Will Thomas

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The abrupt stop of the bus jerked me forward. I sat up again, only to notice everyone ogling the windows. Wiping the lil pool of drool off the side of my mouth with the endborder of my book, I closed it and sat up.

"Ugh. I guess we're at..school?" No response. Yeap, no one talks to the old-balls. It's alright. I can deal. after all even though I'm twelve, no one has to know that. Waiting until everyone else gleefully jumped off the bus, I clambored off. Backpack slung over one arm and hands deep in pockets, I fixed my hat over my eyes to block out the sun a little.

"Mom, what did I ask for?" I said to myself as I took in the surroundings. One of the kids walked in the other direction, and wound up stomping something. I found it to be amusing, and gave out a chuckle, before turning to look over to the mass of the group. The mass that....was astounded..by the statues..of the Kanto generation.


"Really? They're excited over this?" I sauntered up to them, and patted the Venusaur head, feeling a slight twinge of nostalgia of when I trained a stellar one in the games. Would be nice to have one. Shaking the ludicrous feeling off-I was about to make a snap judgment and be the old "drop out" of the school, when I noticed a flock of birds in the fountain.

A flock of Pidgey. One of my favorites. EVER. My body weight tilted forward until I was balancing on my toes, and I was stealthily walking toward them. Pidgey were phenomenal...cute and just..frickin' awesome to train.

Train..I paused. I didn't process that these were really in front of me until I thought about training one. I had the ability to do so now. But-and just like in the games, I had no Pokeball! Defeated, I turned my attention back to the class, standing at the back as someone addressed the group. I couldn't focus on him, as I was too preoccupied with the Pidgey-and now the ever widening world of Pokemon as I spotted Eeveeloutions run about, and other unique forms.

Playing these games for the better part of my childhood helped me recognize them near immediately, but seeing them alive...there was a chord of happiness hit that I haven't felt in ages. I clapped once, and then noticed everyone got some stickies to know their name. I didn't realize they were name tags, until I looked over and saw everyone hard at work scribbling their names onto them. Some people were even crossing their names out and rewriting them, ahh the joys of just learning cursive writing.

Grabbing two, I swiftly wrote "Sack" on one, and stuck it to the sack..since ..it didn't have a name. The other would be adorned with a colorful blocky letter version of my name, reminiscent of the graffiti style on my hallway wall...back home. I kinda sneered at the though of going back there, seeing as this dream now had much more potential that ever.

Anyway, people then began removing actual Pokeballs from their bags. At first, I thought they were like, Christmas ornaments, but once I saw one shrink, I had to calm myself. Reaching in my bag, I shoved food and books aside until the sphere rolled into my hand. Pulling it out (and in the process a flurry of colored pencils joined the group), I immediately turned back toward the fountain...that was closed off from me by a set of doors. If I had my full sized body....

But now what? Maye I should have listened more-but hey, I was in the back and I wasn't really from here, that's my excuse. Leaning in, I just kinda threw a open ended question out there.

"So uhh, anybody know when we're actually gonna see the Pokemon we wanna get?"