Pokemon Tales: Red Chapter 58: In the Mind's Eye.
Red followed Alex through several flights of stairs before the two of them stopped in front of a set of double doors. The boy counted the floors and although he wasn't sure how tall the building was, he felt that they were still fairly far from the top floor where he left Peter earlier in the day. On their way they didn't run into anyone, be it the employees of this building or other Team Rocket members.
"Did Peter leave and the only ones remaining are the people in the lobby or…" he thought while glancing at the ceiling as if he wanted to see through the walls to find out.
"Yes. This is the kind of place I wanted." Alex said after opening the doors slightly to peek inside the room.
He signaled with his head that he wanted Red to follow him inside and the boy had no reason to refuse. Even though the Admin acted suspiciously, the trainer couldn't feel any malicious intent from him.
The room was still mostly covered in darkness when Red went inside so it was hard to tell where they were but he noticed Alex reaching for the light switch so he closed his eyes for a second so as to not be blinded by the light. Once he opened them, he saw what looked like a playground. Most of the floor was covered by foam mats connected to each other like puzzle pieces. There was a slide in one corner of the room, a trampoline in another, and a bunch of toys scattered around. Most of the things in this place looked like they were intended for children to play with but there were also some tables and chairs near one wall, right next to a shelf that had books for children as well as some science and fashion magazines.
"What is this place?" Red asked, audibly confused, after looking around for a solid minute.
"It's like a place for employees to put their children in if for example the school is out but they can't find a babysitter. They have some chairs for adults to sit and observe the little rascals if that's what they want to do during their lunch break." the Admin explained "There wouldn't be any on the lower floors but I figured as we went up, it was more probable for us to find one of such playrooms."
"And you wanted to find one because…?"
"With all the desks and glass walls everywhere in this building this seems like the best type of place to have a fight. Lots of space and padding on the floor. Since we're about half way up the building, we're far from the people in the lobby as well as the ones at the top so we can be sure that no one will interrupt us."
"You brought me here to fight me?"
"Well, not "you" you. Our Pokemon would do the fighting." Alex said as if it wasn't obvious.
He walked a couple circles around Red.
"Of course there's ways to prevent that. You see, I have reasons to suspect that you and Green aren't completely devoted to Team Rocket's cause. Truth be told… neither am I. My options are either to leave and possibly miss out on the place the boss promised me I would have in his new world or stay and see things through, leaving only if things don't work out."
"But…"
"If you plan to stop the boss, I'll never be able to find out if he was just a crazy rich and crazy in the head asshole or if his promises were all true. I won't let anyone take away my agency. I need to know how this whole operation ends. Are you…"
Red didn't give Alex a chance to finish. He interrupted his speech by throwing a pokeball that went past the Admin and hit the wall behind him. The man had to turn around in order to see which Pokemon Red picked for this fight, but as he was about to do it, he realized that it was probably meant as a distraction so he fixed his gaze on Red who to his surprise was in the middle of taking off his clothes. Under the Team Rocket garb hidden away were the same clothes that Red started his journey around Kanto in. He reached for his storage pad in order to get the last missing piece.
"Maybe it's weird to say this but I missed you." the boy said while switching the standard Team Rocket hat for his red cap.
Alex quickly looked behind him while reaching for two pokeballs. The Pokemon that Red summoned turned out to be Eevee. The Admin threw the balls, one in Red's direction and one towards the boy's Pokemon.
"Aqua Ring! Pin Missile!"
The one Eevee had to face was Vaporeon whose trainer wanted it to prepare before beginning the battle. On the other side of the room, Jolteon shot several needles in Red's direction. The boy jumped to the side, barely dodging the attack but the way he moved gave Alex an idea how to make this fight much shorter.
"Aim at his belt!"
Jolteon repeated the attack. Red tried to dodge it once again and, although he himself wasn't hurt, one of the needles managed to hit one of his pokeballs which caused a domino effect that made all of them detach from their clips and fall all over the floor. He considered trying to pick them up but Jolteon immediately shot another volley of missiles that blocked off access to three of the pokeballs. If Red tried to bend down or crouch he would make for an easy target. Having realized that, the boy decided to try and focus on helping Eevee deal with Vaporeon while waiting for a better opportunity to get back his pokeballs.
As Red ran across the room to get closer to his Pokemon, Jolteon looked at its trainer who made a quick whistling sound with his mouth to get its attention.
"Just try not to kill him." Alex ordered quietly.
The electric Pokemon nodded to show that it understood and the two of them looked back at Red who was already almost next to Eevee who was jumping around, trying to get a read on Vaporeon so that it could get past it.
"Let's do this how we trained, buddy." Red said after getting behind Eevee "Pin Missile!"
Alex wanted to react by asking "What?" but the surprise was so big that the words failed to escape his mouth.
Eevee's usually soft fur turned into hard spikes that shot out towards Vaporeon. The normal type Pokemon made sure to aim a little higher. Since Vaporeon's instinct was to jump back to avoid the attack it moved exactly into a position where the needles would reach it. The ring of water surrounding it restored it somewhat but the damage was still very much felt.
"Let's see what else they give us." Red said to his Pokemon who made sure to keep its eyes on the enemies.
"I've never seen Red's Eevee use Pin Missile. I didn't even realize that it was a possibility. Jolteon learned it only after evolving but none of my Eevees ever knew how to do it. Maybe his Eevee is special or…"
Alex decided to dismiss the thoughts for that moment. It didn't look like the opponent was planning on advancing towards them, probably trying to avoid getting attacked from two directions, which meant that he had to be the one to go on the offensive.
"Agility! Acid Armor!"
Since the Pokemon were at a safe distance, Alex used this chance to allow them to raise their stats.
"Let's use Acid Armor too, Eevee!"
"What? Why does it sound so random?" Red's words once again caught Alex off-guard.
Eevee covered itself in the same veil of purple liquid as Vaporeon which to the Admin made even less sense than it being able to change its fur.
"Quick Attack!" Alex ordered his water type Pokemon.
As Vaporeon was nearing the opponent he gave command to Jolteon "Go in there with Thunder Fang!"
Thanks to using Agility beforehand, Jolteon was almost as fast as Vaporeon, but Alex seemed to forget how Quick Attack was Eevee's speciality. When its trainer ordered it to use the move, it managed to slip past Vaporeon without getting hit. It was almost caught in Jolteon's jaws but its small size allowed it to stay out of the opponent's reach.
"Bite!" Red instructed his Pokemon while pointing to Vaporeon who didn't manage to stop itself from moving across a chosen arc.
Eevee sunk its teeth in the blue Pokemon's tail which proved to be a shocking experience for the water type since a jolt of electricity was sent through its body. This was the attack that allowed Alex to start clueing in on how the normal type Pokemon was able to use all those different moves.
"The exact moves that my Pokemon used right before it did…" he thought.
The Admin decided against hastily coming to wrong conclusions and reached for one of his pokeballs to summon someone who would be able to help him clarify whether his hypothesis was correct or not.
"It's time to join the fray, Flareon!"
The last of Alex's eeveelutions appeared on the battlefield, right next to its trainer.
"Get away, you two!" the man made sure that his Pokemon put some distance between themselves and Eevee so that they would not be caught in what was going to happen next "Flamethrower!"
"Use Quick Attack to get away!"
Flareon shot out a stream of fire and even though Eevee initially managed to avoid it, the fire type Pokemon's trainer didn't want it to stop. Eevee jumped onto the trampoline in the corner which allowed it to get onto the wall and run across it. As Red's Pokemon began losing momentum, it started slipping towards the windows that lined the wall and overlooked the western part of Saffron City. Eevee fell down and, trying to follow it with its Flamethrower, Flareon destroyed several windows. The frames fell towards the pavement several stories below them while glass rained both inside and out. Afraid that it would hurt its trainer either with fire or the flying pieces of glass, Flareon stopped its attack and looked at Alex to see if it did the right thing. The Admin seemed to be too focused on Eevee to notice his own Pokemon.
"It didn't use Flamethrower. Was it all just a coincidence or…" wondering, he glanced towards Red who wasn't paying him any attention.
Eevee was about to reach one of the pokeballs scattered on the floor. Seeing as its trainer was distracted, Jolteon decided to act on its own, sending another Pin Missile towards the opponent.
"Watch out!" Red warned his Pokemon.
Eevee hit the place where the mats below it were connected, causing them to disattach and get thrown up into the air. The needles were able to pierce the foam but going through it slowed them down and knocked off-track, leaving the normal type Pokemon unscathed.
This momentary distraction was enough for Alex to get a hold of himself and give orders to his other Pokemon "Flamethrower! Quick Attack!"
"Swift Attack!"
This command was for a combination move that worked by Eevee sending Swift towards the approaching Vaporeon and following the flying star shapes with Quick Attack. Vaporeon had to slow down after getting hit with the first move which made it an easy target for Eevee, especially since Flareon couldn't turn the Flamethrower in that direction without risking hitting its ally. Jolteon didn't have that problem since its attacks were far more precise. Using that moment where Eevee was stopped after knocking Vaporeon back, Jolteon sent another salvo of needles at it, and this time was able to hit it squarely into the side of its torso. This attack was so sudden that Eevee got swept off its feet and hit the floor.
"Water Pulse!" Alex focused on his water type Pokemon since, being the closest to Eevee, it had the best chance to make use of this opportunity.
Since Red had no confidence in Eevee being able to dodge the attack completely, he chose another option "Roll Away!"
Spinning on the floor on the opposite side from the incoming attack, allowed Eevee to lessen the damage it took from it, but while Vaporeon was firing off Water Pulse, the other opponents managed to shorten the distance between them and Eevee.
"Water Pulse at Flareon!"
Red's order was enough to finally confirm Alex's suspicions. His opponent's Pokemon clearly had a move or an ability that allowed it to copy anything it saw right before. He wasn't sure about the specifics but it was clear to him that it couldn't just reuse a move it saw some time before which showed him a clear limit of whatever it was he was dealing with.
"Instead of having an infinite number of different attacks it has Quick Attack, Swift, Bite and whatever move my Pokemon use right before that." he thought "Which means that if Vaporeon uses a water type move then the likeliest target is Flareon and when Jolteon uses an electric one then their target's going to be Vaporeon. Anything else is hard to predict."
"Let's see how he reacts to this." he said under his breath before speaking up "Jolteon, Thunder Fang!"
Since Eevee was already back on its feet, Red ordered it to dodge, and, using the fact that Vaporeon was still close, his next command was "Bite Vaporeon!"
As soon as Alex heard the beginning of the first word he shouted as quickly as possible "Dodge, Vaporeon!"
The water type Pokemon jumped back and Eevee's teeth snapped as it bit into nothing but empty space. Some sparks flew away from its mouth as it looked in confusion after realizing the opponent was gone, which was proof of the attack being a Thunder Fang disguised as Bite, the same way it has done before.
"Has he figured me out?" Red thought, trying to remain calm.
"Flare Blitz!"
Alex figured that this was the best move to use since if Eevee copied it, he would hurt himself in the process which was probably something Red wanted to avoid, which would limit the boy's options as to what to pick for his next move.
"Bite!"
"What?!" Alex's initial thought was that Eevee was somehow going to once again use Thunder Fang but he didn't know if it could try it again after failing at it once.
Alas, he was mistaken. This one wasn't a hidden command but a set up for Red's next move.
"Throw him!"
After Flareon set itself ablaze and started moving at Eevee in an erratic fashion, the other Pokemon grabbed one of its legs with its teeth and swung it around to send it towards the wall of destroyed windows. This wasn't exactly Red's idea but he suspected that Alex would try to save Flareon either by himself or using one of his other Pokemon, which would give Red a chance to make a run for one of his pokeballs.
Flareon was lucky enough to hit a piece of wall between the windows but there was still some hesitation in Alex's reaction time so Red quickly jumped over Jolteon who was close to him and started running towards a pokeball.
"Pin Missile!"
In order not to hurt Red too much, Jolteon jumped to the side and sent a single spike that landed across the boy's path and tripped him up. Worried about its trainer, Eevee jumped between him and the enemy. Before Red managed to get up from the floor, Alex and his three Pokemon already approached him.
"I know what you're doing." seeing as he had Red on the ropes, Alex decided that it wouldn't hurt to gloat a little "Whenever you fight someone, your biggest advantage is how unpredictable you are. You like to pick apart your opponents tactics and surprise them with sudden bursts of brilliance but this time it seems like the roles are reversed. You had a set plan of copying my Pokemon's moves and once I figured it out, you lost your only advantage."
Red stood up. He glanced around, but he knew that with the opposing Pokemon this close, he wouldn't be able to reach any of the pokeballs.
"You should have realized that an Eevee using moves like Thunder Fang or Water Pulse wouldn't be nearly as strong as Jolteon and Vaporeon. The fact that it's a normal type and its unevolved. How were you expecting to stand a chance against us?"
"It didn't want to."
"What?" Alex was confused about what the boy was referring to.
"If a Pokemon evolves by itself, that's fine but if it's a thing where you need a stone to do it, I'd rather leave it up to the Pokemon. My Gloom wanted to evolve and I was waiting for the right moment. Eevee, on the other hand, has had enough time to interact with your Pokemon and it decided it didn't want to turn into any of them. I wanted to support that decision by finding a way where it could rival its possible evolved forms without needing to evolve. The Copycat tactic was that." the boy explained.
"So what? You failed because this little guy was too stubborn?" the Admin asked while looking down at the Pokemon trying to protect its trainer.
"That's one of the things the two of us have in common." Red said before suddenly jumping forward which was an unexpected move even to his own Pokemon.
It looked as if he wanted to grab onto Alex's head, maybe to deliver a headbutt so the man instinctively backed away rather than have one of his Pokemon protect him.
Red counted on that happening and while mid-jump shouted "Quick Attack!"
With all the opponents so close, Eevee didn't have time to decipher which one of them Red wanted it to target and instead just ran straight ahead which put it on a collision course with Alex. As Red's Pokemon knocked the opponent's legs backwards, the rest of the man's body fell forward, allowing the boy to do exactly what Alex feared was going to happen. Since they were both falling towards the floor, Alex's Pokemon scattered to the sides, watching helplessly as their trainer's glasses shattered under the impact of Red's forehead.
Right after hitting the foam mats, the boy got up and picked up his hat which left his head during this stunt. Alex also lifted himself up, using one hand since the other one was trying to stop the nosebleed caused by Red's attack. He tried to give his Pokemon orders but the blood and the couple of missing teeth made it hard for him to be understood. The only thing they knew for sure was that he didn't want them to hold back on hurting Red anymore.
The boy had to jump out of the way of Flareon's Flamethrower which left him open to Vaporeon's Water Pulse. Eevee jumped towards Red to stop him which meant that it took the full brunt of the attack. Jolteon used Agility before running towards the enemies to attack them with Thunder Fang, but this made it harder for its teammates to use long distance moves. Not wanting to accidentally hit Jolteon, the other two closed the distance between themselves and the enemy and tried using Quick Attack and Flare Blitz.
"Mirror Room!"
Eevee started running circles around the opponents, focusing their attention on itself and giving Red a chance to move away from the wall of windows the two of them were pinned against.
Alex was taking his time with trying to stuff his nose with tissues and the lack of glasses made it hard to discern what exactly was happening but he was already sure of his victory before Red pulled his little stunt so he remained calm and trusted that there was no way that his Pokemon could lose in the time it would take him to use his inventory pad to get a spare pair of glasses.
Jolteon tried to stop Eevee by using Thunder Wave, not taking into account that the move would also hit the other Pokemon.
"Dodge!"
Still using Quick Attack, Eevee launched itself far from the opponents while doing some flips through the air. Struck by Thunder Wave, already dizzy from dealing with Mirror Room, Vaporeon and Flareon misfired their attacks and as they hit the wall between two windows, a huge part of it detached itself from the building and fell down towards the street like those windows before. Jolteon stopped its companions from falling outside together with the rubble but now there was a big gaping hole in the building.
Alex walked up to his Pokemon, wearing a new pair of glasses. He looked at the sun which was almost gone behind the horizon.
"Let's end this." his words were a little hard to understand but he didn't look any less confident.
"I wish I could say that I have some big plan but I think this is it." Red said to his partner in an exasperated tone "If we go out then we go out together."
Eevee nodded and smiled.
"Finish them!" Alex didn't bother with giving a separate order to each of his Pokemon.
"Get in close and use Bite! I'll follow you!" Red yelled.
As Eevee used Quick Attack to launch itself towards the opponents who were similarly charging in its direction, Red noticed that his chest seemed to be glowing. There was only one thing he carried in the pocket on the inside of his vest but he didn't know why it would be behaving in that way. He took it out and the light turned out to be much stronger than he expected. Shining in the colors of the rainbow, Crystal Eye was returned to its original form.
Eevee's body also started to glow. The part of the room they were in was no longer reached by the sunlight so both sources of light were strong enough to momentarily blind the opponents.
Eevee grew in size. Once the shining stopped, its body turned black, its eyes red and it became covered in golden rings. That lasted only for a second. As if wanting to escape the night, Eevee jumped past the other Pokemon and even past Alex and it changed shape once again. The end of its tail split in twine and the golden rings converged on its forehead to become a round, red gem. It closed its eyes for a second as it took in the feeling of the last rays of sun on its fur. Once it opened them, they were purple instead of Red. Similarly, its body turned to a light shade of purple.
"What the hell was that?!" Alex shouted, trying to take in Eevee's sudden transformation as well as the stone in Red's hand that stopped shining right after the Pokemon changed shape "What is that evolution?"
Red quickly reached for the pokedex in his back pocket but was left without an answer. Whatever this transformation was, it didn't look like it was something that could be naturally met in Kanto.
"It looked for a while as if you were going to become something else but I guess you made your choice." the boy said with a big smile on his face which the Pokemon reciprocated.
"What are you guys waiting for?!" Alex shouted at his Pokemon who were disoriented by everything that happened "Attack whatever that is!"
"I wonder if it learned any new moves?" Red thought while lifting his gaze towards the ceiling, which gave him a certain idea.
"Use Swift on the lamps!"
The Pokemon clearly still knew this move since it did as ordered. With it being completely dark outside and now also inside, the only source of light were Flareon's flames, which made it a perfect target for testing out the purple Pokemon's capabilities.
"Show me what you've got!" Red ordered, but instead of waiting to see what was going to happen, he turned in another direction.
Flareon looked around to see if its teammates were still there. A glance to the right. Jolteon was trying to use its nose to smell out the enemy. A look to the left. Vaporeon didn't look too sure of itself. Suddenly, a gleam of a red gem, and the evolved Eevee appeared jumping from above to sink its glowing pink teeth in the water type Pokemon's back. Flareon tried to react but Red's Pokemon allowed its mouth to slide to Vaporeon's tail so that it could lift it up and throw it at the burning Pokemon. Being bit and burned by Flareon's flames was enough to finally take Vaporeon out of the battle. The fire type Pokemon struggled to escape from under its partner's weight.
"Esp… eeeon!" Red's Pokemon cried loudly as if it wanted to scare Jolteon which looked like it was about to launch a counterattack after what happened to Vaporeon.
"According to the pokedex you lost the ability to use Bite and instead used Psychic Fangs. So I guess you became a psychic type and your name is… Espeon."
The Pokemon nodded happily.
Alex became worried when he noticed that another source of light appeared behind Red and was moving along with the boy. While his Pokemon was waiting, Red checked the floor around him and found the pokeball containing Charizard.
"There should be some tables over there." Red pointed to a corner of the room and Charizard spit some fire in that direction.
Once the tables were burning, the room became a lot brighter. The sparks jumping from the flames gave this place a weirdly cozy atmosphere, despite it being essentially a devastated playground.
"Is he going to knock me out and give me up to the police?" Alex's previous confidence was completely gone since him winning against Charizard without the help of Vaporeon didn't seem like a possible outcome "I have to try and run away."
"Jolteon! Use…"
Before the Admin could finish, he witnessed as his electric type Pokemon was suddenly thrown against a wall by an attack that seemed to come out of nowhere. Red heard a noise coming from the pokedex and checked it to learn that another new move in Espeon's arsenal was Future Sight.
"I guess it used that sometime before Psychic Fangs." the teen said to himself.
Seeing as Jolteon was knocked out, Alex decided to put it and Vaporeon back in their pokeballs, but Red noticed that the man was reaching for another one, most likely wanting to summon Ditto. He walked up to him and grabbed Alex's wrist.
"Let's not do that." he said and the Admin felt as the last bit of his will to fight left him.
He returned Flareon to its ball before the Pokemon had a chance to leap at Red or one of his partners.
"What's going to happen now?" Alex said as he sat down on the foam mats.
"As mean as that may sound, I've got bigger problems to deal with than you. Even with half your Pokemon defeated, I can't be sure that you won't interfere. I'll have to knock you out. After you wake up, do whatever you want. If Giovanni completes his plan, you can go to him. If he doesn't, I hope you can find something else besides being part of Team Rocket. I know you like books. Maybe something with that?"
"Yeah. Maybe…"
After putting Alex to sleep through a solid punch, Red made sure to gather the rest of his pokeballs and to put out the fire using Scyther's Vacuum Wave. As he left the playroom, he noticed a vending machine. He felt like he needed to hurry and get to the top floor but he still wanted to check it out. He returned to Alex's side and left beside him a couple juice boxes, before putting all his Pokemon back in their balls and making his way towards the stairway.
Back to form. Only around 40 days since the last chapter.
Is this the first full length chapter that's a singular scene? I can't remember. I wondered about showing a little of what Green was doing in the meantime but there wasn't a good place to fit that so I went all in on this fight. I think that all things considered, this was a pretty good showing from Alex, being able to limit Red to one Pokemon for most of the fight and also figuring out his strategy. I wanted to do more stuff but even with how strong Eevee is after being with Red for so long, there is some suspension of disbelief when it comes to it being able to last a long time against three evolved Pokemon.
Last time I gave a hint with "Next chapter: A prophecy comes true." but I don't know how much people are able to retain from reading this fanfic. Crystal Eye appeared like four years ago or something close to that? I always intended for Eevee to evolve during this fight but once I came up with the whole Phantom Venin special I figured it would be neat to forshadow it a little bit. Back then, Red was able to see a glimpse of the future thanks to Eevee and after evolving Eevee learned Future Sight. I even tried doing a little fakeout with Eevee becoming Umbreon and outrunning the night to turn into Espeon.
What will Alex do once he wakes up? What will happen to Crystal Eye now that its back to its original form? Even I'm not completely sure.
Next time: Let's see what Green is up to.
Red. Team: Espeon, Charizard, Raichu, Gyarados, Vileplume, Nidorino.
At hand but not officially his: Scyther.
With Koga(?): Pidgeot.
Badges: 4
Green. Team: Jynx, Wigglytuff, ?, ?, ?, ?.
At Team Rocket Base: ?.
Badges: 3
Blue. Team: Weepinbell(Bell), Blastoise(Tori), Golbat(Ken), Graveler(Grimm), Ponyta(Dasher), Electabuzz(Buzz).
Badges: 3
Alex. Team: Ditto, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon.
Angie. Team: Dragonair, Sandslash, Seaking.
Peter. Team: Dodrio, Haunter, Gengar.
Blaine. Team: Magmar, Arcanine, Rapidash, Moltres.
