Galvin just stared at the man behind the counter with disbelief. This man could not be serious, he truly could not be chargingthat much for a bike! It was absolutely unreasonable! It was insane! He slammed his palms down on the counter.

“Are you serious? A hundred thousand Poke for a bicycle?”

“Yes. These are the finest bicycles in all of Kanto! The best of the best! They are priced so that everyone understands that!”

“That’s just ridicules!” Galvin grumbled. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stomped out of the shop. He grumbled his way back to the Pokemon Center where his friends waited, and he threw himself into a seat and sighed.

“Hundred thousand Poke for a bike…” the two stared in disbelief.

“Why would you charge that much money? How does this guy make a profit?”

“Who knows…” Galvin waved it off and propped himself up in a chair. “Well, bicycles are overpriced and the Gym is closed at the moment. What do we do now?”

“Oooh!” Steel waved her arm around trying to capture his attention. She succeeded and her friend questioned why she would even bother to raise her hand.

“Uh, yes?”

“We can go to Nugget Bridge! I heard its just north of here and if you beat all the trainer you win a special prize!” Galvin nodded to himself after some thought. If this prize was worth the time they could sell it and make a reasonable amount of money. It was always good for a trainer to carry extra money.

“Alright, any objections?”

“Nope.” Steel and Brass grinned. Galvin slammed his hands, palm side down, on the table as he stood. He waved a goodbye to the nurse who waved back with her signature smile.

“Goodbye children, I hope to see you again!”

The trio walked northbound, all focused on training, until Brass noticed something. One house was boarded off with cops surrounding it, trying to keep people back. Curiosity over took the boy and he wondered into the crowd.

Crouching low, Brass snuck past the officers and into the small house. To his shock it was in shambles the table was snapped in half, chairs flipped, picture frames littered the floor along with broken glass, every storage device was ripped open and its contents were splayed across the floor. Along with the mess was the supposed victim family and some woman with orange hair and dressed up in a pale blue water proof jacket, matching one piece bathing suit and sandals, and they all stood by a hole in the back wall.

Brass blinked. What the hell happened here?

“Oh, you’re back did you-” she turned to face him but stopped her sentence mid-way, this was not the person she was expecting. “Who are you?”

“Uh, my name is Brass, I’m a trainer and I was just wondering-”

“Where the gym leader is at?”

“No, well yes, but for later, but right now I wanted to know what happened…”

“Ah, yes, this household was attacked by some Rune grunts,” the woman sighed “the only thing they stole was the TM Dig.” she gave a faint smile to Brass. “My name is Misty by the way. Just stay here, I’m going to escort the family out of here and if you just left if would raise suspicion and you would probably get arrested so I’ll pick you up when I come back.”

“Uh, okay.” Brass waved at Misty as she left with the family, he stood there for a moment before staring at the hole in the wall.

That Rune would pay.

….

The camper gulped. Those two trainers were ripping apart the other trainers like they were nothing. The boy of the two walked with his hands in his pocket while a Scyther followed him, hissing at the trainer he just defeated, making the poor lass hugged her fainted Oddish in fear.

“So, are you the last trainer?”

“Y-yeah…” Galvin smirked.

“Alright then,” Galvin motioned to the Scyther with his head, the pokemon took a stance before its master, and confidently he rubbed its scythe arms together.

The young trainer let out his prized partner, a Rattata, the small rat excitedly snapped its jaw at its Galvin and his Pokemon, neither of them looked amused. The Camper pointed to his foe, but the Scyther easily slapped the Rattata over the bridge and into the water.

Steel went to its aid and pulled it from the water; the Camper snatched back its Pokemon and ran off nearly in tears. “JERKS!” he screamed as he ran away.

“Drama queen…” Galvin grumbled. The two friends crossed the end of bridge where a man waited with a sack full of golden nuggets.

“Congratulations, you’ve made it across the bridge-” the man paused, apparently recognizing who he was talking to, and took a step back. “No! It’s you two!”

“What?”

“F-f-from the forest!! You were supposed to be disposed of!!”

“A Rune?!” Steel gasped, the man was sweating, he eyed the water behind the two.

“Scyther…” Galvin glared, the Pokemon got the message and readied its scythes, the man, apparently Rune grunt, sprinted right for the water source behind the two friends. He took a leap into the water and allowed himself to be swept away with the current.

“Nut job…” Galvin glanced at the bag of abandoned gold nuggets; he pocketed three, one for him and his two friends.

‘I wonder where Brass is… He’s pretty far behind…’

“Let’s keep going,” Steel chimed, ripping him away from his thoughts. “There could be some nice Pokemon ahead!”

“Alright, seems like a reasonable idea.” Galvin nodded, the two continued on their way, they had found a few interesting pokemon. (one gave Galvin a hassle to capture.) In the end the Abra escaped leaving Galvin immensely infuriated.

The dirt road lead all the way to a lone house on the water, it was a simple one floor building with a dock (with a boat tied down) next to it.

“Huh.. I wonder who this belongs to…?” Steel pondered the through for only a moment but then shrugged her shoulders and walked right in. It seemed to fly right ever her head the fact that the door was unlocked. Normally something like that was a sign that something bad was happening or happened.

“Wait a minute Steel!!! You should-” but suddenly a scream filled the dusk air. Alarmed, Galvin rushed into the house to find Steel flat one her behind, attempting to crawl away from a Clefairy on all fours. Why was she doing such a stupid stunt? Brass had a Clefairy and yet she wouldn’t act like this before Clefa Star…

“Steel what the heck are you-” The Clefairy noticed him and turned around. Galvin’s face fell. It had a face. Not the face of a Clefairy. A face of a human. The body of a Clefairy with the face of a human.

‘Oh god. What the hell… WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOMINATION?!’

“Oh, salutations young trainer! I am B-”

‘OH GOD. IT CAN TALK?!’

Needless to say, Galvin screamed and backed away from that… that thing!

“Calm yourself young trainers, I am Bill! I am a true blue pokemanic!”

“You… you’re Bill!? But you’re a Clefairy!”

“An experiment gone wrong, but we can fix this all too easily.” He pointed to the super computer behind him. “All I have to do is get into that pod and you have to press the button at the computer.” Steel and Galvin glanced at each other.

“Let’s do it, this is freaking me out!”Steel exclaimed. Bill skipped into the pod, door locking close, Galvin activated the pod. Through the pod’s small window a light blue glow filtered out, that light vanished from one pod and to the other one.

ding

The pod door slid open and out came… a man in his early twenties with a Clefairy on his left shoulder.

“Much better,” he smiled “I must thank you…” The man paused and dug into his pockets to pull out three slips of paper. “Here, tickets to the SS Anne. I don’t need them and I’m sure they’ll serve you two better than they could of for me any way!”

“Oh, yes, thank you.” Steel nearly exploded. SS Anne tickets were super rare and it came into port only every few years. Oh god this was like a MEGA SCORE. Galvin dragged his friend out of the house and waved a goodbye to the man.

“Nice kids, but they should knock more often.”

“Clefairy!”

+ + +

Brass crawled low against the dirt road. He would find that Rune and make him pay. But what bothered him was that it was only a TM that was stolen. Why not anything else? What would Rune want with a TM?

Brass came to a stop and quickly rolled into a bush. Leaning against the tree before him was his target. The Rune. The man was on a phone, apparently talking about the newly acquired dig TM. Brass concluded his hiding spot was awful as he couldn’t hear what was being said any news like that would of helped out the officers.

It wasnt the smartest idea, but this man had to be stopped!!! The trainer jumped put of his hiding spot and tackled the Rune grunt. The two wrestled in the dirt, but the adult easily got the upper hand and threw the boy to the ground. Smugly he stepped on Brass’s head to pin him down to the ground.

“I’ll have to call you back later, I’ve some thing to attend to here.” The man smoothly leaned down to the boy. “So, what are you up to little man?”

“Get off…!”

“Cant quite hear you,” the man laughed pressing harder. “You should really speak up boy!!” Brass began to panic, if he didnt do something soon this psycho would smash his skull wide open! He fumbled for a pokeball but the man stepped on his had rather harshly he cried out. Tears weld up in Brass’s eyes from the unexpected pain. The man only chuckled and rubbed the boy’s teary face against the dirt causing more of a mess.

‘Agh…! W-well, thats both feet… Maybe I can reach with the other…’ the boy attempted to reach for a pokeball when suddenly the man was off of him and struck in the stomach with a rather rough kick. Brass winched and looked up at what attacked him. ‘A… a Machop?! He’s… he’s going to sic a pokemon on me?!’

Attacks came flying in too fast for Brass to block or grab his pokeball to at least try and defend himself. The boy was covered in bruises, even cuts, head to toe and there was a high possibility of broken bones

‘It… it hurts so much…’ Brass chocked, nearly sobbed, in pain. His world went black with the smirking grin of the grunt above him. Eyes slipped closed and they boy was to sleep, most possibly forever…

“Finish the kid off Machop.” The pokmon nodded. Fist raised, it came down, ready to smash the boy’s skull when suddenly Brass… grabbed the fist of the pokemon. The two of them jumped. This was…. this was impossible! After a beating like that, the kid shouldn’t even be able to move, and yet Brass was. He was standing on his two feet, laughing. Laughing hard.

“What… what the hell is so funny kid?!”

No response.

Brass opened his palms to the man and the rest was history. Flames suddenly lashed out in that area. Brass’s body toppled over, seemingly unharmed by the fire, and the grunt went up in flames like a paper exposed to a fire.