A Whole New Journey

Chapter 2

Ches

As he waved good-bye to his Aerodactyl, Red made a break for the Vermillion docks. He sprinted and ran as fast as his near-adult legs could possibly carry him. He could feel his age wear down his legs as it'd been a long time before he'd ran like that. His heartbeat was pounding in his skull, throbbing like a bad headache as he charged through the town like a madman, leaving chaos and chuckling people giving him bewildering looks in his wake.

"Excuse me!" he occasionally yelled when he broke through crowds of people or jumped over carts of berries that were in his way. Over half of the time, he was in such a rush that all that came out was something along the lines of gibberish or mixed up words, something along the lines of: "Excuse sorry", "Through pass", or "First me".

The sun shined down on the docks in the near distance. Red suddenly felt a second wind enter his body and fill his lungs, completely revitalizing him. Wiping the waterfall of sweat from his face, he ran down the streets and kept running.

"I'm almost there!" he thought to himself as he saw a crowd of sailors gathered around the entrance to the docks. "Excuse me!" he politely yelled as he tried to shove his way through the big, burly men.

The men clustered together, making a big wall of smelly, hairy men that posed as a roadblock for our hero. He tried desperately to break through them, even resorting to crawling under them and jumping into the ocean to swim around them and crawl up onto the docks, but one of the men plucked the soaking wet Red from the ocean and threw him back down on the pavement.

"Hey, what's the big idea?!" Red shook his fist and yelled at them like an angry old man.

"Aw, look what we have here boys, we caught ourselves a washed up champion!"

Red got back up. His anger getting the best of him, he went in for a left hook, but was stopped at least three inches away by the sailor's long, hairy, and quite frankly grotesque arm. He swung his fists, trying to reach the big, stinky man, but the man simply curled his fingers and flicked Red down to the ground as if he were flicking a fly out of the way. Red desperately checked his pockets for his boat ticket. Finally finding it, he pulled it out and flashed it at them, but all the sailors could do was just laugh in his face and poke fun at him.

"Like we'd even honor your ticket!"

"What's your guys' problem with me anyway?!"

Suddenly, a wild old woman appeared. She looked old and fragile, like someone's great-great-great-great grandmother, but at the same time she looked nice and sweet.

"Excuse me, gentlemen" she said in the happiest, but smallest voice ever. "won't you let a kind old woman through?" She took a ticket from her purse and flashed it at them, revealing it to be the exact same ticket as Red's.

"Of course!" the sailors happily agreed and kindly let her through them. One of them went so far as to help the woman down the docks.

Red could only sit and watch in pure anger and hate as the woman was led down the docks onto the boat by the men that were blocking him.

Red shot up like Bruce Lee when he gets knocked down and began screaming "What?! Are you serious?! Come on!"

The men stood in front of him, towering over him like bulky, smelly, hairy sky scrapers and laughed in his face.

"Basic fact of the matter is that we ain't too fond of you, kid."

"Now run along before we stomp on you."

"Excuse me?!" Red growled and unhinged a Poké Ball from his waist. "I'm the Champion of Kanto! Like I'd EVER take crap from a bunch of sweaty, stinky, and hairy men like you!"

"You're nothing but a washed up has been" one of the sailors spat.

Red chuckled. "Oh, well fine then. Let me put this in words your toddler, beer drinking, non-showering minds will understand… Red battle one of you to one on one Pokeyman battle. If Red win, Red go on ship. If you win, Red go bye-bye. Deal?"

The sailors all nodded in agreement and one of them stepped forward, the assumed leader.

One of them scratched their head and looked around. "Wait, I still don't get it."

"One on one battle with the honorable sailor McMurphy and the washed up Red!" one of the sailors announced. Red paid him no mind though. All he had on his brain was battle.

"Go, Gigalith!" McMurphy burped and roared as his behemoth of a rock-type Pokémon appeared on the field with a big thud as it hit the ground.

Red pulled back and smiled. "I've got JUST the thing for you! Meet one of the six reasons why I'm the champion; go Pika-" Suddenly Red's face turned pale white with fear and horror as he noticed that not his best friend Pika appeared on the field, but it was in fact Chespin. Realizing the shocking truth that he left Pika at home, he screamed in anger and frustration. "No, no, no!" he yelled as he threw his hat down and pulled at his hair.

The sailors looked down at Chespin and one by one like dominos; they fell to the ground, tickled with laughter as they mercilessly teased poor Chespin.

"You expect to beat us with that little gopher?!" one of them pointed and laughed at Chespin.

Chespin's head hung low as he sniffed and drew his tail in between his legs. Hearing the insults as they broke through Red's temper tantrum, he immediately calmed down and walked over to the little hedgehog and kneeled beside him.

"Hey, little guy. I know these guys look tough and scary…" a wave of nostalgia suddenly hit Red like a freight train as he was reminded of an event similar to this that happened eight years ago. He thought back to the Pewter City gym. He had done this exact same thing with Pika.

A tear fell from Chespin's eye and Red quickly broke from his nostalgic trance to wipe it away before it hit his cute little cheek.

"But it's okay! Wanna know why?" Red scooted in front of him and took his paws into his hands with a big, friendly smile on his face.

Chespin nodded in curiosity of his trainer's question.

"Because you're amazing! I've never had a Pokémon that I've connected with so fast; not even my Pikachu! You've got this amazing fire that burns inside you like a never-ending flame. Back when we battled Blue, our first time battling together, and you were bouncing off the walls with Defense Curl, I didn't even tell you to do that! And guess what? Because of that, we won!"

Chespin's face lit up with adoration and happiness from his trainer's words of encouragement and jumped into Red's arms, giving him a big hug.

"Now, Ches, are you ready? Because we're gonna beat these guys together!" Red stood up.

Ches jumped down from Red's arms and stood straight up with his tail out in front of Gigalith, rocked and ready to go. The second their eyes met each other, Gigalith was shocked at the amount of powerful confidence and stepped back in fear. This powerful confidence was probably something Gigalith and his trainer would never understand. And what's the major reaction to something we don't understand? To hate it. Gigalith couldn't stand the feeling Ches gave off.

It suddenly charged at Ches without a single command from its trainer. Red folded his arms and turned his confident smile into a degrading smirk, as if to say "I'm better than you."

Without Red so much as opening his mouth or lifting his finger, Ches jumped up and fired a barrage of seeds like a machine gun from his mouth at Gigalith. The big, rock behemoth roared in pain as the attack rained down on him like acid rain until after five consecutive rounds, it tumbled over like a bag of rocks.

The sailors stood there with their jaws to the ground out of pure shock and fear, not wanting to accept what just happened. They looked into the raging hot, but emotionally cold eyes of the now not boy, but man that stood in front of them.

"Let me introduce myself…" he said quietly as he stepped over Gigalith's body and stood in front of the sailor McMurphy. His glare and his eyes made everyone there feel like they were ants, looking up at a god before them. "Hello, I'm Red, the Pokémon Champion of Kanto. I'll not be taking anymore disrespect from you or your lumps of stink over there and I'll also see to it that no one else does. Now, you've got five seconds to disappear out of my sight or else, I'll not only make you feel like an ant… I'll make you feel like nothing. Ches will personally make sure of that. Isn't that right, buddy?"

Ches jumped up onto Red's shoulder and nodded with a cold glare shooting at the sailors. Red held up his hand, balled into a fist and stuck out his thumb.

"One."

Before he could even consider saying two, the men had already retreated and ran down the streets. Turning to look at them, Red saw a red "R" on the back of McMurphy's shirt and stood there for a second, thinking to himself.

. . .

Hastily, he flashed his ticket at the guard standing next to the entrance of the ship and received his welcome package as he ran onto the boat. Not even looking around at the amazing and breath-taking scenery, Red checked his welcome package and saw he was in room one-hundred and eleven. He praised Arceus that he was on the main floor and started desperately searching for his hallway.

After running around like a Torchic with its head cut off for about ten minutes and receiving weird looks from people, he finally found his hallway and began running like there was no tomorrow. As the numbers on both sides of him increased, starting from seventy, he felt like he was running down a never-ending hallway as he looked and saw that it had to have stretched for at least another mile. At least that's what it felt like to him.

Finally after a long, tiring run, Red stumbled into his door like a drunken man and slipped his room key inside of the lock. He could feel the clutch of the lock release as he placed his tired hands on the doorknob and flung it open, falling down onto the carpet of his room. He looked up, praying that he wouldn't see what he thought, but there it was. His worst fear was confirmed when he looked up into the eyes of Blue freaking Oak.

"Hey, loser. Glad you finally made it!"