Chapter 14: Vs Memories
Orange laid out a sleeping bag and put an orange strip of duct tape on the middle to mark it as hers. She flopped onto the sleeping bag and rolled over. She looked to her right, where Green was rolling out a sleeping bag of his own, amid the patchwork of sleeping bags arranged in the cave.
"Need a hand?" she asked.
"I'm good, but thanks," said Green. "I'm not that out of practice."
"That's good."
There was a moment of silence.
"When's the last time you've been out in the wild like this?" asked Orange.
"Around 3 years," said Green without hesitation. "Running the gym keeps me busy."
"You should get out more. It's good for your Pokémon. Good for you too," said Orange.
Green sighed, "I have my gym to take care of."
"You work too much," said Orange bluntly. "Why do all of that work if you never get to see the world?"
"You work too little," said Green bluntly. "What do you have to show for all of the times you fall off the face of the earth and wander…..wherever you go?"
Orange reached into her bag and pulled out a repurposed hard powertool case, decorated with stickers from various locales. Green's eyes widened as she opened the case to reveal several jars. In one jar was almost a quart of stardust – far more than he'd ever seen in once place before. It glowed with an unearthly luminescence like a nightlight in the darkening cave. Other jars contained large amounts of pearls, gold nuggets, star pieces, evolutionary stones and other things that Orange had picked up on her journeys. She smirked, "Sure, it's not a position or prestige, but wandering as much as I do doesn't come without benefits!"
Green asked, "How long does it take to find all of that?"
"A lifetime," replied Orange. "Adventure after adventure. I've been collecting this stuff since the first time I ran away from home to go on adventures! And I've never stopped since. Actually, I've found more than this here, but I had to sell some of my stash. You overspend your budget on unexpected expenses or opportunities too good to pass up sometimes. I've had to reach into the treasure chest on a few more occasions than I care to admit. Like the time I lost all my stuff escaping a flash flood."
Green chuckled, "Exciting life, eh? Is that the lure?"
"Views you wouldn't believe exist. Going to places and going things you only hear about in books or on TV. Seeing stuff that they only have legends about! And getting to see what's beyond the horizon!"
That was Orange in a nutshell all right. It had been a long, long time since Green had felt the call of adventure, but he was feeling it now. He hadn't had a proper adventure since his dexholder days, when they had roamed the mountains and forests of Kanto and Johto in search of new Pokémon.
Green looked conflicted. Orange continued, "Come on! You know you want to! Don't you have any vacation days built up? You work holidays and weekends most of the time, you've gotta have a stockpile of them! And you have your gym team that can fight on its own and your hologram techno gizmo thingy can run the gym, right? Oh, I'll show you all these pictures I've taken! Speaking of which, I need to give some of these to Professor Oak for some presentation he was working on."
Green sighed, "All right, if we make it through this, I'll come with you one of these times. That make you happy?"
Orange grinned. "Yeah! It'll be nice to have someone to help me gather firewood too! Yellow isn't so good for that!"
Green smirked back, "Oh, and the ulterior motive comes out. What am I? Your workhorse?"
"But you probably couldn't tell the difference between clover and poison ivy," continued Orange. "Ugh! We're gonna have to pack more food! No snacking off stuff right out of the ground! I can pick out some of the plants, but it's not really safe without an expert like Yellow."
"Yellow knows all that plant stuff? Figures, I guess, since she knows all about those healing plants she's always got. Home grown botanist isn't too bad to take with you, eh?"
"Oh, you bet! She's probably picking us all salad right about now. Mmm, I could go for some dandelions right about now. I wonder if there are any outside? I know what those look like. Wanna come pick some?"
Green thought about it for a second and said, "Sure, why not?"
Crystal wandered down the path back towards the cave. She noticed a familiar shock of red hair off the side of the path, grabbing something off the ground.
"Silver? You need help?"
He stood up and turned around, "No, I'm fine. Was looking for some tinder and firewood so we could start a fire tonight. Found this old bird nest on the ground. Wanted to make sure it wasn't still in use."
Crystal nodded, "Do you need a hand?"
"More firewood is always good. Want to help?"
"I wouldn't mind," said Crystal.
After a few minutes of silence picking up wood, Crystal asked, "So how is being Blue's security guard?"
Silver smiled, "Not bad, actually. You see some crazy people out there though. There was this one guy who insisted on getting an autograph and kept trying to get into the shoot. Had to literally tackle him, handcuff him, and drag him off with some of the other guys."
"Really?" asked Crystal with a laugh.
"Actually, he was one of the tame ones."
"I feel a story coming….."
"So, we notice that some of the props went missing one day, right?"
"Yeah?"
"So, us security guys go to investigate. We catch this dude stealing the props. We find his SellMyStuff account - he's selling the props from the movie. He actually was making good money off it! He was in negotiations to sell a pair of socks he stole for 1 million Pokedollars!"
"Really? What a guy…"
"You know how I found him out?"
"How?"
"He uses all of the same techniques Blue does for sneaking in, except he probably looked it up somewhere on the internet and didn't bother practicing much before trying it out. If you know what to look for, it's quite obvious. Oh, and there was this other guy who thought he was Indigo. Tried to hack our system with a stolen Porygon and leak screenshots. To most people, it's totally invisible, but to the right person, like me, he stood out like a sore thumb. People think you can just hack things with a Porygon and get away with it. If you don't train your Porygon to do it right, there are a lot of tell-tale signs!"
Crystal laughed, "Only you would know those kinds of things!"
"Yeah, and that's what makes me worth the big bucks!" said Silver. They both laughed at that.
"In all seriousness, some of these guys are totally nuts. Beyond just the usual screaming fans," said Silver. "Bit more interesting then lab life?"
"Yeah, tell me about it. Wake up, go in, do lab stuff, do more lab stuff, go home, go to bed, repeat!"
Silver grinned, "And of course, drink Professor Oak's favorite brand of coffee!"
Crystal sighed, "I have tried, SO HARD, to find Professor Oak a new brand of coffee, but he just doesn't like anything!"
"Have you tried any of the Alolan types?"
"Some of them. He doesn't like any of them! And they're imports, so they're pretty expensive! Which is why we're still stuck with the cheapo gas station brand!"
Silver grinned, "Good luck!"
Crystal sighed, "Thanks, I'll need it."
The sun was almost behind the horizon as Silver struck a match, starting a camp fire as the night chill began to close in. Crystal had gone inside to check her pack for something. Lyra rubbed her hands and handed him kindling as he slowly fed the fire. As it began to grow in size, Indigo and Blue arrived, carrying larger sticks and branches to burn on the fire.
The two unceremoniously dumped the sticks into a pile before sitting down next to the fire.
"Ahhh…how long has it been?" asked Blue.
"Since we did this?" asked Lyra.
"Yeah."
"I think it was during the Sevvi Island Incident. So….." started Lyra
"4 years ago? Man, what happened to us?" said Blue.
"We got old," said Indigo. Everybody snickered to that. "I became a researcher, Blue became an actress, Silver became a bodyguard, and Lyra's still leeching off me!"
"Oh please. I make tons of money off my Move Tutor business!" retorted Lyra.
"Yeah. I still don't know how you managed to teach yourself how to teach Pokémon egg and TM moves," said Blue.
"They don't call me The Tutor nothing, Miss Evolver!"
"That's Lady Evolver to you!"
They all laughed at that.
"At least it's better than my title. Professor Oak isn't very creative with names or descriptions," said Silver. "I need a different title than 'Itemizer' for knowing the best ways to use items."
"Well, I mean it's not like any of ours are super creative. I'm the Snagger, big shock there, just like Orange is the Photographer and Violet is the Transformer," said Indigo. "Seriously, when do you see Orange without her camera?"
"When she's wearing an orange prison jumpsuit," replied Lyra sarcastically. "I almost didn't recognize her when we broke her and Yellow out of Team Rocket jail."
"No kidding. She looked like a different person! You should have seen her!" said Indigo.
Silver grinned and stared into the fire as Blue quipped back. It really had been too long. His stomach growled. It apparently also had been too long since he'd eaten. He got to his feet. "I'm gonna get some food on the fire. Anyone want to help me?"
"Lyra does!" said Blue and Indigo simultaneously.
"All right, all right, love birds," said Lyra, as she got to her feet. "You'd better still be here when we get back."
"All right, all right," said Indigo as the two walked back into the cave, brushing past Orange and Green as they headed for the seashore.
"Ooh! Do I sense a new couple?" asked Blue mischievously after they'd passed them.
"Green and Orange? Well, stranger things have happened, I guess…" said Indigo.
"So, how have you been?" asked Blue.
"Oh, been working on the purification machine. We've been making good progress, but it isn't quite ready to run yet. How about you?"
"Oh, you know, the joys of filming."
There was a pause.
"Are we better off this way?" asked Blue.
"Honestly, I don't know. You were the one who didn't want to try the long-distance relationship thing. I mean, it's not going badly, and at least you have Silver with you."
Blue paused. "It doesn't feel right. When filming romantic scenes."
"Didn't your agent say that would fade with time?" said Indigo
"Yeah."
"What's his name again? Steve?"
"Her name's Angela."
"Right, Angela."
There was a pause. Blue said, "Listen…..during the Sevii Island incident…you meant what you said then, right? Do you still think that?"
"That we're probably the only ones for each other at this point, after all we've been through together? Ugh….." Indigo sighed, and ran his hand through his hair, "…..I don't know anymore. It made since at the time. We'd been partners in crime for a long time at that point, and we'd done so much together. We hunted down Ein and the rest of Cipher, almost had the Masked Man before everybody else got involved and we found all four of our parents. I couldn't picture myself with anyone else. We'd been through so much together, and our lives were so unique that it didn't seem like there would be anyone else who'd be able to understand either of us like the way we did. You were such a great fake girlfriend when we were on missions, and then you turn out to be an even better real girlfriend! I couldn't believe my luck!"
"Yeah. I felt the same at the time. Silver and I met you two almost three years after we escaped the Masked Man, and you and Lyra were the only two people other than Silver that I felt I could trust until I got involved in the Dexholder Program."
Indigo nodded. He and Lyra had run into Blue and Silver shortly after they disappeared after the Shadow Crisis. They had been after the same info broker, and after a small altercation, they had gotten the info that they both needed. After they realized how well they worked with each other, a partnership had been proposed and agreed upon. Indigo had found out later that they had escaped from the Masked Man a few years prior and had recently gotten their con artist careers started. Their partnership had been the single most successful venture any of them had been a part of.
"And look where it got us," he said.
There was a pause.
"We had something. It was real," said Blue.
"But we ended up having to go our separate ways," said Indigo. "I was in Orre, and you were all over the place with your acting stuff. Since we separated, your acting career has really shot off."
"And you've been doing good work with the Shadow Pokémon Purification Project," said Blue. "It's benefited us both."
"Yeah….."
"Listen, don't tell anyone else, but," said Blue as she leaned in to whisper into Indigo's ear.
"They kill my character in the upcoming film. I'm a free agent again."
Indigo masked his surprise and nodded. He whispered into her ear, "The most recent changes I proposed to the Purification Machine have cleared all of the preliminary tests. They actually ran the tests earlier this afternoon, and Professor Krane sounded pretty optimistic before the tests were run."
"Didn't your changes fry the circuits?" whispered Blue back.
"Yeah, but they changed them out, and with the right resistors, the machine works. Haven't heard the results yet, but if it does work, the Shadow Pokémon Purification project won't require my on-site expertise anymore. I'll be able to work on it remotely. I won't even need to fly into Orre to install upgrades all the time."
Blue nodded and the two sunk back into their sitting positions. She could feel the excitement pulsing under the calm mask that she was projecting. She knew Indigo had to be feeling the same way. It was too much like the way it had all started all those years ago. Waves of memories from years of adventures came flooding back to her.
"You're pretty good. What's your name? I'm Indigo, and this is Lyra," said the unfamiliar boy as the little girl with the ridiculously large hat next to him stood up a little straighter. "Perhaps a partnership could be…..mutually beneficial?"
"INDIGO! WATCH OUT!" screamed Blue, "I'll take him! I'm the one with beef against the Mask of Ice! I'm the one who got us into this mess! I'll get all of us out!"
"We just passed the 50% mark of the Pokedex, so I thought I'd get some desserts to celebrate!" said Professor Oak. Indigo and Blue looked at each other and smiled.
Indigo sighed, "I have no idea why they'd shut us down, Blue. None of these reasons they gave made any sense. I guess it's just some petty political maneuvering. If it's Cipher or the Mask of Ice, though, they've got a reckoning coming for them. I guarantee that."
Indigo handed her two pokeballs. "Blue, you're going to take on the Mask of Ice again, right? Here. Take Wildfire and Boxer with you. Take him down. Make sure that Lyra and Silver make it. I'll cover your exit and I'll be right behind you once I'm done beating these Mask of Ice Rockets. GO!"
"THEY KIDNAPPED MY PARENTS FROM RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!" screamed Blue, tears rolling down her face. "We are going to tear their entire organization down to shreds and we are going to save my parents!" Indigo only hugged her tighter.
"I love you," whispered Blue into Indigo's ear. "I love you too," he whispered back.
"Mom! Dad! I want you to meet my boyfriend Indigo!" said Blue, excitedly. Indigo waved awkwardly from behind her.
Indigo handed her a necklace Blue gasped. "For me? It's beautiful! Wait, you didn't steal this, did you? Remember what I said about going on the straight and narrow?"
"If you don't want to do a long-distance relationship, there's only one alternative," said Indigo.
"I'll miss you," whispered Blue. "I'll miss you too," whispered Indigo back.
Blue snapped out of her thoughts. Indigo was staring into the fire. There was a long pause. Blue eventually broke the silence.
"So…..do you want to…try it again?" she asked.
Indigo didn't respond immediately. After some thought, he said, "I….don't know. Let …..let me think about it."
"Ok. That's fair. It was bad enough breaking up the first time."
The two sunk into silence.
"Hey! Are you jabber jaws done yet? I'm getting hungry here and everybody's gonna want to eat soon!" yelled Lyra from the cave.
"Ah yes, waiter! More wine, please!" yelled Blue back, "And ask the chef when the spaghetti will be done!" She turned to Indigo, "Take some time, and we'll both think about it, ok? Let's not get ourselves into a bad situation because we're being dumb lovey dovey teenagers again."
"All right," said Indigo with a nod, "Sounds good."
"Oh, and Indigo? Get a good night's sleep. I…don't want to lose you because you're too tired and you make a bad decision…"
"…All right."
In Sinnoh….
Platinum gasped. This was…..no! What had happened!? She wondered if Professor Oak and Senior Crystal were all right. She stood up from her computer. Kanto and Johto had no dexholders to protect it! There were many dexholders. Sure, they were scattered over several regions, but none of their groups had stood idly by while evil teams had threatened their regions. If they could combine forces... the only question was how fast they could mobilize. She pulled out her Xtranciever, and began dialing numbers…
Thank you to everyone who has continued to read this story! I appreciate all of your support!