You can give Game Freak an extra thanks for this story, because they gave us actual forest gods and we couldn't resist.

We forgot to keep track of teams for the last few stories, but thanks to Gloria's nicknaming habit, we're going to bring it back.

It was a beautiful day outside. The sun was shining, Rookidee were singing. On days like this, kids like Victor and Hop were having fun in a Pokémon battle.

"You have to have the type advantage," Hop laughed as his Wooloo stared down Dash, both Pokémon too adorable to be intimidating despite their best efforts. "I have the extra Pokémon."

"And I'm still going to crush you like a bug," Victor declared, before pointing dramatically at Wooloo. "Use Tackle!"

As this battle was going on, Gloria was watching with not only Ace but Dishwasher as well. "Who do you think will win the match?" she asked, as if they could answer. "Hop's got the experience and the numbers, but I've never seen anything stop Victor."

Ace made a worried noise. Dishwasher yawned and plopped his head in Gloria's lap for a nap.

"Well, you two are loads of fun," she mumbled sarcastically, before the sound of Wooloo hitting the ground and Victor's cheering brought them all back to the matter at hand.

"Good enough," Hop said, grinning despite the loss. "But we're not done yet! Jojo, you're up!"

"You're sure about that?" Victor asked. "Jojo clearly has a type disadvantage."

"Type advantage isn't everything," Hop pointed out. "Lee's won loads of matches at a disadvantage." He nodded toward the Grookey. "Let's show him, Jojo! Use Scratch!"

"Keep Tackle going, Dash!" Victor called back.

It didn't take long for Jojo to fall, too. Victor cackled in triumph, and Gloria shook her head even as Hop brushed off his loss. "My turn, then," she decided. "I can battle you, Victor. See if you can stand a two-on-one and a type disadvantage."

Victor looked down at his Scorbunny, who shook his head, puffed a little ember, and flopped down, tired. "Put a pin in that," Victor decided. "Did either of your parents even catch Dishwasher?"

"Are you scared of me?" Gloria asked, to her friend's amusement.

"Gloria, the only time I'm ever afraid when you're involved is if you're around cars without your glasses. Speaking of, where are your glasses?"

Gloria touched her face, frowning when the only thing she felt was skin. "I might've left them at home," she admitted. "Or put them in my bag. Or left them at your house. Your mum didn't find them after we left, did she?"

"Not that I heard," Victor confessed.

"You need to put them on a chain," Hop ordered as he fed his Pokémon some Revives. "I keep saying that, but you never listen."

"Forgive me for being fourteen and not wanting to look like a librarian," Gloria snapped back. Dishwasher woke up and licked her hand, a clear sign that he was hungry, and she immediately softened up. "A battle doesn't seem to be what he wants, anyway. I'll take him home and see if we have any food to spare."

"You're not that poor," Hop protested, but Gloria was already off. Funnily enough, Ace seemed to be in the lead, staying only a few feet away from Gloria and making occasional squeaks of anxiety if she wandered too far off the path he'd picked out for them.

Victor noticed, too. "Looks like she found herself a seeing-eye lizard," he laughed, calling Dash back to his ball. "Well, I'm hungry myself. I'm heading home for food. Coming?"

"Staying," Hop decided, looking back at his own house. "But I'll come and get you, and then we can fetch Gloria and ask Lee to endorse us for the Gym Challenge!"

"You really think he'd do it?"

"Who knows?" Hop shrugged. "But I can ask. I'm sure Professor Magnolia will sponsor us if he doesn't."

Victor wished he had that kind of confidence in the professor. It might be too much to ask to get a sponsorship from a woman he'd never met.

Hop came by before Gloria did. That wasn't unusual, Gloria lived in a different part of town. The boys started on the path, but were immediately distracted by the sound of a Wooloo in distress.

"Did it really break down the gate?" Victor asked, spinning around and running into the Slumbering Weald before Hop had even fully processed.

Still, his friend was right behind him. "It's been there for ages," he pointed out. "A wooden gate was bound to rot sooner or later. And that Wooloo was determined."

"That doesn't matter now! We have to find the Wooloo!"

"You're right," Hop agreed, coming to a stop as soon as they entered the forest, Victor doing the same. "But where do you think it got off to?"

Victor squinted into the fog, seeing a still, dark shape. "That might be a bridge," he decided, and started forward. "Stay with me. Prepare to use your coat as an emergency rope if I fall down a pit."

Hop nodded, not even questioning it. Slowly, the boys passed wild Pokémon in the grass, pretending to be trees every time they were spotted.

It was a bridge, after all. They crossed it, but the fog only got thicker the deeper they went. The Pokémon cries changed, from a Wooloo to something neither of them could identify.

Things got even worse when they found the creature that must have made that sound. A wolf Pokémon, with what looked like pink braids dangling on each side of its face. It locked eyes with Victor, before suddenly howling and beginning a battle.

The battle was unwinnable. Everything the boys tried, the wolf didn't seem to even be affected, and with each howl the fog got thicker, to the point where they couldn't see each other, or their Pokémon, or their own hands.

Or the wolf when it attacked them directly.

They regained consciousness only a minute later, to the sound of familiar voices. Victor, face-down in the dirt, rolled himself onto his side to get a look at familiar brown eyes, for once behind red-framed glasses like they were supposed to be. "You found your glasses, Gloria," he coughed out, trying to joke about it.

Gloria nodded as if that confirmed everything. "That's Victor," she told the other, and the voice of a grown man rumbled a laugh.

"Sounds like," Leon agreed. He'd already helped his brother to his feet, and let Hop lean on him.

"How did you find your way here?" Hop asked him. "You're pants with directions, and Gloria's never been here before."

"True," Gloria admitted. "But Ace knows how to talk to other Pokémon, so he led the way."

"How did you even know where we were?" Victor asked.

"I saw that the gate was gone," Gloria explained. "Figured that Wooloo knocked it down, and that you two were stupid enough to chase after it. Went and got Leon like a normal person."

"Where's the Wooloo?"

Gloria pointed out Leon's Charizard, who was carrying the shivering Wooloo back along the path they'd come from. "Wooloo's taken care of."

"This place was out of bounds," Leon scolded, but he was too relieved to be as intimidating as he would have liked. "You weren't supposed to be here. I understand well enough why you did it, but please. Don't do it again."

Hop sighed in relief. "I really thought we'd had it," he admitted, before grinning at Victor. "The mad Pokémon coming after us and all...I thought it had already eaten Wooloo, honestly..."

"What mad Pokémon?" Leon asked, and Hop immediately shut up, like he'd said too much. "We found you two wiped out in the grass. No Pokémon in sight. Not even yours - they'd gone back to their balls."

"A big one," Hop told him. "Blue and pink and...horrifying, honestly. Loads stronger than anything I've ever seen. We tried to battle it, but our moves wouldn't even touch it."

All this time, Victor was nodding along, silently confirming everything. Gloria looked at them like she didn't believe them, but Leon actually gave it some thought.

"I've heard of strong Pokémon living in the Slumbering Weald," he said, more to himself than the teenagers in front of him. "Were they really illusions this whole time?"

"Or they're scamming us," Gloria pointed out.

Leon shrugged it off. "Whatever happened, we should get out of here. It's not good to stand around if your Pokémon can't do damage to an attacker."

Which was, in all honesty, very good advice.

Leon left, following Charizard to some unknown destination, while Gloria and the boys stayed behind. They agreed, when she asked, to keep the whole encounter to themselves, which almost seemed to convince her that they were telling the truth.

They all agreed to tell their parents that they were heading off to Wedgehurst. Gloria even promised to ask if she could take Dishwasher.

"Don't know if they actually caught him or just let him live in the house," she explained. "Might be the latter, Pokeballs cost money."

"Just get the Zigzagoon," Victor ordered, not up for her stories.

Gloria laughed and started off again, and Victor moved to say goodbye to his mother. With that out of the way, he caught up to them quickly, Dishwasher following Gloria as he'd always been, Ace in his ball - apparently, he'd decided that while Gloria was wearing her glasses, she had decent enough vision that she didn't need him.

"Did they catch him?" Victor asked.

Gloria shook her head. "They did not," she answered, a small smile twitching despite her attempts to keep it down. "He just likes Mum's dirt curry and letting him lick the plates clean before putting them in the machine was enough to feed him."

"Your mum does make good curry," Victor admitted. 'Dirt curry' was the fun little nickname Gloria had come up with as a little girl after seeing her mother shake trees to get berries from a Skwovet's hoard. Victor's mother had asked Mrs. MacCallan for the recipe once, only to get laughter and a brief explanation that there was always a different recipe used, depending on what ingredients she could get from the trees. "Do you know the base recipe for it?"

"I might," Gloria teased. "What's in it for me?"

Victor offered her a Pokeball. "One of these, so you can actually catch Dishwasher."

"Insufficient offering," Gloria told him, "but sufficient enough to buy my presence. We'll travel Galar together and have a different batch of dirt curry every night. We'll eat so much of it we'll be sick of the stuff." She held out her hand to shake. "Fair trade?"

Rather than shake, Victor handed her the ball. "Fair trade," he agreed. He looked down at the Zigzagoon, who was hopping up and down in excitement. "I suggest you use it. You might only have two Pokémon on the whole journey."

"Not if I can find all the treasures littered in Galar. I hear the Wild Area has pearls around the water, and comet shards if you know where to look." She lifted Dishwasher off the ground proudly. "We're going to get rich on this journey."

Dishwasher cheered in agreement, then bopped the ball himself to go in. It shook once and clicked closed, never leaving Gloria's hand.

Victor thought back to the other Pokeballs he'd brought just in case, and decided that he should probably catch a second Pokémon, too.

So, with a Scorbunny tucked under his arm and his new Rookidee on his shoulder, he followed Gloria to the local Pokémon Research Lab.

Teams:

Victor: Dash (Scorbunny) Rookidee

Gloria: Ace (Sobble) Dishwasher (Galarian Zigzagoon)