Anew
By Chibi Pika
Rating: R for gun violence, graphic blood, and strong language
Genre: Tragedy

For so long I had sat in that Poké ball, wondering what it would be like the day I was accepted. Others spoke of it as though it were the only joy in life, the only thing we were meant to exist for. That part I hadn’t doubted, because of the way they had carefully raised us, choosing the perfect ones and releasing the others into the wild. I could see from the translucent red top of the ball they kept me in, and every day, the hand drew closer and closer.

I waited like that, knowing one day, a trainer would come to claim me, and we would set off together. I really wondered what it would be like and what we would do. I knew that day that I would not have long to wait, though. Finally, the League official picked up my ball.

I felt myself spiraling out to land on the cold, tile floor, and swayed a little on my short, lizard-like legs. I glanced around at the main office before glancing up at the official who had released me, a middle aged woman with long strands of black hair and dark colored eyes. SHe ran the registration here, and from what I had heard, younger humans would come here after taking a test and receive one of us as a prize, or something of that sort, I wasn’t quite sure how the training progarm worked.

She began to speak with another human, whom I could not see, and while the words that came from her mouth were not my own language, I had heard it enough to easily understand…English I think it was called. During their conversation, I glanced around at the room; my eyes scanned each of the numerous knickknacks and decorations with enthrallment. I was soon led around the counter and it then that I first laid eyes on the boy.

He was short compared to the official, but much taller than I was, and brimming with near uncontrollable eagerness the second he saw me. He had messy, neck-length brown hair and was dressed in a white T-shirt and jean shorts with the two straps of a gray backpack across his shoulders. He shoved his newly obtained license into his pocket and then picked me up around the middle.

“Hi, I’m Zack! And you and me are gonna be best friends!” he said with excitement. Ookaay, well now introductions were out of the way. He took the Poké ball that the official handed to him and raced out the door. I squinted as the bright light of the sun shone in my cobalt eyes, yet at the same time, I felt a fascination for that eternally glowing orb, for I had only seen true sunlight a few times in my life.

After my eyes had adjusted, I glanced around at the small roads and far-between houses of the town. I had been raised in a facility far from there, and knew nothing of this town that Zack apparently had lived in.

“This is gonna be so cool! I get to travel with you, and we’re gonna battle, and you’re gonna get stronger, and then we’re gonna fight Gym Leaders and be champions!” he shouted. Somehow, his master plan seemed to have many reality holes in it, but what would I know? I hadn’t understood half of it anyway. Gym Leaders? And champions of what? He didn’t give me time to ask, because he immediately shouted, “I’m gonna call you Firestorm!”

Firestorm? Wasn’t my name Charmander? Oh, wait…I vaguely remembered that that was my species name, not my real name. But even still…Firestorm sounded kind of dorky to me, but I didn’t complain, he was the master anyway, from what I had been told.

“Come on, let’s go! We gotta train for the big battles ahead!” he shouted. Somehow, I was beginning to hate his enthusiasm.

“Alright Firestorm, use Ember again!” he shouted. I lunged forward through the tall grass into a clearing and inhaled deeply, breathing out a stream of bright orange flame. The purple rat tried to run away, but I was too fast for it and my attack hit dead on, scorching its fur to a singed black. I grinned at my power; in the beginning, I hadn’t been able to breathe fire, but with the help of Zack, over the past few days I had learned what apparently was common for my kind in no time, and the birds and rats of the field were no match for me. “Alright Firestorm! Okay, go, Poké ball!” he shouted. For reasons I hadn’t yet figured, he needed to shout that every single time he hurled a red and white sphere at another Pokémon. It was just like the one I was kept in, and it hit the purple rat and absorbed it into it with a flash of red light. Zack held his breath in anticipation, but the rat burst out again and fearfully scampered off into the grass.

In order to be a Pokémon Master, he apparently needed to capture every kind of Pokémon in the world, which was why he made me fight them because they would escape from his ball if they weren’t injured. Most of the time, they didn’t want to fight me, but I attacked them anyways because that was what I was supposed to do. So far, however, Zack hadn’t proven very good when it came to capturing the Pokémon I weakened.

“Oh well, I guess we can’t win ‘em all,” he said. All? He hadn’t caught even one yet, but I didn’t bother mentioning it.

I noticed that the sky was darkening, and I strained my eyes to see bright lights in the distance.

“Ah, hah! Yeah, I knew we’d be able to make it to Viridian City in a week. Come on, Firestorm,” Zack said, proceeding to trudge through the long grasses of Route 1. I followed after him, making sure that the flame on the end of my tail didn’t hit any of the plants.

We ambled through the fields for the next few hours until finally reaching the mass buildings and human dwellings of Viridian. It was huge compared to the small town Zack and I had left a week ago, and I stared up in amazement that humans could build such massive structures.

By now, the sun had completely sunk beneath the mountain peaks to the west, and now the various lights of the city were our only guide because oddly, there weren’t many stars here and the moon was but a mere sliver. Zack however, seemed to be growing slightly nervous. He was a human…didn’t he know about cities? I walked faster to be right alongside him, feeling some of his nervousness beginning to rub off on me. But what for? Was there something to be afraid of here?

We were nearing an area of the city that was darker than the rest. The gaps between buildings grew smaller, and the burnt out streetlights left an almost tangible veil of shadow that draped the alleys. When trainers traveled to a new city, they were supposed to stay at special Pokémon hotels, so why wasn’t Zack leading us to one? It couldn’t possibly be in this place, could it?

“Hey, kid…” a low voice sounded from around a corner. Zack immediately spun around to the right, but couldn’t seem to find the source of the words. He slowly backed up with a look of pure terror etched onto his face. I didn’t understand. It was a human voice, so why did Zack need to fear a fellow human?

“Yeah, you, with the orange lizard. This is our turf…so what the fuck are you doin’ here?” it said again, and by now I knew that it was a male voice, and there obviously were others with him.

“Just—just trying to find a Pokémon Center…” Zack stammered.

“You hear that? He just wants to find a Center?” he said mockingly. There was a string of jeering coming from the others near him. “Yeah, well there’s a toll for comin’ down here an’ I think we’ll take it out on this here lizard.”

I quickly turned to the sound of footsteps behind me. I looked up frantically to see a human much older than Zack stepping from around the corner. He was dark-skinned and dressed in shoddy, black clothing. Then there was a second, a taller, paler-skinned guy with equally dark clothes. Then there was a third, a fourth…a fifth. There were five teenaged humans who had emerged from the alley and I felt myself backing away just as Zack had.

The second guy picked me up at the thick part of my tail, below the flame and said, “Yeah, I think we can make due with this.”

Not really thinking, but rather acting purely from instinct, I twitched the tip of my tail so that the flame connected with his arm.

“Aah, shit! Little bastard!” he yelled, dropping me to the ground. Wincing in pain, I stood quickly and stepped away from him.

Gripping his arm, he grinned, pulled out two dingy spheres, and said, “What’s the matter, don’t want to play?” He threw the spheres at the ground, releasing in a flash of light, two Pokémon of which I had never seen before. The first was a large, overbearing blob of sludge with thick, powerful arms and tiny piercing eyes. Its scent seemingly burned my nostrils and caused me to recoil away from it. The second was a tall, and rather vicious looking rat; similar to the ones I had fought in the grassland, but with course, shaggy fur and a murderous glint in its eyes.

The human smirked and snapped his fingers, a curious motion I had never seen which created a loud cracking sound. In any case, I wasn’t expecting what it meant.

The rat lunged forward on its webbed forelegs and turned to kick me with powerful feet. I flew back and struggled to my feet, clutching my face and being met with a string of jeering and low laughter. I swung my head around quickly and found myself being enveloped by one of the purple blob’s oozing arms. It gripped me with muscles that almost burned my scales before hurling me. I felt my back connect with the brick wall and I crumpled to the ground, pain flooding my senses and dulling my reflexes. Once again, I felt that haunting jeer coming from the humans. Why…?

No answer to my thoughts was provided, rather the human who had released the monsters said, “What, don’t want to fight? Not much fun if the fucking lizard won’t even fight.” He paused, and pulled a small silver device out of his pocket. It was narrow, and had a handle to be held with and a tiny switch near the handle. I stared at it, feeling a curiosity as to what it was, but at the same time threatened by the evil grin that made its way across his features.

“C’mon, don’t wanna make us bored, do you?” he asked, still having that smirk plastered onto his face.

“NO!” a younger voice yelled, and from the side of my vision, I saw Zack sprint forward and jump onto the guy’s back.

“What the hell are you doin’, man!” the teenager yelled, reaching back with his left hand and struggling to pry him off. He finally grasped Zack’s arm in his huge fist and threw him off, immediately swiveling his right arm and pointing the silver device at the young trainer.

A deafening blast filled my ears and I flinched with a ringing in my ears. When I finally opened my eyes, I widened them suddenly in horror.

“What the fuck, dude, you weren’t supposed ta shoot the bastard!” the older, dark-skinned guy shouted. The sound of people shouting and the tap of footsteps on pavement reached my ears as I slowly backed away, taking short, fearful steps as I gaped at Zack’s motionless body, the scarlet blood oozing down his chest. There was a small hole in his shirt, where the crimson liquid poured from before pooling on the gravel.

“It wasn’t my fault, the asshole jumped me!” he yelled back. He then muttered, “Shit, let’s get outta here.”

“Wait, man, where’s the lizard?” the other asked.

I wasn’t there. I sprinted through another alley, my heart pounding in my chest as I ran as fast as possible on my short legs that most obviously were not built for speed. I ducked around buildings, not wanting to look behind me until finally, I felt the gaps between structures growing larger and to my great relief, saw the tops of trees greeting me in the distance.

I slipped on the emerald blades of damp grass and regained myself long enough to bound into the brush. The thorny branches scraped against my ginger scales and, clutching my tail, I stood to my feet.

Slowly and shakily, I turned back to glance back at the city. He was dead, there was no question of it…and yet a enduring guilt resided within me. Almost as if I felt I was abandoning my trainer. We hadn’t exactly been close and yet…why did I feel as though a part of me was gone? So long I had heard the tales that a trainer and his Pokémon were inseparable, that theirs was an instinctual bond of teamwork, and I finally determined that that was what forced me to linger there so.

Tears pricked the corners of my sapphire eyes, and I slowly whispered, “Bye, Zack,” before straying off into the forests to the west, where I knew there would be others. Wild ones who could help me to begin anew.