*This is now participating in the contest, "The random AU! Competition" hosted by a user going by the name of reminiscent-afterthought. It can be found by going to my profile.
682/10,000 Words*

* The Thief Game *
* Chapter One *
* The Boy Who Tried *

Crawling through tall grass with tan shorts and a long-sleeved white jacket was not the best of ideas. First, you're going to get grass-stains on your sleeves, and second; the grass is really scratchy and uncomfortable on bare knees. And by 'uncomfortable,' I mean painful.

"Oww…" I mumbled when my knee came into contact with a particularly sharp stone. "Stupid rock." I angrily tossed it away when I sat up to inspect my injury, which actually wasn't much of an injury. It still hurt, though. That was the trainer's life though, always getting into the nastiest of situations, and being able to stomach them without going home to cry to their mommies.

I crawled back onto my knees and continued to search, ignoring the small pulse of pain with a pitiful whimper whenever my knee touched the ground.

Yep, this was going better than the last three times I tried it. Today was going to be the day I caught a pokémon.

A spearow was what I was going for, but I'd settle for a pidgey or a rattata. I wouldn't try for a pikachu or an ekans. That was why I failed the first time. I set my expectations too high. I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

At that moment, I almost wished I could have lived in Sinnoh instead of Kanto because of their wild shinx. An electric type would make an awesome starter, and the shinx in Sinnoh are much more common than the pikachu are in Viridian Forest. Shrugging it off, I carried on hunting for a pokémon that was actually accessible to me.

The day dragged by without my notice. I didn't care about my stomach growling in protest, even though I had actually packed a lunch this time. The sun beat down on the back of my neck relentlessly, and I was almost certain I had sunburn by that point. The smell of the wide plain cooking in the summer heat hit the back of my throat with every breath I took. My navy-blue hair was hot and sweaty and kept falling into my eyes every time I pushed it back into place. My knees ached every time I moved another inch and I was getting really tired of crawling around like this.

It had been almost fifteen minutes since I had started my search and with no results.

I got up and stretched, my shoulders getting stiff from crawling around on my hands and knees. In doing so, I spotted what I had been looking for. A pidgey. Well, almost what I had been looking for.

I made an effort to be as quite as possible as I tiptoed over to a low hanging branch of a nearby sage. The avian went on, blissfully unaware that I was about to be its new master.

Though, it was when I was getting the pokéball out of my pocket that alerted the pidgey.

The pidgey's neck whirled around, its beady eyes glaring daggers into my soul. I stopped dead in my tracks, the pokéball mere seconds from being thrown, grew heavy in the palm of my hand. The staring contest lasted only a few seconds before the pidgey took off into the air and flew away.

I plopped to the ground and sighed in defeat. "This… isn't going to work, is it?"

"Well, I think you could do it if you really tried," a voice reassured.

I spun around, dropping the pokéball in the process. I had thought I was alone out here, but I clearly wasn't. The voice belonged to a young man, slightly older then twenty. I immediately spotted his alakazam walking-ahem-floating beside him.

"Oh. Hi."

He flashed me one of the largest smiles I have ever seen. "Hi," he said with a small wave.

I eyed the man curiously. After all, he did just appear out of nowhere.

He must have noticed me staring at him funnily because he introduced himself a moment later, saying something very odd.

"I'm Mattias, and I would like to play a game."