A silence ensued after Ichigo realized she had become a trainer. It wasn’t one of those awkward silences – it was just too obvious what everyone thought to say it out loud. Ichigo was simply happy beyond words. She felt fulfilled.
Hera was a rebel and enjoyed the thought of running away from home with a semi-stranger to join some elusive gang. She felt proud.
Marma was a bit nervous because he just made a promise he didn’t know if he could keep. He was also trying to hide the fact that he was nervous but if you would look closely at his body language you would easily notice. He felt like getting it over with.
“How do we join?” Ichigo asked. She was almost shouting. Then there was one of those infamous silences where they say you can cut the tension in the air with a knife.
“I… don’t know.” Marma replied. He just wanted to get it over with. It was a stupid promise to make.
“Oh OK!” Ichigo was now definitely shouting. “Let’s go to the HQ then!”
“I’ve actually never been there.” He wanted to get it over with very badly.
“We could call Information.” The situation amused Ichigo. She liked a good game of Scavenger Hunt.
“I doubt they would know.” Hera’s voice sounded as if she was about to die. No particular reason to it. She cleared her throat.
“Haaaveee yooouuu gooot anyyy pokeemooon?” Ichigo remembered her impression of Marma.
There was a silence again and if someone would transcript the speechless conversation Marma and Hera had it would be like this:
‘Is she retarded?’
‘No. She just jumps to conclusions.’
‘I don’t buy it.’
And since Ichigo’s thoughts and emotions could all be summarized as ‘yay’, it’s useless to write down.
“No.” Marma finally replied.
“Recap time! You’re a Aqua grunt who doesn’t know where the HQ is and doesn’t have pokémon?” Hera was confused.
“I joined about fifteen minutes before I bumped into you. I just changed into this outfit when the guy that got me in saw something and ran after it. I got bored waiting for him to come back so I went to find him. After some time, I heard someone walking and went in that direction. It turned out to be you, tough.” Marma explained.
“…I don’t buy it.” Hera was expecting more from him. A heroic story of how he fought a legendary pokémon. His pokémon got killed and he got a hit in the head that made him lose his memory. And the magical fairy of wherever he fought got rid of that pokémon cured his critical wounds and fixed his outfit. And he was obviously much too modest to admit his tragic past so he made up this stupid, stupid, STUPID story.
“…unfortunately that’s the only explanation for me being such a pathetic grunt.”
Hera was now a bit ashamed of her story so she didn’t reply. Instead, she asked Marma a question.
“Wanna get some pokémon? I know where we can find three.”
-------------------
Littleroot town didn’t really have that homey look. It consisted of two houses and a lab. One house belonged to Ichigo’s family and the other to Hera’s. The two houses were on the far north of the Littleroot town area, with a passage into the woods which was the starting route of many new trainers. South of those houses was a small pond and professor Birch’s lab. In Birch’s lab there were always a few mudkip, torchic and treecko in stock. It wasn’t weird to find starters from other areas either.
Once upon a time, Hera asked her mother how a city got the status of a capital. Her mother said that it had to have all the very important buildings in it. It became very clear to Hera at that point that Littleroot had a very slim chance of getting the status of a city. She also realized why two houses and a lab were considered a ‘town’. Birch’s lab was very important, giving the three buildings enough points to score the title of a town.
Hera’s plan was simple. She knew very well when Birch wasn’t in his lab. They would walk in. She knew there weren’t any alarms. They would take the pokémon of their choice. She knew where he kept the pokeballs. They would take one pokémon each. She knew Birch wasn’t very organized and that there was hardly any chance that Birch would notice that three pokémon are missing. They would leave. She knew there was no one to notice them leave. The adults were far to busy. They would leave and find their way to the first city or town. She knew there were signposts to guide them as well as other trainers. They would surely meet some Aqua grunts sooner or later. She knew it was just a matter of time. Then they would easily find out the way to the HQ.
It was so complicated. And they would have to do all this just to be given the chance to join. Hera liked the thought of it. She already considered herself as an Aqua.
They entered the town. The town was silent as the forest. It was an unspoken agreement to not break the silence. It was what protected them from getting caught.
The last sound that was heard was a silent click of the door opening. That, Ichigo thought, was the last moment of her life.