Gary woke up in an unfamiliar hospital room, looking up at a plain, white ceiling. "Where am I?" He muttered as he sat up.
"Nice to see that you're finally awake." Kat stood up from the chair beside Gary's bed that he had been sitting in.
"What happened?" Gary asked his cousin.
"The ship went down. No one knows exactly what happened, but they found all of us washed up on the shoreline near Route 11. We're in a hospital in Vermilion right now. I heard that they've had to get doctors from all over the region here to treat everyone."
"Where are the others? Is Daisy alright?" Fear was starting to sound in his normally prideful voice.
Kat pointed to the next bed over. Gary looked over to where she was pointing and saw that Daisy was lying unconscious in the bed.
"The doctor said that she has a mild concussion and a few minor injuries here and there, but that she's in fairly good shape. Apparently everyone is in pretty good shape considering what happens, but that just adds more confusion as to what actually did happen. Kat sat back down again. "By the way, Mal, Sue and Ciel are all over in the waiting room. Ali and Cleo are on their way home to Pallet. They said that they can't put up with this anymore."
"What about Ash? Red?"
"I'm afraid that no one's seen them." Kat looked down to the ground. "They weren't with the rest of us when we were found. Lorelei of the Elite Four said that Ash and his traveling companions should be fine. She saw them riding off on a Lapras which she was adamant would be able to take them safely through even the worst storms. They probably just made their way to a different shore then the rest of us. We don't know about Red or the girl he was with though."
"I feel like I'm largely responsible for what happened to that girl." A doctor who had just entered the room. "I was the one who signed off to let her go with him." The doctor forced a smile, which years of practice made sure looked completely genuine, and turned to Gary. "Hello, my name is Doctor Sallow and I will be overseeing your recovery. How are you feeling, today?"
"My entire body feels sore and I have a bad headache." Gary complained.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Doctor Sallow said while checking the clipboard hanging from the end of Gary's bed.
"Do you have any idea when my sister will wake up?" Gary looked over to the unconscious Daisy.
"She should be waking up any moment now, actually." The Doctor said as he put the clipboard down and turned towards the girl.
Sure enough, Daisy's eyes flickered open as she slowly became aware of her surroundings.
"What happened? Where am I?" She asked as she sat up and raised one of her hands up to her forehead.
David Oak set his phone back onto its receiver and looked up. He was sitting at his desk in his home office back in Pallet Town. Sitting in the many chairs that lined the room were friends and family. They all waited with baited breath.
"That was the hospital." David announced. "Gary and Daisy are both awake and fine, but I'm afraid there's still no sign of the others."
The members of the Oak family and most of their close friends that were there all gave a collective sigh of relief. The two women who were sitting off to the side of the room, however, still looked depressed. Delia Ketchum tried her hardest to remain calm with the situation for the benefit of the other woman, and overall was doing a fairly good job of keeping her composure. She placed a comforting arm around the woman that was sitting in the seat beside her, who was taking the news, or rather the lack of news, much harder than Delia was.
Sariah Redwood was a rather frail woman. Ever since her ex-boyfriend left her almost eleven years ago and she was left to raise their son on her own, Sariah's health had been in a constant and continuous state of decline. Over the years she had been reduced to little more than skin and bones, with a sickly pale complexion. She also had coughing fits that she was normally been able to keep relatively under control, but had recently started to become more and more frequent with time.
Unlike some of the others in Pallet Town, Sariah was not a particularly wealthy person, and her medical expenses would have outright bankrupted her long ago if were not for the generosity of Delia and the Oaks, who were willing to pay her medical bills for her. But even so, life was an uphill battle for Sariah, until recently when her health had finally started to balance out. But now the stress of current events was quickly undoing any progress she had made and if anything she was now in worse shape than ever.
"Red will be just fine." Delia reassured Sariah.
"I'm sure he probably just ended up on another beach and is looking for a phone right now to let you know he's fine." Professor Oak added.
"Thank you. That means a lot to me." Sarah said between her crying and a few coughs.
The phone rang again and David picked it up almost instantly. His eyes grew wide as the person calling started to speak and a live video of the caller popped up on the phone console's display.
"Yes, she's right here." He spoke into the phone. "Hold on a moment, I'm going to put you on speaker."
David pressed a button on the console and turned it around so that the others could see who it was.
"Hi, Mom!" Red called out over the phone. "I called home but there was no answer. I figured this was the next best number to call. I'm doing just fine!"
Sariah instantly started to feel better at the sight of her son, alive and safe. She let out another cough before greeting him in return.
"I'm so glad you're okay, Samuel."
"Hi, Red's Mom!" Yellow came into view of the screen and waved at the screen on the phone they were calling from until Red pointed her to the camera.
"Who's that?" Sariah asked in confusion.
"Oh, right." Red embarrassment was made clear by the expression on his face. "I keep forgetting to call and let you what's going on. This is Yellow."
Red told them the story of his adventures since leaving Pallet Town. He was fairly detailed for the most part of his story, but he did make sure not to mention their meeting with Pikoa. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that encounter, so he thought it would be best not to mention it to anyone yet.
"And so we made our wayup north to the Route 12 Gateway, which is where we're calling from using a payphone. The way to Vermilion was blocked by a sleeping Snorlax, and they're know to sleep for days on end, so we're going to head up to Lavender Town next."
"Well, be safe." His mother replied. "And make sure to check in more often."
"And if you see Ash, tell him to call in more, too!" Delia added, confident that if Red and Yellow had made it to safety, that her son and his friends would too.
"I will. Goodbye!" Red waved to the screen as he reached over to end the call.
"Bye!" Yellow added just before the call ended.
"Well that certainly puts a heavy weight off of all of us." David said as he turned the phone back to its normal position. "It's good to know Samuel is alright."
"Although I am a bit curious about that girl, Yellow." Professor Oak stroked his thin thoughtfully. "I can't shake the feeling that I've seen her somewhere before, but I can't seem to place her anywhere. That's why I didn't bring it up."
"I suppose it's only natural that Red would be good with taking care of people like that." Sariah said. "After all, sometimes it felt like he was taking care of me as much as I taking care of him when he was growing up."