AN: Chapter 3. Still trying to find out where to improve. Please leave a review, or even a PM with a good job or something, so that I can pat myself on the back and say "there, there, you're not completely useless," or something to that effect anyway. Also, I got a job, which is pretty much why there was a delay on this chapter. Enjoy.
Chapter 3 – Trailblazing
Red and Leaf walked out of the lab and towards the north of town.
Pallet Town was a small collection of houses and people, set in the heartland of the mountainous Kanto region. Completely surrounded by the wilds, set next to the ocean in an unpolluted area, it was little wonder that Professor Samuel Oak had set up his lab here.
The residents of the area had adapted to the almost extreme conditions surrounding the picturesque town. Although it appeared to be a peaceful area, it was subject to raids by wild Pokémon , marauding bandits and the occasional typhoon. Everything said and done though, it was an amazing place to live.
The two novice trainers walked along the quiet streets, past peaceful suburban houses, down winding, shaded lanes, past a startled rattata that had fallen backwards off a dustbin and out of the quiet town they called home.
"This is so exciting!" Leaf exclaimed, "Come on, slow coach, I want to get there before I turn 19."
Red kept stoically silent. He only really talked when Pokémon were concerned.
'Why, why, why would that old man send this babbling aipom's backside with me? It's almost like he thinks I'll need help,' Red thought to himself.
Sighing, he let his charmander out.
"Hey bud," was all he said.
"Chaar," the brightly coloured lizard responded, sounding happy.
He sniffed the air, then tensed. Turning to a clump of bushes behind his trainer, he growled, then raced off towards them.
Red, instantly alert, having been raised alongside Pokémon and learning the mannerisms that signalled alertness and danger, pulled a combat knife from his pack and followed.
The knife was long, about 20cm long, with serrated teeth gleaming with a freshly oiled shine that put one in mind of a sharpedo's mouth up close, with a thick, slightly convex back side. The handle was wrapped in alternating strand of steel wire and leather, tinted green. On closer inspection, one could see a stylistic G inscribed on either side of the blade.
Red cautiously approached the copse his only Pokémon had disappeared into. A sudden growl from ahead halted his steady advance. A flash of flame, then a sudden swarm of rattata scattered out of the bushes and fled.
Red resumed his wary approach. He halted in front of the bush where the flame had come from and pried away a branch obscuring his vision, only to let out a gasp. There, in front of this rookie trainer, was a giant bird of prey, but of a strange hue he had only seen once: in the photo frame of his dad and his Pokémon team.
This terrifying monstrosity of the skies had been a source of inspiration to him always.
"Your father rescued pidgeot as a pidgey from a band of poachers. He always was against abuse of any kind, from the smallest dedenne to the largest Snorlax; he was the chief suspect in a murder case when a band of poachers had been found dead in the forest," his mother used to tell him as a boy, thoughwhy anyone would tell a small child that particular detail Red never knew, "Naturally they found him to be innocent. He was a good man, before he, before…" at which point she would break down crying.
Red had always known that one day his father had just disappeared, not even a note. Sure, they got a massive cheque in the post each month, but they just assumed that was from a trust fund set up in the event of his father's death. He didn't even know his father's name, only an affectionate moniker from his mother: GJ.
The knife was his father's as well.
All this and more went through his head in the moment it took him to analyse the situation, leaving him with only one thing to say: "Charmander, when did you learn Ember?"
"Mand charmander"
'I'm really going to have to find a way to accurately communicate with my Pokémon, this is just ridiculous,' he thought to himself.
Once more resuming his vigilant approach, he closed on the pidgeot. He noticed the small details on the magnificent raptor as he approached it. She cawed in warning, then dropped her head again.
'At least I know this can't be my father's: his had a scar across the right e- no way,' his initial musings forgotten as the pidgeot's head snapped around to him, making the white scar vividly stand out against the stark contrast of gold-and-black feathering.
His heart started pumping harder: this pidgeot was his father's companion. But what had happened? Why was she not – oh. There, nestled among her soft down, was a single egg. She must have just laid it. Breeding Pokémon would often leave their trainers to raise young, but would always return to them. However, Red had arrived too late to save this pidgeot: and lost the chance to see his dad when she returned to him.
'She must have finished laying the egg just before the rattata hit her. No wonder she couldn't put up a fight,' Red thought sadly.
"Don't worry girl, I'll look after your egg for you; be at peace,"
Almost sighing in content, the pidgeot closed her transparent eyelids one last time before passing into the nether.
"Red? Where'd you get off to n- oh, no" Leaf gasped, as she came around the corner to the spectacle of Red kneeling by the corpse.
Red didn't reply, instead gently prising the egg out from under the body of the beautiful bird, awe-inspiring even after death.
"Get my sleeping bag out please," he asked, as he cradled the egg against his body for warmth.
Complying, she wordlessly passed the unrolled sleeping bag from his pack.
With the utmost care, he wrapped the egg inside the bag.
"Let's go"
Once more they resumed their walk, in an uncomfortable silence with Red cradling the sleeping bag to his chest to pass his heat into the sack by the convection of his body heat.
"Red, why were y-" Leaf began.
"She was my father's"
She gasped in understanding. "So, your father, that means he's not…"
"Yeah, or he released all his Pokémon before whatever happened to him happened," he replied as they passed a sign that claimed that Viridian was only two kilometres away.
They continued to walk in silence, the mood having darkened even further than before. With sunset approaching they began to see city lights winking on, not too far away now.
"Look, Red, I'm -" Leaf started to say.
"Don't; just, don't," he said, before increasing the pace.
Soon enough Leaf had fallen behind. She hurried along as fast as her legs would take her, eventually catching up to Red at the Pokémon centre desk, where Red had just finished getting accommodation for the night.
"We're sharing a room," was all he said, turning to look at her.
She began to blush furiously, flustered. "But how-"
"Two beds," he said, cutting her off for the umpteenth time, as the attendant at the Pokémon centre desk handed him his Pokéball and a cylindrical device the size of a lantern.
"That will keep the egg completely safe, it has cushions and an internal heating device. Make sure to charge it at all times, either with solar power or a wall socket: it has only 12 hours of internal battery. It also has an automated notification system for when the egg is close to hatching," the nurse said, eyeing Leaf while he said this.
Red nodded and moved off, Leaf hurrying after him to get the hell away from the perverted night duty nurse.
They climbed a narrow flight of stairs, then another, and another, eventually emerging on the fourth floor.
Heading into their room, Leaf got first use of the bathroom. Red got straight into bed, switching off his light. He would shower in the morning.
Emerging from the bathroom half a century later, Leaf saw Red's prostrate form, already asleep. She sighed.
"Goodnight Red," she whispered.
She may have been imagining it, but she could have sworn she heard a barely audible "goodnight" from Red's side of the room.
Smiling softly to herself, she climbed into her own bed and slipped into the dark, enveloping arms of a dreamless sleep.
AN: And that's it for this chapter. I know these chapters aren't particularly long, but I find that it helps to focus on a particular section of a story in detail… even if it did technically take two full chapters to get to Viridian city. Oh well, thanks for reading and let me know what you think if you have a moment.
-Red Redeemer-