xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Ecruteak City, 12:56 p.m. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The city of Ecruteak, one of the oldest cities in the Johto region of the Pokémon world and home to two of the regions most notable landmarks; the Bell Tower and it's destroyed counterpart, the Burned Tower that gave birth to three powerful Legendary Pokémon. Alongside its historic buildings and being home to the Ecruteak Gym, it also happens to be home to a popular Pokémon daycare known as the "Rarest Level Ranch."
Several acres of land spread out near the forests nearby from the main city, the Rarest Level Ranch had a large wooden fence protecting its ground and within its borders were hoards of Pokémon playing around: Sentrats and Ledybas playing in the flower patches, Pidgeys and Hoothoots flying around in the air and Goldeens and Magikarps swimming around in the small pond. Connecting the fences together was a small single story home with a sign out front listing the name of the ranch while inside the building and in front of a clerks desk, a mother and her daughter were coming in to pick up a Pokémon.
"And here you go, one very well taken care of Eevee." Said a young woman dressed in a pink collared shirt, brown pants and a green apron with long black hair and a name tag that read "Marie Dibiase" on it as the Eevee ran over to young girl.
"Oh wow! You look so cleaned and prim!" The small girl said as she picked up her Eevee in her arms.
"Eeee! Eeee!" The Eevee said in a happy tone as it rubbed its cheek against the daughters face.
"Can't thank you enough for the help, Ms. Dibiase. Our daughters Eevee just doesn't have enough space to roam around in our home like she can here and the grooming you do is such a help." The mother said.
"It's no trouble, always appreciate the business." Marie said with a smile as the mother and her daughter begun to leave.
"One day, you'll grow big and strong and evolve into a beautiful Espeon!" The daughter said as they walked out the door.
"Eeee!" The Eevee exclaimed happily as the door closed behind them as Marie breathed a sigh of relief.
"That was the easiest job I've had in weeks..." Marie thought as she sat in a chair behind the clerk desk as, out from one of the hallways, came a bald man of the same age with tan skin wearing a long sleeve red shirt and a pair of blue pants.
"Send out that Eevee?" The man said as he was carrying a Sandshrew in his arms.
"Yup. Easier than that Loudred we had to take care of from last month. How's that Sandshrew, Adam?" Marie said as she got up from the chair and begun to pet the Pokémon in the arms of the man named Adam.
"Keeps kicking up "Sand Attacks" at the other Pokémon outside." Adam said as the Sandshrew rustled around in his arms as Marie pulled her hand away. "Bit of a fighter, ain't he?" He said with a wry smile as Marie shook her head.
"Really wish people would stop sending their angriest Pokémon to us." Marie said as she walked through the back of the ranch house to a living room-like area with a large TV, several chairs and couches and, most notably, a mantle that had a litany of golden Pokéball trophies.
"Easy for you to say, little miss "I want to be the very best!" Can't seriously tell me you're shocked when trainers from all over Johto want to have their Pokémon trained by a former multi-time Pokémon League Champion." Adam said as he put down the Sandshrew and walked over to the kitchen area to grab a drink of water.
"Sometimes I wish I was still just a regular trainer and all these people coming here were to challenge me. That way I could mop the floor with them like I used to..." Marie said as she shook her hair with a smirk.
"And then all the kids walking up to you with Bulbasaurs and Totodiles leave crying after learning the hard truth that they never stood a chance, hehe." Adam said with a head shake and a chuckle.
"Hey, you married a champ, you got a champ." Marie said with a cocky smile as she walked up to her husband. "You even took my last name." She continued as Adam looked at the Sandshrew scratching at the door to the outside.
"Well, Mrs. "Champion," I got to handle this Sandshrew and a pair of Phanpys today so someone needs to the chore of getting rid of the Pineco that are swarming the trees nearby." Adam said as he put his cup down and walked away, picking up the Sandshrew from before.
"We could get "you-know-who" to try and do it." Marie said as she scratched her face as Adam stopped and turned back to face her.
"...You sure?" Adam said with a concerned tone.
"I can't keep letting him live on the property without doing more work than the bare minimum he's been doing already." Marie said with her arms folded.
"Hey, don't take it the wrong way, he's your brother and I like him but... Taking care of Pokémon? He's twenty three and he barely knows how to open a Pokéball... There's ten year old's who know more about being around Pokémon than him." Adam said, still unsure.
"Fair... But it's been over a week since he last did anything to help around here. Least we can do is to ask him to move some Pineco." Marie said with a shrug as Adam followed suit by shrugging as Marie walked out the backdoor into the Pokémon filled backyard.
Walking through the field and waving at the Pokémon that flooded the yard, Marie reached the far edge and approached a rundown gray trailer that was propped up on two cinderblocks. Taking a deep breath, she raised her arm to knock on the door of the trailer when, suddenly, it swung open and out fell a relatively husky-framed man. Sporting a messy short brown hairstyle and a bushy chin beard with no moustache, his clothes were tattered and ripped as his blue pants had a cut up one of the legs, his brown shirt was inside out and he was missing a sock on one of his feet.
"Whoa whoaahah- ugh?!" The man said frantically as he hit the ground chest first. Looking upward from the ground, he noticed a familiar face who looking down at him with a disappointed expression. "Ohhh... Hey Marie..." He said with an embarrassed expression.
"Keats... What are you doing now?" Marie said as she looked down at the chubby man named Keats.
"I was trying to- hold on, I'm going to get up first." Keats said before attempting to get up from the ground. "I was trying to set up my clothes so that way when it's dark, I can instantaneously get dressed knowing where the clothes are without needing to turn on the lights." He explained as he pointed inside his obscenely messy trailer.
"...And why were you doing that?" Marie said with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms.
"...In case of emergencies?" Keats said with a tone that made it seem like even he was unsure if it was a logistically sound idea.
"...You could just turn on a light..." Marie said as Keats opened his mouth for rebuttal until he decided to just close his mouth shut and accept that his idea wasn't all that bright. "I need you to do some work." She asked.
"Feed the Smeargle?" Keats asked.
"No, I need-" Marie said until she was interrupted by Keats guessing again.
"Oh! Oh! Massage the Houndours with that weird lotion they like on the gray parts!" Keats said enthusiastically, hoping that was the right answer.
"No! Keats, I need-" Marie said loudly before getting cut off again.
"Show that one Sableye those magazines about boats again?" Keats said confused until Marie had enough of his antics.
"Keats! Shut up!" Marie exclaimed loudly as Keats fell backwards onto his butt from the sudden screaming as some of the nearby Pokémon became startled by the unexpected noise.
"Okay! Okay!" Keats said with his hands up to avoid making Marie any angrier.
"Little brother or not, the level of dimwit you display confuses me worse than a "Confuse Ray!"' Marie screamed towards her younger brother as he sat cross legged on the ground. "I want you to go over to where those trees are and move some of the Pineco that are in there back out further into the woods." She said as she pointed to the right.
"Why can't Adam do it?" Keats said with a confused tone.
"He's busy and so am I and then later tonight we're going out on a dinner date so you'll be the only one here to do anything." Marie explained. "They'll be a list inside for all of the Pokémon food you'll need to hand out after you move the Pineco. Here's a net to help you out." She continued to explain as she handed the mildly confused man a long rod fishing net.
"Oh that's it? Easy-peasy!" Keats said with a unconcerned tone as he held the net in his hands as he got back to his feet.
"You positive there won't be any issues?" Marie questioned. "He barely knows how to take care of himself, let alone Pokémon..." She thought uneasily.
"It's just a bunch of Bug-Types that don't become Beedrills, that's a cake-walk!" Keats said with a confident tone as Marie shook her head.
"...If you need help, don't be a stranger." Marie said as she begun to walk away.
'"Stranger" is my middle name!" Keats exclaimed as he walked in the direction of the trees filled with Pineco.
"I don't disagree with the "strange" part." Marie thought as she walked through the field back to the house as Adam walked outside through the backdoor.
"How's it going?" Adam asked his wife.
"He's still a big eccentric oddball." Marie replied back. "But he didn't seem too against doing the work." She said.
"He's not completely lazy but he's not well versed with Pokémon at all... Even for his age." Adam said as he looked over Marie's shoulder.
"Not my fault he never went on a journey when he was ten..." Marie said with a shrug.
"Well let's just hope things go- whoa!" Adam said until the sudden noise of an explosion and the resounding shockwave spread through the Rarest Level Ranch, prompting him and Marie to duck slightly as they looked back to see a smoke cloud coming out from one of the trees near the ranch. "What was that?!" He exclaimed.
"...My guess... He dropped a Pineco..." Marie said as he picked at her ear as it was ringing.
Approaching them was Keats but now charred brown with trails of smoke wafting off his body as he limped slightly over to them and using the fishing net to keep him upright.
"Can I... Take an early break?... Ugh..." Keats said woozy before falling face first onto the ground as Marie and Adam just looked at him with exhausted expressions.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Rarest Level Ranch, 8:11 p.m. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
With the moon overhead and nighttime having arrived, the Rarest Level Ranch was dark as the vast amounts of Pokémon from before had fallen asleep in the backyard and the only light nearby was coming from the ranch house. Inside was Keats as he was still patching himself up from earlier in the day when a horde of Pineco exploded in front of him as he sat at the kitchen table, a grilled Miltank cheese sandwich on the plate in front of him.
"Ow! Ow!" Keats said as he touched at some of the burn marks from the explosion. "Annoying little grenades..." He thought as he recalled the Pineco blowing up before he stood up from the table and walked over to the living room.
Looking over at the trophies on the mantle, Keats proceeded to grab one of the trophies and held it upward over his head.
'"And your new Johto League Champion! Keaton Dibiase! Raaaah! Raaaah!" Pfff hehehe..." Keats said, acting as if he had became a league champion, complete with fake audience applause, before putting down his sisters old trophy. "Little miss overachiever." He thought as he looked at the awards Marie had amassed such as gym badges and tournament medals. "Never understood as to why she wanted to win these things..." Keats said to himself before walking back to the kitchen to eat his sandwich.
As he took a bite out of his cheese sandwich, Keats proceeded to take the sandwich with him as he walked back towards a hallway in the ranch house that had multiple doorways before stopping at a door that had a symbol for a Pokéball on it. Opening it, he walked in to see multiple shelving racks that held multiple different Pokéballs, a multitude of shelves listed individual owners of the Pokémon that were staying on the ranch while one specific shelf bore the name "Marie" in a small nametag embedded in the bottom with only six Pokéballs on it.
"Hepfo, my sifters Pocyman, row rafvt pou all ben?" Keats said through a mouthful of cheese and bread, attempting to say "hello, my sisters Pokémon, how have you all been?"
Picking up one of the balls, he looked at it for a bit before sighing and then putting it back down on the rack as he finished eating his sandwich.
"Yeah right..." Keats said as he licked his fingers. "Never got the chance to train one of these things and it's too late now..." He said to himself as he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him as he went back to the kitchen and to the pantry. "Let's see, do we have any "Spoink Rinds?"' Keats thought to himself as he rummaged through the pantry, looking for more food.
As he looked around, a click noise could be heard as Keats stopped for a second as he pulled his head back, believing to have heard something. Shifting his head left and right and finding nothing, Keats went back to looking for his snack as unbeknownst to him, the backdoor to the house leading to the outside area had been opened.
"There we- huh?" Keats said happily as he found his Spoink Rinds but was then taken off guard by the sight of the doorway to the backyard open. "Did I... Leave that open?" He thought with concern as he walked over to the door and proceeded to close it as he reached into the bag and pulled out a rind.
As he turned around and put the rind into his mouth, the lights went out in the room as Keats dropped the bag and then was suddenly struck in the head with a blunt object. Falling to the floor and landing on his chest, Keats was still conscious as someone got on top of his back and placed his left arm in a hammerlock-like position.
"Ahh! Get off of me! What's going on!?" Keats angrily exclaimed as the person on his backside grabbed the back of his neck and slammed his face into the floor to shut him up.
"Be quiet!" Said a young man's voice as Keats looked up in his disoriented state to see three figures in front of him. Shrouded in the darkness of night, he couldn't make out an exact description of what they looked like but he could tell one of them was an older man, one was a woman and the other one was hunched over with a cane in their hand, possibly elderly.
"We... Don't have any money..." Keats said in a tone that showed he was in pain.
"As much as we would like money, we came for a much bigger score..." The older man said calmly as the younger man holding Keats on the ground slammed Keats face into the ground repeatedly, his face getting red and his nose starting to bleed slightly.
"Found it!" Said a new voice that sounded like that of a small boy as the thieves standing over Keats turned their heads. "Not even guarded! Just left in a room!" The small boy said with a cocky tone as he walked over with a bag that looked to be filled with round objects.
"Good... But did you find the "other" thing we were looking for?" The woman said to the boy as he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.
"...Well I..." The boy said in a defensive manner before a young girl that was slightly older than the small boy had arrived, carrying a much smaller bag.
"Different room." The young girl said as she handed over a small bag that looked to be filled with smaller round objects than the bag the boy had.
"Finally!" The older man said as he grabbed the small bag and held it with the big bag. "Our work here is done!" He said in a blissful tone as the man holding down Keats spoke up.
"What you want to do about him?" The man said as Keats, in pain and dazed from having his head slammed multiple times, looked up with blurry vision.
"Leave him, like anything he'll say will mean anything." The man said as the other thieves begun to chuckle as the other man got up and off of Keats.
"Wait..." Keats said in a painful tone as the thieves turned around and started to walk towards the front door as Keats started to crawl on the ground to try and stop them. "Gaahh!" He exclaimed as the small boy noticed his attempt to try and stop them and proceeded to stomp his foot onto Keats hand.
"Oh shut up!" The small boy screamed as Keats clutched at his possibly broken hand.
"Hurry it up!" The man that was holding down Keats from earlier said as he pulled out a green and black Pokéball from his pocket. Opening it up, an Abra came out of it as it followed them outside of the front door of the ranch house.
"Alright alright, calm your butt." The small boy said as he sprinted to catch up to his thieving comrades. As he ran, Keats slightly overheard something he said to himself. "Woo! Can't wait to show off later at those Pokémon Battle Clubs." The small boy said in an arrogant tone.
As Keats coiled in pain on the floor, all he could do was watch as the group of six thieves disappeared from the Abra using "Teleport."
"Ahh... Ahh... Marie's... Gonna kill me..." Keats thought as he tried to get up from the ground and attempted to reach a phone that was on the wall, knocking it off the receiver as he attempted to dial for the police.
What started as a seemingly normal day in the Johto region ended in a mysterious disaster for one Keaton "Keats" Dibiase. In pain and knowing that some people broke into his sister and her husbands Pokémon ranch, the unknown group of six individuals stole something within the house but what? Who were these mysterious people? What did they steal if it wasn't money? And what's going to happen next? Find out next time on "Wannabe!"
To Be Continued...