Chapter 2: Down the road I walk...…

Halfway down the road ash released his charmander, the small pokemon reached a little over Ash's knee. It looked near about a month old, being at its infant stage so it was quite trusting as Ash patted its head. The flame on its tail shone brightly as it made happy noises as Ash scratched its head, Ash sighed and smile at his starter "Someday you are gonna be the strongest charizard so I have to find a suitable name for you. But we have time, after all I can't start my journey with only $700 can I? In two months we can start our journey hopefully". "Now hold still let me scan you." Said Ash as he brought out his ultradex and pressing the scan option.

"Charmander the flame pokemon, the tip of its tail burns brightly representing its health and lifeforce. If the tail flame is extinguished it signifies death of the charmander, if a charmander is healthy its tail flame can burn brightly even after being doused in water. This charmander is male and knows moves like Scratch, Ember, Smokescreen, Growl and Dragon Dance*. ( '*' This symbol indicates an egg move. Egg moves are inherited from the parent and can be learnt by the infants easily through evolution.) This charmander is at level 3 and has the ability Blaze. It's a fire type pokemon.

Ps :- Please note the move Dragon Dance has not been learnt yet."

"Well it's a good thing we can't start our journey now in a way you need time to grow stronger to be able to face the dangers on the way" said ash.
The Kanto region was huge, it was not possible for the league government or the police force to be everywhere. Except the towns and cities with gyms most of the other places were lawless, deaths by pokemon and through murder by another human for money and pokemon was a common occurance. The each gym leaders first priority was making sure habitats of pokemon in their area stayed intact and to maintain the balance of the number of pokemon found there, thus making sure there was no boom in population nor endangerment of the said pokemon in the area through excessive captures or hunting.

After all every pokemon was important to the ecological system also at the same time very useful in some industry in some way or the other.

The gym leader and his crew also acted as the reserve police force for their towns or cities, incase the police department is short on hands or needs help in a particular dangerous situation like a extremely powerful pokemon attacking the citizens or taking down a large crime syndicate.

"Lets go home I am sure mom would have some meat for you to have." Said ash while returning charmander to his pokeball. Charmander was a predator that depended on flesh of other pokemon for a living. It would be expensive at first to feed a pokemon like that, atleast until it was strong enough to Hunt its own food but the benefit of having a power house like a charizard the final evolution of charmander was worth the extra money ash would have to shell out.

Also there was the option of feeding it any water pokemon that he caught, thus making it a little easier on his funds.
After Ash saw Delia waiting for him on the porch, "Hey, mom I am back. Guess what I got my starter pokemon and license." said ash in childish excitement. His mother was the only person nowadays who would be able to see this side of her son. For everyone else's the hardworking, realistic and mature for his age teen was the only game face that ash showed, the only other exception had been Carl Smith the old man who taught ash to fish but the man who treated ash as his own Grandson has passed away about a year back.

"Welcome back Ash, which pokemon did you get?" asked Delia eager to know about hers sons first official pokemon.

"I selected charmander to be my starter" releasing the pokemon for his mother to see.

"It's so cute; I thought the starters given out were at least a few months old? This one looks small enough to barely be a month old." Said Delia as she patted the happy charmander.

"I thought so too; maybe this was the only charmander the professor had at the moment. In any case I would like to take a month or two train him and wait for him to grow up a bit before starting my journey. I expect to be able to catch a few local pokemon during this time, I guess." Informed ash avoiding the matter of not having enough funds so as to not make his mother feel guilty for not being able to provide.
Delia being happy hearing the news that she would be able to spend some more time with her son at their home and spoke with a smile on her face, "Well then why don't you go and freshen up, while I go fix you and charmander something to eat." While going towards the kitchen to fix them some breakfast.

As Delia left, ash returned charmander to his pokeball, who was busy nuzzling Ash's leg and walked towards his bedroom which held the aquarium that contained Asur. Once there he saw Asur in his water tank, in all this time Asur has grown really well it was four times the size of a normal Magikarp now due to Ash mixing pieces oran & pecha berries in it food. The tank now barely had space for it to move around.
During this time Asur had undergone extensive strength training making its muscles extremely powerful. But, it only knew four moves and it was still useless in battle no matter the strength and stamina earned through training, it was only a matter of time though any day now Asur would evolve. This was another reason it could not stay in the tank anymore, if it evolved inside the house their home would be destroy by its sheer size. Now that he was a trainer he would be able to capture Asur in a pokeball of its own, thus solving the problem. Asur was like a loyal pet and best friend to Ash for all these years, not being able to share all his problems with his mom the magikarp became the silent listener to all of the boy's problems, the co-conspirator for the boy's ambitions and dreams. It was Ash's promise to make him the strongest gyrados alive in return it was Asur's silent promise to be there at his master's side always no matter what. But, there was always the possibility for disobedience upon evolution which was dangerous for him and anyone nearby, naturally ash had no intention of being near his house or his mother when that happened.

"Hey buddy, how are you today? Guess what I got my license today we are going to starting our journey soon." Said Ash as the magikarp flailed happily. "Now, this is a pokeball. I am going to capture you in this so we can travel together easily." informed ash as he pressed the button on one of the five pokeballs he got from the professor and gently touched it across Asur's head by inserting his hand inside the tank, Asur got sucked inside the ball. Ash scanned the ball with his ultradex to make sure he was aware of the basic information on Asur.

"Magikarp the fish pokemon, It is believed that the ancestors of Magikarp were actually much stronger than modern Magikarp. It is not a strong swimmer, and currents in the water will sweep it downstream. It is normally seen using its formersignature move,Splash, to leap out of the water, which makes them easy targets to predators such asPidgeot. This magikarp is male and is at level 16, it has the ability Swiftswim. It knows the moveset Tackle, flail, splash & bounce. This is a water type pokemon.

Ps:- Please note that due to its unique coloration this pokemon is a shiny and has the possibility to be 0.5 to 5 times stronger than its normal counterparts."

The next two months was the most disciplined and scheduled time in Ash's life, having completed his 10th standard education three months back and being finished with schooling for the rest of his life if he had anything to say about it, ash had a lot of time in his hand. Between working at the Oak ranch in the early mornings and fishing in the evenings he spent the rest of the day train his pokemon and staying fit by doing exercises and running to increase his stamina. After travelling the whole day through perilous paths exhaustion would take its toll on his body so he preferred to be as prepared as possible for the future journey.

Other than Asur reaching level 19 and Charmander reaching level 12 while learning Metal claw and dig, the most notable occurrence was catching a level 18 pidgeotto with the help of charmander. The catch was made with just a week before the two months were up and the entire episode was of pure luck. Even though hundreds of pidgey were found in pallet pidgeottos were rare being lot more aggressive than pidgey upon evolution they mostly stayed in the forest. While training near the edge of the town Ash luckily spotted the beautiful creature eating something while being on the ground. With a clever strategy on ash's part, charmander utilizing its recently learnt moves dug its way underneath the pidgeotto taking it by surprise and delivered a metal claw to its head knocking its much stronger opponent out with a single blow, making it an easy capture.

-Flash back-

The basic information Ash's ultradex provided on the most recent member of his team upon scanning.

"Pidgeotto, the evolved form of pidgey is a raptor-like avian Pokémon. Pidgeotto is a powerful flier capable of carrying prey several miles to its nest. Pidgeotto has an amazing vision that it using to locate prey on Pokémon such as ExeggcuteandMagikarp. This pidgeotto is a female of level 18 and knows the move set Gust, Tackle, Sand attack, Whirlwind, Quick attack, Feather dance and Steel wing* and has the ability Keen Eye. This is a dual-type Normal/Flying pokemon."

'Well the pidgeotto being a level 18 suggests that it must have evolved very recently, most probably from a few hours to a few days at maximum. It would be very useful to have a pure flying type in the team, not only for battles but also on cutting short the time to travel when required once it evolved to its final stage. Plus this pokemon already knew a lot of attacks and had the potential to learn a variety of moves with the right training. It seemed luck was starting to shine on ash, small may the ray of lady luck be it was atleast a start.'

-Flash back ends-

The last week Ash concentrated mainly on pidgeotto applying the same weighted training method he has been using on Draco his charmander and Asur, he decided on the namr Draco keeping in mind a charizards similarity to a dragon. While he gave off individual tasks and exercises to Draco and Asur to complete He would try to establish a bond with his newest capture, taming the pidgeotto was quite easy, it was an intelligent creature and offering of food would cement its trust. It was wary of ash at first but settled down nicely after being given some meat and being petted on its crest feathers. During this week ash would attach weights on the pidgeotto's wings and feet making it fly around and perform complex aerial acrobatics as well as making her run on the ground to improve her mobility on the ground in case she got too injured to fly during a battle.

For his team ash wanted to catch certain pokemon, he did not believe in catching everything that came his way. Growing up working in the ranch ash knew certain pokemon had more potential than others no matter how much training a raticate went through an arcanine would always be stronger than it. Ash only wanted the strongest and the best, after all he was aiming for the top.

The problem was only six months remained in the Indigo League championship and it was not enough time for ash to train as well as assemble a strong team at the same time, while being on the path of collecting the gym badges. So, with careful thinking ash decided to compete in the league next year, all gym badges were valid till two years of winning them but were of one tym use. Meaning they could only be used once to enter the Indigo league, after that if one wanted to take part in the league again they had to redo the gym challenge. But money was the main problem, only way of sustaining his journey was defeating as many trainers as he was able to, whom he would meet on the way and claiming the prize money to fund his journey. Generally normal agreement of a battle was sharing ten percent of the money or credit the trainer had in his pokedex a/c with the winner or betting a certain amount of money with the winner takes all strategy. Similarly gyms would take a certain fees to accept your challenge if you won you would get triple the amount of the fees and the amount placed on a bet if any.

'I would need to win all the badges and make as much money as possible within six months to be able to afford a journey to the other regions to be able to catch a lot of powerful pokemon and return before the next to next league challenge' thought ash.

So at the end of the journey he was able to save another $1200 making his saving $1900, he used 500 dollars to busy poison heals, paralyse heal & two full restores, along with 5 normal pokeballs, 5 great ball & 20 trade balls. Trade balls were totally brown colored pokeballs' that could be bought at a cheap rate, while the rest of the pokeballs would be teleported to professor Oak's lab after his sixth capture any pokemon captured in the trade balls would remain with him. Any pokemon caught in a trade ball were solely for the purpose of selling or trading, pokemon caught in a trade ball was not allowed to battle as per league rules.

So the day before going on his journey ash bid Jake and the rest of the familiar crew at the ranch his final farewell.

On January 9th 2006 early in the morning, saying goodbye to his mom and taking her blessings ash started on his journey along with his partners Asur, Draco & pidgeotto in search of the immortal journey that would become a legend and forever find a place in the pages of history.

Please leave a review and suggestions of pokemon that ash might catch.