When Ash and Cal returned to their campsite they were surprised to find that the girls hadn't set up anything, in fact they were doing just the opposite.

"Did we miss something, or are you guys just trying to mess with us?" Cal asked while watching Dena stow away the cooking supplies.

"Trust me. You'd know if we were trying to mess with you." Diana said as she placed the boys bags at their feet.

"Okay, then why are you packing everything up?" Ash asked as he and Cal performed various foot maneuvers to bring their bags up to their hands.

"Some wildlife officers stumbled upon us a little while after you two left," Serena said as she offered the boys two bags to put the berries in. "They said they were looking for some dangerous Pokemon poachers who were hunting down some of their escaped merchandise. The officers said we shouldn't stay out here with the poachers still roaming about and offered us their cabin for the night."

Ash frowned at the mention of Pokemon poachers, having had several run ins with a number of them throughout his travels, and enjoying none of the encounters. He recalled one poacher who had been so cruel that she petrified her captures in stone, and on one occasion had dropped Ash out of her airship mid flight. He didn't think these poachers were with her though, as she had disappeared in the depths of a lake in the Sinnoh region a few years back. Still he didn't revel in the prospect of running into more poachers, and although he was concerned for the pokemon being hunted, he figured the officers could handle the task and decided to take them up on their offer.

Cal on the other hand was filled with youthful righteousness and desired to stay behind to search for the poached Pokemon. "We can't just leave them out here!" He protested, "What if the poachers find them before the officers do?"

"We can't worry ourselves with thinking like that." Aura argued, "Besides we're more likely to get in the officer's way, than we are to help them. It's better for everyone if we just do what they ask and bunker down in their cabin."

Cal scowled his discontent but conceded to head towards the cabin, walking in silent protest all the way there. They didn't have too far to travel so Cal's silence only lasted a few minutes and went virtually unnoticed, as the group was mostly preoccupied with speculating what the cabin would be like and what Pokemon the poachers had lost. They had assumed the officer's cabin to be just a simple log cabin and were pleasantly surprised to find it was far more appropriate to call the building a lodge than a cabin. The lodge was built on a hill and looked out over a small section of the woods; it was comprised of three stories, two oak wood and one stone. There was one balcony on the top level and a patio on the bottom, sliding glass doors provided access to both and lanterns hung from the balcony illuminating the patio and sending light through the gaps in the wood.

As the group made their way to the front of the building they began to realize the true size of the lodge. Judging it in non numerical terms, the lodge was roughly the size of one and a half suburban houses. It had an elaborate system of large windows that undoubtedly provided the lodge with optimal cooling and heating accommodations, and a set of hand carved stained oak double doors. And to top it all off a tower of red brick could be seen jutting out of the center of the roof, eluding to a possible secondary heat source as well as a s'more maker.

Upon reaching the twin oak doors they stopped and rapped an acorn shaped brass knocker against the wood. A moment later an audible crash could be heard behind the door, followed by a woman shouting "I'm coming!"  and a pair of rapidly approaching footsteps. The doors swung open to reveal a slightly winded thirty or so woman beaming in the entrance. She had on a long pair of beige cargo shorts, a blue tang top, grey running sneakers with white trimmings, and a blue and green jacket with a silver badge reading wildlife officer sown onto her right shoulder. Her strawberry blonde hair was tied back in a braided ponytail and a headset was chirping in her left ear.

"You must be the group Lesli and Sven found!" The lady officer said cheerily. "It's so nice to meet you, please come inside and meet the other guests." She stepped to the side and gestured down a side hallway.

Aura and Diana took the lead with Ash and Serena following shortly after, and Cal and Dena taking up the rear, the officer close behind. They followed the hallway to a large open room that was presumably at the heart of the lodge. The fireplace crackled on the far wall, casting warmth and light around the room and upwards toward the second story railings that overlooked the room. Around the fire place an assembly of two couches and four chairs were gathered; of these seats only three were occupied.

On the far left a girl of fifteen to sixteen years sat typing away at her phone, presumably texting friends as she would grunt a laugh every few seconds before mouthing a three to five letter response. Her clothes must have been part of some fashion trend, for they had rips and tears on a number of areas, yet looked remarkably new. Across from her was a guy of around fourteen with a rubrix cube in one hand and a book in the other. He seemed to be reading the book while absentmindedly solving and mixing up the cube with the other. In a few seconds he'd managed to scramble and solve the cube twice without looking at it. Apart from his extraordinary rubix cube solving ability he appeared rather uninteresting. Hazel eyes, brown side-swept hair, blue jeans and a black windbreaker with the champion logo on the left cuff were the only other defining features to the boy.

The third person was seated two seats to the right of the girl and had indistinguishable features that could have belonged to either gender. They wore a Doctor who T-shirt that read "Even the Doctor doesn't have time for your s-" the last word was censored in Gallifreyan, but it wasn't too difficult to figure out what it was supposed to read. They had a grey hoodie folded into a square and were using it as a neck pillow despite having two unoccupied pillows on their left and right. Their head was bobbing up and down almost rhythmically, so it was assumed that they were either listening to music or agreeing with voices in their head.

When the three people noticed the arrival of the large group they briefly introduced themselves (from left to right) as Carolin, Alex, and Damian. Aura and Diana did most of the introductions for their group as the rest of them were busy asking the officer questions regarding the poachers. She didn't reveal a great deal only that they'd been smuggled in from a few other regions and that of the twenty poached Pokémon only seven were still at large. The other three guests didn't seem too interested in the conversation between the group and the officer, and left for their rooms shortly after it began.

"It seems everyone else is packing it in for the night." The officer proclaimed after the other guests had left, "Perhaps you'd like me to show you to your rooms too?"

"Yes, thank you. That would be very nice." Diana said as she stifled a yawn.

They followed the officer up a flight of stairs and to a corridor with six doors. "I don't know how you guys feel about mixed rooms but Lieutenant Rick doesn't approve, so girls on the left boys on the right and no funny business in the middle of the night."

The group looked like a bunch of tomatoes after hearing the officers dorm rules and all insisted that no funny business would take place. "I wasn't really expecting any of that from you, but Rick makes me lay down the law or else I get more fieldwork." She shuddered at the word; "Anyways I'll be downstairs if you need anything. Ta"

"Wait," Serena said before the officer could leave, "I was wondering if you had a med center we could use, some of our Pokémon are pretty worn out."

"Oh heavens, of course right this way."

"Thank you...?"

"Nancy, dear. My name is Nancy." Nancy said, finally giving them her name.

"Well thank you for everything Nancy." Serena said.

"Not a problem. Right this way please." Nancy led them back down the stairs and towards the far end of the building where they entered a small square room stockpiled with medical supplies and gadgets. "If you need any help just give me a shout, I'll be out by the front waiting for any more late arrivals."

They thanked Nancy one last time before being to treat their Pokémon. Diana and Auras partners were in perfect health, so they headed back to their room, managing to find the kitchen and a meal on their way back. Serena and Dena's Pokémon were also healthy but had wanted to stay behind to help out the boys with their Pokémon who were rather roughed up after their fight with the two cloaked people.

Ash and Serena managed to finish his Pokémon first and had wandered off to find the kitchen, leaving Cal and Dena to themselves. When they were first by themselves they didn't say anything and worked in awkward silence, but after some time Cal asked Dena how her contest had gone. She lit up after he asked her and went into detail the events leading up to her first ribbon. Cal commented every once in a while at some of the more interesting parts of her story, but his comments seemed somewhat distant and unfocused.

"Oh it was great, I wish you could have been there!" Dena exclaimed as she wrapped up her story.

"Me too." Cal said as he rubbed a small lump behind his ear. The two shared a small laugh over this, but once it ended they were forced to address an elephant in the room.

"You still want to go out after those Pokémon, don't you?"

"...Yes." Cal said, "It feels wrong to wait around for the officers to find them, while I'm just in here doing nothing."

Dena sighed and leaned her back against the table Cal was facing. "Yeah I expected that much from you, it's one of your best qualities." She said with a small smile in his direction.

Cal looked at her perplexed, "So does that mean you're not going to try and stop me?"

She laughed, "Yes! Truth be told, I feel the same way as you. And besides we've been partners in crime for years, why stop now?"

It was now Cal's turn to laugh, "I see no reason. Come on let's go before someone tries to stop us."

The two grab their Pokémon and headed towards the front, they managed to make it within reach of the doorknobs before a familiar voice called out, "Now where do you two think you're going?"

Turning around they saw Serena standing behind them looking rather disappointed. "Serena, hey." Cal said nervously, "...um. W-we were just heading out for a walk and-"

"Hold it. Let now answer the question." Serena said, "Where do you think you're going-" "without us?" Ash finished appearing around the corner with a bag stuffed to burst.

"You're coming with us!?" Dena exclaimed, surprised with their one eighty from their earlier objections to helping the Pokémon.

"Of course, we couldn't let you two go and have all the fun." Serena said grinning madly. "Besides it was obvious that Cal was going to go, so we thought we'd go with in case he ran into any of the poachers."

"I can handle myself." Cal protested, slightly offended by the implications of Serena's last statement. "Besides, what do you have that I don't?"

Pikachu reached into Ash's bag and pulled out a freshly made Leppa berry sandwich. "Pika." he said simply. "Sandwitches." Ash translated, a smirk sprawled across his face.

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That's it for this chapter, I hope you guys enjoyed. Originally it was going to be a much longer chapter (about 2000 words longer) but I thought it easier to divide it into two chapters. The next one will be out shortly I've just got some tweaking to do.

Anyways thanks for reading and I'll see you next time. 👍