Chapter 20 : Summer Camp!

A/N: Aht here. Here is the next chapter!

Summer Camp has started. I'm planning it to be 1-2 chapters. Expect a large time skip after that. MC will travel to Alola but I will only show him returning once he's 10. Pokemon School will only cover 1-2 chapters then I will do another time skip after that to start his journey.

Also I know a lot of you want Gloria's accent to be different. She won't play a major role till MC goes to Galar, but until then, what accent do you want her to have? Let me know!

Don't forget to keep dropping those power stones. Aiming for 500!

*

Year 2000, January 2nd. Pallet Town.

Yesterday really was a blast. My group of four suddenly became a group of six. And despite that Ash was still the loser of the bunch. Vulpix accepted Goh and Chloe quite easily.

Though to be honest I don't think Vulpix hates all main characters. Perhaps it really is just Ash. It's like she's telling me to never partner up with him from what I could see from her behavior. Ash is a known trouble magnet after all.

Besides, I'm not planning to travel with Ash anyway.

Currently I could be seen sitting on my bed, just having woken up from another good night of rest.

Only a day had passed since Goh and Chloe arrived, but I'm getting the strangest feeling here. Why does it feel like a lot more happened yesterday than I could originally remember?

Perhaps this was related to that frantic call Professor Oak received when I was beside him, straight from Professor Kukui.

Turns out I'm on the Aether Foundation's radar. Maybe this body of mine had a more unique background than I thought...

As a result from the call, President Lusamine of the Aether Foundation is now currently on her way here to Kanto. Professor Kukui also mentioned that her daughter Lillie was one of the invitees, so guess that fills in the 7th spot on the roster for the upcoming Summer Camp.

I mean, isn't Lillie like a super-sheltered child? Would partaking in an outdoor activity like that even be fun for her? I couldn't answer that.

Either way, from the looks of these reactions, I can more or less deduce that my parents belonged to the Aether Foundation in one way or another. Professor Kukui's suspicions that my house was burned down by a natural cause was indeed suspicious.

Perhaps that incident was related to those Ultra Wormholes somehow, causing my house to become collateral damage and losing the lives of my parents at the same time? I mean, why else would the Aether Foundation try to conceal that incident otherwise?

Well, with the president herself coming to pay a visit, these concerns of mine can finally be answered.

I decided to end those thoughts for now. I'm not sure when they would arrive. There's a week or two till Summer Camp starts.

A big event was taking place before that, and in a couple days no less. The fist big 5 of our group, mine! Gary's would follow after that, then Ash then Green. Goh and Chloe are only staying here temporarily but I did hear that both of them have turned 5 already.

I'm not sure what all I exactly wanted for the celebration, so I decided to leave it up to mom to prepare, which she did happily accept. And like from my past couple of birthdays to where I requested a those four Pokeballs, I did tell mom that I was interested in obtaining both an Ice Stone and a Fire Stone.

The Ice Stone was self explanatory. It would let my Vulpix evolve into the Ice/Fairy type, Alolan Ninetales. But why would I be interested in obtaining a Fire Stone?

Well I've been slowly thinking about about who I should use for my Kanto team. I do think I should give my second slot to Kantonian Ninetales.

One reason for that is despite being the same Pokemon, because they are two different variants, just those two alone cover a lot of typings. The Alolan form can cover Fighting, Dark, Flying, Ground, Dragon, and Grass, while the Kantonian form can cover Bug, Ice, and Steel besides Grass that the Alolan form already covers. With these two alone, they cover half of the known typings!

With these two serving as a base, I can form the rest of my team from there.

Not to mention I have my starter Pokemon decided. Sorry Gary but I'll be following in Dad's footsteps. Turtle squad unite! That's right, the current plan is to go with Squirtle. If everything else falls into place, Green will choose Bulbasaur. That means Gary will get Charmander. Though the thought of Gary owning a Charizard sounds quite scary.

But that's the plan for now. And at the present moment, besides playing around with the others, studying with Professor Oak's personal library and taking care of the Trainer's Pokemon, life in Pallet Town has been rather peaceful.

And its this peace that makes time fly quite quickly. Jan 2nd passed by so fast too. The next couple days did so as well. That meant my first big 5 came and gone, and that officially marks me 5 years old.

The party we had was amazing. By the way, the Pokemon world does have its own booze, and I did enjoy a drink every so often in my past life. But the party lacked it. Mom didn't want any sort of alcohol present with several kids around. We kept the party to ourselves too.

After the 5th passed, I started going out to explore Pallet Town on my own to see if there was anything of interest. Besides farm fields and rolling hills, there was sadly not much to Pallet Town. If I wanted to experience city life, the closest city would be Viridian City. Playing at the ranch with the others was pretty much the best way to have fun here. Not that I didn't mind that, it allowed me to observe many different types of Kanto Pokemon and deepen my bond with Vulpix at the same time.

During these few days spent, the next participant finally showed up, and I stood there gobsmacked seeing their arrival at the front if the lab.

They were riding on the back of a freaking Salamance! And the moment I saw a long blond haired girl holding a Gible who was being accompanied by an older woman descend from its back, my brain kind of short circuited.

I was expecting a few no names to show up after Goh and Chloe. Can anyone explain why a young Cynthia is now standing right in front of me?

I mean sure, I knew Cynthia's grandmother was a Professor, but I didn't think Professor Oak would actually be acquainted with her. As I recall, the old woman standing next to Cynthia was Professor Carolina, a Mythology expert and archeologist.

As for Cynthia herself, for some reason she hadn't spoken a word and the one eye she had that wasn't covered by her hair showed she wasn't in the mood to care. But for some reason she was staring right at me with Vulpix in my arms. As for Vulpix, she stared back at Gible who also was looking at her. It was as though sparks were about to fly.

Thankfully Professor Oak broke the ice rather quickly, and spoke out, welcoming the two.

"Ohhh!! So you could make it after all, Professor Carolina. I'm glad you could take some time out of your busy schedule to make it."

"Hoho, I've had some free time so of course I would attend your latest seminar. It's been a while since we last chatted directly like this."

After that Professor Oak shook Carolina's hand. As for Cynthia and I, we just kept looking at each other without saying anything. Professor Carolina laughed seeing this.

"So this is the rumored kid you've been talking about. Itsuki, right? Boy, why are you so dazed like that? It looks like you've just seen a ghost, haha!"

Hearing that, I finally snapped out of it.

"I'm sorry about that. You're Professor Carolina right? It's nice to meet you. I'm indeed Itsuki. I work on the side here at the lab with Grandpa."

"Grandpa, eh? So you really see this boy as your grandkid, Professor Oak?"

"The situation is a bit complicated but yes, I do. And this ought to be the granddaughter you mentioned?", Professor Oak said. We then looked back at Cynthia who nodded her head.

"Hello. I'm Cynthia, and this is Gible.", Cynthia introduced herself without speaking much.

"Gible!", Gible replied.

"Vulpix!", Vulpix also spoke out, not wanting to be left out. Seeing this, I too let out a chuckle, which caused Cynthia to tilt her head.

So Cynthia knew how to speak, huh? Perhaps she was just a quiet girl early on? Maybe she became that strong character full of confidence through her journey. It looks like she hadn't started hers yet. It'd be great if we could become friends before she did.

We got our introductions out of the way and the rest of the day went by quick. Cynthia would mostly just observe us as Vulpix started to play with her Gible. It was also surprising to find out her Gible was shiny.

Besides Cynthia, the other participants started to show up too during this next week. Characters I knew well from the series. Ethan, May, and Dawn. Ethan came along with his mother, while May and Dawn came along with the Professors. Professor Elm did show up as well, and he was just as clumsy as he was original. Heck even Tracey showed up here, and he belonged to the Orange Islands. I for one enjoyed his character.

Besides them, Gloria came over with Professor Magnolia from Galar. Despite being a little girl, Gloria's accent was already starting to kick in. May also had a bit of a southern accent too from what I could hear.

As for the next one after that, it was Serena, the main girl I was looking to forming a bond with. However, I had zero interest in acting like a fangirl over her. We didn't know each other, we were complete strangers. As such, the starting point was to get acquainted with her. She was rather accepting and enjoyed playing in our group during the week before Summer Camp. It didn't take long for us to become friends.

And it wasn't just her, I acted as if I didn't know anyone here, despite know their characters. That would make me appear crazy, right? Yeah, I didn't want that, so I just stayed in my own character and remained calm, and enjoyed our play time as fellow kids.

Serena also came along with Professor Sycamore, who I was very excited to meet. He was the leading Professor regarding Mega Evolution and after hearing that topic come from his mouth, I can safely confirm Mega Evolution exists in this world as well. That will be fun to explore in the future. It seems he was getting close to revealing the existence of Mega Evolution to the public as well. It was not very well known yet it seems.

After Serena arrived, a character I would least expect too made his appearance...The leading figure in the Gale of Darkness game, Michael. Just seeing his person alone, let alone Professor Krane who showed up beside him, confirms one thing.

The existence of Shadow Pokemon. Shadow Pokemon were Pokemon who would get genetically modified to have their hearts closed and unable to feel any sort of positive emotion, which would in turn, power up their strength several fold and completely change their moves. On top of that they wouldn't recognize whether they would be attacking humans or Pokemon if they entered a berserk state.

This will likely become an issue in the future, but I know it's one that can't not be solved. After getting acquainted with Michael and Professor Krane and the other Professors, Professor Kukui arrived, and the first thing he did was to check to see that I was alright.

This warmed my heart seeing his reaction like that and I thanked him. However that feeling was short lived as the last couple of people to arrive the day before Summer Camp started were Lusamine and Lillie.

By now all of the participants were here, but Lusamine already caused a scene when she arrived. She had quite an air of authority around her. It was like she was in a different world compared to us. As for Lillie, she was actually a really sweet child. She was almost the opposite of Lusamine.

As for Lusamine, despite causing a scene, she still knew how to act as a businesswoman, and requested that we speak privately after Summer Camp was over, which was a four day event. On top of that she personally requested that I was to keep Lillie safe from harm. Well, that was something I could agree to, I guess, since we became friends rather fast.

Vulpix really liked Lillie for some reason too, more so than the others. During these several days of playing around, I saw that Vulpix did not chase away any of the arrivals either, besides messing around with Ash.

Perhaps Vulpix just hated Ash. Poor guy.

I also saw Ethan and Michael were a bit aloof, but they played with us too. Gary was probably the one who caused the most annoyance, but he hadn't shown any arrogance yet. I've been keeping that in check myself, trust me. Gary was much more arrogant than dad was in the original, which was probably the main reason why a lot of people didn't like him.

Well since I'm in his life now, I can keep that in check.

And most importantly there were no Pauls in this group. Everyone was able to get along with each other as friends, with no fighting involved. Paul was just a rude character in general, so I'm glad no one here was like him.

The next day came and gone before we knew it and Professor Oak rounded up all of us to start our Summer Camp. Ash actually woke up on time, so he didn't miss our gathering.

The first couple of days would include lessons personally taught by Professor Oak and me at the side, detailing how different types of Pokemon can interact with each other and what to look out for. The third day would be field exploration, exploring the ranch and its surroundings, before finding a nice spot to camp outside. The last day would be a free day, letting us explore to our hearts content. This would be the day Oak would give his seminar too.

It would likely be this day where Goh would encounter Mew fighting a Nidoking, as well as Serena getting attacked by a Poliwag, tripping over herself in the process and injuring herself. For some reason I've been finding Ash playing a lot more with Goh, so perhaps he won't encounter Serena's situation this time around. That will make it easier if that is indeed the case.

Besides Gary, Ash and Green the rest of us were five and older so we did not have to be watched. Though those three would still need supervision.

Either way, Summer Camp had kicked off, letting us explore the ranch to its fullest!