Pokémon Go has consumed my life… send help…

Touch The Skies

Hatchling Arc (0-2)

All Will Be Well

"Strong Pokémon, weak Pokémon, that is only the foolish perception of people.

Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."

- Karen of the Johto Elite Four.

I am increasingly coming to believe that Misty is some kind of demigod.

"No, no, I get it," I tell her, flailing my hands in a helpless warding gesture. I send sand flying as I awkwardly shuffle my feet. "You're a very good swimmer. Very good. It just seems… kind of impossible? To be that fast, I mean."

She just shrugs, a motion that looks exceedingly strange in a bikini top and mid-backstroke. "My sisters are better." The words come out faux-casually, and even I, oblivious as I am, know that they must be painful for her to give voice to. "Things like this aren't exactly uncommon, among… well, the elite. You know how human-trained pokémon are stronger than wilders? It's the same in reverse. Pokémon take after their trainers, and vice versa. Mind, it's mostly subtle stuff: quicker swimming, faster reflexes, higher pain threshold. Keep hanging around flying-types and you might develop claustrophobia. Nothing major, just… it's hard to explain. Did Professor Oak never do anything weird?"

I open my mouth to deny it outright, pause, and close it. "…Now that you mention it, he'd always know when Gary and I snuck around the restricted sections in the Corral. Or we'd turn around and bam!, he's there, when we could've sworn he wasn't. I just kinda assumed he had Alakazam keep an eye on us and teleport him around, or something."

"He's had an arcanine and alakazam for Suicune-only-knows how long, so speed and some minor clairvoyance makes sense. Again, it's nothing major. Rarely noticeable, in most cases, and never anything active. I could spend a couple decades around a ninetales and might develop the patience of a saint, but never breathe fire." She pauses. "Wait, scratch that. Psychic-types kinda break the mold. Do you know about Sabrina?"

"Of course." Everyone knows about Sabrina. She's one of my personal heroes; I don't revere her as much as I do Karen, but, then again, I don't revere anyone as much as I do Karen. Sabrina is still mighty impressive - she's the Saffron City gym leader, the strongest human psychic in the world, is capable of trans-regional telepathy and group teleportation, and has incredibly beautiful hair. If I never become as cool as Karen, I'd settle with being as cool as Sabrina.

Misty comes up from a deep-dive with an empty net in one hand and a disgruntled expression twisting her pretty face. "Yeah, kinda like that, except, you know, not as impressive."

She dives back down with the grace of a… I don't know how to phrase that metaphor without sounding insulting. Most water pokémon are ugly and awkward-looking, honestly. A milotic? Yeah, let's go with that.

Misty takes a few minutes to resurface, right when I'm about to jump in after her in hopes of rescue. "I was raised in the single greatest family of water-type trainers in Kanto, you know?" Three more empty nets join the first one, thrown into a haphazard pile next to me on the beach. "That's not bragging, it's fact. Cerulean gym leadership is a hereditary seat. And you know what I can do?" She doesn't wait for me to answer. "I can hold my breath under water for, like, five minutes."

I giggle. "Oh no, have mercy on us puny commoners, oh goddess of the sea."

"Pssh. Yeah." Misty pulls herself up and onto the raised coastline, sticking wet sand to her fingers in the process. She doesn't seem to notice. "Beware my wrath, human." She sighs. "Four down, forty-six to go. Do you want to help?"

"I would love to and all, but," I tell her sorrowfully, snapping my fingers for effect, "I should really be training that magikarp. You know, somewhere else-ish. Anywhere else-ish, actually."

"You just don't like getting wet."

"…One day, I'm going to have a whole team of powerful flying-types, and I'm going to offer you a ride. Then we'll see who's looking smug."

"Whatever you say, Ash."

I sniff in faux-arrogance, turn around, and walk away. On any other day, I'd say something snappy and try to snag the last word – but the competitive one-upmanship I'd always get up to with Gary seems… wrong, to try with Misty. Maybe it's the saving-my-life thing, maybe it's her vastly superior skill and experience, maybe it's something I can't quite put my finger on. I don't know.

All I do know is that I respect her, deeply and personally, in a way I didn't realize I could feel. It's not my worship for Karen – not quite – but it's similar, in a more leveled, down-to-earth way. I don't know how to put it.

…It doesn't matter, I suppose. She won't be around for long. (Gary wasn't.)

As it turns out, the funny-looking red box Alakazam left me is a pokédex. An actual, real-life, honest-to-Ho'oh pokédex. I spend approximately five minutes clutching it to my chest and squeeing in delight.

My starter - as far as such things are counted, anyway - materializes a moment later and is promptly scanned.

"Magikarp, the Fish Pokémon," it solemnly intones. "It is virtually worthless in terms of both power and speed. It is the most weak and pathetic pokémon in the world."

The magikarp begins to wail. I hurriedly switch to Johto's entry.

"Magikarp, the Fish Pokémon," it continues. "An underpowered, pathetic pokémon. For no reason, it jumps and splashes about, making it easy for predators like pidgeotto to catch it mid-jump."

My magikarp stills, and a dangerous look shines in its eye. I shiver, and accidentally hit the 'next entry' button.

"Magikarp, the Fish Pokémon," it says mercilessly. My breath catches, and I desperately search for an off-switch. "Magikarp is a pathetic excuse for a pokémon that is only capable of flopping and splashing. This behavior prompted scientists to undertake research into it."

No, shit, that wasn't the 'next entry' button, that was the 'loop' button-

"Magikarp, the Fish Pokémon. It is said to be the world's weakest pokémon. No one knows why it has managed to survive. Magikarp, the Fish Pokémon. A magikarp living for many years can leap a mountain using Splash. The move remains useless, though. Magikarp, the Fish Pokémon. In the distant past, it was somewhat stronger than the horribly weak descendants that-"

Unable to find an off-switch, I shove its speaker against the magikarp's scaly flesh in hopes of muffling it. The fish begins to vibrate, and just stares up at me with its blank, blank eyes.

"Haa, haa…?" I laugh nervously. That thing contains the basic entries from six different world-class professors across as many regions, and they all suck. You know what, poképrofessors? You suck, too. I attempt a perky tone of voice and smile down at my little fish. "Let's prove these smug nerds wrong! Right, magikarp?"

"Karp," it deadpans. I don't know how to translate that toneless lack of inflection - is it bored, tired, or plotting my messy death once it evolves?

"Hehe, you're such a joker, magikarp." My voice sounds weak even to myself.

Luckily, the pokédex finally gives in to the inevitable and shuts up, giving me an excuse to leap back and maintain some distance. I fiddle with the buttons, more to give myself a distraction than in any hopes of finding actually useful information.

"This magikarp is female and possesses the ability Rattled, which allows it to swim away faster when hit by a Bug-, Ghost-, or Dark-type move." The sudden declaration surprises me into squeaking and falling over onto my butt, thus shattering what little remaining positive regard the magikarp may or may not have held for me. "It is capable of the following moves: Splash."

"Haa, haa…?" The magikarp fails to react to my stilted laughter, and gives me the most unimpressed look ever given in the history of pokémon. Her moist hide begins to steam in the early morning sunlight, but she doesn't react, just lying there horizontally on the dewy grass, disproportionately small flippers not so much as twitching.

Dear Zapdos. Please, strike me down now. Tell Gary I was eaten by a dragonite or something suitably impressive. Thanks, that girl who built a shrine to you in her closet.

…No, no, I'm not giving up now! I can still salvage my reputation. Somehow. What to do, what to do-

The vitamins!

I search for the nearest pond of sufficient depth; after last night's rainstorm, they're all over the place, but most aren't deeper than my magikarp is tall. I'd toss her into the ocean – I had traced the coastline south until I found the spot where I had captured the magikarp, partly out of nostalgia but mostly out of a desire to lay risen ghosts to rest – but I don't want her swept away by any currents. That'd just be all kinds of depressing.

Once I find one, I pick her up with a great, lurching heave, and drop her into it. I narrowly avoid the kicked-up splash of rainwater, squeaking slightly, and dash back to the campsite.

Fifteen minutes later, I return with the small canister Alakazam had given me. The mason jar has a stripe of scotch tape running up one side, the word VITAMINS drawn on it in Oak's familiar chicken-scratch, and a multitude of pills in three separate colors mixed haphazardly within. My grip is careful and my eyes, focused, because the contents of this jar are more expensive then the rest of my belongings combined.

I idly wonder if Alakazam had told his trainer that he had stolen half of the Corral's ridiculously expensive pokémon supplements. Probably not, I realize, and have to stifle my superior smirk.

Good mood restored, I turn to my starter and smile like the sun.

"Okay, magikarp-" I pause. "I can't keep calling you 'magikarp.' That'd be like you calling me 'human,' and that's just sad and dehumanizing and all sorts of stuff I don't want between us. …Well, I guess I could name you Magikarp, and then change the name to Gyarados once you evolve, but that's just so- so- so uninspired."

Not to mention, dangerously reckless. For powerful and temperamental pokémon like gyarados especially, establishing a meaningful bond early on is important. There are a countless number of stories online about freshly-evolved gyarados that decide they don't want or need a trainer, and promptly turn on them. It rarely turns out well for the human.

I don't want to be a statistic before I reach that most vaunted milestone of 'survived one whole week.' That'd just be pathetic. Even magikarp have better survival stats then that.

And mom would be sad so, yeah, let's not do that.

"I could call you Skullcruncher Prime or something, but… yeah, I'm not calling you that." Gary would laugh at me, for one. It'd reinforce bad behavior, for two. Mostly, though, it's just a mouthful and 'Prime' doesn't have the same ring to it. "Regal? Vigil? Traverse? Corsair?"

Those were some of the more 'neutral' names on The Charizard Nickname List. I rather like them, but magikarp seems less then enthused.

"No, no, you need something special. Mercy? Because you'll have none? What about Rorschach - because you'll make unidentifiable blots of our enemies! Veto? As in, you know, veto power? Um, um, ooh! Mouser! That refers to animals that catch and sometimes eat mice, you know? And pikachu are mice! Considerin' you're takin' a pikachu's place, according to celebi, it's perfect."

And then inspiration strikes like lightning.

"Wait." I crawl forward on hand and knee, looking the confused magikarp in the eye. "You're not just going to be a fearsome gyarados. You're going to be the fearsome gyarados. The most fearsome gyarados in the world. Your name will be inked into the history books after we become Flying Masters, so it doesn't just need to be something special - it needs to be something perfect. The very sound of it needs to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, and awe into our allies'. It needs to be something people whisper to their children in their beds during the darkest of rainstorms, to which the children squeal and say 'Really? When she comes, can I pet her?' It needs to be…

"…wait, shit, I forgot."

Exasperation crosses the magikarp's fishy face. I scramble for something clever to say.

"Screw it, I'm calling you Mokey Mokey."

No wait shit that's not what I meant words words come back now please come back-

"Ah..." I crawl closer and pat Mokey on the side of her horrified face, giggling helplessly. "Think it over a bit, 'kay, buddy? I'm sure you'll come to treasure it."

A low, keening noise escapes her mouth, and I melt, leaning down to kiss her scales in apology. I don't even realize until after, and I find that I don't mind the slick, hard texture of her flesh as much as I thought I would.

"It's okay. If you don't like the name, we can come up with something later, once we get to know each other better." An idea comes to mind. "You know, how about we table the nickname thing and come up with one together after you evolve? Something short and sweet, maybe, and just as beautiful as you are. It'd be nice to celebrate the day it happens, don't you think?"

I perk up, remembering something. "Oh! When I was at the camp, I found a fish pokémon scale-care kit. I'm sure Misty won't miss it. Would you mind terribly if I pampered you for a bit?"

My magikarp doesn't thrash around when I pull her up and onto my lap, dipping my legs into the small pond of rainwater. She doesn't even smack me when I drop a trio of protein, carbos, and calcium vitamin pills down her throat, or run the carefully-sanitized arbok-hair brush over her scales until they glitter. I'll take that as acceptance.

"I never told you about myself, have I? Well, my name is Ashlynn Ketchum, though I just go by Ash, and I'm from Pallet Town…"

…

We don't leave for hours.

I return to see Misty cooing at a sponge the size of a watermel- wait, no, that's a pokémon.

"I… see you've found what you were looking for?" I ask hopefully. If she doesn't have a reason to stay near Pallet anymore, then she might leave - and I can follow her. Hopefully, the urge to run home and sob into my mom's shoulder will decrease with distance. "…What is it you were looking for, anyway? I don't recognize it."

"Sleek's a feebas," she responds proudly. She clearly expects some sort of praise or congratulations, but at my helplessly clueless look she deflates and narrows her eyes. "You know," she says in a tone that makes it clear that I should learn - or else, "The pre-evolutionary form of milotic."

"Wait, what? 'Most beautiful water-type in the world' milotic? How? That thing is horrifically ugly."

Her eyes narrow. I get the acute feeling that I have made a grave mistake.

Mouth, three. Brain-to-mouth filter, zero.

"Apologize." It's not a question.

I fold immediately. "I'm sorry, little feebas. I'm sure you'll manage to be beautiful, someday."

Misty looks less than impressed. I seem to be getting that expression a lot. I sigh. There's a reason I didn't choose to specialize in water-types; to me, they're just… ugh. (Except for magikarp, of course. Though, that's less because she's a magikarp and more because she's my magikarp.)

"Why're you near Pallet, anyway?" I desperately change the subject. "Aren't there places to catch feebas that are, you know… closer to home?"

Her face tightens, and I realize that I may have inadvertently stepped in an Electroweb. "Yeah," she agrees, "Cerulean Cove has more than a few feebas, I just…" She sighs, tugging a hand through her hair. "It's complicated."

Whenever Leaf utters those dreaded words, Gary and I usually make our escape by whatever means necessary. Right now, though, I can't help but wonder if this is a way to begin to repay the enormous debt I owe her. It's not as dramatic or action-packed as I had expected the occasion to be, and there aren't nearly enough Hyper Beams or pretty flying-types involved, but if I can help…

I shrug nervously, lying down on the ground and fiddling with the homing mechanism of my magikarp's pokéball. A moment passes in tense silence, and I fit together words in my mind like puzzle pieces without the picture.

Talking with her last night hadn't been nearly as emotionally draining. Then again, it had been less 'talking with' and more 'talking at.' It had been very late out by the time we struck the tent, and there hadn't exactly been time to play summer camp bonding games.

Half the time was spent by me spilling my life's story and generally raging about the unfairness of existence, which, looking back, is a lot more embarrassing and a lot less pressing then it had seemed at the time. The other half of the time was spent with the ball on the other side of the court, where Misty proceeded to wax poetic about the precise training regimens, dietary plans, and what-I-wish-someone-had-told-me-before style general advice about training magikarp that rarely makes its way to the guidebooks.

I learned a lot, and when I write my tell-all memoir in twenty years detailing my rise to champion-hood, I'll certainly give her a mention. On the one hand, I will be forever thankful for that. On the other, there wasn't any actual 'conversing' done until Alakazam woke us up and we united to mock Oak, which… okay, was pretty amusing.

It's, just… I don't know. I'd like to be her friend. I just don't think the feeling is reciprocated. …Regardless, I'll help her however I can, for now. It's the least I can do.

"…Would you like to talk about it?" I bite my tongue, but it does little to halt the deluge of words to follow. "I mean, I'm not a Waterflower, I don't really understand the, the details of the situation, but maybe that's a good thing? I can be an outside opinion or something, or maybe just an ear to vent to, I mean, I do it for Gary all the time and that dude is crazy, um-"

"It's fine," she says, but there's amusement coloring her voice and I take that as a success. "Sure, whatever. You know the starmie and staryu I had on watch? Them, and the seaking still in my bag, aren't actually my pokémon. I raised them from eggs myself, I cared for them tirelessly day in and day out for years, raising and training and battling, and at times I feel less like a sixteen-year-old gym leader and more like a single mother. But- they're not mine. Not in the legal sense.

"See, they were bred from Cerulean City Gym pokémon, and are thus property of the Cerulean City Gym. My sisters have never so much as touched them, my parents haven't seen them in, Suicune, years, and the city has never paid for their care – that came entirely out of my stipend as a league-affiliated trainer. And yet… they're still not mine. It- honestly, it pisses me off.

"I had enough of it. All of it. My sisters, my parents, the suffocating laws for league gym leaders, Cerulean's heavy expectations, my cookie-cutter future laid out in three hundred years of tradition- I'm sick of it all."

I nod in sympathy. "I… can see how that would be stifling."

"Yeah. Even worse? My sisters are still fantastic, borderline-prodigious trainers, but they don't train to improve. They train to maintain. And, even though I dedicate myself to bettering my pokémon day-in and day-out, I can't match them.

"It all came to a head, oh, three weeks ago? Sounds about right. I bothered my youngest sister into battling me, three-on-three, and I was crushed. Healed them at the 'Center, challenged my second sister, crushed again. Healed. Battled. Crushed."

I wince. For someone as obviously prideful as Misty, that has to sting.

"I just… exploded. I couldn't take it anymore. Cerulean is stifling, and I wanted out. So I quit the league, grabbed everything I was legally allowed to take and a few things I wasn't, and just… left. A trainer who managed to defeat the gym's eight-badge team last year mentioned a rival of his finding a school of feebas down here, and I was gone before dawn.

"So… yeah." I don't look, but her awkward shrug is apparent in her tone of voice. "I caught Sleek, and I'm thinking of hunting down a mantine next for flight, and maybe take a liner to Hoenn to arrange for the mudkip farm to give me one of their eggs. Then I'll have type coverage against both electrics and grass, train those three up, and… I don't know. Sootopolis has a water gym even larger than Cerulean's, and I'll already be in Hoenn – I met Juan at the Indigo Conference last year, I'm sure he'll take me on. After that… the Elite Four."

When I write that tell-all memoir, I'm not including the sudden, sharp spike of roiling envy that coiled in my gut. Gym pokémon for protection? League stipend? Three hundred years of water-type-training heritage? (Ho'oh, I don't know my own father's name.) A list of contacts that can tell you where to find the pre-evo' forms of milotic? 'Hunt down' a mantine, like they aren't only found thousands of miles from civilization in the heart of the ocean? Arrange for a mudkip egg? Be trained by the strongest gym leader in all of Hoenn?

And I thought Gary being given a growlithe pup and a case of stones was privileged. When Misty inevitably makes her way to the Elite Four, I won't be the slightest bit surprised.

I can feel my heartrate kick up, and my magikarp's ball slips from between my fingers. I catch it moments before it can bludgeon my face, and I just sort of… stare into its crimson-red hue.

How is that fair? I study day in and day out for my entire life to be the best pokémon trainer I can be, and I nearly get eaten by spearow on the first day because I'm not given a starter, while Misty ditches Cerulean with a fancy pokétech backpack and plans to train under freaking Juan of Sootopolis. I catch a magikarp with my one and only pokéball, she has league contacts who give her a location for milotic. I…

Breathe, Ash. All will be well.

…So what if Gary and Misty and everyone who's anyone in the league all have rich backgrounds and proud heritages and names that actually mean something. So what if they can do impossible things like waltz into Hoenn and sweet-talk a prospective Champion into giving them tutelage at their gym, while I can't afford a second pokéball at the mart. So what.

When Karen was turned down from studying ghost-types at the Ecruteak Gym, did she throw a hissy fit and become a baker or a secretary? No! She marched into the Burned Tower with a single pokéball in hand and came back out with a houndour, a houndour that would grow so powerful he could defeat anything the Elite Four trained with resounding ease and still come back for more. A houndour that had been abandoned by his pack for being weak, became a houndoom so strong he didn't merely leave his mark on modern history, he set it on fucking fire.

Breathe. In, out. In, out.

All will be well.

Magikarp is going to become that houndoom. And then, she's going to surpass him.

Breathe.

"Aa, I know that feel," I lie breezily. Climbing lazily to my feet, I spy Misty noticeably relax from the corner of my eye, and cover the glance with a spin of my starter's pokéball. "Feel better?"

"Yeah, actually. I… really needed to let that out. Thanks."

"No problem at all." I see her fish a premier ball out of her bag, and my chocolate brown eyes darken. I may have managed to calm down, but if I have to continue this conversation I'm going to say something I'm bound to regret. "Think I'm going to wander around a bit."

"Take this," she says – no, commands – and tosses it underhand at me. "A magikarp isn't much as far as protection goes, and I might not be around to save you next time."

I jerk in surprise and only narrowly manage to catch the incredibly rare and expensive pokéball, cradling it against my chest awkwardly like I would a newborn. Irritation crawls up my spine like lightning, and I'm not sure if it's because of the charity or nearly going the way of the spearow. "I don't think-"

"Just take it already," she says, returning to lavishing attention on Sleek and paying only half a mind to the conversation. "It's not like I paid for it - we've got hundreds of the things in a closet somewhere back at the gym. Really, you'll be doing me a favor. It's pretty close, but my bag isn't infinite, and it can't store pokétech."

I purse my lips, swallowing down a reflexive retort. Sharing tent space and rescuing each other from spearow flocks is all part of the trainer gig; it's almost expected, one can say.

Pokéballs, though. Pokéballs go for two hundred dollars a pop, and premier balls ten times that amount. Rookie trainers are expected to live off of the land and the rare winnings from gym challenges and minor league tournaments, as it's a rare trainer indeed that manages to come out of the financial red until their third year, minimum.

Giving away that kind of money… it's just not done. Self-sufficiency is the metric all trainers are valued by, above even strength and rarity. The proper thing to do would be to turn her down anyway, train my magikarp into a gyarados, and then win enough money to buy a pokéball with my own two hands and my starter by my side. It's what Karen would do, right?

…But I can't, not really. Turning down a gift freely given like that would be an insult, and I'm not going to insult the woman who saved my life. She might not understand what it's like for trainers who can't bring gym pokémon with them on their journeys for protection, or who don't have a fortune's worth of spare pokéballs in a closet, or who weren't raised by some of the strongest league trainers in the world - but I do. I've spent my whole life comparing myself to Gary and falling short, and I'm not going to do the same here, not now. (I can't.)

So I say, "Thank you," and walk out of the campsite without a second glance. I'm not sure if she hears the unspoken promise.

I'll pay you back.

There exists an underground tunnel connecting Viridian City to Vermillion. Though long-since colonized and maintained by Sylph Co. and used for ferrying pokétech and other valuable merchandise from the nearby Saffron to the Indigo Plateau and back, it was originally dug by a veritable horde of dugtrio and to this day is the single greatest spawning ground of the strange ground-type pokémon in the world. Though not as quick as the donphan that call the plains of Johto home or as tough as the golem that can be evolved from the literally-common-as-rocks geodude found in every cave ever, dugtrio are a common sight in the Kanto league tournament.

Of course, I'm not here to catch one. That'd be silly. Dugtrio are that unlucky combination of completely ugly and not-a-flying-type. I'm about as likely to want to catch one as I am to kneel before Gary and declare him my lord, husband, and master. No, I'm here for something completely different.

"Oh, zubat~ zooey zooey zooo-baaat~"

Let it be known for the record that I don't like golbat. Their mouths are too large, their fangs are weirdly proportioned for their bodies, their laugh sounds cruel, and they're essentially the flying-type equivalent to gengar. Zubat themselves are utterly adorable with their cute little fangs and fur like velvet and vampiric aversion to sunlight, but golbat are just… ugh.

But I do like crobat. I like their second set of wings, the texture of their thin fur, the loyalty they have to their trainers, their little curved fangs, and their happily mischievous natures. I adore the way they can fly circles around even pidgeot, the uncontested kings of the Kanto-Johto sky. I freaking love how they only evolve once they find the one being in their life, whether it be a trainer or a mate, that they feel they can dedicate themselves to, heart, mind, and soul. In fact, I love them so much I might even call them one of my favorites.

All that being said, I'm not blind to their faults. Walking into a zubat nest spells doom not for a trainer's life, but their pride. Walking into a tunnel home to not only zubat but sandshrew and diglett as well? If I had more than a magikarp for company, maybe this wouldn't be the dumbest thing I've ever done.

Well… running away from Pallet Town without protection was the dumbest thing I've ever done. This is a close second, though.

See, most pokémon are intelligent enough to realize maiming small children is the kind of thing that calls down the hammer of the league, but knowing I will be avenged won't make said maiming hurt any less. I've already learned my lesson with the spearow – just because I love pokémon, doesn't mean pokémon love me. I can't give, say, a threatened mother sandslash a hug to make her not lash out at a perceived danger to her clutch.

So where hugs are insufficient, I will have to resort to cleverness.

"Magikarp, return," I say, shifting awkwardly so the tail fin of the fish in my hands bumps up against the pokéball pseudo-magnetically attached to my hip. "Okay, okay… How to do this, how to do this…"

The matter of a pokémon's general intelligence is a common topic for aspiring researchers. How smart are they? How much do they remember from their time in the egg? How much do they learn from their ancestors? Do they innately understand human language, or are they taught? Is it all languages, or just the ones derived from the unown? A conclusive answer has yet to be found, and most researchers move on to something else – like, say, whether the unown or the alphabet came first.

What few tidbits have been unearthed, however, soon circulated among the training community, and were then poked, prodded, and picked apart until a few nuggets of advice fell out. One of those was the startlingly useful revelation that pokémon don't understand the words humans speak – they understand the intent behind those words.

In her match against Chuck, Johto's premier fighting-type gym leader, Karen and her dark-types had to resort to cunning and deception to mitigate the poor matchup. Throughout the battle, she had shouted nonsense words like 'flutterling' or 'triniset' to her pokémon, who had reacted as if she had sat them down with a map of the battlefield and a laser pointer and gone over a plan in incredible detail. At the time, I had thought those were prepared code words she had trained her team to associate with a number of battle tactics. I'm not so sure anymore, though.

I had gotten the idea from Oak, actually. It was sometime last year; early spring, perhaps, though I hadn't spent it outside. He was hard at work editing an essay from an up-and-comer in the scientific community called Sycamore with one hand, and chowing down on a sandwich with the other, when the doorbell rang. Unable to speak through the lettuce in his mouth, he had rapped his fist against the desk once, twice, thrice, and Alakazam had answered the door for him.

Maybe what happened wasn't what I think it was. Alakazam is one of the smartest pokémon in the world, and connecting the facts that the doorbell rang, Oak was busy, and Oak was tapping on the desk together to make an order isn't exactly difficult. Or, maybe the knocking was a signal to peer into Oak's mind, where he then gave him an order in complete silence. I don't know.

But it made me think. If pokémon don't understand words, but the message a human used those words to convey, then a lot of questions I didn't even know I had suddenly have answers. Like the time Karen ordered Umbreon to use Power Gem in the quarter-finals – it hadn't been clear to me what she meant, at the time. Strike the gardevoir's center mass? Hit the dirt and kick up a sandscreen? Deflect the thrown Aura Sphere with it? Umbreon had known, though, and fired the beam of light directly down, using the pillar of stone it summoned as propulsion to gently arc up and over the lethal fighting-type technique, putting him in prime position to Crunch.

Looking back at all the battles I've watched over the years, and… that kind of thing happened a lot. Maybe the bond between trainer and pokémon is more extreme than I had imagined, or maybe that's what separates the elite from the casual, but… what if it's not? What if it's something so much simpler? What if it's just language at it's truest – a way for one being to communicate with another?

Gary, Leaf, and I used to use morse code as a discrete way of passing messages in class. That's language, right? And don't zubat use echolocation – sound waves – to navigate and communicate with one another? In a cave system like this one, they must have a pretty impressive range…

I take a single step into the side-tunnel connecting Pallet Town to the Viridian-Vermillion network, wait for the sun to dip below the crest of Mount Silver, pick up a long, heavy stone, and smash it against the wall again and again and again and again and-

"T-R-A-I-N-E-R- -S-E-E-K-I-N-G- -F-A-S-T-E-S-T- -Z-U-B-A-T- -I-N- -T-R-I-O- -C-A-V-E."

It's a known phenomenon that pokémon grow stronger by training with humans, even if they're doing the exact same thing after capture that they were doing before. If Misty is to be believed, and I have no reason to distrust the Waterflower, then the same thing happens in reverse. Symbiosis at its finest.

It stands to reason, then, that a pokémon who prides itself on being the fastest will want to become even faster.

I hear them long before I see them, the chittering and fluttering of a hundred flying-types rocketing through an enclosed space and jockeying for position at the head of the formation. I tense at the sound, mind flashing back to the spearow and their unholy cawing and the riptearclaw of beak against flesh and oh Ho'oh Misty isn't here, but- in. Out. In. Out.

I'm a trainer, now. All will be well.

My knees buckle and my brain vibrates in my skull and all I can think is make-that-god-awful-sound-go-away, but I was ready for it, and stand strong. Supersonic. It's not as bad as Confuse Ray, honestly, but the force of a hundred of them makes me thankful there aren't any golbat or crobat with the group. I wouldn't be able to keep my lunch if there were.

And then the flock arrives and I reflexively wonder if I should have caught a caterpie or something.

Zubat get a bad rep in most league circles. They're as common as the cave systems they call home, so weak they are burned by direct sunlight, and their venom is among the weakest of all poison types. They have to rely on Supersonic to navigate, leaving any trainer who tries to raise one with a permanent migraine, and only grow more chaotically inclined with evolution. Evolving one into a crobat is supposed to be incomprehensibly difficult, as their malicious natures common amongst poison types makes forming the unbreakable bond they need a trial and a half.

A hundred zubat come spilling out of the cave system and fly circles around me like a living tornado, and I am caught, petrified, in the eye. They chitter and squeak and cackle, rousing every sleeping pokémon in a quarter-mile radius, and the night comes alive before my stunned gaze. And I can tell – it's only a matter of time until a fight breaks out, and I don't want to be in ground zero when it does.

Better take advantage, then, I think, and scream- "Last one standing comes with me to the Championship!"

I desperately sprint deeper into the cave system, sucking in a breath and throwing a sloppy somersault when I reach the living wall of zubat blocking the way. They evade my rolling body with seeming trivial ease, and though I pick up a number of bleeding scrapes and tear a gaping furrow down my jacket – ah, Arc, shit shit shit – I make it past without being torn apart by the chaos that follows.

Golden flares of Leech Life rend startled squeaks left and right, acid from desperately cast Poison Fangs scorch deep scars into the foliage, and the unholy clamor from furious Supersonics rises high enough to wake the dead. I clasp both hands against my ears and grit my teeth, falling to a knee with a grunt of exertion. This is not what I had in mind when I woke up this morning.

But I can't help but notice a solid half-dozen break off from the battlefield to arc towards a zubat either cowardly or cunning enough to wait and watch for the others to destroy each other for him. It's a move I can appreciate, on both sides – I'll never be able to overpower Karen, so I'll have to outthink her, and weight of numbers is an effective if crude counter to superior skill – but not one that I expected. Zubat are known for their mischievousness, not their intelligence.

This zubat didn't seem to get the memo, because once its six aggressors near it in a blinding display of speed, teamwork, and precision, it unleashes a move I never in my wildest dreams expected a zubat to know.

Flash.

I thought the glow from last night's lightning strikes was bright. I was wrong. So wrong. The incandescent flare of light is so incredibly brilliant that the delicate skin of the attacking zubat is seared clean off, mercilessly cutting their strings like unwanted puppets. The clever zubat is the heart of a supernova, and the blinding flash spears through dozens more of the bat pokémon, dropping them like flies, too.

The only zubat to evade the onslaught are those lucky or cold-blooded enough to use other zubat as cover. Each and every single one of them – all seven of those who survived the fifteen second fight with nearly a hundred casualties – turn towards their cunning brother with fury evident in their trembling bodies.

They're going to tear him apart, I realize. Then, I can't let that happen.

He's going to be the second member of my family, after all.

"Fastest gets caught!" I shout, throwing a pokéball high into the sky. Magikarp's pokéball. The seven surviving zubat streak towards it, abandoning their vengeance in the hopes of becoming a trainer's teammate. When the fastest among them reaches it with triumph clear in its wingbeats, the crushing disappointment it keens out when it realizes the ball is already claimed almost breaks my heart.

It's too late for me to change my mind, though, as I have already thrown Misty's premier ball at the Flashing zubat, the only one who didn't streak towards my magikarp's pokéball with all the speed and desperation of a falling star. Whether it knew what I was up to or merely realized it was too exhausted and too far away to reach it in time, I don't know, but it lazily arcs into the second ball all the same.

I flick my wrist to trigger the homing mechanism, and I catch it with a satisfying smack, just in time for it to glow in success. I smile softly.

"I'm going to call you Nova," I whisper, pressing a gentle kiss to the cool metal, "For the light of an exploding star. Vee, for short."

…

Then the seven duped zubat rocket towards me in rage, and I scream, breaking out into a mad run all the way back to camp, and I can't help but wonder –

Am I doomed to be chased by a swarm of flying-types every single day!?

…

Even still, today's been a good day, and, for the first time since I left Pallet, I finally begin to believe that all will be well.

End of Chapter Two

A/N: Pokédex entries are copied word-for-word from FireRed, Gold&Silver, Ruby, Diamond, Black&White, and Y. Damn, the games are mean to poor magikarp.

Skullcruncher Prime is the politically correct version of a much more impolitic term found on Shockz' In Which I Watch Sword Art Online. It refers to the final non-human boss seen in SAO - the skeleton centipede thing. The rest of the nicknames are taken from my own past gyarados.

Misty is sixteen here, whereas Ash – and most rookie trainers – are twelve. Ash is being more than a little judgmental, but she has that right, I think. Misty certainly has her fair share of growing up to do. There won't be any bashing in this story, but there will (hopefully) be realistic character growth.

The idea of using unintelligible sounds and hand-motions to command pokémon is a marvelous idea I wish I came up with. Alas, I discovered the idea from the marvelous fic "Pokémon Nephri" by rkyeun, found on the SufficientVelocity questing forum. And, no, Ash isn't alone in possessing this knowledge – most worthwhile trainers she will meet will have similar ideas.