Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Summary: The anime is all a dream. Yep, recycled plot. Ash is really a biologist?

Title: Emerald Dreams

Chapter 1

He was dreaming. He was dreaming and he knew it, but that didn’t make anything any easier. Even if he were dreaming, he could still feel pain, and it was unendurable…

He gasped as a particular bolt of agony shot through his head and woke up gasping for air like a stranded fish.

“What’s wrong?” A voice asked, concerned. Misty?

Oh, it was not she, though the voice was similar, it was deeper and more masculine. Odd. Cracking an eye open, he met eyes an impossible shade of blue and a cocky smirk.
“Lance? Why are you in my bedroom?”

“What do you mean, Ash?”

“I mean what I said. Why are you in my bedroom?”

“Um, Ash? Look around. Does this look like a bedroom?” He indicated the thick jungle grass with a frown. Ash colored brightly, and decided to shut up for now.

“Where are we?”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“No, I have a headache.”

“Figures. I told you to put on the repellant so you wouldn’t get bitten, but did you listen? No. You’ve been feverish for almost a week.”

“A week?” He remembered drifting in and out of gray, but that was all.

“Yes, a week. Now be quiet so I can check you over.” Lance removed a small scanner from his backpack – backpack? Yes, he was wearing a backpack and his normal black and red had been replaced with khaki pants and a matching shirt. How odd…

Ash yawned as he continued to check his bearings. He was also in khakis, now that he realized, pants and a shirt and a funny looking safari hat. On his back – no, not quite, but next to him were several packs. There was a tent not more than a few feet away, and through the mosquito-net flap he could see two sleeping bags and several pillows. So they were out in the jungle for some reason…

But here it was steamy and warm, reminding him of a shower. It had to be tropical, he’d studied enough biology to know that, which meant that the pokemon that were around here would be mostly grass types, including the carnivorous Weepinbell and Victreebel.

“Feeling better now?” Lance asked as he pressed a cup of coffee into Ash’s unresisting hands. Ash sniffed the coffee and found that it was quite good, warm and full of heavenly caffeine!

Wait a minute… since when had he needed caffeine? That was more Brock’s cup of tea, or Misty’s…

Something was definitely off….

“So Lance, why are we here?”

“We’re searching for new species of pokemon of course. Are you sure you’re all right? You still seem to have some memory loss.”

“Malaria causes memory loss?”

“Well no, but high fevers can leave people disoriented…”

“I guess that must be it.” Ash said carefully. Lance nodded.

“You should probably watch the camp today then... After all, you won’t be much use if you get lost.”

“How long have we been here?”

“Only two weeks, so we haven’t mapped much of the Emerald Forest yet.”

“The Emerald Forest?”

“Well, Jungle actually. Since we’re in the Emerald Islands, the name seemed appropriate…”

“Okay. Wait.” Ash said. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling really lost. Could you toss me my pokedex?”

“Your PokeNav is in the front left pocket of your shirt, Ash.”

Ash colored and quickly opened it, feeling a sigh of relief at something familiar here… the PokeNav was a shiny gold and black, but it seemed appropriate.

A query for password popped up, and he typed ‘Pikachu’. There was a second of hesitation, before the screen lit up.

Scrolling through the text quickly, he saw that there were eighty-nine people listed with their phone numbers, that his pokedex completion was at a hundred and two, and that currently with him, he had a Raichu, a Dodrio, a Golduck, and a Stantler…

Well, that was interesting, but unfortunately, aside from Raichu, the pokemon were not ones he was used to training or working with, at least as far as dreams went. Ash yawned and rubbed his eyes as he watched Lance disappear.

What were they doing in a jungle anyway? Lance had said something about mapping, but even so, it was odd.

How did one map a jungle? Things changed… or perhaps he was just doing topography. Yes, that was it.

Well, as long as you didn’t get lost, mapping wasn’t that hard, right? He hoped so… he had no memories of how to do it!

This was not a good situation.

Closing his eyes, Ash tried to return to the dream, but it escaped from his grasp and eluded his pursuit quite admirably. He would have been impressed if not so worried.

Why couldn’t the dream be real?

It would be so nice to be a carefree, innocent, arrogant child with no idea how the world worked. Instead, he was now in a mosquito-infested jungle with a partner of sorts he hardly knew and no memory of how he had gotten there. The situation was far from ideal.

He didn’t like it.

Still, sitting around and bitching about it would be no good… he might as well learn what he could. Bringing up his ‘Notes’ on the PokeNav, he quickly read through them and got the general gist of things.

It seemed that he used his PokeNav to record all his notes. That was handy. They were detailed too, so he knew somewhat what was going on. Yay!

He and Lance were commissioned by the Indigo League Council to map out the Emerald Jungle and find if Mew really lived here. It sounded simple enough…

Well, that was that. Time to get to work!

End Chapter

Completed 12/14/05

Yay! 2 finals are over!

Lance: Short prologue you have

Phantomness: So I’m lazy. So sue me

Ash: …

Phantomness: Besides, it’s about the same length as a chapter, so nyah!