A/N: Hi guys, just a couple things to note. First, I'd like to thank my friend, Mishi, for proof reading this, even though she isn't on this site. Second, there is a ghost pokemon in this fic; as far as I'm concerned, ghosts are spirits, and therefore have no DNA, nor reproductive system (regardless of what the games tell you about having them lay eggs), as such, they will be referred to as "it", instead of "he" or "she". Lastly, you should all go check out Harry Potter and the Pokemon Solution, which is co-authored by myself and yamiduke13. That's it and I hope you enjoy!
Friday
"Sandy, I'm officially handing in my two weeks notice." Philipa proclaimed as she walked into her boss's office.
Just like that, the last five months of planning crashed down on her. Before, it had all been theoretical, now, there was no going back. In two weeks, she would be leaving.
"Gotten a step forward in your plan?" Sandy asked
"Yeah, I got grandpa's golduck on my side. He's gonna help me catch some pokemon of my own, then I'm going to take him to grandpa's old place. I'll probably release him, or something."
"I can give you some pokeballs and potions if you want." Sandy offered, as the only pokemart in Lavender Town, they had plenty of supplies in the back, and Phillipa had been a good employee for over three years now.
"You don't have to do that, I've got money saved up, you know."
Sandy did know. Phillipa had never wanted to be a trainer, so all her wages had been put straight in the bank, instead of being spent on supplies.
"I know, but you also have three years worth of employee discounts that you haven't tapped in to." Sandy countered
Phillipa snorted, "Fine, but I'm not going to need that many pokeballs; I only need two or three pokemon. It's not like I want to be a full time trainer or anything, I just need to get away."
"You are aware that if the cops ask, I will be telling them your plans?" Sandy asked after a bit of an awkward silence
"Yeah, but as long as you don't tell either of my parents, then that's fine." Phillipa replied, Phillipa had carefully not told many people her exact plans for that reason.
Phillipa was sixteen, an adult, and old enough to live on her own. Legally, Phillipa was fully in her rights to move out without giving her parents a word of warning. Socially, she was running away.
Sandy didn't object, she knew why Phillipa was leaving. She also knew that it wasn't a spur of the moment thing; Phillipa had been planning this for a while, she'd mostly just been waiting to graduate from high school.
Phillipa pulled a sheet of paper off out from underneath the till. On it was her stock-up list, always the first job of her shift. She walked in to the back room while reading it, then put it on the shelf closest to the door, wedged under a box of pokeballs to stop it blowing away. Potions first. She needed...a box of potions, a dozen super potions, and four hyper potions. She could probably get it all on one trip.
She pulled out the potions and took them back to her list. On the shelves, hanging by a length of string, was a utility knife. Phillipa pushed out the blade and started sawing through the flaps that served as the top of the potions box. After throwing the cardboard scraps by the back door, she took the box back to the potions and grabbed some super potions. Carefully, she balanced them upside down, in the gaps between the potions, before laying the hyper potions on top of the super potions. Carefully, she picked the box up and carried it back to the front.
There were now a couple customers talking to Sandy, so Phillipa slid the potions on the end of the counter; it was very unprofessional to try to put stock on the floor, then spill it everywhere. She grabbed the hyper potions and went to put them on their shelf.
"Can I grab a couple of these super potions?"
Phillipa spun around to see a tall man in fairly dusty clothes addressing her, waving a hand at the potions on the counter.
"Of course. Will those be enough, or should I grab you some more?" She offered
"Nah, I only need a couple." The man replied, before pulling three super potions off the flat and putting them with some paralyse heals next to the till.
Phillipa waited for the group of scruffy men to finish buying their supplies and leave, before she took the rest of the potions and put them away. She quickly grabbed another three super potions from the back to fill up the shelf before continuing down her stock-up list.
"Do you have a sleeping bag and stuff?" Sandy asked, when she came back with a box full of pokeballs.
"No, but I was going to check out the second hand store on my next day off." Phillipa replied "Hey, could I store the stuff in the back? It'll only be for about a week."
"Put it under the desk in the office." Sandy said
"Thanks."
"When are you going to catch your pokemon?"
"After work. Going out this evening, actually."
"Do you know what you're looking for?"
"More or less, yeah."
"Don't get something that you can't keep as a pet later."
"I know. I should be able to get all of them in Route 8, which is super convenient." And the Pokemon Tower, but she wasn't going to advertise that bit.
For all that the inhabitants of Lavender Town accepted that people caught the ghosts in the tower, it was considered impertinent to actually advertise the fact. Such as that one time Phillipa was exploring the tower with her grampa's golduck, and he found a soothe bell. She kept it, she told people about it, but always glazed over its origins.
A couple hours later, Sandy found Phillipa in the office, eating a sandwich. In front of her was a small notebook, open at a map that Phillipa was carefully copying off the computer.
"How much longer on your break?" Sandy asked
"Um..." Phillipa checked the clock on the computer, "Eight minutes."
"Right. I'm heading off as soon as you get back."
"Sure thing." That was when Sandy usually left, anyway.
"Well, here's some pokeballs for you." Sandy said, handing Phillipa four pokeballs
"Awesome, thanks!" Phillipa exclaimed, before tucking them in to an empty pocket.
"You're welcome." Sandy replied, before slipping back out the office and went to punch the pokeballs in the till. She gave them a 100% discount, but they still had to be rung in so that stock didn't just disappear.
Phillipa's map was almost finished when she got off her break. She just had a few more towns to label, but they could wait until later. The front was empty of people when she got back, except for Sandy, but she didn't count because she left for home as soon as Phillipa appeared.
Once Sandy was gone, Phillipa went back in the office to finish her map. There was no customers there, and there likely wouldn't be many until closer to closing time. Then there would be a bit of a rush; trainers coming in off of the routes, trying to buy some supplies before the mart closed. She spent most of the afternoon between the few customers that came in, and talking on the phone to the second hand store. She managed to get a sleeping bag, rucksack, and travel pillow put on hold for her, so it was a productive afternoon.
The closing rush was busy as normal, but the purchases were varied enough that Phillipa didn't have to do emergency stock up in between ringing through customer's purchases. Running out of stock during the evening rush always made her shift a bad one, no matter how she the rest of it went.
At eight o'clock, she slipped out from behind the till and turned the sign on the window to 'closed' and locked the door. It was a push bar door, so the customers could leave, but no new ones could get in.
"Excuse me!" Phillipa shouted over the chattering of the customers, "We are now officially closed. Feel free to complete your purchases, but please don't take too long, I want to get out of here." She finished with a smile to take the harshness out of her words.
"Oh yeah, there's a game tonight." One of the men remembered
"Yeah, go Pidgeots." Phillipa said, sounding incredibly unenthusiastic
"The Pidgeots aren't even playing." The man said
"My boss is a major Pidgeots fan and has threatened to fire me if I support anyone else."
The customers laughed, but most of them grabbed a couple more items off the shelves, then lined up to pay. Gratefully, Phillipa rang their purchases through, and ten minutes later, the mart was empty and she could start the closing jobs.
She had already made her stock up list while waiting for the last few customers to leave, so she opened the till and started counting the money. The excess was sealed in a fancy plastic envelope and put in Sandy's desk in the office, and the total was entered in to the computer. She was only two cents out, which was better than she usually got. Next, she plugged her ipod into the computer and cranked up the volume. Usually, the PA system played the local radio station, but now that there was no customers, or Sandy, to complain, the beginning of The Lion King soundtrack started blaring out of the speakers.
Singing along, admittedly fairly badly, Phillipa started the final stock up. This one was always faster any during the day because, even though there was more to grab, there weren't any customers to get in the way. Fifteen minutes later, stock up was finished. Next, she grabbed a clean cloth from the bucket at the back, and a spray bottle with cleaner in it. Three minutes later, the counter and till had been wiped down, and the cloth put in the dirty-hamper. Seven minutes after that, the floors were swept. Ten more minutes and she had mopped the floors and poured out the dirty water into the drain outside the back door.
Fifteen minutes earlier than what her schedule said she should be leaving at, Phillipa grabbed her ipod, turned off the computer, and left the pokemart. She took a deep breath of the cool, night air, and turned towards the Pokemon Tower.
She would pass her house on the way, but she'd planned for that. When her grandpa was alive, he always went on hikes with his golduck around the Lake of Rage. When grandpa died, her mother had inherited the golduck. But Anseri missed grandpa and had never really liked her mother much to begin with, so Phillipa had offered to take him on walks around town. She had wanted to take him on the routes as well, but she wasn't allowed in them anymore. But she was allowed to take him in to the Pokemon Tower, though she had no idea why. Probably because her step-father had never been inside and didn't know what the ghosts could be like.
For the past month, Phillipa had been taking Anseri for walks in the Tower almost daily, so today would seem no different. Today was different, though. Today, Phillipa had empty pokeballs with her and was going to catch herself a gastly. It was the step one in her grand plan of getting herself out of Lavender Town in a way that was responsible, but completely secret until it was too late for anyone could stop her. Probably two goals that were completely contradictory, but Phillipa didn't let that bother her.
Phillipa waved cheerfully to her mother, who was working in the garden, as she passed her house. Her mother waved back, even if she had no idea why Phillipa was so happy today. Phillipa kept walking, and eventually got to the bank, half way between the mart and the tower.
The bank itself was closed, but there was a cash machine she could still use. She drew out another $15,000. Her step-father was monitoring her bank activity so, slowly, Phillipa had withdrawn pretty much all of her money. She'd had to invent things to buy, a newer ipod, clothes, computer games, even hair accessories. She was pretty sure her step-father had never actually checked if she had bought any of the things she claimed buying, but he always asked why the money had been withdrawn.
She had actually opened a new bank account on her sixteenth birthday, one that her parents had no idea existed. She got the monthly statements via an email address she had set up, again that her parents didn't know about, and only checked them at school or work. She even had to keep the bank card in the waistband of her panties while she slept; there had been a couple times when she'd opened her wallet and the various cards were in a different order than they were in the last time she'd looked. She always kept her wallet on her, so the only time someone could get in without her knowing, was when she was asleep. Strangely enough, none of the cash had been taken, she was just being … monitored. It was creepy.
She had over $200,000 in the other account and just under $1500 left in the one her parents knew about. Her last pay cheque would be coming in before she left, but she couldn't withdraw it until it had sat there for a couple days. It would have to stay there; maybe it would even still be there when she figured out a way to cut her parents off from that account too.
The $15,000 was deposited straight into the secret account, then Phillipa continued down the road to the Pokemon Tower. The sun had set by the time she arrived, but that just meant there would be more ghosts about, though hopefully she would be able to avoid any haunter.
She nodded to the receptionist at the entrance, then pulled Anseri's pokeball out of her pocket. As soon as she was through the door to the tower, she let him out.
Anseri still wasn't a fan of the Tower, but he preferred it to having to stay in the house the entire time. He grumbled as he followed Phillipa up the stairs, grumbled as they emerged on the next floor, and as they went up the stairs to the one above. Phillipa had no illusions about how much Anseri liked her, or more accurately, how much he didn't like her. He had never liked kids and Phillipa had been pretty bratty when she was younger, but he had tolerated her because grampa had told him he had to. But now grampa was dead and couldn't tell him to stop being a grouch. Anseri wasn't doing too well either. He wasn't eating much and was starting to get pretty thin, but he still could walk for hours longer than Phillipa could ever hope to. The only reason Anseri tolerated Phillipa was because she had promised to take him home, back to the lake.
Phillipa looked around at the tombstones and urns scattered around the floor; there was no pokemon and still quite a few people wandering around. She headed for the next flight of stairs.
Phillipa gasped quietly when she looked up the stairs and saw, sitting happily at the top, a cubone! They were very rare and very valuable if she were to catch it to sell or trade, but she needed a gastly for the rest of her plan to work. It ran off when it saw Anseri anyway, accompanied by Anseri's annoyed hissing. The next floor was a lot quieter though, so a gastly should show up sooner or later.
"Okay, Anseri, start looking." She told him once they emerged from the stairwell.
Anseri started grumbling again, and, instead, sat down next to a bouquet of daisies. Phillipa sighed, she supposed she didn't mind too much if he wasn't going to help look, as long as he would actually fight the gastly once she found it. Well, she knew he would fight it, but that didn't mean he would fight it in such a way that she could capture it. He would quiet happily just chase any ghosts off, which was not the plan at all.
She'd seen plenty of gastly in the tower before and they were usually a fairly peaceful lot, if a bit mischievous, so she knew she wasn't in danger per se, but she couldn't catch one if it wasn't weakened first. Hence why she needed Anseri on her side, at least for this bit.
After twenty minutes of looking behind tombstones and in shadows, Phillipa glanced at Anseri to see if he had moved yet, but jumped when she saw a gastly hovering just over her shoulder. It had probably been there a while, and was looking to see if it could find what she was looking for. Gastly were pesky like that. It was fortunate she did want to catch it, because if a wild gastly was this close to you, then you would usually never get it to go away without a battle. They weren't aggressive, just...curious to a fault, she supposed.
"Hey Anseri, use water gun on this guy." Phillipa hesitantly suggested, though she had intended for it to come out as a command.
Anseri just sat up, looked at the gastly, and yawned.
"C'mon, this is why we're here, and we need this guy to get you home!"
Anseri considered the gastly, then fired a water pulse at it. The gastly, who had turned itself around until it was watching Phillipa upside down, was slammed in to the far wall. It almost dissipated into the air, but managed to pull itself back together. It slowly floated upwads, seeming to aim for the ceiling, but Phillipa threw one of her new pokeballs at it. It disappeared in a flash of red light, then the ball fell back to the ground. It tried to bounce and wobble at the same time and ended up careening around the floor, but eventually it lay still.
"There. Was that so hard, Anseri?" Phillipa demanded, annoyed.
Yes, she had the gastly, but it was pretty hurt now, so she had to make a trip to the pokemon center for it, which was pretty hard to not get caught at. If Anseri had used water gun, she could have whittled the gastly's health down a bit, and avoided the pokemon center trip. Well, if anyone asked, she would just say Anseri sprained a leg or something.
Phillipa's glare softened, however, when she saw that Anseri was breathing pretty heavily from the fight, even though he only used one attack.
"Yeah, you're not battling any more." Phillipa said, returning Anseri to his ball. Looks like she really did have to make a trip to the center for him.
She dashed back down the stairs to the floor below, then down the next flight. Even though the gastly were usually harmless, it was still a pretty stupid idea to wander around their tower without some form of protection.
"How did it go?" The receptionist had changed; now Phillipa's friend, Ruth, was sitting at the desk.
"Step one complete, but with complications. Anseri is worse than I thought and I need to take him to the center." Phillipa replied
Phillipa had been friends with Ruth for years, and she was the only one that knew her full plans.
"I've got some potions if you want..." Ruth offered
"I would, but Anseri isn't exactly injured, so I want the nurse to look him over." Phillipa replied
"He's getting on ridiculously old, isn't he?"
"Thirty two."
"So, basically, he's dying from old age?"
"Yep"
"Is he going to make it to the lake?"
"I hope so. I mean, he's a miserable bastard that hates my guts, and the feeling is pretty much mutual, but it's 'cause of him that I can do this."
"You know, you could have borrowed my magnemite, right?"
"Your magnemite pretends that everyone except you doesn't exist." Phillipa replied dryly.
Ruth laughed in response.
"Hey, you said you were gonna ask at work if you could stash your stuff there, how did that go?"
"Sandy said I could stow it all in the office."
"Nice! Because, I love you and all, but I don't think my bedroom could hold much, nor could I hide it from my parents."
"Lol."
"Hey, no chatspeak in actual conversations!"
Phillipa just laughed as she walked out of the tower.
"I'll see you later!" She yelled behind her
"Yeah, see ya!" She heard Ruth call back
"Or would that be 'c u l8er'?"
"No it wouldn't!"
Phillipa grinned as she started jogging, hoping to get to the center in enough time that she could eat dinner there too. She used to volunteer in the kitchens a few nights a week, so they wouldn't mind if she grabbed some food during her visit.
Lavender Town was so small, that there were few jobs for their youth, many ended up moving away to make a living. But there were lots of volunteer opportunities for those still living at home. Anyone who could would volunteer at the pokemon center, because they would feed you and it looked really good on a resume. Anyone else who wanted to volunteer, but didn't get accepted to the center, went to the Tower, because even though they didn't feed you, it still looked better to employers than sitting on your butt every evening.
The pokemon center lobby was empty except for a person behind the desk, a boy she vaguely recognized from school.
"Two pokemon, one might need a nurse, I'm not sure." Phillipa told him
The boy nodded and held his hand out for her pokemon card. She pulled it out of her wallet and gave him it, glad that trainer records automatically became confidential once the trainer reached sixteen.
"The golduck is under my mother's name, Emily Chmela."
"Anseri?" The boy asked, after pulling up her mom's profile
"Yeah, that's him."
"Man, he's old. I'll call a nurse up to look at him, regardless. He'll probably have a couple questions for you."
Phillipa nodded; she had been on desk duty plenty of times and knew how the process worked.
The gastly's pokeball was put on the machine that would heal any minor wound, restore fatigue, and get rid of statuses. Everyone loved those machines.
"And the gastly is to be registered to yourself?" The boy asked after the machine finished its whirring.
"Yep."
"Name?"
"Genesis." Phillipa replied, it was a rather traditional name, hardly used any more, but it meant 'beginning' which is what this gastly was.
"Okay. I'd tell you it's gender, but it doesn't have one, and I'd tell you it's weight, but it's doesn't really have one of them either. Hmm, as it's your first pokemon, I'd also tell you it's diet and recommended sleeping arrangements, but it doesn't have any of them either."
They both laughed.
"Anyway, he's fine, so you can have him back, and I'm not sure how long the nurse is going to be. Mike's on duty and he's currently setting a broken leg." Darren, she was pretty sure his name was Darren, said while handing her back her gastly.
"That's fine, I'll go grab some food. I'll be back in a bit."
"Okay, see you."
Phillipa waved goodbye at him before nipping down the staff only corridor that was a short cut to the cafeteria, because she might not volunteer there any more, but she still knew enough of the paid staff that they wouldn't mind.
The cafeteria was hardly any busier than the lobby. It was getting late, so most people had already gotten their dinner, though hopefully what was left would still be hot. Skirting along the wall, Phillipa eventually got to the large dishes of food. She grabbed a tray and a plate and started down the counter, serving herself a large lump of cold rice, and a generous spoonful of steaming hot curry. In a perfect world, the two would mix together to make something that was comfortably hot. She grabbed a set of chopsticks before scanning the tables for an empty spot.
Most of the tables were empty, but there were still a couple with groups of people at them. Phillipa slid in to a seat at a table with five other people, all listening to a girl at the end tell the story of how she found an onix in rock tunnel a couple days ago. Phillipa tuned her out, most of it was probably exaggerated anyway, and concentrated on eating her dinner.
She quickly finished eating and put her dishes in a large tray of soapy water, then left for the lobby again. When she arrived, Mike was there, talking to probably-Darren at the desk.
"So, I examined your golduck," Mike started when he saw Phillipa, "did he do anything strenuous before he started with the heavy breathing?"
"He battled a gastly, but he only used one water pulse, and he chose to use such a strong attack, I'd told him to use a water gun." Phillipa replied
"Right. Well, considering his age, and his already failing health, I'm afraid to say he's now on his last legs. I understand your mother inherited him?"
"Yeah, from my grampa. Anseri was starting to fail in health while grampa was alive, and to be honest, has only gotten worse since his death. We've suspected for a while that he wasn't going to last much longer."
"He probably has a couple weeks left in him, but no more battles! Is that clear?" Mike demanded
"Crystal clear. It was kinda emergency circumstances, otherwise it would never have happened."
That was a bit of a lie, she did need a gastly, but it wasn't exactly an emergency at this point. Honestly, she had pretty much expected that she would be taking Anseri back to the Lake of Rage to die; it was his home and he wasn't enjoying his life any more, so if it meant she could get away at the same time, she would take him somewhere comforting for his death.
Mike appeared to believe her, though. He nodded at her before bidding the both of them goodbye and leaving down the corridor Phillipa had just came from, probably to get some dinner of his own.
"Here's Anseri back." Probably-Darren said, handing her Anseri's pokeball
"Thanks." Phillipa replied
She left the pokemon center and slowly started walking home. She couldn't think of anywhere she could go with such short notice, so she prepared herself for her step-father's tirade.
He would yell about how she had been somewhere other than the Tower, then yell about her dead end job, even though she was one of the few youths in town with a job and got paid a fair bit higher than minimum wage. Then he would probably yell about how she had eaten at the center, even though he won't have saved her any dinner, then yell about Anseri when she explained that he was dying. Then she would say she had to do homework, he would yell at her about being lazy or some such, and she would go to her room and complain on facebook, then maybe study for her exams.
She may have 'accidentally' forgotten to tell her parents that classes were cancelled during the exam weeks, but it meant her step-father would stay out of her business for the time being. Even if she did have to stay at school all day. As soon as she got the tracker bracelet off her wrist (that was step three in her plan) she would be able to leave it at the school and spend her free time in Route 8, trying to find a fire pokemon, or around town, or anywhere.
True to form, her step-father started his verbal assault as soon as she opened the door. Her mom seemed resigned, but not unsurprised at the news about Anseri. Phillipa made her escape as soon as she could and shut the bedroom door behind her.
She didn't want to leave Lavender Town because of what her step-father said to her, she could just solve that by moving out, she wanted to leave because she had started to believe it. A pretty good accomplishment on his behalf, considering he hadn't even been around for a full year yet. Phillipa hadn't noticed the change in her behaviour, but Ruth had; and she was more than willing to try and beat some sense in to Phillipa's head, courtesy of her chemistry textbook.
Saturday
Phillipa had to go to work in the afternoon, but she spent the morning at the edge of Lavender Town, on the border of Route 8. She couldn't go in the actual route, but she had carefully explained to Gen that she needed a mankey, and that he had to taunt it to come back, not just fight it. This was probably the most risky part of her plan (this was step two, by the way). If her step-father happened to see her, she wouldn't be able to explain what she was doing, and Gen might not be able to find a mankey, or lure it back to her. Or it might even get bored and go back to the tower; new pokemon were known to do that. So Phillipa spent the morning before her shift at work sitting under some bushes, half heartedly studying for her Math exam on Monday.
It was lunch time before Gen returned, mankeyless, and she had to leave for her shift at work. She reassured it on the way; it seemed disgruntled that it couldn't bring one back for her. If nothing else, it boded well for having a pokemon that would actually listen to her, if nothing else.
It took a week for Gen to get a mankey. It had found them a few times, but apparently mean look only stopped pokemon from running away, it didn't force them to follow the pokemon that used it, so it took a couple tries to actually get one back. When Gen finally returned with a pissed off mankey in tow, it only took a couple minutes to capture it. It was a bit anti-climatic in the end; Gen just had to use a night shade and hypnosis on it, then Phillipa threw the pokeball. The ball stopped moving pretty quick, which usually meant that the pokemon in question was rather weak, but hopefully that was just because it was asleep.
She needed the mankey to break the lock on the chain keeping the tracker on her wrist. Really, who was so desperate to be in control that they get a GPS tracker made to look like a bracelet charm, then get a flipping padlock to keep it on your step-daughter's wrist? Her step-father apparently.
But right now, she had to rush to get to work on time. She would take the mankey to the pokemon center to register it later, probably after work.
Monday
The next day, after her English exam, Phillipa sat down on the school's field and sent out her mankey.
"Okay Libby, can you pull this apart?" Phillipa asked, holding out her wrist with the bracelet, positioning it so the padlock was in plain view.
Yes, she'd named her Libby. Yes, Libby was short for Liberty. Yes, she was really sentimental with names, she'd always been like that and she didn't see it stopping any time soon.
Despite the lack of fight she'd put up with the pokeball yesterday, the padlock pulled apart easily in Libby's fingers.
"Wow. You're pretty strong, you know that?" Phillipa told her, who perked up at the compliment.
Libby hadn't seemed as immediately cheerful about having a trainer as Gen had been. So Phillipa had spent most of last evening looking through all her draws, cupboards, and piles of junk to try and find that soothe bell. When she eventually found it, she'd loosely tied it to Libby's wrist. The mankey hadn't been too happy about the bell on her wrist, until she moved it enough that it made its characteristic chiming. After that she had loved it, and spent most of her time jingling the bell. Phillipa had had to return her so that neither of her parents came up to investigate the noise.
Step three was now complete. She could now leave the transmitter at school on week days and spend her time on Route 8 looking for a fire pokemon, preferably a vulpix; they're smaller and less energetic than growlithe. It also meant that when she left, her step-father wouldn't know immediately; she could just leave the transmitter at school when she left. Or in someone's garbage can, Friday was garbage day, after all. She had to admit, it would be funny to watch her step-father's reaction when the transmitter said she was at the landfill. Saffron City landfill too, Lavender Town wasn't big enough to have its own. Then again, she would be walking towards Saffron, so maybe that wasn't the best idea.
She could also complete step four tomorrow at the school computer lab when she went to drop off the transmitter: book her train ticket to Goldenrod City.
Step four meant she could leave. Step five, the fire pokemon, would help but wasn't necessary. It meant she would have a pokemon super effective against bug and grass pokemon, which were common as dirt in most routes; one that wasn't super effective against her mankey and possibly cause friction between the two. But if she couldn't find one, she wasn't going to put her plans on hold.
Phillipa spent the rest of the afternoon letting Gen and Libby get to know each other. She had worried a bit about Gen's immunity to fighting and normal attacks putting Libby on the defensive. But she needn't have worried, Gen was sufficiently non-confrontational that the two spent most of their time chasing each other around. When Gen floated too high, Libby just hopped on Phillipa's back and jingled her bell.
She experienced her first mankey rampage too. Gen had managed to get Libby's bell off her wrist and started to float off with it. Before Phillipa could call it back, Libby started screeching at it. When that go no response, she decided to take it out on the closest target, namely Phillipa.
Before she could blink, Libby had a handful of her hair and was pulling painfully hard. Phillipa swatted at her to try and make her let go, but she started scratching at her arm instead. Libby got a kick to the face, just as she managed to break the skin on Phillipa's arm, leaving three long, but shallow, oozing wounds. Libby was pushed back by the kick, and was about to leap forward to continue her assault, but fell asleep mid-jump.
Phillipa glanced around to see Gen hovering over her shoulder, looking apologetically at her.
"How about we let Libby keep her bell from now on?" Phillipa sarcastically asked Gen.
Gen nodded morosely and dropped the soothe bell on Libby's hand.
Phillipa retied the bell to her wrist, a little tighter than before, then returned her to her pokeball. Hopefully she would have calmed down by the time she was let out again.
Tuesday
The next day, Phillipa walked to school to book her train ticket. She'd decided not to pay until she got to the station, though. If she happened to miss her train, she wouldn't get a refund and would still have to pay for a second ticket.
She didn't work today, so she planned on spending the day looking for a vulpix. Or growlithe, if she had to.
She left her tracker bracelet with the school office. The receptionist thought it was an odd request, but was willing to do it, and it meant no one would take it from a potential hiding spot and she could get it back later.
The school was next to the route, so she knew the risks of anyone seeing her as she left town were pretty low. She still walked pretty fast, and soon she was in the tall, wavy grass of Route 8. She used to come here pretty often with her mom's persian, but according to her step-father, the routes were not somewhere where a young woman should be going. She vaguely wondered if he had always had such a large stick up his ass.
Her method of battling didn't much approach the one used by other trainers. Phillipa had gotten her licence at ten, because everyone did, but had never had a pokemon of her own until she caught Gen. Her mother had offered, but she had never had much interest in living in the wilderness for weeks on end, just for the chance to battle for some pokey little badges. So Libby would beat up anything she could, and Gen used hypnosis on everything else, both without any instruction from her. Libby was getting more used to her, if riding on her back at every opportunity was anything to go by.
She hadn't found any fire pokemon by the time she left for the school, but that was okay, she still had a bit of time. Libby, predictably, was no good at any kind of ranged battle, which would be solved once she found a fire pokemon. Gen could have battled at a distance, but she had found that the ghost was not very fond of any kind of battling, preferring to send it's opponents to sleep. Though when it came down to it, Phillipa thought Gen's hypnosis could be more useful than a ranged pokemon.
After getting the bracelet back from the office and stuffing it in her bag, she headed home. She'd thought of loitering around somewhere, or going to bug one of her friends, but time would be tight in the next couple days, and she really should study for her last exam.
Her step-father was at work, so, once she got home, it was just her and her mom. Even though her mom had changed a lot since she got remarried, it was almost a nice evening. Phillipa was nagged about her exams, but mostly, she just found it amusing that her mom had figured out that it was now exam week, but her step-father hadn't.
They had pepperoni and mushroom pizza for dinner. Well, her mom did; Phillipa had pepperoni pizza because mushrooms were disgusting, so she picked them off and fed them to Clock, their pet spearow.
Phillipa knew she would miss Clock, he was always so friendly, even if he did keep trying to steal her hair ties. She wouldn't miss him being extra cheerful when the sun rose every morning. It wasn't so bad in the winter, but was a nightmare in the summer.
Phillipa left the kitchen when she heard her step-father's car pull into the drive and headed back up to her room to study for her history exam. She technically had a day and a half before sitting it. In actuality, she was going to spend tomorrow morning hunting for a fire pokemon again, then working her last shift at the pokemart, pack Thursday morning, then sit her exam in the afternoon. So she really wasn't getting much study time. But it was history, no one really cared about history and neither did she. But, the day after her history exam, she was leaving. She couldn't wait.
Wednesday
The morning was bright and sunny, a nice change from the overcast weather from the past few days. Especially as fire pokemon liked warm weather, so hopefully they would be wandering around a bit more. Phillipa packed her school bag with as many clothes as it could fit. It was rather full and very heavy by the time she was done, but she wasn't worried. She would drop it off at work on her way out of town, then she wouldn't have to carry it everywhere.
When she went downstairs for breakfast, she found her mom had made omelettes, a rare occurrence.
"What's the occasion?" Phillipa asked
"Oh, nothing much." Her mom replied, breezily.
Definitely strange behaviour for her mom.
Phillipa grabbed a clean plate off the drying rack, just in time for her mom to slide an omelette on to it. Phillipa inspected it; sausage, cheese, and pepper. A strange combination, but it had always been her favourite. Mom hadn't made her her favourite kind of omelette since she got married.
"No, really, what's up?" Phillipa asked again as she sat at the table
Her mom sighed.
"You know that I love you, right?" Her mom asked
Phillipa was surprised, this was completely out of the blue. Unless she had figured out, somehow, that Phillipa was leaving. She supposed it wasn't that surprising, her mom always had been rather perceptive. Or Clock had been spying on her and reporting back to her mom.
"Of course I do." Phillipa replied
It was true; she would happily leave her step-father to rot and die in a hole in the ground, but she'd always known her mother cared for her, even with the increase in general bitchiness over the past few months. She knew it enough to make her feel slightly guilty about leaving without a word. Not guilty enough to make Phillipa tell her, of course.
"Well, just try not to forget it, okay?"
"Sure, mom."
Yeah, mom definitely knew what was going on. Even if Clock had been spying on her, mom wouldn't necessarily believe him. But mom knew her far too well to not see the signs after being given a warning. Stupid spearow.
"And don't get in to anything over your head."
That spearow was going to be barbecued.
"I won't."
"You won't what?" Her step-father demanded, coming in to the kitchen just in time to hear Phillipa's reply
"Procrastinate studying for her exams." Her mother cut in, "She's already started review in class."
Maybe she wouldn't cut her mom out of her life when she left. She could phone sometimes, or email. Emails could be read by her step-father, though. She could phone when she knew he was at work, which wasn't always that easy as his shifts sometimes changed without much notice.
Phillipa ate the rest of her omelette quickly, wanting to hear as little complaining about the supposed idiots at her step-father's job as possible. He usually stuck to ranting about his own life in the mornings, ignoring all the faults in Phillipa's until later on in the day.
Soon, she was back outside with her overstuffed bag on her back, heading to work to drop it off. When she arrived, Sandy was busy dealing with customers, so she just placed it with the rest of her stuff in the office and left as quietly as she had come in.
As she passed the school, she once again handed the tracker bracelet over to the office lady, then headed back out to Route 8. She had several hours before she had to head back in for work and intended to make use of every minute of it.
She ended up finding a ninetails mother with her kits barely an hour in. After running away from the powerful fire pokemon, she then found a lone vulpix sunning itself on a rock. It was apparently her lucky day, probably because she was out looking for herself and not relying on Gen to find and bring one back.
"Go Gen! Use mean look." Phillipa ordered, while throwing Gen's pokeball.
Genesis appeared in a flash and, even though Phillipa couldn't see the actual attack, she knew it had worked; the vulpix had been ignoring them, but it suddenly spun around so that it was facing the gastly.
"Go Libby." Phillipa sent Liberty out too, who materialized behind the vulpix.
Technically, she was cheating by using two pokemon at once. Technically, she didn't care.
"Libby, use leer."
The vulpix shied away from Libby, before letting loose an ember at Gen.
"Libby, use karate chop; Gen, hypnosis."
Libby sprang forward, chopping the vulpix in the leg. It spun around so it could defend itself from the mankey, leaving it's back open to Gen. Unfortunately, this meant that instead of the vulpix facing Gen, only Libby was. Libby got the full force of the hypnosis and fell asleep, right as the vulpix used a quick attack on it.
"Crap." Phillipa swore before returning Libby, "Gen, use lick."
Gen hesitated, it really wasn't a fan of battling, especially physical attacks.
"Night shade?" She asked
Gen was happier about that one. The shadows in the grass suddenly started clumping together underneath the vulpix. They quickly rose up, engulfing the vulpix in darkness before everything returned to a more natural level of lighting. The vulpix wobbled on it's feet, but still managed to use a quick attack on Gen.
"Use hypnosis again." Phillipa said as the vulpix jumped through the intangible ghost.
This time, the vulpix got the hit by the hypnosis, and collapsed in a heap. Phillipa threw a ball at it and a couple of seconds later, it was still.
Now she had about five hours to kill before she had to go to work, and no pokemon she had to rush around and find. She could go to the pokemon center and heal them up, then she supposed she could try to make up with the vulpix; wild pokemon weren't usually impressed when you teamed up two pokemon against them. Still, she had one sure fire way of cheering up the vulpix. Well, she had two, but she had already given the soothe bell to Libby, and she wasn't going to take it back off her. So she had one sure fire way, and that was bribery. She'd use some of her savings to buy it a charcoal at the pokemart.
Phillipa walked to the pokemon center, bypassing her school for now, and quickly got her three pokemon healed and the vulpix registered. She then went to work and bought the charcoal. Finally, she turned around and went back to school to get her tracker bracelet.
She spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the school field with a couple classmates. She had Chris, the vulpix, out as much as she could, letting him get used to her. He didn't seem that interested in her, but was certainly happy about the charcoal. She introduced him to Gen, and they got on well, but Gen got on well with everyone. She also introduced him to Libby, who he wasn't much impressed with. Libby reacted in the natural mankey way, and the two promptly started squabbling.
Libby had pulled on three of Chris's tails, bit an ear, and kicked him on the side before Phillipa managed to separate them. It would have been over when she picked Libby up, holding her out of the way, but Chris then took the opportunity to jump up and bite down on her tail. Fortunately, one of the boys in her class recalled the both of them to their pokeballs before things could escalate again.
"They'll get over it." Was his only comment to the embarrassed Phillipa, though the rest of the group seemed to find it funny.
Eventually, the group split up. Most of them were heading home, but Phillipa headed back to work. This was her last shift, but Phillipa had managed to put off the emotional weeping stuff that Sandy was sure to perform by coming in the next day, to finish packing and pick up her last pay cheque.
Thursday
The next morning, Sandy was as tearful as Phillipa had expected. But today was one of those randomly busy days, so Sandy had other things to concentrate on. Phillipa spent the morning in the office, carefully packing all the things she had gradually brought to the mart. Most of it was clothes, but there was also her sleeping bag and pillow, a tarp for emergencies, a small pot, a large water bottle, and several lighters, among other things. In the end, her bag wasn't too heavy. It would be uncomfortable, but manageable.
She left around lunch time, without her rucksack, munching the sandwiches she had brought from home as she walked towards the school and her last exam. It was still early when she arrived and frankly, this was the wrong day for it; she was leaving first thing tomorrow morning and was full of nerves. Eventually, she found Ruth.
She was going to Ruth's for dinner tonight, and was keeping her rucksack overnight in their garage. It would be safe from discovery for the one night. Ruth's dad was the only one that went in there, and he was currently on a business trip to Celadon City.
The two chatted for about twenty minutes before they were allowed inside the gym. Most of it was Ruth giving Phillipa tips for her pokemon, or the pair of them comparing notes from their studies. Ruth herself hadn't left for a pokemon journey, but both her brothers had, and she had her magnemite, so she still had more experience than Phillipa.
"Good luck." They whispered to each other when the doors opened. They weren't allowed to choose their seats; like most schools, in order to avoid any semblance of free will in the examination process, they had to sit in alphabetical order. While Ruth Abarca was close to Phillipa Chemela, it wasn't close enough that they could chat while they waited for the exam to actually start. So they sat in silence at the desk that had the exam with their name on it, as students slowly trickled into the gym.
In the beginning of the exam period, the rows of desks had been straight enough that they could have been placed using a ruler. However, numerous butts moving in and out of them over the past two weeks had shifted them so that they now looked more like an ekans that had been smoking something illegal.
Eventually, the examiner at the front of the gym proclaimed that the exam had started, and they had three hours to complete it. He had a good voice for it too, Phillipa thought vaguely, nice and echo-y.
Just under an hour and a half later, Phillipa walked out the gym, not sure if she had found the exam easy because it was easy, or because she had done a terrible job of it. Either way, it was over. The last thing she had to finish before she left was now done. Of course, she needed her diploma that proved she had graduated, but those would be mailed out in a few weeks. She had told the school that she was starting a journey and would send them her new address when she found out what it was. They didn't ask why she didn't just want it mailed to her parents, though they did point out that she had six weeks before it would be sent to them by default. That was fine, Phillipa had no intention of travelling for that long anyway.
She waited outside the gym for Ruth to appear. When she did, the two of them walked to the pokemart to pick up Phillipa's rucksack and her cheque. On the way to Ruth's, she deposited the cheque into her account. Their normal route didn't pass by the bank, but it only added about ten minutes to make the detour. It would take a couple days for the cheque to go through the system, which meant she couldn't withdraw it before she left, but life wasn't perfect like that.
Dinner that evening was relaxing. Ruth's mom knew something was up, but was too polite to ask. They had vegetarian lasagne, which was actually nicer than it sounded, even if it did lack sweet, delicious meat.
Eventually, Phillipa had to leave. She had asked a few days ago if she could stay overnight, but her step-father had said no. She had considered staying over anyway, but now she wanted to say goodbye to her mom. It was all because of that omelette.
Phillipa trudged home, not wanting to put up with her step-father on her last night before she left everything behind. She entered the house as quietly as she could, not that she needed to. A hockey game was on, and her step-father had it on the TV with the volume pretty much on maximum. He would be oblivious to the rest of the world until it finished.
Friday
Last night, her step-father had apparently gone out for a couple drinks with his friends and had had one too many. He didn't appear at breakfast, claiming that he was dying from a hangover. It was just Phillipa and her mom again, and Phillipa found herself getting a lot more emotional than she thought she would.
"Bye mom." Phillipa said softly as she stood by the door.
"Goodbye Phillipa." Her mom replied, "I love you."
"Love you too." Phillipa said, surprised that she was almost choking up.
She dashed out the front door before she actually started crying. A quick jog to Ruth's helped clear her head, so she was almost cheerful when she knocked on the door. That lasted all of two minutes after Ruth answered it.
The two girls were in the garage, Phillipa had donned her rucksack, and they were both bawling their eyes out.
"Make sure you call me every time you get to a town, you hear me?" Ruth ordered while giving Phillipa a bone crushing hug.
"You bet I will." Phillipa reassured her, squeezing back just as hard.
"You should probably get going." Ruth said
"Yeah."
Neither girl moved for another minute.
"Right. I'm going." Phillipa said, eventually.
She straightened up with a large sniff and Ruth pulled away in response.
"Yeah, don't want to miss your train. Make sure you send me your address as soon as you get one."
Phillipa merely nodded.
"Bye." She said before ducking underneath the half open garage door
"Bye Phil." Ruth replied behind her, causing her to chuckle damply, she'd always hated that nickname.
Phillipa was most of the way down the street before she heard a garage door close in the distance.