"Ow... Ow... OW! Be careful! That hurts!"

I rolled my eyes and pulled another thorn out of Katsu's arms while he winced with pain. He had caught he Treecko, but it had also resulted in him getting shoved into a thorn bush. "Just stay still, Katsu, and you'll be fine." I replied, plucking out another, very large thorn. The Treecko snickered while he watched Katsu in pain, while Kin came over to inspect the grass-type.

They seemed to whisper to each other for a few minutes. I smiled and looked at them, and they waved at me innocently and continued talking. At least they're getting along, I thought to myself, when I was suddenly blinded by something covering my face. I screamed, and panicked, resulting in me accdientally pushing a thorn deeper into Katsu's arm, which resulted in him screaming, "OW! You're supposed to take out the thorns, not putting them in!"

When I got the thing (which turned out to be my backpack) off my face, I glared at Kin and Treecko who were rolling around on the ground laughing their heads off. I sighed. "Looks like we've got another Kin..." They gave each other a high five as everyone just stared at them. "Alright, Kin, you've caused enough trouble for today. How about you take a rest, okay?" I said to my Sandshrew as I recalled him into his Pokeball. Looking in through the translucent red top I could see Kin yawning sleepily and curling up for a nap. I chuckled... How adorable!

"You can get on my shoulders, Treecko. Just don't pull anything funny." Katsu said strictly as he lifted his new Pokemon onto his shoulder. "Tree!" He trilled happily, and made himself comfy on Katsu's shoulder. My rival grinned and then pointed at the egg I was holding curiously. "Keiko, you never really told me what is with that egg. Where'd you find it?"

I looked down at the egg that I forgot about until now. It wiggled occasionally, and rarely it even made tiny squeaking noises. I petted it proudly. "I found it out in the tall grass over there. I have no idea what Pokemon it could be - not even my Pokedex could identify it. I'll assume it's some sort of plant or flower Pokemon, though, judging by the petals on it..."

Katsu nodded, deep in thought. "It could be just a painted egg. You know, lots of people who celebrate Easter take Pokemon eggs, drain out the yolk, and and paint them and keep them for a long time. It might just be a hollow egg."

I shook my head, lifting the egg. "No, this defiantly has something in it. It can't be hollow." I put the egg safely in my backpack and turned towards the road. "Well, we better get going to the next town, we have a long journey there. According to the map, we have to go through Rock Tunnel." I grimaced. I hated going through caves. I hadn't exactly had some great times at Mt. Moon.

"Alright!" Katsu exclaimed, "To Rock Tunnel we go!"

-----

I looked at the dark entrance of Rock Tunnel and shivered as a cool air brushed past me. "Ugh, are you sure there's no other way around?" I asked Katsu, who looked at me and shrugged.

"You're the one with the map. And unless you have a Pokemon with fly, no, there isn't any other way around." He replied, and sent out Treecko and ordered him to use Flash. The grass Pokemon nodded and began to absorb the light from the sun that was beginning to set, and after a few minutes the cave flashed with light.

We entered the murky cave with Treecko leading the way through. A few trainers lurked by, but we managed to avoid them as we quietly moved through the cave. There were no interesting Pokemon here, aside from the annoyingly common Geodude and Zubat that constantly came to battle us - man, I thought those things would never stop coming.

"Alright, so the rare ones are Onix, Mankey, and Machop? As long as we don't find any more Zubats." I said, shuddering. I was really tired of those little pests. "I just wanna get the heck out of here, and fast." I hugged the egg to my chest and shivered from the cool damp air. "It's so... weird and spooky in here."

Katsu shrugged my complaints off and pointed to a large rock. "Look behind that. I think I see an Onix!" He exclaimed, and sure enough, he was right. The giant silver rock snake was curled up, napping and snoring loudly. Katsu grinned. "I'm gonna catch it! Treecko, go!"

Treecko immediatly jumped at the Onix, shooting leaves and vines at it. Of course, this angered the Onix and he reared up, growling softly, and suddenly lunging himself at Treecko who squealed in fear. Right before Treecko was about to be squished, a net wrapped over Onix, sending him into a wall and chipping off parts of the rocks that made up his body.

"Got one, sir. Permission to report back to home base?" We heard the low voice of a man speaking into a microphone. And then a crackle, and a fuzzy "Permission granted. Bring all captured and stolen Pokemon back to base."

Katsu and I exchanged glances, and we both called our Pokemon into battle, not about to let anyone get away with stealing someone's Pokemon.

"Go, Rune!"

"Go, Treecko!"

Both Pokemon jumped into battle, snarling at the Rocket grunt. The Rocket smirked. "So, you're gonna try and save the day again, are you?" Then his eyes widened as he recognized us, and he clenched his fists. "Hey! You're those bratty kids that I battled earlier! You jerks, you'll get it now! Go, Mightyena!"

A larger version of Poochyena escaped it's Pokeball and let out a mournful howl, black mane and tail swishing about proudly. Without needing to be told what to do, he leaped at Rune and sunk his teeth into him as Rune screamed in pain. Poochyena, obviously quite mad at the Mightyena for hurting his friend, lunged at his opponant and bit down on his tail, not letting go.

"Rune, while Mightyena isn't looking! Use Focus Punch!" I screamed, and Rune nodded and focused his mind, storing his energy in a clenched fist. When he had stored just enough power...

WHAM! His fist met Mightyena's jaw bone with a sickening crunch sound, resulting with the dark-type yelping and biting back at Rune, who quickly teleported away. Poochyena released his grip, and lunged at his opponant with a Body Slam, forcing all his weight onto the creature.

Eventually, Mightyena had an injured jaw, bruises, and a pool of blood around his tail - and fainted. The Rocket cursed and recalled his Pokemon.

"You may have won... again... But Team Rocket will be back! And don't you doubt it!" He quickly made off with the stolen Pokemon, with us screaming after him angrily. We didn't manage to catch up, but luckily he had led us out of the cave and into night time in Lavender Town.

-----

"It's awful depressing here, isn't it?"

We walked through Lavender Town to see yellow grass, grey skies and a giant funeral tower for Pokemon. Nothing about it was happy here. I held my egg close to me and felt it wiggle, and I looked down at it and smiled. I was hoping it would hatch soon.

"Yeah, it is pretty sad." replied Katsu, his eyes focused on the Pokemon Tower. "What an odd place... should... should we go in there?" He was twiddling his thumbs nervously as he looked at it, biting his lip. "We could... pay our respects, you know? I've also heard there's ghosts in there."

I laughed. "Ghosts? Ghosts don't exist. Except for Ghost-type Pokemon, of course." But something was troubling me... Katsu's face was a bit depressed-looking, and he seemed rather nervous. "We can go in if you want." I added quietly, and he nodded his head idly as we headed inside.

"My precious Growlithe... Why did you die?" sobbed a woman in front of a gravestone. Her eyes were red, and her face was shiny with the tears that poured down her face. "I miss you so much, Growlithe... Please come home..."

I frowned. I didn't like this place at all. I had no idea why Katsu would ever want to come in here.

"Katsu, why are we here in the first place? It's so... depressing. I don't like it here." I whimpered, looking around at people who were crying for their Pokemon.

"Because we're here to see my Eevee. She's come back as a ghost. I know it." A faint smile appeared on his face as I frowned. "Katsu, I don't think she did... I don't think she will." I replied sadly.

"She will... All I want is to see her again. She was my first Pokemon. Her grave is right over there..." He said emotionlessly as he pointed to a gravestone. We walked over and kneeled down, and I read the writing out loud:

"Amaya

Pet, family member, and Mother

Our beautiful desert rose, now and forever"

"We- we found her while traveling in the desert one day. We always called her our desert rose after that." He wiped away a few tears. "She had a litter of baby Eevees. An- and after she died, we released them into the desert. No, I did. I couldn't stand to look at them. They all looked just like her."

I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked and me and smiled softly. I smiled back and tried to comfort him. "It's the way of life, Katsu... everything dies. Whether it be a quick and painless death, or a gruesome, horrible one... we all die. But we still live in our loved ones hearts forever. That never changes." I wiped away tears of my own as he hugged me. "Thank you, Keiko."

A few hours later, Katsu seemed to be feeling better as we set up camp outside the Pokemon Center. I had gotten a liking to sleeping outside by now - it was nice, looking up at the stars every night and feeling the cool breeze on your skin. The stars were hard to see because of the clouds in the way, which now seemed black because of the darkness. I sighed, put the egg under the covers next to me, and drifted off to sleep.

-----

Crack.

What was that...?

Crik.. Plip... Crrrrrack.

What's that noise? It's so late... I'm not gonna go and check.

Plop!

"Cheri!"

Blinking and slapping myself awake, I rolled over to find my egg gone, replaced with dozens of tiny eggshells and a small flower-Pokemon waddling around, trying to walk. How cute... I rolled over again to go back to sleep. Wait... flower pokemon? Eggshells? Waddling? Sleep? Go? To!

"My egg hatched!" I screamed excitedly, but quickly covered my mouth. I scooped up the baby Pokemon and looked at her, cooing affectionetly. She was so cute. A yellow, round head and body, and two red buds above her equally beautiful red eyes. Five pink flower petals circled her head, and she seemed to wear a little pink 'coat' around the top half of her tiny body.

"Cherimu!" she squealed with delight as I scratched her behind her... buds?

"So you're a Cherimu? I've never heard of that Pokemon. Maybe when we get to Johto I'll find out where you came from." I smiled at her, and started to think of a name. Hmm... She sort of looked like the flower of a Sakura tree. I had one of those in my backyard. I grinned, and nodded. "Sakura... do you like that name?"

"Cheri!" she trilled happily, clapping her little pink hands with delight. "Cheri, cheri, cheri!"

I laughed and stroked her head. I would treat her like the daughter I never had. "I can tell, Sakura, you and me will be best of friends." She began to hum a happy tune in agreement, bobbing her head up and down. I chuckled. "Well, Sakura, I think we should go back to bed. We can tell the others in the morning!"

She nodded enthusiastically, and out of nowhere, she wrapped herself in a purple coccoon-like shell, probably to protect her during the night. I smiled and patted her head, and went back to sleep. What I didn't notice was the tall, dark figure standing behind me chuckling.

"An undiscovered Pokemon? ...The boss will like this..."