Pokemon: Crimson and Azure
Chapter 4: Viridian Forest
In this chapter:
~To the forest!-A quick break-In the forest-Pokemon Battles-Hello, Pewter City!~
~To the forest!~
The forest is a natural maze …
Viridian Forest is a thick forest connecting Viridian City to Pewter City, and also the only way to get to Pewter City easily and quickly. It is used by many trainers, including our hero, Crimson, who was now heading towards it's direction, with Viridian City now behind her. She walked for quite a while now, seeing nothing but Pidgeys and Ratattas around. She wondered where'd Azure got her Spearow from. After a while, she stopped and looked up at the sky. Dark clouds were approaching from the south. Crimson felt bad for not checking the weather program on TV before setting out on her journey. If it was going to rain a lot, she needed a place to hide out. The closer she got to the forest, the closer the clouds got to her, soon covering the entire sky. A warm south breeze was still blowing, although now that the sun was behind the devilish looking dark clouds, it could be felt how the temperatures dropped with a few degrees in a matter of minutes. With the first few drops of rain, Crimson knew it was going to pour a lot … so she started running, hoping to at least reach the forest and hide under the trees, since she was still on a flat land, and had no means of hiding from the rain. The rain was picking up speed fast, and she could see no forests beyond, however, a small building caught her eye in the distance. Just as she reached it and rushed in, the rain started pouring down like a shower. She didn't even had any idea where she was at first, all she did was stand in one place, catching her breath from all the running. She was wet, but not too much. Finally, when she had regained her strength, she looked around.
~A quick break~
There isn't a better feeling than being indoors when it's pouring with rain outdoors…
At first it looked like a Pokemon Center, but then she noticed there was no nurse around, and there were more tables than usual. There were only 3 people in the building, including her. On one of the tables there was a 10 year old girl, and behind the counter was a middle-aged lady, wearing an apron.
"I'm sorry … I was too tired to greet you right away." Crimson apologized to the lady, approaching the counter.
"It's okay dear, I'm just glad you made it before the rain started." The nice lady replied with a cheerful smile on her face.
"Uhm, I couldn't see the sign outside as I was running, where exactly am I?"
"Oh, you're at our small family restaurant. We're near the forest, as trainers often pass by here, all tired and hungry."
"Oh, that explains all of the tables and the apron you're wearing.."
"Yes, would you like something to eat or drink?"
"Hmm… some Apple Juice would be nice." Crimson replied with a smile. She had forgotten to buy water back in Viridian and didn't want to waste any more. Plus, she felt like drinking something else than water for once.
"Coming right up!" The lady said, picking up a clean glass from underneath the counter and filling it up with some home-made apple juice. "Here you go!" She said, giving Crimson the glass with a happy smile on her face.
"Thank you." She replied politely, taking the glass and instantly having a sip. "How much do I have to pay?"
"Hmm, you can have this one on the house!" The lady smiled.
"Why thank you… that's very generous of you."
"Don't mention it."
"So, you mentioned you build this restaurant near the woods?"
"Yes, once the rain stops, head down straight from here. It's less than a kilometer away. But be careful… the forest is a natural maze, follow the paths and don't get too distracted. Also, there's a lot of bugs in that forest, or so I heard … I've actually never been there myself."
"Well, I'm on a quest of filling up my pokedex, so I need to catch all pokemon, bugs or not.." Crimson mentioned, taking another sip from her juice, deciding to sit down on one of the tall stools, seeing as the rain wasn't planning on stopping any time soon.
Suddenly, she heard a voice from her left:
"I take it you're a Pokemon trainer …"
The little girl that was sitting on the table earlier was now sitting on the stool next to Crimson, staring at her. She wore a simple red dress and had light brown hair tied in two medium-length twintails, her eyes were green.
"Yeah, I am …" She replied awkwardly, not sure how the hell the little girl moved so quickly and silently.
"…" The little girl just stared at Crimson with an unsure expression.
"Ehehe… something wrong?"
".. Ratattas have a wicked bite, have you caught one yet?"
"Uhm, yes, yes I have."Crimson replied
"Oh my gosh, can I see it? I love Ratattas!"
"Uh, sure." Crimson answered, pulling out her Ratattas Pokeball and releasing it.
The girl gasped.
"Oh my gosh it's so cute!" She said, picking the little mouse up and hugging it as it looked confused.
"Ehehe.." The woman with the apron chuckled awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I forgot to mention … that's my daughter, and she loves ratattas. "
"Oh, It's okay" Crimson smiled. "Ratatta doesn't seem to mind." She looked back at the little girl and her ratatta, which was now enjoying her embrace.
Crimson stayed and chatted with the nice family a little more, showing the restaurant keeper's daughter her other Pokemon as well, but she still stayed mostly impressed by her ratatta.
Finally, shortly after finishing her apple juice and using the bathroom once, the rain stopped, and Crimson was getting ready to continue.
"Ratatta, return." She retrieved all her pokemon, the last one being ratatta.
"Aww, can't you stay a little longer?" The little girl asked her.
"Now now, Milly, let the girl go. She has a long journey in front of her." Milly's mother replied.
"Ohh, okayyy. Bye bye, Crimson! Take care!"
Crimson bid her farewell before setting out, inhaling the fresh air after the rain. She then headed straight and shortly after reached the forest. Looking up at the sky, the dark clouds were now headed towards Viridian City. She then took a quick peek at her wristwatch. The time was already 3 PM. She sighed and looked at the forest in front of her. It wasn't nearly as thick as she thought. Drops of water were dripping from the leaves of the trees, as the sun began shining again, making the grass and tops of the trees sparkle beautifully. She started going down the main path.
~In The Forest~
Many creatures roam the forest ….
Crimson walked for a good 15 minutes before reaching a fork in the road with a tree in the middle, and a roughly 12 year old boy looking around.
"Oh hey, did you come bug hunting too?" He asked as he noticed the Crimson haired girl stop by.
"Kinda…" She made a simple reply.
"Me and my buddies came here looking for new bug Pokemon. They're out for Pokemon battles!"
"Hmm… good for them. Well, good luck with your bug hunting."
"You too!"
Crimson took her distance, before pulling out her Pokedex and opening the map application. She used the zoom feature, and what do you know, she could see a rough layout of the forest. She quickly found where she was and decided to head down the west path first, seeing as it ended in a dead end. She wanted to find some new bug Pokemon.
After reaching the end of the short pathway, she began walking around in the grass, her black silk stockings getting wet from the grass. She looked around everywhere, in bushes, up at the trees and down at the grass, no luck. "Huh, I guess bug Pokemon don't like the water.." She said to herself, looking around in the grass a bit more. She then noticed a dropped Pokeball on the ground. She picked it up in curiosity and opened it up. Empty. "I guess someone must have dropped this … maybe one of that bugboy's buddies." She said to herself, putting it in her backpack, planning to return it to it's rightful owner. Afterwards, she started walking around in the grass a bit more. She decided to take a quick detour through the wilder side of the forest back towards that fork with the bug hunter kid. Maybe the ball belonged to him? On the way there, she heard an odd noice around her. She stopped dead in her tracks and listened closely. It sounded odd, like some sort of a bug … that's it! She looked at the grass around it, scanning the area, and spotted a green creature masked underneath the grass. If it wasn't for it's yellowish horns, she would have never found it. "Aha! You're mine … go, Flare!" She threw Flare's Pokeball, releasing the fiery lizard, then pulled out her Pokedex, opening up the Type Matchups app. "Let's see… bug , bug, bug … aha! There it is … fire is one of it's weaknesses … Okay, Flare, use Ember!" She shouted, her Charmander obeying her command and firing a small burst of flames straight at the bug, knocking it back. "Good, Pokeball, go!"She threw one of her own pokeballs at it, capturing the creature quickly and with ease.
"Something tells me this is gonna be easy, Flare .." She smiled at her charmander as it looked up at her and smiled back. "Char-char!"
Crimson picked up her newly caught pokemon, seeing it was a caterpie. All it knew was Tackle and String Shot and it was level 5, not very powerful, but she was going to change that..
Crimson decided to keep her charmander out of it's ball for a while so it could walk around freely and she wouldn't have to throw her pokeball everytime a new Pokemon appeared. She finally found her way back to the fork in the road where she met that bug catcher, only to see he was gone. She sighed and then continued down the only path she hadn't visited yet, which also allowed her to progress further. After a while, she saw a different bug catcher sitting on a log, looking quite down. She approached him slowly.
"Man, I ran out of Pokeballs and my Pokemon are worn out already! I knew I should have carried extra balls …" He said when noticing the girl approaching him. She then remembered and took out the pokeball she had found earlier. "Uhm, is this yours?" She asked him, showing the ball to him. He examined it for a while. "Why… yes it is! No wonder I ran out so quickly, I dropped one. Thanks for finding it! … but you know what? You can keep it. I have no use for it anymore…"
"Okay then, thank I guess.." She retrieved the ball back to her bag.
"And I'm totally not doing this because you're cute or anything …" He mumbled awkwardly and silently.
"Pardon?"
"Char?" Her charmander looked just as confused as she was.
"Uuuuh, nothing, nothing! Carry on…"
"Ooookay then …" She shrugged and went on her merry way with Flare by her side. Until this day, she had no idea what the boy mumbled and why he reacted in such a peculiar way.
~Pokemon Battles~
Battle, battle, battle!
There were no new signs of Pokemon again, as Crimson continued making her way through the forest. Eventually, she ran into another bug catcher, this one clearly onto something as he was examining the trees. She approached him casually, but as soon as he heard her, he turned around in a flash. "Shhh, you'll scare the bugs away …" he whispered
"What are you talking about? There's no bugs here …" She looked at the boy unimpressed, her Flare was looking around, trying to sense any movement around them but to no avail.
"Shhh! Yes there are …" He kept whispering. "You may not see them, but they are hiding everywhere … Up in the trees, down in the grass, in the bushes …"
"Already looked there mate, nothing. "
"Oh, really? Well I'm wasting my time here then, I need to move to a drier location." He stopped whispering. "In the meantime, I haven't had a battle in a while. Wanna have a go at it?"
"I don't see why not." She replied. "Go, Flare!" Her Charmander jumped in front of her.
"A fire type. Huh? Clever girl … all I have are bugs. Go, Caterpie!"
"This is gonna be a breeze … Flare, use ember!"
"Caterpie, dodge it!" He commanded his caterpillar pokemon but to no avail as it was just too slow and couldn't move out of the way of the high speed flames coming it's way, as it was knocked out in one hit.
"Darn it! Caterpie, return!... Now, go Weedle!"
"A weedle huh…" This one was new for here, but it didn't look much different from it's cousin. "Flare, use ember again, full power!" Her Charmander fired a burst of flames at the weedle.
"Weedle, dodge it, then use silk shot!"
Crimson underestimated the weedle, as it was much quicker than the Caterpie and managed to just barely dodge the ember attack and shoot out string, encasing her Charmander in a small trap of the sticky stuff.
"So they do have different stats .." She thought to herself
"Weedle, use poison sting!"
That command snapped her out of her thoughts. She waited until the right moment… "Now, Flare, use Ember in yourself!" She said just before the weedle was about to sting her Charmander with it's poisonous tail. Flare used flamethrower on it's body, burning the string off, the heat that the flames emitted also countered the Weedle's attack as it stopped and couldn't bare the heat. "Good, now use Ember on Weedle!"
"Chaaaaaaar!" Her Charmander fired another burst of flames, landing a direct hit on the weedle.
"… I saw that one coming. Nice strategy though." The bugboy said as he retrieved his Weedle to it's pokeball. She also retrieved her Charmander, seeing as it had reached level 7.
After taking her reward, she moved on, taking a quick look at her Pokedex along the way, seeing that flying types were also a good matchup against bug types, so she figured she'd use her Pidgey in her next battle. And that's when she heard the branches of a nearby tree moving. "Hmmm." She stared at the tree for a few seconds before silently releasing her pidgey and telling it to use tackle on the tree. As it did so, a Weedle fell to the ground. "Aha! Pidgey, quickly, use tackle while it's still unconscious!"
That tackle attack, combined with the fall, was just the boost Crimson needed. She threw a pokeball at the weedle, capturing it with ease. Not only that, her Pidgey also leveled up and learned a new move: Gust, which was also her first flying type move.
She let her Pidgey fly around as she continued down the road, finding an antidote and a potion along the way, probably dropped by the bug catchers. Eventually she ran into yet another bug catcher. "Hey, you! Wanna battle? I wanna test out my newly caught Pokemon on you!"
"Fine by me." She said, readying her Pidgey for battle.
This kid was more advanced than the other though, as he had a Metapod. She looked it up but saw no data, as she hadn't caught it yet.
"Metapod, use harden!"
The Metapod seemed like it did nothing, so Crimson just shrugged it off and told Pidgey to use gust on it, knocking it down instantly.
His next Pokemon was a Kakuna, another new one.
"Kakuna, use harden!"
Same thing with the Kakuna happened, she knocked it down with one hit after what seemed to do nothing. Her Pidgey leveled up once more, according to her Pokedex.
"Man, I thought harden was supposed to make Pokemon stronger … oh well, you win fair and square … although I'd hate to fall down like this." He said with a grudge, hading over her prize money.
After a bit more wandering around, Crimson reached the final little path, at the end of it she could see the exit of the forest, but there was yet another bug catcher standing in her way. This one was looking for something as well…
He suddenly noticed her passing by and stopped her. "Hey, have you seen a potion drop anywhere?"
"Uhm, yes actually, I found this …" She showed him the potion she had found earlier.
"Oh, that's it! Thank you!" he said, taking it from her. "I dunno how you found it, but be careful about dropping stuff around here, they're pretty hard to find once you do drop them. I dunno how you spotted my potion, but thanks a lot!"
"No problem." She said, about to continue on her way, her Pidgey flying around freely above them.
"Hey, wait! … Wanna battle?"
"Sure." Third victory in a row, perhaps? She thought, and she was correct. Yet another easy victory thanks to her Pidgey. She had now received over 2000 Pokedollars just by battling. Money was the least of her worries now.
As she was approaching the edge of the forest, something suddenly ran out of a bush and stopped in front of her. It was a yellow-ish mouse. It looked at her curiously. "Pika?"
She opened up her Pokedex. All it said was it was a Pikachu, an electric type, which has an advantage over flying types. Reading that, she quickly withdrew her Pidgey and sent out her Ratatta. "Ratatta, Tackle, now!"
Her speedy mouse charged straight at the Pikachu, but the yellow rat was so fast, it easily jumped over her ratatta, and then shocked it with electricity.
"Ratatta, no!" She shouted, but then saw her ratatta gettiping up slowly. It took a lot of damage, but it wasn't all lost.
"I must distract it somehow …" She thought to herself, and then remembered the trip with the tail.
"Use tail whip!"
Her ratatta did as told and whipped it's tail back and forth, as it distacted the Pikachu in an almost hypnotic way.
"Now, approach it… slowly.. and keep waggling your tail."
Ratatta did as told, getting closer and closer to the hypnotized Pikachu.
"Now … use tackle!" She shouted as it was only a few inches away from the Pikachu. It did just as told, and landed a direct hit. "Excellent, Pokeball, go!" She threw her pre-final pokeball at the Pikachu, but to no avail. The pokemon escaped it's ball and shocked her ratatta for revenge, knocking it down.
"Crap …" She retrieved it. "You did great, Ratty."
She then called out her Charmander, as it was her most reliable Pokemon.
"Flare, use Ember!"
That attack went to waste, as Pikachu just dodged it easily.
"urgh…" Crimson looked around at her surroundings, trying to thing something through as the Pikachu was charging up electricity, ready to shock her lizard. She then noticed a loose branch above the Pikachu.
"Flare, use Ember on that branch over there!" She said, pointing towards the branch. "Char-Char! Chaaaaaaaaaar!" Flare fired a small burst of flames at the branch, knocking it down. "Pika?" the Pikachu looked up in confusion only to get hit right on the head. "Good, Pokeball, go!" She threw her final Pokeball. The other one was broken, due to the Pokemon breaking free. The ball started to wiggle, and it was the most intense moment of Crimson's journey so far, but finally, she heard that familiar beep sound. "We did it, Flare, we did it!" She jumped up in joy, her Charmander jumping in her arms in happiness. After the victory, Pikachu's data was added to the Dex. This particular one was level 6, and it knew Thundershock, Growl and Thunderwave. "Not bad…" She thought to herself as she exited the forest.
~Hello, Pewter City!~
The Rock Grey City …
Crimson took a quick peek at her wristwatch. It was now 6 PM, she had spent around 3 hours in the Viridian Forest, and caught 3 new Pokemon, adding up to a total of eight. She was happy, although her entire party was exhausted. She needed to reach the next town, and fast. But she was in luck, as Pewter City was really close to the Viridian Forest, and she reached it in a mere 20 minute walk from the woods
Next time: Azure's Journey to Pewter City and Beyond