Chapter Zero

"Submit your registration and report to the rec yard!" our commander yelled. I glanced at the small ball of fluff on the table and quickly typed something in to the screen in front of me. I returned my new Pokemon to its Pokeball and stood up to file in line with the other cadets. I was one of the only people in the room with only a single Pokeball on their belt. I had already identified my fellow cadet who had come to training without a Pokemon. He was older than me by several years and I'd heard that his Pokemon had died while he was out on his first adventure.

"Pair up and duel. When your Pokemon is exhausted, please visit Nurse Joy. If your Pokemon faints you and your partner will have to do laps until sunset. Remember, this is only practice. Fatal injuries will be grounds for discharge."

I immediately sought the man with only one Pokemon. Everyone else would have stronger Pokemon they'd had since their lottery. My Growlithe was a good pick as far as the military choices went but she couldn't have hatched more than a week ago. A simple Water Gun could knock her out if I wasn't careful.

"Hey, Martin, do you want to pair up?"

Martin looked to my belt. "Sure. What did you end up with?"

I pulled out my Pokeball and released my very own Pokemon. I couldn't help but smile when she growled at Martin and shook out her fur. I could feel the heat coming off of her. I felt an unfamiliar excitement well up inside me. Joining the military had been the right choice. I'd always known I had been born to be a Pokemon trainer.

"Not bad." Martin released his Pokemon. It was a Rufflet, a good match for both of us to get used to our new companions. I was so excited for my first Pokemon battle. Martin seemed to sense it. "Have you had a Pokemon before?"

I shook my head. "No."

"You never signed up for the lottery?" Martin asked. This is why I hadn't wanted to battle the others, because they all asked.

"I did." I backed away to the trainer's box. Growlithe followed me curiously, sniffing at my feet. We were taught that Pokemon could sense our intentions and that was what allowed them to understand our commands. "Growlithe, stay. Get ready to battle." She continued to follow me. "Stay."

"Rufflet, get ready," Martin said. Rufflet flew down from his shoulder to the center of the field. Around us Pokemon and cadets were doing the same.

"Growlithe, get ready," I said. She started chewing at my shoelaces. Did they give me a defective Pokemon? Martin looked amused. "Growlithe, use Tackle." Nothing.

"What happened to the Pokemon you got in the lottery?" Martin asked.

"I don't talk about it."

"Rufflet, use Tackle." Rufflet was so quick I only saw him as a blur. Growlithe jumped aside at the last second and growled. She looked to me as Rufflet cirlced around.

"Growlithe, use Ember!" Growlithe jumped and tried to bite at Rufflet.

"Rufflet, use Wing Attack."

"Growlithe, use Ember!" Rufflet dove down and Growlithe jumped up. She caught hold of his wings and bit down hard, spraying blood as they fell together.

"Rufflet, return!" Martin scowled as his Pokemon returned to the Pokeball. "What the fuck, man? Control your Pokemon." He jogged over to Nurse Joy as Growlithe played with the feathers she'd collected. I saw the commander there talking to him, then both of them looked my way. A second later, the commander was coming towards me.

"Growlithe, sit," I said. She growled at the bloody feather. Luckily, Martin wasn't the only person lining up to see Nurse Joy.

"Cadets, this is for training! No fatalities!" a commander yelled.

"Cadet Silver! Cadet Martin tells me you cannot control your Pokemon!"

"No, sir. I mean, yes sir." My hand went to the Pokeball. She didn't seem weak, so why wouldn't she listen to me? She was supposed to be my ticket to a new world. Was I not qualified to be a Pokemon trainer?

Commander Rex pulled up a screen on his watch. "Her breeding credentials are superb. She showed no troubles during her first days at the daycare."

"I'm sorry, sir. She just doesn't listen."

Commander Rex released a Pokemon from his Pokeball. It was a Persian. "Let's see what the problem is." He backed up to the trainer box, his Persian getting in place without a word. Growlithe just sat there and watched the other Pokemon.

"Growlithe, get ready," I said. She sat down and started scratching herself.

"Cadet, let's begin."

"Growlithe, use Bite!" She clearly wanted to chew on things. Maybe Bite was all I could get for now.

"Persian, use Scratch."

Persian darted in and caught Growlithe's side with sheathed claws. Growlithe howled and shot flames from her mouth. Persian hissed and jumped away, looking to Commander Rex for a command. He pulled up something on his watch and frowned. "Cadet, there seems to be trouble with your Pokemon registration."

"Something wrong?" Growlithe returned to my side and whined. Her side hadn't been pierced but the blow must have hurt.

"Yes. I tried to pull your page from the registry but it isn't showing up."

"I hit submit."

"You must have messed something up and the system flagged your submission. This is why we tell you to read every field. Cadet! Drop and give me twenty."

I started doing push-ups as he closed his screen and approached me. "It shouldn't take more than a day for it to clear the system. You can't leave the base with an unregistered Pokemon until you're fully registered." I continued my push ups. "The only time I've seen a Pokemon this resistant is when it was called by a name other than its own."

I finished my twenty and stood up, barely sweating. I had been doing push-ups every day for a year. Military training was grueling, and half of our class had dropped out before the six month mark. "She's a Growlithe." The Growlithe in question was now sniffing around Commander Rex's shoes.

"Did you give her a nickname?"

"Yes."

"Cadet! Drop and give me twenty!"

"Yes sir," I said, waiting for him to tell me what I did wrong. They told us not to leave anything out of the registration. I'd made sure to put something for the "nickname" area.

"If you give your Pokemon a nickname, it will be keyed to the Pokeball and only respond to that nickname."

"What?" I asked, almost stopping mid push-up.

"We covered this in class!"

I bit my tongue and finished my punishment. From day one our schedule had been roughly the same. Get up at 05:00 hours, eat breakfast by 06:00, start class by 06:30, end class at 12:00, eat lunch by 13:00, work out until 18:00 hours, cleaning duties until 19:00 hours, dinner, evening jog at 20:00 hours, then a daily quiz from 21:00 hours to 21:30 hours. Lights out was at 22:00 hours. Each day I'd wanted to drop out, but I'd struggled and fought just so that I could get my very own Pokemon, and now because I'd somehow missed a single sentence of a lecture from months ago I was being forced to do push-ups.

"Use her nickname. That will be her only name, if you want to stay a cadet."

"Yes sir!" Failure to exert control over your Pokemon resulted in being released from service. If you were released from service less than two years from receiving your Pokemon, the Pokemon would be forfeited back to be repurposed for military use. They'd like to take everyone's Pokemon, I was sure, but the bond after two years of being with a Trainer usually made a Pokemon useless for anyone else.

"Persian, use Scratch!"

"Fluffy, use Ember!"

Persian came near but Growlithe jumped back and let out a jet of flames.

"Good. Persian, return. Take your Pokemon to Nurse Joy and find another partner, cadet."

"Yes, sir."

"And drop down and give me thirty."

I scowled. "Yes, sir. What for?"

"For picking a stupid nickname. Grow up, Cadet! This is the real world."

Dammit, I thought. Growlithe came and licked my face as I did my punishment, her tongue hot and dry. I knew very much what the real world was.

"Growlithe, return," I said when I stood up, holding in the button to the Pokeball. The device attempted to capture her but she shook it off and growled. The commander was right. I was an idiot. "Fluffy, return." It could be worse.

Soon after we received our Pokemon, we were divided up based on our aptitudes. As I'd only ever wanted to work as a Ranger, I had been relieved to have been assigned to the position. Rangers patrolled the barriers between civilization and the Wilderness, going in aid of those who found themselves at the mercy of the wild Pokemon of the area.

"Come on Alex, we're going to be late," my bunk mate said, kicking my trunk. It was almost 06:30. We practiced accountability, so if I was late Gerry would also be punished.

"I'm coming." Somehow, even though I'd always wanted to be a Ranger, after only a week of classes I was already dreading the next one. I thought as long as I had a Pokemon I would be happy, but nothing was like I envisioned it would be.

We made our way to the classroom among the commotion of dozens of other cadets doing the same thing. I had almost gotten used to the weight of a Pokeball on my belt. Gerry walked quicker so that he wouldn't be seen next to me. I was used to it by now.

The first week there I had tried to make friends, but no one accepted that I didn't want to talk about why I didn't have a Pokemon. I didn't know why I didn't just lie and say it died on one of my first outings. It was a common occurrence, a trainer being so excited that they rush off on their own and end up encountering a strong Pokemon that tears their companion to pieces. Even more common were the trainers who died with their Pokemon after they had no one left to protect them.

"Cadet Silver!" the instructor said when she saw me.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Report to the office."

"Yes, ma'am. May I ask why?"

"You may not! Run there!"

"Yes ma'am!" I grit my teeth and turned back around. The office was up a steep hill. We usually didn't need to go up there, and now I had to run. It seemed like I'd only had bad luck since getting Fluffy. Could it be a problem with the registration? Maybe they'd given me the wrong Pokemon by mistake. Fluffy wasn't bad, but I had seen the lucky cadets who'd gotten Pokemon who would be able to carry them across the skies or the sea. One of the female cadets had won the lottery and gotten a Gible. She'd already had a Butterfree and a Braixen. How unfair could life get?

My legs screamed at me by the time I crested the hill to the office. The sun had only just risen so the air was still cool. Pokemon were allowed to be free in all areas of the campus so I released Fluffy. I didn't want to go into the office alone. Maybe if I could prove that Fluffy listened well and I was a good trainer then I would get out of whatever trouble I had managed to get in.

The front desk woman was a civilian. I smiled at her. "Hello, I was sent by my instructor."

"Name?"

"Cadet Alex Silver."

"One moment. I'll page the General."

"The General?" The commanders ran the place, the General was just supposed to oversea it for formalities. Every regions had its own branch of military and a General who positioned themselves centrally, which worked out to be the training camps in each region. Many cadets went through their five years of training without seeing the General even once, or so I'd been told. I immediately thought of my mother. Had something happened to her? Some terrible accident?

I didn't have to wait long for an officer to fetch me and bring me before the General. He was exactly how I pictured him to be.

"Cadet, take a seat." His voice wasn't harsh but it didn't relax me. I did as I was told. "My name is General Pierno. Cadet Silver, is it?"

"Yes, sir." His face held no expression. His hair was gray but cropped close to his scalp, and his frame suggested several decades worth of physical training.

"I think you mean Cadet Sands."

I almost shook my head, but he was right. My mother hadn't been able to divorce my father since he'd disappeared. His PokeNav was still functional so he couldn't be declared dead, though it had been tampered with in a way that wouldn't reveal his location. At least, that's what the police had told us.

"Yes, sir. I've been using my mother's last name since middle school."

General Pierno nodded. "So you aren't in contact with your father."

"Yes, sir. He went missing when I was nine."

"With your Pikachu?"

I only nodded.

General Pierno turned his computer screen so that I was looking at a map covered in red pins. "Cadet, what you are looking at is a map of all the regions Alex Sands has already caught and registered a Pokemon."

What? That couldn't be right. "Sir, before joining I'd never left my hometown. All my mother had was a Skitty. I had no way of leaving to catch Pokemon even if I could somehow afford Pokeballs." I'd spent hours looking through the glass at the Pokemart, wondering if I'd ever have the money. Government jobs allocated one Pokeball a year to employees, another reason I'd joined the military.

"While I realize that is the case on paper, you cannot own your Growlithe as you already have a Pokemon registered in this region."

Fluffy whined from her spot at my feet, sensing my unease. Were they going to strip me of my Pokemon already? Did my father screw me over yet again, stripping me of my only chance to be a Pokemon trainer?

"Because I can clearly see that you don't have any other Pokemon, nor is there any record of you ever purchasing a Pokeball, we will begin submitting the necessary forms to clear this matter up. Until then, you are not permitted to leave the compound. Unregistered Pokemon are, of course, illegal in public spaces, so if you must go into town for some reason you have to leave your Pokemon behind."

"Sir, is everything going to be okay? I mean, this seems like a pretty big deal, sir."

"It is a pretty big deal, Cadet. Unprecedented, in fact. You have your PokeNav from school, correct?"

I nodded and showed him my wrist. They were issued after graduating high school to encourage kids not to leave on their adventure too early. They could be bought on the black market, like all things, but most people were content to wait to finish school before setting off into the world.

"We are taught that they are impossible to hack. Not only should your father not have been able to turn off his location, but it shouldn't be possible to trick the registry into filing catch Pokemon under someone else's name. As word makes it way up the chain of command, someone may want to have a word with you about this matter. I trust you know better than to tell anyone of this. If word got out, it could cause an incredible amount of damage to the reputation of our registration system."

"I understand completely, sir."

General Pierno smiled. "I can tell you're worried, Cadet, but I want to set your mind at ease. Before calling you here I had a chat with your mother and some of your teachers. They all said you're a bright young man and confirmed that you couldn't have possibly been out catching all these Pokemon. I'm sure we'll be able to get this matter settled and get you back on your way to becoming a Ranger."

I couldn't concentrate at all for the rest of my classes that day. I tripped and fell twice during physical training, almost taking Fluffy down with me. My father was clearly alive. Someone else hadn't stolen my identity, it had to be him.

"Cadet Silver!" My eyes went to a Sargent I hadn't seen before standing on the edge of our field.

"Go," my Sargent said, waving me away. I jogged over with Fluffy at my heals.

"Yes, sir!" I said, saluting. The Sargent looked down at his screen.

"You are to begin your survival training at 20:00 hours. After you're finished with dinner, report to the gates at the south yard."

"Uh, sir? What survival training?"

"All Ranger cadets must undergo wilderness survival training. Yours is scheduled for tonight. Any more questions?"

"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. General Pierno said I wasn't to leave the compound because of some sort of registration issue with my Pokemon." I looked down to Fluffy. Now that I knew what a comfort it was to sleep next to your own Pokemon companion I couldn't imagine leaving her behind. It was a fact that going into the Wilderness without a Pokemon was a form of suicide.

"We won't be leaving government property."

"Oh. Okay."

"I'll see you at the south gate, Cadet. Don't be late!"

"Yes, sir!" I jogged back and rejoined the others in my class. Survival wilderness training? Why was I the only one who'd been called out? As soon as we took a break for dinner I rushed to the dining call to talk to the other cadets I knew had been chosen as Rangers. None of them had heard of any training that night, though I vaguely remembered an instructor telling us about the existence of the training but I hadn't thought it would happen anytime soon. And on the same day I was told that that my father had been stealing my identity to illegally catch Pokemon? Could it just be a coincidence.

I sat down to eat and kept one hand on Fluffy's head to calm myself. Wasn't I just being paranoid? What were they going to do, take me out into the woods and kill me? That was ridiculous. Things like that didn't just happen. I'm sure the survival training had been scheduled far before Fluffy had even been hatched and assigned to me.

At 19:45 I was standing ready by the south gate with a bag of supplies packed. Fluffy sat by my feet sniffing the grass as a group of people approached in the dark. The Sargent from earlier took the lead and behind him trailed a group of cadets. I didn't recognize any of them from my class. Was I going out with a group of older rangers? Why would that be the case? Shouldn't I be training with people on my level? And none of them had their Pokemon out.

"Cadet Silver, fall in line."

"Yes, sir," I said, realizing I didn't even know this Sargent's name. I felt a moment of fear but it passed quickly. It wasn't as if a fake Sargent could have slipped into the school without anyone noticing and the other cadets had no similar fears. I expected alarms to go off when I walked through the gate but nothing happened and Fluffy followed right behind me.

"Lights on," the Sargent said. Almost in unison, the other cadets turned on their flashlights. I fumbled to get mine out of the side of my backpack. We marched quietly through the narrow trail. Occasionally something would cry out in the darkness but my flashlight couldn't penetrate the thick forest. He had said it was government property. Maybe there was nothing to fear and that was why the rest of them hadn't released their Pokemon.

We walked for what seemed like forever. When I finally checked my watch, it was nearly 03:30. Wouldn't it have made better sense to start walking when it was light out?

"Do you know where we're going?" I asked the cadet in front of me. He shushed me without turning around.

Fluffy seemed to be lagging behind. Each of my steps were three steps for her. I grabbed my Pokeball. "Want to return?"

Fluffy yipped in disagreement. The others turned to look back at me, my flashlights illuminating their faces like a line of ghosts. "Sorry," I managed. The march continued. As we approached 05:00 I could feel my body behind to sag. It had been twenty-four hours since I'd last slept. Soon the sun would be rising.

"Halt!" the Sargent said. "We make camp here!"

"Yes, sir!" the rest of the squad called out. I sighed in relief. Maybe we were doing some sort of simulation for hunting Ghost or Dark-type Pokemon.

It was all I could do to get my tent unpacked and hanging up. I set up the PokeSensors we'd been taught to use while camping—having a Pokemon sneak up on you in the middle of the night wasn't something anyone would want—and went off to find some privacy to take a dump. Fluffy followed me, dragging her feet, and I wondered how she could be so stubborn to resist resting in her Pokeball.

I was squatting behind a bush when I saw two glowing red eyes flash past me. Fluffy's tail went up and she barked, but the creature was gone as quick as it had come. A Sableye, maybe? What else could rush through the air like that?

Fluffy whined. "Yes, I know, I'll be done soon, then we can sleep." She whined again. "Fine, fine." I finished up quickly and made to go back to camp. She growled. "What?"

She turned and went in the direction the glowing eyes had come from. Did she want to investigate?

"Come on, it's time for bed."

Fluffy whined again. I sighed and let her lead the way. Maybe she'd smelled a patch of berries or something.

"...hold for your command. The target is currently secured. He can be disposed of at any moment."

Fluffy looked up at me with big eyes, almost like she could understand what I was hearing. I certainly didn't.

"Sargent April, where is the cadet?"

"He walked off to relieve himself," answered a second voice. "His tent has been set up and his pack is inside."

"Good. As soon as he returns let me know. Don't let him out of your sight again. If we screw this up, we're toast."

"Why couldn't we just take care of him right away?"

"The official order hasn't been passed through every channel. General Pierno is still defending him."

I wasn't going to stick around to hear any more. They were going to kill me to keep me quiet about my father's genius criminal actions. I may have left my backpack behind but I still had my supply belt. It would have to do. I motioned for Fluffy to stay quiet and crept away. Would it even be possible to escape? I had to try.

A/N: Previously this story started with "Chapter One" but I decided to write some stuff that happens before that. The next chapter I post will be Chapter Two. I make no promises on how long it will take. Thanks for reading!