Pokéballs? Check. Medical supplies? Check. Books? Check.

Elliot sighed to himself as he hitched his large black rucksack over his bony shoulders.

He shook his head as he groaned. "Why am I doing this?"

An urgent shout pulled him back into reality.

"Yes, I'm coming!" he yelled impatiently. He brushed his dark brown hair across his forehead with one hand and bolted through the steel door.

I must look a sight. Here I am, in my everyday clothes with a whopping great backpack and pokéballs dangling at my waist. If anyone dares laugh they'll get a sock in their smug little face!

"Good morning, Elliot," said a tall man, extending his frail arm and limping towards him. His circular spectacles slipped down his bony nose and he propped them up again with a long finger. Elliot grumpily shook the man's hand.

"Yeah, yeah, so when do I have to-

He paused and turned. A latch clicked open and sunlight shone into the laboratory, forcing Elliot to fling his arm up in front of his eyes.

In the brightly coloured portal to the outside stood the silhouette of a young girl.

Here we go… Elliot rolled his eyes and watched, hand on hip, as the professor hobbled over to greet the youngster. The girl was led inside, holding the professor's hand proudly. Now that she was closer, Elliot could make out her freckled face, complete with an optimistic smile.

"Elliot, this is Amber," the professor introduced her, "and Amber, this is Elliot, my junior researcher." Elliot just stood there and looked down at the girl through his rectangular, steel-rimmed spectacles, tapping his foot on the metal flooring, unimpressed.

Amber looked up at Elliot, and then across to the withered old professor. She folded her arms and demanded, "Well, what's he here for now? Aren't I meant to be getting my pokémon? I want to be a pokémon master – I won't need to know people at the lab!"

Ah, naivety. How it is to be young. God help me if I was ever a bratty little child like that. I'd hope someone would have kicked my head in before it got stuck up my own arse!

On realising that the girl couldn't be intimidated with a simple stare, Elliot avoided making eye-contact with her altogether, and busied himself trying to identify every fossil that Professor Hawthorne had left out around the microscope.

"Elliot here's going to be your assistant-

He swivelled around immediately and broke his stoic poise. "What?" Elliot shouted incredulously.

"Oh hush," Hawthorne scolded, placing his bony hand on Elliot's shoulder. "She's my granddaughter, remember?"

Elliot pulled a face. He did remember. He remembered alright.

Why did I have to be such a stupid suck-up? If I'd have just done absolutely nothing around the lab and never took on any new projects this would never have happened. Anyway, why does she need a bodyguard? Every other kid in Kohama's going out, wandering about without anyone there to take care of them. It's part of being a trainer!

He sulked, but there was little he could do. If he refused to do it, Hawthorne wouldn't think as much of him. In his current position, Elliot was the youngest researcher in the lab and Hawthorne seemed to think pretty highly of him. At least, that was Elliot's opinion.

Elliot dragged behind as Hawthorne led his beloved granddaughter over to the cabinet holding the starter pokéballs. It was a rather dark corner of the lab, hardly inspiring to any new trainer. In their lab though, it was not a priority, so kept getting pushed further to the side whenever they got a fancy new machine brought in.

"Now," Elliot heard Hawthorne saying gently as he struggled to crouch down to Amber's level, "even though you're my granddaughter and I love you very much, another nice young man arrived here earlier and chose the squirtle. So I'm afraid you're left with either a charmander or a bulbasaur."

Elliot allowed himself a secret laugh as he noticed Amber's lower lip tremble. He half-expected her to cry, but she didn't. Instead, she snatched the pokéball bearing a leaf symbol and folded her arms.

"Fine!" she pouted. "Bulbasaur's mine."

She sulked for a minute and then noticed Elliot watching her. "What's his problem?" she demanded. "Is he stuck with a charmander now?"

Professor Hawthorne groaned as he pulled himself to his feet whilst putting his weight on the metal work surface. "Come," he beckoned with a gentle flick of his hand, "I have something else you might appreciate."

Still folding her arms crossly and holding Bulbasaur's pokéball tightly in the tips of her fingers, Amber traipsed across to her grandfather's desk. He opened a wooden drawer and pulled out a small, red computer device.

Elliot's jaw dropped. "Wait – your grandkid gets a pokédex and I don't even have one?"

Hawthorne nodded. For once, Amber looked impressed with herself and stuck her tongue out smugly at Elliot.

"Oh well…" he sighed. "I prefer my books anyway. At least books make you look intelligent."

When the professor turned his back to fetch something else, Elliot stuck his tongue out back at the girl. He knew it was childish, but something in him was proud to have got one over on the smug little princess.

What Hawthorne had for Amber was a small net bag containing five empty pokéballs, shiny red, new and unscratched. The little girl reached up and took them like a dog accepting a treat. Her bright blue eyes beamed in awe.

"Thanks, granddad!" she grinned, reaching around and emptying the pokéballs hastily into the side pocket of her rucksack.

Hawthorne ruffled her blonde hair. "That's my girl."

They smiled at each other for a minute or two and Elliot became increasingly aware of being a third wheel. Eventually, Hawthorne wiped a single tear from the corner of his wrinkled eyelid and beamed proudly at Amber, who flung her arms around the old man's skinny waist. He placed his hands on the back of her neck and seemed at ease – for the first time Elliot could recall – with human physical contact.

"Well," he wept when Amber released him from her grasp, "Goodbye, my Amber. Take good care of her, Elliot."

Elliot nodded, emotionless. He hoisted his black rucksack to a more comfortable position on his shoulders and walked briskly towards the door.

Without warning, he turned around and frowned quizzically at the professor. "I just thought – won't I look like a pervert, walking around in the middle of nowhere with a ten-year-old girl?" He breathed deeply and steadily, his heart beating fast with the slight possibility that he may have found a way out of this.

Hawthorne raised a bushy grey eyebrow. "It's simple – you just tell people you're her elder brother!"

"You're not serious?" Elliot looked at the professor quizzically. "We look nothing alike!"

Hawthorne laughed. He tapped Elliot on the arm to nudge him over to Amber. He stood back as if admiring a piece of artwork and nodded his head.

"You look exactly alike," he said seriously for a moment, stroking his bare chin with a finger. The edges of his wrinkled mouth wobbled and his eyes creased up. "You look like you've never seen the sun and you're both short, skinny little runts too!"

Seeing him break out into that outlandish chuckle, Elliot turned his back before Hawthorne could see his cheeks glowing bright tomato red. The boy stormed the rest of the way towards the door, stamping in his red high tops across the sterile grey flooring.

Then he was outside. He stopped and inhaled, filling his lungs with salty air. The lab was behind him and Acacia Town lay in front of him. The sea was lapping at the sandy shoreline and pidgey were cooing from the trees.

"Are you coming or not?" he shouted over his shoulder. He lowered his voice to a grumble and muttered, "Kids don't walk very fast these days."

Amber slammed the door behind her and skipped up to him on the path. Elliot set his eyes straight ahead, paving his way through the small town in tunnel vision, oblivious to the small girl excitedly tottering along beside him.

This is going to be a long day…

Author's Notes: Thanks for reading. Yes, this story features OCs and takes place in a region created by me - Thorndrop. Kohama is located on the mainland of the pokémon world, north of Kanto and Johto. There will be no fake pokémon. I wanted to use a new region in order to add an element of surprise to the story. If you don't know the region from a pokémon game or anime (etc...) then you won't know what's on the way next for the trainers. I'd like to get some feedback on whether that was a good idea or not, or whether people think it's best to stick with the well-known regions.

Also... OCs.

I can not promise to include any of the OCs submitted, but will ask permission if I do use one or use one as inspiration for a character.

Now that I've gotten that disclaimer out of the way...

Name:
Age:
Appearence:
'Job': (Trainer collecting badges, just a traveller, co-ordinator maybe - I still don't know if there's going to be contests in this region yet, some sort of worker in a job where they actually have to stay in a town, researcher/scientst, farmer/rancher... These are just some of the types of people who they might meet.)
Personality:
Pokémon if they have them:
Any interesting details:

Edit: I forgot to mention that since it's on the same land mass as Johto and Kanto, there will be no 'newer' pokémon (ie. from Sinnoh or Unova). Mostly because I'm not familiar with them myself. Also, I'd appreciate it if OCs didn't have Japanese-sounding names. Not because I'm racist, but because it'd fit in better with the story since all of my characters have western names. Some OCs which don't already have full teams of evolved pokémon would be nice too.

I do plan to create my own gym leaders too. I already know which gym type I want in each town or city, so asking people to help wouldn't be much use unless they knew my region better than someone who's only read the first chapter of this story.