It Was Over Before it Began

Trainer Matt Jeffries munched happily on his French fries as he sat at the picnic table near the edge of the park's forest. At eighteen years old, he was ready to retire as a Pokémon trainer as part of his preparations for college life. Across the table from him sat several Poke balls; he had searched long and hard for new trainers for his Pokémon, as he would no longer have the time to take care of them the way he wanted to.

He absently brushed his unruly light-brown hair from his forehead before picking up the enormous bacon-and-cheese burger he had ordered for himself; it would be the last time he would be splurging for quite a while, as the university he would be attending was not cheap.

Unbeknownst to the youth, a pair of black eyes watched him from under the shade of one of the many trees nearby. Their owner had been watching the young man for weeks – nearly months – waiting for the opportunity to...

A slight breeze shifted the leaves above, revealing a pink-and-white conical hat atop an impossible amount of light blue hair, and the tiny creature scurried to find a new hiding place.

The movement was enough to draw the seasoned trainer's attention, though. "Is someone there?" he called while looking in the general direction of the movement.

Realizing that she had been discovered, the Hattrem took a deep breath and stepped out of the-

"Okay, that's it!"

Both human and Hattrem jumped at the sudden voice, and they looked as one to find a dark-haired older man hurrying up to them. "Can I help you, sir?" Matt said.

"Could...I sit for a minute?" the man gasped as he arrived at the picnic table, gesturing to the bench on the side opposite the younger man.

It took a moment for Matt to process the man's request; he had appeared rather suddenly, after all. "Um, sure," he replied. "Can I offer you some water?"

"No, thank you," the man replied, already sounding better. "I won't be long; I just need to tell the two of you something."

"The two of us?" Matt pointed to himself, then tried to figure out who else he was supposed to point to.

"The Hattrem over there," the man replied, waving a hand toward the nearest trees. "She was just coming out when I arrived."

Matt looked over his shoulder and, sure enough, a Hattrem stared wide-eyed back at him. "Oh, wow!" He scrambled for an empty Poke Ball, only to remember that he'd given them all away in his preparation for college. "Aw, nuts."

"Don't worry about it," the man said. "She's not going anywhere; as a matter of fact, she's been watching you for a while, now."

Something about the man's words drew Matt's attention. "She has? How do you know?"

The man chuckled as he scratched his hair, which was shaped into a flat-top, though Matt could see signs of thinning toward the top of his head. "All right, here's the thing; I don't have the wherewithal to write another Pokémon story, so I've come to basically help you jump to the end of it."

"Wh-What?"

"See, I'm concerned about what I've already written," the man continued "I've had some negative feedback regarding my Pokémon-human pairings. Not a whole lot, mind you, but enough that I'm concerned about upsetting the majority of the Pokémon fanbase."

"I see..." Matt said while looking for the closest means of escape; as pleasant as the man was, much of what he was saying wasn't making a lot of sense.

"Where are my manners?" the man sighed before thrusting a hand across the table. "My apologies; I'm Magnus Prime, fanwork writer."

"Matt Jeffries; retiring Pokémon trainer," the younger man replied as he carefully took the proffered hand. "Pleasure to meet you."