Chapter 1: Start As You Mean To Go On

"Would you mind if I asked you a question?" The old Pokémon Professor asked, a pleasant smile decorating his features.

Rusty let out a long suffering sigh. They already knew what the professor was going to ask, 'are you a boy or a girl?'

Rusty knew this because this wasn't their first time setting out on an adventure, it definitely wasn't their first time on a Pokémon related one. Rusty was only annoyed because the question constantly made them pause and ask, 'which gender was I again?'

"Sure Prof, go right ahead." Rusty was already flipping a coin in their mind on what gender they were going with.

"What is your name?"

Rusty stopped. They stared at Professor Oak, which was sort of mandatory when standing in a white void, with an expression of pure confusion written across Rusty's face.

"Aren't you going to ask me whether I'm a boy or a girl?"

Now it was the Oak's turn to be confused, "Why would I ask? You're clearly a boy."

Rusty was now experiencing a freak out of sorts, they were staring at their hands in a panic.

"But…what if I want to be a girl?"

Oak's expression suddenly shifted from confused to clearly uncomfortable, "Um, well, I think that is an issue that should be explored on your own time."

Rusty's eyes rolled, "That's not what I'm saying, you quack! There is supposed to be a choice here! You ask me for my gender, then my name. You give me some nice flavour text, then I wake up and question why I'm having dreams about old men asking me what's in my pants!"

Professor Oak had nervously taken a step back at this point, "Hey, watch what you say. I don't want any Officer Jenny's getting the wrong idea about me."

Rusty took a moment to let out a sigh and recollect thoughts that were exploding all over the place, whilst Professor Oak did the same.

"Now I don't know what the other dream professors are doing or saying, but all I want to know is your name. I don't care about your gender."

Rusty's eye began to twitch.

"I have a solution. As there is an absence of the question, I shall assume that gender itself is also absent in relation to me." Rusty slowly developed a coy smile.

"Sorry, but you're going to have to explain that one for me…" Professor Oak let out a defeated sigh.

Normally this was a fairly quick process. He'd ask for a name, a name would be given. He'd forget his grandson's name, they'd remind him of it. It wasn't a perfect system, Oak let out an annoyed chuckle at the amount of times his grandson's name hadn't been favourable.

"Oh yes, I remember now! Asshat was his name. Asshat Oak, you became rivals with him retroactively when you gave him that name!" Oak shook his head at the absurdity of it.

Rusty's eyes developed a mad glint to them, "I am not a man, nor a woman. There will be no he said or she said. No expectations of what colours or Pokémon I'll like. There shall only be…Rusty."

Professor Oak blinked his eyes once, then twice, before asking, "So…your name is Rusty?"

"Yes."

"Well, Rusty, would you mind if I gave you some feedback?"

"Sure."

"You sound like a jackass."

Rusty let out a mirthless chuckle, "Well don't blame the character, blame the author."

The abstract background suddenly shifted from its soft off white to a deep dark blackness that felt soul crushing to look at.

"Hmm." Rusty said looking at the blackness with a little grin, "The author is pissed."

"Well, if that's the case, I'm getting out of dodge. I like living, thank you very much."

Oak cleared his throat and spoke as if he were reading from a script. He commented on how 'Rusty' was a good name, he started talking about his grandson and Rusty had been rivals since they were babies.

"Oh my, I seem to have forgotten my Grandson's name, because I guess that's the kind of absentminded grandparent that I am. Have I told you about my granddaughter? Daisy's her name. She and her brother used to play together a lot. Which is only making my lack of recall on this whole name thing even more glaringly obvious."

"Wait, if your grandson and I have been rivals for so long, shouldn't you know my name?"

"Yes."

"You'd also know my gender, right?"

"That is true, yes."

"Then why did you ask?"

Oak sighed, "Listen here young man-"

"Young person, if you wouldn't mind."

"I swear I'm going to slap you." Oak pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing, "Just…don't question what's going on here. Please?"

Rusty's eyes rolled again, "You were the one that brought up Daisy. How is Kieran doing, anyways?"

Oak stopped and looked up in thought, "Kieran Oak, hmm? It's not the worst name he's ever been given."

Rusty crossed their arms, "In short, I've got a name, your grandson has a name and you failed to ask a very basic question. In response to that last one I'll ask one of my own, what happens now?"

Oak gritted his teeth, "I'm going to get plastered. You? I assume you'll be waking up now."

The void they were in suddenly turned back to white, and it seemed to be brighter. It burned Rusty's eyes with its intensity, until Rusty fell to the ground.

With a sudden jerk Rusty was at home on the bedroom floor.

Rusty looked around the room, it was a mess as usual. Light from the sun pierced through the blinds, giving Rusty a good idea of the time.

Rusty got up, stretched and let out a powerful yawn.

"I really shouldn't drink cola before bed."

Rusty's day was going well. They'd just woken up from a dream that they were sure they were going to relay to a therapist at some point in their future. Shortly after with barely a moment to collect themselves, Rusty was thrown out the house by their mother.

"Professor Oak wanted to see you for some reason, so…get on with it." Were her words, before slamming the door in Rusty's face.

With a sigh, Rusty began the trek to Oak's lab.

Pallet Town was more of a village than a town, if going by its size alone. Large fields stretched out for at least two miles before making contact with a thick tangle of trees. There a handful of houses scattered here and there among the fields.

Rusty's own home was small and surrounded with flowers. Across from Rusty's home was the Oak household, where Professor Oak and his grandchildren went to rest their heads. A short jog way from both of these houses was Professor Oak's lab, a large brick building with large panel windows. One of them was currently boarded up.

Rusty giggled at the memory. There had been incident a while back with an overly excited Charmander that knew flamethrower. It had blasted a hole through the window and burned some important research notes, apparently.

The Professor was so frightened at the idea of future destruction that he handed the Charmander off to the first idiot that would take it.

"Why didn't I take it?" Rusty said aloud, "Charmander's are awesome."

"I prefer Bulbasaur, myself." Rusty glanced in the direction of the intrusion, by the lab's door was Kieran Oak.

"Hey Gary." Rusty waved with a grin.

"It's Kieran." Kieran let out a huff, "What are you doing here, Rusty?"

"Your granddad wanted a word." Rusty smirked, "I think, and I'm not sure what could possibly make me think this, it has something to do with pokémon."

"Oh yeah, no idea where that idea came from." Kieran nodded with mock understanding.

"Speaking of, why are you here?"

"A grandson can't want to hang out with their granddad?" He rolled his eyes, "He's going to give me a pokémon. I'm going to be a trainer."

"A trainer?" Rusty scoffed, "Setting your sights low, aren't you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kieran glared back at Rusty, annoyed at his lifelong rival's opinion.

"I believe in you, Kieran!" Rusty spoke in an overly dramatic tone, "You can be so much more than a piece of foot wear! Like, I don't know, a pair of foot wear at least?"

There was silence between the two rivals for a moment, quickly broken by Rusty as they burst into laughter. Meanwhile, Kieran pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Is this what passes for humour in your life?"

"Yep!" Rusty said before turning around and walking off.

"Hey, where you going?"

"To find the Professor!" Rusty said in excitement.

Rusty thought about the issue at hand. Professor Oak was most likely getting in some last minute research before he needed to meet up with Rusty and Kieran. With that in mind, Rusty made their way towards the trees.

The trees housed many pokémon within, which limited Oak's potential locations to anywhere around the edge of Pallet Town.

"Or, heaven forbid, he might be actually be somewhere unexpected, like his home." Rusty sighed.

Rusty had gotten quite far while following their mental tangent. The smell of grass and pollen assaulted Rusty's nose, the wind and sounds of wild pokémon met Rusty's ears.

"Hello Rusty, I take it you got bored waiting? Well, fine, I'm done here anyways." Rusty spun around on the spot, so that they could stare at Oak in shock.

"Oak."

"Yes?" The older man chuckled.

"You're here. You're not supposed to…I sense a disturbance in the plot." Rusty's hand went to their forehead, nursing a developing headache.

"The only disturbance here would be you, young person."

"Gonna need a burn heal for that one," Rusty rolled their eyes, "Speaking of the plot, let's get to that. To the lab!"

Rusty set off back towards the lab, Professor Oak followed behind sighing all the way.

"Hey Gramps! You got my pokémon?" Kieran spoke with an excited tone as he saw Oak and Rusty approaching the lab.

Despite Kieran's excitement, Oak was baffled.

"What are you doing here, Kieran? I said I'd give it to you later."

Kieran huffed, "I don't want to wait, I want it now!"

"Careful there, Kieran, we might be hit with a copyright strike if you continue." Rusty spoke absently as they bounced back and forth on the balls of their feet, off in their own world.

Grandfather and son stared at Rusty with blank expressions on their faces, before sighing in unison.

"You know what? I was going to give this to you, Rusty, but you've forced me to reconsider. Here Kieran, go nuts."

Oak threw a pokéball to his grandson, who caught it with childish glee. Kieran pressed the button and threw it, releasing a fluffy brown and tan creature into the world.

The creature looked around in surprise, before looking up at Kieran and bouncing around in excitement.

"Oh my gosh, hey! I'm an eevee, you can call me…" The eevee stopped bouncing around before glancing up in thought, "Okay, I don't have a name, we'll have to work on that."

Rusty blinked their eyes.

"Okay, pause!"

The world around Rusty faded to white.

Rusty looked straight up, a look of confusion on his features.

"Lord Helix be damned, this is trippy."

A twitch reference? We're only one chapter in and we're already scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Rusty blinked, "Author, is that you?"

Not answering that. What do you want?

"Just making sure, are we in a story with pokémon speaking English?"

Yeah…why?

"That talking eevee freaked me out is all. Quite terrifying, actually."

…are we done here?

Rusty put a hand to their chin in thought, "Yeah, we're done."

Swell.

The world returned, Rusty glanced back to Kieran who seemed to be overflowing with childish glee.

"An eevee? This is going to be awesome!" Kieran let out a cheer. The eevee looked confused for a second before joining the cheer.

"Hmm, eevees are cool and all, but we're in gen 1 Kanto." Rusty shrugged their shoulders, "Not my favourite eeveelutions, to be honest."

"Can't let me have anything can you?" Kieran huffed as Rusty nodded their head in agreement, "We've got Jolteon, though."

"Touché." Rusty turned to Oak, "Do you still have pokémon for me to choose from?"

Oak rolled his eyes, "I've got one pokémon to spare. It's not been tamed yet, so be careful."

Oak handed Rusty a pokéball with a little lightening symbol above the button.

Rusty blinked their eyes, before staring at Kieran's eevee and back at the lightening symbol on their pokéball.

"This is Pokémon Yellow." Rusty muttered in pure horror.

Kieran and Professor Oak glanced at each other, nodded, then went back to what they were doing.

"This is going to end so badly…" Rusty mumbled under their breath. They slowly began to walk towards the front door, needing desperately to be alone.

"Hey Rusty, where ya going? We gotta test out our new pals, right?"

Rusty stopped, glanced back at Kieran and began to cry.

Kieran blinked his eyes in confusion.

"Your friend is weird. Are they okay?" Eevee asked its partner.

"That they are." Kieran pinched his noise in annoyance, "That they are."

Eevee let out a sigh, "That doesn't really answer my question."

Rusty clicked the pokéball's button and dropped it. In a flash of crimson light, a yellow mouse with rosy red cheeks appeared.

The Pikachu smirked as it appeared, "I sense pain, and it is glorious."

Rusty glanced at the mouse, the mouse starred back with its gleeful smirk.

"Name?"

"Flash, Flash the Pikachu."

"Hmm," Rusty sighed, "I'm going home, find me after the fight."

"What?" The entire rooms minus Rusty asked in various degrees of shock.

Rusty knelt down and whispered to Flash, "Kieran's a bit of a moron, keep using thunder shock till the eevee is down."

Flash began to giggle menacingly, "Got it, boss…"

Rusty left at that point, even as the sound of lightening rose higher behind them.

Rusty walked home and sat down by the front door, taking shaky breaths as they glanced at the clear blue sky.

"Any reviews this thing gets are going to be soul crushing."

I give my thanks to anyone that read this. Please consider sharing your thoughts, be they good or bad. Its the only way I'll improve.

I'd like to note that I'm not trying to make fun of gender identity. Rusty is merely an insane abstract voice in my head that I have given form for the purpose of bad comedy.

Next time: Rusty and Flash leave Pallet Town.