Fem Harry reborn as Fem Ash, with some major canon deviations. Also there is a poll on what Legendary she gets first.
Out of all the things he expected to happen today, having his daughter show up at his gym requesting help to officially register as a trainer was not among them. Not that the girl likely knew he was her father, but it was the principle of the matter.
Giovanni told them to let her in, mostly to find out why in the name of Mew Ash was coming to Viridian for her registration rather than go to Oak's lab like every other trainer in Kanto. It was practically tradition.
Seeing the girl in front of him, he had to fight the urge to frown. Mostly because the picture she wanted to use for her trainer ID and the girl before him were quite different. For one thing her hair was much longer and went past her neck in the picture, but she had shorter, spiked hair and her expression said she was beyond irritated about something.
"While I can help you register, I can see from your ID that you are from Pallet. Why come to me instead of going to Professor Oak, who is much closer?" he asked.
Her expression went positively sour. It reminded him of his own expression whenever one of his henchmen royally bungled something up to the point he had to do major damage control just to salvage anything out of the matter.
"One of the trainers who is registering today thought it was a brilliant idea to dump sap he got from his grandfather's lab on my hair. It was so sticky and hardened so fast my mother had to cut off most of my hair to get it out. And while he was grounded until the registration day came up, when I went to his lab I found out his grandfather gave him not one, but two starter Pokémon. I know for a fact that there would be a least four people including myself who would be registering today, which means that someone is going to have to wait a year," said Ash, extremely irritated.
Well that explained the extreme hair cut and sour expression.
"Why come to me?" he asked, honestly curious.
"Unlike the others, I actually read the regulations for the league. Most trainers register with the region's Pokémon professor...but Gym Leaders are also qualified to add to the registry provided that the trainer in question is willing to challenge said leader for their final badge in order to enter the league properly. I have no issue with my starter being a ground type instead of the traditional fire, grass or water type," explained Ash.
Giovanni looked at her seriously. Ash was displaying a large degree of common sense and forethought, something most trainers didn't have or never used.
"Ferris," he called out.
"Yes sir?" asked the minion who usually served as his judge during trainer matches.
"Go get the registration forms. And inform the breeder in charge that I'll be sending a new trainer down to pick out one of the recently hatched ones," said Giovanni.
"Yes sir," he replied.
"You're actually going to help me?"
Giovanni's smile didn't reach his eyes. Daughter or not, he wasn't about to look soft in front of the men.
"I will let you pick one of the newly hatched Pokémon. In exchange we will have a mock battle where we'll see if having you associated with my gym is worth my time and effort. If you manage to survive at least fifteen minutes against one of my weaker Pokémon, I will allow you to register through my gym and let you keep the Pokémon you chose as your starter. If you actually beat me then I'll even throw in an unhatched egg," said Giovanni.
Which would be his way of snubbing Oak for showing clear favoritism for his spoiled brat of a grandson Gary. Giovanni had seen the punk in town the day before. Anyone who was brazen enough to travel by car of all things with a damn cheering squad wasn't worth much as a trainer in his opinion. Obviously Oak was funding his grandson's travel expenses.
Besides, he wanted to see what sort of trainer his daughter was.
Ash went down to the breeder's area of the gym and picked up a recently hatch Pokémon from abroad. Since it wasn't Kanto native, and was part dragon it would be a difficult one to handle.
It was also a feisty little Pokémon, one that would prove tricky in raising up to it's final form.
He raised an eyebrow as if to confirm that was the one she would chose. Ash said nothing. He pulled out the Pokéball which held his newest Rhyhorn...it wasn't one of his main members, but it was a high enough level that it would give a rookie trainer issues if they were careless.
Ash sat the Pokémon down and had a quiet discussion with it. Giovanni raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Ferris waited until both were ready, before pulling out his regulations flags.
"The mock battle between Ash of Pallet Town and the Earth Gym leader Giovanni will now begin! Time limit is fifteen minutes!"
A large clock was turned on and the moment Ferris lowered his green flag, it started counting down.
Giovanni had to admit, Ash had a solid head on her shoulders. While the Gible she picked out was feisty and stubborn, it seemed to respond well to her tone and command. He liked to think she got it from him. It was with a well of pride that she not only managed to last the fifteen minutes, but she almost managed to beat his Rhyhorn had the timer not run out.
"I've seen enough," said Giovanni.
Ash looked tired and her Gible looked exhausted as well. But there was a stubbornness in their eyes he could appreciate.
"Come to my office. You'll need to fill out a few forms before I can register you," he said.
You could imagine her confusion and surprise when Ferris chased after her with a Pokémon egg.
"I thought the agreement was that I would only get the one I battled with if I didn't beat him?"
"You managed to last against a gym leader who most trainers leave for last with a non-native Pokémon that has a dragon subtype," explained Ferris. "The boss said that anyone who can pull that off is going places."
He also mentioned possibly recruiting the girl later as part of Team Rocket, if she continued this trend.
(That and Giovanni still wanted to one-up Oak and make a more favorable impression than the professor had. Besides, he could always claim an overdue number of birthday presents if it came down to it.)
Ash returned to Pallet...mostly to pick up her things since she had left very early that morning and had headed straight towards Viridian to get this cleared up. Her mother was a bit surprised that she still managed to register, but was perfectly understanding when her daughter explained she wanted nothing to do with helping Oak with his research. A Pokédex might serve as identification, but it was also a highly specialize piece of equipment a trainer could do without. Her new trainer card worked just as well with the added benefit of not allowing Oak to further his research in the least while still being a trainer.
As she walked back through Viridian, a yellow and black blur raced up her arm and settled on her shoulder.
"Ready to start our adventure, Pichu?"
The small mouse cheered, it's cheeks sparking. Ever since she found it's egg abandoned outside Pallet, the baby Pokémon had been a constant companion.
Sure, Oak probably thought she would make Pichu her starter, but honestly it was a ridiculous idea to force a baby Pokémon to fight in gym battles. If it had been a Pikachu, maybe, but it was too small and young as it was now.
The battle against the Pewter Gym leader was fairly rough, but on the plus side Pichu was pushed far enough that he evolved into Pikachu and took out the Onix, though it was still a near thing.
Ash would have left without a second thought to continue to the next gym...except.
"How many brothers and sisters do you have?" she asked incredulous.
"I have nine, why?" asked Brock.
Ash's face twitched, just a bit.
"And why are you the only adult influence taking care of them?"
Brock really didn't see where this was going as he was far too used to it.
"Mom is a researcher and I have no idea where dad went since he's supposed to be the gym leader."
Ash's twitch was downright rampant now.
"So let me get this straight...your parents ditched you for their own career goals, left you in charge of nine younger siblings all under the age of puberty with next to no support...and everyone is OKAY with that?!" said Ash highly angry.
"They're good kids," said Brock, but he was more confused as to why she was so pissed off.
"How old are you again?" asked Ash.
"Fifteen," he replied.
Ash looked downright murderous. Then she remembered the person looking into the building during her gym battle that definitely looked too old to be a child.
Oh she was not going to let this stand another bloody minute.
"Pikachu, send a thunderwave outside the window please," said Ash.
Pikachu didn't question it, and there was a loud squawk of pain and shock from outside.
To Brock's disbelief his father was there. Apparently Flint had never left the area to begin with.
Ash cracked her knuckles in preparation for the long overdue tongue-lashing Flint was about to receive.
Brock was pissed, but at least kept his yelling at his father "child-friendly".
Ash was under no such restrictions, and the fact that she was making way too much sense despite only being ten said volumes of how badly Flint fucked up.
"You are a grown ass man! There is no excuse for leaving your fifteen year old son to take of his nine younger siblings so you can skive off and do whatever you want!" snarled Ash. "The ONLY reason things didn't go disastrously wrong is because your son happens to be a good older brother and took responsibility because you couldn't be fucking bothered to do it!"
"Language," said Brock reflexively, though he wasn't disagreeing with her.
"Brock, sometimes the only way to properly convey your full frustration and anger is to swear. Besides, they'll pick it up from somewhere regardless of what you or I do," said Ash. She turned her attention back to a very contrite Flint. "And you... do you have any idea how damaging parentification is to teenagers who are stuck taking care of their younger siblings because their parents couldn't grow up and take responsibility?!"
"Parentification?" said Brock, confused. He wasn't the only one.
"It's a term for when an older sibling or child is forced to step in and take on the role of a parent either because the parent is absent, abusive or generally irresponsible," said Ash without missing a beat. "Usually results in the oldest leaving and only contacting the siblings, and resenting the parents to the point they refuse to talk to them."
Brock...felt sick because that sounded exactly like what he was going through.
Ash glared at Flint.
"Brock did not father these children. Just because you and your wife can't be bothered to use some fucking birth control does not mean your oldest has to act like the parent in the equation. Man up and take some fucking responsibility for the children you brought into this world," she snarled.
The worst part was that she knew for a fact this wouldn't be the first "adult" who decided to scarper off and go traveling rather than take responsibility, dumping all the duties on their children.
She wouldn't be surprised in the least if Brock decided against children altogether after this crap...she wouldn't blame him in the least either.
As she started to leave Pewter, once she was certain Flint was going to be a father and actually DO HIS JOB, she was only slightly surprised when Brock ran up to join her.
"So he manned up?"
"After the telling off you gave him?" said Brock. Flint looked utterly defeated...and by a ten year old trainer who had originally only came to the gym for a badge.
Though the phone call Brock made to his mother certainly didn't hurt... she was equally pissed off that Flint had disappeared for almost a year and a half leaving their eldest to take on the role of a parent and gave her full blessings to leave the gym for however long he needed.
Coincidentally Flint was going to get yet another long-overdue 'chat' with his wife and would be delegated to the couch for an undetermined amount of time and apologizing.