Pallet Town is a peaceful place, which is why he settled down here in the first place.
Close to little pollution. Harmony between humans and pokemon, away from the strife that comes with being tangled in politics.
The him of before naively thought that all the Indigo Champion needs to do is to simply repel all challengers who challenged him for the title. It made him want to laugh at himself right now. Being a Champion is more than just being an undefeated trainer. Being a Champion is to protect your homeland from all threats and not every threat can be solved through a pokemon battle.
It was the right decision to retire. Lance will do a better job than he can. Where he failed, Lance will succeed. The young will always surpass the old, that is what he believes in.
"Oi, Gramps."
Samuel Oak turned to face his grandson, who is standing impatiently near the door wearing a white lab coat over his normal attire. His grandson helps him out in his research whenever he is not off running around somewhere training like a hermit. He still thinks that his grandson's attitude could use a lot more work, but it is already a lot better when he was still a snotty brat.
"Blue." The renowned Pokemon Professor of Kanto, previous holder of the title of the Indigo Champion, can only sigh when his grandson is like this. Still as impatient as before.
"It's Gary." Blue stressed. "Stop calling me after a stupid colour."
"I named you. I will call you however I like." Samuel Oak scoffed. "Gary Blue Oak."
"Stupid old man." Blue grumbled as he took off his white coat and hung it on a nearby clothes rack. "Thanks to you nobody ever calls me Gary."
"Off again?"
"Yeah. My pokemon are getting restless. There's no limit when it comes to pokemon battling, no one can ever claim to be the strongest. Even then, I will continue to strive for the top, the undisputable top, because I am Gary Oak."
"Gary Blue Oak."
His grandson picked up a nearby crumpled piece of paper and threw it at him. Samuel Oak dodged with practiced ease.
"Smell ya later, Gramps." Blue waved a lazy goodbye to him as he walked out of the door. "I'll check on Daisy and grandma in the meantime, so don't stress your poor little heart over it."
"REMEMBER TO CHANGE YOUR UNDERWEAR!" Samuel purposely hollered out after his departing grandson loud enough for the entire lab to hear, only to be greeted with a string of choice words his grandson shouted back at him from some unseen corner.
Ah, it is fun to embarrass his grandson like that. A talented trainer he may be, but he is still his grandson.
Samuel Oak clicked open the small oval-shaped photo pendant he always wore around his neck. On the left half is a family photo of him, his wife, son, and daughter-in-law. That was a very long time ago, when his wife had not divorced him after the death of their son and daughter-in-law. It had been a difficult time for all of them.
His son and daughter-in-law were not trainers. There was no way that they could have survived that. If only he was there to save his children. If only…
His eyes went to the right half of the photo pendant. Three little faces stared back at him, smiles on their faces. One of them is a newborn baby still swaddling in his cot. Around him are a pair of toddler girls, curious about their newborn little brother. The girls are twins. That picture was taken by his wife just a day after Blue was born.
These are his grandchildren.
He had three. Now he only had two, because it doesn't matter how strong he is as a trainer, he was always too late.
Too late to save his comrades. Too late to save his family. What's the point of being the strongest if you cannot even protect your loved ones?
Samuel sighed as he shut the photo pendant with an audible click. Blue and Daisy don't even know that they had another sister. Jane Green Oak, that was her name that his wife picked for their granddaughter. The name of Daisy Yellow Oak was given to the other twin by their parents.
It's not like he and his wife want to keep the fact from their grandchildren that they had another sister, but what was the point of bringing it up? They were too young to remember anything when Jane died with her parents at Azalea. Bringing it up now is still too painful for the both of them even when so many years had passed.
If Jane is still alive right now, she would already be an adult. He would probably still have problems trying to tell her apart from Daisy. Jane always did like to sing as a child. Maybe she would have pursued a path different from the family, a path different from her parents.
His son and daughter-in-law were researchers like him. They were attending a summit there. Jane and Daisy kept bugging them to bring them along because the twins wanted to go see what Azalea was like. Blue was too young, so he stayed with his wife in Pallet. He himself had to run another errand at Indigo Plateau before he was able to go to Azalea, but he had told his children that he would meet them at Azalea that fateful day.
He was held up at the League. He was an hour late to the meeting. In that one hour, he lost two children and one grandchild. When he received the bad news and finally arrived onto the scene, he only found Daisy among all the wreckage.
If only he wasn't late. His wife, Agatha, is still blaming him for that.
His son was not a trainer, but he kept a gastly around that he received from his mother who is a Ghost Master. His daughter-in-law took in an injured wild houndour shortly before Blue was born and nursed it back to health. The houndour willingly followed his daughter-in-law after that. He could still remember that fire type who is always overprotective of its trainer and snarling whenever he got too close. The houndour's overprotective tendencies always amused him to no end.
It wasn't likely that the houndour survived the destruction, but ghosts are supposedly immortal unless they are killed through exposure of highly concentrated ghost or dark energy directed right at their bodies. He still found it odd that the gastly never returned back to them, but he took solace in the fact that the two pokemon were most likely the reason why Daisy is still alive.
He should have been there. He was the one who was once the Indigo Champion. He had the strength. He could have done something if he was there on time.
He would never forgive himself for that. His wife certainly still holds a grudge against him, blaming him for their children's death. She had never appeared before him again after their divorce, even if she met up with their grandchildren regularly.
He walked down the stairs into the basement where his lab is at. With a twist of the doorknob, the door opened, revealing the partially lit room. He was about to sit down on his chair and continue writing his new thesis paper when he realised that something isn't right.
Someone is already sitting in his chair.
"Blaine?"
"Samuel. It's been a long time." The current Gym Leader of Cinnabar rose from the chair he was sitting on and walked towards him. "Sorry for the uninvited intrusion, but the severity of the situation calls for it."
Samuel sighed.
"It's not like I'm unhappy to see you, Blaine, but I officially withdrew from all League related activities ever since that day. The only thing I am willing to help do is to represent Kanto as her Regional Professor. If you are here for any League related issues-"
"It's about SKIP."
Samuel's head snapped up in shock.
"SKIP?"
"SKIP is not as dead as we thought it to be. On the contrary, it is doing extremely well. Too well, in fact." Blaine said in a grave voice. "However, things have really gone out of hand and the League needs all the help that she can get. We need to gather whoever is left. This is the mess we started, we should be the ones to end it. We need you, Samuel. We need our Undefeated Oak back."
"Explain." Samuel demanded, his fists clenched. Blaine never joked about things like this. If Blaine believes this to be real, then it is real.
The day he feared is here. The day where his past actions are catching up to him. He should have known that karma tends to find its way back to you when you expect it the least.
When Gary Blue Oak decided to pay his cranky grandmother a visit he wasn't expecting this.
He loves his family. His motherly older sister, his cranky grandmother and his nerdy grandfather. He may have lost his parents when he was not even yet a year old but his grandparents more than made up for the loss. He never felt that he was any less than any other kid who had parents, unlike him.
Although he never knew why his cranky grandmother never wanted to see his grandfather again. All he knows is that it's related to the deaths of his parents. Ever since he was young, he had never seen both of them appearing together in the same place before.
Until now.
When he left Pallet Town in a Teleport to travel to Lavender to visit his grandmother, all he expected was a brief respite before he started his self-imposed training regime. Maybe bug his permanently disagreeable grandma a little and annoy her to no end like he always did and then he would be on the receiving end of her scary horde of ghost types once more. It will be good training for him and his team either way. His grandmother was once an Elite Four and his grandfather an ex-Champion. Facing them in a serious battle can only be a good experience for him.
When he arrived at his grandmother's house in Lavender through the help of his alakazam, he was greeted by his older sister, Daisy.
"Blue!"
"Gary." Gary stressed to his sister the correct name to call him by, frustrated that his grandfather is the reason why even his older sister insisted on calling him by a stupid colour. At least his grandmother calls him by the correct name. That's why even though that old hag is cranky as she comes, she's his favourite.
Who the hell named their kids after colours, huh? His family, that's who.
Gary walked into the living room. The cranky old hag is oddly silent, scrolling through a laptop placed on the coffee table with a serious look on her face as she sat on the couch.
"Hey grandma." Gary purposely made his entrance loud and obnoxious to catch her attention. "Come on, let's battle. I'm not going to lose this time."
"You are a hundred years too early." His grandmother snorted, but her gaze never left the computer screen. Gary edged himself closer to see just what she is looking at.
"What is this?"
"Hopefully the final draft of the stupid textbook some naively idealistic young girl persuaded me to do. Makes me wonder just what kind of spell she casted on me to convince me to help her." Agatha grumbled under her breath as her gengars' cackles resonated across the living room, hidden from view as always.
"Oh, the one that you told me and Daisy about? The one with a weird affinity for ghosts?"
"That one." His grandma nodded her head in agreement before a sneer appeared on her face. "Such a waste. She could have been the strongest Ghost Master to ever grace the PWL with her gift, but she decided to not pursue such a path and instead become a Generalist."
The way his grandmother spat the term 'Generalist' in such a manner really rubbed him the wrong way, especially when he and grandpa are Generalists themselves.
"Hey, Generalists are cool. Just look at me and Gramps." Blue retorted, slightly offended at his grandmother's disdain for Generalists.
"Bah! Being a Generalist is a waste of her talent. She will never go far in there because she will be stretched too thin. You don't get it because you don't have a ghost on your team, but her gift to naturally get ghosts to like her is something nobody had seen or documented before. It's a major boon for any Ghost Specialist. The girl could go even further than me as a Ghost Master if she puts her mind into it."
"Yeah yeah. Blah blah blah." Gary rolled his eyes in response. "You are just salty that the girl doesn't want to end up as a cranky hag like you."
He earned himself a painful whack to his head, courtesy of his grandmother's sturdy cane. Luckily for him, the phone rang at that moment and saved him from further whacking.
"I will go get it!" Daisy volunteered as she left her seat to pick up the call.
"Huh. Who on earth would call you?" Gary wondered aloud as he looked back at his grandma. "You don't have any friends at all."
"You are really asking for some spanking, huh, brat?"
"Just chill a little. Your creaky old bones would probably break even before you could do so."
"Grandma?" Daisy's voice could be heard from where she was speaking to whoever is on the other side of the line. "It's Grandpa."
"Just hang up." Agatha muttered as she continued to look over the draft of the supposed textbook.
"Um… Grandpa said it is very urgent? Something about… um… Grandpa?" Daisy confirmed with her grandfather over the phone again just in case. "What was it again? Skip?"
Gary noticed that his grandmother's entire body stiffened upon hearing that last word.
"Skip." The cranky old hag murmured as she immediately stood up from her seat and hobbled over to Daisy at a speed Gary never thought he would ever see her walk. She snatched the phone over from Daisy and practically seethed at the phone.
"Samuel Oak. You better not be pulling my leg." Their grandmother went silent once more as their grandfather's voice could be heard over the phone, but not loud enough for him or Daisy to pick up what their grandfather is talking about.
"You sure?" Their grandmother asked after a brief period of silence. "I see. I will get Fuji and Bill and bring them over, you and Blaine stay there."
Their grandmother slammed the phone shut with a vengeance, her other hand gripping her cane so tightly that her hand turned white.
"Grandma?" Daisy asked worriedly.
"I'm fine. Gary!"
Gary jumped in his seat on instinct upon hearing his name getting called. His grandmother had not used such a tone on him ever since he became a trainer.
Something is not right.
"Y-Yeah?"
"You are coming with me. I need your alakazam to teleport me to several places. We have a few VIPs to fetch."
"...What?"
Name: Jayce
Official Identity: Jacob Myers
Indigo Government Identity: Operative 2046, Code Name: Gengar
Indigo Government Rank: Special Agent
Team Rocket Identity: Executive Plague
Team Rocket Rank: Executive
Pokemon Team:
1. Ninetales, female
2. Exeggutor, male
3. Weavile, male
4. Honchkrow, female
5. Gengar, female
6. Houndoom, male
7. Umbreon, male
8. Hydreigon, male
9. Drapion, female
10. Zoroark, male
11. Bisharp, male
12. Shiftry, male
13. Porygon-Z, (Nosy), genderless