Chapter 1: Friendly Meeting, Friendly Parting
icomeanon6
That's "I come anon 6"
- Location
- northern Virginia
- Pronouns
- masculine
Author's Notes:
Disclaimer on Content Warnings: I am not well-versed in mental health issues. I have made a good-faith effort to highlight objectionable or potentially disturbing material below, but I wouldn't bet money on my judgment. If you read this and think there should be an addition to these warnings, please message me. If you have questions about the content before reading, whether on your own behalf or on another's behalf, please message me.
Content Warnings (General): Swearing. Violence. Blood. Sensuality. Not recommended for readers below the age of 14.
Content Warnings (Specific, or possible spoilers): Please open this spoiler tag if you require advance notice of certain topics.
Table of Contents:
The arrival of the full-fledged “PC” network to Pokémon Centers in 1995 is chiefly celebrated for the public release of the Pokémon Storage System, which afforded unprecedented latitude to roster experimentation. Perhaps underrated in importance, however, is that a PC account came with an inbox.
For the vast majority of trainers, this amounted to their first experience with any kind of electronic messaging. While e-mail and online bulletin boards were not new technologies in 1995, among adolescents they were still limited to the tech-savviest those whose parents could afford a home computer. Now, with the PC network, any journeying trainer could send a message to any other with reasonable hope that it would be noticed in a matter of days, even if the other trainer were clear on the opposite side of the map.
For better or worse, this story stops before the end of 1993.
September 4th, 1988
Luke Andersen had just passed a significant milestone: He no longer knew off the top of his head how many weeks it had been since he began his journey. He retraced his path on the map to get an idea. Mahogany to Ecruteak, then to Violet for the “easy” Gym, then to the Ruins of Alph yesterday… about three weeks, he was pretty sure. Hard to believe. He stretched his bare toes, let out a deep breath, and debated whether it was time to change the bandages on his feet. He was getting used to everything about hiking except the blisters.
Zoe, presently out of her Poké Ball, sniffed the air and rose from the base of the tree she’d been lounging against. Her wrinkled trunk led her headlong, which Luke watched with some interest. Although Luke’s Drowzee and only Pokémon was by now perfectly comfortable around him, he couldn’t pretend to know much about what made her tick yet. Before she could get too far away, he pulled his socks and shoes back on to follow. He also took up his camera bag in an automatic motion. His sleeping bag, food, water, etc. occasionally escaped his attention, but it would take a conscious effort to get more than ten feet away from his Camdak SLR-81m.
Luke soon marked the target of Zoe’s purposeful meandering: a heavily laden Berry tree. He wondered how far he could trust her not to give herself a bellyache if he let her pick at her leisure. He also wondered how long it would be until he came across a training question he already knew the answer to. As Zoe inspected the lower branches with a discerning air, however, he suddenly heard a clicking noise from somewhere above.
It was certainly a bug noise, but not one Luke recognized. Knowing without thinking that the window of opportunity may be narrow, he took out his camera even as he scanned the treetops for any unfamiliar sight. He had the strap around his neck and the lens cap removed when he spotted it: a Heracross. He’d never seen one in person, but there was no mistaking Johto’s most famous Bug-type. It clung upside down to the trunk of a tall and spare pine tree, apparently sucking sap. Interesting pose, clear line of sight. Perfect.
Luke put his right eye to the viewfinder and got the Pokémon in focus. The light meter indicated underexposure, which was unsurprising, as his last picture had been taken in direct sunlight. Lowering the shutter speed seemed the correct choice (rather than widening the aperture) since the subject was motionless for now.
He pressed the shutter release. The viewfinder’s image jumped to black and back with a click as the internal mirror lifted to expose the film. Got one.
He flipped the film-advance lever and reconsidered the shutter-speed/aperture tradeoff. Would a narrower depth of field make for a more subject-focused composition? He scolded himself for not knowing the answer instinctively and corrected the settings for the second take. Another click. Got two.
Suddenly, it occurred to him what would be an even better shot. If he could get to the base of the tree without startling the Heracross from its dinner, he might get it looking straight down at the camera. That would really be something. He crept closer, and the subject stayed where it was. He was almost there when a stick snapped underfoot. The Heracross jumped from its spot and labored away through the air with its just-functional-enough wings, as if it had been waiting for an obvious mistake to punish. Luke sighed.
“Aaaaand, there it goes,” came a boy’s voice from behind.
Luke turned in surprise to see three trainers standing uphill: two girls and a boy. The boy clicked his tongue and shook his head, to which the girl in the center laughed. “Oh, relax. It woulda run away if you tried to catch it, too.” Then she waved to Luke. “Hey! Are you a Pokémon photographer?”
“Uh…” Luke struggled with the unexpected question. Did she jump to that conclusion just from his having a camera? Sure, he could use a darkroom, but he barely knew what he was doing when it came to shot-composition, and he couldn’t even keep the properties of different focal lengths straight. Also, a Pokémon photographer? How could anyone commit to that level of specialization at age ten? Maybe she was kidding. By this point in Luke’s deliberation, she had already jogged down to talk to him, so he went with an answer that felt mostly correct.
“…I’d like to be. Someday.”
The girl’s friends followed behind her, the boy in front at a leisurely pace, and the other girl at a halting one. The boy examined Zoe, now shuffling back to Luke’s vicinity, and whistled, impressed. “Wow, never seen a Drowzee before. Is he your starter?”
“She’s a she,” said Luke, “and yeah, starter.” Zoe, never shy, eyed the strangers with interest in turn. “We just started out a few weeks ago.”
“Cool, so did we!” said the first girl. “I’ve never seen a Drowzee, either. How’d you get her?”
My mom bought her from a breeder because she was worried about my insomnia being a problem on the trail. “From my parents.”
“My dad caught mine when I was seven. Wanna see?” She reached for a side pocket on her pack and took out a Poké Ball. “Oh, what’s your name? Mine’s Wendy, and this is Aaron and Nadine.”
Luke was unsure which question to answer first, but he erred on the side of the most recent. “Luke. Uh, nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” said Aaron, smiling, who took out a ball of his own. “So, which one of us you wanna fight first? We’ve all made eye contact.”
Luke’s entire body tensed up, which must have shown because Wendy smiled, rolled her eyes, and said, “He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to, Aaron.”
“She’s right,” added the theretofore-silent Nadine. “There’s no actual rule about eye contact. That’s an urban legend.”
“I call it manners,” said Aaron with a laugh. “But whatever—no pressure.”
“Oh, even better!” said Wendy. “Can you take a picture of us with our Pokémon?”
This took Luke by surprise. Nobody had ever asked this of him before, and the first thing that came into his head was to point out, “It’d be black and white. Is that okay?”
It felt like he was missing some other, more important question, but it wasn’t coming to him. It didn’t help when Wendy responded, “That’s a black and white camera? Cool! Okay, everybody out!”
Luke was going to say something about how cameras were cameras and that it was black and white film, but while he was trying to think about how to phrase it politely, the three kids each sent out a Pokémon. The figure which emerged at Wendy’s feet in a flash bumped all other thoughts from his mind. He had never expected to see a Clefairy anywhere in Johto, much less so soon after leaving home. The plump, pink creature took one look at Zoe with its soft, cheerful eyes, then turned to jump into Wendy’s arms. The way it moved in the air was mystifyingly airy—as if gravity had less of a hold on it than it should.
Wendy said, “Don’t be shy now, girl,” turning the Clefairy back around. Her shyness wasn’t reflected in her bright expression, rather in how she was content to stick to Wendy. Just to be safe, though, Luke motioned Zoe to step back a few paces. She complied.
It was here that Aaron’s Pokémon, a Cyndaquil, uttered a confident squeak and let its fiery quills flare up. Luke hadn’t even noticed it yet, which went to show how suddenly spoiled he was for seeing rare Pokémon. It and the Clefairy utterly and unfairly overshadowed Nadine’s common Sentret, though Luke did notice this one had an exceptionally bushy tail. All told, it was a singular opportunity to be present to take this group portrait. He looked around for a spot with the light coming in at a better angle, then waved the other trainers to it. “Uh… over there’s good.”
“You’re the boss,” said Aaron.
They lined up with Wendy in the center as before. She still held her Clefairy, as did Nadine her Sentret, but Aaron kept his Cyndaquil at his feet. This gave Luke a little anxiety about the composition, as now he couldn’t shoot from the waist up as seemed best to him.
“When in doubt, get closer,” his dad had told him countless times. “The big mistake every new photographer makes is thinking you need to get everything around the subject in frame. If you’re shooting a scene, shoot a scene—otherwise, shoot a subject.”
He thought maybe he should tell Aaron to pick up his Pokémon too, but the thought of saying something so presumptuous made him awfully nervous, especially since he might actually be completely wrong. Instead, he tried to frame them as they were to the best of his ability.
They were already smiling for the camera, which worried him about leaving them posed for too long. “One sec, I’m almost ready.” He hurried to get them in focus and check his exposure, then finally said, “Okay, say ‘cheese.’”
They all said “cheese,” and the Clefairy even raised her arms and sang a note to match the kids’ voices. That was really good, and Luke felt lucky to get in another shot with her holding that pose. “Great, just a few more. Say ‘cheese’ again.” He quickly turned the shutter-speed nob one step faster than his initial estimate for an insurance shot, then one step slower.
“Okay, that should do it.”
“Awesome, thanks!” said Wendy. She set her Clefairy down and walked up to him, staring intently at the camera. This was bizarre, but after a few seconds of confusion, Luke finally realized what he should have cleared up before even getting them posed.
“Uh… it’s not an instant camera. I need to develop the roll first and then make prints.”
Wendy blinked, then turned a shade of red. “…Ohhh.”
“Yeeaaah…” said Aaron. “I was going to ask what the plan was about getting the picture to us.”
“That’s something you have to do in town, right?” Nadine asked Luke.
“Umm, yes, anywhere there’s a darkroom. Sorry, I should have said something.”
“Nah, dumb on us for not asking,” said Aaron, laughing. “Some of us are usually quicker on the uptake than this.” The girls laughed with him, but Luke noticed some hesitancy in Nadine’s laugh, and she seemed to shrink.
“Well, how ’bout this?” said Wendy. “We’re off to Azalea Town next, and if you’re going the same way, we can stick together so we’re there when you do your cameraman thing!”
Aaron snapped his fingers. “Hey, there’s an idea! You can keep up, right, Luke?”
Luke didn’t know how to answer right away. Despite how people (especially his parents) talked about Pokémon journeying as if teaming up were a matter of course, he had always sort of assumed he’d go it solo—mostly because he had no idea how you were supposed to ask to team up. But then, maybe he was reading too much into what Wendy and Aaron were asking. After all, they had implied nothing about sticking together any farther than Azalea Town. When he looked at it that way, it just made sense, especially if it meant keeping this little photo shoot from having been an embarrassing screw-up.
“Sure,” he said. “That’s where I was going to stop next, anyway.”
“Awesome!” said Wendy, clapping her hands and flashing an infectious smile. “We should get all our Pokémon introduced, then. This here’s Sharpy, the Sentret is Quincy, and…”
June 28th, 1993
The television above the bar showed Aaron’s smug face in a box next to some flattering statistics. The screen held the gaze of much of the bar-and-restaurant’s crowd, which at this time of year was comprised as much of trainers as of adults. Next to Aaron’s headshot, a reporter whom Luke recognized but couldn’t name was speaking.
“…now advancing to the Round of Thirty-two for the first time in his three Tournament appearances. His bio says he’s fourteen, but his birthday is in August, and Mr. Barlow has shown as much poise under pressure as any fifteen-year-old this year. He’ll have just enough eligibility left next year for a rare fourth appearance. Now we’ll take another look at his top-notch Typhlosion, ‘Ace,’ finishing off Wallis Flaherty’s Tauros in their elimination battle earlier this afternoon…”
Luke shook his head and forced his eyes away from the screen. He knew it wasn’t good for him to dwell on that period of his life, so he made every effort to bring his full attention back to the table and his companions. It didn’t help that said companions had moved on from their earlier conversation to watch the Tournament coverage. This was fair enough, as they were in Goldenrod City for the same reason as all the other trainers who had been here since the first day of summer: to follow the Indigo League Championship on any and every available TV. It was the same deal in towns and cities all over Kanto and Johto. An unofficial two-week party. And here was Luke, wishing he’d sprung for a restaurant that was too classy to have anything playing but music.
“Daaaaamn,” said Sundeep at what was undoubtedly some impressive replay footage. “That’s a Flamethrower.”
“This dude could make some noise with a starter like that,” added Parker.
Ignore, thought Luke, refusing to let the topic of Aaron regain a foothold in his head. Ignore, ignore, ignore. He shook his head again and scraped himself another chunk of Goldenrod-pancake from the iron griddle in the middle of the table. Yes, better to just concentrate on the food. He took a bite: delicious. Shrimp was his favorite topping, and he loved that sauce. Goldenrod-style “As-ya-like” cabbage pancakes were the best part of visiting the city, easy.
“You don’t look sold, Luke,” said Ken from his left. “What’s your take on this guy?”
“Huh?” Luke was confused for a moment, then realized that Ken must have figured he’d shaken his head no to what Sundeep and Parker were saying. “Oh, no, I was thinking about something else. …No, he’s the real deal.” He immediately regretted elaborating on this point.
“Wait… do you know him?” asked Ken, perceptive as ever. This got Sundeep’s and Parker’s attention as well.
Luke took a few gulps of his root beer just to give himself a second. “…Yeah. Yeah, we were teamed up for a few years.”
Parker’s eyes went wide, as did Sundeep’s. “Whoa, really?”
Luke’s current traveling companions were all thirteen—not that much younger than him—and they, like he, had traversed every route in the region at least once. This meant it was a tad silly the way they regarded him as this wise, trail-worn sage who had seen and done it all. Still, in this case, he had to admit that this former acquaintance of his was on TV, which lent Luke himself an unavoidable air of experience and in-ness. There was certainly much he could say which the sporting news couldn’t, and which he absolutely did not care to. So, he just nodded.
Ken read him like a book. “Didn’t end well?”
“No.” Without thinking, he rubbed his right shoulder, which didn’t actually hurt anymore. “No, it uh… got ugly.”
“Eh, we don’t gotta talk about it, then,” said Parker. “It’s your night, after all! Right, Zoe?”
Zoe, the lone Pokémon sitting in the booth, made a sustained, gravelly noise in the affirmative. It was never an exact science determining to what degree Zoe grasped human speech at the semantic level versus the emotive, and this instance struck Luke as somewhere in the middle. Either way, she responded to the sentiment of indulgence by reaching for Parker’s plate.
“Uh-uh,” said Luke, pointing to the common plate of octo-fritters instead. “You get these, and just two more.” Zoe lacked in both respect for personal property and in the ability to guess how much physical food her stomach could handle. No one could reasonably expect the former from a Hypno, of course, but that’s why Luke was here. She obeyed with a grunt, dipped one of the fried balls in the thick, savory sauce, then enjoyed it with long, thoughtful chews.
“Obviously, I’m really glad to have finally moved on in the bracket, but that’s not my goal here,” came Aaron’s voice from the television, making Luke stiffen momentarily. They were replaying the post-battle interview, each word faker than the last. “I’m aiming for the whole thing, and I owe it to everyone who got me here to keep going. I’ve had help from lots of people, and I’m so grateful to all of them. My Pokémon and I are stronger thanks to everyone I’ve met.”
The broadcast cut back to the reporter. “Aaron’s next opponent is the favorite in the Johto sub-bracket, Grant Fairbanks. We’ll be taking a break, but stay tuned for…”
“He’s done,” said Sundeep. “Grant’s taking it all this year. Slowking beats Typhlosion, and Meganium beats at least two, maybe three.”
“Sure, sure, change of subject!” said Ken.
“Oh, right—sorry.” Sundeep drummed his fingers against the table, presumably thinking about how to word what he wanted to say next. When he did speak, it was to Luke. “So, you thinking you’ll wait to hit sixteen before you go pro, or are you gonna be ready earlier?”
Finally, a question he didn’t mind answering. “Well, I’m gonna play it by ear, but there’s only so much I can get paid before sixteen. And I’ve got a wish-list for filling out my portfolio, so I’ll see how long that takes me.”
“Too cool,” said Parker. “What magazines should we keep an eye on? We gotta see your professional debut!”
Luke smiled. “Heh, no idea. That’d be a lot of reading, anyway. Can’t say I’d recommend it. It’s not like I’ll have a cover-photo first try, and they print those names small.”
“Well,” said Sundeep, “maybe save us a few copies. You can get ’em to us eventually.”
“If I don’t remember, my folks’ll definitely save a ton. And, y’know, fingers crossed on there being a first-published to save. No guarantees.”
“No way, man,” said Parker. “You ask me, you could start tomorrow. You’re good as in.”
“Thanks,” said Luke, not agreeing but appreciating.
This, in Luke’s mind, was the way farewells were supposed to go: known by each party weeks in advance, no hard feelings, and preceded by a nice dinner. His last two stints with other trainers hadn’t concluded nearly this smoothly, to say nothing of the first one. Ken, Sundeep, and Parker, by contrast, had teamed up with “extras” like Luke before, so they knew the drill. Going it together made things easier and more fun, but when your priorities diverged, you accepted it and moved on.
Luke’s last year on the trail was coming up, and he’d known for a while he was going to focus entirely on his photography to prepare for what came next. This wasn’t compatible with the others’ plans, which included winning the Blackthorn Gym Badge after another try or two, then getting bounced after their first battles at the Indigo Plateau and sticking around to watch the Tournament from the bleachers for free—the usual.
Luke himself had long since dropped every intention of getting even his seventh Badge, and he’d already seen the Tournament up close more than once as a little kid when his dad was shooting it. While it had been fun tagging along with this trio for the last eight months as their consulting trail guide and regular conversation partner, it was time.
Sensing it was time in the more immediate sense, Ken grabbed his soda. “I think a toast is in order.”
Sundeep and Parker raised their glasses with the utmost solemnity. Luke lifted his own with a mix of resignation and amusement.
“To Luke,” said Ken. “Photographer extraordinaire, wisest of counselors… and good friend.”
“To Luke!” cheered Sundeep and Parker, raising their glasses higher and coinciding with a loud “Mraaah!” from Zoe.
Luke stifled a laugh, said, “Cheers, cheers,” and dutifully clinked every glass.
After that, the conversation turned to happy times—places seen and things done together. So it went on until the last Tournament battle of the night began, and the TV again seized the attention of the entire establishment. The seasoned veteran from Vermilion City, Zach Stengel, was facing a newcomer in Saffron’s Natalie Lundqvist, whose hyper-aggressive style clearly gave his team fits. This was all to the liking of the Goldenrod crowd, eager as Johtoans usually were to see a Kanto media-darling get his figurative teeth kicked in.
As the battle reached a critical point for both sides and the noise level in the room rose, Ken got Luke’s attention and spoke in a low voice. “Hey, I need to ask one more time. I’m thrilled to have him, of course, but you’re absolutely sure about leaving Shane with me?”
Shane was a Sandslash: Luke’s third Pokémon caught and second-to-last Pokémon left until this morning. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“Okay,” said Ken. “Cause you know it’s not too late? I haven’t even taken him out yet.”
“Trust me,” said Luke. “I’m not going to be fighting enough Pokémon to match his energy level anymore. And he likes you. He’ll be perfectly happy in a few weeks—I’m positive."
“I suppose you’d know best… Okay. I’ll take good care of him. Promise.”
Luke didn’t doubt it for a second. “Thanks. Glad I can count on you.” And he meant it. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been scouting all three of these guys to find the right trainer for Shane, and Ken had the insight and patience to click with any Pokémon. Luke didn’t make the decision lightly, and would have opted for release to the wild over the wrong trainer, or even a merely okay one.
He didn’t like it, but it had to be done. He wasn’t going to have the capacity to take good care of two Pokémon for long—and honestly, he’d been pushing it in recent months. All Pokémon needed exercise and attention, and the gung-ho ones needed other Pokémon to rough up now and then. Large teams were for trainers working extra-hard to become competitive, and Luke had no battling ambitions beyond fending off the wild Pokémon he couldn’t avoid entirely.
All this considered, Ken was perfect. And either of Parker or Sundeep would have been excellent. They were great guys—great with people, great with Pokémon. That’s why it made Luke a little ill to know he wasn’t going to miss them at all.
It had been the same story with all the other trainers he’d met and parted ways with over the last two years. He knew he ought to miss them, and how much some of them deserved to be missed, but he didn’t. They were just people he’d known—good people, but not his people. Even when it came to his former Pokémon—whom he’d do anything for—knowing that they were well cared for was enough for him. With each of them, the absence in itself had no hold on him. They left no cavities.
He knew why this was. His brain no longer let him get close enough to anyone for him to truly miss them. The very idea of missing someone ripped his thoughts away from the Shanes, Kens, Sundeeps, and Parkers in his life and fixed them squarely on one person.
On Wendy.
There. He’d gotten through Aaron’s whole stupid television spotlight without thinking about her, but there she was again, daring him to wish he’d never met her. It was easy to wish he’d never met Aaron, but Wendy complicated matters by bringing the second-guessing to the surface. How he might have handled things more maturely. How he and she might have gone separate ways as friends, and maybe not permanently.
How he might not have blown it all to smithereens.
Luke took a deep breath. Then he turned around to watch the battle with everyone else. He had Zoe to consider: It wasn’t good for her dream-diet to have uneasy thoughts swimming about his mind.
Over on the large, flickering screen, Lundqvist’s Raticate cleared twenty yards in a flash and somehow bowled over Stengel’s unready Electabuzz, all but knocking the tournament’s seventh-seeded trainer out of contention. The room exploded. Parker jumped on his seat, Ken and Sundeep started high-fiving everyone in arm’s reach, and Luke decided this should be what set the tone for the rest of the evening.
The sun had yet to climb over the line of trees to his left when Luke looked back at Goldenrod City from the top of a rise on Route 35. The city was too large to be altogether asleep at this hour on a Tuesday morning, but Luke still got the sense of a place that wanted to get as much shut-eye as it could before the early matches began, in anticipation of another late night. Indeed, Ken and company might well have gone back to their sleeping bags after their bleary-eyed, final, official goodbye to him.
Luke himself suffered from no such sleep-deprivation symptoms, and as on near-every morning, he had Zoe to thank for this. She was always amenable to facilitating fast, deceptively dreamless sleep, having a literal appetite for it as she did. It seemed about time for her to walk off whatever last night’s meal had been—Luke, naturally, couldn’t remember—so he opened her Poké Ball and gave her the minute she always wanted to take in her surroundings.
He let out a long sigh, suddenly feeling the length of nearly five years behind him.
“Well, looks like it’s just the two of us, again.”
Zoe looked up at him with an air of mostly-understanding. Though she wasn’t the most sophisticated of conventional mind-readers by Luke’s estimation, she wasn’t the worst at piecing things together, either. Since she knew 1) that she’d been the first, 2) that now all the others were gone, and 3) that Luke had just said something with a hint of melancholy, she probably guessed his meaning correctly. With her right hand still holding steady the string tied to her round, silver pendulum, she extended her left to him, as if to say, “I’m still here.” Perhaps she didn’t grasp how the recent departures had been Luke’s own decision, but either way, the gesture put a smile on his face.
“Yup,” he said, giving her hand a few gentle pats—not taking it, since she didn’t like that. “All right. Time to make tracks.”
Zoe wasn’t naturally inclined to exercise, but she stayed in her supportive mood and followed after him with a resolute grunt, pendulum swinging in time with her steps. She couldn’t match his natural stride, so this would be a leisurely mile or two of the day’s trek. He’d keep an eye open for when she got tired and wanted back in her ball. Absent anyone to have conversation with (reciprocal, verbal conversation, anyway), he spent the time thinking about shots he wanted to take.
There was one he already had in mind: a particular view of Violet City’s Sprout Tower, which he was pretty sure he could get from a nearby rooftop. As always, it would take luck in the weather department, but as he had no need to coordinate plans with any friends, he could wait for days to get the perfect conditions. The remaining uncertainties were whether the residents beneath the rooftop would let a stranger borrow their ladder, along with the simple fact that there was no way to know for sure if a picture would really be worth taking until you had your eye to the viewfinder.
He had about five days of walking ahead of him to think of other compositions he might try, or other things he could shoot around Violet City. That timespan was one key difference between now and when he had first left home: walking from Goldenrod to Violet used to take him over ten days, maybe twelve or thirteen. And when he’d get there, he’d be sore and exhausted. Now he barely noticed the trip. It was just a quick blur of routine hiking, camping, and thinking.
Indeed, before he knew it, he was cooking some rice and beans over a tiny camp stove as the sun went down. Zoe was out of her ball again, and was presently inspecting her pendulum for the tiniest of imperfections. She set it swinging as a test. It wasn’t aimed anywhere in particular, but Luke still made sure not to look directly at it, out of habit rather than necessity. As impish and opportunistic as Zoe could be when it came to physical food or unsuspecting Pokémon, she had never once tried to put him to sleep without his asking. They had built this understanding about Hypnosis very early, and it had held all through the journey, even now as things wound down and the end crept into sight.
A few hours later, Luke made ready for bed. He checked the sky, laid out his sleeping bag, changed, and finally checked his own sleep-readiness. On some nights, he was dead-tired but found his thoughts jumping around far too quickly to leave any hope of his falling asleep. On others, his eyes stung too much from fatigue to actually get the sleep they wanted. And on nights like tonight, he was simply wide awake. Any night when natural sleep felt like a remote possibility, he gave it a shot in the interest of perhaps one day getting better at it, but he knew from experience it was usually best to let Zoe do her job. When all was in order, he got her attention. “Zoe.”
She looked at him, nose twitching, which meant she was ready too. “Sleep, please.” This was the single spoken phrase Zoe had the most practice with. She fixed Luke with a stare and let her pendulum swing back and forth. In a matter of moments, Luke’s vision blurred, and he felt a familiar dullness in his other senses. His attention crawled between shadows of people he might have once known wandering in places he might have once been: the vaguest hints of dreams he would soon have but not remember. When he felt the pillow beneath his head and lost track of whether his eyes were open or closed, he mumbled, “G’night, Zoe…”
It was late afternoon when Luke finally reached where the main trail changed from dirt to cobblestones. He came around the last bend and passed the three miniature shrines which marked the western limits of Violet City. From there, it was still a hundred yards until the first scattered, secluded houses, then another quarter mile until the trail widened to a proper street and joined other streets with shops and houses bearing the striking, ornate woodwork of past centuries. Although Violet also had its share of flat, utilitarian, late-twentieth-century buildings, none of them were tall, and they were mercifully distanced from anywhere most people wanted to be.
The Pokémon Center was situated just far enough away from the middle of the city so as to anger neither the locals by its proximity nor the itinerant trainers by its remoteness. Luke hurried since it was almost the golden hour, and the few clouds in the sky had excellent shapes. He wanted to get his trainer-business out of the way and take advantage of the ideal conditions for photography.
Only when the unmistakable red roof and automatic doors came into view did it occur to him that he didn’t really need to stop there. He and Zoe had been accosted by wild Pokémon only once a day since leaving Goldenrod, and each of those encounters had ended nearly as soon as they’d begun and without violence thanks to Zoe’s expert skill at combat hypnotism. She was completely fine, and there were no other trainers’ Pokémon to consider.
Still, Luke was loth to lose a good habit, and it could never hurt to let the machine check up on Zoe. He’d be in and out in five minutes. So, he stepped through the doors and found an unoccupied nurse behind the counter. He handed over Zoe’s ball and his trainer ID as she recited the standard nurse’s spiel that was white noise to all but the newest trainers. She continued speaking as she typed his ID number into the computer, then stopped as something caught her by surprise. “Oh.”
“Something wrong?”
“Oh, no, just says here we’ve got a letter for you.” She pointed at a sticky-note attached to the monitor. This was far more of a surprise than if something had been wrong.
“You sure?”
“It’s the name on the note.” She double-checked his card. “Luke Andersen?”
“Yes.”
“Just a moment, then. Should be dooowwn heeeere…” She disappeared under the counter for a few seconds, rustling through a box by the sound of it. “Ah, here we go.” She popped up again and gave Luke a plain envelope with no stamp—just “Luke Andersen” written on it in a wispy but legible hand. He stared at it for a minute as the nurse resumed her prescribed speech. Then she took Zoe’s ball to the back.
No explanation for this letter immediately came to mind. He’d actually forgotten that Pokémon Centers offered to hold letters addressed to trainers, difficult as it was to estimate when a trainer would next visit his legal residence. But even then, it wasn’t much less difficult to predict when a trainer would visit a given Pokémon Center, so there was little reason to avail oneself of the service unless one had been separated from friends for a few days and was trying to arrange a rendezvous. As nobody besides the three guys Luke had just left in Goldenrod City even knew he’d be coming this way, he was at an absolute loss as to who would have written him here.
He was still pondering this when the nurse came back with Zoe’s ball and the report of a clean bill of health with no procedures performed. He thanked her and left the building, still staring at the envelope in confusion. The next reasonable step seemed to be to read the thing’s contents, so he walked off to find a nice, private-enough place to sit. He settled for a vacant bench in the vicinity of the bridge to Sprout Tower. Though there was plenty of foot-traffic around, everyone was looking at the tower and not at his bench.
He ripped open the envelope—the gracelessness of the tear reminding him of just how unpracticed he was with opening envelopes. Folded inside was a short, hand-written letter. On instinct, his eyes went to the name at the bottom.
They stayed there. Then his mouth fell open.
It took some convincing to get his eyes back to the top of the page.
Dear Luke,
I don’t know if or when you’ll get this, but I wanted to write to ask how things are going with you. If you leave a letter here by mid-July, I’ll probably see it then—can’t promise when I’d see one later or somewhere else. I understand completely if you’d rather just ignore this, and I wouldn’t be offended if you did. But I really would like to hear from you, and I hope you’re doing well, and your Pokémon too, especially Zoe. But no pressure.
Sincerely,
Wendy
Luke’s hands shook. “No pressure,” she said. Incredible. He wondered if she could have written that with a straight face.
This was twice as much pressure as he was prepared to handle. Before he could even think about whether he wanted to write back, questions about the context of the letter bombarded him from all sides. Was she writing him because something was wrong? How would she react to his having mostly disbanded his team? When she said she’d likely be back here later in July, was that for some unrelated reason, or was she going out of her way to check for a reply?
He thought about the timing. Maybe there was some clue there. The letter was dated June 15th, but nothing came to mind that was special about that specific day. Proximity to the Tournament, perhaps? Was she there in person? He didn’t think so—while that could explain her return time, if she’d been here on the 15th, that was too late to reach the Plateau by the 21st. Where could she be now? She was going to be back in Violet in what, two or three weeks? Today was the 2nd… Or no, it was the 3rd…
July 3rd. Today was Wendy’s birthday. For a moment, the thought entered his head that she had planned this—that if he got the letter today, he would feel compelled to write back if only to congratulate her on turning fifteen—and it mortified him that something so ludicrous could even cross his mind. Coincidence, he told himself, stupid coincidence. At the absolute most, maybe the upcoming reminder of the inexorable passage of time and the impermanence of youth had gotten her thinking about days gone by.
Luke found himself cursing birthdays. The outsized influence they held on a trainer’s life almost made him concede credence to the notion of zodiac signs. Of course, the reality was simply that parents of toddlers with roughly proximate birthdays tended to collude to engineer friendships that they hoped would result in the slightly-older kids promising to wait for the youngest to turn ten, so they could all take to the trail together. Safety in numbers. How Luke wished Aaron had been born in the autumn—that Wendy and Nadine would have teamed up with someone else or just themselves. And who knows, maybe that would have Butterfree-effected Nadine into not bailing on training so early, saving her and Wendy even more grief.
He took a deep breath. This was getting a smidge hyperbolic. Yes, the letter was a reminder of the worst day of his life. That didn’t mean he had to let it drive him nuts. This situation called for the maturity he’d sadly lacked on that day. Another deep breath. A look at the clear sky, at the Tower in the fading daylight, and at its reflection in the still water before it. Ten more deep breaths. Then, he was ready to look at this with some perspective.
It wasn’t like he was going to have to step back into the year 1990. This was just a letter from Wendy—not Aaron, just Wendy; who, going by this new evidence, did not hate him. Catching up a little over a letter or two was just the thing to help them shed some baggage before moving on to near-adulthood. Besides, there was no pretending he was uninterested in how she was doing.
After all, he reminded himself, …she was the best friend I ever had.
He stood up, took another look at Sprout Tower, and sighed. It seemed he’d have to forget about catching the golden hour. He wondered which stores would sell envelopes.
I wrote this story last year with no definite intention of ever posting it anywhere. Even writing it at all was far from a sure thing at first: It began as a programming exercise to calculate on which dates the characters in a hypothetical Pokémon fic would plausibly reach each destination in a travel itinerary. Since I was also at the time reading a bunch of manga by my favorite cartoonist, Mitsuru Adachi, the hypothetical story veered towards the sort of romance that Adachi made me want to be able to write. Whether I succeeded on that front isn't my place to say, but I was happy enough with my program/spreadsheet-driven outlining process to go ahead and write the thing.
Suffice to say, not only is the story already written, the timing of the events in the story constitutes a preposterous house of cards which may preclude me from making many story changes based on reader feedback. Naturally, I still want to hear from people on how/why the story doesn't work for them, but more for my own future improvement rather than for fixing this story as I go, as I would normally try to. The good news is that barring unforeseen changes to my real-life circumstances, I can promise that the last chapter will go up before the end of this year, 2024.
Suffice to say, not only is the story already written, the timing of the events in the story constitutes a preposterous house of cards which may preclude me from making many story changes based on reader feedback. Naturally, I still want to hear from people on how/why the story doesn't work for them, but more for my own future improvement rather than for fixing this story as I go, as I would normally try to. The good news is that barring unforeseen changes to my real-life circumstances, I can promise that the last chapter will go up before the end of this year, 2024.
Disclaimer on Content Warnings: I am not well-versed in mental health issues. I have made a good-faith effort to highlight objectionable or potentially disturbing material below, but I wouldn't bet money on my judgment. If you read this and think there should be an addition to these warnings, please message me. If you have questions about the content before reading, whether on your own behalf or on another's behalf, please message me.
Content Warnings (General): Swearing. Violence. Blood. Sensuality. Not recommended for readers below the age of 14.
Content Warnings (Specific, or possible spoilers): Please open this spoiler tag if you require advance notice of certain topics.
Bullying. Emotional manipulation. Animal (Pokémon) abuse.
Table of Contents:
The arrival of the full-fledged “PC” network to Pokémon Centers in 1995 is chiefly celebrated for the public release of the Pokémon Storage System, which afforded unprecedented latitude to roster experimentation. Perhaps underrated in importance, however, is that a PC account came with an inbox.
For the vast majority of trainers, this amounted to their first experience with any kind of electronic messaging. While e-mail and online bulletin boards were not new technologies in 1995, among adolescents they were still limited to the tech-savviest those whose parents could afford a home computer. Now, with the PC network, any journeying trainer could send a message to any other with reasonable hope that it would be noticed in a matter of days, even if the other trainer were clear on the opposite side of the map.
For better or worse, this story stops before the end of 1993.
Just Hold Still
Chapter 1
Friendly Meeting, Friendly Parting
Chapter 1
Friendly Meeting, Friendly Parting
September 4th, 1988
Luke Andersen had just passed a significant milestone: He no longer knew off the top of his head how many weeks it had been since he began his journey. He retraced his path on the map to get an idea. Mahogany to Ecruteak, then to Violet for the “easy” Gym, then to the Ruins of Alph yesterday… about three weeks, he was pretty sure. Hard to believe. He stretched his bare toes, let out a deep breath, and debated whether it was time to change the bandages on his feet. He was getting used to everything about hiking except the blisters.
Zoe, presently out of her Poké Ball, sniffed the air and rose from the base of the tree she’d been lounging against. Her wrinkled trunk led her headlong, which Luke watched with some interest. Although Luke’s Drowzee and only Pokémon was by now perfectly comfortable around him, he couldn’t pretend to know much about what made her tick yet. Before she could get too far away, he pulled his socks and shoes back on to follow. He also took up his camera bag in an automatic motion. His sleeping bag, food, water, etc. occasionally escaped his attention, but it would take a conscious effort to get more than ten feet away from his Camdak SLR-81m.
Luke soon marked the target of Zoe’s purposeful meandering: a heavily laden Berry tree. He wondered how far he could trust her not to give herself a bellyache if he let her pick at her leisure. He also wondered how long it would be until he came across a training question he already knew the answer to. As Zoe inspected the lower branches with a discerning air, however, he suddenly heard a clicking noise from somewhere above.
It was certainly a bug noise, but not one Luke recognized. Knowing without thinking that the window of opportunity may be narrow, he took out his camera even as he scanned the treetops for any unfamiliar sight. He had the strap around his neck and the lens cap removed when he spotted it: a Heracross. He’d never seen one in person, but there was no mistaking Johto’s most famous Bug-type. It clung upside down to the trunk of a tall and spare pine tree, apparently sucking sap. Interesting pose, clear line of sight. Perfect.
Luke put his right eye to the viewfinder and got the Pokémon in focus. The light meter indicated underexposure, which was unsurprising, as his last picture had been taken in direct sunlight. Lowering the shutter speed seemed the correct choice (rather than widening the aperture) since the subject was motionless for now.
He pressed the shutter release. The viewfinder’s image jumped to black and back with a click as the internal mirror lifted to expose the film. Got one.
He flipped the film-advance lever and reconsidered the shutter-speed/aperture tradeoff. Would a narrower depth of field make for a more subject-focused composition? He scolded himself for not knowing the answer instinctively and corrected the settings for the second take. Another click. Got two.
Suddenly, it occurred to him what would be an even better shot. If he could get to the base of the tree without startling the Heracross from its dinner, he might get it looking straight down at the camera. That would really be something. He crept closer, and the subject stayed where it was. He was almost there when a stick snapped underfoot. The Heracross jumped from its spot and labored away through the air with its just-functional-enough wings, as if it had been waiting for an obvious mistake to punish. Luke sighed.
“Aaaaand, there it goes,” came a boy’s voice from behind.
Luke turned in surprise to see three trainers standing uphill: two girls and a boy. The boy clicked his tongue and shook his head, to which the girl in the center laughed. “Oh, relax. It woulda run away if you tried to catch it, too.” Then she waved to Luke. “Hey! Are you a Pokémon photographer?”
“Uh…” Luke struggled with the unexpected question. Did she jump to that conclusion just from his having a camera? Sure, he could use a darkroom, but he barely knew what he was doing when it came to shot-composition, and he couldn’t even keep the properties of different focal lengths straight. Also, a Pokémon photographer? How could anyone commit to that level of specialization at age ten? Maybe she was kidding. By this point in Luke’s deliberation, she had already jogged down to talk to him, so he went with an answer that felt mostly correct.
“…I’d like to be. Someday.”
The girl’s friends followed behind her, the boy in front at a leisurely pace, and the other girl at a halting one. The boy examined Zoe, now shuffling back to Luke’s vicinity, and whistled, impressed. “Wow, never seen a Drowzee before. Is he your starter?”
“She’s a she,” said Luke, “and yeah, starter.” Zoe, never shy, eyed the strangers with interest in turn. “We just started out a few weeks ago.”
“Cool, so did we!” said the first girl. “I’ve never seen a Drowzee, either. How’d you get her?”
My mom bought her from a breeder because she was worried about my insomnia being a problem on the trail. “From my parents.”
“My dad caught mine when I was seven. Wanna see?” She reached for a side pocket on her pack and took out a Poké Ball. “Oh, what’s your name? Mine’s Wendy, and this is Aaron and Nadine.”
Luke was unsure which question to answer first, but he erred on the side of the most recent. “Luke. Uh, nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” said Aaron, smiling, who took out a ball of his own. “So, which one of us you wanna fight first? We’ve all made eye contact.”
Luke’s entire body tensed up, which must have shown because Wendy smiled, rolled her eyes, and said, “He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to, Aaron.”
“She’s right,” added the theretofore-silent Nadine. “There’s no actual rule about eye contact. That’s an urban legend.”
“I call it manners,” said Aaron with a laugh. “But whatever—no pressure.”
“Oh, even better!” said Wendy. “Can you take a picture of us with our Pokémon?”
This took Luke by surprise. Nobody had ever asked this of him before, and the first thing that came into his head was to point out, “It’d be black and white. Is that okay?”
It felt like he was missing some other, more important question, but it wasn’t coming to him. It didn’t help when Wendy responded, “That’s a black and white camera? Cool! Okay, everybody out!”
Luke was going to say something about how cameras were cameras and that it was black and white film, but while he was trying to think about how to phrase it politely, the three kids each sent out a Pokémon. The figure which emerged at Wendy’s feet in a flash bumped all other thoughts from his mind. He had never expected to see a Clefairy anywhere in Johto, much less so soon after leaving home. The plump, pink creature took one look at Zoe with its soft, cheerful eyes, then turned to jump into Wendy’s arms. The way it moved in the air was mystifyingly airy—as if gravity had less of a hold on it than it should.
Wendy said, “Don’t be shy now, girl,” turning the Clefairy back around. Her shyness wasn’t reflected in her bright expression, rather in how she was content to stick to Wendy. Just to be safe, though, Luke motioned Zoe to step back a few paces. She complied.
It was here that Aaron’s Pokémon, a Cyndaquil, uttered a confident squeak and let its fiery quills flare up. Luke hadn’t even noticed it yet, which went to show how suddenly spoiled he was for seeing rare Pokémon. It and the Clefairy utterly and unfairly overshadowed Nadine’s common Sentret, though Luke did notice this one had an exceptionally bushy tail. All told, it was a singular opportunity to be present to take this group portrait. He looked around for a spot with the light coming in at a better angle, then waved the other trainers to it. “Uh… over there’s good.”
“You’re the boss,” said Aaron.
They lined up with Wendy in the center as before. She still held her Clefairy, as did Nadine her Sentret, but Aaron kept his Cyndaquil at his feet. This gave Luke a little anxiety about the composition, as now he couldn’t shoot from the waist up as seemed best to him.
“When in doubt, get closer,” his dad had told him countless times. “The big mistake every new photographer makes is thinking you need to get everything around the subject in frame. If you’re shooting a scene, shoot a scene—otherwise, shoot a subject.”
He thought maybe he should tell Aaron to pick up his Pokémon too, but the thought of saying something so presumptuous made him awfully nervous, especially since he might actually be completely wrong. Instead, he tried to frame them as they were to the best of his ability.
They were already smiling for the camera, which worried him about leaving them posed for too long. “One sec, I’m almost ready.” He hurried to get them in focus and check his exposure, then finally said, “Okay, say ‘cheese.’”
They all said “cheese,” and the Clefairy even raised her arms and sang a note to match the kids’ voices. That was really good, and Luke felt lucky to get in another shot with her holding that pose. “Great, just a few more. Say ‘cheese’ again.” He quickly turned the shutter-speed nob one step faster than his initial estimate for an insurance shot, then one step slower.
“Okay, that should do it.”
“Awesome, thanks!” said Wendy. She set her Clefairy down and walked up to him, staring intently at the camera. This was bizarre, but after a few seconds of confusion, Luke finally realized what he should have cleared up before even getting them posed.
“Uh… it’s not an instant camera. I need to develop the roll first and then make prints.”
Wendy blinked, then turned a shade of red. “…Ohhh.”
“Yeeaaah…” said Aaron. “I was going to ask what the plan was about getting the picture to us.”
“That’s something you have to do in town, right?” Nadine asked Luke.
“Umm, yes, anywhere there’s a darkroom. Sorry, I should have said something.”
“Nah, dumb on us for not asking,” said Aaron, laughing. “Some of us are usually quicker on the uptake than this.” The girls laughed with him, but Luke noticed some hesitancy in Nadine’s laugh, and she seemed to shrink.
“Well, how ’bout this?” said Wendy. “We’re off to Azalea Town next, and if you’re going the same way, we can stick together so we’re there when you do your cameraman thing!”
Aaron snapped his fingers. “Hey, there’s an idea! You can keep up, right, Luke?”
Luke didn’t know how to answer right away. Despite how people (especially his parents) talked about Pokémon journeying as if teaming up were a matter of course, he had always sort of assumed he’d go it solo—mostly because he had no idea how you were supposed to ask to team up. But then, maybe he was reading too much into what Wendy and Aaron were asking. After all, they had implied nothing about sticking together any farther than Azalea Town. When he looked at it that way, it just made sense, especially if it meant keeping this little photo shoot from having been an embarrassing screw-up.
“Sure,” he said. “That’s where I was going to stop next, anyway.”
“Awesome!” said Wendy, clapping her hands and flashing an infectious smile. “We should get all our Pokémon introduced, then. This here’s Sharpy, the Sentret is Quincy, and…”
*********
June 28th, 1993
The television above the bar showed Aaron’s smug face in a box next to some flattering statistics. The screen held the gaze of much of the bar-and-restaurant’s crowd, which at this time of year was comprised as much of trainers as of adults. Next to Aaron’s headshot, a reporter whom Luke recognized but couldn’t name was speaking.
“…now advancing to the Round of Thirty-two for the first time in his three Tournament appearances. His bio says he’s fourteen, but his birthday is in August, and Mr. Barlow has shown as much poise under pressure as any fifteen-year-old this year. He’ll have just enough eligibility left next year for a rare fourth appearance. Now we’ll take another look at his top-notch Typhlosion, ‘Ace,’ finishing off Wallis Flaherty’s Tauros in their elimination battle earlier this afternoon…”
Luke shook his head and forced his eyes away from the screen. He knew it wasn’t good for him to dwell on that period of his life, so he made every effort to bring his full attention back to the table and his companions. It didn’t help that said companions had moved on from their earlier conversation to watch the Tournament coverage. This was fair enough, as they were in Goldenrod City for the same reason as all the other trainers who had been here since the first day of summer: to follow the Indigo League Championship on any and every available TV. It was the same deal in towns and cities all over Kanto and Johto. An unofficial two-week party. And here was Luke, wishing he’d sprung for a restaurant that was too classy to have anything playing but music.
“Daaaaamn,” said Sundeep at what was undoubtedly some impressive replay footage. “That’s a Flamethrower.”
“This dude could make some noise with a starter like that,” added Parker.
Ignore, thought Luke, refusing to let the topic of Aaron regain a foothold in his head. Ignore, ignore, ignore. He shook his head again and scraped himself another chunk of Goldenrod-pancake from the iron griddle in the middle of the table. Yes, better to just concentrate on the food. He took a bite: delicious. Shrimp was his favorite topping, and he loved that sauce. Goldenrod-style “As-ya-like” cabbage pancakes were the best part of visiting the city, easy.
“You don’t look sold, Luke,” said Ken from his left. “What’s your take on this guy?”
“Huh?” Luke was confused for a moment, then realized that Ken must have figured he’d shaken his head no to what Sundeep and Parker were saying. “Oh, no, I was thinking about something else. …No, he’s the real deal.” He immediately regretted elaborating on this point.
“Wait… do you know him?” asked Ken, perceptive as ever. This got Sundeep’s and Parker’s attention as well.
Luke took a few gulps of his root beer just to give himself a second. “…Yeah. Yeah, we were teamed up for a few years.”
Parker’s eyes went wide, as did Sundeep’s. “Whoa, really?”
Luke’s current traveling companions were all thirteen—not that much younger than him—and they, like he, had traversed every route in the region at least once. This meant it was a tad silly the way they regarded him as this wise, trail-worn sage who had seen and done it all. Still, in this case, he had to admit that this former acquaintance of his was on TV, which lent Luke himself an unavoidable air of experience and in-ness. There was certainly much he could say which the sporting news couldn’t, and which he absolutely did not care to. So, he just nodded.
Ken read him like a book. “Didn’t end well?”
“No.” Without thinking, he rubbed his right shoulder, which didn’t actually hurt anymore. “No, it uh… got ugly.”
“Eh, we don’t gotta talk about it, then,” said Parker. “It’s your night, after all! Right, Zoe?”
Zoe, the lone Pokémon sitting in the booth, made a sustained, gravelly noise in the affirmative. It was never an exact science determining to what degree Zoe grasped human speech at the semantic level versus the emotive, and this instance struck Luke as somewhere in the middle. Either way, she responded to the sentiment of indulgence by reaching for Parker’s plate.
“Uh-uh,” said Luke, pointing to the common plate of octo-fritters instead. “You get these, and just two more.” Zoe lacked in both respect for personal property and in the ability to guess how much physical food her stomach could handle. No one could reasonably expect the former from a Hypno, of course, but that’s why Luke was here. She obeyed with a grunt, dipped one of the fried balls in the thick, savory sauce, then enjoyed it with long, thoughtful chews.
“Obviously, I’m really glad to have finally moved on in the bracket, but that’s not my goal here,” came Aaron’s voice from the television, making Luke stiffen momentarily. They were replaying the post-battle interview, each word faker than the last. “I’m aiming for the whole thing, and I owe it to everyone who got me here to keep going. I’ve had help from lots of people, and I’m so grateful to all of them. My Pokémon and I are stronger thanks to everyone I’ve met.”
The broadcast cut back to the reporter. “Aaron’s next opponent is the favorite in the Johto sub-bracket, Grant Fairbanks. We’ll be taking a break, but stay tuned for…”
“He’s done,” said Sundeep. “Grant’s taking it all this year. Slowking beats Typhlosion, and Meganium beats at least two, maybe three.”
“Sure, sure, change of subject!” said Ken.
“Oh, right—sorry.” Sundeep drummed his fingers against the table, presumably thinking about how to word what he wanted to say next. When he did speak, it was to Luke. “So, you thinking you’ll wait to hit sixteen before you go pro, or are you gonna be ready earlier?”
Finally, a question he didn’t mind answering. “Well, I’m gonna play it by ear, but there’s only so much I can get paid before sixteen. And I’ve got a wish-list for filling out my portfolio, so I’ll see how long that takes me.”
“Too cool,” said Parker. “What magazines should we keep an eye on? We gotta see your professional debut!”
Luke smiled. “Heh, no idea. That’d be a lot of reading, anyway. Can’t say I’d recommend it. It’s not like I’ll have a cover-photo first try, and they print those names small.”
“Well,” said Sundeep, “maybe save us a few copies. You can get ’em to us eventually.”
“If I don’t remember, my folks’ll definitely save a ton. And, y’know, fingers crossed on there being a first-published to save. No guarantees.”
“No way, man,” said Parker. “You ask me, you could start tomorrow. You’re good as in.”
“Thanks,” said Luke, not agreeing but appreciating.
This, in Luke’s mind, was the way farewells were supposed to go: known by each party weeks in advance, no hard feelings, and preceded by a nice dinner. His last two stints with other trainers hadn’t concluded nearly this smoothly, to say nothing of the first one. Ken, Sundeep, and Parker, by contrast, had teamed up with “extras” like Luke before, so they knew the drill. Going it together made things easier and more fun, but when your priorities diverged, you accepted it and moved on.
Luke’s last year on the trail was coming up, and he’d known for a while he was going to focus entirely on his photography to prepare for what came next. This wasn’t compatible with the others’ plans, which included winning the Blackthorn Gym Badge after another try or two, then getting bounced after their first battles at the Indigo Plateau and sticking around to watch the Tournament from the bleachers for free—the usual.
Luke himself had long since dropped every intention of getting even his seventh Badge, and he’d already seen the Tournament up close more than once as a little kid when his dad was shooting it. While it had been fun tagging along with this trio for the last eight months as their consulting trail guide and regular conversation partner, it was time.
Sensing it was time in the more immediate sense, Ken grabbed his soda. “I think a toast is in order.”
Sundeep and Parker raised their glasses with the utmost solemnity. Luke lifted his own with a mix of resignation and amusement.
“To Luke,” said Ken. “Photographer extraordinaire, wisest of counselors… and good friend.”
“To Luke!” cheered Sundeep and Parker, raising their glasses higher and coinciding with a loud “Mraaah!” from Zoe.
Luke stifled a laugh, said, “Cheers, cheers,” and dutifully clinked every glass.
After that, the conversation turned to happy times—places seen and things done together. So it went on until the last Tournament battle of the night began, and the TV again seized the attention of the entire establishment. The seasoned veteran from Vermilion City, Zach Stengel, was facing a newcomer in Saffron’s Natalie Lundqvist, whose hyper-aggressive style clearly gave his team fits. This was all to the liking of the Goldenrod crowd, eager as Johtoans usually were to see a Kanto media-darling get his figurative teeth kicked in.
As the battle reached a critical point for both sides and the noise level in the room rose, Ken got Luke’s attention and spoke in a low voice. “Hey, I need to ask one more time. I’m thrilled to have him, of course, but you’re absolutely sure about leaving Shane with me?”
Shane was a Sandslash: Luke’s third Pokémon caught and second-to-last Pokémon left until this morning. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“Okay,” said Ken. “Cause you know it’s not too late? I haven’t even taken him out yet.”
“Trust me,” said Luke. “I’m not going to be fighting enough Pokémon to match his energy level anymore. And he likes you. He’ll be perfectly happy in a few weeks—I’m positive."
“I suppose you’d know best… Okay. I’ll take good care of him. Promise.”
Luke didn’t doubt it for a second. “Thanks. Glad I can count on you.” And he meant it. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been scouting all three of these guys to find the right trainer for Shane, and Ken had the insight and patience to click with any Pokémon. Luke didn’t make the decision lightly, and would have opted for release to the wild over the wrong trainer, or even a merely okay one.
He didn’t like it, but it had to be done. He wasn’t going to have the capacity to take good care of two Pokémon for long—and honestly, he’d been pushing it in recent months. All Pokémon needed exercise and attention, and the gung-ho ones needed other Pokémon to rough up now and then. Large teams were for trainers working extra-hard to become competitive, and Luke had no battling ambitions beyond fending off the wild Pokémon he couldn’t avoid entirely.
All this considered, Ken was perfect. And either of Parker or Sundeep would have been excellent. They were great guys—great with people, great with Pokémon. That’s why it made Luke a little ill to know he wasn’t going to miss them at all.
It had been the same story with all the other trainers he’d met and parted ways with over the last two years. He knew he ought to miss them, and how much some of them deserved to be missed, but he didn’t. They were just people he’d known—good people, but not his people. Even when it came to his former Pokémon—whom he’d do anything for—knowing that they were well cared for was enough for him. With each of them, the absence in itself had no hold on him. They left no cavities.
He knew why this was. His brain no longer let him get close enough to anyone for him to truly miss them. The very idea of missing someone ripped his thoughts away from the Shanes, Kens, Sundeeps, and Parkers in his life and fixed them squarely on one person.
On Wendy.
There. He’d gotten through Aaron’s whole stupid television spotlight without thinking about her, but there she was again, daring him to wish he’d never met her. It was easy to wish he’d never met Aaron, but Wendy complicated matters by bringing the second-guessing to the surface. How he might have handled things more maturely. How he and she might have gone separate ways as friends, and maybe not permanently.
How he might not have blown it all to smithereens.
Luke took a deep breath. Then he turned around to watch the battle with everyone else. He had Zoe to consider: It wasn’t good for her dream-diet to have uneasy thoughts swimming about his mind.
Over on the large, flickering screen, Lundqvist’s Raticate cleared twenty yards in a flash and somehow bowled over Stengel’s unready Electabuzz, all but knocking the tournament’s seventh-seeded trainer out of contention. The room exploded. Parker jumped on his seat, Ken and Sundeep started high-fiving everyone in arm’s reach, and Luke decided this should be what set the tone for the rest of the evening.
*********
The sun had yet to climb over the line of trees to his left when Luke looked back at Goldenrod City from the top of a rise on Route 35. The city was too large to be altogether asleep at this hour on a Tuesday morning, but Luke still got the sense of a place that wanted to get as much shut-eye as it could before the early matches began, in anticipation of another late night. Indeed, Ken and company might well have gone back to their sleeping bags after their bleary-eyed, final, official goodbye to him.
Luke himself suffered from no such sleep-deprivation symptoms, and as on near-every morning, he had Zoe to thank for this. She was always amenable to facilitating fast, deceptively dreamless sleep, having a literal appetite for it as she did. It seemed about time for her to walk off whatever last night’s meal had been—Luke, naturally, couldn’t remember—so he opened her Poké Ball and gave her the minute she always wanted to take in her surroundings.
He let out a long sigh, suddenly feeling the length of nearly five years behind him.
“Well, looks like it’s just the two of us, again.”
Zoe looked up at him with an air of mostly-understanding. Though she wasn’t the most sophisticated of conventional mind-readers by Luke’s estimation, she wasn’t the worst at piecing things together, either. Since she knew 1) that she’d been the first, 2) that now all the others were gone, and 3) that Luke had just said something with a hint of melancholy, she probably guessed his meaning correctly. With her right hand still holding steady the string tied to her round, silver pendulum, she extended her left to him, as if to say, “I’m still here.” Perhaps she didn’t grasp how the recent departures had been Luke’s own decision, but either way, the gesture put a smile on his face.
“Yup,” he said, giving her hand a few gentle pats—not taking it, since she didn’t like that. “All right. Time to make tracks.”
Zoe wasn’t naturally inclined to exercise, but she stayed in her supportive mood and followed after him with a resolute grunt, pendulum swinging in time with her steps. She couldn’t match his natural stride, so this would be a leisurely mile or two of the day’s trek. He’d keep an eye open for when she got tired and wanted back in her ball. Absent anyone to have conversation with (reciprocal, verbal conversation, anyway), he spent the time thinking about shots he wanted to take.
There was one he already had in mind: a particular view of Violet City’s Sprout Tower, which he was pretty sure he could get from a nearby rooftop. As always, it would take luck in the weather department, but as he had no need to coordinate plans with any friends, he could wait for days to get the perfect conditions. The remaining uncertainties were whether the residents beneath the rooftop would let a stranger borrow their ladder, along with the simple fact that there was no way to know for sure if a picture would really be worth taking until you had your eye to the viewfinder.
He had about five days of walking ahead of him to think of other compositions he might try, or other things he could shoot around Violet City. That timespan was one key difference between now and when he had first left home: walking from Goldenrod to Violet used to take him over ten days, maybe twelve or thirteen. And when he’d get there, he’d be sore and exhausted. Now he barely noticed the trip. It was just a quick blur of routine hiking, camping, and thinking.
Indeed, before he knew it, he was cooking some rice and beans over a tiny camp stove as the sun went down. Zoe was out of her ball again, and was presently inspecting her pendulum for the tiniest of imperfections. She set it swinging as a test. It wasn’t aimed anywhere in particular, but Luke still made sure not to look directly at it, out of habit rather than necessity. As impish and opportunistic as Zoe could be when it came to physical food or unsuspecting Pokémon, she had never once tried to put him to sleep without his asking. They had built this understanding about Hypnosis very early, and it had held all through the journey, even now as things wound down and the end crept into sight.
A few hours later, Luke made ready for bed. He checked the sky, laid out his sleeping bag, changed, and finally checked his own sleep-readiness. On some nights, he was dead-tired but found his thoughts jumping around far too quickly to leave any hope of his falling asleep. On others, his eyes stung too much from fatigue to actually get the sleep they wanted. And on nights like tonight, he was simply wide awake. Any night when natural sleep felt like a remote possibility, he gave it a shot in the interest of perhaps one day getting better at it, but he knew from experience it was usually best to let Zoe do her job. When all was in order, he got her attention. “Zoe.”
She looked at him, nose twitching, which meant she was ready too. “Sleep, please.” This was the single spoken phrase Zoe had the most practice with. She fixed Luke with a stare and let her pendulum swing back and forth. In a matter of moments, Luke’s vision blurred, and he felt a familiar dullness in his other senses. His attention crawled between shadows of people he might have once known wandering in places he might have once been: the vaguest hints of dreams he would soon have but not remember. When he felt the pillow beneath his head and lost track of whether his eyes were open or closed, he mumbled, “G’night, Zoe…”
*********
It was late afternoon when Luke finally reached where the main trail changed from dirt to cobblestones. He came around the last bend and passed the three miniature shrines which marked the western limits of Violet City. From there, it was still a hundred yards until the first scattered, secluded houses, then another quarter mile until the trail widened to a proper street and joined other streets with shops and houses bearing the striking, ornate woodwork of past centuries. Although Violet also had its share of flat, utilitarian, late-twentieth-century buildings, none of them were tall, and they were mercifully distanced from anywhere most people wanted to be.
The Pokémon Center was situated just far enough away from the middle of the city so as to anger neither the locals by its proximity nor the itinerant trainers by its remoteness. Luke hurried since it was almost the golden hour, and the few clouds in the sky had excellent shapes. He wanted to get his trainer-business out of the way and take advantage of the ideal conditions for photography.
Only when the unmistakable red roof and automatic doors came into view did it occur to him that he didn’t really need to stop there. He and Zoe had been accosted by wild Pokémon only once a day since leaving Goldenrod, and each of those encounters had ended nearly as soon as they’d begun and without violence thanks to Zoe’s expert skill at combat hypnotism. She was completely fine, and there were no other trainers’ Pokémon to consider.
Still, Luke was loth to lose a good habit, and it could never hurt to let the machine check up on Zoe. He’d be in and out in five minutes. So, he stepped through the doors and found an unoccupied nurse behind the counter. He handed over Zoe’s ball and his trainer ID as she recited the standard nurse’s spiel that was white noise to all but the newest trainers. She continued speaking as she typed his ID number into the computer, then stopped as something caught her by surprise. “Oh.”
“Something wrong?”
“Oh, no, just says here we’ve got a letter for you.” She pointed at a sticky-note attached to the monitor. This was far more of a surprise than if something had been wrong.
“You sure?”
“It’s the name on the note.” She double-checked his card. “Luke Andersen?”
“Yes.”
“Just a moment, then. Should be dooowwn heeeere…” She disappeared under the counter for a few seconds, rustling through a box by the sound of it. “Ah, here we go.” She popped up again and gave Luke a plain envelope with no stamp—just “Luke Andersen” written on it in a wispy but legible hand. He stared at it for a minute as the nurse resumed her prescribed speech. Then she took Zoe’s ball to the back.
No explanation for this letter immediately came to mind. He’d actually forgotten that Pokémon Centers offered to hold letters addressed to trainers, difficult as it was to estimate when a trainer would next visit his legal residence. But even then, it wasn’t much less difficult to predict when a trainer would visit a given Pokémon Center, so there was little reason to avail oneself of the service unless one had been separated from friends for a few days and was trying to arrange a rendezvous. As nobody besides the three guys Luke had just left in Goldenrod City even knew he’d be coming this way, he was at an absolute loss as to who would have written him here.
He was still pondering this when the nurse came back with Zoe’s ball and the report of a clean bill of health with no procedures performed. He thanked her and left the building, still staring at the envelope in confusion. The next reasonable step seemed to be to read the thing’s contents, so he walked off to find a nice, private-enough place to sit. He settled for a vacant bench in the vicinity of the bridge to Sprout Tower. Though there was plenty of foot-traffic around, everyone was looking at the tower and not at his bench.
He ripped open the envelope—the gracelessness of the tear reminding him of just how unpracticed he was with opening envelopes. Folded inside was a short, hand-written letter. On instinct, his eyes went to the name at the bottom.
They stayed there. Then his mouth fell open.
It took some convincing to get his eyes back to the top of the page.
June 15th, 1993
Dear Luke,
I don’t know if or when you’ll get this, but I wanted to write to ask how things are going with you. If you leave a letter here by mid-July, I’ll probably see it then—can’t promise when I’d see one later or somewhere else. I understand completely if you’d rather just ignore this, and I wouldn’t be offended if you did. But I really would like to hear from you, and I hope you’re doing well, and your Pokémon too, especially Zoe. But no pressure.
Sincerely,
Wendy
Luke’s hands shook. “No pressure,” she said. Incredible. He wondered if she could have written that with a straight face.
This was twice as much pressure as he was prepared to handle. Before he could even think about whether he wanted to write back, questions about the context of the letter bombarded him from all sides. Was she writing him because something was wrong? How would she react to his having mostly disbanded his team? When she said she’d likely be back here later in July, was that for some unrelated reason, or was she going out of her way to check for a reply?
He thought about the timing. Maybe there was some clue there. The letter was dated June 15th, but nothing came to mind that was special about that specific day. Proximity to the Tournament, perhaps? Was she there in person? He didn’t think so—while that could explain her return time, if she’d been here on the 15th, that was too late to reach the Plateau by the 21st. Where could she be now? She was going to be back in Violet in what, two or three weeks? Today was the 2nd… Or no, it was the 3rd…
July 3rd. Today was Wendy’s birthday. For a moment, the thought entered his head that she had planned this—that if he got the letter today, he would feel compelled to write back if only to congratulate her on turning fifteen—and it mortified him that something so ludicrous could even cross his mind. Coincidence, he told himself, stupid coincidence. At the absolute most, maybe the upcoming reminder of the inexorable passage of time and the impermanence of youth had gotten her thinking about days gone by.
Luke found himself cursing birthdays. The outsized influence they held on a trainer’s life almost made him concede credence to the notion of zodiac signs. Of course, the reality was simply that parents of toddlers with roughly proximate birthdays tended to collude to engineer friendships that they hoped would result in the slightly-older kids promising to wait for the youngest to turn ten, so they could all take to the trail together. Safety in numbers. How Luke wished Aaron had been born in the autumn—that Wendy and Nadine would have teamed up with someone else or just themselves. And who knows, maybe that would have Butterfree-effected Nadine into not bailing on training so early, saving her and Wendy even more grief.
He took a deep breath. This was getting a smidge hyperbolic. Yes, the letter was a reminder of the worst day of his life. That didn’t mean he had to let it drive him nuts. This situation called for the maturity he’d sadly lacked on that day. Another deep breath. A look at the clear sky, at the Tower in the fading daylight, and at its reflection in the still water before it. Ten more deep breaths. Then, he was ready to look at this with some perspective.
It wasn’t like he was going to have to step back into the year 1990. This was just a letter from Wendy—not Aaron, just Wendy; who, going by this new evidence, did not hate him. Catching up a little over a letter or two was just the thing to help them shed some baggage before moving on to near-adulthood. Besides, there was no pretending he was uninterested in how she was doing.
After all, he reminded himself, …she was the best friend I ever had.
He stood up, took another look at Sprout Tower, and sighed. It seemed he’d have to forget about catching the golden hour. He wondered which stores would sell envelopes.
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