Subside
Prologue

He was tempted to poke it, so he poked it.

"Magik-" It said lazily, as it flopped around on land. Surprisingly enough to Isaac, it could survive on land.

Three hours ago, at the age of fifteen, Isaac Tayor had set off to become a Pokemon Trainer. He knew he shouldn't have expected much - he was born to be a jack of all trades, with an average ability in everything he ever tried, not ever being exceptional at anything, earning him the nickname of 'I-suck Tayor'. Of course, he knew it wasn't true - he didn't suck, but he wasn't good at anything either.

But never did he ever think that he would be so unlucky to gain a Magikarp as his starter Pokemon. Either he did something really bad in the past, or karma owed him a large debt.

Understandably, Cerulean City was not one where many trainers started from, so by the time he got there all the reasonably good Pokemon had been taken - and he was left with Magikarp.

Like all beginner trainers, Isaac was brought up with the ideals of 'love and compassion and the Kanto way!' imprinted in his mind, making him believe that he could genuinely train Magikarp to be strong - though like everything else, that idea had been destroyed over the past three hours when he had started his journey. Along with that, it didn't help that everyone who watched him go off on his journey kept on commenting about how one day, the weak Magikarp will evolve into a strong Gyarados later.

"Magikarp." Isaac flipped open his blue Pokedex once again, and listened as the Pokedex went over Magikarp's statistics.

"Great. Absolutely great." Isaac groaned sarcastically, as he laid down on the grass, next to Magikarp, who had reduced himself to a state of absolute stillness which forced Isaac to check if he was still alive or not.

Isaac had happily left home three hours ago, with his shoulder bag packed, and dressed in his favorite pair of grey pants and a blue shirt, decorated with the design of a Pokeball on it, but now he couldn't care less about gym badges or even getting to the next city. He fiddled with the magnetic strap on his shoulder bag, fitted to hold up to six Pokeballs. "At least you learnt how to tackle." Isaac said to Magikarp, who groaned in reply.

Right now, Isaac was in an unfamiliar forest, on what he thought was the way to Vermillion City. Then again, everything that he had been going through over the past couple of hours had been unfamiliar. He didn't even have a sense of direction, and he was pretty sure the map on his Pokedex was faulty - it was his fault for requesting the cheap standard one from the lab.

"Hey, you!" A voice called out, and Isaac lazily sat up, his brown hair a mess, as his own green eyes met the girl's brown. And as he rubbed his eyes and adjusted his eyesight, only one thought was going through his mind - she was wearing tight short-shorts.

"What?" He groaned lazily, trying to stop staring at her. He had to admit though, she was pretty. Pretty hot. She had shoulder-length black hair and brown eyes, her slender frame was dressed in a tight blue t-shirt and black short-shorts. She looked around the same age as Isaac, and was a little shorter, but something about her intimidated Isaac - be it her proud stance and posture, her tone of voice or the fact that she had three gym badges attached to her shirt.

"Can I interest you in a battle?" She asked, eyeing his Magikarp with glee, knowing that he'd be an easy win and an easy way to get money.

"Can I interest you into turning around and going back to wherever you came from?" Isaac answered the question with another question - though she was good-looking, he wasn't going to get up just to get his ass kicked.

"That's not how you talk to a lady, dickhead." She muttered loud enough for Isaac to hear.

"Eh," Isaac just yawned in reply, he knew her second resort had turned to bullying him into a battle, but he wouldn't be pressured into it. Instead, he just fell back to the ground next to his Magikarp. "Challenge - rejected."

"You owe me a battle!" The more the girl started demanding of him, the more Isaac became annoyed - he didn't leave home just to once again be given orders. Then again, he didn't actually leave home willingly - he was kicked out.

"I don't owe you anything, you owe me my relaxation time."

"My name's Fiona, by the way." She had decided to change her strategy to flattery. For some reason, she found herself wanting to battle the boy more and more. "What's yours?"

" Dover." Isaac lied.

" Dover? What kind of name is that?"

"You didn't let me finish. That's my last name, my name's Ben." Isaac held a giggle inside, as she slowly figured out the joke.

"Ben Dover? Bend over? You're disgusting!" Fiona yelled.

"I'm not disgusting, I'm Ben." Even Isaac had to admit - that joke was kind of lame, but then again, humor wasn't one of his strong points, even though nothing else was his strong point either. "Seriously though, my name's Mike Rotch."

"Mike Rotch? Wait. My crotch?" By this time Fiona was frustrated, but annoyingly she was finding herself slightly amused.

"Honestly, it's Isaac Tayor." Isaac admitted, but Fiona didn't want to be fooled again.

"Isaac Tayor. I-suck?"

"Please don't call me that. Seriously, look at my trainer card." Using the infrared connection, Isaac linked his Pokedex with hers, and their trainer cards appeared on each others Pokedex's - something Isaac wished he hadn't done. Her name was Fiona Tate, and her trainer card showed she had won three badges - one from Vermillion, and two from Johto. She carried four Pokemon with her, a Bayleef, a Pichu, a Graveller and a Sneasel. Isaac was very glad that he didn't battle her.

"A Magikarp?" She laughed. "That's the only Pokemon you have?"

"I lucked out." Isaac admitted, staring at Magikarp. "He's not that bad though, he learnt how to tackle pretty quickly."

"It took half a day to train Sunny, my Bayleef, to learn Razor Leaf." Fiona said proudly, as Isaac just groaned. She invited herself to sit down next to him, and just stared at him. "You know, of all the Kanto trainers I've met so far, something about you is quite different."

"I'm still not going to battle you." Isaac replied.

"Maybe it's because you need to shave." She thought out loud, looking at the stubble around his mouth. "Or maybe it's because your more tanned than any of the other trainers I've met so far."

"Can you please stop talking like that? It's making me uncomfortable." Isaac said, and he immediately stood up, walking backwards, as Magikarp flopped after him. As he walked back, something snagged on his foot, and he tripped and fell backwards.

"Ha!" Fiona laughed at him, and once again, Isaac had to adjust his eyes to figure out that he tripped over something round and hard. Deciding to recall Magikarp, he took out his Pokeball and absent-mindedly pointed it to take back Magikarp. He heard the noise, saw the light, and heard the click as his Pokeball shrunk back to its normal size, but when he stood up, he noticed something.

Magikarp was still outside, standing next to Fiona - meaning some random Pokemon had willingly jumped into his Pokeball.

"You just caught that Pokemon that tripped you up? Wow. If that was me I would've simply made the Pokemon faint as pay-back." Fiona stated, further confirming Isaac's idea of how arrogant she was. Isaac ignored the rest of her boasting and continued to register the Pokemon on his Pokedex.

"But then again, my answer to your next question is 'yes', I will be your traveling companion and mentor." She announced to end her self-appraisals.

"What?"

"You heard me, I've decided to help you." She said, and Isaac just sighed to himself.

"So, let me get this right, you're just going to follow me around Kanto?"

"Well if you really insist…" Fiona said, and Isaac knew he immediately had gotten into some trouble with this devil of a woman. Isaac sighed, typical of his luck to stumble onto a pretty girl, with a crappy personality.

"Whatever." Isaac shrugged, accepting another defeat at the hands of Fate.

Isaac lowered his head as he realized that in the space of 10 minutes he had gained a new Pokemon – Sandshrew – and a new companion. All by accident.

A/N: To quote Teddy Maynard "Boredom's not a burden anyone should bare." This came from an idea of how much it would suck to get a Magikarp as your first Pokemon, without any other Pokemon for it to mooch experience from, along with the fact that the person to get the Magikarp must be very unlucky.