Author's Note:

Thank you for picking up this story! You don't have the read the two-shot that goes with this piece as I will explain things as they go along, but I would read it.

Please enjoy!

Steven

The end of May was drawing near, and with it, the end of the school season.

Steven was glad for this. He was hot, with his sweat running down his back and it gets into his eyes. Training drills were a nightmare in the summer.

For the first time in years, he would not be going to his school's summer training camp that was held during the off season. He was glad for this reprieve, but he also knew that this would be a time of preparation for him.

Most students go off traveling on their first journey after they turn 10. It was the legal age of being able to use Pokémon in official battles, and it was also the legal age used to travel without adult supervision. It was the perfect time.

The official league circuit was one year, since the Ever Grande Conference was held each year at the end of May. Many trainers are able to obtain all eight official gym badges by the time the conference starts. For those that don't, they go back home and train and wait for the beginning of next year's circuit, or they join a trainer school, wait to graduate, and then try again.

However, for some trainers, they don't begin their journeys immediately when they turn 10. They wait until they are older.

For Steven Stone, this was his case.

In the beginning, he didn't want to go on a journey at all. He much preferred to stay at home and help his father with any of his expeditions that he had. However, his parents wanted him to travel and enjoy himself while he was young.

So there was a compromise.

His parents enrolled Steven into the best trainer school in the entire region, the Rustboro City Training Academy. Lucky for them, it was located in their home city. They didn't have to send him to the dorms the academy provided. Steven could come back home every day after school.

Steven didn't mind. He liked school. He was good at it. He liked to learn. Knowledge was power to him. The more he knew, the more he could use it to achieve what he wanted.

At the time, Steven just wanted to be a good successor for the Devon Corporation. He knew his family founded and ran the largest conglomerate in the entire region. He also knew that it was his duty to take his father's place one day.

That duty never scared him. He loved what his father did. The work was exciting and innovating. Even the business aspect of it. He saw his father in the lab and in the board room. He wanted to do that one day. He wanted to be like his father or even better one day.

Because of this, he had no desire to leave his home to go traveling around the region.

Unfortunately, his father and mother had other plans for him. Both of them met each other while on their journeys. Both of them didn't head out to traverse the Hoenn region until they were much older than the typical trainer. But they wanted to do it at least once before they died. They didn't fall in love right away, but they became the best of friends. Years later, their friendship bloomed into love. This journey is also where they meet many of their lifelong friends and business partners.

Because of this, his parents saw a journey as quintessential to one's life.

Steven definitely disagreed with this point, but he was actually looking forward to being able to leave.

Over the course of the five years since he has been enrolled in this academy, Steven had put his blood, sweat, and tears into everything he had done. Each year, he ranked first in his class. And in the time that he was participating in battles, he never lost a single one.

Steven wanted to be the best. He also wanted to be perceived as someone not to underestimate. He wanted to prove to people that he deserved his spot by his father's side and as the next heir of Devon.

With his superior grades and battle prowess, he became known as the Prince of Rustboro. However, with this title also came another one, the Iron Wall.

In the beginning when Steven first arrived at the academy, he was very open and friendly. He hoped to make lots of friends and maybe even a rival. However time proved how naïve he was; how innocent he was.

Along the way, he lost many friends and many romantic interests. All proving to only want one thing, his status. Never in his life did Steven think that his status as the heir of Devon would affect anything in his life. He knew this as a fact, as a statement. He never thought that it would ever affect his life in a negative way. But he was proven so so wrong.

It was whispers heard in the air. It was overheard conversations. It was the way they looked at him.

He found it impossible to build any relationships with people as long as he was who he was. People chased him for his status and not for him. In time, he found that these people didn't value him, but valued what he could do for them in the future.

In his second year, he decided that he couldn't get close to anyone there. He would focus more on school and less on building relationships. He spent too many tears on people that did not care for him. So he became the Iron Wall.

From then on, no one could get close to him. No one could make him smile. No one was invited into his space, into his home. He put barriers up, and he wasn't going to let them down for anybody.

He never had a problem with others calling him the Iron Wall. It meant that no one could hurt him or take advantage of him and his family. His family was first above all else.

Some said the title in fear while others said it with spite. Some of the students became quite angry when he changed his disposition with them. Steven didn't care. He knew they were angry because they couldn't be close with the Devon heir anymore; it wasn't because they actually wanted to form a relationship with him.

He had a love hate relationship with school, and he was glad it would be over soon. He never thought he would crave the start of his journey. But there's a first time for everything.

Everything was prepared with his school. Since his education was going to be on hold, the timing of his degree would also be late.

He thought about taking the rest of his high school education online while he was traveling, but his parents were against it. They wanted him to enjoy his time traveling not having to worry about assignment deadlines and trying to find WIFI.

He appreciates it now with his classes drawing near their end. He doesn't want to think about school or any of his school mates anymore.

It's not that he has started to hate learning; he just finds the environment too toxic.

When he first started using his cold persona, people would just leave him alone. He was still polite and courteous.

Now, people take advantage of the fact that he never gets angry or tells the faculty on them. He constantly receives mean messages, and his locker is always vandalized. His change of clothes after practicals always seems to be missing, and people keep tripping him whenever he goes to throw away his food from lunch.

It wasn't anything he couldn't handle, but it was still annoying.

The last day of school felt odd to him. He wanted to take in everything so that he remembers his time here, but he also wanted to forget. Even though he didn't hate the time he spent at the school, he still didn't make any memorable times. There was nothing that attached him to this place.

Though he still wanted to remember some pieces of it. This school did help him develop into an impressive battler. He hopes to test these skills against new opponents.

As Steven wandered through the empty halls of his school, he slowly took everything in.

He touched his desk. He touched his locker. He touched the walls of the hallway. He even touched the handle of the school's library.

Steven had always been a tactile person. Touch was something important to him. Whether it was a hug from his parents or the texture of a new piece of fabric, he was always interested in what each object felt like.

The world was made up of so many textures. He wanted to feel everything he could so that he could feel the story in each.

This is where his love for stones came from. Some stones are smooth, and some are rough. Some rough stones become smooth when polished. Some smooth stones gain edges with carvings. Each stone had its own texture, its own story. He wanted to feel every story they had to offer.

Soon he was out of his school and slowly walking up to a car that would take him away to Devon Corp.

The ride to Devon was a bit long, as usual. His school was located near the suburbs of the city while the corporation was located in the Northern part of the city in the heart of downtown. The traffic always started to get a little bad when he got out of school.

His father had wanted him to go straight home after school was over instead of coming to the company all the time. But Steven was against it. He loved coming to Devon. It was his second favorite place on Earth after his home.

He always felt welcome at Devon. He always felt respected; not just because of his status but because of him as a human being. He felt that the employees saw him as an equal, as a peer, as a colleague, even though he didn't have the same number of degrees as them or was significantly younger than them.

He never felt discredited or lesser. They always engaged him in conversation and helped him to understand some of the more complex topics he didn't know any information about.

He felt like he could let down his guard a little here. They weren't after his wealth or his connections. They just wanted to work and do a good job at that.

Because of them, he wanted to work there when he was older. He wanted to prove to be a good co-worker and a good boss to them one day.

Their friendship made him excited about the future, his future. Most people would assume that the pressure to be just as great if not even better than his father would be overwhelming. But he didn't find it to be so. His father and their employees were so supportive of him and treated him so well. He never felt like there was too much pressure because he wanted it too.

As the car pulled into the underground garage, Steven got out and walked to the entrance. As he was walking, he let a breath he didn't know he was holding. He opened the door and entered the elevator letting it take him to the 10th level.

This place was always special to him. These past five years of being in school were hard but coming here every day after school made it worth it.

His school days were draining but spending his time at the company always seemed to help motivate and energize him.

He would miss it while he was on his journey.

Getting out of the elevator on the 10th floor, Steven headed straight for the lab at the end of the hallway. He quickly got to the room and opened the door.

"Dr. Lancaster!"

Slowly, an older man with a white short hair and a white beard turned towards Steven, smiling at him.

Dr. Lancaster had been working for Devon longer than Steven has been living. He slowly moved up from being a lab assistant into becoming the Director of Research and Innovation at Devon.

Steven loved talking to him the most. He loved their back-and-forth conversations. They always debated on a plethora of topics. He never made Steven feel foolish.

"Well hello my boy! How was your last day of classes?"

"Fine. I'm glad it's over," Steven said with a sigh.

Dr. Lancaster laughed a bit, "Will you be coming here to the company during your summer break, or will you be staying at home?"

"I will be coming back and forth. I would like to spend as much time here as possible before I have to leave, but I also need to spend an adequate amount of time preparing."

"Ah, I'm sure all will go well."

"Hopefully. What have you been working on today?" Steven said looking at the papers surrounding Dr. Lancaster.

"Do you remember the project we had two years ago where our labs partnered with a group of scientists and geologist who worked at the Oreburgh Mining Museum in the Sinnoh region?"

"Yes!" Steven said smiling, "It was with that partnership that we were able to create the technology to revive fossil Pokémon. Now, many trainers use revived Pokémon on their teams."

"Correct my boy," he said ruffling Steven's hair, "However, we have been noticing that with all the fossil Pokémon we revive, all of them seem to have a secondary element of rock type. We are not sure if this is what they were born with or if this had come from the revival process. We suspect it's from the later. So we're putting together a team to research this and hopefully find some answers."

"Hmmm . . . I don't think that you should rule out those fossil Pokémon being born with the rock secondary typing just yet. I think you should go in with a more open mind."

Dr. Lancaster tilted his head, "And why do you think that my boy?"

"Well, we already have two theories that life either started on land or in the water then migrated to the land. If the second were the case, then I believe we would see a lot more typings of water. If the latter were the case, then it would seem as if a typing of rock, ground, or grass would be logical. I would check and see the environments that each of the fossils that you are looking at are coming from, and also check their diets. I do not believe genetic testing will be able to give you the full picture since typings can evolve over time."

"Thank you for the idea young one," says Dr. Lancaster as he ruffles Steven's hair, "I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

Steven's laughter filled the space.

Steven would miss this the most. With not having any friends, there was no one he could talk like this to. Most kids his age don't really care all that much about science and technology. Everyone was totally enraptured with Pokémon.

A knock was heard at the door, and both Steven and Dr. Lancaster turned their heads to see who was there.

A woman with dark hair wearing a suit entered the lab.

"Good afternoon gentlemen," she said, "Mr. Steven, you have a meeting in 15 minutes."

Steven quickly nodded his head and said his goodbyes to Dr. Lancaster before heading out of the lab.

Steven was used to being in business meetings. His father never had him go in any board meetings are any meetings where they were trying to convince someone to invest in them, but he was invited to those that were more intimate.

Most business meetings he was invited to were those where it was just him, his father, and another business acquaintance. He would usually be there to give feedback.

Steven knew he was young and not yet old enough to run the company, but these meetings always made him feel respected. He wasn't pushed to the side because of his age; he was there because of it. He didn't know how he could feel so respected with those so much older than him than with those who were his peers. It was a conundrum and made him feel like he could never have friends in his own age group.

The elevator dinged, signaling Steven arriving at the floor of his choice. He quickly walked out of the elevator, turned down the hallway, and entered his father's office.

His father had the largest office in the building. There were beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over downtown Rustboro and a magnificent wooden desk in the middle of the room. Because the day was ending, golden rays of light entered into the suite.

At the desk was his father and the director over the PokéNav project. Steven took a seat next to the director.

The meeting went over the newest update of their device being renamed as the PokéNav Plus. It would have many new features as well as a sleeker design. The director and his father wanted Steven's input on the design and on the new features. They also wanted him to take the device with him on his journey so that they could test it with a trainer.

When handing over the PokéNavs to him, his father gave him an extra.

"Why are you giving me an extra one?" asked Steven.

His father just smiled and said, "Hopefully, you will give this to your travelling partner!"

"Father," said Steven exasperated, "We have already discussed this. I do not have a traveling partner in mind. I also do not want to travel with a stranger. There is no one to gift this to. It would be useless for me to carry around both."

"My boy," said Mr. Stone putting his hands on his son's shoulders, "You never know who you may meet along the way. I must insist that you take both."

Steven sighed in defeat, "Okay, I will take the extra PokéNav, but I cannot promise anything will come of it."

His father just laughed.

Soon, the meeting was over. With the end of it, Steven and Mr. Stone made their way home.

Steven has heard many times the saying "my heart is full." He doesn't know if he's actually felt that way before, but the closest he can think of attributing this time to is when he is with his parents.

He loves being with his parents. He always feels the most free with them. He feels the most whole with them. He feels the most himself with them. There is no need to hide or to put up an impenetrable wall with them.

When they get home, he sees his mother finishing up her work at the kitchen table while their chef is preparing their dinner.

Many people assume that Mr. Stone's wife doesn't work, but that is farthest from the truth. Ms. Stone is a geologist and a tenured professor at the University of Rustboro. She has been working there for almost 20 years.

However for a while, she wasn't able to work. Around the time Steven was seven, Ms. Stone had been diagnosed with a chronic illness. She's been in and out of the hospital for years. Lately, for the past three years, things have been getting better. She's been able to return to her job full time and also spend more time with her son and husband.

Steven was glad his mother was in a better position health wise. He didn't want to lose her just yet. While he knew the illness wasn't terminal, it was rapidly decreasing her quality of life.

His mother was very special to him. While most people believe it was his father who gave him his love for stones, it was actually his mother. His mother took him on his first expedition. His mother was the one who told him there was a story inside of every stone.

While she was sick, Steven continued to go on expeditions with his father to find rare stones. It made him feel closer to her. It made him feel as if she was with them.

While his mother was in a better place now, she was still in no condition to travel heavily.

He thinks he will miss her the most. With her recovering over the past 3 years, he wanted to spend every moment with her.

Hopefully, this journey would be worth it.

Word Count: 3,457

Uploaded: Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading this all the way to the end! Please comment what you liked about this chapter and what you would like to see!

Also, this is cross posted to AO3