Journey Through Johto |Discontinued|

Chapter 2.26: Apple Frenzy

"I smell... something." Emmy muttered as she sniffed the air once more.

"Very telling, Emmy. There's a lot of somethings in the world." Sky said, snarky. "Yes, but this is a food something." The Serperior corrected before slithering ahead quickly. "Wait, Emmy!" Zia yelled after her, her and Sky running to catch up.

They followed her to a hilltop where there was a whole grove of apple trees. "It's an orchard." Emmy gasped in amazement, sparkles in her eyes. They went down to have a closer look. "It does look delicious." Sky stated, looking around at all the fresh, ripe apples.

"We shouldn't take any, but we can have a quick look around." Zia relented, but Emmy was already heading deeper into the orchard. Sighing, she and Sky once again went after her, only to see apple cores lying around a confused Serperior.

"Really, Emmy? I just said not to eat anything! This is stealing, you know." Zia scolded her. "I-it wasn't me! They just fell out of the trees!" She tried to defend herself. "Mmhmm. There's nothing up there but apples." Sky said, unconvinced as they looked up.

When they looked back at Emmy, there was another apple in her grasp. "Emmy!" Zia exclaimed. Suddenly, a net entrapped the Serperior who was frantically trying to do something with the apple, but not knowing what exactly. "What-?" The trainer asked.

"Well, well. I finally caught you, you criminal." A girl said with a frown as she walked up, gazing at the caught Serperior who was freaking out. She wore a light blue collar shirt with orange overalls, her purple hair in pigtails and a pink headband on her head.

"Let me go, I said I didn't do it!" Emmy proclaimed. "So you're the sneaky apple poacher I've been looking for." The girl said. Zia looked at Emmy again. "Are you sure you didn't eat those apples, Emmy?" She asked seriously, giving the Pokémon a 'don't lie to me or else' look.

She shook her head wildly. "No! I just wanted to look around. I stopped here when I heard something up in the trees moving around and then these apple cores fell down and then you all came. I didn't eat any!" Emmy told her.

"Look, my Serperior says she didn't eat any of the fruit and she's not a liar." Zia now spoke to the slightly older girl. "How can you believe it when it's got one of my apples right in its vines? What more proof do you need?" The girl asked, gesturing to the apple that she still held.

Emmy was confused for a moment as she looked down at the apple before shaking her head again. "It fell down right to me when you two looked up at the trees!" She explained her side to her trainer. Zia sighed and threw the net off of her partner. "You're not going to get away with this." The girl warned them.

Zia then noticed something on the apple Emmy was holding. "Emmy, open you mouth." Zia instructed as she took said apple. "Miss, my Serperior's teeth are much too large and sharp to make a bite as small and shallow as this." Zia told the orchard worker as she held the fruit up to Emmy's mouth.

Her fangs were much farther apart than the two bite marks on the apple, and much bigger in size overall. "Hmm? Oh, that's true. I'm so sorry for blaming your Serperior. Please forgive me." The girl bowed regretfully.

"It's alright, it did look quite bad." Zia chuckled good-heartedly. "When you work as hard as I do tending the trees, it really hurts to know that somebody's out there stealing the fruit. So when I thought I'd caught the thief, I suppose I just got carried away." The girl explained.

"Charmaine, when you said you tend all the trees here, do you mean you do it all by yourself?" Zia asked after being introduced and led to the girl's house. "Yes, just me." She confirmed proudly.

"It must be a lot of work to work on, tend to, and protect an orchard for one person." The white haired girl commented passingly. "I manage alright, but now that it's harvest time, it would be nice to have some help." Charmaine admitted.