Chapter Five: Professor Oak

With every piece of clothing, can of soup, and half-broken tool he shoved into the only good bag he owned, Crimson couldn't help but feel his life weigh heavier. There, in that damp, dark, wooden shack, cramped and uncomfortable, he had passed every night. It was home, and yet, it was perhaps the Gnarl's most sinister servant. Every moment spent there, silently reminding him of what he was worth - who he was to his monstrous masters.

In the next room lay his mother, asleep. He knew the community wouldn't let her die there, at least not alone. He wondered if she'd even notice he was gone; if she would claim to see him in shadows, find his features in the faces of others.. In all honesty, as much as it pained him to admit, he was tired of looking after her. He loved her, more than anyone,but only as much as memories. And Crimson's memories had started decaying years ago.

He could not bear to grieve the grief he felt slipping away.

Or was he being foolish, being callous, acting out of hollow courage and folded fear? Seeing the factory devoid of mechanised life, seeing Noxos beaten down with only words, seeing the look on Tess's face - had it distracted him from what really mattered?

But then again, what did really matter?

He loved his mother, but he couldn't protect her. Cecille Freys had proved that; Crimson's fears were gum beneath the government's shoe. He didn't even register. They wouldn't feel it as they added his corpse to the pile - like so many heads of corn.

A creak of wood came from behind him. Grabbing his knife, Crimson swung around.

Oak was stood in the doorway, red faced and dark eyed. The old man put a hand up, looked from side to side, and inched into the house.

"I… I heard you were planning on leaving." Oak spotted the bag. "I suppose sooner rather than later."

"What do you want, Oak?" asked Crimson, returning to pack his bag.

"You can't go alone."

Crimson chuckled, trying not to laugh too hard. "You'll have a better chance of surviving if you hide."

Oak stepped forward, his face fidgeting nervously. "Tess told me. She thinks I should go with you."

As Crimson's eyebrow cocked, he felt an alien discomfort squirm its way along his spine. Staring at the old man, he asked Oak, "And Tess told you?"

Oak nodded with a twitch.

"And said you should come with me?"

Oak stepped forward again, quickly checking behind him, reaching for the door.

Crimson gripped his knife tightly.

Oak closed the door, before looking back at the young man and putting both of his hands up. "I can help!" he exclaimed, pointedly hushing his voice. "You're not likely to meet anyone who knows more about Pokemon than me, I can guarantee you that, Crimson. I was someone else once…" He flashed a glance at the bottle of whiskey in his hand, unable to not drink. "They didn't always just call me Oak, or old man Oak, or drunk Oak, or-"

Crimson scoffed, still on his guard. "What did they call you?"

"Professor Oak," he replied, mountains of scarred pride piling up behind him. "I was Kanto's lead expert in Pokemon categorisation. I even designed a device. It could tell you everything you needed to know about any Pokemon, just by pointing it at them. An electronic encyclopaedia."

In the looming dark and errant whispers of Crimson's shack, the young man could not help but be overwhelmed by unease. "Let me guess…" he began, lowering his tone in submission to the atmosphere. "You've got one with you."

Oak paused, holding Crimson's gaze before guilt and regret forced his head down. "No… they were all destroyed… I think. There is one, that might still... I buried it…" The old man looked up, flashing drunken hope. "We could try and find it."

Crimson stepped back and crinkled his expression, further sceptical.

"No," hurried Oak, burying his wayward desperation. "But I have something else." Putting one hand under his dirty brown coat, Oak reached for something. The young man heard a sharp mechanical click, watched the old man's arm grow heavy, and smelt the stain of violence.

Oak pulled a large, bloodstained pistol from out his coat, and smiled.

"Where the fuck did you get that?"

Putting his whiskey bottle to his lips, Oak shushed the boy. "Voice down!" Looking about, trying to ease his paranoia, the old man took a sip and sighed. "I got it during the war. Tess was about your age back then. She knew me. I helped her. That's why she trusts me. I protected her, I can protect you." The old man was rambling, and Crimson couldn't tell if it was the whiskey or the truth that made him seem so false. "Military grade; this thing will tear through a Blastoise shell like tissue paper."

Not knowing what to say, all that came was "How have you kept this hidden so-"

"I have my ways," remarked Oak, still smiling. "So, are we going? I mean… if you don't let me come, I could always just rat you out, they'd probably reward me for doing so."

In the silence that followed, Crimson could not discern the old man's mangled tone; it sounded like a joke, but there was real danger to it. Oak wouldn't sell him out to the authorities, watch him get dragged away for spite and a few bucks. Or would he? Crimson had never seen this side of him; Oak always seemed like someone with nothing to lose, but now… he was someone with noone to lose. In the cracked, bloodshot, jungle of Oak's eyes, Crimson glimpsed something horrible - a wounded monster, biding its time, brooding behind tall grass.

The young man swallowed, Oak all-but pointing the gun at him. "You can come."

The old man smirked, stepping forward and placing the pistol in Crimson's hands. "You'll be the steadier shot. These old mitts aren't what they used to be."

Crimson looked down at the bloodstained weapon, feeling its weight. "You trust me to…" he mumbled.

Oak clasped Crimson by the shoulder. "I trust you with my life."

They did not wait. Oak had left a bag behind the house, largely filled with bottles and a few cans. Swinging round to pick up the old man's 'rations', Crimson and his new companion marched out of town. Crimson's pack weighed heavy on his back, but what weighed heavier was the fact he had not said goodbye to his mother.

He couldn't bear to do it, so he told himself. And Oak never brought it up.

She wouldn't know. She never noticed before. She couldn't.

He wished he'd kissed her one last time.

The people of the town were largely shut up in their houses, terrified, Crimson assumed, of Cecile Freys and his huge Pincer bodyguard. A few stray eyes followed them from behind windows. A couple destitutes considered and then thought twice about following. Tess was nowhere to be seen. Crimson would have put money on her saying one last goodbye, or at least being out, defiant to the fear - but she wasn't. There was no sign of her.

Crimson turned to Oak. "I thought Tess would be out here?"

The old man, who made much better pace than his frame would suggest, shrugged. "Some people are all talk."

The Gnarl estate stretched around them in gilded, monotonous, persistence - masterless, watcherless, servantless. Field after field of corn, artificially ripe, reflecting the afternoon sun like scathing pastoral parody, lovely, lonely and pointless. This was the pile of gold Morganna Gnarl had sat upon. And Morganna Gnarl was gone. So for now the wind ran through the fields, claiming her fortune.

Crimson pulled his cap down and his collar up as the breeze embraced him. If monsters are hazards, then the wind is a citizen, he thought. A quiet before a storm is no real quiet.

He started spotting ruins in the fields, remnants of a road beneath the dirt, the skeleton of a city discarded amongst the estate. Crimson had rarely been this far north, but he had heard stories of the place that used to be here. The scattered memories of a civilisation, crushed and forgotten, scarred the perfect farmland.

It took a moment for Crimson to notice that Oak had stopped.

The old man was looking around, his eyes heavy, his head shaking slowly, his lips rarely away from the bottle. "He didn't give up," he said, finally.

"Who?"

"Viridian city… it…" Walking once more, the old man locked eyes with Crimson. "He didn't give up. They fought to the last." He sighed, half resigned, half dismissive, "They all died."

Crimson watched the old man march on for a moment before catching up. "I remember my dad saying there was a city to the north, that the High Chancellor raised it to the ground."

"He didn't give up," repeated Oak. "They all died. And they thought they were so tough."

The young man couldn't help but be inquisitive, though he noticed Oak was getting progressively more drunk. "Who lived here?"

"Bad people," spat Oak. "Who didn't realise there were worse people. Don't weep for them, Crimson. They should have given up." Oak shook his head and swallowed hard. "He. He should have given up. Pride, Crimson, it doesn't just hurt you." The old man slammed a hand on his shoulder. "Be careful, always be careful before you dare to be proud." Looking away, Oak took a large swig. "Pride is far worse than cowardice."

It was not long before Crimson and Oak had reached further than the young man had ever thought he'd see. Past the ruins, at the edge of the fields, stood a forest. He had never seen so many trees so close. It was beautiful. They belonged… in a way the golden fields behind him… just didn't. He couldn't quite explain it. The forest was a life all its own.

"Come on then," spluttered Oak, "in we go."

Under the canopy the sun became scattered and shaded. Wood creaked, ground crunched, and far off suggestions called a thousand worries and wonders. Marching forward, Crimson could not help but clutch the gun in his pocket. He had no reason to… until he did.

Their eyes met each other with perfect synchronicity. Fear, suspicion, the willingness to do violence, all merging within a single look and split second. Three Murkrow were perched beneath a huge pine, ruffling their feathers, adverse to the sky.

Crimson could not look away from the largest; crooked as cracked wood, dark as bad dreams, the jagged, feverish fowl met his gaze with just as much contempt and twice as much desire.

Then Oak chuckled softly.

"If they were going to hurt us, they wouldn't still be on the ground." With arrogance so obnoxious Crimson couldn't help admire it, the old man strode forward. "What's got you so scared, black-bird?"

The term was a slur in Oak's mouth, and though Crimson had never heard it, he noticed the Murkrow ruffle.

"Come a long way from your hole, human. Legs must be tired. Easier to close your eyes with an empty head."

The chief Murkrow squared its shoulders and lifted its chest. But Oak did not stop.

"Oh, I've seen you snatch the eyes out of people's heads. No, I won't soon forget that. But you'd have done it already if you could." The old man's smirk intensified. "You'd have at least snapped your beak, but you haven't. Which means you're scared something will hear you. Something up there." Oak gestured to the sky with his whiskey, and chuckled. "So what if I shout out for it?"

The chief Murkrow shuffled back, "And what if it burns you too?"

"Burns?" asked Oak. "In the sky?" Shooting a glance at Crimson, the old man seemed to say get the gun ready. "You black-birds were always good at keeping others quiet - not so good at keeping secrets."

Crimson clutched the gun and felt his stomach clench. He could see the other two Murkrow fidgeting, doing their best not to panic. It soothed him somewhat, to see those monsters, suddenly in the palm of this broken, fearless, drunken maniac.

Oak looked at him, "Shall we roll the dice?"

"What dice?" asked Crimson.

"No dice!" croaked the chief Murkrow.

"If it's flying and it can burn us… and three Murkrow are this scared… there aren't that many things it can be." Oak took a swig. "The Government wouldn't send something that big, not for this, not after the MoF, not without making a show. And if they did, two stray humans wouldn't be what it was after." Booze seeping from between his lips, Professor Oak grinned. "Chances are, it's a vagrant."

Crimson stepped forward, emboldened and ignorant. "A vagrant?"

"Dragons are hard to keep a leash on, even for the High Chancellor."

"Don't!" croaked the chief Murkrow, desperately eager to lunge.

"So, shall we roll the dice?"

Crimson wanted to consider his options, and yet he didn't. "I've never met a dragon before," he said instinctively.

"Answer me one question," Oak added, nudging. "Would watching these three get eaten be worth the risk of dying?"

Crimson considered it this time - he considered the sound of Jade Krieger's scream as she fell.

Gun in hand, Murkrow in sight, Crimson gritted his teeth. "It'd be nice to see a dragon before I die."

Oak cackled as he put two fingers to his lips and whistled so loud the leaves seemed to shiver. A few moments of silence passed - old man smiling, Murkrow shuffling, Crimson shaking, nothing happening.

Nothing… 'til the sky went dark and the wind went still.

If the leaves had shivered before Oak's whistle, their bows bent beneath a wing's beat. Something huge, unyielding and agile invaded their forest sanctuary, giving no quarter to root, retreat, or retribution. Entire trees were pulled from the earth; screams were silenced with closing jaws; panicked flailing was stilled with sudden flame.

Crimson dropped to the ground, and when he lifted his head what he saw was both glory and grandeur. A dragon, the colour of early sunsets and unpolished brass, teeth clogged by dead bird and black feathers, wings spread and surrounded by fire, stood in a clearing it created.

A Charizard.

The stories were true, and more than true. The young man could not be more afraid than he was filled with awe - there are still legends, he thought, and no one owns them, he hoped.

Finished with the Murkrow, the Charizard turned to Oak, who was still standing proud and smiling, "Human…"

The beast glanced at Crimson, "Two humans…"

Forcing a heavy, hot breath from out its smoking nostrils, the dragon began picking its teeth. "Have you fled from the estate?"

Oak opened his mouth to speak, but the Charizard growled, shooting a small fireball towards Crimson. It exploded two feet in front of his head, forcing him to scurry back in terror. The beast lumbered forward, picking up his discarded pistol as if it were a spoiled toy. "Fled with a gun? An old gun." The Charizard sniffed at the weapon. "It stinks of war… and human… and Chansey."

Crimson curled under the dragon's gaze, too terrified to respond.

Oak stepped forward. "There is no more estate. The government has-"

The Charizard dropped the pistol. "Come for us all…" Turning to the old man, "Indeed." Looking Oak up and down, the Charizard snarled. "You stink of war too, and whiskey. This is your gun, and your child. You would risk them both, out here, whistling for something in the sky?"

Crimson pulled himself up, finally appreciating the ten foot drake looming over his companion. There was old man Oak, all stains and patches, standing fearlessly against this fire breathing, ferocious basilisk.

He really was Professor Oak.

"What's left to risk?" asked the old man.

The dragon chuckled. "And Noxos?"

Crimson could not help but speak. "You know about Noxos?"

Turning to Crimson, eyes as fierce as its maw, the Charizard scoffed. "I have seen its work."

"Noxos was… arrested? Taken away by the government." Crimson didn't know what else to say. "The Meowth, Cecille Freys, he said he was going to put Noxos in a barrel."

The Charizard laughed. "They will put that thing to work, worry you not, human. Muks who have not lost their mind are a rare commodity." The Charizard gave a caustic smirk and huffed. "Meowths talk, Muks do what the Meowths say, and people die. There will be no barrel for Noxos."

"And the Gnarls?" asked Crimson.

"Think not of them, human, they do not think of you."

Oak cleared his throat. "Who are you?" he asked, putting his hand out. "I am… Professor Oak."

The Charizard laughed, seeming both amused and impressed. "I am Brellia." Claiming Oak's hand with its claw, the Charizard bent down ever so slightly. "Are you really Professor?" questioned Brellia, not relinquishing. "If you lie to me you will do worse than risk." Bending down further and pulling Oak closer, the Charizard breathed smoke all around them. "Before the war, you were Professor; before the war, you were a scientist; before the war, Oak, you were a man who bore the flame of hope?"

Oak hesitated a moment. "I tried to be."

Brellia let go of the old man and considered him. "Al will know."

The dragon puffed one circular smoke signal into the sky and sat down. Giving a huge heaving sigh, Brellia began to truly tackle the pieces of Murkrow left in their teeth. A few moment's passed in desperate relief and confusion before the Charizard said, "You will want to find clothes other than Gnarl company uniform, human. Give me them and I will weave you something less conspicuous."

Crimson checked his memory. "You will weave-"

"I enjoy making human clothing. I have been practising for many years. You are slightly larger than Sage. But I will be able to manage."

The young man flashed a glance to the old man who smirked in mock confidence and gave nothing more.

"Sage?" asked Crimson.

"It is polite to accept a gift, and not to ask questions," huffed Brellia, plucking Crimsons hat from his head and beginning to unravel it. "Al will not turn you away… he has a soft spot for children, which he will not admit." The Charizard smiled, "But I will. I like human children; you have so much potential, and so much more open to you than Pokemon."

With huge draconic talons, Brellia pulled apart his cap with precision, ease and artisan joy. The dragon smiled and continued. "I cannot help but be a beast. Cecille? they cannot help but be a bureaucrat. Noxos cannot help but be a butcher. But you? You can be either. Any. And so much more." Watching the mess of red thread fall to their lap, and nodding, Brellia flashed Oak a glare, "And so much less, perhaps."

Crimson turned to Oak, who was closed in and cradling their whiskey.

"But-" began Brellia.

"Al will tell?" asked Crimson.

The Charizard smiled.

Fists clenched and head spinning, Crimson wanted to scream as much as he wanted to ask a million questions, or simply run away. But before any of it could come to fruition, a flash of light erupted from between two nearby trees.

Two new figures stood where only darkness had been before: a human, no larger than five foot five, uneager to move, and a creature Crimson had never seen before.

Bipedal and vaguely humanoid, the entity floated, thin and sharp cornered, out of the shadow. It had a large triangular head with two, long, canine ears and a pair of glowing oblique eyes beneath them. Between its ears and eyes sat the image of a star. Both bulbous and slender, in yellow and brown, the creature, holding a spoon in each of its three fingered hands, drew close.

Brellia stood up and dropped their head in what looked like a bow.

The faroff human shape did not move.

The creature drew closer.

Slowly placing its feet on the ground, the white light faded from the creature's eyes. Staring at Crimson, then glancing at Oak, it stroked the long moustache hanging from its face. Opening its mouth to speak, Oak spoke first.

The old man dropped his bottle, rushing forward, his jaw hanging open. Visibly shaking, he stammered. "I thought…I thought you… You're…" Oak clutched his mouth, tears forming in his eyes. "Alakazam…" he said, with more fear and reverence than Crimson had ever heard. "You must… By all records, you must be the last…the last Alakazam."

The creature, whose silver spoons now reminded Crimson of Morganna Gnarl, cocked its head. "I am…" it replied, in a deep, pensive tone. "And what have you to say?"

Between an inhale and a cry, silence clung onto the air - then Oak began to weep. "I'm sorry," he said, falling to his knees. "I'm so sorry. We failed you. I failed you."

Crimson tried not to panic as the Alakazam placed a hand on Oak's head.

Less than a moment passed before the creature's expression wrinkled with pain. "Defeat against impossible odds is no failure," it said, straining empathetically. Still, as it pulled its hand away, the Alakazam took a moment, weighing a decision so heavy Crimson could feel it crushing his conscience.

"There is still hope, Samuel Oak," continued the Alakazam, "If we step forward with selflessness."

Oak stood up, weeping and wiping his tears.

"If you step forward, this time, with selflessness."

Oak nodded. "I will."

The Alakazam nodded in return. "Then we will speak no more of it."

And they spoke no more of it. Whatever it was. All they spoke were words of escape, and deference to the creature neither Crimson nor Sage wanted to trust.