A/N. And now time for big brother!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
EP 10: Race to New Island! -Strange Storms...
"Red!" The voice isn't entirely unwelcome, but he has found himself rather reluctant to begin with. Sending a speeding dragon that hit like a tank was not the way to invite people over after all, and the sheer remoteness of the location had been sending all manner of warning bells ringing in his head.
He hadn't even heard of New Island before, and yet there was someone actually living there, someone who was inviting people, pokémon trainers over.
It couldn't possibly end well, but he was curious. And he needed a break.
He'd ignore that little nagging voice somewhere in the back of his head that told him he had no time for a break, there was a little girl out there somewhere waiting for him to come save her, and he was off gallivanting to unknown places and challenging egotistical people who thought they were the best when no one even knew who they were.
Giovanni had seen himself as the best, and he had been the best gym leader. But he was also a filthy criminal who could be the cause behind one of the biggest as-of-yet unsolved problems in his life, and if it turned out to be true…
Well, the man certainly wouldn't be living long enough to make that mistake again.
Maybe he was being bitter and brutal, but that had been his little sister. His baby sister who hadn't even been half his age yet, and had been taken by strange people to never be seen again. She'd looked to him for protection and he had failed, he owed her this much at the very least…
Nevermind the fact that she could be…
"Could be what? You know you won't accept that Red, even after you've seen the body! She's-!"
"My little sister isn't dead!"
He'd swore he'd never think about that again, but then again, his own memories did have a habit of coming up from behind to bite him in the ass…
"Red!" Ah, yes, the voice. Or rather person. People aren't just voices, much as he'd like them to be otherwise. They have feelings, and emotions, a will of their own, they can be annoying and every other unpleasant thing under the sun. But they can also be like his sister, sweet, and gentle and far too innocent for everything the world has to offer.
This is a person much like his sister, and while he has known the boy for a long time, it still comes as a bit of a shock to see him. He hadn't entirely expected young Gary to show up in a place like this.
"And here I was thinking Blue was bad, but you are worse by far. You have him completely beat in the whole spacing out thing…" and he can't help but sigh, because the boy is right in some ways and entirely wrong in another.
Blue spaces out for many different reasons, whether they be introspective or him just daydreaming about some pretty girl he has recently crossed. Or was, now all of his rival's thoughts are wrapped up in hunting down the "son-of-a-bitch" who'd had the audacity to attack his family, in the brown haired, cocky trainer's own words.
"…"
"Um…" Much like his brother, Gary has no issue interrupting his thoughts, no matter how serious they might seem to be, and is even worse at reading his mood. But Gary doesn't know him like his older brother does, and as much as the two are increasingly alike, they are just as vastly different.
Red was sure at one point that that was alright, but after the incident at the Viridian City Gym, he is not entirely so sure.
Neither of the older trainers had been pleased to discover the young boy unconscious and injured on the floor, and Red had had half a mind to pin it in on Giovanni, but even he knew that that was risky to Team Rocket.
If the man wanted to re-establish a proper foothold within the Kanto region, he'd need to do so with secrecy, and that was not attained by having his pokémon attack fairly innocent pokémon trainers in the midst of a scheduled gym battle.
But Blue probably stopped caring the instant Gary had to be placed in the hospital for a good three weeks afterwards. He'd been borderline comatose, and something in general seemed wrong with the boy, but he'd recovered easily enough.
He'd been severely traumatized though, and while he handled his own alakazam well enough, as well as his older brother's and his own espeon, he seemed afraid of any other species that came within twenty yards of him, and every time he spotted a rock-type or an eeveelution that didn't belong to either of them he… didn't quite faint, but he always seemed rather tentative.
Red wasn't a psychic like Sabrina though, and couldn't look into the boy's head to see what was so… changed about him, but neither was Blue, and he knew that drove the other crazy.
They were both concerned, and after what had happened to his own sister…
"So… what are you doing here?" Well, that was a good enough distraction, and he'd take whatever he could to not dwell on the past too much. He'd already given more than enough thought to things he no longer could change.
And that was a fairly good question.
"…Come…" But he didn't feel like talking in the middle of a crowded room as the sudden storm that had hit half way to Old Shore Wharf and practically flooded half the roads until they were completely impassable raged on. He was still soaking wet from the rain, his pikachu was tucked somewhere into his jacket, and they both would probably prefer to be dry, rather than begging for a sudden cold.
Sitting also sounded like a splendid idea.
"Sit," if there was one thing he'd appreciate about the younger brother of the three Oak siblings, it was that unlike the older two, he actually listened to him when he told him to do something. Blue fought him nearly every step of the way regardless of whether it was a life or death situation, and Daisy, bless her kind little heart, laughed and never took him quite seriously enough. She was a little ditzy in that regard, but if she'd been any other way he'd have thought she was an imposter.
"So um… here?" He pulled the card the dragonite that had all but ran him over in its apparent determination to deliver out of his front shirt pocket, and was impressed it hadn't been completely soaked through by the rain, showing it to Gary as if it would actually mean something to the boy.
It probably wouldn't, but he wasn't entirely sure how he could explain this properly without seeming as insane as he honestly felt.
"Oh, you got that too? So did I… And I think Blue… but…" Would Blue have shown up? Probably not, he hadn't seen him and he wouldn't have been very far from Gary if he had decided to attend this get-together. Gary was probably wishing that his older brother was here to help make this conversation a lot easier.
The boy had always been awkward around him, and without his own little sister or Blue, he was practically hopeless when it came to holding a conversation. He still hadn't quite grasped all the little subtleties needed to "speak Red" as Blue had once so creatively put it between insulting him and encouraging Gary to act like the asshole his brother seemed to strive to be.
"He's proud, and I'm sure he would've been here too, if he wasn't so caught up in other things." Other things being his self-assigned mission of hunting down whoever had attacked his brother. Gary had been the least helpful in this of course, trying in his own way to keep his older brother from getting himself killed by keeping his own lips shut tight on the matter, but Blue was relentless and refused to give up until he had the culprit's head on a silver platter.
He couldn't say he was any better though; chasing ghosts and dead ends on very little sleep because his own head wouldn't let him live down that fateful night.
And there was no sure of Blue being here. Blue would be here, no ifs, no ands, and damn sure no buts to be had about it, but he'd seen a bad idea in this and had decided to play it safe. He'd also probably told Gary to not come as well, and in fact he had without a doubt, and Gary had been his usual little shit self and gone behind his brother's back to do the exact opposite of what he'd been told.
It would certainly explain Gary's guilty countenance and his hair-trigger paranoia of looking at the door as if he expected the older trainer to come busting through them any second and drag him off by his ear whilst making a terrible scene.
He probably would, if he found out before the ferry showed up to take them to this island palace, but what were the chances?
'Somewhere between nil and very much happening in the next five seconds. Gary better start praying. Maybe he won't be publicly embarrassed.'
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN CLOSED?!" the shout came from somewhere closer to the entrance that led to the docks, and he found himself standing rather protectively in front of Gary as he surveyed the apparent damage.
There was a crowd of people, obviously trainers by the pokéballs fastened to various pieces of clothing, and they all seemed tense and visibly upset about something. It made him curious, and while he wasn't going to leave Gary by himself just yet, he really wanted to check this out.
"What should we do?"
"Let's go." He walked over, Gary practically at his heels, and with a grace he wouldn't ever admit to if asked, easily guided the both of them through the throng of angry trainers to the center, where the cause of the shout was likely to be.
"Stand down Trainer, the storm is too violent for any boat to travel safely to! You all need to stay indoors where it's safe!" The familiar figure of an Officer Jenny could clearly be seen, standing next to some woman he faintly recognized as the owner of the facility from when he'd last visited at the beginning of his journey. Or maybe her daughter; they had looked surprisingly alike, and it was a known fact that the Jennys and Joys that operated in most cities were all related in some way. And the trait wasn't solely kept to those respective families.
"Red..."
"Trainers, please settle down." The woman began to speak, telling them some convoluted prophecy or tale he remembered hearing as a child from one of his grandparents. It settled most of the trainers down, and a few of them settled. Officer Jenny took the opportunity to also point out that the local Nurse Joy had been missing for an indeterminate time, and that was a concern all of on itself.
Everything was calm for the most part, until five trainers, including Gary took off right passed the two women and straight out into the storm. Red found himself easily following along, if only because he knew Blue would kill him if he'd decided to stay behind due to a storm and let Gary get himself killed.
What had even gotten into the boy?
"Wait!"
"Sorry, ma'am! But no freaky storms stopping me!" Gary actually had the audacity to pause long enough to say that, right before releasing his blastoise and hopping onto its back. The giant of a water-type waited only long enough for him to join, before they took off into the worst of it.
Around him he could see various pokémon taking to the water or air. Some guy in a white wife beater, a brown t-shirt, and leather duster taking off on what looked like a slowbro at near unnatural speeds, looking like he was having the time of his life.
There was a more serious looking guy in a black hoodie, on a charizard, and he was doubly impressed with the fact that he could fly that thing in this kind of detrimental weather, but the lizard didn't even seemed bothered. Almost determined as it took off in the direction the island was in.
There was a guy in a black jacket that struck a slightly familiar cord on some kind of dragon he'd personally never seen before, and there was a girl clad in literally nothing but black who hopped onto a clearly well-trained lapras as well, but he only caught snippets of their appearance as they disappeared.
Gary's blastoise was very impressive itself, not deterred at all by the frankly rocky waters as it plowed through the ocean in the same general direction as the others.
At the speed all of them were going it'd be a race to the palace, and he had a feeling that's exactly what they'd all been going for at the very beginning.
Pokémon trainers were like that in the worst way possible, and he could even faintly here the frustrated cries of Officer Jenny who still stood at the end of the pier.
Poor woman probably wanted to throttle them all after that stunt.
"Gary…"
"What?"
"Blue is going to kill the both of us for this."
"Not if he doesn't find out." And he wouldn't, because Red wanted to live, and he couldn't find his sister if he was dead. He couldn't make whoever had taken her pay for their crimes.
A/N. I am having fun with this fic! This is great! Anyways… Enjoy the chapter and thanks for reading! Please leave a review and see ya!
