Pokemon: Fate's Path

Chapter 6

Jay Wolfe

I was watching Freya calming Esme down from the opposite side of the room, the light brown haired teen was sobbing and while I understood what we had witnessed was terrifying even though she only saw the blood on the floor, I didn't find the situation anything to cry about. We were all safe, Valhalla wasn't in town anymore, and we could go search for a new gym to challenge. I rubbed Curse's head as I pulled up information on the other gym leaders, if we could find a gym we had a chance against then we could start heading in that direction. Esme gave another loud sob and I sighed before glancing up, looked like another round of choking breaths was about to start.

"Eev?" Curse climbed onto my lap, her questioning eyes staring at me as she waited for me to say something.

I smiled and scratched her behind the ear. "She'll be fine eventually, she has Freya to help her and we can leave though... We could go on ahead..."

Curse curled up on my lap as I went back to studying the gym leaders, finally finding a gym we should be able to beat by the time we reached the town. It would take a lot of back tracking and walking up mountains but it would give us time to train. I put my computer back in my bag and held Curse as I stood up and walked over to where Soren was sitting with Finn, he still seemed to be in a bit of shock after the incident but looked like he was doing pretty well.

"So I think I found an easier gym to challenge." I informed him. "It's in Valo, up in the mountains."

"The fairy type gym leaders Chant and Zure, right?" He responded.

I nodded. "Yeah, I mean we don't have any steel or poison types on our team at the moment but I'm sure we can find some on the way there, especially if we take the boat to Iceshore first instead of going back through the forest... unless you want to since it would be faster."

"The boats only go as far as a port on Burned Islet, the rest of the way around to Valo would be from fishermen or on our own pokémon, if we get any that could carry us through the whirlpools and icebergs." Soren stated. "But I'd rather take the time to train up and find more pokémon, so how about Dreary Trail? It isn't a real path but it should still take us through a marsh and valley where more pokémon should be."

I hadn't even thought about the boats not going completely around Drucan. I nodded in agreement. "Alright."

"Wait, you're leaving now?" Soren stood up as I started walking towards the door.

I stopped and glanced back at him. "Yeah, I don't want to risk Valhalla catching up to us. You heard Salem, we got in the way and now they might start going after us and staying here is only going to make it easier for them."

"I see." He started following me out as he grabbed his bag.

Freya and Esme started following us as well, apparently overhearing our conversation. I kept a close eye on Curse as we made our way towards Dreary Trail, she enjoyed wandering ahead at times but at the moment I couldn't risk her being attacked and injured by Valhalla. The trees that surrounded Plolis' north west side thinned as we got onto the trail but didn't disappear completely as we walked over the overgrown path. It was getting a bit dark out and I gazed into the growing shadows, would there be any ghost types coming for us or had we left them behind in the thicker part of the forest before we came to Plolis? Perhaps we should've stayed in the city for the night and set off in the morning but it was too late now, besides, I wasn't against sleeping outside and as long as someone kept guard we would be fine.

"Start looking for a spot to set up camp for the night, it's getting a bit late." I said, still a bit nervous of another ghost type attacking us.

Freya moved to the lead and pointed to a spot where two trees intertwined together. "How about there? We can use those two trees to help prop our tents up."