I ran past at least three police officers a I fled from C.C., but none of them gave me a second glace. Why would they? I'm just a twenty year old kid with a backpack running through the college district of Celadon. In the blocks surrounding the college, every other person had a backpack, and most of them were late for something.

So by panicking, I fit right in.

It wasn't until I had made it out of the college district and closer to east Celadon that I stopped running. They would never think to look this far away from the college, or so I told myself. And even though I stopped running, I kept moving.

When I finally arrived back at my apartment, I slammed the door shut, locked it and collapsed. I was safe!

And for a brief moment, I thought it was all done. I had saved the Raichu, gotten forged papers for it, and escaped the law. All that was left to do was take a nap, clean up, and go to work—the latter half of my usual routine.

Somewhere in between accidentally knocking the door with my elbow and recovering from the mini hear attack that gave me, it dawned on me: I had to leave Celadon. I might be done, but the police officers sure weren't. I could only imagine the hell that it would be for the next few weeks. They would go door to door, check all the licenses, and interrogate everyone.

So I had to leave.

As I packed some clothing, toiletries, the rest of my money, and whatever food I could, I didn't think I would be gone for long. A week, tops, just until I wasn't so jumpy anymore. It would be a nice chance to check out Saffron City, too.

I was just about to leave, when I thought about the Raichu. I wondered if he knew what was going at all. An insatiable curiosity and guilt rushed over me all at once, and I grabbed the Pokéball out of the backpack. I just had to explain things to him.

After spending what seemed like forever trying to find the damn thing, I threw it at the floor, expecting the Raichu to just pop right out.

It hit the floor with a dull thud. Nothing happened.

So I picked up the thing. I inspected it, and found a small, circular button I couldn't believe I missed the first time. I tried to press it. In that moment I realized why children were trained at the age of ten to use Pokémon: It took the fingers of a ten year old to open the damn Pokéball!

Finally, I pressed the button, and it grew to about four times its original size. Triumphant, I threw the ball to the floor again. This time, it make a strange popping noise, and a red light flooded out of it.

From that light, the Raichu emerged.

I braced myself, assuming he would shock me or burn the apartment down or whatever Pokémon do. Instead, he simply looked at me, sat down on the floor, cocked his head and said, "Chu?"

I took a deep breath. "Thanks," I replied, "For not destroying my apartment."

From there, I explained everything to him as best I could. How I found him in the rain, cleaned him up, and took him to C.C.. Then about the tests and how we took the collar off, and why it was that we had to leave.

At that, he looked distraught.

"It's not your fault!" I added, waving my arms in a desperate attempt to not hurt his feelings. "You didn't know what you were doing."

He cocked his head again, seemed to think about what I said, and smiled.

It was only then that what Aiden said made sense to me. Even though this Pokémon looked like the older and was in its final evolution, he was still young. His emotions bounced back like a third grader's! I motioned for him to come closer, and he sat in my lap. I rubbed behind his ears.

"It's just you and me now, okay? But I promise I'll protect you."

From there, it was easy to get him to go back in the Pokéball, and a struggle to make the thing close up again. Feeling cautious, I placed the Pokéball not back in my backpack, but in my pocket—just in case I needed him any time soon.

And as I shut my apartment door, I had no idea I would never be coming back.

Due to all the commotion going on, I couldn't safely travel over to Saffron from my apartment. Instead, I decided to cut down, through gym territory, and then sneak back up. It meant avoiding the police, but the gym thugs could be just as bad.

As the Pokémon laws increased, gym leaders gained more and more power. After all, they controlled which rich kids got badges and which didn't. But, after a string of gym badge burglaries around the time I was in seventh grade, they began to beef up their security. Gym trainers got larger, more imposing. By league regulations they're Pokémon had to be within a certain strength bracket, but they sure didn't.

Gym leaders also began to employ what can only be described as trainer mercenaries to watch their gyms as well. Overall it made for a brutal—yet effective—strategy. They gyms were well protected, and the gym leader hardly had to raise a finger.

Luckily for me, the Celadon gym kept a pretty tame reputation. Though Erica had long ago passed leadership of the gym down to her little sister Cecilia, they still kept their all girl and all grass sensibilities. Plus, they helped maintain the large park in the center of Celadon, established about twenty years ago.

The same park I was sneaking through.

I tried not to run or look suspicious, but it's hard when you're worried about being arrested for the illegal Pokémon in your pocket. And even though I had almost made it through with no incidents (I did almost attack an ice cream sales man when he startled me, but that was totally his fault) I still did not feel safe.

I felt a little solace in the weather. As the day progressed, clouds had come in. They coated the sky in grey gauze, and made it about ten degrees cooler outside. That, plus the breeze, made it a fabulous day to go on the lam, as far as the weather went.

As the trees cleared, I could see the gym. It was a glorious building, renovated countless times, towering into the sky and coated with plants. It almost looked inviting, if you could forget about the thugs inside.

"Give that back!"

I jumped, only to realize that the scream was not directed at me.

The scene in front of me was horrifying. Two…well girls is being nice…were taunting a younger, frail looking girl. Her mouse brown pigtails cascaded down to her waist, and her stylish trainer outfit consisted of primarily light yellow. Compared to the butch gym trainer, she looked like a lemon scented angel. One man-girl held the young girl's backpack above her head, while the other man-girl did the same with a Pokéball.

"What are you going to do about it, huh?" The first man-girl taunted. She took some food out of the backpack and crushed it under her giant food.

The young girl squealed. "No! I need that! And give me back my Pokémon!"

The taunting continued. I felt sick to my stomach, but knew I shouldn't interfere. Breaking up a fight like this involved gym trainers was not a good way to stay under the radar. And I was so close to being out of Celadon!

So I turned around.

"Hey! What are you looking at?"

I wasn't even a hundred and eighty degrees around when I heard that shout. I winced—there was no way that wasn't for me. So I turned back around.

"Nothing." I replied, still backing away slowly. There was a chance I could still make it out without dealing with this mess.

But then the young girl looked at me. Despite looking like she might crumbled apart in a strong breeze, the girl had some sort of expression on her face that scared me. And as I was trying to figure out what it was, she winked at me. I had no idea why until—

"Sister!" The girl shot over to me and, before I could stop her, and thrown her arms around me. "They're being so mean! Make them give me my Pokémon back!"

Shit. It was that kind of wink. I looked at the young girl with a scowl on my face. She looked young, but she stood about three inches taller than me. These man-girls were stupid, but there was no way they were going to believe I was this girl's older sister.

"If you're her sister, why don't you fight me? If you win, I'll give her Pokémon back."

Or maybe they would. I took a deep breath, and gently pushed the lemon angel away from me. A small battle outside a gym shouldn't cause too much of a stir, I thought, and I couldn't just leave the poor girl like that. I reached for the Pokéball in my pocket.

"My name is Catherine," she whispered to me, "Thanks!"

I felt bad for Catherine. Obviously she assumed I was a strong trainer.

I strutted over to the man-girls while attempting to grow my Pokéball to full size. I couldn't find the damn button, but I knew I had to keep up the façade of a tough trainer. That Catherine was going to owe me.

"Give my sister back her stuff!" I demanded, a little louder than I meant.

The thugs snickered. The second man-girl pulled a Pokéball out from seemingly nowhere, and grew it to full size at an ease that made my blood boil. "Make me."

Without another word, the man-girl threw the Pokéball. Out came a weird looking Pokémon, kind of like a walking salad.

I barely glanced at it before going back to trying to open my Pokéball. Finally, I got it! I threw the Pokéball, and out came Raichu. He looked confused, but after looking at the Pokémon in front of him, then at me, and then back at the Pokémon, he understood.

Or at least, I hoped he understood.

The thug smirked. "Okay! Oddish, use Stun Spore!"

I could only watch as the salad began to blow some sort of orange powder at Raichu.

"Dodge it!" I ordered, not wanting him hurt. Luckily, he obeyed, and the yellow dust floated off harmlessly in the breeze.

I knew I had to make Raichu attack…except, I had no idea what attacks he knew. I bit my lip and decided just to go with, "Raichu, attack!"

He didn't use an electric move like I wanted, but instead started moving faster and faster until he bashed himself into the unsuspecting Oddish. I smiled. I felt awful thinking it, but there seemed to be some benefit to having a Pokémon that used to fight illegally.

Thinking I had a moment, I groped in my backpack, looking for the lsit where Aiden wrote down Raichu's moves. Raichu was good, but iin order to defeat a grym trainer, we needed more than luck.

As I hunted for the list, I watched helplessly as Raichu endured some sort of move where the Oddish seemed to sucked health from Raichu, and then absorbed it back into itself. I ground my teeth. That looked like cheating!

But finally I found the sheet. I took it out and examined it. I had no idea which one would be best to use, but the last of the four moves had a star next to it.

"Attack now!" Catherine shouted, speaking for the first time since the battle started. I looked at the Oddish. It had a look of almost pain on it's face, and a small ball of light was growing in the middle of its leaves. Whatever it was, it didn't look good.

In a last ditch effort, I called out the move with the star next to it. "Raichu, Thunderbolt!"

Screaming his name, Raichu released a huge burst of electric energy right onto the Oddish! The Oddish's eyes grew wide. It stumbled for a moment, before collapsing.

The man-girl let out a horrified squeal. "Look what you did! Oddish, return!" The Oddish returned to the Pokéball in a flash of red light, and the man-girl dropped Catherine's Pokéball, before running into the gym while bawling her eyes out.

"You might have defeated her, but if you want your precious bag, you'll have to defeat Sarah!" With that, she ran into the gym as well.

Catherine wasted no time scooping up her Pokéball. She inspected it for damage, and when satisfied, turned to me. "You really saved my butt," she said, "Thanks."

"You owe me." I replied, doing my best to look as unhappy as possible. I waved for Raichu to come over, and he did, scampering up my body to sit on my head. His claws hurt and it was very uncomfortable, but I let it go given that he had just kicked some Oddish ass.

She blushed. "I know. But they took my only Pokémon and I had to get her back!" Catherine paused, regaining her composure. "But you really are the one who owes me. Electric is not very good against grass; what were you thinking? If I hadn't of told you to attack the Oddish while it was stupidly attempting to power up a Solar Beam attack on such a cloudy day, you would had been toast."

I glared at her. "I was thinking that I was going to help a little girl out, with the only Pokémon I have. Now, I'm going to go. See ya."

As I started to walk away, she grabbed my arm.

I shook her off.

"You can't go!"

"And why the hell not?"

She looked down at the ground sheepishly. "They took my backpack, and they scare me. I can't go get it back all alone."

"So go get a new one!" Judging by her clothes, she could totally afford one.

Her face was now red with frustration. "You don't get it! That bag has my medicine in it, and if I don't get it…" She let out a pitiful whimper.

Raichu growled, and I stroked his back softly to calm him down. "Fine. I'll help you just this once, and then you'll let me leave. Okay?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Okay!"

With her sticking closer to me than my own shadow, we approached the gym. "My name really is Catherine, by the way. It's nice to meet you."

"I'm Ali," I said, before I could think. If anything, that had to have been one of the biggest mistakes I made early in my career: telling her my real name.