Chapter 19

Honestly, Red barely cared when the Pokeball he threw narrowly missed the Venomoth. As the Bug and Poison-type flew away on its broad, purple wings, he shrugged and picked up the ball he threw. Selven, Hurzer, and Leta were near him to protect him from wild Pokemon and help capture others as they trekked through the tall grassland on Route 25.

However, Red didn't need Venomoth as he only wished to catch it for Professor Oak. He had seen a few Pokemon for the professor during the six months they spent training for Misty but not nearly as many as Blue had and nowhere close to as many as Green had, the professor told him. Still, the amount of Pokemon he had caught this year was enough for the professor to provide virtual money for Red to live on. The sun was setting, which meant that the time to stop and rest was slowly approaching.

"I'm getting tired," Selven said. "Us Grass-types don't like to be kept up throughout the night with no sun."

"Yeah," Hurzer said. "Rest sounds good. I know you don't want us to get some sleep but train instead, but I-"

"No," he said. "You guys can rest."

His three Pokemon looked at him with confused expressions.

"What?" the Nidoking asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Now that we're not taking the gym challenge anymore, we don't need to push ourselves anymore. We're living for ourselves, not for the sake of others' expectations. I want you guys to survive and get well rested."

Red turned to the Poison and Ground-type to find he was stunned by the trainer's reply.

"Um...well, uh…" he stuttered. "I guess...I guess that's right. We'll rest then."

Hurzer immediately laid down in the grass at his feet, the tall plants matting beneath his weight before curling up on the ground. Selven did so as well, laying his stomach before shutting his eyes. Only Leta refused to sleep, instead flying above him.

"Don't you want to go to bed?" Red asked.

"I can't sleep so easily after what you did," she said. "I find that...really beneath you."

He chuckled, trying hard not to agree with her. He turned away and walked a long way before glancing behind him. The Butterfree had landed next to Selven. Red walked a fair distance away from them, confident there would be little danger for him as most of the wild Pokemon had been chased off by his own.

Route 25 was a route that was surprisingly barren of trainers. Red expected to find more, but very few humans crossed this path. He didn't think it was that odd at first, considering it wasn't a route between any large towns, but for a place so close to the nationally renowned nugget challenge, there were few to no trainers. It was as though every trainer that took part in the challenge never ventured any further into the area, something odd considering that local trainers would often group up together to form communities in the wilderness near towns. Red met one trainer here but was on her way back to Cerulean City.

"Someone told me that this area was off limits," a girl said as she met Red. "The cove around here is where Misty trains her Water-types, and she doesn't like squatters near it."

However, Red went forward anyways with the intent to catch a rare Pokemon for the professor. Knowing there were Venonat and Venomoth in the area, a Pokemon evolutionary line Oak specifically mentioned he had little experience with. Red went out of his way to find one since none had been found on Route 10, where he had wasted half a year of training. However, the loss of the Venomoth was not a big deal, and he would leave just as soon as he came.

He looked around to make sure none of his Pokemon could see what he was doing. Red looked down and began tearing up before taking the last Pokeball at his side and tossing it out. A dissatisfied and quite frankly heartbroken Cinder stared back at him. The Charizard still hated his trainer for showing contempt for the trainer's Pokemon.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm releasing you," Red said.

The Charizard's gaze looked skeptical as his trainer's face became stained with sorrow.

"What?" Cinder repeated.

"I told you," he said. "Leave. You don't want to fight for me anymore, so you won't have to anymore."

The Fire-type's expression only hardened.

"I don't believe you," he said.

"I'm being serious!" Red shouted. "Please...go!"

His sad expression met the Charizard's hateful and mistrustful gaze.

"You're just going to release me now that I won't be your tool anymore?" he asked.

"You said you didn't want to fight for me anymore!" he yelled as he began crying more. "I don't want to make you do something you don't want to do! You're my best friend, and I could never forgive myself if I made you my slave! We...we're friends. And we always will be. Whether you hate me or not. You were my only real friend my entire life, and I want to make it up to you by not forcing you to live as a weapon for the remainder of your years. So...so please go!"

"Why didn't you do this with the others?" he asked. "You've had three Pokemon who've died, and Hurzer-!"

"I can't change the past!" he said. "Only avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future! So go! Then...then you can forgive me!"

Red expected the Charizard to continue being angry before turning around and flying away. It would break Red's heart, and he wouldn't watch until he was out of view, but he'd be relieved at the very least. Instead, Cinder did something weirder. He laughed.

"Ha-haha," he chuckled. "So...because we're friends, you chose to spare me the cruel fate of dying an attack animal over the others? Red...you're still a bad person, the same as you've been since you adopted Blue's mindset and threw away your original perspective. You almost want me to forgive you…"

He paused for a moment, no longer laughing.

"That's what this is about, isn't it?" Cinder said. "You want me to forgive you and expect me to do so once you release me. In other words, you want to eliminate the burden of your guilt because I've called you out on your hypocrisy. And now you are and now are begging for some sense of solace. That's it, isn't it?"

Red froze in fright, every word he said being unexpectedly accurate.

"Well…" he replied. "This way...you can find your path. Think about it. You're a Charizard. I think your species is the strongest Fire-type ever. And you can fly anywhere you'd want to go. There's no telling where you could end up! No one can tell you what to do, and you're strong enough to face anyone who'd harm you or get in your way! Plus, since I've already caught you, you can't be captured by a trainer again! So...what do you say?"

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The moment where Red expected the Charizard to agree and fly off was one of uncomfortable silence. A long pause hung in the air as they merely stared at one another. The setting sun behind Cinder's equally orange exterior set the moment in stone as beautiful and melancholy, the sea-tinted breeze washing over them to scatter pieces of grass against Red's leg. Cinder's expression was no longer hateful. In a way, it was worse. It was as equally sad and gloomy as the setting around them. He looked with pity on his trainer, tiredness emanating from the Fire and Dragon-type.

"Red," he said. "There is no path I want to go on without you."

Red gasped in surprise, and the Charizard's response stopped his tears.

"R-really?" he stuttered.

"You have always been my best friend," Cinder said. "Everything about you...it was perfect. When we were young and carefree, we would play in the hills and grasslands, fun just around the corner every day. I cared for you more than I did anyone else by a long shot. No one matched my gratitude to be your friend. I...I could never imagine a future without you."

The trainer began to snivel.

"Then…" he said. "Then why...why do you want to leave?"

"Because, Red," Cinder said. "You're no longer that boy. You're no longer the person I cared for. The ambition you had of surpassing your father...it went to your head and...it poisoned you. I blamed myself...I thought that if only I had been a better friend to you, that maybe you wouldn't have turned out as you did."

He then looked down in sorrow, Cinder, this time being the one to look like they were about to cry.

"But I was wrong," he said. "We couldn't have had a better time together. We couldn't have gotten along better. And I knew this. I knew this even though I blamed myself. But now, the same friend I never wanted to leave the side of has become the person I've never felt more hatred for. You, Red...I can't leave you because of what we've been through but also...also, I can't stand to be by your side as I watch you destroy the lives of everyone around you."

The Charizard was now crying, his tears staining his face.

"I can't believe what a monster they turned you into," he said. "The bright child I once knew has become an even fiercer monster than any Pokemon in the wilderness. Treating people and Pokemon as nothing more than pawns in your little game of ego stroking. I...I would have never guessed that you would have become that very monster."

Red's face and mind were blank as the tears streamed down his face. He had nothing he could say or do to make the moment better. Only stand there and feel tortured by his friend.

"And now...now that I loathe the person I once called my eternal companion," Cinder said. "I know that the weight of our past has shackled me down. You may not be that same person anymore...but you're still a person. Even if all I have are those memories of you all that long ago... I'll never shake off the chains you put on me when we became friends."

He looked down before turning away from his trainer before Red stared squarely at his feet, unable to keep looking at his Pokemon.

"So now…" the Charizard said. "What do I do now that I can no longer move on? What do I do now that you shackled me to this monster of a human being?! I guess...all I can do is protect everyone you've thrown in your way to step on as you continue down the path to power...another stepping stone in your endless conquest of power."

"But I've abandoned that path!" Red shouted as he looked up at him. "I've abandoned the gym challenge! So now...now I can walk down my own path! The path I CHOOSE and not what others expect or want out of me!"

"I can't trust that," he replied. "I know you'll throw your Pokemon into another dangerous situation and force them into a battle they don't want to fight. I hate that you've stricken all these people from their homelands. And it's all to fight for your pathetic excuse for a game. And I don't know how many of them will survive. But I know that if I leave... you'll be down one Pokemon, and then you'll have to rely on others to die for you or catch others to replace me. So I'll fight...but I'll fight only to protect Selven, Hurzer, Leta, and whoever else you capture because I want to be a good person, Red. Unlike you."

The Charizard's response blindsided Red. He had nothing to say, nothing he could say. Cinder had spoken the truth resting in Red's heart that all this time he never wanted to state explicitly. Yet the Charizard brought it all out into the open, a side-effect of having known Red long enough, no doubt.

"So…" he said. "You're not going?"

"No," Cinder said.

He pointed the Pokeball forward and returned Cinder to it. He looked down at the transparent red half down at his miniaturized Charizard, only to find that made him cry more. He then made the ball small, placed it on his waist, and walked forward.

Red wasn't sure where he was going, his mind going foggy. A rustling could be heard among the grass beside him, but as he ventured further, he found the grass cut away so there was less terrain the Pokemon could hide in. He was so out of it that when Red did so when wild Pokemon ran out of the grass, he simply continued moving on. His mind was blank, so he began ruminating about what the Charizard said.

Cinder said I'd continue putting my Pokemon in danger...He thought. That I'm a monster...that I'm no longer the same person he befriended...but we're friends regardless of that, and now shackled by the memories I made with him. Can...can you even call us companions anymore?

It wasn't until he reached the cove at the end of the route that Red stopped. Not only could he see the edge of the shore but docked in the water were some huge ships that men were boarding with large crates, strapping down the goods placed on board. They were carrying it out of a large building that looked like a bigger version of Professor Oak's laboratory, beside which there was a small cottage.

Weird. Red thought. I've never heard of a shipping port here of all places. I know many in Cerulean City, but this far out in the wilderness? That's just crazy.

He walked closer to see the men carrying the goods were wearing uniforms of some kind but of what he couldn't tell. They didn't appear to be Kanto military uniforms at all. Also, Red could see what looked like canisters of green liquid carrying what looked like...Pokemon in them? They looked like Pokemon, but many were in the developmental stages, like fetuses or somewhere between fully grown and embryonic.

However, as he got closer, he found that some men gave him strange glances. Everyone who saw him stopped what they were doing to observe him. They did not expect to see Red there.

Just as he approached, he saw someone step out of the cottage beside the lab-looking building. A vaguely recognizable face appeared outside, the shaggy brown-haired young man with pale skin and a thin body observing the ships. He then turned to what those on board were staring at to find Red. He panicked, racing toward him in fright.

"Um...uh-!" he said. "Hello...I-how you doing?! You're not supposed to be here!"

Red paused, trying to parse where he had seen that face before.

"Are...are you Bill?" he asked. "Bill the Pokemaniac? Besides Professor Oak, the guy in Kanto who's the most famous Pokemon researcher?"

"Why-why yes, I am!" Bill said. "And you... you're Red?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "Watched my battle on TV, did you?"

"Yes!" Bill said. "But not only that...I know your father's Lance! He's a great man! I've met him, and he's one cool guy!"

"Yeah, thanks," Red said. "Um...what are those guys...doing? Where are they from? I've never heard of a shipping port being so far out in"

"Never mind that!" Bill said. "N-n-n-never mind that! J-j-just go on like you saw nothing!"

"But…?" Red said. "Why? I mean...you wouldn't be doing anything illegal, would you?"

"Oh, oh no," he said. "Misty, the gym leader, knows about these guys too, you know! It's legal, totally sanctioned! But...but just better you don't... don't explain it to anybody! Don't tell anyone about what you just saw, you hear?"

"Al-alright," he said. "But...what if I asked Misty? Would she…?"

"Here!" Bill said.

He fished a ticket out of his pocket and slapped it into Red's hand. He looked down at it to find it was a ticket to the S.S. Anne. He gasped at the sight.

"The S.S. Anne?!" he said. "You-you have a ticket to the most important ship in all of Kanto?!"

"Yeah-" Bill said. "I was invited to a party there, but I don't care much about them. But you can use it to go on whatever S.S. Anne sailing trip there is. I suggest you go on the one they'll have in three months where it docks at Vermillion Bay. That trip's where they take rare Pokemon to a research center far away. I gave one to a kid named Blue who said he was from Pallet, just like you are! You happen to know him?"

Red glared.

"Yeah," he said. "I happen to know him. But why...why invite us on? Shouldn't we-"

"Because I'm responsible for procuring strong trainers to join, um…" Bill said. "The military. Yeah... I'm responsible for finding trainers who fit the qualifications for the military so we can have strong fighters to defend us and do missions. Consider this your invitation!"

"But…" Red said. "Misty said I wasn't fit to join the military. Wasn't a strong enough trainer."

"Well-!" Bill said. "I say you are! But it's a special kind of military you're joining, not exactly the Kanto one...okay?"

"Then which military is it?" Red asked. "I can't join a military of a rival nation to Kanto-"

"It's not a rival military!" Bill said. "Just...just listen, okay?! I'd be remiss if I didn't invite the son of both Lance and Oak's grandson! You're a good trainer! Almost beat Misty... she's no pushover, I'll tell you what! So...so go on board! If you do, you'll have a great life! You'll be safer there than in Kanto and given special treatment!"

Red began to perk up, smiling.

"So…" he said. "If I join, I won't be risking my Pokemon or myself in danger?"

"Far less than you would be journeying through Kanto and chased by wild Pokemon!" Bill said. "So...so go on!"

Red smiled before fitting the ticket into his pocket.

"Thanks," he said.

"Hey, my pleasure," Bill said.