Chapter 1

London

John's Point-of-View

London is a beautiful city. It has busy streets and quiet neighborhoods, peaceful parks and loud shopping centers, old architecture and modern buildings. London is my favorite place on Earth. I've traveled the world and yet I've never seen anywhere as beautiful as London. Don't get me wrong, other places have their merits, but I am of the opinion that nowhere will ever be able to hold a candle to my beloved London.

Often I wonder what it would have been like to live here at different times. What was London like in 1815 as opposed to now in 2015? What did the streets look like lit up by oil lamps at night instead of the humming electric lights that burn each night? Was the smell of London different before cars? Was that smell better when horse-drawn carriages were the primary form of transportation? I imagine, even with the pollution we have now, it smells better today simply due to the invention of indoor plumbing. But I digress.

This is my city, I should be happy to be back, but all I am is depressed. Looking around at all the bustling people, moving easily around me, it makes me sad to think of all the things I can no longer do. In addition, I am sad to say that I won't be able to live here much longer. I feel as if I'm watching the city slowly fade around me. Soon I will have to move, I can't afford London on an army pension.

One of the beautiful things about London is that most things are accessible via walking. I've always loved to walk, and so it has always been my preferred method of transportation. I love walking so much that I never even bothered to learn to drive. But now, walking is painful. My leg is cramping and aching. I slow my movement and put more of my weight onto my cane, heaving a sigh as I do so. People pass me on the sidewalks, I can feel them stare, their eyes boring into my skin. Some of them are annoyed at my speed, or lack thereof, others look at me with pity. There but for the grace of God go I.

Smaug presses against my side, letting out a small whimper, he can always tell when I'm upset. I should probably mention that Smaug is my Arcanine. He's been my companion for many years. Hmmm, I guess some people might not be familiar with what an Arcanine is... It's strange to think that there are people out there who have never encountered a pokemon. For them, let me take a moment to explain.

In 1978 a Japanese based research laboratory bred the first successful pokemon. The creature was generated by splicing DNA from a frog, honestly I'm not sure what type of frog, and a cactus plant. Sounds strange right? Well it definitely was strange. The first photos leaked to Britain a few weeks later and no one could believe what they were seeing. Here was this little frog-looking thing with a cactus bulb growing out of its back. Amazing!

Many people were skeptical of course, myself included, but as experiments went on, and more and more of these creatures were bred, people slowly started to accept that these scientists were telling the truth, this was a real creature.

The scientists called their first pokemon Fushigidane, but since us Brits had a hard time pronouncing it, we gave it our own name, thus Bulbasaur was born into our everyday vocabulary.

It wasn't long before other teams of scientists began working with the Japanese and breeding and experimentation took a huge turn for the better. Bulbasaur became a new species, and with each new one born, scientists were experimenting and fine-tuning the creatures appearance and abilities. Nowadays a common Bulbasaur is about the size of a cat and has muscle integration with the cactus bulb on its back. This means that the bulbasaur can move and use the cactus plant, but we'll get into that later.

Of course, scientists didn't stop at Bulbasaur, and now there are over a hundred different distinct species of pokemon. Many people keep them as pets, still others are used for work such as helping fishermen, healing people, or serving side-by-side with soldiers during times of war.

This brings the story back to my Arcanine. You see, when I was 10, my mom, who loved pokemon, bought one for me and my sister. My sister recieved a mewoth and I a growlithe.

Mewoths are a cat type pokemon, really the only remarkable thing to be said of them is their ability to smell gold. My sister named it Princess, which was because my sister thought the large gold coin embedded in a mewoth's head looked like a crown.

Growlithes are essentially a dog. They come in many different colors, but mine was a beautiful combination of light brown and auburn red fur with pitch black markings around the eyes and on the feet. The thing was no bigger than any regular dog I'd ever seen, and so I was slightly confused as a child. But then my mom explained to me that growlithes have the ability to breath fire, all they need is to be trained carefully and they will become one of the most powerful pokemon species of all. My young eyes opened wide as I thought of all that my new dog could do. I remember saying, "but he's so small," to which my mother replied, "Of course he is, he's just a baby. You and him will grow up together, get big and strong together. If you train him well he may one day even evolve into an Arcanine."

I named my new pet Smaug after one of my favorite fictional characters, Smaug the dragon from The Hobbit. And just like that we became best friends.

Author's note:

Hi readers, this is the first chapter of my second fanfiction. As you can probably see, this is a crossover between Sherlock and Pokemon. I was inspired by some beautiful fan art which you can find simply by Googling "John Watson Arcanine." This story will also feature Johnlock so you have been warned.

I don't think this story will be more than 20-30 chapters, but who knows, maybe I will have more ideas as time goes on. Almost all of this story's plot is going to be noncannon, but of course I will try to put in some events from the show to anchor this story.

Please comment whether you think this is a good/bad/crazy idea. Also, I'd like suggestions for what kinds of pokemon our main characters should have, so if you have any ideas, please leave me a comment. Finally, I was considering doing some fanart to accompany this story. Possibly some illustrations of the pokemon as I imagine they would look in the "real world." Is this something you all are interested in? Please let me know.

Thanks for reading.

-Padfoot333