It was almost impossible to see, but fortunately Kent didn’t stray too far as he led us through the storm. I was almost impressed that he could figure his way back but he did.

  “What exactly happened?” I shouted over the storm.

  “A Nincada. It just came out of nowhere!” Kent told me. “It bit Doug a-and poisoned him!”

  That didn’t tell me anything else. I mentally chastised myself for bothering to ask again. I could field any more questions to the two boys once this crisis was over.

  It didn’t take us long to reach our destination. There was a small clearing in the tall grass and that was where we found Kent’s friend, Doug.

  He was another boy in the typical bug catcher’s outfit, with dark hair and he was curled up into a ball. He was soaked through as he laid on a flattened bit of grass and I hurried up to him.

  “Hello!” I shouted. The boy didn’t so much as respond. Whether that was because he couldn’t hear me over the wind or because he was in a bad way I couldn’t tell.

  I pushed aside the worry that things might be worse, that the boy might somehow have died on his own already. Bug types were not usually so immediately lethal.

  Nincada were usually fairly docile too, staying hidden. Were been taught about them briefly in school, it was actually the poisonous Wurmples we'd been told to steer clear of.

  “Doug, can you hear me?!” I shouted. “I’m here to help!”

  Reaching a hand into my bag, I pulled out a poison heal.

  But most medicines were some sort of spray that you had to put over the original wound. If I tried using it here then I would only wash away. I reached out to shake his shoulder and get the boy’s attention. I needed to know where the injury was to be able to do anything and. Which meant that I needed to-

  Suddenly the boy spun around. I barely caught the flash of sliver and leaned away, falling onto my back as the knife cut a line in front of me.

  I still hadn’t been fast enough. As I fell I felt a weight leave me.

  My bag had fallen down!

  A blast of pink light shot over my chest, stopping my attacker from doing anything else. I scrambled back but then remembered that there was another boy with us.

  “Leah, behind you!” I shouted, looking for my Pokemon.

  He was there and off to the side. I saw that the boy also had a Pokeball in his hand.

  Leah was quick to react to my direction and turned to where I was looking and that made the boy’s eyes widen in panic. Instead of reaching for his Pokeball the kid jumped backwards, immersing himself in the long grass around us and disappearing completely from sight.

  For a second there was only the rain and wind around us.

  “What the hell!” I cursed as I got to my feet quickly.

  Was this some kind of ambush? My eyes widened.

  No, this was a robbery!

  I turned back to where my bag had fallen, only to find it completely gone, along with the first of my attackers!

  Stunned. I could only stare in shock at the location where my bag had been. The bag with my laptop and all my writing in it!

  “Leah find them!” I barked, reaching for the Pokeballs at my belt.

  In this weather Bud and Robin would only get blown away but I had plenty of other Pokemon that would be able to assist in this terrain.

  “Happy, Kira, we’re under attack!” I shouted as I summoned them both beside me.

  Both Pokemon immediately took battle positions but after a few more seconds it was apparent that none of our attackers were going to reappear.

  They were running away with all my hard work!

  I looked to Leah, who only shook her head. She couldn’t find them with her psychic abilities. Maybe they had some way to hide from such things.

  We needed to find them in a more manual way and that meant somehow finding them in a storm and through all this extra long grass!

  The storm I couldn’t do anything about, but the grass I immediately had a solution for.

  “Leah and Kira, use Dazzling Gleam and cut this grass down to size!” I shouted.

  My two Pokemon immediately responded to the command and two beams of bright pink energy cut through the night.

  They changed the angle of their attacks and wherever they aimed the attack, grass was shredded in the wake of the two attacks. Leah and Kira’s strength allowing their attack to travel very far forwards and almost immediately a swathe of the terrain was suddenly clear.

  I had made a mistake though. The intense light also completely cut out my night vision and I was left blinded.

  “Silveon!” Kira shouted. He’d spotted them.

  “Go!” I shouted after my Pokemon.

  Kira and Happy raced off in the direction he’d apparently spotted them. Leah came and took my hand while I blinked away the spots behind my eyelids.

  “Voir!” She called, leading me forward through the now much shorter grass.

  She didn’t have to wait long for my vision to return. I quickly went to run in the direction the bright pink and white form of Kira had gone off in, still just about visible through the rain.

  That was made more easy when a short burst of Dazzling Gleam lit up the night again.

  It was further away this time and didn’t immediately blind me. For a moment I spotted our quarry, two shadows running through the open field we’d created.

  They had also discarded what I realised now were disguises. The two kids were wearing dark clothes, ninja clothes with actual swords at their backs and a dull coloured red scarf around their necks.

  The Pokeball I’d seen before had been released and a Pokemon was retaliating against us. I couldn’t see what it was as a blur of glowing energy was charging forward at intense speed but i could certainly guess.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  If these were ninjas then they were probably using the fastest Pokemon around, a Ninjask.

  It certainly was fast and with its speed it had the advantage against my chasing Pokemon. The attack forced Kira to stop as it cut past him with what I imagined was probably Fury Swipes or Fury Cutter. It came back around, practically turning on a dime and not seeming to lose any of its speed.

  But to my relief, the second attack didn’t do so well when Happy jumped up and parried the attack with Iron Tail.

  They weren’t trying to attack us though. The Ninjask was trying to help the two human ninjas to escape!

  “Don’t let it distract you!” I shouted. “Leah, catch it with Psychic!”

  The Ninjask hadn’t been deterred by Happy’s defensive move and maybe it hadn’t heard my order either but that was to our advantage. When it came around again the Pokemon was immediately caught up in the glow of the Psychic attack.

  Being a Bug type was little help against Leah’s attack. The Ninjask struggled in her psychic hold but it was going nowhere.

  “Kira, use Dazzling Gleam and knock it out!”

  A powerful burst of pink light struck the Ninjask, knocking it out in one powerful hit and Leah let the now unconscious Pokemon unceremoniously fall to the floor.

  That was all well and good, but in the meanwhile, our attackers were still escaping! They were almost at the edge of the cut grass where they would easily disappear a second time.

  “Happy, Kira, keep going!” I shouted. “Leah, Teleport in front of them!”

  Seeing the distraction had been removed, my Pokemon were already charging forwards again. I ran ahead, knowing that Leah would be more than able to handle two humans.

  And indeed she had.

  I came to a stop to see the two boys held up in the air, courtesy of my Gardevoir’s Psychic prowess.

  Happy and Kira were also there, both Pokemon looking about as angry as I felt right now.

  Seeing their Pokemon so effortlessly knocked out hopefully helped show how outclassed the two boys had suddenly found themselves now their advantage had been taken away. It was their bad luck that had seen them choose to attack myself instead of someone who wouldn’t have been able to defend themselves.

  The two kids kept struggling but if my Gardevoir could hold a powerful Gym Leader tier Arcanine in her clutches then there was no way two mere children were going to escape without assistance.

  In that moment of calm considered myself to be a fairly relaxed person. It really took a lot to get me angry. But threatening my life and that of my Pokemon certainly qualified to earn my ire. Right now I was furious.

  “So what should I do with you both then?” I asked as the wind and rain whipped around me. It was a rhetorical question. What I was going to do with them was send them straight to prison.

  One of them still had my bag clutched in his grip, I noticed. “Kira, grab the bag!”

  Suddenly a lot of things happened at once.

  “Now Nincada!” Shouted one of the boys.

  A massive thump struck the earth as a huge Pokemon landed on the ground between Leah and the ninjas, breaking her line of sight.

  “Trooooo!” Growled the Pokemon in a threatening way.

  It was a Tropius, a sort of part palm tree, part dinosaur Pokemon that I remember had been introduced in generation three and in Route 119. I’d once been pleased to encounter one because to me back then it had seemed kind of cool. Then I had been very disappointed by its mediocre stats and movepool. I knew far better than to let that bias from another lifetime affect me however. This was clearly a powerful example of its species.

  The creature bore down on us slightly, but I had three powerful Pokemon on hand. I certainly wasn’t afraid of it.

  As I was thinking that, suddenly I saw as a pair of Nincada burst out from the ground, taking Happy and Kira by surprise.

  Neither of them were particularly injured, but they did give out cries of surprise as they were knocked over, and it wasn’t just them. Leah had also been struck by the surprise attack.

  With her concentration interrupted, the ninja kids fell to the floor and they both immediately darted away to either side to make their escape. And one of them still had my bag!

  “No! Kira, stop him!” I shouted, gesturing at the one that had my things.

  A burst of stars shot out from Kira’s fur. Glowing in the night they made a beeline for the one with my bag. But then we were stopped again as a Pelipper of all things came flying down, the typical hexagonal glow of a Protect blocking the stream of Fairy type Swift stars.

  “Everybody stand down!” Shouted a woman's voice from the giant Pokemon that I recognised now was a Tropius.

  Gym Leader Winona jumped down from the Tropius’ back, an angry expression on her face.

  “Stand down and return your Pokemon!” She shouted at me.

  Of course that wasn’t going to happen. Happy took an aggressive stance in front of the trainer and her Tropius, who looked ready to defend it’s trainer.

  “I’m Harry Hemming, the guy coming to visit your Gym. They stole my bag!” I shouted back at the Flying type trainer.

  At least she seemed quick on the uptake.

  “Pelliper, chase after those… ninjas!” The woman shouted, sounding slightly disbelieving as she did so.

  The Pelliper soared up in the air, heading in the direction the two kids had disappeared off in.

  “Kira, Leah, cut through the rest of this grass!” I shouted.

  They couldn’t be allowed to get away with my laptop!

  “No, you might hurt them!” Winona shouted. But she was too slow to stop me.

  Twin beams of pink light cut through the grass, clearing another massive swathe of it down.

  But the two ninja kids were nowhere to be seen.

  “Damnit!” I cursed.

  The rain splattered against my cheek, the cold suddenly registering as I clenched my fist. I turned to Winona, ready to vent my anger at her but I stopped myself. I could already guess what had happened.

  She’d thought she had been interrupting some sort of attack, or a Pokemon battle taken too far.

  The woman palmed her face.

  “I am so sorry,” she told me, which was a cold comfort. I had about five weeks worth of writing stored on that laptop, plus however much more in notes and other information. It wasn’t anything

  That along with my possessions, including camping supplies, clothes and plenty of other things. All I had now was what had been on my person. My PokeNav, Pokeballs and identification. Those were the most important things I owned and I was just glad I hadn’t lost them.

  In the end it wasn't the end of the world, but it felt pretty damn close.

  The Pelliper came back, looking slightly disappointed. It hadn’t found the thieves.

  “The Ninjask!” I realised.

  Winona and her Pokemon followed after us. It was hard to see in the dark but we found that Pokemon gone too.

  “Damn,” I muttered. It must have been able to fake being knocked out or something. Perhaps Endure? If it could use that at just the right moment it would’ve barely survived Kira’s Dazzling Gleam.

  “What are you looking for!?” Winona shouted over the still rushing wind.

  “They had a Ninjask!” I replied. “But it’s gone now.”

  Winona nodded in understanding.

  “Do you need a ride out of here?” She asked.

  Did I?

  Well we were heading to Fortree anyway and we weren’t going to manage the trip without any supplies or camping equipment. Leah could probably run me through several Teleport jumps but she couldn’t do that in this weather and she’d be exhausted at the end of things. I also didn’t fancy trying to rough it out in the wilderness either.

  And I couldn’t run the risk those kids might come back for whatever reason. If they had been hoping to pilfer my Pokemon then that was a real possibility that I didn’t want to chance.

  “Okay!” I said, against my better judgement.

  “Come on onto my Tropius!” Winona said. “You’ll have to return some of your Pokemon though. He can't’ carry more than two or three”

  I watched as Winona clambered onto the Pokemon’s back.

  “Okay, Happy, Kira return. I’ll see you later,” I promised them.

  “Come on!” Winona shouted. “I don’t want to be out in this any longer than I have to!”

  Leah wasn’t going to return to her Pokeball. After I had joined Winona on the back of her Pokemon I felt the comforting hold of the Gardevoir behind me. She barely weighed anything so I knew she wouldn’t pose much more of an imposition to the flying type. Having her close at least helped distract from the vertigo I was soon to feel.

  It wasn’t mature for me to be using my Pokemon as a safety blanket, but I really didn’t care.

  I kept my eyes closed and kept a firm hold on Winona as we took off and set a fast pace northwards and to the safety of civilization.