Full Summary: Mica, a 17 year old girl from the Almia region runs away from her overly controlling father to make her life as a trainer. Even without a direct goal, there are many obstacles in her future and from her past that she finds she has to overcome to give her pokemon the life they deserve. Once she hits Johto yet another obstacle arises in the form of a nasty, red-headed boy named Silver, who has his own hidden demons to deal with.
A/N: I've been making Mica's story in my head for about…umm, a year and a half now? It's about time she gets documented.
Disclaimer: I hate writing these, so this one counts for the entire story. I own neither pokemon, nor any of the characters therein. I only own this plot and my OCs (Mica AND her team). Apart from that, I own nothing.
Many citizens yelled in surprise and irritation as a small girl with a cyndaquil on her shoulder tore through them at a sprint. A blast could be heard from a boat sounding its final horn before departure. The girl pumped her legs harder, desperate to get on that boat before it left. The cyndaquil, whom she had nicknamed Horatio at some point or another, squealed in encouragement from her shoulder, perhaps to compensate for the extra weight she had to carry with him there. The girl didn't have a pokeball for him, since she had simply befriended him a while back, and pokeballs were extremely hard to obtain in Almia, and all the other regions where rangers ruled. There was also no way he could run fast enough to keep up with the girl's long strides, being just a small cyndaquil. Nonetheless, they still made it past the crowds in the centre of town and to the small port Pueltown was so proud of. Luckily, there was no one at the port itself which made it easy for the duo to take a leap of faith off the edge, over the water (with Horatio screaming all the way) and-yes! - onto the boat.
The first thing they did was look for a hiding spot. The boat they were on was large and flat, Mica rather thought that it was an empty garbage barge, since Almia was used by many other regions as a dumping site for their own garbage. There was a small hatch in the ground near Mica's feet, and by peering inside she found it to be a storage space with a few small boxes in it and was, luckily enough, large enough for both of them to fit in. Once the duo was sufficiently hidden from view the girl settled down with the wall at her back and Horatio leapt from her shoulder to snuggle in her arms.
"Where are we going Mica?" Horatio asked, in pokespeak of course, but Mica had gotten to know him well enough by now to be able to understand him perfectly, not to mention anticipate what he was going to say most of the time. They were best friends, and knew each other inside and out.
"No idea," she replied in a whisper. "But we'll get off in the next region we come to. It's best to keep it random, so that Father can't guess where I went, not that he'll have expected me to jump on a boat. It'll be hours before he notices that I'm gone, so even if he did realize I jumped on a boat he won't be able to pinpoint the destination of the boat based off the time." Mica deliberately used 'I' instead of 'we' when talking about what her father knew, since she was very careful that he didn't find out she had a pokemon; it would have been yet another way he could use to bully her.
Horatio nodded and trilled happily at the logic of this plan. Mica smiled down at him, happy to be with her partner. Without him, she realized, she never would have had the guts to pull a stunt like this- it was only because of his encouragement and an overwhelming urge to protect him from her father that finally prompted Mica into this. She hugged him closer.
"Horatio today is the first day of the rest of our lives! We will land wherever this ship is due, and hit the ground running. We shall make new friends, learn new things, and become a strong team together. I swear to you, that I, Mica Kincaid, and you, Horatio the cyndaquil, will become an inseparable force of nature!" she suddenly burst in a heated whisper. Horatio, though disconcerted, nodded in agreement and rested his head into Mica's stomach, perhaps in an attempt to get his overly dramatic partner to go to sleep too, before more outbursts followed the first- which was somewhat of a pattern with her. Mica chuckled slightly, a little bit giddy at her own escape, and decided to take a nap as well.
When the pair woke up it was to the sound of many voices and the sound of heavy footsteps way above them. Horatio was looking up towards the sounds, worried, as was Mica that the crew would come look in their hiding spot to retrieve something from one of the boxes and find a teenager and a cyndaquil instead. Mica couldn't hear a motor running, so she assumed they had hit land. Horatio and Mica made their way out of the hiding spot and cautiously peeked to ensure that it was empty out on the deck, which it wasn't. There were about half a dozen crew members milling about and pretending to do their jobs. Or at least that's how it looked to Mica. Regardless, they didn't seem to be about to leave anytime soon. Since Mica didn't feel like waiting until it was time to retrieve whatever was in the crates behind her, she tried to casually stroll across the deck and off the boat, thinking that no one would pay her any particular attention if she didn't draw attention to herself. And when that didn't work and one of the workers saw the obviously out of place duo and alerted the others with a yell-
"Turbo… charge!" was Mica's battle cry as she hauled ass across the deck, over the railing, and onto the port below. The two kept running, Mica laughing her head off and Horatio cowering into Mica's neck, until they were in a busy street in the city beyond the pier. They reached an impressive looking building, which the sign outside told her was the Canalave City Library.
Canalave City huh? Which region is that in, I wonder? Think Mica! Remember those geography books…God those were such lame books. Hmmmm, is it worth remembering all those stupid details, and standing out here looking like an idiot when there could be more clues inside? She wondered.
"Not a chance!" Mica answered herself out loud, startling Horatio, who had wandered over to sniff at the flowers in the garden outside the library. "Come, my partner! To the inners of the looming tower of knowledge!" she brazened, charging full tilt into the library, with Horatio pumping his short little legs hard to keep up with his rash trainer.
She seems so happy, and we've only been gone a few hours. Then again, I'm very happy too…to be gone from her crazily strict father! He hardly ever let Mica be alone; he was always breathing down her neck while she was doing chores and constantly popping into her room to check what she was doing. We hardly ever got to play together; it's certainly nice now to be out in the open with her like this. It's no wonder she's exalting in this sudden freedom. Horatio bumped into her legs as she came to an abrupt halt. Looking up at her face, he saw Mica wearing an expression of obvious discomfort as she was being chastised by the librarian behind the counter for her 'rudeness and disrespect'. It was lucky Horatio was out of sight. Somehow, Mica thought that this woman would not be the kind to let a technically wild pokemon free around her precious books. Apologizing profusely, she and Horatio made their way up to the second floor.
Once on the second floor, Mica began wondering how any of these books would give her a hint as to what region she was in. Maybe if she looked at where they were published? But no, they were all published in various regions. Mica was now beginning to doubt her plan to check the library for what region she was in. Was she even anywhere near the section that held geography books?
Argh! Second thoughts be gone!
As she was standing there silently stressing she didn't notice her partner wander off to examine a man reading a book not too far away. He had piqued the cyndaquil's interest with the formal way he dressed; he was in a purple suit made of what appeared to be silk, with purple tinted glasses over his eyes, which struck Horatio as an odd combination. He went over to investigate (though he wasn't entirely sure what he would learn simply by getting closer to the man) and sniffed at his pant leg, curious if his sent would be as contradictory to his suit as his glasses were. The man looked down from his book and smiled at the little creature.
"Well hello there, little guy. What are you doing up here?" the man asked, bending over to stroke Horatio's nuzzle. His voice, though soft, was still the only sound in the library, and Mica looked over to see her partner trilling happily as a man who looked to be in his mid to late twenties stroked him. He was tall and slim, with a rather pale complexion, eyes that Mica thought could be grey behind his glasses and chin length, wavy violet hair. She walked over to collect her pokemon, giving up on the library. She felt somewhat self conscious about her appearance in front of the meticulously dressed man. Her long, straight hair that was either dirty blond or mousy brown (she could never decide which, though she was positive that the two differently coloured streaks framing her face were blond…just like her father) was probably tangled, since she hadn't had time to brush it. Her clothes were the same ones she wore yesterday, her backpack was rather ragged and old, and her eyes probably had bags under them from her poor sleep on the ship. This was really the only bit that upset Mica; she was very proud of her eyes. They were an extremely bright blue around the outer edge of the iris, but changed to an equally bright green near the pupil.
"Hey, what's this? You're going to abandon me as soon as we get here?" she teased, picking Horatio up and laughing at his sincere squeal of denial.
"That's a rare pokemon to see here," the man said, smiling at Mica, who simply looked confused. "Oh, sorry let me introduce myself. I am Lucian, of the Sinnoh League Elite Four," he said, misinterpreting Mica's confusion but answering her silent question nonetheless.
"SINNOH!" Mica shouted in happy revelation at the top of her lungs, startling everyone within earshot (which was most of the library).
Mica's journey begins! I know I said Johto in the summary, but she starts in Sinnoh. Don't worry; she'll get to Johto…soon.
I'll sic Horatio on whoever dares not to review. He's not that fierce yet but he'll get there eventually!