Early chapter. I have a bit of a backlog.

Chapter 2

I'm broke, hungry, and with purpose.

Arriving in this world with only my clothes meant that I had to work to earn money. I was lucky on that part with so many willing to hire, but the wage of most of those jobs isn't something that would give the rare gift of financial stability.

So I scrounged up my meager savings to buy a used-up tent, a water bottle, a pot, plastic utensils, and a single pokeball. The tent took up most of my savings despite being at quite a low price already, so I can't afford the other stuff I wanted to buy—but hey, at least I'm not homeless anymore. And it came with a bag as well, so I didn't have to worry about where to put my stuff.

Nevertheless, despite the stuff that I have on me, there was a definite emptiness that I feel. The lack of monetary things transcends mass and weight, making me feel light. Also, my stomach is empty. I need to fix both of those soon.

And how can I do that? Why, with gambling of course!

Or more specifically, betting. Pokemon battles with betting. Perfectly legal and acceptable within the moral bounds of this pokemon society. Now that I am an official trainer, I can have a stable source of income so long as I keep winning.

But there was a roadblock on that… I needed a pokemon. A strong pokemon at that. And I only had one pokeball. That means a single try—and if the pokemon tried to break out and destroy the trapping mechanism, I'd need to go back and scrounge up money again for another one.

If I want to catch a pokemon the traditional way (i.e. beat them up till red and capture) then I'd either need a pokemon first, unless I want to hurt myself. Without a pokemon, either buy a pokeball of a higher quality or have so many to throw at the pokemon that they just give up trying to escape. Of course this catch-22 only applies to poor people as that is the way of the world no matter the continuity, but I digress. The point is beating up others to make them your friends is not the way to go.

I'd have to find a strong pokemon willing to undergo a journey with me—all with the power of communication. The one thing I suck at.

So here I am on the outskirts of Viridian forest, palming the only one pokeball that I got as I walked under the forest canopy, searching for the pokemon that would fit my needs.

I eyed the caterpie crawling on a branch at a nearby tree, before dismissing it. No matter how good of a pokemon Butterfree is, I needed a pokemon that could win fights for me now. And a weak caterpie won't cut it.

I rolled the shrunk pokeball between my fingers then tossed it up and down as I walked. It's a great dexterity exercise now that I'm going to be using these balls a lot, and thankfully no one can see me practice with it and watch me fail a bunch of times.

(Rustle rustle)

I've thought about having a pidgey or a rattata as my last resort, but pokemon other than that… weedle might work. Poison sting has great potential… but, again, with weak mobility and strength common in first stage evolution of bug pokemon, even a rattata or pidgey can beat it. And lots of people have rattata and pidgeys.

(Rustle rustle)

Maybe I could get a pikachu. Thunder wave is nice, and Static is nicer. Pewter Gym is going to be a nightmare to deal with but it would give me lots of options. If only I could get lucky though… yeah, right. That almost made me laugh.

I toss the ball up and catch it as it falls to my hands—

(Swish!)

—or at least I would have, if it weren't for the sudden thing that grabbed my pokeball midair! What the hell!?

I turned to the direction where the thief went and only saw a silhouette of something small and round before it disappeared into the bushes. With the outrage of being a piss-poor person getting his stuff stolen from him, I didn't waste time and ran deep inside the bushes.

"Oi! Get back here you little—!"

I pause as I hear the telltale rustle of something moving through bushes. I went in that direction, wading through the foliage and following the signs of stomped plants and broken twigs. Despite being small, whatever that pokemon was, it was quite fast. Still, my long human legs were more than up for the match, so I was able to follow it along the way.

Soon enough, the chase ended and I was led into a small clearing in the forest, one with a fallen tree trunk. At first I thought that the pokemon managed to escape me, but then I decided to search for it here. I took a look inside the tree trunk and saw it was hollow.

And there I saw the pokemon inside it. It turned to me with a yelp, clearly startled at my appearance.

It was an Oddish.

"Oddish!" it cried at me angrily, standing in front of a… small pile of berries?

And my shrunken pokeball was there.

"..."

"Odd! Oddish!" it growled aggressively.

I stare at the pokemon. "You know that's not a berry right?"

The Oddish froze, before turning around. It looked at my pokeball, then frowned.

"It's a pokeball." I clarified as I saw it become confused at what exactly it stole. "So are you going to give it back—Ow, fuck!" I involuntarily clutch my nose as the pokemon kicks the ball to my face.

As I was too busy nursing my nose in pain, the Oddish went ahead and took all its pile of berries and ran away with it in a surprising feat of balance even with its lack of arms. It disappears again in the bushes, but this time I didn't move to follow.

Then it was just me and my pokeball left in the silent forest clearing.

…

I bring down my hand and stare contemplatively at the direction the oddish went.

Maybe… this was a chance.

The oddish ran as fast as it could to escape the human. She messed up earlier, thinking that whatever the human had earlier in their hands was a berry—she didn't know those pokeballs came in small sizes! How was she supposed to know!?

Still, she had given it back to the human. She couldn't stand near those even if she wanted to anyway.

After a while of running the oddish finally slowed to a stop. Heaving deep breaths, the pokemon closed her eyes to listen closely for any footfalls that are following her.

There was none.

The oddish sighed.

The oddish surveyed the area she was in. It was another clearing in one of the deeper parts of the forest. Fortunately, there were no pokemon or humans around. The oddish walked towards a nearby tree and sat in the shade to take a break from her running, putting down the pile of berries right next to her.

For a few minutes she rested to get rid of her exhaustion. Then, she stood up and faced the pile of berries beside her. She looked around again, checking if there was anything around, before kneeling on the ground when she found no one.

She began to dig a small hole into the ground and put her berries there one by one, then after, she took a few leaves that fell on the ground and covered the hole, keeping it completely disguised from anyone that might try taking it.

After looking at it for a few moments to see if it looked hidden enough, she nodded, satisfied.

The oddish stood up and walked a short distance away from the tree, then turned around to face it. The pokemon's eyes narrowed in concentration…

"Odd—" she ran towards it.

"—DISH!" Then she kicked the tree with all she had.

The tree shook slightly, making a few leaves fall to the ground. The pokemon was still not done though, and she repeated the whole thing again.

"Odd, DISH! Odd, DISH! Odd, DISH!" each cry was punctuated with a shake of the tree as the pokemon kept kicking and kicking its bark.

The oddish breathed heavily as she stared at the bark of the tree, which looked like it took a bit of damage. The bark had chipped off at the parts that the oddish kicked, which was impressive considering it came from a small pokemon. However instead of being proud, she only became angry at it and turned around to kick the dirt in frustration.

She took deep breaths to calm herself down, before turning around to face the tree again. Then she repeated the whole process and kicked the tree once more, face set in focused concentration.

It wasn't until a few hours later that the pokemon was finally spent. The pokemon stood, looking completely exhausted. Despite the tiredness she feels however, the oddish didn't allow herself to rest and was looking at the bark with a critical eye.

This time, the bark was visibly damaged and parts of it were broken.

"...Odd." she nodded, after staring for a few moments.

The oddish can barely stand after its last kick, but she summoned the strength to move and sit herself down beside the tree. It was then that she permitted herself to take a break.

After a break to recover, the oddish finally had the energy to move herself. She was about to continue training when she felt a pang of hunger from her stomach. She stopped then looked at her hidden pile of berries. It was already noon anyway, just in time for lunch. She removed the leaves covering the pile of berries and began to eat.

It wasn't halfway through the pile that she was interrupted by rustling from nearby bushes. She stopped, then frowned at the interruption.

At first she thought it was the human, who actually didn't give up on chasing her, but she was quickly proven wrong when pokemon came out instead. Then she froze when she realized exactly what pokemon came out.

A Beedrill, followed by a Weedle and Kakuna. The Beedrill strutted to the clearing with arrogance while the other two pokemon followed after him like a pair of goons.

It was a pokemon she recognized; there were rumors of how a trainer released their beedrill inside the forest and was now terrorizing the weak pokemon that came its way. It's mostly petty stuff though, like taking food from others. Not enough to anger the truly powerful pokemon in the forest, but an annoyance to deal with nonetheless.

The beedrill caught sight of her, then at her pile of berries. Then, the pokemon's gaze slowly went back to her with malicious intent in his eyes.

And now she was going to deal with them.

The beedrill buzzed, alerting his followers. The weedle and kakuna looked confused for a second before understanding when they saw her. The oddish grimaced as they began to approach her.

She stood and faced the three of them, staring defiantly.

The beedrill buzzed, gesturing for her to give the berries to them. What went unspoken was that they'll attack her if she didn't.

"Oddish." Make me.

There was a pause between the pokemon.

Then the three pokemon laughed. The beedrill buzzed hysterically while the other two joined in. The oddish twitched in anger at the mocking of the three pokemon, and opened her mouth—

—She didn't have the chance as her instincts told her to dodge to the side before getting hit by something. She was right, and she hears the sound of something hitting the tree beside her as she throws herself to the ground. The oddish looked behind her to see what she dodged.

She gawked as the attack was revealed to be countless sharp needles. What's more, it had punched through the tree she kept kicking earlier.

The beedrill had one stinger pointed to the oddish, prepared to attack once more. It buzzed and this time it was devoid of the humor it had earlier. It was an ultimatum to give the berries or get beat up.

The oddish answered by running towards the beedrill and kicking it on the head.

The beedrill was caught in surprise and was launched a couple of meters away. The other two pokemon with the beedrill looked at her with shock, but oddly enough, they didn't do anything.

In fact they looked really scared. The oddish looked at them confused, are they really that much of a coward?

"Bzzt."

…It turns out that they weren't scared of her, as she saw them run away when they heard the enraged buzz.

The beedrill had stood up from the ground and recovered from her kick. And it looked really angry.

The oddish barely had any time to react before the beedrill's stingers glowed yellow green and stabbed towards her. She cried in pain as she felt the attack hit her, sending her flying across the clearing and making her skid on the ground.

The oddish stumbled as she tried to stand up after getting hit with the move. When she righted herself up her vision can only see a yellowish black figure moving towards her. Despite the dizziness that she feels and the blurry vision, she ran towards it and tried to kick them again.

The beedrill blocked it this time with their stinger, then tossed her away back to the ground again. The oddish didn't find the strength to stand up this time as the landed roughly on the ground. She could only stare helplessly as the pokemon approached her.

Her mind juxtaposes the form of the beedrill with something different. The black in the pokemon's blurry form replaced with a fully black uniform seen through grief-filled tears. The oddish felt like she was small again, pinned down, unable to do anything as she watched her parent taken away by them.

She blinked, and just as fast as it appeared, the memory disappeared and was replaced with the reality that is the present.

The familiar feeling of rage, frustration and loathing bubbled up within her. She was weak, always so weak, that even now she can't do anything against the pokemon in front of her. She just wasn't strong even after all this time.

It made her realize just how powerless she is.

She closed her eyes shut as tears threatened to fall.

…

…

She hears footsteps, then felt herself carried upwards.

The oddish opened her eyes, and was met not with the stinger of the beedrill, but with brown pupils of a familiar human boring down her form.

"...Hey, wanna make a deal?" he said after a while.

And that was when the Oddish met a very odd trainer that would end up changing her life.

I kept laughing while writing this self-insert thing. Seriously, how can people keep a straight face writing a story about themselves being cool and awesome without feeling ridiculous? If people are that self-assured of themselves then I hope to at least have a tiny percent of your confidence.

Anyway, if there are any criticisms feel free to point it out. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this short chapter!