Chapter Two: Enter Al!

"How'd you get here before me? I thought you left after me!" Kat demanded. Chara stirred slightly; Theo's slightly smug smirk went down the drain. Kat, noticing, murmured something to the charmander with a tenderness that unwittingly revealed one of her traits: She cared about her pokémon as much as she cared for her friends, if not more.

The fire pokémon reached with a sleepy claw to Kat's belt to tap its -- her -- pokéball and vanished in a brief, dim flash.

I sighed, and, since Theo still seemed frightened beyond his use of speech, explained. "Theo still had his onix with him -- you know, the one he got to Pallet Town on. We could travel around Kanto like that, but the underground is no fun. Besides, we spent most of our time running from digletts and dugtrios, so when we got here, Theo sent Onix back to Pewter City using the pokécenter."

Kat struggled silently over the urge to say something, but shook her head and muttered, "I'll be back, I need to heal Chara." She turned stiffly and exited the room, closing the door behind her. Theo relaxed a fraction.

I sighed again, glancing around the room. It was a standard pokécenter room: the door, a window across from the door, a small desk with a clock on it directly below and centered in front of the window, two bunk beds on the two remaining sides of the room. "Look, I know Chara reminds you of -- that -- but this is getting ridiculous."

Theo glared at me with angered dark blue eyes, eyes that were normally warm. "You've still got both your parents, Al. It's not ridiculous. Not to me. I've got a good reason to be scared of it."

"Of her," I corrected. "And you're right, I don't know. Kat probably has a better idea of how you feel than I do, but still, it seems a bit too much. Chara has a mild nature. The charmander was out of control back then. It's not going to happen."

"Look," Theo said tersely, "if that charmander loses it, Kat could die. Kat's been my friend since we were born. Like you. I've already lost my parents to a --"

"Ahem."

We both jumped at the familiar voice and looked up at accusing green-gray eyes.

Kat had reentered the room unnoticed. "Al, drop it. Theo, as much as I hate to admit it, Al's right. You've got to learn how to get over it. Besides, I've been around pokémon since I was born. I'm a better trainer than that other guy was. I'm not going to lose control of Chara -- not as a trainer.

"Which reminds me, Gramps gave me an extra map and ten pokéballs. Want them?" she asked. I nodded: she glanced at me briefly but looked away as she handed me map and balls.

"Now good night."

She slung her bag up onto one of the top bunks and clambered up onto it. Silence followed her.

I glanced at the clock on the bed stand between the two bunk beds. Ten o'clock pm. Sighing for what seemed like the umpteenth time during the course of the whole day, I tossed my bag up to the other top bunk and swung myself onto it. The room went dark when Theo quietly flicked off the lights. He bunked under Kat, leaving me alone on my side of the room.

I stared at the ceiling for several minutes before I could get to sleep.

These are the thoughts that ran through my head:
Kat doesn't really like me that much. But then, she's kind of proud, so maybe when I won our battle...
What's it like to lose someone I love? Theo's right, I can't understand.
I know that Kat's dad disappeared a long time ago. Maybe she's looking for him....

And most confusing of all:
What is it that I feel about her?

---

I woke up to darkness.

Something was sitting next to my head, prodding me gently. I sat up and stretched, knowing from the uniquely clean scent that it was Nikame, my squirtle. Grinning, I patted him on the head.

He seemed a bit anxious, and hurriedly tumbled down to the floor, withdrawing into his shell for protection. I winced as he thudded to the ground, and so climbed down beside him and tried soothing him, but he shrugged me off and pointed to Kat's bunk.

Looking around, I saw a bulbasaur -- Theo's bulbasaur, Fushigi -- curled in a green ball by Theo's bottom bunk. However, Kat's charmander was nowhere in sight. There wasn't even a glow from her tail to give away her position. Puzzled, I climbed back onto my bunk and peered across the room.

Kat was not there. It took me a while to be sure of it in the gloom, but once I was sure, it hurt.

I didn't think it would hurt, didn't consider it happening. I'd thought that Kat could travel with us, but she'd taken off, like a loner.

Well, I thought, her great-grandfather Green[1] was a loner, if I remember Granma's stories right. It makes sense. Of course she'd want to travel alone.

But that doesn't mean I have to hurt, does it?

I wonder....

I sat there thinking for so long that Nikame decided I had fallen asleep again and tried scrabbling up the bedpost to get up to me and re-wake me up. Grinning wryly, I popped my head over the railing and shook my head for him to stay on the ground so that he wouldn't injure himself anymore.

For as long as I could remember, I had a mental connection with every natural thing around me -- water, trees, grass, rocks, you name it -- but it was strongest with pokémon especially. Granma said it had to do with her mother, Yellow, who was a "child of the Viridian Forest." It made Yellow almost psychic when it came to pokémon.

And then she would look at me strangely and proclaim, "You're a special one, too. More like Lance, though, I think. But still, you have that aura around you, the one that Ma had."

A particularly loud snore from Theo brought me to the present, and I came to my wits enough for me to make my landing a quiet thump before detaching Nikame from his hold on the bedpost and setting him on the ground. He grinned up at me and scurried to the door, only to stop and cock his head, waiting for me to follow.

I thought for a second, chewing on my lip, and dug around in my bag for some paper and pencil.

I scrawled a message for Theo to find when he woke up: Going to explore Viridian City with Nikame, meet you back here at noon for lunch. Al Ketchum.

Nikame tugged impatiently at the hem of my loose faded-white-from-blue jeans. I glanced at him briefly as I set the note on top of the clock and followed him out of the room, vaguely amused at his antics.

Time to explore the city.

---

I'd stopped by Viridian City on my way from Cerulean City, but I had no idea how small it was compared to Cerulean. Even Pallet Town had seemed bigger that Viridian -- but that was probably just me expecting Pallet to be small and Viridian to be huge.

First stop: the pokémart.

The second I stepped in, I noticed how quiet it was. It was eerie.

The clerk took one glance at the pokéball Nikame was riding in and waved me over.

"Hey, are you from Pallet Town? You know Professor Oak, right?" he asked.

"Well --" I began, but he rushed on:

"His order came in. Can I get you to take it to him? Okay, thanks!" And he shoved a small parcel at me. I sighed.

"Look, I just came from Pallet Town, I'm not --"

"Then it won't be a bother, will it? You know where Pallet Town is! Please say hi to Professor Oak for me, too!"

"Sir," I protested, "D'you know how long it takes to walk to Pallet Town from here? Besides, I'm a trainer, I need to train Nikame, maybe catch a pidgey or something. I don't really want to walk back to Pallet Town, especially since I was just there --"

"Oho, a runaway, are you?" the clerk snorted. "Well, sonny, you get back to Pallet Town before your mother comes looking for you!"

"I only came down to Pallet to get my starter pokémon," I said frostily. "My hometown is Cerulean City."

He frowned at me. "Well, why didn't ya say so? Woulda saved me a minute of my time. Kids these days don't know the value of time!"

He snatched the parcel back and continued chuntering under his breath. I shook my head, half bewildered and half irritated.

The sooner I could get away from this weird city, the better.

---

As it turned out, I escaped Viridian faster than I could have hoped. After lunch at the pokécenter and a vague outline of what we had done in the morning, Theo and I both set out along Route 22.

Theo, too, had found Viridian City to his disliking. The Viridian City Gym was closed, as I'd known it would be: one of my distant relatives was the Gym Leader there, and he (or she, I wasn't really sure, I'd never met him... or her...) was traveling right now.

But we didn't get far on the road: we ran almost immediately into Kat.

---

End-of-chapter notes:
...

Crap. I'm afraid, my readers, that I have just made a Larry Sue out of Al.

Oh, well. It's about time I updated, anyway. I write too slowly. It's a shame, I know. You'd think I write Wings faster, seeing as I'm determined only to let myself write about it in English, but Pokémon ideas come faster.

I should've started them from Hoenn. I've got so much mapped out for Hoenn and Sinnoh, it's scary. Especially since Johto is blank.

Ugh.

Back to Wings's drawing board...

EDIT: I might manga-format the story later on (just cuz some stuff would be much easier visualized). At the same time, some stuff might be improper, but w/e! ^^"

Trivial bit of me:
MATH is horribly easy, ENGLISH is the best (despite the rather depressing "Flowers for Algernon" that we just finished), SCIENCE is tolerable, and HISTORY projects should die. This is just on my scale, though, so don't kill me for it!