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Red found himself in Mesagoza.
It was the first flight out of Kanto that he could find, to someplace that wasn’t part of wider Ransei. He needed to get out, get away from someplace where the public’s eyes followed him everywhere he went.
All he had done was battle with his Pokémon. That was it.
He didn’t understand why it warranted such scrutiny.
Even now, his skin crawled.
In Mesagoza, Red didn’t stand out because of his age, or because of his Pokémon. Rather, people peered curiously at him maybe once or twice, before their eyes moved on. A curious Ranseigo child was just one of many children in the city that hosted the world’s largest academy.
But it was still too crowded here. Red needed to get out.
Some quick observation was all that he needed to mimic another tourist’s actions, and soon he was on a flying taxi to Medali. But he was disappointed.
From the map, he had expected a small town, but Medali had multiple multi-story buildings. It was too much. Pikachu chirped softly into his ear from his perch on Red’s shoulder, but Red was trying desperately to keep calm.
He just needed to find somewhere isolated. Somewhere that nobody could think to look for him. His gaze, inevitably, turned upwards. There was a snowy mountain looming in the distance, and Red thought of rumours of Mt. Silver, in the Johto region - of the whispers that said it was barred to all but the most skilled trainers.
Perhaps in a different world, where he hadn’t taken a panicked cross-country flight, he would have ended up there.
But Glaseado Mountain was more than an adequate substitute.
There were a few buildings near the peak, but the first set was empty save for a few people working the midnight shift in what seemed to be an open-air Pokémon Centre, and the east side of the mountain was completely barren.
Alone at the top of Glaseado Mountain, only his first partner Pokémon by his side, Red – for the first time since his defeat of Blue at the Indigo League – breathed.
—
A spherical squawking thing rolled into his campsite on his second day of being in Paldea.
He’d never seen anything like it.
They were far away from civilisation that he couldn't see any more signs of life than a distant bonfire, a far cry from the LED lights that Mesagoza and Medali seemed to rife with, but a side effect of that was the sheer amount of wild Pokémon.
Fortunately, this one seemed benign enough.
It landed itself upside down. Red did his best to turn it around, but ended up having to roll it further, the Pokémon being far too heavy for him to lift.
Now that it was the right way around, its features were easier to make out. Large eyes and an even larger mouth, with somewhat short limbs relative to the size of the rest of its body. Pastel pink highlights seemed to be its only other defining colour, other than the white that comprised most of its fur, and Red realised – when the auto-recall kicked in – upon trying to leave to forage that it had managed to catch itself in one of his spare Poké Balls.
Red looked down at the Pokémon.
His new Pokémon looked back, wide, pleading eyes staring straight back.
Despite his best efforts, his heart panged.
Not for the first time since he left, he realised that he missed the rest of his Kanto team. He hadn’t thought through his departure as well as he should have; the only reason Pikachu was with him was because they weren't ever separated. But now, a new Pokémon staring him down, his heart ached for the ones he’d left behind.
Now, it was far too late.
He didn’t think he could stomach the fanfare that would inevitably follow any return to Kanto, and even though he knew it was unkind, knew that he shouldn’t have left without so much as a note, he couldn’t stand it for one more second.
He had been desperate.
The eyes staring at him, the spotlight glaring down at him – it made him shiver to think of, even now, in a way that had nothing to do with the climate.
Red hadn’t come to Paldea intending to battle. He’d come in search of an escape – but he wasn’t opposed to another companion. Pokémon, after all, had always understood him better than humans did. There was a safety with Pokémon that he hadn’t ever been able to find anywhere else.
—
Much to his dismay, after the first five days, he quickly found his supplies running out. His new, still-unidentified Pokémon ate far more than expected, and the rations that he had brought for himself and Pikachu had been unable to keep up.
He did, however, have a ridiculous amount of reward money – earned from both the Gym and League Challenge, along with compensation for his part in taking down Team Rocket.
For those reasons, he found himself reluctantly walking towards that town he’d seen in the distance when he’d been scaling the mountain.
There was a Pokémon Centre and a tall, sleek Gym building, but the rest of the town of Montenevera was thatched cottages and the like – the sort of which Red had only ever seen in movies before.
He really was far from home.
Red scrunched up his face. There was no need for that thought to hit as hard as it had; he’d been drawing further and further away from home since the second he’d set out on his journey, it made no sense that he was feeling lonely now. He’d been alone for most of his life, and now, he even had Pikachu!
Pikachu grumbled at him, seeing him pause for a bit too long, and then began to chitter as the lack of movement brought a new wave of cold crashing down upon them. The conditions were inhospitable.
He quickly got moving again.
Yet despite the harsh conditions, there were children laughing in the town’s square. Each of them was bundled up in woolly sweaters and thick scarves, some sort of fur lining their boots and cheeks red, but all donned a smile that stretched ear-to-ear. The adults watching over them gazed upon their children with fond indulgence, the kind that Red’s own mum had used to wear. He hadn’t seen her in a long time.
Red turned away, and headed toward the Pokémon Centre.
“Hola!” The nurse said, all professionalism, but her tone and language suddenly shifted as Red came into view. “Kid, what– What are you doing up in Montenevera dressed like that?”
Red wordlessly held out a wad of cash.
He was glad that were no currency exchange issues – he’d heard that Paldea used LP, but standard PokéDollars worked just fine as well – and pointed to the display’s Potion, Ice Heal, and Poké Doll. He had also wanted an escape rope, but they didn't seem to stock those here.
The nurse frowned slightly at his non-response, but she took his money regardless and shouted across the open-air Pokémon Centre to a man bent over, just behind the shop counter.
Ah. That was embarrassing – he hadn’t seen the man there, trying to reach something below the countertop. The man stood up at the nurse’s shout and banged his head on the countertop with a groan.
Red averted his eyes.
A muffled curse was the first Red heard of him, but he emerged in short order rubbing his head with a wince. “Sorry ‘bout that. Welcome to the Poké Mart. What exactly are you after?”
Red’s mouth opened, then shut. His lips were numb, but he’d never been that capable of talking regardless. He shrugged, then slowly pointed to the Potion, holding up 5 fingers with his left hand. He repeated the process with the Ice Heal – 3 – and the Poké Doll – just 1, for his new Pokémon.
The nurse and the man exchanged a quick few whispers that Red couldn’t make out, but could hazard a guess at. He turned away and waited.
In a few minutes, the man placed Red’s requested items on the countertop and the nurse returned the rest of his cash with a receipt. He gratefully took both, stowing them in his bag, before going to find Pikachu.
Pikachu, it turned out, had found a old woman to talk to. He was chittering away at the indulgent lady while she cheerfully responded, the double language barrier not stopping either of them.
At his approach, she turned and asked him a question in what must have been Paldean. Red wondered how exactly to convey his lack of understanding to her before she repeated the question, this time in Ranseigo.
“Are you this Pikachu’s trainer?” She asked.
Red nodded, relieved.
“You’ve got a fine companion here, young man. Why, one of my friends used to live in Alola, and they say that Pikachu live out near Iki Town. I’ve never seen one myself, unfortunately, living up in these cold mountains for most of my life. He’s such a sweet thing, isn’t he?”
Red blinked at her. At a loss for words, as he usually was, he just nodded again.
She turned her smile on him, despite his lack of verbal answer, then – just like the Pokémon Centre nurse – looked him over and visibly blanched.
“Young man–”
Red’s stance turned guarded.
Her voice softened. “You must be freezing. It’s off-season for the academy’s Treasure Hunt, but when it’s on we often get students up here, dressed completely inappropriately for the weather. Tyme’s Gym, you see, is one of the last ones that a League challenger can take on – and it’s just on the other side of town. Here, why don’t I show you to the store we usually direct those hapless kids to?”
Well, Red… wasn’t going to protest. He didn’t like being called a hapless kid, but he supposed it was an apt enough descriptor, for lack of a better word. As she had said, he was underdressed, and catching a cold within his first week in Paldea would be a terrible way to start his stay.
He nodded, for the third time, and Pikachu twined himself up Red’s legs and onto his shoulder in a few practiced motions.
The old lady introduced herself as they walked. Her name was Phoebe, she was retired, but she had used to be a Gym facilitator. The gyms in Paldea, she explained, had gym tests that had to be completed before the gyms could be taken on.
“Prevents people from overwhelming the gym leaders,” she chuckled, her eyes twinkling, “though we haven’t had one at Glaseado in a while.”
Red was confused.
“I’m not talking about the Montenevera one,” Phoebe told him, Pikachu asking the question for him. “There’s another gym compound just on the other of this mountain, a little higher up. It’s not been used since the Gym Leader Juan moved to Hoenn. I heard the man took over the Sootopolis gym over there – a different kind of mountain gym entirely.”
Red didn’t know much about Hoenn, but he nodded along.
They arrived at the shop without fanfare.
“Here you go,” Phoebe said cheerily. “Make sure to pick well! Irene’s store sells clothing that’ll last you decades – I should know!” She gestured to her snow trousers.
Red looked down at his own. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to part with them – they had been a gift from his mother, and he’d already had to part with his cap because it was too recognisable. He settled on just buying a warm coat.
Digging deep into his bag, by way of a thank you, Red wordlessly passed her a bag of Stardust. He’d picked it up in Mt. Moon, and like most of the trinkets he’d accumulated throughout his journey, he’d forgotten it was in his bag when he departed.
She cooed at him, then over PIkachu – who endured it a lot better than he did – before waving goodbye.
After waving back, Red turned and pushed the shop door open.
Inside, he could feel his ears slowly warming up, his nose burning as it suddenly had to deal with warm air after acclimatising to Glaseado’s sub-zero temperatures. It was autumn, but Glaseado’s altitude made it a magnet for freezing weather. The all-purpose waterproofs he’d worn throughout his Kanto journey had not been intended to be used in conditions this harsh.
His eyes skimmed over the options quickly, but he’d never had to shop for himself before. He felt a little lost.
Pikachu helped him out. He leapt off Red’s shoulder and over to the coats section, nosing through fluffy coat after coat until he cheerfully tugged at a yellow one. It wasn’t quite the colour of Pikachu’s fur, a lighter cream, but it was still complementary – they would make a good pair. He looked at the other options before selecting it, because Pikachu couldn’t decided everything for him, but one glance at the other options – red, white, royal blue – made Pikachu’s choice the one he went with.
He brought it to the counter.
“Good afternoon!” The woman, presumably Irene, said. She was filling in a crossword puzzle at the counter, and most importantly, had taken one look at him before greeting him in Ranseigo. “Is this all you’re after?”
Red went to nod, only to feel that the ice that had settled on his clothes had been melting since he’d stepped into the shop, trickling water down into his shoes. He looked down, finding that his trainers were a sopping mess.
Sheepishly, he shook his head.
Returning to the counter moments later, he put a pair of boots with fur trim that matched his new coat atop it.
“The blue snow boots?” Irene put her pen down, setting the crossword aside. “Good choice! Both these boots and the coat are lined with Mareep wool, which’ll help keep you warm even with the temperatures on Glaseado Mountain. You’ve made a good investment here. Will it be LP or PokéDollars?”
Red pulled out the same wad of cash.
Five minutes later, he walked out of the store, down a significant chunk of his money – but also significantly warmer.
—
After the initial visit to Montenevera, Red ended up returning every so often for a supply run. The Pokémon Centre had also become a frequent stop, the staff helping to identify the round Pokémon, Cetoddle; then another snowy Venomoth-like Pokémon that had drifted into his camp during a particularly bad blizzard.
Yet, though his supply runs and Pokémon Centre stops were his only visits to Montenevera, the size of the town meant that on his fourth visit – around five weeks after the first – Phoebe managed to accost him right outside of Deli Cioso.
Both Pikachu and his new Frosmoth had followed him down the mountain to the town, though neither of them were much help with carrying the things he’d bought. Frosmoth, for her part, was trilling happily at the fruits he’d bought. Pikachu, as always, rested on his shoulder.
Phoebe handed him a scarf.
“Young man, I don’t know how or why you’ve ended up in this town, but you’re allowed to stay in the town itself, you know – it’s cold out there.” Phoebe told him, wrapping the scarf deftly around his neck, Pikachu having jumped to her shoulder from his.
Red made a slightly alarmed noise, shaking his head.
There were too many people, even in a town as small at Montenevera. He was much more comfortable on the mountain, even if his camp was always cold. His Pokémon were happy with his tent – and Pikachu was coping well with the climate – and that was all the assurance he needed. With time, he too would get used to it.
He tried his best to motion that, making an expanding gesture with his hands and pointing to the small crowd at the centre of the town square. Phoebe understood, thankfully.
“Well, then, you keep that scarf.”
Red tried to fish out some money – He couldn’t just take something this nice for free! It was handmade, dual-toned, and even had a plush, stylised pokeball at one end. It must have taken her ages! – but Phoebe ignored it, pulling yet another scarf out of her bag and wrapping around Pikachu. Rather than a pokeball at the end, it had a Light Orb, and the entire thing was yellow with brown streaks.
In the end, she’d just patted his head and left without taking the money, despite also leaving him with a packet of sushi.
Red decided to do something nice for her next time they met. Maybe he should make a sandwich for her.
—
“You know,” Phoebe said, two months after Red had settled in on Glaseado Mountain. Montenevera remained the closest civilisation by miles, so it had been the further he’d ever strayed from his base camp.
By then, he had acquired a curious assortment of Pokémon, mostly native to the area. Cetoddle and another Cetoddle, who Pikachu told him were related, had simply wandered into his campsite like the Frostmoth and never left. As had a Cubchoo. The array of baby Pokémon had left him baffled, however, and the next trip down to Montenevera had necessitated a bit of an odd shop for their needs.
It was Red, with two bags of assorted items, that Phoebe found heading out through the main entrance to Montenevera.
“I’ve known you for a couple of months, but I don’t think I ever got your name.” Phoebe finished, this time in Paldean. He had slowly been picking up on the language, and Phoebe, recognising this, had begun to converse in Paldean more often.
Red paused.
“You must have one, of course, but I don’t know if you could tell me since I can’t read Ranseigo. But I can’t really go around calling you ‘that boy with the Pikachu and Cetoddle’ all the time, can I?”
He blew air out through his nose, despite himself. Pikachu and his first Cetoddle were getting on the best, out of all the Pokémon in his new team. Neither liked being in their Poké Balls, which brought out a strange camaraderie in them. It also meant that he had most often seen with the two of them.
Frankly, Red would rather than Phoebe did refer to him as such, if the other option was telling her his name. But he had been leaving Pikachu at the campsite lately; the sight of a boy with a Pikachu that was never seen in its Poké Ball was suspicious, and if people talked about him in relation to his Pikachu… Well, despite Cetoddle’s continued presence, it might not be enough.
He wasn’t as subtle as he wanted to be.
And two months on, Red would think that if anyone was looking for him, they would have started to get an inkling that he might have left the region.
He looked around, looking for something– and then Cetoddle pulled a pear out out of one of his grocery bags. The fruit was for Cubchoo, whose snot had grown worryingly short in the last few days, but baby Pokémon had poor impulse control. When he reached over to grab it back, a lightbulb lit up.
'Green'.
He held up the pear to Phoebe.
“A pear? Dear, I think you need that more than I do, a growing boy like you needs all the nutrients you can get.”
Red shook his head, pointing to the pear again. How was he meant to convey what he meant to Phoebe? He wished he could open his mouth and just explain it, but even though every inch of his body was covered in swathes of fabric, he wished he could bundle up further and not be seen at all. There were several other people within hearing distance, even though they were at the very edge of town, and the need to escape thrummed through his body like Pikachu’s Thunder Wave and up to his throat, paralysing his vocal cords.
“What do you…” Phoebe’s considering frown deepened. “Do you mean your name is ‘pear’?”
Red balked. “...!”
No! But she wasn’t exactly wrong. She was on the right lines.
He held up a hand and see-sawed it.
“It is, but it isn’t? Ranseigo for pear… Nashi?”
That was worse. That was worse.
Red shook his head.
“Pera?”
She was getting further away. He shook his head again.
“Well, the only other language I know is my husband’s. Grusha?”
Red stared helplessly at the pear dangling from his hand by the stalk. With how limited his vocabulary was, could he even convey the concept of colours to Phoebe?
He sighed. Then, he nodded his head. Close enough.
Phoebe lit up. “Grusha! An unconventional name, but I suppose mixed heritage is much more common than it was back in my day. If you come from a history of travellers, it does explain the way you’ve ended up here in Paldea.” She smiled at him, softly. “It’s nice to finally have a name to call you by, Grusha.”
Red inclined his head, then turned and left the town.
—
Half a year passed without incident. Montenevera was familiar with him, in a passing sort of sense. Shopkeepers greeted him by ‘name’ when he entered for his fortnightly restocks, and his team of Pokémon had grown substantially.
Red never had been able to stay away from Pokémon.
Pikachu remained the only Electric type on his team, but a small Swablu had broken up the assortment of ice-types that he’d caught in the last few months. They all understood him as well as his old team had, and though he still felt like he was betraying them by training a new team, the ruggedness of Glaseado Mountain had necessitated it.
If he had remained reluctant, Red had no doubt that one night, an untamed Sneasel would have torn his throat out. They were surprisingly vicious little things.
One had even joined him, bringing him to 7 Pokémon that followed him around – just over the League-mandated upper carry limit. The League limit didn’t matter now, though – he wasn’t journeying – and it wasn’t like Cetoddle ever battled. There was something nostalgic about having a full team, anyway.
That familiarity struck even deeper when one day, after his second Cetoddle fought a sturdy Avalugg that had refused to leave until beaten into submission, he began to glow with a familiar light. The Cetoddle grew taller, extra spikes and limbs emerging, and then the light faded to reveal a different pattern of colouration.
He opted against going to the Montenevera Pokémon Centre for advice about the evolved Cetoddle. Rather, with his latest restock being just under a week prior, he swung by the Pokémon Centre nearest to the abandoned Glaseado Gym.
The Pokémon Centre Nurse informed him that he now had a Cetitan.
At least this made it easier to distinguish the two.
A woman called to him as he began to head back up the mountain. “Pardon me!”
Red stopped.
She caught up with him easily enough, dark hair flowing behind her. She looked a little bit like that one gym leader that had visited Tyme once, with a briefcase full of paperwork – at least in the way that they dressed. Tyme’s sister had become Montenevera’s Gym Leader after that incident.
“Hello,” she greeted, when she was stood before him.
Cetoddle and Cetitan both stood behind him, Pikachu up on his usual spot on Red’s shoulder. Red had figured it would be safe, what with the Glaseado Gym’s Pokémon Centre being more or less deserted, but now Pikachu’s usually-comforting presence felt like a blaring neon sign, like the ones on those slot machines in Celadon.
His shoulders raised.
The woman kept speaking. “You just evolved that Cetitan, am I correct?”
Red nodded.
“How curious. Cetoddle are rather common on these slopes, but Cetitan… It takes an impressive trainer to evolve one without the aid of an Ice Stone. Say, if it’s not too much trouble – would you mind if we indulged in a quick battle?”
He felt a little blindsided.
“It doesn’t need to be long. We can do a simple two on two, double battle style as Montenevera does. As the saying goes, when in an unfamiliar place, do as the locals do, yes?”
Pikachu’s cheeks sparked, and Cetitan, though lacking electric pouches, stomped his feet. He patted Pikachu gently, palming Sneasel’s pokeball. Pikachu was conspicuous, and too powerful. He didn’t recognise this woman, meaning he didn’t know how much she knew, and there was a danger in that.
Pikachu whined, but stepped back nonetheless, allowing Red to accept the battle request.
The woman lead him down the slope, to where the defunct Gym was. Beside the building, there was an arena half-covered in snow, with more softly-drifting flakes from above adding to the pile, slowly but surely.
She allowed herself a short laugh. “It seems the weather is not in my favour today. No matter. Young trainer, I must warn you, I am not used to being so excited to battle. Yet I inadvertently bore witness to your Pokémon’s take down of that Avalugg – you are a most unusual trainer, certainly one to keep an eye on. Do not hold back.”
With those final words, she released two Pokémon onto the field. Another Avalugg. And a Pokémon reminiscent of a mix between a Doduo and a Meganium, yet far too brightly coloured to be either. It was mostly orange, and the way the frills on its head were arranged, oddly, reminded him of the way Gym Leader Sabrina had cut her fringe.
Red released Sneasel onto the field, and Cetitan, bolstered by its recent defeat of that first Avalugg, charged eagerly onto the field. Both of his Pokémon were right at home on the snowy battlefield.
The battle commenced.
Like always, he won.
—
Red got box dye from Chansey Supply the next day. He hadn’t liked the way that the woman with the long black hair had looked at him, after he had won the match, a gleam in her eyes that was terribly unnerving. She had passed him far too much money for a normal trainer battle win, then left hastily, after thanking him for the battle.
He hadn’t liked it at all.
It made him paranoid. Had she recognised him?
Even with the scarf covering his face, even with the warm coat that disguised his silhouette, even with his mostly-new team – had she recognised the parts of him that were still the same, belonging to the terrified boy that had fled Kanto?
He wasn’t all that different, really. He still couldn’t speak. He still hid from people.
His closest companions were still Pokémon.
All he was doing, in the end, was running.
Chansey Supply had a range of colours so wide and so vivid that it made his head spin. How on earth was he going to choose from all this? What was the difference between ‘Denim Steel’ and ‘Electric Blue’? He ended up picking up both.
“You got bleach at home?” A girl with a large backpack asked. It was one of those hiking backpacks, and she was holding a bunch of vitamins. Red could spot iron, calcium and zinc off the top of his head, but the rest of the bottles were a mystery to him.
“...no.”
His reply surprised even himself.
Maybe it was the fact that he was about to change yet another fundamental part of his appearance. Maybe it was the fact that everybody here in Montenevera thought that his name was something else entirely. Or maybe it was the fact that the scarf covered nearly every part of his face, meaning that nobody could see the way his face distorted after that single word escapes, almost without his notice.
Words had been unnecessary for most of his life.
But that doesn’t change the fact that this single word, which could have easily bene a shake of his head, seemed to be an invitation to this girl.
Helena explained the need for bleach, especially for hues lighter than his natural hair colour – which was all of them. She explained the technique behind them, emphasising how sometimes multiple rounds of bleach were needed, and what other tools he might need for home-dying his hair.
When they finally got to the cash register, and he paid for both his stuff and Helena’s as a thanks for all of the useful advice, she did a double-take and then came with him to Phoebe’s home to help him dye his hair.
All and all, it wasn’t a bad result, for the first word he’d said aloud in a long, long time. Not even his silence after that single word put her off, and when they got to Phoebe’s place, the two of them and Phoebe’s husband do enough talking for all four of them.
They even dyed his eyebrows and eyelashes for good measure, though Red couldn’t for the life of him see the point.
—
“Hey there, little guy!”
He knew that voice.
The nascent Gym Leader of Montenevera accosted him outside of the local Chic Kebab. Pikachu was back at the camp, opting against coming on this supply run, but Sneasel was eagerly chewing through some pinchitos that he’d wanted so badly that he ran up to the outlet and refused to move until Red bought him some. Despite the unfamiliar name, pinchitos were just meat on a stick.
Ryme hailed him from the stone steps that lead up to her gym. Red could practically sense the way that the early morning crowd zeroed in on the two of them. He buried his face deeper in the scarf Phoebe had made him.
Sneasel was still munching away as Ryme approached.
“Heard you battled Geeta a week ago and won! Talk about eclipsing the sun.”
The Chic Kebab worker perked up. Red’s stomach churned.
Geeta…?
Was that the woman he had battled last week? It had to have been. She hadn’t introduced herself at any point, but she was the only trainer he had battled in half a year. Was it really that big of a deal?
His eyes darted sideways, at the worker, then down at where Sneasel still wasn’t finished with his food. For a moment, he wanted, more than anything in the world, for Cetoddle to wander in and distract Ryme from whatever she was about to say. But Cetoddle was back at camp with Pikachu, and while he had the rest of his team on him, they were in their Poké Balls and wouldn’t be bursting out of them to play interference any time soon.
Thankfully, Ryme seemed to detect that something was amiss.
Despite her laid back exterior, she was perceptive.
“I wanna talk with you. Got a message to pass on. We can do it here, or if my gym works better…” She trailed off, the implications clear.
Red followed her into the Montenevera Gym.
“I’ll tell it to you straight. Geeta’s offering you a spot as a Gym Leader.” Ryme said. He went stock still. “Not this one; that old Leader-less one over the mountain. Not got any settlement round it like mine, but somethin’ tells me it’s better suited for you.”
Red tilted his head to the side.
Ryme snorted. “People here talk, you know? There’s not a lotta people round here, and there’s not a lotta travellers outside of Treasure Hunt season. Before I took over for Tyme, you were the hottest topic around.” Red shifted a little in place, uncomfortable. “‘Course, now they’re talkin’ about me, but you get the picture, yeah? So I know a bit about your people habits.”
‘Or lack thereof’ hung in the space between them, like precipitation on a cold winter morning.
Gym Leader.
It felt like he had been hit by his recently-evolved Beartic’s Icicle Crash. He knew he was qualified for it, but how did Geeta know? How high up was she ranked that she had the ability to decide this based on a single battle? Why would she pick him?
He was still bad at speaking. But lately, with the help of his scarf, getting single words out had been getting easier. He double-wrapped the scarf, adding an extra layer of ‘security’, and asked Ryme – “...Geeta?”
Ryme looked at him. “Yeah, La Primera herself. She asked me for my opinion too, but,” and here she laughed, though not unkindly, “what could I say? I ain’t ever seen you in battle. But you’re an ice-type specialist, right?”
Red’s instinct was to deny it. Then his current roster flashed before his eyes. Save for Pikachu and Swablu, each and every one of his new Paldean team was an ice-type of some kind, and he found himself unable to shake his head.
She took his non-answer as the assent it was. “Perfect for Glaseado Mountain’s Gym. And you beat her in a two-on-two.” Ryme shrugged. “Can’t say I disagree with her decision. But it’s up to you, lil’ blue man.”
He flinched. Hard.
The nickname caught him so off-guard that it sent him spinning, and it was a solid thirty seconds before he could even process the rest of her words. The whirring cogs of his brain near-overheated as he desperately shoved the name – that colour that he’d inadvertently dressed himself in – into the deepest corner of his mind and genuinely considered Geeta’s proposal.
Ryme came through once again. Perhaps she attributed his brain melting to the seriousness of the offer. “You don’t need to decide now. That gym over there’s been unoccupied for over a year, it can wait a few weeks.”
Red nodded, then made his escape.
—
He accepted.
Of course he did.
Despite the grief his prowess at battling had brought him, Red couldn't deny that he was made for it. It made his heart sing, and working with ice types left him at a major disadvantage most of the time. The type’s defensive weaknesses left him scrambling to patch holes that he’d previously worked around by switching, and the new challenge gave him a rush that he’d sorely been missing.
Strangely, with his new occupation, words seemed to flow more freely.
The battles and the regular exercise shook something loose in him that had been wound up tight since he’d arrived in Paldea. He couldn’t deny that the anonymity was surely a factor, but more than that, being the one challenged rather than the one doing the challenging was a marvelous turn of events.
He couldn’t do it every day, but once a week he’d manage a whole sentence.
It was stunning progress.
The first time he did this in Phoebe’s vicinity, she teared up and then made him stay for dinner. Her husband congratulated him, too, and Red flushed when he realised that her husband’s eyes were suspiciously moist as well.
—
He settled.
It wasn’t always easy, but he settled.
Another half-year went by, and he passed two of Geeta’s gym inspections with flying colours. Turned out that she was the Top Champion of Paldea, embarrassingly enough. No wonder Ryme had expected him to clock her.
With her at full strength, he was beaten as often as he won, but the thrill made his heart pound. His monstrous growth had meant that anyone who could be his match was few and far between, but the battles with Geeta were exhilarating.
He was looking forward to their next match.
Outside of the Gym, Red had also established a routine.
So what if nobody knew his real name? So what if he sometimes still missed his mum and his original team with a poignancy so deep that it almost physically hurt?
He didn’t buy a Rotom Phone, but he did move his campsite closer to the Glaseado Gym.
And life went on.
—
He was working over some paperwork about the Gym test when the doors opened. He’d not had one beyond ‘battle these two trainers first’, but it was five months past his inauguration as a Gym Leader and Ryme had been telling him to get more creative.
Unfortunately, creativity required permission.
He had been thinking of a snowboarding challenge. Helena had introduced him to the sport, and it inspired the same sense of exhilaration that a hard battle usually did. But naturally, something that extreme necessitated risk assessments and funding requests.
“Grusha, dear, this nice young man came by mine earlier, looking for you!” He heard Phoebe greet him.
He smiled beneath his scarf.
Perfect timing.
He clicked send on the email he’d been about to send to Geeta, composed with the help of one of his ever-patient gym receptionists. The receptionist nodded, returning to the rest of her regularly scheduled work as he put his laptop on Hibernate and shut it down.
Red turned to see who Phoebe was talking about, Cetoddle turning with him.
Phoebe was familiar, but the person standing beside her was almost painfully so. Before he could control his own reaction, he had taken a full step back, straight into the counter. “...!”
Pain shot up his body from where he had jarred his hip.
His throat seized up, in that agonising manner that he had thought he had managed to overcome, but the teenager beside Phoebe took him back a whole year – to standing before the boy who had been his friend, then his rival, and then a source of pain and longing both.
Cetoddle bumped himself into Red’s legs, and he gripped the edges of his Mareep-wool coat tightly. He took three deep breaths, as Phoebe’s husband had taught him. He blinked, clearing his vision, and then steeled himself.
Slowly, one tentative hand reached up to his scarf and Red tugged it down, not by much, but enough for Blue to see his full face for the first time since he had left Kanto behind.
It was an admission and a concession wrapped in a single bundle.
Blue was, Red belatedly realised, wearing dark grey trousers in the exact same style as Red’s own, and a navy blue jumper. He hadn’t noticed until that very moment, but Blue’s jumper matched the exact shade of Red’s boots and the blue streaks of his scarf.
When his scarf lowered, Blue’s eyes went wide.
They were in the gym, so there was no way for the icy winds of the harsh outdoors to bite his skin or leave it painfully dry, yet there was a chill permeating his body down to its bones nonetheless.
But instead of ‘Why did you leave?’, instead of ‘Why did you never come back’; Blue looked him up and down for ten, long, drawn-out seconds, then gaped.
“Why are you wearing my colour?”
LoreilDarksky00 Sun 15 Jun 2025 04:25PM UTC
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nucifraga Sun 15 Jun 2025 07:33PM UTC
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