FR Nuzlocke Chapter 1: There once was a Prince

"Jirachi Christ it's just an Eevee" Zanas groaned, sitting under a tree as a circle of girls fawned over the new Pokémon recently given to them. Their screams of delight stung Zanas's ears even from such a distance, as they held their "super cuties" in pride.

Some of the Pokémon being held seemed just as joyful as their owners while others looked confused and just as irritated as the young boy under the tree.

Zanas yawned as he reached one arm over his head to the other and stretched out every muscle from his shoulders and back, down to his stomach. A loose green denim jacket stretched down from his shoulders, down his back and reached just above his waist line, while his black lightning T-shirt was pulled up by his stretching revealing a thin but soft exposed belly. That shirt never once fit long enough for the boy's height,but he never threw it away simply out of nostalgia and picky taste in clothing. At least his Jeans were a fine fit, loosely hugging his hips and stretching downward toward his ankles, stopping over the tongue of his white and black tennis shoes.

As he continued to stretch, Zanas held his black colored and white striped fedora onto his head, not wanting the wind to blow it away for the umpteenth time this week. He moaned in relief as he pulled comfortably on every limb, feeling rejuvenated by his nap. Just as he released himself, the boy heard a similar sound of exhaustion just over him.

"Arceus, how much longer till we can go?"

"As soon as Gary and I get back from Viridian," Zanas said, mocking Professor Oak's voice. "It'll be just a hop and skip to the next town over. I'm certain it won't take more than." Zanas grew silent as he checked his watch. His eyes almost erupting from their sockets as he saw the four hour time lapse since he fell asleep.

"Dammit  Oak's!" Zanas cried out so loudly that the girls cooing over their pets turned to him. They eyed him for a brief moment only to huddle around and whisper to one another. Zanas' blush came into sight as he quickly turned away from them and sat down cross legged, pushing his Fedora over his eyes as if to say. "If I can't see them they can't see me."

Another yawn came from the tree as Prince stretched and jumped down onto his human friends lap. The young Rattata smiled teasingly, its buck teeth hiding a portion of the purple furred rodent's lips. "Awww is the wittle boy shy of the opposite sex?"

Zanas grabbed his big toothed friend by his tail, dangling him about as he continued to pout. "Says the rat who hangs out with a male of a different species on a daily basis."

Prince held his paws over his mouth as Zanas continued to shake him, finally yelling in submission, "Ok. OK! You made your point. Animal Abuse!"

"Who do you think would even come to your rescue, PETA?"

"Arceus, I hope not! Have you heard  what they do to house pets and strays?!"

Zanas let go of Prince's tail, dropping the Pokémon on his feet. "Hey it's only done to the ones they don't adopt."

Prince groaned and jabbed one of his claws into the boy's chest. "That's supposed to make it better? You humans have a twisted morality system."

Zanas chuckled. "You're just now figuring this out?"

"Oh no, I've known that for quite some time," Prince corrected as he crawled up to Zanas's shoulder. "I'm just not used to it."

Zanas jumped to his feet as Prince dug his claws into the boy's jacket to so he wouldn;t fall off and continued his lecture. "Your court system is a sham, you try to justify your actions with backward logic, and you, individually speaking, are too afraid to talk to the opposite gender."

Zanas groaned as he forced back his blush, noticing the girls walking away in a pack.

"Well…it's no confidence booster when they consider you a freak," Zanas sighed.

Let alone being the bastard child among all bastards.

A silence fell between the two, an awkward wind howling silence. Zanas began marching toward the lab, letting the gap of sound take over. Prince, however would not stand for this. "Entertainment."

"What?" Zanas laughed, halting his march toward the lab next door to his house.

"I demand entertainment. I cannot just sit here at this high altitude and just have silence. This is exciting being so tall, so…much higher."

Zanas couldn't control himself, as he bellowed out laughter, holding his stomach. "And what, your highness, do you want me to do about it?"

"Do a little dance!" Prince erupted into dance, mimicking every show tune and jazz hands he had seen while watching TV with the boy over the years.

"Haha…and what if I refuse?" Zanas teased.

The Rattata leapt from his perch and proudly pounded his paw into his chest exclaiming, "Then you must deal with the purest of heart, strongest of willed, and fastest of speed within my own race." Prince launched his paw into the air, making a fist as he continued to triumphantly cry out. "By the power of Rattata's everywhere, I HAVE...umf."

Zanas pressed the soul of his shoe into the rodents face, putting slight pressure down as to bring down the Rattata's pride. "An inferiority complex."



Zanas pressed his hand against the glass door, opening the frame and laid eyes on a scene which was all too familiar: beakers and test tubes placed meticulously on cabinets and edges of tables and Pokemon who either slept or waited patiently to be fed treats whilst being examined, sitting maybe too close to the test-tubes.

In the mean time men and women, old and young, dawning lab coats and, for some, glasses, ran around each other from table to table thinking out loud as they waited for someone to comment or correct them on their findings. They all worked together as one glorified, if not confusing unit.

Prince nervously changed focus from one scientist to the next, trying his best to keep up with each person who ran past as Zanas continued to walk forward, waving and verbally greeting all of Oak's assistants as they walked around him.

Each only paid the boy enough mind to return the verbal "Hello" or give him a pat on the back or high five him before returning to their own little confusing web within a bubble within another web thinking method. Zanas walked passed the two bookshelves that worked as gates into Oak's private study and Prince slumped on the boy's shoulder looking nauseated. "I hate when they do that."

"Then why do you try so hard to follow where they're going?" Zanas chuckled, petting his friends head, just behind his ears. "You look like you have worse ADHD then they do."

Prince lovingly pressed his head into the hand as it stretched and stroked gingerly, still managing to speak as if nothing was going on. "I'm a Rattata; fidgeting, scurrying, and anything dealing with staying low to the ground is what I do best. I'm a victim of ultimate design."

Zanas lightly tapped Prince between the eyes with his knuckle before turning his attention toward the large desk placed in the upper right edge of Oak's study. He'd been anticipating this day for so long. On the table was not one, not two, but three PokeBalls holding three of the rarest creatures of all Pokemon kind.

One creature of nature, one of fire and one of water, originally gathered for study, but now their fates were entrusted to Gary, the Grandson of the world's greatest Pokémon Scientist, Professor Oak, and his quest to become a pro Pokemon Trainer. Best of all, Zanas would get to pick one just after Gary, as he was promised by both his childhood friend and Oak himself.  

Prince leapt down from the fedora wearer, sniffing each PokeBall and poking the ones to the right and left with his claw, half expecting something to pop out. When nothing did he jumped down from the table.

"What was that about?" Zanas asked. Prince looked up to his friend, a confused expression painted on his face.

"Zanas…only the middle one has a Pokémon in it."

"What?!" Zanas exclaimed, but kept his voice to a minimum so as not to disturb the assistants. "Are you sure?"

Prince nodded. "The one on the right hasn't had anything living inside it for some time, and the left one seems to have been opened just recently."

"How can you tell? And don't say it's because of your great design."

Prince sarcastically rolled his eyes over Zanas's remark. "Any Pokémon can tell the difference between a Trainers Pokémon, especially one born in captivity, and a wild one by its smell. When you're wild, you have a sort of…freshness to you…or sometimes a not so freshness." Prince cringed as memories of horrible smells crawled back from days past. The Rattata shook his head, trying to stay on topic. "A Pokémon born in captivity has a more plastic or manufactured smell to it, like a new action figure or something."

"And Pokémon caught in the wild?" Zanas questioned.

"Same thing only it's less potent. My point is that two of them are empty and this third one here is still holding a baby in there…the smell is nothing I've ever encountered before but I cant still tell it's an infant, only a few months old at most."

"Looks like no one else knows about this," just as Zanas finished speaking, both the boy and rodent heard a loud crash from the room just behind them, jumping and jerking their heads towards the source of the noise. The door was slightly ajar, leaving enough of an opening for the two closest to the room to hear the crash, but not enough for the rushing mob at the entrance of the lab to notice anything. Zanas and Prince both nodded to one another and leapt into action. Zanas rolled and hugged the wall connected to the door's hinges, while Prince did the same on the opposite end. Zanas reached out his arm and slowly inched the door open, both the boy and rodent peering into the room, leaning on the tops of their feet, or in Prince's case paws, and leaping once more, now into the ones causing such a racket.

A scream was heard from two people as the boy and his rat wrestled to pin their opponents down, Zanas easily over powering the frail human, while Prince was sent flying out of the room by what he could only understand to be a vine. Screaming and yelling could be heard for only the briefest second after Prince's exile, before it was replaced with silence and an awkward stare between Zanas, and a girl with bright green eyes. Zanas's blush returned with force as his eyes stayed locked to the girls, not daring to look downward to see the rest of her or how he was positioned.

The female groaned as her eyes looked over to the other being in the room, Zanas only having a moment to get a good look at the creature before a vine came and smacked him between his eyes. A green four legged plump looking reptile with a large plant bulb on its back, growled at Zanas as he fell back in pain, its vines coming from its sides where many little studs circled around the bulb. Zanas hopped to his feet, growling at both the girl and Bulbasaur. "What the hell are you doing?!"

The girl gave Zanas a similar glare, while the Bulbasaur continued to growl. "Me? What the hell were you doing jumping me!"

"Did you steel that Pokémon from one of those PokeBalls?" Zanas demanded an answer as he pointed to the three devices left on the table.

To this, the girl blushed slightly and coughed from nerves. "S-stolen isn't quite the word I would have used."

Zanas's eyes seemed to shift into a smaller and more menacing glare. Meanwhile Prince shifted his gaze between both humans and then to the Bulbasaur. "um…Zanas."

The girl shook her head, still blushing from the accusation. "Hey don't change the subject why did you jump me you pervert."

"No you don't change the subject! Do you know whose Pokémon you've just stolen."

"Zanas!" An elderly voice yelled.

"What?!" The boy yelled as he turned to Prince still glaring, and only just realizing the sudden difference in voices as he turned his gaze away from the girl. Prince coughed and inched his head toward the gathered crowd of assistants huddling toward the bookshelf entrance whispering behind where the voice had actually come from. Just ahead of the crowd was Gary, the brown spiky haired grandson of the esteemed Professor oak, with a brown shelled blue looking turtle Pokémon standing at his feet, and a rather angry grey-haired lab coat wearing Professor Oak in the center of the room.

Zanas's angered expression jumped into a cowering wide eyed stare Oak sighed and clenched his fingers between his eyes.

"Zanas…I'd like you to meet Melody, the girl…who will no doubt be assisting you in cleaning this mess up."

Gary shook his head, forcing back a smile as the blue turtle shifted on the ground laughing its ugly little head off. Zanss and Melody laughed and waved weakly, knowing they were going be properly introduced to one another, though not willingly