Chapter 4: When A Plan Falls Apart

"Why are you such a brat, Ruby?" Norman muttered to himself.

After sending his defiant son out to catch a pokémon for that wheezing wimp, he had returned to his office at the back of the gym. It was the first room that was finished in the renovation, so it was mostly clear of that fresh paint smell.

Norman sat behind his desk and continued his search. It wasn't like he was really needed for the renovations, he and the crew working on the gym had already agreed on their plans. He just needed an excuse to get away from his wife for a bit.

She would not approve of what he was doing.

"Come on, come on," muttered Norman to himself, his frustrations mounting up. "There's gotta be a casino somewhere in this stinking region!"

He just knew he was on the cusp of a lucky streak, but he couldn't find anywhere to cash it in! He had thought he found a winner in Mauville; they apparently had a Game Corner – but it had been stuck in limbo for years since the owners of the place had broken up their partnership. Ridiculous!

His fruitless search was interrupted when an invitation for a video call popped up on his screen. Norman checked ID – it was Birch!

'Good timing, I needed a distraction,' thought Norman to himself. A spark of annoyance passed through him. 'And I need to ask him what went wrong with the plan!'

Norman accepted the invitation and a window popped up on his monitor. The video call showed a disorganised lab, with Birch in the centre of the camera's view. If the background noise was anything to go by, Birch's children were close by. Norman could see May staring into space looking downcast.

Birch himself looked rather uncomfortable. He was probably worried about how Norman would react to whatever had gone wrong with the plan that had led to Ruby bursting into the gym like a stampeding tauros.

"Birch, what happened?" Norman asked, his frustration bleeding into his voice. "Ruby almost committed patricide when he came in here!"

Birch winced at Norman's mood, but he kept his awkward smile on his face. "Well, um, he saw through it almost instantly?" the professor answered, giving a nervous chuckle.

"Of course, he did." Norman pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He couldn't even blame Birch, not really. It wasn't the first time that he had tried to get Ruby interested in pokémon battling. Norman thought his son was being very ungrateful, really; Norman would have been ecstatic if his pops had gone through so much trouble to create such a cool origin story for his pokémon journey!

Norman huffed and crossed his arms petulantly. "Did Ruby at least catch the pokémon I gave you?" If he had, at least all the training wouldn't be wasted.

Birch gave him a confused look, which did nothing to help Norman's mood. "No? We still have the pokémon."

Norman could only shake his head. Of course, Ruby couldn't even be bothered to catch the rampaging pokémon!

Before he could say anything else about how Ruby ruined his plans, Birch's daughter approached the camera.

"Why didn't you tell us that Ruby had two pokémon?" Sapphire asked, her voice monotone. "He seemed very distressed when one seemed to have gone missing."

Ho-oh's flaming feathers, but she was blunt.

Norman could feel his eye twitching. "The goal was to get Ruby a partner pokémon that could help him take on the gym challenge," the rookie gym leader explained. He made a conscious effort to make his voice sound pleasant, but it sounded fake even to his own ears. "One of Ruby's pokémon is a mere pet, while the other is actually mine."

Sapphire blinked at that, and Norman could visibly see the gears turning in her head. "Does the pokémon actually belong to you, or is that a false reality you chose to believe in?"

"Sapphire!" Birch turned to his daughter, looking at her with the kind of embarrassment all parents felt when their kids made a social faux pas.

Sapphire's blank look didn't change as she stared at Norman through the screen.

A flare of irritation went through Norman, but he wasn't about to lash out at his friend's kid. All attempts to figure out an appropriate response were thrown out the window when Birch's other child, Jade, came into view in the background, giving an energetic running commentary that was muffled because of the distance from the camera's microphone.

Norman was more concerned with who Jade was rambling to.

"Birch, why do you have my hybrid zigzagoon?" Norman said blankly, his eyes locked on the pokémon in question. He could've sworn he had given that to that sickly looking kid and Ruby earlier.

The zigzagoon was a part of a long-term project a friend of his running; trying to create a strain of zigzagoon that had the appearance and temperament of a Hoenn variant, but the ability to evolve into obstagoon. Norman was helping because his friend had no skill with training pokémon, and they had promised Norman that he could keep his Hoenn style obstagoon, after having it breed with a ditto to produce an almost perfect genetic clone, of course.

So, when Norman saw the zigzagoon in Birch's lab through the screen, he started to panic.

"I have the zigzagoon because you gave it to me?" Birch's voice sounded unsure, as if he wasn't sure if he was answering or asking a question. "It was supposed to be the rampaging threat that would've forced Ruby to act the hero, or least that's how you explained it to me."

"Rampaging threat?" Jade asked, their voice impressively incredulously for a ten-year-old. "This huggable fella?"

To prove their point, Jade pulled the zigzagoon into a hug. Norman passively observed as the zigzagoon began to bark happily at the attention, its body relaxing in the child's arms, completely free of worry in a way that was common for pokémon that had had human care from birth.

And if the zigzagoon was with Birch, what pokémon did Norman give to those two earlier?

"Oh," Norman said softly, as the pieces of his fractured plan connected in his mind. "Shit."

Looking back on it, Wally was pretty sure that they must have set a world record for how quickly things had gone to absolute heck in a handbasket.

It had been going so well, too. After a melancholy self-reflection on his life, Wally had needed something to lift his spirits, and nothing brightened his day like pokémon. But this had been special; ralts was a somewhat uncommon pokémon, to the point that there were old folk stories in Petalburg about how simply seeing a ralts would bring good luck.

But that was just an old superstition. The real reason for ralts' elusive nature was a result of their general skittishness and their natural empath abilities. Ralts can sense others' emotions, but are not yet capable of telepathy, so they have no context for the raw emotions that they're constantly being subjected to from other pokémon and humans, which makes ralts easily spooked. Wally had to approach this with care; a wild ralts approaching a human, approaching him, wasn't likely to happen twice.

He took slow, careful steps toward the ralts, before crouching down to the pokémon's level, with a soft smile on his face.

"Hey there, little guy," said Wally, his voice soft and coaxing. He gently waved at the ralts, trying to get the pokémon's attention.

Wally was pleasantly surprised when the ralts returned the wave excitedly. Wally couldn't help the smile on his face, but then he noticed a strange sensation. He felt emotions that he was certain weren't his own; a concerned curiosity, an innocent playfulness, a fast burst of fragile affection. The feelings were clear to Wally, and he was certainly experiencing them, but it was like there was a wall in his mind separating him from feeling them.

"Is that you?" asked Wally, awe clear in his voice.

The ralts nodded in confirmation with a beaming smile, the motion reminding Wally of a bobblehead.

"What's going on?" asked Ruby with a wary energy to his voice. He took cautious steps towards Wally and the ralts, only to pause and hover awkwardly. Not that Wally noticed; the green haired pokémon enthusiast was too distracted by the peculiar sensation.

"I think the ralts is sharing their emotions with me, empathically," said Wally, a goofy smile on his face. "It's so cool!"

Ruby looked between Wally's clear excitement and the ralts' apparent comfort. He smiled. "Maybe you could catch the ralts, huh? Wild pokémon aren't usually this relaxed around people, unless they're looking for a partner."

Wally's head snapped to look at Ruby so quickly that Ruby jumped in surprise. "You think that's why the ralts approached me?" asked Wally ecstatically. He turned his attention back to the psychic type. "Do you wanna be my pokémon? Can you understand me?"

The ralts nodded again, and Wally once again felt the sensation of another's emotions brushing against his mind. The playfulness was still there, but alongside it there was a flair of competitiveness that burned like a welcoming campfire.

"You wanna have a battle first?" asked Wally, visibly delighted. He was whelmed with giddiness at the thought of experiencing his first ever pokémon battle.

The ralts nodded excitedly once again, before disappearing in a flash of light and reappearing roughly eleven metres away. The psychic type went still as they stared back at Wally, waiting patiently.

"I thought I saw that ralts appear out of nowhere!" said Ruby, sounding vindicated.

Wally reached for the pokéball that Norman had begrudgingly given him. Wally still felt uneasy about the unknown pokémon and how it might react, but it was all he had. 'Well, I could ask Ruby, I suppose,' thought Wally pensively, but he ultimately decided against it. Despite how rude Norman had been, there was still a part of Wally that trusted gym leaders to be competent.

When Wally clicked the ball's button, the ball made a sound unlike any he had ever heard from a pokéball before. It sounded like a sharp snap, and when Wally looked at the ball, he saw cracks growing across its surface that were glowing with red light. Wally quickly threw the ball away from him in panic.

The ball hit the ground, bounced once, and then it burst into many tiny pieces that flew off in every direction. Some pieces of the ball landed near Wally, moving fast enough that they ended up embedded in the ground. To add another layer to Wally's panicked confusion, the pieces looked charred!

'What's happening?!' thought Wally, fear causing his heart to beat rapidly. 'Was it something that I did? D-did I accidentally get whatever pokémon that was inside that thing killed?'

A furious roar brought Wally out of his thoughts. Where the ball had landed, there was a pokémon. White fur, sharp claws and teeth, and tensed muscles that were ready to move.

"Is that a freaking vigoroth?" Wally yelled, taking a nervous step back.

The vigoroth growled again, its face twisted into a vicious scowl as it glared at Wally. There was no warning when it lunged right at Wally, who was too scared to move.

"Wally, run!" shouted Ruby, fear chilling his veins. It was one of his dad's vigoroth, because of course it was, and Ruby was about to watch it cut through Wally like paper.

It happened in an instant. The vigoroth leaped forwards with its sharp claws forward, ready to cut the short boy down, and then there was a flash of light and Wally was gone. The vigoroth, surprised by the disappearance of its target, did not correct itself and crashed face first into a tree.

Ruby could only stare at the collapsed pokémon in bafflement. The situation only became clear to Ruby once Wally reappeared next to him with the ralts on his shoulder. 'Oh, right, the ralts can teleport,' thought Ruby.

Wally took quick, shaky breaths, before turning to look at Ruby. His eyes were filled with a thousand questions, but he was too frazzled to find the right words, which Ruby thought was fair.

Any attempts that either boy made to gather their bearings were swiftly cast aside at the sound of a pained growl. Ruby and Wally looked over at the fallen vigoroth and found, much to their terror, that the vigoroth was dragging itself back to its feet. Its claws dug into the tree, the bark splintering and cracking, as the enraged pokémon steadied itself.

And then the vigoroth turned its glare on them once again.

"Think we can outrun it?" asked Wally in a small voice.

"Not a chance," said Ruby, reaching for his two pokéballs. A memory played through his mind; his father had taken him to watch a rhyhorn race when he had been around five. They had never gone together again since Norman had lost their bill money betting on an underdog and Ruby's mom hadn't been amused, but that was neither here nor there. As pokémon go rhyhorn are very slow, but they're still significantly faster than humans. A vigoroth? They didn't have a prayer.

The vigoroth was already charging at them once again at its top speed. Ruby felt a heavy dread, the sort that came from absolute certainty. The vigoroth would reach them before he could get his two pokéballs out of his pockets and release his pokémon.

Before Ruby's dread even had time to properly settle it was quickly overwhelmed by an almost impossibly charming chirping sound. It was more than just a sound – there were waves of what Ruby imagined unfiltered joy would feel like. Honestly, it wasn't a very pleasant experience; far too saccharine for Ruby's taste.

Ruby wasn't the only one to feel this unnatural joy. Besides him, Wally let out a startled gasp, and even the vigoroth stumbled to a stop about a metre away from them. Unlike Ruby or Wally, who just seemed surprised by the sensation, the vigoroth looked like it was in pain, looking around wildly in confusion. Ruby was surprised when he realised that he couldn't place where the sound was coming from. It seemed to surround them; it felt like standing in a crowded room, countless voices layering on top of one another until the words were lost and all that was left was an all-encompassing noise.

Just as suddenly as the sound appeared, it vanished. Its absence made the world seem eerily quiet in a way that felt unnatural.

The ralts jumped down from Wally's shoulder, landing in between them and the vigoroth. The psychic type threw its tiny arms in the air and let out the most adorable battle cry that Ruby had ever heard, and then Ruby was vividly aware of the ralts' emotions. Fierce protectiveness, mixed with a healthy dose of panicked confusion and fear, which was close to what Ruby was currently feeling, but the presence of these emotions was noticeably alien. 'Is this what a ralts' empathic abilities feels like?' thought Ruby, feeling overwhelmed.

The raging vigoroth's attention shifted to the brave little ralts, finding a new target to take its aggression out on. To the ralts' credit, it stood its ground despite clearly being terrified, putting itself between them and the vigoroth.

'The ralts has only just met us,' thought Ruby, shocked at the tiny psychic type's actions.

"You've got to help," said Wally, clearly worried for the ralts' safety. "You have some pokémon with you, right?"

Ruby quickly grabbed his two pokéballs, one a standard red, and the other a custom teal and violet, and threw them on either side of the trembling ralts. The twinned sound of the two pokéballs bursting open against the ground eased Ruby's nerves immensely; the regular pokéball unleashed an energetic mareep, Declan, who searched excitedly for Ruby in the electric type's usual playful manner, until the mareep spotted the vigoroth and quickly realised the current danger. The teal and violet pokéball, one of the catalysts of this current situation, released Gibson – a porygon. The virtual pokémon could not emote physically, but it made up for that with the ability to speak.

"Analysing situation... results inconclusive, insufficient data," the porygon spoke in a monotone, before rotating its head 180 degrees and staring at Ruby blankly. "Calculating most likely probabilities... strongest correlation: Norman."

Despite the situation, Ruby found a dark humour in Gibson's prediction. He wasn't sure if the porygon felt true emotion or not, but the fact that Norman had pulled schemes like this so often that his dad was the artificial pokémon's first assumption when presented with a strange situation said a lot about how common this was.

'Is this what you wanted, dad?' thought Ruby bitterly. 'This stupid plan of yours is gonna get us killed!'

The vigoroth looked more wary now, faced with three opponents. The ralts had the opposite reaction; having two allies had done a lot to calm its nerves, if emotions Ruby was feeling second hand were anything to go by.

"That move the ralts used earlier... weaponised empathy?" Ruby heard Wally mumble under his breath, the shorter boy's attention focused on the ralts. "It inflicted emotional damage? Must be disarming voice... obviously, the ralts can teleport."

Ruby wasn't going to question it. They were in a stressful situation, whatever Wally had to do to get through it was okay in Ruby's book.

"Gibson, protect Declan and the ralts," instructed Ruby, hoping that Gibson could tank the vigoroth's wrath for a bit until he could think of an actual plan.

"Affirmative." The porygon hovered forwards, putting itself between the vigoroth and the other two weaker pokémon.

"Declan, fire thunder-shocks at the vigoroth whenever you can," said Ruby, his voice unsure when directing the mareep. The electric type had been in a grand total of two battles in the eight years since Ruby had caught him. "Try to avoid hitting Gibson, okay?"

Declan nodded, his body shaking with nervous energy.

Ruby bit his lip anxiously. He was out of his element directing pokémon to fight. His strained relationship with Norman had had him rebelling against his dad's wishes for years, actively avoiding situations where he would have even seen two pokémon fighting in an official context, never mind something as unpredictable as a rampaging vigoroth.

'How am I gonna get us out of this?' thought Ruby sombrely.

A curious thing happened inside Wally's head. His overactive mind, primed from years of doom spiralling and seeing everything as a worst-case scenario, proceeded to pick apart every aspect of their current predicament. Norman was a gym leader, albeit a fresh one, so the vigoroth was better trained than its wild counterparts. Meanwhile, Ruby's two pokémon didn't seem to be battle ready; the mareep had clearly been expecting to play when it was released instead of fight, and the porygon had tried to analyse the situation instead of the opponent. The ralts, who had attacked a freaking vigoroth for them, would probably get knocked out if it was hit by one solid attack from the rampaging pokémon.

This was honestly worse than anything Wally's mind had ever thought up before, and yet, he felt inappropriately calm.

Wally watched the vigoroth closely. Without a trainer, the pokémon was free to act unpredictably. Norman probably ran combat drills with his pokémon, and gave them specialized training, so the vigoroth had skills that wild pokémon would not. On the other hand, the vigoroth was probably used to following Norman's instructions, so without the novice gym leader present the rampaging pokémon might struggle to adapt if it runs into a problem.

'Making a lot of assumptions there,' thought Wally anxiously.

The porygon, Gibson, was following Ruby's order to protect their weaker team members with a single-minded focus. Gibson was floating in front of the vigoroth, blocking the rampaging pokémon's path every time it tried to get passed. The vigorous pokémon howled and screeched with fury as it lashed out at the porygon with its sharp claws. The vigoroth was swinging its arms so fast that Wally couldn't tell if it was using slash, fury swipes, or if it was just swinging wildly. The porygon took the cutting attacks with no reaction beyond a blank stare. Wally winced at the sound; it was like nails dragging across ceramic.

Declan and the ralts were terrified, both being unfamiliar with a battle like this. The mareep kept his distance from the fight, taking potshots at the vigoroth with his thunder-shocks. It didn't seem to be doing much; the vigoroth took the electric types without flinching. The psychic type did the same, with the bonus of its disarming voice distracting the vigoroth and making it stumble.

Then the porygon, or at least Wally assumed it was the porygon, used a move that the pokémon fanatic had never seen before. White, pink, and blue squares hovered around the vigoroth for a moment, before flashing purple and flying towards the porygon, changing the pokémon's coloured from red and blue to two different shades of purple.

The vigoroth seemed confused by the change for a moment, before that confusion gave way to more anger. This time, when the rampaging pokémon's claws hit the porygon there was no sound, and the swings seemed to pass through the porygon like the virtual pokémon wasn't even there.

"Did that move make the porygon intangible?" asked Wally, his fascination with pokémon momentarily distracting him from the current danger.

"Sorta, it's one of porygon's signature movies, conversion 2," said Ruby, his voice clipped, "porygon changes its type to something resistant or immune to the last attack it was hit by. Ghost type, right now, I think."

"Wait, really? That means the vigoroth can't hurt Gibson with normal attacks, that's awesome!" exclaimed Wally, his mood doing a quick 180. "How long can Gibson keep the type change up?"

Ruby gave the shorter boy a blank stare, before a look of realisation came to his eyes. "Gibson has a perfect defence right now," whispered Ruby, some tension easing away. He gave Wally a searching look. "Do you think the ralts can teleport out of vigoroth's grip without bringing it along?"

Wally felt that Ruby had earnt the wary look that he was giving him. "Probably, but I wouldn't ask ralts to do that unless you've got a foolproof plan."

"Declan knows cotton spore." Offered Ruby as explanation.

Wally was confused for all of three seconds before letting out a delighted gasp. "Cotton trap?"

"Cotton trap," said Ruby with a nod of his head, a small smirk on his face.

Norman was cursing his past self for being so flippant toward Ruby and that sickly looking kid; he had no idea where they had gone in search of wild pokémon. There were only two real options, route 104 or 102, but it was a coin toss on which way they had gone. Norman had gone to route 104 first, but he hadn't seen any trace of them on the beach or the grassland leading up to Petalburg Woods. There was also a lack of screaming that one would expect from a rampaging vigoroth.

He turned around and started sprinting back towards Petalburg City as fast he could. Norman gritted his teeth; he wasn't as young as he used to be, there was a sharp pain in his gut and his knees felt like they were on fire, but he wouldn't let that stop him.

Ruby was more important than Norman's pain.

Norman was approaching route 102, when he heard the familiar sound of a vigoroth howling with fury in the distance. A primal fear settled in his bones; he was too late!

Fear for his son allowed Norman to move even faster, and somehow keep his balance as he ran over the uneven terrain that made route 102. He already had a pokéball in hand, ready to subdue the vigoroth with a beatdown if she was too whelmed in her rage to obey Norman's instructions.

'Vigoroth has technically been released,' thought Norman to himself, frustrated with the version of himself that had existed a month ago. 'Why did I think a release ball was a good idea?'

The sound of the vigoroth's frustrated howling was getting clearer. Norman turned after the next tree, prepared to release his slaking and sending a silent prayer to Ho-oh that Ruby and the other boy were still alive.

Norman had been preparing himself for the worst; blood, gore, general carnage. These were normal things to expect from a pokémon with sharp claws and teeth and a furious temper like vigoroth, Norman thought. What he actually saw was what appeared to be a giant, like the size of a snorlax giant, cotton ball. It looked like it was attached to two trees, stuck there despite the wild thrashing of its prisoner.

The prisoner was the vigoroth. She was in the centre of the cotton ball, and she was clearly displeased by this, but her efforts to free herself weren't baring any fruit.

Norman had never experienced such a quick emotional turn around before. He stared at the trapped pokémon bemused, all his fear and worry disappearing as he tried to process what he was even seeing.

It was the sound of enthusiastic cooing that brought him out of his dazed confusion. He turned his head and saw the sickly kid from earlier, Waldo maybe? The short boy was sitting at the base of a tree, a ralts in his arms. The ralts was also covered in cotton, but to a lesser extent. Waldo was praising the psychic type, calling it amazing and brave.

'What's even going on here?' thought Norman. He felt wrong footed, and he wasn't sure that an explanation or the proper context would help him make sense of things.

Then he noticed his son, who had been staring at him the entire time. Ruby smiled, but it wasn't a friendly thing, despite all appearances.

"Hey, dad," said Ruby, waving at Norman with false cheerfulness. His eyes, as red as his namesake, burned with a barely suppressed fury. "You'll never guess what happened!"

Norman usually had little patience for his son's whole 'passive aggressive to explosively aggressive' routine, but given the circumstances, Norman felt like he didn't have a right to argue.

Seven months, give or take. Executive dysfunction's a right pain, let me tell you! It didn't help that I had to write action in this chapter, and it just didn't feel like it was flowing right.

Here are some notes, to give some context for some things in this chapter.

Release ball – a concept I've been thinking about for ages. They catch a pokémon, and then when pre-determined parameters are met, they release the pokémon, severing the link. The ball can be programmed with an approved list of fingerprints or DNA samples, and when someone not approved tries to release the pokémon inside, the ball explodes. The reason for this is to deter theft; a pokémon might be hostile to someone that's stolen their pokéball, but the thief can just return the pokémon, taking away their ability to protect themselves.

The cotton trap. So, here's how Ruby and Wally dealt with the vigoroth. Have Gibson distract it while Declan used cotton spore to create a giant cotton spore ball – then have ralts make physical contact with the vigoroth, then teleport them both into the ball, then ralts teleports away. I thought the juxtaposition of everyone's stress with the situation and the silly way they resolved it was funny, and I'm trying to play around with how moves and pokémon abilities work. I might as well start now, since I know contests will come up eventually, but I've no idea how to write them.

Hopefully I can get chapter 5 out sooner.