Author's note: Well, okay, Quill tried her hand at a fanfiction. Go ahead, you can start laughing now. x,D No, but seriously, I don't think this first chapter is very good. I had to push to get through it, and I'm not all that satisfied (especially with all her reflectional filler stuff :P), but oh well. eux It will probably get into longer chapters when there's actually something to write about x_x
Thanks for reading~
Prologue
For Penelope Burke, who is standing outside her house on a brisk spring night, time has come to a standstill.
She is thirteen years old, with long, coppery hair and greenish-blue eyes that are framed by thick, rectangular glasses, a little too big for her face and tilted slightly. Penny believes in being hipster, just like her sister. Plus, she's been nearsighted since age five.
The night is chilly, but Penny's not feeling the cold. Her best and oldest hoodie is snug around her wiry frame, keeping out the wind. The fact that her house is in flames may also have something to do with it.
She watches the Blastoise and shouting men scurry around the huge bonfire as if seeing them through a sheet of water- blurry, dreamlike. Unreal.
A sound at her feet- who's there? Only Cyndaquil. The one who started this mess. The reason why her home is going up in flames.
Go away. Go. The starter I never wanted. I always knew I couldn't trust a Fire type.
He's leaving. She's not surprised. Any Pokémon would leave if you aimed about half a dozen kicks at their nose. Her glasses slide down her face a little, her plaid scarf blowing in the wind.
She's done. Done with trying to be a Trainer, and done with her sorry life in this town. She spins around, her worn sneakers scuffing the ground, and storms off. One of the workers sees her go, but doesn't say anything. The fire's going down now, and smoke rises into the clear night air. The night is dark again.
If you ignored the smoldering wreck of the Burke household, it would probably seem as if the whole thing had never happened.
Chapter One
Morning finds Penny in her cave, or The Cave as she calls it. It's a cozy little place, furnished with moss and her least favorite throw rug. She wishes, idly, from some corner of her mind that isn't numb with horror, that she had thought to use a nicer one. This one is a bright red, and it reminds her of Cyndaquil too much. She flips it over so that the plain rubber side hides the fluffy flames.
Outside, she can hear the plaintive calls of wild Pokémon. She tries to shut out the world, and miserably fails. Something wet is soaking into her hoodie, and Cyndaquil's empty Pokéball is digging into her side. She pulls it out, examining it; it's shiny and quite new, a name sticker plastered at a crooked angle across the smooth, round surface. "Cyndaquil" is written on it with thick black Sharpie, in Prof. Rowan's slightly awkward handwriting. Dreamily, she traces one finger across the quirky tail on his "q" and feels a slight sense of loss, because she knows she can never go back to that town. Not there.
Besides, Cyndaquil might find her. She shudders at the thought, imagining- no-you-don't-want-to-think-about-that-nope.
She pushes the thought out of her mind. Pokémon are dangerous. She should have listened to her sister, who firmly believed in the dangers of Fire Pokémon. She should never have gotten involved with helping Prof. Rowan out in his lab. Maybe if she had stayed well away from Pokémon, she would be safe and happy now, in her home.
She has no idea what her parents were going to say. A cold chill runs through her as she imagines them, dressed in their business clothes and lugging heavy suitcases, returning to the house. Seeing the firemen. The workers. The house-no-more, the burnt wreck of a house.
They would know it was Penny's fault, of course. Such damage could only have been caused by a Fire-type, and there were no Fire-types in the town besides Cyndaquil. Fire plus fire creates destruction. Penny had never thought of herself as a fiery personality until she had gotten Cyndaquil. Her parents had surely heard all of her shouts, scoldings, explosions at the frustration of training this first Pokémon, smelled the smoke drifting from in their yard, and seen the snarl on their daughter's face as she raged through the house, tracking soot everywhere. It couldn't last long. Something like this was bound to happen. It's their fault for not seeing it sooner! Her mind worked feverishly, trying to lay the blame on someone else. All she can come up with is Cyndaquil. She sees his innocent face in her mind and feels an unexpected pang of guilt. She never meant to hurt him. She hopes he finds a better Trainer someday, someone who will appreciate him like she never did. She also hopes she never sees him again.
She gets up, trying to shake the depressed thoughts, and walks out of The Cave, almost tripping over a berry fallen near the entrance. At least she knows now that food is available, although she doesn't plan on staying here- doesn't plan on anything, really, except to get as far away from her house as possible. She knows she should eat something, but she isn't hungry. Her scarf, soggy from a night out of doors, hangs limply down her back. Her glasses are streaked with soot. Her hair is down in lanky locks and probably smells like soot, too, although she doesn't really care at the moment. Her mind far away, she lets her feet lead her down the familiar path.
She knows that she has brought Cyndaquil here, on one of their good days. She hopes he doesn't try to find her here. Not that he would want to, she reassures herself. Hopefully he stays well away from her. She has tried to destroy his Pokéball, but it's made of very hard plastic and she isn't strong enough. That is why she's going to the lake. She pulls the round object out and fingers it, feeling cold water brush her toes and knowing she has reached her destination.
The Pokéball flies in a perfectly straight arc over the azure waters- something she never managed to do in her school Exercises. She wishes her gym teacher could see as it plummets straight into the center of the lake and quickly disappears. A few bubbles rise up, reminding Penny uncomfortably of a drowning animal. Don't be silly, she chatises herself, and sits down on the bank of the lake. The water is cool today, just right for swimming, although Penny doesn't intend to stay that long. She likes water, though. Water is the opposite of fire, cool and soothing and peaceful. She wishes she could have had Totodile as a starter, instead of Cyndaquil.
She wonders, idly, if water will damage the Pokéball. She hopes it's completely disabled now; she doesn't want any connection to Cyndaquil or fire. If she had paid more attention in Pokéball Studies, she might know this. Right now, all she knows is that a Great Ball is better than a Pokéball, and a Master Ball is the best of- why is she thinking about this stuff? She doesn't want to have anything to do with Pokémon, anyways.
As soon as she thinks the thought, she realizes that it's true. She wants nothing to do with Pokémon, ever again. It's a brand-new thought to her; she's always taken Pokémon for granted, seen Penny-the-Pokémon-Trainer as a rock-solid fact. But right now, she'd rather be anywhere than with her Starter, she has no money to buy Potions or Pokéballs, and she's dead meat for the Houndour if she returns to her home town. She's got no choice but to move on, without Cyndaquil. No Pokémon. On her own, doing whatever she wants to, just like she's always wanted to. She's free of Cyndaquil now, and all of her responsibilities as a Trainer-in-training.
Oddly, the thought doesn't please her as much as she thought it would.