Oh, jeez, I hope this isn't going to be too anti-climatic. Lucy's starter is pretty predictable. At first, I intended for it to be an oddish, but....

Ah well.

Major thanks to Horseloverheather, inu-demon02, Z-r-e-t-a-r, XPikachu-PrincessX, and define-originality! All of your reviews are awesome.

I'm sorry if the writing on this one is a little bad. My social life (gasp!) has been a bit busy. Hopefully I'll have more time to do these...I have soooo many ideas for future chapters...*sinister laughter*. That is, if you all will bare with me. Hope you like it!


While tiny, stubby toenails dug into the front of my hoodie, I was more distracted by the very long, aromatic leaf protruding into my face...and the pair of bright red eyes looking curiously up into mine. "Chi?" the little leaf creature seemed to ask, sizing me up. It was content to sit in my lap while it did so. It's leaf (which, to my amazement, was almost longer than the rest of its body) poked at my nose. I sneezed. The pokemon glared at me, a bit disgusted.

Professor Elm laughed. "My God, how could I forget Chikorita? I should have known that he would have been a good match for you! I had wanted to avoid giving you a grass type, only because some trainers tend to think that they're a little too easy to start with...not to mention the amount of poison-related accidents on their behalf...of course, there have only been a very few cases of such incidents this year-"

While the professor blabbed on, I decided to take initiative. I picked up the chikorita (although I wasn't the brightest of pokemon-experts, I at least knew to grab it from behind it's forelegs) and held it up to my face to get a better look. He did not like this at all. The baby grass-pokemon wiggled in my hands, suddenly irate, leering at me with what appeared to be offense. "ChikChikChik!" It squeaked angrily. The large, smelly leaf swished in the air at ridiculous angles.

And...I laughed.

"It...it looks so silly!" I breathed between collapses of giggles. "That...that face...and that necklace! I thought... I thought you said it was a boy!"

Professor Elm cleared his throat, smiling. "Well, yes, Lucy, it is a boy...that is how all chikoritas look. I'm afraid there are almost no differences between the males and females of the species...except for maybe temperament, in which case I believe that the males are a little less emotional..."

The chikorita squealed at me, slapping at my face with its leaf. Its scent was sweet with just a hint of spice, as if revealing his feisty nature. "Um, sorry, Chick...orita." I chuckled at my own terrible pun. He did not seem amused. Smirking, I gently sat him back onto the floor. Chikorita held his head high, indignant, and walked away from me with his nose in the air. He was a proud little thing...

The professor eyed me, suddenly curious. "Did you just apologize to him...?!"

I looked up, meeting his gaze with confusion. "Well, yeah...? I mean, if I offended him that much...I didn't mean to upset it-"

And with those words I had sealed my fate.

As a manic grin rippled across Professor Elm's face, his eyes alight with pure, unconcealed joy, I watched numbly as he leaped from his chair and came flying towards me with frightening speed . He picked up Chikorita's pokeball from the floor, dusted it off with two seconds of care, and handed it to me like a golden holy grail. "Then he belongs to you now." And with that, he dropped the pokeball into my unsuspecting hands.

I stared at the ball, aware of what I had just done and the commitment made in literal seconds. "Fuck." I muttered at my own stupidity. The chikorita- now my chikorita (I shuddered at the thought) stared at me with disdain. I obviously was not the trainer it had ever intentioned. I didn't blame him- it wasn't like I was any more comfortable with the situation than he was. I guess it was a bit too late for that, now...

"Would you like to give him a nickname?" Professor Elm asked eagerly. "Your chikorita has a bold nature, and-"

"Elm."

The grown man stopped gushing long enough to give me a sad, pathetically oppressed little stare. "But...but you can't honestly not want to give your pokemon a name..." He whined.

Shaking my head sadly, I felt a nudge against my calf, and when I looked down I saw that Chikorita had planted himself firmly on my foot, glowering up at me with brave irritation. "What are you doing?" I asked, half to myself, and half to the angry little grass pokemon. He huffed impatiently.

"I think he wants a proper apology." Professor Elm mused. I glanced over to see him smiling, obviously enjoying this. I secretly cursed him. All I wanted this morning was to go to school, come home, and maybe just get a few more hours of sleep...

Halfheartedly, I leaned down slightly so that I was face-level with Chikorita and his fierce scarlet eyes. My long, messy black hair spilled over my shoulders, hanging above him like a web of tangles. He sniffed at my strawberry shampoo, a bit mollified. "Erm...I'm very sorry for offending you, Chikorita." I said as respectfully as I could without sounding insincere. "I didn't mean to act like a jerk. It's...it's been a long morning..."

To my surprise, he seemed to understand. He still sat on my foot nonetheless. Were my sneakers really that comfortable? As Professor Elm began another tangent on how I should take care of my new pokemon, what to feed him, and where I supposed to go in case of emergencies, Chikorita kept my foot warm, his long leaf swaying contentedly as he watched the professor talk. I had to admit, the little guy smelled good. I sneezed again in spite of myself.

I was suddenly aware of little eyes glaring up at me once more. So he was a germ-aphobe. Great.


Mom was, to say the least, ecstatic.

"Oooo! Honey, how cute! A Chikorita! Gosh, I always loved grass-types- did you know that I chose a bulbasaur for my starter pokemon back in Kanto? How sweet! Would you like your Chikorita to meet her? She's a venasaur now, but I'm sure they'd get along- ooo! How about we have a grass-pokemon slumber party? Would Chikorita like that? Do you think you should enter him in a contest? Or a few? What about the pokemon triathlon? Do you want to take pictures? LET ME GO GET MY CAMERA-"

Sprawled out on the couch, I listened to my mother's voice rise and fall like a hysteric, very hyper ocean. I could hear her bustling about our kitchen, grabbing up one thing, then abandoning it for another, sometimes stopping to cuddle my Chikorita (who was now given free-range around the house). Mom had already unleashed at least six other pokemon to meet him, and I also had a vague suspicion that she was trying to set him up with a bellossom, or at least one of her many tangelas. "You two can get married!" I heard her coo, enthusiastically trying to encourage Chikorita to sit next to a very solemn looking Roselia.

I shut my eyes, my brand-new contract held tightly in my hands. As soon as I had come home from the lab, my mother had attacked the paper with her signature, almost breaking the paper as she wielded a pen like a spear. She had refused to let me go to school, instead demanding that I introduce her to my pokemon, and then sweeping him away in a storm of crazy schemes. He wasn't just the cutest chikorita she had ever seen, he was the cutest chikorita ever, and ten seconds after meeting him she had already planned at least ten different things to do together in five minutes. She was (using the lightest word possible) already attached.

I sighed.

"Chi." a tired little voice muttered in reply. When I opened my eyes, Chikorita had somehow escaped my mother long enough to come over to me, trying to hide behind my leg. I watched, amused, as he swished his leaf dejectedly. "You'll get used to her, soon." I mumbled shyly, grinning to myself. Chikorita looked up at me, obviously disbelieving what I had just said as he hung his head, exhausted. I had the sudden urge to pick him up and let him sit on the couch with me, but I had found out from earlier how he disliked being picked up, and besides, he seemed content to sit on the floor beside me...

That was, until Mom swooped in, grabbed up the weary leaf-pokemon, and dashed away again. So much for making nice. When I peeked over the side of the couch, I saw that she had already somehow gotten a bow on the top of Chikorita's head, and was proceeding to force him into an awkward conversation with a Sandshrew and Mr. Happy, the ever-creepy hypno.

Poor little guy. He didn't stand a chance.

Reading over the contract terms one last time (some of the basic rules that had stuck out in my mind were simple: that I had to care for and raise my pokemon into its next evolution on my own, that I would not receive the tuition until I had fulfilled my end of the deal and I was in my senior year in school, several conditions about if I had somehow become attached and did not want to give him back...) I relaxed, letting myself enjoy what was all-in-all a good day. So what if I had (temporarily) conformed into becoming a pokemon trainer? Now I had earned an amazing start to my future school, I had made my mom happy, and the pokemon I had "picked" wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be...

A bit cautious, I began to wonder. Maybe this could work out after all.