There will be long delays as I work on this and The 35th Annual Hunger League. My apologies in advance. Also, this one is mostly filler.

"Bertha?" Kaitlyn wrinkled her nose at the name as she watched Mike begin to walk away. His phone was pressed to his ear and his face seemed absolutely devastated. She had never before seen someone so depressed in her life. She pulled herself away from the slimy Poliwag in front of her and rested her back against the improvised bench behind her. Mike and Farran made their way a fair distance away before the Aggron sat with his back to the fire. Kaitlyn assumed that the young man had taken a seat in front of Farran somewhere, as he was gone from view. She sighed, spreading her arms out along the log so that the slime on her front would hopefully dry up. She found that it would flake off easily enough when it was dry, but Dewey found her outstretched arms as an opportunity to snuggle in to the crook of them. Rodger snickered at this from his perch on the log.

"No, Dewey," Kait gave the Poliwag a push away from her which was met with much resistance, "you're gonna dry out so close to the fire. You need to be, like, way over there," she demonstrated where the Poliwag should be by pushing him further down the side of the log. The poor thing gave her an impressive pair of puppy-growlithe eyes, but she wasn't about to fold. Instead, he found the attention of a very curious Ninetales, who was staring at him like he may do something fantastic at any given moment.

"Isn't Bertha that girl that chewed him out?" Kait turned to Rodger with a raised brow, "you know, after he became champ a few weeks back?" More silence and curious staring. "You seriously don't know? Do you have a video phone?" Kaitlyn nodded, fishing a fancy little touch screen out of one of her pockets and raised it in the air, looking for signal. Rodger waited patiently, absently stroking the Dratini that was comfortably wrapped around him.

"… There's no internet service out here," Kaitlyn concluded, stretching her arm above her head in a desperate attempt to get a stronger signal so she could attempt to watch said video. Her phone buzzed a few times with text messages as a few more bars lit up on the screen, but the bars were gone just as soon as they had arrived. She brought her phone in front of her face, slid out a keyboard, and began to hammer out replies to send later. "I'm listening," she said after a moment.

"Well, he won, and he got downstairs," Rodger began to explain…

"Okay, go ahead," Mike spoke, leaning up against Farran. He didn't want to have any sort of private conversation in front of Rodger, and found himself wanting to hide his awful love life from Kaitlyn. If 'love' was even an accurate word.

"Well, I saw you on the news, dork," Bertha spoke, sounding like she was proud of herself for some reason. He could hear the smile in her voice as she continued, "everyone said you'd gone to Kanto for real, but I'm on to you."

"Oh?" Mike pinched his cell phone between his ear and his shoulder as he pulled Magnus' Ultra Ball from the back of his belt. Even though the conversion from matter to energy didn't add any extra weight to the sphere, it still felt oddly light in his hands.

"Yep. So why don't you just zap yourself down to my place, and we can-" Mike could hear the seduction in her voice. It was obviously a trap.

"I'm actually in Kanto," Mike cut her off, "no tricks this time."

"She thinks you're still in-" Farran hissed incredulously. Mike covered the bottom of the phone and shushed his team mate. Bertha sighed in his ear.

"Why do you keep trying to hurt me, Mike?" She sounded more disappointed than hurt.

"Because I get turned on by misery," Mike mumbled, "that would explain my current situation, I suppose."

"The situation where your committed relationship is about to collapse?" Mike actually perked up a little. That was a break-up threat. Maybe he wouldn't have to make that call after all.

"The situation where I broke my hand, went viral again, and got robbed," the Champion retorted. He wasn't positive that his punch had gone viral, but he could be fairly sure that it was on its way. He put the

"You got robbed?" Bertha's tone was less concern, more disbelief, "You. Champion Michael Almus. Got robbed." There was a rush of static as she sighed, "well, what's the damage?"

"Magnus."

There was silence for a moment.

"What's a Magnus?"

"My Magneton," Mike grumbled, none too happy with her ignorance.

"Oh," she spoke, realization dawning on her, "Oh, Mike, I'm so sorry! And I kinda liked the little green guy." Mike pressed his head in to his cast with a sigh. "What?"

"Goomba is the little green guy."

"Like Mario?"

"Like a Breloom."

"No need to get so snippy about it-"

"We've dated for, what, two years now," Mike exclaimed, but hushed himself down to a hiss when Farran tapped his shoulder, "how do you not know my Pokémon?"

"I know them! Fergus is… really nice," she attempted to recover.

"Farran is the big lizard that you told me I should get rid of because he scratched up the floor."

"Okay, fine, I don't even give a shit about Pokémon in the first place."

"Then why did we even start dating?" Mike felt a very sudden shift in mood as he said this. For a split second, he wished that he hadn't.

"So, wait, who's fault was it?" Kaitlyn's question hung in the air for a few moments as the two of them mulled the event over.

"Mike must have done something stupid," Rodger pointed out, "but I have no idea what it was. It must have been pretty bad for her to snap at him on TV like that."

"Or she's just a huge bitch," Kaitlyn added. Rodger nodded at this and tried to uncoil the dragon Pokémon from around himself. Kaitlyn continued, "I'd never do something like that in front of a camera unless my boyfriend screwed up big time."

"Hah," laughed Rodger dryly, "like any guy would like you." He picked up a stick from next to the fire and began to poke at the embers as the girl next to him gave him a strong enough glare to paralyze.

"I've had plenty of boyfriends!" She exclaimed, brushing some of the dried slime from her shirt. Rodger gave a smirk at this. He was pretty quick for his age. "I, uh, that's not what I meant! I just have experience, that's all." Rodger openly chortled as Kait's face went bright red. "How do you even know this stuff, anyways?"

"I'm eleven, not stupid," he quipped, turning a log over in the fire, "but I bet Mike's some sorta wife beater."

"Well, he's definitely got a mean right hook on him," the girl concurred. Her stomach gave an audible grumble in the ensuing silence. Caito's eyes snapped up from the Poliwag and stared at Kait's stomach as if it had just called his name. Kaitlyn and Rodger both looked at Caito as if he were about to pounce.

"Nine!" The bark caused the other three to nearly jump out of their skins. Kaitlyn immediately worried for Mike's conversation and began shushing it, hoping her stomach wouldn't try to growl again. Truthfully, though, she hadn't eaten since before the test this morning. Her hunger had taken its time in catching up to her.

"Caito!" It was too late. Mike's call had been interrupted.

"Pain in the ass," Mike hissed, "give me a second." Mike felt as if Bertha had been saved by the bell. Or the bark. He pressed his hand over the phone's mouthpiece and called over his shoulder, "Caito!"

Within seconds, the Ninetales was trying to push himself in to Mike's lap, a surprisingly wet tongue scraping across his cheek. "Caito, down," demanded Mike, causing the canine to back off slightly, "c'mon, that's gross. Slobber later, can you go get some dinner for us? A bird, if you can."

"Nine!" Caito gave a nearly deafening bark before he bolted off in to the grass, his tails snapping in the air behind him. Mike sighed before returning to his phone, pressing the speaker back up to his ear. "Where were we?"

"We were at 'then why did we even start dating'," came a growl through the phone. Bertha was clearly not happy with this statement. Mike felt himself shrink in to his hoodie, awaiting the verbal punishment that was to come. Another sigh hissed through the phone.

"Mike, you've changed," her tone caught Mike off-guard. She sounded sad instead of angry, "you used to be such a nice guy, you know? You used to be this sweet little thing, you were quiet and shy and just wanted to hang out and be around me. Where did that guy go, Mike?"

Mike thought to himself. She sounded so sympathetic, so needy, but her words were not. He was quiet and shy? He just wanted to hang out and be around her? She liked such simple, even detrimental qualities? A familiar rage boiled up in Mike's stomach, but there simply wasn't enough fire to keep it bubbling. He was exhausted from the day, and just wanted her to shut up. The momentary anger melted in to apathy

"That guy must've gotten lost in the wilds," Mike offered as he replaced Magnus' Ultra Ball, taking the phone from his shoulder, "look, I've got two newbies that I'm looking after. I'll be quiet and shy later."

"You'd better be, mister," she cooed. Mike was borderline furious with what she was implying. Shy and quiet? Mike didn't enjoy being shy, he didn't enjoy his stutter, and he was sick of being quiet. He gave a noise of affirmation, however, just to get her to shut up.

"Love you, Mike."

Mike hesitated. She had been furious at him a few weeks ago, and now they were right back to this. The same way that his last romp-without-permission had begun: the 'I-Love-You' guilt trips. Mike slumped further back against Farran's stomach, not willing to return her 'love', but not willing to cause more conflict. A second passed in tense silence. Then another…

"Love you, too," Mike conceded, snapping the phone shut with a sigh. He could almost feel Farran's disapproval, as if it were strong enough to be tangible. It wasn't a good feeling.

"Coward."

"Don't you start with me."

"Pussy-whipped as fuck."

"Watch it."

"As."

"Don't you dare. Farran, I swear to Arc-"

"Fuck."

Mike pushed himself up out of his Aggron's lap, returning him before any further protest could be made, and marched his way back to the fire. Caito chose that moment to reappear, a rather fat Pidgey squirming in his mouth. Caito, true to training, never killed.

"I'm sorry," Kait said quickly as Mike held out his hand to receive the soggy bird, "we didn't mean to interrupt your- Holy shit!"

Mike had twisted the Pidgey's neck with no remorse, the small bird instantly going limp in his hands. His eyes were unfocused as he went about cleaning the Pidgey without so much as a 'hello'. Feathers fell to the ground as he methodically stripped the bird clean. Everyone had been silenced by his action. Rodger was borderline terrified. Mike couldn't help the smirk when he thought about it. Rodger must have been trained prior to Professor Oak's classes at some point, and yet he was apparently squeamish when it came to something so trivial as fresh food. Wait a minute, who had trained him? He had said something earlier, something about being the nephew of a champion.

"You are terrifying when you want to be," Rodger broke the silence a second before Mike was going to. Mike gave a hollow laugh.

"Yeah, s-sure," Mike replied, "say, you s-said earlier something about b-being a Champion's r-r-relative?"

"You didn't know?" Kaitlyn butted her way in to the conversation, "he's Lance's nephew."

"Fucking wonderful." The words left Mike's mouth before he could restrain them to just thoughts. But when Rodger recoiled instead of making some sort of aggravated comment, he pressed on, "I had one of my most well-trained Pokémon stolen, my bitch of a girlfriend decided now was a good time to call me, the press was already going to hound me like nobody's business and now I have to make sure you're safe and fucking sound or else Lance is going to kick me out of the country." Mike took a deep breath, let out a sigh, and turned to Kaitlyn, who was closest to his bag, "give me a knife."

"You didn't stutter."

The comment hung in the air for a moment. Mike blinked at her, not exactly sure of what to make of the comment. It was true; for the first time in a long time, Mike strung together sentences directed at people without stuttering. He could talk to his Pokémon fine. He had known his Pokémon for ages, and they weren't people. Bertha was in a similar circle; they had grown up together, and she was hardly what Mike considered to be a person. Mike furrowed his brow. Why would anger allow him to talk straight? What use would that be? With one last rip, the feathers were gone from the Pidgey, and Mike was back to brooding depression. Kaitlyn and Rodger looked at each other with apprehension as the deflating champion looked over the naked bird in his hands. Cato merely drooled.

"J-just give me a kn-knife."