“Nella!” Kendra shouted from inside her PokeBall, spinning in place. She reached, over and over again, for the interior lock that held the two halves of her prison closed. But it was useless. PokeBalls kept PokeMon like her inside them.

“Nella, please let me out, I promise to be good.”

It wasn’t just that her human mind revolted at the idea of being trapped like she was; Kendra needed to get out and keep her trainer safe. She didn’t trust that scientist and his whiney voice or bug eyed glasses. Of course, Nella was a dumb kid and didn’t see what she saw.

But Kendra was helpless and trapped in the ball, watching as shadows warped by through the red half of her vessel. It was useless to determine what was what since it was all so big and tilted at odd angles. At best she could figure out when she was moving, and when she wasn’t.

Until, that is, the ball was set in a cradle under an intense light that beamed into Kendra’s world, shining on her like a beacon and washing her out.

“What the...” she said. The light flashed on and off as a soothing phrase echoed into the PokeBall.

Do do do-do do!

The sting on her leg, which she had pushed out of her mind and almost forgotten about, was sucked out of her and healed right in front of her eyes. And she felt good as new -- better, in fact.

“What was that?!” Kendra shouted.

The light went away, replaced with shadow as a hand smothered across the red dome of Kendra’s prison. She remembered what Nella’s hand had looked like that first time, with their wide splay and small fingers. But this hand nearly covered the ball’s surface.

The lock clicked and yanked Kendra out of the ball, releasing her next to the scientist, and in his lab with its sterile walls, strange machines, and messes of papers and experiments. He looked at her with those telescopic glasses and poked at one of Kendra’s orange Mudkip whiskers.

“Hey!” She recoiled and batted his hand away, “Hands off!” Kendra had enough of that when she was a model. Is. She still is a model. This whole being a PokeMon thing was temporary.

“Oh! Challenging!” He said, more excited than deterred.

“Kip-pii,” Nella said from across the room, exacerbated. She sat on a table and held a red device, what the scientist called a ‘Dex. “Let Mr. Carl examine you.”

“He should ask first!” Kendra said with a glare, first at the nerd, then at her trainer.

“He did ask me first, and I said it was okay.”

Kendra didn’t have time to dwell on that new humiliation.

“Fascinating. I didn’t understand any of that,” Carl said. “Whatever mechanism that allows you to understand Kippi doesn’t transfer with the PokeBall.”

A pang of worry went through Kendra and she glanced at the ball in the nerd’s hand. “Transfer?”

“Kippi, sit.” The scientist said. He held Kendra’s PokeBall, and squeezed on it. He...was...her trainer? But despite her confusion, she sat down in front of him, anyway. She wasn’t normally this obedient...was she?

“Kippi’s gotten good at sit,” the teenager chipped in.

Kendra glared at Nella. The scientist had her PokeBall, the scientist controlled her, and Nella didn’t even see it. No way would she willingly just give Kendra away. Not her super special wishing star PokeMon. Which meant Carl had tricked Nella into giving her up.

“Nella, you know how sometimes PokeMon can sense things before humans?” Insisting  to the girl that Kendra was still partly human wasn’t going to work. So, to get what she wanted, Kendra had to put it in PokeMon terms. “I have a bad feeling about him.”

That was enough to get Nella to look up from her weird little device. “What do you mean?”

“Does he need to hold my PokeBall?”

Nella frowned and turned to the scientist. “Mr. Carl, could I have Kippi’s PokeBall back?”

It was the pause and the look that told Kendra all she needed to know. The way he searched his lab for a lie. Her heart sped up. He already had Kendra sitting for him, and she knew how her mind slowly accepted her status. The PokeMon’s calculation was simple: Kendra thought it was more likely that she could convince Nella to help her be human again than Scientist Carl. At least the girl understood what Kendra said. Or maybe the Mudkip had simple loyalty to the girl who captured her, and not the man trying to steal her.

“Keeping the ball would help me with my research.”

“I’m not research,” Kendra Growled, and while it didn’t have the wearying effect on the scientist that it did on PokeMon, his eyebrows shot up and he took a half-step back. But when his expression hardened, Kendra realized that she had made the mistake.

“Mudkip,” her new owner said, “Use Water Gun on the girl.”

The PokeMon didn’t understand why she turned, why she readied the attack, or why she obeyed him at all. But she did all those things because her trainer told her to. She didn’t even think, and it was only because Nella dove out of the way that she avoided the gout of water.

Kendra came to, half wondering why half the lab was soaked. She felt more lost than she ever had since becoming a PokeMon. She was used to obeying, not blindly acting. It made her shiver thinking about it.

Then, her owner commanded her: “Again! Wash her out of my lab!”

Mudkip aimed another shot on Nella, but just before she let loose, the girl looked at her dead in the eye and wordlessly pleaded.

Kendra blinked. If she had to be a PokeMon, she wasn’t going to be one that attacked defenseless kids, no matter what her owner said. When Scientist Carl commanded her again, Kendra was ready. Who was he? Did he even have any badges? Kendra turned to him, glared, and unleashed her pent-up torrent, knocking him into his whiteboard theories, and sending her PokeBall sailing away.

Kendra rushed after the ball, fell on it, and cradled it like a precious artifact. Triumph and relief flooded into her. For the first time since that meteor, Kendra took a positive step for herself. Her fate was once again in her own hands. Now, she just needed a way to become human again.

Unfortunately, Nella was there just a second later. “Good job, Kippi,” she said, holding out her hand, “Can you give me your PokeBall?”

The Mudkip pulled it closer to herself, “No way!” It came out like she was a five year old kid trying to keep her mother’s wedding ring.

“Kip-pii,” Nella sighed, talking to her like...well, like a trainer to a disobedient PokeMon. Or a parent talking to a child who ought to know better. Which was stupid, since Kendra was older than her trainer.

“I don’t want to,” Kendra said, just as much to Nella as to herself. With the PokeBall, she was in control, she might still be a ‘Mon, but she only would need to listen to herself.

“Kippi, give me the ball.” Nella said with her Trainer Voice again. It wasn’t like when Scientist Douche controlled her. More like Kendra’s theater teacher giving her instructions. The PokeMon didn’t want to let down her trainer. But she wanted to be free! She wanted to be human, and not listen to whomever held her stupid PokeBall. But she was a PokeMon, and a captured one, at that. The whole time she wrestled with herself, Nella held out a steady hand, and stared at her while waiting for her PokeMon to do the right thing.

After moments of agonizing, Kendra passed the ball over, before she realized she had decided. She gasped when her trainer closed her fingers around it, despite the world settling back into place.

Kendra was a PokeMon, and Nella was her trainer.

“That’s a good girl,” Nella said, petting Kendra’s blue PokeMon hair.

“Why did I do that?” Kendra despaired.

But Nella knew exactly why, “Because you’re a very good PokeMon. You just haven’t figured it out yet.” She threw the PokeBall up and caught it with a flourish and a smile, “Now, c’mon, we have a tournament to win.”