The Quest for the Legends has been revised very often - especially the first chapter. And just to give you an idea of how much I've improved, I'll show you every version of chapter 1 together - original spelling, grammar and punctuation of course kept intact.
Version 1.0 (the original)
Yep, it's the original version, how I first wrote this fic. I referred to Charmander as a he, which surprised me when I read it again - I apparently switched to "it" after having used "he" in the original. Stupid me, trying to be all grammatically correct.
Chapter 1: How the adventure began
Mark lived in a very small village. It was far from all pokémon so no pokémon trainer came there, and nobody could give away starting pokémon for kids that wanted to train pokémon.
And that was why Mark thougt he could never become a pokémon trainer.
UNTIL THAT DAY.
Mark was outside with his friends. Then there came a thunderstorm with rain and they went home, but Mark suddenly saw something moving in the bushes. A pokémon? He looked, but there was nothing. He went home with the others.
After dinner, he sat down, staring through the window. Were pokémon in the town? Or was it just the wind? Suddenly, he stood up from the chair. There WAS something moving out there, and it was NOT the wind! He hurried outside.
On the road was a Charmander and the flame at the tip of its tail was nearly dead. He picked it up and ran inside. The Charmander opened one eye, then fainted again.
“Mom! Dad! I – I found a Charmander outside and it is dying!”
“Oh, stop teasing us, Mark,” said his father. “We know very well there are no pokémon here.”
“No, really! Can you help me a bit!”
“You will have to keep it warm,” said his mother. “Charmanders die if they become to cold to keep their tail burning.”
He heard his father say something like “do you really believe that stupid joke” but he didn’t mind. All he was thinking about now was the Charmander. He put it in his bed, stroke it and made sure the room was warm before he went to sleep on the floor.
He woke up early in the morning. When his eyes opened, he saw an orange face with big, black eyes looking at him.
“Charmander! You’re alive!”
“Charmander!”
He sat up and got dressed. Charmander certainly knew who had saved him.
The next day, he started training pokémon, that is, he started walking to the next city with a Pokémon Center, Cleanwater city. A Suicune was said to clean the Lake of Purity next to the city every day, and the city’s name came from that legend. At least, the water was so clear that you could always see the bottom (and all the Goldeens and Seakings and Magikarps living in the lake). Once, a Gyarados lived there, but it could never catch prey, as the prey saw it if it moved in their direction. No one knew where the Gyarados went, as there was no river in or out of the lake. But, at least, the city had a lot of legends about pokémon, so many trainers came there, and many trainers need at least one Pokémon Center and a Pokémon market. As Mark had no pokéballs, Charmander just walked beside him.
“Charmander, I’ve been thinking...”
“Charmander?”
“What were you doing out there? You can’t be a wild Charmander, then you would know where to go when it’s raining. Besides, there are no pokémon around our village.”
Charmander went sad. “Char charmander char mander,” he said.
“A trainer owned you? But – did he leave you?”
“Charmander mander char charmander.”
“Traded you? For what?”
“Char charmander mander.”
“A Quilava? But – no one trades an evolved pokémon for an unevolved pokémon if they both have three stages in all and are equally strong. It’s like trading Mewtwo for Magikarp!”
“Charmander charmander char!”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean you were weaker than Magikarp, I...”
“Charmander char char charmander!”
“I didn’t mean Quilava is stronger than Mewtwo either! It’s like... It’s like... trading Quilava for Charmander.”
“Mander!”
“Yes, but anyway, why did that Quilava trainer accept the trade?”
“Charmander mander charmander, char mander charmander.”
“The Quilava was level fifteen, and he told the other trainer you were also level fifteen and just about evolving? What level are you then?”
“Charmander.”
“Five? Well, what did the other trainer do when he found out you were only level five?”
“Char char char mander.”
“Threw your pokéball away so you got out? And for what did you go to our village?”
“Charmander charmander.”
“Looking for your old trainer? But he betrayed you! He traded you and lied just to get a stronger Pokémon in exchange for you!”
“Char man der.”
“You are angry with him now so you don’t want to find him anymore? Well, guess I would be too. Just forget about him... Oh, a house!”
There was a house ahead. They hurried to the house and saw it was a farm, as there were Miltanks and Tauroses inside a fenced meadow and Ponytas and Rapidashes inside another, a Meowth was walking around, and a Growlithe was watching some Mareeps and Swinubs inside another meadow. But a sign in front of the meadow with the Ponytas and Rapidashes intrested Mark. It said: PONYTAS AND RAPIDASHES FOR SALE.
Just that moment a woman came out of the house. “How much is a Rapidash?” Mark asked her.
“40000,” was her answer.
“Oh, I only have 10000. Aren’t the Ponytas cheaper?”
“They’re 20000,” the woman said.
“Can they battle?” Mark asked.
“No, of course not!” the woman said. “They are trained not to attack anything but in self-defense, and then they are not supposed to use their fire powers. But of course they can burn people that touch them,” she added when she saw Mark’s hand was getting close to one of the Ponytas. He quickly withdrew his hand.
“Can I sleep here tonight? And my Charmander too?” Mark then asked.
“Okay with you, but your Charmander... well, if you make sure it won’t burn the house, it’s okay.”
“Oh, thanks a lot!”said Mark.
Version 1.1
This was most likely written sometime after chapter eleven of version 1.0, because I remember revising it sometime around that point after I had discovered the magic of describing battles. However, since there are no battles in chapter one, I can't assume a proper timeline for this version. I do remember that I first directly translated Pokémon speech in the original chapter eleven, but I don't think I started directly translating all Pokémon speech right away, so it might nonetheless make sense that Charmander is still saying "Char char mander char man der".
Mark lived in a very small village. It was far from all pokémon so no pokémon trainer came there, and nobody could give away starting pokémon for kids that wanted to train pokémon.
And that was why Mark thougt he could never become a pokémon trainer.
UNTIL THAT DAY.
Mark was outside with his friends when a thunderstorm started. They said goodbye to each other and hurried to their homes. When Mark was just about reaching the door to his house, he saw a movement in the bushes. Could it really be... a pokémon? He looked, but there was nothing there. He opened the door and thought no more about it.
After dinner, Mark sat down in the living room and was looking out of the window. He suddenly remembered the movement. Maybe it was a pokémon after all. Looking better wouldn’t hurt.
The window was very wet, but through it, he saw the blurry image of the road. And there was something moving out there. He rushed to the door and opened...
On the road was a real, living Charmander. Well, barely living. The flame at the tip of its tail wouldn’t last long in that weather. In fact, the flame was nearly extinguished. That was also why it lay there unconcious. Mark did, of course, what anyone would do in that situation – picked up the poor Charmander. It opened one eye and looked at Mark’s face, then fainted again. Mark hurried back inside and closed the door.
“Mom! Dad! I – I found a Charmander outside and it is dying!”
“Oh, stop teasing us, Mark,” said his father from upstairs. “We know very well there are no pokémon here.”
“No, really! Can you help me a bit!” Mark shouted angrily.
“You will have to keep it warm,” his mother called. “Charmanders die if they become to cold to keep their tail burning.”
He heard his father say something like “do you really believe that stupid joke, he probably just wants attention” but he didn’t mind at all. The only thing that mattered now was the Charmander. Mark put it in his bed (after making sure it wouldn’t burn his pillow) and went to sleep on the floor himself. Maybe, he thought, maybe I can own it. Maybe it can be my pokémon, and I can become a pokémon trainer. Maybe a trainer lost it and I will get a lot of money for finding it...When Mark woke up, early next morning, Charmander’s face was looking at him. It seemed to recognize him, even though it had only seen him with one eye for a second.
“Charmander! You’re alive!”
“Charmander!” it said happily.
Mark was happy too.
That day, Mark checked out all the news and “lost pokémon”, but no one had reported a lost Charmander. Charmander seemed to be really thankful for being saved. Mark had been very good at Pokémonish at school, so he could understand Charmander pretty well, although he wasn’t always sure what it was saying. The basic thing it said, though, was something around the lines of “Thanks for saving my life out there, I thought I’d never make it!”. Charmander was very nice as a friend, but Mark wanted it to be more than a friend. He wanted it to be his pokémon, he wanted to be a trainer...
And the next day, he started training pokémon. That means he started walking to the next city with a Pokémon Center, Cleanwater city. A Suicune was said to clean the Lake of Purity next to the city every day, and the city’s name came from that legend. At least, the water was so clear that you could always see the bottom (and all the Goldeens and Seakings and Magikarps living in the lake). Once, a Gyarados was said to live there, but it could never catch prey because it was so easy to see. No one knew where the Gyarados went, as there was no river in or out of the lake, and it just suddenly disappeared. That was what he had read in one of his many books about pokémon legends, at least. He really liked legends. But, at least, the city’s many pokémon legends attracted tourists, so many trainers came there, and many trainers need a Pokémon Center and a Pokémon market, so that was where Mark headed. As he obivously had no pokéballs, Charmander just walked beside him.
“Charmander, I’ve been thinking...”
“Charmander?” it replied.
“What were you doing out there? You can’t be a wild Charmander, then you would know where to go when it’s raining. Besides, there are no pokémon around our village.”
“Char charmander char mander,” it said sadly.
“A trainer owned you? Did he leave you?”
“Charmander mander char charmander.”
“Traded you? For what?”
“Char charmander mander.”
“A Quilava? But – no one trades an evolved pokémon for an unevolved pokémon of its counterpart evolution chain. It’s like trading Mewtwo for Magikarp!”
“Charmander charmander char!” Charmander said angrily.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean you were weaker than Magikarp, I...”
“Charmander char char charmander!”
“I didn’t mean Quilava is stronger than Mewtwo either! It’s like... It’s like... trading Quilava for Charmander.”
“Mander!”
“Yes, but anyway, why did that Quilava trainer accept the trade?”
“Charmander mander charmander, char mander charmander.”
“The Quilava was level fifteen, and he told the other trainer you were also level fifteen and just about evolving? What level are you then?”
“Charmander.”
“Five? Well, what did the other trainer do when he found out you were only level five?”
“Char char char mander.”
“Threw your pokéball away so you got out? And for what did you go to our village?”
“Charmander charmander.”
“Looking for your old trainer? But he betrayed you! He traded you and lied just to get a stronger Pokémon in exchange for you!”
“Char man der.”
“You are angry with him now so you don’t want to find him anymore? Well, guess I would be too. Just forget about him... Oh, a house!”
There was a house ahead. A farm, that is. There was a big fence full of Tauros, Miltank, Ponyta and Rapidash. But a large sign intrested Mark the most. It said: PONYTA AND RAPIDASH FOR SALE.
Just as he read the sign, a middle-aged woman came out of the house. “How much is a Rapidash?” Mark asked her.
“40000,” was her answer. The way her voice sounded told Mark that she wasn’t ready to lower the price.
“Oh, I only have 10000. Aren’t the Ponytas cheaper?”
“They’re 20000,” the woman said in the same tone of voice.
“Can they battle?” Mark then asked.
“No, of course not!” the woman said. “They are trained not to attack anything but in self-defense, and then they are not supposed to use their fire powers. But of course they can burn people that touch them,” she added nastily when she saw Mark’s hand was getting close to one of the Ponytas. He quickly withdrew his hand.
“Can I sleep here tonight? And my Charmander?” he asked when he remembered that it was still a long way to Cleanwater city.
“Okay with you, but your Charmander... well, if you make sure it won’t burn the house, it’s okay.” “Thanks a lot!”said Mark.
Version 1.5
This is the first version of the UMR. I posted it at the forums, but ended up doing some more changes to it. The UMR was started after chapter 30 of the original. Only chapter one got a "beta-UMR" like this; it was immediately after I wrote this that I started the next one.
Chapter 1: How the adventure began
Mark lived in a very small village. It was far from all pokémon so no pokémon trainer came there, and nobody could give away starting pokémon for kids that wanted to train pokémon.
And that was why Mark thougt he could never become a pokémon trainer.
UNTIL THAT DAY.
Mark was outside with his friends when a thunderstorm started. They said goodbye to each other and hurried home. When Mark was about to reach the door to his house, he thought he saw a movement in the bushes.
A pokémon? he thought. Can that be?
He rushed to the bushes and rattled the branches, but there was no sight of anything living. Mark assumed he had been imagining it, and went inside.
After dinner, Mark sat down in the living room and looked out of the window at the weather. He suddenly remembered what he had thought to be a pokémon. Maybe it was a pokémon, after all. Looking better wouldn’t hurt.
The window was very wet, but through it, he saw the blurry image of the road. And there was indeed something moving out there. He rushed to the door and opened...
On the road was a real, living Charmander. Well, barely living. The flame at the tip of its tail wouldn’t last long in that weather. In fact, the flame was nearly extinguished. That was also why it lay there unconscious. Mark did, of course, what anyone would do in that situation – picked up the poor pokémon and checked it out a bit. It was a male, and clearly young. The Charmander opened one eye with difficulty and caught Mark’s face, then fainted again. Mark hurried back inside and closed the door.
“Mom! Dad! I – I found a Charmander outside and it is dying!”
“Oh, stop teasing us, Mark,” said his father from upstairs. “We know very well there are no pokémon here.”
“No, really! Can you help me a bit!” Mark shouted angrily.
His mother, however, came downstairs.
“Oh my god!” she said. “John, you have to see this! It's a Charmander!”
He heard his father grumble something like “do you really believe that stupid joke, he probably just wants attention”, but he didn't really care and his mother didn't either. She hurried back upstairs, got a flame-proof garment from the kitchen and some extra pillows, and told Mark to place the Charmander on the pillows and put the tail on the garment so it wouldn't burn the house. Then she advised him to put the pokémon near himself so it would get warm quicker. He did so, and fell asleep with his hand on the Charmander's body, in dreamy thoughts.
Maybe I can own it. Maybe it can be my pokémon, and I can become a pokémon trainer. Or, maybe a trainer lost it and I will get a lot of money for finding it...Mark woke up the next morning and found his hand on the empty garment. Charmander, however, was staring happily at his face.
“Charmander! You’re alive!”
“Mander,” said the Charmander and nodded.
Mark nodded too and couldn't believe his luck.
That day, Mark checked out all the news and “lost pokémon”, but no one had reported a lost Charmander. Charmander seemed to be really thankful for being saved. Mark had been very good at Pokémonish at school, so he could understand Charmander pretty well, although he wasn’t always sure what he was saying. The basic thing he said, though, was something around the lines of “Thanks for saving my life out there, I thought I’d never make it!”. Charmander was very nice as a friend, but Mark wanted him to be more than a friend. He wanted him to be his pokémon, he wanted to be a trainer... and it was an actual possiblity. After a long debate with his parents, they finally allowed him to go on a journey and become a pokémon trainer.
And the next day, he started training pokémon. That means he started walking to the next city with a Pokémon Center, Cleanwater city. It was actually a pretty interesting city. A Suicune was said to clean the Lake of Purity next to the city every day, and the city’s name came from that legend. At least, the water was so clear that you could always see the bottom (and all the water pokémon living in the lake). Also, a Gyarados was said to have lived there once, but it could never catch prey because it was so easy to see. But then it suddenly disappeared. No one knew where the Gyarados went, as there was no river in or out of the lake. That was what he had read in one of his many books about pokémon legends, at least. He really liked legends. But, at least, the city’s many pokémon legends attracted tourists, so many trainers came there, and many trainers need a Pokémon Center and a Pokémon market, so that was where Mark headed. As he obivously had no pokéballs, Charmander just walked beside him.
“Charmander, I’ve been thinking...”
“Yes?” Charmander replied.
“What were you doing out there? You can’t be a wild Charmander, then you would know where to go when it’s raining. Besides, there are no pokémon around our village.”
“A... a trainer used to own me,” Charmander said and hung his head.
“What? Did your trainer just leave you in the rain?”
“No, traded me,” said Charmander.
“For what?”
“Quilava,” said Charmander bitterly
“A Quilava? But – no one trades an evolved pokémon for an unevolved pokémon of its counterpart evolution chain. It’s like trading Mewtwo for Magikarp!”
“Oh yeah, so I'm weaker than Magikarp, am I?!” Charmander said offended.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that, I...”
“Then I guess you mean Quilava is invincible, do you?”
“I didn’t mean Quilava is stronger than Mewtwo either! It’s like... It’s like... trading Quilava for Charmander.”
“That's better!”
“Yes, but anyway, why did that Quilava trainer accept the trade?”
“Quilava was level fifteen. My trainer told the other trainer that I was also level fifteen.”
“Oh, and of course, Quilava evolves at level fourteen, but Charmander at level sixteen... what level are you really, anyway?”
“Five,” said Charmander lousily.
“Well, what did the other trainer do when they found out you were only level five?”
“Threw my pokéball away.”
“So you got out. But for what did you go to our village?”
“Looking for my old trainer, I guess.”
“But he betrayed you! He traded you and lied just to get a stronger Pokémon in exchange for you!”
“Yes, that has dawned onto me by now. I have no interest in finding him now.”
“Just forget about him... Oh, a house!”
There was a house ahead. A farm, that is. Inside a fence, there was a lot of pokémon like Tauros, Miltank and Mareep. But a large sign intrested Mark the most. It said "PONYTA AND RAPIDASH FOR SALE". Under it, it said "Bed and breakfast".
Just as he read the sign, a middle-aged woman came out of the house. “How much is a Rapidash?” Mark asked her.
“40000,” was her answer. The way her voice sounded told Mark that she wasn’t ready to lower the price.
“Oh, I only have 10000. Aren’t the Ponytas any cheaper?”
“They’re 20000,” the woman said in the same tone of voice.
“Can they battle?” Mark then asked.
“No, of course not!” the woman said. “They are trained not to attack anything but in self-defense, and then they are not supposed to use their fire powers. But of course they can burn people that touch them,” she added nastily when she saw Mark’s hand was getting close to one of the Ponytas. He quickly withdrew his hand.
“Can I buy a night here for me my Charmander?” Mark asked when he remembered that it was still a long way to Cleanwater city.
“Charmander, eh?” said the woman. “Well, if it burns the house down, you'll have to pay.”
Mark walked inside with her.
Version 2.0 (UMR - Ultra-Mega-Revised)
This was written the same day as the previous, believe it or not. The only difference is that I was a bit braver when editing it this time.
Chapter 1: How the adventure began
Mark was very interested in pokémon. He owned many shelves full of books on pokémon. And he was especially interested in legendary pokémon. However, he unfortunately happened to live in a tiny village in the northwest corner of Ouen that just had no pokémon near it. And of course some famous professor wouldn't come there to give out starter pokémon for kids. Mark's parents didn't want him to go alone to the next town with pokémon near it, and they had no interest in going with him. Mark simply thought he could never become a pokémon trainer.
Until that day, which just seemed to be a normal day in May.
Mark was outside with his friends when a thunderstorm started. They all hurried home because it started to rain heavily. But when Mark was about to reach the door to his house, he thought he saw a movement in the bushes along the road.
A pokémon? he thought. Can that be?
He rushed to the bushes and rattled the branches, but there was no sight of anything living other than the bush itself. Mark assumed he had been imagining it, and went inside.
After dinner, Mark sat down in the living room and looked out of the window at the weather. He suddenly remembered what he had thought to be a pokémon. Maybe it was a pokémon, after all. Looking better wouldn’t hurt.
The window was very wet, but through it, he saw the blurry image of the road. And there was indeed something moving out there. He rushed to the door and opened...
On the road was a real, living Charmander. Well, barely living. The flame at the tip of its tail wouldn’t last long in that weather. In fact, the flame was nearly extinguished. That was also the reason why it just fell unconscious. Mark did, of course, what anyone would do in that situation – picked up the poor pokémon and checked it out a bit. It was a male, and clearly young. The Charmander opened one eye with difficulty and caught Mark’s face, then fainted again. Mark hurried back inside and closed the door.
“Mom! Dad! I – I found a Charmander outside and it is dying!”
“Hahahahaha,”came his mother from upstairs. She obivously didn't believe him.
“No, really! Can you help me a bit!” Mark shouted angrily.
She came down the stairs, eyed the pokémon and stopped.
“Oh my god!” she said. “John, you have to see this! It's a Charmander!”
But his father was fast asleep, judging from the snores. Of course, he didn't really care and his mother didn't either. She hurried back upstairs, got a flame-proof garment from the kitchen and some extra pillows, and told Mark to place the Charmander on the pillows and put the tail on the garment so it wouldn't burn up the house. Then she advised him to put the pokémon near himself in his bed so it would get warm quicker. He did so, and fell asleep with his hand on the Charmander's body, in dreamy thoughts.
Maybe I can own it. Maybe it can be my pokémon, and I can become a pokémon trainer. Or, maybe a trainer lost it and I will get a lot of money for finding it...
He grinned and his thoughts changed into a dream.
Mark woke up the next morning and found his hand on the empty garment. The Charmander, however, was looking happily at his face, holding its tail carefully up.
“Charmander! You’re alive!”
“Mander,” said the Charmander and nodded.
Mark couldn't believe his luck.
That day, Mark checked out all the news and “lost pokémon” in the newspapers and on the internet, but no one had reported a lost Charmander. Meanwhile, Charmander seemed to be really thankful for being saved. Mark had been very good at Pokémonish at school, so he could usually understand Charmander pretty well. The basic thing he said was something around the lines of “Thanks for saving my life out there, I thought I’d never make it!”. Charmander was very nice as a friend, but as Mark now saw his chance to become a pokémon trainer, he couldn't stop thinking about that possibility. After a long debate with his parents, they finally allowed him to go on a journey and become a pokémon trainer.
And the next day, he started training pokémon. That means he started walking to the next city with a Pokémon Center, Cleanwater city. It was actually a pretty interesting city, according to some of the books on pokémon legends Mark had read. Near the city was a lake called the Lake of Purity. It contained 100% clean water, and the legend said it was because Suicune came every night and cleaned the lake by dipping its paw into it. Also, a Gyarados was said to have lived in the lake once, but it could never catch prey because it was so easy to see with the water that clear. But then it suddenly disappeared. No one knew where the Gyarados went, as there was no river in or out of the lake. But, at least, the city’s many pokémon legends attracted tourists, so many trainers came there, and many trainers need a Pokémon Center and a Pokémon market, so that was where Mark headed. And as he obivously had no pokéballs, Charmander just walked beside him for now.
“Charmander, I’ve been thinking...”
“Yes?” Charmander replied.
“What were you doing out there? You can’t be a wild Charmander, then you would know where to go when it’s raining. Besides, there are no pokémon around our village.”
“A... a trainer used to own me,” Charmander said and hung his head.
“What? Did your trainer just leave you there in the rain?”
“No, he traded me,” said Charmander.
“Traded you for what?”
“Quilava,” said Charmander bitterly.
“A Quilava? But people just don't do that! Why trade a pokémon for the evolved form of its counterpart? It's like trading a Milotic for a Magikarp!”
“Oh yeah, so I'm as weak as a Magikarp, am I?!” Charmander said offended.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that, I...”
“And surely Quilava easily matches a Milotic in strength...”
“I... oh, sorry, I didn't mean that you were weak...”
“That's better.”
“Yes, but anyway, why did that Quilava's trainer accept the trade?”
“That Quilava was level fifteen. My trainer told the other trainer that I was also level fifteen.”
“Oh, and of course, Quilava evolves at level fourteen, but Charmander at level sixteen... what level are you really, anyway?”
“Five,” said Charmander lousily.
“Well, what did the other trainer do when they found out you were only level five?”
“Threw my pokéball away and went after my old trainer.”
“So you got out, then. But for what did you go to our village?”
“Looking for my old trainer, I guess.”
“Why? Your old trainer just wanted power and lied just to get rid of you!”
“Yes, that has dawned onto me by now. I have no interest in finding him now. But I guess there's some loyalty naturally built into me...”
“Just forget about him... Oh, a house!”
There was a house ahead. A farm, that is. Inside a fence, there was a lot of pokémon like Tauros, Miltank and Mareep. But a large sign intrested Mark the most. It said "PONYTA AND RAPIDASH FOR SALE". Under it, it said "Bed and breakfast".
Just as he read the sign, a middle-aged woman came out of the house. “How much is a Rapidash?” Mark asked her.
“40000,” was her answer. The way her voice sounded told Mark that she wasn’t ready to lower the price.
“Oh, I only have 10000. Aren’t the Ponytas any cheaper?”
“They’re 20000,” the woman said in the same tone of voice.
“Can they battle?” Mark then asked.
“No, of course not!” the woman said. “They are trained not to attack anything but in self-defense, and then they are not supposed to use their fire powers. But of course they can burn people that touch them,” she added nastily when she saw Mark’s hand was getting close to one of the Ponytas. He quickly withdrew his hand.
“Can I buy a night here for me my Charmander?” Mark asked when he remembered that it was still a long way to Cleanwater city.
“Charmander, eh?” said the woman. “Well, if it burns the house down, you'll have to pay.”
Mark walked inside with her.
Version 3.0 (HMMRCIG - How Much More Revised Can It Get?)
The HMMRCIG was started after chapter 36 of the UMR. The motivation for doing it was a review from Obsidian Blade, where she, among other things, commented on how the first chapters were much worse than the later ones (not that I hadn't realized that already). That was also when I wrote the prologue, and, following it, this version of chapter one, with heavy edits, tweaks, backgrounds that never used to be there, and an earlier ending.
Chapter 1: The Pokémon on the Road
Exactly 999 years later, in the town of Sailance, North-West Ouen, there was a boy called Mark Greenlet.
He was eleven years old, thin, dark-haired, green-eyed, and went to the Public Sailance Primary School.
This fateful day, he walked to school as usual. He was quiet. He was always quiet these days. He had in fact been quiet since all his friends left on a Pokémon journey at the age of ten. Mark’s parents, however, were over-protective and were too afraid to send him on a dangerous Pokémon journey, especially since they would have to get him all the way to Green town, where Ash Ketchum annually gave out starter Pokémon for ten-year-olds. North-West Ouen had no Pokémon. The people who lived there were all lawyers or other rich people who wanted a life in peace without Pokémon and little kids asking them for a Pokémon battle all day.
Most parents were kind enough to go to Green town and let their kids get a Pokémon, but not Mark’s. They were hoping he would become a stock investor, a programmer or in the worst case a professional artist, as he happened to draw very well. Not some stupid Pokémon training kid.
While he pondered about this, he had automatically walked into the big gray school building and into the boring, even grayer corridor. His first lesson on Thursdays was Battling Strategies, a branch of Pokémonology. He sighed as he sat down in front of the classroom. What a waste of time for somebody like him who was never going to get to train Pokémon anyway. Besides, whether it was because of his rather negative opinion on the classes or because he would rather spend them drawing on the back of his school papers, he was lousy at Pokémonology. For tests, he always desperately sank himself into the textbook and learned the bits of the text he found interesting, and got really low on the test because they always asked about the most boring and uninteresting things. This just made him despise Pokémonology even more.
He preferred Pokémon Communication classes by far – ‘Pokémonish’, as they were usually referred to. He was much better at languages than learning things by heart, besides finding Pokémon language very interesting. Those few interesting things in Pokémonology usually had something to do with this remarkable language of syllables, bodily expressions and voice tones anyway.
One of the very best things in Pokémonish, also, was that a few times, live Pokémon were brought to classes and the kids got one Pokémon each to stage a normal casual chat with. At the end of the class, the Pokémon each gave the teacher a report on how well the students handled the conversation. Mark always got top grades for that. He remembered the test last year where he discussed Pokémon rights with a Vulpix. He smiled at the thought. They had ended up talking for an hour before Mr. Flintlake, his teacher, politely commented on how he would really like to get that lunch break he was supposed to have. He had been forced to recall the Vulpix into its Pokéball in order to get Mark to leave the classroom. Since then, Mark had been daydreaming about one day sneaking out to Green town on his own account and getting a Vulpix for a starter Pokémon.
But the class he probably enjoyed the most was Art. His Pokémon pictures received really positive criticism by Miss Taintor, who was a professional Pokémon artist after all. She knew what she was doing when she gave feedback. She was always honest and wasn’t afraid of telling somebody that their pictures sucked for their age. She hadn’t told Mark that since third grade, as he had spent all the summer after that practicing because of how uncomfortable he felt when he was criticized harshly. When she saw his art from the summer in fourth grade, she had said “Very big improvement, young man – if there were only more students with determination like you.” He remembered it so well – being congratulated by a harsh critic felt a lot better than the compliments from his parents and relatives who always pretended that everything he did was the greatest thing since sliced bread. After that, he had believed in constructive criticism.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the bell ringing – the class was starting. He hated that sound. It hurt his ears and was far louder than it had to be. A simple digital watch could beep loudly enough to be heard clearly all around a classroom – why did they need such an ear-splitting noise? It wasn’t like there was any more talking on the corridors than inside the classrooms.
At least, he heavily stood up, groaned, and got in line. Mrs. Grodski, who taught Pokémonology, was a very grumpy old lady who spoke through her overly large nose and had developed a strong hatred for Mark for a reason he had never understood.
“Good morning, class,” she said as everybody had taken their places standing behind their chairs.
“Good morning, Mrs. Grodski,” the class mumbled, apart from Mark, who said his usual “Good morning, Mrs. Grumpy.” He knew it was safe; it drowned completely in the rest of the class’s murmurs.
“Today,” Mrs. Grodski announced, “we will be studying up on recoil attacks. Turn to page forty-two, please.”
Mark sighed and opened his book as Mrs. Grodski watched him carefully, but as soon as she began reading aloud from the textbook, he silently took out his heavy, gray binder and started to draw a Lugia on the back of an English assignment. It was his favorite Pokémon; he drew it all the time. Articuno, his other favorite, was a bit trickier to draw, but that didn’t make him like it any less. He loved Legendary Pokémon. In fact, he was utterly obsessed with them. He had been fascinated by those ultimate beings of the world since he was little.
“And just what do you think you’re doing, Mr. Greenlet?” Mrs. Grodski’s voice snapped. He looked slowly up from his Lugia. She was standing over his desk with an expression exactly like an evil dictator. Mark had a hard time hiding his laughter behind an innocent expression.
“I believe I’m drawing, Mrs. Grodski, unless I’m very much mistaken,” he said politely. There were some snickers from behind.
“Quiet!” the teacher screeched. “And stop smudging your papers in my class!”
Mark grimaced at her as she returned to her desk, and made the textbook stand open, shielding the binder and making him look like he was actually reading.
Finally, the day was over. Mark went to play soccer with the fifth graders as usual. But he wasn’t concentrating. He knew that this bit of fun wouldn’t last for long. It was May, and the starter Pokémon giveaway at Green town would be soon. Then they would probably all go and get a Pokémon, but what then? Would he go and play with the fourth graders, two years younger than him, for the remainder of the year and until next May? He doubted the fourth graders would even want to hang out with somebody two years older than them, anyway. He could blend in pretty much with the kids from fifth grade; he was short enough for them to be able to imagine he was just a tall ten-year-old, but the difference couldn’t be much bigger.
He ended up leaving the game and going home to sulk.
But when he passed the bushes opposite his house, he heard something.
He jumped. A branch moved and a twig cracked. Mark’s heart beat faster.
Very slowly and carefully, he stepped up to the bush and pulled the branches apart. To his great disappointment, there was nothing there. Such a shame, he had been hoping he had found the first Pokémon of North-West Ouen… maybe a Vulpix. He grinned at the thought, but then shook his head.
“Come on,” he said to himself, “stop dreaming…”
He ran across the street into his house. It was starting to rain.
After a very normal, quiet dinner with his parents while watching Bravo Trainer Time, a popular TV show from Hoenn, he sat down in the sofa in the living room, which was positioned under the window that faced out into the street, and stared outside through the blurry, wet glass.
He stopped dead.
There was definitely a movement out there. Something… reddish?
He leapt to the front door, into his boots and pulled the door open. On the middle of the road, there was a Pokémon.
A real, living Charmander.
It was unconscious, and the flame on the tip of its tail had almost gone out. There was just a small, bright glow left.
At first, Mark just stood there like a cow, but then he was knocked to his senses by the sound of a car. He ran out into the road, picked up the orange lizard and hurried inside with it, already soaked wet by the rain.
Mark slammed the door shut and started fanning the tail flame stupidly with his hand in order to revive it, with little success.
“Mom! I – I found a Charmander on the road!”
“Really?” sounded his mother’s voice absent-mindedly from upstairs. “Very nice, but why don’t you just play in your room, dear?”
“Parents,” Mark hissed. Then he yelled: “Aren’t you listening? I FOUND A FREAKING CHARMANDER!”
He heard his mother sigh and stand up before coming down the stairs with red eyes and a cup of coffee in her hands.
Crash! She dropped the cup to the floor and it shattered to a thousand pieces.
“Wha - what is that thing?” she then squeaked.
“It’s a Charmander!” Mark snapped. “A Pokémon! And it’s dying!”
“Oh my God!” she uttered out. “John!”
“Not now,” Mark’s father mumbled from upstairs, sounding half-asleep. She dug her fingers into her blond mess off a hair. “Oh, what can we do? What can we do?”
Mark started waving his hand again. Slowly as the tail tip dried, the flame was restored. Mark breathed in relief.
“Is… is it okay?” his mother asked carefully.
“Yeah,” Mark said and smiled. “But I think it needs rest. Er… I guess you should go and get some old cloth so I can put it in my bed.”
His mother went back upstairs and got some old clothes Mark didn’t fit into anymore. He took them and placed them in the corner of his bed and laid the Charmander gently on top of them. The tail flame burned peacefully. Mark wondered who originally had the idea of making clothes flame-proof, but what mattered was, of course, that the Fire Pokémon wouldn’t burn up the house this way.
He picked up the book about the Johto Legendary Pokémon on his desk and started to read, keeping an eye on the lizard. He was starting to calm down and think reasonably. Of course, this Charmander wasn’t wild. It obviously was trained. Charmander were very rare Pokémon from Kanto, how would one suddenly be in North-West Ouen? Its trainer was probably looking for it. Maybe he’d get a reward for finding it?
Mark grinned, looking forward to next morning.
Version 3.1 (YAR - Yet Another Revision)
The YAR is a revision made after chapter five of the HMMRCIG. Rather minor in most aspects.
Chapter 1: The Pokémon on the Road
Exactly 999 years later, in the town of Sailance, North-West Ouen, there was a boy called Mark Greenlet.
He was eleven years old, thin, green-eyed, had short, messy black hair and went to the Public Sailance Primary School.
This fateful day, he walked to school as usual. He was quiet. He was always quiet those days. He had in fact been quiet since all his friends left on a Pokémon journey at the age of ten. Mark’s parents, however, were over-protective and were too afraid to send him on a dangerous Pokémon journey. Especially since if that were to happen, they would have to get him all the way to Green town, where Ash Ketchum annually gave out starter Pokémon for ten-year-olds. North-West Ouen had no Pokémon; the people who lived there were all lawyers or other rich people who wanted a life in peace without Pokémon and little kids asking them for a battle all day.
Most parents in Sailance, of course, were kind enough to go to Green town and let their kids get a Pokémon, but not Mark’s. They were hoping he would become a stock investor, a programmer or in the worst case a professional artist, as he happened to draw very well. Not some stupid Pokémon training kid. Neither of them had been trainers when they were young; that was perhaps the reason why they never properly understood the concept.
He automatically walked into the school building. He hated it, especially the prison-like outwards appearance and that dull, lifeless, rock-gray color of it. Mark loved living things; he had since he was little, and consequently hated cold rock. The corridor with the classrooms was even duller, even grayer and even more lifeless, which only added to the depressing feeling of the whole building. To top it all, all the students were snappy and irritated because they wanted to train Pokémon whether they were hindered by their age or their parents, and the teachers were all snappy and irritated too, simply because of how depressing the whole environment was.
Mark’s first lesson on Thursdays was Battling Strategies, a branch of Pokémonology. He sighed as he sat down in front of the classroom. What a waste of time for somebody like him who was never going to get to train Pokémon anyway. Besides, whether it was because of his rather negative opinion on the classes or because he would rather spend them drawing on the back of his school papers, he was completely lousy at Pokémonology. For tests, he always desperately sank himself into the textbook and sure enough, he managed to learn the bits of the text he found interesting. The problem was that they always asked about the most boring and uninteresting things, such as the level at which one Pokémon approximately evolved into another. This just made him despise Pokémonology even more.
He preferred Pokémon Communication classes by far – ‘Pokémonish’, as they were usually referred to in everyday speech. He was much better at languages than learning things by heart, besides finding Pokémon language very interesting in general. Those few interesting things in Pokémonology that had sunk in over the years usually had something to do with this remarkable language of syllables, bodily expressions and voice tones anyway.
One of the very best things in Pokémonish, also, was that a few times such as in exams, live Pokémon were brought to classes and the kids got one Pokémon each to stage a normal casual chat with. At the end of the class, the Pokémon each gave the teacher a report on how well the students handled the conversation. Mark always got top grades for that, and was rather proud of that since most of the students couldn’t talk nearly as naturally to Pokémon as he could. He remembered the test last year where he had discussed Pokémon rights with a Vulpix. He smiled at the thought. They had ended up talking excitedly for an hour before Mr. Flintlake, his teacher, politely commented on how he would really like to get that lunch break he was supposed to have. Even then, he had been forced to recall the Vulpix into its Pokéball in order to get Mark to leave the classroom. Since then, Mark had been daydreaming about one day sneaking out to Green town on his own account and getting a Vulpix for a starter Pokémon; it was now his very favorite basic unevolved Pokémon.
But the class he probably enjoyed the most was Art. His Pokémon pictures received really positive criticism by Miss Taintor, who was a professional Pokémon artist after all. She knew what she was doing when she gave feedback; she was always honest and wasn’t afraid of telling somebody basically that their pictures sucked, although she never sounded downright mean since she always pointed out the good aspects too. Mark was an odd person when it came to criticism; he subconsciously hated being criticized at all by other people, even if he completely agreed. That wasn’t too bad, though; it had caused him to suddenly decide to practice drawing all day during the summer when he turned nine. When Miss Taintor saw his art in fourth grade, she had said, as he still remembered word for word, “Very big improvement, young man – if there were only more students with determination like you in this stupid school.” He remembered it so well – being congratulated by a harsh critic felt a lot better than the constant compliments from his parents and relatives who always pretended that everything he did was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and hearing a teacher call the school stupid just made him feel all nice. After that incident, he had believed in constructive criticism, and despite not technically liking it, he wanted it.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the bell ringing – the class was starting. He hated that sound. It hurt his ears and was far louder than it had to be. A simple digital watch could beep loudly enough to be heard clearly all around a classroom – why did they need such an ear-splitting noise? It wasn’t like there was any more talking on the corridors than inside the classrooms or anything.
At least, he heavily stood up, groaned, and got in line. Mrs. Grodski, who taught Pokémonology, was a very grumpy old lady who wore the biggest glasses Mark had ever seen, spoke through her overly large nose and had developed a strong hatred for Mark for some reason he had never understood.
“Good morning, class,” she said sternly as everybody had taken their places standing behind their chairs.
“Good morning, Mrs. Grodski,” the class mumbled, apart from Mark, who said his usual “Good morning, Mrs. Grumpy.” He knew it was safe; it drowned completely in the rest of the class’s murmurs.
“Today,” Mrs. Grodski announced with a frown at how tired all the kids sounded, “we will be studying up on recoil attacks. Turn to page forty-two, please.”
Mark sighed and opened his book as Mrs. Grodski watched him carefully, but as soon as she began reading aloud from the textbook, he silently took out his binder and started to draw a Lugia on the back of an English assignment. It was his favorite Pokémon; he drew it all the time. Articuno, his other favorite, was a bit trickier to draw as he saw it, but that didn’t make him like it any less. He loved all Legendary Pokémon. In fact, he was utterly obsessed with them. He had been fascinated by those ultimate beings of the world since he was little.
“And just what do you think you’re doing, Mr. Greenlet?” Mrs. Grodski’s voice snapped. He looked slowly up from his Lugia, partially covering it with his hand. She was standing over his desk with an expression that strongly reminded Mark of that evil mustached animal world-dictator he had heard about sometime in History. Mark had a hard time hiding his laughter behind an innocent expression.
“I believe I’m drawing, Mrs. Grodski, unless I’m very much mistaken,” he said politely. There were some snickers from behind.
“Quiet!” the teacher screeched. “And stop smudging the back of your papers, least of all in my class!”
Mark grimaced at her as she returned to her desk, and made the textbook stand open on the table, shielding the binder and making him look like he was actually reading.
***
Finally, the day was over. Mark went to play soccer with the fifth graders as usual. But he wasn’t concentrating. He knew that this bit of fun wouldn’t last for long. It was May already, and the starter Pokémon giveaway at Green town would be soon. Then these kids would probably all go and get a Pokémon, as they kept talking excitedly about these days, but what then? Would he go and play with the fourth graders, two years younger than him, for the remainder of the year and until next May? He doubted the fourth graders would even want to hang out with somebody two years older than them, anyway. He could blend in pretty much with the kids from fifth grade; he was short enough for them to be able to imagine he was just a tall ten-year-old, but the difference couldn’t be much bigger. The few people other than him in sixth grade who hadn’t gone on a Pokémon journey never wanted to be with him; he didn’t really “fit in” and wasn’t much for talking, which was all most of them liked to do.
He ended up leaving the game and going home to sulk.
But when he passed the bushes opposite his house, he heard something.
He jumped. A branch moved and a twig cracked. Mark’s heart beat faster.
Very slowly and carefully, he stepped up to the bush and pulled the branches apart. To his great disappointment, there was nothing there. Such a shame, he had been hoping he had found the first Pokémon of North-West Ouen… maybe a Vulpix. He grinned at the thought, but then shook his head.
“Come on,” he said to himself, “stop dreaming…”
He ran across the street into his house. It was starting to rain.
After a very normal, quiet dinner with his parents while watching Bravo Trainer, a popular TV show from Hoenn, he sat down in the sofa in the living room, which was positioned under the window that faced out into the street, and stared outside through the blurry, wet glass.
He stopped dead.
There was definitely something moving out there. Something… reddish?
The word “Vulpix” instantly crossed his mind, although he knew it was ridiculous to assume that the Pokémon of his dreams had suddenly appeared in front of his house. Mark leapt to the front door, into his boots and pulled the door open. On the middle of the road, there was indeed a Pokémon.
It was an orange fire-breathing bipedal lizard; one of those he had used to point at in picture books when he was little, announcing that it was a Fire-type in order to make his parents nod appreciatively and tell him he was so smart remembering it all.
But this was a real, living Charmander, not a picture in a book. It was lying limply on the middle of the road, and the flame that was supposed to be on the tip of its tail was merely a small, bright glow.
At first, Mark just stood there like a cow, staring, but then he was knocked to his senses by the sound of a car. He ran out onto the road, picked up the Pokémon and hurried inside with it, already soaked wet by the downpour.
Mark slammed the door shut and started fanning the Charmander’s tail flame stupidly with his hand in order to revive it, with little success.
“Mom! I – I found a Charmander on the road!”
“Really?” sounded his mother’s voice absent-mindedly from upstairs. “Very nice, but why don’t you just go into your room, dear?”
“Parents,” Mark hissed at nobody but himself and the unconscious Pokémon in his arms. Then he yelled: “Aren’t you listening? I FOUND A FREAKING CHARMANDER!”
He heard his mother, clearly thinking this was some kind of a game, sigh and stand up before coming down the stairs with red, tired eyes, messy hair and a cup of coffee in her hands.
Crash! She dropped the cup and it fell to the floor, shattering to a thousand pieces and spilling coffee all over.
“Wha - what is that thing?” she then squeaked, sounding like this was the first time she saw a Pokémon in real life.
“It’s a Charmander!” Mark snapped. “A Pokémon! And it’s dying!”
“Oh God!” she uttered out, speechless. “John!”
“Not now,” Mark’s father mumbled from upstairs, sounding half-asleep. She dug her fingers deep into her mess of blond hair, repeating “Oh, what can we do? What can we do?” in a panicky voice.
Mark started waving his hand again in attempts to get the Charmander’s tail flame burning properly again, saving the Pokémon’s life.
Slowly as the tail tip dried, the flame was restored. Mark breathed in relief; half because the Charmander was saved, half because his hand was getting stiff from all the fanning.
“Is… is it okay?” his mother asked carefully as Mark shook his entire arm to loosen the hand muscles.
“Yeah,” he said and smiled. “But I think it needs rest. Er… I guess you should go and get some old cloth so I can put it in my bed.”
His mother went back upstairs and got some old clothes of Mark he didn’t fit into anymore. He took them to his bedroom and placed them in the corner of his bed, laying the Charmander gently on top of them. The tail flame burned peacefully. Mark wondered who originally had the idea of making clothes flame-proof; it had always seemed very pointless to him, but what mattered was, of course, that the Fire Pokémon wouldn’t burn up the house this way.
He picked up the book about the Johto Legendary Pokémon on his desk and started to read, keeping an eye on the lizard. He was starting to calm down and think reasonably. Of course, this Charmander wasn’t wild. It obviously was trained. Charmander were very rare Pokémon from Kanto, how would one suddenly be in Ouen, let alone the North-West part? Its trainer was probably looking for it. Maybe he’d get a reward for finding it?
Mark grinned, looking forward to next morning.
Version 3.2 (ILCOEth revision - I've Lost Count Of 'Em-th)
The Ilcoeth revision was started after chapter six of the YAR, meaning that I wrote only one chapter after the YAR before I decided to start revising it again. Yes, I know. I'm strange.
Chapter 1: The Pokémon on the Road
Exactly 999 years later, it was a beautiful morning in the town of Sailance, North-West Ouen.
The trees’ branches swayed gently in the soft breeze, providing a constant, quiet rustle. The sun was rising, coloring the sky in a glorious, vibrant red. The air was comfortably warm and fresh. The only thing the scenery lacked was birdsong. That was also the only part of it that Mark Greenlet even remotely cared about.
He was short, thin, dark-haired, and currently on the way to school. A year ago, he would’ve been with his best friend Alex, chatting and feeling good. Now, Alex was probably somewhere with his Totodile having fun, while Mark was home in Sailance, walking alone, quiet and feeling miserable.
Mark’s parents were over-protective. There was no question about that. Almost all the other kids had been taken to Green town last year to receive a Pokémon from Ash Ketchum. Out of the ones left, Mark was the only one who had been looking forward to it for his whole life, only to have his parents tell him that it was too dangerous. What did they know, anyway – they had never been trainers and had lived in North-West Ouen for their whole lives.
The problem was that North-West Ouen had no Pokémon in it, for some reason that Pokémon experts had always debated about. The people who lived there were all lawyers or other rich people who wanted a life in peace without Pokémon and little kids asking them for a battle all day. And if there was anything that people who had lived there for more than thirty years did not understand, it was the concept of Pokémon training. Mark’s parents kept pointing out to him the possibility of getting a ‘real’ job. A programmer? How about a professional artist, since you draw so well? They would ask questions like that every time he mentioned that he wanted a Pokémon of his own, and were absolutely incapable of understanding how he felt when all his classmates and friends left.
Mark walked into the school building. He hated it, especially the prison-like outwards appearance and that dull, lifeless, rock-gray color of it. Mark loved living things; he had since he was little, and likewise hated cold rock because it was so lifeless. The corridors were even duller, even grayer and even more lifeless, which only added to the depressing feeling of the whole building. To top it all, all the students were snappy and irritated, usually because they wanted to train Pokémon, and the teachers were all snappy and irritated too, simply because of what the whole environment was like.
Mark’s first lesson on Thursdays was Battling Strategies, a branch of Pokémonology. He sighed as he sat down in front of the classroom. What a waste of time for somebody like him who was never going to get to train Pokémon anyway. Besides, whether it was because of his rather negative opinion on the classes or because he would rather spend them drawing on the back of his school papers, he was completely lousy at Pokémonology. For tests, he desperately sank himself into the textbook and sure enough, he managed to learn the bits of the text he found the most interesting pretty well. The problem was that they always asked about the most boring and uninteresting things, such as the level at which one Pokémon approximately evolved into another. This just made him despise Pokémonology even more.
He preferred Pokémon Communication classes by far – ‘Pokémonish’, as they were usually referred to in everyday speech. He was much better at languages than learning things by heart, besides finding Pokémon’s language very interesting in general. Those few things in Pokémonology that had sunk in over the years mostly had something to do with this remarkable language of syllables, bodily expressions and voice tones anyway.
One of the very best things in Pokémonish, also, was that in exams, live Pokémon were brought to classes and the kids got one Pokémon each to stage a normal casual chat with. At the end of the class, the Pokémon each gave the teacher a report on how well the students handled the conversation. Mark always got top grades for that; most of the students couldn’t talk nearly as well to Pokémon as he could, and he was rather proud of that. He remembered the test last year where he had discussed Pokémon rights with a Vulpix. He smiled faintly at the thought; it was probably one of the best memories of his life. The two of them had had so much in common, and they had ended up in an exciting discussion about Pokémon rights that went way past the time the exam was supposed to take. The teacher had been forced to recall the Vulpix into his Pokéball in order to get Mark to leave the classroom. Since then, Mark had been daydreaming about one day sneaking out to Green town on his own account and getting a Vulpix for a starter Pokémon; it was now his very favorite basic unevolved Pokémon.
But the class he probably enjoyed the most was Art. His Pokémon pictures received really positive comments by Miss Taintor, who was a professional Pokémon artist after all. She was the type of person that was always honest and all but afraid of telling somebody basically that their pictures sucked, but she mysteriously managed not to sound mean, however bad she thought the picture was. Mark was weird when it came to criticism; he subconsciously hated being criticized at all by other people, even if he completely agreed. That wasn’t too bad, though; it had caused him to suddenly decide to draw all day during the summer when he turned nine. When Miss Taintor saw his art in fourth grade, she had said, as he still remembered word for word: “Very big improvement, young man – if there were more students with determination like you in this stupid school, I’d be out of a job.” Probably another one of his very best memories – being congratulated by a harsh critic felt a lot better than the constant compliments from his parents and relatives who always pretended that everything he did was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and hearing a teacher call the school stupid just made him feel all nice. After that incident, he had started to appreciate constructive criticism – he still didn’t technically like it, but it definitely helped.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the bell ringing – the class was starting. Mark hated that sound; it hurt his ears. To his opinion, it should just be about as loud as the beep of his digital watch – at least everybody in the classroom heard quite clearly when it rang, and not even his own ears considered the noise too loud.
At least, he heavily stood up, groaned, and got in line with the only kids in sixth grade who weren’t out training Pokémon. Mrs. Grodski, who taught Pokémonology, was a very grumpy old lady who wore the biggest glasses Mark had ever seen, spoke through her overly large nose and had developed a strong hatred for Mark for some reason he had never understood.
“Good morning, class,” she said sternly as everybody had taken their places standing behind their chairs.
“Good morning, Mrs. Grodski,” the class mumbled, apart from Mark, who said his usual “Good morning, Mrs. Grumpy.” He knew it was safe; it drowned completely in the rest of the class’s murmurs.
“Today,” Mrs. Grodski announced with a frown at how tired all the kids sounded, “we will be studying up on recoil attacks. Sit down and turn to page forty-two, please.”
Mark sighed and opened his book as Mrs. Grodski watched him carefully, but as soon as she began reading aloud from the textbook, he silently took out his binder and started to draw a Lugia on the back of an English assignment. It was his favorite Pokémon; he drew it all the time. Articuno, his other favorite, was a bit trickier for him to draw, but that didn’t make him like it any less. He loved all Legendary Pokémon. In fact, he was utterly obsessed with them. He had been fascinated by those ultimate beings of the world since he was little.
“And just what do you think you’re doing, Mr. Greenlet?” Mrs. Grodski’s voice snapped. He looked slowly up from his Lugia, partially covering it with his hand. Mark had a hard time hiding his laughter behind an innocent expression.
“I believe I’m drawing, Mrs. Grodski, unless I’m very much mistaken,” he said in a sarcastically polite voice. There were some snickers from behind.
“Quiet!” the teacher screeched. “And stop scribbling on your papers, least of all in my class!”
Mark grimaced at her as she returned to her desk, and made the textbook stand open on the table, shielding the binder and making him look like he was actually reading.
-------
Finally, the day was over. The sky was now slowly getting covered with depressing clouds. Mark went to play soccer with the fifth graders as usual, not really concentrating.
It was early May. May was something that Mark subconsciously connected to the bad knot in his stomach that formed every year as he watched all the lucky ten-year-olds drive away for Green town at the end of the month to get a Pokémon. The kids he was with now would probably all leave on an adventurous Pokémon journey soon while he would be left at home, standing at some street corner and drawing the city with imaginary Rattata poking out of the dustbins, Taillow singing in the trees and maybe a lone Meowth staring hungrily at them from below.
The ball came flying towards him and he kicked it away very hard, not bothering to aim anywhere. Stupid Pokémon! Why couldn’t they just get their butts over to North-West Ouen!
Mark felt all the unfairness of the situation turn to liquid form behind his eyes.
Oh, no, you don’t, you’re staying in there, he ordered, screwing his eyes shut for a second and opening them again. He felt a strong urge to be alone.
He ended up leaving the game and going home to sulk.
It was now gray and gloomy, fitting Mark’s mood perfectly; the clouds were thickening up and it would likely start raining soon. He quickened his pace as he turned down his home street. When he was just about to cross it, he heard something. Something that came from the bushes his back was currently turned to.
He jumped, twisting around immediately. Dead quiet, he waited for a few seconds. Then it happened again – a branch moved and a twig cracked.
Very slowly and carefully, his heart beating like a drum in his chest, he stepped up to the bush and pulled the branches apart. To his great disappointment, there was nothing there at all. Such a shame, he had been hoping he had found the first Pokémon of North-West Ouen… maybe a Vulpix. He grinned at the thought, but then shook his head.
“Come on,” he said to himself, “stop dreaming…”
He ran across the street. It was starting to rain.
-------
After a very normal, quiet dinner with his parents while watching Bravo Trainer, he sat down in the sofa in the living room, and stared outside through the blurry, wet glass in the window facing the street.
He stopped dead.
There was definitely something moving out there. Something… reddish?
The word “Vulpix” instantly crossed his mind, although he knew it was ridiculous to assume that the Pokémon of his dreams had suddenly appeared in front of his house. Mark leapt to the front door, into his boots and pulled the door open. There was indeed a Pokémon there, but it wasn’t a Vulpix.
It was an orange, cute-looking bipedal lizard; one of those he had used to point at in picture books when he was little, announcing that it was a Fire-type in order to make his parents nod appreciatively and tell him he was really smart remembering it all.
But this was a real, living Charmander, not a picture in a book, and this fact made the Pokémon seem scary and foreign. It was lying limply on the middle of the road, and the flame that was supposed to be on the tip of its tail was merely a small, bright glow. That was still enough to indicate that it was still alive.
At first, Mark just stood there like a cow, staring, but then he was knocked to his senses by the sound of a car. He ran out onto the road, picked up the Pokémon and hurried inside with it, already soaked wet by the downpour.
Mark slammed the door shut and started fanning the Charmander’s tail flame stupidly with his hand in order to revive it, with little success.
“Mom! I – I found a Charmander on the road!” he panted.
“Really?” sounded his mother’s voice absent-mindedly from upstairs. “Very nice, but why don’t you just go into your room, dear?”
“Parents,” Mark hissed at nobody but himself and the unconscious Pokémon in his arms. Then he yelled: “Aren’t you listening? I FOUND A FREAKING CHARMANDER!”
He heard his mother, clearly thinking this was some kind of a game, sigh and stand up before coming down the stairs with red, tired eyes and a cup of coffee in her hands.
Crash! She dropped the cup and it fell to the floor, shattering to a thousand pieces and spilling coffee all over.
“Wha - what is that thing?” she then squeaked, sounding like this was the first time she saw a Pokémon close-up, which is probably was.
“It’s a Charmander!” Mark snapped. “A Pokémon! And it’s dying!”
“Oh God!” she uttered out, speechless. “John!”
“Not now,” Mark’s father mumbled from upstairs, sounding half-asleep. She dug her fingers deep into her curly mess of blond hair, repeating “Oh, what can we do? What can we do?” in a panicky voice.
Mark rolled his eyes, sighed and started waving his hand again in attempts to get the Charmander’s flame burning properly again. Slowly as the tail tip dried, the flame was restored. Mark breathed in relief; half because the Charmander was saved, half because his hand was getting stiff from all the fanning.
“Is… is it okay?” his mother asked carefully as Mark shook his entire arm to loosen the hand muscles.
“Yeah,” he said and smiled. “But I think it needs rest. Er… I guess you should go and get some old cloth so I can put it in my bed, otherwise it’ll burn the house down.”
His mother went back upstairs and got some old clothes of Mark he didn’t fit into anymore. He took them to his bedroom and placed them in the corner of his bed, laying the Charmander gently on top of them. The tail flame burned peacefully. Mark wondered who originally had the idea of making clothes flame-proof; it had always seemed very pointless to him, but now it sure came in handy.
He picked up the book about the Johto Legendary Pokémon on his desk and started to read, keeping an eye on the lizard. He was starting to calm down and think reasonably. Of course, this Charmander wasn’t wild. It obviously was trained. Charmander were very rare Pokémon from Kanto, how would one suddenly be in Ouen, let alone the North-West part? Its trainer was probably looking for it. Maybe he’d get a reward for finding it? Or maybe, just maybe… it had been released on purpose?
Mark grinned, looking forward to next morning.