The sun was starting to set over Route 101, and Ellie had been sitting and watching the Pokemon thief for about an hour. She had expected that Lucas would have been back by now, but she didn't mind. But, as time slowly passed, she became more and more worried about what could have potentially happened. Was he hurt, or had he been captured by another one of those Pokemon thieves?
But, her fears were unfounded, as, under the light of the moon, Lucas appeared out of the cover of a myriad of trees. Ellie's face lit up as she ran over quickly and said,
"Thank goodness, you're back!"
But, a sombre look on his face and the disappearance of Zorua told her that something wasn't quite right.
"Is there something wrong, Lucas? And where is Zorua, did it go back to its family?"
"No, it's in here." he said, pulling out a compressed Pokeball and fidgeting with it between his fingers, "It had nowhere to go, so it decided to go with me instead."
"Nowhere to go? What happened to its family then?"
"Taken. Another thief caught them in a net, then tunneled away as soon as I tried to stop them."A moment of silence followed as Ellie didn't even have the words to respond, and Lucas didn't even want to start a conversation about Zorua. It caused stress on his mind, and he couldn't find a way to relieve it. He hoped Ellie might have had the words to help him but all she could respond with was,
"The police are coming in a bit, so we'll hopefully be able to get this sorted."
It was at least relieving to know that the police were on their side, and they could try and investigate into the team heading the operation.
Walking beside Ellie, Lucas walked to his tent and collapsed into his sleeping bag, just hoping to rest his mind for at least a couple of seconds before the police came.
Time flew past Ellie and Lucas, with Lucas replenishing a little of his energy for no doubt a long journey to Oldale and Ellie watching the thief with the eyes of a hawk, making sure that he didn't manage to escape before the police arrived. Mudkip then cried out behind her, and she quickly turned around to find whatever had caught Mudkip's attention. Then, a blue and red flashing suddenly blinded her as the police officers stepped out of the car and immediately spotted the criminal and Ellie.
One of the police officers walked up to Ellie and asked,
"Is this the guy that you were talking about?"
Ellie nodded and the police officer grabbed the thief and threw the lifeless man over her shoulder. The other police officer opened the back van door and the thief was tossed in without a care. The police officer slammed the door shut, and said to Ellie,
"So, is there anything else we need to know?"
"There's another Pokemon thief that stole an entire pack of Zorua that was living here."
The police officer appeared shocked that there was another thief around, and that they had managed to successfully capture an entire pack of Zorua.
"Do you have any more information?"
"No, you'd be better off asking my friend, but I think you would be better off waiting since he isn't in the best of moods right now."
"Right, well we need to go, so would you guys like a lift back up to Oldale?"
"We'd love to, we just need to pack up and then we can go."
And so they did. The combined effort of the two trainers, with slight assistance from the police officers, allowed them to quickly get their tents packed up, and allow them passage into Oldale. Lucas and Ellie hopped into the car and they sped off towards Oldale.
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The trees flew by the police car as it sped across the plains of Route 101, the trees slowly fading out of view as it was replaced by buildings and houses on the outskirts of the relatively small town. Lucas breathed a sigh of relief, that he finally could rest in a Pokemon Center and be undisturbed in his rest. The car took a sharp turn right, swerving everyone in the car slightly to the right, and arrived at a big red and white building, with beaming light seeping through the windows. The driver of the police car then said,
"Alright, you guys should rest in the Pokemon Center for a while. We might come back for further questioning later, but you guys should get some rest."
"Alright, thank you.", Ellie said as she and Lucas left the car and waved. Ellie turned to Lucas and Lucas said,
"Well, I'm tired as all heck so I'm going to go to bed."
"Yeah, same. I think we should heal up our Pokemon team before we go to bed."
Lucas reluctantly agreed, and they both entered the Pokemon Centre, walking up to the desk and placing 3 Pokeballs onto the desk.
"Can I please have these healed up by the morning?" Ellie said while Lucas remained silent. The Nurse Joy behind the desk nodded and took the Pokeballs into a back room to be healed. Lucas took a sigh and took out his Pokemon Centre pass. It was used for staying at Pokemon Centre's and was one of the perks of being chosen as a trainer by a professor. The machine scanned the barcode on the machine and a room number was given to both of them. Lucas had room 102, and Ellie's room was 103. They both walked up to their rooms, and both said,
"Goodnight."
Lucas opened the door, quickly closing it behind him, and collapsed into bed, his mind fried from the previous day. He pulled the sheets over his body and almost instantaneously drifted off to sleep...
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The backroom of the Pokemon Centre was still and quiet, the Nurse Joy having gone to sleep in their room, and the Pokemon in the backroom were left alone in their Pokeballs. Until, one flipped open and Zorua popped out, landing on the floor with a thud. It stood up quickly and dashed out of the backroom, hitting its head against the desk in its haste to escape its Pokeball and the room that housed it. Zorua got back up and dived above the desk, and scampered up the stairs. It looked at the long corridor in front of it and began to search through the windows of the room doors, most opaque. But, one stood out as transparent.
Lucas was silently sleeping in his bed, tossing and turning, unaware of anything in his surroundings. He had forgotten to make the window opaque and didn't even bother to lock the door. Zorua compressed down and sprung up on the handle, just managing to unlock the door. But, it quickly lost balance and crashed to the floor, causing Lucas to jerk up from his bed and find out what was happening outside.
"Look, can you keep it dow-" he said as he peeked his head out the door, but Lucas suddenly stopped speaking as he saw Zorua standing at his feet. He carried Zorua into the room and shut the door behind them, this time taking more care to make the window opaque, and lowered Zorua carefully onto his bed. He rubbed his eyes and asked,
"What are you doing here so late? Could you not sleep?"
Zorua shamefully nodded its head, and Lucas instantly knew what Zorua was thinking.
"I know you're still worried about your family, but I promise I will do everything I possibly can to get you reunited with your family."
He held out his hand and put on the first genuine smile in about a day.
"And that's a promise."
Zorua looked at Lucas and clawed his hand softly, feeling his soft skin against its fur. Lucas smiled and asked,
"Do you want to sleep with me for the night?"Zorua slowly nodded and set its head onto the pillow, Lucas placing his head just beside Zorua's. He quietly whispered as Zorua started to drift off to sleep,
"Goodnight..."
Notes:
Hi guys, really sorry about this being a shorter chapter than usual. I was really busy with school and didn't get to write that much, so sorry about that. But, regardless, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll see you in a fortnight for the next chapter. See ya!