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Red's team:
Pikachu – Zeus
Snorlax – Atlas
Rhyhorn – Gaia
Chapter 12
The next morning, Red woke up feeling great.
Without supressed doubts, without guilt of being someone he wasn't, he got up, left the safety of his warm tent and just looked at his surroundings.
The morning sun illuminating the majestic Mt. Moon; a sleepy Hoothoot still flying around in the search for a good place to sleep in; a Paras digging itself under a tree, so that only its mushrooms were still visible.
No matter where he looked, something was happening; a world of supernatural beings harmoniously living together.
'…Well, mostly.' He thought wryly while looking at a Aipom harassing a Hoppip by throwing berries at it while laughing hysterically.
At least until the Hoppip retaliated and hit the unprepared Aipom with [Sleep Powder].
Red couldn't help but snort at the sight of the Aipom dangling from the tree, its tail instinctively wrapped around a branch while the monkey Pokemon was snoring loudly, blissfully unaware of the approaching Hoppip.
He turned away from the deserved retribution and retrieved Zeus's Pokeball, just stared at it for a moment.
Zeus voluntarily returning himself had been the last straw that broke him out of his… whatever his mental state had been, but truthfully, he was hesitant to release him now.
Not because he was angry at Zeus or something like this, but simply because… he was enjoying the quiet, the simple solitarily.
But…
"Yea…" He sighed. "Can't really do that now, can I…"
He was a Pokemon trainer, which pretty much meant sacrificing any alone time for lifelong companionships…
Red sighed, and with a final goodbye to his introverted side, he released Zeus.
…Who instantly retched.
"…Are you alright?" Red asked, instinctively reaching for his healing supplies.
"OF COURSE NOT, I AS IF I COULD BE OKAY AFTER THAT!" Zeus roared the moment he got himself under control. "Do you have any idea how disgusting it is to stay inside a Pokeball?!"
Red look at him in quiet shock. He honestly though that Zeus hated the thought about being contained, but with his reaction now… maybe his Pokeball was defect? "But Atlas and Gaia don't mind; no Pokemon I've met minds…"
"They're all weird!" He retorted harshly, collapsing onto his back while greedily taking in air. "… Please tell me that my sacrifice made you stop being an idiot."
Red couldn't help but smile; you can say what you want of the Pikachu species and their pretty average potential, but this moment alone made him glad that he got Zeus as his starter.
"Yea, I think so."
"You think so?! YOU THINK SO?!" Zeus glared at him, shakily pushing himself up. "I'm not doing this again! So at least lie to me so I can sleep with a good conscience!"
"… Thank you." Red said, absentmindedly scratching his scar. "I dunno how long I would have lied to myself, so yea…"
"Looks like torturing myself did something at least." He whispered, barely loud enough for Red to hear. "But more importantly!" Zeus suddenly exclaimed, touching his stomach with a grimace. "I'm hungry, which means Atlas is hungry. And while he is a total idiot, I do not want to see what he will do if he feels like he is starving!"
The colour drained from Red's face, only now releasing that they skipped yesterday's dinner. "Oh fuck!"
He instantly ran to his tent and started to retrieve tens of previously prepared dishes, each big enough to feed a normal person, before taking a safety distance from the food.
With a rapidly beating heart, he pulled out Atlas Pokeball before releasing him directly before the food… And he thankfully ignored them and instantly ran towards the food.
"Couldn't you have given me food before releasing that glutton?" Zeus grumbled, also staying a safe distance from the Snorlax currently looking more like a mindless beast than a Pokemon- Atlas didn't even hesitate a second before stuffing plate after plate of food into his mouth, but he was thankfully aware enough not to eat the plates and only the food on top of it.
"Sorry, but I have no interest in confronting a hungry Atlas." Red replied. "And the longer we wait, the hungrier he gets; I've once read about a rampaging Snorlax that ate multiple Pokemon whole while in a hungry stupor, there is a reason why its recommended to take the long way around a Snorlax territory and why only so few trainers have one on their team despite them being so powerful."
Zeus clicked his tongue but didn't complain and just joined Red in watching the morbid show of Atlas devouring enough food his feed an entire school of Goldeen.
"…What's our plan now?" Zeus asked after a few minutes of silence.
"Not sure yet… but I want to stay away from Cerulean for now, so we will probably stay in the area until our rations run out."
Their conversation was cut short by a loud thud via Atlas, who instantly fell asleep the moment he had finished eating, leaving a mess behind that looked more akin to a food fight.
Zeus didn't hesitate to run towards the downed Snorlax and stand proudly on his stomach like he just bested him in a fight… only to be swatted away by the sleeping giant.
Red snorted and took the long way around Atlas and took out another few portions of food for the rest of the team and himself.
Truly, being alone had its perks… but having a team to focus on was also great.
After breakfast and apologizing- mainly to Atlas- for not providing dinner last night, the weather took a sudden turn for the worse and a thunderstorm started to rapidly approach from the north, forcing Red and his team to seek refuge at the exit/entrance of Mt. Moon.
Zeus in particular stayed as far away from the exit as possible, flinching at the sound of every thunder coming from outside.
"Aren't you immune to lightning?"
"You try getting repeatedly hit by thunder and get filled with more electricity than you can hold onto!" Zeus growled back defensively, flinching as another flash of white lightened up the cave.
"That sounds cool!" Atlas interjected, looking at the light show outside in wonderment. "Can I try!?"
"No." Red swiftly cut him off. "You can't, you don't have the Lightning Rod ability."
"Aww…" He whined, looking at Zeus with envy before turning towards Gaia who was quietly sitting outside, seemingly unbothered by the rain. "Why can she then?"
The same moment he said that, a lightning hit her, but she didn't flinch and remained unscathed.
"Gaia is a ground type; they are generally immune to electric attacks."
Truthfully, Red was barely paying attention to Atlas's questions and was instead focused on writing down every plot-point he remembered from the games; something he should have done much sooner, but better late than never!
He played every Pokemon games tens of times and beat everyone at least twice while playing with the hardcore nutzlock rules.
There was a reason why he pretty much memorized the move pool of a disgusting amount of Pokemon, he was even able to differentiate their learning pool in different generations.
Currently he was writing down the plotline of the Unova region; he doubted that he was going there anytime soon- the plot was a few years in the future anyways… probably- but he wanted everything written down just to be sure.
Red made sure to write everything in a different language than the one used on in the Pokemon world, so he felt pretty save writing everything down; and even in the case that someone managed to decrypt it, he still decided that securing a rough outline for future events instead of purely relying on his memories was worth the risk.
Which also made him reconsider his team plan; he definitely needed a dark type as possible counter possible mindreading psychic type Pokemon or trainer like Sabrina.
Well, theoretically he didn't even need a dark type. He just needed a Pokemon that was proficiently enough in using dark type aura to shield his mind, a feat most dark types could do instinctively or even passively… but he didn't really want a dark type Pokemon on his team.
At least not in his main six Pokemon- or seven if you considered his future Dragonite; pseudo legendary Pokemon counted outside of the typical carry limit of six Pokemon per trainer, mainly because leaving them without supervision was a receipt for disaster.
He just wasn't the biggest fan of most dark types; there were a few cool ones but… meh, he liked his Pokemon to be defensive beasts and dark types were generally glass cannons.
After some brainstorming, Red finally relented and decided to keep an eye out for a possible dark type he was willing to add to his team, but he honestly doubted he would find a 'worthy' one; there weren't many native in Kanto or Johto and dark type Pokemon had a generally bad reputation, so he doubted there were going to be any tournaments with a cool dark type like Sandile or Pawniard as a price.
'In the worst case, I can just train up a few Magikarp and hope that one of them is good with dark type aura after evolving.'
He closed his notebook for now- he would add the Kalos, Alola and Galar plotlines later- and turned to the still occasionally flinching Zeus.
Considering how boosting moves could lead to pretty painful consequences, Red didn't doubt that abilities had similar risks, but looking at him flinch at the unusually frequent thunderstrikes didn't feel right.
"Gaia, Atlas! Come over here!" So, he called for his team to gather; it was time for some team bonding!
With a drenched Gaia looking at him stoically and an overly energetic Atlas rolling on the heels of his feet, Red quickly and expertly made a campfire, careful to position it so that the smoke was easily able to leave via the exit and sat down, motioning his team to join him.
"We won't be doing any training for now, or at least until the storm has settled." He said, much to Zeus's relieve and Atlas's disappointment; Gaia didn't seem to care either way. "Instead, I'm going to tell you a story!"
That instantly got Atlas attention, his face brightened up with interest… a vast contrast to Zeus's own sceptic expression… an expression that was quickly wiped from his face by another lightnings strike.
"In a world far away; in a world without Pokemon but with fearsome monsters and exotic creatures." Red started with a mysterious smile on his face; he was going to enjoy this! "A world filled with vast riches, hidden treasures and unexplored lands; those mysteries have a special charm to them, and the few people who are unexplainably drawn to those mysteries… are called Hunters!"
The storm continued to brew around route 4 until deep into the night, something that wasn't necessarily rare in Kanto.
It simply meant that Zapdos was in the area, and as long as no one deliberately provoked the god of thunderstorms, there wouldn't be any real danger… besides the lightning strikes at least.
At least it wasn't Articuno, who brought literal blizzards with it, or Moltres, who was followed by often unbearable hot weather.
Still, with the storm going wild for the entire day, it also meant that Red was able to retell his favourite story to his Pokemon; the story about a boy searching for his father.
And as he was unable to give them the visual experience, he explained it in extreme detail instead. But even then, he still finished the story on the same day.
…He would probably have to repeat some parts of the story; Atlas had desperately clasped at every one of his words for hours and fell asleep in the middle of the chimera ant arc.
Red would normally have stopped there, but both Zeus and Gaia were staring at him with such an intense and interested gaze that he honestly couldn't stop himself, so he continued.
Not that he would mind repeating today's team bonding session, it was the first time that he was ever able to completely geek out while having an actually interested audience. 'Maybe I should tell them the story about the pirate king next? Or about the boy with a nine-tailed fox sealed within him?'
Most importantly, Zeus stopped flinching at every thunder strike halfway through the story, so his primary goal was also reached!
And now with Gaia and Zeus asleep, Red just mindlessly looked at the now clear night sky, lamenting the fact that he didn't get a glimpse of the Zapdos… he couldn't wait for the moment where his team was strong enough to rival the literal gods of this world.
Over the next week Red focused on play training instead of the pretty monotone one he made his team do before.
One of his favourite games was 'protect the flag', where three had to protect a previously chosen object from harm for 5 minutes while one of his Pokemon tried their best to hit the target.
… The idea for the game came to him after he though about ways to stop something like the Crobat attack from reoccurring; he may have aura, but he was still very much fragile compared to pretty much every Pokemon, so teaching them how to protect his life was one of the first decision he made.
But they didn't only do team games; Zeus for example always had a ball with him at this point. The game he was playing was pretty much just to keep the ball from touching the ground, only he was only allowed to touch said ball with his tail.
It was a great exercise to improve his control of his tail, [Iron Tail]had already greatly profited from this training and he heard more than once on how Zeus was planning to use his tail as a batting bat for [Hidden Power] and later [Electro Ball].
Speaking of [Hidden Power], both Zeus and Atlas managed to learn the move!
Zeus had [Hidden Power (Ice)], which could be really useful against dragons and Atlas… well, it was unfortunate.
Atlas had [Hidden Power (Ghost)], which meant that his plan to get him to use [Hidden Power] to learn how to morph his normal type aura into another one failed, but at least he had something to hid ghosts now?
… He just hoped that his next strategy would yield some results, otherwise he would have to accept that Atlas was only good at normal type moves… or he could try teaching him [Metronome], but it was one of the very few illegal moves.
There were too many reports of an unintentional mass destruction from using signature moves normally unique to legendary Pokemon.
Every since the event of a Togepi using what scientist suspect to be [Spacial Rend] while in the Ruins of Alph, which created the third worldwide location were Unown were known to live, all the champions on the world decided to put a ban on [Metronome] to make sure there wouldn't be a fourth.
Unown were, despite their own little power, capable of bending reality to a degree… an ability proven by what was the Sevii islands at some point in the past; no one had managed to go anywhere near that place for over fifty years now, shortly after an expedition lead by multiple scientists who wanted to research Unown.
The Islands where completely hidden within a thick mist and every attempt to enter the mist ended with unexplainable incidents; some just appeared on the other side of the mist within seconds, other aged decades within minutes without realizing it.
… Anyways, moral of the story; stay away from Unown and don't use [Metronome]!
At least Atlas was having fun with his own game; as he had no problem with his physical moves, he instead focused on perfecting his usage of both [Hyper Voice] and [Hidden Power (Ghost)] to better force his enemies to move where he wanted them to move.
Gaia was helping play it by using her new move [Rock Blast] to shot as many rocks towards him as she could, while he redirected the attacks to hit a target a good distance away.
Gaia's training was also very effective; while she didn't learn moves quite as fast as Atlas, she still learned them really fast and she had a knack for using them really efficient.
She, for example, used a combination of [Dig] and [Scary Face] to become a literal nightmare; she would suddenly pop out of the ground and hit you with a [Scary Face] before disappearing again.
Truly, she was a natural at the battle style he wanted her to have; a walking psychological trauma inducing terror.
… He couldn't wait to use her in an official battle, but the next gym was sadly a water gym, so she would probably not get the chance to show her terror to a real audience yet.
As for Red himself… he mostly relaxed the entire week. Maybe it was stupid or even naïve that he allowed himself time off from any training or aura experimenting… but honestly, he desperately needed it.
Instead, he spent the entire week telling his team stories and watch funny videos on PokeTube, this world equivalent of YouTube.
… Cat videos have never been as relaxing as now, if he didn't have an electric type already, he would instantly catch a Shinx now, they were adorable.
But now, after a week, their prepared food finally run out and Red felt ready to meet people again… and apologize to Leaf the first chance he got, even if he had no idea how.
How do you tell a person that you had future knowledge without telling them?
… And he really didn't want to tell her about his situation, the risk was just too great. He already had more than one nightmare of a Musharna eating said dreams and telling their trainer everything which gave him the edge he needed to prevent team rocket from possibly taking over Kanto.
… What was team rockets end goal anyways; world domination maybe? Every other evil organisation was pretty upfront about their goals, even if their goals were stupid.
While he was wrecking his brain for a concrete answer about team rockets goals, he entered Cerulean City and made his way to the Pokemon Center, both for his Pokemon and for himself.
His wound was still itching annoyingly, so he wanted nurse joy to look at it to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with it.
Aura had proven itself to be pretty darn powerful, but it hadn't done anything to the poison directly and he wasn't sure if the berries were truly enough-
"Red?" His musing was interrupted by a familiar male voice, prompting him to turn around with a big smile on his face.
"Blue!"
That was the chapter for today, with a small cliffhanger this time.
First of all, thank you for all the kind review, but don't worry; I didn't change my original plan only because a few people complained. What happened was my original plan, and I find it to be pretty realistic all thing considered.
New Red is, in the end, only 15 and a pretty lonely person who had problems connecting to people (at least in his old life). The old Red was, in comparison, always the calm and 'wise' friend people could depend on in any situation, old Red was pretty much the exact friend the new Red always wanted/needed.
And with his first real friends walking away from his because of his behaviour, a behaviour he considered to be a significant part of himself… it hit him pretty hard and made him want to change, because he didn't want to be left alone.
Him calling his mother was just him searching for some kind of human interaction; some kind of validation.
And him accepting himself as truly Red and not as the guy who took over his body 'awakened' old Red's memories.
…All this is kinda difficult to see just with the previous two chapters, but I had hidden some small premonitions beforehand, so it was pretty clear in my hand, but this is exactly why I write this story in the first place.
I want to learn on how to write better, so ever mistake I make is just another 'stepping stone' towards my goal of becoming a good author.
Fun fact; I just counted and this story has 38 arcs planned (very generously planned, some of them will only be one chapter long while other will take 5+ chapter to end) and with this chapter I have 4 of them finished… so this story will continue for at least two more years of weekly updates, maybe one year if I manage to increase my word count to maybe 8k words per chapter.
Additionally, I have six more Casanova Interludes I want to write soooo… yea.
The funny thing is, this story is the shortest story of the five fanfiction I definitely want to write and have completely planned out.
Anyways, rant over. Thank you for reading and feel free to leave a review!