Hey, wats up! So, this is my first attempt at a Nuzlocke. I started it several weeks ago on vacation and have been taking notes in my journal since then. This is really long (I'm sorry) and I'm planning on picking up the pace (don't worry), but there was a lot of foreshadowing and introducing to be done here (so pay attention!).
Description: Kylie's going to get her first Pokémon tomorrow and can't wait to start battling gyms, but her mother seems to have other plans. But she's not the only obstacle in her way, and certainly not the greatest... Haunted with memories of her father, challenged by a strange organization, and making friends she tells herself she doesn't want Kylie gets much more than she bargained for when she goes exploring at Lake Verity.
I like to dedicate my stories to people who either helped me a lot with them, or inspired me to write them in the first place. This time, there are two people this dedication goes to. The first is my Great Aunt Rose. You are like a third grandmother to me and you have no idea how much I loved you. The second is LyneMuffins, who's Nuzlocke inspired me to do a Nuzlocke in written form. Thank you soooooooooo much for reading what I've written and telling me that the crap I come up with is actually good!
I didn't describe the characters in the story because it kinda annoys me when that's in a story. Don't know why. But here's a little description of them:
-Kylie is my OC for this fic. She had shortish black hair and dark blue eyes. She's a tomboy and her favorite color is light blue.
-Aiden is the rival from the game, so everyone should already know and love him!
-Lucas is the male player character, based on Professor Rowan's lab assistant if you chose to play as a girl.
-Skyla is more or less based off Dawn, at least the idea of her. She has strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. Right now she's kinda a Mary Sue, but bear with me.
My rules:
-Must catch first Pokémon in each area.
-Once a Pokémon faints, it's dead. (I'm gonna permanently box mine for now because I'm gonna be too much of a wimp to release them.)
-Must nickname all Pokémon.
-No duplicates. If I have that specific Pokémon then I can't catch another one, but if it evolves then I can catch the pre-evolved form or if it faints I can catch another one. (I mainly used this rule because Bidoofs and Geodudes are EVERYWHERE in Sinnoh!)
-No repels in new areas.
-No catching legendaries.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.
"That concludes our special report, 'Search for the Red Gyarados!' Brought to you by Jubilife TV on Nationwide Net! See you next week, same time, same channel!"
Even as the screen faded to black, then lit up again for an obnoxious PokéMart commercial, Kylie still sat inches from the screen, her eyes wide from her excitement during the program. She shoved another handful of popcorn into her mouth from the bowl on her lap. Not even paying attention to the weather update that was now playing on the screen, Kylie thought about what it would be like to find a red Gyarados, or any other Pokémon that was differently colored.
'It would be soooooooooo cool!' she thought. 'Oh Arceus, I'm starting to sound like Aiden, drawing out my "so"s.' A smile appeared on her face at the thought of her blonde-haired best friend and neighbor. She dug her hand into the bowl to grab more popcorn, but her fingers scraped the bottom, only finding a few unpopped kernels. The smile fell from her face as she looked into the nearly empty bowl. It then completely disappeared when she heard her mother calling to her from downstairs.
"Kylie! Dinner's ready and you better not have spoiled your appetite with that popcorn I know you snuck up there."
Sighing, she stood up from her cross-legged position in front of the TV in her room and, taking the bowl with her, headed downstairs. It slightly surprised her that her mother had noticed she had brought the popcorn upstairs; she was usually so absorbed in watching the contests on TV, but the delicious smell of popcorn was hard not to notice.
Hoping her mother's observant streak would not continue and catch on that the bowl was empty of all edible pieces of popcorn, Kylie placed the bowl in the sink and sat down at the table. Her mother stood at the stove, putting whatever she had cooked onto plates.
"What were you watching on TV, hun?" her mother asked. Not even waiting for an answer, she continued talking as she put Kylie's plate in front of her and sat in her own seat. "I bet it was the final round of the Johto Grand Festival! Wasn't it extremely exciting? It certainly had me at the edge of my seat; I cannot believe that little Drew didn't win, he's so handsome! I just wish that I could've gone to judge it – but I couldn't miss my little girl's thirteenth birthday, could I! It's like you're all grown up now: you're going to get a starter Pokémon and go on your own journey and all that. But you won't miss me too much because you'll see plenty of me during your contests! I'll be judging them this year! Isn't this all exciting!"
Kylie was extremely annoyed by her mother babbling at this point. After being dragged around from contest hall to contest hall in one region to the next, she was sick of contests. Her mother always thought she was going to be a Coordinator like herself, but her constant "immersing" of her daughter in the "beautiful, exciting world of contests!" had the opposite effect of what she wished. Kylie now despised anything and everything to do with contests, from the ridiculous costumes the coordinators were forced to dress up in to the noisy and hectic rushing that occurred backstage. That also included her other neighbor, Skyla, who was almost as obsessed with contests as her mother, who occasionally forced the two to hang out together. Kylie didn't completely understand her mother's objective with that torture; she had already made it clear numerous times that she wanted to be a Trainer and challenge gyms.
Just as she was about to tell her mother for the hundredth time that she wasn't at all interested in become a Coordinator, the phone rang. "I'll get it!" Kylie said quickly, grateful to change the conversation. She jumped up and grabbed the phone off its hook. "Hello?"
"Kylie!" Aiden's familiar voice squealed her name over the connection. "Did you see it! Wasn't it soooooooooo awesome! I would've called you as soon as it was over, but my mom made me wait because you were probably having dinner. I waited as long as I could but I needed to talk to you! It stinks that they didn't find it, but it's definitely there. I bet I could find it if I went to Johto! The only other thing I didn't like was the narrator! They should've got Morgan Freeman to do it. But other than that it was soooooooooo amazing! Anyways, my mom is yelling at me to let you go back to eating because you are probably still having dinner, but come over as soon as you're finished! I'll fine you $1 million if you don't! Okay? Bye!"
Kylie just started at the phone. The only thing she had managed to say to him was "hello". She sighed; he was worse than her mother.
"I'm going to assume that was Aiden because you didn't get a chance to say anything," her mother remarked from the table with a smile.
"Yeah," Kylie responded as she hung up the phone and sat back down. "I'm going over as soon as I'm finished."
"All right, just don't stay out too late, you have a big day ahead of you tomorrow!"
"I won't," Kylie assured her mother as she quickly finished her spaghetti and meatballs, wanting to hang out with her best friend as soon as possible. Though he was a loudmouth that never shut up, annoying her to no end every time they were together, she loved hanging out with him and couldn't imagine anyone else as her best friend.
As soon as she put her plate in the sink, she dashed for the door.
"Wait!" her mother called. Kylie turned towards her expectantly. "You should invite Skyla to hang out with you two!"
Kylie's spirit dropped. She really didn't want to deal with her at the moment, not that she ever wanted to deal with her in the first place. But she could imagine her mother's argument when she refused and the inevitable phone call to Skyla's mother that informed her of Kylie and Aiden's plans to hang out that was sure to come after that. Deciding that it was easier to just give in at the beginning, she said, "Fine."
"Oh, wonderful! Just give a little knock on her door on your way! And, as always, stay out of the tall grass. I know you are excited to get your first Pokémon tomorrow, but you can wait just one more day, right?"
Her mother's enthusiastic smile and the mention of the long awaited day brought a smile to Kylie's face as well. "Okay, mom."
Aiden paced back and forth in front of his house. "Where are you, Kylie! Why are you soooooooooo late all the time!" He almost couldn't stand it and the only thing that kept him from running off by himself was that this was something he wanted – needed – to do with Kylie. He only hoped that she hadn't been forced to bring her along.
He finally saw her approaching his house, but, apparently, fortune wasn't on his side. Not only did he have to wait soooooooooo long for Kylie to come, but she had brought her with her. Kylie didn't seem too thrilled about it either, but Skyla seemed to be perfectly happy trailing after the other girl with a smile on her face.
When he thought about it, Aiden wasn't exactly sure why he disliked Skyla so much. She was a nice enough girl; though not really someone he was likely to be friends with (she wasn't nearly adventurous enough and was far to prissy) she was someone that he would normally tolerate. He just guessed that the fact that Kylie held so much animosity towards her was the primary factor.
"There you are, Kylie!" he greeted her, putting a little extra emphasis on her name to let the other girl know that she wasn't being greeted. "You are soooooooooo lucky that I don't actually make you pay your fines for being late because you would owe me like a billion dollars by now!"
"You're lucky I don't punch you out every time you say you're gonna fine me because you would need all that money to pay your hospital bills," Kylie delivered back smoothly. Unfortunately, she interrupted their banter.
"So what are we going to do?" Skyla asked innocently. She didn't seem to notice that the other two were completely ignoring her – that or she simply didn't care.
"Well, me and Kylie are going to Lake Verity to look for rare Pokémon!"
"What!" both girls exclaimed at the same time.
Kylie couldn't believe how reckless her best friend was being. She knew he could be adventurous, but going to Lake Verity alone was dangerous, not to mention completely pointless because Starly, Bidoof, and Magikarp were pretty much the only Pokémon anyone ever saw there.
"You can't go there! Wild Pokémon live there; what if you get attacked? You have no means to defend yourself!" Skyla tried to reason with him.
"What are you scared of going?" Aiden mocked her.
"Ummm . . . no, I just . . ."
Kylie caught on to what Aiden was doing. Skyla wouldn't follow them to the lake; they could have some fun and get away from the annoying girl at the same time! She wouldn't dare tell on them either. While she did still think it was dangerous to go near the tall grass, she was desperate to get away from Skyla and it was the perfect opportunity.
"Well, then I guess we'll just go without you." Kylie didn't even wait for Skyla to finish her sentence or form a response before she headed for the lakefront that was just outside the town.
"There's the spirit, Kylie!" Aiden exclaimed as he jogged after her.
When the pair reached the very edge of town, Kylie glanced back. Skyla was still standing near Aiden's house, just staring at them with a nervous look on her face. Smirking, she turned away from her and kept walking forward with Aiden at her side.
"Wasn't my plan to escape her soooooooooo perfect!"
"Yes, Aiden, it was absolutely flawless."
"Was that sarcasm?"
"Did it sound like it?"
"Was that sarcasm?"
"You tell me."
"Now that was definitely sarcastic."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Not anymore!"
Kylie laughed at her friend's whining. She loved confusing him. However, she found herself to be the confused one when they arrived at the shore of the lake. Two people she had never seen before – an old man and a boy about her age – were looking out over the lake. The old man babbled something about sensing something different about the lake to the younger kid, who seemed to patiently explain that there wasn't anything there.
"Fine then. Lucas, we're going back to the lab," the old man said as he started to walk purposefully into the lake.
"Gaah! Professor, the lab's back this way! In Sandgem Town, remember?" "Lucas" yelled, grabbing the professor's shoulder before he could get his feet too wet. "Maybe being away four years was four years too long . . ." he muttered exasperatedly, more to himself than anyone else.
'That guy's a professor?' was all that Kylie could think at the moment, staring at the peculiar scene in front of her.
"Oh, right. Of course! Off we go then." The Professor rapidly turned around and literally began marching towards Sandgem Town, which was unfortunately in Kylie and Aiden's direction. "At attention, soldiers!" he commanded the two young teens as he gave them a salute and walked in between them. Neither knew exactly how to respond to that gesture.
Lucas hid his face with his hands. 'This is absolutely mortifying!' he thought before chasing after the Professor. "I'm really sorry about him," he apologized to the pair. They looked about thirteen, the same age as him – the age they would start their Pokémon journey. He sincerely hoped that they were not the two that were supposed to receive their first Pokémon from the Professor tomorrow. "He just got off a very long flight and he's a little loopy from the jet lag. Please ignore anything that just happened!"
He thought he heard the girl mutter, "senile old bat", but it was quickly covered by the boy proclaiming, "It's okay! We totally understand! Umm, you might want to go catch him."
Lucas looked to see the Professor, still marching, already far ahead of him. "Oh, no! Professor, wait up!"
"Hurry up, cadet! Or we will be late to join the fight!"
Kylie stared after the odd pair. "That was the most bizarre thing that I've ever seen." She was snapped out of her staring when Aiden grabber her arm and dragged her to the edge of the water, right through some tall grass. "Aiden! Wha-"
"Look what they left behind," Aiden said with a triumphant smile on his face, pointing to something on the ground.
Kylie bent down to find a briefcase lying in the grass. "That old guy probably didn't even realize that he left it here and the kid was too worried about him to remember it."
"Yeah and that kid called the old guy a professor . . ."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I think so!"
"That there's probably Pokémon –"
"Right behind you!" Aiden's eyes widened and he pointed behind her.
"No, Aiden – in the bag," she patiently corrected and pointed down at said object on the ground next to her, knowing he was playing a joke on her.
"Kylie, there's really wild Starly behind you!" Aiden pointed more wildly.
"Stop trying to scare me!" Kylie scolded him, but glanced over her shoulder just to be sure. All the Starly she had seen until that moment had been happy Starly, flying around in the sky or hopping around the ground, always happily. She always thought of them as rather cute. All those kinds of thoughts flew out the window as she looked at the two behind her. They looked absolutely bull about something and seemed to be directing their anger at her and her best friend. Her mouth fell open and she froze.
Suddenly, Aiden opened the bag and shoved it in front of her. "Quick, take a PokéBall! We have to battle them!"
She dug her hand around the bag, until her hand wrapped around an orange-sized sphere. Got one! she thought, withdrawing her hand to reveal . . . an actual orange. "You've got to be kidding me! What the hell!" she yelled staring at the fruit in her hand, decided that she now hated anything to do with orange – the flavor, the color, anything!
"Try again!" Aiden urged her, glancing nervously at the Starly.
This time, they both plunged their hands into the bag to grab a much-needed PokéBall. Kylie blushed slightly as their hands bumped together in the confined space, though she wasn't sure exactly why. She finally found a smaller sized sphere and pulled it out. It was a condensed PokéBall. As she had to do was press the white button and it would expand to its usable size. That was exactly what she did and with a cry of, "Go! PokéBall!" she threw it.
A little green turtle exploded out of the ball with a burst of bright white light. "Turtwig!"
"Turtwig is the grass type starter! What good will that do against a flying type like Starly!" Kylie complained. She was glad that the only good thing about being forced to spend hours sitting in contest halls could be put to use. While her mother was judging or performing, she would read guidebooks about Pokémon and since so much of her time was spent in that situation she had read a *lot* of guidebooks. She could easily identify the type of nearly any Pokémon and then determine what type would be best to counter it. Unfortunately for her, no type that would easily counter flying types was ready available at the moment and the type she did have was weak to them!
She was dragged out of her musing at her misfortunes by the Tiny Leaf Pokémon, who had just taken a tackle from one of the Starly. It landed near her feet, quickly got up, and hid behind her legs. "Twig," it whimpered, shaking slightly.
Kylie felt like doing the same exact thing as the Turtwig, until she heard Aiden calling to her. "Kylie! Don't just stand there. You've got to fight!" The PokéBall he had thrown contained the fire type starter – Chimchar – who looked raring to go as it jumped from one leg to the other in anticipation of the fight.
'That's easy for you to say,' Kylie thought. 'You picked a Pokémon that actually wants to fight!'
"Come on, Turtwig, you've gotta fight. If you don't the Starly is gonna get all of us," she tried to coax the small green Pokémon, but it didn't seem to be working. She bent down to its level to say something else, but she caught movement from the corner of her eye. The Starly wasn't as patient as her in getting the Turtwig to fight and had decided to charge at Kylie instead. She gasped in fear and threw her arms up to protect her face as she fell and landed on her butt.
"Turtwig!" the grass type cried angrily as it tackled the charging Starly. The Starling Pokémon was thrown backwards from the force of the attack. Despite that, it was up quickly and looked ready to charge again.
Kylie moved her arms down as she realized the Turtwig had moved into action to save her. She smiled and gave the Turtwig a command, "Alright, tackle it one more time to scare it off!"
The green Pokémon was able to hit the Starly before it had the chance to start moving again. Apparently, Turtwig's two sudden attacks were enough to convince the Starly that it didn't want to hang around. It twitted something to its companion, who was locked in battle with Aiden's Chimchar, and the two quickly sped off to find an easier target to bully.
"Chimchar!" the Chimp Pokémon called after the pair, shaking its tiny fist as well. Aiden laughed at the Pokémon's antics and it quickly responded to the sound of his voice, running over to him and climbing up to his shoulder. He grabbed the Pokémon in a hug before holding it up at arm's length and spinning around in a circle. "Great job, little buddy!" he laughed.
Kylie had never seen a smile so big appear on Aiden's face. Leaving the two to their celebrating, she looked at her own little warrior. Apparently, the adrenaline from battle was wearing off and the poor thing was shaking again. "Hey, it's okay," she soothed as she picked the Turtwig up and the shaking stopped "That's right. Everything's fine now." It immediately seemed to calm down, but she was quickly proved wrong when it jumped out of her arms and bit her on the head. "Aaaarggghhh!" she called out, the unexpected action taking her completely by surprise.
"I think that means it likes you!" Aiden smiled at her, still holding the Chimchar in his arms.
"Yeah, it does mean that, unfortunately," a voice said behind them. The group quickly turned around to see Lucas standing in front of the exit, arms crossed and a stern expression on his face. The Turtwig immediately jumped off of Kylie's head and hid in her arms.
"'Unforunately'? What the hell's that supposed to mean!" Kylie demanded to know.
"Those Pokémon were supposed to be for trainers who are starting their journey tomorrow. Now that you've battled with them, we can't give them their new trainers!"
"It's not like we meant to use them! We got attacked by wild Pokémon. What, did you expect us to just sit here and let them maul us!"
"No, but –"
"There is no but. What's done is done." Kylie normally would have just gone with the flow in situation like this, but she was growing kind of attached to the little guy and wasn't about to let him go so easily.
"I just have one question. Would you have used the Professor's Pokémon if you weren't attacked by wild Pokémon? Would you have taken those Pokémon for your own without a second thought about who they might really belong to!" Lucas stomped up to the two other teenagers and grabbed the bag that was at their feet. He shook it in their faces. "Did you really think we would forget the starter Pokémon – Pokémon that give kids a chance to live out their dreams!" By the end of his rant, Lucas was full out yelling. He wasn't sure why he was so angry; it was like his emotions were out of control. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. 'Come on, calm down. Stop acting like some girl during her time of the month,' he chided himself. Turning away from the gawking pair, he simply said, "I'm gonna just give the last remaining Pokémon back to the Professor. Maybe he'll know what to do about this – what to say to those kids who are coming tomorrow."
As the young teen stalked away, Kylie looked at Aiden. He was staring after the other boy in shock. "Kylie, he doesn't know that we are the trainers who are supposed to be coming tomorrow! If he goes and tells the Professor what he thinks happened, he could be in big trouble. And it would be all our fault." Aiden felt himself getting oddly choked up.
Kylie also felt herself feeling more for the situation than she usually would. For some reason, she couldn't allow the boy to suffer because of her and Aiden's mistake. "Yeah, let's go."
They ran to catch up to Lucas and the Professor. They found them right at the crossroads to Twinleaf and Sandgem. " . . . and I'm really sorry, Professor. I never meant for this to happen," Lucas was saying as he handed the only remaining PokéBall to the Professor.
"Never meant for the Pokémon to get returned to the PokéBall? AHAHHAHAHHAH! Lucas, my boy, that's supposed to happen! Don't worry, you didn't kill it!" the Professor tried to comfort the boy and put a reassuring arm around his shoulders.
"Argh! Professor! That's not what I mean at all – that doesn't even have anything to do with what I was talking about!"
"What he meant was that we used the Pokémon without permission," Aiden stepped in to help, "and he was really worried about the two kids who were supposed to get the Pokémon tomorrow. But he misunderstood that part: we are the kids who were supposed to get their Pokémon tomorrow. So no harm done, right?"
"What! You are!" Lucas exclaimed. 'Oh Arceus, now they'll never take the Professor seriously after seeing him like that!'
"Of course no harm was done! The PokéBall is an item designed to comfortably store Pokémon. It's not a torture device! I'll show you." The white haired man pressed the white button on the PokéBall and tossed it onto the ground. The final starter – the water type, Piplup – appeared from the glow. "See? Perfectly okay!"
Lucas fell to his knees and hung his head in shame and embarrassment. The Piplup patted his shoulder in concern.
"Ummm, okay then. We'll just be going," Kylie said.
"Wait!" the Professor called, suddenly sounding serious. He approached Kylie and Aiden and put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Turtwig . . . and Chimchar, eh? Hmmmm . . ." He looked carefully at each Pokémon and their trainer as he said their names, appearing to be in deep thought. "Wonderful choices to fight! We shall march back to the lab to prepare for battle!" His pensive manner shattered as he adopted his "war general" persona again and resumed his march to Sandgem Town.
Lucas simply stared after the Professor for a moment before his mind caught up with him. He scooped up the Piplup and called after the Professor, "Wait for me!"
"Hop to, Lucas!"
This time he smiled slightly at the Professor's eccentric actions. "Thank you," he said to the two new trainers before he jogged off to catch up to the Professor.
Kylie sat on her bed just looking at the sleeping Turtwig curled up next to her. For some reason, she couldn't bring herself tell her mother about what happened just yet. Luckily, Pokémon in their PokéBalls were a lot easier to sneak upstairs than bowls of popcorn. She was mainly thinking about the weird surge of emotions she had felt near the lake. Normally, she always maintained her cool attitude, but something had been affecting her back there . . .
Suddenly, she yawned hugely and decided that it was time to go to bed. She carefully pulled down the covers so she could climb under without waking the Turtwig up. After turning the light out, she turned on her side so she could watch the Tiny Leaf Pokémon for a while. The sight of it got her thinking about the battle and the rush it had given her. It was so exciting; she couldn't wait to battle again. Before she fell asleep, she thought, 'maybe I'm more like Dad than I thought . . .'
So, Professor Rowan . . . O.o Somehow, he just kinda came out like that. I really don't know what it was, but I swear I wasn't on drugs when I wrote that! (though maybe Rowan was . . .)
Aaaaaaanyways, I've had about the worst week EVER, so leaving a review would really make me feel better!
