To keep this short: my laptop that had most of this chapter written down had crashed and died, so I couldn't get the file back. I rewrote this chapter now, but it's nothing alike to the old one. This one is more to my liking, personally. It's also shorter than usual for obvious reasons.

Enjoy!

The Blatant Disregard of a Pokemon Trainer v2

Mother a contest Champion. Father a famous photographer. What will she do to get away from all the criticizing and all the scepticism? Join the rebellion! Become a Pokémon trainer.

Everyone calls me a danger magnet—but it's not my fault. I try to stay out of trouble all the time, and yet it still manages to find and catch me. It doesn't help that my sister is somehow related to the Rocket mayhem that's been whirling around, nor does it help that my closest friend started to act suspicious. With ties made, others broken, and old scars struck, who am I anymore?

008. Suspicious.

When Ivey finally realized that we had no more food or snacks to keep us alive for a few more days, she started yelling at me for losing the battle, ran in random directions, and was being an overall annoying leader. Without much else to do, and realizing that she was making us go in completely stupid directions, I forced her to stop for the night and set up camp. We didn't have a tent though, so we made do with a small fire of twigs and our sleeping bags. We also decided to set up times for us to keep watch again, as if she forgot what happened last time we decided on this. I had the first shift. Again. Clearly Ivey hadn't learned from our past experiences in the cave. Tyson was set to sleep in my bag, even though I was sure that his baggy hoodie would be enough for him to keep him warm, but he insisted, and I couldn't really say no with Ivey totally in love with him.

Half an hour in, being so totally bored and wishing for something to happen while I poked the fire with a branch, my wish came true. I was going through my fourth rendition of the ABCs, whisper-singing the song country style and considering getting myself a guitar for other future times like this, when my phone rang.

I jumped up at the sudden sound and savagely dug through my bag to silence it. I heard Ivey shift in her sleeping bag, and I was sure she was going to yell at me if I didn't hurry up and silence my hell-of-a-suddenly-annoying phone. I didn't even want to think about what Ivey would do to me if Tyson started crying because of this.

As soon as I wrapped my fingers around my pokégear, I quickly accepted the call to shush it.

"Hello?" I whispered, creeping away from the campsite, choosing to hide behind a tree so that my conversation wouldn't wake the other two up. If anything were to happen to me though, I had Spyk safely in the pocket of the hoodie that I had changed into to keep me warm. Hopefully, he had recharged enough energy from fainting during that last battle. I didn't really know what to do if I was suddenly attacked and Spyk couldn't help me out.

"Maia! What the hell?! How come you finally answer me now of all times?!" The voice of my sister screamed through the phone, and I had to hold it away from my ear.

"Because I was busy?" I answered lamely.

She was all over that. "Yeah, so I've heard! First you nearly get killed in Diglett's cave and then you've been kidnapped by some random trainer?!"

"Calm down!" I hissed, stifling a laugh. "Is that really what they're saying? That I've been kidnapped?"

"Yes! And from the way you've been avoiding my calls, I'd say it was true!"

"It's not, okay? Ivey's my friend—she didn't kidnap me!"

"Then what was she doing, carrying you away like that?"

"She wanted me away from the cameras."

"Why!?"

I hesitated. Did I really want to tell my sister this? Would she kill me? Not like she could, I mean we were in different regions, but still. She was more than a sister to me, she was also one of my closest friends. Her opinion really mattered to me, and if this event made her hate me, then I don't know what I'd do. It was better to risk it though. She was smarter. Her intellect could be useful.

"Maia?"

"...because it was my fault that Diglett's Cave caved in."

Instead of scolding me like I thought she would, she simply stayed quiet. "..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...you're an idiot."

"Tell me about it." I sighed, glad that she understood.

"You know I have to tell mom and dad about this."

"No!" I yelled instantly, then quickly lowered my voice. "Don't tell them! They'd have a cow!"

"They already did, with you being all over the news and all!"

"I... I...!" I really couldn't find an excuse.

"You have to call them!"

"I can't!"

"Maia, this is your responsibility!"

"Yeah, but I don't want to talk to them! I ran away from home!"

More silence. "..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

Something must've clicked in her mind then. "...oh yeah, that's right. You called to tell me that."

"You forgot?" I placed a hand to my heart, pretending to be fake hurt even though she couldn't see me. "My own sister?"

"Hey! Can you blame me? I thought you were dead!"

I let out a scoff. "You're too paranoid."

If she was talking to me in person, she'd have shrugged. "It's in my nature!"

I had to think about that for a bit. "Well, you are the oldest! And you're pretty used to taking care of everyone and being unable to let go."

I could tell that she knew what was coming. "Shut it."

A smirk was on my lips. "You cried when you left."

"I said shut it!" I could hear the embarrassment in her cheeks. "Besides, I wasn't ready."

"You were ten. Anyone who leaves their house at ten isn't ready." I spoke like it was common sense, but in truth, I was probably lying.

"You were." I could hear her pointing accusingly at me.

My eyes rolled on their own. "Because I don't like your parents."

"They're yours too."

"Just when I was born."

"Come on now."

"They only care about you. I bet they were ecstatic when I left."

"Don't be like that!"

"But it's true."

"...yeah." She eventually admitted with a sigh. It was a common fact that because my sister was the eldest and a goody-two-shoes, therefore our parents adored her and refused to give me the time of day. All their neglecting and constant scolding at everything I did drove me insane until I couldn't take it. Those, plus my odd desire to save my sister from nothing, lead me to running away and, really, that was the best choice I had done in my entire career as a pokémon trainer.

"You should still call them. I'm sure they're worried." She tried again.

I threw a scoff at them. "If I called them, I'd have no choice but to tell them the truth, and they'd somehow force me to go back home and face ultimate punishment."

"Oh! Speaking of punishment," Ivey spoke casually, with an undertone of scary, "what did the Diglett Cave officials have you do to make up for destroying their cave?"

A shiver crept up my spine. "...nothing? They don't know?"

"MAIA!" She screamed at me and I held the phone away again. "Don't tell me you're running away from responsibility!"

I yelped at the tone in her voice and visibly shrunk down. If she'd been here in person, I'd have hid behind the tree I was leaning against. "I'm not! I'm just on a tight schedule!"

"Let me guess, to Hoenn?"

"...maybe."

"That's not a tight schedule! That's your own desires!" She scolded loudly over the phone, and I heard someone (probably her boyfriend) yell at her to shutup and calm down. "You are going to go back there to Diglett's Cave, tell them what you did, and face the consequences!"

"But Alyson—"

"Don't you "but" me, missy!"

"I don't want to go!"

"You're going to go whether you like it or not!" She hissed. "Do I need to fly all the way over there to make sure you're doing the right thing?"

"No!" I cried, shivering. If she came here to Kanto, she'd be bound to force me to travel back to mom and dad, and I don't ever want that. "I'll go back myself! Uh... tomorrow, because its night time right now." I blinked a few times as that thought came to me. I pulled my pokégear away from my ear in order to stare at the numbers on it. "Why are you up so late anyway?" I heard her shift around on the other side of the phone before giggles erupted through the phone. "...what's going on?"

"Hi hi! Am I talking to Allie's cootie patootie little darling of a sister Maia?" The voice that reached my ears was too high pitched and squeaky to belong to my sister. I visibly cringed.

"...yes, and who's this?"

"Oh just a friend of hers," came the cheery dismissive reply. "I'm glad to see you're doing well! Allie was kinda insane with worry over you and I gotta say it is tough handling her!" I distinctively heard Alyson whine in the background to stop talking to me and some shuffling and the random girl laughing tauntingly. "Anyway!" She chirped. "I hear you want to be the very best? That no one ever was?"

Ah, she was quoting that fake pokémon reality show from a few decades ago. "Sure..."

"I have something that might help you—" I heard an odd shuffling noise coming from my campsite. It sounded like the bushes shaking quite unnaturally. I leaned out from behind my hiding spot to look back at Ivey and Tyson. Ivey still had her back turned to the world, hair splayed over more than just her pillow. And Tyson? Gone.

"I have to go." I quickly cut off Ivey's odd friend who wanted to help me.

"Wait—but—I'm not done—"

I closed the call, impatient to figure out what was going on. I slunk back over the fire and noticed that both my bag and Ivey's were open and items were strewn around them. A scowl covered my face. Had he... robbed us? Took our things and disappeared?

I nudged Ivey.

"I told you! I'm not going to move until the Prime Minister of the Pokémon League gives me one hundred chicken nuggets!

"Ivey." I nudged her again and forced down a laugh.

"And Arceus forbid, if I don't get any moo moo ranch sauce, someone will feel my wrath and pay tenfold!"

I ripped off her sleeping bag instead this time. She shrieked in absolute mortification, but I could tell by her face that she was awake. "Maia?" She squinted at me. "What the hell? Do you know how cold it is right now?" She desperately tried to pull her sleeping bag back on herself. I let her.

I mentioned to the little mess. "Tyson's gone and he probably took something of ours."

Ivey blinked but her eyes went wide. "How dare you blame Tyson for something anyone could've done!"

"Then why is he gone?"

"Kidnapped?" I gave her a look. She glanced at my sleeping bag, where Tyson should've laid, and saw that it was actually pretty neatly place. There were no signs of a fight if there was one. "Brain controlled?"

"Just figure out what you lost." I grabbed my backpack and shifted through it. I looked over every one of my items and placed them back how they should be. I even decided to be productive and put away my sleeping bag too. There was nothing missing (that I could tell) so I was getting confused. However, Ivey's searching became more and more desperate as time went on.

"I can't find my pokémon!" She cried. "They're gone!"

Ah. That explained it. I had Spyk with me, so he had nothing to take from my bag.

She pulled everything back out of her bag. "They can't be gone!" She tossed a shirt that way, pants that way, underwear up a branch somehow. She was trying to spread her things to hopefully find it. "Where are they? My pokémon!" She saw me dodging her mess and glared. "This is your entire fault! Help me look!"

I nodded, feeling guilty that I had been away from camp and thus failed to prevent this odd event. I went through the bushes surrounding camp, looking for clues. I pulled out my phone again and used its light to brighten the area. It was still night time, after all. There were tracks in the ground, looking like the shoes had gone through mud. They headed past a few trees before there was no longer any mud around. I followed them and kept going. I had to find more clues. Ivey had just been robbed!

Something glinted in the corner of my eye, against the light that phone gave. I went towards the item and lit it up. It revealed a small pokeball. I quickly snatched it up and ran back to Ivey. "I found a pokeball!" I screeched as I approached, waving it excitedly above my head. "I found one of your pokémon!"

She perked up. Her items were less strewn around, some put away and some placed on her bag. She held out her hands and I gave it to her.

She inspected it and then scowled. "That's not mine."

"What? How can you tell?" I grabbed it back and turned it in my fingers, looking for a detail that would differentiate it from other pokeballs. It looked completely fine.

"I have stickers of my initials on mine." Ivey stated and jumped up to grab her underwear from the branch above her. She didn't even blush. She was that confident and comfortable with herself. I was a little envious.

"That's smart." I admitted. "But then whose pokémon is it?"

She shrugged. "Open it and find out."

"Okay—what what?" I gaped at her. "It could attack us!"

"Pokémon aren't stupid." She scolded me. "It can see and feel what's happening around us. It knows that it's been dropped and that we picked it up. It won't attack unless it feels threatened by you." She grabbed it out of my hands and tossed it above her head. "Here. Done." When the ball released light and bounced back in her hand, she gave it back to me.

I held it dumbly and watched the bright red light fade away into a solid form. It was yellow, had wings—oh it was a Beedrill! By the way it was looking at us, I felt like it was familiar. "Are you... the beedrill I caught for Tyson?" It nodded its head.

Ivey grunted, unimpressed. "He steals my pokémon but leaves his own behind? Unbelievable!"

"Wait..." I realized something. "You said pokémon can see and feel what's happening around them, right?" Ivey nodded, not understanding what I was getting to. "What if beedrill knows what's up with Tyson?" Ivey's eyes went wide and she nodded a bunch of times, agreeing with idea. She quickly packed up the rest of her things while I asked the beedrill. It was surprisingly calm for a pokémon that had tried to kill us earlier. It must be an odd feeling to be captured by a human. Like slavery but not? It was an odd thing to think about. The beedrill nodded at my request and started flying off. I quickly grabbed my bag and went after it. It was going to show us the way. It took Ivey a little bit of time, but she caught up fast.

"I really hope this works." Ivey hissed. "I can't believe you let this happen!"

"I had a call! He must've realized and snuck away!"

"Tyson wouldn't do something like this!"

"You're giving him too much credit!"

"You have no proof that it was him!"

"And you have no proof that it wasn't!"

After a good while of running (and taking a few breaks to breathe and get our systems in check), we finally reached a town. Ivey and I were still arguing mostly. I was convinced that it was Tyson that had stolen her pokémon and ran off. Ivey was convinced that someone else had kidnapped both him and her pokémon. Both ideas made sense and were plausible, but neither of us was going to drop our sides of the idea. Beedrill brought us to the Pokémon center and that's when I realized we had arrived at Vermilion city. Tyson was headed in the same direction as we had wanted?

"Maia, I'm hungry..." Ivey whined.

"We can stop at the Pokémon center to eat while we wait for our pokémon to heal."

"You mean your pokémon." She hissed and looked away with a huff.

"Ah. Right. Sorry."

"You can go ahead and do what you want." She sighed. She was getting irritable with the fact that her pokémon were gone and she couldn't do anything. "You obviously don't care about how I feel."

"What?" My jaw fell. "Of course I care! Beedrill's going to lead us right to your pokémon!"

"But you want to heal your pokémon! By the time that'll happen, they'll all be gone!"

"Spyk is weak, and we need to eat!" I had a hard time understanding why she was suddenly unleashing her anger out on me. Had I acted wrong? She was the one that had asked to eat, right?

"Fine. Whatever." She stormed inside the doors.

I looked up to the beedrill. It tilted its head at me in confusion. I shrugged back and called it back into its pokeball. I entered the center and gave the lady my two pokémon to heal. She pointed me towards the cafeteria and I went over to grab something to eat and join Ivey. She was still sulking at me so I stayed silent as I ate. She kept grumbling and stabbing her eggs. Eventually, I got called to grab my pokémon.

I grabbed them and went to see Ivey again in the cafeteria. "Are you coming with me to find Tyson and your pokémon?"

"What does it matter? They're all gone."

I tried not to make a snarky retort. I was getting tired of this negative attitude. "So you're not coming?"

She looked away. "...I'm coming." And put away her plate before joining me.

I called the beedrill out again when we were outdoors but it looked confused. It didn't know where to go. The Pokémon Center must've been the last hint it had known.

"Fly around the city and see if you can find him." I ordered and it finally flew off. I turned to Ivey, who looked even sourer at the fact we had no clues. "We'll have to ask people around if they saw him."

She grumbled but nodded. We split up to cover more ground. There weren't many people out at this time, so early in the morning that the sun hadn't gone up but late enough that some people were getting to their jobs. The few people I did talk to hadn't seen Tyson nor anyone that appeared to be kidnapping a kid. I was about to give up, searching behind buildings and trashcans for anything, when beedrill came flying back. It was flying energetically and its needles for hands were waving all over the place. I had it lead me to what it had seen and it brought me to docks. I watched in confusion but then saw it—Tyson! He was walking inside the ship behind two men dressed in black.

I ran over to enter the ship but the personal held me back. "Ticket please."

"I don't have a ticket. I just need to see my friend in there!"

"No ticket, no entry."

"Just go get my friend! He's that little over there—" But the guy wasn't listening. You could tell by his face. This was his job and he was going to do his job. "Beedrill!" I called and it swooped down behind me. "Carry me in!"

The guy's eyes went wide at what I had commanded. "Are you crazy? I just said you can't!"

But it was too late, Beedrill had its arms under mine and it had picked me up. It had trouble at first, because I was heavy and all, but it eventually went high enough that no one could grab onto my feet and yank me down (I can't believe the guy didn't try that since I was right in front of him). My armpits were already started to hurt but I was close to the ship so I could definitely deal with it.

The port for the ship closed. It was pushing off of land and starting on its trip. Beedrill, sensing this, flew faster and dropped me on the roof of the big ship. I thanked him and then noticed Ivey on shore, watching us. There was an odd look on her face.

"I'll bring them back to you, don't you worry!" I texted her.

I saw her pick up her phone and read the message. She didn't answer though and put it down. It didn't look like she was convinced. Or maybe she felt deserted, because I was going ahead and she couldn't, because she had no pokémon to carry her here. I don't know. But I was going to keep true to my word. I was going to catch Tyson, get her pokémon back, and make Ivey happy again.

I hope.