With Pokémon at its core being an RPG, this is how I imagined my tale being in the Pokémon games. While the story of this arc and all subsequent arcs are largely based upon the games, the Pokémon themselves will be more based on their Radical Red versions (google it if you don't know). This is why you will read about Pokémon like Electivire for example using moves that they can't learn in the main series games, and also having a typing that they don't have in the main series game (Electivire is Electric/Fighting in Radical Red.) Without further ado, this is the beginning of the tale of Chris Harper. Also, in case you haven't guessed by now, in my take on the Pokémon world, Trainers start at eighteen years old. This also means that several main characters will be aged up significantly. On a final note, I apologize in advance for the long dream sequence.

Prologue

Footsteps approach slowly and carefully as the girl hides. "Only place I haven't looked." A young boy sneaks his way over to the bounce castle in his parents back yard. He opens it up and goes inside, tackling his best friend as soon as he finds her. Both break out into laughter. "Got ya, Danielle." They both slowly settle down."

"You're too good at this, Chris." She smiles at him, and he only just hides the butterflies in his stomach as she smiles at him. Butterflies he's far too young to understand why he has.

"I thought I'd find you underneath my dad's truck again." He responds, masking his feelings well.

"Danielle!" Her mother calls out from next door. "Time for dinner!"

"Shoot, I've gotta go." They both get back up to their feet, a hint of disappointment painted on Chris's face. "Dad made my favorite tonight."

Chris nods at her. "Okay." They both get out of the bounce castle.

"When are you and your parents going on that trip?" The little girl asks, referencing the trip to the North Pole that her friend's researcher parents will be taking, and that the boy himself will be accompanying them to.

"As soon as summer starts." The boy responds.

The girl smiles excitedly. "Then we'll still have plenty of time to play together!"

"Yeah!" The boy responds. "Same time tomorrow?"

"The same!" She says with a smile and a nod. She then turns to dash back to her house. "By Chris! See ya tomorrow!" She waves as she runs back.

Chris waves back to her. "By Danielle!" His voice lowers after she is out of sight. "See ya tomorrow."

The fire of the destroyed equipment burns hotter than it did before it was destroyed, which little Chris didn't think was possible. Everyone on sight was rushing to find cover as that orange alien did battle with the glowing green dragon. Chris's parents finally managed to find a safe place to hide, but Chris's eyes could not leave the battle. He watched as a burst of energy from the alien sent the dragon down into the water.

And yet, despite everything that Chris parents had told him would happen if Chris had fallen into the water here, the dragon survived it. It didn't just survive the water, it emerged swiftly from it, and blasted the alien with its own burst of energy just inches in front of it. The beam it fires from its mouth evaporates the alien instantaneously.

In the back of Chris's mind, he believes that the dragon will turn its attention to himself, his parents, and everyone else here for this research expedition. But it simply gazes at everyone before letting out a mighty roar, and then flying away. Even still, for some strange reason, Chris believes that the dragon looked right into his eyes before flying away.

It has been a week since the battle. The lead researcher Professor Lund managed to use what equipment survived to call for a rescue. But some people already have died before they can see that rescue. Chris's parents have wrapped him up in as many blankets and coats as they have to keep him warm, but the boy has still caught a cold. Now, they have decided to put their son's health before their own. Chris watches his father and mother both remove their coats, wrapping them around their boy as tightly as they can. "Mom, dad..." Chris starts to speak through shaky breaths. "What about the two of you."

"We'll be fine, son." His father lies to him, knowing that the rescue must come soon if he and his wife are to survive this situation.

"Your cold will only get worse if we don't do this, my sweet boy." Chris's mother says, right as her son lets out a sneeze. Chris won't remember much from that moment to the rescue, as he blacks out several times. But he will remember the moment he realized both of his parents had frozen to death, all to keep him alive.

The last thing he remembers from being in the North Pole is Professor Lund coming for his parents, only to find them both dead, and Chris alive and in tears. "Come on my boy," the professor says to the sick child. "We're getting you and your parents out of here."

Chris doesn't remember much from the funeral. All he knows is that he never saw most of the people that attended ever again.

Young Chris sits alone in a room, playing with a children's play cube as he awaits a CPS agent to come and tell him what he hopes will be good news. Immediately after the funeral, his best friend Danielle's parents told him that they'd do whatever it takes to adopt him.

But once the CPS agent comes into the room to join him, she doesn't tell him what he wants to hear. Chris is being sent into the foster care system, and he will not be living in Kanto. He fights it like crazy to the point where they have two people carrying the poor boy into the car that'll drive him away. Danielle runs at the care, both of the children in tears as glass separates the two best friends. Chris bangs on the window all the way until the car is too far away for him to be able to see Danielle anymore, and slides down into the seat in tears. He becomes numb to everything, not even able to hear anything the CPS agents are saying to him.

At fifteen years old, Chris had experienced nothing but total abuse throughout nearly ten years in the foster care system. Whenever he would find something that made him happy, something- or more often than not, someone- would rip it away from him.

When Chris started to enjoy comic books, a mean man took them all away from them one day, and threw them into the fire place. When Chris found himself in a group of four good friends, the day came when he was moved to a completely different town, and never heard from them again. When Chris started to enjoy watching Pokémon battles on T.V, one night came when his caretaker came home drunk, smacked him across the face, and locked him in his room, saying that he'd never be a good trainer.

And then the straw that broke the Camerupt's back came on one particular night. In school, Chris had enrolled into a guitar class. He was taking to it like it was instinctual, and he got his teacher to believe in him so much that she bought Chris a guitar. Chris would play in his foster home whenever he was alone, and it brought him genuine happiness. But then of course, someone had to ruin it.

One night, Chris was playing up in his room, when another of his drunken caretakers came into the room. He smacked poor Chris right on the cheek, then ripped the guitar out of his hands and smashed it on the floor. He cussed Chris out, and told him that he didn't want to hear a single sound coming from his room tonight, not even sobbing "like the little baby you are." While tears did form in his eyes, Chris's caretaker had no idea that the boy had learned how to throw a punch. He grabbed his caretaker by the wrist, pulled on him to face him, and knocked him out cold with one punch. Once the adrenaline wore down, panic set in. Chris gathered together many of his essential items, and left the house. He became a street urchin in a matter of a moment.

Chris spent the next year and a half of his life on the streets of Jublife City. He was rather tall for his age, at six feet even, and his face definitely wasn't an indicator of how old he was, so the rest of the world never suspected that he was not eighteen yet. Most of the rich who passed him by treated him like garbage, to the point of even kicking and spitting at him. Even the middle class didn't treat him much better. But he managed to scrape by okay on his own; he had to have considering he came here all the way from Veilstone. So he kept a lid on whatever rage his mistreatment may have caused him, so that the police wouldn't send him back to the foster care system.

Despite all the mistreatment, there was one family from the richer class that was very sweet to him. This was largely because of their daughter, a highly intelligent little girl who was able to recognize that Chris was only a couple years older than she was. They would often allow him to clean himself up in their bathroom, and give him the best meals he ever had. Even though Chris would sleep in their house often, he would always be gone before they'd awaken. They were trying very hard to adopt him, as it was what their daughter wanted.

But that same daughter was dealing with cancer. And the day finally came when she lost her battle. Chris arrived at the hospital that she had to be sent to a month prior, and the nurse told him that she had passed away. In tears, Chris ran away. He ran from the hospital, ran from Jublife City down into the forest routes to the south. Then he stayed around Lake Verity for quite some time. It was there that he met his only friend, a Mudkip that had been abandoned by its owner from the Hoenn region.

The one thing that Chris always loved was Pokémon. Once he saw the asshole from the Hoenn region toss the Mudkip aside with his bare hands, and then smash the poor thing's Poké ball, Chris emerged from the bush he was hiding in, and scooped the poor thing up. He nursed it back to health as best he could, and the two survived on their own from their. Although Chris's appearance wasn't doing to well, he and his new Mudkip that he called Hawke were surviving just fine. They got each other food, they made a shelter for each other, and became the best of friends.

One night, a heavy storm hit Lake Verity hard. The winds were blowing around the landscape like nothing Chris had experienced before, and the rain left no part of the ground dry. Making matters worse, this all happened in the middle of the night. Hawke clung on tightly to Chris, and Chris was determined not to lose this friend so soon after losing another one. They held on tightly, and although they got very little sleep that night if any, they braved the storm. Ever since then, and up to now, it has been Chris and Hawke versus the world.

Chris wakes up close to sunrise, seemingly having gone through all of his life's memories in one single dream. It's not all that surprising that he would go over his life, as he just turned eighteen three weeks ago. But he never expected to do it all so quickly, and in his sleep. He breathes audibly as he tries to calm down, and eventually awakens his little blue friend sleeping on his chest. "Kip? Mudkip, Mudkip?" The little water-type Pokémon voices its concern for its human friend.

Chris just nods his head. "I'm okay Hawke." He starts. "It was just a really... crazy dream." He strokes the back of the little one lying on top of him, who gives him a lick on his skin to comfort him. "Thanks buddy. Lets get back to sleep now."

"Kip." The little one says, before resting its head back on his chest. Chris rests his head back down on his makeshift pillow, and tires to relax. But he keeps focusing on one particular person from his memories, and he can't stop a tear from sliding down his cheek as he thinks about her. "I miss you, Danielle." He whispers, quietly crying himself to sleep.