- Mirai had snuck away to try and travel with Chirin's group in the jungle, after they had 
visited the warren in which she lived. However, Mirai was a bit too young at the time to stay
with them for too much longer, and they dropped Mirai back off at her warren - much to her
disappointment and reluctance. -

~*~

Mirai watched as the others left. She clutched the little
drum Kanga had given her to her chest, and fought back the sobs that wanted to
come.

It wasn't fair...it just wasn't fair...

She heard someone approaching, and she looked up, to see one of the
nido sentries standing close to her. "Come on," he said, trying to
sound gentle. "Come inside now."

Mirai sighed, and slowly followed the sentry. Not fair, not fair at all...

~

She made her way down the tunnels of the warren, not even
bothering to look at any of the other nidorans right now. They didn't matter
too much right now...the only thing in her head right now was Chirin and the
others and how much she missed them...

Mirai turned, and hopped down another tunnel, making her way toward her burrow.
It wasn't the biggest of burrows; but it worked well enough for her. Normally,
kits would have shared a burrow with their parents...but seeing as Mirai had
none, she had been given one of her own, a spare one that didn't have much
usage anyways.

It wasn't a clean burrow, either. Bits of leaves and dried, dead flowers -
stuff that Mirai had been idly collecting from aboveground -littered the floor
of it. She dragged herself in, barely even noticing the stuff she kicked out of
the way.

Mirai sat herself down, and started to beat slightly on her little drum...and
then had to stop, as her eyes started tearing up again. How she desperately
missed them...

"Hey." A nidoran appeared at the entrance to the burrow, another kit.
Mirai looked up, to see the figure of Sundew standing there.

"So, I see you're back," he said, idly dragging a foreclaw on the
floor. "Guess they made you came back, like they made me, huh?"

Mirai glared at him. "None of your business, Sundew," she said,
biting her lip to keep it from quivering even more. "So what if they
dropped me back off here? You don't have to rub it in..."

"Heh." Sundew thumped his tail gently against the burrow wall.

Mirai ignored him, and set about to thumping on the drum again. It made a nice
little booming sound, one that made her heart ache even more...

She set the drum down. "I'm going out again," she said.

Sundew blinked. "And where are you going this ti- no wait, you're not
thinking about doing THAT again, are you?"

Mirai nodded.

"But...but...if some of the others find out you've done that AGAIN,
they'll have your hide for sure! Once, they may let you off...but
TWICE..."

"Sundew, hush," said Mirai, putting a paw over his mouth. She giggled
once. "I know what I wanna do, and I wanna do that."

"You're crazy!" sputtered Sundew, after batting Mirai's paw away.

"So what if I a-" Mirai stopped as soon as she heard the footfalls of
someone else approaching. An older nidoran female approached and gave the two
kits a cursory glance, before moving off again.

"Say what you will, I'm still gonna go out again. Soon." Mirai sat
down again, and ran her paw over the surface of the drum. Sundew was right,
though...the warren really preferred that their younger kits not wander
off...and would resort to almost anything to keep them from wandering off.
Bummer.

~

"Well, come on," said Sundew. "Everybody else is
going topside to eat, you wanna come? I hear there's a nice patch of flowers up
there right now."

"Nah, that's okay," said Mirai. She sat there, still moping a little
bit now, and rubbing her apricorn charm with a paw. Its surface felt so nice to
her, its color was so pretty, and it reminded her so much of...

"You sure?" said Sundew, interrupting Mirai's thoughts. Ah darn.
"If we don't get there soon, someone else is gonna hog it all!"
Sundew fidgeted for a moment. "Well, if you're not coming, I'm going to
get some for myself. Bye!" And with that, he turned around and sped away.

Mirai had to grin at him. She herself wasn't in the mood for flowers. She
didn't think she was in the mood for ANYthing...

Until her stomach rumbled. Well, maybe she could afford to go get something to
eat. Otherwise, her stomach would get to hurting so much she wouldn't be able
to think...

And that was a bad thing!

She made sure everything was in its place before she left (not that there was
much stuff of hers to HAVE a place...but she had put her drum somewhere in a
corner, was all), and then followed the tunnels upward, taking nearly the same
path that Sundew had (though she didn't know that).

And she found him. "I changed my mind," she said, before he could say
anything. "I guess I will come." Not for flowers, a little bit for
grass and leaves and such...but mainly because she was thinking it could
provide an ample opportunity for her to run off again. If she wasn't caught
first, that is...

Mirai peeked out of one of the warren's many entrance holes, right
after Sundew had gone through it. She blinked a couple times at the sudden
change in light; down in the warren tunnels, there wasn't nearly as much light
as there was up here...

She hopped out. A good many nidorans were already up here - not the whole
warren, for some had already eaten and gone back down, some hadn't come up yet,
and some didn't want to come up - and were busily munching on whatever they
could find. Around the edges of the group, Mirai could see a good couple of the
sentries - nearly all of them nidoran bucks. Does weren't usually picked for
that job, since they supposedly weren't as strong enough as the males. Mirai knew
there *was* such a thing as a sentry doe, because she had seen one - but that doe was
nowhere to be seen right now.

"So...," she said to Sundew. "Where are these flowers you were
talking about?" Now that she was actually up here, the thought of flowers
did sound rather good. Her whiskers quivered as she imagined what they might
taste like...

Sundew grinned. "Over there," he replied, pointing with a claw.
"And...hey! Someone else has gotten to them!" Indeed, Mirai could see
some of the other kits eating something over in that direction. "Hey, go
away, I found those first..." Sundew ran off in that direction, presumably
to chase those kits off.

And then Mirai had to grin. Silly, silly Sundew...ah, she now realized how much
she had missed him, while she had been away...though not as much as she missed
a few certain others right now.

The nido kit looked around, and then hopped closer to a couple of trees. If she
got a little bit closer...and then made a dash for it...maybe she could get
away from this place again without anyone noticing till later...

Unfortunately, such wasn't her luck. One of the sentry bucks noticed her, and
cast his gaze over in her direction. Darnit! She couldn't get away, not with
him looking at her like that!

She moped for a moment, and then hopped her way back. Sundew was there, holding
a couple of flowers in his paw. "Wasn't able to get them away," he
said. "But I did manage to grab a few. Here, have some. They're
delicious."

"Really?" Mirai took a couple of them, and started nibbling.
"Hey, you're right!" she said. "They are pretty good!" She
finished them off, with a grinning Sundew watching her.

~

By now, most of the others had gone back underground. A couple of
other kits had hung around Mirai, asking her questions such as where had she
gone, what had she done, who the heck was that she had been with...

It had been enough to make her want to say no, go away right now. She didn't
want to answers questions like that right now...they made her too sad just
thinking about them!

So it was with a bit of relief that they had gone away, and Mirai sighed.
"Geez, I didn't think they would ever stop with those questions," she
said.

"How'dya think it was with me, whenever I came back?" replied Sundew,
with a smirk on his face. "It was exactly like that. Hey, wanna go play in
the tunnels right now? I'm bored."

"Nah, that's okay," said Mirai. "I think maybe I'll go take a
little nap right now..." Partially true - she WAS a bit sleepy right now.
And maybe after that, she could try to sneak out aga-

"Suit yourself," said Sundew, with a small shrug. He disappeared into
the nearest hole.

Mirai hung back for a moment, listening to the others as they went inside,
also; and with a flick of her ear, she, too, entered through that hole, and made
her way back to her burrow. She collapsed onto a small pile of leaves that
inhabited a corner of her room; and she lay there, just thinking of different
things.

~

Contrary to what Mirai had wanted to do, she HAD fallen asleep; it
seemed one moment, she had been awake, and then the next...well, she hadn't.

She could hear the movement of other nidorans around, and even noticed one or
two passing by her burrow. Must've been a busy time right now. Mirai yawned and
stretched, and then stood up, shaking off a couple of leaves that had clung to
her sides. Perhaps right now, she could play around with her drum a little
more; that would definitely be fun...

If the drum had been around.

Mirai stared where she KNEW she had put the drum, in that little corner over
there, the corner which was empty right now. With a small cry, she frantically
pawed around in that corner, as if there was some hidden place or wherever
(which there wasn't) that the drum had fallen into...

"No!" she cried, bolting out of her burrow. This couldn't be! The
pretty drum that that nice black kangaskhan had given her...was gone! But since
when?? She hadn't noticed before that it was gone...

Holding back a sob, Mirai skittered down the tunnels, determined to search each
and every part of the warren, if need be, in order to find that gourd drum. She
just had to have it back! Otherwise, what would she be able to use?

~

So far, no sign of the drum had turned up. A heavy feeling began
to settle in Mirai's heart, saying that someone had taken it, taken it
somewhere where she would never have it again...

The kit stopped for a moment, calming herself as her throat constricted from
the held-back sobs. She just wanted to cry right now...that was one of her
things, and it was gone...

"Well hey, what seems to be the matter?" Sundew came up from behind
Mirai, surprising her by tapping her softly on the back. Mirai gasped, and
jumped a little bit.

She swallowed. "It's...just...something...my drum...," she replied,
blinking away a few tears that wanted to fall. "I can't find...it
anywhere..." She wiped her eyes with the back of a paw.

"'Zat all?" said Sundew, raising an 'eyebrow'. "I woulda thought
it was something more serious. Why not just look for the silly thing, then, you
big crybaby?" He said that last part with a smirk on his face.

"Ooh, you!" said Mirai, glaring at the rainforest kit for a moment.
"I'm NOT a crybaby! And I HAVE been looking for it! You don't know how
much that thing means to me!" She'd like to see how HE acted, if he had
been given a present, and then had it taken from him!

Sundew raised his front paws in front of him. "Whoa, chill," he said.
"I wasn't being that serious, y'know. Now come on," he said, nodding
toward the nearest tunnel. "I'll help you look for that thing...if only to
stop you from getting even more whiny." He laughed.

Mirai glared at him again, but couldn't keep it up. She had to grin. Sundew was
a bit of an annoyance at times, but he was nice enough...when he wasn't being
too annoying, of course.

The both of them split up at one point, with Mirai looking for the
drum in one spot, and Sundew looking in another spot. Mirai bit her lip.
Whoever had taken it...she felt like giving them a good thwapping, if she
caught them with it.

"Find it?" she asked Sundew, as he came back into view. Her ear
drooped when the rainforest kit shook his head.

"Oh, we're never gonna find it..." Mirai trailed off as she heard a
soft sound echo through the warren tunnels, a sound that sounded suspiciously
like someone tapping on a gourd drum.

"Hmm? That's it!" cried Mirai, jumping up and down in excitement.
"I know it is!" But...who had it? And why would they want it...?

Whatever. Mirai wasn't about to wait around to think about those things right
now, and bounded down the tunnels, leaving a confused Sundew behind.

She moved toward the source of the sound...it sounded like someone who had no
idea how to drum correctly was using it. Mirai's whiskers twitched. She was
getting closer...closer...

The tunnel expanded into a more open area, a spot which would have allowed a
good couple of adult nidorans to sit in it without too much 
problem...so the other kits that were already sitting here didn't have too much
problem with space. It took Mirai a moment to realize that one of the kits, whom
the others were mainly gathered around, was holding...her drum!

"Hey!" she yelled at him. "Whaddya think you're doing with
that?"

Mirai recognized the rainforest kit that held her drum. His name
was Bugleaf, and while he was a good bit smaller than most of the other nido
kits his age, he was ten times more annoying than anybody else - including
Sundew.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" said Bugleaf, giving Mirai a
sneer. "I'm showing this thing off to everybody, that's what I'm
doing!"

"But it's MINE, though," replied Mirai. "How did you get it? I
left it lying in my room..." She gave him a nasty glare. The other kits
that were around started glancing back and forth between Mirai and Bugleaf,
wondering what was going to happen from this.

"Easy!" laughed Bugleaf. "Basically, you left it lying
around...very easy for somebody to come by and snitch it." He wagged a
claw at Mirai. "And it's a very neat thing you have, this thing...I think
I'll keep it for a little while longer..."

He was suddenly knocked over Mirai, who had leapt at him. "C'mon, give it
back!" she yelled at him. "I got it from somebody, and you have no
right to just take it like that!" Her whiskers stiffened a little as she
looked at the rainforest kit.

Bugleaf shoved her away. "Fine, you want it? Come and get it!" With a
whoop, the rainforest kit had bounded off into the nearest tunnel. Mirai chased
after him, leaving the rest of the kits behind, somewhat speechless.

Ah, now Mirai remembered one reason why she hadn't wanted to come
back here (even though she hadn't realized it at that time)....too many
annoying people around here! That was the main thought on her mind as she
chased after Bugleaf, eager to get back HER item.

If she'd had any idea of what a lock was (and if any part of the warren had had
doors, which it didn't), then she would've asked for one after this. But,
seeing as she didn't know what either a door or a lock was, she decided she'd
just make everybody else know that her burrow was OFF LIMITS! Argh!

"Come ON, Bugleaf, give it back!" Mirai shouted at him. "I told
you it's mine!"

"And I told YOU that I'm keeping it for a while longer!" Bugleaf
managed to turn his head back to look at Mirai, and gave her a raspberry.

Mirai glared at him. Ooh, he was SO asking for it!

The two of them turned into another tunnel, with Mirai nearly missing the
entrance to it, since it took her a moment to realize that Bugleaf wasn't
traveling straight anymore. She quickly corrected that mistake...he wasn't
about to get away THAT easily!

The sounds of the two kits bickering and chasing each other could be heard to
the nidorans who were close by, and could especially be heard by the group of
nidos that the kits cut through. The nidos mainly shrugged it off, dismissing
it as a game the two were playing. Besides, if it got too bad, then someone
could always break them up...

Which someone did, eventually.

It was Bugleaf who first smacked into the nidorina's leg, followed closely by
Mirai, who didn't have much time to react and stop. She slammed into Bugleaf's
back, thankfully avoiding most of the spines that would've hurt if she'd hit
them. -Uh oh,- thought Mirai, as she looked up into the face of the nidorina,
one of the few that inhabited this warren. Seeing the stare of the rabbit
evolution didn't give Mirai a good feeling. At all.

"Well...," said the nidorina, and Mirai gulped. So did
Bugleaf, amazingly enough. He may have been an annoyance, thought Mirai, but at
least he knew when he was possibly in trouble.

Mirai didn't remember the name of this particular nidorina, though she was
certain she had seen the 'rina around a couple of times. This one was a typical
rainforest-type nidorina, and while she wasn't carrying the most disproving of
stares at the kits right now...

...it was enough to make Mirai squirm. She hoped the poison pokemon wasn't too
mad right now...

"What have we here?" the nidorina continued on, first glancing at
Bugleaf, and then setting her red eyes on Mirai. "A little game, perhaps?
'Chase the kit'?"

"No, no!" said Mirai. She pointed at Bugleaf. "He took my drum,
and he won't give it back!"

"Whaaaat?" Bugleaf replied, with false incredulousness. "Who
ever said I WASN'T going to give it back?"

"You did!" Mirai snorted at him. "Said you were gonna keep it
for a little while longer, that's about the same as not giving it ba-"

"Hush." The nidorina said that word softly, yet it managed to
instantly shut both kits up. "Bugleaf, dear, why don't you give Mirai her
drum back now?" And Mirai felt a little awkward that the nidorina knew her
name, but she couldn't remember the nidorina's name...

"But..." Bugleaf's glance flitted back and forth between Mirai and
the nidorina, and then he suddenly thrust the drum into Mirai's paw. Mirai,
surprised by the action, nearly dropped the drum. Aah, that wouldn't be good!
"Ah, take it. I didn't want it anyways," he added, hopping away a
short distance.

Mirai nuzzled the drum for a moment, before remembering her manners. "Oh
yeah, thank you!" she said to the nidorina, again wishing that she could
remember the other pokemon's name.

The nidorina smiled at the kit for a second, before walking off to do whatever
it was that nidorinas did around this warren. What was it they did, anyways?
Mirai didn't know, and she knew they didn't mingle too often with the
nidorans...or at least not when she was ever looking. She grinned. Maybe, when
she became a nidorina one day, she'd find out, then!

But, for right now, she was still a bit too young to be one. Ah well. With her
drum clutched tightly in her grasp (she wasn't about to take the chance of
letting anybody else grab it!), she made her way back to her burrow,
slowly...partially from what she was carrying, and partially because she was
feeling a bit tired right now. If she had to guess what time it was (and she
didn't feel like going outside to check to see around what time it actually
was), she'd say it was sometime after nightfall. Well, that would explain her
tiredness, then.

~

She had hopped past the one group of kits, who still hadn't said
anything to her...although she was glad for that. Mirai didn't want to hear any
more questions right now! And she was sure that was what the other kits
would've been asking....

Okay, so maybe she wasn't too sure about that. But she didn't want to take the
chance of them asking any questions.

Mirai reached the entrance to her burrow, and had to almost drag herself in,
since her fatigue had started to get to her even more. Ah, the thought of rest
was such a lovely thing right now...

Glancing around to make sure that no one else was around and ready to take her
drum again, Mirai then set it aside, brushing a few leaves and stuff over it.
That wouldn't hide it too well (it was still visible as a lump underneath the
leaves) but maybe if another nidoran saw it, they might think it was just some
more leaves, and not an interesting-looking drum.

Mirai yawned, and scraped together a bedding area from some more of the stuff
that lay around the burrow. For a moment, she wished that she did have some
parents that she was able to co-inhabit a burrow with...it would make it a
little more comfortable around here...but eh.

Before she settled down, she fiddled around a bit with her apricorn charm. What
was it Chirin had said about it? Rub it, speak to it...? 

She hadn't been able to think about him too much, what with what had gone on
since she'd arrived back here...but now that she was alone 
(relatively...she could still hear other nidorans not too far away, in their
own burrows), she had time to think about him...and a little pang of longing
hit her.

She rubbed the shell of the apricorn with her paw. She didn't know if this
would work - speaking to apricorns did sound rather silly - but it was worth a
try. "Chirin...," Mirai whispered to the apricorn shell, a soft
whisper that would barely have been heard by anybody else. "I miss you, so
much..." She hugged the shell, suddenly wanting to cry...but she couldn't.

~

Mirai was awoken sometime in the middle of the night by the sounds
of someone talking. For a moment, she thought it had just been part of a dream
she'd been having, but when she could feel the leaves she was lying on, she
knew she was awake.

She stretched where she was, not getting up yet. Blinking sleepy eyes, she
considered ignoring whatever it was she had heard (she was out of it enough
that she didn't know what had been said, only that something HAD been said),
and then going back to sleep. But curiosity decided to grab her at that moment,
and she lay there, trying to listen to whatever was going on out there.

She heard nothing, save for some low murmuring that she couldn't make out. One
voice sounded very much like a kit's, though, while the other...sounded more
adult. Eh, probably just someone talking to his or her parents right now. That
was probably it...

Mirai yawned, and rolled over a little.

"It sounds like something's in the wall."

The high-pitched voice of a kit came floating by Mirai, from somewhere up the
tunnel, and she woke up again. As well as she could tell, it was getting on
into daytime right now. Not that she could tell down here for certain, what
with a small lack of sunlight...

Her stomach rumbled an affirmation that yes, it was getting to be daytime now,
now feed me. Mirai stood up, shook herself, and yawned.

"What do you suppose it is?" Another kit's voice came drifting by.

Now something else woke up in Mirai, now that she was a bit more alert -
curiosity. Darnit, why be curious now, though? Well...why not?

Another nido voice came through, a more mature one...either an adult or an
older kit, then. "You guys stay back, you don't know what that could
be."

Mirai's whiskers twitched. Ooh, what could it be, though...?

She hopped out of the burrow, and down the tunnel, stopping for a moment by
another burrow...where the voices were coming from.

One of the two kits gathered there noticed her. "Hey, there's some sorta
strange noise coming from this wall..."

"Oh, really?" Mirai cocked her ear forward, trying to catch a sound
of it.

The older nidoran that was there sighed. "Now, I'm sure it's
nothing," he said. "So you kits just go on now, and go...eat, or
something." And when nobody, not even Mirai, moved, he repeated, a bit
more forcefully: "Go. Now."

The other kits grumbled for a moment, before moving off. Mirai followed behind
them, but only because they were going in the same direction she was.

~

At this moment, Mirai was nibbling on the leaves of a plant as she
listened to another kit talk - one of the two kits that she had seen around the
place that supposedly had that strange noise coming from it. Mirai wondered if
she should tell the other kit to go away and leave her alone right now...except
for two things. One, her mouth was full of leaves at the moment, and she'd been
told it was very rude to talk with anything in her mouth...

And secondly, she rather liked listening to this other kit. He wasn't boring
her in any way, and she was a bit interested in what had been 
happening...

"Well, I dunno what it is, but it woke me up in the middle of the
night," the kit continued on. Mirai nodded, still chewing on a leaf or
two. She hoped her eyes were showing enough interest to have this kit keep
going on with this story...or account, rather.

"Some sort of scritchy-scratchy noise, sorta like some kinda nidoran
trying to dig his way through the wall. But that's silly. Why would a nidoran
want to dig his way into MY room, though?"

Mirai swallowed the leaf. "Who knows? Maybe it's a nidoran that would like
your room." She grinned. "Wants it all for himself, maybe!" Though that 
didn't make too much sense; there were plenty of burrows left empty
in the warren, and if a nido (that wasn't a kit) wanted a burrow that badly,
all he or she had to do was to ask.

The other kit shrugged. "Maybe. I dunno." He seemed to lose interest
in telling Mirai what had happened, much to the nido-f's dismay, and then
hopped off, leaving Mirai by herself with the plants.

"Aw, and just when it was getting good..." she mumbled. She tore off
another leaf, and started chewing on that one.

Mirai went back inside, even when most of the other nidos were
still poking around, looking for edible things; she just wasn't too hungry
anymore. And that other kit hadn't come back, to tell her more of that strange
noise, so no fun there...

She slowly hopped down the tunnels, more out of wanting to go slowly than any
other actual reason....what, couldn't she go slow at times? And there weren't
too many others in this same tunnel right now, or else she'd probably be pushed
out of somebody's way. That was one of the problems with being not-fully-grown
yet...you were easily pushed out of somebody's way, and you weren't big enough
yet to push back. Ah well.

Mirai did spot a few nidorans, both male and female, that were mainly talking
amongst themselves; they spotted her, and gave her a small nod of notice. That
was it, though, and Mirai gave an even smaller nod back, before continuing on.
She knew exactly where she was going...

...although it looked as though some others had had that same idea. In the
burrow where the noise had supposedly been coming from, she saw yet another
kit...and Sundew. Of course, thought Mirai. If there's anything interesting
going on, he's bound to be there...

"What's up?" she asked the two, with a slight twitch of her whiskers.
"Anything else going on?"

"Not a single thing." Sundew shook his head. "Thought we heard
some other noises before, but there hasn't been any for a while now."

"Aaw," said Mirai. "That's no fun. I wonder what's in there,
anyways." She walked up to the wall, and placed her good ear on the wall,
even with the complaints of the two other nidoran kits. "Yep. I don't hear
anything," she noted. "'Cept a bunch of silence."

"Eh heh...," the other kit, not Sundew, chuckled nervously.
"See, that's exactly the point...there HASN'T been anything but silence
past that wall. I think whatever's in there, is still in there, though. I'm
probably gonna have to sleep somewhere else tonight..."

Mirai saw the kit rub the back of his head. So this was his burrow, then? She
wondered if the possible choice to sleep elsewhere was of his own decision...or
if he would be forced to - she remembered the older nidoran that had been in
here earlier, also, that had been trying to get everybody AWAY from that
wall...

"Everybody to your burrows," snapped a passing nidoran,
one who wasn't aware of anything except that it was getting late, and if
somebody didn't tell these kits, who would?. "Bed time for you young
ones."

Mirai was about to complain, but thought better of it. Not like she couldn't
come back here later, anyways...she was definitely going to find out what the
heck was going on in that wall! And she thought Sundew had the same basic idea,
by the look on his face. 

Well, why not? It was something interesting. Something interesting that wasn't
showing itself yet!...if it was still there, that is.

"Yes, sir," she said to the nido, who walked away. Sundew's mouth
opened and shut a couple of times, before he finally said, "What? You
don't mean you're going to leave that quickly, now?"

"Now, now," said Mirai, giggling. "What do you think's gonna
happen if someone else comes, and finds us still up? They're not gonna be
happy."

"If we were older, we wouldn't have that problem," remarked the one
other kit. "No one'd be telling us what to do, then!"

"Whatever." Mirai shrugged. "Aren't you guys in the least bit
tired, though? No?" She saw them shaking their heads. "Ah, well, I
think I am, so goodnight." And, with a little reluctance, Mirai turned
around, and headed out of there.

~

She had that dream again. The one that always ended with her being
alone and such. It still puzzled her as to why she kept having it...after all,
she'd had it a couple of times already, why would she still keep having it?

It seemed...different this time, though. True to form, it did end with her
alone, and somehow knowing that others were around, yet not seeing them...but
she could've sworn she saw something there. Something red and shining. It was
nice and pretty...rather like the lights on a certain pokemon...

Mirai awoke some time later, and bit her lip as her mind went over the dream
while it still remained in her memory. Red lights...that reminded her oh so
much of Chirin and the others, and she now remembered how very much she missed
him, and all of them for that matter...

She stood up, shaking leaves and stuff from her fur. She decided that she
missed him so much...that she was going to get away from here! Whether or not
anybody wanted her to!

Mirai wondered if it was still nighttime, or if she had slept long enough that
the sun had already risen. Ah well, it didn't matter too much, she supposed.
There were roughly the same number of guards on duty at the tunnel entrances at
night as there were during the daytime. Hmm. Well, maybe she'd get lucky, or
something...

First thing she had to do, though, was to actually TRY and get out of here. She
wouldn't know if she could run away from this warren without first making sure
of it. If she was caught...then she knew that she wouldn't have been able to
escape. Simple as that.

With barely a sound, the nido kit skittered through the tunnels, keeping an
extra-sharp eye out for anybody that was around. Best to not have anybody see
her, and figure out what she was up to...

She turned a corner, and stopped as soon as she heard nidoran voices.
And they sounded pretty close, too...Mirai's whiskers twitched as she thought
about what to do. She could either keep on going in this direction, and
possibly get sent back to bed, or she could go in a different direction...

She chose the second choice. No way was she gonna get this far, only to get
sent back to bed! Turning around, the kit hopped back down the tunnel, and went
down another tunnel that connected perpendicularly to it.

Like a great deal of the other nidorans that lived here, Mirai knew the layout
of this warren rather well. About the only place she wasn't familiar with were
the tunnels that were situated near the nidorino's burrow...but that was okay.
Not too many other nidorans knew what was in those tunnels, either. Nidorans
just didn't go there...but whether it was because they didn't want to, or were
forbidden to, Mirai didn't know.

This current tunnel she was in wasn't a way she normally went. She knew where
she was going, or so she hoped, but she was pretty sure that this tunnel was
one of the ones that connected to the outside. And if it didn't, she would just
have to look around until she did find a tunnel that led outside. There were
plenty of those around. And most of them protected by sentries, she
realized...

Mirai's heart sank a little, although she told herself that she would find a
way out of here...she just had to. She felt a little guilty, for leaving
without telling anybody else...but if she told anybody else, then who was
to say that that somebody wouldn't snitch on her? Then she wouldn't be 
able to get out here at all, at least not until she was grown up! And that 
seemed to be a long time away, to her.

Thankfully, this tunnel was an outside-leading tunnel. Mirai almost slinked to
the tunnel's entrance, waiting to here if there was anybody out there. To her
disappointment, there was.

"Seems to be a quiet night tonight," said one voice, a gruff-sounding
male nidoran's voice.

Mirai pressed herself against the wall of the tunnel, as if she were able to
hide within the dirt and rock.

"There's never such a thing as a 'quiet' night," said another voice,
higher-pitched than the other one, but still definitely male. "And
predators like to trick you with 'quiet'. You stand there, you think you see
nothing, you think it's all quiet, and then POW - you're dead, just 'cause some
pred's got ya."

At the mention of predators, Mirai quivered a little. Not that there were
actually any predators around - and she really hoped there weren't - but she
still was wary of them, just like any other rabbit.

"Oh, come off it," she heard the first voice say again. "There's
been no signs of any predators around yet, no scent, no sound, no nothing. So
I'm saying it's a quiet night, ya hear?"

"Whatever." The second voice again. "Well, I'll be going,
then...should go and make sure everything's okay around my area."

Mirai found herself preparing to run. If she was going to escape, then why not
by running? If she caught these other nidorans by surprise, perhaps she'd have
a little of a head start on them...

Ah, she could at least hope for that.

From where she was standing, Mirai could tell that it really was still
nighttime right now. How far into it, though, she couldn't tell...but it
must've been pretty far, since it didn't look as dark outside as it would've
at...hmm, perhaps midnight or so. If she was lucky, the sun would be up soon.

But she wasn't about to wait around here till the sun rose, though. If she was
going to leave, she was going to leave now, and hope that nobody was going to
catch her.

She tensed up even more, and listened as one of the two nidorans above walked
away. The other one gave what sounded to be like a snort. Just a moment, just a
moment more...

Another pang of conscience hit Mirai, saying what was she doing, why was she
just leaving everybody like this, oh, what a sad thing when everybody just
leaves their friends without telling a word to them...

Friends? That was exactly the reason why Mirai was going. She was going out to
FIND friends, she thought. She could always come back here again later...when
she didn't fear the consequences of running away.

She rubbed her paw against her apricorn charm a couple of times, wondering if
doing that would bring her good luck. She would probably need it, more than
likely. Luck in being successful at running away again, luck in finding Chirin
and the others...and luck in not meeting with any hungry predators.

When she thought of predators again, the thought of a large, angry...something
with huge teeth crossed her mind. Mirai almost felt like backing out of this
whole thing, suddenly realizing that that was one thing she hadn't thought
about before...but no. She had to go through with this. Or else she'd never be
totally happy again, she thought.

Eh, this place was boring, anyways.

She heard a sigh from the remaining nidoran above, and then the sound of paws
crunching against the ground. Maybe he was going away, too? Pssh, it was now or
never, thought Mirai - either she ran now, or she would never get away!

She bolted from the entrance hole, making her way toward a patch of nearby
bushes.

"Hey!" Mirai heard the voice of the nidoran somewhere behind here. Ah
drat, so he hadn't gone away. "Damned kit, get back here!"

Mirai's mind began to race even faster than her feet.If that nido
guard caught her, then all her planningwould have gone to waste right now. Not
that she had ever had much of a plan...all she had thought about doing, beyond
managing to get out of here, was to run away.

She ran as fast as her little paws could manage. Mirai knew that she had to
find somewhere to throw any others on her trail off...if she didn't, then they
would catch her. No doubt about that. Oh, what to do, what to do...

"Hey you! Stop!" came the guard's voice again, and Mirai was certain,
beyond all doubts, that he was running after her. She just knew...even without
looking...but she couldn't look to make sure. If she looked, then she would
just waste valuable running time.

Her apricorn necklace bounced wildly around, tossed about by her movements. It
hindered her a slight bit, but there was no way AT ALL that she was about to
take it off.

Mirai jumped into a patch of spiny bushes. Thorns on the stems tugged at her
fur a little, but Mirai ignored them. She just had to get away, she just HAD
to...even if it meant traveling through some spiny stuff.

The coming of the sun had made it easier for Mirai, made it much
much easier for her to see where she was going, as she traveled through the
prickle-bushes some more...

Unfortunately, it also made it easier for any others to spot her.

The nido kit heard someone crashing through the bush, with a short curse
following right after. Whoever it was that was there probably hadn't expected
there to be so many thorns on this bush. If Mirai had been in any other situation,
other than this one, she would have giggled at that.

But this situation was too serious to laugh at anything. She had to get out of
here, and she had to get out of here NOW...

"You're going to get hurt out there!" cried a voice, the higher-pitched
nido-m voice Mirai had heard before. "Come back, kit!"

At least they could've had the decency to learn her name and use it, thought
Mirai with a groan. Or was she simply not old enough to warrant the usage of a
proper name?

She didn't waste breath on a reply, but chose to use that time to wriggle
underneath some more of the thorny branches – where she promptly got stuck.

Try as she might, she couldn't move, not unless she wanted to experience more
pain than she would've liked to. Somehow, a couple of the thorns had snagged
her fur, and had snagged it good - she could feel the tips of the thorns poking
against the skin underneath. To move would mean that she, more than likely,
have to tear off some fur, and possibly sustain a few cuts...

But she tried anyways. Tears crept into the corner of her eyes as she struggled
against the branches, and against the thorns. She started to hope that one of
those nidos WOULD find her...much as she didn't want to be taken back to the
warren against her will, the thought of being stuck here frightened Mirai even
more.

"Seems like the silly thing got herself stuck in something." Mirai
heard the nido's voice, and then heard a hoarse laugh from him.
"Figures!"

Mirai squirmed around a little more, managing to free herself a tiny bit; but
not enough to allow her to escape. She bit her lip at the pain caused by one of
the larger thorns suddenly biting into her side. It HURT!

She saw two nidorans come into view; both were males, just as she'd assumed by
their voices. One was a just a regular example of one of those rainforest
rabbits; the other was just a regular nidoran, albeit with darker fur and a
splotch of black that covered the back of one of his ears. Or at least that's
what Mirai thought she saw - she couldn't check to make sure, not from where
she was lying.

"Well, little one," said the rainforest nido, with a smirk on his
face. "Do you want to be free of those nasty thorns? Agree to come back
with us, and we'll get you out of there."

Mirai wriggled even more, and was pretty sure, this time, that the one thorn
had cut her. "No! I don't want to go back!"

"You sure? Because we could just leave you here."

"Uh, sir..." cut in the other nidoran. He stopped when he saw that
all he got for a reply was a rather unsettling glare.

After a few more attempts, Mirai was convinced that she wouldn't be able to get
out of here herself. "Fine, fine!" she squeaked. "I'll go back!
Just...get me out of here! Please!" She still didn't want to go back, but
neither did she want to stay here, and feel any more pain from these stupid
thorns...

The rainforest nidoran gestured to the other one. "Get those off of
her," he said.

The other nidoran, the dark-colored one, nodded, and started gnawing at the
thorny branches. Mirai wanted to tell him, both of them, to just go away and
leave her alone, that she didn't want to go back...but what good would that do?
And...would they really have left her there, if she hadn't said she wanted to
go back...?

~

The ekans sensed warmth. Prey, most likely. The snake couldn't hear anything
much, but it knew that something was around. It looked around with its
unblinking yellow eyes, looking for anything that might have caused warmth. It
saw nothing.

Uncurling itself, the snake pokemon slithered through the underbrush, as quiet
as it could be. It moved toward the warmth it had sensed...and with any luck,
it would find prey instead of a fellow predator.

~

A few bites later, Mirai was free of the offending thorny
branches. She lay there for a moment, glad that there were no more spines
digging into her sides; and then her ears quivered as she looked at the two
other nidorans.

"Well," said the dark one. "You're free." He spat out a
thorn that had gotten stuck between his teeth.

"Yes," the rainforest nidoran continued on. "Now come with us.
You're going back home."

"No!" cried Mirai, almost flinging herself back into the thorn
bushes. That would have defeated the whole purpose of her getting free, though.
And she didn't want to get herself caught on any more prickles. "I don't
wanna go back!"

"Listen to me," the rainforest nidoran said, grabbing Mirai by the
scruff of the neck. "We freed you. Since you said you would come back with
us. Now you WILL come back with us. You know the rules about kits trying to run away."

And Mirai did know. Weren't allowed to stray too far, would get punished if
caught trying to run away, yadda yadda...

The only answer she gave was a quiet "ni".

"It's settled, then," the nidoran grumped. "Come along
now."

Mirai's heart sank to a new low. This was just great...

The darker nidoran looked around and sniffed at the air. "Uh, sir? I think
there's something around here..."

"Really? Then let's get moving, then. We can probably outrun it-
hey!"

Mirai had taken that moment to try and squirm her way free from the nidoran's
grasp. She succeeded - only to be caught again. "Let me go!" she
cried. "I don't want to go back!" Even if she had said so a couple
minutes earlier...but that was mainly to get the others to free her!

"Yes, you are going back, my dear," the rainforest nido hissed in
Mirai's ear. "One more trick like that, and I'll try to see that you won't
leave the warren again for a VERY long time."

"Sir, I REALLY think there's something out there..."

"Shut up!"

~

It was getting closer, it knew - the warmth was getting stronger. The ekans
flicked its tongue in and out a couple of times, picking up the scent molecules
from the air.

Nidoran. Ah good, prey. Shouldn't be too hard to get one, then...all it took
was a well-placed strike...

The ekans slid even closer to the almost-unsuspecting nidoran trio.

~

"But sir..."

The rainforest nidoran glared at his comrade. "If there is anything out there, then
it's best to just shut your yap and let's get going!" he yelled. He released Mirai, who let 
out a little whimper.

She didn't like this. Not one bit. First her escape plan went awry, then this
guard had to be mean to her, and to top it all off, there was probably a
predator out there...

Mirai shivered, and her small-yet-sharp spines started to rise out of
nervousness.

The rainforest nido didn't see it as a sign of nervousness, though...he
assumed, quite wrongly of course, that Mirai was about to try something again.
"I TOLD you, you little kit," he hissed. "Try anything more,
and..."

Mirai moved out of the way, mostly out of fear that the guard was about to do
something to her.

And it was at around that same moment that the ekans struck.

It had been watching from the bushes, deciding which of the rabbits to take
down first. The rainforest one, the nice green-and-purple one, was the one that
the ekans decided it would take down first. A nice big meal, that one seemed...

Mirai screamed when she saw how close the purple snake was. She could have
literally reached out and touched its scaly hide, if she'd wished to do so.
But, being on the prey side of things, the first thing she decided to do was
run - 

- that is, if she could.

Fear paralyzed her mind as she watched the ekans, as it fought with the
rainforest nido guard. The other guard was standing off to the side, spines up
as high as they could go, looking as though he was suffering from the same
thing that Mirai was. If there was anything that the nidorans feared more than
a furret, it was a snake of any kind.

Mirai's brain tried to send signals to her feet, tried to tell them to get as
far away from here as possible...but nothing went through. She knew she had to
run, but couldn't decide HOW, for some reason...her thoughts were all
gibberish, she couldn't decide on anything right now.

The rattled tail of the ekans knocked into Mirai's side, sending a jolt of pain
throughout her body. "*NI*!" she cried, surprised by that
"attack"...but she knew that, however hard that tail hit, it would
never be as dangerous as those fangs - the same ones that the one guard was
trying to defend against right now.

And he wasn't successful.

The dark-colored nidoran had already come back into action. He knew that
fighting a snake wasn't the smartest of choices....although this one...they
might have a chance at it, since it already carried a half-dead rabbit in its
filthy jaws. "Run!" he hissed at Mirai. "Back to the warren! We
have to warn everybody!"

And finally, Mirai's feet worked. With a pain in her side, and fear still
clouding her mind, she ran - in the opposite direction of the warren. She
didn't realized she was doing that, though...she just knew that she was running
away from the nasty purple snake.

"No, not that way!" the nidoran yelled after her, and started going
in her direction, before realizing that alerting the rest of the nidorans that
a predator was around was a better idea. The kit could wait until after the
predator was gone...hopefully!

Mirai ran, thinking that, at any moment, the ekans was about to come and bite
her, also. She ran, fast as she could, even faster than before. Her apricorn
charm bumped against her chest, almost hurting her. So much for a lot of good
luck...if she'd had more, then she wouldn't have had to see that predator!

Mirai began to slow down, breathing heavily from the
exertion of running. So far, neither sharp fangs nor scaly tail of the ekans
had shown themselves again...but that didn't mean that the snake couldn't still
show its horrible face again.

The nidoran kit urged her legs to go a bit faster, to get as far away as
possible from that menace behind her...wherever it was. In her haste, she
tripped over a branch that lay half-buried in the ground, and she went tumbling
head over heels, before being stopped by a piles of leaves from a bush.

With a sob, Mirai tried to bury herself under the leaves, even though her blue
fur could still be seen amongst the green of the leaves. She didn't care. As
long as she felt protected right now, that was all that mattered to her.

Pain went through her body, pain at running too fast for a bit too long. Mirai
cried into a couple of the leaves - the shock of seeing a predator that close,
and thinking that perhaps it could be coming after her, also, had finally
gotten to her. -Get to shelter,- said a little voice in the back of her mind;
and she knew that that was the best thing she could have done. A hole, a bush,
even a few more leaves to put on top of herself...any of those would have
sufficed. She didn't feel like moving right now, though, as she let the tears plop 
onto the smooth, waxy surfaces of the leaves around her.

The sharp caw of a far-off Murkrow brought Mirai back to the here and now. With a loud sniffle, she
wiped her eyes with the back of a paw. The moisture from her
tears wettened the fur on the paw, but she hardly noticed that.

She shivered as she realized how alone she was. She heard no one,
not even another nidoran - perhaps all of them were still back
there, fighting off that snake. Mirai shivered again – the thought
of any sort of predator was not the thought she wanted on her mind right now.

The kit dug a small depression into the ground, scraping away the
dirt. It wasn't a true hole, of ANY sort...it was mainly something
she could lie in. Working quickly, she got it done, and then lay down in it, making 
sure that she covered herself with leaves again.

She was going to make sure that nothing found her easily!