Hey, guys! The last chapter got a bunch of reviews. I'm glad! Thank you to TheSilverHunt3r, HeyYouYaYou and Eevee. And welcome to a new reader, Umbruhon!
From what I can gather, you guys seem to like my portrayal of Blue and I'm glad you do because good characterization is something many fanfictions lack, especially for this particular character.
And I don't mean to brag but I do think this story is good. You guys like it very much, so it has to be, right? I know reviews don't mean everything, but at least it's feedback, unlike simple views, so they're important to me. I want this story to be big; for a lot of people to read it and feel it. And I have this very meaningful ending in plan and I just HAVE to know how people will feel about it. This is by far my most ambicious writing project to date.
Warning: violence and potentially disturbing content! (Seriously, if you think this should be rated M, let me know!)
Chapter 14: Someone in the dark
It was a long and awkward trek down Mount Silver. Blue had to keep a constant eye on Red to make sure he didn't stray or turn around. The fallen champion had remained completely mute for the entire trip which, granted, was nothing unusual for him. It was the closest to his normal self Blue had seen so far, actually, so he took it as a good sign. Still, the gym leader had confiscated his pokéballs just in case he freaked out again.
When they finally reached the base of the mountain, though, Red started to get more agitated. He began fidgeting; tugging at his sleeves, pulling at his hair, looking around himself nervously as if he was expecting something to jump at him. He still didn't say anything but he looked as nervous as a ratatta on an open field. The further they got from the mountain, the more twitchy he got. It was almost like living on the frozen peak was an addiction and that now he was in withdrawal. Blue wondered if he should be worried.
So far, they had been walking through the large forest that separated Johto from Kanto. They encountered several wild pokémon, which Blue kept at bay with his own but when they came across an actual person, Red went and hid somewhere and the blonde trainer had to use his Alakazam's telepathy to find him.
Because of that, Blue had opted to avoid populated areas as much as possible, staying away from the main roads. It was simple. Just heading in the direction of the rising sun and they would reach the Indigo Plateau and then Viridian City, which was a day and a half trip. On the night they had to spend in the wilderness, Blue had Alakazam hypnotise Red to get him to fall asleep so he could get some real rest and also so that he himself could sleep without having to worry about either of their safety.
Blue had made it so that they would reach the Evergreen City late at night so as to minimize the chances to encounter people on their way to the gym. When the familiar building came into view, its owner turned to his still following companion, who stood a few paces behind him, hugging himself weakly like he was cold. His head was hung low; his stance was slanted and asymetric. He seemed to be shivering but other than that, he was eerily still. He looked like a kicked growlithe. A filthy, lanky, stupid growlithe with overgrown hair. Blue huffed in annoyance, refusing to feel bad for the fallen champion. He firmly, though not violently, grabbed Red's forearm and dragged him towards the gym's main entrance. Quickly unlocking the door, he took an immediate right and headed up the flight of stairs, Red following him like a zombie.
The two teenagers finally made it to Blue's quarters, situated right above the battle arena. Blue saw the other trainer take an excessively slow confused look around him. Clearly, he was wondering what they were doing on the upper floor of the Viridian City gym. That was to be expected, Blue thought. The poor bastard had no idea what's been happening in Kanto for the past three years and that included him becoming the new gym leader after the last one had abandonned ship.
Despite his new position, Blue hadn't lost his nature as a traveling trainer and as such, he was rarely ever home. His apartment was mostly bare, except for the essentials. There were no pictures or decorations, save for the giant Earth Badge replica that hung on the wall above the scarcely used TV. Blue dropped his bag at the door and stepped in, expecting Red to do the same, except he didn't and went back to looking at his feet. The blonde teenager rolled his eyes in uncensored annoyance.
He really was out of it, Blue thought. Being so silent was nothing new for Red but his childhood rival had never ever been this pathetically lethargic. The once strong and confident champion of Kanto was reduced to a hollow, mentally crushed shell of his former self. Everywhere he looked, his gaze was dull and lifeless. He didn't react to anything; sight, touch or sound the way a normal person would. He seemed lost in his own world. He had lost contact with reality. Now, Blue was no psychiatrist but he figured there was not much else to do but to wait it out. At least now he was out of the toxic environment he had rotten his mind away in for three years.
The two boys stood in front of one another for a while until Blue got sick of it. "You're going to take a shower," he ordered, not hiding his disgust in the slightest. "I'm not having you sleep on my couch while you stink like a muk."
Red looked over to him, head slightly cocked to the side, before looking down at his filthy, worn attire. That was the Blue Oak way of offering him his hospitality. Being nice still wasn't his strong suit, apparently.
Red warily closed the bathroom door behind him. He scratched his arm nervously. It had been such a long time since he'd step foot in an actual bathroom. The sheer convenience of it almost felt alien to him. The teenager stayed in place for a good minute. His mind was blank, unable to focus on anything for a moment. It happened a lot these days. Sometimes, he would 'wake up' realizing he had no idea what he'd done for the last few hours. It was like he was stuck in limbo; somewhere between conscious and unconscious, between awake and asleep... between alive and dead.
A shower. Red suddenly reminded himself of what he was in the ceramic room for in the first place. The teenager hesitantly removed his beloved blood-red cap, exposing his overgrown and filthy brown locks. After three years of neglect, his greasy long hair reached the center of his back. Had he not been in a cold, dry environment with little else than snow, ice, and rock around, they would probably be hideously filthy and filled with debris and bugs.
Afterwards, Red took off his worn shoes which were badly in need of a replacement. At last, the lost champion shed all of his clothes, not paying attention to them as they piled up at his feet. There, as naked as when he was born, Red directed his eyes to the mirror involuntarely; something he had been trying to avoid doing since he'd realised he had lost his mind.
Staring back at him with abscent, bloodshot eyes, his reflection revealed all the unappealing signs of his unstable mental state. His own image was no longer familiar to him. The small ten year old who had left the Indigo Plateau after getting sick of all the attention and unwanted fame, was replaced by a taller but frailer version. Underneath all the dirt and grime, his bare ghostly white skin revealed a quickly maturing body. His proportions were awkwardly off. His legs were longer and shaped; so were his arms. His shoulders were broader and more defined. His whole body was undergoing a transformation, like a slowly evolving pokémon, he could tell. His jaw was squared, his chin more angular and his brow more accentuated. Red thought distractedly that he was hairier than he remembered. The teenager scratched his chin thoughtfully. So this is what it was, to 'become a man'? He vaguely remembered some people telling him about it. Apart from its changing shape, Red noticed that his body was thin, to an extent that was probably unhealthy. Food was scarce on Mount Silver and Red didn't have the luxury to eat regular, balanced meals. He used to be an active trainer, running or pedaling his way all over Kanto, fueling his childishly high metabolism with hearthy doses of exercise. However, after such a long time of being mostly inactive and malnourished, he hadn't built up the increased muscle mass the wave of puberty hormones should have brought him. What a shame, he thought abscentmindedly.
Red finished the examination of his own body and turned towards the shower. He took a moment to get reacquainted with the way the implement functionned. Stepping under the icy cold stream of water, Red felt more at home than perhaps he should have. He stood there, eyes open, while the cascading water slowly soaked his mess of a hairdo and washed away the filth off of his body. At his feet, the water that was swallowed by the drain was brownish.
Soon, the water started to warm up until it steamed and Red was immediately torn between satisfaction and discomfort. He fundled with the temperature a bit until he found one he was comfortable in and then proceeded to rub himself clean of the grime. The soap made short work of the dirt on his skin but his unkempt hair was knotted beyond hope. Nevertheless, he cleaned it as best as he could, emptying the previously almost full bottle of shampoo in the process. He stayed in the shower for a long time, not thinking about anything, until the water that dripped off of him was perfectly clean.
Blue had just begun to fall asleep after spending hours deep in thought when he was jolted awake by the sound of footsteps.
"Damnit…" the gym leader muttered under his breath, sitting down in his bed.
That was exactly what he had been afraid of. That his 'guest' would get up and become agitated again in the middle of the night. He had been hoping Red would calm down and stabilize, away from the mountain and away from strangers; get a good night of sleep but it didn't look like it was gonna turn out that way.
Blue calmly but quickly got out of his bed, simply dressed in a black tank top and comfy grey sweatpants (his go-to sleeping attire) and exited his room in the darkness of the night, intending to check on his burden.
He quickly spotted Red just as he was about to open the door to leave the apartment.
"Where do you think you're going?" Blue interrupted him.
Red's response was very delayed but he eventually answered without turning around to look at him. "Home," he said in a lifeless monotone voice.
That was Blue's first warning sign that the fallen champion may not be in a normal state at the moment.
"It's four in the goddamn morning. You're not going anywhere," Blue replied, remembering to keep his voice down to hopefully get better results.
Red completely ignored him and turned the doorknob to let himself out. Blue rushed foward to slam the door shut, unwilling to let the highly unstable trainer loose in the city.
"You can't leave like that, Red! You're not well," Blue protested, standing between the brunette and the exit. "Come on, just go back to sleep. You need it and so do I."
It happened so fast, Blue never had a chance to react. With a speed on par with an arbok's bite, Red grabbed him by the neck with both hands. The gym leader reflexively grabbed the fallen champion's wrists, trying to tear them away from his throat. Red did not give him the time to think about a way to free himself. He brutally pulled him away from the door like he was a ragdoll and spun him around with a terrifying strenght. Both boys went tumbling to the floor, Red trapping his stunned victim underneath his body.
Now with the unstable teenager's entire upper body weight resting on his agonizingly constricted throat, Blue's eyes started to water while Red's fingers mercilessly squeezed the life out of him with a strenght far surpassing what an underfed teenage boy should have. The gym leader's legs kicked uselessly beneath his attacker, unable to throw him off, fear completely disabling his brain. His trachea feeling like it was filled with shattered glass and his lungs burning like fire, Blue desperately tried to punch Red in the face, chest, sides, anywhere he could reach to get him to let go but the decompensating boy took all the blows with little to no reaction, as if he couldn't process pain. Blue started to panick and his watery eyes found Red's lifeless ones staring back at him with cold determination.
This couldn't be happening! This wasn't how he was meant to go! Strangled to death by his former rival, completely helpless on the floor, unable to think. Blue saw his field of vision getting smaller and smaller, Red's emotionless face getting blurrier and blurrier and his punches getting weaked and weaker. Fruitlessly trying to suck in one last breath of air, all Blue could do was mouth through clenched teeth: 'Wake up, Red! Please, wake up!' There was no response; no one to help him.
His arms fell limply to his sides, every muscle in his body giving up their struggle. Blue felt himself fall into a dark abyss.
Suddenly, the crushing pressure on his neck was released and, as if someone had suddenly pulled him out of water he was drowning in, his body jolted like from an electric shock and his consciousness abruptly came back. His eyes shot open. He took the longest, loudest breath in of his life and it was as painful as it was relieving. Dizzy and confused, Blue just lied on the floor, his entire body wracked by a frantic coughing fit which only put more strain on his oxygen deprived lungs. He tasted blood on his tongue.
It took a good five minutes of struggling with the urge to breathe in and the reflex to cough while lying on the floor before Blue became well enough to sit up, rubbing his painful throat, his forehead drenched in cold sweat. He slowly got his ability to think clearly and to process what had just happened back.
Red was unconscious, collapsed on the floor right next to him. What in…?
The gym leader spotted his miraculous savior standing a few feet behind him : his Alakazam. The pieces of the puzzle slowly fell into place in Blue's mind.
Psychic types had unique abilities and one of them was to read minds. As Blue's bond with his Alakazam got stronger and stronger, they began to share a special mental connection. The amazingly smart psychic could read his trainer's thoughts so well that he could give him his commands without the need to speak. Alakazam could hear his master's thoughts even from his pokéball. And that was exactly what happened. The psi pokémon had sensed his master's distress and had let himself out of his pokéball to fly to his aid. He had put Red to sleep just in time.
As his coughing somewhat calmed down, Blue began to realize he was shaking, either from his coming down from his adrenaline rush or because he had never been quite this scared for his life, ever. Maybe both. He had come so close to dying this time and it terrified him on a level he could hardly explain. It was the second time in just two days Red had tried to kill him.
Blue hadn't even had the time to be scared when Red had sent his Charizard after him. It had happened too fast for him to even think about being scared and Blue's pokémon had quickly taken control of the situation before he got hurt.
This time, however, the gym leader had all the time in the world to realize what was happening while it was happening and he had actually felt his life slipping away. He couldn't remember being so scared in his whole life.
While he was concentrating on his erratic breathing, Blue looked over at Red's sleeping form and then at his faithful pokémon who had just saved his life. Blue gave it his most heartfelt thanks and then looked over at Red again.
'Don't hold it against him,' he heard Alakazam tell him telepathically. 'He didn't know what he was doing.' Blue knew that his pokémon's words could be trusted. The powerful psychic could peer into people's minds and he probably saw just how chaotic Red's psyche was.
The gym leader surprised himself with how not angry he was. Had he not witnessed firsthand just how unwell his old rival was, he might just have gotten so mad he would have beaten him to a pulp out of spite. But now, despite how bad the situation was, he couldn't find it in him to feel angry. Maybe it was just the lack of oxygen but he simply felt tired and nauseated. One thing was for sure now, though. Red's condition was not something he could handle by himself; what just happened was proof of that. He had to get help.
'You can't do anything about this, can you?' he mentally asked his pokémon.
'I cannot fix a broken mind,' came the somewhat expected answer.
Blue cleared his aching throat and nodded. Boy, he was exhausted.
'Can you get him to sleep until tomorrow morning?' Alakazam answered with the affirmative. 'When he wakes up, will he be… normal? As in; not a murderous savage?'
'He should be. But I will stand guard, just in case.'
'Good,' the gym leader sighed. 'I need…' he stopped for a second to fight off a wave of nausea. 'I need some rest.'
Blue carefully got up; first getting on all four before attempting to stand as slowly as he needed, before grabbing Red's sleeping body by the arms and dragging it back to the couch, not bothering to make him comfortable. He coughed again, tasting the metal once more and headed back in the direction of his room. He was stopped by the inquiring 'voice' of his psychic.
'Master, are you sure you are well enough?'
'I'll be fine,' he answered with his thoughts. 'Just make sure he doesn't wake up before I do.'
Blue shut the bathroom door behind him and locked it just to be safe. The shaken teenager sighed, putting both hands on the counter. He then looked up at his reflection in the mirror. What he saw was quite a shock even though it shouldn't have been, given what he had just been through.
His neck was swollen. An enormous angry red bruise had made its appearance on it. His veins jutted out unnaturally and his eyes were bloodshot and gleaming.
In short, he looked terrible but that was to be expected. Blue filled the glass sitting next to the sink with cold water and downed it quickly, hoping to relieve some of the pain. His heart was still beating fast.
Blue looked at the mirror again, his reflection staring back at him with half-hearted determination.
Something had to be done.