A certain Trainer thinks about his past and the secret entwined in it.
He couldn’t believe his luck when he found her.
He didn’t remember very much about his past; that was because of his accident three years ago.
But he remembered her.
He remembered when they first met – during a Wonder Trade for him; for her, he now knew, it was a Time Capsule trade. She had sent him a shiny Charmander – the one he eventually named Blaze and kept with him as his best partner. He had read her message, about her being a Poke Ball researcher who liked Moon Balls best, and in turn sent her an unusual Cyndaquil – the only Pokemon he had to trade that was caught in a Moon Ball.
They continued to trade Pokemon and messages every now and then, him continuing to use the handle ‘4423’ and his first name, Shun. Every time, he made sure his trades to her were caught in Moon Balls.
Eventually, the trades and the short messages turned into long letters. The messages were sent as Mail held items attached to the Pokemon they would trade each other. In the last trade he received from her, she sent him a picture of herself.
On the day he was planning to send her his, Cinnabar Volcano erupted.
The eruption was sudden, but Trainers came from all over Kanto to help evacuate the island, including him. His focus was on moving the Pokemon stored in the Cinnabar Island PC. He had just gotten the last Pokemon out when an explosion ripped through the Pokemon Center. He was the only casualty.
When he woke up, he was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines. His physical wounds had long since healed, but his mind needed to catch up.
He had been in a coma for two years.
He was told that most of his Pokemon had died in the Pokemon Center explosion. The only one of his Pokemon to survive was Blaze, his shiny Charizard. Most of his belongings had burned in the lava, except for a few things – one of which was his picture of her.
It was then, several months after he had woken up, that he resolved to track her down. He did research and found that a Tia Cade was a student at the Kanto Institute of Technology in Saffron City, but she was currently away doing an internship in Johto. When he had discovered that she was working in Azalea Town, he went there to find her – only to be told that she was away on a research trip and it wasn’t clear when she would return.
It wasn’t until months later, when passing through Viridian City, that he walked into the Pokemon Center and he saw her. She was sitting in a corner of the lobby, with a blue Natu perched on her shoulder, going through her Pokedex and talking to herself. She looked exactly like the picture she had sent him.
He ached to go over and talk to her, but he held back. He had to be careful how he approached her, or else she’d think he was a stalker or a nut. He settled on commenting on her Pokedex. After another chance encounter, he had asked for her number, and amazingly enough, she had given it to him.
He genuinely enjoyed hearing about her adventures in Poke Ball research. He learned new things every time they talked, and he even was able to give her some advice.
Then, during a routine call, she told him she had traded with someone named Shun. His stomach dropped, and he hastily ended the call early before he felt sick. He contemplated just what kind of knot he was tied up in.
His past was her future.
Aidan was startled out of his thoughts by his Pokegear ringing. He answered it. “Hello?”
“Aidan, hi!” a familiar voice rang out.
His heart soared. “Tia!”
Tia laughed. “Well, you sound pretty happy to hear me. I’m heading over to Cerulean City in a couple of hours. Are you still nearby?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty close.”
“Do you want to meet up?”
Yes. “Uh… sure, that’ll be great!”
“Great! I haven’t spent much time in the area outside of my research. Maybe we could go exploring?”
“Sounds good.”
“It’s a date, then! I’ll see you soon!”
“Bye…” He hung up and took a deep breath, his heart fluttering. What was he doing? He was acting like a schoolboy with a crush. His mind wandered back to the Shun problem. How was he going to explain to Tia who he really was? Would she believe him? Or would she think he was playing a nasty trick on her?
As a scientist, Tia’s focus was always on the facts, and on finding enough evidence to support a theory. If he gave her enough evidence, she would believe him.
He had to believe that.