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Pokémon The Tales and Trials of a Trainer

Zelcore

Youngster
This is a story I've been plotting and working on for a while, and I'm finally getting around to posting it. Its a pokemon fanfic with Red and Blue chronicling their journey to the championship. I'm going to try and make it a bit different than the games/anime/manga and try and mash them together and put a different spin on it. I think it would be massively boring to just read a complete novelization of the game. I'm planning on making some changes and am going to try and keep it interesting.

I did some editing of the chapter, fixed some grammar and trimmed down some of the fat.


The Tales and Trials of a Trainer
Chapter 1: Battle of the Century


Every great pokémon trainer has a moment, a moment where they knew that they were going to become one. I'm not talking about the schmuck down the street that has a zigzagoon and claims to be a pokémon trainer because it's foreign and he taught it to sit. I'm talking about the trainers. The ones that liken themselves to the original trainers of old that when the Brink opened and unleashed literal monsters in our world decided that those beasts coming through would be our best chance at defending ourselves.

Torsten of Pewter's ruling Tektite Clan recalled his moment when he watched his grandfather ride off on an enormous onix to defend the stone gray city against Johto.

Pryce Willow, Mahogany's gym leader recalled he would become the best trainer he possibly could after watching helplessly as his lapras was orphaned by an avalanche.

Our esteemed Grand Champion Aconite Shino recalled his moment when he watched his starter hatch from its egg.

My moment wasn't a big flashy moment, or even one most people would call, 'the moment'. It was small, and personal.

I was eight years old. My mother and I lived alone with the exception of her sole pokémon, an older Mr. Mime. We lived on the outskirts of Pallet in a small two bedroom house, it wasn't much, but it was ours. We got by on my mother's meager salary from the diner.

Even then, I was obsessed with pokémon. I tried to learn as much as I possibly could. The different types, and species, and how they interacted with each other, but what captivated me the most were the pokémon battles. Trainers pitting their pokémon against one another in a simple yet high-stakes game.

The Tournament had just begun. The month long event, split up into two tournaments: The Tournament of Champions and the Grand Championship Tournament. Of the two, the Grand Championship Tournament was the more important of the two and it was nearing its conclusion with the Gambit beginning. It was the brief week-long period where a challenger who completed the stringent qualifications could pit their pokémon against the Grand Champion's for the chance at gaining the throne.

The Grand Champion was Indigo's de facto leader. They were considered the best able to defend the region against the monsters that invaded our world millennia ago. They were advised by their hand-picked senior advisors known as the Elite Four and the representatives of the major cities throughout the Johto and Kanto regions known as the Gym Leaders.

In order to be able to qualify to challenge the Grand Champion for the throne, a challenger must first defeat eight of the gym leaders in Indigo. They would need to survive the trial known as traversing Victory Road. If successful, they have to defeat another semifinalist. They would then be entered into the Finals where they would challenge the Elite Four one by one. Upon defeating all four they would be able to challenge the Grand Champion.

Our current Grand Champion Aconite had been on the throne for literal decades. Throughout his reign he has cycled through various Elite Four members and Gym Leaders, and has had many challengers for the throne, but all have failed.

My mother and I had been following the meteoric rise of Blackthorn's Lance Drakken. He had set records for his challenge of the gyms completing all sixteen in a quarter of the time it took most challengers to complete eight.


I woke up early on the very first day of the Gambit. I think I half expected Lance to challenge Aconite at the first chance he got, but instead of the challenging I got something else.

"Good morning," a woman with perfect blonde hair in a red dress said on our dinky little television with a bent antennae. "We have breaking news for you this morning, and it is not what you would expect."

"We have confirmation," a man in perfect black suit jacket and tie continued, "that Giovanni Razzo, the man known as the Would-Be-Champion has returned home at last."

The video cut to a light-skinned man with a black receding hairline. He was standing on a battle platform with a determined look on his face yelling orders down to the biggest sandslash I had ever seen with wicked sharp spines along its back. A second later it sprinted off for a nidoqueen that was almost twice its size.

"For those of you who may not remember, Razzo was a very accomplished serviceman in the Indigo Plateau's special forces following his gaining of the eight badges and passing the tests required for admittance. During his service he continued to challenge gyms throughout Indigo eventually becoming one of the few trainers attain all sixteen."

The television cut to the headshot of Razzo in perfect military blues with eight Indigo badges on one breast and a number of multi-colored bars and medals on the other.

"Ten years ago, Razzo was in much the same position that we are in now with Lance Drakken. A challenger that all analysts say has the greatest chance at claiming the throne in recent memory."

"Reports claim that Razzo was in the throne room in the midst of issuing his challenge when an alert came through from A.C.E. requesting the Indigo Special Forces with great urgency. A claim that grew increasingly fragile as time led on."

An elderly man stood with the backdrop of the Viridian Gym behind him.

"It has been nearly two centuries since Viridian has had a Grand Champion," the man said growing increasingly agitated. "I just find it oddly suspicious that as we are poised to have a new one they are disappeared away under the pretense of an emergency which has still been 'occurring' for years."

"Which means it'll be a race," the male anchor took over. "Who will make it to the Plateau first to challenge Aconite for the throne? The Would-Be Champion or the Dragon Tamer?"

"Red!" My mom said exasperatedly.

My mom said my nickname was one of the only gifts I received from my father, that and the color of my eyes that my name comes from.

"How long have you been up?" Mom called from the doorway.

"Not long," I muttered quietly.

"Mmhmm," my mom said with narrowed eyes. "Go fix your breakfast,]. I'm working a double tonight, so make sure you come to the diner after school."

"Will Oak be at the diner tonight?" I asked between bites of cereal a few minutes later as my mother rushed around in a whirlwind to get ready.

"Professor Oak, young man," she said sternly and I nodded. "I don't know, he comes in sporadically."

I gave my mother a hug and a kiss and headed off to school. School was boring, I didn't get perfect scores on everything, but I was close. The kids weren't outright bullies but they weren't exactly nice. It was subtle, I was picked last or almost last in all the games. They whispered behind my back about my eyes and came up with elaborate stories. The best ones were that I was some kind of experiment that was either a success or a failure that depended on the day; the worst ones was that I was the result of some affair my mother had with a dark-type pokémon trainer, or worse their pokémon.

I ignored them for the most part, although my mother did get called up to the school occasionally for fights. Usually when my classmates would make the more vulgar insinuations about my parentage.

Following school, I made my way to the diner where I tucked myself into a small booth in the corner. I pulled out a book on types and battle strategy that Professor Oak had given me the last time he had been in.

Two hours later, I idly watched the news as they reiterated the exact same information they had this morning about the return of the Would-Be-Champion. They then spent the rest of the news discussing the ongoing battle on the Plateau of the gym relocation from the inner-city Celadon to the frontier town of Pallet.

About an hour before closing I glanced blearily at the door as the bell dinged for the thirty-second time that night. My eyes widened when I saw a middle-aged man in khaki slacks and a white lab coat walk up and seat himself at the bar.

I waited just long enough for my mother to walk up and take his order before I packed up my stuff, walked over and carefully climbed up in the bar stool next to him.

"Good evening Red," Oak said with a warm smile on his face. "Isn't it a little past your bedtime?"

"Not really," I yawned. "I'm not tired at all."

"You listen to me, young man," my mother said as she sat down a plate of food in front of Oak and a slice of chocolate cake in front of me. "You let Professor Oak get a few bites in before you start pestering him with questions."

"He's fine, Delia," Professor Oak watched as I viciously dug into my cake. "I don't mind answering any of his questions. An inquisitive mind is not something I want to stifle."

"How was your day, Professor?" I asked after waiting for him to take precisely four and a half bites.

"It was busy as usual, but not a bad day at all. I received the news that my son's family will be moving here shortly. Which means you'll have a new student in your class, my grandson."

"That's nice," I said politely. "I can't wait to meet him."

"I'm sure you guys will get along great. How was your day, Red?"

"It was okay."

"Just okay? Those kids haven't been bothering you again have they?"

"No, not really. They were all mainly distracted with the Would-Be-Champion returning and who is going to be the next Grand Champion."

"Ahhh. I don't think Mr. Razzo quite likes the nickname the world has given him."

"You've met him? Have you already seen him since he's been back? Why do they call him the Would-Be-Champion?"

"I've met him a few times before he left. He's a very charming charismatic young man, and quite the trainer. Everything they say about his battle prowess is completely true." Oak ate another bite before continuing. "As for the nickname, that moniker started to circulate after his abrupt disappearance. Many believe his chance was stolen from him and that he would have won."

"So you think he'll win if he beats Lance to challenging Aconite?"

Oak barked out a laugh. "Now I didn't say that, Aconite is quite the formidable trainer even in his advanced age."

"Who do you think will win of the two of them against Aconite?"

"You're the fifth person to ask me that today," Oak smiled. "Who do you think will win?"

"According to this," I said tapping the battle strategy guide between us. "They both have about an even chance of beating Aconite."

"Why is that?" Oak asked surprise coloring his voice.

"From what I can tell, Razzo's pokémon before he left were mainly ground and rock types. Which have hard outer bodies and would be hard for Aconite's primarily poison type pokémon to penetrate."

"Very good Red! What about Lance?"

"He's got dragons," I snorted.

"And?" Oak chuckled.

"They're dragons," I sighed. That should have been reason enough. "They have armored scales which would make it very hard for them to penetrate. If they managed to, it would take a very strong poison to be able to bring down a dragon."

"Wouldn't that make Lance a better chance of beating Aconite since it would be just as hard for the poison pokémon to penetrate the dragon's scales as the rock and ground pokemon? And then they have to bring down a dragon's immune system? Which would be much hardier than a rock or ground pokemon's system?"

I nodded. "Except it's Aconite whose pokémon have been creating potent poisons since before you were born. I'm sure his pokémon could bring down a dragon."

"That's an amazing analysis Red! Most people would go right for Lance taking the win easily because of his dragons. Although you did leave out one very important part."

"What's that?" I frowned.

"As all of Aconite's pokémon are poison types, and poison types are not very well known for their sturdiness, they would be more likely to be gravely injured from a good direct hit from say a giant rock or a dragon. But despite that, your reasoning still stands since Aconite would be at an equal disadvantage from both challengers."

I nodded for a moment in thought. "I completely forgot about how Aconite's pokémon would fair against attacks from Lance or Giovanni."

"A fair assumption to make," Oak said sympathetically. "Aconite has been the Grand Champion for decades. Most people don't take his pokémon’s frailty into account. They just assume since he’s the Grand Champion, they can weather it."

"Boys," my mother called exasperatedly from the other side of the room. "It's time to go, and it's way past your bedtime mister."

I looked around and realized we were the only three left in the diner, all the tables had been wiped down and the chairs stacked up and the back had been locked up. The night had flown by.

"It takes a lot of planning and strategizing to be a good pokémon trainer doesn't it?" I asked as we walked towards the front door.

"You are correct, Red, but I think you are going to be a great trainer," Oak ruffled my hair.

Oak was right of course on both accounts. I haven't known that man to be wrong on very much at all.

That wasn't my moment.

Less than twenty-four hours later, my mother and I were seated on our couch with a bowl of popcorn between us. Mimey was sitting in a comfortable chair on the other side of the room. My mother managed to get one of many other waitresses to return a favor and cover her so that we could watch it together. Just us.

"Good evening Johto and Kanto!" The same correspondent from the night before exclaimed. He was standing yet again in front of an ancient looking grey arena. "We join you tonight in front of the Indigo Colosseum, where the first champion carved it out the very mountain millennia ago. The battle is about to be underway! We now take you inside!"

The camera changed to a wide panning shot of the interior over a thousand people lining the stands. A dirt field with outlined chalk bisecting it covered the majority of the colosseum. On either side of the halves were raised platforms.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages welcome to the Grand Championship! This is sure to be a battle to remember! This will be a battle that you will tell your grandchildren about! This will be a battle for the century!”

A blue raised platform appeared on the tv. Standing at the top leaning heavily on a cane was a man that looked to be nearly a century old.

“In the blue corner, He can survive a multitude of deadly venoms and has been the leader of Indigo for over half of his life, the Poison King,” The announcer started and was drowned out by the crowd. “We have your current Grand Champion Aconite!”

The elderly man gave a stiff short bow a small smile played on his face as the crowd continued to further deafen the elderly man. He wore a dark violet robe with a single pink flower in his breast pocket. Wrinkles and mottled skin covered his face and arms, and his eyes had a thin white film on them. Long white hair was tied into a neat bun on the back of his head and a long white beard flowed down to his chest.

The red platform appeared it was empty.
The same thought was on everyone's mind, who managed to extend their challenge first?

The camera panned around the stadium as groans and cheers reverberated throughout the room as a man with flaming red hair that stood on end rose out of the center of the platform.

Lance Drakken the Dragon Tamer was the first one to make it to the Plateau.

"Grand Champion Aconite!" Lance called out across the stadium. "I have acquired sixteen badges, I have defeated your Elite, I challenge you for the throne!"

Aconite stood up shakily with the help of a shiny black cane and sighed, "I accept."

“In the red corner, we have the up-and-comer, the man who earned sixteen badges, the only man that can stare down a gyarados, he’s known as the Dragon Tamer, but may soon be known as the Dragon King,” the crowd went equally as wild cheering, “I give you the Challenger, Lance Drakken!”

The young flame-haired man nodded. He was dressed in a pressed black suit with a white button up shirt and a red tie. Clasped on his shoulders was a burgundy cape that flowed almost all the way down to his feet. He flourished his cape and took a bow.

“The rules are as follows, 6 vs 6 winner with the last standing pokémon is the champion. Begin!” The announcer boomed.

The battle was everything the announcer predicted it to be and more. Back and forth the battle raged on, neither Aconite or Lance able to gain the upperhand on the other.

Death at this level of competition was inevitable, at the same time trainers don't get to this level without being quick on the return. Lance and Aconite, despite his age, were both among these trainers and managed to return their pokemon to pokeball stasis before their injuries could become life threatening. With the exception of Aconite’s crobat being swallowed whole by Lance’s gyarados.

Neither trainer could pull ahead. They were both completely evenly matched. In a spectacular display of strength Aconite’s nidoking and Lance’s charizard both managed to knock each other out. A first in the Grand Championship.

“The Champion and the Challenger are both now down to their last pokémon,” the announcer boomed. Everyone in the stadium and watching at home were on the edge of their seats. “Who will they choose next?”

Lance pulled off a bulky, overly large pokeball that was faded from a once shiny red and pristine white to an off-color orange and eggshell white. He threw it down to the field with barely a second glance.

A flash of a red light and a looming orange scaled dragonite appeared. The enormous bipedal dragon towered a staggering nearly fourteen feet tall, it flared out a pair of wrinkled azure wings that were taller than a man. Wrinkles covered its armored orange body and its cream colored belly. A white film covered its eyes which made me wonder how it could even see. Two jagged amber antennae stuck out of the top of its head, one bent at a completely unnatural angle. Two fingers were missing on its left forepaw and one from its right hindpaw.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ares!” The announcer said and the crowd roared in approval. “The dragon that is over a century old. Older than even our dear champion. He's named after the ancient pre-brink god of war, a fitting name since this ancient beast fought under Lance's great grandfather in the last Kanto-Johtan War" the announcer barely finished before Aconite moved to release his pokémon.

Aconite pulled one last pokeball off of his belt, he gave it a solemn look before throwing it down onto the field.

A red laser lanced out and a twelve foot long purple arbok as wide as a fully grown man appeared. The first four feet of the snake were split in two each one ending in a head with a full hood flared out. Each hood continuously shifted its markings from yellow to red to black to orange and black never staying the same for more than a few seconds. The left head's hood had a jagged scar running diagonally across it, no matter what color the rest of the hood changed the scar would always stay the same purple color as the rest of it's scales. They both opened their mouths in near perfect unison showing off their fangs that were nearly a foot long.

The two-headed arbok let out a long hiss that sent shivers down my back as it didn't actually stop to breathe as the other half of the snake would pick up when the other left off.

"Its Doku and Mushi, the only arbok in the world to have two heads! Mushi is the head with the jagged scar. Doku-Mushi was Aconite's starter, hatching for him many many years ago."

"Ixen Drevan!" Lance shouted.

Ares took a wider stance and opened his gigantic maw and launched three balls each one the size of a small car across the battlefield.

Aconite literally hissed at his giant snake.

Doku-Mushi rose up a foot higher before the two heads cocked back and coughed up a trio of dark purple acid globs high into the air.

Aconite and Lance both held their cards to their heart that night for the last battle. Lance spoke exclusively in his native dragon tongue, a famous blackthorn dialect handed down from when the clan first tamed the original dragons. Aconite spoke a coded hissing language that he and the snake developed when they first challenged the league decades ago.

The fireballs and acid collided in midair causing a blinding explosion. The video feed on the television shook as a plume of smoke filled the air.

Through the haze, Ares was barely discernible as he leapt up into the air and flapped his enormous wings dispersing the smoke near him.

A purple blur shot into view as Doku-Mushi landed where Ares had been moments before. The snake coiled in on itself and sprang twenty feet in the air after the hovering dragon fangs bared.

In an almost effortless move, Ares reached out and smacked the neck joint where the heads met, knocking the flying snake out of the air.

Aconite hissed as Doku-Mushi hit the ground and rolled before launching diagonally across the battlefield. A roar shook the colosseum as Ares dive-bombed the spot raking his claws across the dirt.

As one, the purple snake twisted its body, Mushi slithered them away turned completely sideways, while Doku spat bright purple acid at the trailing dragon.

The globule of acid split apart as it sailed through the air hardening into dozens of thin darts.

The dragon barrel-rolled, but a dozen darts impaled the thin membrane of its left wing. The wing seized up and Ares spiraled down and hit the ground with a deafening boom.

A roar filled the colosseum. Ares climbed out of the crater, bright purple liquid dripped from the wing. He flapped it quickly gaining movement back.

"Litentir!" Lance shouted.

Ares’ antennae fizzled with dozens of bright blue sparks before a roll of thunder resounded across the stadium. A giant bolt of blue lightning shot into the air.

Twenty feet away, the great purple snake was coiled like a rope. An instant later it shot into the air like a spring. The bolt shot into the sand harmlessly, instantly forming several shards of white hot glass.

The dragon shot off a half dozen smaller bright yellow crackling bolts popping in the air like firecrackers. The snake slithered in wide arcs towards avoiding the lightning strikes with only inches to spare.

"Shetra Weive!"

The dragon’s antennae sparked furiously creating a high pitched whine with a popping undercurrent. They produced hundreds of blue sparks that began orbiting a small point between them. Small flecks of metal slowly floated into the air as it was caught in the magnetic field. The whine began building in intensity as the blue ball that was forming began to shine so bright it was blinding.

Aconite hissed. Doku-Mushi stretched out to its full length flat against the ground, and spread its heads as wide as they would go.

Dozens of bright connecting arcs stretched out and formed with the dragon at the epicenter. It collided with the snake with a sharp zap and sizzled out.

Doku-Mushi hissed in pain and his body locked up flat on the ground momentarily.

"Grounding!" The announcer shouted. "A risky strategy involving covering a wide surface area and directing as much of the current into the ground as possible."

Doku-Mushi flicked its tail sending a dozen more toxic spikes toward the dragon. Ares dashed out of the way. In the same instant Doku sent a glob of acid at the dragon.

It hit Ares in it's beige stomach and the dragon roared as the poison sizzled and melted his armored scales together.

"Ixenious!" Lance shouted.

Ares took a running leap into the air and furled out its wings. He opened his mouth and let out a stream of fire straight up in the air before diving, smoke billowing out behind him.

The arbok coiled and launched itself, zigzagging away as fast it could. Ares strafed the snake melting whole sections sections of scales together.

The snake hissed and rolled over on its back, both heads rose to their full height. Ares tucked a wing in and whipped around diving again to the snake maw opened.

In one motion, Doku-Mushi shot a double spray of acid at the incoming dragon. Fire erupted from Ares' maw and an instant later the acid made contact.

The acid literally exploded in the dragon's face, and launched him tumbling through the air. He cratered fifty feet away with a resounding thud throwing up dust.

The snake took off like lightning, making an s-shaped trail through the dirt as he made his way towards the downed dragon.

Ares was groggily standing up, when Doku-Mushi started winding his body up and around the dragon's legs, stomach, wings, and shoulders. Ares struggled against the growing binds, pushing and stretching to loosen the snake, but Doku-Mushi was too strong. Aconite barked a throaty hiss and the snake constricted.

The dragon let out a roar that shook the colosseum as the life was literally being squeezed out of it. The Doku and Mushi peeled away from Ares' body with their fangs bared and began rapidly striking all over the dragon's upper half.

"It looks like Lance's bid for the championship may soon come to an end!" The announcer boomed. "How much more can his dragon take?!?"

I turned to my mother with a panicked look and she grabbed me closer, the empty popcorn bowl falling off the couch.

"Shocraos!" Lance shouted.

Ares' antennas began to rapidly spark blue again before thunder shook the battlefield as he sent the blue electric shock down his body.

The snake hissed as his body seized up against its control. Ares pushed and managed to loosen up the snake enough to unfurl his wings and leapt flapping like mad to gain as much altitude as possible, the snake's long tail swinging haphazardly behind them.

The camera zoomed in on the flying duo. Ares did not look good, faint purple veins stood out in the azure color of his wings, one was dripping beads of blood from where the darts impacted. The bites on his neck and shoulder were half melted pits filled with more poison, the veins coming off were in high relief and turning purple as well.

As they continued to climb higher and higher, the snake continued to strike the dragon, even tearing out whole sections of scales.

"Tharm rechan!" Lance shouted.

They crested the top of the colosseum, spectators reached out almost able to touch the flying behemoths.

Ares locked both wings and dove forward and looped once, twice, thrice, each loop smaller than the last. He pulled and pried at the snake trying to throw it off with brute strength and centrifugal force.

"It doesn't look good for the elderly snake! A fall from this height would surely kill him," the announcer said what we were all thinking.

The snake was slowly losing its grip. Inch by inch, it began to slide down the dragon's body despite trying to visibly tighten itself.

And then...the world gasped.

I watched as Ares' eyes rolled back in his head and the dragon and snake plummeted.

I let out a small cry as the two tumbled and somersaulted chaotically through the air.

Lance and Aconite watched helplessly, as they yelled futile orders at their pokémon.

At almost the last possible second, Ares shook himself awake and flared out his wings. It wasn't enough and the two hit the ground digging out a massive ten foot deep crater and throwing up a mushroom cloud of dirt and debris.

The entire colosseum was silent, the entire region was silent as they collectively watched as the dust settled. A fall from that height could have killed both pokémon, whoever managed to survive it would be the champion.

Roaring and hissing filled the stadium, as the ground shook while the dragon and snake wrestled in the cloud of dirt.

The dust finally settled to reveal a swaying Ares with a dozen more pockmarked oozing bites across his upper body. He almost looked more purple than orange at this point.

He held Doku's head in one giant paw and Mushi's head in the other. He merely had to flex a muscle and the snake would be ripped completely in half.

The dragon turned toward Aconite's platform, where the elder trainer stood staring down at the field a somber look on his face.

In one slow motion, Aconite removed the pokeball, pointed it at his snake and thumbed the release. An instant later a red laser shot out and beamed the giant snake which dissolved and disappeared.

The announcer, the stadium, the entire Indigo region watched in complete shocked silence.

"I knew this day would come," Aconite said in a throaty half whisper. "Congratulations Grand Champion Lance," he finished with a somber smile.

An instant later, the world erupted with deafening cheers and screams.

I turned toward mom with the biggest smile on my face literally bouncing in my seat.

"He did it! I can't believe he did it!" I babbled a mile a minute. "Ares was so strong! And Doku-Mushi was so fast! I can't believe he has two heads!"

"It was an amazing battle wasn't it Red?" My mom said breathlessly. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Do you think I can be that good of a trainer one day?" I asked hesitantly.

My mom looked at me with a warm smile and complete confidence in her eyes.

"Red, I believe without a doubt, that you can be even better."

This was my moment. The moment where I knew I was not going to be a great trainer, but the very best.

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The following is an abstracted excerpt from Pokedex Entry # 24 Arbok

Arbok, also known as the Cobra pokémon is highly venomous snake known for its dark violet color and its color changing hood. The pokémon’s hood actually contains its poison sacs where its venom is produced and stored. The hood’s coloring comes from the translucency of the scales within it from the sacs’ growth in size and potency from when it was an ekans. The translucency allows for poison sacs’ reactions to be visible which give a unique design on the pokémon’s hood. No two arbok are alike, they all have different designs on their hoods as their poisons all have different levels of acidity, their poison sacs themselves are all different sizes and they are all reacting differently. As the arbok grows older it gains much more fine control over the sacs and can control the chemical compounds which allow it to create a frightening array of debilitating poisons. The breadth of these variations in venoms allow for the snake to be able to paralyze, dissolve, change blood viscosity, and even how the poisons react when they come into contact with air, or water…

...perhaps the most famous arbok is former Grand Champion Aconite's one-of-a-kind two-headed serpent Doku-Mushi. They were nearly indistinguishable from one another until in an exhibition match Mushi's hood was nearly severed causing it's now famous scar. Each snake independently controls their own head and the two share one nervous system. They cooperatively control the length of their body beyond the joint of the neck where their heads join. The snake not only holds the record for longest living arbok and most venoms, but also held the record for length until she sired Ira, the arbok that was gifted to Aconite's grandson.

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The story has been influenced by a bunch of different fanfics including, Game of Champions by Lamora, The Sun Soul by 50CaliberChaos, Pokémon: The Line by Radhominin, The Saga of Kings by Vile Slanders, and a whole bunch of others.

What did you guys think?

Edited on 8-31-19 I cleaned up a lot of the grammar and trimmed down the fat. I removed the 24 hr bait and switch, some of Red and Oak's discussion, and the pokemon battles leading up to Ares vs Doku-Mushi.
 
Last edited:

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
Hey, welcome to the forums! Always exciting to see a new story, and I'm fond of dark trainer fics, so I'm definitely interested in seeing where this one goes.

I think you did a good job of showing off how this story will be different than a typical novelization of RB, which is important for a story like this. You really want to showcase what makes your fic stand out from the pack, and you injected plenty of original flavor here. I'll be interested to see how you portray the actual training side of things once Red gets started on the actual journeying part of the journey--we've gotten a fair amount on the history of the region and how the league works and so on, but not much so far on how wandering around in the wild with monsters actually works. That's what the entire rest of the story is for, of course.

I also liked the framing of this first chapter with the various trainers' reasons for deciding to become trainers. It works effectively to provide some structure and interest to the first chapter beyond the usual "main character is enthusiastic about training and battling and wants to be the best." I also liked how diverse the trainers' reasons were for setting out, from the flashy to the smaller and more quiet.

Unfortunately, at times I did think that your mechanics held things back a bit. You seem to have a bit of trouble with commas in particular, and there were some pretty consistent grammar/punctuation issues throughout the chapter, as well as a fair number of standard typos and goofs. Proofreading might help some, but it might be beneficial to do a refresher on comma and punctuation rules in general. I'll cover some below when I talk about more sentence-level impressions, but there are a lot that I don't have time to cover.


One consistent problem you have is with its vs it's. "It's" is a contraction of "it is," so you should only be using it in places where you could substitute "it is" without a problem. For example:

It hit Ares in it's beige stomach and the dragon roared as the poison sizzled and melted his armored scales together.
"It is beige stomach" doesn't work here, so it should be "its beige stomach."

The left head's hood had a jagged scar running diagonally across it, no matter what color the rest of the hood changed the scar would always stay the same purple color as the rest of it's scales.
"The rest of it is scales" doesn't make sense, so it should be "its" in this sentence.

As one, the purple snake twisted it's body, Mushi slithered them away turned completely sideways, while Doku spat bright purple acid at the trailing dragon.
Again, "it is body" doesn't work, so it should be "its body." Also, this sentence should properly be two sentences, the second starting with "Mushi slithered them away..." This is another common mistake I see in this chapter. This is called a comma splice--when a comma is used to join what should be entirely separate sentences. Here's another example:

The enormous bipedal dragon towered a staggering nearly fourteen feet tall, it flared out a pair of wrinkled azure wings that were taller than a man.
"The enormous bipedal dragon..." is a complete sentence, and so is "It flared out..." Either of those could stand on their own. You can't join two sentences like that with just a comma. You want to either make them two separate sentences with a period between ("The enormous bipedal dragon [...] fourteen feet tall. It flared out...") or insert a conjunction--usually "and," "or," or "but"--to go with the comma. "The enormous bipedal dragon [...] fourteen feet tall, and it flared out..." would also be perfectly fine. Same deal here:

I frowned, that was a complete disappointment.
"I frowned" is a sentence. "That was a complete disappointment" is a sentence. Probably the best way to handle this would be the straightforward "I frowned. That was a disappointment."

And here you don't even have the comma:

We have breaking news it appears on the second day of the Gambit an official challenging has been made.
"We have breaking news. It appears on the second day..."

There are a lot of examples throughout this chapter ("We lived on the outskirts of Pallet in a small two bedroom house, it wasn't much, but it was ours and we got by on my mother's meager salary from the diner," is another), but it would be a lot for me to point them all out. Definitely something to watch out for when you're proofreading!

And just some general sentence-level comments:

If succeeding, they would then make it to the Indigo League Semi-Finals where they would have to defeat in battle another semifinalist.
*if successful, and it would read a lot better to say "they would have to defeat another semifinalist in battle."

They whispered behind my back about my eyes behind my back and came up with elaborate stories.
One of those "behind my back"s wants to go.

My eyes widened when I saw a middle-aged man in khaki slacks and a white lab coat walk up and seat himself at the bar.
If you're going for a more realistic take than the games, Professor Oak wouldn't be wearing a lab coat. Lab coats don't leave the lab, and Professor Oak isn't even the kind of scientist who'd have one. Pet peeve. :)

"They're dragons," I sighed, that should have been reason enough.
Haha, "they're dragons," truth. Shouldn't be a comma after "sighed," though.

"I completely forgot about how Aconite's pokémon would fair against attacks from Lance or Giovanni."
*fare against

It made quick work of Lance's bleeding dragonair who then selected a gyarados that swallowed the crobat whole.
The "who" in this sentence refers to the dragonair, not Lance, so it's a rather weird image, to have the dragon be selecting Gyarados!

- I liked your description of Ares. Nice job getting across the regal aura of the dragon as well as the immense age.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ares!” The announcer said and the crowd roared in approval.
You usually do dialogue punctuation correctly, but here "the" shouldn't be capitalized.

The two-headed arbok let out a long hiss that sent shivers down my back as it didn't actually stop to breathe as the other half of the snake would pick up when the other left off.
That's a neat detail.
"Aconite has been the Grand Champion for decades most people don't take into his pokémon into account."
This sentence is a bit messed up. It should be two sentences, with the second one starting with "Most people." I think the first "into" is just a typo. Also, I'm not sure how anyone would possibly analyze Aconite's chances in battle without realizing his pokémon are mostly frail and weak to his opponents' powerful attacks.

Two jagged amber antennas stuck out of the top of its head, one bent at a completely unnatural angle. Two fingers were missing on its left forepaw and one from it's right hindpaw.
Should be "antennae" here, rather than "antennas," and "its right hindpaw."

This chapter did feel a little long to me--you definitely covered a lot of ground! However, I'm wondering whether some of the exposition might have worked better saved for a later chapter, rather than gettng quite so much of it here at once. The bit with Professor Oak struck me as going on a bit long, in particular, and although the battle between Ares and Doku-Mushi was nicely done and showed off some skill in terms of writing battles, the rest of the fight, with each round summed up in a paragraph or so, was much less interesting. Cutting straight to the climactic fight, also eliding the little bait and switch "24 hours" scene earlier, would have let you keep the most important bits in while slimming the chapter down. The callback to the earlier talk about the moments that made people want to become trainers works best, I think, when there's as much focus as possible on those moments, while currently the chapter meanders a bit through several different topics.

I was also confused by the comment about Red's brother thrown out towards the beginning of the chapter. It was never followed up on (and I'm used to Red being an only child, heh). I don't think the intended implication is that Lance is his brother?? The only person I'm thinking of that it could be would be Silver, but that would also be weird for an RB fic, and I'm not sure why it was mentioned there at all.

As previously mentioned, you do a nice job with the battle between Ares and Doku-Mushi, which is a good sign, since I imagine we'll be seeing some big setpiece battles later on in the story. I can definitely see the influence of some of the stories you mentioned at the end of this chapter, but ultimately it's up to you to go beyond just emulating them, and I think that sequence shows that you have the chops to construct your own standout scenes and a memorable story that doesn't simply follow in their footsteps. Like I said, I'm curious to see how this world works once Red gets out on the road, and it'll be fun to see how you decide to put your own twist on the RB storyline. Right now, the real hangup for me is on the mechanics--punctuation errors in particular do a lot to interrupt the flow of the words, so anything you can do to get those straightened out would definitely help a lot. In any case, looking forward to the second chapter--first pokémon, I'd assume? Good luck with your writing!
 

Zelcore

Youngster
Thank you for reading, and thank you for the very in-depth critique. I hadn't realized I had so many glaring errors in it :/ I'm glad you enjoyed it.

It appears I have a lot of proofreading to do. It's been awhile since I've written something like this. I'm hoping the next chapter won't be nearly as bad.

I was also confused by the comment about Red's brother thrown out towards the beginning of the chapter.

I'll need to remove that. It was meant to be as a sort of omniscient hint at what's to come but it doesn't actually work at all.

The bit with Professor Oak struck me as going on a bit long, in particular

Any suggestions to cutting it down? I want it to try and achieve two things:
1) showing that despite his youth Red is already very knowledgeable about pokemon and is well on his way to becoming a great trainer.
2) Showing that Oak is interested in Red's well-being and has a soft spot for him.
3) Spoiler for future chapters: Oak will eventually adopt Red, so I want it to come about organically.

looking forward to the second chapter--first pokémon

I'm hoping to have this chapter edited, and the next chapter out by the end of the weekend. Although he won't be getting his first pokemon for another chapter or two. There's still a lot to happen before that happens (though I hope it isn't too exposition heavy).

Thank you so much for reading and for all of the great suggestions.
 

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
Hmm, as far as the conversation with Oak goes, I would say simply trimming a little of the discussion of the battle strategies would help. I think you establish that Red knows his stuff, and that he's close with Oak, pretty quickly... once Oak gets around to his follow-up question, I felt like I'd seen plenty of battle discussion already.
 

Zelcore

Youngster
Here's the second chapter. Sorry for the delay, I meant to get this out last week but have been crazy busy. I also edited the first chapter some and cleaned it up a little bit but didn't really change anything major. I edited the chapter for grammar and added a little bit more emotion to red on 10/5/19

Here it is enjoy!



Chapter 2: Family Reunions and Interrupted Celebrations


Twelve hours later, people were still celebrating. A new Grand Champion, the first one in almost a generation. People across Indigo were still in complete shock. Many had tried to topple the Poison King, but the Dragon Tamer had finally managed it.

Celebration festivities across the region that had been tentatively planned for the weekend were now set in stone.

Pallet was planning a large celebration by their standards to try and drum up more support and publicity for the gym relocation.

Mother and I were planning on attending it until Professor Oak walked into the diner one night, took my mom's boss off to the side and had a talk with him.

Afterwards he promptly called us over and invited us to join his son's family and several of his aids and ranch hands who are caravanning to Viridian for the festivities that weekend.

"Professor Oak, are you going too?" I asked excitedly.

Professor Oak frowned. "I am not unfortunately, it's the ursaring mating season and with most of the aids and hands going it leaves me to ensure things don't get too out of hand. Along with helping to manage the pokemon from the lab that will be showcased during the celebrations, I will be far too busy."

"Oh," my face fell.

"But, my grandson who I was telling you about will be there. He-"

"Thank you, Professor," my mom quickly, "that's very generous, but we couldn't accept."

"Please, Delia," Professor Oak started, "I insist. There's supposed to be exhibition matches, a showcase on Hoenn pokemon, and a lot more. I think Red would really enjoy it."

My mom looked at me practically begging her with my eyes for three seconds before she accepted.

Early friday morning saw the two of us packed and outside Oak's sprawling laboratory and ranch complex.

Standing in front of the lab were four looming blue and green mottled venusaur. Giant ferns sprouted off their back at different angles and each one had a different colored flower. Strapped in between the neck and base of the flower on each pokemon was a large brown saddle.

There were probably around a dozen people milling about when Professor Oak walked out of the front doors of the lab with a young man that looked like a miniature version of himself, except he had slicked-back brown hair instead of gray and was a bit thinner.

Professor Oak introduced mother and I to his only son, Aaron Oak, before the Oaks directed us to our own venusaur ride on during the trip.

At the appearance of the Oaks, the gathered people began to climb on top of the giant dinosaurs.

It was mid-afternoon when we eventually came to a stop in front of the city of Viridian. A fifteen foot stone wall covered in green creeping vines and ivy surrounded the frontier city. It was a formidable wall, nothing compared to Pewter's but still formidable. The wall had stood the test of time for centuries, through wars and wild pokémon. Tall buildings of the modernizing city poked out above.

We climbed off the venusaur, returned them and were admitted through the tall wooden doors where the caravan party split up.

"There's one place I want to show you before we turn in for the night," my mother explained to me and weaved us through the streets of an unfamiliar city.

We stopped in front of an eight foot tall giant white marble slab. Etched across the top of the monument in a dark green were the words: Viridian Razing. Below were over one thousand names etched in black.

I stood in silence as mother stepped forward and traced through all of the names until she stopped on one for a moment before sitting on the ground next to me.

"What do you know about the war?" She asked solemnly.

"Which one?"

"The last one."

"We learned in school that it took place over one hundred years ago. It was between Kanto and Johto and a lot of people died."

My mom nodded. "A lot of people did die. More than in wars past. Kanto and Johto have been warring since the three Birds pulled the region out of the earth, but all of those wars were fought with trainers that had two or three, sometimes four well-trained pokemon. This war was fought with a lot more."

Mother explained to me pokeballs had been invented a few decades before the start of the war. This allowed for trainers to be able to fight with six, eight, even ten pokemon at one time. This spelled disaster once the growing tensions between the two regions boiled over into an all out war.

The war, now known as the Great War went by two different names depending on which side of the Metal Mountain Ranges you were on. To the Johtans it was known as the Kanto War of Aggression, and to the Kantonians it was known as the Kanto War of Annexation.

During this period, Kanto was experiencing the greatest economic boom since humans pulled themselves out of the dark ages following the Brinks introduction of pokemon millennia ago and subsequent destruction of civilization. Saffron and Celadon were becoming the powerhouse inner-cities they are known as today. Factories were booming, population was exploding, and Kanto needed more resources.

Johto was experiencing a traditionalist revival. They were more interested in cultivating their community and what helped them to survive the Brinks .

Kanto saw this as waste since the region had so many resources at their disposal and so much more room to expand. With the help of the Viridian native Grand Champion they promptly invaded Johto and kicked off a war.

The war lasted five years and brought both regions to their knees. One such event was the Razing of Viridian. Roughly a year before a truce was called between the two regions, a group of Johtan soldiers from Blackthorn burned the entire city to the ground with dragonites. They only spared the centuries old gym, and the frontier protecting outer-wall.

The Razing was one of the contributing factors to the ending of the war. It was a stark realization of how much destruction could now be wrought, and saw that the trainers were at risk of burning Indigo completely to the ground.

My mother sighed after the lengthy explanation and got to her feet. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to mine as well before we stepped closer to the monument and she traced a finger around a single name. Two pokeballs were etched next to it, one with a water emblem inside and the other with a rock emblem.

Clark Ketchum

"I know I haven't told you much about our family, other than your father dying just before you were born. This man," she said tapping the name with my finger, "was your great, great, grandfather. He was a good man.

"Clark Ketchum was an accomplished trainer, and had earned four badges prior to the start of the war. He enlisted straight away when war erupted, believing like all Kantonians then that it was the right thing to do. He had many Pokemon, but his two strongest were a feraligatr and a rhydon trained high up in the icy mountains. Clark was in Viridian visiting family when the Johtans attacked. He saved over a hundred people that day, and his two pokemon managed to kill one of the dragonites."

"I was originally from Viridian, Red. While we're here there is someone I want you to meet," she sighed, "and he's the only family we have left. I'm hoping you can change something within him."

She sighed and gave me a hug, "it's been eight years, but let's go meet your grandfather."

Mother led me through the maze of a city again until they stopped in front of a small white house. She took a deep breath and unclipped her single pokeball off and pressed the button.

The ball snapped open and a red laser shot out which formed into Mimey.

The psychic Mr. Mime stood about four feet tall. Mimey had a pale pink head with red cheeks and dark blue hair like appendages sticking out of the top of his head. He had a round white body with red bulbous joints connecting his arms and legs and white bulbous joints at his elbows and knees. He had oversized hands ending in large red fingertips.

Mom knocked on the front door and a few moments later a gruff elderly man with a large belly and short gray hair dressed in dirty clothes opened it.

"Hi Dad," my mom said quietly.

"Dee?" The man said blinking in shock. "Is that you?"

" Yes dad," she replied sternly. "Can we come inside?"

"Yes," he mumbled taking a step back. His eyes narrowed when Mimey followed us in.

He showed us into a darkened living room. A single lamp was on an end table between a dirty armchair and a small couch. A cluster of empty beer bottles covered the coffee table and end table.

A large old black houndoom watched us warily from the corner of the room.

"There's someone I want you to meet." She took a step back and gently prodded my back to step in front of her. "This is your grandson, Red."

My grandfather took one look at me, plopped down in his armchair and drank a swig of beer. "Just like that no good father of his, I see." He snorted. "You gave him his nickname. Did that poor excuse of a trainer finally walk out on you? I'll tell you he lasted a hell of a lot longer than I expected."

My eyes narrowed. I clenched my fists. My father was not a bad trainer. One of the few things my mother had explained to me since I was little was that he was good. Really good.

"No," my mother gritted out, nostrils flaring. "He died before Red was ever even born."

"Ha," he barked out a laugh. "Got himself killed trying to catch one of them legendaries you two were always going on about?"

My mother narrowed her eyes. "We never intended to catch them, that's suicide. They're gods. Moltres had been seen in the mountains causing all kinds of destruction, Red's father went after to try and help and died."

"Maybe he wasn't good for nothing…" my grandfather paused. "You have any of his pokémon left? I could probably sell them for a good price."

"You-you bastard!" My mom shouted. "I had hoped you'd changed after all these years. Your still the same angry drunk old man! I thought you'd like to get to know you're grandson. I was wrong."

The houndoom slowly got to its feet and let out a low growl.

"Why the hell would I want to know that red-eyed freak?" my grandfather shouted back standing up. "He's a good-for-nothing trouble maker. Just like his father. I can see it in his eyes."

I swallowed past the hard lump that was forming in my throat. Why was grandfather yelling at me? I hadn’t done anything to him I furiously swiped at my burning eyes and looked away from the angry old man.

The houndoom leapt over the couch snarling, smoke billowing out of its maw. Mimey flourished his fingers and a gold translucent barrier shimmered into view in front of us. The houndoom crashed into the barrier like it was a brick wall and hit the ground with a thump.

"Get the hell out of my house!" my grandfather yelled at the top of his lungs.

Mom gripped me roughly by the shoulder and we slowly walked out of the house with Mimey following behind with his back to us.

We walked briskly down the block where my mother sat us on a bench. Where she started to cry.

"I'm sorry Red," my mom sobbed. "I didn't want you to have to see that. He was horrible growing up and I should have never expected anything different."

"It's okay mom," I patted her back. I swallowed past the lump again. "I understand why you showed me grandpa Clark now." She snorted.

"You're a good boy, Red."

And with that the levee broke and my tears began to fall. I let out a little sob.

“Awh,” my mom cooed. “Red, I’m sorry.” My mom pulled me closer to her side. “It was a stupid idea to come here. We never should have.”

"Mom,” I said nasally. “Were we supposed to stay the night with Grandpa?"

"Yes, I had hoped things would go differently." She stood up, pulling me with her. "I've got a plan B."

We ended up staying at a pokemon center, one of the nurses was an old friend of mom's and was able to get us a room.

The next morning we left and explored the festival. There were games, rides and food everywhere.

There was a delegation from Hoenn showing off the growing popularity of a new competition there, Contesting.

A baltoy and combusken worked together to form a glass figurine of a pokeball. The baltoy would form the parts out of sand, and the combusken would perform a fiery kick or punch, stopping inches from it and flash-flaming the sand turning it to glass.

A glalie and roselia worked together to create a brilliant show using icicles and razor leaf showering the crowd in glittering snow.

The part I was most excited about however, was the exhibition match.

There was a small grassy field sectioned off with elevated stands on either side. A chalk outline bisected the field with a blue line on one end and red line on the other.

Two trainers in their mid-thirties walked to either end of the field. A board that had been set up on one side of the field lit up denoting that battle would be a simple one vs one battle. The trainer in the red corner was named Charlie and the trainer in the blue corner was Dane. They both had seven badges each.

Charlie tossed out a single pokeball, and a giant granbull burst forth.

The bulky periwinkle canine stood four feet tall and was pure muscle. It had a giant jaw with a pair of one foot long fang-like growths on its lower jaw, and a pair of small fangs from its upper jaw.

The trainer on the blue line tossed out a pokeball which exploded into a poliwrath.

Poliwrath was five feet tall and was a deep blue color. It had two small bulbous white eyes on the top of it's round body and had an enormous stomach with a round black and white swirl. Its arms were bulging with muscles ending in two oversized white hands

"Take down!" Charlie yelled.

The granbull dropped to all fours and galloped to the fighting water pokémon. Before Dane could even get off an order, the canine plowed into the poliwrath. Granbull gored the poliwrath with its fang-like tusks and knocked the pokemon off its feet.

"Hydro-pump!" Dane bellowed.

The poliwrath puffed up and rocketed water out of the center of its spiral. Granbull was launched ten feet into the air across the field and landed so hard he shook the ground.

The poliwrath slowly got to its feet. A wide gash dribbled watery blood down the side of its shoulder.

"Close combat!" Dane shouted.

The poliwrath sprinted to the granbull that was standing up and threw a massive uppercut lifting the canine into the air. The water pokemon shifted its stance and threw a hook just as the canine was coming down rattling the granbull's skull.

The granbull roared and grabbed one of the poliwrath's arms latching onto it with its powerful jaws. It vigorously shook its head twisting the arm to an unnatural angle.

The poliwrath pummeled the granbull with its free arm. After two good hits in its sensitive eye, the canine released the arm.

Draconian roars filled the air. Both startled pokemon backed off. Poliwrath's left arm hung bonelessly from its side.

I looked up and saw eight charizard flying in formation high above the ground. Instantly a smile spread across my face. My heart thundered with excitement. All eight roared in unison again shaking the ground. I had no idea that there was going to be some kind of airshow. It appeared that Blackthorn had sent some dragons to help celebrate.

The excitement in the crowd was palpable. Most people’s only chance to see dragons was on television. There were some here though! My smile grew wider when I realized there might be a chance to actually meet them later.
I turned to tell mom that I wanted to try and do just that when I spotted something black out of the corner of my eye.

I squinted and could barely spot that each rider was dressed all in black, which wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary except for the fact that they were all wearing black masks.

My heart nearly skipped a beat when I made a sudden realization. This was not a coordinated airshow, this was an attack.

One by one the charizard split off from the pack. They spiraled down into the crowds.

One charizard landed right in the center of the exhibition match. In one motion it swept the poliwrath off its feet and pinned it to the ground with its tail. Simultaneously, it opened its enormous maw and clamped onto granbull's neck.

The canine started wiggling and straining its muscular body to get the charizard to release it, but it was no use.

CRACK!

The sound echoed in the field for what felt like forever. And then the screaming started. Like a broken spell the entire crowd panicked and split up.

The charizard let go of the granbull which crumpled the ground dead.

Charlie and Dane were a flurry of activity as they both threw pokeballs into the field to try and take down the dragon.

Mother clamped her hand around my arm like a vise and half dragged me as we were pushed by the crowd. In the blink of an eye her other hand grabbed her single pokeball off her belt, and released Mimey.

I took one glance back and watched the charizard bend over the poliwrath and release a stream of fire directly in its face. Its body sizzled and it's blue skin turned black and the white spiral began to split.

We were pushed through the sea of people. Festival tents were on fire and black smoke billowed everywhere. People were screaming all around us. High above the pack of charizard roared and sprayed fire.

More and more panicky people joined the throng. We couldn't walk without getting jostled by elbows or feet tangled with someone else fleeing.

One second mom was next to me, and the next second her hand was ripped off my arm and she was gone.

"Mom?!?" I screamed, my panic growing. I frantically searched but only saw unrecognizable faces.

Mimey realized something was wrong in the same instant I did. He waved his hands in some unrecognizable gesture and a translucent green barrier sprang into life in a diamond shape between us and the sea of moving people.

"Mom?!?" I screamed again. Peering through the barrier to try and find her.

Mimey was frantically searching for her too. His overly large head was scanning through the crowd. He was struggling, his hands were beginning to shake, and a single bead of sweat ran down his forehead.

The crowd suddenly opened up and I saw her. She was frantically running to the barrier, her brown auburn hair in complete disarray.

"Mimey!" I pointed where mom was. "Save her!" A green barrier flickered near her, as our barrier began to phase out. We were slowly getting pushed back into the crowd.

I watched in slow motion as both barriers collapsed completely. Mimey fainted and dropped to the ground next to me like a sack of potatoes.

I locked eyes with mom as she was pushing towards us. Her feet got tangled up with a person next to her and she fell to the ground and was swallowed up by the crowd.

I was in complete shock as the crowd pushed me along. I tried with all my seven-year-old might to push against the crowd, but all I got in return were bruised, a busted lip and a broken nose. I was hysterical, tears and blood running down my face mixing.

My mom was gone. Mimey was gone. I was alone.

The crowd spit me out in some random city block. In a rare moment of clarity, I thought my chances of survival were better hiding out in a building then getting trampled on by the mob.

I rounded a corner and stopped short. Less than twenty feet in front of me was a charizard.

The charizard stood eight feet tall. It had to have been a juvenile, since its horns were still in the middle of splitting. Its orange scales were such a dark color orange they were almost red. It spread its wide wings and flapped them once or twice.

Its snout was stained with blood, and it had a crazed look in its eyes, consumed by the famous dragon rage.

Standing next to it, was its trainer dressed from head to toe in black with a dark colored mask.

The two turned and noticed me almost at the same instant. They began taking a few steps towards me as I backed up to the wall of the building behind me.

I should have ran, but I clearly wasn't thinking straight. I was scrambling for some way to survive with my knowledge of what to do against a charizard. Which mainly involved extinguishing the flame on its tail, but I had no water. And I was seven.

The door to the building slammed opened and I watched as a man stepped out of the shadows.

For a brief second I imagined it as my father, somehow miraculously coming to save me.

The man stepped into the light and I recognized him instantly as Giovanni Razzo, the Would-Be-Champion. I had no time to process the thought that one of the best trainers in Indigo was standing in front of me, or why the hell he just randomly walked out of a building because he dropped a single pokeball on the ground.

A red laser exploded out of the ball and formed into an aerodactyl that was at least three feet taller than the charizard.

The dragon had a purplish-gray colored leathery hide instead of scales with a ridged hump on its back.. It had two short stubby legs that ended in talon like feet that ended with two toes. Its wings were a lighter shade of purple and were made out of a thin membrane material and spread taut. The wings ended in a single clawed finger, with clawed hands at the bend of each wing.

At the sight of the aerodactyl, the man dressed in black took off running at a dead sprint for the buildings.

Giovanni snapped a second pokeball off his belt and a man-sized sandslash with six inch quills overlapping on its back appeared.

"Get the runner," Giovanni said quietly and the pokemon took off running, spraying asphalt into the air with its clawed feet.

The charizard completely ignored the unspoken advice from its trainer and roared a challenge.

The aerodactyl returned in kind, opening its ridged beak-like snout and showing off rows of serrated fangs. It let out a roar that shook the glass windows in the nearby buildings.

Without a word from its trainer the aerodactyl leapt into the fray. The charizard opened its mouth and let out a gout of flame, burning the front half of the ancient dragon.

The two snapped and clawed drawing blood and growls from each other. The aerodactyl was careful to not let charizard's razor sharp claws cut into its wings. It preferred to bunny-hop in the air and attack the red dragon with its overly large talons.

"Finish it," Giovanni muttered.

The aerodactyl ducked under a swinging paw and latched its beak-like snout onto the base of charizard's throat.

The red dragon didn't have a chance to react before the purple dragon wrenched back and opened its throat spraying boiling red blood across himself and flooding the street.

A roar shook the street, and I looked up and saw a second charizard, larger than the one now bleeding out on the ground, fall into a dive. It roared its vengeance for its brother and swooped low. Aerodactyl leapt backwards nearly avoiding getting its wings shredded by the charizard's claws.

"Kill it," Giovanni said.

Needing no further prompting, the aerodactyl flapped its wings and took to the air.

I watched as it effortlessly made its first pass over the charizard, and tilted a wing so the single claw on the edge of its wings ripped a deep gouge out of the charizard's left wing.

The charizard let out a roar of pain and flapped even harder. It struggled to maintain altitude.

The aerodactyl made a second pass perpendicular to the first. Its talons latched onto the fire pokemon's lengthy neck and sickening crack echoed throughout the street.

I watched in amazement as the charizard fell, its neck bent at a completely wrong angle.

It landed in the building directly in front of us spraying debris everywhere.

The last thing I saw was a large red brick hurtling for my face, and then darkness

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The following is an abstracted excerpt from Pokedex Entry # 122 Mr. Mime

Mr. Mime are mainly characterized by their humanoid form with a pale pink head and short blue hairlike appendages. Large red ball shaped joints are located at each shoulder and hip joints, and one remains in the center where its belly button would be. The pokemon has long lanky legs and arms that are very flexible. Its hands end in bulbous red fingertips...The pokemon drops its fairy typing when it evolves from a Mime Jr and is now solely a psychic type. It displays this by using latent telepathic skills to help determine the best way to imitate other people and pokemon and to communicate with them...The pokemon is famous for the barriers it can create and is suitably nicknamed as the barrier pokemon. Its constant imitation involving contorting its body into odd positions has given the pokemon extremely fine motor control over its muscles. This control is so great that the pokemon is able to vibrate its fingertips. This vibration in addition to its psychic abilities, allows the pokemon to be able to solidify air molecules is such a way that it can create physical barriers and objects. Oftentimes this solidification of air molecules refracts visible light and gives off a translucent color of some sort. Extremely skilled members of the species are able to vibrate the molecules so finely that the physical barriers and objects are effectively invisible...It should also be mentioned that mr mime is actually a misnomer. The mime jr and mr mime species are actually androgynous and do not inherently have male or female organs.


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The following is an abstracted excerpt from Pokedex Entry # 142 Aerodactyl

The aerodactyl, also known as the ancient king of the dragons is a member of the fossil pokemon family. Fossil pokemon are able to be resurrected using a complex process known as revitalization. It first involves taking an extremely well preserved sample of its genetic code from the fossil, destroying it in the process. The genetic code's holes are then filled in with splices from the ancient ancestor's closest modern descendent. The genetic code itself however is very unstable and can only be replicated a few times before it becomes completely unusable.
The aerodactyl is characterized by its purple and gray colored leathery hide, believed to be the precursor to the modern dragon's tough scales... Aerodactyl are primarily carnivores and were thought to be one of the apex predators of the ancient world. Its membrane-like wings are unlike any other modern dragon pokemon's wings in the world. The ancient dragon's thin wings lends itself perfectly to high speed diving allowing for very little air resistance. As such it was theorized, and then proven correct when the pokemon was resurrected, that the dragon hunts by dive bombing its prey and grabbing them at such high speeds that it breaks their necks. It has also been observed that the purple dragon likes to play with its food by taking its prey to extremely high altitudes and dropping it out of the air. It then catches the prey before it lands on the ground, breaking its neck in the process as well. The aerodactyl is also a ferocious ground fighter where it prefers to take out its enemies as fast as possible by ripping out their throats with its sharp beak-like snout and serrated teeth...The ancient dragon was thought to have also been part poison type. This is because of the pokémon's purple pigmentation which usually is only found in poison type pokémon. The dragon's uniquely shaped fangs also are formed in such a way that suggests they were used to inject venom...It was recently discovered that a small family of aerodactyl was found living in the upper reaches of the mountains within Kanto and Johto. It is unclear however whether or not the family of aerodactyl are surviving members of the ancient world that came through the brink, or an accidental release when the revitalization process was in its infancy.

What did you guys think of Chapter 2? I hope it wasn't too exposition heavy. One more chapter dealing with the fallout of the attack, Blue's introduction, and then we'll get to the main event of Red and Blue starting their journeys.

I'd love any comments or critiques.
What did you guys think?

Thanks for reading.

Also thank you Negrek for helping with grammar and content.

Edited on 10-5-19
 
Last edited:

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
Nice to see the next chapter up! Hope the writing's going well on the next.

After words he promptly called us over and invited us to join his son's family and several of his aids and ranch hands who are caravanning to Viridian for the festivities that weekend.
*afterwards

One thing to look out for in dialogue are cases where a character refers to another by name or title. This is called a direct address, and you always put a comma before the person's name. Like here:

"Thank you Professor," my mom quickly, "that's very generous, but we couldn't accept."

There should be a comma before "Professor:" "Thank you, Professor"

"Please Delia," Professor Oak started, "I insist.
"Please, Delia,"

"You're a good boy Red."
"You're a good boy, Red."

Early friday morning saw packed the two of us packed and outside Oak's sprawling laboratory and ranch complex.
Extraneous "packed" in there.

Standing in front of the lab were four looming blue and green mottled venusaur. Giant ferns sprouted off their back at different angles and each one had a different colored flower. Strapped in between the neck and base of the flower on each pokemon was a large brown saddle.
Venusaur! That's not one you see used as a mount often. Is there a reason they'd go with these over something that flies? (I suppose it might be safer/less scary for a kid...)

Professor Oak introduced mother and I to his only son, Aaron Oak, before they directed us to our own venusaur ride on during the trip.
Not sure who "they" is supposed to refer to in this sentence.

It was a formidable wall, nothing compared pewter's but still formidable.
*compared to Pewter's

More than in wars passed.
*past

During this period, Kanto was experiencing the greatest economic boom since the Brinks destroyed the world.
Hmmm, the Brinks? Can't think of anything obvious that that might refer to. Gotta wonder how recent this was... What we've seen so far doesn't seem to suggest recent, widespread destruction, but we haven't seen much outside of a couple settlements so far.

It was a stark realization of how much destruction could now be wrought, and saw that they were at risk of burning Indigo completely to the ground.
This sentence is kind of funky. Who does "they" refer to? The first part of the sentence doesn't have any people in it, so it seems to be up in the air who's being referred to in the second part.

- Interesting to see the Kantoan birds being referred to as creator deities, "pulling" the region out of the ocean. Not too many legends around to ascribe that sort of origin to, I guess!

You're still the same angry drunk old man! I thought you'd like to get to know you're grandson.
*your grandson

In these next two quotes, "My" shouldn't be capitalized. "My grandfather shouted"/"My grandfather yelled" describe how the dialogue's being delivered, so the dialogue tag doesn't capitalized as though it were its own sentence.

"Why the hell would I want to know that red-eyed freak?" My grandfather shouted back standing up.

"Get the hell out of my house!" My grandfather yelled at the top of his lungs.

H"Yes, I had hoped things would go differently."
Just a random "H" at the beginning of this line. Unless you're inserting linebreaks after you've already posted, spellcheck should catch things like this.

The next morning we left and explored the festival there were games, rides and food everywhere.
One of those sentences that should be two sentences. "There were games, rides and food everywhere" is definitely its own complete sentence, so it shouldn't be stuck onto the end of another.

There was a designation from Hoenn showing off the growing popularity of a new competition there, Contesting.
Delegation, not designation, probably.

Mother clamped her hand around my arm like a vice and half dragged me as we were pushed by the crowd.
Vise, not vice.

It's orange scales were such a dark color orange they were almost red. It spread its wide wings and flapped them once or twice.
"It's" should be "its" in the first sentence. The second sentence is an example of "its" used correctly.

Its wings were a lighter shade of purple and were made out of a thin membrane material and spread taught. The wings ended in a single clawed finger, with a clawed hands at the bend of each wing.
First sentence, "taut" not "taught." Second sentence should either be "clawed hands," no "a," or "a clawed hand."

Without a word from its trainer the aerodactyl leapt into the gray.
Fray, not gray.

So here we get a taste of what might be our primary antagonists! The coordination with the clothes and all of them having charizard suggests we're looking at some kind of "team" here, not some random criminals. Some flavor of Team Rocket, or something else entirely? I'm kind of assuming that Giovanni is still going to be involved with Team Rocket or some other criminal organization (that dude is *always* shady, heh), which makes his intervention at the end there interesting. Is this some rival gang showing up on his turf? Or maybe some upstarts in his own organization who are doing this without his go-ahead and who he needs to put in their place? Given that charizard are pretty dragon-y, I wonder if this might have something to do with Lance and the two wanna-be champs have a rivalry going on in the underworld.

One thing I would have liked to see a little more of in this chapter is some more reaction out of Red. Towards the end of the chapter where he's separated from his mother you show more how he's affected, how he's panicking and responding how you'd expect any young kid to. However, there are a couple places earlier in the chapter where I would have expected to see a bit of emotion out of Red but didn't. For example, when he first sees the charizard overhead, he kind of just notices they're there. But what did noticing actually make him feel? Is he excited, thinking this is all part of the show? Does he have the sense that this isn't right and start to get nervous? Or when his mom introduces him to his grandfather. At the end of it she's clearly feeling things, what with the crying and everything, but Red never really seems to react to what his grandpa's saying, even when the vitriol is directed at him. He isn't surprised, or angry, or even just sad to see his mom sad like that? I think moments like these are good opportunities to let readers connect with Red and really feel in the moment there with him, experiencing the same things he is. If you could apply some of the emotional description you used towards the end of this chapter up earlier

I liked the little moment towards the beginning where Professor Oak was excited to mention that Red would have the opportunity to meet his grandson. He really seems to want to bring these two together, and then neither Red nor his mom showed any interest at all in the prospect, lol. I want to see them meet up! I'm really curious what Blue's going to be like in this version of the story. I'm also guessing we'll meet him pretty soon... before Red sets out, yeah? Shouldn't be too long now! Good luck with your writing, and I'll see you in the next chapter.
 

Zelcore

Youngster
Hi thank you so much for helping out with the grammar and spelling issues. I swear I'm not an idiot. I usually type on my phone so autocorrect corrects some things incorrectly and I sometimes don't end up catching everything.

Venusaur! That's not one you see used as a mount often

I figured it would be easier for caravanning with that many people to travel on the ground. Venusaur are also one of the only pokemon I could think of that were bulky enough to handle multiple fully grown adults.

Brinks? Can't think of anything obvious that that might refer to. Gotta wonder how recent this was...

Brinks are an idea I borrowed from The Saga of Kings by Vile Slanders. Pokémon entered into our world through portals originally millennia ago and basically sent our modern world back into the dark ages. The present is a few centuries after humans have finally managed to regain a foothold in the world. I need to try and find a way to better explain it within the story I think. Come to think of it though, that statement is a lot more ambiguous and makes the brinks seem a lot more recent. I can see your confusion. I'll reword it better.

One thing I would have liked to see a little more of in this chapter is some more reaction out of Red.

You're right. He did seem a little flat at some points in the chapter. I went ahead and added some more emotion to him in a few areas to make him seem a little more alive and not so much a flat emotionless puppet.

looking at some kind of "team" here, not some random criminals

It is a coordinated, purposeful attack. Some of the reasoning behind it will be revealed in the next chapter.

Thank you soo much for all of the help with the chapter! It really helps to have a second pair of eyes take a look at it. There's a lot of small mistakes that I tend to miss no matter how many times I look over it. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you again!
 

Zelcore

Youngster
Here's the third installment. I'm sorry this one took so long to get out, real life got in the way. As consolation though its my longest chapter yet! This ones a bit more slower paced and there's a lot of Blue in this chapter and he finally gets introduced! I hope you enjoy it!
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Chapter 3 Growing Up Oak

Waking up after getting faceful of brick can be very disorienting.

I opened my eyes a crack and was rewarded with a blinding bright light. My head didn't ache nearly as bad as I expected. I felt groggy, my throat was parched and it felt like I had a wad of cotton stuffed in my mouth.

"Grandpa!" I heard a voice shout. I flinched from the pain. "He's awake."

I opened my eyes and sat up. I was in a makeshift hospital bed in a very small room that had one other bed with a boy about my age. The room was barely big enough for both beds to be squeezed in with a small walkway between the two. It looked like it was some old office that had been quickly converted. A desk was upturned against a wall and whatever was on top of it was strewn about on the ground. A small video-phone console stuck out of the wall on one side of the door.

A moment later Professor Oak walked in. He was still dressed in the same khakis, lab coat and shirt that I had seen him in when we last left Pallet. He looked tired.

More tired than I have ever seen then or now.

There were bags underneath his eyes, and new wrinkles had formed in his forehead from all the stress. His eyes looked like he had been crying.

"How are you doing Red?" He asked warmly.

"Thirsty," I said simply and he passed me a glass of water from the bedside table.

"Red, this is my grandson I was telling you about, Gary."

I finally got a good look at the occupant in the bed next to mine.

He was definitely an Oak. He had the same shade of brown hair that his father had, except his was styled in a spiky disarray way. His eyes were sharp and intelligent, and a startling shade of blue.

For a brief moment I saw the Oak smirk that would one day charm the rage out of a gyarados. In a flash it was gone replaced by a frown. The young boy swallowed back tears.

Gary didn't say anything, but gave me a noncommittal grunt.

"Red," he sighed. "Can you tell us what you remember?"

I was silent for a moment before I slowly explained in a monotone voice the events of that horrible day.

"Have they found my mom yet? Is she okay?"

"Red," Oak came and sat on the edge of my bed. "I'm not sure how to tell you this but," he sighed. "She didn't make it."

And like that my entire world fell out beneath me. I was too shocked to even cry.

Oak gave me a long hard hug before moving back to the side of the bed. "A lot of people were lost. My son and daughter-in-law included."

At their mention, Gary let out a small strangled cry.

"Professor?" A nurse popped her head inside the little office. "Child services is here and they wish to speak to you."

"I'm sorry boys," Oak said standing up. "I'll be just a moment." He was halfway to the door when he stopped and turned back around. He dug into his lab coat pocket and removed a pokeball and placed it onto my bedside table. "Mimey is in there, they were...able to identify your mother fairly quickly and retrieved his pokeball. He's completely recovered so if you need a bit more support, he's here."

I nodded and waited for him to leave the room before I gave the pokeball the most scathing glare I could manage.

"Are you going to let him out?" Gary asked. Speaking up for the first time.

"No," I said sternly. "He's the reason mom's gone. He had the barrier up but just couldn't keep it going."

"I know what you mean," Gary picked at a loose thread on his blanket. He didn't want to meet my eyes. "My dad shouldn't have been killed by those dragons," he spat. "He was a third-ring champion."

There's a reason the champion is called the Grand Champion and not simply the champion. Like most things, it is because of tradition.

Long ago monsters first came through portals that would become known as Brinks and waged a war on humans that brought them to the brink of extinction. One human whose name has been lost to time came up with the idea of using these very monsters to defend us. He became the leader of the resistance. He trained an army of humans with literal monsters and beasts at their beck and call and because of him humanity survived. Barely.

When humanity began to rebuild, they decided that this human would become their leader and they called him their champion. He corrected them stating he wasn't the only champion, every one of his fellow brothers and sisters that had served with him and defended them against the monsters was also a champion. The people than dubbed him as their Grand Champion.

This has all culminated in the month long event known as the Indigo League Championships which just passed. The championship is split into two tournaments. The Tournament of Champions and the Grand Tournament.

The Tournament of Champions is a different beast altogether. It is held the week prior to the Grand Tournament, where any trainer that has won eight badges and completed victory road can participate.

Special designation is given to those trainers that have beat members of the Elite Four. Fourth ring has defeated one member; third ring has defeated two members; second ring has defeated three members; and fourth ring has defeated all four members.

The farther the challenger gets in either tournament the more opportunities tend to open up for them. Whether a rising position in a gym, or a good position in the League Congress. People value good battlers just as much as a college degree. After all, the battlers are the ones that protect the people against the monsters of the world.

"He earned all eight badges before I was born," Gary continued. "He beat Edward, a dark type specialist and Blaine, a fire type specialist. Magnus who is a steel type specialist defeated him with a steelix."

Gary spent the next few hours telling me about all of the stories his father had told him of his challenges. Eventually Oak returned and began telling us his stories of when he was a young trainer as well.

The three of us eventually fell asleep. Gary and I in our beds, and Oak in a wooden chair with his feet propped up on Gary's bed.

Hours later, a phone ringing thankfully woke me from a nightmare about that day. I watched quietly as Oak dashed across the room to the video phone and picked up.

"Dammit," he cursed glancing back at Gary and I to make sure we were still sleeping.

On the video-phone a face of an older teenage girl appeared. She had the same shade of brown hair as Gary and looked remarkably similar to his mom from the brief glimpses I got during our travels.

"Daisy," Oak said breathlessly. "Thank the legendaries you finally got my message."

"Sorry grandpa," she said. Her hair was a mess and she had a small cut on her cheek. "I literally just made it into Cerulean from Mt. Moon less than an hour ago. I came straight to the pokemon center and they said I had a message from you."

"What do you know about Viridian?" Oak asked. I watched him put on a stony mask.

"What's going on? They're saying we're going to go to war with Johto. Dragon trainers attacked the festival and burned it to the ground," she took a deep breath. "They killed a lot of people. They're saying its the worst trainer attack since the Razing ...wait ...that's not your lab." Hysteria began to creep into her voice. "Grandpa what's going on? Where are you? Why is Gary in a hospital?"

"Daisy take a few deep breaths for me first," Oak said calmly and waited for her to comply before continuing. "We are not at war, not yet. We are in Viridian, currently in an old bottom level office of the gym. You're parents and Gary went to the festival this weekend."

Daisy's breath caught.

"I wanted to wait to tell you this until you got home, but I guarantee you'll hear about it on the news tomorrow morning." Oak took a deep breath. "Those dragon trainers, they targeted your parents. You're father specifically. He didn't know the charizard was there until they were right on top of him and…" Oak took a shaky breath. "Cut him down in front of Gary before he could do anything. You're mom got caught up in the aftermath."

Daisy's face crumpled. She slumped back in the chair and let out a ragged sob.

"I'm sorry Daisy," Oak whispered.

"What about Gary?" She asked between sobs.

"He's fine. A few cuts and bruises. And shaken up a bit obviously. He hadn't talked much before we got our visitor."

"Visitor?" Daisy blew her nose.

"I invited one of my friends to attend the festival with the group from the lab. She has a son that is every bit as bright as Gary. He reminds me so much of me when I was that age." I watched Oak put on a small smile in the reflection of the video-phone screen. "His name is Red Ketchum. His mom was killed during the attacks. I feel a bit responsible for her death. They wouldn't be in Viridian if I hadn't invited them."

"Grandpa, you had no way of knowing."

"I know but still. His only living relative is a drunk old bastard that lives here in Viridian. I've been arguing with child services all day about their insistence on placing him with the man. I went and visited the man, he doesn't care that his daughter is dead or that his grandson has been abandoned. We are temporarily taking care of him."

Daisy took a deep breath and let it out.

"I've already arranged for a teleportation to get you home. The soonest I could schedule it is the day after tomorrow."

"How are you doing grandpa?"

"I'll be...okay. As soon as I heard the news I flew to Viridian, but by the time I got there I was too late. I knew I should have gone."

"Grandpa, you couldn't have known," Daisy said gently again.

"Okay, get some rest Daisy. We'll see you soon." Oak ended the call.

I was going home with the Oaks. Better than my grandfather I suppose, but I wish I could be going home with Mom.

It took me a long time to fall back asleep.

The next morning I got my first view of the gym as we were leaving. The main field, and all of the smaller offshoot fields had been completely cleared and there were rows and rows of cots with injured and displaced people. It was a far cry from the normal view of the field with giant fighting pokémon.

Professor Oak took Gary and me to the top of a nearby building that was still standing and snapped open a pokeball. A dragonite appeared it wasn't as large or as old as Ares, but it was still a damn scary dragon. On its back was a large brown saddle.

"Boys, meet Lavernia." Oak smiled and for a brief moment the sadness that I'd seen in him since I woke up disappeared. He rubbed the scales underneath her large maw. "I've had her for almost three decades."

My first pokémon flight I thought would have been a bit more memorable, but I couldn't get the image of mom disappearing into the crowd out of my head.

It was still exhilarating, Lavernia easily lifted the three of us into the air and the people milling about in the cities turned into ants. From this height, we could see the massive amount of damage the charizard wrought. Smoke still billowed from the collapsed buildings. The dragon angled itself south and we began our journey home.

Mimey's pokeball in my pocket felt like it was burning a hole in my leg. I'd really begun to despise that pokémon. I briefly considered the idea of digging it out and dropping it in the forest far below.

But it was my last thing from mom.

We stopped halfway for lunch after finding a small clearing in the middle of the forest.

"Grandpa, what does this mean about the gym?" Gary asked.

"I'm not sure…" he saw my questioning look. "Red, the reason my son and his family were moving to Pallet was because Aaron was going to be the new gym leader. It was expected to be one of the first items to be approved by Lance when he ascended the throne considering he is from a frontier town. Pallet town is much more at risk for wild pokémon and needs far more protection than Celadon."

"And now?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Viridian proved that frontier towns aren't safe, but now there's no suitable gym leader to replace Aaron."

We made it to Pallet in the early evening. Oak and I stopped by my house to gather up some clothes for the next few days. The house felt empty without mom.

The Oak residence was not what I expected. I expected a mansion of some sort with multiple floors from the family that has the renowned pokémon professor of Kanto and champions going back generations. Instead I simply got a decent sized house with four bedrooms. Professor Oak moved me into their guest bedroom.

Daisy arrived the next day. She didn't seem to be doing much better than when she had her conversation with Oak.

The League also announced some of the preliminary findings from their investigation of the event now being called The Burning of Viridian.

A.C.E. discovered that there were a total of twelve dragon trainers involved in the attack. Eight of the conspirators commanded the weyr of charizard while another four helped to coordinate the targets on the ground.

Three of the conspirators had died. Two when their charizard fell on top of them, and another was killed by one of the defending pokemon during the ensuing chaos.

There were already mutterings that the League were going after the death penalty for the rogue trainers.

Everyone was convinced that Blackthorn had sent the trainers. They were the only inhabitants of Indigo crazy enough to train dragons, or even have that many dragons to be able to stage that large of an attack.

Blackthorn immediately denied their involvement with the attack. The leader, Chance Drakken Lance’s grandfather and the elder of the community, insisted that the dragon clan had nothing to do with the attack.

My mother's funeral was held the following day. Oak took care of all of the planning and details including retrieving her body from Viridian. It was sparsely attended. Oak, Gary, Daisy and I attended of course. A few of her friends that she worked with at the diner attended as well. Grandfather actually showed up. He scowled at me, as if blaming me for the death of my mother, but didn't say a word to me or my temporary guardians.

Gary's parents' funerals were held the next day. Its attendance was a stark contrast to my mother's. There were close to a hundred people that showed up. Professional trainers, League officials, scientists, and friends. Magnus the steel type specialist of Aconite's Elite Four was even in attendance. He was there to bestow a special honor to Aaron Oak known as the Fallen Champion given to a League Champion that lost their life in defence to Indigo.

Lance did not have an easy first few months following his ascension to the throne. A month after the Burning, the remaining co-conspirators were broken out of a maximum security League holding facility. Lance was too busy dealing with Hoenn who were all up in arms over the fact that their entire delegation were killed during the attacks and were threatening war. War was already brewing between Kanto and Johto as tensions were at an all-time high in recent memory.

Recognizing his efforts to help prevent an even worse massacre, and as a sort-of consolation prize for not winning the Grand Championship, Lance offered Giovanni Razzo a position on his Elite Four. Giovanni turned it down, and instead asked to take up the recently vacated position in Viridian Gym following the death of its leader during the Burning to help rebuild.

Giovanni's new position, combined with no available champion to take the position of the new Gym Leader in Pallet caused the entire gym relocation movement to fall apart. It was decided that Pallet would have plenty of protection on the frontier with Giovanni being so close, and having Professor Oak being a resident of the town.

It was strange adapting to life with the Oaks, but I eventually found my place.

It took me six months to finally release Mimey from the pokeball, and almost another year before I was able to forgive him of my perceived failure of his protection of mother. He did his best.

Oak eventually adopted me. Grandfather signed over whatever rights he had as my guardian with no issue and I became Red Ketchum-Oak.

Gary and I became as close as brothers over the years. Our competitive streak grew. We argued constantly about battle strategies and typing. We vied for the top spot at school, he almost always beat me on some technicality and came out on top. Oak brilliance he'd always say.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

When we turned thirteen the League Congress passed the Youngster Act designed to help get young up and coming trainers out into the circuit much faster.

The League Congress itself was a bureaucratic nightmare where almost nothing was ever passed. It was a miracle the Youngster Act was passed and at least they had someone to blame for the disaster it would become.

The Congress itself was created roughly two centuries ago when the cities that had gyms weren't getting enough attention from the League itself due to the Gym Leaders being to busy with their own duties. That goes without saying that smaller cities and towns that didn't even have gyms were left completely in the dark with League representation.

It worked great in the beginning, when Johto and Kanto weren't at each other's throats. The representation is split evenly down the metal mountains. As such, when Johto and Kanto are fighting nothing actually gets done. This leads to the Gym Leaders and Elite drafting the laws. They eventually get sent to the Grand Champion, who is considered the most powerful individual in Indigo because he has the power to veto any law and send it back for restructuring.

So the entire reason the League Congress was created, to draft legislation so the Gym Leaders and Elite could do their other duties, was now completely defunct.

The Youngster Act became dead in the water the instant Aconite ratified it. People are still unsure why he did it. The Act lowered the Pokemon Trainer Certification age from seventeen down to thirteen. Children were slaughtered in the frontier. They were woefully unprepared, wild pokémon were unlike the starters they were given. They were feral and tore the children to pieces.

Professor Oak used his influence to exclude Pallet town from the original roster of cities. To much outcry and many arguments from Gary and me.

I explain all this so you have some backstory for the decision our hormonal, arrogant, young teenage minds were about to make.

The summer after we turned thirteen, we were bored at home and watched a documentary about uncovering ancient war bunkers. During the many Johto-Kanto Wars over the years, hardened bunkers were built all over the Indigo region as staging grounds or rest places for soldiers.

The documentary was about one such bunker that had been recently discovered in the caves near Mahogany Town in Johto.

The two of us got the bright idea that we'd go searching in the wilds outside of Pallet for one such bunker. There were literally hundreds peppered throughout the regions, surely the Oak and the Ketchum could find one.

We'd gone out in the wilds before with Oak when he did field work and we never had ran into issues before. We were both perhaps the most knowledgeable about pokemon in our school, we were raised by the Pokemon Professor, surely we wouldn't have any issues surviving out there.

We were very wrong.

After leaving a note for the professor (which would later be our saving grace) as we usually did before going out in the town, we stopped briefly at the ranch to steal away a pair of growlithe that they use to help corral the pokémon. We then left out of the north gate of the town and had a good idea of where we thought a bunker might be.

We headed directly west and headed into the forestry area that surrounded Pallet. An hour and a half later we found it.

Months ago we had helped Professor Oak out in the wilds with field work and we had flown atop his pidgeot to find a hidden grove with bulbasaur and ivysaur. During the flight, Gary and I had spotted a small cave butted up against a large hill. It matched the exact same kind of cave we had seen in the documentary.

"This is it," Gary said breathlessly as we rested in front of the mouth of the cave. "I told you not to worry about it, we'd have no issues."

I snorted. "If you call nearly getting our legs chewed off by rabid Rattata as no issues, sure."

We pulled out flashlights, released the growlithe and stepped into the cave.

It was inky black, the only light came from the flashlights and small embers that flew off the panting canine pokemon.

"How far do you think the bunker is?" I asked after we had walked for ten minutes. The cave was a small system, not too difficult to navigate.

"Pretty deep, it had to be protected from wild pokémon and enemy troops," Gary said matter-of-factly.

Neither one of us noticed the lack of normal cave-dwelling pokemon like zubat, paras, or geodude.

We progressed further into the system, stepping around rather large droppings from a pokemon, but they weren't fresh so we didn't think anything of it.

Eventually it opened up into a large cavernous room. The growlithe would not pass the threshold into the cave.

"Gary," I dropped my voice to a whisper as my flashlight lit up something big, furry and brown off a back wall. "I don't think this is an old bunker."

He shot a look at the pair of growlithe. They both had their fluffy tails tucked between their legs. "You might be right," he whispered back.

I elbowed him and he followed the beam of my flashlight. Sleeping against one wall of the cave was an enormous ursaring. The giant brown bear looked to weigh over a ton.

Padding paws echoed throughout the chamber and Gary directed his flashlight beam to the movement which revealed a triplet of teddiursa playing atop a small pile of bones. Which meant that the sleeping bear was their mother.

Instantly, all of my knowledge of ursaring came to the front of my mind. They were apex predators. They primary ate fruits and berries, but some like this one apparently, had grown to like the taste of meat. Worse of all, they were very territorial and used their droppings to help mark it.

All of the pieces fell together in the exact same moment. We had completely missed all of the warnings. I looked at Gary and realized he had come to the same rapid conclusion that I had.

Silently, Gary signalled for a retreat and we backed out of the cavern. We were halfway out of the cave when we felt the ground shake. A roar echoed through the system.

We broke into a dead sprint. A left here, a right there. I have no idea how we navigated it practically in darkness. We saw the light at the end of the tunnel and it felt like there was an earthquake under our feet.

We burst out into the bright daylight and whirled around. The ursaring exploded out of the mouth of the cave and rose up on its hindlegs and let out a roar.

We commanded our growlithe forward. They sent a flurry of fire attacks at the bear, but it did nothing. These pokemon were trained for working at the ranch, not for battling. A mistake we realized too late.

A swipe of a paw bigger than my head and the two canines were sent sprawling into the trees. The ursaring took a few steps towards us.

There was a reason there were no other pokemon in the cave. At all. Ursaring were extremely protective of their young and we just stumbled into its home.

CAW

A pidgeot as large as the ursaring dropped out of sky between us and the bear. In one motion it reared up and flapped its long wings. A person hopped off the saddle off the back of the bird. It was Oak.

The bird pokémon hopped and flapped its wings backing the ursaring into the cave. It cawed in its face and the bear turned tail and sprinted back down to its cubs.

Oak was seething. I've only seen him that angry once since. He looked like a powder keg about to explode.

"Grandpa--" Gary started, but Oak shut him up with a look.

"If you're sister hadn't seen that note and had the good sense to sprint down to the lab to tell me. You would both be dead. Dead." He took a few deep breaths.

Without a word he held out his hands and we handed him the growlithe's pokeballs which he promptly returned. The pidgeot bowed low and shuffled for easy access to the saddle and all three of us clambered back on.

The flight back to Pallet was silent. We landed at the lab which was curious since I'd have figured the professor would take us straight home.

"Grandp---" Gary started the second we stepped off the bird.

"Gary. Not now," Oak said and returned the pidgeot.

The professor led us into the lab. It was sparse, there were a few researchers and aides but not very many. A few turns and he directed us into his office where he had us sit.

"What do you two have to say for yourselves?"

"We wanted to prove to you that we could do it. That we could survive out there, that we could be trainers."

"Is this true Red?"

I nodded. "The Youngster Act."

"This was about the Youngster Act? I already told the two of you that you would not be getting certified." He barked out a laugh. "I hope your little fool-hardy adventure today proved that you are not ready. There is a reason the certification is the age it is. Trainers still go out there at seventeen and die by the dozens!"

We both looked at our feet.

"You are not ready. Even if you are a Ketchum," Oak looked at me. "Or an Oak," he looked at Gary. "A name is not good enough against a pokemon that can tear you to shreds. You two are smart. Very smart, but you're not ready yet. Four more years and if we're lucky enough you will be."

"Does this mean we're not going to get in trouble?" I asked.

"Ohhh no," Oak said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You are still very much in trouble."

Our punishment was that for the next four months we had to help out at the ranch. Every day for the rest of summer vacation, and after school once we returned.

Even after the punishment was lifted, I continued to help at the ranch.

Six months later, Professor Oak revolutionized the world by releasing his newest invention: the Pokedex. It was a handheld pokemon encyclopedia that was linked to a League database with information on known species. He told us privately that he'd been throwing the idea around since Viridian, but our little trip into the wild proved that he needed to create it. If kids as prepared as Gary and I were still in that kind of danger, than there was little to no help for the rest of the youngsters. Or at least that's what Gary took from it.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

One day, I arrived home from school shortly after my seventeenth birthday and was surprised to find Oak home early.

"Red," Oak said cornering me in the hall as I dropped my bag. "I'm sorry for the late notice, but I've been busy. A.C.E. is here."

"Shit," my heart leapt into my throat. "Professor, I'm sorry." I dropped my voice to a whisper. "Is this about me using your League credentials to check the Gym Leader roster or the gardevoir link that Gary sent me."

"Umm…" Oak blinked, his cheeks flushed red. "Red, this isn't about either of those things," he said guiding me out of the hall.

In the living room, two A.C.E. agents, one man and one woman, were sitting on the couch. They were both dressed in neatly pressed black suits with black ties.

A.C.E. was the intelligence agency of the League government. They also investigated major pokemon attacks both domesticated and wild. People were wary of them, usually when A.C.E. showed up nothing good came out of it.

"Good afternoon Red," the man said shaking my hand. "I'm Agent Davis and this is Agent Miller. We're here to give you an opportunity."

"An opportunity?" I said. A dozen more League violations worse than the ones I admitted to Oak flashed through my mind.

"Yes," Davis continued. "We'd like to offer you a place within our new A.C.E. pilot program that has selected a few graduates across Indigo to begin an accelerated training course."

"I thought A.C.E. didn't recruit unless trainers had at least six badges and eight years experience of pokemon training?"

"That is true," Davis nodded. "But we are starting this program to try and build some trainers from the ground up as agents for the league."

"Who are these other trainers than?"

"That's classified," Miller cut in.

"Is there more than just two?"

"Contrary to what you may think, the world does not simply revolve around those that have the last name of Oak," Miller said, her eyes narrowed.

I put my hands up in a placating gesture. It wouldn't be a good idea to piss off two agents. "I think you're confusing me with my brother. Arrogance is a natural Oak trait, not a nurtured one. No offense, Professor," I added quickly.

"None taken, Red," Oak said with a chuckle.

"Nevertheless, it doesn't whether you have Oak or Ketchum as your last name. A.C.E. wants you Red," Miller said. She gave me a wide smile.

"I think we're getting a little off-track," Davis stepped in. "Red, if you decide to join A.C.E. following you're graduation you'd be moved to headquarters at the Plateau where we'd begin your training. That would include further schooling in battling techniques, and species biology. You would become a battling expert that would be used as a first responder during pokemon disasters."

I nodded taking it all in. I had already made my decision the second they announced what the meeting was about.

"You would be able to still challenge the gym circuit of course. A.C.E. likes its trainers to have the badges to back-up their abilities. Once you acquire the different certifications that A.C.E. requires for the more dangerous species you'd be helping to train, you'd have access to their complete arsenal of pokemon for your challenge."

If there was any doubt in my decision, it was now completely gone.

"I thought the League didn't allow corporate sponsored pokemon, just trainers?"

Miller sputtered out a cough. "A.C.E. is not a corporation. It's a League agency. What are you insinuating?"

"Nothing of course. I just find it odd that in the last three years, four of the semifinalists in the Grand Tournament were corporate sponsored trainers. And more than half of the participants in the Tournament of Champions were corporate trainers. Their pokemon were all completely trained by the trainers, because it's illegal to have a corporate trained pokémon take part in the circuit. That isn't to say they don't find work-arounds with trading pokémon, or pokémon supplied by the corporations but trained by the trainers, or inheritance."

"Everything A.C.E. does is completely above-board. They perhaps have even more scrutiny than any of the trainer corporations. As they are a subset of the League itself."

"One could also say they have the least scrutiny and get a blind-eye turned towards them for the same reason."

"That is completely ridiculous," Miller said hotly.

"I just wonder why A.C.E. is all of a sudden wanting to push for training a champion. Especially when half of their roster are fourth and third ring champions. A.C.E. does it for the prestige of the badges and if they're good enough, the rings. I've never heard of A.C.E. intending to have a challenger try and topple Lance."

Miller let out an aggravated growl. "You're straying into dangerous territory, boy."

"Thank you for the opportunity," I said taking a deep breath and standing up. The agents mirrored me. "But I don't think it would be a good fit for me. I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn it down."

It was a testimony to how well Oak knew me that he didn't have a single ounce of surprise on his face when I announced my decision.

"Ar-are you sure," Davis asked completely astounded. I'm not entirely sure if he was following the subtext. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Once we walk out of here, its gone."

"I understand completely," I plastered a fake smile on my face.

"I agree with you," Miller said and she gave me a firm handshake.

"Allow me to see you out," Oak said with an equally fake smile on his face as he led the agents out of the front door.

He returned a few moments later and sat down in his chair with a sigh. "I thought I didn't have to explain to you why it's not a good idea to antagonize A.C.E."

I snorted. "They started it, but true. If I disappear in the middle of the night I didn't run away, the spooks got me. They're probably planning on using me for some kind of experiment involving a pikachu, some wires and a metal chair. "

"That sounds like the start of a bad joke," Oak cracked a smile. "But, I'm serious. A.C.E. can make your life very difficult."

"That's why I've got Oak tacked onto my name. You're scarier than all the spooks combined."

"Now you sound like Gary."

I gave the Professor my poor attempt at the Oak smirk and we both burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry, Red." He said a few moments later. "I meant to warn both you and Gary. You guys are going to be attracting a lot of attention over the next four months before you graduate, and a lot more after. A.C.E. might be the most prestigious, which is probably why they're the first, but they certainly won't be the last. Corporations the region over are going to be tripping over each other to try and get you guys on their roster."

"What do you think I should do?"

"I can't tell you one way or another. That's up to you to decide, Red. I know you'll make the right decision though."

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Professor Oak was right, yet again. Over the next three and a half months I was approached by no less than twelve trainer corporations to join their teams. Gary was approached by more than twenty.

Trainer corporations had emerged within the last fifty or so years. They were companies that sponsored trainers on their gym circuit challenges. The extent of the sponsorship depends on the contract although they usually include a starter pokemon, food and other training supplies, gym fees, and if they're lucky transportation from city to city. In return, the corporations receive a portion of the trainer's winnings from the gym challenges and if they're lucky enough their winnings from the Tournament of Champions. Corporations also like to hold tournaments where they pit their trainers against one another.

They were barred from outright giving their roster fully trained pokémon. It was an addendum written into the original law allowing for the creation of the Corporations to prevent them from creating their own armies. One of the number one fears against the corporations was that they would supply their number with pre-trained pokemon, like the military, and use it to overthrow the government.

The only one I gave serious consideration to their offer (and barely even that) was a think-tank corporation created by the former-Elite Four member and now Cinnabarrean Gym Leader, Dr. Blaine. He wasn't as hands-on as I would have liked though. It would have been great to have two of the greatest scientists and trainers be my mentors. I guess I'll have to just settle for the better of the two.

And that was how Gary and I found ourselves trekking through the trees outside of Pallet town a week prior to our graduation.

It had been non-stop meetings with trainer corporations going after for the last two weeks, and no amount of shooting them down would get it through their heads that I wasn't interested. I needed a break and jumped at the chance when Gary suggested we go camping. A trial run for training he called it.

We were about four hours east of Pallet when we decided to call it a night and broke for camp as dusk was settling in. We quickly pitched our tents, and released a pair of growlithes that Oak insisted we take with us for protection. It was a bit like old-times except we weren't being chased by a giant bear pokemon.

After a dinner of hot dogs cooked over the fire, Gary disappeared into his tent and rummaged around in it for a moment before returning and handing me a bottle.

Magby and Magmar's FireWhisky. A cinnabarean whisky where the casks were aged within the island's famous volcano.

"Swiped it out of grandpa's office last night." He said smugly.

I shook the bottle and inspected the seal.

"Oak bought this for us," I said returning his smugness. "He planned on you taking it."

"What makes you say that?" Gary demanded snatching the bottle back.

"Because the seal isn't broken, and the night before last I saw that his bottle of whisky was only about half gone. This one's brand new." I snatched the bottle back and cracked the lid off. A trail of smoke slowly wafted out of the bottle.

I took a swig and spewed all of it back out coughing. The alcohol hit the campfire and it flashed a bit brighter.

"Red!" Gary exclaimed. "You're wasting it!"

"He definitely did it on purpose," I said between coughs.

Gary looked at the bottle and took a swig before he spewed it into the campfire as well. "Dammit," he muttered.

I grabbed the bottle back and managed to get the alcohol down. My chest burned. "Screw it, it's the last time we'll be together for a while." I handed him the bottle. "You remember when we were going to go together?"

"I think it's better this way." Gary took a swig of the bottle. "It'll look better on the news when we meet each other on the Plateau than when if we're always traveling with each other. You wouldn't fit into my plans anyway."

"You wouldn't fit into mine either," I took a big swig of the bottle and stared into the campfire. I hope my plan would work.

"You know it'll be you and me in the end right?" Gary said more to himself than me. I nodded. "I've always known it'll be us," he said after a moment.

"The question is," I handed the bottle back. "Which one of us will topple Lance first."

An hour and a half later we were halfway through the bottle and feeling pretty drunk.

"So have you thought about what you want for your starter?" I slurred.

Gary nodded. "Oak gave us a decent list of pokemon. But no dragons. He wouldn't budge no matter how hard I pushed."

"I asked about the dragons too. He claimed it would be too much preferential treatment if both Oaks got a dragon."

"I already decided long ago what I wanted anyway...on that day..." Gary trailed off. "A squirtle."

I coughed into the bottle. "Really?" I asked surprised. "I figured you'd have gone with something else."

Gary shook his head. "I thought about a charmander, but it brings up too many memories. I had nightmares for almost a year of the charizard. I decided to extinguish the fear with water instead. Did I ever tell you about that day?" Gary had a haunted look on his face.

I shook my head. Gary grabbed the bottle and took a very large swig of it.

"It was a really good day, we played games and seen several battles. Dad was supposed to take place in one of the biggest exhibition ones that evening. I remember looking up and seeing the charizard flying altogether. One broke off and landed right behind dad. He had sharp reflexes and was already reaching for the pokemon on his belt, but the dragon was too fast. Its claws raked across the front of him, completely opening him up. There was blood everywhere. I dove on the ground to try and get to his belt, but the trainer ripped it off before I could get to it and had the charizard stomp on it. It shattered every single one of his pokeballs.

"Red lasers shot out all around us as other trainers released their pokemon. Mom was hit in the head with a rock as big as her head. In less than five minutes I lost both my parents.

"They weren't able to recover any of my dad's pokemon either. I lost my inheritance that day. I don't care about the Oak money. I wanted to challenge the league with one of my dad's pokemon. He told me when I was little we would breed a starter from one of them for me. Now I'm stuck with a squirtle." Gary took another long swig of the bottle.

"I don't know what to say other than I'm sorry. We lost a lot that day. And nothing changed either from it. Those rogue trainers are still out there somewhere."

"They're going to pay for what they did that day," Gary said darkly.

"The rogue trainers?" I asked.

Gary looked at me for a second. "Sure..." He said noncommittally.

"I know what I'm choosing for my starter," I said, changing the subject. He was in a dark place and I didn't want to let that progress any further tonight. I snatched the bottle back. It was almost empty.

"What's that?" Gary asked.

"A charmander. I'm going to conquer that fear." I finished off the bottle.

"Good luck," Gary snorted.

"I think it's about time we head to bed," I said standing up and nearly falling into the fire. "Tomorrow is not going to be fun."

"You know what?" Gary slurred putting an arm around my shoulder. "If we're going to be rivals, I can't go as Gary." He scrunched up his face in thought for a moment. "If you're Red, I'm going to be Blue."

*************************************************************************************************************

What did you guys think? There's a few timeskips and a bit of jumping around. I hope it wasn't too confusing. I wanted to try and get caught up to the "present" so Red and Blue can both finally start their journeys. I also wanted to do a proper introduction of Blue and spend enough time with him so you can kind of get a feel for him since he's going to be a major part of the story. I am planning an interlude from Blue's point of view further on down the line as well.

I didn't add a pokedex entry to this chapter since there wasn't really one pokemon that had a big part in it.

I hope you enjoyed it! Any comments/critiques are greatly appreciated. I hope the next chapter won't take as long as this one did to get out.

Thanks for reading!
 
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