Fuck Pokemon. Fuck everybody who has or cares about them. All they are, are problems. They tear apart towns, or kill people, or kill other pokemon, or make you care about them, and then they leave you. That's all they do. Anybody who says otherwise is someone who probably has one or grew up with one so they're biased. I will never care about a Pokemon. You'll never see me be the guy who has the trustworthy little Growlithe trotting beside me on my way to school, or the girl who brings her Smoochum to school for Show and Tell Day. I'm embarrassed I even know the names of them all.

Of course, my family is all about the Pokemania, because my life wouldn't be simple enough if they didn't care. Nope. My dickhead brother is out on his "journey", exploring around the island collecting gym badges as if they mean anything. Why? So he can enter that idiotic league? As if. I'm forced to know a lot about these beasts due to this being the constant center of conversation around the dinner table between Mom and Dad, especially when the brother is back in town. His names Evan, although if I'd like to give him a nickname, you can already tell what it'd be.

He just left after stopping by to drop off a few more pokemon in his PC. He catches them and stores them in his PC like trophies, showing them off to me despite the fact I assure him I couldn't care less. He doesn't even seem to care about them either, he sees them as accomplishments rather than friends.

One of his proudest accomplishments actually was catching a Skarmory, which are quite rare on this island, near the top of Mt Roland. He tells this tepid story constantly to his simple-minded friends and my parents, bragging of how he's the only trainer he knows who caught one on the island. Does he ever even use the fucking Skarmory, or let it out of the PC box though? No. He already has a Steelix on his main team for steel coverage and as his defensive mon, and he uses a Dodrio for flying coverage. He couldn't care less about the Skarmory. So, in an odd way, I think he's like me in that he doesn't care about the Pokemon themselves, he just sees them as a means of making a name for himself. He thinks he'll win the league. Please. With his shitty team? I don't even have a Pokemon or battle, but I can guarantee if I cared enough, I could decimate his team, despite his constant claims that he would wreck my hypothetical team.

My aversion to Pokemon, if I were to analyze it and really overthink it, is probably because I hate Evan so much, and all he does is talk about any and everything relating to the damn things. Talk about the Peltagrow Gym, the Snake's Canyon Gym, the Goldenleaf Gym. The Annual Ilragorn League (Ilragorn being the name of our island), or the coveted chance to battle the Elite 4 of the Ilragorn League, and eventually the Champion, who's some elderly woman who apparently hasn't lost a battle since she won the League 6 years ago. Her name escapes me, but she's most known for having an unbeatable Mega Metagross that plows through most of the opponents single-handedly.

Last year, during the airing of the League Victor of the time, which is broadcast throughout the island and literally everyone watches it, some trainer in his 20s named Norman I believe, went up against the Champion. He used 6 pokemon, which is the standard battling format. He was using a stall team against the elderly woman. She beat his entire team using her Mega Metagross and a Venomoth. A Venomoth for God's sake. She beat the man who took down all the gyms in Illragorn and won the league using a Mega Metagross and a Venomoth.

I'm going off on a tangent. I'm talking so much about the very things I claim to hate. I lay face-up on my bed staring at the cracked ceiling of my bedroom wondering when things will really start to ever change around here when my mother calls me down for dinner, and it is with this dinner that my life took this drastic turn. Whether it's for the better or for the worse, who really knows? Although obviously it's for the fucking worse.

It became apparent to me immediately that there was no dinner and something was very wrong. As I descended the steps and saw the kitchen table completely bare, the only things different were Mom and Dad leaning against the kitchen counter top looking up at me with somber, serious faces.

"You ate all the food that fast?" I said to lighten up the very nerve-wracking, tense mood I could feel before even entering the kitchen.

"Come in, sweetie. We need to talk." Mom motioned for me to sit at the kitchen table.

"What's happening?" I asked as Dad pulled out my chair for me.

"Adam," Dad began. "You're failing all your classes. You don't go to school anymore. You barely leave your room. I don't know if you're depressed, or what, because you won't talk to us. So your mother and I decided-"

"Are you kidding-?"

"I'm talking," Dad raised one finger up, and I knew to shut up. "Both your mother, and me, and Evan even, all think it'd be for the best if you went out into the world to see what kind of real problems there are out-"

"You're kicking me out?"

"Let your father speak, honey," Mom said timidly behind Dad. She didn't even look up.

"Kicking you out? Yes. You're 18. You can manage. Kids leave their parents homes when they're sometimes 10 years old."

"Yeah, and those kids get recruited or fucking killed by those insane Pokemon gangs! Do you watch the news? If you want me dead, you can just say it and I'll go head over to one of their bases right now."

"Adam," Dad spoke sternly. "This isn't up for discussion. Your brothers been out there for two years now, and he's not dead or recruited by any of those Team people. If he can do it, so can you."

"This is such bullshit. Just cause I'm not perfect like Evan, I get kicked out into the fucking street?"

"Nope, not the street. You're not staying anywhere near town. You're going out to the fucking woods." Dad countered, looking furious that I was fighting him this hard.

"The Gord Woods?"

"That's right. We'll give you 500 dollars, you can pack your sack, and we'll give you a Pokemon egg." Dad motioned for Mom to open up the refrigerator. She reached inside, and slowly pulled out a large, white egg that was spotted with red and blue freckles. Plopping it on the table in front of me, she attempted a smile.

"The Professor gave it to us after we told him our idea to help you," she tried. "It's your very own Pokemon egg."

I picked it up, looking dumbfounded. "What am I supposed to do, eat it?"

Dad rolled his eyes. "Don't let it break. Take care of it, because that thing will end up being your best friend. Use it to catch stronger Pokemon in the woods. Make a team like your brother. Challenge other trainers. The winner of those battles gets money from the loser. You're a smart kid, you can pick up on battling."

"I'm going to get a piece of shit Rattata and not be able to do anything. Then I'll starve to death 'cause I won't have any money or a roof over my head. Awesome. Thanks Mom and Dad." I said sarcastically, rolling the egg carelessly in between my hands.

"Just do well in battles. That's your only job." Mom offered.

"So, what? I beat some kid's Pokemon up and he gives me, what, 5 bucks?" I had no clue how this worked.

"50 bucks is the standard. At least that's what Evan told us."

"I can't believe this is happening to me. I can't believe you hate me this much."

Despite my complaining and begging, they had their minds set that I was leaving my hometown of Lunaris.