Amalea stood before Professor Oak's lab, gathering the courage to go in. He would probably turn her away, just as everyone else had turned her away; she had never had good luck in her life, and why should she start now? But then, what choice did she have but to try? She clenched her slender, delicate hand into a fist, claw-like nails digging into her palm almost enough to draw blood, drew herself up straighter, and went inside.

"I'd like a Pokemon," she stated.

Professor Oak looked at her, eyes narrowed. "I haven't seen you before. Are you new in town?"

She nodded. "I just moved here a week ago."

"You look a little old to be starting your Pokemon journey."

"I'm tall for my age," Amalea lied. (Or was it a lie? How was she to determine her age? By some measures she might be rather young to be starting her Pokemon journey, but that was beside the point.)

"Well, I'm sorry," said Professor Oak, "you're too late. We don't have any starter Pokemon left."

Amalea tugged the brim of her large hat down to hide the tears welling up in her amethyst orbs and bit her treacherously quivering lower lip. "That's okay. Never mind." She turned to go, her long magenta hair streaming behind her as she did so.

"Wait!" Professor Oak called. "There is one..."

Amalea looked up hopefully, her eyes still glimmering wetly.

"It's not one I would normally give to beginners, but somehow... I feel like you can handle it." He took out a Pokeball and pressed the button to release the Pokemon within. Light streamed from the ball, and within its rays a small, pink, feline form took shape.

"Mew?" said the Pokemon.

Amalea drew in her breath sharply. Hidden beneath her long skirt, her tail twitched in Of all the Pokemon she could have received... It had to be a sign.

"Thank you!" she cried as Professor Oak handed her the Pokeball. "I'll take good care of her, I promise."

"Good luck," the Professor told her, and she set out of the lab with Mew bobbing along beside her and her hopes, for once, high.

Of course, her good mood and good fortune could not last long. As she made her way along the route that led away from Pallet Town, a boy stepped out to block her path, smirking.

"What kind of weird Pokemon is that?" he sneered. "I've never seen anything like it before. It must be some kind of freak."

Freak. Amalea winced at the word, blinking back the crystalline tears that threatened to flood her eyes once more. The second set of ears hidden under her hat drooped involuntarily. If Mew was a freak, what did that make her?

"Mew!" said Mew, tugging on her skirt.

"Anyway, get out of the road," the boy went on. "Some of us normal people have places to go with our normal Pokemon, and you're in the way."

"I- I'm sorry, I..." Amalea looked at the ground, fighting to keep her composure.

"Mew," Mew repeated, insistently, but Amalea couldn't look at her right now.

"I said, get out of the road. Are you deaf or what?" The boy kicked her hard in the shin, and Amalea stumbled, falling to her knees.

"Mew!" said Mew. Amalea felt a strange energy in the air, heard a fizzing, crackling sound. She turned to see Mew surrounded by a glowing ball of amaranthine energy, which grew and grew and then seemed to burst, and Amalea's vision went white.

~*~*~*~*~*~FLASHBACK~*~*~*~*~*~

Darkness. Silence. Weightlessness. Amalea floated totally surrounded by a warm liquid.

Dimly she became aware of voices nearby; muted, but still distinguishable.

"... a failure," one was sneering. "At near-complete maturity, the brain scans show a complete lack of psychic activity, and if it hasn't developed these abilities by now, it never will."

"Should you be calling the subject 'it'?" asked the second voice.

"Why not? It's not a person," the first voice asserted.

"Well... all right," the second voice relented. "What are we going to do with h- with it, then?"

"What do you think?" snapped the first voice. "Terminate it. We can't afford to waste resources on a failure."

"I don't know..." The second speaker hesitated. "I mean, it could still be useful somehow, right?"

The first speaker snorted. "You're too soft, Larch. One must break a few eggs to make an omelet. If you don't understand that, you don't belong in this lab."

"I just don't like to let things go to waste," Larch protested. "That's all."

"You want to talk about waste?" the first voice demanded. "If it's not gone by this time tomorrow, I'll start taking the resources necessary to maintain its sorry existence out of your pay."

"All right, all right," Larch agreed. "I'll get rid of it, I promise."

"See that you do," snapped the first voice.

The sound of footsteps echoed through the room, fading into the distance.

~*~*~*~*~*~END FLASHBACK~*~*~*~*~*~

When Amalea returned to her senses, the boy was gone, and she was sitting next to the road. Mew peered down at her, her large sapphire eyes filled with concern.

"Mew?" she said.

"I'm okay," Amalea told her, keeping her voice as steady as she could. "At least, I think I am." She got to her feet, and though she was still shaking a little, she found she was apparently unhurt.

"Mew!" Mew said happily.

As Amalea stood there by the road, she found a new resolve spreading through her, filling her with icy, steely purpose. Her trembling ceased, and her tears dried.

"Mew," she announced, "I'm going to become a Pokemon master. The greatest Pokemon master, unlike any before."

"Mew!" said Mew.

"And when I'm done... I'm going to find those scientists. And I'm going to make them pay for what they did to me."

"Mew," said Mew, somewhat dubiously, swishing her tail back and forth.

"You can't talk me out of it," Amalea declared. "My mind's made up. This is what I have to do. This... is my destiny."

Mew seemed convinced by that. "Mew!"

"Come on, Mew," Amalea declared. "We have work to do."

And with her head held high, she strode along the path, her Pokemon at her side. Her journey had truly begun.

TO BE CONTINUED?