DANdotW
Previously Iota
Pokémon: The Retelling
Hey guys, it's Iota here. You'll more than likely recognise this if you've read my stuff before, as this is a repost. The last chapter was posted almost a year ago, and the thread died due to writers block and a computer breakdown.
Now, with a new computer and new, fresh idea's with the remakes, I've been able to start again (from where I left off), while tweaking a few lines and descriptions in the old chapters that I wanted to. Hope my old readers will return and I'm looking forward to gaining some new one's.
This is essentially a retelling from a more realistic (as realistic as Pokémon can get without bringing them to our world) take on the Pokémon Anime. There are slight character changes, and many drastic team changes. Enjoy.
~~~~
Chapter 1: Late!
“Nidorino is unable to battle!” a voice from the television set called. Eagerly, Ash forced his attention away from the bag he was packing to the screen. He was watching Battle Coliseum Live, a channel dedicated to showing Pokémon battles to viewers who couldn’t make it.
This was pre-recorded, however, and as such Ash had already seen the outcome of the battle. This did not make it any less interesting however. He pulled the red cap with a white Pokémon League insignia from his head, causing his messy black hair to ruffle slightly before falling back into its unkempt place.
He ran to his wardrobe, his brown eyes, red and puffy from over exhaustion, still staring at the battle on screen. Grabbing two blue t-shirts identical to the one he wore apart from the collars, he jumped into the air as on the television, a huge serpent formed entirely of boulders and rocks was knocked down to the ground, crashing and destroying part of the battlefield they were on.
This is all it took for the woman on the lower floor of the house. Ash instantly heard the footsteps bounding up the staircase, and climbed under his bed covers in anticipation of a scolding. The door slammed open and his mother stormed in.
“Ash Ketchum,” she roared, her mousy brown hair flying as her head bobbed, “why the hell are you still awake!” Her blue eyes darted from Ash’s face, to the unpacked bag, to the pile of t-shirts on the floor, and to the television screen.
“I was packing my bags, and I got a little tired, mom,” Ash told her, his voice carrying a hint of his begging for her to let him watch more of the battle.
Delilah Ketchum was a wonderful person; Ash could not deny that. She helped out her neighbours, kept a beautiful home and garden, and she also owned one of the more famed restaurants in Pallet Town, a building she had named Pallet Gardens.
Despite this, she was a fearsome adversary in domestic arguments, which Ash had been discovering throughout his life. Before he had been conceived, she had been a student of the renowned Professor Oak, and one of his better ones in the Professor’s opinions.
When she and his father had eloped to the Sevii Islands, crazy in love and adoring the sights of each other, the mishap had happened, and nine months later, Ash was born, missing a father. Delilah occasionally spoke of him, telling Ash he had been a failure as a trainer and would have followed suit as a father, but he could still tell she deeply missed him.
He looked into her face, expecting anger, but was shocked to see sorrow in her sombre blue eyes.
“I didn’t mean to snap, Ash,” she apologised, sitting on the edge of his green bed sheets, “I’m just feeling a lot of sorrow at the moment. I’m going to miss having you around, you know.”
“I know mom,” he told her, smiling quickly before he hid his tearful face from hers.
“You shouldn’t be staying up this late if you’re heading off on your own tomorrow,” she reminded him, and when he turned, he saw she had stood back up and was picking the two blue t-shirts up from the floor.
“I can’t sleep,” he admitted, getting out of his bed, still fully dressed, and helping her by collecting some of his underwear from the top drawer of his chest of drawers.
“You’re going to need a lot more than that,” she said, now with her usual sternness back in her voice as she watched him place five pairs of underpants into the green backpack. Her eyes glanced back to the television, before she added, “If you’re going to watch the television, at least watch something educational.”
Grabbing the small black remote control, she changed channels to one of the regions slightly newer channels, Far From the Tree, which showed Professor Oak giving lectures on various Pokémon and things about the journeys trainers took. The same journey Ash would be taking when he woke up the next morning.
“I’ve heard all of this before,” he moaned, dropping his shoulders in an attempt to force her decision.
“And you’ve watched that battle before,” she reminded him, having set it to record for him herself. He agreed with her, but he had spent the last three years with others his age learning the ropes of a Pokémon journey and all of the necessary tips they would need.
Altogether there were four trainers, each of the other three older than him by a few weeks or so. The first was Redford Blair, the son of the local fishing expert, Raymond Blair. He was on Professor Oak’s channel every now and then, doing a special on fishing for Pokémon.
Redford was an obnoxious boy, a month older than Ash. In Professor Oak’s lectures, he had always been the one answering back, or coming up with some smart mouthed comments. Despite this, he and Ash had been as close as you could be with someone who was more interested in making jokes than friends.
The second trainer was Bluebell Periwinkle, the daughter of David Periwinkle, a policeman based in Celadon City. She was always quieter and more mature than both Ash and Redford, and Ash had only spoken to her briefly during the three years they had been learning at the lab.
The third was Gareth Oak, grandson of Professor Oak himself, and a well liked boy in the town. He and Ash had developed a harsh rivalry as young boys. When Gareth was seven, but before Ash had turned the same age, the two went on a fishing trip, being close friends.
The trip turned sour as the boys both hooked the same bite, and refused to let go. Even when the catch had turned out to be an old rusty Pokéball, neither boy would let go, causing the weakened spherical device to snap at the hinge in the centre. Ash had ended up with the red half, while Gareth kept the white half.
They both agreed that they were no longer friends, and had spent the remaining three years competing in whatever area they could. Although Ash usually lost, Gareth was not always the winner.
Thinking of his old friend made Ash agitated, and less able to go to sleep. His mother kissed him on the forehead and told him to make sure he went to sleep at the end of the programme.
“Do you need me to wake you up in the morning?” she asked, her arms crossed over her pink blouse.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, pointing to the Pokéball shaped alarm clock on his bedside table, with an icon indicating the alarm had been set.
“If you’re sure,” she said, turning the light off at the main switch by the door. She closed the door, leaving him alone with the voice of Professor Oak telling his viewers all about the properties of five differently flavoured berries.
Turning the volume down, Ash turned over and closed his eyes, falling asleep within minutes.
***
“A Magikarp?” a voice shouted behind Ash, as he stood in front of Professor Oak holding a Pokéball. On the tiled floor in front of him, a large scaled Pokémon flopped on the floor, wriggling and flailing as it attempted to swim without any water to speak of.
Turning his head slightly, he saw Gareth Oak behind him, holding his stomach as he bent over double, laughing hard. Ash’s face turned read, and he immediately took charge.
“If it’s such a worthless Pokémon, you won’t mind battling me,” he told the boy, taking a strong stance that he had seen one of the region’s top trainers do on BCL one time. Gareth nodded with a sneer on his face, pulling the shrunken version of the Pokéball containing his starter Pokémon and pressing the button in the centre, expanding the device to its normal size.
“Come on out, Dragonite!”
As the boy threw the ball, it opened in midair, as if on hinges. As soon as the ball first began to crack open, a huge ray of blinding white light filled the strangely featureless laboratory and forcing Ash to cover his eyes.
When he felt it was safe to move his arm, he saw he was no longer in the lab, but on a battlefield, with cameras all around him. Feeling nervous and trying to ignore the fact he had just noticed he was wearing pyjamas, he pointed towards Gareth and Dragonite.
“Magikarp, attack Dragonite!”
He stared at Gareth with a confident smile before he heard the crowd laughing. He looked to his left and fell to the floor with embarrassment as he saw Magikarp still flopping on the ground.
“Can’t you do anything?” he asked, looking at the whimpering water-type Pokémon.
“Karp?”
The crowd laughed harder now, and Gareth was walking to him, his chestnut brown hair billowing in wind caused by his Dragonite flying over him, the large orange beast covered in scales much smaller and thicker than Magikarp’s.
“Dragonite, use Hyper Beam on this idiot.”
“Ni.” The Pokémon cried, nodding in agreement. It opened its mouth, and a small ball of brilliant orange energy was forming between the dragon-type’s lips. With enough energy, the Pokémon roared as the fully formed beam came crashing into Ash, piercing his skin and crippling him with pain.
***
“Driii, Oooooooh!”
Ash awoke with a start, still feeling the pain from the Hyper Beam. He looked around for a second, confused at his surroundings. Sighing, he stood up and went to the bathroom, urinating before he climbed into the shower.
As he felt the water flow over him, he felt relaxed, and appreciated the effort the government put into creating and keeping track of the civilisation by using the abilities of Pokémon to aide the life of humans. One example was his shower, which was water from the attacks of water-type Pokémon heated up with the head from fire-type Pokémon attacks.
His lights were powered with the abilities of electric-type Pokémon.
Feeling privileged and clean, he climbed out and dried himself off with a towel that had automatically been laid there by his mother after she had washed.
It took him a few moments to realise that if a fresh towel was out, his mother had already been in the shower and left the house, meaning one of two things. Either she had left the house early to prepare the restaurant, or he had woken up late.
Cursing all technology as he stormed back to his bedroom, Ash checked the time, and found that as expected, he had less than four minutes before the Pokémon were being given away, a twenty minute journey away.
Throwing on his jeans and tripping on the last step of the stairs as he forced a black t-shirt over his head, Ash ran out of the house without his backpack and sprinted as fast as he could in the direction of Professor Oak’s laboratory.
He took no time to notice the intricacies of the buildings on his way, which, similar to his, had been made using Pokémon and had the expertise of only the finest. He had once learned that as a youngster, Professor Oak, who was now entering his sixties, had founded the town himself, using some of his own Pokémon to build the establishments that had been there the longest. He didn’t recall that now, as he raced through the prolonged pathways.
The town only had a population of around a hundred, including the shops and businesses, and yet the town had been built in a large valley, with each building spaced out so much that Ash lived so far and yet so close to the Professor’s lab.
The lab came into view after Ash had been running for nearly ten minutes, and Ash felt relieved that he was making such good time, even though he was still quite late. He heard fireworks and cheers, a clear sign that the trainers who had been given Pokémon were leaving the town to begin their journey.
Thinking of that, he sped up as much as he could, although his legs were now too tired to get him very far.
There was now louder cheering from the lab, which was coming much closer now. Ash guessed the trainers were leaving separately, which meant that by the time he got there, he might still be slightly on time.
Feeling his legs wanting to collapse underneath him, Ash opened the large gates to the Oak Estate and began climbing the stairs built into the large hill the lab sat on. As he climbed, Ash ran into someone and fell backwards.
“Watch were you’re going, loser!” the person shouted at him. Looking up, Ash saw Gareth leering at him, holding a small bag over one shoulder. Wondering why he had so little luggage, Ash stood up with no help from the boy.
“You could have seen me coming as well,” Ash retorted, trying to move around the newly qualified trainer.
“I assumed since I’m better than you, you’d move out of the way.” Ash felt the desire to hit him at the sound of his nasal voice, but thought better of it.
“Just move out of my way,” Ash began, before remembering his dream. He turned to see Gareth trotting down the steps towards the exit, laughing loudly. “Gareth! What Pokémon were you given?” He dreaded any answer that emulated his dream.
“None of your business, idiot!”
Angered and slightly embarrassed, Ash ran the rest of the way to see most of the town’s population leaving the same way he was coming. Trying to barge past the groups of people, he stopped dead as fingers grabbed his left ear and pulled him to the side.
“Why the hell are you so late?”
He looked at his attacker and saw his mother standing above him with a glare he recognised only too well. “I was-”
“You were nothing,” she cut in, pushing him towards the doors of the lab. “You had better improve at taking care of yourself right now, mister. I don’t want my son sent home in a body bag!”
“I’m sorry, mom,” he apologised, forgetting his anger at Gareth for a moment as she distracted him.
“You’re sorry?” she said, staring right into his face once more. “You’ll be sorry when you’re in hospital because you’ve been forgetting to eat or look after your Pokémon!”
He decided to ignore her as she pushed him through the lobby, past a shocked girl with light brown hair. Ash recognised her as Daisy Oak, Gareth’s older sister. She was her grandfather’s assistant now, helping him with his research.
“Hello again, Miss Ketchum,” she said, her voice too quiet for Ash’s mother to hear as she stormed through the rooms, each with white tiles and wooden walls. Ash lifted his hand in as good a waving gesture as he could muster up.
“Ah, Delilah. You found him then?”
Professor Oak was aging, and slightly wizened. His grey eyes were surrounded by wrinkles and his hair had turned a musty grey colour. He chuckled with a wheezy chest and looked at Ash.
“Late as usual,” she said, flustered as she practically threw him towards the wooden desk the Professor sat at.
Another chuckle emerged from the man, who, despite being physically aged, was quite healthy and mentally young.
“Ah, my boy, you’ll learn one day to avoid mistakes,” he told Ash, his voice huskier than it had been the week before, when Ash had received his final lesson with the Professor.
“I doubt he will, Samuel,” Ash’s mother retorted, now sitting on a comfy armchair at the opposite side of the room, watching him intently.
Ash sighed, and nodded to the Professor.
“As you’ve been made aware already, there is some information to sort out before you can get your Pokémon,” Oak told him, sifting through various sheets on his organised desk. Ash noticed the grain on the wood of his desk matched the pattern on the wooden walls. He had never been in the Professor’s office before. “Ah, here we are.”
He pushed a sheet of paper in front of Ash, and began rummaging around in his drawer after he placed a pen next to the sheet.
“If you could just fill that out, while I grab a few things from my drawer.”
Ash filled out the sheet, writing down his name, date of birth, gender, and preferred Pokémon type. For the last question, he simply filled it with “All” and nudged the sheet back over after signing it.
“Thank you,” the Professor said as he scanned through the answers, chuckling once more as he came to the end of it. Without turning around, Ash guessed with help from the glint in the Professor’s eye that his mother was also smiling, and had probably stole a peek at his answers.
“Now,” Oak started, standing from his seat and walking round to Ash, “let’s get this show on the road.”
~~~~
Authors Note: I really liked this chapter. I began with sticking to both the Anime and the games beginnings and went on from there. I don't think getting a starter in the first chapter is a bad thing to do, but it's just not something I usually do anymore.
Hey guys, it's Iota here. You'll more than likely recognise this if you've read my stuff before, as this is a repost. The last chapter was posted almost a year ago, and the thread died due to writers block and a computer breakdown.
Now, with a new computer and new, fresh idea's with the remakes, I've been able to start again (from where I left off), while tweaking a few lines and descriptions in the old chapters that I wanted to. Hope my old readers will return and I'm looking forward to gaining some new one's.
This is essentially a retelling from a more realistic (as realistic as Pokémon can get without bringing them to our world) take on the Pokémon Anime. There are slight character changes, and many drastic team changes. Enjoy.
~~~~
Chapter 1: Late!
“Nidorino is unable to battle!” a voice from the television set called. Eagerly, Ash forced his attention away from the bag he was packing to the screen. He was watching Battle Coliseum Live, a channel dedicated to showing Pokémon battles to viewers who couldn’t make it.
This was pre-recorded, however, and as such Ash had already seen the outcome of the battle. This did not make it any less interesting however. He pulled the red cap with a white Pokémon League insignia from his head, causing his messy black hair to ruffle slightly before falling back into its unkempt place.
He ran to his wardrobe, his brown eyes, red and puffy from over exhaustion, still staring at the battle on screen. Grabbing two blue t-shirts identical to the one he wore apart from the collars, he jumped into the air as on the television, a huge serpent formed entirely of boulders and rocks was knocked down to the ground, crashing and destroying part of the battlefield they were on.
This is all it took for the woman on the lower floor of the house. Ash instantly heard the footsteps bounding up the staircase, and climbed under his bed covers in anticipation of a scolding. The door slammed open and his mother stormed in.
“Ash Ketchum,” she roared, her mousy brown hair flying as her head bobbed, “why the hell are you still awake!” Her blue eyes darted from Ash’s face, to the unpacked bag, to the pile of t-shirts on the floor, and to the television screen.
“I was packing my bags, and I got a little tired, mom,” Ash told her, his voice carrying a hint of his begging for her to let him watch more of the battle.
Delilah Ketchum was a wonderful person; Ash could not deny that. She helped out her neighbours, kept a beautiful home and garden, and she also owned one of the more famed restaurants in Pallet Town, a building she had named Pallet Gardens.
Despite this, she was a fearsome adversary in domestic arguments, which Ash had been discovering throughout his life. Before he had been conceived, she had been a student of the renowned Professor Oak, and one of his better ones in the Professor’s opinions.
When she and his father had eloped to the Sevii Islands, crazy in love and adoring the sights of each other, the mishap had happened, and nine months later, Ash was born, missing a father. Delilah occasionally spoke of him, telling Ash he had been a failure as a trainer and would have followed suit as a father, but he could still tell she deeply missed him.
He looked into her face, expecting anger, but was shocked to see sorrow in her sombre blue eyes.
“I didn’t mean to snap, Ash,” she apologised, sitting on the edge of his green bed sheets, “I’m just feeling a lot of sorrow at the moment. I’m going to miss having you around, you know.”
“I know mom,” he told her, smiling quickly before he hid his tearful face from hers.
“You shouldn’t be staying up this late if you’re heading off on your own tomorrow,” she reminded him, and when he turned, he saw she had stood back up and was picking the two blue t-shirts up from the floor.
“I can’t sleep,” he admitted, getting out of his bed, still fully dressed, and helping her by collecting some of his underwear from the top drawer of his chest of drawers.
“You’re going to need a lot more than that,” she said, now with her usual sternness back in her voice as she watched him place five pairs of underpants into the green backpack. Her eyes glanced back to the television, before she added, “If you’re going to watch the television, at least watch something educational.”
Grabbing the small black remote control, she changed channels to one of the regions slightly newer channels, Far From the Tree, which showed Professor Oak giving lectures on various Pokémon and things about the journeys trainers took. The same journey Ash would be taking when he woke up the next morning.
“I’ve heard all of this before,” he moaned, dropping his shoulders in an attempt to force her decision.
“And you’ve watched that battle before,” she reminded him, having set it to record for him herself. He agreed with her, but he had spent the last three years with others his age learning the ropes of a Pokémon journey and all of the necessary tips they would need.
Altogether there were four trainers, each of the other three older than him by a few weeks or so. The first was Redford Blair, the son of the local fishing expert, Raymond Blair. He was on Professor Oak’s channel every now and then, doing a special on fishing for Pokémon.
Redford was an obnoxious boy, a month older than Ash. In Professor Oak’s lectures, he had always been the one answering back, or coming up with some smart mouthed comments. Despite this, he and Ash had been as close as you could be with someone who was more interested in making jokes than friends.
The second trainer was Bluebell Periwinkle, the daughter of David Periwinkle, a policeman based in Celadon City. She was always quieter and more mature than both Ash and Redford, and Ash had only spoken to her briefly during the three years they had been learning at the lab.
The third was Gareth Oak, grandson of Professor Oak himself, and a well liked boy in the town. He and Ash had developed a harsh rivalry as young boys. When Gareth was seven, but before Ash had turned the same age, the two went on a fishing trip, being close friends.
The trip turned sour as the boys both hooked the same bite, and refused to let go. Even when the catch had turned out to be an old rusty Pokéball, neither boy would let go, causing the weakened spherical device to snap at the hinge in the centre. Ash had ended up with the red half, while Gareth kept the white half.
They both agreed that they were no longer friends, and had spent the remaining three years competing in whatever area they could. Although Ash usually lost, Gareth was not always the winner.
Thinking of his old friend made Ash agitated, and less able to go to sleep. His mother kissed him on the forehead and told him to make sure he went to sleep at the end of the programme.
“Do you need me to wake you up in the morning?” she asked, her arms crossed over her pink blouse.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, pointing to the Pokéball shaped alarm clock on his bedside table, with an icon indicating the alarm had been set.
“If you’re sure,” she said, turning the light off at the main switch by the door. She closed the door, leaving him alone with the voice of Professor Oak telling his viewers all about the properties of five differently flavoured berries.
Turning the volume down, Ash turned over and closed his eyes, falling asleep within minutes.
***
“A Magikarp?” a voice shouted behind Ash, as he stood in front of Professor Oak holding a Pokéball. On the tiled floor in front of him, a large scaled Pokémon flopped on the floor, wriggling and flailing as it attempted to swim without any water to speak of.
Turning his head slightly, he saw Gareth Oak behind him, holding his stomach as he bent over double, laughing hard. Ash’s face turned read, and he immediately took charge.
“If it’s such a worthless Pokémon, you won’t mind battling me,” he told the boy, taking a strong stance that he had seen one of the region’s top trainers do on BCL one time. Gareth nodded with a sneer on his face, pulling the shrunken version of the Pokéball containing his starter Pokémon and pressing the button in the centre, expanding the device to its normal size.
“Come on out, Dragonite!”
As the boy threw the ball, it opened in midair, as if on hinges. As soon as the ball first began to crack open, a huge ray of blinding white light filled the strangely featureless laboratory and forcing Ash to cover his eyes.
When he felt it was safe to move his arm, he saw he was no longer in the lab, but on a battlefield, with cameras all around him. Feeling nervous and trying to ignore the fact he had just noticed he was wearing pyjamas, he pointed towards Gareth and Dragonite.
“Magikarp, attack Dragonite!”
He stared at Gareth with a confident smile before he heard the crowd laughing. He looked to his left and fell to the floor with embarrassment as he saw Magikarp still flopping on the ground.
“Can’t you do anything?” he asked, looking at the whimpering water-type Pokémon.
“Karp?”
The crowd laughed harder now, and Gareth was walking to him, his chestnut brown hair billowing in wind caused by his Dragonite flying over him, the large orange beast covered in scales much smaller and thicker than Magikarp’s.
“Dragonite, use Hyper Beam on this idiot.”
“Ni.” The Pokémon cried, nodding in agreement. It opened its mouth, and a small ball of brilliant orange energy was forming between the dragon-type’s lips. With enough energy, the Pokémon roared as the fully formed beam came crashing into Ash, piercing his skin and crippling him with pain.
***
“Driii, Oooooooh!”
Ash awoke with a start, still feeling the pain from the Hyper Beam. He looked around for a second, confused at his surroundings. Sighing, he stood up and went to the bathroom, urinating before he climbed into the shower.
As he felt the water flow over him, he felt relaxed, and appreciated the effort the government put into creating and keeping track of the civilisation by using the abilities of Pokémon to aide the life of humans. One example was his shower, which was water from the attacks of water-type Pokémon heated up with the head from fire-type Pokémon attacks.
His lights were powered with the abilities of electric-type Pokémon.
Feeling privileged and clean, he climbed out and dried himself off with a towel that had automatically been laid there by his mother after she had washed.
It took him a few moments to realise that if a fresh towel was out, his mother had already been in the shower and left the house, meaning one of two things. Either she had left the house early to prepare the restaurant, or he had woken up late.
Cursing all technology as he stormed back to his bedroom, Ash checked the time, and found that as expected, he had less than four minutes before the Pokémon were being given away, a twenty minute journey away.
Throwing on his jeans and tripping on the last step of the stairs as he forced a black t-shirt over his head, Ash ran out of the house without his backpack and sprinted as fast as he could in the direction of Professor Oak’s laboratory.
He took no time to notice the intricacies of the buildings on his way, which, similar to his, had been made using Pokémon and had the expertise of only the finest. He had once learned that as a youngster, Professor Oak, who was now entering his sixties, had founded the town himself, using some of his own Pokémon to build the establishments that had been there the longest. He didn’t recall that now, as he raced through the prolonged pathways.
The town only had a population of around a hundred, including the shops and businesses, and yet the town had been built in a large valley, with each building spaced out so much that Ash lived so far and yet so close to the Professor’s lab.
The lab came into view after Ash had been running for nearly ten minutes, and Ash felt relieved that he was making such good time, even though he was still quite late. He heard fireworks and cheers, a clear sign that the trainers who had been given Pokémon were leaving the town to begin their journey.
Thinking of that, he sped up as much as he could, although his legs were now too tired to get him very far.
There was now louder cheering from the lab, which was coming much closer now. Ash guessed the trainers were leaving separately, which meant that by the time he got there, he might still be slightly on time.
Feeling his legs wanting to collapse underneath him, Ash opened the large gates to the Oak Estate and began climbing the stairs built into the large hill the lab sat on. As he climbed, Ash ran into someone and fell backwards.
“Watch were you’re going, loser!” the person shouted at him. Looking up, Ash saw Gareth leering at him, holding a small bag over one shoulder. Wondering why he had so little luggage, Ash stood up with no help from the boy.
“You could have seen me coming as well,” Ash retorted, trying to move around the newly qualified trainer.
“I assumed since I’m better than you, you’d move out of the way.” Ash felt the desire to hit him at the sound of his nasal voice, but thought better of it.
“Just move out of my way,” Ash began, before remembering his dream. He turned to see Gareth trotting down the steps towards the exit, laughing loudly. “Gareth! What Pokémon were you given?” He dreaded any answer that emulated his dream.
“None of your business, idiot!”
Angered and slightly embarrassed, Ash ran the rest of the way to see most of the town’s population leaving the same way he was coming. Trying to barge past the groups of people, he stopped dead as fingers grabbed his left ear and pulled him to the side.
“Why the hell are you so late?”
He looked at his attacker and saw his mother standing above him with a glare he recognised only too well. “I was-”
“You were nothing,” she cut in, pushing him towards the doors of the lab. “You had better improve at taking care of yourself right now, mister. I don’t want my son sent home in a body bag!”
“I’m sorry, mom,” he apologised, forgetting his anger at Gareth for a moment as she distracted him.
“You’re sorry?” she said, staring right into his face once more. “You’ll be sorry when you’re in hospital because you’ve been forgetting to eat or look after your Pokémon!”
He decided to ignore her as she pushed him through the lobby, past a shocked girl with light brown hair. Ash recognised her as Daisy Oak, Gareth’s older sister. She was her grandfather’s assistant now, helping him with his research.
“Hello again, Miss Ketchum,” she said, her voice too quiet for Ash’s mother to hear as she stormed through the rooms, each with white tiles and wooden walls. Ash lifted his hand in as good a waving gesture as he could muster up.
“Ah, Delilah. You found him then?”
Professor Oak was aging, and slightly wizened. His grey eyes were surrounded by wrinkles and his hair had turned a musty grey colour. He chuckled with a wheezy chest and looked at Ash.
“Late as usual,” she said, flustered as she practically threw him towards the wooden desk the Professor sat at.
Another chuckle emerged from the man, who, despite being physically aged, was quite healthy and mentally young.
“Ah, my boy, you’ll learn one day to avoid mistakes,” he told Ash, his voice huskier than it had been the week before, when Ash had received his final lesson with the Professor.
“I doubt he will, Samuel,” Ash’s mother retorted, now sitting on a comfy armchair at the opposite side of the room, watching him intently.
Ash sighed, and nodded to the Professor.
“As you’ve been made aware already, there is some information to sort out before you can get your Pokémon,” Oak told him, sifting through various sheets on his organised desk. Ash noticed the grain on the wood of his desk matched the pattern on the wooden walls. He had never been in the Professor’s office before. “Ah, here we are.”
He pushed a sheet of paper in front of Ash, and began rummaging around in his drawer after he placed a pen next to the sheet.
“If you could just fill that out, while I grab a few things from my drawer.”
Ash filled out the sheet, writing down his name, date of birth, gender, and preferred Pokémon type. For the last question, he simply filled it with “All” and nudged the sheet back over after signing it.
“Thank you,” the Professor said as he scanned through the answers, chuckling once more as he came to the end of it. Without turning around, Ash guessed with help from the glint in the Professor’s eye that his mother was also smiling, and had probably stole a peek at his answers.
“Now,” Oak started, standing from his seat and walking round to Ash, “let’s get this show on the road.”
~~~~
Authors Note: I really liked this chapter. I began with sticking to both the Anime and the games beginnings and went on from there. I don't think getting a starter in the first chapter is a bad thing to do, but it's just not something I usually do anymore.
