I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down...
It didn't work.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHH!"
My fist slammed into the glass. I hand't thought to put a jacket over it or anything, so I felt a couple shards insert themselves in the soft flesh between my knuckles.
"Ow."
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The idiot professor hadn't thought to put up an alarm system, but still. You don't exactly need sirens when the shattering of glass is just as loud.
Already I heard the buzz of neighbors talking. I had to get out.
No, I didn't.
I could use this chance and take a Pokemon.
I hadn't thought of stealing one until now, but why not?
I now had an opening through the window.
But it was only around 5 inches or so. The size of my head, not my body.
Of course, only a truly insane person would punch it again...
CRACK.
Too late.
I'd already slammed my other hand right at a hairline crack on top of the hole.
Now it was big enough for me, my whole 18 year old gangly body, to fit in.
What was wrong with me?
I asked myself this even as my feet stealthily carried me to the Pokeballs.
What was I doing? How would a Pokemon make me stronger?
I knew more than anyone else that strength came from within. You had it, or you didn't. Even if you placed the President's red nuclear bomb button in my palm, I'd still be...
"A weakling. Weak. Weak. Not strong enough." I was mumbling out loud to myself again.
My fingers nimbly reached out for the first Pokemon in the line. Wait, no. Best for last? Should I go for the last one? Maybe Professor Birch had the psychology of a, I'd read this somewhere before. Assertive people chose the middle stall in bathrooms. So maybe Birch put the level 10 Pokemon in the middle...
I was already long gone by the time my mind caught up with my surroundings.
My breath sounded too loud in the night. When had it become night? Clouds cloaked the treetops. Nobody was coming.
I relaxed. Nobody was coming for me.
I reviewed the events of today in my head. My hair felt too greasy as I twirled it between my fingers. My anger had felt suffocating, like a strait jacket. I'd taken off my jacket and bolted to the lab, then skulked around in the shadows. Skulk. Bad. Why was I always -
NO. No more tangents. I'd been angry at my parents, for ignoring me at the dinner table, for ignoring me at the jail cell, for pseudo adopting some newer, fresher orphan with none of my determination, none of my passion. I'd been angry at Professor Birch for closing the door in my fucking /face/ just because everyone in town knew I'd been to juvie.
That was going to change now.
No more laughing at me.
No more people calling me a DROOLING MISFIT. I pictured all the bullies, a new gang for every year, standing in single file. I pictured myself flicking my index finger, and toppling my bullies like dominos one over another...
"Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The darkness grew deeper in the dumbass mediocre suburbs I lived in. I cackled among the manicured trees.
My index finger flicked the birch. Birch. Professor Birch.
Ass.
In my left hand, now, was a Pokeball. Red as my hair.
I spun it around, half laughing, half gasping.
This Pokemon wasn't /mine/, but I could make it mine.
No. It was mine.
"To the victors belong the spoils," I recited, and I slammed the Pokeball against the tree opposite to me.
It cracked open with a burst of light, like a lightning bolt sprung forth...
