Prologue - ?
"Damn it, where the hell do I go now!?" the man cursed, after realising he'd run right into a dead end. There was nowhere to run to, and no longer anywhere to hide. Quickly he grabbed his last pokeball and turned around, desperately hoping the other guys had softened the bastard up enough for him to take him on. He was about to throw it, when suddenly he felt a icy chill behind his head. He barely managed to avoid the ice beam shot at him from god knows where, but in the process he dropped the ball, and it rolled away from him, until it collided with a pair of legs.
A hand reached down from above and picked up the pokeball. The man desperately tried to think of some way to get his Pokémon back. nothing came to him. He looked over his shoulder, trying not to focus on the dark shape advancing slowly towards him. Behind him was a cliff, a 50 foot drop into the icy, black water below. "M...maybe i can survive!" he said desperately, "yes, I…I've got to, its my only chance to...!" the man felt a vice-like grip tighten around his collar. The dark figure had caught him. Within seconds he was dangling above the cliff, with only the hand on his collar between him and the cold death awaiting him below.
The man, near paralysed with terror, just barely managed to open his eyes to look into the face of the figure. He was met with a pair of cold, blue eyes; unblinking, focused, and filled with a quiet fury. "Wh...who the hell are you!" the man screamed. Unflinching, the eyes continued to stare into him with such iciness as to make the water below seem almost a pleasant escape. Finally, after a few seconds that lasted an eternity, the man heard a calm, almost serene voice from the other man standing before him.
"my name is...".
chapter 1 - pallet town
"Viridis, John Viridis" said the blue eyed young boy, "I'm here for my first Pokémon" he added proudly. The old man, known as professor Samuel Oak, pointed his eyes in the youth's direction, barely managing to focus on him. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" he said wearily, "even the Dodrio are still asleep, you should have come by later". John was taken aback, the idea that the professor would be so disgruntled by his early arrival had never crossed his mind until now, and he was quickly realising that that would have been anyone else's first thought. "Well, um, you see I… well I just...just thought, uh..." he stammered "i was just so... exited to, uh, go away on my, um, journey so I..." "alright, alright" the professor interrupted, "just come inside, it must be freezing out there". "Thank you" the boy just managed to get out, "and I'm…sorry".
The professor led the youth inside his lab, and told him to wait for him to "prepare a few things", by which he meant that he was going to "prepare" enough coffee to wake up a comatose Snorlax. John, unsure of what to do, look around at some of the equipment in the professors lab. while he couldn't explain how they worked, John could probably have named and given the function of every piece of equipment in the lab if you'd asked him to, thanks to the research he had done to prepare for his journey, so he felt confident in taking a closer look at some of the more interesting machines in the professors possession. Being careful not to touch, he walked over to a large, cylindrical machine in the corner. The outside of the cylinder was covered completely in knobs, dials and screens, but the inside was made almost entirely of a smooth, reflective surface. It appeared to be a machine for testing the energies released by Pokémon during evolution, but it was covered in dust and clearly hadn't been used much in spite the fact that, along with most of the equipment, it was clearly an older model. John decided to take a closer look at the inside, and was greeted with his warped reflection. He was able to make out his short, dark brown hair, pale skin, blue eyes, dark green jacket, and his glasses, but other than that the image was too fuzzy and heavily distorted to make out much. He took a step back, and collided a table, sending several pieces of glass equipment and their contents tumbling to their doom. Professor Oak later sarcastically said that, in fairness, he had no idea that certain components Beedrill and Butterfree foods could be mixed together to make a somewhat foul-smelling gas, so the accident had taught him something.
After all the glass and liquids has been disposed of, and John had finished apologising, professor Oak took him over to where the three Pokémon were and asked him to make a selection. "What's that one?" John said, noticing a fourth pokeball with a lightning ball engraved on it next to the other 3. "Um...lets not worry about that one" the professor mumbled, sweating slightly. John took a look at the 3 pokeballs, he knew that Bulbasaur was generally considered the easiest to use, not to mention that it had a type advantage over several of the nearest gyms, but for some reason he couldn't quite explain, he decided not to go with the logical choice, and instead his eyes were drawn towards the pokeball to the right of Bulbasaur's. "i choose...Charmander!" he exclaimed while picking up the pokeball. Oak smiled as he handed the boy a pokedex and some pokeballs, despite how the boy had ruined his sleep and his morning, it was always a joy to see a rookie trainer Taking their first step into a brand new world. That was when the first professor noticed, "you look... rather old to be getting your first Pokémon" he said, "you cant be younger that 12 at least". "14" John sighed, somewhat self conscious of how young he looked for his age, "I… wasn't interested back when they gave us all the chance to take a year out of school to go on a Pokémon journey back when i was 10", "change your mind did you?" asked the professor, who didn't think the boy was being entirely honest. "Well I never really had..." john stopped, searching for the words. "Its fine" Oak said sympathetically, "you don't have to tell me if you don't want to", though he was disappointed given how little he knew about the boy. "Thank you" john said, smiling for the first time since he had entered the lab. John decided to try out the pokedex quickly by searching up Sneasel, a Pokémon he had seen years ago, and looked confused when it came up with no data. "That pokedex is an older model" professor Oak said, slightly embarrassed, "it only contains Pokémon that are native to kanto". John thought to himself that, for a man dedicated to learning new things about Pokémon, the professor seemed rather unconcerned about having the proper tools to do that with, but he knew he should keep thoughts like that to himself.
John thanked the professor and turned around to leave. "wait! don't you want to meet your new Pokémon?" the professor asked. John froze, but luckily he had anticipated this question so he quickly turned around, puffed out his chest, and gave his rehearsed response "I think it would be best if we met one on one, to put as little pressure on the little guy as possible; a good idea don't you think?". The professor wasn't convinced, but he thought it would be unkind to force an honest answer, so he simply gave a nod and waved the boy off, telling him to call when he reached viridian city. "That... might not be possible" said the boy cryptically, "but, I… I will try to when I reach pewter". Once he had left, the professor leaned back against a wall, bewildered by the encounter he had just had. He had been surprised when, 3 weeks ago, a boy he had never heard of before had, out of the blue, registered to receive a starter Pokémon from his lab; pallet was the kind of town where everyone tended to know everyone else, and people usually registered months in advance at least. The boy might have come from elsewhere, viridian city maybe?
More exited by a pokedex than his first Pokémon? the professor mused, what an odd boy. His internal monologue was interrupted by a small parade following a car driven by a spikey hared boy, and cheers of "Gary! Gary! Gary!".
so just a few notes. this story is supposed to be concurrent to the anime and since the anime version of kanto is, geographically, incompatible with the one from the games, I'm a map made by user ccaccus on . I tried to post a link but it wouldn't let me for some reason. an earlier version of this chapter linked to a different map, but I have since decided I no longer entirely agree with that one.
I have written up to the 9th chapter as of now, but I'm holding off on posting any of them until I've gone over them a second time, and until I get some feedback for this chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, but please tell me what I did wrong, as I'm sure there's a lot I could improve on. thank you for reading.