At the New Bark Hospital, Prof. Elm is resting on his bed with a special supporter strapped across his wounded back. The young professor is upset at himself for not being able to stop the thief who ambushed his lab, and his assistant comforts him by saying that there wasn't much he could have done, but Elm remains sombre. The assistant unwraps a Pokémon egg from a cloth, and says they should be thankful that the egg has not been touched during the burglary. Just then, the computer screen of the room's visual phone system comes on, and the image of Gold comes on. The boy greets the professor before introducing himself, and says he has gone through much trouble finding the direct number to the professor's room.

Elm and his assistant are still gaping in awe at the sudden incoming visual call, and Gold proceeds to inform them that he knows about Totodile being stolen, and will be taking Cyndaquil with him to chase after the thief. Without another word, Gold hangs up, and leaves both Elm and his assistant stunned speechless again. Elm then weeps that not only Totodile but Cyndaquil has been taken as well, and wonders what is he going to do with his research work.

Meanwhile, Joey and his Rattatta are heading towards Gold's home to return the family Pokémon to Gold's mother. He gets hesitant about entering, and envisions Gold's mother throwing tantrums about Gold not returning home. He silently walks up to in front of the house, but Gold's mother, as if knowing he is there, suddenly opens the door to greet him and ask about Gold. Joey stutters at his words and prepares to get scolded, but to his surprise, Gold's mother simply shrugs and appears not to care whether Gold comes home or not. Joey wonders why a mother could worry so little about her son, and proceeds to return the Pokéballs of the family Pokémon to her. Gold's mother thanks him, but suddenly notices that the Poliwag, Politro, is missing. Joey immediately offers to phone Gold and notify him.

Gold gets a little surprised knowing that Politro has gone missing, and rationalizes that its Pokéball must have fallen out somewhere when his backpack got stolen. He remembers Oak saying that he found the backpack next to the stream, and decides to halt his plan to pursue Silver, and goes to search for Politro first. Later, Gold and Aitro are still having no luck finding Politro in the steam along route 31. Tons of Chinchous populate the bed of the stream, and Gold has to capture them all to avoid being zapped constantly. After scouting the area one last time, Gold decides that Politro must have been carried away by the water current, and surfaces to continue on his search with Aitro and Typhlo elsewhere.

At the same time, Silver is walking along the quiet alleys of the city when he comes across some police circulars bearing the montage of the Totodile thief on the wall. Seeing the bizarre and distorted look of who's supposed to be himself on the picture, Silver gets a fit and sweatdrops.

That afternoon, Gold has arrived at Violet City and is starting to get hungry. He purchases some fried pancakes from a food stall in the market, and is about to munch on them when a man riding on a herd of Donphans dashes across the street and instantly covers his food with ash and mud. The shopkeeper refuses to refund the now dirty pancakes, and Gold gets ticked off and quickly chases after the Donphans on his skateboard. He notices a moustached middle-aged gentleman also running after the Donphan owner, and learns that his pouch got snagged away. Gold catches up with the Donphans and demands the owner to compensate for his pancakes, but the young man laughs at his words and bumps him off with Donphan's heavy body. Gold gets angry and immediately orders a scratch from Aitro, but the attack barely hurts Donphan, and the heavy armour elephant knocks Aitro off with a horn attack instead. Gold catches Aitro, and takes out his Pokédex to check on the information of Donphans. He learns that the larger the tusks of a Donphan, the higher its rank in its herd. Gold then locates the leading Donphan, and decides to use it to disrupt the running patterns of the herd. Aitro hurls itself towards the leading Donphan, and the owner laughs that only fools would want to receive a deadly strike from his strongest Pokémon. The leading Donphan whips its long nose towards Aitro, but to its surprise, the little purple monkey bounces away before it could make contact, and ends up throwing itself into a spin instead.

Gold shows the hand-like tail of Aitro clinging on his arm, and grins that Aipoms can use their tails as efficiently as a third arm. With the leading Donphan losing its sense of direction, the rest of the herd goes astray from their original path and the whole group rams into a brick wall. The pouch of the moustached gentleman flies off from the Donphan owner's hands, and Gold adeptly catches it.

Later, Gold and his Pokémon are enjoying fried pancakes the moustached gentleman bought to thank him. The chubby man introduces himself as Earl, the owner of the Pokémon Academy in Violet City, and says he's thankful that the important files he's supposed to show to the assistant of Professor Elm that day are safe. Gold chokes on his good, and is surprised to hear that the Elm's assistant is in Violet. He presses Earl for information, and ends up spinning the fat man in circles instead.

Back in New Bark Town, Prof. Elm has returned to his lab and talking with Prof. Oak via his visual phone system. He remarks that he is worried about Gold, and Oak admits that he is worried as well. Oak recalls that one of his most trusted trainer, Red, is already way too crazy in his ways of dealing with things, but from what he sees, Gold seems to be even more bizarre in his doings. Elm then mentions that disregard of what Gold's intentions are, he has sent his assistant to see the boy in Violet City that day, and will hopefully learn more about him.

Meanwhile, Gold is still worried, and wonders if Elm's assistant is there to accuse him of taking Typhlo without permission. He then decides to drop the matter for a while, and turns to the Donphan owner, who is now tied up with his herd. He shows the young man the montage of Silver, and wants to know the whereabouts of the red-haired boy…

Thanks To Coronis For Writing this for us