Cherry Meets the Wild Thornberrys

chapter 18

"I don't understand this part though," Felicity said to the poachers as they were being held hostage in the camp. "Why are you wanting our Pokemon? They are not wild animals!"

"Do you even know how rare Pokemon are these days? And how much money someone will pay for a real, living, breathing Pokemon? Millions!" Bree told her.

"That is not fair or nice!" Felicity firmly frowned.

"Oh, you kids are little troublemakers..." Sloan tutted after he finished tying up Eliza. "First you show up on my cheetah hunt, and then you jump from a train to save my rhino..."

"He's not your rhino!" Eliza and Estelle snarled.

"Oh, really?" Sloan sneered to them. "And then... Somehow you knew the poachers had shot him at the river, yet you were on a train at the time."

"We guessed." Eliza quickly said, not revealing the truth.

"Perhaps," Sloan glanced back to her. "And now, you arrive in the jungle, knowing about a fence, a fence which no one witnessed being built... So, my little troublemakers, who told you?"

"No one told us." Estelle told him.

Sloan glared to them, he knew they were lying though. "Eliza, are your parents working with that Jomo person?"

"They don't even know we're here." Eliza scowled.

"Then who is your source of information?" Sloan demanded.

"There is no one!" Felicity glared.

"You know too much for little girls," Sloan glared, mostly to Felicity. "Especially one who doesn't have English as a first language."

Felicity winced, that hurt a little.

"She's learning!" Mo glared at him.

Sloan ignored her. "I have too much invested in this operation to let anything get in my way," he told the girls, very firm with them. "If you don't tell me who they are, you'll never see your families ever again."

The door suddenly opened.

"Sloan, I hear someone coming." Bree reported to her husband.

Sloan left them and shut the door behind him.

"We have got to get out of here." Vincent said.

"The boy's right," Darwin agreed. "I don't like the way that man was looking at us."

"Guys, we saw them with fire sticks," Tally walked over. "And then, there was a loud sound!"

"Explosives?" Eliza asked, now really determined. "Oh, there's gotta be someway out of here!"

"I'll help!" Tally jumped up to chew on their ropes.

"Count us in." The Pokemon jumped up to begin chew on the ropes.

"Yes, that's it, let's get the cheetah and Pokemon involved again..." Darwin sounded grumpy. "If we hadn't gone looking for them that night, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Don't you blame them!" Estelle scolded like a protective mother.

"Oh, I'm not," Darwin glared back. "They didn't sneak out without permission... They didn't run away from Boarding School... They didn't trust those people who clearly don't like Pokemon or animals!"

"They thought they were like us!" Akito glared at the chimp now.

"When are you kids going to see that no one's like you?" Darwin glanced at them. "What more do you need? Eliza, the shaman gave you a gift and somehow your new friends have the same gift. Use it!"