Despite how closely I worked with pokemon on a daily basis, I had somehow managed to go months at a time without ever touching a pokeball. When I was a kid, I remembered running up to trainers—well, Zen dragged me—and asking them to just touch their pokeballs. They even set up a target to throw rocks for pokeball throwing practice. Back then, Zen missed more often than not.

I smiled thinking about how Zen, a multi-league champion, might have accidentally caught this pokemon because she sucked at throwing pokeballs. Knowing her, that could very well be the case, but still it didn't really matter what the origins of this pokemon were. She had caught it, and thought of me. What was inside? What region was it from? Why did it remind Zen of me?

"Did you forget how to use them?" Professor Cherry took a loud sip of her coffee. She leaned against the door and looked up at me from the rim of her drink. She pointed a manicured finger my way and spun it slowly. "You press the button."

I knew how a pokeball works.

I was just nervous.

I hadn't had a pokemon in years.

I couldn't even take care of the last one I had.

My thumb pressed against the cold, smooth surface of the button, and I felt a click. The pokeball opened, and a stream of familiar light sent me back to my first days on route 101 with Zen, Samson, and our Pokemon. I followed the light and watched as it landed onto Professor Cherry's desk where the pokemon materialized.

"Vuuul!"

"I could see why Zen would think of you." Professor Cherry punctuated her sentence with a sip of her coffee.

Staring at my new pokemon, I found it hard to disagree. It had bright blue eyes that were a near-perfect match for my own and a snow-white coat that was barely a tone off from my own white hair. The pokemon was familiar, a vulpix, but it didn't match the local bright red variant we had running around. For a moment, I completely blanked on where it could be from, but instead found myself saying something completely stupid.

"I'm a pokemon."

Vulpix stared at me intently for a moment, Its canine-like features were a bit sharper than a Flareon's or a Jolteon's. I took a few careful steps towards what was apparently my pokemon, the back of my hand slowly extended towards it so as to not provoke it. Are you a boy? Or are you a girl? I took in a short breath and smiled. "Hello, I'm Mel, I guess I'm your—"

"Vuul!" Vulpix cried and then leapt off the desk and slammed its head right into my stomach, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. Pain shot through my entire abdomen as I bent down, holding onto it. That honestly went about as well as I could have expected.

"Ha! She acts like you too!" Cherry roared in laughter and shut the door to her office.

"I don't go around hitting people in the stomach." I groaned, rubbing what may well be a future bruise. A bit of spit irritated my throat and I coughed before standing upright. "I didn't even know Vulpix could learn Headbutt."

"That could have been Tackle."

"They don't learn that either." I winced and looked at the smug little pokemon that was currently laughing at the pain it had caused me. Its soft little yips were almost kind of cute if they were directed at me. "And I thought they were red." I took another step towards Vulpix and examined it closely. There were a few other differences between my new vulpix and the local variants. "And not jerks."

Vulpix stopped giggling and stared at me. Its sparkling blue eyes mirrored my own, and I struggled to figure out what it was thinking.

"Well, she's a regional variant." Professor Cherry walked around the Vulpix, drawing its attention for a moment. She went to her desk and pulled out a pokedex. "Catch."

With all the grace of a snorlax trying to get out of bed, I flailed my arms in the air, proceeding to bonk the pokedex up into the air at least twice before Vulpix leapt up and snagged it before the pokedex could meet a brutal end of being slammed into the ground.

"Aren't those expensive?" I nearly shouted as I reached down to grab the Pokedex from the Vulpix. For whatever reason, it handed it over easily and then sat down patiently. "And how do you know it's a she?"

"Because I know my daughter." Cherry gave a sweet smile and placed her mug down. "She probably spent days when she saw a vulpix like that and went out of her way to make sure it would be a good match for you."

I liked my theory that she missed throwing her pokeball more.

"Besides, male vulpixes are rarer, and they have rounded ears, darker fur on their legs, and their hair tends to be shorter on the head." Cherry gave a slight shrug and began to take off her lab coat before digging through her desk once more. "Don't believe me? Just check your pokedex."

"My pokedex?"

"Mmhmm!" Cherry nodded her head, a hair tie dangling in her mouth. "Yeah, while I didn't actually save the one you tossed out years ago, I made sure to order an extra last year just in case you got ants in your pants."

"Oh." How many people did I let down every day I didn't step onto the routes? Why me? There were plenty of other people that never went on a pokemon journey. Plenty more that gave up. So why me? I examined the pokedex for a moment. It was different from the bulky designs that I had been given my first time; this one was compact, was mostly made of screen, and was probably newer than my own phone.

"Don't sound so disappointed. That's the last model since they switched to an app-based pokedex for those Rotom phones." Professor Cherry finished tying her hair into the usual work ponytail she wore and let out a yawn that could make a slowpoke fall asleep. "I'm not really into those things because it feels weird having something alive in my phone."

I could hardly argue with that. What if I got a judgmental Rotom?

"I wasn't disappointed, I just." I didn't have anything to finish that sentence so I shrugged. "You know."

"Oh." Cherry's shoulders slumped and she looked at me, then her eyes went wide and she snapped her fingers at me. "Oh! Like that kind of oh!"

I nodded and smiled at her. Now back onto more pressing matters.

I opened the pokedex and pointed it towards my Vulpix. A load of information came up, and I was able to quickly confirm that Professor Cherry was right: this was a Vulpix native to regions that were covered in snow. Despite fire being effective against ice-type pokemon, most fire-type pokemon weren't well suited to cold weather, so the deviation made sense. A quick swipe revealed information about its evolution as well.

I even got confirmation that I now had a female vulpix.

"Wow Vulpix, you're going to be quite the looker when you grow up." I squatted down and extended my hand out towards her once again.

"She's not the only one~" Cherry all but sung as she continued to rummage.

Despite having her back turned to me I stuck out my tongue at her. I was eighteen, I was as adult as I was going to get.

And Vulpix bit my hand.

It didn't hurt, but I felt her teeth barely pressing into my hand and the wetness of her small mouth engulfing two of my fingers. I stared at her, and she stared at me.

"So you're hungry?" I asked.

"Vul!"

"So!" Cherry clapped and stuck a small bag of pokeballs on her desk. "Here's some pokeballs! Normally, I'd have to register you into the league, but you're already there, and we can just use your lab Employee I.D. to update your photo unless you want to confuse people. Do you need any Pokemoney?"

"Wait, what? I'm not ready yet!" I yanked my hand from Vulpix's mouth and wiped it off on my pants. "I don't know the first thing about training pokemon!" I grabbed my foot and held it up to show off my shoe. "These aren't good route shoes! I don't have any of the gear, and I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to camping, and—"

"You're making excuses, Mel." Cherry walked around her desk, casually scooping up the bag of pokeballs, and placed it in my hand before grabbing hold of my shoulders and giving me a light shake. "Pokeballs, Pokedex, clothes, and all that other stuff you can get. There are only two things you need to start your journey: a partner, and a desire to move forward. And you have both now, right?"

I could feel Zen's simple letter burning a hole in my pocket. Was that really all it took to get me going? Curse my long-standing crush on Zen and inability to confess to her whenever we spoke. When she had visited for the holidays between challenges, I had been so tempted to ask her if I could follow her.

With a soft sigh, I looked down towards my Vulpix. My second pokemon, and the first pokemon I had owned in years. "I guess I do."

"Great! Now that you're going, I can hire one of the hot single dads that have been applying!"

"Cherry,"

"Hmm?"

"I'm telling that to Zen."

"Pfft, as if she doesn't know that I'm desperate."

XXXX

"Soooo," Samson folded his hands on top of the table we were currently sharing at Lumberjacks, the local diner. It wasn't my favorite place to eat because the only good thing they had was breakfast food, and I normally skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch. "What happened to not having a pokemon?"

He looked at my Vulpix that was currently gnawing on a new chew toy that Glaceon seemed to enjoy at the lab.

"Zen sent her to me," I admitted and smiled at the cute, bitey little thing that I had no idea if it hated me or not.

"I see how it is." Samson's masculine face somehow twisted into a childish pout. How did his face do that? I was barely able to keep my resting bitch face away when I was talking to people. He crossed his giant arms that could put a Machamp to shame and huffed. "You won't take me up on my offer to catch you a pokemon, but Zen forces you to adopt one and you're all for it."

A smile cracked his pout and he clapped down on the table hard enough to make the silverware jump. "I'm joking! But man, that's just like Zen, I'd be jealous but you two have always been—" He held up his fingers and twisted them. "—pretty tight. Besides, she didn't have to worry about me. It seemed like every gym we cleared she wanted to go back for you. I never saw her so pissed when she found out you gave up."

Zen refused to call her for a year after that.

"Sorry," I muttered, looking down at the lacquered wooden table. That familiar sense of guilt and failure washed over me.

"Don't apologize to me." Samson pointed at himself with his thumb. He shifted his weight and leaned forward, elbows on the table as his toothy smile grew and grew. I was tall for a girl, and pretty close to the average height for a guy, but Samson was just huge, and I wondered if the table could actually support his bulk.

"So." He whispered like we were sneaking around his house looking for christmas presents like when we were seven. He nodded towards Vulpix, his thick eyebrows wiggling like two caterpies fighting. "Are you gonna do it?"

I reached my hand towards Vulpix, but pulled it back when she looked at me, her focus no longer on the chew toy. "I think I need to." I bit my lip and nodded to myself. "But, I might need some help from you."

"Aww yeah!" Samson cheered and silenced the entire diner with his booming voice. He slammed his elbow onto the table again. "I got one… no wait! Two!" He held up one finger on each hand and shoved them in my face. "Two! Conditions."

"Which are?"

Regret and more regret?

"After you clear seven gyms, you come back here and take me on." He pounded his chest.

"That sounds reasonable."

Our waitress arrived and placed down our plates. Lumberjack's was known for giving giant proportions, which, for me, meant that my serving was more than enough for lunch and dinner, while Samson's looked like more than I could eat in a week.

"Is the second paying for this?"

"Nah!" Samson had already started cutting into his gravy-covered slab of meat.

"Then what is it?"

"I get to catch you a pokemon!"

I paused. A second pokemon that I didn't catch? I could barely handle the one Zen had given me, and for some reason, I felt like that if I accepted another pokemon I hadn't felt like I earned, I'd just end up giving up again. "Don't take this the wrong way Samson. But. I can't."

He raised an eyebrow at me and slowly chewed.

"It's just. I feel like I need to earn my next pokemon. And if you catch my second pokemon, then I'd have had three pokemon I never caught myself. I just feel like if that happens I'd just give up again."

"Hmm…" He chewed slowly. "Alright. But I get to dress you."

"Ehh?"

AN: And there's the starter! Alolan Vulpix. Sorry if its over done but after I made Mel I just felt like it suited her. Second place was an Aron though.