"I've been to many ports, but Slateport's the best!" the sailor declared.
"Yeah?" Ethan Bailey said unenthusiastically, looking around the pier. From what he read, it was a bustling seaport, with ships docking from Kanto, Johto and the Sevii Islands daily, not to mention the other ports in Hoenn. It certainly was a vibrant place. Still, considering the circumstances, Ethan couldn't bring himself to be excited about Slateport.
"C'mon, kid, you might as well enjoy your vacation. You are on vacation, aren't you?"
"Actually we-" Ethan began.
"Yes, we are. Just taking a tour of southern Hoenn," Ethan's father cut in quickly, lugging a heavy briefcase, "you know, family bonding time."
Ethan scowled. "Why do we have to lie, Dad? I thought you said-"
"Keep your voice down!" his father hissed in a low voice, "Look, I know what I said. We're just keeping a low profile."
"What exactly are we hiding from anyway? It's always 'keep a low profile', 'don't speak to the other passengers', 'don't run about', don't do this, don't do that," Ethan's sister Kate chimed in. Kate was fourteen, two years younger than Ethan, and very restless. She had been complaining about being made to stay in her cabin for most of the journey from Vermillion City in the S.S. Dratini. She loved exploring new places.
"Now, dear, I think we talked about this before getting on the ship…" Ethan's mother said, with just a hint of warning in her tone. Kate snorted, kicking moodily at a pebble. The family walked the short distance from the pier to the beach in a sullen silence. At the beach, the rest of their things were already being unloaded off a truck, and on a small boat. The boat looked battered, but seaworthy.
"Hello, Conrad," a man supervising the move waved out at Ethan's father. He was a gaunt, middle-aged man, whose few remaining hairs on his scalp were already grey, and he had a horribly mismatched sailor's hat on his almost-bald pate. "How was your trip? Good?" he asked, extending his hand as if to shake Ethan's father's hand, but instead pulled him into a bear hug, laughing. "Boy, you sure have gotten old since I last saw you! And who're your kids?" he said, glancing at Ethan and Kate.
"Uh, yeah, meet Ethan and Kate, my two kids. Children, meet my old friend, Skipler." Ethan's father introduced. The man called Skipler shook both their hands vigorously. He did not shake Ethan's mother's hand, but merely nodded. Ethan glanced at his mother, and saw that there was no love lost between the two: her lips were pursed in faint disapproval.
"Whatever happened to being inconspicuous?" Kate muttered to Ethan out of the corner of her mouth. Ethan shrugged, and followed his father into the boat.
After everyone got on, the boat spluttered into life, and the boat lurched forward. The hull groaned in protest of the weight, but the boat was soon chugging sedately westwards. "Are you sure this boat is seaworthy?" Ethan's father asked Skipler, only half-jokingly.
Skipler chuckled. "'course it is! This is one of Mr. Briney's boats."
"Huh. And I thought he didn't like you," Ethan's father said.
"Ah well, that was a looong time ago- well, I think he still hates my guts, but you can't begrudge what you don't know is missing, can you?" Skipler said with a wink.
"Holy miltank, Skip, you sto-"
"No, no, Conrad my friend, it's called borrowing. Albeit without permission," Skipler added almost as an afterthought. He patted Ethan's father on the back. "You've been away from the business for a long time, pal. And anyways, he won't miss it. I tell you, old Briney's gone a little senile with age. He spends most of his time fussing and blubbering over a wingull nowadays," Conrad made an old face and imitated a feeble voice, "oh, my darling Peeko!"
Ethan, despite his current mood, smiled at that. "How long have you two known each other?"
Skipler considered the question for a moment. "Oh, way back. Thirty years, or something like that? We were roommates in our orphanage in Lilycove when we were wee tots- it was awful, remember Conrad? When we turned ten, we ran away together. We stole some money from the guy running the orphanage and got ourselves a pokemon. We travelled a lot, and we eventually got our way to Kanto. Then we joined the-"
Skipler faltered at a quick warning glance from Ethan's father. It was subtle, but Ethan caught it. Skipler cleared his throat nervously. "Right. Anyway, we were pretty tight chums. Best friends, you might say. Then your dad got hooked up with your mum, and settled down in Pallet, while I got myself a plot of land near Petalburg."
They reached Dewford Town after a couple of hours on the boat. "Our house is on the other side of town, nearer the mountains, so we'll have to find a way to carry our stuff there," Ethan's father said.
"You mean you had no plans for this?" Ethan demanded.
"We were in a great hurry," snapped his father. And so they were. Ethan hadn't known that they were moving until three days before. You'd have thought that we'd have gotten used to it, Ethan thought snidely. For almost as long as he could remember, his family had been moving constantly, almost every year. Ethan had never stayed in one place for longer than fifteen months. For many children, the end-of-year holidays were a long-awaited occasion. As a child, Ethan dreaded the holidays, because it meant leaving his friends yet again. This year's move only represented a progression of sorts: instead of moving from town to town, city to city, this time they left Kanto altogether.
"We'll figure something out," Ethan's mother interjected. " Dewford Town seems like a nice place, and it's sufficiently isolated. We might not even have to move again. Ever." Kate hovered on the edge of saying something scathing, but seemed to decide against it, and shut up. There was a slight bump, and the boat stopped moving, signalling that they had arrived.
There was a burly man, probably in his mid-twenties, just beyond the pier, sitting on a cart pulled by a camerupt. He was clearly waiting for them. "You must be the Baileys. Got a call from the mayor that we had a new family moving in, so I came in to see if I could help," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Brawly, by the way. That's not my real name, but that's what everyone calls me."
Ethan's father tool Brawly's hand and shook it. "I'm Conrad Bailey, this is my wife Diane, my children Ethan and Kate." Brawly shook Ethan's hand with a firm handshake, doing the same to Kate and Ethan's mother.
"Well, let's get to work!" Brawly took a few pokeballs from his pocket, and threw them on the ground. Several bulkily-muscled machokes appeared, and begun carrying the big crates containing the Bailey family stuff out of the boat. The machokes worked quickly, and in relative silence, except for the occasional grunt. In no time the boat was empty.
"I'll be going then, Conrad. Ta," Skipler said, walking back onto the pier. As if he just thought of something, he turned back. "You know, I'm really glad you moved here. We can keep in contact more often, eh? Petalburg's only a couple o' hours from here using the sea route." Ethan's father smiled, and patted Skipler on the shoulder. "See you around, old friend." Skipler nodded, and tipped his mismatched hat in the direction of Ethan's mother.
Between Brawly's machokes and the camerupt, the crates were transported with ease to their new home. It was a picturesque two-storey house, with an old chimney and small garden. It wasn't very big, but Ethan had to admit that it looked rather homely. "I'll just leave you guys to your unpacking. I'll be back by nine o' clock for the machokes, if that is alright?" Brawly asked. At the affirmative of Ethan's parents, he nodded and hopped on his camerupt-pulled cart. "If you need anything, I'll be at my gym."
Kate turned to Brawly excitedly. "You have a gym?"
Brawly grinned in pride. "Yes, m'am. We specialize in fighting-types. Are you a trainer? You can come and check it out if you want."
Kate nodded eagerly. Ethan's mother wagged her finger at Kate. "Don't even think about it, young lady. You won't even stand a chance."
Brawly looked down at his slippers. "Well, uh, the gym's near the pier if you need anything. Good day, Mr. Bailey, Mrs. Bailey."
As Brawly and his camerupt trotted away, Ethan was unpacking a crate containing his and Kate's items. He rummaged through them until he found the thing he was looking for: two tiny Pokeballs tucked snugly between folds of clothes. One was marked with a flower pattern on the red hemisphere of the Pokeball, while the other one was unmarked. The unmarked one expanded in his hand to the size of a baseball, and a zubat emerged from it. "Hey, Zubat," Ethan said.
Zubat screeched happily upon seeing him. He flew a lap around Ethan's head, and landed behind his shoulder, hooking onto his shirt carefully so that his tail-legs did not dig into Ethan's flesh. Ethan tickled under Zubat's ribbed wing absent-mindedly, eliciting clicks of contentment from him.
Ethan got him from his father as a present on his thirteenth birthday. Despite initial mistrust on the part of Zubat, he had slowly grown to accept and obey Ethan. As a result of constant moving around and changing schools, Ethan had few real friends over the years, but Zubat had become his best friend, following Ethan around almost everywhere.
Just then Kate came into the house, huffing. Ethan knew that she'd just had another argument with their mother again. "Hey, Kate, I thought you might want this," he said, tossing her the flower-patterned pokeball. She caught it with ease. "Thanks." A meowth materialized out of the pokeball. The meowth Kate called Token purred and rubbed his body against Kate's leg.
"What is it about this time?" Ethan asked. Leaning against the half-empty crate, Kate picked up Token, stroking his fur. "Mom's being a control freak. She doesn't even want to let me explore Dewford Cave ! So I'm not supposed to wander around town too much, I can't visit Brawly's gym, and I can't step foot in Dewford Cave ," she complained, ticking off the list of places with her fingers. "I might as well just stay at home."
"That's the idea, dear," their mother said, hustling past into the adjacent room to direct a pair of machokes setting down a table. Kate made a face, and ran out into the garden. Token jumped out of her arms, but after a while, pranced after her.