Freya Stark

I continued leading the others through Dreaded Bog, tugging on Josef's arm nearly constantly now every time he slowed down. "Come on! The ground's already drier here, don't you want to rest somewhere you won't look like you crapped yourself like a baby?"

"I don't care! I just want to stop walking!" Josef whined as he practically let me drag him. "I wish I was back home..."

I heard Jay give an unhappy scoff. "Can we just leave him behind? He's so annoying..."

"No." I responded. "We have to stay together."

"Ughhh." Josef groaned tiredly. "Please can we rest?"

Soren shook his head. "I'm not stopping here and getting more mud on me."

"What does it matter?" Josef argued. "You're already covered in it!"

I laughed, Jay and Soren were both covered in mud after their little playful spat. It had been enough to distract Ivan and me from the distance we had to walk, obviously Josef hadn't been distracted but why he was complaining I didn't know. He had been able to catch a pokémon after all. Everyone else was empty handed, I mean I could've found a better pokémon than his lotad within a few minutes but I wasn't about to go off doing that now; I wanted to take a break too after all but I wasn't going to complain like a child.

I noticed Jay nudge Soren and nod towards Josef with a smirk on her face. Hiding my own smile I let go of his arm and moved over to Ivan to give them an open target. "So, do you think we'll be good against this gym? It's fairy type."

"Well I've been training so despite the lack of an obvious advantage I'm sure I can get the badge. What about you?"

"I only have Pichu still... And I'm thinking of becoming a pokémon Rescue Member instead of a trainer."

"You mean a pokémon Ranger?" Ivan asked.

I shook my head. "No, Rangers can't catch pokémon and keep them. Rescue Members can, though they're encouraged to only keep rescued pokémon to rehabilitate them and send them off to other trainers or back into the wild unless they can be trained to help other missions."

"I've never heard of them." Ivan replied. "But they sound a lot like Rangers."

"It's a Drucan thing. That's one of the reasons why I came here." I heard Josef give a shout of anger and suffering and laughed as I turned my head to watch him go face first into the mud.

"Now who's covered in mud!" Jay growled loudly as she grinned and got off his back so he could get up.

"No... not my jacket... I just got this." Josef whined once more.

Soren stopped dying of his own laughter long enough to respond. "It's j-just... mud! J-Josef, it'll come out!"

"You knew they were going to do that didn't you." Ivan stated as he watched.

"Yeah."

He shook his head while smiling. "They next town will think swamp monsters have come to attack them."

"They should probably get a bit washed off before then, I doubt they'll want to be covered in that much longer." I looked around, Soren's mudkip was sitting off to the side with Jay's eevee watching the scene play out. The water type could clean them off with his water gun if we couldn't find a stream at least.

"Guys, we need to find a place to stop for the day, I don't know how dry the land is up ahead but I'd rather sleep where I won't get covered in mud." Ivan called out, reading my mind.

"Alright." Jay became serious once more and wiped the mud off on Josef as best she could before moving to search for a place. "Curse, can you help out and search the left up ahead? I'll take the right."

"Eev." The silver eevee took off as best she could, more mud soaking into her fur but I was glad to see it didn't appear to be as much as earlier, which meant we were getting closer to a spot.

We managed to find a spot a few miles later and sat up camp for the night, though the sun was barely starting to set, and I let Pichu out to eat and take in his new surroundings. My small pokémon looked around, obviously making sure to stay out of the mud considering he didn't like ground attacks and therefore didn't like getting covered in mud. I watched as Soren and Jay stood off to the side of our makeshift camp as they allowed Finn to water gun the mud off of them, though they would of course still need to wash their clothes at the next Pokémon Center to get the mud off completely.

"Don't drop the soap!" I called to the two, causing them both to turn their heads and stare at me. "What? I'm just saying."

I laughed and Jay smiled slightly while Finn continued to hose the two off with water gun. "I think it's Soren who would do that, though maybe he would do it on purpose."

"Hey!" Soren shouldered her. "I don't have to let Finn help you."

I laughed again and heard Ivan join in my amusement as he finished putting his tent up and get his blanket on to sit on. "PDA guys!."

"We aren't in school anymore!" Jay shouted and shoved Soren back playfully.

Soren groaned and seemed to give up the argument, which basically ended all current conversation on the subject. Seeing this I turned to speak to Ivan. "So where did Josef go?"

"He's laying back there." Ivan motioned behind his tent. "I offered to let him go inside my tent so he wasn't on the ground but I don't think he cared about laying on the ground."

"Can you guys keep it down? I'm trying to concentrate on my game." Josef's voice came from behind the tent.

"Make me." I laughed teasingly before going back and dropping to the ground beside him. "What are you playing?"

"Does it matter?" He shifted so he could see the screen again.

I moved to block it again. "It looks stupid."

"Will you stop bothering me? I want to beat the high score my mom got." He waved his hand and I pressed my finger to the screen to crash the vehicle.

"Oops."

"Really?" He dropped the tablet with a sigh.

I laughed and sat up. "So, why does your mom have the high score?"

"She's good at it." Josef muttered before pressing a few buttons so he could restart the game. "But I was almost to her score."

I grabbed the tablet from him. "I want to try it."

"Fine..." He huffed in defeat before giving me a quick tutorial of what I had to do and sitting back to watch.

It was harder than I had originally thought but it didn't take long for me to get the hang of it and I started working to reach the high score in hopes of beating it. After dying again for the fifth time I decided to give the tablet back to Josef as I still needed to get my tent up before the sun went down, I hadn't even noticed it had gotten so late.

I walked over and sat beside Ivan, who was eating outside his tent with Lillipup. "Where are the other two? It's been quiet."

He motioned in a direction before swallowing his food. "They're still getting the mud off everything."

I looked over and saw Jay brushing Curse, who seemed to be cleaned up for the most part, and found Soren left on his own around a fire to dry off as he watched something on his own phone contently. I walked over to them and waited until they were both paying attention, which meant me smacking Soren in the head when he didn't notice.

"Ow!" He yelped and took off his headphones. "What?"

"We need to decide what order we're keeping watch in." I responded.

"Well I went first last time." Soren said.

Jay glanced at him and moved closer, leaving Curse to her own agenda. "Well maybe we want you to go first again."

"I'll go first." I spoke up again, I needed to get some food anyway before it got too dark and I knew Pichu would probably want something too. "Soren you can go second since you were complaining."

"I wasn't complaining I was-"

Jay cut him off with a nudge to the stomach while smiling. "Whining like a child?"

"No. Stating a fact." He retorted before slumping down again. "But you know what, I don't care when I go."

"Good, then you're second and Jay is third." I turned away again to start with my tent.