I woke up gently, slowly coming into consciousness. I moved my tail out of my face, stretched and yawned. I paused to sit down again and scratch an itch just under my chin. I looked around and noticed that Lar wasn't in the clearing. I turned around to survey the berry crops. We lived in the best spot in the forest for berries. We were right under them. The river not far from here was swift and cool. We had to defend our right to live here from jealous pokemon sometimes.

Wait. Something's not right. I looked around… there was nothing there, but I still had a bad feeling-no. No no no no no! This is bad, very bad! If there's one rattata then there's bound to be more. Depending on how many, I'm gonna have a problem. Of course they decide to invade while Lar's out. No wait, that's probably exactly what they did. They'll overwhelm me, and by the time he gets back it'll be too late. Suddenly, they swarmed. I wasn't sure about this, I was never taught about type matchups and the like, but I do have a more powerful move than your standard tackle. One time when I was wandering around the forest I found a trainer and their pokemon sleeping in a clearing. The idiot left his bag open. Of course I snooped around and found the TM case. He had a copy of Shadow Ball. I didn't know what it did, but I was pretty sure it was better than tackle. So I might have… accidentally… touched it and learned it. I don't use it much, but I figure I might as well try.

I charged one up and let it fire at the rattata closest to me. It flinched before it hit aaaaand… nothing. Absolutely nothing happened. That's just fantastic. Well then… all that I can do is tackle all of them. Suddenly embers flew past my face, and I knew Lar was here.

"What took you so long?"

"Oh, you know, I was waiting for your screams of terror."

"Rude."

We fought for about half an hour, finding ourselves being pushed farther and farther away by the horde from our home. It was too late. We lost. I caught Lar's eye and we ran. My tears stung my eyes as I tore through rattata. We finally got away from them and the reality of what happened hit me. We lived there for three years… now we're homeless. Lar nuzzled me comfortingly.

"You know what we should do now."

"No, what?"

"The only effective way to get stronger at this point… is to get caught."

"By humans?! Have you lost your mind?! Don't forget that they're the reason we're out here in the first place!"

"Yeah, but if we stay here, it'll take ages to get strong enough. All the pokemon here are weak, beating them won't do us much good. We have to get out there and fight trained pokemon or we'll never be able to take back our home."

"If they even let us come home! They might keep us with them forever! What then?"

"Well at least we'll be stronger! Have you ever thought about evolving? You've got a lot more options than me, but I want to evolve into a ninetales. I've only ever heard rumors of them."

"Y-you'd blindly evolve without even knowing what it looks like? I've never heard of something so stupid! Besides, what if… what if we get separated?"

"At least I'd be stronger. And I'll make sure we won't. Don't worry."

"...But-"

"Ana, I just-" He never finished his sentence because two trainers snuck up on us while we were arguing. One of them pulled out a red thingy and aimed it at us.

"Sweet, they're totally rare! I want the vulpix." Who did he think he was?

"Cool, I wanted the eevee anyway. Hey, look, your pokedex says the eevee's a girl, and the vulpix is a boy. Those are rare genders for their species!" What on earth was she going on about? Lar looked at me.

"Ana, this is our chance. We have to take it."

"Let these two fools catch us? Do you really think they have any common sense?"

"Unless you see any other trainers about to catch us?"

I didn't have time to protest as the presumedly female trainer sent out a pokemon to fight me. The red flash died away and there was a… green thing standing in front of me.

"Uh, what the hell is that?" It sneered at me, which looked rather odd on its face.

"Never seen a chikorita before?" It taunted.

"Uh.. no. That's why I said 'what the hell is that.' Do you have a brain?" The chikorita growled. He circled me for a minute, waiting. "Sizing me up, are you? Well, take a load of this!" I tackled him as hard as I could, knocking him off balance and he slid a few feet. I jumped back on my feet and braced myself for the counterattack. Since I had to let it hit me so I would weaken enough for them to catch me, I figured I might as well brace myself for impact. He flung his head-leaf thing around and a bunch of smaller leaves came at me. They stung my face and ears, and I flinched involuntarily. I had to sell it so the trainer would think I was weak enough to catch, so I stumbled around a bit and looked confused.

What I didn't expect was for her to chuck it at my head. DO THEY NOT TEACH THESE KIDS HOW TO THROW A BALL IN TRAINER SCHOOL? I could have some serious brain damage before I even get caught. That is not how you want to start off a journey.

Getting sucked into a pokeball is a really weird sensation. It pulls at you, and you're totally off balance, and then suddenly you're in a familiar space. For me it's our old clearing with all the pecha berries on the bushes and the oran berries in the tree. But there's no wind and it's too quiet. But all I can do for now is curl up in my nest and wait until she decides to let me out. I snuggle up, covering my face with my super fluffy tail.

I must've fallen asleep, because when she lets me out of the ball I'm groggy and disheveled. One thing I do notice is that Lar is nowhere to be found. I fidgeted noticeably, annoyed that now I'll have to over exaggerate my emotions when I want these dumb humans to understand me. Lar's new trainer figured out what I wanted and let him out. I jumped him and licked his face happily. He pawed at my chest trying to get me off him.

"Ana. What are you doing?"

"I'm showing these humans that they better not separate us or I'll be sad."

"Alright, alright, now get off me!" I backed off after one last lick.

"Fine." I looked over at the trainers who had sat down, and were looking through their bags. Lar's trainer pulled out two strips of leather. Wait. Collars? One of them had a bell! He came towards me as i backed away.

"Fine, vulpix gets a collar first." Lar actually sat there and let him put it on. I couldn't believe it. He made a point to look at me and I begrudgingly sat still and the human buckled it on. It jingled when it moved. I got the bell collar! Ugh. To show my distaste, I itched around it.

"How could you talk me into this? I have a bell, Lar. A BELL."

"At least the silver color looks good on you."

"Well if you don't like the bell we could probably take it off." Um. What.

"Did it just respond to me?"

"Yes I did. We put those collars on because they're Pokemon translators. You're welcome."

Oh, Mew, I am gonna have a good time.