Red's team:

Pikachu – Zeus

Snorlax – Atlas

Leaf's team:

Alolan Vulpix – Luna

Trapinch – Melody

Chapter 9

While Zeus was torture- training Atlas, Red and Leaf retreated into her tent.

It was finally time to awaken her aura.

"So…" She said, suddenly looking unsure. "How… are we doing this?"

He shrugged. "Just sit down, I guess."

Red felt surprisingly calm about this, considering the fiasco with the Rattata. Nonetheless… let's call it a gut feeling, but he felt confident that this was going to turn out alright.

"Are you ready?" He asked after she stopped fidgeting and got a curt nod from Leaf. "Gimme your hands then."

With her hand grasped in his own, Red closed his eyes and carefully felt for both his and her aura. While his own was still the pure white he got used to, Leaf's had further changed and had taken on a light bluesish colour.

'Her aura has been rejecting and dissolving Melody's earth type aura for a few days now.' It was a slow process that he had been observing since it started; the ice and earth type aura didn't tolerate each other and ice had predictably won their fight for dominance. 'Makes me wonder if this could have a negative consequence on Melody in the long run. They do exchange aura after all.'

He shook his head; now wasn't the time to go into contemplation mode.

With a tight grasp on his aura, Red slowly and carefully moved the gas-like energy into her body.

Surrounding her contained aura with his own, he let his aura just drift around in her body before doing anything else, hoping for any kind of reaction on her part.

She didn't seem to feel a thing.

"Pay close attention now." He warned. "No idea how excessive your aura is going to react, but try to feel for it either way."

Red didn't wait for her reply and pressed his aura against the membrane containing her aura… which didn't even try to resist his aura.

Instead, it 'popped'.

But, instead of surging outward, or even reacting to his aura, Leaf's aura just… stayed like it was?

'No.' He corrected himself. 'It's just moving really slowly?'

That was completely different to his own aura, which behaved like a combination of gas and liquid, constantly moving throughout his body with no sign of slowing down.

"Can you feel it?" He asked, retreating his aura while observing her aura's slow expansion beyond the previously limited space.

"Leaf?" He asked again, shifting his eyes away from her aura. "Can you feel it?"

She didn't answer.

"Hello?" He poked her, but she didn't response. "Mmmmh…"

He shrugged, not too worried. She was breathing, her aura was active and she was awake enough not to fall over, so she should be fine?

… Her aura was more interesting anyways.

While it barely moved a centimetre, the previous bluesish colour was slowly but visibly getting paler.

'It's getting purified…' He mused. It would make sense; from his observations, his aura completely rejected the typical typings from his Pokemon, but everyone else's aura just slowly took on the dominant type of their Pokemon.

But with her aura now no longer contained, it was probably behaving similar to his own.

After a few minutes of just staring at Leaf's aura slowly expand and getting purer… he was getting bored.

So, he stood up and left the tent.

"Hey, Atlas!" He called, interrupting Zeus fun of shocking Atlas whenever he even slightly whined. "Can you look after Leaf for a bit? I'm going exploring."

"Yea! I'll do that!" Atlas exclaimed, swiftly walking towards the tent- he really didn't like how awkward his body was and Zeus forcing him to move around wasn't helping either.

"Explore?" Zeus asked curiously, jumping from Atlas's shoulder to Red's. "Anything interesting around here?"

"Yes, a Pokemon I want to catch is native here." Zeus's ears shot up, now really interested. "You wanna come along?"

"Totally!" He grinned cheekily; a new teammate meant another underling! "What Pokemon are we searching for?"

"Secret~" Red gave Zeus a cheeky smile of his own before turning to his behemoth of a Pokemon. "Atlas, if you manage to master your new body by the time we return, you can choose whatever you want to eat for the rest of the week and I'll teach you a new move."

The move he had in mind was something he was planning to teach him anyways, but if he could use it as a leverage to motivate his usually energetic Pokemon, why not?

"We only have until the sun goes down, so let's go!"

Over the next few hours, Red and Zeus sneaked through the forest while carefully avoiding the more… aggressive wild Pokemon.

That didn't mean they didn't see some interesting sights.

While the Viridian Forest was mostly populated with the more stoic bug Pokemon, Route 3 had a much wider spectrum of Pokemon.

Small groups of Nidoran playfighting while a Nidorina was watching over them, a Diglett taunting a Mankey while [Digging] to stay away from the rampaging monkey, a Psyduck blankly staring at his own reflection in the water, a Goldeen helping a group of Oddish across the river by carrying them on its back.

They even saw a small herd of Ponyta drinking from a river, while a Rapidash was looking over them protectively.

One thing was certain, burning horses just looked badass as fuck.

Finally, after a few hours of just watching Pokemon live their life, while simultaneously leaving the safe route for the true wilderness, they reached a relatively small mountain.

"Can you finally tell me what we're searching for?" Zeus grumbled. "It's getting late, the sun will be gone within an hour."

"Mmh." Red focused aura into his eyes and searched for any signs of the more… brutal Pokemon species that was supposed to live around here. "Over there."

Cutting through the otherwise unnaturally lush forest were hundreds if knocked over trees, creating a clear path deeper into the woods.

And the 'wound' of the forest was fresh, a few Pokemon where already working on repairing their home.

A Poliwhirl, for example, was lifting and replanting a tree while a Tangela used its vines to [Ingrain] the tree's roots back into the dirt.

Man, Pokemon ecosystems were cool.

'After I finish traveling, I'm gonna buy- or better yet, build myself an Island and create a literal Paradise.'

While Red was fantasizing about his future paradise Island- he definitely needed a Vespiquen and a Cutiefly swarm, they combined honey should be delicious- they followed the not so hidden path towards the herd of their future teammate.

And after a few minutes, they reached the end of the overturned trees, but instead of finding a herd of Rhyhorn, like he expected to, he found two.

Two herds who didn't seem to be friendly with each other.

"Urg, lets hide." Zeus said, already pulling him into the safety of the lush forest. "Herd battles can be bloody, we're lucky that they each have an evolved leader."

And indeed, while the two herd of over a hundred Rhyhorn each were growling at each other- which sounded more like you grating stones against each other, they didn't fight.

Instead, they were surrounding two stone giants; an in scars covered smaller Rhydon, and a tall but scarless one.

A quick check with his aura enhanced eyes told him that the scarred Rhydon was stronger.

"What are they waiting for?" He whispered after a few minutes of nothing. The two Rhydon simply glared at each other but otherwise didn't move.

"The sun," Zeus replied. "It's the last time one of them will see the sunset, so they wait for it to go down."

"Last time-" Red didn't get to finish his question. The sun had finally disappeared over the horizon, and the moment the last light faded, their fists shot out.

Looking at them exchanging hits without even thinking about dodging, Red quickly realized something.

"Why are they not using moves?"

"This fight isn't about who is strictly 'stronger'." Zeus explained. "Moves can be learned and mastered with time, this is about who has the stronger body and mind to lead their herds."

With a morbid fascination, they continued watching the Rhydon slowly but surely breaking each other's body. Each punch had about the strength of Atlas (pre-evolution) [Curse] enhanced [Mega Punch], but besides the occasional cracks appearing in their stone skin, they easily shrugged each other's hits off.

But someone had to cave in and, after easily an hour of a brutal onslaught, the scarred Rhydon fell to its knees.

"You might want to look away for this." Zeus said suddenly, but Red ignored his advice.

Instead, he watched on as the tall Rhydon finally used its first move and, with a flinch of horrified realization, he watched the tall Rhydon pummel its spinning horn- [Horn Drill]- into the scarred Rhydon, pulverizing its head.

Red gasped, but was unable to look away as the headless Rhydon fell to the ground, bleeding for the first time.

The tall Rhydon roared loudly and, without even looking at the body of the dead Rhydon, he walked away towards the mountain Red and Zeus just came from.

And the Rhyhorn all followed him, without even one of them reacting to the death of the scarred Pokemon.

"That's how some herd operate." Zeus detachedly explained, as if he had seen something like this hundreds of times. "Two herds of the same species meet, their leader fight to the death and the stronger one takes over the deceased one's herd."

"That's how this works. You either accept the new leader," he used his tail to point towards the Rhyhorn following the Rhydon with-a-blood-dripping-horn. "Or you don't, and end up without the protection of your herd."

Zeus pointed towards the dead Rhydon, and for the first time Red noticed the sole Rhyhorn blankly staring at the corpse.

"Perfect." Red forced himself to smile; he was here to catch a Rhyhorn after all, and seeing a Pokemon die wasn't going to stop him!

Like Zeus said, that's just nature; this was normal!

'But if that's so normal…' His brain couldn't help but betray his vulnerable mind with doubt. 'Does being the Protagonist even protect me from death?'

He shook his head, quickly vanishing that thought.

He was the Protagonist of Pokemon. Death wasn't something he would have to worry about!

With a confident gait in his steps, 'which wasn't fake, at all', he walked towards the only Rhyhorn staying behind.

He opened his mouth, but the sudden proximity to the corpse had him at a loss for words.

Again, he tore his eyes away from the Rhydon and cleared his throat, gaining the attention of the Rhyhorn in the process.

"Why did you stay?" Red asked curiously.

"The new don. Is my brother." She, if the feminine touch in her voice was any indication, replied while looking at him with clear amber eyes. "The old don. Was our father. I don't follow. A kin slayer."

Red's eyes moved back to the corpse and he gulped; the entire fight just seemed even more brutal than before.

"… You want to join our team?" Zeus cut in when he realized that Red wasn't going to respond. "We have food and traveling with humans is relatively safe; you will only have to train and fight in exchange."

She looked at Zeus intently, who had to hold back a flinch from her intense but intelligent stare.

Usually, Rhyhorn weren't very smart… at all. The only other time Zeus met a Rhyhorn, it was one that got lost because he was hunting something but forgot what it was, so he just continued to demolish everything in its path.

It took falling into a river for the Rhyhorn to cool down and think… relatively clear again.

But this Rhyhorn, while she talked pretty slow and with noticeable pauses, was sharp.

"I will join." She replied. "But I will. Come back. To beat. the kin slayer."

"Sure, that alright." Red said, uneasily scratching in neck. "Do you… ahm, want to do something for your deceased father?"

"No." She bowed her head to the Rhydon. "The ghosts. Will take care. Of him."

A shiver went down his spine; that was all rapidly turning out to be too much for him.

"So… lets go back to the camp?"

While Red was traveling thought the forest, Leaf was stuck in a trance.

The moment she felt Red's aura, and thus her own, she could do nothing but blankly 'look' as her aura slowly purifying itself, until after a few hours, her aura finally spread through her entire body and lost all of its previous bluish colour.

Broken out of her trance, she didn't hesitate to experiment with the most sought-after ability of humanity.

But the moment Leaf tried to manipulate it like Red described it to her, she felt a massive difference to Red's description.

While he had to will it to move, to do what he wanted it to, hers just… responded perfectly.

But it was slow; it wasn't fighting her control at all, but her aura just moved slowly in general.

Still, it easily left her body, but instead of looking at a vapour-like energy- as Red had described it to her, Leaf's white aura looked more like a very slow-moving liquid, like really thick honey.

Her aura was, compared to Red's gas/fluid like aura, nearly solid. With a simple mental command, she willed her aura to harden even further and any sign of liquid-like behaviour disappeared, leaving an unmoveable 'block' of aura in her hand.

Still, controlling it normally was easy, and within a few minutes she was able to move it towards her eyes- all while no aura dispersed into the surroundings- and she was able to see the most interesting thing about her new ability; her connection to her team.

She couldn't help but smile while looking at the literal connection to her Pokemon; to her family. Furthermore, her thick honey like aura had completely dominated their connection and was continuously infusing her Pokemon with the trainings-boosting aura.

'Let's see if your team can stay stronger than mine for much longer, Red!'

After catching the still unnamed Rhyhorn, Red and Zeus made their way back to the camp.

While they took multiple hours to reach the place where they witnessed the Rhydon battle, they were running now and with both of their supernatural speed, they should reach their camp within half an hour.

Still, that gave Red's anxiety enough time to resurface.

He was in the Pokemon world.

He was Red.

In other words, he was the protagonist, the chosen one, the main character!

He was literally in the centre of everything that was going to happen in Kanto, and he was destined to be the winner, to stand on the top!

It didn't matter that he was going to fight team rocket, an entire criminal organisation, with pretty much only his team.

It didn't matter that he was probably going to fight Mewtwo, the (debatably) strongest legendary ever.

It didn't even matter that he was going to risk his life.

After all, the main character doesn't die, especially not in Pokemon.

Pokemon doesn't do drama!

… So why did that Rhydon die?

'Am I even the Protagonist?'

He slapped himself, much to Zeus surprise. But Red just ignored his starters worry.

The Rhydon died because he was unimportant.

Or, more likely, because it would secure him his second teammate.

He was still the Protagonist, he was still destined for greatness, he was still safe.

'… Team Rocket will be in Mt. Moon.'

Looking at his still trembling hand, he balled it into a fist.

Maybe it was stupid, completely delusional and all that but… if he really was the protagonist, he should be able to get through Mt. Moon without anything happening to him or his team… right?

Right?

'… I need to know if I'm really safe.' He tried to rationalize. 'And if I need to take a risk to know for sure, then so be it.'

He was going to be okay.

His team was going to be okay.

Leaf and her team were going to be okay.

Everything was going to turn out fine, he was the Protagonist after all!

… He was the protagonist after all…

Merry Christmas!

New teammate! Some of you will be disappointed with Rhyhorn, as it wasn't on canon Red's team, but it never was my plan to copy his original team to begin with… except for Pikachu, Snorlax was a coincident!

This chapter was a little heavier, and truthfully, I'm still not entirely sure what I'm gonna do in the Mt. Moon arc.

Or more like, I'm undecided between three pretty great ways I can take this story… and all of them have advantages and disadvantages.

Anyways, thanks for reading.

See you next week (the last chapter of the year!)