Work Text:
Paldea.
Liko whistled nervously as she clicked on one of her favorite video clips on PokéVision. It was almost time to leave her ancestral home for her new school in Kanto. To think, all the people – and Pokémon! – she would leave behind. …how would she live?
She decided she really needed something to take her mind off it.
The trackpad clicked as she pressed the play button and let herself get lost in the video. It was a few months old, from the last season of the World Coronation Series.
But it wasn’t the finals, or even the Master Class. It was a rather unassuming match, all things considered, but it called to Liko time and again, as if it was a foghorn cutting through her doubts. Rank 3429 against rank 2175. In other words, it was a random battle on the streets.
The only reason it was even recorded was because of the excitable cameraman, who seemed to be named something like “Go” and had, by all appearances, never seen a battle before in his life.
“Raboot, did you see that!?” the boy yelled into a cloud of smoke.
Liko found her lips curling upward involuntarily, amused at his antics.
When the dust cleared, a Sandslash lay prone on the floor, its hide glowing with an eerie aura.
“Great shot, Gengar!” and the camera turned to a boy, about her age, with wild hair and a Pikachu superglued to his shoulder.
His name was Ash Ketchum, she knew.
This battle seemed like nothing, but Liko could clearly see the seeds of what would eventually become Masters-8-finalist Ash Ketchum. She remembered watching that final battle wide-eyed on a blurry, shaky stream with a talking Meowth, of all things.
As his opponent sent out his next Pokémon, Liko figured she knew what made a Trainer great.
“Nidorino, go!”
“Gengar, let’s keep on going!” Ash declared brightly.
“Nidorino, Earthquake.” Liko’s breath hitched involuntarily as the ground trembled, making the camera jerk around. Her neck was forced to contort to track the action.
Ash seemed unfazed.
It was the small things that let her relax and truly enjoy the battle, watching a master work his craft. The assured way he moved. The grin of pure elation on his face. The fire in his eyes burning like a torch passing on.
If only she had his confidence…
Liko’s eyes gleamed as she edged closer to the screen. Her fist clenched unconsciously as Ash called for his counter: “Gengar, Shadow Ball!”
The air hummed unnaturally as dark energy pooled. Then, it was fired off, impacting with a crash that almost seemed to shake her chair, half a world away. There was an expanding orb of blooming light – and then the camera feed cut.
Liko realized her breaths had grown heavy.
What an incredible story: that an unremarkable boy from a small Kanto town – near her new school, even – could become the world’s very best. It proved that everyone was unique; anyone could dare to dream. Perhaps even a certain hesitant Paldean girl…
Liko felt calm wash over her body.
Kanto didn’t sound so bad, after all. Maybe she would run into Ash by happenstance, even. She could almost imagine it: stumbling – her flustered reaction, his apologies because yes, his Pikachu was always like that…
And she would see Gengar, and Nidorino, and all sorts of Pokémon that Paldea had never witnessed. Horizons would widen before her until the whole world was nothing but an endless sky.
Liko sat back in her chair, thinking softly. The world was full of opportunities.
She would never see them unless she looked herself.
With a surge of confidence, Liko stood up, grabbing her pendant off the desk and swinging a satchel over her shoulder. Her eyes burned with passion, and for a moment, she was just another 10-year-old trainer setting out on her Pokémon journey. It was time to go and find her own story. After all, there was no one else like her.