Arcanum IC

[Mr. Mammoth]

((OOC: Here guys! For you zero Soul-fans, here is a post with him! I'm sorry if the latter part seems forced and hurried, I'm namely in the Netherlands and I have very limited Internet and time. I'm terribly sorry for any inconvenience caused ^_^'))

As Soul and Chida had said their goodbyes, the turquoise-haired boy started walking towards his grandfather's house with Spinner on his shoulder. He looked up at the Spinarak and smiled,

"It's a very nice fabric that this is patched up with," Soul said and gently felt his new coat, "I bet that you were the one who did most of it, am I right?"

"Spinarak, spin…"(Aw gosh Soul, now you're making me blush…) Spinner responded to the compliment, the face like marking on his back were now depicting a smile.

"No need to," Soul laughed, "I'm just stating my honest opinion."

After that, they both fell silent. Soul was in deep thoughts about what Chida had said, more than one chosen by their guardians? Both him and Chida had been chosen by Reshiram, but what if there were more people like this? What if this was a yearly occurrence made up by the legendries and Joresh Ja to test certain humans for some reason? What were their intentions? Joresh Ja had already seemed like quite the strange and sneaky person, even to someone like Soul. What was he planning with all of this? And if there were both Zekrom and Reshiram acting as guardians, then whose guardian was Joresh's? So many questions raced through Soul's head that he didn't even notice when he bumped into another person.

"Hey, watch it!" a nasal and quite whiny voice reached Soul's ears. Wildboy looked back to find another boy, probably one or two years younger than him, sitting on the ground while steaming with anger. Soul paid close to no mind of the kid, he simply turned around and started to walk away.
"HEY! COME BACK HERE!!!" the kid yelled again and got up. Then he assumed a position mostly used by people practicing the sport of sprinting and sprinted off. Soul was surprised by the kid's speed and before he knew it, the kid had knocked him over and tried to punch him.

"GET OFF ME HUMAN!!!" Soul let out a furious roar; luckily it was starting to get late so not many people were around to hear it. Going with that roar was also an attempt to claw at the kid's face, which succeeded.

"OW! Owowowowowowowowowowowow….." the kid got up from Soul as Wildboy's sharp nails had made contact with his face. He put his hands over his face as if to soothe the pain that was emitting from it. After a while of complaining and whining, the kid pulled away his hands to reveal a scratch on his left cheek as well as small tears in his eyes.
"I CHALLENGE YOU TO A POKÉMON BATTLE YOU HOOLIGAN!!!" was his next words.

"Hooligan? That's awfully old fashioned to say for someone like you." Soul said and tilted his head, a bit puzzled over the fact that he said what he just said.

"WELL I'M NO ORDINARY KID!!! I'M KASSIM, THE FASTEST GUY IN ALL OF ARCANUM!!!" the kid shouted from the top of his lungs and assumed a pose with his right hand pointing upwards to the sky.

"Pan, panpour…"(Mr. Soul, I feel like I've seen that pose before…) Cecilia gently tapped Wildboy's head.

"Spin, spinarak, spin!"(Yeah me too, I'm sure that I've seen something like it on Requiem's TV once.) Spinner tilted his head a bit.

"Panpour, pan!"(Oh yeah, when I lived with Joresh, he watched a show where this pose appeared!)

"OKAY, NOW GET READY TO BATTLE!!!" Kassim shouted again. Soul just shook his head a bit,

"Why should I accept your challenge? I bet that you're not even worth the trouble…" he said and shrugged. Wildboy had neither time nor patience for this, he had to meet with his grandfather quickly to discuss the information he just received.

"BECAUSE I'M THE BEST BATTLER IN THIS TOWN!!! BESIDES, I CHALLENGED YOU, SO YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT!!!" Kassim shouted once more and picked a Pokéball from his belt. He quickly threw it on the ground where a lime-green Pokémon emerged in a flash of white light. It was a tall, but just shorter than Kassim by a margin, sporting four sharp wings and long menacing claws. It kind of resembled a praying mantis to be precise.

"SCY!!!"(OH YEAH!!!) it yelled and flexed its sharp wings while making small jabbing motions towards just about everything he saw.

"OKAY HANKO!" Kassim yelled to the Pokémon, "WE'RE GONNA BATTLE THIS REALLY RUDE GUY AND YOU'RE GONNA WHIP HIS SORRY BUTT!!!"

"SCCYYYYY!!!!!"(HEELLLZ YEAH!!!!) Hanko shouted and flexed his wings again. He quickly looked at Soul and said: (YOU'RE GOING DDDDOOOOOOOOWWWWNNNNN!!!!). Wildboy just cocked his head at the Pokémon's remark, this was one that he hadn't seen before so he couldn't quite make out what it was saying. Whatever it said, it was clear that Soul couldn't get out of this mess, so he just reached for Bolt's Pokéball and sent out the Jolteon.

"Jol! Jol!"(What, we're gonna' battle! Oh yeah!) he said, obviously itching for a fight since he hadn't gotten into any action for a while.

*ping*
"Pokémon identified, opponent is Scyther the Mantis Pokémon."

Soul, Bolt, Kassim and Hanko jumped up in surprise of the robotic voice emitted from Soul's pocket. He reached in and pulled out the Pokédex whose screen was flashing in a blue light, indicating that he had registered a new Pokémon.

"WHU-WHAT?! YOU'VE GOT A POKÉDEX??!!!!!" Kassim shouted, however he was quickly answered by a villager who was quite annoyed with the kid's shouting.

"SHUT UP!!!" the villager shouted and stuck his head out a window. It was an old man with a face that looked like it had been carved out of stone. His accent revealed that he wasn't a native Arcanian and so did his appearance. From what stuck out of the window, Soul could see that he was a man of muscular build, surely packing a punch or two. He was probably in his 70's and he didn't look like his life had been a walk in the park up until now.

"NO YOU SHUT UP!!!!" Kassim shouted back, his face even more red with anger than before. Soul thought for a moment that the kid was going to explode out of sheer fury, however the kid quickly calmed down and faced Wildboy again.
"So, after that little mishap you should be ready to taste defeat!"

"SCY!!!!!"(OH, YOU'RE GOING DDDOOWWWWWNNN!!!!) Hanko said again.

"Jol, teon, jol, jol."(Humph, I wouldn't dare lose to some loudmouthed and weak bug.) Bolt looked at the Scyther with a hint of amusement in his eyes, almost as if he was mocking Hanko on purpose.

"SCY?!!"(YOU SAID WHAT?!!) the Scyther yelled angrily and took a step closer towards Bolt, the Jolteon didn't move an inch. Instead he continued mocking,

"Jol, jolteon, jol!"(Yeah, you look pretty stupid. I mean you're just a glorified insect, I'd stomp ya' flat in three seconds sharp!) the Jolteon barked.

"S-S-SCY!!!"(O-O-OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!) Hanko yelled and assumed a battle-stance, as did his trainer.

"I hope that you're ready, cuz' here we come!" Kassim exclaimed, "Hanko, use Quick Attack!"

And with that, the Scyther took off in a sprinting position. Hanko was so fast that he seemingly disappeared from the field. Both Soul and Bolt looked around worriedly for what was to come.

"Don't let him throw you off Bolt! Just focus…" Soul said and looked around. He was worried that his opponent might count in the fact that he was blind on one eye and use that to his advantage. Frankly, it wouldn't have mattered if Hanko was attacking on Soul's blind side or not, the Scyther was so fast that he hit Bolt without any bigger effort. The Jolteon slid back a bit from the impact. As he stopped, Bolt started to growl at Hanko. The Scyther just laughed mockingly and stared Bolt right in the eyes with a look saying "Who's the weak one now?"

"Oh yeah, did you see that?!" Kassim shouted, "Hanko hit your stupid electric-mutt good, and he's gonna' do it again!"

"Pah, don't think we're down in one hit human. Bolt and I still have a lot of stamina left!" Soul shouted back, "Use Thunderbolt!" upon the command, Bolt's fur started to crackle violently. He then shout out a ray of concentrated electricity that was heading straight for Hanko the Scyther.

"Hanko, dodge that silly little bolt!" Kassim shouted as he noticed Bolt's attack coming towards his Scyther. Hanko responded by attempting a quick step to the side, however he was too slow and the Thunderbolt ended up hitting his right wing. The Bug- and Flying-type screamed out in pain since the attack indeed was supereffective against him.
"Hanko, noooooo!!!" Kassim shouted as his Pokémon got hit. The Scyther staggered around for a while, his wing having spasm-like movements. Bolt smiled deviously as he immediately recognized Hanko's condition as paralysis, he then started to take a few steps towards the Scyther.
"Hanko, get away!" Kassim shouted at his Pokémon. Unfortunately, the Scyther couldn't move an inch without using most of his power. Instead he ended up completely still in the same place with his wing making even more spasm-like motion.

"Bolt, finish this!!!" Soul shouted, "Thunderbolt it straight to the face!"

Bolt grinned, (This is it!) he shouted. The Jolteon's fur started to crackle again; it quickly became even spikier than before as the electricity became visible on it. Eventually, Bolt went from focusing his power to letting out a loud roar as a ray of electricity shot out from his body. The incoming attack hit Hanko spot on, severely injuring the Scyther. It didn't take long before he fell onto the ground, completely knocked out.

Kassim couldn't believe his eyes, the kid returned his fallen Pokémon, paid Soul as small sum of money (which he accepted with a questioned look on his face) and ran off with the words "I'LL BE BACK, JUST YOU WAIT!!!"

Soul just shrugged and resumed walking towards his grandfather's house with a slightly tired out Bolt by his side.

 

[moon]

@ Mammoth - short battle but fun post ;D

- Bolt (Jolteon) grew to lvl 14!

 

[moon]

Chai Tou

→ Feborough Town

Afternoon in the market of Feborough was quite pleasant for most people. The sun was high but there was a slight breeze in the air that made sure that people weren't getting too warm. And there were many places that sold cold drinks or fruit, using modern cooling techniques. There was even a stand where ice cream was sold, which was very popular among the local kids as well as tired travelers.

Erille led Chai on the winding path between the countless stands to reach the place that sold the thing Chai was after. On the way, the black haired girl spotted many things that she wanted to buy, but Erille dragged her on and told her to save her money for the important things. Chai had never really thought of money as being a problem; her parents had given her plenty. She therefore carelessly bought some cool fruit and nuts for Leafeon and Masquerain to eat in a stand where a kind old woman worked, even though her prices were a bit higher than in the stand next to hers. Her pokémon got happy with finally getting lunch, and even became a bit drowsy afterwards. The trainer let them rest inside their pokéballs as she and her foreign companion moved on.

"Ah, has he moved his stand or am I worse when it comes to finding my way around this town than I thought?" Erille sighed and wiped some sweat off her forehead while she eyed the street with a quizzed look. She was dressed a bit too hot for this day; a brown leather jacked on top of a black top, even though her jeans shorts and sneakers were probably good choices.

"I wouldn't have found my way around at all on my own," Chai said reassuringly, giving the foreign girl a smile. She would probably have ended up back in Januvale in some mysterious way if she had wandered around here for too long by herself.

Something piqued her attention all of a sudden. At the end of the street behind her, two things stood that she had never seen in Januvale. "Cars?" she thought out loud.

Erille heard her and turned around, her eyes widening. "Trucks!" she said. "You don't see many of them in this part of Arcanum! I wonder what they are here for and who owns them?"

Two large black trucks were indeed there and their cargo spaces were open. Some people dressed in pretty dark, professional looking clothes, were loading big crates onto the vehicles. They didn't seem too happy about their job and they were definitely not dressed for the hot weather. Chai felt bad for them for a moment. Then one of the black dressed people saw that the girl was looking at them.

"Hey!" he said, and Chai immediately froze.

"I wasn't spying!" she blurted out, not really knowing why. "I just... I have never seen a car before!"

"A truck," Erille corrected her, standing just behind her and being rather interested in what could happen next.

"A truck!" Chai corrected herself.

The man who had called out to her chuckled a little, so did his colleagues. They glanced across the street at the people around the other truck, who didn't seem to care at all. Then the first man turned back to Chai.

"You look a bit lost."

Chai was seriously intimidated by these people and tried to lighten up her own feelings by smiling. The result looked quite horrible and the people clad in black must have thought that she was a bit out of it. Erille sighed and saved the day.

"We're not lost, we just wanted to see these trucks! Fancy ones, they are. Now we're done here, so let's get back to what we were doing, Chai. Come on, you want that pokédex, don't you?" She pulled the arm of the shorter girl and they started walking away.

"Chai, is it?" the man said, taking a few steps after them. "So you're a trainer?"

Erille stopped at that, obviously not able to ignore any kind of hint of a challenge. No matter how faint or subtle the hint may be. Chai shook her head wildly but it didn't help.

"Oh, she is a trainer!" Erille said loudly and proudly. Chai could not understand why she would say it like that; she wasn't even as good as Erille was since she lost to the blonde girl earlier. "Why, you fancy a battle, mister?"

Chai shook her head even more urgently, but the man laughed. "I do! Please battle me here and now. Waiting for our wares takes so much time." Chai noticed just then that the car... sorry, truck that the man and his friends were standing around wasn't loading anything onto it right now, while the other truck looked really busy. Maybe they weren't on the same company?

"Two pokémon battle it is then!" Erille said, smiling widely. "I'm the referee!" She pushed Chai gently forward, the smaller girl clearly not being in the mood for battling now.

"Erille!" she hissed. "What are you doing? I'll lose!"

"No you wont. This guy is not a good trainer - I can tell! It'll be a terrific opportunity for you to train!"

Then Chai was left standing alone in the street, the man from the truck team taking his place on a fair distance from her. His colleagues lined up on one of the long sides while Erille stood in the middle of the other side. Strangely enough, the people from the other truck stopped working and seemed to want to watch the battle as well, even though they didn't speak.

"Battle between trainer Chai Tou and trainer... um, who were you again?" Erille said, trying to sound as professional as she could but obviously failing at the end.

"Just call me... Dusk, for now," the man said with a sly smile. Then he sent out his pokémon without waiting for any further sign from the blonde girl. A purple thing on four legs with yellow things on its cheeks, was what Chai saw.

"What's that?" she asked out loud.

"Mudkip!" Erille said, apparently finding it very cute. "A shiny one, at that! Of course. Silly me." She laughed a little. "Anyways, it's water type."

"Cheating, are we?" Dusk said.

"Not at all! Friendly advice! I can give out advice on Chai's pokémon to you too, if you ask nicely."

"Not necessary. Just send it out already!" the man said to Chai, impatiently. But he was still smiling.

Chai took a deep breath and debated with herself whether or not she should be angry with Erille for this. But being angry wasn't really Chai's thing. Instead, she sent out Leafeon. The grass king, as he would prefer to be called, materialized, feeling refreshed and not as drowsy anymore.

'En garde,' he said to Mudkip, with a wink. The water type seemed easily enraged, which made Leafeon smile. This would be fun. He did not intend to repeat his mistake of fainting earlier. That wasn't appropriate for a strong king. Maybe he should make an official apology to his trainer later on...

"Trainers ready?" Erille asked and waited until she had gotten a nod from Chai. But Dusk didn't give her any confirming nod. Instead he shouted out his first order.

"Water Gun!"

Mudkip took in air, during which Leafeon calculated what would happen inside his head.

"Leafeon, Quick Attack!" Chai shouted, hoping that he could use the speed to both evade and counter attack. Like they had done before. However, her pokémon had other plans.

Then the Water Gun was fired and hit Leafeon right on, since he didn't move from the spot. Chai gasped and Dusk let out a short laughter. "Salad is served!" he said.

The water attack dissipated and there stood Leafeon, pretty much unharmed. He shook his fur and his leaves glittered in the strong sunlight. 'Ah, that was refreshing indeed, even though you did spray a bit too hard. I believe it actually hurt me a little.'

Chai blinked and Dusk growled. "He's still standing?" the girl asked anyone who was willing to answer.

Erille did so. "Some grass pokémon really like water. It's like making them stronger to fire at them! Well, even though they still get a bit hurt if the water is sprayed hard, like now."

Dusk wasted no more time though. "Mudkip, Mud Slap!" His pokémon used its tail to somehow conjure a big blob of mud from the road and fling it towards Leafeon. It hit and made Leafeon's fur dirty and forced him to blink the dirt out of his eyes for a moment.

"Now, Tackle!" Dusk called out and Mudkip darted forward.

Leafeon jumped away, blindly, having his Quick Attack aid him like Chai had ordered earlier. Mudkip's Tackle missed, but Leafeon nearly ran into some of the spectators. Finally he stopped running, standing near Chai and rubbing the dirt out of his eyes. He could see clearly again.

"The match isn't going too well for you. You haven't landed a single attack yet. Pfft, you're a boring kid," Dusk said, earning some chuckles from his colleagues.

Chai was silent in response, to begin with. Then it was as if the braid in her hair started twitching. She clutched her fists on the sides of her body and raised her head slowly, revealing a dark and determined face to Dusk, who stopped smiling.

"Leafeon, Quick Attack!" she said. Her pokémon nodded, approving of the sudden change in style of his trainer, and then shot away. He easily hit Mudkip, making it slide backwards in pain.

"Again!" Chai said.

"Tackle!" Dusk called out.

The two pokémon met in the middle and bounced back after the impact, both starting to get tired and feel a bit injured now. But not nearly enough. They kept chasing each other around the street with Tackle and Quick Attack, Leafeon darting between the legs of the spectators and Mudkip barging on towards them, forcing the people to move out of the way. Leafeon ran in under the closest truck and Mudkip ran after.

"Hey, that's not part of the battlefield!" Erille shouted, but nobody cared as both Chai and Dusk ran after and took place around the truck.

Although Chai couldn't see her pokémon, she was sure that he was fighting hard for her under the truck. "Sand Attack!" she suggested for him.

"Mud Slap!" Dusk countered. Apparently Leafeon's attack had hit before the Mud Slap could begin, because after only a second, Leafeon shot out from beneath the truck, entering the 'real' battlefield again, while Mudkip came stumbling after him, rubbing its eyes.

"Now's your chance!" Chai called out, still with the determined and dark look in her eyes. "Solar..." She didn't finish the command because she just now noticed that the sky had turned gray while they were talking and battling. A front of blue, almost black clouds were quickly moving in over Feborough and driving the brightly blue sky away. Somehow it felt like a Solar Beam wouldn't be very powerful right now.

Mudkip had finished rubbing the sand out of its eyes and Growled meanly at Leafeon now. 'How dare you?' Leafeon said, hating when someone growled or otherwise made annoying sounds at him. 'I'll show you!' And then he did something Chai hadn't seen him doing before.

He made a single twist with his head, making the leaves that were his ears glow. From them, he summoned a shower of sharp edged leaves and sent them flying at the grass type in front of him on the asphalt. Mudkip screamed as it got hit, and then it really didn't look like it wanted to get up again. Erille determined that it was over.

"Winner is Chai!" she announced, rather un-professionally.

Chai let out a huge breath and wondered what she had been doing during these few past minutes. Leafeon proudly trotted up to her, grinning. 'Proud?' he asked. "You were great," Chai told him, reading off his body language what he had said, and patted him on the head.

Dusk was about to disagree with Erille's decision, when a woman put a hand on his arm and shook her head at him. A strange smile was on her lips. Dusk grunted and stepped back, returning Mudkip to its pokéball.

"Now it's my turn," the woman said.

"But the battle was between Mr Dusk and Chai!" Erille complained.

"We are in the same team. I am... Dawn," the woman said, the smile not fading from her lips. She looked up into the sky. "It won't start raining just yet... perfect." Then she sent out a pokémon. It was a yellow chicken, simply described.

Leafeon sat down behind Erille as Chai once again took her place in the street. The people by the other truck seemed to have stopped caring about the battle and went back to minding their own business. The people around Dusk and Dawn though, looked as eager as ever to see their colleague crush the little girl who had somehow beaten Dusk.

"Torchic, huh?" Erille commented. "Are you guys from Hoenn or something?"

"Don't you care about that," Dawn said and focused her intense gaze on Chai, who felt like a spear was piercing each of her eyes all of a sudden. "Begin."

"Ma-Masquerain!" Chai said, involuntarily stuttering a little. The bug came out, looking as carefree as it usually did in the wrong situations. "Masquerain," Chai said, getting its attention. "It's time to battle again. Is that ok?"

Masquerain started fluttering in circles eagerly, as if answering yes to that question was the easiest thing she'd ever done. Chai smiled. Dawn was apparently annoyed already so the girl wasted no more time. She begun.

"Bubble!"

"Torchic, Ember!"

The two attacks met each other in the middle of the battlefield, where the bubbles burst from the intense heat of the embers. But they still stopped the small fiery projectiles from reaching the bug in the air.

"We need to get closer to get the bubbles to hit," Chai thought out loud, only caring about Masquerain hearing but not really thinking about her opponents hearing as well. "I'm sure fire pokémon won't like getting struck by them!" She had deduced from the Ember attack that Torchic was a fire type. Not that Masquerain was water type just because she had a water attack though... but sometimes you'd have to chance, Chai reasoned.

"Quick Attack!"

The bug flied at high speed towards the chicken. Just when it was about to hit, Dawn called out: "Growl!" Torchic let out a noise that wasn't at all as intimidating as Mudkip's had been. It could rather be called cute. The effect on Masquerain was that she slowed down just a little bit before the impact, out of pity with the cute chicken, and the attack didn't strike at all as hard as it would have.

"Wow," Erille couldn't help but comment.

Chai was impressed to. "So that's how you use a Growl attack!" she said.

"Indeed," Dawn said, not smiling anymore. "Torchic, Scratch!"

While the bug was still close, the chicken jumped up and clawed it fiercely with its claws. The bug was hurt and fluttered back up into the sky again. Chai silently cursed herself (but in nice words) for missing the opportunity to use Bubble. She wondered if she could lure them close again somehow...

"Masquerain, avoid such attacks by moving swiftly with your wings! I know you can!" she said to her pokémon, who tested its movements to the sides in the air a bit after that. Yeah, it was true. She was a very swift flier!

As if to accept a challenge, Torchic leaped up and tried to Scratch the bug again. It came very close... "No!" Dawn shouted to it. Too late.

"Bubble!" Chai said, which Masquerain happily did. She blew bubbles at Torchic's claws so that they didn't hurt her, then she blew more bubbles straight into the fire type's face as it fell down towards the ground again without much control of how or where it landed. It landed hard on the asphalt, but hadn't fainted yet.

"Ember!" Dawn called out, notably angry now.

"Ominous Wind!" Chai shouted, suddenly remembering the existence of that move and hoping that it would be strong enough to both neutralize the embers and move on and hit the chicken beneath them.

Torchic lay with its back against the ground but did fire its embers straight upwards towards the bug. Masquerain was a bit startled by the embers coming at her from below, for some reason, but managed to whip up the Ominous Wind in the nick of time. The purple waves of air made the embers lose their way, flicker and burn out before they could even fall down and reach the ground again. Then the shock of uncomfortable feelings hit the Torchic at the same time as the physical waves of wind did. In several ways, the Torchi was now clammed against the ground and soon... it fainted.

Masquerain letting out a huge breath was the first sound to break the silence after the attacks had subsided. That made Erille laugh brightly. "Haha, Chai is the winner again! Wohoo!" she said and ran onto the so called battlefield, giving the rather shaken Chai a hug. Masquerain soared down to them and landed in Chai's arms, tired from battling. The girl from Januvale smiled at both her pokémon, Leafeon which came walking up to them behind Erille, and then she smiled at the girl.

"Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to get some training after all..." she admitted.

Then they noticed that the people in black hadn't said anything at all before they had climbed into the cargo area of the truck. Dusk and Dawn as well; Torchic seemed to have been sent back into its pokéball.

"What are you doing? Can't you even admit defeat like a gentlewoman?" Erille shouted to Dawn, who was climbing inside as the last one of them.

"It'll start raining soon. Bye," were all her words before the dropped a curtain down and was gone from sight.

Both girls looked up into the sky just as the first raindrop hit Chai's nose.

"Uh-oh, seems like that woman is right. Let's get to the pokémon center quickly, Chai!"

"But the pokédex...?"

"It can wait!"

Leafeon was the only one who wasn't grumpy as they ran through the rain back across the marketplace, not really knowing which way was the right one. The fur of the grass pokémon finally got cleansed from the dirt that the Mudkip had caused and that pleased him greatly.

"WHERE ARE WE?" Erille shouted out as they ended up in the middle of a street where all the market stand owners huddled up with satisfied grins under their varying roofs while all the shoppers had hurried to better shelter since long.

Chai took her bag down from her back, thinking that this was probably a bit late but a very good occasion to put on the cloak that her family had given to her. That was when she felt a firm hand on her shoulder.



--

@ me

- Leafeon grew to lvl 17!

- Masquerain grew to lvl 15!

​

 

[The warden]

"I got it!" Kitaru shouted as the ball pinged. "Saitou?" He as asked as he turned round to see the girl fleeing back to the house. "Oh well. What do you say we have a look at this barn Mischief?"

"Saaaaaage!" Mischief yawned.

"Yeah me too." Kitaru shined his light around the barn and walked inside. Mostly it looked like the barn was used for storing grain and a few tools, a ladder lead up to the rafters. Mischief clambered up a support beam quite quickly, while Kitaru carefully climbed the ladder. Upper half of the barn was spacious and safe enough. He placed his bag down, let out his Pokémon with the exception of his new Munchlax and made himself comfortable. A few minutes later Azura's ears pricked and the barn door opened.

"Chida?" Kozue voice called.

"I'm up here." Kitaru answered. He got up to help her up, taking the bowl of soup she was holding and giving her a hand up the ladder.

"I brought some blankets and food." She placed the blankets on the floor, along with a package. "Goodnight. See you in the morning." She began climbing back down the ladder. "Sleep well, we'll be up early tomorrow."

"Good night."

Kitaru unwrapped the package, it contained a large bunch of berries and some dried meat. He split the berries between Yin, Mischief and Cinnamon and gave the meat to Azura. Then he wrapped a blanket around him and began to sip his soup.

He slept well and awoke early in the morning, as he would do at home. Skipping breakfast he headed out side to the farm where Kozue was already up tending to the Pokémon. In the light of day Kitaru could see a lot better the sorts of Pokémon they kept, but he wasn't able to identify all of them. He wanted to go round with his Pokedex and check them all but he knew he wouldn't have time because Kozue was heading over.

"Good morning. If you don't mind I'll get straight to telling you what my Pop wants you to do." Kitaru nodded to show he was listening. "He wants you to scare off some birds that have been eating the corn. It shouldn't take you too long, if you get on with it."

"Right, where are these birds." Kitaru asked Kozue. She pointed him toward a tree in the distance and he set off walking.

Arriving at the tree Kitaru thought that his task should be quite easy. There in the tree sat a flock of fat Spearow. An old scareKrow largely ignored by the birds sat near by.

"Shoo!" Kitaru shouted waving his hands in the air to frighten the Spearow away. However it didn't work the Pokémon just sat there and stared at him barely ruffling a feather. After thinking for a few seconds Kitaru picked up a few rocks, he took aim at the closest Spearow and threw the rock at it.

"Spearow!" The Spearow fluttered it's wings to avoid the stone. A chain reaction spread through the Pokémon sending Spearow fleeing into the air. A few Spearow remained, glaring at Kitaru, including what Kitaru thought was the biggest in the flock.

"Spearow!" The biggest of the Spearow called as it swooped towards Kitaru's head, leading what remained of it's flock into battle. Quickly Kitaru raised his arms and lowered his head. The bird attacked him, pecking at his head and arms and pulling at his hair with it's talons. In the fray Kitaru also landed a blow, swiping it away with his forearm and giving himself chance to draw a ball from his belt. He said nothing as he threw the ball being to focused on the four Spearow heading towards him.

"Eon!" Azura cried as she emerged from her Pokéball. Even before she landed she was ready for battle. The second her feet touched the floor she propelled herself back into the air, taking out one of the oncoming Spearow with ease. The rest reached Kitaru and attacked but they were considerably weaker than their leader. It took less effort to ward these Spearow away than the other. As they retreated Azura knocked another from the air with a Quick Attack. The remaining too flew off leaving only their leader. The lone Spearow dived toward Azura, ready to attack with it's beak.

"Detect!" Kitaru ordered Azura, who dived and rolled away from the oncoming bird. Twisting out of her role to face her opponent she blew an Icy Wind at the Spearow. The chill caught the Pokémon but it was still able to fly out of Azura's reach, before she could strike again. The Spearow flew high into the air and it's path crossed the sun. As well as he could Kitaru followed it's path. As it began to descend it was glowing whit in the sky. It unfurled its wings further than before and the sound of its beating wings grew louder.

"Fearow!" It squawked as the newly evolved bird dive bombed Azura. The Fearow was too fast for Azura and despite her attempts to dodge she was hit by the Pokémon's attack. The Aerial Ace slammed her into the ground hard and she struggled to stand again. He reached for his belt but indecision struck Kitaru, he wanted to help Azura but he couldn't bring himself to release another of his Pokémon. His honour would be hurt if he fought a battle unfairly. His hand stayed there for a few seconds clutching Mischiefs ball. The Fearow had landed now and advanced on Azura.

"Glace!" She spat an Icy Wind at the Fearow but in her weakened state it barely effected the bird.

"Row!" It cried back before attacking viciously with it's beak. Its Fury Attack caught Azura several times, before she was able to escape. Kitaru was frozen, trapped unable to move, just watching the fight go on. The Fearow used Pursuit and chased after her, flapping it's wings and squawking loudly as it lashed out with its beak. As she ran Azura kicked up a cloud of dust in its face. But the Fearow wasn't daunted, as she attempted to dodge, it twisted it's head redirecting it's attack to where she had landed. Its sharp beak landed a blow in her side and she barely managed to role away from another attack. Kitaru couldn't take it any more he had to do something.

"Go! Mischief!" Kitaru unleashed his other most trusted Pokémon. Mischief took one look at the Fearow and ran behind Kitaru. Was Mischief trying to hide. The Pansage clambered up Kitaru's back and opened his pack rummaging around and throwing stuff out. "Mischief! Attack!" Kitaru yelled in desperation, as he watched Azura's retaliation against the Fearow barely damage the Pokémon. Mischief dived over Kitaru's head holding something in his hand. It was a small spiky red berry, a Petaya berry if Kitaru remembered correctly. "Now isn't the time for berries!"

"Pan! Pan!" Mischief assured Kitaru that he knew what he was doing. It was a shame his human was about as sharp as a Slowpoke. "Pansage!" He yelled while rushing at the Fearow with a Fury Attack. It was a deliberate attempt to attract the Pokémon's attention. And it worked. The Fearow stopped harassing Azura and stared at the little Pansage in disbelief. Mischief swiped at the Fearow, startling it much more than hurting it. The enraged Fearow struck back with a well aimed Peck from its long beak. Azura took advantage of the birds distracted state to strike a swift Quick Attack. Outnumbered the bird took to the air. It circled before swooping low towards Mischief who stood his ground. He unwrapped his vines and lashed out at the bird that began to peck furiously as it neared. The bird took to the air again before Azura had chance to back Mischief up, leaving the Pansage heavily injured. All the while Kitaru had been attempting to command his Pokémon but they were no longer listening so he gave up. They had a plan and he would have to trust them to pull it off.

"Sage! Pan! Pan!" Mischief instructed Azura. Who bowed her head in response. Mischief held the berry high in the air for the Fearow to see. It spotted it and swooped down to Pluck it from his grasp. But as it arrived he crammed the berry into his mouth. Mischief face distorted in disgust as he bit into the berry but then there was a glimmer in his eye. He unwrapped his vines again and whipped the Fearow. In spite of the fact that he was injured his blows hit the Fearow heavily doing by far the most damage of the entire fight in a single attack. Azura was ready, she pounced at the Fearow delivering a point blank Icy Wind. While her attack wasn't powerful it chilled the bird a little its wings stiffened. Mischief rushed in to attack again but the Fearow stretched its wings shaking off its ailment and flew away. It retreated from the farm and flew into the distance. Mischief spat the remnants of the berry on the ground and fanned his mouth, the Pokémon was clearly not a fan of spicy food. Azura moved over to Mischief and nuzzled the Pokémon who was suffering form his injuries just as she was. Mischief hugged her back, the two had become close to each other over the past few days. They may not always get along but they were always there for each other, like brother and sister. Kitaru moved closer taking some of the herbs from his bag. Azura drew her self away from him stubbornly turning her head in the opposite direction. He sensed that she was mad with him, so he decided to treat Mischief first. When he was done he returned the Pokémon to his ball for a well earned rest.

After treating Mischief he attempted to treat Azura but she refused to let him near her. She began by jumping away every time he got near and he decided to stop when she began to growl at him. He put her back in her ball and looked back toward the farm. It was still early and he could have a long day ahead of him. He released Cinnamon for a stretch as he walked back over to the farmhouse. With Azura refusing to be treated and Mischief resting it looked like he would need to rely on his other Pokémon today. He felt guilt building up inside him for not acting sooner but he resolved that he would forget about it by the time he reached the farmhouse.

 

[moon]

@ The warden - exciting post! Remember to check your spelling now and then ;)

- Azura (Glaceon) grew to lvl 18!

- Mischief (Pansage) grew to lvl 18!

 

[Miss Doronjo]

****
Lynn x Chai

The pokeball then suddenly stopped. With a 'huh?' from everyone, the pokeball made that familiar 'PING!' tune, signalling Lynn's successful capture. She captured as she ran over to pick up the ball. Marill clapped her fins while jumping up and down in delight, as Kyle.... well, he was still fainted, but he would of been sooooo jealous.

"Time to report back to Ahougha," said Lynn, with a gentle mod from Marill. "It's weird though - I was expecting some sort of crazy, wild, vindictive pokemon, who was gripped by the evil spirit of donuts, but... Munchlax was actually pretty small and might I say, kind of cute. Hm. Okay Marill, let's go -- "

"You know, I WAS going to defeat it!" then said Kyle suddenly, appearing to be the type to rise up quickly. Lynn was surprised, although, at the same time, there was no surprise from his... enthusiasm. "And you know something else? I didn't need your help! I was going to be all like, all like... KYLE UPPERCUT! or... KYLE NOOGIE! That sort of thing."

"I'm sure you were..." Lynn said with a sigh. "But next time, might I suggest divine protection from the spirit of life? It'll ease your pains and humiliations with the power of life and self-confidence."

"Whatever," Kyle replied, rolling his eyes. "Let's just get out of this damn route. The trees and bushes here made me itch. The Murkrow stole my favourite watch, and those damn kids lied about the skiploom being made out of jawbreakers; I've got sleep powdered on. It didn't help that I was almost scorched by your Flareon too."

"...Sorry..."


****

Heading back into town, Kyle decided to split up with Lynn for now, trying to head back with Nanaly before she even realized he was gone. Yeah, she'll definitely not notice I was gone for like, an hour! Kyle thought. Upon saying their goodbyes, Lynn decided it was the time to look for the pokedex booth. Soon she found it near the fruit vendors, as she took out Munchlax pokeball.

A few meters away, Chai jumped and screamed when a hand touched her shoulder. Erille screamed when hearing the first scream and both girls sounded loudly for a few seconds. Then they stopped when a man spoke up.

"Dear, dear, it certainly wasn't my intention to scare you! Much."

Chai turned around and found herself face to face with a not too old man with rather elegantly styled, black hair and clothing that looked like it didn't like dirt one bit. A yellow scarf was tied around his neck, and reached all the way down to his knees. On his face was a confident look that instantly told Chai that this was a man that could be quite annoying if he wanted to. He wanted to sell her something, that much was sure.

"Chai, let's step in under the roof of this booth!" Erille said and dragged them in there next to the man, who had let go of Chai's shoulder now. Leafeon jumped in puddles and happily stayed outside of the roof while Masquerain actually did the same, fluttering around happily in the air.

'You don't seem very King-like when you play in puddles like that,' she teased her teammate.

'Oh,' Leafeon realized and stood still, giving the bug a very annoyed look as she burst into laughter in the air.

Chai's gaze fell on the merchandise that was presented in front of her now, laying on shelves and hanging on the walls. There were some small machines looking like mp3-players as well as some cool kinds of pokéballs and... "Pokédex!" she exclaimed when she spotted a few of them laying neatly on a table just in front of her, all in different colors.

"Indeed. That is my main attraction here," the man said, moving up to them. "My name is Ahougha Tai," he said, making an extravagant bow towards the girls. "Can I interest you in some of these fine pokédexes? Or would you like to know more about them before you make your decision? As if," he added, mumbling but smiling. Chai found him a bit weird.

"Ahougha?" Then called out Lynn, running towards the vendor with Marill following behind. She then brought out Munchlax pokeball to show him, as it glimmered from the sunlight. "The pokemon in here is called a Munchlax; it appears that it was the food thief all along."

"A Munchlax you say?" Ahougha repeated. "Hm, they ARE pokemon that love to eat and sleep... no matter what the cost is. Well, nice job Lynn! As promised, I will discount the price of a pokédex for you." He then glanced at Chai. "I was just helping this young lady as well."

"Oh!" Lynn smiled, as she turned to Chai as she bowed. "Hello, My name is Lynn Colthearts," she introduced as she then picked up her Marill. "This is Marill. She's a bit... weird, but, you'll grow to love her."

"Marril!" (Mr. Cloud said that the sky will be orange tomorrow!)

Leafeon walked up and sniffed on Lynn and the Marill. 'Another peasant?'

'Don't be rude!' Masquerain said, fluttering closer to the water pokémon. 'Nice to meet you, little one.'

"Oh, hello! My name is Chai Tou!" Chai said politely and smiled. What a friendly girl! Kind of like Erille.

Speaking of which, the blonde girl stepped up to them as well. "And I'm Erille! Hey, Chai, you wanted a pokédex too, didn't you?"

"Yes... I did. I mean, I do!" She glanced at them. "That dark blue one looks kind of nice. Could I have it, mr Tai?"

"Please, say Ahougha. Or at least call me Tai," the man said, waving his hands slightly. "And of course... if you can afford the price. Quite a lot young trainers don't, nowadays. That is because my pokédexes are for people who take their training seriously and have already won several battles!"

Chai blinked. "I've won some battles... but they didn't pay me anything for it?"

Erille blushed. "Oh! Sorry about that, Chai... We should totally have made those grown ups pay you when you won. Then again, maybe you should have paid me when you lost?"

"Um..."

"ANYWAYS," Ahougha interupted and pointed at his pokédexes, maybe not wanting them to start argue now, but rather just be happy and pay him.

"Mar!" (Mr. Cloud and I are happy to meet you too!) Marill meanwhile happily cried to the two pokemon. "Ill!" (You're just as nice as Mr. Pansage and Mr. Flareon!) ...though ironic, as she would say, saying Flareon is even nice.

"I think I'll take A turqoise one," said Lynn, as she reached in her wallet in her pocket, taking a couple of coins out. Ahougha happily accepted them, and handed Lynn her pokedex. "This is quite a facinating machine," she added as she inspected it. "Can it conjure up the lost spirits of kramtos - the beings of knowledge and understanding?"

"The what?" Chai asked.

"Most definitely," Tai said.

"I'll have the dark blue one, then!" Chai smiled at the vendor. He seemed reluctant to hand it to her, until she pulled up some money from her backpack. Not a little, either.

"Oh, actually it costs half of that..."

"Oh. Sorry!" Chai said and gave him half of the money that was in her hand. Ahougha accepted them but cursed himself for just having missed an opportunity to say that color costed more than the others and thus earn more money.

"That's awesome, Chai!" Erille said, watching the dark haired girl open and fiddle with her pokédex. "And you too, Lynn! Now you are as good as professional pokémon trainers! And you know what?" She leaned out from underneath the roof. "It's stopped raining!"

Chai looked out. Indeed, the clouds were still gray but it didn't rain at all anymore.

"That means I should be going. But I'll see you some other time, right? I'll be traveling Arcanum here and there. Good luck with your training and all, Chai!" the blonde girl said, giving the smaller girl a big hug.

"Wait, you're leaving? I thought... we could..."

"See you later, girl!" Erille said. "You too, Lynn!" And with that, she waved and walked quickly away from there, leaving Chai standing with her new pokédex, her two pokémon and the new girl. She thought she had made a new friend... but of course Erille was on her own adventure. As Chai was on hers. And perhaps Lynn was on her own as well? She glanced up at the other girl who seemed amazed by the piece of technology in her hand.

"Um, Lynn. So, where are you going? I mean, as a trainer from Feborough." She smiled.

Lynn blinked. "You know, I haven't really thought about that..." Lynn thought. "All I know is that Route 10 stretches beyond this town... The spirit of the plains haven't really given me a clear direction on where I should go eaither."

"Marill!" (We should do to the land of cupcakes!) Marill suggested.

'That does sound like a plan..' Leafeon said thoughtfully.

'Don't be silly,' Masquerain said. 'Chai told me that she has to become a trainer in order to save Reshiram! Right, Leafeon?'

"Mar...Ill?" (What's a... Resh...iram?) Marill asked. "Ill?" (Is it delicious?)

"Hm, but what about you?" Lynn asked. "You're a trainer, aren't you? Got any plans?"

"Actually, I... well, it's complicated. I had never really thought about becoming a trainer before... but then something happened."

They started strolling away from Ahougha Tai's stand, him waving them off with an intrigued glance, while Chai tried to decide what to tell this girl. She hadn't told Erille much at all. Not anything about Reshiram, actually.

"I just have to travel for a while and find good pokémon who want to help me grow strong. Or at least that seems to be what my guardian spirit expects of me." Her face blushed.

Lynn stopped in her tracks and froze. "WAIT! WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE GHOST DONUT TANGARINE SPIRIT OF ARCANUM DAYS SPA INN AND HOTEL -- DID YOU SAY: G-GUARDIAN SPIRIT?!" she then shouted from the tip of her lungs, but, realized that people were walking through, watching, and, she didn't want to make a scene, so she softened her voice. "Guardian Spirit... But, according to the spirit of lightning, that sounds just like...!"

Lynn then remembered something. She clenched her sleeve, and then slowly shortened it to reveal her guardian symbol. "This is going to be a weird question, but... have you seen this symbol before?"

Chai's eyes widened. "You are... that means... you are one of the trainers from Januvale that Joresh sent out before me!" She smiled widely and almost jumped up and down from relief. "I thought I'd never find any of you, I thought I was too far behind, I've been hiking through the route as fast as I could, well maybe not really but I battled a trainer and a horde of bees and-"

Leafeon slapped her leg with his tail to make her stop blabbering. 'You're normally such a shy little peasant, what is this now?'

"Sorry," Chai mumbled and blushed again, turning back to Lynn. "Look!" she said and held out her own hand. She hadn't even bother hiding her own mark - it was clearly visible in black and white on her wrist.

"So, you as well share the same burden..." Lynn softly said, after she gazed upon the same symbol that she beared. "Were you sent by the Master to gather all of us?"

"Gather? Um, I'm not sure... but he said we could need the help of each other. Do you know what we are really supposed to do? Reshiram in my dream said," Chai lowered her eyebrows, "that Arcanum was doomed unless I traveled and gathered a team of pokémon to become strong enough to stop the ones that are doing this. But I haven't really found any source of evil yet. I, uh, have maybe forgotten to look for it." She looked down. "Did Reshiram tell you the same thing?"

"....That's odd," Lynn pointed out. "I have been told the exact information, but not from Reshiram - it was from a spirit known as Zekrom."

"Mar? Ill? Marill?" (Reshiram? Zekrom? Don't those sound like ingredients of a cake?)

'As the most important character here, I say we go on a quest looking for these ingredients!' Leafeon proclaimed.

'I say you should lay off the royal thoughts,' Masuqerain sighed.

"Oh, but that is the second guardian of Arcanum. Haven't you heard the old tales?" Chai smiled as they walked on and the clouds began to part. "Reshiram and Zekrom came to Arcanum and found the humans. They blessed us with the gift of pokémon, if humans promised to take care of the pokémon and see to what was best for them, at all times. And that united the different parts in Arcanum, because everyone wanted to live together with pokémon rather than wage war between each other! Well... the last part I'm not sure of, but it sounds nice, doesn't it? I didn't remember much of it when Joresh Ja told me about it, but then I thought some more and I think my grandma told me the story when I was little."

She looked up. They had been wandering back to the pokémon center.

"Hey, Lynn... I have to heal my pokémon. I was in a battle earlier. Then I think I will keep going on Route 10 and through Arcanum. I'm not completely sure that I'll make a good trainer, but I'm having fun with Masquerain and Leafeon so far. So I'll keep trying. What are your goals?" She leaned her head to the side with a slightly worried look. "You don't suppose we have to be enemies just because you want to help Zekrom and I want to help Reshiram? I think they are friends in the story. I think..."

"My goals..." Lynn repeated. "Well, you see - my clan has been having a family feud for years. I've escaped trying to find a peaceful solution to our troubles. I just hope that my sister and the rest of the main family will be alright..." Lynn then looked up, and smiled. "Well, anyway, if we're supposed to be enemies, I dear say we are not doing a good job at it, haha. I believe I should be chanting curses and such as we meet each other saying, 'Haha! YOU WILL NOW BE CURSED! Or... something like that."

Leafeon blinked at the other trainer's lame joke. Masquerain nodded in agreement though.

"Maybe we aren't, haha. A family feud, hm?" Chai said. "That sounds bothersome. Oh, that reminds me; my relatives live here in Feborough! But I have a feeling that they wouldn't let me leave if I visited them."

As if sent by teasing gods, a voice was suddenly heard loud and clear through the crowd.

"CHAI TOU??"

Chai froze. She knew that voice, although very distantly. Slowly she turned around and saw a tall, thin lady come marching towards her.

"Uh, Lynn, you'd better... you'd better go. It's my aunt. She's... not really... actually, do you think she's seen that I've seen her yet? Maybe I can just sneak into the pokémon center and... yeah, I'll do that. Sorry, Lynn!" She hated to say goodbye so abruptly, but there really wasn't any time. She looked into the face of the other Januvale girl and gave her a hasty smile. "I'll see you again, soon!"

Lynn scratched her head, confused on what was going on with Chai, but, she knew it was probably best for her to go anyway. "Well, okay," Lynn smiled as she bowed. "I'll see you again, let the spirits be with you. Come on Marill, we're going."

"Marill!" (Bye Miss Leafy! Bye Miss Masqie!)

Lynn then picked up her Marill, and started to walk off. Where she decided to go next? Well, Route 10 was her best bet, since she hasn't completely explored through there yet. She slightly turned back, hoping that her new friend will be okay, until she finally decided to part.
​

 

[Mr. Mammoth]

Soul W."Wildboy" Grant
Febourough Town
------------------------------------

Soul walked down the road to his grandfather's house. But instead of keeping his eyes on the road, Wildboy had or the moment only eyes for the device known as a PokéDex, currently resting gently in his hand. He was amazed by it, perplexed by it even. To think that this little piece of electronic whatever had been able to recite the info on a Pokémon completely unknown to Soul by simply being close to it. He recognized that it would be a great addition to his abilities, but with all great things comes great responsibility as well. Soul knew that he had to treat this device with the highest level of carefulness and sincerity that was inside of his grasp. In other words, he had to cut down on the swinging in the trees and the violent assaults and all that good stuff. It saddened him a little bit to be honest, while Cecilia on the other hand was perfectly fine, and even happy with this decision.

The door to Requiem's house carefully slid open as the grandson of the old man stepped inside. As he saw Soul, Requiem's face beamed with cheerfulness and excitement as he indeed was very interested in his grandson's adventures. While most people his age would call such and determination childish and "only for the younglings", Requiem refused to think in such boring ways.

"So, what happened?" the old man asked with a wide smile on his face,

"Gen, gengaaar!"(Yeah, tell us what happened Soul!) Shinespook chimed in. The Gengar shared many traits with his trainer; one of the biggest resemblances in their personalities was indeed their love for adventure. So to say that Shinespook was anything else than interested would be an unprofessional lie.

Soul began with his stroll down to Tai's stand, his encounter with Kitaru Chida, his revelation and finally his trip back. Wildboy left out the battle with Kassim as he felt that it was very unnecessary. After the story was presented to him, Requiem assumed a philosophical stance while stroking his beard. Soul was unsure if this helped the thinking or if old people like to stroke their beards slowly, if they had any that was. But for some reason, he decided to do the same. So Wildboy sat down besides his grandfather, but because he didn't have a beard at the moment, Soul slowly stroke his chin for a while. He actually discovered that there was a small bit of stubble there, but it was barely visible. Still, it pleased him greatly for some strange reason.

After a while of thinking and beard-stroking, Requiem had come to a conclusion while Soul had just given up halfway and instead played tag with Shinespook, Bolt, Cecilia and Spinner.
"AHA!!!" Requiem exclaimed and jumped up from where he was sitting only to land on his feet, hunch over a bit and weakly say: "Ow my back…"

"Grandfather! You shouldn't do such rash movements! They're obviously bad for you!" Soul said with a concerned look on his face as he walked up to help his grandfather. To which he replied,

"I feel old and diminished…"

"But anyway, what have you come up with grandfather?" Soul asked while patting the old man's back in an effort to be somewhat soothing ((OOC: GAH! I couldn't find a better word for it!)).

"Oh yes!" Requiem said, as if he had received newfound energy again. "You see Soul, that if there was two of you under the guidance of Reshiram there must be more under the guidance of Zekrom as well. After all, legends say that Reshiram and Zekrom were once one being. Now, if they came from the same body that would make them about equal in strength to each other would it not? They are also supposed to represent the balance of the world as we currently know it. And there wouldn't be balance if one part was stronger than the other, now would it?"

"I guess so…" Soul said distantly. The more he thought about the idea, the more it made sense to him.
"But, what should I do then?" he asked. Requiem just waved his finger in a playful manner and smiled.

"Tut, tut, tut. Can't you see it Soul? What you need to do is to find the others bearing a mark like yours and ask them about this whole thing. Who knows, maybe they will have some answers for you?" he asked. Soul sat there, listening to his grandfather's explanation and started to slowly nod in agreement. It did sound like a really good plan in Wildboy's ears, so he saw no reason to NOT go through with it.

"Well… where should I look grandfather?" he asked.

"That's the thing my dear grandson… I simply don't know!" Requiem burst into a heavy laughter as he finished the sentence, as did Shinespook. Soul just looked at them a bit confused at first, but after a while he too joined in on the laughter. They agreed to discuss the matter further in the morning after breakfast. So Soul and Requiem proceeded to eat dinner in peace and quiet. Because Requiem was a really lazy cook, and not a really good one at that, he ordered home food instead of cooking it himself. Soul was actually a bit surprised when he found out that you could simply ask a person you didn't know to bring you food. Although he preferred to eat wild berries and other stuff that he found lying around, he just had to try this sometime. The food… was not what Soul was used to. In fact, he had never seen this kind of dish ever, he thought. But still regarding that fact, something seemed familiar about this food. He looked up at his grandfather and posed a question,

"My mother used to make this kind of dish, right?"

Everything went quiet. Requiem's hand holding the chopsticks stopped right in front of his mouth. Then the old man gently lowered them until they were back on his plate. Soul was uneasy; he hadn't seen his grandfather like this before. The man was usually so happy and cheerful, but now… What Soul said must've hit him really hard, for he did not say a word for about ten minutes.

"Grandfather I'm-"

"Don't worry Soul." Requiem smiled, but it wasn't the usual, happy smile that covered his face. This was a smile, Soul knew that, but it wasn't the smile that he was used to when it came to his grandfather. No, this smile had a tone of sadness to it. Wildboy realized his mistake; he didn't know that his grandfather still mourned the loss of his daughter. After all, it had been several years since it happened. Even if Soul hadn't truly moved on, he had his reasons; after all he was mentally scarred for life by his father's treatment. But maybe it hadn't just left such a heavy impact on him; maybe his grandfather had lost control of himself too… Soul's eyes started to tear up, he felt like such a horrible person for bringing this whole mess up again, maybe he should've just stayed quiet. Requiem looked at his crying grandchild; his lips seemed dry as if they were never intended to be used again. But after a while, he decided to speak up.

"You've embraced it too, am I right?" he said, smiling sadly yet again. Soul looked up at his grandfather, the tears still flowing from his eyes,

"Eh-Embraced w-what?..." he said, but his voice trailed off into the thicket that was the emotions in this conversations.

"The loss of your mother… My daughter." Requiem responded. He added the "My daughter"-part after a moment of silence. Soul was unsure of why he did that though, maybe to imply something? But Wildboy was Wildboy, his skills of reading humans had weakened greatly from his time in isolation from them.

"You've come to terms with the feeling, you've embraced it, and it is a part of you now as well?" Requiem continued. Soul still understood nothing of what his grandfather was trying to say.

"W-What are you talking about?" Soul asked yet again.

"You and I Soul, we are linked together by this event, linked together by destiny." Requiem answered, if you could call it an answer. He was starting to get more and more cryptic, Wildboy actually feared the worst. Maybe his grandfather would have a mental breakdown? Would he go into frenzy just like he did when his couldn't control his emotions?

"I-I'm sorry grandfather… but I don't understand. I don't understand at all! What does this have to do with mother? Why did I even bring it up?! I shouldn't have done it… It j-just f-f-flew out of my m…mouth…" Soul started off strong, but near the end of his speech the emotions took over. Wildboy stopped talking and started to cry loudly.

"Soul…" Requiem said again as he put his arms around the boy, "Do you know why we bear our names?"

"W-W-What?"

"Why are you named 'Soul' and I'm named 'Requiem'?" he asked, holding his grandson even tighter now. His grandfather's embrace, his smell, his arms wrapping around the teen as if they were protective walls eased Soul. He stopped crying completely, and started wiping the tears off his face instead. Wildboy looked at Requiem and gave an answer to the old man's question:

"Because our parents thought that they were good names?"

"No." Requiem responded quietly. He smiled, almost as if he knew that Soul would answer the question wrong.
"Do you know why I live here, in Febourough Town?" was his next question.

"Because… it is a nice village?" Soul tilted his head to the side.

"No. You see, generation after generation, our family has been living in this town. In fact, they were one of the first residents here. But as the family expanded, it became more and more difficult to keep track of everyone in it. So a big decision was made, to make someone the family head. You know, someone to rule the family, like a head honcho if you will. Now, I am the current leader of this family." He said, slightly expressionless.

Soul's eyes widened, c-could his grandfather be a man of that much importance? Wildboy had always had a mental picture of family heads as cruel and evil people. He could simply not see his grandfather as one of those people, and he probably never would.

"Is our family really that big?" Soul asked.

"Yes, yes it is." Requiem responded. "Now, back to my story! ERRHM! On the day that I was born, our family rejoiced and celebrated my birth since it meant that they had gotten a new air to eventually take over the family. The only thing left to do was to give me a name, but not just any name, I was the future head of the family. Everyone pondered and pondered on what to name me, when one of the older and wiser women of our family spoke up."

"This boy's name shall be Requiem," she said, "For he will suffer a great loss in the future, someone dear to him will perish. And the next male to be born into the leader position shall receive the name of Soul."

Soul's eyes widened even more, he couldn't believe this, not for one second!
"Wh-Whaaaa…?" was the only thing that he could get out.

"Yes, that was her words." Requiem said, "The thing was, our family feared that this next male in line would be the one to perish, since his name was Soul. But, I never had a son. Instead I had your mother. So when she gave birth to you, your name had already been decided. Everyone feared that you were going to die, but your mother insisted otherwise. She proclaimed that such a healthy boy would never be able to get snatched by the hands of death except for when he grew old. And it was true. The hands of death, instead snatched her away…" Soul's grandfather paused for a moment, as if he was going through everything he had told his grandson up until now, "A requiem is a song that is played to honor the dead. A soul is something that exists in every living creature. You and I, we are linked to your mother. I am requiem that mourns her death, hoping for her to come back. You, are her soul, wandering around wanting its body back, isolating itself from humanity. The very race that took its life away and made it like it is now…" Requiem stopped for a second, "Those are the meaning of our names, and they will always be…"

 

[moon]

Chai Tou

→ route 10

It was already dinner time, but Chai was out walking on a country road again in the late sunlight. It had rained again, so the ground was wet and all the plants on the great yellow and green fields that stretched out on both sides of the road glistened from drops of water still clinging on to them. Chai sighed and Leafeon, who was walking beside her, looked up.

'What's the matter, servant?'

'She's hungry and worried about before, can't you tell?' Masquerain answered, fluttering in the air just above the girl's head.

'You mean when that old witch came and chased us?'

'It was her relative!'

'She was the enemy. I could tell. My servant fled and hid until the threat was gone.'

Masquerain sighed. 'Yes, Chai didn't seem to want to meet her. And to be frank, she didn't seem like a pleasant lady anyways.'

'A mere witch, I told you.'

'Stop that attitude!'

'Don't try to tell me what to do, bug.'

'Why do you think so highly of yourself anyways?'

'Why wouldn't I?'

"Hey," Chai suddenly butted in, having heard the pokémon speaking to each other without understanding for a while. "I thought of something. I haven't given you any names."

Leafeon and Masquerain looked at each other, a bit surprised. 'Name, what is in a name? Those are for pets,' Leafeon said.

'I've never thought about having a name...' Masquerain said and sat down on Chai's head.

The girl smiled up at the bug and then down at the grass pokémon. "I thought of calling you something with Leaf something. Or something otherwise grassy."

Leafeon wrinkled his nose in displeasure.

"But somehow, I feel the only name that would suit you would be King."

The grass pokémon stopped for a moment and stared up at his trainer with glimmering eyes. 'Did she just... she... she does understand me!'

Masquerain smiled and fluttered happily. 'Of course!'

Seeing that King was happy with his name, Chai turned to the bug and held her in her arms. It's tiny eyes and big antennas both looked eagerly up at the girl. "I could name you Queen now, but somehow I don't think it fits. You're more, like... Bliss!"

Bliss flew up in the air and made a little pirouette. She was clearly happy about it as well.

Just when all this was settled and everything seemed to be well and happy, Chai stumbled and fell down into the trench by the road. Mud covered the back of her trousers as she got up and she felt really awkward, even though nobody was watching. Well, her pokémon were watching, of course. Bliss laughed but helped the girl up, while King shook his head at the clumsiness of it all.

Suddenly, Chai turned around. "I heard someone else laugh as well," she said to Bliss, who looked carefully into the tall crops on the other side of the trench. The crops were golden against the red evening sky. But everything was completely still... until some vegetation moved.

"It's a pokémon!" Chai happily shouted and jumped into the field, being shorter than the crops and disappearing from view.

'Yay!' Masquerain said and followed above the vegetation.

'Why... another peasant,' King sighed and slowly followed too.

Something was running in front of Chai and Chai was chasing it with a wide smile through what felt like a maze or an endless jungle of golden straws. For some reason she felt alive and happy - perhaps because she had been able to avoid her aunt so well and was feeling free now. She was eager to find more pokémon and build a real team. She and Lynn and all of the others would save Arcanum! She had no idea of exactly how, but still.

"Masquerain! Rain!" Bliss shouted from above. 'I see it!'

"Use, um..." Chai realized that if she was to use Ominous Wind now, they might destroy the farmer's crops. Perhaps Bubble? But that might miss when there was so much vegetation in the way... Right! "Sweet Scent!"

She held her breath but kept running as Bliss soared down and let out a fine powder that almost wasn't visible if it wasn't for the sunlight that made it glisten. Chai wasn't even sure that it was a powder... it was just some pokémon attack substance thing. Not everything seemed to make perfect sense when it came to pokémon anyways.

"Did it work?" Chai called out for Bliss to answer, but before she could do that, the girl stumbled and fell again, this time over something.

She quickly got up, not really hurt, and looked behind her, eyes widening. It was a pokémon sitting on the ground, looking weirdly bedazzled. It was a pale pink color with fuffy white wool on its head and around its neck, as well as a tail with black stripes and a green bulb at the tip. It looked like it was rather quickly coming out of the state the Sweet Scent had put it in though, so Chai hurriedly pulled up her new pokédex. Carl had shown her how to use it so she pointed it at the pokémon and read.

"Flaaffy. Wool pokémon. It's electric!"

'That's right,' the wild pokémon said, standing up. 'And it was darn rude of you to chase after me like that! Feel the PUNISHMENT!' "FLAAAFF!"¨

Without further warning, the pokémon suddenly sent a Thundershock in Chai's direction. The girl didn't even have time to blink! But the attack didn't hit her. Instead, it hit King! The pokémon had jumped forward and thrown itself in the way. As the electricity wore off, King straightened up with a dark look at Flaaffy.

"King..." Chai said, stretching out a hand and patting his back.

'WOW! The King actually cares about his people!' Bliss shouted from above and flew in circles, mostly sarcastic but truthfully happy as well.

'Of course,' King said, throwing their praises off nonchalantly.

Flaaffy watched the exchange of lines and snorted. 'You think you are some kind of king? You obey a human!' Again, the wild pokémon sent a Thundershock their way. Chai rolled away and King used Quick Attack to escape and after a quick moment smash into Flaaffy.

'I've found that trained pokémon can get much stronger than wild ones,' he said, keeping his cool.

"Awesome, King!" Chai cheered. "Razor Leaf!"

The King obeyed again, sending razor sharp leaves at the sheep from close distance. They hit hard, but the Flaaffy still stood up.

'Shameful. Aaahg!' it shouted and sent a Thunder Wave sparkling towards King. He couldn't evade it, because it was much wider than before. It slowed him down and he seemed to be in pain.

Chai took up her pokédex. "He's paralyzed! That was a different attack from the one before. Bliss?"

Bliss nodded and flew forward. "Ominous Wind!" Chai shouted, but at the same time, Flaaffy fired another Thundershock. It was certainly a swift battler. The attack hit Bliss right before it started its own attack, and hurt it badly.

"Can you fight? Try Ominous Wind again!" Chai said worriedly. Meanwhile, King dragged itself up beside her and gathered his power...

This time, Bliss' attack worked, and Flaaffy got slowly pushed backwards by the wind at the same time as it seemed to suffer mental pain... but the crops around them buckled and broke from the strong wind!

"STOP!" Chai shouted and Bliss stopped with a confused look. "We can't use that attack, we're destroying the crops. "Bubble instead!"

But once again, Flaaffy had time to strike when Chai was talking. Thunder Wave hit the bug as well and made it fall down onto the ground.

'I... it's difficult to move my wing...' Bliss stuttered.

'Take orders from humans and be much slower than you could be!' Flaaffy laughed. It was weakened by all the attacks but didn't seem to want to give up just yet.

Chai looked at Bliss, who struggled to get up. Flaaffy came in for a Tackle and hit it easily.

"Bubble, you can do it!" the girl tried and Bliss fired its Bubbles at its attacker. But the sheep now used a Thunder Shock to break the bubbles in the air. "No!" Chai shouted when the Thunder Shock was about to reach through all the bubbles, all the way to Bliss' body...

But once again, a Leafeon suddenly stood in the way, taking the hit. Bliss looked up, tears almost in her eyes from being touched by his action. 'King...' she said, sounding like Chai before.

'Don't mention it,' King panted as the attack subsided. 'I'm rather strong against electrical attacks anyways. Plus, I don't want you to be in the way of this.'

Flaaffy seemed angered that the Leafeon had once again foiled its plans. Finally it thought it was time to escape... but King thought otherwise. Having powered up during Flaaffy's battle with the bug, all he wanted now was a command, for the finale to be epic enough. As Flaaffy turned around, ready to run, King glanced up at Chai, who still held her pokédex in her hand. It now happened to be pointed at the Leafeon, listing his current known
attacks. Furthest down on the list was...

"Solar Beam," Chai said, smiling at her pokémon. He nodded and fired away.

Truth is, they probably destroyed more crops with the Solar Beam than with the Ominous Wind. King excused himself with saying that he assumed solar energy would be good for plants. But they at least won a proper victory. As the somewhat deepfried Flaaffy lay on the ground breathing smoke, King and Chai walked up to it through the burned surroundings, the girl holding Bliss in her arms.

'Fight alone and you get dumb,' King said, even though the sheep probably was too unconscious to hear him now.

Chai took up an empty pokéball and threw it at the pink pokémon on the ground. It transformed into red energy and got sucked into the ball, which landed on the ground, wiggling from side to side. The red sky shone gently down on them as the remaining crops swayed peacefully in the evening wind.


--

@ me - I'm giving my own pokémon only one level each, with the hope that I can set Flaaffy's level to 14 without anyone objecting.

- King (Leafeon) grew to lvl 18!

- Bliss (Masquerain) grew to lvl 16!

- Chai captured a Flaaffy! (lvl 14 female)



EDIT: anything I've said before in this post about levels, hm, disregard that. It'll probably keep working as it does now. My thoughts behind routes are that you should only have to do one or a few posts on each route, for training or capturing a certain pokémon you want, and then in cities you can meet up with people and do events.
​

 

[moon]

Chapter Five: Marchall City

Setting: Right on the western edge of the great Arca Massive, Marchall City was built a long time ago. The rigorous history about it can be read in the Great Library, situated in a wing of Marchall Castle. The legends of Arcanum, Zekrom and Reshiram can also be read about there. This Castle is where the Countess of Marchall and the Captain of the knights live, and where the Knight Guard's headquarters lies.

On the whole, Marchall City doesn't look very similar to the rest of the towns in western Arcanum. The smaller buildings are mostly built from stone and gardens and parks are very common and important in the city. Despite that, Marchall was one of the first cities to be modernized and has several tall, modern buildings in its centrum, as well as a large Pokémon Center and a popular Pokémon Mart that is specialized in all things related to pokémon handling and training.

And of course... there is the Arena. The Master is none other than the Captain of the Knight Guard, even though it is traditionally the Countess who should hold the title. The Arena itself lies in another wing of the castle and battles are held there weekly just for show. However, it's been several months now since anyone came and sincerely challenged the Master for a Pin.



Arena:

Leader - Armon Ald, Captain of the Knight Guard.

Setting - Situated in a wing of the great Castle, the Arena looks like an oval gladiator pit where the Master and the Challenger battle and the people watch. The ground is simple dirt, packed hard by being trampled in many battles.

Arena Rewards - March Pin, a dark turquoise stone trinket that has the shape of a tower. Also a TM (which the player OOC chooses, but IC Armon chooses)

Pokémon - the Arena Master will use two of these. The player chooses what two pokémon it will be.

Golett
Lvl 18
- Pount
- Astonish
- Defense Curl
- Mud Slap
- Rollout
- Shadow Punch
- Iron Defense

Shelmet
Lvl 16
- Leech Life
- Acid
- Bide
- Curse
- Struggle Bug​

Escavalier
Lvl 20
- Peck
- Leer
- Quick Guard
- Twineedle
- Leer
- Fury Attack
- Headbutt​

Story: The corridors of the castle were cold and dark. Armon Ald walked swiftly and silently through them, his brown hair in a long braid and his blue eyes filled with thoughts. He passed by the knights that stood guard to the throne room and gave them a confident nod, earning some smiles in return. Armon didn't wear any special clothing, but every knight knew that he was their Captain. Being of average height, being average muscular and not even having reached the age of 30, it could be hard to see how he could have gotten the high rank.

Entering the throne room and walking through it, he didn't even look up at the magnificent roof high above him. He went straight to the right, to the office where he knew that he would find her.

"Countess?" he said, entering with a simple knock on the door.

"Son," the old woman greeted him. She was sitting in a wheelchair, looking out the window at the windy day outside.

Armon sighed. "Mother..."

"I feel it even more today. Reshiram is weak. It's calling for help."

"The Knight Guards will of course do anything to help our-"

"But it's too late. Their time has passed since long. Modern days are now. And we shall all perish with them, soon."

Armon walked up to her and shook his head. "Don't give me that again, Countess. You have to be strong for your people. For Marchall."

"Let them perish. Reshiram should help us, we should not help it." The woman didn't look at her son even once when she talked. Her gray hair was way too long to be manageable, but she had refused to getting it cut. On her head was the tiara that the Countess of Marchall always had worn. Ever since their castle was built.

A silent minute passed. Then Armon bowed and left the room. He walked slowly back through the throne room. When he finally stepped out again, the guards threw some worried glances at him. He took a deep breath.

"We will proceed."

The guards let out their own breaths and smiled. "Don't worry, Captain," one of them said. "The Knight Guard will take care of whatever disturbs the Summer Ruins!"

"No... We can't let the Knight Guards do this," Armon said seriously. "It would cause a commotion. And she would notice."

"A stealth operation-"

"You're not trained for that. We are not trained for that. I will find some other way. Do not speak of this with anyone other than me."

He started walking away.

"Captain," one of the guards said, making him look back over his shoulder. "Do what you must. We believe in you."

"Yes," the other guard said. "If what happens at the ruins truly is what is disturbing the guardians, it must be dealt with as soon as possible."

Armon Ald nodded. He silently prayed to his own guardian spirit. Zekrom... give me luck.




Mission: You can explore Marchall's streets and the Great Library if you wish. If you do the latter, I can send you a text with some Arcanum history if you feel like you've forgotten / never knew it. The PokéMart is there for your convenience, as is the Pokémon Center.

If you want to challenge the Arena Master, you have to go to the Marchall Castle and ask for him. The guards will take you to the Arena, where you'll have to wait for the audience to assemble and the Captain to arrive. If you make it an epic battle, your pokémon are likely to grow several levels.

If you defeat or severely impress the Captain in battle, he will give you the March Pin and a TM of your choice. Yes, you can wish for a certain TM in the OOC thread. Regardless of you win or not, he will also approach you after the battle about a special mission he needs a good trainer for. Armon Ald will ask you to travel to the Summer Ruins, the ruins of a much older castle laying on the slopes of the Arca Massive in the east. Something evil is happening there which Armon Ald believes has something to do with the worrying signs the Countess have been gotten from the guardian gods lately. You have to explore the ruins and then report back to Armon Ald about what you found.

The ruins will be one of the the next areas you can reach, after Marchall City.

Pokémon available for capture:​

There are no wild pokémon to be found here.
​

• You must post at least once in Marchall City.
  
• You may interact with the other players, preferably via joint posting (a post that you create together, most often via PM forth and back) but directly in the thread is also ok.
  
• You may decide to do the Summer Ruins mission together with one other player.
  
• You can't reach Route 9, Heart Woods or Summer Ruins just yet, but you may go forth and back between Route 10 and Marchall City if you wish.

 

[Miss Doronjo]

****
Lynn x Chai

Throughout the plains of Route 10, Lynn and all of her pokemon were strolling through the land, with the sounds of the flying pokemon surrounding them. Flareon of course, hated that, and wanted to burn the skiplooms, with Pansage giving a careful eye to him, telling him that it will be almost over. However, it didn't help Flaroen's anxieties as Marill kept asking 'are we there yet', and Munchlax lagging behind to eat all the berries in sight.

"Flare... Eon," (Remind me why we have to bring... HIM again?) Flareon asked, hinting towards Munchlax.

"Sage," (Lynn wants to teach him how to behave,) Pansage replied.

"Munch..." (Mmm, why does the sky look like ice cream...) Munchlax then asked.

"Flareon!" (Oh I dunno, maybe because you're so FAT!)

"Pansage!" (Flareon, be nice!)

"Munch, Lax?" (Yes, can't a girl enjoy her vivid dreams of ice cream?)

"FLARESAGE?" (YOU'RE A GIRL?) Flareon and Pansage simultaneously asked.

Soon, Lynn could see a passing - she saw a village, set in the middle of Route 10. However, it was a tiny village - the houses weren't all that big compared to the houses in her hometown, and it was even more rural. She saw a inn and flower shop nearby, with people on whom she suspected as farmers, strolling through the corners of the village, with their pokemon by their side.

"Conside Village..." Lynn read from a sign out loud. "Perhaps this would be an ideal place to rest for a bit! The spirits do get tired too, after all. Everybody, we're going in!" She then turned to Flareon. "I want you to be on your best behavior, okay?"

"...Flare." (...I promise to only burn one thing.)

"Pansage." (That's oddly specific.)


At the same time, Chai was walking out from the only inn in Cornside Village. It sure was small, this place. Even smaller than Januvale. There was no school, no temple, no store... except for that flower shop some ways down the road. Chai looked down at her three pokéballs. They weren't completely healed up, since there was no pokémon center here, but their injuries had been mended by hands that knew what they were doing; a kind farmer lady stopping by the inn was apparently used to mending her own pokémon. They just needed a good night's rest now and they would be fighting fit for tomorrow. Chai was not a little amazed at the healing powers these creatures possessed. It was late afternoon now, almost evening, so they should probably go rent a bed at the inn soon.

She walked out onto the road in the middle of the village, lost in thoughts. When she looked up, she could see a dark haired girl come walking from Route 10. And a Flareon and... "Lynn!" she exclaimed and shone up. She waved a hand in the air.

Lynn turned back, responding to the sudden calling of her name. She then saw a familiar face; and what a coincidence too! "Ah, Chai!" she called back, waving her hand as well. She then jogged her way over towards her, with her pokemon following behind. Lynn then bowed. "Good to know you are doing well, and that the spirits are taking a good eye on yourself."

Chai smiled at that. "I, uh, the spirits? Sure. And, um, sorry about my aunt back in Feborough. She's just, well, not very pleasant." She scratched her head in a sort of apologetic way.

"So you're traveling to Marchall City too?" she then continued. "I think I will keep going on these roads. There are more pokémon to be found and I need to build a strong team to save Reshiram." The last words were spoken with seriousness. She was rather adamant on that part of her journey. The rest of it, like how one really survived by their own on a journey across a region...

"And I think I need to learn a bit more about how to, um, really survive. Generally. In the wild and on the road. It feels like a good thing to know, don't you think, Lynn?"

"Yes, this is my first time out by myself out in the world... and it has been quite an enjoying experience," Lynn agreed. "Seeing mother earth and all her life forms... the spirits did a tremendous job creating this world and all her beauty. I can't wait to arrive in Marchall." Then Lynn glanced at her pokemon. "Ah yes, these are the rest of my pokémon: Flareon, Pansage, Munchlax, and you've already met my Marill. They are all traveling with me in my journey."

"Flare," (Yo.)

"Sage!" (A pleasure!)

"Munch..." (Mmm, her hair reminds me of rice balls...)

"Marill!" (Mr. Cloud and I are happy to see you again, friend!)

Chai leaned down and patted Marill and Pansage on their heads, while giving the other pokémon appreciating smiles. "Nice to see you guys again! My own pokémon... they need to rest. We battled today. I captured a Flaaffy! And I named the others. I figured they should have nicknames after all, so now I have to come up with a good one for Flaaffy as well. King and Bliss, hmm..."

She got up and thought hard. "Why haven't you named your pokémon, Lynn? It seems many trainers do."

"Huh... nicknames?' Lynn grasped. "I haven't even considered that. Well, I suppose I can probably give them names later on... if I remember to."

"Flareon--" (Oh for the love of Gengar, if she names me Mr.rabbit face--)

"Pansage?" (What makes you think she will?)

"Eon." (Never you mind.)

"I guess it's not necessary. Pokémon don't seem to give each other nicknames in the wild, so." Chai looked up at the darkening sky. It was rather beautiful. "I'm thinking of renting a room at the inn and then visit the flower shop tomorrow! It's closed for the day. Want to do with me?"

"I don't see why not; I hope that Flora, the flower spirit watched over those flowers with care," Lynn agreed as she turned to her pokemon. "Come on everyone, let's go. Flareon, don't even think of burning the flowers!"

Flareon whipped his tail vigorously in disappointment as they all went inside the village. Little did they know though, meanwhile, a white and brown pokemon silently watched them all... through the tree shadows. After a brief glance at the group, it soon retreated through the thick of the bush, almost seeming like... a dream.
​

 

[Mr. Mammoth]

((OOC: So, here's that fabled Soul-post that I was gonna' do! Finally got it out of the way!))

Soul W. "Wildboy" Grant
Febourough Town ---> Route 10
----------------------------------------------------

Soul hadn't slept for one second during the night, his mind had constantly been focusing on the story his grandfather had told him at dinner. His name as well as his grandfather's… was basically, in a sense, to foretelling of his mother's death? Then, if Soul had never been born… his mother would've survived? Would his father still have killed her? So many questions that had deprived him of sleep, this in turn had made his mood quite less than stellar. Wildboy had turned around several times in his bed, trying to find a comfortable position, but his mind had forced his eyes to remain open. The sun had eventually risen and Soul had been called to the breakfast table by his grandfather. The atmosphere had been everything else than cheerful and cozy like it usually had been. The two had eaten their food in silence, Soul had just looked down into his plate while struggling to use his chopsticks properly. After a while he had risen from the table, only letting an "I'm done," escape his lips. Then he had simply gone up to his room and put on the clothes he needed for the day. An Army-green T-shirt had become the wear for his torso, Smudge-brown, baggy pants had become the attire for his lower regions, his newly fixed coat had become the shield of his back and his mask cut off the burned parts of his face from his world. He hadn't even bothered to put on shoes or set up his hair nicely since it was so long. With small, baby-like steps he had walked straight out of the house, not even glancing at his grandfather.

Wildboy had walked along the market, so immersed in his thoughts that he hadn't even paid any attention to where he had walked. Countless of times, he had bumped into different people without reacting at all. They had yelled at him to watch where he was going, but Soul had paid no mind to them. He had just walked and walked and walked and walked…

A small breeze had gotten caught up in his long and turquoise hair, which had made it flow beautifully like a river. The boy had looked over the grassy plains with an almost lifeless eye. He must've seemed more miserable in general. The lack of sleep had taken somewhat of a toll on him and his thoughts had made the air around him… uncomfortable.

A Pokéball.

Which Pokéball?

"Cecilia's of course, you idiot." Words with a tone of annoyance reached Soul's ears. He looked back to see if anyone was there. Surprisingly enough, no one was there except a lone Pokémon who strutting around on the grassy fields.

"Where… are you? Show yourself!" Wildboy exclaimed. If this was some stupid prank pulled by a little kid just for fun, then he was not into it. In fact, he wasn't into any of the pranks that humans usually pulled.

"You really haven't figured it out?" the words rung out again. Suddenly, everything became black. Pitch-black. All the fields? Gone. The green and soft grass? Gone. The light-blue sky? Gone as well… The only thing still left in the darkness was Soul himself. Or so he thought.

A shape started to emerge, almost as if it was a part of the darkness itself. The shape was that of a young boy, about nine years old at the most. He looked, somewhat familiar… His hair had the same turquoise palette as Soul and his eyes shone with the same luster as Soul's.

"Who are you?" Soul asked.

"Heh," the shape answered, "Don't you know? Are you really THAT stupid?" a smirk crept across the boy's face as he stared right into Wildboy's, currently, only functioning eye.

"Hey! Don't insult me human!" Soul shouted. Who was this kid? And where the hell did he come from?

The boy's eyes flared up as if someone had lit a fire inside of them. His voice was harsh and full of anger,
"Look at yourself Soul! You are as human as I am, and you know it!"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" Wildboy covered his ears, he didn't want to hear anything more that this mysterious kid had to say.

"You are in denial Soul W. Grant!" The kid's voice boomed across the place where they were standing, eventually getting swallowed up by the black abyss.

"Stop it! That's not my name! I am Wildboy! No one else!" Soul's eyes started to tear up. He was at the breaking-limit, just like when you put too many things on a plank or something similar. He couldn't take anymore, he simply couldn't.

"You are FOOLISH. This behavior will only get you hurt in the end. I tried to stop you once, but you didn't listen! I can still see that you don't…" the kid looked down, almost as if he was being sad about something…

"What do you mean?" came Soul's response.

"What do I mean?" the kid said rhetorically, "When you fled from the basement-"

"NO! SHUT UP!" Wildboy screamed. He didn't want to be reminded about all of those horrible events that happened all of those years ago. He put his hands tightly over his ears. He didn't want this! Why couldn't the memories go away? Why…?

"You started to develop a hatred for humans, even though I told you that it was irrational! You cut yourself off from humanity, which I told you not to! You never listened to my warnings!" the kid screamed as well. However, his scream was full of anger instead of sadness.

"You gave me no warnings!" Soul cried hysterically. The memories of being locked inside the basement came back to him again. He tried to push them out, but to no avail. The fifteen year-old went down on his knees, slightly twitching in pain. He remembered those eyes down in the basement; he remembered their constant, hungry stare. Always watching him… Always…

"Yes I did."

"I did."

"But you chose to not listen. That is why you are in your current situation. Go back."

"Go back. To your grandfather. Stop it with this wild goose-chase after some Pokémon that probably doesn't even exist!" the small boy spoke in a tacky order, divided up into different parts. Almost as if he wanted to make his speech even more dramatic.

"You're wrong! They are out there, Reshiram needs my help!" Soul shouted. He felt that his sadness started developing into something else now. How dared this kid mock his beliefs?! Who was he to order Wildboy around?!

"HA! You're pathetic Wildboy. I am only nine years of age, yet I still understand the world better than you do!" the boy said.

"That's IT you little brat!" Soul gave off a howl of sheer anger and threw himself at the kid. His fist was raised high and it quickly made contact with the child's face.

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

"…"

"You've had enough?" Soul asked. His knuckles were stained with blood. On the ground in front of him was the kid. His face had been brutally assaulted, it was now covered in wounds and bruises. He started to cry.

"It… It… It doesn't m-matter h-how *sniffle* m-man-n-ny t-times y-you p-p-p-pummel me… *sniffle* I-I'll a-alw-ways be h-here… I-In your m-mind… W-Wait-ti-ting f-for y-your de-de-demise…" as the boy slowly dissolved into a cloud of flower-petals, the world started to become normal again. Soul was now standing on top of the same hill as before.

Wildboy's fingers gripped tightly around Cecilia's Pokéball. He pressed the small button on the front and let out the water-monkey in a flash of light. She looked up at her partner with big eyes, wondering why he was crying.

"It's nothing…" Soul said to her, "I think… I think…" his voice drifted off and the boy fell into silence. The tears were streaming down his cheeks as he sat there, in the green field, with the wind blowing through his hair.

"Mr. Soul…" Cecilia said, "I think that you need a hug." The Panpour slowly walked closer to her companion, she crept into his arms and hugged him tightly.
"There, there. No need to cry…" she said in a soothing tone.

"Cecilia…" was the only thing that Soul managed to get out of his mouth. The tears were still flowing down his cheeks, although right now, his arms were wrapped around his Panpour as hers were wrapped around him. They had only known each other for some days, but Soul could already not imagine a life without her…

 

[The warden]

Kitaru arrived back at the farmhouse, he looked round and spotted Kouze. She was stood not too far away in a field tilling the soil with a hoe.


"Hey, Saitou." He yelled. "I finished the task." She turned to him wiping sweat form her brow, then swung the hoe over one shoulder. Slowly she walked over from the field to where he was standing.


"Yeah, I saw the Spearow fly off." She said as she neared. "I think my Pop was real impressed with you, he asked me to take you to him when you were done. Follow me." She set off towards the barn where the grain had been stored.


"Ah, you must be young Chida." A man with a weathered face steeped out of the barn, he looked older than he should. In spite of this he looked fit and healthy, he had strong arms and walked tall. "It's nice to meet you son." He offered Kitaru a bow.


'Nice to meet you too Mr. Saitou." Kitaru replied returning the bow.


"I must thank you for seeing to those pests. The Spearow and the Munchlax." Kitaru gave Mr. Saitou a puzzled look. "Yes. Kouze told me about your battle last night. You have been a big help, we hadn't realised that there was a Munchlax sneaking into the barn at night and we simply didn't have the time to sort to those Spearow. So I want you to have these." He held out a few mushrooms.


"I can't accept your gift, you've already been so kind." Kitaru said.


"Nonsense take them, it's only a few mushrooms. Cook them up and make yourself a tasty lunch."


"Well as long as your sure." Kitaru said, to which Mr. Saitou nodded.


"You better be getting a more on now son." Mr. Saitou said and gave Kitaru directions to a small village known as Cornside Village.


"Thanks for everything!" Kitaru said as he walked off. "Bye!" He waved, Mr. Saitou and Kouze waved back.


As soon as he had put enough distance between himself and the Saitou house he released his Munchlax.


"Good morning fellow." He said to his newest Pokémon.


"Munch! Munch!" The Munchlax said rubbing its belly.


"I have to name you now, so how about Spooks. You did give Saitou a real scare." Kitaru said. Spooks nodded but to be honest he thought the Pokémon would agree to anything so long as it was fed. "Lets see what this has to say about you." He said pulling out his Pokédex. The next several minutes were spent learning as much as he could about his new Pokémon. Only when Kitaru was confident that he had been able to memorise all the basic information did he continue on his journey.


They reached the main road and turned Westwards. Slowly they began to climb a shallow slope. Then there was a rumbling sound, it stirred a sense of nostalgia in Kitaru that he couldn't quite place. Somewhere he had heard that sound before a long time ago.


HONK! HONK!
Kitaru jumped and turned round to face the source of the noise. A large machine was driving up the track behind him.


"Get out of the way kid!" The drive, a fat farmer shouted honking away on his horn and shooing Kitaru to the side of the road. Kitaru gritted his teeth, this guy was being so rude. He faced the machine and stood his ground. The machine neared and the man waved more and more franticly as he approached. "Get out of the way! I'm coming through!" He's not going to stop, Kitaru thought to himself for a moment but continued staring at the driver. However after a few moments the machine ground to a halt and the farmer began to climb down form his perch.


"What do you think your playing at!" The farmer began to shout as he landed. "I've got to get to my crops! Can't you see I'm in a hurry here!" The farmer kept prodding a fat finger in Kitaru's direction.


"Well, maybe if you weren't so rude I would let you pass!" Kitaru said clenching his fists. The farmers face went a deep red and he gritted his teeth.


"How dare you! Your the one taking up the whole of the road! You and your dawdling Munchlax!" He said pointing at Spooks.


"Munch!" Spooks cried hoping that the mention of his name would mean that he would get fed. When no food came he hung his head and resumed scavenging for food again.


"Keep my Pokémon out of this!" Kitaru yelled.


"Yeah kid and what are you going to do about it!" The farmer yelled back. That was a point what could he do about it. His instinct told him to hit the guy but the farmer was a lot bigger than him and while he may be fatter he also looked stronger.


"I'm going to sit in the middle of the road and do nothing. Until you apologize." Kitaru said calmly.


"You what!?" The farmer said dumbfounded.


"You heard me I'm going to sit in the middle of the road until you apologize." Kitaru said again.


"But what if I stop you." The farmer asked.


"I don't think you could." Kitaru simply stated. "Your not as fit as me, I could run away and you would get tired first and then run back before you could get you machine past."


"What if I run you over then?" The farmer asked.


"You wouldn't dare. I think your trying to scare me." Kitaru replied, and with a shrug added, it's not working. He sat down where he was. The farmer headed back to his machine and climbed aboard. He started the machine and revved the engine loudly before engaging the gear and starting to move slowly towards Kitaru. There was quite a bit of space between them but the machine picked up speed quickly. He will stop. He will stop. Kitaru thought to himself. But the machine showed no sign of stopping. The fumes from the machine wafted towards Kitaru.


A memory of Kitaru's birth place entered his head. A bustling city where smoke filled the air. Cars and trucks everywhere. Rain falling and muddy water washing down the drains. It wasn't a clean place but it was where he had called home as a child.


A loud honk of the machines horn brought Kitaru back to the real world. The machine was almost on top of him now and going too fast to stop. A flash of light came from the side of the track and Kitaru was thrown out of the path of the oncoming machine. He glanced at the figure that had rescued him. He couldn't see their face but from the way they were dressed he had only one ting on his mind.


"Are you a knight?" He asked.

 

[moon]

@ Mr Mammoth - Oh, Soul's story is both scary and exciting! I love that you guys have side stories to develop your characters :3

--

@ The warden - Haha, nice way of meeting a Knight!

--

ALABASTER

→ route 10

"Wow, this is amazing! Sadly I didn't have time nor tools to install a proper voice recognition system in them so only one command works. To flip through menus I have to use these small buttons... Pokédex, identify!"

As if the glasses in Alabaster's goggles were a screen, they only took a second to identify the silver colored Eevee that was sitting on the ground before him, twitching her eyes in a curious fashion. Her trainer was such a peculiar one. But they had lots of fun, at least. The insides of Alabaster's goggles showed basic information on the Eevee, but to reach its move list and detailed info, he had to press some buttons on his left goggle.

"Ah, well it works. Nifty, eh? I wonder why nobody thought about installing the pokédex system into a pair of goggles before. Sure, they are a bit heavier now," he shook his head as to prove this to himself and to Evo, "but it seems my hair keeps them in place anyways. Thanks, wild hair!"

They had been walking northeast from Feborough this morning, while Alabaster were still fiddling with his invention without really looking where he walked. Now he was finally finished and found out that they were in the middle of nowhere, really. What he had thought to be a road turned out to be just a patch of ground without much vegetation. Around him were endless hills with swaying corn and other crops. He spotted a forest some ways away, and a few farm houses near it.

"Well," he began, scratching his head and pulling up the goggles to sit firmly in the hair again. "Too bad I didn't install a compass into the goggles. I'll have to do that when I reach the next town."

Evo yawned. According to her, it was still early in the day. Alabaster giggled, lifted her up in his arms and held her in front of him. "You are so cute, you know that?" he said and made her smile and wave her big, fluffy tail. "That's why I keep you, even though you don't have any remarkable elemental powers. That, and your strange ability to mimic other attacks."

Evo leaned her head to the side, wondering if he was really complimenting her or not. She decided that he did, and kept waving her tail.

Looking out over the fields and starting to walk again, in any direction really, Alabaster frowned worriedly. "I still haven't found a good elemental type to put on my team. Only bugs... small mouses or dogs... and that monkey, hm, while it would have been ok, I think I need something more... forceful."

He had set out from Januvale Town some days ago, on behalf of Joresh Ja. His father hadn't been thrilled. Even though Mr Bell thought he was annoying at times, he now assured his son that he loved him and wanted him to stay and work with him in their workshop forever. To their surprise though, Mrs Bell had been a lot more accepting. She and her spiritual mind said that she believed Alabaster when he told them about his dream. And if it was true, then he truly should step up to save his guardian, as the Arcanian he really was. She said she was sometimes a bit jealous that she hadn't been born in this beautiful region, but she was a Johtonian with all of her heart, and Alabaster had part of that in him as well. To be a Johtonian was to believe, in something - anything! - with all of your heart and soul. Alabaster sat and nodded while his mother said this. That scientific mind of his thought most of this was mere tales, but to please his mother and to be allowed to leave on a pokémon journey, he said that he was thankful for her viewpoint. And after that, Mr Bell couldn't really stop him.

The other kids in town just noticed that he was gone, and some rumors spread that he had gone on a pokémon journey. He and several other kids lately. The villagers started realizing that something was on the move... so many young people didn't just leave Januvale for no special reason these days. But that wasn't really Alabaster's problem.

He had gone through Route 11 with the intent of catching many pokémon with elemental powers to experiment on, but all he had found was bugs and the occasional Electrike owned by a bee farmer, or some annoying Marill. Nothing really impressive. So with only Evo on his team, he had reached Feborough and almost forgotten about his real mission - to save Reshiram - when he found that pokédexes were being sold. He had tried to bargain with the man, Ahougha Tai, but to no avail. Then he made a deal with Tai to go and spy on some people on the other side of the market, in exchange for a lower price. In Alabaster's eyes, moral was something very subjective, so he agreed and went to spy a little.

He was discovered and had to battle the people who were guarding two large trucks. Two things made it hard for him to focus there and Alabaster actually lost the battle since he didn't focus on what Evo did. One thing was the trucks themselves; it was so uncommon with motor driven vehicles other than boats near Januvale, so he wanted to go and poke around in their motors rather than battle the people here. The other thing was the pokémon themselves. The trainers used Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. Amazingly elemental pokémon and if Alabaster hadn't got a weird feeling - unusual to him - that Evo would be sad with him if she tried to trade her for one of the black dressed people's elemental pokémon, he had asked them. But he decided to capture his own ones instead. And at least he had finished the mission when he reported back to Tai; he had seen that they were loading on food and pokéballs. Lots of pokéballs. If this worried Ahougha or not, he didn't register. He was very busy that whole afternoon and evening with borrowing Tai's tools to build in the pokédex machine into his goggles, while Tai looked over his shoulder and took some notes.

And the next morning, the black haired boy found himself in the place where he was now. The brown backpack was starting to feel a bit heavy. Maybe he had been a bit too pessimistic with bringing lots of medicine and food with him. And pokéballs. They sat down to rest for a while, while Alabaster wondered what pokémon could be found in Route 10. He looked at the sun and the time and guessed what way was north, and thus where to go after their break.

As they sat there, Evo suddenly noticed that she was sharing her food with someone. Beside her sat a very content looking, yellow pokémon and chewed on the food that Alabaster had put up for the Eevee. Evo of course just thought it was fun with company and didn't react very much. Then, her trainer looked up from his own meal and almost jumped into the air.

"POKÉDEX, IDENTIFY!" he said and pulled down the goggles over his eyes. The pokémon blinked as the pokédex showed Alabaster that it was a Chikorita, just as he had guessed. "A grass elemental!" he said with a bright smile. "Evo, this one, we shall battle!"

Chikorita choked on some piece of food at this, and backed away while coughing. Evo was worried and started patting its back to try and get the piece out. Alabaster sighed.

"How... dramatic in the wrong way," he said and walked up to the two pokémon, taking the soon breathless Chikorita in his arms and did a Heimlich maneuver. The piece of food flew out and landed in the grass. Evo cheered and Chikorita panted.

"Maybe you shouldn't eat food that wasn't for you," Alabaster lectured it as he put the pokémon down again. It happily waved its leaf almost as Evo waved her tail all of the time. "Don't look at me like that, I was about to battle you, remember?"

Chikorita hadn't heard that before, but now it seemed to toughen up and growl. It charged towards the human, who crouched with a little yelp, but Evo Tackled the Chikorita to the side before it made impact with the boy.

"Ah... that's right, pokémon should battle pokémon, not humans! I meant that Evo was about to battle you, naturally!" He got up and flipped his goggle screen to show a list of Eevee's attacks on the side. Chikorita had already begun again. He couldn't really tell what it was about to do but... he should counter attack anyways. "Evo, Sand Attack!"

Chikorita threw its leaf around and sent sharp leaves in Evo's direction. The Eevee kicked up a cloud of dust in her opponent's direction but the attack had already been sent and the leaves hit her hard and scratched her.

"That's Razor Leaf... alright, Evo: MIMIC!" Alabaster commanded with a grin. He loved this ability of hers, even if it was the only really good offensive - or defensive - ability she had.

Evo quickly got up and began glowing with a strangely white power. The power soon became green and Evo smiled. Chikorita growled again, as an attack this time, in an attempt to intimidate Evo. It might have worked a little, but Alabaster didn't hesitate. "Razor Leaf!"

Eevee's green energy formed a small ball in front of it and from that, the same kind of leaves that Chikorita had just sent at her came darting back. Chikorita had begun a Tackle and was racing their way, so the leaves easily hit it. Unfortunately, grass attacks weren't really good against grass pokémon...

"Hm, we'll have to have some strategy on top of the attack... wait what now?" Alabaster said when the Chikorita suddenly stopped and began shining in a glittery fashion. Its eyes were looking straight up into the sun.

The boy frenetically flipped through the pages of the pokédex in his eyes and found out that
it was a Synthesis attack... that regained its energy! "Maybe this pokémon is a really good one to have!" he said. "Evo, follow me!"

The Eevee watched as the trainer quickly packed his belongings back into his backpack and started running straight into the field with crops almost as tall as he was. She followed without hesitation, luring the Chikorita to follow them by sticking out her tongue at it. That did the trick and the grass type raced after them with a furious face.

In the field, Alabaster ran here and there with a smile on his face. If they could outrun the Chikorita well enough for it to lose them in the field, his plan would work fine. Soon, Evo barked at him and he looked back to see that they couldn't see the grass type anymore. Taking some leaps to the side, Alabaster turned off the pokédex and activated the heat vision in his goggles. He could see the body of Chikorita run some good 10 meters from them, apparently being a bit confused.

"Sneak up to it and use Sand Attack, then follow up with Tackle!" the boy whispered to his eager pokémon who stood just beside him. "Do you understand? Sand Attack... then Tackle." He wasn't sure if a simple pokémon like Eevee could understand several commands at a time, but this was as good an opportunity as ever to test it out. "... NOW!"

Chikorita was very close but had completely lost track of her opponents. Then, all of a sudden, the Eevee jumped out from some crops and Tackled the grass type hard. Alabaster saw it in his heat vision and facepalmed. Oh well, at least she had remembered one of the attacks. "Sand attack! Now!" he called out to her, and Evo wasted no time while Chikorita was recovering. She once again kicked up sand in the opponent's face.

Chikorita, with eyes closed and irritated, waved its leaf to send Razor Leaves towards Evo, but they missed and instead cut down some crops. "Razor Leaf!" Alabaster shouted, now sitting close to them behind a curtain of crops. He clearly saw them in the heat vision.

The Eevee formed a ball of green energy again and sent the Razor Leaf flying straight at the grass type, who fell over. When it got back up, it blinked, seemingly having gotten most of the sand out from its eyes. It charged with a Tackle.

"Growl!" Alabaster said, and Evo Growled quickly as usual. "Dodge!" he then said, and the Sand Attacks seemed to have done their job, because Chikorita couldn't correct its trajectory when the opponent jumped aside. It braked and turned around again.

"Show it who's got the strongest Tackle!" Alabaster cheered on Evo. He was so into his battle that he didn't notice someone walking up behind him.

Evo and Chikorita both charged head first now and when the impact came, both where thrown back. Evo still stood up though, not looking too worn out, while Chikorita fainted from the impact. "Haha!" Alabaster grinned. "Victory! Now, with a pokéball-"

"I don't think so," a voice said and made the boy spin around and fall over onto his back. With the heat vision, he could see a big, warm figure against the cool sky.

"You look hot," he said, without realizing how strangely that could be interpreted.

--


@ me

- Evo (Eevee) grew to lvl 19!​

 

[Fuyu]

"To ponder is wise. However, do not simply think of acting."

Ethan shook his head at the sight of the set sun and orange sky. All the walking today... and there wasn't a place to stay in at least a mile. He wasn't worried about sleeping outside. He was worried he'd get caught. His family knew by now, Maya was likely furious, and one or the other had a habit of sending ninjas after him. Well, his family called them ninjas. Ethan was fairly certain they were simply overdressed Dark-types. The purpose of the dress eluded him.

Sighing, he turned back. It looked like he would have to find another tree, or at least go back to the first one. His fingers curled around Blackie's Pokeball. Azea had been left with Sear, who was now... attacking that Chikorita. He was injured, so Ethan had considered it wise. Besides, Sear could handle himself pretty well. He had proven in battle time and again his balance. He just wondered if it would be worth keeping him at the end of this journey.

The end...

Kumiho wondered what his end would be. He still wasn't certain if he had started or why he had done it. It had been a simple whim... but there had to be more to it than that. There had to be more than...

Elena.

His throat hurt at the thought of her. She was his sister, his little, silly sister, who he hoped had grown taller and stronger and out of her clinging phase. The fox-boy wasn't even sure he would recognize her after all this time. He had no doubt he would know his mother. It wasn't by face, it was the intimidating aura under a sweet smile. It was the coldly glinted warm eyes that stood up to the head and turned a back to the most terrifying man the boy knew.

She could turn her back on her son.

Ethan couldn't blame her. She likely thought he agreed with them. He hadn't disagreed that was for sure. He hadn't really known how. He had been nine for Reshiram's sake. A part of him wondered if she could have taken him too. He wondered if he could have smiled a little better.

He snorted and kept walking, his twitching ears annoying him mildly. He could see the bright lights of fire up in the distance. Kumiho was always amused by the dancing of fire. He sighed softly and thought distantly back, remembering his father's voice.

"Pokemon and humans have instincts. Maybe the answers aren't always in front of them, but they are waiting."

Did that ask for patience or was it the old man's way of telling him to stop looking straight ahead? His father had a habit of saying the strangest things that had no interpretation that could possibly be plausible.

Blackie left his Pokeball leisurely, barking with all the speed of a slug. Rolling red eyes, the creature raced around his feet. Kumiho laughed. "Are you saying to stop thinking?" Blackie turned up his nose. "I guess you must be. I am not like that other one... Wildboy... though I suppose being as innocent as him wouldn't be as interesting as this."

Ah that was right. Full circle.

"It had been a whim," he said aloud with a small snort. He wasn't concerned about Reshiram. He was a great beast. It would be an exotic sight to behold but really. If he was really called for, it would have been a long time ago. Ethan snorted. "A fox plays with snakes. I suppose that means it's all right to be poisoned by wonder a few times. Come Blackie. I think Sear might destroy the field."

Blackie snorted his amusement and padded after him.

(Meh, me blabbering. I don't expect a level, just mild amusement. :P)

 

[moon]

ALABASTER

→ route 10

A pair of strangely reddish-pink eyes and flamingly black hair... if there was such a thing. That was what faced the lying-down Alabaster when he took off the goggles. A girl was standing over him, hands on her hips and a rather intimidating look on her otherwise beautiful face. Some freckles dotted it and her hair was loose and reached her at least to the elbows. She was wearing a pair of laced jeans trousers with a red, long sleeved t-shirt underneath. On her feet were a pair of sturdy, brown boots. It wasn't often that Alabaster even though of someone as 'hot' in another way than having a high temperature, but now he was almost about to add to his previous line: And I don't mean literally. Luckily, the strange kind of intelligence he possessed got the better of him and concluded that it wouldn't really fit his personality to make such a statement to someone he had just met. Or even to someone he knew well, actually.

The girl ignored his comment though, and took forth a pokéball. "Chili, return!" she said and a red beam of light shot over Alabaster and pulled something back to the pokéball. Leaning his head backwards in the dirt on the ground, he saw that the fallen Chikorita was what was being retracted.

"Aha! So the Chikorita wasn't afraid to walk up to us when we were eating because it's used to humans." He sat up with a smile. "You're its trainer!"

"Very good, bright eyes," the girl said. Her voice was a rather light one, but even Alabaster could hear the annoyance within it.

"And now you are of course angry with me for beating it up."

"Right on the spot."

"I will give you some kind of favor to make up for it," Alabaster said and got up from the ground, brushing dirt off his clothes and hair. "I'm very good with machines and mechanics; if you have a watch or something that needs fixing, I can-"

"Battle me!" the girl said.

Alabaster hesitated. "Well, I think I practically just did, and won-"

"It doesn't count! I challenge you!"

"My Eevee is a bit tired, she actually got hurt a little from battling that leafy banana pokémon-"

"Fine! Then you'll have to... argh!"

With that, the girl just stormed off, soon becoming hidden by the tall corn plants. Alabaster stood like frozen for a few seconds. Women... the greatest problem for science. Maybe he should study them? If he found something out, he would surely become rich. Then again, he'd have to put up with a lot of illogical women's behavior in order to get believable test results. Well, let's start with one?

"Excuse me, miss," he said, hurrying after the girl and managing to find her with the help of his heat seeker vision again.

She turned around while continuing to walk through the field. "What? Why are you wearing those stupid glasses?"

"They are goggles! And they are quite ingenious, they can-"

"I don't care!"

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

This is going to be a more difficult study than I thought, Alabaster thought weakly. But he wasn't the one to give up. They came out of the corn field and he saw a big farm with several brown houses, some pens and meadows.

"You live here?" he asked the girl.

"Yes!" she replied, still grumpy.

"What's your name?"

"Rasqual!"

"Quite unique," Alabaster said with a smile as they kept walking and were closing in on one of the large barns. "My name is Alabaster. You can call me... uh, I don't think I have a nickname, come to think of it. Rascal, I've been called, I guess!"

At the big opening of the barn, Rasqual stopped and called out. "Miri!" A mild bleating could be heard and then a pair of sheep emerged from the shadows in the barn. Most of them were pink and walked on two legs, but one was blue with pink wool and walked on all four. That one ran right up to Rasqual and almost made her fall over when it greeted her.

Alabaster noticed, fascinated, the quick change in the girl's demeanor. Her face was soft and happy now as she hugged and patted the loving sheep. Instead of saying something, the boy took up his pokédex and read up on the pokémon. A Mareep. Sure, he'd heard about them before. And the pink ones were its evolutions, Flaaffy.

The girl didn't look as angry as before when she turned to face Alabaster again, but her face got a little more serious, even if there was a hint of a smile there. "I've got more pokémon than Chili. Don't you have more than Eevee?"

"Evo is my only pokémon, yes," Alabaster admitted and picked up his little female fluffball from the ground. She stared happily at the sheep and seemed to want to go down again to greet it. He let her down and the two pokémon sniffed on each other for a few moments before it seemed like they were beginning to converse.

"Haha, they seem to get off to just as good a start as Evo and Chikorita did before."

"Why did you battle her then?" Rasqual asked with a frown.

"I just mentioned battling and she turned all wild and ran up to Tackle me."

Rasqual sighed and stared out into the distance in the big, blue sky. "She isn't very good at battling. So she wants to get better."

"Really? She put up quite a match for me and Evo."

"Yeah, she's tough. But she doesn't listen to my orders in battle. She's my best friend and she's really fun and nice otherwise. But in battles, she just does her own thing and sometimes when I see things that she doesn't, I get mad at her for not listening..."

Alabaster nodded to show that he understood, but he didn't really understand. He was busy thinking about whether or not a Flaaffy woud be good to have on his team. It was quite the elemental powered pokémon, electric too which was the most readily used kind of elemental pokémon energy, but it was a bit too... cartooney and cute for his taste. It was enough to have the little fluffy ball that was Evo with him.

All of a sudden, Rasqual's cheeks turned red. "Why am I even telling you this? You hurt her!"

"Maybe I'm that kind of guy you just want to tell stuff?" Alabaster guessed, though it wasn't really his real guess. The truth was probably more like Rasqual not having an awful lot of people to talk to about things she was pondering, out here on route 10. If her best friend was a pokémon... then again, Alabaster's best friend was probably his goggles. Wasn't that worse? Maybe he should try and become best friends with Evo instead. Though she couldn't really talk back. Then again, it was sometimes nice to have someone who always listened and couldn't interru-

"As if! Now we're having a battle! Miri against Eevee!"

Evo jumped up and down with excitement, but Alabaster furrowed his eyebrows. "But she's still not at full power... Evo, come here." He bent down in the hallway and took something out of his backpack. Evo obediently sat down in front of him and let him spray her wounds with a Potion. Rasqual looked on, looking quite interested, perhaps not noticing it herself. When Alabaster noticed, he smiled up at her.

"Potions and other kind of pokémon medicines are quite marvelous. Since pokémon are such strange creatures that can be turned into energy form, potions use that ability to act like the machine in a pokémon center on a local spot of the pokémon's body, healing them by restoring their energy in that spot-"

"Bored already," the girl said. "Miri, Tackle!" The pokémon obeyed without question.

"Aah, why do pokémon keep attacking me out of nowhere!" Alabaster yelped and made a backwards somersault. Mareep barely missed him, but had had been aiming for Evo, who was easily hit.

"Huh," the boy said, not really sounding grumpy for coming up from the dirt on the ground for the second time that day. "Fine, then! Evo, follow me!" He ran back into the barn and began climbing the massive pile of hay bales that stood against a wall.

"What are you doing! Fleeing?" Rasqual yelled angrily and ran after him but didn't start climbing.

"If you want to battle, then come battle me!" Alabaster said with a grin and kept climbing further up, Evo easily jumping up after him with a joyful smile.

Rasqual clenched her fists. "Miri, go after them!" The Mareep tried to jump up bit wasn't as agile as the Eevee. When Alabaster finally stopped climbing, several meters up, and looked down on them he saw Rasqual trying to lift Miri up and put her on top of a hay bale.

"Perfect. Evo?" His pokémon narrowed her eyes and took aim. "Ready, set... go!" With that, Alabaster threw her downwards to give her extra speed. "Tackle!" Rasqual looked up just in time to see a silvery hairball come right at them. She screamed and ducked behind the hay bale, but Miri who had just come up on top of it got severely struck in her side. She fell down - well, she was rammed down, rather - onto the ground and the Eevee lightly bounced away to stand a few meters away from her opponent. Her grin was still strangely innocent, which of course annoyed Rasqual even more.

"That was cheating!" she called up to Alabaster, who was in the process of climbing down again.

"I would rather call it tactics."

"So you think you're fast? Run away from this if you can! Thunder Wave!" Rasqual shouted after having helped Miri up standing again. Miri's wool began to crackle and it sent a quick shock wave of an almost blue color out. It missed Rasqual, of course, but it hit Evo without problem. The Eevee whelped but didn't seem too hurt.

"Are you ok?" Alabaster asked, having finally come down to ground level again and standing beside her now. Evo nodded. "Then, full on Tackle!"

"You too, Tackle!" Rasqual said to Miri. Both pokémon dashed forward with all their might inside the barn, and when the impact came... Evo was pushed back! "Haha!" Rasqual cheered.

"Huh?" Alabaster said, pulling down his goggles to start up the pokédex. "Evo should be both faster and physically stronger than a Mareep, even though she has no special attacks."

"Loser! Thunder Wave doesn't harm the victim, it just paralyzes them!"

Alabaster's eyes widened inside the goggles as he read about the attack in the encyclopedia. "Aha! Must be some kind of special frequency that doesn't take as much energy from the pokémon forming it, so it can be used as a trickster move instead of a full on-"

"Stop that already! Miri, Thundershock!"

"That's an offensive move, though," Alabaster noticed and dove down to push Evo out of the way. Surprisingly, he was quick enough and took the hit instead of the pokémon. Again, Rasqual screamed now, scared that she would have really hurt him.

"Don't worry..." Alabaster said weakly, laying on the ground. "I'm used to getting electrical shocks... My inventions have a tendency of malfunctioning now and then..."

"IDIOT!"

"Haha... Evo, that was a cool move, but it's not the one we want," Alabaster said, sitting up and seeing the Eevee nod at him in understanding. "I think her paralysis is gone already!"

"What? That doesn't happen! Miri, Thunder Wave again!"

Mareep fired the same attack as earlier and it hit Evo just as easily as before. She still didn't seem hurt by it, luckily. She smiled happily even after taking the hit, even though she was noticeably slow now.

"Huh... are you sure the paralysis went off?"

"No, I must have come to the wrong conclusion," Alabaster said with a grin, standing up. "Evo, MIMIC!"

Evo closed her eyes for a second, before a crackling yellow light formed in front of her. It disappeared as soon as it had come though.

"I don't... understand," Rasqual said, and her pokémon looked confused as well.

"I just wanted Miri to display her moves before I chose which one to Mimic. So now we have it. Evo, Thunder Wave!"

The little gray pokémon jumped up and made the yellow energy ball in front of her appear again. From it, a thunder wave similar to Miri's was fired, and this one hit the sheep. Miri was clearly paralyzed now.

"So now we're on the same terms again," Alabaster concluded. "Evo, use Tackle!"

"Miri, you too!"

The two pokémon once again shot forward in one Tackle each. When the impact came, Mareep was the one who was pushed back. "There, my calculations weren't wrong after all," Alabaster said, satisfied. The Mareep seemed to not want to battle anymore, being nearly fainted from the pain.

Rasqual ran up to it and patted it before sending it back into its pokéball. Then she stood up and fixed Alabaster with a glare. "You're good," she said. "We don't see many real good pokémon trainers out here."

"Oh, I'm not that good, I think. Not that I've compared myself to that many yet. Or lost a battle, for that matter."

"You've never lost a battle?"

"Uh, I have only been a trainer for a few days."

"I've... never won a battle." She fell silent and stared at the Flaaffys in the barn, who had been watching the battle but now went back to their own business.


--


@ me

- Evo (Eevee) grew to lvl 21!
- Evo surprisingly learned Thunder Wave!
​

 

[The warden]

The knight turned round to face Kitaru.


"Why? Why?" He fell to his knees and began to plead to Kitaru. His head bowed to the ground as he hung his head in shame.


"Why what?" Kitaru asked a little confused and feeling more than a little awkward because of the situation.


"Why must I dishonour my family? Why am I such a coward?" The knight began to claw at the dirt.


"You just saved me by jumping in front of a truck. I don't think anyone has the right to call you a coward." Kitaru said to the knight, trying to lift his spirit. For a moment the knight looked up, he was an Arcanian and in his early twenties.


"Your kind words do little to comfort me young squire, for I am still a coward." The knight said, getting to his feet and dusting off his amour. The knight had been carrying a shield, he picked it back up from the floor. It had a green background and a very rough picture of a bird on it. The bird was grey, with blue feathers along the tops of its wings and round where its eyes should be. It had a golden beak and talons, a white mane of feathers and red blue and gold plumage.


"That's a very nice shield." Kitaru said, he had decided to say something as opposed to have an awkward silence.


"This shield has been in my family generations. It was given to my many times great grandfather when he was appointed to the Knight Guard. He was the first of many. Every first born son bore the honour of carrying this shield. Each and every one of us would be trained to be a member of the Knight Guard, father to son. When we reached the eighteen we were given the shield and sent to try out for the Knight Guard and every single one of us passed the test first time. Braviary that is our families crest." The knight said gesturing to the bird on the shield. "It has been in our family for many hundreds of years but I am not worthy of it."


"You threw yourself in front of a truck to save me! How can you say you are not brave?"


"I may have done it but it was not heroic. For at the time I was fearful."


"Well you were throwing yourself in front of a truck. The point is it's your actions that count not your feelings. A timid man doing something brave is more heroic than a fearless man doing the same act."


"Well maybe you are right but I am still a coward." The knight said, drawing to a conclusion their discussion with a sigh.


"You saved my life so now I owe you a debt, don't I, what if I help you become brave." Kitaru suggested.


"Nay. I am bound by my vows of chivalry. I cannot accept your help, you have no debt to me. I was only following my duty as a knight of the realm."


"Help me out here." Kitaru said to Spooks under his breath.


"Munch! Munch!" The Munchlax complained about being hungry holding it's stomach.


"I'll feed you soon." Kitaru said to his Pokémon Then turning to the knight he said. "Right what if I insist on helping you. Then wouldn't you be bound to accept my help out of courtesy."


"Hmm.." The knight thought for a moment. "I would. So how do you propose I work on this problem."


"Well what are you frightened off?" Kitaru asked.


"A lot of things. Bugs," The knight began to count on his fingers. "The dark, heights, getting hit, closed spaces."


"Well I guess we have a lot to work with then." Kitaru said. "Go Cinnamon." He relased his Ledian. "See she isn't so bad now is she."


"No your Ledian looks cute." The Knight said. At which Cinnamon shot him a venomous stare and launched a punch at him. "Ahh!" the knight cried as he dived out of the way holding his shield up to protect himself.


"Now, now Cinnamon. He was only trying to compliment you." Kitaru said, you don't have to be so touchy.


"Ledian!" Cinnamon said holding her fore fists up like a boxer ready to fight.


"Ignore her, she doesn't want to hurt you. Cinnamon just likes to show everyone how tough she is but she is a softy at heart."


"Led! Led!" Cinnamon protested folding her arms.


"Right so what shall we try next!" Kitaru said with enthusiasm.


* * *


"Are you sure about this?" The knight asked.


"Yeah you'll be fine!" Kitaru said giving him a big smile and two thumbs up.


"You said that about the cave! And the river!" The knight protested.


"Well in my defence I didn't know that there was a Ursaring. And I expected you to take your amour off before you started swimming." Kitaru said. "Now get on." With that the knight approached the tree that Kitaru had selected for him and began to climb.


"Ledian! Ledi! Led!" Cinnamon said to Spooks, betting him ten berries that the knight couldn't make it halfway up.


"Lax! Lax!" Spooks replied that he didn't gamble with food since he couldn't bare giving it away.


* * *


"Kitaru!" The knight yelled halfway up the tree.


"Yeah keep going! Your doing great!"


"Umm... Well that's the problem! Umm.. How do I put this!? I'm stuck! I looked down!"


"Well stare out into the distance and try to forget about it!" Kitaru shouted back. The knight began to study the surrounding countryside.


"Kitaru I see something!" The knight yelled. "It's Flaffy rustlers at work!"


"I'll go stop them! You stay there!" Kitaru yelled back his usual sense of honour dictating his course of action. He sprinted off through the woodland.


"No! Kitaru!" The knight shouted after him but it was no use the boy was not listening.


* * *


Kitaru arrived at the field where the thieves were in time to see them loading Flaffy into a truck. There were two men with two Poochyena rounding the Pokémon into the truck. Another sat behind the wheel of the truck.


"Go Pokémon!" Kitaru yelled. "Comet Punch and Tackle combo!" Cinnamon rushed forwards and threw a flurry of punches at one of the Poochyena, at the same time Spooks rushed headlong into the other Poochyena throwing it to the floor. The Flaffy were startled and no longer being herded began to scatter.


"Hey what you playing at kid!" The nearest guy shouted. "Teach him a lesson Pooches! Bite!" Both of the Poochyena dived towards Kitaru.


One of them was intercepted by Cinnamon who shot a Supersonic attack at it. It got confused tripped over it's self and couldn't find a way to get to it's feet. Then Spooks went to Tackle it but used Amnesia instead and ended up sat on top of it with no idea what he was doing.


The other continued to hound Kitaru. It dived in to attack but he kicked it away with one of his boots.


"He can't do that!" One of the thieves shouted at the other.


"What are you shouting at me for! You did order the Pokémon to attack him! I think you'll find that since this isn't a proper battle he doesn't have to follow the normal rules!" The two thieves looked at each other.


"GET HIM!" They both shouted at Kitaru at once and began running towards the boy.


"Stop those men!" Kitaru instructed his Pokémon Another Supersonic from Cinnamon stopped one man in his tracks. While Spooks stopped the other rather unintentionally. Being a Munchlax he had been fixated on a packet of chewing gum in one of the men's pockets since he had gotten there. Even after forgetting everything else he had some how remembered the chewing gum. So when the man ran past he had reached out with his tongue to grab it and brushed the man's hand. Paralysis set in at once and the man had fallen to the ground while Spooks grabbed the packet without getting up and swallowed it whole.


"What on earth is going on!" The man in the cab got out, just as Cinnamon knocked out the remaining Poochyena.


"I'm stopping your theft!" Kitaru proclaimed proudly.


"Ohh..." The man said with a voice like rumbling thunder. "You've had it now son! Go!" The man threw a ball from his belt to the ground.


"DRAPION!" A Drapion larger than Kitaru emerged in a flash of light.


"GET! HIM!" the man yelled. Kitaru gulped. The Drapion dashed forwards, it's four legs rapidly carrying it to Kitaru. It lashed out with one of it's claws and Kitaru had to dive to avoid the attack.


"COME! ON!" The man had run over to his mates and got them up. They gathered their Pokémon and ran for their truck.


"Out the was Kitaru!" The knight was running towards them, a Spearow on his shield arm and a sword on the other. "Peck!" The knight ordered his Spearow. It flew forwards and distracted the Drapion while the knight got closer. "Take that you scallywag!" The knight slashed out at the Drapion with his wooden training sword. Since the Knights Guard were now mostly a tradition it would have been unreasonable to expect it to be a real one.


The Drapion was barely hurt by the attack. It lashed out at the knight but he blocked it with his shield.


"Kitaru get to safety I've got this!" Kitaru nodded. Returning a confused Spooks who couldn't quite work out where that comfy cushion he had been sat on had gone. He ushered Cinnamon away as well. But she refused to follow.


"Cinnamon come on it's not safe!" Kitaru urged her. But still she watched the knight struggle against the Drapion.


"LED! DIA! AN!" Cinnamon yelled flying forwards at top speed. She swooped down to the knight and lifted him with all four of her arms. It was a strain, he was far heavier than she and for a moment she though that she wouldn't be able to lift him. But as he ran forwards he bounded into the air giving her a hand. With all the strength she could muster she boosted him over the head of the Drapion, steering him in for the attack. Then she dropped him. He would only get one shot and any hesitation would cause the plan to fail. As he fell he extended his sword in front of him. The Drapion flailed its arms in panic. The knight was scared but he knew what he had to do. He struck the Drapion round the side of the head with his shield, the blow that did all the damage, and then hit it over the head breaking his wooden sword. The Drapion collapsed in a heap on the floor.


"That was amazing!" Kitaru yelled.


"Let's go!" The thieves yelled. Returning their last Pokémon and climbing into their van.


"Peck!" Ordered the knight to his Spearow. Then he turned to face Kitaru as his Spearow Pecked the van and blew it up in the background.


Ok well that didn't really happen but it did burst the tyres so the couldn't get away.


"Still think your a coward?" Kitaru asked the knight, with a laugh.