Chapter 2

Escape

(-¤-)

OK so its been awhile and while pokemon are cool and stuff sitting in bed for a week is uneventful so I'm gonna rush you through the important shit first.

First, Nurse Joy had asked exactly one more question about my orphan status. "Do you have a guardian or home I should call?" And while I knew telling her I was homeless would make her cry even more it was my best option. I think I got a decent backstory cooked up if I need it though, hopefully it'll be hard to disprove.

Second, I had so many broken everythings. Snapped femur, cracked spine and neck, shattered arm, ruptured organs. Long list made short, I should be dead as fuck, but these people had some crazy medical shit. Apparently I got shot up with modified ditto cells for the more serious organy stuff and they're letting Chansey heal pulse the rest. They couldn't use more of it because humans tend to have adverse reactions to too much of it, such as melting. So thats terrifying. I asked if I was gonna get super powers, Nurse Joy said no, still cool though. I'm now technically part pokemon, er, at least my kidneys and other various organs are. Also they have free healthcare here, so no giant bill!

Third, I got visitors! Joy has been keeping the nosier towns people out of my room and denying them visits. Which is fine, I don't know anyone here and I don't want people to gawk at me all day. The town anklebiters however were a bit more clever. Instead of asking for permission they just stop by my window every now and then to ask me lots and lots of questions. Most of which I can't answer honestly. We're on pretty good terms and I convinced them to throw candy into my mouth at one point. They have fantastic aim, I got to eat a thing called a 'twistber', it tasted like blue. Not raspberry, just blue.

Also hospitals are fucking boring.

The only other thing to do besides lie to small children was watch tv. And I had been watching tv for like, a week, but they have some pretty cool shit to watch here. Pokemon tournaments, pokemon sitcoms, a bunch of shitty pokemon rom coms featuring what I think is this worlds version of Adam Sandler? They're bad, and not fun bad, just bad.

I'm getting off topic. What else?

Oh yeah, fourth, Nurse Joy is a worry wart and Chansey acts like a fourty three year old janitor who has seen too much shit to care anymore. I can practically see her with a cigarette and that smokers rattle. I'd say she needs a break but the center never gets visitors. Apparently they haven't had any in like six months. This town is too far off the map for any during league season and the town folks can take care of most of their pokemons minor illnesses on their own. The only reason one is here is because of population size, at a certain number of citizens towns are automatically alloted a pokemon center. So yeah, the town is just big enough for one so the league stuck one here. Joy and Chansey have been bored ever since. I'm pretty sure thats why I haven't been moved to the actual hospital. I break the monotony.

This had the unfortunate effect of her trying to mother me constantly. I did manage to get her to more or less stop getting on my case for curseing. It took a whole day of trying to communicate to her purely with bad words, but she gave up towards the end.

'How do you feel today small child?'

'Shit shit piss fuckery ass.'

This poor lady does not deserve the task of dealing with me.

And also they live here, like in one of the back rooms. I've gone from the pink haired roomate to having a pink haired room mate.

Also the crazy hair color is natural, the genetics here are bizarre.

On the plus side its only been a week and I'm already making a miraculous recovery. Chansey, the lovable gal, was using heal pulse four times a day on me. I had even gotten most of my bandages and stitches removed. Super powered monsters for the win!

So now I had gone from a bed ridden broken lump of bored to a wheelchair riding less broken lump of frustratingly fast. Of course the only one particularly annoyed was Nurse Joy, as giving me the power of wheels had put my speed just above hers. I had found and glued a rubber door stop to my arm cast so I could operate both wheels as quickly as possible without having to use my actual hand.

The remote nature of this place and scarce visitors also had one more side effect. There was nothing good in the lost and found. No one comes here so no one loses anything. The lost and found consisted of a plastic tote with the pokemon center logo on the side. Inside was one leather belt, a plastic coat hanger, and a broken lunchbox.

It was oddly sad.

So yeah I have no clothes, and no clothes to steal. I could swipe some from Nurse Joy, but if I start walking around in a nurses outfit she's gonna get suspicious. Apparently The ones I was wearing were stained in my blood from hem to hem and were disposed of before I woke up. I've been wearing hostpital gowns this whole time

After gaining mobility I immediately went to the bathroom. Not for the usual bathroom uses but to answer a question that had been bothering me since I met the cute nurse in the other room. What did I look like? The old tv told me a bit, but it was to far away and to grey for any real detail.

In short, the answer was pretty good! The first things that struck me were my long deep blue hair and my vividly orange eyes. They made each other stand out drastically, I looked like a bad deviantart character. My face was well balanced, a sharp chin and a cute nose tied it all together nicely. And of course all my tattoos were gone, leaving unmarked lightly tanned skin. I just got a really cool garchomp one too, that fucking sucks. I hated the long hair though, looking at it made me want to find some scissors.

It wasn't that I hated long hair in general, I just hated dealing with it. It needs brushed, conditioner, and tied back when you want to do anything that involves looking down. It's just a hassle. Besides I'd look pretty good in a undercut.

Anyway, as far as I could tell I was maybe around 4'9. I was a little stocky though, if I started working out after puberty I'd bulk up fast.

Oh god, I have to go through puberty again.

Oh hey! I don't have to deal with peroids for a few years, thats pretty sweet.

Oh and one more tiny little detail.

This wasn't my body.

I remember what I looked like as a kid and it wasn't this, I had a whole new face, body type, and even a slightly darker skin shade, I mean yes my eyes and hair were different from before but I could chalk that up to magic bullshit. But the rest combined with the pre existing injuries made me think that this body might have been here before I was. Which means I might have body snatched a kid.

I think I prefer thinking about the inevitability of hormones.

I had a few years until I hit that awkward stage of life once again. While I wait for that I was going to become a pokemon trainer and... do something impressive. Maybe become champion, I guess. Champs get put in history books right? I'll figure it out later, for now I knew that to be a trainer I needed a few things, firstly was a pokeball. With that I could catch a starter of my own and begin training. I wasn't sure what to catch though, if I remembered right this area doesn't have alot of promise in powerful pokemon.

The second thing was a trainer license. That was given out by certain league qualified members, most major areas have at least one, Dellitown doesn't. If you were below the age of ten you had to be sponsered by a regional executive, professor, breeder, or gym leader. Any age above that and you can just go to one of those and they will just give you one. To get a starter you had to either impress or bargain with the license people, otherwise you just catch one yourself. Turtwigs aren't common or cheap. Which was why most people in the anime and games don't have a regional starter.

The reason I knew all this is because of a little thing I love to call.

!THE POKÉNET!

What can I say, I'm a sucker for dumb puns.

Anyway while THE POKÉNET was useful for stuff like that, it turned out to be rather shit compared to my old internet. The information was controlled here. Instead of letting people just spew what ever info they want into cyber space, they had porygon patrols working around the clock to censor any sensitive information. Luckily this didn't seem to be used maliciously, like say the government wants you to believe it was absolutely perfect with nothing wrong. A quick search gave me lots of stuff about government scandals and such. But a lot of info just wasn't available nonetheless, (i wonder if its to keep people from hunting downs legendaries or weird over powered magic crap.) even more so for pokemon training. People didn't like giving up their hard won secrets, hints and tricks. Seems like the only time they did that was in person and in exchange for the other guys tricks.

It's also good to see that even humans in seperate realities like dumb cat videos. I killed an hour watching people doing stupid things with pokemon. One guy got kicked in the dick by a hitmonlee, who then gave the camera a thumbs up, it was hilarious.

So yeah I knew the official stuff, now to do the unofficial stuff. While trainer secrets weren't available, trainer stories were. And more than a few people caught a pokemon first and then got their license. It apparently helps show you can take responsibility for one but kinda makes it harder to get a starter from them. So all I needed to do for right now was gather supplies and money and a pokemon, run on down to Rowans lab and get a license.

Not sure what to do after that though.

But nonetheless to do any of that I had to leave this building and if you thought being in a wheel chair with only one good arm would stop me then you don't know shit about Alice Thorn. So strap the hell in buddy cause this journey's gonna be a fucking ride. But like I said earlier Joy is a worrier and refused to let me out of the building for four damn days. Not even to check out the area around the center. Gods, it's not like I'm going get run over or anything!

Again, that is.

However she wasn't dealing with the average eleven year old who would listen to whatever she said. So getting out wasn't actually difficult it just required a little planning. The plan was simple. Wake up before her or Chansey, and roll out the front door. Worked like a charm, after I finally managed to wake up that early that is. I am not a morning person.

So here I was out in town in a blue hospital gown looking for stuff, money, and pants. Nurse Joy would get up pretty early so I woke up about thirty minutes before her. She would definitely freak out when she did but I left a note so it would be fine. Probably. Maybe. I was gonna get grounded, but progress must be made!

The town itself had a older western slash eastern kinda vibe, it was charming. But all around I could see things falling into disrepair. Bent gutters, missing shingles old flaking paint, and unskilled repair jobs told me this town didn't get alot of traffic. It needed some tourism badly and with it being so out of the way not even trainer season brings much income. As I rode down the cracked and slightly over grown side walk I could tell that this town was dying. It broke my heart a little.

"Well your quite a sight."

I quickly wheeled around (thank you rubber door stop) to see a kinda scruffy but handsome man wearing grey grease stained coveralls with the top half tied around his waist and a dirty white t-shirt who looked just as surprised as I was.

"You're that orphan girl the kids found in the woods last week, right." Looks like my reputation proceeds me.

It wasn't a question so much as a statement. Regardless I nodded, eyeing him suspiciously. If he tried something I had a big stick with me to clobber him with (found it outside the center, it was hefty) and speed away on my new ride. I held it out in my good hand and let it clack the ground a couple times for good measure, a warning. People are less likely to try something if they know you have a weapon.

That seemed to give him some pause and he took a step back with his hands up in a placating manner.

"Easy now I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanted to know why you were wandering through town all alone." He gave me a nervous smile, obviously not sure how to react to a seemingly aggressive crippled girl. He seemed genuine though. I figured this was as good a time for information gathering as any.

"I was just looking around," my voice, now all healed up, was high pitched and reminded me of some girls I knew in middle school. I wasn't happy about that. "getting a feel for the place. You know anywhere I can make some cash?" That surprised him, his expression now quizzical and his chin resting between his thumb and forefinger.

"Why would you need money?"

I saw no harm in telling him, maybe he could give me some pointers.

"I'm going to be a pokemon trainer, need money for pokeballs. Pokeballs for pokemon and so on and so forth." I paused for a moment before adding "I'm Alice by the way"

"Klygear" What the fuck kinda name is Klygear? "And if your willing to, I could use some help" he gave a friendly grin.

I narrowed my eyes a bit.

"What kind of 'help'?"

(-¤-)

'Help' turned out to mean, 'I feel very sorry for the wheelchair girl so heres a super easy job'. So I was currently holding a tool box and occasionally handing him different sizes of wrenches while he worked on someones refrigerator. Still I was getting 10¥ a day for sitting in a chair that I couldn't leave anyway so I'm not complaining to much. When I get out of this chair proper I'll hunt down a proper job. I did come to find out that I was a bit of a local celebrity though. Apparently since this town was a bit out of the way for most trainers, nothing ever happened here. The most entertaining thing was old man Johnsons ornery tauros getting out occasionally and harassing the locals, dude needs a better fence. With my sudden bloody appearance and the things the kids had been saying about me, I was the talk of the town.

I had already been to three houses so far, none of which were wheelchair accessible by the way, that was a pain. The first housed a mother whom I didn't recognize and two kids I did. We caught up while Klygear did his thing. Turns out Jimmy, the older of the two and one of the kids who dragged me out of the woods, thought I was dead when he found me and spent a good ten minutes poking me with a stick until I started groaning. Ah, the simplicity of childhood. His mother, who had been eavesdropping, was not as amused as I was about that.

The next was a married couple. Who I'm pretty sure decided against having kids within ten minutes of meeting me. And the current one was home to a badass grandma.

The name of the current Dellitown resident that I was talking to was Miss Abby, she was in her late sixties and was regaling me with tales of her delinquent past. Such stories include when she accidentally set a movie theater on fire. the time she and her friends stole some rich dudes car and crashed it into a lake. And that time she managed to blackmail the manager into unbanning her from the new theater.

At the moment she was enchanting me with the story of how she glued a cop to the ceiling of a grocery store. She had cemented herself in the fifth spot of my top ten favorite badass old ladies. Miss Abernathy, the eighty three year old woman who lived down the street when I was growing up, held first. A burglar had broke into her house in the middle of the night and had been hospitalized for his trouble. They never did find that last finger.

Don't fuck with Miss Abernathy.

Of course me being out and about visiting peoples homes with the handyman caused quite a buzz through town and with everyone wanting to see the newest gossip piece there was suddenly a wave of small "electrical problems" across the town. Turns out I was very good for business.

So Miss Abby, wanting to see the newest addition to Dellitown finally decided to call Klygear about the weird electric buzzing her fridge was making.

"So young'n, you got any plans for the future? It's never to early to start you know." She asked smiling.

"Yeah actually," I began " I'm going to be a pokemon trainer, you know be independent, self sufficient, in control of the forces of nature. That sorta thing. I just need a pokeball and some supplies to get started. And legs." She nodded a bit at that giving me a appraising look.

Klygear (what a fucking name) poked his head out, equally intrested. I hadn't talked much about my plans other than what I told him earlier.

"I'll catch a pokemon first and train them up pretty good, while I do that I'll take odd jobs around town to get some travelling money and supplies. After that's all done I'll head south to talk to Professor Rowan and get my license, maybe convince him to sponser me."

"Pokeballs aren't cheap you know." Klygear was right they weren't, in fact being a trainer wasn't cheap. Feeding all those monsters was quite a task and the equipment to catch and train them was nothing to scoff at. Ash could only do it because he was sponsered by Oak and had at least one gym leader traveling with him at all times, so he got a bunch of checks for that kind of thing. And if I had to guess, Brock was probably in control of his wallet most of the time, he seemed the type. So yeah pokemon trainers were rich.

Now there are ways to circumvent this. Catching and selling rare pokemon at auction houses, scavenging food on the road, taking up specific job requests, not traveling, the list goes on. One that surprised me though was bounty hunting. You didn't even need a special license for that, just drag the criminal into a police station or ranger outpost and they'd send money to your bank account. If team rocket didn't blast off at the end of every episode Ash and the crew would probably be swimming in bounty cash. It explains why Officer Jenny was always so willing to let literal children help in busting illegal operations.

I was a rough and tumble gal, I'd been in my fair share of street brawls so I knew how to fight better than most. So it was a good idea to have in my pocket in case I was desperate.

I did wonder how I was actually gonna catch a pokemon considering you need one to do so. Maybe I'll pull a Ketchum and befriend it first. Or do that thing Jessie did to catch seviper and just beat the shit out of it with my bare hands. That was a lot more impressive now that I was here and knew it was all real, pokemon are durable as hell.

Abby was nodding in agreement with him before addressing me again "Don't worry, I'm sure everything will work out" she gave me a knowing smile.

But in the mean time I'll just help out and save up where I can. And also avoid going back to what I'm sure is probably a nervous wreck of a Joy.

She's gonna have my head for this.

Eh, one of us will get over it eventually.

(-¤-)

Alice Thorn

Jan 28

Team

N/A

10¥

In Box

N/A

I was trying to think of a name for the handy man and the word 'klygear' popped in my head. I've never heard that word before and for some reason it stuck. I do think its a dumb name though.