Summer Heat

Chapter 1: Heat On

Risa Miyamoto tightened her grip on her backpack's straps as she stood in front of Professor Elm's laboratory. The twelve-year-old narrowed her grey eyes, glaring at much more than the cream-colored giant building, the size of which easily put every single other building in the tiny Littleroot Town to shame. She sighed, squinting up at the sky as a small flock of Pidgey flew overhead. The whole slightly nearsighted thing bothered her, especially since it would only worsen as she aged, but glasses still seemed too stupid looking. The girl unconsciously ran her hand through her tan hair, which she had pulled into two high pigtails that fell a little past her shoulders. Although she didn't actually want to go on this journey, she didn't want to walk into the lab with Pidgey droppings in her hair.

Good impressions were, well, good, for lack of a better word. But what could one expect from a girl just one trimester into middle school? However, one should be able to expect more from Risa Miyamoto, one of the few who would rather stay in school than go on a journey full of scary, gross, mean, and overly-competitive people AND Pokemon.

Plus, her new teachers decided to assign a colossal amount of homework over the summer vacation. The fact that Risa had a small shred of talent in the area of academics didn't exactly help her with it-that was the only reason her parents decided she should go on the journey. They thought that she could handle the homework and the journey, at least until she won two badges (or ran out of time). Then she could go home.

The preteen slowly moved her right hand towards the knob of the door, pausing to look down at herself. Pale pink short sleeved-T shirt, check. Light green capris, check. Folded-over white socks, check. Grey tennis shoes, check. Filled light blue backpack, check.

Will to actually go through with the journey...yeah. No check there.

Nevertheless, she twisted her hand, pulled the heavy wooden door open, and walked inside.

"Hello? Professor Elm?" She called, her high, little-girl voice reverberating through the devoid-of-anything-one-might-find-in-a-laboratory entry room. "Anybody? I'm here for my appointment-eep!" Risa dashed to her left as a strange-looking, four-legged, seemingly-two-headed thing lunged at her. Her left hand shot out to break her fall as she hit the floor with a loud thud. The girl winced, holding her throbbing wrist. Slowly, she turned to look at her attacker as she edged up against the wall.

"Farin! Down!" The strange Pokemon snorted, and reared up on its hind legs. Quite obviously, it seemed angry at the fact that some idiot would even think to put a closed door in its way. A man, the owner of the voice, ran into the room with a small, mostly blue-and-quite sphere in his hands. "Return!" The Pokemon, Farin, opened his mouth and made a roar-like sound before disappearing into the ball the professor held.

Risa just sat with her back up against the wall, twitching slightly. "W-w-wha-"

The man, a tall, young-ish man with short brown hair looked down at her as he put the Farin-filled Great Ball into one of his laboratory coat's pockets. "Oh, I'm sorry, here, let me help you up." With a smile on his glasses-sporting face, he held out a hand to the girl. She whimpered, grabbed it, and he pulled her up to her feet. "That Girafarig...he's a wild one. Ever since his trainer disappeared, and he was sent here from Birch's laboratory in Hoenn because of a fire..." The man shook his head.

The about-to-be-a-trainer just quivered. That was how a trained Pokemon acted? Even more reason to stay home and not travel around with six of them for two months!

"Anyway, from the looks of you..." he looked her up and down. "You're Miss Miyamoto, correct? I am Professor Elm, and I study Pokemon, though you could have guessed as much. I am the official Johto starter distributor."

"Y-yeah. I'm Risa Miyamoto." She bowed, although a little shakily. "I have an appointment..."

He smiled, and led her into another room. "Ah, yes, of course. You came early, huh?"

"Well, yes, I thought it might be a good idea..." The girl stared at the new room, which had its focus set on the table in the middle (the spotlight-like overhead lighting kind of helped). On the table were two Pokeballs, each behind an open book. On the far left, however, was a closed book, and no Pokeball. "Two?"

"Ah, yes, well," the professor began as he grinned sheepishly. "You see, the other girl whose appointment was today, Mariko Amaiwa, underestimated the time it would take her to get from Blackthorn City to my laboratory by quite a lot-almost five hours. I let her see the various starters, and she and the Chikorita just sort of clicked, and she was here first, and then I got an email from a colleague of mine..." he trailed off, realizing he was rambling. "So I let her take the Chikorita to go run an errand for me, and she and the Chikorita got along so well I let her keep him. I hope you weren't set on having a Chikorita." He blinked. "If you really want a grass-type, there are quite a few Hoppip and Bellsprout on the routes from here to Violet City, so you could catch one of them. They are quite good, you know, with enough training-"

"No, that's okay," Risa said softly, peering down at the respective books for each of the two remaining Pokeballs. The blue one, in front of the Pokeball with the water-emblem sticker, was open to a full color photo of a Totodile performing a Water Gun, and some various statistics. The red one, in front of the Pokeball with the fire-emblem sticker, revealed a full color diagram of the anatomy, along with a detailed description of the various flame glands.

She flipped through each of the books, glancing at the descriptions of each of the two remaining starter Pokemon.

"Totodiles are often hyper? I don't want that. And Cyndaquils are very nice," she muttered to herself.

Staring at the various chapters, Risa failed to notice that Professor Elm told her he had to go out for a little while to deal with a rambunctious Heracross, and left her a Pokedex on the table.

When she looked up, she felt worried when she saw no one. "Well, maybe..." she whispered to herself as she looked down at the Pokedex. Flipping it open, she saw it already had all of the information about her inside, with her as having no Pokemon registered as seen, caught, or translated. "Translated?"

Risa stared at the underside of the Pokedex cover, and saw a small circular indentation with what looked to be a small bit of metal in the center, similar to a USB port. Picking up one of the Pokeballs absentmindedly, she placed it inside the indentation.

Suddenly, she heard a click, and a sound quite like the sound of a computer booting up. She froze, wondering if she did something wrong, and if the professor was going to get angry with her.

Risa really, really, really wanted to avoid that.

But one excruciatingly long minute later, the computer sounds stopped, and Risa felt like she could breathe freely again. Which, in fact, was a very good thing, since the lack of deep enough breaths from the feeling like she couldn't move were making her a little dizzy.

The girl quickly took the Pokeball out of the indentation, and placed it back down on the table. However, her eyes were glued to the screen, so she failed to notice that she placed the Pokeball rather close to the edge of the table, and also failed to notice it wobbling dangerously.

Her grey eyes widened as she read the new information on the screen. It only had three sentences of text, but they still made her feel slightly sick inside.

"Zero Pokemon seen. One Pokemon caught. One Pokemon translated." Risa barely raised her voice above a whisper as she read the text out loud to herself. "Oh no...what have I done?"

But before she could fully ponder what she, in fact, had actually done, the precariously placed Pokeball toppled over the edge of the wooden table, bounced off the cold, white-tiled floor, and opened up, revealing a glowing white figure.

Risa quickly looked back at the table, and noticed only the Pokeball with the water sticker still remained. Whipping her head back to the Pokemon on the floor, she noticed that it stood next to a now-empty Pokeball with a flame sticker.

And sitting in front of her was a real, life Cyndaquil, straight from the pages of the book she had flipped through minutes before.

Only, instead of sleeping, this one was wide awake.

"Eep!" Risa squeaked, brandishing her Pokedex. She hadn't actually done that consciously, rather, seeing the Cyndaquil in person (or, Pokemon) surprised her, and the only "weapon" with which to protect herself was a small, metal, encyclopedia-like handheld computer.

The Pokedex whirled into action, first by bringing up her "seen" count to one. Then, she heard a beep, and a picture of a Cyndaquil flashed onto the screen, followed by a voice. "Cyndaquil," it began. "The fire mouse Pokemon. The fire that spouts from its back burns hottest when it is angry. The flaring flames intimidate foes."

Then it proceeded to read off the statistics of the Cyndaquil in front of Risa, and notified her that it was only set to the "crystal" set of information, and that more information about Cyndaquil could be viewed later.

But she wasn't really paying much attention anymore.

"Um...hi?" She mumbled, bowing. "Um...so, I guess you're my first Pokemon, and-"

"And what?" He cut in, rising onto his hind legs. "So you're my trainer? Well, I gotta tell you, you don't look like much."

"Um, w-what?"

"I expected somebody tougher. But I guess you'll have to do." He hopped over to her, and Risa felt the squinty little eyes taking her in, and evaluating her. "Now then, let's go. We should really start. That stupid Chikorita's got a head start! We don't want his trainer to beat us to the first badge right? We gotta leave NOW!"

"Y-you can talk!" Risa exclaimed, still a bit stunned to respond to what the Cyndaquil in front of her was actually talking about. "I can understand you!"

The small fire-type scoffed. "Duh. Well, let's go! We aren't going to become the champion of the Johto League by just standing in that idiot professor's office! LET'S GO! MOVE MOVE MOOOOVE!"

With that, he reached out with his clawed little front paws, grabbed onto her socks, and started towing her out the door.

"W-wait! We should wait for the professor-" the new trainer protested weakly, while inside wondering why she wasn't strong enough to not be dragged off by a Pokemon much shorter and lighter than her. "I think we should really wait-"

"NO! NO WAITING! WE LEAVE NOW!" He ordered, finally getting her out the open front door. "That Professor What's-his-face isn't that stupid. He'll figure it out on his own. Maybe."

Then they were completely out the door, and walking out towards the edge of Littleroot Town.

Risa simply sighed, and followed the marching Cyndaquil. She knew defeat when she saw it. I really wanted a Pokemon that wasn't so...demanding. I hope this means he isn't competitive, but that seems like a bit of a hopeless wish. She looked over at him. I'm afraid to tell him that we're either stopping at the end of my summer vacation, or two badges, whichever comes first.

"Um...so, what's your name?" She asked meekly, jogging a bit to catch up with him.

"I don't have one. You're supposed to give me one, idiot," he retorted, glaring up at her. Small embers seemed to glow on his back. "And give me a good one! One that will make my opponents cower at my feet! So get on with it. Name me!"

"You're too short for anybody to cower," Risa mumbled under her breath.

"What was that, idiot?"

"N-nothing. I-I just said...um...maybe...a good name would be..." she trailed off, looking away from her Pokemon. "Maybe...hi...hiii...hiito...Heat?"

He stopped. "What? 'Heat'? THAT'S the best you could come up with?"

She twitched. "I guess I could think of another-"

But then the Pokedex beeped again in Risa's hand (she hadn't had time to put it away), and she glanced at it.

"Name registered," it reported in its toneless computer voice.

"So-so-so that's my NAME now? It's PERMANENT?" The newly named Cyndaquil shrieked.

Risa shrugged. "I think it's a pretty good name. I don't see why you have to get so mad about it," she shot back, though extremely weakly.

Heat roared, and the flames on his back shot up. "This is horrible? Who's going to bow down to Heat, the champion-defeating Typhlosion? We gotta find whoever the Name Rater-face is in this stupid region, because I DEMAND A RECOUNT!"

"Recount?" The trainer mused. "I don't think that's really the right word...maybe you want 'rename.'"

"DOES IT LOOK LIKE I CARE?"

Risa whimpered, though was able to peep out, "apparently."

And so, Risa Miyamoto stepped out of Littleroot Town, accompanied only by a rather angry Cyndaquil.

Thirty-two days to go.

I think I can last that long without getting burnt up by this guy, Risa thought without much enthusiasm, as Heat ranted on and on about the inadequacy of his new trainer. At least he doesn't know Ember yet.

Author's Notes: Well, here ya'll go. The first chapter of what I hope to be a frequently-updated story. At least I have a good idea of where this will go, and I don't have to think up too much in terms of plot ideas for the next few chapters. So…that might mean that you won't have to wait a month to see what happens next! Yeah…heheheh…and don't worry. If you read Flying Solo…I WILL update soon. Really. I mean it. (Maybe…heheheh…)

So, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Summer Heat. Please leave a review and tell me what you liked and didn't like. If you have an account, I'll try to respond to your review, and if you don't, but leave an email address, there's a chance I'll respond to your review via email. But yeah…I hope you look forward to the next chapter!