Game Start

Pallet was a town for starting things.

Yes, this simple town hidden in the trees, surrounded by crashing ocean waves was quite the interesting place. This was where people started their journeys, trainers and coordinators alike. This was the place where half the people in Kanto came to get married, where many fell in love. This was the first town ever built in their region. This was the first town to have a computer, the first town to have a pokeball. It was the first town to have an Ash Ketchum that stumbled in late, got a Pikachu, and ran off to fantastic friends and wonderful adventure.

This was also the first time in a long time that Legendaries had ventured out of their region. Intrigued by the thought of the hero, the Chosen One, that each had briefly met, they followed him back to his region at the close of the Sinnoh League. Mespirit, Uxie and Azelf weren't normally curious about the affairs of humans, they had done their job in delivering will, knowledge and emotion and were much keener on hiding far from view and waiting in case Arceus deemed their powers necessary once again. However, as most Legendaries and people alike often did, they made an exception for the ever interesting Ash Ketchum.

What many people don't realize is that Chosen Ones are not randomly picked. No, at the beginning of the human race one was chosen, and from that point on each Chosen One was unknowingly groomed and cropped without their knowledge to marry a certain man or woman so the bloodline would continue in the proper manner. All Chosen Ones had a destined mate, though it wasn't as pleasant as one would like to think. The Chosen Ones do not have a choice in the matter, and are, in fact, unwitting pawns in every step and action they take in their life. They truly can do no wrong, because their lives, the ups and downs, are all plotted.

But, then again, as the Legendary of Time Dialga would say, "No, stupid, you've got free will, but you can't change the future. The future is the past. You're not gonna do it, you already did. I saw you. So, go ahead, eat the doughnut, lady, you're already going to get fat." This isn't very nice, but she isn't very nice. It suits her. She's very blunt and very sensible, but knowing absolutely everything, both past and future, can be very blunt making. The point is that Dialga was correct in her statement, and Ash was an unwilling pawn in the Legendaries' game of chess.

With the insistence and prodding of several other legends who could "use a good giggle", Mesprit had darted off to Cerulean and given Misty a good tap during the middle of an argument with her sister, which provided a valid, yet surprisingly reasonable explanation for the often irrational angry Misty to dart off to the town for starting things. Perhaps the being of will, Azelf, could have merely given her the uncontrollable drive, but that wouldn't have been nearly as easily as explainable, and they weren't there to cause chaos. Just give fate a push.

"What do you know about it?" the redhead snarled. "You hire people to clean the pool, Daisy! I nearly died in that filter today! If it hadn't been for Psyduck freaking out, because you didn't bother to check inside the filter you used to shove me in, I would have drowned because you turned it on. You don't do that! You can't just not think!"

"Why?" she retorted dryly. "You don't think all the time! You, like, ran away and then off with Ash for all those years and, like, the only reason you came back was because I called you back. You totally wouldn't have come otherwise. So, like, why don't you shut up about it? I said I was sorry and that I, like, wouldn't ever do it again. That should be enough but it never is! You know what? I'm glad you almost drowned."

"Well, I'm sorry you were born."

Daisy grinned. "You know why your room sucks and is way smaller than ours? You weren't on purpose. You were a mistake."

That one hurt a bit, actually. She was pretty sure Daisy was joking, she generally was, but it was pretty rare that she used that insult, and it was the only one she had very, very good proof for. A smaller room, only hand-me-downs, a name that seemed to be thought up on the spot rather than her parents taking the time to search for a flower name all pointed in one direction, one she had concluded the second she saw a show on TV explain what a mistake was, and a few weeks later when the insult popped out of her sisters' mouths.

She balled her hands into fists and spread her feet into a fighting stance, knowing her face was flushing with anger. "Daisy, I swear to Mew I-" She blinked slowly at the calm suddenly falling on her head, dropping her hands to the side. She suddenly missed Pallet…not for Ash, but Mrs. Ketchum. Even if she was a mistake, she was sure that Mrs. Ketchum would love her all the same, and she loved Mrs. Ketchum like she would a real mother, if her mother hadn't died when she was younger. "I'm going to go to Pallet."

"Pallet?" she scoffed, looking a little tense. "You, like, know that Ash isn't in Pallet, right?"

"Yeah, but Mrs. Ketchum is." Misty blinked gently. "She is. She's a nice woman, Daisy. She's like that mother I never got the chance to have. You should have stepped up to the plate and been that mother, Daisy. It's a real disappointment you didn't. I'm sure if Mom and Dad were here now, they'd be just as upset about me being a mistake as you being a really bad replacement mother. You're only good to sign the forms."

In her daze, she didn't notice the blonde close her eyes, push her hair away from her face. She didn't hear the slight quiver in her voice when she muttered a contrary, "Whatever," and didn't see her walk to the pool a little tighter than normal, a little quicker than normal, with a hand that could have been pushing hair away seemed to be rubbing something on her face, most likely her eyes. It was most likely that she was crying, which some part of Misty's brain did register, but her conscious was much too preoccupied at the moment with getting to Pallet Town.

She would arrive one day before Ash.

That night Mrs. Ketchum would be overcome with the urge, the will to keep Misty in her house no matter what. There was no appealing to her feelings, as Misty was suddenly feeling like she needed to get back to her sisters. The woman smiled, a bit empty in her eyes, and continued to insist that Misty spend the night, that she had to see Ash. Misty was a tad nervous that if she showed up each time Ash came home he would think she was stalking him.

"Stalking him?" chortled the brunette. "What would give him that idea, sweetheart? It's not like you've stalked anyone before."

"I kinda did," Misty admitted guiltily, tracing shapes on the brown wooden table. "You know, that whole…bike thing that I followed him around Kanto and Johto and the Orange Islands and…yeah. I sorta did. So, it wouldn't be that far of a stretch if I showed up at his house. I hope I don't accidently blurt about the bike again. He owes with interest. Mmm-hmm. Yup. Hope I don't do that. I did that a few too many times last time I came here. Remember that? Last time they all split up to take a quick break and I accidentally managed to show up at the same time as him again and when he asked me why I was here I went on a bike rant."

"I don't recall," she said distantly. "You're staying here, aren't you?"

Misty looked up at her slowly, then nodded. "I will. Mostly because you have this weird look, Mrs. K, like you're going to chain me to something if I try to leave."

"Ah, chains," the woman said fondly. "Would you like to hear about the last time I was chained up?"

She arched an eyebrow. "Were you naked?"

"Yes," she said after a guilty pause.

"Then no." Misty resumed her slightly OCD way of stacking her plateful of fries into a pyramid. "Definitely not."

Mrs. Ketchum watched her do this for only a moment, then returned to her kitchen. It was a lovely room, albeit a bit small. It had yellow and white tiles, cabinets stapled to the wall above and below, a sink and a stove relatively close to each other, and a microwave and refrigerator, scraping against one another in a fight to fit in the tiny place. The table didn't help, large enough to seat six and taking up what little space there was. It was amazing how Delia could work through it all, and yet she did.

But something bothered her, a mother's instinct that made her look at the girl, who was, perhaps, a little more controlling than normal with the length she was going to with her fries: first they had been lined up according to height, then stacked into a perfect pyramid (with quite a bit of munching to make the pieces fit), and was now eating them, sure to go in a spiral to the left, smallest to largest, and careful not to disturb the fries below. The redhead did seem to get a bit twitchy when everything wasn't going her way, fits of anger whenever something went beyond her control that led to her doing the tiny things to get the feeling of power back.

"Darling," she said slowly, beginning to rinse a dish in the sink. "You mentioned something about your sisters, earlier, about Daisy. Is there something bothering you about that?"

"No. Why do you ask?" Her head dropped low to the counter and she began to pat and poke her half eaten fry pyramid into its appropriate shape. "And if there was, I don't really want to talk about it. I guess I sort of did, when I first came over, but I don't want to talk about it anymore." She froze and sat up abruptly. "Mrs. Ketchum, do you know what I just did? I built my pyramid with an odd number of fries. I just counted, and, with the ones I ate I had an odd number of fries. Do you have more fries, ma'am?"

Fighting back a laugh, she shook her head, "No, Misty, I don't have any fries. I can't imagine why I thought you had some kind of problem."

Misty sat back and glared, feeling a little off because she really couldn't eat an odd number of fries, then decided: "I'll just rebuild and break one fry in half." She then set about her work, and when Mrs. Ketchum finished, she watched, fascinated, as Misty did all sorts of strange, compulsive things until late at night, when she told Mrs. Ketchum that not only did she have to go to bed at exactly ten, but Delia must be in her bed by that time as well. She agreed, and they did so.

Meanwhile, the three Legendaries began to argue outside the window. After all, craziness like that had to be someone's fault. After much deduction, they decided it was not about willpower, because the girl wasn't forcing herself to sit there and do those things, nor did she seem to be forcing herself to stop. They knew for sure it wasn't about emotions, because Mespirit thought long and hard but simply couldn't think of an emotion that would involve the stacking of fries or the repeated standing up and sitting back down in a chair (because Misty believed she hadn't gotten it right the first eight times). They finally blamed Uxie, partly because they always blamed Uxie because the mind was always the perfect thing to blame. Uxie did admit that there was a little something about a disorder that made people have an uncontrollable need for things to be absolutely perfect, and would repeat a thing until they had gotten it right.

Uxie was then given a major thumbs down for messing up the bride of the Chosen One.

Whereas Uxie argued (and was clobbered for) that he had done great and, within a few repetitive tries, the girl would be perfect.

They did take time to notice that the habit was stress related, and she seemed much less prone to these antics when not under an immense amount of pressure. However, once reviewing her memories (because Uxie was good for breaking into people's minds) they learned a very important piece of information: it wasn't merely stress, but emotional distress. After her parent's death, a particularly painful insult, a missing friend or argument she regretted, instead of crying like most she would drown in inane tasks. Again and again she would go through the motions of something that didn't matter because it would get her mind off the topic.

"So," Mespirit chirped. "She in love yet or are we forcing that too? Oh, I could definitely do that. That would be fun! Make her fall all over him. It's been a long time since I've done that."

"Hush," Uxie muttered. "Yes, she is in love already. You cannot force her. Yes, I know, don't say it, you can force her, but it will not make a good point. She is in a very severe denial of it, and I believe the boy is too. Love…this language needs more words for it. I cannot say love, but more of a crush, per se. Eventually she will fall in love, it is her destiny to continue the line, but at the moment they are young. The affection is just budding. Throwing herself at him would ruin it, Mespirit, it will be much longer before they are ready to mate."

"Hmph. They used to do it early. 'Member Romeo and Juliet? I did that with so many couples. You wouldn't believe it! Teens are so easy to manipulate."

Azelf sighed. "What do we do? Will her to express herself? Mess with her brain so she thinks she already did? It all seems so…uncreative."

"I propose we wait," Uxie said, pulling away. "From what I can tell, something will happen. Something always happens to liven things up. Ash might say something stupid. Misty might say something stupid. Stupidity will flow all around and we will have our idea. We merely have to be patient. I am sure whatever comes out of rage from these two crazy children will be much better than anything we might brain storm, and much more appropriate and ironic."

"Irony is funny when it doesn't involve you," Azelf agreed. "But you don't really think something will just…pop up and screw them over, right? How often does that really happen?"

It snorted. "You cannot even begin to ponder. It is simply unfathomable, the irony in this boy's life."

As the clock ticked over to twelve, it was officially the day Ash Ketchum would appear. And, he did appear, much to the Legendaries' delight. He arrived at seven in the morning, waking his mother up while the mentally and physically exhausted girl snored away in his bed, clutching her red bag to her like it was a teddy bear. Dawn and Brock were set up in the guest bedroom (Delia had the strangest urge to keep Misty out of there), Ash wandered into his bedroom, and was about to climb into bed when he spotted the girl, and stumbled back screaming.

The sound jolted her awake as well, and she screamed, sitting up in bed abruptly then freezing, mouth hanging open but sound dying in her throat, just as it had died in Ash's. They gawked for a moment, and Dawn and Brock had thundered down the hall to see what was wrong. Delia was wrapped up in Sir David and his pursuit of Lady Rachel as they began to make love in the enchanted river (she thought it to be quite a lovely romance novel), and honestly didn't care at this point. She was starting to get the feeling her son could not die. Besides, she knew this would be the reaction when her son found a pretty girl in his bed. He never was quite good with his hormones.

"Stalker!" Ash finally managed to gasp.

"No!" Misty defended, shaking her head. "Ash, I swear, I swear to you I'm not stalking you! Ooh, I knew this would happen! I came to talk to your mom, right? But she wouldn't let me leave! I would be on my way home right now but your mom insisted I stayed and she wouldn't let me go into the guest room. Man, this probably looks creepy but I'm not a creeper. It's not like I was in here smelling your pillows, which wouldn't work anyway because you haven't been here in forever. I wouldn't ever sniff your pillows though."

She trailed off awkwardly, feeling the blush rise on her face. Brock was smirking in the doorway, and Dawn had put her face into the doorway, unable to hide the shake of her shoulders or the mad giggles trailing out of her mouth. Ash glared, a good natured gleam hiding in the corner of his eye, holding out his hand. "Misty, give me back my pillow."

"I wasn't smelling it!" she protested pathetically, throwing him the pillow anyway and rolling out of his bed. Her face was a dark red by now. "I…I just…dammit, Ash, ask your mother! She'll tell you that I came by because of…because I wanted to talk to her and I said a million times I didn't want to stay because I knew, I knew you would think I was stalking you! I'm just going to go back home. I don't know why I didn't in the first place."

She tried to storm past Brock but he caught her up in a hug and twisted her to face Ash. She didn't put up much of a protest, as there was no way she could get to Cerulean at this point. A midnight bus was not the way to keep safe. Instead, she crossed her arms, leaned against the broad rock of a boy behind her, and raised an eyebrow. One leg went over the other. Ash sighed and wondered how to make the moment less awkward.

"Well, Misty, you can't really go home. So you can stay and smell my pillows all you want." Ash shrugged.

Dawn gave another snort of laughter that she attempted to hide, unsuccessfully of course. Misty shrugged off Brock, wildly embarrassed, and toppled into the bottom of the two bunk beds, leaving Ash to use the top. He turned this down, mostly because the glare Misty gave him made him feel like being in a room with her all night would probably lead to him an untimely demise. This was to be avoided at all costs, and everyone managed to avoid the topic the next morning at breakfast. That is, all except Dawn who was left hopelessly giggling into her pancakes.

Every once in a while, Brock or Ash would mutter "pillow" under her breath to really set her off. And Misty, in typical Misty fashion, would stab her food a little harder than necessary and glare at Ash. After the forth "pillow" mutter, she smacked him, hard, and stormed off. Dawn managed to stop giggling after that, and she glared at Ash too, delivering a well deserved kick under the table and returning to her meal.

"What was that for?" he demanded.

"Oh, Ash," she sighed, shaking her head. "It's bad enough that you were making fun of her, but did you have to bring me into it? She was really embarrassed, and there has to be something going on if she doesn't want to be here that badly. You heard your mom this morning. Mrs. Ketchum practically had to throw her into your room to keep her here. She wanted to leave. She wanted to avoid you, and she didn't want you to think she was all creepy and stalking. She feels really bad about it."

He glared at his hashbrowns, pushing them all around his plate. "Well…she does it to me all the time. I don't see why I can't do it back to her."

"She doesn't make fun of you for serious stuff," Brock argued.

Ash rolled his eyes. "Oh, and what do you call her pulling off my hat and searching for the scar where my mother must have dropped my on my head after I lost six trainer matches in a row and was feeling really depressed about it?"

The blue haired girl shrugged. "You're a boy, you can handle it."

"Sexist snorlax."

"Mrs. Ketchum!" Dawn complained. "Ash called me a snorlax!"

"Dear, don't call your friends fat," Delia scolded her son. A hand fell to Dawn's shoulder, and the older woman smiled down at her. "Don't worry, sweetheart, you're absolutely beautiful, not fat in the least. Don't go anorexic on me now, or bulimic, one of the few good things I can do in this world is make food for you young travelers, and you better not ruin that by not eating it or throwing it up. I might get so depressed I kill myself, and you wouldn't want me to kill myself, would you?"

She wiggled in her seat. "Uh, no, Mrs. Ketchum, I don't really want you to die."

"That's nice, sweetie." She patted her head and wandered off to do something…something Delia-ish. No one was ever quite sure where she darted off to, it could only be assumed as something motherly or housewife-like, in Brock's fantasies there were occasional lap dances involved, but those were never seriously considered. Odds were that she spent her life in the garden, growing things, because growing things is a very good, safe hobby.

"You should talk to Misty, Ash," Dawn encouraged. "You need to find out what's bothering her. I think there's something wrong between you two, why else would she be so deadest against seeing you again? Wanting to avoid being a burden on your mom, I get, but I don't see why she would try to get out of seeing someone that should be her friend. I would never do that to a friend. But, then again, I would never embarrass one of my friends by making my other friend laugh at the first friend's embarrassment, so maybe the definition of friend is a lot different here."

Ash stared, head cocked to the side, mouth partially open like someone had asked him the square root of four. "Are you trying to imply I'm a bad friend?"

"No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you but I do bite my thumb," she quoted.

"Mom! Dawn's using references nobody understands again!"

"For the love of Mew, Ash," Brock replied hotly, "it's Shakespeare! Shakespeare! It's not like we're quoting youtube!"

Misty heard all this, and merely continued to flip through the channels. Buy perfume. Flip. Buy fast food. Flip. Buy sexy condoms. Flip. Girls will do you if you wear cologne. Flip. Girls Gone Crazy. Flip. Girls Gone Crazy. Flip. Buy fast food. Flip. Girls Gone Crazy at fast food joint. Flip. And on and on it went, being that glorious time when no show was playing, and there were only commercials to jam the station, crawl into the subliminal part of her mind and most likely make her spend the rest of her day thinking about naked girls and fast food, though she had interest in neither.

"I'm supposed to talk to you," Ash mumbled. "Dawn kept ranting about swearing my love by the moon or something."

"O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb, lest that thy prove likewise varia."

He scowled. "Really? Really? Do you think I understand what any of that means? I heard monthly changes and now all I can think about is you being on your period, which probably explains why you're so touchy. That's why I keep getting new girls, the old ones get their periods and get touchy. You were always kinda touchy, though. You're a really angry person, Mist. Did you start your period before we met, because that would explain an awful lot, because you were pretty constantly mad at me throughout the journey, I don't think it got worse each week or month or whatever, I think you were just always ticked."

She flicked her eyes to him. "Jump off a bridge and die."

"What?" he said indignantly. "I'm just trying to help!"

"You're not trying to help. You're just making joke and being a jerk about it. Y'know, if you don't want to be nice about it, fine. Do whatever you want. Just get away from me. Do you want me to go? Because if you want me to go, I've got no problem going home. I'll punch your mother in the face to get out the door, even though I really like her, because I have to do whatever the Great Ketchum wants, oh yes, the Great Ketchum must have his wishes respected and we must all bow down to him in all his awesomeness."

"I didn't mean it like that." He scowled. "But maybe, y'know, if you weren't so emotional and weren't such a jerk all the time, we wouldn't have this problem, and I'd like having you around instead of fearing that you'll show up at my house again."

She leapt to her feet, thundering, "Plenty of men would be jealous to have a strong, confident woman around! If you don't like that, you don't know how lucky you are! I've gotten so sick of your whining and complaining, Ash! You don't know how good you've got it! If you knew half the things I've gone through, that any of your friends have gone through because we're stuck with you as a friend, you would understand how good you've got it."

"You know what? I wish you were someone different!" he cried. "Completely. I wish you were someone different every day, because putting up with any side of you for more than twenty four hours just drives me insane! Putting up for four years with a whiny, spoiled brat was bad enough!"

"I…you…you little…" she spluttered, balling up her fists. "Me? I'm the brat? What about you? If there's anyone here who's spoiled, it's you. You're the only child! I was the youngest of four. Nothing I own is mine! Not a thing! I've got nothing but hand-me-downs! I've got nothing but pokémon! Even that bike you wrecked was Lily's before it was ever mine! I don't share because I had to fight to get anything in that home! I had to fight for everything and you say I'm spoiled. You don't understand the meaning of the word! If you want the definition, you need to take a step back and look in a mirror for a little while!"

He glared. "I wish you were nice instead…instead of being such a bitch!"

It was the first time he had ever swore. She slapped him for it, probably making it the last time in a long time he would ever do so. She slapped him, and she slapped him hard. That was the only sound in the silent room. The two stood. Misty glared. Ash stared at the floor with a hand to the cheek she had slapped. He wanted to yell at her, wanted to hit her back or call her something worse or do anything to make sure she hurt. Make sure she cried. But he couldn't do it. In fact, contrary to everything he wanted to feel and do, he wanted to cry.

She turned on her heel and left, leaving him staring at the floor, whispering desperately, "I just want you to be nice. I don't want you to yell at me. I want you to be nice."

And, just outside the window, invisible in their psychic prowess, the three Legendaries cheered for their victory.

"I told you!" Mespirit cried, even though it was a terrible lie. "What did I tell you? They always walk themselves into a trap! They practically set themselves up for it! The stage is ready for its actors! Each day that passes she'll get a new personality, whatever he wants her to be, until he figures out that what he really wants is the original girl, even if she is kinda a bitch. We're going to need to screw with emotions and memories for this one!"

"Can't we just fill 'em with hormones and see what comes from it? You know how funny humans are with hormones."

"No. This is better."

"If by better you mean more elaborate and stupid, then yes. It is better."

"No, it's better as in it's cool awesome, great idea that teaches a message."

"At least it'll be funny even if it doesn't work."

"But it will work," Mespirit pressed. The other two stared, looking almost amused. "It will! It freaking will!"

And, back inside, to the empty room, Ash spat with the fury that gave him a rush of courage, "Whiny, spoiled brat. I wish she was different every day in every possible way she could be! I can't stand her! I don't know why I even bothered to put up with her for so long! I wish she would just be nice!" He stomped his foot. "I hate her! I hope she dies! When I wake up tomorrow…when I do this whole stupid thing better be a dream!"

"Plan part two," Mespirit chimed.

"We're going to kill her?"

"You, sir, are an idiot."

However, Legendaries can only be so invisible. They have a presence, something that sends a chill, a warning to anything that listens. It makes pokémon cower in their balls, and humans tread likely. It quiets their arguments, and leaves them breathing quickly, but in a distant sense, like watching an action packed movie. Of course, if a couple of humans are too busy screaming, it's possible to ignore such stirrings, no matter how pulling they are. But pokémon find it harder to tune out. And, lucky for Ash, he had a pokémon with him.

(Be careful what you wish for, Ash,) Pikachu murmured, shuffling her paws. (You never know what might be listening.)

Too bad he didn't know what she was saying.

Too bad the troublemaking Legendaries had already gone through with the plans.

Too bad our little dumbass Ketchum has no self control, huh?


I do love this. I'm not even kidding. I've been plotting to do this for so freaking long. I have this whole thing plotted, every single one of Misty's mood swings, and I'm hoping I'm not the only one who's gonna enjoy this. –rubs hands together- Let the love/hate/noncommittal silence of the reviewers flow to me.

And, as your final note: What the hell does Delia do all day? She doesn't have a job or kids around and apparently doesn't need to shop or clean thanks to Mr. Mime so…I mean, does she just read romance novels all day or…? Gees. If nothing else, review or PM me that because I can't stop thinking about that…