Chapter 5

Seven years earlier...

"Pikachu, use thunderbolt!"

"Pika-chuuuuuu!" the electric mouse pokemon cried as it released a powerful bolt of lightning, striking its opponent, a huge, intimidating Gyarados. Due to the strength of the attack, as well as its horrendous type matchup, Gyarados screamed in pain. It fell to the ground with swirls in its eyes in defeat.

"Gyarados is unable to battle," the referee called. "Therefore, Champion Ash is the winner and continues to keep his crown as champion of the Kanto region!"

When he was younger, Ash would usually jump and cheer whenever he and his pokemon won a battle. Since then he has matured and simply smiles in celebration. Meanwhile, the challenger walked out the door with his head down.

"Once again, Kanto Champion Ash Ketchum has won against his challenger, but can he really keep it up forever? Find out next time!" A voice from the television advertised before the screen popped into blackness.

The 8-year-old child watching the tv groaned and turned their head to see their mother standing behind them with the remote in hand. "Ok, Samantha, it's time to stop watching tv for the day!" the mother ordered in a somewhat lighthearted way.

"But moOOommm, I love watching the champion, he's awesome!"

"Believe me, I know that Ash is awesome. I even traveled with him for a few years when he was a starting pokemon trainer," the mother replied, "but that doesn't change the fact that all you've done today has been watching tv."

"But why is that bad?"

"You need to get some exercise and take a break from looking at screens all day. Go explore one of the nearby routes and try to find some rare pokemon!" she suggested to her child.

Samantha realized that exploring could be fun. "Ok!" Samantha exclaimed before running out of the house and immediately heading towards route 9, east of where they lived, Cerulean City.

Samantha lived in Cerulean City all their life, so they had already explored the surrounding routes several times. However, they never found it any less fun to explore and search for cool pokemon, despite not being old enough to catch one themselves. After walking a little ways, cutting through a good friend's house, and walking some more, they arrived.

Route 9 is home to a wide range of pokemon species. From Nidoran to Spearow, Ekans and even sometimes Chansey, you never knew exactly what you might run into or where any of the pokemon may be. Walking through the grass, you would seemingly run into pokemon at random, as if pokemon were hand-designed to be seen only when you least expect it.

Despite being such a young age, this 8 year old child was very knowledgeable about every species of pokemon, at least in the few areas surrounding Cerulean City. Walking eastward along the path, they pointed to every unique pokemon they saw and happily exclaimed its name aloud before moving to the next pokemon they encountered.

After walking a fairly long distance, longer than they had ever walked down this path, they reached a dead end of sorts, blocked by a river on two sides and a large rock formation and some trees on the third side. As it turns out, there was enough space between the river and the heap of rocks to walk by to the other side. Curious, Samantha did just that.

On the other side, there was an abandoned pokemon center, clearly not used for at least several years. There was also what seemed to be a cave in the wall of the rock formation. The hole was partly covered up by debris that seemed to come from some avalanche of rocks, but there was still more than enough space to fit inside, espceially for someone as small as Samantha. The mysterious cave piqued their interest even more, and they stepped closer to the hole in the wall. They climbed over a few of the rocks blocking the entrance and stepped inside.

Seeing inside of this rock tunnel proved almost impossible. Samantha would have been in total blackness if it wasn't for the opening they climbed through to enter the cave in the first place. Everything was silent for a moment, then noise erupted. Cries of Zubat could be heard coming from all directions. The sound of rocks also became very easy to hear, as if the ceiling had begun caving in. It clearly hadn't, however, because Samantha still could hardly see, and they hadn't yet gotten crushed by a huge boulder falling from at least twenty feet above them.

Quickly, several Zubat began swooping and slicing at Samantha, who began to scream in fear. Samantha began to take a beating from the feral pokemon and quickly curled into a ball in fear. Within just a few seconds, they began to bleed in several places on their arms, legs, back, and face.

*thud*

The attacking stopped. The bats all flew away into the same direction. Confused, Samantha uncurled and looked in that direction. While it was still extraordinarily dark, there seemed to be another, different silhouette down a ways in the tunnel.

The silhouette quickly began to move. Whatever it was began to run towards the hoard of Zubat. It then began to jump high into the air and attack the Zubats, taking them down one by one. It was difficult to see, but it looked like the silhouette was weilding a sword almost as tall as them, striking and defeating each Zubat in one swoop. Soon after, every Zubat was either lying on the ground fainted, or fled before it could be defeated by... whoever it was.

"Wh-who are you?" Samantha asked, still very scared after the whole ordeal that just went down. Blood continued to drip down their face. They wiped off some of it with the back of their hand in one swoop.

"Cu-bone!" the pokemon replied. The pokemon walked closer to Samantha and became visible after getting close enough to the cave's entrance for the light outside to illuminate them.

-linebreak-

"Starmie, use Hydro Pump!" Samantha's mother ordered her ace pokemon.

"NO, wait!" Samantha cried. "Cubone wasn't the one who hurt me. I got attacked by some Zubats and Cubone came and defeated them all and saved me." Samantha then explained the entire story, as well as how Cubone seemed to almost beg to come back to the city with them. They also told how they felt the same for Cubone coming back home with them.

The mother sighed and returned her pokemon to its pokeball.

"Can I keep it? Pleeeeasssseeee?" Samantha asked with so much emotion, how could anyone say no?

"Of course you can. Put it in here for safekeeping." She handed her child a traditional pokeball to use. "I'm so glad you're okay. Just please never go that far away alone again without being careful. I care about you and I really don't want something serious to ever happen to you."

Sam tossed the ball containing Cubone into the air and caught it. "I wish my mom still showed she cared about me..." They said without enthusiasm, unlike how they usually spoke previously.

"What do you mean?" Olivia asked.

"Well, she noticed something seemed off about the Cubone and decided it was important to take it to someone to figure out what was wrong. We eventually ended up at the day care, where they told us that Cubone was unable to pair with any other pokemon to make eggs, making it almost genderless."

"That's interesting!"

"I thought it was super cool at the time. I had a unique Cubone that nobody else in the last hundred years had even seen. It actually prompted me to think about my own self. I decided I was nonbinary and wanted to go by the nickname 'Sam' instead of 'Samantha' from then on."

"My mother unfortunately wasn't happy about that at ALL. She felt like I was ruining her one and only daughter who would one day take over as the Cerulean City gym leader. And she couldn't have another one since Dad left her when I was really young." Sam continued.

"I hate when parents want their kids to fit their molds for them, instead of caring about what they actually want for themselves..." Olivia said sympathetically

"I KNOW, right? But I also can't help but feel bad for leaving her after everything. I hope I can make it up to her someday." A few seconds after finishing their story, Sam looked at Olivia and smiled as if nothing ever happened at all. "Anyways, what do you want to be, Olivia?"

Immediately after Sam asked the question, an advertisement popped on a nearby tv screen. Nowadays, every PC had a tv, which usually showed important pokemon battles and other events to the people who were interested in watching. Currently it was showing off what looked like a commercial for Pokemon Contests, a hugely popular event in the Hoenn region, as well as a handful of other areas in the world. The volume was turned off, so nothing could be heard, only seen.

Sam caught Olivia's gaze at the advertisement and smirked. "So I take it you want to get into contests, huh?"

Olivia nodded rapidly. "I've always been so much more interested in contests compared to battling, but my parents don't want me to participate in a 'girly sport'"

Sam looked at Olivia, confused. "What is that supposed to even mean? I thought you were a-"

"I don't want to talk about it, I've already said too much..." Olivia quickly interrupted.

"Well, it turns out the contest hall in this city is holding a Community Contest tonight around 6pm. In fact, that's part of the reason I came all the way to Hoenn. Even though I enjoy battling so much, I want to try out contests!"

It was now Olivia's turn to be confused. "I thought there were contests in Kanto too?"

Sam shook their head. "Nope, not since around the time the evil Team Rocket finally split up before I was even born." At the mention of Team Rocket, Olivia cringed. "But anyways, I can help you try to do well tonight if you want, Olivia?"

Olivia smiled. "That would be awesome, thank you so much, Sam!"

Next time, Olivia will finally try her hand at Pokemon Contests! Considering how big of an event this Community Contest could be, I wonder if we'll see any big contest stars?