When Ryan returned to the Saffron City Gym a few hours later, he found Sabrina already in a battle with someone else, forcing him to wait. So he returned to the streets, to think over his plan. As he paced about, thinking which Pokémon and moves to use, he couldn't help but remember Abra. I wanted him to challenge Sabrina's Abra. That way she could have seen how strong I was, how strong my bond with him had become. But it wasn't meant to be. Gravity kept pulling him around, this way and that, and the rain felt good on his face.
In the distance, a billboard flashed with the message: 'Silph Co.'s latest product: The exciting and filling Varka! Coming soon to a town near you!'. Ryan was trying to figure out what a Varka was when an older gentleman approached the entrance to the Saffron City Gym from the inside, said good morning to the guard, and then kicked the door open and ran out like a rabid tarsier. The guard chased him for a moment, but as soon as he started sprinting down the street, the guard gave up and returned to the gym.
The elderly man wore a fine white suit and ran with a cane in one hand. He had a merry face and a short white beard. His face lit up when he saw Ryan wandering aimlessly ahead of him, and he quickened his run to reach the boy in a most timely manner.
"My boy!" the man smiled, patting his stomach.
Ryan looked up in irritation. "Yeah?"
"Fine day for a walk, don't you think?"
It's raining. A few hours ago, it was raining so hard, no one was out here. Now the rain had let up, a few pedestrians had returned to the Saffron streets for travel, but not that many. It wasn't exactly ideal weather, either way. "Is there something you want?"
"I refuse to let you take away my Nashville Hot Chicken, with its delicious spicy, smokey flavor!"
"Yeah… you got the wrong person. I don't know what you're talking about."
The man licked his lips and chuckled. "And the delightful pickles on top, mmhmm…"
"That's great." Ryan walked away.
"Wait! Don't leave me here! I'm the Colonel, for god's sake!"
Ryan whirled to face the man when he was hit in the head by something. Then, the old man ran off with the vitality and speed of an overweight forty-nine year old father of five. Cursing, Ryan looked down at what had hit him. A golden chicken bone lay on the pavement, shining in the rain. The boy picked it up, feeling it, sniffing at it, shaking it to see if it was real. After all his highly scientific tests, Ryan concluded that he had no idea if this chicken bone was made of real gold or not. Given the bizarre nature of the man, he couldn't guess either way. So Ryan put the bone in his pocket and never thought about it again for the rest of the episode.
After a few more minutes of waiting, Ryan returned to the gym. The battle has to be over by now, he thought. When he went to open the door, from behind, a voice shouted:
"Ryan! Hey, Ryan! Wait up!"
The teal-haired boy turned around to see Logan running through the rain after him. He was wearing his usual black and blue running clothes and his black beanie, and his cheeks were flushed. If that was from him running or something else, Ryan did not know.
"Look who decided to show up."
"Yeah, sorry… that took longer than I thought it would. Have you battled Sabrina yet?"
"Nope."
Logan looked surprised. "What've you been doing then? I left hours ago!"
"I was training my team. Don't you know?Sabrina's one of the most fearsome trainers in all of Kanto. I have to make sure I'm at my best before challenging her."
"That makes sense," said Logan.
"Do you want to watch?" Ryan asked.
"Yep!"
"Alright. Just a fair bit of warning, though… Sabrina can read minds, so don't think about anything you don't want her to know."
Logan nodded and followed Ryan inside before stopping dead in his tracks in confusion. "Hey, wait a minute. How do you know that?"
Oh crap. "Uh… come on, we're going to be late!" Ryan ran off into the gym, refusing to answer Logan's most astute question; thus, the other boy was forced to run after him in confusion.
The guard at the inner door told Ryan that Sabrina's match against the trainer had just concluded. Suddenly, the door opened, and a tall blonde girl with rosy cheeks and a pink-and-white dress came storming out, tears in her eyes. She got wrecked, just like me, the first time I fought Sabrina, Ryan thought. He was content, though. This trainer's misery didn't affect him at all. In fact, it made him a bit more confident. If so many other trainers have had trouble with this gym, that only means that I'll be seen as a great Pokémon Master when I beat Sabrina.
The doors slammed behind them after the two entered. There stood Sabrina, on the other side of the temple stage. She was wearing the same thing she had been wearing the last time Ryan had faced her. Ryan thought about thinking a thought, but he thought that was a bad idea, so instead, he thought some nonsense instead, hoping to confuse Sabrina. Two one two three, no prognathism for me!
"You're back," Sabrina said.
"I'm going to beat you!" Ryan announced. "My Pokémon are a lot stronger now!"
"Whatever you say."
"I thought you said you didn't battle her yet!" Logan whispered, but Ryan ignored him.
Sabrina's eyes flashed Ryan's way. Golden showers from the skies, open your mouth for a surprise, taste pretty darling, don't be shy, and I will sing a lullaby, he thought fiercely. "Three on three. You know the rules."
Ryan nodded and stepped forward onto the temple stage. "Go, Haunter!"
The Haunter shot out of his ball to meet Sabrina's expected fighter: Abra. Spectre already knew what to do.
"Flash attack," Sabrina ordered her Pokémon, which Ryan had indeed expected.
The Flash hit Haunter, but it wasn't an offensive move. Spectre began to spin about, disoriented, but still fully healthy. He then rushed at the Abra and hypnotized the small creature easily. With Abra asleep, Ryan's Haunter was now free to do what he wanted. I don't think her Abra has any offensive moves. I should be able to do whatever I want now.
"Night Shade!"
"Hau, hau!"
Haunter disappeared and the whole stage flashed with purple light as the ghost Pokémon attacked the poor sleeping Psi Pokémon. The Abra fell backwards onto the floor, its body smoking and bruised. But it was not yet defeated, so Ryan ordered his Haunter to use another Night Shade.
Seeing this was going to go no better for her, Sabrina returned Abra and sent out her next Pokémon."Kadabra, finish him. Use Psywave."
The Night Shade hit Kadabra first, doing decent damage, but not as much as Ryan would have hoped. The Kadabra shrugged off what had so easily downed its previous evolution, and hit Haunter with a swirling beam of psychic energy. Spectre howled in pain, but didn't go down, allowing him to use a move too.
"Thunderbolt," Ryan screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Huh?" he heard Sabrina say.
It was too late for Kadabra, who was too close to Haunter to dodge the attack. The Thunderbolt cracked it right in the belly, exploding in a torrent of energy. The Kadabra fell over, twitching. He's paralyzed, Ryan realized. His heart started to beat faster. He looked up at Sabrina, who was staring him down. I don't want to be mass-consumed. I'm not a happy meal. She looked repulsed and he began to laugh. Keep reading my mind, Sabrina. It's doing you a lot of good.
"Arrogance…" she said just loud enough to carry across the battlefield. "I'll put you in your place, kid."
"Kadabra, use Psychic!"
"Hypnosis, Haunter!"
"Haunter, haunt!" Spectre roared before charging forward. However, when he tried to put the Kadabra to sleep, he missed. How such a straightforward attack could miss, especially against a paralyzed foe, Ryan could not guess. If I raise three times the pot and semi-bluff the river, I'll be good, Ryan thought, hoping his nonsense would confuse Sabrina and cause her to make a mistake.
The Psychic did not miss. It hit Spectre in the face, and just like last time, he let out a gasp of pain, as if the air was being sucked from his gaseous body, and then fell like a log onto the stage. Ryan returned him at once.
"Go, NaVorro!"
"Psychic attack, Kadabra."
"Earthquake!" It's Christmastime in Indonesia, Ryan knew.
Since Kadabra was paralyzed, he was now slower than the Tauros. He jumped up into the air and slammed down on the stage, causing a small Earthquake to rumble across the floor. Poor Kadabra could not dodge such trickery, and he was hit so ferociously by it, that by the time the shaking stopped, the stage all cracked to pieces, Kadabra fell over, swirly eyes upon his face. That's two.
"Kadabra return. Alakazam, go."
"Earthquake again."
"Psychic!" Sabrina yelled. Ryan could tell she wasn't calm anymore. She doesn't want to lose to me. He looked her in the eye and saw the red flames they had become.
Alakazam, being faster, hit NaVorro first. The hit was devastating, causing the Tauros to fall over and huff out in pain. It was a critical hit, Ryan knew. His Tauros had one more attack in him, maybe. Come on buddy, you can do it. Standing up, his body quivering, NaVorro, used his remaining strength to once again jump in the air and cause an Earthquake to rain down upon the stage. The Alakazam shook and fell to one knee, taking decent damage, but it wasn't enough. NaVorro's done.
Indeed, another Psychic attack caused the Bull Pokémon to collapse, and Ryan was forced to return him. It was then that he was truly left with a decision to make. Sabrina eyes were on him, boring into his skull like sharpened toothbrush handles. He shivered, knowing she was prying into his mind for any hint at what he was going to try. There's no more hyperventilating in wheelchairs. We're gonna save the last Arcanine on Funk Island, he thought, trying to throw her off. He had no idea if he actually was.
"Go Aegon."
"Reflect, Alakzam!" Sabrina said quickly.
Ryan shouted his own order at the same time, "Swords Dance, Aegon!"
The two Pokémon performed their two defensive moves, though Ryan was unsure what Reflect did exactly.
"The user's defense is raised considerably against physical attacks," Dex told him. "Is there anything else my noble master requires of me?"
"Shut up and go back in my pocket!" Ryan grunted, stuffing the red sass-puter back into said pocket.
He knew what Sabrina had done, and that she had specifically countered his Swords Dance strategy. He was out of options, then. He didn't know how damaged Alakazam was, or if Charmeleon could do anything to it before getting KO'd. I've got one try. He didn't care if Sabrina read that from his mind.
"Fire Blast, buddy," he urged his Charmeleon. "Make this one count."
"Psychic," Sabrina ordered her Pokémon. That's all she tells them to do, Ryan thought in displeasure. Can't she use some other attacks?
The Psychic hit Aegon first, as everyone knew it would. Aegon weathered the hit poorly - just as NaVorro had - and Ryan knew he could not withstand another. Come on Aegon! We've trained so hard for this. He's already weak from what NaVorro did to him. You just have to finish him off. You can do it!
"Char… meleon!" Aegon roared, producing white-hot dragonfire between his teeth. He jumped in the air and dove forward at the Alakazam, who simply stood there holding a bruised shoulder. Ryan knew there was no way Alakazam, in his current state, could dodge the attack.
The flames leapt from Aegon's mouth and covered Alakazam in a raging, swirling inferno. Charmeleon landed deftly on the shattered stage, just feet from his foe. The flames burned for a long time, and everyone stood still, too anxious to think or even breathe. And then, at last, the flames cooled, and Alakazam stepped out from behind a veil of smoke.
"Ka… zam…" the Psi Pokémon coughed before collapsing on the ground, unconscious.
"Yes!" Ryan shouted.
"Char, char, char!" Charmeleon roared back, beating his chest ferociously. "Char, char! Charmeleon!" He shot a blast of flames into the air, and then once again beat his chest and howled.
Suddenly, a white light covered Charmeleon.
"Ah, no way!" Logan cried.
Ryan's jaw dropped. "Is he…?"
Another spire of fire erupted from the glowing figure of Aegon's body. Smoke billowed outwards; the stage reeked of brimstone; Ryan glimpsed his Charmeleon changing and morphing growing larger in the mess of it all.
The smoke dissipated, and there stood Aegon the Charizard, in front of his master. Ryan ran onto the stage, tears in his eyes, and hugged his Pokémon.
"You did it Aegon! You beat Sabrina! And you evolved too! Wow!"
The Charizard grumbled and tried to play it cool. Logan ran onto the stage too and congratulated Ryan and his team for their amazing victory. Across the hall, Sabrina descended the stairs below her throne and walked over to Ryan and the others. She held out a Marsh Badge in her hand for him to take.
"A loss is a loss. You beat me fair and square, kid. I admit I didn't work hard enough to win. You earned this Marsh Badge. You have a strong bond with all of your Pokémon. I wish you well in the Indigo League."
"Th-thanks…! And about what I was thinking…"
She held up her hand and shook her head. "You didn't know I could read your mind." A thin smile crept onto her face. "So I could see the true you for a while. But this time, you knew, and you used that to your advantage. You tried to confuse me. I don't know if it worked, but at least I didn't learn anything else about how you think of me."
"Uh," Ryan blushed, "y-you're a great trainer, Sabrina! You're the most difficult foe I've ever faced."
She laughed humorlessly and turned away. "It will only get harder from here on out. Keep training your Pokémon, and I'm sure you will do well."
"Alright, well we better get going. I have a battle waiting for me in Celadon City!"
Sabrina nodded. Ryan congratulated Aegon again, and gave the dragon who was not really a dragon (yet) another big hug, which only seemed to embarrass the Charizard further. Then, he returned him to his Poké Ball, patted Logan on the back, and the two made for the door.
"Wait," Sabrina said. The two froze, then turned around. "You," she said, pointing to Logan. "You should tell him. He has a right to know."
"What do you mean?" Ryan asked.
Logan went red and shook his head. "I-I don't know!"
"I read your mind earlier," Sabrina explained. "It's not use. I won't tell him myself, but I just wanted you to know that that is not something you should keep from him."
"Tell me what?" Ryan asked. "Tell me what?!"
"Right, I'll think about it," Logan replied slowly. "Let's go, Ryan."
"Hey, what just happened?"
This time it was Logan's turn to run off into the darkness, with poor confused Ryan forced to chase after him.
It was evening by the time they set out down Route 7 towards Celadon City. Ryan tried his best to pry Logan's apparent secret from him, but the other boy would not say a thing about it. Ryan even offered to give him the golden chicken bone if he would spill his secrets, but that radical prize didn't tempt Logan in the slightest.
They came upon four people in the tiny Route 7 not long after, as Ryan was in a heated exchange with Logan over being honest and all that noble stuff he had read about in books. They stopped their argument at once, for the four people they saw were most familiar to Ryan - or at least their outfits were. What are they doing here?
"This Route belongs to Team Rocket!" one of the men in the black jumpsuits declared. "Pay a toll or prepare for a Pokémon battle!"
"No it isn't! Celadon City is part of the Painted Dragons territory!"
"Never!" said the Team Rocket soldier. "The Painted Dragons are nothing compared to Team Rocket. We own all of Kanto!"
"Hah, nice one. That joke was almost funny," the Painted Dragon seethed. Ryan could see he had a Bulbasaur and a Porygon tattooed on his bare arm.
"Whoa, hold up, there's someone approaching!" the second Team Rocket man said to his peer.
"Team Rocket, what are you doing here?" Ryan asked when he had Logan reached the others.
"Shut up kid, this ain't your business."
"Where did you take the Mew?!" he asked more forcefully.
Before, the Team Rocket man had not even looked at Ryan, he had thought so little of the teal-haired boy. Now, he did look at him, and Ryan saw both fear and confusion briefly surge through his face. "Wh-what are you talking about?"
"You captured a Mew in Lavender Town. Where did you take it?!"
"Why does that matter to you, kid?"
"Tell me!" Ryan shouted, his voice going high. "I'm not asking again."
"I'm not telling you anything, kid. Get out of here!"
NaVorro materialized from his Poké Ball. He lowered his head, stamped his foot, and exhaled sharply from his nose. Ryan patted his Tauros on the nape of the neck and bit his lip. "Tell me where Mew is, or this is going to hurt a lot for you."
The two Team Rocket lackeys exchanged a look and then drew their Poké Balls. Ryan squeezed NaVorro's neck, telling him to charge. Before the two men could release their own Pokémon, the Tauros was already racing at them, stampeding wildly. And then, they flew. I never knew men could fly, Ryan thought. He watched the two tumble through the air, high enough to nearly crash into a gliding Fearow. Then, they sailed away, as if they were riding a wind current, and fell out of sight deep into the forest.
Ryan turned his attention to the two Painted Dragon members. "You two…" he began.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," one with Zubat tattooes said in an alarmed tone, "we don't want no trouble! Let's just go our separate ways."
"Do you remember what happened in Cerulean City?" Ryan asked them.
"Yeah, but what's that got to do with anything?"
"Well, I was the one who destroyed your base there."
The men shrieked in shock and fear. "No way!"
"Yes way. Get 'em, NaVorro."
NaVorro the Tauros was happy to oblige his master. Soon Ryan learned that Painted Dragons could fly just as well as members of Team Rocket.
Once the route was empty again, Ryan sighed. "I want to find that Mew," he said. "But I don't know where to look. If none of the Team Rocket guys are going to talk, how are we supposed to find it?"
"I say we take one hostage and torture him until he gives us the goods," Logan said savagely.
That's one way to do it. But if we did that, wouldn't we be just as bad as them?
The two walked the rest of the way to Celadon in silence. Ryan didn't want to bring up the supposed secret Logan had again, not after their most recent victory. It'd ruin the vibe. And, he was too tired. All he wanted to do was collapse into bed, in a preferably cheap hotel, and dream of how to beat Erika, the Gym Leader of Celadon City. With a Charizard, it shouldn't be so hard, he knew. Pride swelled in his throat as he thought of Aegon, whom he had raised from Charmeleon to Charizard, whom he had made into a deadly fighter capable of beating the Pokémon of one of the greatest Gym Leaders in all of Kanto. Erika won't be nearly as hard as Olivia or Sabrina. He wondered if Erika was as pretty as them.
They reached the end of the route not long after, and Ryan could see the lights of Celadon City in the distance. The evening was turning to night, and soon everything would be dark. They'd have to find a hotel, somewhere to eat, a Poké Center to rest NaVorro. There was still so much to do.
I wonder if Rahul and Alex are in that city somewhere. Are they waiting for me? Or did they leave me behind because I took so long? He tried counting the days since the group had last been together, but they all sort of blurred together. He would have liked to have reached Celadon a day or two ago, at the very least. But maybe it took Rahul ages to beat Koga, or they got lost on the trip back. Maybe they aren't even here yet. He could hope.
"So there's another Gym Leader here?" Logan asked, breaking the silence, as they gazed off at the city beyond the forest's edge.
"Yep. This one shouldn't be so hard. We'll go fast. And then I'm off to my last gym."
"You're a really good trainer, Ryan," Logan said. "I can't believe I'm getting to see all these cool battles."
"Yeah, thanks. But I'm not really that good. I'm sure all the people in the tournament are going to be just as good, if not better." He thought of Kelly, of her team and how she had wiped out all of the gyms they had traveled to together. I never beat any Gym Leaders as badly as she did. And she had had all those weeks to train her team since they had gone their separate ways. It wouldn't surprise me if she wins the whole thing. "Come on, let's find a hotel. I'm tired."
"Alright, let's go!" Logan said cheerfully, leading the way.
"You wouldn't happen to have another friend in Celadon, would you?" Ryan asked. "I don't want you running off again."
"Nope," Logan shook his head.
"Good."
Ryan saw something in the dark, moving at ground level across the treeline to the right. He stopped and stared, and for one mad moment, he thought he saw Abra - his Abra. Was his mind playing tricks on him? Was he delirious from fighting Sabrina? He didn't know. He went to call out, but the shadow faded, and nothing remained.
Ryan felt a cold chill spread across his body as a gust of wind blew through the trees. He felt unbearably lonely then, like he wanted to shrivel up and die. Memories from when he had returned home and faced his father flashed through his mind, and he felt himself biting his lip so hard he could taste blood. He shook his head, trying to forget.
The past is the past. I can't change it. Yet, as he followed Logan into Celadon City, Ryan's feelings for Abra did not diminish. He knew he would never get over losing his first Pokémon, just as he would never get over that look the caged Mew had given him back in Lavender Town. I'll find that Mew, he promised himself. I can't get Abra back, but I'll save that Mew, even if I have to beat every trainer in Team Rocket first. They're not getting away with that.