The Youngster
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Pokemon. I do not have real Pokemon (which i would prefer over the rights of the franchise to be honest) I only have a few Pokemon-softtoys (I guess it's better than nothing)
Warning: not for Ash-fans. It's supposed to be more realistic.
If you want to support me: see TaleTeller826 on the page of patrons
Note about how this world works: I wanted this world to be logical and somewhat more realistic than the anime. And while I did enjoy the anime as a kid and even now enjoy the games, some things stopped making sense to me as I got older. Like giving eleven-years old a living and walking lighter (like charmander). Especially when the kids would go into a forest… Others never made sense to me even back then, like people seeming to be happy to lose a pokemon fight. And becoming friends because they lost. I mean there is good sportsmanship. And there is ridiculious wishful thinking. Or going back to the people who blew you up. Regardless how strong a pokemon is supposed to be. There is little point to get a pokemon, if you die doing so. In death you can't really enjoy your victory. That a mouse blows up a cat regularly is also weird. What do meowth eat, if they can't catch pikachus?
As such, some known characters will behave different than in the anime and manga. Vastly, so.
Someone considerate will do things sometimes just to make someone else happy. Even if he doesn't enjoy it himself. While the anime did show "helping others", it usually was with things they would do for fun anyway. Like a pokemon fight or similar. That is not something I would count as a sign for being considerate or selfless… Similarly a person who brags often is unlikely to be considerate at all. Or well-liked. And a person ignoring the needs and feelings of others is unlikely to make many friends. Or who projects his own feelings and needs onto others. Also a person who is always angry at somebody else is unlikely to fall in love with that very person. (no Misty-Ash-shipping) Or just be friends. Just as a womanizer is unlikely to be responsible with money or do household chores. (no fatherly Brock)
While a person, who will put their animals/pokemon to work more often than have quality time with them (like grooming or playing with them, or otherwise do something the pokemon enjoys) is unlikely to be listened to after a while. Same for those that consider the human having fun as quality time for the pokemon. A pokemon winning just because his trainer was yelling the loudest, was also just wishful thinking. It would be like a person without legs being able to run, if he finds a friend who would encourage him good enough to "overcome his limits". It just doesn't make sense. (Hence Ash being very different)
Similarly, someone who doesn't rub their successes in, being portraited as arrogant for giving advice, is just as illogical. Braggards rarely give advice in my experience. They tend to explain their success with "because I am just that good" rather that tell someone how to reach the same level. The people who do give tips, usually do want others to succeed as well. (no "bad" Gary) So are often rather nice, even if envious people hate them. On the other hand, thinking that your own bonds are the strongest, no matter how long others had their own pokemon or how much they had experienced, is rather arrogant. As it gives away their opinion that "No matter what another person had been through, it's impossible to be worse/harder than what I had been through." Or that "No matter how long and hard somebody else had trained, they can't possibly be better than me" And that is just self-centered. (no "good" or selfless Ash)
Also a person who isn't patient, will have a hard time with anything that requires time and effort. Just as a person, who doesn't prepare for anything is often caught in trouble. While even preparation can fail, not doing so in the first place, makes problems far more likely. It's like with learning over the year and paying attention in class vs learning only the night before a test. The amount of knowledge that can be learned in one day is limited. And doing a little over a long time simply adds up to a larger sum than hitting that limit in one day during a year. (no smart or strong Ash)
The pokemon themselves will be similar to this worlds animals. Yes, they have feelings and opinions. No, they do not have the same needs and wishes as humans. A pokemon wanting to win a tournament makes as much sense as a horse wanting to eat steak. Territorial fights simply don't have a referent. Or the same rules as tournaments. It's not the same. A pokemon may want to show off. But that's not the same thing either. It's more "show how strong they are", rather than "make the first place". A dog does understand that it can get in terrible trouble if it would bite the child of their owner. Since dogs do rise and protect their young as well. Most snakes don't care for their eggs, let alone the young snakes, so they would in fact not understand this sort of thing. Just as dogs will assume that any person is close when they hear them. Even when they hear a voice over a phone. Phones are after all not something a dog has naturally. (No talking meowth, no Pikachu, who wants to win for all pikachus without envolving)
Pokemon will have opinions, just as animals do. But it will not be the kind of opinion like "the taxes are too high" or "I would vote for this party". It will be more along the lines of how kids think. Like cookies are there for eating and they taste great, so of course cookies will make perfect breakfast food. Wait, who is this nutrients? And why does he get a say in what I eat? A dog doesn't think philosophical questions. He doesn't think "the taxes are too high" unless you point out that if you didn't need to spend as much on taxes, you would have more money to buy dog food. Then the dog will agree. A horse on the other hand will likely be confused, why you need money to buy food in the first place. Last time he checked, it grew on its own… So opinions in what they want and like will be there, but nothing too human.
Anyways, as such I will consider the character's likely opinions and worldviews and write their actions fitting to such opinions. Also the reactions of others to such actions will be what I would consider logical reactions. Yes, there will be good sportsmanship. But! There will also be hard feelings sometimes. No, there will not be "instant and forever" friendship after a pokemon fight. Nor people getting blown up repeatedly or pokemon having a human perspective and worldview. A true friendship is only possible if you can understand your friend. Try to see, if you can to see the world from your friend's perspective. It may be effort, but your world will grow increadibly vast and your friendship deep once you manage that.
I'll try to not be mary-sueish. But I do write of what I would think the logical steps would be, when a person finds themselves in the pokemon world. And since I do consider it logical, I do expect some certain results. I also do expect certain problems. But not as a little kid. A little kid may consider "no ice-cream" to be a huge problem, a grown-up in a kids body does not. At least I hope so. And since reasonable people wouldn't give a small child problems that a grown up would have problems with (unless you go the cindarella-route, that is just as bad as mary sue), the first few parts will be relatively peaceful. The action does come later thought.
Chapter 1: selfmade millionaire washing dishes
I remember my past life. A childhood full of dreaming of owning Pokemon or being a pokemon. And an adulthood full of working as a software-engineer and still playing the games whenever a new one or even a remake came out.
I don't remember dyeing. Or being born again. Probably for the best, all things considered. Being aware when being born is most likely rather traumatic. With dyeing even more so.
I only remember going to bed one day. And when i woke up i was on a beach. Right next to a shellder. And really, really small. And pretty much convinced i was dreaming. A great dream, but just a dream still. A nurse found me and brought me to an orphanage. When nobody knew who my parents were and nobody looked for me, I just ended up staying there. The nurse estimated my age as around 3 years old back then.
I didn't complain and I didn't worry. After all what point is there in complaining to your dream about your dream? So I just played and had fun and enjoyed my dream while it lasted. The first day I went to bed convinced that I would wake up in the real world once I fell asleep in the dream. But then I woke up again in the same room I fell asleep in. I was still in the Pokemon-Dream. All I thought was, 'cool, I didn't wake up yet. Another day full of fun and games here I come!'.
The third morning, I was confused. Surely, I couldn't be asleep still? What if I overslept? Or maybe I was even in a Coma? Or maybe the time was just different during dreams? After all, it should in theory be as fast as thinking. So maybe, in the real world barely a second had passed. It was all possible. And I had no idea which one was the truth… Let alone how to find out…
I grew more and more antsy as time passed. The matron just thought I was realizing that my parents won't be coming back. She was very understanding with me and tried to cheer me up often. Even if she misunderstood my problem entirely, I was still glad and it still helped. Ok, it also freaked me out a lot, to depend on a person, I had thought up myself in a dream.
One night I tried to relieve my tension in an adult way… Let me tell you: trying to get rid of frustration by masturbating does not work on a kid's body. I guess the neural-stuff just isn't build just yet… And trying is just adding more frustration on top of everything. That situation only gets beaten by the matron coming in to check on everyone and asking what I was doing… Yeah… Well, I didn't want to enter that sort of discussion, so I just told her it was an itch. Which unfortunately means: undressing and let the matron look it over, to check for any health-issues… I guess… I suck at excuses?
Well, that was awkward to say the least. But it was also pretty much the lowest I got in my second childhood. Then again, I didn't consider a balloon to be all that important this time around… Anyway, days turned into weeks and weeks into months. With each day it seemed less and less like a dream. Until at one point I started to wonder if my previous life was just a dream…
I wondered, if I should try to get back into my world. If I even could go back somehow. Or if I had died and was reincarnated. I wasn't worried about worrying my family. Not because of family issues or such. But because my Mom had died a few weeks before. She had been ill for a long time. At least I got to tell her that I had gotten my bachelor degree. With good grades too. There wasn't any other close family. I don't even remember my father.
Anyway, there was no family left, that would miss me. My friends from university would just assume, that I finished my education and started working or so. Somebody who knew about mom dying may think I killed myself in my grief. But well, nobody would really be heartbroken over me, even if they did think I had committed suicide.
On the other hand: Pokemon-world! How cool was that?! Squeal! I could still write programs in this world, if I truly missed it. Maybe I could even write a TM or such… Hmmm, an idea for later. For now I would simply stay in the orphanage. Not like I had any choice in that matter anyways.
There wasn't much for me to do at the orphanage. I was still around 3 years old. At least physical… So the toys naturally were dolls – normal and pokemon, music stuff, motor skill stuff and similar. In the first few days it was fun to play with that stuff and the other small kids. But it did get repetitive and boring pretty fast. Even so I had an idea. Not all that great an idea, but at least something that would keep me from getting to badly bored…
In my old world there was this idea, that you could basically decide what your life would look like by pretend playing that you already lived such a life. Nobody would find it strange that a little girl would play to be someone else. As a kid I did that too, so it's pretty normal. Maybe it wouldn't work, but… well, there wasn't any harm in trying. At best, I could decide what my future would look like. At worst it would keep me from getting too bored. Hopefully. Now I only had to decide what kind of life I wanted to live…
That was actually a trickier thing that I thought… well, I wanted to have Pokemon and play and cuddle with them. Because, well, Pokemon! What kind of fan wouldn't want that? I didn't really feel one way or another about fighting. Let alone being the very best or a Pokemon Master. But I did want to catch some, train them and enjoy their company. I could try making a complete Pokedex? Hey, I could even try to become a Pokemon-Professor, studying their behavior and such. I wasn't limited by game-mechanics this time after all. Or a breeder. Rising and training cute, little baby Pokemon. Until they would start on a journey with a new trainer or such… So many possibilities…
What else? Hmm, I wanted to have lots of friends and look pretty. Maybe I could try out Contests? That would be cool. I wanted lots of pretty clothes and similar. And money. And a house. And lots of free time. Maybe I should try pretend to get adopted by rich people? Nah, they would likely freak out over my matureness. At least I would be seriously confused if I met a kid who behaved like I did… And parents could have different expectations… I just preferred to live like I wanted. And since I was already used to living alone… or as alone as students living in a dormitry ever get... Anyway, I wanted to decide how to live my life for myself. It wasn't possible right now. But surely I could live on my own a lot faster as an orphan.
What would turn a day into a great day in my future life? Hmm, maybe winning a contest, catching a rare pokemon, a pokemon I was looking for or one of my pokemon evolving or learning a really good move. Now, for the things unrelated to pokemon… Marrying or getting children would be great and everything that comes with that. Enjoying a night out with friends would also make for a great day. Or enjoying a really good book. What would a normal day look like? Hmmm, I would wake up, dress and care form my pokemon, eat breakfast, train my pokemon and travel, eat, read a book or research pokemon-behaviour. Maybe write books about how to rise/train pokemon or about pokemon behaviour? Yeah, that sounds good.
I was currious if the animal-languages were similar in the Pokemon-world. In my past life there were books about how to learn „dog-language" and „horse-language". It was mostly body-languages and since Rapidash have similar bodies to horses, the language may also be the same. And it would be interesting to research the „languages" of other pokemon. Like Pikachus, Charizard or Geodude. I had no idea what animal would be similar enough to a geodude to have the same body-language. If there even was such an animal at all.
Ok, so far so good. Now how could I use that for my play-pretend? Well, I could use pokemon dolls to play caring/catching/studying pokemon. Reading was possible for real and writing the results of „my studies" would also be easy to play pretend. Or typing them down on a Laptop or such. Playing house was pretty normal for kids anyway and winning contests or breeding pokemon was also easy. Having lots of pretty dresses and completing the Pokedex would be trickier… Same with having lots of friends… I guess „lots" was hard in pretend play, no matter what kind… And "having" probably too…
Hmmm, what sort of consequenses would it have, if I had lots of pretty dresses? I guess I would enjoy and take my time to get dressed? Well, thats actually easy enough to play… How about having lots of friends? I guess to keep in contact with everyone, I would often call or receive calls, write and receive mails or similar and visit or being visited by others. But how about completing the pokedex? Catching pokemon and getting them to evolve would not really play „completed pokedex", but „trying/wanting to complete the pokedex". Which by the rules of that system would mean that I increase the wish and make it more difficult to actually achieve it. Since achieving the goal would actually make those actions less likely.
But what would be actual consequences of completing the pokedex? I would have bragging rights, I guess? But, well, I didn't really like to brag… All that bragging ever does, is generate dislike and even hate. And pretending to brag was even more stupid… So, that's a „no". I probably wouldn't brag all that much about it anyway, even if I should achieve a complete pokedex. Maybe celebrate with friends or such. That would be possible, but it wouldn't be all that much… I guess the biggest change would be that professors may ask for certain pokemon species to study them. Particularly the legendarys would be very welcome by any professor. And by any competitive trainer as well for that matter. So maybe pretending to get request to borrow/study/observe any oft he legies? Those could come often enough, if I get every kind of pokemon.
Well, that sounded good enough for me. Now that that was decided, on to the implementation… What would I need to pretend play these things? Well, pretend play doesn't really need anything per say… But I would find it easier with pokemon dolls, books to read, a laptop to write with and pokemon stuff. Like pokeballs or such. With this in mind I went exploring and found the playrooms for older kids. But when I tried to play with the stuff there, the adults would take the „dangerous" toys away the moment they noticed me. I guess using the PCs was over the top, since I was still looking like a three years old… But still…
The playroom for my age group didn't have pokeballs or similar stuff, I could use. Even the bigger balls little kids play with were under lock and key. Maybe the adults were worried about random throws destroying lamps, windows and similar? There were suprisingly few dolls as well. And unsuprisingly next to nothing for writing and reading. There were a few „books" but well playing pretend to be an enthusiastic reader was a lot more fun with books that actually have some text…
Most toys in my own group were to increase the fine motor skills of the kids. So… not exactly helpful to me. Thankfully my motor skills or any skills for that matter carried over, despite the different body. I noticed that I could draw just as good as I did as an adult. Thankfully. Thought I decided to hide it, after noticing it. No point in creeping out the matron after all.
I thought about trying to sneak into the playrooms of other groups and see if I found toys better for my pretend play. But… well… the adults would be worried about me choking on something and I didn't want to draw their attention or worry them. They had enough to do with the other kids. So I only asked if I could have other books. After a few days, I was allowed to take any books and soft dolls regardless of age, but had to leave anything else alone. That was fine by me, I didn't really wanted to play cards or such anyway.
So instead I read and played pretend with the dolls. I also drew a keyboard and monitor to play the writing parts. The first day I felt like an idiot. But the second day, the matron saw me playing and looked relieved. I guess she was worried because I didn't behave much like a little kid before… Well, if the adults considered it healthy for me… Whatever… After that, I just ignored anybody watching. It's not like anyone would believe me, that I was an adult or that I remembered my old life anyway…
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After a few months the matron noticed, that I really already could read and didn't just play pretend this. She told me that she was impressed and that I was incredibly intelligent… Well, I kind of ignored it. I mean for a 3 year-old it was impressive. But… for an adult… not really… Either way, the matron showed me where the schoolbooks and similar were kept and took me to the library to encourge my supposed growth. So I at least wasn't all that bored anymore about being in a kids body. I learned a lot in that time about the world I now lived in.
The pokemon world is a lot like the anime and games, but also had a lot of differences. I did expect a few differences, since a kids show was bound to reduce complex things down to something understandable and relatable for small kids. So stuff like „good/bad person", „economy/money-related things" and „relationships" being a lot more complex than was shown, was a given. Even that pokemon don't really understand human speech, wasn't all that surprising. It may have been one of the pillars, why pokemon was so popular, but well… other kids shows often had „talking" animals in it too. While I would prefer it was more like the anime, it wasn't all that odd. Even that kids weren't allowed on pokemon journeys at the age of 10, made a lot more sense than what happened in the anime. In this world people were considered adults at 16. And at that point they had the option to go out adventuring.
On the other hand, there were some differences that threw me rather badly. From little stuff like the starter for all kids being eevee of all things. In the games eevee was pretty rare at first. It the later games it became somewhat easier to get. And in the anime there were some people who had an eevee and some siblings who went for different evolutions of it. But in this world eevees were easy to breed, obidient and sort of neutral rather than particularly girlish or manly. Which means neither girls nor boys complained about receiving one. They were small, so you could easily keep one in an apartment or anywhere really. Also it was easy to evolve eevee into a different type. Well, as long as you could afford an elemental stone. So it was easy to adapt to lots of different trainers. It was the perfect choice for giving out something to whole generations of girls and boys. It does make sense to not let young adults fight over what kind of starter they get. Some would want the same starter. There were simply too many people for there not to break a fight out over that.
To mayor changes, like that legendaries were feared and avoided as best as one could, rather than sought out. Many times nearby cities had to be evacuated when one of the legendary birds' trio was sighted nearby. Even then there was a loooonnngg list of causualities caused by them and by „normal" pokemon every year. Yeah, the pokemon world was damn dangerous! It shouldn't really surprise anyone considering this world included real-life fire-breathing dragons, bees the size of an adults head, moving plants that could and would poison you even if you didn't eat them and similar dangers.
There were other things that I hadn't expected at all. Like that a person actually needed 10 gym badges to take part in the league or that a person wasn't at all expected to take part in the league during the first year of his journey. Or even within the first five years. It was a bit like in my old world where young people weren't expecting or expected to get a high income as a trainee. They were just starting out, so nobody in their right mind would expect them to be masters right of the bat. Or even until a few years getting experience.
There was also sort of expected things, like Pokemon not listening despite the trainer having 8 badges. Or 10 as it happens. I read many books about training for different types of Pokemon. A Charizard could and would burn his trainer, if they weren't raised well. Well, I guess, the games couldn't exactly include a way to discipline certain Pokemon. And the kind of dicipline different Pokemon needed seemed to depend on the type as well. Making things additionally complicated. Like a dragon would turn on a trainer, who looked weak to them. But otherwise a Bulbasaur would react best to encouragement.
Then there was the matter of team rocket and the rangers… It was just bizar… The ranger uniform actually looked like those rocket uniforms from the show… On the one hand, it made a lot more sense for an official to wear an uniform. It makes them recognizable, which would save time during crisis, since people would know to follow their orders. That was pretty much how things worked with soldiers, fire fighters and similar in my old life. Basically everything that was timesensitive was improved that way. Rangers helped people out of danger from pokemon. Like leading evacuations from legendaries. On the other hand, a crime syndicate who stole pokemon wouldn't want to be recognized and surely wouldn't use uniforms.
It confused the hell out of me… Does team rocket actually exist in this world? If so what and where were they? I was leaning to „doesn't really exist and was just thought up to make the anime and game more exiting". It would make more sense than a young trainer barely starting his journey beating a whole crimesyndicate full of trainers with years more experience on his lonesome. Nevermind that most rocket member had raticate and/or arbok in the game. Despite being adults and trainers for far longer than the avatar. Even with normal catching methods, they should have more diverse and more pokemon. But when you add, that team rocket supposedly stole pokemon, especially rare ones… Well, rats and snakes were an insult, that worked pretty much anywhere.
Well, it was unlikely that team rocket actually existed in this world. It did however made me wonder how the team rocket that chased after Ash and Pikachu was thought up… Granted, even in the anime it looked more like a running gag than anything else. But it also seemed an integral part in the story… What made it even weirder, was that pikachus were really common. Pretty much every forest had a whole lot of them. Every Pokemon-Center had one or more Pikachus as a backup power supply. Considering how the team rocket was blown up regularly, it made me wonder if there was a personal vendetta against the rangers involved. A bit like a child beating a doll with another doll, while replaying an argument.
Well, maybe I could find out later on. For now I would just learn what I could about this new world and prepare myself for my journey. I didn't just focus on Pokemon,where to find them, how to tame, train and care for them, but also survival techniques and so on.
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And then came the day I had been waiting for! It was sooner than I thought it would be, yet at the same time the wait had been far too long by far… It was around a year after I came to the orphanage, two weeks after my birthday/foundday and I was considered 4 years old. My foundday was kind of nice. I was taken to a store and should point out what toys I would like, but I would only get it, if it wasn't too expensive. I asked for a target and some throwing balls with hooks to practise throwing pokeballs. Since that was pretty inexpensive, I also got a pokemon doll. The party was also nice, if relatively low key. Basically the matron just brought a cake and the presents I selected before and all of the kids sung happy birthday.
Two weeks later I was finally allowed to use the PC in the library! I was beyond happy! The librarian showed me how to search for something in the internet. She said the PC in the library was special and I could only use that PC. Other PC's didn't always had the protection this one had. She still told me to not talk to anyone in the internet, as those were all strangers. And since most children my age couldn't read just yet, making friends happened in the playground, not with a PC.
I guessed that the PCs in the library had child safeties. Still, not a bad guideline for internet beginners and young children. I was pretty impressed. Well, I didn't want to chat anyway. I mostly wanted to look up information regarding caring and training pokemon and maybe battle tactics. What I found reminded me of TMs and the possibilities with them. Well, I had studied computer science… So, I tried my hand at programming a TM by myself. It took a while to look things up on the specifics of TMs and find a way to test the program without having any pokemon myself.
Turned out, not testing the written TMs on your own pokemon was the rule, rather than the exception. Nobody wanted to fry the brains of their own pokemon and using a rattata someone sold as a test subject was a common way for the final test. Catching and selling Pokemon turned out to be the most common way to make money for Pokemontrainers, rather than fighting each other. Which made sense, since fighting for money would be a null-sum-game. All trainers had expenses for food and stuff, but if the only way for them to get money, was to take it from another trainer after a battle… There wouldn't be much money after a while. But if companies buy caught pokemon like machoke for manual labor or such… It was a lot easier economically.
I know programming sounds super cool and impressive. Particularly programming TMs. But really? It's not that difficult. All you need is a clear idea, what you want to program, a PC with the necessary programs and online-access and patients. Lots and lots of patients. Programming is 50% looking for bugs and going through the code line by line to find out when on earth the code turned the variable into that mess. The truth is: it's pretty boring, as you need a lot of time going baby-steps. But time was something I currently had too much anyway.
Anyway, my first TM was as unimpressive as they get. A simple bite, but somehow nobody had written one yet. My TM was in fact working well enough with the rattata, that the worker who checked the test offered to put my TM on sale and to transfer 60% of the income to my account. I answered, that I would think about the offer. I didn't yet have an account for money and I wanted to check how the rate for TMs was usually.
I could in fact start a bank account online and didn't need to verify it at all. It was a little odd to me, but the only downside was, that it wouldn't get an overdraft that way. I guessed the risk wasn't that high for the bank, as they didn't give out any money, that wasn't mine anyway. Only the lack of protection against money laundering threw me a little. Well, whatever. It worked out for me, so I wasn't going to complain. As for the percentage… 60% was the normal rate for such things according to the internet.
The next day I answered the worker that I agreed to his suggestion and gave him the data of my new account. Well, who knew? I was making money before I turned 5. That was pretty awesome. During the next few months I wrote a few more TMs. Nothing big to be honest, but still nice enough. After bite came absorb, headbutt, bubble, ember and quick attack. They went on the market and became pretty popular. My account grew and grew with each day. Not that I could actually use that money directly any time soon… It would just rise questions, I didn't want to answer.
But I could and did give money to the orphanage. It would have felt wrong to receive state aid for being a kid and therefore not having any income, when truthfully I wasn't a kid mentally and did already earn money. That way I didn't have to argue with anyone about "already being big". The orphanage would get more money from me than they had to spent on me. That sounded fair enough to me.
I also wrote TMs, that I didn't sell or even tested with a real Pokemon. I wanted to keep them to myself to have an edge later on. Unfortunately that meant I couldn't test them. And since programming is mostly looking for the errors, it meant that those attacks were still works in progress at best. Or wishful thinking at worst. Among them were sing, pay day, icebeam, firebeam, waterbeam, solarbeam, rainy day, sunny day, plant growth, plant seeds, healing pulse and similar. Some were from the game and worked like the attacks did there.
Others like most of the beams and plant attacks where made up by myself. The beams worked similar to hyperbeam, just with an element instead of pure energy. The plant „attacks" were just like rainy day or sunny day to influence the enviroment. That way I could do something about floods, droughts and could help out when a harvest ended up pityful small or something like that. I probably should sell them, to help the people… But admittedly I wasn't so keen to give my own inventions away like that… I guess I'm not that selfless… Maybe I wanted the recognition for programming something, that can help people this much… Honestly, I wasn't sure why, but I wanted to keep those ideas a secret for now.
Well, I would grow and maybe when I went on my journey I would change my mind… I was already looking forward to it. Not just the whole pokemon journey thing, thought that alone was already epic, but also that I was already better prepared in terms of resources and knowledge, than some of the 16 years old… I couldn't wait.
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One day when I was in the library I checked my bank account and noticed that I had already over a million pokedollar! I was officially a millionaire! I felt as if I was a king. Well, queen, more likely. I was grinning and bouncing on my way back to the orphanage. I was a millionaire before even hitting the double digits age-wise. Even a selfmade one at that! How cool was that? Nothing could ruin my mood!
„Maria? Come here a moment, dear.", said the matron. Currious and completely thrown, I followed her, not suspecting anything… We reached the kitchen, much to my rising confusion. I wasn't allowed there. Understandably, since I still looked like a four year old. „You know already about a lot of what adults do, Maria. I'll show you something new. How about it?", she started. „Er… like what, ma'am?"
„Like washing dishes. It's pretty fun. The adults do that often and everyone learns about it at some point. You are pretty smart, so you can start a bit earlier than others. Isn't that nice, Maria?". Well… I'll go with the ‚isn't'… But I could hardly tell her that… So I just put on my smile and asked what I should do.
As I stood above the sink, I couldn't help but feel cheated… Yes, something could ruin my mood. No, I was neither king nor queen of the world. And apparently, becoming a selfmade millionaire, didn't mean you got out of doing the dishes… Who knew? I mean, there were a lot of stories, where someone went from a poor person, washing dishes to a selfmade millionaire. I just assumed that meant, they actually stopped having to wash dishes, once they reached that goal… Well, apparently not. Because here I was, selfmade millionaire at the age of four, washing the dishes…
Here I was, for all my lore,
the wretched fool I was before.
And earned with my maturity
a new chore, oh lucky me…