Hoorah, I finally got around to updating TYM! I've decided to post each chapter on a new page so that fanfiction.net will actually register the update. Previously, I decided to just update the previous page with the extra chapter added to the end of it, but fanfiction.net didn't register this as an update so no one could find out that the story had been updated without going to my profile! Once I get to the end of Part One, I'll probably re-post it all on one page, and then continue each new Part Two chapter on a new page. Then when Part Two is finished, I'll repost that on one page and continue new Part Three chapters on new pages, and so on. Hopefully this will work out. I don't really want to put every single chapter on its own page since they're short chapters (though they're longer than they were in TYP). So yeah, hopefully I'll start updating this story more regularly, but I won't promise anything because my other fanfic (Pilot Light) tends to take up most of my attention.

Part One, Chapter Four

Starring: Janet Harris, Sand-Cloud Pluff, Gelby Chu, Audric, Potow the pidgeot



I held out my pokéball and recalled Potow, then looked up at Audric, disappointed. Potow hadn't been able to use its newly-learnt move to win the battle. Even though Audric was an ex-gym-leader, it must have really shaken Potow's confidence to lose against him. Even though Skarmory was a type of pokémon we'd never faced before, Potow and I had been together for four years . . . we should have been able to figure out how to defeat it. I sighed. My own confidence had been shaken just as much as Potow's must have been.

Audric recalled his pokémon and crossed the battlefield to me, while Sand-Cloud and Gelby walked over from the sidelines.

'You fought well,' said Audric. 'I chose Skarmory because I knew it would be a challenge, and you tried hard to overcome that challenge. Don't feel too bad about it . . . Skarmory is resistant against your pidgeot's attacks; it would have been near impossible to defeat. And besides, the idea wasn't to win, it was to test out your pidgeot's new attack, and I think it handled Fly considerably well.'

I forced a smile, and nodded. 'Yeah.'

Audric smiled. 'Now, come inside. You can heal your pidgeot on my PC.'



After healing Potow, we were getting ready to leave when Sand-Cloud made a point that had slipped past the rest of us.

'Potow's great and all,' she said. 'But how do you think it's gonna carry all three of us, especially over such a long distance?'

I bit my lip. She had a point. Why hadn't we thought of this earlier? Great. Just when we'd finally thought we were really gonna make it to Aspen, another obstacle appeared in our way.

'Hmm,' said Audric, rubbing his chin in thought. 'You're right. Pidgeots are strong, but carrying both you and Janet could prove a problem. Gelby's all right of course, she's only small, but as for you two . . . well, if you ask me, your best option is to teach another of your pokémon to Fly, and have one carry each of you. Have you got any other flying pokémon?'

My charizard, Chazz, immediately sprung to mind. It was the first pokémon I'd caught (on the same day I'd caught Potow), so I knew it would be strong enough . . . but a charizard just didn't seem like the ideal pokémon for flying on. Bird pokémon were more suited to that kind of thing. So who better than Arrow, my fearow? I'd caught Arrow as a spearow not all that long before becoming a pokémon master, and it had only evolved about six months ago. But I was confident that it would be strong enough to carry us to Aspen.

'My fearow,' I said, opening up my backpack and pulling out Arrow's pokéball. I opened it, and in a flash of bright light, Arrow materialised.

'Feeeearow!' it cried, spreading its wings happily.

'Ah, perfect!' said Audric. He reached his hand out and scratched Arrow under the chin, and it smiled contentedly. 'It's only young, but often it's best to teach them when they're young. And this fearow is full of energy, it looks like it'll be more than happy to fly you to Aspen.'

'Great,' I smiled. I turned to Arrow. 'How would you like to learn to use Fly, Arrow?'

'Feeearow!' nodded Arrow cheerfully.

'Then that's settled,' said Audric. 'I'll just fetch my HM, and we'll do the process again!'

'Thanks,' I smiled, as he turned and walked away to get his machine. Finally, we were all set to head out for Aspen!



'Thanks so much,' I said, as I climbed onto Potow's back, glancing over to where Sand-Cloud was already sitting on Arrow's back, ready to go.

'It's no problem,' said Audric. 'It's the least I could do after your pidgeot got my HM back. I'd be out of business if it weren't for it!'

'It was still very generous of you,' said Gelby.

'Really, it's not a problem!' Audric insisted, shaking his palms at us. 'Now, you'd better get going. You don't want to miss the tournament!'

I nodded. 'All right, see ya!'

'Bye!' Sand-Cloud and Gelby called in unison.

'Goodbye, Team Yellow,' said Audric. Potow and Arrow spread their wings, then began to beat them, and leapt into the air. 'And good luck!'



I was a little surprised that we received very few strange looks when we landed on a beach in Aureate. There were quite a few people on the beach, swimming, surfing, building sandcastles or simply sunbathing . . . but none of them seemed particularly interested when a human, yoshi and pikachu landed on the dunes on the back of a pidgeot and a fearow. Perhaps they didn't realise that we'd been flying for eight hours straight all the way from Mildew.

I recalled Potow and Arrow to their pokéballs; both flying pokémon deserved a rest after that amazingly long flight. Once they were safely in their balls in my backpack, I turned to my friends.

'So now what?' I asked.

'We find somewhere to go and sleep,' said Gelby.

'Yeah right,' said Sand-Cloud. 'We're in a whole other continent, and you want to sleep? Let's stay here on the beach for a few hours! Have a swim, soak in some sunlight, check out the guys . . ..'

'Er,' I said. 'Sand-Cloud, I hate to tell you this, but there aren't too many yoshis in Aureate. I don't think you're gonna find too many guys to "check out".'

'You never know, one or two might come along!' said Sand-Cloud determinedly. Then she took a look around her. 'Man, humans have all the luck! They're so common! No matter where you are, you're guaranteed to find human guys. Hey Janet, now's your chance!'

'I'm gonna ignore that,' I said, as I dug into my backpack. 'Since we're on the beach, we should give the water pokémon a chance to have a swim.'

'Hey, don't you think it's more important that we find somewhere to stay, not lie around on the beach?' Gelby asked.

'Chill out, Gelby!' said Sand-Cloud. 'We've got hours. Just relax and have a bit of fun!'

Gelby sighed, but didn't object when I took out four pokéballs and opened them. In a flash of light, Ripple the blastoise, Evy the vaporeon, Politwirl the poliwhirl and Seaworth the seel all appeared. The four of them looked around, a little confused about this unfamiliar place.

'Hey guys,' I said. 'This is Aureate. We're staying here tonight, but I thought you might like to have a swim before we go look for somewhere to stay.'

My four water pokémon seemed happy at that idea. Seaworth and Ripple ran for the water immediately, while Evy started to sniff around on the sand, and Politwirl wandered over to where a boy was throwing a frisbee for a growlithe. I decided I'd better go and follow my poliwhirl; I didn't want it to get into any trouble.

'Here Growlithe, catch!' the boy called as he tossed the frisbee.

'Growlithe!' barked the pokémon, running along with its eyes fixed on the frisbee, waiting for it to fall low enough for it to catch it.

'Poliwhirl,' said Politwirl, and lifted its big hands up into the air.

'Hey, Politwirl!' I said. 'That's not your toy!'

But it was too late. Politwirl had caught the frisbee in its hands, and the growlithe, its attention fixed solely on the frisbee instead of where it was going, ran straight into my poliwhirl's big round belly. I cringed as the little dog pokémon collapsed to the ground, whimpering.

'Growlithe, are you OK!?' the boy exclaimed, running over to his pokémon.

'Whirl . . .' said Politwirl uncertainly, looking down at the growlithe.

The boy looked up at Politwirl and blinked, then turned to me.

'What kind of pokémon is that?' he asked.

I stared at him for a moment. He didn't know what a poliwhirl was? They were pretty common pokémon . . ..

'It's a poliwhirl,' I said uncertainly.

'Oh . . . I think I've heard of that before,' said the boy. 'We don't have any of those in Aureate. Where did you get it from?'

'Mildew,' I said. 'That's where I'm from.'

'Oh wow!' said the boy. 'Yeah, I thought you weren't from Aureate, 'cause of your funny accent.'

I laughed. 'Oh, OK.'

'What're you doing in Aureate?' the boy asked, as his growlithe shook off its confusion and ran off. Politwirl chased after it, and the two went off to play together.

'I'm just here for the night,' I said. 'I'm on my way to Aspen, to compete in the Master Tournament.'

'Wow, that's so cool!' said the boy. 'I hope I can become a pokémon master someday, but I'm not old enough to leave home on a pokémon journey yet. Someday my growlithe and I are gonna be the best, though!'

'That's great,' I smiled.

'My name's Tim by the way,' said the boy.

'I'm Janet,' I said. 'And those are my friends Sand-Cloud and Gelby over there.'

I gestured over to where Sand-Cloud was lying in the sand, and Gelby was sitting beside her with a worried look on her face. She caught my glance, and got up, walking over to us.

'Hi,' said Tim. 'My name's Tim.'

'Pleased to meet you,' said Gelby. 'I'm Gelby. Um . . . this may sound kind of abrupt, but do you know any places around here where we can stay? My friends are being a little laid back and expect to be able to find a place in the middle of the night.'

I laughed, and Tim smiled.

'Actually, yeah!' he said excitedly. 'My family owns a hotel not far from here . . . you can stay there!'

I blinked. 'Wow, really!?'

'Yeah!' nodded the boy.

'Wow, thanks a lot!' said Gelby.

'Well, I must say I didn't expect it to be that easy,' I smiled.

'I'll take you there after Growlithe finishes playing,' said Tim.

'That might take a while,' I said, looking over at where Growlithe was chasing after Politwirl, who still had the frisbee in its hands and was refusing to give it up. Tim laughed, and ran over to play with them.



It was evening by the time we got moving. I recalled all my pokémon to their pokéballs, and Tim and Growlithe began leading us through the unfamiliar streets of Aureate. Sand-Cloud started complaining that she was hungry, to which Gelby reminded her that she had been the one who'd insisted on staying there for so long. I just laughed as I listened to them arguing, and took a look around at the Aureatean suburbs. The place didn't seem all that different to Mildew . . . the buildings didn't seem to be as tall, but that could have been because we were on the coast rather than in any of the inland cities. There didn't seem to be very many people around, as if they'd all gone home for the night already. So, I was even more startled than I would have been when three teenage boys leapt out from a side street and faced me.

'Uh . . .' I said uncertainly, taking a step back in shock.

'Haven't seen you around here before!' one of them said. He gestured to the Pokédex that I had clipped to my belt. 'You a pokémon trainer?'

'Um, yeah . . .' I said.

'I take it you're not from around here,' he grinned. 'See, 'round here we have a little thing called pokémon street battles. You battle the three of us in succession, and if you beat all of us, you get to keep the last person's pokémon. But if you lose, whichever one of us beats you gets to keep the pokémon you're using!'

'What!?' I exclaimed. 'No way! I'm not risking losing my pokémon!'

'I'm afraid you haven't got a choice!' grinned the boy, holding up a pokéball.

'Of course I have a choice,' I said. 'And I'm not doing it!'

'Janet!' Sand-Cloud whispered harshly, and pulled me back so she could speak to me. 'Take a look at those trainers. They're just kids. You're a pokémon master in case you don't remember. This could be a perfect chance to get a cool new pokémon!'

'But that makes it even worse,' I said. 'If my pokémon are much stronger than theirs, that makes it really unfair.'

'And you think they're playing fair by making you fight three of them in a row?' Sand-Cloud asked rhetorically. 'C'mon, this is as fair as pokémon battles get. Just do it!'

I sighed, and turned back to the boys. 'Fine.'

'Great,' smiled the boy who'd spoken to me, who seemed to be the leader of the trio. 'Now, you can only use one pokémon against each of us.'

'So he tells me that now,' I muttered.

'Charlie,' said the boy. 'You go first!'

'You got it!' nodded the boy to his left, a short boy with long dark hair and glasses. He stepped forward. 'Prepare to lose!'

'Whatever,' I said, rolling my eyes. I took my backpack off my shoulders and reached in for a pokéball. I thought frantically about which pokémon to use. I didn't want to use my most treasured pokémon for fear of losing them, but on the other hand, they were my strongest pokémon so they were the least likely to lose. I swallowed. I should send out a strong pokémon until I figured out just how experienced these kids were. I grabbed my charizard's pokéball. 'Chazz, I choose you!'

I tossed my pokéball to the ground, and my light orange winged lizard appeared. Chazz was the first pokémon I had ever caught, back on my first day of training. Although it was a little smaller than most charizards, it was still one of my strongest pokémon, and one of my best friends.

'A fire type,' smiled Charlie. 'This should be easy. Go, Staryu!'

A staryu? A staryu? I couldn't believe it. I'd thought that Chazz would be the best choice because of its strength and loyalty, but I hadn't even taken types into account. And now I was risking the first pokémon I had ever caught in a battle that it had the disadvantage in.



~Janet~