Welcome, everyone. This is my first legitimately original Pokemon story that is not based on a dream or film, be it theatrical or television. Rather than being based on the anime, this is based on the video games with perhaps some influence from the manga "Pokemon Adventures." Enjoy and review.

Professor Maple

Professor Maple was sixty years old, twice married and the leading authority on Pokemon in the Leontopolis region, which had no unique Pokemon of its own causing it to be considered the "Boring Region" by Pokemon professors but even then they put it more kindly.

Standing in his lab, the sixty-year old professor stared proudly at the pokeball on his desk. He had caught it! He had caught it where all others had failed! He had gone to Hoenn and he had—

"Dad, are you here?"

Professor Maple jumped. He had not been expecting his fourteen-year old daughter Sanguine to come in. Looking in the mirror, he realized he had only partially shaved his brown beard before he had gotten completely distracted.

"I'll be right down, sweetie!" he called, his voice distinctively low-pitched. He ran into the upstairs washroom of his lab, grabbed a towel and quickly wiped the shaving cream off his face. Once he had done that he ran out of the washroom and past his computer, and thus past the chair that his lab coat was on. At the top of the stairs he paused and stared at the lab coat. Put it on? Don't put in on? It was just his daughter! She had seen him without his lab coat on many times so it really didn't matter. Thus did he walk down the stairs wearing his golf shirt, blue jeans and sandals but not his lab coat!

Upon reaching the midpoint of the stairs he froze. Damask, his neighbor's son, and Vermeil, his grandson from his son from his first marriage, were waiting with Sanguine. Immediately a ticking sound started going off in his head. Get his lab coat? Don't get his lab coat? What was he to do? He then realized they had seen him without it before after all one was his neighbor the other his grandson so it really didn't matter.

All three were fourteen years old. Damask and Sanguine were redheads while Vermeil was dark blond and they all had lean bodies. In skin tone and eye color they were all completely different. When it came to eye color Damask's were blue, Sanguine's were red and Vermeil's were golden. As for skin tone Damask was ruddy, Sanguine was light and Vermeil was pale.

Damask, the fourteen-year old son of a gym leader… A father he had not seen in ten years, not since Damask's mother had walked out on his father, taking Damask with her and so had they come to Silent Hills. He was wearing a red shirt without a collar and a gold stripe across the middle, a short-sleeved red Vermeilet with gold sleeves and collar, blue jeans and brown shoes. His hair was short, his eyes big and there was a smile on his face. Professor Maple had always liked the boy it was just too bad he and Vermeil had been rivals ever since kindergarten.

Sanguine, Professor Maple's daughter from his second marriage was a beautiful girl, the spitting image of her mother with her waist length red hair. She was wearing a white headband, a white choker of fake pearls, a white strapless dress that went down to her knees and had a cyan sash going around the waist, a white and cyan bracelet on her white wrist and white… ballet shoes? Professor Maple had never understood why she wore those.

And then there was Vermeil, son of Jute, Professor Maple's son from his first marriage who had walked out on his wife and son and completely left Silent Hills nine years ago. Vermeil's attire consisted of a brown long sleeved shirt, a brown sweatshirt with a gold hood, brown pants, brown shoes and a brown fedora. His expression consisted of a cruel look in his eye and an ever-present sneer. Vermeil was something of a blackguard towards Damask and Sanguine and no matter how often Professor Maple told him to behave himself he would always revert back to his mean-spirited ways towards them.

"Hi, Professor Maple!" greeted Damask. "How are you today?"

"Very good, Damask. I feel like a genie that has been let out of the lamp for the first time in ten thousand years! I am nothing more than happy" Said Professor Maple. "What brings you three here today?"

Vermeil shook his head and commented: "That is just like you, Gramps. Always forgetting. We are here to pick our starter Pokemon, now where are there?"

"Well…" Professor Maple grimaced as he realized he had forgotten something: he only had two starters to give away. "Come on up, kids. I'll get you taken care of!" He led the three up to the second floor of his lab and went to get the two starter Pokemon he had acquired: one was one the usual starters while the other was most unusual. The moment he turned around he saw Vermeil heading back down the stairs. "Vermeil, wait! Where are you going?"

"Smell you later, Gramps!"

Professor Maple just stood there before shrugging. He turned to Sanguine and said: "For you, sweetie, a Turtwig." He handed his daughter one of the pokeballs and then turned to Damask, a nervous look on his face. "And for you, Damask… uh… Something I can assure is not something that is usually given by professors as starters… Because I caught it just this morning when I was out on my walk. It is…"

NOTES

1. Keeping with the theme naming of the professors in the west we have Professor Maple, who I'd guess is hardly a new character to have been thought up but there are only so many species of trees. He is a bit of a combination of Oak, being grandfather of Damask's rival Vermeil, and Birch, being the father of female lead Sanguine. Due to his age you could also say he has a bit of Rowan in him but I don't think age is enough for him to qualify as a combination of all three. The distinctively low-pitched voice comes from Robin Williams.

2. Damask, Vermeil and Sanguine are reference to how the player characters usually have "Version names."

3. Silent Hills was the early name for New Bark Town.