IDENTITY CRISIS REDUX
ARC I: THE ESPCAPE FROM UNOVA
CHAPTER ONE: WHAT CHILDREN DREAM OF...
"Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind. Ain't life unkind?"
-The Rolling Stones
I'm sure you've heard everything there is to hear when it comes to "sob stories". Quite frankly they annoy me. People are constantly trying to make their lives sound like the most tragic thing to go down in history. I'm positive there are plenty of other people who will tell you the same thing. "My grandad was eaten by a school of vicious shiny wooper" or "My mom and dad died trying to put a stop to Team Tragedy". My story isn't so much as tragic as other peoples, and it isn't much of a "sob story" because I rarely ever cry at least more than four times.
When I was no older than ten, I had dreams. Stupid petty dreams like becoming Champion of Kanto or meeting Blaine and getting his autograph. I wanted to be Pokemon Trainer. I wanted to get eight badges and take on the Elite Four. I told myself, the way every other ten year old tells themselves, that I would be the very best. No one would surpass me. Unfortunately to say, I never got that chance- for my life was changed over night and my dreams became nothing but.
July 14th, as some of you may know, is Bring Your Kid to Work Day in Kanto. It might seem irrelevant at this moment, but you'll see why it is so "relevant" in a minute.
July 14th had barely begun when I decided to go downstairs and get a drink. I spent a long time in bed wondering if I should go. I was convinced that somewhere in the darkness a bunch of gastly had taken a liking to our house and decided to haunt it. My parents told me it was all apart of my imagination and not to worry about a thing. That didn't exactly reassure me that there weren't ghost Pokemon living in the shadows and waiting for the opportune moment to strike, but I let my myself be swayed regardless of the fact. I tiptoed down the stairs slowly in an effort not to awaken my sleeping parents. I immediately noticed that the front door was wide open. I was tempted to shut it, but I didn't. And thank, Arceus I didn't.
I crept passed the open door, a small breeze from the hot summer night blew in as I did. I headed towards the kitchen, when I heard some muffled noises. A pit of fear formed in my stomach and I realized that there were ghost Pokemon in the house and that my parents had been lying to me. Only one of those were correct, however. I was about to find out soon and the hard way.
At first my ten year old brain tried to convince itself that I was just hearing things. That nothing was there. The noises got a bit louder and this time I realized that it was someone talking. I couldn't hear what they were really saying so I moved closer toward the dining room. I kept as close to the wall as I could possibly get and moved against the wall. I barely managed to stick my head from around the corner when my heart leapt in my chest.
It turns out it wasn't ghost Pokemon afterall, but rather the notorious Team Rocket. Evil doers in Kanto who stole and killed people for their Pokemon. Apparently they also excelled in torturing too.
My parents were bound together, back to back, with duck tape across their mouth and rope on their arms and legs. My mother's face was streaked with tears, and she was sporting a black eye. My father had a huge gash on his forehead. Blood trickled down onto the floor. It was a wonder he was still even conscious. He gripped onto my mother's tiny hands the best he could while being tied up.
The man standing before him I had seen on countless occasions. He was my parent's "boss". He told me to call him Uncle Giovanni though we were in no way related by blood. He said it had a certain ring to it and "besides, we're all family now aren't we?". But right then, with him holding a gun to my mother head, he wasn't being rather family-like. Neither were the two Rocket Grunts standing beside him with smug grins on their faces.
"Team Rocket has a strict no traitor policy," said the man who I'd really thought was actually awesome before this whole mess happened. "Forrest, Jade, I'm rather disappointed to think that you would rat us out to the police so you could leave Team Rocket. Shame. I had high expectations of you and your son."
No kid ever wants to believe that their parents are involved in something so heinous. But the facts were punching me in the gut. It all made sense though. My parents strange work hours. How they would come home with new Pokemon whenever they went on their business meetings. If I hadn't been so blind I might've seen it.
My parent's eyes narrowed at the word son. But Giovanni was on a roll to even notice their grim expressions. "I've told you and so many others before that our reach extends far beyond incompetent thieves looking to get rich quickly. We are Team Rocket. How do you think we've gotten away with so much? We certainly are not that lucky." He tapped the gun playfully against my mother's shoulder. "This meeting of ours has been a bit prolonged. I have other matters to attend to." He held up the gun to my mother's head and pumped the trigger.
That was the first time I saw so much blood, or for that matter seen someone get murdered. It was scary. A mixture of blood and brains coated the back of my father's head and back. Though he remained so strong for so long, my father broke down. Tears started to stream down his face. His wife had just died and now he was going too also. Unknown to him, his son would be watching them die- horror plastered across his face. I sobbed softly into my hands as Giovanni pulled trigger and my father went lifeless. That would be the last time I ever cried.
And the world stopped spinning for me at that moment.
"Go find their son," he told one of the Rockets standing beside him still filled with glee despite the fact someone had been murdered before them.
They turned in my direction and I quickly scrambled out of view. I dove into the living room and squeezed behind the couch. If they found me, I was going to die. I didn't want to die. I had to become the greatest Pokemon Trainer ever and avenge my parents deaths. At least that's what ten year old me was thinking. Reality would eventually slap me out of that.
Once I was sure they were all upstairs and clambered from behind my hiding spot and fled.
I doubt anyone saw a crying boy in pajamas flee into the darkness that night.
I'd like to tell you that it got better from that point on, but it didn't. The head of the police task force in Lavender Town was actually a Rocket himself as I learned the hard way. Thankfully some clean cops came to my rescue before the man's Nidoking had a chance to drill its horn through my stomach.
Anyway, I became the star witness in the case that the feds had been building against Giovanni, the boss of Team Rocket. The feds placed me in a safe house where they assured me that no one would be able to harm me. Which was a flat out lie since it seemed like everyone was out to get me, as I also learned the hard way.
Moved from safe house to safe house in the following months, I changed. Things that might've seemed horrifying to other people of any age were no longer to me. In fact, blood didn't even make me cringe. Nor did seeing a Rocket's Rhydon tear apart one of the Marshalls overseeing my safety.
Eventually the day everyone had been waiting for came. The day Giovanni, leader of Team Rocket and Gym Leader of Viridian City, had been captured. Apparently a young boy by the name of Red took on Giovanni and the lot of Rockets to save the people of Splish Co. It was hard to believe considering he was around my age.
The trial came and went. I stood in front of Giovanni 13 times. Not once did I cry or put on the whole "my-parents-were-murdered-pity-me" act. But people still did regardless of the fact. A child psychologist told the jurors that I "would most likely never get over this". Which was a lie. I already had.
My parents were liars. Liars and Rockets. A perfect combination if I ever saw one. They told me they worked for an exporting company. Maybe Rockets did specialize in the exportation of rare species, but that still didn't make me feel better. They were Rockets no matter which way you looked at it. Guess what that made me? An orphaned son of two dead Rockets that decided to go good to change their lives. They had done horrific things that might've made any other person vomit, as i soon learned on trial. They weren't special or the exception. That made me hate them more.
The jurory found him guilty of all charges. All 100 different charges, varying from murder to jaywalking. Seriously.
I thought after the trial was done things would go back to normal. They didn't. The government placed me in the Witness Protection program permanently. Rockets were more pissed that their leader was in jail, rotting away for the rest of his life, than when he was trial. It was far too dangerous for me to stay with a family member till the whole mess blew over. No one would take me anyway. So they changed my name and moved me elsewhere.
My life got progressively worse from that point on. My name would change constantly and the lies would grow deeper and deeper. I started to lose track of who I really was. Was I Roland Turner from Viridian City or Francis Grants from Celadon City? In the beginning I was moved quite a bit from my inability to lie casually. Sometimes I accidentally spoke my real name and people would remember me. Other times, I'd come across Rockets who knew it was me and cue the running for my life once more.
After a while I got the hang of the lying. But I still did slip up on purpose once because I hated Solaecon Town and the stupid beady eye children that would come and go through town with their Pokemon.
Speaking of Pokemon, I was prohibited from having one. The Marshalls would tell me over and over everytime I asked that they could always change my identity but a Pokemon was a different story. They could hack into the NTR and trace from the pokéball bin number to who it belonged too. How they would even get my pokéball in the first place was a wonder to me.
Thus began my hatred of the Marshall Service.
But I had a plan. One that would require an overwhelming amount of patience and for me to be in Unova. A plan that no Marshall would ever see coming.
I would be a Pokemon Trainer. Maybe not the best, but I would be one. Even if I got killed in the process.
AEROGA: Welp. I'm back with a redux of one of my already posted stories. Except somewhat frequent updates as I have quite a few chapter lined up. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.