"If it isn't my boy Lucas"

Gary's words shook me out of my daydream. He walked towards me and waved. He looked more serious though.

"Hi man, how are you doing?" I asked him.

"Good, I've been training my Pokémon." He said. No jokes, just serious. Something was wrong.

"Are you okay Gary?" I decided to ask, he simply nodded.

"How about a battle?"

"Ehm, yeah sure."

"Great, Pidgeotto, go!"

His Pidgeotto, which we had named Viril, came out. Strangely Gary hadn't used the nickname.

"Wally, it's up to you." Wally nodded and flew in.

"You didn't evolve your Pidgey yet?" Gary laughed. This kept getting stranger.

"He's isn't at the right level." I answered, which made Gary smirk.

"Pidgeotto, use Gust!" Viril flew up and flapped his wings hard.

"Wally, counter that with Quick Attack!"

As Wally flew as fast as he could I saw Viril releasing the Gust attack, which made it harder for Wally to continue flying. He eventually gave up and flew back.

"Another Gust!" I heard Gary order.

"Fly higher." Wally nodded and flew up.

"Follow him." Gary said without any emotion. Viril quit using Gust and flew after Wally. Viril was faster and was gaining on Wally but I had a small plan on how to defeat the Pidgeotto.

"Wally, turn around and use Quick Attack."

In the air I could see the smaller bird hitting the larger bird, making the last one fall down.

Seconds later Viril came falling down into the ground, the Quick Attack had completely destroyed his balance and the Pidgeotto could do nothing to prevent him from falling.

This time Viril didn't need to act like he lost, he had barely enough power to get up.

"Return. Rattata, your turn."

"Wally you did good, now Hope show him how it's done. Quick Attack!"

Once again speed beat sheer power and within a few minutes Gary's Rattata had fallen down in defeat. Hope looked up at me, begging for another battle.

"Abra, go." Gary didn't seem to care much for the battle, which bothered me.

"Okay Hope, you can try this one." Hope nodded in excitement and ran forward.

"Let's see if you can beat me." I smirked at Gary, but he didn't react.

"Abra, Teleport away." He said, but apparently Abra had no place to go and stayed in the battle.

Hope was already ready to get herself a victory .

"Hope, use Hyper Fang!" Hope's front teeth are shining brightly and even seem to have grown a bit as she bites down on Abra. The power was so big that even Gary, who had been distant about this entire battle so far, was looking terrified.

Luckily Hope didn't kill Abra so Gary could return it to its Pokéball.

"Squirtle, you are up."

This was worrying me even more, Gary and Blast where close from the moment they met, why would he call him by his species name?

"Niall, you want to battle your friend?" Niall looked at me and nodded, even though he was at a type disadvantage he would always battle Blast and this way we might figure out what was wrong.

"Yo Blast, what's up?" Niall asked.

"I don't really know man, some weird dude talked to Gary and now he's completely emotionless during battling." Blast answered.

"Squirtle, use Bubble."

"O wait." Blast used Bubble, which Niall shook off quickly, and continued talking.

"Viril, Nike and Shazam all don't know what's happening either, but they seem to don't really mind. Of course, they don't know Gary for as long as I do."

"Wait a minute, who are Nike and Shazam?" Niall asked the question that was burning on my lips as well.

"Nike is his Rattata which joined our team before we battled Brock. He was part of some Rattata group which he left. Shazam is his Abra which accidentally teleported himself to the place Gary was in and Gary captured it." Blast smiled when he thought back on how excited he and Gary where when they captured Shazam the Abra.

"But now, he is completely different." Blast spoke out loud again.

"Squirtle, another Bubble."

Another Bubble and another easy counter further, I looked at Niall who nodded.

"Look, I'd love to talk, but I'm afraid Gary won't allow you to barely do damage much longer, so I'll have to Scratch you so it seems where really battling."

Blast started to laugh.

"You think Scratch will be enough to stop me?" He got the 'you know what I mean' look from Niall. "Fine, I'll pretend I'm fainted."

Niall scratched Blast over its face and Blast jumped one meter back, groaning hard as if he was in pain and then silenced.

"What a drama queen." Niall sighed.

"Damnit, well. I'll be on my way." Gary returned Blast to his Pokéball and walked away, without saying anything.

"What are we going to do next?" Hope asked. She didn't knew Gary at all so she just saw an arrogant rival that doesn't care about his Pokémon.

"I guess got to Cerulean."

"Oh, you should check out Nugget Bridge." Gary yelled casually before he wasn't visible anymore.

"Well, maybe we can find some answers there." Wally said. Unlike Hope, Wally did know about the friendship between me and Gary and the friendship between Niall and Blast.

"You're right, let's go." I answered and we started walking towards the place Gary came from.

When we arrived at what we thought was the place Gary came from, we saw a big, golden bridge that was crossing a calm river. 5 people were standing on the bridge and at the end was a sixth person.

"This is odd." Lisa said and the other nodded in agreement.

"Pardon me, but what is this?" I asked a younger boy with a big net.

"I present to you Nugget Bridge!" He screamed. "Here are five trainers that will challenge you to a battle and you will have to beat all of them!"

"Ignoring the fact that you made me halve-deaf, why should I want to challenge you? I can just walk over.

"Because you are not allowed over unless you beat us!" I swear to this day my ear still hurts from this guy's yelling.

I suddenly heard Niall growl behind me: "Let's go then."

"It are five trainers, you sure?"

"I want to know what happened to Gary and how we can end it. Blast is my friend you know." Niall's eyes were filled with emotion.

"I'm gonna tell you something I never told anyone: Back at Oak's I only had Blast. The Bulbasaur wasn't directly friendly towards me so Blast and I where always together. Now I will do whatever it takes to get him safe again. That Gary, that wasn't the Gary we saw in Pallet or in Viridian. This Gary will get Blast killed."

"Okay then, let's fight them."

"Go Caterpie and Weedle!" The boy send out his two Bug type Pokémon. Within a second Niall had burned them. Same for the Metapod and Kakuna that the boy send in next.

"Damn! I lost! You can move on to the second trainer!"

While rubbing my ear we went on.

The second trainer was a younger girl with a Pidgey, an Oddish and a Bellsprout. Easy to say, Wally swept through them easily.

Then there was a guy that thought he was a challenge, at least he said that a thousand times before we even started battling.

"Go Sandshrew, you are up."

"Lucas, we don't really have good coverage for this so can I please battle again?" Hope asked. It hit me that the only time she was polite towards me was when she wanted to battle.

"Ehm, I wanted to give this one to Balboa instead, if you don't mind."

"No, of course not." She backed away, not amused.

"Balboa, get him."

"Or her." I heard Hope cough.

"I'm ready master Lucas." Balboa added and stormed off towards the Sandshrew.

"Use Karate Chop." With one hit the Sandshrew was blasted back but ready to continue.

"Use Scratch." Sandshrew ran forward and scratched Balboa. And then something strange happened.

Balboa started to laugh. Really hard.

Every one of us looked up surprised, even Hope, while Balboa kept laughing.

"What's it doing?" the boy asked.

"I have no clue." I answered in all honesty. "Balboa, what's up?"

"Ha ha ha" He tried to stop laughing and finally managed to. "It is funny master Lucas, you made us train so hard and this is what we have to fight. With all respect to you but this is just laughable."

My other Pokémon all started to laugh as well and I couldn't resist a grin.

"Wait, what is he saying?"

"That you are laughably weak." I really smiled now. My overprotection had come to a point where even Balboa made fun of it, the Pokémon that followed my every command without question. I really needed to loosen up a bit.

"Okay Balboa, try to control your laughter and take that thing out."

"I will Master Lucas." He still grinned but kicked the Sandshrew out of the match."

"How…." The boy didn't really managed to follow the battle and now he saw his Sandshrew laying knocked out in front of him.

"I'm out of here." He ran off the bridge as quick as he could.

"Pussy." Another girl said, she was my next challenge. Well, challenge… Let's just say she was my next boxing ball.

"So you are my challenger then?" She asked quite arrogant.

"I guess I can do it before my manicure."

"I got this." Wally and Hope said together, looked at each other and eventually Wally gave in so Hope could have the battle.

She send out a Nidoran, a male, which Hope took down with two Quick Attacks, same with her other Nidoran, this one was female.

"What, how is this possible?"

"Time for your manicure." Hope laughed. "All alone cause your Pokémon won't be joining you."

"Not so mean Hope." I said.

"What?" the girl asked.

"Nothing, I was talking to my Rattata." I answered.

"Yeah sure, as if you could." She walked off the bridge as well.

"Never mind her, seeing her weak Pokémon and her bad coordination they probably stopped talking to her a long time ago." Niall said and I nodded, not many trainers could talk to their Pokémon after all.

The last guy was a pushover all together. He only had a Mankey. Even though the Mankey tried to put up a fight it's trainer commanded it to use Leer, all the time. Eventually the fighting-type Pokémon was fed up with using Leer and it went for a Karate Chop on Wally. It didn't help much and seconds later it bit the dust.

"So, you made it through my Nugget Bridge." The sixth guy said.

"Yeah I guess I did."

"Well, here is a Nugget as your reward." He took a big, golden nugget out of his bag and gave it to me.

"Now we're talking, how do you feel about joining Team Rocket?" He said with a creepy grin.

"You are kidding, right?" I asked.

"Nope." He pulled of his jacket and revealed a gray sweater with a giant 'R' written on it. "I'm bloody serious, are you in?"

"No, not for all the money in the world." I said.

"Too bad, the other guy that just came here did accept. Well I guess I'll have to battle and convince you then."

"Gary…." I mumbled. Suddenly I realized what had happened, and I saw it all in front of me:

Gary easily swept through the Nugget Bridge, just as we did and went up to this guy, who told him to become part of Team Rocket, which he apparently accepted. But why?

"Go Ekans!"

"Wally."

"Wait Lucas, can I try? Please?" Marit asked.

I looked at Wally who sighed and nodded.

"Okay sure, you can try."

"Ekans, use Bite."

"Okay Marit, dodge it."

Marit flew high but Ekans was faster and bit her. Drips of blood fell down to the ground and I almost started to panic, but she was still flying.

"Use Bite as well."

She was now flying towards the Ekans and managed to bite it, again small drops of blood where dripping, this time it was Ekans' blood.

"Now Ekans, use Wrap." The Rocket Grunt commanded.

It's tail went around Marit's body and he started squeezing. She had trouble breathing.

"Marit, return." I tried to get her back into her Pokéball but the machine refused it.

The grunt started to laugh as she was choking.

"I-I'm sorry. I f-f-f-failed you." Marit struggled but managed to say, after which she passed out.

"Let her go!" I screamed and about to run forward and punch the guy, Wally was faster and used Quick Attack on the Ekans, slicing through its skin and leaving it dead behind. In the process Wally started to glow all white but I didn't notice, I ran towards Marit.

She was all purple and didn't breath.

"Marit!" I screamed. "We need to get her to a Pokémon center, quick."

"Wait, our battle isn't over." The grunt said. "Or you could join Team Rocket and I would let you go, although you care to much for your Pokémon to join. And you give them names? That's never good."

He had released a Zubat and he was about to command it as Wally, which was now a Pidgeotto, struck the Zubat with a Gust attack and made it fall to the ground, where it was picked up and smashed back into the ground till it didn't move anymore.

"Well, that was a pitty. Still don't want to join?" He asked.

"No way. This" And I pointed towards Marit. "This is the reason why I will never join you. These Pokémon are my friends and I will never give them up."

"You…" The grunt mumbled. "You are the guy that wrecked our Mt. Moon business. I'll tell our boss to keep an eye on you." And with that, he ran away.

"Marit, please wake up." I constantly said that as I ran towards the Pokémon centre, where Nurse Joy took care of her. I had to stay in the waiting room.

"By the way, I forgot to tell you back then, but thanks for everything you did after Marit choked. And congrats with evolving." I tried to say with a smile.

"Don't mention it." Wally said. "Let's hope Marit is okay."

But she wasn't. two hours we waited before Nurse Joy came in and told us Marit had passed away. The cute, innocent Zubat had no live in her anymore. I felt a tear coming down and smashed my hand into the table.

After that I walked outside, just to take a deep breath.

"Marit, you don't need to be sorry that you failed me, because you didn't All you did was your best. I shouldn't have let you battled yet, you needed more training. I failed you…"