Hey, everyone! In my long absence of FFN (and not writing much during that time), I've seriously been wanting to post this for quite a while. To the readers of my Sonic fics, I have not given up on them and will update them soon. So, welcome to my pride and joy as of now, my Pokémon fic!

A few things you need to know about this fic...

One, this takes place in the anime. Two, Ash and Team Rocket will share the spot of protagonists. Three, this is an AU, where the Pokémon are not your friends but 'enemies.' I got the idea from watching my sister's Godzilla movies. Go figure. :P Four, this will probably go through the entire region of Kanto (maybe Johto). Not sure about going any farther.

If there are any questions you have after reading this, let me know! Now, (finally) enjoy!

Winter

Pallet Town was caught up in a heavy blizzard that day, temperatures ranging from cold to downright freezing. The weatherwoman, who was broadcast across the region, advised everyone in that town to stay in their homes. As a result, not many people were seen outside. Only few off-road vehicles and cars traversed through the deep blankets of snow in the town, going on their way and disappearing into the now snow-covered forest. Pallet Town in the region of Kanto was quite a small town and usually had fair weather, so this had come as a shock to most.

But not to two young boys who were waging a war in the snow. Each had a mound of snow as a wall of defense and a pile of snowballs to throw. One of the fighters, who was crouched low and making new ammo, couldn't have been older than nine. His black hair snuck out of the floppy red and white hat he wore, and despite the cold, a short-sleeved blue and white jacket clung to his body.

When he finished making a good amount of snowballs, he chucked one at the other boy, who easily dodged it. Now the nine-year-old's opponent looked about the same age, perhaps only months older, and the most notable aspect of his figure was his chestnut brown hair sticking out in a crazy hairdo.

As the nine-year-old saw his miss (and made a disappointed expression in the process), the other side saw this as a perfect opportunity to hit him. And the result was a snowball hit straight in the younger boy's face.

"And the best sharpshooter wins!" the crazy-haired boy cheered, kicking up snow in the air for good measure. He approached his opponent with a wry grin. "Man, you're a terrible shot, Ash. I wonder if you'll even get your hunter's license!"

"Whatever, Gary," Ash muttered, "It's not like the test depends on how good you throw a snowball."

Gary picked up said weapon. "But it's all about accuracy," he taunted and then pelted Ash at close range. This caused the black-haired nine year old to back away and adjust his red and white hat once more. "Why do you wear that stupid hat anyway? It's way too big for you!"

"It's my pop's," Ash said, straightening in pride, as the hat flopped over his eyes, "And you know he was a spectacular hunter back in the day. I'mma be like him when I grow up." He turned the hat on his head. " 'Sides, it's better than your hair."

At the mention of his pride and joy, the boy flicked it out of his eyes, "You're just jealous."

"Ash, dinnertime!"

Instantly, the hat-wearing nine year old was running to his house.

"Smell ya later, Ash!"

Ash rolled his eyes. "I'll see him later...when I have a hunter's license in my hand! Pop would be so proud..."

Even though he referred to his dad as "Pop", he really didn't know much else about him, except that he wore a hat and was a great hunter. His mom said that he went down fighting Pokémon while trying to find their nest.

The boy's gaze sharpened into fragments of flint; that was almost seven years ago. He only had bits and pieces of memories of his father- -what he looked like, how his voice sounded, and the humor that his mother had told him about so much. All of it was in a haze, as memories collided into fantasies about the mysterious man so that Ash couldn't tell what was fact or fake.

Ash clenched the hat. He resolved to be the master of hunting Pokemon; he'd find the nest his father was so desperately trying to seek out! "When I'll go up the ranks," he promised under his breath, "I'll take down those creatures that had took away Pop."

As he made these whispered oaths, he climbed up the stairs and into the house, where delicious scents awaited. He took a deep breath and rushed to the kitchen. His mom, an auburn-haired woman in her thirties, diligently stirred some sort of savory broth. "Hey, Mom, when's dinner? Is it almost done?"

"Patience, Ash," his mother scolded good-naturedly, swirling her wooden spoon once more through the frothy liquid.

He inhaled the scent of the cooked delicacy and grinned. "What is it? Caterpie soup?"

"Better. Country-fried Weedle stew," his mother swiftly replied.

Ash let out a boyish cheer as his stomach had been growling for quite some time. He climbed into one of the tall seats pushed into the dinner table and waited patiently for his mother to dish out the food. Still, Ash couldn't help but stand on the chair on his tippy-toes to see the quantity of the soup. "Man, that's a lotta Weedle stew," he commented, craning his head to see if he could find the different body parts of the Weedle.

"Yes, it is. I made a little extra because some of the neighbors are coming here after their hunting. After doing such a dangerous activity out in this frigid weather, they'll be famished- -"

As if on cue, a sound of a heavy vehicle screeching to a stop could be heard outside. Then crunches of the snow until the resounding clop-clop-clop against the porch... A firm rapid series of knocks on the door caused Ash's mother to smile knowingly. "Well, perfect timing."

Ash listened closely and heard his mother opening the door and the stamping of many pairs of feet inside the small house. Male voices bounced boisterously across the narrow halls as a small group of hunters approached the dinner table. Snowflakes still clung to their coats and hair, and some still shivered from the cold outside. His black-eyed gaze followed them intently, and his breath hitched.

The hunters.

The hunters, mostly male, were dressed up pretty snug. They wore casual camouflaged uniforms, and outdated rifles, as well as many other weapons and items, were connected to their belts.

Ash couldn't help but watch them in pure awe. His one hand reached to clutch the bill of his red and white hat as he never tore his eyes from the group of them. Hunters were the bravest people he had ever known, even if some of them were his next-door neighbors; their fearless determination to keep the region safe one town at a time inspired him. They were everything he wanted to be.

The nine year old watched in ecstasy as the hunters each placed their rifles down at a safe distance from the kitchen.

One man who sat in a dining chair next to Ash gave the boy a rough noogie. "Hey, Ketchum boy!"

The nine year old laughed, trying to match the hunter's manliness. "Whatcha catch this time, Steve?"

The man grinned roguishly and took a swig of his cider. "Nuttin' this time. Mary was complainin' about all the Rattata in her barn. After we were done there, she didn't need to worry about no vermin anymore!" he cheered roughly.

Once the hunters all were settled in their chairs, Ash's mother called, "Are you men ready for some stew?"

Everyone in the kitchen let out a deafening 'yeah!' and had several rounds of other strident agreements. "Yeah!" exclaimed Ash with them. Apparently, he was loud enough to be noticed.

"Now, now, Ash. Manners," Mrs. Ketchum chided.

The nine-year-old scoffed and folded his arms stubbornly, relenting reluctantly back to a subdued form of politeness. The men clad in soldier gear continued to jeer and joke quite rowdily as Ash tried to listen to the banter flying back and forth.

One of the hunters, a wild red-haired man in his early twenties, stole a glance at Ash. "Say, Ash, you're going to be ten in only three days. Are you ready to get your Pokémon-hunting license?" he asked.

Ash nodded vigorously and puffed out his chest, much to the older audience's amusement. "Ready? Pfft, I've been prepared for this since the minute I was born!"

"Oh, sure you have, my little man," his mother teased, ruffling his night black hair, making it wilder and messier than before. Her son only let out a soft half-whimper at the action.

"Aw, c'mon, Delia. Lookit 'im, he's got his father's determination and the strength and the resolve to do whatever he wants ta. He'll make a great hunter, I tell ya," the red-haired man shot back, receiving a round of raucous cheer from the other men and the clinking of root beer glasses.

Ash gleamed in pride at the statement and shifted his gaze to his mother. "Do ya think I'll really be as awesome as Pop?" he whispered softly to her, his brown eyes glowing with curiosity and hope.

Delia Ketchum smiled at her boy's expectancy of an answer.

"Ash Ketchum, I think you'll very well be- -"

A siren cut through the air, piercing and haunting as it was.

Everyone in the Ketchum household froze, and Ash swiveled his head and ran to the frost-encased window, peering out of it in sudden fear. More sirens joined the lone alarm as if to signify the day of judgment. Several of the hunters abruptly jumped to their feet and made a mad but somewhat coordinated dash to their rifles, voices alternating in volume and panic. Mrs. Ketchum scooped up Ash into her arms, much to his protest, and muttered in fright, "Not again. Please let it not be an attack. Please let it not be."

Ash struggled against his mother's hold, trying to let her know that he wasn't five anymore, until out of the same window he had glanced at, he saw dark shadows banging harshly against the house, wings flapping crazily. "Pidgey..." he murmured. He had seen the Pokémon in his dad's field guide, but he never had seen one in the flesh, let alone an innumerable amount of them. They squawked loudly and strangely, their fierce brown mottled markings and glaring black eyes intimidating.

His mother finally reached to the backdoor while the hunters had exited the front entrance with their weapons. Ash felt his mother's arms wrap protectively over his head before her fingers grasped the door handle. When the door was opened, he barely could see the snow flurry under the flurry of Pidgey covering the sky and jumping from the snowy ground towards tiny households.

Ragged, scared breathing came from the parent as she tore through the waist-deep snow towards the forest, their only escape from the pecking and sharp feathers. Ash squealed when a Pidgey's wing made contact with his mother's shoulder, whose owner merely winced. She was determined to get out of this mess.

Safety that was the forest began to near them, and Ash began to relax just the slightest.

That is, until a humongous dark blur, much larger than the Pidgey, from above swooped down at high speeds right in from them, causing his mother to fall back with him and scream. The boy watched the unknown creature emit a screeching cry before swiping through the roof of a Pallet Town house. Vibrant flames erupted from the damage, enlarging with help of the whipping wind. It went so fast that its markings blended in with the carnage, and the Pidgey seemed to join in on the siege, squawking in unison. The nine year old gaped, fear glazed in his black eyes.

This was serious.

The hunters that had been in his house just minutes ago quickly arrived to the rescue in the blistering cold weather, prepping their rifles and attempting to fire at the fast-moving figure. However, none could hit it as the imperceptible beast plummeted down once again straight towards its attackers. Purple fire seemingly flew out of its mouth as the hunters barely leaped out of the blur's way. Another shriek came from it, as it continued to burn down another house.

One hunter groaned, fingering the now-scorched grass that had been underneath the blanket of snow. "We need backup!" As soon as the words left his lips, roaring echoed throughout the small town, increasing in volume as dark objects slowly approached the residents of Pallet Town.

"Great, it's Team Rocket!"

Many giant vehicles marked with a dark red 'R' halted by the hunters. Numerous men and women dressed in black leaped out with guns in hand. An armored truck, the largest vehicle in the area, provided the most amount of reinforcement with flying snares and every piece of trapping equipment imaginable.

A man with shaggy purple locks and a woman with long magenta hair both probably in their twenties- -part of this Team Rocket regime, of course- -stood inside the transport, handing out the traps towards any black-clothed soldier who asked for them.

Groaning, the man tossed another snare to a Rocketeer (at least, that was what everyone called a Team Rocket hunter) and leaned back against the truck wall, stuffing his hands through his hair. "We could do just as well as them, Jessie."

His partner merely gave a fancy contraption with a noose away. "You know we were assigned to trap duty, James."

James' green eyes turned back to the chaos going on outside the truck. "I know we're new at this. But so what? We can take this fire-breathing monster just as well as any other official Rocketeer."

This man was seriously determined to get in on the action. She turned to him, her own emerald eyes glaring with annoyance. "Can't we just try to follow Giovanni's orders this time?" she asked, "You know what happened last time..."

"I know, I know," he waved his hands to dismiss the memory, "But this...this is ridiculous. Us, standing here in a near-empty truck while our colleagues get a chance to climb up the ranks. If we work together, we can for sure get a clear shot, what with my good aim and your intelligence."

Jessie grinned a little at the underhand compliment but then hesitated; this was what got her into trouble the last time. And she did not want to do janitorial duty in the Team Rocket base this time. "James, I—"

"Here, take the last of these," he persuaded a gruff-looking officer, "You'll need them, I'm sure." As soon as the last customer left, James grasped a gun and waved for Jessie to do the same. "C'mon, let's take 'em now!" She tentatively took the weapon while he continued to monologue. "Imagine if we take down the fire-breathing demon," the man motioned toward the damage done to the houses, "We'd be rich and official Rocketeers and in Giovanni's good graces." When still met with the uneasy look of his partner, he nudged her shoulder gently. "C'mon, Jess, it's hard to babble on and on about this without you doing the same. This isn't normal for you."

Grimacing, the magenta-haired woman was about to state her opinion until she saw a dense cloud of Pidgey heading straight toward them. "Look out!" They ducked just in the nick of time, escaping only with a few pecks to the head.

"Annoying Pidgey."

"Standing out in the open won't work in trying to capture it," she uttered, pointing to another wave of Team Rocket soldiers being wiped out by the leader of the attack. "We need to find some cover to get the best shot possible without getting ambushed."

James grinned at the intensity of his partner and her new focus. "All right, let's do this."

Once they got in some pretty decent cover—a couple of snow-covered bushes that hadn't been scorched by the heat, obviously—Jessie pointed to the blur swooping down and destroying houses. "We need to shoot that bird. It's obviously the leader of this whole thing. If it's shot down, everything disperses and we win." Cocking his gun up at an appropriate angle, James took notice of the monster's erratic movements above the town. She glanced at her partner's weapon suspiciously. "The gun is loaded, right?"

"I made sure to put in the right projectiles to ensnare the thing. Trust me," he assured, concentrating more on the bird than her.

The twenty-year old woman squirmed a little. That absentminded answer really wasn't satisfying. However, when he mumbled, "I got the target in sight," she sat up on her knees, and her heart beat faster than ever. "Then shoot already!" she said, her dominant nature returning.

The trigger was pulled, the projectile barreled out, straight for the monster. Dead on.

Jessie pumped her fist and leaped to her feet. "Yes! I did it!"

"You mean, we?"

"Yeah, yeah," she dismissed, as both watched the mysterious Pokémon plummet into the ground. It stayed motionless, seemingly unconscious, wrapped up in some sort of strong material from the gun. Only a few seconds passed for Jessie to examine the huge beast of a bird—orange and red markings, a yellow crown upon its head, and massive colorful tail feathers—before its eyes flickered open once again.

Letting out a raucous cry, it literally burst into flames. The Rocketeers who had begun to surround it leapt back instantly, shocked at it reawaking.

Both young Team Rocket members in the bushes were stunned as well. Then Jessie punched her partner's arm. "You idiot! Ropes? For a bird that breathes fire?!"

"I wasn't thinking; it was the only thing left!" he argued futilely under her booming remonstrance.

She flung her arms exaggeratingly, already on a roll. "Why not a stun gun? Or real bullets? Or perhaps actual—"

"Jessie!" James shook her out of her rage-induced spiel.

Glaring, his partner slapped his arms away. "What now?"

The purple-haired man began to sprint away from the bushes and into the forest. "Monster—heading straight toward us!"

Jessie made the mistake of looking back for just a second. And James was right; a sphere of flame was barreling right at them. She spun around and charged after him. "H-hey, wait for me—!" The monster Pokémon's cry and the flapping of its gigantic wings grew louder and louder. She could feel the heat right at their heels. "Hurry, James, it's catching us! My hair's going to be singed if you don't push it this instant!"

"I'm sorry; I was never very good at P.E.," he cried.

The Pokémon's screech was deafening now. They were never going to outrun the thing by blindly sprinting through the forest.

She had to think of something quick.

"James, duck, now!"

It was a stupid idea, but both ducked, and the ball of living flame flew past them. The woman saw, after shoving her face in dirt, the monster fly up and out of the forest, perhaps into the sky where it belonged.

Slowly, the two came to their feet. Before they could react, hordes of Pidgey flew above and around their heads, allowing for them only to shriek and flail. Once the Pidgey had flown into the dark recesses of the forest, James brushed the dirt off his black pants. Jessie slipped her hands through her magenta hair, only to realize that it stunk of smoke and turned completely black. She glared at James, who was in the same condition.

"At least we got the Pokemon out of Pallet Town," James offered weakly.

"Shut up, you!"

Snowflakes from the sky began to collect on the now-scorched ground, as Rocketeers roamed about on the order of aiding Pallet Town's recovery. Partially-crumbling houses were hosed down and wounded citizens were sent directly to a physician. Uninjured hunters huddled in a tight circle, talking in hushed voices amongst each other.

Ash watched the scene from the forest as his shaking mother held him close. Pallet Town had been dealt a heavy blow. His little fists clenched, and his black eyes unwaveringly took in all of what happened. This—this was why he was going to be a hunter.

There would be no more devastation. No more...Pokémon.

Please read and review if you want this idea to go any further. It helps me out with the decision of whether I should continue this. Thanks!