Alarms sounded as two figures sprinted down a hallway, their faces hidden by cloaks with hoods. Footsteps and shouts were heard behind them as they plowed through the doors leading to the outside. One figure struggled with a large box that hampered his movements while the other tried to guide him through the rain and mud to a car, hidden in the forest. Behind them the door blast open, with about a dozen armed guards pouring out, scattering in different directions, desperate to find the two people with the box. The roar of the car's engine filled the air and the guards tried desperately to reach it, but no one was even close as it smashed through the closed gate and soon was out of sight into the Unova country side.
-Cole-
A young boy lay in his bed in the bustling Nimbasa City sleeping soundly, that is until a Servine crept into his room and smacked across the face with a vine whip, then raced out of the room. Cole jolted awake with the sudden pain on his cheek and let out a yelp. As he gathered his thoughts, he could hear his older sister Karen howling with laughter in the hallway.
"Good morning, Cole! Aw, sorry. Did I wake you?" She asked, tears welling up in her eyes from laughter. Her Servine, Regi, had a smirk on his face as he looked at Cole with the signature Serperior evolutionary line glare. Karen bent down to hug him and returned him to his pokeball in a flash of red light, far too bright for Cole's newly opened eyes.
"Uh, rude! I still had about ten minutes left on my Xtransceiver for my alarm!" Cole moaned as he flopped back into his pillow.
"Well it's not that bad" Karen said with a smile, "Besides today is your last day of school before graduation tomorrow and oh my gosh! I'm so excited for you!" Karen took on their mother's voice for the last part, which made Cole smile.
"I'm kind of nervous for the exam today, though. They've never made us battle all the way until a Pokémon can't battle anymore. I'm really stressed out. What did you do during the exam?" Cole looked at his sister who rolled the pokeball in her hand that held her beloved Regi. She looked at Regi's ball as she spoke, obviously remembering every detail of her battle.
"It was just so natural for me, it's hard to explain. Of course, Regi was only a Snivy then too, and I had just gotten him; but we connected as though we knew each other our whole life, it was just so amazing." She smiled and looked at Cole, "I didn't realize that they would supply you with a Pokémon from the school until you told me yesterday though, so hopefully you get one that's at least obedient. Even if you lose the battle, you still graduate and can still go on the gym circuit, just without the award they hand you at the end. Tomorrow, however, you get to choose your starter so that's super cool." Karen finished and got up from Cole's bed and started for the door.
"You really didn't answer my initial question, but thanks anyways." Cole grinned as his sister turned around and rolled her eyes.
After being dropped off at school by the bus, he made his way to the outside field, where when he was 8, watched his sister destroy her opponent with her Snivy, not even breaking a sweat. Now three years later, was standing in line in the school's cafeteria listening to the battles outside. There was no TV or anything to view the battles outside so that the kids who had not gone yet had to come up with their own strategies, but of course some information had leaked its way into the room, filling the class with curiosity.
"Apparently, we're going against students from Striaton City!" One kid exclaimed. Another chimed in as well;
"…And they've got to use Patrats, Lillipups, Purrloins, and Pidove only…" Someone else yelled across the rooms.
"… I've also heard that you battle more than once! Just like a real competition!" Soon the whole cafeteria was abuzz with rumors and gossip of people winning or losing.
Soon the room had less and less people, until finally the loudspeaker came on "Can Cole Henvery please report to the battle field, I repeat, Cole Henvery to the battle field, please."
Cole felt his heart as though it were in his throat as he stepped out of the cafeteria and into the sun. Hundreds of families sat in the bleachers wearing the yellow and green school colors to represent Nimbasa City Trainer School, while another group, noticeably smaller in numbers wore bright blue and white, representing Striaton City Trainer School. Cole looked through the crowd for his family, who he spotted quickly. His sister had Regi out next to her and his parents were screaming his name at the top of their lungs, waving little flags with their school's symbol on it. Cole smiled, but was also terrified of the thought of failing in front of his family. The referee approached him and told him to come to the middle of the field to greet his opponent. As he walked down into the stadium, another referee was guiding a girl toward him and he could only assume she would be his opponent in the upcoming battle. She had dark brown hair, that was long and swept to sit on only one side of her shoulder. She had a fierce look in her eye as they approached. The referee put them directly in the middle of the field and asked them to shake hands.
"Hello! I'm Cole Henvery, nice to meet you!" Cole cheerfully said as he smiled and shook her hand.
"Hello, I'm Katherine. I wish you luck trying to best me. You'll need it." Katherine's face never faltered through the entire interaction; staying as serious as she looked when she walked over to greet Cole.
"Uh, good luck to you too." Cole said, feeling a bit more uncomfortable due to her passive aggressive nature. Before they turned to receive their Pokémon from the refs at the end of the field, she turned quickly around again and had a face made of guilt as Cole walked toward the referee.
"Oh, um, Cole?" Cole turned around as he heard her speak with a slightly less cheery face as he had when he walked up to her, which only made her feel even worse. "Sorry about that, I, uh, wanted to sound strong, but I think I made you feel bad. So, um, I…, it's just that… never mind. Good luck." Her face turned bright red as she glanced toward her side of the stadium and hurried off the field to get her Pokémon.
Cole also hurried off the field to get his Pokémon. This was it. His hands were shaking as he took the pokeball and made his way to the podium to conduct the battle. He still had no idea what Pokémon he was going to get which made him more nervous.
"Ladies, gentlemen, and Pokémon!" The announcer shouted through the microphone, "These two students have only one Pokémon to use, and they don't know what it is yet! Let's hope that the years of school they went through have taught them enough to have a fair battle. Let the battle begin!"
Cole threw his arm back and tossed the ball onto the field, which exploded into a white light to form a Lillipup, who barked eagerly and turned to greet the human who Lillipup could tell was very nervous. Cole smiled at the Lillipup and yelled through the cheers from the crowd, "Hello Lillipup! I'm Cole. Nice to meet you!" Cole looked up at another white explosion from across the stadium and when it cleared, another Lillipup stood and barked somewhat ferociously for being just a young and small Pokémon.
"Ok, Lillipup! Run in and Tackle!" Katherine called from across the field and her Lillipup came charging over.
"Lillipup, dodge it and keep running!" Cole's Lillipup took off to avoid the oncoming Tackle and kept sprinting toward Katherine's side of the field. Cole took advantage of Lillipup being on the run now and yelled, "Lillipup hit him when he stops at my side of the field!" This plan was put into action right after he yelled it and his opponent's Pokémon took a hard Tackle to the side.
"Lillipup, Bite!" Katherine screamed, and Cole's Lillipup took a bite, unable to get away in time. Already, the two Pokémon looked tired from being so young. Katherine ordered her Lillipup to Bite again, but Cole was already telling his Lillipup to get away, and Katherine's attack missed.
"It's ok if you miss, just keep going at it! Now Leer, then tackle. Let's finish this battle early!" Katherine called and caught Cole's eye as she looked up, which still had the same energetic glint as it did when they first met. He's got a plan I think, so hopefully I can have mine fall into place first! Katherine thought to herself as she watched her Pokémon prepare for her commands.
"Ok, Lillipup, she's trying to win the battle right now. Let's keep trying to keep her at bay! When Lillipup gets close to you, slide to the side and tackle as he passes you." No sooner than he said it, his Lillipup jumped the side and as Katherine's Pokémon tried to stop, His Lillipup slammed into his opponent's side, knocking Katherine's over a cloud of dust. "Now Bite!" Cole yelled, but he was unable to see what was happening in the dust cloud. For a moment everything was quiet, even the crowd who had been cheering this entire time, everyone waiting for an outcome. When the dust settled, Cole's Pokémon bounded happily toward Cole and the crowd saw Katherine's Pokémon fainted. The Nimbasa City half of the stadium cheered and yelled, while the Striaton City half clapped politely (and somewhat grudgingly) but cheered Katherine too.
Cole was ecstatic. His first "real" battle… and he won it too! He looked down and saw the puppy eyed Lillipup wagging his tail. Cole picked him up and hugged him, to which he received many licks. "Thank you! Thank you so much! You were so great!" He laughed as he sat him down and Lillipup jumped around at his feet. The referee approached him.
"That was definitely one of the better battles I've seen today. Congratulations! We need to take you to your opponent now, so… say goodbye, Lillipup." The referee said and nodded his head to the Lillipup.
"Thank you so much Lillipup. I hope we meet again one day." Cole hugged the Pokémon one more time, then returned him to the ball in a flash of red and handed it to the ref, who escorted him down to the field. Katherine was also being guided toward him by an official and Cole could tell she was embarrassed, which made Cole feel uncomfortable.
"Uh, Hello Katherine. That was a great battle. I'm really happy that it was against someone that has the same mission in mind of beating the gyms." Katherine smiled for a split second, but once again turned awkwardly to face the crowd. Her pale green eyes scanned the crowd, before locking on a spot towards the upper section of the seats.
"Thanks Cole, but I'm the top of my class, it's just this wasn't how it was supposed to turn out." She faced Cole once again and shook his hand and quickly walked off the field. Cole walked away to find his family, who he knows would be very excited to talk to him about it.
After a wonderful dinner at Cole's favorite restaurant in all Nimbasa City with his family, Cole decided to take to a walk around his neighborhood just to ease his nerves about tomorrow's graduation ceremony. His neighborhood was positioned just outside of the city, meaning that there was plenty of space for parks, trees, grass, and for the houses to have backyards. It was beginning to get dark, so the streetlamps flickered on and off and finally came to life with an eerie buzzing sound that filled the air. Cole kept on walking, occasionally looking at his Xtransceiver just to message friends. Most of Cole's friends had no ambition to go on a long and grueling journey around the Unova region like Cole did. This didn't mean they didn't want Pokémon, its just they preferred to do their own thing. At first Cole was upset about this, but he came to peace with it after a year or so.
Lost in thought about all the adventures and possible friends he could meet on his journey, he had walked much further than he thought and was in a more rural part of Nimbasa. Most of the houses had spaced out so much that it was hard to see the next one in the row. He sat down just for a quick break on a pathway bench and looked at the Xtransceiver on his wrist, which cast a blue light that made Cole stand out in the darkness that was creeping up fast. A message popped up from his mom.
"Cole, are you on your way home? We want to talk to you some more about todays battle! Much love, Mom :)" Cole read aloud to himself and looked down the street lined with the orange street lamps. He never did much care for how the street looked at nighttime, it was rather spooky.
*CRACK*
A chill shot down Cole's spine and his eyes widened at the unmistakable sound of a twig cracking. He jumped up from the bench and looked at the wooded area, frozen waiting for another sound to verify that he wasn't hearing things and that it was real. He started to ease up a bit and was about to start walking home when it happened again, but much more aggressively and the row of bushes rustled and moved until a dark shape shot out of them and came heading straight for Cole, as Cole turned to run it stopped and after a couple seconds Cole stopped too and saw a long, purple, scaly Pokémon staring at the bushes from where it had just come from. Seeing that it was a Pokémon eased Cole's nerves a bit, but he couldn't exactly tell what it was. Its slender body relaxed, and it drooped its head a bit, still staring at the brush as if it was waiting for something.
Cole went to take a step toward it to see if it was friendly or in need of some kind of help, as it seemed all scratched up and bruised. However, it heard Cole's step and immediately whipped around, it tensed its body up and seemed to grow bigger, a buzzing filled the air that seemed to come from the Pokémon itself. The serpent opened its mouth and hissed in an extremely intimidating fashion as it slowly edged its way closer to Cole.
"Woah! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be around here, in fact I was just leaving to head home." Cole frantically waved his arms in the air trying to show the enraged Pokémon that he wasn't a threat and stumbled backwards a bit.
"I'm not going to hurt you. See? I'm leaving. Right now. But… Do you need any help? I can help." Cole stood where he was at and bent down, which the antagonistic snake started to settle down and looked at Cole with curious, yet cautious eyes that would dart back to the bushes every now and again. The snake relaxed its body even more and soon the tail stopped rattling too.
"Do you need help? I can take you to the Pokémon Center. Do you know what that is?" After a slight pause in which the snake continued to stare at him with large yellow eyes, Cole continued, "Do you have a trainer? Someone who looks after you? Can I come closer?" After he asked, Cole stepped cautiously towards the snake. He could tell it wasn't a species of Pokémon that originated from Unova. He had only seen these types of Pokémon in his books at school and he was struggling to find the name that he knew he was once quizzed on.
The purple snake just watched him as he approached and didn't move a muscle. The snake hissed quietly when Cole reached his hand out and started to softly rattle its tail,
"Oh, it's ok, I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help." Cole held his hand out in front of the snake which flicked its tongue at Cole's hand, before leaning in to touch Cole's hand.
"Hello, thanks for not biting me. I'm Cole. I'm going to take you to a Pokémon center now." Cole started to walk backwards, guiding the cautious wild Pokémon to the nearby center that (luckily) was just about two blocks. At first Cole thought that two blocks wasn't going to be that much, but the Pokémon would react to any sound it heard and would freeze, making Cole stop before it felt safe to move again. After literally a 30-minute ordeal, the glass sliding doors to the Pokémon center slid open and after another five minutes of trying to get the snake to go inside, Cole finally was able to approach the desk and ring the bell for assistance. He saw a nurse pop out from the back room and approach him with a big smile.
"Good Evening, how can I help you?" The nurse asked cheerfully before noticing the hurt Pokémon at Cole's side, "Oh dear! What's happened to this Ekans? Is it yours?"
"No, I believe it's wild. I've just found it down the street near the woods and it looked all cut up." Cole said as the nurse rushed around the counter, which Ekans didn't particularly enjoy and immediately hissed and shook its tail.
"Oh, um, it seems to not trust me quite yet. Do you mind brining it to the back? Just follow me."
"Are the injuries serious?" Cole asked the nurse as she rushed about the room getting towels and shots ready.
"It doesn't look like it, but Ekans are very aggressive, so I will have to tranquilize it." As the nurse pulled out the shot, Ekan's eyes widened and started to thrash about the room, hissing and striking at the nurse. The Pokémon pressed itself against Cole trying to keep the needle as far away from it as possible. After another five minutes, the nurse, who had grown rather irritated with the whole affair, finally managed to inject the shot and after just a few seconds, Ekans was out cold on the floor.
"There! You can wait in the lobby. It shouldn't take too long to fix Ekans here up."
Cole made his way into the lobby and flopped into a seat. He looked around and the place was completely empty, however they did have a frozen yogurt area with a sign that said "FREE!" in many different colors. After grabbing his frozen yogurt and eating in silence, he realized his mom has no clue what's happened to him, after all he was supposed to be heading home so he called her.
"Hello? Cole? Is that you? Are you alright? We were just about to head out to look for you!" His mom's voice was obviously filled with worry, which made Cole feel bad about not checking in sooner.
"Sorry mom, I had an encounter with a wild Pokémon called an Ekans and it was injured. I'm sitting in the Pokémon center now waiting."
"Really?! A wild Ekans in Unova? That's bizarre. Are you sure it was wild and just not lost?" Cole could hear his dad in the background pressuring his mom for answers, but she just shushed him and continued, "Did they say whether or no it was going to be okay?"
"Oh yah, I'm sure it'll be fine. The nurse didn't seem too worried about it, but it was a heck of a journey trying to get it into here."
"Well tell me tomorrow, honey, because I'm exhausted from sitting through 100 battles at your school today and now that I know you're safe, I can go to bed. Good Night!"
"Good Night!" Cole hung up and after sitting for another couple of minutes, drifted off to sleep. A strange swirl of colors filled Cole's vision which was accompanied by noises, almost like voices, but sounded almost foreign. He struggled to try to figure out exactly what was happening, but had a feeling of extreme dread built up, as if he was being hunted. He also felt sore all over his body, which made it even harder to process what was happening in his… dream? He thought it had been a dream, but it felt real, even though there was no way that made any sense. Perhaps he was just tired, but even though it made no sense, his gut was telling him it was very important. Maybe if he could just wait and- *THUMP*
"GAH!" Cole screamed when he felt something touch his shoulder. The nurse stood over him with a concerned expression.
"Sorry to wake you, but you were making strange noises and fell onto the floor out of your chair and I didn't want you to get hurt." The nurse took a couple of steps back trying to act as though nothing happened and continued, "I have some good news though! The Ekans you brought in is all back to good health. She's resting in the same room as before if you want to see her."
"Oh, thank you so much! Sorry about the noises and stuff, I was having a very strange dream… I think?" Cole said and realized how off putting the last part was, but it seemed as though the nurse didn't mind at all.
"No problem! I'm heading back to my break room, so if I don't see you leave, have a nice night!" The poor nurse was obviously exhausted from dealing with the temperamental Pokémon as well as it being well past midnight.
Cole hurried down the hall, but cautiously opened the door as to not set off Ekans again. When he walked in, Ekans, who had been curiously surveying the room, shot her head towards Cole, but visibly relaxed when she realized who it was. Her head was attached to a computer that seemed to be monitoring her entire body, with a complete diagram of all Ekan's bone structure and organ functions. She lay her head back down on the table and watched Cole take a seat next to her.
"Well, I'm glad you look much more relaxed. You also look way better than when I found you." Cole nervously laughed and awkwardly tapped his hands against his knees as Ekans just continued to stare at him. "So… what were you doing in the woods all beat up? It's rather rare to see Pokémon from other regions here in Unova, unless you go a bit past Lacunosa Town near Route 12." This time Ekans turned to face him and coiled up in front of him, hissing ever so softly as if trying to formulate an answer to Cole's questions. "Um, well I better be going. I'll come back tomorrow to see how you're doing, okay?" The snake Pokémon hissed long and slow, as if disappointed. "Oh! That was really nice!" Cole's heart melted at the look of sadness in the Pokémon's eye and even though Ekans had just met him a few hours ago, it was nice to see her relaxed and not angry. "Good night! See you tomorrow!" Cole walked out of the Pokémon center, feeling quite pleased with the way things turned out and hurried home to escape the chill in the air that always came around this time of year from Drift veil City.
Cole quickly changed when he got home, brushed his teeth, and hopped in bed, excited for the big graduation day tomorrow and then being able to set off into Unova to meet new people and see new places. If he was lucky, he could beat the gym leaders and venture out of Unova to the other wonderous regions of the world. After dreaming of what it could be like, he finally managed to slip into sleep.
