When Lightning Strikes

Present: First Catch

There is a gravestone on Memorial Hill, and in front of it sat a girl and two pokemon—a Raichu and a Weavile. They were all paying their respects after years of absence since the gravestone was first set there. It wasn't that impressive of a grave, but in the end it didn't matter to the girl. They would all go to the same place in the long run, regardless of what stature you had.

She kept reading the headstone over and over, finding everything hard to believe was real on it. How she was now Arti's age when he died, how it now seemed like such a short amount of time since she had been there, everything that had happened since he had been buried...

She got up from where she had been sitting. In the light, it was easy to see scars race up and down her arms, bare except for a rubber bracelet on each one. There were even some hiding just above her socks that reached mid-thigh in black and white stripes. A spider web tattoo covered her left shoulder, a triangle rested just under a black mid-drift shirt and high above a set of frayed white shorts, and a star under one of her brown eyes that were shrouded in white hair, the end of it braded and resting on her shoulder. Apart from a purple choker and belt hanging around her wiry frame, there was a necklace threaded through two belt loops and hooked through itself, the silver skull pendant threaded through the chain it lived on.

"... come on guys," she said to her pokemon, "let's get to Konikoni before too late."

She was about to return them to their pokeballs when something caught her eye. Something white and bushy sticking out of the grass.

"Finally showing your face again boss?!" she yelled, obviously pissed off. "After six months of not showing your face you finally show up and disrespect the dead?! You really are an ass you know that?!"

The white mass stopped moving, twitching. The Raichu became unsteady.

"Why don't you show some dignity and show the dead some respect, hah?!" She couldn't stand still anymore and ran at the mass. "Are you even listening to me... eeee?"

A pokemon... no, not even that, some beast of some sort, stretched itself out. Its head was a white, spikey blob, a mass of wires and glowing ties being its only bodily definition. Its hands were open copper wires, its feet flat and toed, and had a tail resembling a plug for an outlet. It whirred as if it was screaming in anger. The Raichu and Weavile were already poised for battle.

"Squeak, Psychic! Fang, Swords Dance!"

The Raichu acted instantly, throwing its opponent to the other side where there was a sheer cliff with its psychic power, letting its partner power up its attack. The beast got itself up, shooting electricity everywhere until Memorial Hill was bathed in electricity.

'It's not a pokemon... but it acts like one,' she thought. "Fang, get ready to counter with Revenge! Squeak, use Agility to avoid attacks!"

It was a smart move, as the beast bathed the area in a wave of electricity. Squeak zoomed around, growing faster and faster and avoiding the oncoming flood. Fang took the hit, but it barely seemed to matter since the pokemon threw a head-on uppercut to the beast, knocking it back.

"Squeak, Thunderbolt it! Fang, Swords Dance again!"

Squeak landed a hit, but it barely seemed to notice. Instead the beast knocked it out of the way and charged for Fang.

"Fang, Ice Punch! Squeak, Psychic!"

Squeak attacked from behind, holding its opponent still while Fang bashed an ice-cold punch repeatedly until it was frozen solid.

She dug around in a bag connected to her belt, looking for a pokeball until something rough made her reflexively grab it. It was something she had found wandering the outskirts of Wela Volcano Park, a blue pokeball with yellow ridges. She had tried selling it but no one offered to buy, so she kept it.

She threw it, hitting the beast head on. It went into the pokeball, which fell to the ground quivering. A few tense, elongated moments later, the pokeball clicked.

She went over and picked up the pokeball. It was odd, but it was right then that she realized that this was the first pokemon she had caught on her own. The way Squeak and Fang battled... they hadn't fought like that since—

She shook the idea out of her head. "Alright guys, let's go. It's getting late."

They nodded and were returned to their own pokeballs, which were put into the bag on her belt. Looking back at the grave, she let herself be taken back for a few moments to when her brother had been alive—the old, broken and abused life they shared before he died—and she thought about it the whole way back to Konikoni City.