Pokemon Tales: Red Chapter 22: Cave Story.
"Haha. Let me get this straight. Both of you found M2 and both of you let it get away."
The Team Rocket admins were gathered in the same room as usual. Since Alex was busy with his own investigation into Mewtwo's whereabouts, he wasn't aware of the fact that Angie and her forces went to Cerulean City. After hearing of her failure, he was taking delight in ridiculing the other two, since he seemed to think that it would make him seem the most capable in Giovanni's eyes.
"At least we were able to find it. What were you doing all this time?" responded Peter.
"Hey, buddy. Nobody likes a sore loser. Now that I know the location of this thing, I'm going to bring it here with no problems."
"Didn't you listen to the report? We already had people try to break through that barrier and they weren't able to put a dent in it. You should be glad. If you were to face M2, it would crush you like a soda can."
"Oh yeah?" Alex was getting visibly angry "What about you? Was it really so strong?"
He looked at Angie but she wasn't responding. It looked like she was busy looking at something on her tablet. Alex decided to sneakily come up to her and snatch it from her hands.
"What do we have here? Oh! It's..."
He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence since he yelled out in pain after the girl struck the back of his knee with a kick. She grabbed the device which fell out of his hands and quickly turned it off so the third admin wouldn't be able to see it. Not wanting to waste her time with on arguing, she left the room in a hurry. Alex ran after her as soon as the pain subsided, but he couldn't tell in which direction she went. If he decided to search for her, he wouldn't find that she was just around the corner, with the screen of the tablet lit up.
"I should be more careful from now on." she thought to herself "Things like this are a weakness that I can't afford."
She proceeded to delete an image of Red she got off the internet.
. . .
Somewhere deep in the mountains north of Kanto, a massive man in his twenties was standing in the middle of a big plateau. He wasn't wearing anything besides a pair of white, slightly damaged, pants and heavy bracelets around on his wrists and ankles. Although the whole set weighted 100 kilograms, he was able to effortlessly move around. For several minutes, without any rest, he was practicing a set of punches and kicks. Although it was a cold day, it didn't seem like he was affected by the weather in any way.
He continued his movements until he heard something. Even though normally his senses would be able to detect it much sooner, he was so concentrated on what he was doing that he realized that he had a visitor, only after he was right above him. The person who arrived to meet him was riding on the back of their Dragonite. The dragon Pokemon landed nearby and allowed its trainer to jump off its back. The training man reached towards a nearby duffel bag. He needed to take a sip of water in order to be able to have a conversation with his guest.
"What brings you here, Lance?"
Dragonite's trainer had long, spiky, red hair. He was wearing a peculiar navy blue suit, black boots. His cape, which was black on the outside and maroon on the inside, was billowing in the wind.
"Do you really have to speak to me like that, Bruno? How about "Hello, Lance. Long time no see."? Why do you have to assume that I come here for some special reason. Maybe I just wanted to meet my friend."
"We haven't seen each other since the last Pokemon League. Besides... we're in the middle of nowhere. You wouldn't search for me if it wasn't something important."
"Oh, man. Nothing gets past you."
"Of course not. I..." Bruno took a pause after noticing a slight smirk on Lance's face "Was that sarcasm?"
"I don't know. Was it?"
"I swear, Lance, I will..." he said while clenching his fists.
"Alright, alright. I'm sorry. I didn't come here to cause any trouble. In fact, I'm here because I need your help."
"My help? With what?"
"Let's just say that it's something really important. Like... Kanto being ruled by a maniac with an evil army important."
"Alright. I'll listen."
Lance scratched himself behind the ear "Well... That's the thing. We still don't really know what the enemy is planning. I just wanted to know that I can count on the rest of the Elite Four when the time comes."
"As I already said... I'm in."
Lance was at a loss words, especially since he didn't want it to get to Bruno's head if he praised him "I didn't expect you to be the easiest to convince."
"What about the other two?"
"I already visited that hag and she told me to leave her alone. Seriously, we need someone new to replace her. I had the Gym leader from Pewter City contact Lorelei but as soon as she heard that I was involved, she refused to take any part in it. I hope that I'll be able to convince Agatha now that I have you on my side."
"And Lorelei?"
Lance didn't have a good answer for that question "I'll think of something."
. . .
"What do you think? Is it edible?"
Red was holding a green mushroom full of small pores up to Eevee's nose, so that the Pokemon could pass his judgement. The dog sniffed it and immediately jumped back as if he felt an immediate threat.
"Guess not. If even a Pokemon can't eat this, then what's the point?" he asked while throwing the mushroom behind him.
The road to Lavender Town was taking much longer than expected since the system of underground paths connecting it with the northern part of Kanto was so complicated that Red kept on losing his way. He didn't know how much he had yet to travel and he already was left with none of the food that he bought before entering. He didn't have to worry about getting water but foraging was much harder than in a forest.
Even if he were to try fishing, there was no way he would be able to find any wood with which to set up a fire. Although he finally found a cave with some mushrooms, it didn't seem like any of them were safe to eat. It was his second day without food but he was more worried about his Pokemon. He intentionally avoided any wild Pokemon, since his team was too tired to take part in any battles. Even Eevee who liked to walk by his trainer's side, would only be allowed to leave his pokeball in order to check another type of mushroom.
"Maybe I should consider eating bugs." he said to himself after noticing a centipede near his feet.
Although he was joking, the hunger was so unbearable that it clouded his judgement. He immediately reached towards the insect but it managed to escape him by hiding under a big, brown, rock. Thinking that maybe that was a hiding place for other of its kind, he lifted it up. To his surprise, there was nothing beneath the rock. Considering the possibility of the centipede hiding on the underside of the boulder, he turned it around, only to see something unexpected.
The other side of the rock was completely black, aside from four yellow shapes, resembling claws or horns. He stared at it for a while, not knowing what to make of it, when suddenly a pair of red eyes looked back at him. It was so sudden that he dropped it and had to do a quick backstep so it wouldn't land on his foot. Right after touching the ground, the rock started moving around. Red was afraid that he accidentally may have enraged some unknown Pokemon. He decided to check Pokedex for information about this thing, but he didn't feel safe with it crawling towards him, so he jumped up on to a kind of round, beige boulder.
To his shock, the thing he stepped on seemed to be another Pokemon since as soon as his feet touched it, it begun spinning around, making him fall down on the ground. He wanted to stand up as soon as possible and make a run for it but he realized that he was already surrounded by a whole swarm. Pokedex identified the two Pokemon as Kabuto and Omanyte, although there was almost no useful information about them aside from how their names, their types and how they looked.
"Cover your mouth and nose!" a voice yelled from somewhere.
Without giving it much thought, Red listened to it. Right after doing it, a bunch of small sachets came flying in his direction. After hitting the ground around him and some of the Pokemon, they broke, releasing some kind of pink gas. Before Red had time to understand what just happened, somebody grabbed him by his sleeve and started dragging him away, before letting go so that the boy could follow them on his own.
. . .
"Okay. It seems they didn't follow us. You were lucky I was nearby. But what were you thinking, not bringing any repels with you?"
"Umm... Thanks for saving me but... Who are you?"
Since the person who saved him was busy looking around a corner to make sure that none of the Pokemon were chasing them, the trainer didn't get a chance to get a look at them.
"I should probably say something like "Where are my manners?", yes? That's what you would expect. Well, I'm not one to go for clichés. If you want to know my name, you should first introduce yourself."
The person was a male, about 20 years old. He had short, brown, hair, and wore a pair of beige, under rim glasses on his nose. His pants and long-sleeved shirt were tan and had a multitude of pockets, and his high boots were a shade of gray. Overall, it seemed like his clothes were specifically chosen to blend with the colors of the caves, if not for the fact that he had a white lab coat over them, and a bright yellow backpack.
"Isn't that also a cliché?" Red asked following the man's statement.
"It is. But if we're gonna follow this path, anything we're going to say could be at its core some kind of cliché. That's why insist on you introducing yourself. It's not like I'm particularly interested but if you introduce yourself, then I'll do the same to satisfy your curiosity. But... Are our names of the same value? Maybe I should bargain. Yet... without any prior knowledge, I don't know what you might have to offer. This is all very puzzling." he was speaking more to himself than to Red.
"My name is R..."
"I'm Sven. Sven Herberts."
Red was so surprised by that interruption that he wasn't sure if the man didn't hear him start his sentence or if he did and decided to do it in order to be funny, or because of some sense of pride that could come with being the bigger man and giving in.
"I... I'm Red."
"Of course you are." the man responded while adjusting his glasses.
"I don't... What?"
"Exactly. "What?" is the question of the day." he said before spinning on a heel and pointing at Red "What are you doing here?!"
"Why are you yelling?" the boy said while looking around to make sure that the man's voice didn't attract the attention of any wild Pokemon.
"How rude! I just have a rather loud voice!"
"You didn't..." it was at that point that he realized that he shouldn't let himself fall into another trap or he would probably spend the whole day trying to talk to this person "I'm on my way to..."
"Don't care!"
"You don't?!" Red almost tripped while taking a step back from surprise.
"I see what's going on. You want to know what I'm doing here. You want to know how I saved you from these Pokemon. You want to know what they were. You want to know where I bought these stylish glasses." it seemed like he stopped talking and was waiting for Red to respond, but he quickly added "Celadon City Department Store. 4th floor. There was a great sale."
The teenager decided to keep quiet, hoping that the man would keep on talking, which could lead to him finally saying something useful.
"I'm an amateur archeologist. I could be a professional already but I was kicked out of the university. Their complaints were that I can't work in a group and that I can't focus on anything for longer than a while. The thing is, if I knew how small-minded they were, I would have quit before being kicked out. None of the people there seemed to understand..."
He stopped and let down his head. Even though he was speaking fervently just a moment ago, he looked almost heartbroken.
Red didn't know how to react and even though he felt he would regret it, he felt the need to ask "What did they not understand?"
"I... Nooo. You're probably not going to..."
"Try me."
"How much do you know about Puodtrians?"
"Pu-what?"
"Exactly!" the man exclaimed while lighting up "How much do any of us know about them? What about the Iggrian wars or the way Edilo the Fourth cared about his hands in order to sign the pact of non-aggression. And what of his son? Was he really able to see all the colors thanks to a special ocular device even though he was born with the ability to perceive only the shades of yellow?"
With each question, he would make some exaggerated motion. After some time, it looked almost like a dance.
"You're kinda losing me here. I've never heard about any of those things."
"That's the point, my boy. This world has existed for millions of years. But most people don't even care about the recent history. Those guys at the University, they prefer to choose one part of history, or even one person and devote their whole lives to studying it. But that's simply not enough!" he slammed his fist into a wall, but it didn't seem like he felt any pain since he continued on talking "I want to learn it all! Even it it's not possible, I'll do my best. And who knows... I'm hoping that future will help us learn about the past. If there ever exist a machine that could connect the brains of all the archeologists in the world and allow them to share they knowledge, what would show up would be a much clearer map of history. Doesn't that just fill you with excitement?!"
Red was about to respond but was interrupted by a loud noise coming from his belly.
"Hmm. Speaking of "filling"... It seems like it's time for lunch." Sven rolled up his sleeve to look at a watch while saying this.
"That's the thing... I don't want to impose but I've been without anything to eat for a couple days... I don't care about myself but my Pokem..."
"No problem. I still have around 30 capsules with me." after saying that, the man handed the boy what looked like a pill.
He looked at it with suspicion but decided to risk it.
"I don't know how one little... Wait a minute... What's happening?"
"They're one of many things I learned about while studying for my expeditions. They take a long time to make but when they're done I get a big batch. And just one of them will make you fell like you've eaten a decent dinner."
"Yeah. I feel it. Ah... Can I have 5 more?"
"Sure. Here you go."
. . .
Sometime later, after all of Red's Pokemon regained their strength thanks to Sven's capsules, the archeologist agreed to showing the boy the way towards Lavender Town. As they kept travelling throughout the underground labyrinth, the boy realized that he would probably starve there to death, trying to find his way, if it wasn't for his new acquaintance.
"So what were those things that you threw at all the Kabutos and Omanytes?" he asked the man out of curiosity.
"They're small bags filled with my own mix. It's the fragrance of a lethally poisonous mushroom combined with some excrement from a Rhyhorn."
"Ughh... I shouldn't have asked. But you must know a lot about Pokemon to make such things."
"Pokemon are a great part of history. I don't limit myself to learning about humans. I want to discover everything there is to know about how Pokemon species changed over time too. That's why I'm in this cave. You know about Pokemon fossils, yeah?"
"I..."
"They're these rock-like things which are actually ancient Pokemon who went to sleep to survive some kind catastrophe. Nowadays, there's technology that allows us to bring them back to life. But these ones here are different. They're descendants of those ancient Pokemon never turned into fossils. That makes them a big unknown. And since most archeologists aren't Pokemon trainers, it's hard to learn anything about these ones."
"But you aren't a Pok..."
"I will be. The truth is that I plan to take part in, and win, the Pokemon League in order to get the funds which will allow me to travel to other regions and learn their history. I don't have any Pokemon yet but I know a lot about them so when the time comes, I'm sure I'll be able to use my brains to get to the top."
Red put his hand in front of the man to stop him.
"You realize that it means you'll also have to fight me? And I've already got a head start." he said while proudly showing off the badges he got at that point.
"This doesn't mean anything. I don't have time for battling Gym leaders so I've decided to take a short cut. There's a test which allows you to take part in the League as long as you get 100% on it." the man responded and they both started walking again.
"A test... But like..."
"A written one."
"So something boring. Yeah, that's not for me."
"I suspected you would say that. No offense but you don't seem like someone very br..."
The archeologist stopped after his face hit the ground. As he started getting up while trying to stop a nosebleed, he looked back to see what it was that caused him to fall down. He looked a little scared after realizing that it was another Kabuto, and this one didn't seem any nicer than the ones they saw before. Red helped the man stand up and they quickly realized that either the same, or another, swarm has surrounded them again. They jumped over a group of the ancient Pokemon and started running away as quickly as possible, with the small army following them without a pause.
"Don't you have any more of those sachets?!"
"I do! But they're all in a sealed bag in my backpack! I can't stop to take them out!"
They continued running for a couple minutes and it looked like the group of Pokemon was getting closer and closer. When they saw a light at the end of a tunnel, they thought it was the exit, but instead they found themselves on a narrow, stone bridge which stood on a couple great pillars, hanging high above the floor of a giant cavern. While looking towards a giant opening in the ceiling of the cave, through which the light was able to reach them, Red realized that there was even more trouble in the near future. He saw a big spire with a nest at the top. The echo of them and the swarm of Pokemon woke up the owner of said nest, an unusually big Aerodactyl, which didn't look too pleased about its sleep being interrupted. What was even more troubling was that a bunch of Omanytes managed to move on the underside of the bridge in order to cut of the humans' path. With Pokemon approaching them from the back, front and air, they had to stop and quickly brainstorm some kind of way to get out of this predicament.
"Hey, Sven. I think I have a plan!"
"What is it?!"
"We don't have time! Just do follow me!"
The archeologist looked worried since it seemed like they were just standing there, waiting for the Pokemon to reach them. Aerodactyl got to them first. It tried to knock them both off the bridge with its legs, but it, and Sven, didn't expect that Red would grab onto it. The other one had barely any time to do the same but he managed. Although after the rocky monster took them high into the air, he realized that it wasn't probably the best idea to do what they just did.
"What now?!"
Red started to climb the Pokemon's body till he was able to grab it's neck, which was made harder by Aerodactyl trying to shake him off. He let out Oddish out of his pokeball and woke him up from his sleep.
"I need you to put those guys to sleep!" Red shouted while pointing towards all the Pokemon gathered on the bridge.
Since Aerodactyl didn't understand what was going on, he unintentionally helped them with this strategy by fling over the swarm. Oddish's Sleep Powder caused all of them to fall asleep but there was still the matter of the stone dinosaur.
"Now use Mega Drain!"
"Wait. What did you say?!" asked Sven.
As soon as Oddish enveloped the opponent's wings with its vines in order to suck out the vital energy out of it, Aerodactyl's flight has started to get unstable. Unsure of what to do to escape the pain, it started flying towards the opening in the ceiling, until it was finally above the ground.
"Everyone jump!" shouted Red.
He, Sven and Oddish all let go of Aerodactyl who after losing all that strength fell back inside the cave and crashed into his nest where it passed out. Meanwhile, the rest of them managed to grab land outside, although they still fell a couple meters so it wasn't exactly a soft landing.
. . .
After patching themselves up with a band-aid here and there, and thanking Oddish for helping them, the duo realised that they were on the side of a small mountain. Red jumped from excitement after realizing that he could see Lavender Town not far away. Sven looked down the hole and decided that it would be better to descend the mountain together with the trainer. He also promised himself that he wouldn't try to study any ancient Pokemon without getting some of his own for protection first. Once at the bottom of the mountain, Sven went to a nearby village to rest up for a day or two, while Red preferred to keep pushing towards Lavender.
"Let's never do that again."
"What are you talking about? It was kinda f..."
"Never!"
"Alright, alright."
"But you know what we should do?"
Red smiled since he predicted what the man would say.
"Let's fight at the Pokemon League!" they said in unison.
Even though he didn't completely understand Sven's motivations and reasoning, Red felt like he gained a new friend.
. . .
"Hey, Roger."
"Mr. Alex. It's good to see you, Si..."
He didn't have time to finish since the admin grabbed him by the face and slammed his into the nearest wall. All the other nearby Team Rocket members decided to look away in order to not share in Roger's punishment.
"I heard that you went with Angie on her hunt for M2. Do you think I'm not a good enough boss? Hmmm?"
"No. I was just... I wanted to make you prou..."
"What was that?! I can't hear you over your crying, you..."
He lifted his hand like he was about to punch his underling, when suddenly someone grabbed it to stop him.
"Who the he..." he didn't finish the sentence after seeing the person who did it "Doctor Humane! So you're finally out of the hospital. It's good to see you again, sir. Although I'm sorry about the whole M2 situation."
"Don't worry about that. You shouldn't take out your anger on others." responded the scientist.
"No, I..."
"Besides, I heard about the barrier and even though it may take time, I'm sure we'll be able to get through it and retrieve Mewtwo. Peter is on his way to an old friend of mine who helped in beginning stages of creating it. I hope that he'll agree to help us. He was always able to see things that I somehow didn't so his viewpoint may prove valuable."
After saying that, he walked away. Roger wiped away his tears, thanking in his mind for the fact that he received the sudden help.
"So can I go?" he asked his boss.
Alex responded by taking a big swing and hitting his nose with the back of his fist. The confusion and the nosebleed were enough to cause Roger to fall to his knees.
"Dammit. Peter is once again a step ahead of me." the admin said to himself before leaving.
I think that when I started coming up with this story I made some kind of rule that there has to be at least one chapter about travelling between each city. This was one of the few that felt like a filler. Since Sven doesn't have Pokemon he was supposed to be a one off character. But when I got to planning the Pokemon League, I started going back through previous stuff and I saw the plan for this chapter and was like "Huh. I guess I'll make Sven be a trainer." The stuff with Team Rocket and Elite Four was added when I wrote this to make things later on make more sense. But the first scene is the one I wanted to put in the previous chapter but forgot.
Speaking of the previous chapter, I had ancedote I forgot to bring up. There is that scene where Red protects Angie and falls on some glass which gets embedded in his back. I probably didn't realize that when writing it, but it may have been inspired by something that happened to me in the past. I wasn't saving anyone. I was just being a stupid teenager. Basically, when I was like 16 or 17, I was drinking alcohol with my friends in an outdoor location known as a popular drinking spot amongst teenagers(I don't know if it still is, since the last time I was there it was empty, even though the weather was great). At some point we realized we were out of booze and we needed to go get some. I was drunk and probably didn't have any more money so I told the others to go, while I would wait for them. I laid down on the grass and probably almost went to sleep, while a pair of girls noticed me and started worrying about me. They thought the sun would get to me and I would pass out, so they helped me up and brought me to a "chamber", which were like those natural rooms formed amongst the trees. They have trees curved in such ways that you can easily sit on them, and there's even two benches which someone brought there. But the most important part of them was the shadow. The girls left me there, not knowing what to do and I stayed there for probably like half an hour, until my friends came back. But during that time, instead of sitting, like I was initially left by the girls, I laid down on the ground, too drunk to care that my shirt would get dirty(With all people coming there, there was almost no grass in those chambers, only dirt). My friends came back, we went to another chamber, spent some time together. I didn't drink anything more and was able to sober up a little and get back home. The next day I had a barbecue with family and I wore a sleeveles shirt. At some point during that day I touched my shoulder and I was like "What is that?" I went to check myself in the mirror and after taking off the shirt, I saw that I had around 50 cuts on my back. They didn't hurt and there was no bledding but it basically looked like I was attacked by a group of angry cats. That's when I realized that when I was in the chamber, I must have slept on a bunch of glass. I guess the moral of the story is drink responsibly. There is another stupid story where I looked like I went through hell, but I probably won't be able to tell it, since it's too embarrassing.
The title of the chapter comes from a video game. I never played it but I think I watched Game Grumps playing it.
Red. Team: Eevee, Charmeleon, Raichu, Oddish, Magikarp.
Badges: 3
Green. Team: Ivysaur, Nidorina, Jigglypuff, Hitmonlee, ?, ?.
Badges: 3
Blue. Team: Bellsprout(Bell), Wartortle(Tori), Zubat(?), Graveler(?).
Badges: 3
Alex. Team: Ditto, ?, ?, ?.
Angie. Team: Dragonair, Sandslash.
Peter. Team: Dodrio, Haunter, ?.
