Lynette, a Trainer in the world of Pokemon...

Note: this is a fictionalized form of the story for Pokemon Black, with an original character as the player character. It's also based on my actual save file. Oddly enough, of all my Mary Sue characters... she's the *least* Mary Sue.


I wasn't born in Unova. Strictly speaking, I wasn't born in any region. No one knows where, exactly, I came from. No one, that is, other than me and the angel who brought me here. I'm not even sure how to tell anyone where I came from, or how I came to be in Unova. And I'm pretty sure it'd be a bad idea to try.

The old couple at the Pokemon Day Care on Route 3 told me, because I was playing stupid for their benefit, that a man with black hair showed up late one night carrying me in his arms. He told them that I was an orphan in need of a good home with kind people. According to them I looked like a little blonde angel in his arms, fast asleep and curled in a too-large nightgown clutching a very battered teddy bear. I was about two years old, I guess. According to their estimates at least.

Like I was going to fess up when I woke up and found out how small I was. Please, I'm stupid sometimes, but I'm not quite that stupid.

One of these days I'm going to sit that angel down and have some words with him about the courtesies of warning a person when they age-reverse them and then dump them off in some strange world with a sob story guaranteed to find them a home.

I call him an angel, but it'd be just as accurate to call him an alterna-dimensional being with a perverse sense of humor and a streak of magnificent bastardy that makes what I do to my characters look small-time. His name is Jeremiel and he's my friend, for all that I would like to throttle him some days. He seems to have decided that I'm his pet project for however long he maintains interest and, given that his Ferret Syndrome is as bad as mine, if not worse, I'm really surprised that he's maintained interest this long.

My name is Lynette and I'm not from around here, in case that wasn't obvious by now.

The old couple at the Day Care took me in after Jeremiel gave me to them and they're really good people. I've developed something of a sense for this, which is surprising me on a daily basis because where I come from my senses were very nearly non-existent. I'd closed myself off from that sort of thing. Someone once said that persistent inability masked incredible ability… well, if that's the case whatever Jeremiel did unlocked it because damn… it's enough to knock me silly some days.

And I really don't need to be any more silly than I already am.

I started toddling after the old man and woman as they took care of the Pokemon almost from the day I arrived there. Don't get me wrong, the idea of *Pokemon* being actual, real creatures was enough to knock me off my feet. I was not one of the Pokemon addicts where I come from. In fact, I had a fairly low opinion of the whole thing before I got dumped headfirst into the middle of it.

But then, I didn't know them at the time, so I couldn't very well know what I was talking about, now could I?

In any event, I wasn't very large but I followed close behind Grandma and Grandpa, as they insisted I call them, as they looked after the various Pokemon left at the Day Care by Trainers going out and about. I simply could not stay away. They thought it was cute, a little child entranced by the Pokemon. I did what I was big enough to do, which wasn't much, but I hand-fed some of them, if they let me, and I held the brush and combed out the tangles in Cinccino's fur.

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Cinccino was my best friend at that age. She had such beautiful fur, soft and white and grey and she'd tell me stories about the world outside. She'd been traded several times and each Trainer found a different role for her to take. One took her to the stage and she was a diva in the Pokemon Musical. One made her the center of his battle team and she was the one who kept their spirits up in good times and bad.

But her trainer at that time… well, needless to say neither of us were very impressed by him.

Every time I tried to ask her what he did, she'd demure and change the subject to happier memories. Once is chance, twice coincidence. About the fourth or fifth time, I knew enough to call shenanigans on her. She still wouldn't tell me what was going on, but it didn't take much for me to know that he was one of the bad ones.

There are good Trainers and there are bad ones. It's that way with everything, really. Some are going to be caring and responsible and kind and some… are not.

The day he came back for her, she got a look in her eyes that hit me straight in the gut. It was panic. Sheer unreasoning panic. I'd gone to get her because he wanted her back from the Day Care. She gripped my tiny hand in her paw like I was the only thing keeping her head above water.

I hugged her close and did something I probably shouldn't have. I told her what to do. "Run away if you can, if you can't… get him to Release you. Act weak. Act stupid. Pull your punches; miss attacks. Get away from him any way you can and come back here. I'll hide you."

She hugged me close and nodded and then kissed my cheek like she'd seen adults do on more than one occasion. Apparently I was a Pokemon-adorable child, that is, adorable like a pre-evolved Pokemon. <I will, Lynette. Somehow… I will. You give me strength I haven't known in years.> She smiled through her terrified tears. <You will be an incredible Trainer someday.>

I watched her leave with him, memorized his face and promised myself that someday I'd make sure he never touched another Pokemon again. I didn't know who he was. At the time the name Ghetsis meant nothing to me.

I should have known. But I didn't. I was pretending to be the child I wasn't and I had no way of knowing just how dramatically Ghetsis would impact my life later.

Cinccino never made it back to the Day Care. I hope Ghetsis burns in Reshiram's fire for eternity for that.

It wasn't long after that incident that Grandma discovered something I hadn't exactly been hiding… but that I hadn't been making a big deal out of either. Apparently the ability to understand the speech of Pokemon was not a common thing. Who knew? I certainly didn't and the Pokemon I'd been talking to and listening to hadn't seen fit to tell me either.

It was so rare, in fact, that most Trainers thought that their Pokemon were incapable of intelligent speech and communicated through body language, like ordinary beasts. Idiots, I swear. Well, I really can't blame them that badly. I wouldn't know the truth either if I hadn't been talking with Pokemon the entire time I was there.

In any event, finding out about that ability meant that Grandma and Grandpa stayed up late several nights talking. And it had me worried. The decision they ultimately came to was that I needed to study with an actual Pokemon professor… and that meant that I couldn't stay with them.

They had two daughters. One ran the school next door. Her sister, though, had settled down in Nuvema Town with her husband and that was where Professor Juniper had her research facility. So I moved to Nuvema and made two new friends, Bianca and Cheren, and slowly the years passed.

It was a beautiful morning, the beginning of springtime. I'd gotten used to the quick seasons after enough time in Unova. The full round of seasons passed three times during the time that I was used to seeing one round. At least it meant that I never got bored of looking out the window because things changed so quickly.

Days passed at about the familiar speed, though.

That day, though, Professor Juniper had dropped a gift-wrapped box off at my house and all three of us knew what that meant. This was the day we got our own Pokemon. This was the day we began our adventure.

I stood with my rear end and shoulders leaning against the wall and my arms crossed over my chest, just looking at the box as Cheren paced back and forth in my room. We were waiting for Bianca to get here before we opened the box and made our choices.

And I thought my Ferret Syndrome was bad… Bianca needed medication for it, I swear. Not that anyone in this world understood just what that meant. On one of his brief visits I'd made sure that Jeremiel gave me a ready supply of coffee and I'd managed to keep both of us dosed on a daily basis. Bianca never questioned why I shared it so readily, especially after I introduced her to hot chocolate and how the two of them tasted blended in the same cup.

Divine stuff, I swear.

We'd known this day was coming, so I asked a favor from Jeremiel and I had a gift for Bianca once she got here so we could make our choices.

Finally she arrived, mumbling apologies for being late and I just couldn't be angry with her. I'd spent far too many years of my own feeling awful about my own issues to really take issue with someone else who had the same problems, but worse. All I could do was walk over and hug her tightly.

She hugged me back and I swear I felt the tears in her eyes. "We're gonna be Trainers today!" Her voice was an excited whisper.

I pulled back long enough to press a package into her hands. "Here, this is for you. It's some of the crystals I use to make my coffee and a pot to make it in. There's also a tin of chocolate powder."

Her eyes widened. "For me?"

"Yes. I want you to promise me, Bianca, promise me that you'll drink at least a cup of this every single morning while you're on your journey, okay?"

She nodded. "But I don't have a gift for you or Cheren!"

I smiled. "Your friendship is the only gift I need, and knowing that you're able to find where you belong in this world. That matters more than anything else to me, Bianca. I want you to be happy."

Cheren sighed. "Can we choose our Pokemon now? Lynette and I have been waiting for a while."

Bianca nodded quickly. "Yes, let's choose. Lynette, since this is your house, you get to choose first, okay?" Cheren nodded his agreement and they stood on either side of me as I looked at the box. "Go on, Lynette, which one will be your friend?"

I took a deep breath and opened the top of the gaily wrapped box and looked at the three pokeballs, each shaking slightly from the excitement of the Pokemon within them. I could hear their voices, even within the Pokeballs, hear their excitement. The three of them were as excited about having Trainers as we were for becoming them.

A Tepig, an Oshawott, and a Snivy.
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I bit my lip as I looked back and forth among them. The Snivy looked back at me like he was measuring me and simply nodded. He would be clever and underhanded if he had to be. The Oshawott simply bounced on his flippers, all energy and eagerness. The Tepig puffed his chest out like he knew that he was the manliest creature in all of Unova.

It made me smile back at him.

I'd learned, over time, how to say a few words in the language of the Pokemon so that I wasn't always speaking to them where others could hear me. I needed that skill as I looked at the Snivy. <I need your help. My friend needs someone to protect her and you are clever enough to do so.>

I heard the squeak of assent and then spoke out louder. "Awwww, how cute!!! Bianca, isn't that Snivy adorable??"

I almost burst out laughing at the sudden double-take that the Tepig took, looking at the other Pokeball and then back at me. He could not understand what was happening. <What… am I not attractive too? I'm a warrior! I'm the mightiest of Tepigs! What are you doing ogling the Snivy?>

Cheren rolled his eyes. He had no use for cuteness and he'd figured out what I was trying to do; I could see it in his eyes, in the way he looked at the Oshawott and the Tepig. "What are you going to choose, Lynette?"

Bianca stood very close as we looked at the three Pokemon. "Are you going to choose the Snivy, Lynette?"

I bit my lip. "He's Grass-type. I don't know how good I'd be with him. You were always better with our studies on Grass-types than I was."

The Tepig blinked several times and looked at the two of us and then back at the Snivy, who was looking as intentionally adorable as he could, blinking large eyes as he looked up at Bianca. <Waaaaaait,> he said as I could almost see the wheels grinding in his head, <I see what you're doing there! You, Trainer, are a clever one! Choose me, Trainer! I am the strongest!>

It took all my control to keep from bursting out with laughter at him. Yes, he was going to be perfect for me. I loved his attitude.

I took a deep breath. "I'll take this one," I said, reaching for the Tepig, who squealed with a gloating sound akin to a roar, "Do you want the Snivy?"

Bianca smiled and reached for the Snivy with a fond smile. "Yeah, that means that Cheren get the Oshawott."

Cheren scowled for a moment, confused about what had just happened and the nagging feeling that I'd outsmarted him… somehow. "Why do you get to choose…? Oh never mind, I wanted the Oshawott anyway." Water trumped Fire, usually, so I suppose he was taking comfort in that.

I simply grinned as I opened the Pokeball and let the Tepig jump into my arms, squealing with joy. I was a Pokemon Trainer! With a Pokemon all my own.

Bianca stood with her Snivy sitting on her shoulder. "Hey, let's battle! We're Trainers now, we should battle!"

The Tepig loved the idea. <Yes! A man's soul can only find purpose in battle! Your friend is very wise!>

I barely restrained the eyeroll. Yes, they were young and relatively weak compared to some of the ones I'd seen and helped raise when I was still with Grandma and Grandpa at the Day Care, but they were Pokemon, and I knew that this was a bad idea. Still, Bianca wanted this, and the Pokemon wanted this, so I sighed and nodded.

My Tepig friend leapt forward as Bianca's Snivy hissed and swung his tail back and forth and leered condescendingly. Oh, he was canny indeed, trying to catch my friend off guard and getting him to lower his defenses.

"Tepig, roll over him!"

Bianca's eyes glowed as she fist pumped, watching her Snivy battle. "Get 'im, Snivy! You've got him weakened, now hit him hard!" Snivy, though, was still trying to catch Tepig with his guard down. "No, don't do that again, attack him! Tackle him back!"

When the dust cleared, both were scraped and bruised and quite obviously damaged, but Tepig had Snivy pinned and grinned at him even as he panted for breath. <Got ya… but barely. Well fought, my friend!>

Snivy chuckled low. <Next time the battle shall be mine.>

Bianca pouted slightly. "Wow, your Tepig is so strong."

"It was very close, Bianca. You and Snivy did very well, you know. One more Tackle and Tepig would have been down. Weakening him first is a very smart tactic to take."

My praise must have been completely unexpected because her eyes went round and then she leapt forward to hug me tightly. "You mean that? Thank you!" Then she saw what the battle had done to my room and her eyes got even more round. "Oh wow… look at this place… so small but so powerful!"

Cheren shook his head as he walked over and healed both Pokemon. "But look at the mess! You need to be more careful."

Bianca turned to him. "Hey, why don't you battle her?"

He looked surprised. "That's right, I'm a Trainer now and I can keep better control of my Oshawott so we won't make the damage worse."

I chuckled. "Bring it on, Cheren. Might as well take both of ya."

The Tepig squealed happily. <That's the attitude, Trainer! My power knows no bounds!!>

The Oshawott merely bounced eagerly. <Fight! Fight!>

Oh my word… he was an idiot… or the Snivy and Tepig were truly exceptional specimens of unevolved Pokemon, I wasn't certain which. Admittedly, I'd never heard more than single words or short phrases and sentences from unevolved Pokemon before, so it was possible that there was something fishy going on here. I knew Cheren needed some humility… but this was making it too easy. I looked at my Tepig. "Don't assume anything; just do what you do best."

<Oh, I intend to, Trainer. I am the greatest Tepig in the world!>

The battle was short, fierce, and my Tepig emerged the winner, to the surprise of neither of us. Cheren seemed surprised, though, said he'd made a "strange blunder".

We were Trainers, finally. With battles under our belts and everything. After apologizing to my mother, who volunteered to clean up the mess for me, we hurried outside. The Professor wanted to see us after we'd made our choices. She had a favor to ask, of that we were certain.

Outside my house, Bianca had to rush off to do something and I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew what it was. Her father's attitudes were well known to all of us, particularly when he'd start shouting at Bianca about how he didn't want her leaving town for anything, or going anywhere without clearing it with him first, or how she wasn't able to do anything on her own.

There were moments, listening to him, that I just wanted to deck him. Did he think she was going to stay a toddler forever? Did he think that he could just hide her under an Everstone and she'd be his little girl for the rest of her life? What did he expect her to do if something happened to him?

Like had happened to my dad.

I still heard Mom crying at night, particularly on the first day of winter. Dad had gone out to go fishing with his Pokemon and… well, they never came back. The mere fact that after that she's still willing to let me walk out the front door with only a single Pokemon at my side… well, she's got more courage than a great many others I know. Myself included.

All three of our mothers, though, had been planning something with Professor Juniper for a while. It was a tradition, a rite of passage, for teenagers to leave home with Pokemon and return, or not, as adults. It was how the young found their own places in the world. It was a much better idea than what passed as transitioning to adulthood where I came from originally. At least it was a demarcation point for most.

And we had Pokemon with us, so that limited the amount of actual trouble we could get into.

Cheren and Bianca were waiting for me outside the lab. The tearstreaks on Bianca's face tore at my heart and I reached out to hug her. "You're a Trainer, now," I murmured, "and you can be a good one. I believe in you."

She murmured back. "I find your faith in me disturbing." We both had to chuckle softly. It was an old joke between us, even if Bianca didn't get it like I did.

Cheren rolled his eyes. He never did understand the little things that Bianca and I did because we were friends. He was so no-nonsense and focused that the concept of in-jokes and private references went over his head. And right now he was rather impatient to get going on the journey that we all knew that we were about to embark upon. "We shouldn't keep Professor Juniper waiting like this."

I nodded and wrapped one arm around Bianca's shoulders. "Come on, let's see what all this is leading up to, okay?"

She nodded and the three of us entered the building together.

Sure enough, Professor Juniper was waiting for us as we entered the lab and she was in rare form. I swore I could see her eyes glitter in humor and self-satisfaction as she saw me carrying the Tepig and Bianca cooing over her Snivy, who was playing up to it like the master manipulator that I knew he could be. She'd planned it.

The thought occurred to me, watching them, that if Jeremiel were a Trainer, he'd have a Snivy. The two were like peas in a pod for manipulating people.

The Professor then insisted on introducing herself as if we hadn't grown up seeing her every day. I had to wonder if what she had for us was really that world-changing that it made her this flustered. This felt like something more than just three teenagers leaving home to become adults.

Okay, okay, I'm not stupid and I am a storyteller by trade. Of course I knew something was up. The way she insisted on introducing herself… it felt like the start of a story, or a game. At that point I had some very pointed suspicions of just where and when that angel of mine had dropped me off.

I used to work in the Electronics Department of the local retail superstore. The same department with the movies and the videogames. So yeah, I had a very large piece of my mind to give Jeremiel.

Sure enough, she had a task for us, a deceptively simple task. We were to travel and meet as many of the types of Pokemon in Unova as we could. I just about groaned. It was a tailor-made excuse to visit every single city and town and everything in between.

Not that it wasn't a legit excuse. The idea of cataloging native wildlife is not a new one and it is the first step to understanding an ecosystem. But for crying out loud, she was giving a Pokedex to me! And I have archivist and scholar tendencies in my blood!

I could just about throttle that angel. He knew. He knew that completing this thing was going to keep me here until the damn thing was done, however long that took. What in the world was going through his head when he set this up? Did he expect me to simply settle down and spend a lifetime here?

She interrupted my swirling thoughts by noticing our Pokemon… and the fact that we'd already been battling with them. Bianca and I both blushed brightly in embarrassment. Cheren was as stone-faced as ever. He never showed his embarrassment, if he even ever felt it. Apparently, though, it was a good thing for us, because she could tell that our Pokemon were beginning to trust us.

I could hear my Tepig grunting with laughter as he sat on my shoulder. <She's not slow, this one. I like her, Trainer! This journey will be fun for both of us!>

Her next question, though, caught me by surprise, though it really shouldn't have. I couldn't very well go around calling my friend "Tepig" when that was his breed, not his true name. I thought for a moment about what to call him, as I heard Bianca name her Snivy "Laural". I liked that name… but I didn't know what to call my friend.

He snorted in my ear, sounding very much like a cough for attention. <Trainer, I am Cho Ham. A warrior does not hide behind false names unless necessity demands it… which it does not right now.>

I smiled, breathing a bit easier. "Professor, my Tepig's name is Cho Ham."

--- --- ---
Professor Juniper had us meet her outside of town for her demonstration of how to actually catch a Pokemon. She'd explained the process in detail before, the capture system and how the Pokeballs were made to hold the Pokemon in comfort and such. But she'd never actually shown us the process before. Capturing a Pokemon meant making a friend and that was something not to be done lightly.

When we found her, she was standing in an area where the grass grew deep and thick. We'd always been warned to stay out of the deep grass, because that was where Pokemon hid. We didn't have Pokemon of our own to meet them in battle… until now.

It was startling when the Patrat jumped out at us, chittering in challenge. <Look out! Lookout!!>

Okay… so maybe Cho Ham and Laural really were very extraordinary because the Patrat's speech was as limited as that of Cheren's Oshawott. He'd declined to give him a name, which I thought was rather silly, but it wasn't *my* Oshawott.

Professor Juniper called out her Minccino to meet the Patrat and we watched with interest as the skilled Pokemon weakened the newcomer so that the Pokeball that the Professor threw was able to capture it easily.

As a starting gift, we were each given five Pokeballs and told to meet her on the other side of the road, in Accumula Town. Professor Juniper had a few more things to show us before we could be on our way and on our own. Bianca wanted to make a competition of things, see how many Pokemon we could catch on the route.

We agreed and then we parted ways… and I could feel my breath tremble with nervousness as I looked out at Route One and realized that I was on my own, with only Cho Ham at my side.

<What is this trembling, Trainer?> Cho Ham asked loudly, grunting with surprise. <This is exciting! This is what a warrior lives for! The challenge of a journey worth taking!! I am Cho Ham, the greatest of Tepigs, and I shall battle anyone in your name! Together we will empty these fields and build an army!>

I had to laugh. "No, Cho Ham, I don't want an army. One, maybe two friends from these fields. No more. I'm not greedy."

He grunted again in acceptance of my decision. <Very well, but the journey will not take itself. You must move your feet!>

I chuckled again and then sighed and took a reluctant step forward into the deep grasses outside town. The steps got easier the more I took because he was right. I was a Pokemon Trainer. This is what I did.