Once all the Trainers had gone to sleep, Sophie was walking back to her burrow, but a tap on her shoulder stopped her. She looked around at Dedenne, surprised to see him. "Hey, Dedenne. Aren't you supposed to be with Bonnie?" She asked, cocking her head.

"She knows I'm out, I just needed to talk to you about... you know..." Dedenne replied, seeming somewhat hesitant to being up the subject. Sophie immediately knew what he was talking about and sighed but nodded. "Come on, let's go somewhere more private..."

She lead him to her burrow and the pair slid inside. Sophie then took her Pokéball out of the secret hiding place behind the vine curtain, placing it on the ground closer to her than Dedenne. "What did you want to know?"

"Well... first off, why does it say that on it?" He asked, pointing to a label on the Pokéball. The edges had been chewed on, ripped and several other things that were clearly attempts to remove the label, but it still remained. Someone had also scribbled over the original word so it now said 'Sophie', but the original word was still just about readable.

It was such a bad word that Bonnie would have been scolded for years on end by Clemont if she ever so much uttered it a single time.

"Well... it's a long story," Sophie sighed, her ears drooping. "I've got time, please tell me," Dedenne pleaded. "Alright, but it's not a nice story to tell," Sophie reluctantly agreed.

"I wasn't always scared of humans. I used to be alright around them. I was quite popular with a bunch of little kids, even younger than Bonnie, who all went to this 'school' thing or whatever it was. They always used to come out to play and I'd let them pet me and play with me as much as they wanted. It was really fun.

But one day, a bigger kid, about Ash, Serena and Clemont's age, came by and saw me. He'd recently got his old Eevee taken away from him because he wasn't a responsible Trainer, so when he saw a wild Eevee right there, he leapt on the chance to catch me.

I was quite young back then and I never had to deal with a Pokéball before, so I didn't know what was happening. I was an easy catch. The next thing I know, I've joined the rest of his Pokémon in rounds of... well, abuse...

He'd hit us, kick us, call us horrible things, anything he could. We weren't allowed to eat or drink unless he said we could and even then we didn't get much. He'd say we were too fat. He'd make us fight each other. I've seen Ash make his Pokémon fight against each other, but there's a huge difference; Ash does it for training, his Pokémon are willing and healthy and he lets them stop if they need a break. My old Trainer did nothing of the sort. It's really shown me the difference between battling and fighting.

He wrote those horrible words on all of our Pokéballs. He didn't take the time to remember who was in which Pokéball like most Trainers do. He called us by those rude words. They were our names to him.

One day, he was... he was beating me... and Poipole showed up out of nowhere. He moved in front of me and protected me. He kept my old Trainer back while I ran. I haven't seen my old Trainer since then, but Poipole came back to look for me and make sure I was alright. I was hurt and weak, so he took me to a Pokémon Centre.

He walked me back here to my burrow to make sure I was okay getting home without any more incidents. He showed me that he'd taken my Pokéball from my old Trainer, along with the rest of his Pokemon's Pokéballs. We released everyone else back into the wild. We let them have their Pokéballs and do what they wanted with them. They still live somewhere in this forest. They're hiding these days, though, because they're all still scared of humans, like me. I'm the only one brave enough to go near humans anymore and even now I'm still jumpy.

I chose to keep my Pokéball and just hide it in here where nobody will ever find it. This way I won't be able to get caught again if I don't want to be. I can choose if I ever get a new Trainer. That's why Bonnie couldn't catch me when she tried to.

Poipole and I became best friends after all that. He still had to leave again and I haven't seen him for years now, but we're still pretty close, obviously. It was good to see him again. He saved all of us that day when he stopped my old Trainer. I'll never forget that."

By now they both had tears in their eyes; Sophie from the painful memories and Dedenne out of sorrow for his poor friend who had to suffer by her old Trainer's cruel hands. "Sophie, I'm so sorry! That's horrible!"

"I'm just glad I'm free now," Sophie said, though she still gladly accepted Dedenne's comforting hug. "So... yeah. That's why I'm so scared around humans, that's why I've got a Pokéball, that's why I've got that bad word written on my Pokéball... anything else, Dedenne?"

"No, you've said more than enough already," Dedenne shook his head quickly, not wanting to hear more just as much as it was obvious that Sophie didn't want to say more. "Thank you for telling me, though."

"It's fine," she smiled weakly. "Right, legs get you back to Bonnie. She's probably worried sick about you."

Without waiting for a response, she nudged Dedenne onto her back and face him a Tepiggy back ride back to Bonnie's tent. The young blonde girl was wide awake and waiting when they arrived.

"There you are, Dedenne!" Bonnie smiled, scooping up the little mouse Pokémon. She then took note of the saddened mood of the two Pokémon and frowned. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"