Pokemon
Ash Ketchum: Sharp as steel
Disclaimer: I do no own Pokemon.
Chapter 1:
Ash Ketchum was a fairly ordinary child. He looked completely ordinary. He had a slight tan, spiky black hair, and light brown eyes. He was of average height and weight for a five year old. He was not stupid, but nor was he smart.
He was not studious so what intelligence he did have was squandered. He was not the most popular kid, but nor was he unpopular. He was easy going and fun to hang out with so, he did have a handful of close friends, and many other loose acquaintances. These associates took up the majority of his time, and thus why he didn't study as much as he should have.
It was a trade off. He could choose to study, but doing so would mean he would have less time for his friends. They would then undoubtedly leave him for someone more interesting, like Gary Oak. He could choose not to study, which was bad for all the self evident reasons. That said, his score for math would not matter much once he became a pokemon trainer, would it?
Thus he did not study.
Despite his easy going and fun nature, he was not uncorruptible. Nothing that would make Arceus choose him as the chosen one to lead man kind into a new golden age. In one world, this would not matter.
Why?
Even with all of Ash's faults, he was still a hell lot better than the other humans. That is not to say that all other humans were evil or hell bent on destroying the world. Far from it.
Lets look at another child Ash's age for a second.
Gary Oak was already shaping up to be a superb trainer. He was the grandson of the famed pokemon researcher, Samuel Oak, and the son of the former Kanto champion Blue Oak.
He was anything but ordinary. He had experience working with pokemon already, having live on Oak Pokemon ranch, and saw quite a variety of them. While living with his grandfather, he had learnt a lot about pokemon already. This was in addition to his natural talent and higher than average intelligence.
If you were to write down the qualities of Ash and Gary in list form and compare them, Gary would seem like a better choice for someone to save the world.
That is before you consider Gary's attitude. Gary knew full well how great he was. He heard it everyday from the people of Pallet town for it wasn't often that a genius of Gary's caliber was born in the sleepy little town. In him, the people of Pallet saw a chance at more fame. More fame meant more tourists. More tourists meant more business, which led to more money.
Needless to say, Gary was pampered beyond belief. Indeed, it would be highly probable for Gary to go up to a legendary pokemon and demand it allow itself to be captured by him, and go onto a tirade as to how the pokemon should be honored.
If you consider saving the world a game, the majority of the world would be neutral, even though there fates would be determined by the battle. The bad guys would be the regional criminals, while the good guy would be the champion.
Gary would be a better competitor in the game, but he would be a terrible champion. With the power and influence that saving the world would give him, the damage he would do would would be irreversible. It would not matter if the bad guys lost, for evil would prevail anyway.
Arceus's decision to make Ash his champion of all that was light and right did not mean that he was in any way qualified to be the champion, it simply meant that everyone else was less qualified to be the champion, even if they would be the best competitor.
Arceus had closely analyzed everything he could do, and the rules that bound him. Long ago, him and the other legendaries decided that there must be boundaries for there powers lest they grow arrogant and tyrannical.
They held a conference and created a set of laws, also know called 'The Ancient Laws'.
Among these laws was that a legendary must not directly interfere with the human and pokemon realms unless attacked by a pokemon or human.
That said he couldn't wait until the humans finally got around to attack him for by then, it would already be too late.
Thus, Arceus made do with what he had. His champion chosen, Arceus decided to look closely at every possible future that his champion had. Most humans had a fifty-fifty chance of turning evil. Ash had twenty-eighty chance. Arceus would be indirectly influencing the future at all times to make sure that Ash did not turn evil further lowering the twenty percent chance that Ash had of turning evil to a measly one percent.
The future Arceus intended for his champion was simple. He would grow up an ordinary child with friends and a caring mother. No reason to lash out and become evil. Then on ht day he would gain his starter pokemon, a few months after his tenth birthday, he would accidentally sleep in and gain a pikachu starter. The ordinary three starters all had too many faults.
The Charmander available was too loyal. For a normal trainer this would not be a bad thing. Indeed, having a loyal pokemon would be a very good thing. The problem with it is that that loyalty would prevent Charmander from correcting Ash should he make a mistake, like joining Team Rocket for instance. If Ash did something stupid or evil, Charmander would go along with it. That would not do.
The Squirtle on the other hand was too greedy if you will. It would not bother to stop Ash from making a mistake like going evil if it meant more power. If he believed that they were being hindered by burdens, it would try to dispose of them, otherwise, what id it matter what side Ash was on?
The Bulbasaur had its own set of problems. To start of with, this particular Bulbasuar was cowardly. It would bolt at the first sight of danger. Ash would be facing some pretty scary scenario's in the future, thus why Bulbasaur was out of the running.
Pikachu on the other hand had a strong moral set. Back when Pikachu was a Pichu, its home was destroyed by team rocket and its berthen was captured. It had a pretty solid motivation for not allowing Ash to stray from the side of light. His bond to Pikachu would less like a bond and more of a chain.
After he had assured Ash would stay in the light, he would make sure that Ash would be ready to fight evil by constantly throwing obstacles at him. In order to make sure that he did not grow too big a head, he would influence some events against his favor, such as the Indigo League. Failures would keep him humble.
Yet for all his scheming, Arceus could do nothing more than despair as his carefully planned schemes crumbled. Bound by the ancient laws, he could only watch as Ash witnessed a few team rocket grunts, five at most, alight his house with his mother inside. Emphasis on witness. Ash knew that this wasn't a freak accident. His mom had been murdered
As one of the rocket grunts finally noticed Ash's presence and yelled, "Get him," Ash bolted off running.
For a second Arceus wondered who to help. Ash was at sixty-forty on the 'Chance that someone will go evil' scale. He would be way too jaded to be a bastion of light and goodness after seeing his mom killed.
That said, there was also the fact that it was team rocket that killed his mom. This meant that there was a chance that his plan might be salvageable. While Ash was no longer the ideal choice of champion, he was still better than most.
Thus, Arceus started guiding Ash, not at all a difficult task. He mainly started making sure that Ash was heading towards Viridian city. He doubted that the rocket goons would dare murder Ash in plane sight.
In addition, Arceus started guiding Ash into parts of the route that had more trees. Parts that the smaller frame of a child would have no trouble maneuvering, but an adult would. When even that proved insufficient, Arceus threw off the lead goons time just a tiny bit, and a root that he had planned to step over tripped him, and the other four goons tripped over him with more than one foul curses.
Ash dared not look back as he continued running tears streaming down his face and feared induced adrenaline coursed through his veins as Arceus lead him through the shortest paths to Viridian city.
Despite all this, Ash was still a five year old, so was it any surprise that he passed out unconscious after another half an hour, approximately three fourths of the way to Viridian City?
Understandable or not, the end result was a defenseless, unconscious five year old in a forest full of hungry pokemon. Coincidentally, Arceus had almost reached the maximum of how much it could help Ash and he had not even begun his journey. Perfect.
Using the last of the leeway he had been granted when it came to helping his champion, he placed a weak ward that would repel both humans and pokemon from his champion for the next nine hours, and implanted a knowledge of world geography, and how to tell which way was north, south, east, or west in such a way that it would seem to him that he had always known.
With this done, Arceus's mind was finally pulled back into his body, unable to interfere in Ash's life any more. Now, more than ever, his throne room seemed more of a gilded cage than anything else.
When Ash finally came to, it was exactly seven hours after he had passed out, meaning he had two hours before the wards protecting him expired, not that he knew that. Indeed, the first thing Ash did upon waking up was stare at his surroundings uncomprehendingly.
The second thing he did was burst into tears as the memories of the previous night came rushing back to him. It was a good half an hour later that his wails died won into sniffles, before dying out completely.
Then came the anger. Ash spent the next half an hour abusing an innocent tree, cursing the divine for the hand he was dealt. If only he knew just how powerless the divine actually was.
After the anger came... something else.
Perhaps in another world Ash would have decided to wallow in self pity and all the other connected emotions for another hour, before joining his beloved mother in death thanks to a particularly hungry Fearow.
In this world his anger didn't extinguish, it simply died down. Ash decided that nothing could be accomplished by standing around here, and with a glance at the sun, faced south to head back to Pallet town, before pausing.
Did he want to go back to Pallet town? The entirety of Pallet town would only serve to be a reminder of his loss. All of his friends had complete families. Moms, dads, some even had brothers and sisters. What did he have know? What was waiting for him back in Pallet?
His house was gone, and Ash doubted that anything would be left there by the time that the fire was put out. In terms of material possessions there was nothing left. In terms of spiritual connections, nothing was left.
What would he do with his life? So, it was at the tender age of five that Ash had to answer 'What was his purpose?'
What did he live for?
For as long as Ash had remembered, he had wanted to be a pokemon master. He had wanted the fame and glory that came with being at the top of the pokemon pantheon. To , gbe a champion of champions, but now...
A quick look at the brain structure of a five year old human would reveal exactly why Ash was not more angry about his mothers death and more worried off about what he would do with his life.
Before the age of five, children hold no idea of empathy or kindness. Indeed, babies are not angels, but they could pass as devils. Empathy is controlled by anterior insular cortex, which gets bigger and more complex as you grow older.
This is why babies laugh at someone else's pain. They simply aren't developed enough to comprehend that they wouldn't be laughing if they were in his shoes, so to speak. At age five, Ash's anterior insular cortex was a lot more developed than a babies, enough to grasp the concept of death, but not much more than that.
Thus, why everything else was centered around him.
He was not angry at losing a house, but losing his house, for that house was his. Where was he supposed to sleep now?
He was not angry at losing a mother, but losing his mother, for she was his. Who was supposed to cook for him now? Who would keep him entertained? Clean after him? He didn't think about the pain she went though being burned alive.
Thus why, when he swore to kill every member of team rocket there was, for he dimly remembered the lead rocket saying, "halt in the name of Team Rocket," he was not thinking abut his mother, but simply that he needed something to do.
Ash decided that he would live to kill every rocket member in the world.
Doing an about face, he headed north to Viridian city. The journey of a thousand miles began with a step, and this was the first step for Ash.
Authors Note:
Finally Done :) Okay, as you can guess from the title, Ash will be a steel type specialist. That said, he will also get a lot of dual types, like Sytcher is a bug type, but evolves into a scizor, which is a steel and bug type.
The reason I chose Viridian is because Ash will end up in an orphanage and be enrolled into the trainers school.