Olivine City was a beautiful place, full of wind and sun and fresh salty breeze of ocean air. However, to Felicia, it could not have been more hideous and abhorrent. She had moved there with her father when she was seven, after her mother had left him for another man.
Felicia's father was a man who smoked.
He didn't seem too torn up to lose his wife. Felicia's father never seemed to torn up about anything. She asked him as they packed up their belongings why they had to leave New Bark town.
"Because there's nothing left here for us," her father told her. "We're going somewhere new."
Felicia frowned. "But, Daddy—I don't want to go somewhere new," she said, tearing up a little. "What about my friends? Will we able to visit?"
Her father shook his head. "We're going very far away," he told her. "Don't worry. You'll like it there."
She hated it there. The ocean made her sick to look at, and the salty air was too cold for her. She hated Olivine's gaunt light tower, and its winding streets, and its beach covered in rocks. For years, she'd cry herself to sleep every night, thinking of the friends she'd left behind when she'd been dragged across the region to a city she didn't know and didn't want to know.
Her father didn't care. He was rarely around, anyway—always away on business, elsewhere. He'd leave her with an older woman, to watch after her. The woman was nice, but Felicia didn't like her. Felicia didn't like anyone, really—not since she moved.
"What's wrong, deary?" asked the woman, as she came out onto her balcony find nine-year-old Felicia there, leaned against the rail. "I made chowder. Why don't you come inside and have some chowder?"
"I don't want any stupid chowder," said Felicia, crossing her arms on the rail and laying her face on them. She glared out at the city. "I hate stupid chowder."
The woman frowned slightly. "Is there something you wanna talk about, sweetie?"
"Stop calling me cutsie names like that," said Felicia. "I'm not your daughter."
The woman looked hurt, but Felicia couldn't see the expression. "A-alright," she said, turning back inside. "There's chowder if you want any…"
Felicia glanced over her shoulder, just in time to see the woman disappear within. "Figures," she mumbled, turning her face back toward the railing. Her face was red and wet with tears, and she rubbed the moisture away with the back of her arm. "No one here cares…"
She reached to her waist, where a single pokeball was secured and lifted it up. Her father had sent it to her from Cherrygrove. He'd sent it by mail—hadn't even bothered to bring it personally, or to even include a letter with it expressing his love or good wishes. Felicia's father never sent his love or good wishes. He wasn't a man who thought much of family; it just wasn't the sort of thing he felt he was cut out for.
With a subdued sniffle, she released the pokemon onto the balcony beside her. The sentret, freed, stretched itself and looked up at her, bright-eyed. "Hey, Phoebe," said Felicia, picking the pokemon up and hugging her against her chest. The sentret wiped some tears from her cheek. "Aw, that's sweet of you…"
"Sentret," said Phoebe, hugging her trainer's neck.
"Phoebe," said Felicia, gazing out across Olivine City. From there, she could see the rural area north of town, full of fields and forests and dairies, all with a quaint little path leading the way through it. "Do you think it would matter to anyone if we ran away from here? I mean, Dad's never home, mom left and never even called or sent a letter… It's not like I have any friends in this stupid place…"
"Tret," said Phoebe sadly.
Felicia sighed wistfully and leaned over the rail, as the sentret climbed up onto her shoulder. "There's a whole world out there, Phoebe," said the girl. "A whole world that's much better than this place. No one cares about me here. I might as well not exist at all…"
"Tret…"
"But out there," Felicia said, nodding her head toward the green landscape. "I could make friends with a whole bunch of pokemon—just like you and I are friends. We wouldn't have to be alone all the time, then."
"Sentret…"
"No one would notice if we left," she said, staring off into the distance. It was a chilly, overcast day—a miserable, feel-sad day. Suddenly she stood up. "Why don't we?"
"Tret?"
"Why don't we just go, Phoebe?" she said, picking the pokemon up from her shoulder and holding her to her chest. "I don't want to wait around here anymore. I'm tired of being inconsequential. I want to go, and I want—I want to be someone! I want to be loved, like everyone else. I want people to look up when I pass and say 'there goes Felicia, greatest trainer we ever knew! There she is with Phoebe, greatest pokemon we ever saw!' And we'd go all around, and we'd go back to New Bark town where all our friends were."
She stared off into the distance, making her mind up. She was set on it, now. She'd leave that very day, not more than an hour after. By the next day, she'd be all the way in Ecruteak City. No one would search for her; if anyone noticed the absence, no fuss was made at all.
"We'll never go back," Felicia told her sentret as they left town. "Because there's nothing left here for us."
