Himura
(04/03)
It took half a day of me running to reach the pokecenter near Mt. Moon from Pewter. I don’t have time to think about what I did. That can be done after my pokemon are all healed. I give all my pokemon to the Nurse Joy there and begin to prepare food for my trip to Mt. Moon as they are healed. They are a little tired but I think that it is just that. About 3 hours later I have enough cooked food to sustain all of us for a week and as soon as I receive them back I run into the mountain.
Mt. Moon is not just a mountain, it is a lot of mountains that are connected to each other. There are a lot of tunnels, man made and natural ones, that connect to other places. The basic route to Cerulean is marked so you would have to be really stupid or blind to get lost inside. Inside is strangely illuminated by both special lamps and what I think are just shiny rocks.
I take a tunnel a little out of the way so I go deep into the mountain to an area that not many people go but will allow me some peace. It is a clearing with a small lake and a few trees that takes way too much effort to reach. One of the few places with actual sunlight in all this mountain if what people said online are to be believed.
“Check the area out. We need to make sure there are no other pokemon around that would attack us.” I say as I send out all my pokemon.
“Char!” “Pichu!” “Man!” “Pid!” My pokemon say in agreement before they go look around. I begin to prepare our camp and around 30 minutes later they all come back and give me the signal that there is nothing around that would actually want to deal with us.
I put food for all of us and we eat in silence. Once we finish and I clean everything I go to my tent, I need to sleep. My pokemon follow me.
As I lay down on my sleeping back and all my pokemon mounted up near me, what happened finally started to sink in fully.
“I fucked up. I fucking fucked up!” I say as I begin to feel tears fall down on my face. I don’t even wanna cry but tears just fall from my eyes.
“Char?” “Mankey?” I hear the two ask, not that I can really tell what they are asking but I can somewhat understand it.
“I let Valkyrie get hurt, Bolt too. I let him hurt a lot of other pokemon, I pushed you two too far that you fainted in exhaustion, I lost control of myself and just kept hitting him and then I hit Ann. She probably hates or is afraid of me now… I think I lost the first friend I made by myself…” I was too much of an overachiever in Rustboro to have cultivated any meaningful relationship. Kids were nice with me but that was just about it.
The worst part about everything I did is that even through all my anger I was with a fully clear mind. I could have just stopped at any moment but I didn’t. I had to do something to punish that idiot. It just wasn’t something that I could let slide without doing something myself even if in hindsight it was a stupid choice. It felt good to do what I did.
After calming down a little I finally fall asleep praising Arceus that the flames on Blaze’s tail is not the type of fire that spreads automatically.
(07/03)
After spending a few days putting my sleep schedule back to normal and somewhat relaxing - as in having light training - I think it is finally time to leave this place. The phantom of what I did still haunts me a little but I know that just staying depressed will not help me. Yes, I fucked up but there is a lot in this life that I want to experience. If I find Ann again I will apologize and even if she doesn’t accept it I will still remember all of this as something to learn from.
Upon finishing our breakfast I return all my pokemon to their pokeballs and begin my walk back to the main tunnels. Along the way I find a lot of Zubats but unlike what would happen in the games, if you just let them pass through they will ignore you. Golbats are a different story but I didn’t see any or they didn’t saw me.
When I was about half-way to the main path I saw two people walking the strange natural tunnels that aren’t really illuminated. I had to do a double take because I am pretty sure they are dressed as Rocket grunts, like, Team Rocket people. They still exist but they aren’t walking around in uniform anymore. They are actually like the mafia now.
I follow the group of four from a distance, making sure to not make much noise, not that I need to, they seem to just fight anything that just as much as look at them in the wrong way so they are not exactly silent. They also aren’t talking with each other. All I hear is them giving their pokemon commands.
After what felt like hours I finally reached what I think is the destination. We are pretty down on the ground. These tunnels just went down and down for kilometers. In front of me stands a giant excavation site being manned by mostly pokemon but I can see a few people that clearly didn’t want to be here.
“Move your asses back to work! You are only kept alive as long as you are useful!” A rocket grunt said as he whipped a group of five adults, I think there are three men and two women. They all have pickaxes and shovels with them and they are being guided to the center of the place, a giant hole in the ground.
The place is well illuminated so I can make a good head count. There are over 20 Rockets in uniform around, all supervising this whole operation, with 12 people actually digging the center of the hole. There are a few dozen pokemon moving the rocks and dirt around with the exception of one. A giant golem that I bound in chains that is being guarded by two Rockets and a few of their pokemon. The Golem is probably an Alpha Pokemon and probably the reason why all the pokemon are following the Rocket’s instructions. Alpha pokemon, unlike the games, are true to their names. They are the kings and queens of a place and usually necessary for the survival of all pokemon in an area as they stop other pokemon from spreading too aggressively into an area.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I move around the area a little, hiding myself between boulders and mounts of dirt. There isn’t even a shack in this entire place. Are they letting people just sleep on the ground? Also, these Rockets are just creepy. They don’t do anything besides their job. They don’t talk with each other or their pokemon. They also don’t eat or drink water, something I noticed that they are making sure to provide to the people digging.
It takes a good while but I manage to worm my way near the pit, the giant hole in the ground where dirt and rocks are being moved from. I don’t know what they are trying to dig but I have to admit, it looks unique. I could see people doing something from far away but only taking a good look at the hole you see that they are trying to dig something without damaging it. It is a strange purple rock that so far looks bigger than a small bus.
The moment I saw it I understood that this is way above anything I can deal with. As I turn around to try and leave this place and call the authorities I find myself face to face with an Alakazam.
“Human, I need your help.” It says to me psychically, directly to my mind.
—--------
“Ok, cool, let me calm down a little. I know that some pokemon, especially psychic pokemon, can talk with people normally by using telepathy but your voice freaks me out a little too much when I can’t actually hear you with my ears.” I say to the Alakazam as I sit on a rock in the tunnel he teleported us to.
“It’s understandable, human. My trainer also took some time to get used to me speaking with him.” He said, really calmly.
“Where is he?” I ask, trying to do anything to calm myself down. Hearing him telepathically speak to me feels wrong on a primal level.
“He is dead.” He said to me like it is the most normal thing.
“Sorry…My condolences. Were those Rockets?” I ask him.
“No problem and don’t worry, he died from old age a few decades ago.”
“...Ok. What do you need my help with? I was actually planning on calling the authorities so they can deal with those bad in the hole.”
“You can’t. They will collapse the tunnels at the first signs of any attack and it will kill all the humans there along with a good amount of the pokemon.”
“...Shit! Also, how did you found that out? They don’t talk.”
“No, but their minds are quite open and they actually sleep, you just have to wait enough.”
“If you don’t mind me asking. Do you know what is going on? Team Rocket was supposed to not act like that anymore.”
“Those are just people in costumes. A way to divert attention in case they are caught. They want the stone buried inside that giant hole they dug and they are extremely resistant to any form of mind reading. Even while asleep I couldn’t really find much, they are extremely disciplined and their minds are like fortresses.”
“Did you read my mind?” I ask, a little afraid of him.
“I can’t. Your mind is like a chaotic storm in the middle of the ocean. I can try to read the surface of it but the moment I get caught it will swallow me. You think about too many things at once.” He says to me. I get kind of impressed that my mind works like that. I constantly have all the knowledge of Pokemon I know ready, whether I like it or not. Must look like I am constantly thinking about something.
“Ok. With that out of the way, what exactly do you want from me? I can’t exactly storm that place without dying.”
“I need you to free the Alpha. Once you break those chains holding him down the other pokemon can deal with those people. Then I can save all the humans using my teleportation.”
“Any reason why can’t you just teleport everyone and then free the Alpha?”
“Bombs on the humans. If I have no distraction to save the humans, I won’t be able to leave the bombs behind. One tried to run away and it took less than a second for him to be exploded once the signal was given.”
“...Alright, I will do it, but I am kind of curious. Why are you doing all of this?”
“My old friend asked me to protect the innocent wherever possible. I have to at least try to follow his wishes, don’t I?”
“...You are a good friend. So, when do we start and how exactly should I deal with the chains?”
“Burn one of the links and its effect will stop, freeing the Alpha. He already knows that you are on his side so he will not attack you but you should be prepared to fight for a minute or so as I rescue the other people and their pokemon that are being kept in another area.”
“Ok, Blaze, come out.”
“Char!”
“He is going to teleport us. We are going to appear behind a really big pokemon and you will need to use your strongest fire to melt part of a chain that will be in front of us. Do you understand?”
“...Char!” Blaze says affirmatively after a few moments.
“Thank you for your help, young ones. I am truly without resources here and without your help I wouldn’t be able to save those people.”
“Let’s get his show on the road before something happens.”
After breathing in one last time he teleports me straight behind the giant golem and goes his way towards the hole where all the other people are. Blaze doesn’t need me to say anything to him before he unleashes a torrent of fire from his mouth that heats up the strange chains in a matter of seconds. All the pokemon around us as well as the two guards quickly notice us but the moment they do the Golem Moves.
“GOOWOOOO!” The Golem shouts, breaking the chains holding him down. I quickly return Blaze to his pokemon so he can rest. He put everything in that one attack so it would work so he needs to rest for a few minutes at least.
I dash straight towards the pokemon that were guarding the Alpha as they became stunned. No reason to stick around and limit what the Alpha can do.
As I run from the area I was in, I can see a lot of pokemon now attacking the Rockets and they fighting back.
After about a minute I start to get ready for the Alakazam to rescue me but instead of that I feel a strange wave of energy wash over me, everything turns somewhat purple and from the middle of nothing, what I can only describe as a glitching purple portal opens and from inside a man in a strange white uniform pops out. During all of this it is as if time stopped but I can still somewhat move. I just don’t because I am in shock.
image [https://i.imgur.com/fYpnwcs.jpeg]
“You are all proud members of Team Paradox and you can’t even deal with something like this? Well, the plan was to use him anyway, time to let him loose.” The man says as another bigger portal opens and from it what I am pretty sure is an Alpha Steelix comes through. The Golem is easily the size of a small house but the Steelix is around 1.5 times bigger in total.
The man returns via his portal and once it disappears time begins to flow like normal. The Steelix goes straight towards the Golem and I receive a message that I didn’t want to receive.
“There is a problem! I can’t teleport.” The Alakazam sends to my mind.
“FUCK! And what in the nine hells is Team Paradox?” I ask as I see a Rocket grunt be hit in the face and like it was a cheap hologram his clothes transform into that of the man that summoned the Steelix.