Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon.
Chapter 1: A Stranger in Strange Lands.
First rain of the season, only rain of the year. And it was Sunday. God dammed Sunday. Sherriff Riley thought to himself. The bars were always closed on the stupid day.
"As if life weren't shitty enough." he scoffed. He continued his slow walk down the disserted main street of Gnort Town. The sheriff wasn't an approachable guy- with those brooding guns strapped around his body- but it wasn't often that the town was so empty. A gnarled tumble weed rolled past him, and the rain started to fall in heavier drops. He pulled the tip of his gallon hat down over his brow. Someone must've died. Funerals were held at the church, and everybody- mostly everybody- went. He would pay his respects later. He made a passing glance towards Bob Shouvel's Tobacco House, the front porch seeming to sparkle as the rain bounced on the wood. The sign on front door read "CLOSED" in sloppy handwriting.
He paused in front of the shop's window, catching his reflection. He figured the town had worked hand in hand with father time in order to produce his image. He had a pointed face and demeaning eyes that were a unique shade of green and yellow. His skin color matched the desert sand. Stubble grew on his chin in a small square patch, and a thin mustache acted as though it wanted to curve around the sides of his nose. He was proud of his broad chest and shoulders, and of the lean muscle that had formed around his arms, but he found himself hating his slender legs. His uniform was black, a bluish thread ran from his waist, down over his knees and onto the bottom cuffs. His vest had also been blue (now faded to gray), the undershirt was of course black. A badge was pinned loosely to the right.
The sheriff made a final adjustment to the two guns holstered around his hips and continued along his route. Now the ground was starting to turn muddy. The moment he reached the end of the main street, he turned onto a second road. Still disserted. The rain increased. It'll stop soon and the town'll be as dry as always. Gnort Town's welcome pillars were two large beams of rotting wood that stood opposite each other on both sides of the road. Between them hung a discolored tapestry that once said "Welcome ye Visitors." Now it was " el ye Visit."
Neon lights blinked on and off from a dilapidated building a few feet away. Maud's is open. The sheriff had nearly forgotten about her. Like him, Maud didn't really care to concern herself with public affairs, and was the only shopkeeper in town who didn't close on Sundays. She was popular amongst the town's hicks and red-necks, and some shadier folk whom the sheriff considered outlaws. But where they were, justice came by the bullet, not from any jurisdiction.
Sheriff Riley approached the diner, the air smelled unpleasantly of piss and cigars. Weeds crept up the building's walls and trash littered the ground below the stained windows. The drain pipe that coiled around the roof groaned as rain flushed through it. It was a wonder how the place held up, and still the sound of a piano rang throughout it. He let himself in through the front door. He shortly met an awkward silence. The piano player seemed to have stopped on cue, and just about every eye was focused on him. But what did he care, he was the sheriff after all… the onlookers should have been the ones shaking in their boots. He ignored their murmurings and found himself a seat at the bar table.
"Maud," he said, "I'll have me a beer and some chew." The women known only as Maud peered at him admirably.
"Sure hon," she replied, "I'll just be a minute." and she disappeared beneath the bar counter. The music resumed. The sheriff looked over his shoulder at the crowd behind him. He knew most of them, had shot a few more. There was a man leaning against a far table, he had curly, uncombed orange hair and a mock grin. He was drinking something, and brought the mug to his lips in an uneasy fashion.
"Haven't see him 'round here." Riley remarked. A tray slid across the counter to him, beer and tobacco was all.
"I reckon he's just passin through." Maud said indiscreetly, "Can't tell if he's up ta no good though, 'seemed drunk before he came through them doors."
"Aye. I can't say we'd survive without a drink in the morning." The sheriff replied, taking a sip.
Later, he found himself contemplating whether or not it took a man to be drunk in order to notice Maud's enigmatic beauty. This had been hours after he had sauntered into the diner. Now, at least ten empty bottles towered above his head. He recalled Maud saying, "Damn it all, ye'll die o' alcohol poisonin ye will."
"Better to die than to live through hell." he had retorted. The sheriff lifted his heavy, drunken head from the wooden counter and looked around. The piano went on, there were less folk, and that curly head was gone. Maud was sitting at a table with her feet propped up against a stool. She was motioning for him to sit with her. He staggered obediently forward, and sat opposite the women. Her perfume had not been in the least mesmerizing, but her other features seemed to flow against Riley's normal accusations, and therefore she was beautiful. Long silver hair flowed down over her shoulders and hid her ears. Her face, though obscured slightly by a scar over her left eye, gleamed white against the dimmly lit room and her brown irises were hard, containing those parts of her life she kept from her conversations.
"Marry me." the sheriff said.
"Your drunk!" Maud laughed, directing his head away with her hand. Riley smiled and made slow movements toward the front of her body. She smacked at him and he recoiled. He tried fighting his intoxicated conscious with stories about arrests he'd made, and Maud would listen. But he tired of storytelling, and found himself yearning even more for her slender waist and powerful legs that kept her moving day and night. But she had a son, and there was a law amongst folks that one couldn't sleep with a widow. So he stumbled back into the empty streets of Gnort and made for his home at the edge of town.
The rain had ceased, and the sky was beginning to clear. The church bells rung in an eerie hymn. I reckon the funeral's good and over now. He mused. He turned a corner.
"Hey, sheriff!" a voice called. He spun around.
"Ya?"
"Do you remeber the Checo O' Sal? That game?" The man facing him snarled. It was the curly head.
"Who 'er you?"
In another instant, a gun went off and the sheriff felt the blood rush from his chest as he fell into the muddy road. The sky fluttered before his eyes, then the world went dark.
End of chapter 1.
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