A/N thanks to everyone who has reviewed, or read this, it means a LOT to me that you would take the time to read this.

Reviews

Nauran- thanks for the honesty and for the tips, I will probably go back later to edit my earlier chapters, when I feel I can do it effectively.

Disclaimer – I don't own Pokémon, which should be obvious

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'Insert words here' thinking

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Ch 2 introductions and a helping hand

We've all had those mornings where getting up sucks Well this was one of those mornings for ash, though not really by choice. When he first attempted to get up he immediately regretted it, since the pain in his sides and in the arm he tried to push himself up with made him cry out in pain and fall back down onto the sleeping bag he was on,

'Sleeping bag?' ash thought to himself, he didn't have a clue where he was or what had happened since he passed out. Deciding to settle for looking around he noticed that he was inside a camping tent, a fairly big one too since it looked like it could fit 2 people maybe three if you tried.

"Good to see you're awake" spoke a voice that broke ash from his thoughts. Turning to the entrance to the tent he saw a girl that looked a little older than him, about 12 or 13. She had long blonde hair that reached the middle of her bag with one bang covering her left eye, with two bangs going down a little past her chin. Her clothing consisted of a black coat opened in the middle except for one button; with the coat itself reaching a bit lower than her knees.

She wore a plain black tank top underneath the coat. For pants she wore black jeans that hugged her legs to keep from getting in the way when walking. On her she wore a pair of shoes that kind of looked the high heels that he'd seen his mom wear when she went out sometimes.

Ash noticed that she had a slightly worried look in her eyes, which he noticed were a fairly deep blue. Ash looked at himself and remembered everything that he had gone through yesterday (though he didn't know just how long he'd been out for) when he was reminded of something. "Excuse me …" he started since he was hoping to know the name of the girl who had obviously helped him.

"Cynthia" the blonde girl replied with a bit of a smile on her face at his politeness when asking. "Cynthia, have you by any chance seen the Pikachu that was with me?" ash finished his question. "well I took care of his injuries after tending to yours as best I could" Cynthia said, "Pikachu is fine, just needing some rest, like you". "I see thanks" ash said gratefully, after all he had been taught by his mother that when someone helps you, you should thank them for it.

"by the way I'm ash Ketchum, from pallet town" ash introduced himself, "it's nice to meet you ash, I hope you don't mind but I saw your pokédex when I was patching you up yesterday" Cynthia said in a slightly more cautious tone. "Ok but why would I mind that?" was ash's confused reply as he had no idea what was so significant about his pokédex,

Cynthia had to keep her mouth from dropping open in disbelief; surely he'd known that his pokédex was the only means to prove who he is. "You do realize that it's important right?" Cynthia asked to see what he knew about being a trainer since he was clearly just starting out.

"well to be honest I thought it was just for scanning Pokémon, but you make it sound like it's a lot more important than that." Ash said in a somewhat nervous tone. Cynthia was more than a little surprised by this. After all he should have known about the importance of things like this, since it was the resident professor's job to inform the rookie trainers of important things like this.

"Ash" she began with a slight edge to her voice, which made ash more nervous about what the problem might be "the pokédex is the only form of id you have as a trainer, and if you lose it you can't get another one" she said angrily. Truthfully she wasn't angry at ash so much as how unprepared he was if this was any indication. Calming herself down after seeing ash start to sweat a bit, she decided to figure out just how much he actually knew.

"Ash can you tell me just what you actually know about being a Pokémon trainer?" she asked in an even tone of voice, though ash could tell that she sounded really frustrated about something, though he didn't know what. "well I know that we capture wild Pokémon by battling them and then we are supposed to train them to become stronger" ash tried to make it sound like it was more than it was, since he knew that he didn't know a lot, but that was the case for a lot of rookie trainers right?

Looking at Cynthia set off an alarm in his head, had he said something wrong? She seemed to be about ready to lose her temper again. "Ash did you study at all before your journey started?" Cynthia asked hoping to find at least something to keep her from getting angry again. "Uh… no" ash said as he kept trying to find out what the problem was. "Cynthia is there a problem?" he asked hoping that he could somehow calm her down to figure out what he did wrong.

"Ash do you realize that you are completely unprepared for your journey" Cynthia stated more than asked. Ash was slightly offended by this, but after yesterday he couldn't really find any argument that would make sense. He had been stupid to think that he would just get through everything without effort. Thinking back to his time growing up with Gary, he realized that while he was mean and rude to him that Gary was actually preparing for is journey.

Where ash would play games and just waste time, Gary would study and learn about Pokémon and how to train them. He was nowhere near prepared and he didn't even acknowledge it until after the events yesterday that nearly got him killed.

Cynthia noticed ash had gone quiet at her statement, and after a few minutes began to get a little worried about how he might have taken the criticism. 'I wonder if I was too harsh' she thought too herself, "ash" she asked to get his attention.

"I actually didn't realize that until yesterday" ash said when he finally decided to speak, Cynthia was honestly surprised by his acceptance of such a short coming. "I actually could have avoided everything that happened yesterday if I had thought to take this a bit more seriously" ash said in a resigned voice.

"so what exactly did happen yesterday? I just found you washed up on the river bank when I was going to collect water." Cynthia asked hoping to finally figure out what happened to ash. With a slightly sad look, ash started telling her about everything that happened yesterday, her face slowly became more and more horrified by thoughts that she couldn't stop of just how bad things could have ended.

Neither spoke for a few moments, finally Cynthia broke the silence "well I have to agree" she said softly, ash looked confused until he remembered his statement before his story, "yeah I kinda understand why Pikachu didn't want to listen to me" he said sadly. Cynthia looked at ash and decided to help him out, "well I can tell you and Pikachu won't be able to move for a little while, so if you want I could help you catch up on what you need to know about Pokémon." She offered kindly.

"I'd be really grateful if you would" ash said appreciatively, at that moment ash's stomach growled, which made him blush while Cynthia laughed. "I forgot that you haven't eaten since yesterday" she said while she went to get some of the leftover food she had made for breakfast.

Later….

Cynthia sat, slightly shocked by the poor table manner's that ash was showing while eating, while silently praying it wasn't the norm for him. "Thank you for the food" ash said after he had finished eating. Both of them settled into a somewhat awkward silence, neither knowing how to talk to the other since they had only just met.

"So where are you from Cynthia?" ash inquired, deciding to break the silence. "well I'm from celestic town, in the sinnoh region." Cynthia responded fondly when she remembered her home town. Ash racked his brain, but for the life of him couldn't remember anything about sinnoh, Cynthia picked up on this and said "you don't know anything about sinnoh do you?"

"h-how can you tell?" ash stuttered slightly, "well the look on your face kind of gave you away" he turned a little red in embarrassment. "Well If I didn't study about Pokémon, then why would I have studied the regions?" ash asked lowly, once again kicking himself for his stupidity. "No need to be so down about it ash." Cynthia said, hoping that she could get him off his current train of thought.

He really was reminding her of the recent revelation she had gone through after she was crushed by the sinnoh champion about a month ago. 'if I hadn't gotten that wake-up call, I might not even have been here, and if that were the case….' Her thoughts trailed off, she shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts.

"So what could you tell me about the sinnoh region?" ash asked, bringing her back into the conversation, and thankfully away from thoughts of "what if". "Well" she started, thinking about where to start about her home, "The sinnoh region is located north of kanto, so it has a lot of different Pokémon there that you couldn't find around here." Thinking about the region itself she was reminded of her own journey through sinnoh.

"there is a lot to see around sinnoh, I'm sure I still haven't seen everything there." ash looked particularly excited at the idea of seeing the place someday, this made Cynthia smile at his enthusiasm." probably the thing that sinnoh is most known for would be mt. coronet, since it divides the entire region in half." Ash thought deeply about everything he was learning, 'and if I ever went there, I might have just went in without knowing anything and gotten lost or something' he thought as he figured that meeting Cynthia, while not under the best of circumstance, was probably the best thing for him as a trainer.

"So what exactly do you think I should know about being a trainer?" he asked, thinking back to the blonde girl's offer to help him while he recovered. "Well I think first things first, I should probably go over just what kind of Pokémon there are" said blonde thought aloud. "What do you mean? I know what kinds of Pokémon there are." Ash said, as he didn't see what he needed to know about this.

"Really? Then what are the 19 types?" Cynthia said skeptically. Ash started to think on this, "well there's water, fire, grass, electric, flying, rock, ghost, and- uh…" ash trailed off as he realized he didn't have a clue on the others, not to mention that he only knew about the last 4 because he'd seen some Pokémon of the said types. Flying and electric were obvious, but he only had known about the rock and ghost because he recalled the Pokémon league match he'd seen on TV the night before between a gengar and onix.

"And the 12 others?" Cynthia asked, sighing slightly as she knew he couldn't think of them. "I don't know" ash now understood the point that she was trying to make and decided to ask "could you tell me please?" Cynthia got a small smile at how well he was taking the criticism, 'he definitely is taking this better than I would have at this point' she thought with slight embarrassment.

"Well ash, there are also ground, fighting, ice, psychic, poison, normal, dragon types" she explained, giving ash time in between each to hopefully commit them to memory. "Not that long ago, the last two, steel and dark, were both discovered" she finished. Ash meanwhile was thinking on each of these and making sure to remember them for future reference.

"In addition to the 19 types though…" Cynthia started up again, noting the surprise on ash's face with a bit of amusement " there are also Pokémon with multiple types, such as normal flying types like spearow" she noticed a slight flinch at the name of the bird Pokémon. "Sorry" she had forgotten about the events of the previous day, "it's ok" ash said.

"I didn't think there was so much depth to Pokémon and their typing" ash thought aloud, Cynthia smirked at this "well that was just their typing, we still need to go over the different advantages and disadvantages of each type" ash groaned at this, knowing it would give him a headache. Cynthia chuckled at his response "trust me I know how you feel" she said knowing his thoughts, since her's were similar when she had been learning from her grandmother.

"it's worth it though, since knowing how types match up can help you win a match, but don't forget that type isn't everything in a battle" she thought back to several times she had seen examples of this. "I guess electric types would be a good starting point since Pikachu is your only Pokémon right now" at the mention of his name, Pikachu woke up from where he had been sleeping with a groggy "chaaaa".

Walking up to ash he had a regretful look on his face and bowed his head in shame, "pika pi chu" he said in a sad tone with his ears drooping. Ash took a minute, but quickly realized what he was trying to say, "It's not your fault that happened Pikachu" he started, surprising Pikachu once again "pik…" Pikachu started before ash stopped him "I was the one who made the spearow angry in the first place, so either way, we both are at fault for what happened" Cynthia was surprised at the maturity he showed dealing with the mouse.

Ash met eyes with Pikachu for a moment, before offering his hand to the mouse Pokémon "why don't we agree that we were both wrong? I'm willing to work with you, if you will give me another chance to" he said. Pikachu looked at the hand and thought to himself 'I can't believe that he's willing to trust me as his partner still after how stupid I was acting yesterday, I'm not gonna waste this chance though' with this thought, Pikachu grabbed ash's hand with his little paw and the two shook hands in agreement to work with one another.

Cynthia watched the two with a smile on her face, and was hesitant to break up the moment. "ash" she startled the two out of their thoughts, "If you want we could hold off on tutoring" thinking on the word she decided to go with that. "oh yeah, we should probably get started on that" both he and Pikachu looked a little embarrassed at this, which brought another smile too her face. "well ash I guess that since Pikachu Is awake now we can cover what types he is most suited to and least" she stated and received a nod from both trainer and Pokémon.

later on…

Ash was fighting the urge to hold his head after the last few hours of learning that he'd gone through. He now realized that he was even further behind then he thought, Cynthia had made sure to go over the different types again while she covered the weakness of each, as well as the advantage each had over another. Throughout the entire lesson, she kept stressing the importance of not focusing on a Pokémon's type, pointing out that a Pokémon could be trained to fight through its weakness.

Ash had learned from several examples that Cynthia had given, in the form of gym leaders that trainers didn't necessarily need to catch all the Pokémon they saw. Thinking about this he found his goal to capture every type of Pokémon to be a bit much to accomplish. Ash then decided that he wouldn't be setting such a goal for himself and lowered the bar to what was easily a more reasonable goal, he figured that he should compete in the Pokémon league that Cynthia had mentioned during her description of the gym leaders when he'd asked about the gym system.

With some help from Cynthia, ash made his way back to the tent to lay down to rest, since he was reminded upon trying to get up himself that while he didn't have broken bones or anything like that, he still was injured. While he was lying down Cynthia made her way to her own sleeping bag to sleep for herself. She silently was thankful that she had the foresight to pack two sleeping bags, and thought back to the day.

'He really does pick up things quickly, that makes helping him on this much easier." She thought as she laid her head down to sleep. As she drifted off she thought back to how she spent the day and realized that she hadn't had her usual problem of having nothing to do throughout the day. 'It's been a while since I had anything to do other than training' she thought with a silent laugh so as not to wake ash.

There's chapter 2

I really want to thank the people who reviewed this, I honestly don't know much about what I'm doing so the constructive criticism is really appreciated.

Yes I made Cynthia younger in this, since honestly she is one of my favorite characters, thanks a lot to the fics I've read on here.

Also I decided that Cynthia isn't going to be the sinnoh champion in this fic since I decided to use that as her reason for her being in kanto.

To make a long story short, prior to her challenging the sinnoh champ, she was, as she states in the anime, a lot like Paul, after facing the champ she was completely destroyed like Paul was by her in the anime. This was her wake-up call, and so she's travelling now to try and improve herself after she has looked at herself as a trainer.

Once again please review, and if you have any constructive criticism then please feel free to post it in a review. Also, if you are gonna flame me, then just say what you are pissed off about.

Thanks for reading,

akkeiton