Eterna City was a not a very nice place to live, really.
Oh, it was big and fancy enough. There was a gym, that creepy old man who liked to dig lived here… the cycle shop, not that anyone could afford it…
But seriously. Unless you were rich, a League sanctioned Trainer (Which probably meant being rich anyway) or a member of Galactic, it was dull, with moments of terrifying excitement thrown in. The daily grind of a minimum wage job to pay the rent on the tiny little apartment I rented was interspersed by gang raids by Galactic members. Oh, the head of the organization denied involvement if anyone asked, but really… the Jennys rarely came through here. Everyone knew who the law really was in this place. Stupid uniforms aside… if a Galactic employee said jump, you jumped.
I wasn't any different.
One would think it'd be pretty easy to get a Pokemon, tour the world, and earn shitloads of money doing it. I mean, that's the story you hear all the time, the kid from a small town who battled his way to greatness and became League Champion. Yeah. That doesn't happen to most of us. For one, it takes money to get a Starter Pokemon, and you have to get it from a Professor or Gym Leader. They breed and train Pokemon specifically for it. And they're picky. Sometimes you might find a Professor willing to give a friend's kid a break and set them up, but that kind of person is few and far between.
Now, a lot of people train Pokemon without needing a Pokedex and registered Trainer License. You get people everywhere doing that. Registered Trainers come and fight them all the time, winning most of the time, but not always. Most families at least have a pet Pidgey or Growlithe or something. The trick is, most of them don't battle for keeps.
Fighting in the League is safe, believe it or not. You have all these massive, impressive Pokemon, trained to obscenely high levels by experienced trainers… but for all of that power and training, it's illegal to kill another Trainer's Pokemon. If you do, the league takes away your licence, badges, ribbons, any money you've made, and most of your Pokemon, if not all. Of course, that only applies to sanctioned trainers. If a League trainer accidentally offs some kid's Rattata, they have to pay a blood-money fee, but that's it. It doesn't go on their record, and they're just out a couple hundred bucks.
And in a town like this, where the main law is Team Galactic… you're lucky to even get that. It's not as if the Grunts ever pay it out anyway. Not even when it's a kid instead of the Rattata that gets killed. That's something else the League doesn't allow. Trainer involvement.
Of course, you've got to train your own Pokemon, and give them orders in a fight, but for a Trainer to physically involve himself… that's a big no-no. It didn't always used to be League policy, but that changed almost 60 years ago, and almost nobody even remembers League trainers ever being involved in a match. The grandmothers gossip about how the League couldn't afford the payments when the Champion at the time let his Rhydon out of control, and trampled some poor challenger. Whether it was money or ethics, they changed the rules to say you couldn't do it anymore.
To be fair, most unsanctioned battles frown on Trainer involvement too, although that's probably common sense rather than obeying any rules. Nobody gets in the way of a powered up Flamethrower or Acid. Humans just aren't as resilient as Pokemon, and we don't heal as well either. Still, a dirty or desperate fighter isn't always above sending an errant attack towards the trainer rather than the Pokemon.
Man. It's no wonder so many people just don't bother with it.
Me? I'm too busy working.
At work again, hauling boxes of frozen Poke-chow from storage up to the kitchen. I work in an all-night diner that caters to Trainers and Pokemon alike. It's not a really high-class joint, but it's solid work. No matter how slow everything else is going, people gotta eat. We get our fair share of travelling Trainers, which is where the big money comes from, especially the ones who train at night when most other places are closed. We make a pretty steady income from residents though, enough to pay the bills most months. I work in the back, cleaning, hauling food, occasionally filling in for a cook, or more rarely, a server. Dull, dull work, especially on my usual night shift.
I entertain myself on break by hanging out back, eating whatever the staff meal of the day is, sometimes with co-workers, sometimes on my own. Smoking up on Poisonpowder is popular, but not really my thing. The fumes alone make me gag, but apparently the high you get is pretty wicked. I tried Stun Spore once, and couldn't move for two days. I can't imagine how people do that on a regular basis… only humans, man. You'd never see a Pokemon doing that shit for fun. Hell, in a fight, they'll do everything they can to avoid it.
There's a group of wild ones that hang out back of the diner, going through the dumpster or eating the scraps we put out for them. After all, food they eat is food we don't have to pay to get hauled away with the trash. Over the last year I've made an acquaintance with a Murkrow, one of the 'mons who prefers to eat the food before we toss it out. It's hard to tell, but her crest is on the smallish side, so I decided she was a female. It wasn't long before she started to single me out, perching beside or in front of me, begging or stealing bites of my meal. She had this wicked twinkle in her eye that somehow made me let her get away with it. I started calling her Lilah, and she didn't seem to mind.
She started following me home too, although she wouldn't go inside with me, no matter what building it is. Still, it's pretty cool, especially once she started landing on my shoulder for a ride. I was surprised at how light she was, but when she cuffed me in the ear as she took off a minute later, I realized that light didn't mean weak. I had a bruise on the side of my head for almost a week.
So anyway. That's been my life for the last little while. Wake up, go to work in the mid-afternoon. Work for a few hours. Eat lunch with my Murkrow. Work some more. Walk home sometime after midnight, usually with Lilah on my shoulder, scolding me or grooming my hair. I have no idea how she can be so gentle with such a wicked beak.
It was all going pretty good, really, until Galactic decided to run through my apartment building.
Nobody's quite sure why they picked our place as a target. They'd only just started trying to steal other people's Pokemon instead of breeding or catching them, but there wasn't anyone training anything really special in our building. There were only 5 suites, all of them pretty small and shabby, nobody with anything really worth taking. But they went through anyway, taking everything of value, destroying what they didn't take. I got the message at work, I guess they'd gone through when everyone was sleeping. They'd doused the place with Sleep Powder, making humans and Pokemon alike lethargic and slow, even when Grunts started busting down doors and taking stuff.
Officially, they made up some bull about anti-Galactic sentiment in the building, making it out like we were trying to found a counter group. None of us were exactly full-fledged supporters, but none of us were stupid enough to speak out against them either. In the end, they stole the Linoone from the family downstairs, ended up killing the Rattata my neighbour had, and even stole the Magikarp out of the landlord's fishtank.
Oh. And totalled the place.
My boss let me off work an hour early when the news came, and Lilah glided through the air above me, almost invisible in the night. By the time I made it home, the token Jenny force this town has had already arrived, and evacuated the rest of the tenants. The place was saturated with Sleep Powder and Acid, and after taking a mask from one of the officials, I headed up the fire escape over heavy protests to check on my place.
It was worse than I'd expected. Even with the mask, the fumes were making my eyes water, but I didn't need to go inside to see my stash of money was gone, the drawer it had been in tossed carelessly across the floor. I didn't bother with trying to grab anything. I'd never get that stench out, and it'd probably make me sick to wear any clothing I managed to salvage.
They put us up in the Pokemon Center for the night, and it was the first time I convinced Lilah to go inside anywhere with me. Maybe she just wanted to stand guard, or maybe it was the fact that the place obviously was designed for Pokemon too. But she perched on the desk in the tiny bedroom we'd been allotted, head tucked under her wing, while I tried to get to sleep, ignoring the creeping sense of worry trying to steal over me. My cash gone, all my stuff…. Hell, even my clothes. I didn't have any way to replace it. It's not like I made enough money to recoup anything, that stash of bills was months' worth of scrounging pennies.
Still, at some point during my pondering, I must have drifted off, cause I woke up, bleary-eyed and still half-asleep when the Joy at the center told me a Jenny was here to take my statement. It was in a small office filled with Pokemon medical manuals, and a content looking Oddish in a locked terrarium. The Center staff probably used it to make their own drugs. Sometimes, they had to sedate or paralyze a badly injured Pokemon, and it was more reliable than using Psychics. Nothing was immune to a dose of Sleep Powder in a needle.
The interview was pretty straight forward. I was at work when the attack occurred. No, I didn't know why they'd targeted our building. Yes, I'd lost some money and valuables. No, I didn't have any alleigence or enmity with Galactic. No, I didn't know where I was going to go now, but I was sure I'd find somewhere. Yes, I'd probably be here for a couple days.
She informed me the building would be demolished, and I wasn't surprised. They'd never get the place clean enough to live in, that kind of poison doesn't come out. It did mean that I had no place to live around here, and I didn't have high hopes of finding another apartment. Not to mention that when it got right down to it… I didn't exactly have anything here worth staying for. A shit job, vaguely friendly accquaintences, but nothing worth the struggle to start over.
Heading back to my room, I debated about maybe leaving. My parents lived in Sunyshore as fishermongers, maybe I'd go there. Ironic. When I left, I swore I'd never go back to the stench of fish again. Still, it was at least an option for now, and maybe something better would come up on the way.
The trick was, I realized as I headed into my room, would be to convince Lilah to go with me. She had a flock here, after all. I realized I didn't even know if she had a mate or chicks or anything. She looked up as I entered, ruffling her feathers, then starting to preen, working at one outstretched wing.
"So, Lilah," I said, sitting down on the bed. "I think I'm going to have to leave. Go somewhere new… find some new territory, maybe." She glanced up at me, one red eye glinting in the dim light in the room, and went back to preening. "I won't be here anymore… and I'd rather not leave you behind. Do you think you'd like to come travelling with me? If you don't mind leaving your flock, that is. You don't have to… hey!"
Apparently tired of my prattling, she fluttered towards me, nipped me on the nose not quite hard enough to bleed, and went back to her grooming, making a soft, somewhat reassuring sort of growling caw. Abruptly done with preening, she fluttered up to my shoulder again, making herself at home. "Well… okay, then. That was easy."
We waited a few days before leaving, of course. The Jenny came back, and informed us that there wasn't anything else they could do, but if we wished, they would help us get a new place to stay. I declined. After raiding the Pokemon Center's lost and found for an extra pair of pants, a couple shirts, and a hoodie, I picked up my last paycheck from work, and headed out, buying a second-hand backpack and other used camping gear along the way. I sure wouldn't be able to stay in hotels, and even most Pokemon Centers charged by the night. Still, I'd hiked across the region to get here, I could hike back.
And just like that, I was off.
The problem with journeying with a Pokemon is that people assume you're a trainer out looking for fights. I'd barely even made it out of the city before some punk kid challenged me, sending out a Lilipup. I'd never been in a Pokemon fight before, and I wasn't sure I wanted to start. I'd seen what happened to careless trainers' Pokemon. Lilah, however, wasn't nearly so unsure, and launched off my shoulder, making me stagger back a couple steps. The kid crowed with excitement, sure of his victory over a novice trainer, and I really hoped Lilah knew what she was doing.
She did. While Lilipup had a wicked set of teeth on its cute little mouth, it had to catch her first, and she had the advantage of wings. She soared up, then twisted in midair, streaking downward and knocking the little dog flying with a solid buffet from her wings. I winced, knowing how much that had to hurt. The Lilipup yipped in pain, an awful sound, but rolled to a stop, getting back to its feet surprisingly quickly. I saw Lilah arcing back up again, and then my opponent spoke up. "Lilipup! It's going to have to come right down to you to attack, use Bite when it gets close enough!"
Sure enough, Lilah swept back down, and the little dog pounced on her with a speed I didn't expect. It knocked her flying, and she tumbled to the ground, screeching in rage with the Lilipup pinning her down. Then she let out an awful keen, and I saw feathers shaken loose and blood spattered on the ground. "Lilah! Get away from it!" I cried out, horrified that she'd been hurt. More resilient than I knew, she rebounded with a wicked peck, making the dog howl and lose its grip. Wrenching her wing free, she stumbled back, flapping awkwardly until she made it up into the air. Several flight feathers short, she wasn't particularly graceful, but at least she looked more mad than injured.
"Alright, good hit, Lilipup! Just keep ready, it'll have to get close to you sometime, it can't fly forever like that!" The kid was right. Lilah was struggling to stay airborne, when it was usually effortless for her. I realized that she was at a major disadvantage. That kid was actually helping his Pokemon, warning and directing it, and I was just standing by hopelessly.
Lilah's wingbeats faltered for a horrifying moment, and she dropped several feet before managing to soar back upwards. "Lilah! Go to the west, get that sun behind you!" Both of us night owls, we hadn't left until mid-afternoon, and the sun was now sinking pretty close to the horizon. She banked obligingly towards it, becoming almost lost in its glare. I could still see her, but I wasn't the one she was trying to blind. "Okay! Get in there and beat the shit out of that little dog!" I called, once the Lilipup flinched away, rubbing at its eyes. She turned, flapping painfully towards him, picking up speed.
It could hear her coming, but not soon enough, and she plowed into it, with none of the grace and precision of her first attack. She hit it head on, knocking it backwards and falling with it to the ground, viciously pecking at it, refusing to give it the chance to fight back. The dog yelped and barked, trying to squirm away, but she had both sets of talons sunk into its fur, forcing it to drag her with him. It stopped crawling, then it stopped squirming, it's cries of protest weakening.
"Lilah! Enough!" I called, jogging forward. She didn't seem inclined to let go, but the Lilipup faded away abruptly, the boy holding out a Pokeball, looking furious. He took off running, not even waiting to talk. Fine. I didn't want to talk to him, and it's not like kids had any money worth winning in a fight anyway. "Lilah? Calm down, girl. You did great, but it's done now." She was still in furious fighting form, bouncing around, searching for her vanished opponent. Eventually she calmed down at my words, and I moved closer, scooping her up. She was panting hard, her beak open and spattered with blood, her face and wing feathers matted with it.
Very carefully, I touched her wing. She flinched, and scolded me, but extended it so I could see the damage. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, I guess, but the flesh along the outside leading edge had been torn, and several feathers were missing. "Come on. Let's go get that cleaned up." I said. There was a creek nearby, and when I set her down next to it, she willingly splashed in the shallows, cleaning off the worst of the mess before settling down on a fallen log to start preening as I rinsed the blood off of my own hands.
Seeing she was alright for the moment, at least, I set up camp under a huge pine, the ground under it soft with years of fallen pine needles. I even managed a small fire, after much swearing and re-stacking of tinder. It was enough to boil some water, and to see by, since the sun had set now, and left us in twilight. I wasn't tired yet, but I also didn't want Lilah travelling with that wound. Now I understood why even casual trainers invested in Pokeballs. I'd have to buy one at the next town, or maybe beg one off a trainer on the way.
She fluttered over to me as I pulled my dinner off of the fire, reheated dinner-of-the-day from the diner. "Well, Lilah. This is probably the last meal from that place we'll ever eat," I said, pulling off a piece of crust and handing it to her. It was some kind of sandwich, the sort that you didn't ask what the mystery meat was made of. Still, she ate it without complaint, and I got a chance to look at her wing. Really, it wasn't so awful looking all cleaned up, and she was healing with the usual Pokemon speed, the deep tears already solidly scabbed over. She'd probably be fine to travel tomorrow. I also noticed she'd bit off a couple feathers from the other wing, balancing herself out. Smart bird.
"Tomorrow Lilah… what do you say about a little training? I don't want you to get hurt again, but we're going to have to fight, I'm sure." She cocked her head to the side, gazing up at me speculatively, then croaked a noncommittal response and started fluffing herself up, getting ready to sleep. I doused the fire with several fistfuls of dirt, then crawled into my bedroll beside her. Well, we'd survived our first day as a trainer and Pokemon. But I was determined to make sure she never got that badly injured again. Tomorrow, we'd train.