FicWad

Melamine nodded mutely and touched the pokeball to the smooth blue head. She quickly walked through the door into the lab. The room seemed dark and cool after the sun and warmth of the green house. Melamine stood blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. She gripped the pokeball nervously, trying to hide the water droplet from veiw.

"Hoi, over here," Adam called.

He waved encouragingly over to where he was standing, next to an assistant with a pencil tucked behind one ear and a clipboard in hand. His pichu was already out again, and running around his feet excitedly. Alex was nowhere to be seen.

The Girl walked over to the assitant, gripping the eevee very hard. She was glad that she had chosen to take the eevee, that must have been what was conferring the luck to her of getting a pokemon who actually wanted her. She hoped that the luck didn?t run out.

"Hello, Miss Brown," the assistant said, his flat voice told her that he had rehearsed this speech several times, "here is the newest version of the Kantoanese pokedex. It has the information for the three well-known regions, and the Orange Islands. I think in a few months we can get the Orre information as well. If you just let it scan your pokeball, like so," he held the dark grey rectangle so that the blank camera lens in the center was able to emit a red beam that hit the pokeball cupped in Wash Pot's hand.

Immediately the smooth rectangle of the pokedex flipped open to display a 3D picture of squirtle and a list of information. "The pokedex will close if you press this button," a small black button on the edge was indicated, "and it has many other features, try it out for yourself. Here is your standard set of five pokeballs, and off you go. Mister Drakan, over here please."

The assistant waved Matt over just as he gently shooed Melamine to the side. She looked around the lab and then decided that Adam must have left to go outside. Walking through the jumbles of electronics with a pokemon in a pokeball that was her very own was strangely no different from walking through them as the pokeless Wash Pot.

Once she got outside she looked around, Adam was leaning on the fence, clicking buttons on his open pokedex excitedly, while Alex was carefully stowing his in his back pack. Adam's pichu was hiding in the shadow of his trainer's leg, while Corazon, the charmander, was watching it with cool amber eyes.

Melamine wet her lips nervously, and tried to release her pokemon while no one was looking.

However, Adam noticed, and beamed, saying a little too loudly: "Awesome! No one else deserves the squirtle more than you, Wash Pot."

Alex looked up, and observed the blue turtle, as it stood next to Melamine.

"Hm, pity. He derserves better," was all that Alex would comment.

"This'll be great, finally something I can beat you at," Adam grinned. He was the worst in the classes, while The Girl tended to be up among the top tier of knowledge. "Bolt has the type advantage."

"Bolt?" Melamine asked, sounding confused.

"His pichu. I would have thought that even you could see that," Alex sneered, he seemed to be going out of his way to be as unpleasant as possible. "Bolt, lightning bolt. Hardly a complex name for an electric type. Although, it is possible that the mouse was named for the way it so quickly runs to safety."

"Yeah, I did," Adam said, flushing slightly. "So, what did you name your pokemon?" he asked Mel, trying to quickly change the subject.

Melamine looked down quickly, trying to draw inspiration from her turtle. All she could think of was the fact that his skin looked a little like the opal that adorned her mother?s engagement ring. However, opal wasn?t a good name for a boy.

It was a beautiful ring, Mel thought crazily. Mother always wore it, and when she went out to parties she would wear a neaklace of lapis lazurli. It was a beautiful blue, like what she thought the sea ought to look like, with flecks of gold swimming in the depths of the stone.

"Lapis," she heard herself say, without really thinking. She was about to add lazurli, but decided that "Lapis" sounded like a name that a guy could wear, where as lazurli would make it all too feminine.

"Lapis, huh?" Adam asked. "Well, I suppose that works as long as you don't catch a lapras. Hey, have you checked out what you can do with the pokedex?"

"No, not yet," Melamine replied. "I just got out here, remember?"

"Great, I'll show you what I've managed to find. Look here," he pressed a button on his and the three-dimensional hologram of Bolt appeared, underneath it were the stats of his pokemon.

Melamine couldn't help looking eagerly at the stats, trying to see what Bolt could do, exactly. He had horrible defense, and, even better, his HP was low, meaning that one good hit could knock him out. Adam was her best friend, but it was generally expected that the trainers starting out together would all have battled one another before the day was through. Melamine wanted to win, she realized.

"Well, come on," Adam encouraged. "Press that button on your `dex and you'll get Lapis' stats."

Melamine pressed the button, and then began to cycle through hers until Chris joined them. He was interested in the uses that a pokedex could provide that had nothing to do with pokemon. Together the three found a map (and locator, so they would never get lost), current information about the prices of pokemon goods (and information about any big sales in near by towns), a list of suggested survival gear to have at all times, an interdexal e-mail system ("so we can brag about the rare pokemon we've caught to each other," Adam had grinned), and something called the "Proto_Holo_Prog" with the lable that it would be activated upon sighting of the first really wild pokemon.

They were interrupted in their sreach through the immense database by Scott, who was last to come out.

"Hey, guys, I was thinking. We're all going to be going to Viridian first, right? Before we go anywhere else. So, why not, instead of just separating to go home to our parents and then starting out, we all meet by that huge sycamore overlooking The Field? We can see how well we've chosen then, and leave each other with a taste of what to expect against different trainers," he suggested.

The other five children looked at each other, or in Matt's case, glared at the ground. Alex finally summed up the general consensus.

"You've had many a stupider idea. Fine. We'll see each other there at ten."

They all hung around for a moment longer, and then separated. Mel hopped the fence, and began racing toward her home. Alex and Scott walked down the lane for a little ways before turning to go in opposite directions. Adam ran to catch up with Alex, who lived in the same part of Pallet as he did. Matt and Chris were left staring at each other.

Chris came from an orphanage near Viridian, and had no real reason to go there, only to turn around again to make it to the sycamore that overlooked the shortcut of a field from Viridian to Pallet.

"So, you going home?" Chris finally asked Matt.

"Yeah," Matt said.

Something in the back of Chris's mind which had been growing since the minute Raindancer had declared that they were bonded said, very quitely, he's lying.

"You're," Chris was about to accuse Matt, but then he remembered that he was a small wiry boy, not yet four foot six, while Matt was much larger. He wasn't as giant-like as Adam, but he was tall enough to be looked up to. Not only that, Matt's hands had balled into fists. "Going to give it your all?" Chris finished lamely.

"Yeah."

"Cool. What did you call your bulbasaur?" Chris decided to change things to a more cheerful subject. The answer he received was hardly encouraging.

"It needs a name?"

"Well, er, normally --," Chris was cut off by Matt's glare, which moved from the ground to land directly on the Chris?s tanned face.

"Don't you have a home to go to?" Matt asked angrily.

"Not really. I live up by Viridian."

"Then run there," Matt hissed.

Chris, deciding that he had pressed his luck enough for one day, took the advice. Matt watched the dust cloud move away and looked down at the ground again. He released his pokemon from the pokeball, and hunched down to look at the bulbasaur. She stared back at him with a defiant expression on her face.

Matt opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked at her. He had chosen this pokemon because he wanted a pokemon as stubborn as he was. A lot of trainers judged others by the pokemon that they owned. He didn't want to be seen as soft. There was something very unsoft about the bulbasaur. So, he had requested her.

But. Always but. Had he made the right choice?

Whatever. It didn't matter. This bulbasaur was his ticket to never seeing home again. Becoming a legal run-away.

Matt stood up again, and began walking. After a few yards he notice he was alone.

"Come on," Matt ordered.

"Bul. Ba," was the stubborn reply.

Matt looked back at the saurian, and hung his head. He always was better with action rather than words.

"I'll name you once I think of something, okay?"

"Saur," the pokemon rolled her almond eyes.

They stood in the morning sun like this for seven minutes. Finally Matt began walking again. The green grass type caught up at the final house before the path that led to the sycamore. She managed to say with her body language:

"Im not with you. We only happen to be walking in the same direction for the foreseeable future."

Matt looked over at her and grinned. "I'm planning on actually waiting for the others. At least one of them's bound to have food."

"Bulba," Matt didn't need the abra Raindancer on his head to know that she meant, "the advantages of sun and soil, human."

~~~

"Hello!" Melamine called out as she burst in her front door.

"Melly!" Ayothora, Melamine's older sister, screamed as she jumped on Melamine, to wrap her little sister in a big hug. "Can I see your bulbasaur?"

"Gah! Can't breathe!" Melamine choked over her older sister's excited greeting. Her pokedex and pokeballs had already fallen from her nerveless grasp.

"Ora, she can't show you her bulbasaur if she can't breathe," Katherine said, stopping to pick up the dropped objects. "Also she can't show you her bulbasaur because she doesn't have one, unless bulbasaur's type has changed considerably. This pokeball has a water drop on it, not a leaf."

"Ohh," Ayothora sighed. "You got a squirtle. They're so ugly. Why couldn't you manage the bulbasaur, they're sooooooo cute!"

Both younger sisters looked at their older sister. Ora was tall, and perfectly porportioned, who only needed to wear a hint of make up to turn her from glamourous into a goddess of beauty. She was already a fashion designer with an extensive career, at just eighteen. And she applied her ideals of beauty to all walks of life.

"There's more to life than cuteness," Katherine, who was happly following in Alex's black shadow, said flatly.

"And there are more colors in the rainbow than black, but I don't see you wearing anything else," Ora told her sister tartly.

"Erm, where are Mom and Dad?" "Melly" asked.

"Dad got a call a two this morning. He nearly ran for Viridian and the train station in his pajamas. I tried to tell you, but you were running out the door door before I could reach you," Ora told Melamine. "Mom's in the pens, an egg is due to hatch today, and she wants to make certain that there are no mistakes, this time."

Katherine giggled. "You have to admit, watching that trapinch terrorize that sneasel into being it's mommy was pretty funny."

Melamine sighed. "Well, I'll get the rest of my stuff and leave then. I can always talk to them on holophone."

"Su-ure," Ora looked shifty. She was always bad at keeping things to herself.

"What now?" Melamine asked, certain things were about to get worse.

Not that there was anything bad in the fact that her parents had full time jobs and actually did important things. Just they couldn't make half a day of time? Ora could, and she worked just as hard as Mom and Dad. Katherine had managed to get a day off at pokemon tech just for this. Of course, Rinee was going to start at the lab's pokeschool next semester, so this was considered an enducational experience, but still, at least she had made the effort.

"We'll tell you after you've stopped worrying about everything else," Katherine told her sweetly.

"Thanks, Rinee."

Melamine trudged up the stairs. Lapis was out in the garden waiting for her. She had warned him about Ora's tendency to put ribbons on anything that moved and didn't fight her tooth and nail. The squirtle had absolutely refused to come in and made it very clear that the pokeball would be ignored unless Melamine wanted the instrument smashed.

She thought about putting the eevee back on the dresser, but the friendly black eyes that peeped up at her made Melamine reconsider. She had a standoffish squirtle, and would be dealing with strange events and stranger people for at least a year, if it didn't take her longer to earn all eight badges needed. Having something friendly to rely on would be very nice.

She slipped it into her pack. Looking around her room she realized that she had packed almost everything that she could get at home with uncanny foresight. She had even remembered pokechow, and extra food. Not to mention an incubator for any eggs found along the way, and the tarp to go under the tent. These were things generally forgotten by beginning trainers -- well the incubator was a little exreme.

She had her pokeballs, and extra potions, antidotes, paralyze heals, two full heals ... the list took more time to check off than finding the various things had been. The only thing she hadn't been able to get a hold of was escape rope. Melamine felt a sense of foreboding as she shouldered her pack again. She instinctively felt that a trainer without a good piece of rope was in trouble.

Well, she had her good luck charm in the form of the eevee, and that was about all she needed. Right?

She trotted back down the stairs to come face to face with Ora's large, infectious grin.

"Hey, didn't think you'd get away from here without presents, did you?" the young woman asked.

"Yeah," Kathrine stepped from behind Ora, wiping her rimmless glasses on her black sleeve. "This just wouldn't be the Brown House if we allowed you to leave without some form of useless ceremony."

"Blind fold?" Ora held out her hand and a thick deep blue ribbon was thrust into it. Ora tied it into a skillful bow around Melamine's head, covering her eyes.

"Okay, can you see?" Kathrine asked.

"No, Rinee. You know, we never did anything this annoying for Ora," Melamine complained.

"Yeah, I know. I'm just lucky that way," the grin was audible in Ora's voice. "Now, who is this from?

Melemine's arms were suddenly weighted down with something heavy and round. The shape was so familiar that she didn't need to think. "Mom, at least this is one of her eggs."

"Got it in one, okay, take the blindfold off," Ora instructed. "See? Being a smart girl pays off."

"And the point of the blind fold was?" Melamine asked as Rinee undid the bow holding the strip of blue in place.

"An excuse for Ora to tie a bow in something, I assume," the youngest sister stated, tying the blidfold around her head like a headband.

"Yup!" Ora said happily. "You should put the egg in the incubator now. It'll be much easier to carry."

Melamine did as she was told, admiring the golden glow of the shell. It looked like a sunset. She hoped that whatever pokemon appeared out of it would be just as pretty -- although perhaps a little smoother than the shell, which was rough and gritty.

"Do you know what it is?"she asked, strapping the incubator in place on her back pack.

"Search me," Ora shrugged.

"It's supposed to be a surprise," Rinee looked cross, she must have been left out of the loop on this one, too. "But Mom specializes in breeding pokemon from other places, so it could be a regional Johtoan pokemon -- or one from Hoenn -- or something special that they only get in the Orange Islands -- or something new and exotic from Orre."

"Gee, way to narrow down a list, there," Melamine said.

"Oh don't bother about the egg, open my present next!" Ora said excitedly, shoving a soft, well wrapped bundle under Melamine's nose.

Melamine undid the bow, looking dubious. "If this is pink," she warned, before gasping.

Dark green silk with silver bamboo leaves embroidered upon it unfolded to form a sleeveless kimono. The obi was black with dark green leaves, and the haori to cover it all was pale green with gold leaves.

"Woooooooooooow," Melamine looked at it with her eyes wide.

"It's for when you get to the League," Ora said grinning like a maniac. "What you have in your hands is a preview of our winter line. It's based off the 12th century Johtoan style, but I modified it so there were less layers, and you note the slits up the side? You can definitely run in this. I even made the skirt slightly shorter to aide with that. Still, It's a party thing, really. Don't wear it for every day ocassions. And when you put the obi on you need to put it pretty high up so it flattens your chest -- not that you have one -- the style I gave for you is supposed to make you look younger. My pink version was desinged to anunciate the curves and my maturity. Stop looking at me like that."

Both Katherine and Melamine were staring at her as if she had gone crazy.

"Maturity?" Katherine asked the thing that was running through both their minds. "Please don't make me laugh."

"Hey!"

"Anyway, now you have the present from both me and Dad," Katherine said, handing Melamine a small envelope.

"Meaning you did the card and he bought the present?" Melamine asked looking a the gorgeous drawing on the envelope of a charmander evolving into a charmeleon in a burst of fire. Rinee was truly a gifted artist.

"Pretty much," Katherine was unrepentant.

Melamine opened the envelope, and read the small note out loud. "To Mel, here's some good luck, via the pinch Rinee is about to -- OW! -- give you. Remember, be generous and you'll do us proud. Don't forget to call after you've beaten each gym leader, and don't ever go for more than a month without calling! I've put some money in your account for supplies, and your present is a ticket for the boat ride from Pallet to Cinnabar, and Cinnabar to Fushia. These are redeemable at any time. Lots of love, Dad. P.S. come see me when you get to Celedon, we're moving out of Saffron to a new office. It should be exciting, and my employees would just love to meet you."

Melamine smiled. "This has been the best day of my life, so far. I mean, it started off a little rocky, but you guys really have made it special. Thanks!" She leapt on both her sisters and drew them into a bear hug.

Disentangling herself finally she walked to the door. "Hey, Lapis!" she called. "Before we leave you have to meet my sisters!"

The squirtle looked up. "Squir?" he asked, clearly confused by the entire mood change.

"Oh fine, they'll meet you. Rinee, this is Lapis," a small, delicate girl with short black hair and glasses was shoved infront of the squirtle. "And Ora is my older siser," this newer one was tall with lots of cascading brown hair. "And now you know them. This is Lapis, and we"re going to prove ourselves! From now on, I'm Trainer Mel, and I'm going to make it to the league without dropping out, and we're going to show them all."

Both Lapis and Rinne looked at Mel. Ora was clapping. "It's marvelous that you've finally given your ego that much needed booster shot," she was saying happily.

"I think you had too much sugar," Katherine said, totally unmoved.

"Squirt," Lapis agreed.

"Guys, come on, I didn't think anyone would really be so supportive of me, I thought you all would just say how proud you were and then go off," Mel told her sisters. "Especially when Mom and Dad couldn't make time in their schedules, but now that you really do care -- it makes all the difference, it really does."

"Hey, you're a Brown," Ora said.

"Yeah, if you can't make it through the craziness than who else can. Of course we'd support you. The entire family is about making really odd decisions," Katherine managed to crack a grin as well.

Mel smiled, and then hoisted her pack. "C'mon Lapis, we're late for the meeting at the sycamore tree."

~~~

"Mother, I'm home," Alex called as he walked into the kitchen.

He knew his mother would be washing up right about now. He couldn't wait to show her Corazon. Mother would just love the little beauty. He was going to train her until not even his cousin's kingdra could stop Corazon.

His mother turned away from the sink, although her hands were still immersed. She had foregone wearing traditional clothes today, Alex was glad to see. He didn't understand why his mother clung so desperately to the traditions of a place that had kicked them out, had said that who they were was wrong.

"Hango-kun," she smiled, her eyes closed, the corners squinched up with laugh lines, "did you get the starter you wanted?"

"Of course, Mother," Alex told her, not even minding that she was still using that stupid nickname for him, as he held out Coarzon for her inspection. "See? Her name is Corazon. Isn't she the most powerful charmander you've ever seen?"

At the word "charmander" Mother's eyes snapped open, and focused on the crooning lizard with a troubled look.

"Alex, we aren't allowed. You know we aren't allowed," she began.

"I don't see why I can't have a fire type," Alex exploded with annoyance. "Charizard aren't clasified as dragons. The only pokemon we're not allow to use are dragons, right? Well, Corazon isn't a dragon!"

"But you're only sticking to the letter, not the spirit of Granpa's --," his mother began.

"If he left a loop hole that's his problem! I don't see why we should abide by some stupid three thousand year old idea when it destorys who we are! Everyone says you were the best dragon tamer in your day, yet you gave up to become a virtual slave because of some stupid accident that didn't even happen to you! Why listen to the foolish ideas of some old man! At least release your pokemon so they have some freedom, instead of leaving them to languish on some shelf because you can't give up your fantasies!" Alex yelled, tears not quite brimming over his eyelashes.

His mother shrank from his rage, only annoying him more. His own mother had less spine than some idiot girl with her stupid squirtle. If Mother was a real mother she'd draw herself up and yell right back, or punish him, or acutally stand up for herself once in a while. Plus, the sorrow in her eyes when she looked at him only made him feel like a monster. It was worse than getting hit.

"Where's Father?" he asked, stroking Corazon, who was hissing angrily at the human that had made her partner yell.

"In the back yard, sunning himself," Alex heard his mother say. "Please, don't go there. He'd know what you were feeling, but -- he can't understand why. It's one of his bad days."

"They've all been bad," Alex muttered, hanging his head.

"He really does try, you know. He still recognizes us, he's just getting confused about everything else. I'm sure he'd be proud of Corazon if he was in his right mind."

"Yeah," Alex said turning around. "Well, I gotta get going. I need to meet all of the other newbies at the sycamore tree."

"Hango-kun --,"

"It's Alex."

"Hango-kun," she persisted, "don't ever forget, no matter what, I love you."

"Yes, Mother," he sighed, and walked out the door, Corazon still cradled in his arms.

~~~

The reason to relate these three events, centering on the lives of Matt, Mel, and Alex is very simple. When we take up a new journey in life we do it for different reasons, but what we leave behind is important as well. For most we leave behind the caring family that Mel has just left. Slightly crazy, but still beloved. Sometimes, however, we leave the way Alex does. Unresolved, or unable to face the problems left behind, yet with a burning desire to make things right. But there also is the final category. To leave behind a home without saying farewell. To have no place to grow from and drift as aimlessly as a tumble weed. To Matt, and people like him, home is a place to escape from, not come from.

While our destinations may be different how we get there is shapped by where we come from. If we are not from anywhere then we must strike roots somewhere, in order to grow.

Keep this in mind as our six brave adventurers grow up. Mel, Adam, and Scott fall into the category of deep roots. They can grow and flourish almost as soon as they are out of the gate. Alex's roots are shallow by choice, and Chris' by necessity. They will grow in odd ways, yet still shaped by where they come from. Matt cannot grow.