Title: The Art of the Wild
Author: Shadowcat
Shadowcat's Notes: This is my first "Pokemon" fanfiction that is
neither a crossover nor Team Rocket focused. A fanfic about Tracey/Kenji. I got this idea while at work (at a zoo) and just had to write it. Now,
while writing this, I have not seen many episodes with Tracey in them
yet, so many details of this are made-up, such as his past. If any
later "Pokemon" episodes actually give him a detailed past, it will
probably blow the credibility of this fanfic to smithereens, but for now, I think it works. Also, his age was never given in the show, so I decided for the purposes of this story that he is 15. Another thing of note, I tend to make up fictional towns and stuff in my fanfiction, so places like "Pthalo Heights" are not ACTUAL "Pokemon" places in case anyone were to have a problem with that. I just wanted to clear those things up.
Got it? Good!
My name is Kenji "Tracey" Sketcher and I am a Pokemon Watcher.
I've traveled to many places, the farthest reaches of some of the world's most remote wildernesses to study and draw pokemon.
My fascination with the creatures known as the pokemon and my love of nature in general I owe to my Aunt Krissy. I grew up with her on a small island in the Orange Archipelago, and I'd say that she probably did more to raise me than my parents did. They both worked, trying to keep a struggling little shop that sold knickknacks to the summer tourists afloat.
Aunt Krissy was always the one to meet me whenever I got home after school. We'd go for walks around the island, in the forest, on the beach. Krissy would point out the different types of trees and plants and any wild pokemon that we saw and tell me about them. She was studying to be an Ecologist. She always said that she was going to help save the planet someday by learning how nature worked so that she could help people find ways to work with nature instead of against it, as many did.
Krissy was the one who gave me my first pokemon. She had found a Scyther egg out in the forest and gave it to me. I was only eight years old at the time, so it technically was illegal for me to have my own pokemon (because I was not eligible yet for a Trainer's License) unless it actually belonged to my parents, who didn't know.
I kept the egg hidden in a shoebox under my bed, wrapped in a towel to keep it warm. I didn't think Mom or Dad would approve of me having a Scyther, so I didn't tell them about it.
"Now, Kenj;" Aunt Krissy told me; "You have to remember to keep that egg warm or it will never hatch. I gave it to you because you've never had a pokemon pet before and I think you should have one. I'd keep it myself, but I don't think I have the time. Take good care of it for me."
And that I did. After a week of incubating under my bed, the egg hatched. I watched breathless as it happened, staring as the first hint of a tiny Scyther claw chipped away at the shell, then as the tiny green bug-pokemon emerged, the fluids from its egg glistening on its still-soft armor.
Over the next several months, Krissy helped me train my Scyther. He grew very quickly, but took well to being kept in a pokeball. Krissy was no professional Pokemon Trainer, but she picked up a little of it here and there, from some of her college classes - for it was necessary for her ecological studies.
I drew Scyther a lot. My parents, Krissy, my schoolteachers, and my friends always said that I had a natural talent, but I don't think I actually got really good at art until I started drawing Scyther. I became absolutely determined to make a drawing of him that actually looked real, to capture every detail that I could see, from the delicate veins in his wings to the lightest curves of his armor.
After I succeeded in creating a drawing that was to my satisfaction (after crumpling up and discarding many sheets of paper), I started taking a pad and pencil to the woods to try to draw some of the wild pokemon I saw.
That's when I got the nickname, "Tracey". It came about because, wherever I went, I started carrying a sketchpad. Drawing and tracing were similar and I did sometimes trace photographs of pokemon when I was having trouble trying to get a particular species to look right, for practice. I suppose that "Tracey" just sounded good, too. The name stuck. I rarely ever call myself "Kenji" anymore.
A few days after my tenth birthday, I, like many other people in my town and the world over, applied for and received my Pokemon Trainer's License and began my Pokemon Journey. I got a Venonat as my starter-pokemon, even though I had Scyther and was on my way.
My Journey was different than most other people's. Most young people starting out on Pokemon Journeys set out to be Pokemon Trainers or to achieve the dream of being a Pokemon Master. Mine was to be a Pokemon Watcher.
I went out into the wilderness to go places no one else had been before and to observe wild pokemon, hopefully to get to see and record species and behaviors yet unknown to Science.
I learned how to get really close to a wild pokemon without it detecting my presence from Aunt Krissy. She taught me to always stay downwind and how to make my breathing match the pokemon's. I refined these tricks and learned others in time.
I've spent five years as a Watcher, observing, learning, refining my art, staying occasionally in cities as most Pokemon Trainers do on their Journeys - but never for long, and sending my notes and sketches to Pokemon Researchers, some of them the tops of their fields.
I've seen many things in the wilderness and have had many experiences that I cannot even begin to describe the magnificence of.
How I got my pet Marril, for instance.
I was camping beside a lake in the Pthalo Mountains when I saw a strange blue thing floating upon the surface of the water. I sprinted to the lakeshore and gazed out with my binoculars to try to make out what it was.
Then a head lifted up out of the water and my heart nearly stopped! The pokemon looked much like a Pikachu, but unlike any Pikachu I had ever seen before! First of all, it was blue, not yellow-furred, second, its ears were rounded, not pointed, and there were many slighter differences.
I watched it for a while as it swam, made a few quick sketches, took a few notes, then I decided to try to capture it. I knew that what I was seeing was some undiscovered species of pokemon. I usually don't try to actually catch pokemon, preferring to leave them in the wild, but this was different. This time, it was my DUTY to capture this creature, that way; it could be taken to a Researcher for further study and data collected for pokedexes.
I followed the unknown pokemon down the shore as it swam, waiting for it to come up on the beach, which it eventually did. I sent Venonat after it to weaken it. As I observed the battle while commanding Venonat, It became obvious that this new pokemon was a water-type, as it used water-attacks. Venonat fought hard and overpowered the blue mouse. I took out an empty pokeball that I had on-hand and made the capture.
I let my new acquisition out of its ball when I got back to camp and began the process of making friends. I gave her a little bit of pokemon food and introduced her to Scyther and Venonat. I also let her sniff my hand and my clothes to become accustomed to my scent. I called her "Marril" from the sound that she made, "Marril! Marril!"
When I took her to the nearest town, Pthalo Heights, and met with Professor Pansy whom I had been sharing correspondence with in the last two months he told me, to my disappointment, that I was not the first person to discover a Marril. He informed me, however, that I was the first ever to record observations of its behavior in the wild. I left him my notes for the book on The Natural History of Pokemon that he was writing.
Now I continue my Journey, though not alone as I once was. I now travel with two Trainers, Ash Ketchum, who dreams of becoming a Master, and Misty Williams, who trains water-pokemon.
We tell each other tales of our experiences with pokemon while traveling, when there's nothing much else to do. Ash and Misty have told me many stories-of captures, of Gym Leaders they've met, of run-ins with criminals from Team Rocket, and of a former traveling companion of theirs, an aspiring Pokemon Breeder named Brock.
I have so many tales to tell them that I have not yet, about my life as a Pokemon Watcher.
Like the time I watched a pack of wild Growlithe hunt a herd of Tauros in the Grande Verde Valley...
Or the day I watched a flock of Dodrio performing their dances of love on the Sienna Plains...
But my true hope is that those stories will pale in comparison to the adventures that I will yet share with my newfound friends. As always, I have my binoculars and my sketchbook ready to capture the majesties of Nature, the art of the wild that I can but poorly convey.
THE END
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