Alphabet Soup Chapter 1

When Professor Juniper announced that she would take an intern for the winter break to show them the basics of pokemon research, she expected her responders to be twelve and thirteen-year olds, teenagers on the cusp of entering the world of pokemon as official trainers. She did not expect the sole responder to be six-year-old Cheren Shiro, a soft-spoken boy with a penchant for electronics and dress shirts. Currently, said six-year-old was walking through the lab, surveying the test tubes and electronics, occasionally reading a label or abstract of a paper. Professor Juniper concluded that twenty years was the only thing separating Cheren from a PhD. He seemed to completely ignore her presence; the sound of his shoes on the floor melded perfectly with the background noise of the lab, an always present undertone that would only be noticed by its absence. Cheren finally stopped in front of a clear box snaked by tubes and connected to all sorts of monitors.

"Professor? What's this, and why is a-"-he flipped through the pages of his identification book, his finger eventually landing on a picture of a small fluffy gray pokemon with cloudlike fur and a feathery tail- "Minccino in it?" Said Minccino was absurdly small, Cheren noticed. It could slip into his bag without even making a noticeable bulge.

"That's an incubator," Professor Juniper replied, about to give a definition before realizing that this was Cheren Shiro, and he certainly knows what an incubator is, even if he never saw one in real life before, "And that Minccino is in there because someone abandoned it right after it was born. My friend, Dr. Fennel, found it and gave it to me to care for, as she doesn't have the proper equipment. It's too young to live on its own, so the incubator is keeping it warm and cozy in the winter weather."

"Oh." Cheren smiled as the small gray pokemon shifted in its sleep. Even through the glass, its fur looked like a cloud; his fingers twitched at the thought of stroking it. "And when it's older?"

"Hm..." The truth was, she hadn't really thought about it. The Minccino was barely even weaned, and it didn't know any attacks. Its growth was stunted and it probably wouldn't be that big. No trainer would want to battle with it, and by the time the Minccino was that old, it would be too habituated to people to live on its own. Maybe an older retired person would care for it, but Juniper knew that she would fret too much to adopt out the little pokemon. Then again, she had been thinking about having a companion pokemon since-

Bam. Bam BAM!

Someone knocked on the door. Well, charged up against it seemed to be more accurate, considering how loud it was. In either case, Juniper's train of thought skidded off the rails and crashed into a mountain.

Bam BAM BAM!

"Alright, I'm coming!" Juniper half expected a tornado or something, the knocking was so loud. Opening the door she said, "This better be pretty importan-"

And stopped.

The woman standing before Juniper, clutching something in her arms, could be classified as attractive, until you looked at her eyes. Deep blue, they were frenzied and panicked. This was obviously a woman in serious trouble. Juniper glanced at the Blitzle standing beside the woman, its striped fur and jagged horn sparking in agitation. It didn't seem to be injured or sick or dying of some obscure disease, so why was this woman so...

The blanket shifted, revealing part of a limp figure. Juniper suddenly realized that the phrase, "I felt a chill go down my spine," was firmly grounded in reality. "Cheren," she said, eventually. "Why don't you go home. I'll meet with you again tomorrow."

Thankfully, Cheren didn't protest. The boy simply picked up his bag (Neatly pressed clean, like everything else he owned), thanked Juniper, and left. He took no notice of the woman with the Blitzle and the bundle as he left. Or if he did, he didn't think it was important.

If Cheren saw the little girl lying limp and pale and still in the woman's arms, or if he heard the girl's wheezing breaths, he might have left with a bit more fuss. Perhaps he would have heard phrases like. "-Lucky to be alive," or "-Possible amnesia, definitely permanent respiratory damage," or "-She'll be happy here." And perhaps several weeks later he would have recognized the girl his age who joined his class at the end of the month, who just moved here with her mother, who was brash and loud and good at making friends with people who were hardly like her at all.

===

Icy hands, slipping through the velvet of dreams, shaking a young boy into consciousness.

"It's time."

It was past midnight, far too late for a boy his age to be awake. "Hrm?"

"What your whole life has been made for. All your plans, all your dreams. It is time."

Now he was starting to remember. Of course. "You mean I got it?"

"Yes." He smiled. The boy felt happy. The older man who looked so much like him never smiled, not even when giving the boy a new toy, or a pokemon trembling in fear from the hands of people. He never smiled, not even when the boy showed that the pokemon who feared human hands trusted the boy. But he was smiling now, so the boy felt happy.

And then the boy felt worried. "But...What about B and K and L and the others?"

Something flashed across the older man's face, and was just as quickly gone. "I'm sorry...They're not able to see it. They're a bit busy right now, helping us elsewhere. But I told them and they're all very happy for you."

"Oh. That's good then."

"Now." He grabbed the boy's wrist and led him out of bed. "It is time."

"...Can I bring any of my friends?"

"...No. Sorry, you can't bring any of your pokemon. This is a people-only thing."

"...Not even Zorro?" Zorro, the boy's Zorua, his favorite even if he would never admit it. He was not supposed to nickname his pokemon, he knew. It implied ownership, while they were friends and equals. But the boy was only three when he got Zorro, and he was unable to shape his mouth to fit the letters. By the time he learned how to pronounce Zorua, Zorro had stuck.

The boy liked Zorro better, anyway. Zorua liked Zorro too, so that was okay.

He looked up from the floor (Bare pink toes against thick red carpet) and realized that he was already walking down the aisle, towards the throne.

It was late, and the boy was tired. He could only remember bits and pieces of the ceremony.

He remembered the hush of all the older people in their robes. If he really concentrated, he remembered that some looked like they might be crying, but he never really knew for sure.

He remembered the red and white robe, and how heavy it felt on his shoulders. Much heavier than the fluffy bathrobe, or the blankets on his bed.

He remembered the crown, and how it slid down over his eyes before the icy hands of the older man adjusted it.

He remembered saying something about how humans were meanies and pokemon were nice, and so we all had to protect pokemon from the mean humans, but he couldn't remember the details. The older man spoke more anyway. At least, the boy thought he did.

He remembered curling up with Zorro and easily falling to sleep, dreaming of tunnels of light and trains with headlights that, instead of lighting things up, made everything shadowy and dark.