Ashley Catchem Chapter 9: (Picking One)

When Ashley hung up the phone after speaking with her grandmother she felt good. She ate dinner with the Oak family and went up stairs and changed into her night clothing and went into bed. Mew floated outside of the window and told her good night. She found herself wondering which Pokemon she would get and fell into a nice sleep.

The next morning she took a deep breath and got up. The morning breakfast was of eggs and bacon. "I'm glad things are different. I am getting to try new things. What I'm going to do is going to be great and make it so that I learn new things and try new things."

Two bags were set up on the table. When they got ready to leave Gary handed her, her bag. The two then headed out the door and over to the lab. Ashley had a smile on her face. "I'm so excited about getting to go on my first adventure."

"It's not as if any of us have gone on an adventure before this."Gary walked along the road with her to the lab. He then paused for a few minutes. "I was going to go ahead and take up my sister and her friends offer to go with me from town to town since Ash doesn't seem like he wants to travel with me anymore, but I decided to ask instead if you would like to be my travel partner."

"Your travel partner?" Ashley blinked a couple of times.

"It means that we'll go from city to city collecting Pokemon as well as working on the gyms together."

"What are these gyms?"

Gary frowned. "I guess you wouldn't know. "They're one of the ways that we challenge ourselves and prove that we're good trainers. You pretty much battle the Pokemon."

"Don't the Pokemon get hurt?"

"Yes..." Gary paused. "When one of the trainers isn't a good trainer. By this I mean a trainer who doesn't know when to pull out their Pokemon in a fight and I mean people who happen to use their Pokemon to hurt other people's Pokemon. Not everyone... there are some people out there who aren't very nice."

They walked along and arrived at the lab. Gary looked around. "It looks like we're the first ones here."

"Is that a good thing?" Ashley blinked a couple of times.

"Yes... it means we get to pick first. Well... I don't know if Gramps has a special Pokemon for you or not." The two headed into the lab and Gary and she walked in.

Professor Oak looked up. "Ahh! I am glad that you two happened to get here first. I have the three starters and two other Pokemon. I was thinking that Ashley would like to have an Eevee."

Gary's eyes went wide. "Take the Eevee."

"What about the starter Pokemon?"

"Eevees... there are three different known evolutions for them. You are able to choose which way you want to go."

Mew spoke to her from ouside. "Take the Eevee. I know them to be a very good Pokemon and I know that there are more then those three evolutions at least. The possibilities are limitless and I believe that your journey has an infinite amount of possibilities."

Ashley frowned. "I think I'll take Gary's advice and take the Eevee."

"That would be this one." Oak handed her the Pokeball.

The Pokemon popped out of the ball and blinked at Ashley. The creature was a small dog like creature. The ears were long and the Eevee had a ruff around it's neck. Ashley leaned down. "It's so cute!"

"Would you like to give her a name?"

"I can give her a name?" Ashley blinked a couple of times. "I would love to give her a name!"

"You can nickname the pokemon."

Ashley leaned down, looking at the Pokemon. "I think I'll call her Sprite. I don't know why I would call her that, but she is so cute."

"So... Gary, which Pokemon would you like?"

"I'll take Squirtle. Water types are hard to come by."

"Really?"

"You need fishing gear to get a lot of them." Gary blinked a couple of times. "We may get fishing gear later on, but having the gear isn't enough to be able to catch the Pokemon either. There are lots of things that you can do on a Pokemon journey and many, many different places that you can visit.

"So what now?"

"I guess we can wait to see if Ash shows up, but I think we should start planning where we are going to go."Gary went and set out his backpack and pulled out an item.

"What is this?"

"You've never seen a map?'

"No..."

"Well... we are here on the map."

"How is that possible?"

"Well..." Gary paused before heading over to a drawer and bringing out another map. "Here is a map of Pallet Town." His finger pointed to the lab. "Here is the lab on the map." His finger moved to another spot. "And here is my house. This is the path we took to get here." He then pointed at the other map. "This here is Pallet Town."

"So this would be a path?"

"Yes."

"Why is some of the paths darker?"

"Because..." The door opened and closed and someone left with the Bulbasaur. "Those are main paths."

"And the lighter ones."

"Paths to smaller towns."

"I think we took this path to see my granny." Ashley paused. "I think that I should stop by and visit her and show her Sprite."

The door opened and someone came and took the Charmander. Gary nodded his head, pausing as he did. "Wait... I figured Ash would have been here by now. He... that idiot. Anyways, the path to Viridian is this way. This is the path we'll take. If we start now we should be able to make Vidirian by nightfall."

"Don't forget your Pokedexes."

"Pokedex."

"That's something to help keep track of Pokemon with."