Jasper ran all around the house cheering. "YEAH! GIL IS THE BEST POKÉMON TRAINER IN THE WORLD!"

His mother laughed. "Settle down Jasper."

Jasper sat down on the couch, still full of energy. "Mom, someday, I want to be just like Gil. I want to be the best Pokémon trainer in the world."

His mother stopped laughing and a frown actually formed on her face. "Well uh, Jasper, honey, can't you just settle for being the younger brother of the best?"

"No way mom! I'm going to be the best Pokémon trainer in the world just like Gil."

"But sweetie, if you did that then Gil wouldn't be the best trainer in the world anymore. You don't want to make him feel sad would you?"

"Gil wouldn't be sad if I beat him. He'd be proud of me."

Jasper's mother sighed and walked out of the living room with the basket of laundry. Jasper laced up his shoes and grabbed his backpack. He went to the laundry room to tell his mother that he was going out, but stopped and hid behind the doorway when he heard her talking on the phone.

"Yeah you did great today sweetie," She said obviously talking to Gil. "I'm very proud of you. Yes Jasper was watching; he always does. No, no complaints from the neighbors this year. Will you be able to come home? Oh I see. No I understand, you being famous and all. It's fine Gil, really. You're an adult and don't have to everything I say. Huh? You'll clear your schedule next month so I can visit? That's great! Yeah I'll let Jasper be surprised."

Jasper tried to refrain from giggling. He was very good at keeping secrets so he wouldn't let on he knew about his.

"Oh, and speaking of Jasper…I was hoping you can sit down and have a little talk with him. A big talk actually. No not THAT talk. He says he wants to be just like you. I know I should let him dream sweetie; but I don't want him to have dreams that he could never achieve."

Jasper couldn't believe what he was hearing. Whenever he told anyone that he wanted to be just like his big brother, they would either laugh or politely tell him that there was no way he could. But his own mother wasn't someone he'd expect to hear that from as well. He put his hands in his pockets and left the house.

"And plus…" His mother continued "If he tried to pursue that dream he'd leave home to be on his own. He's ten years old now, the age most kids leave when they want to become Pokémon trainers. I had a hard enough time letting you go; I don't think I could do the same with Jasper. So I was hoping you could come and talk Jasper out of it. Thanks sweetie that means a lot to me. See you next month. Love you too bye." She hung up the phone and finished putting the laundry away.

Jasper walked down the streets of Jubilife with his hands in his pockets as he kicked a discarded soda can. Then sight of the soda can reminded him of what he had originally set out to do in the first place. He rushed to the old park that nobody uses. It was old and run down; definitely not safe for children to play in. But Jasper had put it to another use.

"Absol!" He called out. Out of the woods behind the park an Absol pounced Jasper and started licking him affectionately. Absols are very rare in the Sinnoh region; this one had been brought over by Pokémon poachers. Jasper had found it along with other rare Pokémon when the poachers had set up camp outside of Jubilife. When the poachers had gone to sleep, Jasper snuck into the camp and let all the Pokémon loose. While the rest fled and went to live in the wild, Absol formed an attachment to him and stuck around.

"Ok Absol," Jasper said. "You ready for today's training?" Absol let out its cry and nodded. "Ok." Jasper took the soda can he was previously kicking and threw it in the air. "NIGHT SLASH!" The blade on the side of Absol's head started to glow black as it leaped into the air towards the can and used it to slash the can clean in half. "Alright!" Jasper cheered on. He took some more soda cans out of his backpack and set them all around the park. Then he took out a stop watch. "Ready, GO!" Absol took off around the park and used the blade on its head to slice all of the cans in half. When Jasper stopped the watch it read 47 seconds. "Awesome! You're so fast Absol!"

Then a noise from outside the city caught Jasper's ear. It sounded like it was coming from just beyond the forest. Curiosity getting the better of him, Jasper went into the forest to see what it was. He was shocked at what he found: two men putting the Pokémon of the forest in cages.

"Poachers!" Jasper said in disgust. But there was something different about these two Pokémon Poachers than the ones that he had found Absol with. They wore red uniforms with black M's on them. They looked like the band of thieves that Jasper learned about in history class. But these weren't any of the teams that he saw in the history book. It was probably a new team.

"Man," One of the poachers said to the other. "I'm tired of rounding up all of these Bid of."

"I know." The other said as he put a Bidoof into a cage. "Why do we even have to do this?"

"The boss said a rare Pokémon would most likely appear if we do."

"Well I hope one appears soon I'm getting bored."

"Yeah me too."

"Come on Absol," Jasper said. "We better go inform the…" But Absol, having developed a personal grudge against anyone who kidnaps Pokémon, leaped out of the bushes in rage at the poacher and used its night slash attack to break open the cages and let all of the Bidoof free.

Both of the poacher however just smirked.

"See what I tell you?" One said. "Not too often you find an Absol around these parts. This will surely please the boss." He pulled a Pokéball out of his pocket.

The other one stopped him. "Hey what are you doing? We don't need to battle it." He pulled out a bazooka-like weapon which fired a net at Absol, ensnaring it. "When we've got cool toys like this." Absol prepared to use its night slash to cut the net when the poacher smirked again. "I don't think so." He pressed a button on the net launcher which caused it to shock Absol and knock it out.

The other poacher pulled a radio out. "Hey we got one." He said into it. A few seconds later a large aircraft hovered over the sky. It dropped down a ladder which both the poachers used to climb up. Then the aircraft used a vacuum-like tube to suck Absol up.

"NO!" Jasper shouted. He ran and tried to pull the net down; but this only resulted in him being sucked up along with it.