For the next two weeks, I played the testing case games constantly. Sometimes Johnny played with me; sometimes it was Roy or Tony, or a combination of the three. I appreciated their support and it might be why I'd gotten through six games already. Right now Roy and Johnny were sitting across from me at Colonial and I was nearing the end of the Fire Red version.

"I hate Giovanni!" I whined, "I've lost to him three times!"

"Rearrange your type match ups," Said Johnny through a mouthful of ice cream.

"I've done that already, he keeps switching out."

"I'll trade you something from my LeafGreen," offered Roy, "They're pretty strong."

"I think the information book said I couldn't do that. Thanks though."

"Take a break, eat your Ice Cream." Said Johnny, I shook my head.

"You know it's sweeter when it's 50 cents," he teased. Colonial was having it's month long 50 cent ice cream cone marketing thing again. We came every day when that happened, but why they were doing it in November I didn't know.

"Okay, fine," I started licking my cone.

"Tell me what the Journey Options section said again," Requested Johnny.

"It just said there were a lot of paths to follow. You can be a Ranger, Researcher, Breeder, Coordinator, a regular old Trainer, and a few other things. But it also tells you about which path you should choose if you want a certain career, like being a nurse, gym leader, scientist, officer, teacher, entertainer, day care person, working in the media and a lot of other stuff and it gave information about each one."

"Have you chosen anything?" Asked Roy.

"Right now I'm thinking about a mixture of trainer and researcher, but that could change- Wait, I shouldn't be choosing anything. There is almost no chance that I'm going to win. I shouldn't be getting my hopes up."

"You did choose though."

"Fine. What would you guys choose if you could have gone?"

"Ranger!" Said Johnny without missing a beat, "I'd be all like hero and stuff."

"That's cool," I said, "Roy?"

"No idea. I might've started out trainer and switched to something else later," Then he said in alarm, "Skye, your ice cream!"

Too late, my scoop of ice cream slid on to the floor. "Oh well," I said and went back to Giovanni.

"Johnny, was she a game addict, before the contest?"

"She played as often as a normal person would."

"Guys, I just really want to not totally fail," I said.

"Poetic," Said an irritating voice from the booth next to us, parted by a half wall. Brianna stuck her big head over the top of it, "Fail at what?"

"Is it really any of your business?" Said a peeved Johnny.

"I think it is, considering she's my sister."

"I thought I wasn't since the last time we spoke." She would like nothing more than me being disowned.

"I know that can't change… yet. So for now I think I deserve to know why you're playing your video games so much. Mom and Dad might not notice anything but I do."

"Why would we tell you?" Asked Johnny.

"I'll tell Mom and Dad,"

"They won't care," My voice wavered a bit and she looked at me like she had won the fight; video game abuse was the only thing our parents cared about. They were never around though, so they wouldn't know, unless Brianna told them. Thankfully Johnny chose that moment to fling a soggy cherry off his spoon at her face. While she was wiping herself off with a napkin, we got up and walked out.

"She is really annoying," Said Roy.

"You just noticed," Said Johnny sarcastically, "Do you think she heard what you said about not getting your hopes up?"

"No. Otherwise she wouldn't have asked what I didn't want to fail at. Let's forget Brianna for a while and have fun," I suggested as we got into Roy's car, "Should we go home or-"

"We should go to Roy's house!" Johnny and I had been trying to get Roy to take us to his house, but as always:

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I said so."

"One of the ten most annoying lines in the world," I said.

"What would the other nine be?" asked Roy.

"Maybe I'll tell you, if you take us to your house."

"How 'bout we go to Tony's house," He responded.

"Okay fine," Said Johnny, Tony's house was fun, "But you will take us to your house."

"Later though." He said.

Not only did Tony's parents give him the 200 dollars because he was spoiled, but because they were loaded. They weren't "Richie" Rich but compared to the average middle class, they had two more floors to their house. Their indoor pool had a diving board, their basement had a bar, and they had more flat screens than anyone I knew. It also explains his expensive Wheelees.

When we rang the doorbell, Tony answered the door in his pajamas. Johnny and Roy laughed out loud and I snickered, because his pajamas had footies.

"You guys are always in your pajamas when I come over." He said to Johnny and I defensively.

"Not footie pajamas," I said between giggles.

"Whatever, come in, I'll be right back," He ran up the stairs behind him. We walked into the foyer, took our shoes off and left them on the yellow and maroon patterned rug.

"When did footie pajamas become in for teenagers?" Roy tried to say it seriously but he cracked up when he said teenagers, so it sounded like tee-ee-ee-nagers, Johnny and I cracked up even before he got to that part. Soon, though, Tony came back, so we had to stifle our laughter quickly.

He appeared on the balcony (Much higher up than most normal people's) "Get you're butts up here," he called down to us and we trooped upstairs. After that we had to go up another floor, this one without a balcony, and file into a small library at the far right of his house. There could have been windows on three sides of this room if it weren't for the book shelves lining every wall, except for the furthest one to the right, which had a desk with a computer and windows above it. Tony sat down at it while we gathered around him.

"Skye," Said Tony as he turned on the computer, "I'm sure that special book of your's has a lot but I've found a ton of stuff on the Region," Here he opened up a file.

I was holding the Information book in the inside pocket of my jacket; I took it out, "It's pretty big, it might have the stuff you've found in it."

"We'll see about that," he opened up a folder, "Let's see this one," he opened up Google earth and up popped the Region.

My jaw hung open, similar looks were on Johnny and Roy's faces. It was an overhead view of the entire Pokémon Region. It was huge, bigger than America and Canada put together. When Tony saw our faces he made a cocky, "Hmm, hmm," Noise, like he expected applause.

When he said that I snapped out of it and flipped to the back of the book, "It said there were pullouts back here… Here they are!" I opened the book wide and flipped it on it's side so everybody could see my tiny map. Tony's was obviously more impressive and-

"It can scroll in," He scrolled in so you could see about one-eighth of what you could see before but now you could see more of the change in color around the map. About five percent of it seemed to be made of civilization, the rest was nature. But given the size of the whole country there was still a lot. A little bit seemed merged, like there were towns beneath the trees or in the trees surrounding the cities. "Can't go any further though, Google said there was some kind of transmission keeping their satellites from scrolling in any closer. Just their defensive way of saying they were hacked. Actually, before recently, The same transmission kept them from getting any pictures at all."

"Well duh," I said, now leaning against a book shelf with my arms crossed, trying to act like I knew all of this, "That's why no one's ever actually seen a picture of the Region before."

He shot me a frosty look and continued, "I also found out that there is force that keeps anyone from going or flying over there, except when they're there for official business."

"How do you know that?" Asked Roy.

"A lot of the information I found was from the official website and-"

"There's an official website?" I interrupted him.

"Yes, there is," He responded, "It's called Immigration to the Pokémon Region."

"Let me see it," I demanded.

"First I want to tell you the most important information I weeded out."

"Shoot," Said Johnny.

"First that all the people there speak English, which is why this is only happening in America… that and the fact that we are most like them physically an mentally compared to the rest of the world."

"Okay, why do they speak English?" I said in disbelief. I hadn't really thought about it until now but I would have had to learn a whole new language.

"Well, it just sort of worked out that way. I mean, most of them came from English speaking countries, before they closed off from the world and it is tweaked but it developed similarly. Another thing: it said is that 2861 people were able to get the testing case."

That's it, he just said it. He didn't make us beg for the number or drive us crazy for an hour trying to figure it out. Maybe he didn't know how important it was and that's why he didn't make it a big deal. Or he knew how important it was and he wanted to give me a break for once.

"2-2861?" I stammered.

"2861," He said grinning broadly at me.

"Are you kidding?" Asked Roy who had had just sat down on a loveseat, "Skye Actually has a real, a really real chance to go the Region?"

"Didn't she before," Said Tony still grinning broadly, "Actually her chance is even bigger than that because you know they're taking one boy and one girl. Skye is a girl and only- hold on a sec, let me check," He opened up another file on the computer, "And only 928 of those people are girls, mostly because of that part of the preliminary testing that said you had to have taken some kind of interest in Pokémon before the contest. So Skye, you have a 1 in 928 chance of winning."

My jaw hung open again, "You promise you're not lying?"

"Promise."

Then I did little hop-ey dance around the room, Johnny joined me, Tony and Roy laughed and were obviously happy for me. The number was way smaller than I could have possibly hoped for… But it was still big. I stopped dancing and breathlessly sat down next to Roy I was still happy though. Johnny sat on top of me and I pushed him off so he was sitting next to me.

"We should celebrate." Said Tony.

"I haven't won yet."

"But this is big." Tony insisted.

"I guess you're right. What do you guys want to do?"

"We should have a party!" Said a still ecstatic Johnny.

"How 'bout we just get a Portillos cake." I said, trying to keep this within reason.

"Is that your answer to everything?" Said Tony. "Chocolate cake?" At our house whenever something worth celebrating happened we always got Cake. Always chocolate. Always Portillos. We had a 'cake jar' that we would put all of our change in to pay for it. We got it for everything: holidays, birthdays, good grades. If someone was going to summer camp we'd have cake before they left.

Later after we got our cake and had eaten most of it, we swam in their pool. Johnny and I kept our swim suits at their house because we were here so often. And where else would we swim anyway? So we didn't have stop at home to get them.

Tony loves his pool. He swims in it so often he looks permanently pruney. So, as you can see, he is a very good swimmer. Tony tried to teach Johnny and I how to swim, because we couldn't afford lessons. Johnny got it, but Tony couldn't really 'teach' me. Even so, I love the feeling of being underwater, so I hang out in the shallow end. Right now he's getting ready for a pike with one-and-a-half summersaults, whatever that is, off the diving board.

Right before he jumped off Roy yelled, "Your suit," to Tony, trying to throw him off. It worked and he belly-flopped with a painful sounding crack. Johnny laughed so hard he fell off of the inner tube he was lounging and eating cake on. As he swam back to the surface he caught what was left of the cake in his mouth.

Roy tried to get out before Tony could swim back to the surface but Tony got to him before he could get two feet. They then had a water wrestling match which, despite Roy's obvious size advantage, Tony would win with his water advantage. That got me thinking…

"Hey you guys."

"Yeah." Said Roy.

"Could we… Stage a pretend water Pokémon battle?" I said hurriedly, for fear of being laughed at. Tony did snicker a bit but the other two took me seriously.

"Sure, sounds like fun," Said Roy.

"Me too," agreed Johnny. "I call being the other trainer!"

"I want Roy to be my Pokémon," I guess I wanted to practice with a 'type disadvantage.'

"I will obey your every command master," He joked, he wasn't very good at that.

"Tony's mine," Johnny called.

We all got into place. Johnny and I stood on the tile. He was at the deep end, I was on the shallow end, with our 'Pokémon' in the water near us. Making it all the more realistic was that the pool was a perfect rectangle, matching that of a regular battlefield.

"Tony!" Johnny yelled, "Dive!" Tony then dove deep under water, pushed of the bottom and head butted Roy's chest.

Johnny had just commanded Tony to go back underwater when I said, "Splash!" But nothing happened. So I yelled "Dive," but he had obviously not learned the attack yet, because he just flailed in the water, which gave me an idea.

When Tony came up to finish the dive attack I said "Roy, use flail." It was super effective; Tony looked pretty beat up. "Roy, finish him! Use tack-"

"Hydro pump!" Commanded Johnny and Tony spit a mouthful of water at Roy's eyes. Poor Roy jerked back and hit his head against the pool wall and feinted.

Later, after Tony's dad preformed first aid on Roy, we all got in our pajamas, settled down on the tiny couch in the guest bedroom and watched one of Tony's old Pokémon movies. Like all movies from the Region containing Pokémon it was animated. It was about a guy having to live in a cave during winter with an Ursaring for a month and when he left, it came with him. About halfway through Roy got bored and started throwing the surplus of popcorn at everyone. We threw it right back and started a popcorn war. Once the movie ended and there was a healthy coating of popcorn everywhere, that Roy's mother would later blow a gasket about, they all fell asleep. Roy right there on the couch. Now I'm playing my seventh game (I decided on pearl). I finished FireRed around one o'clock… That means it's November eighth, I guess… 4 o'clock and I still can't fall asleep…. Maybe I should get…. Some tea…

Skye… Skye…

"Skye!"

"Whaa?" I shot up confused.

"What are you doing on the floor?" Asked Johnny.

"I must have… must have… fallen asleep when I got up to get sleepy time tea," Everyone was awake and looking at me, "What are you doing waking me up?"

He shrugged and started eating the popcorn off the bed.

I looked around for my game. With a start I realized I hadn't saved. I found it on my bed and it, mercifully, was still on. The new system must have a really long battery life. I quickly saved and plugged it in the charger.

"Is your head feeling better?" I asked Roy.

"A bit. I still have a massive headache though."

"Sorry about that," Said Tony.

"I'm sorry too," I said, "I guess I wouldn't make a very good trainer."

"Think about what you just said. Tony and I were the Pokémon. Are you really going to assume what kind of trainer you are based on that?"

I smiled. "Guess not."

"Either way," He joked, "I'd make a great Magikarp."