Hey guys... Here we are. I never though I would get there when I began writing this story but then it happened. 100 reviews. I can't thank you enough for taking a few minutes of your time to tell me your thoughts on this story. It's the reward for working so hard on this think since September. You're like old friends to me, now! Seriously, thank you very very much, I assure you it means a lot to me and I want you guys by my side until we reach the conclusion of this story!
Things have been... pretty rough for me lately and it's been harder to get writing done. I used to be two or three chapters in advance but now I'm losing my lead because I'm honestly running out of energy for life in general... So knowing you guys like what I do helps me pull through.
Chapter 29: Leave it all to chance
The media was all over the story. It went from one sensational headline to the next: 'Terror attack at Viridian City gym!', 'Viridian City gym explodes; criminal activity suspected', 'The return of Team Rocket? The Viridian City gym destroyed'...
The news spread like wildfire across Kanto and, not long after, to Johto and other regions. In every newspaper, in every TV broadcast, you would see pictures of the remains of the building.
Viridian City local news, especially, where continuously talking about what happened. Their gym had exploded and was beyond repair for obscure reasons, the dead bodies of five unknown people, one of which was so severely mutilated it was unindentifiable, were found, and three dead pokémon were found in the rubble; one kangaskhan and her baby and one Alakazam that was heavily rumored to be the gym leader's...
As if that wasn't enough, their beloved Iron Oak was seen being taken to the hospital in a hurry (someone had even managed to get a short film of him being carried into the ambulance) and even now, several days later, no one knew if he'd actually been a sixth dead body.
Just a day after the news came out, the media began asking for answers regarding what happened. Was the explosion accidental or was truly the result of criminal activity? Who were all the dead people found amongst the ruins? And more importantly, was the gym leader still alive?
When the ambulance took him to the local hospital was the last time the general public, which had gathered around the site of the explosion in the hopes of seeing something out of morbid curiosity, had seen him and despite all the pictures and videos that were taken by random people of the event, no one had the slightest idea if he had survived. The former League champion had been seen being evacuated too but there was no news from him either. The Indigo League had remained quiet about the whole thing overall.
Neither the police, nor the hospital staff had been allowed to reveal what happened to Iron Oak or why it did. The League had demanded an investigation to be conducted but even though Team Rocket was eventually discovered to have been involved in the explosion, little was known about their motivations, since all of the members that had been present on the premises were dead. The only confirmed survivor of the tragedy was the former League Champion but so far, not even the police was allowed to talk to him since he was estimated not to have recovered enough physically and mentally from the incident by the doctors.
It wasn't long before the public, and the Viridian citizens especially, got sick of the silence and began protesting and demanding answers. Both the League and the police had their hands full dealing with the angry and anxious masses.
Such grave events and so little answers gave way to wild speculations amongst the public. Many believed that the Viridian City gym leader had been assassinated and that the League, who had never really been quite fond of their disobedient employee, was trying to cover it up. Others thought it was Team Rocket trying to regain control of the city by taking over the gym again. As the days went by, more and more crazy theories surfaced and no one would confirm or debunk any of them. One persistant question remained: was Blue Oak still alive?
Red knew the hospital had to work hard and be extremely careful not to let any nosy reporter slip into the ward to try and find out. His own room's door had been kept shut at all times and no one had been allowed in except for his acquaintances and the medical staff. Whenever he had gone out for a breath of fresh air in a secluded corner of the hospital, he expected a damn journalist to assault him with questions.
Truth be told, Red was in no mood to talk about any of what happened. He had been informed a few days after his arrival in the hospital, that his friend was still alive but in a very critical condition. Eventually, he was told he had stabilized and that his life was no longer in danger. It should have been a relief to know that he hadn't been too late to save his friend's life. However, after being briefed by professor Oak about his actual condition, he had been hardly any less worried. It was not clear just yet what state the accident was gonna leave Blue in but one thing was for sure: his health was never quite going to be the same after that.
So, Red remained quiet and refused to talk to any media, just like professor Oak, and just waited for the day his good friend was going to be brought back to the real world when the doctor decided it was time to wake him up from his coma.
Six days into Blue's coma, Samuel got a phone call from the neurologist who asked him to come for a visit because he apparently had something very important to tell him. None of his colleagues objected to him leaving work early. They all knew that their boss's infamous grandson was badly injured, so no one dared to get in the way of something as serious as that.
When Samuel was allowed in the ICU, he announced his presence and was told that he could wait for the doctor in Blue's room. So, he sat down in the room his grandson was lying in.
Over the last six days, he had visited three times; that was as much as he could do without getting way behind on his work. Plus, it wasn't like Blue would be awake to see him; there really was nothing he could do during his visits except ask for an update from the nurses. Samuel was exhausted from all the stress and the lack of sleep the whole thing inflicted upon him.
Blue was pretty much exactly the same way as last time he saw him. The only differences were that most of the cuts on his face were actually closed, although still clearly visible and that there was no longer a blood bag attached to him. At last, after six days of uncertainty, of lying awake at night fearing he would fade away while no one was looking, Blue's condition had finally stabilized and the doctors no longer feared for his life. Thanks to the several transfusions, he was fully recovered from the hypovolemic shock and his organs began functionning properly again.
His injuries, though, were not exactly better after only six days. He still wore a neck brace and a tracheal intubation still delivered oxygen to his lungs. His previously dislocated shoulders had been popped back into their sockets but his two broken collarbones were just left as they were, as there really was nothing to be done for this kind of fracture. The result were that his shoulders were covered in a huge purple bruise. But since Blue was completely unmoving anyway, this would help them heal faster.
The main concerns at this point, were his skull fracture and his back fracture. Something Samuel hadn't seen before, because Blue had been wrapped in a bunch of blankets to keep him warm, was the enormous back brace, made visible now because his upper body was bare, that encased his entire midsection. It looked and functionned pretty much like a corset, except it was completely rigid and allowed no movement of the spine in any direction to avoid making the fracture worse. It was difficult to say, the doctors had told him previously, just how serious the damage to the spinal chord was while Blue was unconscious. They would only know for sure when they would be able to actually ask him if he still had sensitivity in his legs and conduct neurological tests they couldn't perform on a comatose patient.
For the same reason, it would be difficult to tell how bad the damage to his brain was until he woke up. The scans let them know that it didn't look all that bad; that nothing looked ruptured or out of place; the intentionnal coma seemed to have served its purpose of avoiding major brain damage, but nothing was certain for now. A blow to the head strong enough to fracture his skull would most certainly have repercussions. What they would be and whether it would be permanent was still a mystery.
As Samuel sat quietly in the room, listening distractedly to the sound of the respirator and observing his grandson's still form, the doctor; the neurologist, walked in and politely greeted him. His expression was serious and professionnal. The pokémon professor didn't know if he had to brace himself for bad news or on the contrary, if he could allow himself to be optimistic. Maybe Blue was finally ready to emerge from his coma?
"Mr Oak," the doctor saluted him. "I am glad you could make it here today."
"Of course," the researcher nodded apprehensively after standing up politely to greet him.
"The reason I called you here today is of the utmost importance," the neurologist warned him. Obviously, something was going on, and it was very serious. "Unfortunately, your grandson will still be kept in a coma for another estimated three weeks, bare minimum to maximize the chances of his brain recovering from the concussion, but his back fracture cannot be left unattended for that long. The longer it is left as it is, the more damage it risks causing to his nervous system. We need to operate on him as soon as possible."
The pokémon professor nodded in understanding. He expected something like that to come up eventually, really, but it was still a very big deal because it could be the deciding factor whether Blue recovered from the accident or not.
"I'm only telling you about this now because, prior to this, he was way too unstable for us to even consider the intervention. But now that his vitals are stable and that his life is no longer in immediate danger, it's time to talk about surgery."
Again, Samuel nodded in understanding. The doctor continued:
"However, since Blue is obviously in no position to consent to the procedure, we need to ask the family, you, to consent for him."
Samuel understood why the responsibility fell on his shoulders and the importance for Blue to get that operation. However, he would be lying if he pretended that making such an important decision without his grandson's knowledge didn't put him at least a little bit on edge.
"What is that procedure, exactly?" he inquired, wanting to get as much information as possible to make the decision in the best possible circumstances.
The man pulled out an x-ray from a folder he'd been carrying. The x-ray effectively displayed a side view of Blue's spine and Samuel didn't need to be a medical expert to spot the fracture. There, clear as day, in Blue's lower back, was the second lumbar vertebra, snapped clean in half. Samuel winced. It hurt just to look at it. The two pieces of the bone just awkwardly floated apart from one another while still being attached to the lower and upper vertebare. If Blue hadn't worn a brace, his posture would probably look abnormally deformed.
"You see, if we leave it as it is, the two pieces of the vertebra will never repair themselves and it would not only be impossible for Blue to even sit up, it would also be inhumanely painful and would leave the spinal chord completely exposed and unprotected which will leave it vulnerable to more damage. What we need to do is glue that vertebra back in one piece, so to speak, and then we will bolt two flexible metal rods on either side of his spine that will help keep it straight and relieve the pressure on the injury so that it can heal properly."
"I... see."
"We need to act fast before it begins to heal improperly. If we wait much longer, the damage to his nervous system will worsen. There is still a chance to avoid complete paralysis of the lower limbs if we act quickly enough. The metal rod will help keep that all in place. He can live a perfectly normal life after that operation, if everything goes well."
"And if not everything goes well?" was the unpleasant question Samuel had no choice but to ask.
"The surgery itself is unlikely to be cause for concern but I'm obligated to tell you that there is a chance it might not work."
"Not work?"
"There's unfortunately a probability that the vertebra might break again. And if the rod isn't bolted correctly or if the spine is stressed too much too soon, it might damage the other vertebrae. It's unlikely but the probability is still there. I understand it's worrying for you but you have to remember that if we don't do anything, his condition is garanteed to deteriorate and quite painfully so."
Samuel stole a glance at his unmoving grandson. It was quite obvious what the right choice was. To decide between a fair chance of recovery and the certainty of a painfully degrading condition was a no brainer. However, the fact of the matter was that it wasn't Blue himself who made the decision. It was him, the grandfather he never truly got along with. What if something did go wrong with the surgery? Then Samuel would be responsible for it and that was something he knew he would have a hard time living with.
"This... this is all so much to take in..." Samuel breathed uneasily.
"I know. I understand. You don't need to give me an answer right now but I must still remind you that we can't afford to wait much longer. If you would, I would like to get your answer within the next 24 hours. Would that be alright?"
"Yes. Yes, of course... I will let you know."
Samuel arrived back in Pallet Town just as the sun was setting down. The whole drive was spent in deep thought. All the implications of what the doctor told him; the decision he had to take and what the consequences of that may be... Blue would never have intentionnally left his fate in the hands anyone else; family or not. But there wasn't much of a choice, now. The pokémon professor had at least one person he wanted to consult before consenting to the procedure.
Daisy had been awfully quiet since she heard what happened to her brother. She never visited him in the hospital, she deliberately avoided talking to her grandfather; it was as though she was pretending nothing ever happened. She was hiding away, avoiding the painful situation. Samuel just didn't know if it was out of guilt for what she said to him, or because she still resented him for causing her separation from her husband. The elder Oak didn't pressure her into doing anything up to this point, since Blue was still unconscious, but now, that silence had lasted long enough.
Since her divorce, Daisy had gotten herself a smaller house and lived all by herself and Samuel had been helping her financially when the need was felt. Living all by herself was very difficult for Daisy, who didn't deal very well with loneliness and her pregnancy and anxiety regarding her and her child's future was tormenting her every waking moment.
There was no way Blue's situation left her completely indifferent but her true feelings were closely guarded, so much so that it was starting to irritate her grandfather.
He knocked at her door and waited for a few seconds for her to let him in. She smiled amically and invited him to sit in the living room, offering him some tea, which he declined, telling her he didn't intend on staying very long. His granddaughter still made herself a cup and then joined him on the couch.
"How are you doing, grandpa?" she inquired.
"Fine," he answered quickly. "I'm doing fine." He saw that she was about to say something else but he didn't give her the time to keep going with the small talk. He was too stressed to accept her dancing around the matter he came to bring up. "Daisy, there is something really important we need to discuss. About your brother."
"Grandpa, I'd really rather wouldn't-"
"That's not going to cut it Daisy," he interrupted her, putting a swift end to her attempts at dodging the subject. "I understand it's difficult for you. It's difficult for me too. Don't forget that I know exactly what happened between you two. I know it made you very upset but this is serious. Very serious."
The woman looked down at her tea, trying to keep a neutral face.
"I never really intended to tell you this but at the point we're at, I think there's no need to keep secrets anymore. I talked to Blue before the accident. He knows what he did wrong and he feels really bad about it. And I'm not just saying that. He really did understand what he did wrong and he regrets it. I know he does. I know it's hard but you have to find it in you to forgive him."
Daisy kept avoiding his stare.
"You have to ask yourself if you're really so mad at him that you don't even care if he dies? He's been in a coma for six days and spent most of that time between life and death and I couldn't help but notice that you didn't visit him, or even inquire about his state once."
His granddaughter still said nothing but he could see from her reddening face that she was trying not to cry but was failing miserably at it. Seeing as she didn't try to reply, Samuel went on.
"Look. Blue has a fractured vertebra and he needs surgery to repair it, otherwise he'll never be able to stand up again. He can't make the decision to go through with it in the state he's in so it falls upon us, his family, to make it for him."
Once again, his words were met with nothing but silence.
"You don't care?" he asked her severely. Still nothing. "I'm doing this. With or without you. But I really want you to think; think hard about where you want to stand in all of this. You're lucky he didn't die; you would have had to spent the rest of your life knowing that the last thing you told him was that you were glad to be rid of him. (Daisy burst out crying, burying her face in her hands) You have a chance to make things right, Daisy, and to show him that you care. Don't waste it because of your pride."
The elder Oak got up and stepped towards the front door, fully intending to let her think about what she was gonna do next. He hoped she would chose the right answer.
"I'm gonna give the green light for the surgery tomorrow. Think about this in the meantime."
Samuel showed up back at the hospital the next morning, serious and determined. Blue was going to go under the knife today and that was it. Things couldn't be left as they were any longer. The old researcher told himself that it would be a good thing for this to be done while Blue was unconscious; it would be less traumatizing, he figured. There was no reason for anything to go wrong.
Daisy never showed up; never called. The elder Oak was as disappointed as could be that she wouldn't even step up as her younger brother was about to go through a life-changing operation but he couldn't let that affect him. If Daisy wasn't going to be there for him, then all the more reasons for him to make it his mission to be.
So, Samuel was given a summary of the procedure by the neuro-surgeon. They would make an approximate 40cm incision in his lower back in order to reach the fracture and put the vertebra back in one piece so that the natural healing process would eventually fuse the fragments together as any bone could do. Afterwards, the would insert two metal rods, which he physically showed him (they were about the same width as a pencil) on either side of his spine and bolt it to it in order to support the back and solidify the fragilized lumbar section. It sounded simple enough but it was still clearly a very big and important operation. Not to mention that eventual complications during the recovery could have catastrophic consequences. But if everything went according to plan, and provided that the damage to the spinal chord hadn't been too bad, Blue would eventually be able so stand and walk and pretty much live a normal life with the metal rods in his back. It was a risk, but it was a risk they had no choice but to take.
Samuel signed the papers and shortly afterwards, watched his grandson being taken away to the operation room. The elder Oak prayed that everything would go right.
The procedure would take several hours and Blue wouldn't be taken back to his room right afterwards. He would spend a good amount of time in the recovery room so basically, Samuel would have to wait until tomorrow to see him again. As he drove back to Pallet Town, he tried not to imagine what it must look like to bolt a metal rod to a bone. At least in a coma, Blue wouldn't feel the pain of that.
Red was finally discharged after a 23 days hospitalisation. The bullet wound in his leg had finally closed and, although it wasn't actually quite healed yet, it was deemed manageable for him to take care of by himself, provided he showed up to a few check-up appointments in the following weeks. He was carefully instructed about how to care for the injury and was given medical supplies and pain killers to help him deal with the still very sensitive injury. All in all, things had gone pretty well for him and he was able to walk around with the help of crutches.
Margaret had been by his side when he walked out of his room for the last time. They both knew they would not get out of this hospital before they visited Blue, whom Red hadn't seen since the standoff with Giovanni. His friend had gone through a very important surgery that hopefully would see his back fracture repaired more than two weeks ago, already. The frustration of not being allowed to visit him was slightly dampered by the steady news professor Oak gave him on each of his visits. Apparently, the surgery had gone as well as it could have and the gym leader had been recovering normally in the ICU ever since.
They had to wait until 2 pm for the visiting hours. Red and Margaret waited their turn to be let into the ICU until the nurse went to fetch them in the waiting room. She punched in a code to unlock the door and let them both in.
The ICU was quiet... Very quiet. The patients there were either badly hurt or badly sick so they were pretty silent. There was no sound except for the nurses' steps on the tile floor. Red and Margaret were led to room 308, where Blue was said to be. For 23 days now, he had been in his coma.
Sure enough, the gym leader was there in the bed. Red had mentally braced himself for the undoubtedly unpleasant sight he knew was coming but he didn't actually expect to get a little bit of a flashback upon seeing him after all this time. For a split second, he saw the blood all over him, the dust, the rubble... but the reality was quite different, although it was just slightly better.
Blue was laying on his back. His chest was bare which allowed them to clearly see the fading bruising all over his upper body. His shoulders no longer looked deformed like they did immediately after the accident; Red didn't know at that moment that he had dislocated both of them and had broken his two collarbones and that this was the reason why they looked so abnormal. Now, they had been popped back into their sockets and the immobility of the last weeks had probably helped the collarbones to repair faster. At least unconscious, Blue didn't have to suffer through the pain of that.
His exposed torso let them see that his entire midsection was encased in a thick and rigid corset-like back brace that kept his spine completely immobile and prevented any movement that would hurt his slowly healing spine. Similarly, his neck was immobilized by a brace too, except it was luckily just strained and not broken. The surgery was by no means a guarantee that everything would be alright. His legs had been the only part of his body not to suffer any substantial damage after the fall but they ironically were the one part of his body he could completely lose the function of.
The stab wound on his arm was not visible under the bandages but it was because of that injury in particular that Blue had nearly bled out of his life. Multiple transfusions had managed to save his life and now that there was a normal volume of blood back in his veins, he actually looked a bit more alive than he did back in the gym, which reassured Red greatly. He was no longer a sickly shade of white and his lips and fingernails were back to a relatively normal color.
There were small cuts all over his body but most of them were close to being healed. The gash on the back of his head, though it had been surgically closed, was still visible underneath the recently shaved hair around it in the back of the gym leader's skull.
Overall, it looked pretty encouraging. There was a visible improvement but they couldn't be optimistic just yet. The worst of the damage was under that back brace and possibly inside of his head; not visible to the eye. Surviving was one thing; recovering was another. Blue was still far from healthy and he still relied on a respirator to pump oxygen through his tracheal intubation to survive during his coma. After more than three weeks of not moving at all, the gym leader looked noticeably thinner.
In his current condition, obviously, Blue couldn't eat. He was given all the nutrients necessary to his survival through his IV but that wasn't exactly something one could fatten up with. Blue had never been big to begin with but after three weeks of surviving with minimal nutritonnal intake, he had gotten about seven pounds lighter.
At the moment, Blue was in very deep unconsciousness; no stimuli from the outside world would be perceived by him; sighs, sounds... or touch and that last part was the whole point; to make it so that he couldn't feel the pain of a skull fracture, double clavicle fractures, a neck strain, a stab wound and a broken spine.
The nurse left them alone in the room after warning them to stay quiet so as not to disturb the other patients. A grave silence invaded the room as Margaret and Red stood next to the bed, unable to tear their eyes off of the fallen gym leader yet pained at the sight. For Red, it was especially difficult to bear to see his friend, who had saved his life, like this. In his peripheral vision, he saw his mother approach the head of the bed, almost mesmerized.
Margaret was watching Blue's pale and cut up face intently, like she was looking for something. It was painful to watch. A poor young man in his prime in such a state. The woman extended a very gentle and delicate hand towards the unconscious gym leader and very very carefully and lightly caressed his cheek, her fingers brushing a few strands of orange hair out of Blue's face. They both knew Blue couldn't feel the gesture or be aware of it in any way, yet Margaret wanted to do it and Red knew why. This was a gesture his mother had done for him many times as a child. She always did it to comfort him when he felt sad or hurt himself.
Margaret's eyes went to the IV bag connected to his arm, which surely contained the drugs keeping him in his comatose state, and she sighed pensively.
"I'm sure you fought well," she said out loud. "I know you woudn't go down without a fight. But you can rest now. Everyone needs to take a break once in a while. Take all the time you need and return. There's still people out there waiting for you."
Though they both knew her words would fall on deaf ears, Red was glad Margaret had said them. She was giving him a little hope that things would get better; that his 'brother' was gonna pull through this.
Red's thoughts wandered to the life-giving blood his friend had had injected in him, grateful towards whoever had donated it. He would have gladly given some of his to save Blue but it turned out they weren't compatible. With every minute that went by, the brunette was progressively coming to grips with the inevitability that everything was going to change from this point on.
If Blue had died, it would have left a giant gaping hole in his life. It was never really planned but he had become an enormous part of his life. They had gone through so much together. Blue saw him at his worst and he helped him get back on his feet. They'd been on the road for so long, it would have been difficult to go back to traveling on his own again. Viridian City would have lost its beloved gym leader.
He had a feeling professor Oak especially, would have had a very hard time living with himself if his grandson had died before he had a chance to reconcile with him. Red knew Blue didn't believe it, but he knew Samuel loved him as he loved his own departed son. And he was convinced Blue loved his grandfather as well. For some reason, they never got around to saying it to eachother. There was still that underlying conflict underneath the surface that had yet to be settled. And there was a chance it would never be. And though he wasn't proud of himself for thinking it, there was another, much more selfish reason for why he had been afraid to lose his best friend.
Red still lived with this deep, possibly irrationnal, fear of having another psychotic episode, somewhere in the back of his mind. He still remembered clearly the words of the psychiatrist all these years ago. Extreme stress or disturbing event could trigger a psychosis. Having suffered from a severe depression once in his life already, Red was more vulnerable than most to suffer a second one. His first episode had been a result of the anguish and anxiety he felt about his life after becoming the champion, the constant feeling of being unfulfilled and unfit to be called the best and the deep, profound loneliness he felt deep down.
Looking back at it with his grown adult eyes, Red could already tell all of this was nothing compared to what losing Blue would do to him. It wasn't just the thought of him dying; it was the thought of him basically being murdered by Team Rocket for getting unwillingly caught up in a story he never should have gotten involved in. It was the fact that Blue was suffering for nothing. He never got a chance to back down; to not be involved in this. The sheer injustice of it all made Red sick. He was deathly afraid his possible demise would sent him straight back to his darkest place. The second psychotic episode was always worse than the first, they said. And there would be no Blue to save him this time. He was afraid one day he would lose contact with the real world and have this disease take over him again with a much stronger hold than before.
But now that Blue's life was saved, what was gonna happen? His spine was broken. There was still a probability that he would never stand up or walk again after that, metal rods or not. For a guy as proud and independent as Blue, losing mobility and autonomy like that would be a huge blow and impossibly difficult for him to accept. There would be no more travelling, going anywhere the wind would take him. The freedom he loved so much; over. No more walking, no more running, no more swimming or climbing. No more training in martial arts. Would Blue really be able to pull through that, psychologically?
Red had the occasion to meet a few paraplegic people and people who had one or both legs amputated in his life and many of them lived happily with their handicap. But most of these people were satisfied with a normal life, with a family, a house, and were content sticking to their habits. Blue, though, never liked to stay in place for very long. He could disappear on one of his travels at any moment and he liked it that way. He had no one to answer to, not even his bosses and he liked it that way. However, being paralyzed from the waist down made a whole lot of everyday tasks complicated and it was especially hard during the adaptation period. Losing control over half of your body was a real mourning to go through. Would Blue be able to overcome something like this, he who despiced needing help? He who was so prideful? Red though about how Blue had gone into hiding everytime he felt bad about something or hurt himself. What would he do with something as bad as that? There was no way to know.
One thing was for sure, though. When Blue woke up, recovering from the physical wounds would be just half the challenge for him. Red promised himself he would do whatever he could to help him out, no matter how difficult Blue would be; and there was no doubt he would be.
Red contemplated the fallen gym leader's blank face. You can't let yourself get taken out this easily. No matter how hard life got on you, you never surrendered. Don't let it end like this.
When Red got home, it was almost sunset. He barely got any sleep at all, lately. So much had happened so fast, he still struggled to process it all. Team Rocket's unexpected return, nearly being kidnapped in the middle of the night, the Viridian City gym blowing up, his best friend getting hurt so bad he almost died... Red had escaped Team Rocket's clutches almost unscathed, yet his friend, who was as good a pokémon trainer as he was and one of the toughest guy he knew as well as one hell of a fighter when he wanted to, barely escaped with his life. Red wished it was all a bad dream but he knew it wasn't.
The former champion had left the hospital after his visit to his comatose friend and a quick check up by a doctor for good measure and returned home.
Red stepped into the shower to wash off all that hospital smell off of him. He stayed there for a long time, his mind buzzing with a million thoughts at the same time. He felt he was still shaky and stressed; he was worried for his friend. When he got out, he took a moment to examine his bare body in the mirror, seeing two large faded bruises on his back; a result of getting hit with a stun rod twice. They didn't hurt all that much but Red considered himself lucky; electric shocks could easily result in cardiac arrest. Considering he'd been struck right between the shoulders, he had to be grateful his heart was healthy and could take the abuse. Still, it was kind of amazing that the bruising was still visible after three weeks.
Red opted to go to bed early with just his boxers on (it was pretty warm in Kanto this time of year) and lied right on top of the covers, staring distractedly at the ceiling, thinking. He thought about his pokémon. His Pikachu had recovered from his injury very well and quickly went back to being as lively as an elderly electric mouse could be.
He thought about Blue's pokémon. When the gym leader had been brought to the hospital, his pokéball belt had been removed and kept in a locker safely. Professor Oak had eventually retrieved it and brought it back to Pallet Town where all of them were healed back to perfect health. All five of them... Because there was one missing.
When Red saw in the news that a dead alakzam had been found in the remains of the gym, he instantly knew that it was Blue's. His prized psychic pokémon, one of the most powerful pokémon of its type the world had ever seen had been shot dead in the head, in the same way that Blue almost had been himself. There was no doubt that this was Giovanni's work. Pokémon's lives were as expendable as human ones were to him. He had sacrificed his kangaskhan and four of his grunts in his attempt to kill his successor without a second thought.
Alakazam's death was going to be extremely difficult for Blue to get over. His bond with his psychic pokémon had been extremely strong; he was the reason Red didn't kill his friend when he had decompensated during his psychotic episode. Blue and Alakazam could communicate telepathically which was something only a handfuly of trainers were capable of accomplishing with a psychic pokémon. Training an Abra into its fully evolved form took a lot of patience and care. It would be a huge loss for Blue. Red could only imagine how hard it would hurt to lose one of his pokémon.
Red was, by nature, a pretty forgiving and understanding person. He was a firm believer that most people who did bad things around them had a reason to. Not that evil acts could be forgiven so easily but there were few people who were true sadists; people who inflicted pain on others for pure entertainment; real monsters. A lot of the people he'd known who did bad things to him had a history of abandonment, violence or were marginalized by society for some reason or other. But Giovanni was a different kind. There was a complete absence of emotion or remorse, no matter how horrible the deeds he commited. For a man to remain completely unnaffected by the suffering of another living, sentient being meant that he was a perfectly cold-hearted monster. Giovanni didn't do this because he was issued from a violent or difficult background. He did it for money. In Red's eyes, that was the mark of a truly evil person.
Although many years ago, Red would have found some similarities between Giovanni and Blue; their arrogance, their selfishness and their using of their pokémon for personnal gain, at his core, Blue was nothing like the boss of Team Rocket. Blue did have a heart, albeit a closely guarded one.
Back when they were kids, Blue was always mean to him and seemed to derive pleasure from humiliating him and making him feel bad about himself. As a child, Red didn't really understand why he acted the way he did. He simply figured some people were bad and that was just a thing that he had to learn to deal with. Blue hated him for some reason and that was just it. But as he got older and more mature, it became more and more evident that his insufferable neighbor was lashing out at others to vent his frustration towards his own life. People who were unhappy were always looking to make other people even more miserable to make themselves feel better. Blue was an orphan, living with an unloving guardian who didn't acknowledge him and was constantly being compared to another. Looking back with his adult eyes, Red knew now that Blue never really hated him. It was his grandfather that he hated. He hated him for always giving the attention he sought to his rival. Red was just an easy target who rarely fought back that he could vent his anger on.
Blue was never a bad person. Sure, he wasn't perfect but his attitude was just the result of the difficult life he had and in retrospect, he hadn't really been that bad. There was a line he never crossed. It didn't take all that much to make his true self resurface. It was amazing what just a little kindness and understanding could do to someone who had so little of it. Just one act of disinterested generosity could give a meaning to a life.
Blue had risked his life to save his. Red had risked his for the same purpose. Their fates would be forever intertwined.
This chapter has a weird pace, I know, but it's hard to convey the slow passage of time while at the same time not writing a bunch of scenes that have no point and drag on for far too long.
I didn't think it was relevant to put a whole lot of attention on the actual procedure Blue went through. What goes on before and after is more important and there's only so much you can write about a character who isn't conscious so this is why there's a weirdly placed time skip in this chapter. I did it to spare you guys a bunch of uneventful scenes in an already decently long chapter.
(I actually watched a video of the actual surgery, with the bolting of the metal rods because I like to know what I'm talking about and geez... it's not for the faint of heart. And you'd think surgery is this delicate precise task but I tell you, sometimes, orthpedic surgery it looks like carpentry. It's kind of fascinating to look at if you don't get grossed out by this sort of thing)
You know what I like? It's that some of you guys actually got to know my version of Blue to the point where you are able to anticipate his reactions to some events. I'm really curious whether one of you will actually be able to guess how this story ends. There's a twist you have yet to see so it may be too early to guess the ending yet.
In the meantime, chapter 30 is only half done. I'm behind schedule and I gotta get back into it before I run out of steam.
