Chapter 2
According to the ID card I possess and by my mother, I am Leslie Taylor, a nerdy loner whose profession is breaking hearts of other nerdy loners. 18, Messy long brown hair, brown eyes and bespectacled since birth and gotten worse with dependency on glasses, throwing normal vision out the window forever.
I have outstanding grades and the fling vice president of the student council, which is why I was killed by two of the boys I had previously dated. Conveniently, the school had been blown up by the band of dicks that wanted revenge on the student council for more than enough reasons. If Josh didn't show up when he did, memory loss would be the least of my concerns.
Mom didn't ask where I ran off to last night, but she did ask about when he dragged me in. I didn't tell her what I learned from Leslie's- my memories, but I told her that Josh did save me from bullies. I got a call from the Vice President asking if I can meet him at the entrance to the forest to join in on a debate regarding the rebuilding of the school.
"I'll be there in a moment," I told him, grabbing the blank trainer card. Downstairs, I saw Mom open her mouth and I blurted "I'll be right back!"
Following the route I took yesterday, I took no more than a minute to reach, and when I got there, I saw Sean waiting in a light sweater and his hair couldn't be more perfectly combed. I hurried to him and greeted him with a cheery smile,
"Took your time, didn't you," he posed, sounding slightly irritated.
"You wouldn't even be here if I asked you to be here," I retorted.
"Well, of course. You know I live on the other side of the neighborhood from here," Sean said coolly, turning toward the forest and starting. "So, I heard some of the brats from the other class tried to woo you over to their side of the fight."
I chuckled. "You mean the twits from Pre-Calc? Ha, you're funny. As if they could ever," I boasted. It killed me inside to say so, but before the bombing, those twits had been the nicest people, but Sean and the student council would hear none of it. "So, what's the standing on the debate?"
"Three even on either side, and the President wants to hear your choice before she casts her vote. Which is..."
To release the people responsible for the justified but 'ethically wrong' bombing, but that wasn't an option. He wanted more financing for after school activities like business and sports at the cost of progressive clubs like bible study and Math Room.
"I would want anything you wanted, Hun," I said, and the expressionless mask on his face shattered.
"I- I know, that you would, I mean," Sean slipped. My feet stopped. I could feel confusion, but something else was stronger.
I looked around to find that he had led me far from the road, and that we weren't alone. I gave him a look of disapproval and turned toward our followers.
"Why?" I asked him, keeping my voice level, and he put his mask back on.
"I wasn't sure that you were going to do this first. At least now you're not the one breaking hearts," Sean said, walking away. The first of the crowd charged, followed by the rest shortly after.
"HO! HO!" A woman in a leather tunic appeared from literally nowhere and stood in their way, halting them completely. She was definitely taller and stronger that I was, tanned ever so slightly it was gorgeous on her, and her short, messy red hair was absolutely beautiful in comparison to my brown mop of hair.
"YOU WANNA GET THIS CHICK YOU HAVE TO GET THROUGH ME! I AM THE GREAT-" the woman turned toward me and in a quiet voice, "You a trainer?"
"Yes," I said quickly.
"Give me a name! A strong sounding name!"
"Uh... Blake?"
No sooner that it came out of my mouth she turned around and continued.
"THE GREAT BLAKE, DAUGHTER OF THE OLD ROMAN! ANY OF YOU WHO DARE CHALLENGE ME STEP FORTH!"
"You're a trainer?! I see, you never had a real commitment to begin with," Sean remarked.
"No, I just-"
"Shut up. You're dead to me," Sean stated.
"...You're the one who killed me," I retorted. I ignored him and pushed him out of my mind to focus on the ensuing battle. "Blake, I hope you know how to fight because I don't."
"I wouldn't worry, I got both of us covered," Blake assured me.
"I'll take your offer!" piped one of the girls in the group, a familiar blue haired punk walked up to Blake and stood up straight, though she left her hands in her pockets. "Come at me, grandma!"
Quicker than I could register, Blake put a fist into the girl's gut and smacked her head straight up with the still balled fist, and before the girl could react Blake kneed her in the stomach and spiked her onto the ground.
"WHO'S NEXT?!" Blake called out, and the group scrambled to get out of there. The trainer of the Pokemon, I think, ran up to Blake, threw some money at her and grabbed the girl and ran. "You better run!"
I still didn't understand what was going on, but I was glad that...
No, there wasn't anything to be glad for. I was dead to the one that I wanted to be with and I had resigned myself to some sort of underground battling competition. There wasn't any way I could bring myself to tell my mother that.
"Hey, cheer up. Everything's taken care of, and as a bonus you got a free Pokemon," Blake told me.
"M- make that two." We looked over to a purple haired kid wearing a purple and blue sweater and jeans. He was kinda hiding behind a tree, but not really.
"Now hold on!" Blake chirped before I interrupted and pushed her out of the way.
"Sure! You! Can! Come with us!" I said, pushing aside Blake. "What's your name?"
The boy looked at me with a plain face, then looked at Blake, then back to me, nodding. "Are you really a trainer?" he asked, less than amused.
"Yes, fine, if you really want me to give you a name then you'll be Zachary," I told him, somewhat annoyed. I brought out my blank trainer card to find it filled out with out information, including stuff I'd rather not have on there.
"Well, lead on, trainer," Zach said, pleased with his name.
"I doubt we could go back to the Pallet neighborhood, so let's hit up the bus station and lose them in Viridian," Blake suggested.
I agreed. There's bound to trouble waiting for us at the Pallet bus station, but if we go back home, then we'd be putting Mom in danger. I remembered the letter from Abrikorn on my desk and worried what she'd do if she found it, but I couldn't sneak in and get it without...
"No matter, let's get to that bus station," I said aloud, trying to appear more confident than I felt, and it worked, as Blake puffed her chest and Zach gave me a warm smile. I took a step, then another and with my two pokémon at my side. I wasn't going to give up on myself because I walked into a twisted fantasy in a rather bad position.
...Where's Josh?
Sean
Damn it, Les. Why'd you have to go make everything so complicated? Did you want to throw everything out of proportion? No, you figured out that I was going to abandon you and you saw me wanting to lead you into the forest to...
You knew everything, from the start. You gave them the map of the school, yet you used me as an alibi to get out of taking responsibility for the bombing. You cared for those twits, those morons and those assholes, but you chose to follow me and the council for what?
Bah, it doesn't matter. Your damn Pokemon might've saved you this time, but there are more than enough trainers in the council's debt that it won't make a difference. There's even that Elite Four under our coin that'll deal with you.
"Sean, you alright man?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I lied.
"You don't look it, but I guess Lesyay's backstabbing was hard on ya."
"Leslie, ah it doesn't matter. I'll be fine, just give me some time to get over it."
Holy smokes MAN! You better answer that Phone of YOURS!
I fished out my phone and answered. "Yes, Amelia?"
"Have you dealt with your little issue?" Amelia asked, impatient.
"She ran away, and I doubt she's going to come back. Has the President made her decision?"
"What do you plan to tell her regarding the loss of Les?"
"The Roman got her."
Leslie
Deep in the forest, two children were unlatching cages, freeing the pokémon caught inside. The pokémon were in the forms I was used to seeing, the inhuman squat and animal-like bodies.
"Go!" the children begged the free pokémon, and slowly they started off.
"Hey! Get away from there!" an adult called from the edge of the clearing where the rundown shed stood, and the two children tried to unfasten the last of the locks as the adults drew near, enraged. Some of the pokémon turned around to attack the captors, but they had pokémon of their own,. One child was caught, and the other fled with the weakest of the pokémon, shouting promises to come back to save the other, but shortly after the captors settled the chaos of the escape, the captured child was killed and fed to the captors' pokémon.
The scene faded, and I woke to Blake and Zach standing, I looked up to see that we were at the Viridian bus station, and hurried after them. "That was me and a friend of mine, heh, was," Athena's voice joked darkly. "Any comments?"
"Did you go back for him?" I muttered. Athena fell silent, and it was good timing as well, as Josh waved me over and followed me out of the station, despite me blatantly trying to ignore him.
"Glad you managed to find her in time," he said, but not to me.
"Minorin could have put up a better fight though," Blake complained, and I heard Minorin cough.
"Wasn't like I wanted to fight," Minorin retorted. Zach stayed silent, knowing that he could have joined in the fight, but from the limited experience there wasn't going to be much competition.
"Anyway, Les, you should check out the Pokémon Research Laboratory. If you are interested in, trainer stuff, it's a good place to start. Also, check out the gym. You might like what you find there," Josh noted, before pulling Minorin away..
"Was that your boyfriend?" Zach asked, and Blake smacked him.
"Well, Captain Obvious, if he loved her anymore then I doubt he'd even let her go off on her own," Blake joked, one that made me feel uneasy.