Better Weather.
'Am I even in the right place?' was Gold's initial thought, because as he stood in the middle of the main steet, he could swear he was in a ghost town. Seriously, there were no cars around (which was why he was standing in the middle of the road to begin with) and no one was on the street. Every other place he'd visited had been relatively busy, but this...it was like no one even lived here. But apparently they did, the map on his Pokegear said that the population of Mahogany Town was definitely not zero. It also said that's where he was at the moment, but a niggling thought at the back of his mind was telling him otherwise.
Where else could he be though? As far as he knew there wasn't an old, abandoned town on the road to Mahogany, so he probably was here. He could see the Pokecentre in the distance too, and well, it was quite a relief to see somewhere familiar. He started walking again, heading towards the building. It was probably the best place to get some answers as well, that is, if it wasn't deserted.
The further he got into town, the more aware he became of how quiet it was. And how eerie...and how alone he was. Not to mention the bad weather on top of that, the sky was grey and threatening to start pouring at any moment. He sped up a little, no harm in wanting to get there faster, right? He definitely wasn't creeped out or anything, not at all. He soon broke into a jog and then into a full sprint, barreling headfirst through the doors to the centre. There was a laugh and this brought him to an abrupt stop, and upon looking around he realised that the place wasn't quite as empty as he expected. In fact, it seemed most of the town was in there.
Well, all the trainers at least.
And they were all watching him. But whatever, he was just happy to be around people again. Once the surprise and relief of that wore off though, he started to wonder just what they were all doing in here anyway. It seemed like they were all hiding from something and he damn well wanted to know what. Why was he so out of the loop? He'd only been travelling for a few days, it's not as if he'd been cut off from society for months. Even then he wasn't completely absent, he had his Pokegear, so why didn't he know about anything?
"Excuse me," He stepped up to the front counter where the Nurse Joy was idling about. He noted that she was watching out the window rather nervously and hadn't seemed to register him standing there and speaking. This was unusual; all the nurses he'd met were really friendly. "Hello? Are you there?" He waved his hands over the counter near her face, but she still seemed distracted. "I'm talking to you!"
"Oh goodness, I didn't see you," Finally. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
"Yes, there is," He frowned. "What's everyone doing in here? Why is the town so quiet?" One of the things that annoyed Gold the most was not knowing what was going on, and considering everyone else seemed to understand the situation, he was particularly irritated.
"Dear, haven't you heard?" No, he hadn't. That's why he was asking. "The Gyarados in the Lake of Rage are behaving more dangerously than usual and we were warned to stay inside because of the potential danger and bad weather,"
That's all he needed to hear. Within seconds he had turned around and was high-tailing it out of there, he wanted to witness the action! No way would he sit around and just wait for everything to pass, how boring would that be? No, he had to see it, no matter how dangerous. So he ran and ran, past the houses and then through the dense trees as he left the town behind, not taking note of anything. He didn't think he'd ever run this fast or this far before in his life, but he was being pushed by this sense of urgency - he didn't want to risk missing anything that might happen.
Eventually though, due to a combination of lack of breath and realising how far he'd actually come, he slowed down and then stopped completely. Right, well, he'd been so hell-bent on getting there as quickly as possible that he'd only remembered now that he didn't really know how to get there. In fact, he was pretty sure he was actually leaving the town the same way he'd come in and he had certainly not passed the Lake of Rage on his way here.
But whatever, that wasn't going to discourage him! He flipped open his Pokegear and clicked on the map, bringing it up on the screen. Yep, he'd been right; he was heading back towards Ecruteak. Well, that was great, wasn't it? He would take twice as long now and he'd probably miss half of it, but he still wanted to check it out. Oh well, at least it was a learning experience.
So, taking a deep breath, he started running again but this time at least he knew where he was going.
Right, so maybe it was kind of fair that the people in Mahogany Town all wanted to stay inside. The lake was completely filled with Gyarados, they were thrashing about and roaring so loudly that if he were to speak he'd have to yell. But seriously, as if Gyarados weren't scary enough when they weren't angry...
Not only that, but their rapid movements were creating some really huge waves. In fact, they were so big that the banks of the lake were completely flooded up to his knees. He'd waded through it and was standing on the edge now, staring at the sight before him with a few others who had also dared to go out. The Gyarados didn't seem to have noticed them though, which was a relief because they probably wouldn't have taken too kindly to being watched like this. And as he looked on, he couldn't help but smirk to himself about how aptly the lake was named.
"What's that?" A voice spoke up - or rather, shouted, sounding quite alarmed. But Gold didn't really even notice it; he was too fixed on what was happening. Something didn't seem quite right with it, as crazy as they were, Gyarados didn't just work themselves into a frenzy for no reason. Or maybe they did, he hadn't had a lot of experience with them before, but his gut feeling was telling him that this wasn't normal. It could have been the bad weather, he'd heard of other pokemon not liking the rain, so maybe the storm clouds had made them angry or something. But then again, the nurse in town had said something about them causing it? Okay, so he actually had no idea, he was just making this up now. "It looks like a...red Gyarados?"
Now that caught his attention. He turned around to the girl (as did the others) and looked at her in confusion. "Huh?"
"Out there!" She pointed out to the water and Gold looked back again, squinting his eyes to try and make out what it was. "But I thought Gyarados were usually blue..."
She was definitely right; over the other side of the lake was the biggest Gyarados he'd ever seen. But besides its remarkable size, what was more unusual was that it was indeed bright red. What was that all about? He wondered briefly why he hadn't seen it before, but then just figured it was because the other side was pretty much cloaked in fog from the crappy weather. It was travelling towards them though for some reason, so he could see it really clearly now.
It seemed to be the one in charge of it all; the one who had started this whole rampage and it was probably the one making the rest angry. Well, maybe that was the cause. As it swum towards them, it had no qualms about hitting the other Gyarados out the way or charging right through where they were swimming. Noticing this, the other people started to retreat quickly - as fast as they could go through the flooded banks anyway - and headed towards dryer land. Most of them took shelter underneath the balcony of the one house around the lake, but not Gold.
No, he just stood there, still watching it.
"You might want to move!" Someone yelled, but he paid no attention. He'd suddenly struck on an idea and that's all that mattered at the moment, if it was that Gyarados that was causing all these issues, then someone should probably go and try to calm it down. And what better person to do that than him? Really though, he seemed to be the only one not scared out of his wits so he actually was the best person.
But within seconds of formulating the plan, something had already put a major dent in it. And that something was the Gyarados itself. Instead of continuing to charge towards him, it had stopped in the middle of the lake (stopped being a loose term) and was just thrashing about, getting in the way of every other pokemon in the lake. Jeez, no wonder they were angry! He'd be pretty peeved to if something kept disrupting him like that. But anyway, he actually just wanted to calm it down from the edge and now he had to actually go out into the water, and that was much more dangerous.
Whatever, he'd come this far.
He grabbed out a pokeball from his bag and released his Kingler into the water. It seemed a little confused, but he reassured it with a smile and then stepped over and climbed onto it's back. Admittedly being ferried around by a Kingler wasn't the most comfortable thing, but he didn't have time to dwell on that at the moment.
"Kingler, out to the Gyarados!" He should have expected the ride to be rocky, but for some reason he wasn't ready and as soon as it started moving, he almost slipped off. He frantically grabbed a hold of Kingler tightly, alright, so he knew not to be slack now.
The journey to the middle didn't take too long as the waves were pushing them in that direction anyway, but it certainly wasn't smooth. If he wasn't trying so desperately not to be thrown off, he would have felt sick for sure. But they made it eventually with little issue and he now faced the challenge ahead - calming this thing down. You know what though? He'd been so gung-ho on the idea that he hadn't exactly thought that far ahead, so um, yeah. How should he do it?
This question was soon answered for him when the massive creature realised they were there. It swung around, sort of roared in their faces and then hit Kingler with its tail, thankfully missing Gold. Out of instinct (and it probably just wanted to retaliate), his pokemon snapped it's claws and managed to nip it slightly. This was enough to start something and now it seemed the only option he had was to battle. He didn't particularly want to make it faint, but maybe they could tire it enough so it wasn't so freaking angry anymore.
It swung itself down so it hit the water with a loud thwack, causing some waves where describing them as huge would have been an understatement. The water splashed over Gold, soaking him from head to toe and pushing Kingler half a dozen metres or so backwards. He huffed and shook his head, sending the droplets flying everywhere, well, this was comfortable.
"Swim back over to it, buddy," He said, and they got there eventually, but it wasn't without difficulty. Kingler rose up and down with the waves which were larger than they'd first been, and with that constantly happening, it didn't make for a very easy ride and he almost fell off again. "Now, Bubblebeam!" The attack hit spot on, but that really wasn't a good thing because one; it was much harder to hang onto Kingler when it was fighting, and two; Gyarados was now even angrier. It reared itself up as if it were poised to attack and Gold braced himself, this wasn't going to go well. Maybe he shouldn't have come out here in the first place, it was actually kind of...sort of...really dangerous. But you know, so what? It didn't actually bother him for some reason, he laughed in the face of danger! Ha!
And then it just dropped and disappeared under the water. Gold's first reaction was disappointment, he'd come all the way out here for no reason at all. That soon gave way to relief though, and he let out the biggest sigh ever (okay, so maybe it did bother him a little), it decided to calm down all by itself and now I can go back to the shore and I'm not going to get hurt, it's all good. Unfortunately that only lasted a few seconds though as he noticed a dark shadow underneath the water, one that was getting a little too close for comfort. Okay, so maybe it hadn't after all. But don't worry, Gold, this is what you're here f-
There was a splash and then all he could see was the Gyarados right in front of him, moving more quickly than he ever thought a Gyarados could move. It flicked it's tail up and narrowly missed him because his reflexes had kicked into overdrive and he'd managed to duck. He wasn't so lucky the second time though; the creature swung back and hit him hard in the chest. His grip on Kingler loosened from the impact and then all of a sudden he was under the water and sinking...fast.
It was cold. It was really cold. That's all he could focus on as the water went whooshing past him, blurring his vision and making his eyes sting. Once the initial surprise had passed, it gave way to an awareness that he was in fact in the water with dozens of angry Gyarados that he'd probably just disturbed further. That realisation was enough to make his heart pound and leap to his throat - okay, so he wasn't laughing now. Just as he happened upon this, he hit the bottom of the lake rather forcefully. Except it wasn't exactly the bottom, but more of a rock that was in the way of him and the sand. His shoulder unfortunately took the brunt and if it hadn't been so noisy, there probably would have been an unpleasant cracking sort of sound accompanying it.
Gold let out a string of muffled curses and squeezed his eyes shut in pain. Oh Arceus, what the hell have I just done? But a broken, dislocated, sprained or whatever the hell he'd done shoulder or not, he had to get back to top because being down there was ten times more dangerous than being on the surface. Oh, and the fact he needed to breathe, he couldn't really overlook that. So mustering up all his energy (he wasn't feeling so crash hot anymore), he kicked off from the ground and made his way up to the top. He reached forward, but when he moved his right arm, let's just say painful was a bit of an understatement.
Alright, so using my arm is out of the question.
So how deep was this water again? He didn't seem to be making much headway in getting to the top and he was starting to run out of breath. He kicked frantically, holding his arm by his side and using the other one to awkwardly swim upwards. He was getting to the surface and he was getting there quickly, he wasn't about to jeopardise everything he'd worked for just because he'd gone and fallen in the water. Seriously, he was going to push these lungs to the limit. But he couldn't deny that it was a little stressful as he started to get dizzy and lightheaded.
And then he could breathe again and it was over so quickly it was almost as if the whole thing had never happened. Well, there was the crippling pain and having like, no breath and everything, but you know, besides that. It seemed that while he'd been so worried about not getting to the surface, he'd in fact reached it and was starting to get some air back into him. Okay, so maybe he had overreacted a little, but hey, he had been genuinely scared! Being scared was not something Gold admitted often either, so that alone was a pretty big deal.
"Are you okay?" He heard someone shout, but he didn't answer. There was no time to waste, while he'd been under the water for those fifteen seconds or so, Kingler seemed to have continued fighting. What a champ, honestly. He didn't really want to stay in the water any longer, and with fair reason too, so he kicked over to the creature and reached to pull himself up with his left arm. Not having the best grip because only using one arm was difficult, he slipped again and almost fell back into the water. Determined not to though, he tightened his hold and climbed up properly.
"Bubblebeam again," Why change something that had worked before? The attack wasn't super effective, but it was easy and he still wasn't feeling very well after everything that had happened so battling was honestly the last thing he felt like. He had to get his head in the game though, now wasn't the time.
On another note, Kingler appeared to have held its own against the Gyarados which was nice, and even though both creatures seemed tired, that was good in Gyarados's case. While he did want to think of himself and his training ability as the reason why, he couldn't deny that it probably had already been pretty worn out beforehand. Darn. But maybe, just maybe the best way to stop it from rampaging anymore would be...
Grinning, he reached and grabbed a pokeball out his bag and pulled back to throw it - crap. Ouch, arm.
Okay, so trying again with his left arm, he threw the ball at the creature.
It shook once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then it clicked and the whole thing was over and he'd caught himself a red Gyarados. Nice, that had been easier than expected. Anyway, hopefully now the rest of them would stop acting so crazily and Mahogany Town could get back to normal, then he'd actually be able to go challenge the gym leader there which was what he'd gone there for in the first place. But despite everything that had happened - running in the wrong direction, putting himself in a ridiculously dangerous situation, falling in the water and hurting his shoulder (which by the way was bruising pretty badly), there was something that hadn't happened that made him happy.
Still holding onto Kingler tightly, he looked up at the grey sky and slowly a smile spread across his face. It hadn't rained.
You put one and one together,
and there will be better weather.
So I guess you can all figure out when and where this is set in G/S/C, haha. I hope so, anyway. I had to take a few liberties with Gold's character as it is game Gold and you don't really get a sense of his character in the games, and his team as well. I didn't want to use a Lapras to surf on because that's too obvious and Red, so Kingler it was. And I know Bubblebeam is a sucky attack to use against a Gyarados, but I seriously had a hard time figuring out what else to use. So yeah, cut me some slack with that, hahaha.
Anyway, I hope you liked it. Thanks for reading!
Edit: Re-upload to fix a few errors.