Kendra chose to walk, and while she tromped behind Nella, wondered how often she would even get the choice. She was stuck in a blue bathing suit and matching water shoes, stuck being treated like a PokeMon, and worst of all, stuck as a PokeMon. There was no point in denying that any longer. Kendra had seen and done too many PokeThings. The air rushing across her head fin, and the wag of her leathery tail couldn’t be denied, either. Still, Kendra was resolved to escape her PokeLife.

She had the idea to Water Gun Nella, get the PokeBall, and run. But the PokeMon couldn’t shake the feeling that was wrong; that it wasn’t right for Kendra to attack her trainer. The girl had captured her, and she owed Nella her obedience. But despite that thought, Kendra readied an extra large Water Gun blast. It was wrong, but it was necessary. If she didn’t get out now, Kendra wasn’t sure if she ever would.

“So, what do you think?” Nella asked from ahead of her PokeMon. It was the first moment Kendra realized the girl had been talking this whole time.

“What? I didn’t hear what you said?” She asked. Kendra’s voice was enough to shake her from her plan, and she relaxed her power.

“I’m going to name you Kippi.”

The PokeMon looked at her trainer, dumbfounded. “But my name is Kendra,” she said. She wasn’t going to let this kid just take away her name. She had to fight for something.

But Nella didn’t care. “Nope, now your name is now Kippi.”

“Nella, could you just, please, listen to me? I don’t want to be named Kippi, and I don’t want to keep being a PokeMon.”

“But you are a PokeMon.” Nella finally stopped walking and turned, and Kendra was thankful to be able to at least face her trainer.

“I’m not just a PokeMon and you know it. This happened because of a stupid wish. But I’m still me and still have a human mind.” Though Kendra did wonder how long that would be the case.

“What did you wish for?” Nella asked. “Because I wished for the most amazing PokeMon, and I got you. What did you wish for that got you turned into a PokeMon?”

The question confused the Mudkip, since she hadn’t given it a thought since she was struck by the dust from that shooting star. She had been too busy being a captured PokeMon. But she thought about it, and was still just as confused as she had been. Why couldn’t the shooting star just give her that information?

“I wished to understand why everyone is so obsessed with PokeMon.” Kendra said, looking cross. “So I don’t know why your wish came true, and mine didn’t.”

Nella thought about it with a frown, really stretching her thirteen year old mind. “Well, maybe we’re supposed to help each other’s wishes come true. You help me in the tournament, and I’ll teach you how awesome PokeMon are.”

Kendra sighed. She saw the logic in the girl’s idea, even if she didn’t like it. But Nella was a stupid kid, what did she know?

“Now I just wish I was human again.” Kendra said.

“Aww, don’t worry, Mudkip, I’ll be a great trainer and make sure you love being a PokeMon.” The trainer beamed, and Kendra had no doubt she believed that.

“So, you get that I used to be human, and that I don’t want to be your PokeMon, but you’re still going to keep me?”

Nella didn’t hesitate in her response, “Of course. I caught you to be mine.”

Kendra threw her head back to the sky and groaned, resolving and readying herself once again to blast Nella with Water Gun, even though it still felt wrong.

But the girl was saved when a ‘Ping-ping! Ping-ping!’ noise coming further up the trail interrupted the conversation, and a man wearing bottlecap glasses, a colander with antennas all over it, and white lab coat, came running up.

“Oh no, is that another trainer?” Kendra asked, not nearly ready for another battle, nor would she ever be.

“Let me handle this, Kippi.”

“Stop calling me...”

“Shh.” Nella squeezed the PokeBall, and Kendra choked up her reply. “Sit down.” The girl said in her firmest Trainer voice.

Meekly, Kendra obeyed, more starkly feeling the humiliation of being a PokeMon than she had already. Sitting on her haunches, her trainer stood next to, and taller than, her, rather than the other way around.

The lanky man stopped short. His eyes were huge behind his glasses and he flicked from Kendra and Nella. “Oh, wow, um, hi.” He gulped and held a blinking, pinging doohickey toward the PokeMon, and the little machine burst with noise and light. “Whoa. Did you know your Mudkip is positively full of comet dust?”

Kendra’s stomach twisted. How did everyone just know she was a PokeMon?

“I did, she made a wish to become a PokeMon, and I caught her just after that.”

“That wasn’t my wish!” Kendra balked, glaring up at her trainer. “Tell him what I really wished for.”

“Kippi, I said be quiet,” Nella said, forcing her PokeMon back to a grumbling silence.

The scientist adjusted his glasses, “Uhm, can you understand her?”

“Yes! She’s an amazing ‘Mon!”

The scientist, meanwhile, stared like a laser at Kendra while he dug into his coat, and produced a red tablet device with a scanner on it.

“Hmm. The ‘Dex is having a hard...ah, there it is!” He nodded and looked at the screen. “Interesting. While she may look like a human woman in a costume, she is 100% a Mudkip PokeMon. Incredible! I need to know more!”

Something in his stare and attention set of warnings in Kendra's mind. She was a model, and knew leering gazes well enough, and the scientist looked at her like she was going to win him first prize at the science fair.

“Nella, I don’t trust this guy.”

“Hey, stop interrupting, or I’ll send you back into your ball.” Kendra’s trainer raised the white and red sphere for the PokeMon to think about, and the Mudkip’s eyes went wide. Turning to the scientist, though, Nella beamed; “Sorry about that, she’s my first PokeMon and we’re still new at this.”

“No, no, it’s fine. So, she was human, but you captured her. In a PokeBall, I assume?"

The hairs on Kendra’s neck began to stand on end as she heard the conversation about her which did not include her. But she was past the embarrassment of it, and was now just afraid.

“Nella, please...”

“Kippi, I said...” the girl raised the PokeBall, but Kendra didn’t back down. If her trainer wasn’t going to listen, then it was time for the PokeMon to take drastic action. And staring at the red and white ball, she didn’t have any more time.

Kendra blasted Nella with a full force Water Gun, sending the girl backward and falling. And while a part of her was shocked and screaming that she had attacked her trainer, Kendra ran a second later, rushing to grab her PokePrison. She had no time to think about how wrong this was, how she was violating some deep and important law.

The PokeMon reached for the ball while Nella sputtered and spit water from her mouth. But the girl’s finger twitched and hit the Lock on the PokeBall, flipping it’s lid up. She didn’t even need to say a word.

“NOOOoooo!” Kendra shouted as her body suddenly glowed in sympathetic light. Then, she spiraled back inside her PokeBall, to be sealed until her trainer decided to let her out.

She shouted the whole way in.

--------------------

Nella fumed while she shook off the water Kippi had showered on her. She didn’t even know PokeMon could do that, and knew she would have to talk to her later.

“Like I said, we’re still figuring some things out,” she said to the scientist.

“Oh, I see. Amazing! Did you know that there have been other cases of humans turned into PokeMon? But, as far as I am aware, none of them have been capturable. You have an amazing Mudkip, indeed.”

Nella sighed and picked up Kippi's PokeBall, attaching it to her belt. “I know, but we’re not going to get far in the tournament if she doesn’t start to obey me.”

The scientist thought about that, his big eyes moving rapidly. “I may have some items that could help you out, back at my lab. I can give them to you, if you let me run some more scans on your Mudkip.” He said, with a kind smile.

The thought of some science tech to help her control Kippi sounded just right. “Where to?” She asked.