Contender- Kanto arc

Chapter 1: A single step.

Disclaimer- I do not own pokemon.

A/N: Hello everyone. This is a redone version of my original story, Journey to Top Them All because I didn't like where it was going. I decided to change the name from the original idea of Conquest, to Contender because…why not? If you like Conquest more, I'll change it back but for now I'm sticking to Contender. Ash will be starting with Charmander in this story. Give me any ideas you have for the story you have. I hope you like the new way the story goes and tell me how you feel about the changes.

Pallet Town, a quiet little town in the south-western corner of the Kanto Region. Home to the famous pokemon professor, Samuel Oak. The town is very quiet, and the people are polite. Not much happens here but very soon, three teenagers will start their pokemon journeys and bring some fame to this quiet town.

First is Leaf Green, a 15-year-old girl who is usually silent but will not hesitate to make her opinion clear, and will loudly do so. She has always been fascinated by the Bulbasaur evolutionary line and as such has wanted her starter pokemon to be the grass type, Bulbasaur. It is the perfect match for her calm personality as it prefers to spend much of its time relaxing in the sun, absorbing light, but will gladly battle if it feels the need

Second is the 15 year old grandson of Professor Oak, Gary Oak. Gary Oak has always been known to be smooth in every sense of the word. Not much seems to faze him and he just goes with the flow of what happens around him. He has always wanted the water type, Squirtle, to be his starter pokemon due to his fluid personality. Squirtles go with the flow just like Gary does and will prove their will to be the best or even just relax.

Last but not least, is Ash Ketchum. Ash has always been the loudest and most outspoken of the trio and has been known for his fiery passion in every situation. Since he was a small boy, he has dreamed of having a Charizard like the champion of Kanto has. Lance is the dragon master and champion of both the Kanto and the Johto region and with his powerful team of dragons has defended his title for seven years now. Ash saw his powerful Charizard and always wanted one, so he has wanted to start with a Charmander as his starter for years. Charmander would be a perfect match with Ash's energetic personality and everyone would agree, both pokemon and trainer will grow with each other.

All three trainers have been taught the basics of being a trainer since they were ten years old and could all be considered extremely knowledgeable on all parts of battling and caring for their pokemon. They know how to battle, heal, cook for pokemon, care for them, and even know how to care for pokemon eggs and raising an infant pokemon. When the three were thirteen, professor Oak took them to Azalea Town in the Johto Region to learn the art of making pokeballs from Kurt, an expert pokeball maker. For some reason, people think that specialty pokeballs are made exclusively with Apricorns when in reality they can be made with most inanimate objects. He taught them everything he knew about making pokeballs and with a creative idea from Gary and Ash, they helped him make a new custom type of pokeball.

One day when they were learning, Ash and Gary brainstormed and came up with a new idea for a pokeball. They wondered if they could make the pokeballs look similar to the pokemon contained inside. The two of them told Kurt their idea and he became intrigued with the concept and experimentation began when professor Oak provided technology from the pokedex.

They managed to infuse the technology used in the pokedex that identifies the scanned pokemon and combined that tech with artificial made ditto cells to be able to change the appearance of the pokeball. This was proven correct when Kurt used one of these special pokeballs to catch a wild geodude near the town and it developed a rocky surface similar to that of the geodude. With their success, Kurt helped each future trainer make a total of thirty of the aptly named Transform Balls which have the catch rate similar to that between a great ball and an ultra-ball. The name became even more appropriate later in the year.

Kurt called professor Oak and asked to talk to Leaf, Gary, and Ash. He told them that the geodude he caught in the pokeball evolved and with it, the pokeball itself changed. He described the changing process as similar to the Pokémon's evolution. The ball glowed white, and he noticed small parts of the ball morph slightly. When the evolution stopped, the pokeball stopped glowing and he noticed the change more clearly. The ball now had the six "eyebrow" ridges of a Graveler above the main button with two rocky line above the line and below the line to match the four rocky limbs of the pokemon. The three were ecstatic about this and looked forward using them on their journeys when they turned fifteen.

Now all they had to do was wait for the day they all start.

*Time Skip*

Pallet Town- Six months before journey starts

It was six months before Ash and his friends started their journeys and nothing seemed to be out of place until Ash's mother received a call from the professor at her restaurant.

"Ash, could you come here please?"

Ash walked to the back of the restaurant to her little space where the phone is located and found his mother looking at him smiling happily. "Yeah Mom?"

"Professor Oak called and wanted to see you and the others today. Go down to his lab and meet Leaf and Gary there. Professor Oak wanted to talk to you guys about something regarding your journeys. Now go on, Shoo!" Delia said laughing.

"Alright, alright, I'm going." Said a smiling Ash.

Ash left the restaurant and walked down the road to the Professor's Lab and Ranch to meet with his childhood friends. When he arrived, he saw Gary waiting at the front door and Leaf walking towards the lab from another path. He waved at her and yelled a quick "Hey" which got both of their attention. Leaf waved happily while he saw Gary mouthing "Finally".

"What took you guys so long?!" Gary yelled with a smirk on his face.

Leaf chimed in, "Sorry Gary, we don't live right next your grandpa's lab so it takes a bit longer to get here."

"Excuses, Excuses. Whatever you two, let's go inside. They wouldn't let me to the back before you two got here so it must involve all three of us." Gary said

The three teenagers walked into the lab and one of his assistant nodded to Gary and they walked farther back into the lab and saw the professor standing next to a rectangular table with a the retractable glass cover set to be non-see through (think glass container from beginning of black and white 2 that changes from black to clear.). The three line up where Oak gestured for them to stand and said, "Can any of you guess why I called you here today?"

Ash remembered something and said "Isn't this the table you use to give trainers their…starter…pokemon?…No way. Are you giving us are starter pokemon now?"

"Excellent guess Ash. You are right, but only partially." Oak responded jovially.

"What do you mean by partially, Grandpa?" Gary asked confused.

"Well you see, I am giving you one last test. What is under this glass, is currently not your starter pokemon, but they will be soon." Oak presses a button and the glass clears and retracts to reveal three large eggs with symbols in front of them. One was a golden orange, one was a light blue color, and the other was a spotted, light green color. "Your final test is to care for your starter's egg until it hatches, raise the baby pokemon and bond with it until you all start your journeys."

The three teenager's jaws dropped in shock because they never saw something like this coming at all. They were all excited for the opportunity to have more time to bond with the pokemon that will be their partner pokemon and best friend.

Leaf spoke up for the first time since Oak revealed the surprise, "Thank you so much, Professor."

"It is no problem my dear, I'm happy to give you three the opportunity. I know you will do excellent and that's why I'm allowing you to do this. Now since I know you three have already selected the starter you wanted, I will call your name, come get your egg."

Professor Oak walked over to the table. "For Leaf, I have the egg of a Bulbasaur." Leaf walked over, and a smiling professor handed the egg to her careful hands.

"It feels almost leathery." Leaf said

"For Ash, I have here a Charmander egg." Ash walked over, and the golden orange egg was placed in his arms.

After feeling it for a second, Ash said, "It feels hard, scaly, and really warm."

"And I haven't forgot about you, Gary, I have a Squirtle egg here for you." Gary walked over to his grandpa and the light blue egg was placed in his arms very carefully.

Gary grunted for a second, "Wow, it's really heavy." Gary walked back over to the other two teens and faced his grandpa again.

"Now you three, this is a lot of responsibility for a starting trainer and something you should know is that the better you take care of the eggs, the healthier the pokemon that hatches will be. Now for Leaf, I recommend you leave the egg in direct sunlight so it can absorb the solar energy. Gary, you should place your egg in shallow water. You can use either a bathtub or even your old kitty pool and put it in your room. For Ash, yours is likely the highest maintenance, you must keep it at a high temperature. You can use your homes fireplace, a fire type can help, or I have an egg incubator that can have an open flame underneath that will not harm the egg. The three nodded happily

"Thank you very much professor/Grandpa." All three teens said together.

"Oh yes, one more thing, the three eggs you have there were part of a special breeding program that I personally took a part of. They will have special moves that the average starter does not have. This breeding program has been going on for the past 80 years and each of your pokemon eggs came from pokemon that showed extremely high energies of certain types and traits.

"Leaf, your egg came from two Venusaur showing an even larger amount of grass type energy than the average Venusaur and your Bulbasaur will likely develop differently with more grass energy and traits that the average Bulbasaur does not have."

"Gary, your Squirtle came from a very unique pair, they had a high amount a steel type energy due to their high defense and an abundance of rock type and ice type energy. It will likely have higher defense and possibly have more armor on its body."

"Ash, your Charmander came from the two strongest Charizards in the Charicific Valley who each had an overabundance of dragon type energy which slightly worries me. The levels were comparable to that of pseudo-legendries such as Dragonite and Salamence. Dragon type energy is one of the most volatile energies in the world and I'm unsure how it will affect the Charmander when it hatches. I expect that it will have more pronounced draconic traits that will become even more pronounced as it grows and evolves.

"Now I have given you everything I can for now. Do your best to care for the eggs and bring each baby pokemon back after it hatches so I can examine them to make sure they are healthy and record their unique traits.

*Time Skip*

2 weeks later- Ketchum household.

It had been two weeks since professor Oak gave Ash, Leaf, and Gary the eggs for their starters and all three took the professors advice in caring for their eggs.

Leaf kept her egg in her window with it open, so the sunlight would directly hit the egg and it hatched the day before into a healthy male Bulbasaur with harder skin and with larger scales on its body that resembled tree bark likely to increase the defenses of the grass type.

Gary had taken his grandfathers advice to heart and brought an old kitty pool into his room, filled it with some water and partially submerged the egg in the water and it had hatched about one hour earlier into a healthy male Squirtle that had a slightly extended beak (picture something like a snapping turtle) meant to improve bite power and it's shell seems to be segmented like overlapping scales likely to increase defense.

Ash was now staring at his Charmander egg which has still not hatched but moves quite a lot so it must be close. He began to fall asleep on the couch he had been sleeping on for the duration of the egg waiting, when suddenly, the egg began to shake vigorously and fell out of the fireplace.

Ash quickly put out the fire that came with the egg, before anything could truly catch on fire. Ash quickly refocused on the egg that was shaking insanely on the floor and cracking slightly. It then glowed and when the glow faded, a small, yellow/gold reptile stood in his living room with one two brilliant, almost glowing green eyes and with a small flame currently on the end of its tail. It shook its head quickly before looking around the room curiously before locking eyes with Ash after a minute of looking around.

It slowly walked over to the young man and Ash kneeled down and spoke softly, "Hi there, Charmander, my name is Ash, nice to meet you." While Charmander was too freshly hatched to fully understand what he was saying, he recognized the kind tone he was using and smiled happily and then yawned. Ash reached over and carefully picked up the sleepy pokemon and held it carefully to avoid catching on fire from its tail flame, and the young pokemon quickly fell asleep in his arms.

Ash places the newly hatched pokemon on a special fire-proof blanket and examined it more and realized something quickly. Instead of the usual orange of a Charmander, this one was a light golden color which means only one thing. This is a shiny Charmander.

He then examined the shiny Charmander and noticed it was fairly large for a new born likely due to its dragon traits. He also noticed many other unique traits about the pokemon. It had what appeared to be hard, overlapping scales that covered most of its body but were still mostly smooth. Its arms appeared to be longer with larger hands and currently dull claws. It had small spikes going down its neck, all the way to its tail and had larger fangs on both the upper and lower jaws that slightly stick out of its mouth. It even has small ridges above its eyes giving it an appearance of boney eyebrows likely to help protect its eyes. These traits will likely become even more pronounced as it grows and evolves.

Ash decided to scan the baby tomorrow when he receives a pokedex from the professor tomorrow to fully train the pokemon. He did want to identify if it was male or female first and scanned it with his trial dex which only told him species and gender with no other details.

This Speciman closely resembles a Charmander but with key differences. The specimen happens to be a male.

Ash nodded and laid down on the floor with a blanket and fell asleep next to the young Charmander using its body heat and the heat from his tail flame to fall asleep.

That's it for chapter one of the new story. Tell me what you think about everything in the chapter such as the title, concept, and any changes you might recommend. Before you all suggest pokemon I should keep from the original story, a couple will stay, but I plan on a certain team similar to the first I ever made while playing pokemon fire red.

I especially enjoyed writing about the Charmander which was going to be shiny because Charizard is my favorite pokemon and the shiny version is even cooler. One thing I would really like it nickname suggestions for the Charmander, which will eventually become a Charizard. If I like the name enough, that might become the name I use in the story. Please nothing extremely generic. So thanks for reading. I hope you like it.