Chapter Text
Clemont is seven years old when he graduates from the Kalos Electricity University, a place designed for geniuses and inventors to work alongside electric type pokemon. Having fostered an intelligent mind and a kind heart, as well as a love for electric pokemon, Clemont graduated at the top of his class a full decade ahead of the rest of his peers.
Clemont is eight years old when he takes that inspiration and love and begins his gym leader qualifications, alongside his team of well trained electric types. He is then nine years old when the certifications are completed and he becomes the youngest gym leader in Kalos’ history.
Clemont is ten years old when he is installed as Lumiose City’s gym leader, situated in the Prism Tower as his gym, and put in charge of maintaining and supplying power and light to the entire city.
He is also ten years old when his mother passes away.
He is ten years old when he has to step up for his father and take care of his sister. When he has to keep the gym running. When he has to keep working on machines for his sponsors. When he has to keep the entirety of Lumiose lit.
Clemont is eleven years old when he finally breaks.
And he is twelve years old before his father finally decides that enough is enough, hanging up his mask, taking in his sister, and pulling Clemont from the gym leader program entirely.
…
Or at least, that’s his father’s plan.
Unfortunately, Clemont doesn’t agree.
“I’m fine!”
Meyer sighs, rubbing his temples. This is his fault, he thinks, because he stepped away too long. Too hands off, too far. Wanting to give his genius of a son the freedom he wanted and needed to succeed, he had pulled away.
But pulled away too hard, and far too soon.
He hadn’t thought much of it, but…
Leaving Clemont alone, after the death of his mother, then leaving him with his sister…
Damn it all, Meyer had screwed up badly and now the consequences were coming home to roost.
“Clemont, come off of it. You’ve stopped cooking and eating proper meals for yourself - you’ve been guzzling supplements for months now. You’re skin and bones at this point!” Meyer begins.
Clemont narrows his eyes. “I don’t have time to cook and eat, dad. I can get good food for Bonnie, but anything more than that risks upsetting the schedule! I still need to get the core for the Rotom Dex working in time for the sponsors from Sylph to approve it -”
“In between your gym matches, too?” Meyer cuts him off. “Because you need time for those, too. And for so many other things. You’re twelve, Clemont.”
“And I’ve graduated from university! And I’m a gym leader!” Clemont says, face starting to turn red. “So I’m an adult already, so I can handle all of this just like an adult can!”
“Most adults cannot handle this much work! Most adults can’t raise a child and run a gym and maintain a city’s power supply!” And Meyer is only now realizing how far he’d dug Clemont’s grave for him, years too late.
“Well, I can!”
“Clearly you cannot!” Meyer snaps, before sighing. “...Clemont, I’m worried. I messed up, badly. I didn’t take care of you, or your sister, well enough before your mother passed. And I did even worse after. I’m going to do my best now, so please…just listen, for a moment.”
Clemont, thankfully, waits and listens.
“You’re going to hurt yourself like this. You have no friends, you have nobody to talk to but Bonnie and your pokemon, you don’t go outside, and you don’t eat, and - I am worried, as your father, that I’m going to lose you to that damn tower. So please. I already asked Professor Sycamore for a favor.”
…
Clemont is twelve years old when he is sent out of Lumiose City, and out of Kalos entirely. After Meyer’s talks with Professor Sycamore, the two decide that he needs even more distance from the situation. Before he knows it, Professor Sycamore gets a favor from Professor Oak, and Clemont is sent halfway across the world to the countryside of Kanto to relax, have time to himself, and be away from any responsibilities more extreme than having to work outside for a few hours.
But before he leaves, his father hands him a box.
“Don’t open it until you get to Kanto,” Meyer says. “But when you do, open it when you feel ready. One of those is for you, of course - but make sure you give the other one to somebody you know you can trust. Somebody who you know for certain is a friend for life.”
Which is decidedly unhelpful and vague.
Still, he touches down in Kanto, and arrives at the ranch in Pallet Town for what is going to be the next…year of his life.
That is to say, it’s something Clemont expects to be a nightmare.
He is, at his heart, an anxious, nervous person who craves to have his fingers doing something, his mind thinking about something, the urge to craft and think and consider and consume making simply living an exhausting prospect.
Professor Oak doesn’t even let him help with any of the machinery in the labs, or with the research on the pokemon. He simply has him do work on the ranch, feed the pokemon and groom them and run with them and lock the gates…
…
He’s surprised when he doesn’t hate it. When the silence and the clean country air and the breeze running through the grass as he sits on the fence feels relaxing.
There’s a nice diner in town, as well. The Pallet House, apparently, is world famous for its food - being somewhere along number forty in a list of ‘one hundred restaurants to visit around the world’. Which, considering the owner is a single mother with very little other staff…it’s impressive.
The food isn’t anything like Clemont is used to back home in Lumiose, either. Less focused on butter,heavy sides and high quality cuts of protein, more focused on harmonious mixes of flavors and light tasting food that leaves you feeling content rather than heavy.
It’s nice, especially considering he’s only just getting his appetite back, now.
Clemont still wishes he could have a baguette with butter and cheese, though. That would really hit the spot, after depriving himself of something like that for over a year.
It’s one of those days, where he’s taking his lunch in the Pallet House, that a boy a little younger than him comes running into the building.
“Mama, sorry I’m late!” He says, grabbing an apron off of the hook and throwing it on. He has burnished, tanned skin and dark hair - and strange marks on his face that Clemont almost mistakes for scars.
He’s very cute, in a wild, rat-from-the-cornfield kind of way. He doesn’t look much like Delia, though, so he’s a bit surprised to hear him refer to her as ‘Mama’.
“It’s alright, honey - I’ve had company this morning from Clemont. He’s new in town, you should say hi!” The redheaded woman calls back from behind the counter, her warm smile never leaving her face.
The boy, Ash, blinks and turns to see Clemont.
Clemont knows he looks incredibly unimpressive. Weedy and thin - with too long limbs, like lightning bolts trying to reach to the ground. His hair is a mess, and his glasses are too big to be fashionable. He’d tied his jumpsuit around his waist and had taken to wearing a loose, black jacket. Kanto was a lot warmer than Kalos most of the year, it seemed.
But he didn’t feel comfortable showing his stick-thin arms yet.
“Hey there!” Ash says, as he finally takes Clemont in. “Nice to meet you - and welcome to Pallet House. You’re Professor Oak’s new aide?”
“Oh, yeah. My dad sent me here to get me out of Kalos for a while…” Clemont says. There’s something to Ash’s voice…
“I’m jealous. I haven’t gotten to do anything with pokemon in a long while…” The boy says, as he starts to wash the tables around the diner. “Are you a trainer too? I know his other aides generally are!”
“Umm…something…something like that.” Clemont looks down at his food as he responds. “I had to leave my team back at home with my dad, though. So it’s…kind of lonely, to be honest. Just coming home to my place by myself.”
He was being boarded in one of the rooms at the Oak family’s ranch, and he effectively had his own loft space. It was nice, but…definitely quiet. No Heliolisk running around and squealing for attention, no Emolga swinging through the rafters, no Magneton buzzing about the house. No Bonnie bothering him and wanting to play or asking what he’s doing, or when are you going to get a girlfriend, Clem?
‘Ah geeze,’ he thinks, ‘don’t start crying now…’
“Well, how about you come over after work tonight, then?!” Ash says, cutting through Clemont’s reverie with a big smile. “Tell me all about where you come from, and I can show you around town!”
“...Okay!”
Of course, before he could do that, he had to go back to work.
Luckily, as an inventor, things went a bit smoother for him than it might have for others. His backpack was still outfitted with the Aipom arms to let him carry and pick up things far heavier than he could otherwise, and the electric shower helped to soothe the aches of a lot of electric pokemon as the dry weather left them bereft of natural storms to enjoy.
…Actually, there hadn’t been a rain storm in some time since Clemont’s arrival. From what he knew about Kanto this time of year, the lack of rain was incredibly unusual.
…Though, perhaps not unexpected.
The climate of the greater part of the region was dictated and dominated by the whims of legendary pokemon, after all. Clemont couldn’t imagine that sort of thing - the legendaries in Kalos were so hands off that he didn’t even know what they were even named.
It’s while he’s working in the fields that he’s approached by someone else.
Someone he’d be a fool not to recognize.
Shigeru “Gary” Oak is a famous name in both the competitive league circuits, and the pokemon research fields. A rising star in the former, until he quit and became the closest thing to a rising star in the latter.
He won the Indigo Plateau League Conference two years ago at the age of ten, a feat whilenot completely unheard of, is certainly rare. He then went on to challenge the Elite Four, only to be defeated…
By Lance.
That is to say, Gary Oak is a terrifying and powerful trainer, and he’s only the barest bit younger than Clemont. But while Clemont might have more raw intellect, the other boy had already applied it better than he had in such a short time.
In other words, he was terrifying.
But Gary Oak did not have the oppressive aura of power that high power trainers had in Clemont’s experience. And he’d met Siebold and the other Elite Four of Kalos when he underwent his qualifications testing. Instead, he had an almost melancholic set to himself as he approached - like he was going through memories.
Which is absurd, because he’s not even thirteen yet, how much nostalgia and melancholy could Gary possibly have…?
…Well, a lot, truthfully, just from his own experience.
“Hey, you. You’re the new guy my gramps has an aide, right?” He asks, not even bothering with pleasantries. “Clemont, Kalos’ electric gym leader.”
“U-ummm…yeah, yeah, that’s me!” Clemont answers, trying not to let his knees buckle and wobble. Anxiety, why do you exist!?
Gary nods. “Nice to meet you. I’m Gary Oak, and I heard you were hanging out with Ash Ketchum today.”
“Is…is that a problem?” “No,” Gary says, elaborating. “Ash doesn’t have a lot of friends. Not since he had to skip his journey two years ago…which is part of why I’m talking to you. You seem like you’re going a bit stir crazy around here, right?”
“...Maybe a little?” Clemont says, thinking about it for a moment. “It’s…the country air is nice, but just…doing nothing every day is a little weird. I went from doing too much all of the time to just…not doing much of anything. I…. There’s just not a lot to do.”
“Then this is perfect. I have a favor to ask of you - not as a researcher, or as the Indigo League’s current reigning champion.” Small ‘c’, because he wasn’t the Champion who beat Lance. “But as Ash Ketchum’s last remaining friend.”
What?
“Bring him to the lab tomorrow morning, and take him away from Pallet town.”
What?!
“W-why, what -?”
Gary sighs. “Look. I won’t go too far into the details, but…Ash gave up his dreams, two years ago. And even if we all told him to pack up and leave for good…he wouldn’t listen. He’d guilt himself into staying. That’s why I need you to drag him to Viridian by tomorrow night.”
“...And…you want me to…go with him? My dad told me -”
“It’s covered. Please, Clemont.” Gary then bows to him. “I am begging you to help my friend.”
Well, with an earnest plea like that, how could Clemont say no?