Pokémonland, Oak's Coastal "Research Center:"

Rose blinked her eyes open as her alarm clock went off went an extremely annoying "MAGNEMITE! MAGNEMITE! MAGNEMITE!"

"Mlarg!" she groaned as she reached over and knocked the Pokémon-shaped device onto the floor. "How can it possibly be 8:00 already?"

Falling off the bedside table wasn't enough to shut the clock up, so she eventually gave up and got out of bed. After shutting it off, she rubbed her eyes and yawned. "I hate mornings. Especially Monday mornings," she mumbled as she went to get ready for the day. She was 16 now, but nothing else had really changed about her.

About fifteen minutes later, she stumbled into the kitchen to find some breakfast. "Oh, daisies," she growled as she looked at the calendar that hung over the stove in the small apartment she lived in above the 'research center.' "Tomorrow's Oak's quarterly inspection. And, like always, I don't really have anything to show him. I've already categorized all the flora around here, he wants to learn more about the fauna. But that's impossible, when I can't catch any Pokémon!"

After bitterly eating some cereal, she left the bowl and spoon in the sink and went downstairs. It was called a research center, but all it was was a Pokémon healing machine that she had only turned on for a passing Trainer once or twice, a library comprised of four bookshelves crammed with Pokémon books and magazines, a chalkboard with some advice for Trainers written on it, and a table and chair with a PC that Trainers could use to store Pokémon and stuff. (Although actually, it was mostly used by her to play games and write stories on. She also enjoyed a few webcomics, like Snorlax-Snorlax, Buneary Quest, and Push-skitty.)

"Well," she sighed, pulling out her collection of never-filled Pokéballs. "I guess I should go try to catch something. For the bajillionth time. Even a Caterpie would be nice at this point!"

She grabbed her thicker jacket, opting for it over her windbreaker. It was early winter, and although she lived by the ocean, there was still a bit of a chill in the air.

It was a long morning. Like every other time she had tried, either she completely missed every Pokémon she threw a Pokéball at, or if she actually managed to hit it, it always just bounced right off. "How can I possibly be such a failure?" she moaned as she turned back to go have lunch after missing the same Rattata for the fifth time in a row.

But then she noticed something strange-looking over on the beach. "What's that? I'd better investigate," she murmured, and started to hurry over.

************************************************************************

Deedee groaned mentally and lay down on the beach. In retrospect, he probably should have stolen a boat. He had been floating on the ocean, whichever way the currents carried him, for over a year. If it weren't for his immortality drive, he wouldn't have made it.

"Oh my gosh! What are you? Ohmigosh you're so cute! Ohmigosh I just want to hug you! Ohmigosh are you a new Pokémon?" a girl's voice started squealing not far from him. Oh, just lovely. He had managed to survive a year at sea only to be hugged to death. Was there no justice in the world?

"Dwee..." he groaned helplessly as he rolled over to see his would-be hug-attacker.

"Ohmigosh! I've discovered a new Pokémon! It's a 'Dwee!'" the girl continued to squeal as she picked him up and gave him a huge hug. "Oh, wait. You're a wild Pokémon! I'm not supposed to touch you! You could be dangerous!" she suddenly changed her tune, carefully setting him down again and backing up a few steps. "But how could you possibly be dangerous? You're so adorable!" she murmured, kneeling down right in front of him. "Well, Dwee? Are you hungry or anything? Wait, you don't have a mouth, do you, Dwee? Can you eat? Well, I mean, you have to get energy somehow... Wait. Are you like a Lampent? Are you feeding off my life energy! That's so sneaky! You're so adorable, but you're destroying my soul as we speak, aren't you, Dwee?" she demanded, her voice going from sweet, to confused, to angry in a matter of seconds.

Deedee looked at her in disbelief, then snorted, "Dwee." He turned and walked off, his nose stuck in the air.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!" she told him. "Here, hold still. I just need to..." she suddenly brought a small red, white, and black sphere out from nowhere and tapped him on the head with it. Nothing happened.

"Huh. That's weird. You're so close, you obviously have a low HP level. It's acting like you're not a Pokémon. This one must be defective," she muttered, pulling out another one. It still didn't work.

"Well, you're the first real wild Pokémon I've even gotten this close to. I'm not leaving you here," she huffed, picking him up gently and walking off with him. "Here, you're going to come with me, Dwee."

Do I have a choice? he asked mentally, glaring straight ahead, as she was holding him so he faced away from her.

"Wait until Prof Oak gets here tomorrow! I'll actually have a Pokémon to show him for once! And you're a new one, an undiscovered one! Do you have any idea how popular this'll make me? People won't die of laughter every time I'm mentioned anymore!" she laughed, slightly crazily. How can you blame her? She lived completely alone, hardly anyone ever came to visit her.

Well, it looks like I've found the failure easily enough, Deedee mumbled in his head. But how in Nintendo City do I explain things to her?

As soon as they got back to the 'research center,' Rose switched on the healing machine and set him on it. "You're supposed to be in a Pokéball, but this should work anyway," she assured him.

He stared at her in horror as the machine starting making cheerful beeping noises. What sort of madness is this? he pondered in terror. What is she going to do to me?

"Huh, that's weird," she muttered in confusion. "It's also acting like you're not a Pokémon. But if you're not a Pokémon, then what are you?"

Deedee gave an internal sigh of relief as she turned the evil machine off. Apparently she had decided to spare him.

He first began to notice his surroundings. This place was a disaster, it was so full of clutter! Clutter! He hated clutter!

Maybe he was spoiled, but he was still a Waddle Dee, and his obsessive-compulsive clean freak tendencies took over. He leapt off the machine and grabbed a broom, running around the place and cleaning like crazy.

Rose watched in disbelief. "So, you're not a Pokémon. But if you were, you'd be a Dwee, the... Clean Freak Pokémon? No, I'm pretty sure that's already taken..." she thought out loud.

Deedee ignored her, and after he had finished dusting everything, he attacked the mountains of clutter all over the place.

"Hey! That's where I want that!" she shouted, trying to stop him. He just ran between her legs and continued his furious tidying. "Argh! How will I be able to find anything, you little terror?"

Glaring at her, he air-hopped up and whacked her in the back of the head with the feathery pen-thing he was using as a makeshift feather-duster. "Dee, dee dwee dwee dee, dwee!" he huffed at her, then resumed his work. Don't you know how to treat a royal? he sneered at her internally, wishing she could hear him.

Finally, the place was to his liking. "Well. Now that you've finished with that, what are you going to do next, Dwee?" she asked, still a bit irritated. Although, it was soooooo hard to stay mad at him when he was just. So. CUTE!

He waddled around until he found the kitchen and kicked at the refrigerator door in answer. "Um, okay. Food. Food's good," she shrugged and opened it. "See anything you like?"

Ugh. It's all just peasant's fare, he thought in a better-than-thou type of tone. Well, I guess this stuff looks okay. He grabbed a box and started eating the contents.

"Hey! You can't have that! That's my lo mein! I worked so hard on that!" she said, taking it away from him forcefully.

Seriously? It's come to this? he moaned to himself. Well, all right then. He let his eyes grow huge and let fake tears come out, looking up at her piteously. "Dwee," he whimpered, holding his hands out for the box like a baby would reach for a toy.

"D'aaaaw," she melted, giving him the box without another moment's hesitation. He quit the cute act instantaneously, waddling off with her food to her bedroom. Climbing into her bed, he ate the food and then started to fall asleep.

"All right, that's enough. You're not taking my bed. You have to at least share," she ordered, hands on her hips.

He gave her a condescending look. Sorry, peasant, the bed is mine, he thought at her, not caring that she couldn't hear.

She eventually gave up getting him to leave and instead decided to fall asleep in an armchair. "Dwee. The Clean Freak, Spoiled Rotten, Conniving, Adorable Pokémon," she muttered in a Pokédex voice. "Dwee will steal your heart, your food, your bed, and probably your house if you let it. It also has OCD tendencies when it comes to cleanliness." Yawning, she finally dozed off.

The next morning, she woke up late, due to the fact that she hadn't remembered to turn the alarm clock back on. "Oh, daisies," she hissed as she got up, still dressed from yesterday, and hurried to make herself look presentable.

Around ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. "Come in, Prof," she called down the stairs from where she was eating a cup of noodles in the kitchen. "Leave the food and supplies and stuff down there. Try to make it look cluttered, my new Pokémon will deal with it later."

There was a thump from downstairs. "Oh, daisies," she squeaked. "Did I just make the Proffessor have a heart attack?"

The answer was a resounding no, as he came thundering up the stairs like someone half his age. "You have a Pokémon?" he questioned excitedly.

"Sure do, Prof," she replied with a grin. "And it's a new kind, too." She set what was left of her cup of noodles down and led him to the bedroom area. "It's a Dwee, I think."

Well, Deedee was quickly met with a rude awakening, as Professor Oak yanked him up and began to inspect him.

I hate you, peasants, Deedee thought bitterly. When Princess Baika hears of my treatment, there will be punishment.

"Hmm. It definitely is a new variety of Pokémon, but how on earth did you, of all people, manage to catch it?" the Prof inquired dubiously.

"Well... I, uh... didn't actually catch it. I just brought it back here with me after I found it washed up on the beach. The Pokéballs won't react to it, they act like it's not a Pokémon," she told him, dragging the toe of her sneaker along the hardwood floor.

He frowned. "Does the old PC here still work, Rose?"

"Um, well, yeah?" she replied, confused. She had been expecting some sort of scolding and lecture about the dangers of touching wild Pokémon.

"Very good. I'll need to access my digital library via PC to look up some things. This isn't a Pokémon. Get the little guy to tell you what he actually is. Have him play charades or something," the Prof suggested, handing her Deedee and hurrying back down the stairs, again like someone only half his age.

"Is it bad that you're old enough to be my grandpa, yet you're more tech-savvy than I am? You can access your private digital library from here, and I can't even remember how to re-open an accidentally closed tab in my browser," she called after him, slightly jealous.

Professor Oak just laughed in reply.

"Well, Dwee. You heard the Prof," she sighed, carefully setting him back down on the ground. "What are you? Let's play charades."

Deedee looked at her for a moment, then tapped the floor twice with his foot. "Two words?" she guessed. He nodded, then started waddling around in deliberate circles, staring at her the whole time. "Waddling? Waddler? Waddle?" she guessed, then grinned as he nodded frantically at the last one.

"Okay, so you're a Waddle... something. What's the second word?" she questioned. He hurried downstairs and came right back, carrying a book.

"Hey! I was using that, you little monster!" Professor Oak shouted up the staircase, sounding annoyed.

Rose had to giggle. "All right, so what's the book for?"

Deedee flipped to a random page as Oak stormed back up to where these two were. He then started furiously tapping the letters "d e e d e e d e e d e e" over and over again.

"Oh, so you're a Waddle Deedeedeedeedeedee-" she tried, only to be whacked in the back of the head with the book. That's when Deedee noticed some clutter he somehow missed, so he dropped the book on the floor and went to pick it up.

"Busy little fella, isn't he?" Oak commented as Rose rubbed her throbbing head.

"Yeah. He's so spoiled, he acts like a little princess. But at least he earns his keep, I guess," she sighed, picking the little terror up from where he was tidying, and setting him down on the bed. Handing him the book, she pleaded, "Please. Try again."

Rolling his eyes, Deedee grabbed the book, flipped to a random page, and slowly tapped the letters "d e e."

"So, you're a... Waddle Dee? Is that a Pokémon?" she wondered aloud.

He shook his head and tap-spelled out, "D r e a m l a n d e r."

"Dreamlander?" Oak murmured. "A Waddle Dee... from Dreamland..." He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, trying to remember something. "I know just the book we need to bring up and look at on the PC!" he yelped suddenly, grabbing her hand and dragging her down the stairs.

"So what's a Waddle Dee?" she questioned, growing concerned at his sudden tension.

"I don't remember, but it means something big. And probably bad. If I remember right, of course," Professor Oak answered. "I must research this immediately!"

And so, the first non-hero was found.