Chapter 8
Last Pair
With the mission completed and a sunny days travel back to town ahead of them, the group did what they could to heal up some of mudkip's wounds while Jacob carried him as they traveled down the mountain side to the grassy fields below. The mountain passes were rather rugged with drops that where quite a ways down, it wasn't the first route that they wanted to take but it was the fastest. Along the path they just happened to stumbled upon two unconscious Pokemon that were a little to close to the edge for comfort. With closer examination both of the Pokemon's species were easily identifiable, one was a Charmander and the other was a Riolu. The Charmander had many cuts along his face and sides with a scar going over one of his eyes. The Riolu on the other hand didn't have many injures what so ever, except for the large bump on his forehead. He had curly hair instead of smooth on his black tear shaped bundles of hair that dangled on the sides of his face. Aaron and Zoei grabbed each of them and pulled them to a safe enough distance from the ledge. Jacob looked up the side of the rocky wall and saw that at least one of them had fell and skidded along the side of it. By all standards, the evidence had pointed to the Charmander.
The fire type moaned and shook as he tried to regain his consciousness. Zoei went over to help him to his feet as he opened his eyes "Wh-where am I? My vision is a little blurry…" his legs seemed shaky and off key as he tried to stay up. "Don't worry, we are here to help you. Where are you from?" Jacob asked him, making sure not to wake up the sleeping child. "I-I'm from…um…Montana" another human? Aaron spoke up "What is your name? Do you remember it?" the Charmander's tone of voice became slightly louder "Of course I do, my name is Terry". Chance's ears pricked straight up in a ninety degree angle as he rushed over to him "Terry!? Is that really you?" he yelled putting both of his paws on Terry's shoulders "Chance? Is this you?" he began to pat the back and shoulders of the Umbreon "Ya its me! I thought you were dead!" both of them gave a quick but hard hug. Terry's vision had cleared but he could only see out of one of his eyes as he looked at the now black furry face of his pal, and surprisingly he didn't freak out. "So you're a Umbreon huh? It suits you" Chance and the others were happy but also confused, which they always seem to be don't they. "Your not startled that we look like this? Not even a bit?" Terry Grinned broadly, slightly showing his sharp reptilian teeth. He then spoke "Nope, I figured this out days ago. I had my moment of insanity." he looked up the mountain wall, then touched his injured face. "And I guess my fall left me with a blind eye, just great." sorrow swept over his face, then he became mad and used one of his moves and made three large slash marks in the stone beside him. Aaron came up next to him "Have you been traveling alone this whole time?" Terry turned to him "Again no, I found Michael not that long ago and we were trying to traverse over the mountain pass when some sort of purple mist made the wall collapse. Michael was down here, where is he? Last memory I had of him was seeing a large boulder smack the top of his head from the landslide."
We all turned over to Zoei who went over to help up the Riolu who had regained his consciousness. "Is that by any chance him?" Chance asked pointing to the fighting type. His face remained blank when he answered "Yes that's him, I'm glad to see he's alive. Chance can I talk to you over here real quick?" Chance nodded. Both of them went out of hearing range from the others "Chance don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Michael is alive but the purple mist cloud I saw really concerns me. I have never heard or seen anything like it in the Pokemon universe." he wasn't the only one thinking about it, this mist was a very big concern in Chance's eyes as well. "What was odd about it specifically? Cause the Pokemon Gastly tends to live inside of purple poisonous gas. Maybe you just saw a Gastly." Terry shook his head "No Chance, I'm telling you that this was no Gastly. This cloud looked at me with lifeless black eyes before destroying the ground beneath my feet. But it disappeared into thin air when I fell close to it." he seemed quite certain. Chance just couldn't believe it "Are you sure? Is there anything else that it did?" he looked at the ground and put his hand on his chin as if he was involved in deep thought "As a matter of fact, I saw the same cloud earlier this morning fuse into a nearby Pidgy. It didn't see me cause I was inside a nearby bush with Michael but, the Pidgy's feathers became a different color. And it started to attack other nearby Pidgys for no reason" Chance had become deeply interested in what he was saying "That is strange, we might have to talk to a psychic back in town. Come on we need to get you guys and the child back home." they both nodded and went back to the others, not saying a word about what they had just discussed.
It was about eight o'clock in the evening when they had arrived back in town. While the rest of the group went home, Jacob was tasked with the delivery of the youngling to his mother. He came to a small pond about fifteen minutes outside of treasure town that sparkled like diamonds. "He lives here? Huh, nice place." he said looking around. "Hello? I'm Jacob! I have your child here!" at first there was no noise, just the breeze of the wind and the rustling of tree leaves. Then suddenly a black figure darted out of the clear water and landed right in front of him. "Thank you so much! Thank you for finding my dear child!" the figure in front of him was a Swampert who quickly swiped the mudkip from Jacob's grasp and replacing him with a heavy bag of Poke. The mudkip looked back at Jacob "Thank you for saving me, I guess I shouldn't explore by myself" he said. Jacob smiled back at him "If you decide to go exploring again, make sure you have others with you" "like you?" Jacob laughed "Ya, with someone like me" The mother then jumped back into the pond, disappearing into a tunnel beneath the water. "Uh your welcome madam!" he yelled out. He began counting the money inside the bag "500...1500...2000!" he was astounded with how much the Swampert had paid him "This is quite a generous amount to say the least" he exclaimed to himself making his way back to town. Upon entering the town square all the shops had been closed for the evening and the moon light glistened on the sea water as he made his way to Sharpedo bluff. Walking inside he was met with the eyes of everyone wondering how It went "how much did we earn?" Chance asked. Jacob tossed the bag of money over to him "2000 Poke, a lot of money isn't it?" "Really? That much?" Zoei quickly mad her way over to Chance and started counting the money, he was right, it was all there.
The whole time Chance and the others were discussing on what to spend the cash on, Terry and Michael were on the other end of the room eating two Oran berries each. "So what do you think they will buy with that amount?" Michael asked Terry taking another chunk out of his berry. Terry thought for a moment "Probably food and medical supplies, what do you think?" "Hopefully something to expand the space, its kind of small for all of us to live here." it was true, the den was rather small to be holding six Pokemon within it. But it had class there was no doubt about that. Aaron yawned "Guys I'm hitting the hay, literally" then buried himself inside his bed. They all laughed "You know what guys?" Jacob asked, Aaron poked his head out from the hay "What?" Jacob looked at everyone in the room. "I could do this for a long time" "I know what you mean buddy" Chance said laying down in his own bed "I know what you mean." he yawned then climbed on top of his own bed. As the fire died out leaving only cinders in a ash pile, everyone fell asleep knowing and accepting their new lives.