Ria lived in Cianwood City with her parents. She was, her parents said, not old enough to be a Trainer; thus, she had no Pokémon of her own. However, they promised her that once she was old enough, they would take her into the nearby caverns and let her capture her first Pokémon. Ria loved to swim in the ocean and play with the Tentacool and Magikarp that lived there, and often she would pretend that they were her team of Pokémon.
Ria's life was peaceful. The occasional Trainer would visit the town to challenge Chuck, the gym leader, and Ria would watch them in wonder from a distance. Once, she approached the Trainer, which was something her parents told her never to do.
"Excuse me…sir?" she asked, in her most grown-up voice. "May I please see your Pokémon team?"
The Trainer stared at Ria for a few seconds before smiling. Without a word, he opened all six of his Poke Balls and let out his team.
Ria gazed in wonder at the Pokémon. They were kinds that she had only read about in her Pokémon guidebooks: Meganium, Dodrio, Furret, Rapidash, Weezing, and Slowpoke. She reached out a tentative hand to stroke the Rapidash's nose, but the Trainer snatched her wrist. Frowning, he shook his head and returned the Pokémon to their Poke Balls. Then, he released her wrist and went off to the Gym.
Ria felt a lump in her throat. Those beautiful Pokémon had been so close…why couldn't she have just touched one? She returned to her house, tremendously disappointed.
When asked by her mother about her sad face, Ria replied that she had stubbed her toe on a rock. No sense in telling her mother about the Trainer; Ria would most likely be reprimanded for bothering a Gym Challenger. She retreated to her room and gazed out the window at the ocean.
She couldn't remember when she'd fallen asleep, but suddenly Ria was awakened by shouting voices coming from downstairs. She recognized her mother's and father's voices, but two other voices were unfamiliar to her. Pulling on her bravest face, Ria tiptoed down the stairs. When she came to the first landing, she peered around the corner into the kitchen and froze.
"We k now he's hiding here!" a man in a black uniform was shouting at Ria's mother. The uniform had a red R printed on the front. A Golbat was fluttering menacingly behind the strange man. Its wings had knocked the framed photo of Ria's family off a table, and the glass lay in fragments on the floor.
"Yeah…our spies saw him talking to a brat that cam e into this house," a woman in an identical uniform snarled. The woman had a Persian pacing threateningly behind her.
Ria's mother shook her head. "No, no….we have no child….you have the wrong house…I don't know any Trainer…"
The man motioned to the Golbat. The Pokémon raised its wings high and then brought them down so fast, Ria saw only a purple blur.
Ria's father jumped in front of his wife to protect her and large gashes appeared in his chest. With a strangled cry, he slumped to the floor in a growing pool of red. Ria's mother screamed loudly, but Ria could not move to help her. She stood, paralyzed, as the woman nodded at her Persian.
"I think it's time you learned what happens if you mess with Team Rocket…" the evil woman purred. The Persian leapt, claws extended, on Ria's mother. It was only then that Ria unfroze long enough to duck around the corner again. She slumped down the wall before sitting on the floor, knees hugged to her chest, listening to her mother's screams as she was ripped apart by the Persian.
After a time, the screaming stopped. Ria heard the front door close, and peered around the corner again. The first thing she saw was her mother's head, lying next to her father's body.
Ria did not burst into tears. Instead, she ran up to her room. Grabbing a bag from her closet, she threw into it her Pokémon guidebook, some underwear, a bottle of water, and miscellaneous other things she snatched up at random. Then, she headed back downstairs again.
The kitchen was a scene from a horror movie. Ria contemplated burying her parents, the whole time consciously aware that she was not crying; but she decided that there was no way she could get their bodies out of the house. Not to mention that everyone would probably assume she'd committed the murder herself.
On an impulse, she picked up her dead mother's head. A quick look around the kitchen revealed the location of some waterproof bags. She put the head in one of them, vowing to bury it somewhere. Burying the head, she thought, would be enough to show that she truly loved her parents and was sad that they had died.
At this thought, the tears released themselves and she began to cry. Cradling the bag that held the head of her dead mother, Ria cried. Her tears mixed with the pools of blood on the floor.
After crying for what seemed like years, Ria left her house. She told herself that she would never return. She would not be a Trainer after all; just someone who wandered and wandered over all of Johto.
Joey sat bolt upright in bed, clutching his Rattata. "Grandma….is this story real?"
"You told me I could make up a story if I didn't remember a real one," his grandmother replied. It was not really an answer.
"But what happened then?" Joey demanded. "Is she going to wake up and it'll all be a dream?"
Joey's grandmother patted his head again. "Tomorrow, honey. You need to sleep."