Dear Maple and Professors all up in the hizhouse of Pokewhassits,

Bastion's gotten really big and is becoming a bit hard to handle. He's such a free-spirit, and he gets in to just about everything. And when I say everything ... I mean everything. He can't keep his nose outta other people's business. Literally. He's got so many scars around his muzzle from Zanna's claws ... he just doesn't know how to leave her alone.

Bastion also seems to like pranking other Pokemon. I don't know if it's because he thinks he's better and stronger than them (he's certainly more scary at first glance), or if it's because he simply gets a rise out of it. Sometimes I think it's kinda funny too, but other times I wish he'd stop ... especially when the other trainers yell at me for not being able to 'control' my own Pokemon.

It's not that he's unruly. He listens to me. I just fear being too mean or too rough with him, yunno? I mean, sure. He's plated in armor. And sometimes he rams right in to me and knocks me over with said armor ... but I don't wanna drive him away by discouraging bad behavior. I'm already worried enough as it is that he thinks I favour Zanna. Thing is, I don't -- I don't favour one over the other at all.

Zanna can be ... a bit heinous. But Bastion can be an instigator. They set each other off in a lot of ways, and it's their own inability to make friends and work together that gets them both in to so much trouble. I'm aware that sometimes Zanna starts things too ... sometimes I think she's the evil genius behind all the times Bastion got caught in the pokey-door and needed a good oiling in order to get him free. Tho, admittedly, it makes me curious as to why he keeps falling for the same old Zanna trickery. I mean ... that door is barely big enough to fit a Skitty, let alone Zanna's skitty-deerling hybridness. A houndour-scolipede mix certainly can't fit through it!

I just ... want my team to get along. Work together. Stop knocking over my lamps and getting in to the trash. Is that too much to ask?

Between the two of them they make me feel so irresponsible. Like I started too late in life to become a trainer, and this is what I get. Like I didn't learn the proper coping skills and patience being young and just starting out has. I'm worried already I'm going to be a failure.

But ... that's okay. At least I'll be able to say that I got the chance to raise my own Pokemon ... by hand.

And that I was really, really, really, really bad at it and should never do it again in a million years. But ... knowing me. Knowing how I am, and the love I feel for Zanna and Bastion despite their constant upheaval of my furniture and puking up of my personal belongings ... they're mine. We're a family. And I wouldn't trade them for anyone or anything in the whole wide world.

Maybe I am cut out for this after all,
Blaze

-- P.S. Thanks for letting me vent again, guys. These letters really help me let loose ...