Disclaimer: Once again, I do not own any of the characters hereby related, except for Taylor herself, who is merely a figment of my imagination…as far as I know, anyway…

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I stared at the strange guy wandering along the street in front of my house, peering through the blinds of my window.

Yeah yeah, give me a harangue for spying on some clueless guy without him knowing it later. I'm not concerned about that. Besides, he wasn't handsome or hot in particular…heck, he looked like he could have been a couple of years younger than me, and I'm fourteen. But he looked lost somehow, and something about him flat out intrigued me, an intrigue similar to discovering a new art of movie-making on a laptop plasma screen. Though what this guy had to do with computers, I wasn't quite sure.

He wore a red-and-white cap over copper hair that seemed tidy for the most part. The vest-thing that he wore over that black T-shirt seemed to have a matching theme to the hat, and he wore your average light blue jeans. Over the vest spanned the straps of a yellow, battered-looking backpack that seemed to be chock-full of all kinds of stuff, and for all the world he could have been simply walking to school. Except that it was seven-o'-clock on a Saturday morning. Yup…definitely weird. But the main thing that interested me was the belt he was wearing. Sure, at least that would be normal too. Except that it was strung with six red-and-white balls that glinted in the early-morning light. Those things looked vaguely familiar, but I was fairly positive that I'd never seen the likes of them before.

All in all, he was definitely strange.

I watched in interest as he continued to wander along the street. At least he had enough sense to stay on the sidewalk, but he seemed completely disoriented, even confused. Lost? Anyone could have guessed that by now. I peered expectantly up and down the street, wondering if anyone in my neighborhood would bother to come out and hand the poor guy a few directions to get around. But that didn't seem to be happening any time soon.

I huffed a small sigh and took a step back from the window. It was a boring Saturday morning, and I didn't watch cartoons a lot, so you could say that I didn't have anything else to do. So I threw on a gray hoodie to ward off the cool chill of the autumn morning and stepped out the front door in my blue fluffy bed slippers. Hey, I was only going to be out there for a short time.

The boy paused and turned around, noticing the movement in front of my house. Crossing my arms, I started up the street towards him, pretending to be oblivious to his curious stare. By the time I managed to cover a few yards, I stopped and waved. The guy paused and then waved back unsurely, as though he had no idea what he was supposed to do next. I frowned.

"Um…hey, you? Over…here?" Yeah, I know I was being obnoxious, but I just wanted to see how he would react. He was already strange enough as it was.

At least he knew the local language, but I had expected that. He came forward immediately, almost breaking into a run. He was probably anxious to know where he was so that he could get back to his buddies or something.

"You lost or something?" I inquired when he was a respectable distance away. A few feet, to be exact.

"Um…yes…" The boy came closer, until he was standing in front of me. He had black eyes with a shape that I couldn't quite place, but I dismissed that. He was talking again, anyway. "Do you know where I can go to get to Pallet Town from here? I've got a battle to get to…"

I could only stare at him blankly. I had never heard of any place called Pallet Town…and what in the name of blueberry bagels did he mean by a battle? Was this guy looking for a fight? He didn't look too buff to me…

"Uh…sorry, but I've got no idea what you're talking about. There's no Pallet Town anywhere around here."

The boy looked just as nonplussed. "What? But I'm sure I was headed straight for it…I thought…but then there was that light…"

Okay, I admit it, I was beginning to freak out a little. Was this guy mentally disturbed or something? I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. But he looked so confused and lost…

"Eh…hey, look at it this way. My parents are out at work, so maybe you can hang out at my place for a while. We can…I don't know…look in the phone book or something for this place. And if we can't find it then…well, maybe my parents can help out…you definitely look lost…"

"You'd do that? Thank you…" The boy smiled weakly. He looked pretty relived, and I couldn't help but smile back, though my mind was in complete turmoil. What was I doing? Inviting a strange kid into my house to find a place called…Pellet Town, or something…my parents would probably ground me for life…and what would my friends have to say about it? But it was already too late…I couldn't undo it now and shoo the guy away…he didn't look emotionally sturdy, or at least not for now, anyway. I'd just have to go with the flow and see what happened.

"By the way…what's your name? You can call me Taylor."

"Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Red…"