So I realised that my story was all over the place and the grammar was horrible. So this is the rewritten chapters.

Hopefully, I won't need to make more author's notes, so please enjoy the read.

The Thin Red Line

Chapter 1.1: A Journal for the Jaded

So, this is my first entry.

Not to sound clichéd or anything, but ever so often, standing boldly apart from the dull tedium that is everyday life, there are days like this. This sort of day is, in my opinion, a little bit like a huge clump of manure that doesn't come apart for easily (for spreading on Ma's flower beds). My reasons for using this analogy is this, these sort of days take way too much effort for the reward and as a result, you don't forget them easily.

Like last manure clod that was larger than my head. I swear that if I sniff at my hands carefully enough, I'm quite sure I can still smell it.

And tooday, would, in my opinion a perfect example of this sort of thing.

One day, in a long fortnight's worth of such days. Perhaps I'm a tiny bit depressed, which ought to be understandable, seeing my current circumstances which I shall elaborate on later. Though, Ma. being Ma, is very unsympathetic to my plight.

Here's what happened.

So, I was sleeping rather peacefully, when something hit my door with an almighty crash and jolted me from that blissful state of slumber that you can get only by sleeping past 9 am in the morning, right into cold, cruel reality. It's obviously Ma, of course, and as of today, I've been subject to over a decade's worth of such unique awakenings.

I'm quite sure that no one my age has bought and replaced three doors for their bedrooms.

'Get your breakfast!' Ma called, with a great enough volume to shake the window panes in their brackets. 'It won't stay warm much longer!'

I noted the underlying tone of 'get your sorry behind downstairs, NOW', from what she said above, and left the warm sheets reluctantly to step out into Sinnoh's lovely climate (do note the sarcasm). A climate so foul that it defies the heating's valiant efforts to keep the place warm. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, it doesn't matter. Sinnoh's always miserably cold.

One thing I'd like to know, is where all the sunny days in the Pokemon drama's Sinnoh arc came from. I'd say that the theories that the whole thing was filmed in-studio isn't too far off from the truth.

I endured the chilling tap water, long enough to wash my face before I head downstairs. Ma usually demands that I clean up the room before I do anything else, but I decided that I would get something to fill my stomach first. Either way, I was feeling rather apathetic towards Ma at the moment and felt the need to show a tiny bit of defiance.

'Morning Ma,' I say as I walk into the kitchen, wincing as I stepped onto the ice cold ceramic tiling.

'Morning dear,' Ma answers as she pointed towards a bowl of steaming porridge. 'Eat up now, before it gets cold.' She ordered. 'It's your birthday and I won't have you collapsing from hunger.'

'Yes Ma.' I answer, before sitting down at my place. Ma of course, is dressed lightly in one of her usual casual tee-shirts with strange slogans on them – and slacks. She's a true Sinnoh born and bred and I suppose this sort of temperature is warm enough for her. Da's from Kanto though so I would say that I take more after him, since I can't stand the cold.

That doesn't convince Ma to turn up the heating though. No matter how much I protest.

I would say that all the sweet, gentle mothers, all of whom are conveniently friends to all living things and have no trouble turning up the thermostat have gone to work for the network instead, because I swear, I only ever see them on television.

Ma isn't any of those things. She's strong willed with a vocal volume to match. She has been through the Sinnoh and Hoenn Leagues in the past, devastating her way through the lists all the way to the elite four. Although she never made league champion, I'm sure that the trainers of those bloody Leagues breathed a collective sigh of relief when she finally retired to go back to school and eventually, settle down with Da and to have me of course.

Ma's brand of love is a bit like the fish liver oil we get in Sinnoh. Tastes absolutely foul, but its chock full of antioxidants and omega three fatty acids and other rubbish like that.

Still, I'd bet that Da's found it incredibly 'tsundere' or something along those lines.

Still, sometimes, just sometimes, I would like to get pampered by the mother's you see in those drama serials. But, life and reality isn't so nice to little old me. For example, if life were anything like a live action drama, Ma would have gotten me a pokemon instead. But this is reality and reality says I get a journal instead. it was wrapped up, right next to the bowl of porridge.

So, thanks Ma, you can read the situation so "well".

Not to badmouth Ma or anything. It's a nice journal, really. It's quite thick and has a very handsome leather binding and a little strap where you stick a pen. I presume its for me to record the memoirs of my trainers journey, which, I might add, should have begun over two weeks ago if not for my little situation.

Which I'll elaborate on here.

I (and a friend who is now estranged) had imagined the beginning of our trainer's journey as something like this:

Waking up to a bright sunny day at the crack of dawn, just like the episodes of that Pokemon drama she likes to watch so much. Then you run down to the regional professor's lab to pick up your regional starter. Then comes the part where you battle your rival and inevitably win, which cues the lab to start cheering whilst you frolic off into the sunshine holding hands with a Piplup or something while an invisible narrator wonders what adventures are in store for you.

Sounds heady doesn't it?

Adventure! Friendship! Unrealistically contrived relationships!

Capturing non-existent legendary pokemon! Beating incredibly obvious criminal organizations vastly more powerful than you are, despite the improbability! Trouncing the League Champion!

Note that the last point is my goal. Was my goal.

Of course I would never really think life was like that, but a small part of me had hoped that for one day, it would be...

But then reality got in the way.

Of course it didn't turn out the way I had envisioned it. I didn't even get the start I wanted, or even a start at all. My romantic notions of a trainer's journey were dashed.

And here's why.

Watch enough of these pokemon drama serials and you might begin to believe that these Professors are actually running charitable organizations. They sit in an air conditioned lab all day with an inexhaustible supply of regional starting pokemon and then they dole them out to every dumb kid that crosses their path in exchange for some paltry research with a pokedex.

It's like being paid in solid gold bars to rake leaves.

But reality's not like that. Like I've mentioned many times so far.

Regional starters are rare, as in very rare in the worth their weight in gold kind of rare. Big sis, Professor Yew says that they're only bred in captivity and even then all methods of increasing their fertility have failed. Its probably true, because she's a professor after all, a gloomy professor but one none the less. Anyway to surmise, the regional starters are rare, and as a result, they only hand them out to the best – which means the best of the new generation of trainers.

To get one you have to apply though your school, and then they put you through a shit load of aptitude tests (which you have to pay for, the cheap bastards) and then through an advanced version of the basic trainer's package(which you also have to pay for). And finally, if you're lucky you're picked and you get the honour of paying a ludicrous sum of money for one of the damned things.

I thought that I would be that special one.

I mean, my school results were well above average and my aptitude test said I had great potential. I managed to get the the bidoof the course provided to play dead and roll over and to tackle the target dummy. I would say that studying is my strong point, so I found the basic theory test to be laughably simple and then later, the advanced theory to be barely more difficult. Even now, I am still very sure that I did much better in the trainer's package than all of the rest.

But, as the holidays began and the selection results came through the mail, I was in for a surprise.

I hadn't been chosen.

But she had.

She got a VIP ticket to Professor Rowan's lab down in Sandgem and when she got there, a regional starter as well. And by now with two weeks into her journey probably more pokemon than I have fingers.

I got a complementary pokemon association cap.

Which was strange, because she didn't even bother to take the test at all. Yet she got the regional starter.

So now, there's nothing much I can say, except this:

Well, f-damn you, you incompetent, corrupt, money grubbing Pokemon Association scumbags and your overrated, overpriced, inbred, regional starters. Since you snivelling lot obviously don't want a talented trainer, you can go rot in hell. (There are other words I want to use, but Ma might read this.)

Life isn't fair, is it?

So I'm really convinced that the only reason why she got picked is because her dad's filthy rich. Not Berlitz rich, but rich enough to own all the quarries surrounding the tiny town in Sinnoh we call home. Rich enough to tip the balance in his little girl's favour it seems.

What a maggot.

I am still quite bitter over this.

–

And so two weeks since the school holidays began, I'm still stuck at home with Ma who is convinced that I'm being overly sensitive. Then again, I didn't really expect Ma to take my side when I told her that the Pokemon Association was conspiring against the common trainer.

Ma said that I'm being a spoilt child over this, which I feel is kind of a bit of a hypocrisy, since she started out with of of those Chimchar regional starters.(It's with Da in Kanto now, probably enjoying the climate while I sit here and freeze). Going out and clubbing a Bidoof into submission doesn't feel right to me, because I hate the stupid pests with a passion.

So at Ma's urging (explicit orders, rather), I half convinced myself that starting with a starly wouldn't be so bad – if I could catch one. But my attempts were half hearted at best, and that starting with one of those pesky birds felt, well, beneath me. And after my last pokeball had been flung into the distance, missing the damned bird completely and bouncing into the storm drain, I slunk home in defeat and spent the last two weeks hiding in my room.

Ma had yelled at me for a bit, for wasting pokeballs and giving up too easily, but ironically even she gave up on that eventually.

And so while other trainers were staring their adventures into the world, I began my adventures on the internet.

I watched every season of the Pokemon Live Action drama, twice. The one she liked to watch so much. And then, I discussed and argued about them on the forums. I went ga ga over , who plays the BEST PLATINA BERLITZ EVER and joined her online fan club, and then along with my fellow club members, I sent hate mail and spam to the studio when her role ended at the end of the Sinnoh Diamond, Pearl and Platinum arc.

I read up every bit of gossip the magazines and sites could offer. Poke-watchers, legendary-chasers, Cynthia-stalkers and Rocket-Out. Obvious lies and exaggerated rumours like how Mew supposedly liked to hide under trucks or that the Sinnoh Champion, Cynthia's garchomp was actually a death robot build as a bio-mechanical artificial humanoid that went wrong. I went through sightings of UFOs, flying miko and white dragons in the sky of Sinnoh till I got bored.

I beat every touhou game on insanity. I painted all the unpainted robot models Da had left lying around when he was younger. I read up on illegal pokeball modifications and I trolled the Ash Ketchum fan club forums; with a simple procedure of writing 'RedAsh' and then sitting back to watch the flame war. (Why did they let this half wit act as Red anyway?)

I even hit a link called 'Red Facts'. I was fairly sick and annoyed with the septic tank that was 'Ash is love' and 'AshXMisty/[insert girl here] for the win,' and I found that it was something unusual. For one, it didn't have anything to do with Ketchum at all. In fact, it was practically a gem.

It amused me for a while, and kept me occupied for a good half hour at least. It was mostly as I had expected, something along the lines of ' At night, children check their closets for the boogeyman, the boogeyman checks his closet for Captain Harlock and Captain Harlock checks his closet for Red.' and also the constant presence of 'RedYou, posted everywhere.

One post did catch my attention though. A picture of a younger Red standing by the roadside. But strangely, without pikachu or charizard, venusaur, and blastortoise. Not even pokeballs at his belt. Just a lone poliwhirl standing at his side.

The caption read, 'Red's starter is a poliwag.'Regional Starters are overrated.'

This of course, attracted comments of 'shopping'', comments of 'butthurt much? Go back to your com-mons, loser' and very many accusations of being an 'obvious fake, try harder newb'. A few posts of 'Go watch the show before you post idiot, Red starts with a pikachu' later and inevitably, a flame war broke out.

In my opinion, it was an obvious 'shop', pixilated and blurry, as if taken by an old camera.

Red, the youngest League Champion ever. Demolished the Kanto League at twelve and utterly raped the Jhoto League scarcely six months later. Most records at least show him sending out a Venusaur at least, and though there's no real documentation, the general consensus is that Red managed to obtain all three of Kanto's regional starters directly from the Association.

And why not? Someone with so much obvious talent would obviously have the first pick and if he were good enough... 'Pleeeeeeese, sir, Red, take these pokemon! And all my money! And my virginity!' Or something along those lines.(Though, in hindsight, I should not have written that. Ma might see. But I don't want ugly cross-outs in my memoirs either. I'll decide later.)

I could imagine that perhaps Red was gifted enough to be sponsored with all three regional starters Then again, another theory was that Red had gotten a Pikachu off Professor Oak in Kanto. And then he had caught all the region starters by himself. I think one version of the show went with this plot?

But as much as the evidence state the contrary, the possibility that the Champion, Red could have begun with a humble Poliwag appealed to me immensely for some reason. But I was still apathetic.

I blame the internet.

–

And so that's why I was still sitting there this morning, two weeks into vacation, eating Ma's highly nutritious and highly tasteless porridge instead of adventuring around Sinnoh. Ma left the kitchen for a bit as I spooned the unidentifiable gruel into my mouth without much enthusiasm. She claims that all natural oats and grains goes into this porridge of hers, and I don't contest that claim. Rather, what I want to know is where all the taste went. On holiday in Hoenn, maybe.

I quickly ate the entire bowl, not because of any hunger or anything, but if I sat around for too long, Ma was liable to lay out an extra helping for me. But as I placed the bowl into the sink to clean, Ma returned, carrying a package.

'Dear,' Ma said. 'This came in the morning. It's for you.'

It was a package from Da, all the way in Kanto. His signature haphazard style of wrapping is still quite obvious to me, as I've received many gifts wrapped in this manner. Mummified under layers of newspapers, greaseproof paper and festive Christmas wrapping. I've even received a birthday present wrapped in wallpaper once.

This one was covered in coloured sequins and bits of tinsel. Probably because Da thought it'd be appropriate for the special occasion.

Ma passed it to me with an odd expression on her face and as for myself, I found that I didn't know what to say either. I found that it was heavier than I'd expected as I took it into my hands rattled it for a second. But its seemed fairly solid as there' wasn't much noise. It also was little damp and had a bit of a funny smell, but then again, all packages that endure Sinnoh's terrible weather end up like this.

I was excited enough but I didn't get a chance to open it just yet because Ma insisted on reading Da's letter first.

'It's courtesy,' she said. And that is that.

Most of Da's letter consists of his usual reports of his job in Kanto. That he misses us terribly and that he's lost his car keys and cell phone which explains why he hasn't called in the past week or so. And then mid way through the reading, Ma pauses, and begins to look worried. This catches my attention, because Ma is rarely worried.

'It says here, dear, that he's sent you a pokemon for your birthday.' Ma read finally.

My heart jumped in my chest and I found myself excited,to the point of nearly toppling off my chair suddenly. 'Did he say what kind?' I asked , a feeling of hope rising in my chest.

'He says that he's sent a pikachu.' Ma says as her eyes narrow, looking past me and staring suspiciously at the package.

I gave out a shout and grinned as I turned to Ma, but she doesn't look excited, or even happy. She looks worried, rather and she does not speak until after some thought. 'Dear,' She began, looking at me carefully. 'Was the package, by any chance moving? Even pokemon confined in pokeballs tend to rock about don't they...'

The feelings of elation turned to sudden horror as I stare at the strangely smelling unmoving package. I turned back to Ma.

'You know Da, he wouldn't do something like that right?" I said, but my heart wasn't in my words. 'Da wouldn't just stuff a pokemon into a box and ship it here would he? He's not that absent minded...'

Ma doesn't answer. She knows Da better than I do.

So we both dropped everything and ripped the package open.

–

Ma and I worked frenziedly, tearing away at the wrapping and ribbons which much less enthusiasm than when I first got the package. Several things fall out, wrapped haphazardly in the layers of the package. A box of soggy pokeblock, which probably went rancid some way through its trip here, followed by an assortment of other items, probably caught in the wrapping without Da's notice. The car keys for example. These Ma pockets with a scowl.

But the bundle gets smaller and smaller, with no signs of pokemon, dead or alive. A mug, another pokemon association cap, and Da's cellphone turn up. But mercifully, still no pokemon, even as we get to the very core of the package, which took the shape of a huge block sheathed in old newspaper and tape.

But it was obviously not a pokemon, thankfully.

Or Ma would've gone berserk there and then swam to Kanto or something to strangle Da.

And I wrote it down one more time for emphasis.

I tore it open and two books and several magazines fell out. They're huge tomes with dull covers and professional lettering, both of them research texts by the look of it. The magazines were of a kanto print, several issues of 'Office Politics – Protect your back!' and one of 'Advancing your career at the expense of others – What your colleagues don't want you to know!'

And all of them addressed to a certain Professor Yew.

'That idiot.' Ma sighed and seated herself down on a chair next to me. 'I think he's sent your pokemon to the professor.' She said, and rubbed her temples with one hand.

'Ah' I say. That was all I could manage at that moment.

'I hope you got my genes.' She said, looking resigned. 'And I hope you get your father's temperament. Don't lose your temper as easily as your mother, kay? You'll die from high blood pressure.'

At the time I felt torn between immense relief and excitement. A pokemon to call my own, and a pikachu no less.

Or so I thought.

Because Da's absent-mindedness has a sort of way with interfering with reality, but rarely in a good way. And if I had known what I'd have gotten into at big sis Yew's place, I would have gone back to sleep instead.

–