A Traveller's Journey

by

Taro MD

Chapter 6
The Viridian Forest Approach

Well here we are about to start off the first of at least two to three episodes inside Viridian Forest which is the first dungeon ever in the original games and thus it's going to get special mention here... 2.0 is hopefully going to be that sci-fi Pokemon adventure that I've always wanted to make but couldn't do originally.

Also get used to different Pokemon that you can't normally get especially since Poliwhirl is something that you get whilst surfing and in Heart Gold it'll be in the second half of the game when you can surf freely so I put that here.

Now then let's see what adventures are awaiting Harudo in this episode?

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Harudo was wide awake and had already said his proper farewells to Rio, who had decided that he would see off his friend and wished him luck for the journey ahead although he shook his head at how he was eager to get up early in the morning just to see him off... but he was glad he got the send off that he did.

"That was real nice of Rio, I have to come back to Viridian at some point to take on Blue for the Gym Badge... but that won't be for a while and besides I need to focus on Viridian Forest."

Walking up Route 2's southern part was one of the easiest walks he had period... which was strange because he probably would be expecting trainers to be all over the place especially since Viridian Forest was usually a hub area for active trainers especially since Pewter City was not far from the northern part of Route 2.

"Wait I just realised that it's ridiculously early in the morning... of all lucky things, I might be able to make the forest in time for a mid morning rest, I better get going!"

Harudo realised that he might be able to make the forest in time before someone would spot him and probably challenge him to a Pokemon Battle so he hurried his pace a bit as the short walk to the guardhouse from Viridian wasn't going to delay him for much well except for the obvious patch of grass that was a short distance away but Harudo realised that if he stuck with the edge of said grass, he could potentially avoid encountering any wild pokemon.

'It's a shot but if I quickly rush through then I would have no issues...'

He thought as he focused his breath and then waited for the right moment, his eyes immediately opened and in a short burst of speed he ran through the pass of grass easily as Harudo then stopped as soon as he got to the other side... hunched over and needing to breath after that burst of speed was a reminder that he was only human and not say a super hero.

'Yet I can hear Pokemon talking and communicate and apparently that is the mark to get chosen to fight deimons from the ancient past... I am not bloody Superman here, for fuck's sake.'

When he was able to get his breath back, he then walked the short distance that was left towards the guardhouse and then he discovered that it was business as usual as the gates were open and that he was able to go inside as he realised that he was immediately thristy from doing that dash across the grass and he forgot to bring a drink with him.

'Well bollocks I knew I should of brought a drink from Rio's place, not that he would of mind.'

Looking around the large guardhouse building, he spotted a vending machine that was stocked up with bottles of soda pop of various brands... especially the ones that he like.

'Oooooo there's a few I can take with me into the forest... let's see how much I have.'

Checking his pockets he found that he had enough for roughly 12 bottles and so he made the purchases for a couple of lemonades, a couple of orange sodas, quite a few colas and then he spent the rest on at least one each of the remaining brands... eventually he took one of the colas out and opened up the can and had a few sips before being refreshed and was able to finally prepare himself for the forest.

"Alright... I am now refreshed and ready to deal with that forest."

"Hold on there young man, there's plenty of time in the day to do that."

Soon as Harudo was about to head through the far exit into the forest, the security guard at the desk who did emerge from the backroom and starting his shift noticed the young man as he was going for the soda machine and then noticed the time before the older man realised he needed to have a talk.

"Well... I did get up early, thinking that there was going to be a rush of people on Route 2..."

"I'm surprised you got here at 7am though. You must have plenty of reason to go into the forest."

"More or less, I seek to head to Pewter City and I heard the forest is vast on foot... at least two days."

"Yep that's what I figured... I should give you a heads up though friend that the forest seems to be a bit more livelier than usual... if you encounter some of the local wildlife in there then be careful."

"Don't worry, I got Potions and Antidotes that will fill the requirement just in case something happens."

"I won't stop you then young sir... do be careful in there and have a good day."

"Why thank you and I hope you have a nice day too."

Harudo then proceeded to head towards the other exit and then into Viridian Forest itself... not knowing that there was a paper behind the desk with the message of recent disappearances that have occured into the forest and that the security guard didn't realise until the young man entered through the other arch of his mistake until he saw the paper on the desk telling him about the recent disappearances.

"Oh... oh dear, I think I warned him enough... I think."

10 minutes after getting through Viridian Forest's entrance gate... Harudo finally entered the forested dungeon and assessed for himself the various trees that lined his vision, the sunlight that was gleaming from the canopy as the Lavender native finally got his first look into the forest.

"Well looks peaceful... if I remember correctly, this is where Caterpie, Weedle, Metapod, Kakuna and those awful yellow rat-things."

Refering to Pikachu obviously there was a reason why Harudo never did like the small electric types and that was because he was badly shocked by one when he was 8 years old and the trauma from that has never left him and at times when he was looking after electric types back at the Volunteer House that he always had to wear rubber gloves especially if he had to move a troublemaker or three.

"I'm going to have to catch one of those bastards eventually and I'm going to have to overcome this nagging fear of electricity."

He then looked around realising that he was alone... good thing the forest was quiet but there was the problem, he decided to take a path down to the left and then he noticed that the forest was too quiet... he would of spotted someone at least around at the entrance but he hadn't spotted anyone that wasn't a denizen of the forest and that was a worrying sign.

'The time is at least 7-7:30am so I can afford a little rest, alright I'm gonna take a sit down for about an hour because getting here has exhausted all of my energies.'

Harudo was able to find some soft grass and parked his butt down allowing him to take a rest... he figured this would be a good opportunity to release the ones that he brought along with him as Charmander, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Pidgey and Rattata were brought out... Harudo made the decision to put Gastly in the storage box although he asked before to which the Ghost type was ok with that decision.

'Where are we Harudo?'

"We're in Virdian Forest Pidgey... beyond here is Pewter City, we have a 2-3 day walk ahead of us I figured I let you guys out and you can take a look at where we are going to be in."

'Sounds like a plan Boss.'

'The air is lovely in here...'

'I can feel Grass on my feet!'

Bulbasaur realised where it was and had an apprehensive look on it's face as Harudo immediately noticed.

"You alright there Bulbasaur?"

'I didn't expect to be back home so soon, that's all.'

"Wait Bulbasaur I didn't know you lived in Viridian Forest?"

'My family lived here as well as I did... well that was before I caught one day by Professor Oak.'

"Totally wasn't expecting that at all when I began my journey nor learning that this place is naturally occupied by your species Bulbasaur."

'It's alright though... don't worry about it Harudo. I should be ok.'

Charmander and Squirtle went over to Bulbasaur and began to comfort it whilst Pidgey bristled itself relaxing in the cool air and Rattata figured it would have a lie down but then it heard a noise and immediately looked towards a bush and alerted everyone.

'COMPANY!'

Harudo realised what Rattata said as a nearby bush rustled again before a creature emerged from it... and the worst possible coincidence happened all at once, first of all it was a short chubby rodent with yellow skin, two brown horizontal lines on it's back, small mouth, long pointed ears with black tips and brown eyes. Two red spots on it's cheek are noticable with short forearms each with five fingers and feet with three toes... the tail was lightning bolt shaped with a patch of brown fur on it's base.

'OH GRE... wait something's wrong with it.'

The creature which is in fact a Pikachu immediately fell to the ground as Harudo realised that something hurt it and it had cuts all over it's body, this pretty much confirmed that either this Pikachu picked a fight with another denizen of the forest or something was VERY wrong with Viridian Forest and that they were in danger.

'Is that Pokemon going to be ok?'

"Not sure Charmander, this Pikachu has very bad battle wounds but I'm gonna see if this Potion works..."

Harudo immediately got to work as he was able to get a Potion from his bag to use on the wild Pikachu, realising that he might need to stand some distance back after he used the spray as the wild Pikachu winced then discharged small sparks from his cheeks in anger as he stood up and turned to the human that used the weird device.

'WATCH WHERE YOU ARE SPRAYING THAT THING!'

"It's called a potion which by the way, you're welcome."

'Wait... you can understand what I'm saying?'

"Uh yeah I can."

'A Human's not supposed to understand Pokemon at all.'

"Apparently I seem to be different although it hasn't bothered me too badly... question is now, what happened to you that gave you all those scars."

'I was involved in a battle with a big scary monster that wasn't your normal sort...'

"Was it a Butterfree or was it a Beedrill?"

'Way scarier than a Beedrill...'

"Lovely. Are you going to be alright by yourself though?"

"Not really I got seperated from my friends..."

"Were they Pikachu like yourself?"

"No they were Pichu..."

'Wait Pichu but you are a Pikachu, an evolved form...'

Harudo was slowly trying to figure out what happened but somehow it seemed a freak event of some kind might be the cause of this... for now he figured he would try to move on.

"Alright then... Pikachu you can stay with us for now. This forest might not be safe."

'You sure you want a wild Pokemon coming along?'

"I understand the risks considering this is not normal... alright guys let's go."

Returning Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Pidgey and Rattata to their pokeballs but then allowing Pikachu to come with him is something that is not considered normal but Harudo inwardly knew he is literally using up all of his mental strength to surpress the fear of kicking the electric mouse pokemon like that online short he always enjoyed watching.

Believe me the urge is HARD to surpress.

2 hours later had then passed as the time was reaching around 10am as the forest itself came to life as dozens of Pokemon woke up from the forest to carry out their tasks and things they wanted to do for the day just as Harudo accompanied by Pikachu was approaching a crossing at some point... again Harudo hadn't of had any encounters with trainers nor Pokemon as of yet.

'Still no Trainers or Pokemon so far and the only Pokemon I've encountered is Pikachu who is following me because there's something wrong with the forest... not bad so far but I wish I can encounter some Pokemon... give me a Caterpie or a Weedle... or both!'

A couple of shakings later proved his point where a Caterpie and a Weedle both came out and they were rolling around in the grass fighting each other before they noticed the human standing there and immediately reacted.

'Hey! No need to fight right now... we have company.'

'It's a silly human obviously, it means that he can't take us both down at once!'

"Well that is true... I can't catch both of you at once, there are rules."

'Wait you can understand us?'

'First time I've known a human that can literally understand how we speak.'

"There's a long explaination that I can't go into detail right now but yes I can understand Pokemon."

'Didn't one of the elders mention a story that if a human can understand how we speak, then the dark days will return?'

'I believe that's the gist of it Weedle... that explains how things in the forest have become unsafe.'

"Wait unsafe?"

'Correct. The forest has been unsafe for not only humans but also Pokemon... it's probably why that Pikachu over there has joined up with you.'

'That Caterpie is right human... the forest has been suffering and it's all because of that recent surge of evil energy that came from the deepest areas.'

"Deepest Areas?"

'Yeah! Our tribes have always said never to go into any of the deepest areas...'

"Wait so did someone from your tribe go into these deepest areas?"

'No, no, no... something came OUT of the areas.'

"Came OUT?"

'Yeah! Hey Caterpie, I think we may need to take him to see the elders.'

'You might be right Weedle... we'll go with you for now human, don't worry about fighting us for now.'

"I need to check something before I can agree."

Harudo had a hunch about something as soon as they mentioned about something coming out of these deepest areas so he activated the holographic map of the ancient lands that he found in the Deep Area of Route 1 and then positioning where he was... he discovered that there was in fact another ruin that was near, although he didn't know about the supposed evil energy that came from the supposed Deep Areas of Viridian Forest.

He had a bad feeling that something might of come out of that area... probably one of these Deimos creatures that the Keeper warned about or a powerfully possessed Pokemon like that Spearow that turned into a Fearow... Harudo realised that he alone may be the only thing that can stop these mindless creatures.

'Do we have an agreement then?'

"We do... lead the way though, I don't know where the Deep Area for this place is but I can't let something evil wander around and cause harm to humans and pokemon alike."

Somewhere in another part of the forest... we get a visual shot of something that had happened in the forest, about a force of evil that went through as we spot what seemed to be the corpses of Pokemon that were killed easily... and then a recent dead body of a bug trainer that had no idea what he saw, the look of terror was still on his face just as the big gaping hole in his chest was an indication of how he died.

Then a loud demonic roar can be heard that shook the forest to it's core.

To be continued...

(Taro) So begins the Viridian Forest segment and now I impliment a feature from the Mystery Dungeon series... Wild Pokemon joining up as companions and although this won't work in actual games, it's something I am going to be using for now.

Yes as well, the deimons themselves are going to be just as terrifying as I originally wrote the saga or was going to be shown but then again... my writing from 20 years ago was very bad and you won't be seeing this anytime soon.

Hopefully this will keep you in suspense somewhat.