Viridian City and.......
On his way to Viridian, Gary encountered a stream with a bicycle parked under a tree and his psychic sense which he had unfurled ever since he had been on the road, picked up the sight of a girl with orange hair tied in a side, singing to herself as she fished in the stream. Gary recognised it as Misty, who was most probably fishing for a pokemon.
Gary was in no way interested in talking to her, so he slightly deviated from the route and after taking a wider path to avoid the youngest Waterflower sister, he returned to the original road again. Gary knew that if events followed like in anime, he would have spotted Ho-oh if he had waited for Ash.
But, as a genius and a reincarnator, he had his own pride. If any legendary wanted to be seen by him, then it should due to his own achievements, not by snooping on others.
Speaking of the Waterflower sisters, in this pokemon world, Misty's elder sisters, also famous as the Waterflower trio, were by no means weak. The rumors of their strong water type were quite scary. Besides, their identity as showbiz, made them famous even in the other regions outside Kanto.
The Cerulean Gym guarded the Cerulean Caves, the heaven of water type pokemons. As the Gym Leaders of that Gym, their original teams which had pokemons like Blastoise, Kingdra, Dewgong, Lapras and others were extremely well trained.
Finally, after walking for another hour, Gary spotted the welcome board of Viridian City, stating "Welcome to Viridian" in sparkling colours.
As soon as his foot had crossed the threshold of the Viridian gates, a female voiced shouted, "Halt!"
An Officer Jenny fully clad in her uniform, stopped him in his tracks. The genetics of the Jenny and Joy Clan were still a mystery to the entire world. By the way, Officer Jenny was incomparably hot in her uniform which revealed her long white legs. Gary had heard from his Gramps that their dress were designed in such a way to distract hot blooded criminals.
But this hot woman was currently staring at Gary with a stone cold expression on her face.
"State your identity and your purpose for coming in Viridian City!"
Gary quickly whipped out his pokedex from his pocket and turned on the identification feature. A mechanical voice sounded from the device.
"Hello, I am Dexter and I have been assigned to Trainer Gary Oak. I cannot be replaced once lost."
The sound and sight of the pokedex and the Oak surname worked like a magic as Gary inwardly marvelled at the influence of his Gramps when he saw the cold expression on Officer Jenny's face turned amicable in an instant.
"Oh! So, you are a new trainer from the Oak Laboratories. Be careful there has been an increased instances of robbery and pokemon snatching recently in Viridian!"
"By the way, Officer Jenny, where is the Pokemon Center?" Gary asked to reduce his troubles of reading the digital map of Viridian from the Pokedex.
"Follow this path straight and take a right turn at the next crossing, you will be able to spot the Pokemon Center. Take my number, give me a call if you face any difficulties." The last part was added by Officer Jenny when she spotted the X-transceiver on Gary's wrist.
Gary noted down the contact number and took off for the Viridian Pokemon Center. On the way, he marvelled at the sight of the metropolis known as Viridian City.
Viridian City was built as a fortress city that had existed since the times of the first Champion who had united Kanto under his reign. On one side, this city bordered the Viridian Forest famous for the bug type pokemons that brought bug catchers in droves from all over Kanto and even Johto.
On another side of the city existed Gary's own Pallet Town and finally, the rest of the Viridian bordered the VICTORY ROAD.
Victory Road was the hardest training ground in the entire Kanto Region where trainers from the Ace Rank could only enter. Ace Rank was the rank above the Elite Rank.( A/N :— Trainee Elite Four Rank has been replaced by Ace.)
Catching pokemons were completely forbidden in the Victory Road and getting permission to enter the place was as hard as ascending the heavens.
This was the geographical significance of Viridian City. On the political side, this metropolis housed the underworld and black market of Kanto and Giovanni was the Kanto underworld's unofficial Leader.
As Gary stayed close to one of the persons with the highest amount of influence, he had picked up tits and bits of information from here and there.
In a way, Giovanni controlled the Kanto Underworld from spreading out too much on behalf of the League. But, Gary speculated that this position of his made it easier for him to spearhead criminal organizations like Team Rocket from behind the shadow. He was like a necessary evil that was hard to replace. Thus, inside Viridian City, Giovanni was untouchable. Besides, the Viridian Gym Leader had made a mastermove by taking upon a public crusade against Team Rocket and keeping Rocket activities at minimum within the City.
Gary had a desire to enter the Viridian Black Market, but with his current strength, it would be like a suicide. So, he curbed his desire and mentally vowed to return when he had reached a higher rank.
As the thoughts of Gary was revolving around the enigma that was Viridian City, his strides had already taken him to the Viridian Pokemon Center.
Gary came to his senses where the door to the Viridian Pokemon Center opened up to welcome him. He looked around and saw several trainers sitting around in the lobby in groups of ones and twos. As one of the eight main cities of Kanto, Viridian Pokemon Center was never deserted. Thankfully, the counter seemed to be empty, where Nurse Joy was standing. Gary quickly approached the counter.
"Hello, welcome to the Viridian Pokemon Center! How may I help you?" Nurse Joy recited in a friendly voice to Gary.
Gary unclipped his pokeballs and held them out, "Please look after them." Then he took out his pokedex and continued, "Please, register me for the Indigo League and book a single room for me for one night."
Nurse Joy took the Pokedex without a word, but when she saw the name on Gary's trainer ID, she let out a small gasp of surprise.
Gary quickly said after he saw her reaction, "After my pokemons are healed, please give a call to my room's intercom. I will be there."
"Sure, sir, here's your pokedex, you have been registered for this year's Indigo Conference and here's your room key, sir. You have been assigned Room No. 203 on the second floor, sir."
Nurse Joy said in a professional tone as she handed over Gary's pokeballs to a Chansey carrying a tray with empty pokeball slots.
"Sir, dinner time ends at 9:00 pm. So, if you want ot dine at the Pokemon Center cafeteria, please have your meal within nine."
"Thanks for your help."
After muttering a polite reply, Gary left for his room through the public elevator. As he owned a Pokedex, his first three days of stay in any Pokemon Center was subsidized. When he pushed open the door to enter his room, his first impression of the room was better than normal. The room had a single bed, an aquarium for small water type pokemons and an attached washroom with a shower unit. This was the preferential treatment that Pokedex holders enjoyed in League establishments.
Gary threw his backpack on the bed, dumped his solied clothes in the laundry basket and ran to the shower for a fresh bath.
After putting on a fresh set of clothes, he opened up his X-transceiver to make calls.
The first call was to his Gramps.
When the call was picked up, the image of his Grandfather with s half-eaten Pizza dangling from his mouth could be seen.
"Herrgggoo..... Gggrrryy!"
"I think you should finish your pizza first, Gramps."
"(Gulp) Hello Gary, have you reached Viridian already?"
"Yes, just checked in at the pokemon center. Faced a rookie trainer with Froakie on the way and battled a couple of wild pokemons."
"Good, good, the other two trainers arrived after you left. By the way, Devon Corp is organising a Rookie battle tournament in Pewter in a week. Don't miss it."
"Noted, Gramps. I did not catch any new pokemon, by the way. Nothing caught my eye."
"Sure, take your time. Oh, by the way, Ash had a stomachache, so, his journey was delayed to tomorrow."
This piece of news took Gary by surprise, i.e. all the events of the anime, would most probably shift to the next day and by then, Gary would have already left, and that means, there would be not be any attack on the Pokemon Center tonight. Gary heaved a sigh of relief at being able to evade facing off the idiotic Team Rocket trio.
"What happened, Gary?" remarked Professor Oak, seeing his grandson in deep thought.
"Nothing, its fine. Oh, I came across an Advanced Rank Fearow, that must have been responsible for terrorizing Route 1 for the past month. Metang took it down. You should dispatch someone to shift it from there."
"Hmm, I understand. Anyway, you must be tired, take a good rest."
"You too, reduce the amount of pizzas you intake daily."
The conversation between the grandson and grandfather came to an end with this.
Gary after thinking for sometime, finally decided to not make a call to Delia since Ash was at home.
As he was thinking about going down to have his dinner since its already 7 according to his X-transceiver, the intercom on the bedside rang.
"Hello, I am speaking to Mr. Gary?" came Nurse Joy's mellow voice from the other end.
"Yes, its me."
"Sir, your pokemon has been healed up, please collect them from the counter."
"Sure." Gary put down the phone and locked his room as he made his way down to the counter.
After collecting Metang and Froakie from Nurse Joy, Gary went in hurried steps towards the food court as his stomach had already started giving sounds of rebellion.
After filling up his empty stomach upto the brim with the delicacies of the Pokemon Center, he returned to room to sleep early. Gary released Froakie and Metang and sat down on the bed facing them. He took out their food ingredients and made pokeblocks for them according to their preferences. Metang's diet consisted of food containing heavy minerals while Froakie preferred food with a mellow taste.
As Gary saw them eating with delight, he said, "Now, that I have set out on my journey, its time to give names to both of you."
Both of his pokemons stared at him with curiosity.
Gary continued, "Metang, I wish that you grow up to become the strongest Metagross and become the head of the hive mind. All information will be processed by you. Thus, I name you Nexus, which means the junction point."
(Thank you for your well wishes, friend trainer.)
"Now, coming to Froakie, I want you to become the fastest Greninja alive who strikes like a ghost from the dark. So, I name you Shadow, you like it right?"
"Froakkiieee.." Froakie, now Shadow, jumped onto Gary's lap with a happy cry to express his approval.
"Now, both of you, finish up your meals, we will depart early, tomorrow."
Finally, after feeding his pokemons, Gary threw his tired body onto the bed and drifted off to tge land of dreams immediately due to the accumulated fatigue.
(Next morning)
Gary woke up to the blaring alarm of the X-transceiver on his wrist. He quickly turned off the evil sound that was the nemesis of his dreams. He swiftly freshened up after taking a dump and woke up his pokemons. Metang being very punctual, woke up without any problems, but Froakie's attitude showed that he was by no means an early morning one. After dragging out the sleepy Froakie from the aquarium, he recalled them back to their pokeballs.
Gary packed up his belongings along with the clothes which had been washed and kept outside his door by the pokemon center staff. He rechecked the room to make sure he had packed everything and locked the room. After submitting the key to a sleepy Nurse Joy, he left for Viridian's teleportation point.
The teleportation business was opened up by the League where League trained Kadabra and Alakazam teleported people between the cities at a cost.
Gary had already wired the payment while booking the slot. So, he was ushered to a room where he saw an Alakazam waiting for him.
(Gary Oak, one round trip to Fushcia City?)
'Yes', Gary replied telepathically.
(Oh! A familiar one! Get ready.)
Gary got ready as both him and the paychic pokemon teleported away in a flash.