"Alright, chow time!"

"Whoa, whoa, back up!"

"Take it easy. Jeez, there's plenty of food. You guys been eatin' sugar or something? You're hyper today."

I was running around the nursery, looking to snatch any and every morsel Alpha threw as my sisters did the same. I would get the most this time, I promised myself. I didn't want Gamma to take it all for herself, like she had last time.

Speak of the devil; we collided with one another as we went after the same piece of meat as it flew across the room. One end ended up in my mouth, the other in Gamma's.

{This one's mine, Gamma,} I snarled at her, holding steadfast onto my prize. {You go find another one.}

{I had it first, Omega! Let go!}

She shook her head wildly; something I hadn't expected her to do, and it hurt my neck when she did. But I still refused to let go.

{There's plenty on the ground now, Gamma,} I tried to reason with her, even though I knew that it wouldn't do anything to sway her deep down. {Let go.}

{No, you let go!}

She was getting mad now. I didn't know what the big deal was. There was plenty more for her to take instead of the one I had.

"Hey, you two, what's going on here?"

It was Alpha. Gamma finally let go of my meat and turned to face him, and I could see the guilt in her eyes when she looked into his.

"Quit stealing from your sister, Charlie," he ordered as he pointed down to another piece of meat on the ground. Gamma seemed to forget all about her anger, and she grabbed the piece and ran away, satisfied.

"She hurt you?" he questioned, running his hand down along my neck to check for injuries. "Doesn't feel like anything's wrong. You guys can get awful rough sometimes, you know? Gotta be more careful..."

He patted me on the head and stood back up, and I watched him tend to Delta, who was now fighting with Gamma over another piece of food.

{Is your neck alright?}

It was Beta; she had come over to make sure I wasn't hurt.

{It's fine,} I replied. It wasn't a lie; the pain had begun to subdue. Besides, I didn't want to look weak in front of her. {Why does Gamma act so mean during chow time?}

{She's always hungry. She would probably eat everything if Alpha wasn't here to stop her.}

She nudged another piece of meat on the ground toward me.

{I'm full. You can have it.}

She gave me a quick nuzzle before turning away. I never understood why Beta was so nice to me, especially after the big fight we had a few weeks ago. I was at the bottom, and she was just below Alpha. Delta and Gamma were never nice to me; they always bullied me, and they bullied each other, too, when they got the chance.

Delta and Gamma...

What did Alpha call Gamma? "Charlie?" Odd. Me and my sisters always called her Gamma, since she ranked right below Beta in our pack. "Charlie." It didn't actually sound too bad.

But if Gam-Charlie got a special name, why didn't the rest of us?

...

I woke up on the cool tile floor, Rowlet by my side.

"Roo?" He seemed concerned with my fatigue.

{I'm fine, Rowlet. Just tired,} I assured him.

When the Professor brought me a bowl of meat, I'd eaten myself into oblivion, and slipped into a food coma by the bookshelf. When I finally woke up, I didn't even feel rested, so I didn't bother trying to get up and wander. All I wanted was to stay down, relax and watch Rowlet flit about my head making paltry hoots.

It was about this time that I heard Lillie and the Professor exchanging words. Had they just started, or had they been there discussing things with one another the whole time, and I was too stupefied to notice? I didn't know, but I supposed it didn't matter, so I listened to what they said from my position by the bookshelf.

"So, what does the double 'X' on there mean?"

"I won't go into all the details, because there are a lot. But to put it straight, it means we can stop calling it an 'it' and start calling it a 'she.'"

"So, that...thing." Lillie turned her head to look at me from the lab area. "It's...a girl?"

"Yep. But just knowing that it's female isn't the extent of my discoveries. Wanna know what I found out?"

"What?"

"It hasn't been documented. I can't find a match to the DNA sample anywhere. The closest I've found are Sceptile and Archeops, but neither specimen shares even half of the code."

"So, it's a new species of Pokémon?"

"That's the other thing. I'm not so sure that creature is a Pokémon at all."

"What?! B-but-Why isn't it a Pokémon? What else could it be?"

"She has extremely weak aura readings compared to any other Pokémon discovered so far; too weak to even use battle moves. In Pokémon, an aura reading that weak means that the specimen is either in critical condition or extremely young. Or both, sometimes. But judging by the tooth and skeletal analysis I did while she was asleep, she's fully grown, and her wounds are healing up well enough so that she remains stable."

"But what about type? Doesn't she have a type? Normal? Dark? Fighting? Any of those?"

"No. It's typeless. And another thing."

"Another thing?"

"Poké Balls have no effect on her. If she were wild, it would encapsulate her. If she already had a ball, she'd be coated by a protective barrier that would prevent illegitimate capture."

There was a long silence between the two of them that made me feel uneasy. I didn't exactly get what they were talking about; I had lost them at "DNA." And what was a "Pokémon?" I'd never heard of such a thing. And "types?" It was all foreign to me.

"Well, if she's not a Pokémon, then...what is she?"

"I don't know."

I wasn't so sure that I knew myself. Sure, I knew what I must have looked like, because I was always around others that recognized me as their own kind, but did it matter if you didn't have a name for what you were? The humans had names. The thrushes had names, Rowlet had a name. Why not me?

"I guess...this must be a pretty groundbreaking discovery, huh?"

"Oh, you have no idea just how right you are."

"So, uh...What do we call it?"

"Hmm...I don't know yet. I'll have to think about it. Who knows? Maybe she'd like to decide herself when the time comes."

That would be nice, I said to myself.

"So, girl," the Professor said to me as he walked over. "How about we take you outside for a bit, see how well you do?"

The house was comfortable enough, but the idea of fresh air was appealing, so I nodded and stood up. The floor was beginning to feel cold, anyway, and the warm sand outside would be a nice change.

The Professor lead me up the stairs and onto the main floor, then he opened the door and escorted me out onto the front porch. It was early evening, and the sky above the horizon was pale yellow in contrast to the softening blue. I stepped off the porch and back onto the sand; it was warm and inviting, and it flowed like silk in between my toes as I lifted my feet.

"Koo roo!"

Rowlet had followed us outside, apparently not wanting to leave me. I gave him an amused huff as he circled around my head through the air and landed on my back.

It was only now that I noticed that he had the strange red and white ball-the "Poké Ball"- in his stubby beak. He dropped it into the sand and motioned for me to pick it up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second, Rowlet!" the Professor exclaimed. "You two can be friends, but she can't be your Trainer! She's not a person! Only people can have a Trainer's license!"

Rowlet hooted at him in disdain, a scowl having spread across his white face, and he suddenly looked much more intimidating in spite of his small size.

"Rowlet, don't give me that look."

He puffed his feathers out stubbornly, then flew to the ground, grabbed the Poké Ball and tossed it at me. I instinctively responded by grabbing it in my jaws before moving it to my hands. Rowlet then proceeded to tap his beak on the ball, which reduced him back to a glowing mass and sucked him back inside. All I did in response was stand there, dumbfounded.

"Oh, boy..." The Professor broght his hand to his head. "Rowlet wants you to be his official Trainer. How do you like them apples, huh?"

I wasn't sure what the Professor meant by that. Did it mean that I couldn't train Rowlet to do as I commanded? But I was his Alpha; I was in charge of what he did. And while I knew the Professor wouldn't try to break our connection, Rowlet and I had already agreed upon my leadership. He had no say in it...Did he?

"Rowlet's ball, please?" He motioned for me to give it to him. "I should probably take it inside before you-"

I ducked back, clutching the Poké Ball tighter. I had no intentions on letting the Professor take Rowlet away from me.

"Get any...ideas. Oh, man...So, you think you can be a Pokémon Trainer?"

I nodded again. I wanted to be allowed to train Rowlet. I wanted it very much.

"This is just nuts, now..." He let out a heavy sigh in between speaking. "Alright, if you insist, I'll see what I can do to make it be a thing. I can't make any promises yet, though."

I chirped happily, and thanked the Professor for his understanding by nuzzling his hand; I remembered that Beta sometimes did that to one of us when we were hurt or scared. The Professor responded by rubbing it up and down my snout again.

"Heh...You ain't so scary, now, are you?"

I barked with satisfaction; at least one of the humans knew they could trust me.

I dropped Rowlet's ball and let him come back out. The bird turned to me, churred and fluttered to the top of my back again; he was glad to see me.

"I'm going to town and see what I can do for you in terms of a license. You and Rowlet play, and keep her out of trouble, Rowlet."

The bird nodded, though he wore a mischievous smirk on his face. The Professor headed in a separate direction, towards what looked like Main Street from a distance. I turned my head and looked at Rowlet, who seemed curious about the white and red-stained bandages wrapped around my middle.

{I hope the Professor get me a license,}I said to him. {I'd like to be able to train you properly.}

To have a license, to be a "Pokémon Trainer." What was a Pokémon? Apparently I wasn't one, according to the Professor. Was it another type of creature? Was it a group of creatures?

...Was Rowlet a Pokémon?

I needed to be a Pokémon Trainer in order to train Rowlet, so the human had said. It sounded like a logical conclusion, but I had to know for sure, so I turned and asked him.

Rowlet responded to my question with a nod, which was all the confirmation I needed. Rowlet was indeed a Pokémon. So, what other kinds of Pokémon were there, if any? Did they all resemble Rowlet to an extent? Did they not? As far as I knew Rowlet was the only Pokémon I'd seen so far, unless those pink fish in the lab were also Pokémon, which I didn't know for certain. And why hadn't I heard about Pokemon until now? It seemed as though the more I learned, the less I knew. Ironic, it seemed, but true.

"Wow...What do you suppose that is, girl?"

I heard the unfamiliar voice come from somewhere behind the lab building. I turned around and saw another human; a third one. He wore darker clothes than Lillie and the Professor. His skin was a bit darker, too, and he had an odd, blue creature at his side. Was that another Pokémon? It wasn't much bigger than Rowlet, and it had slick, shiny skin and a large, pink nose. They both noticed that I was aware of their presence, and they inched back some, even though they were still pretty far away to begin with.

"I've never seen anything like it...It looks pretty strong, though. I don't know if we can handle a battle against it just yet, Popplio."

"Bwar, bwark," the blue creature responded to him.

Was this human a friend of the Professor's? He didn't seem like a threat, but he was obviously concerned that I would attack him.

I called for Rowlet to follow me, and I made my way towards them with a light, springy gait, trying to make myself as unthreatening as possible, as I wanted to introduce myself properly.

"Whoa, that's kinda close," he said once I had shortened the distance between us to a mere few feet. "We don't want any trouble, you hear?"

I knew that. I didn't intend on causing any. To show him what I meant, I bent my head down and sniffed his hand, then nudged it with the tip of my snout, hoping he wouldn't be startled by my greeting. He seemed to be more in awe than he was afraid.

"Oh, man...What are you?"

I wished I could answer his question. I merely stepped back some and answered with a friendly bark.

"I mean, lookit'chah...You're awesome!"

Me? Awesome? I gave him another bark in thanks.

"Bwark! Bwark!"

The little blue creature stepped in between me and the human, looking up at me with a defensive glare.

"Roo!"

Rowlet confronted it angrily, and the two began to stand off against one another, each of them growling as fiercely as they could.

"You wanna pitch a battle with that Rowlet, Popplio?"

The creature-"Popplio"-turned to its Alpha and nodded.

"Weird. You normally don't see Rowlet in the wild. Do you think it has a Trainer?" he thought aloud.

Now this was a question I could answer. I showed off the Poké Ball in my hand by tossing it up and grabbing it again.

"Wait...YOU'RE Rowlet's Trainer?!"

I nodded. With or without a license, I would make sure Rowlet won this battle.

{Rowlet. Get ready to fight.}

The bird Pokémon let out an aggressive trill. The human stepped back a ways, and the two Pokémon stepped in front of us.

"Let's do this, Popplio! Use Pound!"

The opposing Pokémon came at Rowlet with astounding speed and began to whack him with its front flippers. To my dismay, Rowlet simply stood there and took the beating, looking at me desperately for directions.

{Bite it! Butt it! Scratch it! Do something!} I ordered frantically.

Rowlet seemed confused, but he did his best to obey, and thwarted the barrage of flipper slaps by ramming himself into the enemy's chest, sending it flying back.

{Don't let it get back up!} I commanded. {Use all your strength! Use the strongest attack you can possibly can!}

Rowlet seemed to know exactly what I meant. He flew into the air, then, to my surprise, shot a barrage of glowing green leaves from his open wings right at Popplio. They hit their target mercilessly, sending the creature into a weakened daze as it struggled to push itself back up.

{Finish it!} I snarled. {Tackle it again!}

This time, Rowlet didn't hesitate, and he collided with the opponent once more. This time, the creature didn't stand up; it simply lay there, unconscious.

The human pulled out a Poké Ball of his own and returned Popplio into a red mass similar to Rowlet's whenever I did the same, housing the creature inside.

"Sorry, Popplio. We'll get 'em next time," he said to his Pokémon before fixing his gaze onto me.

"Dang. You're good for a...Well, I don't know what you are, really."

Neither do I, I thought. The only understandable answer I could give him was a confused tilt of the head.

"One thing's for sure, I haven't seen anything like you around here before. Maybe the Professor will, though..."

He did know the Professor. I cawed at him in understanding, and motioned to the white cloth bandages wrapped around my middle.

"Oh, dang! How did I not notice that?!" he exclaimed, rushing over. He was quick to notice the bright red bloodstain on my left.

"Augh, that's gnarly. Did...Did the Professor do this? The bandages, I mean?"

I barked and nodded.

"So, then, you two know each other?"

I gave another nod.

"You do...Wow. I gotta ask him about this when I get the chance."

"Well, Hau, you're chance is now. Hey, girl. Gettin' friendly with the locals, now, are we?"

{Professor! You're back!} I greeted, circling around him and rubbing the tip of my snout against his shoulder.

"Ha ha...I'm happy to see you, too."

"Professor...What is it?"

"That's just it, Hau; I don't have any idea. She's not a Pokémon, though, I can tell you that."

"Weird. Well, it uh-or she-We sorta had a...battle. With our Pokémon."

"You two battled!?"

"Yup. And she won."

"She and you had a Pokémon battle. And...She. Won. Is that what you're saying?"

"Ah, yup."

The Professor was silent, but I could see the wonder in his eyes.

"This is...I can't even find the words for it."

"Radical?"

"Tch. That's an understatement. It's not just that, it's...phenomenal."

"Where'd she come from? Do you know?"

"No. We found her outside the research lab, badly injured," the Professor replied, running his hand down my spine near the bandaged area. "If we hadn't been there, she wouldn't have lived. And she should still probably take it easy for a few more days."

"You haven't ever seen anything else like her?"

"Not anything remotely close."

"Then, if we don't know where she came from, then...What'll you do with her when she's better?"

"Hm...I've never really thought much about that. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, am I right?"

"Fair enough. I think I like her; she seems awful friendly with you."

"Yeah, maybe, but there's no doubt she's a predator, wherever she came from. The build, the forward-facing eyes, the teeth...the claws. Look here, did you see the big one? Four inches from base to tip, at least."

The Professor pointed down at my feet, and I shifted as I observed my curved claws more closely. I never really acknowledged just how big and sharp they were.

"Whoa, you're right. They're huge. And curved...They're almost like sickles, almost!"

"I know. Now, in terms of your passport," he continued, turning back to me. "I'll have to take your photo and supply you with some basic needs before you can set out to be a Trainer. Wanna head back in and we can take care of that now?"

I chuffed in agreement and started making my way back inside without their accompaniment.

"I guess that's a 'yes,' then, isn't it, Professor?"

"Sounds like one. You wanna come in and see how everything goes?"

"I was coming over to ask you about some of the training methods I'm trying with Popplio, but when I saw her, I guess I forgot."

"Well, you and I can discuss that after I have everything set with uh...the creature."

"You don't have a name for it yet?"

"Nope. That's not the most important thing right now, though."

"Eh, You'll figure it out at some point. Hey, come on, I wanna see where this goes!"

"Hey! Don't leave me in the dust, you two!"

...

It got boring after a while, so I took Rowlet back outside with me to explore. We ran into a few odd-looking brown and yellow hairy Pokémon while we were out wandering, but Rowlet protected me from their ferocious nips by imploying the same leafy attack he had earlier when we battled against Hau's Popplio. I was somewhat tempted to eat them, seeing how small they were, but they were very fast and very nasty, so I didn't bother. Plus, something deep inside of me told me it wasn't the right thing to be doing.

It seemed strange, but Rowlet looked noticeably stronger when we came out of the grass after fighting all of the hairy creatures. He gave off a loud victory hoot, and I noticed that the sound of his cry seemed to bounce back, almost as though another Rowlet were trying to answer from afar.

I wondered if I would get the same result, so I reared back my head and let out a scream. Sure enough, the sound of my voice sounded again thrice, each time just a bit more quiet than the last. I screamed again-same result. What was causing this?

"That's an echo."

Hau surprised me some, but I knew he meant no harm, so I simply stood there, waiting to hear what else he had to say, if anything.

"See, when you make a loud noise, the sound travels and bounces off stuff, and it comes back to you, and that's an echo. Pretty neat, huh?"

I nodded.

"It's weird how things work, isn't it? Hey, come on back inside! I think the Professor's almost done, and he says that he wants you to meet someone else!"

Hau had already begun running back to the lab again. I followed, but slowly; I wanted to look at the sunset some more. I'd never really appreciated just how stunning the sky was at dawn and dusk, and this first time was magnificent.

I screamed once more; I wanted to hear my echo again. The sound of my own kind seemed to fill the hole in my heart that my sister's normally occupied, even if it was, in reality, coming from my own throat, and returning as an echo.

An echo...

Why did that word set off so many alarms in my head?