1 Worthless Beginnings

A crime-infested region blanketed with smog and decorated with murky waters and crumbling buildings- a blemish on the world of Pokemon.

The Vortus Region, Reaversand City.

Alone sat a dark-skinned child no older than eight-years-old. Wearing cheap, ripped clothes and a stolen red scarf- he gripped his black hair and curled into a ball next to the dumpster, seemingly crying.

But he wasn't crying. He hadn't cried in this life yet and he didn't plan to start now. In fact, upon learning he had been reincarnated, his first reaction was to maniacally laugh and scream 'FINALLY!' in his head.

That was probably at least 10% of the reason his parents left him in a rundown orphanage. Newborns typically don't laugh until exhaustion upon being born, after all.

Still, he wasn't crying; he was simply thinking about what he should do next.

'Why couldn't I have been born in Kanto or something like those wish-fulfillment fanfictions. I usually wouldn't give a shit about being dealt a garbage hand in life but really? No cheats, no parents or backing, and I'm born in the Pokemon equivalent of fucking Gotham.'

This boy was Nova, a previously teenage reincarnate who spent the last eight years attempting to escape the grasp of a certain orphanage in the city.

Upon learning he was in the Pokemon world, he had high hopes and was fairly ecstatic. Sadly, the reality of things is often disappointing.

By being a silent child who barely ever spoke, people ignored him. Using that bias, he listened in on conversations he most definitely wasn't supposed to hear.

Through that, he learned a multitude of things. The first was that he was in a region he had never heard of before, and that most of the region was either poor due to corruption or simply rife with crime.

The second thing he learned is that becoming a true Pokemon Trainer wasn't as simple as going to school and then traveling the region at the age of 10. He learned that there were two types of trainers, licensed and unlicensed.

Licensed trainers only gained their license through either being sponsored by a regional professor or taking the Trainer Exam. An exam that was designed so harshly that only an average of two people became trainers each year. On top of that, the Pokemon Association blatantly advertised the high fatality rates when taking the exam. Plus, you can only take the exam a total of three times.

They are the first to secure unseen wonders, uncover the secrets of Pokemon, but above all they are the protectors of the region they hail from- and the protectors of humanity itself. In other words, the elite.

These trainers are given special access to training methods, diets, information, and are even allowed to enter certain restricted areas and buy items that are considered illegal to have otherwise.

Unlicensed trainers were those who simply picked up a Pokemon and decided to take the gym challenge. Given no benefits and are highly restricted in where they're allowed to explore, they usually give up at the third or fourth gym.

Most of the time, they simply aren't taken seriously by the public and are just seen as people chasing a dream that'll never come true.

Why? Because the only way for those who don't take the trainer exam to become a licensed trainer is by defeating the eighth gym leader, a feat that is difficult even for licensed trainers.

That, however, wasn't the annoying part for Nova. He had the drive to push himself and take the exam, and if he failed it- he could try again next year or even push himself to defeat the eighth gym leader.

No, the problem was the orphanage being corrupt. He learned early on that the number of children being adopted was extremely low, almost nonexistent. So, he did some snooping and realized that the 'caretakers' were hiding the children away once they reached a certain age and had been attempting to rewire their brains to become the ultimate 'Super Soldier' of Pokemon training.

Sadly, they aren't the smartest and Nova learned they have just been either killing children or giving them brain damage.

With a ton of elaborate planning and schemes, he finally escaped- and saw two options for himself.

One, he takes a risk and steals from various Pokemarts in hopes of maybe getting a Pokeball and catching a Pokemon, taking the unlicensed trainer route.

Or two, join a gang.

Unsurprisingly, he was leaning towards the latter option.

With the region being poor and not having many Pokeballs to spare, security around marts would be extremely tight. Corruption with police would result in 'compensation' when he would try to pass through cities, and he was very much broke.

On top of that, the only Pokemon he'd seen around were groups of Scraggy being led by a Scrafty and the occasional Poochyena. The Poochyena he maybe could take on, but he very much doubted a wolf would be alone. Getting mauled or beaten to death by a Pokemon wasn't on his list of things to do.

However, in a gang, he could get a Pokemon, a living space, and even actual food.

Also, there wasn't much competition for gangs. There were two main ones, the Shade Gang and the Toxic Gang. Synonymous with their names, they specialized in dark and poison type Pokemon respectively.

Though, that fact was the only thing he knew about them.

"Joining a gang might give me a police record if they see my face. Then again, when have the police in this godforsaken place done anything productive? I'd be surprised if they even knew the names of the gangs that roam around this shithole." he muttered to himself.

Despite saying that, he decided to wear something to obstruct his face if he was able to join the gang.

To anyone passing the alleyway he was sitting in, they'd see a child holding his head while muttering under his breath. In other words, nothing new.

"And if I fail the exam after years of being in this gang, it doesn't matter. I don't want to be a hardcore trainer anyway. Being a researcher sounds like a better idea to me. After all, I'm in a completely different world. Pokemon themselves are fascinating but what about humans? What limits do this world's humans have in comparison to Pokemon and why wasn't this studied before? Could I eventually arm wrestle a Machamp and suplex God?" he continued to mutter.

What Nova didn't know was that he tends to mutter under his breath when nervous and uses it as a coping mechanism to hype himself up. He didn't even realize he was scared to join a gang of people that could kill him with a thought if they had the right Pokemon, but that fear was slowly fading away as he continued to mutter.

After a few minutes of this, he suddenly opened his violet eyes and stood up. Resolved to his fate, he marched toward a Gang scout that he managed to find earlier that day.