Sinnoh Journey

Chapter 13 - The Dangerous Wayward Forward

The next morning, the group decided to spit up for the day and head down to Hearthome City where they would regroup this evening. They agreed that it would be nice to do some training separately and see if they could figure out their final few team members to boot.

In order to get to Route 207 and the lower area of Route 206 however, they had to travel down the Cycling Road, something Kyra was far from looking forward to.

"Come on Kyra, it'll be fine. It's all downhill so you don't even have to worry about peddling uphill," Nate said reassuringly.

"It's not that...you guys know I have terrible balance," Kyra replied, fiddling with her scarf in an attempt to hide her embarrassment.

Willow quietly laughed to herself, "You could always get stabilisers, they exist for a reason," she suggested.

"Ha ha, very funny," Kyra replied, very much unamused.

Willow saw she had upset Kyra by her joke, quite the opposite of her intentions. "Hey, you know I didn't mean it nastily. It was just a joke," she said, attempting to ease ease tension.

"Yeah, because laughing at me for not having any balance is definitely funny. You should become a comedian with jokes like that," Kyra replied, still not in a good mood after having not had much sleep the night before.

"Someone's touchy this morning. Did you not get enough beauty sleep or something?" Nate asked jokingly, not realising his joke would annoying Kyra even further.

Kyra signalled for Lucario to come with her on the bike, Lucario did so and carefully put the egg in the front basket before hopping onto the back seat of the bike behind Kyra. "See you in Hearthome. Unless you two start off you oh so funny comedic duo," she said, not turning back and she left.

Nate and Willow saw they had really annoyed Kyra this time, they both felt awful, but at the same time, they didn't know why since Kyra was the one who had turned snappy.

"I'm kind of worried about her. She's never like this," Willow said as she and Nate biked down Cycling Road together.

Nate nodded, "I'm with you there. Ever since she got back from seeing the Legendary pokémon statues, she's not been herself. Do you think something happened whilst she was there?" he asked.

"Maybe, but why wouldn't she tell us? Do you think she's in some sort of trouble and doesn't want us finding out? I mean, she seemed pretty on edge yesterday and this morning too," Willow asked in reply, worrying that Kyra was keeping something from the two of them.

"Whatever is bothering her, I hope it'll blow over soon. I don't like this Kyra, it's not our best friend, that's for sure," Nate replied.

"Agreed. Although Kyra had always been one to get sarcastic when stressed or embarrassed, this is a whole other level. Let's not worry too much on it, I'll try talking to her later," Willow agreed, hoping Kyra would have calmed down by this evening.

The two decided to change the topic away from Kyra's nerves whilst they continued to make their way down the Cycling Road. Nate asked how Willow's nose felt now, Willow replied to say it was still pretty painful, but she would be fine in time.

By the time Nate and Willow made it down to the bottom of Route 207, they saw the bike that Kyra and Lucario had used was already there, they were relieved the two had made it down safely.

Kyra had used the bike ride down Cycling Road as an opportunity to rant to Lucario about Cyrus and how awful she felt about upsetting Nate and Willow as she had done. Lucario listened to Kyra and although she was worried about Cyrus, she knew that Kyra would come up with a strategy to defeat him. As for Nate and Willow, Lucario knew Kyra had just felt embarrassed by nerves and assured her that the three friends would make up this evening.