Shhhh, thump! Shhhh, thump! Shhhh, thump!This strange noise worked its way into Ash's mind, slowly causing him to awaken from his state of unconsciousness. As he started to regain his senses he began to notice some rather odd happenings. Firstly he could not move, his arms were apparently bound to his sides and his legs tied together; yet neither were so tight as to cause him discomfort and, he believed, if he were to work on them for awhile he could probably break free of them.

He didn't attempt this though as he was too busy trying to decipher the other things he was sensing, such as the cause of the strange noise that had woken him; as well as another sound that shadowed a warm puff of air that hit his face every few seconds. Ash's eyes had yet to receive the same level of alertness as his conscious had and so remained closed, leaving Ash to only speculate what was happening around him.

A couple minutes passed and Ash's mind began to develop stories to explain his situation; but with the limited information available to it, the stories it made were... a bit odd. After sorting through the muck in his head, Ash managed to paint a picture that seemed both possible and plausible. He had a brief recollection of what happened at the hospital, most of it was still fuzzy and he had no memory of actually leaving the building, but what he did remember was none to pleasant.

Three men in doctor coats held him down as a fourth injected him with a needle. He didn't see any of his friends and could only assume that they'd left him alone in his room, and at the mercy of these four phony practitioners. The needle had felt cold and sharp as it injected a clear liquid under his skin, and after  a few seconds Ash had started to feel the effects of the drug they'd given him.

He had felt like he was sinking into his bed, and as though he could just drift off to sleep without a second thought to the danger he was in. His assailants had had no intention of letting him rest and had shaken him a few times to keep him conscious. When they had been fairly sure Ash wasn't going to conk out on them, they began to question him. Ash only remembered bits of this interrogation, them asking him something about a ship or a sub, and about some battle he'd fought in years ago, and him giving them everything he knew about both without any concuss thought as to what he was saying. Eventually he began to drift asleep again but this time the imposters couldn't keep him up. But before he  could go completely under Ash heard the muffled voices of the four people say to one another that they could get more out of him, and that it would be beneficial to their cause if they took him with them.

After that he'd heard a loud thud, akin to the sound a door makes when it slams into the wall, before he passed out, only to wake up with his arms and legs constricted by rope of some weave. The pieces fit perfectly together, he had been taken prisoner by the four fake doctors and was currently being moved to who knows where for who knows what. All Ash needed to know though was that he needed to escape.

Working his hand towards the ropes binding his arms to his sides, Ash felt for a weak spot. After a second he found it, but was surprised by what it was. A simple slip knot was tied behind him, acting as the only thing that bound his arms to him. Confused by the simplicity of the knot, Ash took care to undo it slowly, making sure to conceal his actions afterwards. He then felt for his leg ties and again found that a slip knot was the only thing holding him.

As he undid this knot as well he thought, "Surely it can't be this easy? They have to be have something more to stop me."

Ash finished untying the knot and waited for something to happen, and a roughly a minute later the noise that had woken him up stopped. Directly after the noise stopped a chattel of heated voices rose up, their owners obviously were engaged in some form of argument; but Ash didn't care what they were arguing about, all he cared about was the fact that they were arguing meant they were distracted and wouldn't notice his escape.

Moving quickly and quietly, Ash shimmied his way away from the arguing voices. As he shimmied away Ash found that he was apparently on some sort of wooden transport (mostly likely a cart of wagon), as he had acquired a number of splinters to support this theory. He continued his slow advancement away from the voices until he felt his feet hit something soft and earthy. Dirt.

He was surprised by how close the ground was to the wooden transport, but paid little mind to that trifle detail. Instead he did what any sensible person would do if they were captured and found an escape, he bolted. Using his splinter riddled hands, Ash pushed himself off the wood and gathered his feet underneath him before taking off in the direction he thought he'd come from.

He took around three steps before opening his eyes, and then another two after he hit the tree, before coming to rest roughly a foot away from where he'd started. He sat on the damp earth, dazed and disoriented, sure that he was doomed to be captured again. As the shock of running into the tree wore off, Ash realized that he no longer heard the voices arguing. Glancing in the direction he thought they'd been last he saw his friends staring at him in both concern and amusement, and not a few of them were struggling to keep a straight face.

"You alright?" Dena managed to ask as she suppressed laughter.

Ash looked around a bit, briefly taking in his surroundings, before answering. A glance ahead of him revealed that the wooden transport he'd been riding on, was in fact a crudely made bark sled, of which Cal was currently sleeping on.

"I'm fine. But is he alright, and why is he tied up?" Ash asked as he looked at Cal.

"Yeah he's fine." Aura said, "We had to tie both of you up to make sure you didn't fall off while Regi pulled you guys."

"Oh... thanks." Ash said, taking that as a perfectly good reason for his friends to hog tie him to a sled.

"Your welcome, and I must say you're taking this a lot better than I thought you would."

"Really? Because incase you forgot, he just tried to escape through a tree a moment ago!" Serena commented coarsely.

"Psssh. He's fine, it's not like he's having any major-" "AHHHH!!!" "-freak out." Aura said just as Cal woke up and began freaking out.

"WHERE AM I!? WHAT'S HAPPENING!? WHERE'S TREECKO!?" Cal shouted as he adjusted to his current situation.

"Oh yeah, where's Pikachu?" Ash asked as Cal began to speak in a calmer and quieter tone.

"He's in here." Serena said as she handed Ash Pikachu's Poké Ball.

Ash paled slightly at the red and white sphere, "Oh that's not good." Ash replied, "He is not going to be happy when he gets out."

"I'm sure it won't be that bad." Serena said reassuringly.

"Well we're about to find out. Pikachu come on out!" Ash tossed the ball and Pikachu burst forth in a beam of light. When the light faded Pikachu was standing on the grassy path, glaring at Ash.

"Hey, Pikachu. How ya-aaaaah!" Ash hollered as Pikachu zapped him with a bit of electricity.

"Pika! Pikachu!" Pikachu shouted angrily.

"Yeah I know you hate going into your Poké Ball, I'm sorry you were put in there."

"Pika-chu." Pikachu said forgivingly, dashing up and onto his perch on Ash's shoulder. "Glad you forgive me buddy." Ash said happily. "Don't know what I'd do without you."

"Ca-chu." Pikachu said wittily.

"Hey! I'm not hopeless. I could so manage without you!"

"Pika!"

"Yeah I would miss you, but that doesn't mean I can't make it on my own!"

"Pika."

Ash smiled and stroked Pikachu on his head. "Course not, you're my best friend I always want you by my side."

"I'm going to assume that was sweet, because I can barely understand human let alone Pokémon. But could someone please explain what's going on!?" Cal asked frantically.

"Okay Cal," Diana said, "the short end of it is Zeak carried you two to us, Aura fashioned a sled out of tree bark, we tied you two to said sled and then had Regi pull you two in Petalburg woods. Make sense?"

"Kinda? How long have we been out?"

"About three hours or so, you guys actually woke up at the perfect time. We were just about to setup camp for the night."

"Oh joy." Cal exclaimed joylessly.

"Come on Cal we all have to pull our weight around here." Ash said as he got up.

"Alright let's go." Cal said as he too rose to his feet. "What do we need to do, gather sticks, pitch the tents, start dinner?

The girls all winced at his last suggestion, "No, let's- let's not go near the kitchen for a bit okay?"

"Alright, then what do you want us to do?"

"The Pokémon need some berries to fully recover, and I was planning on making some pie-." Serena began.

"Say no more." Ash said as he and Cal began walking off, "We'll be back in no time."

"Wait!" Serena shouted before the boys got too far. "You don't know what berries to get."

"Oh, hehe. Sorry, what do you need?" Ash asked sheepishly.

"Ten Leppa Berries, eleven Oran and Sitrus Berries, three Aspera Berries, two Yache Berries, four Razz Berries, and one Tamato Berry."

"We're on it!" The boys cheered as they dashed further into the woods.

They looked high and low for the select berries Serena had requested of them, in the thirty minutes they'd been searching they'd managed to find everything save the Yache and Tamato Berries.

"Ash what do these berries look like again?" Cal asked as he slunk down a tree trunk.

"Yache Berries are round and blue with light blue spots over the blue and a short green stem at the top."

"And Tamato Berries?"

"It looks like a spiky red ball with sharp green leaves at the top."

"Okay I found it."

"Which one?"

"Both." Cal exclaimed excitedly as he bounded over to Ash with an arm full of berries, "I might have also found some that I want."

Ash frowned when he saw the berries piled in Cal's arms, there was a thin layer of ice on some of them, which struck Ash as odd. He dismissed the presence of ice as nothing more than a freak act of nature.

"Alright then let's go, the girls have to be waiting for us by now." Ash said as he began to walk onward.

"Uhh, little help?" Cal asked as he struggled to hold all the various berries.

"Here give me half. Where'd you even get all of these?" Ash asked as he took up half of Cal's collection.

"They were underneath those bushes over there." Cal said, gesturing to a cluster of ferna next to the tree he'd climbed down from.

Ash frowned slightly, "I hope no Pokémon are going to miss them." He said with concern.

Cal dismissed this concern with a shrug, "Eh, I'm sure they'll be fine. There was still a whole heap of berries stashed under there after I took these."

"Alright but if something comes after us because of this, we sacrificing you to it."

"Yeah yeah. Let's just get back to camp before the food gets cold, I'm starved."

Ash laughed and exclaimed that he was far hungrier than Cal, to which Cal took as a declaration of war and thus started a heated argument over who could eat more than the other. This fierce discussion lasted all the way back to their camp and left them fairly oblivious to their surroundings, especially a group of eyes that stared hungrily at the bounty of berries they bore.

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Not a lot of action or anything in this one, mostly just setup and stuff. Still I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I'll see you in the next chapter. Happy Thanksgiving!