A/N: Hey guys, thank you for checking out my new story. This is the first FanFiction I've ever published, so I'm super excited to see how it turns out. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter One.

On a beautiful summer day, a young girl is setting off on an adventure with her brand-new Pokémon, smiling as brightly as the sun that forces her steel grey eyes to squint. She holds one hand up, trying to shield them from the glare whilst grasping the strap of her bag tightly with the other as it sits on her shoulders, her mother attempting to tie back her plum coloured hair that was being tousled by the wind. Her father stands beside them, a hand placed on his wife's shoulder as he laughs.

A picture-perfect family, all blissfully unaware of the news they'd be receiving a few days later that would change their lives, bringing the young girls' short-lived journey to an end.

"Picture-perfect" I scoffed, staring at the photo and brushing my finger gently over my father's fading face, blinking tears back as I noticed a scratch had appeared on it. I wiped my eyes and placed it to one side to pick up the fragments of glass that littered the floor. I tossed them in the bin before reaching for the photo, barely recognising the woman tying back the hair of my ten-year-old self. How could things have changed so much since then?

I sat on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands as I tried to remember the last time that she had spoken to me without breaking a picture frame or a vase, anything she could smash against a wall. I'd been hiding the picture from her for so long, knowing she'd try to destroy it. You'd think seven years would be long enough to remove every trace of him from the house, but she still managed to find tiny little reminders and flew into a frenzy, crying and screaming, leaving a trail of destruction behind her and usually finding me at the end of the path.

I could barely take it anymore, I'd had a bag packed and ready for weeks, waiting for me to escape the first chance I got but always ended up convincing myself I couldn't leave her. As cruel and twisted as she had become, she was still my mother.

I soon found myself inching my way downstairs, intending to apologise like every other time this had happened, despite the blame not being mine, just to keep the peace a while longer before she erupted again, as I knew she would. I crept quietly towards the front room, trying to build up the courage to speak to her without my voice quivering but when I got there, she was nowhere to be seen. I checked all over the house before finally coming to her bedroom door, knocking gently.

"Mother?" I called, tapping harder on the door, pushing it open slightly. I opened it further and peeked in, she wasn't here either. I was about to leave when I realised something wasn't right. I stepped across the threshold, holding my breath as I looked around the dark room, the curtains tightly pulled shut and covered in dust as if they hadn't been opened in years.

I picked up the only picture sitting on the desk, its frame bent and the glass was gone, leaving behind a scruffy photo of my mother and my father, except his face had been scratched out. My gaze wandered as I weaved around the mess, clothes strewn across the floor, a chair knocked over, wardrobe doors hanging open to reveal it had been emptied.

My eyes widened in shock, my heart racing as a sinking feeling settled in my stomach. I pelted down the hallway and into the spare room, cracking open the loose floorboard I'd discovered years ago. My pulse relaxed a little as I saw my rucksack hadn't been moved, the money I'd been saving for the past years untouched. I pulled the Poké Ball out of the bag, clutching it to my chest as I tried to slow my breathing.

Beldum. The most important gift my father had ever given me. It was also the last gift he'd ever given me. If she'd found it, I couldn't even bear to think what she would've done with it. Over the years when I'd sneaked out at night to play at being a trainer, Beldum had somehow mustered the strength to evolve into a Metang, making it too big to hide in my room without my mother suspecting something, so in the Poké Ball it would stay until the dead of night when she was asleep.

I choked back sobs with the defaced photograph and Poké Ball still clutched in my hands, I knew she'd left me, and felt no remorse doing it. She might still be my mother, but I hadn't been her daughter for a long time.

I gripped the seat, my stomach rolling as the boat rocked against the sea. It had been hours now but I was still trying to earn my sea legs, not having moved from the seat since we'd set off. I frowned jealously as people walked past me, totally at ease whilst I battled to keep my breakfast down, I didn't really feel like seeing what boiled egg and soldiers looked like after you'd eaten it.

"Look mama! Coo-ma-een City!" A young boy cried, grabbing his mother's skirt and pointing towards the island we were approaching.

"Wow! Can you see all the Pokémon?" The mother enthused, pointing at the Pelipper and Wingull that flew alongside the boat.

I smiled as I watched them, willing myself to stand up and take a look, shielding my eyes from the sun as the Kalos Region grew closer. It was a lot bigger than Sinnoh, greener too. I felt something nudge my arm and turned my head, my lips pulling into a smile as Metang nuzzled against me.

"We're almost there, Metang, just a bit further" I said. It made a cheerful noise and pressed closer to me as I pulled a guide book out of my rucksack. "We'll be getting off in Coumarine City, then I suppose we better find someone to give us some directions, I can't understand this map."

My legs were still jelly when they hit solid ground, forcing me to wobble and collapse on a nearby bench. As I waited to regain control of my legs, I flipped through the guide book, finding there was a Pokémon Professor in Kalos, much like Professor Rowan back in Sinnoh.

"Professor Sycamore, huh?" I mused, studying a picture of him in the book. He looked more like a freelance artist than a Pokémon Professor. "What do you think, Metang, reckon this guy can help us?" The Iron Claw Pokémon looked at me quizzically and I shrugged, deciding it was as good a place to start as any.

A friendly local gave us directions, 'straight down route 13, you can't miss it', and we started the trek towards Lumiose City, a whole new adventure and a whole new life laid out on the road in front of us.

My feet hurt already.

A/N: So that's chapter one! I might make some changes to it in the near future, but for now consider it a brief introduction. The real story starts in chapter two, so I hope you stick with me a while longer!