What the hell are we doing!?!

Kiko made her way down the river, her dark hair brushing gently against her face in the wind while she wished it was longer and easier to keep tied back at such times. Slightly annoyed Kiko swept her hand up along her face, pulling her hair back behind her ears in an attempt to keep it out her face. However this seemed fruitless as it simply fell back with the next gentle gust of wind. The young girl sighed before looking down at the small, blue turtle pokémon gripping onto her dirty, grey pants as they walked. She smiled gently at it, knowing it to be her only true friend in this world. It like her was the smallest of its family too.

Not paying close attention to where she was heading, Kiko tripped over a small stone that lay on the dirt path she was following, leading to her tumbling onto the ground in a flurry. With a small cry or surprise as she fell, Balto, her new Squritle quickly released her pants and rushed to her head to lift it up. Covered in more dirt now, Kiko spat on the ground several times, as she had managed to swallow some of the sandy dirt.

“Ugh…” Kiko whispered to herself before taking out a small water bottle she had packed just earlier that day. Taking a small mouthful of the water she swished it around before spitting it out again, then took a larger mouthful this time and swallowed. Balto looked at his trainer with a sad look, hoping she was ok. Noticing this Kiko smiled and pet her little pokémon.

“Don’t worry, Balto. A bit of dirt never hurt anyone, right?” Kiko then laughed for the first time in weeks, it felt good to be this happy. Seeing that everything was fine now, Balto gripped onto Kiko’s pants again and they continued to walk along the path once more. Unsure of where she was heading or what she was even going to do now the young duo kept an eye out for anything that might help or hinder, hoping that someone or something might give them inspiration.

A silhouette raced across the river, bounding along on the wind as its ribbons danced. Its long purple mane and blue diamond crest were prominent against its blue and white body. Suicune, of the legends of Burned Tower in Johto rushed by Kiko, pausing for a moment to halt in front of her. It turned to face her, staring in the eye for what seemed like hours, but lasted mere moments. As suddenly as it appeared, Suicune was gone, vanished into the distance. It might even seem like it had been a dream or mirage. There was no way that Suicune had just appeared, right?

The sound of feet along the path behind Kiko could be heard pounding hard against the packed earth. A young girl with a strange crocodilian Pokemon by her side were rushing her way. The girl seemed to be a bit older than Kiko by a year or two with dirty blonde hair, and green eyes. She wore basic jean shorts, and a blue tank top along with her tennis shoes. The two rushed up to her, halting after the girl stumbled a bit, tripping over her Totodile and biffing it as Kiko had done not too long ago.

She sat up, rubbing her head with a nice new scratch across her chin. "Ow, Chomper..." the girl said, looking over to the Totodile who seemed a bit dazed, laying on his belly after being practically landed on. "Oh no, I think it got away..." she said, standing up. Chomper the Totodile quickly shot to his feet, holding one hand as a visor above his brow, scanning the horizon.

"Toto...dile..." He said, a bit apathetically, plopping back on his rear once more. He then looked up to his left, where Kiko was only a few feet away. "Dile?" he questioned, confused at where this new trainer appeared from. He wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box, this one. The girl ran up, scooping the Totodile into her arms before looking over to Kiko.

"Oh I'm sorry...hey wait, did you see a Suicune a minute ago?!" she asked, rushing up to Kiko as Chomper squirmed in her arms. It was obvious she wasn't raised to be the most polite thing, but at least she didn't seem to be mean or nasty about it.

Still hypnotised by the legendary pokémon’s stare even well after it was gone, Kiko was left speechless and dazed as the older girl approached with her small, blue pokémon by her side. It wasn’t till her own water pokémon, who hadn’t even seemed to notice the sudden appearance and then disappearance of the Suicune, suddenly sort of yelped in excitement at the sight of the other trainer and pokémon that Kiko snapped out of her trance.

Looking slightly confused at the other girl rushed over with her question, ‘er…’ Kiko stumbled trying to find words that formed a coherent sentence, ‘Sui-suicune? What’s that?’ she asked, having little idea what the girl was on about. The young girl tilted her head slightly and glanced at the totodile with interest before quickly snapping her head back to look at the girl again.

Meanwhile Balto had lost interest in the new comers and had taken to sniffing the air and slowly approaching the river’s edge with interest. Gently dipping one of his paw like hands into the water till it rippled and smiled to himself a smile only a squirtle could make and began splashing more and more into the water to create larger waves. Enjoying his own little game.

Chonper squirmed out of the girl's arms, plopping to the ground. However, she seemed to pay him no mind as he ran off toward the river where Balto was, chanting part of his name with every step. "To-to, to-to, to-to-dile!" he said, jumping into the river and splashing Balto. He resurfaced, laughing with his raspy voice and pointing at the Squirtle.

"Yes, a Suicune!" the girl started, taking a step back to give herself some room. She began speaking and using over exaggerated hand and body movements to emphasize her words. "It's like this big blue dog, with a big purple mane, and it has this big diamond crest on its face, and white diamond shaped spots all over its body," the girl rambled, matching her movements to attempt to help her description. 

The girl stopped suddenly, just staring at Kiko for several moments as though she saw or thought of something. Suddenly, she straightened out her body, standing up and holding out her hand. "I'm sorry, I'm Austen. People usually just call me Laci though. They say Austen is a boy's name..." she said, saying the last sentence with a bit of a grump face and growl.

It took a few moments to realise that the other girl was speaking about what she had just saw, but Kiko could have sworn that that pokemon had just been an illusion, a mind trick. It couldn’t have been the real thing, could it? Suddenly snapping once more back to reality she realised the girl had said something about a name she hadn’t quite caught and had her hand extended towards Kiko.

"Oh sorry.." Kiko mumbled as she reached out her hand shyly, "I-I'm Kiko…" She shook Austen’s hand gently still not quite sure of the girl’s name. ‘What had she said to me?’ Kiko though still confused. Realising she’d been holding hands with the girl for a while she quickly released her grip and stepped back a bit.

"Er… The um… Suicune thing? I'm not sure but I er… Think I saw it, I don’t know…It was sort of like a dream…" Kiko stuttered as she spoke, her nerves showing clearly. Not wanting to continue sounding like an idiot she looked over to her Squirtle.

Balto however was too preoccupied to notice his trainer’s stare as he was watching this Totodile laugh at him. Not sure quite how to react to this other Pokemon, Balto simply started to blow bubbles and watch them float off into the air. Hoping to impress his fellow water pokemon.

The poor girl was obviously soft spoken and put off by Laci's energetic and outgoing approach to life. However, Laci was still rather oblivious to this fact. "Kiko you say? That's a neat name," the girl said, shaking Kiko's hand vigorously. Upon releasing her grip, Laci felt her heart thump. Had she seen Suicune too? Had she seen the direction that the Pokemon left in?! Her heart began to race with anticipation, an overwhelming feeling which could be seen clearly in the child's face.

The excitement and anticipation quickly died down with every word that Kiko spoke unfortunately. The girl's face went from an almost ecstatic expression to disappointed, to flat out depressed. She sank down, squatting and wrapping her arms around her knees as she burried her chin down into them. "I really wish I could have kept track of it..." she muttered, fighting back the shaky feeling deep inside her.

Totodile used his claws, staring at the bubbles in amusement as he popped them. He followed it up with his own show by using his Water Gun attack to create an impressive looking fountain, letting it finally dissipate and rain on the two of them for a moment.

While Kiko was distracted by the Pokemon, Laci quickly pulled herself together and stood up. Fists clenched with a serious yet distant look in her eye, Laci looked on to the road. "I can't give up now!" she claimed confidently. "Not when I was so close. Kiko, you saw Suicune. Will you help me find the Legendary Pokemon?" she asked, turning to the oblivious and shy trainer.