Here's the second chapter. I have these as a series of one-shots on AO3, but it's easier to put it into story form here. So yeah.

Review if ya want, I guess? Please? I love criticism and comments and questions. I promise I'm friendly.

X

Malia, as it turned out, hated her Pokeball. Stiles found this out the hard way when he tried to recall her to it her first night home and ended up with his left leg scratched to hell and a buzzing in his ears from her high-pitched yowling. He cursed- that was probably gonna leave a scar- and she immediately bolted to hide under his bed, quaking in fear.

"Shh, shhh, it's okay," Stiles said soothingly, lying on the floor and trying to reach out to her. She cowered away from his touch, big brown eyes wide and terrified. Stiles felt like an asshole.

No, he felt like Jackson. Which…well. Much, much worse.

It took half an hour and half a bag of ginger snaps to get Malia to tentatively step out from under the bed, her fluffy tail tucked between her legs. He held out another ginger snap and she took it from him warily, retreating to sit a safe distance away from him. Stiles ran a nervous hand over his buzz cut.

"You'll never have to go in there again if you don't want to," he swore. Her ears pricked up slightly. "I don't know what happened to make you hate Pokeballs, but seriously. You can stay out here with me. Okay?"

He wasn't sure if she would understand him- he knew she normally did, but he was sure if she was still too horribly shaken by her Poke-panic attack to know what he was saying- but his meaning must have translated just fine. She sighed, as if relieved, and then carefully crawled onto his lap, taking one of his fingers between her teeth in a loose hold and looking up at him with wide eyes. He smiled at her encouragingly and she bit down a little harder, her tail thumping lightly against his legs.

"Time for bed, Chewbacca," he told her fondly, pulling her into his arms. She curled up on his chest, tucking her nose into the crook of his neck. It tickled, and he woke up with a mouthful of fur and a crick in his neck, but whatever.

It was the best night's sleep he'd ever had.

X

Scott and Stiles left home on a Tuesday. Their bags were packed, their new traveling boots broken in and comfortable, and their bellies full with Mrs. McCall's delicious goodbye meal. Stiles had even generously let his dad have a slice of the cake, though he had already enlisted Mrs. McCall and all of the deputies in the Sheriff's department to keep an eye out on his eating habits while Stiles was gone.

His dad would be so pissed when he found out.

Malia and Apollo frolicked ahead of them as they set off, chasing butterflies and pouncing on each other excitedly. They made good time that first day, setting up camp at the edge of the Preserve. The woods spanned for miles and miles, and were a dark and menacing backdrop against the night sky, but Stiles managed to get their tent up after only a few mishaps and it was easy enough to get a fire going with Apollo's helpful Ember. They sat around the fire that night slurping on soup and and traveler's bread, their Pokemon sprawled out and snoring by their sides.

"Dude," Scott said, eyes wide with wonder, "I think that we're gonna be good at this."

"Scotty," Stiles said, not even trying to smother his huge grin, "I think you're right."

It was supposed to take them three days to get to Silver City. It ended up taking them a week and a half.

Stiles should have known that everything would go to shit.

"We've walked past this tree like four times in the past hour," Scott supplied unhelpfully as Stiles tried in vain to figure out where the hell they were on his map, "I remember it because Apollo peed on it."

"Thank you for that extremely useful tidbit of information, Scotty," Stiles said, faux-cheery. He flipped the map upside down, hoping that would make it more readable.

It didn't.

"Dude, we're lost. I told you we should have gone to Beacon Hills instead of Silver City," Scott grumbled. Stiles rolled his eyes dramatically.

"We've been to Beacon Hills before, Scott!" Stiles retorted, "We went there for like every field trip we ever had in elementary school. Silver City is someplace new!"

Scott took a deep, calming breath. "Look," he said, "We're both stressed and tired of eating granola bars for every meal. Why don't we head over to the river we've passed at least seven times today and catch some fish for lunch? We'll probably feel better about everything with a full stomach."

Stiles smiled in spite of himself. He and Scott could never stay mad at each other for long, mostly because Scott was too dang adorable and reasonable for Stiles to ever hold a grudge. Besides, they were all famished; earlier he had caught Malia eyeing up a Pidgey flying overhead with a hungry look in her eyes, like she was planning on pouncing on it midair and eating it, feathers and all.

Whoever said Eevee were adorable, cuddly creatures was extremely mistaken. Well, okay, Malia was adorable and cuddly, but she was also terrifying.

Everyone left the terrifying part out.

"Spoken like a true McCall," Stiles finally said, "Let's do it. We can test out my dad's old fishing rods and then eat all our feelings."

Scott sighed, dreamily. "I love eating my feelings, dude," he said. Stiles just laughed.

X

Scott and Stiles split up when they got to the river, rationalizing that if one of them was in a bad fishing spot then the other might be a bit luckier. Stiles was hoping Scott was doing better than he was, because so far all he'd gotten was one measly little fish (which Malia had promptly snatched from him and swallowed whole, the greedy little jerk) and a whole bunch of Magikarp.

Fucking Magikarp.

"I think we're gonna have to call it a day," Stiles told Malia when the sun was starting to go down, "Hopefully Scott had better luck than we did." Malia chirped at him happily, pouncing on his foot. Stiles smirked and splashed her with some water, laughing when she hissed.

"You don't like water, huh?" he teased as she gave his ankle a vicious nip, "I guess that means you won't want to be a Vaporeon. There's only, oh, a million and a half other options for you to choose from."

He found Scott and Apollo about half a mile away, four fish already being cooked over a cheery fire. Stiles let out a whoop when he saw it and tackled Scott to the ground, kissing him dramatically on both cheeks.

"Scotty, you are the man!" Stiles said. Scott grinned up at him, victorious, and then they both groaned in pain when Malia and Apollo leaped on them because they decided they wanted to join in on the puppy pile. The four became a tangle of arms and legs and tails and laughter.

Apollo froze suddenly, hackles raised, and Stiles worried momentarily that he had accidentally squished the Growlithe's tail under his back in the fray. But the puppy Pokemon leaped away from them and barked viciously at something in the woods.

"Malia," Stiles murmured, and she immediately followed his unspoken command and stalked over to Apollo's side and bared her tiny teeth. The two Pokemon looked as fierce as they were able to- which, considering they were both adorable little fluffballs, was… not very fierce at all.

"Sorry, sorry!" a feminine voice called out, "I didn't mean to scare you!" A girl stepped out of the shadows, a sheepish smile on her face. She was extremely pretty, with wavy dark hair flowing down her back and pale, luminous skin. As she got closer, Stiles noticed a silverly little Pokemon with stubby legs lumbering behind her, staring at them curiously with huge blue eyes.

"It's, uh- yeah," Scott tried to say. He was staring at the girl as if she was an angel come down from heaven with an extra-large pepperoni pizza in one hand and a plate of double-stuffed oreos in the other. "Um… fish?"

The girl raised her eyebrows, obviously confused, and Stiles decided to take pity on his tongue-tied friend.

"Would you like to sit down and have dinner with us?" Stiles asked, Scott nodding his head energetically beside him, "That's what he was trying to say. We ran into a Pokemon who knew Confuse Ray a little while ago and it hasn't quite worn off yet." The girl laughed, and Stiles could practically hear Scott swooning next to him.

Oh boy.

"I'd love to!" she said, "My name is Allison, by the way. It's really nice to meet you." Her little Pokemon nudged her shin gently and she grinned down at it. "Oh! And this is Ace."

Scott pulled out his Pokedex, curious. "Aron, the Iron Armor Pokemon," the mechanical voice said helpfully, "Aron has a body of steel. With one all-out charge, this Pokémon can demolish even a heavy dump truck. The destroyed dump truck then becomes a handy meal for the Pokémon."

"Wow," Scott said, too impressed to remember his embarrassment, "You're a tough little guy, aren't you? That's awesome." Ace seemed pleased with this assessment, his eyes turning into little half moons. Scott smiled at Allison shyly. "Uh, I'm Scott and this is Stiles. And that's Apollo and Malia."

"Hello!" Allison said as she sat next to Scott, wiggling her fingers at the Pokemon. Apollo and Malia were already investigating Ace, sniffing him carefully. Apollo licked the little Pokemon on the side of the head, obviously excited to make a new friend, and Malia tried to nip him on the leg. She hissed angrily when she realized that the steel Pokemon's skin was too hard to bite down on. Ace sat through his initiation good-naturedly, watching the other two Pokemon with amusement.

Allison turned out to be one of the coolest people that Stiles had ever met. Not counting Scott, you know, because he was his BFF. Also not counting Lydia, because Stiles was still half-convinced that she was an immortal goddess who had temporarily taken on human form for some sort of strange science experiment. And also not counting the mysterious Derek Hale, who Stiles had only talked to for about three minutes. They were probably the hottest three minutes of Stiles' life, though, so… yeah.

Allison was nineteen. She liked archery, photography, and teasing Scott until he blushed an endearingly bright scarlet. She'd been homeschooled, so she hadn't taken the test to be matched with her perfect Pokemon partner; instead, her parents had given her Ace on her eighteenth birthday, because her family exclusively trained steel Pokemon. She had dimples when she smiled, which was often. She's pretty much exactly the kind of girl that Scott had always wanted to date.

Stiles is half-convinced that someone built Allison in a lab somewhere, because there is no way that Scott's dream girl could possibly exist outside the realm of his imagination. And yet… here she was.

Scott was such a lucky bastard.

"So you're from Silver City?!" Scott asked excitedly, "That's where we're going! Or, well, trying to go to. We got kinda lost."

"Terribly lost," Stiles interjects, "Horribly lost. I was resigned to never finding civilization again."

"It happens all the time," Allison said kindly, rubbing a hand down Apollo's back. He was lying next to her with his head in her lap, obviously already as smitten with her Scott was. Malia wasn't quite as trusting yet; she was a safe distance away from the newcomers, perched on Stiles' shoulder with her tail curled around the back of his neck. "I can show you how to get there in the morning, if you'd like."

"You're amazing," Scott said earnestly, and then it was Allison's turn to blush. They smiled at each other sweetly, their faces illuminated by the firelight.

Oh, Scott, Stiles thought, watching his friend talk animatedly to Allison, You are in so much trouble.

X

Silver City was awesome.

"Duuuuuuude," Scott breathed when the buildings came into view, gleaming brightly in the sunshine, "This is so. Freaking. Cool." Allison giggled.

"I'm glad you like it!" she chirped, linking her arms through Stiles and Scott's and marching them forward. They'd only known Allison for one night, but it already felt like she'd been their friend for years. Even Malia had warmed up to her, a bit (but only after Allison had bribed her with a brownie that she'd had in her backpack).

"I'm guessing you guys will want to stop by the Pokemon center to take a shower and rest up, right?" she asked. Scott nodded vigorously; he'd been find with peeing in the woods ("I am one with nature!" he'd screamed his first time doing his business in the bushes) but he had decidedly not been okay with taking baths in the freezing cold river. He'd been convinced that some sort of evil Pokemon was waiting to drag him under to his watery doom.

Which, yeah, okay, was probably Stiles' fault. He knew a lot of campfire horror stories, okay? It would have been a shame not to tell them when they were sitting around an actual campfire.

"I need to stop home to say hello to my parents, but I'll stop by the Pokemon Center around six, okay?" Allison said, "I can show you guys around the city after you rest up."

"That sounds great, Allison," Scott said, and, grinning at each other like fools, they dragged Stiles with them to the Pokemon Center.

X

It was pretty damn heavenly to take a real shower after so many days of roughing it in the woods.

It had taken some coaxing to get Malia to stay with Scott while Stiles took his shower; she'd been all gung-ho to hop in with him. At some point he was going to have to seriously try to break her of her dependency issues, but right now it was just adorable. Stiles had never known any creature that wanted to be around him all the time, and… it was pretty great.

He left the bathroom feeling cleaner than he had in days. The Pokemon Center also had a washer and dryer available for traveling trainers, so his clothes were clean and warm. He was in an awesome mood when he walked out to the Center's main lounge, grinning when Malia immediately bounded over to him and curled around his legs, purring happily.

Scott raced after her, eyes wild.

"Stiles," he said, "Something amazing happened."

"Did you and Allison make out while I was gone?" Stiles asked, only half-joking. Scott flushed and shook his head, but his eyes glazed over slightly. Stiles waited for him to speak for a few moments before sighing. "You're picturing it, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Scott said dreamily, "She's really pretty." He shook himself out of his daydream and then thrust a Pokeball into Stiles' hands, grinning victoriously. "I just got my second Pokemon!"

"What?!" Stiles yelped, almost dropping the Pokeball, "Dude, did you go back into the forest without me? The only Pokemon we found in the woods were Caterpie, man. I thought you didn't want any bug Pokemon!"

"I didn't go back into the woods!" Scott said, rolling his eyes, "I was hanging out in the lounge with Malia and Apollo, right? And I met this guy, and we talked for a while, and he said he was selling some Pokemon around town and he had one left. Anyways, he ended up selling it to me for a cheaper price because it's kinda smaller and is sorta sick-looking, which really sucks, but I figure that I'd be the best person to nurse it back to health because my mom is a nurse. Right?"

"Whoa, dude, slow down," Stiles said, frowning, "Why don't you show me this Pokemon so we can see what's wrong with it, okay?" He handed Scott the Pokeball back and waited while his friend aimed it at the ground.

Stiles wasn't sure what he was expecting, but… it certainly wasn't this.

"You bought a fucking Magikarp?!" Stiles hissed, watching the fish flop uselessly on the ground. Scott was right- it was smaller than most of the Magikarp he had seen, and it's scales were an odd yellowish color as opposed to the orange it was supposed to be. "Dude, they're the most useless Pokemon to ever exist. I can't believe you spent money on that."

Scott frowned at him, and then reached down to rub a gentle hand down the Magikarp's scales. It's eyes half closed in pleasure and it gurgled at Scott happily. Stiles groaned.

"Oh God," he said, "You've already bonded. There's no way you'll get your money back now."

"I don't want my money back," Scott said staunchly, "Poseidon is going to be a great part of my team, and you're practically his uncle so you need to love him too. Okay?"

Stiles grimaced, but he reached a hand out to pat Poseidon (really, Scott?) gently on his tail. "Welcome to the family, little buddy," he said grudgingly. It was worth the indignity (ugh, his scales were slimy) to have Scott smile at him gratefully.

The rest of the afternoon passed by uneventfully; well, there was a close call when Malia stared at Poseidon with hungry eyes, licking her lips in anticipation, but Stiles was quick to nip that in the bud ("We do not eat our friends, Malia!"). They stocked up on supplies in the Pokemart next door and video chatted with their parents; Scott held Poseidon up for his mom to see, grinning proudly when she exclaimed over his coloring.

"He's not sick, Scott, he was just born that way," she explained, "Oddly colored Pokemon are very rare. You're very lucky to have found him."

Stiles rolled his eyes. Of course Scott would luck into a rare Pokemon. Of course.

Magikarp were still useless, though.

X

Allison showed up promptly at six, dressed in new clothes and with Ace at her side. She showed them around the city, telling them funny stories about the people they walked by. Stiles noticed that there weren't a lot of people their age hanging around; everyone they passed was either middle-aged or very young. Allison must have been lonely. It would explain why she attached herself to them so quickly.

She took them to an awesome pizza place, where they all shared a pepperoni pizza and some delicious garlic bread. The owner even made their Pokemon some personal Poke-pizzas on the house (he gave Ace a few aluminum cans, which he munched on eagerly), which literally had Apollo and Malia eating out of his hand.

Obviously, Pokemon (like Scott) were won over through their stomachs.

"I was thinking I'd challenge the Argent gym leader tomorrow," Scott said, sneaking a hand under the table to feed Apollo a piece of pepperoni, "I probably won't win, but it will be good experience for us."

"I'll watch you, see how you do, and then think about whether we're up to challenge him or not," Stiles joked. Allison was frowning, an expression that didn't suit her. She had a face meant for smiling. "Hey, Ally, what's wrong?"

She startled at the nickname before smiling at Stiles, pleased. "Oh," she said, "Well, um, actually- the gym is closed right now."

"Seriously?" Scott groaned. Apollo whined from under the table, sensing Scott's distress. Allison shrugged delicately.

"You wouldn't have won anyways," she said, not unkindly, "You'll have a better chance against the gym in Beacon Hills."

"How do you know?" Scott asked, pouting slightly. Allison laughed.

"I suppose I forgot to tell you my last name," she said, smiling widely, "My name is Allison Argent. My family runs the gym here. And if you guys let me travel with you to Beacon Hills I will make sure you're in perfect fighting shape to challenge the gym leader there." She leaned over the table, staring at them (well, staring at Scott) intently. "What do you say?"

Scott and Stiles glanced at each other, silently communicating in the way that all best friends know how to do. In the end, though, it wasn't a question for either of them; Scott was already smitten, and Stiles thought Allison was pretty great, too (in a completely platonic way, though- Stiles has already met his dream man). Besides… people like Allison shouldn't be lonely, and she so obviously was in Silver City.

"Welcome to the team," Stiles finally said, and the combined power of Scott and Allison's smiles could rival the sun, "Can you be ready to leave by tomorrow?"