Chapter Text
“Mama, when will I get a Pokémon?”
A boy, possibly 4 years old, tugs on his mom's pants from below, and her vision turns to face him from above.
“Wai, no. When do I become a twainet?”
Immediately, he changed his mind to something more juvenile—a dream shared by those blinded by the internet. His mom thinks, placing a finger below her lips to simulate an exaggerated action. She then moves, very much like an actor, clearly by her swaying arms.
“Eventually, when you grow up to 14!”
Was the thing the mother let out with enthusiasm, clearly to shower her son with hope; Beneath those sparkling eyes that lie behind his dark eyelids, there was impatience.
A question that briefly troubled his mom's mind, and then she came up with an idea—a reason for him to wipe away that impatience.
“Let's just wait and see. I'll ask your father to visit my grandmother's hometown! Maybe we could get a Pokémon for you there.”
Afterwards, a spiral of excitement circles around his mind. It never left his mind, even years later.Now, 2 years after that promise was made with a pinky promise. That clichéd move has left a lasting impression of an impossible dream in his mind. Never leaving and never melting.
He plays with his friends and one other person who calls herself "Pietro," clearly coming from somewhere like the Fiore Region. She has hair of a darkish green, as if it were an asparagus left alone in a field of mosquitoes—I mean, bug-type Pokémon.
Her body is light-skinned, the exact opposite of our main actor on the stage, who would never want to be one on it.
Our boy poses with a showy posture; the spotlights and audience (his friends) look at him. The confidence can't stop flowing. Yet not stopping his audience from being weirded out by the sudden display of bravado for nothing.
Pietro, she giggles. Her soft voice makes the boy stop posing. Confidence left him; it was replaced with embarrassment.
“Hey you, remember our promise?”
One boy who is above his age tries to reassure himself about his friend's memory; he nods before scratching his head.
“Good! We are all set now!” he shouts, with confidence. “Pietro, lead us to the boat!”
“On it, uh, Cap'n PBJ.”
She stumbles over her words before she marches wobbly to lead everyone to the said boat.
“Did you just call me—”
“I'm the leader now; follow my words.”
Turns out, the boat was a makeshift raft. How interesting. Maybe their fate is sealed to be a quick barracuda meal.
Despite their uncoordinated attempts to push the raft, both the main child and Pietro were able to board the sail.
“Go Pie and, uhm... What was his name again? Never mind. This is what you get for calling me Captain Peanut Bu'er Jelly!” The sudden Galarian accent made some of his friends giggle.
But not Pietro.
“Whaaaat, why!”
“I said the reason earlier,” the boy flatly responds, before the rest of his message dissolves into mere echoes.
Without any warning to the girl, who is pouting on the raft. Our little boy sobbed. And he sobs a lot for a young boy.
“Why are you crying?”
“Don’t worry, I'm sure they will find someone to return us home.”
Her attempt to make the boy stop sobbing did not work. The reason it didn't work was that she tried to make him sad about something very much different from the thing he was crying about.
What was the thing he was crying about?
Why did they place me with her when I don't want to... They know I like her but not like this... This is frustrating. I want to cry on my Umbreon plushie...
What a pathetic child.
Let's just see what happens after the boy's sobbing disappears.
-,-
So, where are they heading?
The place was darker than they imagined, genuinely. Thunderstorms were gushing out indiscriminately on random poor water-type Pokémon until they floated lifelessly on the water. Thankfully, the kids do not know what their sideways swimming technique truly meant.
“Why do I smell bad stuff?” She pointed out the specks of white floating and falling onto the raft.
“What do you mean by tha—” Stopping immediately at the sight of the Utopia of spores. Amoonguss and many different mushroom Pokémon reside in that sanctuary of decomposers. Instead of building a towering island, the only thing that soars through the sky is white mushrooms that could make humans cough up a lot the very moment they approach them.
At last, they have arrived on land, an unfamiliar one to be exact.
“Woah...”
“What is this place?” the boy asked, with no one to answer his question. An ecosystem of fungal, ghostly Pokémon is seen from afar and nearby.
Then they see someone, a woman, a lady in black.
“Ah, welcome travelers. Seems like each of you is varying in wishes...”
A mundane, shallow voice moved like a ballerina in an opera. Never letting the listeners leave any sound to waste, including the echoes.
“Huh?”
“Tell me what you truly want, as I will grant it without any restrictions, my dear.”
She lets out an artificial embrace; none of them took any physical notice. But with a mental one.
“I want... A Pokémon!”
Without any drawbacks or imaginary fences stopping the boy from speaking his mind. His mind is coated with puerility; that is what every child is cursed with.
Pietro, on the other hand, didn't know how to phrase her words. She says,
“And I want to go home to be the best in here!”
Not even thinking about loopholes, such as stupidity, and maybe naïveté.
Then poof.
The lady disappears, sending a signal that their wish may be fulfilled.
The children now try to find help. Let us see what the citizens of this mushroom eutopia are. No signs of life inside their minds, no enthusiasm, only staring at the weird humans.
Despite all of that, a sensation, a rupture between the paleness of the world. A split residing on the flat-minded, moldy things. A group with a rapture that will melt into pure despair.
None of the beasts answer or even manifest a reaction to them. Only pure ignorance was seen. Nothing there is to see anymore.
But still, that gloomy crowd never shared their spirits with the children. They wonder, when will any of them lose it?
One day later.
They managed to find food.
Some shitty food to be exact.
They started crying while trying to find their guardian figures on this entrapped island.
Two days later.
Pietro started to feel sick. Coughing out spores, though she made a blatant facade that only a child could be fooled by. Only to make the boy not sad.
Three days later.
Her body was coughing more than before, and then it stopped.
“Huh? Pietro, wake up!”
When the boy tries to wake her up by wiggling her shoulder. No one answers. He was confused, not knowing what death truly is. He carries her over to his back, piggyback style.
“Maybe you need a breather!”
He then galloped from the cave where they had resided for a while since they came here. Food was scarce and yucky. Yet still livable. Their mind felt like it had matured a lot more than before.
When he arrives at the main place of the mushroomtopia. She fell over to the ground, letting out a rotten smell for the Pokémon that eat corpses to come.
His eyes widen and are full of fury.
“wait no! Stop!!!”
He pushed the mushrooms away, making them bounce back. They fall back even more for the upcoming show.
“Wake up, wake up... Pie, please...” he yelped with no one to answer. Pleasing the lady that is about to fulfill his wish.
“How can this...”
A mischievous one sprayed spores of decay all over him; thankfully, the lady protected him somehow.
His eyes darken, more soulless than the ghost-type Pokémon that reside here. He laughs like a total maniac while his hair melts into a darker green. His skin became paler than the white eutopia.
The rot on the child's body was consumed by a disturbing force.
A whisp of dark swirls to form a body. Then a branch, a hollow cracked white log, came and acted as the mask. With circular eye holes to show the cyan eyes. Rot fungi were seen on the body and branches of the suddenly materialized Pokémon. It was a Phantump, though our little protagonist does not know what the species of this particular one is.
“You wanted to have a Pokémon.”
“Pie... Is that you?”
He asks slowly, quietly, almost in a mumbling tone.
She then nods.
“You wanted to be the same as everyone in here”
Ha...
Her next move is to clean herself from fungi infecting her body. She slowly chips away at the thick, yet thin, layers. After the shave. She guides the boy to somewhere.
Then, the horde that didn't want to help follows.
He follows.
Follows.
Just to see the horde making a boat of wood just for both of them.
..
...
.....
.......
“Pietro, I think I should call you something else. We can't risk someone thinking I unalived you.”
The boy, now pale, warns the girl has turned into a Phantump. She tilted her head.
They were comfortable on the cold, somehow metallic, wooden, shabby raft because one of them lost their will to hope and the other fucking floats.
“Let me remember...” Placing his hand over his chin, exaggerating his thinking. Maybe it runs in the family. “Oh right, you are Pietro Andrea Matthioli? Right, so your real first name was Matthioli, huh?
Before he can blurt out the desired name. He stops, face turned to pure stone after a realization was achieved. “Why were you called Pietro then...?”
“Phant...”
Despite the child entrapped in a body of Pokémon, who speaks in Pokénese. He could still understand her even if the language barrier were thicker than Groundon's body.
“They called you that because it is similar to Pie?”
“That is not so unexpected for them to call you by that.” He clearly forgot that he called her 'Pie'; I guess people tend to forget. “So your name should be... Azela?”
An outburst of euphoria, an adolescent one, fills and replaces her other emotion.
“Phan! Phantump Phan!!”
It was clear she was very happy. While also very pleased by the totally original nickname totally not based on the tenth discovered region. She also span over and below the boat, accidentally wetting herself due to the joy she had to let out.
The boy chuckled.
“Phan... Phantump Phantump.”
The boy was taken aback by her offer; he asked if she was sure about “me using your name...?”
“Phantump!”
“Oh, you want me to use an altered version of your name? Then let's get to it!”
.
.
“Hey guy, isn't that the boy the couple shown us in the picture?”
A ranger, watching from a watchtower, shouted to his colleagues. His witnessing of the boy, now from a dark skin to a paler one when seen from afar. Might have landed him a weekly paycheck. Just maybe, though.
“Shit, yeah, that is the kid. Hey, go call his parents. Also, if I remember correctly, his parents are taking in that girl in their care on behalf of her guardian, right?”
“You mean her abusive brother?”
.
Parents are glad they were able to see their child again. Not even caring about the slight physical color difference, they only care if he is safe or not.
“Zia! You've finally come, cocomhere, my boy...”
His father tries to give him a hug. Unexpectedly, he doesn't care. I don't very much like him. “What's wrong, sweetheart?”
He asks, in a confused tone. His father was oblivious to his soulless eyes. He is not used to ignorance, especially coming from his ever so frantic and joyful child.
“Oh, right, look, I got a Pokémon; her name is Azela and—”
Pietro tries to introduce the new Pokémon that he got after being quieter than a statue. Then a double embrace came from his parents without his permission. He was very much shocked by the hug; his parents tried to calm his stillness down after seeing so many dry tears lingering on his face. “Why the hug?”, “Why saying you both will protect me forever? Isn't that a lie? I am destined to outlive you both after all, so why care for me?”
They stuttered, not sure how to respond.
Both of them sighed before walking him and his new cracked Phantump back home. When asked by the rangers about the whereabouts of Pietro, Andrea just responded with “She rotted away” with a straight face.
They made a pinky promise to replace his name with “Pierto.”
His parents started to be worried by his mental state. At first he was the same. Yet the paradox claims he was not their child. It is their child, but
Georgio never learned about death nor talked about something like that so lightly.
In Paldea, they tried to cheer his spirits up by getting him a new Pokémon. His spirit was almost cheered up.
I mean his spirit almost got sent up to the skies by a stray Drifloon.
Later he caught a Nymble!
Because it pitied the two parents trying to get their statue of a child to catch a wild level one. Infant. Pokémon. Yet it didn't work.
It purposely entered the PokéBall just because of that.
-
His parents realized their child now can take care of himself, so they went far away to recover their mental state.
Well
“It is time to go, am I right, Azela?”
“Phantump!”
She answers, with the Nymble, who is very much sick of the fake enthusiasm.
He wipes the dust from his clothing. Before leaving for an adventure!
Oh, right, the Keys first.
Gotta lock the keys first.
Click
Anyways
Off for an adventure!
“oh right I forgot my bag—”
OH YOU PIECE OF SHIT
OFF FOR AN ADVENTURE