Aurum has turned ten and it’s time to get his first pokemon. He brings Leon and Zach along just for safety on their way to get the pokemon. Upon reaching the lab though they find it empty and Aurum’s attempts to get his pokemon cause a few problems.
The Very First Step of a Pokemon Journey
By CalexTheNeko
DING-DONG!
“Uggggh…” Leon groaned as the doorbell ringing woke him up. It range again as he slowly pulled the covers down, revealing his long blonde hair to be a mess having just woken up. His green, almost catlike eyes narrowed as the bedroom sun shined in. The doorbell continued to ring. “Somebody want to get that?” From the fact the doorbell did not stop ringing, the answer was no. “Oh, right, no one else is here.”
With a groan, Leon got out of bed. Currently, he was devoid of clothing. He didn’t wear them around the house in general, and only wore then in public cause people got weird. Sleepily, he managed to get to the front door and open it just a slit. There were two familiar faces on the other side.
“There you are come on!” One was Aurum. A friend, and the oldest of the group, though only as of today. He was officially ten years old. Leon, and the other friend were still nine. “You’re gonna make me late.” Aurum was dressed in a pair of jeans, boots, a shirt and vest, with a large hat.
“You didn’t forget what day it was did you?” The other friend was Zach. He was more simply dressed in sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt. Then he had a pair of glasses over his blue eyes and messy uncombed pale brown hair.
“His birthday… Huh..” Leon gave a yawn. He opened the door wider to let the other two in. Neither one was even remotely surprised by his nudity. That was just normal Leon. Heck, in private even they had stopped wearing clothes because of his influence. “I know you’re excited, but you have to wake me up so early?”
“It’s… After noon.” Aurum gave Leon a deadpan stare.
“Oh…” Leon shrugged. “I don’t do mornings.”
“Or early afternoons apparently.” Zach teased. Then paused. “Come to think of it, how do you pull that off? I mean, what about your parents and…” He paused. “Come to think of it have we ever seen-“
“Okay, so we need to get going for Aurum’s thing.” Leon interrupted. “That means going through town.” Leon groaned. Living in the outskirts of Cerulean City had certain advantages, mainly in that it was quiet and plenty of privacy. But, they were going into the heart of the town. “Just give me a moment to get dressed…” Leon slowly crawled back up the stairs disappearing to his bedroom.
“He’s a completely different person before he wakes up huh?” Aurum asked.
“Wonder if he’s going to be this hard to get going when his own turn comes.” Zach mused.
“Okay… Ready…” Leon appeared a few minutes later, cleaned up and slightly more awake. His blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail. As for getting dressed, he was wearing a green pair of surfer’s shorts and nothing else. No shirt, no shoes, just shorts. The other two knew better than to suggest it wouldn’t be enough. Besides, Cerulean City had a water gym. It wasn’t uncommon to see people in just swimwear around town all the time, Leon wasn’t going to stick out.
“Finally!” Aurum grinned. “Let’s get going already!” He ran out the front door.
“Alright… Coming…” Leon followed, and made a slight hissing noise as he stepped out into the sunlight.
“You’re not a vampire, the sun won’t kill you.” Zach followed Leon out.
“You can’t prove that.” Leon retorted. “The latter part. I’m not a vampire.”
“Well now I wonder if he is a vampire.” Aurum grinned.
“Look, I am… More awake now, but not awake enough for a back and forth yet.” Leon whined. “So… Do you want to do the thing, or sit here and keep poking fun at me till I’m awake enough to poke back?”
“DO THE THING!” Aurum gave a shout of joy. It was enough to actually stir Leon into full awakeness.
“Gah!” Leon stumbled a bit, but his eyes snapped open.
“Looks like he’s finally with us.” Zach grinned.
The thing was the usual thing that most ten-year-old kids did. That was getting their first pokemon so they could start their journey. In Truth, Aurum would likely be delaying till both Leon and Zach were ten as well, so they could travel together, but that didn’t mean he was going to wait for them to get older before getting his first pokemon. It’d be a whole 10 months before both of them caught up. That was ten months he could be training his new pokemon, and catching more pokemon to add to his team on the outskirts of town.
But first, he had to get his pokemon. The closest Pokemon expert in the area was Bill. He lived a little bit north of town. He wasn’t traditionally the person to send most people off on their journey, but Pallet Town was way too far of a walk to go without a pokemon partner at your side. It was dangerous to travel alone. Even just crossing Nugget Bridge and going through the fields north of town presented some level of danger of wild pokemon. This was why Leon and Zach were accompanying Aurum. Two extra sets of eyes to keep a lookout and help keep Aurum out of trouble. Once he had his pokemon, he’d be fine to travel alone. Then at that point, the other two would likely need him as a chaperone to go exploring outside town.
A fact that was not lost on Aurum, and he was greatly looking forward to being able to tease them about before they had their own pokemon and were allowed to go out alone.
“Alright let’s get a move on!” Aurum gave a shout. “If his lab is closed by the time we get there because you can’t get out of bed at a decent time I’m gonna be so miffed!” Aurum broke into a sprint running in the direction of the main town.
“Relax, it’s not that late.” Zach held his hands behind his head. “Just a bit past noon. It won’t close till later. Besides, he’s probably out for lunch right now or something. If we rush, we’ll just wind up stuck waiting outside the front door.”
“But if we are first in line waiting when he gets back from lunch I’ll get first choice then!” Aurum grinned. “I can get the pick of the litter so to speak.”
“Pretty sure people who got there when the lab first opened in the morning already picked the best pokemon.” Leon mumbled.
“That something you really want to bring up?” Zach jabbed Leon in the side. “It is your fault we’re getting there so late.”
“Fine… Whatever…” Leon shrugged. “We can rush if you want. Running might get my blood flowing anyway.”
“I didn’t mean we had to run…” Zach started.
“Ha! Last one there has to buy lunch!” Aurum grinned.
“Seriously, there’s no point in running. Like I said he’s going to be-“ Zach tried to interrupt again.
“How kind of you to offer to treat us.” Leon smirked, before breaking into a full sprint.
“Oh no, you’re not beating me there!” Aurum picked up speed in his sprint, taking off after Leon.
“And, just like that, off they go.” Zach crossed his arms and sighed. “Wait… If I don’t hurry up… I’m buying lunch. And both of those two can eat as much as a snorlax!” Sensing the danger to his wallet, Zach broke into a run too, trying to catch up with them. “Oh my gosh… How do they run so fast in bare feet and clunky boots?”
The three tore through the town center of Cerulean City, and made their way onto Nugget Bridge. There were a bunch of people there lined up for some reason, apparently some kind of pokemon battle thing. As none of the three children had pokemon, they couldn’t participate in whatever was going on. So instead, just each offered quick apologies as they ran past all of them as fast as they could.
Aurum had pulled into the lead, but slowed down as they reached the end of the bridge and the start of the grassy route between them and Bill’s lab. He came to an abrupt stop as he looked to survey the area. A bit too abrupt, as Leon didn’t have time to react and crashed into Aurum both of them falling over, which allowed Zach to catch up.
“You two will never change huh?” Zach took the chance to catch his breath while he could.
“Who just stops dead in their tracks in the middle of a race?” Leon grumbled as he got up.
“Someone being safe!” Aurum insisted. He had to retrieve his hat which had fallen off before standing up himself. “Look there could be wild pokemon about now, that’s the entire reason my parents said I had to have escorts if I was going.”
“Hey… Do they know you picked two other kids as your escort who don’t have pokemon yet?” Zach asked.
“Not important.” Aurum shook his head. “You two just need to help me keep an eye out.”
“I really don’t think there’s anything to be that concerned about.” Leon shrugged. “Not exactly any aggressive pokemon around here. As long as you’re not starting anything yourself pretty sure they’ll just leave you alone. About the worst you would have to worry about is making a Jigglypuff.”
“That would be the worst!” Aurum grabbed Leon by the shoulders. “Think about it! If we ran into a Jigglypuff, they might sing! Then we might all fall asleep! And then we might not wake up till the lab was closed for the day! And I would never get my pokemon ever!”
“Wouldn’t you just get it tomorrow?” Leon tried to free himself from Aurum’s grasp.
“EVER!” Aurum insisted.
“Alright, we’ll keep an eye out for dangerous jigglypuffs.” Zach came to Leon’s rescue.
“Good.” Aurum released Leon at that point and turned to walk down the route.
“Thanks.” Leon muttered. “So… Should we tell him Clefairy can also use Sing?”
“Not unless you want to literally have him jumping at anything even slightly pinkish in color.” Zach muttered back.
“What was that?” Aurum asked.
“Nothing that important!” Leon gave a reply. We’re just discussing what to keep a watch out for and stuff.” That technically wasn’t a lie. Leon never technically told a lie. It was part of what made it so easy for him to deceive people.
“Uh huh well hurry up!” Aurum wasn’t willing to run full speed through the grassy route, but was still antsy to get to the lab as fast as possible. It was actually a bit of a shame. It was a really nice day out. Sunny, but with enough clouds to keep it from getting too hot. A nice day to enjoy the outdoors.
But Aurum wasn’t going to let anyone stop, smell the roses, and enjoy the day. He had a pokemon to get! And so he might not have ran, but he certainly hustled, forcing the other two to hurry to keep up with him.
Finally, the lab came into sight. They had made it. And it had only been about twenty minutes since they left Leon’s place.
“So… Thought about what you wanted to pick?” Zach asked. “Usually, they have between a grass, fire, and water type for you to choose from. It’ll probably Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle since they’re native to this region.”
“I wasn’t really sure.” Aurum considered. “I thought there might be more to choose from and they all have their perks.” He froze where he was as he considered which of the three would match him best.
“Door’s unlocked.” Leon interrupted as tried the entrance. “Guess he’s not off on lunch after all.”
“… Lunch…” Zach muttered, remembering the earlier bet. He quickly rushed inside the lab, standing in the doorway with Leon. “And there, that means Aurum is buying lunch then, right?”
“Wait what?” Aurum was roused from his thoughts by this as he looked between the two. “Wait! I never agreed! I mean I had, but we stopped racing! You can’t still hold me…”
“Hey, you can’t get upset over losing the bet that was your idea.” Leon stuck his tongue out playfully.
“Ugh.” Aurum crossed his arms. “This totally shouldn’t count you know. Was not a fair race.” He continued to mutter to himself as they headed inside.
The majority of the lab was one main building. There was a computer system with a ton of different wires running from it to various machines all over the room. Some were mounted on the walls, others just laying about on the ground. The place was an absolute mess of wires of machinery. And also completely abandoned.
“Hello? Bill?” Aurum called.
“No one’s here.” Leon glanced around.
“Guess he is still on lunch.” Zach shrugged. “Can’t believe he didn’t lock up while he was gone. Well, nothing to do but wait.”
“Uggggh, but I don’t wanna wait.” Aurum whined. “His computer has to have the info on where the pokemon are stored so I can start picking one, right?” Aurum sat down at the computer and began to click through options.
“Uh… You know what you’re doing” Zach asked. “There’s a lot of important looking equipment in here.”
“It’s fine. I’m just going to look for pokemon related stuff. I’m not going to cause any problems.” Aurum insisted.
“Okay, yup. I am going to stand way over here.” Leon walked to the far side of the lab and leaned against the wall near one of the machines. “This way whatever you break, I had no part in it whatsoever.”
“H-hey! You could help talk some sense into him.” Zach objected. “Come on Aurum, you have no idea what those settings are you should just leave it alone.”
“It’ll be fine…” Aurum insisted. “Ah look, here’s pokemon information right here. Let’s see…” He clicked on an icon and a picture of a purple rat popped up with information. “Rattata, habitat grasslands, diet berries… Then… DNA and a bunch of letters and numbers I don’t know what they mean.” He frowned. “Wait, is my starting pokemon going to be a rattata? I was looking for something… A bit less… Mundane.”
“I dunno.” Zach considered. “If you work hard, you could probably train your rattata to be in the top percentile of all rattata.”
“But… It doesn’t breathe fire or anything…” Aurum muttered.
“It’s evolution can learn Hyper Beam.” Leon pointed out from where he was standing. “So, that little rat does have the potential to become a weapon of mass destruction.”
“Oh yeah.” Aurum grinned. “Maybe a rattata wouldn’t be so bad… But… How do I get the pokemon out of storage?” He began to click around. Suddenly, the large machine near Leon began to hum. “I did it! That must be the storage unit.”
“Huh, I was sure you were going to break something.” Zach sounded actually impressed. “What do you know.”
“Hey, it could still explode.” Leon teased. “I mean we don’t know if he did all of this-“ Leon never finished the sentence before there was a giant flash of light from the machine.
When it faded, a small purple rat pokemon was laying on its back on top of Leon’s now discarded shorts looking very confused.
“You… You turned Leon into a rattata! How did you even do that!?” Zach asked.
“Ra…. Ta?” Leon shook his head, confused as he looked around the room realizing it was much bigger now.
“How was I supposed to know that was even a thing the machine could do!” Aurum asked. “Who has a button to just turn people into pokemon!? Look I’ll just change him back.”
“How!?” Zach demanded.
“Rattata.” Leon walked over and gave the two an annoyed looked. “Ta!” He shouted to get their attention, but neither one noticed.
“Look it’s fine I know what I’m doing all I have to do is undo the last thing!” Aurum insisted.
“You have no idea what you’re doing!” Zach shouted.
“Sure I do! Look here this will fix it!” Aurum clicked something, the machine hummed to life again, then released another blast of light.
And suddenly, Zach’s clothes fell to the ground as a second rattata appeared in the room.
“Tatta.” Leon looked to Zach.
“Ra?” Zach asked in disbelief.
“Okay… That wasn’t an undo button.” Aurum muttered. “Okay, okay, it’s fine that was an honest mistake. But this time, this time I got it for sure.” He pressed another command. Once more the machine hummed to life.
“Ra?” Leon asked Zach.
“Ta.” Zach responded. With that both rattatas dove behind a large pile of wires to take cover as yet another blast of light was released.
And then Aurum’s clothing fell to the floor. At first, there was no sign of him. Then, his hat began to move. It shuffled around on the floor for a bit, bumping walls a few time before the hat finally tipped over revealing a third rattata underneath it.
“Ah I can see again!” Aurum spoke up. “Huh… I… Hey… I can still talk! Despite being a rattata!”
“No you can’t.” Leon interrupted. “You just understand what you’re saying.”
“He’s right. Pretty much figured it out as soon as you changed me. I could talk to Leon, but you couldn’t understand a word I was saying.” Zach nodded.
“Huh…” Aurum approached the other rattata. Three purple rats. Other than the eye colors, they almost looked identical. Aurum, with brown eyes, Zach with his blue and Leon with his green. “So… I guess that button didn’t reverse it either.”
“I told you that you didn’t know what you were doing!” Zach bristled and swished his tail angrily. “And oh… Hello…” He paused, looking back at the tail. “Huh… I’ve never had a tail before… This… Is it wrong that this feels right?”
“Honestly, the tails, the ears, the paws, I’m kind of liking all of it.” Leon grinned. “The not being able to talk and the lack of hands is kind of a problem though.”
“Ah! Well! See it’s not too bad!” Aurum smiled sheepishly. “Besides I know for certain how to fix it now.”
“No you don’t.” Zach stated bluntly. “We should just wait for Bill to get back and get his help.”
“How?” Leon asked. “We can’t exactly talk to him.”
“That’s… True…” Zach muttered. “But I mean, three empty piles of clothing, I think what happened should be pretty obvious! He’ll know we’re not normal pokemon and be able to change us back.”
“Erm… Leon sort of has a rep there.” Aurum interrupted. “And us by association. He might think Leon decided it was too hot and ditched his clothes and he followed suit.”
“Hey I’m not that bad!” Leon paused. “But… That doesn’t mean others don’t think I am.”
“Ugh, well look… Being like this isn’t too bad, and I’m sure we can come up with plenty of ways to communicate if we think about it.” Zach insisted.
“Like typing on the computer!” Aurum began to climb the computer chair, and then onto the desk that housed the computer. “And while we wait I can look for the reversal command.”
“Aurum! Don’t you dare!” Zach shouted after him. “You’re going to make things worse!”
“To be fair, it’s not like he can turn us anymore into pokemon.” Leon pointed out.
“True, but I don’t trust Aurum not to make the thing explode leaving us stuck like this.” Zach paused. “Which… Wouldn’t be too bad… But…”
“But explosions are bad, would likely set the building ablaze, and burning down a lab is a bad idea, because aside from the fact you’d both be grounded forever we’re inside the building that would be on fire.” Leon pointed out.
“Ugh, you know the situation can get dire when you’re the sensible one.” Zach muttered.
“I’m always sensible.” Leon puffed out proudly. “Which means being sensible not to let common sense and logic get in the way of a good time.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Zach muttered. “Wait, what are we going back and forth about! Grab Aurum before he burns this place to the ground!”
“Oh! Right!” Leon nodded. The two other rattata began to climb up the office chair, but Aurum was already on the top of the desk, pressing a bunch of buttons on the keyboard with his rattata paws.
“That’s enough of that!” Zach tackled Aurum, knocking him to the side of the desk. Leon joined the rattata, and all three of them fell down from the desk landing on the ground.
“Oof! That was uncalled for!” Aurum whined.
“Sorry, but had to save you from yourself.” Zach insisted.
“It’s fine, I already figured it out.” Aurum grinned. “There was a Revert to Earlier Stage command. So, I got that running. Should change us back.”
“I don’t know how much I trust that…” Leon muttered.
“Hey, like you said I can’t turn us anymore into pokemon, right?” Aurum grinned cheekily.
“I suppose he has a point…” Zach muttered. “Of course, there’s still the whole machine blowing up thing.”
“It’s not going to blow up!” Aurum insisted. “You should have more faith in me!”
At this point, the machine hummed to life. All three rattata looked at it expectantly. All three also prepared to make a run for it at the first sign of the thing exploding. The machine behaved much as it had when it had turned them into pokemon one by one. It hummed to life. And then, there was a bright flash of light.
And suddenly, the room was completely quiet.
The rattata were gone. Instead, there were now three purple and white eggs laying on the floor huddled together. They were almost identical except for a very faint hue on the white part of each of them. One of them it was brown, another blue, the last one green. Aurum, Zach and Leon. They was blissfully asleep, inside the eggs, in the form of baby pokemon who weren’t quite ready to hatch yet. And so, sleeping inside the eggs, none of them would know what happened next, or over the course of the next two months.
But, eventually, Bill returned to his office. He noticed the eggs, but not the discarded clothes which blended in with the rest of the junk littering the room. He was mildly confused, not because there were three eggs, but because they were just laying in the room. He got deliveries of pokemon eggs all the time. He kept them, hatched them, and then after they were old enough gave them to one of the kids from Cerulean City on their tenth birthday to start their journey. From the look of it, these were rattata eggs. Pretty common. It was a possibility whichever kid who got them wouldn’t be too happy to start with just a rattata. Unless maybe he gave him all three? It didn’t matter for now. They weren’t anywhere close to hatching.
Bill took the eggs into a back room where there were several incubators designed to keep eggs warm and protected till they hatched. Several of them were full already, but Bill was able to find three next to each other that he could put the rattata eggs in until they were ready to hatch.
Come to think of it. It was kind of strange to get three eggs of the same species at the exact same time. They were probably all from the same litter, meaning the rattata might be siblings. If that was the case separating them might be a bad idea. They’d likely develop better together. His idea of giving all three to one trainer was starting to look like a better and better idea by the minute.
“Alright then…” He patted each egg gently before closing the incubators around them. “You three just sleep tight. I’ll figure out a trainer for you.”
With that, Bill returned to his computer, only to find it frozen and crashed for some reason. With a frown, he rebooted it. After finally booting it up, he checked the list of children in town who would come of age soon. There was Aurum, who was supposed to arrive today. But, he was a no show. And it’s not like he was going to give a new trainer an egg. Eggs couldn’t really protect you on the run. There was Zach and Leon who were both nine. Strangely, he was missing contact information for Leon’s parents. And both of them had at least 10 months before they were old enough anyway. The eggs would be hatched by them. After a bit more searching he fond one. A nine-year-old girl named Jaune. She was expected to turn ten in three months. Perfect. Bill made a few notes on the file. In three months the eggs would be hatched and old enough to leave. Hopefully, young Jaune would be able to handle three pokemon at once. Rattata weren’t known for being strong, but they could get into quite a bit of mischief.
And for some reason, Bill couldn’t shake the feeling these three were going to be extra mischievous. But, for now, they were perfectly peaceful, as the pokemon inside the eggs would sleep for at least another two months.