“Alright, now that we’ve all met, here’s the plan,” Jesse began. “First, it’s been a long day, we’re all tired.” He pointed to his own team of Pokémon. “Gengar, perimeter sweep. Charizard, fly west and report back. Make sure the Rockets from this morning are about where they need to be. If they’re not, give them a little encouragement. Blastoise, Venusaur, breathing exercises. The rest of us will join you after Alakazam and I take a look at Golem.”

  Charizard bared its teeth. The air around it shimmered and then it was aloft, flapping with mighty wings until a lofty current swept it westward. Gengar pulled a face and dove dramatically into Dillon’s shadow. The boy shivered from the sudden chill, and then Gengar went chortling on its way.

  “Dillon, Owen, Sam, I’ve thrown a lot at you today and you’ve done very well at keeping up. Best thing for you now is rest. If you can’t yet, play with your Pokémon. All the stuff I can teach you won’t matter if you and your Pokémon don’t trust each other.”

  Dillon looked at Pikachu in mock suspicion, and Pikachu narrowed its eyes in return.

  Sam picked a spot and rolled out a sleeping bag. “Rest sounds lovely.”

  Owen scoffed. “No, you gotta train as much as possible. Otherwise you won’t be strong enough when it matters! C’mon, one of your Eevee against Squirtle?”

  “Nope.” Sam stripped off his outer layer of clothing and snuggled into his bag. “Okay Eevees, fluffy formation.” Obediently, the Eevees milled around their trainer in a fluffy brown blur. When Owen could track them individually again, they had all piled on and around Sam’s bag.

  “That looks really cozy,” Dillon said, a little jealously. “How did you get them to do that?”

  Sam closed his eyes. “I did a lot of research at the library to optimize for a team of Eevee. A lot of their attacks involve teamwork, so we put together some formations to maximize our strengths.” He opened one eye. “I’ve done a lot of research since we last met.” A quick, furtive glance told him that Jesse was busy fussing over Golem. “What have you been doing?”

  Dillon opened his backpack and rummaged down to the bottom. He also stole a glance to make sure his father was preoccupied, then passed a small item to Pikachu. The Electric-type dashed over to Sam and delivered it to the furry pile.

  “What is that?” Owen asked.

  “It’s a Magikarp.” Dillon said with a straight face. “Magikarp! Tackle Squirtle!”

  Squirtle crouched in anticipation, and was greatly confused when Magikarp elected to flop helplessly instead.

  “Ah well,” Dillon sighed loudly. “Return!”

  “But…” Owen started, and stopped when Machoke rested a powerful hand on his shoulder. The Fighting-type winked at Dillon,

  then set Owen on its shoulders.

  “Woah!” Owen cried. “Um, okay, we can train this now. Squirtle! C’mon, we’re going to practice the evolving!”

  Sam watched them leave and wished the constant sense of confusion would go away. He looked at Dillon.

  “Okay,” Dillon rubbed his temples. “Machoke evolves into Machamp, and Machamp has four arms. Owen sits on Machoke’s shoulders and they swing their arms together. It’s supposed to be practice for Machoke to get used to the weight shifting or something.”

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  “It looks like the Pokémon is training the human.”

  “They’re cooperating.” Dillon squatted down. “Speaking of which, we should too. Cooperate, I mean.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone needs to take down Giovanni,” Dillon replied quietly. “Right now, we’ve got my dad, a former Champion and Giovanni’s former rival training us to take on all the Gyms in Kanto. That means I get a free shot and I can tailor my team to beat his Ground-types. Best part is that Team Rocket will never see it coming.”

  Sam closed his eyes. The snuggling of his Eevees did very little to calm his nerves. “Is that why you invited me along? Because you wanted my help?”

  “Isn’t that why you came?”

  Sam shook his head. “If you and your dad want to pick fights with Team Rocket, that is your business out of which I will thank you to keep me! I just want to get to a point where I can evolve these guys and we can defend ourselves.”

  “If we take out Team Rocket, there becomes a

  lot less people that we have to worry about!”

  “You think beating Giovanni in a Pokémon battle is going to take out Team Rocket? You idiot! Team Rocket is huge! They’re the biggest underground network in both Kanto and Johto! They own the casino in Celedon City! They smuggle Pokémon in and from the Hoenn and Kalos regions!” Sam hissed as loudly as he dared. “You really think beating their boss is going to stop all that?”

  “I think it’s a good step one,” Dillon snapped back, a little defensively. “If we can’t be high level trainers then we have no chance at all. And since you know all that stuff that’s even more reason why you should help me!”

  “What?”

  “Look at it. The picture Pikachu gave you.”

  It was an old photograph, grainy and lacking color, yet Sam recognized two of the young men immediately. Jesse Mitchell and Giovanni Lovett. There was a third, smiling awkwardly in between Jesse’s smirk and Giovanni’s grin, whom Sam didn’t know.

  “So they weren’t just rivals, like the newspapers said,” Sam observed. “They were friends from way back.”

  Dillon pointed to the third man. “That’s Lars, Brian’s and Owen’s dad. They live next door to us in Pallet Town. And get this, they never talk about Giovanni. Never talk about Team Rocket in front of us. But at night, when they think we’re asleep, me and Owen sometimes listen to them talking to Professor Oak, and they’re often talking about Team Rocket in the newspaper.”

  Sam looked puzzled. “Well yeah. After they attacked us I wouldn’t blame your dad from not wanting to bring them up.”

  “I didn’t tell dad about getting attacked. I said it was a wild Beedrill.”

  Sam was speechless.

  “It didn’t make any sense!” Dillon defended himself. “That guy with the Scyther could have killed us, but he didn’t. The other guys could have chased us down, but they didn’t. Dad could have told me about Team Rocket before we visited the forest, but he didn’t!” He lowered his voice again, and checked to see that Jesse was still busy. “He also could have told us if he got into a fight with Giovanni today. But he didn’t. You saw how dirty he was when he got back this morning.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “So, we don’t trust him.”

  Dillon grimaced. “Not to tell us anything, anyway.”

  “So then, what?”

  Dillon shrugged. “I’m going to train and challenge Gym Leaders until I can get some straight answers from people. Then I’m going to beat Giovanni. In the meantime, I’m going to have as much fun with being a Pokémon trainer as I can.”

  Sam exhaled, slowly. “Just like that, huh.”

  “Owen’s agreed with me.”

  “Owen can’t see when people are trying to be subtle, and he’s currently trying to be a Pokémon himself.”

  “He’s got a missing brother to be concerned for,” Dillon retorted. “We all think Team Rocket was involved, but there’s never been any evidence, and no one’s really left Pallet Town since then. Only that time dad and I went to Viridian City, and you were there for that part.”

  With a rushing of air and fire, Charizard returned to the campsite. Dillon and Sam abruptly ceased arguing as Jesse conferred with his Pokémon. Apparently satisfied, Jesse called to the boys, “Those grunts from this morning are long gone, so we get to have a campfire tonight! Find Owen, and let’s get ready for tomorrow.”

  Sam looked at Dillon. “Hey, I’m already comfortable. You go find him.”

  Dillon stood and rushed to where Owen and his Pokémon had gone to, with Pikachu hot on his heels.

  Golem slammed its heavy Rock body into the ground to make a crater. A burst of heavy vines exploded from Venusaur, and ripped down branches from nearby trees, stacking them neatly at the last moment. Blastoise put a finely controlled mist of water over the surrounding vegetation and Sam, while Charizard had the wood blazing with a cough of fire.

  “Sorry about that,” Jesse mumbled. “Safety.”

  Shivering and damp, Sam reluctantly exited his bag and repositioned his team and himself by the fire. “You really don’t miss a chance to train your Pokémon, do you?”

  “Try not to. Had a lot of nights outside like this.”

  “Was it ever with friends?”

  What do you think of the theme song in the chapter notes?