Warnings: None

Howdy and welcome to the fanfiction adaptation of my Nuzlocke run of Pokémon: Soul Silver!

This is a meta self-insert fic in which the protagonist remembers playing Red/Blue/Silver/Gold in our world as a kid. Thus, references to previous lives, non-Pokémon animals, meta thoughts about the games and other non-Pokémon-world stuff are part of her internal monologue. How she got to be in the Pokémon world will be covered at a later date. Can't give it all away too fast! Present day action will be interspersed with reflections from her past (her past in both our world and the Pokémon world), so please be aware that this story will not always be told linearly.

Also: I've aged up the protagonist of Soul Silver a bit because it seems weird to send a 10 year old running loose all over a country willy-nilly. 16 seems more reasonable; an in-world explanation for this age change, and other changes to the world of Pokémon, will eventually be provided. Enjoy!

Between the Stars and the Sea

Chapter 01:

"New Bark Town"

Although I'd never been fond of the beach before, there was something about the coast east of New Bark that appealed to me. Perhaps it was the shore's grey chill, blustery with the same squalls that turned the windmills back in town, or maybe it was the tall coniferous trees edging the pebbled beach, keeping my skin shaded from the watery sun (though I was tan now, not ghostly like before, and I didn't fear getting burned). It helped that the coast lay only a short walk down a shaded path from my house; this path began only a few dozen yards from the door of my home on New Bark's eastmost edge, cutting straight and true through the trees to the edge of the rocky shore. It was here I sat, most days, tossing stones into the waves as trees swayed on the salty ocean breeze.

Well. "Ocean" is almost a figure of speech. This body of water was just an oblong-ish inlet, really, connecting with the sea somewhere on the other side of the trees ("Just around the river bend," as a certain Disney song might suggest), but the smell of salt on the air didn't lie. This was the ocean, even if I could see more tall trees on the other side of the inlet with just my naked eye.

It still looked a lot bigger than it did in the games, though.

I couldn't say that aloud as Mom's footsteps crunched across the gravel at my back, of course. I sat in silence as she approached, leaning my head against her neck when she put an arm around my shoulders. She smelled like coffee and cinnamon, tea leaves and books, as she always did—or at least as she always had since the day she became my mother.

That length of time was shorter to me than it was to her. But I couldn't tell her that, either.

"Doctor Malkin is here," she said.

I frowned at the inlet. Pulled away from her so I could toss a stone at the water; it fell short by a foot or two. "He wasn't supposed to get here until four."

"Well, he's early." She grabbed a pebble and threw it, too. Hers hit the blue waves with a splash. "No dilly-dallying, now. He's come all this way. We shouldn't keep him waiting."

"You're right." I reached for my crutches. "Help me up?"

She did, hand on my elbow as I hopped atop my crutches and got my balance. My right pant leg swung below the bend of my knee, empty as an abandoned cicada shell (or maybe a Kakuna shell, considering my situation; some of my metaphors still needed updating after all this time). Mom looked at it and then at me, shaking her head with a tut.

"I don't know how you keep from eating dirt on these rocks," she said. "I can barely keep my feet under me as it is, and I have two of them."

As always, she tensed as she made the joke, perhaps wondering if I'd lost my sense of humor in the same, sudden way I'd lost my leg. I just laughed, though; her face softened with relief.

"It's like you said—I come down here so much," I said. "Practice makes perfect."

"Maybe so," she said. She shaded her eyes and looked up, gauging the position of the sun. "Now c'mon. I hope you've been practicing hustling, too."

Doctor Malkin waited for us on the front steps of our house. Tall and barrel-chested, hair thick and black with grey at the temples, he watched my mother and I come up the beach path with disapproving blue eyes, though when I smiled at him the disapproval softened just a little. He spared little time leading us indoors. He knew the house well at this point, though that was not surprising considering its small size: Just two bedrooms upstairs, Mom's and mine, and the combination kitchen and living area on the ground floor. We sat at the kitchen table, where he had upended his medical bag and toolkit while Mom came to fetch me, and where he had left a long wooden crate with the lid slightly askew sitting idle.

He gestured for me to roll up my pant leg, which I did. "Any pain since I saw you last, Hoshiko?"

"Typical phantom nerve pain; nothing unusual." I touched the scar on the tip of my severed leg, feeling the bumps and folds of the surgically grafted skin. "I've been keeping off it like you asked."

"Good." He brushed aside his coat and thumbed one of the three Poké Balls on his belt. "Still. Can't be too careful. Come on out, Lorrie."

There came an electric trill, followed by a ribbon of pure white light that streaked toward the floor before exploding in a flash of sparks. The sparks turned pink as they coalesced into a solid shape, and then they filled out with color and shadow until a Chansey stood at Malkin's side. As always, the sheer size of her struck me momentarily dumb, as did the sight of pale purple light building in her tiny pink hands. She held them over the stump of my leg, suffusing it in light and a sensation of pure soothe.

Pokémon.

It had been six years, but I still couldn't help but be awed by the sight of them.

As my mom made tea on the stove and as Lorrie the Chansey (somewhat pointlessly) healed up my leg, Malkin shoved the lid off the box on the table. Out of it came the latest version of my below-knee prosthetic with its black foot, silver shank, and black socket with the racing flames and cheery sakura blossoms painted up the side (a detail I had insisted on getting airbrushed onto the plastic, much to my mother's chagrin). Malkin passed me the compression garment with attachment pin without looking at me; I slipped it over my residual limb, the tight, gel-lined fabric clinging snugly to my leg as it was supposed to. Malkin pulled a wrench from his toolkit and tightened a few nuts and bolts before handing me the prosthetic. I shoved my leg into the socket, feeling the pin on my compression sock click into place.

This wasn't the first prosthesis I'd ever worn, and it wouldn't be the last, but as I rolled to my feet I knew this one was different from the others that had graced my leg in years past. The ankle joint rolled more smoothly than it had any right and the socket was secure without being at all too tight—hell, it was comfy, the new liner plush and thick but breathable, a far cry from the stifling garments of years prior. Malkin had outdone himself (but that wasn't surprising, given his credentials). Lorrie ambled to the couch and flopped onto it with a happy burble as I padded around the house a few times, testing my weight, listening to the stamp stamp stamp of the rubber foot against the wooden floor. Malkin watched with a critical eye, but when I sank back into my chair he smiled.

"At sixteen years old, you should be about done growing," he said. "We shouldn't need to fit you for an upgrade for a while yet." But he stared at me, glare like sandpaper. "Provided you are careful with that one."

Mom, preparing a plate of sandwiches at the kitchen counter, snorted. I flushed, curling my chin-length hair behind my ears. I'd wrecked two or three of Malkin's creations over the years, much to the chagrin of all involved. Before I could make promises to be careful (or make excuses for my previous lapses in judgement, like that time I tried chasing a Sentret up a tree when I was 11) Mom came over and set down the sandwiches and tea. The three of us ate in mostly contented silence, joined by Lorrie who slurped tea with obvious gusto. Malkin hardly looked at my mother when she tried making conversation, however, instead setting down a half-eaten sandwich and angling himself toward me.

"I stopped by Elm's lab on my way in, Hoshiko," he said. "Have you been by his office lately?"

"No." I had no reason to do so, and I said so. "Why do you ask?"

He picked up his sandwich again. "He asked about you. Said he could use your help."

Mom looked at Malkin sharply as he took a bite. "Use her help with what?"

"An errand." He took another bite, still not looking at her. "Didn't say much else."

Mom's eyes widened. "But she couldn't possibly, with her new leg—"

"Nonsense." He spoke through a full mouth, dismissing my mother outright. "She ought to take it for a test run, anyway." Reaching across the table, he shoved my plate closer toward me. "Finish that and get your best hiking boots. Hop to it."

Mom had progressed to full-on glaring at him. Sensing an impending meltdown (well, two impending meltdowns), I grabbed my plate and carried it with me to the stairs, carefully picking my way up them and into my bedroom. Once inside, I slid down the back of my door and sat there with my forehead pressed to my knees—one knee warm and fleshy, the other coated in thick compression sock. My hands drifted to the floor, plate striking wood with a soft click.

Of the two meltdowns I had sensed coming, one most definitely belonged to me—because unless I was mistaken, this sounded conspicuously close to the start of a forced Pokémon journey.

The journey I'd been delaying for, oh… two years now?

Not that Mom had wanted me to go on a Pokémon journey like a lot of other kids from New Bark (and not that there were too many kids in this tiny village to go on said journey, but still). No, she was more than content for me to stay at home and finish traditional schooling before striking out on my own, but Doctor Malkin had been harping on me to go on the customary journey since I was about 14—older than most kids when they started on their journeys, he made sure to mention every time we discussed my future. And sure, seeing the world and more Pokémon was appealing, but I was a kid. A kid very easily shoved into the back of a van and kidnapped. This body of mine wasn't very tall, nor was it very strong, and that's in spite of my stubby right leg.

No, I'd decided very early into my existence in this world. I'd wait until I was older and more in control of my life before venturing off on my own, and frankly, I found it exceedingly odd that this place's cultural norm was to send kids into the world without supervision at such tender ages. How was that smart, I ask you?

And I mean, sure. Pokémon were cool and all, and I'd spent my previous childhood daydreaming of becoming a trainer… but too many kids came back to New Bark broken, Poké Balls greyed out and empty on their belts, for me to race so optimistically into the wide, cold world.

Not that Doctor Malkin or Mom understood the truth. They just thought I was cagey because of my leg. Little did they know that was the least of my worries, and that I had a perspective on this matter neither of them could fathom I possessed.

Said perspective couldn't protect me forever, though.

If this was indeed the start of my journey (one I could not avoid forever), I'd have to face it with as much courage as I could.

Eventually I decided I couldn't delay my return downstairs any longer, and that Malkin was too smart for me to fake an issue with my prosthetic. I shoved my sandwich into my mouth and fetched my hiking boots and customary leather jacket before opening my door—but softly. Because voices had drifted up from downstairs, and I wanted to hear what they had to say.

Not that I learned anything new by eavesdropping, mind you. This argument was a tale as old as time (or so might suggest another Disney ballad).

"—can't just volunteer her for things like that!" Mom was saying, voice strained and low as she tried not to yell.

"I am only acting in her best interest," came Malkin's cold intonation. "I am her godfather, after all."

"And I had no say in that appointment!"

"Would you want me to not honor your husband's final wishes, then? Do you want me not to look out for her?"

There was a pause. "You know that's not what I want," Mom eventually said, voice hushed. "You know that."

"I'm sure that I do," said Malkin, tone desert dry—and he took a breath to say something else, but I very pointedly stepped on a creaky floorboard and he shut up.

He might have been my godfather, but nobody picked on my mom on my watch—even if she had only been my mother for a few years now, only since I showed up in this world and usurped my place within it.

But that's a story for another time.

"All right. I'm ready," I said as I carefully descended the steps. "Did Professor Elm say how long this should take?"

"Just the afternoon," Malkin said. He'd moved from the table to the window while I was upstairs, staring past the lace curtains with a scowl. "He needs you to go out past Cherrygrove a ways. You'll be back by dark."

"Good." I went over and hugged my mother, who looked alarmed at hearing the name of the next city over. That was farther than I'd ever been alone, and we both knew it. Into her neck I said, "Have dinner ready for me when I get home, OK?"

"Of course." She sighed into my hair, hands firm on my back. "You have your Pokégear?"

I waved my wrist around behind her, displaying the Sylph Co. watch on it even though she couldn't see. "Yup."

"With the phone card?"

"Uh-huh."

"And the map?"

"Wouldn't leave home without it."

"Good." She pushed me away, but gently, and caressed my hair. "You be careful, you hear me?"

I saluted. "Yes, ma'am."

Mom giggled. Over by the window, Malkin snorted. I stuck out my tongue at him and trotted out the door.

New Bark Town wasn't large by any means. Hell, it didn't even have paved roads, a winding network of gravel paths meandering through houses and businesses before wandering off onto Route 29. Our home sat on New Bark's northeastern edge; Elm's lab was only a few buildings away, separated from my house by just a handful of other homes. The fact that his lab lay at the northwestern corner of the village should tell you just how small New Bark really was. It extended to the south by only six or so buildings, a tight square of homes and basic businesses, before ending just as the forest began anew. It's really no surprise, therefore, that before I could even get out of my front yard I heard someone calling my name. In a town that small, you could barely take a step without running into a dozen people you knew.

The fact that my name appeared to be issuing from a bush was only slightly surprising, in light of that.

"Hey, Hoshiko!" said a bush just outside my neighbor's house. "C'mere!"

I stopped walking and eyed the bush, which rustled a little—as if unnerved by my stare, maybe. My lips quirked; I ran my fingers through my hair.

"Hi, Ethan," I said. "What's up?"

The bush rattled, and then a very human head popped out the top of it. So the bush wasn't sentient, after all. No, it only contained a boy about my age who wore a baseball cap and a red jacket with a white hood. He stumbled from the bush and dusted himself off; after him tumbled a round blue ball with another blue ball for a tail, a Marill rolling into view from beneath the bush's agitated leaves. I smiled at the small Pokémon on reflex. It smiled back, greeting me with a burble and a trill.

Ethan finished brushing off his pants and adjusted his cap, eyes darting left and right suspiciously. "Hey—you haven't seen my mom, have you?" he said.

"Nah. Why?"

"She wants me to do chores and I, well, don't?" He scratched the back of his neck when I gave him a Look. "Gonna go stir up the Remoraid out on the beach. Wanna come?"

"Nah." I pointed at my hiking boots. "Elm has an errand for me, apparently. Won't be back till sundown."

"Oof. Malkin put you up to helping the professor?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Saw him walk by about an hour ago looking very determined." It was his turn to give me a Look, though for different reasons. "I don't know why you keep delaying your Pokémon journey. If my mom would let me go, I'd be all over that."

I rolled my eyes. We'd had this talk a hundred times or more, after all, but this time Ethan's eyes lit up in a way they usually did not at reminders of my reticence. He tapped the bottom of one fist into the opposite palm and grinned, an idea clearly forming behind his bright gaze.

"Say. Maybe if you go on a journey, my mom'll let me go on one, too!" He darted behind me and put his shoulder into my back, pushing me along ahead of him. "So what're you doing just standing there? Go, go, go!"

I could only laugh at his enthusiasm. "Fine, fine; sheesh! See you when I get back, Ethan."

"See ya!" he said as I walked out ahead of him. Once he determined I wasn't going to double back and ruin his chances, he and his Marill both dove back into the bushes and out of sight.

I watched him (well, I watched the quivering shrubbery) until I lost track of his progress, my smile fading into an idle frown. It had been quite a shock to meet this boy named Ethan who looked suspiciously like the male protagonist of Gold and Silver, but by now I was used to the sight of him, and of all that his presence in New Bark Town implied. It had been six years since I appeared in this world and had subsequently moved to New Bark, after all—but in all that time, Ethan hadn't left on his journey and I'd seen neither hide nor hair of a girl named Lyra, either. But then again, lots of things about this place defied my knowledge of the Pokémon games and anime. Not everyone left on their Pokémon journey at age 10 like I had first assumed. In fact, most went on their customary journey closer to 13. Maybe Ethan would go on his after I went on mine, like he'd said.

There was still time for him to find his path and become the next Pokémon master. And when he did, I'd support him as best as I was able. We'd become friends, after all. That's what friends were for.

The rest of my walk to Professor Elm's lab passed without incident. A few Pidgey pecked the ground outside the lab, the rectangular building with its tall windows and stark white walls at once both imposing and utterly stereotypical for a lab way out in this podunk town. The small yard out front had a picket fence around it to keep out the riffraff (or so Elm had said once or twice within my hearing over the years; I got the feeling that by "riffraff" he meant Ethan) but I pushed open the gate without pause. Ethan loved to bug Elm, and I'd been dragged on Ethan's various adventures involving the lab (mostly spying on it through the sparkling windows) too many times to care much about propriety.

The guy lurking around the corner of the lab didn't seem to care much about propriety, either.

I only caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye as he rounded the edge of the building, and truth be told I only saw the barest impression of a person given the fleeting nature of that glimpse. Still, nothing lay to the west of the lab but the edge of the woods, and as such there was no reason to go around back of the lab at all (the lab didn't have a back door, just a front one). I paused with my hand on the gate, staring in the direction the figure had gone, and then I let the gate fall shut. Tiptoeing isn't the easiest in a prosthetic, but I managed to keep my footsteps relatively quiet as I rounded the picket fence and headed for the narrow gap of space between the lab and the trees running alongside it. They flooded that side of the lab with shade; I walked to the edge of the shadow and squinted into its depths, but I saw nothing, the shadows too deep against the lab's white walls to make out anything clearly.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

At the sound of that sharp, nasal voice, I flinched with an "eep" of fright and spun.

He stood just a few feet away, and he appeared about my age. He wore a black coat with a Mandarin collar, all hems trimmed with brilliant red, and a pair of purple pants that didn't quite match the coat. Fashion in this place never quite made sense to me, though, so I barely gave the clashing outfit a second glance. He looked me over with cool grey eyes, but I barely had time to note their color, either, before my eyes were drawn elsewhere as if pulled into orbit by a tractor beam.

A tractor beam manned by his brilliant red hair, which fell over his pale neck and brushed his shoulder blades in a glossy (and highly familiar) curtain.

"Uh," I said, eloquently—but who can blame me, really, for coming up short in the word department at the sight of this young man?

Well. He certainly blamed me. "What are you staring at?" he barked—but then his grey eyes narrowed. "Wait a second. You're not Lyra."

"N-no," I managed to say. "No—I'm not."

His eyes narrowed further still. Frankly, it was a wonder he could even see, they narrowed so damn much. But before I could ask him who he was (an answer I dreaded because I suspected I already knew how he'd respond), or how he knew about the girl named Lyra who definitely didn't live in this village, something snapped over my shoulder. I spun on my bio-heel and saw the telltale tail of a Sentret disappearing into the trees. Slowly I pivoted back to the boy, heart beating hard in the roof of my mouth—

Only, he wasn't there anymore.

In the scant seconds I'd been turned around, the red-haired boy had vanished.

NOTES:

A boy who appears to be the canonical Silver knows about and was expecting the absentee Lyra. What? More on that (and on our protagonist's thoughts and observations about this odd version of the Pokémon world) next chapter. I'm trying to dole out facts about the world naturally as they arise, so if there seem to be gaps in worldbuilding, they'll get filled in when they become relevant.

I picked the name "Hoshiko" for my trainer because… I sort of forgot the English games had western-sounding names instead of Japanese ones. Oops. Been a while since I played. But I've head-canoned that Hoshiko's mom is from Ecruteak, home of the Japanese-named Kimono girls, so we'll say that makes it make sense. Also "Hoshiko" is spelled with a Japanese character meaning "Star" and my penname is "Star Charter," so… yeah.

Hoshiko is a below the-knee amputee. I've done a ton of research and I have an amputee buddy of mine advising for accuracy. I think it's important we have diverse protagonists in all forms of media. I have limited mobility, personally, and wish there were more protags like me out there, so this is wish fulfillment on a few different levels I guess.

Thanks for reading!

(Note to readers of my other stories: I do not intend to work on this with the same consistency I approach "Lucky Child." This is a Bucket List Fic, one I've wanted to write for AGES, and I intend to have a lot of low-stakes fun with it. Thanks!)