Author's Notes: The first actual chapter will be in Naruto's POV. I was just strangely fond of telling this one in Chikorita's. For—err—very obvious reasons, actually.

Summary: It begins as a C rank mission. It ends when Naruto finds a small, red-and-white ball amidst the ruins of a lost civilization.

Disclaimer: Dear franchise owners, authors, and lawyers: you'll probably never read this, ever, because I'm sure you have more serious things to crack down on than fanfics. Still, in case you ever decide to sue me for the lulz, I disclaim. But you'll still have to pry my copy of Soul Silver from my cold, dead fingers.

The Lost

Chikorita waited for his trainer inside his pocket dimension. It was a world of lush grass and sleepy trees and blue skies housed in a small, red-and-white ball, and it was as an ideal a world as he could ever hope for. He was patient. His trainer would come.

The first person to step inside the professor's lab was a boy, with short spiky hair and a cheerful, happy air around him. He didn't speak much, but when he opened Chikorita's pokeball to examine the pokemon, he was polite and attentive, and Chikorita thought that he would be a fine trainer.

He, sadly, did not think as highly of the grass starter. He chose Cyndaquil the moment she decided to light her back in flames, cheering about how awesome that was and how cool Cyndaquil looked, all aglow with yellow-and-red embers. The kind trainer took Cyndaquil for his journey and never looked back.

Chikorita was a bit disappointed, true, but he didn't think much of it. There will be other trainers, he reasoned, and one will find him eventually. He would wait, and his trainer would come.

The second trainer who came to the lab wasn't quite legally in the lab. He broke in through the window, amidst a shower of falling glass, and while Chikorita was less than impressed with the grey legality of it all, he thought that it might be okay. That the trainer might turn out to be a good person after all.

The second trainer released him first and returned him right after, mumbling about weak pokemon and how he didn't need some sissy, cute thing with big eyes and a leaf on its head. Chikorita bristled with indignation and was much too angry to feel jilted when the boy made it out with Totodile's pokeball. The cruel trainer stole Totodile and ran away with the blaze of police sirens after him.

Chikorita doesn't care, he insisted, because a third trainer would come up soon and pick him. He would like a girl trainer, anyway; a pretty one with two pigtails and named after a type of rock, perhaps. The professor promised that a trainer would come for him, and the man had never lied to him before.

So Chikorita sat in his pocket dimension and waited. When he got bored, he would run across the grass or watch clouds or watch the leaves sway lazily in the wind. With time, his trainer would come.

The first boy returned to the lab from time to time, running errands and depositing an increasingly large collection of pokemon with the professor. Cyndaquil evolved to Quilava, then Typhlosion, as she travelled with the boy and helped him complete the gym challenge. They were true companions; anybody could see that.

That trainer was amazing. He drove out Team Rocket and awakened a sleeping Legend and eventually became the Champion himself. He spoke of defeating Kanto's champion and of completing the Pokedex. Chikorita was happy to hear of his accomplishments, but he was not Chikorita's trainer.

Chikorita did not hear as much of the second boy's accomplishments, but the first boy broght back stories sometimes. Totodile had also evolved, according them, and was now a Feraligator capable of fighting with the best of them. Feraligator and the boy were not friends, sadly, but they were formidable partners nonetheless, driven on the mutual path to strength.

But that trainer changed, and grew, and became compassionate as it became obvious that the first trainer's ideas were right—ideas, Chikorita knew, that became increasing justified as the second boy lost more and more. As he realized that love and friendship and compassion were important, the second boy changed, and became better, and eventually Feraligator and he did become friends. Chikorita was glad that he became a better person, but he was not Chikorita's trainer.

And, even as his fellow starters grew and matured and evolved, Chikorita's trainer did not come. The pocket dimension became dull; the leaves shifted in a predictable pattern and the sky was eternally blue, but Chikorita would keep waiting. His trainer had to come.

The years passed.

The lab was suddenly frantic with activity. Scientists ran this way and that, shouting about the unpredictable weather patterns and the impossibly devastating combination of rain and sun. Chikorita didn't understand, because inside his pokeball the sky was a perfect baby blue and the grass were lush and green. But the scientists worried, and the scientists cared, and Chikorita had nothing better to do but pay attention.

His trainer would still come, right…?

Then the ground beneath the table shook and the ceiling collapsed and everything suddenly became silent and dark outside. The professor was buried beneath a slab of rock and the scientists went quiet and motionless, a great contrast from the frenzy the lab had been in moments before. Chikorita wanted to help them, but he was still inside his pokeball.

Inside, his virtual dimension remained happy and sunny and green, but he didn't want it, not anymore. He wanted see the world, just like Cyndaquil and Totodile. He wanted to grow and change. He wanted to be outside, where he could do things and help people and form bonds.

Please, he begged his trainer, come soon.

So. This is my first uploaded fic here. Not anywhere near my first fic, of course, but that's okay~

I'm going to be writing Chikorita because he seems to be the least-picked starter, at least amongst the people I talk to. Also, I started Gold with Cyndaquil and I end up feeling sorry for the little green thing every single time. (Seriously, don't you feel like a terrible person after you go back to the lab and there's just that one single pokeball staring back at you?)

I'll be doing my best to integrate the Naruto world with Pokemon. Feel free to let me know how well I'm doing~ Any input would be welcome. (Also, if I mess up with tenses, please point it out to me. I started this chapter in present, then shifted to the more commonly-used past, and hopefully I haven't missed anything editing.)