FicWad

Made of Stone

Disclaimer: I do not own pokemon, whether in the context of the games or the anime. I am merely writing this as a work of fanfiction, and like all fanfiction authors this is what I do until I can find real work, meaning that I have no money and it is useless to sue me. I do own Mel, Alex, Matt, Scott, Chris, and Adam. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or fictional in any other context than this story, is purely coincidental. Again, I have no money, so you can't sue me and expect any profit. Whoo. That sounded nice and professional, don'tcha think?

Author's Note: this is an Original Trainer (OT) Fic. If that isn't your kettle of fish, well then you don't have to read this.

Chapter One: The Misleading Introduction

A girl holding a small plastic brown animal in her hands was running through the grass.

The word grass was misleading, there were more rocks sticking out of the ground than there was vegetation, at least that's how it seemed to her bare feet. Not that she minded. The rocks were smooth and worn from wind and rain, they were mainly long stretches of bedrock thrusting up through the shallow soil with the occasional boulder or two scattered between them.

Also, what grass there was on those rolling rock fields was cropped short by the mouths of hungry herbivores, mostly to make room for moss, and thickets of ferns. The grass mainly appeared in the little paths that had been forged through the feather like greenery. So, the girl was not running through grass as much as she was running through thickets of ferns, containing the occasional thistle, and on top of moss covered bedrock.

Running was another misleading word. The girl did run in certain places, but her pace would have been better described overall as a series of nimble leaps and jumps, interspersed with periods of half running half jogging. She jumped from piece of rock, to piece of rock, trying to avoid the dung of animals that had passed through the pasture before her.

While small brown plastic animal was an accurate description, it needs to be elaborated upon. It was made of plastic, painted a rich brown, and it was just the right size and shape to fit comfortably into her hand, but there was more to the figurine than just these physical components.

To begin with, the statuette was of an eevee. Eevee were fairly rare pokemon, and generally considered cute. However the girl had not woken up that day and picked her good luck charm on that basis. She had several plastic statues of rarer and, at least in her opinion, cuter pokemon. However, the eevee was the only one who would fit in her hand easily. Had she been looking for rare and cute she probably would have chosen her articuno figurine. However, there was too much of a chance that one of the glorious strips of plastic that made up the tail feathers would get damaged somehow.

Now the reader knows that the girl was jogging and jumping over rocky ground through thickets of ferns and thistles holding a small eevee statue for good luck. While it probably would have been easier to just say that, the sentence "a girl holding a small plastic brown animal held in her hands was running through the grass" is generally the poetically acceptable term for the start of fan fictions such as these.

By now it has probably been guessed that she was running late to her appointment to get her first pokemon, since that is also one of the conventions of poetics. Again, this statement is misleading. The girl does think that she is running late, but she only thinks that she is running late because she is the kind of person who thinks that she is running late to everything and ends up arriving half an hour early.

Focusing on the girl, one would expect that her name is at least three syllables long and can be shortened to a preppy, cool nickname, like Kipper. This is not the case, her name is three syllables, but her nickname is anything but preppy and cool. The girl's name is Melamine, and the kids in her class either call her "The Girl," or "Wash Pot."

One would also expect long hair streaming in the wind. Well, it is hard for hair, long or not, to stream in a wind if the weather is not windy. Wash Pot's hair did manage to bounce a little as she leapt from boulder to boulder. Perhaps the brown strings did wave a bit, due to the laws of physics. However, they did not stream.

The Girl's hair was of the type known as "fine." It fell limply off her head and onto her shoulders, making the poor ten year old look as if she had just come out of the rain. Today someone had obviously tried to do something to the limp strands, and gathered the hair into a ponyta-tail. As a consequence, the girl's face is revealed to be plain. She is not ugly, just plain.

Even her eyes are unremarkable. While other authors will gush about girls with cerulean eyes which turn green/yellow/red when the character is angry, this author merely has given this character a simple color. Wash Pot's eyes are blue and there is nothing special about them or her. The only thing that sets her apart from any other girl her age is the slight clenching of the jaw, and a glare permanently etched onto the face.

Cresting the top of a large rock she looked at a field of waving grass. The field dipped down to form a valley. The land swooped up again, far into the distance, creating a soft hill. On that hill a white building sat gleaming in the sun.

Melamine stood on the rock, admiring the view and fingering the small eevee nervously.

"Okay, I can do this," she whispered to the small plastic animal. "I will make it through the league. I won't drop out, and I won't fail!"

She set off across the field. Under normal circumstances she would have been a bit leery of running across this field, but the possibility that she might be late was firmly lodged in her mind. She didn't want to be late. Being late was something that The Girl would do. How she despised that nickname.

She had been going to pokeschool with the other trainers-to-be that year. Before she had been home schooled. So upon entering the lab on the first day she was the only one who had made no friends, and only knew the other five children by sight, and in one case, reputation. She was also the only girl of her year.

That was how she had landed the nickname, The Girl. It was her parents' fault for giving her a name that Professor Oak had a hard time remembering. When he had called on her he had always said: "Er, yes, you - the girl, what are the three legends of Kanto?"

It had been Chris' idea to call her Wash Pot. He thought that it went with her hair. Melamine didn't mind Wash Pot as much. It was now practically a term of endearment. Plus, Chris had made it up, and even though he was a nasty snot sometimes, he had been the first one to try to befriend her.

The others soon followed. They weren't the best of friends. Adam was the only one she was really close to, Chris was far too mercurial for Melamine's comfort, Matt was grumpy and didn't talk much, Scott was bossy, and Alex was - Alex.

Out of all her classmates Wash Pot disliked him the most. He was always snotty and prideful. What was worse was that he was, in a way, entitled to that attitude. Alex came from a rich family, and he was two years older than everyone else, except for Adam. He knew everything there was to know about pokemon, including stat ratios, which Wash Pot had yet to memorize.

As luck turned out, Wash Pot was half an hour early. The only other person waiting calmly before the lab door was Alex. It was just her luck. He sniffed at her breathless entrance.

"You aren't supposed to cut across the pokemon field," he pointed out, his voice completely neutral, his cold green gaze directed at seven inches to the left of Melamine's head.

Wash Pot fingered the eevee, trying to draw courage from the smooth surface.

"Well, good morning to you, too. I was right by the fence, and nothing happened to me, so it doesn't matter," she answered.

"Hmph," the derisive snort was calculated to say more about how imbecilic Melamine was than a thesaurus ever could.

They stood in silence for a while before Melamine decided that her back pack was too heavy. She took it off and walked over to the side of the lab. She could already see a black canvas bag there. Obviously Alex was continuing with his decided theme.

Melamine did not see anything wrong with the color black in moderation, but Alex constantly wore black. Black t-shirt, black jeans, black shoes, and she would have liked to bet black socks. She supposed that it was supposed to coordinate with his black hair, but it left his tan skin looking pale and sickly.

Of course, Wash Pot had yet to discover the world of romance. To her the black was just a strange fashion statement, to the girls who were closer to Alex's age black was very attractive.

"Hoi, I see Wash Pot and the Vampire have arrived at least," Chris bounced up to the duo.

He dropped his bag to the ground and stretched. He was dusty from having come over the road, but at least he wasn't panting from a run over the fields. Wash Pot smiled, and nodded. Alex glanced at him coolly.

"We still have twenty minutes to wait," Alex said, as if he thought it was incredibly bad form for Chris to show up early.

"Cool," was Chris' grinned reply. "We can get to know each other better, then. What starters do you think Oak is going to offer this year?"

"Well, he has to have the three Kanto traditionals," Melamine answered, "but that still leaves three out in the open."

"Pidgey will probably be one of them," Chris said confidently. "It's a little common, but all of the starters have to have three evolutions. The only other three evolutions I can think of are either already represented by type, or way too rare for beginning trainers."

Wash Pot nodded, he had a point. She began to list all of the three evolutions that she could remember from Kanto.

She was not all that enthusiastic about any of the traditional starters. Bulbasaur was what people would expect that she take, but Wash Pot didn't really want a pokemon that slow. She liked fast pokemon, with strong attacks. Squirtle were too average for her taste, and far too reliant on defense. That only left charmander. However the little fire lizards, while cute, were generally willful when they evolved. She wanted a pokemon who could think for itself, but not completely ignore her.

"Oddish, dratini, pidgey, pichu, oh, the nidorans, caterpie, weedle, abra, machop, gastly, geodude, poliwag, cleffa, igglybuff, and bellsprout. I think that's the lot," Wash Pot said.

"Bulbasaur means that oddish, and bellsprout won't be available," Chris replied, going through the list, "poliwag's also out, because of squirtle. Dratini, and cleffa are far too rare."

"Pichu's a shoe in," Alex commented, even though he was leaning against the side of the lab and staring into the field.

Chris looked at him and shrugged. He knelt in the dirt, drawing figures in it.

"If he follows the canceling out pattern with pichu then - nidoran male, which evolves into nidoking being part ground and all that, and abra being a psychic would be the two other choices."

"But what counteracts abra?" The Girl asked.

"Oh don't be such a downer, Wash Pot," Chris commanded. "Life can't be all about logic."

"The Girl's beat you again at the logic game, huh?" Scott drawled, leaning on the fence.

Both Chris and Wash Pot jumped and turned to see the latest arrival. Scott was dusty from the road, and had let his back pack drop to the ground before leaning on the fence that separated the field and the road. Matt stood next to him, looking bored. However, an expression of either boredom or anger was generally his facial default, much like contempt was part of Alex's expression. It wasn't surprising that Matt and Scott had shown up together. He and Scott lived next door to each other.

They did look disturbingly like brothers, although almost everyone in Pallet looked alike. Tanned skin and hair of varying shades of brown was the basic look around town. Occasionally there was a genetic anomaly, like Melamine's little sister Catherine, who was black haired with pale white skin that sunburned easily. However, for the most part, excluding people who had moved there, like Alex and Adam, there was a uniform code to being someone from Pallet.

"So, which ones are you all thinking of taking?" Melamine said into the silence stretching between everyone.

"Oh, definitely the nidoran," Chris said enthusiastically. "Poison is the coolest type around. You don't get moves like toxic and sludge bomb just anywhere, you know."

Melamine was about to point out that nidoran, no matter what stage of evolution, couldn't learn these moves. However, Scott beat her to pointing out flaws in Chris' theory.

"And if a psychic pokemon shows up?" Scott challenged. "Personally, I'd want the abra. You need reliable and dependable partners for your starters."

"Oh yes, because teleporting freaks are sooooo reliable," Chris rolled his eyes.
He felt a little excited because his mother didn't approve of eye rolling in the house. Eye rolling was a sign that he had finally become mature and outside his parents' control. He couldn't wait until after they got their pokemon. He was going to challenge Scott and show the bossy little snot who was boss.

"I am taking the charmander," Alex said quietly, but it was the kind of quiet which just grabbed everyone and said, listen.

Matt was quiet on the subject, but he wasn't very talkative. Melamine knew that all they were likely to hear out of him that day was: "I choose you."

She looked up the road for Adam, fingering her little eevee. She wasn't certain, but perhaps the pichu wouldn't be too bad a pokemon to have. Raichu were a little silly, but it was better than venasaur.

Finally, at five minutes to eight, Professor Oak was seen trudging up the hill. He was muttering as he searched in his pockets for his keys. He glanced up, noting that all of his students, bar one, were there already. Oh well, Adam had five minutes to get to the lab before he would be completely late.

"I see you are all here and excited to pick your pokemon," the professor smiled at the children as they dutifully bowed their heads in approved Kantoan politeness.

"Yes sir," they chorused.

"Well, alright. Since this is such a large class this year we have several options beyond the normal starters," Professor Oak opened the door and walked into his lab.

The children followed, their minds completely engaged by what he was saying. They had gone to school here every day and the shiny machines and odd pieces of equipment no longer held much fascination for them.

"Now, this year, as in other years you are going to go into the enclosure and meet the pokemon first hand before deciding which pokemon you want, or in some cases, which pokemon wants you," Professor Oak said with a light hearted laugh.

He led them to a door that was normally locked. He looked at the key ring in his hand, trying to decide which strip of metal was needed for this door went a breathless voice broke the silence.

"Wait! Sorry I'm late, I overslept! It's my older brother's fault!" Adam came skidding up to the group.

Like Alex, he was almost two years older than everyone there. He was also bigger than everyone else besides Alex, but in that big ungainly way which marked him out to turn into a giant when he was full grown. Unlike Alex though, he acted like he was two year younger than everyone. His close cropped black hair was standing on end from having been squashed to his pillow only minutes ago, and he was wearing a horrible test pattern of electric yellow and neon orange. He was laughing guiltily and apologizing by turns, as Chris and Scott kidded him good naturedly, and Matt just looked bored.

Melamine watched it all with the detached air of an outsider. This was just like when she had joined a local music program. She had been the only girl playing the trombone. The month after she quit it because she couldn't take being the only one who didn't know what the rest were talking about when the subject of arcade games came up, seven girls joined the trombone section. Being late was the trainers' version of arcade games, and so Wash Pot just stayed to the side and listened

Finally Professor Oak got the boys to calm down, and he unlocked the wooden door. It led, surprisingly enough, into a structure that was something like a green house and an aquarium combined. At one end there was a shallow pool, while at the end closest to the lab there was a miniature forest of plants on trestle tables.

"Now children," Professor Oak said, after the kids got used to the steamy heat of the small side building, "this is where we keep the starters for every years' batch of new trainers. This year there are three extra pokemon. Pichu," Alex looked smug as the professor said this, "abra, and zubat. Squirtle, bulbasaur, and charmander are also available. You should be able to find all six if you look. I'm going to give you all fifteen minutes to get acquainted."

~~~

Okay, there you are. This a test balloon, I assure you all that it will get better as the story continues, rivalries are already springing up (mainly between Adam/Alex, and Scott/Chris). We'll get to the choosing of the pokemon (or in most cases, the choosing of the humans) next chapter. I hope for a review, but I don't really expect one.