Meh. I'm not dead. Just camping, as my sig stated. Please note that this is a legit fanfic on other sites, so it breaks away seriously from the "acceptable" Nuzlocke flow, even including POV's from characters not based off of a Nuzlocke run. This would be one such chapter. The entire thing tells the run, just with unusual formatting in the meantime.
Oh yeah, some language. Only 2-3 characters in the story actually swear, and I will alert you whenever one of them is in the update.
Chapter Three: Greyscale Revolution
Oh yeah, some language. Only 2-3 characters in the story actually swear, and I will alert you whenever one of them is in the update.
Chapter Three: Greyscale Revolution
Gary.
Yeah, so I wasn’t off to a great start. I’d almost killed my first Pokémon on the first night of owning it because of rookie mistake. I was probably never going to hear the end of that one. Not to mention it was earlier than six o’clock and I had been awake for over an hour. I couldn’t remember the last time I could say that. On a more positive note, I’d gotten off to a great start with nutritious Combee Crunch, complete with all the needed vitamins and minerals to get you going in the day. As I lumbered out towards the agreed meeting place, my pack weighing down on my back. I generally wanted to just go back to sleep. I started to doubt the cereal’s effectiveness. Never trust high TV salesmen.
Then again, a lot of that was my fault anyways. However I justified it, that battle was a bad idea. There would’ve been plenty of time to do it in Viridian, but I had to rush into it with absolutely no training. And did I mention it was the night before I had to wake up at four-thirty in the morning. What could’ve possibly gone wrong with that idea? On a lighter note, Ivy wasn’t hurt too badly. He could use his vines again within a few days if everything went well. It was still almost a week without being able to do anything but Tackle, but that would be alright. I could catch another Pokémon pretty quickly, and there wasn’t really a rush to train up now. Honestly, I didn’t even have a reason to get stronger.
That bothered me a little. Gramps told me that some time ago, there used to be an open challenge across the nations. Trainers would challenge the leaders of the various cities in attempts to gain a symbol signifying their victory. If they could gain enough symbols, they could challenge the Pokémon League itself, and possibly become the next champion. And then came Ariel Day. About fifty years ago, a rogue trainer had captured the storm spirits of the land –a forbidden and illegal act. He proceeded to crush the local leaders. He made it all the way to the league before the champion defeated him in a battle, and forced him to release the storm gods. After that, the League had decided that rogue trainers wandering around and seeking to further their power was simply too much of a security risk. The Champion was still the strongest trainer in the region; but now that was determined by battles between the highest ranking generals in Kanto and Johto whenever the Champion decided to step down. The last time that happened was shortly before I was born. Champion Brendan stepped down and Lance had won the battle. He was still Champion when I left Pallet.
Tangent aside, there was no reason to train anymore. Strength was unneeded, advancement was nearly impossible, and training opportunities were scarce. It was actually kind of depressing, considering that Gramps had been one of the best trainers’ alive back in his day. It supposedly it ran in the blood. Yeah, so nice to know that even my blood is out to ruin my life.
Going back to the actual story, it was a pleasant morning. Provided you’re a ghost type, or course. It was still mostly dark outside, and the sun hadn’t warmed up the day yet. A light fog covered the ground, slightly obscuring vision and making it even drearier outside. All that was missing from the wonderful scene was rain. Thankfully, it was a rather short walk from my house to the lab. Eli could’ve probably run it –sorry, “walked” it- in under fifteen minutes. Still, I wasn’t exactly in a “walk quickly mood.” It wasn’t like I was very eager for the journey either. As far as I was concerned, it would just be baby-sitting Bianca and Eli as they ran around catching every useless Pokémon in sight like kids in a candy shop. I would probably just catch something to show to Gramps and then wait to fill in my team until I could get my hands on something decent.
About twenty-five minutes or so after I left my house, I got to the doors of the lab. Bianca and Eli were already waiting for me, as expected. Eli was wearing his typical grey jacket and white baseball cap, with a tan backpack carrying his supplies. I noticed it was larger than mine, which irritated me slightly. Being older and taller, I was always slightly annoyed when he showed off how much stronger he was. But I would always have him in the looks department, so I was never too annoyed. Miss Dreary was there as well, generally adding to the grey dreariness of the morning. Seriously, she has some sort of a refusal to wear anything involving bright colors. She probably even washed her jeans several times before she would wear them, just to prevent any sort of vibrant color from being on her person. Add in her grey tennis shoes, brown coat, and grey eyes and you get an outfit as dull as her personality.
The strange part was, it actually looked like Eli and Bianca had been talking about something before I walked up, and they weren’t angry at each other. I considered pointing it out, but decided against it. Nothing was worth arguing at this time in the morning with a long hike to go. I trudged up beside Eli, grunting out something that could be interpreted as everything from “Hey, how’s it going?” to “I like Pancakes,” and “The sky is falling.” Eli apparently understood it as “Let’s go!”
“Alright guys are you ready?” he asked eagerly. However he could be that awake before six was completely beyond me.
“Wait a minute,” I objected. “I have some extra weight I need to shove onto you guys.” I dropped my pack down with a “thud,” not really caring if I broke anything. I unzipped one of the pouches, and pulled out ten Pokéballs. I tossed five to each of them and explained, “A gift from Gramps.”
With that, they talked a little about something (How the heck would I remember what? It was six in the morning.) and put the Pokémon balls on their belt. After that, they set off towards the exit of town, not even asking if I was ready. They probably knew what the answer would be.
It didn’t take us long to get out of Pallet. Bianca quickly fell into silence after we departed, ending her brief period of social activity. At least some things were still working normally in the world. Eli was walking ahead of the group alone; probably bored with the pace we were going. That left me back with Bianca, who thankfully wasn’t interested in talking. I don’t mind teasing her, but if had to deal with her for the next few days I did not want to start with a knife in my chest. That could’ve make things a bit more difficult.
When we got close to the Pallet Town limits, Eli was waiting for us at the sign. Thankfully, by this point the sun had decided to wake up and do some work for the day. Eli also slowed down to match the pace at the back of the group for once. Apparently he’d finally realized that I had the form we needed to pick up the package, so it was kind of useless to run ahead. It’s so nice to have control over the situation.
As we walked, a debate of sorts arose between Bianca and Eli. I chose not to get involved for reasons stated earlier. That and I didn’t really care. They were talking about how much time it would take them to get to Viridian, how much time they could spare to look for Pokémon , whether they should try to catch the Rattata that ran by or focus more on the Pidgey in the air, et cetera. Well, mostly Eli was talking. Bianca just listened, and gave periodic input. The strange thing was, it was almost friendly. Almost. It wasn’t entirely unstrained, but Bianca actually seemed to be contributing information without being forced. With me nearby. I made a mental note to take her to a psychiatrist when we got back.
Ironically, the discussion in front of me was loud enough to scare away most of the Pokémon in the surrounding area, so we made pretty good time to Viridian, and would probably arrive the next afternoon. I never did get an explanation as to why Gramps couldn’t get someone with a car to take us, but the walk wasn’t really that bad. They hadn’t even made an attempt to catch anything by the time we got to lunch.
Speaking of which, “lunch,” when traveling is normally closer to a quick break where one takes their pack off and eats a granola bar or two while drinking a bottle of water than anything you’re thinking of. It takes all of ten minutes if you do it right.
By the time lunch rolled around, I finally got into the conversation. I was the only one in the group who had ever actually been to Viridian City seriously, the job “lab aide” pretty much means “doesn’t get out much”. Well, Bianca doesn’t count. Even if she had lived there, it had been about seven years. And the first thing I’d learned about dealing with her: never bring up Viridian City. Most people ask her about it when they first learn she was born there. Most back off after they realize she doesn’t want to talk about it. I had persisted. She hates me. Anyways, Eli asked me what the city was like.
“Well,” I started, “It’s about twice as big as Pallet Town, and much more official looking. There are government buildings everywhere and quite a few military areas in the city. Really, only the East side of the city has many people living there at all. The only major things in the city would be the Gym, Diglett’s Cave, and the Spatial Monastery. I’m sure you know about at least those three.” I stopped explaining and ripped open another granola bar. Seriously, how much did they want me to say about the place?”
“What’s the Gym?” Eli asked.
I sighed, forgetting that not many people actually cared very much about the place. “It used to be a Pokémon League Gym back before the storm war. After the war it was shut down like all of the rest, but it was opened again about twenty years ago as a training area for trainers. There’s not really a Gym Leader there anymore, but it’s still supposedly a nice place to train,” I answered. I’d actually forgotten about the gym, and wasn’t quite sure why I’d thought of it as one of the three most important places in Viridian. It had been at least three years since I’d been there, and then I hadn’t even cared that much.
Bianca slowly nodded her head. “My brother was almost champion of the gym once. And then,” she stared up at the trees for a moment, “we moved.” Once again, I had to stop and almost stare at Bianca. Her face was relatively stern as usual. But there was something else. Something in the eyes. I couldn’t place it, but I don’t think I’d ever seen her eyes look like that. But before I could really believe it, it was gone. “We’d best get moving,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Shortly after, we packed up and left again. We didn’t stop for another hour or so, when we took a water break. As I went to take care of some business, I heard a slight rustling in the trees above me. I instinctually glanced up, eyeing the trees. There wasn’t any immediate follow-up, but one thing was fairly likely. There was a Pokémon up there. “Hey guys,” I called out. “I think I found something.”
“What?” Bianca replied.
“Well, I can’t exactly tell, but I think it might be a Pokémon,” I shouted back. I don’t really remember why I decided to let them know. It would have made the trip faster if we hadn’t. Maybe I sensed something about the Pokémon. Maybe I just wanted to get the capture over with and spend time in Viridian training. Whatever my reason was, I did. Bianca and Eli were underneath the tree in seconds.
We stood in silence for a few moments, no one really sure of what to do now. “Now what do we do?” Eli asked. Bianca frowned, and I turned around to face him. Even if there was a Pokémon up there, what exactly were we supposed to do? We were interrupted by a weak call from above us.
After living in Pallet for fifteen years, you learn certain things. One of them is everything about Pidgey. Being the most common species in and around the town, bar humans, most residents got to know them. Being a kid obsessed with Pokémon for a while, I had learned everything. So, don’t be surprised if I could tell a lot from the cry. Like the fact that it was an infant. And that it was starving. Put those together, and you reach the most likely explanation for the matter: trainers.
The advent of the Pokéball had changed the world. Rule number one of history: no change is ever entirely good. One of the very few downfalls was right above me. Many times a trainer would catch a mother Pokémon, and never know about the babies. This sounds terrible, but think logically for a moment. Good trainers didn’t really care much about their captures. Attachment was never a good thing, since any serious battle could end in death. And a good trainer would have a good deal of serious battles. Even though the gym system had died, battling still went on as a popular hobby. But what can I say? It’s called the circle of life, and Pidgey weren’t about to go extinct any time soon.
Arceus, I’m terrible with tangents. Back to the story. Alright, now we know what we’re dealing with. Instead of having an unknown creature in the tree, we have a dying baby Pidgey. Great. Now we’ve still got no way to get it out, and I’m compelled to catch the weakest Pokémon I could find. Remind me why I called them over again?
So, back to the standing in silence thing. “Well, we could try to climb up,” Eli proposed. I stared at him, and glanced back to the tree. There weren’t any branches on the thing we could use for climbing. “Oh, right.” More silence. I hate silence.
“Well, unless anyone has an idea as to how we do something useful here, we might as well go,” Bianca begrudgingly grumbled her consent, but Eli still stared at the tree. “Well?” I asked.
“I think I have an idea,” he murmured.
The “S-I-L” word returns. “And?” I growled impatiently.
“It might not work, but,”
“Just do it already,” Bianca and I snapped at the same time. Wow. I don’t think we’d ever done that before in fifteen years. It didn’t comfort me.
“Fine,” Eli sighed. “Marine, go.” His Squirtle appeared at his side. “Alright, I want you to use Water Gun on the ground to shoot yourself up to that branch,” he gestured upwards.
“Squir, Squirtle?” the turtle said, pointing its tiny arm up in the air. I couldn’t tell where it was pointing, and I’m pretty sure Eli couldn’t either. That, or he’d become a turtle whisperer in the last few hours.
“Yes, that one.” Right, the one a few feet up and made of wood. That one.
Squirtle gave a clumsy salute and began to charge a Water Gun. After a few seconds, he unleashed it at the ground and rocketed up. At the peak of his flight, he realized something. He was in the air. I might have the advantage of a few years of study on the matter, but I think most people realize one simple fact. Squirtle can’t fly.
Marine’s expression showed that he’d come to the same realization. He began shouting his name and flailing his arms wildly as he started to fall back to the ground, his objective entirely forgotten. As luck would have it, he did happen to find the nest.
He took that down with him too.
Eli rushed forwards to catch his Squirtle. I stood transfixed, somewhere between apathy, an instinctual need to catch one of the baby Pidgey –there were multiple falling- and a strong desire to say “I told you so.” I chose option d) stand in shock while the mind numbly processes what to do.
Bianca dived forwards to help, and wound up catching the now empty nest and a Pidgey that had fallen with it, not letting it suffer any further harm. Eli managed to pull one of the Pidgey out of its state of 32 meters per second squared, and almost caught Squirtle. Almost.
The blue turtle landed on its back, the shell absorbing most of the impact. He seemed jarred, but not injured at first glance. That left one more Pidgey. I looked up to see if I’d missed it, and was immediately greeted with a view of brown feathers in my face as I fell back from the impact.
“Next time we need to practice landings,” I groaned, and pushed the bird onto my chest, causing the Pidgey to whimper in pain. I gently slid him off of my body, and pulled myself to my knees to survey the damage. It definitely wasn’t as bad as Ivy, but it wasn’t pretty. Her wing, and I could identify her as a female from the markings on her head, was bent back at a strange angle, but there didn’t appear to be any marks on the surface. She was probably in pain, but not going to bleed to death. In fact, if she was kept in a suspended state, she probably would get out just fine.
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked, and immediately bit my lip out of anger. Why had I asked that? The goal here was to find a Pokémon that could actually do something, not build some sort of a handicapped Pokémon Olympics Squad. Unfortunately, she chirped in a way that probably meant yes. I started to pick her up to bring her out into the forest, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Her chirping was almost musical, upbeat in a way that seemed almost unreal. I wasn’t going to leave her out to die, even if it cost me some valuable training time. I pulled a Pokéball out from the side of my pack and held it over the Pidgey.
“I’m going to call you Siren.”
Alright, before anyone out there accuses me of being too weak, I’d like to reinforce I have a limit. I won’t deal with pathetic bugs. Apparently, I’m the only one in the group who grasped another basic fact of the world. Bug Pokémon are terrible. Common weaknesses combined with generally poor power and bulk leads to a train wreck of evolution that only survives due to numbers. For trainers, they’re just about useless.
Maybe more useful than an injured Pidgey and Bulbasaur though.
Regardless, as soon as camp was set up, Eli walked into the forest with a Pokéball in hand to catch something. Bianca and I just stared after him. Bianca shrugged, and sat down in front of a tree, book in hand. Before she could open it, I realized something. It could take Eli hours to find something out there with the noise he was likely to make. That and he wasn’t very good with noticing details, even very large ones. Another key fact about the world: Bianca and I don’t do very well together, especially with no one else around. Even if she wanted to read her book, I hate silence. Given even another fifteen minutes, I would probably wind up starting a fight. Of course, I had other options. I cleared my throat.
“So, how’s life going?” She glanced up at me, muttered something about following Eli, and walked into the forest. Problem solved. With those two away, I had some free time. I subconsciously pressed something on my belt, and Siren appeared alongside Ivy.
“Alright, let’s get you two fixed up.” I pulled a few bandages and some gauze out of my backpack and set to work. I found a small stick somewhere in the clearing, and used it to make a crude splint for Siren. I also reapplied Ivy’s bandages, but this took less time since I actually had some idea what I was doing.
I glanced down at my watch. They had been gone for thirty minutes. I probably had time to take care of some personal business. Glancing quickly around in nervousness, I pulled a red electronic device from my backpack. A Pokéball symbol was etched into the front, with “Pokédex 3.5” engraved beneath it in black lettering. Altogether, it was a little smaller than a normal laptop. I reached into a side pocket of my backpack, and pulled out a grey computer disk with no markings. I manipulated it nervously for a moment, watching the light reflect onto nearby trees as I twisted the disk. Finally I got up the nerve to put it in.
The Pokédex came to life, the screen beginning to glow as the device loaded. When it finally came up, I scrolled down the options list, until I reached the last one. “Cam99OpDwn4-10-99.” It wasn’t much to go by, but it confirmed what I’d suspected. It was a camera recording from a few years back, around the time I had been born. I took out the small scrap of paper I had found with it. “21:52” was hastily scratched onto it in ink that had since lightened considerably until the note was almost unreadable. I took a deep breath, and pushed my finger down over the play button.
“Hey, Gary!” Eli shouted out in the distance. I swore under my breath, and slid the device back into my backpack. The video would have to wait until later.
Eli came running –sorry, walking- into the clearing, Bianca struggling to keep up behind him. “We caught some Pokémon,” he said, still enthusiastic, but calming down.
“Let me guess, a Weedle?” I replied sarcastically.
He looked minorly hurt, “What’s wrong with Weedle?”
I sighed. This was going to be a long evening. “Other than the fact that it’s got terrible abilities, even in its final form, lacks any sort of a niche another Pokémon can’t do better, and is generally weaker than most every Pokémon ever created by Arceus, I don’t know.”
Bianca had gotten out of the forest by now, but was still trying to catch her breath. She tried to reply, but her response was constantly broken up by panting.
“What’s she saying?” I asked Eli.
He glanced back up at me. “The same could be said about an injured Pidgey.”
The rest of the evening went without incident. Or, at least without fatal incident. In fact, there had been no injuries by the time the sun went down. Gramps would be proud. After dinner, Eli went into his tent almost immediately. Bianca leaned up against a tree, reading her book. I couldn’t quite make out the title, but it had the silhouette of a Kabutops skeleton on the front. “What’re you reading,” I asked.
She glared up, clearly annoyed at my question. “It’s none of your business.” Unfortunately, she didn’t stop reading or go into her tent. That surprised me a little. There are quite a few people who get mad for some reason when you ask them what they’re reading. I never understood why. But if she wasn’t going away, then I had too. I didn’t feel like starting a fight; we still had a long way to Viridian and back.
I started to walk out towards the forest. “Where are you going?” Bianca inquired, glancing up from her book.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked. Answering questions with questions annoys people more than asking them what they’re reading.
She shrugged, and went back to reading her book. “I just wanted to know.”
“Wait, you wanted to know something about me?” I answered with excessive shock. Excessive shock is another one of those things that irritates people.
“If you got killed by a Wild Pokémon, I’d have a hard time explaining it to your grandfather.” Her voice was perfectly neutral now, maybe even a bit upbeat. She wasn’t irritated. I’d done three things to irritate her, the girl who gets irritated by my presence, and she didn’t care. Arceus, she was making my life difficult.
With that, I went back into the forest before my reputation could suffer too much. I guess it was a nice evening. I don’t really pay much attention to that kind of thing, but it probably was. Summer nights in South-West Kanto are generally nice, with the various insects coming out to mate, making their chirps and calls. Another thing you get used to by living in Pallet. But I had other things to think about. Namely the CD I was carrying.
There was a room in the lab that no one ever entered. A padlock guarded the door, the key only found in one location, that happened to be right next to the door. But in order to get the key, one had to insert a ten digit password. Fail twice and alarms go off. Strangely enough, no one ever seemed to show interest. Except for me.
The first time I asked him about it, he’d just said it was for records. I didn’t buy it. What kinds of records get more security than the lab safe? I’d started paying attention after that, watching whenever he entered his password. Eventually I got a pretty good idea of what it was, but I hadn’t acted on it. Until two days ago. I was out late from a meeting with Eli, and most of the people had already left the lab. I walked up to the door as casually as possible, making it look like I was supposed to be there. I inserted the password, thankfully it was correct, and the key dropped out into my hand. A passing aide had stopped me at that time. I’d told him I was on business from Gramps. He bought it, and went on his way, thankfully never reporting it.
The inside of the room was surprisingly bare, with only a file cabinet in the room. It was also locked. In fact, there was only one thing not in the cabinet that Gramps had apparently forgotten to put back in, a single CD with a slip of paper on it. I figured he wouldn’t miss it if I gave it back after the trip, and slipped it into my pocket. I hadn’t gotten the time to watch it until now.
The Pokedex’s light cast strange shadows from the trees, making the night slightly creepy, even for me. A stray cloud moved across the moon, blocking out some of the moonlight and making it even more unnatural. And the forest was silent. All of the bugs had stopped chattering around me, probably because of an intruder, me. But late in the evening when the mind doesn’t make that connection, it’s just creepy.
I scrolled down to Cam99OpDwn4-10-99, and clicked. The Pokedex paused, the screen darkening until a black and white image was pulled up. It was just an empty room, with the only notable features being the bookshelves on the walls and a large desk. Windows behind the desk looked onto something, but it was hard to tell from the camera. Come to think of it, it looked a lot like Gramps’ office. I waited for a minute, but nothing happened.
And then I remembered the sheet of paper. I cursed softly at myself for forgetting, but quickly pulled it out and jumped to the correct time. The office wasn’t empty anymore. A younger Gramps was in the room, pacing back and forth in front of the window, periodically stopping to glance out. He looked worried about something, and furious at the same time. He was probably more concerned and angrier than I had ever seen him. He muttered something under his breath, something about a storm perhaps, but I couldn’t quite catch it. I made a mental note to scroll back and watch it later.
After about a minute or so of the pacing, someone knocked on the door. Gramps glanced up, and called out for the man to come in. I almost dropped the Pokédex. Champion Lance, well, soon-to-be Champion Lance walked through the door, his signature cape flowing behind him. He gave an awkward bow, and rose up, sarcasm dripping in his voice, “Hello master.”
Gramps nodded, and motioned for him to sit down. “Lance, I’m quite busy right now. Is there anything you wanted to talk about, or are you wasting my time?”
Lance shifted in his seat, “Well, it’s about the project.” Gramps motioned to go on. “A few people here were talking, and we decided that we don’t like it.”
“They can just get their ass off of the island then. Only the devoted have a place in Operation Dawn.”
“Oh no, they’re devoted. Just not to you,” Lance rose to his full, rather impressive height. It was impossible to tell from the camera, but I had a strange suspicion he was smiling.
Gramps banged his fist on the disk, “What the hell is this?” he shouted.
Lance laughed, a slow and evil laugh, as he gestured towards the doorway. Whatever was in it made Gramps gasp in surprise and cower back slightly. “This would be a coup.”
Yeah, so I wasn’t off to a great start. I’d almost killed my first Pokémon on the first night of owning it because of rookie mistake. I was probably never going to hear the end of that one. Not to mention it was earlier than six o’clock and I had been awake for over an hour. I couldn’t remember the last time I could say that. On a more positive note, I’d gotten off to a great start with nutritious Combee Crunch, complete with all the needed vitamins and minerals to get you going in the day. As I lumbered out towards the agreed meeting place, my pack weighing down on my back. I generally wanted to just go back to sleep. I started to doubt the cereal’s effectiveness. Never trust high TV salesmen.
Then again, a lot of that was my fault anyways. However I justified it, that battle was a bad idea. There would’ve been plenty of time to do it in Viridian, but I had to rush into it with absolutely no training. And did I mention it was the night before I had to wake up at four-thirty in the morning. What could’ve possibly gone wrong with that idea? On a lighter note, Ivy wasn’t hurt too badly. He could use his vines again within a few days if everything went well. It was still almost a week without being able to do anything but Tackle, but that would be alright. I could catch another Pokémon pretty quickly, and there wasn’t really a rush to train up now. Honestly, I didn’t even have a reason to get stronger.
That bothered me a little. Gramps told me that some time ago, there used to be an open challenge across the nations. Trainers would challenge the leaders of the various cities in attempts to gain a symbol signifying their victory. If they could gain enough symbols, they could challenge the Pokémon League itself, and possibly become the next champion. And then came Ariel Day. About fifty years ago, a rogue trainer had captured the storm spirits of the land –a forbidden and illegal act. He proceeded to crush the local leaders. He made it all the way to the league before the champion defeated him in a battle, and forced him to release the storm gods. After that, the League had decided that rogue trainers wandering around and seeking to further their power was simply too much of a security risk. The Champion was still the strongest trainer in the region; but now that was determined by battles between the highest ranking generals in Kanto and Johto whenever the Champion decided to step down. The last time that happened was shortly before I was born. Champion Brendan stepped down and Lance had won the battle. He was still Champion when I left Pallet.
Tangent aside, there was no reason to train anymore. Strength was unneeded, advancement was nearly impossible, and training opportunities were scarce. It was actually kind of depressing, considering that Gramps had been one of the best trainers’ alive back in his day. It supposedly it ran in the blood. Yeah, so nice to know that even my blood is out to ruin my life.
Going back to the actual story, it was a pleasant morning. Provided you’re a ghost type, or course. It was still mostly dark outside, and the sun hadn’t warmed up the day yet. A light fog covered the ground, slightly obscuring vision and making it even drearier outside. All that was missing from the wonderful scene was rain. Thankfully, it was a rather short walk from my house to the lab. Eli could’ve probably run it –sorry, “walked” it- in under fifteen minutes. Still, I wasn’t exactly in a “walk quickly mood.” It wasn’t like I was very eager for the journey either. As far as I was concerned, it would just be baby-sitting Bianca and Eli as they ran around catching every useless Pokémon in sight like kids in a candy shop. I would probably just catch something to show to Gramps and then wait to fill in my team until I could get my hands on something decent.
About twenty-five minutes or so after I left my house, I got to the doors of the lab. Bianca and Eli were already waiting for me, as expected. Eli was wearing his typical grey jacket and white baseball cap, with a tan backpack carrying his supplies. I noticed it was larger than mine, which irritated me slightly. Being older and taller, I was always slightly annoyed when he showed off how much stronger he was. But I would always have him in the looks department, so I was never too annoyed. Miss Dreary was there as well, generally adding to the grey dreariness of the morning. Seriously, she has some sort of a refusal to wear anything involving bright colors. She probably even washed her jeans several times before she would wear them, just to prevent any sort of vibrant color from being on her person. Add in her grey tennis shoes, brown coat, and grey eyes and you get an outfit as dull as her personality.
The strange part was, it actually looked like Eli and Bianca had been talking about something before I walked up, and they weren’t angry at each other. I considered pointing it out, but decided against it. Nothing was worth arguing at this time in the morning with a long hike to go. I trudged up beside Eli, grunting out something that could be interpreted as everything from “Hey, how’s it going?” to “I like Pancakes,” and “The sky is falling.” Eli apparently understood it as “Let’s go!”
“Alright guys are you ready?” he asked eagerly. However he could be that awake before six was completely beyond me.
“Wait a minute,” I objected. “I have some extra weight I need to shove onto you guys.” I dropped my pack down with a “thud,” not really caring if I broke anything. I unzipped one of the pouches, and pulled out ten Pokéballs. I tossed five to each of them and explained, “A gift from Gramps.”
With that, they talked a little about something (How the heck would I remember what? It was six in the morning.) and put the Pokémon balls on their belt. After that, they set off towards the exit of town, not even asking if I was ready. They probably knew what the answer would be.
It didn’t take us long to get out of Pallet. Bianca quickly fell into silence after we departed, ending her brief period of social activity. At least some things were still working normally in the world. Eli was walking ahead of the group alone; probably bored with the pace we were going. That left me back with Bianca, who thankfully wasn’t interested in talking. I don’t mind teasing her, but if had to deal with her for the next few days I did not want to start with a knife in my chest. That could’ve make things a bit more difficult.
When we got close to the Pallet Town limits, Eli was waiting for us at the sign. Thankfully, by this point the sun had decided to wake up and do some work for the day. Eli also slowed down to match the pace at the back of the group for once. Apparently he’d finally realized that I had the form we needed to pick up the package, so it was kind of useless to run ahead. It’s so nice to have control over the situation.
As we walked, a debate of sorts arose between Bianca and Eli. I chose not to get involved for reasons stated earlier. That and I didn’t really care. They were talking about how much time it would take them to get to Viridian, how much time they could spare to look for Pokémon , whether they should try to catch the Rattata that ran by or focus more on the Pidgey in the air, et cetera. Well, mostly Eli was talking. Bianca just listened, and gave periodic input. The strange thing was, it was almost friendly. Almost. It wasn’t entirely unstrained, but Bianca actually seemed to be contributing information without being forced. With me nearby. I made a mental note to take her to a psychiatrist when we got back.
Ironically, the discussion in front of me was loud enough to scare away most of the Pokémon in the surrounding area, so we made pretty good time to Viridian, and would probably arrive the next afternoon. I never did get an explanation as to why Gramps couldn’t get someone with a car to take us, but the walk wasn’t really that bad. They hadn’t even made an attempt to catch anything by the time we got to lunch.
Speaking of which, “lunch,” when traveling is normally closer to a quick break where one takes their pack off and eats a granola bar or two while drinking a bottle of water than anything you’re thinking of. It takes all of ten minutes if you do it right.
By the time lunch rolled around, I finally got into the conversation. I was the only one in the group who had ever actually been to Viridian City seriously, the job “lab aide” pretty much means “doesn’t get out much”. Well, Bianca doesn’t count. Even if she had lived there, it had been about seven years. And the first thing I’d learned about dealing with her: never bring up Viridian City. Most people ask her about it when they first learn she was born there. Most back off after they realize she doesn’t want to talk about it. I had persisted. She hates me. Anyways, Eli asked me what the city was like.
“Well,” I started, “It’s about twice as big as Pallet Town, and much more official looking. There are government buildings everywhere and quite a few military areas in the city. Really, only the East side of the city has many people living there at all. The only major things in the city would be the Gym, Diglett’s Cave, and the Spatial Monastery. I’m sure you know about at least those three.” I stopped explaining and ripped open another granola bar. Seriously, how much did they want me to say about the place?”
“What’s the Gym?” Eli asked.
I sighed, forgetting that not many people actually cared very much about the place. “It used to be a Pokémon League Gym back before the storm war. After the war it was shut down like all of the rest, but it was opened again about twenty years ago as a training area for trainers. There’s not really a Gym Leader there anymore, but it’s still supposedly a nice place to train,” I answered. I’d actually forgotten about the gym, and wasn’t quite sure why I’d thought of it as one of the three most important places in Viridian. It had been at least three years since I’d been there, and then I hadn’t even cared that much.
Bianca slowly nodded her head. “My brother was almost champion of the gym once. And then,” she stared up at the trees for a moment, “we moved.” Once again, I had to stop and almost stare at Bianca. Her face was relatively stern as usual. But there was something else. Something in the eyes. I couldn’t place it, but I don’t think I’d ever seen her eyes look like that. But before I could really believe it, it was gone. “We’d best get moving,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Shortly after, we packed up and left again. We didn’t stop for another hour or so, when we took a water break. As I went to take care of some business, I heard a slight rustling in the trees above me. I instinctually glanced up, eyeing the trees. There wasn’t any immediate follow-up, but one thing was fairly likely. There was a Pokémon up there. “Hey guys,” I called out. “I think I found something.”
“What?” Bianca replied.
“Well, I can’t exactly tell, but I think it might be a Pokémon,” I shouted back. I don’t really remember why I decided to let them know. It would have made the trip faster if we hadn’t. Maybe I sensed something about the Pokémon. Maybe I just wanted to get the capture over with and spend time in Viridian training. Whatever my reason was, I did. Bianca and Eli were underneath the tree in seconds.
We stood in silence for a few moments, no one really sure of what to do now. “Now what do we do?” Eli asked. Bianca frowned, and I turned around to face him. Even if there was a Pokémon up there, what exactly were we supposed to do? We were interrupted by a weak call from above us.
After living in Pallet for fifteen years, you learn certain things. One of them is everything about Pidgey. Being the most common species in and around the town, bar humans, most residents got to know them. Being a kid obsessed with Pokémon for a while, I had learned everything. So, don’t be surprised if I could tell a lot from the cry. Like the fact that it was an infant. And that it was starving. Put those together, and you reach the most likely explanation for the matter: trainers.
The advent of the Pokéball had changed the world. Rule number one of history: no change is ever entirely good. One of the very few downfalls was right above me. Many times a trainer would catch a mother Pokémon, and never know about the babies. This sounds terrible, but think logically for a moment. Good trainers didn’t really care much about their captures. Attachment was never a good thing, since any serious battle could end in death. And a good trainer would have a good deal of serious battles. Even though the gym system had died, battling still went on as a popular hobby. But what can I say? It’s called the circle of life, and Pidgey weren’t about to go extinct any time soon.
Arceus, I’m terrible with tangents. Back to the story. Alright, now we know what we’re dealing with. Instead of having an unknown creature in the tree, we have a dying baby Pidgey. Great. Now we’ve still got no way to get it out, and I’m compelled to catch the weakest Pokémon I could find. Remind me why I called them over again?
So, back to the standing in silence thing. “Well, we could try to climb up,” Eli proposed. I stared at him, and glanced back to the tree. There weren’t any branches on the thing we could use for climbing. “Oh, right.” More silence. I hate silence.
“Well, unless anyone has an idea as to how we do something useful here, we might as well go,” Bianca begrudgingly grumbled her consent, but Eli still stared at the tree. “Well?” I asked.
“I think I have an idea,” he murmured.
The “S-I-L” word returns. “And?” I growled impatiently.
“It might not work, but,”
“Just do it already,” Bianca and I snapped at the same time. Wow. I don’t think we’d ever done that before in fifteen years. It didn’t comfort me.
“Fine,” Eli sighed. “Marine, go.” His Squirtle appeared at his side. “Alright, I want you to use Water Gun on the ground to shoot yourself up to that branch,” he gestured upwards.
“Squir, Squirtle?” the turtle said, pointing its tiny arm up in the air. I couldn’t tell where it was pointing, and I’m pretty sure Eli couldn’t either. That, or he’d become a turtle whisperer in the last few hours.
“Yes, that one.” Right, the one a few feet up and made of wood. That one.
Squirtle gave a clumsy salute and began to charge a Water Gun. After a few seconds, he unleashed it at the ground and rocketed up. At the peak of his flight, he realized something. He was in the air. I might have the advantage of a few years of study on the matter, but I think most people realize one simple fact. Squirtle can’t fly.
Marine’s expression showed that he’d come to the same realization. He began shouting his name and flailing his arms wildly as he started to fall back to the ground, his objective entirely forgotten. As luck would have it, he did happen to find the nest.
He took that down with him too.
Eli rushed forwards to catch his Squirtle. I stood transfixed, somewhere between apathy, an instinctual need to catch one of the baby Pidgey –there were multiple falling- and a strong desire to say “I told you so.” I chose option d) stand in shock while the mind numbly processes what to do.
Bianca dived forwards to help, and wound up catching the now empty nest and a Pidgey that had fallen with it, not letting it suffer any further harm. Eli managed to pull one of the Pidgey out of its state of 32 meters per second squared, and almost caught Squirtle. Almost.
The blue turtle landed on its back, the shell absorbing most of the impact. He seemed jarred, but not injured at first glance. That left one more Pidgey. I looked up to see if I’d missed it, and was immediately greeted with a view of brown feathers in my face as I fell back from the impact.
“Next time we need to practice landings,” I groaned, and pushed the bird onto my chest, causing the Pidgey to whimper in pain. I gently slid him off of my body, and pulled myself to my knees to survey the damage. It definitely wasn’t as bad as Ivy, but it wasn’t pretty. Her wing, and I could identify her as a female from the markings on her head, was bent back at a strange angle, but there didn’t appear to be any marks on the surface. She was probably in pain, but not going to bleed to death. In fact, if she was kept in a suspended state, she probably would get out just fine.
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked, and immediately bit my lip out of anger. Why had I asked that? The goal here was to find a Pokémon that could actually do something, not build some sort of a handicapped Pokémon Olympics Squad. Unfortunately, she chirped in a way that probably meant yes. I started to pick her up to bring her out into the forest, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Her chirping was almost musical, upbeat in a way that seemed almost unreal. I wasn’t going to leave her out to die, even if it cost me some valuable training time. I pulled a Pokéball out from the side of my pack and held it over the Pidgey.
“I’m going to call you Siren.”
--SoV—
Alright, before anyone out there accuses me of being too weak, I’d like to reinforce I have a limit. I won’t deal with pathetic bugs. Apparently, I’m the only one in the group who grasped another basic fact of the world. Bug Pokémon are terrible. Common weaknesses combined with generally poor power and bulk leads to a train wreck of evolution that only survives due to numbers. For trainers, they’re just about useless.
Maybe more useful than an injured Pidgey and Bulbasaur though.
Regardless, as soon as camp was set up, Eli walked into the forest with a Pokéball in hand to catch something. Bianca and I just stared after him. Bianca shrugged, and sat down in front of a tree, book in hand. Before she could open it, I realized something. It could take Eli hours to find something out there with the noise he was likely to make. That and he wasn’t very good with noticing details, even very large ones. Another key fact about the world: Bianca and I don’t do very well together, especially with no one else around. Even if she wanted to read her book, I hate silence. Given even another fifteen minutes, I would probably wind up starting a fight. Of course, I had other options. I cleared my throat.
“So, how’s life going?” She glanced up at me, muttered something about following Eli, and walked into the forest. Problem solved. With those two away, I had some free time. I subconsciously pressed something on my belt, and Siren appeared alongside Ivy.
“Alright, let’s get you two fixed up.” I pulled a few bandages and some gauze out of my backpack and set to work. I found a small stick somewhere in the clearing, and used it to make a crude splint for Siren. I also reapplied Ivy’s bandages, but this took less time since I actually had some idea what I was doing.
I glanced down at my watch. They had been gone for thirty minutes. I probably had time to take care of some personal business. Glancing quickly around in nervousness, I pulled a red electronic device from my backpack. A Pokéball symbol was etched into the front, with “Pokédex 3.5” engraved beneath it in black lettering. Altogether, it was a little smaller than a normal laptop. I reached into a side pocket of my backpack, and pulled out a grey computer disk with no markings. I manipulated it nervously for a moment, watching the light reflect onto nearby trees as I twisted the disk. Finally I got up the nerve to put it in.
The Pokédex came to life, the screen beginning to glow as the device loaded. When it finally came up, I scrolled down the options list, until I reached the last one. “Cam99OpDwn4-10-99.” It wasn’t much to go by, but it confirmed what I’d suspected. It was a camera recording from a few years back, around the time I had been born. I took out the small scrap of paper I had found with it. “21:52” was hastily scratched onto it in ink that had since lightened considerably until the note was almost unreadable. I took a deep breath, and pushed my finger down over the play button.
“Hey, Gary!” Eli shouted out in the distance. I swore under my breath, and slid the device back into my backpack. The video would have to wait until later.
Eli came running –sorry, walking- into the clearing, Bianca struggling to keep up behind him. “We caught some Pokémon,” he said, still enthusiastic, but calming down.
“Let me guess, a Weedle?” I replied sarcastically.
He looked minorly hurt, “What’s wrong with Weedle?”
I sighed. This was going to be a long evening. “Other than the fact that it’s got terrible abilities, even in its final form, lacks any sort of a niche another Pokémon can’t do better, and is generally weaker than most every Pokémon ever created by Arceus, I don’t know.”
Bianca had gotten out of the forest by now, but was still trying to catch her breath. She tried to reply, but her response was constantly broken up by panting.
“What’s she saying?” I asked Eli.
He glanced back up at me. “The same could be said about an injured Pidgey.”
--SoV—
The rest of the evening went without incident. Or, at least without fatal incident. In fact, there had been no injuries by the time the sun went down. Gramps would be proud. After dinner, Eli went into his tent almost immediately. Bianca leaned up against a tree, reading her book. I couldn’t quite make out the title, but it had the silhouette of a Kabutops skeleton on the front. “What’re you reading,” I asked.
She glared up, clearly annoyed at my question. “It’s none of your business.” Unfortunately, she didn’t stop reading or go into her tent. That surprised me a little. There are quite a few people who get mad for some reason when you ask them what they’re reading. I never understood why. But if she wasn’t going away, then I had too. I didn’t feel like starting a fight; we still had a long way to Viridian and back.
I started to walk out towards the forest. “Where are you going?” Bianca inquired, glancing up from her book.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked. Answering questions with questions annoys people more than asking them what they’re reading.
She shrugged, and went back to reading her book. “I just wanted to know.”
“Wait, you wanted to know something about me?” I answered with excessive shock. Excessive shock is another one of those things that irritates people.
“If you got killed by a Wild Pokémon, I’d have a hard time explaining it to your grandfather.” Her voice was perfectly neutral now, maybe even a bit upbeat. She wasn’t irritated. I’d done three things to irritate her, the girl who gets irritated by my presence, and she didn’t care. Arceus, she was making my life difficult.
With that, I went back into the forest before my reputation could suffer too much. I guess it was a nice evening. I don’t really pay much attention to that kind of thing, but it probably was. Summer nights in South-West Kanto are generally nice, with the various insects coming out to mate, making their chirps and calls. Another thing you get used to by living in Pallet. But I had other things to think about. Namely the CD I was carrying.
There was a room in the lab that no one ever entered. A padlock guarded the door, the key only found in one location, that happened to be right next to the door. But in order to get the key, one had to insert a ten digit password. Fail twice and alarms go off. Strangely enough, no one ever seemed to show interest. Except for me.
The first time I asked him about it, he’d just said it was for records. I didn’t buy it. What kinds of records get more security than the lab safe? I’d started paying attention after that, watching whenever he entered his password. Eventually I got a pretty good idea of what it was, but I hadn’t acted on it. Until two days ago. I was out late from a meeting with Eli, and most of the people had already left the lab. I walked up to the door as casually as possible, making it look like I was supposed to be there. I inserted the password, thankfully it was correct, and the key dropped out into my hand. A passing aide had stopped me at that time. I’d told him I was on business from Gramps. He bought it, and went on his way, thankfully never reporting it.
The inside of the room was surprisingly bare, with only a file cabinet in the room. It was also locked. In fact, there was only one thing not in the cabinet that Gramps had apparently forgotten to put back in, a single CD with a slip of paper on it. I figured he wouldn’t miss it if I gave it back after the trip, and slipped it into my pocket. I hadn’t gotten the time to watch it until now.
The Pokedex’s light cast strange shadows from the trees, making the night slightly creepy, even for me. A stray cloud moved across the moon, blocking out some of the moonlight and making it even more unnatural. And the forest was silent. All of the bugs had stopped chattering around me, probably because of an intruder, me. But late in the evening when the mind doesn’t make that connection, it’s just creepy.
I scrolled down to Cam99OpDwn4-10-99, and clicked. The Pokedex paused, the screen darkening until a black and white image was pulled up. It was just an empty room, with the only notable features being the bookshelves on the walls and a large desk. Windows behind the desk looked onto something, but it was hard to tell from the camera. Come to think of it, it looked a lot like Gramps’ office. I waited for a minute, but nothing happened.
And then I remembered the sheet of paper. I cursed softly at myself for forgetting, but quickly pulled it out and jumped to the correct time. The office wasn’t empty anymore. A younger Gramps was in the room, pacing back and forth in front of the window, periodically stopping to glance out. He looked worried about something, and furious at the same time. He was probably more concerned and angrier than I had ever seen him. He muttered something under his breath, something about a storm perhaps, but I couldn’t quite catch it. I made a mental note to scroll back and watch it later.
After about a minute or so of the pacing, someone knocked on the door. Gramps glanced up, and called out for the man to come in. I almost dropped the Pokédex. Champion Lance, well, soon-to-be Champion Lance walked through the door, his signature cape flowing behind him. He gave an awkward bow, and rose up, sarcasm dripping in his voice, “Hello master.”
Gramps nodded, and motioned for him to sit down. “Lance, I’m quite busy right now. Is there anything you wanted to talk about, or are you wasting my time?”
Lance shifted in his seat, “Well, it’s about the project.” Gramps motioned to go on. “A few people here were talking, and we decided that we don’t like it.”
“They can just get their ass off of the island then. Only the devoted have a place in Operation Dawn.”
“Oh no, they’re devoted. Just not to you,” Lance rose to his full, rather impressive height. It was impossible to tell from the camera, but I had a strange suspicion he was smiling.
Gramps banged his fist on the disk, “What the hell is this?” he shouted.
Lance laughed, a slow and evil laugh, as he gestured towards the doorway. Whatever was in it made Gramps gasp in surprise and cower back slightly. “This would be a coup.”
