Disclaimer: Once upon a time, there was a little girl who owned lots of books and DVDs and videos and a very nice laptop computer, and she loved them all very much. She loved them so much that she liked to take the characters and places from all of those books and DVDs and videos and write stories about them on her laptop computer and post them online, but since she didn’t own the characters in the books and DVDs and videos she had to put disclaimers at the tops of all her stories that said really obvious things like "I don’t own Pokemon, someone else does" and "I’m just borrowing it for fun."

"But I don’t understand. How could we be at Pewter City? I’m sure we were going south, and it’s way too far away anyway."

Seeing nothing else to do, Ash, Misty, and Brock had made their way down the hill to the city the sign labeled as Pewter City and were now picking their way through the suburbs, looking for a pokemon center or some other place where they could sleep and eat for a cheap price, or better, for free. Pikachu dozed on Ash’s shoulder, and Togepi had fallen asleep in Misty’s backpack some time ago. Brock was leading, but, in all honesty, he had no idea where they were. He couldn’t understand how the city had changed so much since his last visit.

At Misty’s question, he stopped and pulled the map out of his pocket, examining it in the fading light. "We were going south. None of us are so bad with directions that we can be walking down a highway at sunset and think that we’re walking in the complete opposite direction as we are."

Misty sighed in exasperation. "Then we should be in Viridian. I don’t know where we were before, but we were south of Pewter."

Ash grabbed one edge of the map from Brock and began examining it closely. "Well, we’re in Pewter, and we were heading south, and the only way that could happen would be if we had been somewhere north of Pewter this morning." He gestured vaguely at the mountains at the top of the map.

Brock didn’t like being lost in his own hometown, even if it was one of the largest cities in Kanto, and even if he spent hardly any time there. He tugged the map back towards him. "But we weren’t anywhere near that far away."

Misty pushed in between the two boys and took her turn studying the map, hands clasped behind her back. "Maybe not, but Ash is right. Somehow, when we… When we got out of the cave this morning," she said in a rush, "we must have been north of Pewter." She lowered her eyes. "They- Those things, they said they would make sure we ended up where we needed to be."

Ash nodded slowly, trying to ignore the chill creeping down his spine. "So they wanted to make sure we went to Pewter. There’s something we need to do here."

Brock shook his head. This was all wrong. It had been wrong ever since they ran off of the path to escape Team Rocket, only one day ago, really. "I’m still not convinced this is Pewter City. I don’t know… Maybe someone switched the signs or something."

Misty raised one eyebrow. "Switch them from where? Are you saying this is actually Viridian City, and that outside the real Pewter City there’ll be a big sign that says welcome to Viridian, or maybe Cerulean? That would be an awful waste of time, for someone to travel all over the country switching the signs outside of all the big cities."

"And what would be the point, anyway?" Ash continued for her. "No one would ever actually believe they had gone to the wrong city. Well," he added, "besides us, I mean."

Brock groaned. "Wherever we are, we’ve probably set a new world record for being lost. If we’re in the city we think we’re in, than it’s impossible for us to be in it because we were supposed to be heading away from it, but if we’re not in the city we think we’re in than we don’t even know what city we’re in." He folded the map and shoved it back in his pocket.

Ash and Misty blinked.

"Er, right," Misty began. "So, why don’t we just-"

"W- wait! Please… stop!"

The three friends turned in the direction of the faint, out of breath call. At first, they saw nothing. Then, from around the corner came a young girl, running as fast as her short legs could carry her, an espeon bounding along silently beside her. Trailing behind her, panting for breath, came a boy with sandy brown hair, perhaps a year or two older than the girl. It was the boy, apparently, who had called, for he had a hand reached out, as if reaching to grab the back of the girl’s dress, even though she was far out of his reach. "Stop her… please…" he managed to gasp.

Ash reacted purely on instinct. As the little dark haired girl came tearing past, the espeon in tow, he jumped out into the road and tackled her. It only took a few moments for Ash to realize that this may not have been the best course of action. The girl, the top of whose head did not even reach Ash’s shoulder, collapsed beneath him with an "oof!" Ash landed on his left arm again, and the girl, who did not seem to like being tackled by a strange boy, shoved an elbow in his stomach. Now it was Ash’s turn to gasp for breath as the girl struggled to get out from under him, rather unsuccessfully, as somehow the two of them had gotten rather tangled. The espeon barked angrily, and Ash could hear Misty and Brock above him shouting about something.

"Get off me, you big jerk!" cried the girl, still struggling to get away from Ash and viciously sticking her knees and elbows in the most uncomfortable places.

Ash wrapped an arm around her waist in a futile attempt to keep her still. "Hey, cut it out, would you!"

"Let me go!" She grabbed his hat off his head and hit him with it.

"Would you just- Ow! Just hold still and tell me what’s going on!"

"Get off! Get off! Get off!"

"Pika?"

"Espe! Espeon!"

"Ash, maybe you should just-"

"Get off! Get off! GET OFF!"

"Tara!"

A relative quiet descended with the sudden interruption of the new voice. Ash and the girl paused in their struggle, and Ash took her moment of distraction to snatch his hat back. The girl shoved him in the chest, crawled out from under him, although she could not get completely away, as Ash had at some point grabbed her wrist and still maintained a tight hold on it, and sat, pouting. "Now you’ve done it," she muttered, shooting Ash a dirty glare from under her eyebrows.

"Whew." The boy dropped down to his hands and knees, panting. "Thanks… for catching her…"

Misty blinked. "Um, would someone mind explaining just what is going on?"

Ash shrugged, just as confused as she was. The girl simply continued to stare sulkily at the sidewalk while the boy continued trying to catch his breath. Espeon, however, suddenly gave a joyous yelp and threw itself in Ash’s lap, nuzzling his cheek with its furry head and yapping happily all the while.

The girl gasped in surprise. "Espeon, what are you doing?" Espeon merely continued rubbing itself against Ash affectionately.

The boy looked up. "That is odd. That Espeon doesn’t usually take to strangers."

Ash shrugged uncomfortably. "I dunno, but I’m with Misty. What’s going on?"

The boy, who had finally caught his breath, sighed. "Sorry about this. My name’s Koji. That’s Tara." He nodded his head in the direction of the girl. "We’re staying at the P. C. Breading Center. She’s… well… a bit upset about something right now and was trying to run away, I guess, and I was supposed to be watching her. So, thanks for stopping her."

Tara shot a bitter glance up at Koji. Misty thought she looked near tears. She didn’t think Tara would be thanking them any time soon. She felt strangely sympathetic. She knew from personal experience that having one’s attempts to run away thwarted was never a pleasant experience. She knelt down beside the smaller girl and was greeted by a pair of watery blue eyes. There was something very familiar in those eyes… "Hey," she began, as at the same time Tara said, a tiny bit of recognition behind her gaze, "Hey, you look-"

"Wait a sec," Brock interrupted. Everyone shifted to look at him. "P. C. Breeding Center? What the heck is that? I’ve never heard of any breeding centers anywhere around here!"

Koji laughed. "That’s Pewter City Breeding Center. It’s kind of famous. You really aren’t from around here, are you?"

"No, we’re not," Misty answered, before Brock could say anything. "Do you know of somewhere we could stay the night?"

Koji nodded. "Yeah, sure. There’s a pokemon center right on the way home, not that far from here, actually, or from the breeding center. We could take you by on our way back."

"Hey, thanks, that would be great." Ash patted Espeon on the head and stood up, wincing slightly, and attempted to pat the dust off his clothes, a rather useless effort, considering the amount of dirt already covering them. Espeon leaned herself against his leg contentedly. Pikachu watched it, head cocked as if trying to figure something out.

"Well," said Koji, taking a reluctant Tara’s hand and helping her up, "let’s get going. Mom just sent me out to get everyone for dinner and then we never came in. She’ll probably be worried."

Ash nodded, a slight smile playing about the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, I know how that is."

They set off, Koji leading, Tara’s hand clasped tightly in his. The girl kept her head bowed, refusing to look at any of them, but apparently she had given up on the idea of escape, for the moment at least. Ash, Misty, and Brock followed, hungry, weary in body and mind, but looking forward to bed and food in a dull, relieved sort of way. The Espeon frolicked happily around Ash’s legs as they walked. Pikachu tried to engage it in conversation every now and then, but Espeon’s responses seemed to make little sense to the small, electric rodent.

ooo

Jessie stood on her tiptoes and sighed, rooting hopelessly through yet another cabinet. This was what she hated about cooking in someone else’s kitchen. She never knew where to find anything. No mater that the man who owned it was a fabulous cook, she didn’t know where he kept anything. She should have asked him before he and James went out that morning, but the thought simply hadn’t crossed her mind. No, there had been far too much else on her mind recently, and cooking simply didn’t take precedence. And she couldn’t let her mind start down that track, because then she’s start tearing into the spaghetti and the children would be upset…

She sighed, finally giving up on her fruitless search and pouring the sauce over the noodles. She would just have to leave the oregano out this time. Hopefully nobody would really notice. She glanced over at the screen door leading from the kitchen to the back yard. Hadn’t she sent Koji out to get the others some time ago? As if in response to her thoughts, a tiny, sobbing, redheaded boy came bursting in through the door and wrapped his grubby arms around her legs with a desperate cry of "Auntie Jess!"

"Sammy! What on earth- Where’s your sister? And Koji?"

Whatever answer Sammy might have given was muffled in her skirt and would probably have been unintelligible through the boy’s tears anyway. Jessie sat her spoon down on the counter and picked him up in a hug. He buried his face in her shoulder. She had a feeling she would be doing this a lot in the days and weeks to come.

"There now, Sammy, what’s wrong?"

Sammy sniffled and mumbled something, most of which Jessie could not understand at all, but the caught the words "sis," "Koji," "Mommy and Daddy," and "gone again," and that, coupled with her son’s long absence, was enough for her to figure out what must have happened. Suzie had told her that the girl had already made several attempts at running away. This was undoubtedly the next, and Koji, of course, would have gone after her. She cursed viciously, forgetting the child in her arms and then mentally smacking herself on the head for forgetting.

"Meowth," she called to the cat pokemon who had just ambled into the room wondering what was going on, "keep an eye on dinner and don’t let Sammy run off anywhere." She sat the boy down next to the startled pokemon and snatched the keys off the table. "I’m going to go look for Koji and Tara. If James and the others come back, tell them what happened."

"But what did happen?" Meowth asked, too late, as Jessie had already left and slammed the door behind her. He glanced at the little boy standing beside him, his face stained with tears and dirt.

"Sissy ran ‘way ‘gain," Sammy supplied, and Meowth nodded in understanding.

"Don’t worry, kid. They can’t have gotten very far. Jess’ll find ‘em and bring ‘em back.

"That’s what they said about Mum and Da," Sammy whispered.

Meowth sighed. "Yeah, I know. And they will, kid. They will." A pity he couldn’t really even believe his own words any more, he thought, as the spaghetti on the stove bubbled away sluggishly.

Jessie drove through the streets of Pewter City in a back and forth sort of pattern. If Tara was really trying to run away, she would head for the edge of town, so that was the way Jessie went, alibi in a very zig-zaggy fashion. She had no way to be sure just which street the children had taken. Her only comfort was that Koji and that espeon were with the girl. Koji was a sensible boy, and really quite mature for his age, and would undoubtedly attempt to bring Tara home on his own. Espeon, while utterly oblivious to the orders of anyone but her trainer, would never let any serious harm come to the children.

That didn’t stop her from worrying, of course. Mothers tended to do that, she supposed, even mothers who used to be agents for notorious criminal organizations. With all that had happened recently, the thought of losing any more of her loved ones was enough to bring the normally strong woman close to tears. She hoped she found them quickly and that when she brought them home James would be back as well. She needed him right now, needed him very much indeed.

ooo

"There, you just follow that street for three blocks and you’ll be at the pokemon center," said Koji, pointing. "There’s no way you can miss it."

"Thanks." Ash shook the younger boy’s hand.

"No problem. Maybe we’ll see you guys around sometime. Are you going to be in Pewter long?"

Ash, Misty and Brock exchanged glances. "We’re not sure," said Misty.

Koji shrugged. "Well, anyway, come on Tara, let’s go."

The two started walking off, but Tara paused and glanced over her shoulder. "Come on, Espeon."

Espeon turned to her, looking somewhat uncertain, but didn’t budge from Ash’s side.

"Espeon, come on! Why do you want to stay with that jerk anyway?"

Espeon simply rubbed its head against Ash’s open hand. Ash peered down at it and scratched behind its ear. "I like you, too, Espeon, but you have to go with your trainer now."

Espeon looked up at him, confused. "Spe?"

"Espeon!" Tara cried, exasperated.

Ash gave the lavender pokemon a little nudge. "Go on, go with her."

Espeon reluctantly trotted over to Tara and Koji, following the two children as they continued down the street, but shooting a last, mournful look at Ash. "Speon…"

Ash and his friends watched the two children and the pokemon walk away for a minute before turning and heading down their own street to the pokemon center.

"That was odd," said Brock after a few moments. "The way that espeon was all over you, Ash."

Ash nodded. "I think it was a girl," he commented, thinking uncomfortably of the number of other female pokemon who seemed to have developed a crush on him at some point or another.

Misty rolled her eyes. "Maybe it just didn’t want to go with its own trainer. She seemed like kind of a brat, and definitely to young to have a rare, powerful pokemon like an Espeon."

Ash turned thoughtful. "Really? She reminded me a bit of you, actually." He smiled fondly to himself at memories of his and Misty’s early relationship.

"She what!?" Misty rounded on him, glaring. Oops, wrong thing to say… "Well, she was right about one thing, Ash Ketchum," Misty went on. "You really can be a jerk sometimes."

Ash waited until he was sure her back was turned to chuckle quietly to himself. He had meant the comparison to Misty to be a compliment for the little girl’s spirit, but he wasn’t going to tell Misty that.

Koji glanced down at Tara as they walked. He knew she was upset, not only about her failed escape attempt but at Espeon’s seeming sudden lack of loyalty to her and, more importantly, to her father. That had surprised Koji as well, if he was going to be honest with himself; it was common knowledge in their little family that that espeon answered only to its trainer. He just wished he knew of some way to cheer Tara up, even if only a little bit, but he could think of nothing.

He was tired from chasing Tara, and it was getting dark, so when a familiar car turned onto the street they were dragging down, he felt sure he had never been quite so happy to see it. He pulled Tara into the pool of light under a street lamp and began waving frantically. "Mom! Mom, we’re here!"

The car pulled over, the door opened, and a tall, red haired woman stepped out and ran towards them, leaving the door open behind her. She pulled them both into a hug, one arm around each of them. "Koji, Tara, thank God, I was worried about you. Come on, get in the car and let’s go. You can explain what happened later." This last bit was directed at Koji, who nodded. Jessie ran her fingers through her son’s hair, partly in acknowledgment, partly to reassure herself she had found him, and then shepherded both children to the car.

Koji sat in the front beside his mother while Tara climbed in the back, not speaking a word to either of them. Espeon hopped in after her. Jessie closed the doors after them, returned to the driver’s seat, and they drove off towards the famous Pewter City Breeding Center. The night closed behind them.

 ooo

Notes: Well, it’s been less than a year since my last update, so I guess, for me, that’s a good thing. I hope this chapter is enjoyable. :)

I also people are all right with my portrayal of Team Rocket in this story, even though we haven’t seen that much of them yet, and James wasn’t even in this chapter. He’ll be in the next one, I’m sure, and so will some other familiar people. We’ll also probably end up with some fluffy moments between Ash and Misty and Jessie and James. You know, I find it a whole lot easier to write Team Rocket as "good guys" rather than "bad guys," probably because that’s ultimately the way I see them. They steal pokemon and cause a whole lot of trouble for our heroes, but whenever it’s really important, they end up doing the right thing. I’m glad I decided to work them into this fic. :)

On another note, I hope Koji, Tara, and Sammy aren’t bugging anyone too much. I’m rather nervous about writing OCs, probably because I tend not to like reading stories that include them unless they’re very well done. So, please review and tell me what you think, even if you just say something like "cool" or "Huh?" Of course, thoughtful comments are greatly appreciated as well. ~_^ See you next chapter. :)