"Well, this has been fun," grumbled Pokémon Trainer Asher as he fiddled with a pair of tweezers.

In front of him, his Gligar slowly shrunk away. Asher sighed in near-exasperation.

"What's worse? Having a sliver, or having a pair of tweezers take it out? It'll only be a second."

The returning glare his Pokémon gave him clearly wasn't one of trust. Ash sighed. "Keegan, your Pokémon hates me."

From a nearby patch of vegetation, Asher heard his companion call back his Pokémon. "It's not my Pokémon anymore, Ash. That's how trades work. Don't blame it on me."

Gligar looked over in Keegan's direction, and Asher seized the opportunity to pull the offending bit of wood out of Gligar's wing. He may have been a total klutz, but when he needed to, he could get a job done. Usually.

It took Gligar a moment before realizing that the evil tweezers had, in fact, just been used on him. And they had been, as his Trainer told him, not that bad. Gligar smiled at him, looking pleased as it stretched its wing.

"You should listen to me more often," Asher advised as he set the instrument back in his first aid kit. "Keegan, I'm leaving my stuff with you."

"And why would you be dumb enough to do that?"

Keegan, while more adept at battling than Asher, was far less organized, and very bad at keeping track of things. In fact, he was so bad at keeping track of things, it would be far more honest to say he was good at losing them. While his Pokémon, Pokégear, and wallet never left him, he seemed to always be running back to the last town's Pokémon Center to retrieve a TM he'd left, or "swearing" he'd put his lemonade back in his bag.

While all of this was true, Keegan was perfectly capable of guarding something. Not that anyone wanting to pick a fight would feel threatened; Keegan was skinny, scruffy, and looked like he never slept, but somehow every passing Trainer knew he wasn't to be messed with.

"I'm operating on the assumption that you are not going touch my stuff, move it, or even examine it, actually." With that, Ash straightened up and headed back into the thicker tangles of vegetation.

The two of them had come here – "here" being Route 38, an overgrown path West of Ecruteak City – in search of wild Magnemite, who sometimes carried a peculiar item known as a Metal Coat. While his Scyther was a pretty badass Pokémon – if he did say so, himself – it had proven to be lacking defensively, and no longer strong enough to stand up to their opponents. Plus, freaking Scizor. How cool was that? Ash didn't know too-too much about Pokémon evolution – more Keegan's thing, but he'd learned that evolving Scyther involved using the item. Kind of like an evolutionary stone evolves a Staryu.

What he'd expected was, after encountering twenty or so wild Magnemite, that ONE of them would be holding a Metal Coat. He'd been especially prone to that crazy assumption after Keegan, who never had luck on his side, obtained one upon encountering the first Magnemite he ran into some time ago. But no. He sighed, looking back at his Gligar. Was there something wrong with his thieving Pokémon? He'd been able to have Gligar steal MooMoo Milk off of every single wild Miltank they ran into, so that couldn't be it. ...More realistically, maybe Keegan had ran into every Magnemite holding one. They'd been here for nearly an hour, and while Keegan had just recently joined the hunt and only encountered about ten of the Pokémon, he'd already obtained three Metal Coats using his Alakazam's Trick.

He turned around as he heard the familiar, mechanical screech and motioned for Gligar to head into battle. "All right, we'd better get lucky this time! Gligar, use Thief! And try not to get another splinter!"

After taking a moment to glare at his Trainer, Gligar leapt at the wild Magemite, ramming into it and doing damage to the Steel-type before scouring it for items. The Magemite seemed unimpressed; despite Gligar being much stronger, the Dark-type attack did little damage. Gligar turned around, shaking its head before retreating. Ash groaned. "All right, Gligar. Might as well just run from this one. We can't afford to waste too much more time."

Another near-twenty Magnemite later, and Ash was sure that some omnipotent cosmic force was at work, forcing him to waste as much time as possible. Beside him, Keegan had let out his Ampharos, also named "Asher". Even if he was a complete ass for having such good luck, Keegan really seemed to feel bad for him. Ash (the human one) supposed that Keegan was planning to give him a Metal Coat (or four), but, still. This was personal now. He had to find one.

"You know what? I have the worse luck in the world," Ash declared with a sigh. Keegan gave him what was probably meant to be an encouraging grin, but really looked more like a pitied grimace.

"I'm heading into that thicket," Ash muttered, gesturing up ahead.

"...You know, 'thicket' is a really funny word," remarked Keegan. Ash cracked up.

"Ha ha, it really is. 'Thicket'." Not even horrible luck could prevent him from being easily amused, he figured.

He didn't expect Keegan to follow him, but he couldn't help but be a little frightened at the prospect of being the most unlucky person on the planet and going to the wilderness alone. Sure, Keegan was the second unluckiest person ever, but that upped his luck a little, right? He sighed loudly when he heard Gligar cry out and turned to see it violently flapping its wing. Great. Another sliver. Fantastic.

He groaned again when he heard the high-pitched, whirr-like cry of a Magnemite, and motioned his Gligar into battle as he turned around to face it. What he saw, however, was anything but what he expected.

This Magnemite gave off a flurry of dancing sparks, almost like sparkles, that produced a sound as they burst and then faded, almost like a sparkler. Ash cocked his head, confused. Why was that Magnemite sparkling...? Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

"Sh-SHINY MANGEMITE!" Ash barely managed to sputter as he pointed to the wild Pokémon.

"Wait, what? Did you find a Metal Coat..." Keegan trailed off as he maneuvered through the tangles of vegetation. And then, upon joining him, grew wide-eyed. His jaw fell. The Ampharos-Asher to his other side, having been with Keegan since the start of his journey, had the sense to very quickly clamp its paws over its ears.

"HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT!!" Keegan loudly exclaimed. "HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT."

"I KNOW!" Ash responded, quickly turning to Keegan and throwing his arms in the air before flailing them wildly.

"HOLY SHIT!" Keegan continued to say. "Holy... Oh, my god. Holy shit."

Ash just stood there, gaping, too stunned to even join his comrade in freaking the hell out. If it had been as simple as, say, getting lucky on the one percent chance of running into a Pikachu in Viridian Forest or a Yanma on Route 35, "holy shit" would have been the first thing out of his mouth. But for this? There simply were not words, not even "holy shit" said enough times, consecutively, to meet the number of Magnemite he'd run into before this one. ...Not that that didn't stop Keegan from trying.

There was, very roughly speaking, about a one in eight-thousand chance of running into a Pokémon with a different coloration, commonly known as a "shiny" Pokémon due to the sparkling effect they gave off. Asher's father, one of the leading mathematicians in Kanto, had been the one who, along with Professor Oak and the legendary Pokémon Master himself, Red, researched the probability of running into an alternately-colored Pokémon and developed the formula and statistics. Despite their research, Red's legendary status as a Trainer, and Professor Oak's many, many years of working with Pokémon, Red had only encountered two different Pokémon of this sort, and Professor Oak, only four.

Asher couldn't believe it. Almost literally. He was the son of the guy who spent weeks figuring out the mathematical probability of running into a shiny (which, compared with the research Oak, Red, and Elm had done, was practically nothing, but still), and there it was, right-freaking-in front of him.

During all of this, the Magnemite seemed rather bewildered, and almost flattered that this much attention was being paid to it. It turned to the side as though cocking its head, and, if it had a head, that was almost certainly what it would have been doing. Not that Ash had the mind to, but if he did, he wouldn't have blamed it, Hell, it didn't seem to think it was all that special. He guessed a random golden Magnemite out of eight thousand or so silver ones wasn't that big of a deal to a Pokémon.

Still stunned, Ash turned to Gligar. "Gligar, use Thief!"

At this, Keegan seemed surprised. "...You just ran into a gold freaking Magnemite and you're still going to try and steal a Metal Coat from it before catching it?"

...Well, yes, that had been his mindset entirely, but he wasn't giving Keegan the satisfaction of knowing that. "Well, I have to weaken it first, don't I?"

"...Ash, I'm right. That's just sad."

Ash sighed quietly, choosing to ignore this. The Magemite seemed slightly less flattered after Gligar slammed into it, and sparks of electrical energy began to form around it as it prepared to use Thundershock. Gligar, being a Ground-type, didn't attempt to avoid its attack, as its type neutralized the electric energy. He turned to Ash and shook his head. Asher didn't mind so much; he might not have ultimate bragging rights by getting a Metal Coat and a shiny in one Pokémon, but he had damn close to it. He slid his bag off his shoulder and started furiously digging for a Pokéball. He decided on the best ball he had – a Great Ball – and threw it.

The ball burst open, and a beam of light shot up, enveloping the Magnemite and pulling it into the ball. After it closed, the Great Ball wiggled as the Pokémon inside tried to break free. And again. The third time, the struggle weakened, then the ball barely twitched before it briefly turned blue and then held still.

"YES!" Ash cheered, pumping his fist into the air.

"HOLY SHIT," Keegan said again.

"Yeah..." Ash responded, taking long, easy steps as he went to collect the Pokéball. "I'm just kind of like '...What?'"

"Holy shit..." said Keegan again.

Looking down at the ball in his hand, Ash shook his head. "...If it weren't a horrible name for a Pokémon, I'd name this guy 'HOLY SHIT'."

Keegan stared at him. "I would have."

"Of course you would. You love confusing people. It's why you gave your Mareep the same name as me all that time ago," Ash responded, sticking his tongue out before pocketing the ball. "Holy shit..." he finally said. "I have to admit, though, I think anyone would understand why you named a gold Magnemite 'Holy Shit'."

Gligar and Asher (the Ampharos one) turned to each other and shook their heads. While humans were very often beyond them, this was perhaps the most confusing thing they'd ever done. So a Magnemite was gold... Was it also carrying a Nugget, or something? Sheesh...

After another twenty minutes of (still) searching for a Metal Coat, Asher finally gave up.

"You know what? I think I will just take one from you. Thanks, man," Ash said with a grin, nudging Keegan as the two of them began to enter back into Ecruteak City.

Keegan rolled his eyes. "Next you'll be asking for some of my luck, too."

Ash shook his head, still grinning. "Nah..." he started, glancing back at his pocket, "I think I'm already just about the luckiest guy in the world."

Yes, Asher DID literally run into FOURTY Magnemite, and NONE of them had a Metal Coat, which there is a 5% chance of a Magnemite holding. Yet he ran into a SHINY. How does that even WORK? After a while, wouldn't there be a much lower chance of you NOT having run into a Magnemite holding a Metal Coat? Seriously. Anyways, I just kind of bitterly sat there, holding my DS and being VERY unhappy with my five Metal Coats. ...And, yeah, our reactions here pretty much WERE our reactions. ...And my "pretty much", I mean "exactly". ...Eh, I dunno. Usually I don't like self-insertions/fics based on real life, but this was way too entertaining, so sue me. =P Reviews greatly appreciated.