There are worse places to grow up than the rocky, infertile plains and treacherous mountainsides surrounding Pewter City. Food is scarce, the wildlife is dangerous and unpredictable, and when it's not suffering a drought, the storms can leave you housebound for days. Pewter isn't a place that forgives, or even tolerates, weakness.
And that's why I love it.
The world we're in isn't any place for the weak. Not one of us living on this plane of existence chose to be born to it, and not all of us can cope with the struggle of working, fighting, and loving among monsters. And I'm not just talking Pokemon, though we'll get to them. Surprisingly, many of the biggest monsters I've met have been other people. And if I hadn't had that foundation of strength beaten into me by the rugged wastelands of Pewter, I'd be buried so deep noone save Digglet would find me.
It all really got started the night I nearly had my head ripped off.
\-/-\-/-\-/
My full name is Calvin Stone. I know, ha ha, last name stone, figures for someone who lived in the number one stone export depot of Kanto. However, my family immigrated from Hoenn when I was but a babe. It was during a period of excessive PokeTeam violence; well, more excessive than is usual for that region, anyhow, and offshoots of the Stone family were being targeted specifically, being practically royalty. It's why I don't look like a Pewter native; I'm not. Paler skin, lighter hair, too tall, even. You wouldn't think height to be a disadvantage in life, but when you're dodging rock throws from unfriendly geodude or bending down all day to pick gnarled excuses for carrots, it doesn't help.
Despite my physical differences and overall growth-induced clumsiness, the local kids tolerated me. They'd even occassionally invite me to the outskirts of town to play tag, hide-and-go-seek, or to throw things at other things just for the hell of it. Truly, childhood is a magical time. Our favorite place was an abandoned Onix nesting field. Plenty of trenches or piles of rubble for hiding, and debris for throwing. It was close enough to the city limits to be relatively pokemon-free; the odd non-docile Rattata or Ekans easily driven off with some stick waving and yelling.
As the neighborhood kids and I grew, however, that field became less a place for fun and games, and more a place to loiter, smoke herbs, and drink whatever excuse for alcohol our local 'breweries' could whip up that month. The adults didn't care; my mother did nothing but sulk and live off what she had saved along with what I could bring in from farming and lugging granite from the mines, and my father didn't survive the trip from Hoenn. I had, occasionally, asked her what happened to him; never got an answer out of her, though eventually I did find out.
Anyways, one evening my pal Bernard and I got our hands on some halfway decent brew. Well, I say we; he got it, a present from his older brother, our resident Gym Leader, Brock. It was also a bit of a bribe; Bernard and I were 16 and in one year we'd be old enough to join the local Rangers and work under the Pewter Gym, protecting the city from bandits, rampaging beasts, and covert incursions from the surrounding cities. They were always trying to draw on what little resources we had for their own benefit. Brock wanted us to enlist. He needed all the help he could get, as the job wasn't a particularly safe one. Often Rangers took their pokemon for a late night patrol and just never ended up coming back.
Even with the mortality rate, it was a more appealing prospect than lugging rocks for all time. Barely. So, bemoaning our lives as only two sloshed teenagers can, we staggered around the Onix Field.
"Caaalvin! Sunshhetting!" Bernard shout-slurred almost directly into my ear. He reached up and grabbed me roughly by the shoulder.
"Bernard, I canshee that! Leme'go," I replied, barely more literate. "We'll head homee inaminute."
To this, Bernard nodded in a wise, sage manor, and reached up to stroke what I assume was an imaginary beard. He held up his other hand, opened his mouth, and promply tripped and fell into a nearby ditch. This, of course, was met by uproarious laughter from the both of us; a pidgey flew out from a local shrub, though from fear or annoyance, I'll never know. I shuffled over to help him, still chuckling to myself.
The side of the ditch proved difficult for my drunken mind to navigate; after a minute or so of effort, I managed to slide my way down backwards, scraping up my stomach and igniting some additional laughter. Upon helping Bernard stand, and looking at the side of the ditch, we realized climbing back out in our current state wouldn't be easy, so we decided to walk down a ways and see if there was a lower wall to pull ourselves up on.
Darkness around Pewter isn't like darkness around a real city, like say Saffron or Rustboro. Power is scarce, so all but emergency lighting for the gym and border towers is turned off at night. This, on anything but a full moon, means it's pitch black. The stars do nothing. If they had, maybe things would have turned out differently.
"Oof!" yelled Bernard, accompanied by the telltale thud of a body falling on something hard.
"Yookay buddy?!" I yelled from a bit back in the trench; we'd walked a little while with no luck on an easier exit.
"Yeah," Bernard groaned, "just-"
He was cut off by a sort of screeching roar, and there was a wet crunch of bone. I froze. Bernard screamed, drowning out the roar for a moment before there was an awful SNAP, and silence.
I didn't move, or make any noise. Just stared into the blackness where my friend had fallen. There was a shuffling sound, and I could just barely make out a short, humanoid shape growing closer. I took a step back. And of course, tripped and fell on my ass, causing me to cry out in pain and surprise. The figure roar-screeched again and jumped at me, so quickly it seemed to just appear in front of my face. From so close I could see wide, flat teeth, blank crimson eyes, a ridge atop it's head, and so much blood. It grabbed me by the neck and threw me, and I blacked out.
\-/-\-/-\-/
Pokemon Centers are one of the few buildings in any mid-to-large sized settlement that actually receive League funding. They're not just for injured Pokemon; they're for any living thing, from your uncle to your dog. Every specially-trained Nurse Joy holds within her hospital walls extraordinarily advanced healing technology, potions and sprays that can fix up burns and gashes with no scarring, antidotes for every known poison and then some. And on top of the medical care, there are several floors of empty bedrooms where Pokemon Trainers get to stay, on the taxpayers dime. You know trainers. Those people who travel to and fro challenging Gym Leaders (and eachother) to Pokemon sparring matches to increase their own strength and get a chance at leadership or League employment. Crazy people.
Yet with all that advanced science, funding, and prestige, the human hospital beds are so Arceus-damned uncomfortable.
That's where I found myself, alone, with wires and tubes attached to various parts of my body and my head firmly secured to my shoulders by some kind of metallic monstrosity. There was a TV in the corner, muted, playing a rerun of one of last year's Pokemon Conference matches; looked to be a Nidorino versus a Gengar, though the damn thing was phasing through the air so fast it was hard to tell. I spied the remote on my bedside table and decided to turn the volume up a bit; maybe the announcers would know.
My arm wouldn't move. I couldn't grab it. I tried the other arm. Both legs. No response, couldn't move them at all. That's when the panic really set in; I tried to call for a nurse, but though I could move my face and jaw somewhat, my vocal cords refused to work. In short, I was completely trapped, and quite possibly paralyzed for life.
About a half hour of freaking out and staring at the TV later (turns out it WAS a gengar), the nurse walked in and smiled brilliantly at me, for no apparent reason.
"Mr. Stone! How are you this morning? Oh, no need to answer that, silly me," she giggled, pissing me the hell off. What kind of bedside manner is that to a paralyzed man? "You were out for quite a while! And will be out again soon, I'm afraid; we've fixed most of the damage to your right leg and ribs, but your neck is a bit beyond healing!"
If I could have throttled her for the jovial way she said that, I would've. As it was, it was all I could do to keep from crying. My life was over. Even if my mother could find some way of keeping me on life support, I'd never move again. No more walking, or alcohol, or opportunities for the finer things in life...
"Ah, oh, I almost forgot!" the nurse exclaimed, slapping her forehead. "The ditto cells we ordered from Viridian should be here in a couple days, and then we can work on regrowing your nerve endings and spinal cord. Isn't modern science wonderful?"
She gave me one last grin, and practically skipped out of the room. Then, in equal parts shock and relief, I once again passed out.
When I next awoke, I had a visitor.
Brock Satoshi himself sat on a nearby chair, his head in his hands. I tried to make a noise, to let him know I was awake, but I found that I still couldn't. So instead, I stared.
What I could see of his face looked worn, like he hadn't slept in days. His close-cropped brown hair was as in-dissaray as such a short haircut could be, and his clothing was stained and wrinkled. I wondered why.
After a few moments, Brock glanced up and saw my eyes open. I got a half smile, and a "Hey, Calvin."
I tried to nod, but couldn't. So I wiggled my eyebrows a bit.
"I'd ask how you're holding up, but the nurse filled me in. You're gonna be just fine. You're one of the lucky ones," Brock said. He held the half smile for a second longer, and then his expression crumpled into one of exceptional sadness. He looked away.
It just didn't make sense that Brock would visit me here, when I'd just be out in a few days. We were never particularly close; I'd met him a few times through Bernard, but...
Oh. Bernard. 'One of the lucky ones'. I made the connection, and was hit by a wave of despair. One night of drinking in a supposedly safe field, one false step into the wrong ditch, had cost Brock's brother his life. No wonder he was so distraught.
I'd have loved to have attempted to comfort him, to say it had been quick, to at least offer my condolences. But all I could do at that moment was look really upset.
We stayed like that awhile, me laying there, Brock occasionally sobbing. After he had pulled himself together, he once again looked me in the eye and said, "We caught the beast that did it." He shook his head in disgust. "It was a Machop. Half starved. Damn thing had taken a few good bites out of him when we..."
Brock took several deep breaths.
"They're usually so docile, Machop. You guys didn't attack it, right? You didn't provoke it?" I quickly glanced back and forth, to simulate shaking my head no. Brock seemed to understand.
"It's been killed. It won't hurt anyone else," he said. "Anything you need, after you're healed up, Calvin. You come see me."
Brock gave me one last, sad look, and walked out of my room.
I cried.
\-/-\-/-\-/
The couple of days till my transplant went by quite quickly, and soon I found myself in the recovery ward, gaining strength back in my limbs. The residing nurse here was a far cry from the bubbly, joyous nurse I had previously; this one was intensely serious and grim, and when she checked up on my reflexes and muscle memory, it was like she was on my deathbed.
I wondered if perhaps the PokeCenter had mixed up those two nurses on the roster.
But, after a modified potion injection and a few hours recovery, I was headed home on my own two feet, a note of prescribed exercises in hand and a clean bill of health.
We had one of the smaller houses in town; surprisingly close to what excuse Pewter had for a business center, but cheap and run down. The walls were gray, the door was a lighter gray, and the windows, where not broken and taped up, were dirty enough to be gray. I have to take some responsibility for that; it was my house too, even if I was barely ever home. But really, my mother did nothing but sit around in there and mope; the least she could have done was cleaned things up. I creaked open the front door and yelled up the stairs.
"MOM! Your son's not paralyzed anymore!"
There wasn't a response. Figures.
I stumbled up the stairs; the handrail had fallen off long ago, and my muscle control still wasn't perfect, so they were a bit of an obstacle. Then I walked over to my mother's bedroom, and opened the door.
As per usual, there she lay. Blankets were layered on her scrawny frame; a dish of relatively fresh food, barely touched, sat on her nightstand. At least she'd eaten something this time. "Hey, mom."
She stirred, and glanced up at me with squinted eyes. "Oh, hello, honey. How was work?"
I sighed. "Mom, I've been gone for a week. I was in the hospital."
My mom's eyebrows raised, and she looked me over quickly. Then she said, "That's nice, dear," and closed her eyes again.
I shook my head, left her bedroom, and limped down the hall to mine. It wasn't a place I saw all too often. Whenever I could find a friend willing to let me stay over, or an excuse to stay out all night and rest intermittently during the day, I took it. And it's no wonder, with how upsetting the place was. A dusty black blanket on a small mattress in the corner, a dresser full of old and often torn clothing, a closet with the only real things I owned in the world; interesting rocks I'd found, a raticate tooth necklace, a couple broken pokeballs, and an old Pokemon encyclopedia. When I was a kid I had spent hours reading that, committing everything in it to memory; it only had species native to Johto and Kanto, but I had dreamed of traveling all over someday. Of being someone that mattered. But instead I was stuck in that dead end home, with an uncaring parent, and a dead best friend.
Maybe it was the near death experience, or the loss of one of the last things tying me to that city. Whatever it was, I realized then I needed to get out. I had no idea how, but it had to happen. Else I was going to die in that city. If not from a pokemon, then from sheer depression.
Curled up on my tiny bed, I stared at the ceiling, leg throbbing, thinking. Tomorrow, I decided. Tomorrow I'll go see Brock, and ask if he knows what I could do.
\-/-\-/-\-/
The Pewter Gym wasn't huge or flashy like most others. It was a sturdy, compact building, made primarily of stone. The looks were meant to convey the philosophy of the gym; things don't need to be pretty, or excessive, they need to be supported, kept solid, to weather the stuff that life throws at us. And no doubt, if a true hurricane were ever to hit Pewter, that building would be the last thing standing.
After being stopped at the entrance and showing the guard my non-trainer ID, I was allowed to go in. The lighting was low; it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I saw a decent sized, sandy arena, with platforms off to the side full of freeweights and workout machinery. There were a few people here and there, lifting the weights or sparring on the sand. There were even a few pokemon out; a rather tough looking sandshrew was using some kind of weighted jumprope in the corner, and a geodude was relaxing by a pedestal in the far back. On that pedestal sat Brock, the man I came to see. I veered off to the side and walked past the weights on the platforms, steering clear of the sparring.
As I approached, the geodude looked up and growled. It sounded like rocks grinding together, and it awoke Brock from what I assume was his slumber; he tends to keep his eyes very narrowed when in his gym, supposedly to keep them adjusted to low light levels, but I know he sneaks naps every once in awhile.
"None of that, geodude." Brock scolded. The pokemon looked as suitably ashamed as a rock can. "Calvin! Welcome to the gym, glad to see you back on your feet. What can I do for you?"
"Hey Brock." I said, glancing about uncomfortably. I was never all that good at asking for advice, and as a 16 year old kid, everything you do is pretty awkward. "Listen, I've gotta ask you something."
Brock looked at me expectantly, and I took a moment to study him. He still had lines and bags under his eyes, but he had changed his clothes and his hair wasn't as wild. It looked like he was coping, somehow.
"I need to..." I began, and thought better of it. "My life here isn't the best, and I was wondering if you knew how I could..."
"How you could?" Brock asked, focusing all his attention on me.
I took a deep breath. "Being almost killed really opened my eyes to the fact that I might not have that long here. I'm tired of being so weak and upset, I'm tired of going home to be a parent to my own mother, I'm absolutely sick of carting rocks and pulling half-dead crops and barely making ends meet. And I was wondering if you knew how I could go about not... doing those things."
Brock regarded me silently for a moment, and then stood up. He motioned for me to follow him, and we walked through a door in the back, ending up in a small office with comfortable looking leather chairs and a stone desk. He sat behind it, and motioned for me to sit as well. The chairs were very comfortable.
We stared at eachother for a moment. Then Brock said, "Did you know that Bernard's dream, ever since he was a kid... was to be a Pokemon trainer?"
I shook my head and frowned at the mention of my deceased friend. I'd learned that he had a closed casket burial a few days before my operation. I'll always regret not being able to be there.
"But he was the closest thing I had to a son, with our age difference," Brock continued. " I had hoped one day he could take the reigns of the gym, and so I pushed for him not to get his trainer's license, and instead join me in the Rangers. He didn't like it, but he was going to do it, for me. I wonder now if I made the wrong decision." Brock stared me intensely in the eyes. "But maybe I can make up for it."
"What do you mean?" I asked, fighting tears.
"How would you like to be given a trainer's license, Calvin?"
I gasped. A trainer's license cost thousands of Poke, which is why I and many of the poorer citizens of the region never got one. We just never had the money. However, to be just given one? I didn't know how to react. So, I said, "But... I don't have a starter Pokemon."
Brock laughed. "That's easily remedied, bud. Hold on." He rummaged through his desk drawer for a moment, and pulled out an odd looking pokeball. It had a blue top, with red lines. "This is a Great Ball. Worth quite a bit, and it's practically guaranteed to catch any Pokemon in the local area. Only has trouble with the powerful ones. You go out this afternoon, find a Pokemon and throw it, then come right back here and we'll get you started training, then send you off south, to visit Professor Oak for a Pokedex."
I was in awe. I took the ball and held it reverently, and said, "Thank you so much. But you, you would just give this all to me?"
Brock nodded. "For Bernard."
I wasn't about to let this much good fortune go to waste. So, thanking him again quite profusely, I hobbled out of the gym cradling my Great Ball, and headed to the outskirts of town, near the more wooded area to the east. It wasn't a thick forest, has nothing on Viridian, but it had plenty of weak pokemon just waiting to be my starter. I had no idea what I'd go for, but whatever it was, I'd get it fast; I had no desire to hang around a bunch of wild pokemon after my last experience.
Finally reaching the forest, I limp-jogged straight away from the well travelled path, into the parts where pokemon most made their dens. I was so excited that I didn't watch where I was going, and stumbled into several bushes and small trees, scaring away Rattata and Sentret. I didn't want either of them, though. Far too common.
After a while of rampaging about aimlessly, I decided to take a breather. I leaned up against a tree, and stared at the great ball in my hands. Soon, very soon, my first friend on a journey that would last my entire life would be in it. I was so focused, I didn't notice an inquisitive pokemon drawing closer and closer, wanting a look at the shiny ball for itself. In fact, I didn't see it till it was directly in front of me, and then I let out a shocked yell and stumbled back.
A wide, flat toothed mouth, red, curious eyes, and a bony ridge along the top of its skull. I didn't think, I just reacted, and threw the Great Ball straight at it's head. The ball opened, and with a flash of light the creature was sucked into it. The ball wobbled once, twice, three times, then blinked red and lay still.
I had just caught a Machop.