AN: In case anyone was wondering, the Riley of this story is based off Yellow in the Pokémon Adventures manga. It's basically her counterpart, only with a change being that he's a boy instead of a girl, like Yellow.
To Become a Pokémon master
Rockets in the Sky
Chapter 4
Into The Wild
The morning of the next day gave birth to always shining sun as it glistened its light down on the world, grass twinkling with the droplets of dew and Pokémon beginning their scurrying about for the day. Our heroes and their Pokémon briskly walked along the trail of Route 1, hoping to encounter wonders today that would enrich them.
But unfortunately, no such wondrous thing has happened yet.
"Ugh." Ash groaned as he slumped over, walking tiredly. "I'm so bored! Nothing's happening."
Riley looked at his idol oddly with a curious expression on his face. "What do you mean?"
"Where's the excitement?" Ash stopped and spread his arms out, looking at the world all around him. "Come on, I thought I'd see some cool stuff like wild Pokémon fight or something."
Right as our young hero said that, the coolest thing happened. Or at least it was cool to Riley as he tried to hide a little smirk of laughter behind an obviously faked surprised face. "Oh no!" he yelled.
A wild, purple, monkey-like Pokémon snatched the hat right off of Ash's head and scurried down the trail at a blazing speed, laughing all the while. "Ah!" Ash screamed as he immediately went chasing after the monkey. "Give me back my hat!" He pulled out his Pokédex and checked the information on the wild, mischievous Pokémon.
"Aipom, the Long Tail Pokémon. They live atop trees. Their strong tail allows them to swing from branch to branch, hang upside down, and hold itself in the air while grabbing onto a tree branch."
Riley and his Rattata followed close behind him, still trying to hold back the urge to laugh. The two young boys reached the base of a tree that the wild Pokémon quickly ran up. It sat atop one of the lowest branches, taunting him by dangling his hat just out of reach. Ash persistently tried to grab the hat and attempted to climb the tree numerous times, but each of them resulted in a failure.
The straw hat boy could only watch in slight bewilderment as Ash didn't budge from trying to get his hat back for a single second. "What's so important about that hat? Can't you just get a new one?"
"No way!" Ash yelled as he slipped and fell to the ground from another attempt of trying to climb the tree. "That's an official Pokémon League Expo hat! I sent in about a million post cards just to get it!"
"Why don't you battle it?"
Ash slid to the ground from another vain effort of trying to climb the tree and a light bulb instantly went off in his head. "I just got an idea! Why don't I battle it?"
"That's what I just saaaaaaid." Riley groaned with his Rattata.
"Pikachu, let's go, use Quick Attack!" Ash commanded.
But Pikachu wouldn't listen! He loafed around next Riley, lazily taking a nap in the hot sun as the wild Aipom busted a gut in rib-hurting laughter.
The trainer let out a sad sigh and hung his head in disappointment. "I guess we still need work..."
Suddenly, Bulbasaur voluntarily broke free from his Poké Ball and appeared, snarling up at the Aipom with such an anger that it made Aipom stop laughing and freeze completely still.
"Oh hey, Bulbasaur, you wanna battle?"
Bulbasaur looked back at his trainer and gave him a confident nod as he roared at the opponent in the tree.
"Alright, I choose you, Bulbasaur! Use Vine Whi-" but before Ash could finish calling out his command, Bulbasaur immediately began scaling up the tree and made an effort to full-on attack the Aipom his own way. The Long Tail Pokémon swiftly dodged the attack and smacked Bulbasaur to the ground with a powerful punch from its tail. Before slamming into the hard earth, Ash managed to catch his Pokémon, landing elbow-first into the ground and causing sharp needles of pain to sting through his entire arm. He looked down at his Pokémon with a confused and pained expression on his face. "Bulbasaur, how come you didn't listen to me?" he said as the Aipom escaped and Ash let out a sharp sigh.
"Hang on a second..." Riley said as he knelt down in front of the two and placed his hand on Bulbasaur's head. His eyes closed slowly and he took in a deep breath of air. "Just relax Bulbasaur. I need you to open yourself up to me. Can you do that?" Bulbasaur nodded and Riley's eyes opened, glowing yellow as vivid pictures filled his brain. Vivid pictures that told the story of Bulbasaur like an open book just waiting to be read. Ash could only sit and watched as his new friend's eyes glowed with a mysterious power and appeared to be in a heavy trance.
Picture after picture revealed the story of Bulbasaur- a Pokémon that truly wanted justice for all. The problem was never him, but the trainers he had. Whenever a someone, whether it be people or Pokémon, acted in an bad manner and the evildoer went unpunished, it tore him up inside, flinging arrows into his heart like a thousand natural shocks. After countless times of standing aside, Bulbasaur finally intervened. Whenever he did, the trainers would take it as an act of offense or disobedience, but never truly understood that it was only acting for justice.
As the images began fading from Riley's head, his eyes turned back to normal and his hand slowly fell from Bulbasaur down to the ground. He sat there for a brief second before giving Bulbasaur a great, big hug for his courage in doing what was right no matter what his previous trainers did.
"Riley?" Ash asked. "What just happened?"
"I saw into Bulbasaur's memories. He allowed me inside. Ash... Bulbasaur hates bad people and Pokémon."
"What do you mean?"
Riley took a deep breath and began explaining the visions he saw. "This Bulbasaur has seen injustice over and over again to the point where his heart was shattered. He finally said enough was enough and stood up for what he believed in and what was right- whether the trainer approved of its motives or not. More often, they didn't approve. That's why they kept bringing him back to Professor Oak's lab. For a very long time he felt unwanted and unneeded and that humans were all bad, until he saw how you saved your Pikachu back in Pallet. That's when he knew he had to go with you, because you're just like him."
Ash could only sit there, speechless. He could see in both Riley's and Bulbasaur's eyes that every word said was completely true. It wasn't even the fact that he doubted them, but the fact that the story was so moving it made involuntary tears well up in his eyes. His heart pounded with sadness for the little Pokémon and he knew he'd be hugging him a little tighter tonight.
But first, he had to get his hat back.
Ash suddenly stood up and turned his hat backwards. He looked down at Bulbasaur with the confident smirk of a Pokémon trainer and asked "Hey, Bulbasaur, you ready to go catch a bad Pokémon? Together?"
The Bulbasaur's eyes lit up like a Christmas Tree with happiness as he and his trainer, along with Riley, Rattata, and Ash's Pikachu, tagging along behind the valiant duo.
. . .
After quite a bit of running and searching of Route 1, Ash and Riley finally located the mischievous Aipom snoozing in a tree as if it didn't have a care in the world. But that was it's biggest mistake, for it did not know that it had the biggest care of all- a very upset ten-year-old's hat hanging carelessly off its tail. It was even within grabbing distance!
Ash quietly inched up on the sleeping Pokémon and reached his hand up. Never before had he had the feeling of being so close to his hat, mostly because he never had it stolen to have that feeling in the first place. Right as his fingers were about to feel sweet glory, one of the Aipom's eyes opened as it smacked Ash back and sprung off the tree, landing in front of them with a devilish grin on its face and discarding the hat in the tree.
"You'll pay for that!" Ash stood up as he looked over at his Pokémon for support. The look was received well as Bulbasaur stood, ready to take on the bad Aipom and retrieve not only the hat, but justice. "Do it, Bulbasaur, use Headbutt!"
Much to his trainer's oblige, Bulbasaur obeyed and slammed his head into the Long Tail Pokémon, sending it flying back, but it managed to land of its feet. The Aipom countered with a swift Scratch attack to Bulbasaur's face, confounding him with first speed, then pain.
"Wow," Ash thought to himself. "That Aipom is fast..." He suddenly saw Aipom closing in for what looked to be another Scratch attack, but he was shocked to see that it began... tickling Bulbasaur. It managed to quickly subdue Bulbasaur into laughter. The young trainer had no clue what to do as the Aipom kept tickling, but suddenly stopped and delivered a powerful Power-Up Punch into Bulbasaur, sending him flying back into a tree. "Ah! Bulbasaur!" he screamed.
Aipom was already closing in for another Power-Up Punch, but a quick, smart order from his trainer to dodge prompted Bulbasaur to soar into the air with an impressive jump, landing in back of the confounded Aipom.
"Bulbasaur, use Leech Seed!" Ash yelled.
Bulbasaur shot a seed from the bulb on its back that exploded in mid air, releasing vines that wrapped around Aipom and shocked it with energy-stealing power.
"Now, use Vine Whip!"
Vines extended from the back of the Seed Pokémon and whipped at Aipom multiple times until it fell over, fainting from the damage taken. Ash grabbed the brim of his cap and pulled it down back behind the back of his neck. With a quick toss of a Poké Ball and the words "Poké Ball, go!"
The ball bounced off Aipom, opened up, and trapped it inside as it fell to the ground and wiggled back and forth. Anticipation built inside of Ash, Riley, and Bulbasaur as they all stood still, waiting for something to happen. With a flash of blue stars from the button of the ball, it stopped shaking. The young trainer quickly rushed over and saw the Long Tail Pokémon sitting in the Poké Ball through the transparent top. With a huge smile on his face and his Bulbasaur cheering along with him, he held the ball up in the air and yelled "Alright! We caught an Aipom!"
"Bulbah! Bul-saaaaur!"
Ash called out the Long Tail Pokémon and she looked up at her new trainer with a shameful look on her face. She quickly scurried up the tree, retrieved the hat, and brought it back down to him, appearing to be extremely sad and apologetic for her actions. Her trainer accepted both the hat and the apology.
That would only happen in a perfect world...
Once Aipom returned the hat to her trainer, right as he was about ready to thank her, she unleashed a barrage of tickling everyone all over with a mischievous grin on her face. Come on, do you really think she would have just changed her ways that fast? Like I said, only in a perfect world.