So it's been a long ass time since I updated this huh? Honestly, Journeys just took more and more of my motivation for pokemon from me, to the point where I've not been able to work up the urge to write for it at all. And the latest bullshit with Goh catching Suicune and Iris returning as the Champion of Unova and basically spitting on everything Ash's journey was about from Kanto to Kalos, I was near enough just done with pokemon entirely.
Really, the series itself just disgusts me now and feels like we long time fans, I myself having been a fan for twenty-two years now, since I was five, are just being spat on for being loyal fans. It's pretty pathetic to be angry over a kids anime really, but when you loyally follow something for so long, it can't be helped.
Really, I probably would have washed my hands of pokemon entirely if I didn't get drunk and end up somehow listening the old pokemon songs, Together Forever specifically. It made me remember that while Pokemon is trash now, back in the day I had a lot of good times with it. Still, even with that, I still can't get over how trivialized being a champion is now ad has pretty much made me wonder 'what's the point' of a journey story to becoming a champion when an utter incompetent like Iris can become one.
Well, either way, enough of that depressing crap. I ended up editing up Chapter 1 a bit lads, because there's a different route I want to take this story. Mostly because I've totally forgot what my plans were for this story and most of my other pokemon ones, so eh.
Beedrill and Vibrava had little luck finding Magmar that night. So when they came back, Ash just went through some training with his pokemon and ate dinner before heading to bed.
The next morning though, when he asked the two of them to have another search. Things went much better.
To the point where, at most half an hour later, his two pokemon rushed back and were practically in hysterics. More Beedrill than Vibrava though.
He barely had time to finish packing up camp before Vibrava settled on his back and lifted him into the air.
"Huh," Ash blinked as his newest pokemon carried him through the air at a decent pace. He looked up over his shoulder at the small dragon and smirked at him, "You're stronger than I thought you were."
Sure he knew that smaller flying pokemon could carry humans, Pidgeot as a Pidgeotto was able to carry him, but he was younger then and Pidgeotto was a lot stronger then than Vibrava was now. He was kind of impressed.
"Brae!" Vibrava beamed at his praise and Ash watched in amusement as his flickering green wings picked up in speed and they flew through the air faster.
They flew right over a few rock plateaus that most travellers would normally have to walk around and went straight towards Mount Moon in the distance. Honestly, Ash was kind of surprised. It wasn't all that different from back home. It was still more of a massive hill than an actual mountain, though unlike back home, it wasn't covered with tons of greenery and trees, and was basically just a large barren rocky hill.
A flare of bright red and yellow flame tore through the air fifty or so feet in front of them a moment later. "Oh?" Ash raised an eyebrow in interest, "Is Magmar battling?"
Beedrill zipped up through the air beside them and nodded. He pointed one of his lanced arms downwards a moment later, singling something out and Ash could just make out a bunch of black dots beneath him on the ground, they were surrounding a red and yellow dot. And in front of them, they each had at least one other different coloured dot. Most of them being purple in colour.
He needed a closer look, but Ash was pretty sure the red and yellow dot was the Magmar. And it looked like a bunch of people were ganging up on it. "That's not cool at all." Ash scowled, crossing his arms.
Using multiple of your own pokemon against a single pokemon was one thing, but a bunch of trainers with their own pokemon teaming up to hunt one single pokemon? Yeah, that was just sad as far as Ash was concerned.
"Take us down Vibrava." Ash ordered.
A moment later, there was a slight tingle in the core of his stomach as the ground and dragon type carrying him began to rapidly descend through the air, down towards where the battle was taking place.
As Vibrava descended through the air towards the ground, Ash got a closer look at the people ganging up on the Magmar. They were all dressed up i a very familiar black uniform with a large red 'R' on the chest.
'Team Rocket!? They're here as well?' Ash thought, eyes widening as he saw them fully.
There were four of them,men, dressed up in the standard rocket garb, one had an Ekans in front of him, another a Koffing, a third had a Drowzee, while the last, the one in the centre holding a large sack over his shoulder had two pokemon in front of him, a Tauros and a Hitmonchan.
Well, it wasn't hard to spot the ringleader of this merry little band at least.
"Beedrill, hit that Drowzee with Pin Missile," Ash ordered, "Vibrava, drop me, we're close enough to the ground now and use Dragon Breath on the Hitmonchan!"
A moment later, Vibrava let go of him and Ash dropped down the remaining twenty or so feet as his pokemon did as ordered. Vibrava spat out a large stream of green and yellow flames while Beedrill lashed out with his lance arms, both glowing a bright white and fired off dozens of white energy spears.
The Drowzee probably didn't even know what hit it before the barrage of Pin Missile slammed into it. It let loose a groggy faint moan as it was ploughed into the dirt.
Vibrava's Dragon Breath couldn't compare to Charizard's, it was far smaller. In comparison, more like a small plume in comparison to the river Charizard could exhale.
It didn't hit anything else but the Hitmonchan, but it got the job done well. The fighting type shouted in surprise alongside its trainer as the green and yellow draconic flames swept over it.
Its trainer yelped in shock, just as a pokeball left his palm and smacked into the Magmar, and the three other rocket members all let out shouts of shock and surprise alongside him.
"The hell!?" the one who just caught the Magmar shouted, swinging around with a scowl on his lips towards Ash. His eyes widened as they met Ash's own, "You again!?"
Ash raised an eyebrow at his apparent recognition of him. "Shit, grab the ball!" the rocket member shouted towards the one who's Drowzee he just took down.
"Yes sir!" the other rocket quickly snapped to attention, returning his pokemon and bounding forward rapidly towards the ball.
"Follow my lead, we can't let this brat interrupt the mission once again!" The leader of the four ordered the other two, "Tauros, Take Down!" he pointed toward Ash and ordered.
With a loud cry, the Tauros pawed through the dirt before charging towards him, just as the other two snapped to attention as well and ordered their Ekans and Koffing into action.
He didn't need to worry about the two poison types. Beedrill and Vibrava quickly flew into action, zipping through the air. Vibrava bodily slammed the Ekans out of the air, while Beedrill quickly unleashed his String Shot and wrapped up Koffing eerily similar to how Butterfree had done it back in the day before swinging around and using the line of string to slam the floating poison type into the ground beside Ekans.
Ash himself ran forward to meet the charging Tauros, a billowing white aura flaring around its form. He launched himself up with a quick jump and pushed off its head with his foot and dodging above it, "Machoke, Karate Chop!" Ash ordered an instant later, releasing the fighting type of his team above the Tauros.
The massive Machoke appeared above the normal type, one arm glowing white up to the elbow. Ash didn't need to see how that would turn out.
The roar of pain the Tauros let loose and the way the area shook massively from the force of 'some' massive impact was more than enough.
"You little shit!" the leader of the group snarled, fist clenching around another pokeball. "Team Rocket won't forget this! Hypno, Teleport!"
Before he could rush the black uniform clad criminal, he released the pokemon inside his pokeball, a large Hypno, and a moment later, he, alongside his comrades and their pokemon all disappeared.
The only thing left behind was the sack that the leader had been carrying, it landed on the ground with a loud thump.
Ash scowled as he landed, "They're always quick to run, even here." he said in annoyance. As much as it pained him to admit, Jessie, James and Meowth were made from a lot tougher stuff than these guys who ran when things got tough. Their persistence could be incredibly annoying, but even when they knew they were beaten they wouldn't give up without getting 'blasted off'.
Shaking his head, he walked over to the sack and opened it up. It was...surprisingly empty. When he reached in, he found just one small rock like object.
Pulling it out, Ash blinked as he looked it over. He might have even gaped a bit. "The heck is this supposed to be?" he muttered to himself, scrutinising it intently.
It was just a normal drab grey rock. With the symbol of a crescent moon in the middle.
'Is this supposed to be a Moon Stone?' he thought to himself incredulously. It looked nothing like the Moon Stone's from back home!
Well different looking or not, Ash still got the same kind of feel from the stone in his hand as he did from the Moon Stone in his own world. And it was basically a free stone to evolve Nidorino.
Which was good, because Nidoking was a species that were better geared to evolving fast, they didn't really get many drawbacks from it like some lines, such as Raichu having a much harder time learning speed based techniques compared to a Pikachu.
He quickly banished all thoughts of the Pikachu line while on that train of thought. No need to get all mopey because his little buddy wasn't with him right now, at the very least he could be happy he was safe at home with all the rest of his pokmeon.
He turned then, to his new pokemon and smiled at the three of them. Machoke diligently stood with his arms crossed awaiting Ash, while Beedrill was practically vibrating in the air.
"Good job guys." Ash grinned at them. Mahcoke dipped his head and smiled lightly, while Beedrill's excitement got the better of him and he zipped through the air happily at the praise.
The amber eyed teen looked to Vibrava last, the small ground and dragon type puffed out his chest in pride at the praise when he met Ash's eyes.
His eyes drifted over his pokemon and landed on the one lone pokeball left behind by the rockets. Walking over to it, Ash picked it up and looked at it in surprise. "Woah!" he gasped." The top part of the pokeball, it was see through!
He could see a miniature Magmar staring up at him sullenly through the see through red dome of the top of the pokeball.
"How cool." Ash chuckled. This was a pretty big difference from the pokeballs he was used to. He'd need to take some back home with him when he managed to get back and let Professor Oak look them over.
One of these types might even be more towards the liking of Pikachu. Him not liking his pokeball had bitten them in the ass more times than Ash could count. He didn't mind at all since it was his buddies preference, but if he could get a pokeball Pikachu wouldn't mind relaxing in from time to time, it could go a long way to making things easier on the little electric type.
Well either way, before he got around to evolving Nidorino, first he had to deal with his newest pokemon. He examined the pokeball in his hand, checking out the mechanisms on it, even while Magmar stared up at him through the red see through top.
"Choke?" Machoke rumbled from beside him, looking down at the ball in curiosity as well. Just as Vibrava and Beedrill landed on either side of you.
'As interesting as this thing is, and I'm definitely gonna bring some back home with me, I don't know how to register these things to my ownership.' Ash mused.
Thankfully, the release mechanism was in the same place as the pokeballs he used, and pressing it, the pokeball opened up and released Magmar from the capture system.
"Maaag." Magmar shook its head groggily as it appeared in front of him. It took it a few moments to regain its bearings and when it did, it glared at Ash, smoke curling from its beak-like mouth.
"Ma!" Machoke quickly stood in front of him, raising an arm beginning to glow with bright white power warningly. Beedrill and Vibarava tensed up as well.
Ash put his arm on Machoke's shoulder, "Calm down buddy," he chuckled, before stepping around to face the Magmar, "You wanna battle? We're a lot stronger than those guys who jumped you and ran off." he warned.
Magmar's eyes smouldered and hesitation halted it in its tracks. Ash could see the shame in its eyes at its own hesitation. It was clearly a proud pokemon, proud of its strength, and to be defeated by those punks from Team Rocket, it probably showed it, that it wasn't as strong as it thought it was.
Ash reached into his pocket, not stopping even when Magmar tensed and got ready to move in a split moment and pulled out a shrunken pokeball, enlarging it in his palm, "Or, you could come with me if us if you want," he grinned at the fire type, "I might be tooting my own horn here, but I've trained some incredible pokemon in the past, I can easily make you so strong you could blow away the likes of those guys as if they were a stack of paper."
Was it risky to remove himself from the protection of his pokemon with one with the chance to attack him? Yes, if he were some rookie. But he'd dealt with far stronger fire types than this Magmar. Honestly speaking, Ash was sure he could defeat it in a fight himself. And he'd always been much stronger and hardier than other people, something that he later learned came from his abundant and powerful aura.
There was a rookie who started his journey just as Ash returned to Kanto from Alola by the name of Goh. He was in a coma now, because he had foolishly refused a starter pokemon because he apparently would only accept Mew as his starter pokemon, but also wanted to capture every type of pokemon in the world. He had rushed off into the Vermillion City Forest, a place teaming with bug types that Ash got lost in himself for days back when he travelled Kanto the first time with Brock and Misty. The boy had worked the bug type pokemon up into a frenzy trying to just throw pokeballs at them and capture them, enraging a swarm of Scyther that were passing through during their mating season when he ball'd a popular female. They would have rampaged through Vermillion City if Ash hadn't been there to stop them alongside Pikachu, though there was nothing that could have been done for that Goh boy. He had taken some lethal injuries by time Ash had heard hat was going on, and had to be carted off to the hospital, where he later fell into a coma.
Magmar eyed eyed him distrustfully, before looking at the pokemon around Ash dubiously, "I've only had these guys a few days," he explained, "But I'm willing to bet you'd be hard pressed to defeat any single one of them, after all, you saw how easily they took care of those goons from Team Rocket that caught you and their pokemon."
Magmar reluctantly nodded at his words, before the fire types shoulders slumped. "Magmar.." it groaned, before looking up into Ash's eyes, him having a few inches on the pure fire type pokemon and stared straight into his amber iris'. Ash held its gaze, not looking away or backing down.
Finally, after maybe ten seconds passed, Magmar dipped its head in acknowledgement, dropping to one knee. "Alright then, I promise you won't be disappointed." Ash grinned, lowering the pokeball in his hand and gently tapping it against Magmar's brow. It clicked open, and enveloped Magmar in a beam of red light before sucking it inside, clicking shut once more. The pokeball rocked gently in his hand from side to side a bit for a few moments, before a loud 'ping' sounded from it and it calmed down, signifying the capture of Magmar.
"Welcome to the team Magmar!" Ash said, placing it on his belt and grabbing one of the other pokeballs from it. "Come out, Nidorino." he said, releasing the poison type.
The large quadruped immediately began to affectionately rub up against Ash's side. "Sorry I didn't bring you out buddy, but there was no need for you to join in as well," Ash chuckled, "They were pretty weak."
Nidorino shrugged his shoulders, the poison type didn't really care.
"Well, guess it's fine then," Ash shrugged, before crouching down and holding the evolution stone had had in his hand out to the poison type, "So, looks like we got our hands on a Moon Stone from those guys, you wanna evolve buddy?" It was polite to ask, but Ash already knew what Nidorino would choose.
Nidorino's eyes lit up, and before Ash could say anything else, the poison type touched his long horn to the stone and immediately erupted into bright light. Before Ash's eyes, the pokemon a bit over half his size began to grow, and grow, going from standing on all fours, to bipedal and when the light of evolution receded, a Nidoking covered in thick plated purple hide, and far bigger than the average Nidoking he'd run into in the past stood in front of him.
"Niiii!" the huge poison type rumbled, sending a fanged grin down at you. He'd gone from one of the smallest on the team, to the largest.
Ash pulled out his rotom phone and looked Nidoking over with a quick scan. '6'8, he's got a good two feet on the average Nidoking I ran into back home.' he noted, impressed. Not only that though, he'd also learned Megahorn apparently upon evolution!
He spent a good little while praising Nidoking and having him show off his new move a bit to get a feel for it, before Ash returned three of the pokemon he had out. He left Vibrava out and had the ground and dragon type pokemon carry him back through the air to where he'd set up camp.
'I've got five pokemon already.' Ash mused as he went about packing his camp up to continue on. Right now honestly, there was no point in going around the gyms. If the rest were anything like Brock had been, there wasn't much his pokemon could get out of battling them.
His best bet would honestly be hunkering down somewhere for a time and training his pokemon before he tried to find a Zapdos. He only knew a few places they were known to visit back home. The Shamouti Islands, an area filled with electric types in Johto and a city in Kalos.
There was no guarantee they would be there since this was an entirely different dimensions. The best bet would probably be Shamouti honestly. 'Unless I go to Professor Oak.' Ash chewed his lip at the thought. Professor Oak always knew way more than he let on. If anybody knew where legendary pokemon were, he would.
He hadn't wanted to go to Pallet Town though. He hadn't wanted to entertain the possibility of running into an alternate version of his mother or something, or even himself. But that was just being childish.
'Get your head in the game Ketchum!' he scolded himself, slapping his cheeks. He was a champion now! He was responsible for an entire region and the people in. He couldn't let something like that make him hesitate.
His amber eyes drifted to his backpack. Amongst the items that had come across with him, he had a bunch of TM's he'd picked up from here and there on his journey. He had a bunch of them collected at home, but these ones were just some leftovers he had tossed in his bag and forgot about for the longest time.
TM's were...not Ash's favourite thing in the world, if he was being honest. Oh, he abused them early on, specifically with Charizard and it was the reason Charmander had grown so strong so quickly and his power had gone to his head upon evolution.
He was an idiot back then, but nowadays he had come to prefer going the natural route of training and working hard to have his pokemon learn attacks, rather than what was essentially a lower form of doping in his eyes now.
TM's were not simply units containing knowledge of an attack. They were outright memories of a technique extracted fully from a pokemon, making them forget it. They were items that took the hard work of other pokemon to empower another. And not only that, in the creation of the TM discs, power was drawn from the pokemon itself, weakening it to power the disc. When used on a pokemon, they got not only the memory of the attack and how to use it, but also that bit of power added to their own.
It was Gary's favourite method early on as well before he pulled his head from his ass in Johto. He abused the money he had access to as Professor Oak's grandson and basically, instead of training, just loaded his pokemon up with TM's and evolution stones. Gary much preferred pokemon like Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Kingdra, Arcanine and such early on because he could just evolve them by buying items on top of the TM's.
Nowadays, TM's were much more restricted because of people abusing them, but Ash had his own collection he'd picked up over the years.
It went against his principles. But, there were people relying on him, he couldn't just scoff and say no, the quicker he got his pokemon strong enough, the quicker he could return home.
...And not to mention, he was really beginning to miss Pikachu and the others. He'd never been apart from Pikachu this long before.
Funnily enough, in total, Ash had ten TM's sitting in his bag. And they were all more or less compatible with the pokemon he had. Then again, quite a few of them were compatible with pretty much every pokemon bar the likes of Caterpie and Magikarp.
And it was a simple matter to use them on his pokemon. He used two on Machoke, teaching him Power-Up Punch and Toxic. Two on Beedrill, teaching him Swords Dance and U-turn. Another two on Nidoking, teaching him Thunderbolt and Return. Three on Vibrava, Dragon Dance, Giga Drain and Protect, and a single TM on Magmar, that being Teleport.
Odds were Vibrava would be the one leading in the battle against Zapdos and his main contender, so he focused on Vibrava a bit more than the others.
And with Magmar having been to Pewter quite a few times before when clashing with Brock, it was a simple matter for Ash to have his new fire type test out his new move by teleporting them both to Pewter City.
His destination, was Pallet Town. He could probably have Vibrava carry him over the Viridian Forest and make much better time than before, but he wasn't rushing that much, he could walk and train his pokemon on the way.
They had gained a few levels each according to the pokedex thanks to the TM's and Magmar wasn't that far behind the rest of the team, but they were still far off from being strong enough to take on a legendary pokemon.
'If I'm lucky, Oak will know exactly where to find Zapdos, or at least a general area to search.' Ash thought as he walked through the streets of Pewter City, heading back towards the Viridian Forest.
Then, he could simply focus on training his pokemon to his best efforts. And head straight for Zapdos.
'Heh, now that I think about it, I'm kinda excited.' Ash grinned to himself. Sure, he needed to get back home ASAP, but at the same time, he'd never outright searched for a legendary pokemon to battle and capture them. The Ultra Beasts didn't count.
Honestly, it had been quite a while since he'd hunted for a pokemon good and proper besides Magmar and that hadn't exactly taken long.
Ash's Pokemon
Machoke - Level 27 - Male - Guts - Attacks Known: Low Kick, Karate Chop, Seismic Toss, Knock Off, Fire Punch, Toxic, Power-Up Punch
Nidoking - Level 26 - Male - Sheer Force - Attacks Known: Horn Attack, Peck, Double Kick, Confusion, Poison Sting, Megahorn, Return, Thunderbolt
Beedrill - Level 25 - Male - Sniper - Attacks Known: Poison Sting, String Shot, Iron Defense, Twin Needle, Pin Missile, Solarbeam, Swords Dance, U-turn
Vibrava - Level 29 - Male - Levitate - Attacks Known: Dragon Breath, Gust, Sunny Day, Rock Slide, Crunch, Giga Drain, Dragon Dance, Protect
Magmar - Level 24 - Male - Flame Body - Attacks Known: Fire Punch, Smog, Karate Chop, Low Kick, Confuse Ray, Flamethrower, Teleport
And that's a wrap boys and possible girls. The quality took a massive nose dive with this, but eh, I wrote it while drunk and been out of the pokemon game for a while now. So take it as you will. I'm off to go drink myself into an even deeper stupor. Later.