Note: 1000 Pokedollars is about $10 US dollars
WARNING: The following fanfiction mentions the following: child abuse (most of the story), depressing themes (most of the story), animal abuse (several mentions), animal testing (several mentions), death (occasionally mentioned), and disturbing themes (once or twice). If you are triggered by any of those things, I suggest you choose something else to do.
I stumbled down the alleyway as fast as my wobbly legs would take me. I had recently gotten out of another argument with my father, if you could even call it that; it was more him yelling at me and hitting me, while I sat there with my lips zipped because I didn't want to be worse off than I already was. Like every time this happens, one of his grunts ushered me outside so we could "clear the air a bit".
I'm not sure if I'm more disguisted by the fact that she didn't intervene or that she thought it was okay to let an injured child wander the streets alone. She did give me that helpless look though, the one that says "I feel really bad for you, sorry that if I help you I'll lose my job and die of starvation".
Some of this might not be making sense, so let me clear things up for you. I'm the "son" of Giovanni Rocket, the leader of Team Rocket, an organization that runs lethal experiments on Pokemon. I haven't been in the lab much, and I thank Mew for that; most of what I've seen in there as been gut-wrenchingly awful things, tests that assure you the human race is evil and disgusting as a whole.
In an experiment to see if they could turn a normal Pokemon shiny, they injected some glitch into an Eevee. At first, it simply changed into it's shiny form, but then it started changing to random colors. From that point, it started to vomit up blood, then it began to choke, and after a painful few minutes, it keeled over and died. The grunts acted like it was nothing, like they hadn't just killed another living being for no reason. Despicable.
Those disturbing memories behind, I originally lived with my mom and dad, and those were much more pleasant times. Around that time, I discovered by hatred of representing as male, and started dressing more feminine. After a while, I started representing as female and left behind my past as male. My mom was fully supportive of me being a transgender, while my father was terribly transphobic about it. He'd put up his little act for my mom, but I spent a long while hearing from him about how it was "just a phase" and that I "wasn't thinking right".
Nonetheless, my years with my mom in my life were happy. Everything crashed and burned when she died in an accident. Giovanni became much more open about how he felt towards me after she died, including forcing me into the male gender role, chewing me out for the smallest mistake, and abusing me for the heck of it.
More recently, he finds more and more reasons to get angry with me and will get upset with me over the smallest things, I can barely open my own mouth or take a step without a verbal thrashing.
But that's enough of my sob story. Now that you know why I'm in this situation, we can get back to the subject at hand.
So I was limping down the Viridian City alleys after being kicked out of my own house. I had several bruises and cuts, and what I assume from stinging, numbness, and blurry vision to be a black eye, but I could really care less at this point. I would go to Pokemon Center and the nurses would fix me up with some pain-relievers, maybe a meal, and if I'm lucky they'd let me stay the night.
I turned a corner into a more public area, where there was a small cafe outside the Pokemart entrance. I wasn't really the type to be shy and stealthy in public, people didn't usually notice me because of how short I am, but I froze when I noticed to people staring at me.
They were sitting at an outdoor cafe table, both looking at me, scanning my features. They had this strange hate in their eyes. I knew it was directed towards me, and it was making me incredibly uncomfortable and... oddly ashamed. Had I done something wrong?
I sat there like an idiot having a staring contest with these two strangers, until one of them leaned in with the other and starting talking. I couldn't catch all of what they said, but it sounded like they were saying something about me looking like I was in a gang fight and how I belonged in the trash.
Of course I was hurt by the words I heard. I was hurt by how I was able to sense in their simple expression that they hated my guts. I realized I was just standing there like I had frozen over, so I quickly walked over to the other side of the building, overcast by the large Pokemart's shadow.
Things were starting to crumble in on me. My own parent hated me, my mother was dead, I relied on a place meant for Pokemon for food and shelter, I had no money, people hated me right off the bat because of how I looked... Not to mention I was burning and stinging and numb and shaking, and I was so tired, and hungry, and I had no idea where I was going or what I was supposed to be doing...
I collapsed and started to cry, because I really had nothing else to do but sit there and be sorry for myself. Sure, I could go to the Pokemon Center, but why? There wasn't really a purpose to it. I just went there because it seemed more logical then walking over to some stranger's house and saying "so my dad kicked me out of my house, can I stay with you?".
Everything was done for logic's sake. The only was to satisfy my emotional needs was...well, permanent.
I was too caught up in my own emotional breakdown to hear somebody walk up to me, and I only noticed them when they gave me light shove. He seemed to be a few years older than me, he had jet black hair and pale skin. He wore a bright red jacket and cap, and has stunning eyes of the same color.
He made some sort of hand gesture that I presumed that he wanted me to stand up, so I did. After that, he started walking away, motioning for me to follow. I was extremely confused, but I wiped the tears off my face and followed the mysterious man. After a short walk, he stopped in front of the Pokemon Center and stopped, turning to me. Obediently, I paused in front of him. He gently took my wrist and made me hold out my hand. I watched in curiosity as he rustled through his pockets.
After a few seconds, he pulled out 1000 Pokedollars and dropped the bills into my hand. "Keep your head held high, kid," he said, ruffling my thick red-orange hair. I stood in shock as he walked off.
...maybe the future is brighter than I first imagined.