CH00 – It's like Chapter 1 but 0 instead

A human aged somewhere in the late teens pulled their body up into a sitting position in bed with the posture of an unfurled paperclip that someone beat to death with a hammer. Their hair was a red amalgamation of bed-headed horror that traveled down the length of their neck and stopped in a frayed mess right at the shoulders. Rays of luminous sunlight peeked in between homely curtains hanging from a window on the far wall of the room, but it was enough to irritate their emerald eyes. They groaned in a way reminiscent of the sound you'd get from a cat stuck in slow motion as you beat it with a frying pan. Eventually the author had a stroke due to shitty, forced purple prose overdose and we had to put writing on hiatus until we could replace them with someone who isn't retarded.

**Approximately two years later**

The bedroom was still largely unfurnished, with unopened cardboard boxes occupying most of the occupied space on the floor. There was a digital clock by the bed, which was propped up on one of the boxes as a makeshift table and read 9:30. Which meant it was anywhere from 8:30 to 10:30 in the morning, because the clock was an hour off and in which direction was a mystery lost to age and a significant lack of giving a shit.

At that exact moment, faint sounds were heard from somewhere downstairs.

thud thud

Followed by not so faint screaming...

"AERO! SOMEONE'S AT THE DOOOOOOORRRRRRRR!"

thud thud

Aero, our newly named protagonist, rubbed the sleep from their eyes, grumbling to themselves during the entire process. "You're already downstairs, get the friggin' door yourself..." Aero forced their body to crawl out of bed and got to their feet. They haphazardly grabbed clothes out of another partially open box on the floor and began dressing as elegantly as someone half-asleep possibly can (i.e., not very).

thud thud

"AEROOOOO! ANSWER THE DOOR!"

"I'm working on it, chill out!" Aero shouted down the stairs in reply, while dancing their way into a pair of naturally worn jeans. They grabbed a charcoal black sport jacket hanging haphazardly on one of the bed posts and slipped it over the first shirt they had yanked out of the box of clothes first, namely one that was a tasteful shade of too-fucking-bright-green, before attempting to descend to the ground floor of their modest new home.

This was followed by crashing sounds and a muffled swear or twenty, as Aero tripped on an empty glass bottle laying on the stairs and landed ass-first on the tiled floor of the kitchen. "...Ow."

thud thud thud thud

"Stop fucking around on the floor and answer the goddamn door!"

Aero's mother, the source of all the wailing, was also in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table face-down with an empty wine bottle clenched in her hand. Aero kicked another bottle, laying on the floor near their feet, out of the way. "Are you at it already? It's like nine-thirty in the morning...probably."

"Just answer the door before my head splits in two!"

"Whatever!" Aero groggily navigated over to the front door. They didn't really want a mother with two heads. There was enough trouble dealing with one of them.

thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud

Aero's hungover mother whimpered in agony against the kitchen table.

"Okay, you can stop knocking now. Someone's at the door, I get it." Aero grabbed the door knob, turned it, and pulled the door open. On the other side was an elderly man with an impeccably squared head, a very unfashionable haircut, and wearing a white lab-coat that extended down to his knees. He held his hand up in the universal sign for "hello." Either that or it was the universal sign for "I'm going to grope you." It's hard to tell sometimes.

Aero took a step backwards. "What the fuck, don't grope me dude, my mom is over there."

"What in the world are you talking about? I was waving hello."

"Oh, sorry...It's hard to tell sometimes."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it. What do you want?"

The elderly man in the lab coat cleared his throat and quickly re-composed himself. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Professor Samuel Oak. I live nearby."

"Okay? What do you want?"

"Can I come in?"

Aero looked over at the woman at the kitchen table face-down in a puddle of her own vomit and drool. "Mom, some old guy wants to come into the hou- oh." Aero turned their head back to Oak, who was still waiting outside. "She passed out again, so it's probably fine." Aero stepped back from the doorway, allowing the professor entry. Oak was a little apprehensive, but decided to enter the house anyway because that was why he came here in the first place and it would be kind of stupid not to right after asking for permission. Aero shut the door behind him. "You can sit at the table, I guess. I'd make you coffee, but mom filled the coffee pot with bourbon and I don't know what else to do with it."

"Ermmm...thanks. No coffee is fine." Oak decided it best to take the seat furthest from the unconscious woman sprawled over the table, in a spot that her bodily fluids hadn't already conquered in the name of alcoholism. "You must be Aero, correct? You and your...mother," Oak motioned towards the bodily lump on the other side of the table, "moved to Pallet Town from the Hoenn region just recently."

Aero shoved their mother's body out of the way and sat down across from Oak. "Yeah, that's right. What about it?"

"Well...how do I put this?" Oak rubbed his chin in contemplation for about two seconds, before shrugging and going for the tried and true 'oh well, screw it' method of delivery. "Well, how old are you?"

Aero cocked an eyebrow. "Nineteen, why?"

"Okay...well you're ten now."

Aero would have cocked an eyebrow, but that already happened a few moments ago, and if it happened again Aero's eyebrows would be floating in empty air, which wouldn't make any sense. "...What?"

"Both of you moved to and became legal citizens of the Kanto region, so now you're ten." Oak explained.

"Oh, okay..." Aero wasn't sure how to follow that. "What?"

"Look. You never completed a Pokémon League challenge when you were younger, right?"

Aero wasn't sure why this was relevant to anything, but answered anyway. "I don't have any interest in that kind of thing..."

"I see...well in Kanto, the law says you're legally ten years old until you successfully become a champion in any region at least once in your life."

Aero's mouth hung open for a moment to respond, but then it closed again before saying anything. Aero stayed quiet for another moment, before eventually just responding with "What?" again.

"It's true. You're legally ten years old as a citizen of Kanto now because you've never gone on a pokémon journey while you were in Hoenn."

Aero leapt up from the chair. "What the fuck kind of retarded law is that?!"

Oak shrugged. "I'm a professor, not a politician."

"So I'm fucking ten now?!"

"Yeah, you're fucking ten."

"And if I want to be legally not-fucking-ten again, I'll have to become the champion of Kanto?"

"Well, any region is fine, but we're already in Kanto so that would be most convenient, yes..."

Aero fell back into the seat with a muffled thud. "Holy damn, I think I hate this place."

"I hear that a lot. If it's any consolation, my grandson is in the same boat you are right now...My younger, less talented grandson that I don't like to tell people about. They're both kind of retarded, but at least Blue has a little talent..." Oak rubbed his chin again because that's what people in lab coats do when they're trying too hard to look smart. "Blue is gay as hell though, so I worry about my family's next generation because my other grandson sure as shit is never getting laid..."

"I don't know who that is, why you have a grandson named after a color, or why I needed to know his sexual preferences, but thanks for sharing I guess..." Aero paused for a moment. "ANYWAY, why the hell am I only being informed of this stupid law now, and by some old guy in a lab coat?"

Oak brightened a bit at the brief opportunity to talk about how important he is, despite the jab at his age, since nobody seemed to care about anything he did anymore outside of his stupid radio show. And if he was being honest, everyone tuned in to that for Mary instead of him. And only for ASMR reasons, since if anyone really wanted to know where to find a particular pokémon nowadays, they just looked it up on the internet. "I'm in charge of seeing off all new trainers of Pallet Town, on top of my usual research as an esteemed pokémon professor. I got a fax about you the other day, so I'm here to help you start your very first pokémon journey."

"I'm surprised that you'd take time away from your research to do that. What's the catch?"

"If I don't do it the government will cut my funding."

"Huh, fair enough. I don't have any pokémon though."

"I figured you didn't have any, but that's okay. Part of my job is issuing fledgling trainers their first partner. My lab is just down the street...the only street, so you can stop by later today," Oak turned his gaze to Aero's dysfunctional parent, who was still out cold. "...after your mother regains consciousness and you explain things to her of course. Take your time." Oak stood up from the table and gave a curt nod. "I'll be heading out now. See you later."

Aero nodded back in the way people do when they really don't want to nod back but have to do it anyway. "Sure. Later. After I shoot myself in the face."

Oak threw open the front door and let himself out in a hurry, but only because he was getting tired of the distinctive scent of cheap wine and poor life decisions. "I sure am glad I decided to become a pokémon scientist instead of...whatever the hell that kid's mother is supposed to be."

Meanwhile back at the house, Aero was still sitting at the kitchen table in the same spot, trying to come to terms with what they were just told.

"I can't believe this. People still use fax machines?!"