RUN, MISTY, RUN!
CHAPTER TWO: TRIAL BY FIRE

Frustrated, Misty tossed her pokeball at the Ponyta. The snorting, bucking beast disappeared in a flash. The young trainer stared at the ball, resisting the impulse to toss it in the bay. Why had she ever thought training Fire Pokemon would be a good idea?
Because Aidan talked me into it, she told herself as she picked up the ball and reattached it to her belt. After she lost a match to him, he scolded her that her team of all Water Pokemon was too limited, and suggested she branch out into other Pokemon types. He even gave her a hot tip on where to snag a free Ponyta. The Piebald townsfolk were holding their annual roundup, making the Ponytas swim from the island of Skewbald where they ran free and wild, across the bay and into town, where a few were sold at a festival. The catch was, if you caught a Ponyta in the water, you got it for free.
Misty cursed herself for falling for that. She had figured her Water team, especially the newly evolved Gyarados, would make a capture easy. And she was right.
Unfortunately, the townsfolk were outraged at what she did. They couldn't put her in jail because she won the Ponyta fair and square. But they did make things awfully uncomfortable for her in town. Every hotel she tried to book into suddenly hung out a 'no vacancy' sign, and no restaurant she wanted to eat at had a free table. She was forced to sleep under a picnic table in the park and subsist on the ration bars in her backpack. All in all, a miserable start to her Journey.
But at least she had her Ponyta. That's what she kept telling herself, right up until she first released it from its ball to begin training. The flaming pony immediately turned tail, galloped across the beach and plunged into the bay, swimming for home. Misty screamed in fury, and rode Gyarados after it. After hours of trudging through the saw-edged salt grass, swatting mosquitos and sinking into stagnant water every other step, she found the Ponyta again and recaptured it. Deciding it had been spooked to find itself in Piebald, she figured it was better to stay on the island for a while and train it in familiar surroundings. After all, the living accommodations weren't too much worse than in town, and at least here she could forage for wild berries to supplement her ration bars.
She tried - she really did try. But the Ponyta was the most aggravating Pokemon she'd ever encountered. She was used to training Water Pokemon, and her training style only confused the Fire type. Every session ended in it trying to escape and her giving up in frustration, as she just did. Misty was beginning to suspect Aidan sent her out on a wild goose chase.
"Maybe he knows I'm only good at training Water types and he sent me out after other kinds because he knew I'd fail," she muttered darkly. "I'll spend years wasting my time trying to train Fire types when I should have been perfecting my Water type training skills. And I'll keep losing! I knew he must have had a sneaky reason for being so nice to me."
"Now, that is hardly fair," a familiar voice chided.
Misty whirled around. "How - how did you know I was here? And how do you keep sneaking up on me like that!"
"All I had to do was ask around Piebald. You made quite an impression on the townsfolk."
"You bet I did," she snarled. "They treated me like a pile of . . . of . . . never mind. I thought you said it was Ok to take a Ponyta!"
"It was, at least when I was here last," Aidan said. "The Piebalders have gotten greedy. I'm so sorry I got you into this mess. I was just passing through and wanted to check up on you. When I heard how they treated you, I rented a boat and came out here to make sure you were all right. Can you ever forgive me?"
Misty glared at him. He really did look sorry. And he was so handsome . . . she quickly banished that thought. Anyone would look good after being rejected and on her own so long. And maybe he'd brought some food . . .
"Are you hungry? I am. I brought a picnic lunch."
Before he could blink, Misty snatched the basket from his outstretched hand and dug into it. Yum! Delicious, chewy rice balls wrapped in flavorful seaweed, fragrant, melt-in-your mouth slices of fish, and even a tub of her favorite brand of vanilla-almond flavored ice cream. Sighing in delight, she settled down to feast.
As soon as her eating slowed down, she poured out her troubles with Ponyta into Aidan's sympathetic ear.
He nodded gravely, then said. "I believe you've diagnosed your own problem. You simply don't have the feel for how to train Fire Pokemon. The elemental core of their being is not just different from a Water Pokemon, it is completely opposite to it."
"How do I get a feel for Fire types," Misty asked, licking a last grain of rice off her cheek. She swallowed. "I can't seem to connect with Ponyta at all."
"There is a way," Aidan said slowly. He glanced up. Far off in the east, the sky was a gorgeous dark blue. To the west, the clouds were pink, edged with electric orange against a purple-lavender sky. The sun, swollen and red as a ripe tomato, was sliding below the tree line. "It's getting dark," he said. "I should be heading back."
"Wait," Misty wailed. "Please, you've got to tell me!"
"I've said too much. The way is effective, but it isn't exactly legal - or safe."
With a sly glance, Misty teased, "You were the one who told me to steal a Ponyta! And look where it got me. All alone in a buggy, nasty swamp. I sleep in damp tent, I eat roots and pine nuts, I haven't worn dry socks in a week! Come on, you owe it to me."
Aidan sighed. "All right, you've guilted me into it."
He reached into his pocket and drew out a pokeball.
But not just an ordinary pokeball.
The metallic part was a brilliant pale silver instead of the normal dull steel, and instead of red plastic, the other half seemed to be made of inlaid pearl, a silvery sheen full of shifting washes of blue and pink.
"Wow," Misty breathed. "What kind of pokeball is that?"
"An extremely rare and experimental form," he said. "I have relatives who work for a lab devoted to inventing new and better pokeballs, and I was able to obtain one of these beauties before they become available to the general public. You know how normal pokeballs work, correct?"
"Sort of," she said, blushing. "I kind of skipped over that part in my training."
"Well, it's complicated. I'm not sure I can explain it adequately. What they do is create a sort of pocket universe. The captured Pokemon is converted into energy and stored as a pattern in this pocket universe. This ball can play back the pattern without recreating the Pokemon in material form, the way a CD can play back music without needing to create a band and singers."
"So it lets you read a Pokemon's mind?"
"In a way. This device plays the energy pattern back into your mind. The pattern takes over your brain completely, but like a dream. You've heard of the expression sports players use, 'be the ball'? Well, you believe you are that Pokemon."
"Sounds dangerous," she said. "What if I try to eat grass and make myself sick, or run around on my hands and knees and get cut up?"
"Unless you have a history of sleepwalking you should be perfectly safe. You'll sleep through the experience, and wake up knowing how it feels to be a Ponyta. The insights this ball have given me have helped my training immensely."
He held the glittering Dream Ball out to her. Almost as if she were in a dream already, Misty felt herself take it from him. It felt very solid and real on her palm.
"Aidan, I don't know how I can ever thank you for this."
He stood and gathered up the picnic remains. As he walked down the path back to the beach, he waved and said quietly to himself, "Oh, I'm sure we'll think of a way."