Pokémon Crimson

Chapter 4: Get in the Zone!

(Jason Fremont)

"Avoid sectors three, four, and seven," Zahlia's face said from Gina's PokéDex. "That's where the syndicate members will be particularly concentrated."

"What about the Gym district?" Gina asked, periodically looking up as they strolled through the rosy streets of Fuchsia City so she wouldn't trip or run into anything. "That's really all we need to focus on before we move on to the next place."

"Gym district ought to be okay," Zahlia said, "but exercise caution, of course."

"But of course," Jason said with a small grin, which Zahlia returned. Her face flickered slightly and Gina stopped moving, backing up a few steps to get better reception.

"Ask them if they're planning on going to the Safari Zone," Beth's voice asked from behind Zahlia, and Jason answered before Zahlia relayed the question.

"Of course," he said. "We're in frickin' Fuchsia City. We'd be stupid not to check that place out." Gina looked up at him and gave him a beaming smile, which made him simultaneously pleased and uncomfortable. Sometimes he felt like a problem child, the positive reinforcement heaped on him en masse whenever he managed to show a feeling that wasn't burning ambition to train himself and his team to perfection. He knew he hadn't been easy to deal with, and while he knew that, it didn't make the reminders any more palatable to him.

Fuschia was an amazingly good distraction, though. While Gina wrapped up with Zahlia, Jason looked around, pleased and a little nauseous at the same time. Pink was very big here, which he'd known from the news bits from Fuchsia or TV specials shot here. It was a little different watching it on TV and being there in person, though. Some stores had gone all-out with the screaming, neon pink, while some toned it down with lighter, rosy shades, but nearly every single structure, sign, or even park bench sported the color. Some buildings remained staunchly grey or white, but Jason noted that nothing seemed to be green or blue here. Perhaps those clashing colors to the city theme were outlawed.

The Safari Zone was the literal and economic heart of the city, located smack dab in the middle of the bustling downtown district, and apparently they had the biggest advertising budget in the world. Stylized SZ billboards, bench ads, bus banners, and fliers dotted the neighborhood they strolled through, and Jason read the same catch phrase over and over no fewer than fifty times: get in the Zone! It wasn't all that clever and he briefly thought that Alana, the pun-savvy intern from Pallet, would have done much more with it.

"So, no Pokémon Centers," Amaris noted, crossing his arms. "Nothing that would 'check us in' with our Dexes upon entering the doors. Jason, look up hostels in the area."

Jason gave the side of Amaris' head a glare, not appreciating being told what to do. "You look 'em up," he said, instead grabbing a walking tour map of Fuchsia from a beaten-up plastic stand of give-aways. He could see Amaris looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but the other Initiate didn't seem to feel like pushing the envelope and actually pulled out his own Dex to start looking through it. Feeling triumphant, Jason started to read through the brochure, mentally marking places he'd like to visit if they had time.

"This looks like a fishing hot spot too," he said to Gina, who had just hung up with Zahlia. "I should stop and get something that swims."

"Sure," Gina said. "Though I don't think I've ever seen you fish in my life. Do you know how?"

"Free lessons," Jason said, pointing at the brochure, but Amaris cut him off before he could continue.

"Hostel two blocks that way. Let's drop off our things before we get hopelessly side-tracked." Jason wanted to argue just for the sake of arguing, but couldn't think of an adequate reason to disagree with him.

The hostel was a three-story building, pink like everything in the city, and remarkably uninhabited for a structure so close to the center of the bustling action. The receptionist seemed surprised to see three individuals checking in.

"You three Initiates?" she asked, taking their fake names down.

"Nope," Jason answered, ready for this line of questioning. "Just regular trainers."

"Ah, that explains it," she said, looking through her record book. "I was about to point you towards one of our Centers, but I guess it'll be cheaper for you folks to stay here."

"Yep," Gina said, keeping her contributions to a bare minimum. Smiling to himself, Jason figured this was probably a good idea. He'd seen first-hand how Gina behaved in situations where she had to lie or act in any way, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

"Room 22," the woman said, handing them two brass keys. "Unless you wanted to split up?"

Amaris, Jason and Gina exchanged a brief look, calculating if this was something they wanted, but finally Jason shook his head. "Nah, save money," he said, handing over some marks to the woman. She nodded.

"Wise choice. Enjoy your stay."

The room was incredibly cramped, but at least there were three separate beds. Jason claimed the one near the window, Amaris snagged the one near the door, and Gina sighed.

"Guess the 'ladies first' thing is dead," she said jokingly, tossing her bag on the middle bed.

"You can't just cash in on that whenever it's convenient for you," Amaris criticized, unzipping his own bag and grabbing a change of clothes immediately. Gina stuck her tongue out at him while Jason turned to look out the window. The view wasn't all that different from that on the street level, as they were only on the second floor, but he could still clearly see the Safari Zone from the gentle upward slope of the landscape. It looked like an enormous park in the middle of the bustling city.

"We ready to go?" he asked, turning around just as the bathroom door closed behind Amaris. "Oh. Guess not."

"You don't want to change out of your nasty traveling clothes?" Gina asked, holding a change of her own clothes under one arm while she leaned against the wall, waiting for Amaris to finish up in the restroom.

"Why bother? I'm just gonna get sweaty and gross in the SZ," he reasoned, and Gina thought about that.

"Actually, good point," she said, tossing her clothes back on the bed.

Jason immediately razzed her for it. "Ew, you're not gonna change? Gross!" She tossed a pair of rolled-up socks at him and he played keep-away with them, laughing, until Amaris emerged. The redhead lifted an eyebrow at their antics but said nothing.

Half an hour later the Initiates were on a tram heading to the Safari Zone, and Jason was starting to realize the average citizen of Fuchsia seemed to be sick to death of the place. The banner on the bus was defaced (again in a rather unoriginal way) so the Z in Zone turned into a series of "Zzz"s coming out of a sleeping man's face. He stared at the peeling thing while they rode on in silence, feeling a familiar turn back to agitation as they traveled.

It happened to him a lot, these days. He'd be enjoying himself, relaxed and having a sock-fight with Gina, and a scant half hour later would be brooding once more, his mind fixed on Orion. His feelings today were coming at him from two angles: on one hand, he felt guilty taking a day trip to the Safari Zone instead of rushing off to beat the Fuchsia Leader. On the other hand, he felt angry that he felt guilty. Orion had made his choice to run off, just like he had made his choice to return and "warn" them. What was the point of that, anyway? He had to know they would never give up their goals. All any of them had walked away with were injuries or bad memories.

Gina was staring at his profile, which he only noticed now. He looked over at her and realized a second later his face was still cemented in the moody, thoughtful expression he'd been wearing the entire tram ride. Rearranging his features into something a little more light-hearted, he tilted his head to Gina questioningly.

"You okay?" she mouthed, and he smirked slightly at her.

"Yeah," he mouthed back, giving her an eye roll to go along with it but also leaning to the side and nudging her shoulder with his in a friendly gesture. For some reason that made her blink rapidly and look away, and he wondered if she was worried he'd start horsing around with her on a train full of people or something.

The tram dropped them off near the unfortunately crowded, haphazard madness that was the Safari Zone entrance gate. Pushing thoughts of his rogue brother from his mind, Jason let out a long, low whistle at the chaotic "line" which was more a mob of people milling around and surging forward as one massive entity. Fuchsia-uniformed SZ workers who were trying to corral them were being utterly ignored.

"This'll be fun," Jason mused, picking a random spot to start forcing his way forward in line, too. Gina fell in step behind him, not wanting to cut in front of people but content to follow him as he did so.

They were finally admitted after slowly inching forward for about an hour in the crowd. Jason checked his bag at the entrance, exhausted but excited. Amaris was already looking sunburned, a side-effect of being a redhead, and Jason's own neck was feeling a little crispy as well. Gina, on the other hand, just looked tanner, and Jason scoffed playfully at her.

"Not fair," he said, gesturing to the back of his neck. "I demand you give me the secrets of your sun-resistant skin." Gina made a "pfft" sound at him just as a voice came over the loudspeaker saying, "One minute to your Safari Zone adventure! Enjoy your half hour of fun, sun, and Pokémon catching!"

"There's a time limit?" Jason asked, scandalized. Amaris turned to him, looking haughty and judgmental.

"You didn't know that?"

"Yes, the reason I'm asking the question out loud is that I already knew the answer," Jason replied snarkily, moving forward with Amaris and Gina toward the gates. "But whatever, be a jerk all you want. I'm gonna out-catch you anyway."

Gina groaned and rolled not only her eyes, but her whole head at them. Amaris looked at him calculatingly, and a moment before the buzzer went off, smirked. "You're on."

Jason grinned back and took off at a run the second the gates were open. He could hear Gina laughing and saying "hey!" behind him, but left the other two Initiates in the dust as he sped off through the grasslands of Area 1. There were perhaps ten other trainers with them and Jason branched off to get as much space between him and the other competition as possible. The last thing he wanted was to get in a squabble with a stranger over who had seen a wild Tauros first.

The sun was oppressively hot but Jason felt fantastic. He'd trained until his bones felt like bleeding over the past many months, but it had been eons since he'd been out truly and honestly hunting for a catch. Nothing quite set his blood on fire like this, and he figured nothing else would ever come close.

The Safari Balls at his belt felt sort of cheap and clunky, their camouflage-patterned chrome a little scratched and dinged from countless other hands using them over the years and likely dropping them more than once. Jason hoped they'd actually work when he used them.

He was fifteen minutes into his "Safari Zone adventure" when he spotted the moving rock face. He'd mistaken it for a piece of jutting cliff edge, but when it started to stir and walk he realized what it really was.

"Frickin' Rhyhorn," Jason muttered under his breath, amazed at the enormity of the Pokémon. He hesitated about fifty feet away from it, not sure how to proceed. He'd never tried catching Pokémon without at least one of his own team to help him, and the advice he'd been given at the gate—just chuck some rocks at it!—now seemed laughably inadequate.

Jason checked around himself one more time to make sure he wasn't within range of any other interested trainers, then scooped up a handful of fist-sized rocks from the ground. Most of them were almost exactly the same size, and he wondered if they imported them specifically for use by trainers. Jason crept closer to the Rhyhorn, his heart thundering, and managed not to give his position away until the last possible moment.

The Rhyhorn looked up at him right as Jason rose from the cover of the tall grass. Expecting the Pokémon to charge, Jason threw three rocks wildly at it in the hopes it would confuse it long enough for him to flee if he needed to.

The Rhyhorn, in all honesty, looked like it couldn't have cared less. The rocks bounced off its tough hide and the Pokémon snorted at him, dust clouds rising in the air. Jason wasn't sure, but it looked somewhat skeptical. Feeling embarrassed now, but at least a little safer, Jason threw more rocks at it and finally succeeded in getting a look that bordered more on annoyance.

What did he say? he wondered frantically, trying to think back to the staff member's five-minute intro speech that he'd mostly tuned out. If you make them too angry they'll run? Or was it attack… Jason wasn't sure, but either of those options sounded bad. He yanked a piece of hard, jerky-like meat from the bag he'd been given and chucked that at the Pokémon instead, wondering how confused they got from being hit with stones, then fed, on a daily basis.

The Rhyhorn seemed to know this was the status quo, and it lumbered a few feet forward to get the bait, lowering its huge head to eat. Jason watched it do that for a while, wondering if it would be a ridiculous waste of a Safari Ball to try to catch it now. It didn't look weakened by any stretch of imagination. Jason instead threw more bait, a little closer to him, and watched with trepidation as the Rhyhorn finished the first treat and moved forward to the second one.

Jason leaned down and selected the biggest rock near him, hefting it up with both hands and working out his plan of action. The Rhyhorn, if it was aware of him preparing to throw more shit at it, made no sign of caring while it ate. This particular rock was much heavier than the others, and Jason had a feeling the Pokémon wouldn't be so blasé about being pelted by this one. Most likely Jason had one chance to catch it before it either ran away from him or toward him.

Holding his breath, Jason threw the rock with great effort through the air at the Rhyhorn. It was a good thing it had moved closer, because he was pretty sure he would have missed horribly if it had been any farther away. As it was Jason had one Safari Ball out and ready the moment the rock landed with a loud, cracking thud right on the Pokémon's head. It blinked in amazement, looking stunned, and turned to glare at Jason right as he threw his ball at it.

The Pokémon was absorbed in red light, but a scant second later it burst out of the ball. Yeah, it definitely looked pissed now, and Jason was pretty sure offering it more food wasn't going to work. Instead he threw another ball as it roared at him in displeasure, and this time it only broke out on the last few wiggles.

Thankful he had 30 of these suckers in a bag at his side, Jason threw yet another at it, backing up now as it looked ready to charge at any moment. Wild thoughts ran through his head as the Rhyhorn was absorbed into red light again—how many people per year died in here, trampled to death by Rhyhorn or skewered by Scyther? It seemed like something he should have researched before diving into this place in a foolhardy rush of gusto. That wasn't quite keeping his promise to Edith to not do anything stupid.

The Rhyhorn broke out yet again and Jason was seriously considering just turning and running now. That would likely end poorly for him, though, so in a last-ditch effort to capture the bewildered and enraged beast, he threw a fourth ball. This time the Pokémon didn't burst back out, and Jason fell to his knees in the sharp-edged tall grass, too relieved to feel proud at his catch. What a nightmare.

"Jason," a voice called from somewhere in the distance, and Jason jumped slightly before leaping to his feet and looking for the source of it. It was Gina, waving at him from a small lake. Jason held up a finger to show her he'd be there in a moment, then went to paw around in the grass and dirt for the non-broken Safari Ball that would hold his new catch.

He was still sweating and a little jumpy when he made it down to the water's edge where Gina was fumbling around with a fishing line. "They have these as rentals," she said, motioning to the little stand, strangely unmanned by any staff members. "You can take this one, I think I'm done fishing."

"Magikarp?" Jason asked, taking the fishing line from Gina and also fumbling with it a little. Now that he wasn't in life-threatening danger his competitive streak had returned, and he wondered if Amaris had made any catches yet, wherever he was.

"Yup, whole lotta Magikarp," Gina said, sitting down next to him on the bank. Jason glanced at her as he managed to detangle the fishing line and speared some of his jerky-type substance to the small hook at the end.

"Aren't you gonna run around and catch stuff? You don't have to sit here and watch me fail at fishing," he said.

Gina shrugged. "Nah, I'm good. I wasted a ton of my Safari Balls already trying to catch a Chansey."

Jason did a double-take. "You saw a Chansey?"

"Key word being 'saw.' Man those things really do not want to be caught," Gina said with a laugh. "I've got like three Safari Balls left, so I'm cooling it for a while."

"Alright," Jason said, feeling a brief dark cloud enter his otherwise sunny thoughts at the reminder that Orion would have gone nuts at the chance to catch that rare Normal-type. Trying to shove thoughts of his brother out of his mind, Jason awkwardly cast his line out into the water, probably not far enough to entice anything. He reeled it painstakingly back in and tried again, to better results this time.

Gina and he sat on the bank and talked, occasionally moving to a new location so Jason could cast his line in more promising waters. Tons of Magikarp got hooked, and Jason caught one mainly just to buff up his catch count against Amaris. He wasn't sure he'd have the time or patience to train it up into a Gyarados like Gina's. After the ninth Magikarp got hooked on his line, Jason was getting ready to throw in the towel.

"Is Amaris good at catching Pokémon?" he asked Gina, not wanting to sound worried he'd be beaten but not managing it at all.

Gina hid a smile and shrugged. "To be honest, he started trying to catch and raise wild Pokémon in Pallet… kind of like this, actually, by chucking rocks and stuff at them, when we were still in primary school." Gina sighed. "So illegal, but he wouldn't stop."

That didn't bode well for Jason, and he grumbled to himself as he cast his line one more time, hoping for anything at all that wasn't just another Magikarp. If he left here with three catches he'd feel better, even if Amaris did beat him.

A much larger ripple than before broke the surface of the water and Jason's line was tugged so hard it almost flew out of his hands. Struggling to stabilize it and get a good stance, he shouted to Gina, "This ain't no Magikarp!" unnecessarily as she, too, jumped to her feet to see what he'd caught. A moment later an angry yellow face popped out of the water, two wet, feathery hands holding onto a huge head and a large, flat bill.

"Psyduck!" Jason shouted, again unnecessary. "Hell yeah!" He'd wanted one since watching the Golduck in the New Trainer Initiate heavyweight battles back in Pallet. Jason yanked hard on the line and the Psyduck rolled, trying to get its bill unstuck. Jason flew forward and Gina tackled him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him back toward the shore.

"Jesus!" Jason shouted, digging his boots into the dirt as much as possible and yanking with all his might. Gina and he played tug-of-war with the Pokémon for what felt like forever, reeling it in bit by painful bit. Jason's arms were shaking and he was getting red sores on his hands from how hard he was cranking the reel. More than once he worried that the line, or the whole fishing pole itself, would snap, but so far it seemed to be holding up surprisingly well for an unsupervised piece of rental equipment.

"Attention Safari Zone visitors!" a voice on a booming PA system announced, "Your adventure is almost up! Please begin making your way back to the front gates."

"Crap," Gina said, yanking harder on the line along with Jason. "This is insane."

"Almost got it," Jason insisted, though in reality he had no idea if that was true or not. With one last mighty yank the two of them fell backwards in the dirt and the Pokémon was pulled out of the water with a huge splash and a thump. Jason scrambled to his feet in an ungainly way and Gina rolled over to give him room as the Psyduck thrashed, tangled in the fishing line. Jason threw a Safari Ball without really thinking and watched as the Pokémon batted it away furiously.

"Shit," he said, chucking a handful of sand at it next. This seemed to annoy the Psyduck, which pawed at its face, and Jason looked around frantically for better rocks.

"Here!" Gina shouted, running back to him from an embankment a little ways away, her shirt full of muddy rocks.

"Yes!" Jason shouted, yanking three or four from her and throwing them wildly at the Psyduck. Most missed but one clocked it right on the bill.

"Here!" Gina said, shoving more into his hands. "And aim this time!"

"Yeah, yeah," Jason said, but was grinning ear-to-ear as he threw more carefully this time. He managed to knock it on the bill two more times in the exact same spot, and the Pokémon, who was still struggling to right itself and detangle from the fishing line, quacked loudly at him in protest.

"Try again," Gina said, right as Jason was reaching for a second ball. The PA system crackled back on and warned them they had one minute left.

"Argh!" Jason shouted, throwing not one, but three Safari Balls at the Pokémon. It turned out to be a good thing, too—the Psyduck deflected two but the third one got it.

Jason barely had time to scoop up his third catch before Gina and he had to book it across the sweltering Zone grounds, heading with a few other stragglers to the front gates. Amaris was waiting there with them, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.

"Cutting it close," he commented, then rounded off against Jason. "I have an Exeggcute and a Doduo now," he said, and Jason executed a triumphant fist-pump in the air while Gina leaned over to catch her breath.

"Hah! I have three," he said gloatingly.

"Which are?" Amaris prompted, apparently unfazed by his loss.

"Rhyhorn, Psyduck, and Magikarp," Jason said, feeling that last one was a little inadequate but hoping it would slide.

Slide it did not. "Magikarp should hardly count. I had the opportunity to catch at least ten of those near the lake but didn't think it would be fair to use the most notoriously easy-to-capture Pokémon to pad my score."

Jason scoffed at him as they headed to collect their things from the front gates and return their unused balls and bait. "Magikarp totally counts, and it's your fault you didn't catch one!"

"By that logic you could have caught 30 Magikarp in the first two minutes of the Game and claimed to have won by a landslide victory," Amaris said coolly, and Gina snorted at him.

"Even if you don't want to count Magikarp, that still means you guys tied," she pointed out, and Amaris didn't have anything to say to that. Jason gave Gina a quiet high-five behind his back.