AN: Been writing this little adventure story for fun, I hope you like it as much as I like writing it. I have a good number of chapters written out already so I'll be updating regularly. Beware though: it's not like the Pokémon you see on tv. In here, pkmn can get seriously injured and die, just like people can. However it's also not the darkest fic you'll ever read where every lovable character gets killed off the moment you get attached to them. I'm hoping to be something in between, not skipping under the rainbow hand in hand with your mortal enemy but not everything sucks and everyone dies either. Enjoy!


"I hope you get a Bidoof."

"Akane Hiroto never did like her, that wasn't something that tended to bother her but the snide remark of the other graduate cut deep into her insecurities. A part of her, the one that was proud she managed to be there at all, wanted to reply with a sharp rebuttal but she had never been the type for witty comebacks. Instead her tongue lay numb in her throat as she tried but failed to find a decent reply, something that wouldn't make it seem like she cared, until the moment to say something had passed. With downcast eyes she heard rather than saw the girl leave towards the designated room.

Behind that door the last two pokémon of the season waited for their young trainers. And as Yun was the graduate who had scored the lowest of the seven candidates lucky enough to make it, she had the last choice of pokémon. Meaning she got the one that was left, the one no one else had chosen.

Yun knew she had to be grateful for the opportunity to be sponsored by the league, no matter the outcome. But she couldn't help feeling that if she just hadn't made the cut and had to start at the end of the year like the rest, then at least she had more control over the type of Pokémon she'd start out with.

Her teachers had always taught them that almost any Pokémon could be powerful as long as the trainer raised them right. That it was stupid and short sighted to hold onto the notion that flashy Pokémon like Charizard were the one and only choice to become an established Pokémon trainer. And for the most part, she believed it too.

But behind the logical part of her brain was still a kid that wanted nothing more than a cool and awe-inspiring Pokémon to start her journey with. Still, she couldn't forget the proud look in her father's eye as she brought home her final scores from school, marking her as the seventh best student of her year and the relief in her mother's eye as she realized they were spared the immense cost of buying her a Pokémon later on. Her parents were happy, so she would try to be as well.

A door opened. "Yun Kazama, if you could follow me." The loud and assertive voice of the lab assistant rang through the hall of the Sandgem research facility.

Yun nearly jumped out of her chair as she rushed towards the end of the hall, wiping her sweaty palms on her beige slacks as she went.

The assistant motioned for her to enter the same room Akane had gone into but the other girl was no longer there. The research facility was an old building that contrasted oddly with the state of the art, brand new equipment that lined it's walls. Such details were lost on Yun though, as her eyes zoomed in on the single Pokéball decorating a plain white table.

She looked back at the assistant for permission.

He gave in with an amused sigh. "Go on then. You've probably been waiting for this all morning.

She had been waiting for it long before this morning. For weeks now she had been fantasizing about meeting her starter and what it could look like. Now as the Pokéball rested comfortably in her right hand it all felt so unreal, like she was dreaming.

But the click of the Pokéball's activation button was more than real, as was the red beam that shot out towards the ground. She held her breath in anticipation.

"Skoo-o.." A purple scorpion-like Pokémon stared wide eyed at her, as if it hadn't expected to meet anybody today.

Yun blinked. "Hi?" She sounded hesitant even to her own ears.

"And? What do you think of him?" The lab assistant prodded.

Her lips pressed together in a fine line as she thought of lying before simply stating. "A Skorupi." The doubt clear in her flat voice.

At school they had all diligently studied the Sinnoh's native Pokémon and their respective move-sets so she had recognized it immediately. The information on the scorpion came easily to her. Bug/poison type, both high on her list of types she didn't want. Bugs were creepy to her, with a few exceptions, and the idea that there was a chance she could be poisoned by her own Pokémon never sat right with her.

He chuckled. "Yep, he's level five and knows three moves already." The young man reached into a cabinet behind him and pulled out a trainer kit."But I'll let you check those out by yourself. His data is already linked to your Pokédex." He handed the kit over to her. It included a Pokédex, a trainer pass, five Pokéballs, a belt that she could attach said Pokéballs to and a few healing items.

Her manners kicked in through the haze of uncertainty as she packed away her new gear. "Thank you."

"One last thing. Skorupi is a poison type so you'll need these."

Her eyebrows rose up high when held both hands out towards her. One hand was holding a pair of gloves that looked like they were taken straight off a handler of predator birds, the other was holding three vials made of dark glass.

The gloves she could understand but... "What are these." She said as she took hold of the vials.

"Antidote." He said nonchalantly.

She blanched as she stared at them, uncomfortable with having to carry such a thing around.

The young man seemed to realize some her dismay as he hurriedly added. "Don't worry he's not old enough to be deadly yet but getting stung would make for an uncomfortable experience, so they're just in case." The only thing that stuck to her was 'not yet', it was not yet deadly.

"Okay." She said lamely as she returned the Skorupi to its Pokéball and donned the gloves.

Then he pointed at a door at the other end of the room. "If you're ready, then you can start your journey."/

Shuffling towards the exit she threw one last terrified look at the lab assistant. He gave her the thumbs up. "Good luck out there, kid."

Yeah, she thought, I'll need it.

To her mounting horror the other graduates had not started their journey towards the next town right away, instead they had chosen to linger behind the back of the lab to compare each other's starters. In that moment, she would have rather done another year of school than stand there and have her and her starter criticized by her former classmates.

Though she was just a few feet away from them, she had never felt more distant from her elitist classmates than in that moment. They had all decided to wear something flashy and recognizable. The idea behind it wasn't hard to find, most famous trainers wore a distinct outfit or clothes in a certain theme to be easily recognized. Yun knew this, but had never thought this was something people decided on before they got famous. As she reflected on what she wore, she decided her current outfit was far from something she wanted to be recognized in. To celebrate her success her parents had bought her a special waterproof coat that had apparently been quite expensive. Unlike regular rain coats, the hunter green material was soft and rubbery and didn't make a scratching noise every time she moved. She did like it, but it was too plain to stand out with. Her shoes were horrible, worn down black hiker boots that her parents had insisted on. Supposedly she'd thank them later. Only the avian gloves set her apart and not in a good way. They were obviously a few sizes too large and the excess fabric slid down her arms and bunched up around her wrists.

As a direct opposite her classmates were dressed in matching track suits or colorful skirts paired with fancy sneakers. Two of them were in battle. A Phanpy against another Pokémon she didn't recognize. It looked a bit like the well known Jotho starter, Totodile except it stood on all fours and was a light brown color with contrasting black stripes decorating its back. It looked cool enough.

Unwillingly, her eyes found the kimono-clad girl who had snubbed her before and the Buizel at her side. A Buizel... water type, fast, easy to train and plenty cute. Exactly the type of Pokémon Yun would have been content to have. The worst part of the whole situation, Akane knew what Pokémon Yun had ended up with, and that meant her elitist friends knew as well. But she wasn't looking at Yun, who stood paralyzed with her back to the door, rather the heated battle between two of her peers was drawing all her attention.

It was that realization that motivated Yun to dash towards the side and make an escape between the trees of route 202. Once she managed to leave the noise her peers made behind, she slumped her shoulders, glad to be alone.

"Oh boy." She muttered to herself while pressing her palms to her eyes.

"You seem distressed, which one did you get?"

She jumped at the somewhat familiar voice coming from her left. Leaning against tree stood a boy she vaguely recognized as the top graduate of their year. Yun wasn't surprised that he hadn't joined the rest of their classmates in their exhibition match. Despite, or maybe because, his perfect scores in every subject at school, he was always the odd one out. More so than even herself, who had friends among the less ambitious kids.

He had always seemed friendly enough, if not a bit odd, but she had never been comfortable with approaching him. This mostly due to his name, native in Kalos if she remembered well, and its strange syllables that she couldn't pronounce but also because despite polite exterior, there was something intense about him that intimidated her. He was different than all the other kids, he even looked different with his blue eyes that no one else she knew had. The discomfort only increased with that question, she just didn't feel like answering.

Instead she sighed and dropped her Pokéball. Skorupi appeared, this time more alert as if expecting a battle. She sure hoped that wasn't the case.

"Ah, I expected this one to be chosen last." He said almost solemnly at the same time Yun noticed the bug Pokémon lowering itself closer to the ground, as if drooping it's shoulders.

"Did you." She deadpanned. This was the last thing she needed and she felt a stab a jealousy as she noticed thee Pokéballs hanging from his belt. For a brief moment Yun wondered how he already had three Pokémon but promptly remembered the rumors in school. Supposedly, his parents were big shots in Hearthome city and could afford rare Pokémon like they were souvenirs.

He didn't seem to notice that she wasn't keen on discussing this with him, or perhaps he didn't care. "Yeah, I'm surprised they even put one among the rest of the starters. A Drapion is powerful but evolving one takes a long time and can be challenging. Definitely not something I'd give to a newbie."

It took her a few seconds to recognize the name Drapion as being her Pokémon's evolution. She tried to recall at what level they were supposed to evolve.

Then she gave up and decided to ask. "How long is a long time?"

"Around, level forty." He sounded surprised that she didn't know this, or maybe because she had decided to ask him instead of looking it up.

"Oh..." She groaned. The Skorupi turned to look at her with an expression she couldn't read. Frankly she had forgotten she had released it while they were talking about the Pokémon like he wasn't there. "That's... okay." She amended, albeit shakily. She wanted to be on good terms with her starter, bug or not.

He tilted his head, trying to recall something. "Kazama Yun, right?"

She nodded. "You're Ikeda." Using his last name only, because it was at least somewhat native, to prove that yes, she did recognize him.

He shrugged and said. "You can call me Xavier, we're classmates." The foreign tones, rolling of his tongue effortlessly.

"Okay." Yeah no, not going to happen. Even if she could pronounce it, they were not on first name basis.

Then he said something she would have never expected from anyone.

"Wanna trade?" The boy said casually.

She blinked. "W-what?"

He took one of the three Pokéballs of his belt and opened it. A Piplup appeared, one of the classic Sinnoh starters and ultimately... her favorite.

"A Skorupi is hard to train but I can do it. My parents already bought me a starter," He pointed to the second Pokéball on his belt. "So I don't really need this one."

There were two things that stopped her from agreeing to the trade of her dreams. The first being the openly betrayed look the Piplup was sending his trainer. Skorupi's eyes went wide but she had a harder time interpreting the facial expression of the armored Pokémon. The second was the implied slight towards her. He had basically said she wasn't cut out to train Skorupi up, though he hadn't used so many words. The worst was that he didn't seem intent on insulting her at all and his offer sounded sincere. But he simply didn't think she could train her starter properly the same way he would think Snowpoint city was always cold. Like it was a fact... and that hurt more than the intentionally harsh remarks from the rest of her classmates.

"Oh you think you're so much better than me, right?" For the first time since she graduated, she felt angry about the way everyone looked down on her. "You want to know what I think!?"

On his part, Xavier looked taken aback by the venom in her voice. He opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off.

"I think you and your elitist buddies can shove it." She pointed her finger at her Skorupi and then jabber her thumb towards herself. "Reign and I will show you."

Then she ran off, having enough presence of mind to know she didn't want this to turn into a battle that she would definitely lose. Bravado aside, three against one were not odds she would willingly take.

She turned her head around, partly to see if her Skorupi was following along (he was) but also to shout one last thing. "See you at the league!"

He looked dumbfounded, even in the distance.


AN: So as you might have noticed I'm using japanse names (mostly, Yun is supposedly more korean but I liked it.) because the Sinnoh region is based on Hokkaido. I'm trying to write out this story pretending the regions are like their real world counter part. Disclaimer: I'm far from an expert on Japan so I apologize for any inaccuracies. In the mean time my search history is full of questions like "Do young people split the bill and japan? Do japanese people actually use honorifics? When do they talk to each other using their first name? etc...