-The story of a young trainer and her team of dedicated Pokemon. A new series begins. First in a series.
Pokemon and all related trademarks belong to Nintendo.
The story, its original contents and ideas, and any original characters belong
to the author and cannot be used or reprinted without the author's permission.
Author’s Note: A
revised edition of my very first fanfic. Corrected a bunch of mistakes, edited
some minor plot details and dialogue.
By Gregory Stephen (nightdragon0@hotmail.com)
"Hey Nightslice, could ya hand me the box over there?”
I looked up from the small portable computer I was typing on.
“Hope there’s nothing fragile in it.” I kicked it over to him.
“Hey! Be careful!” He yelled, still managing to catch it.
“It’s hard for me to ‘hand’ something to you when my ‘hands’ are sword-like blades.”
“Then use your mouth, if it’s good for anything other than making smart remarks.”
“How bout you let me finish off here first.” I said, rather annoyed.
I went back to typing the last few lines:
By now, you’ve probably noticed I don’t seem human. Well, I’m not. What I am is a bug/flying Pokemon know as Scyther. And my pal Firestorm there, he’s a Charmeleon. Seems odd for me to be doing so, but since our trainer, Kris, seems rather distracted lately, looks like I’ll be the one updating this journal from now on.
For me, it’s a gift to be able to speak as the humans do. Same goes for Firestorm. Strange thing is, neither of us really knows how we’re able to do it. And, that’s probably why I’m here typing this with my blades. I suppose I’m glad the keys are pretty big.
That’s all for now.
Logging off.
I shut the computer off and glanced towards Firestorm, who was now staring at me. The orange glow of the campfire, plus the human-like intelligence that shone in his eyes gave me an eerie feeling just looking at him.
“You know,” he begun, “it never fails to amaze me how you manage to do that with those bladed claws of yours.”
I decided to ignore his remark.
“Is Kris still out there?” I asked, turning my head.
“Yep.”
Both of us looked over to the left, the hill where our trainer was sitting, staring at the stars. The plain white shirt and white long pants reflected the light pretty well.
Kris was considered tall for a 16 year-old-girl and, as I’ve been told, a beautiful one by human standards.
Now, how was that I was supposed to describe her?
Asian girl with shiny, shoulder length back hair and a spotless complexion. She was incredibly matured and self reliant, though beneath she smiling face, she always seemed to have some dark secret hidden deep within. Something I hadn’t come to fully understand yet.
Gargh, I’m just repeating everything Firestorm told me.
“Why the sudden change?” I asked, shoving my thoughts away.
“Guess it must have something to do with her dumping Team Rocket.” Came Firestorm’s reply, “probably feels guilty for all the bad things she’s done.”
“I thought she was over that already. Could be something else.” I muttered.
“The two of us have a pretty bad history with Team Rocket,” Firestorm reminded me, “Kris can get pretty emotional from time to time. Remember, this is her first time back out here in civilization in a while.”
Yes, the two of them sure had a long history. And involving Team Rocket, it wasn’t a particularly clean one. Even back in 1996, at 13, she was able to fake her age and eventually rise to the tops of the evil organization. As you’d expect, they weren’t too happy when she decided to run off like that.
Me? Basically the
two of them had rescued my from certain death, from being frozen to death up at
the
It had been about a year and a half since they went into hiding and found me. Kris had finally decided to come back to the world and try to remake her life.
“So, what now? Just keep waiting?” I asked, eager to change the subject.
“I’ll play cards with ya.” Firestorm beamed.
“You’re on.” I growled in reply.
Since I obviously have trouble holding cards for myself, we play a computerized version of the Pokemon TCG (trading card game) on the laptop computer. Considering that we’d lived up at an extremely isolated mountain until just a week ago, Firestorm and I had plenty of free time to learn a few interesting human things.
“And there! Scyther’s Slash does 60 damage to Gyarados.” I proudly announced.
“What!”
“Too bad the Gyarados card has a weakness to leaf cards.”
“No fair!”
“Don’t be a sore looser,” I teased.
“Come on, one more time!”
“That’s the sixth time I’ve heard you say that tonight.”
“Like I said,” I added in, “don’t be such a looser!”
I stood up and turned away, silently laughing. Unfortunately, that was a big mistake. I’d forgotten the number one rule when dealing with a Charmeleon.
Firestorm stuck his flaming tail into my back.
“Ssssssssccccccyyyyytttthhhheeeerrrrr!!!!!!!!!”
Ivysaur and Wartortle woke up and gave us a couple of odd glances, before lying back down and going to sleep again.
The next day, we arrived in Pewter City.
After taking a break in the Pokemon center, Kris wanted to take a look around town. But we had another idea. Firestorm and I practically dragged her all the way down to the Pewter City Gym.
“Come on! I know you’ll enjoy it.” Firestorm was trying to convince her.
“I don’t really know about it…” she replied, hesitantly.
Firestorm glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot.
Since most Pokemon don’t speak English, we’d figured that it would attract out too much attention if we went round talking like that. Both of us use our native languages in public so that we don’t seem too out of place.
In this case, we made sure that other passerbys weren’t within earshot before speaking.
“You know all about the Indigo League and all that right?” Firestorm continued, “It would be a great way to take some stress off and relax instead of worrying about the past too much.”
Kris smiled and scratched him under his chin.
“Guess you’re right. OK then, let’s go get ourselves a badge.”
The gym was huge. Not to mention the rocky landscape that had been set up for the battles.
I tried to listen as the gym leader, a guy named Brock, was explaining the gym match rules to Kris. Nothing new to me. Blah, Blah, Blah, I didn’t really pay attention.
“Two Pokemon for each of us.” He finally said, “let’s begin! I choose Geodude!”
“Go Wartortle!” Kris let out her water Pokemon.
“Geodude, tackle attack!” the gym leader shouted.
“Wartortle, withdraw!”
Wartortle withdrew into its shell, avoiding most of the damage.
“Now, water gun!”
Wartortle soaked the rock Pokemon with a spray of water from its mouth, sending it rolling across the floor. Kris had the type advantage there. Pretty much standard win.
“Hmmmm.” Brock had a rather annoyed look on his face. “Impressive. Return Geodude.”
He reached for another Pokeball.
“GO Onix!”
“Ooooorrrrroooaaarr!” The huge rock serpent appeared.
“Wartortle! War!” Wartortle panicked at the sight of Onix and ran to hide behind Kris.
“I thought you were supposed to be strong against rock types.” Kris muttered, “Nightslice you go.”
“Scyth, scyth?” I asked. <Who? Me? >
“I’ve got a plan, just go alright?”
May as well get this over with, I thought, leaping forward with a battle cry.
“Ssscccyytthheerr!”
“Onix bind him now!” Brock gave a command.
“Nightslice, agility!”
She didn’t really need to give that command as I reacted instinctively. I became a blur of motion, dashing round and avoiding the blow.
“Up!”
I leapt up and slashed across the serpent’s face with my sleek bladed claws. And it wasn’t very happy about it.
“Rooorrr!” Onix slammed me into a wall. That certainly got my ears ringing, but I wasn’t out of the fight yet.
“Onix, use rock throw!”
It was coming for me again.
“Ready!” Kris called, “sky attack now!”
Onix slammed down hard on the spot I’d been standing on a moment ago. I was already in mid-air and on my way down. I aimed my razor-like wings and hit Onix right in the eyes. The stone serpent roared in pain and collapsed, while I landed on top of its head with a victory pose.
Brock gasped as he recalled his Onix.
“Well done. I’m beaten.” He said to Kris as she stepped forward, “as proof of your victory, here is the Boulder Badge.”
“Thanks.” Kris took the shiny badge from him. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Good luck on the rest of your journey!” Brock called out as we left.
“Well, guess that was pretty easy.” I told Kris as we walked down the road. It was quite late at night, so hardly any people were around. We’d been hanging around town the whole day, gathering information and buying supplies and now, it was time to leave.
“He probably let you win.” Firestorm snorted, breathing out a small breath of fire.
“What!” Kris and I both shouted at the same time.
“Didn’t you see the way he was looking at Kris,” Firestorm grinned, “it was the ‘how bout dinner tonight’ look, I’m sure. And Kris was…”
Kris suddenly slapped him.
“DON’T EVER SAY THAT KIND OF THING ABOUT ME AGAIN!!!!!!!!!” She yelled angrily.
“HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY BATTLE SKILLS!!!!” I slashed him across his face.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! OK! I give up already!”
“How amusing.” An evil sounding voice suddenly said.
All three of us started at the voice and turned towards its source. Two figures, a man and a woman both with green dyed hair, were standing several feet behind us. Their black, ‘R’ decorated uniforms were something new to me, but to Kris and Firestorm, probably something all too familiar.
“Uh oh!” Kris muttered, “this is what I was afraid of.”
(An all too familiar music begins to play)
“Prepare for trouble.” Said the woman.
“And make it double.” The man added.
“To…”
“Yeah I know,” I cut in, “to protect the world from devastation.”
“To unite all peoples within our nation.” Firestorm added in an equally bored tone.
“To denounce the evils of truth and love.”
“To extend our reach to the stars above.”
“Scarlet, Aaron, nice to see you two again.” Kris just had to spoil the whole thing.
The two Team Rocket members fainted.
“No fair,” Aaron moaned, “they already know everything.”
“Argh, forget it.” Scarlet groaned, getting up, “Kris, you know what we’re here for.”
“Yeah,” Kris answered, “boss sent you two after me, didn’t he? If I’d known he’d send you two, I wouldn’t have worried so much about it.”
“We’ll make you sorry you said that!” Aaron growled, “Pokeball go!”
Team Rocket let out their Pokemon.
“Firestorm! Nightslice! Take em’ on!”
FLASH! Firestorm found himself facing a Nidorino. The two immediately began wrestling each other, Firestorm trying to avoid being jabbed by Nidorino’s poisonous horn.
FLASH! I gasped. Aaron’s Pokemon was another Scyther!
Only his was a lot older than I was.
<I always get the kid, don’t I? > My opponent said. Translated of course.
<You’ll see I’m full of surprises! > I answered, lunging at him.
Soon, we were engaged in an intense blade fight. I could still hear the cries of ‘Nidorino, horn attack!’ and ‘Firestorm, flamethrower!’ from the other side of the battlefield. I was completely ignoring Kris’ orders while trying to attack.
At one point, I ended up accidentally ramming into Firestorm. Both of us went down in a tangle of limbs and claws. Kris ran over to us.
“Think you two can work together on this one?” she whispered. We nodded and faced Team Rocket.
“Ready to give up yet?” Aaron sneered.
“Not a chance!” Kris answered. “Firestorm, confusion.”
Firestorm’s eyes lit up. He pointed a claw and Team Rocket went flying into a wall.
“Wwaaaahhhhh!”
“Nightslice, pin missile.”
I opened my mouth and fired out a bunch of sharp, needle-like pins.
“Owowowowowwowo!” Those cries were music to my ears.
“Now Firestorm! Earthquake!”
Firestorm charged up and hit the floor with his fist. The ground began to shake and Team Rocket were the ones this time that ended up in a heap on the floor.
“I think it’s time Team Rocket blasted off,” Scarlet said, recalling Nidorino.
“We’ll be back!” Aaron added as he recalled his Scyther and turned to run.
<Next time, kid > Aaron’s Scyther said to me as he disappeared in a flash of light.
“They are going to be trouble…” Firestorm muttered as we watched Team Rocket run off.
Later that night, we were sitting round a campfire. Kris had insisted on taking this shortcut instead of the route through Mount Moon. This place was called Dark Forest, or something like that, and lead straight to Vermilion City. This meant that we were temporarily skipping the gym in Cerulean City.
It was probably so that Team Rocket wouldn’t be able to find us as easily. Not like it mattered. To me it seemed like they were going to be more of a nuisance than an actual problem. Still…
“So you two are sure you’re going to be staying with me?” Kris’ question suddenly cut off my thoughts.
“Huh?" we were shocked.
“Why would you ask us something like that?” Firestorm asked.
“Well, with all the stuff I’ll be going through, plus Team Rocket and all that…”
“Hey, no way you’re gonna get rid of us!” Firestorm said.
“I know you feel that we’ve done so much for you already,” I told her, “but that’s what friends are for, right? Besides, I swore a life debt to you after you rescued me from the Snowy Mountains.”
“The way I see it,” Firestorm stood up, “there ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on.”
“Thanks you guys.” Kris hugged him. “Now I’m sure I’m doing the right thing.”
“Who ever said you were doing the wrong thing?” I grinned.
“Friends to the end?” Kris smiled and holding out her hand.
Firestorm put a claw on top of her hand. I carefully placed a bladed claw there as well.
“Let the trails lead as they may,” Firestorm declared.
“And we will follow.” I finished.
That night, a new legend was born.