Fate Directed

[kraine]

A young man sat on a bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. One hand pressed a cell phone to his ear. His long hair was teased into dreads and hung to his shoulder blades; his dark skin blended with the black beater he wore. “No, I’m definitely ready. ..Yeah. Yes. Yes, I packed it, I’m not going to be stuck in a cave for two days like you, dumbass.” Adrigal’s face split into a wide grin, remembering his friend’s story and missing him all the more for it. He chuckled quietly before he spoke again. “Look, I gotta go. … I do have a life, thank you.” He laughed again at his friend’s teasing. “Alright. Yeah. Later, man.” With a click, Adder closed his cell phone and stood up. He yawned. Stretched his long arms. From his cluttered backpack he withdrew a crumpled form with his name and information. Adrigal Yorke, 19 years old, born in Sorrel, insurance info, passport number, all the regular shit. Whatever they need, thought the young man. No way I’m going straight back to school.

Adder dropped his phone into the pocket of his jeans and walked up the path to the Clover Pokemon Lab. This was it, he thought. Finally a change. Finally something to break the monotony of life. In a few minutes, a creature will direct my fate. In spite of the gravity of this thought, he smiled. He couldn't find it in himself to take something so exciting seriously.

Once he reached the door, he took one deep breath and pushed his way into the lobby. An empty front desk greeted him silently. He ran a hand down his pony-tail, shifting the locks to lay across his collarbone. “Hello?” he called, poking his head down the long hallway. He rocked on his heels and strolled back to stand at the front desk, resting an elbow on its surface. He idly slid his information form back and forth on the table with his fingertips, awaiting assistance.

[Rip]

From the moment the boy entered the deserted lobby, a pair of bulbous yellow eyes scored his body. They roamed his clothes, his posture, his hair. The spy didn’t seem to have any intention on greeting the human or alerting it to his presence—no, he was quite content to shift his claws high above on the ceiling beams, observing.

He wouldn’t have done anything to hinder the human if it didn’t start batting something back and forth across the counter. He stared, watching the papers and laminated documents slide and glide over the surface. They caught the harsh white lights and sent beams of fleeting reflections on the walls. Transfixed, he followed the light, beak parted in awe.

He could not help himself. He needed to have the shiny paper.

With a bellowing KRAAAK!!! the grizzled murkrow plunged from the ceiling rafters and tried to snatch Adder’s license in his beak. Beating his wings furiously left a shower of black feathers, and in rage of losing his (once luxurious, now dusted with grey) plumage he screamed a string of horrendous curses that would curl a Chansy’s fur. Adder was truly blessed with ignorance of the Pokemon language as decades of hoarded insults spewed down on him.

“Shut up, you useless bag of bones!”

Loud bangings and crashes echoed from the room beyond the lobby as a figure shoved their shoulder into the door. It swung opened and out staggered a bent, dumpy woman that swung a gnarled cane wildly in the air. It’s butt, shaped like a lion’s paw, struck the bird and sent it catapulting across the lobby.

The murkrow struck the floor and rolled around, cawing and carrying on before flying back into the rafters, seemingly unhurt. It took a look at the woman, brandishing her cane, and decided to abandon the license on the floor.

“Useless stinking mouse drop rolling rancid vomit krabby licking…” she mumbled under her breath, shuffling across the room and swooping the license into her wrinkled hand. She rounded on Adder and narrowed her beady eyes.

“Hah!” the woman barked, flagging the license, a wide, toothy grin cutting across her mouth. “Not even out the door and already they get the better of you?”

Up close, the woman was a fascinating sight. Stringy white hair, tangled with leaves and bites of yarn, flowed down to her waist and framed her heart shaped, wrinkled face. Age lines pulled her bright eyes into a permanent squint, which made scrutinizing newbie trainers all that more effective.

“Well?” she paused to try and knock on his shin with her cane. “I heard they were sending me a trainer, but I see they just sent some boy to help old Granny Yew move her boxes.”

[kraine]

RAAAAWK!

Under a shower of dusty feathers, Adder leapt back and almost stumbled over his own shoes. “Holy shit!” he cursed, grabbing the desk for support as his papers fell to the floor. A gnarly-looking murkrow (all too common in Sorrel) made grabs for his license, but Adder swatted it off the table before the crow could either steal it or peck it out of his hand. He never particularly liked birds. And again, they prove themselves particularly unlikeable.

As he brushed the feathers off his clothes and ducked to avoid the flapping murkrow, an equally-dingy scientist burst out of the back room and whapped the bird out of the way. Jesus, thought Adder. He had expected some middle-aged guy, maybe a cute lab assistant. But this lady was something else entirely. She reminded him of the old ladies at the nursing home- just the right amount of babbling. He smiled a little when she spewed insults at her bird, but when she snatched his license and gave him the up-down, he straightened up and wiped the grin off his face. He knew that look. The judging look.

”Hah! Not even out the door and already they get the better of you?”

“Oh, uh..” Adder looked down at the woman nervously, lacking a good response. He bent down and picked up the rest of his papers, then offering them to the woman. As he stood up, he saw her cane whipping out of nowhere toward his shins. He jumped back just in time to avoid the blow. What the hell was that about?! He couldn't wait to tell his friends about this later. They always got a kick out of the grumpy old ladies like this when they volunteered at the nursing home.

“Well? I heard they were sending me a trainer, but I see they just sent some boy to help old Granny Yew move her boxes.”

Adder kept his distance after the attack, but nearly smiled at the woman’s comment. Suddenly she seemed less like the nursing home ladies and much more like his own Nanna. He wondered to himself whether this should be a comforting notion. “My name’s Adrigal Yorke, ma’am,” said Adder. “I did come here to get a pokemon.” He wondered what her eyes were seeing in him, because she took an awful long time to scrutinize. “But… if you need help, please let me do it.” There was no way he could walk away from an old woman in need. It was the way he was raised; it’s simply unacceptable for a healthy man to let a poor old woman do heavy lifting. At least, that’s what Nanna always said. Adder smiled with his offer, his bright teeth stark against his black skin.

[Rip]

But… if you need help, please let me do it.

“Oh, nonsense!” she hissed knocking her cane thrice on the tiled floor. The sound filled the lobby, startling the murkrow into another spasm of caws. Professor Yew, and of course she was a head professor, one of the best in her field, glared up at him. When she spoke, however, her voice sounded almost fond.

“Go eat ratatta mewlings, Grimlkin,” she said and began hobbling towards the door leading deeper into the laboratory, waving a skinny arm for Adder to follow. “Even with that back of yours we’d be here all day thrusting these god forsaken boxes on moving trucks, and here’s a little trick about getting’ old, boy.”

Granny Yew’s neck creaked as she squinted back at him. “Once you get a thousand year old body moving you better not let it stop or you’ll just drop straight down and fall straight asleep until next Tuesday!”

KRAK!

“SHUT YOUR BEAK YOU FEATHERHEAD!”

Krak…

“Pay him no mind there, boy,” she said as they hurried down the hallway and toward another door. She turned the handle and pushed the frame until it swung wide open with a gust of tawny feathers. “He took a skullbash to the head once and hasn’t been right since. Hurry, hurry, get in here, remember what I said about stopping old people?”

Far from the pristine labs featured on public television, urging new trainers to consider their starter options carefully, Granny Yew’s workspace was cluttered with the bizarre. The tables were steal and modern, but they looked dreadfully out of place. Antiqued wooden shelves lined the room, filled with specimen jars—plants, animals and disembodied organs bobbed in pale amber fluid. Labeled skulls and bones took up residences on top of cabinets. Around them huddled old books, some so ancient that the titles had worn away, leaving only ominous blank covers.

“Ma’am,” Granny Yew mused as she scuttled to the far left side of the room, leaving Adder to nose around if he wished. She fiddled with a round machine, humming to herself. One by one, pokeballs dropped down from a metallic tube. “Nice boy.”

“Do you know about the starters I am about to offer you?”

[kraine]

As the old scientist shuffled into her “lab,” Adder followed, ducking beneath the various hangings and knick-knacks that dangled from the ancient shelves. He scanned the objects, only somewhat hearing the woman’s mutterings and admonitions to the bird. “Woah.” Adder stopped picking his way around the clutter to lean towards the fossil of a massive claw. He only saw things like this at the museums, but here was a real, gigantic fossil right in front of him. He kept goggling at the various specimens, from a kangaskhan fetus floating in a jar to a half-evolved sunkern frozen in resin. He ran a finger across another fossil as he looked up. “This stuff is incr-“

“Do you know about the starters I am about to offer you?”

Adder glanced around the room and saw that the professor had moved far quicker than he had. He made his way over to her. “Uh, yes ma’am, there are the fire, water, and plant types from each region, plus pikachu and eevee, right? Those are the ones my teacher told me about.” He folded his hands together in front of him and looked at the pokeballs. He reached a hand out to inspect one. He’d never held a loaded ball before. His parents were not trainers, which was common in the city. It was hard to properly care for most pokemon there. Before his hand reached the ball, he let it drop.

“Ma’am, I was wondering… can just anyone be a pokemon trainer?” He knew his question was strange and childish, but the truth was that he hadn’t thought about it enough. He’d barely interacted with pokemon, let alone battled them. Was he going to completely fuck this up?

He had chosen this chapter of his life out of admiration of the trainers he knew. He wanted to be well travelled and have lifelong companions- and he was doing this with his best friend, though they were doing it on separate continents. No… this is what he was meant to do. I won’t fuck this up, he thought, almost encouragingly. Also, why was he asking this lady? Must be the resemblance to Nanna.

“Sorry, nevermind. Do I choose my pokemon now?”

[Rip]

“Ayup,” Granny Yew said, bobbing her head. The boy had done his homework, at least, which was more than she could say for the majority of kids that waltzed through her door. “With addition to the elemental monkies. Pansage, Pansear and Panpour. They’re a new bunch’a punks though. Can’t blame your schoolhouse for leaving them out.”

The monkey trio and Pikachus put off a lot of newbies—anything that evolved with elemental stones intimidated them. For some, it was too much power, too much choice. When and where was the right time to evolve a Pokemon entirely dependent on its trainer’s wishes? Too early and the poor things would be forever stunted.

While Adder examined the pokeballs on the table, Yew let her eyes wander to a specimen jar sandwiched between two malformed Meowths. It was a miniscule Whimsicott, exposed to a Sun Stone just moments after birth. Its internal organs had ruptured and bled. The poor thing never saw ten minutes of life, all because of a breeder who couldn’t wait.

Ma’am, I was wondering…

“Hmm?”

Can just anyone be a pokemon trainer?

The question gave her pause, and though he tried to hand wave and change the subject she ignored him.

“Any person can own a pokemon,” she began slowly, meeting his eye. “Just like anyone can own a mop. To some of them there ain’t no difference between the two.”

She frowned, glowering, not at Adder but something beyond him. “To some, they don’t care that they are in charge of a thing that breathes and feels pain. They feel ownership and power over a life, but they sure as blooty whoo hell don’t value it. That’s true ugliness. They make their partners hurt. You’ll see alotta them types out there, and they’ll make you feel rage and sadness and every damn thing in between.”

“But,” she added, holding up a shaking, wrinkly finger. “They ain’t trainers. I don’t really know what they are. Trainers help their partners grow. They help them learn. They’re teachers and friends and family. You are all their trust formed into one person.”

An idea formed in her dusty head. Yew brought a hand to her sharp chin and hummed.

“All these starters here come from breeders. Very fine breeders. The top of their fields. The pokemon are hand raised from birth, socialized with both humans and other beasts. They’ve never experienced hardship. Now, I wouldn’t fault you for wanting one of them. It’s your choice, as it always is, but I do have something special in the back that I wasn’t sure what to do with, me bein' retired 'n all. His previous trainer, a hard-eyed boy I didn’t much care for, died on Rue Mountain during a cave in." after a moment, she added a dismissive, "Tragic."

“This is your first fork, Adrigal Yorke," the grin returned, all teeth and cutting across her mouth. "Bright-eyed, bushy tailed starter, or the one who's stuck in limbo?"

[kraine]

“But … they ain’t trainers. I don’t really know what they are. Trainers help their partners grow. They help them learn. They’re teachers and friends and family. You are all their trust formed into one person.”

Adder nodded, a little embarrassed that he asked the question, but glad he did all the same. “I think I can do that,” he said. Sure, he’d let people down before. Everyone had their faults, but he was a good friend and a good person. He tried to be. And he could try his best with his pokemon as well.

Then, Adder was offered an ultimatum. Would he choose a fresh starter, which would be a cushion for him as he started his journey? Or would he choose this rescue, alone and lost without its trainer?

He chewed on his lip while he stared from pokeball to pokeball. “A fork, huh?” he said, playing the professor’s rhyme over in his head. This was a big decision. The rescue could have any number of problems that he couldn’t fix. He was no pokemon expert. Sure, he knew a lot of the science, he read about the new discoveries in research journals, but the connection between trainer and pokemon? That was a mystery to him.

Still… uncovering mysteries was the heart of science. Hundreds of trainers start with the same few pokemon. He went over the list in his head again, imagining himself travelling with them each in turn. Somehow, now that he had another option, the past choices seemed empty. He wanted a true challenge. He wanted a real change. With a pokemon that he might have to rehabilitate, he wouldn’t just be following a set path, he would be occupied with purpose. Maybe he would even learn something that the cookie-cutter trainers didn’t.

On top of that, he felt sorrow at the story of the dead trainer- not for the trainer, of course, but for the lone pokemon left without a guide. He nodded to himself, and then to the professor.

“I’d like to adopt the rescue. I think I can help it.”

[Rip]

Granny Yew threw back her head and cackled with glee. She wasted no time wheeling about and with surprisingly nimble typing drew up the last pokeball. It dropped down from the tube and rolled into the empty slot on the table. Someone had carved a small star above the resize button, but otherwise there was no clue about what slept inside.

“Take it, boy! Own your choices, for good or ill!” Granny Yew said.

If Adder took the ball and released the monster inside, the rim would pry open with a blast of light. Energy would swirl and mix in the air until it compacted down to a small, cowering, bipedal shape.

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_{Cubone
Male
Naive}

“Well,” Granny Yew said. “Say hello.”

[kraine]

The used, carved pokeball dropped with a smooth click into the slot below. With the professor’s encouragement, Adder stepped forward and reached out his hand. The ball felt warm, as if it had been sitting in the sun. He picked it up- the weight was slightly different than an unloaded ball. Here it is, he thought. My own pokemon…

He glanced up at the professor for half a second and looked back down to the ball, balancing it between the tips of his fingers. Then, in one quick movement, he enclosed the ball in his hand and threw it to the ground. The orb exploded in white light and rebounded into Adder’s hand once again. On the ground, the light faded into the form of a cubone. The creature stood on all fours, frozen to the spot, eyes locked onto her new trainer.

Adder’s mind was a flurry of excitement and concern. The cubone was perfect to him. Her tiny claws gripped tight to the bone club favored by her species. The scaly armor covering her body was weak now, but he knew that as she grew, it could become a true shield. That is, as long as he did his job right. He watched the creature as it clung to the floor. This pokemon looked terrified. What was he going to do? Shit. …Shit. He didn’t take his eyes off the little cubone, but knelt onto one knee and rested his hands on his thighs.

“Hey there, little cubone.” He hung his neck forward. Slowly extended his hand. “It’s alright. Do you want to come with me?”

The cubone tensed herself and rose ever so slightly on her strong hind legs. She inched her snout forward slowly… and BAM! With a loud click of her claws on the tile floor and a following clamorous pitter-patter across the room, the little pokemon was out the door of the lab and into the field beyond. “Oh shit, no!” Adder, forgetting everything, leapt up and sprinted after his starter pokemon. He tried to navigate around the shelves of bottles and vials, but ended up knocking a few of them to the floor, where they cracked and leaked their specimens. He stopped and turned for a second to say, “I’m so sorry, professor! But-“ he faltered and cut himself off by sprinting out the door. Down the hallway he ran and jumped the three steps to the path outside.

There in the distance he saw his cubone, half of her at least, who had expertly torn a patch of grass from the soil and was bottom-up into the earth. As he approached, he saw a pile of soil forming beneath her back legs while she kicked. He slowed and circled her, wondering if she could feel him walking. “What now…? Am I supposed to pull you out by your tail?” He figured this was a bad plan, and allowed himself to fall belly up on the grass. “I guess I’ll just wait for you to finish your hole, then.”

And thus, laying in the sunny grass and staring expectantly at a hole in the ground, Adder Yorke began his pokemon journey.