Arthur tried moving, but his body was either too exhausted from the pursuit earlier or the concentrated marsh through this area. His legs were rooted in the ground and didn't budge even a tiny inch!

No matter what, his body didn't listen to his thoughts, shocked still on the spot.

Just as he was about to get attacked from both sides, Arthur closed his eyes and braced himself for the worst happening. His arms were crossed over his head instinctively and his back bent down a little to offer as little contact-surface as possible.

".."

"..."

"..."

"Huh?" But the excruciating pain he expected didn't come. Instead of never ending pain or loud-deafening noises of colliding bodies it was just ... silent.

So silent it felt surreal!

He realised something was wrong and thus opened his eyes slightly. He see could see a massive back through his crossed arms that casted a big shadow on his side. The person owning that back stood protectively in fron of him like a statue with a foundation that was unshakable and unsurmountable!

Only after little time passed, it dawned upon Arthur that it wasn't a statue but an elderly man that had saved him from this tiny disaster. The man looked like hugging himself from Arthur's point of view, but in reality his arms were stretched out in opposite direction each holding one of the fighting Pokemon.

The right arm took hold of the Eevee while his left arm had a grip on the Spinarak.

What Arthur found weird was a certain illuminating light that shone from that man's left arm, as if he wasn't holding a Pokemon but a lamp instead.

"Whe-where did he come from?", Khali wondered, just a couple seconds ago the street was empty of any people but then this guy appeared out of nowhere! Did he teleport?!

"Hahaha, children these days, so reckless and yet so cute!", chuckled the old man while gazing back down towards Arthur.

"Errrie!" "Shhhzzz!", the two Pokemon the mysterious man had in his grip were protesting and tried to break free, without success though.

"Ah, yes, you two, don't worry I won't forget you. Here you ... GO!", while shouting he threw both Pokemon in the direction they had come from and clapped his hands as if finally having finished a difficult work at the end of a day.

"Errrieee!!!" "Shhhhzzzz!!!", Both Pokemon were shocked in the first few moments. The world turned upside down for them but then in the next seconds, their instincts started kicking in again and Eevee was the first to find its balance. It landed gracefully on its paws and walked back to the red-haired girl.

Spinarak used its wide point of view and found Khali during its fall in its surroundings. With a professional Web-shot the spinarak pulled itself back to its partner.r.

"NO! Not on my fac- Icfant sfek nou!", was the last Khali could bring out before a green object crashed on his head and made him fall down.

"Hmpf! You deserved that, molester!", Cecile commented, happy about Khali's misfortune.

"Cecile! Is this how I raised you to be?!", a deep voice thundered in Cecile's ears. She looked shocked in the direction of the mysterious man.

"D-dad! That wasn't my f-"

"No excuses!"

"But -"

"No! We can have this discussion later! Take your eevee and go home for now, you have done enough here.", her father didn't leave her any room for negotiation and ordered her streng.

"But - I - Grrrr, OK!", she struggled for several seconds, feeling indignant about the injustice she had to experience. Yet her father's words were still law to her, she didn't want to make him angrier than he already was and left. But before she left she threw Khali one last glance and growled:

"If I ever see you cross my path again, you won't have so much luck again!"

"Is that a yes to our date?", he asked as if the last few minutes had never happened.

"You ...! Hmpf!", Cecile was overwhelmed with how irrational that boy was and couldn't think of anything more to repy him. Instead of continuing this pointless fight, she just left, wishing to never see him again. Eeevee accompanied her but turned around one final time and made faces at Spinarak.

Spinarak felt the mockery aimed at him and his human partner, and angrily vowed to regain honor the next time they met again.

Khali felt the turmoil in his partner and gave him a light pet:

"You did great Webster! Don't worry, next time we will give them a big surprise!"

"Shhhzzz!" glee filled spinarak and he started climbing around on Khalis body.

"Ha, haa haha, argh! I get that you're excited, but please calm down a little!", as his body shook wildly, Khali realized there was another person he had completely forgotten,

"Arthur!"

He quickly got Spinarak back on track and ran towards Arthur. As they met up, the first thing he did was ...

"Ahh, sorry man!", he put his palms together and made a slight bow. While having one eye closed, the other looked at Arthur apologetically.

"Ahh, haha, no Problem, Khali, right? It was my fault as well I guess. I shouldn't have run straight into a Pokemom Battle, I guess.", Arthur didn't take it to his heart, and he was saved after all.

"No, not at all. I should have stopped it earlier, it wasn't even an official battle, thank god that guy was there. Speaking of the devil, did you even see him coming? He was just there in a second as if ..."

"... as if he teleported!"

"Yes! Teleportation! Hahahaha"

"Hahaha"

"Hey, are you guys talking about me?", the mysterious old man spoke to them.

"Master Oak!" another urgent shout rang out behind them.

"Oak?", Arthur wondered to himself. It felt like he had heard that name before somehow.

"Alfred! How are you?", the man answered his call.

Then after a couple of seconds, a middle-aged man in black butler-looking clothes appeared hastely with two big bags in his arms. His breathing heavily, he must have been in a hurry to come here.

"Alfred, take a break. Why the hurry?" the elderly man stoppped him worriedly.

"M-master Oak, I-I huh I have to deeply apologize. I just got informed by Miss Cecile, I was just buying food in the supermarket, I could never have imagined that something could have happened to Miss."

"Don't worry Alfred, shit happens, life goes on.", the man called Oak waved him off.

"No, no, it was a heavy dereliction of duty on my side. I-I deserve to be punished!", the butler demanded reluctantly. His guilt was too heavy it seemed.

"A-Alfred, please don't say such rthings in front of children, they might get some ideas-"

"No MAster! It was entirely my fault, I should have done a better job and carefully supervised little Miss. Please, I deserve punishment! Punish me please!", the old butler demanded strictly.

"Ha, ha, ha", the man smiled slighly, with creased eyebrows. And as he saw the weird gazes the two boys threw at them, he realized he need to immediately defuse the situation.

"Ok, ok Alfred, we got it. You want some extra work, no problem here. You see these two boys here, they got somehow entangled into our situation, so why don't you take care of them for now? I might need to talk with the police for now and explain them the what happened.

"Ok Master Oak!", he went straight towards the boy and made a small bow,

"I haven't introduced myself properly yet, my name is Alfred Drought, the chief butler of the Oak household, if you have any requests don't hesitate to ask me please!"

Khali just smiled and didn't look like he found anything weird about the situation. Arthur on the other hand was distracted and thought about something completely different.

"Oak, oak ... oak. Where did I hear that before." He looked back at the elderly man's facial features. His hair was orange-brown like a really hot flame and his eyes also radiated with strong vitality. Only the wrinkles on his face indicated his true age.

But what surprised Arthur the most was that this person didn't have a left arm! The lower half just wasn't there under the sleeves. How can that be? Didn't that guy grab the Pokemon with both of his arms? Or was it just a misconception on Arthur's side, a blurry view or something like that?

Suddenly another image popped up in Arthur's mind, an old man with light grey hair. His image overlapped with that of the mytserious man, their looks were slightly different but those eyes ...!

Those eyes that declared confidence and an adventurous spirit, they were exactly the same!

A name came to Arthur's mind and as if controlled by an unkown force he asked hesitatignly:

I-I am sorry Sir, your butler called you Master Oak. Could it be ... are you Professor Oak?"

The man looked back at Arthur's eyes and when he heard that familiar name, his eyes suddenly shook for a second. Old memories crossed his mind and he was reminded of a time when he just a small boy receiving his first Pokemon ...

Reality brought him back from his daydreaming and he took a closer look on that child who asked him that question:

"Sigh, I am sorry to tell you this, but the Professor Oak that you are looking for has already passed away."

"What?!", how can this be Arthur thought to himself.

"What was your relationship to him, if I may ask?", the man inquired.

"He saved my life! A couple of weeks ago, I was gravely injured inside the Viridian Forest, and my mum told me he had saved me from the brink of death. I-I wanted to thank him.", Arthur told him with a weak voice. He felt sad about his saviour's sudden death. He saved him but now he couldn't tell him how grateful he was or how to repay him for his kindness.

"Hmm, I see ... wait what?", the man's expression changed from nostalgia to puzzelment in but a breath of time. He took third closer on the boy, approached him and scrtched his chin with his right arm while contemplating. Then an idea struck him.

"Oh! Oh oh oh! Hahahaah, so it's you! I remember now, man, I couldn't recognize you since the last time I saw you you were full of bandages and blood and all that swelling. You're that kid who got himself into trouble in the Viridian Forest!

You're name was ... Archiebald, rigth?"

"My name is Arthur Sir. But how do you know that about the Viridian Forest?" Arthur 's mum and the police prevented the news getting leaked out about his accident. He hadn't been in the right condition to endure the public attention at that time.

"Oh, Arthur! right. Of course I know, I am the guy who saved your ass back then!"

"Master Oak, lanuage please! They are just children!", the butler repriminded him.

"Ah haha, sorry kids."

"What do you mean? Is-is that true? You really saved me?", Arthur couldn't trust his ears anymore. This guy had really saved him?

"Yes, me and my partners I mean. I had some business to attend to ..."

"In the forest?", Khali interrupted him.

" ... in the forest.", the man nodded and continued,

"and then my arcinine found a blood trail leading to you. You looked half dead if I were to be honest, and it's almost a miracle you survived with those wounds on your body."

Arthur was shocked to hear this and didn't know how to respond for a moment. But after a another moment of thought ...

"I-I wanted to say thank you!", he then bowed on the spot with 45°,

"I had done something incredibly foolish back then and I was lucky that you had been there to save me and bring me to the hospital! If it hadn't been for you, than I would be ...", he didn't finish the sentence and just gulped down his saliva.

The man looked at Arthur with an impressed smile:

"Hahaha, no problem. As if I could leave behind such a promising young child to become fodder for those wild beasts! Don't worry too much about it, when I was your age I did similar or even more dangerous stuff out there! Haha, good old times, sigh. But do you know what your real problem was? Not assessing the possible risks in your endeavor and not preparing appropriate or any kind of possible countermeasures! FOR GOD'S SAKE! You didn't even bring a Pokemon with you! I am not sure if you were just bold or reckless or both?!"

Arthur flinched when being reprimanded, but he knew that everything was true!

"Sigh, well, you are still young and immature so, I guess you can treat it as a good learning experience for your path forward!", he took another look at Arthur,

"Now that I think about it, there is actually I need to give you. Something that belongs to you actually."

"Something that belongs to me?", arthur wondered.

the man turned to Alfred and told him:

"Alfred, take the kids to the mansion. I will meet you there in an hour or so."

"Yes Master Oak!"

"To the mansion? What mansion? I am not sure if-", Arthur wanted to reject as it wasn't a good idea to follow unknown people into mysterious mansions but then Khali interupted him and agreed right anyaway,

"What?! You have a mansion? That's amazing, of course we will come!"

Arthur looked at him quizzically. Where was this sudden motivation coming from?

Khali whispered to him:

"Did you forget that girl earlier? She called him dad! If we were to go visit his mansion now, how high are the chances to meet her again? 100%, exactly!"

Arthur still didn't understand why he was so intent but at least he wasn't going alone there.

"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. I am not sure if you recognized me already, I haven't made public appearances in recent years but my name is Blue Oak. I am the Gym Leader of Viridian City."