Simon stumbled out of the pokeceter with a yawn. About midday he arrived at the city of nostalgic scents, he would of battled the gym leader but Falkner, the bird type specialist, had closed the gym earlier that day.

He checked the clock on his pokegear and frowned, too early for the gym to open up. He glanced to the Sprout Tower in the distance. The three floor swaying wooden tower was a well known tourist spot and used for training by trainers and monks. Maybe he could squeeze in some training before heading to the gym.

Hours passed and another figure emerged from the pokecenter. It was Nick, who was slightly drowsy. He made his way to the gym, the purple roofed building was rather tall, compared to the others surrounding it. Once stepping onto a platform elevator inside he understood why, being flying type gym the high elevation was to psych out new trainers.

Nick swallowed a lump but pushed forward. He really had no reason to be afraid although the walkway was wide enough for three people to walk together side by side. He approached the gym leader, legs shaking slightly. The gym leader did not seem to be more than a few years older than Nick, with blue hair handing over his right eye. He was dressed in a shortcut light blue coat with white trimming and buttons. Underneath was a blue Japanese styled top and shorts with a white uwa-obi around his waist. He was wearing long white socks which were accompanied with a pair of sandals, which clashed according to Nick, and on his forearms were black arm protectors trimmed in red.

“Falkner…. I wanna fight you…!” the young man grinned.

“That’s great, but don’t think using electric types against me will assure an easy win.” He opened a pokeball, letting his Pidgeotto free to whip up a strong current of wind. “I’ll show you the real power of the magnificent bird pokemon…!” the wind was so strong that Piaki was lifted off his shoulder and pulled into the strong wind current.

“Oh Arceus! Piaki!” the startled female Pikachu let out a screech of fear as it unleashed a strong bolt of lighting, striking Pidgeotto.
“Rude!” Nick bellowed. “Don’t throw Piaki around like that!”

“Hey. Getting thrown around is apart of battling.” Nick scowled. Okay. That was true but Piaki was special.

“Give him the special!” Nick commanded. The Pikachu nodded. She crouched down, the propelled herself forward, bright light enveloped her body. She leaped into the air, making a direct hit with Pidgotto. A huge shock of electricity hit the bird, making it fall to the ground. Falkner slid across the field to like a Unovian baseball player catch his partner.

“For pity’s sake,” the gym leader sighed. “My dad’s prized bird pokemon… Well, a lost is a lost.” He hailed over the ref, who seemed to be in shock over Falkner’s lost. It seemed he didn’t lose often…. The referee presented Nick with his badge. He reached into his bag and placed the silver wing shaped badge in his gold badge case.

“I’ll have to say, I’ve never seen such an electric attack before. what was that?" Falker grinned

"Oh, that was volt tackle.”

“Really now? Tell me about it.”

—

Kairi rode down the escalator with an excited look on her face. She wasn’t sure what to do, she wasn’t like Nick or Simon who were spoiled of stories of the world, she simply had books.

Kairi shook her her head, curling her fingers around the strap of her bag. No! She had a mission to do! She had no time to be distracted! The young rancher nodded to herself. She stepped off the moving stairway, making her way to the door. 

The first step to completing her mission was to find Simon! She made her way down Route 32, if she was quick enough she could make it back to the city without Nick knowing she was gone. She was doing well until she found an apricorn tree and berry bush. She placed the hard yellow fruit into her bag and the berries into small pouch. Just as the last one was packed away the ground rumbled. Kairi blinked.

“What in tarnation?” she looked down the route, watching a dust cloud fly in the distance. She squinted her eyes. The figures soon became clear, it was a stampede of Mareeps. Kairi climbed into the nearest tree and watched the herd of pokemon rush into the town. Why the heck would a bunch of wild pokemon get so scared? The were accustomed to the area and wild pokemon about…

A loud explosion answered her question.

“Oh.”

—

About this time Simon was dragging himself to the pokecenter to heal his pokemon. With a relatively short line he received his pokemon back quickly. He was about to make his way to the gym when he heard a loud boom. The gym’s doors swished open shortly after that, the gym leader and Nick stumbled out, startled by the suddenly flux of Mareeps in the city.

Simon felt nervous. Where the heck was Kairi? She would always be with either him or Nick when she had the opportunity. Did he really lose her? Simon scowled. He always had to clean up his brother’s messes didn’t he? There was suddenly a shrill girly shriek in the air. Neither Nick or Falkner heard it but Simon knew that was Kairi.

She got trampled. Didn’t she?

Simon rushed down Route 32 to find his friend, charred and hair fringed, holding a baby Mareep in her arm surrounded by people dressed in black and each uniform had a giant red R on it. Simon scowled, tossing his pokeball. Quilava appeared before Kairi, the pokemon got down on all fours and ignited the flames on it’s head and backside.

“Quilava, attack!” the pokemon expelled flames from it’s body, setting fire to the people dressed in black and burning their pokemon. The volcano pokemon curled into a ball, lighting itself up and rolled into the remaining pokemon.

“Give it up Team Rocket!” Being recognized the men and women fled with their injured pokemon. Simon sighed and his face quickly twisted into a scowl.

“Kairi, what the heck are you doing?! You’re such a mess, getting into a fight with Team Rocket!”

“I knew it!”

“What?”

“The kind old partner I know is still in here!” she jabbed a finger at his chest making him wince.

“Yeah, well, whatever.” He turned to walk away but Kairi grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him off to the pokecenter. Simon cursed her for her strength gained from all her hard farm work. He tried to run off as Kairi dropped off the baby Mareep but she still refused to let go. This was embarrassing.

“Kairi, you can let go of me now.”

“Are you sure about that?” the reached into her bag and whipped out his pokedex. “A mister Professor Oak gave this to me, a pokedex! He told me to deliver it to you but,” Simon reached out for the device, desperately in need of it but Kairi held it away from his grasp. He tried to reach it again but she moved it away once more.

“Hang out with me and you’ll get it!”

Simon sighed, crossing his arms.

“Fine. Only because I really need it.” Kairi clapped her hands with glee. She took Simon by the wrist and dragged him out of the pokemon center, the soles of his shoes digging into the ground as he was dragged of.

This was going to be terrible.

—

And it was. Of all places Kairi had dragged him off to it was to the nearby ruins. Then again there wasnt much of a choice of where to go with that weird tree blocking the way.

“Aint it a sight to see?” Kairi smiled, sweeping her arms across the horizon.

“Sure if you like dirt, dirt and more dirt.”

“Aw, c'mon Simon. There’s more than dirt out here.” Kairi took him by the wrist and dragged him through a series of one room buildings that were missing walls and roof tops covered in mold and grass. Kairi pulled him into a single room structure that was in one piece, at least when compared to the others. Some chunks of rubble resided on the floor along with puddles of water from small holes in the roofing. In the center of the room was a small wall situated between two pillars and a stand covered in what looked like puzzle pieces made of clay.

Kairi tried to arrange the puzzle but quickly found herself unable to work it out. She tried again but no dice. Simon sighed, eye darting to her bag. He would steal it if he could but Kairi would notice him reaching for it, even while stressing over a puzzle.

Simon placed his face in his hands as Kairi tried to put the puzzle together again. He threw his hands in the air, shoved her aside and put it together himself. It took him only a matter of seconds. Once placed together the puzzle displayed a Kabuto ready to attack.

“There. Happy? Can we g-” the floor suddenly gave away, making Kairi and Simon fall with loud yells. Luckily, instead of landing on their faces, Mittens landed first and acted as a cushion for Simon, who caught Kairi. In the distance there was a shrill scream and a stomping of feet. A man dressed in a lab coat rounded the corner.

“What’s going on?! How did you get in here?!”

“The floor caved in sir,” Kairi spoke up, climbing out of her friend’s arms. The man looked up and shrieked. There was a hole in the roof. A hole. What did these terrible kids do to his ruins?!

“What did the floor cave in?! What did you do, you disrespectful kids?!”

“Calm down,” Simon groaned. “We solved some stupid puzzle and the floor caved in! That’s all we did here.” the man suddenly looked excited.

“Solved a puzzle you say? What was the image formed? No one ever solved it before!”

“Are you kidding me? It’s a Kabuto, you study ruins and ancient things and you seriously couldn’t tell it was a Kabuto.” the man ignored his rant and clapped his hands.

“A Kabuto. Amazing!” Simon placed his face in his hands. Why did this happen. Why must he suffer?

—

“As promised, one pokedex.” Simon snatched the device from Kairi with a scowl. He couldn’t believe all the noise and mayhem he had to suffer through to get what was rightfully his. Grumbling under his breath he left the pokecenter.

Kairi smiled. Today had proven all she needed to know. Well, most of it. Simon was still good and caring.

“Miss, the Mareep you dropped off is healthy and in perfect condition.” Nurse Joy called. Kairi lifted the sheep pokemon off the counter and hugged it close to her.

“Oh it’s so cute! I will name this gal Fluffy!” at that moment Nick came into the pokemon center, dirty, covered in hoof prints and tired. He dragged himself to his friend to lay his head on her shoulder.

“I’m so tired Kairi… I had to help herd Mareeps back into the wild. I don’t know how you or Terra did that…”

“Well, we usually have a herd pokemon help us… it’s kinda easy when ya know what you’re doing. Why didn’t ya ask me partner?”

“I couldn’t find you at all…..” Kairi sighed and pat her friend on the back.

“C'mon Nick, let’s go to bed early today.”

“Where were you all day?”

—

Later that night Kairi received a call at the pokecenter. The nurse informed her that a package was waiting for her at the pokemart, which was across town. In retrospect that made no sense since to get to the market you would have to pass the center.

Kairi returned to her room, slipped on her sneakers, making sure not wake Nick and left the pokemon center. She made haste to the blue roofed building with the tall rotating sign, she stepped into the shop, dressed only in her pajamas. No one really paid her heed, thankfully.

“Sorry to call you out so late.” a voice spoke up. It was the professor’s assistant, thankfully he looked chipper after what happened to the lab. “But the professor wanted you to have this!” the man jutted out his arms which carefully cradled the pokemon egg she delivered a day ago.

“The egg? Golly, but don’t yo need it for your research?”

“Indeed we do but we cannot conduct our research at this time. You see, the egg needs to be nurtured and loved by not only people and pokemon, as a growing trainer you’ll have plenty of pokemon. At least that’s how the hypothesis works.”

“I guess that makes sense, but why me?”

“You’re a farmer of course,”

“Rancher actually sir…”

“Technicalities, still, you have experience raising young pokemon so we would know it’s safe as can be in your care.”

“I see, well, I’ll do all I can to raise this pokemon and call you once it hatches.” Kairi smiled. She bid the man a farewell and a goodnight. She stepped out into the cool night air when she nearly bumped into a woman dressed in extravagant black and gold robes. She was about to apologize when she noticed what was in Kairi’s arms.

“Me oh my… that egg must be…!” The young woman giggled. “I see… handed to Mr. Pokemon, then to Professor Elm and now to you! Now I get it,” the young woman took a step back. “that egg is an important egg. Please do take good care of it. I’m counting on you.”

“Uh… okay.” the woman smiled, she gracefully twirled before walking away as if that was not an awkward and sudden conversation out of nowhere.