The Viterals

Chapter 13: Going South

"Let's review what we know."

Bambi nodded dutifully.

"Don't release your Pokémon from their Pokeballs unless you absolutely have to."

Two baby Eevee crawled around their early morning camp, near their mother, this new darkened Pokémon called Umbreon.

"What about them?" Zakana asked.

"They're newborns. It's not good to keep them in Pokeballs. Kappa will have to watch after them." Farore stalked between the trees, hands clasped behind her back, seeming more serious than Zakana first thought of her. Then, a smile spread across her face.

"Plus, they're frickin' adorable. We don't need to put them in Pokeballs anytime soon." She became stern once again. "Just keep an eye for out for men in masks throwing balls. Clasp balls . . . what a bunch of sickos! Those balls are extremely dangerous."

"And they hurt, too," Zakana recalled. He looked at the deep bruise on his thigh, noticed the black and blue rings forming.

"Don't tell anyone who you are or where you're going until we can figure out more."

Across the camp, Isaque' yellow eyes found Zakana's. He was a young man—the same age as Zakana—and tall, with a frame that he had not quite filled out yet. Is he from Pallet, too? Zakana wondered. No, he can't be.

"Let's just find Yumin and Makua," Bambi said, clearly exhausted from a night of crying babies and a very beaten down mother who had pushed out 6 babies. How 6 fully formed babies fit inside something as small as the Umbreon, Zakana would never know. He cringed as he thought about them coming out one at a time.

After munching on some berries Farore had collected, she urged them to move.

"Who's got a good tracker?"

Lyres did. His Ursaring was a massive beast, with ferocious tracking powers, it seemed. But Lyres was not with them.

Farore asked, "Isaque, do you have one, or a flyer?"

He shook his head. "Not with me. You know what happened with the P.C. systems, don't you?"

Farore shook her head this time.

Isaque paused, looked at Zakana and Bambi to see if they knew. Zakana heard mention of the P.C. system but he couldn't recall exactly. It was where Yumin kept all his reserve Pokémon. Then he remembered.

"No one can retrieve any of their Pokémon from the reserve system," Isaque confirmed. "The Viterals have hacked the computers and are working on targeting all of the Pokémon Centers."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Farore shook her head as though it wasn't true, as though Isaque was nothing but a liar. And Zakana realized that both of them had their different information and help to provide.

"It happened a few days ago. You haven't been to a Center lately? Haven't been affected? They made sure the strike was quick and decisive."

Who were these Viterals that could implement such devastating strikes on the Pokémon world? They had turned everything upside-down. They had dragged Zakana from his home, stolen nearly all of Yumin's Pokémon. Likely, they had done so many other things.