Chapter 1

"Mommy, Mommy, look!"

The little girl dashed away from her mother, headed for the top of the hill and the large building that sat there. She skidded up to the front door, jumping up and down in excitement.

"Jayde, wait! You can't go in there!" her mother called, jogging up the slope to catch up.

Seeming not to hear her, Jayde let her remaining momentum carry her through the glass doors and into a brightly lit room. Eager to explore, she bolted around a corner and was suddenly confronted with a white fabric.

"Whoa, watch out!" exclaimed a boy.

As she slammed into him, he held out his arms to prevent her from hitting the wall. Startled, she looked up at the boy's face, which still held a surprised expression from being unwittingly attacked by 60 pounds of little girl. Jayde, suddenly realizing that she might be in trouble for this, looked down and stammered out an apology just as her mother came into the lobby, calling for her.

"There you are! You can't just run into a place like this!" her mother scolded.

Glancing up at the boy, she began apologizing profusely for her daughter's intrusion.

"No, no, it's fine, really!" The boy said, laughing. "So you're Jayde, right?" he said, looking down at her with a smile on his face.

Eagerly, she nodded, bouncing up and down again after determining that the light scolding would be the worst of her punishment. "So you work here? What's it like? Do you get to meet lots of Pokémon? Is it fun?"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there! Yep, I work here. It's an incredible experience. Yes, I get to meet lots of Pokémon, thanks to my grandfather, and yes, it's very fun." Grinning, he looked down at her again. "Would you like to look around? At walking pace?"

"Yes please!" Glancing up at her mother, she started bouncing again and clasped her hands together in front of her. "Oh please, Mommy, please!"

"Well… I suppose that would be alright. I still need to go into town for a bit, though, so will you be okay here for awhile?"

"Yeah! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She started bolting down the hallway again, but the boy held out his arm, laughing.

"Hang on, there. You can't just go barreling down every corridor. I'm just about to go out and check on the Pokémon. Would you like to come along?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"Alright, then, follow me. Slowly," he said, eyeing her with a false sternness. Looking back up at her worrying mother, he nodded. "She'll be fine with me. I'll keep her out of trouble."

Looking at her daughter, Jayde's mother nodded, sighing. "Just stay out of people's way, okay?"

"Okay, Mommy!"

Sighing again, her mother disappeared around the corner.

Looking down at her, the boy smiled again. "Now where are my manners? I haven't even told you my name. It's Gary."

Jayde gave an extra-high bounce. "I knew I recognized you! You're Professor Oak's grandson!"

He sighed in mock exasperation. "Will I ever be recognized on my own merits? Well, come on, then. I'll show you where we keep the Pokémon."

Walking away in long strides, he was soon at the end of the stretch of hallway. More excited than ever, she skipped along after him.

Finally, I can see some real Trainers' Pokémon up close!


Jayde sprinted out the doors to the enclosures, the sunlight blinding her for a moment. She gazed in awe as her vision cleared; all around her lay a vast field with hills rolling toward the horizon. Several streams ran through the grass, stemming from a wide lake. Trees became more and more frequent as her eyes followed the field back, where it ended at a sunny wood.

But most spectacular were the shapes dotting the landscape. Every kind of Pokémon imaginable was here. There were Fire and Grass types, Water, Electric, Flying, Normal, Fighting, Poison, Ghost, everything. She let out a squeal of excitement. Gary laughed at her obvious glee and motioned for her to follow him.

"Now here is where the smaller Water Pokémon enjoy playing," he said as they approached one of the larger streams. "Let's see… there's a-"

"A Horsea! It evolves into Seadra, which evolves into Kingdra when it's… traded with a Dragon Scale!"

"Wow, impressive," Gary said, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Do you know what that one is?" He gestured to a round blue Pokémon splashing around.

"That's a Poliwag! It evolves into Poliwhirl, then into either Poliwrath when given a Water Stone or Politoed when it's traded with a King's Rock!" Jayde said brightly.

Gary was clearly impressed now.

"That's right again. You really know your stuff!"

Jayde giggled. "Well, I want to be a Pokémon trainer someday. I'll need to know all I can! A lot of stuff I learned from books your grandfather wrote. About evolution, why some Pokémon evolve when they're traded, how humans have created new evolutions just by interacting with Pokémon, stuff like that!"

"That's pretty advanced stuff! You sure seem like a smart cookie!"

At the mention of cookies, Jayde's stomach growled noisily, making several of the Water types look up in amusement.

Gary laughed.

"How about we play a game? I'll give you a small piece of candy for every Pokémon you can identify; a big one if you can tell me about its evolutionary line. Sound like a plan?"


An hour later, as Jayde's mother walked her out, thanking Gary for watching her, Jayde scooped up anther piece of candy that had fallen from her overflowing pockets.

Her mother shook her head in amused exasperation.

"Well, I'm assuming you had fun?"

Jayde made a positive sound around the candy she had already jammed in her mouth.

"You realize you just cleaned out the poor boy's candy supply, right?"


A nice, light chapter to start off. This is my first attempt at fanfiction, so any feedback would be fantastic!

My goal with this world is to blend elements of the anime and games, as well as some more realistic touches. It will be an interesting tightrope walk, but I hope I can keep at it.

Updates should be pretty rapid for the first couple chapters, but eventually I'll probably fall into a nice weekly updating routine (hopefully). I'll aim to stay a chapter ahead of the updates so that I can still update if something comes up.

Again, thank you for reading, and any comments would be incredibly helpful!