“It’s time,” said John as he sent out his Gloom. “I caught a Heracross in the contest, and they said I won!”
The Gloom, which had been sleeping in her Pokéball, rubbed her eyes and looked at John, as if to say, “So why did you wake me up?”
John noticed this, and said, “Don’t you remember a year ago, when you evolved into Gloom? When I researched how to evolve you again, I found two possibilities: Vileplume and Bellossom. And I chose Bellossom.”
Gloom was interested now. She had loved evolving, but her current state was too stinky for John to appreciate, and she wanted John to be happy. She agreed with her trainer about Bellossom being better than Vileplume, based on what her mother and father had told her as early as the spring of her birth.
John saw Gloom smile, and explained why he hadn’t evolved her yet. “I needed a rare evolution stone, one impossible to buy. It’s the Sun Stone, and here in Johto, it’s only available by winning the Bug-Catching Contest. Today, we’ve finally done it! That Heracross gave us first in the Contest!”
Gloom was very excited. She wanted to evolve and become the strong and beautiful Bellossom! She pranced around John while he took out the Sun Stone he had won and placed it in his palm. Gloom managed to stay still in front of John when he reached out and touched his Pokémon with the golden stone.
Light broke out as soon as the stone touched the Pokémon’s skin. Gloom was enveloped in light as she felt her form changing. When the light stopped shining, John could breathe evenly around his Pokémon for the first time in a year. She’d stopped making the foul-smelling honey and started producing a sweet scent. John grinned. “We did it! Now, let’s go train!”
Six months afterward, as the blooming flowers welcomed spring, John and Bellossom fought their current opponent, Camper Billy. Camper Billy was a little older and taller than the ordinary Camper, but John didn’t think age mattered when it came to Pokémon trainers.
“Giga Drain!” yelled Billy to his Parasect while John shouted “Use Petal Dance!” The two Pokémon obeyed their trainers, Bellossom moving first and summoning flowers’ petals that created both a shield and an attack against the Parasect. The Parasect, on the other hand, was so slow that it used Giga Drain on where Bellossom had been several seconds before. It found Petal Dance’s petals instead of its enemy, and was harmed by the floating flowers all around.
After several similar moves, Billy’s Pokémon was defeated. Billy grimaced and recalled Parasect into its Pokéball.
“Where’d you get Bellossom? It’s a hard Pokémon to obtain, right?” asked Billy. John replied: “Bellossom was my Gloom for a year, then I found a Sun Stone and evolved her. You’ve got a good move set on Parasect. Giga Drain makes it into a tank-like Pokémon.” Billy looked at the sky, as if he were saying “Well, it was easy figuring out what was good.” Then he frowned. John looked where Billy was looking and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Billy was silent for a few seconds, and then pointed at a cloud. “See that? That cloud is developing too fast. There’s going to be a big storm, and it’s going to be right here.”
“Can we run from it?” asked John.
“No,” replied Billy. “It’s too fast. I’ve seen storms like this before, but none this strong or fast. We have to camp here.”
“Okay. How long will it take?” asked John. “I think I can stay for a few hours before I need to give Bellossom some time to relax in the Pokémon Center.”
“Too bad.” said Billy. “The storm is so big; you might need to stay here for eight or nine hours. Get out your tent and prepare for the rain.”
“Okay, then. Go, Bellossom!” said John. “We can’t go to the Pokémon Center, but it will rain a lot later. Can you use Ingrain to heal yourself instead?” Bellossom nodded. She raised her hands above her head and sang “Bellossom!” Slowly, roots grew out of her, and she rested.
Several minutes later, as Billy helped John make a tent out of the trees in the surrounding area, they all heard a loud boom. The storm was approaching, and bright lights were inside. As John and Billy watched, a bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree, its flash revealing the silhouette of a huge quadruped Pokémon. Billy saw it and ran into the tent he and John had made, but John only slowly backed away while taking out his Pokédex. He pointed his Pokédex at the Pokémon and clicked the “information” button. “Raikou. The Thunder Pokémon,” said the Pokédex. “Raikou embodies the speed of lightning. When this Pokémon roars, shock waves of enormous power are summoned. Raikou is part of the Johto Legendary Trio of Entei, Raikou, and Suicune.”
John heard this and thought about only one part: “Shock Waves?” Raikou roared, Billy screamed from inside the tent, and everything went black for John.
He’d done it! John had finally won the Bug Catching Contest! He took the Sun Stone out of his bag, but it wasn’t a Sun Stone anymore...it was a miniature Billy, holding a mini Heracross just like the one John had caught in the Bug-Catching Contest. Mini Billy said, “Well, go along! Evolve that Bellossom of yours into its full form!” John touched Billy to his Bellossom, and it was evolving...But Bellossom didn’t evolve any further, so what was going on? Bellossom was glowing white and growing, crouching over with her arms touching the ground and growing. Before long, Raikou was in front of John instead of Bellossom, and it roared and lightning struck all around John, pain and thunder whirling around...
John woke up. He looked around. He was in a hospital room filled with beds and machinery, with multiple Chansey walking around. “Where am I? What’s going on? Bellossom? Billy?”
John searched for Bellossom’s Pokéball, and remembered that he’d left it in Billy’s tent. While he was pondering his situation, the door to the hospital room opened, and in walked a police officer with a nametag that read JENNY. “Oh,” she said. “You’re finally awake. I’m here to question you. Now, while you may be disoriented, it’s important you answer as honestly as possible, okay?” She continued without letting John respond. “Good. What Pokémon did you encounter? We know it must have been a strong Electric or Fire type, but what was it?”
“A Raikou,” John said, wondering how they knew what type it was. Then he realized that Billy should have told the police what had happened, and became suspicious.
“Okay, now. Enough games. That was a bad lie. The last sighting of a Raikou was two years ago, and that was caught by a person.” Officer Jenny was upset by his response. Recently, many kids were reporting a Raikou in the nearby area, and they always seemed to ask where some Camper was: something with a “y” or “ie” at the end.
John, who hadn’t noticed that Officer Jenny was upset, asked “Have you seen Camper Billy? He was with me. So was my Bellossom. Should I tell you where we were?”
“No, we figured it out,” Officer Jenny said. “But there was no Bellossom, and this Camper Billy person doesn’t seem to have ever existed. Do you want for me to take you there anyway? Maybe you’ll find something?”
“Yes, please,” John said. “But first, can I eat something?”
“I understand that you’re hungry; you haven’t eaten in several days, but we need to see if you can find any evidence for us,” Officer Jenny replied, when she realized that all the other kids with a Raikou encounter hadn’t wanted to move before she’d given them something to eat, so she changed her response to: “Hang on, I’ll get you an apple.”
An hour later, Officer Jenny ran into the hospital room and said “Sorry, the supermarket was all out of apples. Here’s a banana!”
John reluctantly took the banana that Officer Jenny was holding, peeled it, ate it, and said “Thank you. Can we go now? I want to find out what happened to Billy and Bellossom. I think it’s suspicious on Billy’s part that you didn’t find anything at all.”
Officer Jenny took John to a clearing with scorch marks all over it. “This is it,” she said. This is where we found you, and although we’ve looked all over multiple times, there’s nothing else here.
John looked in that clearing for hours, staying, observing everything. Eventually he had to leave, forcing himself to admit that he couldn’t find Bellossom, unaware of the man called Camper Billy watching in a nearby tree, gripping two Pokéballs: His newly stolen Bellossom and his partner-in-crime Raikou.
