As sunlight shines through the trees of New Bark Town, Gold tells Joey to hurry and calls out to his mother that they're heading off. The middle-aged woman remarks that it is a nice day, and suggests Gold take along the family Pokémon with him so as to let them breath in some fresh air. She tells Joey to look after Gold, and the youngster thanks her for letting him stay the night. Gold dashes off on his skateboard, and Joey quickly runs along to keep up. Seeing the excited look on Gold's face, Joey couldn't help but take a look at his Rattata and let out a sigh.

Last night, right after Gold helped Joey retrieve the bag of Pokémon he's supposed to deliver to Prof. Elm, the youngster has mentioned that the person who sent him off on the mission was Prof. Oak. Upon hearing the name, Gold bolted with a start. While Joey initially thought that it's a common reaction among trainers, since Prof. Oak is a well-known authority in the Pokémon world, it turned out that the boy was only gasping in shock because the old man often comes on the radio program, Pokémon Hour, with his favourite DJ singer, Mary. Once Joey said that he will be returning to Oak's second science lab in Cherrygrove city after the delivery, Gold suddenly grinned and volunteered to accompany him on his mission. Although the boy's reason was to get the rare opportunity to meet the famous Professor Oak, Joey knew that he was simply thinking of fooling the old man into bringing him along to the next radio recording session where he could meet Mary personally.

Joey sighs again as he recalls their conversation the night before, but Gold has no idea what the youngster is thinking about and keeps skating on. As the two head into the city centre of New Bark, nearly everyone on the streets takes a moment from what they're doing and greets Gold joyfully. Joey is surprised at the boy's fame, and Gold grins that the House of Pokémon is very popular in the neighbourhood. Gold then notices a crowd gathering around a game stall, and decides to head over and have a look. A birdkeeper with spikey hair has offered to reward luxurious goods to the person who manages to catch his fifteen Woopers within a minute, and a Hoothoot perches on a wooden stand next to him. The birdkeeper remarks to the crowd that his owl Pokémon will be counting the time, and Joey recalls hearing how Hoothoot keeps its perfect sense of time by the internal clock in its body.

A few young men brazenly step up to take the challenge, but one by one, they fail to catch all the mischievous Woopers within a minute's time. The birdkeeper grins, and secretly thinks to himself that no one will ever be able to outsmart him because he could always cheat by motioning his Hoothoot to shorten the one minute. Gold seems to have spotted the man's actions, and decides to take part. He turns around to retrieve all of his family Pokémon except his Aipom, Aitro, and places them into his backpack. He then leaves the bag with his skateboard, and walks up to the man to pay his game fare.

Before the game starts, Aitro secretly uses its tail to propel itself up to Hoothoot, and starts swinging its arms back and forth. A confused look appears on the owl Pokémon's face, and Aitro quickly hops back down to Gold. The birdkeeper commences the game, and Gold immediately motions Aitro to strike. The purple monkey easily swats down the Woopers with its agile movements, and Gold quickly captures them into the provided Pokéballs. The crowd cheers as Gold is close to catching all the Woopers, and the birdkeeper silently grunts that he will not let that happen. He motions Hoothoot to shorten the time, but the owl Pokémon gets more confused and starts thrashing around.

Gold instantly points out that the man has been cheating, and the crowd starts to glare angrily at him. The birdkeeper embarrassedly gathers up his belongings and runs off, and the people all thank Gold for helping out. Seeing the arrogant look on the boy's face, Joey sighs that Gold seems to be an attention seeker, and more than often does things only to gain praises and fame. While Gold is still busy enjoying the glory he gets from the crowd, a dark shadow secretly lurks from behind and snags away his backpack on the skateboard.

A while later, after the crowd disperses, Joey wonders why Hoothoot all of a sudden got confused, and Gold explains that Aitro has unleashed a swagger in front of it before the game starts, which is a skill that induces the confused status on the opponent. Gold turns around and notices that his backpack is gone. He starts looking around for it, and Joey suddenly lets out the cry. The youngster remarks that the bag he is delivering to Elm not only contains rare Pokémon but also confidential research materials from Oak. He reasons that someone must be trying to steal them, but mistakenly took Gold's backpack instead because the Pokéballs of the family Pokémon made the bag look exactly like the one for Elm.

Gold gets slightly taken aback by the idea that his family Pokémon who have accompanied him since his birth were stolen, and grunts that he will not let the culprit get away. He decides that whoever stole his Pokémon would soon discover their mistake and wait for them at Elm's lab, and immediately hops onto his skateboard while putting on his goggles. He starts to head off, and Joey hurriedly follows from behind with his Rattata.

Meanwhile, at Prof. Elm's lab, the young man and his Sentret are waiting for Joey to arrive. He hears a knock on the door, and quickly walks over to open it, expecting to see the boy. Yet no one seems to be standing outside, and the professor shares a confused look with little flying squirrel. High up on the ceiling, Silver flattens himself against the tiles next to his Sneasel, and puts on an evil grin as he looks down at the Pokéballs of the three starter Pokémon on the table below…

Thanks To Coronis For Writing this for us