The Adventures of Reina De Zeta, Pokémon Master

Chapter 2:

Chapter 2: The Partner Pokemon

FLASHBACK:
We now find ourselves in a marshy habitat in the Johto Region. There’s a gnarled nest with a single egg, and watching it expectantly and hopefully is a Feraligatr, presumably the mother that laid the egg. There's a small crack in the shell, and out emerges a new-born Totodile.

After emerging from its egg, the Totodile uses its needle-like teeth to eat the residual part of the inside of its egg as its first meal, which is customary for all newly hatched members of the species. After eating its first meal, it happily looks at its mother, gesturing with its snout that it wanted to nuzzle with its mother. The Feraligatr approves, lovingly nuzzling back. She knew somehow that her baby was not a typical Totodile, but she loved her baby anyways. 

Despite the happy nature of its first moments of life, this was not a happy story. The night following the day it had hatched, while the Totodile and its mother were sleeping, a team of Pokemon poachers. They were targeting rare Pokemon, and they weren’t leaving until they found a “jackpot”. As they creeped through the marsh, they came upon the nest with the Feraligatr sleeping. They shoot a net, hoping to capture the large Pokemon, and they do, but the sudden feeling of something hitting it woke the mother. The Feraligatr realized she had been trapped in a net, and she angrily shredded the net that held her. After shredding the net, she protectively snarled and squared up with the poachers' Pokemon, chasing them off.

A week had passed and it seemed the poachers had decided to leave the marsh alone. That is, until later that night when the poachers returned for their revenge. They located the nest once again, and this time they had an electrified net. When they shot it at the mother, the mother was immobilized from the constant voltage. The young Totodile woke and hid so as to not be caught by the poachers. Its mother was still immobilized by the shocks, but wasn’t giving up without a fight. She started to rear up, and the poacher controlling the net wasn’t about lose this time, so he increased the voltage output. He increased it too much, because the Feraligatr soon ceased moving. The poachers celebrated too soon, because when they checked the Feraligatr they realized they had used too much electricity. The Totodile's mother had been killed by the poachers looking to make a quick buck by exploiting the rare Feraligatr.

The young Pokemon had seen its mother die right in front of it.
This was not the last time the poachers would target the marsh. After they had mercilessly killed the mother, the poachers noticed remnants of an egg shell (this all transpired after Elm had discovered and published about Pokemon Eggs), and so they realized there was probably a baby Totodile somewhere.

That night, they could not find the Totodile, and they searched daily. The Totodile had looked all over the vast marsh for food, and for friends. Since it was different from others of its species, no Pokemon in the habitat wanted to help or befriend it. Despite this, the Totodile's disposition was always happy, it was hopelessly optimistic. At one point, it found the only other Female Feraligatr in the marsh. The Feraligatr did not want to help it, the Totodile had given off a weird vibe that the Feraligatr did not like.

About a month after it hatched, the Totodile had accepted it would have to fend for itself all alone. It was sad that its mother had been killed. It was eating when it heard a poacher nearby, his boots sloshing through the wet, swampy habitat. The Totodile ran to hide , and was spotted as it was trying to flee; the poacher called out, saying he had found the Totodile. The Totodile was too young and innocent to know that it would learn what made it so different from other of its species.

The young Pokemon was nimble and cunning even in its youth, bounding quickly across the vast wetland, until it came to a pocket of water. It had never learned how to swim, since its mother had been killed, and the pocket of water was too deep for it to get across.