Pokémon is copyright to Nintendo and Gamefreak. I do not own Pokémon.

Here it goes then, the first chapter of my first story on . Writing it went pretty smoothly as I've had this story in my head for a while now. So please be nice and review it. Be honest, what are the things I should improve? Which grammatical mistakes have I made? Just spout out all your venom in the reviews section, I can use all the guiding I can get.

Rated T for language and violence.

EDIT: Changed some stuff. Nothing too dramatic, just some spelling errors and grammatical cockups.

Chapter 1

(Nicholas Hale's POV)

That day I awoke later than usual and stretched my body as I noticed that the sun was already up quite high, which meant that midday was approaching. I looked around the clearing I called 'home' to see if I still had anything left to eat from the day before when I spotted a small blue round-shaped berry lying about and picked it up.

"Really? An Oran berry is all I got left from that scavenge hunt? Better than nothing I guess." I grumbled as I took a large bite from it. Oran berry's were pretty hard and had an odd mixture of all kinds of different flavors. I didn't exactly like them and preferred Pecha berry's as they were much softer and sweeter than Oran's. Oran berries were really handy though; as they had the ability to re-energize tired Pokémon and even heal wounds. They were considered important to have with you at all times, especially when you were far from home. Too much of these blue berries however - especially for someone as small as I - could result in intoxication similar to getting drunk when drinking too much alcohol. A danger I was well aware of as it had happened to me before.

"Getting drunk in a big and dark forest like this could be dangerous for the health of a lone Pichu, in more than one way." I thought to myself. "It's a lot harder to run away, for instance."

After finishing up the Oran I checked the area once more, hoping that I might have overlooked something to eat before. Unfortunately, it seemed like there was nothing left.

"A big and tasty apple is what I need right now, which means that I need to go into the deeper parts of the forest again to fetch some food... Fun times." I said to myself with a sigh.

And so I set off into the forest, leaving the clearing behind me, to go get some food and to do some exploring while I was at it. I did do some exploring before, but never for too long as I didn't want to get too far away from the clearing as I wasn't really fond of the forest. Even after living in it for more than a month I still found the place to be quite grim and scary. Though I did suspect that my small stature might have added to the dark and intimidating atmosphere of the place.

"Now where is that stupid apple tree at?" I wondered after walking around in the bushes for a while. I knew there was one around here somewhere as I had visited it before, but had trouble remembering where exactly. The fact that everything looked so alike for a small Pokémon like me didn't exactly help either; big trees, bigger trees and huge trees. I was eventually rewarded for my long search with the sight of the large, sturdy looking apple tree filled with tasty looking apples.

"Jackpot." I said with a wide grin on my muzzle.

The area around the tree was deserted, which was kind of odd seeing as this forest was filled with all kinds of Pokémon that loved eating apples. In fact, last time I was at the tree, there was a whole clan of Pichu, Pikachu and some Raichu around to eat from it. Not surprising as the entire Pichu evolution line loved eating apples. They were quite curious when they saw a lone Pichu that didn't belong to their clan walking alone in the forest and tried to approach me. I wasn't exactly too happy with their company as I liked my privacy, so I simply told them to back off, which they all did. Or at least, all of them except a Raichu who was probably some kind of an elder.

He had asked me why I was alone and if I was perhaps exiled or an orphan, to which I had replied that it was none of his business. When he kept bothering me and I had enough of his nagging I just said that I was a demonic parasite who kills and eats Pokémon and then takes on their appearance, that I didn't really like the look of my current appearance and that I was looking for something bigger, after which I just stared at him with a smirk on my face.

I still chuckled whenever I thought of that stunned look on his face when I had said that. That was a good day.

My grumbling stomach reminded me that it was still hungry so I decided to get to work. I Picked out the biggest and tastiest looking apple in the tree and started charging up energy in my cheeks. I had to hit it on a good spot so that it would fall of the tree unharmed, which required both accuracy and power. Both of which Pichu's don't exactly excel at. Came to think of it, there's nothing a Pichu is good at, as it's simply a baby Pokémon that relies on its parents or clan for food and protection.

"Bah, I'm more of a self-reliant person anyway!" I shouted as I shot up a jolt of electricity aimed at the apple, missing it completely.

"Hmmm, I forgot how bad I am at aiming." I muttered when I realized how big of a failure that had been.

"Well I don't need to be a better shot, I just need to shoot out more jolts!" I yelled, shooting off several jolts of electricity rapidly towards the tree, all of them missing their mark and striking the tree instead. For a second I feared that I might have put the thing on fire but I quickly realized that my attacks weren't strong enough to incarnate things.

"Note to self: practice the aiming and power of my electric moves." I said to myself with a weary sigh.

Practicing was going to have to wait however, as I suddenly heard a buzzing sound coming from up the tree behind the thick layer of leaves. "What in the…" is all I was able to say before a whole group of nasty looking winged bugs with black stripes on their yellow bodies came out of the layer of leaves. They also looked angry.

Very angry.

"Well at least it seems I hit something."

"Good morning, gentlemen... or ladies? (Really hard to tell with bugs) Sorry for disturbing you and all, but errrrm… I gotta go!" I said with a sheepish grin before quickly turning around, dropping myself to all fours and dashing away from the displeased bugs as fast as I could. Of course, they weren't about to let me get away and started chasing me whilst buzzing louder than ever.

They were gaining on me very quickly as my small legs couldn't carry me as fast as their wings could fly them, and for a moment it seemed like I was going to get caught by these buzzing monsters.

Then one of the worst things that could happen in a scenario like this, happened. In my rush, I didn't see a root from a tree sticking out of the ground and tripped over it. "Crap, crap , CRAP!" was all I could say as I saw the Beedrill closing in on me and one diving from the sky with its needles ready to strike and kill me.

Before it could strike however, I heard a feminine voice shout out 'Bullet seed' and saw how the attacking Beedrill got hit by a stream of seeds, knocking him back a bit. Unsure of what happened and what to do, I heard the voice shout out once again.

"C'mon, don't just sit there you idiot! Run!"

That, she didn't have to tell me twice as I got back up and dashed off towards the direction of the voice, when I saw the Pokémon it belonged to. It was a small blue shaped ball shaped Pokémon with leaves sticking out on its head. "An Oddish, female it seems." I thought to myself. Always had to watch out and try not to guess a Pokémon's gender from its voice alone, as I had encountered male Pokémon with feminine voices before. This reminded me of some awkward encounters he had in the past, making me shiver.

"Move it, if you don't want to get paralyzed!" She shouted as I saw an orange-coloured spore heading towards the Beedrill. "Stun Spore, very han-" I managed to say before she interrupted me shouting "Stop yapping! The spore will only slow them down. We need to get the hell out of here!" after which she started running, with me following her once again.

We ran through the forest for a few minutes when we started to hear the buzzing behind us again, the sound becoming louder and louder as time passed.

"Well, those bugs are persistent, if nothing else. A quick word of advice: keep running!" I shouted whilst trying to pick up the pace.

Suddenly two more Beedrill appeared out of a bush in front of us and blocked our path. "Backup for the already dangerous bugs? This just keeps getting better and better!" I said as I saw how the other Beedrill had reached us now too. There were 7 of them in total, all surrounding us in a circle and glaring at us with their blood-red eyes.

They moved in to attack and I saw how the Oddish used Bullet seed once again in an attempt to hold them off. I decided to follow her example and shot of some jolts of electricity which the Beedrill easily dodged.

"It's no use dammit! My Bullet seed has almost no effect on bugs and your Thundershock is worthless," the Oddish shouted, before being struck from behind by a Twinneedle of one of the Beedrill. "Ouch." She managed to mutter out before falling down on the ground, unconscious I hoped.

I muttered some curses as I launched another series of Thundershocks towards the Beedrill and actually hit one of them. It didn't have much effect though as the Beedrill simply shook it off and dived needles first towards me.

Just mere moments before I was going to get hit, the Beedrill smashed into an invisible wall bringing him to a full stop.

"What the hell?" I said, unsure of what just happened. The other Beedrill were now also trying to attack, but were unable to reach both me and the unconscious Oddish as they were blocked off by this mysterious force.

"Is that... Could that be Reflect? But who?" I wondered before getting the answer as a tall, pinkish Pokémon jumped out of a bush and slammed its fist, which also happened to be on fire, into one of the bugs. It dropped onto the ground after getting hit by it. "Fire punch" I thought "That's one mean Fire punch…" Three other bugs also got hit by the punches the pink Pokémon was dealing out and dropped to the ground.

The pink Pokémon then continued by simply charging in and slamming into the remaining Beedrill, taking out another one of them.

"Tackle? No, no, no. This is more brutal and powerful than Tackle. Take Down? Yes, that must be it." I thought to myself, still surprised by the sudden interference of the Pokémon that I now knew was a Wigglytuff. I wasn't complaining though, seeing as I was going to get murdered by those bugs without its help.

It seemed like the Beedrill finally understood that it'd be wise to just run instead of fight, as the Wigglytuff was too strong for them to take on. The Wigglytuff simply stared at the direction where they fled to, until I decided to talk.

"Uhm, hello?" I asked.

The Wigglytuff turned around to look at me with its large blue eyes, but didn't say a word at all.

"Thank you for your help, miss…?" I asked, hoping to find out what on earth just happened.

For a second I saw some confusion in the Pokémon's eyes. "It's Greg," the Wigglytuff said with a masculine voice. "And last time I checked, I'm not female."

"Ah shit, how typical," I thought "screwing up in the first conversation I have with the Pokémon who just saved my life. Looks like guessing a Pokémon's gender from its looks alone is also a no-no."

The Wigglytuff - or Greg - shifted his attention to the Oddish that also happened to have saved my life. I was just racking up debts that day.

"The name's Hale and I'm very sorry for the misunderstanding, I just assumed that you were female," I said apologetic "with the pink fur and all."

"Did I seriously just say that? Oh good going Hale, you're such an unbelievable idiot." I thought to myself again. "Not that it makes you look girlish or anything, but… Okay I'm just going to shut up now." I said with a sigh.

"Don't worry about that, it happens to me more often than you think." Greg said as he was walking over to the downed Oddish.

"Hmmm, direct hit from Twinneedle. Poisoning cannot be ruled out. Should be interesting to see how it turns out." I heard him mutter while examining the Oddish.

He then turned back to me and reached for his pouch he had hanging around his neck. He pulled out 2 berries I recognized as a Sitrus and a Pecha berry and gave them to me.

"Your friend here got a direct hit from a Twinneedle, lucky for her that she is part poison, which means that the bug weakness of her grass-type is negated. However, Twinneedle is also on of the few attacks that can poison anything. Even, the normally immune to poisoning, poison types. I'm unsure if this will be the case here but keep the Pecha berry in case she is poisoned. She's going to be knocked out for a while, but when she wakes up you should try and mash this Sitrus berry and feed it to her so she can regain her strength more quickly, do you understand?" He was speaking quickly and I was astounded by the sheer knowledge of the pink Pokémon and wasn't sure how to reply. Not that he gave me the time to do so as he turned around and walked away again.

"Good.", he said whilst walking away "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some urgent business to take care of. Have a nice day."

I stood there looking at the berries, still very confused.

The Wigglytuff turned around once more "Oh and by the way, I believe you were trying to acquire one of these, right?" he said, tossing an apple towards me which I managed to catch.

"Yes, Th- Thanks." I said perplexed.

"Not a problem, goodbye now!" he said before turning around and started walking again.

"Well… looks like I scored some booty after all." I thought to myself as I turned around to look at the unconscious Oddish. "Now how the heck am I going to get her to safety?"

A few hours later, darkness started kicking in and I was eating dinner back over at my clearing, which consisted of half of the apple Greg had given me. I kept the other half in reserve for when the Oddish decided to wake up. I felt very tired after the long day and having to transport her to my 'home'. Which wasn't all that hard when you think about it. After attempting to carry her and barely making any progress, I just decided to 'roll' her along with me. Using her ball-shaped body as an actual ball. It worked out pretty well, actually.

"I think it's in my best interest that I tell her I just carried her all the way to my clearing." I thought to myself, chuckling. "It also sounds more awesome that way."

My chain of thoughts was interrupted when I heard the Oddish waking up with a yawn and some grunts.

"Ugh, where am I?" she said, looking around the clearing until she spotted me. "Oh, it's you again. What the hell happened?" she as she was trying to get up. She got onto her legs, but instantly collapsed again with a grunt.

"I doubt your going to be able to get to your feet right now, or anytime soon for that matter." I said with a faint smile on my muzzle "You got hit pretty hard, you see."

"No shit right? Stupid Beedrill and their stupid needles." She grumbled, before continuing with a puzzled look on her muzzle. "Wait, how the heck are we still alive anyways? Don't tell me you took on all of those Beedrill by yourself!"

I was really tempted to say that I did, but realized how unlikely it sounded so I just decided to tell her the truth.

"Nah, after you got knocked out cold, a Wigglytuff came in out of nowhere and went zubatshit on those bugs." I explained her with a deadpan look on my muzzle.

"A Wigglytuff?" She asked, tilting her head slightly to the left.

"Yep, his name is Greg. He took care of those Beedrill with some Fire punches."

"A male Wigglytuff?" She asked, tilting her head even more to the left. I was almost expecting her to fall over. "Man, I've never heard of something like that, sucks to be that guy I guess" she chuckled.

"Which reminds me. Before he left, he gave me a Sitrus and a Pecha berry to get you back to full health in case you were poisoned." I said looking slightly worried.

"Hah, don't you worry about that. I can handle some poison." She said with a grin on her face. "I don't think I've been able to introduce myself because of all that stuff that happened today. The name's Leaf."

"Nice to meet you Leaf." I said, wanting to shake paws before I realized she had none and thus kept my paw to myself. "I'm Hale."

"Hale? That's an odd name."

"Well, it's my surname. My first name is Nicholas. But I don't like the sound of that. Though you may call me Nick as well." I explained.

She gave me a confused look "That's even weirder, do you live with humans or something? Those names of yours sure sound human." She asked

"Errr no, it's a bit complicated." I said quickly, scratching the back of my head. I picked up the other half of the apple and gave it to her "Here, you must be starving." I said, wanting to change subjects.

"You guessed it." She said as she grabbed it using her vines and started taking bites from it.

"Oh, by the way, thank you for saving me today. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." I said with a smile.

"It's nothing, really. I saw that you were in trouble and decided to give you a hand. There has to be at least someone who helps out others in this damn world." she said bluntly.

We were both quiet as Leaf kept on eating her piece of apple. When she was finished, she looked over to me and asked "So this is where you live? How did you get me over here while unconscious? Did you roll me all the way over here or something?"

"Oh no, I wouldn't dare doing that. I simply carried you. Hard work seeing as you're about the same size as I am." I said quickly "And yes, this is where I live. It's nice and quiet, I like it."

"You live alone then?"

"Yeah, I do." I said with a sharp nod.

"How come? Don't you have any family or a clan or something? I mean Pichu usually don't live on their own." She inquired.

"I got exiled from my former clan" I lied. The truth was oh so complicated and strange, I doubt she'd believe it anyways.

"You were exiled? How come?"

"I don't really want to get into all that right now. I'm very tired and would like to catch some sleep." I said, avoiding any more questions, and turned around and started heading oveer to my 'bed' made out of leaves "Feel free to stay here for the night."

Well, that went well. Spellchecked and reviewed by myself several times. I hope I didn't make too many mistakes. I'm quite happy with its size, over 3500 words. I'm glad I can finally publish this, as I'm getting really tired from all that typing just about now.

Please review this, so that I know what to improve next.

Cheers