Have you heard?
About the attacks? Yeah, I heard…
What I don't get is why isn't anyone doing anything about it?
Dunno if they can, I mean, who can stand up to those…
Careful! There's still folks who like 'em, like that girl over there
The one with the red hair, what about her?
She used to be one of those gym leaders.
Rumor has it; she still carries them around with her
Protection maybe?
Shh!
It didn't matter that the gang of three young men shushed upon her closing proximity. She could hear their whispers, just as easily as she could feel their nervousness. Everyone was uneasy these days. There was good reason for it too; the attacks that the trio had been whispering about had only gotten worse of the late.
Many trainers had stopped their training in order to stay safe, which made being a gym leader all the harder. A frown bloomed angrily across her face at the thought, 'used to be one of those gym leaders' ha! She was still a gym leader and a pretty damn good one too, if anyone would be willing to challenge her again and find out for themselves.
Her Pokémon were not protection, not some hired guard as many of them were now, but companions that she had had since a young age. Besides, if anyone needed protection, it would be those drop-out trainers, who ditched their Pokémon in order to remain safe.
She quickly out distanced the whispers and their owners, but the words stuck ever more, and accompanied her all the way to the Pokémon Center.
Many would have been surprised by busyness of the medical center, considering the sudden lack of traveling trainers; however, the Pewter Pokémon Center had been deemed the best in Kanto. And any who still traveled in trained within the region always came here, if they could. That was why she was here, for a routine check-up for her Pokémon.
Upon entering, she went to the front desk, and filled out the necessary forms of admission. It was a new policy, to keep up with the awesome intake of patients. Those who needed the immediate attention, those just attacked, got it right away, those who were there for a checkup, had to wait for a little while.
She reached the front desk, only to be roughly pushed aside by a boy at least two feet shorter than herself. Opening her mouth to tell him exactly how rude he was being, she was stopped by the sight of him.
As the boy desperately begged for help from the Nurse Joy behind the counter she saw how soaked in blood the boy was. His tatty t-shirt was drenched in the redness, and in his arms was the source of the blood: a Rattata wrapped up in a torn jacket. Her mouth closed and eagerly moved aside as a Chansey came to claim the poor brutalized Pokémon. The boy gave it over quickly and begged to go with it. He had to be held back by Nurse Joy before the Chansey could get the Rattata away from his trainer.
The boy was inconsolably crying in the nurse's arms and while Joy tried her best to get the boy calm, she still had a hospital full of Pokémon to tend to. She decided to get her Pokémon's check-up later.
"I'll take him Nurse Joy."
With her help, the nurse pried the boy off, and rushed to go attend to Rattata.
"No! No! No! I have to be with Ratty! I have to be with Ratty!" The boy screamed rather loudly, drawing attention from all over the lobby. She grimaced.
"Well honey, you can't go see 'Ratty' right now…"
"But I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!"
"Oh shut up!" Her biting tone did exactly what she had asked for.
The boy stopped the screaming, but his lip wobbled, on the verge of sobs again. She could feel the glares of the spectators burning into the back of her skull. She sighed and got down to his levels, resting on her knees.
"Can you tell me your name?"
"Timmy."
"Okay Timmy…can you tell me what happened?"
His eyes watered again, and she feared the screaming again, but in a broken and stammered sentence said "We, we, we were, w-were…"
"Misty?"
The red-headed gym leader glanced up at the mentioning of her name. A man stood behind her and Timmy. He had a look of shocked recognition It took her a moment to remember a boy she once traveled with, who had deep brown eyes, shaggy black hair, and a Pikachu constantly riding on one shoulder.
"Ash?"
