Maybe there was some sort of male survival instinct that made Cliff and Lucas aware that Claire and I were in a cold, slightly murderous rage. When we walked up, I noticed that a few beads of sweat were forming on Cliff’s forehead, while Lucas was affecting a look of innocent confusion.

“We’ve had it, Lucas,” Claire fumed, giving him a glare that could have substituted for Champ’s efforts in heating up the kettle they had, likely to prepare tea.

“Your pranks, the disrespect, it’s going to stop, or you and Cliff will travel on their own, even if that means we have to go back to Celestic Town and set out anew,” she growled, the combination of anger, disgust but also a bit of disappointment and even shame making me reach out and put an arm around her, trying to give her some silent comfort while glaring at Lucas. Cliff, sitting next to him, had a bewildered expression on his face, while Lucas was frowning, traces of anger creeping into the genial mask he had been wearing.

“What are you talking about? You’ve been on my case for the last few days, always nagging and complaining, what’s going on? If you don’t want to keep travelling with me, just say so outright, no need for this crap,” he flared up, rising to glare at Claire and me.

“What? Why, how would you like it if we snuck after you while you are bathing and happily peek at you? It’s one thing if you see us by coincidence or in an emergency, but creeping after us is just disgusting,” I sneered, letting go of Claire and moving forward to confront him, not letting him get away with his blustering denial.

“And collecting trophies, really? Are you so desperate that you need to steal underwear?” Claire asked, the disappointment in her voice getting stronger, almost eclipsing her anger, as she tossed the damaged, dirty bra at Lucas’ face.

“As if I would steal your underwear!” Lucas raged back, taking a step forward on his own, his voice now completely filled with embarrassment and anger.

“Time, time, time,” Cliff finally spoke up, waving his hands between the three of us, sounding confused and embarrassed at the same time, his eyes occasionally flickering down to the discarded garment.

“He was with me the whole time, he can’t have gone to peek at you,” Cliff defended his companion, their solidarity in mischief driving my temper even higher.

“Oh? So Claire’s bra is some sort of newly evolved Pokémon, capable of moving on its own? We should definitely catch it then…” I mocked, not buying the excuse for a moment.

“Hey, I know his pranks have been incredibly annoying, but this one’s not on him,” Cliff tried to defuse my anger, his voice earnest to the point that I couldn’t find any traces of deception. For a moment, I felt as if I had been hit by a Confuse Ray, my eyes going from Cliff to Lucas and back, not sure what to think.

“What pranks are you talking about? I’ve not done anything these last two days, but you keep on complaining and complaining, it gets really old,” Lucas groused, his glare now targetting Cliff as well, who had somewhat stepped aside, so he stood sideways between the two groups.

“Oh, so it’s not just the bra that’s a new Pokémon, but the rotten berries that somehow dropped on the rock I’ve been using as a seat yesterday when I wasn’t looking, or the suddenly vanishing spoon, those were…”

“They might have been,” I realised, my face now twisting into a frown as I looked at Lucas, wondering if I had convicted an innocent man. He had played pranks before, but those had been fun, this was just… lazy and boring.

“I've no idea what you’re talking about!” he insisted, still angry. but no longer close to a full rage, even the disappointment that had been noticeable in his voice before was gone.

“Wait, if not you, who did it?” Cliff asked, now sounding quite confused, a sentiment shared by Claire.

“How would I know?!” Lucas asked, turning away to focus on the kettle, his back looking somewhat narrow and a little lonely as he turned away.

The three of us exchanged a couple of looks, anger now completely abated but there was a certainly confused distrust, none of us really sure what to make of this. Either Lucas was a better actor than I could imagine or we had genuinely done him wrong and someone, or rather something, else had played those annoying pranks.

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Claire declared, an odd trace of happiness in her voice that I couldn’t place.

The rest of the evening was quite tense, and none of us was able to fully relax. The previous conflict was still there, causing the occasional glare to get shot between Claire and Lucas. We all were incredibly vigilant, to the point that a poor Starly, maybe looking for food or to test our mettle, was greeted by three flashes of red, immediately turning tail and speeding away at its fastest pace. It wanted no business with three angry trainers and their Pokémon.

Instead of my normal routine, I decided to do something different. If there was some outside force performing those pranks, I wanted to have a bit of insurance, even if it might not amount to much. Given that we were in the mountains and it had just rained quite hard, I wasn’t about to sleep outside, but the tent had, luckily, enough space for my plan.

The others might have wondered why there was a brief flash of red light in the tent when I went to bed, lying on the thin mat with my zipped open sleeping bag acting as a blanket above me. Only this night, I wasn’t alone under my blanket, happily snuggling up to me was Vio, who had given a lot of happy chirps when I explained the situation to her. Those chirps had only intensified when I had pulled the sleeping bag over us and her into my arms, to save some space in the tent for Claire, so hopefully, either Vio or I would notice if anything mischievous was going on.

My first instinct upon waking was to grumble, it had taken me a bit of time to fall asleep with the happily snuggling Vio cuddling up to me and gently nuzzling my chest. Making matters worse was that, instead of Cliff’s soft call, or maybe a gentle tugging on my leg to wake me, the noise that ripped me from dreamland was far from gentle, more akin to a rockslide or maybe even a small earthquake.

It took me a second to realise that Vio, still happily ensconced in my arms, was also just waking up, neither of us had noticed the cause of the commotion beforehand, the realisation annoying me further.

Crawling out of the ten, dragging Vio along with me and Claire hot on my heels, I stared for a moment, the combination of moonlight and Champ’s flames illuminating enough of the mountainside to let me understand what was going on.

Gem, Lucas’ Onyx, was fighting something, her tail occasionally launching projectiles of slate-grey Rock-type energy at some swiftly moving, flying target that apparently managed to dodge out of the way. From the directions those rocks were launched, it was incredibly agile, to the point that I could hardly follow what was going on, but that was also due to the atrocious lighting.

Nearby, Lucas was softly cursing, while occasionally cheering Gem on, telling her to get the damn crow. Next to me, Claire let out a soft hiss of annoyance, her behaviour confusing me.

“It’s that damn Murkrow, it has to be,” she snarled, before softly chanting, “Workrum, Workrum—bad luck, don't come,”

Just as she finished the chant, Gem suddenly surged forward, managing to wrap around the flying target with incredible agility, the impact of her heavy body on the mountainside enough to make the earth tremor just a little. But if the impact was enough to shake the earth, I didn’t want to imagine how it would feel for the Murkrow.

Just as I was about to worry, Lucas gave another command, causing Gem to squeeze once, before releasing the Murkrow just as suddenly as she had captured it before and right as the bird was set free, a surge of red light engulfed it, dragging it into the Pokéball Lucas had thrown.

Once, twice, the Pokéball shook, before a soft ping announced the successful capture of the Murkrow. I wanted to cheer and congratulate Lucas but for some reason, a sudden, cold shiver ran down my spine, making me worry.

“This time he got it,” Claire muttered softly, her tone weird.

“This time?” I asked, speaking just as softly, still not sure what was going on.

“Remember that I told you about those Murkrow that annoyed us during our task? Lucas considered capturing one of them but accidentally knocked it out. Pretty sure it’s the same one, he used the same curses and the ‘Dex gives pretty much the same values.” she explained, the softly glowing display of her Pokédex visible in the night.

“So?” I asked, not quite getting it.

“So, things make sense. If Lucas wasn’t the prankster, guess who just caught a Pokémon with quite good stealth abilities, a lot of delight in pranking people and causing mischief?” she asked, and the ominous promotion from earlier returned with a vengeance.

“Oh,” I let out a sigh, just as I felt little Vio tug on my hand, pulling me back into the tent. I had only to consider for a second, before deciding that my little partner had the right idea. No matter what, I was too tired for this.