It came as a surprise to Bloon that he was one of the first pokémon called to the stage to compete in the protector's tournament. Norridge announced his name along with a pokémon named Pompeii, who turned out to be the machoke who had insulted Bloon in the tent earlier, and called them both up to join him on the wooden platform.

"Oh, this is going to be fun," the machoke sneered as he saw Bloon struggling to press through the crowd of pokémon gathered to watch the tournament. "My little brother told me about you," Pompeii told Bloon casually, "he said that you tried to bite his arm off. I'll be thinking about that when I crush you."

Bloon didn't say anything to the larger pokémon, not even when Pompeii purposefully ran into him on his way to the stage. Truthfully, Bloon wasn't sure that his mouth would work properly with all of the pokémon glowering down at him as he nervously walked between their parted ranks. While some of the pokémon gave Pompeii encouragement or a hearty slap on his muscular back, the same villagers only gave Bloon their cold disdain.

"They'll see," Bloon muttered to himself as he climbed the steps jutting out from the side of the wooden stage.

When he saw that the two pokémon he had summoned had joined him, Norridge cleared his throat and spoke as loudly as he could, "Our first match will be between Pompeii and Bloon!" This time the makuhita's voice only hitched a little before he spoke Bloon's name. "The fight will be decided when either pokémon is knocked out, is removed from the ring, or admits defeat!" Norridge's volume dropped somewhat as he addressed Bloon more than Pompeii, "No biting or any of that sort of thing." Then, raising his voice again, the plump pokémon shouted, "Go!"

As Norridge hurried off to the side of the stage, Pompeii dropped into a wrestler's stance with his thick arms spread wide. Bloon put up his paws and got up on the balls of his feet like Amber's dad had taught him during their training. He was scared, but decided to make the first move in order to try and overcome his fear. As he deftly hopped across the distance which separated himself from his opponent, Bloon pulled back his arm and threw a punch at the underside of Pompeii's jaw.

The machoke's body went rigid as his neck snapped backwards, and Bloon allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. His expression quickly morphed into wide-eyed fear when Pompeii looked down at him with an unfriendly grin of his own. "This is going to be more fun than I thought," the larger pokémon said, and then his arm swung around with incredible speed and cuffed the side of Bloon's head.

Bloon's thin body crumpled to the ground and his vision was filled with stars as he tried to pick himself up from the frustratingly smooth surface of the stage. Pompeii didn't give Bloon the chance, however. The machoke bent down and wrapped his powerful fingers around Bloon's skull so he could lift his smaller opponent into the air.

"Look at you," sneered Pompeii. "You've got to be the dumbest pokémon this side of the mountain. Or maybe you just know that this is what you deserve." To punctuate his comment, Pompeii delivered a solid punch to Bloon's midsection that made the riolu's body explode with pain.

Bloon made himself open his eyes, not so that he could see Pompeii's leering face, but so that he could scan the faces of the pokémon looking up at the arena. What did they think of him now? It was hard for him to tell. No one looked pleased with how the match was going, but they looked more resigned than horrified. Bloon's red eyes scanned the crowd for any sign of Amber and her mom, but his searching was cut short when Pompeii threw him bodily into the stage below.

This time, Bloon couldn't keep himself from crying out in pain. He was able to get back on his feet only because Pompeii was more interested in watching Bloon struggle than in stopping him. "What did you think was going to happen?" Pompeii asked. "Did you actually think that you were going to win a single match, let alone the whole tournament? You? A child? A savage little mutt?"

Bloon saw Pompeii start towards him, and he brought up his arms to try and defend himself, but it was as successful as if Bloon had been trying to stop a landslide. Pompeii's powerful fists flew around Bloon's feeble defenses and slammed into the smaller pokémon's head, chest, and shoulders until Bloon's arms dropped to his sides and his chin dipped to his chest so that he could concentrate all of his remaining energy on merely standing upright.

Yes, what had he expected would happen when he entered this tournament? It was hard for Bloon to recall now that his head was pounding and his vision was blurred. He trusted that there had to be a reason, and so the riolu staggered towards Pompeii and struck at the machoke's torso with a weak jab.

"Why don't you give up?" suggested Norridge from his vantage point to the size of the other two pokémon on the stage. Even Pompeii waited for Bloon's answer, only to laugh when the dazed riolu shook his head from side to side.

"The little savage doesn't know when to quit!" Pompeii guffawed. Still laughing, Pompeii grabbed Bloon's extended arm and wrenched it behind the riolu's back. Using the twisted limb as a handle, Pompeii lifted Bloon again and carried him over to the edge of the stage. "We might as well stop wasting everyone's time."

Bloon looked down and saw that the pokémon who had been standing the closest to the stage had scattered so that when he fell he wouldn't land on any of them. Something about how their wide, upturned faces were watching him made Bloon angry. In that anger, clarity blossomed which cut through the ache in his skull which was crowding out any attempts at thinking. Bloon's vision turned blue as flickers of blue fire danced at the corners of his eyes and he bared his teeth for a growl which made Pompeii pause.

"What are you trying to do?" Pompeii wondered aloud. The machoke jerked Bloon roughly through the air. "It's already over, you little-"

Before Pompeii could speak his last insult, Bloon brought up his free arm and something warm erupted from the palm of the riolu's paw. The burst of energy was the same color as the blue fire in Bloon's eyes, but it was only visible for a moment before it struck Pompeii in the chest to send the larger pokémon stumbling back, yelling his surprise.

Unfortunately, Pompeii releasing Bloon's arm did not mean that this was the start of an incredible comeback. The machoke had still been dangling Bloon off the side of the raised arena so that when he had let the smaller pokémon go, Bloon's furry little body had struck the ground which the crowd had cleared below him. The riolu sprang back to his feet and looked back at the stage to see Pompeii worriedly examining the burn discoloring his pectorals and to hear Norridge call out in a quavering voice, "Since his opponent has left the arena, the winner of the first fight is Pompeii!"

Adrenaline kept Bloon on his feet, but it also kept him from thinking too deeply about what had just happened, and what he had just done. He had only one desire, to get away from all of these cruel, uncaring pokémon. For the most part, they gave Bloon plenty of space as he ran away from his defeat. One pokémon, a meowth, came too close to Bloon, likely by accident, and he growled at her all the same and continued his flight.

All Bloon wanted was to be alone, and the last gift that the protector's tournament gave him was his choice of places to be by himself. All of the village's pokémon were at the tournament. Even the guards who were supposed to be manning the gate protecting Muscle Village from the wilderness outside had lowered the heavy beam which barred the gate and went off to watch the fighting and the accompanying festivities.

In the end, Bloon went back to the closest thing he had to a home in Muscle Village. The quaint building which housed Amber and her family was as quiet as Bloon had ever seen it during the day. There was a light breeze rustling the curtains over the window, but otherwise everything in the shack was still.

Now that he was removed from the noise and the excitement of the tournament, Bloon could finally start thinking again. His first thought was on the pain in his body. The fight against Pompeii had fallen somewhere between the beatings which Brutus and Amber's dad had administered. Bloon was still on his feet, but he didn't know how much longer that would be the case if he didn't act fast. He opened up the oaken chest in which Amber's mom kept the family's supplies for emergencies and pulled out one of the blue berries which the combusken had given him and Amber after Brutus and his gang had ambushed them.

Bloon halted his paw with the berry resting against his closed mouth. In all of his time in Muscle Village, he had never stolen from Amber and her family. It was no way to repay the kindness which they had shown him by taking him into their home. To cross that line now, even if Bloon was the only one who knew of his transgression, would mark a break with the past and the start of something new.

The phantom of a plan, pieces of which had started swirling under the surface of Bloon's thoughts after his loss to Pompeii, suddenly came together and he plopped the berry in his mouth and started to chew it with savage defiance. Bloon had decided to leave Muscle Village.

He wouldn't leave the village forever, Bloon told himself. That was still unthinkable to the young pokémon. But he had become seized by an idea as intoxicating as his initial plan to compete in the protector's tournament. Bloon would leave for Fist Mountain before the tournament had concluded and he would climb to its peak and retrieve one of the same white stones that protectors were supposed to bring back to prove their worth. When he returned to the village, Bloon would be able to hold his head up high and look all of the pokémon in the eyes. They would have to admit that he was something more than the "savage" that Pompeii called him.

Thinking over his battle again made Bloon curl his paws into fists, and he imagined that he could still feel the warmth in one of them. The power that he had been able to summon to strike Pompeii with blue fire and end their fight had come out of nowhere, and Bloon wasn't sure how to recapture it. There were no lucario or other riolu in the village, otherwise he could have asked them for help. Although, Bloon reflected darkly, even if those pokémon existed, they probably wouldn't have helped him because of what he was.

Bloon was surprised how readily he took to stealing after his first act of thievery. He looked over Amber's home with an eye towards the food and other supplies he would need for his journey to Fist Mountain and back and, before he knew what he was doing, Bloon was filling a sack with things pilfered from the family who had sheltered him for years.

"What are you doing?"

Bloon looked up from the loaf of bread he was stuffing into his bag and saw Amber standing in the doorway. "Amber," Bloon said, dropping the bag in his hands to the ground with a heavy sound which made him wince. "I thought you'd still be at the tournament."

"What are you, stupid?" Amber asked, and Bloon couldn't keep himself from smiling. "Of course I had to check on you. You're my best friend." Bloon's stomach sank when Amber repeated her question, "So, what are you doing?"

"I'm leaving," Bloon said, disappointed that the words didn't sound more forceful. "But I'm not running away, not really! I'm going to climb Fist Mountain!"

Amber's beak hung open and she asked, "What? Why would you do that?"

Bloon tried to force confidence into his voice as he explained, "If I can do the same challenge that the protectors do, then that will mean that I'm as good as any pokémon in the village."

Amber tapped her clawed foot impatiently against the dirt floor of her house. "That's dumb. You don't need to prove yourself to any of them. Who cares what they think?"

"I do," admitted Bloon softly. He looked down at his paws and then at the loose sack lying in front of his feet. "You don't know what it's like, Amber. You couldn't know what it's like. But I hate the way that they all look at me. They don't see me as me, just as a wild pokémon. That makes me dangerous, stupid, or both. But if I can do all of the things that the best pokémon in Muscle Village can do, then that will mean that I've earned every right to call myself a part of your village."

"It's our village. It's your home, too," Amber insisted as she placed one of her wings on Bloon's paw.

Bloon only pulled away from her feathery touch. "You're wrong."

The two young pokémon stood in the stillness of the house until Amber finally said, "Well, what else do we need to pack?"

"'We'?"

Amber gave Bloon the most scathing look that she could produce and said, "Yeah, 'we'. I'm going with you, of course. You'll need someone to watch your back out there in the wild."

Bloon's mouth worked uselessly until he finally seized upon a good objection, "What will your parents say when they find you're gone?"

"Who knows?" replied Amber carelessly. "I won't be able to hear it anyways. Besides, if you're already gone, then what's one more missing pokémon?"

"I don't like this," Bloon said, but he didn't stop Amber when she started darting around the shack looking for anything useful that her friend might have missed. "But if we are going to go," he added hesitantly, "we should go soon, before anyone comes looking for you."

Amber puffed out her chest and assured Bloon, "Don't worry! I told my mom that I was going to comfort you. She thought that you were probably hiding somewhere and bawling your eyes out."

"She didn't say that," interrupted Bloon.

"Did too," Amber shot back before rolling her dark eyes and saying, "What that means is that we should have plenty of time to get a good head start before anyone comes to look for us. Especially because my dad's fighting now, and no one's going to want to miss that."

"Your dad is fighting? And you didn't want to watch him?"

Amber shook her head slowly. "I already know my dad's going to win the whole tournament, so there's no real reason for me to stick around and watch what I already know is going to happen."

Bloon started to say, "Amber," but before he could go on, the torchic headed outside and gestured for him to follow her.

Even though there were no other pokémon around, the two friends headed for Muscle Village's gate in silence, stopping only to make sure that they weren't being followed. At the threshold, Bloon and Amber struggled to lift up the heavy bar and then pulled on the door which led to the world outside of Muscle Village.

With how still the village was, Bloon didn't experience the sudden quiet that he had encountered when he had first stepped out into the wild to train with Amber's dad. But for Amber, it was still enough of a change that she said, "Boy, eerie out here, isn't it?"

"I don't know, I kind of like it," Bloon said. He took a deep breath in of the air, scented as it was with the smell of pine trees mingled with something harsh and ugly. "Oh," he said softly as Bloon looked over at the black scar in the forest that he and Amber's dad had created on their second day of training.

"Come on, Bloon," Amber asked as Bloon started towards the clearing ringed by the scorched remains of plants and trees, "let's get going!"

He knew that he should be focusing on getting to Fist Mountain, but Bloon also wanted to finish the examination that Amber's dad had cut short just the day before. "Just a moment," Bloon called to Amber without looking back at her. He found the same nest that he had been looking at during his last foray into the wild, but found that the four eggs which had been inside of it were now gone. "Must have been eaten by a wild pokémon," he said to himself, but his musings were cut short when a harsh caw ripped through the midday calm.

"Egg taker! Chick killer!"

Bloon whipped his head around and found a pokémon with feathers the same color as the desolation around him perched on a dead, leafless branch. "Egg taker!" the murkrow cawed again. "Chick killer!" Before Amber could come to his side, Bloon had to dive out of the way of the wild pokémon swooping at him.

"Bloon! Look out!" Amber said and then the torchic opened her beak and fired a few glowing red sparks at the pokémon flying between her and her friend.

"The same! The same!" the murkrow cried as Amber's attack singed a few of its tail feathers. "The same fire! The same death!"

"Let's get out of here, Amber!" Bloon yelled to his friend, but Amber's eyes had narrowed and she gave no sign of having heard him.

"Bring it on, you ugly little jerk," Amber muttered as one of her claws pawed at the ground. The torchic then lowered her head and charged at the tree where the murkrow was perched. The wild murkrow watched Amber's approach with curiosity but not fear. That changed when Amber was directly underneath it and let loose with another string of sparks which pelted the murkrow's underside.

It squawked wordlessly and took flight, circling over Bloon and Amber so that first one and then the other of the two young pokémon were in the shadow of the murkrow's black wings. "Let's go," Bloon said again, and this time Amber at least looked at him.

"Why? I have that horrible thing right where I want it!"

Bloon wrestled with what he could say that would convince both Amber and himself before he settled on telling his friend, "We still have a lot of ground to cover. Leave this pokémon alone. It's not worth it."

Amber glared at Bloon, but she didn't reject his reasoning outright, even when the murkrow resumed screeching about fire and death. "You're right," she finally said with the air of one who is making a substantial concession, "that thing isn't worth our time. Let's keep moving."

Now that she had been convinced, Amber took to Bloon's idea as readily as if she had thought of it herself. Bloon had to rush after her after the torchic started plowing headlong into the start of the forest which separated them and Muscle Village from the foothills of Fist Mountain. Bloon readily gave chase, but only after he had first stopped and watched the murkrow land on another spindly tree branch. It was watching him closely, and Bloon felt compelled to tell the wild pokémon, "I'm sorry," although he didn't know why.

Bloon caught up to Amber not long after leaving that strange, sad scene. She was muttering darkly under her breath as it seemed as though she had chosen a path through the forest which crossed paths with every bramble and burr that the wilderness could throw at her. "I already hate this," Amber said viciously as her clawed foot sliced through the particularly irksome root which had become wrapped around her other leg. "How do these pokémon live out here? Why do they live out here?"

"There's good things about how things are out here," Bloon answered automatically.

"Oh, yeah? Name one."

"Well, there's no Brutus or those other mean pokémon who follow him around," offered Bloon with a smile.

Amber returned Bloon's smile as best as her beak allowed. "Okay, good point."

Neither of them knew what they were doing. Bloon had spent the earliest part of his life in the wilds outside of Muscle Village, but that had been so long ago that he was as lost as Amber was in trying to pick through the landscape where it seemed that every part of the landscape was working to hinder their progress. Bloon and Amber would have been hopelessly lost in minutes, given their shared lack of experience, had it not been for the shape of Fist Mountain looming over the horizon, taller than the tallest trees. Whenever the two of them thought that they had become turned around inside of the thick woods, all they had to do was to have Bloon scramble as far up the nearest tree as necessary until he could see the gray peak which was their destination.

"We have to go that way," Bloon reported back to Amber after one of his innumerable trips to the forest's canopy. The riolu shimmied down the tree as easily as if it had been one of the play structures at Ms. Spore's nursery, much to Amber's evident annoyance.

"You don't have to show off," she told Bloon as the riolu reshouldered their sack of supplies.

"I wasn't showing off!" Bloon protested. Amber was about to launch into a thorough explanation of why she was right and Bloon was wrong when the riolu shushed her. "Do you hear that?" he asked. When Amber shook her head, Bloon whispered, "All this time, we haven't seen any other pokémon except for that murkrow, and it was a pretty loud one, right? Why do you think we haven't seen or heard any other wild pokémon?"

Amber thought over her answer before proposing, "Maybe all of that racket the murkrow made scared them off. The way that it was screaming about fire and death probably made us sound way tougher than we actually are. The other pokémon heard that and thought it'd be a good idea to give us some space."

"That's what I thought, too," Bloon said quietly, "but then I thought, oh, never mind."

"No, what is it?" Amber pressed. Her black eyes were alive with movement as she turned around to try and track noises real and imagined.

"Well, I think that the way you described it, it's maybe the way that you would think, you and I would think," Bloon quickly corrected himself, "but that might not be how the wild pokémon out here think."

Amber stopped rotating around in one place to fix Bloon with a curious stare. "How do you mean?"

Bloon felt his fur bristle at Amber's piercing eyes. Between the two of them, she had always been the center of attention during their games in Muscle Village. Even now, when it was just the two of them, Bloon felt uneasy about having his friend focus so sharply on him. "I mean, I didn't know that wild pokémon could talk until that murkrow did. Did you?"

"No, I guess not. I always figured that they only, I don't know, howled and growled and stuff like that."

"But when it did talk, you and I didn't think anything of it, right? It's only now that I think about it that I realized how unexpected it was."

"Do you have a point?" Amber asked testily.

Bloon took a deep breath and then said quickly, "I mean, we have no idea what these wild pokémon are like. Maybe that murkrow screams at every pokémon that it sees, maybe it didn't even know what it was saying, but we just don't know! If we haven't seen any other wild pokémon yet, it might mean that they're scared of us or something like that, or it might mean that they are planning something!"

"'Planning something'?" Amber scoffed. "Listen to yourself, Bloon. I know this forest is stupid and awful, but that doesn't mean that whatever noises we're hearing are a sign that we're going to get attacked." The torchic started off in the direction that Bloon had indicated earlier. "We've still got a long hike to Fist Mountain without you worrying about wild pokémon who definitely aren't as smart as you think they are!"

As Amber was looking backwards to chastise Bloon, she walked into a pattern of nearly invisible but incredibly strong webbing which had been spread between two trees. The torchic gave a startled squawk and tried to free herself, only for her struggles to further entangle her in the trap.

"Or perhaps, child," hissed a silky voice from the branches above Bloon and Amber, "you're the ones who're not as smart as you think."