Just in case Oak's pokedex update had been a hint to catch more pokemon, both Dylan and I did just that. There was slim pickings as far as wild pokemon went however which kind of made sense. Unless a pokemon really wanted to be caught, it probably wasn't going to be hanging around a path that was frequented by trainers. In the first few days, I added a hoppip, a spearow and a spinarak to my collection. Dylan added a starly, a ledyba and a sentret. Yeah, I know. To no one's surprise, David caught no new pokemon. Vanessa caught herself a meowth. Nothing special. At the next pokemon center we found, we transferred them all to Professor Oak's lab.

True to his word, we heard from Lieutenant Rivers on the fifth day of our travels. He asked if we had thought of anything else useful. When we said that we didn't, he asked us a few more directed questions which we answered as best we could. Before ending the call, he mentioned to Dylan that they had accidentally kept something of his. Rivers promised he would ship it to Dylan's house.

We discovered along our way that people had been advised to avoid the very area we were traveling. With all the Team Rocket activity, the authorities were trying to discourage travel in all directions from the recently rediscovered Pallet Town to make it easier to weed out any other possible Rocket members. Or at least that's what a few policemen we ran into along the trail we were following told us. Lieutenant Rivers had circulated some photos of us to local law enforcement so we were allowed to pass without much fuss.

Dylan continued his work on his pokemon warfare idea. It was really beginning to evolve into something. There were two versions that he had come up with so far. The first was a normal battle with advancing forces or one force holed up to defend against another. The second was more similar to capture the flag. Each force had a designated General that the purpose was to capture. The General stayed in each force's base or some other decided upon area. Pokemon had to battle their way to the General and secure him or her. I thought the second idea in particular had merit. It was kind of surprising to me that no one had thought of this yet.

Our good luck with the weather finally gave out. We had been blessed with decent weather almost our entire journey. That ended on our sixth day of travel. A freak snowstorm derailed our walking, forcing us to do an about-face and seek shelter at the pokemon center we had left only two hours previous. Our gear had mostly been for lighter weather. We were totally unprepared for the two inches of snow that found us. We weren't the only ones either apparently whatever city we had been wasn't ready and pretty much shut down. The South does not know how to handle snow at all we found out. Just as we were about to go buy heavy coats and hiking boots, the sun appeared on the second day of hunkering down. Instead we decided to tough it out in our light jackets and walking shoes. It was cold going at first but once we got a good distance further south, the snow began to vanish and more friendly temperatures returned.

Dylan and I ended up buying new gear despite the warmer temperatures. When we had left Michigan so, so long ago we still had a bit of fat on our bodies. Dylan was big and bulky and I wasn't fat but I had a little chunk to me. A little bit of a belly, I guess. That was back in June and now it was October. Both of us had shed a fair amount of weight along with any excess fat that we had. Needless to say, not only were our pants worn out but we could barely keep them around our waists. We both picked up a few new pairs and donated our old ones to Good Will. After all four of us purchased new walking shoes, we were back on the road.

I eventually lost track of the days once we hit the Florida border. The only reason that I even knew that we were at the border was the pokemon center we stopped at had a sign noting that it sat right on the border of Florida and Georgia. We flipped through a few newspapers while we got our pokemon healed up and then were on the road again.

Something had changed though. I couldn't put my finger on it for the first day. I did get distracted a bit battling my pikachu against a leafeon and winning though. On the third day it became very clear: something was wrong with Vanessa. Backtracking through my memory of the last three days I deduced that she had been becoming consistently less talkative. As I watched her in the present, her posture had changed as well. She was now walking with her shoulders hunched, deep in thought and more or less oblivious to the world. Drifting apart from the group became a reoccurring theme.

As the next pokemon center came into view, I pulled David aside as Vanessa drifted ahead. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

His icy blue eyes met mine. "Sure. What's up?"

"What's going on with Vanessa?" I jerked my head towards her. "She's been acting weird lately. Almost not with us, you know?"

David sighed and pursed his lips. He made sure she was far enough ahead before he said, "Remember that pokemon center we stopped at on the Florida border? You know those newspapers we read because it was taking so long?" I nodded, remembering the long wait clearly. "Well Vanessa found an article about what happened in Pallet Town. It was an update on all the Team Rocket members that had been captured."

When he paused I asked, "So?"

"Remember how she had her flaaffy shock those two Rockets?"

"Well no, I wasn't there," I said. Sarcasm was my default setting. "I remember being glad when she told me about it though. Those were the two Rockets that told me about that path in the first place."

A grin tugged at David's lips but lost it's battle to form. "I guess when she left them, she thought they were just unconscious. Turns out they were hurt pretty bad. That much electricity is not good for the human body. All sorts of damage to the nervous system. One's in a coma. They aren't sure if he'll make it."

"Oh."

"Exactly," David said with a sigh. "The fact that she really hurt them has kind of messed her up a little bit."

The fact that he ended with that kind of surprised me. "Did you try to talk to her about it?"

He just shrugged. Our conversation had taken a turn that neither of us seemed to be comfortable with. We could share talk of battles and other manly things but this kind of thing was still somewhat foreign to our friendship. This was something that neither of us really wanted to talk about. It appeared David was going to open up just for the sheer fact that he couldn't really avoid it anymore. To be honest, I wasn't really sure I wanted to know what he was going to tell me. I had to derail this conversation and fast.

"I tried to talk with her about it," he began. "But it's hard. I don't like to talk about things like that unless I absolutely have to. And if I do it once, I'll have to do it again. Once I do it once, I won't be able to back out because she'll say I'm not so tough-"

I saw my opening and cut him off and sang, "Just because you're in love with an uptown girl!"

Dylan's ears perked up. "She's been living in her white bread world."

Vanessa turned around now. Dylan and my singing was pretty bad but David was laughing and moving with us in long, drawn steps now as we approached Vanessa.

"As long as anyone with hot blood caaa-an!" I ran my hands down my chest and stomach as seductively as I could manage.

Dylan turned and pointed to David. "And now she's looking for a downtown man!"

David hooked his thumbs under his pack straps and finished the verse. "That's what I am."

The three of us then went into the "O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!" as Vanessa looked on in amused horror. Nearby trainers that were just passing stopped to watch as we stepped one way together and then back another.

"Uptown girl!" we sang together. "She's my uptown gi-irl! You know I'm in love with an uptown girl. An uptown gi-iirl!" We slowed it down and then went into a high pitch for "You know I'm in love… with an uptown girl!" We dragged the last word out as long as we had breath.

A trainer across the way clapped while another one mock booed. Others just shook their head in amazement that that had just happened. Probably also at how bad it had been. Vanessa was frozen with an bemused grin on her face.

"What… what was that?" she asked finally.

"Uptown Girl by Billy Joel." Dylan rolled his eyes. "Duh. Come on, that's a classic."

With that we began to walk again. The pokemon center was only twenty yards or so now. Vanessa was still so confused by what had just happened that she didn't follow us immediately.

"Wait, no, seriously!" Vanessa lurched after us. "What the hell was that?"

"I told you," Dylan sighed. "Uptown Girl."

"Yes but why?"

"Why not?" David shrugged. "Tim started it and it seemed to get you out of your funk. It did us all some good."

Vanessa's cheeks flushed as she realized that we had all noticed her change. She hunched her shoulders back up and moved ahead of us.

"Well, for a moment anyway," David said with a sigh. Then he looked at me and Dylan. "I'm surprised you guys knew that song. You don't strike me as Billy Joel fans."

"My dad literally listens to all music," Dylan laughed. "Besides, it's just a good song."

David grinned. "That's true. Not my favorite music genre but I still like it."

"The first CD I got was the Top Gun soundtrack," I announced. "The second was that Billy Joel album."

David cracked up. "Top Gun? Seriously?"

I shrugged. "It's my mom's favorite movie of all time. Hands down. It is a good movie though. Now I just know the words to all the songs."

There was a moment of silence as we entered the pokemon center. Vanessa was still ahead of us. She was now at the counter waiting for the nurse. There were quite a few trainers in the lobby and I was pretty sure she had actually cut in front of a few of them without even knowing it. Instead of lightening her mood, we had apparently darkened it even further.

Hiking through Florida ended up being a lot harder than it initially sounded. The further towards the Everglades we got the more swamps began appearing. This was the first topographical feature that we couldn't just cross straight through. Well, we tried one time but we got about to the edge of the water before we decided it was a bad idea.

The only upside was that swamps tended to be crawling with pokemon. In one of the early swamps I came across a big blue pokemon lounging on the banks of the water. It was long and thick and had large three-fingered hands and arms. It looked up at me with pinprick black eyes. I wasn't entirely sure if it was conscious. I sent Pikachu out to find out. It was only after it didn't flinch from a thunderbolt that I realized it was a quagsire and it's ground typing made it immune to electric moves. A quick doubly effective leaf blade from Grovyle and a poke ball later, I had myself a new pokemon.

It was also a fairly quiet march through the swamps. Vanessa had upgraded to talking to the rest of us on a limited basis. We weren't quite sure how we had wronged her so and she was not willing to talk about it. Each one of us took turns trying to walk next to her and get something out of her. Each and every time she responded by picking up her pace. It didn't take long for us to just give up. It was pretty clear that if she wanted to talk about it, she'd be the one to bring it up.

We were traveling single file to get out of a particularly nasty swamp when I ran into Dylan who had stopped in his tracks.

"Dammit man, what was that?" I said as I rubbed my nose and straightened my glasses.

Instead of saying anything, he took a few more steps. I followed him with David right on my heels. After my third step, I had to put up a hand to shield my eyes from the sun. We had emerged from the trees and swampland into a large grassy field. Vibrant green grass swayed slightly in the breeze. About a hundred yards ahead of us I could see where the swamps and trees began again.

"This is weird," David said. "Why is there a random meadow?"

Dylan scraped some mud off his shoes onto the grass. "Who cares? It's a nice change. It's getting close to sunset anyway."

Out of sheer curiosity, we headed to the next cluster of trees and swamps. There was a very clear entrance marked by a dirt path running into a gap in the trees. It ran as far into the swamps as I could see. Next to the opening was a wooden sign. Not a crappy handmade one but something you might see at like a national park. It read:

Welcome trainers! At the heart of this next swamp lies the official Pokemon League Gym. To reach the gym, simply follow the path. However, it is recommended that it is not traveled at night. Wild pokemon inhabit this swamp and often grow more aggressive at night. Trainers are welcome to capture pokemon in these swamps but please do not capture more than you need. There is a pokemon center next to gym available for all your recovery needs. I look forward to meeting you!

Lacey, Official Gym Leader

"Guess that settles what we do now," David sighed. "Shall we get set up?"

Setting up was a generous way to describe what we did. Essentially our setting up was dropping to the grass and unrolling our sleeping bags. Igglybuff, who had been riding on top of my back, curled up just inside the top of my sleeping bag. Technically we did have a pair of tents but it was still nice enough that far south that we didn't need to use them. We also refrained from using them because there was an unspoken agreement amongst the men that Vanessa would probably boot David out and he'd end up sleeping in our tent which was not made to hold three adults.

"We want a fire tonight?" David asked after settling his pack in place at the top of his sleeping bag.

"I wouldn't mind," said Dylan. "A warm meal would taste pretty good… or at least as good as a can over a fire can taste."

I was still standing so I went out in search of some firewood. There was no worthwhile wood along the perimeter of the trees. Although I didn't really want to, I took a few steps inside of the trees. They weren't nearly as densely packed as it had originally seemed. Most of them were about an arm's length apart and some even further. However, none of them were very yielding of firewood. Their thick trunks stretched up into the air and did not offer useful branches.

One of them did offer a pokemon. It was a little red pokemon with blue eyes and little, stubby arms with small stingers. Two legs sprouted from both sides of the small body and a segmented tail with a pincer emerged from the rear. Although I had never actually seen one in person, it bore a clear resemblance to it's evolution and I recognized it immediately as a skorupi.

For a moment we just looked at each other. I blinked. It blinked. Then it waved it's little arms at me and started crawling back up it's tree.

"Oh no you don't!" My hand shot to my belt and grabbed a poke ball. "Go, Sandslash!"

Sensing that a battle was about to ensue, the skorupi began to climb even faster.

"Focus blast!"

Sandslash cupped the glowing orb between it's claws momentarily before hurling it at the escaping bug pokemon. The skorupi tried to push away from the tree with it's tail. The explosion of the focus blast swept over it anyway and tossed it almost to the edge of the swamp. Sensing it had no choice but to fight now, the skorupi launched a pin missile attack from it's claws and tail.

"Get underground with dig!"

My pokemon vanished beneath the soil and the pin missiles exploded harmlessly on the ground. There was a slight tremor and then Sandslash erupted out of the ground like a geyser. The impact did knock the skorupi out of the treed area now. As it flailed and crashed into the ground, it tried to fire a poison sting but it's aim was no where near.

I readied an empty poke ball. "Time to end this. Rollout!"

A spinning Sandslash drove right through the skorupi. The ground pokemon veered around for another strike and this time rolled right over the poison pokemon. When I saw the skorupi struggling to get up, I threw my poke ball. It bounced off the bug pokemon, converted it to red energy and pulled it inside. By the time I had walked over to it, the ball had stopped shaking and the light had turned off.

"Good work," I said to Sandslash. "Take a good rest."

Conveniently when Sandslash had used focus blast, it had blown apart the tree it had hit enough to create some decent sized shards of wood. Not exactly how I had drawn it up but it had done the job.

"What was all that ruckus?" Dylan asked as I dumped an armload of wood down in front of him and David.

"Found and caught a pokemon," I replied, flopping down on my sleeping bag. "There was just a skorupi chilling on a tree. Sandslash may or may not have blown a sizeable chunk out of said tree using focus blast."

David laughed and got to work getting a fire going. Dylan and I watched him in silence. A few minutes later, Dylan suggested that he and I battle.

I shrugged. "Sure. Why not? There's apparently a pokemon center inside that swamp anyway."

Dylan rose to his feet and gave me a hand up. "I was thinking we should battle water-types. It's not like they're going to be much use at a grass-type gym anyway."

There was some obvious logic to what he was saying so I consented. Unless he had another water-type I didn't know about, our battle was to be Marshtomp versus Croconaw.

I realized immediately that even in this battle of water pokemon that I was at a disadvantage. Since Marshtomp had the dual typing of water/ground, that made water and ice attacks have normal effectiveness instead of it being halved. Croconaw had no such second typing so it was still resistant to the water gun and ice beam I had available to me. I did still have tackle and mud bomb but they would only carry me so far.

Thoughts aside, there was really only one way to start off a battle of water-type pokemon. We both yelled, "Water gun!"

The two blasts of water slammed into each other and began jockeying back and forth for supremacy. Croconaw began to overpower Marshtomp which was no real surprise. Dylan had had his pokemon for longer and it was one of his main battlers.

"Dodge and roll!" I commanded with a wave of my hand.

Marshtomp began slumping to it's left and suddenly broke off it's water gun. It rolled once and came back up on it's feet. Croconaw dragged it's head to the side to track the moving target.

"Ice beam!"

The jagged bolts of icy lightning slammed into the water gun and began forcing it back. Croconaw may have been stronger than my marshtomp but the initial strength of an ice beam attack was enough to counter that. Quickly it was Croconaw that had to roll to avoid the attack.

I had to act fast and hope for the best now. "Mud shot!"

Marshtomp responded by firing a barrage of muddy lumps from somewhere deep within it's throat. Croconaw kept rolling. My pokemon managed to track it and finally scored a direct hit, pounding the bigger water pokemon into the ground. Croconaw was able to escape shortly and the two pokemon faced each other down.

They were more or less at a standstill when it came to ranged attacks. This battle would have to be decided at close range which was the exact opposite of what I wanted but at the same time, my only chance.

"Slash!" Dylan ended our standoff.

"Tackle!"

The two pokemon ran forward and slammed into each other. Marshtomp got under the slash and took Croconaw to the ground. They began a rolling blur of all shades of blue. As they tumbled about there were occasional shots of mud, water and ice.

Dylan and I shared grins. It wasn't the usual majestic battle that we strived for. Given that it was just a friendly battle though, it was dang entertaining to watch our pokemon fight like little kids on the playground.

However, I still planned on trying to win. I just had to hope that Marshtomp had a long memory. "Marshtomp, get on up!"

It turned out that not only was Marshtomp's memory good but it's sense of improvisation had improved. Instead of blasting the ground with water gun to elevate itself, Marshtomp used ice beam. Ice beam still launched the pokemon into the air and at the same time began creating a tower of ice. Now instead of being free-falling back towards the ground my pokemon was balancing tenuously on a stalagmite of ice. It was a brilliant move of strategy. Up until Croconaw bit it in half at the base with one might crunch.

Marshtomp launched itself off the crumbling ice and tackled Croconaw back to the ground. As both pokemon tried to right themselves, I heard a strange buzzing. Looking around, I made certain we weren't about to be attacked by wild pokemon. It took another second to realize that the buzzing was coming from me. I dug into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. The screen read Professor Oak.

I waved the phone at Dylan. "Professor Oak."

He nodded. "Answer it. We'll call it a draw."

Although it was going down in the record books as a draw, I knew Dylan was actually doing me a favor. Marshtomp was outmatched by Croconaw and wasn't going to last all the much longer. Putting the thought from my mind, I stabbed the answer key. "Hi Professor."

"Hello there, Tim!" came back his creaky voice. "How've you been doing lately?"

I took a few minutes to fill him in on our progress, recalling Marshtomp while I did so.

"Ah, very good," he said when I had finished. "Might I ask you a question?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"Do you and Dylan remember when you first visited me in my lab?"

I jerked my head for Dylan to come over and then put the phone on speaker. "Yeah, of course we do. What about it?"

"Do you remember me mentioning something called the Pokemon Sanctuary?"

Dylan and I exchanged looks. It was him that responded. "Kind of. You said there was some kind of myth behind it and to keep our eyes and ears open for anything."

"Oh! Hello Dylan!" Oak was surprised to find he was on speaker phone apparently. "Yes, that is correct. Is that all I told you?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

I could sense a lecture coming…

"Really? I should have elaborated further! Oh well, no time like the present! The Pokemon Sanctuary can in some ways be considered the cradle of life. Well, pokemon life anyway. It is believed that all pokemon have come out of the Sanctuary throughout history. We know that pokemon have to appear from somewhere because not all species can be traced back through history. Certain pokemon only begin to appear on Earth at differing times."

"You're talking about the generations," I chimed in. "There's four so far, right? Each one appearing at different times in history?"

"Very good! Generation One is the oldest. We can trace that generation extremely far back in history. The Second Generation came next and began to appear sometime between 0 and 500 A.D. The Third Generation came next around the time of the Renaissance, which began roughly around the 14th century. The most recent generation, the Fourth, first began appearing shortly before the American Revolutionary War. Each generation is fairly sizeable, the smallest being the Second with only one-hundred new pokemon. With such dramatically large numbers, it seems unlikely that over three-hundred pokemon were able to stay hidden for as long as they would have had to. This leads researchers to believe that pokemon must be coming from somewhere."

"Kind of like their own personal Garden of Eden?" Dylan asked.

"Precisely. While the legendary human Garden is seemingly gone, the pokemon version has apparently survived at least until the eighteen-hundreds."

I shot Dylan a look and then glanced at the battery display on my phone to make sure it was going to last. "This is all interesting Professor but I'm thinking you didn't call just to give us a history lesson."

Oak laughed. "No, I did not. But the Sanctuary is, in fact, the reason I did."

My eyes got huge. "Did someone find it?"

"No… not yet anyway. When you took… or perhaps the word is stole… anyways, did you happen to look at any of the materials you took away from the Team Rocket headquarters?"

Dylan looked at me and I shook my head. As far as I knew, none of us had read more than a word or two of anything we took. We told the Professor that.

"Ah, that's too bad," he sighed.

We were confused now. "Wait, why?" I asked.

"I was hoping that you might have read some other books or scrolls or such that you weren't able to take with you. All the materials you took, with the exception of the hard drives of course, were directly related to the Pokemon Sanctuary."

It took a moment for that to sink in.

"Team Rocket is after the Pokemon Sanctuary," Dylan said.

"Exactly and from the materials you recovered, they've put serious time, effort and money into locating it. Team Rocket appears to believe that the Sanctuary is real and seem to think that there is an entrance in North America that they might be able to open. It would seem like they have not located it just yet though."

"There's multiple entrances?" I asked.

"Oh yes." I knew I had just invited another lecture. "Each generation seems to have it's origins localized in certain parts of the world. The First Generation can be traced back the furthest in Asia, particularly Japan, which makes scholars believe that the first time the Pokemon Sanctuary opened it did so on one of the islands of Japan. That essentially makes Japan the birthplace of pokemon. The Second Generation's roots can be traced back to Africa. The Third Generation's arrival may be what sparked the Renaissance when they began appearing in Europe. Surprisingly, the Fourth Generation appeared in Australia first and some either migrated or first appeared in South America when they were first recorded. This makes the idea that the next time the Sanctuary opens, it will be in North America the prevailing theory. Judging from the time between the openings between the Second, Third and Fourth Generations, it could actually happen any time this centaury.

Dylan and I were quiet for a moment and then I said, "That would be bad if they found it."

"An understatement, really," Oak corrected. "If Team Rocket was the first to find the Sanctuary, they would have access to possibly hundreds of pokemon the world has never seen. If they somehow managed to get inside the Sanctuary, well, no one knows what would happen but I doubt it would be any good."

This was chilling news indeed. We might've had a chance to stop the Rockets if we had just actually read a few pages of any of the other books in that room. Professor Oak told us not get down on ourselves before he hung up. He pointed out that if nothing else, our stealing what we did would have slowed them down considerably. We tried to take heart in that but it was still a little discouraging.

We filled David and Vanessa in on our conversation with Oak once we got back to the campsite. Like us, they hadn't bothered to even look at anything else in the Rocket headquarters. It bothered them like it did us but at the same time, the thought of an entirely new generation of pokemon was something that was hard to ignore. We could be part of the first generation of trainers to capture and train the Fifth Generation.

The next morning could not come soon enough. Vanessa and David had begun bickering while the sun was still up and continued on well after it had gone down. They did so in hushed voices so they weren't loud enough for us to overhear, but still plenty loud enough to keep us awake at night. I wasn't sure of the time but I eventually got sick of it and called upon Igglybuff to use sing. Sure, I felt a little guilty using a pokemon move on actual people but a good night's sleep cured me of that guilt. We were all up and packed not long after the sun appeared over the horizon. I gave one final, sad look at my shoes that I had spent considerable time picking mud out of the soles and trudged into the Everglades.

The treachery of navigating the Everglade Swamps was not nearly as bad as my imagination had made it out to be. The main path that led into the swamps branched off into various routes but as far as we were able to discern, they all reconnected at some point. As long as we stuck to the paths we would eventually end up at the Gym in the heart of the swamp. Or back at the entrance we had used to get in. One or the other.

What was somewhat disconcerting was the life that permeated through the area. Every batch of grass, puddle of water and towering tree seemed to be alive. I knew it was just the pokemon in the area but it was still kind of a creepy effect mostly because we never really saw any. All we kept ever seeing was little bits of pokemon as they disappeared back into cover. I was quickly able to understand why trainers were advised to stay out of here at night.

Time passed quickly or at least I was pretty sure it did. We had all switched off our cell phones and tucked them away in our bags because we weren't sure what all the moisture in the air would do to them. It left me clock-less. We had yet to get a good look at any pokemon and that was probably more annoying that not knowing the time.

Dylan and David yelled something unintelligible and suddenly ran down a path to the left. I moved to follow them but my eyes locked onto something and I froze. It was a bird pokemon, both beautiful and intimidating. It's plumage was shades of gray and white, with an M-pattern on it's chest. A crest tipped in red came forward almost over it's eyes. The staraptor clawed at the ground and ignored me. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. A fully evolved flying-type would be a great addition to my team.

"Pikachu, let's go!"

This got the staraptor's attention. It fixed Pikachu with a hard look and the electric mouse actually took a few steps back. The staraptor went back to pecking at the grass around it's orange clawed feet.

"Hey!" I called at my pokemon. "You've got the type advantage so don't back down! Thunderbolt!"

That got the staraptor's attention. Once it recovered, it screamed in an angry rage and came rocketing out of the underbrush. Orange streaks followed in it's wake which confused me until I realized that the bird pokemon was using take down.

"Use agility!"

Pikachu blasted off from where it had been standing. It bounced from left to right as it quickly closed the gap between it and it's opponent. Then it leapt right over a surprised staraptor. The staraptor pulled up and tried to get back oriented towards Pikachu.

"Good job!" I yelled. "Now thunderbolt again!"

"Ka-chu!" Pikachu exploded with lightning. The staraptor caught this one right in the chest. The lightning bolt slammed it back into a nearby tree that it slumped down.

"Ok, now it's my turn!"

I pulled an empty poke ball out and pitched it overhand at the downed staraptor. I was thinking about how it might be cool to learn to throw different baseball pitches with a poke ball when a gray wing snapped up and swatted the poke ball away. The staraptor muttered something under it's breath as it got back up.

"Wait," I said, pointing loosely at the flying pokemon. "Can that happen? Is that allowed?"

Pikachu had gathered up the poke ball and carried it back over to me. The staraptor had shaken the disorientation from it's head and was back in the air. It was trying to leave! I made a fist. No one, er, pokemon just gets away from me!

"This isn't over!" I called at the bird pokemon. It hadn't made much progress in it's escape yet. "Pikachu, thunderbolt!"

The staraptor dropped like a rock this time. I had to time my poke ball throw perfectly. I had always heard that you can't capture a pokemon that had fainted. I didn't know why or it was even true but I figured I had until the staraptor crashed to catch it. My timing was perfect. I hurled the ball and it swallowed up the staraptor just feet above the ground. The poke ball shook more violently than any I'd ever seen before but like all the others, went still eventually.

"Well done, buddy," I told my pikachu as I put it away and gathered up my newest pokemon.

Suddenly the afternoon seemed a lot brighter.

My friends found their way back to where we had split apart after a few more minutes. I had a triumphant grin on my face. They looked excited but I knew that I had captured the better pokemon. There was no way they could outdo me this time.

"Where did you go?" Dylan exclaimed. I saw that he still held a poke ball in his hand. "You missed it!"

"Did I?" I asked with a confident tone. "Did I really?"

"Yeah, you really did," David agreed.

I gave a laugh I associated with snotty rich people. "I doubt it. I caught myself a staraptor! Beat that!"

Dylan shrugged and tossed his poke ball. My jaw literally fell open. The pokemon was big and green as it stood on two clawed feet. Everything about it was either green like it's crested head or cream colored like the segments between limbs, the wings or the giant scythe-like blades it had instead of forearms.

"You caught a scyther?" I bellowed. "Why didn't you tell me you saw a scyther!"

"We tried," David said with a shrug. "There was a whole swarm of them. We all caught one but you weren't around. You were just gone."

I looked from one to the others and shot them all dirty looks. My great afternoon had suddenly been rained on. Although I was still happy with my new staraptor, I continued to brood for most of the afternoon about missing out on an opportunity to catch a pokemon as rare as a scyther. By the time I rationalized it away as there was only room for Heracross as the lone bug-type on my team, we had found our way to the gym.

Saying that they there was a pokemon center here was a bit of a stretch. It was a big hut with the universally recognized red cross above the door. There was a number of other huts spread around the area. I wasn't really good with guess how big spaces this wide open were, but I had to guess it was at least a couple acres. Considering all the swampland around it, it was pretty amazing they found a couple acres of solid ground. Behind the pokemon center Dylan pointed out what was obviously a solar panel and generator. That explained how they could have a functional recovery center.

We hadn't made it very far out of the woods when a woman who couldn't have been more than twenty-five came skipping up to us. Her long red hair bounced along with her in a ponytail. She had khaki shorts on, topped by a blue tank top. She came to a stop a few feet in front of us.

"Hi there!" she said, waving at us like we were still twenty yards away.

We all greeted her in turn.

"I bet you want to use the pokemon center. Come on!" She turned and began heading towards the building. She still hadn't given us her name.

Inside the center (and I use the term loosely) was a nurse reclining in a lawn chair next to some crates and a pokemon recovery machine that had a thick cable running out the back to the solar panel.

The nurse pulled herself out of the chair. She was about the same age as the first woman. "Hi Lacey. We finally get some new visitors?"

"It's about time!" agreed the first. "Other than the supply guy, no one's been here in forever!"

"Wait, Lacey?" David repeated after handing his pokemon over to the nurse. "You're the Gym Leader."

She went into a formal military salute. "Guilt as charged!"

Apparently living in a swamp with only a few people as company made you a bit… eccentric.

"We're really the first trainers to come by in a long time?" Dylan asked.

Lacey's shoulders slumped. "Afraid so. We had a hurricane or was it a tropical storm? … Anyways, there was a storm that scared trainers away. The swamps are usually hazardous traveling after a storm for a while. You guys probably timed it just right." She looked closely at our shoes. "Yeah, you did. Otherwise you'd be drenched up to your knees."

"Yay for us," Vanessa mumbled. It was probably the first thing she'd said all day.

"Yay for you!" Lacey exclaimed. "So what's first? Do you guys want to rest for a while or do you want to battle? We can battle over there." She pointed to a big open space. "Or we can eat. We have lots of supplies over there." She pointed to a hut. "Yup, we've got more than usual since we haven't had any trainers in a while.

The longer she talked, the faster Lacey talked. I was starting to wonder how many cups of coffee she might have had this morning. Before we could make a decision or really even think about it, Lacey made the decision for us and lead us to the food hut. In what was a real surprise, she rolled out a charcoal grill. She was apparently pulling out all the stops for her first guests in a long time.

Once food was prepared, she got us seated in folding chairs in a semicircle that faced out into the battlefield. It was rather pleasant actually even with Lacey's high-speed chatter. It filled any and all voids in the conversation easily.

"So," Lacey said, putting down her plate. "Do you know the rules of my gym?"

We all shook our heads.

"My gym is a little unique. I do things differently than any other Gym Leader. It's fun that way." She was really gathering steam now. "The amount of pokemon you use will determine the strength of the pokemon I use. If you use only one pokemon, my three pokemon will not be especially strong. If you use two, they will be a little stronger and so on. If you want to make it to my personal Hall of Fame, you can use six."

"Hall of Fame?" I made the mistake of asking.

Lacey shot out of her chair and pulled us out of ours as well. There was a small hut behind the pokemon center that we stopped at to get our pokemon back. Inside of the wooden walls, it had a ring of about fifteen photographs. Each of them looked especially proud of themselves.

"Not many people have made it here in the seven years since I've been in charge," Lacey explained. "When a trainer uses six pokemon, I use my some of my most powerful pokemon. If you win, I increase your winnings and you get your picture taken for the Hall. It's very prestigious. You can always get another battle if you lose as long as you put up a good showing."

She lead us back to our chairs and while she cleaned up, we had some serious things to consider. If I only used one pokemon, say Charmeleon, there's a good chance I could easily clean house without much trouble. The only downside to that is if even though it was one of her weaker pokemon, she might have a dual-typed pokemon that could cause me trouble. On the other end of the spectrum, if I went with six pokemon she'd bring out her heavy hitters. She might easily stomp me flat. Although as long as I made a good effort I could get a rematch, so was there really any harm in trying?

Finally Lacey announced that she was done cleaning and that it was time for battles. I accepted the first challenge and could only hope that I didn't regret it. She lead me over to the battlefield. Probably just calling it a field was a better description. It was an unremarkable field that was traced by trees along one side.

"So what will it be?" Lacey called to me from across the field. "How many pokemon will you use?"

"If this was a movie, I'd be making some dramatic speech about never backing down from a challenge," I announced. "I'll be using six!"

Lacey's eyes lit up. The nurse appeared at the side of the field to be the referee. She announced that the Gym Leader would send out the first pokemon. Her first pokemon was not much of a surprise. I was well versed in battling a torterra at this point. I knew it was a grass-type but also a ground-type which made my first pokemon an easy choice.

"Staraptor, let's go!" I hurled the poke ball.

When the flying pokemon appeared, it didn't look too happy. It glanced back over it's shoulder and gave me a terrible look. For a moment, I wondered if I had made a mistake choosing to lead off with the pokemon. Lacey must have caught the exchange because she held off attacking immediately. Or maybe it was all part of her strategy.

"Staraptor, aerial ace!" I ordered.

What Staraptor did was not perform aerial ace. With a flap of it's wings it flew over to the trees and landed on a branch. It proceeded to get comfortable and begin to clean it's plumage. Several curse words that I could use at the moment flickered through my mind. I immediately recalled the pokemon.

Lacey cocked her head to the side. "So… are we going with five pokemon now?"

"Just a technical difficulty," I assured her. I quickly swapped out pokemon. "Still going with six. Charmeleon, you're up!"

"Torterra, return!"

That was a surprising move to me. If she had all grass-type pokemon, why was Lacey recalling her torterra? The ground-typing Torterra had probably made it one of the best match-ups to use against a fire-type. But she was a Gym Leader so I assumed she had something up her sleeve.

I was right.

"Ludicolo, it's your turn!"

A ludicolo was big and round and easily reminded me of a pineapple wearing a sombrero. It had stocky green arms and legs and a big yellow bill. It was easily one of the strangest looking pokemon I had ever seen. My stomach began to sink as I realized it was also a dual typed pokemon: water and grass. Fire would no longer be super-effective, just regularly effective. It would also no doubt have a water-typed attack too. That would make things difficult for both Charmeleon and Steelix.

It turned out to be the least of my worries as Lacey yelled, "Rain dance!"

Ludicolo began moving like it was doing a hula dance. At first I found it amusing. Then the perfectly clear sky disappeared. The brilliant sun was shrouded behind a thick layer of black clouds. I managed to swear and get Charmeleon back into it's poke ball just seconds before the downpour began.

What had started out as a good idea was rapidly backfiring on me. Staraptor wasn't obeying. Charmeleon and Steelix wouldn't be able to function in this heavy of rain without taking damage, especially Charmeleon and it's exposed tail flame. I hadn't even gotten off an attack and I was suddenly down three pokemon, albeit two of them only temporarily.

I guess they don't call them Gym Leaders for nothing…

::Author's note::

I know that there's now actually 5 generations but this story was started before there was technically even 4. The 4th generation came out early enough into my writing that they could have conceivably always been there. Part of the reason for my recent delays was trying to figure out how to get the Gen 5 pokemon into the story without them just suddenly being there. It'd be weird for the protagonists to go for half a year without encountering anything from Gen 5. They are coming though. So if you're a Gen 5 fan, please be patient. Thanks.