Akito Ketchum the older brother

[azukugames]

The afternoon sun settled warm across the road as Ash adjusted the brim of his hat — older now, the fabric worn soft at the edges, the red faded just slightly from too many seasons of sun and rain. Pikachu rode his shoulder with the easy comfort of long habit.
"The Hoenn region, huh?" Ash said, more to himself than anyone. "Pretty great, isn't it, Pikachu?"
"Pika," Pikachu agreed, ears perking.
Ash's fingers lingered at his collar for just a moment on the necklace that sat beneath his shirt, the small golden locket warm against his chest. He didn't pull it out.

"Thinking about your brother again?" Brock said, falling into step beside him with the practised ease of someone who had learned to read Ash's silences.
Ash laughed quietly. "That obvious?"
"It's the locket." Brock smiled. "You touch it the same way every time."
May drifted up on Ash's other side, tilting her head with open curiosity. "You have a brother? You've never mentioned him."
"I mention him all the time," Ash said, a little defensively.
"You really don't," Max said from behind them, adjusting his glasses. "I've been travelling with you for three weeks and this is the first I'm hearing of a brother."
"He's five years older than me," Ash said. "His name's Akito. He started his journey when I was five." He reached up and touched the locket again
.
He gave me this before he left. Said we'd have a proper battle when I caught up to him."
"And have you?" May asked. "Caught up to him?"
Ash was quiet for a moment. "Getting there."
"That's being generous," Brock said, with the Given that the last time you two crossed paths, the battle lasted approximately eleven minutes."
"I got better," Ash said firmly. Then, after a beat: "…a little."
Max made a sound that could have been a cough.
"He's extraordinary, genuinely," Brock continued, more kindly. "Misty and I met him when Ash and I were passing through Johto. We found Akito on Mt. Silver, of all places he'd set up camp there to train. Misty was convinced for about thirty seconds that it was Ash, except taller." He paused. "And, in her words, somehow more insufferable."
Ash grinned. "People say we've got the same look."
"Same face, same energy, completely different bearing," Brock said. "Ash runs at things.
Akito) will sometimes think before he acts

"Where is he now?" May asked.
"Sinnoh," Ash said. solid. "Last I heard, anyway. He doesn't sit still for long." He tilted his head toward the horizon. "He beat the Kanto League when he was eleven. Beat Lance, too proper Champion match, everything. Professor Oak actually raised his carry limit to nine Pokémon after that." A grin spread across his face. "And then he just… didn't take the title."
Max blinked. "He didn't take the Champion title?"
"Technically he holds it. He just lets Lance keep the seat warm." Ash's grin widened. "He said he couldn't stand the idea of being stuck in an office. Said the world was too big and he hadn't seen enough of it yet. So Lance runs the administrative side, and Akito just travels."
"That is," Max said slowly, "either the most irresponsible or the most efficient thing I've ever heard."
"Sounds like someone who wanted all the achievement with none of the paperwork," May said.
"Yup." Ash. "That's my brother."


But to understand Akito Ketchum to really understand him you have to go back.
Back to Pallet Town. Back to the morning he left.
Back to the beginning.



The morning Akito left, Ash was five years old and doing a very poor job of pretending he wasn't upset about it.
He stood in the doorway of their shared bedroom, watching his brother check his bag for the fourth time with the solemn, careful attention of someone who had been planning this moment for as long as he could remember. Akito was ten tall for his age, dark-haired, with cerulean-blue eyes that their mother always said came from somewhere she couldn't quite account for. He moved with a quiet deliberateness that had always made him seem older than he was.
Ash held his chin at a carefully elevated angle. His eyes were suspiciously bright.
"Akito" he said, with the formal gravity only a five year. old attempting not to cry can produce, "good luck on your journey."
Akito stopped checking his bag.
He crossed the room and crouched down in front of his brother unhurried, easy and from inside his jacket he drew out something small and golden. A locket, heart-shaped, the metal warm in his palm. On its face, engraved with clean, careful lines, was a symbol Ash didn't have a name for yet: a heart divided by wings, the Delta Rune, etched with the quiet precision of something meaningful.
He turned it over. On the back, in small letters: Brothers Forever.
He placed it carefully around Ash's neck.
"Don't lose this," he said quietly. "And if you ever want to hear something good " he pressed his thumb to the clasp and eased the locket open, just slightly, and a soft melody drifted out,
open it."
Ash's hands came up immediately to cup the locket. He looked very small and very serious.
"I made that up," Akito said, with a small, private smile. "So you'd have something of mine while I'm gone."

He stood, shouldered his bag, and looked at his brother for a long moment.
"Grow as strong as you can when you start your journey," he said. "I'll come back when I can. And when you're ready we'll battle properly."
He didn't look back more than once.



Professor Oak's Laboratory — That Same Morning
The lab smelled the way it always did: chalk dust, Pokémon feed, old books, and the faint electric tinge that seemed to follow Oak everywhere he went. Akito stood in the middle of it with his bag over one shoulder and the particular composure of a ten-year-old who had been rehearsing this moment in his head for five years.
Professor Oak came through the side door with his hands already extended in welcome, white coat pristine, reading glasses pushed up into his hair.
"Ah, Akito." His voice was warm, carrying the easy affection of someone who had watched this boy grow from a toddler with too many questions into a young man with even more of them. "Today's the big day, isn't it? My boy." He chuckled, shaking his head slowly. "I still remember when you used to sit on that stool over there and interrogate me about type matchups. You were six. You were relentless."
Akito smiled.What can I say I wanna be as strong as I can be."
Oak's eyes swept over him — dark blue fingerless gloves, a fitted black top, baggy training pants in lighter grey, and draped over all of it, a dark travelling cloak that had been mended in three places and still managed to look exactly right on him.
"You kept the cloak." Oak's expression shifted into something fond and a little amused. "How many of those has your mother sewn for you over the years?"
Akito felt warmth rise to his cheeks "It adds dramatic flair."
"It absolutely does," Oak agreed cheerfully. He turned toward the table behind him, and his tone settled into something more considered. "Now. Before we come to the matter of your starter, there's something I want to explain, because your situation is a little unusual."
He clasped his hands.
"You'll know that I typically offer three starters to trainers from Pallet: Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. However, I recently came to an arrangement with Professor Birch in the Hoenn region." He reached for a folder on the table organised, tabbed, with notes in both handwriting styles. "Birch said this Treeko was Far to rowdy for other trainers for his own starter pool, and I found agreed on an exchange: I sent Birch one of my Bulbasaur, and in return, he sent me this Treecko. The Bulbasaur will be available to a Hoenn trainer who needs a grass-type option, and the Treecko comes here to Pallet for a trainer suited to it."
He looked at Akito steadily over his glasses.
"I believe that trainer is you."
He lifted three Pokéballs from the table and, with a practised flick, released all three in a cascade of light. Charmander materialised in a curl of orange; Squirtle blinked into being with an expression of mild suspicion; and the Treecko landed in a low, assured crouch on the lab table, green and quiet, its red eyes moving around the room with calm assessment.
The Charmander took one look at Akito's expression and very slowly stepped behind Oak's leg.
Squirtle followed.
The Treecko did not move.
"My plan," Akito said "is to be the very best trainer there is. Not just a good one. The best." He met the Treecko's red eyes. "That means hard work. Long road. High standards, for me and for whoever comes with me." A pause. "But I'll never ask more from a partner than I give myself."
Treecko studied him for three full seconds.
Then it stood up straight, lifted its chin, and said, with the absolute composure of a Pokémon that had already made its decision: "Treecko."
Akito smiled slow and genuine.
"Alright," he said. "Kirito. Let's go be the very best."
He hugged Oak , the kind of hug that says thank you for everything without requiring the words and turned toward the door.

"Akito," Oak called after him.
He looked back.
"Come home when you can."
"I will," he said. And then, because he was ten and the world was enormous and he had a Treecko on his shoulder and a plan that stretched all the way to the horizon: "Eventually."


Pewter City Gym — Several Weeks Later
"Onix is unable to battle."
Brock stood at the far end of the arena with the particular expression of a Gym Leader who has just lost to someone he was not expecting to lose to. He was 11, serious-faced, the kind of young boy who had taken on his siblings' upbringing and the Gym's management without complaint and without drama and he knew a good trainer when he saw one.
Across the field, Akito recalled Kirito

breathing hard, but upright, still holding that same careful composure he'd carried through the entire match. The Treecko had not been the fastest Pokémon on the field. It had simply been the smartest.

Brock crossed to him and extended the Boulder Badge.
"Well done," he said, and meant it. "You read Onix's movement patterns after the first exchange and adjusted completely.

Akito accepted the badge and turned it over once in his palm. "Kirito worked for it. So did Ace." He glanced up, where his Pidgey was circling slow and easy near the rafters, clearly pleased with himself. "We all did."
Brock looked at him for a moment at the calm in the face, the deliberateness of the hands, the cloak that probably had no business being as aesthetically coherent as it was and said, with a gym leader's directness: "Where are you headed next?"

"Cerulean," Akito said. " Then the whole of Kanto

"Then good luck," Brock said simply.
It was, he would think later, the beginning of a habit.


Mt. Moon Shortly After



The scene that followed was not something Akito planned. He had come through Mt. Moon because it was the route, because Cerulean was on the other side, because he had a schedule and a Gym badge and a Pidgey who wanted to stretch properly before the next match.
He did not plan to dismantle a Team Rocket operation in a cave by torchlight.
He did it anyway.
"Ace — Quick Attack, finish it."
The Rocket grunt's Pokémon hit the cave wall and didn't get up. Akito moved through the chamber quickly, his eyes cataloguing: threats, exits, the row of cages along the far wall.
"Ace." His voice dropped, quiet and precise. "Destroy those cages. All of them. Get those Pokémon out."
The Pidgey moved like a dart. The cages came apart. Pokémon spilled out — shaken, some injured — and among them, stumbling on unsteady legs, a small creature with blue fur and a rounded black head, dark eyes blinking at him with the particular alertness of something that has been frightened for a long time and is deciding very carefully whether to be frightened now.
A Riolu.
Akito stepped toward it — and the crack of an electric whip split the air inches from his face.
He stopped.
"Not so fast."
She stepped from the shadows at the far end of the chamber: tall, composed, blond curls framed by a Rocket uniform that marked her above any grunt or standard field agent. An Elite Officer. Young, but not green — there was nothing uncertain in how she moved, nothing unpolished in the way she held the electric tulip, its pale charge crackling at the end with patient menace.
Domino.
"So you're the one who dismantled my operation." Her voice was conversational, almost pleasant — the specific pleasantness that lives directly on top of cold calculation. Her eyes moved to the Riolu behind him. "Impressive for a child." A slight tilt of the head. "Step aside."
"No."
The word came out flat and without theatre. He held her gaze and didn't move.
Something shifted in her expression — reassessment, and it happened very quickly.
Then she moved.
She was fast — faster than a trainer her age had any right to be. The electric tulip came around in a sweeping arc aimed low, designed to force him off balance rather than make direct contact. Akito dropped under it, felt the charge graze the air above his head close enough to raise the hair on his neck, and came up already moving.
His shoulder caught the cave wall. He pushed off it.
She's not playing, he noted, with the particular calm of someone whose adrenaline presents as clarity rather than panic.
She was already circling, cutting the angle between him and the Riolu. The tulip cracked again — this time it connected, catching him across the upper arm. The shock ran through his shoulder like a white-hot wire.
He bit down on the sound that tried to come out.
Kirito. He didn't say it loudly. Kirito was already moving.
"Razor Leaf then bullet seed Move her."
The leaves came in fast and low. Domino raised her arm to block — felt the cuts open across her forearm — and in the same moment the vines caught her ankle and yanked. She left the ground. The cave wall was closer than she'd accounted for. The impact was solid, and her neck caught the edge of an outcropping with enough force to snap her head sideways

For three seconds, Domino did not move.
Then, she pressed two fingers to the inside of her wrist. Her Abra materialised in a shimmer of light beside her and they were gone.
The teleport left silence behind it.
Akito stood in the middle of the chamber, breathing through his nose, and looked at his arm. The tulip's charge had done something to his shoulder a deep, grinding ache already spreading outward and when he pressed his fingers to it, his hand came away wet.
That's worse than it felt.
He turned. The Riolu was watching him from a crouch, ears flat, eyes cautious but it hadn't run.
"Hey." He kept his voice easy, the way he'd learned to do around nervous Pokémon. He lowered himself slowly, bringing his eyes level with the Riolu's. "You're a long way from Sinnoh."
The Riolu regarded him with dark, careful eyes.
"There's a Pokémon Centre in Cerulean. Not that far." He kept talking steadily, unhurriedly as the shoulder continued to make its case. "You're banged up. So am I, a little. We can both get sorted." He extended his hand, palm up. "My name's Akito. I want to be the strongest Pokémon trainer there is." A brief pause. "You look like someone who could use a team. But only if you want to."
The Riolu studied his hand for a long moment.
Then, very deliberately, it placed its paw on his palm.


The Road to Cerulean City Shortly After
He kept talking because it seemed to help.
He narrated the route where the path curved, how far the lights of Cerulean would be visible once they cleared the ridge, what the Pokémon Centre would look like when they got there. He kept his voice level and his pace steady. Kirito walked at his heel, quiet and attentive. Ace had settled on his uninjured shoulder, which was the only one available.
The Riolu kept pace beside him, one ear turned toward the sound of his voice.
You're fine, he told himself, The centre is close. Keep going.

The lights of Cerulean came into view just as the edges of his vision began to soften.
He made it through the doors. He made it to the counter.
"The Riolu needs treatment first," he said to the nurse.

Then the floor came up to meet him, and everything went quiet.

He woke up later to a ceiling he didn't recognise and the faint, rhythmic sound of a Riolu sitting beside his bed, watching him with an expression that seemed to communicate, without ambiguity, that it had decided.
He smiled at it.
"Alright, Kiba," he said, because the name had come to him somewhere between the floor and the ceiling, and it felt right. "We've got a long road ahead."
The Riolu's ears lifted.
Outside, the sun was still up. Cerulean Gym was waiting.
And Akito Ketchum had only just begun.

A/N this was sorta something ive came up with on the fly and. I am shattered

For Clarification yes Akito is somone reborn in this world Hes jsut sorta Scatter brained

And forgots stuff here than thier

As u can see I came up with many ways

Orginly it was gonna be an actual baubasaur
but I treeko came to me last second and a figured an exchange would have been a good excuse to use as for why a Rilou would be out and about I am pretty sure the kingdom of rota

Is semi close a Rilou may have wandered or it's a realased Pokemon as for the other Pokemon that gonna be well up to me but I will take Suggestions cause why not

 

[Despacitoleo]

For Clarification yes Akito is somone reborn in this world Hes jsut sorta Scatter brained

Click to shrink...

pretty good but theres some misspellings at the end and in the story, I would suggest a beta reader or Google docs to find the misspellings and fix them

and might wanna cut up some of the text other than that this is pretty good my guy.

 

[azukugames]

In Cerluen)



Akito) Pokemon Treeko =kirito. Pidgey=Ace riolu vegeta


Word seemed to spread about one boy

"Did you see him? The one with the white hair?"

"The one who demolished every trainer on Nugget Bridge? That one?"
"All six of them. Back to back. Didn't even look winded."
"And he's the one who stopped that Rocket grunt At the end of the bridge.
"White hair, yeah. Cerulean blue eyes. Had a cloak on."
"What kind of ten-year-old wears a cloak
"

The Pokémon Centre's video phone alcove was quiet in the mid-morning lull, and Akito had chosen it specifically for that reason. He sat on the small bench with Kirito on his knee, Ace perched on the back of the seat, and Vegeta. the Riolu sitting on the floor beside him with his arms folded and his expression communicating, as it reliably did, that he was tolerating the proceedings.
The screen connected. His mother appeared.

For approximately one and a half seconds, Delia Ketchum looked at her eldest son with the warm, relieved expression of a woman whose child had been travelling alone for several weeks and had, evidently, arrived in Cerulean City in one piece.
Then she saw his hair.
"Akito Ketchum."
He blinked. "Hi, Mum
"Have you dyed your hair?"



He reached up and touched it the layered, spiky, silver-white mess of it, medium-length on top and shorter at the sides,






"White," he said, "Is it not a good colour choice?"
"It has been less than two weeks."
"That's plenty of time to
"You had beautiful dark hair. Your father's hair."
"Mum
"I'm going to need a moment."
Ash's face appeared in the corner of the screen, pushing in from the side with the delighted expression of a five-year-old who has correctly identified that his brother is in

trouble and wishes to observe this at close range.
"Oh, oh let me see
"Hi, little bro." Akito's voice shifted immediately warmer, easier, the particular register he kept only for Ash. "Reporting in. Made it to Cerulean

in one piece. Second badge incoming. This guy." He pointed at himself.
Ash beamed. "You're already going for your

second badge? The League barely started!"
"I know." Akito leaned back slightly. "That's why I've been taking it easy. I spent a few days training before I even touched Nugget Bridge. Slow and steady."

On screen, Delia had recovered sufficiently to look at him with the expression she reserved for things she disapproved of but had
accepted she could not change. "And you're eating properly? Sleeping?"

"Yes and yes."
"The cloak isn't keeping you warm enough at night. I told you, you need a proper
"Mum. I'm fine."
Ash had by now climbed halfway onto the chair to get closer to the camera. "Akito, what Pokémon have you caught? Professor Oak said me and Gary could help look after your Pokémon on the ranch — as long as we're with a research" he paused, trying to find the right word. "research…"
"Research aid," Akito supplied.

"Yeah! As long as we're with a research aid." He said it with the satisfaction of someone who had successfully retrieved the right word

. "So what've you got? Are they strong? Are they really cool? Have you

"Kirito." Akito lifted the Treecko from his knee and turned him to face the camera. Kirito regarded the screen with his usual composed attention, chest slightly out. "Treecko. My starter. Fast, smart, works harder than any Pokémon I've met."

He glanced at Ace, who was already leaning into frame, feathers ruffled with enthusiasm. "And Ace Pidgey, before you ask don't let the size fool you."

Ash was practically vibrating. "And the other one? I can see another one — on the floor—"
Akito tilted the phone down.
Vegeta looked at the screen. His expression did not change. He was sitting with his arms crossed and his chin raised, the posture of a Pokémon who considered being looked at a matter of mild indignity.
"That's Vegeta," Akito said. "Riolu. We met in Mt. Moon."
Ash stared. "…He looks like he's judging me."
"It's not personal."
Vegeta's ear twitched. He looked away.
They talked for a while longer his mother asking about meals and sleep and whether

Nurse Joy had looked at his arm properly

; Ash asking about battle strategies with the rapid fire enthusiasm of someone who had

approximately forty follow-up questions ready. By the time Akito signed off, the sun had shifted a full hour across the sky.
He sat for a moment in the quiet of the alcove.
Then he stood, straightened his cloak, and looked at his team.
"Right," he said. "We've got three days before the Gym. Let's use them."


The field on the outskirts of Cerulean was open and green, caught in the particular early-morning light that makes everything look like it's been recently washed. Akito stood in the middle of it with his cloak set aside — rolled neatly at the edge of the field — and his team arrayed in front of him, three very different expressions pointed in his direction.
Kirito sat upright and attentive, tail curled, red eyes sharp.
Ace bounced on one foot, wings half-spread, already eyeing the open sky above the field with profound personal interest.
Vegeta stood with his arms crossed and his chin elevated, which was a remarkable posture for a Pokémon who had been rescued from a cage less than a week ago and was still technically learning to trust people. He had, however, decided to trust Akito — and having made that decision, he appeared to have committed to it with the same totality he applied to everything else.
"Here's the schedule," Akito said. He didn't pace. He stood still, which somehow made everything he said feel more considered. "Kirito — we're starting on Leaf Blade today. You've got the capability for it. We're also going to work on speed: short sprints, change-of-direction drills, quick response on command." He paused. "You're already fast. We're going to make you faster."
Kirito's eyes lit up. He straightened even further, which had not seemed physically possible.
"Vegeta — Rock Smash and Counter. And non-stop dodging." He turned toward Ace. "That's where Ace comes in. Quick Attack, targeted, variable direction. Vegeta, your job is to read it and move. Every time you get hit because you didn't move fast enough, we go again."
Vegeta's chin came up another half-degree. The expression on his face communicated, with perfect clarity, that he would not be getting hit.
Ace made a sound that was approximately a laugh.
Vegeta's eyes cut sideways.
"Then we swap," Akito continued, before the situation could develop. "Kirito gets the dodging session Ace, same drill, Quick

Attack, keep varying the angle. Kirito, stay light

on your feet. Then Ace gets his own speed and agility work." He looked at the Pidgey, who was

already vibrating slightly with enthusiasm. "Controlled speed, Ace. I need precision, not just fast."
Ace made a face.
"Precision," Akito repeated, firmly and without inflection. "Three hour break at midday food, rest, no exceptions. Then in the evening, all three of you. Free-for-all. Full effort." He held each of their gazes in turn. "We do this for three days. On day seven, we walk into Cerulean Gym."
A brief silence.


Then Kirito let out a short, sharp sound of pure enthusiasm and dropped into a ready stance.
Ace took off vertically without any further encouragement, already circling at speed, clearly planning to bring his full interpretation of controlled precision to the exercise.

Vegeta remained precisely where he was for one measured moment long enough to establish that he was choosing to begin, not being instructed to and then settled into a

combat stance with the focused, burning composure of someone who had decided, quietly and completely, that second place was not a category he intended to occupy.
Akito watched them for a moment.

Then he bent down, picked up a stopwatch, and got to work.


The dynamic that existed between the three of them had been apparent within the first hour and required no particular narration to understand. Ace was quick and clever and enjoyed the whole enterprise enormously, which Vegeta found mildly irritating in the way that unearned cheerfulness always irritates people who take things seriously. Kirito, for his part, treated both of them as his best friends and collaborators, which was a position Vegeta tolerated with more grace than he would have extended to most.
Their rivalry — such as it was — was the productive kind. The kind that makes everyone in it better.
By the end of day one, Vegeta had dodged Ace's Quick Attack eleven consecutive times without contact. He sat down at the break with the expression of someone who had expected no less from himself, ate steadily, and did not look at Ace.
Ace landed beside him, ruffled his feathers once, and nudged the Riolu's shoulder with his wing.

Vegeta looked at him sideways.
Ace nudged him again, this time with what appeared to be genuine camaraderie.
After a very long moment, Vegeta made a sound that was not quite a sigh and turned back to his food.

Kirito, watching from three feet away, made a very small, very satisfied noise.
Akito, reviewing his notes on the opposite side of the field, did not look up. He was smiling, though.


Three days of training. Three days of early mornings, steady drills, long breaks and longer evenings.
On the morning of the seventh day, Akito folded his cloak over his shoulders, checked his team's Pokéballs, and walked toward Cerulean Gym.
It
Behind him, Vegeta walked with his chin up.
Ace circled overhead.

Kirito was at his shoulder, tail flicking once sharp and ready.

The board outside the Gym read: CERULEAN CITY GYM LEADER: DAISY WATERFLOWER. SPECIALTY: WATER-TYPE POKÉMON.

Akito had read the site three times. He knew the roster. He knew the strategy.
He pushed open the door.


A/N I was gonna have thier be Two msity where the game version was the mother

And the anime version was misty JR

But since I use Claude to help the stuff I write come out cleaner the ai got confused about when I explained as best I could

So ive to re do this a couple times

And jsut went screw it daisy the oldest so she gets to be gym leader

Also I made quite a few stories on Wattpad and WebNovel so at some point depending il bring them to here but heavily Ediet them or just make brand new stuff for them because genuinely those where fanfic I made when I was getting into doing fanfics

For example thier one where somone finds themselves reborn as the son of the Rocket trio I.e Jessie and James
Takes place where ash as been wolrd champion for a quite a bit


One whet the person was reborn as Harry Potter with a Naruto system

A spider man one where the si was Izuku Twin And got his spider powers 2 years before cannon (so he became a vigilante)

 

[azukugames]

Akito stood at the challenger's platform and took it in.
The pool dominated the space. Deep, clear, lit from beneath in pale blue. The battlefield platforms floated on its surface, connected by narrow walkways, designed to give Water-types every possible advantage — mobility, pressure, the implicit threat of the water itself.
Daisy Waterflower stood at the Gym Leader's platform on the opposite side, and she was not what he'd expected. She was older than her sisters Akito had done his reading with the kind of easy confidence that comes not from arrogance but from genuine competence. She looked at him across the pool with an expression that was already somewhere between assessment and amusement.
"So," she said. "You're the one all of Cerulean's been talking about."

"I don't know what Cerulean's been saying," Akito said.
"That nobody's beaten you yet." She smiled warm, but with a quality underneath it that was entirely serious. "According to your trainer stats, your record is clean. No losses." She tilted her head. "Allow me to be your first."
Akito held her gaze. "I appreciate the ambition."
Daisy laughed . "I like you already." She reached for her first Pokéball. "Three on three. Standard rules. No substitutions once a Pokémon is recalled." She paused. "Ready?"
"Ace," Akito said, and the Pidgey was already airborne before the name was fully out, launching from his shoulder in a single clean beat of wings and taking position in the centre of the field with the particular swagger of a small bird entirely certain of its own capabilities.
Daisy's smile shifted. "Bold opening." She raised her Pokéball. "Let's see how bold." She released it in a single fluid arc.
Starmie.
It materialised in a cascade of light above the pool hovering, its gem pulsing with a deep, rhythmic violet, its ten arms spread wide in the calm, alien composure of a Pokémon that had done this many times before. It rotated slowly, regarding Ace with the serene indifference of something that had very little to be worried about.
Ace looked back at it.
His feathers ruffled once — not fear, Akito knew. Anticipation.
"Starmie," Daisy said, "Rapid Spin."


It moved like water became water almost, collapsing into a tight, spinning horizontal disc that crossed the field faster than most challengers were prepared for. The sound it made was a high, cutting whistle as it closed the distance in under a second.
"Up," Akito said.
Ace went straight vertical a single explosive beat of wings that pulled him ten feet above the field in less time than the Rapid Spin took to pass beneath him. The displaced air from Starmie's rotation ruffled his feathers as it went under.
Starmie curved. Reversed. Came back.
"Gust — down and forward."
Ace folded his wings and dropped, building velocity, and released the Gust at point-blank range — not as a ranged attack but as a concussive push, aimed directly at the surface of Starmie's rotation. The impact hit like a wall. Starmie was knocked sideways, skimming the surface of the pool before correcting.
Daisy's eyes sharpened. "Bubblebeam."
The stream of pressurised bubbles came fast and wide, covering too much horizontal space to dodge laterally. Akito had half a second.
"Arc — go above it, Quick Attack, come down from the top."
Ace climbed almost straight up, the Bubblebeam catching the air beneath him as he cleared it by inches — he felt the spray from the burst bubbles across his underside, and then he was above Starmie, already angling down.
Quick Attack: a Pidgey-shaped dart dropping from height, wingtips pulled back, beak forward.
It hit.
The impact drove Starmie down toward the pool surface, its gem flickering. It arrested its own fall two feet from the water, stabilised, and came back up — but Ace was already repositioning, climbing again, burning altitude into speed.
"Starmie — Swift, full spread!"
The star-shaped projectiles came from everywhere — a radial burst, no angles ignored. Ace took three of them, and Akito heard the sharp sound of impact even from across the field.
"Ace." His voice stayed even. "Counter attack on the next approach. Wait for it."
Ace held position, absorbing the positioning, watching Starmie's rotation pattern. He'd been hit. He didn't look thrilled about it. But his eyes were still bright and sharp and entirely in the game.
Starmie surged forward another Rapid Spin,
"
Now. Gust full power, at the gem."
The timing was razor-thin. Ace released the Gust not as a push but as a concentrated column of force aimed at the dead centre of Starmie's rotating form. The gem, struck at the precise point of its rotation, caught the impact wrong. Starmie's spin destabilised — it broke apart from the disc form, sprawling sideways, momentum cancelled.
"Quick Attack. Finish it."
Ace hit it clean.
Starmie hit the floating platform.
The gem went dark.
Silence.
"Starmie is unable to battle," the referee said. "Challenger wins round one."
Daisy recalled her Pokémon with an expression that had moved from assessment into something that looked more like genuine interest. "You had him read her spin pattern from the first pass," she said.

"He's good at patterns," Akito said simply.
Ace spiralled back to him and landed on his shoulder with a triumphant chirp, tucking himself immediately into the folds of Akito's cloak with the self-satisfied air of someone who had made his point and was prepared to be comfortable now.
"You did well," Akito told him quietly. "Rest."



Round Two
"Staryu," Daisy said.
It materialised with a flash smaller than Starmie, faster in its movements, its core gem a steady red pulse. It didn't hover. It dropped into a combat stance at the pool's surface and moved in short, sharp patterns testing angles, reading the field.
Akito looked at Vegeta.

The Riolu stood at the edge of the platform, arms uncrossed, weight forward. He'd watched round one with the focused attention of someone memorising information they intended to use. His eyes were on the Staryu, and the expression on his face communicated, without ambiguity, that he had already done the relevant calculations.
"Vegeta," Akito said. "Your round."
The Riolu stepped onto the field.
"Staryu," Daisy said, "Water Gun rapid fire."
The shots came in bursts, three in quick succession, angled to cut off lateral movement. Vegeta read the first shot's trajectory and moved before it arrived not back, sideways, clean and decisive. The

second shot he ducked under, coming out of the crouch already moving forward. The third caught the air where he'd been a half-second ago.
Daisy's brow rose slightly.
"Vegeta Rock Smash."

He closed the distance at speed not recklessly, but with the controlled urgency of someone who had timed their window and drove the Rock Smash into Staryu's core with the full rotation of his body behind it. The impact rang out across the pool.
Staryu skidded backward. Its gem flickered once.

"Rapid Spin use the pool!"
Staryu dropped into the water, and the pool became its weapon moving beneath the surface, invisible, before erupting upward in a spiralling column of water and motion aimed directly at Vegeta from below.
Vegeta was already moving. He'd read the moment it submerged
tracked the angle of entry, extrapolated the exit point. and when Staryu came up, he wasn't where it expected.
"Counter," Akito said.


Vegeta caught Staryu's momentum on the way up, turned with it, and redirected. The Staryu completed a full arc and hit the platform beside the pool with a crack that echoed up into the rafters.
The gem went out.
"Staryu is unable to battle," the referee said. "Challenger wins round two."
Vegeta stood at the platform's edge, breathing evenly, and looked back at Akito.
Akito met his eyes and nodded — once, clean.
Vegeta's chin went up fractionally. He walked back with the specific dignity of a Pokémon who had never entertained the possibility of a different outcome.



Akito recalled Vegeta and pressed his thumb to the ball. He could feel the ache in his own shoulders from the previous days of training — residual, familiar by now — and he pulled his sleeve across his forehead.
Daisy was quiet for a moment.
"I'll admit," she said at last, "this has been more fun than I expected." She looked at the two empty slots on her belt with something that might have been rueful. "Most challengers fall to Starmie or Staryu. They never see my third Pokémon." She picked up the final ball. "You've earned a look at her."
She released it.
Gyarados.
The serpentine form uncoiled into the space above the pool like something being unwound from a great depth — enormous, scaled in deep blue, its mane white as sea-foam, its eyes burning with a cold, patient intelligence. It turned its head slowly and regarded the opposite platform.
The air in the Gym felt different with a Gyarados in it. Heavier.
Akito looked at it.
"Kirito," he said. "You're up."
Kirito dropped from his shoulder to the platform in a single clean movement, landing in a low crouch, tail flat, red eyes fixed on the Gyarados with an expression of complete focus. Around them, the light off the pool shifted as the Gyarados moved.
Treeko tree, Kirito said, quietly. Not a boast. A statement.
Daisy tilted her head. "Aw, look at that." Her voice was warm, even fond — but her eyes were calculating. "Is your little Treecko frightened?"
"No," Akito said. He felt it, too — the absence of fear. He should have been anxious. The type disadvantage was significant; the size difference was not a small thing. But what he felt, standing across from a Gyarados, was the slow, building heat of someone who has been waiting for a real test.
He looked at Kirito.
Kirito looked back at him.
Treeko, the Pokémon said again — and this time it sounded like agreement.
"Then let's go," Daisy said. "Gyarados — Ice Fang."
"Kirito — Afterimage. Now."
Kirito moved — and then he moved again, the Double Team clones splitting from his form in a burst, filling the platform with identical Treecko shapes in the half-second before the Gyarados arrived. The great jaws closed on empty air as Kirito was already elsewhere, low and fast.
"Bullet Seed — open up!"
The seeds came rapid-fire, small and green and precisely aimed, striking the Gyarados across the jaw and neck where the Ice Fang had committed it. Each one hit clean. The Gyarados recoiled with a sound like distant thunder.
The clones dissipated.
Daisy's expression had sharpened considerably. "Hydro Pump."
The column of water hit like a wall. Kirito took it in the chest — he'd moved, he'd angled, but there was only so much space on a floating platform — and the impact sent him sliding back to the edge, claws scraping for purchase on the wet surface.
He caught himself at the last moment.
"Bullet Seed — keep pressure on."
Again. Kirito was moving even as he fired, refusing to give the Gyarados a stationary target, keeping himself unpredictable, planting shots across the serpent's face and neck wherever the angle opened. The Gyarados thrashed its head, trying to reacquire him.
"Ice Fang — cut him off."
The Gyarados moved faster than something that size had any right to — dropping its head in a wide arc, jaws aglow with cold, trying to pin Kirito's movement against the platform edge.
"Afterimage — three o'clock, go."
Kirito split again. The Ice Fang closed on a clone. He came in from the side — "Bullet Seed, close range" — and the impact snapped the Gyarados's head sideways.
But a Gyarados with a Cascade Badge leader behind it doesn't go down from Bullet Seeds alone.
Back and forth — Daisy patient, methodical, rotating through Hydro Pump and Ice Fang and Bite, each one landing heavier as Kirito's evasions grew fractionally slower, the accumulated damage beginning to tell. The platform was wet. The air tasted like ozone.
Akito watched every exchange. He tracked the Gyarados's patterns the slight hitch in the right turn before Ice Fang, the wind-up before Hydro Pump that gave a quarter-second of warning. He called it as fast as he saw it, and Kirito responded as fast as he called it.

But they were running out of room.
"That Treecko," Daisy said, and she sounded genuinely impressed, "doesn't know when to give up."
"He's not giving up," Akito said. "He's reading you."
"Then let me give him something harder to read." Her voice went quiet. "End it, Gyarados. Ice Beam."
The Gyarados drew itself up the full terrifying height of it, mane spreading, eyes cold and the Ice Beam came down like a sentence.

"Leaf Blade," Akito said. "Cut through it. Go."
Kirito ran at it.
The Ice Beam hit him and he was still running. The ice crept up his arm, across his shoulder, and he was still running, claws glowing green, teeth set, one leg and then the other, closing the distance through something that should

have stopped him outright. Ice fractured under the Leaf Blade's edge, chips of it falling away as he carved his path forward, his arm encased to the elbow, the rest of him burning with effort.
Akito stood very still.
He didn't breathe.
Come on.
Kirito's eyes went somewhere deep Akito felt it before he saw it: the shimmer, the sudden overwhelming brightness,
The light from evolution lit up the entire Gym.


When it cleared, a Grovyle stood where the Treecko had been.
The ice on the arm fell away in pieces.
The Gyarados lay behind it, knocked out cleanly, the platform cracked beneath the point of impact.

"Gyarados is unable to battle," the referee said, into the complete silence of the Gym. "Challenger Akito Ketchum wins."
"GROOVYLE!"
It was the loudest sound Kirito had ever made.

wrists caught the pool-light and flashed green.
Akito crossed the field at something close to a jog not quite running, but close and caught his newly evolved Pokémon in a hug that neither of them were embarrassed about.
"You were incredible," he said. His voice was quieter than he intended, pressed into Kirito's shoulder. "You absolute idiot. You ran into an Ice Beam."

Grovyle, said Kirito, smugly.
Akito laughed despite himself
Behind him, he heard the sound of someone trying and failing to hide their own laughter.
Daisy Waterflower walked across the bridge, shaking her head slowly, her expression somewhere between disbelief and pure delight. Ace emerged from the cloak to land on Akito's free shoulder. Vegeta's ball clicked open and the Riolu stepped out, took one look at Kirito, and went still for a moment then made a sound that, coming from Vegeta, was functionally equivalent to a standing ovation.

Kirito straightened. He looked, if possible, even more pleased with himself.


"You are," Daisy said, stopping in front of Akito and extending her hand with the Cascade Badge resting in her palm, "without question the most interesting challenger I've had in this Gym in a very long time." She pressed the badge into his hand. "Well earned."
Akito took it. "Thank you. Your Gyarados is remarkable. The Ice Beam timing was almost perfect."
"Almost," she repeated, amused. She reached into her jacket and drew out a small folded note, which she held out alongside the badge. "Here. Take this too."
He accepted it, puzzled.

She was already walking back toward the pool, waving a hand over her shoulder. "Good luck out there, white-hair. Don't be a stranger."




The room was small and warm and quiet.
Akito lay on his back on the narrow bed, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling. The Cascade Badge sat on the bedside table, catching the low light at an angle that made it gleam faintly blue.
Around him, his team slept.
Kirito — Grovyle now, longer and leaner, occupying significantly more of the bed than he had as a Treecko — was curled against Akito's left side with the complete relaxation of something that had evolved today and intended to take a thorough rest about it. Ace had claimed the pillow. Vegeta sat propped against the wall with his arms folded, asleep in the way of someone who had decided sitting up was the dignified way to do it.
Akito looked at the badge for a while.
Two down.
Then, with a faint sense of puzzlement he couldn't quite shake, he remembered the note. He reached into his pocket and unfolded it on his chest.
A phone number. Neat handwriting, a small doodle of a wave beside it.
He stared at it.
He stared at it for a little longer.
Please, he thought, with the fervently specific hope of someone who has survived Rocket operatives and Ice Beams and would prefer not to navigate anything else complicated today, tell me I wasn't just handed a phone number.
He turned the note over. Nothing else.
He put it back on his chest and looked at the ceiling again.
It wouldn't hurt, he reasoned after a moment, to make friends with Gym Leaders. Networking. Professional connections. That's a perfectly normal thing for a trainer to do. He paused, internally. Or friends in general, for that matter. Friends are —friends are good to have.
He chuckled to himself, very quietly, in the dark.
Kirito stirred, made a low sleepy sound, and settled again.
"Yeah," Akito said "I know."
He folded the note, put it back in his pocket, and closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, there was a road north.


Tonight, there was this his team around him, a badge on the table, and the particular quiet satisfaction of someone who had pointed at something difficult and walked toward it anyway.

Good start, he thought.
And slept.


This sort Spiralled out of control

And I need to get better at making Pokemon fight scenes in general

(If you'd like to see a Pokemon on Akito team let me know if need to il edit more in the morning it 12.19 am rn