A Maiden's Voyage
Chapter 1: The Voyage Begins
Not many people actually knew the story of Aria Ketchum, descendant to a renowned Pokemon Master, but today we'll explore the hardships she faced in order to survive in a dystopian pokemon world. Aria grew up in the little town of Twinleaf where her world changed for the worst. Two Hundred years into the future, the Sinnoh Region has changed dramatically and perhaps for the worst and it is this place where an unfortunate heroine had to undergo her worst nightmares. But she loved them. All of them. She and her best friend, Rotom, who identifies as a male, took on the Sinnoh League in a never-before-seen way. It couldn't have been predicted that Aria's birth changed Sinnoh and you as the reader will have to determine that.
Aria Verne Ketchum was too much like your ordinary girl. She went to a public high school in the little town of Twinleaf and had some friends, but not too many. After finishing up school she wanted to work with pokemon and people, too in hopes to pursue a private college not too far away. However, this day is when she became acquainted with some important people and it kick-started her very own pokemon journey.
I woke up to the sound of bacon sizzling and plates clashing as someone picked them up out of a stack. After I stretched my arms and legs in bed and closed my eyes for merely one second, I crawled to the edge and grabbed some clean clothes out of a bin by my door. My father had already done the laundry that morning and was preparing a lovely breakfast for the two of us. Rotom had also begun to snooze and I held a smile for a moment before finally getting up.
My morning routine consisted of brushing my teeth and getting dressed. After putting on some socially acceptable clothes I did a little bit of my make-up before descending down into our aromatic kitchen. Rotom followed me downstairs and took residence above my shoulder as Dad turned to me and handed a plate with neatly arranged bacon slices and a grilled-cheese sandwich.
"You had a lot of time on your hands this morning," I said to him.
"Yeah well I don't have work today so I thought I'd spend it with you, kiddo we could relax and hangout in the Sandgem Beaches."
"I'd like that," I said smiling and lifting a fork Dad handed me. Then I began scarfing down on some bacon. My Dad, Robert, raised the corners of his mouth which folded perfectly into his unique smile. It envelops you like a blanket, holding you until it desires to part and leave you waiting for its next appearance. Dad was middle-aged and worked hard to keep us in our two-story home. He worked as an assistant for Professor Rowan of Sandgem Town before becoming an astrophysicist. He now studies with his colleagues in Jubilife City on deep space exploration but recently due to Galactic threats he started going to work less and less. Robert Ketchum had natural golden-blonde hair and murky blue-eyes. He wore a lavender, long-sleeved and buttoned shirt that were folded to his elbows and looked as if he had outgrown it. His black pants reached to the ground and ended at his dark socks. After saying he had to run a few errands, he parted with the house, leaving Rotom and I to ourselves
Rotom was one of very few pokemon that learned to adapt to the ways of humans, understanding their mannerisms. He and I share a tight bond between human and ghost unlike any other pairing. We weren't always as close as friends as we are now and it wasn't until I entered the sixth grade that pokemon had officially entered my life.
I had just come home from school. I walked because Twinleaf Middle school was just down the street from Fawkes Drive, and the door was wide open. I walked in carefully only to see Dad and a colleague of his that I knew bent over the couch with an array of things I could have pointed out from the kitchen, sprawled around the floor around them. Dad noticed me standing in the doorway with uncertainty emanating from his body.
"Aria, honey, I found a sick pokemon on my way home from work."He pointed with his nose at his friend, Max and the couch where an invisible pokemon lay out of sight. I walked up to the couch, clutching my backpack and screamed as I saw a translucent body lying there not moving.
"Aria, shh. I promise it won't hurt you, it's just sick."
"Daddy why can I see through it?Is it some kind of demon?" I looked into his young eyes with fear. He wasn't smiling and this troubled me even more than the specter that was in our home.
"Nothing is working Robert, what should we do?"Max called to them. I noticed he was sweating and had one arm on the back of his head revealing sweat stains on his buttoned shirt. Something was terribly wrong and I didn't know what was happening. Dad had said something to Max about another colleague coming by later who might be able to help the sickly pokemon. I heard a name, "Rowan," but it wasn't until seven years later when I had actually met him.
"Daddy what's wrong with the scary pokemon?" I looked at my dad worrisome. Then I looked to the yellow and white pokemon on our couch that had two lightning bolt-shaped shoulders for appendages. It was a small body encased in plasma with no definite limbs or features, except for a spike it had on its head. Dad told me that he had seen the pokemon lying face-down on the grass of a field near the laboratory and had asked Max to accompany him to see what happened. It turned out Rotom had recently battled another pokemon and inflicted a massive burn on Rotom.
"We brought it here and tried, I can't even tell how many medicines to get it back on its feet, er levitation."
Suddenly a strange man appeared at their doorway with a satchel on his left shoulder. Dad and Max welcomed the stranger who introduced himself quickly as Professor Rowan before running over to Rotom, still weakly lying on my couch and pulled out a sprayer. The pokemon shied away from the spray bottle at first, but as soon as Rowan had sprayed the burn, Rotom had felt immediate relief.
"Can you leave one of those here?" My father joked. I had already gone upstairs, and later that evening my father called me down for dinner. Rowan and Max were still downstairs. They were conversing with my father about a matter that I did not understand.
"Sinnoh isn't going to war, Max."My father assured. I looked at them with puzzled green eyes and looked over at our couch to still find a now healthy Ghost pokemon still in our house. Although, now, it had noticed me and floated weakly over to me as I flinched out of fear.
"Aria it's okay, love, it's not going to hurt you." Dad said to me as I shut my eyes tight. The pokemon buzzed around me like it enjoyed toying with my greatest fear and Max had also gone over to me and held my hand as he whispered that the pokemon was friendly.
I peered out of one eye to see the pokemon flying around the living room of my house exploring its new environment away from the dangerous outside world.
"Daddy, are you keeping it?" I asked nervously. Rowan was looking at me intently the whole time.
"I don't know, kiddo, it's up to you." I still looked at the pokemon weaving around couches and lamps as it made its way around the kitchen and over the island where my father and Max sat in front of Rowan. Dad and Max were also observing the pokemon, but Rowan was still looking at me, and I had noticed out of the corner of my eye but had said nothing.
"Have you ever played with a pokemon?" He said suddenly to me. I didn't know what to say. I had never played or touched a pokemon in my life. It wasn't that my dad forbade me from them, I had forbade myself. I had a deep fear of pokemon like they were monsters that didn't belong in our realm of existence. Their presence had left a deep trench in my mind that wouldn't ever fill and this trench bore deep into the reaches of my heart reminding me that everyday there were monsters in the world and I was their target.
"No." I said to him blankly." They don't really seem like fun."
"Pokemon are more than just fun and games, Aria, they become your best friends throughout your journeys," he stared into me. I took this in quietly and looked up at Rotom who seemed as though it was laughing.
The next morning, I awoke suddenly. It was the last day of school before the the summer began and I couldn't wait for it to be over. I woke up, brushed my teeth and went downstairs in my pajamas. Dad hadn't woken up yet and I was preparing my lunch, when I quickly realized Rotom had infiltrated the fridge and was an entire entity fridge and pokemon. I screamed. Dad ran in and held me tight only to realize that Rotom was not hostile and merely took residence inside of the fridge.
"Professor Rowan warned about this," my father began."He said Rotom was capable of seizing electrical objects and manifesting itself within them."At this point Rotom inside of the fridge was bouncing up on and down ecstatically as my father shook his head, laughing. I laughed, too.
"I need to make my lunch," I whined. Rotom, as if it understood my English perfectly, removed itself from the universe that was my fridge and floated tenderly in the air. After I had constructed a lunch for the last day of school, my Dad walked me to school. Rotom was left alone in our house.
"What if that pokemon runs away?"I asked my Dad. He looked down at me and smiled his enveloping smile with reassuring eyes.
"It doesn't need anything from us Aria, honey, if it decides to leave, then that's its own choice."
And so forth, that was what my expectations were. That I would go to school, and enjoy a nice summer with my Dad and no freakish Ghost pokemon ruining my life. Unfortunately, my day at school had not gone perfectly. These kids in my class noticed I was sitting by myself, reading during the break period and had proceeded to throw chunks of food at my head. I had gotten up and yelled at them for their insolence and they teased me until my cheeks were glistening with colorless tears. That day I ran home after school, stepping into a puddle of mud as I crossed the street onto Fawkes Drive.
I ran up to my red door and pulled out the house keys my Dad entrusted me with, still trying to keep from crying. I entered the house sobbing and pulling bits of french fries out of my hair and I ran into the kitchen without noticing that the house had been as pristine as I had left it. There was no sign of the Ghost pokemon, but I was so distraught I hadn't noticed. I had been picked on, previously, by the same group of kids and didn't tell my Dad because I was scared what he would do. I walked up to the kitchen drawer and pulled out a knife. I stared at it as a tear had dropped onto the sheath and I noticed my reflection on the blade.
It brought bittersweet memories of when I'd come home and cut after being bullied at school. When my Dad asked why I had slash marks on my arms I told him I had fallen down the stairs of the school building, he believed me. Or so I thought he did.
One day after school I came home with horrible intentions bent up in my head, and I hadn't realized my Dad was home in his office. He heard the unsheathing of the knife from the kitchen drawer and ran at me, removing the knife. By this time my sobs turned into roaring wails and he hugged me tightly, never letting go, never scolding me, never striking me.
I told him everything that had happened to me and apologized incessantly for lying to him. He didn't reprimand me or tell me I was stupid. He just hugged me and helped me through the entire mishap. I was taken to a hospital in Jubilife City and treated for minor self-inflicted wounds. I was only twelve years old.
Maybe it was my Dad's genuine kindness that changed me that frightful night and I had ways of coping with the bullies at school. However, on the last day of school a girl had taken my lunch, thrown it on the ground and proceeded to stomp on my food, rendering me hungry for the rest of the day.
I held the knife in my hand, thinking of my Dad and his kind words as I placed it on my wrist. The knife remembered slicing into my flesh in this spot previously, and it reacquainted with the scars briefly before I plunged it, tearing open a sealed wound from almost a year ago. I felt the pain racing through my body as I prepared myself for the next. The pain helped heal the misery and hunger I felt all day, but opened a new door that allowed physical pain to slam into my body. I was gearing up to go again until I heard: "Don't."
I dropped the scarlet-tipped knife and it clattered onto the ground as I peered for my Dad to be standing in the doorway of his office. But my Dad wasn't home. He was at the laboratory today and wouldn't come home for a few hours. It was to my horror, that the one who had stopped me was the same one I had just met and scared me senseless the previous night.
I was face to face with a frightening poltergeist, scared so badly I wasn't able to utter a peep. It looked keenly into my tear-stricken face and repeated: "Don't."
"What?" I whispered. It took almost all of my body to whisper that word and that word initiated the complicated relationship between human and pokemon.
"I said 'don't' do you need me to say it again?"The Ghost Pokemon shrieked. I almost fell apart, partly because of my sadness and I just looked downcast because I didn't know what I was doing anymore. First I was disregarding my father's words of self-harming and now I was talking to an incorporeal life form that I had expected to float away by the time I got back from school. In reality, I didn't break down because I was kind of glad to have someone there to stop me. Who knows what else I would have done if it weren't for Rotom staying in my home.
"Why are you still here?"I asked the floating specter.
"Your father saved my life,"said the ghost."And now I'm saving yours."
"How can I talk to you? My teacher once told me that pokemon can't communicate with humans."
Rotom looked unfazed by my ignorant remark."This is true, but some pokemon can grow to learn the language of humans and some can go as far as to communicate. This however is really only limited to Psychic and Ghost pokemon."Rotom explained."Is there anything else you want to say?"
"I wish I could hug you,"I caught the ghost off guard. I gasped at my statement and frightened myself briefly. Rotom had struck a source of courage inside of me that glue like a fire in my heart and reminded me that I had something to live for, even if now wasn't the time to express it.
"You saved me from cutting." I told the ghost and proceeded to explain my day in great detail. The pokemon actually listened to me and even made a small chuckle when I said my friend tripped before math class. I immediately grew attached to the Ghost Pokemon and evoked a bond I would never let go of for the rest of my life. When my Dad came home that night I told him what had happened. He looked disappointed at first, but hugged me gently and kissed my forehead. He smiled his smile at Rotom and turned to me.
"I think you should keep it."
"Him," Rotom corrected my father.
"You're a boy Ghost?" I inquired. Rotom nodded and my father and I just accepted this fact without making the situation any weirder.
It was decided that Rotom would sleep in my room for the rest of his life and it took some time but I slowly adjusted to the slight buzzing of his body that kept me up some nights. Now it's the only thing that will put me to sleep. I don't think I would've survived school if it wasn't for Rotom stopping me at the end of sixth grade. In actuality, I became more confident in myself and it drastically changed my personality. I busted out of my introverted shell, making more friends through the rest of middle school, and a whole batch of new friends once High School came around. All while maintaining an exponentially increasing friendship with Rotom. I even made the Girl's Varsity Lacrosse team.