There's a huge bruise on his cheek, but if he brushes his hair in just the right way it covers it pretty well. He fell running from that stupid kid with the Cyndaquil, but he looked ready to call the cops, so he dashed from there fast as possible.

He's at a shelter now, a place where people who lost their homes or never had them go. It has free food and water and extra clothes. Sometimes they have showers. It's pretty nice.

He sits on one of the beds and his Totodile curls in his lap, yawning. It likes him. He's not sure why, but the stupid blue beast likes him a lot. And his fingers curl, cold, and pet the scaly thing. He wants to be nice. Wants to be strong. A good trainer. The best.

He is the best, what is he saying? Yes, there have been snafus so far, but the smartest and strongest stumble sometimes. It's nature. Law. Life, really.

One of his hands bury into his very oversized jacket and pull out a black leather wallet. It's really old, and he's not sure who owned it before, he doesn't like to remember much about his time before running around Johto with only his fists and money he punched from other kids, but there's something in the back of his head of a tall, skinny guy who was kinda hunched over when he walked, laughing and handing him it, saying something like "You'll need it, you're gonna make a lot of money just like your Pops one day, I know it." He has a feeling he liked the man, or else he wouldn't have kept the gift so long.

There's a lot of money in it, of course. He's the best trainer, so he puts a lot of money down for his fights, and he makes sometimes double, triple it.

There's a trainer ID. His ID number is 00217, his name is Silver, his money is more than enough to survive on, and his official "Adventure" began not too long ago. There's the markers for the Johto gym leaders and holes for someone to put their badges.

There's a little zippered pocket which is quickly unzipped, and he takes out the three folded-up-a-bijillion-times pieces of paper. He picks up the fast-asleep Pokemon stuck on him and sets it on the pillow, and he gently unfolds every piece of paper and sets them on the bed.

The first picture he looks at is the first one he always looks at. There's a woman and she's smiling, snow is all around her, her hair looks kinda messy damp and there's a lot of white flakes in it. The first thing he always thinks is how pretty she looks. Beautiful, really, with the sparkling snow illuminating her. The next he notices is what this woman gave to him, at least in looks. He's got the hair, of course. He's kinda got her nose, he guesses.

He has trouble calling her his mother. He met her once. She hugged him tightly and had this big smile on her face. That was motherly enough, but maybe Silver just had higher standards about moms.

He thinks her name is Arianna, but then again, he isn't sure.

The next is a fairly new poster, but anybody who knows anything about gym leaders knows it's a bit dated. A man is standing next to a Nidoking, both of them looking threatening as all hell. Come to the Viridian Gym, see if you can defeat Giovanni, master of the ground under your feet!

The man is handsome, Silver supposed. Certainly looked fancier than him, with his stupid finely-tailor suit and slicked back hair. But he just hates the sort of smugness, the self-entitlement. The smirk on his face just screamed "I'm better than you'll ever be."

He's tempted to be dramatic and rip the poster apart, but in an odd way it's one of his reasons for doing this. He's going to be better than that. And he sure as hell isn't going to cry. That would be the most pathetic thing, a boy in a shelter sobbing while he rips up a picture of his father.

Father was too formal, but they had too much in common for Silver to deny it. They had the same eyes. Same smirk. Same stupid face, same stupid skin, same almost everything.

He folds the poster up along with the picture of his mother and sets them back into the pocket of the wallet. There's one last piece of paper, a picture from a news article, older than the rest.

A young man stands next to a Nidorino. He's trying to look nice for the camera, but there's an odd sort of uncertainty in his face. His suit is pretty wrinkled, too. A caption below says that he's the new gym leader.

The rest of the article is gone, but he remembered how it said he was a bright young man, full of determination, who finally proved himself in the league and took the offer of leader after the old one retired, blah blah blah.

This is the man he wants to be. Bright, full of determination, proving himself in a world that was against him. He would be less modest, though, if one has gotten that far they deserve to brag.

And here is where he decides to be melodramatic. He hugs the picture, hears the paper crinkle in his arms, and he's not sure what he wants to feel, really. Reassurance? Hope? Love?

Yes. He feels love for this man. What his father used to be, not what he became. This is his father, with the unsure smile and the hopeful eyes and the determination.

The other man was just Giovanni, a heartless man who he didn't want to waste his life dwelling upon. Just a smirking criminal bastard. Nothing more.

He folds the pictures carefully, placing them back in the wallet gently as possible, ready for them to come back out whenever he needs his inspiration.

He doesn't dare move the totodile, it's much too comfy on it's spot and has plenty of work to do in the morning. He just curls up like a persian on the rest of the bed, shuts his eyes and hopes all his stuff is still there in the morning.

Such is the life of a runaway.

A friend of mine pointed out that the original GSC Silver sprite looks like a homeless, pathetic little runaway boy and I thought "This is the best idea for me to write ever".

You know, besides porn.