Yep, I got another idea. I intend to keep writing this and Servant of the Pokémon at the same time - I'll figure out a schedule eventually.

Anyway, welcome to Dangerous Type! This tale is inspired by several other series, which you all might be able to pick up on. This is an OC that's somewhat based on me, but not quite.

Please enjoy the first chapter, and do not forget to let me know what you thought of it.

JUNE 12, 202Y

I wasn't technically shackled to the desk, but I might as well have been that day. They didn't need any handcuffs to keep me restrained here, because if I bolted to the door, the cops stationed at the courtroom's exit would shoot me with their stun guns immediately.

The state Attorney General presided over the proceedings. Supposedly, he'd be the one questioning me, though how was I supposed to know how this worked? I was new to the courtroom, after all.

"All rise, please" the Attorney General ordered.

Everyone stood up from their seats, including me. I put my hand over my heart as though I were pledging allegiance to the flag; though I'd dispensed with that ritual long ago, it came calling back for more. It was like an old addiction I hadn't fully kicked yet.

Attorney General Brent Woods stood in what would normally be the judge's booth. The tall, thin man with bushy black hair and beard didn't play around. When it had been announced that I'd face the grand jury today, he'd insisted on being the head prosecutor, taking over the role normally reserved for the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

And what a no-nonsense prosecutor he was! Woods read over the usual like he'd done this hundreds of times - which, of course, he probably had.

"All shall sit down" Woods boomed, the mic magnifying his voice far beyond its natural volume. And, just as he commanded, the courtroom all sat down.

The Attorney General cleared his throat. "Defendant, please state your name."

"Frank Fincher Fly" I mouthed, my throat feeling very dry indeed. "But why call me a defendant? I haven't been charged with anything yet."

"Not yet" Woods echoed. "But if I have anything to say about it, you will be. Besides, that's just how the court works."

I could barely contain my rage, though I knew I needed to do so. Instead, I simply sat back down and respectfully averted my eyes from AG Woods.

"Now, Mr. Fly, I presume you understand your Fifth Amendment rights?"

"That is correct."

"And it seems you have waived them?"

"I mean, I'm here today," I said. "So if I haven't waived them, there's something wrong with me."

"Maybe that's still the case," Woods replied with a shrug. "Maybe there is something wrong with you. That would explain why you did this."

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"It would explain why you may have done this," Woods corrected himself. "We haven't been able to prove wrongdoing yet. In any case, it's been quite an eventful year, hasn't it?"

I did not respond.

"I said," the AG continued, leaning over the front of his booth and glaring at me, "a lot has happened in the last twelve months. It's only been a year since that fateful day when everything was set into motion."

Again, I didn't reply. They always said in all those crime dramas that every word you spoke could later be used against you in court, after all.

Brett Woods sighed. He wasn't getting what he wanted out of me yet, but he probably expected that to change soon.

"Look" he said eventually, wiping sweat off his forehead. "I think it's safe to say that Pokélife has been more than you bargained for. Your Persona as a Zoroark was spot-on; you've certainly worn many hats during the past twelve months."

"Worn many hats? I don't follow."

"It's a figure of speech, Mr. Fly. I mean that you've taken on many personalities over the last year, done a lot of things. We don't know your true self, but who am I kidding? Only one thing matters today."

"Let's get on with it, then" I muttered.

"Oh, we will," Woods told me. "But first, let me ask you a question."

"Sure" I said gingerly, wondering if this was a trap.

"Is today your birthday?"

I flinched, taken aback by the question. It just made so little sense.

"Well…yes. But why is that relevant?"

"Because," AG Woods replied, "on a day like today, such a beautiful summer birthday, you should be out there celebrating life. Instead you're holed up in a courtroom, discussing events that may be painful at best, incriminating at worst."

I snorted without humor. "Well, happy birthday to me, I guess."

"Here's the million-dollar question: What sets you apart from all those happy-go-lucky people whom you'd want to celebrate with? Why are they free men and women, and you aren't?"

"Beats me."

Woods stood to his full height of roughly 6 feet, 3 inches (only slightly shorter than my own.) And his glare intensified from there.

"Let me phrase it differently: You know that you're in trouble today, right? And that this trouble is due to your own actions?"

"Of course," I replied, gritting my teeth. "Of course, I reject the notion that I've done anything wrong, but I may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Quite" Woods responded. "Anyway, happy birthday. You're nineteen now?"

"Yes. Again, why does that matter?"

"It doesn't. I just want to warm you up with some easy questions. But the day is still young, and there will be far more strenuous questions up ahead. You'll need to be able to handle those as well."

Since when does he care about my well-being?, I wondered. His job is to break me down by any means necessary, get me to say what he wants me to say.

"Anyway, there are still some procedures to get through. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God?"

"I do" I said, because what else was I supposed to say?

"And you acknowledge that everything you say will be true, under penalty of law?"

Why shouldn't I lie to bolster my position? I'm already screwed, might as well go down swinging.

"I do."

"Very well. So where should this story begin?"

I did not answer. Instead, I gazed around the packed courtroom at the people who'd come to watch today's grand jury proceedings. They seemed to come from all walks of life, and represented a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and skin colors.

All of them, however, had one thing in common. They wanted to watch me talk, and they wanted to see me suffer for what I might have done. Somebody had to swing for the crime, in their eyes, so why not me?

Quite frankly, the sight of all those people in the courtroom, combined with the knowledge that there were many more in the hallway and millions more watching live on TV, made me want to hurl. Nobody wants to be a monkey in a circus parade.

"Earth to Frank Fly" AG Woods said.

I snapped out of my reverie, then glanced up at the flags on either side of the Chief Justice's box. One of them was the American flag, Stars n' Stripes, Old Glory, or whatever you wanted to call it. The other was the flag of Massachusetts, white and blue with the Native American man whose name I couldn't remember emblazoned in the center. That man on the state flag stared down at me as though I were a specimen he couldn't wait to dissect.

"I said, Earth to Frank Fly! Please answer my questions!"

"Sorry" I replied quickly. "You asked me where the story should begin?"

"Yes, Mr. Fly. Where do you believe this story should start?"

"Well," I muttered, "I guess it could start on my last birthday. It's just like you said - that's when everything went to hell."

JUNE 12, 202X - A YEAR EARLIER

Let's see…I've got a poorly-maintained bicycle, an app used for tracking the jobs, and about $3,000 to my name. That's about it. Those are my assets.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name's Frank Fly, and I used to work as a bounty hunter for the Los Angeles Police Department. Okay, it was really more of a volunteer gig than a job, because I wasn't paid a salary; instead, the amount of money I brought in was contingent on how many criminals I was able to catch.

Most of the time, I wasn't very lucky. Maybe I just wasn't fast enough, or couldn't dupe my targets into trusting me convincingly enough. Either one of these problems is a major impediment to overcome in this profession, because you have to be quick on your feet in more ways than one.

The day had started out like any other. It was my eighteenth birthday, but I didn't exactly feel like celebrating the occasion. It was another stark reminder, if it were even needed, that happy days wouldn't come to me again for some time.

Still, I had to do something special for the day, so I resolved that if my target was acquired, and I was able to turn him in successfully and receive my reward, I'd spend it on a luxury - a nice meal, perhaps, or an improved Pokélife headset.

The only thing that gave me pause, of course, was that my roommate wouldn't be thrilled if I used rent money for something I didn't absolutely need. Perhaps I just wouldn't tell him about it, but he might have other ways of finding out.

Anyway, I was in our ratty old apartment, sipping some broth from my mug of instant ramen, when my phone buzzed. Me being a modern youth who was always glued to his phone, I couldn't resist the urge to answer it right away.

NEW JOB ALERT: 200 HENDRICKS DRIVE, STARBUCKS COFFEE. WANTED FOR BETTING ON POKÉLIFE. REWARD: $10,000.

My eyes widened to no small degree. Ten thousand dollars…that was enough to cover my remaining rent twice over! Yes, there were still other necessities besides surviving the housing crisis, but with that kind of money, I could go to a steakhouse every night for at least a week.

Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity right away. After accepting the job, I made my first mistake.

"Tommy!" I exclaimed.

My roommate (whose name was obviously Tommy) came lumbering sleepily into the kitchen. "Yes?" he asked.

"I've got a job to do! It'll cover the rest of my rent!"

"Wonderful" Tommy yawned. "Where is it?"

"Starbucks on Hendricks Drive!" I exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet. "All I have to do is get there, apprehend the criminal, and I get ten grand."

"Sweet. What did this criminal do?"

I really must go, I thought. Or else someone is going to steal my target from me. This is a highly competitive industry, after all.

But, being the polite person I am, I humored Tommy. "He's been betting on the Pokélife National Championship, it seems."

"That's not cool" Tommy mumbled. "We both take it seriously, of course, but I'd never take it so seriously as to break the law like that. I hope you catch him."

"I'd better head out right now, then" I told my roommate. "I'll see you later, okay? Maybe we can go out to Legal Sea Foods tonight."

"Can't wait."

I collected my stun gun and bicycle from the garage, then set my phone to Google Maps and plugged in the route to the Starbucks in question. It was only a mile away.

If I'm not the first one to catch this gambler, I told myself, I am going to be livid. This is my best chance in a long time to climb out of this hole of poverty!

So I rode the bike as rapidly as I could while still keeping my balance. This part of Los Angeles was far from upscale - in fact, potholes six inches deep littered the road like giant pimples. (A gross analogy, to be sure, but the best one I can think of.)

The whole time, I rehearsed what was going to happen as soon as I reached the coffee shop. It all had to go like clockwork, because if even one step in the process went poorly, that threw the whole ten thousand out the window. Our lease would be in jeopardy. And I wouldn't be able to properly celebrate reaching adulthood, not that adulthood was anything to look forward to for me.

Anyway, as soon as I entered the Starbucks, I would navigate the clusters of tables until I found the criminal (who was marked with a giant red X on my phone's map.) I would not ask questions - instead, I'd merely pull out the stun gun, shoot him powerfully enough to immobilize him (without seriously injuring the criminal - I wasn't judge, jury, and executioner), and then cuff the guy. I'd lead him to the curb and call the cops, then claim my reward.

Nothing could go wrong with that plan…right?

Well, as soon as I reached the Starbucks, my heart sank like a stone. There was already a bespectacled man being led out in handcuffs by a young woman about my age.

Maybe that's not the job I was looking for, I told myself, trying to keep hope alive. Maybe it's someone else - Los Angeles isn't exactly known for being a city free of crime. There could have been multiple jobs at this one coffee shop.

It did not look that way, though. The girl leading the bespectacled man in handcuffs winked at me, as if she felt a need to rub my failure in my face.

She, of course, didn't know just how much this failure hurt. How badly I needed that money, how much I could have used that safety net. It wouldn't be a hammock, just a safety net I could use to get back on my feet financially. And in one fell swoop, she'd taken it from me.

"Good going" I muttered.

Looking back at my app, the X was gone. My window to earn that cold, hard cash had closed for now.

As heartbroken as I was, I did not go home immediately. Since I couldn't bear to see the police car arrive and hand that young lady cash she probably didn't need, I didn't stay at the store either.

Instead, I rode my bike to the local GameStop. Whether or not I'd triumphed at work today, I still wanted to treat myself. I was already five thousand dollars behind on my rent, what was an extra fifty?

The cool interior of the GameStop was a welcome relief from the hot, thick air of early summer. Already I felt just a little calmer, knowing that I wasn't going to be let down in this giant world of games.

"Sir, what games do you recommend?" I asked the guy behind the counter.

He frowned. "Well, that's a hard question. What games have you enjoyed before?"

I snorted; this time, there was some humor in it. "Well, Pokélife is always fun."

"You ever thought of being in the championship, young man? You could enter the Nationals."

"Well, I'm good," I replied, "but I'm not that good. Which isn't entirely my fault; people like me can't afford the best headsets, and we've got to always be on the grind. We don't have time to play Pokélife all damn day."

The guy behind the counter gave me a sad smile. "Well, that's a real bummer. There are always Silver Tickets, though - if you find one, you're in the Nationals if you want to be. Would you play in the Nationals if you could?"

I smiled. "Well, yeah. It's just a fantasy, though. There aren't many of them out there. Silver Tickets, I mean."

"Maybe not, young man, but you can bet you won't find one without taking a chance. Anyway, if you want to buy a game, just pay with Suica."

Suica was, of course, a Japanese app used for payment that had made its way over to this side of the Pacific. It was really rather handy - you could just hold your phone over the payment portal or whatever, and it would deduct however much money you were spending. You didn't even have to unlock your phone!

"Well, I guess I'll buy a game" I muttered. "But not to find a Silver Ticket, of course. The odds of that are vanishingly small. I just need something to play."

"No problem," the man responded with a shrug. "We've all got to escape reality sometimes, because reality fuckin' sucks. That's why Pokélife got so popular, isn't it?"

"No kidding. Who doesn't want to take on a Pokémon Persona?"

To this day, I can't remember the title of the game I ultimately purchased. It doesn't really matter, because what I saw upon tearing open the packaging was far more important.

A flash of silver!

I could barely breathe. I clamped my hands down on the counter, determined not to fall over. What were the odds?

"What happened?" the man behind the counter enquired frantically. "Do I need to call an ambulance?"

I shook my head, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything. Instead, with shaking hands, I lifted the Silver Ticket out of the box.

The man understood right away. "You got very lucky, young man!"

Maybe I did. But this feels like a curse right now, because I'll have to decide what to do with it before long.