Part 4 of a collab with GlitzTheMimiga on DA

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Cottswold and Eva were still playing the Pokémon alphabet game, not realising that their voices were attracting attention and something was drawing closer.

“Come on Eva, if ya can’t think of a Pokémon beginning with S, I score a point” said Cott confidently.
“I’ll think of one! It’ll pop up any moment now” Eva groaned as she struggled to think. “Come on! I just need to picture a…. SANDSHREW!” Eva shouted.
“Ah dang! I thought I had ya” Cott said chuckling but Eva quickly said-
“No! Over there, a sandshrew!” she said pointing behind Cott.

Cottswold looked behind and sure enough, a small sandshrew kid a full head shorter than Noni was standing not five meters away.
“WHOA! The heck!” Cott cried out in surprise and quickly jumped to her feet and took a defensive stance.
But then the kid spoke, saying-
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you” they said reassuringly and continued- “I was walking through this place when I heard voices coming from over here and I got curious, after all it’s been ages since anyone came into the Seaward Cave”
“I wasn’t scared! You just surprised me is all” she said gruffly and Eva said-
“Your tail was shaking” she said teasingly.
“Oh shush!” she replied and turned her attention back to the Sandshrew.
“Who are you anyway?” she demanded.
“Ah my name is Scratch, what’s yours?” they said and Cott replied-
“I’m Cottswold, but everyone calls me Cott, and this is Eva” Cott said as she moved aside to reveal Eva still stuck in the tunnel.
“Hi, nice to meet you” Eva said brightly.
“Nice to meet you both too, but why does it sound like one of you is sitting in the tunnelway to the meadow?” Scratch asked moving closer, and both Eva and Cott were confused by their question.
“can’t you see the obvious just looking at her? Or are you-” Cott stopped mid-sentence when she noticed Scratch’s eyes were gray.
“Whoa, are you… are you blind?” Cott asked in disbelief.
“Oh yeah, I was born like this” they said nonchalantly.
“Wowie, so you are disabled too? That makes two of us!” Eva said with an unusually cheerful tone such a statement much to Scratch’s confusion.
“Oh, I guess I should explain; my right leg doesn’t work, it’s been like this since I was born, but I got a special crutch that helps me get around and I developed my Psychic abilities super well to compensate for my lack of mobility” Eva explained.
“That’s quite impressive! I too have my own special trick to find my way without any trouble; I learned how to see my surroundings using my ground type abilities”
“But how does that work?” Eva asked curiously and interested.
“When I walk around, I make very small vibrations in the ground and I use them to mentally map out what is around me, and it works both ways, if something is moving nearby, I can feel where they are through the vibrations they create” She explained and Cott chimed in-
“Kinda like sonar?” she guessed and Scratch nodded.
“Exactly! I can see the exact shape of the cave and anything moving though it within my mind, while walking only reveals about eight meters around me, if I slam the ground hard with my foot, I see almost four times that distance, and I also have very good ears” they clarified.
“Okay then show us!” Cott said suddenly as she was not entirely convinced and added- “Tell me everything you can “see” in front of you”
Scratch grinned confidently and then slammed their foot down fairly hard on the ground. Eva very lightly felt the vibrations through the rock as her body wobbled slightly and Scratch immediately spoke up saying-
“Whoa! You are a very plump Fennekin! You are really wedged in there!” Scratch said astonished while Cott burst out laughing and Eva blinked in surprise.
“Oh man! You hit the nail on the head there!” Cott chuckled.
“Wow, you can even tell I’m a Fennekin too?” Eva said amazed
“Well, your shape may be a bit… rounder than normal, I thought you were a Munchlax for a second, but I recognized your silhouette non the less” Scratch explained and turned to Cottswold.
“And you are a really bulky Amaura! You’ve got such big muscles!” Scratch pointed out and Cott stopped laughing and had a cocky look on her face.
“Oh! Oh yeah, I work out a lot you see” she said boastfully as she flexed her right arm.
“And... there appears to be a Riolu asleep, using your bum as a pillow?” Scratch added to Eva looking a bit befuddled.
“Okay I’m convinced!” Cott said impressed “There is no other way you could have known about Plump Fluff’s sister back there after all”
“Yeah, that’s my sister! She needs to rest so she’ll be strong enough to get me out later” Eva explained.
“But how?” Scratch asked “I got a very good look at the tunnel and you are really stuffed in there, brute force isn’t going work”
“Now that I think of it…” Cott began “since you’re a Sandshrew, do you think you could dig through the rock and widen the tunnel?” she asked but Scratch shook their head.
“That wall stands as part of the structure that holds the whole cave up, if I mess with it, it could cause a cave in” Scratch explained and Cott sighed.
“Guess that idea is a no go then” she groaned and then added “So, our original plan to unplug Eva, involves her sister” Cott began pointing to Eva and then she continued-
“Noni is half ghost type and when the sun goes down, her ghost abilities are strong enough for her to float through walls and even pull others through too” she explained and Scratch was beaming in amazement.
“That’s incredible! I can’t wait to meet her…” Scratch suddenly looked a bit nervous and their excitement turned to worry “I mean I know this is none of my business and we’ve only just met… but I’d like to keep you guys company while you wait for the sunset… but if you want me to leave I’ll…” Scratch turned their head anxiously to the floor but then Cott suddenly picked them up like a teddy bear.
“Oh don’t be stupid! We’re gonna be stuck here for hours, so if you can help pass the time, then of course you can hang with us!” Scratch blushed in surprise and Eva said-
“You’re our new friend now! How are we supposed to get to know you if you leave now!” She said giggling and Scratch looked absolutely delighted.
“Okay then, thank you!” they said happily and Cott placed them down on Eva’s right, while she sat back down to Eva’s left.

“okay, I’ve got a question for you guys, how old are you?” Scratch said eagerly.
“We’re both ten and my sister the same” Eva answered.
“What about you?” Cott asked.
“Oh I’m eleven” Scratch replied leaving both Cott and Eva bewildered.
“You are OLDER then us!” Cott exclaimed “but you’re such a short stack, I mean if Eva stood next to you, her whole head would be higher then yours! how can you be eleven!?”
“Yeah I know I’m little shorty, but it’s true” Scratch reassured and quickly added- “But I did only turn eleven a month ago”
“Aww that’s a shame!” Eva said disappointed “if we’d met you earlier, we could have had a party!”
Scratch and Cott laughed at that.
“Don’t worry Plump Fluff! We can wait for the next one” Cott said patting Scratch on the back and they smiled back joyfully.
Cottswold however looked a bit nervous as a question she’d been thinking about for a while now bothered her.

“okay, I gotta ask…” Cott said with a bit of apprehension “and I hope ya don’t take this the wrong way, but… are you a boy or a girl? I… can’t tell” she said nervously, but Scratch simply chuckled and said-
“Neither! I’ve never felt like one or the other, I know there is a name for it” They replied trying to remember when Eva said-
“Oh, Noni told me it’s…. non-beany, bummy… something” she guessed making them both chuckle until Cott said-
“Non-binary, that’s the word you’re lookin for” she explained amused.
“I kinda like non-beany though!” Scratch joked and they all laughed.

“So Scratch, how come you’re wandering around in here all by yourself?” Eva asked.
“Well…” Scratch took a breath and said- “once a week, my Mum drops me off in Kala’e bay for the day, I don’t stay on the sand as I can’t feel vibrations through it, so I hang around seaward cave and the meadow most of the time. I love coming to the meadow when the Oricorio people are singing and so I was heading to the meadow as normal, not expecting to find the tunnel blocked by a plump cute sounding Fennekin” They chuckled.
“Aww, they said I’m cute!” Eva giggled and Cott shaking her head in amusement at Eva asked-
“Your Mum just leaves you here all day, once a week?” she said a bit incredulous.
“we’ve been coming here for years, you see, during the day the Seaward Cave and the bay are perfectly safe, the only feral Pokémon around right now are peaceful, and the big tough ones only come back to the cave late at night to sleep” They explained but Cott asked-
“What I mean is, why does she need to leave you here for a whole day!?” Cott pushed getting a bit frustrated.
“Oh! Well, on this day every week, she has a really important job that is too dangerous to have me around for, so I stay here until she comes back to pick me up” Scratch explained but Cott still felt a bit annoyed and wanted to press the matter further when Eva spoke up.
“But what about lunch? Does your Mum give you anything to eat while you’re here?” she asked making Cott facepalm herself.
“Do you ever stop thinking with your stomach?” Cott remarked.
“Nope, my tummy does a lot the thinking for me especially when I’m hungry” Eva replied with a silly grin and Scratch chuckled.
“My Mum always gives me packed lunches for the day” Scratch assured and the expected question came right out of Eva’s mouth instantly asking-
“Do you have any leftovers!?” she exclaimed optimistically.
“I’m afraid I finished my snacks off and hour ago, sorry” They apologised with amusement.
“Oh crumbs!” Eva said grumpily and they soon moved on.

“I think it’s my turn now, so…” Scratch began asking- “Why were you guys trying to get in to Seaward Cave in the first place?”
“Well we’ve been coming to the meadow for a few weeks now” Cott explained “and then yesterday we spotted the tunnel entrance. We decided we would come back today to explore it… only…” she paused as she turned to glare slightly at Eva who was blushing bashfully. “someone’s overstuffed butt was too big to squeeze through and she got stuck”
Scratch giggled at the silliness of the situation and then said-
“So if Eva is too big, then will you have to wait until she is a bit thinner before trying again?”
Cott groaned and said-
“I don’t think that’s EVER gonna happen!” she remarked grumpily and Eva added-
“Even putting aside my bad leg making it difficult for me to work out, I just plain love eating, and recently I decided I’m pretty comfortable being overweight, even though I underestimated how large I’ve gotten lately” she said slightly embarrased.
Scratch looked in thought for a moment and then clapped their hands together as an idea came to them.
“I’ve got it! When you guys come back next time, why not have your sister float you through the wall?” Scratch noted but Cott shook her head.
“Noni’s ghost powers only work at night! And our parents give us a pretty strict curfew!” Cott reiterated, but Scratch remarked-
“I did mean at night exactly, I meant, why not just arrive early in the morning? Before the sun rises?”
Cott took a breath to respond but then stopped as she thought about this.
“That... could work” Cott said with renewed enthusiasm and Eva excitedly added-
“That’s a great idea! That means I won’t have to go on a diet to be able to join you guys on the exploring! I can keep eating as much as I want!”
“You are hopeless” Cott said laughing as she shook her head in disbelief.
They all laughed heartily and soon they calmed down sighing happily.
“Well, it’s still gonna be a while before sundown” Cott said as she looked up at the sunlight beaming through one of the holes in the cave ceiling. She then said-
“How about we restart another Pokémon alphabet game? You gonna join in Scratch? After all ya don’t need eyes to play this game right!” she joked nudging Scratch and they chuckled saying-
“Good one! And I’d love to” They said nudging her back.
“Wait, I think we should make it, that any Pokémon names that me and Cott used before Scratch arrived, are not allowed, at least not from us, Scratch can say them if they guess them” Eva smiled eagerly and Cott nodded.
“I’m okay with that! So Scratch, you wanna go first with the letter A?” Cott asked.
“Sure! And my first is... Amaura!” they said with a big grin. Eva giggled and Cott looked grudgingly amused.
“Again, I should have seen that coming

To be continued