I walked into the Mauville PokeCenter at 1 o' clock in the morning completely battered and bruised. My right foot was still bleeding because every time I took a step the wounds would reopen. I was swaying from exhaustion and the pain that ached through my whole body was starting to make my entire being go numb. I'm sure I was a sight for sore eyes. My bare feet covered in mud and sand were starting to swell. Sweat was dripping from every inch of my body which actually just made the sand stick to my body even more, and my shirt was slightly singed from Oliver's stray Fire attacks. The Nurse Joy looked up from her magazine about medical equipment.

"How may I help…" The cheery smile on her face faded as soon as she saw the shape I was in. She hit a button on my desk, and almost immediately a horde of Chanseys and Blisseys emerged from the back room rolling along a stretcher as well. They huddled around me clamoring something in their Pokémon language. They all grabbed me with their soft, rubbery, pink hands and hoisted me onto the stretcher. As soon as I was flat on the stretcher, sleep embraced me like a long lost friend.

…

I was sitting on a stool in a white room that had nothing else in it. No windows, no door, no anything. I heard a sound and turned around to see what it was.

"Help me." A little girl in a white sundress was sitting in a chair staring at me and asking me to help her. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail with a green bow. She looked no older than three or four, but her gray eyes looked old and as if they had seen countless things.

"Well then come over so I can help you." I motioned for her to come, but she just sat still and kept staring.

"Why won't you help me?"

"I'm trying to. Since you won't come to me, then I'll come to you." I tried getting up, but I had no control over my legs. I couldn't even feel they were there. I tried reaching out with my arm, but still no response. I let out a sigh frustrated. "What do you need help with?"

"I can't tell you that." She giggled and got up, then started running circles around me. "That is I can't tell you that until you catch me." She laughed harder and extended her arms out running around as if she was an airplane.

"Why can't you just tell me?"

"Oh no, no, no. That's not allowed in this game. You have to catch me if you wanna win, and once you catch me you win the prize. I'll tell you what my problem is." That didn't sound like a real prize in my opinion, but just then I could feel the feeling coming back in my arms. I reached out, but just before I touched her, she turned to dust and blew away.

"Why aren't you helping me?"

…

I woke up with a jolt and was slightly confused. I looked around me and I saw all types of medical equipment. To the left of me I saw Oliver's Pokeball sitting on a silver dish. I tried to reach it but it was pretty painful to move. My right foot was hanging in a sling inside of a cast. When I looked to the right I saw my monster Pokémon sleeping heavily on a bed much smaller than mine. It was hooked up to a whole bunch of monitors and it was breathing heavily.

Just then a Nurse Joy walked into the room. "Ah. I see you're awake." She walked towards me and adjusted my foot in the sling. "You were quite roughed up when you came in here this morning. You and your Pokémon must have gone through quite an ordeal."

Immediately I was reminded of Oliver who had been knocked unconscious during our expedition through the desert. "Is my Pokemon okay?" I asked frantically wondering if Oliver had any serious injuries.

"If you're referring to the Trapinch, then he's in a pretty bad condition, and we're gonna have to monitor him for a few days. He's got a few amounts of burns, and there is some internal bleeding. If you are talking about your Torchic though, then he will be just fine. It was a standard fainted Pokemon. He just needed a little rest." Did she say Trapinch? Is that what the thing was called, a Trapinch? Did she also call it a he? I didn't know evil, monster devils could have genders.

I looked back at the Trapinch. Had we over done it while we were trying to defend ourselves? It, I mean he, did look pretty beat up. So now I was gonna have to wait a few days before I could even continue my journey to Rustboro. Oh great! Not only did I have an evil, new Pokemon on my team, I also was gonna be slowed down by its injuries.

"But you should be worried about yourself as well." She looked at me and lightly tapped my foot. "Both of your feet were pretty badly beaten. Your left foot was swollen, but it went down after we applied some ice on it. Don't worry though you're only going to be with crutches for a week. I'll go get them for you. I'll be right back." She exited the room and left for what I guess was the crutches.

Just then my Trapinch started to stir. He turned his head towards me with a confused look on his face. He let out a loud click sound, and chomped his mouth several times. Was he saying he wanted to eat me? He tried moving, but his body was kept on the bed with restraints luckily for me. Trapinch just stared at me. I couldn't really read his emotions, because his face stayed the same. It always had a toothy smile and it's never changed. It was actually kinda scary yet cute at the same time now that I could see him in full light. Both of us wanted to get at the other one, but at the same time we were locked in place. He opened his jaws again. I guess he realized I was so close yet so far. We were only about two feet apart from each other, but there was no possible way we could get to each other.

Nurse Joy then reentered the room holding her a silver pair of crutches. "Although your Trapinch needs to stay here, you're free to explore Mauville while we take care of him. But remember you can't leave. We will need to check your foot every night for the next week to make sure it heals properly." She helped me out of my sling and embarrassingly helped me get on my freshly washed clothes. "Don't forget your Torchic." She picked up the Pokeball beside my bed and placed it in my hand. With that she left out of the room.

"Come on out Oliver." In a flash of white light, my little Torchic was standing on the ground beside my foot. He started pecking at my cast trying to figure out what it was.

"Chic!" He squealed as he found out that my cast was actually pretty hard. He then saw the Trapinch in the bed beside me, and started cheeping furiously.

"Oliver calm down. That thing is a part of our team now, even if it did try to have us for dinner. But it doesn't matter now because we are going for a walk." I grabbed my crutches and started towards the doors. The automatic doors slid open making room for me and Oliver to pass.

We exited the PokeCenter and entered the large concrete jungle that is known as Mauville City. Now I knew why I could see its lights all the way from the desert. Almost every single thing had lights on it. The borders of stop signs were laced with lights that blinked on and off. The sidewalks even had lights along them, like similar to how the aisles in movie theatres were lined with lights. I thought it odd that they had no street lamps, but with all these other sources of light, I guess they really didn't need them.

"Hey you." A man wearing a cheap suit was standing outside of an oddly painted building right beside the PokeCenter. "Yeah I'm talking to you with the crutches." He walked briskly over to me then stuck out his hand, then quickly pulled it back as he realized I couldn't shake it.

"How may I help you?" I asked. Oliver tilted his head to the side as he looked the man up and down, eyeing him and judging him. That attack from the demon of the desert, I mean Trapinch, was more that making him a little cautious.

"How would you react if I were to tell you that I'm having a special sale?"

I wasn't a big buyer, but my mom had trained me to always be on the lookout for sales. "What kind of special sale are we talking here?"

"Bikes!"

I looked at my foot then back at the man. He still didn't seem to get the picture so I looked at my foot again and then towards him.

"I said: Bikes! Aren't you excited?" He lifted up his arms and I could see the sweat buildup in his underarms, which wasn't a pretty sight.

"Bikes…"

"Yes, BIKES!"

He was getting a bit too excited for my taste. "If you cannot tell already, I'm not gonna be riding any bikes anytime soon." I shuffled my crutches around a little bit to signify why, since he didn't seem to get the idea before.

"Oh well, what if you bought the bike now and used it later. Bikes will help get you out of a lot of sticky situations. How many times have you been walking with your Pokemon in a nice forest, when a pack of wild Ursaring attack? Well if you had a bike, then you would be able to get away on your oh-so-convenient two wheeler.

Surely this man knew that he was a nut job. He had to know, he just had to. "Well first of all, a pack of Ursaring is known as a sleuth for your information. Second of all, I've never been attacked by a sleuth of Ursaring, obviously because I'm actually alive. Ursaring don't even live in Hoenn. Thirdly I'm sure an Ursaring would have you in its claws before you had time to jump on your bike and get away. All of this is just common knowledge, save the sleuth part. Now please leave me alone." I walked around him and continued on my merry way. That was actually pretty exciting. I actually managed to not be conned by a city huckster.

After about thirty minutes of walking I came across a sign that read "Mauville City Zoo." Although I've been to this zoo about a hundred times, I still couldn't resist the urge to go in and check out the new exhibits.

Near the front of the zoo was a large open field with a few thick trees that allowed people to roam around with their Pokemon, and it actually had a variety of wild Pokemon lurking in the field or hiding in the trees such as Seedot, Poochyena, Zigzagoon, and Taillow. Of course that's not what I was here for. I was here to see the Luxray and Luxio. They weren't native to Hoenn and had an exotic feel to them.

According to the directory the Luxray were about a five minute walk from here. As we started walking, Oliver would find random popcorn kernels on the ground and peck at them until he managed to get it in his mouth. After a while he found a penny on the ground and tried to eat it. I gently nudged him with my crutch.

"Don't eat that. Trust me, it's not edible." He chirped in annoyance to the lack of edible things in the zoo.

Just then we heard a loud roar. We had reached the Luxray and Luxio exhibit. Their habitat consisted of about half an acre of open simulated savannah, with a few rocks and trees scattered all over the place, and a watering hole at the middle of their home. They were all gathered around the watering hole drinking and sparking with electricity.

"So do these Luxray and Luxio interest you?" I turned around to see a teenager who looked about seventeen wearing a dirty t-shirt and some rough looking cargo pants looking at me. I backed up somewhat scared of his appearance, and Oliver did his usual routine of hiding behind my leg, but he peaked his head around the side to try and size him up. The dirty looking boy looked down at his clothes and an expression of realization entered his face. "Oh, sorry about the clothes. I'm a breeder, and as such sometimes it means you've got to get down and dirty." He scratched his head and smiled at me. Even though he was wearing some pretty nasty clothes and Oliver had a look on his face that screamed 'Stranger Danger!' I actually believed him.

"You're a breeder?"

"Well more like the son of a breeder, but one day I plan to continue the family business of breeding. That's a cool Torchic you got there. Torchics are getting rarer and rarer by the minute. Are you thinking of selling him?" Oliver came from behind my leg and started chirping at him loudly at him. He obviously didn't like the idea of being sold to this stranger. He then backed up into my leg and started nuzzling it. He didn't seem to like the idea of being separated from me at all.

"Oliver's not for sell. He's my starter, sorry." Why was I apologizing? He should be apologizing to me for trying to buy my starter off me.

"Oh sorry I didn't know. Do you have any other Pokemon for sale?" My mind automatically thought about the Trapinch back in my room, but seeing that it was in the condition that it was in, I don't think that he would earn me a lot of money.

"Sorry but none of my Pokemon are for sale." I scooted farther away from him starting to feel a bit uncomfortable.

"Oh, well sorry to bother you." He turned around and started to walk away.

"Wait!" An idea just occurred to me. If he was a breeder, than he would also know how to train Pokemon. He turned around looking at me. "How would you train a Pokemon to not hate you?" I'm sure the question seemed strange, but if that monster was part of the team now, I would have to find a way to prevent him from wanting to chomp down on my head.

"Well the simplest way to earn that Pokemon's respect would be to show it that you're an experienced trainer. The most used way is to teach another Pokemon you own a pretty powerful move, then show that move to the other Pokemon establishing yourself as an experienced trainer. Why?"

"Well I caught a Trapinch in the desert the other day, and it seems to, well, hate my guts and want to feast on my insides."

"Well if that's the case, then I'll be happy to assist you in teaching your Torchic a powerful move. For a price of course. That price being one grand."

I didn't have a grand. My parents barely put $750 on my trainer card. I look down somewhat disgruntled. I just needed $250 dollars to pay for it.

He looked and saw me looking down at my hospital issued shoes. I assumed he could tell that he knew I didn't even have that much yet. "Well for you, how about I make it half a grand." A smile immediately stretched across my face.

"I can pay that." He then took a business card from his back pocket and handed it to me.

"Oh by way, the name's Martin." He stuck his hand out, but just like the bike sealer, immediately brought it back to his side.

"The name's Tyler."

"Well Tyler, meet me at the address on the card tomorrow at noon." With that I started on my way back to the PokeCenter. After a while I entered through the doors of the clinic and immediately went back to my room. It was pretty dark outside now, and I could see the lights that were placed everywhere illuminate Mauville through my window.

I climbed into my bed, not worrying about my clothes, and struggled to put my cast inside the sling. I eventually got everything settled and Oliver then hopped on the bed walking all over the bed until he found a comfortable spot.

"Hey, Oliver?"

"Tor."

"Tomorrow we're gonna power you up." With that said I drifted into sleep .