Elementary school AU.

Basically I felt like writing stuff about Pokemon, so enjoy my nostalgia trip I guess.

Rating : They're like 7.


"Hi."

Léon lifted his gaze from the book to nod in greeting to his friend Yves Lebrac.

He sat next to him, but didn't say anything about Léon's new glasses, so the boy very conspiciously adjusted them. When this also failed to get a comment, he said: "So, I can see now."

"Yeah. So, do you have to wear them all the time now?"

Léon shrugged. "I guess. I mean, it's just easier to have them all the time."

"Did you hear what Gaston did?"

"No. And I don't care. Gaston is annoying, and dumb, and always wears the same sweater."

As soon as he had said that, Léon regretted it.

And wasn't really sure why, that was all true.

"But I guess you can tell me, if you want to."

"He wrote his name on the blackboard in HUGE letters, before noticing it was a crayon. So of course he couldn't wash it away."

"So now the blackboard says 'Gaston'?"

"Not really. Because he tried to wash it away by mixing all the stuff he found from the janitor's closet into one bucket. So now the blackboard reads 'GAS', and the other half of it is sort of melted into a weird bubbly thing." Yves smiled. "But nevermind that, did you get yours?"

Léon nodded, reaching for his backbag. "I haven't started yet, I'll need to buy some batteries for my Gameboy first."

"Which one did you get?"

"Red. We agreed to, right?"

Yves nodded. "Yeah, I got Blue so we can trade then. Red's the harder version though."

"It is?"

"Yeah, but..." He looked through the instruction booklet and pointed at the picture of a green dinosaur-like creature. "If you choose Bulbasaur as your first Pokemon, it will be easier. I chose Squirtle."


"Trade me yours, though!"

"No." Bertrand told Gaston.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't wanna just give you my starter. But okay, give me your Venusaur then."

So, it seemed like Léon and Yves weren't the only ones playing Pokemon. Most of the class were, by the looks of it, and since someone had brought a link cable to school, a crowd had gathered at the schoolyard to battle and trade.

"But I want to have both Charizard and Venusaur." Gaston insisted.

Léon spoke up. "I can trade you mine."

"Didn't you choose Bulbasaur too?" Yves asked.

"Um, yeah, but I was planning to restart anyway, so I can choose Charmander and trade it to you and then restart again. If you, you know, are okay with Charmander. Of course, if you get the earliest form and train it you get the pokedex data for all of them."

"I don't care about Pokedex data. I just wanna have a Charizard. Oh, could you trade me Squirtle too?"

"Sure."

"Wait." Jules told him. "Can you trade me all the starters too?"

"Erm, I guess."

Which is how Léon ended up restarting the game several times during the schoolday, and trading everyone the two starters they missed.

"Gaston, if I trade these to you, can you then help me get Gengar? Once I'm far enough in the game. I'll just trade it to you and then you'll trade it back?"

"Mmhuh? Sure."


"Gaston!? What are you doing!?"

The other boy turned to look at Léon, completely unfazed that he had been caught going through his backbag. "Hi."

"Hi!? That's my bag!"

"Phuh, relax, I know that. Jules found a ladybug and put it in your bag. I'm trying to save it."

"Give me that! It's private property!"

"Careful! You don't want to crush it!"

"Fine." He ended up removing almost all of the things before the beetle was found, safe and sound.

Gaston grabbed it. "Got it."

Léon quickly stashed the contents of his bag back in and ran after him. "Wait!"

"Mmhuh?"

"Um, are you going to just release it here?" He gestured at the schoolyard. "It's all concrete."

"Good point." Gaston frowned. "What do ladybugs eat?"

"Plants?" Léon guessed.

"I'll let it go further along then."

Léon walked after him. Might just as well, they were going the same way.

"Why would Jules put a bug in my bag?"

"I dunno. Poor bug."

"But why in mine?"

"Dunno. It was there I guess."

"So, could you trade me the Gengar now?" He could have asked Yves, but there was no harm in talking to Gaston a bit. And he sort of liked being alone with him.

Like he had suddenly become less annoying.

"I don't have my link cable with me. You can come over though."

"Yeah, sure. I mean, it's on the way." Léon told him.

He tried to think of something to say.

"So, do you like bugs?"

"I guess."

Well, that discussion didn't go anywhere.

He decided to try again. "What Pokemon you have on your team? I got Venusaur, Vaporeon, Pidgeot, Hitmonlee, Omastar and obviously Haunter. I also have Aerodactyl but since no-one in my team could learn Strength I had to leave it out to have Hitmonlee. Plus, you know, a fighting type. Although I think it looks kinda stupid. Did you know Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan were named after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan?"

Léon had a feeling he was talking too much.

"So, uh, your team?"

"Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Zapdos, Pidgeot and Mewtwo. Although since we agreed not to use Mewtwos in battle I use Flareon instead."

"So you have two firetypes?"

"Yeah, but Flareon is the strongest Eevee's evolution."

Léon nodded.

"Do you have Mewtwo?" Gaston asked.

"No, I restarted, so..." He hadn't even beat Elite Four yet.

"When you will, can you trade it to me?"

"Um, not really. Besides, you already have one!"

"Yeah, but I want to have six."

"But no-one is going to agree to battle you then." Léon pointed out.

"Yeah, but it would be kinda cool."

He let the ladybug free, slightly blowing on it to make it fly away. "Here's some plants."

He turned to point at the house. "I live here."

"Yeah, I know." He saw Gaston often enough, since he lived on his way to school.


"So, it evolved." Léon wasn't sure what to say now that the thing he had come over for was done. Should he leave?

Gaston leaned closer. "Guess what? I know something cool."

"What?"

"Promise not to tell anyone, okay?" He whispered conspiratorially.

"I guess?"

"It's something Fantasio told me. How to find a super-rare secret Pokemon and clone items."

"Missingno?"

Gaston seemed disappointed. "Oh, you already know."

Well, he did, since Fantasio had told him too. Not that he had tried it, since he was afraid it would mess up his game.

"I've heard of it. But you can show me how."

He handed over his game, hoping it wouldn't end up completely broken.

"Gaston?"

"Mmhuh?"

"I have some Pokemon cards Fantasio brought me from the city. But they're at home, so, maybe if you wanna see them? Sometime?" He suggested.

"Yeah, sure."

It would be nice, probably, to hang out with him like this every nowand then.

Because maybe Gaston wasn't really annoying at all.

TBC


A/N: I feel the need to point out that the claim that ladybugs eat 'plants' is (generally speaking) incorrect, and you should not make up facts like that.

The beetles of Family Coccinellidae, which are colloqually known as 'ladybugs' (although I am uncertain whether the common name is also used for other beetles. This goes for all animals, but especially with invertebrates you really should refer to them by their scientific name if possible.), are almost all predators.

There is a subfamily of herbivorous ladybugs, but they are a minority and in any case I seem to recall they tend to be monophagous so the statement that they eat 'plants' is highly misleading at best. And I sort of started writing an essay on taxonomy of beetles here but then I remembered what I was doing and deleted it.

A/N 2): A random bit of trivia, but Léon's team is the team I had by the end of my first run of Red, Gaston's the first team I had on Lv. 100. (Apart from Flareon)

A/N 3): Also this is all basically based on my experience playing Red 15 years ago. (Although I wasn't this young) So the 'facts' that Red is a harder version or that Flareon is the strongest (while in reality its attack stat is the greatest but it's typing and moveset make it the most useless) were 'facts' amongst our social group.

A/N 4) And again, based on my experience here, but back when Red and Blue were first out in Finland, there were very few places where you could get Pokemon-cards. The nearest place for me was a shop in the city 50 km away that sold collectable card-games, manga, miniatures, all that stuff and it was the only place for that. It was also a shop that was legendarily scary and hostile, it was in a dark place next to a funeral parlour, there were always a bunch of weird men hanging at the back painting Warhammer-figurines, and the staff generally clearly wished you weren't there. (Well, this is Finland, so that's standard customer service...)

So kids would either go in groups to buy cards, or have older kids (like me) go and buy them for them when in the city. So I imagine in this AU Fantasio is an older kid who did just that.

A/N: 5) Also presumably Léon and Gaston would have played this game in French but whatever.