As promised here's chapter 8, enjoy!
"Speech"
"Pokéspeech"
(moves)
After helping Wally catch his first Pokémon, I spent the night at the gym, catching up with dad and planning my new route through Hoenn. I had our route planned up until Mauville when Sanguine came up to me and asked; "Dad, what do we do when we've beat all the gyms?"
"Well, I'm planning on taking on the league. It'll be tough, but if we win we'll be able to travel through victory road to challenge the elite four, and maybe even the champion!"
"But…then what?" Sanguine asked, concern shadowing his face. I frowned, slightly unsettled by Sanguine's unusual grim expression.
"Well, if we lose at the league or any point beyond it, then I was thinking that we might go to Unova, catch up with my friends there, maybe even take on their league. What brought this on San?"
San started crying, "I…I had a nightmare the other night. You found some other career that you wanted to chase, and stopped battling with me. Eventually you abandoned me." Sanguine sobbed.
"Hey, hey it's alright, you're ok. You know that I would never abandon you. You were there for me in a dark moment, and you're my first Pokémon. As for battling, maybe I will find something I like better, but I promise I'll always make sure you and the rest of my Pokémon will be able to battle to your hearts' content. After all, battling is a part of most Pokémon's biology."
"O-ok dad." Sanguine eventually huffed out.
Starter reassured and route planned we set off for Rustboro. Nothing too interesting happened along the way, we battled a few trainers and nearly caught a Wingull (which flew off once I had started to throw pokéballs).
Once inside Petalburg wood, all was fairly calm, besides the near overwhelming swarms of Wurmple that is. We traveled until sunset, fighting lots of bug Pokémon and the occasional Shroomish and Slakoth.
We had gotten about halfway through the forest when we ran into something unusual in a forest, a man dressed in formal business attire. Before I could say anything he came up to me and said;
"Excuse me, young man. Have you seen any shroomish around? I absolutely adore them and have been trying to catch one for some time now."
"Oh, yeah I've seen a few while traveling through here, but you're looking in the wrong places right now. You want to look under large piles of leaves and dark, damp areas. They usually like to hide away in those kinds of places, which is probably why you're struggling to find one." I explained.
"Really!? Well, thank you very much young man! I will have to check those kinds of places the next time I visit." The man thanked me, but as he was about to leave a strange man ran up and started yelling at him.
"Righto, hand over those schematics, and ye won't be hurt! Team aqua has need of them so I've been sent to take 'em off yer hands." The pirate looking man smirked.
"Like hell I will," the man said. He ran behind me and said, "terribly sorry young man, but would you handle this thug? I'm not much of a battler."
"Hah! Hidin' behind a kid eh? Pathetic…step aside lad, this don' concern yeh."
"I don't think I will." I glared
"Well don't say I didn' warn yeh." The thug sent out a Poochyena. In response Sanguine jumped out of my bag. The thug eyed Sanguine greedily. "Interesting… maybe the boss'll have a use for tha' runt. Shred, (Bite) that lizard."
"San, dodge and (Leer)!" I called. "Gotcha," Sanguine replied. As the Poochyena missed its attack my Axew gave a sinister glare. Before I could tell him to use another move San quickly whipped around and used (Iron Tail). "Good initiative buddy!"
Then San made a big mistake, he started preemptively preening at the praise. Allowing the Poochyena to start mauling him. "Sanguine, get out of there!" I yelled, looking at the scene helplessly. The grunt laughed and sneered at the panicked expression on my face. "Easy on your new chew toy Shred."
I started to see red at that comment, I was about to release the rest of my team and charge the scumbag when another stroke of luck occurred. Sanguine must have seen my distress and got just as pissed as I was. He shouted, "Nobody upsets my dad!" And a ball of intense indigo colored energy exploded in Poochyena's face. The canine couldn't withstand the blast and soon passed out. The thug gaped and returned his Pokémon, he growled and pulled out a knife. "I'll deal with yeh' an' the other weakling later," he growled at his pokéball. "so looks like I'm gonna have to get ma hands dirty."
Before he could make a move another man ran out of a forest dressed in a strange red outfit with a horned hood. "Not so fast! Team Magma needs those blueprints, kindly hand them over!" The Team Aqua and Team Magma grunts looked like they would attack each other, before that could happen Sanguine sent them flying out of the forest with another (Dragon Rage). "And stay away!" He yelled after them.
After a few minutes, things calmed down. "Thank goodness you were here young man. I surely would have been mugged if you weren't!" He handed me a heal ball. "Take this as a token of appreciation, I better get these back to HQ. Mr. Stone will have my hide if I lose these." The man then took off towards the campgrounds and paved road that cut through the edge of the forest.
"That was way too close for comfort, we really need to train. We can't keep relying on luck to see us through battles." I sighed. "C'mon let's get a little further through the forest then we can fix you up and train a little." I picked my partner up and started down the dirt road again. "Sorry for getting distracted…" Sanguine moped. "It's alright buddy just try not to let it happen during battle again. You did good San." And with that we kept moving on through the forest.
??? POV
I couldn't help but laugh at that kid's moxie, that Axew of his would be a beast in the future. I sighed and schooled myself, preparing to report the failure of the mission to my commander.
"Miss Courtney, I'm afraid I have bad news." I said after she picked up. "The recruit we sent failed to obtain the drill blueprints. He was thwarted by a kid."
"Unfortunate. Query, how did the child manage it?" An emotionless, nearly robotic voice asked.
"The kid beat up an Aqua grunt who was also after our target. His Pokémon launched both our man and the aqua grunt out of the forest."
"Fascinating. Order, observe this child, recruit them if possible. Frustration, send another man after the schematics as well."
"Yes ma'am!" I replied. After ending the call I sighed, my brother had better be right about Lord Rayquaza's message. Even if infiltrating these gangs would prevent the disaster to come I hated acting like a criminal…
And there's chapter 8, next time we're skipping straight to Rustboro, because fuck writing more travel chapters. Feel free to review, favorite, follow, all that jazz. If you can't tell I'm not writing that date/time stuff anymore, I'm tired of trying to keep track of that and I am sure there is a lot of conflicting time date stuff in the earlier chapters. As another side note thank you to all of you that have followed and favorited so far. For those of you that have offered to make art, comics etc. thank you, but I will have to respectfully decline. As for any readers who want to reach out to me, please review/comment here, I don't actually check my dm's often and your best bet is to review here first. With that, thank you and good day!