Chapter Text
A pale boy with brown hair and broken glasses made his way inside the house. He opened the door slowly and as silently as he could. Unfortunately, the actual stepping in ended up being the problem as his limping leg made a lot more noise than he would have liked.
"EDWARD!"
The boy froze at the sound of his father's voice. "Y-yeah?"
For once the man decided to check on his son, bottle still in hand. The kid tried to hide his notebook behind his back.
The adult looked him up and down, scowling. "You got your ass kicked again, didn't you?"
"N-no, I just- I fell-"
He grabbed the child by the hair and forced him to look up, fully revealing his black hair. "You know what I think about liars, boy." Ed swallowed and nodded, "was it about your stupid drawings again?"
He wanted to defend himself, to argue that they weren't stupid. He looked at the man's tightened fist around the bottle. The boy was smart enough to know that wouldn't end well though. If his father caught him lying again, he would do a lot worse than the bigger boys of the village. "Y-yes."
"Of course it was, you stupid little- just hand it over." Edward felt his blood run cold and his hesitancy was undoubtedly perceived. "NOW!"
Edward offered his notebook with shaking hands and the adult snatched it, flicking through the pages, "I honestly don't know what is worse, the fact that you still hold on to these fantasies of becoming a pokemon trainer despite being almost thirteen years old or the fact that you are so stupid you want the evil ogre to be your partner."
"It is not evil!" Edward was as surprised as his father by his own shouting. He didn't stop there, "the story is wrong! The old couple up the hill told me! Ogerpon was only trying to rescue its master from the loyal three! They were the ones who attacked- ah!" His father slammed the bottle against his cheek, causing the boy to fall to his knees, dazed.
"Stupid, stupid kid. This is exactly why your mother left us, because she couldn't endure such a failure of a son." He raised the notebook and let the bottle fall to grab his lighter from his pocket. "Maybe this will finally teach you to live in reality." He began burning the notebook.
"N-no." Ed's voice came weak as he still tried to focus. It was the smell of smoke and the bright flames dancing over his dreams that had him focus. "NO!" A spurt of adrenaline caused Ed to get up and grab the still burning notebook before running out of the house. He went as fast as his damaged legs would carry him, tears still in his eyes. He went past the village, past the river and deeper and deeper into the mountain. He was so focused on running away, he didn't notice the pages falling nor the new footsteps that began following him from the bushes. The preteen only stopped when he was forced to stop by a loose root, causing him to fall while cradling his now charred book.
He laid there, head on his arm for a moment as he cried. It wasn't fair. It was not fair! Every other kid in the village had a pokemon, even if it was a starly, all but him because his father couldn't be bothered wasting money and resources to take care of another creature. He barely did it to his own son. So Ed was forced to live in a world of fantasy, where he could actually be the pokemon master he dreamed of with the only pokemon he truly related to, the one deemed a monster by everyone else, shunned and despised despite doing nothing wrong. The boy really saw himself in Ogerpon's tale, even if no one believed it but him.
He was pulled from his thoughts and tears by the sound of rustling from the bushes. Only then did he realize the mess he had made, from the notes spread all over the grass to the pokeballs he kept with him, not to actually catch anything, but so he could pretend. He had a collection of them, one of which except a masterball and gs ball. The boy backed away towards a tree as his attacker revealed itself.
And then it did.
Jumping from the trees was a creature about the size of a child wearing what appeared to be a green cloak.
"Oger!" The pokemon hopped in place, holding one of drawings of a creature that looked a lot like it and Ed.
"It's- It's you," he whispered.
Ogerpon ran towards him and Ed yelped, cowering against the tree in fear. She blinked a few times before offering the charred piece of paper.
"Ogerpon!"
Ed looked at it, "t-that's my drawing."
"Ogerpon! Ogerpon!" She pointed at Ed's drawing next to her. He wore a jacket covered in question marks.
"Y-yeah, that's- that's me. I'm next to you cuz- cuz we travel together and-and help people as true heroes and pokemon masters!"
The pokemon hopped around in place excitedly before showing another drawing.
"H-here we are defeating an evil team. They are, like, groups of evil people that terrorize a region and champions and pokemon masters defeat them. A-and this," he opened his notebook to show her, "this is our rival. He is the son of the evil team leader, but he isn't actually evil! He is just- just flawed! And he wants to make the region a better place, and we eventually start traveling the region together and we end up falling in love and- and-" Ed spent the next hours telling Ogerpon of their journeys together and everything they would do. Suddenly, his leg didn't hurt as much and the blood in his forehead felt like it didn't exist at all. Hours went by of the boy rambling about his fantasies and the pokemon listening and paying attention.
Time passed and soon, night started to fall. Edward noticed how hard it was getting to actually see, and only then realized that it was evening. "Oh crap! Dad is going to kill me! I-I'm sorry but I gotta go!" He began collecting the different pages and pokeball until only his friendball remained on the grass.
Ogerpon was actually the one to pick the green sphere.
"Can you hand that over?" Ed asked.
The pokemon looked between the boy and the pokeball and then back to the ball before pressing it to her head.
"Ogerpon!" Ed shouted as a blue light covered the creature before the ball fell to the ground with no sign of the pokemon. It shook once before stars appeared around it, indicating the target had been caught.
The pre-teen's jaw had dropped by then as he picked the pokeball to look at it. He didn't have the time to process what had happened, however. It was getting late and he didn't want his home life to get any worse.