Hello all! This is Leigh, and this isn't a co-write. My object with this was to go into the Pokémon world (of the games, sorry, I don't watch the TV show I only play the games) with a more realistic approach. Well, a more realistic-for-Americans approach. I've enlarged the cities and towns, created suburbs for the cities and farmland, and greatly added to the distance between towns. It suits my American mind; when I think of regions I think "Northeast! Southeast! Midwest!" which are US regions and they are much larger than Japanese regions, to which the Pokémon regions directly correlate. I also made more scumbags, because I'm a cynic. Also, there's more diversity in the people and cultures (for instance there is a boisterous Italian family involved) and I know people are like "silly American! Diversity is just for the melting pot areas!" well that's where I live. Brace yourself for the Americanization of your favorite setting. One thing I didn't totally change is the currency, which is . It is the yen in the Japanese games, so I'm using a US dollar to yen converter to keep that correct to some extent.
Okay enough of my blabbering. Let me just give you a couple DISCLAIMERS: First, I, of course, being a silly American, do NOT own Pokémon or the Pokémon universe by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how much I wish I did. Second, I am a junior in high school, which is a big deal to me, because I have more work than I've had in the past. I'm also trying to get a job, and since I'm not a professional I plan on having my personal life mess up my writing "schedule". So take into account that this story will be updated once or twice a month and maybe more if we all are lucky. This will likely not change in the summer.
Also! WARNING: this has very mature themes, which will become obvious in the first paragraph. And seeing as so far I have a clean slate, it can only get worse from here! So brace yourself for some fluff in the not-so-near future, and some not-in-detail rape/incest in the immediate.
Go forth! Read! Comment! Hate/Love! I await your responses with much anticipation. Even if you hate it, I would love to know why, but please no flares. I wanna know the gritty details of your scorn.
Years 1-15: Odale Town
I got my first Pokémon quite by accident, and most definitely without permission. I didn't steal him, though. It was completely legal. It's just that Father would've shot him had he'd known, or any other Pokémon that came near me. Or human being, for that matter. One might find it sweet that he's protective, if a bit excessively, but it's not because he loves me. I doubt he loves any living being. Even my illiterate mother, even himself. He's never shown any care to anything but his crops. Unless you count sex as love, but I don't. I think it's just another way for him to express his anger at life, or another way to control us. Or maybe both, two birds with one stone. But it works.
The first time I realized he was more controlling than other fathers was when he pulled me out of school. I was eight at the time, and he decided that all this talk of "devil creatures" as he calls Pokémon, was intolerable. Poisoning my mind. So I didn't get to see my friends much for the next two years as they studied, and then caught their first Pokémon themselves and set off on their journeys to make something of themselves. Something, I was told from very early on, I was "no way in Hell" going to be allowed to do. I don't know what made Father so bitter towards Pokémon, perhaps some childhood trauma, but I've not spent much thought on it. I worry more about the present and future than what caused them. I spent my days daydreaming in the fields as I work and dreading the time that evening when the very real monster climbs into my bed. I don't have the time or resources for much else.
Excepting, of course, when I couldn't sleep. Sometimes, late into the night, after Father has gone back to his own room, I couldn't keep my eyes closed long enough to fall asleep, and so I went on walkabout. I was never caught, that's how I found my love of Pokémon, and eventually a Pokémon of my own, and how I kept him quiet.
For years I would go out, in the wee hours of the morning, to the forest. For a while I stayed to the paths, never coming across any other souls, but for the sounds of the nighttime Pokémon in the distance. Eventually, though, I began to wander. And that's how I started to find them. First was a starly, I remember I found the young bird Pokémon, his wing broken, on the ground and set it for him. I kept him hidden in the barn until he had learned to fly. After that it became almost a game, to find hurt Pokémon and heal them without anyone finding out. Heal something else when I couldn't heal myself. I would find mostly small Pokémon, who had fallen or trapped themselves in low branches or bushes. But then I found bigger ones, wounded poocheyenas, and a drowning zigzagoon. In the month before I found my Pokémon, my secret patients would show up with bite wounds and scratches.
Then one night, after I had dressed myself and walked sorely out to one of my favorite clearings, I heard a mournful howling, or it might've been a loud whimper. I followed the sound, though my heart was pounding. It sounded larger than anything I had ever seen in these woods. I finally stopped short, stunned when I had found the source of the noise. A wounded growlithe lay crying in a pile of matted leaves, covered on one side in blood that sparkled in the moonlight. He obviously saw me, because he met my eye but looked away, flinching. After a moment I decided he wasn't going to hurt me; he seemed too weak, so I dropped to my knees beside him, searching for the source of the blood. It ended up being a series of slashes on his flank, probably from a wire fence. He also had a collection of swollen stings which I assumed were from beedrills, and scratches on his short snout. Overall, he was in bad shape.
I spent over two hours next to him, after fetching a pail of water from the well and some cloths. I cleaned his wounds, including the stings, and pet his wide head until he purred. He seemed much more comfortable once his bleeding had stopped, though a little weak still. I worried momentarily if he would be safe during the day if I left him before I realized he must've been the creature inflicting the bites and scratches I had been treating for weeks now. He was probably the most dangerous creature in the woods. So I left him, but came back every night to nurse him back to health. He became something of a companion to me.
After a week, he had regained enough strength to hunt again, though he sometimes reopened his wounds. I stopped bringing him food after ten days because my father had become suspicious. But he was fine after a while, and accompanied me on my walks many a night. It was a problem, at first, finding Pokémon and healing them when he was around, but he learned quickly that an animal wasn't to be touched if I saw it first. He learned to hunt during the daytime, and if I found something beyond help, I would give it to him. Two months passed like this, and we were a month into fall when it all fell apart.
By then I'd taken to calling him Rup. It was what I had begun to say to warn him off my patients, and it evolved into his name. By then, he also knew where I lived, though he had (thankfully) never tried to come near or inside the house. He often times waited just inside the trees by the back door for me if he knew I was coming. But again, he never came in. until one night, when I screamed.
See my father had had a bad day. The crop count was devastatingly low, and a Pokémon trainer had messed with his stand at the market and the cops hadn't caught him. I knew when he got home that it was going to be a tough night. And it was; he stayed longer than usual that night, and I hurt more than I had in years. I suppose I must've screamed, perhaps a few times, because Rup heard something. He had been waiting by the back door, I knew, but suddenly he was in my room, the roaring emanating from him shaking the flimsy walls. I saw him jump onto my father's back and bring his head down, and it was over in an instant. I watched in disbelief as Father's body rolled off of me and onto the floor, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.
"Rup!" I yelped as he lunged for his throat, waving him off. I heard a gasp and my head snapped up in time to see my mother, looking especially frail in the dim light. Rup's hackles rose and I grabbed the scruff of his neck in panic. "Mom, I-I" she covered her face and ran down the hall before I could finish any sort of explanation. Then Rup turned to me, his eyes wide and confused. I patted his head, panic making tears blur my vision as I scrambled out of bed. I had to leave, and never come back. I would be blamed, and even worse, Rup would have to be put down.
I hurriedly and shakily pulled on a pair of jeans and my favorite jacket; pale corduroy with big brass snaps up the front. I snatched my knapsack from the hook on the door and looted my dresser, stuffing all I could think of into it. I didn't have many clothes, but I still left a lot in the drawers. Then I stepped around my father's still body to my night stand and grabbed a brush, journal, a pen and all the money I had hidden in the slats underneath the single drawer. I would count it later. Then I turned to Rup, who had been standing on my bed, watching me with his dark eyes.
"C'mon Rup," I said shakily. "We're leaving now." He seemed to understand because he got down from on top of my sheets and followed me out of the room, down the hallway and to the front door, where I paused. My mother was nowhere to be seen, and I figured she had run to the neighbors' who lived half a mile down the road. No goodbyes tonight.
I beckoned to Rup and we left through the front door. I even closed it behind us. Then we ran.