"Well, here we are!" Ash said. "Littleroot Town."
Latias made a whistling noise.
"Hang on, let me check," Pikachu requested, squinting at a nearby sign. "Okay, yeah, this is Littleroot."
"We were on a ferry coming straight here, Pikachu," Ash chuckled.
"Still not going to take it on faith when you say where we are, Ash," Pikachu replied. "I know you."
Latias zipped up in the air to have a look around, then descended back to Ash's side. "It's a good thing that being invisible like this isn't actually a move, or I'd be way too tired after so many days mostly invisible. I know I could stay in my Pokéball, but that'd be so boring."
"Yeah, it's kind of a pain, but I guess a Zorua pretending to be a human would have the same thing," Ash said. "Okay, so, Professor Oak said I should speak to Professor Birch, I think… and he's supposed to have a lab in Littleroot."
Ash, Pikachu and Latias collectively contemplated finding their way through an unfamiliar town to a place they didn't actually know.
"I'll ask someone," Ash decided, trotting over to the first person he saw on the street. "Excuse me?"
They didn't seem to be doing anything, except looking at Ash with their mouth open.
"A talking Pokémon?" the man said, as Ash reached him. "Huh. Now I've seen everything."
"Eh, if that's your definition of seen everything, you haven't," Pikachu observed.
"Be nice, Pikachu," Ash chuckled, then turned his attention back to the man he'd approached. "Do you know the way to Professor Birch's lab?"
"Oh, um," the man said. "It's actually quite obvious, it's the big building with the glass curved roof. There's a big Pokéball on a plinth outside?"
"Thanks!" Ash told him. "We'll find it now!"
With a description like that, Latias was able to just fly up and find the lab in moments. That in turn led her to guiding Ash along one road and then a second one to the Birch Lab, and then they were in sight so Ash could go the rest of the way.
"Now I'm thinking that you probably needed help from someone like Latias or Noctowl even while you were human," Pikachu suggested. "You know, like there are canine Pokémon who act as seeing-eye dogs. A finding-map Pokémon."
"Pikachu," Ash protested, but he was trying not to giggle and Latias wasn't trying not to giggle and it was hard to complain about a good joke.
Then the door opened, and Professor Birch looked him up and down. "My goodness… you're just as Oak described. Ah, come in, my name's Professor Birch. You are Ash Ketchum, correct?"
"That's me!" Ash confirmed. "And this is Pikachu!"
"Hi!" Pikachu waved.
"I've got another Pokémon with me but she's a bit shy," Ash added, as Birch held the door open for him. "So I guess it's up to her if she introduces herself."
"I understand," Birch said. "Come on through to the main room and I'll get things sorted out for you… how did this happen, by the way? Oak said it was magic, but I'm not sure I can believe that."
"Well, the best way I can explain it is that it was magic," Ash apologized. "I drank a magic potion made in a cauldron by a woman with a pointy hat and who called herself a witch, and now I'm a Pokémon."
Birch blinked, slowly. "I think I'm starting to understand how Professor Oak has those good pictures of Legendary Pokémon."
He pushed open the door to a brightly lit room, again holding it open for Ash (and an invisible Latias) to pass through after him, then went over to the computer. "Let's see… here we are. So I'm going to register you for the Hoenn League… and you're having your automatic return threshold raised, is that correct?"
"That's right!" Ash said. "I wouldn't normally mind having just six as the normal limit, but I'm a Pokémon so I count as one and I really need the help of at least one Pokémon just to take things out of my bag, so Professor Oak said it was best if I raised it to eight."
"I see," Birch nodded slowly, half his attention on the keyboard. "And… update that… leave that the same… can I have your Pokédex? I can scan it to fill in all the ID fields at once."
Latias picked it out of Ash's bag, then held it out with an invisible pair of claws, and when Birch looked around he jumped. "Oh! Thank you, ah, this is that shy Pokémon you mentioned?"
"Right!" Ash agreed. "Thanks!"
Then the door to the room opened again.
"Is Professor Birch in – what Pokémon is that?" a girl asked. "And why is it wearing a hat?"
Pikachu, thinking quickly, snatched Ash's new hat out of his bag.
"Pikachu!" he said.
"Oh, you're wearing my spare hat, Pikachu?" Ash asked. "That's Pikachu! He's my starter Pokémon!"
This did not seem to clear things up for the girl, but Latias did start giggling again.
After introductions had happened, Ash's team (counting both himself and Latias as part of his team, in a technical sense) knew that the girl they'd just met was called May Maple, and May knew that Ash was Ash.
"You'll probably meet May's father soon," Birch said, cheerfully. "He's the Petalburg…"
He noticed how May was trying to get him to stop, and amended himself. "...resident?"
"He's the resident?" Ash asked. "How big is Petalburg?"
"It's a city," May said. "But my dad's nobody special… unlike you, apparently. How come you're a Pokémon?"
"Magic," Ash explained, which didn't help. "But, you're here for something with Professor Birch, right? I should get sorted out so he can move on to you."
"It's fine, the applications take a few minutes to process," Birch told him. "If you don't mind I can handle May while we wait?"
Ash waved his hoof. "Sure!"
"Okay, let's see," Birch went on, checking his notes. "So, you're here to get a Starter Pokémon, and you don't have any special preferences…"
May winced. "Well, more like… I don't really think I'll get on with any Pokémon, not properly."
"How come?" Ash asked, tilting his head. "I get why you wouldn't get on with some Pokémon, but not getting on with any Pokémon? Pokémon are so varied, and they're such good friends so often, I don't really get how that's possible."
He indicated Pikachu. "And how things start doesn't mean anything about how it goes on, either. When I first got Pikachu we really didn't get on well, because he was really touchy and didn't like being caught."
"Touchy?" Pikachu replied. "Touchy? Your Mom did not ask for permission before squeezing me like that! And the leash and rubber gloves didn't help either."
"Yeah, I was an idiot," Ash agreed. "And I guess Mom hadn't been in close touch with a Pokémon for a while, so she didn't remember you have to ask them before doing that. But anyway, once we got to know each other, it didn't take long, we worked really well together and we still do now!"
Ash drummed a hoof on the lab floor, a bit nervously. "So, I guess what I'm saying is… it's really hard for me to imagine how you could not get on with Pokémon at all. If you're afraid of them, it might make sense, but then I sort of wonder why you're here for a Starter Pokémon? Does that make sense?"
Latias shrugged. "Most of the trained Pokémon I've met have been yours, Brock's or Misty's, Ash."
"What was that weird squeaking noise?" May asked. "It wasn't Pikachu."
"Oops," Latias said.
"That's one of my friends," Ash replied. "She's not used to being around people."
May looked like that hadn't helped any more than the magic explanation had, then visibly remembered Ash's earlier question.
"I… well, I want to travel," May explained. "And that means having a Pokémon. That's my main reason for it."
Ash thought about that, for a long moment.
"I think… you should probably make sure your Pokémon knows that?" he said. "But… at the same time, you should never tell yourself that you're not going to try and make friends, just because you weren't planning to. If it doesn't work out between you, it doesn't work out, but it's got to be way better to travel with a Pokémon who you're friends with, right?"
The computer went bing.
"Oh, that's Ash's application done," Professor Birch said. "I'll just, ah… well, I suppose May will need time to make her decision. I'll show you the starter Pokémon?"
He sent out a Mudkip, a Treecko and a Torchic, but by the time he was done Ash was frowning again.
"Professor?" he said. "I never thought of this before, but why is it that it's only three starter Pokémon choices? Professor Oak did that as well, sort of, he only gave four options and one of them was Pikachu. Wouldn't it be better to have more than one Treecko, more than one Torchic and more than one Mudkip?"
"It might be, but there's problems with availability," Birch admitted. "I could give plenty of choice of Zigzagoon, but most people don't really appreciate that kind of choice."
Through a process that made sense to someone, presumably, May and Ash ended up leaving the Birch Labs together.
May with her Torchic, who was the one choice out of May's three options who sounded like he was okay with the idea of 'giving it a go and seeing if I get on with you'; Ash with his properly registered trainer card and updated settings.
And Latias with Pikachu, who'd elected to ride on her back for now.
"I still think that Mudkip was rude," Ash said, looking back at the labs. "She might not have wanted to go with you but there was no need for that."
"No kidding," Latias agreed. "Who tries to attack someone if they don't like them?"
Pikachu coughed.
For the first time, Ash was travelling with someone who could move faster than a walk, and that meant he had a good reason to work out how to not only trot but also canter.
That meant several false starts, especially when he got mixed up and forgot to unstick a hoof from the road, but eventually he got the hang of it and cantered steadily alongside May's bike.
"It's different for me, now, because I can understand Pokémon," he said. "That sort of came with being turned into one, I don't know if that's normal for that kind of magic though because it's a special case. But I still got to know my Pokémon well before that, even though I couldn't understand them."
He frowned a little, thinking. "I guess… the most important thing to remember is just that Torchic is as much of a person as anyone else? And you can't understand him, but he can understand you pretty well."
"Right," May said, trying to split her attention between the conversation and the road ahead. "So like how my dad treats a lot of his Pokémon differently to one another?"
"Exactly," Ash agreed. "And it'd kind of suck if my friends treated me like my friend Gary wanted to be treated, especially if they got me clothes that would fit him! Even before, you know."
May glanced at Ash. "Except hats?"
"Except hats!" Ash agreed. "Hats work great!"
"So, I should ask Torchic what he thinks," May said, trying to get it straight. "And if there's something in particular he wants to do?"
Ash nodded. "Yeah!" he confirmed for her. "And, on top of that, well… you said you wanted to travel, but what do you want to do while you travel?"
"Huh?" May asked.
"Ash, people travel for reasons that aren't challenging gyms," Pikachu sniggered.
"Like what?" Ash replied.
They went past someone heading in the other direction, who seemed to be quite confused by the sight of them.
It was hard to be sure, but he kept staring at them right from the moment they came into line of sight and kept staring until they went past, jogging straight ahead all the way.
Which made it a bit of a pity the road curved there, really.
They got to Petalburg by about the middle of the afternoon, which left Ash's legs aching slightly after an unusual kind of workout, and something occurred to him as he followed May to the Petalburg Gym.
"Depending on whether you want to meet more Pokémon, it might actually be a bad idea to cycle everywhere," he said. "It makes it harder to meet Pokémon because you go past them so quickly, they don't have a chance to meet you and you don't have a chance to meet them either. And I guess if you don't want more Pokémon, that's fine, but you end up losing the chance."
Pikachu sniggered. "And, Ash being Ash, he'd probably trip over a good Pokémon for him, but it's a good point anyway."
"I guess that's a good point, but…" May shrugged. "I'm still not sure if I'm going to catch more Pokémon at all. I mostly got a Pokémon because my dad thought it was a good idea, not because… well."
She shrugged, and Ash frowned.
"Well, if you decide what to do, that might help?" he said. "We could try out having a battle in a bit… this is the gym, right?"
May nodded.
Ash knocked on the door with a hoof, and it opened.
"Aha, challenger!" a young boy said. "Welcome to why are you a Pokémon what Pokémon are you is that a flying Pikachu hi May what's going on?"
"That's funny," Ash frowned, glancing at May. "Didn't you say this was the gym?"
As it turned out, this was the gym, but the young boy wasn't the Gym Leader.
Instead, he was May's younger brother Max, and their father Norman was the Gym Leader.
"Fascinating," Norman said, once he'd shaken Ash's hoof. "So you're a Pokémon and a trainer… yes, I did hear something about that. What type are you?"
"I don't actually know," Ash admitted. "Professor Oak wasn't sure of a good way to test it."
"Fortunately, I've got an idea about that," Norman told him. "You see, the Normal type isn't just the type of the most basic no-frills Pokémon, despite how it might sound. It's the most fundamental type of all – and I know just how to find out what type you might be, because the Normal type combines with so many others. You see, the best way to find out what type you are involves immunities."
Ash thought about that.
"Right," he said. "So, like how… Electric types can't be paralyzed, Fire-types can't be burned, Dark-types are immune to Psychic attacks, and how most people think Ground-types can't be hurt by Electric attacks?"
"I mean how… er," Norman frowned. "They are immune to Electric attacks."
"Huh, that's funny," Ash frowned. "That's how I won at least two badges."
"Well, let's see what we can find out," Norman decided. "Is in here okay?"
He rummaged around among his Pokéballs. "Let's see… start with Kecleon. Is that all right? I don't know if you've been hit by attacks before, because you're a trainer."
"Pikachu's shocked me a few times!" Ash admitted readily, trotting out to the middle of the gym floor. "It's okay, though, I know Recover, though I haven't practiced with it yet."
"Well, Kecleon knows a few attacks that are going to matter here, but he's not very strong, so that works out quite well," Norman said. "I usually use him for two-badge battles because he's a great test of if someone bothers to learn more than one useful move."
Kecleon came out with a flash, and scratched his head.
"This is a weird situation," he decided.
"Yeah, we're experimenting," Ash agreed.
"Shadow Ball!" Norman called.
The attack went right through Ash.
"Well, that was quick," Norman added. "Congratulations, Ash, you're a Normal type… now all we need to do is work out if you have another Type as well."
He clapped his hands together. "And I specialize in the Normal type! So I've got some tips for you."
It took a lot more experimenting, but eventually they concluded that Ash wasn't any of Ghost, Steel, Fire, Grass, Electric, Flying, Poison, Dark or Fairy type, plus ruling out Ground and Rock thanks to Sandstorm and Ice thanks to Hail.
That left Ash's possible other Type as Dragon, Psychic, Water, Bug or Fighting, if he had one at all, and left Pikachu looking very worried.
"Are you going to stop now?" he asked. "Seeing all that happen to Ash is giving me anxiety."
"Pikachu thinks we should stop," Ash said. "It's been helpful though!"
He glowed faintly. "It's the first time I've had a chance to practice Recover!"
"You're a good kid, Ash," Norman said. "I don't think I'd be this optimistic if I was in a situation like yours."
"I figured that it'd be a good chance to get a Gym Battle," Ash replied. "I'm out to win my first Hoenn Pokémon Badge!"
"Now, that I can do," Norman agreed. "Since you don't have any Hoenn badges, I'll give you the choice… do you want this to be a serious battle where I try at a high level, or something easier? I don't know if you've got Pokémon you want to train up from here or not."
"Something part way up the scale would be best," Ash decided. "I've got some of the Pokémon I used in the Silver Conference with me, but mostly Phanpy is new and young and Unown is new. Then there's my friend, who could take part if she wants? What do you think?"
"I think I could give it a go!" Latias squeaked back. "I think Norman's been nice so far! But I'm not very experienced."
"Oh, so that's how Pikachu is flying," Norman decided.
"This is such a weird situation," Max said quietly.
"She says she's okay with it, so it'll be her first battle," Ash decided.
Ash opened with Phanpy, thanks to Latias giving him the right Pokéball, and Norman's response was a Vigoroth.
"Oh, boy, time for a battle!" Phanpy said. "What should I know about this one, Ash?"
"They're active, I think," Ash told him, as Norman signalled for the battle to begin. "Let's go! Rollout!"
Phanpy used Rollout, and Vigoroth dodged to the side before countering with a Scratch attack.
"Stay on the move, Vigoroth," Norman said. "As Phanpy gets faster he'll hit harder, but he'll also have more trouble steering."
Phanpy went back in the other direction. "Whee!"
"And get ready to use Flamethrower," Norman added. "Now!"
"Swerve!" Ash called, and Phanpy leaned sharply to the left.
It shed a bit of his momentum, but it also meant he turned much more sharply than Vigoroth was expecting and hit the Normal-type a stunning blow that sent them staggering backwards.
"Great!" Ash said, as Phanpy uncurled for a moment to shake off the soot from the Flamethrower. "Keep it up!"
After Vigoroth, Norman sent out a Slaking, which knocked Phanpy quite easily through the wall and then had a lot more trouble with Unown.
Unown, for their part, had a lot more trouble with Slaking. The big burly Pokémon hit hard when it could be bothered to hit, and it shrugged off a lot of Hidden Power attacks, but eventually enough Hidden Power Fightings proved decisive and knocked Slaking out.
"Now, you said she's not very experienced, so I've picked Blissey," Norman said, sending the Normal-type out. "She's tough, but – well, let's see if you can deal with her."
Pikachu crossed from Latias' back to Ash's back, and Latias decloaked.
"But that-" Max began, pointing. "Isn't that – that's a Legendary Pokémon!"
"She's beautiful," May whispered. "Wow."
Latias waved, a bit embarrassed, then focused on Blissey. "Okay, Ash – what should I do?"
"Begin with Headbutt!" Ash said.
"Got it!" Latias replied, actually using the move this time, and knocked Blissey through the wall.
"Ah, right," Norman mused. "Physics. I should remember to discuss that first."
A few minutes later, Blissey had been retrieved and Norman got out one of his badges.
"This is the Balance Badge," he said, crouching down to make it easier on Ash, and Ash took it.
Then looked around. "There it is again!"
"That voice, right?" Pikachu asked. "What did it say this time?"
"Three beings whose power can hold both time and space fixed," Ash repeated. "Did I change colour? I don't think I did."
"Can't see any sign from here," Pikachu reported.
"Change colour?" Norman repeated. "And what voice?"
"When I won my first badge after changing, it changed what colour I was," Ash replied. "That was the Rising Badge. Um, Pikachu, can you get my badge case? And I heard a voice, which said something else about three beings. That's funny. It's like it's talking about the same thing."
"Record it before you forget it," Pikachu advised. "Like you did with the Rising Badge one."
Ash demonstrated changing colour, and Norman frowned.
"You know, I think you might actually be pure Normal, but we can't prove it for sure yet," he said. "I've got an idea for a test, but why don't you come back here once you've got a few more badges?"
"Sure!" Ash agreed.
"Now, about those tips on being Normal type," Norman resumed. "From a philosophical point of view, Normal is the state where you could be anything. That's why Eevee is Normal, and Normal Pokémon often have a wide variety of moves they can learn…"
May ended up deciding to follow Ash on his journey of self-discovery.
Somewhat to May's embarrassment, so did her little brother, who said it'd be far more educational than school could ever be.
AN:
Hoenn!
Norman's something of an expert on Normal. Given the incredibly wide definition of Normal in the Pokémon World this is harder than it sounds.