Bulbasaur woke up to find her trainer to be already moving. She was walking out of the city, heading north into the woods of the Viridian Forest. 'Trying to get the advantage over her 'friends'? I can respect that.' She thought. For once, the girl wasn't doing anything stupid.
The Viridian Forest was a true labyrinth. Leaving behind it's entrance, a building made to be completely visible even from a certain distance, would still disappear once they made it too far into the Forest. From there, it was a matter of staying on the roads and following the signs that pointed toward the exit.
Unfortunately, half of those were usually turned around by Gastly with their uneducated sense of humor, so following them might get you back at the exit, or force you to wonder in the woods until… Bulbasaur gulped, then shook her head. 'That might happen to her, but it would never happen to someone such as myself.' She thought, observing the tomboy. Today she was wearing equally shabby clothes for her standard, but she bet a lot of humans would have liked it. 'I really don't get it, where is the style?' Her observations the day before had given her more insight on humans than she had before, when she only knew the Breeders that had raised her and the old Professor. She had noticed some of them looking at her trainer, and she really didn't get why.
Her thoughts on her shabby style were interrupted by a Weedle crossing the girl path and planting itself right in the middle of the road, clearly ready to start a fight. Bulbasaur soon found herself on the field. 'Well, another day to show who is the strongest.' She thought.
-x-
"Ok Charmander, let's do this!" Andrew shouted, as he continued walking on the Route. He had been told the Route to leave the city would take him through some woods and then to Pewter, but he wasn't seeing that. Instead, the paved road was surrounded by mostly steep cliffs and low bushes from which Pokémon such as Mankey and Spearow would fly out off. Moreover, where he had been told he would meet many Bug-types, he saw none, or at least none in high numbers. And now he was looking at the gate of some structure that…
'Oh Arceus I picked the wrong Route.' He thought, checking the map on his Pokédex. Sure enough, he was marked as walking on Route 22, instead of Route 2. He looked at the building, which he now realized was the League Gate. There were two entrances. One would take challengers to the Victory Road, a cave built both to allow Trainers to prepare for the League with their team and to test their wits by making their way through the cavern maze. Or at least that was the second objective, but the cave map had been leaked a long time ago, so now it was mostly a training ground. The other entrance was a simple road up the mountain, large enough for buses to take spectators up and down the Plateau. Challengers were required to not take that route unless they had already passed the Victory Road. It was also impolite to skip the Victory Road by flight or digging, and people that tried such stunts were squalified.
He walked closer to the challenger entrances. A couple guards were stationed nearby, wearing the red and indigo uniforms of the Kanto League. Red like the top of the Poké Ball, indigo like the Indigo Plateau.
"A challenger?" The guard on the left asked as he moved closer.
"Oh, no, not yet, I just started." Andrew replied, pointing to his belt with a single Poké Ball. "I was just curious, I went down the wrong route and figured I'd give a look at the League."
"The bus is in an hour if you want to go see the Plateau." The guard replied "But we can't allow anyone without the needed badges to enter the Victory Road."
Andrew nodded "I know, I know, I just was wondering if I could take a look at the entrance of the Victory Road itself."
The guards looked at each other "Sorry boy, can't do." The one on the left, a woman with short hair, replied "Come back when you have won the badges and we'll let you through."
Andrew sighed "Fine, fine, thank you." He said, turning around and starting his trail back through Route 22. Luckily it wasn't the longest Route. He stopped a second to check the map: in an hour he was going to be back in Viridian and…
And then something crashed at terminal velocity where he would have been had he not stopped. The small bird-like Pokémon made a small chirp, a cry of help, and Andrew gasped seeing the oddly bent wing of the poor Spearow.
He immediately rummaged his backpack for first aid. Potions could fix a lot of things, but broken bones were not one of those. The only thing he could do was checking for bleeding, immobilizing the wing with a stick and bandaging it. In that moment he was glad he had taken First Aid for Humans and Pokémon as an extra class. 'And Blue said it was worth it only for future nurses…' He thought, taking the bird in his arms and starting to run. Now the bird seemed to be doing a bit better, although he was likely still concussed and confused. 'Hopefully it doesn't get angry when he realizes what happened to his ambush.' Andrew thought. He had more or less figured out what had happened. The young bird had thrown itself from the cliff in hope to get the jump on the Trainer, only for Andrew to stop to check the map and the attack to miss the mark completely, which had ended up costing him a pretty bad impact, since it was likely not good enough to change his course in time.
"That was reckless." Andrew told the small bird "You should know better." The bird chirped faintly in response, and Andrew shrugged 'Either he agreed, or he told me to shut up.' He thought, keeping up the run. His pace was decent, and in about 30 minutes they had made it back to Viridian. The bird was now standing on his arm, so it probably wasn't as bad as he had first feared. Still, it didn't leave Andrew arm.
-x-
Spearow looked at the trainer as they run through the city. His great ambush plan had failed miserably, and now he was even being helped by the Trainer he wanted to attack. He looked at the bandaged wing and sighed. Fearow was likely going to be pissed for such a disastrous result if he ever went back to the flock. Worse still, his rank in the pecking order would likely suffer from it! 'I might even go lower than the three digits for failing an ambush and then getting helped by a human! Oh Arceus, getting pecked by Number 999?! I couldn't stand the shame!' Still, he could not bring himself to just jump off the human's arms and run off. Better shamed and healthy than… a bit less shamed and wounded. Fearow already knew what had happened probably, there were at least two others of his flock around the area.
They slowly made their way to the place humans called a Pokémon Center. He had been there a couple times, landing on the roof, but this was the first time seeing it from the inside. Various humans and Pokémon were hanging out in the lounge, some watching stuff on the electric windows where smaller humans did stuff, some playing around, some reading. He stared wide eyed at a guy with a Pidgey and a Spearow on his shoulders. Why weren't the two fighting for the territory, he wondered. That's what Fearow did all the time with that damn Pidgeot from the northern cliff…
Meanwhile the human had made his way to the desk, and was explaining everything at the nurse. "Botched the landing? I'll have you know sir I landed exactly where I planned to, it was YOUR fault for not sticking to your walking pattern!" He chirped in protest. Then the nurse grabbed him gently and moved him in the back room. She pocked him with a Poké Ball with something written on it and then put him inside a machine. He felt ... as if he were sleeping inside that thing, and then he had the impression of being put inside a machine. He felt ... warm, but not unpleasantly, he reminded him of the same sensation as when he was inside the egg, like a sweet hug, as if something energetic enveloped him. He had the impression of feeling the bone move, but it seemed almost ... unreal, as if he was observing it rather than experiencing it.
Then there was a ping, and the sensation faded. The Nurse put him back on the counter, and he saw the young man sigh in relief. He stared at his wing, amazed. Usually fixing that would have taken a month on a diet of Oran Berries, and asking the help of some mammal Pokémon to bandage the wound. Instead, in such a short time he was in perfect health. In fact, he could feel a couple of his other health issues, like a wound he had gotten last week in a fight with a stupid Pidgey, had completely disappeared as well.
He now pondered his choices. He could fly off, go back to his flock, and get sent to the bottom of the pecking order. Or maybe…
-x-
Nurse Stacy handed the yellow and red Ball to Andrew and smiled. "This is a Temporary Poké Ball, a special kind of Ball we use to put a wild Pokémon in the healing machine. It will deactivate off in half an hour, after that you can release him in the wild if you wish. Please throw it in that trash can once it does." She said, pointing to a "Broken PB" Trash can, red and white, on the left side of the hall.
Andrew nodded and moved to the side, sitting at a table. He had expected the bird to fly off immediately, but instead it followed him around. The young man frowned. 'Maybe he thinks I caught him.' He thought, and so turned to the bird. "No, I didn't catch you, this is just temporary. In half an hour you will be wild again, but you can already leave if you want."
The Spearow did not move. Instead, it just perched itself on the trainer's shoulder. Andrew gasped in surprise, although he knew better then try to get him off.
Then he smiled and took out a Poké Ball. "So, you want to come with me?"
Spearow nodded.
"You sure? I am going to fight in the League, might be quite the journey."
Spearow nodded again. In fact he looked… elated? Andrew wasn't that good at reading it's body language, but that's what he looked like.
"Very well then. Half an hour, and when this one breaks, you are coming with us." He said. And after that, he could finally go back to his planned route, just two hours late, more or less. 'Is not that bad.' He thought.
-x-
The sky was shining, but through the branches of the trees and the foliage it looked like it was the dead of night. Not that Gastly or me minded. He moved happily through the shadows, passing through the trees rather than skirting them. I came closer. None of the trees seemed to be affected, which meant that the poison from the gas did not affect them. 'Well, that's better, otherwise paying off all those trees would be a problem.' I thought, smiling, while Gastly stopped to face another Bug. I shivered at the sight of the Caterpie. I never liked worms.
The Caterpie jumped using an ineffective Tackle, and Gastly responded with a simple Lick. I nodded. I didn't have to do much to train him right now, the Caterpies didn't have any useful moves against a Ghost, while Lick and Night Shade at the moment were the only offensive moves Gastly knew how to use, so I decided to let him play freely. Against a Weedle the fight became a little more serious, I gave the order to dodge - which surprisingly Gastly did with perfect timing by manipulating his own structure - or to attack. However, it was a low-level fight. 'I shouldn't be surprised, it takes time to have a strong team. Or in my case, a companion.'
I looked around in the hope that against all odds a Ghost from Johto or a more distant region had come out of a tree. Misdreavus were cute and all, but if I had to choose, I would have gotten a Duskull sooner or later. Or one of those candle Pokémon from Unova ... Litwick, as they were called. I had very little hope that it would happen, but if it did, my team would have become much stronger. But what was I thinking about doing? With the bad luck that I find myself then, at most I would have caught only a cold.
Although I hated to admit it, that Champion with two Pokémon was a special case, as the two Pokémon in question were a Metagross and Zapdos. And more than a century had passed since then, it was difficult to compare the Pokémon used at the time with those used today. 'And Agatha is still a Kanto Elite Four, even after the separation of Kanto and Johto ...' I thought. It had only been two years since the two Leagues split with half of the Elite Four moving to Johto, and the vacancies filled with some Gym Leaders or other strong candidates. Fortunately for me, Agatha was one of the two Elite Four left on the Indigo Plateau.
I watched Gastly flit happily from shadow to shadow. "Well, we'll do our best. But before the League I have to focus on Pewter City. "
I knew that Brock of Pewter City was a Rock specialist and that two Pokémon were used in low-level challenges. I knew most of Kanto's Rock Pokémon, so I kind of got an idea, but I never paid attention to what he might use.
'I can get by in a two-on-one or even a three-on-one.' I thought to reassure myself, 'That's what I did on the exam with Gengar.'
I sighed and went back to training. Whatever happened in Pewter City would be my first step into the League. I wouldn't have failed just because I was nervous.
-x-
Blue looked at the fossils on display at the museum. The fossils of Kabutops and Aerodactyl in front of him were impressive, both very interesting and strong Pokémon in his view.
When he was just a child, the idea of having prehistoric Pokémon was pure science fiction, and now there were machines capable of bringing prehistoric Pokémon back to life. But he knew they weren't perfect, as he had studied in school.
These machines never brought the specimens back to life with perfect anatomical perfection. All of them obtained the Rock type, even for specimens that were not, such as the Lileep. And it was only possible to do this with specimens that died at a very young age, which is why it was not possible to resurrect evolved Pokémon, and therefore those ended up only on display.
According to experts the resurrection of a dead being with little experience in life is less traumatic and dangerous. He thought it was just religious bullshit or something, since there were even three resurrected Legendaries in Johto, and he had never heard of any of them showing signs of trauma. He stopped thinking about it. Souls and stuff like that ... those were problems that a weirdo, like the one from Lavender Town, would ask himself.
Aerodactyl were strange cases. Being single-stage Pokémon, it was difficult to determine their age, and the bones were used only for display, because the Aerodactyl bones are so rare that museums obviously don't want to destroy them in the process. This was why Old Ambers were preferred for the resurrection of an Aerodactyl.
"Excuse me young man. I'm glad you like our exhibitions, but… It's almost closing time." A man said.
Blue threw one last look at the two fossils, and made up his mind "I'll leave immediately. Just a curiosity. Do you sell fossils here for Trainers?" He asked.
The manager's eyes lit up, and he took him to another room, which Blue realized was where souvenirs and other similar things were sold, including fossils.
"Here, among other things, we also sell fossils of prehistoric Kanto species." He said pointing them out to him. Dome Fossils and Helix Fossils had prohibitive prices for him, but it was understandable, they were real fossils. The Old Ambers instead had lower prices.
"Many researchers are interested in ensuring that trainers can have prehistoric Pokémon in their team, also to allow us to learn more about them." He explained.
Blue nodded, and pointed to an Old Amber, which the man took from the display case and gave him as soon as Blue paid for it.
"If you ever go to Cinnabar Island, I recommend that you deliver the Amber to the resurrection Labs as soon as possible. Aerodactyl are the most difficult specimens to resurrect, it could take more than a day. " He explained.
"I see. Thank you." He said then walked out from a back door the researcher showed him, as colleagues had already closed the museum. Blue observed the object. He knew that the Pokémon he would resurrect would be the best of all. He put it away and looked at the time "7:07 pm, I still have time for the gym." He said he with a smile.
-x-
Machop jumped back in the grassfield and managed to avoid the Butterfree's Confusion. Then he leapt hitting the butterfly with a Karate Chop. However, the Butterfree retaliated with Confusion, knocking him out. And the Pokémon was called back.
"Come on, there are improvements." The boy said. Tall, lightly tanned, dark hair and a hint of beard, with a jacket and a hat. "If you continue like this you will certainly succeed, I'm sure Mark." He said.
Mark, a tall teen too, had short brown hair and eyes of the same color, with a thin body and ordinary clothes, jeans and a red shirt, the exact opposite of what one would expect from a Fighting specialist. He started thinking about the last few workouts. Sure, he had three Pokémon: Machop, his starter, and the two Tyrogue his father gave him. Normally his father, Koichi, the owner of the Fighting Dojo, would give a Hitmonchan or a Hitmonlee to anyone who wanted to take his extracurricular courses, which mostly interested future Fighting specialists. But since the son wanted to follow in his footsteps, and given the rarity of the Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee in Kanto, the father decided to give him two Tyrogues to make his journey more manageable given the few Pokémon options, also because the Tyrogues in Kanto were far rarer than their evolutions.
His friend, Darren, attended those courses to learn more about Fighting-type and take one of the two Pokémon that the Karate Master gave to his students.
"It's weird that a Normal move like Karate Chop did so little damage to Free ..." Darren noted looking at his Butterfree. "Either way, you worry too much. You are smart and very intelligent, you just need more confidence. And don't just look at type relationships. In the internal tournaments of the League, Bruno has always had the better of Will, while in Unova Marshal is considered stronger than Shauntal." He pointed out. And actually Mark knew he was right.
"But ... for now they are very weak ... they only know one move ..." Mark continued.
"True, but you understand how psychic attacks work, if you can take advantage of their limitations and the strengths of the Fighting-types, you will have no problem." He reassured him. Mark cheered up and smiled "NOW! We finish capturing the species of this Route and then we go home. "
Mark snorted. "Obviously..." In a bored tone, sending one of his Tyrogues to battle Free, while Darren threw himself into the tall grass to look for more Pokémon.