Life's A Gift

Based on a Pokemon LeafGreen Gift Save

Crossposted from PF, which was an Ao3 reupload. My first Pokemon fic I published.
The gym badge divider was created by ViciousCherry which is in the DW upload, but I'm not sure where the pokeball divider came from...

Bulbasaur had a feeling that this journey wouldn’t last very long.

The merchant stared at her. She stared at the merchant.
The Magikarp flopped in its bucket, staring at nothing. Maybe the ceiling. Bulbasaur was outside it’s Poke Ball, wishing it was anywhere here but this transaction.

“It’s 500 Poke for this… and you say it’s good, right?”

“Yes, it’s a great investment! It’ll certainly brighten up your day, young lady!”

She pressed her finger to her lips as if to think.

“Hmmm… sure! I’ll buy him!”
“A deal’s a deal! No refunds!”

Bulbasaur had a feeling that this journey wouldn’t last very long.
The Magikarp flopped silently, as if in agreement.
This is going to be a disaster.

As Ivysaur sat in its Pokeball in bafflement when the party exited Mt. Moon, the girl released him and the newly evolved Gyarados, which came from the tactic of switching out from many Zubat and trainer battles until Magikarp was able to stand for itself. That tactic wasn’t the best, and it certainly wasn’t useful during trainer fights, but the strangest part was that it somehow worked. Gyarados happily swung it’s tail while fighting Pokemon in battle and got all the praise in the world, while trainers yelled out or cried “how’d she get that?!”.
Still, it definitely felt like something wasn’t right about this picture.

After helping the PC creator Bill unfuse from his Pokémon (long story), fighting team rocket again, considering gambling at the game corner (shorter story since no matter how much you beg you aren’t apparently allowed to gamble when people run out of coins after wasting them all on TMs the pokemon in the party can’t learn) .Then proceeding to get horrendously lost in the game corner’s basement while being chased for being annoying as vengeance and battling team rocket’s boss (not as long a story as the other three), Venusaur barely noticed the third (yes, third) Pokemon that was following his trainer around until she spoke up in the department store.

“Eevee, don’t you want to evolve into something?”
"Boi?"
“Don’t you want to be something like a Jolteon or Flareon or--- WAIT!”
She pulled the Eevee away from the water stone.

“I think two water types might be a bit much, don’t you think…?” She sighed as she held Eevee. Eevee kicked its legs in the air yipping happily.

Bump. “Ow.”
Bump. “Owwwww.”
Bump. “Stupid invisible walls…” Bump. “Should’ve done the safari zone first.”

Fuschia City gym was uneventful because turns out that having a poison grass type let’s a person stand around and wait while using leech seed and sleep powder to do all the heavy lifting while the other Pokemon gain experience. Koga looked incredibly disappointed when she had mentioned that was her tactic though, so she quickly walked through the gym. But not before bumping into more walls.

“Thanksf fer finding my teefth! Take this hidden machine to teach your Pokemon how to use a special move!”

“By the way, how are you enjoying catching Safari Poke-and she’s already gone.”

Lights flickered off and on again.
A pair of soft footsteps walked in.

“Excuse me, is this the Gym…?” A voice rang out.

Jumping upwards, the atmosphere entirely changed as fighting energy filled the Gym!

“Oh, I see… this is like a training gym?” She smiled.
“Go get them, Gyarados!”

After thoroughly trouncing the “gym”, she wondered if there was something she was forgetting to do that would lead to things being in such dire straits in Saffron City. Like, Team Rocket levels of danger?
Hey! It seems like handling the problem at Sliph Co is a lot more important than getting a gym badge at the moment.

“Sure, I guess I’ll go do that.”

The rival was defeated yet again. “Am I a genius or what?” He pointed to her and her Hitmonlee dramatically. “I’ve been filling out my Pokedex and checking what Pokemon are the strongest! Goood luck to you! Smell ya!” He snapped his fingers and teleported away on the lift pad.
The employee that watched this entire indoors battle gained the courage to speak up while handing her the Pokeball.

“I think you’ll be a good fit for Lapras. It’s a good swimmer! It’ll get you across water!”
She looked at her Gyarados, which already knew surf. Oops.

“Team Rocket, retreat! Our plans for the Master Ball have failed!” The leader yelled dramatically, then turned tail and… walked past the trainer, down the stairs, and exited the building. She looked at the Master Ball like she had no idea what to do with it, the Sliph Co. owner noted.
The trainer really was starting to hate any sort of pads that moved or teleported unprompted, because she was always taken off guard.

“I am a psychic…. My powers were used to bend spoons once and I…
I…”
“Did you seriously get here without fighting any trainers?!” Sabrina shouted.
“I don’t know!” The trainer was scrambling Pokeballs out of her bag, startled.
“I was trying to leave the building!”

Answering quizzes was a pretty nice change of pace compared to invisible walls and smelling perfumes and all of those teleportation devices. Even though Blaine looked super sad and drenched when she used Lapras and Gyarados to clean up everything, he was still super impressed by the Aerodactyl she got from the museum, it could fly and everything!

“Now then lass, I have one last question for you before you go. Don’t worry, this doesn’t count for anything!”

“Final Question: Can pokemon be caught in Poke Balls of any kind?”

The answer was instant. “Yeah, don’t see why not.”

“I see.” He was gritting his teeth at the answer.

“Bye, Mr. Blaine!” She waved while flying away. She gave a little holler. “Next time you see me, I’ll be at the big leagues!”

Two water types and a grass type. Giovanni was practically sulking as he handed over the currency and called to disband team rocket.
The big leagues had the same problem that Koga did because even if everyone was a bunch of big cheaters who used a bunch of full restores, well, jokes on them because she had the same set up and revives! Everyone had a comment to say on her choice of Pokemon, so she had to come back with a quick and witty comeback.

“Why did you teach your water type an electric move?”

“Well, it worked, right?!”

“Dear, that Eevee is unevolved.”

“It’s cuter this way! And it took you by surprise when it knew shadow ball!”

“How did you beat me, your team is so unbalanced!”

“Skill issue.”

And then came the finale. Her rival, champion of Kanto.
It was an epic battle of—Not really. She just did the same thing she did for everyone else and used a lot of sleep powder and leech seeds.
Professor Oak came to congratulate her, her rival stood in a corner kicking up the air, but then the professor asked to see her Pokedex one last time to see if she updated it. The aides were always in a panic whenever he wanted to know.

“Let’s see… your pokedex entries are….” Professor Oak frowned.

“Young lady, did you actually…. Catch any Pokemon?”

After a scoff and a “Wait, seriously?” from the former ten minute champion, there was a long pause.

“Huh.” She spoke after the pause.
“I can catch Pokemon….?”
They just stared at her.

FIN
Author note

Based on a Leaf Green challenge run I did where I was only allowed to use Pokémon that were handed to me as gifts. I can head canon it as the player (Lea) skipping the old man tutorial.
It was probably the most scuffed Pokémon run I’ve ever had the pleasure of beating by no lifing it in three days.
I consider the currency as Poke since that's used in mystery dungeon, but in universe it's the equivalent of Yen, so Magikarp costed around $3.32 in USD. That's like, the same amount as this green tea bread I bought once from a boba tea store.

Future Edit: Here's the clear team.

I don't know why I named them all after food.

I guess this can be considered the first part of my pokemon fic universe since I tend to reference some of my fics in other works.

This is the one who's gonna be the star of the sequelish story, Y2K girl.

Alt Links:

Next part TBP (to be posted)