"Wow, a charmeleon! Go, Squirtle!"
Was the trainer experienced, she might have noticed that there was something odd about this particular charmeleon. Its scales are tinted oddly, not the healthy, bright red they should be, and its tail flame is actually sputtering. But she's not. She started three weeks ago. She's never seen a charmeleon outside of a television screen.
The squirtle does notice. The last time he saw a charmander like this, it had died within an hour. {Are you alright?}
The charmeleon grins, displaying his fangs. {Never been better. Are you going to fight me?}
The squirtle gives him a dubious look. {You look like you're at death's door.}
{Oh, go on, attack. It'll be fun.} There's a sort of forced, manic gaiety in the charmeleon's voice that the squirtle doesn't know how to respond to. {Won't it?}
"Use bubble!"
{Alright,} says the squirtle, as much to himself as either of them. He sends out a weak bunch of bubbles that would be enough to faint the charmeleon in this state.
The water attack hits. The charmeleon just stands there as if he doesn't feel it.
"Squirtle, use water gun!"
Maybe charmeleon and charmander are different, reasons the squirtle. Maybe he's wrong and the charmeleon is right. He sends out a stronger water gun.
And the charmeleon just stands there, letting the water hit and splatter.
{What the…?}
{I'm not dying anytime soon,} he says, grinning widely. His voice is calm and as if he is trying to sound mock-cheerful, but there's a hard edge underneath. His tail lashes from side to side even as the rest of him is still. As the squirtle watches, the flame sputters and is blown out by the motion, only to relight. {Isn't it fun? Why do you fight?}
The girl is ordering another attack, but the squirtle isn't paying attention. {What do you mean? Because she is my master. Because I was given to her when she started out on her pokemon journey.}
{Tell me, is she a kind slavemaster?} The hardness in the charmeleon's voice is more pronounced, his grin wider. There's a hint of mockery in his question. His tail lashes from side to side.
The squirtle bristles. {She is kind and she isn't a slavemaster!}
{She'd never hurt you? She'll never abandon you?}
{NO!}
The charmeleon's grin is far too wide. {Never make you do anything you don't want? It's so fun what we do isn't it?} He flexes the long claws on his hands and snaps his jaws and the squirtle considers suddenly that this battle may be a miscalculation, that the charmeleon is far stronger than he seemed. Far stronger than the squirtle of a young girl who has just started. {Isn't it so fun? She really cares about doesn't she? How long has she had you?}
{...Three weeks. She started three weeks ago.}
And the charmeleon laughs. It sounds somewhat like a scream. {Mine had me for three years. So fun. He was my friend, of course. Being given to someone makes you their friend doesn't it little squirtle. Being given to someone makes them love you. That's the only reason they have us battle here, it's to make us stronger. It's all because they love us, right?} He flexes the claws on his hands. {Do you think you'll have fun becoming stronger today? How lucky you are. How lucky.}
Behind the squirtle the girl is lamenting her fate, to have a disobedient first pokemon who ignores her.
{She hasn't done anything bad. She's nice,} the squirtle says nervously. He doesn't understand where this is going.
{Three weeks of nothing bad. You can bet your life on that, then. Since you've known her for three weeks. You'll bet your life?} The squirtle stares at the charmeleon's lashing tail as the flame is blown out, relights, and is blown out again. {Aren't you willing to do that? Give her your life?}
{No, but...} The squirtle pauses. {Yours. You're okay after three years. You're really strong aren't you?} He stares at the flame on the charmeleon's tail.
{Oh no. I betrayed my friend. He wanted me to win battles and I did, but I betrayed him because I didn't listen to what he told me. He never listened to what I told him but then she doesn't, does she? And she's still your friend because you were given to her. Isn't that how it works?} He snaps his jaws again. {They talk and we listen. That's friendship right?}
{That's not it. That's not all of it. She cares about me!} the squirtle shouts. {She wanted me!}
{She'll still want you if you don't listen?} hisses the charmeleon. {If she gives you a bad order? If she's just trying to help you get stronger, she won't mind if you disobey. Not your friend, no. She'll still want you?}
"Come on Squirtle, tackle!" the girl is saying, exasperated.
The squirtle didn't answer.
{Mine didn't. Mine had me for three years, not three weeks. A lot longer than yours.}
{He abandoned you,} whispers the squirtle.
{Oh no.} The charmeleon's tail sputters out again. {He drowned me.}
And the squirtle makes a broken, horrified sound.
Behind him the girl asks rhetorically if he just doesn't like her. She mentions getting rid of him.
She meant trading.
It doesn't matter.
***
~ We have taken control of the Viridian Forest, ~ Eon announced proudly to the pokemon before her. They let out an answering cry of triumph. ~ Next we take Mt. Moon. Once we have cleared the humans from there, once escape and reinforcements have been prevented, we can begin our destruction of their cities. ~
{What about the Johto Region?} asked a raticate.
~ For the moment, we will leave them – mostly – alone. They are humans, after all, cowards. They won't intervene to save Kanto until they realize we will destroy them as well. ~
A large portion of the group laughed at this, the unspoken and being humans, that will take a while being clear enough.
And Eon smiled and said, ~ Of course, there are still some places that need destroying, Johto or not. But that can wait until after we've cleaned the humans from Mt. Moon. It won't take long, I'm sure. ~
At these words the surrounding pokemon let out a roar of agreement.
***
The pokemon may control Viridian Forest and consider it a great victory. The story may be spreading rapidly throughout the wild pokemon. Humans, though, remain unaware. They still travel into the forest, as they always have.
The only difference is that people have stopped coming out the other side.
But who keeps track of such things? Trainers wander around, forget dates, get lost, fail to call when they promised. If no one's seen them for a month, it doesn't mean anything.
William was a perfectly ordinary trainer. His pokemon were low level and his own skill was not much better, but even he had nothing to worry about from the wild pokemon of the area. One of his pokemon was a match for the occasional beedrill, and even if it lost, he had the other five to finish the battle. If he was going to be worried, he'd worry about meeting another trainer and losing to them – an embarrassment he'd gone through a number of times before.
Still, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive as he walked down the twisting path through the Viridian Forest. He thought it might be because of how empty the place felt. Normally he'd run across caterpie and weedle crawling about, or a pidgey scratching at the ground. Today there was nothing.
He didn't see this as anything particularly worrying. It was just odd, and the nervousness came more from how alone it was than any idea of what this might mean. After all, there was nothing real to ever worry about here, unless you were one of those under-ten kids without pokemon of their own.
William saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned quickly but saw only the bland, leafy bushes that framed the path. It was his imagination, he thought. Wind moving a branch.
Only there wasn't any wind. Not this deep into the forest, where the trees and bushes blocked the air at every turn.
He saw it again. He turned again. Again, there was nothing there.
He stared at the ground and kept walking.
The ground looked rather beat up, he noted. There are scuff marks and discolorations. Looking a little further along, he can see a section that has the remains of string shot littering the ground. Someone must have been training their pokemon here, because all the signs are of a pokemon battle.
And out of the corner of his eye there was motion again. He jerked but caught himself before he turned. He was starting to feel afraid. He reminded himself that there was nothing in this forest he had to be afraid of.
He imagined something was watching him. He turned again, and again, and there was still nothing there.
He chided himself for acting like such a baby even as the feeling of being watched grew and the only thing keeping him from turning again was a sudden matching terror of what he might find. He stood still for nearly a minute, then slowly began walking, speeding up with each few steps.
And then he heard it, a rustling and turned, and there was still nothing there. And suddenly he realized how ridiculous he was being. Even if there was some rattata following him, what did it matter? If it appeared he'd defeat it, and if it didn't it didn't. He breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing.
And then a low growl came from behind him and he spun just in time to see the creature called Cinceon jumping toward him.
He screamed. The miles of forest absorbed the sound as they had absorbed the wind.
***
The pokemon centers of Viridian City and Pewter have a large local population of trainers. They haven't noticed anything odd. If their workload is a bit less than average, they chalk it up to a seasonal lull, if they notice at all. They don't have time to pay attention to small things. There's work to be done, pokemon to be healed, trainers to be fed and roomed.
The pokemon center of Mt. Moon, though, is an outpost. There are fewer trainers and they often stay to chat with each other or Nurse Joy. It's also located in a wild area rather than a city, so trainers come in with injured wild pokemon, often newly captured, sometimes not.
Or they did. Recently they've been mentioning that the pokemon in the area have been making themselves scarce. It's nothing important, just something mentioned in passing to Nurse Joy as she takes their pokemon, or complained about by someone who wanted to catch one. It's as if the pokemon have vanished.
It's not anything of significance. Nurse Joy finds something ominous in it, but it's nothing she can put in words.
And in the tall grass outside that night, hidden behind boulders, a gyarados and charizard wait.
With them are a collection of local pokemon – ones like spearow and rattata, and a handful of the common starting pokemon that made their way here when they heard what was happening. They're mainly charmander, and they look at Scar with outright awe.
There's also a pidgeot. What the charmander have of awe, she matches with anger. Since they're the only ones there, that anger is directed at them.
{Why are we still here? We don't need to wait!} squawks Abandon.
Lash is the calmer of the two. He answers testily, {For the last time, we're waiting for it to be darker. We're too close to a pokemon center. They could call for help.}
{Let them!}
{If they find out what we've done, they won't keep coming,} Lash says. {If they keep coming, we can keep killing them.} The idea that the humans might be able to do more goes unsaid and mostly unthought.
The pidgeot nods, placated for the moment. Lash hopes it will be dark enough before she loses her temper again.
The rest of the pokemon don't object. They're nervous at what they're about to do, and are more willing to obey the plan if it'll make things go better.
Scar looks at Lash. {Things are about ready. I'm going to head over to the other side. Abandon, you're up.}
The two take to the air. Scar drops again quickly to land on the other side and meet up with the pokemon there. Abandon stays airborne.
She's to fly over the area and take out any trainer who makes it out. Scar thinks he could have done the job, even if a pidgeot is less conspicuous than a charizard and better at circling for prey. The benefit can't possibly outweigh what he's put up with for the last hour. But he hadn't realized just how annoying Abandon would be when they were planning this out.
Inside, a swarm of pokemon meet each of them. The zubat are most plentiful, but there are plenty of sandshrew, paras and geodude as well. There's a smattering of rattata and jigglypuff as well, but most of those remain outside.
{No clefairy?} asks Lash, already knowing the answer.
{It isn't that they like humans} defends Block, a geodude. {They're just really timid, scared of their own shadows. 'Sides, they aren't really useful in this fight and they know it. They're not strong enough to do much damage and metronome would do more harm than good in a fight like this.}
{Very well,} sighs Lash. He thinks it won't matter much; they are strong enough to handle this, after all. But it bothers him all the same. {All of you, try to get the the trainers before they have time to send out their pokemon, we don't want any confusion or accidents. Or time to call for help. I want to avoid trouble.}
There isn't any trouble. As it turns out, a handful do make it out. Two are killed by Abandon, the rest by the local pokemon waiting for them.
Nurse Joy thinks she hears a sound while she's shutting things down for the night. She looks outside and doesn't see anything. She thinks she must have imagined things and turns away from the window, back to her duties.
By morning, the trainers are long dead. Scar and Lash left before dawn, and the other pokemon have spread out, digging new tunnels to accommodate the freed pokemon who will be staying...and to give themselves a better vantage point for ambushing the new trainers who enter.
***
Eon was happy about all this. It didn't prevent her from being irritated at the moment.
Because at the moment, Eon was looking for Ice.
Looking alone was annoying. She could find nearly anyone in her army, and her failure to find this one was enough to believe some of the human's claims. It didn't make it any less annoying.
The pair of them had been around for at least a week, making friends with the local body of arrivals and otherwise managing to entrench themselves deep within the army before any objection could be made. By the time Eon had even become aware of it, there wasn't anything she could do. It wasn't that she would have done something, she thought, but the ease it had been pulled off irritated her, as if they'd flouted her authority.
Which they hadn't. They'd avoided her ever getting the chance to show any authority.
Questioning a few pokemon set her in the right direction before long. She found Ice had embedded herself in yet another group, this time a bunch of vulpix. The vulpix were chattering about something. Eon could only half make out the words. Ice wasn't saying anything at the moment, just sitting almost crouched with the tip of her tail in front of her. She looked oddly unremarkable.
Eon focused. ~ ICE! ~ To her disappointment, her target didn't jump but only looked slowly over toward her, then stood up. Eon was struck by the impression that it looked like she was unfolding. Dropping the act, Eon thought sourly.
A few of the vulpix giggled quietly, as if there was some joke.
"You want something of me? Mixeon has the details, right? I'll go see him."
~ Right, ~ Eon said, feeling disconcerted.
{Eon!} barked one of the vulpix, his voice oddly accented. The group was probably a wild pack. Those often had slight differences in dialect. His tails waved excitedly. {May we be of help?}
Eon turned slightly toward them. She smiled. ~ Soon, ~ she said. ~ There will be another attack shortly. ~
The vulpix grinned back, displaying mouthfuls of sharp teeth. Another spoke up, sounding just as enthusiastic. {What is happening now?}
~ Preparations. ~ Eon cast a glance in the direction Ice had headed off to. ~ Right now there was a task for a human to do. ~ It was impossible to tell from her tone if she meant the task required a human or required someone expendable.
The vulpix grinned at each other in childish amusement.
~ What's the joke, anyway? ~ Eon asked curiously.
{It's not exactly a joke. She said we might find it interesting, when it happened, so we were told to listen for it, the trick. It's a childish thing to hear, so you probably don't find it funny.}
A lot of wild pokemon, Eon had found, tended to use a different sense than 'see' when they talked about noticing things. She mentally substituted the words. The vulpix had seen something just now they'd thought was funny.
{When will the attack be?} asked another one. {Can you tell us? When can we fight?}
Eon smiled again and began to explain.