As she flew over the southern end of the town, she began to think that lights off in the houses at night meant that no one would be receptive of her arrival. But then, she saw lights on in the house on 106 Elm Street. She wanted to see who was inside, but she wouldn't want to go up to the window as a Pokemon, so she took on the shape of the human she knew in her own dimension, Bianca. After she took on human shape, she went up to the window and she saw a group of teen-aged boys grouped around a table playing a strange game. Meanwhile, the boys were playing their game while Latias was outside watching through the window. One 15 year old boy was watching the game over the seats. His name was John Leonard.

Then he said to the group, "I'm ready to play now, you guys."

One of the boys said, "We're in the middle, John. You can't join in the middle."

John then turned to his older 19 year old brother, "Matthew."

His brother replied, "You have to ask Ross, he's the gamemaster."

John turned to Ross, "Ross."

One of the other boys jokingly went, "Ross, can I play now?"

Ross replied, "Yeah, but get the pizza first."

"Then I'm in," John asked.

Ross replied, "Yeah you're in. Pizza first."

As John went to pick up the pizza, one boy went, "Plenty of sausages and pepperonis."

Another boy went, "Everything but the little fishies."

Outside, near the window, Latias then retreated to the tool shed to hide. Meanwhile, John was in front of the house, picking up the pizza from the delivery man. After the pizza delivery man drove off, John went to go back inside, eager to join the game, when he heard stuff being knocked about in the backyard.

Not knowing it was actually Latias, John began calling out to his dog, "Mikey! Mikey, is that you boy?"

Hearing no reply, he decided to go through the side gate on the west side of the house. After he went through the gate, he put the box with the pizza in it on the patio table on the wooden deck. John took his flashlight, and looked around in the area of where the noise was coming from, the tool shed. He then threw a baseball into the shed, expecting his dog to come to him with the ball in its mouth. Instead, Latias, unseen in the shadows, threw the ball back at him. Not knowing what it was, John frantically ran to the French doors that were the back doors and for his mother who was in the kitchen with Matthew, Ross, and the other two boys.

John ran into his mother, frantically saying, "Mom! Mom, there's something out there! In the tool shed! It threw the ball at me!"

Then, John turned to Matthew and the boys and yelled, "Quiet!"

Then everything fell silent.

John said to them, "Don't nobody go out there."

Excited, Matthew, Ross, and the other boys grabbed knives and began to go out to the tool shed.

John's mother said demandingly, "You boys stay right here!"

Matthew said, sounding proud, "You stay here, mom. We'll check it out."

John's mother said with a higher tone of demand, "And put those knives back!"

John began pulling his mother with him, following Matthew and the boys to the tool shed. Meanwhile, Latias, having heard the commotion inside, returned to her Pokemon shape and flew up to the top of the tree to escape being found just as when everyone came out, with John leading the way. As they looked around in the shed, they saw prints with 3 digits all over the walls and the interior side of the door.

Matthew then said, "There definitely was some kind of animal in the shed, even though there are no prints of any kind on the floor."

John's mother then stated, "Alright, everyone get inside."

One of Matthew's friends grabbed the pizza box from the patio table. Some time later in the night, Matthew and his friends were asleep in his bedroom. John's mother was lying in her bed in her room. John slept in his own bedroom. A noise from outside the house in the backyard aroused John from his sleep. He took a flashlight and went out to the backyard to investigate. After a few minutes of searching, he pinpointed the noise to the back of the shed. As he got closer to the back of the shed, the shuffling noises grew more frequent. Then, as John lifted up a tree branch to take a more thorough look, the beam of his flashlight then shone on Latias, in her normal Pokemon form. As the light continued to shine on her, she put her forelimbs in front of her eyes and made noises as if she were annoyed by the light. This in John's mind, seemed as if she were trying to threaten him, and as such he responded by screaming in fear. As he landed on the ground, he dropped his flashlight, and saw the silhouette of Latias flying off toward the Siskiyou Mountains. John, still stunned by his encounter with Latias, steadily got to his feet and went back to the house, looking with curiosity towards the direction that Latias went. He entered the house and went back to his bedroom. The next day, he decided to go to the mountains beyond the Christmas tree place on Camp Baker Road on his bike. He wanted to find the creature he saw in his backyard last night, not knowing it was Latias. He brought a large bag of Skittles, think he could bait her out any hiding place she could be in. After a few hours of searching and calling out, he noticed a strange man walking around. He didn't know what the man was there for, but he hid behind a tree until the man walked away. Then, deciding that it was becoming pointless to continue on searching further, as well as it was getting late, so he got on his bike and began heading back home. He didn't know it, but Latias was watching him, using her invisibilty to stay hidden. She noticed how he was calling out to him and how he was behaving very differently from their encounter with one another the previous night. She also noticed the small pile of Skittles he left by a tree. Unfamiliar with what those small colorful circles were, she picked up one of the red colored ones and then out of curiosity, licked it. To her surprise, it tasted very fruity, and was pleased by the sensation of the taste. She then picked up the pile of Skittles, and then followed John, still invisible, as the sun was setting. When he arrived and after John put his bike in the tool shed, Latias returned to hiding in the shed as he went back into the house. There she would wait for the right time to meet him again under better circumstances. Later that evening, John, his older brother Matthew, his younger 10 year old sister Bertha, and their mother were sitting at the table having dinner. During all this, Latias was invisible, watching them through the window. She was admiring how they were such a peaceful family. That all the more convinced her that John was a human being that she could trust. Now that she had made up her mind and made her decision, she returned to the tool shed to wait until later that night to try and meet John again. But little did Latias know that the relationship between the family members was tense. There was no father amongst them.

John's younger sister Bertha asked John, "What are you going as for Halloween?"

John sulkly replied, "I'm not going to stupid Halloween."

Matthew mockingly suggests, "Why don't you go as a goblin?"

John's reply is blunt and to the point, "Shut up."

Their mother tried to calm things down by saying to John, "It's not that we don't believe you, honey."

John replied with urgency, "Well, it was real, I swear!"

Their mother just simply asked Bertha, "What are you going as, Bertha?"

Bertha replies, "I'm going as a cowgirl."

John then asked, "So what else is new?"

Matthew then said, "Maybe it was an iguana."

John replied, "It was no iguana."

Matthew continued, "Maybe, uh, uh, you know how they say there are alligators in the sewers?"

Bertha said to herself, "Alligators in the sewers."

Their mother, trying to bring in some common sense, said, "All we're trying say is, maybe you just probably imagined it."

John replied, trying to get them to see his point, "I couldn't have imagined it!"

Matthew continued on with his suggestions, "Maybe it was a pervert, or a deformed kid, or something."

Bertha said to herself, "A deformed kid."

Matthew continued on, "Maybe an elf or a leprechaun."

That finally made John snap as he said to Matthew, "It was nothing like that, penis breath!"

Then their mother said with a slight hint of laughter, "John. Sit down."

After he sat back on his chair, John then said, "Dad would believe me."

Their mother suggested to him, "Maybe you oughta call your father and tell him about it."

John just replied, "I can't. He's in Los Angeles with Sarah."

After a few seconds of unpleasent silence, Bertha then asked, "Where's Los Angeles?"

Their mother then said as she got up with her plate, "Excuse me."

She walked into the kitchen and looked out the window from where the sink was.

Matthew quietly said to John, "I'm gonna kill you."

Their mother then said, still by the sink, "If you ever see it again, whatever it is, don't touch it, just call me and we'll have someone come and take it away."

Bertha then asked, "Like the dog-catcher?"

John then said, with a slight hint of alarm, "But they'll give it a lobotomy, or do experiments on it or something."

Their mother said to them, " It's your turn to do the dishes, fellas."

Matthew said, "I set and cleared."

John said to Matthew, "I set and cleared."

Matthew said, "I did breakfast."

Bertha said, "I did breakfast."

Then the sound of dishes being put in the sink abruptly alerted the children, as Matthew asked their mother, "What's the matter, Mom?"

She sighed and then sorrowfully replied as she went to her bedroom, "He hates Los Angeles."

Matthew then turned to John as he said madly to him, "Damn it! Why don't you grow up?! Think how other people feel for change!"

John just simply got up angrily and grabbed his plate and utensils and abruptly put them down in the sink and turned on the water to full hot. He then looked out the window next to the sink as the water was steaming. He was thinking about the creature he saw, which was in fact the Pokemon known as Latias. Later that night, John was dressed in his thickest jacket, laying on a beach chair, covered with thick blankets. He was waiting for Latias to return. Everyone else was asleep inside the house. An hour had passed. Then, just as John was about to get up to go back inside, the door of the tool shed opened slowly with beams of white light from the shed light shot through nighttime mist. John froze still in the beach chair, as he was gripped by both apprehension and curiosity. Then, to his surprise, a familiar silhouette came out of the shed and slowly headed towards a frozen John. Then Latias, seeing the apprehension in John's eyes, made a series of soothing and calming noises as she extended one of her forelimbs somewhere above John's torso and dropped the Skittles she had grabbed earlier in the day on the blanket. John wearily pointed his flashlight at the spot where Latias dropped the Skittles.

He then thought to himself, "Could this creature be doing this out of thanks?"

But Latias was also being cautious, because she didn't know what to make of this stranger. John then grabbed the Skittles, put them in a small bag, got up, and grabbed the blankets and the chair. With one hand, he opened the French doors to get inside. He left the doors open to allow Latias come in. She was hesitant at first, but after she felt assured that it was safe inside, she came inside the house and John then closed the French doors after he put the beach chair away. He then guided her to his bedroom. But her wingspan prevented her from easily entering the room without getting scrunched up. That's when John witnessed, with awe, Latias putting on her Bianca disguise so that she could enter his room with ease. She began to explore his room. But as she sat on his desk chair, she began to shiver as if she were cold. John closed his bedroom door. As John began to wrap her with a blanket, Latias in her disguise, brought him down to his knees as she wrapped her arms around him. When John looked at the expression on her face, he felt a sense of loneliness and sadness about her. He put his own arms around her to try and comfort her. In his arms, Latias changed back into her Pokemon form as she was being filled with peace and content by his act of compassion. But John was feeling tired and fell asleep in her forelimbs. Latias took on her human disguise in order to more efficiently get him onto his bed and she wrapped him in his blanket. She then decided to make her own bed in the closet. Latias felt happy because she had finally found someone who might be able to help her. Thus began a powerful friendship. But this friendship would, later on in the future, be tested against outside forces.