How It Started

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon or the adorable characters that will be displayed in this story. It all belongs to Satoshi Tajiri which makes me fan girl just because of the name XD XD

Btw I'm too lazy to always put the little dashy 'e' in pokemon and stuff (even though that's gonna irk the hellz outta me). If anyone knows of a shortcut to it, that would be divine :D

Well anyway! Let's begin from (literally) the beginning.

All throughout the land, many slept through the darkness. You could only hear bug pokemon outside, along with a few nocturnal birds that preyed at that time.

Along with those pokemon were two little boys; both 5 years of age; looking up at the many stars that covered the deep blue sky. Little Shigeru Gary Oak* and Satoshi Ash Ketchum* lied on a blanket next to their tent as they camped out together.

Different topics were talked about between the two best friends, about their parents (although neither technically had the sufficient amount), their favorite colors (Satoshi's being red and Shigeru's being blue), the stars, games, pokemon, and any other topic that made its way into their innocent heads.

Soon enough, the topic of life choices came along.

"Do you know what you wanna be when you grow up Ashy?" Shigeru asked, using his friends' nickname.

Satoshi shrugged, keeping his large burnt sienna eyes placed on a Caterpie that was slowly climbing it's way up a tree.

"I dunno. There's nothin that I really wanna be. Pokemon are real cool and all but," Satoshi shrugged, not knowing how to end his sentence.

Shigeru looked at his best friend. He knew that he, himself wanted to be a professor like his grandpa, but it upset him to see his usually giddy friend seem so down about something.

"Well…we can think of somethin,"

Satoshi shook his head sadly, replying, "I dun think so. I'll never be anything. I'm too…stupid. Even you said so."

"Huh? When?"

"The other day when I spilled your Moomoo milk…"

Shigeru frowned at Satoshi.

"Well I was jus' angry Ashy. You're not stupid."

Satoshi sadly pouted.

"Meh, I'm still not good enough to be anythin."

Shigeru looked up again, wondering how to cheer his bestest bud. Soon, he got an idea; something that always pumped up his friend.

"Well, duh, you're gonna be a Pokemon Trainer, just like me!"

"A Pokemon…Trainer?"

"Yeah, they fight tough Gym Leaders and travel around the world and become Champions and stuff!"

"Why am I gonna be that?"

"Because I gotta show the world how I'm better than you!"

A spark of anger passed through the little boy and he turned towards Shigeru.

"Jus' cuz you beat me wif pokemon cards doesn't mean you can win in a real fight!"

"Yuh huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yuh huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

Shigeru was now sitting up, his signature smirk suddenly appearing.

"Ok, prove it!"

Satoshi quickly stood up and pointed at Shigeru before loudly exclaiming, "Fine! I'm gonna be the best Pokemon Trainer ever! And I'll beat you each time!"

BEEP BEEP BEEP

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Gary was jolted awake by his alarm clock, quickly getting up and clicking the button atop of the contraption.

"Shhhhh…" he said to the alarm clock and slumped down onto his drawer.

He thought about the dream he just had. Since when did he have flashbacks as dreams? It'd been a while since he thought of how Ash's passion started and thinking of said memory reminded him of what today was.

"Right…time to go," he thought out loud, looking at the other side of his room almost in shock.

Even though he truly wanted to be a Pokemon Professor, he chose to be a Pokemon Trainer instead. Why, you ask? Well his reason was simple (to him at least). He wanted to keep Ash motivated. If he just gave up being a Trainer, Ash would have no reason to continue because he only became one to beat Gary! But on the bright side, Trainers learn a lot about pokemon; so it wasn't all that bad.

As Shigeru Gary Oak dressed himself with a simple long sleeve, purple shirt and dark blue jeans, he thought of his best friend…or at least used to be.

A frown plastered onto the brunette's face as he brushed his teeth. Yes. Used to be. The cause of this dumb rivalry that Gary had sparked up and festered Ash seemed to only want to be better than him. But what else could Gary do? Even more than a Professor, Gary wanted his friend to live happy and have a fulfilling life. Whenever Gary would attempt to calm the feud down and be friend's again, Ash would lose his motivation and would question whether he truly wanted to go down this path. So, although it hurt, Gary was happy that Ash had finally obtained a passion…

Another thought came into Gary's mind, which made the 15 year old* glare at his cereal as he got ready to eat breakfast. Even though he was doing this adventure, even though he wanted to become a Pokemon Professor…he hated pokemon. He loathed the beasts for what they did.

"Glare any harder and your food will burst into flames."

Gary blinked and looked up at his sister who was at the other side of the table. He didn't even notice her walk in. As a matter of fact, did he serve his own bowl or did she? Gary was pulled away from his random questions as May, his older sister spoke.

"What're you so mad about? You're leaving for your journey with Satoshi today, right?"

Gary looked down at his food again and nodded, now eating with a new found determination.

'This is for Ash. He's happy right? Right.'

With a deep breath, Gary forced his façade up, grabbed his necessities that were already in his bag, and left to his grandfather's Lab to obtain a Pokemon that his grandfather promised him.

Silently walking up the large hill, Gary thought back to the times where he and Ash would play around in the grass and run up and down this hill.

'No,' he thought.

'No time for thoughts like that.'

Walking into the lab and passing by his grandfathers' aides, Gary called out for his guardian. No reply. Once realizing he was out at the moment, he looked around the place out of boredom to pass the time. There was a lot of high tech machinery to help his gramps with his research, but even as a 15 year old kid, Gary recognized and knew how most of them worked.

As he went over them in his mind, he heard the doors open and turned, noticing a certain black haired boy walk in with a look that searched for someone; much like his own when he himself walked in.

Gary began his mocking as it became almost natural to him now.

"Hey Satoshi-kuuun~"

Ash instantly frowned, truly hating that pet name that only Gary used.

"I'm just looking for the Professor, Gary. Why are you here?" Ash asked although he knew the exact reason.

"Gramps isn't around. I ran here coz' he said he had a pokemon for me."

"Well, he has one for me too."

"Ha! Doubt it'll be better than mine."

"We'll see about that!" Ash angrily stated, his cheeks lightly flushing from anger as he stuck out his tongue and turned, leaving the lab.

Gary sighed at his fake rudeness but already became accustomed to the feeling of his old best friend glaring at him. It didn't hurt so much since he knew that he was helping the shorter 15 year old in the long run.

After ten minutes or so, Gary's grandfather, Professor Oak, walked in with Ash in tow, the two happily talking. Mask back on.

"Gramps, I'm fed up with waiting!"

"Hm? Shigeru? Why are you here already? I said for you to come later…"

Gary gave his gramps an 'it IS later' look and the old professor lightly laughed.

"Ah whatever! Just wait there. Look Satoshi, do you see that ball over there? It's a pokeball," Professor Oak said as he pointed to the lone pokeball on his desk.

"Duh~, I knew that, Professor," Ash said as he turned to the desk.

"Of course. Well that one holds a pokemon inside. You may have it. Go on, take it!"

"Hey Gramps! What about me?"

"Be patient, Shigeru. I'll give you one later."

Gary frowned and watched as Ash stuck out his tongue and walked over to the table he was leaning on. Oh yeah? Before Ash could even touch the ball, Gary used his ability of height to snatch it away.

"Swipe!" Gary said as he grabbed the pokeball from over Ash's shoulder.

"Hey!"

"No way Satoshi-kun, I want this pokemon!" he replied as he held the ball out of Ash's reach.

"Shigeru! What are you doing? Stop acting like a child."

"Graaaaaamps! I want this one!"

"But I…Oh alright then. That pokemon is yours. I was going to give you one anyway…" Professor Oak said as he shook his head. These two could never stop fighting. What ever happened to the lovely friendship they had back then?

"Satoshi, come over here."

Ash angrily pouted but listened to the Professor, holding the two straps of his book bag firmly. The professor reached into his pocket and pulled out another pokeball.

"This is the pokemon I caught earlier with you today."

Gary curiously watched as Ash's smiled abruptly came back to life, holding the ball with delight.

"You can have it, but I caught it in the wild, so it's not tame yet, alright?"

Gary eyed the boy's pokeball for a moment before releasing his own from its' ball.

"Oh an Eevee! Awesome!" Gary exclaimed, honestly elated with the pokemon.

Ash copied the brunette and released his, revealing that he had a Pikachu.

'Huh? Gramps caught this in the wild? But those are rare in this region…' Gary curiously thought.

He looked over to his grandfather for an answer but the old man merely smiled at Gary then said, "Ah! Before you go boys, let me give you one more pokemon."

The Professor pulled out a case from underneath his desk and opened it to reveal three more pokeballs.

"There are many different types of pokemon out in the wild and you will never know which will confront you," the older of the three explained as he told them about each pokemon that was in the case.

"Oh! Oh! I want a Charmander!" Ash quickly said as he grabbed said pokeball.

Gary, continuing his mean demeanor, took Squirtle to make sure he had a good type advantage over Ash.

"Heh, my pokemon look a lot stronger than yours," Gary said as he put Squirtle away.

"Nuh uh Gary! You're Squirtle and Eevee are too cute to look tough!"

"Yeah, sure," Gary said with a roll of his eyes.

After another glare to the brunette, Ash began to walk away. But Gary suddenly felt bad and wanted the boy to stay.

"Wait Ash!"

Ash turned to Gary, asking a quick, "What now?", expecting something mean. Gary paused for a moment, not truly sure what he wanted to even tell the boy, but quickly made something up that seemed right.

"Let's check out our pokemon! Come on I'll take you on!"

Those didn't seem like the right words at all.

Either way, Ash agreed, telling Gary that this would be an easy win.

"Yeah for me!" Gary retorted.

After agreeing to just a one on one match for time purposes, the two went outside to a clearing on the side of the lab. The two chose their first pokemon: Eevee and Pikachu.

As they battled, the small Eevee noticed two things about both trainers. One was that Pikachu truly couldn't care less about Ash's orders and did not want to even be by his trainers' side; so the one with the black hair was definitely going to have trouble. The other thing Eevee learned was that his own trainer was not an experienced one. Or rather, there was no compassion to his orders. Even though that is how pokemon battles work, Eevee could simply feel the dominance Gary was attempting to give off. That dominance was what led Eevee to its failure as it fainted from another Thundershock.

"What? Unbelievable! I picked the wrong pokemon!" Gary yelled out as he returned Eevee to its ball.

"Ha! As if! I'm just better than you Gary! Admit it!"

"Forget it Satoshi-kun! I'll just make my pokemon fight to toughen it up!" Gary yelled out as he walked by Ash and pulled the boy's cap down over his eyes.

"Smell ya later!" he said, running down the path to reach the forest on the far end of town.

*Shigeru Gary Oak & Satoshi Ash Ketchum are not their real names! I simply prefer the Japanese names and wanted to add it in there. But since everyone is more familiar with their English names, I will keep that as well. I think it sounds cooler anyway.

*Yes, yes I know that they start off at the age of 10, but for my story, how things will be played out and all, I'd prefer them to be a tad bit older. Especially for future references.

A.N.-Ah ok so if any of you have noticed already, this storyline is strongly based on the Pokemon Yellow version. I'm literally going to go through that sequence of when and where you first saw Gary (er I mean Blue) as you go through your adventure. (I'm also literally playing the game on my Gameboy Advance because online playthroughs don't tell me the exact dialogue and such. Respect your elders!) There will be added scenes just for Gary and some things a little changed up for fanfiction purposes. So if you ever played the game, you'll love how I go through this and have happy memories :)

Oh and I also am adding scenes from the anime and a few from the old manga itself. Yes, this is gonna be a huge mixture of awesome Palletshipping that could totally become canon by everything :D Lol Ah, I'm crazy.

ANYWAY, if you see spelling and grammar mistakes PLEASE tell me about them (doesn't even have to be specific. Just say somewhere at the beginning or at the end you misspelled something you suck!) because I am severely anal when it comes to grammar (no gay pun intended lol)

R&R!