My uncle had ruined my whole plan.
I shut the door behind me and let Eevee jump onto the floor. Then I collapsed into a Swalot-shaped beanbag chair in the corner of my room and tried to make sense of what had just happened.
Why would I want to be a trainer, anyway?
Nobody had thought I would want to do this. Neither did I. Nobody would guess it from looking at my room—there was the beanbag, and a few Pokémon League collectible figures on my desk, but the beanbag was a gift and those figures were going to be worth a lot of money some day. This Eevee was only the third Pokémon-related thing I'd ever owned, and just like the first, I hadn't asked for it.
Well, everyone else in my class was doing it. It seemed like a good idea at the time to say I'd do it too.
I pulled out the Pokéball the Eevee—my Eevee—had come in, and turned it over in my hands. The smooth red-and-white surface was flawless, except for the tasteless gold lettering. I wondered if it would come off.
I couldn't be a trainer. I wasn't ready. Sure, I'd told my mom I wanted to. But just convincing them to sign the paperwork could take weeks, and then I'd have to travel to New Bark Town to register with Professor Elm, because apparently the distinguished Professor was too scatterbrained to do this by mail, and by the time I got my first Pokémon, I would know what I was doing, and I'd know it was the right decision.
And now I had an Eevee. I had a Pokémon, and that was all you really needed to be a trainer. Now I would either have to do it or admit I didn't want to after all. I would have to admit I was wrong to my dad, and to my classmates, if any of them would be left next year…
I saw movement from across the room. My new ball and chain had apparently gone exploring, and was crawling around underneath my desk. I noticed that one of my collectibles had fallen to the floor, and so did she. She stalked up to it and began nudging it with her nose and paws.
All thoughts of Pokémon training were instantly forgotten. "Hey! Don't touch that!" Eevee jumped and darted away, and I ran to retrieve my precious figurine, checking it carefully for any damage. It would be worthless if it got scratched, and besides, I liked to keep my things in good condition.
Then there was a whimpering from behind me, and I turned to see Eevee's tail poking out from her hiding spot under the bed. It was pathetic, and it made me feel just a little guilty. I hadn't really meant to scare her, though I'd done that a lot already. I sighed, and went over to sit on my bed, pulling the trembling Pokémon out from under it and sticking her on my lap.
"Sorry, Eevee." I hesitantly stroked the tuft of fur sticking out from the top of her head. "I shouldn't yell at you. I know." I held the figure in front of her. "You were looking at this? She nodded, slowly. I adjusted the figure's arms and cape into a suitably heroic pose. "See? It's Lance, the dragon master. He's the best member of the Elite Four, the strongest trainer in the Pokémon League. He's got a Dragonite… And an Aerodactyl, but I'm missing that one. It was limited edition and I could never really find one…" Eevee continued to nod, though I doubt she was following me at this point.
I stood up and replaced Lance on my desk, in his position at the head of the Kanto-Johto Elite Four. "Will, Koga, Bruno, Agatha, Lance," I recited, counting them off. "These are the best trainers in the league, Eevee. The best in the world." I gazed at the lineup, but for once, it didn't make me any happier. I could swear they were leering back at me.
All new trainers made it their goal to beat the standing champion of the League. It was the only way to amount to anything these days. So that would have to be my goal. But how did you even start to do something like that?
I sat down in the desk chair and buried my head in my arms, groaning in defeat. People like Lance trained Pokémon probably from the day they were born. People like Lance didn't have to worry when they made a decision, because they were smart enough to always be right. People like Lance didn't have to worry about whether their dad was right that they should stay in school because they couldn't be a good trainer, because they were the champion, so they were obviously good and they'd obviously picked the right path in life.
People like Lance were the best for a reason.
"I can't do this, Eevee." I sank further into my chair, and heard her feet scuffing the carpet. "I don't know what I'm doing. I bet you can't even fight, can you?"
She gave a soft whine, and I knew I was right. I sat up and looked at her. "So I have to train you. How am I supposed to do that?" Clearly as clueless as I was, she just shook her head. I muttered a curse under my breath and went to look through the bookshelves. My mom had given me some books on Pokémon theory when I first mentioned this crazy idea to her. Maybe one of them could give me an idea.
I pulled out one of them labeled "The Practical Usage of Pokémon Behavior Therapy as it Applies to…" followed by a bunch of scientific nonsense. It looked smart enough, so I began to thumb through it, stopping at a chapter about "raising young Pokémon". I squinted at the tiny text and began to read.
"'Often, the greatest obstacle to training an inexperienced Pokémon for battle is teaching it to overcome its instinct to flee from a stronger opponent… As shown in Skinner's Rattata experiment, see section four-B, operant conditioning can be key in…'"
My eyes glazed over, and I shut the book. This was too scholarly even for me. Well, onto plan B: make something up. Something helpful and creative. "…Okay, Eevee, tackle that wall."
As soon as I said it, Eevee flinched and backed away. "Come on, Eevee. Please?" She took another step back, and I started feeling desperate. "Please, Eevee. I'm stuck with you as my first Pokémon, and I don't know what I'd doing, and if I become a trainer then we'll have to fight other trainers at some point and if we can't fight then…" Then what would happen? I didn't know. Something horrible, probably.
I suspected I was starting to sound more pitiful than Eevee, but if that was how it had to be, then… "Come on, Eevee, I know you know I'm bad at this, but I'm supposed to be your trainer, and that means I have to teach you to get strong somehow." If I couldn't do this, with an easy Pokémon that was favored as a starter by ten-year-old girls, how was I supposed to train a real Pokémon, caught from the wild, that probably wouldn't even like me?
"Eevee, please, please please please please just try something." I clasped my hands and begged her. If this didn't work, there was nothing I could do. That would be it.
Eevee dropped her head, leaving me to panic for a few more second, but then she looked up and gave a tiny nod. I exhaled, so thankful for the fact that she was probably too young to ignore orders for very long. "All right. Let's try it. Tackle the wall."
"…Vii." She scrunched up her little face and started to charge towards it, but just before she hit, she threw her hind legs forward and skidded to a stop.
"Eevee, it's not going to hurt you…" I paused, thought about it, and tapped an experimental finger on the wall. "Well, maybe it's going to hurt a little. But not worse than any opponent would."
"Rii…" Her ears went back and she stared at me, wide-eyed.
"Okay… Okay, maybe we'll start with something a little easier." I went to retrieve my beanbag chair from the corner, was reminded that it was much heavier than it looked, and strained as I pulled it across the room. Finally, I got it positioned in front of the wall. "There. Can you hit that?"
She hesitated. That was a no. I grabbed a few pillows off my bed, and threw them on top of the beanbag, nearly clipping her in the side of the head. I grunted an apology and gestured to the new pile. "It should be easy now, right? Can you do it?"
She examined it, then hunched over and ran forward. This time, she hit it at full speed, and gave a small chirp as the pillows came down on her head. "Ee! Ee-vee!"
Well, it was a start. "Good job, Eevee." I shut my eyes and gave silent thanks that she wasn't completely defunct, and hopefully, neither was I. "Let's do it again."
At least she was listening to me. Not like my parents' Pokémon, or the ones at the Daycare.
"Eevee, you…" I stopped. "Wait. Eevee. You need a name, don't you?" Everyone else named their Pokémon, or at least, that was what I was told. If I was going to do this the right way, then I'd need to find something to call her that wasn't "Eevee". It had to do with a Pokémon's self-confidence, or maybe it was their sense of identity, or, I didn't really know, I didn't listen to all that psycho-babble my mom and dad went on about.
But what could you name a Pokémon? "Uh, I guess you could be… Um…" She watched me in anticipation, which started to unnerve me, until the point where I gave up. "…I can't think of anything, Eevee." She was clearly disappointed. I sighed. "Just keep going, okay? I'll think of something."
As Eevee ran into the pile of pillows again, I went to stare at my bookshelves for a while. Maybe one of these books would have something I could use as a name.
And once I picked a name for her, I would need to figure out what I would be doing starting tomorrow. I still wasn't sure whether I would be training, but if I was, I would need to find a way to convince my dad, and…
I'd think of something. It would all be clear by tomorrow, for sure.
"Huh. I think we're out of paint."
He breathed silently and didn't answer. Just keep quiet, she'll forget you're here, she'll go away…
No such luck. Her awful white boots appeared next to him, followed by her head, turned upside-down to watch him.
"Did you hear me? I said we need more paint."
Given that he was currently arm-deep into the mechanical guts of a dead machine, he didn't appreciate the implication. "Does it look like I can help you? Go get one of the new recruits to do it."
"Can't. They all got sent to Azalea for that new assignment." She sighed and flopped down next to him. "I think we were supposed to go too, but after the way you botched everything last time, I guess they left us behind."
Once again, he'd been reduced to nothing more than a mechanic. This thing didn't even need a mechanic, it needed a priest. Clenching his jaw, he yanked his arms back and pulled himself out from under the engine. "I'm done with this. You fix it."
Her eyes widened. "You want me to do it? But… Really?"
"I'm not doing this anymore. It breaks a different way every time, it never starts working until after we really need it, and I'm sick of trying to change that. Either you do it, or they can find someone else."
A huge grin broke across her face. "Thank you! It's been ages. Nobody ever lets me work with this kind of stuff anymore, not since… Well, you know."
He rolled his eyes as she got to work pulling apart the pieces of the delicate machinery, and went to seat himself in the cockpit. Unfortunately, the inside was no better than the out and the ripped seat was possibly less comfortable than the ground.
It was true. He'd screwed up last time. But it wasn't his fault. They couldn't possibly expect good results when they only let him work with the incompetents.
He hissed through his teeth and tapped his fingers on the controls. So a little routine information heist had turned into full-scale bloody warfare that ended with most of their men dead or in jail. It wasn't his fault. In any case, he didn't deserve to be saddled with… Her. Not again.
So he'd screwed up last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. But how was he supposed to make it work when the same… damn… things… happened… every… time? No matter what he did?
In a sudden fit of anger, he grabbed the control stick and pulled. To his shock, the motor sputtered, then roared to life. The blades turned, and the whole thing lifted a few inches off the ground before shaking wildly and crashing back down.
Oh.
There was a yell, and his partner appeared at the door, hands on her hips. "Hey! What'd you do that for? You almost cut my arms off!"
He neither heard nor saw her—his eyes were shut, and he was swept up in a surge of euphoria so strong he might have been drugged. This shouldn't have worked. He hadn't let himself consider that possibility and neither had they. But he'd like to see them laugh at him when he was flying over them with a few tons of firepower pointed straight at their—
He smiled. Forget everything that had happened before. Lady Luck was clearly with him this time, and everything else ought to go through without a hitch.
He extended a hand to his partner, who eyed him suspiciously but climbed in anyway. "Things will be different this time," he murmured, giving a quiet laugh. "We'll make it work."
She studied him for a moment, then launched right back into complaining. "Your stupid bird took my Mankey wrench and won't give it back. And I'm not going anywhere in this till I finish painting. It's dingy. It'd be an embarrassment."
The insult to Ace made his smile falter, but just for a moment. "You can finish," he replied, only half paying attention. "There's still time before our next job."
"Yeah, I guess…" She frowned and stuck her feet up on the console, crossing her legs and making her skirt fall in an unladylike manner. "Hey, Doc?"
He returned from envisioning scenes of joyful carnage just long enough to answer her. "Yes?"
"Time time—we're going to be the very best." She winked and flashed a victory sign.
He smiled and tipped his beret. "That's right, Holly. The very best."
Five or six hours later, the plaster on the wall was beginning to crack, and I was starting to feel a little better about this whole "Pokémon training" thing. After talking myself through it for a while, I decided that I probably really wanted to go travel and train, just like every other normal kid, but my dad had me backed so far into a corner that I couldn't admit it to myself. If I didn't leave soon, his mind games would work and I would never go at all.
I'd looked through some books and compiled a list of arguments to support traveling, as well as counters to common arguments against it. I figured they ought to be enough to convince both my dad and me.
"All right, Eris," I said, addressing my newly-named Eevee, who opened one eye to stare wearily at me. "Let's go through this again." I cleared my throat, pushed up my glasses, and started reading down the list.
"Number one! A lot of Pokémon professors today have had real-world, in-the-field experience as trainers." I didn't really want to be a professor of Pokémon, but it ought to make my father happy anyway. "Number two: most really good Pokémon trainers started out when they were young, so if I don't go now, then I definitely won't get anywhere. Number three…"
I continued reading off each item, till I got to "Number seventeen: it can't be that dangerous, because ten-year-olds go out and do it all the time." My father saw imminent looming danger everywhere in the wilderness, but that obviously wasn't the case. I didn't know any better ways to disprove it, but I decided this might work against him anyway, since he didn't know anything either.
"Well, Eris? What do you think?"
No response. One of her ears twitched, and she snuggled deeper into the carpet. She was asleep.
Well, I thought it was good. Besides, I only really had to convince my mother, because I'd thought up the perfect plan as well. I'd sneak out early and get everything I needed for my trip (or at least what I could afford), return to the house once my dad left for work (it was a Sunday, so he'd probably be the only one going), then convince my mom to sign my papers (she supported all this, right?) and skip town before my dad could notice and interfere.
It was a great idea, in theory. After all, I really wanted to do this, right? I just couldn't prove it when my dad confronted me. I wouldn't give him the chance this time.
Unfortunately, after I picked up my unconscious Eevee and tiptoed down the stairs, I was greeted by my parents, both of them, sitting in the kitchen and clearly waiting for me.
Should have gone out the back.
My dad still looked kind of angry, and my mom had a strange look on her face, one I'd never seen before. As I watched them, she reached over to clasp my father's hand under the table. The display of parental intimacy didn't really help my sudden onset of nausea
"Uh, hi. Mom. Dad." I guiltily shifted Eris to my side, trying to make her a little less obvious. "I was just…"
"Yes, we know." I flinched. My father's voice was cold and hard as always. "Why don't you come sit down?"
Oh, geez. I reluctantly pulled a chair from the table and sat across from them. Eris stirred and jumped down from my lap. She began creeping over to investigate my mother's Meganium, who was eating breakfast from a bowl on the floor, but balked and ran away when the dinosaur reared its long neck to stare back.
"Now, your mother says she thinks you're serious about becoming a trainer. Is she right?"
"Well, um…" I stared down at the table and picked at the false wooden surface. "I guess… Yeah. I mean, I think so." I could feel his eyes boring into me, and I tried to disappear into my chair.
"Oh, don't be like that." At least my mom was on my side. "Leslie, I think it's wonderful that you want to go out on your own and train Pokémon. Your father and I just want to make sure that you're sure about this.
I was never sure about anything, but like hell I was going to admit that. "Um, I think… I… What does that have to do with anything?"
"It's just that, while training can be very wonderful and fulfilling, it can also be very difficult," my mother continued. "It's something you should only do if you're sure it's what you really want to do. Not because your classmates are doing it, or because you're worried about hitting some imaginary age limit…"
Well, there went my list of arguments.
"You should know exactly how difficult it is," my father broke in. "You all think it's going to be easy, like those movies or make-believe games. But once you get out there, you're going to find that—"
"I know, I know all that already!" I suddenly couldn't take this anymore. "I know it's hard! I know it's not like on TV! I'm not some stupid kid!" I took my eyes off the table and glared back at him. "What do you know, anyway? Mom used to be a trainer, so she knows more than you, and she thinks I can do it. Why should you say I can't?"
As soon as I came down from my rant, I got the sudden sinking feeling told me I'd said the wrong thing. Now my dad was glowering with a strange ferocity as he leaned forward and began to speak in a low, grave tone. "Leslie. I am your father. Like it or not, I do have a say in this, and you need to respect my—"
There was a clattering sound. My dad stopped, and I turned back. My mother held my dad by the arm. He turned to glare at her, and she shook her head, whispering something I couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it must have worked; he fell silent, then sank back into his chair, defeated. My mother look back at me.
"Your father and I discussed this last night," she said softly, as though she was trying no to provoke any more reactions from him. "I know you're ready for this. He does, too, though you couldn't get him to admit it. And if you're sure that being a trainer is what you really want, we'll sign your registration forms and you can go."
I took a few shallow breaths. My mouth was dry again, and I couldn't really focus. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eris go to investigate Meganium for a second time. This time, she stayed still long enough to let it curiously sniff her back.
"Yes." It came out as more of a croak, so I cleared my throat and tried again. "I want to go. I thought it over, and I have reasons…"
"I know. We heard you repeating them to yourself all last night." I flushed, and she smiled. "I know you can do this, Leslie. No matter what happens, I'll be proud of you."
My father wasn't quite as proud. He sat there for a few more moments, then loudly excused himself from the table, the cane in his hand punctuating every other step he took. I stared after him, still nervous, then turned to my mother. "Should you… Should I…"
She shook her head. "Don't worry. He just needs some time to accept it." She stared at the stairs where he'd gone, and for a moment, I thought she looked different—tired. But I probably imagined it, because when she turned back to me, she was smiling like always.
The tension was getting to be a little too much for me. I tried to inconspicuously make my way towards the door, but my mother was having none of that, and caught me by the shoulder. "Slow down! Where do you think you're going?"
"I need to get… Stuff…" I waved my hands around, pantomiming leaving or shopping or maybe something else.
"That's right, you are. But you're coming with me. I'll make sure you get everything you need."
I wasn't so sure about that. The last time I'd gone shopping with her, we'd set out to buy a wedding gift for a friend of hers, but we ended up with more junk than we could fit through our front door, and also, I couldn't move for three days afterward. But I didn't have the money to buy everything I needed on my own, so it wasn't like I had a choice.
Besides, a real trainer could get through anything. This would be my first test.