Remastered

By Xuric

Prologue

Pikachu was dying, kept alive only by the wonders of machines and the pokémon's own sheer force of will.

As he stared at his starter pokémon on life support, with needles piercing his tiny arms and the machines beeping as they continued to keep him alive, Ash felt the lump in his throat continue to grow. His pokémon could die. His pikachu, who he had barely even known for a day and yet had already been through so much with, could be gone before their adventure had begun.

"Hey buddy," Ash said, wrapping his fingers around his pokémon's paw. He listened to the way the heart monitors sped up and prayed it was good news. "We've not really gotten off to a good start, have we?" He tried to laugh, but it died in his throat. Instead he made a choking, half sobbing sound. "Sorry. I guess it's mostly my fault, isn't it? If I hadn't been so eager to beat Gary, if I hadn't been so stupid and attacked that spearow, then maybe, maybe this wouldn't have happened."

He sniffed and wiped at his eyes with the palms of his hands. "I haven't actually really told you anything about myself, have I? I guess maybe I should start there. The nurses said that you'll take time to recover, and I'm not leaving until you're better, so I'll tell you stories to keep us both entertained, okay?"

He blew out a long, shaky breath. "How about I tell you about my mom first? She's amazing. I know you'll love her."

-O-O-O-

Two minutes left.

She closed the front door behind her soundlessly, her breath caught in her throat as she tiptoed her way back into the house. She kicked off her worn, once-pink running shoes and tucked them beneath the lime-green couch, replacing them with her pristine white, obnoxiously fluffy white house slippers. The lipstick she so delicately applied last night was removed with a quick scrub of a baby wipe, performed even as she moved through the barely-touched living room and into the kitchen. A quick glance confirmed for her that the food is where it should be, pre-packaged and awaiting a radioactive blast from the microwave. The coffee machine, as if having sensed her presence, made certain the her liquid saviour was ready and waiting.

She snatched the pot from the machine and, not bothering with a mug, gave the pot a quick, cursory blow before she sipped at it. She was still moving, taking the pink, frilly apron from the back of the kitchen door and layering it over her back and green, somewhat dirtied running gear. Her hair is treated last; scooped up into a quick ponytail to complete the lie.

She placed the coffee pot back down, finally pouring herself a mugful. A quick glance in the mirror told her that she looked passable.

He'll never know.

Breakfast was left cooking in the microwave as she made her way up the stairs. Able to hear the snoring from halfway up the stairs, she ignored the dusty photographic timeline that decorated the stairwell and made a beeline directly for the sound. The white, wooden door opened without a sound, allowing her to slip in as undetected as a few hours previously. When Samuel had called her over for a quick late night rendezvous, he had asked her to switch off Ash's alarm and make certain that he woke up late. Though she could not be certain what his plan was, Delia had done as he requested.

Sunlight streamed through the windows, touching the curtains in a manner that made the room almost glow blue. She sat gently on the edge of the bed, eased the well-practiced smile onto her face and begun to smooth his soft black hair, humming as she did so.

"Ash," she whispered. He made a soft, sleepy noise. "Ash," she repeated, louder. He answered with a snore.

"Ash Ketchum!"

He woke in an instant, snorting and sitting bolt upright in one movement. He moved so quickly that he nearly smashed his skull into her nose - it was only her quick reflexes that saved her from a black eye and a broken nose. She moved back across the bed, smoothing out the flicker of irritation that she felt crossing her features.

"Morning Sweetie," she said gently. As she placed one hand on his shoulder, she worked out the kinks in his hair with her other hand. "You overslept."

"Overslept?" he echoed, his brown eyes foggy with a half-asleep haze. Within a moment he had blinked it away, suddenly awake as he shouted, "I overslept? I can't have overslept! Today's too important!"

"Ash, honey, it's fine," she said, attempting to soothe him. "Come on." She swept him up in a hug, cradling his head against her chest and stroked his hair again. "Don't rush around in a panic. If you do that, you'll make a mistake and turn up in just your pyjamas." She laughed, picturing the image. "Now you don't want that, do you?"

"No," he answered, sulkily.

"Good." The shrill screams of the microwave echoed from downstairs. "Now come on, Ash," she said, standing. "Let's get something to eat first, then you can make your way to the lab and collect your first pokémon, okay?"

"But what if they're all gone?" he asked, sounding very much on the verge of tears.

"I'm sure they won't be," she answered, smiling. She had asked as much the night before. "If this is the last time we get to see each other for some time, I want to make sure we enjoy the moments we have left. Now, go lay the table. Mommy will catch up in just a moment, okay? She just needs to make an important phone call."

The smile had long started to hurt her cheeks. She felt relief flood through her like a ruptured dam when he obeyed quickly, moving downstairs without a complaint. When she was certain that he had moved out of earshot, she crept towards her bedroom and unlocked it with the key kept around her neck at all times. With the door closed and locked behind her, she stood in the middle of the spartan room and dialled a number from memory, placing the phone to her ear before it began to ring.

As ever, it picked up instantly. The voice on the other side sighed, sounding bored before the conversation had begun. "Before you begin, please use my name. I'm beginning to forget what it even is."

"One hour until the spearow has flown the coop," Delia said quickly, her tone flat. "Will update with further details once the nest is vacated."

"Oh," the voice on the other side said. "Good to know. Dismissed."

Rather than disconnecting the phone, she pried open the back of the case and removed the sim card, snapping it between her finger and thumb. Making certain to lock the door behind her as she left, the practiced, effervescent smile that graced her face seemed to come easier than before.

"So Ash," she said as she entered the kitchen, finding him struggling with an orange peel. There was a strange feeling in the back of her mind, as if there was something important she needed to share. Her thoughts however, were as blank as her memory of what she had done since returning home. "Ready to start your journey?"

"Of course!" he answered, grinning widely. "I'll be the best there ever was."

-O-O-O-

Nothing had changed on the monitors. Ash sighed and rubbed his fingers in circles behind Pikachu's ears. He had hoped that something would have happened. The pale pink walls of the emergency room were the colour of the chansey that routinely waddled in to check up on his pokémon.

"I guess hearing about my mom wasn't enough, huh?" Ash placed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and pulled out the bright red pokédex he had received that very morning. "I guess I can always tell you about someone else. Well, two people, really. One of them is the reason I wanted to become a pokémon trainer. The other introduced me to you. I guess you never really got to know the professor. He's pretty awesome. His grandson is a butt. Gary's always been a jerk. You should definitely know more about him. We'll be seeing him a lot when we journey, I bet."

-O-O-O-

Samuel Oak had waited for a certain day for over sixty years.

To say he was feeling anxious was an understatement. He could feel his jaw trembling with each inhale. Even seeing her the night before, letting him distract him with her body and mind was unable to leave him feeling at peace. Much as he may have wanted to, he found himself unable to pretend that his anxiousness stemmed from his grandson coming to collect a pokémon. Though Gary technically owned a pokémon already, Samuel was not above giving his grandson preferential treatment - especially when said grandson happened to be embarking on a dangerous journey that may or may not result in a fatal failure.

He had scheduled the starting trainers to arrive in groups of three, on the hour, every hour from dawn til dusk, yet he could still feel his mind wander back to the possibilities of everything that could and might happen.

"Gramps, get your head out of the clouds!"

Said grandson also inherited his mother's tact; that of a gyarados. Samuel's sigh was the familiar, long-suffering sound of a parent wondering what went wrong along the way.

"Gimme my squirtle already! None of your other chumps this week are going to cut it as trainers anyway."

"Garrett." His tone was harsh enough to make his grandson quiet, for once. "Confidence bears arrogance dear boy."

"Come on, Gramps," he said with a snort, flicking his hand through his styled hair in a way that made Samuel's past combine with his present. Gary never got to know him, not truly, yet his mannerisms always left Samuel comparing father to son. Their resemblances ran from the brown hues of their hair and eyes, down to the arrogant, almost caustic confident streak.

"I know you're sad to see me go and everything but time is for the young!" He had the audacity grin. "Don't you think? Isn't it about time I get out there and show the world what my team and I are capable of?"

"Gary," Samuel said, his tone a sigh, "you already have an eevee."

"And you promised me a squirtle," Gary retorted, his voice full of fire. "You already gave Holly the bulbasaur and Ritchie the charmander. I know you breed the pokémon yourself so you've got more of both of them, but we both know I want the squirtle."

As he stood, Samuel felt the slightest twinge of embarrassment for the state of his office. Belatedly, he realised that he started the conversation all wrong. It should have been in their home, in familiar territory for the both of them. Daisy could have even been there to play peacekeeper, but no, he had to fall asleep in his office after Delia left. If Daisy had forgotten to swing by that morning and wake him, he may have even slept through the morning's starting trainers.

Being at home would have also meant he could have woken in a bed, rather than getting a crick in his neck after sleeping in his office chair. They had agreed, when everything started, that visiting each other's homes would have been detrimental for the children. Samuel's grandchildren - Daisy, especially - most likely preferred to think of him as too old to have such urges, whilst the matter of Ash's missing father was an unspoken sore subject with Delia. Though he did not know if their relationship was casual or had meaning to it, he knew not to press the issue. If he was honest with himself, he enjoyed having someone around who looked at him in a different light. His age may have been slowly getting the better of him; he found it harder to remember certain things, moving in the morning was often difficult and he occasionally needed medical assistance to enjoy times with her, yet none of it ever seemed to concern her. She embraced him for who he was, whirlwind as their romance may have been.

Swigging the remains of cold coffee from the cup on his desk, Samuel forced his mind back to the present. It had been several weeks since he cleaned his office - the night before's activities had not helped matters either. His once empty desk was covered quickly in papers that had been swept to the floor in the heat of the moment. The bookshelves that lined the walls were empty, instead the books laid open on the floor, with Samuel's own notebooks sprawled over them. The double windows were both open, letting a soft breeze caress the office with the smell of freshly cut grass, though the window ledge had become his own personal dumping ground for styrofoam cups of coffee.

"Gary," Samuel said as he guided him towards the red armchair reserved for guests. "I brought you here because I wanted to talk to you. Assigning starter pokémon in my lab's reception is a cold, informal process. I don't want you to start your journey like that. I…" For all his years crafting papers and writing haiku, he had never struggled with words so much until then. "I made mistakes with your father. I threw myself into my work when he was younger, always thinking that my work would change the world, that he would see when he grew up. When he grew older, I told myself that we still had all the time in the world, that I could talk to him as an adult and show him the world I hid from him when he was younger. I always thought we would have more time…"

The feeling of grief never left, merely remained buried beneath the distractions he made certain to keep himself occupied. He swallowed the lump in his chest and ignoring the quiver in his voice, said, "I wanted you to know that no matter what you do; whether you win or lose, fail or succeed, you are always welcome back home. I know I'm not the best role model sometimes but believe me when I give you any advice to do with your journey." Before Gary could think of an answer to that, he quickly continued, "I know you are aware of the challenges you will face - or rather, you think that you're aware." He leant against the edge of his desk, folded his arms and made certain to look at him directly in the eyes. "You are not prepared for what is to come." He made certain to level Gary with the most serious expression he could muster, holding the stare until he saw the realisation spark beneath his grandson's hubris. "There is not a book you could read, a game you could play or a school that you can attend that will prepare you for this new stage in life. That said, the task before you is not impossible." He turned and removed the second to last pokédex from his desk, rescuing it from a pile of research papers that had yet to be read through.

"This is a sign of your status as a pokémon trainer." The way Gary's eyes grew wide at the sight of the pocket-sized red machine was identical to every over trainer that Samuel provided a pokédex to. Seeing the wonder in their eyes never grew old.

"This is a testament to my confidence in your abilities to prevail as a trainer. The paths before you will be hard. They will be full of trials, of hardship and most important of all; they will be filled with adventure.

"Remember that should you ever need help or advice, you need only ever ask. Your pokédex will help to guide you on your travels, but what you do from here is up to you. Your path is your own, your destiny is in your own hands. Now," he said, placing the pokédex back on the desk, "we get to the matter of your starter pokémon."

"Finally," Gary breathed.

Samuel activated the storage system on his computer. A flash of light later and the teleportation system deposited a standard red and white poké ball on the middle of his desk. Samuel picked it up delicately and handed it to his grandson. "Your squirtle, as promised. I know you've had your heart set on one for years. This one is bred from my own champion blastoise. Treat him well."

For all his faults, his attitude to pokémon had never been one of them. Gary held the poké ball in his hands with such reverence that Samuel knew it was the right decision.

"One last thing," Samuel said, drawing his attention back. "In addition to the other trainers today, there is another one due to come in to collect his starter pokemon. I know that you and Holly have known each other since you were in diapers, but do make an effort with all three of your rivals. It's not often that so many of you will start on the same day."

"Gramps, I'm not going to make an effort with him just because you're banging his mom."

Samuel wasn't certain what to do first; deny all knowledge of it or backhand Gary with the heaviest folder he could find.

Try as he might, Samuel could never remain angry with him for more than a moment. "Please refrain from using such vulgar attitude."

"Will do Gramps," he said, grinning toothily. He looked down at the ball in his hands before he shrunk it and places it in his pocket. A silence descended over them both, leaving them staring at the worn, beige office carpet. They always knew this day was only ever a matter of time.

"Grandpa?" Gary whispered, his voice unusually timid.

"Yes Gary?"

The speed at which Gary stood and threw his arms around Samuel took him aback. "I love you. I know I don't say it enough, Gramps, but it's true. I'll make you proud, I'll swear."

Samuel told himself that he could blame allergies on the way his eyes filled with water. "You already have, my boy."

Gary flashed him a heartfelt smile, then in the blink of an eye he withdrew putting space between them as his cocky nature returned, burying the emotional side of him beneath the arrogant facade. "Well Gramps, I better hit the road before the other losers bore all the good pokémon to death. Smell ya later."

Samuel allowed himself only a small chuckle. Any more than that and he was afraid he may have burst into tears. "Take care, Gary."

A smile, a close of the door and just like that, his grandson was gone and experiencing the world, his return a question of if rather than when. He would have been lying if he said he was happy for Gary to leave. So many things could go wrong. He had to force himself not to think of those.

"You promised Celebi you'd keep everything stable," he muttered to himself, wiping his eyes with the heels of his palms. "That was one of the conditions." It was the day he knew would come to pass, after all. He had to move hell and high water just to make certain everything was perfect, all to return a favour that had often felt like a debt.

"E-excuse me?"

The intercom on his laptop buzzed with an unfamiliar, yet somehow recognisable voice. "Professor Oak? My name's Ash Ketchum. I'm here to collect my starter pokémon."

Ah. Oak took a deep breath and listened to the way his heart hammered in his chest. This is where it all begins.

Fifty years of waiting, all to give a certain boy a certain pikachu at the right time and place.

-O-O-O-

Ash watched the steady rise and fall of his pokémon's chest, amazed at the progress he had made in such a short time. With the IV in his arm filling him with healing nutrients, Pikachu's wounds were very slowly closing before Ash's eyes. It was not the first time he had marvelled at the strength of pokémon compared to humans and he knew it would not be the last.

In the back of his mind he imagined Pikachu in the middle of battle, healing wounds instantaneously, dealing out damage faster than the opponents could keep up with.

Ash pressed his fingers against Pikachu's chest and felt the heartbeat racing within. Professor Oak had mentioned once that smaller pokémon had faster heart rates than larger pokémon, and that electrical pokémon had some of the fastest pulses recorded. Ash felt like his heart was racing as fast as Pikachu's as he tried to cope with the fact that his starter was still unconscious.

Ash glanced at the clock, unsurprised to find that he had been in there for half the night already. His stomach, unusually, was not growling for food. Even if it was, Ash was resolute that he would not leave his pokémon until he knew that he would make a full recovery.

"I guess there's one more person I can tell you about," Ash said. He began to gently pull apart Pikachu's fur, where the blood had dried and stuck lumps of it together. It had faded into a mottled brown colour, almost blending in perfectly with the dirt and Pikachu's natural brown markings.

"I don't really know her, not all that well, but she's here in this pokémon centre," Ash said. He continued to work at Pikachu's fur, slowly cleaning it with his nails. "I spoke to her for a little bit. She's a bit angry that I borrowed her bike, but it seems to have cooled down for now. At least I hope so. You were kinda knocked out at the time, so let me tell you about how we met her and what happened before you woke up to all the spearow."

-O-O-O-

You promised yourself you wouldn't cry.

It had been so easy to carry out that promise when she was at home. Being surrounded by people at all times, all of them asking how she was… it had been easy to lie, to claim that she was fine.

Now however, without anyone to lie to, she could feel the burgeoning pressure of the truth swelling up inside her, about to explode.

She sniffed, wiped her nose with her arm and tried to distract herself by concentrating on her fishing rod. The river bank was uncomfortable, dried by the beating sun, making her fidget every few moments. Growing up she had been taught that the smell of stale water was a bad thing. In the gym, it had certainly held true. In the real world, she knew that was not always the case, yet still the smell of it danced in her nose, convincing her that something was wrong with the river, that the staleness had to be to blame for the lack of attention her lure had been getting. She knew the best sign for good, clean water was to find quagsire swimming within, though so far as she knew, quagsire were rarely spotted in Kantonese waters. Maybe that fact alone was telling.

She sighed as she stared at the ebb and flow of the water. The rivers around Pallet were not known to contain anything all too interesting in terms of rare pokémon - her brief read up on the area told her that she would be lucky to catch anything. If she was exceptionally lucky she would be able to catch a slowpoke, though she knew she had enough problems without adding a notoriously dimwitted pokémon into the mix.

She ran a hand along the poké balls on her belt, able to feel her loneliness increase tenfold as she did so. Three months that practically vanished in the blink of an eye and suddenly five pokémon were the only things in the world that she truly had left.

Her ears pricked, hearing movement in the grass near her camp. Glancing backwards, she grasped one of her poké balls, ready for whatever challenge that came her way. Feeling her heart racing, she saw a familiar mop of spiked, brown hair moving around her bright red tent. His cocky swagger when he walked extended even up to the tips of his hair. She smiled to herself, placed the poké ball on her belt and secured her fishing rod.

Five pokémon and this jackass are all I have left, she corrected herself.

He looked straight at her when he emerged from behind her tent, grinning widely. His clothes were covered in mud, there was a leaf stuck in the zipper of his bag and though she could not say for certain, what appeared to be a pidgey's beak mark was turning into a bruise on his forehead. Despite his dishevelled state, he smirked at her in a manner that only he could, somehow owning the dishevelled appearance.

"Sup, Tomboy?"

She rolled her eyes. "What do you want, Hairspray?"

He broke first, snorting and laughing as he hugged her the moment she stood. "I'm glad you could make it," he confessed, resting his hands on her shoulders.

"Well it's not everyday one of your best friends starts their pokémon journey." She matched his grin, in good enough spirits to ignore the fact that he had grown to be the same height as her. Giving him a once-over glance, she noticed that he already had three poké balls on his belt. One would have definitely been his eevee - she was certain that the ball of fur had never left Gary's side since they met - so the others had to be the squirtle he had dreamt of for years and whatever pokémon he had caught already.

"Champion in the making," he said. As he let go of her, she could feel the way the air changed between them. "You okay?" he asked, his voice quiet, conspiratorial.

She wanted to lie, to continue the pretence.

"Hardly," she answered truthfully, sitting back down on the warm, hard grass bank. She waited until he sat down beside her before she groaned and leaned her head on his shoulder. "This is tougher than I thought it was going to be, Gary."

"Do you know…" he trailed off, as if reconsidering his question. That only served to make her worry more. One of the many things they shared was their blunt nature. It always made talking to him refreshing, far more so than entertaining the League's sycophants, who would bury layers of conversation beneath a single raised brow. "Did they at least tell you what's happening with the gym?"

"Hell if I know," she snarled. "My sisters have gone to Hoenn. They think there might be something there, some sort of clue as to what happened to the boat." She grabbed his arm and squeezed it, using his as a tether against the storm that was her raging thoughts. "I'm scared," she admitted. "Will and Karen came in so quickly and had everything sorted so neatly that they must have had everything planned."

"Misty…" he whispered.

"Don't," she said quickly, dropping his arm. "Don't say anything that will make this situation worse and don't say anything to try and make me feel better." She sat up and moved away, removing him from her personal space. "Why did you ask me to meet you here, Gary? Did you want me to travel with you?"

"Hardly," he answered quickly, snorting a laugh. "I wanted to see you. To see how you're doing with my own eyes." He moved his gaze from her to the shining sun. "More than that.. I wanted to talk. We've known each other since we were in diapers, Mist."

"Since you were in diapers," she corrected. "I was potty-trained by that point."

"Still didn't stop you from being a crybaby," he retorted, grinning as she snarled at him. "But seriously, Gramps doesn't even know what's going on with your gym. I know since Daisy and I moved to Pallet we haven't been able to talk to each other as much, but I was there that day too."

"I know," she said, perhaps too harshly. She flinched at her own tone and looked away quickly. Whenever she tried to sleep, the memories of that day would blossom in her mind again, playing over and over in full detail. She had lost count of the ways that she had tried to forget. Years later, she still found herself imagining the distant roaring of gyarados whenever it got too quiet.

"I don't think it was an accident, Mist."

She closed her eyes and let out a breath that she was unaware she had held. "I've thought the same for a while now," she admitted. It felt almost like a weight being lifted from her shoulders. She felt able to sit a bit taller, that she no longer had to hide the thoughts that had occupied the darker parts of her mind. "Everything with the gym happened too quickly. I know we'd been failing targets for a while, but three months to fire us and get in someone new?" She shook her head. "That's too fast. I didn't notice anything else going on after the boat trip, but from what my Daisy has let slip, they seemed a little too prepared for the chaos."

"I thought as much," Gary whispered, hugging his knees. "Gramps never really talks about it, but I know after everything happened there was some research that he was working on that he suddenly no longer had any interest in." When he sighed, Misty could see the way that he tensed, like a predator waiting to strike. "I want answers, Mist. We deserve answers. I'll become the Champion - you can take a spot in the Elites and we can change the system and get the answers we want."

She bit her bottom lip, thinking of the work that would entail. "That'll take years, Gary."

"I don't care how long it takes!" he snarled, punching the floor. "I don't care if it takes me until I'm twenty, thirty or older to get the answers we deserve! My parents died that day - yours did too! My grandma had a heart attack from the stress of it and died a few weeks later! They ripped apart my family! They ruined my life, Daisy's life, Grandpa's and destroyed your family's legacy!"

Everything he says is right, she reflected. Hugging her knees, she watched him rant, the way his face turned a darker and darker shade of red. Something still doesn't feel right though. It's like we're looking at a puzzle and only have the corner pieces.

She looked away, staring up at the sky. Moments before it had been a blissful early summer's day. Instead dark grey storm clouds had crept up on them, darkening the sky much like their conversation has soured her mood.

"I'm with you Gary, don't worry," she told him. "Now," she said, injecting what she felt like was far too much false cheer into her voice, "do you want to show me your new squirtle? Don't even try to tell me you didn't get that off your grandpa, I know you've had your heart set on one since you saw Lily's wartortle years ago."

"Jeez, make me sound predictable why don't you?" he said, rolling his eyes. "Though if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not, as least not quite yet." He shrugged as he plucked what she assumed to be his squirtle's poké ball from his belt and rolled it in his palms. "I want to get to know him first, before I have someone tell me what he's like. If you told me that he wasn't the greatest, or that he had something wrong with him, or even if he was amazing, it'd influence my thinking about him. Even if I end up with the gimpiest pokémon, I'd rather make my own decisions."

"That's surprisingly mature of you."

He laughed, the tips of his ears turning red as he replaced the poké ball. "Hey, just because I'm ten on the outside doesn't mean I don't have the brain of a much older genius."

"I'm sure you do," she said, laughing with him. A crack of thunder drew her attention skyward. She frowned, thinking over what to do. Viridian was too far away to make by walking - even the thought of cycling ahead and leaving Gary out in the rain made her feel bad. "Are you staying?" she asked. "Waiting out the storm might be the better thing to do."

"Nah," he said, standing. "Gary Oak isn't afraid of a little bit of rain! Besides," he said, sliding his hands into his pockets, "I want to get my pokémon used to battling in any weather conditions. I've got ideas about what to do, where to go from here."

She stood and hugged him. "Alright, don't be a stranger."

"Take your own advice," he retorted, returning the hug. "Oh, before I forget!" He pulled away, eyes lit up with a familiar look - Misty had seen it many times before when he was plotting something. "Gramps said Cousin Samson is meant to be visiting in a few weeks. Apparently his research on the divergent evolution in Alola is making waves, so he's coming here to get some samples or something. Apparently despite everything, there's no alternate forms for water pokémon we see in Kanto, so he's come to study some of them. I told him that if he wanted an expert opinion, I knew a certain water trainer who would be happy to help, maybe even trade him a native Kanto water pokémon for something from Alola."

"Gary!" she admonished, feeling equal parts humbled and horrified. "I… I don't even know where to begin with that! I'm not trading away any of my pokémon!"

"You don't have to," he said with a shrug, placing his hands back into his pockets. "Catch something new, train it a little, make sure it's docile and let him have that. Maybe something you wouldn't be able to use much over here - there's plenty of ocean over there for aquatic pokémon to play around in."

She sighed, knowing there was no winning the conversation. He meant well, she could see that. She just wished he would ask her first, before promising such things. "Thank you, Gary. I'll keep it in mind. Say thanks to your cousin from me too."

"Don't worry about that. Sides, next time we see each other, we'll battle and I'll show you the power of my new squirtle."

"You better take good care of him," she threatened, though she knew he was aware that she was only half-serious. "If I'm going to be a water-focused Elite, I won't have you looking after any water pokémon badly."

"Fat chance of that. Give it a year, I'll be schooling you in everything you think you know."

His cockiness should have offended her. Instead it just brought a smile to her face. "We'll see about that."

Another boom of thunder roared above them. Misty flinched at how close it sounded. "Sure you don't want to wait out the storm?"

"Quit your worrying. I'll see you soon - maybe I'll meet up with ya in Pewter or Cerulean… if you can keep up."

She rolled her eyes at his antics. With a grin and a flip of his hair he disappeared back into the wilds, though she heard the distinct sound of a poké ball opening and the familiar cry of his eevee as he left.

"Never change, Gary," she whispered. Another peal of thunder echoed and the rain began. It started only as a trickle, like a hint of things to come. She sighed, checking her fishing rod once more. Despite the rain not bothering her, she had no desire to catch a cold. Different pokémon would emerge during the rainstorm, but that did not mean she wanted to sit outside in it.

She crawled into her tent and sealed the flap shut behind her. The pattering of the rain against the fabric above her was almost enough to lull her to sleep, yet she knew the moment she tried, it would elude her.

It wasn't an accident.

Deep down, she always knew. But if Gary's certain of it too…

Another crack of thunder exploded above. She rolled her poké balls in her palms and tried to think. The best way would be to do a gym challenge, to collect all the badges and prove herself that way. Yet, how many of those same gym leaders had already allied against her? Kanto's gym leaders tended to have no interest in matters outside of their districts, and the thought of going against someone like Sabrina made Misty's hair stand on end.

Maybe -

A scream.

Her back straightened. Her body became more alert in an instant. She listened, could only hear rain. Maybe she imagined it. Maybe it was all just a trick of the storm -

Another scream.

I didn't imagine that.

She grabbed all of her poké balls and bolted out of the tent. The storm had picked up in strength. The wind howled and whipped at her, pushing her back towards her tent. The rain felt like tiny needles on her skin. Her sleeveless vest and shorts had been perfect for the blazing hot weather. She grit her teeth as she unchained her bike and hopped on, pedalling against the storm, towards where she was certain the sound had come from.

The sky was dark, almost pitch black. The clouds moved as a formless mass of shadow, eclipsing the sun from the world.

Yet she could still see the spearow circling.

Not good.

She pedalled faster, ignoring the splashes of mud against her skin. Though they were not as dangerous as mandibuzz or vullaby, a flock of spearow was never a good thing. Gary started his journey today - Misty knew that meant other new trainers would be starting from Pallet too. Whatever they had chosen would not be enough to help stop a whole flock of spearow - assuming no fearow join the mix. Worst case scenario, whoever caught their attention chose a bulbasaur.

She stopped at the top of a hill, catching her breath. Someone stood on the ground, in the eye of the spearow storm, their arms outstretched, facing the onslaught. Behind the person she could see a small, shaking, yellow, pokémon.

That's not a normal starter.

She pushed the thought out of her mind as she selected the pokémon she knew would work best. She was just about to call her starmie forth when suddenly, the yellow pokémon moved. It leaped on the person, bounced off of them into sky and impossibly, channeled the lightning that arced towards it, redirecting it at the spearow.

She flinched, having to cover her eyes from the blast. The resulting shockwave knocked her back a step. The spearow screamed in agony. Misty was certain she could smell them cooking.

When she opened her eyes, half of the flock had fallen from the sky. She paid them no mind - the person was on the ground, their pokémon beside them.

"Hey!" she screamed, rushing towards them. She leaped off her bike, leaving it on the scorched earth beside the boy. She told herself he was just stunned from the lightning. "Are you okay?"

He groaned. Alive. The pokémon beside him had laboured breaths. A pikachu - not something she could say people often started out with.

"Hey," Misty said, touching the boy's shoulder. His eyes were scrunched shut. The electric blast must have caught him - she could see tell-tale lightning strike marks beneath his eyes. The veins had burnt black, leaving marks that resembled lightning bolts. His jet black hair was plastered to his face by the rain and his breathing sounded wet, strained.

"What happened?" he asked, groaning with the effort. He blinked rapidly and suddenly, the drowsiness vanished as he leaped to his feet with a cry of, "Pikachu!"

Misty fell backwards, landing on her rear, shocked by the sight before her. He should not have been alive - much less speaking or on his feet. As he scooped the pokémon up in his arms, she found words incredibly difficult to manage.

"I need to get to a pokémon centre!" the boy declared. A slow, dawning horror crept up on Misty, forcing movement into her leaden limbs. "I'm borrowing this!" the boy shouted, taking her bike.

"Hey!" Misty cried, leaping to her feet. He had already jumped on her bike, pedalling away. "That's my bike!"

"I'll meet you in Viridian City!" he cried over his shoulder.

Misty felt like actually crying. There was no guarantee he would even make it there, let alone if she would even find him again.

"I hate everything," she declared, beginning the walk back to her camp. "This is what you get for trying to help people, Mist. You're not a gym leader anymore, you don't have to help people. But no, you see the boy struck by lightning and he steals your bike!"

She cursed the rain as it continued to beat down on her. Hugging her arms, she felt her jaw begin to shake as the wind brushed against her, chilling her wet skin. She hurried back to her camp, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. She had no pokémon that would be able to help warm her up, either. The promise of her dry, warm clothes in her sleeping bag kept her feet moving. She focused entirely on keeping moving, so much so that she failed to notice the smoke coming from her campfire until she was stood back in her camp, staring in horror at the man that sat before the fire.

He had long, dyed purple hair that ran to his shoulders and rather than acknowledging her, continued to hold out his hands to the fire. He wore a suit that matched his hair and that impossibly, seemed to be ignoring the downpour that the heavens were unleashing on them. His eyes, when he turned his gaze towards her, were whited out, though the black framed mask he wore around them gave the illusion that it was merely part of the costume.

Behind him, a large, green feathered bird stood silently, taller than her. Its wings were easily twice the size of her, decorated with feathers in shades of red and white. Like its trainer, both of its eyes were white, blind. It gave no indication that it was aware Misty had arrived, nor did it even seem to have a rise and fall of its chest, like it did not even need to breathe.

"Will," Misty hissed, jumping back a step, moving to a stance where she could hit him or run at a moment's notice. A second later and her brain kicked into gear. She called out two of her pokémon and buried herself between them. The cool, purple skin of her starmie was a harsh contrast to the tough, red carapace of her crawdaunt.

"Misty," Will greeted, his tone flat. His voice was accentless, as if he did not belong anywhere. "A dark type. Truly? If I wanted to harm you, I would have already done so."

"That's what people say just before they harm you anyway," Misty shot back. She hated her body for the way it shook in the cold. The fire, so delightfully warm, was somehow sheltered from the downpour around them. "What do you want?"

"So cold, so caustic," Will chided. "Come, sit by your fire. It would do neither of us any good for you to die of hypothermia out here."

Much as she way have wanted to put as much distance between them as possible, she could not deny the warmth of the fire was an enticing offer. Keeping her hands on her pokémon, she stood on the other side of the fire to him, close enough to enjoy the shelter it somehow had from the rain, yet far enough from Will that he could not reach out and touch her.

"There, I'm by the fire and warming myself. Now want do you want?"

"To talk," he said innocuously. "Though I am blind-"

"If you start your 'I'm blind but I see more than anyone else', I'm going to shove my foot down your throat," Misty growled. "I'm not someone who's never been near a pokémon in their life. I'm not someone who doesn't know what's really going on. I'm fully aware that you're psychic, so can we cut the crap already?"

The way that Will smiled reminded Misty very much of a meowth taunting its cornered prey. "You wish to prove yourself, to let the world see you as an Elite. Travelling to gyms and earning trinkets will not give you the right to be one of us." His eyes seemed to glow. Misty's crawdaunt grunted, turning to her, its eyes covered in a white haze.

"Ren!" she cried, throwing her arms out to her pokémon. It batted her aside, knocking her to the floor. She cried out, hitting the ground and looked up in time to see her crawdaunt smash its pincers into her starmie, cracking the gemstone. Screaming, Misty recalled them both, turning to Will with her eyes wide, her body shaking.

"Sad really," Will commented, as if bored, "you never felt truly loved by your sisters, so you name your pokémon after flowers to continue the theme. Ren, Jasmine, Acacia, Quill, Willow. You seek family in pokémon because you feel abandoned by your own."

"Yeah well what's your point?" Misty growled, standing, ignoring the tears building in her eyes. She stood back, drenched in the continual downpour. Her hands formed into fists as she hissed, "I know you're psychic - you knowing my pokémon's names doesn't freak me out. If you're trying to scare me you'll have to do harder than that!"

"Your crawdaunt cannot defend itself from me - a human. You cannot expect to reach Elite levels if your pokémon are so weak."

"Fuck you, you purple haired prick," Misty snarled. "What the hell is your goal here? To beat up a child? Congratulations, you asshole. I'm not stupid - I know that you and your sister already made certain that my gym was taken from me - was that not enough?"

"No."

The simple answer, comprised of only a single word, nearly floored her with how matter-of-fact Will delivered it.

"I… what?" she whispered.

"I am not content with the events that have transpired so far," Will said, standing. Misty took a step back, able to feel the power flowing off him in waves. It set aflame her instincts to run and hide. "My xatu sees the paths each and every action takes. People describe them as being able to see past and future, yet that is such a minute grasp of their power. Xatu can see into the past and determine every action that will arise from a single decision in a single moment in time." As he stepped towards her, Misty saw the pebbles on the ground raise up around his feet. His eyes seemed to glow, leaking white light. The rain evaporated the moment it touched his body. "You are weak."

His eyes flashed. Misty felt the ground move away from her feet. Her limbs locked, refused to move. She felt an invisible hand grasp her throat, began to choke the air out of her. She realised she was being lifted into the air, pulled by an unseen force. Her tears would not budge. Her lungs burnt as she struggled to breathe.

"As you are, you are nothing," he continued, walking towards her. His tone never changed, his voice never raised. He stated everything as if it were fact, like he was describing the weather. "My xatu sees the paths that no other can. I see everything." He stood before Misty, power flowing from him in waves that pushed away the storm. The river water vibrated at his presence. Misty felt the air heat around him. The invisible noose on her neck tightened.

He reached out and pressed a hand against her cheek. "I choose you, Misty Williams. You will be my protégé. You, who would help change the world. With my guidance, you will change it for the better. You will help us prosper."

"N-never," Misty gasped. "Just k-kill me and get it done with."

"No."

The air changed. Misty dropped to the floor, landing on her knees. She felt the skin tear on the rocks and hissed, able to breathe again. She looked up at Will fearfully, her hands around her neck, tears in her eyes. "Why?" she asked, her voice the barest of whispers.

"I have seen it," he answered, turning from her. "Struggle builds strength. Hardship builds character. When you are strong enough I will return, and you and I will change the world."

Misty grit her teeth as she pushed herself to her feet, standing on shaking legs. "You'll regret that," she promised. "I'll end you myself."

"No," he said, glancing at her, "you won't."

She blinked and he vanished, disappearing into the air. Thunder roared from above and the deluge continued, hitting her full force. Her campfire, once protected from the rain, instead hissed and died in moments. Misty sobbed as she hugged herself, stood under the rainfall, unable to find the energy to move.

You promised yourself you wouldn't cry.

She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the heels of her palms and growled at the empty air. "Fuck you, Will," she snarled, uncertain if he could even hear her. "I will become an Elite. Gary and I will take down the system and I'll make you regret ever crossing me."

-O-O-O-

Pikachu had opened his eyes.

It was only for a moment - a second, really, but it meant that he was recovering!

"I knew you would pull through!" Ash declared, unable to wipe the smile off his face. "I knew that this wouldn't be the last thing we ever did together. Just you wait Pikachu, you and I are going to take on the world together!"

He glanced out of the emergency room doors, where he could see two wanted posters hanging side by side. They looked dated, as if they were printed years ago, though the faces were almost perfect in their quality. A man and a woman, the latter of whom had long hair curled around like a coiled snake, the former of whom had a rose stem in his mouth, for whatever reason.

"We'll make this world a better place," Ash said, turning back to Pikachu. "And the best way for us to do that is to take down people like that. That way, no one innocent ever gets hurt."

-O-O-O-

'Sceptile, unlike its predecessor groyvle, is a lone hunter, able to take down prey much larger than itself. An omnivore, sceptile breeds can survive on a vegetarian diet for a small amount of time, though it is recommended trained sceptile are fed meat at least once a week, as there have been numerous cases where sceptile forced into vegetarian only diets have rebelled, leaving their trainers, or worse.

'The best way to train one of these creatures is by beginning with a treecko, which can be found-'

"Here's the money. Now remember, we want this to look as real as possible. Clear out the centre; make sure no one else is here. We'll handle the rest."

He looked up from the textbook abruptly and smiled as he saw the money changing hands. Though she may have claimed not to care about anyone other than herself, those lumbered with endless amounts of student debt always seem to exploit her weak points. Being certain to wipe the smile from his face before she saw it, he turned back to the book, picking up where he left off seamlessly.

"Everything's a-okay on my end."

James sighed and folded the book closed, placing it on the seat beside him. As he looked over at his other companion, the light shone in such a way that it caught the metal implants that were yet to be covered by the re-growing fur. His father used to tell him that he was heartless, back when they used to speak with one another. He wondered if it was true and he was proving him wrong, or like so many other things, Father was wrong and had assumed the truth based on a small dataset.

"What about Jessie? She done yet, Jimbo?"

James sighed and leaned his head against the cool, tiled wall behind him. With his eyes closed, he let himself pretend that he was elsewhere, not left to deal with this… field project.

"She was paying off the nurse when I saw her last." He opened his eyes and frowned as a strand of hair fell into his face. The blue was fading once again, revealing the bleach beneath. He would have to dye it again soon, though as he reached up to rub a strand of hair between his fingers, he noticed how quickly it was growing similar to straw. "I'm still amazed we even have anyone to follow. That lightning strike would have killed anyone else."

"Yeah," Meowth said, quietly, "they're good at what they do."

Though able to speak the human tongue, Meowth still struggled with pronunciation. 'They' came out as 'dey' and any word that ended in an 'o' was pronounced as if he were meowing. No one had ever shortened his name to Jim before, which made hearing 'Jimbeow' more of an oddity to grow used to.

James nodded. "They are," he agreed, his mind taking him to places he would rather avoid. An uncomfortable silence fell between them. What could have been and what is flashed through James' mind. All that education, all the money his parents spent on it and what had it gained him? As Jessie walked back into the room, James looked up, still considering the answers to his question.

Her blue eyes always seemed to be scanning the shadowed corners of each location, looking for things that may be hiding in the dark. Her violently red hair was tied in a long ponytail that ran down between her shoulders. The black shirt she wore seemed to be skin tight, though James knew it was made from the finest shelgonscale available for purchase.

She touched the knife on her belt, as if to remind herself that yes, it was still there. "We've got twenty minutes," she said. "That kid's nothing more than a little twerp, so we can't overdo this." She pulled off a black glove to reveal five miniaturised poké balls strapped to her hand. With a sigh she pulled her glove back on, flexing her fingers into a fist. "I don't have anything weak enough. Meowth." At the sound of her voice, the pokémon seemed to stand just a little straighter. "Any ideas? We all know you're not a battler."

"I got smarts instead of battle skills," Meowth said with a roll of his eyes. The action sent a shudder down James' spine. Everything he knew about feline biology told him that they are not capable of such an action. "We can just grab two poké balls from the healed section and use them. Create enough of a panic and they should follow your lead." He extended his claws and examined them, much like a person would scrutinise their fingernails. "We just wanna gauge what's happening with him right now, right? What'dya think, Jimbo? You're the one in charge of this little op here."

Am I really? The claim of leadership seemed false. The project was certainly under his oversight, but he was beginning to feel less like a leader and more like a buffoon. Jessie had been assigned as his bodyguard and James knew that she could snap a man's neck without batting an eyelid. Their pokémon companion had more intelligence than he rightly should. Whilst James knew he was certainly no slouch in any department, the idea of leading felt… wrong.

He glanced around the doorframe and found the boy in the emergency room, his pokémon still hooked up to the monitors. James was amazed that either of them were still breathing. Pikachu were never known for their durability and humans were… well, only human.

James raised an eyebrow and glanced at Jessie. She mirrored his reaction. They watched as the nurse they paid walked into the room and began checking on his pikachu. Her wig, bright pink and curled, is a perfect fit, just like they planned.

"We need to assess his strength," James whispered, aware he was paraphrasing Meowth. "The best way would be to engage him in a battle, but we need to make certain we set things up so that he won't try to run."

"That's simple," Meowth said, drawing their attention. "First, we trip the power in the lobby. Tripping the emergency room power means other pokémon might end up dying or worse. So we bait him to the lobby first. Whilst the lights are out, we grab two pokémon from here to use against him. Then we flick the lights back on, appear in the lobby in front of him and announce ourselves as pokémon thieves, here to steal everything in the centre." He looks up at Jessie. "You paid that police lady friend of yours to hang up those posters, right?"

"I did," Jessie confirmed. James followed her gaze down the pink-walled corridor, where he could see the rushed posters hung directly opposite the boy.

"Only one step left then," Meowth said, grinning. He reached into a disposable plastic bag next to James' foot and pulled free two large, red 'R's and two white shirts. "The back of these are covered in double-sided tape. Attach these letters to these shirts and we'll sell the illusion."

"Right," James said, following Meowth's instructions. "What illusion are we trying to sell anyway?"

"Simple really," Meowth said, a twinkle in his eye. "It's a way for the twerp to identify us easily. He needs to know who Team Rocket really are."

"Meowth," Jessie said, holding the shirt out at arm's length, "you do realise the point of our operation is to be covert? There's a reason people don't know about us. We don't even know who runs the organisation."

"Of course," Meowth said, smiling, "but only the twerp is here - our cover is safe. No one is going to believe a ten year old kid that thinks Team Rocket attacked him. If anything people will think people are using the rumours to attack without consequence. You two have got your missions, I have mine.

"Now come on, let's get to work."

Author's Note;

I'd like to thank everyone who clicks on this story for their time, regardless of whether they proceed with it further or not. This idea has burned in the back of my mind in various iterations before I've finally managed to settle on this. I hope you enjoy what I've done with the place.

The story is currently being rewritten as I wrote myself into something of a hole before, but now I'm back on track, taking the advice and criticisms on board to make this story better than ever.

Like many other stories out there, this is a re-telling of Ash's original journey from Kanto onwards. It will be an AU from there, with an Ash who starts off just as fresh and newbie as in the anime, but grows into the master we all want him to be. The anime used him as a audience surrogate, aimed to be initially unintelligent to introduce people to the world. Here, I'm doing something similar. He'll seem unremarkable compared to those who have been around pokémon for years, but the more time he spends with them and the more he learns, the more he'll turn into the hero we're familiar with. This is his journey, warts and all, from nobody in a small town to the one trainer in the world everyone knows. The anime will be used as a base, with other forms of media exerting their influence. The world is darker, yet not full grimderp. Hopefully it rests on a happy medium between the two. Thus, the situations Ash finds himself in will be different, the fic itself will be more grounded in reality, yet with some of the anime's cheer and fun.

What sets this apart though, is that the focus isn't entirely on Ash. Rather than him being the Chosen One of legend, central to all things Plot as per the anime, I'm taking a different route here. We see the viewpoints of all other main members of the cast. Oftentimes, events will happen without Ash ever knowing of them. Other times, we'll see the fallout of events that begun with Ash, or vice versa.

Disclaimer

Pokémon is a registered trademark of Satoshi Tajiri, Game Freak, the Pokémon Company, Nintendo, etc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit for purely entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, and are not to be reproduced without his prior consent.