Post by Erica Redwood on Jul 19, 2015 2:56:13 GMT
Prologue
I wasn't born in Unova. Strictly speaking, I wasn't born in any region. No one knows where, exactly, I came from. No one, that is, other than me and the angel who brought me here. I'm not even sure how to tell anyone where I came from, or how I came to be in Unova. And I'm pretty sure it'd be a bad idea to try.
The old couple at the Pokémon Day Care on Route 3 told me, because I was playing stupid for their benefit, that a man with black hair showed up late one night carrying me in his arms. He told them that I was an orphan in need of a good home with kind people. According to them I looked like a little blonde angel in his arms, fast asleep and curled in a too-large nightgown clutching a very battered teddy bear. I was about two years old, I guess. According to their estimates at least.
Like I was going to fess up when I woke up and found out how small I was. Please, I'm stupid sometimes, but I'm not quite that stupid.
One of these days I'm going to sit that angel down and have some words with him about the courtesies of warning a person when they age-reverse them and then dump them off in some strange world with a sob story guaranteed to find them a home.
I call him an angel, but it'd be just as accurate to call him an alterna-dimensional being with a perverse sense of humor and a streak of magnificent bastardy that makes what I do to my characters look small-time. His name is Jeremiel and he's my friend, for all that I would like to throttle him some days. He seems to have decided that I'm his pet project for however long he maintains interest and, given that his Ferret Syndrome is as bad as mine, if not worse, I'm really surprised that he's maintained interest this long.
My name is Lynette and I'm not from around here, in case that wasn't obvious by now.
The old couple at the Day Care took me in after Jeremiel gave me to them and they're really good people. I've developed something of a sense for this, which is surprising me on a daily basis because where I come from my senses were very nearly non-existent. I'd closed myself off from that sort of thing. Someone once said that persistent inability masked incredible ability… well, if that's the case whatever Jeremiel did unlocked it because damn… it's enough to knock me silly some days.
And I really don't need to be any more silly than I already am.
I started toddling after the old man and woman as they took care of the Pokémon almost from the day I arrived there. Don't get me wrong, the idea of *Pokémon* being actual, real creatures was enough to knock me off my feet. I was not one of the Pokémon addicts where I come from. In fact, I had a fairly low opinion of the whole thing before I got dumped headfirst into the middle of it.
But then, I didn't know them at the time, so I couldn't very well know what I was talking about, now could I?
In any event, I wasn't very large but I followed close behind Grandma and Grandpa, as they insisted I call them, as they looked after the various Pokémon left at the Day Care by Trainers going out and about. I simply could not stay away. They thought it was cute, a little child entranced by the Pokémon. I did what I was big enough to do, which wasn't much, but I hand-fed some of them, if they let me, and I held the brush and combed out the tangles in Cinccino's fur.
Cinccino was my best friend at that age. She had such beautiful fur, soft and white and grey and she'd tell me stories about the world outside. She'd been traded several times and each Trainer found a different role for her to take. One took her to the stage and she was a diva in the Pokémon Musical. One made her the center of his battle team and she was the one who kept their spirits up in good times and bad.
But her trainer at that time… well, needless to say neither of us were very impressed by him.
Every time I tried to ask her what he did, she'd demure and change the subject to happier memories. Once is chance, twice coincidence. About the fourth or fifth time, I knew enough to call shenanigans on her. She still wouldn't tell me what was going on, but it didn't take much for me to know that he was one of the bad ones.
There are good Trainers and there are bad ones. It's that way with everything, really. Some are going to be caring and responsible and kind and some… are not.
The day he came back for her, she got a look in her eyes that hit me straight in the gut. It was panic. Sheer unreasoning panic. I'd gone to get her because he wanted her back from the Day Care. She gripped my tiny hand in her paw like I was the only thing keeping her head above water.
I hugged her close and did something I probably shouldn't have. I told her what to do. "Run away if you can, if you can't… get him to Release you. Act weak. Act stupid. Pull your punches; miss attacks. Get away from him any way you can and come back here. I'll hide you."
She hugged me close and nodded and then kissed my cheek like she'd seen adults do on more than one occasion. Apparently I was a Pokémon-adorable child, that is, adorable like a pre-evolved Pokémon. <I will, Lynette. Somehow… I will. You give me strength I haven't known in years.> She smiled through her terrified tears. <You will be an incredible Trainer someday.>
I watched her leave with him, memorized his face and promised myself that someday I'd make sure he never touched another Pokémon again. I didn't know who he was. At the time the name Ghetsis meant nothing to me.
I should have known. But I didn't. I was pretending to be the child I wasn't and I had no way of knowing just how dramatically Ghetsis would impact my life later.
Cinccino never made it back to the Day Care. I hope Ghetsis burns in Reshiram's fire for eternity for that.
It wasn't long after that incident that Grandma discovered something I hadn't exactly been hiding… but that I hadn't been making a big deal out of either. Apparently the ability to understand the speech of Pokémon was not a common thing. Who knew? I certainly didn't and the Pokémon I'd been talking to and listening to hadn't seen fit to tell me either.
It was so rare, in fact, that most Trainers thought that their Pokémon were incapable of intelligent speech and communicated through body language, like ordinary beasts. Idiots, I swear. Well, I really can't blame them that badly. I wouldn't know the truth either if I hadn't been talking with Pokémon the entire time I was there.
In any event, finding out about that ability meant that Grandma and Grandpa stayed up late several nights talking. And it had me worried. The decision they ultimately came to was that I needed to study with an actual Pokémon professor… and that meant that I couldn't stay with them.
They had two daughters. One ran the school next door. Her sister, though, had settled down in Nuvema Town with her husband and that was where Professor Juniper had her research facility. So I moved to Nuvema and made two new friends, Bianca and Cheren, and slowly the years passed.
I wasn't born in Unova. Strictly speaking, I wasn't born in any region. No one knows where, exactly, I came from. No one, that is, other than me and the angel who brought me here. I'm not even sure how to tell anyone where I came from, or how I came to be in Unova. And I'm pretty sure it'd be a bad idea to try.
The old couple at the Pokémon Day Care on Route 3 told me, because I was playing stupid for their benefit, that a man with black hair showed up late one night carrying me in his arms. He told them that I was an orphan in need of a good home with kind people. According to them I looked like a little blonde angel in his arms, fast asleep and curled in a too-large nightgown clutching a very battered teddy bear. I was about two years old, I guess. According to their estimates at least.
Like I was going to fess up when I woke up and found out how small I was. Please, I'm stupid sometimes, but I'm not quite that stupid.
One of these days I'm going to sit that angel down and have some words with him about the courtesies of warning a person when they age-reverse them and then dump them off in some strange world with a sob story guaranteed to find them a home.
I call him an angel, but it'd be just as accurate to call him an alterna-dimensional being with a perverse sense of humor and a streak of magnificent bastardy that makes what I do to my characters look small-time. His name is Jeremiel and he's my friend, for all that I would like to throttle him some days. He seems to have decided that I'm his pet project for however long he maintains interest and, given that his Ferret Syndrome is as bad as mine, if not worse, I'm really surprised that he's maintained interest this long.
My name is Lynette and I'm not from around here, in case that wasn't obvious by now.
The old couple at the Day Care took me in after Jeremiel gave me to them and they're really good people. I've developed something of a sense for this, which is surprising me on a daily basis because where I come from my senses were very nearly non-existent. I'd closed myself off from that sort of thing. Someone once said that persistent inability masked incredible ability… well, if that's the case whatever Jeremiel did unlocked it because damn… it's enough to knock me silly some days.
And I really don't need to be any more silly than I already am.
I started toddling after the old man and woman as they took care of the Pokémon almost from the day I arrived there. Don't get me wrong, the idea of *Pokémon* being actual, real creatures was enough to knock me off my feet. I was not one of the Pokémon addicts where I come from. In fact, I had a fairly low opinion of the whole thing before I got dumped headfirst into the middle of it.
But then, I didn't know them at the time, so I couldn't very well know what I was talking about, now could I?
In any event, I wasn't very large but I followed close behind Grandma and Grandpa, as they insisted I call them, as they looked after the various Pokémon left at the Day Care by Trainers going out and about. I simply could not stay away. They thought it was cute, a little child entranced by the Pokémon. I did what I was big enough to do, which wasn't much, but I hand-fed some of them, if they let me, and I held the brush and combed out the tangles in Cinccino's fur.
Cinccino was my best friend at that age. She had such beautiful fur, soft and white and grey and she'd tell me stories about the world outside. She'd been traded several times and each Trainer found a different role for her to take. One took her to the stage and she was a diva in the Pokémon Musical. One made her the center of his battle team and she was the one who kept their spirits up in good times and bad.
But her trainer at that time… well, needless to say neither of us were very impressed by him.
Every time I tried to ask her what he did, she'd demure and change the subject to happier memories. Once is chance, twice coincidence. About the fourth or fifth time, I knew enough to call shenanigans on her. She still wouldn't tell me what was going on, but it didn't take much for me to know that he was one of the bad ones.
There are good Trainers and there are bad ones. It's that way with everything, really. Some are going to be caring and responsible and kind and some… are not.
The day he came back for her, she got a look in her eyes that hit me straight in the gut. It was panic. Sheer unreasoning panic. I'd gone to get her because he wanted her back from the Day Care. She gripped my tiny hand in her paw like I was the only thing keeping her head above water.
I hugged her close and did something I probably shouldn't have. I told her what to do. "Run away if you can, if you can't… get him to Release you. Act weak. Act stupid. Pull your punches; miss attacks. Get away from him any way you can and come back here. I'll hide you."
She hugged me close and nodded and then kissed my cheek like she'd seen adults do on more than one occasion. Apparently I was a Pokémon-adorable child, that is, adorable like a pre-evolved Pokémon. <I will, Lynette. Somehow… I will. You give me strength I haven't known in years.> She smiled through her terrified tears. <You will be an incredible Trainer someday.>
I watched her leave with him, memorized his face and promised myself that someday I'd make sure he never touched another Pokémon again. I didn't know who he was. At the time the name Ghetsis meant nothing to me.
I should have known. But I didn't. I was pretending to be the child I wasn't and I had no way of knowing just how dramatically Ghetsis would impact my life later.
Cinccino never made it back to the Day Care. I hope Ghetsis burns in Reshiram's fire for eternity for that.
It wasn't long after that incident that Grandma discovered something I hadn't exactly been hiding… but that I hadn't been making a big deal out of either. Apparently the ability to understand the speech of Pokémon was not a common thing. Who knew? I certainly didn't and the Pokémon I'd been talking to and listening to hadn't seen fit to tell me either.
It was so rare, in fact, that most Trainers thought that their Pokémon were incapable of intelligent speech and communicated through body language, like ordinary beasts. Idiots, I swear. Well, I really can't blame them that badly. I wouldn't know the truth either if I hadn't been talking with Pokémon the entire time I was there.
In any event, finding out about that ability meant that Grandma and Grandpa stayed up late several nights talking. And it had me worried. The decision they ultimately came to was that I needed to study with an actual Pokémon professor… and that meant that I couldn't stay with them.
They had two daughters. One ran the school next door. Her sister, though, had settled down in Nuvema Town with her husband and that was where Professor Juniper had her research facility. So I moved to Nuvema and made two new friends, Bianca and Cheren, and slowly the years passed.