Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon. Nor do I make any monetary gains from this
AN: This is my first story ever please give opinions to make improvements.

The struggle to be different

Ash was not a normal six year old. From a young age he has seen his mother struggle hard to support their family of two. He never knew his father nor did he remember him. Delia never spoke to ash about his father. Its was lucky that the Ketchum family owed a house, two miltanks and a Mr. Mime. Delia had opened a small stall in front of her small garden where she would sell milk & other dairy products while Mr. Mime would cook & take care of ash.

The people of pallet were very friendly and Delia's custards, pies, cookies & other products were very popular among them. But, the income was small afterall even though it was popular you can't expect a huge profit in a small backwater town with a population of 178. Tauros beef or miltank meat was only available to the family once a month. Ash had a sheltered & loved life where Delia tried her best to keep ash ignorant of their financial problems but only an idiot wouldnot notice the situation, and ash was no idiot. Ash was hated the fact his mother had to work so hard he wanted to help but did not know how to. So when ash attended the public school in his neighbourhood his mother would give him a little money for his tiffin but instead of eating he would save the money. While returning from school ash would see an old man named Carl Smith fishing in a lake at the edge of the town everyday. Ash would silently watch him fishing with a lot of interest.

Oneday ash went up to Carl " Excuse me Mr. Smith but can I talk to you for a minute?". "Sure lad, but keep your voice down you will scare away all the magikarps" stated Carl. "Can you teach me how to fish mister?" spoke ash in a low voice. "you are Delia's kid right? Sure comeover I will show you how to fish & skin water pokemon" said carl taking pity on the fatherless child. Ash learnt a lot from carl as time went on from catching magikarps to skinning psyducks, poliwirls & horsea. When Ash turned seven he bought a fishingrod with his savings. After school he would fish in the evenings and sell his catch in the small local market with Carl. This is where he got his first taste of money, each magikarp would sell at $5 while at psyducks $7 and poliwirl meat at $3 but the poliwirl skin could the sold at $4 similarly the ink glands of horsea were also in demand. He found out skins of certain pokemon sold at a higher price. He started pitching in some funds for the family despite Delia's protest. His mother did not want take her son's money but due to Ash insisting she gave in, afterall times were hard.
When ash turned 8 he started part-time work at professor Oak's pokemon ranch in the mornings before going to school. His job was feeding the growlite's and ponyta's cleaning the kennel's and stables. The ranch was huge with huge lakes, grasslands,small forest patches & artificial rocky and hilly areas to represent different habitats. The ranch employed a crew of 28 full-time experienced workers and according to need a number of part-time workers. Jake the foreman of the ranch was from the hoenn region he took a liking to Ash taught him a lot about pokemon. At oak's Ash was astounded to see the different types of pokemon even from different regions.

Being a pokemon trainer & going on a journey was a gamble, it either made a person's destiny or smashed it to pieces. But it was the easy way to make quick money and ash wanted to make something of himself he was tired of being a nobody. He wanted his mom to have a comfortable life not always work so to have to feed themselves. With being so busy he had no friends his age, his only friends were Carl & Jake the a few pokemon in the ranch he took care off. Jake taught him a lot about pokemon, he taught him about the types and their advantages & weakness, pseudo-legendaries and their near legendary power, the dragons and their notorious stubbornness that could only be controlled through show of dominance where showing weakness could result in death, the ghosts, the psychic, the dark types ash took it all in. It was his only ticket to explore the world and make something of himself. Carl was a natural story teller he told ash of the whisperings & tales of old, tales of gods & demons, legends of monsters only seen by a few lucky people or the unlucky ones whose mutilated dead bodies gave a glimpse of the supernatural or superpowerful. Tales of the legendary bird bird trio with control over fire, ice & thunder, of Mew the father of all modern pokemon, of Dialga & Palkia the masters of time, Girantina the ruler of the reverse world, Arceus the creator of all but these were tales. Ash loved to hear them, incidentally Carl had picked up these tales in his youth during his travels in different regions.

A trainers license & a starter could be received by any person from any local pokemon professor at a certain expense at the age of 15. The cost of the license was around $800 and the cost of the starter pokemon depended on the amount of money one was ready to pay & also the availability like the three traditional starters could be received at around $12,000 due to league discount for starting trainers while if you bought it from a pokemon trader it would cost around $90,000. Price difference was only because the fatal mortality rates of starting pokemon tainers, it was the leagues way of encouraging more people to consider pokemon training as a profession & promoting pokemon battles. Nowadays in a world where day-to-day livelihood depends on pokemon, trainers were the most sought out profession & the most dangerous so it was not everyone's cup of tea.

On ash's 9th birthday his mother gave him an aquarium albeit a small one as a gift. He was overjoyed joy to finally be able to have a pokemon of his own. Small water pokemon where the best option taking less time to oversee them, as well as having less food cost & maintenance. Being a farmhand at oak's gave Ash the perfect opportunity to observe evolution of a seemingly harmless pokemon to a powerhouse of a monster as well as the slight edge of a shiny pokemon on its more regular counterparts.

Magikarps where another example of such a phenomenon of nature, the gyrados where monsters of near legendary strength known to evolve from the seemingly harmless magikarp. It was known a single gyrados could destroy a whole village or small town situated on the seaside in its rage. Gyrados was known as the atrocious pokemon due to its wild and destructive nature. Very few trainers where known to be able to control a gyrados. However Jake once informed him that professor oak believed that the disobedience of gyrados was due to the impatience & abuse from most trainers in its magikarp stage due to its inability to evolve faster and being useless in battle.
Magikarps were long-term investments for trainers taking upto 6 years or more to evolve with no Guarantee of being obedient to its master after all it was though not a full dragon but dragon natured pokemon and they were the most difficult to gain respect from.

A few days after his 9th nameday while fishing in the evening he was lucky enough to catch a huge magikarp almost 3 times the size of a normal one but the odd part was its coloration was a unique golden one making it a shiny. Knowing the value it would sell for especially the potential of it after evolution he was tempted to sell it but ultimately decided to keep it for himself. His aquarium though small was enough to hold 2 to 3 pokemon but now could only hold one due to its new tenant. He named the magikarp Asur (demon in hindi), he made sure to feed it everydays and talk to it in the morning and at night before going to bed. Pokemon were intelligent creature capable of understanding human speech with regular interactions with humans & Asur was no different.A year after catching Asur & making sure to make the magikarp dependent upon him for love, affection & food he would take the magikarp to a nearby local pond for a swim while attaching weighed bands on its fins & at the base of its tail so that while swimming in the pond it would get physically stronger time Ash turned 15 year old he had a savings of $14,000.

He had already notified professor Oak's secretary Martha a about a starter and license 6 months back and took the basic test for being a E ranked trainer. Trainer ranks were generally E,D,C,B,A and the highest S from lower to higher tiers respectively. Very few trainers have achieved the S ranked qualification of the champions most elite four were A ranked while gym leaders varied from A to C rank. Rank was decided by a complex system of the trainer experience and his pokemons stats and battle experience and number of wins against the opponents defeated, If a lower ranked trainer defeated a higher ranked trainer chance of his points in experience jumping was much more than the said trainer defeating a lower ranked one. So on 08th October early morning Ash went over to professor Oak's lab for his license and starter, the professor would give out license and starter 3 times a year once in January , once in June & once in October. So, early in the morning at 7 in the morning Ash reached the oak building and saw Martha sitting at her desk. " Good morning, how are you today Martha?" asked Ash. " Good morning, Ash here for your starter then. You are early, infact you are technically first here. Two others are supposed to receive their starter today the professor's grandkids but I guess they are still asleep." Stated Martha. Daisy and Gary were the professor's grandchildren. While Daisy was the professor's elder son's daughter, Gary was the younger son's child both being almost of same age give or take a few months. Ash has never spoken to them seeing they attended a private school in viridian while Ash went to pallet's own small public school, of the times he has seen them from afar Gary was a black haired confident teen with an air of arrogance while Daisy was a blond haired bomb-shell on the bloom with the same vibe of arrogance as her cousin.

Its was half an hour later professor oak came down, he was an old man in his late sixties with snow white hair and rectangular glasses sitting on a kind face. But Ash was not stupid enough to mistake the professor as a kind man, oh no way would he categorize the man as kind and harmless. The professor was a champion of Kanto for a very brief stint in his youth infact it was the briefest reign a period of 24hrs. After becoming champion he gave up the title and concentrated on research but the strength of his Dragonite, Alakazam and Arcanine were tales told far and wide and it was common knowledge that the road to the champion ship was paved in blood. Even though Ash worked in his ranch he never had the opportunity to talk to the famous professor after all what would a lowly farm hand have to say to him.

"Hello, how may I help you young man?" asked Professor Oak. "Hello, professor I am Ash Ketchum, I am here for my License and starter" stated Ash. "oh so you are Ash, I have heard a lot of good things about you from Jake. Well as you are here first you get the chance to pick from the 3 tradition starters. According to the data I have I see you opted for the choice among these 3 pokemon." Said Oak. "Thank you professor yes I would like to choose for a charmander" said ash. "Well that good to hear the other two trainers as far as I know favor squirtle and bulbasaur, ok lets see this is charmander's pokeball. Now would you like your licence to be uploaded into a standard pokedex or the new ultradex?"asked professor Oak. "Pardon me professor but whats the difference between a pokedex and the ultradex?"asked ash. "The ultradex is a very recent invention by Bill the inventor of poke storage technology, while the standard national pokedex gives you the data about pokemon in Kanto. The ultradex has inbuilt information on pokemon from Kanto, Jotho, Hoenn & Sinnoh region, it also gives you unlimited access to the internet & GPS for a fee of $150 per month that you can use to see videos & suggestions to train your pokemon while on the road also it has a portable transfer machine to switch pokemon from storage or from my place if you take the option of leaving your excess pokemon in my lab. Both has the option of uploading a soft copy of you trainer I.D, as you know the rule is the original copy of you trainer I.D stays with the local pokemon professor for legal purposes or in case you lose your dex where you can buy a new one where it would be uploaded again" said the professor. "The standard Pokedex comes at a price of $1100 while the ultradex comes at $3500 both are scratch & water proof ."stated Oak.

Ash had $17000 with him $14000 of his own and $3000 Delia had saved for him, he weighed the pros & cons and decided to get the ultradex. This decision would setback his journey a few months but he knew he need the ultradex for training purposes. Once he told his decision to the professor and received his ultradex the old man informed him of options of storing his excess pokemon. "D &E ranked trainers can carry a maximum amount of six pokemon with them at a time the excess pokemon can be stored in the poke-storage or if you have space to your home & as you know the option I give to all starting trainers from pallet you can send the extra pokemon to the ranch, the products like shed feathers, milked poison, Milk, droppings, shed skin, claws or teeth and other products derived from your pokemon would be sold and the earnings would be divided 50-50 between the ranch and you also in exchange we will feed and take care of your pokemon to the best of our ability." Said professor oak. "I would like to leave my pokemon at your ranch professor, if that's ok with you." said Ash. "Ok I have uploaded the option on your profile, you can release charmander once you are outside the lab, here are 5 extra pokeballs sponsored by the league and feel free to cantact me if you have any problem my number is saved in your dex & good luck" said Oak.

As Ash turned to leave leave he saw Gary and Daisy entering the room while Daisy just ignored him Gary just stared at him with a raised eyebrow and walked past. Ash just left without saying anything as he turned to close the door he heard Gary say "what was the farmhand doing here don't they work in the field?" "oh, you mean Ash he came over to get his license and starter pokemon" informed the professor. "I thought he was poor. How did he get the money to afford a pokemon?"asked Gary. "Gary, just cause someone is poor does not mean its your business to know where they got the money. Moreover its below your station get involved in matters of those poor street people." Informed Daisy snootily. " I am disappointed in you Gary, Daisy just because someone is not financially sound does not mean he is below the anyone. I know for a fact that the boy is a hardworking kid and quite popular among my employees you should never belittle someone like that." Ash heard professor Oak say. But he did not stay to listen anymore fuming in silent anger he left the building towards his home. 'Its not my fault I was born poor, but it would definitely be my fault if I die poor' Ash decided.

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