Before the Journey

A month after finding the egg a riolu hatched from it. Because of his strong aura, the riolu became attached to Ichigo.

As for Ichigo, he spent his time studying, creating gadgets, and peeking on Gary's sister bathing. His first creation was a scouter that could identify wild pokemon and determine their current health level. It also works on his own pokemon, but because he wanted trainer battles to be more difficult he made it so it doesn't work on other peoples pokemon just like with pokeballs.

His second and most impressive invention is a portable dimensional habitat box. This is a small device that has several different self-sustaining dimensions that have different environments to store a persons pokemon that they don't put on their team. This was a big hit with researchers and, after a recent International Pokemon League Association meeting, the device, now called a PokeBox, has been approved for use by trainers. Because of this, trainer can now alter their teams on the go. But anyone challenging the Elite 4 and Champion is not allowed to change their team during the challenge. And changing the team in battle is also forbidden of course.

Now 16 Ichigo, Ash, and Gary are getting ready to leave on their respective journeys. Ichigo has already partnered with Riolu, while Professor Oak has prepared pokemon for both Ash and Gary. In order to have a pokemon other than the three regular starters they had to take a written test from the league. Ichigo didn't understand why but he took it anyway. The test was pretty simple and mainly about what types specific pokemon are strong and weak against as well as their two best and two worst stats (an example being what are Charizards strengths and weaknesses). Gary passed with average marks but Ash ended up passing by pure luck, he relied on rolling his pencil. Ichigo also decided to take the Breeder test so he could access Breeder exclusive websites and stores.

Ichigo spent the night before packing his stuff and got his League Approved PokeBox, which he has to use since it automatically updates the league on any party changes, Scouter, which also got approved by the League, 10 Pokeballs, Pokedex, his License, badge case, and decided to only bring 5,000 pokedollars rather than his entire fortune with him. Of course he also packed necessities like food, water, tent, sleeping bag, Portable PokeBlock kit, and other stuff. It surprised him when he learned that the bags of this world are similar to the spatial bags of xianxia novels, but then he realized it made sense since in the anime they always seemed to have a collapsible, chairs, and a full cooking set to use.

At dinner that night Professor Oak asked, "Are you sure you don't want to travel with Ash or Gary? I know you didn't like hanging out with them much and preferred to be on your own, but this is a good opportunity to become friends."

'Ah, there he goes again. He's always wanting me to become friends with those two, but why would I want to be friends with a couple of boys. Not only that but Gary is arrogant and Ash is an idiot. Plus how am I supposed to pick up girls when I'm traveling with a dude,' Ichigo thought. "Yeah, I'm sure. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that they are too loud and hyperactive. I just wanna take things easy on my journey."

"Oh, Okay. What time are you leaving?"

"Probably a little after sunrise so I can find some pokemon and hopfully make it to Viridian by nightfall. I also want to collect some berries and maybe do some fishing."

"That sounds pretty early to leave, but is also a good idea since you might be able to avoid whan most of the spearow and mankey are at their most active which can be troublesome to say the least."

"Yeah, dealing with a group of spearow trying to attack or mankey wanting a fight would be annoying and could force me to increase my pace, which wouldn't really help me much since Riolu or I could get injured. By the way, what pokemon did you pick out for those two?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you? I chose an eevee for Gary hoping that it will teach him to use some strategy and not just power through everythin since it has so many evolutions. As for Ash, I chose a temeramental pikachu hoping it could force him to be less impulsive."

After dinner Ichigo goes to his room and goes to bed. "Ah, I hope I can find Misty tomorrow."

The next morning Ichigo gets dresses, puts on a hat, grabs his stuff, and heads to the lab to pick up Riolu.

"Let's go buddy, it's time to start our jouney!"