Happy Easter readers.
This oneshot is a little different to others I've written for holidays, I've run out of ideas for an Easter theme so I've just written something that's been bouncing round my head for a while.
Hope you enjoy it.
Pokémon Trainer Online
Ash opened his eyes at the sound of a ship's horn signalling it's arrival at port and even though he'd been through this type of thing before he just couldn't get used to it. Whenever he had to travel between regions no matter how long he spent awake wandering around the ship, buying supplies or battling other trainers the ships only arrived when he returned to his cabin and went to 'sleep'. As he sat up out of the bed Ash thought about how long he'd been here, two and a half years trapped in this game and no way out insight.
It all started with Professor Akihabara and Doctor Yung creating a VRMMORPG of the Pokémon Trainer's journey, except the difficulty was increased. NPTs (Non-Player Trainers) were the level of Gym Leaders, Gym Leaders were the level of an Elite Four, Elite Four level to Champions, Champions the level of a Master and finally the Pokémon Master was four times as powerful as they would normally be. There was a big difference between the real world battles and the ones in PTO, Pokémon could attack the trainers and if the trainer lost all their health then that was the end for them, in every sense of the word. The same happened outside of Trainer battler, wild Pokémon were as strong as the Pokémon trained by a Gym Assistant and could appear on their own or in hordes, they would attack Trainers and Pokémon until they'd been knocked out. If you ran out of health in the game, you died in real life. It was a similar situation for the Pokémon, if they were knocked out they died in the real world and if a Trainer lost all their party Pokémon they 'whited out' meaning they died too. After Akihabara and Yung has given this information to the players everyone had been teleported to their respective home regions and home towns, Ash had come into the game appearing at the Indigo Plateau with Brock and Misty soon meeting up with May, Dawn, Cilan, Iris, Serena and Clemont. Bonnie and Max were too young to play the game and Tracey was too busy with the Lab to join them. They had only been together for a few minutes before the artificial sky had turned grey and a system announcement went out explaining that they were all trapped in the game and the fates of those who died in the game.
Each Gym Leader acted as a Level Boss and you couldn't progress to the next part of the region without beating them, you couldn't fly on a Pokémon to a city unless the game had registered that you'd already been there and none of the shortcuts that Ash had taken the first time existed so he had to travel through the Rock Tunnel and underground passages which he'd never had to do in real life. Ash's mind briefly wondered if Akihabara and Yung had intentionally created that many Zubat or if it was just unlucky that they had run into so many. Once a trainer had obtained all eight Gym Badges they could enter the Pokémon League tournament, battle their way through NPTs until getting to the final battle and defeating an NPT that was twice as strong as the final Gym Leader. Beating the final NPT did two things it opened up a route to the next region and gave you the opportunity to challenge the Elite Four for that region. Ash had forgone the choice of battling the Elite and took the Orange Islands Quest to gain a little more experience before moving into Johto.
There was one feature that made it a little easier for the people in the game, they could bring their own Pokémon with them and any experience that they earnt would be transferred to their real bodies via an EXP Share. It was lucky that Ash had brought all of his Pokémon with him, he'd even reunited with the Pokémon he's released and left for training. All his Pokémon had fully evolved and were more powerful then they had ever been before, a quick reflection on what they'd been through already made Ash smile. He'd met up with Misty and Brock again back in Kanto and basically recreated with original journey except for the many side adventures they'd been on and the constant attacks from Team Rocket. There were a few funny moments like when Brock and Misty met their game counterparts in their respective gyms and running into a few of their old friends during the game. Together it had taken them a year to go around Kanto, a year to go through Johto plus another six months to complete the Orange Islands, the Orange Islands was an optional quest which they'd done for the experience, training and prizes be it money from trainers or items from wild Pokémon. Ash frowned as another memory surfaced in his mind, there were some Trainers in the game that were actually Team Rocket Grunts and they'd recreated their organisation in the game, stealing Pokémon by forcing trades and killing Trainers that stood against them. Ash, Brock and Misty were amongst those that stood against Team Rocket and although the criminals were still out there, their resources had been severely depleted so they wouldn't be much of a problem to anyone. Ash's hand clenched against his knee as he remembered some of the battles he'd 'won', the look of surprise and horror on the faces of the Grunts he'd defeated still haunted him.
Pulling his mind from that dark place Ash thought about what Brock and Misty were doing now. People knew who Misty was, being a Gym Leader and Sensational Sister in the real world, had asked her for help defending Cerulean City from Pokémon that came from Cerulean Cave, while Brock had chosen to stay in Pewter City and look after the young Trainers that had broken under the pressures of the game. Thinking of his friends made Ash think about the others, May and Dawn had been teleported to their own regions and were alone, Cilan and Iris although in the same region were at opposite ends the same could be said for Serena and Clemont although not to a great an extent. Ash was committed to finding his friends and together they would beat this game and free every trainer and Pokémon trapped inside it. The thing was he had no idea whether they were still…in the game or not, they had barely greeted each other before the announcement was made and teleported away so Ash couldn't even send them a message to check on them. He believed though, his friends were strong they'd be alright and who knows maybe they were out looking for him and the others.
"Pika?" Ash snapped out of his thoughts and looked down at Pikachu.
"I'm alright buddy, just thinking. Time to beat Hoenn." Ash flicked his hand, activating the in-game menu, equipped everything he needed, checked his Pokémon's health and took a look at his map. Once he was ready he stood up and Pikachu jumped onto his shoulder, together they made their way off the ship and as soon as they crossed the threshold of the ship appeared in Littleroot Town. Like the way travelling between regions took however long it took for you to 'sleep' teleporting straight from a ship to a town was something he couldn't get use too. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, for a moment it all felt real, that first step into a region for a new challenge, taking in the new air and feeling a fresh breeze caress his skin but it wasn't real, all of it was artificial. Ash sighed and opened his eyes, it looked just like the real Littleroot Town, houses in the same places and Professor Birch's Lab waiting for him to enter.
"Here we go again, bud." Ash said to Pikachu as he took a step towards the Lab to register for the League but when a high pitched cry for help pierced the air Ash spun on his heels and dashed towards it. He'd made a promise to himself that as long as he could do something to save the other players he would do it. As he dashed out of Littleroot a message flashed in front of him saying he'd left a Safe Zone, cancelling it without a second thought Ash kept running as a hand went for his belt pulling two Pokéballs off it and enlarging them in a single motion. While Ash ran Pikachu was clinging to his shoulder, ready to fight either when they got to their destination or if they were attacked on their way. Ash rounded a tree and saw where the scream had come from, a pack of Mightyena and Poochyena had surrounded a girl and were closing in on her, he acted before the thoughts could enter his brain.
"Charizard, Dragon Claw, Sceptile, Leaf Blade, Pikachu,Volt Tackle!" He shouted throwing the two Pokéballs as Pikachu leapt from his shoulder, electricity crackling around the Mouse Pokémon as he burst into action. Charizard and Sceptile appeared in twin flashed of light with their attacks ready, they immediately understood the situation and went into battle with Pikachu. The three Pokémon fought in synchrony, covering for each other without a second thought and within a minute all the Mightyena and Poochyena were defeated, disappearing in a flurry of blue pixels leaving behind money, items and a thick black fur cloak. Items like the cloak happened every so often when you defeated the strongest Pokémon in a certain area, it was usually some form of clothing which gave you some sort of advantage like increasing your defensive stat with a jacket made from Donphan hide. Looking at the description of the cloak Ash saw it was called Alpha's Coat and that it gave off a scent that would keep all but the strongest wild Pokémon at bay, he put it into his item storage so he could decide what to do with it later, wearing a Pokémon, even a virtual one, just felt wrong.
A little alert message appeared from the corner of Ash's HUD, drawing his attention for a few seconds. He read it and smiled a little.
"Hey Sceptile, you've just gone up a level." The grass type smirked and slashed a twig off a nearby tree to put in his mouth. Pikachu was scanning the area for more enemies while Charizard blasted a vortex of flames into the sky with a roar of victory. "How do you want to spend the stat points?" Sceptile punched his arm out hard and fast with Leaf Blade activated. "Attack and Speed it is." Ash nodded, "I'm going to add a couple to your Defence and Special Defence too, they're looking a little low." Sceptile grinned and picked up some of the dropped items from the Poochyena, there wasn't much a few Potions and Berries, there was one thing that surprised Ash was a Revive. They were worth more then their weight in gold, he already had a few hidden away in his bag in case of emergency along with a Max Revive thanks to Brock's Doctor skill which let him make Max Revives when he had enough Revives as ingredients. Putting the Revive in his bag quickly along with the other items Sceptile had collected, Ash then turned his attention to the girl he'd rescued offering her a hand up.
"Thank you." The girl said standing up with Ash's help before brushing dirt off her clothes. "I thought I was done for….Ash?" Ash looked at the girl's face and a grin broke out across his face.
"May!" He shouted happily as he ran in to hug her. "You're safe." He held her tightly as tears formed in the corners of his eyes. "You're alive."
"You found me." May whispered happily, smiling through her own tears. She pulled back so she could look at his face. "What about everyone else?"
"Brock and Misty are fine, they're back in Kanto. I don't know about the others, have you heard anything?"
"Only from Dawn, she was already in my friend list before we got separated. She's in Sinnoh with Barry and Kenny."
"That's good to hear, tell her we're on our way to meet her right after I beat the Ever Grande Conference." May laughed and stepped out of the hug.
"You're the same as ever." Ash laughed as well and after a minute asked a question that had been on his mind for the last few minutes.
"Why didn't you fight those Mightyena off with your Pokémon?"
"They were all tired and low on health, the pack was a lot larger than it was when you came. I've been hiring myself out to defend places between here and Petalburg against wild Pokémon attacks. I thought I could've dealt with the pack but it was bigger than I'd been told and I didn't want to…" May trailed off not wanting to finish her sentence, Ash nodded in understanding. The thought of losing one of his Pokémon was too much to bear.
"Come on." Ash took her hand. "Let's get back to Littleroot and heal your Pokémon. After that we can clear this game and save everyone."
"Right." May nodded and with a slight blush they walked back to Littleroot, Ash's Pokémon keeping guard over them.
"So what have you been doing apart from protecting the towns?" Ash asked.
"Training mostly, I tried for the Balance Badge but had to forfeit. I nearly lost Glaceon to a Vigoroth and it was freaking me out to be battling an NPC that looked like my dad. I've been working on the other skills for the game since then, cooking, survival tactics, item finding and I've been asked to give Contest Performances a few times to keep people's spirits up." May's face darkened a little. "It's been over two years and a lot of the people who came into the game have died, everyone's getting close to giving up and making a life for themselves here. I saw Drew get defeated….it was a wild Exploud, it just blasted right through his Pokémon and hit him with a Boomburst."
They walked in silence for a while, their heads bowed in remembrance. They may not have been friends with Drew but it was still sad to know that a person they knew had died
"Seeing people go like that is hard, Ritchie died in front of me. A Kabutops during the Indigo League, Ritchie managed to get into the semi-finals before it happened. There wasn't anything any of us could do except watch, I went into the battle next and Pikachu just went wild." Ash reached down to scratch Pikachu's head. "That Kabutops went down before it knew the battle had started, Pikachu took out another couple of Pokémon before I swapped in Charizard and he threw me on his back before diving down and attacking the NPT. The Final was harder but we still managed to get through and moved on. To save our friends and everyone else, I guess…we'll just have to work harder. As long as I can help it I'm not going to let anyone else died because of Akihabara and Yung. Once I've registered for the Hoenn League, will you come with me?"
"Of course I will." May replied. As they entered the Safe Zone of Littleroot Ash returned Charizard and Sceptile while Pikachu hopped up to his shoulder. She looked into the distance and softly spoke again. "Seeing people died like that makes you think about the important things in life you know. Friends, family, the future,…love." She gave Ash's hand a gentle squeeze.
"I know what you mean, I miss everyone, sometimes I do wonder about the future and who I'd spend it with." Ash returned the squeeze with one of his own.
They went to Professor Birch's Lab and while May's Pokémon were healed Ash registered for the League. Once everything was sorted out Ash and May once again stepped out onto Route 101 and started making their way to Oldale Town. Pikachu keeping watch and their hands clasped together, swinging back and forth gently between them.