{staryu}{staryu}{staryu} entertainment again. I like it!
Keep it up, this is one of the best line of stories i've ever seen!

totally awsome!!cool giant robot!!!

10/10!!

Lo and behold, illustrations!

Well, no, just one- I drew a picture of Jessica in pokemon style, or as near as I could fake it. You can see it Here, because it's a bit to big to post.

Sorry about the watermarking- that's the big red text all over the image- but I know one of the people who have replied to this topic is an art thief (they've admitted to it, and don't even seem to understand that it's wrong,) and even if my art isn't the greatest I'm a little paranoid, and I don't want to take any chances.

Edit: I fixed her hair in the offline picture so it's a little more centered, but I don't really feel like doing another scan right now

acually i saw two people using other peoples art(and its not me or u)

Excelent story once again. 98/100.

r u gonna continue,gryphflame?i really like it!:)

I am, but right now I need to focus on a major history presentation due next week X.x I'm going to try and update at least once a week, but I think the chapters might slow down a bit.

ok,cant wait for the next one!!

Good, because I haven't had time to read any of them, so I'm looking forward to reading them, with no interruption.

If you're looking to read the whole thing at once, don't hold your breath Jessica's journey is running just a little faster than Ash's from the show, and it will probably keep to that pace. The indigo league series of pokemon took 83 episodes, plus the feature movie at the end, and since I write some of my episodes in two parts, this could end up just as long X.x

BTW, the next episode is roughly 20% finished, and I've got a half day at school today, so I may get at least a part of it up tonight. Unless the local video game store has a used copy of leaf green or flame red in, in which case I'll have berries to grow and starters to train

please continue!!im forgetting the whole thing and alls i remember is that it was good,and there was a charmander so..... continue.. ....please,pretty please

I've got a really big English class assignment right now, where I have to write 10,000 words worth of short stories, so right now my writing energy is going into that. I have to hand it in on may 2nd, hopefully I'll get back to this afterwards.

Thats fine but... When you do post the next episode just give us a three line recap on whats been happening instead me reading through the other episodes. (poor me) lol

I've been thinking about writing a "the story so far" section every few episodes, but it'll be a fair while before the next bit is up so you might as well just read through what's already up, if you get the time. If you don't want to have to weed through this thread to find all the story bits, they've been collected here for easier reading.

((A new chapter, at long last! Not my best work, but it's only the first part of an episode anyways. This should end up as a 2-3 parter))

Viridian forest is big. I'm telling you this, because it's sorta close to Pallet city, and I think a lot of people think of it as some dinky little patch of trees with a few weak bugs hanging around in it. Well trust me, it's not- bugs or now bugs the forest its self is HUGE.

And I was lost.

No, correction, /we/ were lost- my pokemon and me together. I'd let my new pikachu out of his pokeball when we got to the forest, and he'd been so excited about getting a chance to explore that I had to let him lead. Unfortunately, his electric powers didn't give him an internal compass or anything, so after several hours of wandering around I'd taken the map back, only to discover he'd been reading it sideways. Actually, I don't think he'd been reading it at all- just looking at the pictures and wondering what it meant.

So when I saw a cabin through the trees, you can bet I went straight for it. It was through several meters of thick bushes, but I was more worried about getting out of the forest before I starved to death than a few scratches on my legs. But before I got to the cottage, something appeared that made me stop worrying about both those things.

"Blargh!" A large leafy creature was the one making the noise- it had jumped out at me from the trees. "Who dares trespass in my forest?!" it boomed. Pikachu growled a little.

"Um, I'm Jessica" I said. "I'm just a trainer, and I'm only trying to pass through to get to Pewter, but I'm kinda lost." With one hand, I fumbled for my pokedex, trying to figure out what on earth this creature could be.

"Hang on, you're lost?" asked the vicious beast. His voice changed very suddenly, from deep and booming to small and rather childlike. "But you've got a map!"

I blinked, not quite sure how to respond to this. As I stared at the creature, I realized it didn't really look like any sort of creature at all- it had sticks for arms, and I thought I saw some ropes connecting the branches together for the body.

A little kid stepped out from behind the bushes, confirming my suspicions. "He's pretty neat, huh?" he said, indicating the tree 'beast'. "I made 'im myself, and you can move 'im about easy with the ropes and stuff in the bushes."

The kid wasn't that little, really, maybe just three or four years younger than me. He had floopy navy hair that threatened to obscure his vision if it grew much longer, and carried a large bug net. A smallish looking paras was sitting on his head, apparently nesting in his hair.

I was about to say something when he continued, without stopping for breath. "Y'd better come see m'folks, they can help y'find you're way outta the forest, and if yer a trainer they'll want t'talk to you."

Bewildered, I followed the kid, with Pikachu trailing behind me. I took my map back from him as we went, and folded it up neatly.

"I'm Terence, by the way" said the kid as we walked. "I live here in the forest, there are always all sorts of trainers coming through here. Paras is my pokemon, I'm even old enough to train him officially now. Who was your first pokemon? Was it that pikachu? Pikachus are pretty rare now in the forest. Did you catch that pikachu here? You really need to talk to my parents y'know" he said. Since he didn't give me any time to answer, I assumed the questions were kinda rhetorical.

When we were about six feet from the door, Terence's Paras hopped off, skittering over to the door. He pulled on a length of string hung so he could reach it, which triggered a series of pulleys that opened the door. "The paras-perfect door opening system is much better than a pet door" explained Terence, stepping inside. "Mom, dad, I'm back, and there's a trainer here with a pikachu! She says her name's Jessica, and she's lost."

Before I could put in a word, two adults descended from the second floor. One was a woman with vividly bright blue hair, who looked absolutely thrilled to see Pikachu. The other was a man with black-brown hair, who was somewhat more suspicious. "Where did you get that pikachu, young lady?" he asked me.

"M-mister Astley gave him to me, sir, after I won the Valence badge" I replied nervously. The man seemed unconvinced.

"Oh hush now, dear" said the woman, "that's no way to treat a guest. I'm Lisa Tallaway, and this is my husband Ronald. I'm so sorry for Ronald's suspicions, but recently the last pack of pikachus here in viridian forest disappeared. We've been studying them here all our lives, and all three of us are terribly worried about them."

"Paras is worried too, mom!" said Terence, picking up his mushroom insect pokemon. "So that makes four of us."

"Of course, dear" replied Mrs. Tallaway, then she looked at me again. "Terence said you were lost, didn't he? Ronald and I were just going out for our morning search for the pack, but when we get back we'd be happy to show you back to the main path."

"I could show her, mom!" said Terence immediately.

"Honey, we've been over this a hundred times, there are dangerous pokemon out there! We'll be back in about an hour, wait for us to show her the path" she replied.

With that, Mr. and Mrs. Tallaway grabbed their coats and a couple of pokeballs from the table, and went out.

"It's not fair, they never let me do anything fun!" whined Terence, setting Paras down on the table.

"Well, they've got a point" I said, even though I knew he wouldn't like it. "There are a lot of dangerous bug pokemon in the forest, and Paras probably couldn't take on a whole swarm of beedrill or a pack of rattatas by himself."

"Well, I guess maybe you're right" said Terence sadly. He was silent for a minute, then spoke again. "But you're a pokemon trainer- you must have tones of powerful pokemon!"

"Well, uh, I have Charmander and Bea, and now Pikachu too, but…" I said, a little worried about what this enthusiastic kid had in mind.

"Well with your three, and Paras, that's twice as many pokemon as my parents have, and they go out into the forest all the time!" He replied.

"But your parents said you weren't supposed to take me to the path" I reminded him, trying to sound stern.

"Then we won't go to the path- I've got an even better idea" he said, which made me worry even more.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, suspicious.

"We're going to find the missing pikachu!"

paras is sooo cute!!i love him,and his little door opener


9.4/10

Gah! It's horrible! .00000000000001/1000000000000!

Lol.

9.75/10

((I added a banner and a short summary of the entire series to the first post. The second half of this episode should be done sometime tomorrow, or possibly even tonight. I'm really glad you guys like Paras, since he's going to be around for awhile

On a sorta random note, the characters Sparky, Zaxz, Zorch and Paras were all created a few years ago from the members of my red version party who I had to drop off in the PC after beating Misty (except Zaxz, who stayed on and was eventually evolved into the raichu he is today.) I was upset about having to take them out of my party, so I made up little stories about how the pikachu trio got together and made a pokemon rock band, and the paras was given to a young explorer who needed a strong pokemon for protection. I get so emotional over my video games TT.TT

Edit: Episode 5, Part 2 is here! The entire episode is over seven pages long in microsoft word.))

"This is all your fault, you know!" said Clyde, yelling at his younger brother. "If you hadn't come up with that stupid robot idea we wouldn't be in this mess!"

"MY fault?!" retorted Calvin, "you're the one who wanted to attack during the concert. 'We'll get them when they're most vulnerable', you said, remember THAT?!"

"You're both idiots!" said Clara, giving her two older brother such a vicious stare down that they both shut up. "But lucky for you two, I have a plan."

* * * * * * * * *

"Are you crazy?" I asked, running after Terence as he zipped out of the house, heading straight for the deepest, thickest part of the woods. "Your parents are pokemon researchers- they've been studying these pikachu for years and years- if they can't find them, what chance do we stand?"

"Don't worry, I've got an idea!" he said, coming to a stop next to the forest. "The pikachu disappear for two days every single year, the difference is this year they haven't come back. But it's always the exact same week of spring when they disappear, so I think something must trigger the migration, and since it's at the same time as a lot of plants begin to flower, I'm pretty sure its smell that tells the pikachu its time to leave."

"That's a neat theory," I admitted, "but how does it help us?"

"Well, I wanted to prove my theory to my parents, so this year I started using a special kind of moss to absorb the smells of the forest near where the pikachu live" as he spoke, he dug around in the bushes, then pulled out a large glass jar. "There are a lot of useful plants in the forest, and this one is neat because if you dry it out it retains the smells it absorbed when it was alive." Inside the jar, I could see a small lump of dried moss. "All we need to do is let your pikachu smell this, and we can follow him to the others!"

"I don't know if that's such a good idea- shouldn't we wait for your parents? What if we get lost?" I replied, worried about my pikachu.

"Please?" begged Terence. "I know I can do this! I'm an expert tracker in the forest, and Paras can help ward off any wild pokemon we run into" the little insect pokemon waved its pincers fiercely to demonstrate. "Mom and dad never let me do anything on my own- if I can't prove myself to them, I'll never be able to go on my own pokemon journey."

Well, there wasn't much I could say to that, now was there? I reached for the second pokeball on my belt, releasing Bea. "If you two are okay with this, I'd like Pikachu to try smelling this stuff, and Bea to help track Pikachu. Is that okay?" I asked them. The two pokemon hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"Okay, we'll give it a shot" I told Terence. He grinned, then opened the jar and held it out for Pikachu. Almost immediately, the little yellow pokemon's ears perked up, and he dashed off into the woods, as if in a trance.

"Quick, we have to keep up with him!" said Terence. I certainly didn't need to be told twice- Bea, Terence and I took off together after my runaway pikachu. At first, it was easy enough to follow him, but soon Pikachu started running through thicker and thicker vegetation, and us big humans were having trouble keeping up.

"Bea, keep following Pikachu" I said, "we'll catch up in a moment." I tapped one of the other pokeballs on my belt, releasing Charmander. "We need to get through all this vegetation, Charmander, can you help?" I asked. He grinned- it'd be easy!" and started scratching away. Paras soon joined in, and by the time we were through I could just barely see the purple flash of Bea running around a boulder, following Pikachu.

All four of us ran to catch up, with Charmander scratching away at the tangles of vines that sometimes kept us from following. I tried to keep track of where we were, but I couldn't have found my way back if I'd tried. I didn't even know how long we'd been running when Pikachu finally stopped and walked slowly into a wide open clearing at the base of a very, very large tree.

"I've never seen anything like this!" exclaimed Terence as we followed Pikachu. I knew exactly what he meant. For one thing, the tree was HUGE! It was growing right next to a cliff, which must have been twenty feet high, but the treetop spread out far above the top of the rock face. Light trickled through its thick branches, speckling the grass in an irregular pattern. Beneath the tree, laughing and playing and conversing with one another, was an entire herd of pikachus! About half a dozen of them were gathered near the cliff in an unusually large patch of sunlight, under the guidance of two tough looking raichu. They seemed to be digging at a pile of stones that had recently fallen there, which must have broken the tree branches and caused the sun to shine through.

The pikachus seemed wary of me, Bea and Charmander, but they were friendly towards Paras and Terence. "It's okay, guys, I know these three" he told the pikachus, and a few of them walked curiously over to the three of us.

"What do you think those pikachu over there are doing?" I asked Terence, watching as my pikachu joined the group over at the stone pile. Terence was watching them too, looking a little worried.

"I dunno, but we'd better go check" he replied, stepping cautiously through the crowd of yellow pokemon to try and get over to the cliff face. He'd only taken about six steps when I heard a large crashing sound from behind us, and almost fell over when I turned to look.

"Mwahahahah!" Vicious sounding laughter magnified by a powerful microphone boomed through the clearing. A huge robotic rhydon burst through the trees, spinning its silver horn as it charged.

"See, I told you I could find the forest pikachus with this electicity-tracking compass system!" said Calvin, speaking from inside the machine.

"So what? It was my idea" said Clara.

"And my daddy paid for all the stuff" added Clyde.

"He's my dad too!" said Calvin and Clara together, then Calvin added "hey, guys, the microphone's still on." I know I should have been more worried, but right then and there I couldn't help but laugh.

"Pikachu, thundershock!" I said. I'd been speaking to just my pikachu, but the others all seemed to agree with my decision. Over thirty pikachus shocked the machine together, lighting up the entire clearing with their electric energy. Smoke filled the air, and I had trouble seeing anything until the giant robot spread its arms, fanning it away.

"Our Rhydobot is electricity-proof you twerp" said Clyde, "just how dumb did you think we were to try something like that?"

"Especially since everyone knows are heroes were the leading developers of pikachu-proof robotics" added Calvin.

"Stop explaining and start attacking!" yelled Clara, "get them!"

The belly of the robot opened and something that looked like an oversized butterfly net came out. The hands of the rhydon extended, each one grabbing a pikachu and dumping it into the basket. "We've got to do something!" said Terence, "if they take these pikachu, there won't be any left in the entire forest!"

I bit my lip, trying to think of what to do. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my pikachu and several of the others still trying to clear away the rocks. That gave me an idea, but for it to work I'd have to hope Kid Rocket really was as dumb as they said they weren't.

"Run around and try and protect the pikachu, Charmander!" I said loudly. "But watch out- they could start throwing those rocks at us!" Someone in the rhydon machine laughed.

"I hadn't thought of that" said Clyde, "but good idea! Cal, grab some of those rocks and take out her Charmander!" I hid my grin- I could barely believe they'd fallen for that! The huge rhydon claw knocked the raichu out of the way and grabbed one of the big rocks they'd been digging at, tossing it at my Charmander, who dodged out of the way. Several more followed, until something very bright started to glow amidst the remaining rocks.

"It's a thunderstone!" exclaimed Terence, staring at the newly uncovered stone. "It must have been buried in a rockslide, and the pikachu pack were staying here longer than usual so they could dig it out!"

The two raichu dodged around the giant metal hands, grabbing the stone from amidst the rubble. I could see a few more buried in the pile, but my attention was on the pokemon pair, who were now glowing with pent-up electric energy from the powerful stone.

"Charmander, burn a hole in the robot so their electric attacks can get through!" I yelled. Charmander nodded, and spat out a barrage of burning embers onto the plastic window at the giant rhydon's eye level.

"Ow!" said Clara as one of the hot coals fell on her lap. "Careful where you throw those things, twerp!" It took her and the others a moment to realize that they were now vulnerable to raichu attack.

The raichu, however, showed no such hesitation. With a giant blast of electricity, they scorched the robot from the inside out, releasing the net onto the ground and sending the now useless hunk of metal flying. The microphone was broken, but as they disappeared into the distance I could hear all three of them saying "I can't believe we're blasting off agaiiin!"

There was a moment of silence, soon broken by Terence. "That was absolutely AMAZING!" he exclaimed, a sentiment which Paras apparently echoed. "With the giant robot, and then the fire, and the raichu with their thunder attack- awesome!" I almost expected him to add 'let's do it again!', but thankfully once was enough for the enthusiastic kid.

"We'd better get going, then, or your parents will really start to worry" I told him, but before I could leave, one of the raichu walked up to me and tugged on my left shoe. When I turned to see what he wanted, he held up the thunderstone.

"Is that for me?" I asked him, and he nodded, handing the glowing yellow stone to me. "Wow, it's gorgeous. Thank you" I said respectfully, holding the stone with both hands. "I'll take good care of it, until my Pikachu's ready to evolve like you."

As Terence and I took one last look around the clearing, the other raichu pulled another thunderstone from the rubble and brought it to one of the pikachus, who was waiting at the base of the tree. We watched in wonder as the pikachu evolved amidst the cheers and chanting of the rest of the pack. It was an amazing experience, and I have a feeling that Terence and I are some of the only humans who've ever seen that secret pikachu ceremony.

By the time we found our way back to the cabin, it was getting dark, and Terence's parents met us at the edge of the cabin clearing, clearly worried sick about their son. "Thank goodness you're okay!" said Mrs. Tallaway, hugging her child protectively. That wave of warm motherly affection soon passed. "You have some explaining to do young man, where have you been? Your father and I have been worried sick about you!"

"It was amazing, mom, Jessica and I found the missing pikachus!" he said proudly, explaining to his bewildered parents all that had happened to us. "So you see," he added, "I can take care of myself just fine in the woods."

"It seems to me that Jessica and the pikachus did most of the work" said Mr. Tallaway, "I still don't think you're ready to go out into the world on your own yet."

"But you know how much I want to see the world, dad!" pleaded Terence. "I love being here with you, but I want to become a famous inventor someday, and I need to explore if I want to get new ideas!"

Then an idea struck me. "Why doesn't he come with me?" I asked. "My pokemon are pretty strong, and Terence sure knows a lot about pokemon- we could help each other out on our journey!" The Tallaway couple paused, considering this option.

"Well, the two of you did find the pikachus together, and I know how much Terence wants to go on a pokemon journey of his own…" said Mrs. Tallaway, thinking the matter over.

"And I'll call you every day, and I could study pokemon all over the world!" added Terence, arguing his case.

"It would be very educational" admitted Mr. Tallaway,

"And it might even be safer than letting him run about on his own here in the forest" added Mrs. Tallaway. "Well, if you're sure you're willing to take him along, Jessica, then I think Terence is free to go with you."

I grinned, "I'd love to have him along!" I said.

"Then it's settled" she said, smiling. "But first you two are going to get a good night's rest- and I'm not sending my son off on a pokemon journey without some supplies. You'll need a bag with potions, pokeballs, notebooks, your toothbrush, clean underwea-"

"Mom!" said Terence, embarrassed by his mother's fussing. She laughed good-naturedly.

"I'm sorry, dear, I can't help it. But for now let's get you two into bed- you can leave first thing in the morning, I promise."

*clap,clap clap*super awsome!

10/10

I'm bumping this before it gets lost forever in the 2nd page. Sorry for reviving. Anyways, Gryphlame, are you going to continue this? I'm really liking it!

Again, sorry for reviving. And mods, please don't lock this. I really want this fanfic to be continued.

This is going to be continued, yes, it's just taking me awhile to get into the swing of things. About a quarter of the next bit has been written, but it's been hard for me to get into the mood of writing it. Once I buy Emerald and start playing it, I should start to get more of a feel for writing a young trainer fic again '~'

Half of episode six, at long last!

I feel a little guilty saying this, but I'm pleased to report that I didn't see any other pikachus in viridian forest. They're great pokemon, don't get me wrong, but I was starting to wonder if they were really as rare as everyone said they were, I'd seen so many.

Terence and I arrived in Pewter city just in time for lunch, and although I was disappointed to learn that there hadn't been a gym there in decades, the delicious meal we got at a little restaurant there helped make up for it. The waitress was really chatty, and told us all about the city's major attractions.

"You simply must go see the museum, it's world famous for its exhibit on rare and extinct pokemon" she told us. "It'd be very educational for a pair of trainers like yourself, although one of the wings is closed down because of the fire there last week."

"A fire?" I asked, concerned.

"Oh, yes, the museum's been having a lot of troubles recently with disasters like that. First water damage appearing overnight, then the air conditioning system went bananas last month, and now this fire. Some people say it's the ghosts of the pokemon fossils coming to haunt the museum" she replied.

"G-ghosts?" asked Terence, his eyes widening. The waitress laughed.

"I'm sure those are just rumors, but you two should check it out as soon as you get a chance. They're talking about closing the museum if the attacks continue."

- - - - - -

Neither of us knew it at the time, but we weren't the only ones listening to the waitress's story. Three short looking men with large mustaches were listening in from the next table over.

"Cly-yde, this stupid fake mustach it-ches!" whined one of them quietly to the slightly taller man beside her.

"Shh, this is important!" he replied, "we can't be found out!"

"Did you hear what she said, pokemon fossils!" said the third, "I bet dad'd love to get his hands on those so he could revive the rare pokemon from them!"

"Ooh, and I bet they'd be /cute/ rare pokemon, too!" squealed the first of the three. "Quiet you two, or we won't be able to follow them and steal those fossils. Do I have to think of everything around here?"

- - - - -

After lunch, we decided to take her advice and check out the museum. In an effort to attract people scared off by the fire, they were even letting kids in free, so the building was crowded with kids and young trainers. A few of them even had their pokemon with them, so I decided to let Charmander out to look at the exhibits with me, and Terence released his paras. "Who knows," I told Charmander, "maybe you'll find a fossil of one of your ancestors here!"

"Hey, why don't we sign up for a tour?" suggested Terence, pointing to a sign that said there'd be a walking tour starting in five minutes. Charmander seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea, so all four of us signed up.

After signing up, we moved off a bit to let others reach the tour desk. I guess I wasn't really looking where I was going, because I was only a couple of feet away when I bumped into someone. We both fell down, and a bunch of papers he'd been holding went flying.

"Ohmygosh, I'm so sorry!" I said, scrambling to help him with his papers. He was at least six years older than me, and from his lab coat and large wire-rimmed glasses I guessed he was probably an assistant at the museum's research area. He gathered his papers very quickly, then turned quickly to leave.

"That was kinda weird" I muttered, then I noticed something on the ground. "Hey, wait, you forgot something!" I called, but he was already gone. Biting my lip, I picked up the object he'd dropped. It looked like a normal pokeball, but with three dots on the top- one orange, one white and one blue.

"Hey, Jess, the tour's starting!" called Terence, leaving with the group. I put the pokeball in my pocket, deciding to return it to the lost and found once we got back, then hurried off after the group.

The exhibits were pretty amazing, and the tour guide was a friendly woman with a pidgy on her shoulder who was explaining everything to the pokemon in the tour group. Terence hung on her every word, and I could see him taking careful notes about all the stuff he saw at the exhibits.

"And here's our special traveling exhibit on weather systems" said the tour guide, leading us into a large hall filled with experiments and diagrams explaining how weather worked all over the world. "It's on loan to us from a museum in the Hoenn region, so get a good look now before it has to go back!" Terence immediately ran over to a model of a weather balloon, explaining to Paras how weather balloons worked. I was about to follow when something caught my eye- a little grey flash of movement at the far end of the hall.

I stared at the place where I'd seen it for a little while, and was about to just shrug it off as a trick of the light, when I felt a drop of water land on my arm. "That's weird" I said, looking up. Six more drops fell immediately on my face, and I could hear some of the others in the room jumping in alarm as rain began to fall all over the place.

The tour guide yelled over the crowd for everyone to line up the door and exit calmly until this could be cleared up. Terence was about to get in line, but I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him behind one of the larger exhibits, where the guide couldn't see us. "What are you doing? We're supposed to be getting out of here" he said.

"I know, I know, but I saw something over there a moment ago, and I think it could be important. If might already be gone, so we need to follow it now or it could get away again!" I said, pulling him past a few more cover exhibits and over to the corner where I'd seen the grey flash vanish. Between two large exhibits was a small door marked 'Authorized Employees Only'. The lock was frozen over, and the door was open a few feet. I worried for a moment about going in, but since the museum was in danger of shutting down if this thing wasn't caught, I decided it was worth the risk.