UPDATED: 1/6/2017
Thanks for all the feedback guys! Sorry if there are any errors, I wrote this in one long sitting and I wanted to get it out to you ladies and gentlemen.
In which Ash is the snarky, extremely overpowered Kanto Champion fleeing from his duties and Dawn is the sweet, idealistic girl with tsundere tendencies. From Ash's pitiful attempts at gathering a harem to saving the Pokemon world from evil organizations, follow their travels through Sinnoh and beyond. Warning: AU, Cursing, OOCness. Other characters will come. Possible Harem.
ARC I: Awkward Beginnings, But That's Okay
Not Very Effective
Challenger Approaching
"My name's Ash Ketchum. And I'm a Pokemon Master."
Dawn gaped at Ash and his declaration. Even Cynthia didn't dare call herself that; Ash was either extremely overconfident or a fool. From what Dawn had seen, he was possibly both. But he had said it with such confidence, as if it was a plain truth that everyone should have known already.
"Right…" she settled for, her tone only slightly unbelieving, "whatever you say."
"Oi," Ash called, crossing his arms, "don't doubt me. I'm a Pokemon Master. Right, Char?" His pokemon growled slightly, sending a puff of flame at its trainer. Ash dodged the fire smoothly, as if he'd done it a million times, and the little stream hit a nearby bush and set it completely aflame. Dawn could feel her skin blister from the heat of the fire and backed away, but Ash just laughed good-naturedly and pulled out a pokeball. "Don't be jealous 'cause Pikachu got all the fame. This region has a league too, you know. If you're nice maybe I'll send you in first."
The pokemon glared at him defiantly as it was sucked back into the ball with a beam of red light. Ash clicked the button on one of the pokeballs hooked to his belt and a cute little Pikachu popped out, and Dawn mentally cooed at the sight of the adorable pokemon—she'd never seen one before outside of TV. She wanted to hug it so bad.
"This is Pikachu," he said, letting his partner climb onto his hat, "and here, this is…"
"Dawn," she completed for him. "Dawn Berlitz." The pokemon greeted her with its endearing little pokespeak, and she waved at it in return.
"Dawn," Ash said, liking the way her name sounded on his lips, "Dawn… what are your goals as a trainer?"
"Well," she started unsurely, biting her lower lip, "my mom wanted me to be a Top Coordinator like her, so I… guess I'll follow in her footsteps."
Dawn received a blank stare from Ash and his Pikachu.
A few moments passed.
"You have no idea what coordinating is, don't you?"
"Nope."
The girl repressed the urge to pull off her beanie and shove it down Ash's throat. "Of course you wouldn't," she snapped, "you're an idiot after all."
"Hey!" he cried indignantly, "We never had any of this 'coordinating' in Kanto! Everything was about tournaments, tournaments, more tournaments—" Ash paused and stared at her, eyes wide as if he was afraid that he had revealed something. "What's coordinating anyways?"
Dawn rolled her eyes at him. "I'll explain it to you on the way to Jubilife." She stared at something behind Ash, and as an afterthought, she added, "By the way, you're on fire."
Ash looked down at his pants, where a small flame was coming to life, and then he looked behind him, where a good portion of the forest had already burned down from his Charizard's Ember.
"Oh. I am on fire." He noted calmly, snuffing the flame out with a gloved hand. "We gotta do something about that." His hands gestured at the burning forest.
"I have a water-type," Dawn offered, pulling out her pokeball. As she was releasing her Piplup, she asked Ash how he was so nonchalant about being on fire. He told her that, as a Charizard's trainer, this sort of stuff happened all of the time.
It shamed her to admit this, even to herself, but she wanted to get some sort of panicked reaction out of Ash. Or any reaction at all besides that shit-eating grin of his.
Her penguin pokemon chirped happily when it saw its trainer, waddling affectionately to Dawn's side and giving her a little hug. After petting it on the head, Dawn looked at Ash. "Kanto, was it? Would you know this one?"
Ash answered immediately. "Piplup, the penguin pokemon, number 393 on the National Pokedex. Water type. Evolves into Prinplup and then Empoleon, gains a steel typing when it evolves into the latter"—Ash paused for a second to catch his breath—"Pretty high special attack but not that fast. It could be pretty monstrous if you taught it well and got it to learn a Surf/Hydro Pump mix move. I prefer Blastoise, but hey, not that bad."
Dawn's eye twitched. "You know all of that but not about coordinating?"
"Oh yea," the boy replied simply. "Name a random 'dex number, I'll give you that Pokemon's name, its evolutions, its weaknesses, stats, and maybe even possible strategies."
"186." Dawn did not believe him.
"Politoed, evolves from Poliwhirl when with a King's Rock. A water type. Final form of Poliwag, cousin to Poliwrath. Pretty high health, but not that much else going for it."
Her teeth gnashed against each other. "302."
"Sableye, no evolutions but can potentially mega-evolve. Ghost and dark type, only weak to fairy. I squared off against one of these in the Indigo League, and they've got decently high attacks and defenses. Too bad Pikachu just obliterated it with Thunderbolt."
Arceus, Dawn thought internally. A random number jumped into her head. "946."
"We don't have a 946th entry yet." Ash tilted his head and cast a side glance at Dawn. "Not that you'd know whether or not I'm telling the truth. I may have bullshitted my way through all of these."
"Shut up," she snapped, surprising both Ash and herself. "Piplup, put out the fire."
The fire had been burning as Dawn and Ash conversed over the Pokedex entries and Ash's seemingly unlimited knowledge upon them. She couldn't believe how he'd practically memorized the Pokedex—I am not admitting he is impressive, she told herself—but didn't even know something like coordinating, something that had spread throughout basically all of the regions.
The fire was actually quite pretty; the way the leaves turned to blackened dust and how smoke rose in pillars all had a sort of unreal quality to it. It was warm, and the crackling of burning brush was rather soothing. Dawn would write a poem about it if she were eloquent enough.
"Daaawn," Ash drawled, waving a hand in front of her face. "Stop staring at the fire like that. You're creepy."
The girl snapped out of her thoughts, and heat completely unrelated to the fire shot up her face. "I'm creepy? Says the guy who offered his body for sex in order to pay for a bicycle."
"Yeah, but I was offering my body to someone I wouldn't mind doing it with," he replied with that aggravating smile of his, "while you are staring at a burning forest with drool coming out of your mouth, you pyromaniac."
Her water-type blew a Bubblebeam at the small inferno. The small torrent of water was enough to put out a portion of the flames, as the plants in Sinnoh always had a fair amount of moisture in them. With some extra effort, her pokemon eventually put out the fire, and the remaining smoke turned and hissed into white steam.
But Dawn didn't notice any of that. I was offering my body to someone I wouldn't mind doing it with. The words ran on repeat over and over again in her head. What did he mean… could he… could he have meant…
Dawn's automatic protective instincts flared up, as any prey's instincts would when encountering a predator. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Her face, while burning up before, was about the same shade as the fire Piplup had just put out.
The boy raised an eyebrow and whistled. Even his Pikachu let out a cute pika! laugh. "Once is enough, you know."
Dawn glared at the ground and let out an aggravated cross between a growl and a sigh. "Let's go to Jubilife."
"I'm down," he said. "What's Jubilife?"
"Fucking Arceus."
"Good afternoon Kanto! It's a beautiful day out today."
"Indeed it is. But today's big story isn't about the weather, ladies and gentlemen. Today's big story is the buzz of the entire region—the disappearance of our mysterious champion!"
"Yes! Everybody in this region can't stop talking about how the enigmatic trainer just waltzed right in and demolished the Indigo Conference and decided to take on the Elite Four and Champion Lance at the same time. With only a Pikachu!"
"Nobody's seen anything quite like it. This type of one handed punishment delivered by a trainer who, believe it or not, is only sixteen is completely unheard of in this level of competition."
"While we're talking about our mysterious friend, I would like to share the information that the name that he was using, Red, is merely an alias, though I'm not sure why he'd be so hesitant to share his true name."
"And what we, and I speak on behalf of everybody in Kanto, are completely unsure about is why he had just left after defeating Lance!"
"That was completely unforeseeable! He defeated Lance's final Dragonite and throws down a pokeball, out pops a massive beast of a Charizard, and then he just flies away! Outrageous!"
"Why would he do such a thing?"
"Plot convenience, perhaps?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Thomas. Everybody has reasons for something. Some are just… different than others."
"Of course. But one thing that I am sure about is how the entire region is wondering this one question—where are you?"
After a few hours of attempting to discern some personal information form Ash and failing pitifully in some aspects, Dawn noticed the steel towers of Jubilife City popping up over the horizon. Nearing their final destination, Dawn allowed her pace to slow to try and give her aching legs a break.
"You know, you look like a sweet girl," he said casually, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Dawn stopped walking, but he didn't notice and continued. "You look delicate, with your size and cute face and whatnot."
Her face flared up and she lowered her gaze, pulling her beanie down to her nose and over her eyes so that Ash couldn't see her blushing if he turned around. "But you're not delicate, aren't you? From what I'm able to tell, you have fire in you, you have drive and passion. Or, if I'm wrong, at the very least you're stubborn, if your constant questioning is any indication," he laughed.
He stopped but did not turn around. His voice took on a strange tone, far from his usual light hearted banter. "That's good for a pokemon trainer. Everybody loses at some point, but not everyone takes it the same. Some bounce back and take it as a lesson. They grow stronger. Some clam up and take it badly. They grow weaker. Being a pokemon trainer takes a lot of things, but being resilient is one of the more important ones."
Dawn raised her beanie back over her head and caught up to Ash. "Nice lesson there, sensei," she said, more honest than mocking. "I'll try to be resilient. But how do you take a loss?"
Ash sent her one of his side glances and then looked back forward towards the road. His tone lowered. "I've never lost."
"Oh, as if," she snarked, putting her hands on her hips. "You just said everybody loses at some point. Don't be a hypocrite."
"I have lost," he returned, still in that low, brooding tone, "just not a battle. Sometimes we can win a battle but lose something much more important." His Pikachu cooed softly and seemed to try and hug its trainer's shoulder.
Dawn stayed silent, unwilling and unable to conjure up a response to that. What am I supposed to make of this? she asked him silently. Don't act like an idiot and then say things like that… I might… I might…
Her pokeball bounced on her belt, and she was reminded of something she wanted to ask him. Any sort of subject change would be welcome at this point. "What type of Pokemon do you have?"
Ash stopped and that dangerous smirk reappeared on his face again. His voice sounded as if he was never feeling off in the first place. "Wanna see my pokeballs?"
Ah. There was the Ash she had met just hours ago. "Don't make it sound that lewd, please."
"Alright, alright." The two started walking again and Ash gestured towards his Pikachu and the pokeball chained around his neck. "This is Pikachu. You already know him. Call him whatever you like, and he's highly addicted to ketchup." Pikachu growled at him. "You've seen Charizard, and I think I mentioned Blastoise once. I have one, by the way. And a Venusaur, too. They're all the strongest of their kind."
"Really repping those Kanto starters," Dawn murmured, completely ignoring his boast.
He heard her and shot her two thumbs up. "Definitely. Then I've got a fatass Snorlax that could eat an Onix if it really wanted to and could probably sleep through a rampaging Gyarados attacking it. And after that, I've got few others in the PC, and besides that…"
Ash paused, and she saw him tap the odd, purple pokeball hanging from his neck. When he noticed her looking at it, Ash tucked it away into his jacket. "The last one's a secret," he told her, shrugging, "sorry."
Dawn gave him a suspicious look but decided to let it slide. Instead she brought up something else that was slightly bugging her. "Your Charizard doesn't look normal."
He fired back almost immediately. "Dark blue hair doesn't look normal."
Ash must've sensed the extremely dangerous vibe Dawn was giving off, because he immediately added, "It doesn't look normal, sure, but on some people it looks rather pretty."
"Shut up," Dawn snapped before realising it. Oh dear, it had become an automatic defense mechanism. "It's a legitimate question. Why does your Charizard look different from the others?"
"It's permanently mega-evolved," Ash answered easily, as if what he was stating was the simplest thing in the world and not a completely improbable suggestion.
"You can't expect me to believe something impossible like that."
"Believe whatever you want" Ash told her, "but let me ask some of my legitimate questions. You only have one pokemon and that's a Sinnoh starter. When did you start your journey?"
"Earlier today, and already I'm running into complications," she glowered at Ash. Then, Dawn shifted her gaze towards the setting sun barely peeking out over the tips of the trees. The sky was a beautiful shade of fire. "But I worked for a really long time as Professor Rowan's lab assistant, so I've got a better start than most. I captured most of his wild pokemon for him, and he offered me to keep some of them but I declined."
Ash nodded. "The Piplup, then?"
"Piplup's a new starter," Dawn gently tapped her fingertips against Piplup's pokeball. "I wanted one of the Sinnoh starters. And it's just so cute." She caught herself before she started ranting about her Piplup's cuteness. "So I'm not exactly a beginner when it comes to Pokemon."
"You are when it comes to battling and coordinating though, right?"
Dawn frowned. "Yeah, I guess. I've watched it before on TV, but I don't have any experience with it."
"That's fine," Ash stated, a dangerously enthusiastic tone overtaking his voice, "we'll just battle the next kid we see!"
She stared incredulously at him. "What?!"
"You need experience," he grinned, his eyes glowing like fire, "YOU THERE!"
Dawn jumped at Ash's sudden outburst and looked forward. There was a person in front of them that appeared just as startled as she was, and Ash jogged forward to greet him. Grumbling under her breath—what the hell are you doing, Ash—Dawn caught up to him and shriveled up under the glare that the other person was giving them.
"Let's battle."
"I'm sorry, but who are you?"
The person had strange, light purple hair (as if Dawn was one to talk; she had blue hair after all) and narrow, judgmental eyes. Perhaps he would've been decently attractive if he wasn't too busy looking like an asshole all the time. And this guy wasn't even nearly as attractive as Ash was—HAAAH!?
She choked on thin air and suddenly had a coughing fit. NO BRAIN, STOP IT! she screamed at herself, clutching her hair. Ash gave her an odd look, and Dawn wished that she was a pokemon so that she would be able to escape into a pokeball.
"Right…" he turned back towards the random kid, "ignore Dawn, she's pretty creepy. I'm Ash, and you are…?"
"Fucking leavin', that's what," the other trainer snapped, flipping his hair like a glorified douchebag.
"Aw, come on," Ash prodded. "A good old fashioned 2 vs. 2 never hurt anyone."
Trainer Douchebag sniffed disdainfully. "I don't have time to battle weaklings like you or your Pikachu."
Dawn heard something audibly snap beside her.
"I'm sorry," the capped trainer said sweetly—well, sweetly was the wrong word for this, it was more like: with venomous intent frothing at his mouth and pouring down in torrents, "I didn't hear what you said."
"I said," the oblivious purple-haired trainer repeated, "I don't have time to battle weaklings like you or your Pikachu."
Dawn looked at Ash and nearly pissed her pants (well, skirt, considering her attire at the moment). Half of Ash's face was obscured by the shadow created by his hat, and from that shadow, two bright, vicious-looking red irises shone through like some sort of demonic after-effect. His typical predatory grin morphed into something far more sinister and demented, the entire look basically saying I'm going to slit your throat with a rusty blade and drown you in your own blood. Even Trainer Asshole down yonder sensed some of the hostility given off by Ash and took a step back.
And Pikachu… well, Pikachu was still cute, even when it looked absolutely livid. Dawn still wanted to hug it.
"Listen here you little shit," Ash snarled, arms flexing as if he was struggling to keep them from strangling the other trainer—
"My name is Paul," said Paul, trying to sound tough.
"I don't give a fuck what your name is. We're going to battle." His voice was as hard as steel, and his glare could've burned a hole through Paul's head. It seemed as if Ash had completely changed into someone else, from a sort of flippant, careless attitude to a completely hard and serious one.
Ash took a deep breath and the Pikachu beside him mimicked its trainer's action. "Come on, Dawn." Without waiting for a response, Ash walked off to a clearing on the side of the main route. Dawn, after taking a quick glance at Paul's hilariously and ironically shaken look, followed him and unclipped Piplup's pokeball.
"You got a bit mad there," she observed.
Pikachu answered for Ash with a Pika Pi! and the trainer remained strangely silent, jaw set and eyes blazing. "Dawn, I'm going to ask you to stay out of this one."
His voice indicated that it wasn't a request, so Dawn put Piplup's pokeball back on her belt. The air around Ash had instantly turned frigid, but it was hot and fiery at the same time. She felt her palms grow clammy just looking at him. There was a sort of quality about him that made it seem like he wasn't worrying about whether or not he'd win or lose, instead, Ash was thinking about how he'd make his opponent suffer, especially with the dark look on his face. With his tight, clenched jaw, narrowed eyes, and aura of intensity, Ash dimly reminded her of someone...
Paul had showed up a fair distance away from them on the opposite side of the clearing. Dawn could see the sweat on his body from here. Hopefully, he'd take a shower after this. Not that she blamed him, really, Dawn would never want to square off against this Ash in a pokemon battle.
"I'm sending out Pikachu," Ash told him, and the electric mouse gently padded along the ground and into battle position. "Send out as many pokemon as you want. You would never win anyways."
Paul had the gall to scoff at Ash's statement and held up a pokeball. "As if. Standby for battle, Electivire!" After a brief flash of light, a massive, hulking humanoid creature appeared. It had bright yellow fur just like Pikachu's with two large antennae and black patterns etched across its fur. Bright red eyes peered out from a band of black fur, and it held a manic grin on its face like a creepy pedophilic stalker would have. "Electivire, show them what true power is! Use—"
Ash squared his shoulders and lowered his cap. He uttered a single word. "Thunderstorm."
Dawn went blind and her eardrums exploded—or at least that was how it felt at that moment. The concussive force behind the attack knocked her onto her butt and she lost all feeling in her body. The sky exploded into a brilliant flash of color and a concoction of sound like a thousand nuclear warheads going off at once, and massive, intense heat arced from the heavens. Even with her eyes steadily shut, Dawn could only see a dull, blurred white and her ears were ringing so hard that she wasn't able to hear her own thoughts.
But holy hell that hurt. The air sizzled with electricity and Dawn could feel the hair on her body all stand up, and even as the light slowly faded away and her ears stopped ringing, Dawn would forever remember the raw brutality and power behind that attack and that the cute-looking Pikachu was not to be fucked around with. That little dude could fuck someone up.
Dawn opened her eyes and the image she saw forever imprinted itself into her mind. The sky, a magnificent myriad of colors created by the setting sun, was filled with columns of smoke. The trees around them burned where the lightning had struck it, and the ground was seared black from the massive amount of electricity. Electivire was knocked out, but, miraculously, it didn't seem to be seriously hurt. Paul was just staring at Ash with his mouth completely slack, looking like a complete fool.
And Ash… she'd never ever thought that the cheeky kid she met just hours ago could ever look like this. With the fire from the burning trees and sky reflected into his red irises, Ash looked like the penultimate definition of passionate fury. Ash was like fire, no, he was fire, warm and welcoming and furious and raging all at once, and Dawn drank in the sight of the fire in his eyes until she was drunk from it. To her, fire had always been so beautiful, and she had always liked it…
She remembered who Ash reminded her of. Ash reminded her of Lance and Cynthia and Wallace and Adler and Diane, of people who held the utmost confidence in their pokemon and their ability to win. He reminded her of a champion, the pinnacle of all trainers, the one others strive to become.
But then Ash looked at her and smirked. "That was fucking beast, right? Tell me that that was amazing. It's fine, I know it was."
Her newfound image of him shattered in one moment.
Hey guys! Thank you to everyone who followed and favorited and reviewed, I appreciate all of you guys and gals! I hope you liked my characterization of Ash, Dawn, and Paul, and don't worry, more characters will appear. Leave me a review to tell me what you all think.
The plot'll begin picking up in a few chapters or so. Don't worry y'all, your favorite characters will appear. If you want a specific character in this story, tell me in a review or PM so I can get a rough idea of the favorites.
Thanks!
