The sunlight shined down on the two sleeping kids, who were thankful that it was summer vacation so that they could sleep in and recover the lost energy from last night without worrying about being late for school. Whisper and Jibanyan had been unknowingly cuddling each other in their sleep all night, so they were surprised to see themselves tangled in their arms.
"M-morning, Whisper."
"M-morning, Jibanyan. This is quite a shock, isn't it?"
Jibanyan nodded before detangling himself from Whisper's arms.
"Nyyyyaaaaa...so what do you want to do while we wait for Nyate and Katie to wake up?"
Whisper shrugged and went onto his Yo-kai Pad. He looked through the Yo-kai News, occasionally humming to himself.
"Hmm...nothing big seems to be happening yet. Wait..."
Whisper's eyes were currently scanning an article about the Slimamander incident and he handed the Yo-kai Pad over to Jibanyan so that he could read the article as well:
Slimamander Resealed by Mysterious Group:
Two days ago, the dreadful Slimamander had unwiitingly been released from his imprisionment by an evil group of Yo-kai seeking the power to rule the Yo-kai Realm. The police had found them nursing injuries when they were captured at Mount Wildwood, rethinking their takeover plan. When they were being questioned, they said that they had been in battle with a group of Yo-kai with some humans and they have unfortunately refused to give anymore details about the group other than that the group had resealed Slimamander. While they were unaware of the true purpose of the seals, they are currently awaiting for their trail to decide their punishment.
Jibanyan stopped reading the article and looked at Whisper.
"We're famous?"
"Err...kind-of. They don't know that it's us specifically."
Whisper glanced around.
"Secretly, I'm afraid that someone told the reporters who we are and that they're waiting to ambush us for an interview. I want Nate and Katie to be more comfortable around Yo-kai before that happens, you know?"
Jibanyan nodded and looked at the article.
"Well, they're nyot asking for information about us yet. They want to see if we strike again before trying to track us down."
Whisper let out a relieved sigh.
"That's good to hear. We should just take the day to relax, look around town, befriend more Yo-kai, and help people."
"Should we wake them up?"
"No, they were up pretty late last night. Besides, they don't have anything important to do right now."
"Nyeah...you're right, Whisper. But it's pretty boring just waiting for them to wake up on their own."
"I know, but you'll have to deal with it."
Whisper went over to Jibanyan to get his Yo-kai Pad back, but Jibanyan started to hold it out of Whisper's reach, pressing a paw on Whisper's chest to make it more annoying for him.
"Jibanyan, give it back or I swear to Lord Enma..."
Suddenly, Jibanyan fell onto the floor and Whisper fell on top of Jibanyan, both of them blushing like crazy. They heard Nate and Katie moving around, about to wake up, so they quickly got up, acting like nothing happened while Whisper took back his Yo-kai Pad and started mumbling,
"If you had just given it back to me..."
Jibanyan flashed Whisper a small glare before watching the two kids fully get up.
"Man, that was very tiring. I really hope we don't have to do another late night thing again."
"So, are you saying that you don't want to go to the upcoming festival?"
"I meant in the near future. The festival isn't that close yet."
*****
After breakfast, they walked around town, unsure of what they wanted to do first.
"Hey, Whisper. What was that purple coin Jibanyan found yesterday?"
"Oh, it's a Crank-a-kai Coin. There's a variety of them in the world."
"So, we don't have to spend our hard earned cash in the Crank-a-kai like we did with you?"
"Look, you didn't have a Crank-a-kai Coin that day. Besides, that was just one measely little coin."
"Alright, Whisper. We get the idea. So, we'll head up to Mount Wildwood and check out what we get from this coin. That's at least something we can do today."
As they walked, they saw a mother with her young daughter. The daughter seemed to be tired and unwilling to move from the bench.
"Mommy, are you sure you don't have a drink on you?"
"Sorry, sweetie. I don't have one on me."
The mother glanced up and exclaimed,
"Excuse me! Can you two do me a favor?"
"Sure, what is it?"
The mother dug out a dollar-fifty and handed it to Nate.
"Can you buy a Y-Cola for my daughter? I'd go get one myself, but I'm afraid that she'll faint when I'm not around and hurt herself."
Nate nodded.
"Sure, we can do that."
The group walked off to the closest red vending machine and bought a Y-Cola.
"You didn't have to take her money, you know. You could've bought one regardless. You have enough cash to buy a lot of Y-Colas between the two of you."
"I know. I just wanted to be nice."
They went back to the mother and gave her the Y-Cola.
"Thank you!"
She handed it to her daughter, who chugged the whole thing down.
"Thank you! I'm ready to go, Mommy!"
She slowly stood up and clung to her mother's arm. The group waved goodbye as they watched them leave as a bright blue light suddenly appeared in front of them. They closed their eyes to block the light and when the light died down, they slowly opened their eyes. Nate and Katie looked down in their hands and saw a 10 cent gum, a Gooey Candy, and a Giant Cracker. They were confused about how they got these items, but put it out of their minds as they put them in the bottemless bag.
"Hey, guys? I think doing that lady's favor made me a little stronger."
Jibanyan picked up an empty can laying on the ground and slightly crushed it.
"See?"
Katie gently took the can out of Jibanyan's paws and threw it away.
"Geez, can't anyone not litter around here? At least we pick up items we get after fighting. Right, Nate?"
He nodded and said,
"Maybe there's a Yo-kai that rewards people and Yo-kai for doing good deeds. What do you think, Whisper?"
Whisper just shrugged with a sly smile on his face.
"Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. You'll find out someday. Although, doing that favor really made me thirsty. We should probably pick up a few drinks."
"Is there a Yo-kai that'll take soda as a gift of our friendship?"
Whisper pulled out his Yo-kai Pad and tapped the screen a few times.
"Soda falls under the Juice category and there are a lot of Yo-kai that drink stuff from the Juice category, so yes."
"Wouldn't 'Drinks' be a better name?"
"Well, there's an entire category called 'Milk', so calling this category 'Juice' is their way of making sure that no one mixes up the two."
"Okay, Whisper. We'll buy some drinks."
Nate went up to a red vending machine and put a dollar-fifty in there, hoping to get a Y-Cola. Instead, he got a VoltXtreme.
"What the heck?!"
"I didn't know that could happen, but look on the bright side, Nate. According to my Yo-kai Pad, that is the best Juice to give to a Yo-kai."
"Alright, then. Seems a bit random, but okay."
Nate put the VoltXtreme in the bottomless bag and tried to get a Y-Cola again. To his relief, he actually got one, so he bought one more Y-Cola and two Soul Teas.
"We might have to fight some more Yo-kai soon. We're not out of cash yet, but we're going to need a steady stream of cash if we're going to be trying to befriend more Yo-kai."
After giving Whisper a Soul Tea, the group walked to Everymart, where they saw one of their classmates, a girl named Lulu.
"Hey, Lulu. What's up?"
"Oh, hey you two. I've been getting hungry a lot recently, but I don't know why. It always seems to happen when I come to this Everymart, though."
Probably a Hungramps. It should be no problem finding him and getting him to stop inspiriting Lulu, right?
The group walked a little off to the side of the Everymart, so that if there was a Hungramps in the area, no one would hear them talking to him.
"Come on, Yo-kai Watch. Don't fail us now."
Nate had to keep his voice low as he scanned the area, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention to the group. He found the Hungramps and politely asked,
"Excuse me? Can you please stop inspiriting my classmate?"
"If you can get me a Plum Rice Ball and a Soul Tea to wash it down with, I'll stop inspiriting her."
Luckily, they had the items Hungramps requested, so they handed them over to him. Katie noticed Whisper and Jibanyan trying to resist going through the bag to get something to eat, so she said to Hungramps,
"We gave you what you wanted, please stop inspiriting this place. I'm starting to get hungry myself and we don't have a lot of food left."
"Oh, alright. Just get me some Curry Bread and we'll call it even."
"..."
"Relax, young ones. I was just joking. Curry Bread doesn't 'curry' any flavor with me, anyway."
They collectively groaned at the lame pun, but were thankful that he was going to stop inspiriting Lulu.
"I won't inspirit anyone anymore, but I'm going to stay here until I see my granddaughter one more time."
The kids looked at Hungramps with a sad expression.
Poor guy. He actually reminds us of Jibanyan in a way.
Nate took another Plum Rice Ball out of the bag and placed it near Hungramps.
"I know it's not much, but I hope you'll see your granddaughter again."
Hungramps picked up the extra Plum Rice Ball and smiled.
"Thank you for your generousity and concern."
The group went back to Lulu to check on her.
"Oh, hey guys. I suddenly stopped feeling hungry all of a sudden! I'm going to head off now. Bye!"
As she walked off, two girls came walking by.
"I used to come here with my Grandpa all the time when I was younger. I just wish that I hung out with him more before he passed on."
The group looked at the girl who had just spoken.
Is this Hungramps's granddaughter?
The Hungramps in question happened to be looking over when the girl had spoke and gave off a smile, confirming the group's thoughts. Hungramps got up and walked away with the food items in hand, waving goodbye to the group and the group waved back as a blue light appeared in their bag. They rushed to check it and found two Hamburgers and a Cheeseburger.
"Wow, we're good at this. Should we go to Mount Wildwood as we planned or keep going around town?"
"We'll stick to staying in town for now. If there's still time in the day, we can head up to Mount Wildwood."
*****
After a quick stop at Everymart to buy a few things, they walked out of the store and to their confusion, they saw a woman hiding behind a van. They checked their surroundings and walked over to the woman.
"Excuse me. Are you alright?"
The woman jumped and let out a surprised squeak before sighing with relief.
"Oh, sorry. I thought you were these two crazy fans of mine. You see, I'm kind-of an idol, nothing too major. Normally, I wouldn't mind some attention, but it's my day off and I just want to relax a little. Sadly, I was noticed by two fans and I had to run and hide here so that they wouldn't find me. I just want people to not notice me for one day. Is that too much to ask?!"
Apparently...
Whisper started swiping through his Yo-kai Pad and sighed with relief.
"Oh, thank goodness. We already have Dimmy."
Jibanyan looked at Whisper curiously.
"Why do we nyeed him, nya?"
"He can make people invisible, so to speak. If we get him to inspirit this young woman, she won't be bothered until he stops inspiriting her."
Whisper slipped Dimmy's medal into Nate's hand and Nate understood the message, having heard Whisper explain. Nate summoned Dimmy, knowing the woman couldn't see the Yo-kai, and said as seriously as he could,
"Miss? I happen to know some magic that can make you unnoticable for a while."
"Really? Oh, normally I would just humor you, but I'm desperate. Please help me!"
The group, minus Dimmy, gave Nate a weird look. Dimmy nodded as he quickly inspirited the woman.
"Oh, no! I can hear them coming!"
"Don't worry, miss. The magic is working as we speak. If they walk by here, they won't notice you at all."
"Dude, let's check this alley! Oh man, I can't believe it! You barely see her in normal clothes! I have to get a picture with her!"
Two teenage boys walked by the group. One of them turned their head, not seeming to notice the woman, and went on his way with his friend.
"I can't believe it! It worked! Thank you so much! I can finally relax!"
The woman walked off with Dimmy following her, promising to come back when she was ready to be visible and to be careful of the other Dimmies in the area.
"Magic, Nate? Really?"
"I panicked, okay?! Besides, it worked, didn't it?"
They weren't even surprised when the bag became slightly heavier, knowing they had been rewarded with something.
"Hey, Whisper. How much can this bag hold?"
"It's bottomless, Nate. It only gets slightly heavy when you put stuff in it and the heavy feeling fades away after a while, so you easily end up forgetting that you have stuff in there."
They walked down for a while, fighting a couple of Yo-kai to make their team stronger and to collect money and items until they came to a building called Jungle Hunter.
"Oh, right. They just moved in. They're a speciality shop that specializes in bugs and fish."
"I can finally get that new bug container! Thank you!"
Nate rushed inside to check it out, leaving Katie and the Yo-kai to awkwardly stare at the door before going inside, seeing Nate inspect a bug container and chatting with another customer. They looked at the other stuff in the shop, Katie explaining what each thing was to the two Yo-kai as Nate was digging around in his pockets for the money to pay for the new container.
"Funny, I thought there would be some fishing poles here. I wanted to try fishing this summer."
"Oh, we're having some shipping trouble. We have a ton of fish bait, but no fishing poles. We haven't heard anything about the poles coming in yet, but they'll hopefully come in soon."
Katie sighed with disappointment as she walked over to Nate. Nate got the recipt for the bug container and he chirped,
"Thank you! Oh, and if I happen to be near Mount Wildwood at night, I'll see about finding the Rhino Beetle for you!"
The group walked outside as Nate filled the group in on the favor he promised to do for someone. Apparently, the customer had been looking for a Rhino Beetle for a while, but doesn't have the time to actually look for it.
"They're only there at night, though."
"It's not like we're sneaking out to catch bugs, Katie. They'll be there in the early evening before we have to go home."
"Okay...if you say so, Nate. Do you want to go by Banter Bakery?"
"Yeah. I could go for a snack. So, why were you so disappointed, Katie?"
Katie filled Nate in on the fishing pole stitutation.
"Well, I'm sure Bear has an extra pole he could lend you. If you want to go fishing, we can go ask him."
"Hmm...maybe."
The group walked over to Banter Bakery, the relaxing smell of baked goods invading their senses as they walked in the door and went over to see what was in stock.
"Darn that co-worker of mine! He said he would be back half an hour ago!"
They saw the clerk with a sour mood as she tapped the countertop very loudly. She glanced up to see Nate and Katie and quickly bowed.
"Ahh! Forgive me. My co-worker left some time ago for his break, but he hasn't come back yet. I would go look for him myself, but I can't leave the shop and I don't want the customers to be annoyed at me for closing early so I could track down my co-worker."
"If that's the case, we can go look for him if you want."
"Oh, thank you! He said something about heading towards the fish market. I don't know why he would go there, but it's not really any of my business. Just please make sure he is okay."
The group walked out of Banter Bakery, Whisper making note of the favor, along with the Rhino Beetle favor.
*****
They got to the fish market with no problems and Whisper peeked into the alleyway behind the fish market.
"Okay, I don't see that Roughraff that caused Jibanyan so much grief, so we can investigate the alley for that baker."
Jibanyan felt a small smile form on his face as he followed the group into the alleyway. They found a man wearing a Banter Bakery apron, so jt was safe to assume that this was the co-worker they were looking for.
"I'm not good for anything. Why do I bother working there anymore?"
The group halted when they heard what he was muttering under his breath.
Was this man inspirited? Is that why he didn't come back when he was supposed to?
They shined their Yo-kai Watches near him and found a Negatibuzz inspiriting him.
"Okay, the quicker we battle, the quicker we can have him back to normal, agreed?"
"Agreed."
"It'zzz not going to be easy, you know."
*****
The Negatibuzz went down after using Paws of Fury, releasing the man from his inspiritment.
"Oh, man! I need to get back to work! She is going to be so mad at me!"
The man rushed by the group and they decided to head back themselves, still hungry for something to eat. They fought a few more Yo-kai on their way over, but haven't made any new friends yet.
*****
They walked back through the door of Banter Bakery, seeing the smiling clerk.
"Thank you for finding him! I don't know why he was trying to avoid work, but it seems that he's back and happy to work again!"
She handed them a free Blehgal as a reward and after they bought a Custard Bread for themselves, the group walked out.
"So, what should we do now?"
"Well, if we start heading towards Mount Wildwood, we can get the Crank-a-kai thing done. It won't be around the time to catch Rhino Beetles sadly, but it's not the end of the world."
Nate and Katie broke their Custard Breads in half, handing half to the Yo-kai that was closer to them and the group enjoyed their treat as they walked past the preschool that was near the elementary school. The little kids were playing and laughing, although something looked a little off. Some of the kids were coughing, sneezing and sniffling like they had a bad cold. Normally, it wouldn't bother Nate or Katie too much because kids got sick all the time, but when they heard the attendent saying that those kids had been healthy earlier in the day, they decided to investigate. They searched everywhere until they found the main culprits on the roof, Snotsolong, Coughkoff, and Dulluma. After a quick battle against them, Nate and Katie went down the slide, just for the heck of it, and walked over to the elementary school.
"Gah, it's so hot! I want to go inside the school for a bit and cool off."
"Yeah, we should go do that. We can also work on our Yo-kai projects while we're inside."
"Oh, speaking of projects, are we ever going to finish our bug reports?"
"We are, it's just not our top priority at the moment."
"Okay, okay. Let's just get inside then."
The group walked into the school, relived to feel the air condtioning and they made their way to the library on the third floor. It was mostly empty, so they didn't have to worry about someone walking in on them and disturbing them. Nate went on to write about what they had accomplished earlier today while Katie colored in the Yo-kai she had drawn last night.
*****
Meanwhile...
A group of Yo-kai hid in the shadows of the trees by Catfish Pond, counting out the stolen loot they have collected.
"Aren't you worried about the mysterious group that sealed away Slimamander? What if they get involved?"
"Nah. They're just a pair of humans and some weak Yo-kai that got lucky. Not even Holdit has been able to catch us and he's supposed to be the best at catching us Yo-criminals."
"But why are we doing this?"
"You see, my friend, we've been stealing things of sentimental value from the humans. The humans would do anything to get their precious item back if it meant something to them. If we keep everything hidden near Catfish Pond for a while and annouce our presence as 'professional item finders', we can get a lot of cash from the humans for finding them."
"Won't they get suspicious if we just happened to find their 'lost' items at Catfish Pond, though?"
"That's why the night before our grand debut, we're going to put the items near the places where we 'accquired' them, just enough to be hidden from plain sight if they happened to have already looked in the area, of course. We don't need to arouse too much suspicion."
The leader of the group left them to see what other mischief he could cook up when he saw a boy heading to Catfish Pond carrying a tackle box and saw two rings hanging off some fishing lines. One was made out of a cheap and shiny plastic while the other looked more fancier. The Yo-kai could sense a hint of sentimaental value in the fancier ring. Maybe it was a present of some kind?
"Let's see if I can find the King of Catfish Pond with this cheap ring."
As the boy was setting up his fishing spot, the Yo-kai saw this as an oppurtunity to steal the fancier ring, so he sneaked over and grabbed the ring he needed, planning to throw it in the water later on so that it would be difficult for the boy to find it later.
This is going to be good.
As the Yo-kai walked away, he heard the boy yell in surprise as he noticed the ring's disapperence and when he turned his head, he saw the boy had left the area, no doubt looking for the lost ring. With a smirk, he tossed the stolen ring in the pond and patiently waited for the boy to come back to the area so that he could watch the boy's fruitless efforts to find it.