"Good luck. Have fun." Aleron grinned and watched her go before wandering off to find something to snack on.

"I will," Margaret replied. Turning, she went into the Gym. It was dark inside, but not so dark that she couldn't see anything. There were torches lit every so often, but she still couldn't see the floor at all. She was about to take a step onto the darkened floor when Espeon nudged her to the side. Margaret looked down, and Espeon shook her head, using her tail to gesture to an exact spot on the floor. The meaning was perfectly clear: 'walk where I tell you.'

Aleron went and found a place to lay out in the sun, stretching out and letting Vulpix stretch out on her stomach. They were perfectly content to wait as long as it took.

Margaret let Espeon lead her across what seemed like a maze with invisible walls. As far as she could tell, there was nothing around her, but Espeon kept to a seemingly specific path. Finally, they reached the other side.

"That was weird," she commented to herself.

"Indeed," a male voice replied from her right. She jumped and muffled a shriek. A man came out of the shadows, an apologetic look on his face. "I didn't mean to startle you," he said. "I only meant that I found it unusual that a trainer would let her pokemon lead her across my floor. Most trainers still think themselves invincible when they pass through here, and try to challenge the phantom floor on their own."

"I trust Espeon," Margaret replied. "You must be the gym leader, then. Morty, right?"

"Indeed," Morty replied. "I assume you wanted to challenge the gym?"

"That I did," Margaret replied cheerfully.

The battle wasn't all that long, or really all that hard. A three-on-three match, and Margaret already knew who she would use for it. She matched her Exeggute up against Morty's Haunter and Espeon against his Gengar. His Banette through her for a bit of a loop, but Metagross took care of it easily enough. Never was Margaret so glad she taught her pokemon off-type moves, though.

"I'm impressed," Morty said afterwards, handing Margaret the Fog Badge. She slipped it into her badge case. "Very few trainers are able to take ghost-types in stride like that."

"My mother has a Gengar," Margaret replied, a bit sheepish. "That's probably why. I'm used to the damn thing coming out of nowhere." Morty just chuckled a little and led her back across the floor. After bidding her farewell, he closed the gym doors behind her.

Aleron and Vulpix were currently snoozing in the sun, though Vulpix lifted her head to look at Margaret as she approached.

Margaret went over and nudged Aleron with her foot.

"Hey," she said. "I got the badge. You didn't warn me about that Banette he has."

"Oh, yeah. One of my old friends had one, and it was hilarious. It would pull pranks all over the place, and then blame it on someone else." She grinned, thoroughly amused. "Although once I knew a Mareep that would get into so much trouble. He'd jump out of the pen, and go run around for a while with two or three people trying to catch him, and then he'd trick them and make them lose him. Once they trudged back, he was sitting in the middle of the pen quite innocently just hanging out."

Margaret snorted.

"Not much of a dumb sheep, huh?" she said. She shook her head. "It's kind of like my mother's Gengar. It just loved playing jokes on me as a kid, and it got to the point that when I came home after getting the Cascade badge, I stopped and bought a Cleanse Tag to put on my bedroom door to keep the thing out." She grinned. "Best investment I ever made. Anyways, now what? As much as I'd like to keep going around collecting badges, shouldn't we keep trying to find those eggs?" She would have loved to just go around and get the rest of the region's badges, but it still nagged at her.

"Yeah, we probably should." Aleron shrugged. "I mean, what we really should do is get a pokemon that's good at tracking, see if we can find the other eggs. Vulpix is alright, but I don't have a real tracker on me at the moment. I suppose I could always get a growlithe from home, but it doesn't quite settle with the trainer in me, I suppose."

"I don't have anyone good at tracking," Margaret said, thinking. "A Growlithe or a Houndour would be best, I think, and I don't have either one. I have no idea where to find them out in Johto, either. In Kanto, you can find both outside of Saffron, at different times of day." She thought for a moment or so. "I don't know what else we would be able to use... Do you have anyone who knows Odor Sleuth? That might be good enough, right?"

"Yeah, it would probably be good enough. But no one knows it. Well, unless I got an Arcanine from home. But it almost seems like cheating."

Aleron frowned. "Maybe I should just go catch a new Growlithe. Expand on the bloodline at home. Or see what else I can catch around here. A Poochyena would work, too, I think."

"I forgot about Poochyena," Margaret replied. "I don't think about them much, unless I have to battle one." She shook her head. "Only two pokemon ever learn Miracle Eye naturally, and I don't have either one." She paused. "Well, and supposedly Mew can learn it, but nobody's ever been able to confirm that." She looked at her friend. "Up to you. There are no Psychic types that I know of that are good trackers like that, so it's completely up to you."

"Having a Poochyena would probably be good for my team, since I still only have Jolteon and Vulpix." Aleron shrugged. "So I guess I'll just have to see what we see around. And in the meantime we can probably just try to think of other places Team Rocket would try to hide the eggs."

Margaret pondered that for a moment.

"Didn't they have something to do with some sort of incident at the Lake of Rage?" she asked. She didn't know any specifics; they only got a short, vague news story about it back in Kanto. It wasn't big enough to make inter-regional news, and it only reached Kanto at all because it had something to do with Team Rocket.

"Yeah, I think they did." Aleron blinked. She'd forgotten about that. "Something about them and a red Gyarados. I don't remember the specifics, though. Think we should go take a look?"

"I think it's worth looking into," Margaret said. Although if she admitted it, she was also kind of intrigued by an alternately-colored pokemon. They were incredibly rare, and she didn't know anyone who had any, or had even seen one close-up. "And on our way there you might be able to find yourself that Poochyena or a Houndour."

"I will be keeping my eyes open," Aleron said with a grin. She would love to get a Houndour.

"You know, I saw an odd-colored pokemon once. One of the eevees we hatched was almost white. It was kinda cool."

"Really?" Margaret asked. "That's so cool. I've never seen one before. Though I've tried to imagine what odd-colored versions of my own pokemon would look like." She had a hard time imagining an alternate color for Espeon, although Exeggcute and Metagross were a little easier to picture. "So, which way is the Lake of Rage?"

"North and a bit east. Actually getting close to Dragon's Den, so if you wanted to visit there while we're up in the area..." Aleron shrugged. "Might find some interesting pokemon up there."

Margaret nodded.

"Sounds good to me," she said. "You know where we're going, so I'll follow you." In the back of her mind, she was also keeping an eye out for any other legendaries. They'd already seen five or six, so there was every chance they would run into more. And hadn't Mewtwo said he'd be keeping an eye on them or something to that effect? Margaret couldn't remember, but it didn't bother her as much. Somehow, Mewtwo didn't make her as nervous, maybe because he was a psychic-type. Still, she kept an eye out, just in case.

Aleron nodded and got up, starting to walk. It wouldn't take too long; they should be to the little town before nightfall, and she figured they could go to Lake of Rage the next day. And maybe she'd find a Houndour that night.

Jolteon decided he was bored, and therefor it was time to go play with Espeon. So he trotted over to her, poking at her with his nose.

Espeon batted at Jolteon's nose with her forked tail before dancing ahead of him for a few steps. Margaret couldn't help but grin at the pair of them; they were just so adorable together. She leaned over a bit closer to Aleron.

"Just watch," she murmured, "they'll end up with an egg and the Eevee will turn into an Umbreon or a Vaporeon somehow and we'll have no idea what to do with it."

"Hey, if it's an Umbreon I'll take it, if you don't want it. Although a Vaporeon could be helpful at the ranch. I don't know why we don't have one yet."

Jolteon jumped after her, having fun playing around with her. He flicked his tail against her side, being careful not to bristle his fur. Vulpix snorted delicately and looked over at Natu, offering her a free ride.

The two Eeveelutions were fairly evenly matched in their game; Jolteon was faster, but Espeon had the advantage of slight precognition, and always seemed to know just when and how Jolteon would move. It evened the playing field between them. Espeon batted him with her tail again before darting off to one side.

Natu chirped cheerfully and fluttered her little wings until she was on Vulpix's back. Margaret grinned.

"You know," she said, "I'm sure we could both hitch a ride on Metagross. He's big enough now that we could, and we could keep an eye on our two Eons at the same time."

"Hey, if you want. I trust Jokteon to come back if I yell for him. But it is fun to watch them." She grinned.

Jolteon didn't mind, since he wasn't trying to beat her. It was just for fun. If they were both trying, it would probably be a little uglier, but fortunately he enjoyed playing much more. Even when Vulpix teased him.