Last time on Pokemon: Johto Quest! Our little hero Emily had been through some rough times. Her mother forced her father to leave, thinking that he didn't love her anymore and Emily soon became her mother's punching bag. A long while later, Emily called her mother out on it and from there, the two had decided to try and mend their relationship, with Emily's mother hiring a teaching assistant to make herself feel less stressed.
When the teaching assistant showed up to work, he was sick from an encounter with a Vileplume. Emily was then tasked with picking up medicine for him in Basswood City. When she was getting ready to leave the shop after picking up the medicine, she overheard a conversation about her mom and dad's situation. She started to cry and decided that she wouldn't go home, thinking that she was to blame for their situation. Emily left the city and traveled down Route 49. While traveling down the route, she collided with the ground and passed out. When she awoke, she was greeted to the sight of a light purple Mareep.
From there, Emily and the Mareep, which she now calls Eddy, formed a powerful friendship with one another and are planning on heading to the Lake of Rage, the first stop on their quest to get to the Nidoran region. Will our heroes reach the Lake of Rage? Well, of course they will! They're the main characters! But maybe I, the great and powerful narrator, will be wrong this time around.
Anywho, Eddy and Emily strolled down the soft grassy path that was surrounded by trees that seemed to tower over everything on both sides of the path. The leaves of the trees seemed to be lightly covering the sky above and our heroes felt a gentle breeze brush across their faces.
"So Eddy..." said Emily as Eddy turned his head toward her. "Now that we're traveling to the Nidoran region together, I might as well tell you about my daddy." Emily cleared her throat and let out a short breath. She began to talk about her dad and as she was talking about him, her hands began to wave all over the place and the longer she talked, the more rapid her hand movements became. Emily's face soon lit up and she began to speak faster. Eventually, she found herself giggling as she shared her anecdotes and it soon got to a point where breathing became labored. After some time, Emily's breathing slowed down and she stopped talking for a few moments.
"Oh wait! I got another story about daddy!" Emily exclaimed. "Okay so one time, my daddy was doing some training and these boys came up to him and started throwing Poke Balls at him because they thought he was a Machoke! When my daddy turned around, he stared at the boys and sent them running! Ha Ha Ha! You should've seen their faces, Eddy!" As Emily was talking to Eddy, she heard a faint growling sound and stopped dead in her tracks. "Eddy, what was that?" Emily whispered. Eddy bleated softly as he turned his head from side to side. The two then decided to cautiously traverse the grassy path to avoid provoking whatever was making that growling sound.
A few moments later, they heard the growing sound once again. Only this time, it was louder than before. Eddy looked up at Emily and noticed that the growling sound was coming from her stomach. He then bleated loudly and stood on his hind legs. "What is it, Eddy?" Emily asked. Eddy then put one of his hooves on her stomach and bleated when it rumbled and made that same growling sound from before. "Oh, is that where the growling is coming from?" Emily giggled, "Well, let's go find something to eat then!"
The two ran down the path and soon came across a group of bushes with berries hanging off of them on the inner left side of the path. Two of the bushes were practically covered in blue, oval shaped berries that were the size of golf balls and their stems resembled small silver buttons. The other bushes had a couple types of berries hanging from them. The first type of berry had a lime green colour and round shape. It also seemed as though it was made up of four thick and narrow objects that resembled claws. The second type of berry was pink and adorned with white polka dots. Not only that, but the berry looked as though it was in the shape of a heart.
When they saw how many berries were on the bushes, the two wasted no time and began plucking them off as fast as possible. The two then wolfed down as many berries as they could. As they were doing so, Emily collected the stems from her berries and put them into a neat little pile. A few minutes later, the two felt stuffed and soon after, Emily not only put some of the berries she and Eddy didn't eat in her bag, but she also took the pile of stems and walked over to another bush, where she tossed them onto its branches. Eddy stared at her and bleated loudly. Emily quickly turned her head toward Eddy and let out a short breath immediately after.
"Oh, Eddy! Can you do me a favor and collect all the stems from the berries you ate?" asked Emily. Eddy continued to stare at her for a few moments. "Well, according to The Good Book of Arceus, if you collect all the stems and place them in a bush, Arceus will take those and make new berries with them." Eddy's cone shaped, black and yellow striped ears perked up and he bleated quietly. A few moments later, Eddy walked around and picked up all the stems he could with his mouth and brought them over to Emily. As Emily was tossing the rest of the stems onto the branches of the bush, she and Eddy tensed up and froze as they heard the growling noise once again. "Uh Eddy..." Emily whispered. "Didn't we just eat?" Eddy nodded and Emily gasped.
The pair waited a few moments before the growling subsided and decided to collect their things and tiptoe their way out of the area. As they did so, the growling became louder and the sound of tiny footsteps treading on grass grew more audible as well. At this point, Emily and Eddy's hearts were pounding and their entire bodies grew cold. They gradually went from tiptoeing to speed walking and their breathing began to speed up as they got closer to the grassy path. When they saw the path, the two jumped over the bushes and landed on the grassy surface.
As soon as they did so, they hightailed it down the path as fast as their stubby legs would allow. They didn't make it very far however when a canine-like creature with black fur jumped out of the bushes on the left side of the path. Emily and Eddy began panting loudly and their hearts were beating much faster than ever before. They tried to turn around and run the other way but the canine creature quickly landed on all fours just a few inches in front of them. The creature snarled and barked as it charged towards Emily with all its might and smashed into her, sending the poor kid flying a couple feet into the air. Emily soon crashed into the grassy surface and rolled over for a couple of seconds.
She then found herself face down in the grass breathing softly and heavily. A few moments later, she rolled over and gradually rose to her feet. However, she found it nearly impossible to do so without grunting and gasping from the soreness she felt. Once she rose to her feet, Emily rapidly limped over to a nearby bush but the canine creature once again charged towards her. Emily tried to leap out of the way but the creature opened up its mouth and forcefully bit down on her arm with its powerful fangs. As the creature's fangs punctured Emily's arm, she could feel an extremely painful sensation shooting up her arm like a rocket. Her eyes widened and she screamed at the top of her lungs. The creature then turned its head towards her and snarled as it stared at her with its orange, pupil-less eyes. Emily then looked away and noticed that two streams of blood were trickling down her arm. Emily gasped and shouted, "Eddy, help!"
Just then, the sounds of footsteps grew louder and louder until Emily saw Eddy slam into the creature with its whole body so hard, he sent it flying forward with great speed and the creature had no choice but to let go of Emily's arm. The creature hit the ground hard and rolled over for a brief moment. It soon got back up and lunged at Eddy, who swiftly leapt out of the way. Eddy then sat on all fours and smiled as it let out a high pitched, piercing bleat that distorted the air. The creature stepped back a bit and closed its eyes as it became engulfed in a blue aura with small white arrows running downwards. Meanwhile, Emily pulled off her backpack and slowly opened it. She panted as she rummaged through her bag and soon came across a roll of grey duct tape. She wrapped just enough tape around her arm to cover the wound, ripped the tape off of the roll, and fell to the ground.
The creature once again dashed towards Eddy but this time, it managed to bite off a chunk of his wool. Eddy closed his eyes and bleated as loud as he could. All of a sudden, the creature briefly turned into a silhouette as sparks of all sizes flew across its entire body. The creature rushed towards Eddy one more time but its movements had slowed as the sparks traveled up its legs. Eddy stiffened his body and clenched his teeth. Yellow sparks appeared around Eddy's ears and his entire body soon became engulfed in electricity, which made him glow rather brightly. He took a deep breath in and bleated loudly as he fired a jolt of yellow lightning from the middle of his body.
The jolt struck the creature almost immediately and when it did, it became enveloped in dazzling yellow static. It jerked around as it howled in pain and once Eddy stopped firing the lightning, the creature collapsed onto the ground. Once this happened, Emily sifted through her bag and found a Poke Ball. "Take this, you monster!" Emily growled faintly. She then pulled her arm back and threw the ball with all of her might. The ball slammed into the creature and hovered over it for a brief moment as it opened and let out a red jagged beam of light.
The light quickly consumed the creature and the ball soon closed. It slowly floated down to the ground and sat motionless for a few moments. The ball then wiggled back and forth while a red light in the middle of it flashed on and off. It eventually stopped wiggling and tiny yellow stars flew out of the ball as a clicking noise could be heard. Eddy stood around for a few moments as he panted slowly and stared at the Poke Ball. He then walked over to the ball and picked it up with his mouth.
"Eddy," Emily said softly. Eddy's ears picked up the sound of Emily's voice and skipped over to her. He spit out the ball and bleated loudly. Emily stared at the ball and scratched her head as she noticed that it was now covered in a dull purple film. "Hey, Eddy. Wasn't this ball red and white when I threw it?" Emily asked. Eddy nodded his head and Emily slowly rose to her feet. She stood there shaking for a couple moments as she stared off into space and whimpered.
"Eddy... I think I know why that creature was after us," Emily said solemnly. Eddy bleated and rubbed up against her. "You see, before I met you, I did something terrible, and when a kid like me does something terrible, Arceus notices and takes control of creatures like that to... 'punish' them." She eventually burst into tears and began to limp away quickly, scooping up her bag in the process. "I gotta get home, Eddy! I'm not safe out here!" Emily shouted. A couple seconds later, Eddy charged towards her as fast as he could and tackled her to the ground. Emily laid face down in the dirt as she moaned in pain.
"What was that for!?" Emily whined. Eddy smiled and bleated. "C'mon, Eddy! Get off of me!" she shouted as she flailed her arms and legs. However, Eddy stood as still as a statue and refused to move. A couple of minutes later, Emily stopped flailing and sighed. "You don't want me to go home, do you?" said Emily. Eddy nodded his head and bleated. "Alright then," Emily sighed. Eddy jumped off of her and she gradually rose to her feet.
"You know what, Eddy?" said Emily, "The way you took down that that... creature... for a troublemaker like me was pretty cool. Maybe the world isn't so dangerous with you by my side." From there, the two turned around and started their way up the grassy path. About an hour later, they saw a sign adorned with flowers of all colours. In the middle of it was a white banner that looked like it was written in blue ink and read ‘Welcome to Cedar Village!’. On the left side was a Mareep with golden wool holding the banner with its mouth while the other side had a Mareep with pink wool following suit.
"Look Eddy!" Emily exclaimed as she pointed to the sign. Eddy bleated loudly and the two traversed the grassy path as fast as they could. When the two had passed the sign, they instantly became overwhelmed by a mix of refreshing and pleasurable scents brought on by the flowers, which seemed to be covering every inch of the ground. The two began to aimlessly wander around the village, taking note of various landmarks like the flock of Mareep grazing on the distant hills and the windmills spinning slowly.
Emily was so enamored by the sights and sounds of the village that she accidentally bumped into someone. Upon closer inspection, that 'someone' turned out to be a tall woman wearing a long beige robe with a green robe underneath and a thick, red and white belt running across her stomach. Her hair was as grey as a koala's fur and thin-framed glasses covered her eyes. Not only that, but her face was a bit wrinkly and weather-beaten.
"Why hello there, sweetheart!" the woman loudly cooed as she looked down at Emily. "Did you need something?"
"Actually, Eddy and I were looking for somewhere to rest." Emily replied.
"Eddy?" the woman asked as she tilted her head slightly.
"Yeah. He's this Mareep that has glittery, slightly purple wool and he saved me from this dog creature who bit me right on my arm!" Emily explained as she pointed to the duct tape covered area on her arm. "Speaking of Eddy, where is he?" Emily asked, moving her head from side to side. The woman kneeled down and examined the tape closer.
"Why, that's no way to dress a wound!" the woman said. As she was looking at the tape, Eddy skipped down the street with an empty cyan and orange candy wrapper in its mouth. The woman turned her head towards him and gasped as she began to grin. "Is this the famous Eddy I've been hearing about?!" the woman giggled as she looked at him.
"Yes, ma'am! The one and only!" Emily said with a big smile on her face. "By the way, what's that in his mouth?" She pointed to Eddy and the woman pulled the wrapper out of his mouth.
"Oh! I see he's found himself a RageCandyBar! Very few Mareep can stomach these, you know!" the woman replied. "Why don't you two come with me? Maybe I can do something about that wound there."
The woman began walking away with Emily and Eddy following behind her. They eventually found themselves standing in front of a single story cottage with a dark grey tiled roof and beige wooden siding. There was a small chimney in the middle of the roof and the door, along with the shutters, was dyed a dark blue colour. Not only that but, there were at least several bushes lined up underneath the windows.
When the group headed inside, Eddy and Emily were told by the woman to sit on the couch while she went and got her first aid kit. A few moments later, the woman came back with the kit and kneeled down. She opened up the kit and pulled out a pair of small scissors.
"Ma'am," said Emily, "Eddy got a chuck of his wool ripped off by the dog." The woman put the scissors down and examined Eddy's fleece thoroughly.
"What are you talking about, sweetie? There's not a single bare patch to be found!" the woman laughed, "By the way, you can call me Martha if you want."
"What? That's impossible!" Emily gasped.
"Oh please, honey! If a Mareep can grow back its entire fleece in about a week, it shouldn't take that long to fill in a tiny bare patch with new wool." Martha chuckled.
"How do you know that?" Emily asked.
"Well, when you've been a Mareep farmer for as long as I have, you tend to notice these things," Martha replied as she began cutting the duct tape around Emily's arm.
"You're a Mareep farmer?" Emily asked as her eyes widened.
"Used to be. Though, I just moved in here about a decade ago. You see, I used to own a Mareep farm back in Sinnoh. The wool there was in pretty big demand, you know... being a colder region and all," Martha said as she placed the scissors back in the kit. "Anyway, a lot of my days on the farm were pretty laid back. But there was one day in particular that I'll never forget." Martha got out a couple of cotton balls and a bottle of saline and poured the solution onto one of the cotton balls. Once she did that, she scrubbed the wound thoroughly.
"Wow! That looks much better!" Emily exclaimed as she stared at the clean wound.
"Thank you, sweetie. As I was saying, one day I was working on the farm attending to my usual chores, like taking the Mareep out to graze and giving a bath to the Mareep who like rolling in the mud too much. Suddenly, I hear a couple of cars rolling up to the barn. I go out to see what the deal is and out jumps these guys and gals wearing the puffiest wool sweaters in the world! I asked if they needed any help and one of them said to me, 'The Mareep... Hand 'em over!' I said that the Mareep weren't for sale and you know what they did next? They told me that I was hurting the Mareep and that I was a scumbag for doing so. They also said that no one says no to the Mareep Liberation League and threatened to take them and release them into the wild. Then, I... got a little angry and said that I treated my Mareep like royalty and said that gimme gimme never gets.
Well, let's just say they didn't like that too much and pushed me over and charged into the barn like there was no tomorrow! They scooped up those poor little Mareep and shoved them into their cars. I jumped to my feet and called upon my Ampharos to take care of those... um... well, I wasn't going to say this front of a little one like you but... those d-bags. Once the... d-bags... were taken care of, I told Ampharos to use Thunderpunch to break the car windows and the next thing you know, I see all of the Mareep leaping out of the cars and trotting right back into the barn. After that, I didn't feel comfortable with my Mareep being on that farm. So, when I heard that they were clearing land in Johto, I took as many Mareep as I could and built a little farm here. Soon, the farm grew and eventually became the village you see today," Martha explained as she wrapped Emily's wound up in medical tape.
Emily sat there in silence looking down at the floor. "Sorry about your Mareep," Emily sighed.
"Oh that's okay. It's not your fault." Martha said softly. "Oh! I almost forgot." Martha said, "How in the world did you get that wound?" Emily told Martha that she got bit by the canine creature in the forest outside of the village.
"Canine? What kind of canine?" Martha exclaimed. Emily reluctantly described each detail of the creature's appearance to the best of her ability. Martha's eyes widened and she gasped loudly.
"Ooh. It sounds like you had an encounter with a Houndour." Martha whimpered.
"What? I thought they were just made up creatures from a book!" Emily shouted.
"I wish they were. But unfortunately, they're really out there. In fact, I remember something like happening a long time ago," Martha said. Emily looked at a clock that resembled a cream coloured cat with a oval shaped gold coin in the middle of its forehead on the wall and gasped. She saw that the big hand was pointed at twelve while the little hand was pointed at five. She sprung up from the couch and signaled Eddy to do the same as she walked towards the door.
"I don't mean to be rude," Emily said, "but we gotta go if we want to get to the Lake of Rage before dark."
"Are you sure you can't stay for just one more minute? This story I was gonna tell is really important," Martha replied.
"Okay. If you insist." Emily sighed as she and Eddy walked back to the couch. The two plopped themselves on the couch and Martha began to clear her throat.
"A couple of years ago, there was this one boy in the village named Gerald. He was such a sweetheart this boy. Why, it seemed like he was helping me take care of my Mareep every other day! Oh, and the Mareep loved Gerald, probably because he was just as mild mannered as they were. I think that's also why his parents gave him so much attention. Anyway, one time the mother's niece, named Fiona, came by to visit for a week or two since she missed them. When Fiona was there, she had the undivided attention of Gerald's parents with tales of her experience being a gym leader in a far off region.
However, Gerald became depressed and tried everything he could think of to get his parent's attention. He did more chores than he needed to do, helped out his neighbors, and even studied harder than ever for school. Unfortunately, it didn't do much to distract his parents from Fiona so he had no choice but to get attention in... destructive ways. He stole from the local shops, vandalized gardens, and scared flocks of Mareep away. One night, he decided to stay up past his curfew and roam around the outskirts of the village. As he was doing so, a Houndour jumped out of the bushes and tackled him to the ground. It slashed his arms and legs and its bite punctured Gerald's neck. He screamed as loud as he could until he could see Fiona running towards him. She took a Poke Ball off of her belt and threw it into the air."
"'Come on out, Egon!' Fiona shouted as she threw the ball."
"The ball froze in the air and opened up. A red jagged beam had emerged from it and a few seconds later, a Flygon had materialized."
"'Egon! Earthquake, now!' Fiona commanded."
"Immediately after, Egon's red eye coverings resembled brightly lit light bulbs as they glowed intensely. Egon tightened his entire body and shot up into the air like a rocket. As he descended, he became engulfed in a thin, orange veil. As he got closer towards the ground, Egon closed all the fingers on his right hand to form a fist and as soon as he hit the ground, his fist dug into the earth, resulting in the entire area shaking violently.
Thankfully, that Houndour fainted and Fiona recalled Egon. She then carried Gerald home and told his parents what happened. When Gerald woke up, his mom asked him if he did anything that might've attracted the Houndour, such as doing bad things. He said yes and his parents told him that he was lucky he survived. They reminded him that doing bad things will cause Arceus to send Houndour after him. After Fiona's visit, Gerald started to gradually transform into a Houndour, unbeknownst to his parents. When he tried to tell his parents what happened, all he could do was bark. Unfortunately, his parents chased him away, thinking it was the Houndour that attacked their son, and ever since then, no one knows where Gerald went."
Emily sat there in silence. Eddy then trotted over to Emily and laid down on her lap.
"Wait. How do you know all of this?" Emily asked.
"This whole thing was the talk of the town. I think I even recall Gerald's parents asking me where their son went," Martha replied.
"Well. That whole story happened a long time ago. Surely there must be a way to fix it by now! Right?" Emily asked.
"There is. However, it's still in the early stages," Martha said somberly.
"I did a bad thing and got bit too. Does that mean I'm going to transform?" Emily asked as she tried to hold back her tears. Martha stared at Emily and nodded her head up and down.
"I'm afraid so. Don't know when though," said Martha. Emily started to sob and Eddy rubbed up against her. A few moments later, Martha hugged her as she gently patted her head. Just then, the cat clock faintly chimed. This time, the big hand was pointed at twelve while the little hand was pointed at six.
"So that clock finally managed to chime, huh?" Martha said as she turned her head towards the clock. "Well, I guess you two are heading on you way now."
"Uh, yeah. Though, we were planning on visiting the Pokemon Center before we leave. Do you know where it is?" Emily said. Martha told her that it was down the street on the left hand side.
Emily slowly got up from the couch and bid farewell to Martha as the two made their way to the Pokemon Center. For almost the entire way, Emily walked slowly and hung her head down. She stared at the ground, paying no attention to the beautiful sunset on her lefthand side. Pretty soon, the duo had reached the Pokemon Center.
----
Back on Route 49, a woman wearing short heeled shoes, white gloves, and a cyan and navy blue police uniform was zooming through the forest on her white motorbike. All of a sudden, her cell phone started to ring and she immediately pulled over to answer it.
"Hello. Officer Jenny here. How may I help you?" the woman asked.
"Jenny, did you find Emily yet?" asked Walter.
"I just left Basswood and a couple of people said that while they did see her, they had no idea where she was heading," Jenny replied.
"Well, I don't think she could've gotten far. Did you try looking in Cedar Village yet?" Emily's mother asked.
"Don't worry, ma'am. I'm heading over there right now." said Jenny. She put the phone back into her pocket and hopped onto the bike.
----
When Emily and Eddy got inside the center, they noticed that the interior of the facility was covered in waxy linoleum flooring. Tables, chairs, and couches were scattered all over the place and in between two escalators was a long marble counter with a giant Poke Ball hovering over it. A laptop could be seen sitting on a night stand to the right side of the counter. Not only that, but there were quite a few people lined up at the counter and Emily and Eddy decided to join them. The line moved fast and soon it was Emily's turn to heal her Pokemon. However, much like the counter at Basswood's Poke Mart, it was way too tall for her to see over it.
Emily kneeled down and whispered into Eddy's ear, "Psst. Eddy. Can you give me a boost? I can't reach the top of the counter." Eddy stood next to her for a few moments, thinking of how he could help Emily reach the top of the counter. Just then, Eddy's face lit up. He got in front of Emily and laid down on the floor. Emily then stepped onto Eddy's back and waved her hand in the air, as she still had trouble seeing over the counter.
"Excuse me!" she cried out. However, she got no response from the other side of the counter.
"Excuse me!" Emily repeated with a louder tone of voice. Again, she got no response.
"Excuse me--- Oh for Pete's sake!" Emily growled. She stepped off of Eddy's back and walked over to one of the tables, grabbing a magazine in the process. She returned to the counter and waved the magazine back and forth like a flag, hoping to get someone's attention. Eventually, Emily heard footsteps approaching the counter. When the footsteps stopped, a pink haired woman wearing a lab coat and a white cap with a red cross on it, leaned over the counter and stared at Emily.
"Hello, and welcome to the Pokémon Center. We restore your tired Pokémon to full health. Would you like to rest your Pokémon?" the woman asked with a smile on her face.
"Sure," Emily replied.
"OK, I'll take your Pokémon for a few seconds," the woman said. Emily pulled the dull purple Poke Ball from her pocket and held it in the air until the woman grabbed it. Emily stepped off of Eddy's back and told Eddy to go with the woman to get healed. He then walked around the counter until he found a way to get to the other side of it. The woman put the ball in a blue and white machine that looked like a bed. After that, she picked up Eddy and opened the door in front of her. She then handed Eddy over to a pink, egg shaped creature with a pouch attached to its belly filled by a smaller white egg and shut the door. The woman turned on the machine and a low humming sound could be heard for at least a few seconds followed by a dinging noise.
She grabbed the ball off of the machine and just as she was about to hand it to Emily, she noticed the bandages on her arm.
"Woah! What happened to your arm?" the woman gasped.
"Um... I'd rather not talk about it," Emily said meekly.
"Oh. Um. Okay then. But if it's anything like what happened to Gerald..." Before the woman could finish what she was saying, Emily cut in.
"You know the Gerald story too?" Emily asked with astonishment.
"Yeah. Martha told me about it," the woman replied quietly. She then shuddered and froze for a few moments. These moments soon turned into minutes as she continued to stand behind the counter without moving. Eventually, the egg shaped creature opened the door behind the woman and waddled over to her, carrying Eddy in its short, stubby arms. The creature called out to the woman but unfortunately, it got no response. It tried tugging on the woman's lab coat but she just continued to stand there and do nothing. At that point, the creature placed Eddy on the counter and stormed off into the back room, slamming the door behind it.
Immediately afterwards, the woman snapped out of her frozen state and suddenly blurted out, "Thank you for waiting. We've restored your Pokémon to full health. Please, come back again any time!" She then shoved Eddy into Emily's arms and dropped the Poke Ball on her head, causing her to flinch. Emily gently placed Eddy down on the floor and bent over to pick up the Poke Ball. After that, the two held their breath as they stared at the woman and slowly backed away from her. Once they were at least a couple of feet away, the duo made a mad dash out of the Pokemon Center and never looked back.
Once outside, the two continued to sprint as fast as they could and soon reached a pale wooden sign with the words "Now Leaving Cedar Village and the Johto Colonies" written on it with purple ink. After they passed that sign, they passed another sign that said "Route 50" on it.
----
A little while later, Jenny approached the Cedar Village sign and entered the sleepy village. A few moments later, she decided to find a place to park her bike and settled on parking it on the side of a wooden booth. Just like in Basswood, Jenny wasted no time and started going from person to person, holding up a missing person's poster with Emily's picture and other information and asking if they had seen her. At first, she seemed to have no luck, with most of the responses ranging from "Nah. Never seen her," to "What an adorable kid!" However, she decided to travel up the hills to see if anyone was at the top. To her surprise, she saw a bald, lanky, overall clad man herding a flock of Mareep into a nearby barn.
"Excuse me, sir!" Jenny called out.
"Hello there, Jenny. How are ya?" the man said with enthusiasm.
"Well, frustrated to say the least. I'm trying to find a little girl named Emily Hawthorne. I've searched all over the colonies and so far, no one seems to know where she is!" Jenny ranted. She sighed deeply and rubbed her temples. "Silly question but... you wouldn't have happened to see her around, right?" Jenny asked. She handed him the poster, hoping that the information it contained would jog his memory.
"Nah. Can't say that I have. But, maybe Martha might know something," the man replied. Jenny asked where she would find Martha.
"At the bottom of the hill is a cottage with several bushes lined up underneath the windows. You find the cottage, you'll find Martha," the man said as he aimlessly pointed his finger around. Jenny thanked the man and went to find the cottage. She ran down the steep hill and even found herself rolling down it a couple of times. Once she reached the bottom, Jenny wasted no time and searched the village for the cottage. It took her at least fifteen minutes to find it and when she did, she immediately knocked on the door. A couple moments later, Martha opened her door and greeted Jenny.
Jenny huffed and puffed as she opened up her satchel and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She then unfolded it and held it up to Martha's face.
"This girl... Have you seen her?" Jenny panted. Martha swiftly grabbed her reading glasses off of the kitchen counter and put them on as she walked over to Jenny. Martha examined the paper thoroughly, staring at the photo for a few good moments and reading over the information at least several times. Martha's eyes lit up and she told Jenny that Emily and her Mareep just left her house on the way to the Pokemon Center.
"Sheep!" Jenny replied as she looked up to the sky and shook her fist.
"Huh?" Martha responded.
"Um well. Uh. You see. Uh," Jenny stuttered. Not long after, Jenny took off running towards the Pokemon Center. Martha's eyes briefly darted from left to right before slowly backing away and closing her door.
----
Meanwhile on Route 50, Eddy and Emily found themselves completely surrounded by darkness and the sound of chirping crickets.
"Geez, Eddy. How it get dark so fast? I can barely see a thing for crying out loud!" said Emily. Just then, Eddy started to build up electricity until an orb at the end of his tail began to glow. Emily stared at the light in awe.
"Wow! I didn't know you had an orb at the end of your tail!" Emily exclaimed, "Thanks, Eddy! That's gonna make things so much easier for us!" The orb glowed a dark yellow colour and emitted a steady stream of heat, which made our heroes feel all the more comfortable as the air around them became chillier. As they made their way down the route, they heard a deep purring sound that seemed to be coming from behind them. The two began to walk faster as their hearts accelerated. As they were walking, the purring sound gradually became more audible, which forced Eddy and Emily to walk faster and faster until they were practically running. Eventually, they decided to leap into the bushes and wait for the sound to be out of their vicinity.
Eddy stopped the orb from glowing and the two huddled together, trying to keep each other warm. A few minutes later, the purring sound whizzed past them and quickly became quieter and quieter until it could no longer be heard. As soon as the sound was completely gone, the two jumped out of the bushes and booked it down the route as fast as possible. They were able to keep this up for about an hour.
However, as Emily and Eddy were getting closer to a nearby clearing, they found that their vision was becoming increasingly blurry and their walking speed became slower.
"Finally, a clearing! Hopefully there's a safe place up there where we can spend the night," said Emily as she yawned immediately afterward. After what had seemed like an eternity, the two entered the clearing and found it to be mostly taken over by a huge lake. Not long after, Eddy spotted a few bright lights coming from a nearby cabin. Upon this discovery, the duo got a burst of energy and had just enough strength to lightly jog over to the cabin.
When they arrived, Emily weakly knocked on the door three times. A few moments later, the door creaked open and a tall, slightly muscular boy with unkempt brown hair stood within the door frame, struggling to keep his eyes open. At the same time, he exhaustedly said,
"For the last time, I don't want any of your RageCandyBa--" while rubbing his eyes before peering down and seeing Emily and Eddy instead of the RageCandyBar salesman he was expecting to see. "What are you two doing out so late in the middle of nowhere?" the boy asked. Emily explained that they saw his cabin lights in the distance and thought it was a good place to spend the night.
"Oh yeah," the boy said. "Sorry about the lights but I had no choice but to use them to keep those awful HootHoot away! Think they can try and ruin my sleep with their constant hooting, huh? Well, I think I know who got the last laugh! Oh. Uh. Forgive me, I tend to ramble when I'm tired. Please, do come in."
Emily and Eddy wasted no time finding a comfortable place to lay down. In the living room, there was a white leather couch that had already been converted into a bed, presumably by the boy to keep a closer eye out for any HootHoot brave enough to venture into the lighted areas. Emily quickly buried herself under the mountains of blankets and plopped her head on a puffy red silk pillow. Eddy jumped up on the couch and curled up into a ball.
When Emily had drifted off to sleep, she found herself dressed in what appeared to be a kimono covered in a Poke Ball pattern at a carnival with Eddy. The sheer brightness of the carnival's neon lights popped against the navy blue night sky. The carnival had all sorts of Pokémon themed booths and other fun looking attractions. One attraction in particular was a spicy wing eating contest called "The Charizard Challenge" where contestants would compete to see who could eat the most wings and win not only a prize of 25,000 Poken, but also receive an Eevee with the evolutionary stone or shard of their choice. When Emily came across the attraction, her eyes immediately lit up.
"Wow! You mean I get to eat as much spicy food as I want?! Sign me up!!" exclaimed Emily as she rapidly jumped up and down.
Emily sprinted over to the stage where the attraction was and hurriedly signed her name on the contestant sign-up sheet. A while later, she found herself sitting with a few other contestants on stage with a crowd of what seemed like hundreds of people watching and cheering for certain contestants to win. As soon as it was time to start eating the wings, Emily scarfed down as many as she could fit in her tiny mouth and for a short time, it seemed like she was ahead of the other contestants. Eventually, her face had turned redder than an apple as sweat started pouring down her face in what seemed like buckets. She also started to have trouble breathing as her breath kept speeding up more and more to a point where it stopped for a few seconds before Emily took a deep breath in and let out a scream. However, when Emily screamed, a thick cloud of fire was released from her mouth and onto the crowd, which sent everyone scrambling from the stands.
Emily followed suit and run off of the stage as fast as she could. While running, she collapsed and found herself struggling to get up. A few moments later, Eddy caught up with Emily and helped her try and stand up for a bit. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in both of her wrists. When she looked down, she noticed that she had what looked like thick silver wristbands squeezing her wrists so hard that her head started to throb. She tried moving the bands left and right as though she were opening up a soda bottle, hoping to get them off but that only worsened her pain and made her wrists turn red. She tried prying them off with a thin metal rod from one of the booths but the rod snapped in two rather easily. She even had Eddy try and shock them in order to turn them to dust. Despite the effort however, the bands still stayed on her wrists. Just then, she felt another sharp pain in both her ankles and fell to the ground.
She quickly turned around to see that the exact same silver bands that were on her wrists were also on her ankles. Emily had let out an ear piercing scream as two silver crescent shaped stripes had slowly ripped out of her back. As she was struggling to get up, Emily was shocked to find that her ears were starting to shrink and had seemingly disappeared. However, while trying to alleviate her headache by massaging her temples, she had discovered that she now had big pointy ears that were only a few inches apart.
Unfortunately, rather than help reduce the pain of Emily's headache, the massage had instead made a small, skull shaped mask that took up most of her T-zone area, pop out of her forehead. Not only that, but a small and pointy tail also seemed to quickly form. The bottom half of her face wasn't much better as fangs seemed to be growing just enough so they would be visible on the outside of her mouth. She also noticed that the bottom half of her face was slightly stretching outwards and gradually turning a bright orange colour. She once again looked down at her wrists and ankles to find that they had become paws. As that point, Emily's vision became blurry and the only way she was able to breathe was by slowly heaving in and out.
"Please. No more. Please! Arceus. Why would you. Let this this happen? Please! Save me!" Emily begged as she burst into tears. Just when Emily thought it couldn't get any worse, her skin became increasingly fuzzier and darker to the point where it was now the colour of coal. A little while later, Emily had lost her balance and fell to the ground once again. Only this time, however, she found herself standing on all fours and it was nearly impossible to stand upright for long periods of time. When she looked around, she saw that Eddy was nowhere to be found. Emily called out for him but her ability to talk was slowly replaced by nothing more than barks and snarls. At first, she seemed to have trouble walking on all four legs. However, she quickly adapted to it and dashed off.
She scampered around the carnival grounds desperately searching for Eddy, all while avoiding the security guards and other brave carnival participants who were beginning to chase after her. Emily had toppled over trashcans and even entire carnival booths in a last ditch effort to shake the persistent crowd. Unfortunately, this didn't do much to stop them and thus Emily had no choice but to shoot fire from her mouth once again. She tightened her entire body, took a deep breath in, and let out a flame filled shriek around the small area of toppled over objects. The flames had spread from the toppled over objects to other parts of the area rather quickly and the crowd had run away from the blaze, which gave Emily plenty of time to make her escape.
She continued to shoot fire from her mouth to keep the crowd off her tail but she soon learned that the fires she started had turned into a giant inferno that was becoming harder to outrun than the crowd. As the inferno was getting ready to close in on her, a loud splashing noise enveloped her and she felt as though she had slammed into a soft surface.
Emily shot out from underneath the covers and howled as loud as she could. Her howling had roused everyone from their deep slumber as Eddy was quickly looking around and the boy rushed downstairs carrying a blue and white ball with red bumps on the top in his hand. A couple moments later, he turned his head towards Emily and walked over to her.
"Are you alright? What's going on?" the boy asked.
"Am I still a human?" Emily replied.
"Of course you are. Why would you say that?" The boy chuckled as he rubbed Emily's head. Emily told him about the nightmare she had. She also told him about her encounter with the Houndour as well as information Martha told her about the creature.
"Here, come with me," the boy said. He and Emily made their way up the stairs into a small bedroom. The boy turned on the light and strolled over to a wooden nightstand next to the bed. He slid the top drawer of the nightstand and rummaged through it for at least a few seconds.
"A-ha!" the boy whispered excitedly. He pulled out a silver bracelet with a crescent shaped green and yellow feather on it and walked over to Emily.
"I found this on one of my fishing trips. It may not prevent that whole transformation thing, but it should get you through the night," the boy explained as he put the bracelet on Emily's wrist. He then rubbed her head and the two went back to bed. The next morning, the boy, Emily, and Eddy sat around a steel table, enjoying bowls of cereal together.
"So, what are you two doing all the way out here?" the boy asked as he stuffed his face with cereal.
"Me and Eddy were heading to the Nidoran region, but we needed a place to rest. Don't you remember asking us that last night?" Emily responded.
"Nidoran region. Nidoran region," the boy whispered as he stroked his chin. He kept stroking his chin for at least a minute before he finally gave Emily a response.
"Oh. I think I know what you mean," the boy said. "Well if you're heading out that far, you may wanna consider doing some serious training!" Emily pulled off the bracelet and slid it over to the boy.
"Training? How do I do that?" Emily asked.
"That's up to you to decide. You can battle more wild Pokemon like that Houndour you told me about or you could do something more... challenging." the boy said as he grabbed the bracelet.
"Challenging?" Emily replied.
"Yeah like..." the boy said. Before the boy could finish his sentence, a brown, round owl with a scar running diagonally across its left eye and the right side of its crest missing perched itself on one of the outside window sills and began to peck at the glass. The boy jumped up from his chair and looked out the window to see the owl.
"Back for more, eh? You got some serious guts coming out in the daylight!" the boy shouted. He unclipped the blue and white ball from his belt and dashed outside. Emily stiffened up and sat motionless for at least half a minute.
"You wanna get out of here?" Emily whispered as she leaned closer to his left ear. Eddy nodded and the two immediately bolted out of the house and headed towards the gate leading out of the Lake of Rage.
You see, guys! I told you our heroes would make it to the Lake of Rage! Sure they may be scarred for life but... they didn't die and that, in my book, is a happy ending. Will the journey for our heroes be any better once they leave the Lake of Rage? I don't know! But I still urge you to find out next time on Pokemon: Johto Quest!
When the teaching assistant showed up to work, he was sick from an encounter with a Vileplume. Emily was then tasked with picking up medicine for him in Basswood City. When she was getting ready to leave the shop after picking up the medicine, she overheard a conversation about her mom and dad's situation. She started to cry and decided that she wouldn't go home, thinking that she was to blame for their situation. Emily left the city and traveled down Route 49. While traveling down the route, she collided with the ground and passed out. When she awoke, she was greeted to the sight of a light purple Mareep.
From there, Emily and the Mareep, which she now calls Eddy, formed a powerful friendship with one another and are planning on heading to the Lake of Rage, the first stop on their quest to get to the Nidoran region. Will our heroes reach the Lake of Rage? Well, of course they will! They're the main characters! But maybe I, the great and powerful narrator, will be wrong this time around.
Anywho, Eddy and Emily strolled down the soft grassy path that was surrounded by trees that seemed to tower over everything on both sides of the path. The leaves of the trees seemed to be lightly covering the sky above and our heroes felt a gentle breeze brush across their faces.
"So Eddy..." said Emily as Eddy turned his head toward her. "Now that we're traveling to the Nidoran region together, I might as well tell you about my daddy." Emily cleared her throat and let out a short breath. She began to talk about her dad and as she was talking about him, her hands began to wave all over the place and the longer she talked, the more rapid her hand movements became. Emily's face soon lit up and she began to speak faster. Eventually, she found herself giggling as she shared her anecdotes and it soon got to a point where breathing became labored. After some time, Emily's breathing slowed down and she stopped talking for a few moments.
"Oh wait! I got another story about daddy!" Emily exclaimed. "Okay so one time, my daddy was doing some training and these boys came up to him and started throwing Poke Balls at him because they thought he was a Machoke! When my daddy turned around, he stared at the boys and sent them running! Ha Ha Ha! You should've seen their faces, Eddy!" As Emily was talking to Eddy, she heard a faint growling sound and stopped dead in her tracks. "Eddy, what was that?" Emily whispered. Eddy bleated softly as he turned his head from side to side. The two then decided to cautiously traverse the grassy path to avoid provoking whatever was making that growling sound.
A few moments later, they heard the growing sound once again. Only this time, it was louder than before. Eddy looked up at Emily and noticed that the growling sound was coming from her stomach. He then bleated loudly and stood on his hind legs. "What is it, Eddy?" Emily asked. Eddy then put one of his hooves on her stomach and bleated when it rumbled and made that same growling sound from before. "Oh, is that where the growling is coming from?" Emily giggled, "Well, let's go find something to eat then!"
The two ran down the path and soon came across a group of bushes with berries hanging off of them on the inner left side of the path. Two of the bushes were practically covered in blue, oval shaped berries that were the size of golf balls and their stems resembled small silver buttons. The other bushes had a couple types of berries hanging from them. The first type of berry had a lime green colour and round shape. It also seemed as though it was made up of four thick and narrow objects that resembled claws. The second type of berry was pink and adorned with white polka dots. Not only that, but the berry looked as though it was in the shape of a heart.
When they saw how many berries were on the bushes, the two wasted no time and began plucking them off as fast as possible. The two then wolfed down as many berries as they could. As they were doing so, Emily collected the stems from her berries and put them into a neat little pile. A few minutes later, the two felt stuffed and soon after, Emily not only put some of the berries she and Eddy didn't eat in her bag, but she also took the pile of stems and walked over to another bush, where she tossed them onto its branches. Eddy stared at her and bleated loudly. Emily quickly turned her head toward Eddy and let out a short breath immediately after.
"Oh, Eddy! Can you do me a favor and collect all the stems from the berries you ate?" asked Emily. Eddy continued to stare at her for a few moments. "Well, according to The Good Book of Arceus, if you collect all the stems and place them in a bush, Arceus will take those and make new berries with them." Eddy's cone shaped, black and yellow striped ears perked up and he bleated quietly. A few moments later, Eddy walked around and picked up all the stems he could with his mouth and brought them over to Emily. As Emily was tossing the rest of the stems onto the branches of the bush, she and Eddy tensed up and froze as they heard the growling noise once again. "Uh Eddy..." Emily whispered. "Didn't we just eat?" Eddy nodded and Emily gasped.
The pair waited a few moments before the growling subsided and decided to collect their things and tiptoe their way out of the area. As they did so, the growling became louder and the sound of tiny footsteps treading on grass grew more audible as well. At this point, Emily and Eddy's hearts were pounding and their entire bodies grew cold. They gradually went from tiptoeing to speed walking and their breathing began to speed up as they got closer to the grassy path. When they saw the path, the two jumped over the bushes and landed on the grassy surface.
As soon as they did so, they hightailed it down the path as fast as their stubby legs would allow. They didn't make it very far however when a canine-like creature with black fur jumped out of the bushes on the left side of the path. Emily and Eddy began panting loudly and their hearts were beating much faster than ever before. They tried to turn around and run the other way but the canine creature quickly landed on all fours just a few inches in front of them. The creature snarled and barked as it charged towards Emily with all its might and smashed into her, sending the poor kid flying a couple feet into the air. Emily soon crashed into the grassy surface and rolled over for a couple of seconds.
She then found herself face down in the grass breathing softly and heavily. A few moments later, she rolled over and gradually rose to her feet. However, she found it nearly impossible to do so without grunting and gasping from the soreness she felt. Once she rose to her feet, Emily rapidly limped over to a nearby bush but the canine creature once again charged towards her. Emily tried to leap out of the way but the creature opened up its mouth and forcefully bit down on her arm with its powerful fangs. As the creature's fangs punctured Emily's arm, she could feel an extremely painful sensation shooting up her arm like a rocket. Her eyes widened and she screamed at the top of her lungs. The creature then turned its head towards her and snarled as it stared at her with its orange, pupil-less eyes. Emily then looked away and noticed that two streams of blood were trickling down her arm. Emily gasped and shouted, "Eddy, help!"
Just then, the sounds of footsteps grew louder and louder until Emily saw Eddy slam into the creature with its whole body so hard, he sent it flying forward with great speed and the creature had no choice but to let go of Emily's arm. The creature hit the ground hard and rolled over for a brief moment. It soon got back up and lunged at Eddy, who swiftly leapt out of the way. Eddy then sat on all fours and smiled as it let out a high pitched, piercing bleat that distorted the air. The creature stepped back a bit and closed its eyes as it became engulfed in a blue aura with small white arrows running downwards. Meanwhile, Emily pulled off her backpack and slowly opened it. She panted as she rummaged through her bag and soon came across a roll of grey duct tape. She wrapped just enough tape around her arm to cover the wound, ripped the tape off of the roll, and fell to the ground.
The creature once again dashed towards Eddy but this time, it managed to bite off a chunk of his wool. Eddy closed his eyes and bleated as loud as he could. All of a sudden, the creature briefly turned into a silhouette as sparks of all sizes flew across its entire body. The creature rushed towards Eddy one more time but its movements had slowed as the sparks traveled up its legs. Eddy stiffened his body and clenched his teeth. Yellow sparks appeared around Eddy's ears and his entire body soon became engulfed in electricity, which made him glow rather brightly. He took a deep breath in and bleated loudly as he fired a jolt of yellow lightning from the middle of his body.
The jolt struck the creature almost immediately and when it did, it became enveloped in dazzling yellow static. It jerked around as it howled in pain and once Eddy stopped firing the lightning, the creature collapsed onto the ground. Once this happened, Emily sifted through her bag and found a Poke Ball. "Take this, you monster!" Emily growled faintly. She then pulled her arm back and threw the ball with all of her might. The ball slammed into the creature and hovered over it for a brief moment as it opened and let out a red jagged beam of light.
The light quickly consumed the creature and the ball soon closed. It slowly floated down to the ground and sat motionless for a few moments. The ball then wiggled back and forth while a red light in the middle of it flashed on and off. It eventually stopped wiggling and tiny yellow stars flew out of the ball as a clicking noise could be heard. Eddy stood around for a few moments as he panted slowly and stared at the Poke Ball. He then walked over to the ball and picked it up with his mouth.
"Eddy," Emily said softly. Eddy's ears picked up the sound of Emily's voice and skipped over to her. He spit out the ball and bleated loudly. Emily stared at the ball and scratched her head as she noticed that it was now covered in a dull purple film. "Hey, Eddy. Wasn't this ball red and white when I threw it?" Emily asked. Eddy nodded his head and Emily slowly rose to her feet. She stood there shaking for a couple moments as she stared off into space and whimpered.
"Eddy... I think I know why that creature was after us," Emily said solemnly. Eddy bleated and rubbed up against her. "You see, before I met you, I did something terrible, and when a kid like me does something terrible, Arceus notices and takes control of creatures like that to... 'punish' them." She eventually burst into tears and began to limp away quickly, scooping up her bag in the process. "I gotta get home, Eddy! I'm not safe out here!" Emily shouted. A couple seconds later, Eddy charged towards her as fast as he could and tackled her to the ground. Emily laid face down in the dirt as she moaned in pain.
"What was that for!?" Emily whined. Eddy smiled and bleated. "C'mon, Eddy! Get off of me!" she shouted as she flailed her arms and legs. However, Eddy stood as still as a statue and refused to move. A couple of minutes later, Emily stopped flailing and sighed. "You don't want me to go home, do you?" said Emily. Eddy nodded his head and bleated. "Alright then," Emily sighed. Eddy jumped off of her and she gradually rose to her feet.
"You know what, Eddy?" said Emily, "The way you took down that that... creature... for a troublemaker like me was pretty cool. Maybe the world isn't so dangerous with you by my side." From there, the two turned around and started their way up the grassy path. About an hour later, they saw a sign adorned with flowers of all colours. In the middle of it was a white banner that looked like it was written in blue ink and read ‘Welcome to Cedar Village!’. On the left side was a Mareep with golden wool holding the banner with its mouth while the other side had a Mareep with pink wool following suit.
"Look Eddy!" Emily exclaimed as she pointed to the sign. Eddy bleated loudly and the two traversed the grassy path as fast as they could. When the two had passed the sign, they instantly became overwhelmed by a mix of refreshing and pleasurable scents brought on by the flowers, which seemed to be covering every inch of the ground. The two began to aimlessly wander around the village, taking note of various landmarks like the flock of Mareep grazing on the distant hills and the windmills spinning slowly.
Emily was so enamored by the sights and sounds of the village that she accidentally bumped into someone. Upon closer inspection, that 'someone' turned out to be a tall woman wearing a long beige robe with a green robe underneath and a thick, red and white belt running across her stomach. Her hair was as grey as a koala's fur and thin-framed glasses covered her eyes. Not only that, but her face was a bit wrinkly and weather-beaten.
"Why hello there, sweetheart!" the woman loudly cooed as she looked down at Emily. "Did you need something?"
"Actually, Eddy and I were looking for somewhere to rest." Emily replied.
"Eddy?" the woman asked as she tilted her head slightly.
"Yeah. He's this Mareep that has glittery, slightly purple wool and he saved me from this dog creature who bit me right on my arm!" Emily explained as she pointed to the duct tape covered area on her arm. "Speaking of Eddy, where is he?" Emily asked, moving her head from side to side. The woman kneeled down and examined the tape closer.
"Why, that's no way to dress a wound!" the woman said. As she was looking at the tape, Eddy skipped down the street with an empty cyan and orange candy wrapper in its mouth. The woman turned her head towards him and gasped as she began to grin. "Is this the famous Eddy I've been hearing about?!" the woman giggled as she looked at him.
"Yes, ma'am! The one and only!" Emily said with a big smile on her face. "By the way, what's that in his mouth?" She pointed to Eddy and the woman pulled the wrapper out of his mouth.
"Oh! I see he's found himself a RageCandyBar! Very few Mareep can stomach these, you know!" the woman replied. "Why don't you two come with me? Maybe I can do something about that wound there."
The woman began walking away with Emily and Eddy following behind her. They eventually found themselves standing in front of a single story cottage with a dark grey tiled roof and beige wooden siding. There was a small chimney in the middle of the roof and the door, along with the shutters, was dyed a dark blue colour. Not only that but, there were at least several bushes lined up underneath the windows.
When the group headed inside, Eddy and Emily were told by the woman to sit on the couch while she went and got her first aid kit. A few moments later, the woman came back with the kit and kneeled down. She opened up the kit and pulled out a pair of small scissors.
"Ma'am," said Emily, "Eddy got a chuck of his wool ripped off by the dog." The woman put the scissors down and examined Eddy's fleece thoroughly.
"What are you talking about, sweetie? There's not a single bare patch to be found!" the woman laughed, "By the way, you can call me Martha if you want."
"What? That's impossible!" Emily gasped.
"Oh please, honey! If a Mareep can grow back its entire fleece in about a week, it shouldn't take that long to fill in a tiny bare patch with new wool." Martha chuckled.
"How do you know that?" Emily asked.
"Well, when you've been a Mareep farmer for as long as I have, you tend to notice these things," Martha replied as she began cutting the duct tape around Emily's arm.
"You're a Mareep farmer?" Emily asked as her eyes widened.
"Used to be. Though, I just moved in here about a decade ago. You see, I used to own a Mareep farm back in Sinnoh. The wool there was in pretty big demand, you know... being a colder region and all," Martha said as she placed the scissors back in the kit. "Anyway, a lot of my days on the farm were pretty laid back. But there was one day in particular that I'll never forget." Martha got out a couple of cotton balls and a bottle of saline and poured the solution onto one of the cotton balls. Once she did that, she scrubbed the wound thoroughly.
"Wow! That looks much better!" Emily exclaimed as she stared at the clean wound.
"Thank you, sweetie. As I was saying, one day I was working on the farm attending to my usual chores, like taking the Mareep out to graze and giving a bath to the Mareep who like rolling in the mud too much. Suddenly, I hear a couple of cars rolling up to the barn. I go out to see what the deal is and out jumps these guys and gals wearing the puffiest wool sweaters in the world! I asked if they needed any help and one of them said to me, 'The Mareep... Hand 'em over!' I said that the Mareep weren't for sale and you know what they did next? They told me that I was hurting the Mareep and that I was a scumbag for doing so. They also said that no one says no to the Mareep Liberation League and threatened to take them and release them into the wild. Then, I... got a little angry and said that I treated my Mareep like royalty and said that gimme gimme never gets.
Well, let's just say they didn't like that too much and pushed me over and charged into the barn like there was no tomorrow! They scooped up those poor little Mareep and shoved them into their cars. I jumped to my feet and called upon my Ampharos to take care of those... um... well, I wasn't going to say this front of a little one like you but... those d-bags. Once the... d-bags... were taken care of, I told Ampharos to use Thunderpunch to break the car windows and the next thing you know, I see all of the Mareep leaping out of the cars and trotting right back into the barn. After that, I didn't feel comfortable with my Mareep being on that farm. So, when I heard that they were clearing land in Johto, I took as many Mareep as I could and built a little farm here. Soon, the farm grew and eventually became the village you see today," Martha explained as she wrapped Emily's wound up in medical tape.
Emily sat there in silence looking down at the floor. "Sorry about your Mareep," Emily sighed.
"Oh that's okay. It's not your fault." Martha said softly. "Oh! I almost forgot." Martha said, "How in the world did you get that wound?" Emily told Martha that she got bit by the canine creature in the forest outside of the village.
"Canine? What kind of canine?" Martha exclaimed. Emily reluctantly described each detail of the creature's appearance to the best of her ability. Martha's eyes widened and she gasped loudly.
"Ooh. It sounds like you had an encounter with a Houndour." Martha whimpered.
"What? I thought they were just made up creatures from a book!" Emily shouted.
"I wish they were. But unfortunately, they're really out there. In fact, I remember something like happening a long time ago," Martha said. Emily looked at a clock that resembled a cream coloured cat with a oval shaped gold coin in the middle of its forehead on the wall and gasped. She saw that the big hand was pointed at twelve while the little hand was pointed at five. She sprung up from the couch and signaled Eddy to do the same as she walked towards the door.
"I don't mean to be rude," Emily said, "but we gotta go if we want to get to the Lake of Rage before dark."
"Are you sure you can't stay for just one more minute? This story I was gonna tell is really important," Martha replied.
"Okay. If you insist." Emily sighed as she and Eddy walked back to the couch. The two plopped themselves on the couch and Martha began to clear her throat.
"A couple of years ago, there was this one boy in the village named Gerald. He was such a sweetheart this boy. Why, it seemed like he was helping me take care of my Mareep every other day! Oh, and the Mareep loved Gerald, probably because he was just as mild mannered as they were. I think that's also why his parents gave him so much attention. Anyway, one time the mother's niece, named Fiona, came by to visit for a week or two since she missed them. When Fiona was there, she had the undivided attention of Gerald's parents with tales of her experience being a gym leader in a far off region.
However, Gerald became depressed and tried everything he could think of to get his parent's attention. He did more chores than he needed to do, helped out his neighbors, and even studied harder than ever for school. Unfortunately, it didn't do much to distract his parents from Fiona so he had no choice but to get attention in... destructive ways. He stole from the local shops, vandalized gardens, and scared flocks of Mareep away. One night, he decided to stay up past his curfew and roam around the outskirts of the village. As he was doing so, a Houndour jumped out of the bushes and tackled him to the ground. It slashed his arms and legs and its bite punctured Gerald's neck. He screamed as loud as he could until he could see Fiona running towards him. She took a Poke Ball off of her belt and threw it into the air."
"'Come on out, Egon!' Fiona shouted as she threw the ball."
"The ball froze in the air and opened up. A red jagged beam had emerged from it and a few seconds later, a Flygon had materialized."
"'Egon! Earthquake, now!' Fiona commanded."
"Immediately after, Egon's red eye coverings resembled brightly lit light bulbs as they glowed intensely. Egon tightened his entire body and shot up into the air like a rocket. As he descended, he became engulfed in a thin, orange veil. As he got closer towards the ground, Egon closed all the fingers on his right hand to form a fist and as soon as he hit the ground, his fist dug into the earth, resulting in the entire area shaking violently.
Thankfully, that Houndour fainted and Fiona recalled Egon. She then carried Gerald home and told his parents what happened. When Gerald woke up, his mom asked him if he did anything that might've attracted the Houndour, such as doing bad things. He said yes and his parents told him that he was lucky he survived. They reminded him that doing bad things will cause Arceus to send Houndour after him. After Fiona's visit, Gerald started to gradually transform into a Houndour, unbeknownst to his parents. When he tried to tell his parents what happened, all he could do was bark. Unfortunately, his parents chased him away, thinking it was the Houndour that attacked their son, and ever since then, no one knows where Gerald went."
Emily sat there in silence. Eddy then trotted over to Emily and laid down on her lap.
"Wait. How do you know all of this?" Emily asked.
"This whole thing was the talk of the town. I think I even recall Gerald's parents asking me where their son went," Martha replied.
"Well. That whole story happened a long time ago. Surely there must be a way to fix it by now! Right?" Emily asked.
"There is. However, it's still in the early stages," Martha said somberly.
"I did a bad thing and got bit too. Does that mean I'm going to transform?" Emily asked as she tried to hold back her tears. Martha stared at Emily and nodded her head up and down.
"I'm afraid so. Don't know when though," said Martha. Emily started to sob and Eddy rubbed up against her. A few moments later, Martha hugged her as she gently patted her head. Just then, the cat clock faintly chimed. This time, the big hand was pointed at twelve while the little hand was pointed at six.
"So that clock finally managed to chime, huh?" Martha said as she turned her head towards the clock. "Well, I guess you two are heading on you way now."
"Uh, yeah. Though, we were planning on visiting the Pokemon Center before we leave. Do you know where it is?" Emily said. Martha told her that it was down the street on the left hand side.
Emily slowly got up from the couch and bid farewell to Martha as the two made their way to the Pokemon Center. For almost the entire way, Emily walked slowly and hung her head down. She stared at the ground, paying no attention to the beautiful sunset on her lefthand side. Pretty soon, the duo had reached the Pokemon Center.
----
Back on Route 49, a woman wearing short heeled shoes, white gloves, and a cyan and navy blue police uniform was zooming through the forest on her white motorbike. All of a sudden, her cell phone started to ring and she immediately pulled over to answer it.
"Hello. Officer Jenny here. How may I help you?" the woman asked.
"Jenny, did you find Emily yet?" asked Walter.
"I just left Basswood and a couple of people said that while they did see her, they had no idea where she was heading," Jenny replied.
"Well, I don't think she could've gotten far. Did you try looking in Cedar Village yet?" Emily's mother asked.
"Don't worry, ma'am. I'm heading over there right now." said Jenny. She put the phone back into her pocket and hopped onto the bike.
----
When Emily and Eddy got inside the center, they noticed that the interior of the facility was covered in waxy linoleum flooring. Tables, chairs, and couches were scattered all over the place and in between two escalators was a long marble counter with a giant Poke Ball hovering over it. A laptop could be seen sitting on a night stand to the right side of the counter. Not only that, but there were quite a few people lined up at the counter and Emily and Eddy decided to join them. The line moved fast and soon it was Emily's turn to heal her Pokemon. However, much like the counter at Basswood's Poke Mart, it was way too tall for her to see over it.
Emily kneeled down and whispered into Eddy's ear, "Psst. Eddy. Can you give me a boost? I can't reach the top of the counter." Eddy stood next to her for a few moments, thinking of how he could help Emily reach the top of the counter. Just then, Eddy's face lit up. He got in front of Emily and laid down on the floor. Emily then stepped onto Eddy's back and waved her hand in the air, as she still had trouble seeing over the counter.
"Excuse me!" she cried out. However, she got no response from the other side of the counter.
"Excuse me!" Emily repeated with a louder tone of voice. Again, she got no response.
"Excuse me--- Oh for Pete's sake!" Emily growled. She stepped off of Eddy's back and walked over to one of the tables, grabbing a magazine in the process. She returned to the counter and waved the magazine back and forth like a flag, hoping to get someone's attention. Eventually, Emily heard footsteps approaching the counter. When the footsteps stopped, a pink haired woman wearing a lab coat and a white cap with a red cross on it, leaned over the counter and stared at Emily.
"Hello, and welcome to the Pokémon Center. We restore your tired Pokémon to full health. Would you like to rest your Pokémon?" the woman asked with a smile on her face.
"Sure," Emily replied.
"OK, I'll take your Pokémon for a few seconds," the woman said. Emily pulled the dull purple Poke Ball from her pocket and held it in the air until the woman grabbed it. Emily stepped off of Eddy's back and told Eddy to go with the woman to get healed. He then walked around the counter until he found a way to get to the other side of it. The woman put the ball in a blue and white machine that looked like a bed. After that, she picked up Eddy and opened the door in front of her. She then handed Eddy over to a pink, egg shaped creature with a pouch attached to its belly filled by a smaller white egg and shut the door. The woman turned on the machine and a low humming sound could be heard for at least a few seconds followed by a dinging noise.
She grabbed the ball off of the machine and just as she was about to hand it to Emily, she noticed the bandages on her arm.
"Woah! What happened to your arm?" the woman gasped.
"Um... I'd rather not talk about it," Emily said meekly.
"Oh. Um. Okay then. But if it's anything like what happened to Gerald..." Before the woman could finish what she was saying, Emily cut in.
"You know the Gerald story too?" Emily asked with astonishment.
"Yeah. Martha told me about it," the woman replied quietly. She then shuddered and froze for a few moments. These moments soon turned into minutes as she continued to stand behind the counter without moving. Eventually, the egg shaped creature opened the door behind the woman and waddled over to her, carrying Eddy in its short, stubby arms. The creature called out to the woman but unfortunately, it got no response. It tried tugging on the woman's lab coat but she just continued to stand there and do nothing. At that point, the creature placed Eddy on the counter and stormed off into the back room, slamming the door behind it.
Immediately afterwards, the woman snapped out of her frozen state and suddenly blurted out, "Thank you for waiting. We've restored your Pokémon to full health. Please, come back again any time!" She then shoved Eddy into Emily's arms and dropped the Poke Ball on her head, causing her to flinch. Emily gently placed Eddy down on the floor and bent over to pick up the Poke Ball. After that, the two held their breath as they stared at the woman and slowly backed away from her. Once they were at least a couple of feet away, the duo made a mad dash out of the Pokemon Center and never looked back.
Once outside, the two continued to sprint as fast as they could and soon reached a pale wooden sign with the words "Now Leaving Cedar Village and the Johto Colonies" written on it with purple ink. After they passed that sign, they passed another sign that said "Route 50" on it.
----
A little while later, Jenny approached the Cedar Village sign and entered the sleepy village. A few moments later, she decided to find a place to park her bike and settled on parking it on the side of a wooden booth. Just like in Basswood, Jenny wasted no time and started going from person to person, holding up a missing person's poster with Emily's picture and other information and asking if they had seen her. At first, she seemed to have no luck, with most of the responses ranging from "Nah. Never seen her," to "What an adorable kid!" However, she decided to travel up the hills to see if anyone was at the top. To her surprise, she saw a bald, lanky, overall clad man herding a flock of Mareep into a nearby barn.
"Excuse me, sir!" Jenny called out.
"Hello there, Jenny. How are ya?" the man said with enthusiasm.
"Well, frustrated to say the least. I'm trying to find a little girl named Emily Hawthorne. I've searched all over the colonies and so far, no one seems to know where she is!" Jenny ranted. She sighed deeply and rubbed her temples. "Silly question but... you wouldn't have happened to see her around, right?" Jenny asked. She handed him the poster, hoping that the information it contained would jog his memory.
"Nah. Can't say that I have. But, maybe Martha might know something," the man replied. Jenny asked where she would find Martha.
"At the bottom of the hill is a cottage with several bushes lined up underneath the windows. You find the cottage, you'll find Martha," the man said as he aimlessly pointed his finger around. Jenny thanked the man and went to find the cottage. She ran down the steep hill and even found herself rolling down it a couple of times. Once she reached the bottom, Jenny wasted no time and searched the village for the cottage. It took her at least fifteen minutes to find it and when she did, she immediately knocked on the door. A couple moments later, Martha opened her door and greeted Jenny.
Jenny huffed and puffed as she opened up her satchel and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She then unfolded it and held it up to Martha's face.
"This girl... Have you seen her?" Jenny panted. Martha swiftly grabbed her reading glasses off of the kitchen counter and put them on as she walked over to Jenny. Martha examined the paper thoroughly, staring at the photo for a few good moments and reading over the information at least several times. Martha's eyes lit up and she told Jenny that Emily and her Mareep just left her house on the way to the Pokemon Center.
"Sheep!" Jenny replied as she looked up to the sky and shook her fist.
"Huh?" Martha responded.
"Um well. Uh. You see. Uh," Jenny stuttered. Not long after, Jenny took off running towards the Pokemon Center. Martha's eyes briefly darted from left to right before slowly backing away and closing her door.
----
Meanwhile on Route 50, Eddy and Emily found themselves completely surrounded by darkness and the sound of chirping crickets.
"Geez, Eddy. How it get dark so fast? I can barely see a thing for crying out loud!" said Emily. Just then, Eddy started to build up electricity until an orb at the end of his tail began to glow. Emily stared at the light in awe.
"Wow! I didn't know you had an orb at the end of your tail!" Emily exclaimed, "Thanks, Eddy! That's gonna make things so much easier for us!" The orb glowed a dark yellow colour and emitted a steady stream of heat, which made our heroes feel all the more comfortable as the air around them became chillier. As they made their way down the route, they heard a deep purring sound that seemed to be coming from behind them. The two began to walk faster as their hearts accelerated. As they were walking, the purring sound gradually became more audible, which forced Eddy and Emily to walk faster and faster until they were practically running. Eventually, they decided to leap into the bushes and wait for the sound to be out of their vicinity.
Eddy stopped the orb from glowing and the two huddled together, trying to keep each other warm. A few minutes later, the purring sound whizzed past them and quickly became quieter and quieter until it could no longer be heard. As soon as the sound was completely gone, the two jumped out of the bushes and booked it down the route as fast as possible. They were able to keep this up for about an hour.
However, as Emily and Eddy were getting closer to a nearby clearing, they found that their vision was becoming increasingly blurry and their walking speed became slower.
"Finally, a clearing! Hopefully there's a safe place up there where we can spend the night," said Emily as she yawned immediately afterward. After what had seemed like an eternity, the two entered the clearing and found it to be mostly taken over by a huge lake. Not long after, Eddy spotted a few bright lights coming from a nearby cabin. Upon this discovery, the duo got a burst of energy and had just enough strength to lightly jog over to the cabin.
When they arrived, Emily weakly knocked on the door three times. A few moments later, the door creaked open and a tall, slightly muscular boy with unkempt brown hair stood within the door frame, struggling to keep his eyes open. At the same time, he exhaustedly said,
"For the last time, I don't want any of your RageCandyBa--" while rubbing his eyes before peering down and seeing Emily and Eddy instead of the RageCandyBar salesman he was expecting to see. "What are you two doing out so late in the middle of nowhere?" the boy asked. Emily explained that they saw his cabin lights in the distance and thought it was a good place to spend the night.
"Oh yeah," the boy said. "Sorry about the lights but I had no choice but to use them to keep those awful HootHoot away! Think they can try and ruin my sleep with their constant hooting, huh? Well, I think I know who got the last laugh! Oh. Uh. Forgive me, I tend to ramble when I'm tired. Please, do come in."
Emily and Eddy wasted no time finding a comfortable place to lay down. In the living room, there was a white leather couch that had already been converted into a bed, presumably by the boy to keep a closer eye out for any HootHoot brave enough to venture into the lighted areas. Emily quickly buried herself under the mountains of blankets and plopped her head on a puffy red silk pillow. Eddy jumped up on the couch and curled up into a ball.
When Emily had drifted off to sleep, she found herself dressed in what appeared to be a kimono covered in a Poke Ball pattern at a carnival with Eddy. The sheer brightness of the carnival's neon lights popped against the navy blue night sky. The carnival had all sorts of Pokémon themed booths and other fun looking attractions. One attraction in particular was a spicy wing eating contest called "The Charizard Challenge" where contestants would compete to see who could eat the most wings and win not only a prize of 25,000 Poken, but also receive an Eevee with the evolutionary stone or shard of their choice. When Emily came across the attraction, her eyes immediately lit up.
"Wow! You mean I get to eat as much spicy food as I want?! Sign me up!!" exclaimed Emily as she rapidly jumped up and down.
Emily sprinted over to the stage where the attraction was and hurriedly signed her name on the contestant sign-up sheet. A while later, she found herself sitting with a few other contestants on stage with a crowd of what seemed like hundreds of people watching and cheering for certain contestants to win. As soon as it was time to start eating the wings, Emily scarfed down as many as she could fit in her tiny mouth and for a short time, it seemed like she was ahead of the other contestants. Eventually, her face had turned redder than an apple as sweat started pouring down her face in what seemed like buckets. She also started to have trouble breathing as her breath kept speeding up more and more to a point where it stopped for a few seconds before Emily took a deep breath in and let out a scream. However, when Emily screamed, a thick cloud of fire was released from her mouth and onto the crowd, which sent everyone scrambling from the stands.
Emily followed suit and run off of the stage as fast as she could. While running, she collapsed and found herself struggling to get up. A few moments later, Eddy caught up with Emily and helped her try and stand up for a bit. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in both of her wrists. When she looked down, she noticed that she had what looked like thick silver wristbands squeezing her wrists so hard that her head started to throb. She tried moving the bands left and right as though she were opening up a soda bottle, hoping to get them off but that only worsened her pain and made her wrists turn red. She tried prying them off with a thin metal rod from one of the booths but the rod snapped in two rather easily. She even had Eddy try and shock them in order to turn them to dust. Despite the effort however, the bands still stayed on her wrists. Just then, she felt another sharp pain in both her ankles and fell to the ground.
She quickly turned around to see that the exact same silver bands that were on her wrists were also on her ankles. Emily had let out an ear piercing scream as two silver crescent shaped stripes had slowly ripped out of her back. As she was struggling to get up, Emily was shocked to find that her ears were starting to shrink and had seemingly disappeared. However, while trying to alleviate her headache by massaging her temples, she had discovered that she now had big pointy ears that were only a few inches apart.
Unfortunately, rather than help reduce the pain of Emily's headache, the massage had instead made a small, skull shaped mask that took up most of her T-zone area, pop out of her forehead. Not only that, but a small and pointy tail also seemed to quickly form. The bottom half of her face wasn't much better as fangs seemed to be growing just enough so they would be visible on the outside of her mouth. She also noticed that the bottom half of her face was slightly stretching outwards and gradually turning a bright orange colour. She once again looked down at her wrists and ankles to find that they had become paws. As that point, Emily's vision became blurry and the only way she was able to breathe was by slowly heaving in and out.
"Please. No more. Please! Arceus. Why would you. Let this this happen? Please! Save me!" Emily begged as she burst into tears. Just when Emily thought it couldn't get any worse, her skin became increasingly fuzzier and darker to the point where it was now the colour of coal. A little while later, Emily had lost her balance and fell to the ground once again. Only this time, however, she found herself standing on all fours and it was nearly impossible to stand upright for long periods of time. When she looked around, she saw that Eddy was nowhere to be found. Emily called out for him but her ability to talk was slowly replaced by nothing more than barks and snarls. At first, she seemed to have trouble walking on all four legs. However, she quickly adapted to it and dashed off.
She scampered around the carnival grounds desperately searching for Eddy, all while avoiding the security guards and other brave carnival participants who were beginning to chase after her. Emily had toppled over trashcans and even entire carnival booths in a last ditch effort to shake the persistent crowd. Unfortunately, this didn't do much to stop them and thus Emily had no choice but to shoot fire from her mouth once again. She tightened her entire body, took a deep breath in, and let out a flame filled shriek around the small area of toppled over objects. The flames had spread from the toppled over objects to other parts of the area rather quickly and the crowd had run away from the blaze, which gave Emily plenty of time to make her escape.
She continued to shoot fire from her mouth to keep the crowd off her tail but she soon learned that the fires she started had turned into a giant inferno that was becoming harder to outrun than the crowd. As the inferno was getting ready to close in on her, a loud splashing noise enveloped her and she felt as though she had slammed into a soft surface.
Emily shot out from underneath the covers and howled as loud as she could. Her howling had roused everyone from their deep slumber as Eddy was quickly looking around and the boy rushed downstairs carrying a blue and white ball with red bumps on the top in his hand. A couple moments later, he turned his head towards Emily and walked over to her.
"Are you alright? What's going on?" the boy asked.
"Am I still a human?" Emily replied.
"Of course you are. Why would you say that?" The boy chuckled as he rubbed Emily's head. Emily told him about the nightmare she had. She also told him about her encounter with the Houndour as well as information Martha told her about the creature.
"Here, come with me," the boy said. He and Emily made their way up the stairs into a small bedroom. The boy turned on the light and strolled over to a wooden nightstand next to the bed. He slid the top drawer of the nightstand and rummaged through it for at least a few seconds.
"A-ha!" the boy whispered excitedly. He pulled out a silver bracelet with a crescent shaped green and yellow feather on it and walked over to Emily.
"I found this on one of my fishing trips. It may not prevent that whole transformation thing, but it should get you through the night," the boy explained as he put the bracelet on Emily's wrist. He then rubbed her head and the two went back to bed. The next morning, the boy, Emily, and Eddy sat around a steel table, enjoying bowls of cereal together.
"So, what are you two doing all the way out here?" the boy asked as he stuffed his face with cereal.
"Me and Eddy were heading to the Nidoran region, but we needed a place to rest. Don't you remember asking us that last night?" Emily responded.
"Nidoran region. Nidoran region," the boy whispered as he stroked his chin. He kept stroking his chin for at least a minute before he finally gave Emily a response.
"Oh. I think I know what you mean," the boy said. "Well if you're heading out that far, you may wanna consider doing some serious training!" Emily pulled off the bracelet and slid it over to the boy.
"Training? How do I do that?" Emily asked.
"That's up to you to decide. You can battle more wild Pokemon like that Houndour you told me about or you could do something more... challenging." the boy said as he grabbed the bracelet.
"Challenging?" Emily replied.
"Yeah like..." the boy said. Before the boy could finish his sentence, a brown, round owl with a scar running diagonally across its left eye and the right side of its crest missing perched itself on one of the outside window sills and began to peck at the glass. The boy jumped up from his chair and looked out the window to see the owl.
"Back for more, eh? You got some serious guts coming out in the daylight!" the boy shouted. He unclipped the blue and white ball from his belt and dashed outside. Emily stiffened up and sat motionless for at least half a minute.
"You wanna get out of here?" Emily whispered as she leaned closer to his left ear. Eddy nodded and the two immediately bolted out of the house and headed towards the gate leading out of the Lake of Rage.
You see, guys! I told you our heroes would make it to the Lake of Rage! Sure they may be scarred for life but... they didn't die and that, in my book, is a happy ending. Will the journey for our heroes be any better once they leave the Lake of Rage? I don't know! But I still urge you to find out next time on Pokemon: Johto Quest!