Chapter Text
I felt myself yawn as I sat underneath the shade of a tree with a book in my hand. It was just the right temperature to almost put me to sleep. After a few seconds of trying to fight it, I gave up and let out a yawn. Once that was done, I got back to my book for a while, before glancing at the small crowd of kids gathered outside the gate to my house.
"You know he's not going to be here for another hour right?" I asked as I got up and looked over the group. They were younger than me by maybe a year or two. In other words, they were the perfect age to start Pokémon training.
"We don't want to miss him when he gets here," one of the kids explained as the ones behind him all nodded in agreement.
I sighed, partly because I had to deal my cousins weird fans. Also because I had just mentally referred to a bunch of people close to my age as 'kids'. I was not an old man in a kid's body, no matter what my sister said.
"Why are you all even here?" I asked the gathered crowd. "Uncle Norman lives just down the street. Why are you all acting like his son is such a big deal?"
"Are you stupid?" I flinched back as one of the kids, a blond with pigtails, yelled at me. "Brendan is one of the strongest trainers in Hoenn, and he's the coolest trainer to ever come out of this tiny town."
"Like I said, gym leader, lives just down the street," I pointed over in the direction of Uncle Norman's house.
"Well I guess being a gym leader is kind of cool..." One of the kids said, looking a little embarrassed before steeling himself. "But not as cool as taking down both Team Aqua and Team Magma."
And that was enough to set off the group again. They all went back to chatting and talking amongst themselves while I went back to my book. It was pretty good actually. A full breakdown of the forty most popular Pokémon in the Hoenn Region Championship, as well as their counters. I chuckled as I read the book's entry on Metagross. According to the book, it's best counter was Camerupt. I couldn't help but remember seeing footage of the last battle with Team Aqua and Magma. Steven, the then champion had taken down scores of Pokémon that day with his Metagross, Camerupt included.
It only proved what my cousin and Uncle had always told me. A cunning trainer, with a strong bond and dedicated training could overcome almost anything. Type advantages included. Of course it was still a bad idea to send out a fire-type against a water-type, but having these things would make it an uphill battle instead of an automatic defeat.
I kept reading, doing my best to ignore the noisy fans, when I heard a noise from above. I closed my eyes and tilted my head up towards the sky.
"Please don't be doing anything too dramatic." I asked under my breath as I opened my eyes. Brendan had jumped jump off his Salamance, and was doing a flip in the air. Just as he was about to hit the ground, he was caught by his Salamance who had come back around. The teenager and dragon gently landed on the ground, right in front of me, the tree, and the gate keeping out the crowd.
"Good job," he said as he patted Salamance on the nose. The dragon purred as Brendan took out a pokéball and recalled it. Once that was done, he looked up at me and waved. "Hey Nikki."
"Don't call me Nikki," I said on reflex. Both Brendan and my older sister had been shortening my name from Nicholas to Nikki for years now. I had pretty much given up on getting them to stop, but I wasn't about to give up now. "Did you have to come in on a dragon?"
"What, did it scare you or something?" He joked as I rolled my eyes.
"No, but I think it riled up your little paparazzi over there," I pointed over to the crowd of children on the other side of the gate who exploded in chatter as Brendan finally noticed them. He flinched back as they started shouting at him.
"Brendan over here!"
"Show us your Pokémon!"
"Tell us how you beat Team Aqua and Magma!"
I smirked as I got to my feet and put my arm over a stunned Brandon's shoulder. "It's your adoring fan's Brandon. They've been waiting all morning here for you and Professor Birch."
"I see," He looked at the gathered crowd and then back to me. "Do you mind if I take a few minutes to..."
"Go right ahead," I told him as I stepped back and let go of him. It was just something you got used to when your older cousin was one of the most famous trainers in the region. He spent a few minutes taking to the kids before finally managing to get them to leave, mostly by promising to see them later at the park for the event.
"It's about time," I joked as we finally walked into the house. "I thought those kids would never leave."
"You do remember you were like that too once, right?" He pointed out as I smirked. "Remember when Wallace passed by here a few years ago? You begged and begged to see him, and then the day finally came and..."
"I got sick that day and had to stay home," I finished for him as we both laughed. "Oh man, I think I sulked about that for a whole year."
"It was more like a week," Brendan's face lit up as a voice came from the living room couch. He swung over to the other side and found my sister quickly getting to her feet.
"Ali," he pulled her into a hug, "It's good to see you."
"It's good to see you too Brendan, now let me go so I can keep watching my show or I'll have Kiki eat you." Brendan let go as quickly as he could. Kiki was my sister's only Pokémon, a terrifying Banette. At least until you learned he was a sweetheart who wouldn't hurt a fly. Something Brandon never had the chance to learn with how little he was around. Well he was about to learn, especially since Kiki was floating right behind him.
I walked into the kitchen to grab some food Ali had made earlier for when Brandon arrived. I waited until I heard the highest shriek a fifteen year old boy could make. I grabbed the sandwiches and walked back out to see my sister laughing along with Kiki.
"You want some food after the trip?" I asked Brandon as he recovered from the fright. he took one of the sandwiches and started digging in along with the rest of us.
"So," he asked once we were all done and Ali had excused herself to her room to go grab something. "Do you think you'll do it this year?"
"I don't know," I answered honestly as I looked down at my hands. "What kind of kid doesn't want to try their hands at the gym circuit at least once. It's just..."
"You don't know if you'll be able to handle your own Pokémon," Brandan finished for me as I nodded.
"I don't get it. Other people's Pokémon I can deal with just fine. But there's just something about the idea of having my own Pokémon, just freaks me out. All those ways I could mess up, all those ways I could fail my Pokémon..."
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Hey don't worry about it. That you're already thinking that way puts you a cut above other starting trainers." He got up and started stretching. "Why don't you come along to the event I'm holding with the Professor today? All the starters have a lot of documentation about them, and are easy to raise."
"He gave me a confident smile and I had to force a matching one to appear on my face. There was the other reason I didn't want to start training. The one I kept secret form the rest of the family. I didn't want to start out and be known as Brandon's cousin. I didn't want to journey in his shadow.
I thought waiting a year extra would cool things down, but here he was , running new trainer events along with Professor Birch. He was just as famous as ever.
At least I would have a chance to get one of the three Hoenn starters. Wasn't too sure which one I would get. On second thought, I would take any of them aside from Torchic. People were already going to compare us, might as well not feed into it by choosing the same starter.
This sucks. This grass, that tree, that berry bush. All of it sucked.
A sudden growl left me clutching my stomach in pain. I hadn’t eaten since I left home almost three days ago. Not a real meal anyway. Half a berry that left me throwing up what little was left in my stomach didn't count. Stupid mom, always peeling the berries for us like I was a baby. Not too helpful now that I had no idea what any of those edible berries looked like.
A part of me wanted to go back. To turn around and run crying back home. To run into my mother’s arms.
To have everyone laugh at me. To be told, “Of course you came back, you're just a stupid little girl can’t do anything for herself.”
I kept on ignoring that part of me. I had a plan, all I had to do was follow through on it.
I had to find a trainer. I had to get strong, strong enough to fend for myself, strong enough to prove to everyone that I wasn’t some pathetic weakling.
I clenched my tiny pale fists as I remembered all those nights of mom telling us horror stories. Of abusive trainers and miserable conditions and all the terrible things that happened when young Pokémon ran away from their parents.
And then I had actually seen one. A Trainer had passed by our glade. Mom told me to hide, to remain ignorant of the truth. I'd tried, but I slipped and fell out of the tree I was in.
I was terrified, frozen in fear as I got myself ready to be caught in a Pokéball.
Instead, his Pokémon had made space for me near the fire and treated me to some food. It tasted amazing, better than anything I’d ever have before. By the end, I started feeling something inside of me that I had never felt before. I didn’t know what it was, but it felt nice so I didn’t say anything. Instead, I stopped eating and asked them about their trainer.
It tuned out they had nothing but kind things to say about their trainer. They told me about how they had all grown stronger through travel with him. How they had become a sort of family through their travels.
And what travels they were. The volcano to the north, the islands chains to the east, the vast cities the humans built. I left their campsite wanting to see them all.
And then mom had found me.
I’d seen her angry before, but never like this. I had wanted to tell her what happened, how I had gotten caught by accident. But no, I must have done it on purpose. She sent me to the small tree hallow we called home without dinner. Not too much of an issue to be honest. I had already the food the trainer and his Pokémon had offered. But she didn’t know that, she didn’t care.
She never cared about me. She only kept me around because she liked having something to control.
I punched the tree next to me only to grimace in pain. Trees are hard, almost forgot about that. I looked up at it and frowned. I had a better way than punching. My mother was a liar and a nag but she wasn’t crazy enough to lie to me about the seven steps.
The first step, calm my emotions. I closed my eyes and focused on calming my emotions. I let my anger and rage fall away, at least for the moment.
The second step, steady my breathing. I took deep breaths, allowing myself to fall into a rhythm of in and out that matched my heartbeat.
The third step, feel the power flowing around me. As my breathing steadied I opened myself to it. A vast sea of power that engulfed the world, linking all life together. I felt it flow, cascading over my head, running down my body and coursing past my legs. Going in all direction yet maintaining itself in the same place, remaining ever-present.
The fourth step, allow the power to flow into me in controlled streams. I beckoned it to me, allowing it enter my body through my horns.
The fifth step, carefully direct the flow. Five streams flowed out from each horn. One pair to my brain, a pair to each of my eyes, and a pair to each of my hands.
The sixth step, pool the power. I fought back against the streams as they flowed through me. They wanted to burst, to overflow and flood my body. I concentrated on keeping my breathing steady as the psychic energy pooled into the three body parts I needed. My brain, to manage the flow. My eyes, to aim the flow, and finally my hands.
“I am not weak,” I muttered to myself.
My hands, for the final and seventh step. I opened my eyes, now glowing blue, and unleashed the power pooled within me all at once. I felt it like a torrent, pouring out of me in a way that almost felt painful, like my arms were about to burst open from the inside.
A wave of invisible force struck the tree, causing it to slightly rustle drop a few leaves.
I frowned, wondering what I was doing wrong. My brothers told me that they had been able to do so much more when they were my age. I was following all the steps, so why wasn't I getting stronger?
I sighed in defeat. I couldn’t even take down a single stupid tree. I took a deep breath and looked around the small area I was in. There was a bush to my right, some tall grass behind me and there was a small stream to my left. The tree itself was a normal looking tree with a few mushrooms growing from the bottom.
Something was missing. I looked around and saw a rock with a jagged edge. I grabbed it carefully and walked over to the tree. I reached up as high as I could and making sure to not cut myself, carved an X into the tree bark.
I took a step back and admired my handiwork.
I turned and kept heading north.
Or at least I was about to when I felt a sudden cramping pain in my gut. I grabbed my belly and groaned audibly. I noticed a nearby tree with a small groove in the bark.
Seeing no reason not, too I huddled over to the tree and sat in the groove.
“Just a little while,” I said to myself in a mumbled promise before fading away to sleep.
The event was underway and I wasn’t having any of it. I just wasn’t clicking with any of these little guys. That isn’t to say they hated me or anything, but the starters that Professor Birch had brought with him had latched themselves onto the rest of the kids right from the start.
“They can tell you’re nervous,” Brendan took a seat on the park bench, right next to me. After spending twenty minutes trying to get close to a Pokémon, I had instead found myself taking a seat and watching everyone else.
They had picked a good time and place for this. A little park on the southernmost part of town that eventually blended into the woods on a bright and sunny day. A perfect and idyllic setting to think back on when you remembered getting your first Pokémon.
“Pokémon are pretty good at sensing emotion, especially those raised by humans. Everyone else is bursting with excitement and they feel that.”
“Oh, so all I have to do is not be nervous. Let me just flip the switch in my brain that lets me control my nervousness.”
Brendan sat in silence, mulling something over.
“Okay so maybe stressing you out over being less nervous is a bit counterproductive.”
“You think?” I chuckled.
“Listen, if you don’t have a Pokémon by the end of the day, maybe I can help you out.”
“I don’t know,” I said nervously, thoughts of not wanting to get stuck in Brendan’s shadow looming over me, much like said shadow I was trying to not fall under.
“Its fine, you see I…”
Whatever it was that he was about to say was cut off by a panicked cry. Brendan and I looked at each other before jumping off the bench and running towards the yelling.
We were able to pinpoint the source easy enough, a small crowd centering on a girl with a treecko riding on her head. She looked out of breath like she had just been running. Her eyes widened as she watched us approach.
As we got closer I noticed Professor Birch running towards us out of the corner of my eye.
“What happened?” Brendan asked the girl with the treecko on her head. Both she and the poor wood gecko looked deeply disturbed.
“Me and Trevor saw one of the Pokémon wander into the woods. We figured it wouldn’t be too hard to bring it back so we went in after it. But when the torchic noticed that we were chasing it, it ran off. So we kept going until we saw something in the woods.” She began to shiver.
“What was it?” The Professor asked her, the jovial man sounding more serious then I had ever heard him sound before.
“I don’t know, all I saw was a pair of huge eyes coming from the shadows.” She clutched her arms around her body. “We ran away from it, but I think we got separated. The next thing I knew, I had made it back to the park and Trevor was gone.”
“Give me a little room please,” Brendan asked as he dug into a small pocket in his bag and took out a Pokéball. The people closest to us backed away as Brendan tossed the ball to the ground. There was a bright flash of light and his Salamence appeared. “Come here.” He beckoned the girl to get closer.
“Yes?” She said softly as she shuffled up to the older trainer and his dragon.
“What does Trevor look like?”
“He’s a little taller than me, with short brown hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a white shirt with blue jeans, oh and a blue hat.”
Brendan looked over to Salamence.
“You got all that?”
The dragon nodded.
“Go.” He rubbed his head before turning to the rest of us. “Clear some more space, He’s going to need a running start to take off.”
The crowd followed his directions, forming a sort of runway of clear space. Salamence backed up a bit before breaking out into a run. A few seconds late, the dragon was in the air.
“He knows how to find me if he finds Trevor. I’m heading into the woods to look for myself.”
“I’ll stay here,” Professor Birch said, “In case he makes it back by himself. If he does, I’ll contact you. I still have your nav number.”
Brendan nodded at the older man and took off into the woods. Without thinking, I ran after him.
We had just gotten out of sight of the park when he looked over his shoulder and suddenly stopped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I toss my own glance behind me.
“Why are you here?”
“What do you think? I’m following you.”
“Why?”
“Well, having a second pair of eyes couldn’t hurt. Also never seen a real battle against a wild Pokémon before, I figured watching you in action could help me get over my nervousness.”
He stood there for a moment, just watching me. Eventually, he nodded.
“Okay, but stick close to me. And whatever you do, do not put yourself in any danger.”
I felt something on my chest as I slept. It felt light at first like someone had just put a small rock on top of me, probably one of my brothers. I ignored it and kept sleeping.
Then the weight began to grow. I breathed heavier as I felt it grow on top of my chest. Every time I breathed in, my chest would expand and the weight would get a little easier to bare. But when I breathed out, the weight fell on me even harder, digging into my lungs.
After a little bit, I realized I wasn’t breathing anymore.
I woke up, scrambling to get off my back and onto my feet. I clutched my chest, the heavy feeling still there. I glanced down, trying to find whatever was causing the weight.
“There’s… nothing… there.” I let out in between gasps. I looked back up, scanning the area around me for something, anything, that could be causing this.
There was something off about the woods. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was there.
“Have to think…” I said as I tried to figure out what was wrong. I thought back to what the forest looked like before I fell asleep. A thought struck me. I looked down at my hand.
Normally my hand is a grayish white. I knew this, I saw it every day, and it was always that color.
But not tonight, not right now. Now my hand was a strange slight purplish hue to its color. The same purplish hue I now realized was painting everything around me.
I looked around, searching for any spot where the purple wasn't as strong. I almost gave up when I saw it, a tree off in the distance that wasn't purple.
I urged my legs to move, pain firing through almost my entire body. I tried to ignore the burning pain, instead focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.
Step.
Step.
Step.
With every step forward, I felt the pain in my lungs subside even as the pain in my legs and stomach grew. I had to keep moving. Even if the pain made the tears flow from my eyes, even if it got so unbearable that I wanted to give up and collapse. I had to for one reason.
This pain in my legs, I knew it would pass. I would get away from this purple hue, and be able to rest again.
But the pain in my lungs would not pass. It would stay until it got too much and I wouldn't be able to breathe.
I wasn't about to drown in the middle of the woods with no water in sight.
I was halfway there, the pain in my lung almost bearable now. I was so close. I knew I couldn't stop. But I wanted to so badly. I wanted to stop now, to tell myself that I was far away enough.
I knew I wasn't. Instead, I thought back to that night. To all those places those trained Pokémon had told me about. About the town above the sea, the volcano to the north, the great desert, Meteor Falls, the town inside the volcano. I wanted to see them all.
And I couldn't see any of them if I died right here. So I kept going.
I thought back to my Mother. About how weak she thought I was, how useless she thought I was. If I died so soon after leaving home, she would find me. She would find my cold corpse and laugh.
I would come back, I would come back and show them all. I would be powerful, unstoppable, and no one would ever treat me like a useless child ever again.
I passed the tree and the pain in my lungs went away altogether. I calmed myself, taking deep breaths to get the purple air out of my lungs. I breathed in and out, letting it all filter out.
I let out a smile as I felt the empty feeling inside before collapsing.
We’d been going at a brisk pace through the woods for a while now. Part of me wanted to ask Brendan about the way we were searching, but I found myself too nervous to ask him.
Instead, I thought of the Pokémon that I knew Brendan had and what he could possibly have on him. I already knew he had his Salamence scouting the woods from above. I would be shocked if he didn’t have his Blaziken with him, but it made sense to keep him close. Milotic wouldn’t be that useful for searching the woods. Grumpig was strong, but not fast enough to search the woods like Salamence.
The rest of his team fluctuated enough that I had no clue what could be in his last two slots.
In short, if he had any Pokémon on him that could have made the search easier, then he would have used them by now.
I grimaced, the forest was huge and stretched to the coast. With such a large search area, finding a single person and Pokémon was going to be next to impossible.
The best we could hope for would be for Brendan’s Salamence to find the kid.
The almost inaudible sound of someone calling for help off in the distance behind me told me otherwise. I narrowed my eyes and tied to figure out what direction it was coming from.
“Brendan,” I told him as I stopped running. He turned around, looking impatient. “I think I heard something behind us, it might be Trevor."
“Lead the way.” He said seriously.
We only just started heading back when I heard the voice again. It was definitely someone calling for help.
“You hear it this time?” I asked Brendan who just nodded.
We reached a small, empty clearing about a minute later.
“Where is he?” I asked aloud as we looked around the clearing.
“Up here.”
We both looked up. Up in one of the trees circling the clearing was the kid we had been searching for. Cradled in his arms was the missing Pokémon, cooing and looking at us with what looked like relief.
“What are you doing up there?” Brendan asked the question I also wanted answered.
“I’m hiding.”
“From what?” I asked him this time, hoping he'd give an actual answer this time.
“I don’t know. But there was something in the woods, something dangerous.”
So much for an actual answer.
“Well, you’re safe now,” I call out. “I doubt anything in these woods is strong enough to take on a champion level trainer.”
“I guess you're right.” He answered back as he started shuffling around on the branch. He carefully placed Torchic on his back so that the pokémon could grab on as he climbed down. It was a slow, but not overly slow process, watching the kid get down from the tree.
Now that I had a good look at him, he didn’t seem worse for wear. A few scuff marks but aside from that he was fine.
“Let’s head back to the park,” Brendan told him as he dusted off the little bit of dirt on him.
As we walked back in silence, I heard something off in the distance. It sounded a little like someone crying.
“Wait a second, I hear something,” I told the other two. “Someone else might have wandered in from town.”
Brendan nodded and followed me, a pokéball in his hand.
After a few moments, the forest parted away to reveal a small white figure laying on the ground. I heard the same crying sound come from it and I ran over. I knelt over the poor thing, putting one of my hands on the ground next to it.
“It’s a Ralts,” Brendan commented. “A tiny one too, even by their standards. It must be young.”
“Should we take them back with us?” I grimaced as Brendan shook his head.
“If it’s this young then their Mother should be close by. Getting between a fully grown Gardevoir and her child would be extremely dangerous.”
As he said that, I felt someone tugging on my hand. I looked down and saw the ralts pulling themselves up using my arm. It looked up, giving me a look of adoration. I saw small tears forming in corner of their eyes. It let out a squeal and hugged my arm, letting out a sound that might have been laughter.
“I think it likes me,” I said in disbelief.
“Well, that’s, a thing. Well even if it likes you it’s still way too young for capture.”
“By how much?” I asked as I rubbed the top of the Pokémon’s head with my finger.
“No idea, we’d have to ask the Professor when we get back.”
“Um, guys?” The two of us turned around. The kid and torchic were turned away from us, looking at something in the woods. “It’s back.”
Brendan, the ralts and I all froze in place as a feeling of dread washed over me. Like I was about to die. I grasped for my throat, trying to get rid of whatever was strangling me. When I felt nothing there, I looked down at the ralts.
The poor thing was shivering and holding on tight to my arm. Despite my better judgment, I decided to ignore Brendan. I scooped the ralts up and cradled it in my arms, it felt too cruel to do otherwise. As soon as settled in it poked its head out to watch the trees.
If Brendan wanted to say something, he didn’t get the chance. As soon as the feeling of dread passed, a trio of flying things came bursting out of the trees towards us. The three pokémon buzzed in the air as they came right at us. It had a white body with two sets of buzzing orange wings. For some reason, I found myself unable to remember what they were called. The ralts squeaked and ducked down into my arms.
“Wild Masquerain, well that explains some of it,” Brendan muttered as he grabbed a pokéball and threw to the ground. His Blaziken burst out in a flash of light. He narrowed his eyes as he watched the three Pokémon flying towards us. “Nikki, Trevor, when you get the chance, run for it. I’ll hold them back. If you feel that dread again, ignore it.” Brendan told us as his Blaziken raised his leg up and his foot burst into flames. It kicked through the air, making a wall of flames between us and the Masquerain.
“What do you mean ignore it?” I said as I tracked the Masquerain beyond the flames. One of them had stayed in place while the other two had split off in opposite directions to circle around us.
Well, on one hand, I had found a trainer. On the other hand, I was pretty sure I was about to die.
Mom’s nagging tended to be about whatever was annoying her at the moment plus a few staples. One such staple was a warning to not stray too far from the clearing or I would get eaten by the flutterers. I figured she was lying about that like she lied about everything else. Instead there three of the things flying towards us. I knew the way it worked, Pokémon protected trainers. There was no way I would be able to hold them back.
As I nestled in the trainer’s arms, I realized my only hope of escape would be for the trainer to save me.
So in short, I was as good as doomed. Who would want a Pokémon too weak to protect their own trainer? Once the trainer realized he had a useless pokémon in its arms, he would portably leave me and run for it. Not that I blamed him.
“I did turn out to be a useless little girl in the end,” I muttered to myself as I waited for the end. Instead, I felt a bright flash of white light. I opened my eyes to the sight of flames.
They stood tall and proud, a trainer and his pokémon, the dream I wanted. There it was, in all of its glory. I could barely hear them over the roar of the flames but I saw the trainer’s mouth move and the pokémon move into action. My eyes could barely keep track of him as he almost vanished.
The taller trainer told the trainer holding me something I couldn’t understand. He nodded and took off running along with the third trainer.
Being carried felt weird, but I was too exhausted to care. I felt myself drifting to and away from sleep for a while, but I forced myself to stay awake. The trainer was probably not impressed with me, the last thing I wanted to do was pass out on him.
Which helped when he suddenly stopped in place. I turned to see what it was that stopped us. As soon as I did, passing out stopped being my main concern.
A fourth flutterer right in front of us. It glowed purple and beat its wings towards us. Once again the world became purple. For some reason, it wasn’t as bad this time. I only felt a tightish squeeze around my body and neck instead of the overwhelming weight of before. However, I still reached up to instinctively claw at whatever was around my neck.
The fact that I knew there was nothing there didn’t stop me.
The trainer ran from it for some reason. Why didn’t he just take out one of his other pokémon? Especially since the flutterer decided to chase us, keeping us within the purple as we ran.
The trainer looked down and said something to me I couldn’t make out. It sounded nice though. Maybe making it this long had impressed him?
The thought gave me strength. I focused on my breathing, trying to calm myself down. I had to make a good showing here.
But it was hard, the flutterer kept chasing us, not giving up. The other trainer who was running with us yelled something and we stopped again. I wondered what had happened when I suddenly went flying.
I landed on a soft patch of grass and looked over at the trainer. My first instinct was that he had made his choice and had decided to drop me. However, instead of seeing the trainer standing over me with a disappointed glare, he had apparently also been knocked down to the ground. Hovering over him was another flutterer who was quickly joined by the one that had been chasing us.
I turned around and saw the other trainer who'd had been with us was running away with his pokémon. I growled at him, leaving me behind was one thing but leaving your friend behind was something else.
“Coward,” I yelled at him before realizing there were still two flutterers behind me. I clapped my mouth closed and slowly turned around.
Maybe I had gotten lucky and they hadn’t heard me.
The two flutterers staring at me before suddenly hovering over to me told me that my luck sucked.
The droning sound of their wings buzzed in my ears as they hovered above me, their beady eyes drilling into me. The one that had charged the trainer started to glow purple as well.
I felt a familiar feeling as both purple waves washed over me. The strangling feeling was back, made worse by the knowledge that the ones doing it were right in front of me.
A loud yell distracted the flutterers as they both stopped to watch the trainer come running at them. It swung one of its arms at them.
Was… was he trying to get them away for me? Why? Why would he do that?
My questioning was cut short as the flutterers just decided to dart out of his reach. I hoped for a second that they would just go away. Instead, they both glowed purple and I watched in horror as waves of purple engulfed the trainer.
He was forced to the ground, down on all fours. I could see him clench his fists as he gripped the ground. I watched as he tried and failed to get up, to get to his feet, only to collapse completely.
I… I had to do something.
At that moment, I knew what I had to do.
The first step, calm my emotions. The tears in my eyes and the rage in my heart told me that there was no way I was getting this step done. Skipped.
The second step, steady my breathing. I could feel the pounding in my chest. The non-stop throbbing told me that this wasn’t happening. Skipped.
The third step, feel the power flowing around me. I gasped as I felt the sea. Unlike the calm ever-present sea from before, the sea was choppy, a stormy sea that almost overwhelmed me.
The fourth step, allow the power to flow into me in controlled streams. If I could have laughed, I would have laughed at the word controlled. I opened my horns to the power, allowing it to flow freely as much as possible.
The fifth step, carefully direct the flow. I felt the power rage inside me. I could barely shape it, let alone direct it.
The sixth step, pool the power. I didn’t bother. I had so much power coursing through me that putting more in any particular spot would have been meaningless.
“Get…” I held my arms out at the flutterers. “Away from him!”
Step seven, unleash the psychic might. A bright green wave of psychic power barreled towards one of the flutterers sending one flying and to the ground. Before I had a chance to catch my breath, the other one came at me, an angry look in its eyes.
“Go away,” I said as I crossed my arms in front of me and pushed outwards.
A green pulse flew out of me, impacting the flutterer just as it was about to hit me. It went flying just like its friend.
The trainer got up, catching his breath. It said something as it looked at the flutterers on the ground. It sounded stunned, and maybe, hopefully, impressed.
“I… did…it,” I said in-between exhausted pants. I let out a wheezing laugh as I collapsed.
I unfroze as the Ralts fell to the ground.
“Hey, you okay?’ I asked as I scooped them up in my hands. I grimaced, the little thing was out cold. My worry was lessened a bit by the goofy grin the ralts had on their face.
I heard a rustling sound come from the woods. I looked up and held the Ralts closer up to me in case I needed to run. I let out a breath that I hadn’t even noticed that I had been holding as I saw Brendan emerge from the woods with his Blaziken and Grumpig.
“Nikki are you okay? I rushed over here as soon as soon as I heard that you didn’t make it back to the park.”
“So Trevor’s okay then?” I asked as I suddenly felt weak in the knees. I apparently showed it because Blaziken was by my side in an instant. The fire type caught me before I had a chance to fall.
Grumpig walked up to me and held out her hands. It gave a demanding squeal, signaling that she was going to be holding onto the Ralts from now on. Knowing the motherly pokémon from reputation, I didn’t put up a fight as I carefully handed the little one over.
“Let’s head back.” I tried to walk, my legs shaking with each short step. I barely made it five steps when I almost feel again. Once again Blaziken caught me before I hit the ground.
“Maybe you should let us help you,” Brendan suggested as Blaziken helped me walk. I opened my mouth to insist I was fine when he cut me off. “Most humans aren’t really built to take pokémon attacks, let alone one as potentially debilitating as ominous wind. And you didn’t take just one. You took multiple, overlapping ominous winds. Anyone would be out of it after something like that.”
Realizing that I wasn’t getting out of this, I let go of my pride and let everyone help me back to town. By the time we got to the park, Ali and my parents were speaking to Prof Birch. By the looks of it, we had made just in time to save the poor man.
We walked over to the group when we were suddenly ambushed by a worried looking Trevor, an equally worried looking Torchic in his arms.
“You made it! I was super worried.” He almost yelled as he looked at me. “What happened? I thought you were right behind me?”
A sudden thought occurred to me.
“Did… did you not notice the fifth Masquerain knocking me to the ground. Because that was a thing that happened. Well unless the fifth one was actually one of the three that Brendan held back then I suppose there would have just been four.”
“You’re rambling,” Brendan said. “You need to get some…”
“Nicholas!” A sudden yell interrupted us as we looked over at the group that was running towards us. Blaziken let me go as I was swept up in a tight hug by my mother.
“Careful Aunt Carol,” Brendan told my Mother. “Let him breathe.”
“What happened?” My father asked.
“Actually, I have to talk to Prof Birch about that.”
“Let’s head back to the house.” The Professor said before noticing the Ralts in Grumpig’s arms. “Who’s this?”
“Well, you see… Nikki!”
That was weird, why was Brendan yelling my name in a panic. Also, why was the world at the angle? And why was the ground suddenly so close and oh I’m passing out.
That explained everything.
The throbbing pain in my head told me I was awake. I was also somewhere soft, softer than anywhere I had ever felt in my life. I groaned as I rolled onto my stomach. I pushed myself up to a sitting position. I opened my eyes and found myself in a place the likes of which I had never seen before.
I wasn’t sure how I would describe it. There were a bunch of weird straight lines everywhere. Everywhere I looked, I saw colors. Most of it was a dull brown that looked like wood all over the room. But aside from that, there were several, small brightly colored objects scattered all over the place. I glanced down and saw I was sitting on some sort of weird green thing. I pushed it a little and watched as it sank a little.
“Looks like you woke up.” I jumped as a purple figure suddenly appeared in front of me. She was holding a bright, flat shiny object with a few things on top of it. She put the object down on the platform in front of me. One of them appeared to contain a yellowish brown water. It smelled amazing.
“What is that?” I pointed at the stuff.
“Food,” She answered sternly as she got something else from the flat object, some sort of shiny stick. She put it in the food and it began to pool inside of it. “Open your mouth.”
The food tasted as good as it smelt. It had a deep, tangy flavor I didn’t recognize. There were also small bits of berries in the food, none of which I recognized.
“Okay, I think you’ve had enough.” The figure said.
“Thank you, that’s the first thing I’ve eaten in days.”
“Days? That explains a few things.” She frowned. “My name is.” I suddenly felt a comforting warmth through my body as the mental image of a smooth rock laying in the summer sun appeared in my head. “But my non-psychic friends just call me warmth. What’s your name sweetie?”
“Oh, I’m.” I sent her my own name, a small brook running along the bottom of a small cliff in the middle of the woods. “I don’t really have a spoken name. I’ve never talked to anyone outside of my family until now.”
“I see.” She looked worried for some reason. “How about Brook as a name? A pretty name for a pretty little ralts?”
Brook? For a spoken name? I guess that worked. It was my name anyway, might as well use it. Not like I was going to use it often. How likely was I to encounter non-psychics anyway?
“I like it,” I said with a nod. My stomach rumbled again, reminding me just how long I’d gone without a good meal before now. “Can I have some more food, please? I want to feel that feeling again.”
“What feeling.”
I told her about my encounter with a trainer in the woods and finished by sharing with her my memories of that feeling.
She smiled sadly.
“Sure thing, just two things first though.”
“What are they?”
“Just two questions, nothing too hard.”
“Okay.”
“How much does your family normally feed you?”
“Well, I usually get a few peeled berries a day. Mom always peels them for me even when I ask her not to so I don’t really know what kind they are.”
“How much is a few?”
“Maybe three, sometimes four if I’m lucky. My brothers and mom get way more food though. They say it’s because they're bigger so they have to eat more.”
“Okay so my second question, how old are you?”
I told her my age and she smiled sadly again. She rubbed the top of my head.
“You did perfectly.” She told me before going back to feeding me.
I ate until I felt that feeling again.
“It feels good right?” Warmth asked me.
“Yeah it does, what’s this feeling called anyway?”
“It’s called feeling full Brook.”
“Full? I guess I am full of food.” I smiled.
“Do you mind if I ask you another question?”
“It’s fine.”
“Why were you all on your own?”
“Well remember that team I told you about. Well after hearing about the…” So I told her everything, my whole story. The days of wandering, my dream to become strong, and then meeting up with the flutterers and the trainers.
“Oh, the Trainer is he okay!” I had completely forgotten about him. Hopefully, he was okay.
“He’s fine, he just woke up a little while ago.” Warmth told me as she gently pushed me back a bit. I had apparently been leaning forward. “And he’s not a trainer, not yet.”
“What do you mean ‘not yet’? How is he not a trainer? Not only was he super brave when he saved me, he also looked like the trainer I met that night.”
Warmth gave me a look that I didn’t really know.
“Do you think that trainer is the name of their species?”
“Is it not?”
“No, the word trainer only refers to those who catch and train pokémon. The name of the species is ‘human’.”
“Oh.”
“Yes oh. So you were planning on asking him to take you on as one of his pokémon?”
“Of course, how else will I get stronger?”
“I think you should start worrying about learning better control before starting on more raw power. I saw what you did to those Masquerain, and to your arms.” Her face shifted and her tone became tense. “Just what were you thinking, using your power so dangerously?”
“The trainer, well Human I guess, was in danger. I didn’t have time to go through the seven steps so I just skipped some of them.”
She looked confused.
“Seven steps?”
“Yeah, the seven steps that psychic pokémon have to follow to use their power.”
“Sweetie I’m psychic and I’ve never heard of these seven steps. Maybe you could explain it to me?”
So I told her about the seven steps I usually took, and how I did things when the flutterers were about to attack the Human.
After I finished she told me to wait there for a little bit while she went to go deal with something.
“We might need Norman’s help for this. Masquerain acting in groups like that, using advanced tactics, this is not natural.” Professor Birch said as I nursed the mother of all headaches. “Especially for a pokémon as peaceful as Masquerain.”
“So what, we just declare that area off limits?” Brendan asked as he leaned on the wall.
“For now,” The professor said with a pained look on his face. “However we still have to give this Ralts back to her family.”
I let out a sigh, I was going to miss the little Ralts.
The sound of a door slamming open caused everyone in the room to jump a bit. We all turned and saw Brendan’s Grumpig looking furious.
“What’s wrong Warmth?” Brendan said as he raised his arms out in an attempt to calm his pokémon. His Grumpig glared at him before her pearls started to glow.
“Oh,” He said sounding intrigued.
“Oh,” Now he sounded worried.
“Oh,” Now he sounded like he just understood something that he really didn’t want to learn. He turned to the rest of us who were waiting for an explanation.
“We’re not giving the Ralts back to its mother.”
“What possible reason could we have for separating a baby pokémon from its mother? Especially one from a family oriented line like Ralts?”
“You mean besides the fact that this Gardevoir was apparently trying to get her daughter killed on purpose? Probably the fact that it’s not actually a baby pokémon, it’s just tiny from being underfed.”
He looked right at me. “Also, she wants you to train her.”
“She, she wants me?” I pointed at myself.
“Looks like you impressed her.”
Grumpig motioned for me to follow her, and not wanting to annoy her, I followed. She led me to the room where we had set the Ralts to rest.
Said Ralts jumped when we entered the room. When she saw that it was us, she gave that goofy looking grin from before and shuffled to the edge of the sofa she was on. I rushed up and caught her before she could fall off the edge.
“Hey there,” I told her “So you want to be my pokémon then?”
She looked confused for a moment before Grumpig cut in and said something. The Ralts’s eyes widened in what was probably understanding before beaming at me and aggressively nodding her head.
“Okay then, my names Nicholas, but apparently people keep calling me Nikki no matter what I do.”
Grumpig translated again and the Ralts smiled. She closed her eyes and I suddenly got a vision of a small brook running next to a cliff bottom.
“Is that your name?” I asked, remembering some trivia about psychic type names that I read somewhere. The ralts nodded again.
“Well, then it’s nice to meet you Brook,” I said as I held out my hand.
The Ralts laughed and hugged it.
And like that, I had my first pokémon.