Disclaimer: I still don't own pokemon . If I did I'd make someone tell me if Dragalge and Kyogre can fly.

Liam pov

" I know you're probably either dead or trapped in my world but I want you to know that I'll make sure to make the most of this chance you've given me." I muttered to myself knowing there's no way the real Liam could hear me but wanting to put the sentiment out there anyway. His fate had been on my mind a lot recently and while I liked to think he was living in my life since I didn't remember dying, I ultimately had no way to check.

!!! Crack!!!

Whirling around towards the source of noise that snapped me out of my thoughts I was shocked to see May at the very edge of the clearing walking away.

"May." I called out as Charcadet and I jogged over with Beldum floating a small way behind us. May froze at the sound of her name being called which let me catch up. " What are you doing out here?"

" I heard you sneaking out and followed you." May responded with none of her usual distaste for me in her voice.

Which meant she probably heard some of what I said. I was getting pity tolerance. Great.

" Hey you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but who were you talking about in the clearing?" May asked sounding almost timid.

" How much of that did you hear?" I asked hoping she didn't hear the part about possibly being trapped in my world.

" I heard you say I don't know if you can see or hear me but if you can I want you to know I wish things were different." May answered looking at me. Lovely, good thing she gave me an out.

" If it's all the same to you I'd rather not talk about it." I said, thankful she didn't hear anything about other worlds and I could just let her form the logical conclusion that someone I knew was dead which really wasn't too far from the truth.

" Ok." May responded as her house came into view. " So why'd you battle the Kangaskhan?"

" Well it kinda just attacked me outta nowhere. Maybe I wandered into it's territory." I answered before recalling an important detail as we reached the door. " Hey May if you follow me again stay a little closer."

" What why?" May stammered out looking embarrassed for some reason.

" Well the Kangaskhan attacked me in the middle of the clearing so if I'd been a little faster it probably wouldn't have crossed my path when it did and attacked you instead. " I explained before continuing. " Since you don't have a pokemon to defend yourself you likely would've been seriously hurt had you been the one attacked instead of me."

Opening the door I let her go inside first before recalling Charcadet and going inside.

" Oh." May said looking at me strangely.

" Come to think of it why don't you have a pokemon? " I asked as we walked up the stairs. " You're clearly smart enough to pass the exam for the provisional license."

" If it's all the same to you I'd rather not talk about it." May replied echoing me from earlier.

" Alright. Goodnight May. " I whispered to her as I started heading towards the guest room.

" Goodnight Liam." May replied before entering her room.

The Next day

"Note to self walk or fly everywhere." I muttered to myself as I got out of the car. After waking up and having breakfast Caroline, May, Max and I piled into the car and drove over an hour to Mauville City, Norman ended up having several gym challengers scheduled for today so he couldn't come. The drive itself was awful, apparently even in another world I still got car sick really easily and was feeling rather nauseous by the time we got there. Looking up I was greeted by the sight of a massive shining building. Right, Mauville City was essentially a giant mall in the games.

" Mom can we go to the toy store." Max asked

" Do you mind if I go look at clothing stores? It'll probably take me a while to find something I like." I asked Caroline just after Max finished talking.

" Ok but wait a second before you go running off. May where do you want to go?" Caroline asked.

" I want to go look at clothes." May replied the strange glint from yesterday back in her eyes.

" Ok you two go off together then and I'll take Max to the toy store." Caroline said before continuing. " We'll meet up at the food court around noon."

Almost instantly I felt myself being dragged by May towards a store.

" I'll be over there." May said before running off.

Looking around I spotted the jackets section of the store and started walking over to it. Odd as it may seem jackets were important to me, before I'd come to this world you could map out my life with the jackets I'd worn. Once I found the jacket that felt right with who I was, I would wear it every day for years until it was either too damaged or too small for me to keep wearing. Previously I'd avoided searching for a new jacket because I wasn't sure if this was permanent but now that it had been a full year I believed it was time to decide who the new me was. I'd changed too much from who I was before so I needed something different than the leather jacket I'd had.

" Are you looking for anything specific? " An employee asked me. As I put down a red jacket I'd picked up to look at. It was too heavy.

" Not necessarily." I replied grabbing another jacket this one was green and had a hood but too many pockets. " I'm just browsing."

" Well I hope you find something." She said as she walked off.

Several jackets and half an hour later I found myself picking up the last jacket on the rack I immediately hated it. It was far too heavy and brightly colored. None of them felt right.

" Judging by your face I'm guessing you haven't found a jacket." May said as she approached me.

" You'd unfortunately be correct." I responded already walking towards the exit. " I'm going to check out another store."

" Great I'll come with." May said walking beside me.

This time I carefully scanned the stores. This new jacket couldn't be plain like so many of the ones in the previous store were but I also wanted something lightweight and durable so I needed to find a store that looked like they might have something that met the requirements. Problem was none of the stores were really displaying anything that caught my eye.

" Oh, let's go there." May said pointing to another store.

"Alright." I said as I followed May into the store. This store proves to have more interesting looking clothes than the previous one at least. Walking over to the jacket rack I began looking through them. Quickly I noticed a trend with these jackets, they were all too overly designed.

!!!Beep beep beep!!!

Checking my phone I was unsurprised to see a message from Nemona.

' Whatcha doing?' Nemona messaged.

' Shopping for a jacket. You?' I messaged back.

' Being bored, remind me why you don't live here?' Nemona replied.

" Who are you messaging?" May asked suddenly appearing right next to me.

" My friend Nemona, she's from Paldea." I explained to May.

' The heat. Why don't you live here?' I messaged Nemona.

" I'm not finding anything here. You? " I asked May.

" No luck on my end either. Let's move on." May said as I followed her out of the store.

' My parents said no when I pitched moving to them.' Nemona replied after a few seconds. I burst out laughing getting a weird look from May.

" What are you guys talking about?" May asked looking very curious.

" We're lamenting over the fact we don't live in the same region." I answered. " I don't live in Paldea because of the heat and her parents apparently shot down her plan to move here."

" Anyway seeing as the last two stores were both busts you wanna pick this time?" May asked.

" Sure how about that one." I said pointing to a shop.

All of the sudden my head started to hurt, my vision blurred and I saw an image of someone in a black jacket standing by a Ceruledge on some sort of snow covered path. The jacket was cool looking with grey trim that ran up by the zipper and along the bottom. Two additional grey lines ran about two inches above the trim on the bottom and intersected with it near the zipper in a way that looked almost like arrows. Another set of Grey lines ran parallel to the trim by the zipper and were connected to it by shorter horizontal grey lines forming almost two vertical rectangles with two inverted gray V's inside them across from a breast pocket on the left side that had the same grey trim. The collar was done in the same way as the bottom. Quickly the image changes showing a store front with a neon sign and a Charizard logo before fading back into the snow covered path.

"I require your aid, find me." A voice commanded sounding weaker but no less authoritative with each word.

" Are you alright?" May asked sounding concerned making me realize it was over. " You don't look so good."

" Yeah, I'm fine." I answered, as fast as it came the images and voice were gone. My hand was held halfway up to my head, I didn't even realize I moved it.

" What was that? Was that me?" I muttered to myself shaking my head in confusion. Looking around I saw the same shop front from the vision. That can't be a coincidence, better go check it out.

" Hey May, let's go to that store instead." I said pointing to it. " I've got a good feeling about it."

" Ok." May replied.

Upon entering I saw the same jacket from my vision, conveniently I also saw May's trainer outfit. Grabbing both I made my way back to May.

" Here something tells me you'll like these." I said handing the clothes to May. Before looking at the jacket it looked cool and was light and if the vision was any indication durable but if I was the one wearing it in the vision would set me on a path to whatever spoke to me. Before I'd become Liam Saterr I whole heartedly believed my fate was to end up miserable and alone. I'd been a stupid kid who wanted to be different from everyone else so when everyone else had talked about their dream future and how they would have families and loved ones and be happy, I chose to delude myself into thinking that wanting the opposite of that was good and that it would make me better but the end result was that I made choices that left me alone and miserable. I didn't want to make another choice that could send me back down that path. It wasn't like all of the other choices I'd made so far where I was doing the opposite of my old self as much as possible. This was a choice that seemingly should have no impact but might end up being the most impactful choice I make, a choice that I didn't know enough about to calculate the risks properly.

May's pov

One second Liam and I were walking towards a store and all of the sudden he'd stopped completely with a pained look on his face despite the fact his eyes glazed over. His hand twitched upward before suddenly stopping.

" Are you alright?" I found myself asking unsure of what was happening.

" Yeah I'm fine." Liam answered looking confused before muttering something to himself.

" Hey May, Let's go to that store instead." Liam was pointing towards a different store with a Charizard logo and a neon sign.

"Ok." I replied super confused. Liam started walking to the store he was pointing to. Almost instantly something seemed to catch his eye as he walked off.

Looking around I saw the store seemed to have lots of stuff designed for trainers. I had no real interest in pokemon so I likely wouldn't find anything here. Liam was walking towards me with some items in his hand.

" Here something tells me you'll like these." Liam said holding out a couple items for me. Then he looked at a black jacket he was still holding for several seconds before slowly putting it on. It looked good on him even if it was a bit big for him now but he'd likely grow into it.

Looking down at the clothes he'd handed me I was surprised to see a red shirt with a zipper. Up near the top just below the collar there was a black semicircle that contrasted nicely with the red, oddly enough it came with a red and white bandana. Deciding to try it on I headed towards the fitting room to try it on. Ten minutes later I walked out of the store with it next to Liam wearing his new jacket.

Author's Note:

Sorry that took me a lot longer than I hought it would. I had to rewrite this three times because I kept feeling unsatisfied with it. I mean I'm still not totally happy but I think it works and sets ups what I want it to set up.

Review Responses:

To wanderer097- Yeah I probably will explain that in either a side chapter or much later if I can find a way for it to be plot relevant. Yeah the cliff hanger wasn't great but I thought I would finish this a lot faster but then life kinda got in my a little which didn't help me with the rewrites. I'm glad you liked the chapter though.

To Guest on 10/15 Chapter 1- I think Charcadet is pretty good but I'm glad you liked the first chapter.

To Guest on 10/15 Chapter 6- Axew probably won't happen because I'm frankly not a fan of the line. Puiptar is an interesting one but also unlikely simply because I'm not sure how it would fit into various team compositions.

Notice:

So in regards to Liam's team I have decided that one of the remaining three slots will go to a fossil but not yet which one but it will be a revived fossil not one he acquires through trade or randomly encounters. I'm not particularly set on which fossil yet so if any of you would like to pitch a specific one I'll be more than happy hear those. I know CrimsonStarBlade brought up the possibility of a fossil a while back and after a lot of thought I think it makes narrative sense for Liam to get one.

Next time: A Charcadet focused chapter.