6

As the caterpie goes flying into the air, eevee jumps at it with a quick attack and it goes flying into the bug catcher's stomach. He falls over and I give him a superior look. "You are worthless. Why are you even a trainer?" I ask, walking over and looking down on him.

He backs up slowly and bumps into a tree. "I want to show everyone the power of bug pokémon!" He shouts.

I shoo him away with my hand. "Get away from here and hurry to a pokécenter. I don't want you weakening the air around me." The bug catcher returns the caterpie to its pokéball and runs off toward Pewter City.

Standing behind me, Sakura cocks an eyebrow at me. "You are so kind, young master." She says, as if I were a teacher of hers.

I give a sarcastic laugh. We both continue down the path, which is oddly enough covered with grass with a hedge at both sides. A seemingly endless plane of trees are on each side of the path as it curves and twists in seemingly every direction. Sakura claims to know the way, but I can swear we pass several of the same trees several times.

We are just turning a corner where I notice a kakuna is sleeping on the tree's side and I start to get annoyed. We've passed this same kakuna at least 3 times, I think. I walk up and tap Sakura's back and she asks what is the matter.

"I believe we've passed that same kakuna…" I point at it behind me. "… Several times already. It has an odd blue stripe near its bottom."

She nods. "Last time I went through here there were a lot less kakuna. I'm seeing them in the trees and we HAVE TO avoid waking them up. I'm trying to find a safe path and it's hard so bear with me."

I decide to take her word for it, and after thirty more minutes we stop seeing anything that resembles a pokémon. We turn a corner and finally come upon a rest house that signals the end of this stupid forest. I run in front of Sakura up to the door of the tan-bricked building and am about to open it when it gets slammed open into my face by someone on the other side. I fall flat on the ground and the person jumps over me and into Sakura.

I get up and yell, "Hey, watch where you are going! You could have broken my nose!" I turn around and look at the person who knocked me down. It is a girl. She is about 5' 11'', which is quite tall. Her hair is short and done up into two buns, each one black and the rest of her hair is white. She looks to be about a few years older than me, about 14 or 15. She has a sky blue trench coat, tan short shorts and a pink sleeveless shirt with a picture of some bear like animal with a white face and black ears and nose, almost like her hair. Her shoes are black flip-flops. I can't tell if she has a pokéball on her waist because the trench coat covers too much of it.

She looks down at me and offers her hand and apologizes. "OHMYGOSH did I knock you down? I thought that door was hard to open. I am REALLY sorry." She continues rambling about how sorry she is but I'm too dazed, as it is to listen and just get up without her help. I look at Sakura and she shrugs. "… And I didn't know anyone would be in the forest since the police are looking for him…"

I hear that much and say, "Wait, who is looking for 'him?'"

She perks up and says, "OH, there was this mess at Viridian city and I heard on the news this guy named 'Raizu Kawashima' was some bad guy and he got away from Jenny but she injured him and he won't get very far so they put up watches around the forest last night I guess to make sure he doesn't get past them and…" She takes in a deep breath and continues, "… so I figured everyone would be freaked out and no one would go in the forest because they didn't say what Raizu looked like only that he had this kick ass eevee that took down like 10 growlithes and stuff. So… Why are you here?" She asks.

I give her an inquisitive look and say. "Can't a guy just travel through?"

She shakes her head. "NO because I am one of these watch people haha fooled you didn't I? Well actually I may not have because if you are some random traveler then it won't make a difference… ARE you Raizu Kawashima?"

Her talking speed is so fast it's hard to keep up. I like her perkiness though. "Well, yes, but you can't be a patrol. You have on a trench coat. How inefficient is that to catch a criminal running away?"

"HAH I knew you were him. I lied because I knew you were him, why? Because your face IS all over the news but they have a voice clip by..." She turns around and looks at Sakura. "… HER that you are a villainous abuser of your pokémon!"

Sakura runs up and pushes her off. "What kind of bull is that?!"

The girl just takes a small tape recorder from seemingly out of nowhere from her trench coat and presses play. "He is good, but to some pokémon he obviously hates. From how he beat up on them…"

Sakura smacks her face with her palm. "That was from my call to Joy about how you beat up the GROWLITHES. How can they dissemble THAT MUCH!?"

I sigh. "Augh, so what do you want, em… what is your name? I know you nearly knocked me out and for some reason have a 2 second recording of Sakura's voice…"

"Well, I am not a part of the police, no. BUT I do think it was a little fishy that you were hunted down by like 10 other policemen and JENNY tried to hurt you directly. So, I, Serena, would like to accompany you and figure out if you are nice to your pokémon or not."

I look at Sakura and she nods. I turn back to Serena and ask a single question: "What will you do if you don't come with us? We can just evade the law again. I'm betting you have a different reason for wanting to come with us."

She shakes her head. "I want to know if you are nice or naughty, that's simple enough. Now come on, they aren't looking for you past the forest." She starts to walk off but I grab her arm.

"Fine, you can travel with us. Just tell us what pokémon you have." I say, releasing my eevee. She lands on the ground and looks around curiously, and lands her eyes on Serena, tilting her head.

Serena laughs and kneels down and pats my eevee's head. She takes a pokéball from, again, seemingly out of nowhere from her trench coat and releases the pokémon inside of it. A male eevee lands on the ground next to mine. They both look at each other and say their names at the same time and start running around in circles.

I laugh too. "Another eevee. So quaint."

"All right Raizu. I'm traveling with you and you can't change my mind." Says Serena, in a firm tone of voice.

I nod and roll my eyes. "I wouldn't dream of it."

-----

Now it is late in the evening. We are all in our sleeping bags and the eevees are next to their respective trainers, mine next to me and Serena's next to her. I'm taking off my pokétech when I receive a call from it. I look at it and flip open the back that is used as an earpiece and say, "Hello?"

A woman's voice answers on the other line. "Ah, hello Raizu…" The woman coughs horrifically a few times and continues. "I'm glad I can call you."

"Who are you? And how do you know this number? I don't know this number."

"I am… the Jenny that cursed you." She coughs again a few times as if on cue by my brain. That officer who cursed me… I may die and I have no idea when. "I need to say something. Before you get angry with me, I wasn't told you were just a pokémon abuser. What I was told was far worse. That made me go to extreme lengths and now you may die a lot sooner than was intended by god."

I decide not to get mad and take her word for it. "Then why? Why would you want to hurt my eevee?…"

"I wasn't myself. I… don't wish to say what happened, but I can do one thing."

"What?"

She coughs a few times, sounding even worse still. "The curse can be taken off of you. You must go toward Lavender Town… and meet a certain someone who is dealing with their own problem. I can't guarantee he will be there, but you must try to meet him. Just ask for one of the cursed family… and anyone from there will help you. Or evade you entirely."

Despite being on the phone, I nod. "Okay, but what were you told about me?… Why would you have to lie about it? If you just said what the problem was I'm sure I can resolve it."

"No Raizu you can't, because it has nothing to do with you. But you are involved nonetheless and you… had to be removed." She coughs for what seems like minutes and I hear an odd sound, like spilling water, when I realize it isn't water.

"JENNY!" I yell, and I hear the other two girls in my group get up instantly. "What is the matter? Are you dying!? Jenny!? Hello?!"

"I'm… when I cursed you, I had to myself as well. A ninetails can do that to two people, but the person who actually touched the tail is the one who takes most of it. I sent my ninetails after you and I hope you meet her. She is kind… good bye…" I hear the phone hit the ground, and a loud crack. Not the kind of crack you would hear when inside a house on a carpet floor. The kind of hard ground crack, and the phone goes dead, but I continue to yell into it anyway.

I turn it off and punch a nearby tree. It is exactly as I thought. It was him…

Someone taps my back and I look at the two girls behind me. "What is it?! You were yelling! Something about Jenny? Did something happen?" Spews out Sakura, panicking and obviously worried.

I just say one thing. "We must hurry to Lavender Town."