Chapter Three: The News

"Woah," Mathew said.

"How could he break the law? How could he make a pokémon be so terrible to Ponyta?" Dion gasped.

"That's Sartor for you," Robert sighed. He was obviously still depressed about something.

It was the next day, and I was at school, talking with my friends. I share practically everything with them, except my crush on… can't say. Anyway, I had gone to the Pokémon Center before school, with a pass from Nurse Joy, explaining why I was late. Ponyta was in the Recovery ward, still not healed yet. She looked terrible, hooked up to machines but Nurse Joy said that I should check in after school and tomorrow morning.

"Robert, will you tell us yet?" Mathew asked.

"If you tell us, then we can help you," Dion said gently.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Robert cried, a tear slipping down his cheek. "Leave me alone!" He got up off the rock he had been sitting on, and ran off.

"Ponyta!" I called, "Let's chase him! Hang on… Oops." I said. "Ponyta's in Recovery." I sighed.

"We'll all go and check on Ponyta after school," Dion re assured me. "She'll be fine."

"I sure hope so," I sighed.

After lunch, Sartor came up to me as I entered the History class.

"Tara?" he asked.

"Yeah, what do you want?" I asked back.

"I'm…" he began. "I'm really sorry about what happened to Ponyta. I checked on it today at recess. It's been hurt really bad."

"I know," I replied, sadly. "How did you get the dark pokémon anyway?"

"I was out, at some night club. This guy in dark clothes and shaded glasses came up to me and pushed something into my hand. I released it and saw what it was. Anyway, I trained it, and raised it. Then it became evil. It attacked some other pokémon like that too. But nobody found out. Only yesterday was it finally removed from my belonging." He explained.

"Tara? Do you want to do History today or not?" Ms Herring asked. Sartor turned and walked off as I dashed into class, thinking.

Some guy just came and gave him a pokémon? But why? He was underage too, and it's illegal for anybody under fifteen to own dark pokémon. It was very puzzling.

After the final bell rung, I dashed out of school and to the basketball courts, where I usually meet my friends. Mathew was there, mucking around with his Farfetched. I walked over to them and released my Pidgeotto to play with the Farfetched.

"Dion said he'd tell Robert about going to see Ponyta," Matt said when I reached him.

"Here they come anyway," I replied pointing to the two figures in the distance. Pidgeotto and Farfetched flew over to them.

"Ready to go?" Dion asked. Robert was still moping about something.

"Lets go!" I cried. We ran off, most of us being pretty fast, and got there in little time.

"Oh, hello Tara," Nurse Joy greeted. "Ponyta is just fine. You can take her home now, just be careful battling with her, okay?"

"Sure," I replied. "Thanks Nurse Joy."

"You're welcome!" she said. "Bye."

"Guys," I said. "We got one more stop before we leave."

"The TM store?" Dion asked. "I've been meaning to go there too."

"Cool," Matt said. We entered the store, and handed in our school discount slips. Each primary student gets at least five TM and HM discount vouchers a term, so if we need to teach our pokémon a move, we get a discount.

"Hmm," I thought, browsing around the fire TM isle. I came to a stop at TM 38, and picked it off the shelf. The advertised price was $30, but with a 25% discount, I'd have just enough money. I bought it, and waited for my friends. Soon enough, Mathew, Robert and Dion walked out of the store, but only Dion had bought a TM.

"Did you hear the news?" Mathew asked.

"What news?" Robert mumbled.

"Mr Nolan told us," Mathew said. "Year 6 are going on an end of year camp for Graduation!"