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: Another long chapter, I guess that will be de rigueur from now on, although some of my chapters will be shorter than others. This is also full of content, although no battles yet. I guess that makes this less cliché, which isn't a bad thing.
…
The next day I awoke, I was as surprised to find myself on a boat as I was to find a cuddly purple rat curled up in my arms. Then, I remembered, looked around, and found Lavender gone. Maestro licked my face, and woke slowly, and I hugged him close and stroked his ears.
I walked into what was technically my room, and found Pichu a little ball curled up on top of my sleeping bag. It looked very adorable when it was asleep and all the hatred had left its face, although I knew implicitly that if I told it that, it might shock me until I could no longer stand.
Maestro ground his teeth together in laughter, and I patted the top of his head.
There was a knock on my door, and I opened it up, expecting to see Lavender. Instead, Peter was outside.
"Can I come in?" I nodded, and sat on the bed in Lavender's part of the honeymoon suite. He sat down to. I stared at him. I knew that I should be mad at him for conniving poor Lavender out of a Shiny Dratini, but my heart thumped faster when he sat right next to me. That coffee colored hair stuck up in the oddest places, and his blindingly ice blue eyes, staring piercingly at me in a way that made my spine tingle.
The words out of his mouth were equally unexpected and pleasant.
"I kind of feel bad about what I did to Lavender. You know?" I nodded.
"Why don't you just trade back, though?" I had to ask.
"I don't know…" He trailed off. "I mean, Pokemon training is harder for me than for other people. Just this once, I want a leg up. You know?"
I nodded. I knew exactly how he felt.
"Training isn't easy for me either. I mean, given my dad, I'm expected to do really good, but it's not easy. I have a Rattata," at this Maestro jumped onto the bed and licked my face, "and a Pichu who hates me."
"What did you say about your dad?" He asked interestedly. Oh yeah. I hadn't told him I was Ash's daughter.
"Forget it."
"And I still don't know your name."
Thankfully, Lavender walked in that very moment.
"Hey!" She said. I was grateful she didn't call me by my name (how many 'Twigs' are there anyways?), but maybe it was because she couldn't remember it (I wouldn't put that past her). She wore a lavender sweatband and was in a lavender jogging suit. She had six Pokeballs, (the white parts of which were colored lavender with a sharpie) attached to her lavender belt. She was sweating a lot, as well, but it beaded up on her face adorably, and of course she didn't smell.
"I just went for a run around the boat!"
"Hey, Lavender, could I see some of your Pokemon?" I asked, hoping that Peter would back me up on this.
"There's a school of Luvdisc! Do you want to go see, Peter?" She asked quickly. Hearing there were new Pokemon to be found, he forgot what I had just said.
"Sure!" He ran out of there with Lavender. Maestro looked up at me with his intelligent red eyes, and I sighed.
"Yes, I like him. He's annoying, conceited, and everything, but he's really cute." Maestro rolled his eyes and squeaked full of amusement.
"What the hell do you do for fun on a ship anyways?" I wondered to myself.
I pulled out my backpack from my side of the room, and I found my Pokedex, and looked up Luvdisc. The Pokedex intoned,
Luvdisc, the Rendezvous Pokémon. During the spawning season, countless Luvdisc congregate at coral reefs, turning the waters pink. Its heart-shaped body is a symbol of love and romance. It is said that any couple meeting a Luvdisc is promised a loving relationship that never ends. It lives in shallow seas in the tropics.
All of a sudden, I thought to myself, "That little minx! She's just trying to get him to see the Luvdisc so he'll fall in love with her!"
I scooped up Maestro, said a hurried goodbye to Pichu, brushed my hair and teeth with lightning speed, and ran out to the front deck of the boat. I saw Lavender kissing Peter. It was a chaste, closed-lips kiss, but still, it made me really mad. Maestro squeaked in sympathy, and climbed lightly up my clothes onto my shoulder. He fit comfortably.
"Hey, that's cool," I said to my new right-hand rat. Or right-shoulder rat. He ground his teeth happily and licked my ear, which tickled enormously. I jumped. Peter and Lavender saw me. Peter looked alarmingly casual about it, but Lavender jumped as well, and blushed scarlet.
Peter held hands, and gave a disturbingly tender look to Lavender. "Hey, babe, I love you so much, okay?" Lavender nodded, but just stared at me, scared.
I tried to maintain my composure. I mean, she was way too stupid to figure out that I liked Peter. Still, though, you know? It pissed me off.
I looked into the murky brown waters, and had a strong urge to shove her in. Then, I saw the head of a fish Pokemon who looked a bit like Swiss cheese, brownish yellow and porous, staring at me.
Maestro stared at it. I knew in a sudden second that I wanted to catch it. I nodded to Maestro, and he ran over to get Pichu. Pichu could shock the fish, I could throw the ball.
Peter walked over to me, as Lavender ran away.
"Do you have any idea how happy I am?" He asked. "I mean, man, I was just staring at those fish and it hit me. She's the one. She's so perfect. I love everything about her. I love that hair of hers…"
Pichu came and shocked Peter. He still sounded stoned, but he looked a bit more aware. I could have hugged Pichu.
"Pichu, could you please do me a favor?" I wheedled. It stared at me as though to say, 'go ahead, make my day.'
"Please just thundershock that fish there, you know, the one that looks like Swiss cheese?" Pichu stifled back a snort. "Come on, please? You know if I get a combative Pokemon I won't have to rely on you. Remember how I said that once I catch some good Pokemon you can go? Just this fish, and freedom is yours," I wheedled.
It rolled its eyes, and directed its lightest thundershock towards the fish. Since the fish was covered in water, it was greatly magnified, so it was right to do only a small one. I instantly threw the Pokeball, and given how injured it was, it clicked instantly, before flying back up to me. I thanked Pichu, but Pichu was silent and unresponsive. Maestro licked me in excitement.
"I'll train you up a bit, Maestro," I explained. "But Rattata like are literally the weakest Pokemon other than Caterpie and Weedle, and even those bugs evolve into something stronger than a Raticate. I still love you, obviously. I would even if you were a Magikarp" And I did love him, the way I'd love my brother. Maestro nodded, and squeaked, as though to say 'you too.' I now realized that Ash felt this way about Pikachu. But, he let Pikachu fight dangerous Pokemon, and do things that could get him killed. Why the hell would I let Maestro ever do anything dangerous?
I went back to my room, and headed straight into the shared bathroom, and filled the bathtub as quickly as I could. I stopped it and ran to the on-board Pokemon center. The Pokeball was popped in the machine, and it was healed.
I ran back to the gigantic bathtub, and released the healed Pokemon. It had a black eye ring and pink, almost humanlike lips. It stared at me rather vacantly. I really wanted to tell somebody about it, but not Lavender. She didn't deserve to hear it.
However, she appeared in the doorway anyways. "Wow, a Feebas!" She said. "They're the only Pokemon who evolve by maxing out their beauty points in a contest! They evolve into a Milotic. They're so pretty, one of my favorite Pokemon."
I grunted at her, as I really didn't care.
"Umm, would you be interested in a trade?" She asked quietly, playing with her fingers in a way I would have found adorable was I not pissed at her for totally stealing Peter.
Just because of how annoyed I was at her, I was inclined to say no. Then I looked up the attacks that a Feebas could learn until it evolved on my Pokedex. It could learn Splash, Tackle, and Flail. How could I use it as a competitive Pokemon? If a wild Pokemon attacked me, I couldn't depend on Pichu to fight, and Maestro would be too weak. Swallowing my dislike, I said,
"What Pokemon would you give me in exchange?"
"Would you like Kricketune?" She asked hesitantly, knowing how I felt about her owning the creature.
I thought about it for a minute. The Kricketune, although his stats wouldn't be great, would still probably know a couple of advanced attacks. Looking at my Pokedex, I saw that it would have to at least be level 10, so it might know a good attack or two. I checked the description.
It crosses its knifelike arms in front of its chest when it cries. It can compose melodies ad lib. It signals its emotions with its melodies. Scientists are studying these melodic patterns.
"Alright," I said with a sigh. "On one condition. If you can get the Feebas to evolve, we trade back, alright?" I asked, even though Milotic was one of her favorite Pokemon; she could do the hard work, I could reap the benefits.
Lavender sighed and nodded, and gave me a hug. "Thank you so much!" She squeaked. She handed me Cricketune's Pokeball.
I stared apologetically at the Feebas.
"You probably wouldn't want me to train you anyways. See, I wouldn't be able to evolve you, and clearly if you evolve by beauty maxed out, you want to be beautiful, and therefore want to do contests, which I don't do. I'm sorry," I said, not particularly regretfully.
The fish stared vacantly, and I recalled it, and handed the Pokeball to Lavender. We each recorded the trade in our Pokedex.
I went back to my side of the room, with Maestro on my shoulder.
Pichu glared at me, and sat on the loveseat with its tail pointed, as though daring me to sit down.
I just sat in a small chair, and released the Kricketune. It was three feet tall, and had a long mustache, which was a sign that it was male, according to the Pokedex. He also had useless wings he couldn't really fly with. He warbled an uncertain hello.
"You've been traded around a lot, but you won't be for a while. I won't lie and say that I will never trade you at all, because that I might, and in fact I probably will, but not for a long time. The Rattata is Maestro, and he's not really a battling Pokemon. Neither is Pichu, here." Pichu glared furiously at me and shocked me. I stood my ground, but just barely. I smiled; I was getting better. The Kricketune whistled something that had the human tone of "Oh, dearie me."
"So I'll need your
help in terms of being my main battling Pokemon until I can get a
Pokemon more suited to fighting. Also, do you want a name?"
The
Kricketune shrugged. "Well, Maestro is named for a conductor, so
why not call you something musical as well? I mean, you like music,
right?" The Kricketune nodded eagerly.
"So I thought. You know I used to play the violin, but it didn't go too well."
He trilled uncertainly. It occurred to me that a wild Sinnoh bug might not know the finer points of human orchestral music.
"Oh, humans who don't want to use their voices to make music make instruments, or wood and metal things that make a different kind of music. I'll make it a point to show you sometime." He eagerly nodded, once again.
"I think I might call you Chopin," I said. "He was someone who invented his own tunes on something called a piano, which has like 80 different notes." The Kricketune's eyes widened, probably at the thought of having so many notes with which to sing.
"Once again, I'll be happy to show you a piano and stuff, but you'll need to battle for me. I'm not just saying this selfishly, I also really don't want to have anything happen to Maestro or Pichu."
Pichu looked up, grumbled, and resumed thinking about whatever it was thinking.
Lavender poked her head in, and exclaimed, "I named it Ecru! Is that okay?"
I nodded with a roll of my eyes. Ecru was, if I recalled, a shade reserved for fancy tablecloths, not a Pokemon that resembled a Swiss Cheese with fins.
I told her that much.
"It's for once it evolves, silly!" She squeaked the word 'evolved', and clutched her hands together, smiling cutely, eyes closed. It occurred to me that I'd have the Feebas once it had evolved, and I'd have to deal with it being named after a color of luxury wallpaper.
Chopin warbled something to Maestro, who sneezed in a way that was so much more adorable than anything anyone but Lavender could do. I gestured to Maestro, and he hopped onto my lap. His whiskers tickled my nose as he squeaked affectionately. Chopin crossed his knife-ish arms in front of him and warbled a strangely exultant tune.
I still was very unhappy about being uprooted from my family and my friends. However, Maestro was cool. But I still doubted he was worth the fear I got when I woke up, or the knowledge that I was a thousand miles away from home with the Earth equivalent of twenty dollars, and that it was the fault of my father. Just thinking about how I was alienated from my friends made me the angriest.
I couldn't believe I had forgotten about my friends, that huge part of my life! Maestro was neat, but my friends were my LIFE. I had only three really good friends, but they were extremely important to me. One of them didn't really know the others; I hadn't talked physically to Benny since I was eight.
Benny is Brock's youngest brother, and shows as little interest in Pokemon as I did. He is now 22, and I'm 13. I guess some people would find that creepy, but he doesn't make friends very easily. He's into art, and unlike just about all artists, he doesn't like drawing the varied and majestic forms of Pokemon. The simple, weak human form captivates him. I still had the picture he drew of me a week before he left to study art under Tracy Sketchit. I had written him extensively, though, and we were basically pen pals.
I didn't even have that drawing anymore! I realized that it was now thousands of miles away. He could see, unlike the rest of Brock's family, because he didn't have Optical Precancerous Myopia. In other words, unlike the rest of his family's rare condition, Benny was born with visible eyes. They were naturally a mucky brown color, but his red contacts made him look vaguely demonic. I knew better, though. He was a socially awkward sweetie, very quiet, very caring.
However, if I called him, I mused, he'd probably be so surprised that he'd die of shock. Then again, I could always call Jacqueline, May's daughter, my best female friend. The daughter of the Champion Co-ordinator is similar to me in that she doesn't like the same things as her famous parent. On the other hand, though, she wants to be a Pokemon Breeder. At least what she wanted to do involved Pokemon, May had reasoned about her daughter. So, Jacqueline was living at Brock's Breeding Boutique. She is a bit of a Goth (that is an understatement), which May also doesn't like. When she was 10, just to get some powerful Pokemon to start her breeding stock, she did go on a one-year super quick Training journey. Maybe I could turn to her for advice on how to survive the journey I'd been forced upon.
However, there was someone, the person I knew the best in the entire world. Paulo Oak, son of Professor Gary, my father's rival. Dad probably thought that I wouldn't like him because he didn't like Gary, but he's like my friend soulmate.
Paulo even LOOKS like me! He has this floppy brown hair, and enigmatic dark eyes. We often get mistaken for brother and sister. And we do know each other extremely well, so that doesn't do much to disprove the theory. He's quiet, not nearly as much as Benny, but still quiet. Once he gets to know you, however, he can like blow you over. He's really funny, because he is sarcastic beyond belief, but has a serious sounding voice.
I was startled out of my reverie by the sound of Pichu angrily zapping Maestro. I reached in and grabbed him, smelling the acrid scent of zapped fur.
"What'd you do that for, Pichu?" Pichu stubbornly glared at me, and pointed its tail towards me.
"Do you need to shock me every second of the day?" The Pikachu nodded. Chopin, meanwhile, shook his head, clicking his tongue, perhaps wondering what he had gotten himself into. I smiled nervously at Chopin, really trying to convey my sanity, which he probably questioned because that I owned Pichu.
"Umm, guys, I'm going to use the phone to talk to a couple of friends back home. Do any of you want to come with me and see what they look like?"
Maestro nodded, and scurried up to my shoulder, and pushed his cold nose into my ear, making me laugh. Chopin warbled something that had the human tone of voice 'Sure, why not?' (I was glad that he could use tones so much better than other Pokemon, because his voice actually had the musical cadences of the human voice, so I could infer more from his tone than I could from my other Pokemon) Pichu glared, and sat down, crossing its diminutive arms over its tiny chest.
"Okay then!" I said happily, secretly relieved that the little monster wasn't coming along. Chopin walked alongside me, keeping up rather well given that he wasn't more than three feet tall. He hummed a deep bass note that sent tingles down my spine.
I smiled at him, and rubbed Maestro's ears as I walked over to the phones, on the third deck.
Chopin hummed something that sounded suspiciously familiar to the theme of 'Titanic' as we walked right up against the rails, watching the waves. I glanced at him sharply, wondering how a wild Pokemon would be acquainted with chick flick music, and he trailed off mid-note. Maestro ground his teeth in amusement, until he saw my look.
I settled down in front of a video telephone screen, and typed in the number of Brock's Breeding Boutique.
"You've reached the triple B," Brock himself said, with a five o clock shadow, even though it was late at least eleven o clock in the morning.
"Is Jacqueline there?"
"Twig, is that you? It's so dark, I can't tell! I'll get her for you!"
Jacqueline came in a second; cradling a small Poochyena puppy in her arms, bottle feeding it as she spoke.
"Hey, Twig! Where've you been? I tried to call your house twice, but your dad said you were out?" She added a questioning tone to the end of most of her sentences. I personally viewed it as very endearing, how unsure she was, despite her punk Goth look.
I told her how I had woken up in Sinnoh, away from friends and family, with only a Pichu for companion.
"Your dad started you off with a baby Pokemon?" She asked, wincing slightly. "That's tough." She said matter-of-factly, but with some sympathy thrown in on the side. The puppy sucked on the nipple of the bottle and wagged his tail happily. Her mascara-rimmed dark eyes turned towards him, and she started baby talking to it, while making sure her spiked bracelet didn't hit the innocent puppy.
She was SUCH a contradiction of terms.
"But yeah, did you get any good Pokemon?"
I gestured to the Rattata on my shoulder, as if to say 'duh.'
"It looks like a normal Rattata," she said doubtfully, "but I'm sure it has a great personality!" She added a bit uncertainly.
Chopin stepped out from behind and waved a hello.
"Is that a Sinnoh Pokemon? It looks like a cricket!" Chopin nodded, and warbled happily.
"So where's the baby Pokemon you started with?" Just on cue, I felt electricity coursing through me, Maestro, and Chopin. Chopin responded with an offended tweet, and he walked out, presumably back to the room. Pichu began squeaking, waving its arms, looking towards the door uncertainly. At this Maestro jumped off of my shoulder, and began to run away as quickly as he could.
When I didn't understand it, it became angry, and gave me an even more painful shocking.
Jacqueline laughed, but her image flickered, and then disappeared in an explosion of static. The video screen emitted a curl of smoke. I glared at Pichu.
"Way to short out my connection, baby genius." I said with an unhappy, sarcastic sigh. Pichu rolled its eyes, and beckoned for me to follow. It then began to run in a tottery, short sort of way, and I followed it.