A Journeyman Finding Happiness Part 1

Essences Used: Overcoming Limitations

What defines a life wasted?

Is it a lack of success? Unfulfillment? Meaningful bonds that can last years at a time? Or living your life knowing how you wasted it?

For me, it was all of the above. And while I would like to cry and scream that it wasn't my fault, it was as I was afraid. Of failure, of not living up to expectations. A good job, a family, and a successful day-to-day grind.

Yet, I failed in nearly all aspects. I deemed myself not worth knowing due to my lack of interesting qualities, rather terrible health choices, and overall mentality. I wasn't rich, successful, or consistent. I was lazy, unmotivated, and lost as I never found what I was truly good at or what could make money.

I wasn't great in school. I was too afraid to join the military as another option, and after my mother passed due to old age, my job in retail never made enough to keep the house. I had no one to rely on without feeling like the failure that I was, but for a couple of years, I simply drifted around, and I was alone and unwanted.

After not eating or being able to get enough sleep after working multiple jobs, I was tired, and as I looked at my run-down place and lackluster food, I couldn't even muster up enough strength to laugh. 

Looking at my clothes, I knew I had to get them washed for tomorrow, but the machines were across the street, so getting up, I slowly walked my way to the door and down the couple flights of stairs. I began to walk across the street.

But before I knew it, I saw lights to my right, and all I felt was pain as I was launched across the pavement and into a wall nearby. I could not feel my legs or my entire body, which I considered lucky as my legs looked like chopped-up spaghetti, and I simply looked up into the sky and saw everything going dark as I apologized for wasting my life.

So there I was, floating in endless nothing. There was no light, no sound, no matter, just an endless void, and I wondered if this was it. The destined end, the afterlife, oblivion, or something else didn't really matter, but after floating there for what seemed like days on end, I saw something.

A small bottle of liquid that was just there looked like lemonade, but it glowed with a bright yellow color with what looked like a wheel inside of it. 

After grabbing it with my sole hand, which was just pure white like Truth from Full Metal Alchemist, I saw a small piece of paper popping out of the top of the bottle like someone sending a message out to sea.

Grabbing it, I unwrapped it, and it read as follows:

"A gift from people who felt the same as you, take it and be reborn, live, and we shall see you soon." From LO and A."

"LO and A? Who could they be?" I asked myself as I couldn't actually say anything physically. Still, I refused to drink the concoction immediately and simply grabbed it and held it close as I floated through the endless nothing.

I was so tired, but was I willing to let this chance slip through my fingers again? Was I willing to fail this test again?

So many questions flooded my being as I saw the void beginning to enclose around me as a silent timer for my decision, so looking at the bottle, I hoped to find something good on the other side. 

So, uncorking the bottle, I chugged it down and felt a wheel spin within me with letters I could not comprehend nor understand, but the wheel soon came to a stop, and I felt myself being pulled along by an unseen force.

And in front of me, I saw a vortex of endless colors, and as I was squeezed into it, my soul was shepherded somewhere else entirely before my consciousness faded again and my journey began.

It would take time, but I realized what I had drank in that void, an essence which I never knew as there were hundreds of them, but I knew that I was given what many do not receive: a do-over, a second chance, and a retry on life. But it was not to say that I was given nothing, if not another life, as I didn't suffer from a lack of motivation as I now had time to try again.

But the fear remained so embarrassingly enough that even though I had lived ten lives now, I was still finding new things. Sometimes, I would reincarnate as an infant or sometimes as a child or someone who had just died. No reincarnation was the same as well as the worlds themselves. 

Death and I had essentially become old friends as after that first reincarnation, I would find myself in the realm of the dead multiple times, yet I actually got along with a decent number of them.

There were times when there was no personification of death in the universe, just simply an afterlife, but I never stayed too long as my soul was always ripped away to the next adventure. 

In order, I started in what I thought was a normal world, as everything was the same as it always had been. But in my early days, I simply enjoyed being a kid again, and while I always had different or no parents, each time I had a family, they were always kind to me.

My second world was a bit different, to say the least, as I found myself in the world of Pokemon as a trainer in the Galar region as a child ready to head on their adventure. 

I had a starter, but instead of the normal three, I had a ditto which, after combing my memories, I found that earlier in life, I found this guy eating trash in the form of trubbish at the back of our house. So I offered to let him sit around, and after he showed his normal form, he got attached right quickly.

Although I assumed it was just the promise of food that kept this guy around, he was a little helper as he literally acted like moving trash that would eat any leftovers or really just anything, and whenever he saw another Pokemon, he would always like to copy them and join them even if to flex his transformation move.

But then there was the weird time when he tried to copy a human form, and he had a stick figure face, which may have given my younger self nightmares, but Ditto never did it again, so we moved past it. 

I even gave the guy an ironic nickname, Roomba, which he actually liked. Also, it was a bit strange that he was genderless. He preferred to be referred to as a he, so I just went along with it.

But after I took control from the autopilot, as I liked to call it, I grabbed him and gave him a look of pure excitement as I said to him, "Roomba, are you ready to fight other trainers for their lunch money?" Oddly enough, he spoke back with an excited "Ditto!" As I nodded at his excitement.

The world of Pokemon itself operated similarly to the anime with gyms and badges and the Elite Four, and you could make money from winning Jim badges as well as by battling trainers on the routes, and no, they did not say random shit when they saw you. 

Although I have to admit seeing a gigantamax to Ditto was interesting, to say the least, as after some battles, the kids would jump onto the guy just to bounce on the gelatinous skin. Not to mention that I could actually use him as a rebreather as I simply used his body as a breathing apparatus.

Thankfully, Roomba was a bit of a narcissist as he loved attention as well as food. He really loved food. By no means did we battle all of the gyms by ourselves, as I did manage to get a good six-man team with Roomba the Ditto, Lancelot the Sirfetched, Drago the Dragapult, Angron the Gyarados, Lockheed the Corviknight, and Capone the Krokidile.

Together, we traveled the Galar region and beyond, but my personal favorite was the Aloha region with its tropical islands and many cool Pokemon variations. 

I did make sure to catch myself in alolan Ninetales and Pikachu as I needed the ice fox and the surfer bro rat in my party. Thankfully, unlike the games, you can actually keep as many Pokemon as you want on you, but you're limited to six Pokemon a battle.

And the way they keep people from cheating by bringing out too many Pokemon is that you have to essentially label which Pokemon you're going to use for the battle before the battle actually starts. Not to say that the world did not have its share of problems, like some Mafia bosses, aliens, and God himself, who was actually pretty chill when I got all of his plates back.

Feeling indebted to such a being who I thought was the A that sent me here, I gave him my thanks and allowed him to see into my memories, and while my fear was ever present, he surprised me by saying, "You have only shown wisdom, kindness and an appreciation for life in this world. And while I can't say that I enjoy your kind most of the time, you are one of the few exceptions. I hope you live a blessed life, and let it be known that I shall never speak of this again. Take this as a reward.""

He then handed me an orb that went into my soul, and as I tried to ask what it was, he had already disappeared into the universe.

 I'm not above admitting that I cried with relief and happiness that I had been accepted into this world, and so my travels continued as I learned many things, from animal care to science and strategy. But I would have to say that learning aura was a fantastic experience for the Pokemon Rangers, who were an eccentric bunch.

In addition to learning Aura, I also bonded with all of my Pokemon, and thankfully, the Pokedex worked like it does in the anime, where I only had to scan them to put them into the dex and not capture them as I would not be able to leave so many friends. 

Roomba had become a steadfast companion along with all the others. Even Owen Wilson, my alolan Raichu, along with Yuki, my alolan Ninetales, became close family.

But to say the relationship was perfect was to lie as we had plenty of problems as Angron would usually like to mess with the others in order to get into fights with them with Lockheed and Lancelot being his prime targets. 

Their wins and losses between each other were all in good fun, though, but I do admit that after a while, it seemed like Angron was a bit of a masochist enjoying the pain of battle.

I actually refused to catch a Gengar, as they were just trolls. Whenever I went into a graveyard or a haunted building, they were always there, ready to mess with me.

Eventually, thanks to my understanding of Aura, I was able to even understand them on a verbal level, which definitely helped out during battle and the times in between whenever I got lost. 

This happened a lot more than I would have liked. In one case, I even managed to find a man standing atop a mountain, just waiting for people to battle him. I was definitely humbled that day, but I never did learn his name, as after beating me, he just disappeared like Batman.

I would end up seeing him one more time, and we would battle, but it ended up in a tie as his Pikachu, and my Raichu knocked each other out to end the battle, and yet again, he just left, but he had a smile on his face. 

But that wasn't the only surprise during my journey, as it turns out my reincarnation occurred before Ash even set out in Kanto, although by that time, I was in my early thirties.

 I had spent years roaming the planet learning every type of transformation possible, from gigantamaxing to Mega Evolution and crystallization. I actually did try to sell some of the crystals that popped off, but it turns out they didn't last long. I met all types of Pokemon, from legendaries to mythic and even aliens like Necrozma when he tried to nom-nom the sun to steal its light.

I'm not even mentioning that troll Mew, who seemed to enjoy messing with me, specifically sending me into the middle of a battle between Kyogre and Groudon. Eventually, Rayquaza got involved and ended it, and as he asked why I was there, I simply told him, "Mew." He immediately understood the message.

Back to Necrozma, we eventually did come to an agreement where he would travel through the mega portals to find another world that did not have intelligent life, and after a while, he was filled up and returned to his glorious form, and I even took a mental picture of it for later. But I do admit being able to ride on what was essentially Mufasa in Pokemon form's back was amazing.

 There was self-reflection during this journey, and while the fear of associating with others always seemed to appear, I was getting better. Eventually, all good things came to an end as old age, and a lot of travel-related injuries did not help, but I died at age 80, which was good as many of my Pokemon also aged with me. 

Before I had to say goodbye, I had all of them near me in the end. And as I felt my Aura fade from this world, I closed my eyes, expecting to see Arceus again. However, what I didn't know was that when I died, all of the Pokemon I had turned into pure energy and went into my soul, but that was for later.

So I had died once again, but I lived!