A Journey
Summary: Ash's daughter has NO interest in Pokemon training. So, Ash, being the enterprising young Master that he is, puts her into the middle of the woods in the night while she's asleep with a pack, no map, a Pokedex, and a VERY angry Pichu.
A/N: It's first person from here on out.
…
What emerged was my worst fear. It was a foot tall, and it stood on two legs. It had a trademark yellow tail. It glared at me with black eyes.
"PIIIICHU!"
"Oh, REALLY?" I mimicked, to hide my fear.
The Pichu slapped its tail on the ground. "PIII!"
"An astonishing two syllable vocabulary," I taunted. "Your family must be so proud."
All of a sudden, I felt paralyzed, too paralyzed to even cry out in pain. The Pichu jolted me with more electricity.
"Stop!" I finally said, though my lips were on fire with pain, like the rest of me.
The Pichu eyed me coldly, and stopped… before letting in another blast into my system.
I stared around me. I was alone in the woods, and my only companion was my worst fear. I knew that there was only one thing a girl could do in this situation. I allowed tears to pour down my face.
The creature still showed no mercy. It glared at me icily.
"Look. Your father is Ash's Pikachu, right?"
The Pichu turned up its nose in refusal to answer.
"Your noble father," I spat, "was jealous of me when I was born, that I was apparently ruining his bond with Ash. He tried to shock me to death. He nearly succeeded. Bet you didn't know that, huh? And by law, Ash should have put Pikachu to death, but Ash personally, as Master, changed that law. He wouldn't kill the stinking rat who almost killed me! He still wears it on his bloody shoulder."
The Pichu snarled, and prepared to shock me again.
"Go ahead," I said bitterly, "be just like your father. Kill me just for being born."
I figured I had guilted it out of shocking me again, so I was unpleasantly surprised to find electricity coursing through my veins.
"So you kill me?" I asked through gritted teeth. "Then what? I don't think Ash would make an exception for you. How often did you see Ash? Or your father, even."
The Pichu growled, almost frothing in anger.
"I know that you're the one holding the cards," I said, "but I'm the one holding the Ball." I gestured to the Pokeball clutched in my hands.
"As soon as I catch a reasonably sane Pokemon that doesn't act like a rabid light switch, then I will release you. Go wherever the hell you want. I just need to get out of this forest." I glared at my one foot adversary, my tiny nemesis.
"Do you have a name?" I asked it.
"PICHU!"
"Pichu? I don't call myself 'Human', do I?"
"PII!" The Pichu prepared to shock me again, then thought better of it.
I sighed.
"This kind of sucks for me as well. I mean, no offense, I HATE training. And you clearly hate being trained. If it was up to me, I'd have no problem if you just ran off. And at least you have someone who speaks your language in this forest. I really cannot understand you at all." I began to adopt a convivial tone speaking to this thing I hated. Because I hated the little thing, I could be TOTALLY open with it, perversely.
"Piich."
"I mean, I do find it odd that with only two syllables you can speak a coherent language. No, don't shock me; there's no real point." I held up a hand in defense.
"Well, we should probably be trying to get to the city." I tossed the Pichu its Pokeball. "Hold on to this, will you?"
"Piich!" The Pichu glared at me.
"Hey, that sounds like peach. Is that your name?" Hoping to have a nod or an excited squeal, I was a bit annoyed to find myself shocked electrically once again, although marginally less painfully this time. By that, I mean that I had enough mobility to scream in pain.
"Hey, a trainer!" I heard a voice say. I whipped my head around, and at the top of the hill I had been walking past, I saw a boy run down. He looked to be around my age.
"Hey, wanna battle?" He asked excitedly. How male, I thought, to be so happy about fighting with animals.
I stared at him and rolled my eyes.
He looked at me with similar contempt. "Is that your only Pokemon?"
"Yes, and," I said, feeling the Pichu's tail prod into me, "I'm not training it." I hastily added.
"And you don't even know his or her gender?" The boy said conceitedly.
"How, exactly, am I supposed to tell?" I snapped.
"Well, there are subtle differences," the boy said pretentiously.
"Well, what gender is it then?"
"There's no difference on a Pichu, I'd have to wait until it evolves. Anyways," the youth said, "I would battle you, but my Pokemon are far too strong against an infant Pokemon. Besides, you shouldn't even be letting it walk around on its own."
The Pichu, at this, made a warning noise in its throat.
"Why would I carry it around? It clearly can walk on its own."
"Baby Pokemon are very delicate," the boy said with an upturn to his nose.
"It doesn't seem delicate to me! It shocked the living shit out of me."
"Really!" The boy said sarcastically. "Its Thundershock should be rather undeveloped at this point. You must have a rather low pain tolerance."
At this, the Pichu finally let loose a shower of electricity in the boy's direction. At least he managed to remain dignified, though in pain.
"We might have a fairly even battle," he said, once he regained use of his lips. "Meet me at the Pokemon Center tomorrow." The boy began to stalk off.
As soon as he was out of sight, I realized that I should have asked him where exactly I was. I cursed inwardly at myself, and then turned to the Pichu.
"Thanks for giving that idiotic boy what he deserved. I'm glad to know that you don't just shock me…" I was almost expecting the shock that came.
"Oh dear…" I said. "Well, is there anything here that you can eat? Berries or something?" The Pichu didn't deign to answer, but merely pointed up to a tree.
"Oh, you can't climb?" I asked. Despite the lack of feeling in my legs, I pulled down an apple from a tree, only having to jump a bit. "Well, unlike what Pokedork said, you can walk." I laughed a bit at my new name for him. I didn't even know his real one.
"Come on," I said, "we have some distance to cover. Also, if you want to battle, I'd appreciate the opportunity to kick his ass." Pichu merely grunted in reply.
Eventually, after a day of walking, a VERY boring one only made interesting by the occasional sightings of wild Pokemon I didn't recognize, I set up camp for the night.
"Umm," I awkwardly asked the Pichu, "do you need something to sleep in?" The Pichu squeaked, and disappeared within my sleeping bag.
"Hey, that's not funny!" I said. The Pichu merely said in a manner that sounded entirely too taunting, "Piiii!" I tried to put my hand in there and get it out, but got shocked. I was getting used to it; they were hurting marginally less and less every time. My dad said that would happen, when I had asked why he wasn't dead from the way Pikachu woke Ash up every morning. By now, (he had gone through testing), just from the amount of exposure, he was IMMUNE to electricity. Fire as well, for short periods of time, because of his experience with Charizard.
So, I was forced to sleep, in these same clothes, without any protection. Meanwhile, enjoying what I assumed was my luxuriously comfortable sleeping bag, was a tiny yellow lump. The injustice made me want to bare my teeth and snarl, but unlike my recalcitrant electric "friend", I had self control.
I hate to gloss over these early days so quickly, but none of them differed spectacularly from the first. There was shocking, lots of it in fact. There was a general sense of being completely lost, which we were. There was a lot of apples, thankfully, or else I would not have survived.
Well, until I met Claudia.
I spied her through the dappled sunlight, seeing an extra shadow. I ran over, this time, to say hello nervously. She was a lot older than me, try twenty three or so. She had this beautiful long strawberry blonde hair, and a tan that gleamed. Her eyes were blocked by black sunglasses with the insignia of a red 'R' emblazoned on them.
"Oh, are you lost?" She asked, before I could even say hello. I nodded silently. "Well, that can be fixed. I'm Claudia Pense. How long have you been training for?"
"Well, not very long; less than a week, in fact." I left out the fact that I didn't want to, that I had just woken up here with only a note and some stuff.
"Where are you from?"
"Pallet Town," I said.
"My goodness! What are you doing all the way in Sinnoh?"
My eyes widened. I'm in SINNOH? "Umm, it's a long story."
"Honey," she said, "I have all the time in the world."
"Well, my father really wanted me to train, right? So he dropped me in the woods, I don't know where, and I don't have a map, and my only Pokemon is a Pichu."
"Wow, tough luck. Who's your father, Lance?" She laughed a bit.
"We're from Hoenn, we went on a Pokemon-training honeymoon in Sinnoh. We'll be going back to Hoenn soon, you can come back with us."
"Can you afford it?" I asked guardedly. "I mean, I would love to. My dad said that if I found my way home, he'd allow me to stop training."
"Yeah, then you'll NEED it. Sinnoh is an island continent, which doesn't connect up to Hoenn, which doesn't connect up to Johto, which DOES connect up to Kanto."
"Oh." I said.
"Yeah. I can afford it, really. Linus, my husband, has recently come into some money."
"And you must have come into some Pokemon, too!" I joked, staring at her Pokeballs.
"Yes, that too. Would you like to see?"
"Sure!" I said happily.
"Go, Castform!" The weather Pokemon, just a purple blob, emerged. The day's weather was so unremarkable that it was just in its normal form, not its weather specific ones.
"Go, Creeper!" An Ariados, a spider Pokemon native to Johto, emerged. I was surprised that such out-of-region Pokemon were to be found in the far-off land of Sinnoh.
"Go, Vespiquen!" Finally, a Pokemon from Sinnoh- one I had never seen before, actually. It looked like a bee wearing a dress, and it was bigger than a Beedrill.
"And, here's the one I'm proudest of," she confided. "Go, Stamp!" What emerged was a Lairon, a Rock/Steel combo. It stared at me and stamped its foot on the ground.
"How did you and Linus have enough time to get such good Pokemon?"
"Well, Linus has inherited some money, and the company where he worked was so kind as to give him a year off."
"That's neat."
"Hmm, actually, I have an idea. We could wait a week for the next boat, and you can take our tickets!"
"Umm, thanks, are you sure?"
"Positive!" Claudia beamed happily. "And when you come to two redwood tree stumps about as tall as you, follow an imaginary path right between them straight for three miles. Then, turn to the left and walk until you reach the signs. That should bring you to the Pokemon Center. The harbor is right near it!"
"Thanks!" I paused, and, without a second thought, gave Claudia a hug.
She hugged me back, and grinned. I was no longer lost, at least. Now I just had to get home and control the Pichu.