For wee Red, the first time he knew, he was 8 years old.
He remembered he was playing in the woods outside Pallet Town with the neighbor boys. It was summer, and it was boiling hot out, even among the shady redwoods. But the boys didn't know any better - to them, the heat was just a fact of life, like being forced to eat vegetables, and girls having cooties.
It was a favorite game among the boys to reenact the week's episode of Pokémon Sentai Rangers; this week, Red's neighbor, a taller, well-fed youngster named Green, was playing the part of Lord Vileplume, whose poison spores led to the subjugation of the entire planet of Bulbasauria.
Green wasn't just any kid, though; he was perhaps the closest thing Pallet Town had to a child star, the grandson of one of the country's eminent science officers. Beyond his fame, though, Green was a problem child, put lightly. He was the same age as Red, and the similarities did not end there. The boys were born on the same day, in the same wing of the same hospital, to two women who lived on the same street. But life was difficult for the children of war; doubly so for young Green, whose mother died in childbirth and whose father never returned from overseas.
He was an angry boy, understandably. This anger meant that when he played the villain in the boys' reenactments of their favorite show, he committed.
Green climbed atop a mossy tree stump and stamped his feet, a gesture partly improvised and partly in rebellion against shoes a half-size too small. "Now, humans! Breathe deep of my poison, and suffer!" He struck a dynamic pose and crushed a grepa flower in his hand, producing a characteristic puff of yellow pollen.
Green, for whatever reason, did not like Red. He was physically larger than Red, and he used his mass advantage to full effect. He was a bully, and a vicious one at that. Red's arms and legs were covered in scars from Green's imaginative tortures. But nobody in the group saw this as abnormal; they were all too used to the fucked up Oak kid. Nobody ever said anything, certainly not to any adults, and certainly not to Green.
On some level, Red empathized. He knew what it was like to grow up without a dad, though he had never suffered the grief of death. But unlike Green, Red would never hurt a soul. Not a friend, not even an enemy. It was this quiet pacifism that made him the biggest target of the Oak boy's ire.
It starts with a look, they always said. A glint in the eyes. A stolen glance. From the corners of the eyes, one could see them watching. Staring. That's how it always starts, they said.
"Hold your breath!" Green laughed, but Red did not hear him. His attention was focused on the tiny yellow rodent sat 20 yards away.
It's looking at me. Why is it looking at me like that? Red thought to himself. His bright hazel eyes met the rodent's bulging black orbs, seated deep in its mouselike face. It sat alert on a branch across the woods, every hair on its body standing like a twitch fiber. As if it sensed some sort of threat in the group of boys.
Seconds seemingly turned to minutes turned to hours, and Red became absolutely lost in those beady, black eyes.
It's like it's looking at my soul.
Red gasped for breath as he suddenly felt Green's full weight bearing down from behind, as the larger boy pinned wee Red to the ground. Red could only note the horrified expressions of his friends as warm liquid sprayed and then pooled on his back as Green cackled.
By the time he fought off the larger boy, it was too late. He was soaked in Green's foul-smelling urine. He glanced weakly in the direction of the tree where the rodent once perched, but it had already run away.
Red left the forest alone and knocked on the door closest to the edge of town, where Old Mrs. Anita lived. She graciously offered to let him bathe and offered to wash his clothes, and he did. Walking home wearing Mrs. Anita's grandson's oversized clothes and carrying his soiled outfit in a plastic shopping bag, Red thought of his father. He wondered if the war was almost over. He wondered when Dad would write.
He wondered what that rodent was thinking. He knew that Pokémon were smarter than they seemed. He knew that they could be as smart as people, maybe even smarter. But he also knew that they were, well, wild. They didn't think the way humans did.
Then...why did it look at him that way? Almost like...
Like I fucked its mother, Red thought to himself. He didn't know what it meant, but Green said it all the time. Never around adults, Red noticed - whatever it meant, he knew it was dirty. Mean.
Those bulbous black eyes, like perfect round marbles set inside angry eyebrows. Angry. But not simple animal anger. The look betrayed complex emotion.
It wasn't simply animal instincts.
It felt like a challenge.
Author Note: I'm very excited to share this story with you, and want to thank everyone who reads it for your time. If you like it, please leave a review!