The Radicals' Road
CHAPTER 1
The Stranger
"Why are we doing this again?" Jack asked, struggling under the weight of the girl standing on his shoulders. Her sneakers were getting dirt all over his shirt as she fought to stay balanced, her fingers gripping the windowsill precariously. It was a bright and sunny day in New Bark Town, and if it weren't for his friends' ridiculous idea, Jack thought he'd be quite enjoying it.
"Professor Cedar isn't usually so secretive, right?" the girl standing on him, Charlotte, explained as she tried to get a good view through the window. "If he's locked up his lab for today, then it's got to be really good."
"Besides," Bree said, standing behind them and munching a Pecha Berry, "We've got nothing else to do for today."
"We could've helped out at the cafe," Jack protested, his knees starting to buckle under Charlotte's weight. "Instead we decide to go sneaking around the Pokemon Professor's lab. Wonderful."
"Jack," Charlotte murmured. "Lift me higher. And I won't be able to see anything properly unless you stop shaking."
Jack wanted to argue that he should be the one on Charlotte's shoulders. The redheaded girl loved to exercise. She was athletic and had limbs that were as lean as a Sudowoodo's; skinny Jack on the other hand might've passed more for a Rattata, if a Rattata had been stretched lanky and had a mess of curly brown hair pasted onto its head. Jack looked at Bree, wordlessly pleading for help. Bree looked him straight in the eye and took another bite of her Pecha Berry dispassionately.
"Bree…"
She held out the Peacha Berry to him. Bree's sharp cheekbones, long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes usually made her an attractive sight, but with the juice dribbling down her chin and her happily munching, Jack wanted to slap her.
"Want a bite?" she offered.
"If you don't want to help me, at least shut your face, okay?"
"Higher, Jack," Charlotte said. "Still can't see."
"Well maybe if you didn't weigh so much…" he groaned.
"Are you calling me fat!?" Charlotte stomped on Jack's shoulder angrily, and regretted it immediately; his knees buckled and they tumbled onto the ground in a tangle of limbs and a cloud of dust.
Bree took another bite of Pecha Berry. "Guys, this is really good," she said.
Charlotte stood up, grabbed the remaining half of the berry from Bree, threw it on the ground, and squashed it with her foot. Bree's dispassionate face burst into anger and disappointment.
"Hey! I was eating that!"
"We're trying to get a sneak peek into the lab, you ditz! And besides, aren't those Pecha Berries for Pokemon!?"
Bree looked embarrassed. "But they taste good."
"SCREW THIS!" Jack screamed, brushing the dust from his shirt. "Professor Cedar's our friend. I'm asking him myself what's going on!"
He stormed around the side of the lab, strode to the front and banged his fist on the doors. They swung open without a problem, and taking this as a good sign, he marched right in, momentarily struck by all the impressive machinery ad technology around him. Professor Cedar's lab had always been the best in the Johto Region. A look behind him told him that the girls were too afraid to follow him in, so he strode on alone.
He came to the main room in the lab, a wide domed space filled with more intriguing gadgets, and this was where he found the Professor, standing by himself.
"Professor!"
"Ah, Jack," the old man, still looking sleek in a white coat, beamed up at him. "How can I help you? I was wondering what you and your friends were trying to up to, trying to break in through the window."
"Eh," Jack stopped short. "We weren't trying to break in. Sorry. We were just really curious - why did you shut out your lab today without a word?"
"It was only shut this morning. You had no problem walking in through the front door just now, didn't you?"
"Oh. Uh. Right."
The Professor chuckled. "I had some important deliveries this morning, Jack. Things I needed to inspect very discreetly. That's all."
"That's it?"
"Were you expecting something else? Something bigger?"
"I nearly bruised myself outside just now cause Charlotte's been eating too many cookies. She could've crushed me, Professor. I was just hoping it was something worth it."
"I'll tell Charlotte you said that."
The blood drained from his face. "Please don't. She'll murder me." And that wasn't even a joke. Charlotte could do the Rage better than any Gyarados could. The Professor laughed heartily. "Actually, Jack, I'm glad you're here. One of my deliveries this morning is something I'd like to share with you."
Professor Cedar gestured for Jack to follow him to a table on the other side of the room. There was a small metallic box on this table, and the Professor opened it to reveal three identical Pokeballs lying inside.
Jack looked from the Professor to the Pokeballs and back. The Professor nodded. For about another five seconds, Jack's eyes flickered between the old man's face and the Pokeballs in front of him, his mouth starting to fall open like an idiot seeing a strange light ahead - approaching him and growing bigger and brighter by the second - before realising that they were the headlights of an oncoming train.
"For me!?" he breathed.
"A gift, yes," Professor Cedar said. "You're fourteen, right? You're overdue for your very own Pokemon."
"MOTHER OF ARCEUS!" Jack grabbed Professor Cedar and embraced him tightly. "THANK YOU PROFESSOR! WOW, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT, THREE POKEMON JUST FOR ME!"
"Dammit, Jack, just one! You're supposed to pick just one!"
That barely diminished Jack's joy. "ONE POKEMON! Wow, one Pokemon of my own! Thanks, Professor!"
Cedar was laughing again. "Take your pick, then. Grass, fire, or water?"
Jack thought for a moment. "Grass," he decided. Professor Cedar nodded at the leftmost Pokeball, which Jack grabbed and tossed into the air.
A bright flash of light, and a healthy-looking Chikorita burst from the Pokeball and landed in Jack's arms. "NICE!" The Chikorita squaled in delight and nuzzled itself against Jack's chest and in all of those five seconds Jack felt like they'd formed an irreplaceable connection. "Chester," he said. "I think I'll call you Chester, like the Chestnut Lattes I always loved at the cafe."
Professor Cedar raised an eyebrow. "My. Well. You bonded quite quickly."
"We're all good, Professor."
The sound of glass shattering startled them, and for a second Jack was worried that Charlotte and Bree had pushed through with their stupid plan after all and broken the window. But instead it was a man in a black coat who swung in through the new hole in the glass and landed in the middle of the lab. He stood up slowly and ran a gloved hand coolly through his rusty-red-brown hair. His face was undeniably handsome; his eyes, a stunning shade of purple.
The stranger intimidated Jack with merely a look. "The hell is that?" Jack asked, pulling Chester closer to his chest.
Professor Cedar looked furious, glancing between his broken window and this intruder. "Who are you!?"
The man in black had pulled out a Pokeball. "Hitmonchan!" A flash of light preceded the appearance of an energetic-looking Hitmonchan, who punched the air menacingly for a few times before assuming a fighting stance.
"Professor Cedar," the main in the black coat said, in a confident voice that was both velvety smooth and rugged as hell, "This morning you were delivered an item of value. I would like it very much please. If you don't hand it over, things around here will get a little messy."
"I don't know what you're talking about," the Professor said.
"I will very seriously trash your lab if you don't hand over the Relic right now, sir," the man said. "I've got my pretty worked-up Hitmonchan here ready to fuck things up if you don't."
"Woah, language," Jack said.
"Okay, okay," the Professor conceded. He began to reach into a pocket of his coat, when Jack leaped in front of the man in black. Chester jumped from his arms and ran straight at the Hitmonchan, striking it with a full-force tackle. The Hitmonchan brushed the Chikorita away with an effortless swipe, sending it skidding across the floor.
"Seriously?" the man in black said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and then brushing his hair again in a way that would've made any other male model envious. "A baby Chikorita? You must be joking."
"I'm not letting you steal anything from the professor! Chester and I will stop you! Chester, use tackle!"
The Chikorita gallantly leaped at at the Hitmonchan again.
"Mach Punch," the man in black commanded, sounding bored but still managing to sound incredibly suave while doing so. Hitmonchan struck Chester in mid-air and knocked the little Pokemon down once again, a little harder this time.
"No!" Jack cried.
"One last chance," the man in black addressed the Professor. "Where's the Relic?"
Jack's new Chikorita was still getting up on its feet, the leaf on its head looking a little crumpled but the determination a very clear spark in its eyes. "Chester, come on, one more time! Use tackle!"
"Hitmonchan, put it out of its misery. Use Fire Punch!"
As Chester tried to tackle Hitmonchan, it was instead met with a boxing glove wrapped in flame, straight to the face. Chester crashed to the floor, singed and hurting, and this time did not get up. Jack ran over and dropped to his knees, cradling his new Pokemon in his arms.
"Boom," the man in black murmured, making a gun shape with his hand and pointing it at them. "Super effective, bitch."
"Seriously, dude, there's no need for that kind of language."
The man in black turned to the Professor. "Well?"
The Professor lay a hand on Jack's shoulder. "It's okay, Jack. Chester's only getting hurt. You can stop now." After a moment, Professor Cedar quietly pulled a small, brass ball, just a bit smaller than a Pokeball, out of his coat's inner pocket and tossed it across the room to the man. He caught it elegantly with one hand, inspected the smooth sphere for a second, and then pocketed it. "Thank you for your cooperation," he said. "Hitmonchan, return."
As soon as the Hitmonchan was back in its Pokeball, the man turned around to leave through the front door.
"Wait," Jack called. Surprisingly, the man stopped and turned to face him.
"I'm waiting," he said.
"Tell me your name, at least," Jack said softly. "So I can hunt you down and kick your butt next time."
And the man in black smiled. Even his eyes seemed to be glinting with amusement, underneath the rusty bangs. "Name's Thaddeus," he said. "If you want to fight me again… Jack, right? I'll be waiting for you. Get stronger. Earn some badges. Next time we fight… make sure it's a fight." He stuck his hands in his coat pockets and blew a lock of stray hair out of his eyes.
And then Thaddeus was out the door with a sweep of his long black coat with such theatricality that it might've been rehearsed. Jack dropped his eyes sadly on his knocked out Chikorita.
"Come on," the Professor murmured. "Let's get Chester healed."
Later that day, with the sky starting to turn orange with dusk, Jack was seated with Charlotte and Bree around an outdoor table at his family's cafe. Chester was patched up in no time, and was now happily munching on some snacks on the table, while the three friends each sipped their preferred flavours of coffee.
"You really didn't see him?" Jack asked them. "He jumped in through the window we were trying to peek through."
"We really didn't, Jack," Bree said apologetically. "Charlotte and I ran away when you entered the lab. We thought we were going to get into trouble for it."
"At least you've got a Pokemon now," Charlotte said optimistically, patting the leaf on Chester's head carefully. "It's a great thing Chester got out of that in one piece."
"What the heck was that Thaddeus after, anyway?" Bree asked. "What was this Relic that he kept talking about?"
"No idea," Jack mumured. "The Professor didn't want to talk about it. Probably some important scientific technological thing. He said it was all kind of secretive, which is why he locked up his lab earlier in the morning. Anyway, he said I should just forget that any of that ever happened."
"He sounds like a dangerous guy." Bree reached over and squeezed Jack's hand. "I'm glad you got out of it safe. Did he say anything when he took off with the Professor's thingamajig?"
"Said that if we fight again, I should make it a fight."
"Geez, he's just leading you on. Come on, Jack. You and Professor Cedar already reported the guy to the police. We'll let them handle it."
"Mhmm." Jack looked at his Chikorita, and his Chikorita looked back at him. And then, Chester's eyebrows kind of furrowed in a look of affirmation. Jack scratched him around the neck. "What a weird day, huh, little guy?"
That evening, Jack couldn't quite sleep. He tossed and he turned and he dreamed of weird things for a few fitful moments before waking up. First he dreamed that he was a punching bag, and Thaddeus's Hitmonchan was using him for boxing practice, and then the Hitmonchan transformed into Thaddeus himself, who kept on punching and laughing. Then he dreamed Chester was getting whacked by Fire Punch after Fire Punch, and then Chester squealed something that sounded like, "I'm a grass type, you dumbass! GRASS DOESN'T DO GOOD AGAINST FIRE!", but then Jack tried to explain that Hitmonchan was a fighting type, and well, how the heck was he supposed to know he could do Fire Punch? And the nightmares continued until he finally woke up at the crack of dawn.
Jack spent about half an hour seated on his bed in their home above the cafe, thinking and breathing and thinking some more. Chester was snoozing peacefully at the foot of his bed. Finally Jack nudged him awake. "Come on, little guy," he said. "We've got to go. Get up, come on. We're going somewhere."
He packed a bag, threw on a dark brown jacket and jeans, laced up his walking boots.
"We're doing something."
A few minutes later, he knocked on Professor Cedar's door and briefly explained to the old man what he was planning to do. Surprisingly, the Professor had no qualms.
"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," he said, and then gave Jack his very own Pokegear and Pokedex, too. "Just be careful out there. Take care of Chester. And give me a call if you ever need help."
"Thanks, Professor. Are you sure you can't tell me anything about that Relic that was stolen from you?"
"I really can't, Jack. But I have a feeling you'll find out anyway." He smiled a grandfatherly smile, and Jack smiled back.
And then Jack was walking up the road out of New Bark Town, imagining Thaddeus's face and the look on it when he and Chester got their payback.
"Okay, man. Here we go. I'm coming."