On your 7th birthday your older sister takes you out onto one of the routes surrounding town. She convinces you to go into the tall grass with her, she tells you to stay still and keep quiet, she hands you a singular pokeball. The pair of you come back with a Rattata trailing behind your feet. Your parents are watching the news with concern, something about a kid in Kanto. Neither of you pay it any attention, instead you run upstairs to find space in your room for your first pokemon to live.
When you turn 10 you start trying to be a pokemon trainer. Every kid in the area is after all, and you've spent the last three years memorising book after book on how to best look after Ace - it shouldn't be that hard! Except Mikey keeps on beating you and rubbing it in your face. You swear you almost had it one day, only you're distracted by a strange boy and his Totodile coming up the route. He comes by again later in the day. You challenge him to a battle. You lose. You offer your phone number. He accepts. You don't know why.
You keep calling him. He keeps answering. It's a weird dynamic the pair of you have. You call and talk about anything. He listens in mostly silence. You think it's nice, comforting even, to be able to just talk to someone. Reena isn't at home anymore so there isn't really anyone else. You wonder if he's annoyed. The other kids are always annoyed by you. When he speaks - it's rare but he does - he sounds happy though. As if he finds comfort in it as well.
He's gone farther than you could have ever hoped, Azalea, Goldenrod, Ecruteak, Cianwood. In 4 days he's done far more than you have in 5 months. You try not to let it get to you. Instead, you brag about Ace; the pokemon he manages to beat, yesterday he finally took down Mikey's Pidgey, did you know his fangs are really sharp? When he reaches Olivine something happens. It's on the news, something happened at the lighthouse. You don't know what exactly. You can't ask him. He deleted your number. Guess that answers if he was annoyed or not.
You see him again after 3 days. He looks exhausted, dragging his feet across the route. He doesn't seem fully aware of where he is going, he's muttering something you can't hear. When you call out to him, he stops. You can't tell if it's fear or relief in his eyes. However he doesn't ignore you. He gets your number again. Was it a mistake?
There is something happening, you know that much. He won't say what, he doesn't say anything, but he's scared. You know he's scared. His breath is shaky over the phone. You feel powerless. You feel inferior. You don't move from this singular route and yet he's collected 8 gym badges in just under a week. Those two feelings bring you to send Ace to him. If you can't help by calling him then maybe he can help in this way. If you can't help Ace be his best - then maybe he will.
There's a moment where things are different. He beat the pokemon league. He's the champion of Johto. Ace was in his team. You see him walk up the route. He's still tired but the fear is gone. He stops and talks to you, properly talks to you, about nothing of note at all. Nothing about his journey, or Olivine, or if he knows what you did. He just talks about his mama and the history book he had been reading before all of this. When he leaves again he seems nervous. Like he knows something. When you call later he's back to how he was.
He went to Kanto. You worry. In the last few years, Kanto hasn't exactly been safe. Not after what happened with that boy with the Pidgeot. Something about a guy called Helix, you weren't fully paying attention. He calls you for a change. He tells you he boxed Ace. He tells you what he's going to do is dangerous, and he doesn't want his friend's pokemon to get hurt. He tells you he isn't sure if he'll come back, but if he does he will explain everything, because you deserve that at the very least. You don't understand. He hangs up before you can ask. A few hours later the news reports that two boys were found at the top of Mt. Silver. He's one of them, the other is the boy from 3 years ago.
You visit the hospital every chance you get, hoping he'll wake up. While there you contemplate everything. You know now that you aren't cut out for being a pokemon trainer. You don't know what to do with yourself. You feel like you can't turn your back on this. A nurse comes in and hands you something he had. Apparently it dropped out of his bag. A pokeball with the letters "GS" on it. You've never seen it before, but she hands you it before you can ask about it. You take it home on accident. You wake up somewhere else next to a mythical pokemon and with your head full or noise.
It felt like a dream. You know that it wasn't. Celebi is kept hidden in your room next to Ace's bed. You take the GS ball with you whenever you go to visit him, in case he's awake and can explain it. Or whatever They were. You have a theory, but aren't fully sure.
When he finally wakes up there's commotion. You see him panic at the noise, something clicks. You drag out the nurses and doctors that had rushed in and wait for him. He breaks down. You tell him it's ok. He explains Them. He explains the Helix and Red and what happened on the mountain. He tells you he was there at Olivine, but he doesn't say what happened. You don't ask. You pull out the GS ball. He barely recognises it. You tell him you believe him. No one besides his parents do.
You spend a lot of time together. Actually best friends now, not just a one way phone call. It's still comforting, you don't know what you want, but at least you have this. At least he smiles now.
You watch it happen again and again. Person after person walking around with Them at their side. You watch the story play out in front of you as you always have. It's painful, it's horrifying. You can't look away. You feel that doing so would betray him. Doing so would betray yourself. You find that you can help in a small way, just by being there. You are an outsider in regards to the grander scheme, but you are one of the few that know.
You sometimes consider using Celebi to go back. Back to the very beginning, to stop any of this from happening. Doing so would mean you wouldn't have met him, but he would have been happier, right? However you've seen what happens when people try to mess with the world's path. It's tempting, but you bite it down and continue to watch.
You aren't a host, though you aren't really human either. You exist in a strange limbo where you've seen and experienced too much to go back, but not enough to truly suffer the effects. This was your choice to stick to it, for his sake more than your own. You dont think you can regret it, not when the alternative was a life stuck to a single spot, destined to always be inferior.