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Ghastly Adventures: Boulder 1.1 (ch. 1)
🕑 Added 2024-01-27 15:57:57 +0000 UTCNothing drove home how fragile life really was like death did. At any moment, a blood vessel in your brain could pop and you'd just drop dead. You could be chilling out at the house, completely unaware that the house was slowly filling with carbon monoxide. Or, in my case, you could be walking across the street and some guy behind the wheel only realized he was running a red light moments before, giving me enough time to hear a blaring horn.
Truck-kun didn't claim me then. An ambulance managed to arrive -- the harsh siren grating on my ears while my brain struggled to pierce the veil of fog that shrouded every thought, trying to figure out what was going on. Shock, I suppose. The medics did what they could, but I was too far gone. The very last thing that I heard was my own heart monitor flatlining on the way to the hospital.
I closed my eyes for the final time.
Then I opened them to a night sky full of stars. I was laying on my back, soft grass tickling the bare skin of my neck, chilled air filling my lungs with every breath. The cloud of fog retreated from my mind -- I didn't panic. I didn't cry. For a moment, I simply laid down and looked up at the stars, and accepted that this was the end. “Man… the stars sure are pretty,” I remarked, my voice sounding odd to my own years. Younger?
The sky looked like one of those photos that were taken in places so remote that there wasn't another person for a hundred miles in every direction. The dark sky was filled with hundreds of thousands, millions even, specs of light. Each their own sun a incomprehensible amount of distance away. It was a breathtaking sight. I expected for my life to flash before my eyes as I died, but this wasn't bad either.
So, I breathed in and accepted the end for what it was and I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited a little more.
And some more.
A little more-
“Ku?” I heard in a low warped voice, like a scream in the distance of a dark and sinister night. Directly behind me. My skin crawled and I flinched up, my body not quite willing to accept death quite so easily it would appear. Whipping around, I saw the source of the noise, but it only left me confused. There, lurking behind me; less than a foot tall and clad in what had to be a dishrag, was a scribbled on face with a piece of wood jutting out at the hem of the cloth like a tail. Instantly, I knew what it was. I just wasn't sure why I was seeing it.
“... Mimikyu?” I ventured, looking at the pokemon with nothing short of bafflement. I recognized it easily enough -- the number of pokemon had breached a thousand, but Mimikyu was one that was pretty hard to forget and extremely easy to identify. A pokemon that disguises itself as pikachu in a desperate bid to be loved because its unnatural nature scared everyone else off. Even now, looking at it, the shadows seemed to writhe around it -- it was something other.
The wooden stick bobbed. “Kyu?” Mimikyu questioned and, to my immense surprise, I understood. Not as I would as if it had spoken words, but the syllable conveyed its meaning perfectly.
“What do you mean am I okay-” I started before I looked down at myself. Oh. That was blood. That was like… an alarming amount of blood. “Did I get shot?” I muttered, a hand going to my chest, over my heart, to find a tear in my shirt. My heart thumped underneath my palm, the skin rougher -- scar tissue? The hole was too big for a gun, unless I got shot with an assault rifle, but I didn't feel an exit wound on my back. “No, I got stabbed with something?”
The jarring difference was what snapped me back to reality. More than suddenly being in a forest or a pokemon before me. It was the discrepancy. I got hit by a truck, I died, and now I was getting up from what looked to be a large spike going through my heart. No, a horn. The sheer oddness of the situation woke up that part of my brain that bothered to ask questions because, until this moment, I had been content to call this a hallucination as my brain pulled out all the stops to avoid death.
“Did you see what happened?” I asked Mimikyu, and it's head bobbed side to side. Not as an answer but because I was speaking to it. I looked around to see that we were in a small clearing with trees surrounding us. A shiver raced down my spine as I saw what lurked within the shadows of the trees -- beady eyes that watched. Pokemon. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I saw the clearing itself was disheveled with clear signs of a scuffle. Nearby was a net, and what looked to be a pokeball.
“Ku. Kukkuku,” Mimikyu answered as I pushed myself up to my feet. I felt a dozen eyes watching me in the darkness, and weirdly enough, I could see them. There shouldn't be enough natural light for me to see a thing, and while some places were darker than others, I saw in the dark well enough.
“I got attacked? Poachers?” I echoed, frowning as I took off my shirt. The dried blood had to peel off, but looking down at my chest showed me a white scar. A jagged patch of scar tissue that covered my heart and stretched up to my collarbone. A wound that should have killed me. Did kill me? Or killed whoever's body this was?
There weren't any extra memories kicking around my head, so I'm pretty sure that I got shoved into this body. As for why or how, I had absolutely no clue but, provided that this wasn't a delusion, I could honestly chalk that up to pokemon shenanigans. A frown tugged at my lips for a moment, pressing into a thin line. “These poachers. Did they have something like a big R on their chests?”
“Mi!” An affirmative, huh?
Team Rocket killed this body. Me. They killed me. Team Rocket was a joke in the show, a threat in the games, but in the Manga they were real villains. The kind that would be perfectly willing to murder a child to steal a pokemon. Walking over to the pokeball, I saw that it was empty. So, I'm guessing that they succeeded in stealing my pokemon after they murdered me.
And that…
That couldn't stand.
“Mimikyu,” I spoke up, turning to the pokemon that stood a little straighter when u looked at it. “You protected me, didn't you? From the others that were eying up my corpse,” I said, because I could feel their eyes on me. At first, I was assuming hostility, but now I felt uncertainty. They saw me die and now they saw me get up. Pokemon were sapient, they just couldn't speak for the most part. I imagine they were freaking out a little bit.
Mimikyu seemed bashful as I approached, confirming as much. “Thanks. It would have been a hassle for me if I came back and one of my arms got chewed off,” I chuckled grimly. “So, thank you for protecting me.” I repeated, making Mimikyu look up at me with uncertainty. The pokemon was a little unnerving, but so was dying. “I'm going to go after Team Rocket and rescue my pokemon,” I told him.
And while I was at it, I might murder my murderer.
“Would you want to come with me?” I asked and I could tell that the offer caught Mimikyu completely flat footed. His cloth costume went ramrod stiff, seemingly gaping up at me.
“Ku?!” Mimikyu cried out, “Mimikyu?!”
“Whatcha mean by scary? You're a real cutie patootie, you know that?” I said, reaching out and rubbing his head. Yeah, he was clad in a well used dishrag. “And you already had my back when we didn't know each other, so of course I would trust you with it now. We’re friends,” I told him and while the words were sincere, I couldn't help but feel like they carried an edge of manipulation.
The mimikyu pokemon were an intensely lonely species. Their appearance was said to be horrific -- so terrible that if you didn't die on the spot, then you were cursed to die soon. Yet, they yearned for companionship. So, they donned the rags that they wore, pretending to be something they weren't in the hopes that someone would love them.
And goddamn, that tugged at the heartstrings.
“You don't have to come with me if you don't want to,” I offered, withdrawing my hand. “I imagine that the road ahead is going to be dangerous. There are going to be hard fights, and I can't promise that we will win.” I continued, thinking of the Legendaries. The dozens of world ending threats that Ash faced. Even the powerful trainers and their pokemon who could probably defeat a nation by themselves.
Pokemon never really addressed it, but it was every bit the death world that DC or Marvel claimed to be. If you go with the ‘Ash has been 10 for twenty years’ bit, then that means in the span of a year, there were a baker’s dozen apocalypses that he single handedly warded off. The games? They spread the love a little bit, but only over the course of a decade. Not to mention the more mundane dangers of emotionally charged children walking around with what amounted to machine guns in their pockets, battling for the fun of it.
So, yeah, big things ahead.
I presented the pokeball to Mimikyu. Its- his gaze could only be described as longing. “But, all the same, I'm going to walk that road and I could use some friends to help me on the way,” I finished.
“Mimikyu!” Mimikyu exclaimed, all but headbutting the pokeball before he vanished inside in a flash of red light.
And would you look at that?
I just caught my first pokemon.
…
I let Mimikyu out almost as soon as I captured him, letting him ride on my shoulder. His body underneath the cloth felt… weird, for a lack of a better word. Not warm, cold, dry, wet, soft, hard, rough or smooth -- the best I could describe it would be a great big ‘???’ Like my brain couldn’t process what I was feeling when I lifted him to my shoulder. Beyond that, he settled on his perch like he belonged there, glowering at all of the pokemon in the forest we trek’d through, and as far as I could tell, no one wanted to mess with him.
I couldn't tell if that was because he was strong or if they found him that unnerving.
Either way, it meant we got to walk relatively unmolested. The biggest issue turned out to be the trees and shrubbery. I probably would have been helplessly lost in the forest, but as it so happened, Team Rocket left a trail for me to follow -- footprints of people and pokemon walking together. I followed them, idly hoping that I would get a chance to at least see who killed ‘me.’
I was in no position to actually fight Team Rocket. I trusted Mimikyu to have my back, but it was one thing to pick a fight and another to jump head first into danger. I wanted to find them so I could at least know what to look for. A face and the name. That way I wouldn't be stuck dealing with a cold trail when I started searching for them in earnest.
I might not have had this body when it expired, but as far as I was concerned, they still killed ‘me.’ And, even if they didn't, they straight up murdered a child and kidnapped his pokemon -- that deserved some payback, no matter what anyone might say.
I followed the trail to the very edge of the forest, finding that it led to a road. Well, calling it a road was a bit much seeing as it was just a dirt path, but it was a well walked one. Well walked enough that my odds of following the tracks all the way to Team Rocket took a sharp downturn. Pursing my lips, I looked around for a sign but found nothing. “Mimi -- do you know where the closest town is?”
Mimikyu tilted his head back and forth for a moment before gesturing to the left. And that was all it took to convince me to start walking.
There was something else going on with my body, I noted as I walked for hours on end. I didn't feel tired. At all. Walking was hardly a strenuous exercise, but do it long enough and you should feel something. I walked through the night, the sky starting to brighten as the curtain of stars was pushed back overhead. And I felt like I could walk for hours or even days more without any issue.
Something weird was going on with my body and I'm pretty sure that it was tangentially related to my revival.
The good news was that as dawn arrived, I caught my first glimpse of what I could only describe as a sleepy village. It was a good thirty buildings located in what seemed to be a valley in the rolling hills, and my gaze zeroed in on one of the few immediately recognizable buildings located at the heart of the village -- a Pokemon Center. The red capped roof with a large pokeball was a dead give away.
I took in a deep breath and let it out. “Let's go, buddy,” I said, patting Mimikyu before continuing onward. There wasn't anything like a checkpoint as I entered the village that was just waking up despite the early hour. I saw a handful of people walking about, joined by their pokemon -- I saw geodudes helping water some gardens, a machchop helping an elderly woman open a shop. It was a novel sight, I had to admit as my feet carried me to the Pokemon Center.
The glass doors slid open, revealing a modern and clean looking lobby. At the front desk was a woman that any pokemon fan would recognize instantly-- Nurse Joy. Bright pink hair with long hoops, a nurse outfit, and a heart shaped face. She smiled brightly at me, “Welcome! How may we be of-” she cut herself off when she saw Mimikyu, but she recovered smoothly. “Er, assistance?”
“I have a few questions, if you wouldn't mind? Mimikyu and I don't need any healing,” I admitted, though I was tempted to get a check up. Just to see what was going on. The only thing holding me back was the possibility of being asked questions I didn’t yet have the answers to.
Nurse Joy found her smile, “I'd be happy to.” Her gaze lingered on Mimikyu, but upon seeing that he wasn't a danger, she refocused her gaze on me.
“What village is this?” I began, making Nurse Joy's eyebrows creep up and I got the impression that she was less than impressed. “And, besides me, have you seen any strangers coming to the village? Maybe a group of one?”
“This is Glendale,” she informed and that name meant literally nothing to me. “We're only a few days from Pewter City, so we usually get a number of people passing through this time of year for the training circuit. May I ask for details?”
My lips thinned, “I was attacked by Team Rocket and… they stole most of my pokemon,” I decided to answer and immediately I saw Nurse Joy’s entire demeanor change. Her eyes widened, filling with concern as she rushed from the otherside of the counter. “I didn't really get a look at them, since it was dark, but they attacked me and while I was unconscious they took them. I managed to track them to the road, but…”
“You poor thing,” Nurse Joy cooed at me. “Let me call Officer Jenny and she'll be right over to take care of this! Don't you worry about a thing, we'll do whatever we can to get you your pokemon back!” I noticed that she didn't tell me that they would get them back. Or even find Team Rocket.
I nodded, expecting more or less this reaction. There wasn't much of a point in admitting that I had died -- it would just raise questions that I didn't know how to answer. “Thanks… do you have a terminal? I want to call my mom…” I trailed off, feeling a little guilty for lying when she looked at me with such genuine concern and pity.
“Of course! We have a few in the back room, through that door -- I'll go get Officer Jenny while you talk to her,” Nurse Joy said. She ushered me that way while she got on the phone, and I swiftly entered a backroom that had a row of analog-looking computers. Taking a seat at one of them, I reached into my back pocket to my wallet and instead of a driver's license, I fed in what was called a trainer's license into the machine.
The screen flashed, and I saw my profile page. Clicking on it, I saw… “Blair Wych,” I muttered, my voice dry as a desert. Blair Wych. Blair Witch? That was a little on the nose. Still, it was my name now as I had to give up my old one. Clicking again, I brought up general information.
Blair Wych
Age: 15
Years as Trainer: 0.0
Matches: 1/0/0
Gym Badges: 0
Account funds: $165.00
Registered Pokemon:
Caterpie
Pidgey
Spinarak
Krabby
Huh. I didn't have one of the starters. To that end, I wasn't affiliated with Professor Oak at all. Meaning that I was just a random trainer who managed to get his license before my untimely demise. And… that meant Team Rocket killed me over a bunch of starter pokemon. That was…
That either wasn't the case or Team Rocket were so vile that they'd commit cold blooded murder rather than roam a beach or a forest for ten minutes and catch every pokemon I allegedly had. Did I find something in the forest? Something that I didn't have the time to or refused to register? Something that was actually worth killing over?
Then my gaze flickered to the picture that was on the screen. Stark white hair, reddish amber eyes, and a boyish face set in an uncertain smile. The bone structure to one day be good-looking, but currently caught in that awkward phase between boy and man. It looked nothing like me, but that was my new face. And my new age.
“Mimikyu?” Mimikyu questioned, and I broke myself from my thoughts. Right. Now wasn't the time to zone out. Going to account details, I saw that I had exactly one contact labeled Mom.
My finger hovered over the call button for a second, driven by nothing less than curiosity to see who would answer. My mother was dead and she had been for some time.
Then there was a knock at the door, and I abandoned the thought. “Pardon the intrusion, but I'm here to take a statement?” I heard a woman’s voice before the door opened, revealing Officer Jenny. Like Nurse Joy, she appeared exactly as she did in the TV show -- blueish green hair, brown eyes, a blue police uniform complete with a pencil skirt and high heels.
“That's me- I, ugh, my mom didn't answer,” I fibbed and I saw Officer Jenny look sad for the quickest of moment.
“I'm sure she's just asleep,” he reassured. Officer Jenny offered the platitude like she really meant it, “It is pretty early, after all. Do you think you’re up for answering a few questions for me?” She asked, her eyes searching me. Luckily, the backpack that was with me had an extra shirt and a canteen, so I had been able to deal with the dried blood. I’m not sure if there were any other signs that I had been attacked, but Mimikyu was a pretty big distraction.
“I can answer your questions!” I affirmed with a nod of my head as she took out a small notebook before I launched into an edited version of everything that happened since I woke up. I saw that she frowned ever so slightly when it came to Mimikyu but she swallowed whatever comment that she wanted to say. After she got the story from me, she started to ask probing questions.
Like, why was I in the forest? To catch pokemon.
Where was I going? To Pewter to challenge the first gym.
Were there any identifiable markers to help flag my pokemon if they were seen? None.
Then she cut into the meat of the matter. “We have a catalog of everyone that has come and gone from the town in the past week. Do you think you could point out any of your attackers if you saw them?” She asked, and my hopes surged. I might not be able to, but Mimikyu should be able to help me out a bit with that.
I offered a nod and the next thing I knew, I was looking at what looked to be a photobook with various trainers. Officer Jenny left me alone, I guess to prevent any distractions or to speak privately with Nurse Joy. There were a good fifty to sixty of them, all of their photos were part of the registry like mine was on the terminal. There was a pretty wide range on the ages, but I did notice that the bulk of them seemed to be around my age. My new age, at least.
Slowly examining the photos, I hoped that they would stir up some memory, but I didn’t get anything. Not even when Mimikyu reached out with his wooden tail and tapped one of the photos. “Attila?” I muttered, looking down at the picture. The name stirred up some memories, faint as they were. Attila had been an agent of Team Rocket in the anime. Blonde hair, black eyes, and an eat shit grin on his face.
He was also eighteen years old according to the book. That was… a little on the young side, wasn’t it? Then again, this was a place that sent children as young as ten on journeys across the country, so that might be my sensibilities talking.
I stared at his face for a long moment, anger starting to burn in my chest before it cooled into ice. He had a partner, I knew -- some guy called Hun. Gritting my teeth, I turned the page, hoping to see if there were any more members of Team Rocket. I flipped through a couple of pages, seeing nothing but unfamiliar names and faces until I found one. He wasn’t a member of Team Rocket, but he shouldn’t be in the book at all.
Light blue hair and blue eyes, his skin sunkissed to a bronzed brown. In a world of unique looking characters, myself included, I would have dismissed his appearance as a coincidence. At least up until I looked over at the name written by the photo.
Brawly.
“What the…?” I breathed, making Mimikyu look at me. I should watch my language around him, but it felt appropriate. I was hardly a pokemon loremaster, but I played every game at least once. Read the manga. The anime was a bit of a miss for me, but I usually absorbed the highlights via osmosis. So, I knew who I was looking at.
Brawly was one of my favorite gym trainers as I always had a soft spot for Fighting types. Personality wise, he was just a total bro. He blew off Ash for a couple days straight just so he could surf and I always got the feeling that he knew a little more than he let on when he talked about ‘That big wave’ called life. He was supposed to be in Dewford Town, running a Gym, over in Hoenn.
So, why did he look around fifteen?
“Where exactly in the timeline am I?” I muttered, suddenly feeling put out. I recognized that I was in Kanto -- Pewter City was recognizable enough. Meaning that the forest that I left was probably the Viridian forest. I had assumed that I was somewhere around the time of Ash, the protagonist of the show. Or Red, from the Manga, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I don’t think anyone in Pokemon had hard canon ages, but I’m pretty sure that Brawly was in his late teens to early twenties by the time Ash challenged him for his badge.
So… what? A year before the start of canon? Two? Three? That left me reeling, and I hadn’t entirely recovered from the blow to the stomach when Officer Jenny knocked at the door again.
“Do you recognize anyone?” Officer Jenny asked me, making me look up at her with dazed eyes. I held her gaze for but a moment before my grip tightened on the book of photos.
“No,” I lied, “I couldn’t recognize anyone.”
The timeline didn’t matter. Canon didn’t matter. Attila of Team Rocket had murdered me in cold blood…
So we had some unfinished business.
