Pokemon United

Chris had slowly made her way up along the coast, creating many short lived campsites. She always made sure to put out her fires with the help of her Vaporeon friend who traveled beside her at all hours. The smoke from her last fire billowed upward faintly, as she stretched upward, her hands pulling up her hood on this misty morning. Shivering only lightly, she pulled the strings of her striped hoodie and scrunched up her hood, "I think we'll make it there today." Vaporeon looked up at her and she petted his head, "Come, let's go."

She trekked through the coastline's sand, her pack and fishing pole on her back. There were only three people on the misty water's today, their small boat settled on the calm waves. But they were all old men, bent in their ways, with their gnarled fingers holding onto their fishing poles. Each one had a pipe and a water-soaked hat. Chris waved at them as she passed by, but only one waved back.

"Can't say I have, lass." The fisherman shook his head. "Mankeys belong in mountain forests, not port towns, so if I did I'd question my eyesight."

Ruby sighed. "She's a tame mankey. She hasn't lived in the wild in years. But thanks anyway." With that she left the fishermen to go about their business.

Inferno shivered, his tail flame burning smaller than usual. It was a cold morning, and charmanders lacked the fur coat of say, growlithes. Fire types didn't do well in wet cold regardless. The charmander sneezed and wiped his snout, but didn't show any sign of tiring. Ruby had tried to return him to his pokeball before, but he had refused, likely wanting to be out to help look for his mankey friend. He plodded along beside his trainer.

During breakfast, Racket had seen a wingull with a bag of chips, and despite having food of her own, she wanted those chips. Of course the wingull had flown off, and the little mankey had run after it. She did things like that all the time back home, but this wasn't home! She didn't know her way around. She could easily get lost or worse.

"Excuse me!" Ruby waved at a girl with a vaporeon. "Have you seen a mankey chasing a wingull?"

Chris shrugged her shoulders at the foggy bank, turning to continue walking when Vaporeon nabbed her pant leg between his teeth. Looking down at him, “What is it?” Then Ruby was heard and Chris loosened her hoody-strings with a few tugs on the hood’s insides, “Yes? Oh, a mankey?” Rubbing her hands together for warmth, she scrunched up her eyebrows, “Mm, I don’t think so. But I did pass a cave on the way here..” Holding up a finger, she twisted her pack around and started to dig inside one of its flaps, “Just hold on a second, it’s around here somewhere.”

And then she pulled out an original, and very color-faded, Pokedex. Pressing some buttons, she nodded to herself, holding it up for Ruby to see. On the screen was a picture of a bunch of wingulls hovering around the rock outcropping on top of a large cave, “These things, right? I saw a whole bunch there; probably their main nest.”

Looking the younger trainer over, she smiled some, “Hey, I think I can find the place again and we can look for your mankey there, if you’d like. I was going to head to the Reserve around here, but I think they’ll be fine without me for a bit, poking around.”

Vaporeon was busy melting into a puddle on the moist sand, becoming completely transparent, until Chris made the notion of leaving, to which he reformed again and voiced his agreement, "Meowr!"

Ruby smiled. "That would be helpful, thanks. I'm not from here so I'll definitely need help getting to that cave."

"Cha!" Inferno sneezed, a small ember coming from his nostrils. Ruby turned to him. "And you are going to get sick if this keeps up. You need to go back in." The charmander accepted the pokeball this time, although a bit reluctantly.

As the trainers walked down the beach, Ruby looked at the flocks of wingulls in the distance. "It's amazing how many of them there are here. Back in Kanto, we see them occasionally in Vermillion, but mostly we just see spearows and pidgeys. I guess Racket, that's my mankey, thought she could get food from them like she can back home with our bird pokemon. All they do is kick sand at her and then leave the food. I'm...trying to get her to stop. She doesn't seem to understand manners."

Chris gave a few solid nods, “Oh yeah, no problem. I’m happy to help!” Offering a thumbs up and a confident smile, she bent forward to lick her outstretched thumb. Holding it up to the wind and studying the early morning breeze some, she finally gave a knowing nod, “Okay, this way.” Vaporeon meowed in agreement, and they were off.

Kitty had collected a shell in his mouth as he walked along the beach and Chris led the way with an excited stride, turning around once she was ahead to talk and walk backwards, “Yeah? I don’t think I’ve ever been there. But Kitty and I use to run after pidgey flocks all the time. Spearows are a little more territorial, and, they don’t quite run away when you spook them.”

The fog rolled in from the water’s edge, but Chris didn’t seem to be slowed by the weather. She went ahead even more and could be heard, “Sometimes it’s best to let the Pokemon learn on their own. They’re actually really smart, not, technologically savvy, but with instinct, you know?” Her sandals squished against the sand and sunk, leaving a hasty trail in the sand, but eventually she came back, “Hey! I found it.” She would lead Ruby to the gaping entrance, the inside dark and filled with knee deep water. It was a very deep cave too.

Chris settled her hands on her hips, giving the place a look over, “Probably a way up inside. We just have to find it, right?” She turned her head to Ruby and smiled confidently. Kitty ran to the edge of the cave and started to jump and splash in the water, the sound echoing off the cavern walls.

Deep in the cavern, a mankey sat on a rocky ledge shivering and watching a family of water pokemon swim around in the water below. They were mustelid/weasel creatures, orange colored with tails that acted as propellers. The mankey lost her footing when the ledge crumbled beneath her, and she plummeted into the water, causing the little weasels to scatter and hide behind the big one.

The big one, the mother, blinked the water out of her eyes and chattered curiously. Who was this strange visitor? Didn't look like a cave or water pokemon.

Suddenly the mankey jumped up, shrieking loudly. A dart flew through the air and hit the mother water weasel. She yelped in pain and collapsed in the water. The babies rushed to her side, only to be scared away again as a man in black stepped out from behind a rock. "A shiny floatzel! Its fur should bring in a fortune!" And he picked up the mother floatzel, kicking away the baby buizels trying to protect her.


---

"That was her!" Ruby exclaimed. "That shriek sounded like trouble!" Her boots sank into the muck, but she was picking them up and putting them down as fast as she could.

Following the Mankey's shrieking, the Wingulls and other flying Pokemon scattered over the top of the cave, cawing loudly. Chris had just pulled down her hood to feel the water drip from the rock formations above when she heard it. Her eyes grew wide and she almost swore, bending over to toss her sandals behind her, "Don't worry, cavalry's a coming!"

Unfortunately, Chris's bare foot caught one of the stalagmites jutting upwards in the cave, causing a harsh abrasion. She hopped onto her other foot and tried to continue running towards the sound, "Owch, owch!"Ruby likely moved ahead of her, but she attempted to keep up.

Kitty seemed to have less of a problem with the cave's insides, deciding to hop into the water and swim to the location of the sound. He's fin was still showing as he wiggled back and forth. Chris called from behind, "Get 'em Kitty! Make sure they're safe!" Of course, Chris's and Ruby's voice echoed off of the cavern walls, as well as the splashing of water everywhere.

Racket chattered at the buizels, telling them that she knew how they could save their mom. Her own mother had been terrible. Mankey troops were mean to each other, especially to the ones unfortunate enough to be dubbed low rank by the dominant primeapes. But she had seen how kind that floatzel was to her young, and it broke her heart to think about them never seeing her again.

She told them she had a human friend, a good human, likely looking for her right now. And then the voice of that human echoed through the cave, along with another human voice that sounded friendly. If they hurried, she told them, they could get help before the bad human left.

Meanwhile, Ruby had almost collided with a man running toward the cave entrance. "Watch where you're going, girly!" The man snapped.

"Sorry." Ruby said. "My mankey is in these caves, and sounds like she's in trouble-" And then Racket came running and jumped into her arms. "Racket! You're safe! Thank goodness!"

The four buizels came up behind the man, three hid behind rocks, and the braver one ran up and bit his pant leg, growling. "Shoo! Little pest!" The buizel clamped down with his sharp teeth. "I said shoo!" The man yelled and shook his leg, but the buizel wasn't budging.

Ruby reached for her pokedex in her bag. The machine whirred and clicked. "Buizel. Type: water. They use their tails as propellers to swim. They have flotation sacks around their necks that they can inflate and deflate at will. Their fur is oily and waterproof."

"Never seen one before, eh?" The man stomped down on the buizel's paw. He yelped and ran to hide with his siblings. "Buizel fur is worthless, but the fur of the evolved form, floatzel, is worth a pretty penny."

The man was so busy stepping on the Pokemon, he probably didn't notice Chris picking up a broken piece of a stalagmite and lifting up a leg as a pitcher would. And pitch she did; she pitched that piece straight into his face after yelling out, "Hey, scumbag!"

She scrambled up to Ruby in a heated huff, her hands balled into fists. Looking incredulously at her pokedex, "Now isn't the time for fancy doo-dads. Let's beat him up, show him how he likes it." Kitty was in the water nearby, watching, and waiting.

"Oh, you want a fight?" The man rubbed his face and sneered. "Too bad! Boss won't like to be kept waiting!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a pokeball, but turned out to be a smoke ball. When the smoke cleared, he was gone.

"What a coward." Ruby commented. "Most Team Rocket members are though...did you see his clothes? I'm pretty sure..."

The buizel who had bit the man came forward, his ice blue eyes regarding the humans with curiosity. His throat, chest, belly, and footpaws were white. Racket chattered something to him and pointed at Ruby. He slowly came closer to her, and she crouched and held out her hand for him to sniff it, before cautiously patting his head. "Do...you think this little fella wants to come with us?" Racket jumped up and down and chattered happily. Ruby looked up, the rest of the buizels were swimming into a corner. She looked back at the one in front of her and smiled. "Okay, I'll accept that." Setting her pokedex to more detailed mode revealed the buizel's gender. "I'll call you Splash, that okay?"

Splash raised his head and barked. Ruby smiled. "Welcome to the team!" Racket chattered and clapped her paws. She would have to introduce him to Inferno later. Ruby turned to Chris. "How good are vaporeons at tracking?"

Splash dove into the small puddle and came up with a wallet. He sat it down between Ruby and Chris, barking. "Awesome." Ruby said. "We can use this to find that thug, assuming any of our pokemon have a good enough nose."

Chris pulled up her fists, frowning like she means business, “Yeah, I do!” Then the smokeball hit the nearby rock and she had to retreat, waving her hand in front of her and coughing out, “I’ll..I’ll get you…wherever you are.” Clearing her throat as the smoke dissipated, she looked around and gave a sound of disgust, “Gone.”

Crossing her arms as she looked around the area, “Maybe. I’ve never seen one in person though.” Shrugging, she kept her arms close to her body and her hands in her pockets. She kept shaking her head and silently saying, “Man”. Watching the little water Pokemon do his thing, though, crept a smile into her face, “I’m glad to have helped. Keep him safe for me.”

The question caught Chris off-guard, answering with a low, “Uhh..” But Kitty had popped back into shape from the water’s surface and started to sniff at the wallet. Turning his nose over and over it, he finally snuck his mouth into the wallet and pulled out the yen bills. There was a moment of silence before Chris scratched at the back of her neck and laughed nervously, “Haha…he’s a joker. I mean, I didn’t, well you know. Sometimes, uh, nevermind.”

Clearing her throat, she took the wallet from Kitty’s mouth…pocketing the yen bills, and slipped the expired Poke license from the middle pocket. Holding it up between her fingers, “Looks like our crook is a local. Probably has the same address.” Then while she was looking at the card, she spied a trail of blood in the water. Pocketing the license, “Oh, and there’s that.” She pointed to it, following it with her eyes. It led outside the cave.