The Wild Area was perfect place to train for the champion tournament and a great place to spend with family. Allister was with his mum and Bridget in the Dusty Bowl section of the Wild Area. Lady Grey had evolved into a polteageist with his mum's help since she had the item he needed.
Holmes the yamask was working hard to be a big hitter for Allister.
While they were training, two people came upon their camp.
"Allister, fancy seeing you here," said one of the women.
Allister looked over when he heard his name.
"...ello Miss Siobhan, ....Miss Aashni"
"Are you two doing some training out here," asked Bridget.
"Yes, we are. We don't want to stay in the minor league next year," said Siobhan.
Siobhan and Aashni were the bug and electric gym leaders in the minor league. Siobhan was a pale woman with long curly red hair and blue eyes. She originally lived in southern Galar in the highlands. When she wasn't running a gym, she was a fashion designer that uses her Pokemon's silk to make durable clothes. Aashni was a dark skinned woman with heterochromia in her eyes. One was blue and the other a pinkish red. She was born and raised the big city of Wydon. Rumors had it that she was a hacker for the government but no one dares to ask.
With his mum and Bridget's encouragement, Allister invited the other gym leaders to train with him.
Aashni and Allister battled each other while the others watched. Bridget cheered for Allister but kept a slight distance from Siobhan's pokemon. She felt bad but she was scared of bug pokemon even the butterfly ones.
"You can do it Bast," said Aashni to her luxio.
Bast was battling against Holmes the yamask and was fairing okay despite the slight type disadvantage. Holmes won the battle but was injured. Bridget was on her way over to Allister to heal Holmes but the pokemon started glowing. When the glowing stopped Holmes looked different. He evolved into a runerigus!
Aashni opened her pokedex and it said horrible info about the pokemon. Allister and Bridget both talked to the pokemon to see if his spirit was truly absorbed by stone tablet. Both children let out a sigh of relief that Holmes spirit was still intact and that the pokedex entry lied. Bridget always questioned some of the entries especially regarding Allister's beloved ghosts. A lot of them were more superstition than fact. Bridget should know since she could talk to pokemon.
Allister and Aashni kept battling while Siobhan got a bug net out to go bug hunting. She was looking for cutiefly and riombee which were rare in the region due to the rainy weather. They were the only bugs that Bridget was not afraid of since they were fair folk to her more than bugs. They also made yummy puffs of deliciousness.
"I will ask the pokemon in the area if they have seen any but I doubt they would be any around here in the Dusty Bowl," said Bridget.
She climbed some of the high rocks to look around to see which areas might have combee and vespaqueen. Cutiefly love honey so they would be in the same area of those pokemon.
The wind was picking up and some birds in the area was talking about a sandstorm coming. When Bridget heard that she hurried off the rock she was on to warn everyone. On her way she tripped on something and realized it was a meowth's tail. The cat hissed and his comrades came running and leading the pack was a purrsurker.
"I'm very sorry for stepping on your tail. I didn't see you."
The purrsurker hissed at Bridget which caused Saffron the purrloin to hiss back at the pokemon.
"There is no need for such foul language. I don't want to fight you. Please just let us be."
Bridget didn't like to battle but she always supported Allister so she knew a lot about battling. Purrsurker and meowth were steel types which meant she was at a major disadvantage. Coco the alcremie was weak against steel and Cinnamon the eevee was still a baby. She had to be smart about this.
The purrsurker tried to attack Bridget with his sharp claws but she was able to move out the way in time. The attack got Saffron angry and she fury swiped the purrsurker but it was not very effective.
The young girl knelt down and grabbed a large handful of sand. "Saffron! Cinnamon! Use sand attack!" The two pokemon kicked up sand to blind the purrsurker and the gang of meowth. Bridget threw sand at the ones the two pokemon didn't get.
"Run!" Coco held on to Bridget while the others ran besides her. They ran back to the campsite to get away from the angry cats.
"Everyone a sandstorm is on the way! We have to prepare!"
"Already ahead of you, love. The clouds never lie," said Alice.
She gave the girl a mask and a hat to protect herself and told her to put her pokemon back in their balls.
"Lizzie, dear, if you could scare off those cats for me. I need to make sure the little ones are protected."
Lizzie the Salazzle used fire lash on the purrsurker and gang of meowth that had followed Bridget back to camp. The pokemon ran when Lizzie got ready to poison them.
The Salazzle stuck her nose up in the air when the pokemon ran. They were beneath her in her opinion.
The camp was set up near high rocks so they should offer some protection to them. Alice wrapped the children from head to toe in a blanket in case of the winds tearing a hole in the tent.
"Mum, Saffron is missing. When Bridget went to put her in the pokeball she was gone," said Allister.
"I'm sorry poppets. We will have to look for her later. That storm will be here any minute," replied Alice.
Siobhan and Aashni were already in their tent when the storm started to hit. Alice had the children lay on their stomachs while wrapped in the blankets. They couldn't risk having exposing skin during a sandstorm.
Bridget was crying in the tent since Saffron was not there. "I'm the worse person ever. I should have paid better attention to where Saffron was," she wailed.
Allister held her hand and tried his best to comfort Bridget. She was always making sure he was okay so he needed to be there for her.
"Saffron is from the Wild Area originally. I'm sure she knows how to stay safe in sandstorms," he replied.
They held hands while his mum wrapped her hand around both of them to keep them safe.
Luckily sandstorms don't tend to last more than half an hour. So as soon as the storm ended, Bridget rushed out of the tent. They were lucky that the rocks kept most of the sand away from their site.
"Keep everything on just in case another storm hits. We don't want sand in your lungs," said Alice.
The kids nodded and tied the blankets around their necks like capes. Bridget led Allister to the area where Saffron had been fighting.
Allister released his ghosts to help search for the cat. Flickwick the lampent stayed near the children in case the purrsurker came back.
"Saffron!! Where are you!?" yelled Bridget.
After about 10 minutes of searching and yelling for Saffron, Bridget sat on a rock and started to cry again.
"Don't cry! Don't cry! My pokemon will find her. I would have sensed if something bad happened to her," Allister said as he let Bridget cry on him.
They stayed like that for a couple of minutes until Bridget felt a little better. Allister's ghost pokemon converged and told him that they spotted Saffron nearby.
"I told you they would find her. Let's go get her."
The children ran in the direction they were told Saffron was at. They found the kitten slowly walking on two legs carry a bunch of things.
"Saffron! I was so worried," exclaimed Bridget.
Saffron dropped things she was holding and in her paws and ran over to Bridget nuzzling her. She then proudly showed off the things she stole.
"Meow purr purr!"
"What did she say?" asked Allister.
"She stole stuff from the purrsurker's den since he threaten me. Apparently, they were too scared to stop her since she said Lizzie would hurt them if she got hurt."
Bridget and Allister looked over the things she took. She attached some things to her collar too so Bridget took the pearl strings from it. Saffron had taken multiple gold nuggets, evolution stones, and shiny feathers.
They gathered everything and walked back to camp as Saffron told them about the purrsurker's den. Apparently, they were the pokemon that used to bully her before she met Bridget so she knew where they lived.
"We found her," said Bridget happily when they arrived back to camp.
"That's great. Slash, send the signal for everyone to come back," said Aashni.
A toxtricity shot electricity into the air to signal the other electric pokemon to come back.
A signal beam was sent back in reply.
An orbeetle and a couple of other bugs came back to the camp. Siobhan came back about a minute later. "I'm glad you found your pokemon, Bridget. When we were told that your pokemon was missing we had to help look."
"Thank you so much for the help. Saffron found some evolution stones if you want any."
The women thanked the little girl but declined taking any stones. The two groups decided to stick together since the weather was unpredictable in the Wild Area. The Dusty Bowl area was known for sandstorms so they decided to hunker down for the day to be safe.
Bridget went through the things Saffron had brought while Allister congratulated his pokemon for a job well done for finding Saffron. The adults were making apple curry together and it smelled scrummy.
Bridget handed Allister a dusk stone while they were eating and told him to keep it. She also hid a gold nugget into his bag too.
Bridget was glad she could eat food together with Allister and his mum. Allister was excited to be going to an abandoned tower where ghost liked to gather.
Soon enough they both feel asleep and dreamed of adventures they were going to have.