Welcome to another chapter of A Different Path!
I'm glad people are enjoying the story and I hope you all continue to give me your support!
I want some opinions on a certain matter that I'm not too sure about. That matter's name would be Meowth.
Looking into his back story I'm not sure how to approach him joining James and Jessie. If I have James or Jessie find him first, would he still be able to talk and walk like a human? Or would he still be like any other Meowth.
So vote in the reviews:
Meowth can talk
Meowth is a normal Meowth
My only concern was I didn't want the capabilities of understanding pokemon speech because that can get kind of annoying in terms of speech patterns and personalities for each pokemon.
So please vote and I will figure each way out!
Reviews!:
carlospino97.7: Don't worry I have a grass type planned early on into his captures!
dominick2091: Glad you like the story and I like the enthusiasm!
geran214: I do like those choices but i am going to try hard and keep the pokemon to the gen they came out with. So kanto only for now anyways.
rylek196: You need some therapy my guy….
Scurra71900: Thank you for reading!
Elite Trainer: I wasn't trying to trigger anything just showing my opinion on the matter. I can see your pov as well. I do like those suggestions better than your last ones tho :O
Gerak99: That would be funny although I'm not much of a dark souls player. At least I know the reference!
Guest: I don't know if I will do a pairing for ash. He is going to be a rival for James in the fic along with Gary and maybe someone else :)
bobby4million: Thank you and me too!
frankieu: Thanks i cant wait to get out of the prologue essentialy and into the gyms!
On a side note to the pokemon suggestions. You guys really like your grass and water types!
Hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 3: The Big City!
Well one thing I didn't plan for was how difficult it is to walk a route at night. For the first few minutes I was tripping over every rock bigger than my big toe. Hestia being her loving self was doing her Growlithe snickering the whole time since she is maneuvering with her other senses!
After my smarter half caught up, I used my rotom phones flashlight app to help me move along. Once I did that it became much easier to traverse the terrain and we started making some serious progress. For the first few hours me and Hestia walked in companionable silence.
I started to notice she was tiring out though with her shorter legs this is a much farther walk then we anticipated. I told her I was going to recall her so she could rest. She whined a little and looked around us as if it wasn't safe.
To make sure i could get her into her pokeball I promised I would call her out if I ran into any trouble. Luckily that worked and she resigned herself to get sucked into the ball. Continuing the trek after another hour or two I could start to see the glow of Saffron's city light pollution.
Picking up my pace I arrived at the city gates with only an hour or two before sunrise. My phone's battery is getting low but I was able to find the nearest pokemon center to me and it was only a short walk away. Saffron actually has quite a few pokemon centers from my search.
They have one near every major exit/entrance of the city which makes sense for traveler emergencies to be able to get to them quicker. They also have one or two closer to the middle and makes the pokemon centers fairly evenly spread out. Considering this is the biggest city in the region it makes it quite efficient for the population density.
Arriving at the pokemon center I get my first glimpse of such an iconic building in the pokemon universe. Big red roof with a huge pokeball on the center but it has a plus symbol inside the circle. It wasn't quite as tall as the skyscrapers in the distance but it had a few floors to it.
I'm guessing this is on the bigger side of things for a pokemon center considering the city, but I'm still shocked in awe that I finally made it to one. Going through the automatic doors, the floor plan is like in the game. Seating and waiting areas are to my direct right and left.
The counter that is empty right now is directly ahead with a pc behind the counter and a set of double doors directly behind. There are some video phones nearby the counter kind of like in the Viridian city anime pokemon center.
I also see a directory pointing to the cafeteria, laundromat, and floors detailing room numbers I'm guessing for overnight guests as well. Seeing no one at the counter but a red button that says to press me if not here. I press the button like anyone would do when a red button is before them.
It lets out a quick chime that sounded like the healing machines in the games that gave me a little chuckle. While waiting for Nurse Joy to show up I let out Hestia so she can stretch her legs and I can get her up to date.
"We have arrived in Saffron city girl, now we just have to get into poke tech and find a friend or two before we can travel around Kanto! I'm also going to get Nurse Joy to do a checkup on you to make sure your fighting fit!" I exclaimed with energy. She barked happily and wagged her tail and randomly looked towards the double doors behind the counter.
A few seconds later Nurse Joy showed up. Hestia must have heard or smelled her coming. She is wearing the standard Nurse Joy kanto outfit from the anime and looks just as beautiful. Brock might have had solid reasons to propose to every single one.
"How can I help you this morning?" She asked in a happy tune for someone up this early.
"Hello, sorry if I woke you, I wasn't sure if anyone would be awake or not. I was wondering if you could do a checkup of my starter Hestia here and if i could get a room for a week?" I asked politely and smiled while I recalled Hestia to her ball.
"Of course, I can do both, and don't worry about how early it is whenever you come to a Poke Center in Saffron City. We have 2 nurse joys on duty at these cities' locations. Sadly, I wish I could say the same for other cities or the route outpost poke centers they are usually under staffed." She waved me off as she spoke and asked for Hestia's pokeball and my trainer ID.
After taking Hestia's pokeball and my ID she inserted my phone into the slot on the PC and typed a few things before giving me my phone back. "Well Mr. Blair we will have Hestia ready in a few hours, so why don't you go relax in your room which is 3B. Just use your phone to unlock the door and we will message your phone when Hestia is ready for pickup."
"Awesome thank you so much Nurse Joy" I said to her with a grateful smile as I reached for my phone.
"Of course, it's why we're here." She said in a cheery tone as she grabbed Hestia's ball and departed behind the double doors again.
I slowly made my way upstairs to the third floor and got into my room. Apparently most standard poke center rooms you get a full bed with a nightstand. A couch with a tv facing it and your own personal bathroom with a bath/shower combo.
It looks nicer than what I remember of the old hotels in my old life that's for sure. And when I laid on the bed it was definitely comfier than the old beds in the hotels for sure.
I got my backpack out and ate some of the bread rolls as I plugged my phone in and set the timer to wake me up in four hours. I should wake up at about 9 am and power through a little sleepless day to get my sleep schedule back on track.
As I laid in bed trying to fall asleep, I couldn't believe in one day I got reincarnated as James. Escaped a mansion with one of my favorite pokemon as my starter. Then travelled and made it to a pokemon center in Saffron city.
Before I could think of anything else I fell asleep to my thoughts of what to do next.
4 Hours Later
I woke to the annoying sound of the alarm on my phone. Shutting off the stupid blaring sound I look and see Hestia is ready for me to pick up at the front desk. I get out of bed and stretch out my sore muscles and can smell some slight funkiness from myself.
Hestia can wait a few more minutes for me to take a quick shower. She would probably appreciate it with her sense of smell. I need to make sure she gets all the smells of my team and anyone I travel with memorized just in case for emergencies, but that can wait till we start getting them. Priority now is a shower and some fresh clothes.
After a nice long hot shower I changed into my other set of clothes that I have. I will also need to wash my old clothes since I don't have many extras. At some point today I need to go clothes shopping and get me some trainer clothes for my journey.
Once I get down to the lobby, I notice it is busier than when I arrived at the crack of dawn this morning. Seeing a line for the Nurse Joy station I get in it for my turn and take a look around. There are many more trainers and their pokemon hanging out around the couches and tables. So far, I see some generic pokemon like Machop or some Pikachu and Oddish. They must be hanging around waiting for the season to start next week.
Personally, I would start making my way towards Viridian City so I can go the original route if I didn't have to get Jessie first. Hopefully I can run into her early so that then I may be able to talk her out of going to poke tech altogether and save us some time.
Noticing I was finally at the front of the line, I showed my ID to get Hestia and make my way to the cafeteria. I get a brunch of some french toast and eggs with milk from the cafeteria line and also get a bowl of fire type poke food and start looking for a table. The cafeteria is slightly busy but I see something that gives me an opportunity. I see a head of hair in a beautiful magenta color.
Luckily for me she is also sitting alone. As I get closer, I can get more details from the younger Jessie that I see before me. She has her hair in twin tail braids going over her shoulders instead of the monstrous big thing she did in the anime that I question how much hair gel she used. She's in a school girl looking outfit of a gray skirt, white button up with a beige sweater vest. I can't see her shoes from here but I bet they are a version of doc martens.
The thing that stands out the most to me is how pretty she is. The soft face with no makeup needed in sight with smooth pale skin that looks like it would be soft to the touch. She also has sparkling blue eyes and a nice smile. I have to say overall she is much prettier and so much more approachable than her anime counterpart.
I approach her table with the hope she will let me join her since there are no free tables in the cafeteria anyways. As I approach, I see she is using a blue rotom phone for entertainment while she eats some fruit on her plate.
When I get to the table, I take a quick breath and wish myself luck. "Excuse me, most of the tables are filled. Is it ok if me and my Growlithe join you?" I asked and apparently startled her since she wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings. She made a cute eep noise and almost dropped her phone when she got startled.
"Sorry about that, I didn't mean to scare you." I say hopefully with a nice tune. She takes a quick breath and finally looks at me for the first time. Closer up her eyes are even more beautiful than from afar. When I make eye contact, I see she has a slight blush to her face. Probably the same blush that I have on my own face. I wasn't prepared for her to be this pretty but I definitely won't complain.
"Um, yeah sure but where's your Growlithe?" She asks with a nice light voice that is really easy on the ears. I set down my food on the table and the bowl on the ground and pulled out Hestia's pokeball from my pocket and waved it in the air a little bit. I see the O shape appear on her face. I click the button to let out Hestia.
As she materializes in a red glow, she wags her tail and nuzzles up against my leg. "I forgot to introduce myself. My name is James Blair and this is my starter Hestia." I say as I pet Hestia with my left-hand reach over to offer a handshake to Jessie.
She takes my hand and shakes it with a slight firm grip. Her hands are extremely soft and she must use a really nice lotion. "My name is Jessie Lillis. Hestia seems to like you a lot." She says with a smile. Hestia notices her and trots over to do her own handshake.
"She seems to be quite friendly too." As Jessie takes the paw and gives the starter a shake while giggling. Hestia quickly licks her hand and then notices the food bowl that I nudge towards her and she digs in.
"Yeah, I definitely lucked out on an awesome starter like her. As of now we are staying here to go to poke tech or get the free teleportation service to start our journey in viridian city. So, then I can do the gym challenge." I said with a determination in my voice as I started to cut up my french toast. Which is delicious by the way.
"Oh, that's awesome. I don't have a starter yet. I haven't decided what I want to do as of now. My dream was to become a pokemon nurse but that got shut down sadly." She looks down and kind of plays with her food a little sadly.
"Well, what's stopping you. The nurse joy said they are well staffed here but in all the rural areas they always need help. You could become like a travel nurse and help out at pokemon centers when your there." To me it seemed like a good reason for her to travel and a good way to stay on the good side of the world.
She perks up at the idea but then slumps again. "How am I supposed to travel anywhere without a pokemon? It could be dangerous to travel alone."
"Well, you could have someone catch one for you. Or if you want you could travel with me for now. I think you're really cool to want to have a dream different than anyone else. Also, you seem to be very nice and your pretty."
At that last sentence I blushed, not meaning to say that but I can't lie, I kind of have a crush on Jessie.
She grows to be a beautiful woman and is ignored by the other women in the pokemon world due to her haughty nature. If she was sweet and kind like this in the anime, I bet people would've been all over her.
"You really mean it? No one has ever wanted to be around me much. I have my trainer license but I spent all my money to get my nursing certificate." She looked at me with such hope in her eyes. The eyes really were the way into the soul, and I could easily stare at hers for days.
"Yeah, we can travel around and while I train and get gym badges you can help pokemon at poke centers or even get some pokemon of your own and train them to heal!" I say with an excited voice. I am super excited to be able to skip poke tech at this point.
Honestly most people there are assholes and it would be hard to hide my knowledge of pokemon and be able to stick with Jessie at the bottom of the ladder.
"That would be fun, but sadly i don't have any money for supplies. I think i would just hold you back as of now."
She looks away kind of shyly like this is a dealbreaker, but lucky me I have some good starting cash and I have the stuff in my bag to sell for some extra cash to help us out.
I grab her hand on the table that's closest to me and give it a soft squeeze. "First off you will never hold me back. If anything, someone as nice and kind as you. Secondly, I have a bit of starting cash that I was going to use to outfit myself for my journey. Spending a little bit on you won't change anything. I'm sure you can pay me back with being an awesome friend and healing my pokemon while we travel."
She turned her hand over and squeezed mine back and with a blush and nodded. "Then I would love to travel with you James." Internally I am freaking out at how cute she is right now but don't want to scare her so I settle with this.
"Then let's go on a journey!" I reply with a big smile. She makes eye contact with me and blushes and gives me a nod and smile.
Hestia hops on the table and gives us a bark and wag and starts licking our hands. Sadly, I had to separate them due to drool overload. "Yes Hestia, that means you too. Welcome our new travel buddy Jessie".
Hestia swaps to the other bench and quickly lick attacks Jessie and gets her giggling a storm.
"Ok Hestia, that's enough for now." I laugh as she climbs off Jessie and hops on the bench next to me and lays her head in my lap. As I pet her, I tell Jessie my plan on what I think our next steps will be.
The first thing was that we have a week till the free teleportation service arrives and gets us to Viridian city. So, while we're Saffron we agree we need to do some shopping while we have a better selection for us. Then I will train for the week with Hestia and hopefully we can get Jessie a starter to join us.
"Hey Jessie, since you have been here longer, do you know of any pawn shops I can sell some old jewelry to? My grandma gave them to me to sell for my journey so I could have some extra money but I don't know where to go to sell them." I ask her hopefully to make her feel helpful since I am kind of doing a lot of the heavy lifting right now.
"When I was walking around, I saw one that seemed to be fair. Are you sure you want to sell your grandma's old jewelry?" She asked with a concern face. If I remember she doesn't have any family left so she might be more sentimental to that type of thing.
"Oh, don't worry my grandma is kind of a gabbler with her old travelling friends. She won them on the card table and gave them to me" I looked away to act bashfully and scratched the back of my head to look embarrassed and hoped my lie worked. Even if it sounded terrible.
She just giggles into her hand and starts cleaning up the remnants of her meal. "Well, we better get going then it seems like we now have a busy day ahead of us." I nod in agreement and clean me and Hestia's dishes and take them to the return station.
I turned to see Jessie behind me and noticed we were the same height. She is fairly tall for a 16-year-old girl and now that she is standing, I can see she has some nice legs. Long and look as soft as the rest of her. That ends in some knee-high socks and doc marten looking shoes. Guess I was right. I look up her body and see she is looking at me the same way and then notices me looking at her.
She looks at my eyes and blushes. I quickly followed and realized I got caught looking at her. "I umm will meet you at the front door once I grab my bag. Let's go Hestia'' I say quickly to her and get an acknowledgement till I hurry out of the cafeteria and hear Hestia following me with her snarky Growlithe dog laugh.
"You are running laps later" I say to Hestia as we head upstairs. I quickly grab my bag and tidy up my mess. I throw my clothes and towel in a dirty hamper that's in the room and lock up and head downstairs.
I see Jessie waiting for me holding what seemed to be a book bag? "So can you lead the way to the pawn shop?" I ask her as she nods and heads out the door first.
As I followed her, I had to ask why she was wearing a school girl uniform and only had a book bag. "Oh well, after I got my nursing certificate, I didn't have any money so I kept my uniform to wear since I don't have much else and the book bag worked to hold my things." She said as she gestured to the bag.
The bag looked a little old but seemed to do the job just like my backpack. I will have to get her a Silph co. bag as well and a new wardrobe. Those clothes won't last out in the wilderness.
"You know when we get supplies, we're going to have to get you new clothes and a new bag to hold all your medical stuff. Got any ideas on what you want?" I asked her and noticed she got a slight look of panic, surprising me.
"No, you can't spend that much money on me! I can wait till I start getting some money as a travel nurse. I talked to nurse joy briefly about your idea while you got your things and she thought it was a lovely idea. She even lent me some books to learn off of." She hurriedly tried to shut me down and wave me off. I'm glad that nurse joy agreed to my idea and hopefully some of the other Joys will agree as well.
I once again grabbed her soft hand and pulled her to the side of the road so we weren't in the way of foot traffic. "Hey, when I said we were friends and that we would travel together I meant all the way. I don't half ass anything when it comes to our friendship. So that means we need to get you some new clothes for travelling and a bag to hold all your things. I'm in it for the long-haul Jessie, I won't leave you."
I don't know what came over me after my impromptu speech to her but when I saw her eyes water, I just pulled her into a hug without thinking. I felt her wrap her arms around me in a death grip and nod into my neck as she sobbed and gathered her emotions.
I was a little shell shocked once I noticed what I did. I can feel her nice soft body envelope me in the hug. Her clothes hid it but she had a pretty big chest underneath her clothes that felt nice hugged tightly against me. It honestly felt like her body fit against mine perfectly in the hug. I also felt Hestia whining a little bit while she nudged Jessie.
She must have sensed that she was not in a good mood due to the sounds she made. Jessie slowly let go and I did as well and she thanked Hestia for worrying about her and gave her some head pats. Hestia smiled and then nudged me.
I looked at her funny till she pointed her nose to the ball in my pocket. "Oh, do you want in your ball Hestia?" She nods at me and looks at Jessie and gives me a little smirk as I recall her. That little shit is being a class A wingman.
After I recalled Hestia, I noticed Jessie cleaned herself up a little bit and blushed. She must be embarrassed about what just happened. So, I decided to push my luck and take her hand into mine.
"Are you ready to show me the shop now?" I asked her with a friendly smile and nodded towards the direction we were going. She looked at our hands and blushed but nodded and started leading the way and hasn't let go of my hand since we started walking like this. In fact, I feel her hand tighten the grip as we walk.
What I didn't notice this morning from coming in so early was the fact the city is packed. There are tall buildings everywhere and the streets in the midday rush are covered with people and pokemon. Kind of reminds me of the detective Pikachu movie when the main character first shows up to the city.
Eventually through our quiet walk Jessie stops and turns to me. "This is the place." She says as she looks towards the store front. Big neon signs saying buying gold for poke dollar and general pawn shop type stuff. The door also has the bars on it with a cheap open/closed sign attached inside.
Keeping my grip on Jessie's hand I opened the door and let her in first. She slowly let go of my hand and blushed again as she walked in first. Following her in, I see the basics of a pawn shop. Minus the guns and knives. More like household stuff, jewelry and pokemon collectibles.
We approached the counter to see a surprisingly young teenager behind it. Once we reached the counter, he gave us the welcoming spiel. "Welcome to Saffron Poke Buy and Sell, what can I do for you?" He asked in a really fake jovial tone.
"Hello, I have some jewelry from my grandma that I wanted to sell to help pay for items to start my journey." I dug out the few necklaces I grabbed and placed them on the counter.
The guy took them and ran a few tests on the diamonds and hummed at a few things. "Best I can give you is 5,000 poke dollars for the lot." He said with a straight face but I can tell they are worth more by some of the items around the shop being of similar value.
"So how about we buy these off me for 10,000 since you're going to sell them for 15,000 apiece and we call it a day. Or I will walk out and go somewhere else." He didn't seem like he wanted to budge and then when I moved my hands to put them back, he finally cracked.
"Ok fine but don't think this will happen again." He said as he went to ring me up and get my money transferred to my trainer account. Jessie looked a little shocked and all I gave her was a smirk and a wink.
She returned the smirk and started perusing the jewelry and I saw she was focused on a necklace that was only 500 poke dollars. It was a chain necklace with a plus symbol in crimson that had some diamonds around it. Probably fake diamonds based off the price but made the necklace look pretty.
I approached the salesman and asked for that necklace to buy as well and saw Jessie looking at it fondly and added the purchase to my trade. After getting 9,500 poke dollars added to my card he went and grabbed the necklace in the case and handed it to me as Jessie swapped her attention to some of the stuffed pokemon dolls.
Hiding the necklace in my backpack I call Jessie over and we head out of the shop and to a mall I looked up earlier when I planned to go shopping solo.
Chapter End
Ok guys that's it for now. I decided to skip poke tech so we could get to the good stuff. Also, I hate slow burn ships so don't be surprised if we move a little fast into the relationship aspect.
My goal is to have Jessie start off shy and then build up her confidence into a snarky but still kind and nice girl.
Remember to vote for Meowth!
Also, if you have any specific pokemon for Jessie let me know!
James Pokemon:
Growlithe (Hestia)
Jessie Pokemon:
None Yet!