>>23101786Personally I think Ash will have a 1v1 against Alain the first time they meet (Probably Pikachu vs Megazard) and Ash will get completely decimated. Probably have Ash lose once or twice more after that with him slowly getting better until he wins. I mean, when you lay out how rival arcs work in text it usually ends up looking that boring- "first the hero loses, then he wins"
Maybe you can insert Ash being an emofag somewhere in there.
Also Alain clearly knew how to catch Pokemon properly so I'm going to guess that maybe he has a couple of his own running around Sycamore's lab? Dunno.