Planning for the Future

As the bright flash died down, Gary found hinself outside the valley in front of the entrance. Gary stood there in a stupor, coming to terms with rhe roller coaster ride he underwent since the start of the day. His grandfather's sudden announcement of the trial, the despair inside the path, the behemoth Ancient, the shiny Beldum in the great ball in his hand and last but not the least, his leap in psychic prowess.

He was unable to decide whether he should be angry or happy with Gramps. On one hand, he was on the verge of losing his life, on the other hand, he had an experience that very few could boast off.

Speaking of the senile old man, Gary found him a few metres in front of him, where both him and his carrier pokemon was snoozing off under the pleasant rays of the sun.

After getting his first pokemon, Gary had fulfilled one of his important milestones unexpectedly six years before the expected time. So, he was in a great mood and truly accepted himself as a part of this world. The prankful tendencies of his past life began to surface once he felt natural to the world of Pocket Monsters.

'Hehehe', an evil smirk developed on his face as a brilliant idea of pranking the sleeping Professor took root inside his brain. He materialized a bowl shape with his telekinetic powers and scooped up water from the nearby pond and carefully shifted it to hovering over the body of the Professor. Deciding not to anger his only means of transport out of this wild place, he kept Pidgeot out of his prank. As the water was carefully placed, he removed his psychic construct and down came the water with a splash!

"Blrgh... who... who..... who is it?!! Who dared to disturb my sweet dreams??!!" Professor Oak woke up with a start all soaked and dripping with water.

Seeing the dignified Regional Professor of Kanto complaining about someone disturbing his dreams in the water-soaked state, Gary couldn't control himself anymore and rolled on the ground with laughter clutching his stomach.

Seeing his always serious grandson rolling on the ground with heartfelt laughter for the first time, Professor Oak's eyes softened. The kid had been living a monotonous life for the past few years like a machine as if wholeheartedly chasing something. But today after a long time, Gary has been really happy to laugh like that. The former Champion had considering having a talk with him on the necessity of enjoying life and to force him on a mandatory break from his studies. But this sight did a lot in easing his worries.

The old Professor had an inkling to what was truly going on inside the kid's mind, but chose to remain silent about it.

Meanwhile, the sudden hubbub woke up the asleep avian. Unable to understand the situation, it looked back and forth with curiosity once at the soaked Professor, once at the laughing kid.

Clearing his throat, the Professor inquired, "So, how was it?", waiting for his over-excited reply.

In return, Gary said nothing, but simply took out the great ball and released Beldum with a mischievous smile on his face.

Now, it was Professor Oak's turn to be flabbergasted at the shiny Beldum floating quietly beside his grandson. He was unable to make head or tail of the situation for quite sometime. As a Regional Professor and unofficially the topmost in that, he had come across shiny pokemon. But to witness the complete development of a shiny pokemon and a pseudo-legendary at that, will be his first. He was also somewhat proud that it will be his grandson's future ace pokemon.

He knew that Beldums were not so intelligent something that the Metagross line was so famous for. So, it was not a good approach to directly ask questions from it.

When his grandson said that Beldum will require five years minimum to undergo its first evolution, he was quite taken aback.

"But whatever you saw inside should remain with you. Even I do not want to know about it. Remember Gary, the Myths, the Legends and the Ancients must be respected and feared, the strength behind them is why we still exist."

His grandfather's words dawned a realisation on him that there exists more than one Ancient, he had a sneaky suspicion that the Dragonite that appeared at Bill's lighthouse was also an Ancient. There was another uncanny coincidence that Gary noted, but he decided to leave it for another time.

Having finished lecturing Gary on the importance of protecting the knowledge, Professor Oak gestured Pidgeot to get ready to ready.

"Come on, lets return, its already lunchtime, if we further delay, then Alice will become demon incarnate."

Gary shuddered at the thought of making Alice angry. Last time, he arrived late for lunch, he had to wash all the dishes and utensils after every meal for the next ten days. For the Gary who was lazy at everything unrelated to Pokemon that was the cruelest punishment.

In a blur, he was already on Pidgeot's back ready to set off before his Gramps could even react. Seeing the reaction of young Gary, the Professor let out a boisterous laugh and conveniently forgot to mention that he had specifically told Alice that they were going to be late today.

As the Pidgeot was returning to the Oak Residence, Gary started to make plans on the future development of Beldum.

Maintaining a heavy type Steel pokemon like Steelix, Aggron, Metagross is very costly as they require large amount of mineral supplements, and raw mineral ores for their overall development. A healthy Metagross requires around 10 kilograms of iron ore monthly to maintain the integrity of their steel body. But Metagross have a wide range of movepool that makes them one of the strongest pokemons compensating handsomely for the costly maintenance. He decided to think of a plan to train Beldum in his leisure hours.

Now that he had reached the age of ten, he would have to attend an institution for the mandatory education as well as for the PTLTs (Pokemon Trainer License Tests), yes that's the official name of the Trainers' license exams. In the case of Daisy, since she wanted to be a Co-ordinator, she took the PCLTs (Pokemon Co-ordinator License Tests). There has been instances that aspiring trainers took both the exams, for example, the former Hoenn Champion Wallace was so successful as a Co-ordinator that the Hoenn Grand Festival was renamed as the Wallace Cup.

Gary was damn sure that his Grandfather would coerce him to become an official Field Researcher under the Oak Laboratories, so he would have to sit for the PRLTs (Pokemon Researcher License Tests), along with the PTLTs. The results of the PRLTs are typically released six months after the new batch of trainers are distributed with their starters. So, he would be halfway into his journey when the results will be released.

In the midst of his thoughts, Pidgeot had already dived down towards the Oak Residence. As the bird landed, Gary and his grandfather entered the house. Gary without a word, made a beeline straight towards the shower after dumping his tattered clothes in the washer.

It looked like Ethan had inherited his minor OCD from his previous life on Earth.

As the dirt and soil from the trial was washed off under the water, Gary felt a strange relief over his entire being. He had been trying to control this psychological tendency of his since his transmigration as he had to lead half of his life on the road, however the disease still resurfaces sometimes.

Speaking of his school, it was very likely he would have to attend the Pallet Private High School that was established by his Gramps when he settled in Pallet. Currently, this school is at the forefront of Pokemon Battle Oriented Training in the entire Kanto region and out of the top three sponsored by Professor Oak, at least, two of the novice trainers belong to this school. It has occurred sometimes when the entire top three of the PTLTs were from this school, such is its brilliance.

Aspiring trainers from all over Kanto apply for this school. There is a stringent admission system prevalent there that only allows the top of the bunch to attend and the rest are weeded out.

Having finished his shower, Gary donned on a fresh set of clothes comprising of a navy blue half t-shirt and brown trousers and ran down the stairs to calm down his stomach roaring with indignation for ignoring him for the past hours.

As he expected, his Gramps brought up the topic of his school education.

"So, Gary, are you going to attend Pallet Private High, right?"

"Hmm, if I consider a residential school in anolther city, it will be tough to keep Beldum with me."

"Yes, the presence of a shiny pseudo-legendary will most probably bring droves of pokemon hunters behind you and it is so rare that even Elite Four level hunters may come after you. By the way, I will have it registered under my name as a research pokemon as a Beldum for the time being until you get your license. After all, shiny or not, it is still a Beldum, right?", Professor Oak smirked slyly.

The smile that emerged on Gary's face would make anybody say that blood runs thicker than water.

When this thought struck Gary's mind, he felt that he had truly become a member of this small oddball family of three comprising of an old man and two youngsters.

"But shouldn't it be better for me to homestudy under you instead of attending school? After all, you do have the political clout to make an exception."

"Look Gary, I will not be hypocritical and say that you should attend school to make friends. But, since Pallet Private High is one of the best, you will be able to face trainers that use various styles for battling, some with detailed former planning, some with unorthodox strategies, some who simply overpower their opponents, some who rely on status effects to wear out their opponents and so on. By facing them, you will be able to gain valuable experience which will be very useful for your future journey and battles."

Professor Oak stopped and looked at his grandson to see if he was getting to his head. Feeling satisfied, he relaxed and went into an unexpected topic.

"What do you think of Ash?"

Gary was taken aback at the sudden question. Truthfully speaking, he had distanced himself from that childhood friend of his after his reincarnation, the boy did possess a good heart but he was too naive to survive this dog eat dog world.

Taking some time to organize his thoughts, Gary slowly spoke his mind, "Strictly, speaking of his qualifications as a trainer, he can atmost come up with good on the spot strategies, but his other abilities to patiently train his pokemon, to plan their movesets to counter their weaknesses, these are not for Ash. And if you think he can get the marks to rank in the top three, specially in the theory papers, to get your scholarship, then you are living in a fantasy."

Professor Oak released a pent-up sigh that he had been holding. He had a look of deep reminiscence on his face.

"You know Gary, Delia's parents were my first assistants who were with me when I first established my Laboratory in Pallet Town. I still remember those days when little Delia used to play around in front of me. When both of them passed away shortly after Delia's marriage, I vowed to look after my goddaughter and their grandchildren. Yes, Delia is my goddaughter, that is why I look after her so much. She is like my own daughter."

It looked like as if he had been carrying the burden of this secret for a long time and had finally let it off his chest.

"Even if Ash did not qualify for the sponsorship, I will sponsor him but he will not get one of the official starter trio. This is the least I can do for the sake of his grandparents and Delia."

Having finished, he quietly looked at the ceiling, perhaps thinking of something.

Gary was once again shocked at this secret. He finally uncovered the truth behind Ash's Pikachu because he had been pondering about this for quite a long time. The top three has to state their choices about their pokemon a good two weeks prior to handing them their starters because there has been examples where two trainers filed in the same choice and received their choiceable pokemons. So, no way if Ash was a ranker, would he be undecided about his choice.

Gary couldn't help being envious about Ash's luck at getting the sponsorship for which millions of trainers all over Kanto competed. Even without an official Kanto starter, the status that came with owning a pokedex was enviable.

The pair finished their dinner and both of them went their separate ways, the Professor towards his lab and Gary to take a nap to recover from his ordeal.

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END

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Anyway, this is the author speaking.

For those who were inquiring about Gary's looks, even he himself does not know why he does not look like the anime Gary. This is a mystery in itself.😉

As for Steven's Metagross, this is a fanfic, so I changed his to a normal coloured to increase the rarity of shinies.

And I created Ash's backstory to fit into my fanfic.

Now, I am signing out.