Prologue

He watched them.  Watched them frolic and play in the sand and slide down the
slide and swing on the swings.  He watched their parents watch them happily from
benches.  He envied them.  He had never had that; he had always had to survive on
his own.  He had been abandoned at a very young age and couldn’t remember his
mother or father at all.  His entire life had been spent on the streets of Pallet City.
The only memento of his parents was a plain red-and-white Pokeball with the name
Katum engraved on the bottom.

   But that didn’t matter to him, not anymore.  He accepted it.  And now, he
was going to go play with the other children.  

   Seven-year-old Tony Katum slowly approached a group of kids playing tag.

"Can I play?" he asked a boy with red hair and freckles.

   "Sure.  What’s your name?" the kid answered.  

   "Tony, what’s yours?"  

   "My name’s Jerrod.  Kailua is It," he said, pointing at a black girl with
dreadlocks.   Suddenly, a women with his same red hair stepped in front of Jerrod.

   "Get away from him.  Go!" she shouted.  Tony turned tail and ran off into
the park.  He heard the women saying to the boy, "That’s the Katum boy; you can’t
go around playing with trash like that."

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