Beryl couldn't believe himself. He hadn't even had a Pokémon of his own for more than a day, and already he was fighting Gyarados – innocent Gyarados that wouldn't have even been trying to hurt anyone if not for Team Rocket. This was all too much for him, he realized, as he lay in bed the next morning.

He heard the television downstairs – some sort of news program. "And so, thanks to the trainers of Blackthorn City, including our own 'Dragon Tamers' Clair and Lance, the Gyarados under the control of Team Rocket were contained, and the surviving Rocketeers who attacked the city are in police custody. In international news, relations with the nation of Unova have become strained of late, as a recent outbreak of the Pokérus from a Unovan plane has…"

"Beryl!" his mom yelled up at him, "It's time to wake up, sweetie!"

He groaned. "I'm coming, Mom!" His Dratini looked up from the foot of the bed at her friend, jostled awake by his movements. She squeaked at him, in the tongue of Pokémon.

"I know, I know," he grumbled, pulling socks and pants, before looking over at her, his brow furrowed. "Do you have a name?"

She cocked her head at this.

"A name. You know, like mine is Beryl. I'm not just 'human,' I'm Beryl. What's your name?"

She chirped in response, in a way that sounded much like she was saying her own name.

"I can see why everyone just calls their Pokémon whatever their species is now," he grumbled. She chittered, curious. "See, what you just said sounded a lot like 'Dratini' to me. So I guess I'm just not sure what your name is. We'll cycle through some later, and you can stop me when you get to one that sounds right. Sound good?" he asked, rubbing the top of her head slightly. She purred at this, and the two of them left the bedroom to be greeted with the sweet aroma of breakfast cooking.

"Hey Mom," Beryl said, walking to the fridge to look for orange juice.

"Good morning Beryl. Good morning, um… Dratini," his mom started a bit at the sight of his new Pokémon.

"Hey Mom, is there anymore orange juice left?" he asked, and she sighed heavily.

"I couldn't get to the store yesterday, and after it was torn apart by those awful Rocket people and their giant beasts, I wouldn't be surprised if it was closed yesterday too."

Beryl groaned. "Well, crap," he said. He knew that his mother wasn't telling the whole story there, but she didn't very well need to – ever since their father left, money had become increasingly scarce. He sent over cash every month, enough for a few weeks, but it was near the end of the month and supplies were running thin. "Couldn't you send Libby out to get some?"

"Ber, sweetie, you know it's not that simple," his mom told him, and she was right. He grumbled a little, before pouring himself a glass of water and sitting down at the table to enjoy the cinnamon toast she had placed in front of him. He looked down at his Dratini, who was eying Libby's bowl of food. Libby, the Delibird, did not seem terribly thrilled with this, and was squawking at the Dratini in a decidedly territorial tone.

"Mom," Beryl said, "could we maybe get something for my new Pokémon to eat and drink? She seems pretty hungry, and she hasn't eaten anything since… Y'know." He meant to say "yesterday," but he couldn't quite get himself to think about what happened that day.

"Of course sweetie," she said, getting the Dratini a bowl of water from the faucet and putting some of Libby's pokéfood into another bowl, before setting them both down before the slithering Pokémon.

"What are your plans today?" his mom asked, looking up at him. He swallowed his food.

"Actually, Mom, I was going to talk to you about that. I know that you don't really like me having Dratini around, so I was thinking I could stop by the Pokémon Center and help out there for a while. You know, get us out of your hair for a bit."

"That's sweet, dear," she said, looking down at the draconian creature. "But I don't have a problem with your Dratini, as long as you take good care of her."

"Of course I will, Mom," he said, smiling at her. In the back of his mind, he wondered if maybe it would be best if he took that position at the gym. Depending on what Clair pays, he could definitely help with expenses at home. He shook his head to jar the thought loose, and decided to talk to Clair (and his mom) about it later.

"Well, go ahead to the Pokémon Center if you want," she said, smiling. "I'll be here when you get back, probably reading my novel."

"Thanks, Mom," he said, finishing his food and heading out the door. He stopped after stepping out the door, then walked back inside, took his shoes back off, and went back to the kitchen.

"Dratini, c'mon!" she looked at him confused, before slithering along behind him. He put his shoes on again at the door and scurried out, his Pokémon behind him. She shrieked at him, the door closing at her midsection.

"Oh, sorry," he gasped, running over to her and opening the door. The weight of it must have closed it on her, he decided. As soon as he opened the door for her to come out, she crawled up his body and wrapped herself around his shoulders and torso. Beryl shuddered. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."

"Hey Beryl!" the mailman said as he ran past toward the Pokémon Center.

"Hey Phil!" Beryl answered.

"Hey Beryl!"

"Hey Erisa!"

This continued as he went along, and the Dratini around his shoulders couldn't help but wonder if her new "trainer" knew everyone in this town, or if he was just showing off. Eventually, they arrived at the Pokémon Center, and Nurse Joy waved at him from behind the desk. It was still before nine o' clock, he realized, so the Center wasn't very full.

"Hey Nurse Joy!" Beryl said, smiling.

"Well, hi, Beryl! How's your new friend doing?"

Joy looked at the Dratini, which had securely fixed itself around his body. "Oh my," she said, "it looks like she's grown a little bit since yesterday already. It must be your training!"

Beryl chuckled. "I don't think so, but thanks. Say, is your daughter around here anywhere?"

"Oh, she's still asleep upstairs. I tried waking her up for a whole half hour earlier… I don't know, maybe you could get her up, Beryl," she waved a hand dismissively.

"Hm… Okay. What do you say, 'Tini? Wanna go wake up Joy?" The Dratini narrowed her eyes at this. "So… No then?" Beryl asked. The Dratini chirped in response, and Beryl looked at the nurse helplessly.

She chuckled, "It sounds like she doesn't like being called 'Tini. She thinks it sounds…" Dratini squeaked again, grateful that Nurse Joy was there to translate. "She said it makes her sound weak." The nurse giggled.

"Oh, of course," Beryl muttered. "Anyway, do you want to go wake Joy up?" The Pokémon gave what counted for a shrug when an individual lacked arms or any kinds of appendages, and they both went to the back of the Center, where the stairs were, to go bug Joy.

"Joy," Beryl said, knocking on her door. No response. He looked at the Dratini on his shoulders and gave a "what do we do now?" look. The Pokémon sighed, slithered off of his shoulders, and thumped her tail against the door. The wood looked like it was about to crack from that hit. Beryl's eyes widened, and, as the Pokémon prepared another attack, he placed a hand on the tip of her tail.

"You're going to break the door like that," he said to her. On a whim, he tested the knob of the door. It was unlocked. Slowly, he pushed it open, and there was Joy, lying in bed. He hadn't seen her without makeup in years, he realized, and she looked surprisingly fetching. Beryl looked down at his Dratini, and nodded over at Joy. The Dratini looked over, then back at Beryl, not sure what he wanted.

"Go jump on the bed, wake her up," he said, sporting a massive grin. She nodded, and slithered onto the bed, before whacking her tail and shrieking in what was easily the least graceful attempt to wake anyone that Beryl had ever seen.

Joy screamed, thrashing in the bed and knocking the dragon Pokémon off of her bed. The Dratini chuckled, inching over to Beryl, who was also laughing hysterically. Joy growled, threw a book at the two of them, and threw herself back under the covers.

"Oh, c'mon, Joy…" Beryl said, walking over to her bed. "C'mon…" he said again, and responded with something muffled and sleepy. "What was that?" he asked, and she lowered the covers slightly.

"I said, I'm naked, and you need to get out, freak," she grumbled.

Beryl backed away, shocked. "Um, I just… Your mother asked … I'm just gonna go now. Yeah, I'm gonna go." She grumbled something vulgar as he backpedaled out of the room.

He closed the door and pressed his back to the wall, groaning as he slid to the ground. His Pokémon eyed him curiously. Beryl realized that she didn't understand what had happened just then.

"Oh, um…" he fumbled for an explanation. "See, with humans, it's a really big deal to see someone naked. That's why we all wear these clothes. They're not just to keep us warm and protected, they also make sure we don't see parts of each other's bodies that are… well, private."

The serpentine creature raise an eyebrow, still very confused. Beryl sighed. "It's just… It's a human thing, okay?"

The Dratini shrugged in that Dratini way, and decided to leave it alone. Joy walked out of her room, her hair a curly, unkempt mop that strayed from her typical straightened 'do. "What?" she asked.

"We were supposed to get you up!" Beryl exclaimed, his hands held defensively in front of him. Her eyes narrowed.

"All right, fine, just let me get dressed…"

Beryl and his new Pokémon waited outside, then, with little to entertain themselves. They practiced coiling her body into a tight spring and bouncing her off of the wall. They practiced making small purplish flames spout from her mouth, much like her Dragon Rage attack. She turned her body into a wheel and rolled around on the floor, and she made a small Twister inside the hallway that caused a hearty breeze to blow through. They both laughed at the way the pictures flew off of the wall, before picking them up.

Beryl looked at the clock that had fallen from the wall, and gasped. "Wow, it's been a full hour since we came up here." He turned to the Dratini at his feet. "Maybe we should just…"

Joy stepped out then, all vaguely punklike black clothing. Her hair was straightened, and Beryl was happy that his world wasn't dissolving anymore.

"Okay," Joy said, closing her door behind her. A small smile spread across her face. "Let's get to work."

Making their way to the front, it was clear that some of the trainers from the previous day still needed attending to. Most of the Pokémon carried a few wounds from the battle previously, and the machines used to heal them were constantly full.

"Great," Joy was telling him. "We're going to have to tend to some of these Pokémon manually. Give me a hand with this cart, Ber." They moved a cart of Full Restore from the back storage area to the main lobby, and began handing them out to trainers.

"So, did you tell your mom about what Lance and Clair said?"

"Not exactly," Beryl said. "I was about to, but then…"

"Then what?" Joy asked.

"Well, then I didn't."

"And why not?"

Beryl paused, a Full Restore leaving the tips of his fingers. "Well, I was going to just act like it never happened, y'know? So it wouldn't be a big deal if I told her. But then I got to thinking." An eager trainer plucked another Full Restore from him. He smiled up at the trainer, who immediately began attending to her injured Poliwrath.

"You were thinking about…?" Joy pressed.

"I was thinking that maybe my mom could really use the money, y'know? Maybe I could help my family out. And I know that…"

"You know that your mom would smack you if you asked her to let you do that." Joy nodded.

"Yeah," Beryl groaned. "Have a good day," he told a large, burly trainer with a Tyrogue. "I was just thinking," he told Joy, "that if I could bring something to the house finally, instead of watching my mom waste away like that, that maybe she'd forgive me for, y'know…"

"Training Pokémon," Joy sighed. She pulled a box of Max Elixir from the cart, and placed it on top. Other trainers gathered around her, hoping to grab some, and Beryl began handing canisters of the stuff to the injured trainers and their Pokémon. "Well, I think that you should do what you feel is right. If that means hiding the fact that you're working at the gym a secret, then so be it."

"What do you mean?" Beryl asked. "That sounds like a horrible idea. She's sure to find out."

"Not necessarily," Joy told him. "If you do it right, she never has to know. Say all your hard work here started paying off, literally. I'll cover for you."

Beryl sighed. "I don't know about that, Joy. I don't even know that it's the right thing to do, really, or even what Clair pays."

"It's on commission, from what I hear," she said.

"What's that mean?"

She looked at him like he had just asked what color the sky was. "Well, every time a Pokemon trainer beats another one, he or she hands over a set amount of money. That's how gyms stay in operation. Every trainer who loses a battle at a gym gives money to that gym, and the trainers who work there are paid a really small amount, with a bonus for each trainer that they beat there."

Beryl's forehead was creased in confusion. "So, you don't get paid hardly at all for working at a gym?"

"Not unless you beat some trainers," Joy nodded, handing a Max Elixir to a blond girl with a ghostly flame Pokémon that was clearly from outside the region. She smiled.

"So, I have to be a good trainer to get money," Beryl said quietly.

"Of course you do," Joy said. "How do you think trainers even stay alive? It's not out of the kindness of everyone else; it's out of earning money and living."

Beryl looked down at his Dratini, still wrapped around his body. She looked at him, curious. He looked, concerned, at her. "It just doesn't seem right."

"What's that?" Joy asked.

"Oh, nothing," Beryl said, faking a small smile.

As the day wore on, fewer trainers came in. Behind the counter, Joy asked Beryl a question.

"So, why do your parents hate Pokémon training so much?"

Beryl looked down, uncertain of how to answer. "Well, they think it's inhumane. I mean, that's how Pokémon grow and all. But they hate pain of any kind, and forcing Pokémon to fight only breeds pain, in their eyes. I know it's ridiculous, but they're my parents. And I can't help but agree with them, at least a little."

Joy looked out at the lobby, then to her mom. The nurse was loading some inhabited Pokeballs into the healing dock. "Hey, mom," Joy said. Her mother looked up. "We're gonna head upstairs for a bit, okay?" She nodded, curls bouncing.

Joy stepped back and grabbed Beryl's hand. "Come with me." They mounted the stairs and stepped into a back room where a television sat. Joy hooked a media player into it, and pressed play.

"I think I know where you're coming from," she said. A battle started playing out on the screen. The footage was grainy, and from a poor vantage point, perhaps from a security camera. Two angry trainers, with equally unhappy looking Pokémon (a Raticate and Beedrill), were tearing into each other. The blood of the two Pokémon was staining the ground where they battled. The trainers were swearing at each other, leaping into the fray and tearing each other to pieces verbally and physically.

"What is this?" Beryl asked, horrified.

"This is an illegal, underground battle. These types of battles happen outside of League-sanctioned territory, for high stakes and with little regard for human life, let alone Pokémon life. These are the kinds of battles that happen in times of war, when people and Pokémon are at the end of their rope. These are the sorts of things you've been thinking of as normal, right?"

Beryl looked away, and nodded.

"Now, remember yesterday? Pretty scary, right? But it's nothing like what happens where the IPL can't see. But this is what a League-sanctioned match looks like…" She pressed some buttons on the media player, and a different battle began to make itself clear on the screen. A Blastoise was facing off against an Espeon. The Blastoise's trainer was shouting commands and the Blastoise began firing high-pressure streams of water from the cannons in its back. The Espeon dodged one blast, but was struck with the second. It screamed in pain, and Beryl flinched.

The Espeon's trainer held a hand up for the other to stop, and ran to the Espeon's side with a Hyper Potion in hand. She sprayed the potion on the psychic Pokémon's wounds, and sparkles of light rose from the wounds. The Espeon leapt to its feet, and the battle began again, the Espeon leaping to the fray and firing bursts of psychic energy at the large tortoise. The Blastoise backed away in pain, and retreated into its shell. The Espeon fired wave after wave of psionic force at the Pokémon, and the Blastoise was nearing the edge of the battlefield.

Quickly, at a response from its trainer, the Blastoise leapt out of its shell and toward the Espeon, spinning ferociously in the air, before unleashing a tidal wave onto the smaller, catlike creature. A thread of light passed between the Blastoise's trainer and the Blastoise itself, and the Blastoise returned to the ground.

"Wait," Beryl said. Joy smiled, and paused the video. "What was that?" he asked.

"That," Joy told him, "was the bond between a Pokémon and her trainer."

"What do you mean?" Beryl asked.

"Studies have been done, for decades, over the bond between Pokémon and their trainers. In a few rare instances, that bond manifests itself physically. Sometimes it's an aura, sometimes it's a shared fire in the eyes of the trainer and their Pokémon. Sometimes it's a beam of light, almost unnoticeable but still evident."

"But what does that mean?" Beryl continued.

"The relationship between Pokémon and people is a complex one, but you can't ignore the fact that we're all tied together," Joy said, "Some call it the circle of life. Some call it the meaning of life. Some call it their livelihood. In any case, what we've seen over time is that Pokémon and humans, together, grow through Pokémon battles. And battles aren't the only way for a Pokémon to grow, nor is it the only way for that bond to develop. But the greatest heroes and leaders of the world have fought alongside Pokémon, against those who would mistreat and misuse them. And those trainers have gained the love of their Pokémon, and given that love in turn.

"Pokémon training," Joy continued, "is about allowing that bond, that love, to develop and grow into something great. Battling with a Pokémon at your side… It's beautiful. It kindles a fire in your heart that can't be quenched by even the fiercest downpour. You love harder, feel stronger, and think more clearly than anyone ever could without Pokémon."

Beryl looked at the screen and furrowed his brow. He looked down at his Dratini, and placed his hand on her head. "I think I'll go to the gym and see what they're doing there."

"What?" Joy asked. Beryl stood up, and began walking out. "Hey, talk to me," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "What's going through your head right now?"

"I need to see this sort of thing, not on a screen but in person. I need to know that this kind of bond really exists, and that people really bond with their Pokémon like this. I need to see the gym, and what really goes on there. And if you're right, maybe my mom will be a little more understanding."