Augur: A Pokémon Insurgence Novel

Chapter Nine

Zander crawled out of his tent the next morning to an unexpected surprise. Several yards away from his own tent, was another, more spacious looking one than his own. He had hoped to have this area to himself, but the chances of that actually happening were slim to none. Still, it was a bit worrisome to say the least, that someone else was camping by this very spot. There were a number of different people that could be there. A random hiker, a cultist, albeit they didn't exactly strike him as the type to camp. What he found, was that it was neither of those things. Lo and behold, a familiar emerald-haired woman unzipped the tent.

A rather tired-looking Nora peered out of her tent and was about to come out when she remembered something vitally important. Something that caused her to freeze as she held onto the opening of the tent to veil herself from the unexpected sight of Zander who was standing not too far from her tent. Looking down at herself, she realized that she must have been far more tired than she thought after training as she had simply discarded her clothing. Stepping out now would leave very little to the imagination and in turn, embarrass her to no end. Slowly zipping the tent back up, she hastily gathered up her clothes and threw them on before stepping out of the tent.

"Heeeey Zander... I um... didn't realize you were camping here as well," Nora stammered.

"It's fine," Zander replied over his shoulder as he continued packing up his tent so he could begin moving on to Suntouched City.

"So, has Mew decided to join your team yet?" Nora inquired curiously, eyeing his belt to note that three spheres were separated from the rest, indicating that he either had a new friend or Mew had finally decided to consider Zander his trainer.

Her answer came in the form of the pink cat in a bubble floating upside down in front of her, giving her a bit of a jump scare. Mew giggled as he floated in mid air before vanishing from view.

"Well," she breathed, catching her breath and placing her hands on her hips, "I guess that answers my question then!" she shouted so Mew could hear, a frown dawning on her face as she glared at where the laughter was coming from.

"To further answer your question, I did add something new to my team," Zander said casually as he finished packing up his tent and hoisting his bag onto his shoulders.

"Out here? that's interesting... I mean I guess there are a few Pokémon that are sighted here every now and again but with that temple and all..." she trailed off, her eyes glancing over at the ancient structure as she spoke. "Rumor has it there's a Lucario in there that can Mega Evolve without a trainer. Not that I believe it or anything..."

"Well the rumors are true," was Zander's reply as he headed off down the trail.

"Wait, what!?" Nora exclaimed, catching up to him quickly and falling in stride with him. "And just how would you know that? it's not like it's just going to come out and perform it like a parlor trick," Nora added as she kept pace.

"You're right, she wouldn't do that, unless she was protecting her young from cultists," Zander quipped, his eyes shifting to hers for a brief moment.

"Cultists?" Nora said worriedly, stopping as Zander turned around to face her. "You ran into Cultists?"

Zander nodded, a sigh escaping his lips as he recalled staring down death for the third time in his life.

"They were after the Lucario and used her son as bait. And me being the idiot that I am," he paused, reaching down and snapping off the ball that held Riolu from his belt and tapping the mechanism in the center to release him.

Riolu emerged from his poké ball and immediately claimed Zander's shoulder as his spot. Nora looked at the little canine with widened eyes.

"He's a-"