Hello, thanks for checking out my new story! This is not my first Pokemon fanfiction, but the first one online and the first set in a different world then the one from the games. This is a more responsible, realistic world where kids do go to school until they're of age, at which time they can continue to a higher education or challenge the Pokemon league. The legal age for owning a Pokemon and entering the league challenge is 18 years old. So that's when most people start their 'Pokemon journeys', once they're legally allowed to own their own Pokemon. Also, in this world, the Pokemon that will be included only go up to Generation V. This is because I've fallen behind on Nintendo technology and I'm unfamiliar with any Pokemon that have come from games beyond the DS. This will be true for any future Pokemon fics I do, unless I get the chance to play one of the newer games.

Quick disclaimer - this fanfiction is rated M just in case, since I will sometimes get a bit too excited when writing dark things. However, if it ends up that this fic doesn't seem bad enough for M, I will change it to T later on.

And I don't own Pokemon, of course. It belongs to Nintendo.

Thanks for checking me out! I hope you enjoy!


I don't know how I didn't see it coming. Maybe I was too stuck in a dream. Maybe I was wishing for something that could never be. Perhaps I didn't see because I did not want to see. I wanted a normal life. A normal family. A life of love, stability, and happiness. But I didn't get any of those, nothing. They were simple things, things that I should have had. But instead, the world gave my hate and pain and fear. The world has been cruel to me. So why should I be anything but cruel back?

It started when I was seven. We were downtown, walking along the river. It was a warm summer's day and the Psyduck and Ducklett were swimming on the surface of the water. I was out with my parents, throwing bread crumbs and food scraps to the birds who happily gobbled up everything I gave them. I was having fun, I was laughing. Not knowing that the little brush against the thorn bush, a tiny prick into my skin, would destroy everything.

It didn't even happen slowly. One moment I was looking over to see what had poked me and, the next, my entire body was blazing with pain. I can remember it like it was yesterday. When I looked down, my entire body was wrapped with branches, the spiky, sharp thorns stabbing into my skin. Blood oozed from the wounds as they dug deeper and deeper. And it hurt. I had never experienced anything so painful in my life. I screamed and jumped away, trying desperately to free myself from the vines only to loose my footing and splash into the lake.

The next think I remember, my parents were bending over me, asking what was wrong. They had pulled me from the river and a crowd had formed around me, a small, screaming child. I thought they were crazy. Or blind. Could they not see my entire body covered with thorn sharp spikes? Could they not see the blood that stained the water and pavement red?

They couldn't. Nobody could. We discovered soon after, once they had taken me to the hospital, that I had been having a hallucination. A very painful, very realistic hallucination. We don't know why, we don't know how, and the doctors could not think of what it even was. There was no treatment, no cure. And I was starting school next year.

Throughout the next few months, I started having these attacks in increasing frequencies. At first, it didn't come for a couple of weeks and we thought that it was gone, an isolated incident. But then it started to be once every couple of weeks, then once a week, then twice a week, then once a day, and then sometimes multiple times in a day. I was on constant alert, in constant fear, that I would get an attack. They were so painful, caused by the slightest of stimulants. A stubbed toe, a finger against my head, a cold autumn breeze. Anything, everything, could cause me to hallucinate painfully. I didn't leave the house. How could I when just the air could bring up an attack?

When school started, I didn't attend. My parents decided that they would have to homeschool me. A classroom had way too many stimulants for safety or comfort. They had to keep me home, keep me safe. For years, I was isolated, alone. No friends, only parents that feared me. They hated my screams. They grew sick of my constant attacks. They had to quite their jobs and we were losing money fast. They didn't bother to keep this a secret from me. It was struggle to move from day to day, with nothing to look forward to but more days of my parents' complaining and more pain. I had no reason to live, nothing that made me better then survive.

It got to the point where they couldn't do it any longer. They had to get a job. We had no money and were going to be evicted if they didn't get something together soon. So they dumped me in front of the school, my first time out of the hours in four yours. Me, a scared, socially awkward, sick 12 year old, alone in front of a massive building full of kids and adults and so many things that could give me a nasty attack.

But I was free. The air was open and different then my house that had grown far too familiar. There was so much to see, so many new things. It was a miracle that I didn't get a single attack on the first day. Perhaps any kind of stress had been blown far away. I was beyond stress, I was filled with wonder and awe.

We thought that we had found the solution. We thought we had found the answer. It only took a few months for our spirits to rise. With a steady source of income and me doing so well in school, the horrors of the past years seemed to pass us by. We thought the attacks had gone away for good.

But as school progressed, it got harder and harder and I found myself more stressed then ever. I became hyper aware of everything, my heart rate constantly increasing, my skin constantly sweating. What was wrong with me, I had no idea. But it all came crashing down during the math test when, all of a sudden, there was a sword sticking out of my gut.

My screams sent the previously quiet room into a panic and every chance of that normal life I had just barely tasted right out the window. My parents didn't know what to do. The whole town knew now that they their child was some sort of sick freak. That they were harboring a kid that would be better off dead. They were ashamed of me, they couldn't have me as their child. But still, I'll give them credit. Because they tried one more thing.

I don't know how many rules they had to bend and how much money they spent, or even where they got the idea. But I was pulled from class and when the next term started, I was given a Ralts. A Pokemon that would help me manage my attacks. They had accepted that I would have them, that it was unavoidable. So they gave me something that would instead save me from them.

We practiced for a few days. The Ralts could sense when an attack was coming on, when a stimulus could send me into a hallucination. She would notify me and I would leave the room and find a safe place to ride it out. It worked well enough, so I was sent back to school.

It was my saving grace. I could focus on my studies. It was, at first, difficult not to be scared, but one gentle touch from Ralts and I was gone, hiding in a closet somewhere, waiting for the hallucinations to take me. Ten minutes later and I was back in class, as if nothing had ever happened. She was my hero, my angel, the one thing that kept me going. She gave me new life, new hope. A second chance.

But it seemed that the world wasn't going to give up on me, even now, that I had finally achieved something.

The other kids in the class were, understandably, a little jealous. Pokemon weren't allowed in school and nor could they have one of their own. Having a Ralts of my own painted a target on my back. A target that they did not ignore.

You can guess what they were like. Bullies, mocking me, shoving me down, hating me and isolating me because I had something they could not have. But I endured it. Because Ralts, my Angel, she saved me. I could learn, I could be among people. I could survive this.

But then there came a day where everything broke again. And, this time, it could not be repaired. They cornered me. They'd had enough with me simply ignoring them. They held back my Pokemon as they hit me and punched me and kicked me until i was kneeling in the dirt. And, even then, they kept going. There was blood on the ground. I was losing consciousness. So Angel did what she had to do. She had never had reason to use her moves before and they were weak. But I'm guessing that Confusion still hurts. That the touch of an angry psychic Pokemon's mind would still be excruciating. They screamed how I screamed. They fell and held themselves as we ran, terrified and confused.

Whatever lies that had told the authorities, for some reason, convinced them more then my truth. I was expelled from the school and my right to own a Pokemon while underage was revoked. My parents couldn't deal with me anymore. They could not afford to move and find another school, nor could they homeschool me. I had nowhere to go. So they locked me up again, sent me to my room and never let me out.

I lived in that house, without a single day outside, for three years. Three long, torturous years, with only Angel to keep me company. They had at least spared me the mercy to allow my best friend to share in my pain.

Three years of nothing. Three years of isolation. It almost drove me mad. Almost.

I was fifteen when I finally found the strength to leave. Some residual love for my parents, a child needing a mother, or maybe a sense of familiarity or hope, had kept me there all those years. But that was gone. There was no reason to stay in that house anymore. So we planned carefully. It's easier to pick locks with a telepathic psychic Pokemon at your side. It was easier then I had ever dreamed to leave. Three years of compliance had turned my parents soft. Within minutes, I was out of the house with them none the wiser.

And we left. We left that town behind, never looking back. We did not know where to go, we did not what to do. All we could do was try and survive on our own in the big, dark world that would not give us a moment of rest. But at least we were done sitting back and rolling over as the universe tossed us around. We were done letting people throw us to the ground. We were going to show them that they were wrong, that we were strong. The universe was cruel to us, so we would be cruel right back.


And there's the prologue! From now on, the story will be written in third person and will be more coherent and focused on the actual plot. If you enjoyed, please give a follow/favorite and if you have any comments, please, feel free to share! I always appreciate criticism or suggestions on my work!