The teacher droned on and on and on with his lesson about acid and base chemicals. While about half of the class was listening to his hypnotizing voice with various degrees of attention, the other half was either asleep or about to fall in a comatose state.

Zoey had no idea how she managed to stay awake up until this point. If she didn't know better, she'd say that her teacher was constantly using yawn on her and the rest of the class. Still, the girl oh so wished she had a chesto berry with her. Or a taser would be helpful too. She made a mental note of the latter one, planning to buy one as soon as she had the money for it. Else one of those days she would really fall asleep in class.

Luckily for today, the bell saved Zoey and her classmates from a most gruesome fate. The teacher was powerless to stop the stampeding students from leaving the smelly classroom. Zoey was a bit behind that day, mostly because she still had to pack her book and papers into her schoolbag. Aside from that, she was in no hurry to leave. It had been the last period of the day and unlike most students, she didn't need to ride the bus in order to get home. Their school was located a little bit outside the main city, with a fairly sized community around it. Zoey lived in this community, which had practically everything the big city had, only less so.

Before making her way from the third to the first floor, the class labs were all located on the third and second floor, Zoey decided to make a quick visit to the girl's bathroom on the third floor. A pair of girls from the other class was standing in front of the sinks, talking to each other while redoing some of their make-up. They left rather quickly, barely acknowledging Zoey's presence. It appeared as if they had been in a hurry. Not that Zoey minded because now she had the entire room for herself.

Standing in front of one of the mirrors, the girl took out a comb from her bag and started combing her long, brown hair. Equally brown eyes looked back at her from the mirror, scanning her hand's movements. After she was happy with how her hair turned out to be, she quickly checked if her own make-up needed some redoing. While she didn't overdo it with that stuff, like most female under classmates did, the subtlety made a great difference in appearance. However, her face was fine, showing off her brown tanned skin. Just thinking about the word "tan" reminded the girl about the red sunburn on her back. She blamed the Pokémon Go app for this one since it actively used her Pokémon addiction to get her to walk outside. The sunburn was why she was wearing a white hoodie today, since the blue shirt she was wearing exposed a good portion of her back. On said shirt could be seen a picture of an Eevee and a Pikachu hugging each other. It was no secret to her classmates that she was a Pokémon fan. Aside from this, she also wore a short jeans and sandals, exposing her feet and showing her pink colored nails. She had done the same to the nails on her hands, though on a few the color was already getting off. That was the last time she bought the cheap stuff.

Seeing that she was presentable to the world, Zoey finally left the bathroom and headed downstairs. There were still a fair bit of students around, a lot of them staying because they have some extra periods. Zoey's entire class belonged to that category every Thursday. After quickly making her way through two pairs of double doors, dodging some fellow students in the process, Zoey walked the road leading uphill towards the main street. From there she just needed to turn right and it was just a fifteen-minute walk 'till she was home. Well, normally it was a fifteen-minute walk, but after she was halfway through when she heard a voice calling out to her from behind.

"Hey, Zoey!"

Turning around, Zoey saw that it was her classmate Alex who had called out to her and was closing the distance between him and her rather quickly.

"Hey, Alex!" Zoey called back, waving with her arm. She smiled brightly, when the boy stopped in front of her, slightly exhausted. "What's up?" she asked.

"Oh, you know. The usual," the boy waved off, giving a small smile in return. "So…uh… you know, there's a fair coming to town next week."

Zoey blinked stupefied. "There is?" she asked, but as the last syllable escaped her mouth she remembered. "Oh, right!" she exclaimed, slapping herself on the forehead in the process. "I totally forgot! Sheesh, I was so focused on the school project for next week, it completely left my mind. Thanks for the reminder."

"N-no problem," the boy stuttered for some reason. Zoey tilted her head in confusion, but shrugged it off, as soon as the boy in front of her cleared his throat.

"Anyways, I wanted to ask you if…err…. you know….you and me…" he shyly gestured at himself and then at her.

"Huh? Sorry, I didn't understand you back there. Could you repeat that?" the girl asked.

For some reason, the cheeks of the boy in front of her turned red. "I-I said… I-I w-w-was wondering if… umm, you know with the fair…"

Zoey blinked owlishly. "Are you alright? You're stuttering a lot, you know," she pointed out needlessly.

"Do you want to go to the fair with me?!" Alex shouted all of the sudden, startling Zoey for a second. For a moment she thought she had been hit by a growl and was about to even things out with a tail whip when she noticed two problems with that. One, she didn't have a tail. Two, she wasn't actually hit by a howl, so counterattacking, which wouldn't be a counterattack at all, would be considered rude.

After having established that, Zoey noticed that Alex was looking at her expectantly. Right, he had asked her a question and the answer to that question should be fairly obvious.

"Sure, I'll come," Zoey said happily. As if she would ever say no to that. Alex seemed happy too. His entire face lit up at the prospect of going out with the girl. Zoey had an even better idea. Why not invite even more friends?

"In fact, I think Sarah, Max and Mike are available too." Alex' happy face almost fell immediately.

"Say what?"

"Yup-yup!" Zoey nodded happily. "We've been wanting to do something for weeks, but never came to that! This is perfect! Thanks for the opportunity Alex."

"Uh… that's not what I…"

"Anyways, mind if I call you later about this? I first need to check if the others really have time, so that I don't accidentally make any false promises. Alright?"

"Uh… sure…" Alex replied lamely.

"Alright ~ y. See you around." Zoey gave her friend a bright smile and waved with her hand, before heading off towards home. Alex in the meantime was left behind just standing on the empty walkway. Empty, until his friend who had purposely stayed behind a little bit, came up and put a hand on Alex' shoulder.

"Man, I knew you said she was dense, but that? Are you sure this wasn't just her way of rejecting you?"

But Alex shook his head. "Nah, man. She's always like this."

XXX

Zoey decided to take a little detour that day. Before returning home, she walked into a little shop and bought herself some gummy bears. Three packages in fact. She just loved those things and unlike Pokémon, she didn't have a personal preference when it came to the taste. As long as they were sweet and stuffed with an unhealthy amount of sugar, she could eat them every day. It made itself known on her wallet though. This was one of the reasons she was rarely able to save up any money for things she wanted. She was involuntarily reminded of the times he had smacked her over the head because she spent up all of the money buying gummies…

Shaking her head, Zoey went on to give the cashier the required amount of money, before heading outside again. The air condition inside the shop had cooled down her body considerably. But now that she was outside again, she could feel the full onslaught of the sun on her body once again. If only she could take off her hoodie, but that would mean she had to expose her sunburn. And any more exposure of her already damaged skin would be dangerous. Still, it was a tempting prospect just to take the thing off. And besides, if she could survive a direct flamethrower attack from Moltres, this slight increase in temperature…

Zoey shook her head again. She should go home. After all, her phone needed to be recharged, because she played Pokémon Go the whole day again, then she needed to call her friends to ask them if they had time for the upcoming fair. Plus she still wanted to finish her project today if at all possible, so she could focus her time on watching the newest episodes of Pokémon, even though Ash's Pikachu was clearly not as cool as…

She needed to head home, quickly. As such she increased her pace, resulting in her arriving at home five minutes earlier than she actually expected. As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, Zoey leaned again the wood, taking in a deep breath, before letting it out slowly. After repeating that motion a couple of times, Zoey could feel her smile returning to her face. Whistling a little tune to herself, the girl dropped her bag off in her room, before heading towards the kitchen where she usually left her charger for her phone. After plugging it in, the girl decided to check out the fridge first, before doing any of her homework or finishing her school project. After all, an empty stomach could be quite detrimental to one's own health. She had learned that one the hard way. Maybe she should just have an apple in advance and wait for her mother to come home, to let her cook something good up. Because when it came Zoey's cooking? Let's just say grimy food is edible in comparison to whatever she managed to cook up. Or she could just take something out of the freezer, throw it into the oven and wait until it was ready. Even she couldn't mess this one up.

Having made up her mind, Zoey took a pizza out of the freezer and threw it into the oven. She wondered how long she would have to wait if she simply brought the thing to Mt. Blaze. Of course she couldn't really test this out anymore…

Zoey let out a sigh. Hopefully, the food would be able to distract her from anything Pokémon related.

XXX

Zoey smiled, as she finished the project she had been working on. It was a genuine smile, one filled with accomplishment and self-satisfaction and why shouldn't she feel that way? Her school project, a presentation she had prepared on her own PC, was finished. Plus her friends had agreed to come with her and Alex to the fair next week and her parents surprisingly announced they had to go away for a few days, due to work-related reasons. She had the whole house to herself for the next couple of days! First thing on the agenda: invite friends over for a party!

Oh, but of course, she had left her phone in the kitchen to charge. One of these days she would actually remember that there were other places inside the house, where she could charge her phone. Her room, for example, would be a good place to start. Putting the issue of phone placement aside, she still needed to get the actual thing. So without further ado, she walked out of her room, down the hallway and-

*BANG*

"Ahhh!" Zoey jumped in fright, upon hearing the gunshot-like noise. Her flight and fight instincts went into overdrive like they hadn't done since the fight with Rayquaza! As soon as her feet touched the ground, she jumped back into her room, rolled over the ground and slammed her head against her desk, because her room was so small.

"Ow…" she groaned, holding a hand to the place where she could feel a bump slowly growing. It was kinda pathetic, given that she had traded blows with the likes of Groudon, yet here she was, sitting on her butt over something as pathetic as a bump on her head.

Growling in displeasure the girl got up and gathered herself. That bang had been pretty loud and echoed throughout the entire house. It wasn't unthinkable to assume the source of the sound came from somewhere in her home. The first thing that came to mind was something electric short-circuiting for some reason and then destroying whatever malfunctioned. Checking the fuse box, this indeed appeared to be the case. After comparing the manual to the fuses that had shut down, it appeared as if something in the basement had gone haywire. Since she wasn't sure just what had broken down there, she decided, for now, to not turn on the power in the basement again. Instead, she went to the storeroom, took out a flashlight and then went downstairs to check on things.

As soon as Zoey opened the door, she could smell that something had burned down there. With her flashlight as her guide, Zoey carefully walked down the stairs, keeping herself steady by touching the wall with her left, free hand. Only a couple of steps down and she could already see the smoke rising up from downstairs. She kept her flashlight pointed downwards and as a result found the source of the loud bang rather quickly. There were glass shards lying on the floor and they could have only come from one place. Pointing the light upwards, Zoey confirmed her suspicion of the lamp being broken for some reason. This was strange in of itself, as one: the lamp had been turned off and two: it was clear skies outside. No rain, no thunder and certainly no Zapdos overcharging the thing. So what exactly had caused the lamp to go boom all of the sudden?

"Pikaaaa..." A groan echoed throughout the basement, causing Zoey to tense up. She pointed her light in every possible direction, trying to find the source of that strange noise. Did some kind of rodent sneaked into the house and chewed on the cables again? This was becoming a real problem.

"Here, here little guy," Zoey whispered to herself. Sadly animals weren't as smart as Pokémon, as such, they couldn't be persuaded to come out of their hiding spots. And down here in the basement with all of the boxes, shelves and whatever else Zoey's family had stored here gave those pesky little critters more than enough places to hide.

*Clang*

Something metallic had been thrown to the ground. Quickly the girl turned her entire body in the general direction from where she heard the sound coming from. Her flashlight scanned for everything that looked furry or generally seemed out of place.

"Kaa..." Another groan. It sounded kinda familiar. Probably just an animal she had seen or heard outside at some point. Seeing as there was a lot of clutter in the way, Zoey carefully made her way towards where she suspected the animal to be, trying to be as quiet as humanly possible. If she was still an Eevee, this would be no problem. In fact, she accidentally knocked something over herself.

"Pika?"

Wait did she hear that right? Or was she finally losing it?

"I should lay off the gummy bears..." Zoey grumbled and continued looking. She froze up when she heard light, regular tapping on the ground. Whatever animal had sneaked in, it was moving. The girl listened intently, trying to pinpoint the location of the animal. She didn't even move her flashlight, as she was afraid to scare the animal away. But in the end, it wasn't the "animal" that got scared.

"Pika?"

*tap* *tap*

"AAAHHH!" Zoey screamed on top of her lungs upon feeling something furry touching her exposed leg. She quickly turned around and smashed her flashlight against whatever was touching her.

A critical hit!

Pikachu fainted.

XXX

("...")

("Oww... my head.")

("It feels like a Geodude fell right on top of it.")

("What happened?")

("Was I... knocked out?")

("That must be it.")

("Where am I?")

("It feels like... I am in a bed.")

("Did someone rescue me?")

Ever so slowly Pikachu opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times. He found himself lying in a bed, as he had already guessed, inside of a darkened room. He couldn't really make out much since there wasn't much light getting into the room. There was a window on the other side of the room, allowing the stars and the moon to shine in. He could see the shape of a desk standing in front of that window with various stuff lying on top of it. The electric type could also make out a few shelves and a chair, but not much else.

"Where am I?" he asked aloud this time. It didn't appear to be his home, he would recognize that immediately, even in the dark. Plus this bed had a foreign, yet nice smell to it. That could only mean that a nice Pokémon had picked him up and brought to their home. From the top of his head, the electric mouse couldn't think of any other reason as to why he had woken up in a foreign bed. Since he was awake now, he figured he might as well get up and thank whoever saved him. However, he only managed to get into sitting position, before his entire body began to ache.

"Owww! Ow, ow, ow, ow! Owie!"

Pikachu dropped back on the pillow, his entire body cramping up from all the pain he felt. He had completely forgotten for a moment that he had been on an exploration that had lasted for weeks. It seems everything had been through was finally catching up to him and boy did it hurt.

"Ow... I guess I overdid it a little bit..." Just as those words left his mouth, he could feel his headache increasing once again. "Arrrgh! Okay, I overdid it a lot!"

As if fate had it out for him today, the door right next to him opened. A bright light entered the room, not only blinding the Pokémon but also increasing the amount of pain he felt inside his brain even more. He could hear someone entering the room, but couldn't see who as he kept his eyes closed. Yet even beneath his eyelids, he could feel the light getting even brighter. He could hear some strange sounds coming from right next to him. Presumably, that was the house owner doing something in the room, but the electric-type still needed to adjust to the new brightness. Turning his head to the side, not directly looking at the light coming from above, proved to be helpful for his eyes to adjust.

At first, all he could see was a blurry mess of colors. It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the new lighting situation. In that time, Pikachu could feel the bed shifting downwards a little bit with some of the springs inside the mattress creaking. It felt like someone had sat down on the bed, just a little away from Pikachu himself. Furthermore, he could feel someone putting their hand on top of his head. Acting on instinct, he flinched back from the touch of the unknown, but whoever was touching him was insistent. The hand easily followed him, seeing as he couldn't really move much while lying down. The hand touched him softly on the head again. Pikachu frowned and glared up to the Pokémon touching him. His vision cleared up and...

"Whoa!" he couldn't help, but exclaim. He had never seen a Pokémon like the one sitting in front of him. He had never seen a Pokémon such as this one. It was big. No way near as big as, say one of the legendary birds, but at least five to six times as big as he was. It had almost no fur at all most of it being located on the head. As compensation it wore clothes, covering several body parts, probably to keep it warm. It looked down at Pikachu with a small smile and... a tear rolling down its cheek? Was he seeing that right?

"Uh... hello?" he waved with his paw, ignoring the pain that went through his arm. In response, the Pokémon's eyes widened in surprise, which only confused Pikachu. Why was it so surprised upon hearing him speak?

"H-hey..." the girl, Pikachu could guess from the tone of her voice, stuttered back and subconsciously began rubbing his forehead with her thumb. Pikachu had to admit, it felt a little nice, but at the same time pretty awkward.

"Umm, so, I don't mean to be rude, but could you please let go of my head?"

The female Pokémon didn't comply. Instead, she did exactly the opposite. She started stroking his head, slowly and methodically, her fingers acting like a comb, as they went through his fur. The nails scratched his skin beneath the fur. It didn't hurt, in fact, it actually felt quite nice. But as previously mentioned: awkward.

"H-hey, I told you! Take your hand away!" he said a bit more forceful this time. But the other Pokémon did not comply again. This time she laid down on her bed with her stomach downwards on her bed, so that her face was directly above Pikachu's. The electric-type felt more than just a little bit freaked out now, especially with the puppy dog eyes she was giving him for some reason. He could literally feel her breath on his nose. It smelled of strawberries.

"W-w-what are you doing?!" he exclaimed, getting ready to charge up one of his attacks. There was just one problem with that. He was completely spent! For these last weeks, he had gone on a long exploration into the Wish Cave, in order to meet the legendary Pokémon Jirachi! Of course, exploring the Wish Cave is no easy task and facing off against a sleep drunken legendary on his own was-

"Wait a minute!" Pikachu realized. "Where am I? This doesn't look like Wish Cave!" he exclaimed, looking around frantically.

The Pokémon in front of him stopped her stroking, her hand firmly resting on his head. She blinked a couple of times until her own eyes widened in realization. "D-did you say wish cave?" she whispered, barely audible.

"H-huh?" Pikachu stopped looking around and turned his gaze back to the Pokémon, was still looking down at him. At this rate, he would strain his neck. More importantly, the female Pokémon looked like she was about to cry. Since he wasn't sure what to do, given the unusualness of the situation, he just nodded.

The girl let out a gasp and she began to tremble. If Pikachu hadn't been nervous before, he certainly was now. He wasn't sure what to make out of the girl, but she was seriously freaking him out now. Luckily the girl decided to calm herself by taking in some deep breaths and letting them out slowly. Though Pikachu would have preferred, if she would stop breathing on his face. It was getting kinda annoying.

"You went down there for a wish, didn't you?" the girl asked, her tone getting a serious edge all of the sudden. Her face also did a one-eighty. She was now practically glaring down on Pikachu. What was wrong with her? Anyways, since Pikachu had no way to defend himself at the time, it was better not to provoke the Pokémon who presumably cared for him. Even if she was a little strange.

"Y-yeah," he replied eventually. "I-I heard that Jirachi can grant you any wish you have. And well... I thought I should give it a try." After all, this had been pretty much his only chance to see her again. Well, from the looks of things he managed to get himself knocked out once again but was saved by the strange acting Pokémon in front of him.

"..."

The female Pokémon looked down at Pikachu for several more seconds, before she retreated her hand and stood up from the bed. Pikachu was glad for the personal space he just regained but was wondering what the girl was doing now. She walked over to one of the cupboards and opened it. Yet she did not take anything out. Instead, she just stood right in front of it, her back turned towards Pikachu. He really didn't get this girl at all. She was acting almost as strange as Xatu! Only almost.

"So, what was your wish?" she asked. Gone was the edge in her voice. All of the sudden she sounded... normal. Was this Pokémon bipolar or something?

"My wish?" Pikachu echoed.

"Yeah, your wish. What did you want? A friend? Money? Treasure? An orb that turns everything into incredibly cute, fluffy little creatures?"

Pikachu sweatdropped at the last suggestion. "Uh... no."

He looked down to the white carpet on the ground. There was no real harm in telling this Pokémon about his wish, he just disliked talking about it in general, especially with a stranger. "I'd rather not talk about it," the electric mouse voiced his thoughts. "It's... private."

"..."

"..."

"Heh, I see." Pikachu could hear the girl smiling, by her voice alone. He looked back up to her just in time to see her taking something out of the drawer and closing it again. She wrapped some kind of cloth around her neck.

"What do you see?" Pikachu asked, wondering if it was such a good idea to continue talking to the girl

"Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself." Pikachu knew she was smirking. Somehow he knew. That cheeky tone...

"By the way" she continued "the scarf you've been wearing, it was dirty. I took it off and washed it. It's drying right now."

"Huh?" Pikachu looked down on his neck. How come he just noticed that the scarf he wore was gone?! It was the most treasured item in his possession! It wore it always around his neck, whether he was going to town, sleeping, going on an exploration or doing his job!

"Th-thanks, I guess."

"It must mean a lot to you. But don't worry." The female Pokémon turned around and showed a VERY FAMILIAR scarf she had put on just a couple of seconds ago. "You can use mine, while yours dries off."

Pikachu could only stare aghast at the Pokémon (?) in front of him. That scarf... it had a very familiar pattern on it. It was mostly colored white, with a big pink and turquoise five-pointed star in the middle of it. There existed only two scarves with this particular picture on it. One belonged to him, with the difference being the pattern had been painted on a yellow cloth. The second one belonged to someone he hadn't seen in years!

"Z-Z-ZOEY?!" Pikachu exclaimed, finally realizing that he had, in fact, a human standing in front of him! But she wasn't just any human! She was the human he had been wishing to see for years!

The smirk in Zoey's face turned into a soft smile, her brown eyes watering up. Pikachu could feel the moisture in his own eyes beginning to gather.

Zoey went back to the bed, once again lay down on it. Hers and Pikachu's face were once again only inches away from each other, though this time he totally didn't mind having her breath on his face. Strawberries, they had always been her favorite.

"Zoey..." he whispered.

"Pikachu..." Zoey whispered back.

"I missed you..."

"I missed you too..."

There was so much more he wanted to say. So much he had to tell her. And he was sure she wanted to say just as much. But he just couldn't at the moment. He was simply just too fatigued from his exploration and eventual fight with Jirachi to say what needed to be said. It also didn't help that Zoey had whacked him over the head with whatever she had been holding after Jirachi granted him his wish.

Zoey could see his struggle to stay awake and smiled kindly down at him.

"It's all right," she whispered directly into one of his long ears, sending shivers down his spine. "You can sleep. I'll be here with you."

"Zoey..." the electric-type's eyelids began to feel heavy. "Please... don't go."

"I won't." Her hair was now touching his fur, so close were their faces. "Sleep Pikachu, you have earned it."

Pikachu did as he was told. He never went against the order of his leader. She always knew what to do. Before his mind fully went into a deep slumber, he could feel her lips touching his.