Apologies for the lack of updates last week. I was sick during that time and it honestly felt like a Tyranitar was beating me over the head with a bat continuously. Now that I think about it, maybe that was karmic justice for what I put Ethan through. Oh, well. Even if that was the case, it won't stop me from tormenting him even further. After all, we've still got plenty more misadventures to get through and Ethan will have a... prominent role in all of them.
Moving on, let me thank everyone who left a review last chapter. I didn't get a chance to respond to them last week but know that I read and appreciated every last one. Things will start to pick up both in story and in real life so I hope all of you continue to enjoy this work of madness.
Ch 5: Base Crashers
When Ethan finally came to, he found himself lying on top of a stack of old cardboard boxes. After getting past his massive headache and finally gathering his bearings, he saw that the rest of the room was relatively empty asides from a few disused collectibles scattered around. Ethan guessed that he was inside a storage closet of sorts based on what he was seeing and tried to recall what had happened. Before he could do so however, he suddenly heard a voice on the other side of the door.
"You're doing it wrong. You need to take off the head first before you take out the organs."
Ethan immediately noted with great unease just how calm the male voice sounded despite the subject matter being discussed. Things took an even more unpleasant turn when Ethan heard a low growl followed immediately by an ominous splattering noise.
"I said cut off the head, not smash it to bits!" the voice from before said with an accompanying sigh. "Something tells me that you're not exactly cut out for this. Oh, well. I'll take care of the rest so wash yourself off before bringing out our… guest."
Based on the current situation, Ethan had little doubt that he was the one being referred to. And judging from the detesting tone that the voice had just used, it was obvious that whatever he had planned for him could not be good.
After the brief sound of running water was heard, footsteps were heard approaching Ethan's room. Firmly convinced that he was trapped inside a mad scientist's laboratory, Ethan looked around for anything to protect himself with before he was dragged outside to be dissected. Unfortunately, the closest thing to a weapon that the room had was a large squeaky hammer sticking out of a nearby box. Figuring it was still better than nothing, Ethan grabbed the toy and silently waited for what he assumed was his captor's evil minion to open the door. Ethan's heart began to beat louder and louder as the footsteps drew ever closer. By the time the footsteps reached the door, Ethan was hardly breathing as he tensed himself to act on a moment's notice.
Time seemed to run in slow-motion for Ethan as the door to his room slowly turned before being opened. Reacting instantly, Ethan gave a loud yell as he jumped out with his mighty squeaky hammer in hand. Completely intoxicated with adrenaline, Ethan did not properly register what he was seeing as he swung down his weapon of doom at the first thing that entered his vision.
"Taste death, foul beast!" Ethan shouted out as a symphony of comical squeaks echoed out as he unleashed his fury.
It took roughly half a minute before Ethan recovered enough sense to finally realize exactly what he had been hitting this whole time. Or more specifically, whom.
"Wait a second… Is that you Typhlosion?"
His Pokémon simply grabbed the squeaky hammer from his hands and bonked him on the head as an answer. As Ethan stood in a daze (both from being smacked as well as being utterly confused), another figure entered what Ethan recognized as an enormous kitchen.
"What's all the commotion about? I swear, if that kid destroyed something I'm going to feed him to the wild Ursarings!"
As he saw the trainer standing before him, Ethan finally remembered everything. He recalled the mountaintop battle and how he had identified his opponent as the lost Champion Red before somehow losing consciousness. From the looks of things, Red and Typhlosion had brought him to this unknown location after that. However, Ethan did not have much time to dwell on this as he noticed the large bloody knife that Red was currently holding as he glared at Ethan. Recalling the conversation that he had heard a few minutes ago, Ethan began to panic once more as he figured Red was an insane psychopath who was going to silence him for finding out the truth.
"Please don't kill me!" Ethan yelled out as he bowed before his senior. "I won't tell anyone about you so please just let me go! I… I'm too young to die! I haven't even accomplished my dream yet! And… and… no one will be able to look after my sick mother if I die here! Without my medical funding, she won't last a week! Also, my girlfriend has a traumatic past and will most likely waste away in grief if she finds out that the only person she could depend on has died! So please, for the sake of all these people, spare me!"
Red stayed silent for a while before looking at Typhlosion to check if Ethan was telling the truth. Much to the Johto Champion's dismay, Typhlosion crossed his arms and gave a derisive snort. Judging from his attitude, the fiery badger still held a grudge against his trainer for the squeaky hammer assault.
Seeing the raised eyebrow that Red was giving him, Ethan got back up and decided to quickly tell the truth before he was butchered.
"Okay, okay! My mom's not sick and she only needs my money so she can go on her bizarre shopping sprees! And as much as I hate to say it, Kris isn't my girlfriend!" Ethan suddenly put on a sheepish look as he said this. "Actually, if she heard what I just said, she'd probably beat me up and say that the most traumatic thing about her past was meeting me. Seriously, that girl really knows how to shoot down a guy's hopes in the harshest ways possible."
A few seconds passed in awkward silence before Ethan finally remembered the situation he was in. As soon as he did, he got back on his knees and began begging for his life again. After a few more seconds of this pathetic display, Red finally decided to speak up.
"Alright! I won't kill you so just shut up! Sheesh, I can't believe I'm saying this but you're even more obnoxious than Blue!"
As expected, Ethan did not shut his mouth and began to profusely thank Red for sparing him. Just when Red was thinking about unleashing Pikachu on the kid, Ethan suddenly asked a question.
"By the way… what were you carving up before I woke up? Umm… I mean, I won't tell anyone about your murder habits or anything but you didn't… umm… dissect one of my Pokémon or anything, right?"
Realizing that he was still holding a knife and that this was probably the reason for Ethan's overly fearful reaction, Red gave a sheepish look of his own.
"Oh… I was actually preparing dinner before all of this."
"Then what was all that about cutting off the head and removing the organs?"
Red put on his usual annoyed look before answering.
"Haven't you ever gutted and cleaned a fish before? Sheesh, aren't you Johto folks supposed to be a bunch of country hicks who live off of the land and such?"
"I just buy all my food from the supermarket so I wouldn't know," Ethan casually replied, seeming to completely miss the insult that Red threw at him.
After another bout of silence, Ethan decided to start up a conversation.
"So… can you tell me exactly what's going on? I'm still confused about all this and-"
"Save it for after dinner," Red interrupted as he turned around. "I don't think I can continue dealing with you on an empty stomach."
"Now that you mention it, I could go for some food as well." Ethan put on his enthusiastic smile again as he quickly reverted back to his usual self. "By the way, I don't like fish that much so could you prepare me some Tauros steak while you're at it? Those things are so much better than the Miltank steaks they have back at home."
Ethan then continued to babble on about how he preferred his steaks cooked medium-well with various herbs that Red had never even heard about. Deciding that responding to this would be an utter waste of time and energy, Red silently walked back to the kitchen wondering for the umpteenth time why he had ever allowed this idiot live…
xxx
Several hours prior…
"Okay, how about this? We'll dump the body in the underground lake and never speak of this again."
Red, Typhlosion, Tyranitar, and Charizard were gathered around the unmoving form of Ethan as they tried to figure out what to do following the crazy events moments before. Wanting to resolve this crisis as quickly as possible, Red had been the first one to voice an idea to the others.
While Charizard and Tyranitar seemed very much for this idea, Typhlosion simply shook his head before flipping over Ethan with a kick and pointing out that his trainer was still breathing.
"Umm… I'm sure that's just the air escaping from his dead body," Red said half-heartedly. When Typhlosion crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at him, Red quickly tried to take a different approach. "Oh, come on! You can't seriously be trying to defend this little pest after everything he's done to you! I mean, he forced you to carry a backpack three times your size up an entire mountain for crying out loud!"
For a few seconds, Typhlosion was tempted to personally dump Ethan in the lake. However, common sense eventually won over this thought and Typhlosion shook his head once again. When Red gave him a questioning look, Typhlosion gave a sigh and tried to explain himself using a variety of hand signals and body motions. Unfortunately, Red was not the greatest charade player around and could not understand what was being conveyed.
"Er… you like fish tacos?"
All three Pokémon gave a facepalm at Red's answer. After a brief exchange between the three of them, Charizard walked over and grabbed a small rock before drawing something on the ground with it. Red watched as his Pokémon drew out what looked like a very crude map of Mt. Silver and the surrounding area. After finishing his little doodle, Charizard pointed towards the square that Red was able to discern as the gateway connecting Mt. Silver to the Indigo Plateau and Viridian City. As Red gave a nod to show that he understood what he was looking at, Charizard began drawing a small group of stick figures inside the building.
It took a few seconds for Red to figure out that the stick figures were meant to be the guards. Seeing this, Red finally realized why Typhlosion was against Red's plan.
"Oh, right… the guards saw Ethan coming in through here. And if they don't see Ethan leaving they're sure to start an investigation to figure out what happened to him." All three Pokémon gave a grim-faced nod at this.
Red remained silent for a while before speaking up again in a hopeful voice.
"Still… it's not like the guards pay that much attention to people that are exiting. I'm sure that they'll just assume Ethan flew off on his Noctowl or something after a while."
The look on Typhlosion's face made it clear that this was very unlikely.
"…don't tell me. He did something to get the guards' attentions before entering this place, didn't he?"
Typhlosion gave a grimace as he remembered the thirty minute speech and impromptu performance that Ethan had presented when the guards had asked for identification. From all the phone calls that the guards were making as they finally let Ethan in, it was clear that every border patrol member was on the lookout for the suspicious trainer. If none of them reported seeing Ethan leave after a few days, it was very likely that they would storm the entire area to apprehend him.
Typhlosion's expression and silence made it clear to everyone present that simply tossing Ethan in a lake was no longer an option. After a long bout of silence, Red finally spoke up again.
"Alright, the way I see it, we need to handle the guards before figuring out how to deal with Ethan." Charizard and Tyranitar gave a nod to this while Typhlosion simply remained silent. After quickly forming a plan in his head, Red continued on. "I can probably pay off the higher-ups so that all of the guards assigned to Mt. Silver are loyal to me and will look the other way when I tell them to. Only problem is that this will probably take a few days to pull off and we need to somehow keep Ethan from telling the entire world about me during this time."
It was here that the group realized what the main issue was. To make this plan work, they needed Ethan to leave Mt. Silver for a bit so that the current guards would not start a news-worthy man-hunt for him. However, there was no doubt that Ethan would blab about Red's existence the moment he headed out which would make the rest of the plan completely pointless. In order for their cover-up to succeed, they needed to somehow keep Ethan from telling everyone about Red while the guards were being switched. After that, it would be an easy matter to deal with the loud-mouthed kid in whatever manner they deemed fit.
"So… any ideas on how to keep the brat silent?"
After a long while, Charizard hesitantly raised his hand with a very uneasy look. After getting a nod from Red, Charizard began drawing something on his map again and then pointed at it. Leaning in, the other three saw a simple doodle of a house drawn underneath the large triangle representing the mountain. Obviously, Typhlosion was completely confused about this but Red immediately understood that Charizard was referencing his secret hideout and gave another nod.
With a grim face, Charizard took a deep breath and began his own charade performance. Red was lost for a while but by the third repetition he began to get a faint idea about what Charizard was proposing.
"No!" Red shouted out as he realized what his Pokémon was hinting at. "No, no, no, no, and no! Never! Absolutely not! Not in a billion years! Not in a trillion years! Actually, just never until the end of time itself! And even after that, I'd say no!"
Charizard gave Red a stern look as he crossed his arms. While he had been expecting fierce resistance to the plan, he was still a bit surprised that Red would act so childishly considering the situation they were in. After waiting a bit for Red's tantrum to die down, Charizard began drawing something else on the floor.
This picture took a bit longer to draw but when Red eventually saw the finished product his adamant refusal to Charizard's idea died down quite a bit.
Drawn on the floor was a stick figure wearing a hat that was trapped inside a cage. Surrounding him was an army of demonic stick figures with horns that were all holding onto various weapons. Though crude, this drawing made it strikingly clear what Charizard was trying to say:
Follow my plan or enjoy spending some quality time with your fans.
Not knowing what to do, Red looked at Tyranitar to see what he thought about all this. Having figured out the full extent of Charizard's plan long before Red, the green giant had been able to give the idea some more thought. And as much as he disliked the idea, he could not think of a better way to accomplish their goal. As such, he gave a sigh and simply shrugged in answer to Red's gaze. With a look of utter defeat, Red mumbled out a response.
"Ugh… Fine… I guess we'll go with your idea..."
Charizard simply gave a satisfied nod to this as he immediately turned to his other two associates and grunted out a few orders.
While Typhlosion was still confused by all of this, he decided that whatever they had planned had to be better than just simply dumping Ethan in a lake. As such, he did as he was told and went over to the large backpack that was sitting in the far corner of the mountaintop and put it on. Meanwhile, Tyranitar grabbed Ethan and tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. With their cargo secured, both Pokémon walked over to Red and waited for him to lead the way.
With a sigh of epic proportions, Red voiced out the question that he had been repeating to himself ever since the day he had become Champion.
"I'm going to regret this decision for the rest of my life, aren't I?"
xxx
Despite the world's obvious hatred for him, Red had somehow managed to make his way back to the hideout without being eaten by a giant turkey or something of the sort.
With the elevator at the summit malfunctioning, Red and the gang had to make their way down the mountain to one of the lower entry points. Unfortunately, without the usage of Flash, the trip had taken an arduously long time as they had to rely on Charizard's tail flame to barely see their way through the pitch-black cave. After a good hour or so though, they finally reached their destination.
After entering the living quarters of the hideout, Tyranitar had dumped Ethan inside the storage closet while Red and Charizard tried to explain everything to an extremely surprised Typhlosion. Another hour later, Typhlosion was fully informed and had tried helping Red prepare dinner when Ethan had woken up. All that needed to be done now was to explain everything to Ethan and hopefully convince him to keep quiet like they had planned.
"So let me get this straight," Ethan said as Red finished talking. "This place is some kind of special resort that you built where only the most talented and awesome Champions are allowed to enter?"
Red resisted the urge to roll his eyes and simply nodded.
Red, Ethan, Typhlosion, Tyranitar, and Charizard were all gathered at the enormous dining hall that looked like it had been pulled straight from some elaborate castle. Despite the fancy setting, the meal had been relatively simple and consisted only of some fried fish and rice (Of course, Ethan had whined about not getting his steak but was quickly silenced when Typhlosion bopped him on the head with the squeaky hammer). After finishing their meal in silence, the group had gone straight to business.
"So the reason you went missing was-"
"Because I was busy setting up this place. Yes," Red dismissed with an irritated wave of his hand. "I told you this three times already."
"Sorry. I'm just having a hard time taking all of this in." Ethan took a minute to look around the impressive interior before speaking up again. "I mean, who would have thought you were living in a mansion built underneath a mountain?"
"It's more than just a mansion," Red corrected. "This place has multiple sectors that are all connected to each other. Asides from the living quarters that we're in right now, there's also the underground lake, a library, an arcade, a miniature theme park, a spa lounge, and multiple battle arenas. There are even a few areas that I haven't been to but they're probably something along the lines of what I've already mentioned."
Ethan could only give an impressed whistle upon hearing all this as he stared at Red in awe. After a few more seconds of silent worshiping, Ethan spoke up in a clearly excited voice.
"And I'm actually allowed to stay in this place?"
Red mentally braced himself at this question. This was the point of no return where the fate of the hideout's secrecy rested.
For all the fuss about it, the plan had been remarkably simple. With the knowledge that people were more likely to keep a secret if they had something at stake as well, Charizard had come up with the idea to let Ethan in on a modified version of the truth. While it was necessary for Ethan to leave Mt. Silver for a while to not send the current guards into a frenzy, this little trickery would ensure that he would keep his mouth shut during his time outside. Afterwards, once Red had finished switching out the guards, they would call Ethan over again and either let him stay with them temporarily if he behaved himself or dispose of him if he got too annoying.
After taking a deep breath, Red finally spoke up.
"You can stay…"
"Woohoo! Awesome!"
"However!" Red loudly cut in before Ethan's cheering could get out of hand. "You need to keep the existence of this place a secret from everyone else! Am I making myself completely clear here?"
"Oh, I get you," Ethan replied with a smile. "Only top-tier Champions are allowed in here right? Actually, that's why you agreed to battle with me earlier isn't it? To make sure I was worthy enough to be let in here?"
"Err… yeah… sure."
"Speaking of which, whatever happened at the end of that battle? I just remember figuring out who you were before I suddenly fainted and ended up here."
"Umm… no clue," Red said dismissively. "Anyways, there are more important matters to deal with at the moment. For starters, I'll need you to leave for a few days so that I can… umm… set up your room… and stuff."
"Awww," Ethan said in a disappointed voice as he seemed to completely forget about his previous question. "Can't I just camp out in the living room while you set everything up?"
"No!" Red practically shouted out. After a brief bout of awkward silence, he quickly tried to explain himself. "Err… what I meant is that there will probably be a lot of construction work and we'll need to empty this place for a bit. I'll contact you once everything's ready so just… hang out somewhere away from Mt. Silver until then. We don't want to attract any unnecessary attention to this place after all."
After spending a few seconds taking all of this in, Ethan put on a larger smile than before and answered with a fervent nod.
"Got it. I'll just chill at my own place for a few days then. Man, I can't wait to lounge around inside a secret resort though! Who knew being a Champion would be this amazing?"
Red had to resist the urge to offer a snarky reply to this. Instead, he opted to remind Ethan once again just how important keeping his mouth shut was.
"Remember, don't tell anyone about me or this place unless you want your membership revoked."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Ethan said with his silly grin still on his face. "I promise not to tell anyone. After all, I don't want people like Youngster Joey finding out about this place either. The last thing I want is for him to chase me down and force me to listen to another one of his speeches about how his Rattata is in the top percentage of Rattatas."
While Red had no idea what Ethan was talking about, he was glad he managed to get his point across. Off to the side, the trio of Charizard, Tyranitar, and Typhlosion let out a collective sigh of relief at the results. While the three had kept silent to let Red handle the situation, they had been prepared to resort to drastic measures if Ethan had refused to cooperate. Typhlosion in particular was more than ready to beat his trainer senseless with the squeaky hammer if things had taken a turn for the worse (of course, he was planning to do this later anyways in retaliation for the attack earlier but it would have been nice to have a handy excuse to do so).
With their plan successfully initiated, the tense atmosphere in the room evaporated and the group finally relaxed. While they still did not have a long-term solution on how to deal with Ethan, the immediate crisis had been solved. All they needed to do now was to wait and hope that their ruse would play out to the end.
Just when Red was beginning to think that perhaps things would finally work out the way he wanted, Ethan spoke up.
"Hey, just wondering. Is there actually a sacred sword on this mountain? Because I ran into a magical bush on the way here who told me that there was one somewhere on the summit."
It was then that Red realized that perhaps his troubles were only just beginning.
xxx
Two weeks later…
As strange as it was, nothing terrible had occurred during the second phase of the plan. Red had successfully bribed the head of security to assign a bunch of guards who were secretly ordered to follow the Champion's every order. As it stood, Red could have turned the entire area into a nuclear testing facility and the new guards would have acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. With preparations set to easily "remove" Ethan if necessary, Red had called the annoying trainer back to the mountain.
To his credit, Ethan seemed to have actually managed to keep quiet about Red's secret. While there was no solid evidence of this, the lack of crazy fan mobs and paparazzi members storming the mountain spoke in favor of the kid. Also, the fact that Typhlosion was keeping tabs on him was a point of reassurance. After receiving the squeaky hammer from Red as a little parting gift, the fiery badger had agreed to keep an eye on his trainer whenever he could.
Despite all this good news, however, not everything had gone exactly as Red had hoped. After exchanging their phone numbers, Ethan had been constantly pestering Red every thirty minutes to see if he could come back yet. It even got to the point that Red could not sleep properly as Ethan would, for some god-forsaken reason, call him at three in the morning for a status update. Sadly, silencing the phone was not an option as Red was afraid of missing an important call from the head of security or his base's repairman who was busy fixing the summit elevator. In the end, Red was forced to take a crash course in programming to create an automated system that would redirect all of Ethan's call to his computer which would then simply answer any questions with various equivalents of "no". Surprisingly, this actually seemed to do the trick as Ethan did not seem to have noticed anything wrong when Red finally did call him personally to invite him back over.
With nothing left to do but wait, Red decided to relax a bit and was slouched on the sofa as he watched the card game anime from before on his theater-sized TV. Despite its weird setup and horrible censorship, the show was actually starting to grow on Red quite a bit. In fact, it was tied with the other strange show about digital monsters as Red's current favorite program.
Red was so immersed in the show's final clash between the spikey-haired protagonist's magician and the rival's dragon that he nearly didn't hear the beeping from his base's proximity alarm. However, the insistent noise eventually got his attention and he reluctantly went over to his computer to check what the problem was. As he looked at the readout though, his look of irritation was quickly replaced with one of confusion. According to the computer there was an unregistered person nearing one of the entrances to his base. At first, Red thought the computer was simply detecting Ethan but soon realized that this could not be the case as he had already inputted Ethan's profile into the registry. With a growing sense of dread, Red quickly turned on one of his surveillance cameras located near the intruder's location to get a visual on what was going on. As the camera screen popped up, Red was left more confused than ever.
Displayed before him was the unmistakable backside of Tyranitar who was currently facing down Ethan and the large backpack that was obviously Typhlosion. Based on what his scanner had told him, Red guessed that there was another person next to Ethan but Tyranitar's bulk unfortunately hid the mystery intruder's identity. As it stood, Tyranitar seemed to be in an extremely annoyed mood as he was holding onto his bat in a clearly threatening manner. Ethan was currently saying something to Tyranitar as if trying to reason with him. After the kid finished talking, Tyranitar was seen shaking his head as if firmly rejecting whatever Ethan had proposed. Ethan then began to shout something which Red guessed were a bunch of noisy complaints. Whatever it was, Tyranitar seemed to be fed up with dealing with the brat and his hidden friend and charged forward with his bat. However that was when things took an unexpected turn.
Before he had taken more than two steps forward, Tyranitar was suddenly blasted backwards as if he had taken a direct hit from an anti-tank missile. Red had just enough time to see a flash of blue before the flying form of Tyranitar crashed into the tree that the camera was hidden in and the screen fizzled out of life. This was apparently not the end of the carnage though as whatever had attacked Tyranitar seemed to be continuing its assault as Red felt a series of impacts shaking his base. Considering that his underground hideout was nearly half a mile beneath the surface, Red could only dare to imagine the sheer destructive force that was being unleashed above.
After a few minutes, the shaking finally stopped and an uneasy silence seemed to fall over the entire area. Red was understandably shocked and confused beyond words at this point and was left standing with his mouth open as he continued to stare blankly at the dead screen. Following what felt like an eternity, Red's brain finally managed to restart itself as he began to slowly try and get a grip on things.
From what he just saw, he was able to determine that Ethan had most likely brought along someone (or more likely something) with him that Tyranitar did not approve of. This newcomer was obviously the cause of the proximity alarm going off as Ethan and his Pokémon were already cleared to enter Mt. Silver. From the unbelievable power that Red just witnessed, he guessed that the most likely scenario was that Ethan had brought over some kind of bizarre new Pokémon that he had just recently caught. However, the sheer ferocity and strength that was just shown made it hard for Red to guess exactly what sort of insane beast that Ethan had recruited.
Red's thoughts were suddenly interrupted when a loud series of knocking were heard at his door. After barely suppressing a surprised yelp, Red slowly walked over to the door connecting the elevator station to his living room. Taking a deep breath, Red spoke up in a hesitant voice.
"W… who's there?"
"Hey, it's me! Your best buddy Ethan!"
His fear momentarily forgotten thanks to the surge of irritation that Ethan's voice brought, Red opened the door and found the young trainer looking as if he had recently walked through a tornado. Ethan did not seem to notice his disheveled appearance though as he held up his hand for a high-five while wearing his trademark grin. Red promptly ignored the gesture as he crossed his arms and gave his junior a scathing glare.
"What exactly did you bring over here?"
Ethan was obviously caught off-guard by this question as he lowered his hand with a troubled look.
"Oh, you saw all that?" When Red simply answered by increasing the intensity of his glare, Ethan continued on with a sheepish laugh. "Heh… heh… Umm… look, I know what you said about keeping this place a secret but I just couldn't help it! She wouldn't believe me and I needed some way to prove that I met you! Plus, she has all the qualifications that I do so-"
"Wait," Red interrupted as he pieced together what Ethan was trying to say. "Are you telling me that you actually brought over a person here?"
"Yeah," Ethan replied in a surprisingly casual manner. "I mean, you told me that I could."
"What are you talking about? When did I ever say anything like that?"
"You don't remember? I called you yesterday and asked, and I quote, 'Can I not bring over a friend?' You answered 'no' to that so by the rules of a double negative you clearly gave me permission."
Red was frozen in place as a flurry of emotions raged inside him. On one hand, he could not help but feel that he had severely underestimated Ethan's intelligence. From what he just heard, Ethan had somehow figured out that Red had set up an automated answering system and had clearly used that to his advantage. This feat was so unexpected that Red could not help but feel impressed by Ethan's hidden wit. On the other hand, the fact remained that Ethan had screwed up Red's plan for a quiet life once again. Feeling more enraged than the time Blue had stolen his last chocolate chip cookie, Red reached for Pikachu's Pokéball to obliterate the nuisance standing in front of him. However, his murderous intentions were stopped when an important piece of detail suddenly popped into his mind.
"Wait a second… you said that you brought over a person here, right?"
"Umm… yeah?" Ethan answered in a clearly confused voice. "We've kinda already established that."
"And you didn't have any of your Pokémon out when Tyranitar tried to attack you?"
Ethan tilted his head in confusion before answering.
"Not unless you count Typhlosion. Of course, he was holding onto my backpack at the time so he wasn't able to do anything."
Red's rage was quickly replaced with an overwhelming sense of dread and awe. Barely able to keep the shock out of his voice, Red muttered the first thing that came to his mind.
"But… that's impossible! There's no way a human could-"
"Hey! How much longer are you going to make me wait for?" an unknown female voice suddenly yelled out from behind the two trainers. "I swear, if this turns out to be another one of your lame attempt to impress me, I'm going to shove this Godzilla rip-off straight up your-"
The threat was cut short as the speaker walked into sight range of Red and Ethan. As expected, the first thing that Red immediately noted before anything else was the girl's yellow seamed-cap. Without even putting any conscious effort into it, Red was able to instantaneously analyze the hat's material, practicality, and design. It was only after finally judging the hat as "above-average" in his mental hat-ranking system that Red managed to focus on the girl herself.
Wearing a white jacket, red shirt, and a pair of yellow bike shorts, she was a slim yet athletic-looking girl who seemed to be somewhere between Red and Ethan's age. Though she looked relatively normal, her teal-blue hair definitely caught Red's eye. While there were many different hair colors in the Pokémon universe, teal-blue was still a rather… exotic shade to have. Deciding to overlook this oddity for the time being, Red instead focused on the girl's face. She had a relatively cute feature but this was currently shadowed by the irritated expression that most people tended to wear when Ethan was around. Her expression quickly changed to one of surprise though when she laid her eyes on Red. However, this was nothing compared to the open-mouthed look of pure shock that the Kanto Champion put on as he noticed the final crucial detail about this newcomer.
Without a hint of exertion, the girl was dragging along the unconscious form of Tyranitar behind her. With only a single hand, the girl carried the five hundred pound beast by the leg as if he weighed nothing more than a small suitcase. As Red's heart began to beat like a jackhammer, the girl slowly walked towards him with her fainted victim in tow before stopping directly in front of him. After letting go of Tyranitar's leg (which actually cracked parts of the tiled floor as it landed), the girl stared up at Red's face as if she could not believe what she was seeing. As the seconds continued to tick by with Red frozen in place, the girl finally spoke up in a strangely quiet voice.
"You… are you actually-"
"Yep, that's Red!" Ethan cheerfully cut in, instantly destroying the heavy atmosphere in the process. "Told you I found him! Now, are you going to finally admit that I'm the coolest trainer ever and agree to go out with me?"
The girl immediately turned to glare at Ethan with enough intensity to make even the normally oblivious Champion shrink away in fear. Deciding that saying anything else to her would be potentially fatal, Ethan instead turned his attention to Red.
"Ahem. I guess I should introduce her to you. This is Kris, another one of Johto's recent Champions. She's from my hometown and we often crossed paths during our journey. I should warn you that she can be a bit… violent at times but she's a really nice person once you get to know her… and survive her beatings… Anyways, I'm sure things will be a lot more interesting with her around. After all, the more the merrier, huh?"
As Ethan began to let out a jolly laugh, Red was suddenly reminded of something he had forgotten to do and turned to Kris with a serious expression.
"Ahem. I know this is a bit sudden but… You wouldn't mind if I killed this idiot right now, would you?"
There was a faint hint of surprise on Kris's face when Red addressed her but it was quickly replaced by a small smile as she gave a casual shrug.
"Be my guest."
"Ha ha! Look at us, making silly jokes together already!" Ethan said in his usual carefree tone. "It's like we're all one big happy… what are you doing with that Pokéball? And why is it covered in sparks?"
Due to the following cover-up by Mt. Silver's guards, the details about what happened afterwards are left unclear. However, the one thing that could be accurately confirmed was that for three hours straight Mt. Silver was filled with the sounds of an adolescent boy's screams along with the sadistic laughter of a certain electric rodent.