Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Silence had greeted him when he stepped through that narrow portal hidden on the shore of Cerulean City’s twisting river, nary a wild Pokémon inside or outside the cave. It should have been a warning.

                His flashlight had gone out first, the yellow beam flickering some unintelligible signal before dying completely. He had breathed a sigh a of relief when Charizard’s pokeball opened without fanfare, releasing the towering lizard in the ever-crawling tunnel. Even with the new stimuli no Pokémon emerged from the darkness. He should have known, he wasn’t a rookie anymore. He was the champion. He wasn’t ten anymore. Sixteen badges, two regions, Kanto Champion before the age of 12: he should have seen the signs.

                Deep gouges into ancient stone, the scent of sulfur in the air, the lack of anything between the entrance and it. Perhaps the dusty remains of a corpse would have been sufficient to alert him of the danger, since the stillness in the air certainly didn’t.

                When he locked eyes with hate-filled amethyst he finally felt his gut drop. When a three fingered hand reared back, a half-formed shadow ball already sizzling the air as the beast released an ear-splitting wail that had him covering his ears as Charizard took a protective stance in front of him, flame doubling in size.

                It took three minutes for that thing to take down his partner, Charizard dropping into the crystal blue lake with a sickening crush of reality, but he had been stupidly hopeful, returning his starter and releasing Persian, the panther pokemon slinking into the darkness with a gleam of its ruby and yellow predatory eyes. A psychic attack slammed the cat into the stone wall. Espeon stopped a shadow ball with her own psychic ability only to be overwhelmed by its opponents superior strength, slamming into Red with enough force to send both into the water.

                His brain worked automatically, one hand releasing Lapras while his other arm cradled Espeon close to his chest as he kicked to the surface, the plesiosaur sending large waves through the underground lake. Ice beam and shadow ball exploded together on contract, causing Red and Espeon to go back under the violently churning water. Lapras’ large body made it difficult for him to breach the surface, a fact that made itself known with the burning in his lungs and throat. Espeon had been knocked from his arms from the force, and it was with his last fading thoughts he returned her to her pokeball.

                As both he and Lapras began to sink, Lapras returned to her pokeball automatically in a flare of red light, and he watched the beast scrutinize him as it levitated above the water. As his eyes closed the thing flicked it wrist and his stomach dropped again as he was forcefully thrown from the water and into the same psychic-gouged wall as Persian with a nauseating crunch. He ended up on his belly beside the unconscious cat, a scream torn from his throat as his forearm suddenly exploded with pain, the bone shattering with a single thought from the monster on the other side of the room. Bile rose in his throat in response to the pain, his other hand snaking towards his belt for his remaining two pokemon.

                A crushing “No” stopped all thought, the beast now towering above him on feet that never touched the ground, purple eyes ringed with psychic energy as his remaining two pokeballs floated into view. His thoughts returned with a vengeance, thought after thought beating against his prefrontal cortex with the voracity of a war drum.

                What are you? Is it going to kill me? Is it going to kill my pokemon? I shouldn’t have come here. It’s going to kill me. I should have stayed home. What is this thing! Does the League know about it? Is it going to kill my pokemon?

                Flashes of the Pokemon Mansion burned across his mind, snippets of long forgotten information. A diary, a lab, a pokemon created by man as a machine of war. Someone was screaming. Mewtwo.

                We’re going to die. It was him, he was screaming.

                As if reading his thoughts, because of course it could, those purple eyes narrowed. A resounding “Yes” floated like a gentle gust of window as those alien fingers came down with a final blow, crushing together as the two floating pokeballs shattered into nothing, nothing but specks of dust and matter. Nidoking and Scyther snuffed out of existence in the flick of the wrist. Time resumed its oppressive march as the pain returned to Red, his screams bouncing off the cave walls the same way they bounced off the walls of his skull, invisible fire tearing through his body with lightning left in its wake, all the while he heard that soft yes repeating in his head, so gentle it could have been some normal person having a conversation over the mundane. It was an eternity in hell that lasted seconds until Mewtwo felt his message had been learned, the world twisting down to nothing as Red fell into oblivion.

-----

Some time later...

He had no memory of what happened…after, although he knew Charizard had dragged him from that damned cave before collapsing at the entrance. The hiker who found him had further dragged him to Cerulean where he remained comatose for a week before starting to stir. The doctors asked question after question, Misty yelled at him briefly before leaving and occasionally came back to yell at him some more. At some point Professor Oak and Lance showed up with set jaws and concerned glances between each other. His mother came too, attaching herself at his bedside like a tumor, one delicate hand constantly touching him or the blanket over his lap.

                In the end he said nothing, did nothing as he was poked and prodded, his Espeon pushed into limp arms, one held in place with a cast, that tightened around her protectively but gave no other movement. Lance assured him the cave was shut down, him and the other Elite Four going to the deepest level to deal with Mewtwo, only to find the pokemon long gone.             

                The panic attacks came after that. He lay curled in on himself while he hyperventilated himself into oblivion, numb to the nurses who manipulated his arm to inject the sedative. The psychic burns wrapping his body screamed with fresh memory, the pain leaving him prone to bouts of shaking as his nerves burned all over again. The doctor who attended to him now spoke with pity in her eyes as she relayed to him and his mother that the pain would likely not fade entirely as Red stared blankly at the wall ahead of him.

                They made him move around his hospital room, encouraging him with words tainted with pity and lies of future improvement. His left leg had shattered beneath him in the…cave…and now he was left with a limp and shots of pain that spread through his hip like electricity.  They spent weeks encouraging him to speak, his mother inconsolable at his side as she begged him to say something.

                “Please. Just say something. It can be anything…tell me to go away…just something” She whispered to his back as he came down from another anxiety attack, arms clutched tightly around his middle. They had taken the cast off two days before and besides the psychic wounds he was healing physically, but in the four months he stayed in the hospital, first the ICU and then the psych ward, he did not make a sound that resembled a word. Even his pokemon urged him to communicate something, Charizard forced to remain outside and be content to stick his neck and head through the open window to nuzzle his ghostly trainer. Espeon remained in his lap and Persian at his bedside. Lapras had been taken by Misty to her gym and despite being unable to visit Misty brought the pokemon’s worries with her.

                By the fifth month Lance had returned, given him the papers that forfeited his title of champion. Red didn’t really mind, the League still needed to function after all, and he was still a champion of Kanto if it started to matter. Lance invited him back in the future if once he recovered. Red still didn’t make a sound, signing the paperwork with a shaky signature and turning the other way. His mother had gone home weeks ago, but visited every Tuesday, a different baked good or dish she knew he liked in hand. He never ate them, never ate anything until the nurses threatened him with a feeding tube and intravenous fluids. When his 16th birthday came and went, he had lost at least twenty pounds, the skin on his fingers taking on a blue tint and his hard-earned musculature deteriorated, leaving his ribs visible.

                Persian had been returned to Professor Oak’s lab along with Lapras. When they tried to take Espeon the small pokemon had growled and hissed, and Charizard was immovable when he wasn’t doing his daily rounds across the skies above Cerulean City. His mom had stopped coming and a psychologist was now his daily company. They filled him with drugs he didn’t know the names of that he dutifully dry swallowed without a verbalized complaint. Occasionally he caught snippets of conversation between the doctors and nurses.

                “Still no improvement.”

                “Just stares at the window all day.”

                “Won’t speak a word.”

                “He’s given up.”

                “It’s like his soul died.”

                They ran tests, brought in specialists, gave him drugs that made him fuzzy, told him he had to talk or they were going to move to the next steps. They tried to take Espeon and Charizard by force, Professor Oak coming in with stern but gentle words. Without nothing but a glance Espeon took the silent order from Red and flung the Professor from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. The lock jammed as the Professor or one of the nurses began to frantically shake the knob to try to push it back open, and Red was through the window on Charizard’s back with the help of both pokemon as he took to the skies.

-----

A year later

                If anyone was looking for him, they never bothered with Mt. Silver. To be fair one had to be insane to scale the towering mountain that divided Kanto and Johto: Charizard and Espeon roamed around the mountain free of their pokeballs without fear of another human encountering them. There was the occasional trainer that roamed the lower elevations, but it would take a special kind of psychopath to come this high (Hello Pot, meet Kettle).

                Despite the thin air he felt he could breathe here. No media, no Lance, no Professor, not even Blue. His long-time rival hadn’t visited him in the hospital once, not that Red mined. It was funny really that all he had wanted was to be ignored and forgotten, and Blue had been the only one to do that for him. Blue was probably the only trainer determined enough to try and make it up the mountain, and part of Red hoped he would turn around and see a flash of spiky red hair.

                On rare occasions Charizard took him down the mountain to the small town on the west face. New Bark Town was nothing special save for the Elm Research Lab, but Red gave that a wide berth, making his way to the Pokemon Center that also had a small PokeMart attached to it. He always made sure to keep his face hidden beneath the scarf and kept his hood pulled low, and he returned Charizard to its ball a mile out of town, making the rest of the journey on foot. His leg hindered the trek considerably, but still he resisted the urge to fly in on his starter. Espeon was too conspicuous as well, not that she was well known on his team, but the rarity of her species would draw too much attention.

                Today he found the shop empty save for the young girl and her Marill sitting behind the counter. He recalled her name being Lyra, this girl that chattered happily to her spoiled Marill. She wore a red sweater and overalls and the goofiest hat he’d ever seen. He rounded the corner, shopping basket hanging from one arm as he grabbed the essentials: batteries, a new cloak (Espeon had decided his old one was actually her’s), a couple antidotes and potions for the more stubborn injuries he came across when encountering wild pokemon, and a half dozen pokeballs. He was eyeing the small book section, finding it interesting that there was a beginner’s book for Kantonian Sign Language when the bell above the door chimed and Red turned to now see a boy about the same age as Lyra. This boy was unfamiliar to him, but at least his hat wasn’t as ridiculous as Lyra’s.

                Despite only being a few years older than these two, he felt their chatter to be too much, and with a sigh he left the book untouched and headed for the register, hoping to pay for his things before they got too deep in their conversation. However, a flash of red caught his eye and he paused at the bulletin board, grimacing at all the missing pokemon posters and other miscellaneous advertisements (Why would someone want a vintage refrigerator?) The poster that caught his eye was half buried by others, but he recognized his own eyes staring back at him. He carefully moved the other papers, shifting his basket to his other arm as he came face to face with a slightly younger version of himself. It listed him as a missing person having a “mental health crisis” and to call a number he didn’t recognize with any information of his whereabouts. With a grimace he checked to make sure Lyra and her friend were still distracted before ripping the poster down and crumpling it up, tossing it in the trash at the end of the register as he moved to check out.

Chapter Text

Viridian Gym

                There had to be something in Johto’s water supply: the past three challengers, a girl with a big goofy hat named Lyra, a boy that ran recklessly into battle alongside his Typlosion, and stern red-haired boy named Silver, had come to his gym and swept through his team. The Ethan kid had downed his team so fast he had whiplash crawling up his neck. It was challenges like these that made Blue wish he would be allowed to use his actual team: he just knew Blastoise would have driven that fire rat into the ground with a well placed hydro pump. He let out a dry laugh, a hand combing through his hair as he stomped down the anger that rose in his throat. To think after all these years a couple of kids could get him this angry. After all, the only other person to ever beat him this badly was…Red.

                And just like that his mood was ruined again by wonder boy. For someone he hadn’t seen in three years, he sure had some nerve, didn’t he? His eyes were drawn to the missing poster on the gym’s message board posted by the main entrance. Red’s mother had been insistent when she’d asked him to hang the posters during his travels, proving just who Red got his stubborn streak from.

                A streak of guilt hurt his chest for a moment as he recalled his former rival withering away in that hospital in Cerulean. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to visit the boy who had been his competition for the better part of their short lives. He felt that it shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did, they weren’t exactly friends (Thanks to Blue bullying the quieter boy for the better part of their lives).

                Blue sighed as he made his way through the entrance doors and past the bulletin board, locking the gym behind him and turning down the road towards home. His gym pokemon were safely tucked away at the pokemon center to be tended to by Nurse Joy and it was Friday, so he didn’t have to worry about any challengers for the next two days. He hoped Daisy was making her special primavera tonight: the winter chill blowing in from Mt. Silver was giving him a craving for comfort food.

                The setting sun was painting the horizon between Viridian and Pallet a striking myriad of orange and red, drawing him back to his thoughts of the golden child. Now that he thought about it as he stopped in the middle of the dirt road, this was where he first met the boy that would become his rival. Faint sounds of boyish insults and boys tumbling through the dirt filled his mind. Then the sound of a bubble tearing through a hastily thrown ember. Blue vigorously scrubbed at his face, desperate to rid himself of thoughts of the prodigy that ran away. He had enough scrutinization to look forward to from his grandfather without adding stowaways.

-----

Pallet Town

                Daisy was in fact making her primavera: Blue smelled it as soon as he opened the door to his grandfather’s house. Umbreon came bounding up to him and leapt into his waiting arms with practiced precision, nuzzling against his trainer with happy little chirps. Blue recalled the day he and Red had finished a particularly nasty battle after returning home from Indigo, stumbling upon a pair of pokemon eggs left abandoned in the long grass. Their next competition was who would hatch their egg first, which subsequent pokemon would be stronger, etc. etc. Blue had rubbed it in Red’s face when his Eevee had hatched the night before while Red’s hatched in the early morning just when the sun had begun to poke its face over the horizon.

                Now Umbreon was excitedly chirping away about his day while Blue affectionately stroked his silky midnight fur, making sure to apply scritches to the fox pokemon’s favorite spots.

                “It’s about time, brat!” came Daisy’s voice from the kitchen, the sound of the tap running and the clang of pots and pans. Blue sneered as he entered the room, flicking the light switch a few times to irritate his sister who swatted a soapy spoon towards his direction, doing nothing but splattering water across the linoleum floor.

                “I’m here, I’m here.” He sighed, dodging another spoonful of soap. “Where’s gramps at?”

                “Running late as well.” His sister sighed. “I swear no one loses track of time better than the two of you.”

                “Weren’t you late to school like, every other day?”
                “Go wash your hands and set the table.”

   -----            

                They were halfway through their meals when their grandfather finally showed up, depositing himself into his designated chair. They did their dance of rehearsed conversation (How was the gym? Fine, how’s your research?) over coffee and apple pie (Blue’s favorite) with Umbreon relaxing happily on his trainer’s lap.

                “A fine specimen,” Oak gestured towards the dark type. “You’ve raised him well.”

                Blue always genuinely smiled when his pokemon came up. “He’s a spoiled brat.” Despite Umbreon’s noise of indignation he settled as Blue scratched behind his ear in just the right spot.

                “I do wonder how Red’s Espeon is faring. Another remarkable specimen.” His tone turned morose, eyes fixed on his own steaming mug. Anytime Red came up the conversation always had a habit of turning…well awkward wasn’t quite strong enough. Blue found that if he acted like Red had simply disappeared it sped things along. Why talk about the Copperajah if it wasn’t even in the room?

                Blue didn’t miss the glare Daisy gave their grandfather. He sighed through his nose. “I’m sure she’s stronger now.”

                “Do you intend to use Umbreon against your challengers? Perhaps specialize in dark types?”

                “You sound like Lance.” Blue set his empty mug down carefully, Daisy immediately refilling it. A bunch of caffeine addicts this family.

                “He might have mentioned you in passing. He wonders if you truly are interested in the Viridian gym.”

                “The gym’s fine---”

                “I still think you ought to look into Vermillion University, or maybe Goldenrod. Plenty of opportunities for a trainer like you.”

                “I don’t think a research fellowship is---”

                “Battling trainers for the League is a fine endeavor, but I hope you don’t mind me saying, it’s a bit of a…dead end, isn’t it?”

                 “Gramps---”

                “I’m quite surprised you haven’t resumed your journey. Who knows what you might find.”

                That was it then. Blue carefully set his mug down, patting Umbreon gently before slowly ushering him to the floor. “It’s getting late, and I do have a lot of paperwork I’ve got to get through for the League.”

                “Blue, sit down.”

                “Why?” He snapped as he stood fully. “Why are you starting this conversation again.”

                “Fumiko came to the lab again. I was late because reporters were harassing her again, what with the League challenge starting soon,”

                Blue sighed. It was true that during the end of the season the media sometimes pounced on Pallet Town to get the scoop on their beloved missing champion. They hadn’t bothered with Blue this year after the disaster of the previous.

                “I fail to see how this is my problem, Gramps.”

                “You were the last to see him, before he went to Cerulean. Did he say…anything?”

                “Oh yeah sure, said he was going sightseeing.” He couldn’t make it to the door fast enough.

                “This is serious, Blue…you didn’t see him. He isn’t well—”

                “You ever stop to think that he probably doesn’t wanna be bothered?” Blue said with a slight muffle as he pulled his sweater over his head.

                “Blue—”

                “Hell, he’s probably dead at this point—”

                Blue hit the wall with a forced oomph from his chest as his grandfather pushed him into it, not hard, but it surprised him enough to stop the rest of his retort in his throat.

                “Are you ever going to grow up, Blue? What do you think he would do if you switched places?”

                “Oh yeah Mister Perfect would fly in on that giant lizard and save the day wouldn’t he?”

                “Blue!”

                “He’s fine gramps. He messed up a literal terrorist organization at ten, I think he can handle himself.”

                That wasn’t exactly true. Blue remembered storming Silph Co’s headquarters with Red only to have the International Police drag both children out by the scruff. He had enough sense to know he shouldn’t speak ill of the dead…or missing, and that he should be concerned having grown up with Red, but how he grew tired of always talking about him. Of being compared to him. Everyone forgot Blue was the youngest champion first, even if it was only an hour. His name was still in the hall of fame. So, what if Red flew off the handle and disappeared into the wild? Blue might have too if he had Lance, reporters, and psycho fans pounding at his door. Their entire journey Red always had a way of doing the impossible and running headfirst into dangerous situations that should have gotten him killed. If anything, Blue knew deep down he could handle himself.

                “Just…just keep an ear out, alright?” His grandfather sighed as he released his weak hold of Blue’s sweater and straightened himself off.

                “Yeah sure, Gramps, sure.”

-----              

                 Blue growled to himself as he made the quiet journey from his grandfather’s house to his own on the outskirts of Pallet, Umbreon lumbering behind him happily in the moonlit night with golden rings alight. The nerve of Gramps ambushing him like that when he knew it always ended up like this, and now he was the asshole.

                Unfortunately to get to his home he had to pass the golden wonder’s mom’s. He found himself skittering to a halt at the end of the walkway, gaze focused on the one light still on that he guessed was Fumiko’s room. With slight heat to his cheeks he looked at his shoes, suddenly finding the ground incredibly interesting.

                Their last conversation was here. Red had been champion for little more than six months, and Blue had yet to take over the Viridian Gym, having just returned from a foray into Johto to meet with Professor Elm about some research for his grandfather.

                Red had that look in his eye when he again swept through Blue’s team, Espeon sitting at his heel while casually grooming her fur. He held up a small ID card that Blue recognized as League based.

                “Something’s going down in Cerulean.” His rival had sneered. Since their official champion battle, he had grown confident enough to at least ditch the quiet act around Blue. “Lance got this for me, its for you so you can get in the restricted area.”

                “Suppose you didn’t need one…”

                Red’s gaze softened, the dick, as he thumped the ID card into Blue’s hand without a care. “There’s bound to be strong Pokémon there.” We can get stronger there, went unspoken. Despite his repeated failure to beat Red the other boy had yet to rub it in his face. It didn’t matter how big or small the win was either. Anyone else would have implied that Blue could get stronger so he might stand a chance.

                Indignation heated his cheeks. “No thanks, sounds like a snooze fest. Smell ya later, loser.”