Chapter 1 Black opened his eyes. Another beautiful dawn in Azalea town! Pidgeys singing, sun shining, and Bellsprout dancing. "Bellsprout dancing?" Black questioned the narrative. "What? Huh?" "Bellsprout. Bell. Sprout. Bellsprout." The Bellsprout turned on the radio next to Black. "One more time...mmm... You know I'm jus' feelin'... Celebration... Tonight... Celebrate... Don't wait too late...mmm.... Y'know.....we don't stop...you can't stop.." Black considered this happening. "Hmm... a Bellsprout on my bedroom floor. Looks like he brought confetti, balloons, and a big bowl of punch. Yeah. Uh, there's some techno music playing loudly on my radio. Where is this familiar from?" He concentrated real hard. "Oh yeah!" he said. "This is the same thing that's happened over and over since I met Bellsprout at some birthday party! He followed me home and he keeps sneaking into the house and annoying me! I didn't even like that kid, anyway!" The idea that this Bellsprout party was a staple of everyday life finally registered with his brain. "Woah! That's scary!" he said aloud! Then, he became even more terrified. His mom walked in with dark circles under her eyes. She was pretty scary looking, but that's not what he was scared of. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. NO BELLSPROUT PARTIES IN THE HOUSE! This is the third time this month. Tell your friend to go home. NOW." She walked out the door and closed it. Then, she came back in. "Oh, by the way," she said, "you're grounded for three more days." Suddenly, Black let loose his anger. He screamed very loudly, waking up his father and twin sister. "Wahh!" he heard. He heard footsteps running past his door from the direction of Sara's room toward his parents. "Mom! Black woke me up!" "I know, Sara," she said. She was again in Black's room within seconds. "Better make it a week." A week came and went. Black was stuck in the house when not at school, and he could never go forth into the fresh air and warm sun that always seemed to be shining in Azalea Town. This was a usual part of life, because it seemed Bellsprout seemed only to show up on the day he would no longer be grounded. "I have bad luck," he commented to himself sitting Friday by the window, throwing stuff at various objects outside which either A) resembled Bellsprout B) he wished resembled Bellsprout, or C) he hoped would resemble Bellsprout by the time he finished deforming them by throwing things at them. "So close, yet so far," he thought about his grounding. He picked up a squeaky moose and threw it at the mailbox outside. It hit the box and made a faint wheezing noise. "Yay," he said sarcastically in the monotone of boredom. "Point for me." Then, Saturday, his day of freedom came. "Yes!" he said as he walked out of his house. "It's a lovely summer day, and I'm off to do what I do best: WASTE MONEY!" He rushed to the comic book shop where he was known as the annoying kid whose hair looked like it had been cut by a rooster. "Time to buy like crazy!" he said. "Yeah, right," muttered the man at the counter. He knew what Black did at a comic store. He found all of his favorite comics' latest issues and made sure to cover every inch with his fingerprints then put them back. "That was fun!" Black said. :Time to go outside and experience the lovely Azalea sun!" He stepped out to notice that it was raining in sheets. "Oh, just my luck again." He began his long and tiresome journey to his home in the rain. Suddenly, he heard a clang. A garbage can, tipped on its side, rolled over, and a very dizzy and injured Slowpoke rolled out of it. "Awww... It's so cute. But my Mom and Dad would never let me have a Pokèmon of my own after all those Bellsprout incidences..." As he trailed off in mid- sentence, he noticed that the Slowpoke was cowering in fear. There were scratches all over its back. He could not just leave it in the garbage can, maybe to die. "Oh, I suppose I should take it to the Pokèmon center." The Pokèmon center was nearby, luckily. He dragged the Slowpoke to the place of healing that all great trainers had visited, including the new champion as of a few months ago Gold. The nurse healed the poor Slowpoke and released it into the wild. "This Slowpoke was beaten by a grass type move, but it's now fine. You should get yourself home. This rain is supposed to get even worse. You should take a rain poncho." "Thanks," he said. The nurse handed him one and he slipped it on, walking out the door. He looked at the Slowpoke, sitting outside the center. "Cute little guy..." he noticed the Slowpoke was looking at him. He walked over and petted the Slowpoke, then started for home. At his house, he sat playing his Gamecube until he got sick of losing every game and decided it was time for a rest. He lay in his bed, listening to the sound of the rain hitting the roof of the house. He didn't know why, but he liked that sound. As he listened it, he drifted to sleep. However, he had two visitors later at night after the rain had stopped. The Bellsprout opened the window and climbed in. "Who's ready to PAR-TAY?" he inquired. Then he noticed that Black was asleep. "Tsk, tsk, lazybones," he said in the peculiar language of Pokèmon, called "the peculiar language of Pokèmon." He thought. "Hey! Maybe that guy outside'll party!" He went to Black's garage and got a wooden board for a ramp. He put one end on the window, and one end where the heavy Pokèmon outside could walk up. The Slowpoke walked in. "Yo! It's Party Time!" said the Bellsprout. "Huh? Oh... It's that nice boy who helped me today. I like him. I also like food. And playgrounds. And-" "Just shaddup and boogie!" Bellsprout turned on the party music and started to dance. "Huh... Oh... Huh...?" "Dance!" "Oh...Yeah!" So, the pair boogied for about five minutes. And then Black woke up. A bit of a delayed reaction, I guess. "What? Again? And there's the Slowpoke... Huh? Oh... Huh...?" Black sounded a lot like the very Slowpoke he was referring to. Suddenly, a realization dawned on Black. "Wait... the nurse said Slowpoke was beaten by a grass Pokèmon... BELLSPROUT! So you were the Pokèmon who hurt Slowpoke! You should be ashamed, you, you, you--" "No! Not me!" Black only heard "Bell! Sproutbell!" but the Bellsprout made negative gestures like hand waves, head shakes, and the Macarena. "Oh yeah? Then who?" Black asked skeptically. Bellsprout suddenly jumped out the window. "Wow. That Bellsprout jumped out the window. What a strange Pokèmon," said Black. "Oh well, Slowpoke. You can stay outside until morning. Then I'll ask my parents if I can keep you." He lifted the Slowpoke and put him outside. "I doubt they'll say yes, though." Meanwhile, Bellsprout ran looking for the real culprit. He had seen earlier. He saw many things in the town. Soon, he found him: a boy with an Oddish. The boy was giving his Oddish a pep talk, but he suddenly saw Bellsprout. "A Bellsprout!! I want one!" The boy dove for Bellsprout. Bellsprout might have been grabbed if not for his dance moves which helped him get out of the way. "AHHHHHH!!! HELP MEEEEEEE!" Bellsprout screamed. Of course, all that the boy heard was "SPROUUUT!!!! SPROUT BELLLLL!!!!" But Bellsprout ran. He was trting to make it look like he was just running to get away, but Bellsprout was actually attempting to lead him to Black's house. White, the boy with the Oddish, chased the Bellsprout. He thought he could catch it, when it ran into a house window. Black was soon at the window. "HEY!!!" said Black. "Who are you? Wait.... I get it! You're the one who hurt the Slowpoke! That's what Bellsprout is trying to tell me." Black, if you haven't guessed, is quite the slow one. White looked at the familiar Pokèmon. "So what? It's how you get experience on a journey! Get to bed kid! Don't bother me." Black went back to bed. But then he got back up. "Hey, wait! This is my property! You come barging into my backyard, yelling and screaming, then you tell me to go to bed? What's wrong with you?" "Shut up," said White, leaving. "You're so annoying!" As he walked away, he began grumbling. "Rrr... I guess I won't be getting that Bellsprout." Black went back to bed, and the night passed uneventfully. "Yessss!" Black thought in the morning. "I wasn't grounded!" That was because the terrified Bellsprout had left, and Black had gotten some sleep. But only a little. He had lain up most of the night thinking about starting his own journey with the Slowpoke. Then he could find that boy and teach him a lesson. But he also thought that the boy had done nothing wrong by beating a wild Pokèmon. It was, after all, what he was supposed to do... He approached his parents at breakfast. He asked if he could keep the Slowpoke. "Well," his dad said, "If you can avoid another Bellsprout incident for two weeks, maybe. But leave it at the Pokèmon center for now and tell the nurse to hold it for you." After getting back from the center, Black took the board that Bellsprout had used as a ramp for Slowpoke and used it to block off his window. "This should keep that Bellsprout out." To make a short story even shorter, it did. He picked up the Slowpoke the Sunday he was supposed to. Now came the hard part: getting permission for a Pokèmon journey. "Dad," Black said simply. "Can I go on a Pokèmon journey?" "No," said his dad. "Why?" Black asked. "No," said his dad. "Please? That's what Read and Blue and Gold and all them did at my age!" Black persisted. "Oh, I don't know. It's just that... It's a long trek away from home and hard work..." "Oh, C'mon! I'm 12!" "Oh, we'll see." Meanwhile, Team Rocket leader Giovanni sat down, finally getting a moment of relaxation. "Ah," he said. "Another plan about to be put into action." "Sir," came the call over the intercom. "This is Executive Jon. The machine is ready!" "Good," said Giovanni. "Begin the process." Giovanni watched the screen in front of him. It showed him a scene far over the border of Kanto. Diglett's tunnel, in fact. This was where the strange happenings began. A young trainer was battling one Diglett, when suddenly the Diglett he was battling was joined by others. All of the Diglett burrowed under him, causing the ground beneath him to cave in. He fell through the hole, and he found that he was in a tunnel. Before he knew it, he was being pushed along by about ten Diglett as a group of Dugtrio ahead worked on the tunnel. Giovanni laughed. He loved it when his plans succeeded. The call came to his office. "Sir, this is Executive Jon. The plan has succeeded in its first phase." "Excellent," Giovanni said slowly. Then he added, "Second-In-Command Jon." It was a few weeks later that, very reluctantly, Black's parents agreed to let him have a journey, at least on a trial basis. He had a week to get ready. "YEAH!!!!!!! I'M LEAVIN' ON A JOURNEY!!!!" "Sloww.....?" Slowpoke looked quite puzzled. "I wish I knew what you were saying. Now, I wonder if that party Bellsprout would like to come... I could use some Pokèmon." However, Bellsprout had taken a hint that he was unwanted as a Pokèmon partner after several attempts on breaking a boarded up window. The problem was, as Bellsprout thought, that Black disliked parties. So Bellsprout's mission was to follow Black and introduce him to the joy of partying like it's 1999. The day was upon Black. He would hike to New Bark and battle a little along the way. But he had to say goodbyes first. "Here. It's a gift for you," his Mom said, extending a box toward Black. "Open it in front of Professor Elm." "Thanks. Bye Mom," he said, grabbing the box and stuffing it in his backpack. "Here's a gift from me, " his dad said, also extending his hand. "Open it after your mom's gift." "Thanks. Bye Dad." He grabbed the gift and put it in there too. Black left, waving. If he had been watching closely, he'd have known that a Grass Pokèmon with a party hat had seen him and was following him...