I am about to be a published author. This is not a vain exageration or a fevered hope, it is merely a statement of fact. The business side of things is settled, all I'm waiting for is for the publishing company to give me my assignment, so I can begin writing their book. I am also not very good at writing, fiction or otherwise. Again, this is merely a statement of fact.

Sturgeon's law states that ninety percent of everything is crap. And I feel like if you consider every piece of english language writing everywhere, some things that I have written will certainly make it into the top ten percent. But in all honesty, most people aren't writers, much less good ones, so that's not really a fair comparison. The thing about Sturgeon's law is that it's context sensitive, and now that I'm going to be published, I have to compare my writing to that of other published writers. I am not in the top ten percent of all published writers. I fall somewhere into the 'crap' category, probably in the bottom thirty percent.

Which is fine. I'm nineteen. I'm going to college soon, and I'm majoring in english. I'll have some time to work on my writing. But in the meantime, I have to write something– that's just how it works, I have to write something. The problem is that whenever I try to write anything, I don't feel like I'm doing it justice. My execution is poor, and I feel like if only I was a better writer, it would be flowing prose instead of the crap that it is.

And then I thought of fan fiction. I would absolutely love to be proven wrong on this, but in my mind, in the context of all writing that's ever been put out for other people to read, no piece of fan fiction makes the top ten percent. I am by no means an expert, of course, but I had some recommended to me as the best there was, and none of it made it past Sturgeon's law.

And I thought, maybe I could do that. If I can't do justice to a high minded literary concept, maybe I can just set it aside and write something petty. Something that's sort of inherently trivial, so that it might shine in comparison with it's genre. If I sat down and wrote a book, the book would be compared to the Catcher in the Rye, and the Lord of the Rings, which I cannot compete with on any level. But if I sat down and wrote a story about the X-men going to Hogwarts, I wouldn't be compared to to the literary greats, and my flaws might be as apparent.

I'm not saying with this that I'm better than your average fan fiction writer, I'm saying this is the level that I'm at right now. I'm sure that everyone who writes this stuff would someday like to have a book of their own on the shelves at stores, but we all know that it's just not feasible given our current level of skill. And that's part of why we write– to get better at writing. This is my writing practice.

I'm not exactly sure why I'm putting this here. Maybe it's because I feel a little embarrassed to be doing something as inherently trivial as writing fan-fiction, and felt the need to explain myself. Maybe I'm a self centered ass who just wanted a chance to brag about his impending publication. Maybe I'm trying to tell people who are reading not to take it too seriously, since this is only my practice writing. Whatever the reason is, I present to you without further ado, the following work:

Gold and Silver, a Tale of Growing Up

Adapted, modified and expanded from the original ポケットモンスター 金・銀 (Pokémon: Gold and Silver)

"Master? Where are you going?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Your bags, I saw you packing them earlier. Where are you going?"

"What, those? Dad and I are just going camping, they're for that."

"Gi- But he's away right now, you know that. In Mahogany Town."

"We're going as soon as he gets back."

"You can tell me the truth."

"No, really, we're going camping. There's a campground in Ilex Forest."

"You're leaving, aren't you? Going away and not coming back."

"…Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to try and follow me."

"Why are you going?"

"Because I can't live here anymore."

"And why can't you live here anymore?"

"I just can't, alright?"

"Then can I come with you?"

"No. You're not even mine to take. 'Sides, it's going to be rough where I'm going. Rough, and rugged. You don't want that."

"I wouldn't mind. Let me come."

"No. This is something I've got to do by myself."

"Why?"

"It just is, okay? Leave me alone."

"Please, I only want to help. Master, I–"

"YOU CAN'T HELP! JUST GO AWAY ALREADY!"

"–! …Yes, sir."

I stopped getting up in the mornings.

There's a certain point where one day begins to blur into the next in a whirlwind of mediocrity, and you stop getting out of bed until ten, maybe ten thirty. I sleep in until eleven some days. You realize when you wake up that nothing new is going to happen that day either, and you don't find yourself in any rush to get out of bed.

I was nineteen, I dropped out of high school, and I lived in my mother's attic. It wasn't healthy, I knew, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do instead, where I was supposed to go. I couldn't get a job, not without a diploma, not in this economy. I was floundering, directionless.

I probably would have been a giant disappointment to myself at twelve years old. Back then I thought I was going to be some sort of super-hero when I grew up. An athlete, or an astronaut, or a Pokémon trainer. Instead here I was, wallowing in my own self pity and living in the attic.

I woke up at ten. I actually got up and went downstairs at eleven. My mom was out at work already– she wouldn't be back until late. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table. There was a sticky note on the cereal box.

"Gold," it read, "Professor Elm was looking for you earlier. You should call him." There was a phone number there too. It felt like a lot of the communication between me and my mom was reduced to sticky notes on cereal boxes these days. I had stopped even leaving my attic if I didn't have to. I sighed as I washed my cereal bowl, and then went to the phone to call the professor.

I actually kind of wondered what it was that Elm wanted me for. I figured it was probably my mom trying to set me up with a job again. She did that a lot, and while I appreciated her trying to help, it never really worked out– I was usually let go pretty quickly after I was hired. I had all but given up on getting gainful employment any time soon.

I liked Professor Elm, though, don't get me wrong. I had met him a couple of times before– In a small town like ours, everyone gets to know everyone else. He was a nice enough guy, although a little scatterbrained. He had moved out here last year to raise his kids and study the Pokémon in this area. He seemed to be really excited about his work, which was cool, I guess. If you're going to work at one career your whole life, it should be something that excites you.

"Hello?" he asked as he picked up the phone. He sounded distracted. "This is Elm's Pokémon lab. Who's this calling?"

"It's Gold," I told him. "My, uh, my mom said that you were looking for me?"

"Um, Gold? Do I know a Gold?" He asked. There was a long pause, and I was about to apologize for wasting his time and hang up, when he suddenly let out a gasp of realization.

"Gold! That Gold! Yes! I was wondering if you could help me out with something, if you weren't too busy. Are you maybe looking for a little bit of work?"

"Um…" So my mom was trying to set me up with a job. "I wasn't really looking for a job. But, uh, what were you going to have me do?"

There was another silence on the other end of the line. Elm didn't seem to be very good with telephones. "Could you maybe come down to my lab and we could talk about it here?"

"Um, sure," I told him.

"Great! How soon can you be here?" he asked.

"I can be there in an hour, maybe?" I said, unsure of myself. As long as I didn't get lost, it would take a little more than half an hour to walk to the lab, and this way I could shower and get dressed before I left.

"That's fantastic. I'll see you then." And then he hung up.

I went to the bathroom to shower, but I stopped when I saw myself in the mirror. My face was all stubbly, on the verge of having enough hair to call it a 'beard'– although if it was a beard, it was a pretty pathetic and wispy one. I didn't realized it had been that long since the last time I had shaved. I still wasn't used to shaving, even though I had been since I was fifteen. I shaved quickly and then started my shower.

An hour later, I was standing at the door to Elm's Pokémon lab. I knocked on the door and a tall college age guy in a white lab coat opened it. He had a bushy black beard and round glasses.

"Hello?" he asked. The name tag on his lab coat read 'Joey.'

"I was looking for Professor Elm?" I said. Was he an intern or something? I hadn't seen him around before.

"Oh!" the man said. "He's in the back. Come on in, I'll show you where he is." He ushered me inside, and walked me through toward the back of the building.

I had never been inside the lab before. It was bigger than it looked. I barely got a glimpse of the front room, which was filled with bookshelves and chairs, before Joey took me through a door to the lab. There was an incubator across one wall, and a big computer on the next. A large part of the remaining space was devoted to a small pen for Pokémon to roam around in. There were large, messy stacks of paper everywhere, and Elm was almost waist deep in one, digging through the documents frantically.

"Ah, Gold," he said. "I'm glad to see you. Just sit down, I'll be with you in a second." He gestured toward a chair, which was also covered with papers. I moved the pile onto the floor and sat down. Elm found the page he was looking for and did likewise. Joey excused himself and went back to whatever he was doing in the front room.

"So what kind of job did you want me to do, Professor?" I asked. I was almost certain it was going to be something I didn't want to do, like cleaning up Pokémon poop or chopping firewood. That's not to say I wouldn't try it, at least so I could tell my mom I gave it a shot. I just wasn't anticipating liking it.

"Recently," The professor began, as his started to scan the sheet he had picked up. "The eggs of a number of Pokémon species which were previously thought to be extinct we rediscovered in a hidden cave near Tohjo Falls. A team of scientists have hatched the eggs and started to work on breeding an new populations of these Pokémon. It's a very exciting time to be a Pokémon researcher like me."

"This is all well and good," I said, slightly confused, "but what does this have to do with me?"

"I'm getting to that," Elm said, "Just give me a moment!" He clapped his hands and started rubbing them together excitedly. I usually save the word 'eccentric' for people over the age of fifty, but I was prepared to make an exception in this guy's case. "When the eggs hatched, it turned out that most of them were males, many more than they needed at that point to start a breeding population. They've since sent out the excess Pokémon to different labs and research stations, so that we can get a chance to study these only recently rediscovered Pokémon."

"And your lab was one of the labs to get the new Pokémon?" I guessed.

"Yes," Elm replied, "My intern Joey and I– you met Joey on the way in, I think– are very busy here at the lab. We're interested in performing tests on these Pokémon, but we don't have time to really raise them– there are only two of us, you see, and our time is limited. But if they aren't raised properly, we won't be able to know things like whether they will evolve, or what they would evolve into."

"So you want me to raise these Pokémon for you?" I asked. I wasn't sure if I liked the sound of this. I was not good with Pokémon, to put it bluntly, and really didn't want to be the one who got blamed if something went wrong. I'd almost rather he had me mucking out stables or digging ditches or something.

"Yes, provided you aren't too busy. If you were to accept our offer, we'd be able to pay for it's food and whatever other supplies you needed, in addition to giving you a small weekly stipend. We would also expect you to also battle the Pokémon against other trainers, and possibly take them to different environments to see how they reacted."

"Wait, you'd want me to battle? I, uh, I never got a trainer's license," I said. "I think maybe you've got the wrong guy. I was never very good with Pokémon anyway."

Elm thought to himself for a moment. "Well, there are ways we can work around it if you don't have a license. As for whether or not your qualified… Well, I think you'll do fine. You have better qualifications than most people around here, let's just say that. I heard you scored very highly on your JAQ exams." The JAQ exams were standardized academic tests given to all students in Johto before they graduated high school. They covered math, reading, science. Standard stuff really. And he was right, I had done pretty well, though it wasn't like the exams were very difficult.

"Yeah, but I don't see what that has to do with Pokémon," I told him.

"It shows that you're smart. Maybe smarter than you realize." I began to protest, but Elm put up a hand to stop me. "I don't expect you to decide right now," he said, "I just want you to think about it. Give it a day or two and then call me and we'll talk. Sleep on it."

I had to stop myself from telling him that I didn't need to sleep on it, that I already knew I couldn't do it. He was nice enough to offer me a job even though we both knew I was completely unqualified. The least I could do was humor him, and mull it over for a few days before I gave him a definite 'no.'

"I guess I'll think about it," I said. "I don't know if it will change my mind, but I'll give it a few days before I decide."

"Thank you," Elm said, leaning over and shaking my hand. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some work that I need to attend to. Can you see yourself out?"

Silver had become a different person in the two months since he had left the… well, since he had left. He saw the world differently now that he only had himself to depend on. He had taken to stealing. He hadn't taken a credit card because he knew they could use it to trace him, but you still had to eat, even when you didn't have any money. He took food mostly, and he sometimes took money from people who looked like they could spare it. He slept in cheap hotels when he could afford it, and he had a tent for when he couldn't, or when he was on the road. He had to keep moving, that was the thing. They were after him.

Team Rocket. For the most part, they were lowlifes and ruffians. Nothing more than grunts, just cogs in the machine. That part of the organization didn't scare him. What did scare him was the man they had sent to follow him. A man named Proton.

Silver had never seen him in person– if he had, he would have been caught for sure. But he had heard about him, using the radio receiver he had stolen from one of the Rocket members that picked up their encrypted transmissions. He had heard how scared people were when they mentioned his name. He had heard stories about what he had done to people.

He didn't understand why recovering him was such a priority for the Rockets. He didn't understand why they couldn't just let him go. He wasn't going to tell anyone their secret plans. Heck, he didn't even know any secret plans to tell. All he knew was that he wanted them to leave him alone, and that running didn't seem to be doing the trick.

Maybe it was time to fight back.

After six months or so of running, he found himself in a place called New Bark Town, a tiny burg in the middle of nowhere with only one road leading into it. It was a dead end. The was no way to go except back the way he came, and Proton was waiting for him back that way.

Silver began to panic. And then he began to think of a plan.

It was later that same night. My mom had come home at about eight and I had dinner waiting for her. I made dinner a lot, since she worked so much, and was always tired when she got home. She asked how my 'interview' with Elm went.

"It went fine, I guess." She was excited by the prospect of me getting a job. I don't know how she expected me to keep this one after I'd been fired from all the others. "He wants me to raise Pokémon. I don't know if it's for me."

"Why not? I thought that when you were younger you wanted to be a Pokémon Trainer when you grew up," she said. She just didn't understand.

"Yeah," I said, "But I also wanted to be a fire-fighting rockstar astronaut, and we both know that's not going to happen. Besides, that was before I had ever tried to raise Pokémon. You remember what happened with the Sentret, don't you?"

Her face darkened for a moment. "I remember," she said. "But this will be different. You're older now, and I thought you said this Pokémon was never in the wild. It was born in a lab, right? It should be easier to raise."

"I guess," I told her. "I don't know, though. I still don't think I can do it."

"Will you at least try?" she asked. "For me? I worry about you sometimes, Gold, you know that, right? You have to do something, you can't just sit around at home all day."

"I don't know…" I said. "What if I try but I screw up? What if the Pokémon are hurt while I'm supposed to be in charge of them? What if they run away? Professor Elm made it sound like this stuff was really important, and I don't want to accidentally screw it up."

"Well why don't you just tell him that. Tell him that you want to try it out, but that you're not sure if you can do it. Maybe he'll give you a trial run."

"Or maybe he'll just tell me to go away and that he'll get someone else to do it, someone who actually knows what they're doing," I said.

"You'll never know if you don't try though, right?" She asked.

"I guess not," I said. I shuffled my food around on my plate.