Paige and her group split up as soon as they arrived at the Pewter City's Pokemon Center. Patrick and Alex were due back home or they were going to get an earful from their mother. They insisted after Brock beat Paige she should come by and have dinner with their family. Paige didn't take the joke quite well, after spending the whole morning training with dirt and mud being chucked at her and her pokemon. Isaac said he had a few people he needed to talk to regarding his motorcycle being transported from Pewter to Cerulean. Pokemon in Mt. Moon would be bothered by the loud noise for the engine so he would have to leave it here for now. Isaac told Paige to remain in the center for now and try to stay out of other trainer's way until he got back later that day. After that, he would show her where the gym was and if there was still time she could challenge Brock. Paige would have insisted she could find it herself but her nerves got the better of her. Besides, she and her pokemon were in no condition to go there just yet. In the meantime, Paige decided it would be best to check up with her folks back home.

"Mom! Guess what? I'm in Pewter City!"

Paige sat in front of the video phone, just connecting with her mother back in Viridian. The monitor had split the screen down the middle so both parties could see themselves and the person they talked to.

"Congratulations dear! I knew you could do it! You are becoming quite the independent woman now aren't you? Aren't you happy you got rid of that thug following you?" Paige's mother looked a lot like her daughter except for the light graying in her hair and more of a plump developed figure from being middle aged. Paige laughed nervously, nodding in agreement to avoid a fight over the phone in front of the few patrons that were in the center's lobby.

"Ye-yea! Yea, it was no problem. Is dad home?"

"I'm afraid your father is out making a few more deliveries this morning and won't be back by noon. Don't worry dear. I will send him a message as soon as I get off the phone. You however look like you could use a nice long bath. My goodness Paige! Did you walk or roll through the forest? You are absolutely filthy!" It was true. Paige had gotten to the Pokemon Center and dropped off her pokemon then immediately made the call. She had little time to get cleaned up before calling her mother. Reaching up she brushed her charcoal hair off of the excess dirt the best she could with a light chuckle.

"No mom I just was going through some training is all. Isaac and some boys I met took some dirt clogs and -"

"Isaac?! You just told me that boy is not following anymore! Now look at you, all covered in dirt and grime . . . this is what happens when you are traveling with boys at your age! When I was your age I-"

The sudden musical chimes coming from the front counter let Paige know her pokemon were fully recovered. This was a great opportunity.

"Oh sorry mom I got to go! Tell Dad and Lucas I love them!" Paige slammed the phone down on the receiver and watched as the screen flashed the disconnected symbol across the black video monitor. Letting out a deep and relived sigh, she would have to remove her cellphone's batteries for the rest of the day if she wanted some peace and quiet after that.

"Thank you for waiting. Your pokemon are fully restored." The nurse behind the counter smiled and sat down a tray containing 3 pokeballs in front of Paige. Paige smiled and picked each one of her partners up.

"Thank you . . . umm . . Nurse Joy? Wait, why are you in Pewter City?" Nurse Joy only laughed softly, shaking her head.

"Oh you must be new to Pewter City. The Nurse Joy in Viridian is my twin sister, although I think I am the prettier one." Paige stared back at her in confusion, unable to articulate a response to that before snapping out of this. Turning around with confusion still plastered on her face, Paige decided that a long since deserved bath was in order. Perhaps after getting cleaned up, Isaac would be back.

The Pokemon Centers in Kanto were great! Paige had never really used them before now but she could see why they were so convenient to so many. Food, beds and baths were all free if you were a trainer and they fixed your pokemon's injuries right up! Her pokemon seemed to enjoy the center's facilities just as much. Paige took the time to give each of her partner's a thorough cleaning up from the remaining layers of dirt. While the center's machines and medicine healed her pokemon, cleaning was a priority that belonged to the trainer. She was used to handling Gale so primping and preening her feathers was quite easy. Cleaning up Varem was not as bad as she thought it would be, save for his dislike of any source of water near his tail flame. Rinno however was handled carefully as Paige was still not used to the horn and poison spines on his back.

After tending to her pokemon, Paige walked back in the lobby with a satisfied stretch and feeling fully refreshed now. It was nice to have the chance to bathe and scrub all the dirt off as well as switching her clothing out to fresh ones. Varem remained outside of his pokeball and remained glued to her side, happily waving the gold flame on his tail from side to side while gazing up at his trainer. Paige's hair had been washed, dried and combed down. Looking at her hands, she noted that the chips in her glossed nails meant she needed new coat to them but she was too excited to just sit there while a brand new city waits to be explored. Paige decided if Isaac though that she was going to just wait for him until he got back, he was sadly mistaken. The day was still young and the afternoon was all hers. Her glance turned to Varem, squatting down in front of him with her palms each pressed to the side of his face and giving him a cheerful grin.

"You are looking so much better with that dirt all scrubbed off of you Varem. You look like a million pokebucks now!" Varem chirped out a happy reply, his snout nuzzling up to her right hand with a darker hue of orange growing on his nose. Giggling softly to herself at his response she stood back up and headed straight to the exit, only to come to a complete halt and be bounced back, falling on her rear with a thud. Her back pocket ejected her Pokedex, sending it sliding behind her. Varem turned to look back at his trainer then back to face the obstacle ahead.

"Oww . . ." Paige moaned out a little. Looking up at the figure blocking the doorway, an older woman stood there, looking back down at Paige. Dressed in a pair of plum buttoned shorts with suspenders holding them up and a green V collared shirt, the stranger reached her hand out to Paige and spoke in an apologetic voice. The woman seemed to be a fan of black stockings just like Paige herself.

"Oh no, are you ok?" Paige took her hand and nodded, being helped up from the white tile floor of the center.

"Y-yea, I'm fine. I guess I just got a little carried away and was in a hurry. I'm sorry." The long red haired woman laughed and waved her free hand up in dismissal.

"Oh no it was my fault. I was in a hurry to get inside and find my partner. He tends to run about and I have to track him down once in a while." The woman chuckled and gave Paige a happy smile, her bright blue eyes alight with a general sense of happiness. Paige wasn't caught off guard this time, full aware what that look meant. Varem ran to the side of his trainer, his front limbs wrapped around her leg for a moment of security.

"Oh, well I hope you find him. My name is Paige by the way." Still holding onto her hand, the woman shook Paige's own within the grip and letting out a light laugh before letting go.

"Call me Holly. It's a pleasure to meet you Paige. Are you a new trainer?"

"Is it that obvious", Paige asked sheepishly. It felt at times she had a giant sign floating over her head that said 'NOOB'. Holly walked past Paige and reached down to the floor, picking up the Pokedex and waving it back to her.

"Let's just say it takes some getting used to for newer trainers to hold onto these." Placing the device back into Paige's opened hand she retorted her question with one of her own.

"Are you going to challenge Brock then? If you are not prepared you are in for quite an uphill battle, so I have heard." Paige gripped one of her elbows with her hand and rubbed it, a bit of a nervous habit of hers. Her own blue eyes diverted from Holly's gaze as she spoke.

"I am supposed to. I made a promise to someone that I would help a pokemon get strong and grow. I don't like the idea of pokemon getting hurt but I think I am beginning to understand more on how to battle. I might not be as confident as I could be but I am going to give it my all for Varem here." Varem released Paige's leg and walked out into the open, seeing the two humans were being pleasant with one another so there was no need to have any fear at this time. Holly smiled at the trainer and her pokemon, tapping her fist into her opened palm with a solution to their dilemma.

"You should come with me to the Pewter Museum of Science. Brock will sometimes work as a security guard there. Maybe if you see him outside of the gym and talk to him, he won't be as intimidating and that will bolster your confidence." Paige nodded. It did make sense to her and the museum was something she wanted to visit one day in her travels. She did not know when Isaac would be back and she would not just sit around and wait like a dolt for a guy like him. Paige nodded eagerly and slipped her Pokedex quickly back into her pocket.

"Yes! That sounds like a great idea! I always wanted to visit Pewter's Museum one day." Holly smiled and turned back around as the automatic doors opened for the two. Paige and Varem followed quickly behind, the young trainer more interested in seeing the museum than speaking with the gym leader.

The two pokemon trainers walked together, getting along quite well for having just met each other. Holly was a pleasant person to be around, unlike Isaac, and it was nice to have an older female's view on topics. While the two walked, Paige explained how she became a trainer in the first place and what she had been through so far. From there the conversation would steer to fashion and clothing choices to types of pokemon they were interested in, Paige doing most of the talking while Holly remained polite and listened. Holly didn't seem like she was that much into fashion nor was she any sort of roughneck. The fact that she wore open toed heels around in the attire she had would suggest she dressed casually enough but still could aim to impress if she chose to. This was the look that Paige wanted to strive for.

"It sounds like you have been through quite a lot already. Even though some of it has been hard on you, you seem to have made it out of each situation better than you were when you got in it. That's something to be proud of", Holly suggested, pointing her finger up as she made the observation. Paige never thought about it in that sense but she was right. It was a much better way of looking at it at least.

"I just hope I don't get knocked in the head again anytime soon. I could do without that", Paige chuckled. Holly followed suit with her reaction, both of them reaching the museum's front steps now. "So this is the Pewter's Museum of Science huh? I heard its collection of fossils and space exhibits are the biggest in all of Kanto!"

"Well why don't we just go on in and you can find out for yourself. I'll pick up the tab for you this time." Paige beamed happily, Varem mimicking his trainer's excitement as the three walked past the front doors and into the entry hall.

Isaac grumbled softly to himself, peering back up at the center's overhead clock. Another ten minutes had passed by and Paige was still nowhere to be found. Is it so hard for that twit to stay in one place or does she make it a habit wandering off by herself like this?

Isaac had returned to the center in the late afternoon to find that Paige was not in the lobby or in one of the back lodge rooms. He assumed she would have enough sense to wait for him before taking on the gym like they had planned but it was beginning to seem like she was more than willing to get thrashed all by herself. Isaac ran his hand through his hair and ruffled it up a bit in aggravation just as Nurse Joy was walking by.

"Excuse me Nurse Joy. Did you see a girl in here with a Charmander earlier?"

"Why yes I did. After she made a call and got cleaned up I believe she left with Holly" Isaac arched up a brow with a streak of confusion mired in his tone.

"Who?"

"Holly. She is sort of Brock's assistant in the gym and his partner in tag team battles. She always comes in here to drag Brock out and back to the gym so I expect she was looking for him when she came in earlier." Isaac felt a rock settle in his stomach with this delivery of news. Not only had Paige wandered off with a stranger but she did so with Brock's partner in battle. It was only a matter of time until she was brought to the gym for a match that she was still ill prepared for. Isaac didn't waste a moment with a reply to Nurse Joy and instead turned towards the door and bolted forward out into the late afternoon air. He would make a mental note to purchase a leash in the future for Paige just in case this happened again.

Paige and Holly left the museum in the evening with no success in finding Brock but Paige didn't seem to mind that one bit. Instead, she had been much too busy looking over the collection of artifacts, including rocks from the moon and the fossils of ancient pokemon. Her favorite exhibit by far had to be the scene of a plaster Kabutops hunting for ancient Magikarp in the swamps. Varem seemed more interested in the skeletal structure of an Aerodactyl. Holly would only watch the two interact, noting how Varem and Paige had grown so close in such a small amount of time. So it was then decided.

Paige had Varem clinging to her shoulder and let his body stand on the top of her backpack. The extra weight was nothing compared to some of the packages that Paige had to carry in the past and Varem's jolly humming next to her ear made the extra load worth putting up with. Holly and Paige walked together on the sidewalk and continued their conversations from earlier, mingled with Paige interjecting several times on her favorite parts of the museum. Paige would speculate on how it would be living in that time or even having one of the ancient pokemon as a partner in the present. Holly informed that some trainers do and that there were ways of reviving fossilized pokemon. Paige could barely believe this but she did recall seeing a special on TV one night about Cinnabar's Lab having the technology to do so, though it was so farfetched to her she could have been mistaken. Paige was so engrossed within the conversation that she was unaware that the two had walked off the main streets of the city and approached a lone structure. Holly suddenly stopped in front of the stone building without a word to Paige, only waiting until she had turned around.

"Hey. Why are you stopping?"

"I want to show you something Paige. I think you are going to enjoy it." Paige watched as Holly dug in the front of her shirt to recover a key from a necklace and used it to unlock the front door of the building. The heavy oak doors swung open to reveal a pitch black room with no sign of light to give way to the darkness. Before Paige could condemn the idea of going inside, Holly walked in without a warning. The light click of her heels faded slowly away until they could be barely heard before stopping all together. Paige and Varem looked at each other, nervous but at the same time a bit curious what was going on. Edging closer to the door and passing the threshold, Varem's tail arched up to let the gold flame at the tip act like a light source for Paige. This made walking in a dark room like this a little more bearable, up until the entry doors slammed shut behind her with a heavy thud. Panic immediately overtook Paige as she let out a scream.

"Aahhh! What's going on!?" The room suddenly filled with light from above. The telltale hum of electricity from the floodlights poured down onto a dirt and rock covered arena. Paige had dropped to her knees and covered her head, allowing Varem to hop off Paige safely and look around. Varem saw Holly standing on the opposite side of the room with a hand resting on her hip while tossing a pokeball up in the air and then catching it. Varem cheerfully began to walk over to his new friend but stopped as soon as he entered the field. Paige felt the lack of weight on her back and looked up, her eyes adjusting to the light while she stood back up. This room was a large gymnasium; the walls here were constructed of concrete and stone while the floor had several boulders in position to circle a dirt field. The field had white chalk lines drawn into its surface that circled the interior and outlined the pattern of a pokeball. Paige walked forward to join Varem at the edge of the field and looking back at Holly.

"Umm . . Holly? What are you . . ?"

Holly chuckled with a smirk as she stated, "Come on now Paige. You are a smart kid. You can't be that dense. What does it look like is going on?" Paige took another look around, noting the bleachers to the right and left, the stadium grade light fixtures above and the banners hanging with patterns of simple gray octagons adorning them. It only took another few seconds for Paige to realize where she was now. This was a gym. Not just any gym. This was the Pewter Gym.

"Wa-wait a second! If this is the Pewter Gym, who does that make you?" Holly chuckled once more, closing her eyes while shaking her head.

"I told you. My name is Holly. What you don't know is that I was Brock's partner in the Hearthome City Tag Battle Competition some time ago. Brock and I made it to the semifinals together but were defeated because I wasn't a strong enough partner for him. I trained and sharpened my skills for over a year then came to Kanto in search of Brock once more." If it wasn't for the fact that Paige was locked in the Pewter Gym and her mind was in a panic, she might have found this tale to be somewhat endearing . Holly opened her eyes and narrowed her gaze on Paige. "When I found him, he had returned home to see his family . . . and I stayed away at first, doubting if my skills were up to par with his now. We were bound to meet though the longer I stayed in Pewter City. When we did meet I challenged him to a battle, to show him just how much stronger I had gotten. He might have defeated me but I think he could tell just how hard I had worked. It was then I made a promise to him. I promised I would stay by his side and become his partner in tag battles and in life!" Holly swung her arm out in front of herself with her pokeball in hand. "If you want to face Brock, you are going to have to be judged by me first Paige!" Paige swallowed a hard knot in her throat. It looked like her 'luck' had picked up once more.