Odd let the fear inside him die out as the other people came to his aid. He dried his face, but tried to maintain a whimper in his voice when he spoke to his rescuers.<br/>"I-i thought he was stealing my badge." Odd thought of what to add, in order to turn their annoyance with him into pity: "I-i just won it an hour ago."<br/><br/>The assailant had a boulder badge of his own, and he had recalled the strange bird pokemonWhen he attacked. Before Odd had started crying he had briefly calculated what he stood to lose if he cried for help without a genuine threat involved, and the answer was that he would look like a frightened ten-year-old boy. It would be a bit of an embarrassment, but the negative consequences of being alone with a thief in the woods at night were so overwhelming that calling for help had been the only sane move to make.<br/><br/>The people he had originally exchanged glances with at the camp-fire had shown up, including the hideous black rodent that had originally scared him genuinely, but in addition a young man had arrived from a different direction. Odd made a mental note of the power there was in calling for help.<br/>"My... my cubone is hurt," Odd whispered and looked down at his shoes. He noticed his socks did not match, and wondered if they were even supposed to, before returning his thoughts to the cubone with the injured arm, which now rested inside the pokeball in his pocket. "I would like to go to the pokemon center, too. I would have abra teleport me, but he is tired."<br/><br/>Odd was a very new trainer, and he had thought pokeballs restored the pokemon inside it. He did not know why he had thought so, actually, it had just made intuitive sense to him. He knew pokemon were not suspended in a field of stasis within them, since the condition of a poisoned pokemon would continuously deteriorate over time, and he had heard stories of pokemon leaving their pokeballs on their own when exposed to outside stimuli, so the pokemon inside would even have to be aware of the surroundings. Odd shrugged; now was not the time for pondering the mechanics of pokeballs, now was the time to get his cubone healed and the abra rested.<br/>He could not walk through the forest alone, but he could not trust the young man, who also wanted to go the pokemon center.<br/>â€œPerhapsâ€¦ perhaps we can rest at the fire. And then when abra is well again, I can teleport those who wish it toâ€¦ which town comes after Pewter?â€ Odd hoped they were not all going, because that would be too heavy a burden, even with his abra in peak condition. â€œMy name is Odd.â€