Chapter 1. Daphne and Roy.

I cupped my home phone in my hands and let out a sigh. I'd intended to call earlier in the day, I really had. But I kept thinking of other things I had to do and it had just… been swept to the side. Now, with my cardboard-flavored pizza long finished and night falling, I knew I had to get this over with or it would be put off until tomorrow again.

My hand drifted over to the number keypad and I momentarily enjoyed the novelty of dialing a number that I could actually remember instead of using my contacts feature. I held it up to my ear and let it ring.

After the second ring, the channel opened. "Hello?" said a voice on the other side.

I took a deep breath and summoned up some insincere energy and cheer. "Hi, sis!" I chirped. "How you doing?"

There was a long, suspicion-laden pause. Finally the voice replied: "Milly… are you doing another book?"

I froze. Somehow I'd tipped my hand from the start. "…Why would you think that, Daph?" I asked in a would-be casual voice.

"Because you don't call me 'sis,'" she reasoned. "So I thought maybe you were trying to introduce me or something. You know, as a character."

"What? No! I would never do something so… so cheap and lazy!" I insisted in mock-offense. I pause for a moment. "…But seriously, I am doing another book. Wanna come along? Or are you busy?"

I prayed she wouldn't be busy. I hadn't bothered to make a list of coercible traveling companions yet because it was clear that Daph would top the list. If she said no then I'd need to make a list.

"Umm… maybe, actually," Daphne answered, ballooning my hopes. I heard a rustling from the other end of the line that might've been her shuffling through her day-planner. "I've got to do a wedding at the end of the week, but after that I'm pretty much free. This isn't another ghost thing, is it?"

My loyal reader(s?) will recall my sister Daphne accompanied me during the writing of Haunts of the Pokemon World, playing the dual-role of photography expert and sole voice of reason.

"Nope, not at all," I answered. "It's actually about the Pokemon League."

"Really? You?" she asked in a tone I've decided to not let offend me. "Well, I guess that could be interesting," she admitted. "Will I get to use any of my frequent flyer miles?"

I sucked in air through my teeth. This was the part of the pitch I'd been most worried about, beyond the prospect of Daph simply being too busy to come along. We'd flown to all the major continents during Haunts of the Pokemon World, but for this subject…

"I'm afraid not," I admitted. "We'll basically be visiting points of interest all around Johto… but we'll be walking."

"Seriously?" she asked. "You don't even like hiking. Why can't we drive?"

"Well, we're trying to get that real Pokemon journey experience," I explained, shifting position in my armchair so that my legs were underneath me. "And trainers just starting out don't drive."

"Rich older ones do," Daphne pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, but if I was going to talk about the rich kid Pokemon trainer experience, then I'd just buy some rare Pokemon, pay someone to train them, sit back and sunbathe poolside. That doesn't make a great book."

"But it would make a good teen drama," Daph quipped.

I groaned. "They probably already have one like that. But that's not the point, anyway. Do you think you could—"

My words were cut off by heavy breathing, as though someone on the line had their mouth too close to the receiver. I say "someone," but it was more like "something." It was a high voice, strange and ethereal. There was a rasp to it—a dread.

"…What the hell is that?" Daph asked, voice heightening in concern.

"Just a second," I apologized. I turned to glare into my darkening house. "Misdreavus! Get off the line! That's not funny!"

The breathing stopped. There was a click from upstairs as though the phone by my bed was being slotted back into its cradle.

There was dumfounded silence from my sister's end. "…Why is your Pokemon using the phone?" she finally asked.

"Oh, Misdreavus is just trying to convince me that dead people are calling the house," I said, running a hand through my hair in mild annoyance.

"I see," Daphne responded. "That's… terrifying."

"I know, right?" I said. "I couldn't sleep for days until I figured out that—"

"Not that," Daphne interrupted. "I just imagined what would happen if Snubbull figured out how to order pizza."

I tried to picture the blubbery little snaggle-toothed monstrosity. "He would eat until he died," I concluded. "But he would die happy."

"Anyway, my badly behaved ghost and your fat dog aside," I launched back in, "what do you say about taking the old Johto journey with me?"

There was a tense silence. "Well…" she trailed off. "Okay. I suppose I can't let you out there all by yourself to get eaten up by an Ursaring."

"Of course," I said, after I'd finished my silent cheer. "If anyone's going to get eaten by an Ursaring we should do it together."

"Hey, I was just thinking," Daphne cut-in, ignoring my proposed Ursaring death-pact, "Can I bring Roy along?"

I let out a scoff before I'd managed to properly contain it. "Him? Doesn't he have to work?" I asked, not caring a wit for Daphne's boyfriend's work schedule but caring much more than a wit over an excuse not to bring him along.

"He got let go from the Poke Mart a few weeks ago," Daphne answered regretfully.

"What? No. I can't imagine them letting such a valuable worker slip away," I deadpanned. "But surely someone with his skill-set will find a new job in no time. I hear McMiltank's is hiring. I wouldn't want to get in the way of him landing his dream job."

"I think he could actually be a big help to you, Milly," Daphne insisted. "He went on a Pokemon journey when he was younger. And like a real journey. Not the thing you did that didn't even last a week."

"I don't see why we're making arbitrary judgments on what is and isn't a journey," I blustered.

But I knew there was really no getting around the Roy-issue. And it'd be worth it just to get Daph to come along. I tried to console myself with the idea that if there did happen to be an Ursaring attack, they'd probably go for Roy first. After all, he eats a lot of beef jerky. He's probably much more delicious than me or Daphne.

"Alright, fine," I relented. "He can come too."

Consider graduation. At the end of high school and college it really means something. It's the culmination of a lot of time, effort and money—a worthy achievement. Elementary school and junior high graduations, however, always seemed to me to be just an excuse for parents to dress their kids up in embarrassing clothes and take pictures of them. Turns out I was wrong. Elementary school graduation ceremonies aren't a waste of time at all. After all, for many of the graduates, it'll be the last diploma that they'll ever get.

Despite the fact that trainer's licenses can be received as early as age ten, the most common age of new trainers, according to the multi-regional Juniper-Hvam study, is twelve. These would be the kids whose parents insist that their children at the very least develop a few math skills and basic reading comprehension, but don't value education enough to make them go anywhere beyond that. Or perhaps they do value education more than that, but just want their kids out of the house before they enter the grotesque stage of puberty? If that's the case, then it's not like I can really blame them for that.

Grade-school graduation as a standard is not as silly as it sounds. Oh, sure, most high-paying jobs are still situated at the higher end of the education spectrum. But among low-paying jobs, higher consideration is given to applicants that at the very least completed grade school, and even more to those who made it all the way through junior high without bugging out to catch 'em all.

Let us consider Roy a sort of exhibit A; a trainer with a very tiny leg-up on those who started at age ten; a trainer whose last school experience over a decade ago was in the fifth grade.

When Daphne first started dating him he kept talking about studying up, about taking some equivalency tests and saving up for night school—about getting out of his dead-end income bracket somehow.

I don't hear a lot of talk from him about that nowadays, and I'm not exactly holding my breath to see him in a graduation gown and a mortarboard. I'm far more used to seeing him in the same attire he was wearing as Daphne and I walked into his apartment so that we could all go out shopping for supplies for our expedition around Johto.

He wore a grey sweatshirt with a faded red insignia for some sports team I was only vaguely aware of and a pair of jeans that looked like they were on their sixth day. He sat on the floor, a game controller in his hands. A glance at the television screen didn't tell me what game he was playing, only that it involved shooting people and then humping their corpses.

"G'morning, Roy," Daphne greeted him, striding over and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey, Daffy," he returned, grinning at the attention.

I wrinkled my nose. I'd always hated that little pet-name of his. Just what sort of term of endearment is "Daffy" anyway? It sounds more like an insult than anything. I just hope he doesn't decide to go around calling me "Millipede" or "Silly Milly" or some such thing. But then again, Roy probably isn't likely to label me with any terms of endearment. Lucky me.

"Long time, no see, Roy," I said, trying to be polite.

"Yeah," was all he said.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what she sees in him. …Alright, that's a lie. I at least know part of what she sees in him—such as the lightning-fast metabolism, the noticeably-in-use gym membership, the silky hair not entirely ruined by the gobs of hair gel he puts into it, and the prominent hazel eyes. But despite Daphne's eye for… aesthetics, I know deep down that she's not shallow enough to date Roy solely because of that. I'm just not sure what, if anything, of value lies beyond.

Certainly it couldn't have been neatness. All around the main room of the apartment were empty bowls and glasses. A coffee mug with the remnants of milk and cereal from that morning's breakfast signaled that dishwashing couldn't be put off for too much longer.

There was an empty box of pizza on the floor too—greasy around its cardboard edges. I wanted to use it as an excuse to be hypocritically grossed out by the way Roy kept house, but instead the smell from it just made me crave pepperoni.

"We going out to lunch first or the store?" Roy asked, perhaps reading my mind.

"Lunch," I answered immediately, not taking my eyes off the pizza box. "Let's go to Pippa's Pizza."

"Nah, I had pizza last night," Roy answered, holding down a button on his game controller to shut the console down.

My stomach growled wildly. "I had no idea," I responded.

We didn't get pizza because why should the person paying for the meal have any say in where it comes from? Instead I found myself girding my burger from the Snubbull sitting in the booth across from me, wedged between Daphne and the window. It stared intently over the arm I'd placed protectively between my plate and the dog. It licked its pink jowls covetously.

"…Don't you think that would be nice?" Daphne was saying.

"What?" I asked, snapping to attention. What can I say? Burger-girding takes a lot of focus.

"I was saying you guys should bring out your Pokemon too," Daphne repeated. "That way we can all eat together," she added, chewing on a fry.

"No way," Roy answer, his burger halfway to his mouth. "I'm not going to feed my team this junk," he continued, taking a large bite into the burger and letting a mixture of melted cheese and onion grease slide the meat down his throat.

"Umm…" I hesitated. I fished around in my purse for the Poke Ball. "I suppose we can give this another try."

"Miss!" Misdreavus cheered as he burst from his container in a flash of light. As always, his hair seemed to be blown by wind from some other plane of existence, independent of this world's atmospheric conditions.

Daphne's Snubbull glared at Misdreavus, apparently annoyed that he wasn't edible.

"Now, don't you reanimate anyone's food this time," I ordered him. "And for the love of all that's holy, stay out of the girls' bathroom."

Misdreavus let out a noise like a backwards sneeze that I hoped indicated that he intended to be good this time. The way he eyed the crowd worried me, though. It had an air of "Oooh, fresh meat!" about it.

"Still having trouble getting him to behave?" Daphne asked, stroking Snubbull's fat-folds idly.

Roy nearly choked on his burger. "That thing's a guy?!" he asked.

"Yeah, he's a guy," I answered. Even for the relatively brief period of time I'd owned Misdreavus, I'd gotten too used to this question to be properly annoyed at the assumption anymore. For Misdreavus's part, however, he blinked his long eyelashes at Roy and narrowed his pupils icily.

"If there were only girl Misdreavus, then there would be a lot of baby Misdreavus," Daphne added, attempting to be helpful. The problem with that argument is that most people are pretty uncomfortable with the thought of ghosts breeding in the first place.

"If he's a guy, then why do you dress him like that?" Roy asked. His mouth hung open suspiciously, as though he was convinced I was trying to purposefully emasculate the poor creature to push forward some hyper-feminine agenda. He crossed his legs under the table, as though fearing his potent manhood might force me into a random act of castration.

All I'm saying is that attitude is a little rich considering his girlfriend started her photography career by dressing up her very male Snubbull like a fairy princess.

"I didn't dress him any way," I answered coldly.

"What about that necklace?" he asked, gesturing with a fry.

"It's a chain," I insisted, using the term that I most hoped would restore my Pokemon's challenged manliness. "And anyway, that's part of his body. It's how he absorbs nutrients."

"Well… it's still weird," Roy trailed off, ending his flawless argument with a slurp of his straw.

"Misdreavus is a little weird," Daphne agreed with a smile, "but in the best possible way."

Misdreavus beamed at her. She probably didn't know it, but with that comment she'd likely put herself last on his list of people to dick around with. I was pretty sure Roy had landed number one. But then again, I think I'll always be Misdreavus's favorite.

"What's really weird is that you have that thing in the first place," Roy countered, addressing me. "No offense, but you seem like a Bellsprout would be about all you could handle."

"Actually, she used to have a Bellsprout," Daphne put in.

"Used to?" Roy asked as I winced. "What happened to it?"

"I… forgot to water it," I admitted in a mumble.

"You what?" Roy repeated, mortified. "You're saying you killed a Bellsprout?"

"I didn't kill anything!" I retorted. I'd like to say that my anger wasn't guilt-based, but that would be telling a lie—and telling a lie would make me feel guiltier (and therefore angrier). "It just got a little…"—I searched around for the right word—"wilted. Mom made me give him to a shelter and that was that."

I sunk morosely onto the table, beyond caring at this point that Snubbull was clawing his way toward my pickle spear. "Anyway, it's not my fault. I was ten. Give me a break—it's not like kids that age are that conscientious. People give their kids pets hoping it'll teach them responsibility, without thinking that the pet might prefer that his new owner was already responsible."

Roy shrugged. "I handled my Pokemon just fine when I was twelve, and that's not much older."

"Well, good for you," I snapped. "Anyway," I went on, trying to brighten up by drawing my self-esteem from the present instead of the past, "Misdreavus is the much better fit for me."

"Misdreavus!" Misdreavus cooed from the midair.

"See, Misdreavus and I have a symbiotic relationship," I explained. "Since his kind nourishes themselves on fear, I don't even have to take time out of my schedule to feed him. He gets all the nutrition he needs from my neuroses."

"That's not a symbiotic relationship," Daphne corrected, a little too amused. "That's a parasitic relationship."

I opened my mouth, but suddenly found myself stuck for a response.

Misdreavus looked at me doubtfully. "Miss?"

"Hey, she gets something out of it," Roy commented. "She gets to pretend she knows something about Pokemon."

I resisted letting out a sigh. It didn't surprise me that we'd come to that. After all, Roy had pretty much made up his mind about both my writing and my knowledge of Pokemon from a rather biased, second-hand account of my article on Pokemon Centers. I like to think of this as a good thing because it means I can write whatever I want about him and he won't read it.

"Seriously, mind telling me why you're the one writing a book about the Pokemon League instead of someone who's actually, like, won badges and stuff?" Roy pressed.

I ran my finger through the ring of condensation that my glass had left on the table, smearing lines of it into no discernible pattern. "There have been a lot of books about the League written by winners. I figure there's room enough for one by a loser."

I looked up at him in time to see him shaking his head slightly at me. "Besides that," I went on, "it's not like I'm writing a guidebook or anything, so being a champion battler really isn't the point. I'm not writing this book to give people advice on how to be better competitors or how to beat the leaders."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Why else would you write it?"

Over the past few months I'd read every book I could get my hands on about the Pokemon League. There are plenty of historical accounts of the establishment, but the bestsellers have always been personal accounts of high-level trainers, either talking about their experiences in a biographical sense or giving advice to would-be champs. The problem is that most people see the League as a thing that exists only to be beaten—any information that doesn't pertain to beating it is superfluous. To think of it as a historical institution, an economic driving force, or the master shaper of our society is… well, a waste of time, isn't it? Why would someone even bother when they could be jotting down trainer's tips?

"For context," I answered.

"Context?" Roy repeated, puzzled.

"Yes, Roy," I affirmed, nonchalantly slapping Snubbull's paw away from my fries. "Context."

A few frantic packing, unpacking and repacking-filled days later and I found myself trying in vain to get into a comfortable position on my bus seat. Daphne and I had decided to let Roy worry about getting the gear the woman at the camping store had convinced us to buy for our trip into the luggage rack.

I hadn't slept the night before and was hoping to get some sleep on the bus. It was going to be a long, long trip New Bark Town. In the midst of my discomfort I was starting to regret not flying us there. But the distance hadn't seemed worthwhile, and New Bark didn't even have an airport so we'd have ended up driving at least part of the way. So I'd decided a Grey Houndoom bus was our best option.

"It still kinda seems like cheating," Daphne complained, sinking down into the seat next to me. "I mean, you were the one who said from the start that we had to walk it—like real trainers."

"We will walk," I insisted, "once we get there. We're only just driving to the starting line, that's all."

"New Bark, really?" Daphne asked, wrinkling her nose. "It's just such a small place. Even if we wanted to start at Violet City since it's supposed to have the easiest gym, we could just go up Route 35 and head toward the Ruins of Alph and then just circle back through."

I nodded grimly. This had been my original idea and it would've cut the time we had to be on the road by a not insignificant amount. But we weren't on the little quest to shave seconds off our commute. We were there to be thorough, damn it. At least, that's what I'd told my coffee this morning when it tried to talk me into skipping New Bark Town altogether. In the delirium of early morning, coffee can be very persuasive, but I managed to resist. Barely.

"New Bark may not have a gym, but it's still important," I replied. "It's one of those small towns that's managed to pump out quite a few well-known competitors, including our last champion. And anyway… that's where Professor Elm is."

"And he knows we're coming?" Daphne asked. She'd made it clear in the past that she didn't think surprise interviews were completely fair. I have grudgingly admitted that she has a point.

"Yeah. Already set up the interview," I answered.

I looked around at the filling bus. We'd be sharing the same air for the next sixteen hours and I wasn't sure if I liked the look of all of them.

"I just figured it'd be a good idea to start with the starters," I finished lamely. Funny, but it didn't seem like a good idea anymore.