After my hysterics ended, Vicky told me that she and her brother were actually visiting. “Visiting…your home?” I asked.
    She nodded. We were sitting in her living room, the television on. “Surely you know of the Pokémon journey?”
    I nodded. See? Watching anime does have good points. Especially when you are sent to one of the anime worlds and they don’t think that they’re fictional at all. “Sure I do,” I answered. “When you turn ten, you head off to get a starter Pokémon and all that.”
    Vicky grimaced. “They changed the age minimum to thirteen when I was nine. So yeah. Mom forced Matt to go with me last year. So as you can see, we haven’t improved in the least.
    “Pokémon trainers don’t have to go to school, but in exchange they have to take care of their Pokémon and defend themselves from danger. So lots of kids decide to just stay at home and go to school. Since Matt and I came back home to see Mom and Dad, we visited the school, too, so that’s why it’s okay to say that you were a new student.”
    I pointed at the monkey, which was perching on her shoulder. “That’s your starter?”
    She nodded proudly. “Aipom. I caught it myself with a practice Pokémon from the lab. That was also a new policy. You have to catch your starter; they don’t give it to you anymore. My other Pokémon are in the care of Professor Oak.”
    “What about Matt?”
    She glared at me. “Why would you want to know about that slob?” I was going to take it back, but then she said, “His starter was a Caterpie that’s now a Butterfree.”
    I couldn’t help but laugh. “He’s taking care of a Butterfree?” I tried to picture Matt with a butterfly. Um…
    Vicky said, “It’s not fair! Aipom just refuses to evolve!” She turned to her Pokémon. “You! What’s the matter with you?”
    Aipom must have known that his trainer wasn’t serious, because he just kept watching the television.
    “Ah!” she exclaimed. “Cari, you have to get your own Pokémon.”
    “Huh!? Why!?” Even though I told Matt that I could be a better trainer, that didn’t mean I intended on living up to it.
    “Matt and I have to leave again soon,” she said. “And I can’t just leave you here by yourself. You have to come with us, and to do that, you need a Pokémon!”
    Wow. I feel like she’s totally putting my opinion into consideration, even though I DON’T want to be a trainer. But then again, she was kind of right. If I was stuck here alone, her parents could practically ship me off the police station. Or whatever their law enforcement was. I think it was police.
    “Fine,” I said. “What do I have to do?”
    “MOM!” she shouted, making my ear buzz. “I’M GOING WITH CARI TO PROFESSOR OAK’S!!!!!”
    Without a response, she dragged me out the door and across town. Due to the fact that I have absolutely no stamina, I felt like I was going to pass out by the time we arrived. “Here’s the lab,” she told me while I was recovering (in other words, panting like a dog and sweating like one, too). “Let’s go.”
    Well…Vicky did most of the talking. I just stood there while she blabbed away. “This is my friend Cari and she just came here and she really wants to become a Pokémon trainer but she doesn’t have a Pokémon yet and so I told her that you would help her catch a Pokémon so that when Matt and I leave next week she can come with us on our Pokémon journey but she first needs a starter doesn’t she?”
    Professor Oak peered over the rim of his glasses. “I…guess?”
    “Thank you so much Professor Oak you don’t know how much this means to –”
    “Eh…you’re welcome,” he said. I guess that this had happened so many times that he already knew that Vicky would go on if no one shut her up. I should follow in his steps.
    “Well then.” He stood up and reached into his lab coat, bringing out a Pokéball. He…carries those around in his lab coat. What if he accidentally throws it in the washing machine without taking them out? “Let us find a Pokémon for your friend…”
    “Cari,” I said.
    He raised an eyebrow. “Cari?” He fell into silence, a faraway look coming over his face.
    Oh God…if he was going to start spouting nonsense about how I was the chosen one to defeat some huge enemy of evil, I was seriously going to just hide in a corner for the rest of my horrible life.
    “What?” I asked, kind of scared after he was quiet for so long. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing,” he said, smiling. “It’s just that Cari is what my grandmother named her first Magikarp.”
    …WHY NOT JUST DROP A 100 TON BLOCK ON MY HEAD!?!?!?
    
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