Ch 18

The answer to Leo's question about him being dark and/or psychic was another question. One that he did not have a prepared answer for, but Professor Oak seemed to have an infinite amount of patience that morning and was willing to wait.

"What do I think being dark means?" Leo asked, cocking his head to the side. The good Professor nodded, sipping on his coffee and watching Leo through the video phone. Before coming to this world a question like that would have been way too much to ask of him this early in the morning, with the sun just barely starting to rise to set the sky on fire outside the Pokemon Center windows, but that had changed ever since he had become an insufferable morning person. Now he had his wits about him in the early mornings, and could come up with an answer.

"Yes," Oak said, nodding appreciatively off screen as Merri levitated a packet of sugar over to him. Leo hummed in thought as the Professor added the sugar to his coffee and stirred it around. He…had ideas, but they were mostly esoteric, and most likely not what the Professor was looking for.

"I don't know," Leo admitted, scratching the back of his head. "Morty said something about being immune to psychic influence?"

"Forget what Morty said," Oak said, waving his hand dismissively. "Forget what anyone's told you. What do you think, Leo?"

"Uh…I guess it might make me harder for psychics to detect?" Leo asked more than said. The Professor sighed, shaking his head and looked off screen once again. His face morphed into an incredulous expression.

"Gary, eat your food don't wear it. Thank you for helping, Merri," he grumbled, standing up then sitting back down as whatever was happening off-screen was apparently handled by Merri. As much as the Alakazam didn't like Gary, she did help out plenty enough with keeping the rambunctious boy out of too much trouble. "Leo, stop thinking in terms of types. We cannot classify humans in the same sense that we classify pokémon in – in fact, most pokémon have many arguments against their respective typings. Did you know that Typhlosion were once considered fire and rock types? The eruption technique that the stronger members of the species can learn is a technique that is, arguably, both fire and rock type as well, which was part of the reasoning for that classification. Stop thinking in terms of types," Oak lectured, and Leo grumbled to himself, scratching the back of his head.

That was…fair enough, he supposed. Leo frowned and hesitated a moment more, considering what he knew. Or, more importantly, what he could infer. Why did psychics like him? Why did Merri like him? He recalled their conversations about why she avoided Gary for the most part – it was because his mind was too loud.

"Silence," Leo said, more musing aloud than anything else.

"Yes," the Professor said, pleased. "It's about silence. It's about being able to silence your mind without ceasing function – on a very basic level, being Dark is about being able to live without thinking, but not without thought. This alone makes it hard for most psychics to detect your mind, and is usually where 'trained' dark people stop. A natural dark, like yourself, has that same effect plus some. It's like taking your mind and draping a blanket over it, then shutting off the lights. When you shut off your mind or close it off, essentially walling the brainwaves psychics sense in, a talented psychic may be able to find it but they won't be able to do more than feel your presence. Not only that but you'll be able to slip from their grasp on a physical level far easier. And that's with you not making a conscious effort to hide," he explained. Leo snorted.

"Live without thinking, but not without thought. Sounds about right; we both know I don't always think before I act," Leo smirked. Oak laughed and nodded, extending one hand to the side and pulling a syrup-covered Gary on screen, the boy grinning unapologetically at the screen. "What on earth did you do, goofball?" Leo laughed, shaking his head.

"Made Merri grumpy," he said with a confident smirk, earning himself another telekinetically thrown syrup-covered pancake to the face from Merri. He had the gall to just laugh, muffled thought it was by pancake, even as the Professor gave Merri the stink eye. "So are you psychic? Gramps was saying you might be,"

"I dunno, am I?" Leo asked, quirking an eyebrow. He had a better idea of what being dark meant now, but had no idea of the other.

"Technically? Yes. Officially? I do not believe you would qualify as a psychic according to the Saffron Psychics Association," he said, shaking his head and peeling the pancake off of Gary when the boy made it clear he had no desire to remove his impromptu facemask. "All people have some level of psychic ability, yours is pretty average, and how it manifests is usually called 'instinct.' That, however, is not enough for the psychics to accept you as a 'true' psychic. You'd need to exhibit abilities like sensing emotions, telekinesis, or something like that. My best guess as to what happened with your levitating during the Spiritomb incident was a combination of Spiritomb's ghost abilities levitating you – we've both seen it can levitate its keystone – and Longinus' gem. That is a powerful psychic focus, it wouldn't be unthinkable that it would have some effect on…bolstering psychic abilities," Oak explained patiently. "Or at least, making it easier for them to flow through you. Most ghosts do have psychic abilities too, you know,"

"So I'm not, by technical definition, a psychic then," Leo clarified.

"No, you are not. Using items to help amplify psychic powers does not count," Oak said, shaking his head. Leo hummed and nodded. For a moment longer the two chatted – mostly about Leo's plans from here and what Daisy was doing; Professor Oak and Gary both seemed surprised that Daisy would be travelling with him for a bit, so there was that, but eventually the call was ended as the two Oaks needed to go about their day.

Leo sighed and leaned back in his chair, pulling Spiritomb's keystone out of his pocket and running his thumb along the edges of the cube. The ghost hissed at him gently, almost a little subdued as he stood and headed to the Center lobby, where Daisy was probably already waiting for him. At least he had something of an answer to the psychic question now.

Leo hummed happily as he examined his souvenir, glad to be on the road again and out of Ecruteak, the bustling tourist-laden city sprawled out behind them like the urban forest it was. Daisy watched him with some amusement from the side as he flipped the wooden, leaf-shaped object in his hands over and over. They'd walked past a few mom-and-pop shops that sold little curios and such on the way out of town and of course one had something that caught Leo's eye – a bellossom leaf replica. Not only that, but it was actually an instrument, sounding like a mix of a flute and a harmonica that could somewhat replicate the sound of a bellossom leaf; it wasn't the same, of course, but it was close enough that Leo could play those songs without butchering them. Potentially.

He just had to figure out how to actually play the stupid thing, because it was different than the leaf.

"Why am I not surprised that the first thing you buy when you get a bit of money is something to do with bellossom," Daisy said, shaking her head. Her Clefairy skipped happily beside her, twinkling motes of silver light left glittering in its wake.

"What do you mean?" Leo asked, confused, and considering letting Zuko out to roam. He eventually decided against it as he wasn't ready to put out literal fires yet. Zuko could be a bit overenthusiastic when chasing bugs and rattatta, after all.

"Back on the ranch you'd always be playing with the oddish line, bellossom first and foremost. I'm actually shocked you don't have one on your team yet, I figured it'd be the first thing you'd catch," Daisy said, and Leo frowned.

"Can't say I haven't considered it, but I guess none have really caught my eye. Nor I theirs. If one asked to come along I'd catch it, but I'm not going to just catch any old oddish," Leo said with a shrug. A buzzing and droning sound from above had Leo looking up, pausing to watch a swarm of magnemite drift along the power lines that led to Ecruteak, sparks occasionally shooting off their glinting, metallic bodies.

"You never know if a pokémon will actually fit in with the rest of your team until you try it," Daisy argued, and Leo laughed, shrugging.

"So why did you want to follow me?" Leo asked, changing the subject. "Instead of, you know, going back to the Ranch to spend time with Gary or something," Daisy shot him a sharp look, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes and Leo immediately knew he stepped on a proverbial landmine.

"Are you trying to guilt trip me? Is gramps putting you up to this?" she snapped.

"Uh, no, no," Leo said, raising his hands up defensively and thanking his stars that Daisy had unwittingly given him a way out of the danger zone. "I was actually thinking he might've told you to follow me considering all the trouble I tend to get myself into," Daisy met his eyes for a few more moments, never slowing her stride, then snorted and shook her head.

"No, he didn't. I'm actually being honest when I said I need a bit of a break from training. It's…not as appealing to me as it was when I first started out, and I don't know what I want to do anymore," she admitted glumly, surprising Leo none. She was a talented trainer, that was never in doubt, but she had never struck Leo as the get-badges type of trainer either. He was surprised she got as far as she did, actually. "That, and I wanted to enter a competition with you," she said.

"Competition?" Leo echoed.

"Yes, the bug catching competition in the National Park. They're having a special duo's style competition this weekend, and I heard rumors that the grand prize may be a moon stone. Clefairy here isn't quite ready to evolve yet, but I want to have the stone for when she is," Daisy said confidently.

"Why me? Don't you have other trainer friends, with more badges, that would be better help? In case I must remind you, I am twelve," Leo said, arching an eyebrow at her and blowing on his new leaf-flute experimentally. The sharp whistle made him wince and glare at the offending piece of wood. That was not what he wanted it to sound like.

"That's where the 'duo' bit comes to play. It's a mentor and mentee competition. Competitors are to either bring their own rookie or will be assigned one from the local schools – or you'll be assigned a rookie trainer. Anyone who has been a trainer for three months or less or is below the age of fourteen is the rule, I believe. Trainers don't just have to start their journey at the beginning of the league season, after all, so there's plenty of rookies to go around. The idea is that veteran trainers are to show the wanna-be or rookie trainers the ropes of catching a pokémon – and I'd rather not get saddled with some random kid," she said with a shrug.

"So you want to cheat by bringing someone who's underage, but still a trainer?" Leo asked. He might've only been a trainer for a few months, but he was past the "less than three months" line for certain.

"Nope, it's not cheating. Youngsters are encouraged to come as well…think of it as a way to assess how you're faring on your journey." Daisy said. "Besides, it doesn't automatically mean we'll win," she said, and Leo sighed, watching a pidgey peck at the ground just off the side of the road. It chirped a few times and hopped off, not even bothering to fly away when the two trainers neared.

"If you say so. Let me think about it," Leo said, scratching the back of his neck. He technically fit the criteria for age, if not length of time training, but it still might feel weird. It'd probably be a decent learning experience, though. Daisy has been travelling for a while…and if I remember right, the National Park competition in the games is a place to catch bugs? I don't know much about bug pokémon. He mused.

"I'll let you keep the pokémon we catch. There are some rare species like pinsir and scyther in the National Park. Sometimes they'll even bring in foreign bugs," she tried to entice him.

"The last thing I need is another member of my team right now. I'd rather focus on getting who I have up to snuff – adding too many at once could wear me out. So unless there's something I absolutely cannot pass up like, I dunno, a larvesta or accelgor then nah," he reasoned. "But if there's a cash prize I'll take that,"

"Deal," Daisy said quickly, grinning at him cheekily. It was only then that he realized he had essentially agreed to compete with her. I probably would've agreed sooner or later anyway, he thought with a mental sigh. It's not like he'd be doing any harm by competing, not really, but maybe he could get something else out of this deal if she was essentially going to be using him.

"You need to help me train a bit, though," he added, meeting Daisy's gaze. Her grin widened and she shrugged.

"I can do that. Anything in particular you're wanting to work on?" she asked. He hummed in thought, considering what flaws he needed his team to cover. Some things wouldn't be possible to really cover right now – he'd have to spend money on TM's to expand Zuko's move pool but those were way out of his budget range. Besides, he'd been considering Zuko's admittedly limited move pool, and thinking hard about where his training could go. He wasn't sure that adding a whole bunch of various moves to his repertoire was the play.

"Combo moves, first and foremost. Zuko – my Quilava – can only learn so many moves at the moment so he needs to string them together somehow. I'd like to teach him flame charge as well, but for the moment the idea isn't to overload him with new moves. It's to enhance his use of his current moveset, so anything he can use can be applied to as many situations as possible. Swift would be a good addition as well though, give him another ranged move," he rattled off.

"And the others?" Daisy asked, frowning. He got the feeling she wouldn't be able to help him much there if her reaction was anything to go by.

"Diana needs work on ranged attacking. She's a savage beast in close quarters, but she's a sitting ducklett at range. The pokedex says she can't learn shadow ball, unfortunately, but accuracy training with rock throw might be best. Santiago…well, he needs work on his psychic abilities and with combo moves as well. I'd like to get him to strategize more rather than be a berserker, but that's like asking a rock to stop being a rock. It's what he does," Leo laughed, shaking his head. He loved his stubborn slowpoke, he did, but Santiago needed to learn to listen.

"And your ghost?"

"I'll handle that one," Leo said dismissively. "It needs to learn to focus its mind more, but I don't want to risk you setting it off by trying to train it or anything. We still know very little about it," he reasoned, Spiritomb waking up with a quiet hiss as the topic of conversation moved to it. It had probably been paying attention the whole time.

"I think I can help you with some of that. You said you got shadow ball from Morty right? I might consider teaching that to Santiago or your ghost. It might help with their focus – the move is intensive for weaker pokémon, and they learn to focus their energies better by learning a powerful move like that. Aim training is easy too, we'd just need space and time, but Zuko…well the most I can help with there is combo moves, though I might have an idea for flame charge. It's largely considered to be superior than flame wheel so you're on the right track there.

"Release him, and we can get started," Daisy commanded.

"Now?" he asked.

"Now. Flame charge should be simple enough – all it is, is a run cloaked in flame. Mastery of the move means he'll get faster as he goes, but right now we can at least try to get the basics down by having him run sprints and trying to keep the flame cloak of flame wheel up – minus the rotation aspect," she explained. Leo hummed and didn't argue, letting Zuko out of his pokeball and watching the Quilava closely as he sniffed the air.

"Zuko, focus," he said, snapping his fingers to get his attention. The Quilava snapped his head to Leo, at full attention. In turn Leo glanced at Daisy with a raised eyebrow, waiting for instruction, but to his surprise she didn't immediately take charge and start commanding Zuko around. Instead she gave Leo instructions, guiding him on how to train Zuko rather than doing the training herself. And soon enough Zuko was running sprints, running back and forth down the road as flame sparked and sputtered along his blue hide, wanting to ignite but not quite getting there.

This continued for a few minutes until he wore himself out and Leo recalled him and let him rest for a while. Once he'd had an hour or so of rest Leo let him back out and told him to do the same thing again – albeit slower this time, so as not to wear him out as fast. Intense training like that couldn't last forever, however, so eventually he was forced to put the training to an end – but it had killed a good few hours and Zuko had made impressive headway. His talent with fire type moves remained as strong as ever.

When night fell and the two made camp Leo let out Santiago to train a bit while Zuko rested by the fire – having not been allowed to lay on the coals this time – and Diana explored and played with Daisy's team. Unfortunately Daisy didn't have anything new to help him with on that front. She didn't have a slowpoke, and the psychic training she suggested was what he was already doing; training Santiago's finesse rather than his power.

Once his starter's patience had worn thin, however, Leo settled back to watch Daisy interact with her own team. Her Meganium leaned into her touch, the floral dinosaur cooing as she murmured softly to it and trimmed its petals – using clippers to pull away brown spots and allow for fresh growth. Leo remembered pruning his mother's garden when he was younger, pulling off dead flowers from bushes, so he assumed it was a similar process. Her Clefairy tried to help, of course, jumping up and down and tossing fistfuls of "fairy dust" across Meganium's back as it sang a soft, lilting song.

It was nothing like the bellossom song, but at the same time eerily similar. While the bellossom sang of springtime and growth, Clefairy's song was just as fitting for its own typing – the tune itself reminded Leo of a night like tonight; a warm fire, good company, and a sky full of stars.

His attention was pulled away from the song by a loud crash and a whine that sounded suspiciously like Diana. With a swift movement he stood, glaring at where Diana and Daisy's newest teammate, a Ponyta, had been inspecting each other. Diana was rubbing her forehead, and Ponyta was pawing the ground angrily, snorting flames. Leo started to step forward to intervene in the brewing fight, but Daisy stopped him.

"Wait," she said, standing up from beside Meganium and placing a hand on his shoulder. "I want Ponyta to learn not to pick fights. He's too ornery for his own good," she whispered. Leo grit his teeth and glared at her, about to say that it wasn't her team that was being attacked, but this time it was his own team to keep him quiet.

A thin stream of water splashed Ponyta's face, Santiago gurgling in the back of his throat and slowly ambling forward, tail swishing lazily and drawing the flaming horse's attention to him. It snorted flames again, with no reaction from Santiago other than to slowly saunter in-between Diana and Ponyta and flop down on the ground.

"Sloooow," he called, voicing his thoughts on the matter.

Ponyta neighed and stomped its hooves right beside him, pawing at the ground and trying to elicit a reaction. Clearly it had not met any slowpoke before if it expected a reaction from just that. Tossing its head and sending sparks flying from its fiery mane, Ponyta reared up and snorted out a small burst of fire that splashed against Santiago's back, warming his thick hide but probably doing no harm.

Leo counted down the seconds until Santiago would react – usually it was around four or five – and silently marveled at his starter's actions. The derpy pink blob was smarter than he let on, Leo knew.

"…and one," Leo finished with a nod and, while Ponyta was rearing up to stomp at Santiago once more, the slowpoke whipped his head up in one motion and blasted it in the face with a water pulse, sending the fire horse cantering away with a distressed neigh. Leo snickered, which then evolved into a full blown laugh when Diana picked up a small pebble and tossed it after Ponyta, only for Santiago to whirl around and blast her with a weak water gun.

"Sloooow," he called while she whined piteously and wiped her face, water dripping from her jaw. Leo mentally translated it as don't pick fights. Ironic, considering his battle-mania.

"Did you see that?" Leo wheezed, shaking his head. Daisy patted his back, amused but not dying of laughter like he was.

"I did. I was standing right next to you," she said, clapping her hands and whistling sharply for Ponyta, walking after where it had cantered down the path a little way. They had camped not far off the road, after all. "I told you not to pick fights, didn't I? Now get back here so I can dry you off," she called. Leo reigned in his chuckles and sat down again, calling Diana over and letting her snuggle up next to his leg to calm down.

"Tired, munchkin?" he asked after a few quiet moments, petting her head. She didn't reply, staring at the fire where Zuko had stuck his muzzle into the flames – technically not lying on the coals, but enough that he could enjoy the heat. "Clever boy. Get some rest, we'll be doing more training in the morning," he said, trying to figure out how to incorporate Diana's aim training into their travel.

It turns out he didn't have to, as when they all got up in the morning Daisy dedicated a good hour to having Diana use rock throw on her pidgeot – who she had, for whatever reason, not let out of his ball last night. The massive avian dodged Diana's attacks with ease, smashing a few of the larger stones with steel wing and catching the smaller stones in its talons. The inconsistency of Diana's throwing skills, however, made Leo wonder if literally throwing rocks really was all there was to rock throw – or if there was some other aspect involved. Terramancy? Earthkinesis? He didn't actually know the word, but he would hedge his bets that teaching Diana to control earth and stone was the next step to teaching her more advanced moves like rock tomb or rock slide. Or heck, even to just improve her accuracy. For that matter, could rock throw be adjusted mid-air with enough skill in terrakinesis? Like, if a rock-type was able to control a stone in the air as it flew, could it potentially be turned into a homing rock missile?

These were the kinds of thoughts Leo considered as the two travelled, Daisy occasionally letting out her team members to do their own travel/training. Thankfully, however, his thinking was often interrupted by trainers seeking battle – most of the time it was against casual trainers, which earned him a small bit more pocket change with the few wagers they'd placed, while Daisy took on the more serious competition.

It was a bit annoying actually; Leo enjoyed battling the veterans, even if he almost never won. Though his win/loss ratio on his official battle record suffered for it, the tips and experience he got just by battling them was more than worth it. Still…that didn't mean he let the opportunity to observe two high-badge level trainers duke it out go to waste. There was much to learn from there, as well.

And so the days went in relative peace. Spiritomb was pretty quiet for most of the trip, only occasionally pranking Daisy or himself by waking them up in the middle of the night with an eerie screech, or even whispering in Leo's ears and making shadows dance in the forest. Which made things nice and simple and pleasant – all the way up until they reached the outskirts of Goldenrod, and the National Park.

"I didn't realize it would be a big festival," Leo said, his head swiveling as fast as it could as he looked at each of the food stands and souvenir tents that had been set up for the celebration. Children ran about with sticks of dango or balls of mochi in clean paper cups, screaming and laughing as the adults meandered about, chatting with each other, looking at the wide variety of stands and shops, and occasionally chasing their own children.

"This is nothing," Daisy said from where she was looking through a rack of handmade scarves. "Just wait until you see the Championship festival – now that's a festival,"

"She's right, you know," the kind old man that ran the "handmade clothes" stand Daisy was looking through said. "For shops like mine who travel from festival to celebration to festival from year to year, the yearly Champion's Cup celebrations are our biggest selling points. I do more business in those three weeks than I do in three months the rest of the year,"

Leo hummed and toyed with his bellossom leaf flute, eyes flicking to Daisy's Clefairy as it circled his feet, giggling uncontrollably. It had heard him whistle the bellossom song a few days earlier and now was bound and determined to teach him its own moon song. He was only too happy to oblige. It was a lovely tune, though not quite as catchy as the bellossom song.

"Think Gary'll like this?" Daisy suddenly asked, picking up a pair of fingerless gloves made of blackened tauros leather.

"He's ten; if you get him clothes he'll hate it," Leo reasoned, raising an eyebrow as Clefairy lost interest, dancing back over to Daisy. It was the one pokémon she kept out near constantly, despite its rarity. Clearly she did not think it too dangerous to keep such a rare pokémon out in the open – probably because she had the strength to back it up.

He himself would have Zuko out, but one glance at the crowds had convinced the Quilava that staying out was a bad idea, and had whined until Leo returned him.

"True, but I'm not going to get him a larvitar, either. He's already asked me for one," she said, rolling her eyes. "Still, I'd like to get him something as a gift,"

"Then get him a hat or something – gloves he'll grow out of, a hat or necklace he can adjust to fit as he grows. Maybe even a small pocketknife would be good – something practical, and boys like him and me love sharp pokey things," Leo said, shrugging and picking up a pair of thick leather gloves. Now that he thought about it, a good pair of gloves would be awesome…but these were way too expensive. A hundred dollars for these things? Leo eyed the gloves, and pinched the leather, testing its thickness. His old pair were getting pretty ratty, and were rather cheap.

Plus these might let him pet Zuko when he got all worked up and his body temperature rose beyond safe levels for a human…

"Boys and their weapons," Daisy said with a sigh. "But a necklace isn't a bad idea. Gary hates hats,"

"If it's a necklace from his sister you can bet that he'll wear it. I'll take a pair of these," Leo said, purchasing the gloves from the old man, forking over the cash and promptly stuffing the gloves into his backpack. He could use them later.

For the next hour Leo and Daisy wandered the festival, both searching for the Bug Catching Competition sign-up desk and just looking around. The competition didn't start until tomorrow, so they had time and were in no rush.

There was, admittedly, a lot of cool stuff to see in the festival. People sold pokémon, mostly local 'mon specifically bred for certain traits but occasionally there were rare or even foreign pokémon – they were ungodly expensive, even for something as common as a lillipup – on display either on leashes or upon request. What ended up catching Leo's eye, however, was a Unovan style setup that sold what appeared to be music albums, movies, and other "unovan," or in Leo's mind, "American" style paraphernalia.

"Hello! Anything in particular you're looking for?" the employee manning the stand asked in a heavy unovan accent, gesturing grandly at the relatively large setup. There were at least three racks of miscellaneous items in the small tent, most of which were of movies. Unovan films were widely considered the best, after all. That was, of course, counting the fact that only Unova and Kalos had dedicated movie studios.

"Nah, just looking. You mostly just sell entertainment stuff?" Leo asked, approaching the counter while Daisy browsed the movies.

"Mostly. It is what Unova is most known for after all!" he said proudly. "You are a trainer, right? I can see the pokeballs on your belt. With your sister?" he asked, looking over at Daisy as she examined a rack of

"I am a trainer," Leo agreed, not bothering to respond to the other statement. They weren't brother and sister, of course, but he also didn't think it important to correct.

"Then here, I have just the thing for you. A way to listen to music on the go!" he proclaimed with a smirk, presenting a small square object that looked suspiciously like an iPod. "The newest model just released, and comes pre-downloaded with some of the greatest hits from Unova and Galar,"

It didn't matter if he wanted the thing or not, Leo already knew it was out of his price-range. Besides, he would never listen to it on the road – there was too much to miss out in the wilds – so it would probably end up in the bottom of his pack to collect dust sooner or later. That wasn't to say he wasn't intrigued, he did like his music, but still.

"What music?" Leo found himself asking despite his internal dilemma. If for no other reason than to appear politely interested.

"Well there's a few classics – the Toxtricities are always a hit, their debut album is on here; there's also Koffing and the Toxics, they toured Kanto earlier this year actually. Their new album is outstanding," and from there the man started to rattle off a few more names and albums that Leo had never heard of. He just nodded along for a while until he was offered a pair of earbuds to "hear the quality for yourself." This, of course, was said all loud enough for Daisy to hear because the salesman knew what he was doing and wasn't looking to sell the item to Leo – he was trying to sell it to Daisy for Leo.

Putting the earbuds in Leo hummed as the man selected a song to play, claiming it was the newest hit from Koffing and the Toxics. The rapid strumming of a guitar rang out in Leo's ears, followed by a line that was unmistakable despite them being sung by a female voice and sung to a tune he was unused to.

"I wanna be the very best,

Like no one ever was.

Leo pressed the earbuds deeper, closing his eyes and biting his lip as he listened to the song, a sudden spark of unexpected hope welling up in his chest.

"To catch them is my real test,

To train them is my cause!"

"No way," Leo whispered, swinging his backpack off of his back and digging through it to search for his notebook. While most of his stuff was safely stored in the hotel room Daisy had booked for them two weeks ago – apparently she had been planning this little trip for a while – his important items were still with him.

"I will travel across the land,

Searching far and wide.

Finding the notebook he flicked it open to the first page, tracing the lyrics to the song he had written down in those first few days of being here, more to remember it than anything else.

"Each pokémon to understand

The power that's inside!

Pokemon!

Gotta catch em' all!"

Leo covered his mouth with one hand as he traced the lyrics, word for word, in the notebook.

"Leo, you ok?" Daisy asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. Leo waved her off and smacked his face with his book, trying to reign in his emotions. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry – two years he'd been in this world, two years in which he'd asked Oak to keep an eye out for people with stories like his, two years not knowing what fate befell his best friend and the first clue he got was out of some random shop when he least expected it.

"I cannot believe he did this," Leo managed to get out, ripping the earbuds out and moving toward the racks, searching through the CD's for the newest Koffing and the Toxics album. Daisy said something else but Leo was too engrossed to hear it, all but ripping the CD off the shelf and opening it up, thanking the gods that the little information packet that rarely came with CD's was in there. "There it is, Pokemon League Theme song lyrics…sung by Roxie, drums by…don't care, don't care, who wrote the song? HA! I KNEW IT!" Leo howled in triumph, holding the little information packet aloft. There, in italics at the very bottom almost illegible in their size, was the line written by Jack Spalding.

"Leo," Daisy started, but was cut off by a complete one eighty in Leo's mood.

"That rat bastard! He ripped of a song!" he shouted, then glanced at the packet again. "House of the Rising Sun, I Fought the Law…how many songs did he steal?! Scratch that, how did he get them published?! How did he get a band to sing them?!" Leo roared, stomping his foot.

"Leo! What is going on with you?!" Daisy yelled, grabbing Leo by the shoulders and shaking him. Leo just grinned at her manically, eyes watering with unrestrained joy.

"I found my buddy. Now I just need to figure out how to contact him. How much for the CD?" Leo asked, and that, as they say, was that.

"Llllaaaadddies and Gentlemen! I welcome you to the seventy fifth annual National Park Bug Catching Competition!" the announcer howled into the microphone, making Leo wince. His head was pounding, he was tired, and there was way too much noise considering how late he'd stayed up last night. It was time well-spent, mind you, what with him having been researching just how to contact Jack in Unova – he hadn't found an address or anything, and mail between regions was sparse, but a short call to Professor Oak had solved the mailing issue. He did have a contact in Professor Juniper, and she may be able to help on that front.

On that note, the Professor was both surprised and elated to find that Leo had found a clue as to where Jack was. The older man had admitted he had completely forgotten about the friend Leo had arrived on this world with, as there had been no news beyond his story, but that he'd try his best to get them connected. In the meantime, however, Leo had an obligation to help Daisy with the bug catching competition.

He yawned and focused on the competition, glancing around at the other people. There were actually quite a few other Youngsters, as far as he could tell, and a lot of people had prepared bug nets. There were also a lot of people – over fifty competitors, which meant that almost all bug pokémon in the area would either flee in the first thirty minutes, or they'd already gone.

When Leo relayed as much to Daisy she just nodded, having already been palming her Pidgeot's pokeball. They were only allowed one pokémon per team, and she chose Pidgeot due to its keen eyes and high maneuverability. The plan was to jump on its back the moment the crowds were gone, and get ahead of the fleeing bug types that were bred and released into the wild just for this occasion. The speech continued on for a little while longer, then, with a grand flourish the announcer produced a flare gun from his sleeve and promptly fired it into the air with a shouted "go!" Music blared in the background, the literal Pokemon Theme Song blazing to life over the surrounding speakers.

Leo had barely enough time to close his eyes and mutter a quick prayer to the pokémon gods, praying that this song hadn't caught on as much as he thought it had. Then Daisy released Pidgeot, the proud avian shrieking into the air and flaring its wings, and all thoughts fled his mind. It was time to go hunting.