Red Tide
Summary:
New rules to an old game: Your Pokémon don't faint, they die. You must attempt to catch the first Pokémon you see on a new Route, and only that Pokémon. Ready for a challenge? Press Start. Rate T for poké-death, adult humor, and language.
Chapter Nine:
"Ugh," I huffed, landing hard on the rocky surface of the mountain ledge. I'd finally finished scaling the cliff-side, only to be man-handled by two different mountaineers and their Geodudes. "I really need a water type," I sighed, rubbing a gloved hand over my sweaty brow. Having the salty water sticking to my glove wasn't the best feeling either.
The sun was high in the sky as the earth beneath me baked, and I looked over to the cave entrance I knew I would need to pass through, not looking forward to the swelter that awaited me. I'd actually checked out the Cable Car Station before wandering to the cave, but it was a no go. The station, surprisingly, wasn't guarded by Aqua Grunts – I did see a few suspicious looking people loitering in the lobby who wore primarily red, though none had the cape-like hats of the Magma members – but the car wasn't there and the woman at the counter informed me that it had broken down, as it was want to do. I groaned again and pushed myself up to my feet and towards the craggy entrance. Sure enough, as soon as I came within five feet of the volcano's insides, my body flushed red and a deeper sweat started on me.
"I should have worn my red shirt, instead," I told myself as I tugged at my white tank top, which was sticking to my torso and becoming somewhat see through.
Reluctantly entering the cave, I was assaulted by a vicious, wet heat and felt like I was being boiled alive. I ran for it, glad for the Running Shoes I wore (which, I'd found out, indeed had a 'B Button' which pumped air into the soles of the shoes for an easier time running). The cave was about fifty feet long, I figured, since I could see the far wall. I was happy it was smaller than a previous assumption I'd made and grinned at the future relief I would feel just as soon as I'd exited. But, to my great annoyance, a roar sounded from behind me and a flash of smoke, steam, and heat encompassed me. I could barely see the Pokémon who'd attacked me (my glasses had fogged up from the steam-wave), but I recognized the vague shape of the fire-turtle as a Torkoal. I admitted that he would be a good addition to the team – and that, as the first Pokémon in the area, I had to at least attempt to catch him – so I pulled out Vex's Pokéball.
"Go easy on him, Vex," I told my Combusken as he appeared.
"Com," he shrugged, fluffing his feathers to allow more heat to his body.
"Lucky," I grumbled. Fire types did love the high temperature, after all. "Just, do a double kick on him or something," I told him, my mind too jumbled from the humidity to really think straight.
"CombusKEN!" he cawed, charging the turtle. Before the slow Pokémon could react, Vexyl had hit, sending it careening into a far wall – correction, through a far wall – and into the darkness. I watched all this, mouth agape, and turned to my starter.
"What. The. Hell, Vex? I said go easy on him, not one hit KO him!" I shouted, throwing my hands into the air. He shrugged at me again.
"Com."
"Yeah, right," I mumbled. "'Didn't mean to' my ass." I sighed. "Let's just… go. We aren't going to make it to Fallarbor Town until late tonight as it is," I told him as I checked the time on my PokéNav. Sure enough, it was already late afternoon. A minute later we'd finally made it to the second half of Route 111 and I fell to my knees as the cool, fresh air encompassed me. At least, it felt a helluva lot cooler than the cave had, and that was enough.
"Sken-bus?" Vexyl commented as he watched me roll around the fresh grass.
"Just because you enjoyed the heat doesn't mean I did," I told him. "It must have been 110 degrees in there; humans aren't supposed to get that hot. Pokémon? Yeah, sure, if they're fire or rock types. The rest of us are more like 70-80 degree creatures."
"Coom," he nodded sagely and I figured he understood what I meant.
I lolled like that for about ten minutes until I forced myself up and to continue on. I made it to the northern part of the Route by about 7.30 (battling a trainer along the way and upping my money to a good 56000 pokébucks), making the day a twelve hour shift, and by that point I was too tired to even contemplate struggling my way through Route 113. I tossed my little blue sleeping bag onto some soft-looking grass and curled up into it. I left Vexyl out of his Pokéball to ward off any attackers and told him to wake me up if anything happened or he wanted to sleep himself. Sure enough, halfway through the night I was pulled from my exhaustion-driven sleep to return him to his ball. I replaced him with the duo of Minnow and Roxie who were entranced with each other enough to keep them awake. I went back to sleep.
When I awoke in the morning, the sun shining on my hiding spot between the trees, I was momentarily confused when I saw Minnow and Roxie chasing each other around my camp ground. It took a minute, but I remembered the midnight exchange and decided that the two could use some training up. I fought another trainer once I'd officially made it to Route 113 and Minnow sparked the girl's Skarmory into unconsciousness, I was proud to declare. Unfortunately, though, Roxie was… well, to be honest she was a grass type and I couldn't get a good feel for battling her. I'd used her against countless wild Pokémon in the area – we'd found a Spinda first thing and she'd used poison powder on the thing; I didn't catch it for obvious reasons – as well as the other trainers in the Route, but she wasn't really a fighter. I had suspicions she'd used Sweet Scent on Minnow, though, because the two seemed almost inseparable. Caaaan you feeeeel the loooove tonight, I sang in my head as Minnow darted around and around Roxie, making her giggle. It was cute and slightly unexpected but it made me happy to see my youngest Pokémon in such high spirits.
At about half past one we'd finally (finally) made it to Fallarbor Town. Our bodies were covered in ash and soot and I was having problems breathing, but we were there. I popped into the Pokémon Center to feed all of us (not having eaten since the morning previous) and we consumed what must have been half of their food supplies. Those bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches were the best I'd ever had (though that might have been the famine talking). I took a long, relaxing shower and washed my clothes (who knew grass stains were so hard to get out?) in the back room before leaving the Center and exploring the Town. To be honest, it wasn't much bigger than the game portrayed it to be; there were only a handful of houses in the area, a small Contest Hall, and a Pokémart that had seen better days. I walked out to Route 114 and to the bridge that crossed over to a field of tall grass and the outside bits of Mt. Chimney. Deciding to forgo jumping right into what was sure to be many, many Pokémon battles I sat on the bridge and lazily watched the water trolling under me. I lamented not getting a rod when I saw what might have been the shapes of Goldeen under the surface of the water.
"Hey there, miss," a man in a red track suit greeted.
"Hello there," I told the friendly local; he appeared to be a fisherman, if the gear on his back was anything to go by.
"You're lookin' awful down," he commented, tossing out his line into the lake. I shrugged.
"Just thinking about my next Gym Battle; I've got my first three now and I heard Flannery was a tough one," I told him. It was nice to just be able to talk about nothing, make idle conversation with a stranger. No life-threatening plots, no endless questions I had no answers to… it was calming. He hummed, looked at me, and turned back to his fishing.
"Worried about fire-types, eh? Your starter a Treeko?" he asked.
"No, I chose a Torchic; he's a Combusken now, but it's still going to take a lot of training up for us to beat her. Those ground type moves of hers are a," I paused when the word 'killer' rang through my mind. "Uh- a problem," I finished lamely.
"No water types?" I shook my head.
"No. I – I had one but she didn't make it," I said softly, looking away for a moment. "The regulations the League has set don't help matters much either."
We stayed silent a moment, letting the calming laps of water of the lake sooth my internal tension. Then, he turned to me, and thrust his fishing rod into my hands. With an 'oomf' I accepted it, startled.
"There, lass! Now you can catch yourself one! There are only water types in these waters and I know for a fact that Goldeen are plentiful," he nodded, patting his pocket with a wink. I stared at him, wide eyed.
"Oh, wow, thanks!" I gasped.
"Now, it's just on loan until you catch yourself a fish, you got that?" he grinned at me. I nodded.
The man actually stayed with me while I fished for Pokémon and we made idle chatter. But, for all his words of wild Pokémon in the water, I didn't have a tug on the end until an hour later; I pulled at the line and lifted it to the surface only to find a pinecone on the end of the plastic string. I went to untangle the thing from my line when an orange blur hopped out of the water, biting at the pinecone and my unexpecting lure. I blinked at the stupid Pokémon and sighed, throwing out a Pokéball.
"Welcome to the team, Copper," I said to the ball containing my new Magicarp.
Great. Just… great.
I awkwardly accepted the money I'd earned from the trainer I just beat, holding my flopping Magicarp in one arm. I'd decided that the only way for her (and, it was indeed a 'she' if my PokéDex was to be trusted) to gain experience was to watch my other Pokémon trounce trainer after trainer. We made it through the grass just passed the bridge, beat a few trainers, wandered up the side of the mountain (an easier climb than the one from Route 111), beat a few more trainers, and were now walking our way into Meteor Falls. When I entered the cave (thinking about how many, many caves Hoenn had) I took a moment to appreciate it's cool atmosphere and the blue tinge the walls held; there were bits of white and silver stones marbled into the blue and it was a beautiful sight, especially when the light from the entrance hit it and made it sparkle. I reluctantly stopped my tourist-gape to march Copper and I over to the bridge that was in front of a towering, shimmering waterfall. To my left, I could see an unstable ladder and I climbed down. Looking around, I was confused.
There was no one there.
"They must've already been here…" I thought aloud, hitching Copper up a bit further into my arms. I sighed, turned and marched back out the cave. "Well that was a waste," I said. "Maybe they're already at Mt. Chimney?"
I was disgruntled at the thought; I knew if I was already too late here then I was going to be waaay late at Mt. Chimney. I would have to run. Returning Copper to her ball, I high tailed it back down the ledges of the mountain terrain and through the tall grass in Route 114. As I ran across the bridge and through the small town of Fallarbor, I thought back to when I'd started my journey.
I had never been a big fan of participating in nature and so I'd never been overly physically active. So, when I ran all the way from Route 114 and finally back to the other side of the Mt. Chimney cave, I was bloody freaking exhausted. Of course, I had taken several breaks along the way, and mostly jogged, but still. It was a big accomplishment for my used-to-be indoors-y form. I probably would have died had I tried that two weeks ago, and I was lucky there weren't any hill I had to climb up. At any rate, I arrived back to the Cable Car Station at around 8 or 8.30 that night, exhausted and bones aching from two straight days of near-vigorous exercise.
I purchased a ticket up the recently 'fixed' cable car and slumped over in the padded bench provided.
"Thank you gods of cable car production," I panted as I let the air conditioning in the vehicle cool me off. Those designers of this machine should receive a sacrificial offer, or something, I thought bizarrely, my mind not reacting well with the mixture of heat and tiredness that churned through my veins. About fifteen minutes later, I'd reached the top of the mountain and exited the car. A similarly dressed Station worked greeted me, a fearful look disarming her unconcerned, friendly smile, and I knew that the fight had probably already started. I rushed out of the building and came face to face with several sets of people in two sets of clothing: one red and the other blue. This would have been so much cooler had the uniforms for Team Magma looked like Ninjas, I thought and edged my way past the fights as best I could. I headed up towards the northern side of the ridge that overlooked the bubbling magma of the volcano. I gulped when a comparable intense heat as the cave below made a sweat burst forth on my skin. I was really starting to hate the heat.
As I turned the corner to the far edge of the ridge, I was somewhat surprised that no Team Administrators greeted me with a battle. I shrugged, thanked my luck, and moved on.
"You aren't going to do this, Maxie!" a voice ahead hollered, and I recognized the Brooklyn-esque accent.
"Your plans would ruin the planet!" another voice replied, enunciating the words oddly, sounding almost British. "I am trying to restore the land masses to their proper frame!"
"Urg! Sharpedo, Crunch!" Archie commanded. I rushed around the last boulder and took in the sight of the two team leaders battled. I had to admit, the sight looked pretty epic, what with two powerful Pokémon and their trainers as they duked it out in front of an active volcano.
"Magnetude, Camerupt!" Maxie told his fire-type.
"Whoa!" I yelled as the earth beneath me moved. I tumbled, grabbing onto the large rock to my right, and barely maintained my footing. The two leaders paused their brutal battle to look at me and Archie narrowed his eyes at me.
"You!" he glared. "What the hell, girlie – get out of here. This has nothing to do with you."
Maxie, on the other hand, smirked and turned back to his opponent. "See? It is not only Team Magma who knows the true horror your designs would cause!"
"No way! Flooding the world would solve all of our problems! There would be plenty of fishing for food, and the world would be renewed by the fresh water!" Archie argued back, face turning a faint purple color, whether from the heat or his anger, I did not know. I stared at them both, aghast at their skewed perspectives.
"You're both nuts!" I shouted, mouth hanging and eyes wide. They gave me odd looks. "If you flooded the world, where would we live? Or the Pokémon found exclusively on land? What would you do for fruit, for meat that wasn't fish? And if you molded the world into a world of rock, what would happen to the water? You need water in the oceans to bring rain to the land, we can't live without water. And then what would happen to those water types too?" I panted, half from the heat and half from the speech I'd all but yelled. "You're – you're nuts!" I repeated, at a loss for words.
They both stared at me, though I could tell their minds weren't trained on my form. Instead, they were trying to rationalize their reasons for their own plans; I could tell from the amount of time it was taking them that they were having a hard time of it. That is, until they glanced at each other. Immediately their fight commenced. I rolled my eyes, disgusted.
"Uh, men!" I groaned and pulled out two of my Pokéballs. "Vex, double kick; Minnow, spark!" I commanded. The Minun flew at Archie's Sharpedo, KO-ing it in one hit because of its already weakened state. The same happened with Vexyl and the Camerupt that Maxie commanded.
"This isn't over!" they both yelled at me in unison as they ran back down the slope of the mountain and towards the cable car. Their men ran after them, their own Pokémon tired out, and I was left alone on the volcano with my Pokémon.
"Well," I started, "that didn't go quite as I thought it would."
"Mi?" Minnow asked, hopping up to my shoulder, faintly reminiscent of a Pikachu I would never get to know.
"Comb-uh," Vexyl shook his head at my electric mouse. I looked between the two and narrowed my eyes.
"Now what's this you're saying about me?" I asked, not quite offended but suspicious all the same.
"Minun, Mi!" my mouse told me, nudging his cheek against mine.
"Yeah, that was real helpful," I rolled my eyes.
We'd eventually made it down the mountain side and to Lavaridge, but not without a few battles on the way – and one rather unforgettable one. I'd just hopped down from the second ledge along the path (a word I used loosely, for there was no real direction but down) and the ashes beneath my feet scattered into the air around me, causing me to cough severely. Ugh, I thought, I'll never get used to this freaking smoke. I rubbed at my watering eyes and tried to hold my breath as long as possible. It was still hot on this side of the mountain, though less so than at the peak of it, and I tugged at my shirt. I'm going to have to wash my clothes at least three times to get out the smell, I whined to myself.
"Hey there, you!" a voice to my right called. At first, I didn't see anything, but the man moved and I could make out his green and brown clothes that were covered in soot. Camouflage without it meaning to be, I supposed.
"Eh?" I asked, blinking ash from my eyes.
"How 'bout a battle then, lass? I've been up here for hours and I couldn't find a damn Pokémon to fight that wasn't one I already had," he said, voice slightly rough from the dry air.
I shrugged. "Yeah, sure," I said, tugging out to Pokéballs from their holsters. I released Jesus and Copper, grabbing the latter of the two around her fins and hauling her into my arms – an experience I was certainly tired of. I should have gotten that Experience Share, I lamented, completely ignoring the fact that it would have meant yet another trip with Briney. I shuddered at the thought.
"You all right there, lass?" the man asked. He was probably worried he'd just started up a battle with a mental trainer. I knew what I looked like: covered in dirt, ash, and sweat I held a Magicarp in my hands – the most useless Pokémon of all time, until it evolved – and pulled a frail looking Pokémon for a battle, all while shuddering at something incomprehensible, to them. You know, now that I thought about it, I probably did look insane. I sighed.
"Yeah I'm… fine," I rolled my eyes at myself.
"Well, okay then…" he said, uncertain. He shook his head and threw a Pokéball. "Let's get 'er, Dudette!"
"Geo, geo," the Geodude said. I couldn't tell that it was a girl but… eh. To each their own.
"Get her, Jesus," I told my Kirlia. She nodded.
"Tackle!" Man ordered.
"Confusion," I called in response.
"Kir-liii!" J shouted, raising her arms.
The Geodude burst through her attack, though, and rammed my little ballerina hard. They both 'oomf'd and I was concerned for a moment until I saw that he Geodude was barely staying awake while Jesus appeared only slightly worse for wear. "Again," I told her. She repeated her motions and the rock type went down.
"That one's more powerful than I thought," the man blinked. "Wouldn't o' thought it of such a little thing." I beamed proudly down at Jesus and I was almost certain the dark green tinge she had to her cheeks was a blush. "C'mon out, Chika!" A Machop burst forth from its Pokéball.
"All right, Jesus, this one should go down eas – " I started, only to topple over as Copper struggle from my arms and flopped on the ground in front of Jesus. "Copper, what the hell are you doing? Get back her – " I stopped again, this time to watch as Copper grew. And grew. And grew some more. Her body was encompassed in white light and I grinned. "Hell yes!" I pumped my fist into the air. "I've got a Gyarados! Woo!" I spun around, jumping up and down. I looked back and found myself face to, er, fin with my newly evolved Pokémon. I looked up, craning my head back to stare at Copper. She was about 20 feet tall, if I had to guess as I blinked up at her. She copied the motion, her large jowls hanging open in a silent roar. I pulled out my PokéDex to get her list of attacks – if she'd really learned any at all from her evolution – and flipped through the intro information.
"Gyarados," PokéDex said. "Attacks: Bite, Tackle, Splash."
"Oh, well, okay," I shrugged. I looked back up at Copper and then down to our opponent and his Machop. The two of them looked scared out of their wits, though, and were backing up with their hands in a defensive position.
"I – I think I'll just forfeit," the man stuttered. He grabbed his Pokémon about her waist and tossed a few pokébucks at my before turning tail and retreating down the mountain. I sighed and pulled out Jesus' Pokéball.
"C'mon, J, return. I've got to train up Copper for our next gym now," I explained to her. She nodded and didn't resist as the red light encompassed her. "All right there, beastie," I looked up at Copper. "Let's grind."
A/N: Let's just say that Magicarp are a bitch to train up then, shall we? Also: I am officially caught up with writing through the game. Those are in fact the moves Copper knows and I can just tell that she's going to be one of those that's going to take frick-all forever to learn a water move. Hence the grinding. Maybe I'll capture a new pokemon next time? Eh. Let's hope it'll be something useful.
To my amazing reviewers: Sahxyel, Icyfeather12 (your review is still making me laugh, by the way), Ie-Maru, Waflicka, and ChaoticxxHearts. Y'all are the shizz-nit (I said that right, right? Eh. Whatever.)