POCEMA
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. That doesn't have any bearing on this story, but I just thought I would point it out. Relevant to this story, I don't own Pokemon.
POCEMA, or Powerful Organisms Containing Elemental Manipulation Auras, are colloquially referred to as Pokemon. They are frightful beasts, locked in a never ending battle for supremacy with humanity. However, there are a few, who posses the ability to connect to Pokemon and their auras. These few, are known as Wild Hearts.
This is the tale of one of the most famous of Wild Hearts. Ash Ketchum, of Pallet Town.
Ash sighed as he adjusted the straps on his belt, before he pushed the old metal door open. The cool night air rushed across his face, carrying the heady scent of the forest, and Ash took a deep breath as he stepped out onto the top of the polished white wall of the compound. Finishing with tightening the straps of his equipment, Ash set out on his patrol, pacing down the narrow walkway at the top of the wall. He let his gaze wander between the cool, white surfaces of the buildings inside the complex to the tangled forest outside, lit only by the searchlights randomly strobing across the canopy. This was not what he had pictured when he signed up for Knight Training.
Ash had finished his three month long training course for the Pallet Town Brigade just two weeks ago, and he had been excited when he had received his posting to the Oak Research Complex. Situated northeast of Pallet Town, the Complex rested at the very edge of the Viridian Forest, the massive jungle that dominated most of Western Kanto. Ash had expected to be going out on patrols, helping capture wild Pokemon for study at the Complex. Instead, he was assigned guard patrol, along with eleven other new recruits, under the watchful care of Captain A.J. Their job: To stare out at the forest, and make sure nothing jumped over the twenty foot wall around the complex.
"Soo bored." Ash moaned softly to himself as he turned upon reaching the far tower and started walking back. He nodded, dully, to Joey, his fellow guard, as they passed each other again. The Complex's wall formed a rough hexagon, with three towers spaced evenly around at three of the points. Two of the guards were assigned to each section of wall, and they worked on rotation. Ash had just came on for Ben, and he would be on shift for four hours, before Ben would come back to replace him. Joey had already been on for two hours, and he would get replaced by Jenn in two hours for her shift. Four hours on, four hours off, for just shy of two weeks was slowly wearing away at the edges of Ash's sanity. The guards were regularly rotated around, but Ash's rotation still hadn't come up. He was ready for a change of pace.
Almost as if summoned by Ash's thoughts, a bolt of lightning ripped out of the canopy of the forest to the east, maybe three hundred yards or so from the wall. Ash blinked from the sudden flare of light, his night vision torn apart, as sirens began wailing with in the Complex. The searchlights brightened from their former dull glow, several tracing over the canopy around where the bolt of lightning had come out. Ash tensed as Joey came jogging over, both of them staring intently out into the Forest, his mind racing as he came to grips with what was happening. A Pokemon attack.
"Should we head into the tower? We don't really have the right shock gear for dealing with an Electric." Joey sounded nervous, which was understandable. Electric type Pokemon had a notoriously long range, and their attacks were fast enough that it was difficult to dodge.
"No, they have lightning rods, so those should pull away most electric attacks. We should stay until someone else comes to relieve us." Ash wasn't planning to leave unless he had to. While it might be dangerous, this was the most excitement that had come their way in the whole time he'd been here.
"I don't...", but whatever Joey's concerns were, they were cut off by a second lightning bolt, closer than the first, which was followed shortly by a scream. A human scream.
Ash and Joey both looked at each other. It was the middle of the night, and the main roads were on the far side of the base. There was no reason for anyone to be running around in the forest.
"Do you, do you think it's a trap?" Joey's stuttering betrayed his uncertainty. Ash shook his head.
"I don't know, but it will take a while for a response team to get out there to help her."
While Joey and Ash had both grown up in Pallet Town, they hadn't been particularly close, merely being acquaintances in school, and then fellow recruits in the Brigade. However, Joey had been around Ash long enough to somewhat follow his thought process.
"No way. There is no way the two of us can go down there and expect to do anything. It's a freaking Electric. You and I both know the Stun Guns won't do squat, and neither of us are rated or carrying anything higher. Just wait for the response team. They should be headed out any minute."
"And seconds count, especially when dealing with faster Pokemon." Ash clapped Joey on the shoulder and grinned. "I don't expect you to come. Anyway, I've been wanting to do this since we got here." And with that, Ash threw his legs over the side of the wall, and proceeded to slide down the outside of the wall, leaving Joey gaping after him.
The wall of the Oak Complex weren't perfectly vertical, both for stability reasons, and because something about perfectly vertical surfaces seemed to attract Pokemon determined to knock them down. Instead, the walls sloped out, forming a steep ramp, which allowed Ash to control his descent enough to arrive at the bottom without issue. Quickly taking his bearings, he pulled a small electric torch out of his belt and dashed into the forest.
Ash stumbled, yet another root snagging at his pants as he jogged through the underbrush. He hadn't realized just how uneven the forest floor around the Complex was until he had to jog through it, his torch bobbing along, barely lighting up the darkness of the forest. He turned as the flash of another lightning strike lit through the trees, followed by the sharp crack of thunder. Ash squeezed around a tree, and stumbled onto a faint forest path, where the ground and roots had been worn away by migrating Pokemon. Up ahead, he could see the forest giving way to a small clearing, and he briefly saw a human-like shape dash across the portion of the clearing he could see. Ash hurried forward, preparing to shout out, when he heard the hum.
Ash's heart sank as he reached the edge of the clearing, and his eyes confirmed his fears. Half a dozen Beedrill buzzed about in the air over the clearing, venom dripping off of their many stingers to sizzle against the forest floor. As he watched, two of the massive hornets broke away to dive down towards the figure Ash had seen before.
It was a woman, tall, with light blonde hair tied off in a rough ponytail. She was wearing some sort of torn jumpsuit, which was missing an entire sleeve, and a portion of one side. Luckily, the woman herself didn't appear to be all that injured, with only a few scratches visible on the arm missing the sleeve, though it was a close thing as she just barely rolled out of the way of the Beedrills' dive. Ash drew in a deep breath. He wasn't sure where the Electric Pokemon that was chasing her was, but in either case, he hadn't slid down the wall to hide like a coward. Sliding his gun out, and cranking up the power, Ash stepped into the clearing and started firing.
Luck was with him. Only one of the Beedrill was facing his way and was able to flit away from the shots he fired. Three of the others each took a stun shot to the thorax, twitching and falling from the sky. The two that had just dive bombed the girl spun around in the air, and all three of the remaining Beedrill quickly started flying towards Ash, buzzing angrily. Ash backpedaled, swinging his gun around to get off another shot, only to stumble on an exposed root.
Tripping may have saved his life, as the girl stood up behind the Beedrill and let loose. She lifted her hands up, revealing a pair of what looked like stones embedded in each palm, and let out a feral sounding scream, before hurling a massive stream of lightning from the palms of her hands. The lightning danced across all three of the Beedrill, and several bolts split off to strike the trees above Ash's head. All of the Beedrill dropped to the ground, spasming wildly.
Ash stared in shock at the girl, who was breathing rather heavily. Their eyes met, and her lips twisted into a snarl, as she took a couple of steps towards him, sparks dancing around her forearms. However, before she could make it too far, she suddenly stumbled, swaying,and then her eyes rolled up and she collapsed to the ground. Ash continued to watch her in shock, and he was still watching when a deployment of the guards arrived in the clearing five minutes later.
Ok, so, this is a Pokemon!as!Real!Monsters story, where death happens frequently. The basic idea is that Pokemon and Humanity have been fighting a battle for survival. Whenever Humanity builds up civilization, Pokemon seem to swing around to knock it down. Though there are some places where humans and Pokemon have learned to work together, it is entirely unlike the standard Pokemon world. For one thing, Pokeballs were never invented. The potential is out there, but the breakthroughs never happened for humans to discover exactly how to digitally encode Pokemon into little balls.
The second big thing is Aura. In this story, every living thing has an Aura, however, it is only in Humans and Pokemon that the aura is strong enough to do anything. In Pokemon, their Aura is what allows them to use elemental techniques. For the most part, Pokemon are ordinary, physical beings, just altered somewhat by their aura. They communicate through ordinary animal sounds, not through repetitions of their name. For most of the Pokemon, their intelligence is around the level of a dog, somewhat smart, but very simplistic. A few, however, such as Alakazam or Blaziken, are actually sentient to the point of having their own sort of culture, though nothing up to the level of humanity.
Humans, on the other hand, also have Aura, but unlike Pokemon it is not restricted to a specific type for their species. Humanity can use Aura of all different types, but they have to specifically learn how to use it, as they have no instinctive grasp of Aura like Pokemon do.
On the technical side of this, for the most part I will be restricting the technique humans can learn to the TM moves from the different generations. The HM moves represent techniques that most humans can learn generally, while TMs are moves that require a certain elemental leaning to be learned. There are exceptions to the TM restriction, such as me giving Brock a technique called Stone Skin, and Ash Ketchum's ability.
Ash is a special case called a Wild Heart. Most humans are what are known as Blank Hearts (analogous to Normal Types), which means they lack a strong elemental leaning. Some have elemental leanings, such as Flying Heart or Fire Heart. A few rare Humans may have multiple leanings leading to odd combinations, such as Fire/Flying leading to the Phoenix Heart. Ash's Wild Heart is something completely different, however. Rather than gaining a specific elemental leaning, Ash is able to take on and mimic the Elemental auras of those around him. This is good, as it allows him to use a wide range of techniques, but it also limits him, as it is very difficult for him to learn or develop new techniques on his own. For example, he could see and mimic a Pidgey using Gust to create a strong wind, but he would be unable (without a great deal of trial and error) to try and shape new techniques from the Gust, such as making an Air Slash or making it sharper for a Razor Wind. This is because he is mimicking what he saw the Pidgey's Aura do, and not really learning to do it on his own. He can learn, but on his own he is like a Blank Heart trying to learn. It is difficult but possible.
The other part of his power is the ability to communicate with Pokemon. This ability is somewhat limited (it isn't direct speech), but he can trade impressions and intentions, which will allow him to make multiple allies during his journey.
The girl shown above is the analogue of Pikachu. Yes, this is a Human!Pikachu story. Her name is Rena and, long story short, she just escaped from Team Rocket shortly before this. They will attack Oak's lab to try and retrieve her, and Ash and her ended up running off, thus starting the journey. I actually have quite a storypath lined out for this world, with three major arcs/seasons planned, but shaping the individual scenes is somewhat difficult. The basic idea would be a Kanto season, Johto season, and Hoenn Season, with potential additional seasons that would be thought up later. The Kanto season would focus on Ash, the Johto season would focus on Rena, and the Hoenn season would focus on Brendan and May, with the characters from the first two seasons showing up as mentors on their own mission.