Disclaimer, I do not own any rights to Pokémon what so ever and this is purely a fan made story. I do not own any characters from Pokemon except any of my OC's.
Grey in Gray
CHAPTER 1
The alarm on my phone went off with a start when the clock hit 5p.m. My shift was done and I'm already out of the door. I want nothing more than to leave this city, leave this job, leave this life and start a new one on the road, or somewhere else, somewhere colourful and fun, somewhere completely different from here…
When I reach the street outside of the ice-cream parlour I work at, serving scoops and cones and sprinkles and all the rest, I'm greeted with a familiar and dreary sight.
The pavement sidewalks coloured a permanent shady blue, the dim sun blocked by tall grey buildings surrounding the narrow streets on all sides. Cramped roads fill the air with the noise of car horns, shouting, running engines. There are no trees, no plots of grass, no parks or fountains (except the stainless steel drinking ones that jut out from the walls every intersection) no colours except the dull metallic blur that makes up the street once the light turns a false electric green.
Speaking of which it's time for me to cross. Noticing something a bit down the sidewalk on the other side that makes the day start to seem a little less boring, I break into a light jog and don't notice the car turning left and I'm snapped out of my excitement by the sound of screeched tires.
"Watch where you're goin' punk!" I hear from a rolled down window.
I turn and with a smile flip him off, I've never been much for the rushed, rude citizens of New Pewter either.
My jog increases in speed a bit when I see my opportunity start to cross another street. Dodging hurried business men and the odd garbage can skillfully I just manage to catch up to Amber.
"Hey Amber wait up a sec let me walk with you!"
Amber is I guess what one could call a childhood friend. We have known each other all our lives pretty much, but we never really were close. We chat the odd time, sometimes run into each other at popular hang outs, more recently I see her in school, but we rarely talk.
"Oh? Hey Grey, just get off work?" She responded kindly but not too excited by my presence.
My names Grey, suiting for where I live I suppose. I live in New Pewter City in the Heiwa Region, the most boring city in it. I'm 17 years old, and I was born and raised here. If you want to know what I look like, I've got a lean, but muscular build, a deep reddish brown hair that is about mid-neck length, styled to be a bit messy. I have a pale white skin and bright green eyes, a small mouth and a strong jawline and high cheek bones.
You would think I would be more used to how things are around here by now but I think that is exactly the problem. I am used to it, too used to it, I need some excitement, I want to go on an adventure, I don't necessarily have a specific dream or a goal, but I think I'd like to try going on a Pokémon adventure.
"Yeah I did, I'm glad I caught up I wanted to ask you somethin'"
"Alright what is it?" She replied, once again, politely but not seeming the slightest bit intrigued.
"I was thinking maybe that we could hang out sometime" I said, trying to hint at something without actually having to say it.
"What like at school and stuff? We already do that." Obviously ignoring my hint.
"No I meant more along the lines of just you and me, ya know, kind of like a d-
Me and Amber have never really been close, I've said that before but I didn't mention that I've also kind of been into her for a bit and more recently I've started to notice how very attractive she is. Her long light brown hair, with faint golden highlights was worn loosely down her back this evening. Her skinny black jeans showing off her petite, skinny but still fit, frame. Her pale yellow and white striped, spaghetti strapped tank top also revealed her thinness and also her recently more noticeable chest that had only lately come to my attention, but still inconspicuous if not in revealing garb. Her face was angular with cheeks round and cute and dimpled on just the left side when she smiled. Wide brown eyes and a button nose topped it off. Her soft light skin done no justice in this gray lighting.
-ate?" There, I said it, I figured today was as good a day as any; I guess my confidence was at a high point.
"….. No way Grey!" She said, almost as if I was joking.
I swear my heart stopped in the time it took me to formulate a simple response. Rejection, I am apparently not good with it.
"Uhmm…. Why not?" I finally managed to choke out. Part of me was saying just take the no and move on; the other part was saying never back down, I knew her response would decide the winner.
"I just never saw us like that I guess, the way we've been all this time, we are kind of like cousins, not so close as family, but we have still known each other for like ever."
Okay, time to take the loss and try again another time.
"Tonight" I said confidently
What!? I thought to myself. What am I doing?!
"Who knows, maybe you will have a good time?" I said shakily.
"I can't anyway Grey, I've got things to do, I'm super busy with school stuff" she said, in almost a panicked voice.
Okay she is really trying to get out of this, but if I just get one shot, I think I can change her mind about me, time to go for the trump card.
"If you go on a date with me, I'll let you see my Pokémon" I said, trying to tempt her.
That's a big deal, not even pidove or vulpix live in the city. New Pewter is a special case. It's referred to as a Humanized Settlement. A long while ago there was a group formerly known as Team Plasma. At first they were seen as thugs, much like Team Rocket, stealing peoples Pokemon for their own nefarious needs, attempting to catch a legend, the whole works. They started in Unova but after they succeeded they spread to the other regions with a Pokemon league. Now their king N has outlawed any use of Pokemon what so ever. Everyone was forced to release their Pokemon and all pokeballs were collected and destroyed (until team rocket became somewhat of a black market for Pokemon goods). All of the gym's leagues were shut down and the Humanized Settlements were constructed. In the settlements no Pokemon are aloud, it is built elevated from the ground and surrounded by walls, everything is paved or metal to discourage Pokemon from coming in the few ways they are able. They said they wanted to liberate Pokemon, and I guess that's what they did, though I don't agree that they should have, it is more like they separated humans from them. Now it's like everyone pretends they don't exist.
"A Pokémon eh? That's an offer I can't refuse Grey, meet my by the pier at midnight, you show me your Pokémon then, I'll give you a date, deal?"
Score! "Deal!" I said proudly and we shook hands on it.
"Well I have to be on my way, you've already held me up enough as it is" She said with a smirk and walked off.
I stood and watched her bottom sway a bit, lost in my thoughts about it, and the rest of her, but more than anything thoughts of tonight. It's a good thing she picked the pier I thought.
A sudden jolt from behind me knocked me down to my knees, and out of my daze. I turned as I got up to see another guy in a suit rush off somewhere, with no apology, and an upset look on his face.
Jerk I think to myself, and head home.-
-When I step in the house I'm greeted by darkness and silence. The clock reads 6:02 P.m.
Perfect I think aloud to myself, Moms not home yet.
I flip on a light and quickly make my way down to the basement. It's messy, and dank, full of cobwebs. Brown cardboard boxes stack high in every direction. The small pull chain light bulb hanging from the ceiling dimly lights the rooms, and makes the space seem much more confined as it doesn't quite reach the walls. For someone who doesn't know where they are going down here it's a veritable maze full of possible collapses and traps in the form of things to trip on or places to stub your toe. I don't like spending much time down here, too cramped, I'm not really one for small spaces. Lucky for me I know exactly what I'm looking for.
I take a few turns around box towers and hop over a bin, carefully avoiding a few boxes with the word FRAGILE printed on them in bold red. I make my way to underneath the stairs. It's like mini basement underneath the stairs. More darkness, no room, boxes, cobwebs. But my destination is close at hand. I lift some heavy boxes out of my way to reveal a large glass container. A fish tank, cleverly concealed by the boxes I slide in front of it. I move it out of the way and put all the boxes back, then carry the tank up stairs.
I make my way into my bedroom and flip on a light, swipe some papers of my desk onto the perfectly clean floor and put the tank on it. Before I do anything else I grab the papers and stack them neatly and shove them in a drawer. I've always made it a habit, or rather a compulsion, to keep my room tidy. Probably as a result from my minor claustrophobia, making sure all furniture is against walls, and everything is off the ground helps open up the space a bit.
I carry the tank into the bathroom and turn on the bathtub faucet to fill it up. After it's all the way to the top I slowly, carefully carry the heavy tank back to my desk, sloshing a bit of water on the floor on the way.
Next I grab my desk chair, close my door and place it right up against it, so I can stand on top of it. I remove one of the panels that make up my drop ceiling roof and reach around in the space until I feel the small metallic ball and grasp it. Hopping down I put the chair back where it was and walk over to the tank.
Pressing the button in the middle of the ball, the pokeball expands in my palm, beeping quietly as it does.
"OK buddy, come on out" I say as I angle the front towards the tank.
A bright red light illuminates the room, only slightly transparent it looks like a splash of infrared laser. The ball makes a "POP!" as it opens in my hand and a sound that resembles air entering a vacuum (not the house cleaning vacuum, the airless vacuum, like space) as the red light floods the water in the tank. The water splashes out a bit onto the desk and floor and I cringe a bit as I see a new thing to clean.
"Hey there little guy" I said as a little blue body no more than a foot long fell into the tank. Rough blue scales followed all the way down from the three symmetrical spines on the sides of its head to the tightly curled tail it was using to balance itself as it bobbed up and down along the bottom of the tank, giving way only to the smooth, large, cream coloured scales of its underbelly. A jet of soft darkness shot out of its elongated tube like mouth and blanketed the water in a thin down of ink, the bright red eyes still clearly smiling back at me through the pane of glass. Bubbles rose from its mouth as Horsea tried to chirp happily to me.
I often felt bad for having to either keep Horsea cramped up in its pokeball or in the confines of the aquarium, but it seemed happy to be with a trainer, and out of the dirty docks. There was no beautiful coral there that Horsea enjoyed in the days before rule of N. Just swaths of hover ship merchants arguing about tariffs and entry taxes, the cool floating boats from some of the old places (oh how I have dreamed of stowing away to become a sailor on one of them and visit all the cities and routes and towns and ports and forests, everything away and untouched by the 'revolution' as the propaganda posters call it, of Lord N's Humanization) leaking fuel. Not to mention the fact that the Plasma submarines would likely find it during one of their patrols or excursions to go corrupt, sorry, convert, another still free place into a Pokemon-less 'paradise' leaving the economy and land under complete control of Ghetsis and his Plasma army. And if that had happened they wouldn't just throw it outside the walls, they would kill it, and go searching for the rest of its kind, assuming there must be more life where it came from. I often promise Horsea to one day take it somewhere it can swim free, without fear of humans, where it can be with others like it. That day hasn't shown itself to be anywhere near, though Horsea seems content to just be out of that filthy port.
"Tonight we go on a date Horsea" I say to it with an awkward grin, contorted in my attempts to hold it back. Horsea just looked at me and tilted its head. I don't know how much Pokemon understand human language, but I know that they can definitely understand emotions and actions, so I'm sure it could see my excitement. "Well not really a date so much as it is a secret meeting. I want to show you to someone". Now it was obvious to me that Horsea was excited, I guess it understood that this meant it wouldn't be in the tank to the pokeball. "But I am going to have to ask you to do something I wish I didn't have to; you will have to go back to the port. I promise it's not forever, just for a few minutes so my friend can have a look at you then we will come right back here." The comfortable murkiness of the water changed to a furious black as Horsea spat out more ink in a clearly unhappy response.
"I am sorry, but it really is only for a few minutes, and when we get back I'll wash off your scales of all that dirty city water and ill even let you sleep in the aquarium instead of your pokeball tonight, deal?" Horsea slowly and cautiously floated to the top of the tank so I could see it past the water. I took one look into its big bright eyes and its expression was simple. It had agreed to come with me, but only on my conditions. "Thank you so much Horsea, you'll see it won't be so bad, and I'm sure you will like her." Horsea's trust and sacrifice meant a lot to me that night. I actually felt like I could be Horsea's trainer. It was an exciting thought, but it was drowned in the sobering fact that it couldn't be, there were no adventuring trainers anymore, not since the new era of N. But none the less I was going to see Amber tonight and that was still something to keep my spirits up.
In a tizzy I hurriedly dumped the dark water down the bathtub drain and washed it down. Then went and carefully put the aquarium back where I got it as I had done many times before, leaving it perfectly concealed. The pokeball shrunk down to its marble size, stark white contrasted by deep red, I rolled it around in my hand, it glinted in the dim yellow light of my bedroom lamp, and I got a feeling that one day it might be my ticket out of here.