Curiosity [Pokemon]

[Isaac A Drake]

Author's Note: This is a remaster of my popular on FF.net and AO3 story, 'Curiosity'. It was ~60K words at the time that I wrapped the arc I stopped writing on and thus 'threadmarks' are remastered Arcs not remastered chapters.

Chapters 1-5 Gradutation

I had been wondering, my entire sixteen odd years of life in Kanto, what version of the Pokemon world I was in. I knew it was more expansive than the games of course, but I'd never had major confirmation on what world changing plots were going on. The answer came as I was studying for my Advanced Class exams from Pokémon Tech just outside of my new life's home of Saffron City.

I looked out of my window to see a horde of the Beginner Class students hurrying over to the small arena favored by the stronger underclassmen for study and training. I clasped my hands together over my head and stretched, looking over to my starter, a currently slumbering nidorina, who my parents in this life had never really understood why I picked.

"Want to go see what the noise is all about, Cleo? I know you've been annoyed at me staying cooped up in here to study for this biology exam," I spoke at a normal volume, knowing her sensitive ears would pick up everything I said.

Indeed, her ears twitched twice as she blinked herself awake and nodded back at me, slowly pushing herself up onto her legs and extending backwards in a quick stretch. I had vague dreamlike memories of having rabbits on Earth, and she reminded me of them. Well, perhaps if I had had the rabbit from Monty Python as a pet at least. She padded over to the door and headbutted it impatiently as I stood up with a laugh.

"Hold your rapidash there, little lady! I've got to toss my shoes on!"

Quickly I readied myself for a little jaunt, casually tossing on my pokeball belt and pulling on a pair of boots that were basically Kanto's versions of Dr Martens, though I'd opted for a work pair not a fashion pair like many of the other trust fund brats that I went to school with.

Of course, in this life, I was also one of those trust fund brats. While initially my father had just been a normal researcher for Silph Co, right after I started boarding school here at the Tech he'd been tapped to help with the fossil revival project in Cinnabar. Needless to say he'd very quickly become a big deal, and unfortunately my mother in this world was completely different from the mother of my previous life and had eaten the attention all up. The only upside of the lifestyle they'd thrown themselves headfirst into was that I occasionally got to talk with actual serious scientists at the parties they threw or attended when I was on breaks from school.

In fact, after I'd had a go or two at the Indigo League Conference I fully planned on trying to join Professor Cerise's institute. I'd met him at a party last year and the man had seriously impressed me with his early phases of his Poke-Energy Radar, which I knew he may eventually be able to use to hunt down legendary pokemon!

My musings were cut short by Cleo and I's arrival in the small arena where almost the entire Beginner Class was watching one of their top students, in fact one I had recognized and taken a bit under my wing earlier in the year, battle someone that I definitely recognized. Ash Ketchum.

It was weird seeing him so young and feeling like I not only knew him but knew what he could become. Orange Island, Battle Frontier, and Alola Champion. Wielder of a demon of a pikachu as well as such monsters as Charizard, Sceptile, Dragonite, and Lucario. And here he was, struggling slightly against a cubone with a pikachu that had yet to learn any of its signature moves, still relying almost exclusively on Thundershock and Quick Attack. I snorted at the embarrassing loss Giselle suffered when Cubone's own Bonemerang was dodged, and he knocked himself out on the rebound.

As she expressed her surprise at her loss I couldn't resist and stepped in to interfere.

"Giselle, now what has your friendly upperclassman told you about trained pokemon versus wild pokemon in the databases?"

She winced and turned around to face me, "That trained pokemon have a higher likelihood of atypical strategies and movesets..." she grumbled, "But it's ridiculous! This kid is a total dunce, why should I have expected-"

"Battle tactics?" I supplied. "Yes!" She shouted and Cleo at my side chuffed in amused exasperation.

Realizing how ridiculous she sounded Giselle blushed and hung her head. "Hey!" A dramatically overenthusiastic voice chimed in, "Who are you?" I sighed, right, Kanto-Ash was...a cliché dumbass anime protagonist.

"I'm one of the Advanced Class students, Isaac Beech, nice to meet you, Ash was it?" His eyes bugged out, "Wait! They said if you pass the Advanced Class it counts as like...five badges!" "Six, Ash!" Misty chimed in.

I turned to look at her, wow Misty was young at twelve. I thought back to the mega gyarados she would have one day and almost shivered. "That's even more!" Well, Ash was right, six WAS more than five, "Hey! Who's that pokemon?" I almost fell flat on my ass as Ash did the cliché pokedex scan of Cleo.

"Nidorina, the Poison Pin Pokemon," The robotic voice began, "The female's horn develops slowly, thus it prefers physical attacks such as biting and scratching. When resting deep in its burrow, its thorns always retract. This is proof that it is relaxed,".

Is it weird to feel calmed by a robotic voice you'd previously only heard in an anime that you only really interacted with in your dreams? Before I could muse too long I learned that there was one difference between this world and the anime.

Apparently Team Rocket wasn't entirely incompetent. There was no warning motto before a smokescreen, a burst of earth, and a flash of a Quick Attack appeared. It was only our training over the last three years that saved the pokeballs on the belts of the underclassmen. Cleo immediately intercepted the speeding pokemon with a Double Kick, it ended up being Team Rocket's Meowth, who let out a grunt of pain as he was sent skidding along the arena floor a good dozen feet.

Senses sharpening for battle I palmed two pokeballs and released them. In twin bursts of light, my own cubone, Estella, and a sparkling light blue Alolan sandshrew, Brinker, appeared for battle. We can reflect on my obvious homesickness by naming all my pokemon after literary characters from my dreams of Earth later. Right now, I had some criminals to school.

Or I thought I did. Ash and Misty, it appeared, had the art of taking care of Team Rocket down to a science. Before I could even give commands or Brock could run down from the stands all the way both Ekans and Koffing had been blasted back into the criminals' arms by Pikachu and Starmie respectively. As I was blinking in shock the two criminals collected their three pokemon and skedaddled.

"Uh...should we call Officer Jenny or?" I was honestly unsure at this point.

Ash shrugged, "I dunno, they always seem to get away from the Jennys. It's really annoying!"

And then Ash spotted my pokemon I had yet to return, "WHOA!" Oof I could hear the caps in that one, "I've never seen a sandshrew like that before!"

Ah, right, Ash had fought AJ's already at this point, "Brinker here is from the Alola region, over there sandshrew adapted to the area around a really snowy mountain and are ice and steel typed! I caught him on a ski trip with my parents last year!"

This floored Ash, and honestly regional-variant pokemon were still a relatively new field. As previously there'd been hot debate about whether they should simply be entirely different species or not.

"There's a special Alolan raichu, too!" I remarked to Ash, knowing Pikachu would never willingly evolv-well actually if his meeting with Surge went differently Pikachu could possibly not go that route. Interesting idea but not one I will push to bring about.

"Can I battle it?" Ash bit out finally, taking me a bit aback if I am honest, "Pikachu's a bit tired but maybe Butterfree could have a go?"

Oh no, that earnest face, I just couldn't say no to it. "Alright, kid," I turned to my pokemon, "Cleo and Estella you go keep Giselle some company, I've got a tutoring session it appears!"

"Hey!" Oh yeah the yelling was going to get annoying, "What do ya mean tutoring? I've got two badges!"

"Then you're on par with the Beginners I regularly tutor!" I grinned with a sickly sweet facetious smile, "But it's impressive at your age nonetheless! Now, Brinker, to arms!"

With a nod Brinker rolled out onto the field in a ball before popping back out onto his hind legs.

"Go, Butterfree!" Ash called out summoning the first pokemon he ever caught. Oh I really hoped he didn't let him go this time around, that was really heart-wrenching for me as a child. Er...my first time as a child?

"You get first move, Ash, I think the theme of this lesson is going to be what I call the Aggressive Defense!" Ash looked confused at my declaration, but the kids of the Beginners Class were on the edge of their seats. I was one of the more approachable upperclassmen and truly enjoyed teaching so I tended to give demonstrations pretty regularly where I actually explained why and what I was doing for my strategies. I also had a tendency towards entertaining flamboyance which I am certain helped.

"Well, whatever! If you're going to be on the defense Butterfree has this in the bag!"

"Careful, Ash!" Brock cautioned from the sidelines, "I'm sure he knows what he's doing!"

I tossed Brock a grin, "Don't ruin all the fun, Gym Leader!" I joked, "Well, Ash? What has your butterfree got beating between those wings?"

"A Sleep Powder!" Ash commanded and the little guy, well alright a butterfree is the size of a pretty decent eagle back on Earth so not so little, sped forth with his wings abuzz and a sparkling powder flying off towards Brinker.

"A solid defense against powder moves is a fast moving wind of any kind. You don't always need a flying move to generate it either! Rapid Spin!"

Brinker curled up into a ball and began spinning, well...rapidly, causing a small vortex that picked up sand, dust, and the Sleep Powder and swirling it around him and right back up into the air.

"Rapid Spin is useful for dispersing many persistent effects on the battlefield!" I lectured.

"Fine! Butterfree use Whirlwind!" Without my command Brinker took off from the Rapid Spin into a Rollout, not actually targeting the opponent however, just evading the attack.

"The move also raises your speed, though not as much as a proper Agility," Ash's face was turning red with a mix of embarrassment and frustration. Good, in the anime Ash always learned the most from his defeats. So perhaps this lesson here could kickstart his tactical thinking that only really began to shine around the Battle Frontier.

"Confusion!" Ash finally called out a more direct attack and I grinned, the second I had said 'aggressive defense' earlier Brinker had known what was going to happen. He popped out of the Rollout and his icy blue plates began to glow a light lavender just before the Confusion hit. They flared a darker purple and Ash looked like he had been struck by his pokemon's own move for all he anticipated what was going to happen next.

"Mirror Coat, students," I explained, "Can take an indirect or 'Special' attack and reflect it back at the attacker...doubled." Ash paled at my words, but it was too late, the energy burst back forth from my sandshrew and slammed into the butterfly pokemon, sending it hurtling backwards and to the ground. The two-badge trainer returned his pokemon morosely.

"Hey," I said as I began to walk over and Brinker rolled up to my side, "You did great! Starting out the battle with a status inducing move was exactly what I would have done with a butterfree! I feel almost certain I'll be seeing you at the Indigo Plateau this year when I compete!"

This surprised all the surrounding students; my declaration that I planned to compete this year, the same year I passed my Advanced Exams, was essentially a declaration of war upon the staff at the school.
Because you see, once you pass your Advanced Exams you self-study and get tutoring until you win a gym circuit style match against five staff members. That's how you graduate. Technically you could jump right into the challenges from finishing your Advanced Exams, though it wasn't recommended. Most students took two more years and graduated at around eighteen. I had just said I wanted to graduate before this year's conference. That was in just under eight months, I'd be seventeen.

I had no illusions that I was going to be a Lance, a Leon, or an Ash though. I'd be content being good enough to have a research gym like Blaine or Roark after doing a few conferences and a fellowship with Professor Cerise. And that meant I had to make a show of it.

"Wow!" Ash exclaimed, not understanding the full implications of that, "Then I'll be beating you in a rematch!"

I chuckled, "Well I look forward to watching you try,".

My sincerity bled heavily into that sentence and as they walked off to continue towards Vermilion City I saw both Brock and Misty looking back at me in curiosity.

A few weeks later I was contemplating how mostly I really just wanted to learn and explore this entire crazy, beautiful, dangerous planet. The day Estella evolved into a marowak was definitely one of those days.
I had been training hard since passing my Advanced Exams, and the teachers definitely had not been going easy on me. First of all, if I graduated the same year I passed the Advanced Exams they didn't get another year of tuition out of my parents. Secondly, if I did graduate early by defeating them but biffed it in the conference then it looked really really bad on the school. So, if I did graduate early they needed me to be in top form.

Which was fine, I was no stranger to hard work in either life. But my graduation advisor, Mr Pringle, and yes he did look weirdly like the snack can guy, was assigning me some pretty crazy training exercise gauntlets versus many of the school's general training pokemon.

Knowing my team was mostly ground-types he'd sent me out to the pond to get absolutely hammered by the poliwhirl and seadra living in it, demanding my pokemon withstand the assault for ten-minutes each by only using their defensive moves and not dodging. It was on minute eight, when I was sure Estella was about to faint when a Bubblebeam made it through her spinning Thick Club that she evolved.

Suddenly twirling the club with new vigor she passed with flying colors. I quickly scooped two of her favorite flavor of pokeblocks out of my bag and walked over to give her a hug and a treat.

"That was amazing, girl! I am so proud of you!"

The bone keeper pokemon let out a pleased noise in the back of her throat as she stood up straight and accepted the treats. My goal was to get all my pokemon to at least their second stages before finishing my staff challenges, so this was a great step in that direction.

After the conference I planned to travel to the four winds collecting pokemon to create a solid final team for myself, but for now I was restricted to Kanto and Johto pokemon, and getting lucky with Brinker last year on vacation.

I returned Estella for some rest, she'd been my last pokemon to go through the exercise, and Cleo came over and let out a pleased chuff.

"It's very exciting, Cleo!" I replied back, "Now we just need...well the two hardest will be Brinker and Alberich," I sighed, "An Ice Stone will be hard to get and it's just really difficult to get a rhyhorn to evolve."

Sitting down with a sigh I released my quagsire, Huck, to play in the pond with the other water-types. Cleo, spikes retracted thankfully, gently bumped her shoulder into mine as she tended to do when I was stressing out about things.

I scratched her in her favorite spot behind the ears, "I know girl, I might be aiming too high in wanting Alberich to evolve in time for the conference. Especially when I need to focus on finding that stone and getting Alexei to evolve, he'll need to be a proper piloswine to keep up with anything after the qualifiers, his movement is just far too limited as a swinub."

I retracted my hand to rub my face, "Should I take dad up on his offer of the fossil pokemon?" I questioned Cleo, "What I really want is an aerodactyl, but the most he's offering is an omanyte or a kabuto, I'm not sure I could train them up in time and I am not sure even if he came through with an aerodactyl I could get one to listen to me in time!"

The problem with aerodactyl, that they could tell from the two they had revived at this point, was that it was a surly and vicious pokemon that only respected the utmost of strength. And that was why the only properly tamed one of those two was owned by Elite Four Lance. Though from the rumors that was soon to be Champion Lance. The previous champion had stepped down a few years back and the Kanto Elite Four had been both taking challengers as well as doing matches against each other to see if any of them could defeat the entire rest of the Elite Four. Lance was consistently unable to beat Lorelei, Lorelei couldn't beat Bruno, and Agatha was so close to retiring she wasn't really trying but Bruno could still never best her (or admittedly anyone except Lorelai, Lance tended to trash him four out of five matches).

Watching those exhibition matches were jaw droppers let me tell you. Just last month had been the third Bruno versus Agatha rematch and her second to last pokemon, one of her two gengar, had been forced to pull a Destiny Bond to defeat Bruno's hitmonchan after it had surprised her by having learned Bullet Punch in the interim time between their last match and had used the move to block every single Sludge Bomb and Toxic tossed his way.

But Lance had apparently finally gotten his gyarados to figure out both Thunder Wave and Dragon Dance, as he had demonstrated in a challenge by one of last year's top eight trainers from the conference who had finally worked the courage up for an Elite Four challenge. It might finally be what Lance needed to punch through Lorelei's lapras.

But regardless, I needed to focus on my team, I currently owned seven pokemon. Cleo, my loyal starter, was not going to be evolving into a nidoqueen any time soon, as I was not Ash Ketchum I didn't think I'd be finding a Moon Stone quickly and she needed a lot more growth before she evolved as nidoqueen was a plateauing evolution as some referred to evolutions that limited overall growth potential in return for a giant boost in initial power. These evolutions are really only ones you want to go through once you've gotten every last drop you can out of the previous stage.

My second pokemon ever, Estella, the recently evolved marowak, had been found when I joined my dad on a fossil hunt, a poor orphan of marowak poachers like so many of her species over the centuries. Her potential was now very important to explore, as with her ability Rock Head the only naturally learned move to take advantage of it was Double Edge, a long way off, so she'd need lots of special attention in developing her moveset from here. Marowak were not naturally flexible fighters from a type coverage perspective. And then I had a moment of realization, she was not an Alolan Marowak, which meant no Flare Blitz...which meant...I quickly pulled out a slightly outdated pokedex, I wasn't a personal trainer of Professor Oak so my 'dex was a year behind the ones he gave out.

"Well...shit..." I bit out. The only other recoil move that a normal Kantonian marowak got was Submission. For some strange reason no one had ever managed to teach a marowak Head Smash or Head Charge, and though I was going to double check once I got back to my computer in my dorm, I was fairly sure a bunch of people had probably tried.

Well, I really only wanted those moves as finishers anyways, I supposed. Estella was a quicker fighter than the kind of bruiser that relied on those kinds of moves anyways. So scribbling in my notebook I quickly wrote 'Submission' and 'Thunder or Fire Punch' on her planning page.

"Right, minor hiccup, next up..." I turned to the page of my third pokemon, Alberich the rhyhorn. He was an interesting case as I may very well end up at the conference before he became a rhydon. They evolved at very high levels in the game and I had confirmed that while levels were considered in this world with the same kind of unreliable science as IQs were on Earth, the idea that rhyhorn generally took a while to evolve was consistent with that.

He also had Rock Head, so the goal was to get him to learn Take Down by the time the conference came around. Which would mean he'd hopefully know Drill Run by that point as well. I scratched at the light scruff on my chin, honestly anything interesting technical machine or training-wise for him needed to wait until evolution and access to bipedalism. Maybe Payback for a mix of coverage and a surprise against agile opponents.

Flipping the page again I landed on Huck, my dopey quagsire currently playing in the pond. Other than maybe perfecting Dig there wasn't much he needed. A quagsire's natural attacking moves were generally decent, he'd just learned Aqua Tail, and Yawn was ridiculous combined with his defensive abilities. I simply circled my previous note about Dig a few more times.

I was able to skip Alexei's page, as I'd just been discussing evolving the stubborn swinub with Cleo, though I did chuckle at an old note bemoaning my party's need for more special attackers instead of physical ones. It was true, but unless I wanted to branch really far from my comfort zone of the "earthen elements" as I called the rock, ground, and steel-typings I felt most in tune with, my options were limited until I left Kanto.

Well, I could always go with a magneton, I thought to myself grimacing. I had impressions of loving magneton and magnezone in the video games, but I had actually met one in this life at the Silph Co building a few times and...they were extremely creepy and offputting in person.

Needless to say, a claydol was high on the 'acquire on world tour' list. Honestly unless I got really specific with hunting down fossils it looked like my special attackers list would be limited to Cleo, the future claydol, and Huck once I got my hands on a bunch of technical machines.

Because my next page had Brinker, also a physical attacker, and the final page had my problem child. Artagnan, a scyther I had caught on a family funded Safari Zone trip for my birthday this year, was another physical attacker. And a huge pain in my ass.

He refused to cooperate, always thinking his natural instincts were better than my own learned and practiced tactics. As I initially learned his full capabilities he had occasionally been correct on that matter, none of my other pokemon were exceptionally swift in the way he was. Even Estella was more of a quick counterattacker than a speed demon the way Artagnan was.

But eventually I'd clocked his capabilities and regardless of losing to Cleo and even Alberich and Brinker in the majority of our sparring matches he refused to try and learn from me. Once he learned Agility he seemed to think that the only strategy he needed functionally boiled down to 'gotta go fast' and trying to anime swordsman slash all opponents.

Needless to say without some technical machine or move tutoring to back his attacks up with more than Slash and Fury Cutter it was rather embarrassing against rock and steel types. Which again, I specialized in. It would be a pain to get a Metal Coat admittedly, but I desperately wanted a scizor.

So I was going to spend the next six months or so banging my head against this brick wall if I had to. I continued scribbling plans and notes into my journal, even ignoring Cleo getting up and roaming around a bit until I heard a loud throat clearing behind me.

I craned my neck back until I saw who it was, "What do you want, Thomas?" The kid just screamed anime background character with his almost-a-bowl-cut-but-kindashaggy brown hair and dumb polo shirts. And he was obsessed with psychic pokemon as being the "strongest type" but could only seem to get his hands on pokemon that were secondarily psychic at best.

He had a starmie, an eggsecute, a psyduck, and a lickitung he had somehow managed to teach Curse and Amnesia to go along with the normally learned Disable as a part of his 'psychic-ish' obsession.

"Just making sure you're ready to get trounced at the tournament with us and the Ninja Academy kids next month after I pick up some wicked powerful pokemon at the SS Anne's launch party!"

My blood ran cold. I had just had final confirmation that I was definitely in the anime-world. Not a video game world with some anime bits to fill it in. Not the comics (which thank...Arceus I suppose, that would have killed me before now). But the anime or at least mostly the anime. And back in my room was an envelope from my parents I had received a week before Ash's arrival. With a ticket to an SS Anne cruise.

"Yes, now fuck off so I can finish my training!" I growled out as I popped to my feet.

"It's been two weeks since you passed your exams, even with your insane schedule for getting into the conference this year I thought you didn't plan to challenge anyone for at least another two months?" Anya, one of my few classmates that could be called something close to a friend, questioned me.

"Estella's evolution got me fired up, I guess!" I replied, giving an evasive half-truth of an answer. I'd sound crazy if I said I had foreknowledge that the SS Anne was going to be attacked in two weeks by Team Rocket and since I was gonna be there I needed to test myself out against some stronger opponents. Somehow I doubted I'd be lucky enough to only fight Jessie and James or some even more generic grunts.

"Hmm...you've never been this rash before, and seriously is that going to be your trainer outfit at the conference? You're going to wear a Stetson now?"

"Hey!" I protested, "Stetsons are cool!"

She looked even more annoyed at me when I laughed at my own multiversal meta reference, luckily the Pokémon world tolerates a lot of eccentricity.

"Whatever, just get out there and show my mom you are serious about this I guess."

Yep, the reason why I was friends with Anya was because a lot of the other kids did not want to be friends with the daughter of one of their teachers for the right reasons. And now I was about to do a number on her mother's normal-type themed team.

Shaking my head at her surly departure I finished securing my pokeballs to my belt and exited the dressing rooms of the main school arena.

"Alright everyone in the audience, this is Isaac Beech challenging in his first staff battle against Mrs. Temple. The battle will have the staff member using three pokemon and the challenger can switch out their own pokemon from their full team to simulate a gym challenge," Frank, the announcer, was thoroughly bored of ninety-percent of the battles he saw at this school.

I couldn't exactly disagree with him either. While Pokémon were highly intelligent it seemed like the ability to truly connect with them and accelerate their training on any level higher than pets or to help with pest control was actually quite rare. Obviously in the games and shows most people you see have that ability, but when you're living in the world it becomes quickly apparent that communication with them was a rare skill, and the ability to motivate and control them even rarer.

Mrs. Temple was a short woman who walked the line between curvy and pudgy, but dressed for all the world like a Mary Poppins knock-off she turned it into something that demanded respect at the very least in the classroom.

"Oh wow," The announcer said out loud as Mrs. Temple released a magnificent specimen of a tauros, "Does Mrs. Temple know something we don't? She's starting with the big guns!"

Sure Frank, now you're interested, I griped to myself internally as I licked my lips in nervousness. Tauros was her strongest pokemon and an extremely flexible battler. Similar to Ash's future acquisition actually. Furthermore while it didn't know Earthquake it definitely knew Iron Tail which meant...

"You wanted a real fight buddy, well you're getting it! Get out here, Artagnan!" My moody scyther took to the field with a menacing flourish of his blades.

Truthfully I was hoping to have him do some damage to the tauros but also get taken down a peg or two in the process.

"Agility!" I called out, deciding that was the best way to get some damage in and hopefully help Artagnan to sync up with my own wishes and style.

"Smash the bug, darling!" Mrs Temple called out to her pokemon. The tauros complied easily, his massive form burst up into the sky and his hooves created shattering impact craters where he landed with a vicious Stomp, barely missing the speeding Artagnan. I whistled audibly, that was powerful.

"We're going death by a thousand cuts here!" I called out to my pokemon, and as it was one of his favorite strategies against bulky opponents he complied easily. Darting around the battlefield like a vicious mite he hit the tauros with Fury Cutter after Fury Cutter, slowly building momentum and power by attempting to his similar points in quick succession.

"Swat it!" The teacher called out, and with a snort the bull's tails glinted silver and a meteoric Iron Tail snapped out and slammed into Artagnan's thorax as he went past for another slice. I thought for a moment he'd keep his balance as he went skidding backwards, but a piece of debris from the earlier Stomp caught his foot and he went spinning ass over tea-kettle into the wall.

"Can you still fight, Arty?" I called out, and the scyther chittered angrily as he stood up and nodded. He could take maybe one more hit, and now I knew I needed to drive the point home.

"Keep your distance with your speed and use Air Slash!" I commanded, knowing it went against his instincts. Either he'd listen and we'd get a few more good hits in or… He blitzed in with a Slash only to smack straight into a raised Rock Tomb.

I returned him, "Thanks for teaching Arty a lesson, Mrs. Temple. He'll remember that one, to arms, Brinker!" I summoned out the pokemon that was likely my most flexible fighter. Brinker had a combination of speed and disorientation based moves and the ability to tank anything south of a Fighting or Fire type hit. And needless to say, disorientation would work great here.

"Mist!" Spinning around in a Rapid Spin simultaneously he distributed a quick icy fog across the field. This was going to be fun, as far as I knew the tauros had nothing to deal with this.

And indeed, I saw Mrs. Temple gritting her teeth across the field, "Work Up!" She commanded, guessing that the boost in offensive capabilities would make me more cautious to attack even in the Mist.

She wasn't wrong, my strategy did change mildly, "Strafing Powder Snow!" I commanded and while I couldn't really see directly, there were what looked like waves of the Mist turning to ice rippling through the field at where the tauros had been.

"Up!" The professor called, and out of the mist her tauros leapt, clearing half the field in a single bound, towards the source of the wave of snow. But I was right in my confidence that Brinker was no longer there, I'd told him to strafe and he was one of my most collected and intelligent team members as well as being versatile. Plus I had trained him to improvise.

From the moo of pain that echoed out and the lack of a second wave of snow I could only assume he'd ambushed the bull with a Metal Claw or similar. A Fury Swipes would have been over committing so I doubted it had been that. A few more moments, a few more echoes of combat, and Mrs. Temple returned her tauros.

"Blow that away, Noctowl!" She called out, releasing a rather large specimen of a noctowl that immediately released a Whirlwind. What followed started out as a close fight. The noctowl couldn't do a whole lot of damage to Brinker, who danced around the arena like his namesake on an icy pond.

However the powerful winds the noctowl could put out made it very difficult for the Powder Snow to land, the only move Brinker had that was super-effective and long enough range to hit a flying target. I thought we were winning, or at least setting up my next pokemon to win easily, when the noctowl managed to pull off a combination Double Team and Hypnosis, putting Brinker to sleep and allowing it to drain energy off of him with Dream Eater.

I winced as I returned him, that was a rough finisher, it would mean my next pokemon was not going to have as much of an advantage. But that was okay, "Bring 'em down, Alberich!" I called out, releasing my rhyhorn.

The release line was a code, the first thing Alberich did was start firing off Smack Downs, spinning bursts of rock that would slam flying-types down into the ground. I had trained Alberich to, instead of functioning as a charging brute, master his rock-manipulation and function as a kind of artillery or tank. Standing his ground and firing off blasts of rock and earth at enemies and then quickly repositioning with his charging when needed.

It was a non-traditional strategy for a rhyhorn and took my opponent by surprise, putting the teacher on the back foot once more.

The owl tired of his aerial dodging of Smack Downs, Rock Throws, and Rock Blasts long before Alberich did. Finally a few solid hits landed and the owl went down.

"So that is how you want to play then, boy?" She called down to me, returning her pokemon. "Very well, I have some surprises up my sleeve as well," With that she called out her wigglytuff.

The chubby rabbit-esque pokemon laughed somewhat ominously as it appeared. And she was right, I was unprepared for what followed. Reflect and Disable quickly neutered Alberich. Allowing him to be finished off by a vicious Ice Beam I had not seen coming.

Because, while wigglytuff actually have very respectable special attacking stats, they don't naturally learn much to take advantage of it. This one had been very well trained or given TMs or both. With a sigh I returned my rhyhorn, contemplating my next move. I'd have to play pretty dirty to come out even a little ahead.

"Huckleberry! You're up!" I called out my quagsire, a dopey pokemon if there ever was one. But a fantastic attrition fighter. Though he wasn't quite where he would need to be to fully utilize that skillset. I quickly had him use Amnesia to stonewall almost any special attack a wigglytuff might conceivably know. A purposefully wasted Water Gun allowed my follow-up, a bunch of mud slinging from Huckleberry.

Slaps and Bombs to lower speed and accuracy. As Huck shrugged off Ice Beams his mud covered opponent got extremely angry, cheeks puffing up in rage.

This was all a part of the plan, trick the creature into ignoring its trainer and attacking at close range. It took much longer than expected, but eventually the wigglytuff leapt in for an enraged Double-Slap.

"Yawn!" The status move hit the wigglytuff right in the face and with a sigh my teacher returned her pokemon.

"Well what do you know?" The announcer called out, "Isaac's got his first win! And it was four to three! Could we actually end up seeing him make a good showing at the conference this year?" I glared at him as the crowd cheered.

It wasn't a long trip to Vermillion City, and I left the day after the battle. Thus, I showed up for the SS Anne cruise early, at this point it had been just over a month since I met Ash Ketchum and now I was primed to meet him once again and this time on one of the most important events of the first season.

At least as far as behind-the-scenes developments go that is. Team Rocket might not have gotten everything they wanted, but they'd gotten a massive haul and a massive amount of notoriety from raiding the SS Anne.

Furthermore, Ash never releases Butterfree if he doesn't have to go on that walkabout after the shipwreck. Wow, was I really that traumatized by that episode or was I projecting something else onto the event? That was an idea I'd unpack later. For now, I was staying in the local Pokemon Center, going through my list of in-storage pokemon that I had on hand for trading.

Most of them were pokemon from around Saffron that I had captured when out and about training my actual team. I always would have a chat with the pokemon afterwards, letting them know I could release them if they wanted or I could keep them around until I found a good trainer for them. I had yet to actually trade for any pokemon that ended up on my main team.

But I had on a few occasions traded for other pokemon that might be useful in their own right for trades later on as well as just outright given a few away to various acquaintances that needed or wanted one for various reasons. My cousin (who I barely knew) had even used an ekans I caught as a starter last year. He'd done okay, was sitting at around three-badges and considering giving it up if he couldn't get to five this season.

On call for trading right now it looked like I had a pidgeotto, vulpix, goldeen, meowth, bellsprout, raticate, and a kadabra who called himself 'The Absent One' and said he 'foresaw' that I would 'face a trainer with great psychic potential in battle' and wanted me to trade him to them after I battled them. Which was both ominous and ridiculous in equal parts. The use of the word trade was promising though, suggesting I might get a good pokemon out of it.

I really should have figured out I was in an anime heavy interpretation of the world sooner. Though perhaps that was part of living in a world? You just don't think about how it would look to people from outside it all that often. I certainly had a unique perspective that was certain. The next day I headed downstairs to leave for breakfast and walked in on an interesting argument.

"Ash, you can't just run into Lt. Surge's gym without a plan like you did with Brock!" Misty's sharp voice echoed out.

"Hey-" Brock attempted to protest but was cut down with a look from Misty.

"Pikachu and my team can take on anything this guy can throw at us!" Ash yelled back at the redhead.

"Well come now, Ash." I began wryly as I walked over towards them, "A little strategy can't hurt every once and a while! I thought you took our lesson so much better than that!"

"Ah!" Ash yelled in truly anime fashion, "Isaac! What are you doing here?"

I raised an eyebrow, "I passed all my exams and won my first instructor-match so I'm out here for the SS Anne launch as my parents are also going to be in attendance with a few other Silph scientists and executives."

"Oh!" Another exclamation, this boy needed a chill pill, or five, "I think we're going to that, too!"

He turned to face his friends. "We are aren't we?"

Brock and Misty nodded together and then the older teen responded, "Yeah, we won those tickets in that raffle the other day."

A Team Rocket trap I knew, and not just Jesse and James in all likelihood. These circumstances were just the tiniest bit different from the anime that I was certain my theory on the Rockets being a compromise between the anime and game versions was correct.

"Right, I'll see you all there, but like I said. Ash, did you not take our lesson to heart? What's your plan for Lt. Surge? On three and four badge trainers he usually uses a voltorb, magnemite, and magneton, but he also sometimes uses a brutish raichu that he rescued from an unlicensed breeder a few years back."

"Uh…" Ash stated eloquently while he pulled up his pokedex, "Magnemite?" Misty smacked her forehead.

"Magnemite, the Magnet Pokemon- It's able to float through the air and emits Thunder Wave through its magnet-shaped units located on its sides." Ash quickly read the follow-up information, he was impatient and unfocused, not necessarily dumb.

"Well, okay! So I send Charmander out, right?" I nodded, "A good start, but say he gets paralyzed before he can do significant damage? And what would you do for the follow-up magneton? You just wore out your best counter to that on the first pokemon!"

I could metaphorically hear the gears in Ash's head clunking around.

"Oh...Bulbasaur and Pikachu can probably take the attacks but they won't be doing much damage back will they?" I grinned at the boy, see? Not dumb at all. You just had to get him to slow down with the right questions.

"So what are your three options? Assuming you get the standard match-up?"

"Er...train Charmander really hard...teach...new moves to Bulbasaur and Pikachu...and...what's the last one?"

"You could catch and train up a new pokemon!" Then Ash had another lightbulb moment of his own, one I hadn't even considered.

"Wait, I could train to get Primeape to work with me! He could pummel that magneton real good!" I opened my mouth, then closed it. That was...an interesting idea. And one that would skyrocket the power of Ash's team if he could get that powerhouse to work with him earlier. But wait…Ash already had Primeape? Maybe migration patterns were more consistent here and had changed the timeline due to realism or something.

"That's a brilliant idea!" I enthused, before turning to Misty and Brock, "So I've never worked with a lucario before have y'all ever worked with…" I racked my brain for a second, "I guess have you, Misty, worked with a poliwrath before?"

She grimaced and shook her head, "Only poliwags, sorry."

"Well…" I turned to Ash, "Then I guess it's time for a research party!"

I am fairly certain his groan was audible all the way over in Johto. It was a task which took up the better part of the daylight hours. We ended up getting both breakfast and lunch at a cafe down the road, courtesy of my wallet too, while sifting through pokedex data and PokeNet reports.

The biggest hurdle was that the only fighting-type move Primeape knew, was Seismic Toss. And Ash was hoping to use him against a floating pokemon that could shoot electricity. So while the move would definitely still do some damage it wasn't ideal. As grappling an electric-type was generally considered a Bad Idea™ unless you were a ground-type or had some special ability.

That meant we needed to teach Primeape a new move on top of getting him to listen to Ash. The first part was not insurmountable, with a little discipline Primeape should take to Karate Chop instinctively or learn Brick Break very easily. In fact…

"Ash!" I exclaimed at about one in the afternoon, "I have four pokemon that can all learn Brick Break! And Brock has one as well! And you even have three other pokemon that can learn it! What if we used Primeape's competitive nature and made it a contest with a prize to see which pokemon learns it first? He'd have the advantage on learning it the quickest. So if he won he'd feel validated for his strength and respected! And if he lost you could console him and push him to do better and fuel his drive!"

Brock's eyebrows raised, he definitely found the idea intriguing,

"We do have a few days until the SS Anne leaves, Ash. This could work."

Leaping up from his seat the young trainer pumped the air with his fist, "This is a great idea! Let's start now!"

I rolled my eyes, "There's an area past Diglett Cave with a mix of rocky ground and the beginnings of the next forest. We could start on branches and move our way up to the rocks and boulders."

That's how we found ourselves east of town forty minutes later. I released Brinker, Estella, Huck, and Artagnan. Each of them could learn the move. In front of Brock stood to my surprise a graveler (instead of the expected geodude) and even more shocking a kabuto.

"Uh...I guess he's just going to be watching?" I queried.

The gym leader nodded, "When he evolves he'll be able to learn so I want him to watch the process, plus he's...fresh so he hasn't watched much training."

I had heard something from my dad about relevant gym leaders and Elite Four members being sent fossil pokemon. So it would make sense that Brock and maybe even Misty and her sisters might have some of the Kantoan fossils. I had previously just thought he meant Lance with his aerodactyl.

In front of Ash stood Primeape of course, but also Pikachu, Squirtle, and Charmander. If Ash succeeded here...well there'd be a lot more coverage on his team going into the majority of his journey. As well as a semi-obedient Primeape.

I was causing waves; a thought I contemplated deeply as all our pokemon got to work based on the instructions we had compiled for learning the move from the PokeNet and pokedex.

They began by working on shattering branches with knife hands and punches. Once they could easily break the thickest branches we moved them on to the small rocks and boulders littering the area. Needless to say, Primeape was the first pokemon to finish this phase. Brinker and Estella followed quickly after. Though I had restricted Estella to attempting to learn it without her club, a close range surprise like this would be wonderful for pokemon that thought she was defenseless without it.

By the end of the evening, when it was time to head back to the pokemon center, Primeape was frustratedly pummeling at one of the very large 'completion' boulders. While every other pokemon was working on the small or medium ones.

Either his pride as a fighter was on the line or he really wanted that pokemon restaurant buffet we'd promised. As we went back for the night, I knew that I'd given Ash a major helping hand, and he'd be ready to face Surge soon. Regardless of whether he used the normal team or that raichu.

Every single participating pokemon at least had a passable Brick Break down by lunch the next day when Primeape achieved what you could easily call early mastery of the technique. The shared excitement between he and Ash as they jumped up and down in celebration really vindicated my theory on how the two of them could develop a stronger bond more quickly.

"It's really impressive," I remarked to Brock as they continued to dance around circling the shattered boulder.

"The technique?" The gym leader questioned me, but I shook my head.

"How easily he can bond with the most ornery and stubborn pokemon of any type!"

Brock blinked, as if he had never noticed before, and then he chuckled.

"You know what? Ash is so dense, stubborn, and has so little academic knowledge that it slipped past me somehow, but you're right! There's a strange charisma to the kid, he seems to draw friends, enemies, danger, and excitement to himself like a magnet. And it goes double for pokemon!"

"If we work to fill in some of those academic gaps with some hands on learning on the subjects he could go far," I of course had some foreknowledge of Ash's potential, but even with just the minimum advice and help I'd given him the boy had already begun to shine all the brighter with that potential.

"It's a little embarrassing that he didn't start out knowing at least most of the common type match-ups," Misty commented to us as she came over to join the conversation.

Brock let out a deeper laugh at that, "Yeah, tossing Pikachu at my onix was...an interesting choice. But his team at the time was all disadvantaged I'm pretty sure."

I winced, remembering flashes of that episode, "Yeah that can't have been a pretty fight."

"So do you really think he's ready for Lt. Surge?" Misty asked.

I nodded, "At least at the three badge level. He's got a solid Brick Break on Pikachu as well as Primeape, and Charmander and Bulbasaur should give him the safety net he would need to defeat Surge's normal three-badge team."

"And if Surge demands a one-on-one with that raichu you mentioned?"

I shrugged, "That would likely be if Ash offended him, and we worked on Pikachu's speed enough in conjunction with Brick Break that I think he could squeak out a victory."

It had taken Ash barely an extra day of training to beat that raichu in the show, so I was assuming just a little bit but the assumption was at least supported.

However, the more I started changing by these strangely coincidental meetings with Ash, the more worried I became. Previously I had kind of assumed I could skate by as a character of the day or occasional recurring character. Now though...I was unsure if I'd be able to avoid major Team Rocket encounters and worst of all...movie events.

I did not have a plan for surviving Mewtwo as things currently stood. Other than hoping Ash pulled through like canon. But with Jesse and James being...still weak but at least not flamboyantly idiotic I was unsure if Mewtwo would be as merciful as in canon from the get go.

I didn't think I was in a grimdark interpretation, but this world was definitely mildly more realistic than either show or games. Pokemon were more difficult to relate to, harder to train up to high levels, life in the true wilds was according to the PokeNet way more dangerous than life on the travelled routes that are what we saw in the games and most of the show episodes. Team Rocket attacks had actually killed people and pokemon from what I could tell. In fact I was fairly certain there was a ghost of a marowak over in Lavender now from a report I had seen on poaching around Rock Tunnel.

That meant it was dangerous not just for me, but also perhaps characters...no not characters, people, that I associated with having plot armor. I was part of this world now and events were happening in real time, not on a tv screen being predetermined.

During my musings Ash and Primeape had finally calmed down and strode over both grinning widely. Or as much as one could tell through Primeape's fur blocking his expression.

"Well, Primeape won the buffet, huh?" Misty, Brock, and I all laughed at Ash's declaration.

"Yeah, let's get everyone over to the restaurant. Everyone gets a plate, but Primeape gets the all-he-can-eat!"

As we ate for the next hour my mind was a whirlwind of ideas and concepts for how I could hold up against Mewtwo for at least a little bit. All of them involved me leaving Kanto for a month or two. Luckily with my parents being new money I could probably pull it off. But I'd have to accelerate my plans for my team to be able to catch the pokemon I needed to catch and train.

I could likely bum the location of the Moon Stone off of Ash. Finding an Ice Stone might be difficult but I could start putting feelers out with some of the VIPs that I knew would be on the SS Anne. I definitely could get Alexei to evolve into a piloswine by the time I needed to take the trip. And a Metal Coat...well I had some ideas for building one if I couldn't get my hands on one the normal way. That allowed me everyone except Alberich and possibly Artagnan evolved before I took a training and hunting trip.

Which would allow me to capture the dark and ghost sub-typed pokemon I needed to hold even a hope against Mewtwo. In all honesty I'd already been considering this trip, just previously I'd planned to do it after the Conference.

Try and build myself up a team worthy of Ace, gym leading, or maybe even an Elite Four invite. But with the likelihood of a New Island invite in my future...I needed to accelerate every single plan I could possibly think of that would strengthen my team. And protect me from psychics.

"So, Isaac," Brock asked casually over our meal, "Why don't you have a fossil pokemon? Your dad does run the revival research, right?"

I nodded, "It's a preference thing. I want an aerodactyl or one of the foreign possibilities. The League literally won't let anyone below Ace level attempt to tame a revived aerodactyl. So my options are: become an Ace Trainer or better, or go on a paleontology expedition elsewhere. I'm leaning towards the second option, heavily considering Unova for that so that I can combine it with looking into some ruins for some of the interesting pokemon that fall under my specialty out there."

"They have some pretty powerful rock, ground, and steel types out there if I remember correctly. It's a long trip though, you have to fly in a plane or take one of the longest and roughest sea voyages out there."

"It would be totally worth it though!" I enthused, "Krookodile, golurk, bisharp, durant, and escavalier would all give me defenses against psychics, which I am lacking at the moment. Excadrill and ferrothorn both have amazing capabilities when combined with team members I already have, and it looks like one of the fossils out there may be a large sea-turtle type of pokemon. Which could hopefully give me more aquatic mobility. I love Huck, he's the sweetest pokemon in the world, but he's not built for speed at all."

"I have to say, that was a really deep self-analysis. I didn't previously have a great opinion of Pokemon Tech, but if they produce more trainers like you…"

I laughed out loud, "No, Brock, the majority of my peers are the trust-fund rich kids you saw lording their status over Ash before I interrupted. Most are pressured to switch in their final years out of the League Track and into something else so they won't embarrass the school at the Conference. That's how you'll see one or two decently talented alumni at the Conference each year and none of the entitled brats for the most part."

Misty was a bit confused by how I referred to my peers however, "Uh...Isaac...haven't you paid for like...all of this? And got invited by name to the SS Anne because of your dad?"

I shrugged, "Yeah but that's all new money from the last few years since the fossil revival panned out. I started off at Tech as a scholarship student. Actually really pissed them off that they couldn't milk my parents for money until the initial period of the scholarship ran out and they were able to reassess my family's 'need'."

"If I had money like that I'd definitely eat like this all the time!" Ash interjected as he and Primeape scarfed down multiple plates side-by-side.

"Anything else you can think of to do with it, Ash?" I replied, laughing through my response. He tapped his forehead, deep in thought, before poking his finger into the air as if he had had a revelation.

"A really comfy tent!" Misty fell out of her seat as Brock and I broke down in laughter so intense we teared up. Ash Ketchum had no use for mansions, for boats, for private planes, or for luxury cars. Ash Ketchum's heart was sold to the open road and the path to becoming a Pokemon Master. And there was something in that determination, that surety, that universal constant that even though the boy was so much younger than me, in both lives, I felt the anxiety about the future catastrophic events ebb just a little.

Isaac's Team end of Chapter 5:
Cleo- Nidorina, Hustle
Brinker- A-Sandshrew, Snow Cloak
Alberich- Rhyhorn, Rock Head
Estella- Marowak, Rock Head
Huckleberry- Quagsire, Water Absorb
Artagnan- Scyther, Technician
Alexei- Swinub, Thick Fat