Pokemon Tales: Red Chapter 25: The Flowers Blooming in Winter.

It was the second day of Red's stay in Celadon City when he decided to challenge the local Pokemon Gym. The place wasn't hard but once he found it he started to wonder if everything was alright with him. The building was surrounded by a field of white flowers even though it was almost winter. He touched one of them to find out if it wasn't artificial but his suspicions proved incorrect. The shock of witnessing such a thing didn't occupy his mind for too long and about a minute later he already reached the Gym's door. On his way he considered going to a store after being done with the battle, in order to buy himself some warmer clothes and shoes. The automatic door slid open and he went into the lobby.

"Sorry. We're closed. Can you leave?" a voice asked as soon as he stepped inside.

He looked towards the place where there would usually be a desk but there was nothing there, at least not at an eye level. After tilting his head down, he saw a girl with neck long brown hair, wearing a pink kimono laying on a pile of pillows while reading a book. She didn't look up at him, probably thinking that her words were enough to make him leave. Instead, the boy took his time by looking around and seeing that instead of the floor, the Gym had earth with grass and growing out of it. There were some plants growing here and there and multiple other pillows scattered around. This sight reminded him more of some kind of resort than of a fighting ground.

"Why are you still here?" the girl asked with an impatient voice after noticing that he still hasn't left.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Yes. You're still here even though I told you very clearly that we're closed. What more do you want?"

"What does that even mean? Are you closed forever?" he inquired.

"Nope. Probably just for the day. Erika isn't here but we like to hang out in this place so she left it open for us."

"Us?" he asked while looking through the corridor leading to the main part of the Gym.

Another girl, this one had red hair and wore a magenta-colored kimono, approached them while holding a tray with a cup of tea and a small bowl of cookies.

"Oh. We have a guest? Did you invite this boy?" she asked the one with the book.

"W-wha?! Are you crazy?!" she seemed offended "You know I have eyes only for Erika-sama!"

"Sama? Is that her surname? Maybe Erika is just a shortened version of Erikasama?" Red pondered quietly.

"So what's your deal?" the girl in magenta asked after putting down the tray in front of the other one.

"I came here to challenge this Erikasama. I think. It sounds like she's the Gym leader." the boy responded.

"Didn't she tell you that she isn't here?" the magenta one asked while pointing at the pink one.

"I did! And he's still here!"

"She started by asking me to leave. I just wanted to hear an explanation. I was just surprised since I never... Wait... I did. Well, that doesn't matter. I'll return here tomorrow if she's not here."

"Sorry for the trouble." the magenta girl said while bowing a little.

"And never come back!" the pink one yelled out when the boy began leaving.

The other girl looked at her friend with irritation and, as soon as the doors closed behind Red, she leapt towards her friend in order to punish her for this kind of attitude.

"Wait! You'll spill the tea on my book!" was the last thing the boy heard before walking away from the building.

. . .

"Aren't you Professor Oak's grandson?"

Green, who was at that time busy with reading a newspaper while sitting on a couch in a Pokemon Center, looked at the old woman who approached him to ask the question.

"My name is Green..." he said after letting out a sigh "...Although yes, Professor Oak is my grandfather. Are you a fan or something?"

"Is it that obvious?" the woman asked while touching her cheek as if she was trying to show that she was embarrassed, even though the boy could tell that she did so jokingly "I remembered seeing you in one of those shows they had your grandfather on. You helped him with showing how... what was it again? I can't remember. But anyway, it must be amazing to have someone so famous and smart as your grandfather. If I could..."

"Do you have some business with me?" Green interrupted while giving her a cold look.

"Oh! Yes. Since you're his grandson you must have at least a fraction of his knowledge about Pokemon. My dear Lico disappeared somewhere and I need help finding her." she said while taking out a picture of a Mankey from her purse "I asked the police to help me search for her but it seems like there's been a lot of cases of Pokemon disappearing around the city in the last couple weeks, so they're helpless. I'm ready to pay any amount if you help me find her!"

A couple people in the Pokemon Center looked in their direction after the woman raised her voice so the teenager put his pointing finger in front of his nose to let her know that she shouldn't be so loud.

"I don't need your money. I'm his grandson after all." he said after standing up "But I can look around for your Pokemon, although I can't promise anything. It's still early so I'll start searching right away."

He put the newspaper in his bag before starting to walk towards the exit.

"Oh." the woman was surprised by how quickly he accepted but she still bowed as much as her old age allowed her "Thank you so much... uuh..."

"My name is Green." he repeated his introduction before leaving.

He returned shortly afterward since his attitude made him forget to ask questions that could help in finding the Pokemon.

. . .

"I guess this is the place."

After asking around various people in order to find a good place to buy himself winter clothes, Red learned that the best place to visit was the Celadon Department Store. According to the locals the shop had everything a person could ever ask for. Standing in front of the massive structure with several stories, the boy started to believe that to be possible. Thankfully, the first floor had a reception desk at which one could receive a free map of the whole place. Unfortunately, as soon as he looked inside the brochure, there were many things that caught his attention, distracting him from his original goal.

"Maybe I should try out one of those restaurants. Oh, they have a wide variety of healing items. Greatballs, huh? They're better than pokeballs and they have a sale, but do I need any if I have a full team already?" he kept saying such things to himself for quite some time before he found something that sounded far more interesting than what any of the other shops had to offer "Evolutionary stones? Isn't that what Eevee needs to evolve?"

. . .

Even during the morning on a weekday, the building was full of customers. After witnessing the crowds around the elevators, Red decided to take the stairs to reach the floor on which he could buy the evolutionary stones. It still took him a long time to get to the place specified on the map since he spent a lot of time looking around at other things. He even stopped to taste a free sample of some expensive cheese from Kalos.

After about 30 minutes of walking around he arrived at the stone shop. He couldn't tell how big it was from the outside but once he entered through the door he saw that it was fairly small, with only a couple of cabinets against the walls, two smaller ones in the middle, and another one serving as the counter. There was only one employee and no other customers. He approached the young man behind the counter, who was too occupied with his phone to notice that someone entered the shop.

"Excuse me?"

The clerk looked at him and for a second it seemed like he saw a ghost. He almost dropped his phone after realizing that Red was standing in front of him. He caught it in time and put it in his pocket before standing up and bowing so much that he hit the top of the counter with his head.

"Good day, dear sir! How can I be of service?!" he shouted while a small drop of blood fell from a wound on the middle of his forehead.

"Are you alright?" Red asked, afraid for the man's health.

"Of course!" the other person yelled while quickly wiping away the blood, making a smear that made him look even worse "Are you interested in one... or maybe even... multiple of our fine wares?!"

"I think I'll be going now..." the teenager said while beginning to turn away, right after which he felt something grabbing his arm.

"You can't go! I haven't had a customer in forever! If I don't sell something the shop's going to get closed down!"

"How is me buying something going to save your shop?!" Red asked while shaking the man's hand off himself.

"Now that you say that..." the man said to himself while not noticing the fact that he was leaning over the counter so much that he was about to fall.

Red closed his eyes since he didn't want to witness how painful the clerk's landing would be.

"But you came here since you wanted to buy something, right?" the man asked while laying with his face down on the floor.

"Kinda... I just remembered that I actually wanted to buy clothes but I got this map and became interested in these evolutionary stones."

"Evolutionary stones aren't the only things we sell." the man said while slowly getting on his feet "We also have some that are just for show. You know... stuff you would buy for your girlfriend if you wanted to go cheap on a gift."

"I... Yeah, no. Just tell me about the evolutionary stones for now."

"A man who knows what he wants. I like that!" the clerk made a swinging motion with his hand bent at the elbow while saying that "Let me direct you toward this cabinet behind me."

"So these are the evolutionary stones? There are five kinds... Does that mean that Eevee can evolve into 5 different forms?"

"What? No. No, no, no." said the clerk "I mean, maybe. I think I heard there are some other ways for Eevee to evolve but only three types of evolutionary stones will actually work on Eevee. If you use Water Stone, it will evolve into a Vaporeon. Thunder Stone will change it into Jolteon and Fire Stone will make it a Flareon."

While listening to the man's explanation, Red checked the Pokedex to see how each evolution looked like. Thinking about evolving Eevee made him feel weird. While some of his other Pokemon evolved already, even if he was to add up the time he spent with each of them, it would be nowhere near as long as the time he spent with Eevee. He was so used to him that making a decision about what he should evolve to would be undoubtedly very hard.

"What about the other tw... Wait a moment. I have this one." Red said after noticing that one of stones was the Moon Stone just like the two he got at Mt. Moon.

"This one won't work on Eevee but it can help you with evolving a Clefairy, a Jigglypuff or a Nidoran, but since you already have oneee... maybe you'd prefer a Leaf Stone?" the man smiled nervously while asking the question.

"The name makes it sound like it would be used for evolving Grass type Pokemon."

"Very perceptive, dear customer. You can use it to evolve your Gloom, Weepinbell or Exeggcute."

The clerk sounded very passionate while explaining all those things. It was obvious he was doing his best to make the boy buy at least one of the stones.

"Weeell... I don't have any of the Pokemon you mentioned so..."

"Wait! You must have something that needs a stone! Maybe a Pikachu?!"

"Already evolved."

"Damn it!" the clerk yelled while kicking the air "What else do you have?!"

"I..." Red hesitated since he didn't want to mention Eevee "I know that Charmeleon and Gyarados don't need stones. I haven't checked whether Pidgeotto or Oddish..."

"Oddish!" the man seemed to instantly cheer up after hearing that name.

He lifted the teenager up and spun him around, almost making him hit one of the cabinets.

"Whaaat isss going ooon?" Red asked right as he felt the rotation was about to make him throw up.

The clerk let him down and proudly stated "Oddish evolves into Gloom! If you buy one of my Leaf Stones, the moment your Oddish evolves you can use the stone to get two evolutions at the price of one!"

"That's... great..." Red responded while making sure that he wouldn't vomit by taking deep breaths.

"Do you have a preference for which one you like? They all work the same but I have them in a couple slightly different shapes. Like this one..." the man said while showing one of the Leaf Stones "...you can see that it's slightly more round."

"I don't care. Any is fine."

"Okay. Like they say, "The customer is always right"." the clerk said before taking out a small box to put the stone into "This thing will keep the energy from leaking outside and accidentally causing a Pokemon to evolve. You wouldn't accidentally want to evolve a nearby Pokemon that doesn't belong to you."

Red, who finally felt a little better, took out his wallet while asking "How much do I owe you?"

"That'll be 2100 gold."

"Wait... Are you serious?"

Both of them fell silent for a long time, trying to understand the other ones thought process.

"Is it too much?" the clerk asked after about half a minute.

"It's not enough! I don't know how you acquire them but you're providing people with a means of evolution that would be otherwise impossible! You should charge them at least five times as much. No one would argue about it and there's a chance you wouldn't have to close down your shop!"

"Oh..." the man looked ashamed of the fact he didn't realize that "Alright. Then that'll be 21000 gold."

"Wait, wait, wait. You don't have to put this new price in effect right now... Also, I feel like your math is off."

"I'm playing catch up. Give me a break."

"How about giving me a deal. I helped you come up with this idea. Maybe you can lower the price by 50% this one time?"

"That's a deal." the man said with a smile while grabbing the money from the boy's hand.

. . .

While exploring the rest of the floor he was on, Red noticed a stand selling sweet buns so he stopped there to buy one for himself. While eating it he came up with an interesting idea, a way to motivate one of his Pokemon, the one who always acted like he would rather sleep all day than take part in Pokemon battles. Oddish could be relied on in battle but the boy imagined how much the Pokemon could improve if he had something to work towards. Charmeleon was a natural fighter, Raichu acted like all his fights were a way to improve his standing as the centerpiece of Red's team, Eevee and Gyarados just wanted for their trainer to be happy. He still didn't have a good feel of what Pidgeotto was like but he suspected that even the newest addition had a better attitude than the Grass Pokemon.

"Come out, Oddish."

He had to grab the Pokemon's leaves, as soon as he went out of his ball, since he was asleep and would most likely hit the floor if the boy didn't react in time.

"Wake up, buddy." he said while shaking the Pokemon around.

As soon as Oddish opened his eyes, he seemed to focus them on something else than his trainer's voice or face. He swung his body and escaped Red's grasp in order to fly towards the boy's other hand in which he held the half-eaten sweet bun. He spread his mouth to swallow the entire thing while Red let go of it to not have his hand covered in the Pokemon's saliva. Oddish landed on the floor and turned towards his trainer with a satisfied expression which could also mean that he wanted to eat another one. Instead, the boy bent down and picked him up while stretching his cheeks.

"I'm not mad that you ate it, but next time make sure to chew instead of swallowing things whole. Even if your face is kinda elastic I don't know if I could help you if you started chocking on something like that. Got it?"

He wasn't sure if the Pokemon understood the message. He did nod, but his expression of joy after eating the bun didn't seem to change.

"Alright. Never mind." he said before putting Oddish down "The important thing is that the bun wasn't the reason I called you out of your pokeball. I have something to show you."

Thinking that it was another thing he could eat, Oddish stood at attention while Red took off his backpack to take out the box containing the Leaf Stone.

"See this thing? If you work hard, not only during the battles but also during our trainings, you will evolve into your next stage. Then, using this stone you will be able to achieve even greater power. Do you understand what it means?"

Seeing that the Pokemon looked like he thought the stone was edible and was about to try eating it in the same way he ate the bun, Red quickly closed the box and put it back. Oddish didn't protest but he still looked confused by his trainer's actions.

"How can I explain it to you in such a way that you would understand?" pondered the young man.

. . .

"I thought that climbing to some high place would allow us to spot that Mankey. If she's in a city it would make sense that she would spend her time on rooftops but..." Green lamented that his search proved completely unsuccessful "We checked the major parks but with all the leaves gone, it wouldn't even make sense for her to hide amongst trees. What do you think? Have you been able to catch her scent?"

He was sitting on a bench in some quiet part of the city. Besides him was a Vulpix he caught since he parted ways with Red. The fox shook its head, signifying that it also didn't find any clues about their targets whereabouts.

"It's possible it left the city but... the thing I'm worried about is that the lady said that this isn't the only case of a Pokemon disappearing. But even if someone's kidnapping them, how would I learn anything about it. I could probably try to get some information in like a bar or something. That's what they do in the movies. But is anything even open at this hour?" right as he finished speaking, he suddenly lost his vision.

Without panicking, he quickly realized that a piece of paper landed on his face. It was an advertisement for the biggest casino in Kanto, located in the middle of the city he was currently in.

"Celadon Palace, huh? And it's open 24/7. Well, it's better than waiting till the evening for the bars to open."

He hid the advertisement in his pocket and stood up before putting Vulpix back in its ball. He hasn't ever been in a casino but he didn't imagine that Pokemon were allowed inside.

. . .

While trying to come up with a way to explain to Oddish what he wanted from him, Red almost bumped into someone. Having done so a couple times during his travels, he learned to naturally dodge. That didn't completely work since it only made him walk into the person standing right next to the one he was trying to avoid.

"I'm sorry. I..." he started apologizing without looking at who it was.

"You should be sorry you... you... It's you!"

"Huh?"

He looked up and realized that it was the girl in the pink kimono he met in the Gym a couple hours earlier. He didn't recognize her at first since she changed into a turquoise one with an orange maple leaf pattern. When he turned his head he saw that the other girl was the person he tried to avoid. She also changed her kimono, now sporting a yellow one with a gray circle pattern on the upper left part.

"Fancy running into you here. We never really introduced ourselves, probably since it seems like you've already set your eyes on Erika. My name is Kanna." said the latter one.

"What do you mean by "set your eyes on Erika"?! Just you try to lay a hand on her and I will kick your ass." added the former one.

"Her name is Sumire. Don't mind her."

Red immediately got Déjà vu since in some ways the girls reminded him of Blue and Fille.

"My name's Red. So..." he didn't exactly know if he wanted to have a conversation with them, especially since Sumire seemed to want to pierce him with her stare after hearing Kanna's joke "...What are you doing here?"

"Oh. I thought we were here for the same reason." said the girl in yellow "What I said before wasn't completely a joke. I thought you were so desperate for a fight that you searched for Erika and you managed to somehow find her."

"Wait... What? She's here? Where?"

Without saying anything, Kanna pointed towards a stage surrounded by cheering people which Red must have somehow missed while being occupied by his thoughts regarding Oddish's evolution. On top of it was a number of different girls in stylish clothes holding small bottles with differently colored liquids. Even though he never met her, Erika immediately stood out to him. It wasn't just the fact she was the only one wearing a kimono, a white one to boot, but there was just this air of elegance about her.

"Huh. I've calmed down a little." he commented.

"What do you mean?" asked Kanna.

"It was weird hearing her name so many times and not knowing what she looked like but I'm really relieved."

"What the hell does that mean?" Sumire grabbed him by his clothes while asking that "Don't tell me you've really fallen in love with her after seeing her for the first time!"

"No. Actually it's the opposite. I don't mind someone acting like a wild Ponyta just like you are right now, but one look at Erika was somehow enough to convince me that there's no way we would ever get along, no matter how beautiful she may be."


Hey. It's me. The guy who can't keep his damn word. We didn't have a Gym battle in this chapter. Red barely even met Erika. But I didn't want to make you wait for a new chapter for too long. I hope you can forgive me and wait till the next chapter for the battle.

This chapter was mostly set up for future stuff. Aside from Red wanting to fight Erika, we have Green returning to the story after like 5 or 6 months(It's only been around 3 months for the characters) and Red getting prepared to evolve Oddish. I tried to subtly hint at a couple other things that will come to play in the near future. We'll see how that works. I have no idea how perceptive you guys are.

The title this time isn't a pun or a wordplay. I tried to come up with something witty that would tie up everything in this chapter but I couldn't so I tried going poetic. Aside from the flowers in front of the Gym, the title refers to Red wanting to evolve Oddish(evolution=blooming) and also to Erika's beauty since blooming as an adjective means healthy and attractive.

Maybe the scene with the shop clerk was too long but even if the character I create has a one-off role, I want them to be entertaining. If it was just Red buying the stone, the scene would be half as long but 10 times more boring. I've been watching Umbrella Academy and everyone on that show is messed up so I felt like doing this type of character.

When it comes to the kimono girls, their names and hair color(their personalities to a lesser extent) are a reference to something. You'll learn what it is in the next chapter since I already came up with a title but you can try to guess in the meantime. I'm not really sure if the meaner one is homosexual or if she's just admiring Erika like a big sister. Maybe both.

Red. Team: Eevee, Charmeleon, Raichu, Oddish, Gyarados, Pidgeotto.

Badges: 3

Green. Team: Ivysaur, Nidorina, Jigglypuff, Hitmonlee, Vulpix, ?.

Badges: 3

Blue. Team: Bellsprout(Bell), Wartortle(Tori), Zubat(?), Graveler(?).

Badges: 3

Alex. Team: Ditto, ?, ?, ?.

Angie. Team: Dragonair, Sandslash.

Peter. Team: Dodrio, Haunter, ?.