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"How are you DOING, Rookie?"
"Oh? I managed to find a few treasures nearby and haven't run into any predators so far"
"GOOD! You have BETTER luck than me, HA!"
After chatting a bit more, he soon hang up and turned his focus back to his task, focusing more on finding any remaining castaways than finding treasure, confident that the Rookie will find most, if not, all of them and whatever treasure HE manage to find, he would use the pikmin that he managed to command to sent the treasure back to the S.S. Beagle and kept exploring. Even though he was completely focused on the mission in hand, there was one specific castaway that he was looking for ever since they got separated a while back.
His hand soon rose up to rest against the front of his collarbone, where he felt his wedding necklace through his spacesuit, as his left ear twitched a bit as he got lost in thought for a moment before snapping out of it.
'There's not time to daydream! I need to stay focused and help out the best I can!'
Steeling himself, Bernard soon started walking, after noticing that he stopped moving, and went back to exploring and searching. For most of the morning and afternoon, Bernard managed to mostly find raw materials which he knew that both Rookie and Russ will find use for-
"Hm?"
His ears instantly perked up as he heard a sharp cracking sound, like someone stepping on a branch, and swiftly looked around, trying to find out where the noise was coming from while getting ready to retreat in case if its one of the predators. After a few minutes of tense silence, he suddenly heard similar noises......although it sounded less like a creature and more of a person....
"HELLO? There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm apart of the Rescue Corps" Bernard started to say before instinctively stepped back when he heard a small but strangely familiar growl before he heard them move again which told him that it was a leafling. Not wanting to lose them, Bernard instantly took chase after them through the thick bushes.
"ROOKIE! I found a leafling and in pursuit! COPY!" Bernard swiftly said before turning off his communicator, trusting them to track him down using Oatchi.
Navigating through the thick leaves and branches along with small rocks to avoid was a bit difficult but Bernard tend to be stubborn and was managing quite well in keeping up with the runaway leafling. Suddenly he was blinded by the sunlight, even with his sunglasses on, as he burst through the thick leaves into an open area though it didn't take long for his vision to adjust to the light for him to uncover his eyes to find the leafling on the other side of the open field with their back to him, letting him look over the leafling.
From what Bernard could see was that the mixture of fur and leaves covering them, surprisingly he never REALLY looked at the other leaflings he came across since he was mostly focused on rescuing them, and at first thought the leafling in front of him could be mistaken for the other leafling, that had been kidnapping some of the castaways to 'save' them, due to the color being brownish-red. Suddenly his eyes caught sight of something glistening on the leafling's left ear, causing a feeling of dread to appear in his chest for some reason but he pushed it down before steeling himself.
But before he could say anything, the leafling swiftly turned around to face him with a small snarl on their face and immediately, the pilot felt like he was punched in the chest that, despite the leaves/fur on them, he could recognize who it was due to the spacesuit that every Rescue Officer wears along with a familiar sweat band loosely wrapped around their forehead, that kept the shaggy leaves/fur out of their eyes and finally on their left ear was a simple golden wedding earring, glistering from the sunlight.
The one person that came to mind was his own husband, whom had selflessly used himself as bait in an attempt to protect him from the red leafling and its dog they had encountered hours after the crash, and got separated from him until he was found which made him worried of happened to him and praying that he was safe....until he found him again.
"D-Dingo...." Bernard breathed out in a mixture of shock, surprise, horror and relief.
On one hand, he was glad that his husband was alive and well but on the other hand, he had been turned into a leafling and didn't know how long he had been like this after their separation, but one thing for sure.
He is going to bring Dingo back no matter what.