Chapter 1 - Sister Cissy

The first thing I notice upon regaining consciousness is a tickling sensation at my nose. This is followed by the inevitable sneeze. What comes after that, though, I don't expect: an extreme, sharp pain that jolts through my entire body. "Uuggh…" I moan, trying to hold perfectly still so the pain will subside. However, whatever was tickling my nose was still there, and now that I am awake I can feel another sneeze coming. Very slowly, I raise my right arm – with slight difficulty, as I'm hindered by some sort of blanket covering my body – and pull the strand of hair away from my face…

…Except it wasn't hair. As soon as I pulled, I disturbed something wet that was resting on my forehead, causing it to slide down over my eyes. Not that I had opened them yet anyway, as I was quite looking forward to getting back to sleep, but I guess that isn't going to happen now. As I lift the object – it feels like a damp cloth, at best guess – off my face, a trickle of water slides down my cheek. I open my eyes and am momentarily startled to see a large crimson stain taking up most of the otherwise cream-colored cloth. Then I put two and two together as I start to remember falling into a hole and landing on my head. Horror returns again as I realize I must have been bleeding a lot worse than I would have thought, if the stain was this large…

I attempt to sit up to survey my surroundings, but this only sends another intolerable wave of pain through my spine and I collapse back into the surface my body is currently laying on with another groan. Thankfully, the surface is soft – it must be a bed. I find that I can turn my head, though, so that's what I do. I was right. I appear to be in someone's bedroom. At the far wall closest to the foot of the bed, I can see an open door that leads into a small closet. To my right, another door, one which I assume is the exit to the rest of the building. On the adjacent wall, rests a desk, a single chair pulled out where my bag currently resides. I also barely register that the floor is wood, with a small carpet in the middle of the room. And finally, to my left, there is nothing but the bed against the wall and a sole window; the sun is setting now, it must be getting well into the afternoon. Looking back up, I notice a fan in the ceiling spinning so fast that I'm suddenly terrified will fall on me.

Currently, I lay on the room's bed underneath a bright, sky blue blanket. Despite the fan, I can feel myself sweating a little. Gross. I reach up with my free arm and, after replacing the cloth on my forehead, I lightly press two fingers underneath it to my cut, then immediately jerk them back again as a sharp stinging pain burns me. My fingers come away red and dripping. I guess I just reopened my wound. Shoot.

With no other real course of action right now, I simply lay here, wondering just how bad I had injured myself. If my bleeding head and aching spine were any indication, pretty bad, I figure. Weird, because it didn't seem like that bad a fall. My stomach suddenly growls and I realize I'm hungry, and then wonder how long I've been passed out. A few hours at least, judging by the gorgeous sunset I can see from the window. Yet another reason why I love living here in the Islands: no huge trees or tall buildings to get in the way of the beautiful scenery. Well, at least not around here. Every night I would watch from my own backyard back on Sunburst Island an absolute perfect view of the golden sunset over the sparkling ocean.

As I move on from daydreaming of sunbathing on the beach and instead consider going for a midnight swim later tonight, my stomach decides to ruin my mood with its emptiness. I can't even reach over to my bag to fetch one of the Oreo packets inside. I lay silently for another good thirty seconds or so before growing bored and restless and change my mind. Very slowly, I force myself to sit up. My entire body throbs in protest, but I just can't stand lying motionless anymore, since it's clear that I'm not going to be able to get back to sleep. I lean over to pull my bag to me, but it's heavier than my bruised arm anticipates and the bag falls from my fingers, crashing to the floor with a dull thud. Of course, it had to land on the only breakable item inside, my phone. As I lean down to pick up the bag, my back screaming in agony, a door opens and I hear footsteps outside the room. The next thing I know, Cissy is standing there looking panicked. This must be her bedroom, then. The one room I'd never seen in my days here.

She was as beautiful as ever. Her outfit complimented her shining coffee brown eyes and short burgundy hair that was pulled back into three separate tiny ponytails in the back. She had on her favorite long rose-colored skirt and black tank top. I notice that her top is a lot less revealing than mine. I wonder what she thinks of that. Actually, nevermind, I don't want to know the answer to that.

"Hi," I choke out as I sit up straight again, my voice raspy. I clear my throat as Cissy relaxes.

"Oh, Rhonda, you're okay! I thought you just rolled off the bed or something." I raise my eyebrows, pondering how she could possibly mistake the sound of my small phone in a bag for a human body hitting the floor. I don't get the chance to ask though, as she poses her own question. "How do you feel? Your head is still bleeding…"

"My whole body aches," I admit. I lean down again, but then Cissy is there, retrieving my bag for me. I notice the bloody cloth on the floor and pick it up instead. I didn't even notice it had fallen off. That would explain how Cissy knew my wound had reopened.

"I'm sorry," Cissy says. "You fell into one of Senta's holes again, but this one had a rock at the bottom." Well, that explains why I felt so miserable. Oh yeah, Senta is Cissy's little brother. I don't know how old he is right now, young teens I think, but he still has the maturity of a seven-year-old. I've fallen into his traps many times before, but I've never actually been injured to the point of a broken body part or drawing blood. He's more of a practical joker than a bully or someone looking to actually hurt anyone. I suspect he just didn't know there was a rock at the bottom.

"I figured it was Senta," I reply. "Who else do you know who is that immature? How old is he now?"

Cissy ignores my jibe at her brother when she answers. "You were lucky he was waiting for you to show up, he was the one who pulled you out of the hole and carried you here."

I resist the urge to argue that I was in that hole because of him in the first place, instead saying "Well at least his physical strength made up for the mental standstill he's had since age five." Which was true. Or, at least, half true. I'm not a heavy girl by a long shot; I'm only slightly above average if anything, but the fact that he was able to lift me out of that hole on his own was pretty cool.

Cissy sets my bag down on the bed before gently pushing me back into a laying position. I open my mouth to protest, but her serious expression drains my will to resist. She snatches the cloth from my hand and dabs it gingerly against my bloody wound. I flinch more than once before my stomach grumbles once again, drawing out a furious blush on my cheeks. Cissy's face lightens into a soft smile. "Hungry, are we?"

"No," I reply. "I always make that noise when I bleed." Cissy frowns at my awful excuse of a joke. Okay, it was pretty stupid. "Sorry," I whisper.

"And you worry about Senta growing up," Cissy scolds, though she is smiling and her tone is soft. "Inside that charming eighteen year old body beats the heart of a child." I know she intends it as a compliment, but I slip up for a moment and I'm almost sure she notices the disappointment on my face before I recover. "I'll go make you some food. Any preferences?"

"I can walk," I counter, a little more harshly than I intended. Ignoring the pleading from my muscles, I force myself to stand up. I take two steps and suddenly feel exceedingly lightheaded, and the room begins to spin around me. Or maybe I'm the one spinning, I can't tell. I manage to grasp the back of the chair which keeps me on my feet, although my legs are wobbling like jelly. "Give me a minute," I say.

"If you're going to be sick, you know where the bathroom is. 'Cause bloody head or not, you're going to be the one scrubbing the carpet." I try to laugh, but the second I open my mouth I feel my stomach churn, and dash out the door.

Thankfully, nothing happens after that. I collapse on the only soft surface in the room, Cissy's bathmat, just waiting to be sick, but it never actually comes. Cissy brings me a glass of water and some painkillers, and re-bandages my head before leaving to start some food for me. I want to chug the water, but force myself to sip at. Several minutes and half a glass of water later, I am able to stand and even walk well enough, the pain in my bones dulling a little bit.

As I stumble down the hallway I can smell whatever Cissy has cooking and resist the urges to both sprint and laugh at my own awful pun. Eventually I can see Cissy outside through a window, cooking something on a grill. As I step outside, I see Cissy's Blastoise, a blue-skinned, orange-shelled turtle, on a wave in the distance, enjoying one last surf before the sun goes down completely. Nearby, Cissy's Seadra floats just barely above the water, allowing the current to carry her. And then, on the beach, I just barely make out a dark brown spot in the sand thanks to the shine from the sun. I recognize the shell of my Kabuto immediately, and start to jog towards it. I catch Cissy's eye as I slip passed her and I vaguely hear her voice, probably scolding me for exerting energy in my injured state, but right now I just want to be reunited with my Pokémon for good.

I'm less than a few meters away when suddenly the sand under my feet shifts and I trip over a Krabby that has just surfaced. I barely have time to scream before I get a mouthful of beach sand for my effort. Somewhere behind me I can hear the Krabby shriek as it scampers away and pray it doesn't try to chop my leg off. …Okay, I'm a bit of a drama queen sometimes, I know. I know it wouldn't be that serious, but in the heat of the moment like this, my imagination is wild. I lift my head but the aches in my body have returned with my fall so I simply spit out the sand in my mouth and lay there and wait for them to subside enough to move. In record time, I feel a pressure on my back.

"Hey you," I say to Kabuto. The tiny brown shellfish responds with a clacking sound and presses his tiny yellow claws into my back. I have no idea what he just said to me. Actually, I don't even know if Kabuto are supposed to make that sound. Information on them is rather hard to dig up, with them supposedly being extinct and all. Thankfully, he seems just as happy to eat standard Pokémon food as any of Cissy's team, or I have no idea how we would feed the shellfish.

Unfortunately, having Kabuto clinging to my back made it extremely difficult to stand, nevermind the pain I was already feeling. And though I eventually succeed, the large mound of sand that had piled up in my shirt when I fell slides down the front of my tank top. I groan, knowing that I will continue to feel it on my skin until I shower. At least I should be able to do that tonight, since in my current condition the chances of me leaving Cissy's tonight are slim to none.

I walk slowly back to Cissy, constantly adjusting my now uncomfortable bikini top and making small talk with Kabuto, who's still clinging to my back as if his life depended on it, and replying with his usual clicking sounds. It makes me a little sad not understanding him. For all I know he's telling me to stuff it. I mean, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't even cross his mind, considering his behavior, but…

Cissy's cooked me some grilled grapefruit chicken for dinner. Nothing fancy, but one of my favorites, it's pretty much what you would think; Spiced and breaded chicken, cooked in grapefruit juice, oils, and honey. With extra grapefruit on the side, of course. And of course, the fruit comes from the Grapefruit Islands out east, best ones in the world, I swear. I share slices of the fruit with Kabuto. It's natural and he seems to really like it, so I don't think it will harm him. I don't let him swallow any chicken though. Not that I distrust Cissy's cooking (I wouldn't be eating it if I did) but who knows what they do to these before they're set out to be sold? Best to not feed Kabuto anything that either isn't natural or wasn't made specifically for Pokémon.

We make small talk over dinner. Cissy's really interested in my plans for my trip. I pull out my map as I tell her about my goals and my expected routes. I plan to take on all the gyms in the islands, starting in the southwest and heading east, moving counter-clockwise across the islands, skipping Pummelo Island, where I can battle Drake, so that I can return here to get Cissy's badge first, then looping back to the stadium. She seems a little hesitant when I mention that I want to stop at a spot to the very north on my map marked "New Island", but I disregard it and move on.

See, no one really knows how New Island got where it is. One day several years ago, before even the Kabuto Island incident, a routine airplane route reported the island's location in a place that previously was just open water. And it's not like it was in an area that used to be shrouded in fog or something, nope. It was wide open sea. The island just… appeared. Since then, several people have been there and it seems to be nothing but deserted land. Several people are what I like to call paranoid – people who think there's some evil or something on the island. But to aspiring adventurers like me, the island is just another mystery waiting to be cracked. Several trainers have already been there and reported nothing out of the ordinary other than the fact that the island exists, but my gut tells me there's something hidden there somewhere. And it's my goal to find out what. Okay, well, a goal. Man, I really should start making a list.

Cissy clearly isn't happy about my planned stop, according to her face when I brush off her concerns and finish telling her my route plan. I get the feeling it's just to spite me when she asks, "So how are you going to travel from island to island?"

The question startles me and I stop mid-chew to stare at her. Uh oh. I hadn't actually thought about that. I swallow my mouthful and answer: "Er… Oh, by the way, I need to borrow Blastoise for a few months." Cissy's expression doesn't change. Man, dealing with Senta's practical jokes for so long really made her a killjoy when she's unhappy. I guess it doesn't help that I'm a bit of a pain in the rear when it comes to jokes, too. "I don't know," I admit miserably, shrugging my shoulders. "I didn't think about it." Kabuto's gaze shifts from his grapefruit to me as I let my chicken crash onto my plate.

"Did you put any thought into this at all? This isn't a game, Rhonda."

For some reason I'm reminded once again of when I first met Cissy. Must be because she sounds more like a parent right now than the big sister I've always taken her for. Well, okay, maybe not… I know she's just trying to look out for me, the way she looks after her little brother. Maybe that's why it stings so much to hear her lecture me. "Maybe Kabuto can ferry me…" I trail off as I look down at my Pokémon and know before I even finish that even the thought is absurd. Kabuto clicks again. I choose to believe he's trying to cheer me up instead of calling me an idiot.

"And you wonder why I worry about you," Cissy says. "You've been like a little sister to me for years."

"I can take care of myself," I cut her off, knowing full well that I've just basically proven otherwise.

"I know you can," Cissy says, much to my surprise. "But why should that mean I wouldn't worry about you?" I have no answer. We sit in silence (well, aside from Kabuto, who has already eaten half of what remained of my dinner; the little runt is still at it, but I've lost my appetite) for a few minutes, when Cissy asks me again. "So how are you going to get around?"

"I don't know," I repeat, playing with a loose thread at the end of my shorts. "I guess I'll have to buy myself a boat or something." I say halfheartedly; I know that's just as ridiculous as asking Kabuto to be my ferry. I can't even afford a surfboard, nevermind a boat.

Cissy sighs, but doesn't press the subject. As I try to think of some logical course of action, she throws me another curveball. "So, there's something else I wanted to discuss with you. About Kabuto."

"What about him?" I ask.

"I'm sorry I didn't mention this sooner. Honestly, it hadn't occurred to me. I was too blinded worrying about your safety. But Kabuto is in just as much, if not more, danger."

This startles me from my misery enough to stop staring down at my shorts and instead stare into Cissy's eyes. "Danger? What danger am I in? And what danger is Kabuto in?"

"None," Cissy corrects hastily. "At least, no immediate danger. But think about this for a minute. Kabuto are supposed to be extinct, or at the very least, extremely rare. And you have virtually no battle experience and no other Pokémon to protect you. That means Kabuto, and by extension, you, are always going to be at risk. There are countless people out there that wouldn't think twice about taking advantage of an inexperienced young girl and stealing her rare Pokémon."

At this point all emotion has pretty much gone down with the sun, so I brush off her concerns nonchalantly, with a wave of my hand. "Oh, is that all? I know how rare Kabuto are. But trust me; no one is going to take him away from me."

Again, Cissy sighs and then opens her mouth as though to lecture me further, but then smiles softly, shakes her head and stands up, collecting the leftover dishes.

Needless to say, that night my dreams were rich with I can't even count how many hypothetical situations in which Kabuto had been stolen and me left dead, bleeding, or drifting unconscious in the middle of the sea. Or worse.

A/N: Well, there's chapter 1. Is it me or are my chapters wordy/long?

Feel like I might have gone overboard with Rhonda's aches, as I've never fallen into a hole and hit my head on a sharp rock... but I do know how I feel after my head is slammed into a wall, so I'm sort of going by that.

So... I wanted to get Cissy and Rhonda's relationship established, as well as a little Rhonda and Kabuto, so that's where we start. Next chapter will be Rhonda setting off. And yes, she does get more Pokemon.

For anyone curious, Senta was never named in the English anime dub (I even went and watched the episode to confirm that) so I'm sticking with his Japanese name here, but that's the only reason why.

As far as New Island goes... from what I remember of the first movie, Mewtwo wiped the memories of everyone involved (and I think returned Ash's gang's in Mewtwo Returns but that isn't relevant because Ash will not show up here, sorry), but on the map I'm using of the Orange Islands has New Island on there so I'm going with that.

I don't think there was anything else I had to say other than thanks to the people who are already reading and following this story. So... enjoy?