of weird that my meeting with the people, er pokemon I came across, I seemed to come out of it a little stronger and a little braver as well. I mean weeks ago I wouldn't have had the brains to do what I had done with the scope, even if it meant risking my own life. And I certainly wouldn't have had the courage to rush back inside a burning building to save a friend. I can't believe the kind of Cyndaquil I've become. Mom and dad would have been so proud of me.
I was suddenly brought out of my thoughts as I waled straight into Rat, tripping over him the both of us falling over. "ACK!" he yelled as he fell. "Quil, watch where you're going."
"Sorry," I said apologetically. "Just daydreaming about something. So why'd we stop?"
"Because of this," Rat replied, gesturing to the path before us. Looking straight ahead, the path continued on, possibly heading to Golden Rod while a second path veered off downward, away from the path we were taking.
"I don't see a problem," I said. "We're going straight on to Golden Rod, aren't we?"
"Yeah," Rat replied. "We're supposed to be. But there's something I've been thinking about lately."
"Like what?" I asked.
"Well," Rat began. "Team Rocket obviously knows we have the Silph Scope now, am I not right?"
"I guess you are," I replied, thinking about it. Now that Rat had mentioned it, I remember Tess mentioning about Team Rocket coming up for the scope. They had pokemon come to grab it for them, only for the building they were in to end up burning. So if the pokemon hadn't grabbed the scope, then of course they would know that we had it. "Now that you mention it, yeah, you're right. But what are we going to do about it? We have to return the scope to Saffron."
"Yeah," Rat said. "I know. But if the Rockets are waiting for us, then there's no doubt in my mind that the moment we set foot in Golden Rod, they'll ambush us and easily take the scope. They expect us to travel the way we're going now and come in through the back way of Golden Rod. That's where they're waiting for us."
"I get it!" I said, getting at where Rat was leading this to. "If we take the path going down, we can round about and enter through the front way. They'd never see us coming. They'll still be waiting for us to come in through the back way of Golden Rod."
"Exactly," Rat said. "But even then we're going to need to be careful. You can never tell where Team Rocket is. The most innocent face can turn out to be your deadliest foe."
I gulped at this a little. If Rat said what was true, I'd have to be careful with the pokemon I meet. So far I've come across all good pokemon that were non-Team Rocket, except for one who caused a lot of trouble. But I'm glad I would never have to see him again.
"Hey Quil," Rat called out, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You coming or just going to stand around there all day?"
"Whoops!" I said, quickly catching up to Rat as we took the downward path to round about Golden Rod.
"Whoa!" I marveled, looking up and around at the high rocky formations that Rat and I walked below. Weeks ago I would have never known about these strange rocky formations. But here I was now, far from home and in a completely new area I've never been in before. I was actually getting to see the world, something that my parents would never want me to do. In fact, if the Rockets hadn't invaded my home and set fire to it, I'd probably spend the rest of my life there, doing absolutely nothing.
"I think I've heard about these," Rat said, also marveling. "I think these formations are called mountains or something."
"Mountains?" I said, still amazed. "They look really cool!"
"Yeah they do," Rat said. "Imagine being that high up and looking over the world. I'm sure you'd be able to see everything from that height."
"You think we might be able to see Golden Rod?" I asked.
"Maybe not Golden Rod," Rat said. "But most likely Azela Town, our next little stop before Golden Rod."
"There's another city before Golden Rod?" I asked.
"It's not a city," Rat said. "It's a town, or so I've seen on the maps."
"Have you ever heard what it's like?" I asked.
"Man you're just full of questions," Rat said, rubbing his head.
"Well aren't you curious about Azela?" I asked again.
"Yeah I am," Rat replied. "But not even I don't ask that many questions."
"Sorry," I said.
"No need to apologize," Rat said. "I have to remember you're the curious type of pokemon, I think. But anyway, I think I recall someone saying once that Azela Town is famous for Slowpokes. I don't really know though."
"O.K.," I said, falling silent as Rat and I continued walking. I wondered what a Slow would look like. And I only called them Slow because it was easier for me to remember, like when I met the Quags and decided to call them that to make their names easier on me. Speaking of the Quags, I wondered how they were doing. There were times that I did happen to miss them. Well, all except Gus, that is. He's a jerk.
Look Quil!" Rat suddenly exclaimed, once again snapping me back to reality. I really need to stop retreating into my thoughts. "Water!" I followed over to where Rat was pointing to see a fairly sized nice lake nearby, much like the lake back home, only this one was a little bit bigger than mine from the looks of it.
Rat and I ran over to the lake and we both began taking swallows from it, Rat throwing a coughing fit by swallowing down the wrong pipe. "Easy," I said with a pat on his back. As soon as Rat finished coughing, he went right back to taking a few more swigs from the lake. I went to join him, but stopped suddenly as something caught my eye. Looking up, I saw a rather large leaf drifting about in the water, slowly moving towards us as the wind blew gently.
"Hey Rat," I said, receiving a small grunt from him. "You see that leaf over there in the water drifting towards us?" Rat raised his head and stared at the leaf I was referring to.
"What about it?" he asked.
"Well, have you ever seen a leaf that big before?" I asked. Rat remained silent as he continued staring at the leaf, his muzzle having drops of water drip off of it.
"You know," he said. "Come to think of it, no, I haven't. But I'm sure the world is just full of mysteries that are yet to be solved."
"I guess," I said as we both continued watching the leaf, drifting closer towards us. Something within me told me that something was about to happen, something that invovled the leaf. I wasn't sure what though. "I have a weird feeling about that leaf. Maybe we should go."
Rat remained silent, staring at the leaf still. I saw his ears twitch suddenly, then he turned to me slightly. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe we should. Something's not right here." I nodded at him, indicating we were leaving. As Rat turned to pick up the scope, I turned to leave the lake. Unfortunately, the next thing I knew, I fell and landed right on my face. And the weird thing about was, I never took a single step.
I could feel something odd on my ankle and, pushing myself up and turning my body, I looked down at my foot. Two long, green vines were sprouting from it and going into the nearby grass. "Quil! Help!" Rat suddenly yelled. Looking over where Rat was, he was now suspended in mid-air, tied by multiple vines as well. This was just great. Everywhere I went I just seemed to run into problem after problem. Would this ever end?
Back to my dire situation, I watched as what the vines were attatched to began rustling through the grass, coming closer. Finally, what seemed like forever, out came what looked like four legged, green furred pokemon with really big leaves on their heads, much like the leaf Rat and I saw in the water, which of course grabbed my attention as the leaf rose up out of the water and another of the green furred pokemon appeared.
"Well, well, well," the pokemon said in a feminine voice. "What do we have here? A couple of mountain pokemon down for a drink of water in OUR territory, eh?"
"Um... what?" I asked meekly, not understanding what was going on. We weren't mountain pokemon, an obvious mistake others make from time to time I suppose. This was just a whole misunderstanding. "We're not mountain pokemon."
"Sure you aren't," the leaf pokemon said with a roll of her eyes. "And I'm not a Chikorita." So that's what these pokemon were. A Chika-something. I'm not real good with the end name of many pokemon. Just those I knew back in my forest.
"No really," I said. "We're not mountain pokemon. We just came down from the city and-"
"Enough chitchat," the Chika said, grabbing hold of the scope that was by her feet. "You can tell it to the clan leader when we get back." This was just what I needed. A new problem to get in the way of a mission we were on. If the Chika acted the way she did without giving me a chance to explain, I wondered how the clan leader would act.
"Guess I'll find out when I get there," I thought to myself as the Chikas began marching us back to their base.