Our mother fell ill after that. She grew thin and frail, hardly able to do anything for herself. Jessee and I were forced to meet the chores and housework as our mother rarely got out of bed, and when she did she usually sat in her big chair in the living room, staring through the bay window at something Jessee and I were never able to see.

Because of the sudden onset of responsibilities, between school and the house chores, my dream of becoming a Pokemon Trainer was practically abandoned. How could I leave my younger sister and unresponsive mother while I went to fulfill my own selfish desires. I still took Rapidash out for a run now and then, but as time wore on this happened less and less. I was almost to the point were I was ready to give up pokemon entirely, give Rapidash to a good home and devote all my time to helping around the house, but that's when fate decided to deal me a new hand of cards.

I was out giving Rapidash some exercise in the trails behind our house, when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I looked again and I could see light flashing through the branches and leaves a little farther up ahead. I looked to the sky, but there wasn't any sign of a storm, so I kicked Rapidash into a gallop to investigate. To be honest, I didn't know what I was expecting to find, but I was shocked by what I saw.

It was a Pikachu caught in a glass box-a trap. The little yellow pokemon stood about a foot tall, not including its long black tipped ears. Its red lightning sacks on its cheeks glowed and cracked with the charge. It let off another scream and the box lit up, but none of the electricity got out. In frustration, the pokemon began smashing itself against the sides of the box, letting off electricity as it did so, desperate to get out.

I dismounted Rapidash and slowly approached the trapped and scared pokemon. It heard me coming and turned toward me, growling and letting off it's charge, assuming me to be the poacher that had set the trap. I knelt down beside the trap and whispered soothingly, "Calm down. I'm a friend, I'm trying to get you out." I lifted the box and found the trap door. After pushing and pulling at it for a while, but getting nowhere, I turned to Rapidash. "Rapidash, use stomp on the box." Pikachu understood what was happening and without any direction from me, curled up into a tight ball. I set the box down in front of me and Rapidash reared up, coming down hard on the glass. It didn't shatter as I'd hoped, but the pressure did create a long snaking crack along the top of the box. Seeing the break for freedom, Pikachu used a tackle attack on the crack. The glass shattered and Pikachu landed on the grass in front of me, shaking off the small shards. I knelt down next to it. "Are you ok?"

"Pi." It replied with a nod.

"What do you think you're doing?" A voice from behind me asked. Rapidash whinnied and I turned around. A man stood behind me, his messy purple hair tied loosely in a low ponytail. His outfit was obviously a uniform of some sort, with a high-collared cropped white shirt, and long white pants. His long black leather gloves matched the boots he was wearing. There was one more thing...a large red R lay on the front of his shirt. I had no idea what it meant, but I could sense it wasn't a good thing.

Next to him flew his pokemon, a Beedrill; a large wasp-like pokemon with some nasty venom. I've always hated Beedrill so the presence of this pokemon didn't win the guy any points with me.

The uniformed man took a step forward. "Do you know how long I've had to work my butt off trying to come up with a trap strong enough to hold that little rodent? You just wasted a lot of my time and money, so now I'm going to waste you're life." He gestured to Beedrill. "Beedrill, poison sting attack!"

The poisoned darts shot from the pokemon's front legs and headed toward Pikachu. Without hesitation, I leapt in front of him, tucking the furry yellow pokemon under my body, as the poisoned barbs stuck into my skin instead. I gritted my teeth against the pain, trying not to make it obvious that the toxins penetrating my bloodstream. I pulled Pikachu away from me a little and whispered, "Make a run for it! I'll hold him off you!" I let him go and the little yellow pokemon leapt from my arms and disappeared into the underbrush.

I turned toward the poacher, grasping the reins of my horse pokemon for support. "Rapidash, go!" Rapidash snorted and tossed her head, pawing the ground in anticipation for the coming battle. "Rapidash, flamethrower, now!" I ordered, struggling against the poison to keep my footing. Rapidash obeyed, opening her mouth and blasting the wasp pokemon with a flurry of flames. The beedrill, however, blocked the attack, deflecting it with its blade-like front legs. The bug-type made a dive toward my Rapidash for a poison-sting attack, but Rapidash leapt out of the way just in time and retaliated with a powerful horn attack. This time the attack hit it's mark and won me a little time.

I gritted my teeth. My back felt like it was on fire. "Rapidash!" I chocked out, "bring it to the ground and use stomp attack!" My pokemon did as she was commanded, but knowing my intentions, Beedrill was able to avoid the stomp attack, which was meant to be the finishing blow. I growled.

"I believe it's my turn now," The poacher said with a smirk. "Beedrill, double team."

"Fire blast! Get rid of the decoys!" I ordered, but it was already too late. Rapidash wasn't able to find the real pokemon fast enough and they all slammed into her with a tackle attack. Rapidash is strong, so the attack didn't hurt her too much, but I could still tell she was weakened by it.

"Now, use poison sting!" My opponent called out. I looked up to see the bee pokemon coming down on my Rapidash again, and it was just enough to pull my senses together in time. "Flamethrower NOW!"

Rapidash obeyed without hesitation, toasting the bug pokemon and sending it down back toward its master. I breathed a sigh of relief; this match was almost over…good. The venom was starting to make my vision get blurry…I didn't know how much longer I could hold out.

"Get up, you worthless thing!" The poacher yelled rudely at his pokemon. The beedrill strained but ultimately couldn't move. It fainted on the grass. "Hmph." the poacher groaned. "You're worthless…No matter, I've got more where he came from," He returned his pokemon to its pokeball and reached for another one.

Wait…he had more…? The fight wasn't over yet? Internally I panicked. I couldn't keep my vision straight and I was sure I was starting to slur my words. Rapidash likewise, though not totally worn out, couldn't take much longer of a fight…and I had no more pokemon to let her rest.

Thats when I saw it. A little yellow blur. I thought it was a venom-induced hallucination at first, but after seeing the poachers reaction to it, it must have been real.

"Huh? What are you doing back here, you little—"

"Piiiiiiika—CHUUUUU!"

I squinted against the light that followed the thunderbolt attack to see what had happened. The pikachu I had saved had come back for some indiscernible reason and had electrocuted the poacher into next year. The pokemon landed, breathing heavily from the adrenaline as the poacher lay on the ground twitching from the lightning bolt.

After a moment Rapidash reached down her head to nuzzle me, still obviously in pain, and getting worse by the second. I hardly noticed. "P-Pika…?"

The pikachu turned and stepped toward me. "Pika pi?" he asked, wondering if I was alright.

"I'll be ok." I said assuringly with a smile. "I've been through worse than this." In truth I thought I might pass out, but I couldn't let him know that. That's when I noticed his gait. It was uneven; he wasn't putting any weight on his right hind foot, and his yellow fur was stained with spots of red. I hadn't noticed it before in my surprise and urgency to get him out of the trap. How many bouts with this poacher had this little pokemon had?

I reached out toward him. "Come on. If you let me take you back to my house I can get you patched up. You'll be good as new. Then anyone who tries to mess with you won't even be able to keep up."

Pikachu seemed uncertain at first, casting wary glances around at the woods, then back toward the poacher, then back at me. Finally though, it made up its mind and it limped as fast as it could over and put its front two paws up on my knee. I picked it up and pulled myself unsteadily to my feet, using Rapidash's stirrup and saddle horn for support. I dropped Pikachu onto Rapidash's back and almost lost my balance. Rapidash was quick to grab me, clenching my shirt in her teeth and whinnying. "It's ok, girl. I'm ok." I assured her, pulling myself weakly into the saddle and, with one hand on Pikachu sitting in front of me to steady him, kicked clumsily at her flank with my heels. "Giddy-up." At my command she pulled forward at a clean smooth trot.

It was good that Rapidash knew how to get home from where we were. In my condition, I didn't' even know which way the sky was. I'm pretty sure I was unconscious for a good portion of the ride. I had made a good choice that Christmas when I was 9 though, on what ponyta I would choose. The rapidash it had turned into was not only swift, but had a sailing gait that when you felt it you could swear that you were flying. This is probably the only reason I didn't end up on the ground during the long trek back from the woods to the house. When we arrived at the front porch though, I had just enough consciousness left to register that we had stopped moving. "Come on…" I said, as I practically fell off my mount and pulled the Pikachu off with me. "Let's get you cleaned up…Jessee! Jessee!" I called, slurring so much, I couldn't even understand myself.

My younger sister somehow did though, as she came out onto the front porch, dishcloth still in hand from where she was doing the dishes. When she saw me she exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, Jess! What the heck happened to you!"

I practically shoved the Pikachu into her arms. "Here….I can't help him right now…" I mumbled, falling onto my hands on one of the steps.

Jessee grabbed my arm and pulled me up the stairs, "Then come on, I'm not leaving you out here." She dragged me into the living room with one arm, holding the limp body of the Pikachu in the other. She cleared off the coffee table and lay the pokemon onto it. She went to work on the Pikachu first as I lay on my stomach next to her trying not to let the beedrill's poison sting pull me under. Jessee and I had planned to try to get into Pokemon medicine after high school, so we had been studying all we could. I was very confident she could handle Pikachu's injuries. Luckily we still had some potions and antidotes lying around. Jessee cleaned the pokemon's cuts and bruises stitching a few up that were rather deep. She wrapped his hind foot up tightly and let him rest while she went to work on me. She pulled out the fragments of barbs that were still in my back and applied a homemade salve to them as I tried to tell her what had happened. Though the salve was helping to pull some of the toxins out, I was still slurring quite a bit. Jessee gave me an antidote for beedrill venom which I took gratefully and almost instantly started to feel better.

"You know, you probably should have called the police." Jessee admonished after I had finally gotten the whole story out. "That guy was trespassing and poaching pokemon, I'm pretty sure both are arrest-able offenses."

I shook my head. "With my brain so full of beedrill venom I couldn't even think, much less try to call the cops to tell them what was happening. And by now the guy is probably long gone…"

At this point Pikachu was starting to stir. It's ears flicked a little and it rose to its four paws and stretched.

"Hey little guy, how are you feeling?" I asked, turning toward him on the coffee table.

"Pi pikachu!" The pokemon exclaimed.

"Glad to hear it." I said with a smile. "You shouldn't push yourself too much right now, so you can rest here until your injuries are gone, and then I'll take you back to the woods.

Pikachu cocked his head a little but nodded. Jessee turned to me. "Where are we going to keep him until then. If Mom finds out there's another mouth to feed, she's going to freak."

"Mom doesn't even know what's going on half of the time anymore, nor does she care." I retorted. "Trust me, it'll be fine, plus it's only for a little while until his injuries heal."

I was interrupted when I heard Rapidash whinnying outside. I ran to the window, followed by Jessee. We both gasped and then screamed in sheer joy and amazement. Then we both ran outside almost stumbling over each other to tackle the person outside.

Our brother.