Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.

After we slept the night away, we all decided to fly down the mountain to get to Isshu as fast as we could. However, we wouldn't be able to fly to Isshu due to the fact that planes were shooting at each other in the sky. We would have to figure something out, but for now, we were just going to fly down from Mount Silver. As I held on to Dragonair again, I kept thinking about Emma and my mom and Gary. I didn't know why I was thinking of him as just Gary now. It really did confuse me at the time. Maybe it was because I spoke to my real father? I wanted to slap myself because Gary was always there for me. And this morning, my so called father disappeared. Ry and I decided to try and defeat them by ourselves. Dad wasn't one bit reliable.

When I was about nine years old, I had grown up with my mother, father, and my younger sister, Emma. Ash, I'll refer to him as my father in this, went to work every day at nine o'clock in the morning and came back at five o'clock at night where dinner would be waiting for him and we'd all eat together. Mom was happy being a stay at home mom. My father made a pretty good salary so mom could stay home with us. Dad, on the other hand, hated his job in Viridian. He would always complain about it, but mom always would say, "Just because it doesn't revolve around Pokemon doesn't mean that it isn't a good job." Me being little, laughed when dad whined about his job. I thought it was actually funny. Emma and I would laugh and laugh because we thought he was only pretending.

However, the reality of the whining and complaining hit me. I began to realize that he really did hate his job. I felt bad for him because I didn't want him to feel horrible because I knew I would hate doing something I didn't particularly like.

One night at dinner, dad said, "I have an announcement to make." The three of us girls became quiet and still. Emma froze in the middle of putting the spaghetti in her mouth. None of us moved because dad never said he had an announcement to make.

"What is it, Ash?" My mother asked.

"I-um, I forgot." He said and excused himself from the table.

"Mommy, what's wrong with daddy?" Emma asked.

"I'm not sure. Excuse me girls." She stood up and followed my father upstairs, probably in their bedroom.

"What's going on?" Emma asked me.

"I don't know." I responded. I then heard mom yelling at him. It was muffled, so I couldn't understand it.

"Why is mommy yelling at daddy?" Emma asked.

"How am I supposed to know?" I rolled my eyes at her. The yelling continued, and then dad joined in the yelling. I was surprised because he was usually the calm one. Emma and I looked at each other with wide eyes in disbelief. "This is bad."

"Gracie, I'm scared. Is something bad gonna happen?"

"No, of course not. Dad is probably whining too much again." I said, but I couldn't eat my dinner because I knew deep down that something was wrong.

I remember mom coming down angrily and her face was all red, not the angry kind, but the sad kind, like she had been crying. Emma looked at me worriedly but I turned away from her as I watched from my seat at the table mom washing dishes. I walked over to her. "Is everything okay?" She smiled down at me and began to stroke my long, orange hair.

"I don't think so." She said. She couldn't lie to me because within the next second, I watched dad come down the stairs with his Pikachu and a backpack and that stupid old hat of his.

"Daddy, what are you doing?" Emma asked and got up from the table.

"Daddy's going on a long journey." He said and pat Emma's blonde hair.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm going to go out on my Pokemon journey."

"Daddy, only ten year olds do that." Emma laughed.

"I already started my journey when I was ten. I'm going to be continuing it." Dad said and gave Emma a hug goodbye. I didn't hug him though. I refused to. It would only make the goodbye that much harder. Mom of course, hugged dad and kissed him and told him to be careful. "I promise I will, Misty." He said. He then broke the strong embrace and promised that whenever he won money, he would send it to us. "I'll make more money doing this." He said, and then walked right out the door. Mom was devastated.

Months went by and money was already running low. Mom could only get a part time job because Emma was only in Kindergarten at the time. I volunteered to watch her after school but mom said, "No, Gracie. You aren't old enough to watch her yet." I continued to argue with her, saying that I would be leaving on a Pokemon Journey within a year so I must be responsible enough. But mom said, "No. And besides, you're still in school when Emma isn't." I couldn't argue with her. She was right.

More months passed and a few weeks after my tenth birthday, the house was being foreclosed. I knew what the notice said when we came home from school that day. Emma didn't. Mom just told Emma that we'd be moving soon. But with the little money she earned, we wouldn't be able to afford anything.

The day we got kicked out, we had no place to go. Mom got worried and said, "If Ash sends the money, we won't get it." But I replied with,

"He never sent us a check. Why would he start now?" That would just make mom even more upset and she would cry. What was I supposed to say? It was the truth. Mom brought us to the park that day and tried to figure out what she could do to get more money. "I'll go on a Pokemon journey." I said. "I'll get us some money and unlike dad, I'll send it to you."

"Thank you, Gracie, but it isn't your job to provide for the family." Then, someone overheard our conversation. It was Gary Oak, dad's old rival from childhood.

"Hey, what's going on Misty? I heard your place got foreclosed." Mom bawled at the thought of having no place to go with all of our things packed up in the car. Word got around fast in Pallet Town. Mom told him what happened with dad and everything. "Come stay at my place as long as you'd like. I've got a son at home with his mom that would get along with those two."

"I couldn't ask you to do that, Gary." Mom wiped away her tears so she would appear to have some dignity.

"You don't. I offered."

"Thank you so much." So that day, we moved into Gary's place. He had a son around Emma's age. His wife had died giving birth to him. His name was Samuel, or Sam for short, named after his great grandfather, the famous Pokemon Professor.

I couldn't stand living in that house for some reason. I was so mad at mom for always talking about dad and making it sound like he was some kind of saint. I did like Gary, he was a nice guy, but he was always researching things while mom ranted about how dad was so amazing and living out his dreams. One night, I got fed up with her. I yelled at her, saying that he was a deadbeat loser and a failure. Mom cried and I yelled. I angrily stomped off to my bedroom and began packing my bags furiously. "Gracie?" Sam asked, using his walker. The poor kid was born with cerebral palsy and probably needed that walker for the rest of his life. "What are you doing?"

"I'm just leaving for my journey a little early, that's all." I said. Emma came bursting into the room and stood beside Sam.

"But the starters aren't here yet." She stated, referring to the Pokemon. "You can't leave. Not yet."

"I'm…starting my journey as a challenge. It's the kind where you don't start out with a Pokemon." I lied, but the two naïve five and a half year olds bought it and I walked out of the house with my mother watching me. I didn't hate her, I just didn't like her at the moment. She yelled for me to come back and tried to grab my arm to make me stay, but I just shook her off easily because she was crying too hard to be strong and I just walked out. I broke into a run towards route one. Tears finally hit my eyes as I realized that I was on my own all alone.

Days went by and I made it to Viridian and then Viridian Forest where I was attacked by a swarm of Beedrill. Now, that got me running for my life. I realized that the Beedrill stopped chasing me when Glaceon licked my knee. I thanked her and realized she was at a pretty high level. Pokemon around these parts were normally weak and Glaceons were completely rare in Kanto. I only knew this was a Glaceon because when I was little, I adored Eevee and its evolutions. I happened to have one Pokeball with me so it captured itself. I was confused, but I later learned that Glaceon was abandoned by its trainer.

Months and months went by and I finally reached Saffron City. I had enough money to use the magnet train to get to Johto. I wanted nothing to do with Kanto at the moment, so I left for Goldenrod City, Johto.

The ride wasn't too bad and very uneventful. I let Glaceon out of her Pokeball as I wandered through Goldenrod, thinking about a place I would be going to sleep or something. "Hey, that's a nice Glaceon." A boy said that was around my age. "You don't look like you're from around here. Where you from?"

"How did you know I wasn't around from here?" I asked him skeptically.

"You just don't seem like it. That's okay, I'm not from this place either. It's pretty big, huh?"

"Where are you from?" I asked him.

"New Bark Town." He responded and walked next to me as we sauntered through the streets.

"I'm from Pallet Town in Kanto." I responded.

"You mean you came all the way here from Kanto? Wow, that's awesome! What brings you here to Johto?"

"I just wanted to get away from Kanto."

"Family problems?"

"You could say that." I said.

"You a Pokemon trainer?"

"No."

"Oh, I am." He opened up the side of his jacket. "See? I've got seven badges already!"

"Cool." He was starting to get on my nerves. "So where are you going?"

"I don't know. Just wandering."

"Are you going back to Kanto for Christmas?" I had completely forgotten that Christmas was coming up and there was no way that I'd get back to Pallet in a month.

"No." I decided. This would be my first Christmas away from home.

"That's too bad. Hey, I have an idea! Want to come with me? I'm on my way to try and make it for Christmas in New Bark Town with my family." I had nowhere to go, so I nodded. Maybe I could get a job at Elm's lab there. "Sweet." He said. "I'm Ry Morgan by the way."

"I'm Gracie Ketchum." I responded and the two of us headed for a month's journey to New Bark Town.

I don't remember a lot about meeting Ry's family, just that his mother called him by his first name, Ryan which he hated. I actually like the name Ryan, it isn't a bad name. That's how Ry and I became great friends.

Three years later, I returned home. Emma was excited to see me and so was Sam. They had grown so much since I was gone. I apologized to my mom and hugged her for ten minutes because I really did miss her a lot. She told me about how she and Grandma Delia worried about me and how much I was missed. Within a short amount of time, the war started. I fled to Mount Silver then, leaving my family behind. Now that I thought about it, Gary wasn't really a father towards me. But he took us in and took care of my mother. That was what a father should do.