Another Wednesday, Another What If, now that this blog is one week old, things are really beginning to flow. Last week, we began the story of What if Red had joined team Rocket at Nugget-Bridge. This week we will take a crack at an arguably more popular story. The story of Ash Ketchum, now that he has his own Eevee in the sun and moon anime, it begs the question. What if Ash started with that other mascotte from the very start. What if Ash started with Eevee?!
Chapter 1: A rough morning
Our story starts , much like the beloved original, Ash excited about his starting his Pokémon journey stays up way past his bedtime and in his sleep, he accidentally breaks Voltorb alarm clock. When he finally gets to Professor Oak’s lab, he bumps into Gary and here we will find the story is beginning to branch off. Gary you see is followed by a Pikachu.
Oof, with a loud thumb, Ash just slammed into the boy walking with such swagger, the force toppling the already unstable Ash over. The arrogant looking boy takes a look at him, his hairs perfectly groomed kempt upwards in a flowing waving motion, donned in simple yet expensive blue long sleeve, a pendant representing balance around his neck. He would look onto Ash and say, well well you must be Ash, a little late to the party are you? Well at least you got to meet me’ Ash looks at the boy and can only usher out ‘Gary?’ before he is once more interrupted by his soon would be rival. “Not only did I get the bester starter from professor Oak, I also got this special Pokémon, since you did not show up gramps felt it was best to give him to a capable trainer. ‘ He spins the Pokéball with hs starter around and looks at Pikachu, who turns his back on him. ‘Sure he might be a little sassy but he will fall in line soon enough, after all who can resist the charm of Gary Oak?’ Gary’s cheerleaders do their thing, while he gets into his car and takes his leave, Ash being the sole person remaining when the professor shows up. ‘Oh goodness, I did not believe you would show up anymore, a lot of would be trainers get cold feet to leave the house, so… well I am afraid I do not have anymore Pokémon for you Ash, return next year and be in time and you can start then’
Unlike the prof from the original timeline Oak, now having made a mistake, takes a more sympathetic stance with Ash. Our hero , who has had the worst morning of his life, shows his age as he begins crying. ‘I really wanted a Pokémon, how could I have been this stupid, m-my clock.. I broke it…’ Oak looks at Ash and says ‘There there, crying in your Pajamas is not a very good look for a young trainer, perhaps I can give you something after all, my grandson might benefit from someone a bit more humble like you. However Ash, i’ll warn you this Pokémon was never intended for a young trainer like you, you may found your journey very difficult, perhaps it would be wiser to come back next year. Ash wipes his tears as his eyes flare up. “No professor this is the year I will become a Pokémon master, no matter how difficult the challenge will be.
Chapter 2: Who’s that Pokémon?
Samuel, yes that is Oak’s first name, would take Ash to his lab.’ I have been doing some research on this Pokémon, it can evolve into three separate Pokémon,I was studying how that is possible, and if maybe other Pokémon can evolve in multiple ways as well, however it is quite timid, it doesn’t seem very eager to battle and seems to be scared to death of evolutionary stones, because it is so scared it also doesn’t seem to like playing with other Pokémon either. Yet perhaps you can draw something out of it that I could not’ Oak looks at Ash in a pensive matter, his grey hairs somewhat thinning, as his age and work stress is beginning to show in his appearance. ‘Oh and I should also mention this Pokémon is to scared to be in its pokeball’ Oak walks into a room where an Eevee is sitting in a cage eating some pellets, flinching when the two come in. ‘It’s alright Eevee , this will be your new trainer Ash’. The young boy excitedly moves to the cage and holds out its hand to let Eevee sniff it. The creature having basically understood what the professor just said to it sniff’s Ash hand, and reacts surprisingly enthusiastic. ‘Oh look at that professor it seems to like me!’ Ash clamoured with joy. Oak nods with a smile, a look he would become somewhat familiar for. Ash releases Eevee out of its cage and asks the little monster if it is ready for an adventure. The creature flinches a bit, adventures sure sound scary, yet it does like this boy. For some reason it makes Eevee feel safe, kind off.
And so Eevee and Ash set out to adventure together, at the gate of Oaks lab, Delia Ketchum stood to wave her son goodbye, giving him some actual clothes rather then Pajamas, as well as some camping supplies, and LOTS of clean underwear. ‘Whose this little darling’ Delia would ask her son, as Eevee hid behind it’s new masters legs. ‘Mom this is Eevee and with it by my side I swear on this day that I will become a Pokémon master.’ Ash put on the cap from his bag as he said so, taking a pose, that kinda looks silly from a boy in his sleepwear. Delia knew her son had always been a dreamer so she just chuckled and waved at her son, teary eyed as he and Eevee began to follow route 1 towards Viridian city, she would miss her boy so much!
Chapter 3: Killing two birds, with one stone.
About an hour or so into their journey Ash began to truly notice how skittish Eevee was with each sound it would hop in of his legs, sheltering itself against the scary wind or ominous moving twigs. ‘Come on Eevee, you don’t have to be that scared of everything, don’t you pokemon like adventures normally?’ Our hero would say this with some despair and annoyance in his voice. Eevee shaked it’s head fastly in response it was not ready for adventure yet, when suddenly a rustling sound could be heard , as a pidgey popped up from the grass.”Ah Pidgey, Eevee let’s capture it’ Ash took a stance waiting for Eevee to jump by his side, however Eevee chose to tactically retreat and stare at the scene from a bush. ‘Oh come on Eevee’ Ash shouted. The sad looking eyes in that shrubbery however made Ash forgive his Pokémon fast as he told it to just look and see how he would do it. Ash however had not one bit of expertise when it came to Pokémon so he found out fairly soon he would have to deal damage to a Pokemon to capture it. After trying to use his pyjama to trap the pidgey, and getting blown away of wind, eevee screamed in terror fleeing up the tree. ‘Are you sure you can not help me weaken it? ‘ The young trainer would look up at the fox that was now stuck in a tree, just to see it heavily shake it’s head again. Ash picked up some rocks, missing the first stone he scared away three pidgeys, but in the distance he spotted one that was sitting perfectly silently, he would hit it capture it and thus he could teach Eevee how pokemon should normally behave as well, things might work out after all. He just had to land this hit, he trained for this when he tried tossing pokeballs, carefully aiming and YES!
Ash rock hit the bird straight in it’s head, however it turned out this was not a pidgey. It was a young spearow. With some tears in it eyes from the sharp pain it glared at Ash and began it’s attack.
Chapter 4: A fated meeting
Spearow took flight on a collision course with Ash, who managed to stumble away. As the angry bird pulled up, his gaze met that of a terrified Eevee, deciding it would be its next pray Spearow aligned his flightpath to peck the living hell out of that terribly spoiled, owned pokémon. It hated trainer pokemon and it would pay for what it’s master did to him. While Ash shouted at the spearow to leave his eevee alone, Eevee in blind panic fired a sand attack at its attacker hitting it dead in the eye. The spearow shrieked in pain, getting sand tossed into your eye hurts a lot, blinded by the process it slammed into the tree. Spearow now dazed and confused and angrier than ever felt helpless in this moment, signaling he was in trouble and afraid of being captured he send out an S.O.S call , a call that was answered by plenty of allies. Ash and Eevee saw the sky darkening as at two dozen, if not more spearow came charging towards them.”Eevee Ruuuuuun” Ash commanded, however the pokemon would have run anyway, the pair began to dash of towards a small waterfall in the distance. ‘Don’t worry I will keep you safe pal’ The ten year old looked at his partner trying to inspire some confidence, to no avail. Eevee spurred on by pure terror began moving faster than Ash could run, not hearing Ash cry for it not to run ahead, it’s mind to clouded by fear. The pack of spearow taking advantage of this to catch up with the Eevee began pecking at it relentlessly, causing to to sustain heavy injuries. Ash, only now becoming a target picked up the injured little fox and with one big plunge jumped off the waterfall. Being dragged by the current, the next thing Ash clearly remembers was being pulled out of the water by a , quite stunning young lady. “Oh my are you okay” she asked looking visually shocked. ‘Yeah I am doing alright’ the boy would reply grunting a bit in pain as he does so. ‘Not you! your Pokémon, it needs help right away, there is a Pokémon center in the city not far from here’ Misty would look very concerned, where in the classic story it was a pikachu and one of the Pokémon types she isn’t too friendly with , seeing a harmless eevee injured this time, would push her concern over an important edge. ‘Here take my bike, you’ll get there faster’ she would say. Ash would thank her before sprinting off with Eevee in the bike’s basket. Ash thought to himself… “Ash now is the time and place to show what your worth, you have to protect Eevee’, sprinting off with the bike as fast as he could.
Chapter 5: Ash
Our unfortunate protagonist could not outrun the Spearows for to long, being knocked off the bike, Ash knew this would be his final stand, the skies darkened by storm clouds. ‘Eevee get in your Pokéball, I can keep you safe… just hurry up in and get inside’. The wounded fox creature saw how Ash was about to take some serious damage to protect it, something awakened in Eevee, it had never seen bravery before now..but seeing his new trainer willing to take all these hits for it, filled eevee with strength.
As the spearow began their attack on Ash, Eevee jumped on his shoulders to join the fight. The cowardly pokémon launched it first ever quick attack, having finally found someone to fight for. As the quick attack struck one of the spearows, Eevee realised it’s attack was not very effective. The pair was completely brutalised by the group of swarm of spearow, as Ash saw how they were still attacking his already knocked out Eevee, he knew that this would end badly, that was the last realisation he had before everything went black.
He had no idea how many time had past but Ash woke up to a slander hand grabbing his wrist. “Looks like he is alive” a feminine voice says. The hand that isn’t being held by the slender hand is suddenly licked by a narrow tongue. Ash opens his eyes just to notice Misty checking his pulse and Eevee, covered in grey dust licking his hand. Noticing he is covered in the dust himself, he tries to get up. To his surprise , he doesn’t have any trouble with it at all. Nothing hurts at all! As he tries to dust himself, the girl asks him for his name. ‘It’s Ash’ he replies. ‘I know it’s ash, but how did it get here, and what is your name boy?’. The orange haired girl sounds quite demanding yet there is still a lingering calmth in her voice. ‘I mean my name is Ash’. The woman giggles a bit, well then Ash covered in ash, my name is Misty’.
Our hero pets his pokémon which gets dusted off a bit with each pat. ‘How did you heal your pokémon so fast, and what’s with the spa treatment in the middle of the road?’ Misty sounds curious as she examines him, doesn’t she notice he wounded he is Ash wonders. That’s when he realises he has no injuries at all, not a single bit of flesh is cut anymore, yet his clothes are in bad shape. ‘I … I don’t know’ the boy must confess he has absolutely no idea on what happened. ‘I thought we were going to die’ Ash looks down to the ground, noticing some weird rainbowlike reflection, he looks up to the sky to see where it is coming from, only to see clear blue skies. ‘Well, we will figure it out, looks like you can use someone who can teach you a bit about Pokémon, I’ll travel along a bit with you… think of it as way of me saying thanks for returning my bike back safely to me. Misty points towards her bike that although being covered in ash, still looks quite fine.’Thanks.. that might be useful, right Eevee?’ The Ketchum boy looks at his partner which shouts out his name with enthusiasm, looking eager for an adventure now. “Ash there is something in your hair” Misty would gently touch the boys head, seeing how caring he is for his eevee made her smile, gently caressing the hair before taking the item and handing it to the boy, their gazes lingering on each other for a bit. Looking at the item in his hand, he realises this was what gave off that weird rainbow reflection from before. In his hand rest on bright multicoloured feather that seems to give off some shine.
In the distance a balloon lingers in the air, three strangers are using magnifying glasses to see the group. A female whips her hair back as she removes the binoculars from her eyes. Did you see that? That boy and his Pokémon died out there… than that stuff fell out of the sky. I bet the boss would like that feather very much’. A posh male voice would add ‘and I bet he would not mind an Eevee that came back from the dead either. The third voice doesn’t belong to a human but to a pokemon a golden coin shimmering on its forehead as it simply agrees with the others “That’s Right!”
Yay my little monsters, part one has concluded, I quite like how this turned out. Expect some major changes coming in the near future. Until then, let me know if you are Team Pikachu or Team Eevee, leave a like to brighten up my day but most of all stay pink!
Pinkie's Paradise 