Caught in the Whirlpool 18

Caught in the Whirlpool
Part XVIII

"So?"

Minato paused in his study of an alley and looked over his shoulder at Genma.  He and his agent had fallen a bit behind of the main search group as they surveyed the residential fringes of Uzu Town for the runaway zorua.  Genma raised a questioning eyebrow and his toothpick twitched at the corner of his mouth, while Zang the zangoose faithfully mimicked him with a little twig in his teeth.

"Finding you in bed with a hot red-head wasn't too horribly shocking seeing as you've mentioned having a girlfriend," Genma commented.  "But a blond-haired 'mini-you' popping up with no warning…"

"I said that I was sorry," Minato sighed and motioned for Senkou to quit sniffing around the alley trashcans.  "I should've mentioned before that I had more than a girlfriend."

"Yeah," Genma nodded.  "How old is that kid?"

"He'll be thirteen in the fall," Minato replied.  "That's the reason I set October tenth off-limits for scheduling anything."

"That's an awful long time to not tell me about him," Genma remarked.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Minato responded as they followed along in the wake of Kushina and the children, double-checking the hiding places that they'd already examined.  "I didn't know about him until fairly recently."

"You didn't…"  Genma frowned.  "But if your girlfriend is the boy's mother, and he's twelve…  I don't get it."

"It's complicated," Minato shrugged uncomfortably.  "She disappeared on me before Naruto was born, and…"  He shook his head.  "It's just a mess.  Although now it's more or less sorted out."

"Ah."  Genma removed his toothpick and waved it at the blond man.  "You know, even though the two biggest networks pulled out all their people this morning, there are still some cameramen from the smaller news organizations around.  And just because I didn't see any tabloid reporters that I recognized doesn't mean that there aren't any snooping around for something juicy, and they'll stick around the longest."

"I know," Minato grimaced.  "But I didn't expect for either of them to show up here.  Kushina has family in the area, but she doesn't get along with them and never expressed any interest in returning to her childhood home.  And Naruto has no real reason to be here either—he doesn't know any of Kushina's family and the local gym badges count towards the Land of Fire's Pokémon League."

"Well, you might want to have a talk with the kid about staying under the radar, or take him camping for a week or something until all of the reporters are gone," Genma suggested, slipping the toothpick back between his teeth.  "A gossip magazine is going run with a 'secret son' story over a…um…some rumor about 'meowths that bark' or—"

"Wait," Minato interrupted and stopped walking.  "Wait a minute…"

"What?" Genma wondered.  "What did I say?"

"That meowth that jumped on Kushina and sounded like it was barking earlier…  That's exactly what we're looking for!"  Minato shook his head and jogged to catch up with Kushina and let her know about it.  I can't believe that I forgot about that!  And considering how long ago that was and how fast it was running…it's definitely out of Uzu Town by now.

***

Ken-Ichi admittedly was only half-paying attention to the search.  Since he had delivered the young trainers to his long-lost aunt, who seemed to know Uzu Town fairly well, he should head to his mother's house to start serving out his grounding.  But the thought of being restricted to the house unless chores or errands took him outside for a whole week was more than enough encouragement for him to press his luck.

His eyes drifted yet again to his mysterious Aunt Kushina as she peeked into a scraggly hedge in search of the missing pokémon with a determined scowl on her face.  She possessed most of the features that he was used to seeing on his female relations, but she dressed in a fashion that surely scandalized his Great Aunt Asuka.  It seemed fairly ordinary for women on the mainland to run around in pants but for someone who had supposedly been born in Whirlpool…

Then there was the fact that she apparently was one of the participants in the battle that they'd seen the tail-end of.  Again, such a thing appeared to be fairly common on the mainland, but was almost unheard of among women from Whirlpool.  And not only had she battled alongside a man, against other men, she'd been an asset instead of a liability.

I know that women can lead pokémon in battle—I saw it happen on the mainland, and Mito-sama supposedly did it centuries ago…

He shook his head.

…How can she be related to Aunt Akane?  I just don't see it.

The blond man jogged up to his aunt, grasped her shoulder, and whispered something into her ear.  According to the Sakura girl he was the champion of the Land of Fire's Pokémon League.  He didn't look particularly impressive to Ken-Ichi and he wondered why the man was in Whirlpool since the Sakura girl denied that the champion had any blood relation to his blond cousin.

"Great!" his aunt huffed in response to whatever the foreign champion had told her.  "Okay everybody, slight change of plans.  We're heading out of town."

"I'm going to have to bow out," Genma the toothpick man sighed from his position near the back.  "I'm no good beyond the bounds of civilization.  Sorry."

"It's alright, thanks for the help," the champion smiled and waved as the other man and his zangoose turned and wandered back towards the heart of town.

"Why are we heading out to the wilds?" Naruto asked.  "Isn't there still a lot of the town to check?"

"We encountered a pokémon that had to be this zorua in disguise earlier," his odd aunt explained.  "It surprised us and then we got sidetracked by the battle."

"Gah!" Naruto cried.  "Let's go then!"

The red-haired woman turned and led them down a street that went from asphalt to dirt, and led out of town.  In less than ten minutes the houses dramatically thinned out and then stopped altogether to be replaced by tall grass, shrubs, and pine trees.  Then, at a weathered stone marker that officially marked the end of Uzu Town, she stopped and brought them all to a halt.

"Okay, time to call in all of the troops," she announced, and released several other pokémon in addition to her vaporeon.  

There was the feraligatr that he'd seen from the battle, which surprised him as he'd assumed that the venusaur had been hers instead of the monstrous crocodile.  She also had a starmie, a kabutops, and a female gyarados.  The starmie seemed normal enough, but a dangerous fossil monster and a gyarados left him almost astonished.

The foreign champion followed her lead and set loose his other five monsters to join his jolteon.  The venusaur that Ken-Ichi seen belonged to him, and he also possessed a poliwrath, a ninetales, a dragonite, and a gyarados.  All the monsters looked fairly impressive, but the one that really stole his attention was the gyarados since it looked like it had escaped from the mosaic in his grandfather's gym wall.

It's…it's…red!

"Eee!  He has a red gyarados!" Sakura breathed.

"…That's new," Sasuke remarked, a hint of awe in his voice.

"You guys haven't seen Akai before?" Naruto asked, puzzled.

"No," the pink-haired girl spluttered.  "You knew he had a red gyarados and didn't tell us?"

"You never asked," Naruto shrugged.

"C'mon kids," his aunt said before Sakura could chastise the blond boy for not sharing.  "Call out all your walking or flying monsters.  The more eyes we have looking, the better."

Naruto immediately responded to his mother's suggestion.  He released his silver ninetales and the aerodactyl that he'd used against Katsuro outside of the Safari Zone to join his pikachu.  He hesitated over a pokéball and a safari-ball, but declined to call upon his two eevees.

Sasuke followed his example and called upon several other monsters to help his charmeleon.  The black-haired boy also had a luxray, a pupitar, and a shelgon.  He also let out his eevee from the Safari Zone, but he left his other safari-ball on his belt.

After the two boys had chosen their monster helpers, Sakura hurried to do the same.  In addition to her torchic, she summoned her espeon, a chansey, a cherrim, an ivysaur, and an axew.  Once she had opened all of her monster capsules the pink-haired girl looked to his aunt for further instruction.

Ken-Ichi glanced down at Gamera and reached for his ball belt—

"Ken-Ichi?"

The teenager gave a guilty start, but it was his father, not his mother, who had found him this time.  His dad had probably been taking the scenic route into town to mail some bills, as was his habit.  Ken-Ichi gave a little wave of greeting as his father approached.

"Hey, Dad."

"Hey."  His father eyed the trainers and the menagerie of monsters before putting his full focus on his son.  "Welcome back.  Have you seen your mother yet?"

"Yeah," Ken-Ichi grimaced.  "I'm grounded again."

His father scowled.  "What for?"

"For breaking my promise to stick with Katsuro and Hayato so that I would be safe in a foreign country," Ken-Ichi grumbled.  Translation: For daring to grow up and deciding to be like you and associate myself with the monsters that she hates so much.  You know, the same reason as always…

"That woman…" his father sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  "I'll talk to her about that."

"You don't have to—" Ken-Ichi protested.

"Kenshin!" his aunt cried and seemed to magically appear at his father's side.  "You're just in time to help!"

"Help with what?" his dad asked warily.

"With finding a runaway pokémon," she answered and whipped out her pokédex to show him a picture of a zorua.  "That's what it's supposed to look like, but it has illusion powers that can make it look like anything."

"…What the heck is it?" his father scowled.

"It's called a zorua; it's something rare from overseas," his aunt replied.

"Well…alright," he agreed.  "I'll give it a shot."

With that, his father started letting loose his team one at a time.  Gill the swampert came first, followed by Whitewater the gyarados, Scythe the kabutops, Claw the crawdaunt, Finn the floatzel, and Tentamaru the tentacruel.  When they were all assembled he briefly borrowed the red-headed woman's pokédex and showed them the picture.

While his father was caught up on the plan, Ken-Ichi went about calling upon all the monsters that he felt would be useful.  Since his cradily, Rooty, was on the slow side he held the fossil plant back.  Hurricane his gyarados was the first out, closely followed by Nemo the eevee, Venom the nidorino, and Ottaro the oshawott.

"Alright!" his aunt cried, clapping her hands to draw all attention to her.  "We all spread out from this point to maximize our search area, but keep close enough so that no one gets lost.  Flush out anything in your path and look for something out-of-place…like a pokémon that barks, and isn't supposed to.  Every hour we stop and check in together.  Everybody got that?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives and the woman nodded firmly.

"Great.  Let's go!"

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed and took off at a jog with his three loose monsters in tow.  "C'mon Kitsune, where are you?"

"Naruto, wait up!" Sakura complained as she and her pokémon started off on her path to the right of the dirt road.

"Idiot," Sasuke muttered and led his creatures in a third direction.

Ken-Ichi gestured for his minions to come along and walked in a fourth direction.

"So the blond kid is the one who lost the pokémon?" he heard his father say from behind him.  "Who is he exactly?"

"Find his Kistune and we'll talk about it," his aunt promised.  "Now you go left, I'll right, and Minato will go to the other right."

…She's weird, Ken-Ichi decided as Hurricane drove a small flock of pidgey skyward.  It's like she was born a mainlander instead of an Uzumaki.  If only I could tell if that's a good or a bad thing…

***

This brat is more trouble than she's worth, Demon grumbled as he startled a pack of rattata out of some bushes.  I hope he sends her off to storage after we find her this time.  Maybe a year or two of gathering dust will teach her a lesson.

The silver ninetales sighed and trotted along to Naruto's left, alert for anything that didn't look right, sound right, or smell right.  Bolt was to the boy's right, doing the same thing.  Ginsu had been flying above them, but he'd kept getting distracted by all the tasty-looking birds that flew out of the grass and he'd kept looking at the two kabutops like he was considering eating them, so Naruto had called him back.

To his left Demon could see some of the pink-haired girl's pokémon combing through the grass and brush with their human.  Shamo the torchic kept getting lost in the tangle of tall grasses and bushes, and the pink-haired girl had to keep stopping to free him.  Dawn the espeon quietly fussed over trying to find a dark-type pokémon and how that rendered her psychic powers practically useless.  Cherry the cherrim looked especially droopy due to the gloomy gray sky and the closed flower mostly just rode on Pinky the chansey's head while the egg-carrier searched for the both of them.  Briar the ivysaur marched along, probing hiding places with his vines as he went.  And the odd tusked dragon that Sakura had named Lizzie searched under protest, having no love for the tricky black fox.

To Bolt's right, Demon could make out most of the black-haired boy's monsters.  Grimm the eevee was so small and blended in so well with most of the dry tall grasses that he was nearly invisible.  Rex the pupitar, being little more than a bouncing spiky rock, threw himself around to crush the undergrowth and flush out terrified wild pokémon.  Wyvern the shelgon was little better, plowing through grasses and bushes like a round little tank on stubby legs.  Dragon the charmeleon was careful not to set anything on fire with his tail flame and every now and then muttered something about his back itching and wanting to fly.  Lion the luxray was thoroughly bored with his searching duty and used his intimidate ability and electrical sparks to clear the ground in front of him of hiding monsters.

The ground was growing increasingly hilly so Demon couldn't see much of the others, but with Naruto's parents, two other trainers, and all of their pokémon helping out, there was no way for Kitsune to hide.

Why is she so determined to run away? Demon frowned.  There's no way for her to return to her old home, and whether or not she listens to him, Naruto's still going to give her free food.  Hanging around with humans is a lot easier than trying to make it out in the wild, especially when you're far away from anything familiar.

Demon paused as he crested another hill to take a look around—

Something black disappeared down the backside of the next hill to quickly for the ninetales to determine what it was.

"Kitsune!" Naruto cried and took off running.  "Hey, wait up!"

:Wait!: Demon snarled as he hurried to catch up.  :That might not be her!:

:I bet it is,: Bolt countered as he hopped onto Naruto's backpack.  :It had better be her, I'm sick of chasing her around!:

Naruto slid down the hill and struggled up the slope of the next one.  Deaf to the warnings of his friends to slow down and wait, the blond boy charged over the top of the hill—

—And ran straight into something that he didn't expect.

:What weird-looking horses,: Bolt squeaked.

Five black horse-like creatures with white jagged stripes stood frozen at the sudden appearance of a human and two pokémon.  They'd been grazing and moving further to the interior of the island.  Demon had no idea what they were and tensed in preparation for anything…

:What are you?: Bolt asked the odd pokémon.

"Aren't those…blitzle?" Naruto muttered, clearly very confused.  "Those shouldn't be there…should they?"

:A human!: one cried.

:A human, a human, a human!: a second anxiously agreed.

:.Big Brother, help us!: a third brayed.  :.Big Brother!:

"Maybe one of them is Kitsune," Naruto guessed.  "Bolt, hit them with thunder-shocks!"

:Gotcha!: Bolt nodded and hopped down from Naruto's back to attack.

The pikachu fired several weak bolts of electricity at the tiny herd of blitzle…to no effect.  The attacks aimed at two of the blitzle missed completely, drawn away to strike at one of the other three.  And those that were hit looked completely unaffected, like they didn't even feel it as electricity danced over their bodies.

"What the heck?" Naruto frowned.  "Bolt, try hitting those last two with quick attacks!"

:.Okay!: Bolt agreed and blurred in to crash into the flank of one of the untouched blitzle.

:.Ow!  Big Brother!: it cried, bucking and rearing.  :Where are you?:

'Big Brother', whatever that was, failed to appear and Bolt successfully attacked the second untouched blitzle, and it too proved to be the real thing and not Kitsune in disguise.

"Aw, man…" Naruto sighed.  "Demon, scare 'em off with roar."

Bolt scampered back to wait by Naruto's feet while Demon trotted forward to chase the wild pokémon away.

"It's too bad," Naruto muttered.  "If we weren't looking for Kitsune, I might try and catch one.  I thought that blitzle were from farther away than here.  Maybe we can track them down later…"

Demon faced the nervously stamping and snorting blitzle, sucked in a deep breath, and—

:Leave my friends alone!:

The ninetales barely turned in time to see the black blur covered in electricity that slammed into him.  Demon bounced once and skidded several feet from the force of the blow, and his body twitched from the shock.  When he tried to regain his feet, he found his limbs to be less than responsive and felt the painful tingle that he associated with paralysis.

The surprise attacker looked very similar to the blitzle, but was much larger and clearly more evolved.  It reared, brayed, and pawed at the air with its front hooves as tiny sparks of electricity flickered over its body.  When it caught on that Demon was paralyzed, it turned an angry glare to Bolt and Naruto.

:Run my friends!: it cried.  :I'll take care of this.  They won't put us in boxes again!:

The large zebra pawed at the ground, shrouded itself in thin streamers of flame, and charged at the boy and the electric mouse.

:Take this!: Bolt squeaked and fired off a powerful thunderbolt…that did absolutely nothing.  :Huh?:

Naruto grabbed the stunned pikachu and rolled out of the way at the last moment.

:You missed, Big Brother!: one of the blitzles—none of which had fled yet—neighed.

The monster zebra wheeled around and charged again, moving even faster this time.  Demon managed to get back to his feet by this point and the silver ninetales tried to trap the attacking pokémon in a fire spin, but it missed by inches.  The striped monster kept on running and it didn't look like Naruto was going to be able to react in time—

WHAM!

The bigger zebra was knocked completely off its feet, it bounced almost half-a-dozen times, and when it finally stopped moving it was out cold.  In the space where the black-and-white monster had been fractions of seconds before, Ryuu the dragonite touched down as lightly as a feather after a few wing beats.  The dragon folded his forearms over his chest and gravely surveyed the scene in the mini-valley between the hills.

:Saved,: Demon sighed and sank to the ground as his muscles tingled.

"Naruto!" Sakura squawked as she picked her way down the hillside with Sasuke and some of their pokémon.  "We told you to wait—are those blitzle?  And is that a zebstrika?  What are they doing here?"

"I dunno," Naruto shrugged as he warily stood up and dusted himself off.  "All I saw were the blitzle, and then the zebstrika tried to trample me!"  He put Bolt down, un-shouldered his bag, and started digging through it.  "Where's my berry pouch?"

:.Big Brother!: the blitzles bleated.  :Get up Big Brother!  We need to run away!:

:You five run along,: Ryuu rumbled.  :Your friend will catch up with you when he wakes up.:

:The humans will take him away and put him in a box!: the boldest of the five declared, stamping a hoof.  :Why are you helping them?  Help us instead!:

:What are you talking about?: Bolt complained.

:Why would anyone put him in a box?: Ryuu frowned.  :If he's put in anything, it would be a pokéball and there's nothing really terrible about that.  It just feels kind of weird at first.:

:No one's taking Big Brother anywhere!: another blitzle cried, and the other four agreed.

:Calm down and walk away,: Ryuu advised.

:.Or better yet, come at me!: Dragon the charmeleon bellowed in challenge, placing himself in front of the blitzle.  :I've been itching for a good fight all day!:

The anxious bliztle milled around at a safe distance.  Some were ready to fight and some were ready to flee.  Dragon grinned and slipped into an aggressive ready stance with his claws raised high.

:Can I help?: Bolt asked the charmeleon eagerly.

:I want to help!: Briar the ivysaur volunteered.

A turtle shell with a curly white tail hanging out of it rolled down the hillside and came to a stop when the wartortle extended all of its limbs.  :A fight?  Count me in!:

:What's going on down there?: Crusher the feraligatr demanded from the hilltop.

:Is there a fight?: Senkou the jolteon asked as he bounded on to the scene.  :Where?  Where?:

With more and more pokémon arriving on the scene, the blitzle lost their courage and eventually they broke and ran.

Dragon was not pleased with this development.  :Rah!  You fools scared them all away!:

:Who are you calling a fool?: Crusher demanded with a growl as he stomped down the hill.

"Found it!" Naruto cheered and scampered over to where Demon lay waiting with a cheri berry.  "That should make you feel better."

Demon gulped down the little red berry and sighed as the painful twitches and tingles of his paralysis faded and he was able to move without difficulty.  Much better…

"What happened?" Naruto's mother demanded as she arrived along with Naruto's father.  "Is anyone hurt?"

"No, Mom, I'm fine!" Naruto yelled back.

"A wild zebstrika tried to trample him," Sasuke told her.

"What on earth is this thing?" A man that Demon was unfamiliar with asked as he warily studied the unconscious zebstrika.

"It's a foreign pokémon, Dad," Ken-Ichi said.  "They had stuff like this in the Safari Zone that I visited."

"Huh," the red-haired woman frowned.  "I suppose I should get that for Professor Utatane—"

The zebstrika dissolved into light and was drawn into a basic pokéball.  Since it was totally out, the ball barely wiggled before the capture field stabilized and the red light went out.  And a fraction a second later the ball itself turned into light and flashed skyward on its way into storage.

Demon cocked his head.  :Who caught that?:

"…Minato?" Naruto's mother said.

"Yeah?"  The blond man glanced up from his pokédex screen.  "Oh, did you want that zebstrika?  It's an electric-type so I didn't think that you'd want it.  …Or did someone else want it?"

That thing was just an electric type?  Demon frowned and flattened his ears.  How was it using fire then?

"No," she sighed.  "I'll just have to take you to see Professor Utatane so that she can see it, that's all."

"Okay," Naruto's father agreed and sheepishly rubbed at the back of his head.  "Well…has anyone seen any trace of the zorua?"

A chorus of negative replies answered him.

"Since no one's hurt and we haven't found it yet," Naruto's mother sighed, "let's get back to looking—"

A rolling rumble of thunder interrupted her.

"…Great," she huffed and glowered and the darkening clouds.

:I thought it smelled like a storm,: Ryuu remarked.

Demon cringed.  I hate it when it rains…