Heads up! I made a few small changes regarding Walda in chapter 3, because it wouldn't work with what I gave here.
I can't seem to do continuity for crap.
Enjoy the chapter, and don't forget to leave a review!
Walda Pepper was a dreamer.
Her dreams began in the same way it did for most people, she imagined. As a child, her eyes were always glued to the television screen, enraptured by the spectacles that Pokémon brought to the world. They were endearing to her. There was just something about them, something that made her heart swell in excitement, something that caused her to gasp in awe as a lone Pachirisu defeated the mighty Hydreigon.
"They're just sooo... awesome!" a five-year old Walda would say, summing up her feelings in a nicely veiled cloud of childishness.
Walda was a dreamer, and she loved Pokémon. People though? People were so boring, always worrying about her health, never letting her go outside...
The bane of her existence, they were.
Then she began going to school, where there were even more people. The first few days were torture for her poor ears, because the other people were children like her. And for other children, talking apparently meant screaming.
Needless to say, Walda didn't like going to school.
However, it wasn't all gloom and ruptured eardrums for her. Battle class was the highlight of the day, because it let her handle real Pokémon, not at all like the stuffed Pikachu her father had bought for her.
Battle class was also where she found her love for... well, battling. Watching battles on the silver screen never did much for her, aside from the fact that she could watch Pokémon do cool things like burning up all the toxic spikes on the ground.
Which is why she didn't expect to love battling by herself as much as she did. She loved the feeling of elation that came when she used a strategy that somehow worked, when she discovered her opponent's one hidden weakness, or when she cornered them until they slouched over, admitting defeat.
It was an amazing feeling.
Unfortunately, even that was something she rarely indulged in, courtesy of her poor constitution.
Walda was not good at dealing with stress, or exhaustion for that matter. Too much of either, and she would get sick, before collapsing like a house of cards.
Her parents eventually declared her unfit for going to school after she got sick for the fifth time in two weeks.
School was not the place for her, they decided.
So proper arrangements were made and one her teachers, Roxanne, was assigned to assist her with the material whenever she was free.
Walda didn't know why Roxanne was the one assigned to her. She was famous for being the town's Gym leader. Out of all of her teachers, she obviously did the most work, so why was the school piling up more work on her?
It was only much later that she would realized that Roxanne was a raging workaholic, and had chosen to help Walda out of her own volition.
Crazy Lady.
Walda didn't say that out loud though; she was grateful. Roxanne had been patient with her, and best of all, she wasn't loud like all her classmates and even some teachers were.
It also helped that she was the first one to support her dream of becoming the best Pokémon battler.
She certainly didn't enjoy the part where her parents had tried to 'gently' coax her out it. They could shove it, whatever 'it' was. They never told her.
Regardless, they never tried to push her out of her dream again, so she let bygones be bygones and even offered them a handshake as a ceasefire.
They all cried, and the battle was over.
So now that she found her fire had awakened, she began devouring as much information about Pokémon battling as she could. Type advantages, obscure move applications, Pokémon abilities - she knew them all.
Roxanne had also trained her to remain calm under any situation. "Pokémon battles are an inherently stressful affair, and I for one do not want you to collapse at an important moment."
was the explanation she was given.
It made sense, so Walda gave her all in the training.
It had nothing to do with the fact that she was promised a Pokémon from Roxanne's collection if she did well.
Nope, nothing at all...
Incentivized, Walda trained. She trained, trained, studied, trained, and studied some more after that.
And now today, after many, many centuries, (five years)she was turning ten years old.
She had finally graduated.
Tomorrow, she would be ready to face the world!
"Yeah!" Walda said, pumping her fist in excitement.
"Go to sleep!" said her mother, chastising her.
"Kayyyy," replied Walda, turning off the lights before sinking into her fluffy Pikachu bed.
Not even her mother could stop her beaming smile from lighting up the world around her.
Walda Pepper was a dreamer, and she was going to be the best Pokémon Battler in the world, darn it!
-Chapter End-