"Braaaaa... braaaa... braaaa..." The abra on his back snored a little louder and once again began kicking gently with the left leg. It was dreaming again, and Odd gave a smile and shook his head. A girl had placed herself at their fire, and Odd began to suspect that the true way to find opponents was to simply camp out and wait for people to come by you; Odd wondered if he should challenge either of the two to battle. Further down the road a second young man was coming towards them  and he intended to stay for the company as well. Odd looked at them all with eyes that were too calculating to belong to a normal ten-year-old boy.<br/><br/>Odd turned around lazily, as something made a soft sound, like a twig being stepped upon, but not breaking. He knew the world was filled dangers, and that to some pokemon he had the right size and texture to be classified as food, and so he always tried to be aware of his surroundings, but in this case he had felt no disturbance around him.<br/><br/>He shrieked at the sight of the sneasel. It was not just the sound of a boy being startled, but a genuine shriek of terror, in as high a vocal chord as his prepubescent throat could reach. Odd vanished in a flash and appeared further down the road in the direction away from the approaching trainer. Teleportation had not even been a concious decision, Abra had responded to his fear and brought him in relative safety.<br/><br/>Odd looked around. From the distance the sneasel blended into darkness and Odd once more found he had no ability to sense it. He could always see threats, that was how he stayed alive. He did not know how other ten-year-olds with just one or two low-level pokemon managed to walk unencumbered in a world where plenty of things would saw you as food or simply as a threat to be eliminated. A swarm of beedrills or zubats could kill a boy; a dozen different poison types could release a thick layer of smog and choke him to death; even a band of spearows could prove dangerous. Odd had a defence. He had an abra strapped to his back, constantly scanning the surroundings for signs of life and reading their minds for intention. Abra transmitted the results to Odd and teleported if he wished it.<br/>But the sneasel - or whatever pokemon that thing was, for Odd had never encountered one like it before - was blank! Abra could not register it, even when Odd looked directly at it Abra kept informing him there was nothing there. To Odd it presented a hole in the world, and now Odd had lost sight of it, too.<br/>Odd panicked and teleported again.<br/><br/>From a nearby treetop Odd shrieked desperately at the girl and the young man with the charmander: "Kill it! Find it and kill it, please!"<br/>He teleported again to another treetop on the opposite side of the road and observed them quietly, hoping the beast did not track him. It was small, but he had seen the claws, and Odd knew  size was not a reliable estimate for lethality. By now, though, Jack had caught up with his run-away monster, and with some strain Odd managed to catch sight of the shadowy pokemon as it revealed itself in the light of the fire. It had a trainer. It was controlled.<br/><br/>Odd teleported once more and appeared in the same spot as he had fled only seconds ago. The abra on his back was giving off short, heavy snores as it tried to catch its breath. "I apologize for that," Odd muttered and looked at the sneasel with big, sorrowful eyes. In the light of the fire it did not appear to reciprocate his sad feelings.<br/>"I... It startled me," he stammered. "I have never... seen a-anything like that."<br/><br/>"Murkrow!" Talons dug lightly into the tender flesh of his young shoulder, and then flew away again when he jumped in shock. This was another pokemon he had not sensed, and this was just a bird type. Was there something wrong with his abra? Had it somehow been poisoned or confused without picing up its assaulter? Maybe a zubat had managed to use Supersonic from a distance.<br/>Regardless, Odd noted, it had stolen his badge. It had stolen his first gym badge! It was a worthless piece of scrap metal, but it was his gym badge! Odd felt an inexplicable anger rise in him, replacing the fear he felt of the sneasel; the badge meant nothing, he could get a new one tomorrow without effort, and yet he suddenly felt attached to it. He dismissed the notion that he was becoming a real trainer and the badge was a show of prowess, and decided not to waste any more time contemplating why he was feeling angry, and instead focused his attention on the thief.<br/><br/>Odd teleported again, up in the air, but he did not get quite close enough to the murkrow to punch it. It would have been a much easier task if he could only sense it, but as it was he could barely even<span style="font-style: italic">see</span>it in the dim evening light. The murkrow made a mocking sound - or perhaps a startled one, it was hard to tell with pokemon - and went into a sharp dive. Odd managed to note its trajectory before he had to teleport back to the ground before he gained too much downward momentum, which would persist even when he teleported unto solid ground.<br/>As soon as he was back on steady ground again he teleported in the direction the murkrow had headed and no sooner did he arrive before he tossed his pokeball at the murkrow's trainer's thieving face with the words resounding in the forest "Bone club!"<br/><br/>The cubone that emerged gave a sad wail and rather than bash the thief in the face, it collided ineffectually with his shoulder and fell to the ground. The cubone slowly got up, making another sad wail and clutched its injured arm. The fight with Brock's onyx was still fresh and without a word the cubone was sent back into its pokeball, managing only to send a defiant glare at Gil, as if to say that he could have kept fighting if only given more time.<br/>Odd had honestly though cubone would heal inside the pokeball. It seemed he would have to teleport to a pokemon centre once he got his gym badge back.<br/><br/>Two option left. Odd focused his gaze on the boulder badge in the thief's open palm and it glowed softly, vanished, and then belonged to Odd again, who wasted no time teleporting back to camp, where fresh pokemon could defend him.<br/>Only he stayed in place. Abra gave off a series of irregular snores and squirmed uncomfortably in the harness. He had teleported too much in too short a time. No teleports left in his poor young abra.<br/><br/>Only one option left. Odd allowed himself a second to prepare. He pictured the sneasel in his mind, and remembered the overwhelming sense of doom he had first felt when he saw a pokemon he could not detect; thought about the fear from before he realized it was something wrong with his abra and not the opponent itself. The anger of losing his badge was still burning inside him, but he let it be replaced by fear, and after having charged for a round he used his ultimate weapon.<br/>Odd cried. He wailed like a ten year old boy and cried as loudly as he could: "HELP!"