DANdotW
Previously Iota
Pokémon reMastered
This is a great undertaking that I'm undertaking again. I've written this a dozen times and each time it's finished at a different place, the characters have been slightly different and the outcome has been different. I hope you take this with a pinch of salt, as this is my take on the Anime, whether it match up with yours or not. This is simply how I would have preferred the show to have gone. I don't expect you to completely take away all ideas in your head of the characters, but please remember this isn't technically simply a written version of the show, more so the work I have created heavily inspired by all that is from the show. I will explain this more in the Author's Note at the end, so please take note of that. Also, just be aware that there is a little bit of exposition in this chapter, but I promise future chapters will have less so.
****
Chapter 1: Falling Behind
As night fell on the small home, a light could be seen flickering from one of the upper floor windows. They flashed and changed hue rapidly. From the point of view of a neighbour passing through the streets of the quaint town, it might look like fireworks were being set off inside one of the rooms, but that wasn’t the case.
Inside the house, Ashley Catch was watching the television in his bedroom. It wasn’t a large television, and it didn’t have a lot of the bells and whistles of most coming out at the time, but the colours were vibrant due to the programme on the screen.
“Onix is unable to battle!” called a commentator on the show, though the screen showed a huge serpent composed of segmented boulders collapsed on the field of a stadium, opposite a large green reptile with an even bigger flowering tree growing from its back. The commentator continued, “Clover’s Venusaur has won this round. Can she take out Cliff’s final Pokémon?”
Come on… Ashley pleaded. This was a spectacle he had been waiting months for; what he was watching was the current Elite Four being challenged by the champion of the most recent Pokémon League Tournament, a competition for only the best trainers and breeders. Clover, the tournaments winner, would be able to enter the Elite Four should she win this last battle.
“Come on out, Golem!” yelled the owner of the Onix. Ashley could barely see the man on the television screen, and could only just hear his gruff voice over the cheers of the crowd, but his eyes caught a small ball being thrown onto the field where Onix had been just moments ago. The ball hit the floor and cracked open to reveal a burst of white energy. Quickly, almost without being noticed, the energy took a solid form in a creature shorter than the man, but almost perfectly round. The body looked like a man-made boulder, with two arms and two legs, standing slightly hunched forward.
As the referee shouted for them to begin, the female trainer, Clover, ordered an attack Ash could quite hear from her Pokémon, Venusaur. The Pokémon stood still but flexing, as if straining to move something. A moment later, two thick vines sprung from the leaves of the tree and moved as if controlled by Venusaur, flying towards the Golem and wrapping themselves around him. Ashley began to shake with excitement; Pokémon varied in how they performed or interacted with humans, but many humans took to training Pokémon for competitions, or battles. This was something Ash had been learning about his whole life. Having turned ten a weekend before, he had now come of age and could start his own journey as a legal Pokémon Trainer.
Just as Golem began to spin around violently into a ball, Ashley’s bedroom door was being knocked. He rushed to the TV to turn it off, and then answered the door. On the other side was his mother, tapping her feet.
“What do you think you’re doing still awake, young man?” she asked him. There was never any question about how much Ashley’s mother loved him, but even still he had always been fearful of getting on her bad side. Having seen her explode twice in his life, he knew better. The first had been at the local celebrity, Professor Oak, a man who found fame studying Pokémon, when he had asked her to leave Ashley’s father to work with him on another region alongside a student of his that had left. The second time had been at his father when he had decided to rekindle his love for training Pokémon and left them four years ago. This gave him cause to answer truthfully, yet tactfully.
“I was watching the Champion Battle, mom,” he told her, trying his hardest to look a little guilty. “They’re showing the final tonight and I figured since I’m starting my journey tomorrow morning, I could get some last minute pointers.”
This tugged at her; one thing he knew above all else was that she was devoted to him and his future. Sighing, she walked over to the television and turned it back on, grabbing the remote control and sitting at the side of his bed.
“If you’re going to waste sleep before your first proper day travelling-“
“I’ve travelled before, mom!” Ashley interrupted, remembering the day Professor Oak had come to his school to take the children that would be turning ten before the next Pokémon Day; the day newly crowned ten year olds would begin their journeys. In honesty, the only eventful thing that had happened was when Professor Oak had showed them how to catch a little Pikachu.
“Oh please, Ashley, let’s not pretend a school trip counts against a journey,” she retorted, standing up again, “and you know how hard letting you go is going to be. I’ve prepared for this ever since I found out I was pregnant with you, but I know what happens on a journey. I know you may never come home again.”
“Mom, I’m not going to die,” Ashley tried to make that sound as sincere as possible; the idea that there were trainers dying of starvation or from the elements or indeed using Pokémon was something that floated around everyone. The Pokémon League did their best to take care of travellers where and when they could, so the thought of not making it back home had never entered Ashley’s head before.
“I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort!” his mother roared, fists clenched on her hips and bending to stare at him. “Not until you put it in my head, at least.”
“What do you mean then, mom?”
“When I went on my journey, I loved being away from home,” she began, sitting back down and controlling her temper slightly. Ashley could see her fists still clenched at her legs, though. “I travelled everywhere with my Pokémon, and I didn’t think of anything but showing my parents, your grandparents, my trophies from the world. Then, I met a trainer who put all of my skill to shame.
“I wasn’t a bad trainer mind you, and I’m sure I still have my old badges somewhere here, but this young man was…just exceptionally talented. When I saw that, I thought, “Why bother? If I get to the Pokémon League Official Tournament, I’ll just lose to him.” At this point I had a decision to make; did I train extra hard to beat him, or did I change direction. What do you think I did, Ashley?”
Ashley thought for a quick moment before answering. “If it were me, I’d train every day and night until I beat every trainer in my path!”
“Well that’s all well and good for you, darling, but for me…seeing that inspired me to a completely different field.” Delilah looked thoughtfully out of the window. “I found my way to a hilltop to the new laboratory set up by the famous Professor Samuel Oak and offered myself to him as a research assistant. My Pokémon were transferred into his ownership and for almost twenty years I worked and watched as traders in caravans became market stalls and once empty hillsides became filled with sounds of building.”
“That was Pallet Town, right mom?”
“That’s right, Ashley,” his mother answered him, “although at the time it was just a village called Pallet. As it were, the twenty years passed by quickly, and I became enamoured with every facet of Pokémon, more so than I had when I was training them. And then, the trainer I had quit for came blundering into town, feeling his journeying days were over and wanting the Professor to give him some advice on what to do now. Sam asked him to stay in Pallet and help the new villagers become a tight nit community with new services and a stronger sense of security. He made me feel so…different.”
There was a silence for a while, and by looking at her Ashley could tell that she was getting a little bit upset.
“Was it dad?”
“Yes, it was.” She didn’t seem to want to say more for the time being.
“So what does that have to do with me not coming home?”
Delilah looked at him hard, tears forming in her eyes. To her, this son was the best gift her husband could have given her.
“Ashley, at what point in that story did you hear me mentioning going back home, even once?”
Ashley thought for a moment before it hit him. “You didn’t go back.”
The realisation hit Ashley; his mother didn’t mean he’d die, but she had prepared herself to never see him again, in case his journey took him somewhere she couldn’t follow. She put her arm around his shoulder and squeezed before standing back up with the remote, switching the channel to Professor Oak’s Starter Origin show, in which he spoke about the importance of the three traditional starters given out in the Kanto region.
“Watch TV for another thirty minutes, then it’s lights out!” Delilah told him, leaving the room without looking back at him. Ashley wished he could promise her he’d always come back home, but after hearing her tale he knew that wasn’t something he could guarantee. So he watched intently.
As Ashley lay down in bed, he wondered what he’d choose of the three. They were all reptilian; each with a different elemental property the Pokémon League referred to as “types”. The first was called Bulbasaur and was unique in that it represented two of these type; Grass and Poison, represented by the colours green and purple, respectively. It was the youngest form of the Pokémon he had seen battle at the Champion League earlier. The next Pokémon was called Charmander, and stood on two feet, its tail blazing at the tip with its classification; Fire type, represented by the colour orange. The third and final starter Pokémon was called Squirtle, and was encased in a thick shell. It was recognised as being of the Water type, represented by the colour blue.
Each of these grew at a similar rate to each other, and gave a balanced fight against many of the leaders of Pokémon Gym’s around the land, meaning the advantages were weighed fairly. It was because of this that Ashley couldn’t decide which of them he’d choose to take on his adventure; the Pokémon that would be his partner potentially for the rest of his life.
His eyes began to droop and so he turned the television off, lying on his side and switching off his lamp. As sleep took over, Ashley began to dream of his imminent journey. He dreamed of what it would be like to use Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle, and the advantages of each. This dream took him so deeply that, hours later, his alarm clock pulsed with noise, but didn't wake him as the sun came up over Pallet Town.
****
{Author's Note: So as I said, there is a lot of exposition here, but most of it was necessary from my point of view. Exposition is sometimes necessary at the beginning of a story, more so than any other point. Now, last time I got a little heat for changing the names. For one, I can do what I want, lol. For a second point, Ashley will be called Ash after a couple of chapters, and you'll see why, and Delilah wasn't always called Delilah. It's a little twist that'll come into play perhaps as soon as the next chapter, or the chapter after that (in the next couple, anyway) so don't worry about that. Now, I implore you to comment and let me know what you think. The action will come into play soon, so try not to get bored right away! That's all for now!}
This is a great undertaking that I'm undertaking again. I've written this a dozen times and each time it's finished at a different place, the characters have been slightly different and the outcome has been different. I hope you take this with a pinch of salt, as this is my take on the Anime, whether it match up with yours or not. This is simply how I would have preferred the show to have gone. I don't expect you to completely take away all ideas in your head of the characters, but please remember this isn't technically simply a written version of the show, more so the work I have created heavily inspired by all that is from the show. I will explain this more in the Author's Note at the end, so please take note of that. Also, just be aware that there is a little bit of exposition in this chapter, but I promise future chapters will have less so.
****
Chapter 1: Falling Behind
As night fell on the small home, a light could be seen flickering from one of the upper floor windows. They flashed and changed hue rapidly. From the point of view of a neighbour passing through the streets of the quaint town, it might look like fireworks were being set off inside one of the rooms, but that wasn’t the case.
Inside the house, Ashley Catch was watching the television in his bedroom. It wasn’t a large television, and it didn’t have a lot of the bells and whistles of most coming out at the time, but the colours were vibrant due to the programme on the screen.
“Onix is unable to battle!” called a commentator on the show, though the screen showed a huge serpent composed of segmented boulders collapsed on the field of a stadium, opposite a large green reptile with an even bigger flowering tree growing from its back. The commentator continued, “Clover’s Venusaur has won this round. Can she take out Cliff’s final Pokémon?”
Come on… Ashley pleaded. This was a spectacle he had been waiting months for; what he was watching was the current Elite Four being challenged by the champion of the most recent Pokémon League Tournament, a competition for only the best trainers and breeders. Clover, the tournaments winner, would be able to enter the Elite Four should she win this last battle.
“Come on out, Golem!” yelled the owner of the Onix. Ashley could barely see the man on the television screen, and could only just hear his gruff voice over the cheers of the crowd, but his eyes caught a small ball being thrown onto the field where Onix had been just moments ago. The ball hit the floor and cracked open to reveal a burst of white energy. Quickly, almost without being noticed, the energy took a solid form in a creature shorter than the man, but almost perfectly round. The body looked like a man-made boulder, with two arms and two legs, standing slightly hunched forward.
As the referee shouted for them to begin, the female trainer, Clover, ordered an attack Ash could quite hear from her Pokémon, Venusaur. The Pokémon stood still but flexing, as if straining to move something. A moment later, two thick vines sprung from the leaves of the tree and moved as if controlled by Venusaur, flying towards the Golem and wrapping themselves around him. Ashley began to shake with excitement; Pokémon varied in how they performed or interacted with humans, but many humans took to training Pokémon for competitions, or battles. This was something Ash had been learning about his whole life. Having turned ten a weekend before, he had now come of age and could start his own journey as a legal Pokémon Trainer.
Just as Golem began to spin around violently into a ball, Ashley’s bedroom door was being knocked. He rushed to the TV to turn it off, and then answered the door. On the other side was his mother, tapping her feet.
“What do you think you’re doing still awake, young man?” she asked him. There was never any question about how much Ashley’s mother loved him, but even still he had always been fearful of getting on her bad side. Having seen her explode twice in his life, he knew better. The first had been at the local celebrity, Professor Oak, a man who found fame studying Pokémon, when he had asked her to leave Ashley’s father to work with him on another region alongside a student of his that had left. The second time had been at his father when he had decided to rekindle his love for training Pokémon and left them four years ago. This gave him cause to answer truthfully, yet tactfully.
“I was watching the Champion Battle, mom,” he told her, trying his hardest to look a little guilty. “They’re showing the final tonight and I figured since I’m starting my journey tomorrow morning, I could get some last minute pointers.”
This tugged at her; one thing he knew above all else was that she was devoted to him and his future. Sighing, she walked over to the television and turned it back on, grabbing the remote control and sitting at the side of his bed.
“If you’re going to waste sleep before your first proper day travelling-“
“I’ve travelled before, mom!” Ashley interrupted, remembering the day Professor Oak had come to his school to take the children that would be turning ten before the next Pokémon Day; the day newly crowned ten year olds would begin their journeys. In honesty, the only eventful thing that had happened was when Professor Oak had showed them how to catch a little Pikachu.
“Oh please, Ashley, let’s not pretend a school trip counts against a journey,” she retorted, standing up again, “and you know how hard letting you go is going to be. I’ve prepared for this ever since I found out I was pregnant with you, but I know what happens on a journey. I know you may never come home again.”
“Mom, I’m not going to die,” Ashley tried to make that sound as sincere as possible; the idea that there were trainers dying of starvation or from the elements or indeed using Pokémon was something that floated around everyone. The Pokémon League did their best to take care of travellers where and when they could, so the thought of not making it back home had never entered Ashley’s head before.
“I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort!” his mother roared, fists clenched on her hips and bending to stare at him. “Not until you put it in my head, at least.”
“What do you mean then, mom?”
“When I went on my journey, I loved being away from home,” she began, sitting back down and controlling her temper slightly. Ashley could see her fists still clenched at her legs, though. “I travelled everywhere with my Pokémon, and I didn’t think of anything but showing my parents, your grandparents, my trophies from the world. Then, I met a trainer who put all of my skill to shame.
“I wasn’t a bad trainer mind you, and I’m sure I still have my old badges somewhere here, but this young man was…just exceptionally talented. When I saw that, I thought, “Why bother? If I get to the Pokémon League Official Tournament, I’ll just lose to him.” At this point I had a decision to make; did I train extra hard to beat him, or did I change direction. What do you think I did, Ashley?”
Ashley thought for a quick moment before answering. “If it were me, I’d train every day and night until I beat every trainer in my path!”
“Well that’s all well and good for you, darling, but for me…seeing that inspired me to a completely different field.” Delilah looked thoughtfully out of the window. “I found my way to a hilltop to the new laboratory set up by the famous Professor Samuel Oak and offered myself to him as a research assistant. My Pokémon were transferred into his ownership and for almost twenty years I worked and watched as traders in caravans became market stalls and once empty hillsides became filled with sounds of building.”
“That was Pallet Town, right mom?”
“That’s right, Ashley,” his mother answered him, “although at the time it was just a village called Pallet. As it were, the twenty years passed by quickly, and I became enamoured with every facet of Pokémon, more so than I had when I was training them. And then, the trainer I had quit for came blundering into town, feeling his journeying days were over and wanting the Professor to give him some advice on what to do now. Sam asked him to stay in Pallet and help the new villagers become a tight nit community with new services and a stronger sense of security. He made me feel so…different.”
There was a silence for a while, and by looking at her Ashley could tell that she was getting a little bit upset.
“Was it dad?”
“Yes, it was.” She didn’t seem to want to say more for the time being.
“So what does that have to do with me not coming home?”
Delilah looked at him hard, tears forming in her eyes. To her, this son was the best gift her husband could have given her.
“Ashley, at what point in that story did you hear me mentioning going back home, even once?”
Ashley thought for a moment before it hit him. “You didn’t go back.”
The realisation hit Ashley; his mother didn’t mean he’d die, but she had prepared herself to never see him again, in case his journey took him somewhere she couldn’t follow. She put her arm around his shoulder and squeezed before standing back up with the remote, switching the channel to Professor Oak’s Starter Origin show, in which he spoke about the importance of the three traditional starters given out in the Kanto region.
“Watch TV for another thirty minutes, then it’s lights out!” Delilah told him, leaving the room without looking back at him. Ashley wished he could promise her he’d always come back home, but after hearing her tale he knew that wasn’t something he could guarantee. So he watched intently.
As Ashley lay down in bed, he wondered what he’d choose of the three. They were all reptilian; each with a different elemental property the Pokémon League referred to as “types”. The first was called Bulbasaur and was unique in that it represented two of these type; Grass and Poison, represented by the colours green and purple, respectively. It was the youngest form of the Pokémon he had seen battle at the Champion League earlier. The next Pokémon was called Charmander, and stood on two feet, its tail blazing at the tip with its classification; Fire type, represented by the colour orange. The third and final starter Pokémon was called Squirtle, and was encased in a thick shell. It was recognised as being of the Water type, represented by the colour blue.
Each of these grew at a similar rate to each other, and gave a balanced fight against many of the leaders of Pokémon Gym’s around the land, meaning the advantages were weighed fairly. It was because of this that Ashley couldn’t decide which of them he’d choose to take on his adventure; the Pokémon that would be his partner potentially for the rest of his life.
His eyes began to droop and so he turned the television off, lying on his side and switching off his lamp. As sleep took over, Ashley began to dream of his imminent journey. He dreamed of what it would be like to use Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle, and the advantages of each. This dream took him so deeply that, hours later, his alarm clock pulsed with noise, but didn't wake him as the sun came up over Pallet Town.
****
{Author's Note: So as I said, there is a lot of exposition here, but most of it was necessary from my point of view. Exposition is sometimes necessary at the beginning of a story, more so than any other point. Now, last time I got a little heat for changing the names. For one, I can do what I want, lol. For a second point, Ashley will be called Ash after a couple of chapters, and you'll see why, and Delilah wasn't always called Delilah. It's a little twist that'll come into play perhaps as soon as the next chapter, or the chapter after that (in the next couple, anyway) so don't worry about that. Now, I implore you to comment and let me know what you think. The action will come into play soon, so try not to get bored right away! That's all for now!}
