DarkestCcino

Aika had already taken the last sip from her canteen as she continued down the path. First her throat just felt dry, and now she felt like there were pins forming in it. She remembered hearing that someone could last three days without drinking. She would've reached another town by that time, but she didn't want it to take that long. What if a heatwave were to break through the crisp temperatures? What if something got her completely off-course? She had plans for reaching Yuki and then Hunter, but the immediate future remained uncertain. The path she was on went through a forest. The flowers grew and the leaves were in bloom. It provided a beautiful spring sight, but made it harder to see surroundings than bare trees did. Aika used her large ears to listen around her and stay observant of her surroundings, even when vision was obscured. As she kept listening, she eventually heard something: gently flowing water. Opening her eyes and moving in the direction, she was able to find

Pannen, Elijah, Leah, and Ishmael walked side-by-side, going down the road together. Pannen took the lead, still maintaining determination to move forward. The others trailed behind her, Elijah at the back. It was early in the morning. They have been traveling for so long that they had to setup camp to sleep the night away along the road. The lands were safe near the guildhouse as no criminal dared do their activities so close within the guild's vicinity. Leah reminded them of such, but that also meant that things would get more dangerous the further out they went. None of the four had a particularly strong nose they could use to track Aika with, but Pannen still felt confident that this was the way Aika was going. They were on the right track, now it was just a matter of catching up with her. "Aika got a headstart on us of about ten hours, possibly more," Pannen thought aloud. "If she had stood still, we would've gotten to her by now. But she's moving as well… It'll be hard

Good weather, clean roads, and level terrain. Aika continued her journey thankful that it was going well so far, though she couldn't shake the feeling that it wouldn't go this well forever. It was still the first day of her journey. She watched the sun rise after departing in the middle of the night, and now it was well past noon. She could feel herself already being exhausted, but she figured she'd get used to the constant walking eventually. She periodically checked her maps, cross referencing it with the way the road turned. Doing so put into perspective just how long the journey would take: even after traveling the better part of a day, she was just a small bit of the way to her goal of Evelyn Forest. At that rate, she'd need to spend a full day traveling through Evelyn Forest to find Yuki once she got there. Her limited progress was frustrating, but she still persisted onwards. Even though her goal of reaching Yuki was far away and her ultimate goal of finding Hunter was even

The world carried on like absolutely nothing was wrong. The sun still set and rose every day, the wind still blew, everyone still walked to their jobs everyday, they each got to have three meals a day, and they could all still play games. And that's what bothered Aika so deeply. Her world had been shattered after learning her father wasn't who she thought it was, how could she be asked to continue as if nothing happened? Things weren't entirely the same as before, Locke and Tamin were off on their grand mission and Elley was now taking care of her along with her husband. But in the ways that were important, it was still the same. The people around her still referred to Locke as being her father, no one spoke of Hunter, and Pannen and Elijah still referred to her as being their sister. Even Pannen was in on it, even when Aika had specifically told the truth to her, she still continued treating Aika no differently. "Everything is okay," Pannen told Aika. And so Aika persisted in

For months, it felt like it would never come. Yet now, it was only a few days away. Locke, Tamin, Dewott, and Mienshao were together again, once again checking up on all their supplies and mission plans. For most missions, it only took a day to pick what to do and prepare for it, but this was not like most missions. They gathered sacs full of imperishable foods, bedding supplies, healing supplies, cartography gear, and even more than that. They arranged a wagon trip to the coast, a ship to the field site- and of course- people to babysit the kids. The kids had grown up a lot across the past few months, but the parents were still entirely unwilling to leave them home to themselves for that long. Locke made an arrangement with his sister Elley for her to look after their children, while Dewott met up with his brothers to have them come over to look after his three children. All of the children were familiar with their aunts and uncles, and the babysitters had ample time to be

It was the dead of winter in the old town. It was already months since Tamin wrote her letter and the children set up a secretive tournament with each other. The entire town was covered in snow, and it wasn't the fun kind either. The snow was dry with the consistency of powder, the kind that blows away in the paws whenever someone scoops some up. The temperature was tolerable with a coat, but not for an extended period of time. On days like that, Elijah was content on just reading a book or calmly working on a jigsaw puzzle. Pannen and Aika were less happy about the situation, they were eager for more stimuli then the endless white snow on white snow the outdoors offered and what the quiet indoors provided. They could still talk and play board games- of which they did much of- but it was still disappointing for them. But the one who had it the worst wasn't Aika or Pannen, but Pannen's father. Locke's leg occasionally twitched in anticipation for something- anything to happen. He

"So with winter coming up, everyone is going to be inside more often. So I was planning on organizing a get-together for some of the members of the guild that were there when I was guildmaster," Espeon said. He sat on a velvet chair while he wore a matching red smoke jacket. In his ears, there were two hearing aids. "I appreciate it. Although you aren't the leader anymore, you don't need to do this sort of stuff," Tamin replied. "Well, he has to find something to do with this big house. Because man, this place is utterly huge," Locke said as he looked around. What Locke said had merit. Locke, Tamin, Espeon, and Sebastien the meowstic all sat together in a furnished guest room which still had room to spare. Locke was larger than the rest of them, and he still had room to stretch. Even then, it was just a small room within a larger structure. "You know, now that you mention it: yeah, this place is incredibly large for a family of four. I suppose I'm just used to places this

Warning: This document spoils the entirety of the story Pokemon Free N' Forth. This document exists to provide a summary of every chapter of the story, so people can get the gist of the story without needing to read through the entirety of the 400k word long fic. Chapter 1: Fateful Meeting In the midst of autumn, Tamin the minccino runs through a mystery dungeon, totally lost. After a few encounters with wild pokemon, she meets a shinx named Locke who was exploring the dungeon alone. After the two introduce themselves to each other, the shinx starts guiding Tamin on the way out. Along the way, Tamin triggers a trap that gets her leg stuck and sets off a makeshift alarm, causing several dungeon pokemon to rush towards the room. Tamin struggles to free her leg as Locke fights off the pokemon, getting incredibly ferocious as he does so, to the point of becoming beserk. In the fight, three pokemon show up to help save them: a lucario, an arcanine, and a meowstic. They dispatch