"Nah, I'll be fine. I'll be back in.... say two hours from now" She said as she took a look at her wristwatch, still in Greek time. It didn't really matter if the time on her watch didn't correspond with the actual time of their current place. It still served as a chronometer.
"Best keep the flashlight here. No snooping pokemon to steal or break it." And with that out of the way, Artemis left the cabin to pursue Totodile that was already a bit further down the lakeside, waving at her impatiently like an excited toddler.
"I'm coming silly. Don't worry." She called out to the pokemon and jogged up to catch it, an act that Totodile perceived as a game of tag and promptly run away further down the lakeshore.
This game continued for a few minutes until they were almost oposite of the cabin and Artemis found a fallen log she could use to hang her clothes at.
"Hey this looks like a good spot to dive don't you think?" She told Totodile as she halted her jog. Totodile agreed and immediately disappeared in the water, leaving a trail of bubbles behind it. Artemis shook her head at the pokemon's antics and quickly began undressing, remaining only in her underwear and sports bra.
The water was cool to the touch and it made Artemis smile and sigh in relief as she entered fully and did a couple of quick paddle strokes just to get warmed up a bit. Taking a deep breath she dived under, eyes closed. No matter how much she had tried, she had never been able to keep her eyes open in the water. It stung too much for that. A stream of pressurized water hit her straight in the face as soon as she resurfaced and Totodile's laughter made her groan. Wiping the water from her face and smoothing her wet brown hair back, she glared at Totodile mischievously. The pokemon floated just a few inches away from her, grinning ear to ear with sharp fangs glinting in the sunlight.
"Oh is that how you want to play?" She demanded as she splashed as much water as she could at the blue crocodile, who laughed and retaliated with another stream of what Artemis assumed to be a Water Gun attack at its weakest.
The waterfight took a good few minutes and allowed Artemis to completely relax and feel clean and refreshed. Now she felt ready to worry about how they could get back home and what they ought to do until then. Totodile whined as Artemis started to swim towards the shore, but she smiled at him.
"I'm going to grab the mask. Then we can take a longer dive." She explained and that was enough for Totodile that followed her suit.
The dive took around fifteen minutes with the much needed breaks for air, but Artemis had been able to find spots where many pokemon fish she couldn't for the life of her remember their names were gathered. It was quite the experience. Totodile had been swimming next to her, showing her spots or doing little dances around her as she was slower than him. His smooth skin was incredible in the water as Artemis touched it once or twice as he passed her by. At the end of her dive, Artemis had found nothing they could immediately use, but it was good to know what the bottom of the lake was like and where fish pokemon usually gathered.
Artemis felt like a completely different person when she finally got out of the lake, short on breath but in awe at what she had just experienced. She sat at the log, catching her breath before deciding it was time to go again. She had to search for some food and she still had a good long while before she needed to get back to the cabin like she had promised she would. So she did a quick washing of her shirt and socks in the lake, doing nothing more than rub the fabric with itself while it was wet and then followed Totodile to a nearby field with a large array of wild berries.
It was feeding grounds for many a pokemon and Artemis was thrilled to see Tropius there. She remembered that the fruit on the pokemon's neck were edible. With some help from Totodile and the fact the pokemon had never seen a human in a long while, if ever before, they eventually allowed her to pick about a dozen of their neck fruit. Artemis made a point to emphasize how grateful she was and she used her shirt as a basket to keep the fruit and some extra berries she knew pokemon normally ate but wanted to test for herself. She didn't exactly remember what the berries' names were, but she knew they were not poisonous. No berry in the game ever was poisonous. She doubted the game developers would change that now. Still, just to be on the safe side, she picked only a few berries whose shape and color remembered in passing from the previous games.
Thus, she and Totodile returned in the cabin as the two hours expired with armfulls of freshly picked berries and Tropius fruit that suspiciously looked like bananas. Artemis didn't really like bananas, but she was hungry and her options were limited. Who knew, maybe Tropius fruit were actually more tasty than bananas.
"We're back! Any news?" She announced as she entered the cabin bear-foot, combat boots hanging from her neck with their laces tied together and her shirt serving as a basket, leaving only her sports bra to cover her more private areas.
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@firejay1