12/30/19

1:00 pm

Fruit Forest

"I feel like Chatot hates me."

The two jobs he gave our group this morning was Sentry Duty—since Diglett and Loudred are on break right now—and the monthly gathering of berries in Fruit Forest—a nearby, one-floor mystery dungeon. Before I had the chance of going with Cord to Sentry Duty, he already assigned Cord and Chris to do that, leaving me and Abby to do the berry job.

So far, we've worked about three hours since we left the guild.

"Lucas, I'm not sure forcing you to do another job does not mean Chatot hates you." Abby looked at me before shaking a tree.

Some berries fell, ranging from a Cheri Berry to Sitrus Berries. It was my job to catch them before they landed on the ground and place them in the large bag we took with us. It was a great way to test my reaction timing, but I was too stubborn to admit that.

I moved to the right to catch two Oran Berries, then moved to the right. "I know that, but I would probably know more Sentry Duty than your brother would know." I caught a Sitrus Berry, placed the three berries in the bag, and turned to Abby. "No offense."

"None taken. Watch out!"

I looked up to see one Pecha Berry splat onto my face. Abby looked at me after she heard the noise and started snickering at me.

"Not funny."

"You got to admit, it looks funny when you look at yourself." At a nearby pond, I took a glance at my face. Pink goo was all around my face, with some seeds nearing my nose.

I admit, I got a kick out of myself.

"This looks stupid." I wiped off the splatted Pecha Berry and placed it on the ground next to the lake. I looked at Abby. "Can we take a break? I'm exhausted."

"Fine." Abby went to me and got two Big Apples she packed in the bag earlier. She gave one of the Big Apples to me and started eating the other one.

I understand why they called it a Big Apple. This thing was probably twice—if not three times—as big as a regular apple. Taking a bite, I started to eat my way around the entire apple until the only the stem and seeds remained of the Big Apple.

Meanwhile, Abby only has eaten about half the apple looking depressed about something. "Something up?" I asked still swallowing the last pieces of the Big Apple.

Abby looked at me with a frown. "I have two things to talk to you about."

I got confused with her saying that. "What things?"

"Well, the first one is about the thing that Cord called 'Turbo Boost.'"

'Oh, boy.' I'm still feeling shaken up from that Bisharp fight yesterday. Maybe it could be the aftereffects of Turbo Boost, but I'm not sure if I'm going to get the answer why.

"What about Turbo Boost?"

Abby explained the effects I had just before I tried to attack Bisharp—the spike in energy, electric sparks, and the change in eye color. I didn't even realize any of this was happening because I was focusing too hard on trying to defeat Bisharp. "And I'm wondering," Abby finished, "do you think we can try to activate that again?"

I scoffed. "That's going to be damn near impossible."

"How so?"

"I've only done Turbo Boost once. And I don't even know how I activated it in the first place."

"I got an idea." Abby stood up and walked toward two rocks separated. "Let's have a race."

I walked to where Abby was. "A race?" I said to her confused.

"Yes, a race. These two rocks are the starting line." She pointed at a tree. "We're going to run to the tree in the distance, turn around, and then come back to the rocks here."

"Fine, let's do it."

I got on four legs, took a deep breath, and waited for the words.

"Ready. Set. Go!" Me and Abby take off. Even though I got to the tree faster, Abby was leading me just before we crossed the finish line.

She obviously won the race.

"Again." She told me. I agreed, and she won the race again by more than two seconds. "Again!" We would continue doing this about ten times until I couldn't even move anymore once Abby started the race. "Lucas, you're killing me here. Again!"

I groaned. 'I can't do this anymore! I'm frustrated, calm, and-.'

Wait.

'Did I say calm? How would I be calm about this? I should be gullible to even consider doing all of this. Unless... It was happening.'

I got back into the starting line, and only placed my right paw on the ground. The left one—along with my left arm—was hanging up in the air. Abby looked at me confused. I only winked as a response. "Ready. Set. Go!!"

I immediately take off on two feet. Not counting time, I was able to hit the tree with my tail—making a mark—and run back to the finish line almost immediately.

Abby didn't even take a step.

"What the?" She turned around confused to start laughing. "Lucas, your eyes!" Going into the pond, I find myself looking at my face.

The eye color was light blue again.

Abby came into my vision by coming right next to me and giving a surprise hug. "We did it!" She shouted. Both of us started laughing out of joy. "We actually did it..." Abby sighed.

"Didn't you had one more thing to tell me?"

"Y-Yeah!" She said still holding onto me. "It about when we stayed the night in Misty Mountain... I lied about what happened that night."

"You did what?!"

"Wait, correction: I didn't lie about that night. But I left one thing out of being embarrassed." Abby started blushing. "And I was wondering if you could tell me what was that you did?"

"Alright..."

"Yes, it did seem like you were having a nightmare. But when I woke you up, you did this." Abby still was holding on to me—which was weird that she still held the same position—and took a deep breath. She immediately moved closer to me, doing something both you and me would never expect.

She kissed me...

On the lips.

I was paralyzed from my head to the tips of my tail. 'What was she doing? Doesn't she know what a kiss is? Wait... Oh, no. I think I kissed her like this in Misty Mountain!

'Crap.'

After a few moments, Abby finally stopped kissing me and let me go, which made me respond to drop down to the grass and back away from her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just trying to process this," I said stammering. What the hell was wrong with me then?

"Did you figure out what it was?"

"I..." I sighed. "I can't tell you now. It's way too embarrassing."

"Oh. Okay..." She gave me a paw for me get back up. "I think our break is done. Let's get back to work." I took the paw to get up, and we agreed to go to work.

Man, Cord's not going to be happy.

***

7:00 pm

Sharpedo Bluff

"You kissed her?!

"I was half asleep, Cord! I didn't know what the fuck I was doing!"

Abby and Chris left Sharpedo Bluff— our new home—to Treasure Town to get all four of us dinner that night. It was a lucky situation, so I told him what happened that night in Misty Mountain.

Needless to say, I wasn't lucky now.

Cord groaned. "This makes our situation even worse..."

I dropped my head. "What do you think I should do now?"

"The only option: you have to tell her."

I turned to Cord. "You can't be serious."

"Lucas, these were the Pokémon Harmony trusted us to cooperate with. You admitted that I got us in this hole, so both of us are going to get out. And the first step is you confessing what happened that night."

"Fine, I'll do it. On one condition."

"What's that?" Cord said confused.

"Tell me how you evolved..." Cord started smirking. "I-It's not what you think! I am just curious, okay?"

"Alright, alright! I'll tell you." Cord came closer to me. "In fact, I'll show you."

Cord placed a paw on my forehead and made a light shine in front of us. Once the light went back into normal, we were standing on pitch black ground. "I can't see, Cord!"

"This is a training mystery dungeon, Lucas. You're going to have to use Power Gauging for this one."

Closing my eyes, I noticed that we were inside a room with columns surrounding an item. The item gave a certain spark of a certain item. "Is that a Thunder Stone?"

"Yes, it is. This takes place a long while before I graduated. The training exercise was to find the Thunder Stone and retrieve the item back to base."

An echo of someone screaming came from the hallway. After the scream subsided, a Pikachu came out of the hallway frustrated. "Cord, is that you?" I whisper to him.

"The younger version of me. I just got into a falling out with my mission partners."

"Stupid teammates. Can't even decide on the path we need to go." Young Cord walked from the path to the middle of the room. He stopped right in front of the Thunder Stone and bent down to inspect it. After touching the item, it broke in half and one part went to the Pikachu. A blue light surrounded it.

"It's happening!" I said excited.

Cord looked at me. "Not exactly..."

The blue light faded away, but something was wrong.

The Pikachu was still a Pikachu. I was confused. "Um, what just happened? Did it work?"

"Oh, it worked alright. The problem was, when I broke the Thunder Stone in half, it triggers a slow process of evolving instead of the instantaneous step that only lasts a few moments." The scene changes to a mess hall the next day with Pokémon all over avoiding Cord, who was eating his breakfast. He still was a Pikachu, but the ears now looked like an Alolan Raichu's. "Now how did I become this version of Raichu? I believe it had to do something with what I was eating now."

Getting a closer look, I see Young Cord eating a large pancake with sizeable holes. 'Wait, why am I calling it a pancake? That's a waffle!'

"They have waffles here?!"

"Technically, these are Universe 2's waffles, but they're still amazing. I can almost taste them from here..." Cord started to salivate.

I looked around to notice everyone in the room look at Young Cord—who was minding his own business. "What about everyone here?"

Cord got back into focus and looked around. "Oh..." He looked at me. "Pokémon—like humans— fear what they don't understand. In a way, it makes us similar to who all of us are. But that same similarity will always drive us apart."

The scene fades back into Sharpedo Bluff where Cord overlooks the blue, murky sea. "After a few days of eating some waffles, I got to the form you see now. Someone taught me how to use Teleport, and I got back to training—like I always did."

I went right next to him. "Are you okay?"

...Those days were the hardest days I had as a Pokémon there. I couldn't take it anymore, and I felt that I was going to run away from everything, like I did to you.

"Cord, those days are over." I placed my paw on his shoulder. "Sure, you did run away from the place, but at the very least we got on probably you and I would say is the weirdest and best adventure I've had in forever."

"We're back!" Abby and Chris both yelled at the two of us. Footsteps can be heard from the stairs.

"Time to keep your end of the bargain."

'Oh, boy...' The two Eevee arrived with a mix ranges of Berries and Apples.

"Abby, um, I think it's time for me to say what I did Misty Mountain." Abby looked at me with a face saying "go on..." I took a deep breath. Let's do this.

I told her the truth.

*Game File Saved*