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The Eighth Brain
By Egg Emperor
Prologue Part 2: Ghost Stories
Ok this here we go the second chapter of the three part prologue. It's a bit longer than the previous one. Nearly the entirety of this chapter is flash back. It is extremely dialogue heavy and it sets up a lot of important details namely a lot of history of Pallet and Pokemon training in general. THERE IS A LARGE AND I MERE LARGE, Author's Notes section at the end, it contains important information about this story's future. No! It's not being cancelled, just switched out for another one of my works I feel I can do it justice. The details are at the very end of the Author's Notes.
Also no one has yet correctly guessed the significance of the date of May 22, the day Max will attempt to challenge the final area of the Frontier and its Brain. If you figure it out PM me, you will be rewarded with the ability to choose a plot detail later in the story.
Ok from this point on thoughts will be in single quotes '', while speech will be in normal double quotes ""
Four Years ago: June 17th 2003 9:47 AM- Pallet Town.
An eleven year old Max Maple ran down the gangplank of the Cinnabar Star, the ferry that runs daily between the port and tourist town of Cinnabar Island.
"Oh I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't believe the day has finally arrived I'm going to be able to challenge Ash to a battle." Max nearly shouted as he ran across the pier nearly knocking several people into the water.
"Yahoo! Yeah alright! This is gonna be so awesome!"
The people of Pallet – a little town smack dab in the middle of the Kan-Sin-Jo region* – were quite used to rambunctious youngsters running about.
For despite its rather modest population of just under 5,000 it comparatively produces more trainers per person than any other place in the world. In fact most of its people either are or were at one point some sort of Pokémon trainer.
As such the people only smiled and went about their daily lives, unperturbed by Max's shouting.
"Huff ah ha ha." 'Maybe I should have just walked.' Max thought to himself as he crested the final hill separating him from the center of the small burg, wheezing to catch his breath.
He had been so excited that shot off like a bullet towards the town's main road. It was only after five straight minuets of running that he both made it to his destination and exhausted his previously seemingly boundless energy.
As he looked down from the hill top while recovering from being winded he saw it. Perched on a hill was a large building, easily the biggest in the small city. The windmill perched on its roof spun lazily in the morning breeze.
'There it is' he thought, "Professor Oak's Laboratory, I really can't believe I'm going to see him again in person so soon!"
Professor Samuel Oak is by most standards, the most highly regarded and respected of the many Pokémon experts across the world.
The Pokedex as well as the temporal containment system for the modern Pokeball were his direct inventions, he is also the leading expert if not sole authority on the Two Mythic Pokémon, the Mirage Pokémon Mew** and the Time Travel Pokémon Celebi.
Max decided to visit the professor before going to see Ash.
He excitedly bounded up the steps and rang the bell.
"Coming!" shouted a voice that Max recognized as the professor's.
"Samuel! WHAT on EARTH are you doing? You stay off that sprained ankle or you're only going to make it worse!" Another voice nearly screeched, one which Max did not recognize.
"Sorry…"
"You SHOULD BE! Forcing me to come down from the plateau right before the start of the season, all because you were climbing some damn tree to look at a shiny Pidgy! For Arceus's sake! We're not kids anymore Sam, you could have been seriously hurt or worse. Sometimes I wonder about you sanity you ol' duff."
The voice, which continued to chastise the professor, became louder as it approached the door, at this point Max could identify it as being female, likely an older woman…. Max was shocked from his thoughts by the door opening.
"Hello young man may I help you?" Ask the rather dignified old lady who answered the door.
Max looked at her with a mixture of awe and fear.
She was wearing a simplistic royal purple dress that ended near her ankles and matching purple shoes. A white lace apron fanned out from around her waist; another ring of the material surrounded her neck. Below her neck was a cameo brooch a black and white carving of a Noctowl adorned it.
Her fading blond hair rose up from a prominent window's peak flowing down the sides of her head, ending just above her neck. Her left hand rested on a gnarled cane its top fashioned in the likeness of a Hoothoot.
A small nearly mischievous smile adorned her wrinkled face; her blue-gray eyes twinkled with what could be described as cool fire. Standing only 5'5" to Max's 5'3" she would seem unassuming if it were not for the palpable and eerie feeling of power that radiated from her.
The tales Ash had told of her from his childhood simply did not do her justice; she was a thousand times more splendid and terrifying than any story would lead one to believe.
Agatha Oak, wife of Professor Samuel Oak, Mistress of Ghost-type Pokémon and 3rd of the Kanto Elite Four stood before our young hero.
"Dearie, did you need something?" the elite inquired at Max's long silence
"Ahhhh… No, I'm sorry I … it's just I'm rather overwhelmed… just meeting you like this Mrs. Oak." was Max's timid response.
"Ah ha ha ha … O' it's quite all right my dear, I get that a lot. I suppose you're here to see the old coot eh?" Agatha said while she led Max inside to the living room, where the professor apparently sat his ankle elevated on a pillow with a cold pack on it. Even from this distance Max noticed it looked visibly swollen.
Max grinned shyly, "If by 'old coot' you mean Professor Oak, then yes."
"Oh ha ha ha ha ah! Where did you find this one Sam? I like him."
"Oh! Hello there Max, what brings you all the way to Kanto and to Pallet no less?"
"I'm here mostly to challenge the Indigo league, and see the region where modern battling was born, among other things."
"AH! Fresh meat eh?" Agatha's already piercing eyes narrowed and took on an unsettling gleam, her wide smile reminding Max of the ghosts she was so famous for.
"Now Aggie, Max here isn't exactly a green horn, he traveled with Ash during his Hoenn challenge, he also just made the Top 4 in the most recent Ever Grande Conference, being the son of a respected Gym Leader doesn't hurt his chances either." The professor explained.
"A Gym Leader?"
"He's Max Maple, Norman Maple's son." The Professor affirmed shifting his foot to make himself more comfortable.
"Ah, OH! So that why I felt as though I'd seen you before."
"Sooooo…your Norman's boy eh? AH HA HA HA!" Agatha's grin became even wider if it were possible, and if the smile she had before was unsettling, the smirk she now bore could only be described as downright frightening.
She closely resembled what could be called a caricature of her most infamous Pokémon Gengar. Max could swear that for a moment her eyes held a garnet gleam.
"Ah, NOW THAT brings back memories."
"Uh memories of what?" Max hesitantly asked; he was almost afraid to ask.
"Well this could take some time, so … "Ah, Tracy would you be dear and get us some tea and some of those ginger snaps?" Agatha said giving the Pokémon watcher a "sweet" smile.
Max turned just noticing the young man who entered the "house" portion of the building from the lab. Max couldn't help notice that the young assistant's normally laid back and free demeanor was absent, replaced by what seemed a mixture of timidity, apprehension and submission. Max couldn't help but think it was related to Agatha's presence. It was almost comical, like someone had shoved a junior lawyer's personality into the body and mind of a normally chill surfer.
"Yes, Mrs. Oak right away! I'll be right back!" Tracy bolted for the kitchen like he had been shot. Max thought that perhaps Mrs. Oak's smile, at least in Tracy's mind promised a worse fate should he fail her.
"The Pokémon Leagues as you know them have only been around about say 70 years, before that there were local tournaments and what not, but save for the Orange League competition, which is around as old as large scale sailing say 400 years or so, there were no large scale regional or international competitions to speak of." ***
"Here's the tea and those cookies Mrs. Oak." Tracy said as he came racing in, briskly setting the tea set down with a plate of ginger cookies, he straightened up, nodding to both Oaks.
"Now if anyone needs me I'll be tending to the water Pokémon ... At the far pond… On the other side of the Ranch... It may take a while…, so ummmm bye!" was all he said before practically throwing himself out the back door.
"Nice boy, he has a great work ethic, a bit timid though." Agatha thoughtfully observed.
Max and the Professor eyed each other cautiously, each quit aware that if either were to slip and let loose their suppressed snickers, it would spell their doom.
"70 years ago Adam Goodshow, a very, very wealthy entrepreneur at the time went and somehow managed to use his money and connections to start the 6 major leagues that exist today as well as the Royal Grand Championship that crowns the World champion. In fact, Scott Enshida's Battle Frontier is the first new major league like competition created since." The elite trainer expounded, sipping her tea.
"So you see dearie, the gimp over there…" She point to the professor who now sported a rather perturbed look on his face 'though I think perhaps that less from the insult and more from hitting his injured leg with her cane', Max's face showed his thought deadpanning as a result.
"… And I among others were the testing rattata, of this whole new system that Alex Good show devised."
Professor Oak took over for his wife. "Agatha and I along with a boy named Darren Ketchum, Agatha's cousin, were the three that departed Pallet that April, 57 years ago** with a song in our head, spring in our step, and a dream in our hearts. To tame and master these wild beasts called Pokémon and become the very best, to be for a lack of a better word, Pokémon Masters."
"Ketchum, As in Ash?" Max hastily inquired, 'Ash really never talked about his family, sure I've met Delia, Ash's Mom but beyond her, I don't know of any of Ash's other relatives.'
"Yes, my favorite cousin, and Samuel's best friend, he was Ash's Paternal Grandfather" Agatha, smiled, a true sad sort of smile. "He's been gone for about 10 years now." She added
"Wait!? You're related to Ash?" Max looked a bit bewildered.
"Yes, we are The Oaks, Ketchum's, Hales, Wataru's and another prominent family are all interrelated by both blood and marriage." The professor added
"Back to what I was talking about" Agatha said trying to move the conversation back on track.
"The early rough and tumble era of training was a great success, new towns sprung up and prospered, the route system was implemented about ten years in, when I and Sam were in our early twenties but..." Agatha paused upon hearing a noise.
A soft buzzing could now be heard from the couch, indicating that professor Oak had fallen asleep.
Max was terrified 'She's going to kill him or yell her head off or both' he screamed in his head.
So it was much to his surprise when he turned back to Agatha, to see not a mask of rage, but a face of tranquility, happiness; love and perhaps longing.
Her face had softened allowing the wrinkles she bore to show more prominently, but instead of make her appearance harsher, her presence was now warmed by their appearance and a bright twinkle, and different from the cold fire he had seen earlier adorned her eyes.
"Come child, let's let the old man rest" Agatha said as she gather the tea cups and empty plates on the tray, carrying it into the kitchen.
"Let's go to the old coot's study, we won't disturb him there while I finish the rest of the story."
Max followed the elite trainer down the hall passing pictures of Pokémon and People several caught Max's eye and he stopped to look at them.
There were many featuring her grandson Gary, but since this Max guessed was her home, that made sense. But one he noticed was very different.
A man stood in it surrounded by Pokémon. He was very tall most certainly over 6'0"; thin and lanky at waist with long legs, yet his chest and shoulders were broad. He wore a tight black shirt sport shirt of some kind that made every visible muscle on his lithe frame stand out. He had on dark black jeans, themselves tucked into his black boots.
Over his shirt he sported a scarlet jacket with a popped white collar; around his waist a black belt with a silver buckle held six Poke balls.
His face was sharp and angular, and on his head he wore scarlet baseball cap the same color as his jacket which covered his shortly cropped spiky black hair. The most striking thing about him though were his eyes they were crimson in color, they were actually red.
The man in the picture looked more like a movie star than a trainer, he also reminded him of someone but for some reason he could not place it, he figured that resemblance was distant enough that it just wasn't registering in his mind.
"Who, is this guy" he asked Agatha plainly
"Ah well unfortunately dear I can't say that I'm at liberty to tell you. That man worked very hard to keep his public and privet life separate and I'm not going to disrupt that. 'I honestly feel a bit bad now' Max thought realizing that he was prying into another's personal life.
"But I can tell you this he was perhaps the greatest Second Generation trainer ever, and some say the greatest trainer in history, he was one of the few people to have been able to defeat Samuel when he still battled extensively."
'Wow Max thought, just who is this guy, I know for a fact that Professor Oak was the first Champion of Kanto, a title he held for 23 years before stepping down to become the region's resident professor and develop the poked.' Max and Agatha entered the study where all sort of books and awards littered the place.
"He certainly was one of the greatest trainers that pallet ever produced that for damn sure Ahahahaha! Beat me once or twice and fought Sam to a draw when he was only 17. They just don't make 'em like that anymore" the ghost trainer lamented.
"You said something about a second generation trainer, what is that?" Max asked as he sat down in a rather plush arm chair.
"Oh ho ho ho ho ah ah ah ah! Yes, this was wanted to talk to you about in the first place." She chuckled with what Max decided was dark glee, her smile once again metastasizing into an excellent copy of a Gengar's trade mark smirk."
"The first era produced some of the greatest trainers to ever live, like the old fart in the living room or me and my sister Bertha, but for all the benefits the dangers of being pioneers gave us its harsh treatment toughened us conditioned us, but for some it was too much, the causality rate was quite high, many kids got themselves injured or, worse, some never got the chance to come home."
Max was … well he didn't know what to think 'I mean now that I think back on it the worst thing we ever had to deal with on a daily basis were the "three stooges" and an occasional upset Pokémon, I never knew it was ever this dangerous.' Max thought to himself.
"Because of the fatalities including the son of a rather influential politician, the whole of Goodshow's great work looked like it might go up in smoke just 20 years in; however Goodshow still had enough pull and influence to stabilize the situation abet temporarily.
"A more permanent solution was sought and it January of that year after the close of the last of the leagues for the season, a conference was held; the 6 Elite Fours and their Champion's gathered to discuss what was to be done. It was decided that starting age would be raised to 15 and that prospective trainers would have to attend a five year school from age ten until then to be qualified to be trainers." Agatha imparted to Max
"So this was the so called 2nd generation?" Max asked even though at this point he wanted nothing more than go see Ash a have his battle.
"Yes, and you see Ah ha ha ha ha ah, we "elites" were charged with being instructors during the off season. It was in Goldenrod 23 years ago that I met a very interesting young man on my rotation through Johto. He was tall and well-built with good looks, and navy blue hair much like you self in the same cut too." Her eyes got a sort of faraway look but seemed to burn more intensely and her smile once again assumed it's eerie Cheshire shape.
Max could see where this was headed 'If I'm right about who she's talking about and I'm fairly certain I am then I finally understand his thing about ghosts and why he fainted that time I brought home Shuppet, and still won't let Banette in the house.' Max thought.
"O' he was quite handsome for his age and extraordinarily talented, a Psychic trainer he was, a Gallade and Gardevoir his constant companions. He however, had, a few character flaws." Agatha's tone became icy and dark although she continued to smile as she told Max the story. A 'A Psychic trainer, that doesn't make sense if it is who I think it is.' Max thought to himself
"He was a playboy with a different girl every other day it would seem, and he was arrogant and prideful to the extreme, always talking about how inferior other types were and that Psychic reigned supreme, he became so insufferable that one day I decided something had to be done."
"You didn't kill him did you?" Max asked now quivering at Agatha's tone which was as cold as ice and dark as a grave. 'It's not who I thought it was, there is just no way it could be.' Max thought.
"O' dear me no, child no! Ha ha ha ha ah! If I had taken his life you wouldn't be here." Her tone had lightened only to suddenly become as scary as Giratina on a moonless night.
"I just scared him within an inch of it! Fu ha ha ha ah" she chuckled, looking in all her splendor of personality a true master of fear.
Max now realized why people so feared Agatha, she was beyond all shadow of doubt the scariest old lady in the whole Arceus damned world! The smirk she held upon her face would put a Sableye to shame.
" I challenged him to a battle so I might test if he would be ready for the graduation exam, I quite easily showed him just what the power of Ghosts can do especially to something so easily vulnerable to an assault on the senses, confusion, blindness, poison, paralysis, sleep, and nightmares, my Gengar felled all six of his Pokémon. I showed him how much further he needed to go and that even when he got there he still would not be to afford the arrogance he previously showed. To this day he has kept to that humility I gave him mainly because I swore that I track him down if I ever got an inkling that he was getting too big for his britches again. I also might have turned a blind eye when Gengar decided to attach himself to your father's shadow until graduation which was about 2 month away at the time. Even I don't know of all the "pranks" (Read torment and torture) Gengar put him through."
"To this day I wonder if I had anything to do with him changing his preference to the normal type." She explained as she finished her monologue, he smile and tone back to normal.
Max was simply put, shocked, horrified and just plain flabbergasted at the Elite Four's tale. And from it he learned three things.
How shocked he was that his dad was such a douchbag as a young man, how amazed he was at Agatha's brutal approach to modifying said behavior, its effectiveness in transforming aforementioned douchbag into the clam humble and caring man he called his father, and just how bad Agatha was at lying.
' I know that she knows full well that she is likely the sole reason for his father's preference of normal type Pokémon as well as his tendency to jump at shadows and his hatred of horror films.'
"Aggie?" A voice called, Max recognized as belonging to the Professor who had apparently awoken from his nap.
"You're not trying to scare poor Max with one of your old ghost stories now are you?"
"Of course not you ol' badger, I was just telling him about my days as an instructor when education was still mandated for all Pokémon trainers."
"And I'm fairly certain I now understand why my dad fainted when I told him I caught a Shuppet and proceeded to let it out to show him, and why he won't allow Banette outside of its ball in the house." Max grimly replied. As he and Agatha passed the various pictures again returning to the living room.
Max looked at the grandfather clock that sat by the book cases in the corner. It read 2:33 PM; he had been here nearly 4 and half hours, much longer than he originally planned.
The side door opening and closing signaled Tracy's return to the house, likely retreating from the Heat of the midafternoon sun.
Max thanked both Oaks for their hospitality and turned to leave and was nearly out the door, when Agatha inquired of him.
"Max, you said you were her in Kanto to challenge the league; among "Other things" what did you mean by that."
"O' when we were traveling together Ash promised me that when I became a trainer he would battle me, in fact I'm going over to take him up on that offer right now." And with that Max was out the door before any could react. Several seconds passed, before the masks of shock transformed on their respective owners
Tracy bore a face of regret mixed with evident sorrow, Agatha face became a stern mask of grim finality. The reaction of the professor was more immediate and he became visibly upset. "MAX! WAIT, STOP THERE'S SOMETHING WE NEED TO TELL YOU!" The professor yelled with all his might, but by now Max had traveled out of ear shot towards the Ketchum residence.
Momentarily forgetting his injury Professor Oak leapt to his feet intending to give chase, only to collapse in a heap, in a great deal of pain.
It was almost a luck thing that Max was out of hearing range or else the Professor's angry rant would have greatly expanded Max's vocabulary.
"Tracy, go now and get him, he doesn't know and I want to stop him before he causes Delia any more intentional grief. " Oak yelled through gritted teeth, clearly still in much pain.
"Tracy, stop wait…. she needs this, if she talks to someone she can feel better, she needs to stop wallowing and allow herself to heal."
Tracy sided with Agatha, if only because an angry Professor Oak might fire him but an angry Agatha might eat his soul.
"Now all we can do is wait." Agatha said solemnly.
Four Years ago: June 17th 2003 2:47 PM- Pallet Town.
As Max stood in front of the Ketchum residence, he immediately noticed something was out of place. The normally immaculate house was missing a few shingles here and there and was badly in need of a coat of white paint. Delia's famous vegetable garden was overgrown with weeds; it looked like it hadn't been used in years.
Max walked up to the front door and rapped upon it, several times, "Coming a tied and rather drained voiced replied as the door opened to reveal Delia Ketchum.
It was this moment that in his heart knew that something was terrible wrong. It was Delia but it wasn't her, face normally covered with a spring tan from her outdoor activities was white and bore many wrinkles, she had dark circles under her eyes and her hair was tied into a bun, some of it appeared to be graying already. She appeared to have aged nearly 20 year.
"Excuse me Mrs. Ketchum, my name is Max if you remember."
"Oh of course, Max Maple, you're that boy that Ash traveled through Hoenn with… your sister and Brock were with you too..." The woman intoned, for all the good it did her, her attempt to be surprised at Max's appearance in Pallet was as flat as her voice
"Speaking of, I was wondering where I could find Ash, he promised me a battle when I became old enough to be a trainer, so I was wondering if you knew where he was."
Delia looked even more depressed, now than Max had mentioned her son.
Max felt a cold chill run across his spine 'What is going on… here, something's wrong but… No.'
"Oh Max... you hadn't head, I… swore I sent word of what had happened to all his friends" The woman now completely distraught began to cry
"Ash can't battle you, not now… and not … ever" at this point the poor woman was nearly gasping
"You see, he …. he … he's gone… Max… he died, nearly a year ago." She finished now with a tear streak face.
Author's Notes:
12/9/13:
Ok well I retooled the ending a bit (I wrote it when I was half asleep, trying to finish this chapter back in the summer) I'm still unsatisfied with the end of the chapter but I'm not sure what more I can do with it. At this point I'm moving on to the next chapter, Prologue 3: His father's Fate and then later I will most likely come back and re-write these first few chapters, because to put it mildly they are not the greatest examples of my work.
Man this thing was a real beast I started working on it 3 days ago and it took off and went a bit off the rails, Agatha was only supposed to be mentioned, not actually appear, so she sort of stole the show a bit. After that the entire thing went nuts, completely out of control, when they say a story really writes itself they are not kidding. I removed most of the crazy when I realized how out of context it was, and how poorly it fit the rest of the story. Instead of deleting it I excised it and published it as a separate standalone chapter you can read it if you want it's, a bit nuts a tad dark.
* I always have imagined Kanto, Johto and Sinnoh as part of a single continent, with Sinnoh perched above the other two, forming something like a triangle, with the mountains in the east of Johto and the west of Kanto merging and moving north to form the spine on which Mt. Coronet sits.
### WARNING, THE FOLLOWING IS AN EGG EMPEROR RANT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ###
This is just a personal peeve of mine but, CALLING MEW THE "NEW SPECIES" POKEMON MAKES ABSOLUTLY NO SENSE WHAT SO EVER. The legendaries were created either by Arceus at the beginning of time or by / as embodiments of primeval natural forces very early on in the planet's history. At this time the only common Pokémon were, MEW, heck they came before the fossil Pokémon. All non-legendary Pokémon are descended from that vast ancient Mew population. As such Mew is anything but "NEW". The argument that it's newly discovered is invalid because the thing is depicted in ancient myth and legend all throughout Kanto, which with only four "natural" is going to take all it can get and run with it. If anything Mewtwo should be the "New Species" and Mew should be the "Genetic" Pokémon respectively. Such a swap makes so much sense that I wonder if it was not intended that way and there was some sort of mix up. So as a compromise, within all my stories Mew's species will be referred to as the Mirage Pokémon.
*** Professor Oak and Agatha are both 72 years old (yes I know I took liberties with this but it's my story). It took around 13 years from the inception of the idea by Alex Goodshow to its completion and implementation so that Agatha and Samuel left on 1st of April following their 13th birthdays, which at the time was the required age to go on one's journey.
**** This is the point where you would insert the removed section I posted as a separate "cutting room floor chapter".
To the Actual Notes:
Ok People and by people I mean the 40 or so people who have so far bothered to read this story. I as I stayed up all of last night writing this chapter, the whole story got away from me. I've had the basic framework (idea) for this story since the time that there were only 386 Pokémon i.e. the pokedex ended with Deoxys, that was back in my mid high school years so at least 10th if not 9th grade. Yesterday afternoon as I was putting together a map of the sections of the first part of the story I realized that book one was going to run 19 chapters at the very least not including the prologue chapters. If I average 2,000 words per chapter, then with 19 chapters per book and four books, plus the prologue chapters and an epilogue, I come to a grand total of 80 chapters and 160,000 for the entire story. Also this story unlike my other three is meant to avoid being OC as much as possible. This is hard. It is very difficult as you can see by the section I scrapped. As I rode my bike across perilous traffic, to reach my ecology class (My car is having engine issues) I realized that perhaps I had bitten off more than I can chew by choosing this story to start first.
Which is why at this point I feel that I cannot do this story the justice the idea deserves, as such it will be put on hiatus, to be completed when I am confident that I can write it such that it will be both enjoyable for me to construct and for you to read. I REPEAT I am not dropping, canceling or abandoning this thing, I've already invested too much time into it and to quote Scratch "He made me persistent, He made you too dumb to quit!" I think that sums up my work nicely.
Since I'm going put this on aside for now I need a new project to work on namely on of my other three stories that allow me a bit more freedom with disbelief among other things. So I need you guys to go to my profile and vote for which of the remaining three should replace, "The Eighth Brain" in regular syndication. The Poll will remain open until a category accumulates more than 8 votes or the difference between first and second place is 3 which ever happens first.