Chapter 1: A Spark
My name was, Thomas Elita. I was perfectly normal once, as was the day in which that was changed. I was awoken, as per normal by my Starly alarm clock. I was then awoken again by my mother, 15 minutes after my alarm gave up on me. I showered, dressed, ate breakfast and was out my front door by 8AM to catch the bus which left for Sandgem Town, 15 minutes later. I would get to the lab in Sandgem at about 8:45 to start work at 9. This was normal, and the rest of my day proceeded in the same manner, perfectly normally. I'd feed the pokemon, read through some of the professors notes, run any pokemon who got injured to the pokemon centre and finish by asking Professor Rowan about any pokemon related questions that may have hit me through the day.
I suppose, when compared to other 14 year old in this world, I am in fact, slightly different. I never left home at the age of 10 to travel the country. Not to say I didn't want to, but I knew how to prioritise. At the age of 10, most kids in this world leave their comfortable lives behind in order to experience a world of hardship, whilst simultaneously building up a small army of super powered creatures who will bow to the every whim of their 10 year old slave driver. Okay so I'm paraphrasing, I know that there's a lot more love and friendship involved and its actually only 6 creatures and they have their own morality in regards to following commands, but it does sound cooler when said like that. The reason I'm not a part of that world is because, I want to be the best. The very best. Not some kid who travels for a couple of years and gets a little bit of a rep, I wanna succeed! In order to do so, I made a deal with the professor at the age of 9, he gets free labour, I get to learn all I can about pokemon before I leave on my journey. It sounds amazing, but it comes with drawbacks, my two best friends, Barry Pearl and Dawn Diamond both left when they were 10, travelled together, became closer whilst I was slowly squeezed out because I wasn't there with them. I still see them... they come back for holidays and my birthday. I always check out their pokemon and list off some obscure fact about one of them to prove I'm doing something too, I know I'll eventually catch up to and surpass them, but I do sometimes feel a little bit alone, being the only remaining teenager in Twinleaf Town.
Anyway I digress... the whole point of this is to show that on a day where I truly felt like my life had become some parody of 'Watchog Day' where every day was gonna be exactly the same as the last, was also the day that somebody threw a spanner in the works. Or to try and give a better representation of what happened, it would be more appropriate to say, somebody threw a spanner in the works and then shat on everyone who happened to be nearby at the time.
"I'm home!" I called walking through the front door of my house in Twinleaf Town, greeted by the smell of another classic mothers dinner.
"Hello sweetie, good day at the lab?" My mum called back to me whilst trying to balance an unreasonable number of spices to throw into whatever she was cooking.
"Have you ever considered picking them up one at a time to prevent throwing them all over poor Pachirisu?" I laughed looking over at my mums only pokemon, who was watching her with concern etched onto his face as she all but juggled spices through the kitchen.
"Where is the excitement of that? We're having chilli for dinner by the way, you can start on the rice of you like!" She called back, finally putting the spices back into the rack, apparently satisfied with whatever combination of them she had chucked into the food.
"Yeah, no problem, just gotta wash my hands, was playing with some Lillipup at the lab before I finished, Unova doesn't appreciate how lucky it is to get such a cute native pokemon!" I replied dropping my bag next to the table and heading over to the sink.
"We have Bidoof over here! They're pretty cute." She said patting her Pachirisu
"Yeah but they got those huge teeth! Definitely got nothing on a Lillipup!" I answered.
"Okay sweetie we need to talk, you always said you would leave on you journey after you had learnt all you needed to about pokemon, in order to succeed on your journey... I'm not trying to get rid of you or anything but why haven't you left yet?" She asked me steering the conversation in a considerably less light-hearted direction.
"I just... I dunno I'm not totally convinced that I'm there yet!" I replied looking down at the floor.
"Why not, you could easily out match any trainer in terms of knowledge about pokemon, but what you need now is the experience to apply that knowledge, it's no good to have the knowledge if you're not gonna use it, and I personally think you're ready to go on your journey." She exclaimed, she was always so good at giving me orders without making it sound like she was telling me what to do. I knew this was one of those times, she was telling me to leave for my journey but making sure to convince me it was my choice before I did so. My thoughts were interrupted after that by a loud bang from somewhere outside.
"What was that?" I muttered.
"Oh probably Dawn and Barry battling again, they got back this afternoon! They keep showing off their pokemon to the younger kids here but it always ends up in a battle with those two!" My mum laughed but was cut short by a high pitched scream from down the street.
"What the hell..." I muttered going to the window. There were a load of men and women all and dressed in some strange looking space suits, while each of them had their hair cut into a perfect bob and dyed a cosmic blue. It was like a strange parade marching around the town with a variety of powerful looking pokemon at their sides.
"Who are they?" My mum asked joining me at the window.
We weren't prepared for what happened next. One of the men called out a Floatzel, then grabbed a woman from outside her house and pulled her head back whilst his Floatzel slit her throat. Then the world caught up with me. The spacemen were pulling guns out and shooting everyone they could see whilst their pokemon began ripping into people with claws and fangs. Crobat were circling overhead, diving down to bite anyone who was susceptible enough to an attack, Floatzel were bursting out of houses with blood soaked claws, Houndoom were bathing other houses in flames whilst a few Luxray prowled around the outskirts of the town, frying anyone who tried to flee into the trees. I saw the familiar sight of Barry's Torterra further down the street. It managed to take out a Floatzel but quickly disappeared beneath the fire of a Houndoom.
"We have to go and do something!" I exclaimed in horror as my mum pulled me away from the window.
"No we have to get away! Neither of us are trainers and these people are clearly not gonna stop for that, we're leaving!" She replied grabbing a knife from the kitchen counter and pulling me towards the back door, gesturing for her Pachirisu to follow.
"We can't just leave them here!" I retorted pulling my arm free and turning back the way we came.
"We can't die here either! Dawn and Barry will probably escape with their pokemon but for everyone else here, it's probably too late to do anything!" She yelled back to me. I still wasn't convinced until I heard somebody kick in our front door, luckily for us, our back door was in the kitchen. I followed my mum out but stopped when I noticed a Luxray slinking around the trees near the end of our garden.
"What about the Luxray?" I whispered to my mum as she began heading straight towards it,.
"Pachi can hold em off," She replied shuffling forward, careful not to make any noise. I began forward after her but it was too late, my moment of hesitation cost me as I felt a hand grab my wrist. I spun around to come face to face with the barrel of a gun. I squeezed by eyes shut to brace myself for the end that never came, instead I felt my arm go slightly numb and heard my mum scream at the man who was no longer holding me. I opened my eyes to see the spaceman lying rigid on the ground, eyes still wide open. Before I could do anything else, my mum jumped onto the unmoving man and jammed her knife into his throat, just as a Floatzel charged round to the back of our house. Pachirisu wasted no time in pumping the water type with electricity while my mum was getting up off the ground. The floatzels body hit the floor and with it, went any situational awareness I may have possessed.
I felt myself begin to fall to the ground as I lost the ability to think clearly. My vision became hazy due to my eyes watering and my hearing was blocked out by a fuzzy sound similar to the white noise that accompanies the static of a television. I was only just aware of my mums arms underneath me and pulling me. If I had any idea of what would happen next, I would have been quite happy for the world to stay that way for me forever, however, that was a luxury the universe wouldn't let me have as I was rudely brought back to my sense by another piercing bang. I snapped out of my haze just in time to see my mothers body crumple to the ground in front of me. I heard a horrific screech like noise come from the Pachirisu nearby as it unleashed the most devastatingly powerful Thunder attack I'd ever seen, directing the power into the spacewoman who had put a bullet into the back of my mums head. I could feel the effects of the power myself as my hair began to rise slightly from the sheer power of the attack that scorched the woman and left nothing but some charred remains and a nasty smell as it began to die down. The next few minutes passed by as if I was watching myself as some ethereal being, merely observing the gruesome scene taking place. I ran to the trees with Pachirisu, who was using Light Screen to ward off the electric attacks of the Luxray, however as I reached the cover of the trees, I turned to see my mothers exhausted Pachirisu give up. It gave me a resigned, half hearted smile as the barrier of light guarding him broke and the fangs of a Luxray clamped themselves closed around the Pachirisu's neck. All I could do, was further into the trees.
It wasn't until nearly two hours after the death of Pachirisu that I finally ran into a clearing in the trees. I didn't realise until much later in my life, how lucky I was that there had been no living humans nearby to see me escape Twinleaf Town, only a Luxray who was powerless to tell anyone of my escape. Hopefully. The clearing had obviously been used by trainers before to camp out, as there was a firepit with a couple of tree stumps surrounding it as well as a ruined back pack, a potion and a pokeball which was lay on the ground nearby one of the stumps.
"Oh thank Arceus!" I muttered as I went to collect the dropped treasures, I paused however when I noticed the button on the centre of the pokeball was glowing red. This was to indicate to trainers that the pokemon inside was in critical condition and the pokeball was holding it in some strange suspension state which would prevent the condition of the pokemon from worsening while contained within it. One of the more recent technological advancements Silph Co. had managed to produce.
"I wonder what happened to you then..." I muttered out loud before stuffing the minimised pokeball into my pocket, alongside the purple vial of liquid, used to heal the wounds of a pokemon.
"I gotta get it to Sandgem Town ASAP!" I said sitting on the log, allowing myself to rest for five minutes before pressing on to Sandgem, which I knew was still about two hours away.
I'm to this day still eternally grateful for the existence of pokemon centres. I ambled my way into the Sandgem pokemon centre only seven minutes before midnight, after running non stop for so long to try and distance myself from the horrors that had taken place back at Twinleaf Town. I had gotten lost somewhere between the clearing and Sandgem Town but I had ultimately still managed to escape what would have been a grizzly end. However now I had to try and escape the broken fragments of memory that would still force their way to the front of my mind every now and then to make me want to sit in a dark room and wait there for death to put me at ease.
"Tom, what are you doing here so late?" The nurse at the desk, who I knew to be called Leah, asked me.
"I um.. I have an injured p-pokemon," I stuttered as I handed the pokeball I had found earlier over the counter.
"Oh okay... are you still up at the lab? I thought you finished at 5? She asked taking the pokeball from me without looking down.
"Oh no, I found that on the way here... it's um... it's in critical condition I think" I rambled pointing at the light glowing on the ball. She gasped as she caught sight of the dried blood on my face and clothes.
"Okay I'll go and give this to nurse Joy, then we'll see about getting you sorted out, yeah?" She asked, her tone of voice changing to something so sickeningly sweet, that if I hadn't just survived a mass homicide I might have called her out on it. Instead I nodded at her and wandered over to one of the seats in the waiting area and dropped myself into it.
"So, how about you tell me why you wandered into a pokemon centre, in a town that you don't live in, at midnight with a pokemon in critical condition and your clothes covered in blood?" Leah said, returning from the backroom not even five minutes after she had left.
"It's a long story... I don't think I even know half of it myself." I muttered, feeling tears well up in my eyes at the thought of trying to recall everything that happened. Luckily, Leah sensed this and took to rubbing my back as I sobbed, rather than prying for further information.
"So why are you here right now?" I asked Leah after nearly an hour later, I finally found my voice enough to speak again, the question was nearly pointless anyway, I knew from many trips into the centre whilst I was working at the lab that she was training here for part of a course to become a pokemon doctor, but I didn't know why she was still here this late.
"I'm in the later stages of work experience now, so I have to do some of the rougher bits for a couple of weeks to make sure I experience everything before I leave again, it's rough but it means I'm nearly halfway done!" She replied happily, beaming because I was finally coherent enough to speak. The conversation carried on from there, just small talk about what we were doing with our lives. It was nice to have something distract my brain from replaying the horrors of the evening and she was good company. Apparently she was nervous because the next part of her training meant she had to go on a pokemon journey for a year and earn four badges in the process. I couldn't bring myself to speak to her about Twinleaf Town, so I stuck to my goals of becoming a trainer when she began to ask questions.
Nurse Joy came into the lobby an hour after our conversation had begun and she marched over to where I was sat with Leah who was now deciding between going for all eight badges, or doing the minimum requirement and taking a more relaxed approach to her travels.
"So, news on the pokemon. It's a female Starly who allegedly belonged to a trainer by the name of Andrew Chambers, judging from the time stamp on the pokeball, it has been that way for nearly eight months now. The reason it went into critical condition is because the pokemon inside wasn't strong enough to break out of the pokeball and consequently, began starving to death inside the ball. The life support system in the pokeball managed to prevent the Starly from dying, however because she was trapped in there for so long, her body has become weak. We managed to treat her somewhat inside the pokeball using our normal machines so she was healthy enough to be released from the pokeball and undergo proper treatment." Nurse Joy recited only pausing long enough between sentences to breathe.
"That's good news, so she's going to be okay then?" I asked, my voice shakey in anticipation of what was coming next.
"She will, in time, recover back to full health, however before we talk more, I want to know how you found this Starly, or why you're even here! What are you doing up in Sandgem at this time?" The nurse pressed, trying to maintain a friendly disposition but the serious undertones of her voice made me all too conscious of the fact that she wasn't taking no for an answer. However, I found myself appreciating the phrase 'saved by the bell' more than I had done before now, because as I opened my mouth to answer, the TV which had been running in the background switched to an urgent news report. I gestured for Nurse Joy to keep watching as coverage of Twinleaf's destruction began to answer all her questions.
"-and it is confirmed now that respected Sinnoh League challengers Barry Pearl and Dawn Diamond were reportedly visiting the town earlier today and both have been confirmed dead, along with every other resident of the tiny town in south-west Sinnoh. I have been Keira Lambert, you're watching Jubilife TV"
After the report finished both Leah and Nurse Joy turned to me with looks of remorse and confusion etched onto their faces.
"They said no survivors, but you, you're-" Nurse Joy spluttered whilst Leah failed to remove her hand from over her mouth. Before I had the chance to reply, the door to the pokemon centre opened again and we all turned to see a man with short dark hair, wearing a long brown trench-coat step into the centre.
"My name is Looker, I'm an agent of the international police," He announced flashing up a badge, "I'm here to talk with Thomas Elita in regards to his death earlier this evening."