Lorcan has been reading young adult vampire romances.

How come I'm not surprised?

But to be honest with you, I'm not even sure where he got a copy. He claims he got them from me, although I cannot remember if I had ever bought them. I mean, I don't think I had. I have a memory that's sometimes good, and sometimes bad, but I'm pretty I would remember if I had ever gone a shopping spree to buy fifteen different paranormal romances all at once. I'm not even that big a fan of the genre, much less read a single book.

I confiscated Lorcan's books, and then I locked them all up inside the Dark Cave. Lorcan was pissed, but not by much because he'd already read them all.

A bit irrelevant, but I can't believe that Lorcan taught himself how to read. I haven't even read my summer reading book once this summer, but Lorcan was motivated enough to listen to the dramas and teach himself English. It's kind of weird feeling that Lorcan is smarter than me—but then he forgets to flush the toilet or something, and I feel much more better about myself.

I know, I'm quite the shallow one when it comes right down to it. In my defense...you know what? Forget I said anything.

Anyway, I managed to successfully return Kenya to her owner without her having to lose a wing or something. It was a brilliant achievement, and it was just enough encouragement for me to tackle Miranda's training. Miranda is okay in battle. I mean, she doesn't give up the going is tough. And her bravery in the face of Bellsprouts is admirable. I can tell that she'll be a great member of the team one day, as long as she keeps herself focused. Keeping herself focused is something hard for her to do—that is, she is too young to concentrate all of the time, and it impairs her ability to battle. I had similar problems with Kitty, but while Kitty has a hot blooded streak, Miranda is merely flighty and just...young. I think she must have been a household pet before, or something. Her introduction to battle came later in childhood than the others.

While I was focusing on getting Miranda to focus, Kitty started to get jealous. We were still stationed at Violet City to train Miranda by then. Hours and hours of Bellsprout fighting went on, with the occasional help from Miranda's designated training buddy, Cinder.

"Let's go, Miranda!" I called out. "Tackle that walking plant!"

Miranda nodded. It was one of those few, magical moments when she was completely focused on her task. Her eyes were drawn in with such intensity, she could make heat vision burn through the ground. She smeared her soft paws onto the ground so fiercely, the dirt rubbed off and made her look rugged. Her opponent, the stupid walking plant, merely watched. It was probably paralyzed with fear.

I grinned. I really couldn't help myself. This is going to be so awesome, I thought, as Miranda braced herself for the close combat. Miranda seemed to smile herself as she launched into the air, about to slash down, when—

—Kitty ran in front of her, his Poké Ball dropping on the ground next to my shoulder bag. Miranda gasped and slipped, landing headfirst on a pile of mud. I gaped at Kitty in confusion as he used ESP on the Bellsprout. The Bellsprout fainted from the tension, its slender body falling onto the mud with Miranda.

Kitty looked at me triumphantly.

I was still gaping at him in confusion.

Miranda got up from the mud, casually shaking it off. Then she looked at Kitty, and her gaze steadily lingered.

She was staring at him.

Cinder blinked and shook himself awake after his nap. Everybody was staring at Kitty by then, so Cinder knew where to look. Cinder paused, then gazed at Kitty. Cinder's eyes narrowed because he was just about to sneeze.

Kitty looked away because he was beginning to feel self-conscious.

"Kitty," I began. "That fight was—" (Cinder sneezed)"—for Miranda." I gestured to Miranda wildly, so that if Kitty didn't remember who Miranda was there was a pretty good hint for him to take.

Kitty nodded.

"Hey...you are listening, right?"

Kitty nodded.

I pursed my lips together, not sure how I was supposed to do deal with this. Finally, I got him back into his Poké Ball—he had to promise me that he wouldn't involve himself in battles that weren't meant for him. I gave him some time after Miranda's practice to have him train a bit, just to indulge him.

He was still pretty showy, all that afternoon. Whenever Miranda and I shared a bonding moment, Kitty would bump in and try to mimic the exact same circumstances with me. Baffled, Miranda and I would simply stare at him and make him self-conscious again with our empty gazes and only occasional blinks. It was a vicious circle that only kept going, powered by jealousy and the fainting of stupid Bellsprouts. Miranda didn't take a hint during the entire ordeal. So she was reduced to thinking that Kitty was some kind of weird, attention seeking, celebrity wannabe.

It came to a time when I had stopped for dinner. I sat on the grass with all my Pokémon as I took out some sandwiches that were prepared that morning. I remembered everybody's favorite flavors, so I didn't understand what the fuss was all about when Kitty and Hamako turned up their noses on their sandwiches.

Kitty's sandwich was, uh, vegetarian flavored. Hamako had a seafood flavored sandwich. Whatever that meant.

To be honest with you, I didn't make the sandwiches at all. I bought from one of the Amish. It's very long story that nobody's got time for, but basically, this Amish was randomly selling sandwiches in the middle of the forest for almost no reason at all. Almost no reason, because he liked money. Apparently, money smells very nice to him—I wouldn't know. Well, that Amish man had to sell things in secret.

Frankly, I don't know much about the Amish, but that Amish in particular looked odd. He was extremely short, and was shaped like a plant bulb, and he had leaves sticking out of his hand. He had no hands, so he did everything with his feet. It was peculiar. Still, he told me he was Amish, so I had to believe him.

Anyway, I was just thinking about how sneaky that particular Amish looked like when Kitty and Hamako refused to eat their sandwiches. I mean, he had little red eyes that glowed in the darkness, which is kind of ominous. I try not to judge people by their appearance, but the image of that odd little Amish man was stuck in my head as I lectured Kitty and Hamako to eat.

Lorcan didn't react at all to this turmoil. He had spent all his time preoccupied about the radio and drama. I had no idea what he was doing until I made a random glance at his direction and there he was, propped up against a radio and listening intently to some crying adolescent male who had recently been dumped by his girlfriend. I'm not sure how I missed the crying from the radio before, but then again, I was occupied with...other things. (Such as the consumption of carrot cakes.)

Anyway, I decided to shut Lorcan's radio off because it was evidently a horrible, horrible influence on him. Lorcan hissed at me most fiercely when I did that. His tiny face was drawn in with insolence as he stuck out his minuscule pink tongue at me.

I quietly placed the radio into my bag. Lorcan started trying to jump up and down, but it was kind of hard thanks to his snakelike body. So everybody spent the rest of their lunch casually watching Lorcan trying to jump up and down. In fact, Kitty and Hamako were so distracted, they ate their disgusting sandwiches.

Lorcan's struggle to jump successfully caused him to forget exactly what he was jumping for, so he had to stop and think it over again.

Lorcan then spent the next few minutes glowering at everybody, which did not exactly help Kitty's dignity.

I figured that we've had enough time lounging around (and that it was clearly starting to get into our heads), so we headed on the way back. By then, the sky was gradually darkening, causing eerie shadows to appear. From the distance I could see the yellow lights of a firefly sprout, its brightness deeply contrasting with the darkness behind it. Still, I wanted to get a few more Bellsprout battles for Miranda before we moved on. So, rather sluggishly, I led Miranda around the swishing grass as we waited for our next opponent. We finally stopped before a rustling field of grass. Yawning, I turned to little Miranda.

"Okay, Miranda," I began to say, my mouth separating open in wide yawns as I spoke, "let's see how you battle—"

I was caught mid yawn. My mouth stuck open I stared in disbelief at the thing in front of me. Two seconds later, I was up and running and screaming my head off.

(I rather not write the curse words I said. For one thing, I'm not sure what half of them meant. I think they were in Japanese.)

It was not a disgusting mutation of Bellsprout, although I admit that the Bellsprout are indeed disgusting. Instead, the grass had parted, revealing a vast, clawed bedtime monster that probably hid under my bed when I was little. It was some kind of lion monster, only worse. It towered over Miranda, its features only faintly illuminated by the moonlight.

I was running back and forth on a swearing fiesta, screaming at the top of my lungs, "Fuck! Fuck this shit!"

Without any sane guidance from me, Miranda numbly tackled DA THING FROM HELL. This caused my composure to dissolve into loud, strangled gasps and even more colorful curses, some I had made up in the spur of the dramatic moment. I was running so stupidly I tripped onto a patch of grass and skinned my damn knee all over again. My knee was bleeding like the shit, and I wondered (somewhat sanely) if the monster in front of me was attracted by the scent of blood. So I just screamed some more in case somebody might hear me and come to the rescue. Preferably an armed police officer, but well, you know. Even Pikachu Boy may work as strangely suitable bait.

Apparently my panicky screaming scared the monster away.

I can't complain much about that.

I walked some more. Then Ethan called, through the Pokégear.

His voice sounded frail. "Hey, this is Ethan. How are you?"

"Ethan?" I said hoarsely. (I'd lost my voice. Thank you, stupid bedtime monster.)

"You know," Ethan began, "my father was tackled by a Pokémon. Now his lower back hurts."

"Was it Marill? I told you that damn blue thing was trouble."

"It probably thought that it was only playing around..."

"Sure. I bet next time it'll have to kill someone for you to realize the truth. That thing is a piece of malice."

"Well, it wasn't anything big...the tackle, I mean. I'm sure my father will be fine in a couple more days." Ethan sounded fretful. "Right...Lyra?"

"You may need a doctor to check it out," I said mockingly in a grave voice. "Or possibly a lawyer. You must prepare for the upcoming misfortune."

"That's a knee-slapper. You're so good at jokes, Lyra," Ethan said sarcastically.

I didn't even know Ethan could use sarcasm, so I sobered up immediately.

"Okay, how bad is it?" I said.

"I don't know."

I frowned at that.

"Then check how bad it is and use your best judgment," I said.

"Okay."

"Honestly, though. Have you ever trained that Marill?"

"I'm not sure."

"What do you mean by that? If you've never trained Maril before, then I doubt that the little idiot could do much damage."

There was an eerie silence following my statement.

"Okay," Ethan finally said. "Okay. Well, I'll talk to you later."

"Wait!" I said suddenly. "You know...uh...did you buy sandwiches from the Amish guy too?"

"Amish guy?"

"Yeah. He was at a forest. You know, the one near the Day Care Route...he was selling sandwiches and telling everyone about how Amish he is. You couldn't have missed him."

"He wasn't Amish. He was Oddish."

"He may be odd, but that was a rude thing to say."

"That was a Pokémon named Oddish."

"That's ridiculous!" I said, flabbergasted. "Of course he's Amish!"

"Lyra, did you ever met an Amish person before? Or at least one that you know is Amish?"

"No, but who asked you be the Amish judge? You're not Amish."

Ethan hanged up on me. He probably had enough of my inane arguments. I slipped my Pokégear back into my bag and walked on.

Well. That damn Marill finally showed what he was capable of. I care so little for Marill, I usually misspell its name half of the time. But I know that isn't the case for Ethan's family.

And never mind that stupid Oddish. I found him on the Pokédex. I'll never buy sandwiches from a lying Oddish again.

I walked to the Violet City Pokémon Center for some kind of lodging, but apparently I came too late. All the rooms were taken. I walked all the way to other Centers, only to find out they were completely booked as well. There was nowhere for me to go (Mom left for an "emergency" trip to Unova without telling me), so what happened was that I ended up sleeping at the Moomoo Farm south of Olivine.

It was not pleasant.


So what happened was that there some kind of voodoo thing going on from the psychic outside.

The farmer got so desperate to cure his cow, he asked the psychic to help him out. This was perhaps one of the worse things the farmer could have done, because the psychic stopped all of us from sleeping with his horrible taste in music. He played this song called "Old Chateau," some old Sinnoh song, and it was upsetting to sleep with that thing on. The psychic had this piano, accordion, and several other instruments dragged into the stables. The psychic brought his friends with him too, and they all played the dumb song for a couple of hours. The song itself was meh, but those people played it so loudly it was disturbing. There was a lot of jumping notes and stuff like that, so whenever I tried to fall asleep a sudden line of notes would seemingly out burst of nowhere as though a goddamn cat was walking on the piano.

After that they tried to play "Lavender Town." Emphasize on tried.

Now, I am okay with this song, but these people played it the worst way ever. They took the most screechiest, the most nastiest sounds, and tried to play "Lavender Town" with it. It was nothing like the way I was taught to play "Lavender Town" in Piano 101. No, these nut cases took a perfectly fine, cheerful song, and ruined it with their stupid ass accordions and gongs. I could barely recognize the real song from their messed up "Lavender Town" remake. Notes were slurred and high pitched, distorting a happy, normal song into some messed up Christmas anthem. They even added bells.

It was extremely annoying to listen to when you're trying to go to sleep on a hard wooden floor that wants to dislocate your hips.

"Make these idiots stop!" I finally blurted out to the little girls who shared the room with me. "They can't play a song to save their lives!" (I wouldn't have been surprised if the cows were considering murder.)

The girls looked doubtful. "They told Daddy they can help..." one of them said reluctantly.

I turned away from them and shoved the pillow into my face.

Great, I thought to myself miserably. God help me, I'm gonna get tinnitus.

I already had a headache, so it didn't take much to think that part up.

Suddenly a bunch of voices began to loudly wail and shout. I believe that was their poor substitute for singing. Blinking my eyes, I sat up and squinted in the darkness. The psychics were doing Egyptian style dancing to the rhythm of their so-called "Lavender Town" around a bunch of Charmanders, Bulbasaurs, and Squirtles. The Pokémon were staring up at them unblinkingly. They looked pretty freaked out.

Having enough of this nonsense, I scrambled to my knees like a drunk person and began to gather my stuff. I tossed out a couple hundred Pokédollars on the floor.

"I'm leaving," I hissed to the girls as I began to stand up. "On the floor is my freaking tip. Good night."

Leaving the loud farmhouse behind, I came forth to the night's chilling darkness. Although the house behind me was illuminated with lights I knew that I could not possibly return there. Not with the streams of screeches that erupted from it.

Behind me Lorcan walked sluggishly, his little head facing the ground in exhaustion. I stopped in the middle of the path, a breeze slicing my face.

Where was I supposed to go? I couldn't stay outside, not with that damn monster roaming around at night. Couldn't go back inside, with those..."sounds" (I couldn't bear to think of their screeching as "music").

I was sleep deprived, and I was hungry and thirsty with an aching hip, so I decided to go ahead and sleep in a fucking cave.

I chose the Dark Cave, of course. It wasn't an especially long while away but at the same time it was far enough from the bedtime monster to satisfy me. However, it was dark. My feet were concealed by the darkness as I struggled to navigate the roads, my dimly lit Pokégear being my only light source.

Still I managed to walk through the roads, most of them flanked by woodlands. I eventually came across the Daycare route, though in the night it was masked by shadows and distant forest calls.

As I walked along the now dreadful route I spotted a police officer, a flashlight positioned firmly in his thick hands. This officer was familiar—I've seen him the last time I was at this route, though at the daytime. I brightened and began to move towards him.

"Excuse me," I started, "am I going the right wa—"

"INTRUDER!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "INTRUDER ALERT!"

"What—"

He shoved a Poké Ball into the ground. A Growlithe appeared from it, yawning.

"Take out your Pokémon immediately!" the police officer yelled, as though I was some kind of criminal to ask him for directions.

I stared at him.

"Now!" he insisted.

Lorcan came up in front of me, seemingly dazed. I awkwardly held my hands up out of desperation. See? Not armed, chimp. Not armed.

However, the officer still leered at me menacingly. I swallowed.

"Officer, will I be arrest—"

I was not able to finish the rest of my sentence. Lorcan now violently shoved the officer's Growlithe onto the ground and bit it until it fainted. I don't know what paranormal romance he got that from, but it sure was disgusting either way. I gasped and reached out to restrain my out of control Dratini but it was too late. The whole thing had occurred in the timespan of a blink. And I had unfortunately blinked. There was something in my eye.

Blood from the Growlithe's mouth now dripped out and smeared onto the cold grass. I stared in horror, biting my lower lip. Lorcan became still, deathly pale in the yellow light of the officer's flashlight. The officer himself seemed at loss for words, gazing at his wounded Pokémon with a vacuous expression. The night became silent.

WELL.

The officer blinked. "You may go," he told me slowly as he withdrawn his Pokémon.

WHAT.

I gazed at me, dumbfounded, before swiftly running off like the criminal I am. I went to the Daycare, knocked quickly on the door, and before waiting for a reply I barged in.

"I'm gonna sleep here for the night," I explained briefly to the staring clerk/Ethan's grandmother as I dropped into a nice, slightly comfortable corner near the door. Lorcan, the problem child because of God knows why, slithered next to me while finding joy in my warmth.

Whatever, snake. At that point I couldn't care less about what I had to do with him. He was too much trouble to train, probably more trouble to get rid of him.

So instead I curled up into a ball onto the little blanket I had spread out onto the floor.

"Lorcan," I began to say, "if something tries to kill me, tell me in advance. I need to compose my last words carefully."

Lorcan agreed.


Author's Note

I haven't updated for a while now. Sorry about that...

Lyra is used to hearing the Soul Silver version of Lavender Town's music. At the farmer's house she was hearing the original version of Lavender Town.