Hi, everyone! Penguin Lass here, brining you my first ever Pokemon fic! I've been thinking about this fic for quite a while, since I got Pearl in May. There will be POV changes, but you'll know when it changes, trust me!
Just to warn you: I'm a closet fangirl. Don't kill me for it.
That being said, let's get this fic on!
Chapter 1: A Chance Encounter
[Roark's POV
I've always wanted to travel around and see Sinnoh and all its glory, but I also knew it would be a bad idea. I mean, not only am I a Gym Leader and the safety supervisor of the Oreburgh mine, I... Well... Couldn't navigate myself out of a paper bag.
Okay, okay. It's not that funny.
As you can probably imagine, doing the same exact thing day in and day out gets pretty boring after a while. Nothing interesting really happens in a mine, aside from the occasional fossil someone digs up. That's really the only thing I look forward to, really. Even my Gym battles had kind of sucked.
I never expected to be hit square in the face with an opportunity to leave my normal life and do something exciting while I was doing my job (jobs, whatever.).
It all started when I was born...
...I'm kidding. Seriously.
It really started one cool autumn afternoon (and by "cool" I mean "it was tolerable outside and freaking cold in the mine"). I was doing my usual patrol around the mine, making sure everything was going smoothly. I would occasionally stop and glance over my coworkers' shoulders to see if they had anything interesting.
Coal, coal, random evolution stones, coal, more coal... The usual.
"Hey, is that it?" I asked one of the guys (whose name still eludes me to this day) when I stopped next to him. He just nodded and made this grunting noise as he continued his work.
Now, I wouldn't normally admit this, but I sometimes wished that something exciting would happen in this otherwise increasingly boring mine.
And damn, did that wish come true. All of a sudden a loud CRASH echoed through the tunnels, followed by and even louder, feminine cry.
Needless to say, that caught my attention, and I found myself running in the direction I heard the sounds coming from. However, due to my poor navigation skills (and the fact that I was in a rush), I crashed into a few walls on the way. Turned a corner, ran a bit, turned another, missed the corner completely and BAM! Hello wall.
Again, it's not that funny.
Anyway, after about a minute or two of that, I stopped for a second and realized that I didn't really have an idea of where I needed to be. I figured I'd just keep going until ended up there, but before I could even take two steps a Pikachu came out of scenic nowhere and nearly knocked me on my ass.
In case you didn't know, seeing a Pikachu in mine is not exactly a common occurrence. And the poor thing looked so panicked too. Maybe I could calm him down...
"Hey little guy," I said softly, kneeling down so I was closer to its eye level (that helps calm a Pokemon down, you know). "What's the matter?"
He looked at me for a moment, then started tugging at my pants leg and pointing in front of him.
"Pipika! PIKACHU!"
Now, I don't speak Pikachu (or any other Pokemon for that matter), but I was pretty sure that he wanted me to follow him. Of course, being the dork that I am, I had to drag the "conversation" out further.
"You want me to follow you?" I asked him. After that, I completely expected him to run away so I could, but instead he climbed up onto my shoulder and kept pointing.
"Pipika!"
To be perfectly honest, I didn't know what to make of the situation. But there was a corridor turning left a few yards ahead, so I figured I'd just go that way and hope that's where the Pikachu wanted me to be.
I can only imagine how stupid the look on my face was when I turned that corner (without crashing into it, mind you. My navigation skills aren't that bad.). I mean, how would you react if you turned into a huge cavern filled with a bunch of terrified coal miners trying to fend off one very disgruntled Steelix? A Steelix, by the way, that I had never seen in the four years I've worked in this mine.
Yeah. That's what I thought.
So anyway, I ran toward a small group of workers, who were tending to their injured Pokemon.
"Hey," I questioned one of them, "What the heck happened?" He looked up from his beat-up Zubat (not to be rude, but who the hell uses a Zubat against a Steelix?) for a second, then let out a sigh.
"A rookie trainer came looking to challenge you," he said, motioning toward a girl who was huddled in a corner and covering her eyes in fear. "She must have angered it or... something."
I looked toward the girl and moved to try to calm her down, but the Pikachu that was previously on my shoulder beat me to the punch and rushed over to her. It suddenly clicked in my head that he must belong to her. I smiled at how worried Pikachu was about his trainer, though my attention was quickly diverted to the Steelix, which was headed straight for all of us.
Well, damn.
After that, I didn't bother thinking, I just acted. I reached into my back pocket, took out a PokeBall, and (what a surprise) threw it into the air.
"Go, Rampardos!" Cue burst of light and said Pokemon appearing within the light.
Ah, my Rampardos. My most trusted partner, and my closest friend. I could ramble on about him all day, but I'll spare you the ego trip.
"Use Zen Headbutt!" I called out, and Rampardos leapt at the Steelix, his head glowing with a faint bluish aura. He collided with his opponent with enough force to throw the iron snake off balance for a minute, which was about 56 seconds more than I needed.
"Now, follow up with Flamethrower!" And with that, a blaze of red hot flames burst from Rampardos' mouth, engulfing the Steelix in a fiery torrent of pain. The massive Pokemon roared before falling to the ground, the impact causing a loud THUD and a slight rumble of the earth. Everyone in the mine cheered, as if I had just defeated something that threatened humanity's very existence.
It's nice to feel appreciated for once.
After returning Rampardos to his ball, I walked up to the girl and kneeled down in front of her. Her Pikachu looked at me with curious eyes as I gently shook her shoulder.
"Hey, are you alright?" I asked softly. She sniffed and nodded a little as she wiped the tears away from her eyes.
"Y-yeah..." She replied as she slowly stood up and brushed the dirt off of her clothes. "I'm just wicked afraid of Steelix, ya know?"
My reply was a half-laughing "It's understandable. They are pretty big, and ferocious-looking." When I had finished, she turned toward me, which gave me a chance to get a good look at her.
She looked about seventeen, with short, layered black hair and shoulder-length pink bangs. She was kind of short, too, not much taller that five feet or so. What caught me off guard was her face, more importantly her green eyes and how they stared intensely at me through her black-rimmed glasses. There was something... familiar about it.
After what seemed like hours of us just staring at each other (I found out later that it was only about ten seconds) and her Pikachu making random noises at our feet, she finally broke the silence.
"Zapdos?"
Zapdos. Only two people had ever called me that. An old friend from my childhood, someone I hadn't seen for nearly seven years, and my father during said childhood because he thought it was funny. Ruling out her being my father (anyone who thought that needs to be beaten with a large, blunt object right now.), I figured the odds of her being my friend were slim to none, as she had moved to Hoenn and we had completely lost touch. But I figured, 'Hey, what the hell. I'll take a chance.'
"Ashura?"
Awkward silence, awkward silence, awkward silence...
"OH MY GOD!"
Just so you know, we both said that last part.
