AJ didn't think much of Joey when he first saw him.
First, the kid had been fighting with another Trainer, their battle blocking the only road to Violet City. That was just plain rude. Sure, it hadn't gotten in the way of his errand for Professor Elm, but what if it had? Would he, and any other passersby just trying to go about their business, have to wait for the two kids to finish their battle? That could take hours; the two Trainers were battling when AJ passed by them on the way to Mr. Pokemon's house, and they were still fighting when he walked back to Cherrygrove half an hour later.
Luckily, by the time he headed towards Violet City, the Trainers had finished their battle, and the path was clear.
Well, mostly clear. One of the two youngsters he'd seen fighting earlier was facing the path, staring him down as he crossed.
Right as AJ walked by the other Trainer, the kid yelled out, "Wait!"
He turned around, curious what this inconsiderate kid could possibly want from him.
"I just lost, but you look like a beginner, so maybe I can win against you! Let's battle!"
AJ didn't particularly want to battle the young Trainer, not when he needed to get to Violet City, not when he'd lost battle after battle because the voices forced him to use useless moves over and over, but it wasn't his decision to make. The Youngster threw his Poke Ball to the ground, revealing a Rattata whose body sunk into the tall grass surrounding them, only its head and its tail peeking out. AJ felt himself do the same, letting out his Totodile, which had become both tired and stronger from the many battles it had been forced to endure.
The battle went quickly, even though AJ kept stopping and checking the contents of his nearly-empty backpack, the voices seemingly convinced that examining it repeatedly would magically make useful items appear from within. The Rattata's repeated tackling of the Totodile did little more than give the Water-type an opportunity to scratch his sharp claws against the Rattata's body, and soon the small rodent slumped to the ground.
After both put away their Pokemon, the youngster gave AJ a handful of change, his eyes lowered. AJ started to walk away, but found that his legs were stuck to the spot. The voices wouldn't let him leave, at least not yet.
A minute later, the youngster finally spoke up.
"I… I lost again… I thought I could beat you, but I lost again, like I always do…"
AJ looked over, but the kid wouldn't make eye contact, his eyes still fixed upon the ground.
"Maybe the other kids are right… Maybe my Rattata just isn't good enough… But I don't want any other Pokemon! Why can't it just be me and Rattata?"
AJ wished he could console the sniffling kid, wished he could give him a hug and wipe his tears away and tell him that everything was going to be okay, but he was paralyzed, held in place by the frantic screeching of the voices. He tried desperately to do something, anything, to help, to let the other Trainer know that he was listening and that he cared, and managed to squeak out a soft "Sorry."
It was the first word AJ had been able to say for himself since the voices took over that morning.
"No, don't be sorry." Joey said, wiping his nose on his sleeve as his sniffling quieted. "It's not your fault. It's just… Rattata's special. He was a gift, a Christmas gift, from before…" His voice trailed off.
"Never mind. You've got a Pokegear- can we swap numbers? I could use somebody to talk to, and you seem nice."
The voices in his head flared up.
We beat his top percentage Rattata!
Down with the false god Rattata, all hail LazorGator!
Get his number, guys! Don't screw this up!
Aww yeah!
You know he's never gonna leave us alone now, right?
Do it do it do it do it
AJ's nod was a bit overenthusiastic, but the other Trainer didn't seem to notice.
"You know how to add a contact to your Pokegear, right? Let's just swap, and you can add your number, and I'll add mine."
AJ nodded, and the two switched Pokegears.
After the two entered their information and switched back, the youngster added, extending his hand, "By the way, my name's Joey." The introduction was unnecessary; the mob in AJ's head had been chanting Youngster Joey's name since the first time he'd seen the Trainer.
AJ just stood there, immobile, unable to meet Joey's outstretched hand or even say his own name.
After an uncomfortable minute, Joey put his hand back down and started pressing buttons on his Pokegear. "AJ, huh? You don't talk much, do you? You're a weird kid, AJ… But that's okay. I guess I'm kind of weird, too." He ended the sentence with a soft, awkward giggle.
Weird… yeah, weird was one way to put it. AJ had never considered himself anything but normal before that day, but now, weird was one of the tamer words that could describe how he was acting, what was happening to his life.
AJ turned his head and started to walk away. The voices had had enough. But as he left, he heard Joey's voice calling out once more.
"Hey, AJ! The next time you battle me, I'm going to win, alright?"
All through his walk to Violet City, AJ's mind filled with thoughts of Youngster Joey, both his own and those of the voices.
Just as the voices had predicted, Joey called AJ on the Pokegear over and over and over. AJ answered every time, dropping whatever he was doing for the chance to hear Joey's voice. If Joey wanted to talk to him, the rest of the world could wait.
Sometimes AJ found himself calling Joey, whether it'd been hours or seconds since they last spoke. And, to his credit, Joey always picked up, and if he begrudged being woken up to talk in the middle of the night or getting several calls in a row, he never let it show.
Joey always had something new to talk about in their calls. He talked about his father, his sisters, and the neighbor kids who always picked on him. He talked about the books he was reading, and the games he was playing, and how his birthday was just around the corner.
But most of all, he talked about his Rattata.
When Joey beat another Trainer for the first time, AJ heard all about it. When Joey managed to beat Mikey, the kid he'd been fighting with when AJ first saw him, using only the Rattata that Mikey had made fun of for years, Joey told him every detail of the fight. The amount of wild Pokemon he'd beaten in training, the blow-by-blow of every Trainer fight he got into… Whenever anything happened with Joey's Rattata, AJ was the first to hear about it.
Joey rarely stopped talking long enough for AJ to get a word in edgewise… but truth be told, he kind of liked it that way. Every word he said was a struggle, and he found it even more comforting to hear Joey's repetitive ramblings about how sharp his Rattata's teeth had grown then trying to talk about the journey that AJ himself still didn't quite understand.
And whenever they were talking, Joey's voice was the only one that filled AJ's head.
The others came rushing back after every call, of course, but those momentary respites gave AJ the strength to keep going.
Until they all stopped.
He didn't know if the mob was punishing him for some mistake he couldn't think of, or if it was just some catastrophic mistake, but AJ had to watch, helpless, as he deleted Joey's number from his Pokegear.
He could remember a few digits of Joey's number, but not all of them, not enough to replace the contact information. And his Pokegear only took calls from those on the contact list, a feature his mother had turned on so he wouldn't be mobbed by telemarketers or scammers or worse.
His connection to Joey was gone.
AJ kept going- he didn't have a choice, as his body pushed forward even against his will- but every victory after that felt hollow. Others called, of course, but it wasn't the same. They weren't Joey, the kid he'd stopped from crying, the kid whose only sources of joy in the world seemed to be his Rattata and AJ himself. They couldn't block out the voices like Joey could.
He couldn't help but worry about what Joey had to think of this. He'd never been able to tell Joey about the voices, so he must think that AJ had meant to delete his number. Joey must think that he'd done something to upset his only friend, that AJ didn't care about him anymore. AJ could take the voices messing with his life; he had gone through far too much to think that they would preserve any source of happiness he found, even if this loss hit closer to home than most. But Joey didn't deserve this. Joey didn't have to suffer, too.
Maybe it was for the best that they lost touch now, before they could get even closer, before the inevitable betrayal of the voices made both of their lives even worse…
For a little while, AJ stopped struggling against the voices. What was the point? Four days of fighting his own mind nonstop, and what did he have to show for it? He might as well give up, turn into the automaton that many of the voices already thought he was. Maybe then he'd get through this strange journey. Maybe then, one way or another, it would all be over soon.
He beat another gym, and none of it mattered.
He met and defeated a Gyarados with shimmering red scales, and none of it mattered.
He stopped Team Rocket's nefarious plot, and none of it mattered.
He saw Suicune, a beast only spoken of in ancient legends, and none of it mattered.
Even flying back to New Bark Town and seeing his mother wasn't enough to lift AJ's spirits. She had looked at him strangely- he couldn't blame her, when he had so much trouble navigating the house he'd lived in all his life- and he hadn't been able to so much as greet her before the voices forced him back outside. She was just another person that this… that they… had hurt.
The voices quieted a bit as he started trudging towards Cherrygrove, tripping over ledges time and again, mud splashing onto his face. At least this time, unlike when he'd set out from home with his new Totodile a few days before, he didn't pass out repeatedly while desperately trying to reach the next town over.
The sudden hush falling over the voices only made AJ feel more on edge. There had to be some catch, they had to be preparing for something, something that would manage to make his life even worse than before. And, while the silence gave him some time to think, he might have preferred the usual din of the mob. Then, he could pretend his thoughts were just another voice lost in the crowd.
He didn't realize that he was back on Route 30 until he heard that familiar voice in the distance.
"AJ?"
And suddenly he was running, sprinting to be by Joey's side, willing to spend every last bit of the mental energy he'd been building up to reach his friend again.
By the time he got there, he was panting, ready to fall onto the ground and collapse from exhaustion, but he made his burning legs keep standing up.
"AJ!"
"Joey."
"AJ, I didn't… I thought that you… That, that I…"
"Sorry. Accident."
"Really? Oh, I'm so glad! There's been so much I've been wanting to tell you- my Rattata managed to take down a Geodude a little while back. Can you believe that? A Geodude, all by itself! But then, it's no surprise, us being so tough and all. I think I might be the best Trainer in my neighborhood now, can you believe that? And we're just going to keep getting stronger!"
And he was back to the same excited rambling about his Rattata's latest victories, as if nothing had ever happened.
Once Joey finished his latest anecdote, he added, "So, AJ, do you want my Pokegear number back, then? I mean, if you don't want it, it's fine, I'm just glad we've gotten to talk now, but I'm sure I'll have more to tell you, since my Rattata and I have been training so much, you know?"
AJ nodded and handed over his Pokegear. A few button presses later…
"Done!" Joey gave AJ back his Pokegear. "Hey, you wanna battle? This time, I won't lose!"
AJ shook his head.
"Oh, well, that's fine. It's good we'll be able to talk more at least, Dad keeps telling me he's sick of all my talk about Rattata, but he's never been a Trainer, so he wouldn't understand like you do. I'm sure you get really excited about your Pokemon too, about how strong they're getting, all the training you've been doing-" But AJ was already walking away, compelled by the voices to keep going, to leave his one friend behind.
"Hey AJ!"
He managed to slow his footsteps and look over his shoulder at Joey.
"Walking away while I'm still talking… You really are a weirdo, you know that?"
AJ wished that he could tell Joey everything, tell Joey that this wasn't really him, that he would give anything to be able to stay and chat with him and forget everything for a few hours, but he knew that even if he could figure out what words would express what had been happening the last few days, the voices would never let him say them. And his feet just kept pushing him onward.
But, as he kept walking, he heard Joey one more time.
"But I guess that's why we're friends."
Joey's words echoed in his head. And the voices in his head, even as they pushed him forward, kept talking about Joey, focusing on their conversation almost as much as AJ was.
WE LOVE YOU JOEY!
They got back together!
Rattodile is canon again!
We'll never leave you again, Joey!
I knew the break-up wouldn't last.
We got the number? WE GOT THE NUMBER!
Joey-senpai makes AJ's kokoro go doki-doki~
They… they liked him too?
Then before, when he'd lost the number… they didn't mean it, then. And if it had been an accident, maybe that meant it wouldn't happen again.
It wasn't a guarantee, of course. Nothing was guaranteed, not as long as the voices still haunted him.
But it was something, at least. And that was more than he'd had before.
AJ was in Goldenrod, taking down Team Rocket members one by one. They were doing something with the radio, and the Chairman… he didn't understand all the details, but as long as the voices knew where he needed to go, whether he understood what was going on or not was incidental. Most of his Pokemon had fainted from battle wounds and exhaustion, as usual. He knew both that he needed to get to a Pokemon Center and heal before he lost again, and that getting out of this maze and back to the Center was easier said than done.
Then he heard the ring of his Pokegear.
AJ grabbed the Pokegear from his bag, but immediately rammed into a wall, dropping the still-ringing Pokegear in the process. He scrambled to get it and picked up the call.
"Hey AJ! I was just thinking, did I ever tell you what the breeder I met two weeks ago said about Rattata?"
He'd told AJ the story a thousand times, of course, but he was all too glad to hear it again, to hear the enthusiasm in Joey's voice.
"He said that my Rattata was really strong for not having that much training, that he was a natural-born fighter, a real champion in the making! You know what he said? He said my Rattata was top-percentage! That was the word he used, top-percentage! And if Rattata was that good back then, can you imagine how strong he is now? I wonder what that breeder would say if he could see Rattata now? He'd really be amazed, I know he would!"
AJ cleared his throat, picking his words carefully, knowing he'd have to fight for each and every one. "Joey?"
"Yeah? What's up, AJ?"
AJ took a deep breath, and much as he tried, he couldn't stop his voice from wavering. "I'm glad to hear you again."