A New Life Through The Eyes Of Kanto: An Autobiography

The Enigma Of Ninjas

"What are you doing here?" I asked Aly, happy to see her, yet surprised she was in front of me.

"I was on my way out of here, to be honest," Aly answered.

"You're leaving? What did you come here for in the first place, then?"

"Duh, to get a Badge," Aly said in a sassy voice. "What are you, me, Kiwi, and Robin traveling for, Gary? To get the eight Badges and meet up at the Pokemon League so you can all lose to my awesome Pokemon. Gosh!"

I opened my mouth to retort her comment when something she said stuck in my mind.

Kiwi.

I'd completely forgotten all about her. Even when I called Prof. Oak about my Baltoy, I somehow didn't bring up my friend to him. I'd forgotten about her in all the drama over my battle with Robin. How could I be so forgetful about one of my best friends?

My mouth closed as I stared at Aly silently, thinking of what to say to her.

"I came here to battle Ozne, but I lost," Aly continued. "So, I'm done battling his Gym. I'm going to go and check out the zoo before I leave, though. And maybe I'll see some of the other areas. There's so much to see in Fuchsia. It's so beautiful here!"

"You're just giving up?" I asked in surprise. "What about having a rematch with Ozne? You should be practicing and getting ready for next time! Not taking a break."

"No, Gary," Aly said sharply. "We lost twice already, and the last time, we didn't even get to knock out one Pokemon of his. We'll try another Gym somewhere else. Training too hard is only going to hurt your Pokemon. Pokemon don't like to be pushed too hard. That's abuse."

"I'm not talking about abusing your Pokemon, Aly," I tried. "I only mean training. Pokemon love to battle. That's how they grow. That's how they get stronger. I understand taking a moment to recollect your strategy and giving your Pokemon a bit of time to relax, but you can't just stop. You have to keep the momentum up and keep striving for more. You have to push yourself and your Pokemon to overcome challenges like these. You only lost two times! That's not that bad... Didn't we leave on this journey accepting difficulties like these? Knowing it wouldn't be easy but promising to keep going?"

"You're wrong, Gary," Aly's voice was rising, getting upset. "That's abuse. Once your Pokemon get beaten, you need to just stop and find another way to go, or else you're just abusing your Pokemon and being selfish. You're only thinking of yourself by raising your Pokemon that way."

I sighed, knowing this was going nowhere with my good friend.

One thing about Aly was how opinionated she was. There were times when she believed she was right no matter what and refused to consider that other people had different opinions to her own, and she would defend hers to the death. At times, she could take things too far, completing ignoring any given apologies or clarifications being offered and just continue to verbally attack blindly, and resolving an issue could take days. Debating with her almost always turned into an argument.

"Well, Aly, I think my Pokemon enjoy battling and wouldn't like it if we just gave up and took a break," I spoke hesitantly. "I think they would want to keep on trying and come back as soon as we were stronger and show off all the hard work we did in our training."

"That's a load of crap," Aly dismissed quickly. "They don't want that at all!"

"How do you know?" I was now losing my cool. "You're not a Pokemon mind reader!"

"I know I'm right!" Aly shouted. "Your Pokemon deserve a break! You've been abusing them!"
"Me and my Pokemon want to train hard!" I shouted back. "It's what we all want to do! We're not slackers!"
"Oh, so now I'm a slacker?" Aly's fists balled up.