There is something very wrong with the universe pokemon live in. Sending children off into a world infested with grown men who enjoy playing with small animals and Pokemon that could tear your head off if you gave them the chance isn't exactly "good parenting."
Maybe I'm just bitter. Maybe it's because I'm full of teenage angst. Maybe it's because my "mother" stuffed me into a moving truck full of boxes that are threatening to crush my skinny, angst-filled teenage body instead of actually driving me to our new house. How do you even get into Littleroot with a truck, anyway? There's virtually no road without driving through the grass or jumping over a ledge, and the trees form some sort of impermeable barrier that not even a white-haired youth full of angst could squeeze through.
My private rant is interrupted however, as the truck jolts to a stop. Reluctant to see the pile of neglect that is my mother again, I nonetheless step outside find her in front of one of the only three houses in the neighborhood, two of which look exactly the same.
"It must be very tiring to sit in a truck full of our things" she said, with a look that was almost motherly. Then, while I was almost convinced my mother cared about my well-being,the look disappeared from her face like a passing cloud and was replaced by cheery indifference.
"Isn't Littleroot just /quaint/, Atlas? It's seems like such a nice place to live!" she said.
"Yeah, if you enjoy living in a town with only wild animals and a tree-hugging scientist for company," I muttered under my breath.
She dragged me inside, all the while talking about how absolutely /quaint/ everything and everyone was, not seeming to notice the gigantic monkey-like pokemon touching all of our stuff in
the house. MY stuff, might I add. As she saw the horrified look on my face, she said " They're the worker's pokemon. They unpack everything and clean up afterwards. Isn't it simply convienent?"
Before I could respond with some witty comeback concerning slave labor, Mom cut in "Your father bought you a clock, for the occasion. You should go set it!" she said as she nudged me upstairs.
It wasn't hard to find my room, considering the entire second floor is apparently dedicated to it. It wasn't like I needed the space, since I only wear one set of clothes and can count the things I own with two hands. A round, unadorned, blue clock hung on the wall, adding to the general feel of emptiness to the place. Some present, I thought. He could've at least bought me a SECOND pair of clothes, I thought as I wound up the clock. Of course, this is coming from the son of a guy
who wears the same damn jump suit every day of his life.
Setting the clock back on the wall, I see a small book laying on the desk beside my computer. Most of the pages were blank, and the only two sentences in the entire book was written in such huge letters that they spanned a page each.
"Adventure Rule No.1 Open up the Menu with START"
"Adventure Rule No.2 Record your progress with SAVE"
What the hell? What menu are we talking about? What's a SAVE, and shouldn't I be recording my progress with a journal or something? And more importantly, if I was going on an adventure, wouldn't tips about dealing with the wild and dangerous animals or finding food that won't
poison you be more important than dealing with Menus?
As I pondered these questions, Mother walked in and asked "how do you like your new room, honey?"
"I-"
"Great! Hey, why don't you go over to Professor Birch's house and say 'Hi'?"
"I kind of don't want t-"
"Great! You can talk to his daughter too, she's around your age, you know!" she said, and walked back downstairs, leaving me alone, mouth gaping.
One thing about living in Hoenn is that no one seems to listen to what you have to say. It's like you're being strung along on some obscure adventure until you end up becoming inexplicably famous for doing what others told you to do, like some sort of puppet with weird hair and a ridiculous fashion sense.
I was glad though, for having an excuse to get out of the house, I decided to avoid Birch's house and instead head for Oldale, a small town a little whiles away from Littleroot. The only way out of Littleroot is going up a small path leading through tall grass, flanked by a small girl with a red bow in her hair. I manage to get a few steps up the road before a small tug on my shirt forces me to turn around.
"Um, um, um, if you go outside into the tall grass, wild pokemon will jump out!" she said, jumping a little at each "um". "It's dangerous if you don't have your own pokemon"
"Fine, I'll just avoid the tall grass" I said, pushing her out of my way.
"Um, um, um, no can do mister. You should go to Birch's house, like your mom said."
"What do you mean, 'no can do'? And how do you know what my mom said?" I asked, turning around and attempting to be as intimidating as possible to force her to let go. She didn't.
"Um, it would be a better idea to just not go out at all until you get a pokemon" she said. She was beginning to look a lot more intimidating than I did.
"Listen, kid. I think I can handle a few puppies and worms. And you still didn't answer my question" I added, though the little girl's grip didn't slacken, and her eyes grew dark and cold.
"Listen, Atlas, I told you to go to Birch's house. If you don't, you'll have a lot more to worry about than dogs and worms" she said. She began twisting, threatening to tear my jumpsuit with her surprisingly strong hands.
"Fine! Fine, just let me go" I pleaded. "That's my only outfit, you know." This little girl was starting to scare me.
"You going to Birch's house?" she asked, twisting harder.
"Yeah," she didn't let go of my suit. "I promise" I added.
She released me and retreated to the side of the road. "They're waiting for you," she said,
almost ominously.
Ruffled and thoroughly disturbed, I went inside the Birches house. One of the odd things about Hoenn is that no one seems to mind if you just barge into their home without knocking and striking up a conversation about pokemon. When I was a kid, some guy wearing a red hat and shirt with a Pikachu tailing him walked into our house in the middle of dinner and began going through our stuff. "What the hell are you doing?" my Dad asked, brandishing his spork like a warrior's
sword. Scarlet, as I like to call him, didn't answer. Mom, unprompted, began discussing her favorite pokemon with him, while Dad and I stared at each other and wondered what the hell was going on.
He eventually left, Pikachu hopping close behind. It's been like that ever since I could remember, and the only one who seems to have any idea what was going on was Mom. Dad probably decided to
run the Gym just to avoid meeting Scarlet again.
Mrs. Birch, however, looked up from the table and came to meet me, saying her daughter was upstairs, and that I should go meet her.
"You mean I have to go meet her" I said bitterly. I wasn't exactly excited about making new friends.
"No, honey, I said you should" she said, innocently.
"I tried getting out of this godforsaken place a few minutes ago and this girl wouldn't let me leave until I came to see you" I said.
"Did you meet our daughter yet? She's about your age," Mrs. Birch said in a monotone voice.
"No, but..." I began, exasperated.
"Did you meet our daughter yet? She's about your age," Mrs. Birch asked again, smile plastered on her face. If this is what women around here behave, then being gay doesn't look like too bad of an option right now.
"Who the hell are you?" asked a voice that came from upstairs. A girl, around 16, walked down the stairs. A green scarf tied her brown hair back, a pokeball grasped firmly in her hand. She looked very irritated.
"My mom said I should meet you" I said, still looking at her mother who was staring blankly at me.
"My name is May" she began unenthusiastically, as if she's done the same thing hundreds of times before. "I want to be friends with every single pokemon," she added, though she certainly didn't act as though she wanted to be friends with any one of them. "I have to go catch a pokemon for my dad" she said, showing me the pokeball as if to prove this.
"My dad is in the FOREST. He does some very DANGEROUS things you know" she said, as if she was talking to a particularly slow person, which wasn't entirely untrue.
"Cool. Can I go now?" I asked, still a bit disturbed at everyone's strange behavior.
"Whatever. Look, just don't end up doing something stupid like kill yourself, or else we're going to have to do this entire thing again" she said matter-o-factly, turning to go back upstairs.
"Why would I end up killing myself?"
May rolled her eyes and walked upstairs, leaving her mother and I in the living room alone together. "Uh...bye Mrs. Birch" I said, stepping out of the house.
"That May!" she said suddenly, jerking out of her stupor. "I guess our child is too busywith pokemon to notice that you came by to visit us, Atlas."
What a bunch of weirdos, I thought, as I made my way back to the road again to see if I could somehow slip past the little girl. It didn't seem like I needed to, however, as she was beckoning for me, waving her little arms in the air.
"Hey there! There are scary pokemon out there! I can hear their cries! I want to see what's going on, but I don't have any pokemon. Can you see what's happening for me?" she pleaded looking at me with her big, brown eyes.
"But...I don't have any pokemon either," I pointed out.
That didn't seem to be the right thing to say. Her eyes turned cold again, and she said, her voice hard, "do we need to do this again?"
I didn't argue. A few steps down the road, Professor Birch was running around, a black and brown, dog-like animal chasing him. He kept yelling for help, though the pokemon looked as if it would rather play catch than devour Birch. "You!" he said, looking right at me. "In my bag! There's a pokeball!"
Looking around, I saw a brown canvas bag lying open in the middle of the field. Inside were three Pokeballs, capsules painted half-white and half-red with a small button in between for releasing and storing captured pokemon. Quickly grabbing one so as to end Professor Birch's rather feminine cries as soon as possible, I threw it as trainer-like as I could. A flash of white light burst from the capsule, and began taking shape in the grass.
As the light subsided, an orange and red bird-like pokemon stood nipping at the grass. A tuft of yellow feathers grew on top of it's orange head, and it looked around with beady black eyes and stood on what looked like was one leg. Looking up at me, it opened it's beak and squeaked "Torchic!"
"Uh...what?" I said. I reached down to pick a different pokeball, Chicken Little wasn't exactly cutting it for me.
"HEEELLLPPP!" Birch screamed, as the Zigzagoon began rubbing it's nose on his pants playfully.
I sighed. Fried chicken right here wasn't exactly my idea of a kickass pokemon, but I suppose it'll have to do. Besides, it's not like I'm going to get stuck with it for the rest of my life, right?
"Alright Tarchip, use Pound on that thing!" I said, pointing very Trainer-like at the Zigzagoon.
The bird cocked it's head to one side, chirping "Torchic!" as it did so. It gestured with it's foot a clawing motion towards Birch's assailant, insistently.
"Uh...Torchic? USE CLAW!"
Torchic wagged it's feathery head and gestured again, this time scratching my pant leg
gently.
"Oh!" I said, finally getting it. "TORCHIC! USE SCRATCH!"
Chirping with joy, it immediately made it's way over to save Birch. Zigzagoon, noticing a new plaything, yelped with joy and pawed the ground, rearing it's head. Torchic leaped into the air, claws bared menacingly, raking the air with it's nails. Making contact with Zigzagoon's spiky fur, it dug down even harder, causing the dog-Pokemon to yelp in pain.
Whipping it's tail in retaliation, Zigzagoon knocked Torchic onto the ground. Pawing the grass and dirt once again, it growled ferociously as it lowered it's head and rushed at full speed towards Torchic, still lying on the ground.
"Watch out Atlas! It's using Tackle!"
"Oh no, how can Tarchip possibly survive a Tackle?" I said sarcastically, as Zigzagoon made contact knocking Torchic back, and the two pokemon engaged ferociously. Torchic, unphazed by the animal's assault, hopped lightly back to my side.
"Scratch it again, Torchic!" I said, fist pumping.
Torchic quickly obliged, jumping into the air and slashing away with it's tiny claws. Zigzagoon, unable to withstand the assault of a small bird with moderately sharp claws, was quickly sent into submission.
"Thank you, Atlas" Birch said, sweating vigorously. "I thought I was a goner."
Really...? I thought, nudging the stomach of the fainted Zigzagoon, which pawed at my foot in a rather adorable sort of way.
"Anywho, this isn't the place to talk. Let's get back to my lab, shall we?"
Birch's lab was the third building in Littleroot. Piles of books littered the ground, while huge, strange machines hummed and whirred. Birch brought me over to his desk, and layed his bag down on the floor.
"Thanks for rescuing me today, Atlas" he said, a huge grin on his face.
"Er, no problem Professor" I said. "How exactly do you know my name, again?"
"Your father is a good friend of mine," Birch replied,"he's told me all about you. I was the one who convinced him to move here to Littleroot" he said proudly.
Probably so he could convince our family to join whatever cult these people belong to, I thought.
"I understand you don't have a pokemon" Birch said, quickly changing the subject. "Well, by the way you battled out there today, I'm willing to let you have Torchic! How about that?" he asked, as if he was the most generous person in the entire world.
"Er..." I stammered. I didn't like pokemon. My dad had kept Slakoths and Slakings around the house before he began working at the gym, and you could say it scarred me for life. For a pokemon so fat and lazy, Slaking ate a LOT of food. The things didn't have any semblence of manners, either, eating all of my food even when it was on my plate. My mom thought it was cute and endearing, my father thought I enjoyed the company of walking trash disposals. I however, did not enjoy their company.
Birch opened the bag that was out in the field earlier and released Torchic again onto his desk. The bird looked around and spotted me, chirping with joy. It definitley didn't remind me of Slaking, what with the lack of food crammed in it's mouth and all. "Alright" I said, beckoning Torchic to rest on my arm. It gripped my sleeves with it's one leg and gently pecked my face. It was kind of cute, for a fried chicken.
"How about naming her, Atlas?" Birch asked. "Pokemon respond better to their trainers if they give them some sort of name" he explained.
"How about...Elphaba?" I asked.
"Tor...chic?" it said, cocking it's head to one side again.
"She's a witch in one of my favorite books. She doesn't really like water so..."
"Tor-CHIC!" it said approvingly, leaping off my arm and fluttering lightly to the ground with it's small wings. It wasn't a particularly good connection, but apparently it doesn't take much to satisfy a Torchic.
"Elphaba it is!" Birch exclaimed, tossing the pokeball at me. "Hey, how about meeting my daughter? Maybe you can give her a few tips on becoming an awesome trainer"
"But...I /just/ started" I pointed out. "I don't even what to do"
"C'mon, don't be like that. How about meeting my daughter?"
"But..."
"C'mon, don't be like that. How about meeting my daughter?" he asked again, in the exact same tone of voice.
I nodded reluctantly. Apparently the only answer you can give in this place is "yes".
"Good! She's probably be at home...or in some tall grass somewhere" he said.
Another case of child neglect. I have a feeling Professor Birch and my mother are going to get a long just fine in this town full of weirdos. I decided to let Elphaba run around for a little
while outside of her pokeball. It must suck, I thought, living in such a small place for so long.
"Well, he gave us two choices Elphie," I said. "She could either be a few steps away in her house or..." I said, as Elphaba looked up intently, "she could be lurking around, surrounded by wild dangerous animals" I said. "Where do you think she is?"
Elphaba pointed her beak towards the tall grass and "dangerous" road leading to Oldale, chirping as she did so.
I chuckled a little. "Well, at least I found someone with a little common sense around here," picking her up and setting her on my shoulder.
In a world that's threatening to drive you crazy, it's nice to find someone to spiral into insanity with.
