Chapter Text
Pikachu
It was the third day of our last visit home when everything started.
Pallet Town was a small village nestled deep within the southwestern part of the Kanto region. It was hard to get to with only two ways to get in, a dirt road going north toward Viridian City or the ocean to the south via Route 21, and didn’t have a single restaurant or hotel. Those who made the trip were rewarded with a beautiful view of the rolling hills, unpolluted air, a world-famous laboratory, a sandy beach surrounded by crystal-clear water, and, if they were lucky, they would likely spot a few famous trainers wandering around their hometown.
I always enjoyed our visits to the sleepy town. Despite rumors that my team and I were emotionless recluses who were insane to stay in Mount Silver for weeks at a time, Red often took trips back home, whether it was because of a message he got on his pokegear from Blue or Leaf telling him to come home or because he was simply homesick. No matter the reason, the trips always made us all so excited. It meant we got to see Red’s mother, which meant good food, a warm bed, and not an icy snowflake in sight. The looming death trap of a mountain in the far distance was just an afterthought as morning sunlight shined brightly against the back of my fur.
It was all part of today’s training. If I could detect Espeon before she pounced, then I would get extra treats after breakfast. It was difficult to do with all the pollen in the air; spring was notorious for making everyone's allergies act up.
The grass suddenly rustled, so subtle that I nearly missed it. I jumped to all four of my paws and my ears constantly turned to try and detect any kind of noise. Espeon was the sneakiest of the team, it was no wonder I couldn’t spot her in the tall grass. A few blades of grass lifted back up after being disturbed and I smirked. She was still close and if I could pinpoint where exactly she was and tag her, I could easily win this round.
My nose tingled and scrunched up. The sneeze that built up stole my concentration and I angrily tried to will it away. Not now, allergies! I needed to win! Those poffins that sat in the kitchen were my favorite and I’d be damned to see Espeon flaunt her victory by eating them all by herself! The allergies won and I sneezed for the hundredth time that morning.
All of a sudden, something heavy tackled me from behind and I yelped (no, it was not a squeak and that was not why a deep, rumbling laugh came from Snorlax somewhere beside us). I glared up at Espeon as she triumphantly smirked. "Got you again," she taunted and got off before I could shock her.
"Best three out of four!" I shouted as I jumped back up. I really wanted those poffins.
She laughed and shook her head. "You know poffins are my favorite, too."
"Breakfast is ready!" a woman's voice shouted, her clear voice loud enough for us all to hear.
Espeon instantly turned and ran toward the white picket fence behind us.
I gasped dramatically. "Oh, no you don't! I will beat you before you even jump the fence!" I was a competitive little pokemon but I was speaking the truth. In terms of speed, I was the fastest in our team, Espeon only came third. I proved that by jumping over the fence before her, stopped at the feet of Red's mother, and smugly looked back at her. “Told you.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “It wasn’t a competition.”
Once two bowls were placed in front of us, we both started eating the fish she had prepared for us. I had a sneaky feeling it was magikarp from the perfectly prepared flaky flesh; it was easy to come by plus it was cheap in supermarkets and much tastier than the food we normally got.
Red’s mother then picked up two larger bowls in either hand, one full of greens and another full of little fruits and more fish. "Red, honey, this one is for Blastoise and this one is for Venusaur. When you get back, do the dishes. I won't tell you again," she scolded.
Red may have been considered the strongest trainer in Kanto and he may have been able to catch all sorts of strong pokemon and even had a second home in the world's most dangerous mountain. He could come off as a cold and stoic young man who hated social interactions and possibly had thousands of young kids aspiring to be him, but nothing scared him more than his angry mother, not even that onix on Mount Silver that tried to kill us once.
Honestly, she scares me when she gets mad. Just thinking about it made me shudder and my fur bristle.
Red got up from his seat with a quiet nod and took the bowls from her. I lifted my head to look at the humans and by the look on his face, he hadn't even been paying attention to our training he so dutifully made us do every morning. His crimson eyes were bleary from sleepiness and his raven hair was a mess, clear signs he had just rolled out of bed even though he'd been up for at least an hour.
I snickered at him and went back to my meal as he approached Blastoise with both bowls in either hand. It always took him at least a full hour to completely wake up anyway and since this was a vacation, he probably stayed up far too late last night—although knowing him, he was more than likely catching up on the missed sleep that he so often neglected.
After giving Blastoise his lunch, Red made his way to Venusaur. The large grass-type took the bowl from Red with a single vine and nudged the human towards the house with his large head, silently urging him to listen to his mother and do the dishes.
We both knew he wouldn’t do them right away. Doing the dishes was Red’s most hated chore.
Red looked up at the sky as I sat back on the last stair that led into the yard, rubbing my bloated belly in content (his mother usually gave us extra food when we visited but the training when we got back to the mountain always made me regret eating so much). Unable to find Charizard in the sky, he rose his left hand, put two fingers in his mouth, and then whistled loudly. Wherever he'd flown to, Red knew he had time to go back inside to grab the last bowl and came back out when the fire-type landed, who was mindful of his fiery tail so he didn’t burn the grass.
Charizard grumbled low in his throat in thanks. He was extremely quiet for a fire-type and he was so serious, that he scared me when he first joined the team as Charmander. I thought he would snap and attack me (he did a few times but quickly learned not to pick on me just because I was smaller). He had a temper like any other fire-type did but over time he learned how to control it and not let the little things bother him as much. He was the only one who could take Red's mind off of whatever was troubling him just by going for a quick ten-minute flight, no matter what it was that bothered our human.
Speaking of flying, I've never seen anything faster than Charizard in the sky. Even the pidgeot near Mount Silver that Charizard fought could have just been a baby pidgey and his attacks were nothing to sneeze at. Pidgeot never came back for another round after that and I don’t blame them.
If you fight an overgrown lizard that lit himself on fire and came barreling straight towards you faster than you could blink, you'd run too. It is a terrifying sight.
I turned my head to look at Snorlax. The lazy pokemon was asleep again and his bowl had mysteriously disappeared. Red rubbed his face with a mildly annoyed groan once he realized where it had gone. Luckily, a snorlax's stomach could digest literally anything, so he didn't need to worry about the large pokemon getting sick from eating the bowl. It was inconvenient having to constantly buy the giant bowls at the markets when we were in town. They weren't cheap and no matter how many times he was scolded, instincts constantly won him over and he would eat it. At least we didn't need to worry about that up on the mountain, he'd just use his paws and wash them in the snow to get rid of any juices.
With all of us fed and dishes eventually taken care of, Red stayed outside with us and sat on the stairs on the porch in the backyard. Espeon napped in his lap, a soft purr emanating from her when he mindlessly stroked her fur as the rest of us did our own thing around the area. It felt better than being cooped up in our pokeballs and Espeon loved the attention she was getting from Red.
She was the youngest in the team and had the hardest time getting up to where she is now, having been a simple pet to a man in Celadon City who told us he was unable to care for her anymore. She grew from being the shy and untrained Eevee we all learned to love despite being weak in battle to an extremely spirited and mischievous psychic who enjoyed playing tricks on us. We had to constantly watch our backs in case she was bored and up to no good.
As she purred on, I jumped off the stairs and tilted my head at the oran berry bush that sat along in the garden. It had moved ever so slightly, alerting me that something was inside the small bush. We may have been on vacation, but that didn't mean any wild bugs could go into our garden! I jumped inside and a small caterpie cried out in surprise and quickly jumped out and ran away. "They're not even ripe yet!" I shouted after it after catching my breath from laughing.
"You didn't need to scare it," Blastoise told me as I poked my head out of the bush.
"It's not like I knew it was right there," I answered with a huff.
“You knew something was.”
“I was just curious.”
The sliding door to the house suddenly opened and a new voice laughed. We both turned once we recognized it and Red suddenly stood up as soon as he spotted who the laugh belonged to. Espeon, on the other hand, was annoyed when she was practically thrown out of his lap. "Could have at least warned me," she mumbled and yawned.
Red did not indicate that he'd heard her and instead smiled at Blue, returning a fist bump the other trainer offered. We hadn't seen him in nearly a year but from what I know of via Espeon, the nosey little eavesdropper, the two constantly spoke to each other in the forms of little text messages over their old pokegears. With the awful reception at the peak of Mount Silver, I wondered how many of those texts Red could read and out of those which ones he would actually reply to.
"You never tell us when you're back in town and I only came because your mom told my Gramps who told me that you were here," Blue told Red and reached for something in his jacket. "Plus, something was sent to him for you. I don't know why they couldn't have just sent it here, it's stupid." He pulled out and handed over a slightly crumpled yellow manila envelope.
Once I saw the league’s insignia stamped on the front of it, I grew curious. What did they want from us? Red shared my suspicions and looked at Blue with a frown. "What is this?" he finally asked.
Blue hadn't stopped grinning like a maniac since he arrived. Something was up but I couldn’t tell if anything was wrong. If it was from the league, maybe there was another challenger? Was Blue finally challenging us again for the champion title? "Open it and find out."
Red eyed him questionably but turned the envelope around and tore the seal off. The sudden noise attracted the other's attention and they approached the porch steps to peer at us curiously. Red pulled out three sheets of paper, briefly glancing at the rest of the team before he turned his eyes back to Blue. "What is this?" he repeated.
Blue looked impatient and crossed his arms across his chest. "Just read the first fu—ahem, page. Read—read the first page." His cheeks turned a little pink and I laughed, knowing he was about to swear right before Red's mother had opened the door to set a potted plant outside. She glanced at them curiously and went back inside with just a shake of her head. She probably would have kicked Blue out if he had said any swear words.
My trainer raised an amused brow at him and Blue just shrugged. Whatever silent communication was going on between them, I didn't understand. Humans are weird.
Finally, Red read the first page and as he got near the end, his eyes widened to near comical sizes. He looked up so quickly, that I thought his hat would fly off his head.
"What are you so excited about?" I asked and easily jumped from the porch floor to my trainer's shoulder. I peered at the paper he held and made a complaining sound when he simply put the papers back. "I was trying to read that!"
"You get onto me about reading his messages on his pokegear, you can't read letters if I can't read texts," Espeon scolded from below and stuck her tongue out at me. I mirrored the pose, barely hearing Blastoise sigh at us.
"Do you even know how to read?" he asked me.
"Yes, I know how to read!"
"How do you even know how to read?" Venusaur asked from somewhere behind me.
"I just do!"
“It sounds like you’re lying,” Snorlax accused.
“Well, I’m not!”
"This is real?" Red asked. He sounded too excited for us pokemon to continue our bickering and we all stared at him. He never got this excited about anything unless it had to do something with battles.
Blue snorted. "What kind of dumb question is that? Yeah, it's real. Why do you think it's got that on it?" He tapped the symbol on the front of the envelope. He reached into his pocket again and pulled another crumpled envelope out, though this one looked like it had something else inside of it judging simply by the thickness. "They sent me the tickets. We leave on Friday, so you better be up before noon and if we're late catching the plane because you decided to sleep in like your lazy ass Snorlax, I will personally come over and beat you."
"Should I be offended?" Snorlax piped up through a yawn.
Red wasn't listening to Blue; instead, he pulled up the second page, and this time I was able to see the long list of names on it. All of them were separated by region, though a few of them I'd never heard of before, causing me to tilt my head and ask, "Hey, Venusaur, where's Unova?"
Venusaur lifted his head when he was called and answered, "Unova is another region very far away. Why?"
"'Cause, that's what the paper says. Unova, Kanto, Kalos… it's listing so many places. "
"Who are all of these people?" Red asked out loud, looking bewildered as he pulled the paper out of the envelope completely to read the entire list. I looked at it and my eyes bulged out of their sockets. Arceus, the list was long. Just what in the world was going on?
Blue glanced down at the paper. "Other trainers that have earned the Champion title, as well as gym leaders. They had been talking about inviting the Elite Four members as well, but everyone decided it was best they stayed in their regions until the champions and gym leaders came back."
Red nodded in understanding and turned his eyes back down to the papers.
I, on the other hand, felt lost. I had a familiar feeling in my gut that started to creep up. It was the same feeling when we went up against other gym leaders years ago. I looked at the third page Red pulled out. It was a schedule of some kind, but I didn't have a chance to read it when he shoved it back inside the envelope.
Red was quiet for a bit then turned to see the team surrounding the porch with curiosity. All of us were eyeing the two humans with the utmost attention and he gave us a minuscule smile before he turned back to Blue and nodded. "We're in."
Blue's azure eyes lit up and he gave another huge grin but unlike the excitement from before, this one was predatory and challenging. It seemed as though Red wasn't the only one excited about whatever was going on. "You better be outside and ready to go by six am, if I don't see you outside with your stuff, you're going with nothing. I’ll drag you out of bed by your hair if I have to."
I knew he would keep that threat, too.
He stepped off the porch and landed in the grass, walking between Charizard and Venusaur with a pokeball in his hand. "You better be prepared, Red, you're not the only one who's been training these years!"
He turned away and tossed the pokeball forward, releasing Pidgeot. She looked surprised to see us but offered a polite nod as Blue climbed on. Once they took off in a hurry, the rest of us looked at Red expectantly.
"What's going on?" Espeon asked, the gem on her forehead glowing as she transferred her thoughts to him so he would understand.
Red glanced down at her and then looked at the envelope, a smile forming as he turned it around to let the others see the league's Moltres insignia. "A world tournament."