Chapter 1: The Last Normal Day
Author's Note: Some of you know me, some of you don't. I write things. These things are pretty good. This is a new story. Enjoy it, or throw popcorn at it—I encourage all sorts of strange behaviors.
I wrote the first scene as a deconstruction of the Pallet Town Sunrise trope. We've all seen one… Or, more likely, thirty. A hopeful opening to a journey with the sun rising on Pallet Town, each scene painted through the brush-work of a hundred different authors. I went a different direction. And as these things go, a proper story grew from that one scene.
This was written mainly just for fun. New plot lines to put together, new personality types, and even a new writing style. I went for a metaphor-rich, parody-style fic, whose main purpose is entertainment. Of course, with a plot like this one, it would be easy for a story to take itself too seriously…with the right characters. But somehow…I don't see any danger of that, here.
Remember, you must be at least this tall to enter the fanfiction! Buckle up, hold on tight, and let's get this show on the road.
o
Disclaimer: I don't own things. I leave that to other, more competent people.
~o~
"'It was a dark and stormy night," Amber Bailey read out loud, picking out the letters in flickering candlelight. She set down the book. "Wow. That is the most clichéd story opening of all time. Fitting, though."
Outside raged a dark and stormy…well, day, but it was close enough. Rivers gushed over her window, distorting the boiling black skies to vague watercolor ripples. Occasionally, wicked tongues of lightning forked across the dark like neon cracks in black ice, so bright she could see them through the waterfall-windows, and for several seconds after on the backs of her eyelids. She blinked them away, going over a mental checklist as she did so.
Weatherproof journal: check. Her dad was inspired, giving her borderline-tactical gear as a going-away present. It even had pens that could write underwater.
Packed bag: check. That one had been ready for weeks. No need to pull everything out again.
Water bottle: check. Did she really need it? On a day like today, she could sing while she walked and drown by verse two. Passerby wouldn't save her, either—anything to get the noise to stop.
Bag of fruit: check! What teenage girl left home without it? Ones who weren't members of her family, probably.
And finally, Amber stood up, turning a rusty hammer over in her hands. Thunder blasted the house, shaking the timbers and making her candle dance.
The one item she couldn't forget…check.
Amber tucked the hammer into her bag within easy reach, swinging the black leather onto her back.
Today, she started her Pokémon journey.
And if things went poorly…it would be the end of it, too.
~o~
Her preparations complete, Amber skipped down the dark staircase, her combat boots clunking on the old wood like cannon fire. "Ready!" she sang, proudly walking into the kitchen. Three cheery lanterns flickered on the countertops by an eclectic assortment of candles, beneath sleeping grey lightbulbs.
She could see the ghost of her mom's smile as she set down the dish she'd been washing by hand. "My little Ember, all grown up," she murmured, turning fully around with pride in her lovely grey eyes. "Just look at you—"
At once she stopped, a sharp frown giving way to exasperation. "Look at you. You can't wear that."
Pointed black sunglasses glinted in the lantern-light, matching the inky gloss of her stylish leather coat, with too many buckles and zippers for the reasonable. Her favorite bright-orange top flared beneath it, a brilliant contrast to her faded grey jeans and high-laced boots. Amber grinned, striking a pose. "I look cool." She changed the subject before her mother could protest further. "Did you make the breakfast I asked for?"
"A single piece of toast? On the biggest day of your young life?" her mother checked, arching a pale eyebrow. Or, as her sister called it, no-brow. Blondes had the worst luck.
"Correct," Amber confirmed sagely. "I need it, you see, to hold in my mouth while running towards the lab. The traditions of my people demand it." Her people being overdramatic characters in anime.
"Normal children," her mother groaned, kneading the bridge of her nose. "Why couldn't I have had any normal children?"
"Bold words from the woman who raised us."
Her mom rustled around in the pantry, throwing a piece of bread in her direction. "Toaster's out. Take your plain bread. Do you have a black umbrella to match that getup?"
"Orange." Obviously. "Too windy for it, though. I'll just get wet. Professor Oak's lab isn't too far," Amber said around a mouthful of raw toast. "I'm off! Where's Dad?"
"Saving as much of the orchard as he can. This storm is a monster—and I forbid you from journeying in it! Go get your Pokémon and come wait out the rain. It won't be good for Charmander anyways."
Amber scowled. "I could pick a water type!" she protested.
Her mother snorted, going back to her dishes.
In moments, Amber was off, minus the sunglasses at her mother's insistence, though she stuffed them in her bag when she wasn't looking. With her jacket half held over her head, she jogged through the cascading sheets of freezing water, her boots squelching in the mud. According to the clock, the sun should be up…but in this weather, she could barely tell. Amber hurried along the familiar dirt road, water dripping off her hair and the end of her nose.
Her berry bag thumped against the side of her backpack, and she couldn't help looking at the rain-drenched apricorn orchard as she passed—dots of color flashed in the sodden branches, from rows of red, to orange, and yellow, ranging through a colorful rainbow, and then some.
The ground shook as lightning seared from above, and Amber flinched, looking over just in time to see her dad's Raichu glowing with residual energy, his grin impudent between sparking cheek pouches. "Hey, Winston!" Amber greeted, waving as she passed. "Sup, Dad!" A distant figure in a heavy coat waved back to her with his whole arm.
At least the trees would be safe, with a living lightning rod on the prowl.
And the trees needed to be safe.
The hammer was a comforting weight at her side, and Amber forced herself to let out a breath.
The storm seemed to have a life of its own; erratic winds tried to throw her off her feet, while frigid rain sluiced down her back and arms. The snapping booms of the thunder seemed to roar at her to turn back. But undaunted, she continued until she reached the lab. Amber tried the locked door and groaned. Hopefully the professor could hear her knocking over the storm.
About the time her left fist started to hurt, the heavy door swung open. "Sorry, sorry! Doors kept flying open," a shadowed figure explained, stepping aside to let her in. "Amber?"
She lowered the jacket and squelched into the lab, wringing out her fiery hair with a scowl. She probably looked like a drowned Rattata. "The one and only," she grumbled. "Professor Oak?" Using his official title still felt weird.
"The second, and greatest!" the lanky young man boasted, flashing her a grin. She hardly knew him well, but he was a friend of the family. His spiky red-brown hair refused to obey gravity. She liked it. "Handsome, powerful, and brilliant to boot! Course you probably know Gramps better. How's your sister?"
"Sellie's fine. She's doing the Alolan island challenge right now. It's my turn for the Kanto gym circuit," Amber said absently, looking around the lab. Unlike the rest of town, there were lights on in here—probably a backup generator. It was still half dark, and blue-green cylinders eerily lit the gloom, bubbling like lava lamps. She wondered what they were for.
"You know, when I was your age, trainers started at ten," Professor Oak said with mock severity. "None of this, 'finish middle school before setting off to train fire-breathing monsters with no supervision,' crap. We almost died a dozen times. Like men."
At ten, she'd tried to microwave a battery on a dare. Fifteen was much better, if she said so herself. "Hey, I could still almost die," Amber pointed out. "Tradition is tradition, after all." The professor laughed, slapping her on the back…before glaring at his wet palm and wiping it on his lab coat. He turned, striding across a metal battlefield to a table on the far wall.
"C'mon, then! No time like the present." The thunder boomed in agreement. She could barely hear him over the rushing hiss of the rain hitting the roof. Amber hurried to catch up to him. Her heart twisted on her nerves.
Professor Oak threw out his arm dramatically as the lightning flashed through the windows, his coat snapping out. "I never get tired of this part," he admitted, stepping aside to reveal two poké balls on the table. "The beginning of a journey. Endless possibilities. The world at your fingertips." He held out a third poké ball, his grey-green eyes unnerving in the dim light. "So, Amber Bailey. Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?"
She was already reaching for the poké ball in a dreamlike state before stopping short. "Hey. You're not supposed to pick for me! I could pick a grass type!"
He gave her a deadpan look, his hand lowering slightly. "Yeah right, 'Ember'. Just take the Charmander already. Me and your sister have a bet on how long it takes for you to accidentally burn down a building."
How much had Sellie told him? The possibilities were horrifying—she'd had a colorful childhood. Cheeks burning, Amber snatched the poké ball, determined to retain a little dignity. It was warm to the touch, a little sun in her hands.
But…it wasn't hers yet, was it?
"Professor," she began, her voice coming out strange past the sudden lump in her throat. "Could you answer a question for me?"
"Fire away. I know must stuff."
"Why do Pokémon stick with trainers, even when they're bad?"
Professor Oak stopped, arching an eyebrow. "That's complicated. Don't sweat the small stuff—I'm sure you'll be a great trainer. Runs in the family."
"But they do," Amber continued on stubbornly. "And…Pokémon change personalities when you trade them, right? Some get difficult, and don't obey orders, even when they were fine before. And even the most savage Pokémon will warm up to their trainer eventually…"
No trace of his previous smile remained. "What are you getting at?" he asked, even though he had to know.
Amber shivered, only partly from the cold, and stood straighter. "Why did your lab pay my family to move here, Professor Oak?"
A door slammed shut over his expression. "Pallet Town is the perfect place for apricorn orchards—that's all. Plus I'm interested in the Johto-style poké balls." From his short voice, she knew she'd gotten everything she could out of him, for now. "Why don't you release that Charmander? No one else is starting today, so I'll have a battle with you," he said, looking between the other two poké balls, before selecting one. He tossed it up, a red-and-white blur, catching it with a grin—a clear challenge.
Amber's lips pressed together. But curiosity got the better of her. It was a Charmander! She knelt down, and pressed the button on the poké ball, watching breathlessly as the crimson light shattered off a perfect little orange creature. He stretched, exposing sharp white fangs as he yawned. His torch-tail shone warm in the same ginger shade of her hair. She fell in love instantly.
The professor could tell. His grin widened, as if remembering his own first day, resting a hand in his pocket.
As such, it took him a moment to notice when she pulled the rusty hammer out of her bag.
"No, don't!"
But his dive was too late, as metal screeched and a white plasma-burst exploded out. Shadows skittered dark across the walls. Lightning struck the roof then, the immediate roar of thunder shaking the building to its very foundations, and with an electric snap, the backup generator shorted out.
Immediately, they were plunged into darkness.
But not before Amber saw Charmander's placid face twist into a savage snarl, and leap for her throat.
Her gasp was involuntary, but she got her arm up in time. Those cute fangs clamped down hard, but couldn't get past the leather coating. Firelight gleamed in the back of his throat, snarling erupting in a constant storm, and his fiery tail writhed back and forth, throwing orange halos on the floor.
"Squirtle, go—"
"No!" Amber yelled. Charmander's growls sharpened. He shook his head back and forth, as if trying to tear her arm off. "Don't worry," she breathed, keeping her movements steady. "You're okay! I won't put you back in." She hesitated a moment—and reached out her other hand. Charmander flinched when she touched his head, but didn't quite let go. She stroked slowly, and his struggles died down a bit.
Professor Oak said a word her parents wouldn't let her say. But he hadn't attacked with the Squirtle, who looked up at him confused when he swore again, louder, whirling to face the other direction.
Amber's voice shook with fury, trying not to look at the shattered remains of the poké ball in the faint light of Charmander's tail. "How bad is it?"
"You weren't supposed to know," he seethed. "Did Selene tell you? Listen, kid, we've got this under control. Everything is already in motion. It'll only be a few more years."
"How bad is it?" Amber demanded again, louder, and the Charmander flinched. She forced herself to relax, stroking the creature again, until his vibrating growls turned to shivers.
He was silent for a long time. "Not bad," he said at last, and she laughed incredulously. "It isn't!" he insisted. "For…most, anyways. Some species are more violent than others. Poké balls…they just help, okay? Especially with starters. Help stabilize mood. Tempers. Violent tendencies…"
"It's mind control," she said flatly.
"Very mild mind control," he said firmly. "Barely noticeable. We couldn't even prove it until last year. Breaking the poké ball suddenly like that is bound to cause a big reaction. It's usually not that bad…"
But Amber would not be consoled. Her theory was finally confirmed. And worse, Sellie had known, and not told her!
She'd been making apricorn balls her whole life. Did they really think she wouldn't notice, that Pokémon acted different in synthetic balls? Even if the differences were minor?
"Well then," she said, her mind long made-up. "I'll help. We're the best people to help, right? Apricorn balls don't alter the mind—not even friend balls, which are just extra cozy. Kanto needs to go back to apricorns. So if Charmander wants to come with me, we'll go plant them all over, and…"
Her words trailed off and died. The monitors and screens across the lab lit up with fuzzy static in a wave around the room, before flickering eerily back to blackness.
"What was that?" she hushed.
She couldn't see his face, but there was a pause. "Stay back, kid," he said. She heard the hollow tone of a maximizing apricorn ball. "Something's off."
Amber obeyed, scooping up Charmander with both arms as she backed away. The fever-warm creature tensed, craning his head to look around the shadows. She struggled to hold onto him. "Stay still," she hissed, and then—
Every monitor flashed on at once.
Each a solid color: some pink, white, and others blue.
They shifted between those colors in a nauseating strobe-light blur, a buzzing whine growing by the second as electronics flared to life erratically around the room. Strange machines whirred, phones crackled while dialing at random, and a vacuum cleaner shot itself across the floor with a buzzing wail.
When she saw them, they didn't look real—moving in between strobe flashes, like they were teleporting two inches a second instead of floating.
But were Porygon supposed to have all those sparking wires coming out their backs? Some of them looked like claws…
"Amber, get out of here!" the professor snapped. And then the music started.
It wasn't electronic, rock 'n' roll, pop, or country…rather, it was all of them, at the same time, combined with what sounded like carnival-music rap. Her ears might be bleeding. Was this how other people felt when she sang?
Professor Oak's Arcanine burst free in a glow of white majesty, and battle erupted to the worst soundtrack of all time. Fire bloomed, Porygon dove with alarm-red eyes, and at the back of everything, she swore she saw a sleeker Porygon that twitched and shuddered, a crown of rainbow wires sparking on its head.
Most of the Porygon veered towards the professor, but a few dove towards her in the strobe blur. Amber gasped, stumbling back as clawed wires raked towards her belly, only to be driven back by a burst of orange flames.
"Thanks, little guy!" Amber breathed.
The Charmander wriggled violently away, earning his freedom with a triumphant cry. "Come back, little guy! We're supposed to run!" Amber complained.
And run he did, surprisingly fast on all fours, leaping straight towards the Porygon with a ferocious yowl. But the wire-claws were fast, slapping him out of midair with a thwack. Amber couldn't help her own cry, though Charmander only growled with annoyance, shaking himself off.
Still, his bravery was inspiring. "Go for an Ember!" she called out, gritting her teeth. Charmander braced himself, spitting another gout of flames. When it hit dead on, she felt like cheering. "Great job! Keep up the fire, and stay out of range…AH!" Amber dove to one side as wire-claws came down, sparking madly against the metal floor. Tingles numbed her leg bones from the electric discharge.
The poké ball transfer machine in the corner shook violently, going crazy all at once, spitting out an erratic stream of spheres.
They rolled across the floor, sparking blue, the indicator lights going dead one by one. Charmander dodged around them as a Porygon gave chase.
Heat flared across her skin from a fireball all the way across the room. A machine exploded, red-hot metal skittering across the floors, and Amber screamed, diving forwards to cover Charmander with her body.
Her coat didn't save her this time—not completely. Burning pain stabbed at her side.
Everything was ringing.
And slowly, the lights faded.
She looked up in time to see the last Porygon fleeing back into the monitors, most of their companions unconscious on the ground.
Slowly, the awful music died, though it would surely live on in her nightmares.
Arcanine rumbled, bumping against the professor's shoulder with his nose.
"I'm fine," he gasped out from his seat on the ground, clutching his right leg. "Just…just a good zap. Yo. Amber! How're you holding up?"
"I-I'm alright, I think," Amber said shakily, getting to her knees. She winced as she touched her side, the piece of metal jerking out of her coat to clatter against the floor. "It isn't deep," she realized with giddy relief.
A shallow burn. Just a scratch, really. This coat was worth every penny.
He laughed at her. "How's that for adventure? Your first five minutes as a trainer, and you've already almost died! That's gotta be a new record." He paused. "Selene's gonna kill me."
Now that the action was over, a deep chill had settled over her. Charmander got up at once, shaking himself off from head to toe, apparently unaffected. "What were those things?" she hushed. "Porygon? But why did they…"
"No idea. Those were modified Porygon, which is illegal. Had to have been a hacker." The professor limped over, hissing with every step on his right. Arcanine helped support him as best he could. But when the professor saw the discarded poké balls, he gave a shocked cry, falling to his knees. "No. No, no, no, no. No!" He reached for a great ball at his belt, but the device just clicked, drained of power.
His swearing was loud and colorful, and she flushed tomato-red. "Char," Charmander said purposefully, as if gleefully trying to imitate a word.
"Um. Professor? Is…something wrong?" This wasn't at all how she'd expected the day to go.
Years later, she'd look back at this as the day the world went mad.
But at the time, all she could focus on was the strange fire in Blue Oak's eyes, as he let his clenched fist fall.
"Listen, Amber. Okay? This is important. Healing power…it can't fix any injury. Sometimes it takes time, and extra help. See the stickers on these balls? These Pokémon are dying. All of them. They're waiting their turn for major surgeries, with their wound's 'time' stopped by the poké balls. But just like everything else around here, the electronics were damaged by the Porygon. They have hours left before they run out of power, and when that happens, all of them pop out and die. Someone needs to bring them to Viridian, and get them to a Center to recharge the poké balls, and send them back to emergency care. And I can't do it. My leg is in no condition for the journey, and Arcanine can't run in this weather."
The wind howled, as if savagely thrilled. Amber gulped. "Wait a second…"
"Sorry to ask this, kid, but there's no one else," Blue said, grinning around a wince. "My assistants are out on field duty, and there aren't many live-in trainers in Pallet these days. You can try to find some help, but the clock is ticking. Take one of the other starters—that Charmander is too dangerous outside a synthetic poké ball."
Her eyes flashed. "I won't. It's wrong! Pokémon need apricorn balls, it's the only ethical—"
"Listen. There's no time for this! You've gotta get the wounded to a Pokémon Center, now. Charmander don't respect anything but power and conviction. There's a reason I put the starters in synthetic balls, even after finding out about the mood stabilizers. Kids use these, and we don't want kids getting killed!"
"I-I've got conviction," Amber said shakily, rising to her feet. Her jacket was a comfort, and she was extra tall in the boots. "I do! I'm going to plant apricorns all over Kanto, so no one has to use synthetic balls again! And I'm gonna beat the gym circuit in five months—one less than Sellie! But before all that, I'm gonna get all these Pokémon the help they need—no matter what it takes!"
She stared down at the feral little Charmander, her heart pounding in her throat. Lightning flashed, sending their shadows skittering all over the ruined floor. Amber knelt down, reaching into her backpack.
"You saved my life," she said, shaking with adrenaline and resolve. "And I saved yours. So here." She reached out slowly, though the curious fire type didn't recoil as she put her sunglasses on his head. They looked cool—almost as cool as on herself. "We're…we're friends now," she breathed, only half-believing it herself. "And I could really use your help."
Steeling herself, she held out a strange poké ball.
White on the bottom, with clouded crystal on the top, a blazing yellow sun embedded at the very top.
She'd invented it herself, using her favorite orange apricorns. Her parents had been so proud…
Charmander's grin was entirely too toothy as he considered her offer. "You'll still be you," she promised. "And we can get strong, and save all these Pokémon...no. All the captured Pokémon! Just like I did for you!"
And in a flash of brilliant gold, Charmander vanished into the sunglass ball.
It shook once. Twice.
Sealing their fate on the third, the clouded crystal burning inwardly with faint orange light.
~o~
