"Here's another one."

"Thanks."

Goh accepted the book from Chloe as the two of them began cleaning up the study after Goh spent yet another afternoon studying in it. She was looking through all the books removed from the shelves, and he was taking them and putting them back in order.

The winter solstice was behind them now, and after their time in Ecruteak City, Goh was happy to be back in Vermilion City. He had fallen into a simple routine once more, and Chloe's presence at the lab was something he had to look forward to while she was out of school for the winter break.

These weren't days of adventure, or adding entries into his Polédex, or even earning more tokens for Project Mew, but he was looking forward to them all the same.

Chloe turned around to go find more books, but paused, taking something off the ground near where Grookey and Eevee had been playing. "Hey, what's this? This doesn't look like a research book." She began fanning through the pages of the book, and her tone caused Goh's curiosity to pique as well, so he turned to look over her shoulder.

As she flipped through the pages, he saw pictures of Chloe and her family from some time ago. Parker looked like a toddler, in one of the pictures, so he supposed it was quite a few years back until a certain picture came into view.

In the picture was himself, looking teary eyed standing next to Chloe, whose arms and legs looked covered in mud. Standing near them were Chloe's friends from school, Mika and Deliah, as well as two other boys: the bully and class clown Yeardley and Yeardley's friend Belf.

In an instant, the incident in question came to mind, and Goh chuckled to himself. "Man, time flies, doesn't it?" he said, taking the photo album out of Chloe's hands.

Chloe furrowed her brow, glancing back at him. "I didn't even remember this…" she said. "Do you remember what this was about?"

He chuckled. "Oh, this was the time your dad took us out to a summer camp out near that lake north of Vermilion City," he explained. "We went with our class at school, remember?"

Chloe frowned at the idea. "Sort of, I think…" she said, crossing her arms. "How did I end up covered in mud?"

"That is a great story," Goh said. "I can tell you if you want while we take a break."

"Sure!" With that, the two of them headed over to the couch in the study where Eevee, Grookey, and Yamper were all napping together. Goh leaned back into the cushion, looking up at the ceiling. Chloe sat down next to him, smiling in his direction.

"Let's see… It was back when we were eight, and it was the first night of the trip…"

"Lights out, boys," Professor Cerise said, closing the door behind him.

And the door to the cabin was closed, the adult authority figure stepping away into the night. Though it was called 'lights out', there was still plenty of light in the room with a string of LCD lights around the ceiling that fitted the cabin with a gentle glow that was still definitely gentle enough to fall asleep under. The cabin was filled with bunk beds and boys brought out into the wilderness outside of Vermilion City for a camping trip to experience nature and learn a bit more about Pokémon, the latter of which was the only reason Goh bothered coming.

As everyone around him began speaking in whispers and laughing at jokes they shared, Goh turned over in his bed, drawing his covers over his head. He had nothing in common with the rest of the boys, even though they were all eight-years old and all shared the same class at Sailorway Elementary School. Moreover, he didn't have anyone here he was interested in talking to about anything, so he decided to try and get some shut-eye for the day in nature he had ahead of him. Given the recent rain, it was bound to be a muddy one.

As he laid there quietly, trying to drift off to sleep, he felt another boy jump onto his bed before that same boy hit his head against the top bunk and fell onto the floor, to the laughter of his peers.

Goh pulled the covers down and sat up, trying to see who was bothering him. Lying on the ground, holding his head but laughing was Yeardley. He felt his gaze already narrowing. "Aren't we supposed to be going to sleep?" he asked, annoyed at the intrusion, not that it was unexpected.

Yeardley was one of the chief architects of Goh's misery in school, and the chief reason he spent so many days skipping. If it wasn't Goh's quietness or his awkwardness, it was accusations that came from having his closest friends in school all be girls. When he was alone, it made him easy pickings for teasing, and Yeardley was usually the first one to do it.

"Aww, c'mon, Goh, don't be a girl," Yeardley teased, standing up while still holding his head. "Or should we ask Chloe and Mika if there's a spare bed in their cabin?"

Invoking the name of his friends like that only served to irritate Goh, and he stepped out of bed. "I'm serious. It's time for us to go to sleep! Unless you want to get in trouble when Professor Cerise hears us all shouting, you all should get to bed, too!"

Another boy threw a pillow at him, which Goh raised his arm to block. Looking at the boy who threw it, Goh saw that it was Yeardley's friend, and often the other boy who would bully him, Belf. He was smirking mischievously, reaching for another pillow from another bunk.

"Stop it!" Goh shouted, gesturing at him. "Unless you guys want to get in trouble!"

Yeardley snorted. "So the guy who skips school all the time is really a whiny little teacher's pet? What, are you going to tattle on us to the Professor?"

"You know why he doesn't want to get the Professor mad!" Belf shouted. "He doesn't want to get his girlfriend's dad mad at him!"

Goh felt his face grow hot and he was seeing red. "She's NOT my girlfriend!" he shouted as the rest of the boys in his class all continued to gather around him, Yeardley and Belf.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

The chanting came from the back, from someone Goh couldn't see, but he had been in the middle of this circle enough times to know that a fistfight was on its way, and as usual the odds were getting stacked against him. His pride wouldn't let him stand down, so Goh put up his hands in the fighting stance his father was still working on drilling into him, favoring his dominant left. He hoped it would give him enough of an edge to force Yeardley and Belf back.

But as Yeardley himself started to walk towards Goh, it became apparent that a fight wouldn't be necessary.

All of the lights, even the dim ones, went out immediately.

"...what happened?"

"Who turned off the lights?"

The circle that had just prepared to watch Goh get the snot beat out of him had already begun to disperse. Goh slipped into his bed as others began walking into each other and holding their hands out to avoid bumping into beds or people.

From where he sat, at least, Goh could see the pale moonlight outside the cabin, and as the other boys realized this, it was obvious that it wasn't as dark as it seemed.

Things quieted down for a few moments as the boys, with much less incentive to be awake now that it was much darker, all began climbing into bed and chatting with their bunkmates.

He, of course, had no bunkmate, so he was left staring out the window.

As he stared into the darkness, he caught sight of a light flickering in the distance, so he sat up to scrutinize it further.

It looked like the light from someone's phone, looking back and forth. In the direction out the window was the cabin the girls from the class would have been taken to, but it was only when a flash of light from the phone illuminated a familiar, blonde girl that Goh realized what he was looking at.

If Mika was there, Chloe was probably the one holding the phone.

He slipped out of the bed, quickly put his shoes back on, and began heading for the door, much to the confusion and shouting of his peers at his apparent hypocrisy regarding the need for sleep.

He threw open the door and saw Chloe standing not far from the door, turning to him and shining her light on him. Through the phone's light, he saw Mika behind her, and behind Mika was Deliah, their mutual friend. As short as Mika was tall and as brunette as Mika was blonde, Deliah was a foil for the exuberant Mika, down to Mika's usually sunny disposition contrasting the quieter, more negative thoughts Deliah usually shared.

Chloe blinked in his direction. "Goh? What are you doing awake?"

She was dressed in fairly ordinary clothes, with her hair down, framing her face in maroon waves. Goh was somewhat taken aback by just how long her hair was, but he quickly recovered.

"What are you even doing out here?" he asked. "It's after lights out."

Chloe blinked at Goh's question. "We're going to go investigate why the power went out," she said.

"This is all her idea," Mika said, attempting to backpedal from Chloe's more assured position. "I'm just here since if Chloe gets in trouble, she'll need backup. An' Dii is here because she's afraid of the dark and Chloe took her phone with her."

Deliah looked even shorter than usual, given how she was slouching behind Mika. Hanging off of Deliah's shoulder was the Pichu that had entered her care, Goh knew, after her father's passing. Goh only caught a glimpse of Jolt as the Pokémon focused his attention on Deliah.

"Can't Jolt just make a light for her?" Goh asked, feeling as though he was stating the obvious.

Deliah shook her head. "J-Jolt might hurt 'imself…"

From what Goh knew about Pichu, they weren't known for their control, so it wasn't that big a stretch to think that, indeed, Jolt might hurt himself. Or Deliah.

"Then why'd you even bother bringing Jolt along?" he asked, putting his arms behind his head. "I mean, Chloe didn't even bring Yamper. At least he'd be able to do something here."

Chloe scowled at him before leaning over and flicking him in the forehead. Goh winced and put his hands over where he was flicked as Chloe sighed. "Honestly, Goh, you know Deli needs Jolt to feel safe and secure, especially with so many people. And besides, I didn't want to bring Yamper."

"You should be more sensitive," Mika added, nodding.

Behind Goh, he heard snickering, and that only caused Chloe to turn her light onto them. Chloe's face twisted with annoyance as Yeardley and Belf were revealed standing behind him. Goh could feel his face twisting, as well.

Deli clung tighter to Mika as Chloe rolled her eyes. "And what do you two bozos want?"

Yeardley and Belf both looked at each other before looking at Chloe, looking like they were weighing between them how they should act.

Tact won out.

"We saw Goh running and we wanted to know what he was up to," Yeardley said. "What're you doing out of the girls cabin?"

Chloe shrugged. "We're going to go figure out why the lights went out."

"Dii can't sleep when it's totally dark," Mika added. "So if we can get them turned back on, it'll be good for her!"

"Pichu, pichu!" added Jolt.

"B-But it's dark," Belf said, pointing out the obvious. "If you go out, you could get lost or something."

"Or in trouble," Yeardley added.

Chloe responded by shining the light from her phone into their eyes before turning to Goh. "Did you want to come?"

Goh hesitated at the question. While he wasn't opposed to sneaking out, Belf did have a point. It was quite dark and not at all safe. But looking into Chloe's eyes, he saw absolutely zero of the fear and apprehension he was feeling himself, so he steeled himself. "I'm coming. I bet it's a Pokémon, anyway, so I wanna see it."

"Of course you'd think that," Chloe sighed before turning her phone back to Yeardley and Belf. "What about you guys?"

"I-I'm not scared," Yeardley said, clearly a transparent lie. "If Goh's going, then I'm going."

"Y-Yeah! Me, too!" Belf added. "We're all going."

Chloe shrugged. "Fine by me. Let's get going." She pointed the phone up and at the power lines connected to the cabin. "The power lines go this way, and so if we follow them back enough, we should find something."

"H-How far back?" Yeardley asked.

Chloe shrugged and began walking, with Mika sticking close behind her, and Deliah closer still to Mika. Goh sighed and began jogging to catch up to Chloe, walking beside her in the night, with Yeardley and Belf tagging along behind him.

Their walk into the darkness did not take very long, as they soon began to hear the familiar crackle and snap of electricity as they walked through the trees, following the power lines to a substation, surrounded on all but one side by an intact fence.

The one remaining side had a fairly large hole punched in it, and Goh and the others caught sight of the Pokémon that was currently gorging himself on electricity, causing the outage.

The Pokémon had two flat, broad horns on his head, and was covered with yellow fur with black stripes. The horns looked like a giant version of an electrical plug, and it was through these horns that the Pokémon was draining the power.

The children watched from the bushes intensely.

"How can we get that Pokémon to go away…?" Chloe asked out loud in a whisper.

Yeardley poked Goh in the arm. "Hey, do you know what kind of Pokémon it is?" he asked.

Goh winced at being poked, but took another look at the Pokémon anyway. "That's Elekid. He's an Electric-type that can generate electricity by rotating his arms."

"Looks like he's given up on that," Mika said, frowning. "He's just goin' wild with eating that electricity."

"Pichuuu…" muttered Jolt.
"C-Can we stop him…?" Deliah asked.

"If we had a Pokémon we could battle him with…" Goh said, frowning.

Belf pointed to Deliah. "She brought her Pichu, right? Pichu can fight that Elekid and scare them off!"

Jolt stood up and shook his head. "Pichu, pipichu!"

"Jolt says he doesn't want to step away from me…"

Mika giggled. "Jolty's such a sweetie…"

"But then what?" Goh asked. "I don't think we have a choice."

Deliah looked up at Mika and Chloe before looking at Jolt. "Do you think… we can do this?"

Jolt frowned back at her, but the frown was quickly replaced with confidence. "Pichu!"

"O-Okay… I'll do it…"

Deliah stood and looked like she was about to step out from the bushes, but she stood there, frozen instead.

Mika reached out and took her hand, giving it a small squeeze. "Don't worry, Dii. I'll be right next to you, okay?"

Deliah looked up at Mika, catching her blue eyes in her brown before stammering out an "Okay". The two girls held hands as Mika led Deliah closer to the substation, where Elekid was still draining electricity.

"Do you think this'll work?" Chloe asked, leaning in.

Goh frowned, looking at the match-up. "...I dunno. It'd be better if we had a Ground-type?"

"A Ground-type?"
"Pichu and Elekid are both Electric-types," Goh explained. "So their Electric-type moves won't be very effective against each other, so it'll all come down to how strong they are otherwise."

"And a Ground-type would have an advantage over an Electric-type like Elekid?" she asked.

Goh nodded. "Yeah. Ground-type moves are super-effective at taking down Electric-types."

Yeardley snorted. "For being the Professor's kid, you don't know a lot about Pokémon, do you?" he asked.

"Even I knew that."

Belf's commentary wasn't helping, and Chloe grew quiet. Goh thought for a moment that he might need to say something, but instead he said nothing and focused on Deliah and Mika.

The two girls had let Jolt down and out front, though Elekid hadn't even begun paying attention to them yet.

"Hey, you!" Mika shouted. "You better get out of there before you get in trouble!"

Elekid sat up, taking his horns off the machinery "Elki?" he said before hopping down and approaching the hole he knocked in the fence.

Deliah swallowed. "Y-Yeah! Please leave! We don't want to have to battle you…!"

"Pichu!"

Jolt hopped off of Deliah's shoulder and stood in challenge to Elekid, poised and ready for battle.

Elekid stepped out of the substation and began charging electricity between his horns. He unleashed the blast towards Jolt, who responded with his own electric blast, and it seemed, for a moment, that the two Pokémon were evenly matched.

"Way to go, Jolt!" Mika cheered, holding tightly onto Deliah's hand.

Deliah tried to match Mika's confidence. "Alright! Jolt use Quick Attack!"

Jolt cloaked himself in the pure power of speed before launching off, a tiny streak of white behind him.

Elekid saw this and nodded before leaping forward with his own Quick Attack, crashing into Jolt and sending him rolling back to Deliah's feet, unconscious and unable to continue.

"Piiichuuu…" he groaned, unable to even see straight after that.

Goh sighed. "Well, that lasted about as long as I expected…"

Elekid smirked in his victory over Pichu, but the two girls who stood in front of him seemed more concerned with the tiny mouse than they did him.

"Jolt…! Jolt…!"

"Dii, Jolty'll be fine…! W-We just gotta…"

"Eleki!"

The electric Pokémon glared at Deliah and Mika, stomping over towards them. The cruel look on his face reminded Goh of the look he had gotten from Yeardley earlier, and it seemed to be saying to them what Goh understood that all bullies seemed to do.

'If you're not going to keep playing, then I'll make my own fun.'

He began sparking and powering up another Thunder Shock, grinning maliciously.

That just made the splatting sound that much stranger.

Elekid recoiled as a glob of mud splattered across his face. When he turned to go see the source, he and everyone else saw Chloe standing there, holding a mess of mud in one arm as she scooped and flung out more mud with the other.

Goh didn't even realize Chloe had slipped away, but the confident look in her eyes as she threw another handful of mud at the Pokémon was something he just couldn't look away from. The front of her clothes were all muddy, and there were flecks of mud across her face as she continued to attack.

"Shoo! Get away from here!"

Chloe threw another one, and this third glob missed.

Elekid, though, was ready to call it quits, and darted away from the substation, back into the forest nearby, leaving the children to all gather around Chloe.

"Wow, Chlo'! That was incredible!" Mika said. "You fought that Pokémon by yourself!"

"You saved us…!" Deli said, holding tightly onto Jolt.

Chloe dropped the rest of the mud onto the ground. "Well, someone had to do something. You guys could have gotten hurt."

Both Mika and Deliah shouted "Thank you!" and threw their arms around Chloe, pulling her into a hug with them, despite everyone now getting muddy from where Chloe had been digging into the dirt with her hands.

Yeardley shrugged, stepping up. "Well, yeah… I guess that was alright. For a girl."

"Thanks, Yeardley," Chloe said in her monotone, sarcastic way.

Belf stood back, looking around as the kids gathered together, but Goh approached Chloe with strange emotions mixed in his chest. "H-Hey, that was.. That was really brave of you, Chloe." He felt embarrassed that Chloe was the one standing up and protecting others rather than himself, but if there was anyone he could admit it to, it was her. "You looked really cool."

Chloe smiled back gently at him. "Well, the only reason I could be brave is because you told me what we needed to do. We needed to use Ground-type moves, and the mud's kind of like that, right?"

Goh couldn't help but laugh. "Y-Yeah! You're right!"

The two friends had a laugh, with Mika, Deliah, and even Yeardley joining in.

It was Belf who brought them out of their reverie. "Hey, guys? I think someone's driving their car up here!"

The children all turned to the car and stared. In the driver's seat of this particular car was a very worried looking Professor Cerise.

"Dad was so mad," Chloe giggled as Goh finished recounting the story.

He shrugged. "Well, he at least let us all take this picture together, right?"

Looking back down at the picture, Goh returned to looking at everyone. Deliah was still mousey, and Jolt was still a Pichu, but he hadn't had to deal with Yeardley and Belf recently, so that was something he was thankful for. Chloe's hair was down and wild and she was splattered with mud, but in his mind he could still see her saving Mika and Deliah from Elekid's electrical attack.

She did really look cool.

"I guess I'm a bit surprised that I was able to say it like that," he said.

Chlor raised an eyebrow. "Say what?"

It was at this time that Goh realized how close Chloe had gotten to him during the story. While they had sat next to each other, as he told it, she had started to lean on him until her head was laying on his shoulder, with her face turned up towards his.

He could smell the perfume she received from Erika, the Celadon City Gym Leader. He could see how deep the greens of her eyes were, and the way her curiosity made her lips curl made his pulse quicken.

He looked away from her, trying hard not to think about his childhood friend in those terms, even if it was getting easier and easier to do so.

"I… I said you were cool, you know?"

Chloe giggled, sitting up. "Well… next time, I think you should try being cool, too, okay?"

Chloe stood and returned to the task at hand of organizing and placing the books on the shelf. As Goh stood to join her, he found himself hoping that he'd get the chance to look cool to her sooner rather than later.

This story was something I wanted to write ever since I watched episode 55 of Journeys and saw Goh boasting about how Chloe was fearless on camping trips. I really wanted to write a story that showed her fearlessness, though I suppose in my mind it's less that she's very brave and more that she is able to muster her resolve to not be afraid.

Chloe has always had a kind nature, hasn't she?

Belf is actually based on the character who sits behind Yeardley in Chloe's classroom, but he doesn't have a name in canon, so I decided to use this one.

Next week we start Book 5 properly, so I hope you don't miss it!