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- Seen Apr 10, 2012
First of all, let me beg for your patience. I'm new to the forum, and have just recently gotten involved in Pokémon fan fiction. Anyway, I'm in the process of writing a (hopefully ongoing) series in the Pokémon world. Because I respect the rules of the forum, all language and suggestive content (double entendres included) will be excluded from these writings. To check out the unfiltered versions, check out my reddit page at reddit.com/r/pokemonlegends. But that's enough solicitation, please enjoy these first few parts of the series!
"Oh no," I thought, as the light streamed in through the window. "Overslept." I pulled myself out of bed, and stretched. My hands almost touched the ceiling. I was getting bigger now. Muscles building, peach fuzz growing, and hormones rushing. I pulled on the same clothes I had worn yesterday. Didn't really feel like making an effort today. Didn't even stop to play the retro Wii with Dad's old Skyward Sword game. Had it really been a year since he'd last visited? Dad had always told me that Pallet had used to be a small, idyllic town, where the only business came from fishing off Route 21 or from Oak's Pokémon Lab. The town had grown into a city since then. He'd told me that business started booming after the only two children who'd lived in Pallet had become Champion, and everyone started flooding into town to get the best possible start for their little trainers. Now it's Pallet City, and my house is the only two-story building left in town. In fact, it's the only building that hasn't changed since the outsiders came in. 'Course, that didn't mean that my house was normal at all. My Mom slept downstairs at the table, and the stairs led directly into my room. Very traditional Kanto house. Anyway, my Mom was a bad cook, so I skipped breakfast and walked outside. It was cold out. I zipped up my hoodie and pulled the brim of my hat down, and started walking towards the trainer school. I walked past high-rises, parked bicycles, and Meowths rooting through garbage cans. The trainer school had started as an independent experiment in Viridian city some thirty years ago, and since then a bunch had sprung up all over the continent, including in Pallet. After the cold had sapped the warmth from my hands, I ducked in to a Pokémon mart to grab some frozen breakfast. I grabbed a three-bean burrito from a freezer, and a coffee in one of those little white styrofoam cups. I sipped the drink as I approached the cash register. I put down the burrito and motioned to my coffee as I took another sip. "That's 50¥" he says, opening the register. I pull out the wallet from my messenger bag and pay the man, noticing the row of Pokémon balls neatly lined up behind him, shining under the neon green "Silph Co." display sign. I walk out of the mart, back into the cold. I hold my coffee with both hands to warm them. I continue to make my way to the trainer school. I pass little kids laughing on their lawns, practicing their training with "Pokémon cards", a set of Pokémon training wheels before any battling actually takes place. Kids are encouraged to play with them, but they serve an important function. Due to the increasing interest in Pokémon training, the need to regulate battles began growing higher and higher. You can't hand out Pokémon to just anyone anymore. You have to earn your trainer's license. The trainer school was now the only distributer of licenses, and before you get yours, you need to pass the final exam: a battle against a classmate of yours with Pokémon cards. From today, I had exactly a week to prepare for the final exam. The bell rang as I passed through the sliding glass doors of the trainer school, depositing my burrito wrapper and coffee cup in the nearest trashcan before I went to my first class: Pokémon Theory and Morality.
Ms. Morrison was at the white board already. "Oh man," I whisper as I think of a good excuse and turn the doorknob. Her head snaps in my direction, and her eyes pierce mine through those half-a-foot thick Coke-bottle glasses she wears. "Mr. Ketchum, would you PLEASE inform the class why you're late, and interrupted my important lecture on Pokémon Morality?" I looked around the class. The girl's faces were blank, looking at the boy who was about to be crucified before them. Then I scanned the boy's faces, whose laughter was only stifled by the threat of joining me on the cross. "I uh..." I've got nothing. No witty remark, no good excuse, nothing. "I'm sorry I'm late Ms. Morrison, I'll just take my -"
"Don't apologize to me, young man, apologize to your classmates, who were looking forward to today's lecture."
"Sorry guys," I say with a fake sincerity, as I make my way towards my seat next to my best friend Louis. He's laughing silently. I smile back, but subtly mouth a "Shut up," in his direction, my back to Ms. Morrison's searing-hot gaze. I sat in my chair, feigning interest in how some professors from some bigshot Cinnabar University were starting to claim Pokémon battles were immoral. They were generally considered the lunatic fringe, but some people were starting to agree with them. At least that's what I thought, as I said, I wasn't really listening. I doodled a Squirtle beating up a Charmander under my notes on status conditions, glancing at the clock every few minutes. I glanced over at Louis. He had fallen asleep on a tuna sandwich. I didn't have the heart to wake him. I pulled them brim down over my eyes to make it look like I was reading my notes, but was really checking out the prettiest girl in my class, Sarah. I'd seen some beautiful stuff in my life - sunsets on the water, Metapods evolving, newborn babies, all sorts of stuff. But this chick took the cake. She wore her black hair in a loose ponytail, threaded through the opening of her blue and white baseball cap. Her eyes were green like a Bulbasaur (I never was good at poetry), but I'd be lying if I said her choice in clothing wasn't slightly, revealing. But I'm seventeen years old - class isn't exactly at the top of my priorities when it comes to women. She turns around to make a funny face at her best friend, who sits on the other side of me. Her friend's nowhere near as good-looking, but she was really smart. She makes eye contact briefly. Bail out! I duck my head back down into my notebook. Yeah. Smooth, Ketchum. I doodle for the rest of class, a blend of cars, Pokémon gym badges, and 3-D cubes. The bell rings, and I lean in towards Louis and pucker my lips. Then I shake him awake. He wakes up with the top piece of bread from the sandwich sticking onto his face, only to see me about to lay a Prince Charming on him. He promptly flips out and swats me away, while the bread peels off his face. I smile at him. "You really think your ugly face is going to get a kiss from me?" I ask, standing up. "Ugly? Please, you look like ten pounds of poop in a five pound bag," he retorts, picking up his spiral-bound notebook off his table. "Are you wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday?" He asks incredulously. "It was the weekend. Nobody here but you saw me yesterday. Now come on, it's 2nd period? That means we have an open. Let's pick up a practice deck of cards from the library and have a battle in the cafeteria."
"The cafeteria?" Louis asks, more confused then before. "I thought we always went to the playground?"
"But, I have a reliable inside source that tells me that Sarah hangs out in the cafeteria this period." Louis may have been a smart-aleck, but he could keep a secret - and was a pretty decent wingman to boot. "Oh, I see how it is. You still like Sarah?" He asks with a devilish grin. "Seriously man, shut up."
Louis and I picked up some cards from the library. I'd always hated that library. Bookcases were crammed full of Pokémon magazines and textbooks. Underclassmen sat at their computers, looking longingly at their empty boxes on the school's Pokémon storage system. The old librarian sat behind the help desk, her nose buried in an Eevees Monthly magazine. She didn't even look up at us when we approached the desk. I was never good with administration, so Louis did the talking. His face was pale under the bright fluorescent lights. "Hey, ummm... Ms. Ricardo? I was wondering if we could borrow some Pokémon cards to use for this period." She glanced up at him. She sighed heavily, then closed her eyes and set down her magazine. She rubbed the bridge of her nose as she reached into a drawer by her knees. She pulled out two beat-up looking decks held together with rubber bands, both stamped with "PROPERTY OF PALLET CITY TRAINER SCHOOL" on the back. She handed both decks to him. "Okay, you two are upper classmen, so I assume you know the rules - that these cards are not permitted to leave school property, you are responsible for any lost or damaged cards, and you may not participate in gambling with these cards?"
"Yeah yeah sure, thanks miss." Louis said, snatching both decks from her hands before she could change her mind. We walked down the hallways, which were lined with cartoonish Pokémon posters. "Hey, give me one of those," I demanded, reaching for one of the decks. He pulled them away, and continued to fan through both. "Not so fast. You made me talk to the crotchety old librarian, so I get to pick which deck I get." I was disappointed, but also wasn't really in a position to argue. We walked into the cafeteria, and there she was in all her glory. Sarah, sitting at one of the tables near the window. Louis and I took a seat at a table located conveniently near hers. He handed me a deck that looked more beat up than the other. We played back and forth. He made the first move, using a Squirtle card to promptly dispose of my Rattata. I sent out a Pikachu though, and used Spark enough times to make his Squirtle faint. At this point, Sarah had noticed our little game, and was watching us play. Five minutes were left in the period. Louis smiled at me. But not the, I'm your friend smile, but the, I'm about to be a total jerk smile. He sends out a Geodude. My Pikachu can't do much, because Geodude resists electric damage. Louis evolves his Geodude into a Graveler, and uses Earthquake on my Pikachu, which is knocked out. Sarah laughs, and says her first words to me all day. "You probably should've retreated your Pikachu!" My face flushed red. The girl I like finally talks to me and it's condescending words of advice. The period ends before I can retaliate. Sarah leaves the cafeteria before I can follow. Louis smiles at me deviously. "Dude, you seriously couldn't take a dive for me just once?" I ask, kind of annoyed with my friend's ambitious nature. "Never man. I mean it. Never. Now let's get to our next class." Louis and I stop by at the creepy library and return the decks to the librarian, who again doesn't look up from her magazine. The bell rings a second time, which means the next class, Status Conditions, has started, and Louis and I are late. We walk together into the classroom, and Ms. Morrison just shakes her head disapprovingly. I look at Sarah to get some acknowledgement, but she's busy taking notes. Slumping onto my seat, I begin to fall asleep. I wake up to the load slap of Ms. Morrison's ruler on my desk.
"Oh no," I thought, as the light streamed in through the window. "Overslept." I pulled myself out of bed, and stretched. My hands almost touched the ceiling. I was getting bigger now. Muscles building, peach fuzz growing, and hormones rushing. I pulled on the same clothes I had worn yesterday. Didn't really feel like making an effort today. Didn't even stop to play the retro Wii with Dad's old Skyward Sword game. Had it really been a year since he'd last visited? Dad had always told me that Pallet had used to be a small, idyllic town, where the only business came from fishing off Route 21 or from Oak's Pokémon Lab. The town had grown into a city since then. He'd told me that business started booming after the only two children who'd lived in Pallet had become Champion, and everyone started flooding into town to get the best possible start for their little trainers. Now it's Pallet City, and my house is the only two-story building left in town. In fact, it's the only building that hasn't changed since the outsiders came in. 'Course, that didn't mean that my house was normal at all. My Mom slept downstairs at the table, and the stairs led directly into my room. Very traditional Kanto house. Anyway, my Mom was a bad cook, so I skipped breakfast and walked outside. It was cold out. I zipped up my hoodie and pulled the brim of my hat down, and started walking towards the trainer school. I walked past high-rises, parked bicycles, and Meowths rooting through garbage cans. The trainer school had started as an independent experiment in Viridian city some thirty years ago, and since then a bunch had sprung up all over the continent, including in Pallet. After the cold had sapped the warmth from my hands, I ducked in to a Pokémon mart to grab some frozen breakfast. I grabbed a three-bean burrito from a freezer, and a coffee in one of those little white styrofoam cups. I sipped the drink as I approached the cash register. I put down the burrito and motioned to my coffee as I took another sip. "That's 50¥" he says, opening the register. I pull out the wallet from my messenger bag and pay the man, noticing the row of Pokémon balls neatly lined up behind him, shining under the neon green "Silph Co." display sign. I walk out of the mart, back into the cold. I hold my coffee with both hands to warm them. I continue to make my way to the trainer school. I pass little kids laughing on their lawns, practicing their training with "Pokémon cards", a set of Pokémon training wheels before any battling actually takes place. Kids are encouraged to play with them, but they serve an important function. Due to the increasing interest in Pokémon training, the need to regulate battles began growing higher and higher. You can't hand out Pokémon to just anyone anymore. You have to earn your trainer's license. The trainer school was now the only distributer of licenses, and before you get yours, you need to pass the final exam: a battle against a classmate of yours with Pokémon cards. From today, I had exactly a week to prepare for the final exam. The bell rang as I passed through the sliding glass doors of the trainer school, depositing my burrito wrapper and coffee cup in the nearest trashcan before I went to my first class: Pokémon Theory and Morality.
Ms. Morrison was at the white board already. "Oh man," I whisper as I think of a good excuse and turn the doorknob. Her head snaps in my direction, and her eyes pierce mine through those half-a-foot thick Coke-bottle glasses she wears. "Mr. Ketchum, would you PLEASE inform the class why you're late, and interrupted my important lecture on Pokémon Morality?" I looked around the class. The girl's faces were blank, looking at the boy who was about to be crucified before them. Then I scanned the boy's faces, whose laughter was only stifled by the threat of joining me on the cross. "I uh..." I've got nothing. No witty remark, no good excuse, nothing. "I'm sorry I'm late Ms. Morrison, I'll just take my -"
"Don't apologize to me, young man, apologize to your classmates, who were looking forward to today's lecture."
"Sorry guys," I say with a fake sincerity, as I make my way towards my seat next to my best friend Louis. He's laughing silently. I smile back, but subtly mouth a "Shut up," in his direction, my back to Ms. Morrison's searing-hot gaze. I sat in my chair, feigning interest in how some professors from some bigshot Cinnabar University were starting to claim Pokémon battles were immoral. They were generally considered the lunatic fringe, but some people were starting to agree with them. At least that's what I thought, as I said, I wasn't really listening. I doodled a Squirtle beating up a Charmander under my notes on status conditions, glancing at the clock every few minutes. I glanced over at Louis. He had fallen asleep on a tuna sandwich. I didn't have the heart to wake him. I pulled them brim down over my eyes to make it look like I was reading my notes, but was really checking out the prettiest girl in my class, Sarah. I'd seen some beautiful stuff in my life - sunsets on the water, Metapods evolving, newborn babies, all sorts of stuff. But this chick took the cake. She wore her black hair in a loose ponytail, threaded through the opening of her blue and white baseball cap. Her eyes were green like a Bulbasaur (I never was good at poetry), but I'd be lying if I said her choice in clothing wasn't slightly, revealing. But I'm seventeen years old - class isn't exactly at the top of my priorities when it comes to women. She turns around to make a funny face at her best friend, who sits on the other side of me. Her friend's nowhere near as good-looking, but she was really smart. She makes eye contact briefly. Bail out! I duck my head back down into my notebook. Yeah. Smooth, Ketchum. I doodle for the rest of class, a blend of cars, Pokémon gym badges, and 3-D cubes. The bell rings, and I lean in towards Louis and pucker my lips. Then I shake him awake. He wakes up with the top piece of bread from the sandwich sticking onto his face, only to see me about to lay a Prince Charming on him. He promptly flips out and swats me away, while the bread peels off his face. I smile at him. "You really think your ugly face is going to get a kiss from me?" I ask, standing up. "Ugly? Please, you look like ten pounds of poop in a five pound bag," he retorts, picking up his spiral-bound notebook off his table. "Are you wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday?" He asks incredulously. "It was the weekend. Nobody here but you saw me yesterday. Now come on, it's 2nd period? That means we have an open. Let's pick up a practice deck of cards from the library and have a battle in the cafeteria."
"The cafeteria?" Louis asks, more confused then before. "I thought we always went to the playground?"
"But, I have a reliable inside source that tells me that Sarah hangs out in the cafeteria this period." Louis may have been a smart-aleck, but he could keep a secret - and was a pretty decent wingman to boot. "Oh, I see how it is. You still like Sarah?" He asks with a devilish grin. "Seriously man, shut up."
Louis and I picked up some cards from the library. I'd always hated that library. Bookcases were crammed full of Pokémon magazines and textbooks. Underclassmen sat at their computers, looking longingly at their empty boxes on the school's Pokémon storage system. The old librarian sat behind the help desk, her nose buried in an Eevees Monthly magazine. She didn't even look up at us when we approached the desk. I was never good with administration, so Louis did the talking. His face was pale under the bright fluorescent lights. "Hey, ummm... Ms. Ricardo? I was wondering if we could borrow some Pokémon cards to use for this period." She glanced up at him. She sighed heavily, then closed her eyes and set down her magazine. She rubbed the bridge of her nose as she reached into a drawer by her knees. She pulled out two beat-up looking decks held together with rubber bands, both stamped with "PROPERTY OF PALLET CITY TRAINER SCHOOL" on the back. She handed both decks to him. "Okay, you two are upper classmen, so I assume you know the rules - that these cards are not permitted to leave school property, you are responsible for any lost or damaged cards, and you may not participate in gambling with these cards?"
"Yeah yeah sure, thanks miss." Louis said, snatching both decks from her hands before she could change her mind. We walked down the hallways, which were lined with cartoonish Pokémon posters. "Hey, give me one of those," I demanded, reaching for one of the decks. He pulled them away, and continued to fan through both. "Not so fast. You made me talk to the crotchety old librarian, so I get to pick which deck I get." I was disappointed, but also wasn't really in a position to argue. We walked into the cafeteria, and there she was in all her glory. Sarah, sitting at one of the tables near the window. Louis and I took a seat at a table located conveniently near hers. He handed me a deck that looked more beat up than the other. We played back and forth. He made the first move, using a Squirtle card to promptly dispose of my Rattata. I sent out a Pikachu though, and used Spark enough times to make his Squirtle faint. At this point, Sarah had noticed our little game, and was watching us play. Five minutes were left in the period. Louis smiled at me. But not the, I'm your friend smile, but the, I'm about to be a total jerk smile. He sends out a Geodude. My Pikachu can't do much, because Geodude resists electric damage. Louis evolves his Geodude into a Graveler, and uses Earthquake on my Pikachu, which is knocked out. Sarah laughs, and says her first words to me all day. "You probably should've retreated your Pikachu!" My face flushed red. The girl I like finally talks to me and it's condescending words of advice. The period ends before I can retaliate. Sarah leaves the cafeteria before I can follow. Louis smiles at me deviously. "Dude, you seriously couldn't take a dive for me just once?" I ask, kind of annoyed with my friend's ambitious nature. "Never man. I mean it. Never. Now let's get to our next class." Louis and I stop by at the creepy library and return the decks to the librarian, who again doesn't look up from her magazine. The bell rings a second time, which means the next class, Status Conditions, has started, and Louis and I are late. We walk together into the classroom, and Ms. Morrison just shakes her head disapprovingly. I look at Sarah to get some acknowledgement, but she's busy taking notes. Slumping onto my seat, I begin to fall asleep. I wake up to the load slap of Ms. Morrison's ruler on my desk.
