Prologue

Kate looked around the corner. Her blond bangs too short to get in the way. Lab assistants were still wheeling down the hallway. She ghosted behind them, playing hide and seek with them whether they knew it or not.

She knew a few of the Rattata-warren hallways in the station. She was almost old enough to go to school, but until then she would slip out of the playroom and explore. There were lots of lab technicians to hide from. Kate was so small, she could go unnoticed for a while until the daycare knew she was missing from the playroom and go looking for her.

But until then, she could get away from the others and play with the grown-ups. Whether they knew it or not.

It was getting close to the time she might be found again. But she was not done with the grown-ups.

That's when one of them checked their arm and shouted about the time. They both started pushing harder on the cart and went careening around the next corner. Barely stopping the cart from tipping but not from losing a few toy balls.

The woman and man grown-up stopped and quickly picked-up the toys they could see before going off out of sight.

Kate stayed behind, watching the one they had missed. It was still there and the grown-ups were gone. Before she was caught, she slipped the red-and-white toy ball into her pocket. It was small for a ball, about the size of her fist. She turned around, almost instantly forgetting about the ball, and got ready to start playing with the daycare lady.

Kate went to bed that night. Her father working on some papers after dinner. He had come later, as usual, so he had been eating long after Kate had been made to eat some of her vegetables.

On her dresser was the contents of her pockets, turned-out by the laundry-lady when she changed out of her daycare clothes earlier. This was the first time in several hours that she had seen the red and white ball that she had found earlier. It had gone forgotten in the daycare, in her pocket, until now.

She picked it up and took it to bed, hoping her father would tuck her in and not forget tonight. She held the toy in her hand, looking at the tight line between red and white. Turning it she found a little button like the one on her father's cell phone. It only stuck out a tiny bit and it was not easy for her little-barely-four-years-old finger to push.

The toy ball doubled in size in her hand and Kate dropped it onto her chest in surprise. The much larger ball kept falling, fell off the bed, bounced and rolled onto the middle of the floor. Kate stepped out of bed and forgot her slippers trying to get it back. She saw the lights under her bedroom door turn out as her father was getting ready for bed himself.

Scooping-up the magic-ball she immediately pushed the button, which had also increased in size, to shrink the ball again. But instead of shrinking, it blew open, lit-up the room and the light got bigger until it was a bit bigger than Kate and turned into a monster with weird armour, a triangular face, claws, and a tail with a thin ring around it.

Kate liked monsters though, the ones hiding under her bed protected her from the boogey-man in her closet. But she could hear her father somewhere else in the apartment, calling something.

"Quick! Hide!" She whispered to the monster.

It's angular eyes stayed closed and it cocked it's head, quizzically.

"Go!" she could hear her father heading for her door.

The monster seemed to turn it's head, as if looking around and disappeared with a zap-noise.

Kate took the hollow-open ball and shoved it under her pillow as the doorknob on her door turned.

"Kate, what was that?" Her father came in wearing a bathrobe over his pyjamas, looking tired.

"What was what father?"

He looked around the room, "Never mind Katie. Let's get you to bed."

Kate yawned, forgetting to correct the name.

Her father held-up her blankets for her and let Kate get into bed.

Kate let her father tuck her in and let her head press down on the pillow to hide the monster-toy she had found.

"Let me fluff the pillow for you, I-" Her father pulled on the pillow and the toy fell-out onto the floor. He stopped

and held the pillow in his hand, "where… where did you get that?"

Kate looked at him, "I found it." When her father said nothing, she went on quickly, "there were somany! One-

dropped, tookithome. Ibrokeit father! Itopenedandamonstercame out and Idon'tknowhowtofixthetoy"

Her father stopped her before she went on, "You didn't break it, Kate." He picked-up the open and hollow 'toy.' "There is a lot here, what's one less?"

"What do you mean father?"

He looked at the empty 'toy' and then at Kate, "where is the 'monster' now Kate?"

She looked around, "I don't know. I told her to hide and she disappeared." She furrowed her forehead, thinking about where it could have disappeared to. Or maybe it ran away and would never come back. "I don't know…"

"Well, we're going to have to find it and put it back in-"

"Nooo! I want her to live under my bed with the other monsters, father! I don't want her to go!"

"No, not back where it came from, back in here," He pointed into the ball as he snapped it shut. "I'll make sure you can keep it. But you won't be able to take it to preschool, or school Kate. The ball will have to stay here, but you can keep it."

Kate took the ball back from her father, "it's little again, did you put her back in there?"

He shook his head, "no, but we're going to have to find it before you can keep it."

Kate wanted to keep the monster as much as she could. She wondered about all those other balls that other monsters could be in. And she could keep this one, keep it from wherever the others were going. They must have been headed to others who could have monsters of their own, but she had this one first.

That zapping noise filled the room again, and the monster appeared. Right when she wanted her too.

Her father did not flinch at the noise, or the sight, of it appearing, "Now, put it away by pointing the ball at it and pressing the button."

Kate looked at the ball in her hand, "But if I cant take her to daycare, then I don't want to put him in his home yet. Tuck us both in!" she smiled.

Her father looked between Kate and the creature. "well, if it's yours now, then why not?" He got an extra pillow from the closet and set up a space for the creature at the other end of the bed that Kate was still growing into. "But we will have to talk about this in the morning. There are things you should know before keeping it for yourself."

"Okay father. Good night."

"Good night Katie."

Kate was asleep before she could correct him.

Her father turned out the lights before leaving for the night. The pocket monster had settled easily into the foot of Kate's bed. The fox-like head appeared to have closed eyes all the time, he was familiar with the breed. But he felt like the pocket monster was watching him from the bed the whole time. In the darkness it could have been asleep as well, but he still had the feeling of being watched.

He left the bedroom to collate his presentation before going to bed himself. Hopefully he would get a full night's rest before being contacted about some report or experiment in the night.

She rocked the cradle gently, her daughter had woken-up in the night. It was not surprising with her being less than 3 months old. But still tiring.

Her husband came-up behind her, "Anything I can help with, Leah?"

"It's little Rina, she's crying again."

He leaned over the cradle for a moment, "She's just scared, Leah, it's a big world with a lot to be frightened of."

Leah frowned, Thomas was being mysterious again. "How do I stop our baby from crying for a fear of something that I don't even know what it is?"

Thomas picked-up their daughter and took him into his arms. Rina fell asleep almost right away.

"How do you do it Tom? It you didn't need the sleep I'd ask for you to dot his every night."

He smile a bit, then went back to his usual stoic frown. "I was awake for the same reason Rina was, Things are changing. World's changing. But if I'm not going to lose sleep over it tonight, then neither is Rina. Come back to bed with me Leah. Let's not give Rina anything more to worry about tonight."

Kate woke-up that morning with her monster beside her in bed. She was glad. She had dreamed of flying and zapping around the world. It was a big place and now she had her monster to enjoy it with her. Today was going to be a good day, even without spending it all with her. She picked up the little ball that had been her home and put it back down on the dresser.

"This is your home now, not that thing. Just go to wherever my father says is okay. Okay?"

She stretched and yawned from the bed and nodded. Picking-up on Kate's cues right away. Today was going to be a very good day.

-End of Prologue

Chapter 1

Henry looked over the days results. Things had gone well until one of the technicians had grown an attachment to the experiments. He had always kept a distance from his experiments, it helped keep the experiments untainted by opinion and kept progress up. He knew it was because of the late-in-life exposure he had had to the pocket monsters growing up. He noticed that the best scientists and his best colleagues, had not had constant exposure to the creatures until late in adolescence or even after they came of age. There was no avoiding the things, but those he respected most in his field had never trained, raised or grew-up around them.

His charge, Katherine was an exception. Even though he was her guardian, her little smile had won him over from the beginning, he had found it hard not to keep her happy as she went on. He could keep his distance from his research, but he could not say no to her keeping one for herself. It had not been hard to arrange her to keep it, even though it was freshly bred like the others for the investment department. He was the head of his team and one of the bosses best teams, so it was a simple enough request for her to keep it. He could not bring himself to take it away from Kate, but he knew from the beginning of raising her that she would not become a scientist. She was not going to be trained as one and had never shown the right mindset for it anyway. He was just there to raise her until she went out into the world and was old enough to inherit her family's responsibilities. It would not make it easy for her later, scientist or not, to grow-up with a pocket monster. But he had been in the habit of not saying no to her and that had not changed.

He did not give much thought to the time she spent with the creature, she never spent any time apart when she was out of daycare and preschool. Kate slept a lot just like the monster did. She was drowsy in school and was teased for it. So she holed herself out in their apartment, only spending time with one or two other children. She never complained about being apart from it. In fact she stopped trying to escape from the workers after she had found the pocket monster. But she slept too much and took too much after the monster. It was odd that whenever they played she barely talked at all. She did if he or visitors spoke to her, but after dinner he would only hear them moving around in the apartment if they weren't asleep.

It was hard not to like Kate. Her father had looked in on things over the last few years, but Henry did not think that he had been around her long enough for her natural charm to win him over. She had even won over her other caregivers when she was very young. Normally a panic would ensue from a child being lost in the building, but for Kate it had been a game of hide and seek, which the day care and preschool teachers started playing with her. But her biological father was merely an onlooker, Henry felt that he just needed to spend time with her. But it was hard enough for Henry to make time with his boss, the man never really tried to make time for Kate and he would regret it when she was older.

Her mother was missing everything though. She had died not long after Kate was born and her father had felt to not let there be a female guardian as well. Henry did what he could, but she would get "the talk" about her family and his own role when she was old enough. At least he did not have to lie about her mother being dead. He knew that would have done a lot of damage. He would have lied if asked, but he was glad he did not have too.

Henry looked back at the screen, realizing that he had read nothing while letting his mind wander. Kate could be distracting when he did not step back, though he tried to only step back when he was not around her. Things were better that way. It kept her happy and that's all Henry really wanted.

Kate looked around her new-old bedroom and her new bed. She had moved here from her father's research station right after kindergarten ended. Her father told her that the resources of the station were being re-organized and all the kids have to move away. A few of them were in and around Viridian city. She did not miss them or the majority that had moved on to further towns. Josh was the only one she liked talking to and he was going to the same school she was.

Her father had even gotten an office job in the city as well. Her and her monster Abbie, as she liked Kate to call her, enjoyed the wide-open spaces of the town and around it compared to the isolated research station that Kate and Abbie had been at when she was younger.

This was the last month before she started middle school. Her and Josh were going to the same school again. There was a picture of them together last summer. The last traces of yellow gone, her hair was just a little lighter than her father's now. His looked black when it was dark, it was just dark brown and so was hers.

Josh was the little red-headed kid in her preschool, when they moved to the same city, he father arranged play-dates until they started lower school when they started asking each other over to play.

Kate found that she got along a little better with the lower school classmates than in daycare and preschool. The classes were much bigger too. But there were more that tried to tease her and a lot of the others seemed only interested in her because she was new. Josh wasn't as mean, did not tease any more than anyone else in preschool. But now that she was nearly a teenager, Josh had gotten much better over the last few years. Even after the blow-up in lower school when his parents would not let him raise a pocket monster. She slept less and was less drowsy for it but was still made fun of by others.

She was not a trainer yet, but her and Abbie were practically inseparable outside of school. They could both predict what the other was feeling and when they got close together. Hide and seek turned into races, trying to get to the next hiding spot before the other could get there.

It was so different with the other kids. They did not understand Kate enough and she understood them too well. It was hard to try and be friends with someone when it felt like they were thinking mean things about her. Games were different. She could find them in hide and seek but they could not find her. Anything that needed a blindfold she was excluded from because they thought she was cheating. She never peeked, but Kate sometimes found it easier to have her eyes closed and covered.

By the end of the 4th grade, no one would play with her other than Abbie, when Abbie was not sleeping, or Josh and that was out of school.

She did not remember it being like this at the station. Sure some of them teased her, but they teased everyone and she had more fun at school than at home. She did not remember being left alone like this. She had always had someone to play with. And the longer it went on, the more she did not like being around them.

Next month she would be going across town to Josh's school. It should be better. She was almost twelve and her father wanted her to at least finish the next year of school before officially training with pocket monsters. After that he said he would discuss with her her options of school, high school and her future with Abbie and other pocket monsters.

She really looked around her bedroom this time. Plain walls covered with photos and drawings of her, Abbie and Josh and the things she had seen with them. Her dresser was covered with little trinkets from the tourist vendors. A lot of trainers passed though Viridian and she had picked-up several pieces of different pocket monsters. She had a few on a shelf over her bed of the ones she wanted to see, like in her dreams. But her dresser was covered with many others that she just had to get. She wanted to get 'em all, but her allowance would not let her.

Her clothes were pretty straight forward, playing outdoors, roughing it outdoors, nice for guests and her school uniforms.

She had a uniform set hanging on the door, grey with a green stripe, reminding her of a new school and a fresh start.

Abbie was outside in the back yard. Probably scaring off the Pidgey again. Abbie liked the tree since she had a good view of the house from the branches. Kate was reassured by Abbie being close, but she liked to look out the window and see Abbie. Yellow and brown, when the leaves turned yellow and orange Abbie would blend better after school started.

Kate could feel Abbie's eyes on her, even when it looked like Abbie's eyes were closed, which was all the time. Abbie was a silly name, but a lot of trainers had silly names for pocket monsters. Abbie did not mind, she knew when Kate meant her, it was more something other people could know and recognize.

Dad's still out, I want to go find Josh, she thought. Getting up she looked out the window and did not see Abbie or a nest of Pidgeys. She grabbed her pack and heard the familiar zap of Abbie appearing nearby.

"Let's go. I have my keys." Kate headed for the door but was stopped by Abbie touching Kate's arm. "What is it?"

Abbie stood there, looking at the phone.

Kate saw the notepad next to the phone, "Right, dad should know." Kate scribbled a note for her Dad that she was going to see Josh, berating herself for forgetting. Off they went.

She was not far from the abandoned Pocket Monster Gym. Boarded up and empty since her and her father had moved there. She saw a new sign attached to the front. Some sort-of zoning-babble for "we have gotten approval to renovate." Her and Abbie walked by, otherwise ignoring the building.

"Hey! Let's Battle!" some other kid with pocket-balls challenged her.

Abbie turned her nose up at the boy and Kate followed suit. Abbie never really fought, not even the Pidgey in their tree. She more startled the monster by zapping into the tree and scared the Pidgeys away. Kate did not think Abbie was afraid of fighting, Abbie was still in the "ineffectual flailing" stage of fighting and Kate was not going to push the issue.

"Coward!"

Kate ignored him, other kids had said worse things. She and Abbie headed off to Josh's.

Other trainers were less pushy but still a little obsessive of pitting their monsters against others. Especially her. She still had the pocket ball Abbie had been found in, she liked it near. But Abbie was almost never in it. Especially when she was out from school. So she walked all over with Abbie around all the time. A few trainers did too, but that made her look like a trainer and would get asked all the time about it. When her lower school classmates found out about Abbie, they were jealous until they found out about her not being a trainer. So they teased her that she could not fight. Abbie would not fight, Kate did not make her, but that made the teasing worse.

"We're almost there, c'mon Abbie." Kate started walking faster to get through the trainers to Josh's house. She looked to the south and headed eastwards downtown.

Abbie looked south as well before following Kate down the street.

Once the two of them got into another borough of houses, the trainers were less. Out-of-town ones anyway. Like a lot of the residential areas, there were more trees on the sidewalk than on the main streets. Making a canopy that could hide bird pocket monsters.

There was a zap and then an explosion of birds above and ahead of Kate. She laughed as Abbie startled a whole flock of birds.

"Abbie! Do you really need to keep in practice around here?" Kate did not need an answer, she knew Abbie heard her. Which was followed with another zap of Abbie's teleport as she re-appeared near Kate.

"My car! Damn Trainers!" some guy yelled from his yard where the Pidgeys had flown-over and 'decorated' his hood and windshield with their droppings.

"Quick!" Kate took off, Abbie ran with her. The man's yells followed them, but he did not, and they made an easy getaway. "Josh's this way!" They rounded the corner and slowed-down to a walk as they got to the home stretch.

There was his mother, gardening in the front yard. Kate leaned against a tree when her head started pounding.

"Hi Kate," Mrs. Mills leaned back to get a good look at Kate, "You're a little late."

Kate stood straight when her head started hurting, "Late? But I just decided to come?"

"Josh is over at the Professor's. You just missed him."

Kate looked crestfallen, "Professors? But his dad said-"

Mrs. Mills stood up as she dusted off her pants, "We had a long talk about that. Didn't he call you?"

"No," Abbie caught her instead of the tree this time. Her head was pounding.

"Are you okay?" Mrs. Mills started heading over. She looked concerned.

"Ye-yeah. Abbie, lets go home." Kate gripped Abbie's hands as they zapped away home.

Kate couldn't stand when she appeared in her room. After the headache and the vertigo from teleporting, she sicked-up on her carpet. On her knees, she did not get any of the stuff on her clothes. Out went her lunch, which she ate before having the noon-nap with Abbie earlier. There was not anything that might have resembled what she had for breakfast. It had probably been too long.

She gave herself a minute while Abbie rested. She slept all night with Kate and half the day, usually the school half. But after taking Kate with her on the teleport, she would need a nap.

All Kate needed was her head to stop hurting. She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned against her dresser, still kneeling on the floor. After a minute, that felt like much longer, she stood slowly and started scooping the stuff on the carpet into the toilet before cleaning the wet spot. Once it seemed like the spot on the carpet was only water, she leaned against the bed on the floor. Her head was not any better, but it was not getting any worse.

After a time of the quiet, she heard the door downstairs open. Her father was with someone. She wondered of her knew where some painkillers were. She was not thinking straight, but she did not know this or to look for medicine sooner.

Kate made her way to the stairs, her father was moving around downstairs.

"The living room is on this side, the kitchen is in the back this way..." His voice trailed off into the back of the house, under her bedroom and behind the stairs.

Kate went down the stairs one at a time, she could not make-out any details. Just stairs, floor and wall. "Dad?"

Whoever it was in the back, they stopped talking.

"Dad?" She wiped her nose before taking the last step.

"Kate? We're in here." His voice sounded further away than the kitchen.

"Dad? I'm out here." She practically had to shout to hear herself. Her ears sounded full of water.

"Katherine, what's wrong?" A dark blur, her father was not in his lab coat, came out of the dining room. It was probably her father.

"Dad?" Where the hell is he? Her head was hammering, she needed to wipe her nose again. Her eyes were shut from the pain so she did not see the woman come in from behind her father. All she could hear was the water in her ears. All she could feel was the pain in her head and her anger in being left alone. She did not even feel her father and Abbie stopping her from hitting the floor.

All there was was the darkness, her pain and her anger. She had never given a second thought to where the anger had come from and she could not now that everything was gone.

-End of Chapter 1