I'm including this author's note to preface this work with some context which I find proper and relevant. Firstly, it should probably be kept in mind by the reader that I am not an experienced consumer of fanfiction, though I do have a personal history with enjoying professional literature and did read a handful of fics when I was a kid. Melding my love of writing and my favorite game series, Pokémon, has always been my primary goal with this story. I do know the realm of fanfiction to be enamored with tropes, however, and I acknowledge that this story may conform to or deviate from such conventions in a manner that seems erratic - it's being written largely in a vacuum, outside of the exposure of other fanworks. Readers may draw comparisons to the small handful of other public works which I've indulged in and found commendable enough to be inspired by, but all details of premise, setting, and characters were birthed from my own experiences with and interpretations of the game world. This is a story meant to explore the Pokémon world through personal expression, and not so much to appeal to any particular subset of the fanbase or topic of discussion within it.
I should also mention that this story will be long - very long. The original vision for this work began as an episodic series of interconnected adventures and tales, expanding on characters and plotlines that I've been fine-tuning for about a decade. Over time, the project evolved to be more novel-like in scope and style, which will now be the path for this work going forward. Please note that this story will be slow, and may be too much of a slow burn for some readers, which I understand entirely. Plot arcs will be stretched out and protracted. Characters will develop incrementally. Introspection frequently precedes action. It will take a handful of chapters before Pokémon themselves become more than a backdrop. I have a sense that this may be alienating to many prospective readers. If, however, you can tolerate this style of writing, then it's my sincerest hope that you can find as much enjoyment in reading this story as I have in crafting it.
Unending thanks to my dear friend for acting as my beta reader and proofreader. This story would not have been possible without your help and support.
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I'd always experienced more sunsets than sunrises in my life. By that, one might take it to mean that I was the type of person who enjoyed the night life. One wouldn't be wrong in thinking so, though that wouldn't be the full picture.
My sunsets weren't just limited to actual, physical dusks. From a young age, it always seemed like I had missed out on most opportunities presented to me, only realizing what I had failed to take advantage of when the repercussions became obvious. But can you blame me? Sunsets are so alluring, so calming. They offer a sense of tranquility, of calmness. All sunrises ever did for me was nag me to get up and do things I didn't want to do. I much preferred to sleep through them. Ah, excuses, excuses. Always something I relied on, but never something upon which I had much of a strong grasp. But I digress. Sunrise, and sunset. Dawn and dusk. I'd seen so many more dusks than dawns, and most of the time, I preferred it. So I suppose it was at least a tad ironic that it was still bright and clear in the morning when I had decided to, almost unsettlingly, walk calmly into yet another one of my melancholic sunsets.
It's not as if I had no direction. Sure, I had no clue what to do with my life, and I had just dropped out of school, and I had a list of hobbies as long as...nothing. But it wasn't all my fault. No, it wasn't as if I had no direction. It was more like I had multiple directions to go in, but every road was blocked off to me exclusively. Can you really blame me? In Johto in those days, it was hard to make a decent living for yourself if you didn't work with Pokémon. Granted, practically everyone I and everyone else knew did exactly that. But I was the outlier. I didn't care much for Pokémon.
I didn't even bother to call my parents as I walked away from the campus. I'm not even sure why I took the final at all. Sure, I was always the type of person to hate throwing away time or money, and I figured that I might as well finish the final exam if I bothered to invest myself into the class the entire semester. Besides, I already knew that I was going to pass the class. I was sliding along at a comfortable B grade, and I had studied well enough to know my chances of failing the final were minuscule. Still, I recognized how little point there was to even showing up to class. As soon as I hurriedly scribbled down my answers and walked out of the study hall door, I was done with all of it. As far as I was concerned, I was done with school, forever.
A whole year wasted in university and all of those I spent in high school had me admittedly worried. Like I said, it tore me up inside to not finish something I had invested myself in. But here I was, leaving campus and my entire education behind to return home. I actually felt bad about myself. My parents had fronted most of the expenses over all this time, and I didn't even have a good reason to give them. Of course, I spent all the night prior awake in my bed, tossing and turning as I attempted to come up with some sorry excuse to sell to them. My mental gymnastics always left a lot to be desired, and I was never very good at twisting logic to my benefit. That's not to say that I wasn't intelligent or that I had trouble justifying my actions. I was actually quite smart for my age, or at least, I had been. Growing up, I got by in school well, and even in university, I rarely had much trouble with my subjects. It's not as if I was leaving school due to poor performance. That's why I felt so guilty about dropping out to begin with. People may pity you if you justify quitting due to a failure, but you tend to get skeptical looks if you try to sell yourself as a quitter even after meeting relative success.
I had to come up with something to say, so I immediately began playing imaginary conversations in my head, self-critiquing my planned explanation and refining it word by word as I walked across campus to the bus stop on its perimeter. I didn't drive, and didn't own a car. I couldn't have expected my parents to pay for both school and a car anyway, so I never bothered learning. While I normally felt like an outcast in several areas of my life, at least I didn't have to deal with the stigma of not driving at eighteen years old. I never knew many people my age who did drive in Johto. The car culture never seemed to have caught on much in the country, which is nice if you ask me. People in other countries often seemed to be overwhelmed by maladies such as traffic and insurance.
I dropped my backpack, packed full of the few belongings I kept in my dorm, onto the pavement, and sat down on the unoccupied bench as I waited for the bus to arrive. Lowering my head into my hands, I continued to think of my return home, though my pessimism was already getting the better of me, and shifted my train of thought from thinking of my hopeless self-defense to the inevitable punishment I'd receive.
As I glumly looked at the pavement below me, I noticed how clean the sidewalk looked. In fact, the whole campus was very well-kept. I'd been going to a rather affluent school. I wondered how crazy I must have really been to throw that away and return back home to New Bark. Don't get me wrong, I loved my hometown, but even by Johto's standards, it was a pretty backwoods place. Small, undeveloped, very rustic. It used to be a lot worse, but it was still one of the more isolated and rural towns in the region, and I knew that a big reason I was expected to do well in college was to bring my family some sense of pride among our neighbors. New Bark was the type of small town where everybody knew each other, and I had my parents worried early on because of my apparent "lack of direction". Seeing as how I was crushing my parents' dreams by leaving school, perhaps I was directionless to an extent, and by dropping out, I would only be proving everybody right. I only felt worse when I began reflecting on that, of course, but at least once I got on that bus home, I'd be travelling in some direction, albeit a backwards one.
Still, I knew very well the pain and shame I'd be causing my parents. Everybody in town would hear the news within days, if not minutes, if my mom's incessant social media addiction were any indicator of things to come. I never understood why anyone would be so willing to share every minute detail of their lives with the world, particularly those details which should be considered private and more appropriately withheld from others. More than any shame or disappointment I would bring, however, I was far more concerned with the consequences and punishment I'd receive. I was legally an adult, but families wield immense power in Johto, so I was expecting severe repercussions. And despite that, I was quite adamant about my decision. Was it apathy? I didn't know. I was too apathetic to decide.
It took longer than I'd hoped for the bus to arrive, which annoyed me a bit, but I just told myself that I wasn't in a position to be angry at anyone else for not living up to expectation. As the vehicle pulled up to the stop, I grabbed my belongings, boarded, and headed toward the back. Placing my backpack near the window, I got myself comfortable and prepared for the long trip west.
There weren't many other people on the bus. Most of my fellow passengers were older men and women, some in work uniform, others with a bag of groceries or a toddler in their lap. Everyone was effectively silent - the typical bus rider's experience. I didn't mind, as I wasn't much in the mood for small talk. I was still far too preoccupied with overthinking the imaginary scenario in my head, which by now could have comprised an entire chapter in a novel. I did consider being a writer at some point, but I was always afraid of committing to a book and never finishing it. I couldn't deal with that sort of self-imposed pressure.
Besides, my favorite subject had always been history. Most of my peers differed in that regard. Pokémon was the primary concern for most people my age. As grade schoolers, it seemed like everyone was set on becoming a famous Pokémon trainer. The fad had really blown up around the time I entered school as a kid, and while my and my friends' parents were quick to laugh it off as a passing trend, the hype never really died down around it. I went through middle school and high school growing increasingly irritated by the constant banter about Pokémon training: the gym circuit, the Elite Four, battle strategies. All things I didn't care for. The national obsession invaded the schools. While I took woodshop or art as my electives, my friends refused to take classes with me, preferring instead the allure of "Pokémon Biology" and "Battle Theory". The joke was on me, I guess, since I was the one who ended up being directionless in school. And all that time I had assumed it as fact that the core subjects of math and history would have taken me down the more successful path.
I wasn't narcissistic about it, of course. I always knew, deep down, that I would end up being a disappointment, but on some level, I refused to admit to myself, and others in particular, that I blamed the training industry's overextension into every facet of society for most of my failure. How was I expected to succeed in a world dominated by Pokémon battles if I didn't care to enter that area of life? No, history was my passion, because people – human beings, not Pokémon – are what truly interested me. Perhaps using the term "passion" would be going too far, but the fact of the matter was that I enjoyed it well enough to study the subject outside of the classroom environment.
As I laid back my head to rest on the hard plastic rim of my seat, I stared out the window to view the gloomy, gray, afternoon sky. Rain seemed likely. Figuring that getting some sleep would be a good idea after my long, waking night – I certainly had the time for it – I closed my eyes and gripped onto my backpack to keep it secure. I didn't nod off as I would have liked, but instead, my mind kept replaying that scene from my linguistics class a few weeks before.
"Take, for example, a Pokémon," the professor claimed. An older man in his mid-fifties, I had gained a lot of respect for him as I was taking his class, even if the material wasn't always the most interesting. He really had a way of looking at things from a unique perspective.
"But how does a Pokémon get its name?"
I had been dozing off, barely awake in class, but I looked up in interest at the question. It was a question I'd thought about before, but which I never heard anyone else discuss.
"For example, we might call it a 'Charmander', but why do we call it that?" The professor grinned with a glow of genuine interest, projecting his question to the entire study hall.
"Well, because that's what its call sounds like!" a female student near me blurted out, as if the most obviously answerable question in the world had just been tossed at her.
"Correct," he continued, "many Pokémon do have vocalizations which bear resemblance to the phonetic pronunciations of their names. This is because Pokémon are often named after their cries. Nearly every Pokémon has a very distinctive vocalization, so these are easy to remember and to create new words for, thus giving each Pokémon a unique name."
That was something I had always figured, and was already somewhat aware of. While I found the question interesting, the answer was as obvious as I expected, and I began to lose interest in the lecture again, resting my head in my hand.
"But wait, when I was a kid, my parents told me that Pokémon say their names because we gave them those names!" A male student near the back stood up, questioning the professor. He stood his ground as the class belted out a round of jeers and snickers. Flustered, he tried to explain his claim further. "I mean, Charmander is just 'char' plus 'salamander', right? Those are just normal words put together!" The class collectively laughed once again.
Still grinning with genuine intent, the professor kept his composure as he replied. "Yes, that is a common misconception in our society, but our friend here does have some idea of the reality. However, this idea usually operates in the reverse. Consider instead that those words, 'char' and 'salamander', are actually derived from Charmander's name. It's a true chicken-or-the-egg scenario, but most linguists agree that's where the terms come from. This is true of many words. A significant portion of our vocabulary is derived from the names of Pokémon. We named the process of burning something, 'charring' it, after Charmander, a Pokémon which, as we all know, is apt to burn things with its fiery breath."
I was intrigued. I hadn't given it that much thought before, but it was pretty interesting that so much of our vocabulary could have been derived from the names of Pokémon. However, knowing that made me a bit annoyed, to realize how long the fixation on Pokémon had dominated society. After all, I'd taken the class to learn about the history of human language, not to hear more about how obsessed our society was with Pokémon.
As I sat there, thinking, I was irritated, as I had been for weeks, about why that experience in class bothered me so much, and why I kept thinking back to it. It's not as if I hated Pokémon or anything, as I'd often been accused of by people who were quick to judge me. I just liked people more, and I got tired of everything being about Pokémon all of the time. I never liked how humanity never seemed to give itself as much credit as it should have. Pokémon weren't the ones who built cities or created art and technology, after all.
I grew up in a household where Pokémon weren't too common, which was a bit unusual. Most of my friends had Pokémon growing up, and they'd battle during recess while I sat alone in the library. The ones who didn't train at least had Pokémon as pets, or had parents or siblings with Pokémon. I, on the other hand, didn't have any pets growing up, and my parents didn't train Pokémon either. My mom was a nurse. That is to say, she was a real nurse; one who operated on people instead of using a magical machine staffed by a Chansey, so she didn't interact with Pokémon much. My mom was sweet and understanding when she wanted to be, but she could also be cold and distant due to her focus on her career over all other priorities; this became more the case the older I got. My dad was more of a thinker than my mom, but he too focused a lot on work. He had a variety of jobs while I was growing up. He served a few years in forestry, often being away from home for a few weeks, patrolling the wilderness areas at the border with Kanto. He interacted a lot with Pokémon, both wild and trained, during this time, and brought back interesting stories about them. For whatever reason, he never got too personally involved with Pokémon, though. He had a Meganium, donated to him by Professor Elm, who lived near us in New Bark, but he only used it for forestry surveying, and rarely brought it home for me to see.
Obviously, I just wasn't directly exposed to a lot of Pokémon growing up, but my friends were all obsessed with them, unfortunately. A girlfriend I had in high school owned a pet Eevee, which is a really small, fluffy creature, and it was the only thing she ever talked about. Whenever I came over, I had to sit on the floor because the stupid thing refused to lie anywhere but its own special chair. She spoiled the heck out of that thing, and refused to evolve it even though her parents had the money to provide her any evolution method she chose. She thought it was too adorable the way it was, but I just thought it was an annoying mop that shed hair all over the place. The relationship didn't last long. She broke it off with me before moving to the big city in Goldenrod to live with her family because of my being "directionless", though rumor had been going around by that time that I just didn't like Pokémon, and so it was assumed that her Eevee was the reason we had split up. I never considered her the "one who got away", but I did think about her every now and then, mostly curious if she ever evolved that Eevee.
I did manage to get some sleep, and when I awoke, I checked my cell phone. I'd been asleep for just under three hours. RouteQuest wasn't lying when it said the route was long. Yeah, I still used RouteQuest. My phone had GPS on it, but I never bothered learning how to work GPS. The technology had arisen from, unsurprisingly, none other than Pokémon research, when scientists wanted to map out Pokémon habitats and migration patterns.
I was greeted to a voice. "Good evening, Sandman."
I groggily craned my neck to look across the aisle and past the bus seats.
"Right here," the gruff, hoarse voice added. I looked to the other corner of the bus' back to see an older man smiling at me, his slightly unsettling grin peppered with missing teeth. The first thing I noticed was his apparent dirtiness; his ragged clothes, dark and ashy skin, and unkempt beard.
"E-excuse me, what was that you said?" I asked, still rubbing my eyes.
"I was welcoming you back to reality. You've been asleep since before I got on this bus," he replied, still smirking. "You look like you've been havin' a nightmare. You alright, buddy?"
The logical thing to do was be wary of bus passengers wanting to chit-chat. I was quick to judge from his appearance that this guy was just like any other bum riding the bus. He probably just wanted me to give him some extra 'bus fare' or a cigarette. My formality got the best of me, though, and I replied back. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just have a lot on my mind." The bus had become a bit more packed than when I had dozed off, so I raised my voice in response. "Just figured I'd take a nap. I've a long way to go, and all."
The old man's perpetual, toothy smile quickly responded. "You look like the type to have a lot on yer mind. Yer a student, aren'tcha?" His eyes seemed to glow, anticipating my answer.
"Yes," I said, flatly. "Or, I was. I mean, I just left for the summer." That much was true. I wasn't ready to confidently boast of my dropping out to everyone on the planet just yet, no less a complete stranger who I easily could have taken for a criminal.
"Had a hard semester? Ya look smart, so I'm sure ya did well on yer finals."
I was a bit annoyed that he'd continued the conversation. Up to that point, experience had taught me that seeming uninterested was a usually flawless antidote for getting small-talking strangers to leave you alone. "Yeah, they were fine," I continued, hoping he'd drop the subject there. I sat in silence, glancing out the window to convince him of my disinterest.
"So yer takin' the bus home, I figure? Ain't the fanciest way to travel. But that six-figure salary will pay fer a nice car in time, won't it?" he continued on. I spied him leaning back confidently through the corner of my eye, and turned to respond.
"Well, that's not the exact plan. I know it's not the fastest way to travel. I mean, I'm going to have to transfer to another route soon," I quipped, glancing out the window again, and craning my neck to act as if I were looking out for an upcoming stop.
"I hear ya, I hear ya," he said in his coarse, raspy inflection. I rolled my eyes as I kept my head turned away. "Name's Tom," he growled, leaning forward and holding out his hand as if he knew I'd immediately turn to face him, which I did.
I looked down at his hand, covered in patches of dirt and ash, channeled with deep wrinkles and scratches that were the tell-tale signs of years of manual labor. I picked up on the scent of petroleum, guessing he worked around cars or trains. Hesitating, I eventually gave in and shook Tom's hand, recoiling my arm much quicker than I had brought it out.
"Hi," I tersely added, remembering my manners. "I'm-"
I was interrupted by the bus coming to a heavy halt at a light. Everyone on board felt the recoil. I realigned my backpack as I recovered myself. About to continue speaking, I was cut off by Tom.
"I'm just takin' the bus back home from work. I get up ev'ry morning before sunrise, head over to the plant, and get off at sunset to ride it on back home. Got off early today, though. First time in nearly twenty years I clocked out before my shift ends. Really wanted to stay, actually, but the boss said I'd done enough for the day and sent me back home to the lady."
"Great," I thought. "I'm going to get the life story, complete with venting and complaining about every minor grievance in this guy's life." I wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I sat there staring at him in silence.
"You excited to see yer parents again? I bet they missed you, with you bein' away at school for so long."
I wanted to just give him the generic response of "yeah", but I didn't. "Not really, honestly."
For the first time, Tom's toothy grin softened a bit. "Why's that?"
I was basically on autopilot at that point, hardly putting any thought into my answers. "I don't think they'll be that proud of me."
"Uh-oh. Lemme guess. Ya failed a class."
"No."
"Then why ain't you happy? Ya look awfully glum. Look at you. Yer young and handsome, and ya just finished a semester without failin' nothin'. Ya've got the whole world in front of you. Some people would kill to be in yer shoes."
I didn't look up at Tom, instead facing toward the front of the bus with my head down. "I dunno," I muttered, turning my voice down. "I'm not really doing as well as they'd hoped, or as much as you think."
"Well, you've gotta be doin' better than me. I've been doin' the same job for over twenty years."
I froze, taking a deep breath as I felt myself becoming anxious.
Tom smiled that toothy smile. "Ya know what I think? I think ya've got it real good, and even if yer unsure of yerself now, it'll all come together for ya eventually. That's what I think. You seem like a smart guy. You'll figure it out. Yer a smart guy."
Well, I knew that already. Unfortunately, smarts didn't equate to success, or even happiness, in my book at least. Still, the words were kind, and I smiled in response. I didn't know what to say, other than "Thanks, I guess. I appreciate it."
The bus began to slow down, and as I looked up, I noticed Tom pulling the cable to request a stop. The bus driver called to the back to alert the man of his stop, but he continued looking at me as if he didn't notice. "You'll be fine, kid. Even if ya don't like school, that's fine. What you gotta do is find somethin' you do like. You'll figure it out."
I was shocked in disbelief for a brief moment. It was as if he were reading my thoughts. His eyes conveyed a message of understanding that surpassed even his words in accuracy. I was used to that sort of advice, though. I quickly opened my mouth to speak, but was interrupted.
"This is my stop, seeya around," Tom chimed through his poorly-kept set of chompers. He promptly walked down the aisle and stepped onto the darkened, evening pavement outside. The last I saw of Tom was the back of a tired old man slowly shambling down a sidewalk into the quickly darkening streets.
"Eh," I thought to myself. It was the same thing I heard from my grandfather all the time. They just didn't get it. Finding enjoyment in something is one thing, but if you're not actually moving in any direction, then what was the point? Still, it didn't hurt to think about potential projects with which to occupy my time once I got back home. There's no way my parents would let me get away with living at home and not doing anything all the while. I just felt worse when I started to brainstorm, though. Thinking about new hobbies was something I did on a regular basis, and it had never produced any results for me. I pulled out my phone: just about 6:30 pm. I started playing some dumb game to keep my mind away from negative thoughts, but lost track of time after just a few minutes. I almost didn't make it in time to pull the cable for my stop. It was time to make my transfer. After that, I had just three more transfers to go before I'd wind up on my parents' doorstep, begging for mercy.