Weathering The Storm... (A Pokemon OC Story)

Chapter 21: Slaking of the Forest!

Searching through the woods had revealed nothing about Shroomish's family.

It had just led to them wandering around in circles all over Petalburg, Lucas attempting to communicate with any Pokemon nearby to try and help Shroomish. Then, once Shroomish would ask, they'd be left with a disappointing no, and the Pokemon would go away. Now, they had gone so completely off of the track that any direction that they took would get them nowhere closer to anywhere familiar.

Whether that had been due to simply forgetting, or the forest looking essentially identical no matter wherever you went wasn't a matter of discussion for the trio. Only that they had gotten lost somewhere along the way, and needed a way to get back on track.

Ellie had tried her Rotom Phone to pull up any sort of directions, but the damp shade of the leaves above, while great for Pokemon, wasn't so great for her phone's reception. They ended up just having to camp out in a relatively open area of the forest, hoping that tomorrow, they would be able to find a person who could help them find a way through the forest. So, the best they could do was just wait it out in the tent while they waited for it to get dark enough to sleep.

Lucas and Ellie had decided to share a tent as three tents took up a lot more space that they simply didn't have, not that either of them minded that fact at all. In fact, it meant that their Pokemon could get on easier. Torchic and Mudkip practised their moves on each other, constantly colliding with Scratch, Tackle, really any move that didn't make a mess. Zorua occasionally joined in, feeling more confident to try new things, but would typically take more breaks in between the sessions of combining attacks.

Ralts stood on the sidelines of the tent, practising its psychic power on random objects in Ellie's bag. One time, Ralts even grabbed Ellie's notebook, and one of the pages was filled with a purple sort of colour. Lucas wasn't sure what it was but Ellie seemed to know what it was and quickly snatched it up.

"No playing with my notebook, Ralts.", Ellie said, closing the dropped notebook and placing it back in her bag. She then grabbed a pencil case from the bag, taking out a few pencils, "You can use these to practice on though."

Ralts nodded and started levitating the pencils up and down, forwards and backwards. Ellie then stepped back and asked Shroomish, who was watching with a sort of pained expression as every other Pokemon had fun around it,

"Do you wanna have a play with anyone else?"

Shroomish looked to Ellie and violently shook its head. Ellie hadn't expected that much of a no but figured that it was because it wasn't much of a battler itself, judging from its choice to run from the Zigzagoon. But, neither Lucas nor Ellie cared, and Lucas even said,

"Well, there's always tomorrow in case you change your mind."

"GUYS! COME CHECK THIS OUT!", Seijo called out suddenly from outside of their tent, causing the two to quickly get up and jump outside. Torchic and Mudkip followed while the rest of the Pokemon stayed in the tent. They looked outside to find Seijo standing over a relaxed Pokemon, sitting in a starfish formation on the floor. There should have been nothing exceptional about the Normal type sitting on the floor, but since Seijo was a normal type gym leader, they gave the excuse for him to get giddy over it.

"I'm gonna catch it right now.", Seijo said as he grabbed a Pokeball from his bag, almost kicking over the soup he had been making to get there. Then, he lobbed the Pokeball at Slakoth's head, the Pokemon lazily scratching its head as it was sucked into the Pokeball.

The ball rattled three times on the floor before a familiar popping sound played, signifying a successful catch. Seijo grabbed the Pokeball and shrunk it down so that it would fit in his pocket.