Chapter 1

As his alarm buzzed for him to wake up on his first day of his sophomore year in High School, Ash Ketchum arose from his bed as slow as humanly possible. He reached for the alarm like his life depended on it and ended the horrible noise. He then sighed in relief and lay back in bed spread eagle. He then rubbed his eyes out to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

Nope, it's the first day of school. Wow, what a drag. He thought. Knowing that he had no way to avoid it, he slowly got out of bed and readied himself. He threw on something basic like a red shirt and black jeans and walked out of his room. He grabbed some breakfast cereal and quickly poured it into a bowl with some milk and began to work his way through it. His mom made her way into the kitchen and noticed her son already up and moving.

"Oh, good morning Ash! Are you ready for your first day of school?" she asked. Ash nodded.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he groggily replied. His mom chuckled at his slow response. Ash shook his head and finished his breakfast. He then noticed the time and realized that he should get going. He let his mom know he was off and snatched his backpack to take off for school. Ash had to walk to school since he was yet to get his driver's license and couldn't quite drive. He had a good walk to go, so he began to ponder. He was a great basketball player for the Freshman team last year, and he was hoping to make the Junior Varsity team this year at least. He personally played the Point Guard position and excelled at it. He held the school record for most three pointers in a season as a Freshman. His main man was Gary Oak, by far his best friend, and a Shooting Guard on the team along with him last year. Coaches had praised them as "one of the best backcourts they had ever seen" and compliments like that. What really made Ash excited however, was their new player. Over the summer workouts, a new kid who was also a sophomore had come from another school to play for their team. He couldn't exaggerate; this kid was fast and probably the most athletic ball player in the area. He outran just about everyone, made the craziest threes, and rumor has it that he could dunk. Ash just dreamed in happiness if that was true. Throwing lobs in games to him, getting easy dimes (assists) off of his threes, and simply watching him work. He didn't have the greatest handles apparently, but that's what Ash was for, to get past everyone in sight and feed it to Gary, where he was lockdown basically everywhere. He just couldn't wait to get started.

Before long, he had arrived to the front gate of the campus and entered. Gary was basically waiting for the kid at the front. He greeted him with a smile.

"What's up big fella? What you been doing all this time eh?" he asked. Ash slapped his hand and fist bumped Gary's and shrugged.

"Nothin' much, just ballin' that's all I guess," Gary laughed at the comment.

"What's this Ash? What happened to 'school first'?" he teased. Ash shook his head.

"Hey, you've got to take a break eventually, know what I mean?" Gary nodded and laughed with Ash as they made their way into the heart of the school. Students surrounded them and socialized as they walked past. Ash whipped out his schedule and checked what his first class was. He saw that he had History first, his favorite subject. Gary checked his as well and noticed that he had the same class as Ash.

"Damn! We have the same class Ash, that's awesome!" he yelped. Ash nodded and fist bumped Gary in joy as the two would be able to hang out in their favorite class. The bell sounded and they both took off up the stairs to the third floor, which was the top floor, and the location of their new class. The two in-shape boys still huffed and puffed up the stairs as they reached the top. They then entered the building through the doors and located their class. They entered quickly and looked to sit in the mid-back of the class, since the front sucked, and the back would almost certainly get them moved out of suspicion. They sat across from each other and waited for more students to show up. More and more poured in and the two still didn't recognize anyone yet. Before long, one did show up, their starting Power Forward, Paul. The purple haired boy was taller than Ash, wore a blue zip up jacket and pants. He was easily one of the strongest kids at the school, since he was known for getting easy buckets without a problem, and could almost dunk last year. He noticed the two and quickly made his way to them. He lifted his hand up for the classic slap and fist bump.

"What's up fellas long time no see," he said. Ash nodded.

"You're telling me Paul, been a too long since we played a ballgame together!" he said with Gary nodding. Paul smiled and nodded. He then took a seat in front of Gary to stay close to them. Their teacher then walked in the classroom and began their introductions and lesson for the day.

Ash's next class was Spanish 2, which he didn't care for too much, but he was able to get a little hang of it. Unfortunately, none of his buddies were present and he just sat where ever and slugged through the class. His next class was Drawing I, a class he decided to take to take a break during the day. Mainly, he sat with a few Freshman and sat through the class without any of his friends again.

His next class was Algebra 2, and he finally got to see some familiar faces again. As he sat down, bored from the lack of socialization, he hoped that someone would walk in and save him. To his luck, one of his best friends, Misty, walked in to the class. When she saw him, she wasted no time sitting next to him.

"Hey Misty, how's it been?" he asked. The orange haired girl sat down and smiled at him.

"Well, it was good until today, you know what I mean?" she replied. Ash chuckled and nodded. The two sat quietly for a bit as people began to walk in, not noticing anyone else in particular, until Ash noticed the kid he was thinking about earlier. He had black hair, wore a red jacket and gray basketball shorts. He looked around for a bit until he noticed Ash, who must've been the only guy he knew in the class. The boy walked up to Ash with a slight smile on his face.

"What's up Ash?" he greeted and slapped hands and fist bumped. Ash couldn't remember his name unfortunately.

"What's up….uh dude," he said anxiously. The kid shook his head.

"Don't know my name? C'mon it's Napoleon!" he teased. Ash shook his head and slapped himself a few times, making Misty laugh.

"Napoleon! That's right!" he remembered. Napoleon laughed and waived it off. He then noticed Misty and his mind instantly jumped to conclusions.

"This your girl?" he asked him. The two gasped and blushed, holding up their hands.

"No, no! We're just friends!" Misty assured, Ash nodding madly. Napoleon laughed and nodded, then took a seat behind the two. Ash shook his head and calmed himself down and nodded at Misty. She shook her head and laughed, still shocked by the question. When the final people walked into the class, Ash noticed a girl that did catch his attention. She had blue hair and wore a black and pink miniskirt, and white undershirt that went down to her elbows. She also wore black socks that went up to her knees and pink boots with a white beanie on her head. He stared for a bit at the girl, and Misty noticed. As the girl took a seat a ways away from him, Misty whispered to him: "Do you like that girl Ash?" Ash whirled around and shook his head.

"What?! No, no way!" he pleaded, but his blush didn't hide anything. Misty laughed; he totally had a new crush. Ash put his head down and covered his face on his desk while she laughed at him.

"She seems cute though! I'll go talk to her after class I think, maybe I can hook you up!" she offered. Ash groaned and pleaded for her to stop and she laughed.

"Alright Ash, I'll give you a break," she promised and he slowly raised his head back up.

After 4th period ended, Ash tried to get out as fast as he could without the girl coming up next to him by accident. It was time for lunch, so he began to walk down the hall and out of the building on the third floor. Too late, Napoleon caught up with him.

"Yo Ash! What happened in there?" he asked, slightly laughing. Ash shook his head, he might as well tell one of his new basketball teammates.

"Well, you see, there's this girl…" Napoleon cut him off with a smile.

"The blue haired one?" he asked. When Ash gulped and nodded, Napoleon lit up.

"Dawn?! You like Dawn?!" Napoleon laughed and Ash shook his head in annoyance as they descended down the stairs. "Good stuff Ash! I know her from the school I just came from. I used to have a crush on her, but I guess it just wore off on me!"

Ash came back into reality. "Wait, you know Dawn?" Napoleon nodded.

"Why of course, didn't you see us talking on the way out? We're good friends, you know, in the way that you and Misty are friends."

Ash nodded with the hopes that he would be able to meet this girl. Ash and Napoleon made their way to the cafeteria for lunch.

At lunch, the two grabbed their food and met up with Gary and Paul, then made their way to their usual lunch table. Napoleon socialized with Paul and Gary for a bit as Ash lead the way to the table, where he saw a sight that he wished to see, but made him uncomfortable. He stopped in his tracks, and Gary bumped into his back. Gary, Paul, and Napoleon looked forward to where Ash was looking, and Napoleon laughed and made his way around the shell shocked Ash. He walked up to the table and sat across from Misty, and Dawn, which it seemed like had been newly made friends. Dawn got up to give Napoleon a small hug, a way they greeted he guessed.

"What's wrong Ash? Have a crush?" Gary laughed.

Ash shook his head and looked confident again. "No, just thought I saw something outside," he said and then walked to the table. Gary and Paul shook their heads, knowing that that was complete BS and proceeded to sit down next to Napoleon and Ash, while Gary took a seat next to Dawn. The brown haired male instantly greeted Dawn as he sat next to her.

"So are you new here?" he asked. Dawn nodded.

"Yep! I transferred here after my mom moved so here I am!" she replied. Gary nodded, while Ash tried to maintain composure. Paul couldn't help but laugh at Ash's struggles.

"Do you do anything in particular?" Gary continued.

"Yeah, I was the cheerleading captain at my previous school, but I guess I can't just become that since I'm new here I guess," she replied. Gary shook his head.

"Oh I'm sure the girls will like you. You seem like a pretty nice girl!" he complimented. Dawn blushed a little and laughed.

"Wow, ok thanks!" she laughed. Ash continued to sit quietly. Dawn then looked over to him.

"What about you? I thought I saw you in 4th period!" she asked Ash. He whipped his head up and looked at her.

"Oh…yeah! My name's Ash! I was the starting Point Guard for the Freshman basketball team last year," he responded, trying to impress her in some way. Gary, Paul, and Napoleon sat back and watched the show.

Dawn nodded. "Oh really? Do you plan to play this year?" she asked. Ash nodded.

"Well of course! I don't see any way I couldn't!" he responded. Dawn smiled.

"That's great! I'll be sure to cheer for you!" she added. Ash lit up now, Misty noticed and covered up her laugh.

"Alright, I hope to see you there!" he finished. Dawn smiled back at him. Ash was really excited now. I'll have to look good as soon as the season starts! He thought.

When lunch concluded, Ash and Gary made their way to their 5th period class, English 2, quickly. The class was both not their favorites, and no one they really knew showed up, so they trudged through that class together.

When 6th period came along, it was PE, or for them, Basketball. It was their favorite class by far, and everyone was there in the gym. Gary, Paul, Ash, Napoleon, and now Drew was present, the tall, green haired boy who was their center last year. The five greeted each other and socialized on how their summer went and so on. Eventually, Barry showed up, their Small Forward from last year, at least formally. Napoleon was the new suspected starter since he showed off his great skills during the summer workouts. Sooner or later, their coach showed up, a taller man that made it obvious that he had played often when he was younger. They all greeted the coach and Napoleon had a bit of a longer conversation giving the coach a fill in for his experience and such.

Eventually, he brought out a ball and told them to play since it was the first day of school and he wanted to assess their skills. He took a seat at the sideline as the group of boys picked teams, Ash as one captain, and Barry as the other ironically. Ash picked Napoleon first, while Barry took Drew and Gary. Ash picked up Paul and their best bench player from last year, and it went on before they got 5 on 5. Varsity and JV players from last year went to the other courts and picked up their own teams.

"Shoot for takeout," Paul suggested. Ash nodded and chucked the ball up from beyond the arch and hit it no problem.

"That's why I said it," Paul chuckled as he high fived Ash. Napoleon obviously seemed impressed and nodded. Barry shook his head and checked the ball to Ash. He took off quickly and Gary stopped him and switched with Barry.

"I got Ashy-boy alright!" he said and smiled. Ash accepted the challenge and attacked. Gary was able to hold him, but his keen eyes saw that Napoleon had blistered past his defender and was inside the paint already. He flipped a one handed pass to him. Napoleon accepted the pass and jumped. Ash swore the kid flew, because his arm stretched above Drew's tall arms as he attempted to block him. Napoleon kept flying into Drew and slammed the ball into the basket one handed with extraordinary force, and hung on the rim. Drew fell back a bit in complete shock as to what happened. In fact, everyone was speechless, but that didn't last. Soon, his teammates were all over him yelling OOOOOOOO, and other screams. Napoleon walked to Ash and high fived for the great pass. Ash was so happy, the rumors were true! Since they played full court, Barry checked the ball out to Gary, and he took off down the court. Ash retreated and met the tall Shooting Guard. Gary flipped the ball behind him and between his legs, and then finished with a crossover, which sent Ash back and threw him off. Gary drove the ball past the defeated Ash and went for an easy layup. Suddenly, Napoleon came flying and snatched the ball out of the air and passed it back to Ash, who took off the other way, Gary speechless. Napoleon trailed behind the pack, and when Ash had no one open, he saw Napoleon trailing and flipped it to him. What he didn't expect was for Napoleon to stop a good 5 feet behind the three point line and shoot it. Everyone waived off the crazy shot and prepared to fight for a rebound, but they were all shocked when the shot drained beautifully, and perfectly.

Now they all knew Barry wouldn't start, and that record for most three pointers made for Ash probably wouldn't last. This kid was crazy.

When they completed their game, after Ash's 6 threes, Napoleon's 3rd dunk, and Paul's endless boards (rebounds), the group was exhausted. Napoleon was getting support from all around the team and compliments for his great skill and athleticism. Coach then pulled him aside and talked to him for a bit, and Gary came up to Ash.

"Wow, Napoleon is one scary player to guard I tell you!" Gary said. Ash nodded.

"It's going to be some season with him on board!" Ash said excitedly. Gary nodded. As soon as they finished, the bell rang signaling them that school was over, and the two walked out of the gym and towards home.

(Alright, so if you guys already know, I am doing another story along with this one, but since I've been reading a couple of high school stories, I've decided to whip up my own so I can do something else every once in a while. This story won't really be my main focus, but it will be updated, I promise! Please leave a review so I can get some input on the story as of now. I will try to update both stories soon, so be on the look out! Thanks for reading!)