Chapter 17

The Next Step

Saffron City Pokémon Center:

            Even though he wasn’t supposed to be, Red was out of his makeshift hospital bed.  The doctors had said they had no real reason to fear for his safety, but they advised rest after they couldn’t find anything really wrong with him.  He told the doctors how he remembered his muscles twitching violently.  Of course, there was no trace of a typical lightning strike.

            Lance had arranged private rooms in the Pokémon Center for him and Green, who was still unconscious.  The doctors had said he would make a full recovery as well.  When he woke, Red looked over at his rival remembering the battle on the rooftop.  He remembered Charizard, the great flaming monster of a Pokémon that was seemingly unbeatable, even for a water type Pokémon like Wartortle. 

            Instinctively, Red reached for his Poke-balls in his pocket, to check on his friends.  Thankfully they were sitting on a tray on the bedside table.  They must have healed them while I was sleeping.

            He had released Wartortle and Pikachu and together the trainer and his Pokémon helped Silph Co. employees who had escaped the collapse of the tower.  Many other local trainers had also sought out the Pokémon Center for shelter as well as a large band of trainers that Red learned Misty and Surge had brought with them from Cerulean City.  The lobby was packed like sardines in a can with trainers and their Pokémon.

            Wartortle was dribbling some water on scrape on a child’s knee while Pikachu waited with a bandage and Red talked with the child’s mother.  The family had come from Olivine City in the Johto region to the West of the Indigo Plateau, where the Pokémon League Championship tournament is held.  Red was talking excitedly with the boy’s father who was an accomplished Pokémon Trainer in his own right.  He was taking his family on vacation when Team Rocket attacked.  His family had hidden in the hotel while the man went out with his Pokémon to fend off the Rockets. 

            “Hey, kid.”

            Red and the man stopped talking and he turned to find Lieutenant Surge with his arm in a sling. 

            “Follow me,” he said.  Surge looked strange without his sunglasses.  “The old woman wants to talk.”

            The little boy had a fresh Band-Aid on his knee now and he was scratching one of Wartortle’s fuzzy ears.  “What do you say to the nice trainer and his Pokémon, Brendan?” his mother asked.  “Thank you!” the little boy responded, giving Pikachu a great big hug.

            Red recalled his Pokémon and followed Surge back up the stairs.  Maybe they found Blue, he thought.  Blue had been missing for hours, but Red wasn’t really worried.  He checked the GPS on his Pokedex and he knew she was well away from the Silph Co. building’s collapsed rubble. 

            He followed Surge into a room full of Gym Leaders and Elite Four members.  Instantly humbled by the presence of so many great trainers, he waited by the door until he was spoken to.

            “Sit, child,” said Agatha.  There was a tiredness in her voice.  She motioned to a chair at the foot of one of two gurneys.  Red recognized Bruno, an Elite Four member famous for his Fighting-type Pokémon as well as his own martial arts skills.  He was sleeping soundly like Green.  In the other bed a beautiful young woman was resting.  Agatha sat in a chair beside her pillow.

            Lorelei and Lance were standing together beside Bruno’s bed, and Misty and Erika were seated on a couch next to the window while Surge leaned against the wall.  Agatha continued speaking as soon as he sat down.

            “You have exceeded all of our expectations, Red.  How is your friend?”

            “The doctors say he’ll be alright,” Red said.  “But I’m not so sure he’s my friend… He was brutal; he battled me instead of helping to stop Team Rocket.” He didn’t even believe what he was saying.  He still couldn’t understand Green’s actions on the rooftop.

            Agatha looked at Sabrina.  “He is still your friend.  There are times in a person’s life when they’re not themselves.  Sabrina was controlling his mind.”

            Red did a double take at the woman sleeping in the bed.  Of course it was Sabrina, the same woman who had teleported to the Boss Rocket’s side in Celadon City, how could he be so blind?  After all they went through to get through Sabrina’s force field, how could she still be laying here instead of in handcuffs?

            “So… what happens now?” asked Red.  Lance spoke up.

            “I was able to capture some Rockets that tried to escape after I flew you and Green here to the Pokémon Center.  They told me that the last of the Gym Leaders who had allied with Team Rocket had been defeated.”

            Red smiled.  Despite all the pain and hardship he and Blue had faced these past few weeks on their journey, they knew it was all worth it.  He felt a sense of pride as he knew that things were going to get back to normal now.  He could focus on getting his Gym Badges now, like he set out to do from Pallet Town in what seemed like ages ago.  But if Sabrina was to be arrested, how could he earn his Marsh Badge, the Badge from Saffron City?

            Agatha read his mind.  “Sabrina will wake soon, her mind has been through a lot.” The old woman sighed.  “Just like your friend Green and our colleague Bruno, Sabrina has been through a lot. Lance?”

            Lance continued.  “The Rockets also mentioned science experiments they were conducting on stolen Pokémon… and possibly Sabrina herself.”

            “Sabrina was a little girl when I adopted her,” Agatha said, a tear in her eye.  “I was on a trip to the Johto region when I found her: clothes in tatters, scared and always mumbling to herself.  It was her own Psychic abilities that drew me to her.  I trained her, but always I was aware of the darkness that lurked inside of her.  Many a time when she was asleep in would slip inside her dreams and try to find what it was that poisoned her soul, but I was fearful of it when I found myself drawing near to it.  Instead of getting to the root of the problem, I worked to help Sabrina suppress it.”

            Lance interrupted again.  “The Rocket I captured said that Sabrina was enticed and taken to the lab somewhere.  A pity he didn’t even know, he still wouldn’t tell me where it was even when I had Dragonite scare him a little bit.  Anyways, the rumor is that Sabrina came out of the lab a changed woman.  A Rocket woman. Her powers were off the charts ever since.”

            “Sabrina will be retained as the Saffron City Gym Leader,” Agatha finished.  “We in this room have agreed to cover up her involvement with the Rockets, as she was not aware of her actions.  There is no one else that is as fit to oversee the rebuilding of this city and its economy in the wake of the Silph Company’s tower collapse.”

            Lorelei walked over to Red and tussled his hair.  “You did great, kid.  If it wasn’t for you, we may not have been able to get those people evacuated in time.  Here,” she handed him a Pokeball, “you’re going to need this.”

            Red didn’t understand.  Lorelei laughed.  “The next Gym is on Cinnabar Island, to the south and west across the bay.  It’s my Pokémon, Lapras.  She’ll escort you safely and more swiftly across the water than any boat, but you can’t use her in battle.  She only listens to me anyways.  It’s my thanks to you.”

            Red felt a sense of pride well up inside of him, or was it the blood rushing to his face?  As he got up to leave and say his thanks, the rest of the conscious trainers stood up as well.  They all thanked Red one by one.  Red had the breath knocked out of him when Surge patted him on the back hard. 

            It was hard to even breathe when Lance, the champion himself, told Red he couldn’t have done it without him.  The last thing he heard before the door shut was Lance talking to his peers, “now, about the Phantom…”

            He made his way back to his room.  Green was still sleeping soundly, and Red could hear a faint snore.  It must have been a sign of improvement from his condition.  He was getting ready to call his mom when the phone rang on his Pokedex anyways, it was Lorelei. 

            “And try to be ready tomorrow morning for the press conference,” she said before she hung up. 

            Red was so excited.  He called his mother, who was ecstatic to hear from him again.  She knew that he was in Saffron City.  She had checked in with Professor Oak every day to track their GPS locations, and was very worried as she watched the events unfold from afar as TV cameras caught the collapse of the Silph Tower from afar.  He heard a knock in the doorway and said his goodbyes, but not before he told her to make sure she was watching the TV tomorrow at 2 ‘o clock tomorrow afternoon.

            He turned to the door and his heart dropped.  There was Blue smiling in the doorway; the girl who was by his side all the way until Green’s Fearow attacked him on the way up the Silph Building.  The girl who had always supported and him in his Gym Battles.  The girl who teased him, and told him how stupid he was.  He noticed she had a cast on her left arm and a scratch under her eye, and her face was dirty and her long hair was tangled.

            “It’s no big deal, just a precaution the doctors say,” she said.

            Red didn’t know what seized him, he only knew he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.  He jumped across his bed and stumbled around Green’s.  He grabbed Blue and lifted her in the air and kissed her right on the lips.  He didn’t even care whether she kissed him back or not, probably because she did. 

            “Now I know why your Pokémon are so pitiful,” came a voice from back inside the room.  Red put Blue down and looked at Green, who was sitting up in his bed with his arms crossed.  “But by all means, the longer you spend time with that girlfriend of yours, the easier it’s going to be for me to become the Champion.”

            Red smiled, he knew his rival was back to normal.

Epilogue

Pallet Town: Professor Oak’s Laboratory-

            Samuel Oak watched the television.  On the screen, a long table had been set up with microphones on it in front of the rubble of the fallen Silph Tower.  All members of the Elite Four were there, and the old professor smiled as he saw his students: Red, Blue, and his grandson Green. Joining them. 

            Team Rocket had been defeated, the announcement had been.  They had over fifty Rockets in custody, and the stolen Pokémon had already begun to be sorted through to be sent back to their own trainers. 

            Eventually, the reporters had gotten tired of Lance responding to their questions with “No comment, next question” and asked Sabrina if they had any leads on the leader of the Rockets, who had escaped unnoticed.  To the reporter’s dismay, Sabrina followed Lance’s lead. 

            What a way for the next generation of star Trainers to be exposed to media attention, he thought.  The phone rang, and he answered to find his old friend on the line. “Blaine! So good to hear from you. Are you watching the news?”

            Blaine’s voice was happy and sad at the same time. “They’ll never find him, you know.  Only if he wants to be found.”

            “Sadly,” the Professor responded. 

            “I saw those kids playing with some Pokedexes.  You do have an eye for talent, Sam.”

            “I was truly lucky.  I tell you, it’s an interesting story of how they came to me.  First of all, I was lucky my grandson was so ambitious and talented.  Red graduated top of his class at a local trainer school here in Pallet Town.  The girl, Blue is her name, I discovered her on a trip to Viridian City. Come to find out she was already experienced battling in the streets, at such a young age, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

            Professor Oak looked back at the TV screen.  The camera had zoomed in on his three young protégés. “Rising Stars Lend a Hand…Marsh Badge Awarded as Thanks” was the caption. 

            “Blue,” repeated Blaine.  “Yes, well, anyways I expect to be seeing them soon on Cinnabar Island to come challenge me.”

            “You had better get in shape then,” Oak joked.  “These guys are not the run of the mill challengers you see regularly.”

            “Oh why did you think that I accepted the position on Cinnabar? Most trainers aren’t skilled enough to ride across the bay to get here.  And the ones that do get here on those big boats aren’t nearly as talented as the ones who get there on the backs of their own Pokémon, and they are few and far between.  No, it’s nice and sunny and peaceful here for me to continue my research. Oh, by the way, I assume you got the package I shipped to you?”

            Oak reached over to the other side of his desk and held the Poke-ball in his hand.  The purple topped Pokeball with an M on it. “Safe and sound.”

            “Good.  Well, I’ll call you when they get here! See you later, Professor!” Blaine hung up.

            “And you Professor,” Oak said quietly.  The camera had panned back to Lance as he was lazily answering more questions. Suddenly, the Dragon Champion’s eyes got as big as saucers and the camera switched views to the top of a nearby rooftop where a grey blur just moved out of sight.  Seconds later Lance had hopped on Dragonite’s back, and was flying into the sky.

            “What have we just witnessed?” the news anchor back at whatever studio was saying.  The reporters all had their phones out, calling and writing while the trainers at the panel seemed rather relaxed.  He picked up the phone and called another friend, his eyes still on the screen.  He saw Agatha pick up her phone.

            “You don’t look so wrinkled on TV, is that new makeup?” he asked her.

            “And your old farts don’t smell as bad from all the way over here,” she responded with a smile.

            He hung up with a laugh and thought back to the grey shadow Lance went chasing after.  Now the real intrigue begins. Professor Samuel Oak tossed the Master Ball in the air and caught it with hands that remembered the skill of his youth.

To be continued in

A Pokémon Tale

Part III

Chasing Shadows