Chapter One 1A: Route 1 — Game Start.

So, I stole one of my brother's poke balls, big whoop. I was bored and upset, okay?

He wasn't going to notice one of them missing, anyway. I mean, his underwear drawer was full of them, and I doubted he counted and polished them all every day. I just wanted to prove to my friends down at the creek that I, Evan Hall, was a real pokemon trainer.

All four of my friends had gotten a pokemon for their 12th birthdays. I wasn't the last one to turn 12 in the Wolfpack—the name of our little gang—but I was the only one without a pokemon. No one expected Presley's parents to get him a pokemon for his 12th birthday back in May. I mean, we were seriously shocked, our parents included, because Presley's parents hardly bought him nice things. I remember Mum once saying they weren't as "fortunate as us", and when I had asked Brady what that meant, he said it meant that Presley's family was poor. Back then, I wasn't sure I understood what money had to do with luck. Now, I just knew I didn't feel so lucky not having a pokemon myself.

Within days of Presley's birthday, the Wolfpack began pestering me more and more about when I would have a pokemon. For four weeks, I wouldn't know peace in my own friend group thanks to Presley's annoying parents and their sudden generosity. It was about early mid-June when I realized I was close to my limit!

"It's been two months, bro," Olli said, referring to my birthday, which was on April 8th. "Any updates?"

"No. Mum keeps saying it's not the right time."

"Even though it's summer already?" Olli asked.

"Exactly. And whenever I ask Dad, he just says I should hold off on asking all the time and that I should just wait for Mum to work her magic, whatever that means."

"It means she's working on getting you one, right?"

I shrugged. "I dunno what it means. Maybe." I didn't share Olli's optimism. Dad always spoke vaguely when he wasn't being completely truthful. It was how we, thanks to Dad's editor, knew whenever he was behind on his work projects.

"His brother doesn't have one either, and he's already 16," Presley said. "Maybe his parents just don't want them to be trainers."

Gosh, did I want to punch him then. What did he know about what my parents wanted for me and Brady? They had no problem with us becoming trainers, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered sending Brady to a private trainers' school all the way in Motostoke. He didn't have a pokemon because his school provided them during the school year, and Mum didn't want to deal with an unnecessary hassle if it could be avoided, so he had to wait. I told the guys this before, so for Presley to even suggest that—ugh, he did it just to get on my nerves!

"What if you ask your parents again? But you do all your chores first—and your brother's, too! They'll like you more." This was Zebedee's innocent solution and no offense, it sounded like it sucked! I was ready to kindly reject it, but then Gio had vouched for it.

"That's what I did for two weeks straight, and they finally said yes." Gio was the oldest of our group and the coolest, which is why he was the leader of our gang; and since we all listened to him (well, most of us—Olli, excluded), I no longer had a reason not to give it a try.

But the thing was…. I hated spending ten minutes on my own chores; I couldn't imagine spending two weeks doing them with my brother's piled on. But, despite my apprehensions, I still vowed to see it through to the end, especially since I was also thinking that two weeks of extra cleaning would get me more leeway on my hangout time with my friends over summer break. Too bad it all backfired right in my face.

As the days of my changed behavior passed by, Mum and Dad thought I was growing to love chores and started asking me to help them out around the house like it was some sort of fun activity! And Brady?! He just started leaving bigger messes everywhere he went now that he didn't have to clean it up himself!

One afternoon, while I missed out on my friends going wooloo herding, I stayed back to clean the whole house while everyone went out. And then, when I went to shower, Brady came back with his friends and messed it all up! We got into a big fight because of it, and when Mum and Dad came home from grocery shopping, their faces went red when they saw Brady's black eye. It was an accident, though; it wasn't like I'd meant for my elbow to hit his stupid face. But I've long learned that parents don't really care what actually happened if it makes for a boastyworthy parenting story at get-togethers, so Brady got away scot-free while I was punished and forced to clean up his mess again! Can you believe that?

That incident was all it took for every single bit of a good I had done to be forgotten. I was grounded for two weeks, so it basically turned into a month of cleaning everything! And just like that, this summer was quickly climbing my list as the worst in my life. All that talk about Presley's family being "less fortunate" when I was the one constantly suffering. Talk about crappy luck.

When I finally got released from lockdown in early July, imagine my shock to learn that, apparently, the Wolfpack had started going down to the creek on Route 1 every day! Presley's idea. They said they were training their pokemon, but I knew they were just goofing around, doing our usual stuff. Unless I was up early enough to travel with them, I couldn't join them since Mum didn't like me walking on Route 1 by myself (even though it was the safest route in Galar! How humiliating!) But when I did join my friends, I felt left out.

While they trained their pokemon and sometimes battled, all I could do was sit around and watch bored or, at best, referee. I hated it.

Hangouts weren't fun anymore without a pokemon of my own, but what could I do? The gift Mum and Dad got me for my birthday was a lousy camping set, not a pokemon. They said I could use it in the backyard as practice for when I eventually got to the wild area. It was green, my favorite color, super shiny, and really expensive I think because I overheard Brady's friends ragging him for not having the same brand; and while that did make me like it a little bit more, everybody knew that a camping set was no good without a pokemon to share it with. I never asked for a camping set, so I thought it was a horrible gift. It was only perfect at showcasing my parent's stellar listening skills. But if I had said that aloud, then Mum and Dad would have gotten real mad.

Every spring, in preparation for the rain season, (for some reason, Brady was exempt from this?), my grandma sent me ugly, thick sweaters because she didn't realize others places weren't like Circhester, meaning cold and snowing year round. Mum made me wear them while she took pictures to send to Gran. To show that I was grateful, Dad made me wear them for the whole day, too. Well, I wasn't grateful for the camping set, but I had to use it, or my parents would've probably given it to Brady. I mean, you should've seen their faces the first night I emerged from the tent, grumpy with crazy bed hair from not getting a single lick of sleep with all the hoothoot hooting and the nickit pawing to get in! They were grinning ear to ear, with a camera in hand! I was trapped.

So, all of that was why I stole one of Brady's poke balls and snuck off towards the creek. I figured if I could show the gang I had at least one of those, they would stop giving me flack. For some reason, I hadn't expected them to make me actually use it!

"Well, let's see it then," Olli said, pretending to be pack leader while Gio was out of town. He had claw marks all over his arms because of the dumb rookiedee on his shoulder. When it wasn't flying in the opposite commanded direction, it was attacking him or treating his arm like a tree branch, pecking it and clawing it willy-nilly. What good was a pokemon that hurt you more than it helped? The bird could barely fetch a stick, but Olli thought it was cooler than the anyone else's pokemon because it would eventually evolve into a massive corviknight that could fly him around. Big whoop. It'd be a long time before that happened.

"Ooh, yeah! I wanna see! I wanna see!" Zebedee exclaimed, hopping energetically in time with Bunnelby. He was the newest addition to the Wolfpack but the second oldest of us all. He already had Bunnelby when he and his family moved to Wedgehurst late last year, so his pokemon was well-behaved by this point, if not overly energetic. I didn't know which distant region he was from with his accent, but they way he rushed through his words made his speech sound more musical, I thought. Like someone was randomly playing notes on the clarinet, but in a good, funny way. "Ooh, we can even have a battle! Can it battle yet? Have you battled yet?"

"Easy, Zeb," Presley said, grabbing his shoulder as he usually did when Zebedee got too excited. "He probably rushed here as soon as he got it to show us. Right?" As he pushed up his glasses, I felt the urge to slap them off of his stupid, smug face. He wouldn't act so cool when he couldn't see without them. Gosh, I swore he'd only gotten more and more annoying lately, but the worst part was I don't think anyone noticed but me.

Presley used to be one of the shyest, soft-spoken members of our gang, but ever since he'd gotten his little tyrogue, I had the feeling he thought he was better than me! He always talked like he knew everything when he didn't. Reading a bunch of books didn't make you necessarily smart, but it did make you one big nerd.

His tyrogue hid behind his leg. He was a fighting type, but he always looked scared of everything. Not much you could do with a scaredy-cat pokemon—everyone knew that. Presley could have his pokemon a whole year before me, and it wouldn't make a difference because once I got mine, I would never lose to him. Ever.

"No, I didn't rush here to show you guys," I said, out of breath. "I didn't come to show you at all. Just to tell you I had one."

Zebedee stopped jumping, Bunnelby following suit. They were eerily in-sync like that. "Aww, but I really wanted to see it!"

"You can't just screw, nut, and bolt on us," Olli said, marching over and swiping at my hand. I twisted away.

"No! You don't get to see it yet—" I froze. I didn't think this far ahead. What kind of excuse could I give? "You'll… only make it nervous!"

"Oh." Olli backed away. He'd started to apologize when Presley said, "Well, what is it then?"

"H-huh?"

"What is it then? Your pokemon?" Presley spoke with his syllables spaced evenly apart. Talking to me like I was some little kid when I was still a month older than him!

"It's uh… why?"

"You can't show us, but you can at least tell us what it is." He glanced at the other guys innocently to bring them in, then smirked at me. "Right?"

"Oh, yes! You can tell us! " Zebedee said, having dug his printed Galarian pokedex binder out of his satchel. Since he was still unfamiliar with Galar's pokemon, he carried it with him everywhere he went, always ready to flip through the pages until he recognized a name or spotted the matching creature.

"Well?" Presley prompted. "We're waiting."

Olli was watching me with his raised brows. He was still standing so close that it made me uncomfortable. I stepped back. My grip on the empty poke ball was so tight, I thought it would break.

"I, uh, my mum told me I had to leave it at home, so I did."

"And she let you come to Route 1 by yourself?" Presley asked.

"Well. No. I snuck out…" I explained. Gosh, it was scorching today. I tugged at the collar of my shirt. The creek's water looked so clear and drinkable today. I saw the red scales of magikarp slip by. "I should really get back before she notices…" I mumbled.

"You can't leave without telling us what your starter is," Presley persisted. "Since visiting your house might frighten it. Right? Oh, I'm so excited for school now." He shook Zebedee's arm to get him amped and jumping again.

"Ooh, that's right! Since we all have a pokemon, that means we can all take the same course at school this year, after all!"

"That's a pretty big deal," Presley said. "We should celebrate! Evan finally has a starter. If only Gio was here—"

"Just shut up, Presley! Yours hardly even counts," I snarled. I couldn't take it anymore. Why did he have to go and make me feel like crud?!

Presley's face fell and all traces of his stupid smugness disappeared. He looked like he might cry. Well, good. I was already feeling better. I'd been holding that in since the start of the summer. Maybe that would teach him not to poke the beedrill's nest.

"At least I have one!" he snapped. "Do you?!" His voice cracked, but nobody poked fun. We were all shocked that he had said something back. Shy Presley? Who never raised his voice unless it was at his annoying sister? It was almost unthinkable to imagine he'd ever yell at one of us. I mean, in the past, he hadn't even dared to banter with us. He couldn't handle the way me and Olli or Olli and Gio liked to go back and forth, sometimes in jest, sometimes in annoyance. The fact that he'd chosen me as the first person to do that to just somehow made me angrier.

"And do you think that makes you better than me?" I shouted back. "Having a pokemon doesn't make you a good trainer, you know? I bet your tyrogue couldn't beat a wild zigzagoon with its 4x type advantage; but please, prove me wrong." When he didn't have anything to say, I chuckled. "We can go to Route 2 right now, Presley!"

"Hey. That's enough," Olli interjected, voice strained.

I was done anyway. I'd said what I needed to. Presley's moment of toughness had cracked under the slightest pushback. A choked sob escaped his lips. He scooped up his little confused tyrogue and ran off.

"Wait up!" Zebedee shouted after him. He seemed almost scared to look at me. Zebedee. The nicest of us all. I wondered what he was thinking, and if he didn't like me anymore. He wasn't a stranger to my temper, nor to our occasional Wolfpack feuds, but usually the fights were between me and Olli, or Olli and Gio. I think he liked Presley more for that very reason; he was less stressful.

"I'm gonna go check on him. Since his house is by mine," he added, cautiously, as if I would write him off for 'choosing sides'. But we didn't do that in the Wolfpack. Problems between us guys were between those involved; we didn't drag the group down. Without him and Bunnelby, it was just me and Olli left at the creek. I had no clue where his rookiedee had flown off to.

"Evan," Olli said in the serious voice he used when one of us took our jokes too far. It was the type of voice preschool teachers used on the kids when they were trying to get them to admit the truth. "You still don't have one, do you?"

"Obvious not! You don't see it out here, do you?"

"Hey! Don't get mad at me," he said and shoved me. "I was just asking."

Olli didn't like it when people angry yelled because his parents always yelled, and since his stiff face always made me uncomfortable, I had a mental note of when not to push his buttons. So, I didn't bother shoving back, but I did straighten out my shirt to let him know that I wasn't so easily fazed.

"Well, you already knew the answer, so I didn't see the point in you asking," I said.

"And I didn't see the point in you lying to our faces, either."

"I wasn't trying to!" I shouted, not at him, but he still tensed up.

I took a deep breath like Dad always told me to do when I got too riled up. He said I didn't think in the moment when I was angry, so I needed to breathe. I wasn't too sure about that advice though. I felt plenty of oxygen in my lungs when I yelled at people. "It was supposed to be a joke," I said, much 'calmer'. My volume was in defense of myself, not directed at him, and I didn't need him thinking otherwise. I was already being misunderstood enough.

"Some joke," he said, and snatched the poke ball from me. He clicked it open, and nothing happened. Duh. He sighed, like he had expected something different and handed it back to me. It felt like a cold, hollow shell of what I had been holding before. "Usually, you make people laugh at jokes, not cry."

"Well." I didn't know what to tell him. What could I do about Presley being an overly sensitive crybaby? He wouldn't survive a day with Brady as his brother.

"What you said was really mean, Evan."

I shrugged. I'm sure it was mean—that was the point of me saying it, after all—but none of this would have happened if Presley didn't think he was better than me. He was the one that kept pushing me to blow up.

"Look," Olli continued. He was still wearing his serious face. So annoying. Why couldn't he just let it go? "You know we're still friends, right? Even if we can't be in the same class, we're still going to be friends. Even if you don't get a pokemon—"

"I'm gonna get one."

"I know you are, Evan. I never said—"

"—Yeah. I know. Friends forever or whatever. Wolfpack for life. Gotcha." His face hardened. I sighed. "Just drop it, Olli. I get it."

"Fine. I'm going home then." He whistled and from the trees flew his rookiedee. It was a quick little thing, and I flinched, expecting it to come barreling right into me, all beak and talons. But it glided right past, landing on Olli's extended arm. Its claws dug into his skin, and I winced—that had to have hurt—but it was a perfect landing, I realized. The bird shimmied the rest of the way to his shoulder, where it perched contently. No fuss like I was used to seeing.

"We've come a long way, huh?" Olli mused, having noticed my hanging mouth. "I taught it to land this way because I figured it's better to have a scratched-up arm then a scratched up face." He scratched rookiedee's head, and it chirped. The sound went straight to my heart and made it ache. It was the sound a pokemon growing to like its trainer. This is what all my friends were experiencing now, new friendships, while I was left to watch my own drift away.

I mean, sure we were friends now. But I could already see the rift—in live time. Olli and the others may not have been able to, but at least Presley certainly had. It was exactly why he thought he could make fun of me. Even he knew, that despite whatever memories we'd shared before, that they were living a different life than me. They were creating new memories from shared experiences I couldn't relate to.

Everyday, they were making progress with their pokemon, and yeah, there was still a lot to keep them busy here. There were still trainer skills they could learn from school and still plenty of wild pokemon they could train up against, but…

It wouldn't take them long until they reached the point where they outgrew Wedgehurst. Like pokemon, people who were gaining new experiences reached a certain level and evolved, too. And once the Wolfpack did that, I'd be the one that was left behind, unable to keep up.

That was why I needed a pokemon—not 'later', not 'soon'.

Now.

And I realized I was willing to do whatever it took to get one.

I still had Brady's poke ball, after all…

And maybe, just maybe, I had a plan...