Lucy stared blearily at Beldum as the floating Pokemon chit-chatted. She let out a light chuckle. Then she flopped onto the ground, curled up in a ball, and drifted off to sleep.

Chance's eyes narrowed a little at Blake's words. He doesn't know where the Center is, but he wants to travel with us? Right to a secret lair to ambush Chance, perhaps. For a second, the blonde thought he must be crazy paranoid to think these two random people were out to hurt him. But then he glanced at his strongest Pokemon, snoring loudly as she took a nap. Better safe than sorry.

Fortunately, Chance always kept an ace in the hole.

"Hang on, I've got an idea..." Chance said, returning his sleeping Munchlax to her pokeball. Then he opened another capsule. A Pidgey appeared, ruffling its feathers and stretching out after a long stay in its pokeball. The bird glanced around with a bored-looking expression. Then he faced Beldum and moved into a fighting stance.

"No, Ace," Chance explained. "We're not battling. I need you to fly up and figure out which direction the city's center is in. Don't go far."

Ace sensed a little tension in his trainer's voice and gave him an almost chastising expression. What did you get yourself into this time? Then, without a sound, the Pidgey took off into the air. Chance watched him circle around for a bit and then fly out of sight vaguely to his right.

Chance looked back to his 'traveling partners' and his muscles tensed a little more. Great. Now he didn't have any Pokemon ready to fight if these teens attacked him. He hoped Ace would have a stroke of luck and return soon.

Kai Allum

Kai turned away from the shop window and stared cautiously at the small group of people who were just a distance in front of her. Pokemon Centre? She had caught one of them asking. Kai had literally just arrived to the city this morning, and the first thing she did was visit the Pokemon Centre to get both her Pokemon checked over. But... where was it again? She scanned her surroundings, rummaging through her brain for directions.

Her search was stopped short when a small light flared in the corner of her eye and a Pokemon flew up into the air. Was that... A Pidgey? She quickly glanced towards her own Pidgey, a strange flood of guilt sickening her stomach as she thought about their earlier failure. If she hadn’t had done such a poor job on that wing, Sora would be flying right now. It simply wasn’t fair.

Pausing for a moment in thought, a new sense of determination ran through her as she picked up Sora and placed her onto the ground.

“Pidgey?” The Pokemon cocked it’s head to the sided, staring up at her trainer, slightly confused.

“Do you remember where the Pokemon Centre is?” She asked confidently, knowing that even though she couldn’t fly, her sense of direction was impeccable. Unlike Kai’s, it seemed.

Sora quickly caught on to what her trainer was trying to do and replied hastily with a, “Pi, Pi!” Kai nodded her head and looked back up towards the teens while Vivie took her normal place on Kai’s shoulder, watching the group intently.

Kai smiled, taking a deep breath. “Hey!” She shouted, nearing the group. “We just came from the centre this morning, we can take you there if you like?”

"Okay, that's enough. The nice Munchlax is sleeping. You don't have to try and entertain her anymore." Blake said calmly as he tried to grab his Beldum only to have it float out of his reach and look in the direction that the Pidgy had gone. Blake's eyes widened. "Don't even think about it."

"Dum."

"I mean it."

"Beldum"

"I'm serious."

"Beldum!"

Beldum was about to take off in the same direction the Pidgy had gone when a blue blur jumped down from one of the trees and wrestled it to the ground. Blake sighed heavily. "Thank you, Croconaw." He said calmly as he watched his Croconaw start to point at Blake and then back at itself. For a brief moment he thought he saw Beldum nod before Croconaw allowed Beldum to float back and Croconaw walked over to Blake and looked up at him expectantly.

"Good job, buddy." He said with a smile as the Beldum floated behind Croconaw. "As soon as we get to the Pokemon center we'll eat and I'll let you guys pick the next few meals we have."

Poppy wondered why Chance wasn't happy. At least he certainly didn't look as happy as Lucy. Maybe he was disappointed about the battle. Well there wasn't a whole lot she could do about that though. If she didn't leave soon her grandfather would throw a fit. She giggled while watching the beldum. He looked like he was having a lot of fun! "I certainly don't mind. Could be pretty entertaining!" She heard a girl shouting a little ways away. She was tall and quite pretty in poppy's opinion.

Poppy waved at her and shouted back "That would be great!" She REALLY needed to get going. She checked her poke'dex for the time. Wow she was really late! She grabbed the random boy's and and started walking. " Come on! let's go an adventure!" She was going straight to the other girl. What a relief to find such nice people.

Kai Allum

Kai stopped walking, a wave of uneasiness rushing through her as she watched the group move closer. She suddenly regretted getting involved, but she knew there was no turning back now. As she stood there, the faces of the group became more visible to her and she could see that there was three of them, one girl and two boys. She could see the boy who had released the Pidgey, and instantly recalled him from the battle she had seen earlier. Didn’t he have a Munchlax though? The other boy had two Pokemon in front of him, one she didn’t recognise but the other she knew was a Croconaw. Back at home, it was common to see them since they had a large dam near-by that attracted water-types. And lastly, the girl. She looked as if she was leading the group and was being followed by two Pokemon floating beside her. Floating...

Kai clenched her teeth, tensing slightly as they neared. Was it... was it, a ghost-type? She could feel Vivie clutch onto her shoulder tightly, obviously she too had noticed. Kai switched her gaze over to Vivie, her eyes firmly reminding her that; I’d never let anything happen to you. The Vulpix, knowing that look in her trainer’s eye, nodded as if to say likewise.

The Pidgey, unaware of the apprehension coming from her trainer, was still trotting up towards the girl with a determined expression on it’s face. “Pidgey, Pi!”

Kai gulped, removing her attention forcibly from the Pokemon to it’s trainer. The girl looked friendly and definitely eager to get going. “Urm, yes, Sora knows the way.”

“Pid! Pid! Pidgey!” The Pokemon announced, confirming that it did, in fact, know the way. Kai smiled faintly at her, the ghost Pokemon still strongly on her mind.

“My name’s Kai, by the way...” She looked back down towards Sora. “Go on then, take lead.”

Kai followed Sora intently, letting the group trail on behind until they reached the Pokemon Centre. Once they arrived, which actually wasn’t far away at all, she turned back to face the girl. “Here it is.”

Ace scanned the back streets for his trainer, finally locating him near an old bicycle shop. Chance had played along with the other trainers, following in the back until an opportunity opened up for him to quietly duck into an alley and get away. The Pidgey landed on Chance's shoulder, looking at the teen with his typical stern expression.

"Don't worry," the blonde assured. "If there was every any trouble, I think we lost 'em. Out of curiosity, which way is the Pokemon Center?"

Chance frowned thoughtfully as Ace unfurled a wing and pointed it. So, the three trainers really did go to the Center. Or at least they started out in that direction. Chance also needed to go to the middle of the city, though, to buy a small mountain of Pokemon food. Ace keeping watch on his shoulder, Chance strolled vaguely toward the supermarket, trying to avoid the Pokemon Center on his path.

Aura City, All Districts (Story Post)

There was an eerie silence befall Aura City. The light breeze of the summer winds disappeared, there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the people didn’t mutter a single word. Then after a second or two the peace was broken by a horrifically enraged roar.
Streaks of purple lightening skimmed across buildings, zapping all the T.V monitors. Then it came – a concentrated twin hyper-beam ravaged across just over a mile of construction site, vaporising both stone and steel into nothing but flaming cinders.
The thunderous footsteps that followed closed in onto the city centre and just past the concealing building skyline it could be seen with its black, hollow eyes and purple scally skin, standing just over 250 meters – a void Pokémon.

Chance's heart nearly leaped out of his chest as the booming roar rattled his bones.

"The crap was that?" he uttered, just moments before the blazing lightning streamed across the skyscrapers, sending showers of sparks on pedestrians below. Immediately, hordes of city-goers began to scream and run around in panic. Chance's heart raced even faster, and the blonde seemed almost frozen amid the chaos.

A sharp peck to the head snapped Chance out of his trance. Mentally urging himself to calm down and think, Chance dashed to the double-doored building Ace gestured toward. What looked to be a middle-aged employee of the place was holding one door open for a sea of people and Pokemon who nearly trampled the guy in their rush to reach supposed safety indoors. Chance pushed his way through some of the mob, only to pull the other door open and hold it. The employee noticed the people spread out and sighed in relief. As the last of the stragglers walked through, the man smiled lightly to thank his mystery helper. But the blonde was already gone, jogging down the street...

Ace ruffled his feathers and growled lightly to express his disapproval as Chance ran in the direction of a massive cloud of smoke. In the back of his mind... actually, in the front, as well... Chance knew he ought to listen to the Pidgey. But the teen had never seen anything like this before, and he might never again, and some morbid part of his mind yearned to see what could cause this much chaos.

About four blocks away from the Pokemon Center, Chance lurched to a stop as he spotted it in the spaces between skyscrapers. The mere sight of the monstrous Pokemon numbed his mind. The teen barely had enough sense to stumble shakily to a shadowy hiding space. After that, Chance and Ace could only gape at the beast in a mix of awe and terror.

Blake smiled as his two Pokemon left the center with him. They seemed happy and healthy and now it was time for Blake to come through on his promise to feed them. "So, where do you guys want to eat?" He asked cheerfully. His cheerful mood vanished a moment later as he heard a massive roar that seemed to shake the city itself. He looked down and saw his Croconaw's eyes were narrowed and it seemed very on edge. His Beldum was trying to hide in his backpack.

"The hell was that?" He muttered to himself and a moment later his eyes widened in shock as a large area that was under construction just vanished into dust as what looked like some kind of massive hyper beam took it out. He looked up as he heard the massive footsteps nearby and saw it. Some sort of massive...thing. He continued staring up at the beast and pulled out his Pokedex and tried to get information on whatever it was.

"No data available." The Pokedex said calmly. Blake stared up at it and looked back at his Pokemon after a moment. Beldum had managed to get inside his bag. He could feel the poor thing shaking from it's fright and Croconaw had a somewhat feral look in it's eyes.

"Don't even think about it." Blake said in a shocked tone as he continued staring at the beast. "That's not a normal opponent. I have a feeling neither of us would have a chance against that thing."

Croconaw growled but seemed to get what he was saying. "Come on. We need to move out of that thing's way." He said as he ducked into an ally.