"Well, I doubt it'll rain today," Aleron said. "Like I said, this is the best weather we've seen in a while. I think you'll be okay, for today at least. We're getting past the storm season now, though."

"That's good," Margaret replied. "It takes hours to scrub Metang. I can't imagine what it'll be like once he's a Metagross..."

Aleron laughed quietly. "If it comes to that, I'll help," she said with a big grin. "Come on. Off we go." She started walking out of the town, humming as she did.

"Where to now?" Margaret asked once they were out of the gym and walking again. She could only assume they were headed in the direction of the National Park, but she couldn't be sure.

"Head through the National Park and take a look around. If there's anything we end up wanting, cool. If not, we'll keep going. At the very least we should be able to make some money." Aleron shrugged.

"Sounds like a plan," Margaret replied. If nothing else, it would be good training. "What's out past the National Park?"

"Depends which way you go. You can go over to Violet City or up to Ecruteak. Either way is fine with me, but going to Ecruteak is probably the faster way to get to the Dragon's Den." Aleron shrugged. "You can get there from Violet town too, though."

"The Ruins of Alph are just outside of Violet City, aren't they?" Margaret asked. She'd heard something similar to that, but she wasn't entirely sure.

"Yeah, just a little ways south of it," Aleron said, nodding. "So we can head over to Violet, then down to the Ruins of Alph, and then up and over to the Dragon's Den."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Margaret replied cheerfully. She'd always wanted to see the Ruins, ever since she saw the report about possible psychic pokemon.

Aleron chuckled and continued walking, whistling to herself as she did. Vulpix trotted next to her, clearly relaxed and enjoying herself. It had been a good day so far. But only so far.

About half-way to the National Park, in the middle of nowhere, Aleron paused as she saw a flash in the trees on either side of the path.

Margaret paused as well. She'd seen the movement out of the corner of her eyes, but wasn't able to see what it was. Her Espeon tensed beside her. Whatever the things were, they set the psychic-type on edge.

Vulpix quivered just a little and pressed herself against Aleron's legs. Aleron turned slowly, looking for the source, and saw another flash on the other side of the road. Before she could move, however, something big and angry let out a very angry roar from farther in the woods, and she was forced to cover her ears from the volume.

Margaret jumped horribly at the roar and covered her ears. The sound startled her, and she shook a little out of shot nerves. Her Espeon hid behind her legs and folded her ears back.

"What... the HELL?" she asked, a bit shakily, once the sound had faded.

"I don't know," Aleron said, sounding shaky. Her Vulpix was pressing against her legs, almost trying to shove her away from the sound. "I've never heard anything like that before. I've heard a lot of things, but nothing like that."

"That was a horrible sound," Margaret said. She reached down and picked up her Espeon. The pokemon immediately tried to hide its face in her elbow.

Aleron shook herself, picking up her Vulpix and petting the pokemon. "I'd rather not get close to that noise," she said, moving to the other side of the trail. "If we walk quickly, we can be to the National Park in just under an hour, and there we'll at least have other trainers around us."

"That's a good plan, I like that plan," Margaret replied. Being around other people sounded good, especially with things around that could sound that terrifyingly angry. She didn't know what it was, and she wasn't all that keen on finding out.

Aleron nodded and started walking quickly. She didn't stop or look around until they were inside the National Park. Then she sighed and put Vulpix down, rolling her shoulders to try to ease some of the tension out of them.

Margaret followed her, too nervous to even make much conversation. Once they got into the National Park, she relaxed a little. Even the atmosphere seemed less tense once they got into the park.

A young trainer saw them enter and immediately marched over to them, puffing up his chest to make himself look bigger. "Which one of you wants to face me?"

That helped mellow Aleron out a bit, and she even cracked a little smile. "You want him or shall I?"

"You can take him," Margaret replied. "I'll take the next one who challenges us." Really, it wouldn't be fair to put a kid up against a steel-type when probably all he had were common pokemon like Ratata or Caterpie.

Aleron grinned briefly. "Alright. Vulpix, you're up."

The boy had a Ratticate and a Venomoth. Neither of them lasted long against Vulpix, and the kid handed over some money (though Aleron tried to refuse it) and went to go back to the pokemon center.

"Poor kid. I've gotten challenged by a bunch of kids like him and it's usually not much of a battle."

Margaret was a little surprised to see that the kid had a Venomoth. Venonats were pretty rare in Kanto, and mostly could only be found around Fuchsia City, but she didn't know how common they were in Johto.

"Depending on what moves it knew, the Venomoth might have given me a bit of trouble," she replied. "At least, if it got a bug-type move in first. Otherwise, it's weak to psychic-type moves."

"Yeah. The only reason I didn't let Vulpix have it is because Jolteon needed the practice more, and it wouldn't have been a challenge for Vulpix. Although she has gotten into the habit of taking on all the low-level water pokemon we encounter." Aleron picked up her Vulpix, rubbing her head affectionately.