As I continued northbound, I tried to keep slightly off of the main road, to avoid further run-ins with trainers like Marcus. I kept thinking about how weird that whole encounter was.

Walking along at an admittedly leisurely pace, enjoying the birdsong and chirps of the woodland bug Pokémon, I was eventually halted by the sound of a voice. I stopped in place, scoping my nearby surroundings, but couldn't identify from whom the voice had come. But I heard it again, and whoever it was, they seemed to be relatively nearby, getting closer. Fearing another inescapable trainer battle, I quickly darted for the nearby brush, practically diving into the tall grass to avoid detection. Sunny had battled not long before, and while he hadn't taken much damage, I didn't want to push our luck. I was still gripping his Poké Ball from earlier. It was mostly a subconscious decision, but I also felt a little awkward just carrying it in my pants pocket.

Peering out from the foliage, I could make out two figures as they approached on the nearby road. As I knelt down, I could see the outlines of their legs as they walked by. It appeared to be two women wearing athletic wear, if their bike shorts and running shoes were any indication of the whole ensemble. I decided to bide my patience, as they were walking by quickly, gossipping to one another as they began to pass by.

"Well then you just need to leave him."

"I know, but he's so good at what he does. There's no guarantee I'll find someone else with that kind of security."

"My coworker just married her boyfriend from Sinnoh and he's pretty great, maybe you should look into..."

The voice trailed off as the two women finally power-walked their way out of earshot. I sighed.

So they probably weren't trainers, but still, better safe than sorry, I told myself as I stood back up. I took just one step back toward the road as I felt something brush past my foot. I looked straight down to see a purple tail slink across my leg, attached to the rear of a Rattata that was looking straight up at me. Incisors bared and whiskers flared, it didn't look happy to see me.

Not wanting to waste time or Sunny's health battling, I somehow thought that it would be smart to run. I instinctively kicked off in the opposite direction, and the wild Pokémon took chase, just like I really hoped it wouldn't. "Great," I thought, "I'm being chased by a Rattata. It doesn't get more embarrassing than this." If I were still in New Bark, everyone in town would have already known about it.

I turned back to gauge whether I'd gotten away, but the Rattata had kept up the chase. I was finding it harder to keep myself at a distance as I kept on. The brush was difficult to navigate and slowed me down, and I wasn't very athletic to begin with. I could only shove away the vegetation with one arm, as I was still clinging onto Sunny's Poké Ball and didn't trust my dexterity in pocketing it while running, not that I didn't also fear the ball popping out of my pocket while I ran. But I kept going as the Rattata clearly made it known it was still giving pursuit, as I could hear its speedy little paws clawing at the grass behind me.

As nature would have it, I was clearly at a disadvantage. The Rattata, I was sure, could have easily kept going for much longer. I, on the other hand, eventually succumbed to my human shortcomings, struck a root with my foot, and tripped. This spelled out two very bad situations for me, in my immediate judgment. One: The Rattata was right behind me. Two: Try as I might to keep my sweaty grip on Sunny's Poké Ball, I dropped it. In densely-packed tall grass, no less.

I would have been fuming if I wasn't so busy being scared for my life over being killed by a purple rodent one fourth my size. I turned onto my back to see the Rattata come straight at me, but instead of burying its rabid teeth into my neck and giving me some type of rabies, it simply scurried right past me like it had found something more interesting, and I instantly lost track of it in the dense foliage.

It took me a second to get over the initial shock of my near-death Rattata experience to remember I'd dropped Sunny's ball, but when I did, I was already once again in full panic mode. I began crawling all over the ground on my hands and knees, feeling around for the ball, shoving grass out of the way to get as clear a view as I could. My heart beating at a million miles an hour, I felt completely lost. Why did the Poké Ball have to be green, of all colors?

I was about to begin tearing apart the grass like a human lawnmower when I suddenly caught sight of the familiar ball resting on top of a small rock in the dirt. Perhaps a little dramatically, I dove for it, caught it, and held it up in both hands as if examining a precious artifact.

And then, I slid. That's what I got for trying to act like the hero of some adventure novel.

The ground gave way under me, and I realized that I'd dove right onto the perimeter of a tall slope rising twenty or so feet off the ground below. I tumbled face-first down the hill with the Poké Ball held in front of me. I blocked myself from eating dirt on my way down, but keeping my grip took all my conscious effort, and my hands didn't appreciate the various boulders and branches they crashed into. But when my body was finally deposited at the bottom of the slope, any physical pain I had gone through temporarily vanished as I celebrated the fact that I hadn't lost Sunny. What a horror I imagined it to be, for the both of us. I wasn't sure what it was like to be inside of a Poké Ball, but I couldn't imagine spending an eternity in there while forest vegetation grew over me and sealed me away from the outside world, never to be seen again, as anything but terrifying.

As I picked myself up and brushed myself off, I had a new fear to contend with, though: I wasn't sure where I was.

No problem, I thought at first. I had run straight most of the way, so I just had to get back up the slope, then keep going straight in the direction I came to get back to the road. I was okay with maps, and my spatial intelligence was fairly strong, so I figured I had nothing to worry about. Looking back up at the slope I'd come down, though, I could see it was highly vertical, and wouldn't be an easy climb, if possible at all. After a few meager attempts, I decided against going up the slope, at least on foot. I wondered if Sunny could carry me up there. After all, he could fly, and I knew that trainers used flying Pokémon to carry them around all the time. But I wasn't sure if he was strong enough to lift me. Based on our previous battle results, I guessed it wasn't likely. My other option was going around the slope. I hated the thought of it, but it looked like my only real option, so I got to work making up all the ground I'd lost.

Bruised but not beaten, It wasn't long before I passed by the house I'd seen earlier that day. My heart did sink a little as soon as I saw it. It was clear that I had fallen back much farther than I had initially thought. I might have lost out on an hour's worth of walking. I'd either run from that Rattata faster and farther than it felt like I did, or that slope was about a hundred feet taller than it looked. Not only was I set back from my goal, but I was set back on an emotional level. My will felt a pang of discouragement as I nonetheless pressed on past the house yet again, going northward.

It was near sunset as I trudged my way through a large area of tall grass. Leaves were nipping at my skin and rocks in the dirt were cramping my feet. I pressed on anyway, but I was quickly becoming exhausted. I nearly crashed onto the open ground as I cleared through the brush and landed in the same clearing where I'd earlier battled with Marcus. Too tired and too distraught to continue on, I decided to call it a day, and began unpacking my tent. I felt uncomfortable with the thought of being in such a tiny space in the middle of a large clearing, so I nestled it up near a few trees on the perimeter and got ready to sleep. I just wanted to get some rest and wake up early to beat the trainer traffic again.

Holding up the green-hued Poké Ball to my chest again as I lied on my back, I felt a sudden uneasiness. I released Sunny, who formed right beside me, appearing drowsy. He looked at me quizzically.

"I thought maybe you'd want to sleep out in the open," I told him, as he tilted his head in confusion. "I mean, I don't know if you've got like...a hot tub inside there, but this tent can fit you too if you want." What was I even saying? I felt stupid trying to explain myself to a Pokémon. In truth, in my newfound paranoia, I sort of wanted Sunny around just in case that Rattata was still stalking me while I was sleeping. I knew I couldn't put my faith in that, though. Sunny seemed to usually go to sleep early and wake up with the sunrise, so I was probably all on my own even if he were to be right beside me. I'd seen how long that Cyndaquil slept in my battle earlier, and it was getting wailed on, too, so Pokémon could probably sleep through anything.

Basically, they were aliens, and impossible to understand, weren't they?

I shook my head, confused and frustrated. I felt disappointed in myself - not just for getting myself involuntarily backtracked, but also for relying on Sunny for emotional support like that. I was supposed to be taking care of him, not using him as emotional support to help me sleep. Realistically, even if my fears were rational, if that rabid Rattata had come back during the night, it probably would've torn Sunny to shreds before either of us could even wake up. But there I was, lying down with the Ledyba nestled up next to me, already asleep. How did he sleep so easily while my mind raced? Sure, battling other super-powered creatures could be tiring, but what about all I'd been through that day? I guessed Pokémon just didn't have the overworking brains people sometimes had. Maybe that was just the price of intelligence - Pokémon could shoot lasers and shrug them off just as easily, while people could do math and have anxiety. Fair enough.

I eventually got myself to sleep, mostly through sheer physical exhaustion. I didn't sleep well, though, and eventually I woke up in the middle of the night. Fumbling for my phone, I saw that it was about midnight, and I slumped back into my covers. It took about a second to realize Sunny was no longer next to me, and as I sat up, it was apparent he wasn't in the tent at all, unless...could Pokémon put themselves back in their Poké Balls? Picking up the capsule and pressing its button causing nothing to happen didn't answer my question, and it definitely didn't make me feel any better. Noticing that I'd left the tent partially unzipped, I felt like an idiot, and my heart and mind were racing as I grabbed my shoes and bolted outside.

The night air was crisp and cool while I was expecting it to be stuffy and humid. The thing that really caught my attention, though, was the relative brightness of the night sky. Accompanied by a powdering of shining stars, the moon was full and large, casting a white glow over the surrounding area. I could see most of the clearing as well as the shadowy figures of the trees surrounding it.

"Oh god, oh jeez! No, no, no!" I kept frantically whispering it to myself. I ran off into the center of the clearing, trying to keep myself low-profile. I ran up to trees, searched in grass and bushes...everywhere. But I couldn't find Sunny.

Scenarios played in my head. "If it wasn't that Rattata, it must've been that one trainer and his Pidgey that got him." I was being overly presumptuous, and I knew it, but I suppose such theories may have been easier to accept than the more likely event of Sunny just escaping and flying away like any wild creature would. That'd be easier to explain to Gramps, at least, but I genuinely thought Sunny was at least a little more than just a dumb bug. It hurt to acknowledge that even dumb bugs knew when to opt out when they were constantly getting abused, and I couldn't think of a reason to fault Sunny in wanting to escape a know-nothing guardian like me.

But it wasn't about Sunny. It was for Gramps. And even if it were all about Sunny, I was still worried about him. He wasn't strong enough to survive on his own in the wild...or, at least I suspected, if his battle prowess was anything to go by. And besides, I'd named him. I was attached, just like I knew I shouldn't have allowed for. I couldn't just let something I was attached to get eaten by some random bird Pokémon. I had to find him.

I started calling. "Sunny! Sunny!" I tried not to be too loud, even though it made little sense given there seemed to be no one else nearby - I was embarrassed to even be in such a predicament. It didn't take long before I allowed my voice to get louder, though. If any trainers were camped in the area, I thought, they might hear me and come to help. Wouldn't that have been delightful? Trying to explain to a bunch of veterans that a scrub like me had lost their only Pokémon after only having it for a few days.

I don't know why I even considered doing so, so I must have been seriously desperate when I decided to climb the tallest tree nearby to get the greatest range I could. Fumbling around with climbing a tree in the dark was no easy task, even with the intense moonlight helping me out, but somehow I managed it. I was nearly to the top, but was losing my balance, so I clung to the trunk and began calling out Sunny's name again.

"Sunny! Sunny!" I paused for a moment, hoping for any sort of reply. Nothing. I decided to try and get a little higher, and as I did, I did begin to hear something. It was a faint sound, and mildly irritating, but it got louder as I went higher. Suddenly, I stopped, realizing what I was hearing. The sound was coming from directly above me.

I looked straight up to find Sunny - or another Ledyba, at the least - perched on the very top of the tree's trunk, beating his wings excitedly. He was less than six feet above me, but I couldn't directly reach him. I called at him. "Sunny! What are you doing up there?"

"Baaaaa..." was the only reply I got, totally deadpan. It was as if Sunny, or the Ledyba I hoped was Sunny, was asleep. I wasn't sure if Ledyba beat their wings while asleep, though. Staring up at him, I noticed that he was perched so that he was directly facing the moon. To try and get his attention without scaring him away, and to see if he was actually asleep, I lightly shook the top of the trunk. The bug Pokémon faltered a bit, working to regain his balance but never facing away from the moon, so I knew he was awake. That, or he had samurai-like super senses. Whichever explanation worked.

I wasn't sure what was going on, but I was confident by that point that he was awake and simply ignoring me. He seemed to be obsessed - transfixed, even - with that moon. I couldn't reach him, and I couldn't get his attention by harassing him, so I did the only thing I felt he was sure to respond to: music. I readied my Walkmon, taking it out of my pants pocket. I decided that if my idea didn't work out, I'd just recall him to his ball and figure it all out later. I was tired and wanted out of that tree.

There was no need for the ball. As soon as he heard his favorite song, Sunny stopped beating his wings, and turned to look down at me. "Ba?"

I frowned. "Sunny, come down." I held up my hands to invite him back toward me. Astonishingly well-behaved, he slowly hovered right into my arms, and I placed him on the branch beside me as I began climbing back down the tree. "Come on, let's go," I urged him on. He slowly hovered down the tree to match my descent speed, monitoring my safety, or at least that's how I interpreted it.

Once we'd gotten back to the ground, I knew I had to say something. "What were you up there for? You nearly scared me to death. Why were you staring at the moon?"

"Ba?" Sunny looked back up at the moon almost longingly, before slowly turning to face me again. I could tell he was fighting some sort of urge to do so.

"Why are you up past midnight anyway? You're an early bird, remember?" I got absolutely no response to that, not that I was expecting one. So I sighed. "You Pokémon are just...beyond my realm of understanding. You're a complete mystery to me, you know that?" Thankfully, I didn't expect a response to that either. "Come on, let's go back to sleep," I urged, retrieving Sunny's ball to help get across the idea. That seemed to work in getting his attention, so I began slowly walking back to the tent with the Ledyba flying behind me.

I'd only taken a few steps before I heard a highly distressing noise that made me jump.

"Biii! Biiiiiii!" It was definitely Sunny. The sound of frantic buzzing in my ear convinced me for sure. I turned to see the Ledyba struggling with all his might to escape the most intimidatingly large spider web – or rather, web network - I'd ever seen. Somehow, I'd completely missed it on my way up the tree, but the nearly invisible silk, its silvery sheen now illuminated by the moonlight, was terrifyingly large, spread out across several trees sometimes several yards apart from one another. The web appeared to be as durable as it was large, as Sunny was quite visibly straining himself to break free, sending ripples through the bouncy web like it was a giant trampoline all without tearing an inch of the silk itself.

"Return!" I shouted, aiming my Poké Ball at Sunny. But it did nothing. The web prevented me from returning Sunny, for whatever reason, and suddenly, that got me panicked.

I knew how spider Pokémon webs worked, and that got my heart beating and blood boiling, even as my spine chilled. I knew I had to stop him from rustling it any further. "Sunny, stop struggling!" I pleaded. "Stay still! I'll get you out!" He was still struggling for his life, and even though I knew he had heard me, he continued crying and beating his wings in fright. He was in full-on 'insect brain survival mode', and I was worried that if he kept it up, he'd get his fragile wings caught in the webbing, too, and who knew what kind of damage that might cause?

Sunny had gotten himself caught in the lower-hanging half of the web, which dangled several feet above the ground. I climbed up the trunk of the nearest tree and slowly crawled my way across one of its lower branches. From the end of it, I could almost reach out to him, just in front of and slightly above me, but I was still off by several feet, even with my arm outstretched. I tried breaking off a long stick to improve my range, but it still wasn't enough as I precariously balanced myself on the very end of the strained branch. Sunny's panicking was only stressing me out more, and I kept yelling at him to shut up.

Eventually, he stopped his struggling, and looked down at me with sheer fright in his eyes. I'd never known a Pokémon to show such a human-like expression of fear before, and seeing that fear in Sunny's eyes was enough to scare me as well.

Taking a deep breath to try and get my brain working while I had Sunny under control, my sense of panic was heightened when I heard yet another ear-piercing noise.

But that time, it wasn't Sunny.

Spinarak. I knew what it was immediately. It'd been too late. Sunny's frantic movement had alerted the web-weaver itself. Spinarak were a common pest in the area, and their webs were notoriously difficult to keep away from one's property. You'd spend an entire day redoing the exterior of your house, and you'd wake up the next morning with the entire roof covered in a Spinarak's web.

I glanced up at Sunny, and sure enough, right behind and above him on a higher branch of the adjacent tree, approached a Spinarak, no farther or nearer to Sunny than I currently was. Sunny turned from me to the predator behind it, and immediately flew into a panic again, shaking the web and spurring the Spinarak to approach. Forget the question of trained Pokémon eating wild ones; my captured Ledyba was about to be a meal for a wild Spinarak, and it was going to be before my own eyes if I didn't do something.

Stupidly, I leapt from the branch to get as close to Sunny as possible, but I undershot the barely-visible web and fell several feet before catching onto the lower perimeter of the structure. My feet dangling just a few feet above the ground, I tried to climb up to get to Sunny, using the small amount of arm strength I actually had. It did no good, though. My hands were stuck to the strands I had at first grabbed onto, and I was going nowhere fast as the Spinarak slowly made its way over to Sunny. I couldn't beat it there, but I could at least try to change its course, so I began shouting at the six-legged freak.

"Hey! You! Spinarak! Over here!" I succeeded in getting its attention, as it turned to face me and bent its legs in anticipation, a show of threat. "Yeah, you! Get away from him! Come get me, instead! What, are you scared?" It wasn't meant as an honest question, of course. It certainly didn't look scared, but I sure as hell was. Nonetheless, my plan seemed to be working as it turned its attention to me and quickly began climbing down in my direction. I didn't think a Spinarak would or could eat a human, but I definitely wasn't prepared to find out.

I struggled, twisting and pulling the strands of silk with all my might. I actually managed to make a few tears, but nothing large enough to get me back to the ground. Losing out on time and ideas, I noticed that Sunny was still in a frenzy, whining and buzzing in fear. That terrible, droning, buzzing noise. But...wait! That was it! Sunny was helpless to fight back, but his wings were still free! I knew exactly what to do to buy myself just a little more time.

"Sunny!" I called, "Supersonic!" Like a hypnotized patient, Sunny obeyed, and snapped out of his panic only enough to beat his wings in that familiar fashion. The rapid-fire flapping produced yet another high-pitched screeching noise. Unable to cover my ears, it was painful. It was also risky and wasn't guaranteed to work, but it at least accomplished what I had expected: the Spinarak was obviously confused. Disoriented, it clumsily waltzed around the web in various, random directions. I winced as it got near Sunny, then sighed as it spun around and flopped around in the opposite direction. When it started tumbling back in my direction, however, I knew I didn't have all the time in the world. Mustering up the last of my strength, I managed to pry my right arm free. I reached out and grabbed a branch from the nearby tree, snapping it off and gripping it tightly as the Spinarak seemed to come to its senses and walk right up to me.

"Alright you little green freak," I shouted, "take this!" I began poking the branch at the Pokémon in an effort to keep it at bay. I realized later how stupid I must have looked trying to fight a wild Pokémon one-on-one with a stick while dangling from a spider web with one arm, but at the time, I didn't care. I actually got a few hits in on the Spinarak, and it squealed in annoyance a few times, so I was becoming confident I could fight it off. I had the range advantage, as its stubby little legs couldn't bring it close enough to me with my makeshift polearm between us. "Get back!" I cried. "Stay away!"

But I got greedy. I swiped at the Spinarak to try and get in a bigger hit, but I only glanced it, and the stick ended up getting caught in the web as well. I tried to pry it free, but I was quickly running out of strength in my arm. The Spinarak saw its opportunity and seized it, darting right up to my face. If I was scared before, I was pretty sure my face was white then. There's being afraid of bugs, and then there's being stuck in one of their webs and looking down their mandibles as they come right up to bite out your eyeballs.

It went for my throat, and I pulled back instinctively as it missed by a few centimeters, which gave me an idea. As it tried again, I pulled back with my arms bracing my neck and held a few inches apart. It worked like a charm as the Spinarak ended up biting straight through several layers of the silk strand keeping my arm stuck. That was enough for my weight and gravity to do the rest of the work, as I fell from my restraint and landed on the ground. Pulling out my lighter from my pocket, I grabbed the nearest branch on the ground and lit its tip on fire. Before I even had time to think, I began waving the torch across the bottom strings of the web, trying to set the whole thing ablaze to destroy it entirely.

It worked. The Spinarak retreated in fear, climbing back up toward Sunny as my Pokémon completely spazzed out and got itself even more entangled, totally unable to move at that point. In hindsight, and in fairness to the Ledyba, seeing a predator approaching with a trailing wave of fire behind it probably wasn't the most comforting image to see.

Luckily, the silk was fragile enough to be burned apart by the sparks from my torch without being so flammable as to spread the flames to the surrounding trees. I was extremely fortunate that the web was weakened enough to cause Sunny to fall. I managed to catch him as he was released, still wrapped up in a half-formed cocoon of silk. I glanced back up at the web, to see whether the Spinarak had managed to get away. It was nowhere to be seen, so I thanked my luck I'd managed to scare it off, seemingly for good. I almost felt like a hero, having done some other, future trainer with a defenseless Pokémon a great service. That particular web probably wasn't going to be a threat anymore - not until the Spinarak inevitably rebuilt it, anyway. I shook the dwindling torch out, and dropped the branch to the ground, stomping out the last of the embers.

My first and immediate thought was to get Sunny untangled and back in his ball. Carrying him back to the tent, I criticized myself for having not brought a knife with me. I searched around the dark undergrowth nearby for a sharp rock or twig. When I found what I needed, I began cutting the webbing around his torso, being careful to not get my hands stuck or to hurt Sunny. When I had just about finished getting him untied, he seemed to be in shock - eyes pulsing, body barely moving, but otherwise healthy.

"Probably just spooked," I muttered. Totally understandable. "Probably best to get you safely back in your Poké Ball then," I told him. I bent my shoulder to get a reach for the ball in my pocket, and the hairs on my back stood up as I froze in place.

Something was on my back, and it was moving. I craned my neck to get a glimpse of the invader, but in doing so, I alerted it to my impending resistance, and it pressed its sharpened horn into the side of my neck before scurrying down my back and into the darkness of the forest floor.

After a much-justified concoction of pained yelps and swears, I immediately began to feel unwell.

"That...that Spinarak..." I stammered, quickly retrieving Sunny's Poké Ball. "I...I think it stung me...with its horn." First Rattata, and now Spinarak, I was starting to become convinced that wild Pokémon were all extremely truculent once they found some petty reason to be. I wanted to keep Sunny safe, so I lifted my arm to call him back, but my hand cramped up and I groaned in pain. My entire body felt like jelly, and my stomach was extremely unsettled. Palms sweating, I put my arms at my sides and took deep breaths to calm myself, but found it difficult to breathe, as if my lungs had been clogged.

I just stood in place for several minutes, waiting for the sensation of pain to subside, but it didn't. I eventually developed a headache as my heart paced. Lightheaded and dizzied, with my vision blurred in the already murky darkness of the night, I tried getting back to the tent to lie down, but stumbled as I walked, barely able to see where I was going. "Sunny," I called, quietly, "I think I'm...poisoned. I...can't feel my body very well." I was getting worried for my own safety at that point, and could barely think. It was as if my mind had been stripped of all of its functions, unable to process any stimulation or fully form any thoughts. The only concepts my mind statically understood were 'feel wrong' and 'need help'.

"Sunny, let's go," I said, unable to even think about what I was saying or doing. All my actions were relegated to pure instinct. "Follow me. We gotta get help." I immediately shuffled off like a zombie, not even seeing two feet in front of me or realizing which direction in which I was going. I just had to move, or I felt I was in deep trouble.

"We gotta...get to town. Get to...Cherrygrove, Sunny. Don't slow down. Don't...slow down. Follow me." I couldn't even tell if he was listening - let alone see him - but I kept urging Sunny on, and I never knew whether it was because I was afraid he'd get lost again unless I did, or whether it was because I feared him not being near me.

Either way, I didn't feel like I was getting very far. It was like being in a dream where you're running, but not moving anywhere. I was lost, and nothing around me made sense. The world was surreal, abstract. I couldn't sense anything. There was no sight, no smell, no sound, and no sense of direction. It felt like both endless hours and a scant few seconds while I was out there, stumbling around in the woods.

However long it took, I was getting worse as time wore on, my heart beating faster and my migraine overloading my entire body's nerves. I was shaking and shivering, and in immense pain while somehow remaining entirely numb. And however long I lasted like that, I eventually ceased to perceive even those most primal sensations. I eventually crashed. The last thing I sensed was the muffled sound - not even the physical sensation - of a heavy landing.