Alas, welcome to my humble fanfic.

Rated T for language and possible gore in later chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Derp.

I; Let's Begin

It was on a Saturday morning that a little girl of five realized how perfect her name was for her.

Normally, when the girl watched cartoons during the weekends, she stuck to Disney channel. They were her favorites, after all. It was only due to the fact that an episode began showing that had she seen for most likely the hundredth time that she flipped to a different channel. The show that was playing?

None other than Pokemon, of course.

And as this girl watched the crazy little antics of Ash and his friends unfold before her on the screen – Brock swooning over all the pretty girls, Misty diligently keeping him in check, Team Rocket blasting off into space, and most of all Ash and Pikachu never failing to save the day and making the girl smile a grin so huge that her face ached afterward... Well, the girl fell in love. With all of it.

And why was it that from that point on this girl's name suddenly seemed like the best thing in the world to her?

Because her name was Ash.

Ashlyn, really. But that's beside the point.

A sly grin crept onto her lips. "Game over."

She watched with amusement as her opponent's health bar slowly depleted and then blink out of existence. She rose to her feet, one fist punching the air in victory, the other clutching the DS and waving it tauntingly in her opponent's face.

"Ok Ash, we all get it. You won. Now sit down before we get kicked out of the library, you idiot."

Ashlyn stuck her tongue out at him as she took her seat. "Seriously Leo, that was pitiful. Your team was stronger than mine and I still won. I told you that Nidoking was a beast."

The dark-haired boy waved away her words with his hand and leaned back in his chair, sighing. They had been talking about this battle for weeks, but both had been forced to keep putting it off because of their active schedules. And now that he had just lost after all the smack talk they had delivered to each other… Well, he needed a few moments for a breather.

He noticed that neither one had progressed the dialogue after the final blow had been dealt and he couldn't resist the idea that popped into his head. In one quick movement, he pressed the off button on his DS and prepared for the worst.

It took her a few seconds to realize what had happened, and Leo braced himself to sprint out the door for the throttling that he was sure to receive. But surprisingly enough, she laughed, completely and totally amused.

"You little fucker," she happily told him after her laughter ceased.

He shrugged his shoulders and grinned, a gesture that said 'I try.'

They lapsed into a comfortable silence as Ashlyn exited the multiplayer room and saved her game. Leo watched her, his gaze lazily traveling over her features. Long, chocolate brown hair, blemish free skin, and the most entrancing eyes he had ever seen on any person. As if she were reading his thoughts, she looked up and met his gaze. An amused grin spread on her lips.

"I know, I'm beautiful. Now as we agreed, you're going to treat me to lunch. Right? Right."

Before he could protest either statement, she was already making her way toward the exit, skipping happily part of the way there. She stopped at the doors and stared him down, willing him to hurry faster. Ever the gentleman, he stopped completely in his tracks, a cheeky grin plastered onto his face. Although he began to feel the daggers from her stare, he gave her a little wave and stuck his tongue out at her. They each stood like this for a minute or so, before Ashlyn was forced to concede and had to move out of the doorway so somebody could enter.

At her defeat, Leo smiled happily at his small victory and pranced over to where she was. Still smiling that pleasantly annoying little grin, he did what she had wanted him to do that whole time and held the door open for her. When she didn't move, he bowed and gestured with a little flourish of the hand. That was what moved her.

"Thank you, sir," she said haughtily as she walked out of the exit with her chin arrogantly held high.

"Of course, madam. Is there anything else I could do for you on this fine day?" His voice slipped into a slight accent as he said this while he trailed dutifully at her side.

"I would like to dine somewhere, as I requested earlier." She reached the street where cars were busily racing pass.

"I terribly apologize madam, but your servant is a lowly fool who has barely enough money to feed his starving family."

Ash barked out a laugh. "And who's fault is that?"

"Yours, madam."

Without a moment's hesitation, Ash whipped around and mock slapped him. Leo stealthily clapped at the exact moment her hand flew by his face, making a convincing scene to anybody who happened to be watching, which actually turned out to be a few people at the moment. He fell sprawling to the ground, clutching his 'injured' cheek.

"Insolent fool. Now get off your lazy ass and clear the street for me."

He hurriedly got up to do her bidding, nodding furiously and apologizing profusely. Leo stood at the edge of the street as a car went by, and then walked to the middle of the street and stood his ground on the striped lines. As if he were a policeman, he held both arms out with his palms flat out and facing each direction. A car threatened to just go on anyway, but Leo took a step into its lane, forcing it to stop.

Ashlyn took the moment to begin crossing, doing her part to look as high and mighty as possible. Although a few cars had been honking at Leo, the noise increased tenfold as drivers realized what joke the two teenagers were trying to pull. As soon as Ash was safely on the other side, Leo sprinted to the sidewalk. They caught each other's eyes and immediately broke out into laughter.

Someone who they vaguely recognized from their grade began clapping, and Leo bowed extravagantly as Ash curtsied with her imaginary skirts.

When their laughs finally began to fade away, a low grumble erupted from Ash's stomach. A faint red tinge colored her face and Leo couldn't help but chuckle.

She pursed her lips in annoyance. "Oh, I wouldn't be laughing if I were you. I wasn't kidding when I said you were paying for my lunch."

Ash sipped her coffee delicately, a smug look touching upon her features. At the other side of the table was where Leo was sitting, moodily glaring down at his hands. Every so often he would glance up and meet a pair of eyes that would crinkle with amusement. He would immediately stare back down and fiddle his fingers.

After their little show, they had found their way to the local Dunkin Donuts. It was there that Leo once again insisted he didn't have enough money for both of them to have something. As such, Ashlyn was the only one who ended up getting a drink, leaving Leo thirsty and broke.

Although sometimes it was annoying, Ash found his little mood swings absolutely adorable. She knew there was no real bad blood between them – she wasn't even sure if that was possible – and besides, he was a man. Men are supposed to do chivalrous things for ladies, including buying them a drink with the money they had left. She giggled at the absurdity of her logic. Leo looked up once more, raising an eyebrow that clearly questioned her sanity. She smiled and waved it off.

Once Ash had finished her coffee, making sure to loudly slurp whatever remained, she tossed it in the trash and lounged lazily at her chair. Leo leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands.

"What now?" he questioned, sounding slightly bored.

She mimicked his position, and considering how small the table was, they were nearly nose to nose. Suddenly, her eyes brightened as an idea lit her mind.

"Oh, I know what we should do," she purred, leaning even closer to his face.

"Tell me." His voice was low and husky as he searched her eyes. In this light, they were a bright green.

Ash leaned toward his ear, breathing lightly against his skin. They were both mindful of the fact that they were in a public place. "How about I…"

"Go on," he urged, his hand reaching toward his pants.

The next words that Ash spoke were directly next to his ear. "Kick your ass again in a rematch?"

At the same moment, they both pulled back, smiling wickedly. Leo slipped his DS out from his front pants pocket as Ash opened her purse to retrieve hers. The few customers in line and some of the staff behind the counter either had expressions of relief or absolute horror on their faces.

And it amused both Ash and Leo to no end.

By the time the sun had begun to set, Ash and Leo were walking home. Actually, it was more like Leo was escorting Ash home, but practically a second home to him nonetheless.

Ash's house was your average thing – a split-level home with a flowering garden in front. The inside was cozy and filled with comfortable couches, quaint decorations, and family pictures, of which Leo himself was in a few. Ash's mom was sitting in the dining room reading a book, and both teenagers greeted her as Mom. They were heading towards Ash's room, and her mom had no objection to that. Although they had never said it directly to her, she had clearly noticed that there was no romance between them, despite their little shows of affection.

Inside Ash's room, Leo immediately made himself comfortable on the bed, pausing only once to take off his shoes. The room itself was dominated by a queen-sized bed, which although was pushed off to a corner of the wall, was the immediate object of focus. On the opposite corner was a desk with a few personal objects resting on it. One of these was a picture of Ash and Leo that had been taken a year before during the summer before they became sophomore. In the picture, he had one arm around her shoulders pulling her close and Ash had her arms wrapped his waist, both beaming smiles at the camera. The sun had changed Ash's eyes to a hazel while Leo's blue eyes shone brightly. If a stranger were to look at the picture, they would have easily thought that the two were a couple.

"Mind if I sleep over tonight?" Leo asked as he rolled around on the bed.

Taking off her own shoes, Ash plopped onto the bed and sat roughly on his back, knocking the breath out of him. "Do you even need to ask?"

He chuckled as he squirmed his way out from underneath her and headed towards the dresser. One drawer had been cleared specifically for him, which included spare clothes, toiletries, and other things of the sort. He began to take his shirt off, only bothering to face away from Ash as she rolled so she was looking in the opposite direction as well. She knew when he was done because he simple plopped into the bed next to her.

"Oh no, no, no. You're sleeping on the floor," she chided, immediately straining to push him off the bed. And failing miserably.

"Oh, c'mon! But you're bed is so much more comfortable," he pleaded, voice raising a notch as he put on his best puppy dog eyes.

Ash rolled her eyes in exasperation at his whining as Leo allowed her to push him off the bed and then shepherd him toward the door. "Let me change." With that said, she closed the door on him and turned the lock.

Outside, there was a pitiful moaning noise as Leo began wailing out his miseries.

"It's so cold on the floor…"

"I'll be lonely…"

"Oh look, it's King. C'mere boy, give me your warmth…"

A breath of exasperation left her as Ash pulled on her last bit of nightwear and stalked over to the door. Oh why exactly did she put up with him? When she opened it, she was met with the site of Leo desperately trying to cuddle with her German Shepard. "Oh god, if you stop molesting my dog I'll let you sleep in my bed."

Leo bounced up to his feet for some reason still holding King. He struggled to hold the squirming dog in his hands and was soon forced to put him down.

She huffed at the treatment of her dog, but said nothing. King was just as used to it as she was. Ash picked a book off her table and plopped onto her bed and turned on a lamp. "Now here's the situation," she began, staring sternly at Leo. He smiled innocently at her as he made himself comfortable on the opposite end of her bed. "I am going to read. You are going to be quiet. Once I'm done, I will peacefully go to sleep as if you were never here." Ash paused, making sure that he had understood it all. "Got it?"

"Got it." To emphasize this, he mimed zipping his mouth shut. Although that sly, devilish grin that he had just zipped said otherwise.

But surprising enough to Ash, he kept true to his word. The only time he spoke was when he asked for a book so he could read as well. An hour or so later, Ash called it quits and turned out the light.

Although it was fall, the body heat from Leo made it warm enough so that she eventually kicked off the sheets. Of course, he immediately pulled them back up. A minute later after some struggling, Ash was resting on top of her sheets with Leo pinned beneath them. Just an ordinary night.

Several minutes later, a soft voice snapped Ash out of her doze. She flinched as if someone had made a lunge to punch her and opened her eyes wide in confusion. She was met with Leo's soft gaze inches from her own, slightly apologetic at disturbing her.

"Yes, Leo?"

His gaze lingered on her for a moment, and then he looked away. "Never mind."

She was tempted to press him, but the look on his face before he rolled onto his other side told her that he wasn't ready to talk. Damn bastard, ruining her sleep for nothing. She would have throttled anybody else but for Leo, well, she would let them both get their rest.

Because although they didn't know it, tomorrow, they would need it.

Ash awoke to numbness in one leg and a weight across her chest. Her eyes flickered open to a slightly disturbing sight, but one that she wasn't very surprised to see. Leo had somehow turned around completely in his sleep without waking Ash (not for the first time) and was using her leg as a pillow. Meanwhile, his own leg was thrown across her body with his feet dangling just inches away from her face.

Whenever that happened, Ash had a sinking suspicion that he slept that way on purpose.

Grunting from the effort, she tossed his leg to the side and quickly removed his 'pillow' out from under him. Ash then shook him until he responded with a weak flailing of his hand and mumbled a few pleas for five more minutes.

"No, Leo, get your ass up now. I have stuff to do today," she said. When he continued to lay motionless, she resorted to attacking him violently with a pillow.

A typical morning.

Leo lay in a tangle of sheets in his own bed. He had been kicked out of Ash's house several hours ago and it was now late in the afternoon. He'd had a productive day – and by productive, that mean he had successfully leveled up his Pokemon a few more levels. One day, Ash would be going down. An evil chuckle escaped Leo's lips at the thought.

Suddenly, music filled the room, and Leo groped blindly around his bed for his phone. He checked the caller ID, and speaking of the devil, it was Ash herself.

He accepted the call and changed it so speaker so he could use both hands to play his DS. Instead of greeting her, he began breathing deeply and as creepily as he could.

"Yessir, you sound awfully creepy with the Pokemon battle music playing in the background. I am so scared." Ash had so completely deadpanned the ending that Leo harrumphed, insulted. But Ash could hear the laughter being held back in his voice.

"Oh, shut up! So what exactly do you want?" he asked, chiding her slightly.

"Well, I-" That was all she managed to say before Leo brutally cut her off.

"WAIT! What was that? I'm sorry, it's hard to hear you since you know, you kinda kicked me out of your house and all that." As he was saying that, he felt like could literally feel Ash rolling his eyes at him.

"Jeez, you're still sore about that? I forgot that I had soccer practice today. And I didn't think you'd want to tag along when you hate the captain," she mused.

Leo grumbled his agreement. It was true – the next time he saw Alli would be a lifetime too soon. That rotten bitch.

"I still don't understand why you hate her so much. She's not that bad."

A harsh laugh escaped Leo's mouth. "Please," he said dryly, "save me the time and stop talking about her. Now what were you saying before you suddenly got cut off for some unknown reason?"

Once again, Leo could practically see her eyes rolling, but she choose not pursue the matter any further.

"I found something pretty cool. Come over and I'll show it to you."

Leo waited for more, but that was all she said. "That's it? That's all you're telling me?"

"Yup."

He groaned at how annoying that answer was. She knew that by not telling him any details, he'd have to go to her house just to satiate his curiosity. That rotten bitch.

"Fine, I'll be there in a few." Without waiting for her reply, he hung up immediately which was something she absolutely despised. Who ever said acting like a kid was a bad thing?

As promised, Leo was at the Royals' household within twenty minutes, waiting for somebody to open the door. He had asked Ash if he could have a spare key in the case of an emergency, but she had simply laughed in his face. When he thought about it later, he realized that she had made a wise choice.

A few seconds later, a very… relaxed looking Ash answered the door. She had a grin on her face as she greeted him, but it was the smile she gave him everyday. Despite the fact that she didn't sound excited over the phone, he still had been hoping for some kind of reaction when he finally showed up. Jeez, anything at this point would have been ok! The curiosity was completely eating away at him and Ash's reaction (or lack thereof) was unsettling.

Or was he just over thinking the whole thing? Or what if she was playing the whole thing down on purpose just to watch him squirm? It was something she would do and oh man, now he was just sounding paranoid.

Be cool. Oh yeah Leo, you got this.

He followed Ash up to her room wearing a lazy grin, hoping to turn the tide on Ash by not giving her the satisfaction of watching him twitch. Maybe that would get some kind of reaction out of her.

It didn't work.

It took a few seconds for Leo to realize what he had been staring at.

"That's it?" He asked, trying to hide his disappointment. This is what he had been dying to find out about?

Ash scoffed, an amused grin working its way up her lips. "I never said it was anything spectacular," she mused.

"You didn't say much at all, really," he grumbled.

In Ash's hands was a small, black video game cartridge. Even though he hadn't seen something like it in years, Leo knew that it was for a Game Boy, the object that had been the salvation of his childhood. It had no label or sticker to indicate what game it was. Now this, Leo found interesting.

"You know what game it is?" he asked. He was met with another amused grin.

"Look closer," she commanded and handed the cartridge over to him. After a few seconds of furious squinting and turning the game over and over in his hands, he found it. At the very bottom of what he assumed was the front of the cartridge was extremely small writing that had been neatly ingrained into the plastic. It simply said, 'POKEMON.'

A small frown turned down the corners of Leo's lips. "That's it?" He turned to Ash, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

She gave him a small nod in return. "Yup, it doesn't even say which one." She motioned for him to return the cartridge and he handed it over willingly. "I found it while I was walking home," she added. Leo was about to question if she thought it belonged to anybody when he realized that that was their loss. And besides, there a slight layer of dirt over the surface along with a few scratches, so he figured it hadn't been left there recently.

It was then that Leo noticed the Game Boy sitting on her bed. It was a pitiful thing to look at, with the color all faded and scratch marks littering the surface. But hell, it sure did bring back a wave of memories.

Ash noticed what he was looking at and chuckled as if she had read his thoughts. "Old, I know. I'm lucky that my parents like to keep everything from when I was a kid, but I had to dig through a shitload of boxes to find that thing." She paused and then tilted her head to the side and grimaced slightly. "I also found an old Barbie doll of mine. But its hair had been cut off and it was missing an arm…"

Leo couldn't help the laughter that burst from his lips. "I'm not very surprised that you weren't a Barbie kid," he said, amused. He then moved to her bed and picked up the Game Boy gingerly as if it might just crumble away in his hands. Ten years for any piece of technology meant that it was old as hell.

"So, let's try this bad boy out?" he asked, that signature devilish grin lighting up his face.

Ash matched his grin and plopped down onto the bed next to him. She wiped off the dirt on the surface with her shirt and decided to blow air into the bottom of it as well. She wistfully remembered when you had to do that for all of your games when they were dirty or when they didn't work. When she was done cleaning it, her hand hovered with the cartridge over the slot in the Game Boy. She half expected the game to not fit, but it slid into the slot just fine.

"Wait," Leo told her. He left her room and she could hear the sounds of him going downstairs. She waited patiently for a minute, wondering if she should just start without him. At that moment, he returned, holding some batteries in his hand. She only wondered for a second where and why he got them, but then it hit her and Ash could have hit herself at her stupidity. Of course it would need new batteries, the damn thing had been rotting in her attic for more than a decade. She thanked him quickly and set to work replacing the batteries. When she was done, she knew that they could begin playing.

Suddenly, Ash felt inexplicably nervous. Leo must have felt it also because he touched her wrist gently. Ash glanced over to him and was immediately comforted by his soft gaze. "It's just a game," he reminded her.

Ash nodded firmly. "It's just a game," she echoed. No matter how shady the circumstances were of how she found it... "Just a game…"

She slid the switch to the ON position. A flash of white blinded her senses. Before a coherent thought could form in her mind, she blacked out.

Ahhh, I know, not a lot of Pokemon in this. But I just wanted to introduce you guys to the heroes of the story. You know, see what they're like and what now. And it also allowed me to get a feel for their personalities, of which I'm still working on.

In the next chapter, things will get more interesting. I can assure you of that.

P.S. I had originally intended Ashlyn to be my sole main character... But I got really attached to Leo as I was writing this. Haha, I wonder what'll happen to them.