This is a rewritten version of chapter one, which, for those of you that read it, really needed it. Basically, it was un-thought-out, had nothing to do with the sting to do with the ste used in the rest of the story, and… Well, it sucked. Criticism is very welcome, I want to improve in any way I can, and you can be as brutal as you want, unless you decide to flame me or this story. One more thing: The story starts off lighthearted, but it will become much darker as the plot moves on. Don't turn out the light.
Do I really need to say anything here? Seriously, do I? Is Nintendo happy that they need to make a kid live in constant paranoia of being sued just for writing a fanfiction, using characters that they, in no way, shape, or form, own?
I sighed as the wind hit my face as I stood in the doorway of my old house. This place… I've lived here all thirteen years of my life, but all I've known from here is misery. Oh crap, forgot to introduce myself. Name's Matt Gerace, age thirteen, clothes all hand-me-downs from the few kind folks around here, which consisted of an old camouflage t-shirt and black pants, with an old brown backpack I picked up a couple of years ago. And now we come to the point where most people decide to write me off as crazy. My hair. It's completely pale. Coupled with my ruby red eyes, it produces an image of someone who (according to my buddy Blaze) is probably missing a few screws from their head. Not that he's any different.
Speaking of Blaze, here he comes now.
Blaze walked up next to me, rubbing his eyes with a paw. "Morning Matt," he grunted. His gold-colored fur rippled in the pretty much nonexistent wind. Yes, Blaze is a shiny Riolu. Get over it.
"Morning," I replied with a yawn. The morning was so peaceful, so serene. No one was bitching at me, so one was throwing anything at me. Life seemed perfect.
It was then that the bitch that is Life decided to remind me how much it hated me.
"Ah, itsh the little bashtard," my mother slurred from behind me. "Itsh finally time for bashtard to leave. By bysh, bashtard!" She swayed a little in place as she waved.
"Aw, fuck you mom."
"Fine! Be that way!" She suddenly burst into tears. Embarrassingly loud, drunken tears. I started edging away from her slowly. It was time to go to the Gromell Town Pokemon lab, before this got violent.
"Well, this is it," I stated as we reached the door to the town Pokemon lab after walking through our hometown and avoiding the stares of the everyday people, as hard as that was for me.
"Fun, can we move on?" Blaze asked. "My hot chocolate's getting cold." He took a sip from the mug of hot chocolate that I could swear magically appeared in his hand, since I hadn't seen it before.
"Where'd you get hot chocolate?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "I didn't see you with one when we left."
"Oh, someone left a mug outside, and I took it before it could get cold."
I thought about the moral issues associated with that for a second, then shrugged. "Works for me."
At that point, someone tried to open a door into me.
"OW!"
"I'm so sorry!" Professor Maple cried, wringing her hands out of panic. I groaned mentally. There was almost nothing as annoying as an overly worried man-woman. And Maple certainly was a man-woman. It (I'm not even going to try and use a gender; it's way too confusing) was about five and a half feet tall. It had long hair tied in a ponytail just past its shoulders, with a very masculine face, along with a beard; this was offset, though, with the fact that it had bulges under its shirt along the top of its torso.
"Welcome, welcome," Maple greeted. "Glad to see you're here this early. And I'm sorry about earlier, you know…?"
"It's okay," I replied, waving the professor off and getting to my feet.
"It's a good thing you have a hard head," Blaze remarked. I glared at him, but didn't say anything.
"Well, if you're okay, then let's go get you registered," said Professor Maple, going into the back of its lab. "Now, where did I put that form?" I heard the shuffling of paper. I grinned silently. Oh, it wouldn't be finding that particular paper any time soon, I made sure of that.
I went over to the machine that stored the Pokemon used for new trainers and opened the glass dome covering the thing. Let's see now, which one do I want…
Squirtle, who's perfect for new trainers, known for being calm and relaxed, but not particularly smart?
Bulbasaur, who is also a good choice for newbie trainers, and having a plant growing on them to boot?
Or Charmander, who is harder for newbs to take care of, but has an awesome flame on its tail throughout its evolution?
The choice was obvious; who wouldn't pick a Pokemon with fire on its tail?
"Are you sure about this?" asked Blaze as I took the Charmander Pokeball from its slot. "You'll get into a ton of trouble if you get caught."
"Relax," I replied, slipping the ball in my pocket, "what other people don't know won't hurt them." I raised my voice. "Hey, professor, I think I found your paper thingy!"
"Oh, good," it responded, coming back into the main room. "I was beginning to think I had thrown it out by accident; where was it?"
"Right here," I answered, gesturing to the Pokeball machine; I thanked whatever legendaries were with me that it had a reflective glass dome, so that newbie trainers wouldn't know what they were getting. Actually, that seems kind of pointless, once I think about it; even though they don't make the Starter pamphlets here, they can get one from Kanto, which isn't that far across the water.
"Huh, that's funny…" It scratched the back of its head in confusion. "Oh well, I guess I moved it there when I went to get my coffee." It took out a pen and began filling out the paper, while I stood there sweating bullets out of silent panic. Blaze, on the other hand, was a master of the poker face; you would never guess what he was thinking at that moment from his face alone.
" – And, done!" said Professor Maple, signing the last piece of paper. "Now to get you a Pokedex." It took a machine that looked kind of like a Nintendo DS and handed it to me. When I pressed the button that would be where the DS's power button would be, the screen flickered into life.
"Pokedex version 1.4, registered to Matthew Gerace. Please place your eye over the bottom screen." I did so, and a beam of light shot out and hit me in the eye; thankfully without pain. "Scanning done, Pokedex registered to Matt Gerace, current number of Pokemon captured: 2." I was sweating, hoping, praying, that it hadn't noticed. My praying must have gone to the wrong legendary, though, because Professor Maple noticed. It definitely noticed.
"Crap! Run, Blaze!"
We turned and ran to the lab door, only for it to open in my face. Again. Does this town's doors have something against my face or something?
"Well, hi, freak." I groaned.
"Hi, Fred." Fred Stone. Molly Smith. Those two names are the only things in the world that can make me want to kill babies. Fred was a giant, six-foot-three. And he's twelve. Fucking hell. Molly, on the other hand, was a dwarf, four-foot-seven at thirteen.
And these two hate me. I've never understood why. Eh, probably because I'm not 'normal'. Anyway, these two, about six years ago, decided to make my life more of a hell than it already was. Almost daily beatings. Stealing my money every time I managed to get some. Hell, they even give Blazer his fair share of beatings, too, and he's a Pokemon. That should speak for itself how mean they are.
Of course, most of it's the fact that Fred is like a big rock. He's impossible to move, he moves when he wants to.
So basically, I'm screwed.
"Why was that freak here?" asked Fred once Matt had ducked around them. "Shouldn't they have banned him from being alive by now?"
"Don't ask me," stated Molly, shrugging. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Hey!" cried Professor Maple from behind them, standing there as though he hadn't just had a Pokemon 'stolen' from him. "Aren't you two here for a Pokemon too?"
"Sure, whatever," snorted Fred. "I bet anything that bastard got is pathetic."
"You never know…" said the professor mysteriously, beckoning the two to follow him into the lab.
"Hey! Fucktard! I challenge you to a battle!" a loud voice called from behind me. I sighed again, and motioned for Blaze to run.
"Never!" I called out in reply. I heard the cracking of branches behind me and gulped. That hadn't been the smartest thing I'd ever done.
"Too bad, cause I just found ya!" he jeered. He pulled out a Pokeball and threw it. Out came the Squirtle he had received not ten minutes before. "Frankie, Water Gun!" Wait for it…
The Squirtle just gave him an odd look. I had to resist to massive urge to burst out laughing when I saw Fred's face! Fuckin' hilarious!
"BWAHAHAHAHAHA! You seriously thought that a Squirtle you just got would know Water Gun?" I had to stop speaking there, from laughing so much.
The Squirtle looked embarrassed. It reached a hand into its throat…
"Frankie, no!"
But it was too late.
Me and Blaze had to split up after Frankie had done his thing. If none you morons reading this know what thing I speak of, then let's just say it involves vomit. No one wants to stay around vomit. Speaking of regrouping, I had yet to meet my new Charmander.
"Go, Ash!"
What came out of the Pokeball was a two-foot-high orange salamander. One that didn't seem too happy about meeting me.
"Die, motherfucker!" I had to hit the ground as a giant blue beam soared within a paper's width of cutting my head off; as it was, it still managed to burn several hairs off of my head.
"What the hell? What'd I do?"
"You lived. NOW DIE!"
"Wait!" cried Blaze, running in between us and waving his hands around. "Don't kill him yet! I know he acts like it, but he isn't drunk!"
I gave him a look that said, 'what the hell?'
"Fine, if he's not drunk, then how come he gave me a crappy name like Ash? The only people with that name should be naïve idiots wearing hats!"
"Um…" Blaze looked at me. "He's an idiot?"
"Hey!"
"But," Blaze continued, "he's not a naïve idiot, and he doesn't wear a hat."
"Look, buddy," muttered Ash, quiet enough that I could barely hear him, "this isn't about you, this is about me. I hate the name Ash!"
"Well," I interrupted, "the name's final until we can visit a Name Rater. They're the only ones in this game that can change nicknames, for some reason."
Why is it that only Name Raters can change nicknames in the games? I've never figured that one out.
"Fine, but I'm going to warn you," here, Ash's claws glinted evilly in the sunlight, "I like killing. DIE!" He suddenly lunged forward and stabbed an innocent Starly that was just looking up from looking for worms in the ground.
"I regret nothing!" it cried out as it died.
I facepalmed. "That's not… You know what, screw it, I'm just going to tell you what my goal is on this journey."
I suddenly wondered why Professor Maple hadn't pursued me when he found out I stole Ash, but pushed the thought to the back of my mind to deal with later.
"My goal," I stated as I paced in front of the two, "is to find Pokemon that are mistreated, prejudiced against, or hated. I'm going to try to change people's views of them. Pokemon such as Absol, whom people view as the cause of disasters, even though they're only warning people of them; Golbat, whom people seem to associate with Team Rocket; Mightyena, whom is the same, except for Teams Aqua and Magma, etc. etc. etc.. Any questions about this (incredibly shitty) speech?"
"Nope."
"Nada."
"Then let's go!"
The man chuckled as he watched the small group talking together. He didn't actually know why the boss had told him to keep an eye on the young trainer, but he was the type of person who was like a Growlithe; completely and utterly loyal to their master, to the point of dying.
It didn't hurt that his master was also one of the most powerful unregistered trainers in the region.
One final note before I go: I'm not using any Gen. V Pokemon until their English names are revealed, for the simple fact that I'm going to be too lazy to go back and change the names once they're revealed.
Edit: And here are the guidelines I forgot in the original post.
Name (first, last, middle is optional)
Age (at least 13 if they're a trainer, because that's how this world works)
Origin (for those not from Ikanau)
Physical features (Please be detailed here. This includes hair, eyes, height, weight, build, markings, etc.)
Clothing (What do they wear? Again, please be detailed.)
Personality (How do they act? How do they treat others? Yet again, please be detailed.)
Quotes (Show off their talking style, so I know how to write their speech, plus show off their personality a little.)
Likes/Dislikes (What do they like? What do they not like?)
Talents/Flaws (Optional. What are they good at? What are they not good at?)
Pokemon (Up to six, unless they're a trainer (remember, there's no storage system, so the extra pokemon have to go to a relative or something), in which case add storage pokemon (up to 6, because of shitty memory on my part). The pokemon should include: A nickname (if any), species, a couple of moves moves (please try and keep the number low, though. Again, shitty memory), their personality, and how they were obtained. No legendaries/shinies. No Unova/Isshu pokemon unless their English names have been revealed (Snivy, Zoroark, etc.). If there are duplicate species, they must both have nicknames. Otherwise, go wild. Just please try to be realistic.)
Again, these are just guidelines, but if you don't fill in a certain part, then I'll fill it in myself. I need:
Four Elite Four members
Seven Gym Leaders
About ten or so traveling trainers, maybe more
And that's it for now. More potential candidate requests will be included in future chapters. And before you ask, I mostly have the plot written out, I just need characters to fill them, and I'm too lazy to come up with my own. And remember: PM only, I don't want to have to go sifting through reviews.