Chapter 1

There were three. One with scales of ocean blue, glimmering in the reflected light from white tiles below; gazing at the pokemon was like watching a starry night in the reflection of a quiet lake.

The second had a matt hue of olive green across its four-legged body; and on top of its back, it bore a reddish flower, which looked to be absorbing small particles in the air - as though vacuuming myriads of twinkling dust particles of the light around us.

The last and the fiercest of the three, was lizard-like, and red as a bonfire. It had two hands, each adorned by three deadly claws, and, across its body, fiery scales glittered breathtakingly, almost making my eyes watery. Its tail stood up, and on its tip, I saw a torch-like fire burning with searing heat.

"Are you prepared?" asked the professor.

"I am," I said, feigning confidence I knew I lacked, and followed up with, "that one," while pointing at charmander.

"A fire type, is that so? If you don't mind me asking, why charmander?"

"It can light up a trail at night. It can -"

"He," the professor corrected me.

"He can set ablaze a bonfire with a simple flick of his tail. And once he's reached his last evolution, he can fly."

"A sound argument," nodded the professor. "So be it."

He flicked the pokeball and it bounced off of the pokemon. A silvery beam caught and engulfed him, before he shrunk - almost dissolved if you ask me - and vanished inside. I caught the ball as it flicked back to me. And there it was. My very first pokemon.

"Be on your merry way now, young Ash. And whatever you do, do not go off the trails before you've caught at least three more pokemon. The unknown path might sound exciting, but it is treacherous for the naive at heart."

"Thanks," I yelled back while halfway out the door. And as soon as the bright sun scorched my eyes with yellow light, I forgot everything the professor had said.

"Hoi!" yelled a voice from behind me. I turned. My eyes were still adjusting to the bright morning light, and at first glance, I did not recognize who had yelled. Then it dawned on me.

"Hi, Garry," I said, and felt my face fall into a displeased expression.

"So?" he said.

I shrugged, pretending not to know what he was fishing for

"Show me," he continued. "And then let's have a battle."

"I don't know, Garry," I said calmly, trying my best not to get lured into anything. But then he made 'chicken' gestures at me, and my entire body lit ablaze with fierce anger.

"You're going down!" I bellowed, and he smirked at me, as though I had fallen into a trap.

"I know what pokemon you choose, Ash, the charmander. And once I knew, it was easy for me to decide as well. I choose you, squirtle!"

"Go, charmander," I said. My pokeball fell onto the farm road. The pokeball flipped open, like a fish's mouth, and out of it, charmander appeared. He hissed as though he was ready for a fight.

"Use watergun!" Garry ordered, and out of the mouth of his squirtle, a stream of water shot towards my pokemon.

"Dodge it!" I screamed. Charmander heeded my order, but it was too late; as his body tumbled left, his tail was stretched - and some of the water smashed against it. "No," I cried, and feared the worst - if his flame was quenched, it would mean death.

Luckily, charmanders flame was only partially struck, and after an impressive summersault, he was back on his feet - though I could see him wobbling slightly.

"Use ember," I said. A tennis ball of hot, glowing lava formed in his mouth, and, after he had aimed, he sent it towards the squirtle as quickly as a lightning bolt.

"Use watergun to vaporize it," Garry said, and it was a smart move. As heat and water clashed, it created a wide cloud of thick smoke.

Hang on, I thought. Charmander can use that cloud as a cover to get up close and scratch.

"Again," I ordered, but charmander looked at me with a frown and a tilted head. He was not having it, it seemed. "Get the cloud thick and moist, then attack him at close range," I continued, now so low that only he could hear it.

Charmander shot two more balls of ember towards the squirtle, and each ball turned to vapor; and when the cloud was as thick as cotton, my pokemon sprinted into the mist and vanished from sight.

"Look. He's coming, no, not that way! Watch out. Dodge it, squirtle," cried Garry, and I heard how his voice grew more and more gloomy for every word out of his mouth. "We yield. We yield," I heard him say, and right after, I called back charmander.

"That was unfair," Garry called out as the wind grabbed the thick mist and played with it for a brief time, before it soared high up into the atmosphere. "You cheated."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Garry!" the professor said sharply from under the archway. "It is not cheating to use the elements when the pokemon at battle are the ones orchestrating it."

"But grandpa, didn't you see -"

"Enough. Ash won fair and square. Now, get inside; your mother will be home soon. And you, Ash," he called out to me as Garry walked lop-eared up the stairs. "You better go too. Your mother is expecting you. I bet she wants to see you off before nightfall."

I nodded eagerly; both at the adventure ahead, but also because I had just won my very first pokemon battle!

I saw my mom on the porch, leaning against the pillar with her hands crossed, but with a smile across her face. Her dress was green; green as spring gras and interwoven with yellow straws, like wheat. At her feet, purple lavender floated seamlessly above the hemline. She had bare feet as she approached me on the roadway.

"So, let me see," she said, her eyes shining with tears and despair. I whipped charmander out.

Her eyes furrowed, "he's injured, Ash. Has he been in a fight?"

I told her what had happened.

"But Ash," she sighed, "you must always keep the welfare of your pokemon first. Wait here."

She jogged off and came back shortly after with a small vial that had a transparent, red liquid in it. She popped off the cork.

"Drink this, little one. It will make you all better." Charmander allowed my mom to pour half of the liquid into his spiky mouth, and immediately after, he was rejuvenated as if by magic.

"What is it?" I asked.

"This is a healing potion. It's made from berries and leaves."

"Which ones?" I asked, wondering why she hadn't told me about this before.

"Forget-me-nots. Take the stems and leaves as well. Crush it in a bowl and add water. Pour it into a vial, and wait until it turns red," she said, calmly.

"How long do I have to wait?"

"It depends on the season and how gently you pick the flowers, but Ash, it's getting late. It's best if you head out now before nightfall."

And she was right, we could see the night's shadows creeping closer over the mountains to the east.

"Bye, mom. See you soon," I said, and we hugged and then I was off onto the gravel trail, which led to the forest.

I took a breather at the edge of the forest half an hour later. Knobbled trunks rose thick and bushed this way and that. I released charmander a few meters in and felt his warmth immediately after, which was sorely needed, for I was shuddering with each step - and it was not because of the chilling breeze that was creeping up from behind.

The tree line stretched eastward and was swallowed by the darkening twilight, growing in both size and shadow as it closed in upon us. And as I turned and watched it soaring above me, I felt as though I was about to be eaten by a gut wrenching nightmare.

I'll be honest, that night I cried myself to sleep. At the age of fifteen, I weeped like a baby. And with good reason.

I woke suddenly. It was still dark, but the moon shot sparks of silvery light at the leaves, which sparkled with dew. The snow on the mountaintops to the east glistened from a waking sun, which I had not yet seen.

The sun came sometime after breakfast. But at that point charmander and I had already strayed off the pathway, to spy on a mischievous-looking duo, failing to catch a yellow-looking pokemon - for it was soaring, dodging their attacks this way and that, and laughing at them, as though it enjoyed the mockery immensely.

I reached for an empty ball just in case it came my way.

I saw that it was furry and little: and had brown shoulder pads, and a muddy chestplate, but the rest was yellow as sunlight; and before I had time to think, the pokemon hopped to a near birch branch - and it was facing the other way, so it hadn't spotted me. Instinctively, I tossed the pokeball. It raced through the air, connected, jumped back and opened its jaws and engulfed the abra in a metallic light. The ball fell into the bushes, wobbling once … twice … thrice.

My arm was scratched by thorns as I fetched the ball, but I didn't mind, I had just caught my very first pokemon.

"Where did it go?" said a female voice. "Where is it, James?"

"I don't know! You're the one who said it went that way," said James. "The boss is going to be mad if you lose it, Jesse."

"Me? What about?" hissed Jesse. "You must be mad? It was you who lost it."

"Did not."

"Oh, shut it. And keep searching," said a third voice, but I didn't wait around to find out whom it belonged to.

The rest of the day I spent wandering up gentle hills - with my two pokemon outside of their balls, as I thought it would strengthen our bond - and down wrinkly valleys and dales. This sometimes led us to steep ravines with streams of gargling water, which branched out here and there into creeks or rivulets; and although some were clear and blue, others were thick, still and boggy.

We fought wild pokemon along the trail, and when night swept across the land, I felt at ease, knowing that the three of us were able to overcome the challenges we had faced. Or in other words: I no longer cried at night.

Nor did I cry the third night. But as the fourth morning dawned - we had slept under wild-growing copses near Viridian City - I witnessed something quite peculiar.

Immediately after coming to a halt under the shadow of the menacingly-looking wall, which imprisoned Viridian City with red bricks from top to bottom, my body started to shiver.

There were arching loopholes and arrow slits, and I could see shadowflames bouncing off the holes from inside. I felt stuck, almost as though my feet had sunk in quicksand, and began to feel droplets of sweat dripping down my back while forcing my body to retreat into the bushes.

I had to squint when the sun rays pierced the bejeweled wall, and sent a radiance of colors everywhere. Two soldiers came forth from inside the crack in the gate, each with their arm around a third - a young female, I guessed by her height and smooth skin.

They tossed her out like a dog, then vanished, and as I watched, under the shadows of the trees, she dusted herself off with her bare hands.

There was a growing feeling of uncertainty within me. It was as though what I had witnessed foreboded misfortune if I were to enter the city.

I couldn't tell if it was a voice of reason or fear, and I hadn't the time to find out - for the girl was now waving me over.

I had been spotted.

She wore a long skirt. The hemline stroked below her knees, and fabric coiled around her like an accordion. It looked warm, perhaps of wool, and had a red and black tartan pattern; red and black like an erupting volcano and crocheted with blue seashells and ocean treasures.

She stood in a triangle of sunlight from the many beams which had managed to cut through the branchy forest, and her skin glowed like beach sand, while her tank top was dull and yellow.

Her hair resembled what the red from her skirt and yellow from her tank top would become if mixed together in a bowl of paint. She wore high army boots in black and she was as tall as me. She could have been beautiful, if not the many scratches and scars across her face.

"Were you heading inside?" she said. "You can't, you see, they won't allow it. Only citizens are allowed. It's a stupid rule."

"Oh -" I said.

"Yeah, so there's no point in trying. They told me, you see, just before you came out of the forest," she continued, and that was when I understood that she was lying. She must have thought that I hadn't seen them tossing her out.

We stood watching each other for a short while.

"I'm Ash," I said eventually. "And you are?"

"Shade," she said, her eyes twitched. "Nice to meet you. Where are you headed?"

"I was planning on challenging the gym leader, but -"

"Oh, really?" she interrupted eagerly. "How many badges do you have?"

"How many? I'm at - I mean - none," I stuttered.

"You need seven to challenge Giovanni, Ash," she said and scowled. "You didn't know that?"

I raised my shoulders and shrugged in response.

"Well, it doesn't matter. The first gym is Brock, in Pewter City. It's the boulder badge. I'm headed there too, you want to walk with me? Route two, through Viridian forest, is safe, but it's always safer in numbers. Don't you agree?" Shade said.

"Yes," I replied, and off we went.

After we had circumambulated the wide walls and stood at the edge of route two, I looked north and found the road leading to a hollow. It was surrounded by plateaus and hills that curved like waves on both sides. After a while of walking, the air became eerie and thick, and I saw a faint path leading west of the one we followed and into the depths of a dark and bare forest. When I peeked between two peculiarly crooked tree trunks, I spotted white, sticky spider webs and other nets that made me quail.

"Look," said Shade after she'd come up beside me. "Those are kakuna. They're nasty pokemon, if you ask me." She wrinkled her nose and grimaced. "After a while upside down in trees, where everything is moist and lacking fresh air - and the soil overgrown with odious mushrooms - they hatch into beedrills. And you do not want to meet those spiky buggers. They are venomous.

"I think it's for the best if we release our pokemon from here on out," she continued.

For miles upon miles, we trudged, and as the sun sped over the frozen, blue sky, we wailed and groaned, while our legs flared up and before long, refused to walk any longer.

The next morning, looking forward and through the stems of trees that were already thick about them, I thought I saw shimmering lights from glass windows in between the foliage. A wafty smell of grass, snuck its way up my nose, and calmed me like nothing else could.

"You're right," Shade said after I had told her what I saw. "That's Pewter City. It's quite an ugly city, if I may be so bold, stony and sharp-edged, nothing like Cerulean City, with vast riverbeds, filled to the rim with splashing water." She kept on talking warmly about that City as we tracked forth, towards the glittering reflections.

"You know," I said after having heard about the beauty of her beloved water-city for more than two hours. "I think I need to catch and train more pokemon before I head into town. My abra isn't strong enough for a fight yet, and charmander cannot take on two rock-types on his own."

"You're right," she said sweetly. "You know what would really help you out: a water-type."

If she hadn't been on the nose about water-types being strong against rock and ground types, I would've screamed in her face with an almighty roar.

However, Shade surprised me greatly when she tracked down a mankey and, shortly after, a pidgey.

With charmander's increasing talents in the arts of fire, I caught them both with some ease.

I was utterly astounded when Shade, alongside her staryu and starmie, battled both charmander and pidgey in a sorely needed training session – for it benefited immensely, as both my pokemon grew exponentially in size after that. And that wasn't all.

After a particularly intricate flying maneuver, during which Pidgey pirouetted under ashen skies, he followed up with a dive, like an arrow returning to Earth, down towards the thick foliage of the forest. He winged out just a hair's breadth above the tree line, causing olive-green leaves to rustle off their twigs.

Afterward, he flapped and soared high once more, tumbling about to avoid arrow-like jets of hot water. In the end, he evolved into Pidgeotto.

"That was beautiful," she said after the session was done. "I never get tired of watching the twinkling lights of an evolution. Like a thousand stars, enveloping the pokemon, making them fiercer. It surely is a sight for sore eyes."

"And thank you for helping me with that, it sure will come in handy at my next battle," I replied.

"No problem. It's been fun traveling with you, Ash, but I have to warn you: Brock is tough, and both charmander and pidgeotto are weak against his two pokemon."

"I can only battle with two?" I asked.

"Yes, and if I were you, I'd go with charmander and mankey."

As I pondered which two to choose for my very first gym badge, we walked and looked ahead. An innumerable cluster of trees in all sizes and shapes leaned this way and that. Some twisted around others; others bent away, seeking darkness over light. Most had branches sticking out into the pathway, making the road leading up to Pewter City's molded gates tricky for us to trudge through.

Wearisome we arrived at the gates. There were guards at plenty, but none refused our entry.

"This is where I'm leaving you," Shade said grinning, and waved the orange-colored bangs out from her eyes. "I'm meeting some friends. The gym is right up there, you see it? The stone building that looks like the bottom of a landslide."

"Yes, I see it," I said, and for a second, I stood as if enchanted.

Not because Shade had left, I knew that would happen eventually, but because she was right. It stood for the foot of the mountain; glossed with brownish rock-dust, twinkling as a feigning starry sky from the sun behind me.

The building, if one could call it that, wasn't constructed, but looked as though pieces of the mountainside had fallen down due to erosion.

I walked up and stood spellbound in its shadow. There was no door, just a round hole-shaped archway - and that's when I understood what pokemon I was facing: The onix.

Perhaps my training sessions with Shade had had an effect on mankey and charmander, but still, the height of the hole - which I found to be a tunnel as I trod carefully into darkness ahead - must have been ten times the height of me.

Even a charizard would look puny, I figured, and, as the echo bounced off the walls, torches lit, seemingly at random. I released charmander as a precaution. The stench of stone-dust made my nose itch. But what occupied my mind was this sentence: In what world will my pokemon overcome such a massive foe?

Charmander and I came to a halt when the tunnel stretched out in both directions, disclosing a glorious arena bathed in the glow of torches, as though infused by some magical enchantment.

The arena was bedded with gravel, topped with brown glazing of a sand-like texture, glimmering feebly as torch-fires cast their dancing light against the creeping shadows.

Perhaps it was mountain-dust? But no matter: on the opposite side of the arena, I thought I saw a man with a stone-cold countenance glaring at me.

I stepped cautiously over a white line encircling the field, lifting my feet up as I squinted - yes, it was now clear as day, there was a man on the balcony. He leaned forward, eyes fixed on me, hands gripping the balustrade that coiled from the floor like serpents, delicately incised with the curves of onixs'; crafted and forged in searing fires, fashioned with deadly hammers and precious hands, and suddenly a scent of coal wafted up my nose - and I was truly in awe of the beauty of a balustrade (which was not too common for me, I might add).

It was skillfully sculpted, artfully chiseled; the details around the eyes were hauntingly graceful.

"A challenger?" he said as I sunk back down. The echo of his voice rebounded off the walls and, in the end, was conquered by the nothingness in between.

"Are you Brock?" I said. "I am here to challenge the gym leader for my very first badge."

"You've come to the right place. Let us battle."

I don't know why I had expected it to be more intricate than it was - perhaps some paperwork to fill out, or money to spend - but there was none. Nor a 'good luck', or a cheering crowd.

"Best of two pokemon, challenger. Come out geodude," he bellowed.

A floating head in grayish stone appeared out of a pokeball. It had two arms coming out where its ears should've been. And it hissed with jagged teeth.

"I choose you, mankey!" I yelled and flipped his pokeball onto the floor. Lifting my feet up again as I looked left to the sound of a gong, I hadn't noticed that geodude and mankey burst towards one another - oh, no! they went at each other like amateur boxers - swinging this way and that, and, as though that wasn't enough by itself, their movements whipped up dust, like a fog, which was miry and glued itself onto mankey's fur.

Thankfully, our practice with Shade had paid off; mankey was twice as fast with his punches, and his fighting moves had double the effect.

"Use low kick!" I said.

Without a flinch, though I could tell he gleed with joy - you see, mankey's loves fighting more than anything else -, my little boxer arched his back low, dodged a left hook, swept lower still, and swung up in a perfectly aimed uppercut.

"Geodude, return," Brock said as the dust settled over the arena and mankey cheered triumphantly with both arms high above his furred head. "Impressive, but I knew my geodude was on the weaker side. My next pokemon, however, will prove more of a challenge. Onix, it's your turn."

The serpent of stone was so large that it made my stomach clench. And mankey, though tough as he was, flinched when the opposition growled (and as most of you know, flinching in a match leads to damage).

"Use dig!" Brock screamed.

The serpent burst through the ground, vanishing shortly after. Mankey was left tethered by fear. Onix sprouted up underneath him like a rocket launcher and rocketed my fighter into the air. He was struck stiff like a tennis ball by onixs' tail; then crashed in a heap of dirt. I recalled him right after. Damaged, but alive.

"Now, it's up to you, charmander," I whispered to the pokeball before releasing the fiery wrath of my main pokemon.

His tail-flame rustled softly as though wind was sweeping through a bonfire, then it swelled up and blazed with such heat, the warmth felt like an open-palm slap across my cheeks. He's evolving soon, I think, I thought.

This time, when onix growled, charmander did not flinch. He simply growled back. Then several things happened in rapid succession.

Onix leapt up and burst through the ground time and time again, and though it was effective, charmander held a continuous and swift pace of running all through the arena to dodge each attack.

"Use smokescreen," I told him. "Aim for the holes. Flush him out!"

Soon thereafter - and from many holes - there rose chimney-like spirals of gray fog, billowing out and resting under the stone roof. But charmander had stood still for too long: underneath him, onix rocketed up like a swirling snake, tossing my lizard up from the ground. I stood in shackles as I involuntary witnessed a stone tail about to bash my only hope of a boulder badge, when suddenly, a violet glow enveloped charmander's tail - he somersaulted in the air and the two tails clashed in an ear deafening chiming about us.

"Dragon tail," gasped Brock. "It cannot be."

"Use ember," I said without hesitation. "Aim for his eyes." And so he did.

Onix coiled in agony afterward, ending the battle with a glorious victory for us. Brock unclenched his fists from the railing, and passing off, he disappeared into an inner chamber, only to reappear on our level a short while later - and before I was sent away, he shook my hand and gave me the badge.