[X] My Assistant

[Toogee]

Delayed

This trip is taking a tad longer than I thought. I know Furoh is a huge place, but when you need to get somewhere, the distance seems even larger. I’m not saying that I’m not enjoying it though. I’ve seen some pretty neat places on my journey.

A few days ago, Douken and I visited Loch Ranch, a huge place where your stored pokemon can roam outside. They had all kinds of habitats to suit every resident and even a hatchery. The Loch family was an amazing host. They’ll serve great food, and they’ll give you work if you decide to pay them back. We were picking up eggs to transport back to the hatchery, going to a couple of different habitats. We didn’t even get to the others before the day ended. It’s that huge!

There were a couple of things that surprised me during the visit. One was a visit from Justin. I met him back at Under Hill. He seemed to be in a rough patch when he arrived, but he was in good spirits when he was around...well, me. It’s a bit complicated…

That night, our second surprise came for a visit: a strange group of cultists calling themselves “Darkrai’s Disciples”. They were on some mission to set all the pokemon free and then started this big battle. Luckily, the pokemon had different plans and chased them off. The disturbances caused a tauros stampede that I happened to got stuck in. That’s when Fenrir came to the rescue. He evolved into an arcanine! He’s huge! In fact, he’s big enough to ride on, which makes traveling much easier.
After we departed, there was a snorlax pile-up on one of the roads and we had to find another route. That took a few days out of our journey. Right now, I’m typing this up from a rest stop. I think we’ll be heading out soon.

No more delays! Petropolis, here we come!

-Pan

One hour later…

A storm was coming…

Dark clouds were gathering in the distance. They rolled over each other like ocean waves turned by a tempest. Underneath the clouds, a giant waterfall of rain drops drenched the countryside. Streams of lightning leaped through the sky, illuminating the otherwise dark surroundings. This furious force of nature bellowed with a thousand beasts to let everyone in the vicinity know of its coming. Beautiful in appearance but terrible in power, the thunderstorm marched eastward across Furoh.

Far from its influence, Pan watched the storm through the lens of her camera. She sat upon her arcanine Fenrir, who was reasonably apprehensive of the drenching rainfall making its way towards them. Chi-Chi was the complete opposite: the increased electrical activity in the air made the squirrel pokemon far more active. She stood on her hind legs on top of the arcanine’s head, her cheeks starting to crackle with energy. Poor Lima, however, was clinging onto Pan’s stomach for dear life, terrified of the new sounds and flashes of light. The cleffa had never seen anything like this underground.

“Don’t worry about it. That storm’s still miles away.” The woman took a break from taking pictures in order to stroke the arcanine’s mane with one hand, while wrapping her other arm around her cleffa. Unlike the pokemon, Pan was both amazed and a bit disappointed. She loved being out here to witness this natural wonder, but that meant she would once again be delayed in arriving in Petropolis. There was no way they could travel through its fury.

Their only option would be to rest in a nearby city. This city was in no way a safe haven. It was a land poisoned by the buildup of pollution over the years. The majority of the city was ruled by rowdy gangs and packs of dark pokemon. There was only a fool’s chance that the lives of the remaining citizenry would ever improve, especially after recent events. Even then, the aforementioned citizenry consisted of outlaws, criminals, and outcasts, an unlikely bunch to start the rebirth of this once great city.

Pan and her pokemon stood at the crossroads: one path lead to Petropolis, while the other led to the dilapidated city of Lenoilia. She read from all sorts of travel guides to stay far away from this dangerous place, Furoh’s dark underbelly. She knew there was no choice, but that didn’t mean she had to make the decision alone.

Pan whistled loudly to signal her partner to come back down to earth. Douken Sota had been practicing flight upon his newest capture, a skarmory. So far, there had been more successes than failures, though those failures tend to leave more lasting marks in the form of cuts and bruises. Once Douken landed, Pan approached him and told him of the situation.

“Douken, we’re going to need to take shelter,” Pan said, turning her head to the god-forsaken city of Lenoilia.

[Yzarc Drowsnam]

An unbeatable pokemon. Something didn't sit right with Justin because he had the very distinct feeling that Team Deception might have been behind this. He looked over to Nate to see if he had similar suspicions, and it seemed he did since he looked back over to Justin with the same look. Then when Douken made quite the inspirational speech and insisted he would defeat this pokemon, Justin stood up next to him.

"You know," he said, "Those guys over there," Justin pointed to the three bikers who were sitting on the other side of the pokemon center, the ones who walked Justin and Nate over there and convinced the offensive bikers to leave. "Invited us to talk to their leader, Burro. We may have gotten into a fight at the bar, and I guess they were impressed by Hitmontop. Anyway, this could be a good chance to see what this unbeatable pokemon is like. Maybe give us a chance to get ready in case we gotta fight it. I'll go talk to them, see if you guys can't come along."

When Justin started walking over to the bikers, Nate caught up to him. "Justin, who are those two?" he asked. "I mean, they're not with us right?" By "us" he meant Team Deception. "Don't you think that getting them involved like this could be a bad thing?"

"Was it you or me, Nate, who told two people point blank about what we do?" Justin asked, stopping and facing his partner. "Really, 'cause I'm having a hard time remembering."

"It was, uh," Nate began, but then dropped his head. "Yeah. But dude, that doesn't mean it was okay. It doesn't mean we should go around telling everybody."

"Nate, if I wanted to tell Pan about this whole situation we got goin' on here," Justin said, "I would tell her, straight up. I'm not about to let the leader of the biker gang who took over this city to tell her for me."

"Pan?" Nate asked. "What about Douken?"

"Um, yeah, him too."

"You into her?" Justin didn't answer, just looked over to her, still talking with Douken and Joy and sighed. This was going to turn out exactly like it did with Tina. When she found out he was a professional criminal, she wouldn't want to have anything to do with him. Why would she? She deserved so much better than Justin. She was beautiful and smart and outgoing. Justin was just...Just Justin.

The problem was, there was no coming clean. If he told her point blank, she would bail. If she found out through some other way, she would bail. He needed to either keep this part of his life a secret from her forever, or leave it behind him. But the money was so good.

"Yeah," he nodded finally, "Yeah, I think I am."

"Oh shit," Nate grinned. "Well then, you're talkin' to the right guy. I'm a love machine, Justin."

"Shut up, Nate," Justin shook his head.

"What's up, guys?" the biker who walked them over walked over to them. "You kids ready to go see Burro?"

"Yeah," Justin nodded his head. "Um, we were wondering if we might be able to bring our friends along,"

"Yeah that sounds fine," the biker said, "But they'll have to fight him. Them's the rules, and if they lose, which they will..."

"I'll talk it over with 'em," Justin and Nate walked back across the pokemon center to Pan and Douken. "They'll let us in, but the guy's gonna make you fight him if you come along. Since they're saying the guy will take your pokemon if you lose, I don't think it's a risk worth taking when we don't even know what we're up against. What do you guys think?"