Note: The after league story begins here! I know a lot of this story up until now has been based much on the original, sometimes pretty closely following that plot, other aspects. But I have been deliberate in leading up to the next - last part of the story which has a plot for the most part not specifically based on any section of the anime. The tale of Ash and friends (& enemies) was never meant to be an endless journey here.
And it probably will be nothing like whatever the actual ending ends up being. I won't say how or when, but just wanted to warn that things do get dark. I don't think excessively so, but maybe yes for some since everyone has their own threshold. It definitely goes where canon never would. This chapter is pretty laid back. Actually, maybe we won't get to anything "dark" for a little while, but once we do you will know what I meant. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Also: Dropping the weekly schedule for now. I'll be posting the chapters as I can get them ready outside a schedule.
52: Ash vs. Gary
Gary took his time strolling through his fans eager to see his first pokemon on the way to his grandfather's lab. He'd be fashionably late, though still on time enough. The other starting trainers would get first pick, anyway. Though choosing first would give the advantage, the other new trainers needed more advantage than they could otherwise get, starting against Gary Oak. So maybe it was fairer to let them get their picks first. Gary could take the time to enjoy the well wishes of the entire town beforehand.
It was fifteen minutes after the hour when he arrived, passing a smiling fellow starting trainer Gilbert on his way up the long staircase. Gilbert also came from a family with lots of trainers, not that this situation was exactly a rarity in Pallet Town. Nearly everyone was a trainer in this small town, or had been at one point in time. And then, a handful of ten-year-old boys, and even some girls recently, got started on their journeys from Pallet Town each year, catching pokemon all over Kanto while working their way through the gym challenges, aiming to participate in the league.
Of course, not all of them were successful. Coming home and quitting after the year was up, or even after a month or two, seemed to be a common conclusion. Others traveled for months, sometimes going onto years, and then never ended up being competitive. Without a doubt, Gary was going to be different. He was going to win the league the first time he entered, then move onto being a major player in other competitions. He'd likely even be champion some day.
There were various strategies that might be used to accomplish this with various pokemon, so even not being able to pick first, Gary was on his way to success. "Hey, Gramps," he greeted as he walked into the door, checking his hair in the window's reflection. "So, who's left? Squirtle?"
"Squirtle, squirtle!" the energetic pokemon called out as it hopped around the table. Gary grinned. This seemed the perfect first partner.
"Good morning, Gary!" the professor greeted with a grin. "Actually, I was wondering if you might be willing to take on a sort of challenge."
"I already agreed to take everyone else's leftovers, right?" Gary said.
"Squirtle?" Squirtle called, looking up at him questioningly.
"Don't worry, Squirtle, you're still tops with me," Gary said encouragingly, leaning down rubbing the pokemon's little cheeks to show his sincerity and hopefully expel any doubts it might have. He'd say the same of any of the others, of course, but Squirtle really did have the potential to be excellent in pokemon battles, both in terms of species and this squirtle in particular.
"Well, I'll still give you this squirtle as an option," his grandfather continued. "But I wonder if you might be willing to try a less standard pokemon to start."
"Um. What kind?" Gary asked. This was weird. He'd never heard of his grandfather giving out anything other than the standard three. Was he being given special treatment?
"Pikachu," the professor replied.
"Pikachu? I dunno, it's not very..." Gary laughed. His grandfather should know the species's reputation. Of course, it could be easily evolved with thunder stone, but even then, only evolved once, while the standard three starting pokemon both evolved twice. Though it was with experience rather than instantaneous to anyone with a stone, all of them became very powerful creatures at the end of the line. Beyond being weaker to start, Pikachu didn't have that same kind of potential, but that must be the 'challenge'.
"This one is above average." Gary had to roll his eyes at his grandfather's comment. "Come now, Gary." The professor tapped his shoulder with a sigh. "I wouldn't lie to you. I have observed it to be more powerful than other pikachu. The challenge will be its behavior. I've been trying to find a trainer with enough skill to get through to this one."
"Oh." Gary paused, blinking as all the puzzle pieces fell into place. "Oh," he exclaimed as he thought on it more. "This is that pikachu you're talking about, huh?" The one that chewed through pokeballs it found laying around and destroyed them. The so-called 'cute' pokemon that called out threateningly toward trainers that approached it. The little monster that had knocked down a fence in an apparent attempt to escape, just to sleep by the damage instead of actually doing anyone a favor by leaving the ranch. The beast that the assistant had to take an extended break to get over being terrorized by. His grandfather didn't even need to answer, there was no other pikachu it could be. "Come on, Gramps..." Gary began with a sigh. "Are you trying to ruin me, here?"
"I'm offering you this opportunity because I have faith in your potential as a trainer," the professor insisted seriously.
"No, no." Gary waved his hands. "Anyone who takes that pokemon is done, period. I've got plans. I can't waste my time with that. I'm a serious trainer. Find someone with obedience school experience to get that one to sit and roll over for you."
"Alright," the professor agreed easily. "I suppose you'll be off with Squirtle here then."
"Squirtle!" Squirtle hopped up in celebration.
Gary took his new pokemon without hesitation, soon getting over how shaken up he's been at the idea of having to deal with that terror as his starting pokemon. With pikachu as his option, he'd never get his first badge, let alone go to the league. Gary's grandfather was a good guy, but had some really terrible ideas sometimes. Thankfully, the old guy knew enough not to try and sabotage Gary's success with them. Instead, Gary had gotten the starting pokemon that would be a stair step to his success, instead of the one that would be a barrier.
"Pikachu!" the pokemon called out as Gary finished his battle with the woman that had challenged him at the store. She also happened to be Ash's mom, so Gary could hardly be surprised to see Ash and his pokemon coming to meet her. Was Gary's self-declared 'rival' back in Pallet Town? His mom didn't look too surprised to see him as she returned Mr. Mime to its pokeball, so maybe he'd been back for a while. Gary praised his blastoise for its performance, returning it to its pokeball as Ash approached.
"Hey, sweetie!" his mother greeted. "Will you help me with these bags?"
"Mom, I wanna battle Gary too," Ash protested.
"Pikachu!" Pikachu called in excitement.
"Oh? I guess I should let you. You've been looking forward to it, huh? Mr. Mime," Delia began, throwing out the pokeball. She sprayed the defeated pokemon with a potion, allowing it to more quickly regain its strength. As she and her pokemon carried the bags away, Ash stayed, much to Gary's annoyance.
"What do you want, Ashy boy? Maybe you should help your mom. I'm here to do some shopping for mine," Gary said, walking into the store. Ash followed him, looking downcast, neither the nickname nor suggestion affecting him much, which was again, just annoying. Gary turned around, hand on his hips as he lightly flicked Ash's forehead. "You gonna follow me around like some puppy?" he said. "I don't need that. I'd leave you in a box in the rain." Even that wasn't enough to piss Ash off as usual, he still just looked sad. What would it take? "Someone like you who failed to win in the league should just go on home!" Gary spat out.
"But, um," Ash continued, looking away. "I ranked higher than you..."
Ash saying that fact had been expected, but not how guilty he looked about it, rather than incensed that Gary had made such a suggestion after having failed even worse. "Yeah. You want me to give you a medal for it?" Gary said, putting some grocery items in the basket.
"No," Ash said, finally sounding annoyed. "I just want to battle!"
"Can't, too busy," Gary said, taking out the paper list to see what else he needed.
"You just battled my mom!" Ash shouted.
Gary laughed now that Ash was finally the one who was annoyed. "Yeah. Nice lady, excited to talk to me about the league and how she was a trainer now too. Didn't want to disappoint a fan." Gary turned, running a hand through his hair. "You a fan too, Ashy boy?"
"No..." Ash replied with a frown. "We just never got a chance to battle in the league."
"Hm." Gary paused. "We both lost against the winner, I guess we've got that to hang onto."
"What's that mean?" Ash asked.
"Nothing," Gary said with a shrug. "Yeah, fine, if you're gonna keep bugging me, I guess we have to battle so I can get rid of you. I've just gotta finish this shopping for my mom, first."
"Alright!" Ash practically hopped in excitement. Gary chuckled, continuing through the store as he finished the list. He then got Ash to carry everything back, but stopped him from just shoving things into cabinets to put them away. Gary did that task himself, putting everything in its correct place neatly before joining the other boy outside, the two of them taking their place in his family's own maintained arena especially for pokemon battles.
"Let's just try one against one," Gary said. As he took out his chosen pokeball, he noted Ash also reaching for a pokeball. "Huh? Hey Ashy, what are you doing?" he asked.
"You said you'd battle me, right?" Ash said, frowning.
"Yeah," Gary said, absent-mindedly tossing up his own pokeball. "But your best pokemon doesn't use a pokeball, right?"
"Pikachu?" Pikachu called with a questioning look.
"Sorry, Pikachu. Looks like you got a trainer that sells you short," Gary said.
"I know Pikachu's great," Ash said. "If you want to battle it, fine! Go ahead, Pikachu."
"Pikachu!" Pikachu called, standing up alert as it hopped on the battlefield.
"Go, Blastoise!" Gary threw out the pokeball for his own starting pokemon. "Hydro pump!" Though Pikachu might resist water-type attacks, it was tiny and could easily get blown away.
"Pikachu, double team!" Ash ordered. His pokemon easily dodged the attack from Blastoise's cannons. "Quick attack!"
"Blastoise, skull bash." Gary watched the tiny pokemon hit his best pokemon in a blur, then flipped out of the way of the powerful jets of water.
"Alright! Now, thunderbolt!" Ash shouted.
"Pika... CHUU!" Pikachu all too quickly built up the energy and completed the powerful electric type attack, dazing Blastoise enough for it to lose its footing and fall with a thud to the bottom of the arena.
"Blastoise, return," Gary said with a sigh.
"Good job, Pikachu!" Ash praised the pokemon that hadn't even taken a hit during their brief battle. He then glared at Gary. "I guess you're gonna say it was because of the type. Why'd you chose Blastoise to battle against Pikachu?"
Gary kicked his feet up as he sat in the spectator's arena of the arena, patting Pikachu on the head as it wandered close. "Na, I won't make excuses," he said. "You won." Maybe he had briefly fantasized about beating Ash's best pokemon with his own best pokemon, making up for their difference in ranking in the league, but he was mostly done with fantasies. "Maybe I'll battle some of your other pokemon later, but right now I don't feel like it." Gary put his hands behind his head as he lay back on the bench, closing his eyes.
"Don't you want to keep training? You've gotta get better to rank higher in the league next year, right?"
"Na, I'm done with competing like that," Gary said.
"You're what?" Ash demanded. "You always kept talking about battles, and winning the league, and how you could compete with anyone, especially me! What do you mean, you're done?"
Gary sighed, rubbing his head as he sat up, feet back on the ground. "I meant what I said. I had my chance, and I'm done. I wasn't the gem I thought I was. I'll always be a trainer, but I'm done with thinking I can compete at a high level."
"Why not? You can't just give up!" Ash insisted.
"Hmph." Gary chuckled. "Sometimes it's good to know when to give up." He put his chin up with a smirk. "Remember Zack?"
"Zack? Yeah, I beat him at the pokemon league."
"Oh yeah." Gary looked down at Pikachu, then recalled how the electric type had blown through Zack's team, including a golem that wasn't too shabby. He laughed at the memory. "Yeah, I wasn't even thinking of that match."
"You're better than him. You beat him too, at the festival," Ash pointed out.
"I am, but that's not the point," Gary said. "The point is, he can't compete. He should have quit years ago, but kept going on and on without making much progress. Gramps was thinking of dropping his sponsorship this spring, but kept it going since that dunce finally got all his badges. He thought it wouldn't be right to not give the guy a chance to enter the league after all that. But even if he did or didn't, him continuing to pretend he could compete was just a waste of time. A waste of life, really."
Ash was silent for a moment before he stomped his foot. "Zack was really mean, but why can't he battle if he wants to? He can get better!"
"Zack was really mean, huh?" Gary said, his eyes traveling upward as he made an exaggerated expression of surprise. "Maybe it was a side effect of how he kept banging away at something he was never going to be successful at. He should have just let go of something that wasn't going to work, like I am."
"But you are a good trainer..." Ash insisted.
Gary gave an exaggerated sigh as he saw his childhood friend was really trying to be helpful, not just berate his choices. "Thanks, Ash. I am pretty good, I'm just not great. I'm still keeping my pokemon, and I'll still battle, but I'm gonna find other ways I can work with pokemon. There's plenty I can do with the experience I have, really."
"Oh." Ash sat down next to Gary, Pikachu hopping between them. "Will you be a pokemon professor too?" he eventually asked.
"I've been thinking that the past few weeks, actually," Gary admitted. Perhaps it had been even longer than that. Growing up, he'd observed various appealing aspects of that path from being around his grandfather. Gary had his own knowledge and observations praised by various others here and there, and the path pointed out as a strong possibility for him. Though of course, he'd previously eschewed the idea. Top ranked trainer and champion were held in higher esteem and seemed much more glamorous. "I'd have a lot to learn to go down that path, actually. It's not easy either."
"Yeah," Ash acknowledged. "The professor really knows a lot."
"Well," Gary drawled as he stood up. "I'll give that path a try. Maybe I'll like it and become one, maybe not. Who knows." Gary winked at his friend.
"I hope you do!" Ash encouraged, clenching his fist as he stood up. He then pouted, getting that obnoxious sad look on his face again. "You think I should quit too?"
"I dunno," Gary began with mock concern. "You really stink that badly? Everyone holding their nose when they see you? You gotta run and quit, even though you just beat me?"
"No!" Ash insisted, standing up straight and looking away. "I'm gonna keep training! My pokemon will get even better. We'll even win the league next time!"
"You do what you want. I'm gonna do the same, okay?" Gary said. His friend eventually looked back at him, noting Gary's encouraging smile, and then smiling and nodding back in return.
Gary saw Ash off pleasantly enough. Even the pikachu waved and called as they left. The thing had been well-behaved the entire day from what Gary had seen, though on other occasions he'd seen it disobeying, including at the league when it seemed to protest having to leave the match against Zack. But Ash really had seemed to overall tame it.
Pokemon themselves were pleasant and often tame on capture, though this one had seemed an exception back on the ranch. Even so, Ash had done what Gary himself had thought a drag at best and impossible at worst, and gotten the previously destructive pokemon to become pleasant, even participate in battles for fun and sport. Recalling how he'd refused the task only had him feeling more inadequate. Of course, being superior to Gary alone wasn't enough to convince that Ash shouldn't stop trying to be a top trainer, or whatever he was aiming for. Gary himself really did see Ash as the kind of trainer that wouldn't ever make it that far. He might have said so too, except for how the opinions of others had made him doubt that conclusion. More than one person he respected didn't seem to think that way at all.
The first was Ritchie, the trainer that had won it all. This kid was the rare gem of a trainer that Gary had imagined himself to be, surely. Even so, Ritchie had come to visit for a rematch against his top 32 match just a few weeks after the league ended. The league winner had self-esteem issues despite his talent, but Gary wasn't about to dig into the overly polite boy, at least not without a win to back it up. Though giving his best in a fair six-on-six battle, Gary had lost again anyway.
Ritchie had tried to get yet another rematch, but Gary had made him lunch instead, and they discussed strategies - their own, that of other participants of that year's league, the possibilities in general. If the battle hadn't been enough to convince Gary the other boy was beyond him, the conversation was. Though the information was valuable, Ritchie changing the subject was almost a relief in a way, though the words had been confusing. "Do you know Ash? He's from Pallet Town too!" Ritchie had said.
"Ash? Yeah, I know him really well. We hung out a lot when we were in the same year in comp-ed."
"Oh yeah, of course. Ash is such an amazing trainer, isn't he? I want to be as good as him one day."
"Huh? Are we talking about the same guy? He's the one you beat in the top 8, remember?"
"Him, yeah. I want a rematch. I know I won, but really, Ash has strong skills as a trainer where I'm really weak. He's going to be one of the top, I'm sure."
Gary hadn't even been able to laugh off his bewilderment during the conversation. Of course, Ritchie's words should be taken with a grain of salt, given how often he downplayed his own skills, but even then, why pick Ash to talk up this much? Ritchie had made it all the way to the top, going against trainers that seemed likely to be described as strong talents on their way up. Ritchie saw much that Gary didn't with strategy and possibilities during battle, so maybe Ritchie saw something with Ash that even Ash's childhood friend couldn't, though what exactly wasn't obvious yet.
Then of course, there was his grandfather, the one that had given Ash what had seemed the absolute worst option as a starting pokemon. It seemed almost unethical to make one of his sponsored trainers into an experiment like that, though everything had turned out alright. The esteemed Professor Oak had been very pleased with the results. "Did you see Ash's matches?" he'd asked Gary at the league after they'd discussed the loss to Ritchie.
"Sure, the ones I could. Gotta show up for the home town, right?" Gary responded with a shrug. "Hey, you disappointed only Ashy made it this far?"
"I'm happy for any of my trainers to make it this far!" Professor Oak's voice exuded enthusiasm. "But Ash is especially interesting, that is, especially with his pikachu. He hasn't used it every match, but when he has, they've seemed quite in sync."
"Um, I dunno about that." Even if calmer than before, Pikachu really didn't seem to listen at times. "Maybe Pikachu has him trained, instead of the other way around," Gary suggested with a laugh.
"Gary, you have to understand, no matter how cooperative pokemon seem to be, they aren't tools. It's a partnership."
"Yeah." Gary closed his eyes, the lecture inciting guilt. "I mean, I do know that. I don't think my pokemon are the same as a hammer or saw or anything."
"Of course I know you have some understanding," his grandfather continued. "We all do, but establishing a true partnership can be a struggle, for all trainers. It's difficult to have a connection that doesn't become too subservient, since pokemon are cooperative, often so eager to please. I'm seeing that Ash seems to understand better than most. His heart is becoming in sync with the monsters."
His grandfather's ideas were confusing. Gary still struggled to understand them even after chewing on them for weeks. That probably went to show how far he'd have to go if he decided on the path of the pokemon professor, didn't it? Ultimately, he just decided not to jump to conclusions about Ash, despite his initial hypothesis. Sure, his childhood friend seemed to often just do things without thinking, but there was evidence of moments of thoughtfulness here and there. Maybe down the road there would be something to learn from the boy who could apparently sync his heart with pokemon.
Next chapter: AJ vs. The Gym Leader Conference
(AJ is actually just there for the ride, look forward to some very important events.)