Ari stopped packing her backpack when she heard my answer. She snapped her head up, her slightly curly brown hair going all over the place. "What do you mean, you haven't made your decision yet, Ian?" she said to me, with genuine concern in her voice. Her big blue eyes pierced stared straight through me, and I instantly got embarrassed.
"Well, it's just that it's such a hard choice, ya know," I shyly looked at my books, as I shoveled them one by one into my backpack. "On one hand, furthering my education and getting a noble job sounds like a great thing to do…" I look back up at Ari, "But at the same time, nothing seems cooler than becoming a real life pokemon trainer! Going off on my own, catching Pokemon, fighting Gym leaders, it all seems too good to be true!" I scratched my head, lining my fingers through my pitch black hair.
Ari shook her head at me. "That's because it IS too good to be true, Ian. You know that almost nobody actually becomes a successful Pokemon trainer." Ari looked determined to change my mind. I know her like the back of my hand, because we were born no more than two weeks apart. And when she sets her mind to something, she will not back down. "If you become a Pokemon trainer, there is absolutely no sustainable income! The only way you make money is by winning battles, which you can also LOSE and end up LOSING money! Ever wonder why there are so many criminal organizations in the world?" She leaned towards me, slamming her forehead into mine. "Because of trainers who couldn't make enough money through battling!"
I went back to staring at my backpack, which was fully packed but I pretended to fumble around with anyway. "Yeah, but I think it's worth a shot," I mumbled, ashamed that she had thought through my decision for me.
I should probably give a little bit of backstory on this situation that we have going on. My name is Ian, and I'm ten years old. I live here in Twinleaf Town, with my mom and dad. It's a pretty small town, but I really like it here because it's a really tightly knit community. At the end of the school year, when a person turns ten, they have a pretty big decision to make. Either you can continue school, and become some noble profession like a doctor or a teacher or something, or you can get your starter Pokemon and become a Pokemon trainer. Right now, it's late May, and the school year ends at the end of next week. I still haven't made my decision on what I want to do!
Ari spoke up again. "You should stay in school with me, Ian. That way, we can both be safe from living like a gypsy and can get a decent education! It's not like kindergarten through fourth grade did all that much for our brains, anyway." She was determined to end this now, and bring me along with her.
"Alright, whatever you say Ari." I said, with clear sarcasm lathered over every word.
"Come on Ian, don't give me that." She looked disgusted with me.
I decided to laugh a little to lighten the mood. "Haha, don't be so serious. Just give me some time to think, okay?"
"Alright…" Ari began to pack her backpack again. We had just gotten out of school, and today is a Wednesday. We have to have our final decision in by Friday morning.
Ari and I walked out of the school doors, and began to walk home. A few minutes went by, with not much more than awkward silence. We exchanged a few words here and there, but nothing noteworthy. That is, until we suddenly heard an explosion coming from a nearby forest.
"What was that?!" Ari shouted. Panic washed over her face, and she turned pale.
I tried to stay calm. "I'm not sure!" I said. "I'm going to go check it out!"
I began to run towards the forest. As if on cue, I heard peculiar sounding screaming coming from the area of the explosion.
"Sounds like a Pokemon…" I muttered to myself.
"Ian, STOP! You're going to get yourself hurt!" Ari yelled. Her voice was shaky, but she seemed genuinely concerned for my safety.
The Pokemon cries continued. "Don't worry!" I say, still running towards the explosion, which now turned into a roaring fire. "You go get help! I'll scope out the situation!"
"A-Alright!" Ari shouted back. She ran off towards our neighborhood, probably to go get our parents.
I continued to run towards the forest. The cries grew nearer and nearer, until I arrived in a small canopy in the forest. I saw a large fire surrounding two Pokemon, which seemed to be fighting. Well, I shouldn't say fighting, because it appeared to be rather one-sided. I got a little closer. I could just make out a Turtwig, totally scalded and being pinned to the ground by a Zweilous. It must've used dragon rage or something, which would explain the massive explosion and the burn markings all over the Turtwig. It looked like that Turtwig was about to be the Zweilous' next meal.
I didn't know what to do. "There is no way that I can stop this!" I thought to myself. I took a few steps forward, not thinking at all what my actions were doing. "You're going to get yourself killed, just like Ari said!" I scream in my head, trying to stop myself. The two Zweilous heads begin to fight each other over their freshly caught prey.
I feel something come up from inside me. Something felt like it had been awakened at that moment. I take another step forward, and I'm right in front of the fire. The Zweilous recognizes that I am there, and looks at me for a second. It's two heads the begin to back off, with fear struck in their eyes. I look down at my body. My entire body was emitting some sort of black smoke, and I was seeing a red glow emitted off of my torso, which seemed to come from my eyes. My eyes have always been a maroon color, but it appears that they are GLOWING.
I look back at the Zweilous, who took its paw off of the Turtwig. It began to bear its fangs at me, looking to fight. They aren't exactly known for their "flight" response, after all.
I am no longer thinking. I let this new instinct that has seemingly awoken inside of me take over.
I dash through the fire, not even flinching. I run straight at the Zweilous, and punch it right where the two heads connect to the body. I must've moved so fast that it didn't even have time to react, because it didn't appear to even try to defend against me. I punched it so hard that it flew back past the canopy, and out of sight.
I stand up straight, and take a look around. I must've run so fast that the wind extinguished the fire, because there was nothing more than embers left. I looked down at my body. All of the smoke from my body and light coming from my eyes appeared to be gone. There was actually no trace that anything out of the ordinary had happened to me.
I looked down at the Turtwig. He was clearly very hurt by the Zweilous, because he had burn and scratch marks all over his body. He looked back up at me, in total shock of what he had just witnessed.
I laughed a little, then said "You're just as surprised as I am, bud. Are you okay?"
Turtwig's eyes began to water. It cried out, then attempted to get up. It was to injured to even stand.
I scooped him up, and hugged him tight. I'm surprised I could even lift him, because Turtwigs are notorious for being a little on the heavier side as far as small Pokemon go.
A few moments later, I heard rustling coming from the trees behind me. I turned around, half expecting another hostile Pokemon, but thankfully that was not the case. I saw Ari running towards me, along with both her and my mother.
"Ian, are you alright?" My mom questioned.
"What happened here?" Ari's mom asked.
"Why are you holding a wild Pokemon?" Ari stated, as if trying to scold me.
They were all talking too fast, and all at once. "Slow down guys," I said. "I'm doing alright, but this little guy isn't. There was a wild Pokemon attacking it, and I-" I stopped myself there. "I shouldn't tell them about what I did." I thought to myself. "That would cause a whole mess of problems and questioning that I don't know the answers to." After my pause to think, I restated what I was going to say. "There was a wild Pokemon attacking this Turtwig, but when I came here, it must've gotten scared and ran away. I couldn't make out what it was but that's not important right now." I looked at the Turtwig in my arms. It was quietly whimpering, but his agony was clear to everyone. "We gotta get this guy to a Pokemon center, right now!"
"Ok, there is one around a minute away," my mom said. "Let's hurry!"
"Alright!" everyone else collectively said. We began to run in the direction my mom pointed us to.
On the way to the Pokemon center, I thought to myself, "I think I've made my decision. I'm going to become a Pokemon trainer. On a long journey across the region, meeting new people and Pokemon, I might be able to figure out just what that thing inside of me is…"
