Imprint

"I need a smoke," the champion grumbly muttered. She leaned on one of the walls, listening to the conversation between Atlas retelling the events of the enclosure attack to Caitlin. The Gible lying in his lap.

Despite seeming irritated, well she was—her Pokemon was taken away from her—Cynthia also saw this as an opportunity. She remembered what she told Atlas a few moments ago.

"Pokemon only imprint in two ways, they imprint on people they feel loyal towards, or other pokemon they want to mate with. Dragon Pokemon are especially prideful creatures, and to imprint on someone means giving them their life. The Gible is yours, no matter how I feel."

The fact the Gible chose Atlas at such a young age, and he could catch and release it with his Scorbunny at the same time meant he had huge potential, and was now in her debt. The Pokemon wasn't hers now, she knew that much for certain. 

Cynthia remembered back to an infamous occurrence a year ago where Renbu family members caught a dead Gīma elder's Salamence. They recorded their attempts to break the Pokemon's loyalty to its deceased master. At this point in time the two families were close to war, and the Renbus wanted a way to tame their enemies strongest Pokemon for themselves.

Three months. That was how long the members tortured the dragon, before finally putting it down from lack of success. Remembering the video showing the pleading squeaks from the Salamence, its vocal cords damaged from screaming for its trainer, Cynthia shivered at the memory of such a horrible event.

She took out a cigarette and lit it.

"Not inside," Juniper snuck up from her left, taking the cigarette.

"It's my house!" Cynthia quipped back, she hadn't had even one since yesterday.

…

"When did you wake up?"

Hilda was sitting opposite of me, she was initially suprised by the Gible but quickly got over its presence. Her usually uninterested expression was plastered with an amused smile watching Ruby and the Gible seeking head scratches from me, which I provided. Next to me on the left was Rosa, who was trying to pet the two Pokemon.

Gible continued to enjoy her head scratches, my mind couldn't help but wonder how intelligent she was. She enjoyed back scratches, but could also create full sentences when she weren't even born.

I'll look at Gible more throughly when we're alone. 

"Just a few hours ago, how's your arm doing?"

Raising her bandaged right arm, Hilda gave a smile.

"Don't worry about it, it was just a shallow cut. Mom freaked out, but Juniper said it would heal within a few days."

In the kitchen, May was cooking food with Juniper and a struggling Caitlin.

"Why is there so much?" My eyes glanced over the large table, various dishes covered almost every inch of space.

I looked at the time, 3:10 pm, it wasn't even dinner time.

"You already forget? We're officially leaving on our Pokemon journey tommorrow?"

"And we get to pick out starters!" Rosa cheered, holding a giggling Scorbunny in her arms, "I hope they're all as cute as Ruby." 

"Wait? Even with what happened?" I wanted to leave as much as them, but Team Plasma was still out there. What if we were recognized and attacked, no one would be there to protect us.

Hilda and Rosa both looked at me a little weirdly, before Hilda replied.

"What happened yesterday was uncommon, usually Plasma only attacks Pokemon trainers, not government property."

"But if they attack trainers they might just kill them," They talked about Plasma so casually, like a daily part of life.

Hilda stood up swiftly and looked straight at me, I definitely pushed a button. "When we become Pokemon trainers, we accept the possibility of dying. I had two former classmates that died as Pokemon trainers just last year. They were 13."

"The government doesn't step in?!" My voice slightly rose, there was no way the government allowed children to just die. I was utterly confused.

Hilda continued to give me a weird side eye, like she was trying to figure out how I didn't know any of this. "The government does step in, in the past few centuries they have made numerous cities. Outside of cities and small routes between them, constant disasters occur because of Pokemon or trainers. When mom raised us in our town outside Nuvema city, our buildings or residents were constantly lit up by fire pokemon. Though rare, children were kidnapped by Drifblims."

"Really?" I was shocked. 

I was lazy in my understanding of the world, with Pokemon's abilities and large population, some of what Hilda was saying made sense.

"That takes me back," I female voice uttered, I looked behind me to see May, the sister's mother. 

"I haven't introduced myself, but I'm May, thank you for protecting my children," she bowed.

I felt uncomfortable with the gesture, raising my hands I tried to stop her.

"They protected me just as much, I cant't imagine how dangerous it must have been to raise them outside of a city like Nuvema."

May shook her head, smiling as she straightened herself, she wore a nostalgic expression.

"I heard you're an orphan Atlas, so what my daughters said to you might seem foreign. Raising kids outside cities, Pokemon are not as kind as they are on the routes, they are your worst enemies. At a young age, our government allows kids the opportunity to catch dangerous, but not deadly, pokemon on routes and hone their skills with other trainers. Large increases of quantity and quality of trainers over time leads to humans claiming more land to build cities. Why else would cities give out 5 poke balls for free, and a starter."

"Are poke balls expensive?" At this point I felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into Pokémon's rabbit hole, was this all so obvious It wasn't online.

"Do you know what they do?" May smiled, the conversation seemed to add a jolt of life to her.

"They catch pokemon," I answered simply. May opened her mouth again but before she could speak. 

"Alright May, let's not overload the child with information. Besides, the food is turning cold and I want to eat." 

Caitlin approached the table with Juniper and Cynthia, all three of them holding plates of food. 

With everyone gathered around the table, Gible and Ruby eating Pokemon food out of a food tray, we began to eat.

Using Gible so much, I definitely had to give her a name soon.

The food tasted amazing, May and Juniper were great cooks, cooking over a dozen dishes as a last parting dinner. During eating, some conversations began to form, one of which was May trying to start off at the end of our last conversation, but Juniper asked her to wait after dinner. 

I couldn't help but think Juniper wanted to keep me in the dark about something.

Despite dragging the dinner out, like most good things, we eventually finished our meals.

"I think it's time Ms. Juniper, can we pick out our starter pokemon."