Pokémon the series: Next Generation

prologue 1

An Alolan Beginning

Welcome to the world of Pokémon, a world not unlike our own, except for one key difference the existence of wondrous creatures called Pokémon. Across the world you can find many Pokémon, in forests, in caves, soaring through the sky, or swimming deep within the sea, and one thing is for sure wherever you find people you'll find Pokémon as well. The lives of people in Pokémon are truly intertwined.

Pokémon help us put out fires, apprehend criminals, and just live alongside us as friends and companions. Some people work with their Pokémon in various and different competitions aiming to be the best or seeking adventure. These brave young men and women are known as Pokémon trainers, and by far one of the best is Ash Ketchum, who, along with his partner Pikachu, managed to become the world champion, a title he still holds to this day. Champion or not to this narrator and anyone during this tale, he will always be one thing, our hero. Right now it looks like we can find him visiting his family in the Alola region.

"Darkest Lariat!" Ash shouted, just as made practiced, Incineroar spun in place letting the dark energy of the attack, accumulate around its fists. "Good," Ash said, "now, just like we practiced Fire Punch!" Incineroar heated his fists, which were still crackling with the previous move's dark energy. The result of this combination was incineroar hurling darkness-infused fireballs at its incoming opponent who just happen to be Prof. Kukui's own incineroar who fell from the sky as the balls of fire exploded on contact.

"That worked," Ash exclaimed as he ran to incineroar's side. "Hold on Ash. Yes, it's usable, but I wouldn't say it worked," Kukui said, gesturing to ashes incineroar who was stumbling around almost seeming like it was going to either vomit or fall over maybe both.

"What?" Ash exclaimed in a mixture of both concern and confusion. Prof. Kukui shook his head, "we got the desired results, but all that spinning plus using to move that once might've been a bit much for incineroar that would explain why it's so dizzy. We're on the right track in this version probably works, but we need to refine it a bit more. At least this is better than what happened with Buizel," Kukui said, remembering their disastrous first attempt.

It had been about two weeks since Ash returned to Alola he had been trying to develop some new battle techniques or improve old ones, such as his counter shield inspired to do this by seeing Leon's version of the technique in their battle during the Masters 8 Tournament. In order to help with this, Ash had brought Buizel and Infernape with him to Alola as along with Pikachu they were the Pokémon he had used to develop the technique. The minute he heard about this Kukui was intrigued and wanted to help his surrogate son improve this technique. Needless to say, their first attempt did not go very well Kukui suggested that instead of using a counter shield with one move to try using the technique with two or more moves at once as the combination of two different types of moves would allow the technique to cover more weaknesses. During training ash might have taken this just a little too far as his initial plan to have Buizel combine his already established water gun counter shield with both Aqua jet and ice punch, thinking that the Aqua jet could act as a barrier while the tendrils of water created by the water gun would act somewhere whips warding off opponents that got too close. The purpose of the ice punch list of freeze the ends of the tendrils so that they would do more damage overall and hit grass types for super effective damage. Although this technique was good in theory, what actually happened was pleased that stock in the center of a frozen pillar of water, which Prof. Burnett had dubbed the ice tree as the tendrils from the water gun looked like branches coming off the pillar. Ash's arms were still sore. He and the rest of his Pokémon had to spend several hours breaking through the ice pillar to get Buizel out as the pillar was too sick for ash just to be able to recall Buizel and if they simply waited for the ice melts weasel would fall from an incredibly high height, so they had to chip away at the pillar one layer at a time until the Pokéball could reach Buizel and safely recall it. No one needed to tell ash that the first attempt was obviously a failure. After that Kukui suggested that in order for this to work; only a maximum of two moves can be used at a time. This new technique which involved incineroar throwing enhanced fireballs, something Kukui named a counter volley was the result of this training.

"You two should really take a break," Prof. Burnet said, "as she placed two plates with sandwiches on a table, several yards from where the pair was training, "you promised Lei you would do something with him today, or did you two forget?"

Lei was Prof. Kukui and Prof. Burnett's son who Ash viewed as a little brother. Every time he came to Alola, ash would always make time to play with the toddler were teach him about Pokémon most of the time Lei just ended up watching his father and brother, training or battling each other, the same difference really. Normally Prof. Burnett had no problem with this. She knew that her husband and stepson could maybe get a little overenthusiastic about Pokémon moves or Pokémon battle in general, but they were a professor and a world champion. She usually didn't have to worry about Lei getting hurt, but every mother has her limits on the amount of danger that she is willing to put her child in, and when ash and Kukui came up with the concept of having incineroar throw fireballs in semi-random directions that is when Burnett discovered what her danger limit was for her younger son. This plan to Prof. Burnett, putting her foot down and saying that her son could not watch as closely as he normally does he would have to watch from inside the house at a safe distance something the toddler, who usually is very close to what his father and brother were doing, did not take kindly to.

"And besides dear you have a phone call, from a professor from the Paldea Region. He apparently wants to talk to you about something important," Burnett said as she helped Lei get a seat at the table across from Ash.

"Well, guess I should see what he wants," Kukui said, as he walked down the path back towards the house that the usual family of three and current family of four shared.

"You should probably go too," Burnett said to Ash, who was busy attending to a still dizzy incineroar, "originally, he just wanted to talk to Kukui, but the minute I told him you were here not only said to bring you as well, but he conferenced in Deliah, Prof. Oak, and Prof. Cerise into the call."

This got Ash's attention l he was used to people calling and asking for the professor. It happened all the time when he lived in Alola as professor Kukui's student and Ash knew that if people needed to contact him, and he wasn't at home in Pallet Town, this was most likely the first place they'd look. Still, the fact that this person conferenced in not only Ash's mom, but both, or rather, all three of his previous mentor figures, including the one that was like a father to him worried Ash. What could be so important that all of these people needed to know about it at the same time? Something about this didn't feel quite right Ash didn't know whether it was the fact that all of the important adults in his life were present from this call or the fact that he, the world champion, had never heard of this Paldea region before and the prospect of something that unknown was both exciting and nerve-racking. Wait, Ash was confused by his own feelings when the prospect of a new region, of new Pokémon, ever scared him?

Pikachu, who had been walking beside Ash, could sense his trainer's unusable level of trepidation, and with an exclamation of Chu fired a low powered, thunderbolt at the back of Ash's head. The young man convulsed and twitched for a few seconds before turning around and offering Pikachu his arm. Pikachu gladly climbed up resting on Ash's shoulder like he had done hundreds of times before.

"Thanks, buddy," Ash said, "I needed that." He really did need that ash couldn't understand why this was making him so nervous he thought the training was enough, but maybe it wasn't maybe he really needed to go on a journey, maybe he had let himself become soft or lazy.

"Hey, what's the hold-up? People are waiting on us you know." Ash had been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he had simply stopped moving and stood in one place Kukui was now very far down the road almost back to the house Ash could barely see him. Realizing he was about to be left behind Ash broke into a run, trying as hard as he can to catch up to the professor. He had things he wanted to ask his father figure before the meeting with the mysterious Paldean Prof. by the time ash caught up to him, Kukui had stopped and was waiting patiently like he knew Ash had something he needed to get off his chest.

"Professor, Can I ask you a question?" Ash said a slight hint of excitement in his voice, "what's the Paldea region like and why have I never heard of it?"

Kukui smiled down at his son only now noticing that he didn't have to look down as far as Ash had gotten taller time really had passed. "I was wondering when you were going to ask me about that, and technically that's two questions," Kukui chuckled with a grin, "as for the first question Paldea is like many other regions in this world of ours a beautiful place full of many unique people and Pokémon. Although its Pokémon league system is a little unorthodox. And as for the second question, that's a bit more difficult. It would probably take me a long time to answer, but since we're going to be meeting with one of the region's professors, you should probably know at least the short version. Well, to start things off Paldea used to be much bigger in fact, at least from what I remember from the story, it was probably once the biggest empire on the planet. Having once controlled not only the land of the current Paldea region, but most of Galar and pretty much all of Kalos, and from what the stories say the Emperor of Paldea was not a very nice man and ruled his kingdom with an iron fist."

Ash had never heard of an empire from what he most regions basically have their own government and some of their laws were practically universal across the board. "What happened to the Emperor?" Ash asked.

"No one knows for sure, but there is a story, it's actually a pretty wild one," Kukui said clearly amused by Ash's newfound enthusiasm, "the legend says that four items owned by the Emperor absorb so much hatred from the man that they gain centimes and became Pokémon and then help the people of Paldea overthrow the Emperor before sealing themselves away."

As Kukui finished his story He could see it, the stars in both Ash and Pikachu's eyes. The excitement that they were now starting to feel again eased his mind a bit. In truth, Kukui had started to worry about ash, it wasn't anything too serious, but ever since he returned to Alola two weeks ago for his training ash had seemed different. He still wanted to train and still had the desire to but that spark that drive, that the boy usually possessed, was smaller it wasn't gone, but it seemed to not be as impactful.

"You hear that Pikachu?" Ash said excitedly, "legendary Pokémon that helped overthrow an evil Emperor that's so cool. I wonder if we'll get to meet them, buddy."

"Fantasize about that on your own time," Kukui remarked, "we have a meeting to get to it's rude to keep so many people waiting."