Ash and Gary slowly made their way towards Viridian City, leaning on each other to maintain their balance. The shrieks and cries of birds began fading into the distance once they had reached the city's border. Lucky for our small town boys, Viridian City wasn't very different from Pallet Town in design. There were just 4 more buildings in addition to a Gym and Pokémon Center.
The Pokémon Center was ironically at the Center of the city.
"Are we just going to ignore the fact that you have super powers? Gary asked, leaning against the side of a house to catch his breath.
"I was honestly planning to. I didn't ask for any of this. This was supposed to be a normal journey across the world. One of adventure and self discovery. If I knew more weird stuff would start happening as soon as I left home, I would have brought body armor with me and grabbed enough max repels to last me until Cerulean City," Ash replied as he slid to the floor.
"You can't just ignore your aura powers! They're part of you, even if you don't want them," Gary had always been the more scholarly one in their group, a fact helped by the fact his family was rich enough to buy books from all over the world and his guardian was a Pokémon Professor. Otherwise, he never would have been able to recognize that marble sized attack as an aura sphere.
The Pokémon famous for that move wasn't native to Kanto or Johto after all.
"I can and I will, it's not like I have a way to learn how to use them. Even if I did, why would I? My Pokémon would be more than enough to protect me," Ash naively responded as he began to rest his head against the egg case. His eyelids were starting to feel heavy.
Before he could even attempt to resist the temptation of sleep, he blacked out.
It was the middle of the night when Ash awoke in a new environment.
"Gary must have dragged me here after I blacked out," Ash rationalized to himself as he looked around the room. His egg was on the floor next to the bed. For some reason, Gary had pulled the egg out of its case and had placed it on a pillow.
Ash stared at the egg and noticed the cracks at the top. It was surely getting ready to hatch soon. Gary must have expected it to hatch while Ash was sleeping.
Ash made a mental note reminding himself to thank Gary for his foresight. Eggs weren't supposed to hatch inside of their cases. If the Pokémon was too big it would shatter the glass and receive abnormal amounts of damage. It was a widely accepted fact that most Pokemon with scales couldn't afford to be hurt for the first week after their birth as their scales needed time to toughen up. The only exceptions to this are dragon types. Pokemon with soft fleshy exteriors generally needed 2 weeks for their bones to harden enough for them to participate in battles.
That's why most Trainers would focus on getting their Pokémon used to feeling and manipulating their element/energy for those 1-2 weeks.
Pikachu was at the foot of Ash's bed, snoring and drooling all over the covers.
Ash sluggishly shuffled towards the light switch, but when he flicked the switch nothing happens. He flicked it up and down again just to make sure.
Something wasn't right here.
"Pokemon Centers have 7 separate generators, there's no good reason for one of them to have a power outage," Ash whispered as he shook Pikachu. "Get up; danger is lurking somewhere in these halls."
Pikachu rolled over, showing clear signs of being almost awake.
Taking a couple steps back, Ash called for Pikachu one more time. He remembered what the Pokèdex said about discharges after waking up. The last thing he needed was to be disabled by an electrical pulse.
Pikachu woke up and discharged electricity at Ash. Ducking moments prior, Ash turned around to see the attack hit the door.
"Great job Pikachu, those doors lock if the electric current running through them gets cut off," Ash praised while scratching behind his ear. There was a button under the front desk that could cut the power off to everything but life support systems, which was only pressed when a threat managed to enter the premises.
"Stay here and keep your unhatched sibling safe, no matter what. The last thing we need is for their birth to be interrupted by an interloper with nothing better to do," Ash whispered as he slowly opened the door and crept into the hallway. He closed the door behind him to avoid tipping the intruder off to the fact that someone else was mobile.
Zero visibility isn't an ideal situation for a normal human, but Ash was prepared for this. He hugged the right wall as he pushed forward so that anybody walking past him would brush up against him instead of causing a head-on collision.
He didn't head towards the front desk. The only things worth stealing from this place were kept in the back rooms. One back room held all the Pokémon that had been formally abandoned. The other had all the Pokemon that got healed, but hadn't been collected yet.
In his gut, Ash knew that Pokémon were what the invader was probably after. Pokemon Centers didn't keep money in the building.
Ash managed to reach the back rooms without incident. He pushed against the wall while feeling around for the doorway. After a couple seconds, he felt his thumb curl around a corner.
"Bingo, an open door," Ash thought to himself as he ceased his movements. He heard one set of feet walking towards the door.
"Oh, it's just you," a female voice whispered before she sighed in relief, "put this on."
Ash was suddenly surprised by an added weight in his hands. He felt around and came to the conclusion that it was a pair of goggles. It had two straps to help it stay on his head.
After Ash put it on, the woman who gave Ash the goggles pushed a button on the side to turn it on. This button activated the Night Vision function and illuminated who Ash could now tell was the nurse of the Pokemon Center.
"Thanks, Nurse Joy," Ash said while walking into the room, " what's going on?"
"A group of poachers by the name of Team Rocket tried to enter the building, but I delayed them by shutting off the building's power and rerouting it to the Emergency Teleportation System. Now, I'm getting ready to send all of these Pokemon to an underground storage facility. I just finished hooking every Pokéball up to the transporter. If I don't input the code to bring them back within the next 24 hours, they'll be teleported to another Pokemon Center for storage," Nurse Joy explained as she pressed a button on the side of a machine. The machine started to hum as every Pokéball in the room began to glow a pale blue. Thanks to this, the room was bright enough for the occupants to see without their goggles on.
Ash turned towards the door while taking off his goggles. If the intruders were close, they'd see the blue light and come running.
This turned out to be a great idea, because as soon as he did it, two people and one Meowth walked into the room.
The man had blue hair, while the woman had gravity-defying hair that was also magenta.
Woman: "Prepare for trouble!"
Man: "Make it double!"
Woman: "To protect the world from devastation!"
Man: "To unite all people within our nation!"
Woman: "To denounce the evils of truth and love!"
Man: "To extend our reach to the stars above!"
Woman: "Jessie!"
Man: "James!"
Jessie: "Team Rocket, blast off at the speed the speed of light!"
James: "Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"
Meowth: "Meowth, that's right!"
"Did that Pokémon just talk?" Ash thought as he instead prepared to run, "these guys are weird."
"Step away from those Pokémon, they belong to the boss," Jessie demanded.
"Not a chance!" Ash yelled as he ran toward the Team Rocket members with a fist pulled back. Unbeknownst to Ash, his arms and legs were cloaked in a pale blue aura.
He closed the distance before they could prepare any resistance. The fist buried itself in James' stomach and he fell to his knees.
James grunted before attempting to punch Ash in the stomach.
This was foiled by Ash grabbing his arm and throwing him at Meowth.
"This twerp is way too strong for a kid his age," James thought as he crashed into Meowth.
"Get off of my tail!" Meowth screamed, tears streaming down his face.
"Get a hold of yourselves, we have a job to do. Go Ekans!" Jessie ordered as she tossed a Pokéball into the air.
Ash leapt into the air and caught the Pokéball before it could open. He hit the shrink button to disable the inner mechanisms that would allow the sphere to open and release the Pokémon contained within it. Ash followed this by pocketing the Pokéball and axe kicking Jessie's head.
"Why won't you give up? I'm not going to let you release your Pokémon and it's clear you can't take me in a fist fight." Ash taunted while standing over Jessie.
Jessie looked up at Ash's face, but couldn't make out many of his features because of the light created by the Teleportation System. All Team Rocket could see was a silhouette and Ash's glowing blue eyes.
"G-G-Get away from me!" Jessie shrieked, crawling away from Ash.
The pale blue light from the machine vanished, taking every Pokéball with it.
"What's wrong, see a ghost? Or are you afraid of a little kid?" Ash spit while slowly plodding after her.
"You're no kid. You're a monster!" James yelled.
"Ouch, you hurt my heart. I'm not a monster. You are. You tried to steal from innocent children and do who knows what with the Pokémon. Do you want to know what I really am? I'm the guy who keeps the monsters up at night," Ash responded before releasing a deep guttural laugh.
All those acting classes his mom signed him up for as a kid had really helped Ash learn how to ham it up when he needed to.
"I suggest that we retreat," Meowth uttered before running away with his hands up.
James and Jessie followed behind the scared cat almost immediately.
Ash never felt threatened by the intruders, not even for an instant. He was in complete control of the situation. Fear never had a chance to creep into the back of his mind.
"Thanks for your assistance, I am forever in your debt," Nurse Joy said. "Officer Jenny wouldn't have made it in time."
"Wait, when did you call the police?" Ash questioned. How would she have time to cut the power, make that call, and get all the way back here to send away the Pokémon? This Center wasn't small.
"Cutting the Power to the Pokémon Center triggers a silent alarm and sends an alert to the local Police department," Nurse Joy explained.
Officer Jenny sprinted into the room and skidded to a stop, completely out of breath, "We… caught 2 members.. of… Team… Rocket… fleeing the… area. God… I need to work on my cardio."
"Good. And they didn't manage to get a single Pokémon thanks to our little hero here" Nurse Joy smiled as she ruffled Ash's hair.
Ash rememberd that he stole one of their Pokémon and reached into his pocket to grab the ball, "I snagged one of their Pokémon before they retreated."
He handed it to Officer Jenny, who took it without a second thought. Team Rocket's Pokémon are typically too dangerous for the average trainer to handle. They're trained killers, not battlers.
"I'll inform the league that Team Rocket is stirring up trouble in this part of Kanto. And I'll also tell them about your heroic deeds. They'll reward your actions, but I don't condone unnecessary risks. So; next time something like this happens, don't get involved. It's okay to let the adults handle it. Team Rocket is a serious threat and they aren't against child murder," Office Jenny said softly.
Ash reluctantly nodded. He knew that he shouldn't seek out trouble with any gang.
After seeing that her message had gotten through to him, Officer Jenny left the room.
Ash yawned into his hand as he walked towards the door to his room, "Glad that's over. I need another hour of sleep."
Nurse Joy had just rerouted the power back to the lights and doors moments ago, so Ash could actually enter his room now.
He opened the door, cut on the lights, and saw an adorable sight.
Pikachu was entertaining the newly hatched Cleffa by repeatedly knocking a Pokéball into the air with the flat side of his tail.
Ash looked around, noticing that the egg shards were in a nice and neat pile by the trash can. Pikachu was too short to put the garbage in the can.
"Looks like Pikachu is warming up to that sibling idea," Ash thought from the doorway as he watched his partner with a smile on his face. This is exactly what he wanted his team to be, a giant family.
Since Cleffa hatched already, Ash figured they might as well start training right now. Sleep could wait until nighttime.
Ash whistled to gain Pikachu's attention, "we're done here. The threat is gone and the sun will rise in less than an hour. It's time to start training your speed and accuracy. You should be able to hit just about anything by the time we're done."
Pikachu sighed at the interruption while simultaneously smacking Cleffa's Pokéball towards Ash's outstretched hand. He also picked Cleffa up to carry him over to their new Trainer.
Dropping to his knees, Ash started talking to the newest member of the family, "Hey Cleffa, welcome to the team. My name is Ash Ketchum, I'll be your Trainer from now on. Did Pikachu tell you about what happens next?"
Cleffa made an attempt at nodding and Ash felt waves of excitement emanating from Cleffa.
Ash lightly tapped his Pokéball against Cleffa's head.
"Let's go, Pikachu" Ash said, prompting Pikachu to leap onto his shoulder. He grabbed his bag and began his journey out towards the route between Pallet Town and Viridian City.
Ash led Pikachu to a clearing that wasn't too deep into the forest.
Ash scanned the ground looking for the smallest stone in the area. Fifteen minutes of searching came to an end when Ash found a round stone that was smaller than his fingernail. He picked it up and tossed it towards a patch of dirt without any grass growing there.
"Okay, the first step of your training is improving your accuracy. That pebble is going to be your target. Work until you hit it with a every bolt of electricity you fire. As you do this, we'll reduce the number of bolts until you start firing a Thunderbolt."
Pikachu nodded before putting some distance between him and his Trainer.
"Okay, let's take a look at Cleffa," Ash whispered as he enlarged the Pokéball.
In a flash of light, Cleffa rematerialized in front of Ash, who had already pulled out his Pokédex.
"Cleffa: the Star Shape Pokemon. On. nights with many shooting stars, Cleffa can be seen dancing in a ring. They dance through the night and stop only at the break of day, when these Pokémon quench their thirst with the morning dew. It is believed that Cleffa come from outer space on a meteor, which is used to explain why they have a strange fascination with Minior. They remind them of home."
"What's a Minior?" Ash asked, not expecting the Dex to display the words "Data blocked, acquire national dex for information about Pokémon not native to Kanto or Johto."
"This Cleffa is male and knows the moves: Metronome, Charm and Pound."
"Alright, let's get you used to accessing your power Cleffa. After your body finishes settling, we'll start training." Ash said as he slid his Pokédex back into his pocket.
Cleffa cried happily and bounced upwards in excitement before he started to glow pink.