March 2024 Raid Part 2

“Purrrrr...” 

Chase instinctively found himself stroking Peaches’ fur. He tried to force himself to relax while he held the Pokemon in his arms, to make his muscles less tense, but if he lost focus for even a second they would go right back to tensing up. Already he felt the exhaustion sweeping over him. They should’ve just gone to the forest... Why did he come here instead?

Because you wanted to see if you could find it. He thought to himself. 

Chase forced himself to swallow the bile he felt rise in his throat. To some degree he’d become numb to the presence of the ocean. After weeks of being forced near it, it was hard not to. The smell of ocean salt water, which used to make him feel sick almost immediately, became almost unnoticeable unless he focused on it. The sound of the waves now blended with other sounds and became part of the constant background. The sight of the ocean however... that he struggled to get used to. The endless expanse of water, of nothing for miles and miles, instilled in him an anxiety he couldn’t even begin to describe.

“Vee!” Peaches put her paw on his chest to get his attention.

“Right, right. Focus on other things.”

He sat Peaches down on the sand and she shook her paws as she walked, not used to

the grainy texture. He just needed to focus on something that WASN’T the unimaginably deep water that surrounded them... like the pieces of wrecked ships and planes and other mysterious pieces of glass and metal. Yeah, that was better. If he recalled correctly they usually referred to it as Fragmented Reef... and just looking at it he could see why. He already tripped once over a chunk of metal hidden in the sand and was lucky he hadn’t twisted his ankle too bad. Briefly he wondered if the scrap metal could be used for some other purpose, but if it could he didn’t know what.

“Maybe we should just turn back...” Chase mumbled to himself. When he heard about this place that seemed to collect wreckage mysteriously he got the stupid idea in his head he might be able to find some of his belongings, not least of all a guitar of his that he found himself missing dearly, but he had his doubts it would be in one piece or... undamaged even if he did find it. They weren’t completely empty handed either; by some strange miracle he found scattered clothing and other miscellaneous objects that could be of use during their short journey.

Peaches tugged at Chase’s pant leg trying to get his attention.

“Did you find something?” He asked.

Once she had his attention she started bounding off towards a particularly large piece of

wreckage. Chase followed quickly calling out to her to be careful of quicksand. After a decent distance Peaches stopped suddenly and Chase, barely stopping himself in time, nearly fell AGAIN into the sand. He could tell just by looking that Peaches had stopped right before a large quicksand pit.

“Vee!” Peaches pointed her paw to something that seemed stuck in the quicksand. Chase squinted trying to make out what it was... but he couldn’t really tell. It was white, so easy to see, but it just looked like a ball to him. A lumpy white ball with black spots. He knelt down and reached out seeing if he could touch it, but it was still pretty far away.

“I don’t know Peachy...” Chase said, pulling his hand back. “I can’t reach it. And it looks 

dangerous.... I don’t really think this is worth it whatever it is.

Offended Peaches bit his arm gently as a sign to try again. Even if he had a stick or something though, Chase didn’t think it would do much good. Peaches growled and planted herself right in front of him.

“I don’t know what you want.” Chase said. Annoyed she pointed to herself and then to the

object in the sand. “You... want me to hold you out towards it?”

She cried in agreement. Chase took a look at the quicksand pit again.

“That... seems even more dangerous.”

It’s true that, if he held her out as far as he could, she could probably just about reach it. 

But if he fell or accidentally let her go then they’d be in REALLY big trouble. Still, Peaches glared at him, not willing to let it go. He swayed side to side in intense thought, weighing the options.

“Fine! Fine. But one thing going wrong and we’re stopping and leaving. I don’t know what made you so determined...”

Chase picked Peaches up and stared at her before getting as close as he dared and reaching her out over the quicksand. He stretched until he felt himself start to shake.

“This is as far as I can hold you!”

One bite and Peaches missed. A second she also missed. Then, on the third, she managed to finally grab a hold of the white and black ball. Chase remembered something about how pulling hard was useless.... So, confident she had a good grip, Chase slowly started wiggling her and the object from side to side in an attempt to loosen the nearby sand. Then he pulled back slowly until he could feel the object begin to come loose. Slowly, slowly, it started to free itself. When the object was finally released there was a sudden break in tension causing Chase to stumble backwards with both Peaches and the object. He groaned, glad that the wind hadn’t been knocked out of him at the very least.

“What did you want to free so badly?” Chase asked turning on his side to push himself up and get a good look at the strange ball. Peaches was jumping around happily that the plan had worked. Still all Chase could see was a ball... until it started to move. It wiggled until it was able to right itself and slowly turned around. Chase blinked, stunned, trying to put together what he was looking at. It was a pokemon, surely, but he’d never seen anything like it.

“What....”

The Pokemon slowly slid on the ground towards him and bounced trying to offer a thank 

you. Confused, Chase reached out and picked it up. It drooped when he did so and he could tell its body was pretty squishy. It was shaped like a Goomy, but looked a lot different than ones he’d seen in pictures.

“Oh...” It suddenly hit him. “You must be one of those... um...” What had Zephyr called them? “Delta Pokemon? There’s a lot of water ones around lately or something right?”

That was just his best guess. He didn’t really get it but, knowing it was a Pokemon, he felt glad he listened to Peaches and worked to free the little thing from the sand. It was kind of cute too...

“Vee, vee~!”

Peaches hopped to greet the strange Pokemon clearly proud of herself. Chase found 

himself smiling briefly but, suddenly remembering where they were, he stood up still holding the delta Pokemon.

“I don’t want to stay here any longer. We should leave.”

He’d long given up on finding what he wanted, but helping out a Pokemon put him in a good mood at least. Still he didn’t want to stay in Fragmented Reef any longer than they had to. With agreement from both Peaches and the new Pokemon Chase gathered everything they’d found that could be of use and made his way, carefully, out of Fragmented Reef. He only breathed a sigh of relief after getting close to camp again.

“Next time... I just want to go to the forest...”