A Courageous Heart
Chapter 14
-Giovanni-
"Thank you." Giovanni nodded as he ended the call with the Cops who'd contacted him about the situation. He'd gotten a call from Ash and Mallow about a bridge collapsing under them on their way to Vermillion and something about it had put a bad feeling in his gut. Calling in a few favors he'd gotten a couple Rangers to go check out the area and what he found sickened him.
That entire stretch of the forest was trapped, the bridge having been set to collapse deliberately. There were several empty traps, but many others had bones in them, people and Pokémon having been caught in them and never got out nor were they found. The Rangers had called in the cops who'd tracked the series of traps to a secret illegal 'Clinic' in the woods. The woman running it, by her own admission, didn't have any sort of medical license and set up the traps in the public routes to ward of 'poachers'.
Given the numerous corpses of both humans and Pokémon found in her traps, along with the act of running an unlicensed medical facility and practicing medicine without a license, she was hauled off and the Pokémon were being taken to an actual rehabilitation facility.
"Such a waste." He shook his head, frustrated at how the woman had run things and destroyed so much for no real point. Dialing a new number, he waited for the eventual answer, seeing Professor Oak with dark bags under their eyes and Delia by his side.
"Giovanni?" Delia looked surprised at his call toward the professor "Is something wrong?"
"I assume Ash and Mallow already told you about the bridge incident?" Giovanni pinched the bridge of his nose as the two nodded.
"I'm just glad they're both alright." Delia wrung her hands nervously "I can't believe the League allowed the bridges to go neglected long enough for that to happen."
"It wasn't a league bridge." Giovanni didn't bother to hide his scowl; Kanto was his domain and he was far from pleased at some random psychotic hippie in the woods killing people was never brought to his attention "It was made by a lunatic that was arrested in the woods."
"What happened?" Oak sighed, sounded resigned and exhausted. There must have been something else that happened recently.
"A woman decided to set up a 'recovery clinic' in the woods for Pokémon that were either abandoned or that escaped being caught." Giovanni explained "She never got approval, never licensed the place, and never got a medical license. On top of that she began setting traps throughout the woods that trainers use to 'protect her secret garden' from poachers and trainers who'd try to catch the Pokémon there. The Rangers and police found skeletons, both human and Pokémon, in her traps."
"She what?!" Delia Ketchum looked ready to kill at that.
"The League is planning to set up a proper rehabilitation facility for the mon so they could recover from any issues and learn to interact with people properly again." Giovanni nodded, not reacting to the woman's fury "I wanted to check if you had room at the Ranch for this Professor." He also remembered that Delai Ketchum was trained at the Oak Lab too and had the qualifications to help with the rehabilitation too.
"I'll need a day or two at least to set an area aside for it." Oak ran a hand down his face "But it should be doable."
"Did something else happen? You seem…exhausted, more so than usual." Giovanni probed gently. He didn't like not knowing what was going on in his region.
"One of my trainers was arrested for neglecting and abusing his Pokémon." Oak's head slammed onto a table with a resounding 'thunk' "And they're trying to decide if he should be charged with attempted murder of a Pokémon or attempted manslaughter."
"Lost a bunch of battles and blamed the Pokémon rather than think it was their own fault?" Giovanni was intimately familiar with that type of trainer. Several tried joining the Black Rockets for power or free strong Pokémon all the time.
"Exactly." Oak nodded, "Ash and Mallow came across his Charmander he'd abandoned and told to wait on a rock and not leave until he came back for it. They found it just before a heavy rainstorm would have happened in the area."
"Which would have put out the Charmander's tail." His scowl was full of righteous anger now, having always been fond of the Charizard line given his own starter.
"Mallow punched him for it." Delia sounded incredibly proud at that "Ash sure picked a good one."
"Did they finally admit their crush?" Giovanni looked up hopefully, if they had then he'd have won the bet with Bruno about it.
"Not yet, but it'll be soon. A mother knows." Delia declared with unshakable confidence.
"Well, I'll contact the Rangers and let them know you agreed to help out." Giovanni decided to switch the topic back "For now you get some sleep Professor." Ending the call before the man could protest that he was fine, a lie that nobody would believe, Giovanni checked his messages.
James: Approaching Vermillion City, the St. Anne should be arriving tomorrow.
-Ash-
"We made it." Ash stretched, being careful not to overdo it with the wounds still tender after reopening by the bridge.
"Barely." Mallow snorted, the corners of her lips twitching up as they walked through the city entrance, "I can't believe the St. Anne is already set to arrive tomorrow."
"We didn't miss it and that's what matters." Ash shrugged calmly, idly noting the Gym nearby as they walked. He couldn't see much apart from the massive Dragonite outside, clearly too big to use the indoor ring without issues, especially if they're as strong as one would assume from a pseudo legendary of that size.
"Raichu, use thunda!" a powerful voice shouted as Ash had only a moment to process before another sound shot through him.
"Chuuuuu!" the call was hauntingly familiar, even if the voice was clearly different. The resounding flash of yellow that split the sky, the echoing boom that he swore he felt down to his bones.
The smell of burning flesh in his nostrils.
"Ash!"
The Spearows, their beaks and talons were cutting into him again, he could feel it. Could feel the cold rain stabbing into his bleeding wounds.
"Ash!"
He was screaming, his breath was coming out in rasping gasps. The smell, the pain, it was there, but it couldn't be. But it was.
"Kid!" a sharp voice jolted him as massive hands grasped his face, "Look up at me, breathe!" his vision, still foggy, noted that there was daylight, not a nighttime storm. The one speaking was a towering giant of a man, close to his dad's size, who was looking down at him concerned.
"Breathe kid!" the giant ordered again, sounding firm but not unkind, loudly taking in deep slow breaths as Ash found himself copying them. As his racing heartbeat slowed down, he felt frantic nuzzling against his plasm as his hands hung limply at his sides.
"Eon!" Jolteon, his partner who'd been helping him try to get over…get over…
Ash buried his finger's in Jolteon's fur, his body shaking with self-loathing as he realized what he'd just done. He'd panicked the second he heard lightning from the Pikachu line and had started screaming in the street like a child throwing a tantrum over not getting candy.
"None of that now kid, eyes on me." The massive man's stern voice made Ash look up, not even thinking about disobeying "There we go." The giant helped pull Ash to his feet, Ash having not even realized he was kneeling on the sidewalk, people starting to form a crowd to watch "Keep breathing for me. Slow and steady, in and out. Now do me a favor, count to ten, saying a letter from the alphabet in order between each number." As he followed the instructions, having to take a moment to keep track of the letters and numbers as he went. By the time he finished he could feel his heartbeat having slowed significantly from the rapid racing happening before.
"I…that helped." Ash blinked in confusion "T-thank you."
"Of course, kid." The giant gave a gentle smile before sending a harsh look at the watching crowd who quickly broke up and moved along "You're Ketchum right?"
"You're the Gym leader." Ash realized, putting two and two together quickly.
"Yep." The giant stepped back as Mallow rushed in to fret over Ash "Promised Giovanni and your old man I'd look after you when you got here." The Gym leader, who had to be Lieutenant Suge, looked over at mallow "Can you get him to the Center little Missy?"
"Y-yes sir." Mallow nodded, her hand grasping Ash's as she pulled him along.
"I'll come check on you both later." Lieutenant Surge promised "For now just go get settled."
-Surge-
Running a hand through his hair with a sigh, Surge walked back to the outdoor arena he'd been battling in.
"Everything alright?" Lance asked, the Champion standing by his Dragonite, Surge's strongest Raichu wringing their paws nervously, not moved from where they'd been when Surge raced out to the sound of screaming.
"It was Bruno's boy." Surge gently rubbed his Raichu's head, "Kid heard our battle and had a relapse."
Lance winced hard at that, "I had a feeling it was that." It explained why the Champion hadn't followed him, although with Dragonite out he'd clearly ready to assist as needed. Probably for the best though, the last thing that kid needed was Lance's fanboys taking note of him and making Ketchum's situation even more of a public deal.
"Kid was thankfully easy to bring back out of it." Surge picked up his Raichu, continuing the head rubs to assure the little fella that it wasn't their fault Ketchum had a panic attack "That Jolteon Giovanni arranged for him was doing its part too. I'd say it's a good sign that the kid latched onto it rather than pushing little guy away." He'd had plenty of experience dealing with PTSD thanks to his time in the army which was how he'd bene able to help the kid through the panic attack "I sent them to go check into the Pokémon Center. You wanna come with me when I go to meet them?" for a man as flamboyant as he was, Lance could be surprisingly sneaky when it came to avoiding the press and fanboys.
"I might." Lance considered "I have to get going soon though. I wanted to check out that forest where Ketchum got attacked in the first place, see if I can find any sign of the Legendary that apparently came through afterward. And make sure there aren't any of those imbecilic legend hunters trying to piss it off.