Pallet Town was quiet, peaceful, and severely overrated. Everyone who was anyone knew that its main (and only) attraction was the Oak Pokemon Research Laboratory, and countless families attempted to move to the area, in the hopes of getting their children successful futures as trainers. However, the mayor of the town was determined to keep its population down, and most of the families living there had resided in the area for centuries. It was quiet now, out by the fence that surrounded the lab's territory, with most of the residents eating their home-cooked lunches in their kitchens, and Professor Oak had taken his own meal (a cold sandwich) out to the fence, so he could watch the herd of Tauros in their daily stampede across the plain.

"I am going to KILL you!"

It wasn't every day that Oak got death threats, so he turned around curiously to see who was yelling at him. Three figures had appeared out of nowhere on the road in front of the lab, just in front of the fence. He recognized Ferk rather quickly- the boy always stuck out like a sore thumb, with his multi-colored appearance- and his Jynx lounging around behind him. There was a young woman with him, who was the source of the commotion. Oak felt a vague sense of déjà vu, like he had seen the woman before, though he was quite sure that she wasn't one of his trainers.

"Thanks for helping out, Jynx!" Ferk said quickly, returning the Pokemon before she could even reply. Now, Oak wondered to himself, what was Ferk doing back here? He had specifically told him to go and investigate the Mew sighting.

"How dare you teleport me here against my will? I'll have you know that this is kidnapping, which is illegal no matter what kind of excuse you have!" The woman had grabbed her Pokegear out of her pocket, and was currently waggling it at Ferk threateningly. "If you don't get your Jynx to teleport me back right now, I'm going to call the police, and then you'll be in trouble!"

"Well, uh, I can't exactly do that," Ferk said helplessly. She flipped the Pokegear open with an ominous air. "No, wait! It's not that I won't, it's that I can't- Jynx can only teleport to places she's really familiar with. It's risky otherwise."

"Well, then, why the hell did you take me here in the first place?"

"Ahh…" Ferk backed up a step, and Oak, understandably confused by now, decided to intervene.

"I've always said that you have a way with women, Ferk," he called out cheerfully, carefully getting down from the fence and tossing the rest of his sandwich to a Munchlax that was sunbathing nearby. "I just never said that it was a good way."

"Hi, Professor," Ferk said, smiling cheekily. "I've got a lot to tell you."

"If you're just going to complain about that Pinsir again, I have important work that needs to be done. Or, if I don't, I can make some up." He turned to the girl and smiled. "And what's your name, young lady?"

"Rebecca Lania." She sounded exasperated. "Listen, Professor Oak, it's a great honor to meet you and all, but I have a class I need to teach, so could you please have one of your psychic Pokemon teleport me back to Mossgreen Village--"

He snapped his fingers, pleased. "Ah, that's right! You're the Rebecca from the Mew sighting. Well, I can certainly provide you with transportation, but could you perhaps write me a report on any details your student might have noticed while you're here? Even unconfirmed sightings need to be documented."

For some reason, Ferk was laughing. "She can do better than that, Professor."

Oak looked at Ferk, skeptical. "How so?"

-

"Ferk, I could kiss you!"

For some reason, Ferk looked uncomfortable. "Please, don't."

Oak ignored him, scanning through the data in delight. He had rushed the two into his lab as soon as Ferk had told him what they'd seen, and uploaded the information from Ferk's Pokedex onto his main computer without hesitation. Now, rotating in three dimensions on the screen, there was a representation of Mew, complete with all the physical readings the Pokedex could obtain from a distance. It was in no way complete, but it was still the best data he had seen on the Pokemon since Mewtwo had destroyed Team Rocket's records.

"Of course, I'm going to need the exact coordinates of where you found the Mew, not to mention your individual observations, and do you think the Mew might still be in the forest? If we could get a DNA sample--"

"Woah, calm down, Professor." Ferk had said similar things many times in the past twenty minutes, but Oak wasn't sure why. "I doubt we'd be able to find the Mew again. It just acted like it was interested in Rebecca, and ran away as soon as I talked."

"Really?" Oak turned to Rebecca, who was drooping on one of the stools. "My dear, that's incredible! You must have a special affinity with Pokemon, there's no--"

"No," she said quietly.

"Pardon?"

"Look, I'll write down whatever if it's really important, but I have to get home." She rubbed her left arm awkwardly, bangs hiding her eyes. "And- and I think I know why the Mew was curious about me, but I don't think it'd want to see me again. I mean, it seemed mainly curious, but also more than a little bit scared. So, I can't do anything."

"Why wouldn't it come back to see you?" Ferk looked skeptical as he leaned forward, scooting his rolling chair towards her. "It seemed to like you."

"It didn't like me. Pokemon…" She took a deep breath, then let it out in a gusty whoosh. "Pokemon in general don't like me, okay? They never have."

Professor Oak had to restrain himself, to keep from dancing in his seat. He lived for these opportunities. "How do they not like you? Are they aggressive, do they attack you?"

"No." She barked out a short laugh. "What, did you think I was attacked as a kid? That I'm scared of Pokemon? No. I'm fine with Pokemon. I mean, I'm not obsessed with them, like some people are, but I don't mind them. They just, well, ignore me. Even if a Pokemon is really nice to everyone else, it'll act like I don't exist. My starter- a Poliwag- always acted really distant with me, and I couldn't figure out what she didn't like with me. Mew's the only exception I've seen so far."

"I doubt that!" Ferk sounded fierce, and both Oak and Rebecca looked at him, surprised. "I mean, how many Pokemon have you seen? And you didn't give my team a chance. In fact-" he grabbed one of his Pokeballs off of his belt.

"Not Muk!" Oak said quickly. He still remembered the last time Ferk's Muk had slithered across his floor. Delia had taken three days to get the floor back to its original state, and had refused to let him use his equipment while she was cleaning.

Ferk gave him a wounded look, and clicked open the Pokeball. Shuckle came out onto the floor in a burst of light, craning her long neck forward to examine the surroundings with interest.

"Shuckle's my most friendly Pokemon," Ferk said proudly, leaning down to pick her up with a grunt. Shuckle looked over at Oak, rotating her head with such a curious expression that Oak couldn't help but laugh.

"Uh-huh." Rebecca shook her head quietly, but still leaned forward, to get closer to the Pokemon. "Hey, Shuckle, what's up?"

Shuckle curved her neck around so that it was all twisted up, and looked at her skeptically. She then drew her legs slightly more into her shell and turned back to look at Oak, saying "Shuck, kul shu," emphatically.

Ferk looked down at his Pokemon, eyebrows raised. "She… I think she saw you, noticed you, she just doesn't really care. She's more interested in Professor Oak."

"Exactly!" Oak banged his fist on his computer's table, making both teenagers jump and Shuckle waggle her legs. "Now, Ferk, see what you did just now? You interpreted Shuckle's actions, knew at an intuitive level what she was thinking. Can you do that with all of your Pokemon?"

"Um, yeah, mostly." Ferk scratched the back of his neck. "Most trainers that I know can. It's easier with Pokemon that you've known for longer, though."

"Precisely!" Oak turned back to Rebecca, who looked confused. "I've done most of my research on the interactions between humans and Pokemon, and I've found that the two species have an emotional bond. It's why we can team up, and work together. Now, Rebecca, from what you've described, you have never felt that connection with Pokemon in general- but when you met Mew, you could tell that it was curious, but a little scared. Could you sense anything else about it?"

She was startled, he could tell. "Yeah, a bit. I could sense its emotions, kind of, and it was almost like Mew was communicating by using them. And I could tell when Mew left."

"So you could connect to Mew." Oak turned to his computer, tremendously excited. There had been various humans over the years who were capable of sympathizing with legendary Pokemon, but, with the exception of Ash Ketchum, they could usually only relate to one legendary, one that they were similar to in personality. However, he had a growing suspicion about Rebecca, and it was a suspicion he wanted to test.

"We're going on a field trip!" he announced.

-

"I really don't see why we're doing this," Rebecca announced, her arms folded tightly around her body. "I think I already proved my point with Shuckle."

Oak ignored her pleasantly, scanning the clusters of Pokemon as they passed them. Rebecca had been entirely right about Pokemon ignoring her- while many of the Pokemon they passed (all of them domestic, since they were in the corral) came up to greet him or Ferk, none of them seemed interested in her. Of course, that only strengthened his theory.

He had called in Tracy from his outdoor duties and instructed him to meet them at the designated location. In fact, he could see him now, sketchpad at his side, waving at them from a small plot of flowers. It didn't come as a surprise at all when a brilliant blue ball came flying out of the flowers, forcing Tracy to dodge to the side.

"It's got such temper problems," Tracy muttered as he walked forward to meet them. "Hello, Professor! I hope you didn't just ask me to come here so I could get energy balls shot at me."

"Of course not." Oak smiled at his assistant, then gestured towards Rebecca. "In fact, I believe we have the solution to our little problem right here!"

It looked as though Rebecca was going to reply heatedly, but Ferk interrupted her by jumping forward and pulling out his Pokedex in an almost reflexive way. "Hey- I've never seen that Pokemon before! What species is it?"

They all looked towards the Pokemon he was pointing to, which had just walked out of the flowers. It was very small, with a plump white body and green fur on its back; moreover, it was looking up at them all with an undoubtedly irritated expression.

I'm a Shaymin, stupid. It studied them all, then waved its nose in Rebecca's direction. You. Who are you?

Professor Oak smiled. His hypothesis was proved.