Sanda smiled widely as he reached their initial meeting point, leaving a dust trail behind his tracks. He laughed energetically at his own victory. "Yay! I won!" he claimed happily, handing Ribbon's bow back to her. "So that means we're even?"

"Hmph. Yeah…" she agreed softly as she accepted back the piece of satin and tied it back onto her ear.

Sanda chuckled again, content. "You've totally opened up to me now, right, Bow?"

"Well…" Ribbon hesitated to answer, but didn't deny his statement. He's not as bad as I thought, she admitted inside her head.

"Soon, you'll battle me, right一"

"What's going on here?" An eldery Jolteon interrupted Sanda's question, approaching the two younger Pokémon.

"Eh! Grandpa!" Sanda backed away slightly from surprise at seeing his roommate all of the sudden. He quickly recomposed himself.

"You remember her, right? She was doing training with me this morning."

"Hn, I see," he responded vaguely, glancing at the his new friend with a kind smile. "I'm glad you two are getting along. Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier… I'm Jolteon."

He turned his head to stare at Sanda next. "That's Sanda, my adoptive grandson…" he explained with a gentle expression.

Sanda nodded firmly at the statement with a serious face. "I know it seems kinda weird since we're different kinds of Pokémon... but we're family, Bow."

Ribbon hummed good-naturedly. "I understand. My family…" She didn't exactly know how to phrase her words. "My family… they… were different from most families. We weren't the same species of Pokémon."

"Yeah," Sanda said as glanced downwards, "Your mom's a Sylveon, right? I met her at the Ice Cream shop…"

The other Pichu giggled softly at the memory of her mother glaring angrily at Sanda for messing with her. "We're… more similar than I thought!"
-

Pikachu inspected the same spot at the Pokémon Center for a third time; his concern increasingly grew and grew the longer his poor daughter was missing.

Yesterday, Bunnelby had informed him and Hana of how Ribbon had escaped as soon as he was able to reach the Center, panting from running so fast.

Since then, couple and all the other Pokémon were dying from anxiety.
Nobody had any idea of where possibly Ribbon could have ran off to.

And they were all searching inside and around the building like crazy.

Sadly, there was no sign of the Pichu.

"What could have happened?!" Pikachu asked with clear panic in his voice. "Why would she escape like that?"

The Sylveon glanced away, not able to look at his torn eyes. "I'm seriously worried, Pikachu… do you… do you think she's okay?"

Although he felt deeply scared himself, he didn't want to make Hana feel worse than she already was. "O-Of course… I'm sure she isn't hurt…" He hoped strongly for his words to be true.

Hana didn't respond, just turning her gaze towards him and managing to return a small smile to his comforting one.

In that exact moment, two people barged into the room, seemingly agitated as well.

"So Pichu's nowhere to be found yet?" Serena inquired with her hand clenched over her chest. "This is so strange… Pichu shouldn't have just disappeared like that!" she told Ash, who stood next to her.

"Do you think Team Rocket had anything to do with this?" the girl asked with suspicion, touching her chin.

"I... I don't know," Ash answered quite drained of energy, "You know they've never succeeded in stealing our Pokémon, so why would they now?"

"It doesn't matter who did it!" Bonnie stated, clearly filled with determination. "We'll find Pichu! Sylveon and Pikachu won't just give up, right?!"
-

"See? Bet you can't make a face like that!" Sanda laughed playfully after leering at Ribbon comically.

"Bet you I can," Ribbon said with a huff, "Papa does them all the time."

"Your Papa?" The other Pichu tilted his head with interest. "Hmm… that gets me thinking… why where you in the middle of the street and not with your parents?"

"E-Eh!" Ribbon panicked at the sudden jab, jolting up. "I… um… I…" She kept stuttering nervously.

"You still don't wanna tell me? Hmph." He pouted at her, feeling excluded of an important fact.

"I… Sanda…"

"Yeah?"

"Can you keep a secret?" she pleaded to him, a sweatbead going down her cheek.

"Hmm… it depends…" He winked at her jokingly as if it were all just a game. But when Ribbon stared at him with big, puppy-like eyes he couldn't help but feel defeated.

"Okay…" He took back his previous words, turning away from Ribbon's cute stare. "I can."

"T-Thanks!" She smiled cheerfully, clapping her hands quietly. "My secret is that…" Her mood soon became sour. "I ran away from home."

-
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