History’s Past, Present’s Future

Chapter 1, Part III: Rocket’s Notion

gatene2k3@hotmail.com

The rain had finally subsided to a light drizzle, and then stopped completely. Nina and Brantley both noticed it, and pulled the graying black blanket from over their heads, and the sunlight hit them both in their faces, causing them to flinch.

Nina looked over at Brantley, after noticing that their Pokémon were asleep, and asked, “So, you’re heading to the new Viridian City settlement?” She had hoped that Brantley would be her first friend here, being that they just left not too long ago, from her life-long home. If Brantley would become her friend, then she could possibly be happy at the new Viridian Settlement. Though Percy would do nicely, she wanted another Pokémon-lover with her, so she could learn from him or her.

Brantley was searching through his light brown item bag, for some food that he had brought. “Yes, I am. My friend, with whom I trained most of my life, left suddenly, leaving only a note, and a short explanation.” The subject was still heavily on his heart, but he knew that Nina didn’t know any better, and so he gave it no further thought.

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“Some Pokémon are looking for friends Brantley, and others, feel as though they are too tough for friends, but want a tough trainer to make them even more powerful. Then there are those who are too tough for friends, and don’t want anything to do with trainers. In light of that, what would you do, if you came across a wild Tauros?” Brantley began to think, staring into space.

“I would throw a heavy rock at it, and call it Bruiser!” He childishly mocked Samuel Oak. After all back then he was only 10 years old. The thoughts continued to roll back into his mind like a very old reel movie, and the sound quality wasn’t that better either. The bumps that Chuck would hit, caused most of it, but he wanted to reminisce some more.

“Okay Brantley, There we go, a perfect time to catch a Pokémon. Try that Sneasel.”

“No, no, no, Brantley, you can’t do that, you must first weaken the Pokémon, then catch it.”

“Alright, now that you have finally caught a weak Eevee…” That was Brantley’s proudest moment of his entire life. His first Pokémon, and it could evolve into one of five different Pokémon.

Samuel Oak didn’t seem to be all that pleased, for the Sneasel would have been a greater Pokémon to train Brantley with.

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Nina saw that he was daydreaming, and began to stare at Brantley. Her usually small jade-colored eyes, were now humongous, and wouldn’t leave Brantley’s face.

Brantley noticed this, and quickly jumped, his eyes were of different content also; they were in a dreamy state, accompanied by a small smile.

Brantley found the plastic bag that he started to look for nearly 5 minutes ago, and it was filled with circular red berries that he had recently picked, and began to snack on them, and showed the bag to Nina, offering her some.

“No thanks.” Nina replied. “One thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight” She said almost immediately after hitting a rather large bump down yet another dirt road, feeling as though she could share the boring experience that she had, so he could understand.

The pothole that Chuck had hit was rather large, and a few of Brantley’s berries had hit the bed of the truck, and rolled toward Percy and Eevee.

“Huh? 1,728 what? Are you counting the number of bumps that the driver has hit or something?” Brantley asked bemused, but forced the laugh back into his throat, with the Berry that he just put into his mouth.

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Brantley got up with a swift motion, stretched for a moment, and headed for the tailgate, when he suddenly felt his foot fly up over his head, and fall face first into the edge of tailgate, impaling his cranium.

“Kazam”, the Alakazam blurted, shaking its head, and moustache flowing in the breeze from up in the air. His premonitions haven’t shirked for a moment for over 100 years of life. Psychic energy fading from his body, and his tail once again starting to twitch, as if it were laughing.

His eyes began to glow an eerie green, and so did the Eevee, but neither Nina nor Brantley noticed this.

“Good job Alakazam, you serve me well every day.” A welcoming voice sounded through Alakazam’s mind.

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The scenery of the edge of the forest that Brantley and Eevee were traveling in, began to recede, and intricately blend in to a large clearing, by way of the trees thinning out, and the thick forest following an uncut path along the edges of the clearing.

“Yes, it got quite boring on the trip, until you came along to keep me company.” Nina answered as they continued to look around both sides of the truck, to see construction equipment shut down on the sides, and inside of dug foundations. ‘It might be quite fun here, I mean there is a whole forest, just like back home.’ She thought to herself, more of deluding herself than dictating the truth.

“Pidgey” Percy exclaimed, and looked at Nina before she took flight, and flew into the forest.

“Eevee” The other Pokémon squealed upon hearing Percy take off. She hopped to the side truck, giving no thought to the constant bumps that Chuck was hitting, and stood on her hind legs, ears limp by the sides of her face.

“Don’t worry Eevee.” Brantley said, offering her a berry. “She’s just going to look for food, take a few of these, and before you know it, Percy will be back.” Eevee took the berry from Brantley thankfully, and squealed again, and took the berries that were scattered onto the bed of the truck, like Alakazam commanded her to do before jumping into Brantley’s lap.

“So, your friend, why did he or she leave?” Nina asked as they were climbing out of the truck finally, and taking a much needed stretch. She felt that this might be a touchy subject, but she thought she’d ask, in case he needed to talk about it.

“I’m sorry Nina; I do not wish to talk about it.” He said after taking a much needed stretch.

“Alright son, take care.” Chuck said meeting him on the side of the truck that he climbed off from.

“Thank you once again sir, now I just need to find a place to change into dry clothes.” Brantley continued with Chuck, feeling his chest down to his stomach to test the extent of the dampness.

“Well…” Chuck started, thinking heavily about what he was about to say and ask. It has never been in Chuck’s nature to take so quickly to anyone, especially to a boy that his stepdaughter has taken a somewhat liking to.

“Well, the visitor’s center is just over there, and the bathrooms are plenty big to change in.” Chuck stated while pointing to his right and to the left of Brantley, towards a rather large gray concrete building, with a bland crème-colored roof. His voice was becoming high pitched, only knowing how many stares he was going to get from his wife, Caroline, upon asking Brantley what he wanted to.

“I appreciate it sir.” Brantley gave a half bow, feeling grateful to Chuck, Caroline, and Nina for the ride. He then felt sad as he began to walk away, he didn’t really want to take this journey alone, but asking them if he could tag along until he found some trace of Samuel Oak, would feel like he was imposing himself on them, and that was completely out of the question.

“Uhm, son”

“I’m sorry, my name’s Brantley, sir”

“It’s OK; you can call me Chuck by the way”.

“Alright then, Chuck. You wanted to ask me something?”

Chuck thought hard on how to present the question. Offering a space with Nina in a tent would not only look wrong, but anything could happen between the two. Chuck took a deep breath, and with out thinking, he just blurted it out, waiting for some sort of look, or worse, a smack on the head from Caroline. “Brantley, do you have a place to go? Our tents have more than enough room for two or more people, and currently, Nina is the only one in her tent. Would you like to stay with us for a little while, until you can get to wherever you are going?” Sure enough, a deep viridian colored look shot directly at Chuck from Caroline, boring into his mind.

Eyes widening, and mouth gaping, Brantley did not know what to think. A perfect stranger was offering him a place to stay. Even though it was in a tent, it still kept a roof over his head, and food in his stomach. ‘You’re thinking too fast Brantley. He didn’t say anything about food.’ He fought with himself, before he got too happy.

“Wow, I would love to Chuck, thank you.” Was all he could mutter as he walked on to the visitor’s center, feeling goose bumps from meeting three wonderful people.

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‘Wow’ Brantley thought to himself, looking ahead at the massive building, and clean glass doors. “Whoever this Viridian guy is, he sure is wealthy and has good customer service.” He said aloud for no one to hear.

Brantley walked on in through the first set of automatic sliding glass doors, paused, and looked to his right, and read aloud.

“George Viridian, born on August 2004, was brought up in the surrounding forest. His parents both deceased when George was at the age of 14, and he decided to one day, build an enormous city within the small clearing of the forest in memory of his parents; dubbing it, “Viridian City” and the surrounding forest, “Viridian Forest”. Winning various Pokémon battles with trainers in the outfield, and large events in championships, George Viridian was starting to make his dream come true. Keeping in mind the welfare of the Pokémon within Viridian forest, he chose the location carefully, and decided on a large circumference of area on the outskirts of the clearing, this building being the exact center.” The smooth black setting on the gray marble read with pride towards its founder.

Taking in that information, and crossing over into the next room, shielded by yet another set of automatic sliding glass doors, he discovered a large circular desk in the middle, littered with colorful brochures of Viridian City. Brantley was easily able to tell that George Viridian loved the earth, because the walls of the visitor’s center looked like that of a mountain’s insides; the occasional small round window up high on the walls, where the walls and the ceiling intersected at magnificent angles.

No one was behind the large paneling-laden counter, so Brantley took it upon himself to explore a little, searching for the restrooms. He knew when he went down a particularly long hallway, with 3 doorways artistically etched into the mountainside, and a small blue sign to the left of each doorway, that bared the symbol of the gender and typed in Braille underneath, that he explored the right place at first sight.

Brantley went into the restroom, which was rather roomy, and laid the large brown item pack on to the green marble counter that contained about five or six sinks. Directly behind him were the showers and toilet stalls. Upon gathering his clothes from his sack, he hurried on into the middle stall, the first shower.

His soaked flannel tank top was no easy feat to take off, but eventually managed to do so, revealing just how much he was in shape.

“Eevee” His Pokémon’s squeal echoed from what sounded like the entrance to the bathroom. He knew that Eevee has seen him with even less clothes than this, but not completely undressed, and so, he kindly asked his Eevee to wait where she was.

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“Aah, Lieutenant Vermillion, how are you today?” Asked a tall and gangly man clad in filthy typical work clothes. The man that was speaking was George Viridian, the founder of Viridian City. He thought it not above him to help the others with the building of his city. The blueprints lay before him on a non-sturdy lumber table, held down by the top halves of two ancient gray Pokéballs. He felt that it was an honor to be visited by another founder of another nearby city.

Vermillion City wasn’t too far from Viridian, and as it would be, the Lieutenant was also the gym leader of Vermillion City.

“Rai ai ai, Raichu”, an oversized mouse stood and said aloud, trying to get his trainer’s attention. The brown-skinned Pokémon stood there, yanking on the overhang of his trainer’s camouflage shirt. The Lieutenant looked every bit the part of someone coming back from the military; a freshly shaven head, scars, chiseled chest and stomach, which were bare, and complete with a rugged look, followed closely with a deep voice.

“Aah, I see you have evolved your Pikachu, Lieutenant.” George said without giving any thought to it. The construction of his city usually kept him up at night. The way he saw it was, the less distractions, the better.

“Yeh, I did, I cuddin do wit a baby anymore. Baby Pokémon are fo losas.” He said in his deep northern accent.

Lieutenant Vermillion thought exactly and only that. He aimed for Power, and that’s all he would expect from his Pokémon as well.

“Yeh Raichu, wad is it?” the Lieutenant said aloud, noticing his Pokémon’s persistence.

“Well, I bedda head off, mah Raichu’s gettin’ hungry.” He said after a long and incoherent chat with his Pokémon.

The Lieutenant and his Raichu set off walking towards Vermillion gym, with a little wave from himself and George Viridian.

George was still soaked up with his work on the City. “Erika from Celadon, Daisy from Cerulean, Serge from Vermillion, Blaine from Cinnabar Island, Flint from Pewter, Koga from Fuchsia, No one from Saffron, Viridian, Lavender Town, nor the Indigo Plateau.” He said, trying to figure out the names of the gym leaders of the existing surrounding cities.

“Well, once I finish the city, and build a gym, I suppose I could run it. Yes, my company could sponsor it. Rocket Ingenuity Gym.” He said, sounding and looking satisfied, and a grin smirked over his face, his sleek black hair glistening from the hot sun. He then continued to work, while occasionally glancing at a picture of his wife, which he took from his beat-up Seviper skin wallet, which he placed back into his light brown work pants.

‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow Delia dear, and we can have all the time in the world to discuss this Pallet town of yours, and the future of our unborn son’ He started to think to himself

‘Brendan is still a better name than Ashley.’ He continued to think, while his pencil grazed his lips ever so often from making some adjustment to the old blueprints, which he had since his days in college as an architect.

“I am finished!” George shouted, but no one heard. He didn’t care, he held up what he thought was a masterpiece, to his face, looking for any last minute changes he needed. Various parts of the blueprint glared back at the sun that shown directly above him, reflecting onto his face. He couldn’t get rid of the constant habit of looking at his most recent mark. A large red “R” occupied the lower right-hand corner of the shiny sheet of paper.