Lucki

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Lucki recalled Silver and continued on. She walked for a few more hours, not making much progress. The terrain was hilly and overgrown with thick grass, at times blocking the path. Here and there were ridges allowing for a quick shortcut to the next length of trail, but many were too high for her to attempt, or would drop her first into dubious patches of deep, tangled vegetation she'd have to fight through to get back onto the main path. Still others were facing in the opposite direction, useful if she ever came back this way but, for the moment, having no more use than to mock her progress. Sticking to the trail, she went up and down and up again, occasionally trying to cut across and less occasionally regretting it. Lunch came and went as Lucki, frustrated by her slowness, munched on a sandwich while she continued rather than take a break. Finally, though, she seemed to be out of the worst of it and the path had smoothed out into something mostly level. Minutes later, Lucki saw a familiar figure around a bend in the path.

"Oh hey!" yelled Lucki. "Keegan!" He turned to see her and waved, waiting as she broke into a jog to catch up.

"Hey," he greeted. "Nice to see you again, Lucki."

"Same here. What are you doing in the area? The Safari Zone?"

Keegan shook his head. "I might check it out," he allowed, "but I'm here to visit Mt. Pyre."

"Oh – your pokemon...?"

"No, no, they're fine. I'm just going to visit the shrine for luck before my next big battle. It's going to be pretty hard. How about you?"

"I'm headed toward Lilycove," Lucki explained. "Then on to the islands for my next badge. I might stop at the Safari Zone, though. I've gotten five pokemon. A sixth would complete my team. Seems you're ahead of me there, though," she observed, seeing that he now had three pokeballs on either side of his belt.

"Yeah, just finished. A mawile, vileplume and voltorb. So you got the badge back in Fortree?"

Lucki nodded.

"What'd you think? Easy or hard?"

"Pretty hard," Lucki admitted. "I had an electric type, but none of my others had a real advantage. And my newest two, well, one was a grass type, and the other...we're still getting used to each other."

Keegan nodded sympathetically. "Some pokemon take a while to warm up to their trainer."

"I guess." Lucki sighed.

They continued south.

"So what's happened?" Keegan asked. "Anything interesting?"

"Ran into some Team Magma jerks," Lucki grumbled. "Got my pokemon stolen back when they attacked Route 119 the first time. It's a good thing we've got the good guys like Team Aqua's around to keep them in line."

Keegan smiled wryly. "Good guys?"

"Well, yeah. I didn't trust them at first, but they've protecting us from Magma."

"If you say so."

"What, you don't think so?"

"Magma and Aqua are enemies, you know. Of course Aqua shows up wherever Magma is. That doesn't mean they care about any of you."

"Hey, they returned the stolen pokemon! And they offered to protect Lavaridge and Fallarbor from Magma."

"Only because they thought they'd be stopping Magma," Keegan replied as they approached a fork in the road.

"And the stolen pokemon?"

"Eh. By that point, the police weren't far behind. Besides, they wouldn't have any use for them. Aqua's the stronger team, after all." He shook his head. "I'm just saying, I wouldn't be so trusting."

Lucki shrugged. "It's not like I'm about to sign up," she retorted. "I just think they've shown themselves to be pretty decent." Her stomach rumbled. "Also, I'm getting hungry. Wanna stop for supper soon?"

"Sorry," Keegan apologized, "but I've got to keep going." He pointed to the southern branch of the road. "Besides, we're about to split up, right? You're going west."

Lucki nodded. "Too bad...well, maybe we'll meet up again."

Keegan smiled. "I hope so. Well, goodbye," he told her, starting off down the southern fork.

"Bye!" Lucki called, waving. She continued a bit further before stopping to rest. The wind had picked up and it was getting chilly, so she started a campfire after releasing her pokemon.

Silver sat a bit apart, seemingly lost in thought.