Diclaimer: I own Pokemon Emerald, but I don't own Pokemon.

The Absol had been wandering around Oldale for about a month now. Considering that the rarest Pokemon most people in Oldale saw was a Ralts, maybe a Surskit, if they were lucky, it was a big deal. It was also, as Felicity's grandmother was forever saying, a sign that something terrible was about to happen.

"Absol brings doom," she would say when the Pokemon had been spotted again. "It appears before disaster strikes. You mark my words, something terrible is going to happen soon."

She would then turn her attention on Flick and demand to know why she hadn't begun her journey yet. Flick would look for an excuse to escape and retreat to the backyard to care for her garden. Granted, it was small, and filled with peonies and azaleas, but it was hers. If she had a choice, she would rather have had violets, orchids, and mint, but her mother had picked out the flowers. She hadn't had much of a choice, and really, so long as she could garden, she wasn't going to complain. Her grandmother, on the other hand, didn't approve of her granddaughters' choice, and she needled Flick about it whenever she could.

Oldale was close to Littleroot, which put Flick into a difficult position. At ten years old, and a native of Oldale, she was supposed to have already begun her Pokemon journey, starting with a Pokemon given to her by Professor Birch, of course. However, when her birthday came and her parents presented her with a trainer card and a new outfit, she politely declined it and continued to dig out the weeds that were attempting to choke her favorite azalea bush.

It wasn't that Flick disliked Pokemon; she loved the creatures. She just didn't want to go on a journey with them, content to keep her garden open to any Pokemon who felt like dropping by. She even left out food, on occasion. The only Pokemon visits that annoyed her were ones by Wurmple, and that was only because they seemed to think that her asters were free lunch. The reason she'd planted them were to attract Beautifly, as the lovely bug Pokemon migrated above Oldale yearly. Wurmple food was not their designated function.

"Flick, could you come inside and set the table?" her mother called out through the screen door.

Flick sighed, sat up, and stood, brushing dirt from her jeans as she did so. She pulled off her gardening gloves and set them on the shelf as she walked inside, tracking damp soil on the carpet. Her mother glanced over from the stove and shook her head.

"Shoes off, Flick, and wash your hands," she directed. "Your father's coming home from work any minute now and I want that table set."

As she kicked off her shoes and ran her hands briefly under warm water from the sink, Flick said, "I saw a Cascoon today."

"Really?" Her mother sounded distracted. Flick shook her hands dry and reached for the plates. "Use soap, Flick."

Drat. Flick went back to the sink and used soap, then dried her hands on her shirt. "Yeah," she continued, taking down four plates from the cupboard. "It was in the azaleas."

"If it evolves here, we may have a problem on our hands," her mother commented as Flick put out the plates and began to gather forks and cups into her arms. "Knives, too," her mother reminded her.

"Okay." As Flick placed knives at every place, she asked, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"You said if Cascoon evolved here there might be a problem." Flick turned the stove off as her mother carried the casserole over to table.

"Cascoon evolve into Dustox, unless I'm very much mistaken, and Dustox poison isn't good for plants. I've heard that if treated properly, it can make a decent fertilizer, but even if that were the case, we don't have the means to do that, nor do we know how. Be a dear and get the salad for me, will you?"

As Flick moved to obey, her grandmother hobbled into the dining room, leaning on her cane for support. Her iron gray hair was held back from her face with bobby pins and she scowled at the room. "Talking about gardening nonsense again, eh?"

"It isn't nonsense," Flick protested. "It's fun and it's relaxing."

Her grandmother snorted. "Fun! Relaxing! Marianne, when are you going to talk sense into this child? She should be out with a Treecko or a Torchic or a – what was it? Right, Mudkip, same as all the other girls her age."

"Grandmother –"

"And don't think to placate me with that look, Felicity. I didn't get to be this old without learning a thing or two and you won't win me over with any puppy eyes." The elder peered into Felicity's face over the bowl of salad Flick was carrying and frowned. "You have dirt on your face."

Flick flushed and hurriedly put the salad on the table. As her mother helped her grandmother into her chair ("I'm not an invalid, Marianne.") Flick retreated into the bathroom and closed the door. Her face stared back at her as she looked into the mirror. A round face framed with wisps of brown hair that had escaped from her ponytail, brown eyes, and freckled skin. A smallish nose that was slightly redder than normal. Flick poked at it and grimaced when a white oval appeared on her skin before giving way to red again. She really needed to remember to use sunscreen, especially in the middle of summer, when the sun shone the longest. There was the dirt her grandmother was talking about: A smudge on her cheek, brownish-black and dried to her skin. After a few brushes at it showed that the dirt wasn't going to go away without scrubbing, Flick made a face at herself and turned on the water.

Dinner was uneventful. Flick ate her casserole and salad without complaint as her parents and grandmother discussed the day. Her T-shirt, a plain and unassuming sky blue fingerprinted with dirt from the garden, thankfully went unnoticed, or at the very least unmentioned. As Flick got up to scrape her leftovers into Sammy's bowl, her family's Poochyena, talk at the table turned to the Absol.

"I saw it on my way back from Professor Birch's," her father said. He worked at the lab in Littleroot as an aide, getting up early to commute there every morning. He wasn't pleased with his daughter's decision to forfeit being a Pokemon trainer, but he accepted it grudgingly. "It was right in the middle of the road. I nearly rode into it."

"If it was in the middle of the road, shouldn't you have seen it coming?" her mother asked.

"It jumped out at me."

"That creature will bring disaster on us, just you wait," her grandmother added darkly. "You're lucky you didn't crash, Arthur. It probably would have eaten you."

Her father chuckled. "Pokemon don't eat humans."

"Yena!" Sammy interjected, evidently compelled to protest this fact. Flick grinned and rubbed Sammy behind his ears, drawing a contented growl from the Poochyena. Her father laughed.

"Sammy excepted, of course," he added. Her mother laughed, and Flick giggled, but her grandmother scowled and pointed her fork, thankfully devoid of food, at each of them in turn.

"You laugh now, but mark my words, something terrible is going to happen."

"Can I take Sammy out for a walk?" Flick asked quickly, wanting to escape before an argument broke out. At a nod from her father, she grabbed the leash, hooked it up to Sammy's collar, and raced out through the front door, not at all eager to stay inside. Even though it was already six P.M., the sun was still shining, admittedly lower in the sky, and Flick was determined to enjoy every second of daylight.

"Want to go to the Center, Sammy?" she asked the Poochyena.

"Yena yena!" Sammy barked his agreement. Flick took off down the street at a jog, Sammy racing alongside her. When they reached the Center, Flick stopped running, and waved to the trainers entering the Center. Most of them didn't acknowledge her, but a few returned her wave. They were clearly more interested in healing their Pokemon than being polite. As she turned from the Pokemon Center to head towards the PokeMart and from there head home, a flash of white caught her eye and she turned to stare. The Absol stood there, mere feet away from her. After what seemed to be a lifetime, but what was probably only about ten seconds, the Pokemon turned and leaped away, vanishing among the buildings.

"Yena!" Sammy tugged at the leash, eager to get going.

"Okay, okay," Flick muttered absently. Still staring at the place where the Absol had been, she let Sammy tug her down the street. "What just happened?" she asked the Poochyena, turning her gaze to the small dog Pokemon.

"Ye, yena," Sammy barked happily, sniffing at the corner of a building. Flick smiled.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" she asked, watching the curious Pokemon sniff the air. "Come on, Sammy, let's head to the Mart."

Sammy's excited yips filled Flick's ears as she began to jog again, clearly stating the Poochyena's preferences. Her grandmother's words at dinner reverberated in her mind as she remembered the Absol, and she pushed them away. "Superstitious nonsense," she told herself. "Nothing'll happen to me."

A/N: Well, hello all! This story is going to loosely follow the Emerald storyline, but there are going to be twists along the way. This story was brought on by a few very well written OC stories that I've been reading (Ever After, people) and I thought that I'd give it another try, considering that Storms has it a massive block. Now, why don't we get onto the part that you really want to deal with, hm? The OC's!

Now, these OC's are mostly going to be side characters and prbably aren't going to appear for more than a chapter or two unless I really like them. However, I do need two other main characters, and I decided to let you guys make them. Please don't make me regret this. I'm going to give you a format and a couple of rules to follow whil submitting your OC's, and then I'll turn you loose. First rule: Give me something substantial. I'm talking paragraphs for history, appearance, and personality here, especially if you want your character to be a main. Only one OC main entry per person, but you can give me another not-main if you want. Now, here's the format:

Name: This should be self explanatory.
Age: If your character's a hopeful main, thye need to be ten.
Gender: Again, this should be self explanatory.
Hometown: Somewhere in Hoenn, preferably.
Occupation: Co-ordinator, trainer, breeder... The list is endless.
Appearance: What they look like, what they wear...
Personality: What are they like? Cheerful? SHy? Paranoid?
Family: For mains only. Optional for everyone else. I want their family members and a little description on all of them.
History: How did they get to where they are now?
Pokemon: I want the Pokemon name (species), their nickname if they have one, their gender, their personality, and how they were caught if they are main character entires. You can put their moves if you really want, but it doesn't really matter.

That's it! Anyways, I am looking forward to your OC's and I'll be updating again soon! Vote of the update: Is Sammy adorable, or what?