"Stupid island. Stupid blond guy. Stupid Rei. Stupid stupid stupid…" I mumbled to myself as I got my stuff together.

It was the morning after I had arrived on this island. The night wasn't that bad. There was a small fireplace in the little house and all my Pokémon helped gather wood even Meowth helped (after I told him he would sleep outside if he didn't). I slept in the sleeping bag that was with the supplies I was given when I got here. It wasn't as comfy as my bed but I've slept in worse places. This morning I put out the fire and rounded everyone up before venturing into the dense forest that seemed to cover the island.

I hiked through the forest with Bre, Galvantula, Serperior and Meowth, while Torch and Articuno circled overhead almost until the sun set and for the record, tropical islands aren't paradise. They are hot and humid and generally unpleasant. I finally decided it was late enough to call it a day and started looking for a place to make camp. I heard running water nearby and figured some fresh water would be nice after sweating all day so I headed toward it. What I found was a natural spring. There was a rock face about 7 feet tall that had of crystal clear water spouting from the cracks into a pool that fed a stream. I immediately put my head in the running water to cool off.

"Hey, there."

I jumped back startled, "What the –" There was a twenty something guy sitting on top of the rock formation looking at me, "Who are you?" I asked the guy. He looked kinda like a hippie. He was barefoot and wore some raggedy jeans and a baja hoodie. His brown hair fell messily over his glasses and he had a short scruffy beard.

"That my friend is an excellent question," and then went on a bit of a tangent, "I mean who is anyone? And what's it mean really? A name? A title? And who decides who you are? You? Your parents? The universe?"

"I meant what's your name and what are you doing here?"

"Oh, in that case it was a very stupid question," He seemed to seamlessly switch from out there hippie to condescending adult very quickly.

I got a little angry with him, "Why is that?"

"Because, I'm sure you were told that there were only three of us on this island all three of which are only here to test you and if you don't already know my name that means blondie greeted you and you know names aren't that important for your tests." He just stared at me for a moment, "But if it's that important to you, My name is William, and this big guy here is Venusaur." William then turned around and patted the Venusaur behind him. The reason I hadn't noticed said Venusaur was it was GREEN. Not their usual bluish green but lime green and it blended in with the foliage.

"Whuuu?" I made an odd noise and stared with my mouth open. In the years I had been a trainer never had I seen something like this.

"Oh, you're unfamiliar with this phenomenon? Strange, I just assumed being the Champion you would be more knowledgeable," I swear he was mocking me, "I guess it's not surprising. It is rather rare. You see, my Venusaur here has a very rare gene. It is a genetic mutation that appears in about every 8000 Pokémon. The lay term for a Pokémon with this gene is 'Shiny' and other than their color it doesn't affect them at all." This guy was strange. He looked like a hippie, but talked like some kind of know it all geek.

"Ok. I get it. So what's the test. I wanna get this over with as quickly as possible." I brushed off the weirdness of this guy and got to the point.

He smiled at me in a weird way, "Oh, this is gonna be fun."

"What do you mean?"

"Your first lesson starts now. Sit down. Shut up."

"How is that a lesson!" I shouted at him and he just climbed on the back of the "shiny" Venusaur, leaned back and closed his eyes.

This was just the beginning. For three days he didn't do anything. He would have the grass types (two of them, a Gogoat and a Lilligant apparently also had the shiny gene) bring some food every day for us. It was driving me crazy (Meowth on the other hand was loving it). Sometimes he would get up and move to a new position, but he never did anything but nap and never moved more than 10 yards from that Venusaur who by the way actually didn't move at all for the whole three days. Whenever I would say something about the lesson he would calmly tell me, "Chill out. Relax."

Finally, during the fourth day of doing absolutely nothing I exploded like a pissed off Electtrode, "Come on! For the love of Arceus, just tell me what I need to do!"

He just sat there playing with a twig and said, "Relax,"

"We've done nothing but relax for three days!"

"No. I've been relaxing. You have been… well I don't know, but it's definitely not relaxing."

That was it I had had enough, "Fine! If you won't tell me I'll go find one of the other two and maybe they'll actually test me!" I started gathering my stuff.

"Being the Champion doesn't give you much free time does it?" He, still playing with the twig absentmindedly, asked me.

The question was a little odd and it caught me off guard, "Huh?"

"I mean you might not have challengers everyday like a Gym Leader, but then you have to make appearances and deal with the public as well as keep up with the Elite Four and what not so I would think you don't get much time to yourself."

"Well, I guess not, but so what?" I asked in a nasty kind of tone.

"So, you have been way to tightly wound. You want to know what the lesson is and I have been telling you. You have just been too stupid to realize it," his words were harsh for the first time since I met him. He stared me down for a moment then he went back to his twig. Out of nowhere the Venusaur that I had almost began to think wasn't actually alive picked me up with its vines and placed me on my back facing the sky and once more William calmly said, "Relax."

I lay there staring at the sky through the leaves. I took in the blue of the sky and the green of the leaves and the brown of the bark on the trees and I began to get it.

At first it was hard. I wanted to get up and move around or yell or do something, anything at all, but that feeling slowly drifted away. I relaxed like I hadn't since long before becoming the Champion. It felt good to just not worry about stuff for once.

Three more days had passed and a week after I met the odd hippie guy William, he pretty much kicked me out. He woke me up in the morning and he said to me, "Ok, lazy ass. That's enough relaxing." At first I was a little upset but then he added, "Hey don't look like that. This means you have passed the first test." He gave me some more supplies and pointed me towards the center of the island and said at the base of a mountain (holy crap how big was this island) I would find the next test.

Now I'm hiking through the muggy forest again missing that cool spring.