Cinder dashed up the garden path and reached up to tug on the front door’s handle. Her baby charmander waddled after her.
“Grandad Ash! Where are you?”
“In the basement!” came the faint response.
As always, the house was heaving with creatures. Several pidgeys huddled on top of a dresser, a pair of meowths lounged on the stairs and assorted shuffling things hid in the shadows of furniture. Cinder picked her way down to the basement.
Her grandfather was hunched over a cardboard box. His faithful pikachu wheezed and sparked in its sleep on top of another box.
“Whatca doing down here?” Cinder peered into the box. It was heaped with hand-sized red and white balls. She eyes widened. “Are those pokeballs? Aren’t they illegal?”
Ash shrugged,“Just keeping pokemon in them. We’re still allowed to have them. Bloody bleeding heart pokemon rights losers. It was much easier to keep 150 pokemon about the house in the old days. Didn’t need so many sheds. And we could make them fight each other, just for fun. Good times.”