Archive of My Own

Chapter 1: Yuki's Story of her First Kanto Christmas (Part 1)

This story takes place in my fourth Pokémon Year. Despite having been alive as long as the equivalent of a 48 year old on earth, I was still very sensitive to the feelings of a family death.

Earlier in the year, my mom passed away, leaving me to live with Hop, Leon, and their parents. (I completely had no desire to live in Kanto with my cousin Ash and Aunt Delia. They were ok with as long as I told Hop and his family my story. Of course, to stay where I truly wanted to be, I did just that.) Life was even more emotionally hard since I also remembered my first family death in my past life. The memories I had of the next 48 hours would scar me for life...

I do not remember anything about the Pokémon World from my past life, but for important reasons, I did not want to forget why I was very thankful to the franchise as well. A week before my grandma took her final breath, an important episode aired in Japan. In this episode, we found out the Grass User of the region lost her mom, but had regrets due to the last words she told her. "I hate you!" She screamed at her mom before running out the hospital room. She hated herself for that and really wanted to let her mom know how much she loved her. Lucky for her, there was a Pokémon who was able to bring the living to the boundary of life and death. This Pokémon gave her that chance and she was able to re-do her final moment. Instead of "I hate you" - she said this "Thank you for giving birth to me!"

I do not remember who the person was, what region she was on, or who the Pokémon that gave her that chance was... but those final words became the base for my final words a week later. I was able to tell my grandma "thank you for giving birth to my mom so she could give birth to me!" Sadly, I had to do this over the phone, which was my only giant regret regarding that moment.

Now I had memories of my Grandma dying and my Mom in this world dying. It was a little too much for me to cope with for awhile... luckily for me, Hop and Leon played with me and cheered me up so my emotional wound wouldn't forever be deep.

It was almost Christmas time again in this world and I was still upset about not being able to spend it with my mom. I was invited to spend it over in Kanto with Ash, Aunt Delia, and Uncle Red. I accepted the invitation.

Before I left for the train to the airport, Leon ran up to me. "Yuki, I know you're more mature then any of us, but you still don't fully understand how dangerous this world is." Then he handed me a Pokeball. "This is the Wooloo I've been training for my Gym Challenge next month. Since you two get along so well, I trusted it to keep you safe."

"Thank you!" I smiled.

Not too many seconds later, Hop ran up as well with a smile. "Have a good Christmas, Yuki!"

"You, too! Merry Christmas!"

The two boys looked at each other, confused. Realizing it's probably an old saying from my old life, they looked at me again with a smile and replied "Merry Christmas to you, too!"

(Although "Merry Christmas" was still a saying in this world, it wasn't at all common to be said before the actual holiday. "Have a good Christmas" was usually said, instead.)

Waving good-bye, I hopped on the train.

_____

I finally made it to Wyndon. Since I had no idea where the Airport was, I asked one of the people at the Wyndon Station Info counters.

"The Wyndon Airport? If you take Subway Line B, it will take you directly there." The man at the counter replied.

"Thank you very much!" With Leon's Wooloo ball in my bag, I ran to the subway and took Line B.

Once I got on and took a seat, I started huffing and puffing. I forgot being smaller really decreased how much energy I can admit without being exhausted... I reminded myself. Since the subway would take 30mins to get to the airport, I decided to take out the Pokeball from my bag. "Wooloo, mind giving me some company?" I asked.

A light came from the Pokeball, having a Wooloo pop out on my lap. "Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" A happy cry came from it's mouth. Then it reached its little arm towards me. I grabbed it and shook it gently.

"I'm glad you could come to Kanto with me, too!"

The subway ride felt like it was taking forever. It had a couple stops before reaching it's destination, after all. Wyndon is HUGE.

As we had no more then five minutes before the airport, a trainer walked by and saw my Wooloo on my lap.

"Hey kid." He said, looking at me. "You aren't 10. Why do you have a Pokémon?"

I ignored him, knowing trouble would start up. Not too long before I was born, the law about having to be 10 to carry around a Pokémon was changed. Younger children could carry around one simple Pokémon if it was owned by someone they knew, had approval papers, and was meant for self defense. I fell under that category, but he clearly didn't care.

"Hey kid, I'm talking to you." He was enraged as I continued to ignore him. Finally, I gave in.

"Hello there!" I said cheerfully and not scared what-so-ever. "This Wooloo is my big brothers and he is lending it to me so I could travel."

"Your ly-" I could tell he was going to attempt to bully me as he was about to say the word lying, so I went into my bag and pulled out my officially signed paper.

"Leon, who signed up for the Gym Challenge that will start next month, signed my paper. So did his sponsor."

Every year, officially pre-registered Gym Challengers are publicly broadcasted and talked about during the pre-season. It's normally just done to bring more hype for the next year, but for people like me, it helps to show that my papers are official. Not like he could prove it was or not, but it was enough for him to back off. If he didn't, a public scene would of been made.

_____

Finally making it to The Wyndon Airport station, I put Wooloo back into my ball and walked out of the subway... but before I could make it up the stairs, the same trainer and two others were blocking my path.

"You can't say it's official just by showing a Paper, you know. You need a special light to shine over the ink." He smirked. "Lucky for me, my friend has one."

His friend pulled out a blue light. "Let me shine that."

I knew it was fake. Anyone can buy a colored light in this world and pretend it's the official thing. This isn't going to end well...

Without me asking, Wooloo came out of its ball. "BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" It was angry, that's for sure.

"Wooloo, calm down!" I panicked. "You know as well as I do that that light isn't official."

The Wooloo looked at me, and I knew exactly what it wanted to do.

"This counts as self-protect, right?" I asked with a positive smile.

"Looks like we're gonna do this the hard way." The trainer who was on the train pulled out his Pokeball... along with his two friends.