Chapter 2 – Leaving Home
"Where do you think you're going young lady!" Her father called as Rain opened the door, eager to head out on her journey.
"Out on my pokémon journey!" Rain stated as she turned to face him, a slightly confused and annoyed look on her face.
"You are not going anywhere before you bid your mother farewell or she'll have both of our heads" He said very sternly, walking over to his daughter and closing the door in front of her.
"Can't I just swing by her job and tell her there?" Rain whined, not wanting to wait any longer now that she had actually gotten the permission to go, "I really want to get going."
"Well… I guess that would work too" he mumbled, scratching his still stubbly chin a little and looking thoughtful.
"Wonderful, then I'll guess I'll be going." Rain mused, giving him a quick hug before opening the door again and heading over to her red bicycle with the small white basket on the front.
It had stopped raining now, leaving everything wet and damp. She wiped the seat of her bike clean and placed her shoulder bag in the basket, figuring it would be easier on her shoulders to do so, before she swung her leg over the metal bar between the steer handle and the saddle.
"Ah, wait Rain! I forgot to give you something!" Her father exclaimed, running out from the front door of their small red brick house, holding something in his hand. Rain looked at him and smiled a little, she was going to miss her father's forgetfulness, a feature that most often annoyed her otherwise. As he handed her some money, Rain looked up at him with a puzzled look on her face.
"What's this for?" she asked, holding the money up before him, being surprised that she was getting money from her father for no apparent reason.
"I didn't have time to fix a Trainer Card for you, so you'll have to swing by the Police Station to get it organized before going to the Pokémon Center in Vermillion." Dave said, smiling sheepishly at his daughter. "The Trainer Card is kind of like an ID for Trainers, you have to have one so all of your owned pokémon are registered." He explained after seeing the puzzled look on his daughter's face. "It'll only take a short while and you'll get it almost immediately, the money is to pay for the fee." He assured her and smiled warmly, pulling his robe closer to his body as a gentle breeze blew past them.
"Oh… I see, thanks dad" Rain thanked her father, putting the money in her pocket. She looked at him for a short while and then, after giving him another hug, took off on her bike. She looked back once, seeing him still standing outside their house watching as his only daughter was leaving. Sean had come out too and he was waving to her, some tears welled up in her eyes. She was going to miss them, even Sean. "I wonder when I'll come back here again?" She mumbled to herself as she focused her eyes on the road again, her vision a bit blurry from the tears that had welled up in her eyes.
The agricultural landscape drifted by slowly as she rode her bicycle, cows staring at her and sometimes even running closer to the fence to get a closer look when she rode by. The many small hills made the bike ride tiresome but luckily there were just as many slopes as hills so she did get time to catch her breath every once in a while. The roads were a bit run down and there were lots of pot holes making the ride a bit bumpy. Every now and then she would have to steer away from a larger hole so that she wouldn't risk breaking her bike or hurting herself by falling off from it. She was glad it was a bit windy as she wouldn't get as warm and sweaty from the ride from the small town they were living in to the nearby Vermillion City. Even though Turquoise Town was small and on the country side she loved the place. It was so serene and calm, everyone seeming to go around at their own pace. She rode by the local store and saw Mr. Teigara delivering miltank milk to them and she waved to him as he saw her. Teigara was a man in his upper forties that was famed around these parts, as he was the only farmer to have miltanks. The man was a bit on the chubby side and quite short and, even though the hat he was wearing covered it right now, Rain knew that he was going bald. She had heard that miltank milk was supposed to be even tastier than regular milk but she had never gotten a chance to try as it was so expensive. She guessed that Mr. Teigara was a wealthy man as he made a living from their milk and she knew that he made even bigger deliveries to Vermillion and maybe even other towns as well where more people wanted and could afford the delicacy.
She rode on quietly, stopping on the top of a hill seeing Vermillion City in the distance. She sighed contently as she realized she had soon reached her destination, the Vermillion Pokémon Center where her mother worked as an assistant nurse. She gasped a little as a beautiful butterfly like creature flew by her, admiring its beauty. She quickly got her Pokédex up to see if it was a pokémon, as she had guessed it was. She had never seen a butterfly that big before and if it wasn't a pokémon it would be kind of creepy. The butterfly stopped near some daisies seeming to feed from them, probably gathering pollen. She opened the pokédex and pointed it carefully at the pokémon, hoping that she would be close enough for it to react.
The pokédex played the small tune, letting her know that it had gathered information and the text appeared on the screen telling her to stand by as it organized the information.
"BEAUTIFLY has a long mouth like a coiled needle, which is very convenient for collecting pollen from flowers. This POKéMON rides the spring winds as it flits around gathering pollen." The pokédex said in its robotic voice, falling silent afterwards and Rain flipped it closed.
She had been prepared for the machine to start speaking this time around thus hadn't jumped or almost dropped the device on the ground. She admired the pokémon for a while longer and then decided to continue towards Vermillion.
She arrived to Vermillion about thirty minutes later, leading her bike through the town. There were some larger buildings but they had never more than ten floors, most of them had about five. She had to walk around in the town for a while before she arrived at the small Pokémon Center located between two large corporate buildings. Well, the Pokémon Centre wasn't really that small, but it looked like a small ant compared to the two large corporate buildings next to it. She parked her bike outside and locked it, walking through the doors to the Pokémon Centre.
The entrance was well lit up and felt welcoming, having a light green floor and lavender colored walls with a pokéball logo behind the front desk where a nurse worked. There were red chairs and sofas by the walls and some being scattered around the rest of the floor. She guessed that at least fifty people could be seated in there at once, and then there was a dining area further back where she guessed you could sit if the room was full. There were some people in the waiting room in different ages, some playing with a Pokémon, others sleeping. She carefully made her way to the front desk, having to wait in line as there was an old lady in front of her. The lady must have been in her eighties and she was surprised that a woman of her age was at a Pokémon Center, not having seen a Trainer of such old age. "Maybe she's just looking for someone or asking directions?" Rain thought, humming a little as she waited and reading some of the signs as she didn't feel comfortable with listening in on what the lady was doing.
The lady was done shortly, receiving two pokéballs and then turning around to leave. She smiled at Rain as she walked past her, bowing her head down a little. Rain returned the gesture and walked up to the desk, thinking the lady was kind of cool for being a Pokémon Trainer at such an old age.
"Oh, you must be Violet's Daughter!" The nurse exclaimed as Rain got up to the desk, smiling warmly at her. The woman was in her twenties, probably just having graduated as a nurse. She was tall and blonde, having a pair of brilliant blue eyes that twinkled a little. She was wearing the standard nurse uniform that she knew her mother was required to wear as well, only her mother's uniform was green instead of pink as she was only an assistant nurse. Rain was a bit surprised that the woman seemed to recognize her, maybe she had seen pictures of her or maybe it was the fact that Rain was quite similar in the looks of her mother. "Eh... y-yes I am" Rain replied, stumbling over her words as she had been a bit thrown off by being recognized like that. "How may I help you then dear?" The nurse, that apparently was named Gia according to her name tag, asked her and leaned on the desk a little. "Well, I would like to talk to my mother, it's kind of important... do you know if she's busy?" Rain asked, knowing that her mother might not be able to see her right away as she could be assisting during a surgery or something. "Sure, I'll go fetch her" Gia chirped and winked a little at Rain before going to get her mom for her.
Rain decided to sit down on a nearby chair while she was waiting, looking down at the floor with the bag on her lap. Gia came back and returned to the counter, shooting Rain a smile and a wink, which Rain found kind of funny, before helping out the next customer. Her mother appeared just moments later, smiling and picking up her pace as she saw her daughter sitting there. She was quite tall and had managed to maintain a great figure after giving birth to two children. Rain knew that the mother's of some of her friends had been jealous of that, but she had never told her mother about it. Not that she thought she'd mind, she'd probably laugh and be flattered instead. Rain was almost a teenage copy of her mother but she had a darker shade to her brown hair and she had gotten her father's green eyes instead of her mother's dark blue ones.
"Hi honey!" she called, walking over to her. "Have you been in town shopping?" she asked, sitting down next to her daughter and looking at the large bag in her lap.
"No" Rain said and shook her head slightly, looking up at her mother. "I came to say that I will be heading out on my pokémon journey today and I came to say good bye" she continued, playing with the shoulder strap to her bag.
"You're leaving already!" Violet gasped, taking her daughter's hand.
"Yeah, I received my pokémon and I thought that I should get going as soon as possible" Rain mumbled, smiling sheepishly up at her mother and shrugging a little, as if excusing herself.
"Oh… Well, I understand that you're anxious to go." Violet replied, moving her hands to her lap, looking down at the floor. "You have been nagging your father and me to let you go for the last three years or something after all" she added, and laughed a little. "So... what Pokémon had your father gotten for you?" Violet asked, looking curiously at her daughter. "I never got to see what he had bought, but he told me that it was very rare" she added, shrugging a little and making a cute face, sticking her tongue out a little. Rain laughed a little at her mother's attempt to embarrass her a little and took up the white ball and threw it on the floor, causing it to open up and letting the magikarp out. The orange colored fish flopped around on the floor, looking a bit panicked. Rain looked at her mother seeing that she was staring at the magikarp and she suspected that she was holding back a tantrum.
"H…He got you... a...a ma-magikarp?" Violet whispered, Rain guessing that it was the only way for her to keep her voice leveled. Violet didn't take her eyes off of the large orange fish that was flopping around on the floor in front of them until Rain replied.
"Yeah" Rain said, smiling happily as she picked the Magikarp up holding it in her arms. "I know that it's kind of pathetic, but I like it and I'm sure that magikarp is just misunderstood, it just needs some love and patience" she said, smiling down at the magikarp that seemed to relax, looking up at her. Violet looked at her and smiled, nodding a little. She loved how her daughter always looked at things from the bright side of life.
The pager on Violet's uniform started to beep and she looked at it, quickly getting to her feet. "I'm sorry honey but I'm needed in the emergency room" she stated, walking over to her daughter and hugging her. "Be safe now, and remember to call us every once in a while" she said and Rain could hear that she was on the verge of tears. She pulled away and looked at her daughter for a while, as if she was taking a mental photograph of her of this last moment they'd have together for a while. Rain's eyes were welling up again and she managed to give her mother another quick hug before she had to run off and help out in the emergency room.
"Looks like it's just you and me now magikarp" She said, looking down at the large fish in her arms. "KARP!" it gasped, looking dumbfoundedly around in the waiting room.