Years Later…

Chapter One: Heights Too Far to Fall From

Screw school. You know what? I hated school.

Grumbling under my breath, I slung my bag over my shoulder and kicked open one of the double front doors to the expensive and oh-so-prestigious Viridian Academy—the place that, somehow, for some unknown reason, my mom had managed to worm her way into and found a place for me a few years ago.

There had been no arguing with her. You see, I had wanted to stay at good old Pallet High where I had grown up, but Mom wouldn't hear a word of it. She had shaken her head and pursed her mouth shut and combed her fingers through her black hair, and told me in a clipped voice that yes, Leaf, I was required to attend here. Didn't I know what a fantastic opportunity it was for my education? I didn't want to end up like my father, did I—a failed Pokemon trainer who had tried to embark on his journey at the age of eleven and been one of the unlucky ones who had stumbled and been forced to give his Pokemon away and fallen, fallen in his career?

No, Leaf, you need an education to get anywhere in life.

The edge of a folder clamped in my mouth, fingers fumbling at the zippers on the worn yellow fabric, I nearly tripped as I struggled to jam my notebook, swollen with loose sheets, into my bag. Yes, a wonderful, wonderful education. The door pushed me forward, so I gritted my teeth and braced my weight against my legs, and, pressed against the metal, my skirt crumpled awkwardly underneath my legs.

As I bent down to adjust the red, pleated hem, the notebook somehow slipped out of my grasp and tumbled to the ground in a flurry of papers—papers that flew everywhere, flapping wildly in the breeze.

I let the bag fall to the ground and dropped my fists to my sides.

"Shit!"

A few people passing by turned to shoot me odd, alarmed looks. A curly-haired lass on the arm of some preppy guy wearing a shirt printed with an Onix—the mascot of our school—tittered loudly, but the rest of them didn't even pretend to care. They just trailed their eyes casually over the weird girl leaning against the doorway and continued on their way, chattering animatedly about (if the snippets I caught from their conversation were any indication) the latest party where they had gotten drunk out of their minds and when they were planning to do it again.

Here was the place where people believed in stationary wealth, and never in dreams the way Dad had.

It shouldn't have been much of a surprise to me that I didn't fit in at Viridian Academy. Most of the kids came straight from the wealthy suburb of Viridian City, where the school itself obviously was, if not the few who came from even richer cities like Celadon and Saffron.

On the contrary, everyone I had grown up with was still ambling along the much smaller, nicer hallways of Pallet High, smiling and actually speaking to each other instead of the cold way in which people here seemed to ignore the people whose names weren't clearly spelled out on their agendas in a curlicue of fountain pen.

Pallet Town—home of the heroes. Home of Professor Oak. Rumor had it that every Champion had ties to Pallet Town. When I looked at it that way, why Mom wanted me to leave such a town and send me to somewhere like Viridian Academy didn't make much sense to me.

Crouched down, gathering the loose sheets of paper from the ground and stuffing them into various pockets of my bag, I didn't even care that my shoulders were brushing rudely past the crowds of people who flooded out of the front doors. The final bell had rung a few minutes ago, but I couldn't quite bring myself to give a damn enough to smile at them and mutter a quick "sorry" in their direction. Normally, I would have ducked my head and, bag dragging behind me, quickly scooted out of the way, but today, I really didn't care.

I would stand in their way like a paralyzed Geodude and ignore all their glares and frowns of disapproval as long as it took for me to jam all my stuff in my bag.

If only I had a Pokemon to Teleport me out of there, like an Abra. Wrong. Abras were pretty rare, and besides—only the rich kids had Pokemon. Pokemon their mommies and daddies gave them for Christmas, Pokemon who were nothing more than pets. At lunch, they released them from their Poke Balls, and their friends and girlfriends pored over them with high-pitched squeals and oozing, lipsticked smiles, manicured fingers stroking their fur.

One of the girls had even brought in a rare Pokemon from Unova one day—an Emolga, whose enormous eyes stared us all down as we struggled to digest the Berry sandwiches from the school cafeteria. The flying-squirrel-thing even looked at me, at where I sat at a table across the room with a few Super Nerds and Pokemaniacs I had managed to befriend. All of them choked on their sandwiches at the sight of the Emolga and coughed chewed-up bits of Cheri Berries onto their trays.

You would think a private academy like Viridian would have better food, but no—wrong again.

It would have been nice to have a Pokemon like that Emolga, or like any of the other Pokemon that the kids brought in. I would have used them right, too. Not as pets—but as the real battling Pokemon they were.

It was in my blood.

But actually getting a Pokemon of my own? While I was far from poor, I wasn't delusional enough to think that I could by any means be called rich. Not nearly rich enough to buy a damn Pokemon from anywhere. A small-town girl from Pallet Town, who lived in a tiny two-floor house with only a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms…it was a wonder that Mom had actually been able to scrape enough money for me to go to school at the Academy.

It couldn't have been Dad's money, that was for sure. When he came running home that night in sixth grade (when I was supposed to be asleep), I could hear the dark tears on Mom's face, her choked gasp at the low, hollow tone of the door swinging open, and the low, hollow tone of his voice as he took her in his arms and apologized.

I mouthed his name in the dark of my room—Daddy—but when I woke up the next morning, he was gone.

Since then, he had been forced to move to Sinnoh to help work with Roark in the Oreburgh Mine, or so Mom told me. He sent home a small pack of money whenever he could, but I knew from the tight line of Mom's lips whenever she came home holding the telltale envelope in her hands that it wasn't much.

Mom didn't like to talk about him. Or to him. And as a result, I hadn't seen him for years, not counting that night when I only heard his voice—not since second grade, when my last memory of him was a worn, whiskered smile and a Cherubi-shaped lollipop that he had placed in my hand with a pat on my white hat before turning and walking out the door, heading for Pewter City.

All I knew was that he wasn't a part of my life anymore, and I was fine with that. I hardly even remembered the man.

What I did remember, however, was his dream.

Whenever anything about training came up on the news, Mom always gritted her teeth and turned away from the TV and complained about all the stupid, idealistic ways in which Kanto's culture taught children to hope for something as outrageous as becoming the Champion. She had seen what those beliefs could do to a person. And whenever the dark look came over her face, I looked down at the wooden floor and knew for a fact that Dad had broken Mom's heart with his dreams.

I knew that all I could do was try not to do the same.

Even if it was there—the desire to roam, to feel foreign winds gusting on my face, for my feet to blaze across new paths—running through my blood.

So the hell of Viridian Academy it was.

For now.

"Why don't you get out of the way and let other people pass by?"

I looked up from my bag and gladly returned the sneer into the ice-blue eyes of the boy who confronted me, towering over me with a self-righteous gleam in his eye.

"Why don't you go away?"

It was one of those times where I knew I was in the wrong, but I didn't care. Anger reared up inside me, and I let it take over. These jerks. It was their fault I was in such a bad mood in the first place. Did he actually think I wanted to hang around any longer than I had to? What a joke. As soon as I finished putting all those damn papers in my bag, I would be up and out of this hell as fast as I could run.

"People here are actually trying to get by, and you're sitting here in the middle of the doors, blocking everyone's way for no particular reason us—what's your problem?" he ranted, crossing his arms over his preppy collared shirt.

"You are," I said lightly, not even looking up. "Please go away."

He still didn't budge.

"I'm going to report you to a professor if you don't move right now," he threatened. "You're really getting in everyone's way. This is a public disturbance, you know."

I snorted. Clearly he was spending too much time in his social studies classes, his perfect little button nose buried in thick books about law and order. "Go ahead," I answered, shrugging.

These rich, preppy kids—they thought they had every right to act pompous just because they could. I eyed his collared shirt and his shiny new shoes; he probably had a whole horde of Pokemon waiting for him at home who did all his dirty servant work for him and his family, cooking food and cleaning toilets while he came here and propped his feet on the desks. Pokemon who never had a chance to battle the way they were born to.

The boy opened his mouth, and then promptly shut it, his eyes flicking to the side with a sudden glimmer of fear. Confused, I followed his gaze.

I rather felt the shadow of the imposing presence before I saw it.

"Excuse me, is there a problem here?"

The voice was crisp, commanding, coming from a speaker who clearly expected respect—but there was something more to it. It was familiar. My hair swung over my shoulder as I pulled my hat above my eyes, curious.

I instantly swallowed the nasty anti-authority retort that had been licking at the back of my throat when my eyes confronted the broad-shouldered, gray-haired man standing over us, cloaked in a white lab coat.

Holy crap. What was Professor Oak doing out here in Viridian City?

His eyes widened with surprise when he saw me. Oak crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. "Well, well. Leaf?"

The preppy boy's mouth fell open. "You know her?" he exclaimed, looking back and forth between us with equal amounts of awe and disgust.

"We're neighbors," I snapped at him, before turning back to the professor. Well, this made things a little more complicated. Thanks to my bad mood, I was on the verge of giving Preppy Boy the smackdown he deserved, but I wasn't going to pull that in front of the professor.

Honestly, out of all the positive role models I had to look up to…he was the closest to a hero that I had. A powerful Pokemon trainer in his day (unlike my dad, who had tried to be), and now a world-renowed professor who lived next door. It didn't really get any better than that.

"Hi, Professor," I stammered. "What—what are you doing here?"

"Hello, Leaf." Oak was still eyeing me strangely, and I remembered that I was crouched in the middle of the entrance. I hastily gathered the last few sheets of paper and stuffed them into my bag before dragging myself to my feet. "I came here to give a lecture about the relationships between human and Pokemon—but I'm a little surprised to see you here standing in the middle of the doorway."

I caught a glimpse of the smug look plastered across Preppy Boy's face and grimaced.

"Yeah, sorry about tha—"

"Professor, are you going to report her?" Preppy Boy primly cut across my apology. "She's been holding everyone up."

I clenched my teeth. What a dick.

Oak turned his stern gaze on him, and the kid gulped and shrank back, his shoulders crumpling forward. Ha.

"Excuse me, Mister…er…"

"Thompson," Prep filled in quickly. "Joshua Thompson."

"Mr. Thompson." Oak nodded. He looked thoughtful. "Shouldn't you be getting along on your way home now? Though Leaf's actions were certainly very rude"—he eyed me, and I gulped at the intense, admonishing gaze of his dark eyes—"she's apologized for holding you up now, and moved so that the doorway is open for you to leave. So…" He gestured outside at the clear blue sky and the green trees swaying in the wind with a large, square hand. "Now you're free to go on your way."

Joshua Thompson blinked several times as the professor's words sank into his thick skull. I smirked. Finally, he muttered "Yes, sir" with a firm nod in Oak's direction and strode out the door, purposefully digging his elbow into my side as he passed.

Oak shook his head after the boy, a faint, faraway look in his eyes. "Young men like him…I certainly hope Blue doesn't turn out like him."

Hmm?

"What did you say, Professor?"

"Oh, never mind. I'm just an old man mumbling to himself." Oak smiled a crinkled smile and waved his hand. "How are you, Leaf?"

His sharp eyes examined my face, and the sunlight streamed down from the sky to highlight all the angles on his face. The sight sparked a surprising flare of recognition in my mind—they were angles I had seen once before in my life, somewhere, but I couldn't remember exactly where. When I didn't speak, Oak continued with a wry twist of his mouth. "I notice that you didn't seem to be very happy about…ah…moving aside."

Guilt bubbled up inside me and threatened to paint my cheeks with a red-hot flush. Momentarily, my knees remembered the grit of the pavement as I knelt in front of everyone, practically shoving them aside. I was such an idiot. In front of Professor Oak, in front of my hero, I had acted like one of the nasty, spoiled brats I hated—only with a temper problem and what seemed like a cynical hatred for all humans.

Which to some extent we probably all were, deep inside. I only could cross my fingers and hope that I was less so than everyone else at the Academy…the spoiled brat part, at least. The cynicism part probably needed some work.

"Sorry, Professor." I bowed my head, genuinely meaning it, or so the deep throb of guilt coating my throat told me. "I've…just had a bad day." And a bad year. And a bad few years of high school in general.

I was surprised when through my curtain of chestnut hair, I saw Oak grimace in sympathy and incline his head toward me.

"Leaf…" He mulled over his words carefully, sharp eyes softening for a moment. I waited expectantly. He looked like he was on the verge of saying something big. "Do you miss Pallet Town?"

I looked up in confusion. Okay, now that was just anti-climactic. I thought Oak was a hell of a lot more clear-headed than that.

I gave him what a hoped wasn't a look of disrespect. "Um…I still live there, Professor." Remember? I'm only, like, a house away from you?

"Of course." Oak let out a dry chuckle and tugged at a few wrinkles in his lab coat, smoothing them out with his square fingers. "I'm not talking about the neighborhood, Leaf. I mean…" The thoughtful daze settled over his face again, rather like a shadow lifting from a clear surface. "The high school. Pallet High. If I remember correctly, you had a few good friends there, didn't you, Leaf? You and a young man named…Red used to play together in the pond, I think."

I nodded hesitantly—I missed Red and his quiet maroon eyes more than I could put into words—but I still wasn't sure where this was going.

"And your mother—it must be harder to see her when you go to school here, am I right?"

I flicked my eyes up in alarm. Coming from anyone else, a question like that would have sounded rude and more than a little bit inappropriate, and I would have taken an immediate dislike to someone who tried to pry into my life that way. But from Oak, whose obsidian eyes shone with a kind of dignified empathy that somehow conveyed more than just feeling sorry for a bratty misfit, those words sounded like a show of respect, a deep, courteous bow.

"Yeah," I said cautiously. "It is."

Oak nodded. Most people would have been fidgeting at a conversation like this, I mused, a conversation that bordered dangerously on personal, but Oak stood as tall and strong as his namesake. He never broke eye contact, and he held his back utterly straight like the trunk of a tree, still and imposing.

I couldn't do that. I shifted my weight onto my other sneakered foot and swallowed, clearing the awkward fog from my throat, but the professor just looked me straight in the eyes and declared, "I understand, Leaf."

I nodded weakly back at him, barely managing to tear my eyes away from his. Discomfort rose inside me like a Sand-Attack of sorts, coating the inside of my stomach and my throat. Was that it? That exchange had been more than a little uncomfortable—for me, and, I was sure, for him as well.

Sure, it was nice to be understood from time to time, but enough was enough. I took a few small steps forward from the door, ready to bid Oak a good afternoon and take my leave.

His next words shattered through the ground before I could.

"Leaf…have you ever considered being a trainer?"

I spun around, throat numb. "What?"

The hint of a smile grazed Oak's serious mouth. He didn't even have to take a step forward; I walked right back toward him, pulled irresistibly by the unspoken promise in those words.

"Have you ever considered the life of a trainer, Leaf?" Oak gestured vaguely at the grand hallways of the Academy around us. "I don't mean to sound rude, but you seem like you'd be happier on the road than…here." A glint of humor shone in his eyes, and I pictured young Oak, with those same eyes and square angles, pacing around these classrooms. Somehow, the image didn't fit. "Your beginnings, and you yourself—you remind me of past Champions from Pallet Town, Leaf."

Blood rose instantly to my face before I could stop it. Was it even possible to get a compliment higher than that? Was it? I didn't think so.

"And growing up here"—Oak's smile widened—"I'm sure you've heard that every Champion of Kanto has had ties to Pallet Town."

I nodded dazedly, unable to speak.

"It's in the ideals that the town holds, Leaf," Oak told me, his eyes glimmering like black fire. For a moment, I saw the fierce and terrifying trainer he had been in his youth—the trainer who had won many battles and almost become the Champion himself, who would have easily, if he hadn't one day discovered a life that he loved even more. "It's in the lifestyle of the people, and its ideals, and, most importantly…its dreams."

The dark fire probed into my eyes of hazel, and it chilled me to the very core how his words echoed the ones I had thought to myself many times before so clearly—as if I could hear them, reverberating through a marble room. Many, many times when I remembered my father, broken and lost in a dark mine in Sinnoh, so different from the dream he had begun with—a dream of freedom, with the Pokemon he loved. When Mom criticized everything that he believed with that bitter grimace on her face, when she unwittingly lashed out at everything that I believed, I remembered how he had fallen from a greater height than any of us had ever even known.

It was my father's dream, it was Pallet Town's dream, and it was mine, too.

"Yes," I said hoarsely when I found my voice again. "I'd love to."

Author's Note:

Yesss! Chapter One is done! Please tell me what you think. :)