Skyarrow Bridge was majestic in all of its glory, a sparkling representation of the spirit of free commerce and the unity between truth and idealism that had founded Unova. Set against a backdrop of the sun, blazing over the distant horizon of the sea, while Pidoves and Duckletts flapped overhead, the bridge was truly a beautiful sight to see. It was also really freaking long.

Elizabeth, if that was even her real name (It probably wasn't. Every passing moment I convinced myself that she had stolen the Pokédex, too. Pokédex stealer.) had dragged me out onto the Bridge, saying something about catching all the Pokémon in Pinwheel Forest. I would not have agreed to this. In fact, I did not agreed to this. I had my own journey to head on. It just so happened to be in the same direction and, now, I realized, I had no money.

This girl had bought about six million Poké Balls at the sales counter in the Center, and I had a feeling that if I made her really happy she would buy me a burger.

Bubbling with excitement, the girl skipped along the pedestrian walkway over the bridge. She was positively bouncing, chatting in some language that I highly suspected was English but nevertheless did not understand. It sounded more like a high-pitched buzz, that floated around my head. Sometimes, her wallet or Pokédex dropped out of the pockets of her grey hoodie, and I would pick it up and Theo would dutifully bite Elizabeth's ankle to make her turn around before I put them in my own trouser's pocket.

Still, it was peaceful, if tiring, to stroll across the bridge. Occasionally a truck passed by with a whoosh and the rumble of tires spinning on asphalt, but the commuters had already commuted and there were only a couple others, sight-seeing or on the lookout for young trainers to rough up and take money from. Like me. I learned this lesson the hard way.

The trainer that approached us had no particularly distinguishing features, besides what I later remembered as an extremely snide expression on his face. Actually, I take that back: he had an ugly, greedy, money-stealing expression on his face, if I recall correctly.

I caught myself staring at him, out of a vague subconscious attraction to movement, and by the time I noticed he was walking purposefully towards me.

"Is that your Venipede?" asked the trainer, looking at Theo, who was waddling at my feet, and then me. An Unfezant stalked purposefully behind him and raised its wings for flight.

"Oh, no, no, no," I said, holding up my hands. "I don't want to battle, really."

The trainer raised an eyebrow. "League rules, dude."

"Well, I mean, sure, Theo is mi-."

"Aerial Ace." With a screech, an Unfezant dive-bombed out of the air, took Theo by the claws, shook him a bit, and tossed him away. I knelt by Theo's side and mouthed wordlessly at the twitching insect on the ground. Theo hadn't stood a chance. The trainer held out a hand and beckoned. "Cough up."

I squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, I don't actually..."

The trainer rolled his eyes and turned, without listening, to Elizabeth. "What is this, some kind of scam? Girl, you have any money?"

After I grudgingly explained the rules to Elizabeth, she rather vacantly handed one hundred in bills to the Unfezant trainer. (The rest of her money was safely invested in Poké Balls, to the trainer's chagrin.) He scoffed and walked away, Unfezant stalking off behind him, muttering something about newbie trainers wasting his time. I cradled Theo's broken body, his poor, poor broken body, swore to never let such a travesty happen again, and cried in anguish at this sinful Earth.

The sun was shining very brightly, which put the opposite of a damper on the mood, and rather sourly, I sprayed a light Potion on the deep scratch on Theo's side, letting the wounds heal while he slept. I walked the rest of Skyarrow Bridge with my head down, avoiding potential eye contact. Stupid League rules. Stupid thieving trainers. Stupid Flying types. Weren't Venipede, I dunno, evolved to handle Flying types? It had said something about it in Elizabeth's Pokédex. Stupid lying Pokédex.

Trying to look on the bright side, I grumbled, half to myself and half to Elizabeth and maybe an extra third half to Theo, although he wasn't paying much attention, since he was kind of unconscious, "OK, so at least we invested most of our funds in items, so that's alright, and..."

I paused. Elizabeth wasn't talking. She had been trailing behind me for a while, walking slowly while looking out to some distant place beyond the horizon. I would take this as a relief and not look a gift Ponyta in the mouth, but the sudden change was putting me off. "Hey? You alright?" I shook her shoulder, cradling Theo in the other arm, and she looked, dully, at me. The once weirdly vacant look in her eyes was now seriously alarming; Elizabeth looked on the verge of collapse.

I bit my lip, looking down at the Venipede in my arms and the girl in front of me. "What's wrong?" I asked, slowly.

"Gotta catch 'em all," Elizabeth mumbled. She shuddered. "I gotta catch 'em all...but, we just lost..." Oh, way to rub it in.

I considered something snide and cutting, but instead said, slowly, "We're going to catch 'em- them all," gently steering her down the bridge. "We're going to Pinwheel Forest, and we're going to catch Sewaddle and Pidove and, uh, more Sewaddle...to, you know, evolve later, and stuff, and we're going to train, and..." Jeez, maybe the girl really was mental. And that would just make me a douche.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

It would be wrong to say that I did all of this out of the goodness of my heart. The girl was my wallet; getting plus points with Arceus was an unintended side effect.

Two hours later, after a very tense walk through the Pinwheel Road (I kept my head down the whole way), I was waiting nervously in the lobby of Pokémon Center. Elizabeth seemed to be feeling better and was ordering something to eat at the counter, but my anxiety was slowly growing. I almost leaped over the nurse's desk when she returned with Theo's Poké Ball in hand. "Is he alright?" I asked, desperately.

The nurse gave me a warm smile. "Your Venipede is fine. Just a quick pop in the machine is all it took." The light of recognition dawned on her face, despite the fact that I had never seen this nurse before in my life. "Say, is today your birthday?"

"Arceus, I swear..." I snatched the Poké Ball, suddenly livid. I pointed a shaking finger in her face as I stalked away, grimacing. "You do not want to go there. You do not."

Somewhat indignantly, the nurse said, "I was only asking if-."

"You stop that. Stop that right now." Rather moodily, I stalked off and slumped onto one of the worn couches and let Theo out. My mood was not improved when he pointedly turned his back on me. "This isn't my fault!" I roared, exasperatedly. "One loss against a trainer with a Pokémon at least three times your level and a type advantage!" Rather stubbornly, Theo refused to so much as acknowledge me.

"Hey, Tony?"

"WHAT?"

Breathing rather heavily, I turned on Elizabeth, standing behind me with two packets of something wrapped in paper. Seemingly unfazed by my outburst, but still a little put-off, she shrugged and said, "I was just wondering if you wanted some volcano bakemeat."

Suspiciously, I took one of the proffered packet. "Volcano bake what?"

"Meat, it's an old treat from Joh- hey! Slow down!"

My call to action had snapped her out of the remainder of her daze as, viciously tearing into the packet (I didn't even bother to remove the paper), I chewed hungrily, only to spit out the stuff onto a napkin, nose wrinkled in disgust. "This isn't meat," I said, shaking my head and scraping my tongue clean. "There's like pizza and beans and jelly in it..."

"I think it's rather nice," said Elizabeth, matter-of-factly. "And I'm sure Theodore does too."

In his defense, Theo liked it about as much as I did. Nevertheless, Elizabeth didn't have the money to buy another meal and I was forced to stomach the "volcano bakemeat", although Theo obstinately refused to eat any. Elizabeth sniffed haughtily. "I bet Dorothy would like it."

"Dorothy being..."

"My Sewaddle," she said, crumpling her paper wrapping up into a wad and tossing it into the nearest trash can.

"The Sewaddle you haven't caught yet," I said, flatly.

"But I will. You said," she said, puffing out her lip. I opened my mouth to protest, but she repeated obstinately, "You said."

That was how, an hour later, we were alternating training and searching in Pinwheel Forest. Elizabeth said that she didn't want to go far into the inner forest until she had caught two Pokémon. Thus followed a lengthy debate over who actually owned Theo, which quickly devolved into "He's mine!" and "No, he's mine!" Eventually, Theo just bit me on the thumb, by means of forgiveness, I suppose, and climbed onto my shoulder. Pouting, Elizabeth had stalked into the grass, muttering something about catching another Venipede.

"Hey, Tony! Where are you going?" she called out, after we had all stopped sulking.

"You wanted a Sewaddle, didn't you?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Let's go get one."

"No, I'm not going into the dark trees until I catch my second Pokémon. We'll catch one out here," she said, and folded her arms as if that settled the matter.

"You mean, I'll catch one out here," I muttered darkly under my breath, and then aloud I said, "No, we can't, all the Sewaddle are in the inner forest."

"Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh."

"Look, I have my Pokédex," said Elizabeth, waving it in the air. "And it says, right here, it says that Sewaddle are found in Pinwheel Forest, and we're in Pinwheel Forest, so we're going to find Sewaddle out here before we go back into the inner forest, OK?"

"But they're not found out here!"

"The Pokédex says they are," Elizabeth said, haughtily, arms still folded. "Now who's smarter, you or the Pokédex?"

"Woman, do you not hear the words coming out of my mouth?" I cried, quoting my father in exasperation, but Elizabeth had already flounced off past the enclosure. A nurse, waiting by the fence, nodded sympathetically, as I clenched my hair in abject misery.

"The girl's always right, kid, the girl's always right. That'll save you a lot of trouble in the long run."

I leered at her, waiting for the inevitable, but the nurse merely looked at me with that cool, knowing gaze and I nodded once and slunk away, not wanting to test my luck. At least not everyone in Unova knew when my birthday was...

As I did so, my gaze fell on a patch of rustling grass; I looked at Theo, who did the best shrug he could manage without any shoulders.

Slowly, I ventured closer.

A pink thing leaped out of the bushes, and Theo rushed forward to my defense. It was a Pokémon, yes, with giant ears and pink and white fur. My Venipede bristled, squaring off against it. "Tony!" called out Elizabeth. "That's an Audino!"

"It looks kind of lame..."

"The Pokédex says they give a lot of experience and are really good for training Pokémon."

"Theo, kill."

Theo growled, wiggling on the spot, but without any actual order he interpreted the command as Bite and launched himself at the enemy, pincers gnashing. The Audino danced deftly out of the way, and completely without warning, began shaking its butt in Theo's way. It made a face, which completely shocked me and, since Theo was still pure and uncorrupted, I shouted, "Theo, get out of there!"

But my Venipede was somehow dazed by the show, and he merely stood there, a starry kind of look in his eyes. Caught up in the heat of battle, I didn't even apologize as I snatched Elizabeth's Pokédex roughly out of her hands and checked the battle log. "She used Attract?" I stared at the screen, then glared at Theo, then stared at the screen again to make sure I'd read it right. "Attract? Theo! You're a bug for Arceus's sake, that's a pink walking rabbit thing! Isn't it, I don't know, in your instincts to hunt them? Theo!"

My starter was still dazedly love-struck, and, angrily, I marched into the grass, picked him up, and slapped him in the face. It stung more than I had expected it to and the little bug still had that look in his eyes, so I shook him and roared, "Theo! Snap out of it!" At that point, the Audino danced over and slapped him across the face. I looked up, dropped Theo, and slapped it in the face.

It's body language said, quite clearly, Oh, no, you did-n't.

The pink Pokémon gave me a back-handed slap across the face, and, affronted, with a bruised jaw, I gave it the full force of my palm, while Theo nuzzled the Audino's legs affectionately. I heard the sound of a camera shutter click behind me, and turned around to see Elizabeth, with her Pokédex outstretched, grinning maliciously. The little red light above the lens meant the photo function was on. "Hey, stop-!"

The Audino barreled into me, and I fell with grunt onto the prickly grass. Panicking, I squirmed out of the way, fearing that soon I would be facing the true power of the Pokémon, but the Audino was trying just as hard to get off. Theo, tail glowing purple, who had either snapped out of it or it had all been a facade in the first place, waved an antenna cheerily from his perch on the Audino's back, and dealt punishing Poison Tails into the Audino's back. The pink Pokémon flailed, attempting to fall back and smash Theo into the ground, but the little bug Pokémon was quick and scuttled onto the Audino's face, safe.

I breathed easy as the Audino, unconscious as the poison circulated through its system, ceased its movements.

"Aw, Tony, I wanted to catch it," pouted Elizabeth, walking over. "Audino are really rare."

"Why don't we just chuck a Poké Ball at it now?"

"You can't, Tony, it's fainted."

"Yeah, so?" I asked. "It's at its weakest!"

"Tony, you can't catch fainted Pokémon," said Elizabeth, in that infuriatingly matter-of-fact voice.

"Why not?" I yelled, my voice growing high-pitched.

"You just don't."

"But...but it...I just...Theo..." I groaned in frustration, something which I was doing more and more lately.

A/N: YES. First reviews. I appreciate it a lot, so thanks, guys! And to the (two) reviewers, I hope you don't mind that I do so love dropping references everywhere. For those who didn't get this chapter's, the one in this chapter (volcano bakemeat) is from Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal, which is a hundred times more random and hilarious; I highly recommend reading or watching a Let's Play of it.