Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.
The inspiration for this chapter is thanks to Belhotte, who asked me why Tess only trained water pokemon. I realized I did not have a very good answer for that question(in some ways I still don't), Tess sorta evolved into a water trainer when her character got solidified. So I pondered it for a while and this was what came out of that pondering. Enjoy!
The loud blaring alarm cut through Tess's happy dreams of taking on the Pokemon league champion and winning of course. She freed a hand from the confines of her warm blankets and patted around on her side table until she was able to hit the blessed 'off' button. Sitting up sleepily, Tess rubbed a fist in her eye, dark red hair in disarray. Yawning widely, she hopped out of bed going about the difficult business of getting ready to face the big scary world. Tess stopped in the act of pulling on a green t-shirt, her calendar staring her right in the face, today was her tenth birthday. She turned, walked zombie-like back to her bed, got in and pulled the myriad of blankets over her head. Curling on her side she buried her face in the rumpled pillow, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.
For any other child in the Jhoto region, the day of their tenth birthday was a day much anticipated, waited for and celebrated wildly when it arrived. On that most waited for of days, a child of ten could finally register as a pokemon trainer, receive a starter pokemon of their choice and begin their pokemon journey. Tess on the other hand had been informed not even a week ago by both parents that she would NOT be getting registered or be getting her dream starter pokemon: Cyndaquil (with her temperament and its fire power, they would be unstoppable, she was sure of it!) or obviously be allowed to go on her pokemon journey when she turned ten. Not yet anyway. Her parents had informed her that she would have to wait for her twelfth birthday before she could do any and all of the above.
Their reasoning had been that they were uncomfortable with her going out and traveling around on her own. When she pointed out that big brother had gone on his pokemon journey at ten. They said that he had been more mature than her and had gone out traveling with two of his friends besides. She was only a little girl and they were frightened that something might happen to her. Tess had screamed and stamped her foot but her parents had remained strong and now here she was on her tenth birthday: hiding from the world under the cover of her blankets. The sharp sound of knuckles on wood was accompanied by her father's deep voice.
"Tess?!" Tess burrowed deeper under her covers. "Tess, I know you're awake!" Tess's head complete with extremely tousled hair shot up. She squinted angrily at her door and the parent the door was valiantly shielding from her death glare. "If you squint like that so early in the morning honey your eyes will freeze that way." The cheerful tone had her rolling said eyes. She thumped back on the bed, deliberately covering her head with the blankets again.
"Go AWAY dad! I don't want to talk to you!" Her voice was slightly muffled due to the mound of comforters and sheets over her head.
"Oh really?!" Came the amused shout. "Cause I'm holding something that says otherwise!" Tess bit a blanket to keep from screaming with frustration.
"What could you possibly have that would make me open that door?!"
"I dunno! Why don't you open it up and find out?!" Tess growled under her breath, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to slam open the door. Her father stood there, leaning against the door frame. "About time." He groused grinning unabashedly at Tess's furious face as he walked calmly into her room and seated himself carefully on her bed. "Now come over here." He patted the space on the bed next to him, Tess visibly dragged herself back to the bed, plopping down on the space indicated. She glared at him from the corner of her eye. "Now now Tess." He said, putting his arm around her shoulders and dragging her closer to his side.
"I realize that you were looking forward to going on your journey this year and I know you're very upset that we, your mother and I" Here Tess rolled her eyes again, who else would crush her dreams so thoroughly? "Have forbidden you from starting your journey and registering for another two years. BUT! You have to understand where we're coming from." Tess propped her head up with her hand as her dad went through the whole 'we worry about you-it's for your own good-you only have to wait two years-look at the big picture' speech accompanied with grand hand gestures by the hand not trapping her at her father's side.
"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, we've decided to compromise." Here Tess looked up at her father hopefully. They decided to let her go anyway? "We conferred with your brother Darren and he agreed that it wasn't fair to take away all your dreams for this birthday, so he sent us this." Her father held up the hand that wasn't clasped around her shoulder. Sitting in the palm of his hand was a round shiny red and white pokeball. Tess stared at it confused, before reaching over and picking it up.
"You're giving me an empty pokeball?" She asked as she inspected the pokeball in her hand. Her father frowned.
"Noooo…it has a pokemon in it." Tess looked up excitedly.
"Really?" She scrambled to release the pokemon.
"Wait." Her father's hand clamped down on her wrist, at Tess's confused look he elaborated. "We know you wanted a fire pokemon, but Darren said that this pokemon would be a good first for you."
"Just spit it out dad." Her dad coughed in his fist.
"Right well. Umm, you just might wanna release your new pokemon in the lake." Tess looked down at the pokeball.
"You gave me a water pokemon?" Her father nodded.
"We don't want you getting a fire type just yet. They're a bit too dangerous for our tastes so Darren sent you a nice safe water pokemon. Now, why don't you get dressed, have the birthday breakfast your mother made you and then head down to the lake to meet your new pokemon?" Tess nodded dumbly, still staring at the pokeball clenched in her hands.
-----:D------
Down at the lakeside, Tess rolled the pokeball between her hands. So she had a water pokemon when she had wanted a fire pokemon. Big deal. Just two years and then she could get her hands on a good fire starter. In the meantime though…She pressed the release button. The ball cracked open and a beam of red light shot into the lake shallows. The red light solidified and disappeared.
In its place was a small pokemon. Its body was a clear light blue oval dome with a bright red bulge on either side. In the center of the dome was a smaller red bugle placed right above grumpy looking eyes. Tess leaned closer to the pokemon to study it and jumped back as a brown tentacle came out of the water to poke at her. Well, at least her new pokemon was just as curious about her as she was about it. She leaned back again meeting the slightly irritated pokemon's eyes. Her arm moved, hand out reached finger extended and tentatively poked the pokemon's blue dome. She let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding and relaxed.
"Which pokemon are you?" She murmured crouching on the shore, patting its head and giggling as the light brown appendage poked her in her side. The pokemon withdrew the tentacle and deigned to answer the question in the only way it could.
"Tentaaacoool." Tess rocked back on her heels to regard the half submerged pokemon.
"A tentacool huh?" She rubbed her chin. "Random but I can live with it. Though I don't see why Darren didn't just send me a Growlithe or a vulpix or someth-" She was cut off mid-muse when a small wave of water splashed over her, drenching her completely. Tess pushed her dripping wet bangs out of her eyes with one hand, glaring angrily over at the now pretending to innocence Tentacool. She kicked off her shoes and rolled up her overall pant legs to mid-calf, wading out into the water after she was done, a mantic glint in her eye. "Oh you asked for it now."
A few hours later found Tess in the shallows with her pokemon, overall legs drenched despite being now rolled up to her knees, splashing water at the tentacool. Ducking and squealing when the blue pokemon retaliated back with its own splashes. Tess, having fun, was not paying attention to her surroundings, thus when a hand was placed against her back and pushed hard. She was unable to catch herself in time and landed in the water, hard. She sat up, spluttering and floundering angrily.
"So kid, I see you got a pokemon." A condescending voice drawled from the dry bank. Tess looked up brushing her damp locks out of her face. She growled as she climbed to her feet her tentacool allowing her to use a tentacle to steady herself.
"We're the same age!"
"Yeah, but I'm a trainer and you're not. Besides you just have a tentacool and I have the totally awesome Cyndaquil. Fire types are much cooler than lame water types. Everyone knows that only babies have water pokemon." Tess narrowed her eyes at the boy in front of her and the small cream and navy blue pokemon sitting by his foot, her fingernails leaving small crescent marks on her palms. The tentacool blew a froth of bubbles in the lake water in the most threatening manner possible.
"My tentacool is not lame!" The boy was already walking away, Cyndaquil trotting obediently after. He waved a hand at her.
"Yeah yeah. I'd battle you over it but you're not an official trainer. It'd be a waste of my time." Tess only growled, taking two steps toward the shore, fully intending to beat the bastard into the ground. Instead on the second step something wrapped around her ankle causing her to fall face-first in the water. When she came up spluttering and floundering for the second time in as many minutes she found herself staring at her father's shoes.
"So, having fun with the new pokemon?" Tess pulled herself to her feet and nodded jerkily as she untangled the lake grass from her arms. "Well, that's good to hear. Anyway, it's lunch time, so you might wanna put tentacool back in his 'ball and go get changed." Tess nodded again and watched carefully until her dad was out of earshot before whirling around to face her tentacool.
"Okay here's the deal." She hissed. "I'm going to beat that arrogant prick in two years when I become a trainer. And I'm going to beat him using you." She pointed at the tentacool who didn't even seem to blink at the intense stare directed at him. "In fact, I'm going to be the lead water-type trainer around! I'll show him how lame and I'll show everyone how safe water pokemon are! We are going to be an awesome battling team and prove both my parents and that jerk wrong!"
She crouched down, heedless of the water as she looked tentacool right in the eye. "But first we need to give you a cool, dangerous name, I can't go around calling you tentacool all the time." The tentacool waved a tentacle around in the air seeming to agree with her. "How about…Depth charge?" The tentacool's tentacle slapped the surface. "So that's a no then. Okay, Scypho?" Another slap. "Aurelia?" Slap and a glare followed that one. "Okay okay, just kidding on the last one…."
Tess snapped her fingers. "I got it!" She jumped up and pointed down at the blue tentacool. "Man O' War!" No slap and the glare was gone. "Good." Tess said nodding as she returned the tentacool to his ball. "Man O' War it is. You and I are going to go places…and drown them!" She said grinning wildly, holding the pokeball above her head so the sun glinted off the surface. Suddenly a thought occurred to her, she brought the pokeball down to eye level, shaking a finger at it.
"And don't think I didn't realize it was you who tripped me!"
Author's Notes:
-This story will not be updated on a set schedule like "Born to Battle", it'll be updated whenever I finish a chapter. On weeks when it is updated, I won't be updating "Born to Battle".
-there will be NO who's that pokemon and a battle a chapter is not guaranteed here.
-These stories are based around the beginnings of my characters and how they got their teams, background information if you will.
-Also I changed some things with reference to established characters' background. For example: I've decided that Tess does not meet Connor and Mike until she goes to get her starter. The chapter: "Meet A Trainer Day" will be edited to reflect that.
-Yes, Tess decided to train only water pokemon to prove two/three people wrong. Thus the reason why all her water pokemon are insane battle thirsting pokemon. She's a girl who will do almost ANYTHING to prove someone wrong, even to the extent of shunning other types of pokemon.
-Trivia: The discarded nicknames for tentacool are names for species of jellyfish.
-Any other questions just pm me and I'll do my best to answer!
~Illusion-Factory