Chapter 1: The Strange Vulpix
"Mia Samara. MIA SAMARA! Are you listening to me, young lady?" a loud, sharp voice yelled.
A green-eyed teenage girl flipped her two brown pigtails away from her face.
"Huh?" she asked quizzically.
It must have been a dream...a terrible dream...
"There will be no sleeping in the Azale Pokémon Preparatory School. Is that quite clear, Miss Samara?" the wrinkly, red-haired woman demanded.
"Yes, Mrs. Annie," Mia said sleepily.
"Good. Now, as I was asking the rest of the class, please turn to page 25 of Communicating with Pokémon-The Invention of the PokéEar," Mrs. Annie commanded, with a slightly less severe tone.
Mia complied, taking out the boring book.
Why do we even have to study this? I've known how a PokéEar works since I was nine! I like working with Pokémon much better than studying their history and such!
Mia recalled that most of the students in the class were nine and ten-year-olds planning to get their Trainer's Licenses when they were eleven. She groaned to herself.
I hate being the oldest in my class...why won't Mom understand that Pokémon won't kill you?
The answer lied in her father, somebody she didn't want to think about right now.
Mia quickly skimmed through the page as Mrs. Annie read aloud.
"...A PokéEar, invented by the ingenious Professor Cherry, allows trainers to know exactly what Pokémon were saying, beyond their endless cries of their names. You place the small earphone in your ear, and all Pokémon talk is instantly translated."
"How it works isn't really much more complicated. The tiny microchip in the earphone senses the tone and feeling of how the Pokémon say their name. Through electric pulses, it translates these feelings into English or any language you desire..."
She skipped the rest. Mia already knew everything she had just read. Now, she had some time to think about her dream.
It was so real...did it actually happen? Was it a vision of some kind? If it was, why did I have it?
So many questions hung in her mind. Most of them weren't answerable. She continued thinking.
None of those Pokémon were real, I'm sure. It couldn't have happened. The Legendaries we know of look nothing like those. So if only the yellow and black Pokémon survived, all the other Legends would've died, right? So our Legendaries wouldn't exist. Unless, of course, the Legendaries aren't really Legendaries...
These complex thoughts were giving her a headache. She'd simply have to research at Azale Public Library. If it were a real event, the library probably had a brief history of it.
It was then she realized that Mrs. Annie had finished reading the page aloud.
"Okay, class. Now I'm going to ask some questions about the passage, to see if certain sleepyheads were paying attention," Mrs. Annie said, giving an evil eye to Mia.
This caused several nine-year-old girls to giggle. Mia scowled at them.
"Mia, who invented the PokéEar?" Mrs. Annie asked, obviously not expecting an answer.
"Professor Laurie B. Cherry, who invented it ten years ago. She is now thirty-five and lives in a house next to the Kinen League," Mia stated, with a smirk hidden in her knowing smile.
"I didn't need her life story," Mrs. Annie scowled, sorry to admit defeat.
The rest of the day went well. Mia expertly answered every question Mrs. Annie threw at her. Many of the students looked at her, amazed at her amount of knowledge.
Other students were quite jealous. Rachel Welsha, one of the nine-year-olds who thought she knew it all, claimed, "Somebody that lazy obviously read it straight out of some book. Mia's just a plagiarist."
Nevertheless, Mia went home somewhat triumphantly. She had fully redeemed her small nap at the beginning of the day.
She happily entered Route 215 to return home to Neverwood City. Unlike many students who had came from across the Kinen region, Mia didn't actually move to Azale City for her studies. She remained in Neverwood, though it was a half mile away. As she walked quickly back to Neverwood, she ignored several Vulpix frolicking through the tall grass. Vulpix were quite common in this area. So common, in fact, that she almost didn't notice a blue Vulpix, who had brownish-yellow tails.
A blue Vulpix? I must be hallucinating. There's no such thing as a blue Vulpix! They're either orange or golden yellow.
She picked up the odd Vulpix.
It's real, alright.
Unlike her mother liked to say about Pokémon instinct, it didn't attempt to bite her. Instead, it licked her face happily.
What a friendly Vulpix!
Mia pet the Vulpix happily. It seemed to enjoy the attention.
Too bad I can't take it home...or even find out its gender. Mom would go nuts.
As she went to leave, she stared into the lonely eyes of the Vulpix. They seemed to crave attention. With every step Mia took, the eyes seemed to get more confused and lonely. Mia could imagine it would be lonely, being probably the only blue Vulpix in Kinen-no, the world. It was also extremely cute, and when its eyes were closed it looked like a little angel. At least, in Mia's opinion it did.
Oh, even Mom couldn't resist a Vulpix THAT cute...
Reluctantly, and at the same time happily, Mia picked up the strange Vulpix and hurried home. As she ran, she couldn't help but wonder if her dream-or possibly vision-was connected to this Vulpix.
It isn't, though...I didn't see any blue and brownish-yellow Pokémon in the dream.
Even as Mia dropped the idea, it nagged at her relentlessly.
I'll just think of something else...
Finally, Mia had arrived home.
Her mother, Helen Samara, looked very surprised at the Vulpix. Her eyebrows were up, but slightly slanted down, as if she were both angry and confused. Her dark-green eyes, which contrasted well with Mia's light-green eyes, were wide open in surprise.
"Mia...what is...that...that...Vulpix? The strange Vulpix?" her mother asked in a very shaky voice, almost frightened.
"Mom! This isn't like the Pokémon that killed Dad!" Mia protested, sick of her mother's persistent fear of Pokémon.
The Vulpix walked up to her mother and licked her gently.
"See, she's harmless!" Mia said happily, with a little giggle.
Her mother seemed slightly amused, but still not convinced.
"Mom, I'm sick of your fear of Pokémon! It's not this Vulpix's fault that Dad died, while his Arcanine survived! The Pokémon that killed Dad was probably raised by an evil trainer!" Mia yelled.
"You have no right to yell at me, Mia! Do you have any idea how afraid I am for you? I would die before I'd lose you, too!" her mother retaliated.
Seeing the tears in her fourteen-year-old daughter's face, she softened.
"We'll keep the Vulpix for the night. Tomorrow's a weekend, so we can decide what to do with it. We'll also try to find out why it's blue," her mother said softly.
A grin grew on Mia's face. She took the odd Vulpix and ran upstairs. Thoughts of being a trainer filled her head.
Tomorrow might bring better things.
Author's Note: Wow...this is going to be a lot longer than I expected. Don't even think about stealing the PokéEar or the blue color of the Vulpix, by the way, or anything else that doesn't belong to Nintendo. That means I'm not claiming Pokémon, Pokéballs, and such (who would actually try that?). Just the unique elements of the fanfic. That's all for today, I think.