"Irresponsible." I muttered resentfully as I made my way through the underbrush, "I may be seventeen and know a lot about pokemon, but I'm still a minor."

"Hold on to the bugger!" Someone shouted ahead of me.

"I'm trying!" Another shouted back, "It's hard to carry it when it thrashes around!"

I hurried after the noise, coming into a clearing and found two men wearing black uniforms with a red "R" on the chest of each of their shirts. One was struggling behind the other, trying to hold onto a small orange lizard with a flame on the end of its tail.

"Then knock the stupid thing out!" The first, growing rather impatient, shouted. The other frowned and held out his hands, showing how full they were trying to keep the Charmander under control. The first man walked up to the struggling Charmander and knocked it on the head. The pokemon went limp and the second thanked the first.

"Hey!" I shouted and made my presence known. "Leave that pokemon alone!"

"Oh, great. A witness." The first said in an exasperated tone. He looked at me and said. "I guess we just have to battle this out."

"Without pokemon." I said. The man seemed surprised. "I... I'm not actually a trainer... yet." I explained.

The man smiled wickedly. "You think I'd battle someone myself?"

"Do you think you'd lose?" I asked and held my arms wide. "I'm just a girl." Who is also a martial artist, but I wouldn't tell them that.

The man holding the pokemon muttered to the other something. The first man shouted. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"I think you're weak." I said.

"I wasn't talking to- wait... Weak?" The man shouted at me.

I smirked and turned away. "You're scared to fight a girl half your age. You're weak."

"I'm not that old." He grumbled. "Fine. But you brought this upon yourself!" He cracked his knuckles and came at me with a punch. He was too far though and I didn't even have to move. He tried again, this time a hook punch. I ducked down and hit him with a thrust punch to the groin. The man stumbled back and doubled over. His groan became a growl. "I'll kill you, kid!" He then came after me again, trying to punch me in the face with a (poor) front-two-knuckle punch. Before he made it to me, I kicked out and hit him square in the chest. Had this been sparring, he would have stopped. And I expected him to, but he kept coming. His attacks became easier to see (and to block) and much tenser. He moved in such wide arcs that it seemed like I was sparring someone going at 1/4 speed, either that or I was too used to sparring with my brother; his quarter speed is my half speed. I blocked and dodged a few of his attacks until I found a perfect opening. I came in with three jabs to the nose and a thrust punch to the solar plexus. He stumbled back and held his bleeding nose.

"Had enough?" I taunted, flipping my waist-long chestnut brown hair off my shoulder. "Or do you still think you can beat me?"

"Who are you?" The man holding the limp charmander asked.

"I'm no one you should trifle with. That is all you ever need know." I smiled, quoting the Princess Bride.

He gave me a confused look. I was about to explain, but the man I thought I finished fighting came in with a punch to my ear. My head was ringing, but I've been hit there before by my brother enough times that it didn't stop me from fighting. Who knew that brat could be helpful? I came back at him with a kick. He grabbed my leg and held it up, as my brother often did when I kicked out at him. I chambered my leg and it came out of his grasp, he looked down at his hand and I kicked out with a heel-thrust kick to his knee. He fell, but was far from out. The Rocket grunt grabbed a long stick near him and came with it at me over head. I shot under his arm as he swung, grabbing the shirt on his back and came up with three rising knees to his groin. After the third I let him go and I stepped off to the side, facing him. He fell to his knees, growling and repeating his threat.

I shrugged. "If that's the case, get up and fight."

"Aren't you even tired?" The man holding the charmander asked.

I kept my attention on the man kneeling, "Not really. I've done this before." That wasn't quite true, on either case, but I felt like it made me more intimidating.

"You know martial arts, don't you?"

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner, what do we have for him, Johnny?" I asked sarcastically, enjoying my advantage.

The man on the ground got up and held his hands up in en garde. "Now I mean business, kid."

"Should have done that earlier." I retorted, also taking an en garde stance. From the corner of my eye, I could see Charmander regaining consciousness. The man holding him also noticed and began to mumble incoherently, which caused the first man to lower his guard and look over at him.

"What is it now?"

"Charmander's waking up."

"Then make him fall asleep aga-."

I hit the man I was fighting with a leopard strike to the neck; he fell down unconscious. "Like that?" I asked the unconscious man on the ground then looked up at the man holding the charmander. "You have three options. One. You could put the charmander down and fight me. Two. You could run off without the charmander. Three. You could run off with the charmander and I would catch up to you and beat the shiitake mushrooms out of you." I told him, counting the options on my fingers.

The man laughed nervously, dropped the charmander and ran off, shouting, "Team Rocket's blasting off again!"

I smirked, "They actually use that phrase? Hah. That's funny." A glimpse of movement brought my attention down to the ground. Charmander was looking at me from a short distance, seemingly unsure of what to make of me. I knelt down, keeping myself as straight as I could and smiled. "Hey little guy. Are you OK?" The little lizard pokemon, seeing I was friendly, rubbed his head a little, probably where the man hit him. "He hit you pretty hard, didn't he?" Charmander nodded. I leaned over and kissed the spot that Charmander was previously rubbing. I came back up and smiled, "All better?" The little lizard blushed so deeply that his whole body seemed scarlet, well, more so. I giggled. "I'll take that as a 'yes'." Then I winked "Unless you want another one." Charmander held up his little hands in defense. I laughed good naturedly. "I'm just teasing you." The pokeballs in my pocket shook a little, reminding me that they were there. I took one out and held it to charmander. "Do you want to be my pokemon?" The little lizard pokemon looked at me then at the ball. He then smiled and poked the button. The ball shook once... twice... three times... then clicked. I took the pokeball and a symbol of a flame appeared right above the button. Pressing the button, charmander came back out, still smiling. "Well now, Charmander, I guess I could give you a name..."

"Nah, Charmander's fine with me." He smiled. My eyes widened and I managed to stifle a squeak of surprise.

"You talk..?" I asked a little freaked out.

"There's a mental bond between a pokemon and its trainer, so yes and no. I can't talk to other humans, just to you." Charmander explained.

"Oh-kaaaaaaay. That makes sense." not. The man I knocked out began to groan. "Uh... We should go before he wakes up."

"Yeah. Good idea." Charmander nodded. I let him climb onto my shoulder before running back to camp.

Charmander looked around my cave and remarked, "How did you find a cave so well carved out?"

"Well... I didn't find it, per se. There's an object called a digger drill that can cut out rooms like this in stone." I explained.

"Seriously? That's awesome!" Charmander smiled. "So, where do I sleep?"

I looked at my bed, "I guess you could sleep with me. Neither of us take up that much space."

"You're bed's a little high up." Charmander commented and tried to climb up into it. He managed to, after a few tries and lots of struggling. "Is there a way that I can get up here easier?"

I glanced over at the PC on the floor, getting a silent idea. "Actually, there is." I sat down in front of it and turned it on. The familiar screen opened up. I clicked on "Decorate" and "Chairs". I chose one that kinda matched the bed and set it at its back, facing away from it. The little disc came out of the computer. Charmander was following the disc with his eyes, a confused look on his face. The fire lizard fell backwards in surprise when the chair popped out. The disc came back to the PC completely unnoticed by him. I chuckled at the little lizard as he tried to make words of what just happened.

"How did that chair pop out of that little... whatever it was?!"

"Honestly, no clue. It just does, and I don't ask questions." I shrugged. "Though it does make decorating this place much easier."

"Yeah... I can tell." Charmander muttered. He climbed over the back of the chair and hopped onto the cushion then down to the floor. "Getting down is easy enough." He then climbed onto the cushion then navigated his way onto the bed, onto which he sat down on the edge closest to me. "It works pretty well."

"Great." I smiled then looked away. "Now what do you want to do?"

Charmander shrugged. "I dunno."

"Hmm... well, I brought a couple games." I offered. Charmander climbed off of the bed as I walked over to my bags in the middle of the floor. I took my heavy duffle bag into the corner and zipped it open. I found a deck of playing cards and for the rest of the day I was teaching Charmander go fish, kings in the corner, trash, and solitaire. We played a few rounds of each game until one of us got bored of it. Mary soon came around calling curfew, so charmander climbed into bed and fell asleep while I got into my pajamas: a T-shirt and yellow with blue star footies. I daydreamed a bit, wandering around the room for a half hour or so before climbing into bed. It took me a long while to fall asleep (per the norm) but once I did, I fell into a deep sleep.

(A/N Tecy: Word of advice to those who don't take self-defense classes: Take them. Not only is it good in case you DO get attacked, but it also makes writing fight scenes seem more authentic.

And, yes, I do take Karate. This is not me giving myself special abilities. I really do know how to fight.)