Ash pedaled quickly, trying to get to his house as soon as possible.
When he was half a block from his house, he heard a voice he knew very well calling him.
"Well, if it isn't the loser, Ash Ketchum, from Pallet Town."
Ash stopped the bike halfway. He turned to see where the voice was coming from and saw Gary Oak walking towards him, his arms were behind his back in a condescending manner, as usual.
He wore navy blue pants and a loose-fitting purple shirt. On his feet, a pair of brown boots.
"I heard from grandpa that you didn't get an starter, too bad," he sneered. "Not that a starting Pokémon would help in your case, as no matter how powerful a Pokémon could be having a mediocre trainer like you would turned them into a circus freak..."
Son of a bitch, Ash thought.
"Looking at it this way, it was very lucky that the Squirtle was stolen, as any fate was better than being owned by a weakling like you."
"SHUT UP!" Ash said loud enough to be heard all around.
Gary laughed. "Ash... Ash... Always so easy to piss off." He frowned. "I would even challenge you to a battle... But I remembered that you don't have a starter Pokemon."
Then he turned his back and headed off in the other direction. Before leaving, he said:
"Don't forget I still remember that day."
"That day..."
The memories filled Ash's mind again. Then he was red as a tomato as the scene played out in his head.
He shook his head trying to drive away those memories.
"We'll bump into each other again, Gary, and next time I promise to defeat you in battle," Ash said at last, getting back on his bike and leaving his rival behind.
When he got home, he parked his bike and walked in, looking down.
His mother was in the kitchen when she saw him enter. "Ash, what happened? Your face doesn't look good..."
Ash sat at the table and began eating his breakfast.
"I didn't get a starter Pokemon," he said.
"What do you mean?" Delia asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
She sat down in a chair and Ash explained everything that had happened.
"Too bad... I know you've been waiting so long for this. If only I had woken up earlier..."
Ash interrupted her: "It wasn't your fault. Now it's no use regretting and blaming yourself, I just have to think about my future." He drank some milk from his glass. "I need to capture a Pokemon on my own."
Delia despaired.
"But entering an area of wild Pokemon without company is very dangerous, in fact, it borders on insanity."
Ash recalled reports of trainers who went on a journey without enough skill and ended up doing very poorly. Some had been seriously injured by attacks from wild Pokemons, others had to amputate limbs or worse – they didn't come back alive to tell the rest of the story.
Ash just smiled.
"I'm not venturing into too far away, Mom. I'll try to catch a wild Pidgey or Rattata around here near Pallet just so I have some Pokemon to protect me, don't worry."
Delia ruffled Ash's hair with her hand.
"I have a golden son!" she said proudly. She gave him a hug. "You are the most precious thing in my life, if something bad happened to you I don't even know what I'd do."