First Day (2)

Around thirty minutes after Darkrai left my dreamscape I woke to the sound of the front door opening and felt Growlithe stirring. I looked over to see my dad, Green, standing in the living room entrance looking down at Growlithe and I snuggled up on the floor.

"Hi dad"

I said as I got up and ran over to give him a hug.

"Hey little man. How was your nap? Were you good for your mom today?"

"I'm always good for mommy."

He laughed at that as my mom came into the room. Giving him a peck on the cheek.

"Welcome home honey. How was work?"

"Good enough. We managed to find the hiker alive, he was lost and had a broken arm but he will live. The other guy, I think he was looking for bird type Pokemon, wasn't so lucky."

Shaking his head he added.

"We barely found enough of him to make a positive ID. The idiot walked right into a Fearow nesting ground."

Looking down at me he asked.

"How about you two? Did you have a good day?"

From what I could remember my dad as well as Ash's and Gary's dads worked as Pokemon Rangers. Basically a police force that specialized in wilderness search and rescue. They only had to work when people were reported missing so he could be away or at home for irregular lengths of time.

I nodded as mom told him about running into Delia and the tentative plans for the weekend. My dad seemed to think it was a great idea to get everyone together. Turns out the hiker his team saved came from a rather affluent family of Tauros ranchers and they gave him a lot of prime Tauros cuts on top of the search and rescue payment. My mom called Delia and Beth and invited them and their families over that weekend for a cookout.

The three of us went about the rest of the day just spending time together as a family. This was the first time in my memory that I had this, I grew up as an orphan in my previous life and never got married so this was my first time having a real family and I....I couldn't put into words just how right it felt.

We had a type of bird pokemon for dinner, probably a Pidgey, stuffed with sliced potatoes and berries that had a sweet and spicy flavor. It was really good. After that I was given a bath (I have to say, it was a bit embarrassing having a beautiful woman in her mid twenties giving me a bath. Hello I'm mentally in my thirties even if she doesn't know it.) and put to bed.

Laying in bed with Growlithe curled up at my side, I started petting and talking to him.

"It's funny. In all the stories I've read about reincarnation all the protagonists got some kind of System or golden finger to help them out."

As I said all this out loud to Growlithe I heard two voices. One with my ears and one in my head, one that made me happy and one that worried me.

"What do you mean by reincarnation and system?"

[Ding.....Keywords: Reincarnation, Protagonist, System, recognized. System activating. Requirements not met advanced features locked. Item Box and basic features loading this may take a while thank you for your patience.]

Oh Sh*t. There was my dad standing in the doorway, giving me a funny look.

"What do you mean dad?"

"I will only repeat myself once, what do you mean by reincarnation and system? And don't lie to me."

Looking into his eyes I could tell that he would somehow know if I lied, so instead I asked him a question.

"Are you sure you want to know? You will see me differently."

"I need to know. As soon as I got home I felt something was off. You seemed to be thinking through every action as if you didn't know how to act."

Continuing to look him right in the eye I knew I was exposed.

"Is mom asleep?"

"No, she's reading in the living room."

Getting up, I closed my bedroom door, sat back down on my bed, and told my dad everything. Everything. My thirty years of memories, my previous world, the Pokemon games, all of it. At first he looked confused but as my tale continued all kinds of emotions passed across his face. Confusion, horror, disgust, and it settled on sadness.

I finished talking and he just stared at me in silence for a minute. Finally he spoke.

"Are you really still my son?"

I figured that honesty was best.

"I really do not know for sure, that has always been a heavily debated topic, I was not sick or hurt when I recovered my memories. So this is more likely I remembered something that was lost than I took over this body."

"So my three year old son remembered his past life and now has the mentality of a thirty year old adult? How am I supposed to react to this?"

With a heavy sigh he added.

"This is not going to be easy to tell your mom."

"Do we have to tell her?"

"She would figure something out sooner or later. I won't hide this from her. Why don't you want to tell her?"

"Isn't it obvious? I don't want to hurt her or have her stop loving me. I never had a family and now that I have one I do not want to lose it."

We went back and forth about telling my mom and finally my dad said enough was enough. I was his son, lived in his house, and would do what he said. At first I was taken aback, then I realized, he still recognized me as his son. Would my mom do any less? We decided to tell her in the morning. He gave me a hug and told me to get some sleep.

** Green's POV **

Listening to the words coming out of my son's mouth confused and disturbed me. He had memories of a past life? He was thirty years old? A game was based off of this world in his previous life? It didn't make any sense and yet I could see it in his eyes. Every word that came out of his mouth was true or at least he believed them to be true. And then there was his eyes, looking into them I could see a depth of wisdom beyond his years. Was this person sitting in front of me really still my son?

He finished talking and I just stared at him, thinking. That's when I noticed. He was shaking and clenching his fists I could see it in his eyes and body language, he was terrified, resigned, and scared. Whatever memories he'd had of his past, right here and right now he was scared of losing everything he had ever wanted. It was going to take me some time to wrap my head around this but I wouldn't reject him. He IS my son.

We talked for a bit longer. I basically had to order him that we were going to tell Emily and finally I put him back to bed. No matter how many years worth of memories he had I would do my best to not treat him any differently than I did before. As I walked out of his room I looked back for a second and then continued down the hall. One thing was for sure, right now...I needed a drink. I reached into my Item Box and pulled out a flask.

"He also mentioned something about a system. I'll have to talk to him privately about that later. Looks like we have another System user in the family."

** Jake's POV **

I woke up early the next morning to a sound in my mind.

[Ding.....System fully loaded basic features ready.]

I opened my eyes to see a holographic screen floating in front of me. At first I tried to touch it but when my hand passed right through it I realized it was either voice or thought controlled. Deciding to go with my preferred option I thought.

'Open System'

Apparently that worked because the screen changed to show a game-like interface. Nine tabs across the top, six of them grayed out with one word on each 'locked'. The first tab was what looked like a common pokedex from the game with a screen and scan button. The second tab appeared to be an inventory screen full of empty square boxes laid out in a ten by ten grid. The third and final tab I could access was a Daily Missions section.

It looked kind of basic but I guess that goes with the name of basic features. The missions section had a timer counting down to zero so I guessed they were refreshed daily. There were currently only three missions available.

[Mission 1: Add one Pokemon to the Pokedex.

Mission 2: Explore a 1/4 mile radius circle around your home.

Mission 3: Find and eat one berry in the wild.]

Honestly the second two missions sounded a little risky. We lived on the outskirts of Pallet Town so wild Pokemon were more likely to appear and eating a random berry was just a bad idea. The first mission looked easy enough. I moved to the Pokedex tab, turned to face Growlithe and initiated the scan, a green light came out and passed over Growlithe.

[Ding....Growlithe: A Pokemon with a friendly and loyal nature, but is also jealously protective of it's territory. It will bark at and potentially bite anything invading it's territory.

Current loyalty: 100%]

I moved back to the Missions tab and saw the first mission now had a claim button after it. I selected it.

[Ding....Daily Mission completed awarded one regular pokeball, stored in Item Box.]

[Ding....First Daily Mission completed rewards doubled.]

I moved to the Item Box and sure enough there was a box with the image of a pokeball and a x2 in the corner of the square. I thought about the pokeball and a item description came up.

[Pokeball: A common, low grade item for catching pokemon with 10% success rate if target is at full health. System Item bonus of +50% initially loyalty of captured Pokemon.]

There wasn't much to look at with my current System. I wondered what requirements I needed to meet to unlock the other six tabs but I was content for now. I had a System.

I was excited but also anxious because I knew that soon I would be telling my mom everything. Would she accept me? Would we be able to continue living as a happy family? I hoped we could, my dad had already said he would help talk to mom but it didn't really help my anxiety.

After laying on the bed staring at the ceiling until I heard movement down the hall, I got up got dressed and made my way to the dining room.

"Yawn...morning mom."

"Good morning sweetie, your up early."

"Yeah. Growlithe needed to go out earlier."

I sat at the table and pretended to doze in the chair while taking quick glances at my mom. Everything could change soon and I just wanted to sit here for a bit before it happened. Dad came out a bit later, as mom was just about done cooking he started moving plates to the table.

"Good morning Jake."

"Good morning dad."

As he smiled at me I knew I had at least one parent on my side. We ate breakfast and as mom was getting up to clear the table dad stopped her.

"Let me do that Emily. There's something we need to talk about as a family."

Mom was slightly taken aback at that but seeing dad smile at her she stayed seated, while he quickly cleared the table. When he finished he sat down next to mom and took her hand. Giving me a look I knew that was my que. I told mom everything, the same way I told dad. She kept turning to my dad, and seeing him nod would turn back to me.

When I finished talking she had tears in her eyes, at first I thought she was upset that I wasn't the son she remembered. She took my dad and I by suprise by standing up circling the table and wrapping me up in a hug. Even though I was mentally thirty she did the exact thing I had always wanted someone to do. Simply love me. I started bawling like the three year old I appeared to be. My dad came over and wrapped his arms around both of us and I knew, I had a family.

We talked the entire day. I answered any question they asked and they did the same. My dad was a little surprised when I mentioned that he wasn't every really mentioned in the game but Red and Blue were. So he started telling me about his and my mom's travels through out their Pokemon journey.

Turns out just like Ash and Gary and myself he was a few years older than Red and Blue. Red and Blue competed in everything while my dad would follow behind cleaning up the aftermath of the two rivals antics. In fact when Red beat Blue for the Pokemon Champion spot my dad came and with a single Pokemon wiped out all but one of Reds Pokemon and could have taken the Champion spot for himself. Instead he forfeited the match and told Red to remember that there is always someone better out there, basically just giving Red an ego check.

I was amazed, my dad was more awesome than I could ever have guessed. My mom was no less awesome, I mean she had a Darkrai as her shadow for Arceus's sake. As dad was about to start another story he got a work call and had to step out.

When I was sure he wasn't within earshot I looked at my mom and said.

"Darkrai can you come out?"

My mom was stunned and then started laughing quietly.

"I'm here. Did you need something?"

"No, I just wanted mom to know that I knew about you."

"Hmph. Calling me out for such a dumb reason. I'm going back to lurking."

"Sure thing buddy."

"So you got Darkrai to lie to me?"

"Well not exactly. You could even say that everything he said is entirely true."

"Ugh. You sound like a lawyer."

We made eye contact any both burst out laughing. All in all I got really lucky being reincarnated into this family.