"Bonnie!" Clemont said angrily, untangling himself from his sleeping bag. "Can I leave you alone for five minutes without you getting yourself into some sort of trouble?"
As he clambered out, however, he saw an equally sleepy sister emerge from her tent; evidently, she had not been the source of the scream. They discussed for a moment before agreeing to go after it, Clemont releasing his Luxray for better vision in the darkness.
It took a few minutes, but finally they found the smouldering remains of another campfire. Certain that there would be very few people in the woods that night, the siblings assumed that the noise had come from there and entered the camp. However, all they found was a Treeko, patrolling the outside of the tent there.
"Treeko!" it snapped at them. "Treeko tree. Ko."
At first, they were hesitant to do anything, worried about the screaming person, but just then the Treeko deemed it prudent to send a Bullet Seed at them. Deciding the source was definitely not there, the two made a hasty exit.
They wandered the forest for a bit longer, but it was silent and still; even Luxray could detect nothing in the wilderness. Finally the siblings gave up their search, deciding any problems had been resolved, and went back to bed.
Colin and Iota were not nearly so lax. After hearing the scream, which was much closer than it had been to Clemont and Bonnie, they combed the forest all over trying to find the source. Not only were they unable to find it, but they happened to stray too close to a Pangoro, which left Colin's Chatot incredibly shaken up and Iota's Totodile very weak. Exhausted, weary, and regretting they'd ever left camp, the two stalked back to their tents and fell asleep again just in time for the sunrise.
Chatot had stayed up, though. He sensed there was something odd about the scream, something they hadn't thought of. It was perfectly possible, of course, that the person who uttered it would have been dragged off. No matter what, though, they would have been fighting (if they were sedated, they wouldn't have screamed), meaning there would be marks. Chatot had been looking out for them, but there were no signs of a scuffle in any reasonable range.
That led him to option number two, the one he was fairly certain of: the scream had been a decoy. But why? Where? Who had done it? It was perfectly possible it had been a Pokemon- at the time of the scream, Chatot wasn't listening very closely, so it was unable to discern it. This meant that, probably, said Pokemon had a trainer, supposing there was malicious intent.
Still, they hadn't done anything, as far as Chatot could tell. In the morning, he decided, he would get his trainer to inspect everything carefully. Perhaps it had been a decoy to rouse them out of camp in order to steal something. What his trainer had of value, though, Chatot did not know.
Three separate campfires smoldered in three separate camps, as three separate trainers snoozed through the sun. Some were looking for another; others were not. But, in the end, they would come together, and go through a hell of a ride as they did . . .