“Where to next?” Aoife asked, as she and Petra walked along the road.
 “Mount Moon, probably,” Petra replied.  “There’s a cave that goes under the mountain.  It goes from Pewter City to Cerulean City.”
 “Cool!” Aoife said, running down the path.  “Let’s go to Cerulean City!  I want to get my next badge!”
 “Wait, Aoife!” Petra cried, running after the 11-year-old.  “The cave has lots of powerful wild Pokemon in there and it’s really easy to get lost.”
 But Aoife was already scrambling up the foothills of Mount Moon, running for the cave opening in the side of the mountain.  “Powerful Pokemon?  Feh.  I can handle anything.”
 “Chou!” Chu-Chu agreed, pumping its fist.
 “Whatever you say,” Petra replied, arriving at the cave opening next to Aoife.  “But trust me, it’s no picnic.  I got my Golem there.  It was just a Geodude then, though.  But if you’re lucky you’ll spot a Clefairy.”
 Aoife made a face.  “Yuck.  Clefairy.  Like that annoying little pink thing that Lucy fought me with.  Did I ever tell you about Lucy, Petra?”
 “Yeah,” Petra replied.  “I still wish I had been there.  I bet she was cute.  Of course, I could have beat a Clefairy with Onix any day.”
 “She wasn’t cute, she was annoying and bratty,” Aoife replied, cringing.  Then, dropping the subject, she bounced into the cave.  “Come on, let’s go!”
 Petra sighed.  “At least she has a lot of energy…” she said to herself, following Aoife into Mount Moon.

***

 Half an hour later, Aoife had all but lost her energy.  “Bloody Zubat,” she grumbled.  “They come along and confuse your Pokemon, and then your Pokemon hurt themselves!  And I haven’t seen a single Clefairy.”
 “I thought you didn’t like Clefairy?” Petra said.
 “Yeah, but they’re really rare and Fawn would be really jealous if I caught one,” Aoife said.  “Or even just had one on my Pokedex.  But maybe if I caught it she’d trade me one of her Pokemon for it.  I bet she’d love to have a Clefairy…”
 “Fawn again,” Petra thought.  “Fawn must be a big deal otherwise Aoife wouldn’t go on about her so much.  I want to meet her.  I bet she’s pretty.”
 “Can we stop and rest?” Aoife asked.  “Not that I’m tired or anything, but…”
 “If you want to,” Petra agreed, sitting on a rock.  She set down her backpack and pulled a couple chocolate bars out of it.  “Want a Kit Kat, Aoife?”
 “Do I want a Kit Kat?” Aoife repeated.  “You don’t even have to ask.  The default answer is yes!”  Aoife snatched one and unwrapped it.  Petra was about to unwrap hers when she heard a tiny voice.
 "Cleffa,” it said.  Petra looked up and saw what looked like a Clefairy, but smaller.  At the sight of the little pink Pokemon, her eyes lit up.
 “Oh wow!  A Cleffa!” she cried.  “I bet I’m one of the only Pokemon breeders to see one!  This is so cool!”
 “What’s a Cleffa?” Aoife asked, pointing her Pokedex at the thing.
 Cleffa,” Dexter claimed.  “The pre-evolution of Clefairy.  Very little data available.  Cleffa evolves into Clefairy when exposed to the Moon Stone.”
 “Oh,” Aoife realized.  “I’ve never even heard of it before.  It must be really rare!”  Excitedly, she pulled an empty Pokeball out of her backpack.  “I’m going to catch it!”
 "Clef!” the Cleffa squeaked, running and hiding behind a rock.
 “Don’t catch it!” Petra yelled.  “See, it’s scared.”
 “Why not?” Aoife wondered.
 "Cleffa and Clefairy have to live close to the Moon Stone,” Petra explained.  “It’s supposed to be somewhere in this mountain.  If they’re taken away from the Moon Stone, they will become ill and depressed.  They won’t be able to fight.”
 “Then how come Lucy was able to use one?” Aoife asked.
 “You met in her in Viridian Forest, did you?” Petra answered.  “That was close enough to the Moon Stone for the Clefairy to be able to function.  When you get outside of a 5-mile radius from the stone, the Clefairy will be powerless.  Until you evolve it into Clefable, it’ll never be able to leave this area.”
 “Then I’ll catch one and evolve it!” Aoife decided, getting ready to throw the Pokeball again.
 “Dude!”  A Geodude appeared in front of her and grabbed the Pokeball from Aoife’s hand.  “Geodude, geo!”
 “It doesn’t want you to catch the Cleffa,” Petra said.
 “Geo,” the Geodude replied, nodding.
 “I understand, Geodude,” Aoife said.  “It’s nice of you to protect the Cleffa like that.”
 “Pikachu pikka,” Chu-Chu said to the Geodude. 
 “Dude,” the Geodude replied.  “Dude geo geo dude.”
 The Cleffa peeked out from behind the rock to join the other two Pokemon in conversation.  "Cleffa cleffa clef.”
 Chu-Chu nodded, then turned to Aoife and said, “Pi pika pikachu, kachu pika chu ka.”
 “You protect each other?” Aoife interpreted Chu-Chu’s speech.
 “Ka,” Chu-Chu affirmed.
 “How do you understand Chu-Chu?” Petra was amazed by Aoife’s ability.
 Aoife shrugged.  “I just can.  My dad could understand his Pikachu too.  Chu-Chu recognizes me as his mother’s trainer’s daughter, so it trusts me.”
 “So what exactly did it tell you?” Petra asked.
 “Chu-Chu said that the Pokemon in this cave protect each other,” Aoife said.
 “Pika, ka chu, pi pikacha,” Chu-Chu said.
 “The stronger Pokemon protect the weaker ones,” Aoife continued.  “The Geodude protect the Cleffa until they evolve and learn attacks.  Then the Cleffa protect the other Pokemon.  It’s like a community.  They don’t want humans to interfere, that’s why they try to chase them out.  They protect each other from being caught.”
 “Oh, I understand now,” Petra said.  “Like a Pokemon city.”
 "Clef,” the Cleffa agreed.
 Then, a voice echoed through the cave.  “Prepare for trouble!”
 “Make it double!”
 “To rule the world with greatest power!” Bonnie yelled.  She was standing on a ladder connecting one level of the cave to the next.
 “Stalking around at the midnight hour!” Clyde added, appearing on the ladder underneath Bonnie.
 “To denounce the greatness of evil and sin!”
 “With our Pokemon we’re sure to win!”
 “Bonnie!”  Bonnie jumped down from the ladder, but bumped into Clyde on the way down and they both came toppling down onto the cave floor below.
 “Clyde!” Clyde screamed on his way down.  Bonnie landed on the floor, and Clyde fell on top of her.
 “Team Rocket, flying in the night,” Bonnie grumbled from underneath Clyde.
 “Surrender now or you’ll lose the fight,” Clyde said, struggling to his feet.
 “Vulpix,” Sundance said, jumping on Bonnie’s back.
 Bonnie stood up, pushing the Vulpix off of her.  “Stupid,” Bonnie said, hitting Clyde and knocking him over again.  “If you were a real gentleman you would have managed to land on the bottom to break my fall.”
 Thinking nothing of Bonnie assailing him, Clyde bounced right back up.  “Sorry to drop in, but we saw that Cleffa and we knew we had to steal it.”
 “No way!” Petra said.  “Don’t you realize these Pokemon all live in harmony with each other, and to take the Cleffa would be—”
 “Yes, yes, spare us the sappy stuff,” Bonnie interrupted.  “We have a Cleffa to catch.”
 “Scyther!  Go!” Clyde called out his Pokemon.
 “Scyther, huh?” Aoife asked.
 “Scyther.  A bug-type Pokemon.  Becomes enraged at the color red.  The sharp blades on its arms allow it to slice through bushes.”  Dexter made a commentary on Clyde’s choice of Pokemon.
 “Stop a bug…” Aoife pondered, “with a bird!”  She threw Spearow’s Pokeball into battle.  “Fury attack, Spearow!”  The Spearow tried to get close enough to the Scyther to attack it, but the Scyther responded with a slash before the Spearow could get close enough.
 Meanwhile, as Aoife battled Team Rocket, the Cleffa had wandered off.  It squeezed in between two boulders, then it saw something shiny lying on the ground.  What it saw was a sparkling rock, glowing with energy. 
 "Clef, clef!” the Cleffa squealed excitedly.  It picked up the stone and placed it on its forehead…

(Who's that Pokemon?  It's Cleffa!)

 “Cut, Scyther!” Clyde ordered.
 “Scyther scy!” the green bladed Pokemon screamed, swiping at Spearow.
 “Agility, Spearow!” Aoife said.  “Then use Mirror Move!”
 “Spear spearow!” Spearow said, dodging the Scyther’s blades.  It put some distance between itself and the Scyther, then beat its wings.  Green blades went flying at the Scyther and cut it.
 “Scyther, return.”  Clyde put the injured Scyther back in its Pokeball.  “Now let’s get down to business.  Let’s get the…where’d it go?”
 The four of them looked around, but they couldn’t see the Cleffa.  “Oh no!  The Cleffa ran away!” Bonnie said.
 “No problem,” Clyde said.  “Let’s steal all the other Pokemon in here!  Like…”  He looked around some more.  “Like that Jigglypuff over there!”  Clyde pointed to a Jigglypuff who had been watching the battle from underneath a rock ledge.
 “Puff?” it asked, clearly not knowing what was going on.
 “And all the other Pokemon here too!” Bonnie said.
 “Cle-FAIRY!” a high-pitched voice piped up.
 “What?” Petra swiveled around to see where it was coming from.  On the rock that the Cleffa had hidden behind now stood a Clefairy. 
 “Is that…” Aoife began.
 “Pii!” Chu-Chu said happily, jumping up to talk to the Clefairy.
 “Fairy clefairy,” it said.  “Clef clefairy fairy!”
 “Pika, chu kachu pikachu,” Chu-Chu said to Aoife.
 “That’s the Cleffa!”  Aoife said.  “Chu-Chu says it found a bit of the Moon Stone and it evolved to help us!”
 “No way, really?” Petra asked in amazement. 
 “Good,” Bonnie said.  “Clefairy are even more powerful than Cleffa.  We’ll give this one to the boss!”
 “Clef!” the newly-evolved Clefairy said, folding its arms and indicating by its posture and manner that it was not going to back down.
 “Oh, the little cream puff wants to fight us?” Clyde sneered.  “Amusing, so it is.”
 Clefairy glared at Team Rocket.  “Fairy!”
 “Fire Blast, Sundance,” Clyde ordered his Vulpix.
 Sundance opened its mouth and was about to shoot fire at Clefairy.  But Clefairy put its hands in front of itself as if there was a wall there, and Sundance’s attack never reached it.
 “Reflect attack,” Petra murmured, mostly to herself.  “That’s what Mina does too.”
 “Cleeeeeefairy!” the pink Pokemon yelled, pushing the fire back at Team Rocket.  The trio was scorched, and they fell over.
 “Fairy-fairy,” Clefairy said, using its finger to Psywave Team Rocket through the roof of the cave, creating an oddly-shaped hole and causing Bonnie and Clyde to yell, “We’re blasting off again!”
 “Thank you, Clefairy,” Aoife said to the Clefairy.  “If it weren’t for you the Pokemon in this cave would have been captured by Team Rocket.”
 “Fairy,” it giggled, doing a mock bow.
 “Pi pi, pikapi,” Chu-Chu thanked Clefairy.
 “Fairy, clefairy fairy!” it said, hopping off into the cave.
 Petra stared after the Clefairy until it appeared as no more than a pink dot hopping across the rocks.  “I’m glad I got to see such a rare Pokemon,” she said.
 “Chaa,” Chu-Chu agreed.
 “Me too,” Aoife echoed Chu-Chu’s words.
 

Author's notes
There, now wasn't that boring? (don't answer that) I didn't make up Cleffa, it's actually in Pokemon Gold and Silver.  It's a pre-evolution of Clefairy and its name is Pii.  I had previously made up an English name for it, Clefeather, but now that I've found out the real English name I have to use that.  Some more Gold/Silver Pokemon will be making appearances in the story, and Aoife will even catch one.  And I don't know if Pii evolves into Pipi (the Japanese Clefairy) with a Moon Stone or not, but I'd think it probably would.  Here's what the Clefeather looks like (piccie from BMG):
Just so you know...

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