18/07/14

Hi!
Citrus here :)
First shot at writing a story here, but let me try, eh?
Apologies if it's bad, or slightly Mary-Sue ish, I'm trying my best.
Please review and tell me what needs to be improved! I'd love to know what you guys think
It's a tad bit short, but it'll get longer as it gets going.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon and never will...sadly

She closed her eyes with a familiar heavy sigh. Ten gone twenty, she mused sardonically.
How much things you learn in a period of six years...feels like I've aged a couple of decades...
Gone were her starter...she should have not taken him for granted...she still remembered the little tremble and quake in his steps as he stared with bewildered eyes at his new environment...so vulnerable and yet...why?
Why didn't she protect him?
Why couldn't she have seen what she was doing?
Nurture him into something they would've both been proud of?
She turned on her heel, and with a swish of her scarf she faded into the crowd,
She needed time to think again.

She was only ten when she got her first Pokémon-granted it was the standard age, but she couldn't forget the overflowing enthusiasm and excitement as she waited outside the well-known lab half an hour early. It was only after her first two gym leader battles that she grew disheartened...and bored.
Yes, the Charmander turned into a powerful Charizard, but she wanted more.
She wanted a Pokémon so much more powerful, she remembered vividly of how her mouth twisted in a disdainful grimace as her Charizard, Zyreix, looked expectantly back at her, awaiting orders as Pokémon after Pokémon was defeated by his flame.
It was far too easy, she would always think with that damned mentality of hers. She always thought that they were merely a stepping stone to the top.

She'd captured many Pokémon on her journey, that was a given, after all it was one of the conditions she had to meet in exchange for a starter and a chance to set a place in history among the best trainers. But none of them lasted like Zyreix. Sure, he had those moments where he staggered in the air and the moments where she really doubted he would make it. But he proved them wrong- the nurses, the stand-by'ers, and herself. While her past party members finally went down, he was always the one left standing, even if by a thread. She never really had the misfortune of feeling the distress of having all the efforts, the sweat and tears wasted like most trainers. No, in fact she was too accustomed by the feeling of victory- the quiver she still felt as the gym battle steward lifted the red flag, and how she still felt the blazing heat of her heavily panting Charizard- to have ever felt the full extent of feeling the losses.
Why would she care anyway?
As long as she won, she was content with the repercussions.

It was only a few numbing minutes after the fall of Zyreix that it dawned on her, it nulled the concerned queries from the background.
...just like that.
And all her assumptions and dreams rumbled to an end.
She was so close.
So damned close.
It was just above her reach.

All her time, and effort at making the perfect team- carefully crafting the weaknesses and strengths- of course Zyreix was the core, but she knew he wasn't going to let her down. He never did. She had managed to buy an egg here and there, cautiously asking about the parentage of the egg and under what conditions it was laid. She never minded about how long it took for the eggs to hatch, after all, she bought them specifically for her final battle before fame and glory. And with the more or less consistent deaths of her party members, she had to have some Pokémon ready to be trained up, utterly green or not.
And when her second to last Pokémon standing fell- a Flygon she had painstakingly raised from a Trapinch- she had to send out Zyreix, he was still winded from before, but he'd have to endure it. Her lips thinned in a displeased manner.
But so was the Champion's Pokémon, it was a one vs. one.
So damned simple, but no.
He fell, while the other reigned triumphant.
She had angrily spat at the dispirited dragon after, had sworn every single foul-mouthed curses she knew, had thrown everything on the ground in a blind rage before storming off for an indefinite amount of time like a five year old throwing a tantrum.

And when she came back knowing what she did wrong, admittedly unhappy to admit her fault, she had a sinking feeling in her gut that something was terribly wrong.
Very wrong.
No one else would've come along the little camp she made a couple of months before, she made sure herself, after all, she had to have her privacy.
At least, that was what she thought.
Warily, she stepped into the area, examining, assessing and calculating the damage done. There was an odd smell in the air, she noted with a grim scowl.
It was only later she discovered the partially-rotten corpse of a fairly large creature; wings torn apart, fangs ripped from the fleshy mouth, various gaping holes, and skin missing from the parts she knew would sell highly in the black market. She could only gape in silent horror, she didn't even need a closer inspection to know what it was. Poachers weren't uncommon, no, in fact, they were very common, but...maybe it was the guilt and sentimental feelings that had been shoved aside for years finally resurfaced.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

She brushed it off with an unusually shaky hand, as she stumbled a step back.
He probably waited for her all that time.
Probably starved doing so and was one of the reasons why he fell to the poachers, along with how dependent he was on her she realized. Starved because all she gave him was processed food- never raw, oh Arceus forbid, and she sternly taught him to go against primal instincts. And somewhere, she knew that there was a little part of her that still thought of him as the baby she first knew him as.
And the worst part?
It was all her fault and she never realized.

She didn't mean, no, in no way she meant it. She didn't mean for her to neglect him, to abandon him.
She knew it was somewhat of a lie. Her hands clenched into tight fists against her shorts, she was selfish; selfish and stupid. Selfish at wanting more and not caring about her starter, stupid at not seeing how much her beloved Pokemon suffered under her indifferent eyes. They had managed to defeat the gym leaders one by one, the gym leaders basically toppling over like bowling pins-not effortlessly, but less difficult than she imagined it would've been. She was so proud when her Charmander evolved into a similar looking form, much more lizard-like and lean, but still so recognizable from his still innocent dark eyes.

She closed his unblinking, glassy eyes.

Oh but how she missed him.
But she felt pathetic, moronic at how she felt this way years later.
She'd grown arrogant and assuming by the domination of the third gym, assuming she'd always win and nothing would go wrong, that she'd be at the top, superior to every other trained in the damned region.

How wrong she was.
She never knew what was going to come to her.
After all, Karma was a bitch.
This was all Arceus' punishment He deemed fit for her, Mavis Stone bet.

A/N: And that's the prologue done!
I hope you readers enjoyed this and hopefully stick around for more :)
Please review/critique/comment, I'd love to know what you guys think of it- the bad bits to the prologue or the good bits! (Or both, haha)
~CitrusHoney