Renny: After watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, I've had an idea.
Green: It's a stupid one, as usual.
Renny: No it's not. Anyway, I won't spoil it here- mainly because no one will be able to tell what my idea even was until it's pointed out.
Green: *sighs* Renny doesn't own pokemon.
Renny: On with the show!
OOOOOO
The Mew's cries- still as strong as ever despite the battle raging- were several metres away. They zigzagged all over the place, telling him exactly where the Mew was.
He didn't intend to catch this Mew. No, it wasn't his Mew- he could tell just by how this one moved. It was different, held itself in the air far more heavily. This one was obviously an older Mew, more sure of its' power.
But that wasn't going to stop him from testing Charmander's strength against it.
It wasn't like there was a rule which blatantly said 'stay away from any and all Legendaries'. It wasn't like the Mew he and Charmander were battling was telling him to stop.
In other words, this older Mew was enjoying itself.
The air heated up suddenly. A stray Ember was heading his way, not Charmander's fault because he was busy with the battle, so he judged the distance and then- quick as he could- ducked.
Just in time as well, because the Ember shot straight over his head. Lucky.
Charmander's feet thudded against the ground, and then disappeared into the air. He was jumping, avoiding a Psychic blast from the older Mew, and twisting in mid-air to fire back if the way his tail flame moved was any indication.
Green folded his arms and tilted his head. This battle was going better than he thought it would.
Looked like Charmander's strength was getting better. He might not be able to tell when a pokemon would evolve (definitely not, not after a random Meowth on the ranch had evolved into a Persian- no one had been expecting that) but he knew how to tell a pokemon's strength.
Charmander's? Was pretty damn good.
"Stop!" Green called sharply. "That's enough."
Charmander halted his attack, lightly bouncing back onto the ground. His feet shifted and he bent down, tail heat giving away his new position, in a bow from pokemon to Legendary, as thanks.
Green was about to bow as well, because he wasn't stupid, he knew how Legendary pokemon (especially the older ones) demanded respect, but then he heard the bushes to his right rustle loudly, and then a boy started shouting at him.
"What are you doing?" the loud-mouth snapped, stepping into the burnt clearing. "You almost had that thing!"
Green didn't bother answering, and instead plucked a pokeball off his belt. He returned Charmander, after a quick check to find out where exactly the little Fire type was, and then replaced the ball.
"Hello!?" Loud-Mouth continued shout, storming over to shove Green back a few paces. "Are you deaf or something, you-"
He suddenly paused.
" . . . You're blind." were the next words out of Loud-Mouth's giant mouth.
Green raised an eyebrow. From the sound of it, Loud-Mouth was bigger than him (who wasn't? Since he was so tiny, so weak, pleh!), and for all he knew he could have been staring at his collar bone.
But that didn't mean he was stupid.
"Well," Green said. "Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't really noticed."
Loud-Mouth shuffled awkwardly. He'd jerked as soon as Green had replied in the usual 'I'm so sarcastic' manner, as if he was about to snap something in reply, but Loud-Mouth had obviously bitten the words back.
Sheesh. No need to treat him like he was a fragile little thing.
"Well . . . you still had that thing!" Loud-Mouth snapped back to his original point. Huh. Short attention span or something? "Why did you let it go?"
"That wasn't a capture battle, Loud-Mouth." Green explained. He blinked, and remembered- he still hadn't bowed to the Mew.
It was still there now, having plopped down on the ground to rest and watch the two of them.
Green turned in the Mew's general direction and bowed politely.
"Thank you for allowing us to battle you." he said, loud enough for the Mew to hear- even though it didn't need too, it was Psychic in every sense of the word. But still, it was common courtesy.
"B-battle?" Loud-Mouth asked incredulously. "You mean . . . that was just training?"
The Mew hovered off the ground and then took off in a blast of wind, leaving Green alone with Loud-Mouth.
"Of course it was. Do you think I'd be stupid enough to try and capture a Mew?" Green frowned. He didn't bother turning back to Loud-Mouth. He found it unnerved people when he spoke to them without actually looking at them or even in their general direction, so he often did it just to make them go away.
Although Loud-Mouth was either stubborn or ignorant. He didn't seem to get the picture.
"Well, but . . ." Loud-Mouth didn't really have a proper response to that.
The bushes rustled again- this time on Green's left side- and a man stepped out. The way he carried himself was more like he was royalty, and he stepped over the smallest twig like it was a log the height of his own leg.
Dammit.
And here Green had been hoping he'd have more time.
"Green, what are you doing here?" the man shrilled, making Green wince at the volume and high-pitched tone. "Did you get lost? I could have sworn you were just behind me . . . I'm so sorry, you must have been so afraid."
Green muttered under his breath, cursing the man a thousand times. He'd actually slipped away the second the man's attention had wavered from him, and had relished in his newfound freedom- that was when he'd found the Mew, who he had promptly challenged to a practise battle.
But now it looked like that freedom was over, and he had to go back to being a fragile, scared little boy.
The man shifted, suddenly noticing Loud-Mouth. His clothing rustled as he bowed down slightly, but Green knew it was just a mock-bow. This man thought of everyone as beneath him, and only took his job as Green's so-called 'caretaker' seriously because he got paid a hell of a lot of money.
"Thank you for keeping him safe." the man said to Loud-Mouth. "My name is Sebastian Edik. If there is any way I can repay you for finding him, please let me know, mister . . .?"
"Red." Loud-Mouth blurted, sounding thoroughly confused. "Red Stevenson."
Oh, so that was his name.
Cool.
He was still a loud-mouth.
Sebastian walked over to Green, making heavy stomps to let him know he was coming over. He saw it as helpful, because it allowed Green to hear him coming, but he didn't know- and Green would never tell him- that Green could feel him coming over. He'd know where he was even if he was completely silent, not that Sebastian'd ever be possible of that.
The man placed a hand on Green's shoulder. The boy knew what was going to happen next, and he resigned himself to his fate.
"Now, if you'll excuse us . . . I must escort him back home." Sebastian told Red, as if Green wasn't even there. "Goodbye, Mister Stevenson."
"Uh . . . bye?"
Red shifted, and he was probably waving awkwardly as Sebastian gently moved Green in the general direction of home.
Dammit, he knew where home was! He didn't have to be led around like a three year old the whole time.
And speaking of home . . . he was probably gonna get yelled at for wandering off. Daisy always worried so much about him, terrified that he'd accidently fall off a nearby cliff or something (as if), and Grandpa pitied him so much that Green felt like he was suffocating every time he was near either of them.
oooo
The next time Green ran into Loud-Mouth- Red, whatever- he was way north of Pallet town.
Viridian forest was such a lively place, filled to the brim with pokemon just itching for battles. Green had even caught an enthusiastic Pidgey, who had practically screeched at him until he'd thrown a pokeball at him.
Damn birds. At least Pidgey was happy with being a 'house pokemon'.
Bushes rustled (was this how they were going to meet every single time?) and he snapped his head in that direction.
"Go!" he ordered Charmander.
Charmander growled and leaped forward, spitting and hurling fire, and hit something. The sound it made was sort of like what happened when Charmander was battling Water types, and was using Fire attacks- but that was impossible. Water pokemon didn't live this deep in Viridian forest, they lived near or in the ponds and lakes nearer the edges of the forest.
Unless one had wandered away?
He stepped through the bushes, grumbling in annoyance, and stopped just short of whatever pokemon Charmander had hit. The Fire lizard himself was standing at his heels, peeking out from behind his legs.
"What was that for, you- you again!" a familiar voice cried. Angry at first, and then suddenly surprised.
"Loud-Mouth." Green sighed.
"Red." The other boy stood up, cradling something in his arms. "You shouldn't attack other people's pokemon."
"I didn't know it belonged to anyone." Green retorted, folding his arms. What in the hell was Red even doing in the forest?
"Poli's a Poliwhirl!" As if Green couldn't guess from the childish nickname. "There aren't any Poliwhirl in this forest, last I checked, so it should have been obvious that he belongs to someone!"
"How was I meant to know what it was?" Green demanded.
"By looki- guh."
"Don't trip over yourself trying to say the right thing." Green sighed, already sick of it. He'd had this crap all his life and he didn't need it from some loud-mouthed moron. "It never works out."
"Uh . . ."
Before Red could come up with an answer to that, Sebastian came stepping delicately around a tree. He was muttering something obscene about Bug pokemon, but the second he spotted Green, he stopped cursing and stomped over to him.
"Ah, Red!" Sebastian called, as loudly as possible. "Hello, my young friend."
"Friend?"
Sebastian ignored the question flawlessly. "I hope Green hasn't bothered you too much. He's quite the little handful, isn't he?"
"I'm right here." Green snapped, but he was ignored as usual.
"No, he's . . . fine." Red said awkwardly.
"This is the second time he's wandered off . . . I must keep a closer eye on him." Sebastian laughed. "There's no telling what might happen out here, after all!"
"I'm pretty sure he's just fine." Red muttered, but as usual Sebastian didn't hear him.
The man turned to Green, clothing rustling when he folded his arms. Green could almost imagine the look of pity and disappointment on his face, though he honestly wouldn't have any way of knowing how those emotions were expressed.
"Green, I know how difficult life is for you-"
Do you? Green wanted to snap, but he bit his lip and kept himself from having a tantrum. That never worked anyway.
"-but please, I'm doing my best to look after you. If you can't hear me anywhere nearby, wait in that spot until I come and find you, alright?" Sebastian went on. He probably meant it to sound gentle and caring, but all Green got from that was a patronising tone that made him bristle.
"Yes Sebastian." he gritted out.
"Are you his cousin, or something?" Red asked, sounding confused. He shuffled his weight from foot to foot.
"Oh, no, of course not!" Sebastian. "I'm only his . . . I suppose you could call me his nurse, really. Professor Oak- his grandfather, in case you didn't know-"
Red obviously did, considering how he didn't gasp in shock upon the realisation that a blind boy was the great and famous Professor Oak's grandson.
"-pays me to take care of him. He can't even move around his own bedroom without me!"
Yes he could. He knew his bedroom like he knew his own damn body. Hell, he knew how to get around Pallet town, even without feeling where things were. He might have been blind, but he had an amazing memory.
Though Sebastian, and Grandpa and Daisy, acted like he didn't remember a thing. 'I don't suppose you'd remember this Rapidash, would you?' Just because he couldn't see the damn thing . . . yes, of course he remembered that Rapidash, it had the gammy leg that no one else noticed because it wasn't obvious unless you actually felt it walk!
"I somehow doubt that." Red said, and Green was shocked.
Was he . . . actually defending him? Or at least telling Sebastian that he wasn't the helpless little kid everyone thought he was?
Maybe this guy wasn't so bad after all.
"You've only met him once or twice, of course you would." Sebastian sighed. "I'm taking Green to Pewter city, if you'd like to come along? We're going to the museum."
"Yay, old rocks." Green deadpanned.
"Yes, Pewter Museum's rock collection is quite fascinating!"
This man was actually thicker than Green thought he was.
"Uh, sure. I was heading in that direction anyway, so I guess it's fine . . ."
They got attacked by a wild Kangaskhan on the way (but Kangaskhan didn't live in Viridian forest, why was Green the only one who was worried about this?). Sebastian did his usual amazing battle strategy of screaming and wetting himself, to which Green just sighed and sat down to wait for the inevitable.
Then Red started throwing attacks at the Kangaskhan, using his Poliwhirl and- holy crap. Was that Bulbasaur? Why did Red have Bulbasaur? And why was he calling him Saur?
There hadn't been much time for a reunion, though. In the middle of the battle, Green noticed something off about the Kangaskhan. She seemed to be just taking the attacks, defending her stomach, apparently not caring what happened to the rest of her body.
It was only when Green stood up and concentrated on the vibrations that he understood what was wrong, and so a baby Kangaskhan was saved from poisoning.
Unfortunately Sebastian didn't seem to believe that it was Green who figured it out, so Green was back to square one with the prick.
oooo
"This is boring." Green muttered, while Sebastian examined some rocks he claimed were 'from the moon'.
Yeah, right. And Green wasn't blind.
"I know." Red sighed. "You've only told me a million times. I'm bored too, you know."
"Then why are we still here? C'mon, let's ditch the loser and go somewhere more fun!" Green whispered, turning in Red's general direction. He grabbed Red's hand and tried to drag him off to the entrance, but Red only moved a step because he'd been surprised. He didn't move beyond that when he'd gathered his wits.
"I'm not gonna be the one who gets in trouble for this!" Red snapped quietly. "You can wander off if you want to, but-"
"Would you rather get yelled at for 'leaving me to fend for myself'?" Green demanded.
" . . . You're right, let's go."
Ten minutes later, Green was leading Red to the Gym.
Red had been muttering something about how weird it was to be led by a blind kid, but then he shut up almost instantly as soon as he saw the Gym's entrance.
"What are we doing here?" he asked, confused.
Green smirked and stabbed a finger at him, almost poking him in the nose. He didn't bother turning to Red properly.
"We're here for a bet." Green told him, liking how Red staggered back slightly. "You and me, Loud-Mouth."
"Red!" he snapped back. "And what do you mean, a bet?"
"You never heard of this? Hah, I have. Heard about it all the time in Pallet town." Green scoffed. "Every two weeks or so, Brock- the Gym Leader, y'know- kicks up a tournament in his Gym. Trainers compete in the tournament against each other in the preliminaries, and then in the finals, against two of the Gym Trainers. If you manage to beat all the competition, you get to battle Brock. If you're lucky enough to win, you get a Boulder Badge."
"And your bet comes into this tournament how?"
Focused. Green kinda liked that.
His smirk grew wider and he crossed his arms.
"You and me are gonna sign up for this tournament right now." he said, and grinned at Red's almost-choke. "We'll see who wins the Boulder Badge and who doesn't. That's the bet."
"You wanna see who can get the Boulder Badge, and who can't? Well . . . sounds fair to me, I guess." Red said. He must have shrugged as well, because Green heard his clothes rustle.
"You sure, Loud-Mouth? Not too Torchic-shit to take the bet? You won't back out at the last second? Because once we're signed up, we're in for good." Green warned him.
"What do I get when I win?" Red asked.
Ooooh, confident. Yeah, this guy was definitely gonna be a lot of fun.
"Whoever wins gets bragging rights." Green informed him. "And if you win . . . I'll give you three thousand pokepounds."
Red actually did choke this time.
"But if I win, I get information." Green told him, deciding to get serious.
"Information?"
"Yeah. Like, how do you know Grandpa? Why are you so intent on trying to tell Loser-Face I'm not a useless blind kid? Stuff like that."
"I could tell you that right now, it's not like it's a big secret." Red said.
"Dammit, don't ruin the drama!" Green snapped. His anger was so sudden that Red took a few steps back. "If, by some small chance, we both win . . . neither of us gets bragging rights, of course-"
"Goes without saying." Red admitted. "There'd be nothing to brag about if we both get the Badge."
"Exactly. I'll give you half of what you would have gotten if you'd have won, and you answer all my questions."
"That doesn't sound like a fair trade to me." Red snorted.
"I'm sacrificing my bragging rights here, be reasonable."
Red sighed. Green could just about imagine him rolling his eyes.
"Let's go get registered. The next tournament's tomorrow, by the way." Green told Red, starting off towards the entrance. "And you'll have to write my form for me, I can't do it myself you know!"
"Wait, the next one's- and you only just told me- Green, hold on!"
oooo
Of course they both won. The only good thing that came out of that was the story that Red told him about him letting loose every single pokemon in the ranch and why he was trying to convince Sebastian that Green wasn't fragile as hell. Turned out it was because he'd saw Green dodge a fireball like he could actually see, and had been thoroughly impressed.
Oh, and Charmander evolved into Charmeleon and promptly wiped the floor with everyone.
That Fire lizard was badass.
Red turned up again when he (and Sebastian) was hanging around Lavender town. Green had been trying to figure out how in the flying fuck he could get away from Sebastian long enough to explore the so-called haunted tower, and then suddenly Mister Fuji had came in with Red in tow, dripping wet.
"Well damn." Green said as loudly as possible, scaring Red to death. "Look who dropped in from the sky. Hah. Geddit? Cus it's raining."
"Yeah, I got it." Red grumbled. He sat down- more like threw himelf down- onto the chair next to Green and presumably sulked in silence.
"We're making this a habit, my young friend." Sebastian said from the other side of the room, thankfully. "I should consider adding you to our little group- an extra set of eyes might be helpful."
"Piss-ant." Green muttered.
"No thank you." Red replied, loud enough to drown out Green's response. "I'm good on my own."
"Are you certain?"
"He said he's fine!" Green snapped, slamming a hand on the table and startling everyone in the room. "Shut the hell up already!"
Sebastian sighed. "I'm very sorry, he's been like this for the past two weeks. I don't know what's gotten into him."
Green hissed and very nearly spat in his general direction, but he stood up and stormed off instead.
Just before he slammed the front door shut, he heard Red snap at Sebastian.
"Maybe it's because you keep babying him!"
He would have liked to stick around for the argument that sparked, but Green had something he needed to do.
Three hours later, he kind of regretted it.
"So." the ninja-man said. "You're Professor Oak's mystery grandson."
"And you're a weirdo who hangs out in a cemetery. Go figure." Green flatly replied.
The man twitched bodily, as if he'd just about held himself back from striking Green across the face for his snark. Green wasn't even restrained, since everyone thought a blind boy was absolutely no threat at all- Ninja-Man hadn't even checked him for pokemon, either. Hadn't even remotely touched him, even to search for a potential weapon.
Dumbass.
He was a ninja. He wouldn't shut up about it five minutes ago. That should have told him that a sightless person was still a dangerous threat. Obviously he was too damn arrogant.
Fucking Rockets.
"I'd appreciate it if you could keep the insults to a minimum." Ninja-Man said politely, coldly.
"And I'd appreciate it if you could shut your face."
"Silence, boy!" Ninja-Man snapped, finally losing his temper. Green had that effect on people. "While you are in my custody, you will obey my rules- and that means keeping silent! In my day, children were seen and not heard. Or better yet, not seen at all."
"You being serious?" Green sighed.
"Of course! Can't you tell, boy?"
"Nope."
"Look at my face and tell me if I'm being serious!"
Green raised an eyebrow and waited.
" . . . Damn kid." Ninja-Man eventually muttered, realising his mistake.
"Damn man!" Green cheerfully replied.
"Shut up."
Was that the best he could come up with? Bloody pathetic.
Green waited, leaning against the wall nearby, until Ninja-Man had left to deal with some sort of disturbance downstairs. Then he released Charmeleon and Pidgeotto, and instructed them to take out the two Arboks Ninja-Man had stationed secretly as guards outside the room.
Charmeleon used Smokescreen to blind the entire hallway, just in case there were more guards (human or pokemon) that Green hadn't felt. It made absolutely no difference to any of them, because Green had helped his pokemon train in fighting blind.
Pidgeotto was slightly difficult, but they'd managed it. As long as the bird paid attention to the slightest shift in the wind, he could fight without his sight no problem. Which meant that attacks like Smokescreen and Sand Attack were useless against him.
Two whacks later, Green and his two pokemon crept out of the room and past the two unconscious Arbok guards.
There was some sort of commotion going on on the . . . second floor of the tower. Green blinked and crouched down, Charmeleon and Pidgeotto pausing beside him as he pressed a hand into the floor to check what was going on.
Judging by the way the floor moved and the vibrations, it was like World War Two down there. He tilted his head and frowned. What in the hell was happening?
There were ten floors to this tower- he knew from Fuji that there had been plans to build more, but after the so-called 'ghosts' had took over the tower, the plans were scrapped and the people of Lavender lost their trust in each other.
He wasn't really sure how a bunch of fake ghosts taking over the pokemon tower made an entire town lose their trust in every other living being, but whatever. Things generally didn't make much sense in this world anyway.
(Like how he used vibrations and such to 'see', even though he'd heard that most blind people used sound and touch- he was the odd one out, as per usual.)
By the time he and his two pokemon managed to find their way to the second floor (and how), Green was basically convinced that he was never gonna take the damn stairs ever again.
He stumbled into the second floor and quickly hid behind a nearby tombstone as soon as he heard Ninja-Man's voice, gesturing for Charmeleon and Pidgeotto to get behind something as well.
" . . . name is Koga, and I am one of Team Rocket's elites!" Ninja-Man was shouting.
The only trouble was, Green only had his voice to go by. He had no idea where the man was beyond that, and Ninja-Man didn't exactly leave any vibrations behind, even when he walked.
Which was unusual, even for a damn ninja.
. . . Wait.
Did he just call himself Koga?
"As if Team Rocket had an elite anything!" a familiar voice shouted back.
Green first thought was, if Sebastian's with him I'm gonna kill myself.
His second was, that's Red.
Why was that Red?
"Tell me that's not who I think it is." Green whispered, just to be sure. You never know, someone could just sound remarkably like him.
Charmeleon growled mournfully. Dammit.
"Flamethrower everywhere. Don't hit Red. Or any of his pokemon if he's got them out." Green whispered.
He couldn't actually tell if Red had any pokemon out, and if he did they were either in the air or on his person where Green couldn't sense them. He didn't have a bird (and if he did, Green'd punch Red for copying him), so if it was in the air it could have been something like a Magnemite or whatever. But even then it'd be fairly easy to tell if there was a flying/floating pokemon there.
So if he had a pokemon out, it was on his person. Red had told Green he had a very disobedient Pikachu, and Green had . . . well, sort of seen the rat in action- the thing had only really fought for Red when the boy had saved him from getting his ass pummeled by rocks. And as far as Green knew, he still had Poliwhirl and Bulbasaur. All three could be carried.
Charmeleon shifted, poking his head over the tombstone he was hiding behind. Then there was a continuous blast of heat as he let loose a powerful Flamethrower, and things sort of went to hell.
In the resulting chaos, where Koga- who Green still couldn't feel- and his Poison pokemon ended up shrouded in the smokescreen made by the Flamethrower, Green dashed out and dodged tombstones until he came across Red, huddling behind a half-broken rock that didn't exactly seem right. A broken tombstone maybe.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Green demanded, not bothering with greetings.
"Saving you!" Red snapped back. "That moron Sebastian said something about you wanting to find out what was going on in the tower, but he didn't think you'd be here. I know you better than he does."
"Really says something when a guy I've literally met three times knows me better than an idiot who's been my nanny since birth." Green muttered to himself.
Charmeleon and Pidgeotto came just then, dragging half of some pokemon he didn't know between them. Green hadn't really been paying much attention to them, too focused on Red and why in the hell he thought coming into this place was a good idea, but he had detected something that was vaguely like a scuffle just beyond his close-up senses.
Obviously it was more than a scuffle.
"Is . . . that half an Arbok?" Red asked.
"Oh, so that's what it is." Green said. He wandered over and crouched down, feeling along the scales. "Yup, definitely an Arbok. How'd you two manage that?"
Charmeleon scoffed and Pidgeotto shuffled his wings.
With great difficulty, then.
"I think you should be more worried about the fact that it's half a damn Arbok rather than how your homicidal pokemon managed to decapitate it." Red barked.
"Chill."
"Don't tell me to chill, your pokemon just killed-"
"Chill." Green told him forcefully, placing a hand on the floor. "And shut up. I need to concentrate."
"On what? I can't see a thing in this smokescreen!"
"That makes no difference to me."
" . . . Right. Sorry."
Green didn't bother telling him to not apologise. He focused on the space where Koga should be- presumably in the middle of that knot of pokemon over by the stairs leading to the third floor- and found . . . nothing.
"What did Ninja-Man look like when you saw him, Loud-Mouth?" Green demanded. "Did he flicker or anything?"
"Is this a trick question?"
"Did. He. Flicker."
"Well, no, but I could have sworn I saw right through him for a second- I was just imagining it though-"
"You weren't." Green interrupted. "Koga's not really here."
Red was silent.
"If you're looking at me and waiting for an answer, please verbalise it."
"Right, yeah. What do you mean, he's not here?" Red asked. If he'd asked straight away, it would have been aggressive- as it was, he sounded more calm, but Green could almost imagine him glaring.
"I can't feel him. The only thing that tells me he's here is his voice, and I somehow doubt he's floating in mid-air. Also, he never touched me- not once- when he had me captive. He could have checked for pokemon, or when I pissed him off he could have hit me, but he never did. So he's not really here."
"A hologram." Red realised.
"Yep. Which means the only thing we need to worry about is Ninja-Man's pokemon . . . there's five of them left, over in that corner." Green pointed.
"And Sebastian says you need his help twenty-four-seven?" Red sounded incredulous.
"He's an idiot. I'm awesome. Those two things don't often go together that well."
"Yeah, no kidding- holy-"
Green jerked his head up just in time to avoid getting hit with a flying spit of poison. Acid, by the way it sizzled on the tombstone behind him. The remaining Arbok was the one who had spit.
Unfortunately, that also gave away its' position to Green's pokemon- they moved in and took it out quickly, leaving hologram-Koga with four pokemon left.
"Two Weezing, a Koffing, and . . . is that a Gastly?" Green frowned. "I can't really tell. The gas makes it weird to sense, even when the gas touches the floor."
"Damn, you are good. Yeah, the last one's a Gastly. That's what made the tower seem haunted, by the way. It was possessing the dead bodies of pokemon."
"Ugh, zombie apocalypse. Such an overused trope."
Red shifted and Green almost felt his glare, smirking.
Zombies were kind of stupid. Sure, they were terrifying, but Green kinda thought that it was an overused plot point. A zombie apocalypse here, and another one there . . . so many zombies. From what Daisy had said about the Resident Evil movies, those were less about the zombies and more about the dumbasses who made the zombies.
Which kind of contradicted Green's point and sort of made him wonder what the fuck these people were even thinking. If the films were supposed to be about a zombie apocalypse, then why the hell were the film makers focusing less on the zombies?
And this was of absolutely no relevance to what was going on right now, so he was gonna drop that train of thought until otherwise. Probably in two hours' time when they got out of this mess.
Moving on.
Charmeleon took down a couple of other pokemon with the help of Red's Poliwrath (who had evolved during some weird battle with Lieutenant Surge on the SS. Anne), who seemed to be the only one out of Red's pokemon who had evolved.
What was he doing? Bulbasaur should have evolved by now, dammit. In fact, Green was pretty sure the Pikachu should have evolved- he knew of a woman who sold cheap evolution Stones in Vermilion city.
Within ten minutes, they'd taken out the whole of Koga's team and the smokescreen had vanished. Hologram-Koga was seething, shouting something about getting revenge for this- Green didn't know, he wasn't exactly paying attention.
Red's hand was gripping his arm, pulling him away. And just in time, because it seemed like Koga (the real one, presumably) had hit a switch and was trying to break apart the floor beneath their feet. Things started to come apart and for the first time in his life, Green was completely and utterly blind.
The shaking- the vibrations- was too much for him. He was used to subtle ones, or the occasional bigger one during a battle or something.
He wasn't used to these shockwaves of the entire damn building breaking apart!
"Green!" Red cried, gripping his shoulders. He was in front of Green, trying to do . . . something. Green didn't know what.
He shook his head and staggered away, almost half-dropping into a newly-created hole before Red managed to snag him again and pull him away. Charmeleon and Pidgeotto cried out in unison with Red's pokemon, worried and impatient at the same time.
"Too much . . . It's too much . . ." Green managed to gasp out, while Red gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer, if only to avoid having him step away and fall to a death he couldn't sense coming. "I can't . . . I can't see!"
"I don't wanna point out the obvious-"
"NOT LIKE THAT!" Green screeched, and clamped his mouth shut when Red almost let go of him in shock.
Red eventually took charge, after finally realising that Green was in absolutely no condition to anything besides panic.
He returned both of their teams, and coaxed Green into climbing onto his back. Green, for once in his life, accepted the help without a single complaint- he knew he was useless here, and besides, having his feet off the floor actually helped him gain back some sanity.
"I'm gonna try and run as fast as I can." Red explained. "I might need my arms- do you think you can hold on tight enough?"
"If I feel myself slipping, you'll know about it." Mainly because he'd cling on tighter and continue to be terrified, but Red didn't need to know that.
They got- somehow- and the tower miraculously did not collapse like they'd been expecting it to. Either Koga had hit the wrong switch and he'd actually gone for 'murderous earthquake' rather than 'small but still terrifying earthquake' or shaking the two young Trainers up was exactly his plan.
"Like a warning." Red suggested, when he'd let Green down.
Oh, solid ground, Green would never take it for granted ever again.
"Maybe." Green stressed. "I'm not sure, without having actually met him . . . well, it's hard to tell whether or not he's a plain psychopath."
"How can you tell? I mean, if you were good enough, maybe you'd be able to see the slighest change in his body language, like on those weird TV shows, or if you were looking directly at him- . . . Um."
Green rolled his eyes and punched Red's arm, happy that he could actually figure out where it was now that the world wasn't coming apart beneath his feet.
"Or alternatively I could just listen to his heartbeat- I don't give a damn who you are, your heart always gives away how you're really feeling. The slightest change in someone's heartbeat could indicate literally anything, from that person telling a lie to someone else entirely getting excited over being a murderous psychopath." he said.
"Really? You can sense that?"
"I'll let you in on a little trade secret." Green told him. "And I'm trusting you here, so when Loser-Face gets back- and he will, he always does, he's like a fucking Shedinja- do not breathe a word to him. Understand?"
"I got it." Red replied, completely serious.
Okay, so he did understand.
"Sound bounces off things like a sort of radar, it's just that people with sight can't really hear well enough to use this radar. Touch is a more subtle version of it, which everyone- even if they can see- uses. I won't go into details, but sound and touch are how most blind people can 'see' things." Green explained.
"And you're not 'most', are you?" Red guessed, and Green smiled.
"Nope." he said, shaking his head. "I used to use sound, at one point. Still do, actually. But one day, I was sitting in the barn- nothing better to do, so if you're looking at me like I'm insane quit it- and a Rhyhorn was throwing a tantrum. No one else was around so it fell to me calm the damn thing down, and I wasn't wearing shoes at the time, or even socks. So I could feel every single little vibration on the ground. Those vibrations? Told me exactly where everything was- even the things on the roof, in the trees . . .
"Things in the air are a bit tougher, but I managed to figure it out after some experimenting with Me- my Scyther." Dammit, he'd nearly slipped up. "I can detect the slightest change in the air currents, even if there's no wind- everything that moves makes some sorty of vibration, whether it's on the ground or in the air. I use those to 'see' things. Sound . . . I use that radar as well, just not as much as the vibrations. It's like a more advanced version of a touch-radar."
"That's . . . amazing." Red gasped. "You're amazing! I didn't even know that was possible."
"Yeah, well . . ." Green smirked. "I tend to do the impossible a lot. Get used to it."
"Don't push it." Red told him.
Green shoved him.
"So I suppose that's how you know where I am then-" Red began, unfazed, but then Sebastian's loud voice cut through the air.
"GREEN!" he more or less screamed.
Green winced, and half-hid behind Red without thinking. He had no way of knowing what kind of expression Red had at the moment, not without concentrating really hard (which was difficult to do when he was distracted by Sebastian), but he was willing to bet Red was either looking at him in confusion/surprise or glaring at Sebastian.
He hoped it was the latter.
"Where have you been, young man!?" Sebastian yelled, when he was within earshot- which, apparently for Green, translated as 'four feet away' in Sebastian's mind.
"I was-" Green started.
"No! I've let you out of my sight for the last time- from now on, if I have to, I'll chain you to me! You're far too fragile to wander off like this. You could easily get lost, or stumble into a wall, or-"
"Hold it." Red snapped over him, and Green was surprised at how cold his voice had suddenly become.
Sebastian went silent, shockingly.
"There's absolutely no need to chain Green to you. He's a really good Trainer, blind or not." Red said. He shifted, and Green assumed he was glancing at Green, and somehow he just knew Red was gonna stick up for him even if he couldn't reveal how Green 'saw' things. "In fact, when we were in the tower-"
"YOU WENT INTO THE TOWER!?" Sebastian yelled, horrified. He stomped over to Green and grabbed his arm, for once not being gentle with him like he always was. It was so startling, the sudden change in how Sebastian handled him, that Green couldn't resist when he was pulled away from Red. "That does it, from now on you will never be let out of my sight! If I can't keep an eye on you, I'll have one of my pokemon do it instead. I'm sure Taillow won't mind taking care of you, he takes this job just as seriously as I do!"
"But-" Red began.
"And you!" Sebastian snapped, turning on Red. "You are no longer allowed anywhere near this boy. Do you understand, simpleton?"
Dear Arceus, he did not just say that.
"You are a bad influence on him. Making the poor boy think he can do anything . . . my goodness, next you'll try and convince him he can fly! Green is a very impressionable child, and if you come anywhere near him again, I'll assume you're going to fill his head with lies and fantasies! Good day, boy."
Green didn't even have time to say 'bye' to Red, or even 'thank you for trying to help', before Sebastian dragged him off.
OOOOOO
Renny: I decided this one-shot was getting too long, so now it's either gonna be a two-shot or a short chaptered fanfic . . .
Green: Why do I always clam up whenever Sebastian's around?
Renny: That question will be answered next chapter. Besides, Sebastian's a total prick- he doesn't even listen to you anyway, so there's really not much point in trying.
Green: That is not an excuse.
Renny: Oh, sue me. Read and review!