My new life began in the most anti-climatic manner possible. I woke up in the body of a 15-year-old named Donell Oak. Yes, you read that right, Oak. If you're anywhere near as big of a nerd as I am, you'd recognize that name anywhere. I seem to be in the body of the youngest son of legendary champion and Pokémon professor, Samuel Oak. I'm sure you must be incredibly confused as to where I am in the timeline and so am I. I mean I grew up watching an anime starring Oak's grandson and since I was his son, did that mean I was way ahead of the canon timeline.
Looking through my memories gave me the answers I needed but somehow left me with even more questions. I was about ten years older than Gary so why wasn't I in the anime. I looked around me and the more recent memories of this body came to me. I just became a trainer, barely over a week ago and armed with my growlithe starter, I headed off into the viridian forest and got attacked by a swarm of beedrill. I managed to escape but the poison made my survival a close affair.
My best guess was that in canon the original Donell did not survive this experience and the reason we never saw him in the series was because he was long dead by the time the show came around.
This realization also gave me more answers. I was curious as to what Donell was even doing in the forest the first place. It turns out this version of Oak was much more strict and did not give Donell any special treatment, He failed to make it into the top three in the national trainer license qualification exams and Oak said tough luck, didn't give him a starter and let him set off on his journey with a growlithe he'd made friends with from the corral, his backpack filled with what supplies he could buy with his allowance and a pokedex which was the only bit of favoritism Oak allowed himself to show.
I'm guessing Donell's death in canon is what led Oak to spoiling Gary so thoroughly and since I was now in this body, and consequently alive, that meant we could as well kiss canon Gary goodbye.
I was only left with my thoughts for a minute or so before a nurse came in. She took my vitals, congratulated me on being alive and walked off after a few tests. After she left, I didn't even have a minute alone before Oak came storming in and I did a double-take. He looked young. Barely into his forties, and I was surprised considering he looked to be pushing seventy in the anime. He was wearing his iconic lab coat and his hair was still grey, but he looked nothing like he would one day look like. His alakazam came floating in behind him calmly.
'Do I need to tell you how stupid you were?' Nice opening pops, no display of affection, no asking how I was, just straight admonishment. This was Samuel Oak, the ex-champion, not Professor Oak, the kind Grandfatherly professor. He'd still been champion until a decade ago when he retired, and Lance took the throne.
He seemed to be getting even more upset, so I gave him an answer before he exploded. 'You don't. It was an accident, but I've learned my lesson. I should have been more careful while going off-route.' And I did legitimately believe that. Donell was extremely pissed off at his father and determined to prove himself so he boldly went off the monitored route in Viridian Forest so he could catch a rare heracross or scyther to prove himself, and now that I thought about that, I remembered that he succeeded. He caught a Scyther. I had a fucking Scyther, and Oak just had to choose that moment to interject and bring my mood crashing down.
'I really hope you've learned your lesson though, because you weren't the one to suffer this time' What the actual fuck? I almost died. Donell actually fucking died. Who was this guy? And then I realized what he was saying. Blaze, Donell's growlithe. He was already drained from the battle against Scyther and lost his life trying to save him from the Beedrill. All my anger dried up and I began to cry. I cried for my old life, I cried for Donell, and most of all, I cried for Blaze. Young, innocent and way too loyal. Oak softened at my tears and walked over to the bed and held me as I cried. I didn't even know when I was lost to the sweet abyss of sleep.
I woke up the next day to find a message from Oak on my pokedex telling me that he was sorry for my loss and hoped I would never be so foolish again. He also replaced the supplies I'd lost in the forest with a new top of the line backpack, training and camping supplies from Silph, in addition to a ridiculous number of potions. I was happy he didn't say anything about returning home, because I was incredibly sad for Blaze, but I was not Donell. I would be completing this journey in Donell's honor, and I would achieve his dream of becoming champion to repay him for the gift of his body. That sounded so fucked up. I'm definitely killing that train of thought.
On the bright side, I was cleared to leave the hospital. I wasted no time in checking out, taking my supplies, and heading straight to the outskirts of the forest. I took the pokeball on my belt and released the pokemon contained within. He formed out of red light, and I released a breath in excitement. It was a Scyther. A real life Scyther. He turned to face me and looked expectantly at me.
'Scyther, I know you remember me. We agreed that you'd become my pokemon if growlithe beat you and he did' He nodded showing that he already knew that, and then he gestured around me in confusion. Oh, I get it.
'We were attacked by beedrill in the forest. Blaze didn't make it'. He let out a cry of scyther. I knew he wasn't actually sad at Blaze's loss. It's more like he felt Blaze would be a good sparring partner and he never got the chance to avenge his loss. I was quick to cheer him up though. 'Buddy don't worry. We'll get to challenge lost of strong opponents. In fact, we'll be challenging the strongest pokemon in the land. We'll fight dragons. A whole team of fully evolved dragons.' From the cry of excitement he let out, I knew I had him there. 'Before we get there though, we'll have to train really hard and beat all the other strong trainers in our way.' He looked even more excited at that.
I took out my pokedex to scan him and it told me that this Scyther was male, which was a huge relief since I'd been using masculine pronouns, had technician as his ability and knew Quick attack, Slash, Swords dance and wing attack.
The first thing I had him do was show me all his moves and when I was satisfied, I had him do a few laps around the clearing we were in, first while running and again while flying. While he did that, I began to work on a training plan. We could theoretically challenge the Pewter Gym right now, but it wouldn't go well. Flint, Brock's dad, was still the leader and he had a reputation for slaughtering beginner teams. Nothing as bad as Surge's, who did actually kill challenger's pokemon, but he was still ruthless.
He was going to be difficult to beat and since I'd probably be facing him in a 2-on-1 battle, I definitely needed to get Scyther up to snuff. We'd begin with his speed. While he was very fast for any pokemon, he was barely average for a Scyther. Since my pokedex told me he was fully grown, I didn't need to wait before beginning the more strenuous training exercises.
I opened my backpack and got out the special training brace Oak got me and had Scyther put it on. 'Let me know when it becomes hard to move' I said and then, I turned the knob on the back a couple times. He signaled that I should keep going and then I turned it a few more times before he asked me to stop. You see, this was a special gravity brace that increased the effects of gravity on the wearer. If you've ever seen Dragon Ball Z then you can already tell what I'm going to be using them for. I was going to turn this guy into my very own Broly. A powerhouse that would wreck everyone's shit and just not stop. That even gave me an idea, I asked him if he wanted a nickname of his own and when he said yes, I had my Broly.
We were going to fuck everyone's shit up.
But before we did that though, I had to get something to eat. My stomach was killing me. I signaled Scyther to stop his exercises and returned him before going to grab a bite at the pokemon center. I got to the center, ordered lunch for both scyther and myself and then began to plan my journey. The Kanto league conference takes place Once in two years, and I started my journey right after this year's conference. That means I have about twenty-four months to ear eight badges and prepare for the conference.
This world was incredibly dissimilar to the anime and looking at this body's memories of the last conference verified that as fact. The battles were bloody and multiple trainers lost pokemon throughout the conference. It didn't happen in every battle and considering the fact that the conference had hundreds of battles, the rate at which deaths occurred was infinitesimal. However, the fact that they happened at all told me that this was a deadly one.
Moving on from that, the conference was in two years, and was going to involve the strongest trainers in the league who weren't gym leaders, members of the elite four or champion. It was incredibly rare for any rookies to make it into the top 64 and to the best of my knowledge, the last person to make it into the top 8 in his first conference was Lance and that was only because he had been a trainer for over 6 years before attempting to beat the conference.
This meant that in order to beat the conference in two years, I had to be very diligent in my training and careful about my choice of pokemon. I couldn't catch anything that would take too long to reach its full potential, so that meant most dragon types were out, and I couldn't catch anything that wouldn't be able to perform at the top level, so no meme pokemon like Raticate for me. I'd have to begin catching my team as soon as possible. I couldn't just go gallivanting round the region, challenging gyms, and catching the pokemon as I came across them. That would take way too long. I'd have to form my team and train their asses off before challenging the gyms.
The good news for me is that the first pokemon that came to mind was also one of the most common in Kanto, I just had to go to any forest and search for a minute or two. I quickly finished up my lunch and gestured for Scyther, who had scarfed his down at blistering speeds to follow me.
We had a pidgey to catch.