Things had been..different. But that was good right? At least I wasn't being as wretched as before. We'd made it to Pewter, and I'd gone out to train in the fields right before the town. My pokemon looked up at me expectantly, as though waiting for there to be some explanation for not having any fun with them before, but I didn't say anything.

We trained for awhile before stumbling across a pair of Nidoran. Not just any Nidoran, anthros; one male, one female. On instinct, my sights set on the female. "Wrong. Capture the male."

'Why?' I asked in confusion. The female was adorable, and I wanted to have her on my team. "Yes, yes, she looks great. And if you were a pokemon coordinator who participated in contests and the like, she'd be perfect. But you're not! You challenge gym leaders! And for that the male is the best choice! Or are you just operating on what YOU think is best again?"

'N-no, of course not.' I sighed, 'You're right, I'll capture the male.'

The battle was actually rather easy, and I captured the male Nidoran in only a few moments. The female fled the moment the battle started, and I couldn't help but look back at her trail as I turned to leave the field.


Axel was... unexpected. I'll be honest, he was pretty cute, and I certain wasn't expecting him to start acting flustered around me. 'Does he have a thing for me?' I wondered, somewhat hopefully. "No. He doesn't. He's pitying you. He recognizes that you're the lowest on the scale here and doesn't want you to feel bad about it. If he were smarter he'd just let you stew in it."

'Oh..' I didn't return any of Axel's affections. I didn't want him to be feeling like he had to treat me nicely, so I figured the best way was to simply ignore his rather obvious flirtation and play dumb.

Admittedly...it's kind of a bummer. But taking him up on the flirtations and jumping his bones is what I would think to do, and anything I would think to do would lead to something bad.


I almost let the pokemon out to held 'de-stress', but the voice urged me against it. "Have you no decency?! If you really can't manage to handle it like a civilized human, then at least have the decency not to involve your poor innocent pokemon in the act! You've got hands don't you? You don't really deserve them, but you've got them. Use them."

I did as the voice asked. I guess I was a bit pent up, and was a bit louder than I meant to be while I played with myself. 'They'll probably just think I'm doing stuff with my pokemon..' Normally a thought like that would excite me, but instead, it made me stop my actions, long before I was finished. What satisfaction had I earned? None.

"Good, good! You're finally starting to learn!"


"And here I thought you had any chance of improving."

I woke the next morning and had, eh, 'picked up where I left off' from the night before more on reflex than from conscious thought, but I felt just as horrible when the voice called me out. Once again, I stopped before I finished, though this time the stop was brought on by the sound of Clara moaning and calling True's name. This killed any and all excitement I had immediately.

No doubt the others heard me at it again..the things they must think of me..


Blue was gone. He'd decided to hop fandoms. Where to, he didn't say, probably wanted to make sure I didn't find him if I ever went looking. In spite of this, he enlisted me as the caretaker of his pokemon, the Braxien and Gardevoir. I'm not sure why, and they didn't look pleased to be staying with me.

"Apologize to them."

"I..I'm sorry you have to be stuck with me. I'll try not to cause you too much distress while your real trainer is away." They seemed to be okay with that, so long as I was willing to keep them in training.

"Okay, but the festival is at 6:30, so be ready to go by 6:00." True said. I nodded as I headed out. Honestly, I hadn't even known about the Pewter Festival until that morning, and didn't quite feel like going to something like that. "I agree. You shouldn't be wasting your time on something like that, especially seeing as you haven't nearly earned it, but True has graciously invited you, so you can't turn it down without being rude. You haven't got a choice."

Looks like I'm going to the festival.


The festival was okay. It was difficult to enjoy though. "I never said you were allowed to enjoy the festival, just that you were going to be present for it. You haven't earned enjoyment."

So I kept anything I said and did restrained. I didn't scream out on the roller coaster, and I didn't shout out in joy at the first sight of funnel cake. Eventually True and me stumbled upon this game that, apparently, was a way of seeing how close you were with your pokemon. I suppose True's went pretty well, cause he left the place with a smile, but when I placed my pokemon into the slots..

Well, I already knew that Braxien and Gardevoir hated me, and I suppose it made sense that Nidoran did to; all represented by heats on screen so small I could hardly see them. Bulbasaur and Rattata were represented by two hearts on the screen that started off big, then slowly started to shrink.

"Your pokemon have begun to realize what a pathetic whelp you are. If you don't want them to run away from you, you'll have to continue on as instructed and follow the rules."

I couldn't argue with the logic.

On our way out of the festival, something seemed to be bugging True.

"Sp did you have fun tonight?" He asked. There was something in his voice..like he was hoping, really hoping, I'd say yes.

"It was fun." I said simply, but this didn't seem to be what he wanted to hear. "Alright Sin, what the fuck is your problem?"

"What?"

"You haven't been yourself at all these past few days, and I'm getting sick of it, I mean fuck Sin, it was a stupid fucking challenge and that was it," True sounded pissed off.

"You see? You cause everyone frustration and anger."

"Well, shit True, it's just that I realized that I was being a bitch, trying to stop you from having a good time, and not to mention me making LB look like a whore," I'd had no right to even ask LB if she'd been going on a date at all, let alone interfere with it.

"Well…..uhh, forget it Sin. Listen, you're my best friend, you should know that I would forgive you for something stupid like that, I'm the one who's sorry for putting you down and shit."

"No True I-" I started, only for True to cut me off with, "we're both sorry how about that!"

"Sure, I would like it that way. Thank you True," I said, though I honestly felt worse now. What did he have to apologize for? I'm the one causing all the problems.


LB came to my room later that night. "Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something." She said. I nodded, "what is it?" I asked curiously.

"Well.. Me and Bluet have been doing things for awhile now, and I decided to... Go futa." LB explained.

'AAAAAAHHHHH! I'm so proud of you!' It took a ton of will power to keep that inside and just reply, "good for you."

LB nodded, "well, since you know more about futas than anyone else I've ever met, I was wondering if you had any tips or advice for me."

I froze immediately, "no. I don't have anything to say." I said quietly. LB looked disappointed and a bit confused, "Sin.. I saw you do a research paper on futas once."

"Yeah.. But I can't give you any advice. Anything I told you to do would just end badly. If I can nearly destroy your relationship with Bluet by asking you to dress nicely for the date, there's no way in hell I'm risking giving you advice on sex."

"Come on Sinful, how could your futa knowledge get me hurt?" I shake my head, "I didn't think clothing advice would be a problem either. To me it was as simple as 'you should wear nice clothes on the date. That way they know you really care about them, the date, and are taking it seriously.' But look what that caused."

Bluet blinked, "wait, that's why you had me get dressed up?" I nodded, "of course. I wouldn't dress you up for shits and giggles. I'm not cruel. But.. I guess I might as well be for how everything turned out."

I'm not surprised she thought my motives for having her dress up nice for the date had been something slimy and wrong. Most things I did were. Not to mention that it had been wrong of me anyway. I couldn't really see why, but if it hadn't been wrong, True wouldn't have gotten so angry at me; even if he had pretended to have forgiven me, I know he probably won't ever really forgive me. And why should he?

"Ah, you're learning at last."


True was gone. We woke the next morning and there was no trace of him anywhere. We searched for a few hours straight, and started getting really worried until LB thought to check for fandom hops.

Sure enough, True had opened a portal and gone to another fandom. I guess he couldn't stand being around someone like me anymore.. Can't blame him.

Clara was pissed though. She started ranting and raving and never really stopped. "And he didn't even think to tell me?! No note, no message, no 'hey Clara, I'm gonna go to another dimension for a bit', nothing!"

Clara sighed, turning to me. "Thanks for listening to me. Back on Earth my 'friends' just sort of nodded along without hearing what I was saying. You're a great friend."

Okay, I won't lie, that one... That one was painful. That one hurt me.

"Plus I guess while he's gonna I can tell you about how great he's been in the sack." Clara said, seeming to love the whole girl talk thing, "I didn't know he'd be so good. Maybe it's his powers, but thank god things played out like they did. If we hadn't gone clothes shopping with LB, I probably never would've ended up in bed with him."

And that one killed me.


I set to training my Pokemon. LB was back with Bluet, and Clara and Axel were training as well.

I doubted I'd be ready to battle Brock any time soon, but Clara invited me to go to the gym with her to ogle the guys there. Resisting all my baser instincts, I declined. Things were going to be rough.