Pokemon: A NEW DAWN - Chapter One

by KantoKnight

The story begins with Hiro finding a Pokedex in the ruined Pallet Town before he returns home to find his family murdered. His brother survives, but is taken away by thugs who shoot Hiro in the leg.

art/Pokemon-A-NEW-DAWN-Chapter-One-419852869

The first thing I felt was the cold from having slept all night without a blanket. I shivered, curled up on the creaking mattress, and rolled over. I winced as another rusty spring pricked into my side and I sat up, dazed. I rubbed my eyes before opening them to the grey, cracked wall before me.
That's when I spotted it. Curled up in the corner, gnawing on the wall with its impossibly large front teeth was a Rattata. It was a clean one, but it was still a pesky purple fur ball that was unwelcome in this home.
I clapped my hands loudly to startle it, and the little Pokémon scurried to a hole in the floor that I hadn't noticed before. Damn, there's probably a whole nest of them down there. Maybe even a few mutants. I stomped on the floor. I cursed under my breath when I heard rusting underneath the floorboards. We'll have to tear up the floor again, just as we did last spring.
I stood up and stretched before slipping my wool shirt off, checking for any new holes. I sighed when I saw there were two. Next time that Rattata showed its nose, I'll have to make sure it never gets a chance to chew through my clothing again.
I put my shirt back on before going downstairs, wincing and stopping mid-step as the third stair creaked loudly. I always did forget that one step. I looked down into the living room where my mother and father slept on the floor with a thin blanket covering them, and my grandfather sleeping on the sofa. There was someone missing. If he wasn't in our room and he's not in the living room…
I startled as something shattered loudly in the kitchen, and I nearly ran down the stairs to see what had caused it. Rikuto stood by the sink, holding a wet rag and staring at me. On the floor were the shattered remains of one of our few dishes.
"Riku, you idiot…" I muttered as I began picking up the broken pieces.
"I just wanted to get the dishes done for mom…" Rikuto said quietly as he picked up another plate and began scrubbing it with an inexperienced hand.
"You couldn't have at least waited for them to wake up? The sun's barely raised, Riku. You know they need their sleep, especially grandpa." I said as I straightened up and set the shards of the plate down on the counter. I watched Rikuto as he barely cleaned the plate and snorted. "You're not even doing it right. And where did you get that water? You didn't go to the ocean alone, did you? If you did, I'm surprised you're not being eaten away by mutated Krabbys."
"Leave me alone, Hiro. Like you don't go to the ocean alone…" Rikuto snapped, setting the wet plate on the counter before grabbing another from the water.
"I'm not a defenceless runt like you are."
"You're not a man yet, either! You're only five years older than I am!"
"That's still a big difference."
"Just leave me alone!" Rikuto hissed, flicking water at me. I took a handful and splashed it in his face and laughed before running out of the kitchen. I bumped into someone at the doorway, and I came face-to-face with my grandfather.
"Where's the wine, general?" my grandfather asked as he shuffled into the kitchen, looking all around, hunching over a little.
"He's in a flashback again…" Rikuto said with worry as he watched our grandfather stare out the window, muttering things.
"You won't find your wine here," I said in a gruff voice, playing along. "The Aipoms went and stole the last bottle. We're fresh out of alcohol, good sir."
"What? Those pesky monkeys again?!"
"Yes sir!"
"Go now!" he pointed to the door. "Run out there and gun down the little buggers if you have to; just get back that wine!"
I clicked my bare heels together and brought my hand to my forehead in a mock salute. "Yes sir!" I said with a grin.
My grandfather saluted me and nodded his head before he went back into the living room, lie down on the sofa and fall asleep again.
"You're cruel." Rikuto said, narrowing his eyes at me.
"Oh come on, grandpa probably enjoys reliving the days he could do things. Now tell mom and dad that I've gone to play soccer or something with Aaron when they wake up, okay?" I said as I picked up a smooth branch from the corner where others stood, their ends all sharpened.
"Where are you going this time?" Rikuto asked with a hint of excitement in his voice.
"Doesn't matter; you still can't come with me." I said simply, putting the stick back and taking out a longer one.
"Aw, why not? You'll get yourself killed one of these days if you keep going out alone, you know that?" Rikuto whined.
"If I'm going to die out there, it'll be because you got in my way. You're only ten years old and you've never been in a fight." I said as I swung the sharpened branch around, testing it. Satisfied with my pick, I went to leave the kitchen.
"Hiro?"
I looked back at my brother. "Yeah, Riku?"
"Bring something good back, okay? Mom's birthday is coming up and we still have to get her something." Rikuto said as he attempted to scrub another dish clean.
"What, did you think I forgot? Why do you think I'm going out so early?" I asked.
"Because mom and dad wouldn't let you outside of town if they were awake." Rikuto said before he accidentally dropped the plate in the sink, splashing water on the counter. He muttered something incoherent and took the plate back out.
"Oh, be quiet, you. And hurry up, it's your turn to do inventory this week, remember?" I lied.
"No, it's your turn. I remembered this time. Go do it before mom and dad wake up." Rikuto said. I was hoping he'd forget whose turn it was and just believe me.
"If you do it for me, I'll use the rest of my PokéDollars to buy black ink for you." I offered.
Rikuto only ever asked for black ink on his birthday and for the Holiday. He was neither an artist nor a writer; he used the ink to dye his light blond hair black. Ever since he could speak, he's always wanted to look like the rest of our family, with dark hair and green eyes. He had blond hair and blue eyes, just as our grandfather on our father's side had. I'm not sure why he wants dark hair so badly; his light hair is a rarity that most people envy for among most Eastern regions.
"Tempting, but I say no. I have enough ink to last until my birthday. Now go do your own work yourself, you lazy Slowpoke." Rikuto said.
I sighed and left the kitchen without another word. There was no negotiating with that child. I walked to the back corner of the living room, stepping over my parents quietly, where a thin board was held down by a rock. I kneeled down and pushed the rock away before sliding the board aside. Underneath was a gaping hole in the floor that revealed the darkness of our basement, the only thing visible being the ladder.
I leaned over, tilting my head to listen into the basement. When I only heard silence, I carefully put a foot on the third rung of the ladder before climbing down. In the small amount of light from above, I read names and numbers that were carved into the wall to record our stock. There were scratches straight through some of the numbers and names as more had been written next to them over time. I found the current amounts we should have and memorized them to the best of my ability.
I faced the rest of the dark basement before I blindly reached out and wandered a bit. Soon I came in contact with a box, then the shelf it was on. I lay my hand inside the box and felt around, my face twisting in disgust when I discovered evidence of yet another robbery: Rattata droppings.
I sighed and ignored them, feeling around for food. I found two carrots, both have been bitten. Five Tomato berries remained, the sixth was missing. There was half of a cabbage head. I felt around the box more, hoping to be surprised, but the Tomato berry, quarter loaf of stale bread and two eggs we had yesterday were gone.
Just then I heard the tiny pattering of a creature crawling down from an empty barrel onto the floor, ominous in the darkness. I looked down to spot a pair of glowing red eyes staring up at me.
"You didn't do a very good job last night. We're missing a lot." I said before going over to the markings in the wall, recording what remained and what went missing using a sharp stone.
Kabuto hissed and crawled up my left leg and back before resting on the top of my head.
"You can just sleep in the daytime, you know. We need you awake down here to keep the Rattata away." I told him before climbing up the ladder again.
Kabuto hissed again, gripping my head with his tiny claws.
"Relax; I'm not mad at you. I just wish all Rattata were dead, that's all." I said as I slipped the wooden board back over the hole and pushed the rock over it to hold it down.
"Today's the day." I said as I stood up, grabbing my sharpened branch. "We're going to that place I was telling you about." I told him as I left the house, closing the screen door behind me. I began walking towards the east, where the sun was still rising over the barren land.
"That ruined town, what was it, Pallet Town? Yeah, it was Pallet Town. We're going there today. I heard some famous professor used to live there. You know what that means, right?" I asked as I hopped down onto lower ground where water once flowed. The ocean used to be right here, but now the tide is farther out. That was where I first found Kabuto defending himself against a mutated Krabby a year ago.
Kabuto hissed questioningly.
"It means we'll probably find some sort of technology there. Professors are people who would do plenty of research and discover things, and they all had tons of machines and whatnot. So I'm thinking that if we find where this professor did his work in Pallet Town, we should be able to find some technology and sell it for good cash." I explained.
Kabuto hissed in agreement.
Technology was scarce these days. Some people would buy tiny microchips for huge sums of cash if they were desperate enough. One time I found something called a keyboard, which was used with something called a computer. It kept my family fed for nearly a year. If I could just find something worth that much, or maybe even more…
Kabuto suddenly skittered down onto the ground and began hissing at a bush. I pointed the sharpened end of my branch at the bush and waited for whatever he was hissing at.
Then there was a flash of brown and a Sentret was on Kabuto, trying to bite through his hard shell. The Sentret's tail was too small and there were odd lumps on its back. It foamed at the mouth and one of its eyes was twice the size of the other. There were patches of fur that was an odd green colour. This wasn't a clean Sentret; it was a mutant.
I raised my sharpened branch before bringing it down fast, piercing through the tiny Pokémon. I waited until the mutant stopped squirming, and then I pushed it off my makeshift weapon with my foot.
"Do you think you're infected?" I asked. Mutated Pokémon, transformed from something called radiation, were man-eaters. Pokémon that were clean could be infected if they contacted a mutated Pokémon, becoming deformed and discoloured.
Kabuto shook a little before climbing back up my body and resting on my head, alert.
"Good," I said as I continued walking. "I'd hate to have to kill you. You're decent for a Pokémon."
Kabuto hissed, but I'm unsure whether he was displeased by what I said or not. It was usually hard to tell what Kabuto was thinking.
I reached the end of what once was the shoreline and stepped up to land with patches of dead grass. "We're not in Johto anymore," I told Kabuto. "We're in the region of Kanto. It's even worse than where we live when it comes to gangs and living conditions. There isn't that great of a difference, though."
Kanto was even more barren than its neighbouring region, Johto. From what my grandfather has told me, Kanto once had towering mountains, vast caves, grand cities and a beautiful forest. But now its mountains had been ground down to short hills, its caves have collapsed into ditches, its cities had been decimated in resemblance of my own town and what was once a forest was now an empty plot of dirt with the occasional shrub.
I can't really picture my grandfather's description as I wandered through the bleak wasteland on my way to a ravaged town with nothing to offer but rubble and maybe the odd corpse, assuming it hadn't rotted away by now. Still, one good thing about Kanto was that there were many less mutated Pokémon. Johto was packed with them by comparison. But then again, there wasn't much life in Kanto at all.
It was a long, straight-forward walk to Pallet Town. It was safe enough, but it was boring. The only thing to look at was the mountain in the distance that, for some reason, still stood tall. People unofficially believed that something important was up there, but nobody dared to approach it. The mountain was chock-full of mutated Pokémon and, if rumours were true, worse.
I knew I had reached Pallet Town when I saw broken pieces of wall and glass everywhere. I had mixed feelings about the place. On the one hand, it was a small town like my own, and probably once had people who lived just like I do. On the other hand, it was an ominous little ghost town that seemed to be telling me to leave, that I'm unwelcome here.
Putting superstitions aside, I went over to the largest pile of remains and started moving it around, digging for anything worth my efforts.
Kabuto hopped down from the top of my head and began his search elsewhere in the mass amount of ruin.
I dug down between bricks with my sharpened branch and pushed them aside, but there was nothing but ashes underneath. I moved on to a larger pile of rough, caved-in walls and dropped my weapon before pushing them aside with all my strength. My efforts were all for bits of red and white glass, but I took it and pocketed them anyway. Maybe they weren't anything of value, but odds are Rikuto would want them. He has a small collection of colourful glass that he finds near the ocean from the few times our parents took us.
Kabuto came crawling out from under some rubble and he set down a small bone before looking up at me.
"Put that back where you found it, Kabuto." I told him. "You don't mess with the dead."
Kabuto gave a small hiss before taking the bone and disappearing under the rubble again.
"You can scavenge around ruined cities like a Rattata all you want," my father once told me, "But don't touch bodies or bones. For one thing, it's unhealthy just being near them. It's also disrespectful to touch them. The dead are resting, and you've no right to disturb them."
Even if bone marrow and organs were worth millions to the ill in Hoenn, I believed my father was right. If I were resting wherever it is people go after they die, I wouldn't want somebody poking at my corpse with a stick, wondering what it was worth.
Discarding the disturbing thought, I kept searching for something of value. I moved aside another collapsed wall and found pieces of flat wood. It wasn't good for any firewood and I doubt I could use it for something else.
I was about to leave the wood alone when I remembered that this was probably where a professor once did his research. If there's flat wood right here, could it have been his desk? Perhaps he left something valuable in it?
The desk, if that's really what it was, had been crushed into a pile on the ground. But it was still worth a chance of looking. I began picking up and throwing away the light pieces of wood, some crumbling in my hands, until I found something underneath it, under a layer of ash. It was rectangular, like a small box.
I reached down and was about to brush the ash away when I was poked in the leg. I looked over and found Kabuto, who dropped something at my feet. I kneeled down and picked it up, examining it.
"A necklace?" I asked. Kabuto hissed. It was a tear-shaped blue gem of some sort on a black wire. It wasn't anything fancy, and I had no idea if it was a real gemstone or just glass, but it was better to take it than leave it here. If it was worthless, it could be my mother's birthday gift.
"Not a bad find, Kabuto." I said as I pocketed the necklace with the coloured glass I had found. "Much better than a bone." I said as I pat Kabuto's shell. Kabuto gave a small hiss before disappearing again to look for more items.
I finally gently brushed away the dirt from what I thought was a small box. Whatever it was, it was scarlet in colour and had what appeared to be buttons on it. At least I hoped they were buttons.
I picked up the strange object and blew the remaining dust away, then had to wipe it clean on my holey shirt. I found a long crack running along the side of it and, after digging my fingernails in it, discovered that the object opened up.
Much to my excitement, it was definitely technology. There were buttons and a thin layer of glass that was a screen. I don't know what it is exactly—a phone? A video game? —but it was definitely technology, and it was in great condition. It looked like it'd be worth so much more than that keyboard I once found.
"Kabuto, I think we're done here." I said proudly as I closed the device I had found. Kabuto came back with something else, and he set it down in front of me. I furrowed my brow when I saw it, and reached down to pick it up. It was rectangular and felt like leather. I opened it up and realized what it was: a wallet.
"Looks like we both hit the jackpot today." I said with a grin as I began prying things out from the wallet; cards, cash, photos. The photos were worn away and the people could barely be seen. The cards were worthless to me. The cash probably couldn't even be used anymore, but I pocketed it anyway. Money is money, after all. The contents of the wallet were a bit of a letdown, but I let Kabuto think he found a fortune.
"This is what I found," I said as I showed him the rectangular piece of technology. "I don't know what it is, but it's in good condition. Just some scratches, that's all. Whoever owned it took great care of it."
"Its previous owners took excellent care of it." a voice whispered from somewhere.
I spun around to find an elderly woman sitting atop the pile of collapsed walls, staring down at me bitterly as a strange purple Pokémon without any limbs but a pair of floating hands hovered circles around her.
"You know anything about this?" I asked, holding up the device.
The lady snorted. "Do I know anything about it? I know almost everything about it, child. What you have there is called a Pokédex." she said.
"Pokédex?" I asked, "What is that? What does it do? What's it worth?"
"Hm. Why should I tell you? You only plan to sell it. I can tell you right now that the Pokédex is worth more than what any person can possibly pay you." she said.
That was like music to my ears. I held back a smile. "Well, what makes it worth so much? Why is it so priceless? If it's all that great, I won't sell it." I lied.
"Think about it for a moment, child. 'Poké' comes from Pokémon. 'Dex' comes from codex. What do you think the functions of the Pokédex could be?" the lady asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't even know what a codex was.
The old lady sighed in annoyance. "It's an encyclopaedia on Pokémon. And a completed one, at that. That Pokédex you hold has information on every single Pokémon in the world and has been used by heroes and champions. It's survived a war and has been used by many to reach success. This Pokédex is worth more than your very life." she told me.
I stared at the Pokédex in disbelief. There was no way it could be worth so much. The old hag must be lying to me.
"If you don't believe me, turn it on." she said.
"How do I do that?" I asked.
She muttered something under her breath, probably an insult. "You press a darn button, child. It's not that difficult." she snapped.
I did as she said and pressed a random button. Suddenly the screen lit up, and a list appeared. I recognized a few names of certain Pokémon that I've seen, but most were unfamiliar to me.
"From the look of you, I doubt you've even learned how to read." the woman scoffed, looking me up and down.
I narrowed my eyes at her. "I'll have you know that I can read," I said. "My parents taught me how." I told her. I could read, but I rarely did so. There wasn't anything to read in New Bark Town.
"Wonderful. It's nice to see that even Trubbish like you can be literate." she said with a grin.
I growled at her. "Why don't you just be nice like most old ladies and show me how to use this thing?" I asked.
The old hag glared at me. "Who are you to call me old?" she hissed.
"Well you certainly weren't born yesterday." I retorted.
"Humph!"
With that, the old lady stepped down from the pile and stood in front of me, a bit shorter than I was. Kabuto hurriedly climbed up the back of my right leg and arm before resting on top of my head. The hag's strange floating Pokémon hovered above her to stare at Kabuto.
"It's not that hard, child. Look," she pressed the cross-shaped button. "This is how you select the Pokémon." she said before she pressed another button. "That is how you open its description." she said. She went on, pressing more buttons and going into the details on how the Pokédex functioned. All I understood from it was 'press this and that happens'.
"Did you get all that?"
"What?" I asked. I stopped paying attention a while ago.
"Were you even listening?"
I nodded my head. "Yeah, of course I was listening." I said, taking the Pokédex out of her hands and closing it. "But I still think I should just sell it. It's worth nothing to me. Why do I need to know facts about Pokémon that I'll probably never see?" I asked.
The old lady hit me in the back of the head.
"What was that for?" I demanded.
"I said the Pokédex had data on all Pokémon. That includes some of the world's strongest, rarest Pokémon. Some of which have been labelled as legendary. What do you think would happen if the Pokédex were to fall into the hands of a greedy or evil person? The world would fall to ruin, child." The old lady told me.
"This dump can't get much worse." I muttered.
And again, I was struck in the back of the head.
"You stupid boy! These legendary Pokémon I have spoken of have the power to alter the very earth itself! Do you not know what that means?" the old hag asked.
"If I say no, will you hit me again?" I asked.
The old lady sighed and shook her head. "I know not what they see in you," she said as she turned her back to me and started walking away. "But I hope they are right."
"Hold on a second," I called, catching up with her. "What are you talking about? Who's 'they'? What do they see in me?" I asked, walking alongside her. I finally stopped right in front of her, acting as a road block.
"And who are you?" I asked.
The old lady stared at me for a good minute. "Agatha." she said at last. "My name was Agatha." she said.
"Was…?"
In that very moment, a strong wind came in out of nowhere, and the elderly woman called Agatha as well as her Pokémon vanished right before my eyes.
"…what the hell…?" I whispered, reaching out in front of me. It was true; there was nothing there. The woman and Pokémon vanished into thin air.
"Be gone…" a voice in the breeze whispered. "Be gone from this hopeless place. You are no help here. Go elsewhere, where you are needed. Save them, hero, save them…"
Kabuto started hissing like crazy, digging his claws into my skin and holding on tight. Shaking and terrified, I pocketed the Pokédex as I went for my sharpened branch, picked it up, and ran.
I was out of breath by the time I reached the point where the land dipped into whatwas once part of the ocean, and I sat down to rest, setting my branch aside.
Kabuto loosened its grip on my head, but stayed in place there. He had stopped hissing as soon as we left Pallet Town.
"What… what was she?" I asked breathlessly. "She just disappeared like that, and then I think she was whispering to us. Do you think she's a witch?" I asked.
Kabuto shook a little, hissing.
"You're right, witches don't exist. But ghosts don't exist either, right?" I asked.
We were both silent.
"Of course they don't." I said uncertainly. I shook my head. "Well, forget about it. We got what we went there for. We found some colourful glass, a necklace, some cash from that wallet, and a Poké—"
I was silenced by the roar of gunfire in the distance. I had only heard the thunderous sound of a gun once, but it was a sound that was hard to forget. And I knew it could only be coming from New Bark Town.
I was running yet again, ignoring the soreness of my feet and lungs. I was unaware of all else but the sound of more gunfire, and the worse case scenarios that went through my head as I ran toward possible death.
It felt like forever before I reached New Bark Town, and the first thing I saw was a pile of bloody corpses. I recognized them all as neighbours, friends, and family. My own parents and grandfather were among the pile, limp and lifeless.
At that moment I stopped breathing, though my heart pounded slowly, heavy in my chest. The sound of gunfire was dulled in the background as a few screams sounded, and while my instinct should be to run while I still could, I just stood there and stared. I don't know why, but I didn't start crying. I should have cried. Anyone else would cry upon seeing this. But I didn't. I felt more numb than miserable.
I was pulled out of my daze when someone grabbed me and threw me down on the ground, knocking Kabuto off my head.
"We've got another runt!" the man who pushed me down called out. I sat up and stared up at him. He was muscular and had decent clothes; obviously well-off. He also had some kind of gun. I didn't know much about guns, but his looked like some type of rifle. I think.
In less than a minute there were several more men surrounding me, most of them only a bit older than I was. They were all armed with the same sort of guns.
"He looks too old to be worth much." one said.
"Nah, I think he's young enough. Somebody will buy him."
"I say we just add him to the pile and be done with him."
"Hey, what about that thing?" one man asked, pointing at Kabuto, who had crawled back over to me.
"What about it?"
"It's a Pokémon."
"No shit, idiot."
"No, I mean it's a clean Pokémon that's following this kid around… why?"
"Who gives a fuck?" one man snapped, and he fired at Kabuto. I flinched as the bullet struck Kabuto's hard shell, leaving a scratch.
"Leave it be." another man said. He approached me and grabbed my arm, pulling me onto my feet roughly. I didn't bother retaliating until I was turned around and saw a small group of women and children huddled together, surrounded by gunmen. Hugging a sobbing girl was Rikuto.
As soon as I saw him, any numbness I felt earlier was replaced with rage. Just pure, raw rage. Running on adrenaline at this point, I snatched my arm away from the man and grabbed my own weapon, the sharpened branch. I reached around and thrust it forward and managed to stab a man just below the rib cage, making him scream.
Just as I was beginning to think we all stood a chance, another shot of gunfire sounded and my left leg flared in burning agony. I fell over immediately, dropping my weapon and screaming as I grabbed my bleeding leg.
I think I heard Rikuto yelling my name, but I couldn't be sure. All I really heard was my own heartbeat and screaming. One man kicked me in the back of the head, and my screaming ceased as my vision began to blur. Without my screams filling the air, I could hear clearly. There was crying in the background, the most evident being Rikuto's. Then there were footsteps as someone else approached.
"The thunder Pokémon has been spotted just south of here!" someone said.
"Leave the corpses here; we'll come back for them later. You three take the women and runts to Goldenrod for the auction, we'll regroup there, whether we have the thunder Pokémon or not." someone else said.
I think I heard them departing, because the screams faded away. Now all I heard was Kabuto's hissing as he nudged the back of my head. Everything went dark and I felt light-headed as I bled out. The last thing I remembered was being lifted up by the back of my shirt.