The early summer air was warm in Goldenrod, even in the early morning. Arden woke up early. The house was quiet when he crept from his room, and he thought he was the only one awake. Silently, he made his way down the hallway, into the dim living room. Arden carefully reached for the doorknob on the front door.

"Hey, kiddo," came his father's voice behind him, and he froze. "Whatcha up to?"

Arden turned around sheepishly toward his father, who he hadn't noticed at all, sitting silently at the dining table in the semi-darkness of early morning. "Nothing," said Arden, clasping his hands together behind his back. Taylor Blake smiled at the child. Even at such a young age, Arden was the spitting image of his father. If you had seen the two beside each other, there would have been no doubt at all in your mind that they were father and son.

"Is that a fact?" said Taylor, taking a drink of coffee. He nodded his head toward the door. "You got somewhere to be, kiddo? If you've got an appointment, by all means, keep it."

"Nu-uh, Papa," said Arden, walking to the table. He rested his chin on it and looked up at the face of his smiling father. "Are you leaving today?"

"Yup," said Taylor.

Arden sat down on the chair across from his father. "Why?" he asked, kicking his feet back and forth. "Why do you always have to go?"

"Because that's my job," said Taylor, setting down his coffee cup. "You know what your papa does for a living, right?"

Arden shook his head and then, reconsidering said, "You're a pokemon trainer?"

"Close, but not quite," said Taylor. "I'm a Pokemon Ranger. Do you know what that means?"

Arden shook his head again.

"Well, I keep Johto safe," said Taylor. "Me and Rip go all around the region helping people and protecting them from wild pokemon."

"Why do they need to be protected?"

"Because human beings are very fragile," said Taylor. "You know that word? Fragile? It's something that breaks easily. You remember that time you and your brother were fighting in the house and you knocked over your mom's glass ponyta statue?"

Arden nodded. "I got yelled at."

"That's because that little glass ponyta was fragile," Taylor said. "It didn't take very much to break it, did it? Well, people are the same way. Not every one has a pokemon that can protect them, so people like me do it."

"That makes you a hero, doesn't it?" asked Arden, admiration in his eyes.

Taylor smiled. "Well," he said sheepishly. "…yeah, I guess it does."

"That's amazing!" said little Arden kicking out his feet. He paused. "But, what about the pokemon? Why do they hurt people?"

"They don't mean to," Taylor told him. "In a lot of ways, pokemon are just like people, but stronger. I don't think you'll understand this until you get older, but that's the most important thing to understand about pokemon—they're just like us. They get sad when sad things happen, and happy when they're treated well. And some times they get mad and they act without thinking. They're just like us. I don't think I can explain it to you, kiddo, since you're still so young… but the nature of people and pokemon is exactly the same. And that's a good thing—that's a real good thing. That's why pokemon can be your best friends in the whole wide world. They understand you and, if you make an effort, you'll understand them, too."

He leaned back in his chair, fiddling with his cup of coffee. "But—and I think this is what you're too young to understand, but I'll say it anyway and maybe when you're older it'll make sense—but there are some drawbacks to us being the same, humans and pokemon. That's the fact that, without meaning to, we hurt each other. Pokemon, people… There's a phrase for it—the hedgehog's dilemma."

"What's a hedgehog?"

"It's a spiny little made-up creature."

"What's a dilemma?"

"It's a really serious problem," said Taylor. "The hedgehog's dilemma is that it's covered in spines. It wants to get close to other hedgehogs so that it can keep warm. But, because it's covered in spines, every movement it makes can potentially hurt the other hedgehogs. So, even with the best intentions, the hedgehogs still cause each other pain. It's the same with people and it's the same with pokemon."

"But I'm not covered in spines," said Arden, looking up at his father.

Taylor smiled at his little son. "It's a metaphor," he said.

"What's a metaphor?"

"It's something that means something other than what it means."

Arden blinked. "That's confusing," he said.

"Yeah, it is," said Taylor. He took another drink of his coffee. "So, why are you up so early this morning?"

"I wanted to go outside," said Arden, swinging his feet back and forth underneath the table.

"Oh yeah?" asked Taylor. "What did you want to go outside and do?"

Arden shrugged. "I dunno," he said.

"Children that don't tell the truth get eaten by golducks, you know."

The little boy's eyes widened. "I don't want to be eaten by golducks," he said. "I just wanted to go outside and play with some pokemon."

"What pokemon?" asked Taylor. "Your mother's pokemon?"

Arden bit his lower lip and nodded.

"Come on now, you know you can't go play with them when your mom's not around," he said. "You'll get hurt that way."

"I know," said Arden. "But I wanna be a trainer, and I wanna be around pokemon."

"You're too young to be around big, strong pokemon like your mom keeps out back," Taylor said. "You could get hurt, and we'd all be so sad if anything ever happened to you."

"I know," mumbled Arden quietly.

"If you really want to train a pokemon so badly," said Taylor. "You be a good boy while I'm gone, and I'll bring you home a caterpie."

"No," said Arden. "I don't want a caterpie. They're stupid."

"I could get you a sentret, then," Taylor said. "Would you like that? A cute little sentret?"

"No," said Arden. "I don't like sentret. That's a baby pokemon."

"Well, what sort of pokemon do you want to train?" asked Taylor.

"I want a charizard!" said Arden, throwing his arms out wide and flapping them like wings. "They breathe fire!"

Taylor chuckled. "Well, that's too bad, then," he said. "I can't get you one of those. Only Professor Oak in Pallet town has access to pokemon like that. They're very rare, kiddo. Oak won't give them to anyone younger than ten-years-old, either. But I could get you a pokemon to train until then—something cute and harmless."

Arden shook his head. "I don't want something cute," he said. "I want to have a tough pokemon."

"No pokemon starts out tough, Arden," his father said. "That's part of the joy of raising a pokemon—growing along with it."

"Charizard starts out tough."

"Charizard starts out as charmander."

"Then I want a charmander."

"You can't get one of those until you're ten," said Taylor. "Even then, you'd have to go all the way to Kanto."

"I don't care," said Arden stubbornly. "That's what I want."

"You'll have to wait a long time for that…"

"I don't care," said Arden.

Taylor smiled. "Well, then, so long as you don't mess around with your mom's pokemon while she's not around, I guess that's up to you, kiddo," he said. He finished the last of his coffee and set the empty cub down on the table. "Say, I've got some time before I need to go—want to learn how to crack a whip?"

Arden grinned and nodded eagerly as Taylor stood up. The father picked his son up and lifted him onto his shoulders. "Alright," he said. "But make sure you don't crack it at your brother's face, alright? You can put out someone's eye that way."