Disclaimer – I do not own Pokémon or any of its characters. This is purely a work of fan fiction and will not be used for monetary gains.

Note – This story mostly takes place in the Kanto and Johto regions, but includes Pokémon from all regions and generations. I have taken inspiration from the anime and game and will be taking quite a few liberties with battle mechanics.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Real Wildling

Part 1 – A Boy in the Mountains

Deep in the silver mountains, beyond Viridian City and Victory Road lived a young boy. When he was just a baby, barely one year old, his parents' private plane crashed into Mount Silver. He was the only survivor.

The plane crashed so deep in the mountains that despite many efforts neither the wreck nor the baby were ever found. Lucky for the boy, a Kangaskhan mother who had lost her own baby in a fire found him and took him in as her own.

For the first two years of his life he lived with her in her herd. He played with the other Kangaskhan young, ate what they ate, roamed where they roamed, and slept in his adopted mother's pouch. He is most likely the only human to ever see the extremely rare male Kangaskhan. But, of course he didn't know that, he didn't know much about the comings and goings of people at all.

He was a very independent boy. By the age of two, to his mother's despair, he refused to get back in her pouch to sleep. He wanted to run around and explore, and preferred to sleep curled up next to her rather than being cooped up in the confines of her pouch.

By the age of four he was already gathering his own food and had made a small nest for himself a little bit away from the herd. Though he loved the Kangaskhan, he had an intrinsic feeling that he wasn't one of them. He was something different all together.

When he was six years old, while foraging for bugs and berries near a stream he heard a fearful cry. He immediately ran over to investigate and found a tiny injured Bulbasaur being hassled by a vicious and hungry looking pack of Houndoom. With no regard for his own life he started yelling and throwing stones at the pack. This was just the kind of boy he was.

When the Houndoom ignored him, he picked up a stick and ran straight for them. They barked and spat fire at him. At first he was able to dodge their attacks and drive them away a bit with his stick. But there were five of them and only one of him. Soon both the boy and the Bulbasaur were surrounded. The boy's stick was ripped from his hands. Flames, barks and screams filled the air. Things looked extremely dire.

But, just as the pack closed in for the kill, there was a roar from the direction of the stream. The Kangaskhan had heard their strange family member's cries. They stampeded in and sent the Houndoom running with their tails between their legs. Both the boy and the Bulbasaur were saved.

The boy was badly injured. It took many weeks for him to recover under constant care from the Bulbasaur, his herd, and a Chansey that was well known to the Kangaskhan. To this day he carries a large wrinkly scar on his left side where a flamethrower burned him, but his injuries were nothing when compared to the fact that he had made a lifelong friend.

The boy and the Bulbasaur spent all of their time together. They roamed far and wide exploring their mountain home and once even came across the wreck of his parents' airplane. The torn metal carcass meant nothing to the boy, but the three skeletons of the pilot and his parents drew him like a magnet. He buried them in the way that the Kangaskhan buried their dead and cried over their graves for a full three days. During this whole time his friend, Bulbasaur stayed by his side and brought him herbs and berries to eat. After the three days they left that place and never returned to it again.

The boy didn't spend his whole young life away from humans. When he was eight, an old hiker who had gotten lost in the mountains stumbled upon the boy. The naked boy with his long golden blonde hair and murky green eyes that could talk to Pokémon but had no concept of human speech fascinated him. He decided to stay in the mountains for a while to try and befriend the wild boy and take him back to civilization.

The old man fascinated the boy as well. He found his words at once confusing and wonderful. Each Pokémon had a different cry, but in the end their words were simple and were mostly focused around food and daily activities. The old man's words were plentiful. He had a different word for everything he saw and touched and could jabber for hours about things that the boy had no hope of comprehending.

He also couldn't understand the old man's strange outer skin that he could remove and clean before wearing again. The boy himself had never worn clothes and when the old man offered him some he found them constricting and highly uncomfortable. Though he could see how they would be useful during the winter and did decide to keep some of them.

The last and possibly strangest thing was how the old man carried Pokémon inside strange round pebbles. The Pokémon said they didn't mind, but the boy himself knew how he hated being in his mother's pouch. He couldn't understand why the old man would do this to his friends.

The old man stayed with the boy for nearly a month. During that time he taught him some words. He taught him his name, River, and he gave the boy a name, Dale. River taught Dale how to use fire to cook food. He taught him about ropes and how to tie knots. And he tried his best to teach him about houses, towns, cities, and the people that lived inside them. River wanted the boy to leave the mountains with him. He wanted to show Dale that there was something more to the world. But it soon became clear to him that the boy was going nowhere. The mountains were the only home he knew. The Pokémon were the only family he had.

On the day that the old man left he took out a square box from his backpack, something he had never shown Dale before. He stood next to the boy, reached out his arm, smiled at the box, and depressed a part of the box. There was a white flash of light that caused Dale to jump back and rub his eyes. He stared at the old man skeptically while Bulbasaur waved his vines in a threatening manner.

River laughed. He pulled a flat leaf from the box, shook it a few times and called Dale over. Then he showed the boy the first photograph he'd ever seen. Dale's mouth fell wide open. For the first time, other than in a river or pool, he saw what he looked like. He was skinny with long gangly arms, golden hair, and a serious looking face with thick golden eyebrows over a pair of green eyes.

River took out a small stick and scribbled his name over his head and Dale's name over his.

"Here," he said and handed the photo to Dale. Dale grinned from ear to ear as he clutched the photo to his bare chest. To him the photo was something magical and the most wonderful gift he had ever received.

As the boy watched the old man walk down the mountain, he actually felt a stream of tears running down his cheeks. He stared at the picture and promised himself that one day, when he was ready, he would leave the mountains and find the old man again. There was more he wanted to learn about his own kind, he just wasn't ready, not yet.

The End of Part 1