Chapter Text
As Gold’s last pokémon drops to the ground, Red bites back a grin. Even after battling what seems like the entire world, he is yet to find a greater feeling than winning a battle. The icy clarity of the Mt. Silver winds whipping at his face alongside the giddy feeling in his chest, causes a slightly hysterical laugh to bubble out of his mouth as he calls out to Pika. “You won!”
It’s a rather obvious and pointless statement and maybe the lack of oxygen up on Mt. Silver is starting to get his brain but he shouts it out anyway.
Pika scampers back to perch proudly on his shoulder, accepting a good scratch behind the ears as a reward as Red gazes out contentedly at the wondrously white snow stretching out in all directions. Sometimes he has to pinch himself as a reminder that he's still technically in his home region. Or maybe Johto. Not that there’s much difference between the two up here.
Gold, on the other hand, sits dejectedly on the snow, healing his fainted Sunflora with a full restore and a faraway look in his eyes. “A hundred losses to zero wins…” he mutters. “How’s that even possible… I mean, what level even is that Pikachu? Eighty?”
Red walks over and pats him on the shoulder good naturedly. “Come on, you got a bit closer that time. Your Sunflora’s type resistance was giving Pika some trouble for a bit. It was really all this ice that did you in.”
Today is one of the better days on Mt. Silver and that’s not saying much. The near-constant blizzard has done little to let up since the two arrived a fortnight ago, but today rays of sunlight have managed to break through the white cloud to colour the mountain's eternally white landscape.
Gold rolls his eyes. “You’re calling all of this,” he stretches his arms out wide, indicating their snowy surroundings. “Just... ice?”
To prove his point, a particularly strong gust of wind blows Gold’s cap off and sends it spiralling into the blizzard. He stares blankly after the quickly shrinking dot of his cap for a few moments before flopping back onto the snow in defeat. “I’ll definitely go get it… in a minute.”
“Uh huh.” Red knows that means he won’t go get it and so he readies Aero’s pokéball and prepares to give chase. If he leaves now he can probably keep the cap in sight. Just about.
He reaches into his back pocket to check the time, only to find it empty, before remembering that he and Gold left their Pokégear behind in the cave they’d been inhabiting. As he clambers onto Aero’s back, he peers up through the blizzard at the sun high above his head. “Say, how long do you think we’ve been out here?”
“Five hours. It’s noon,” Gold answers, without missing a beat or his eyes leaving the sky for a second. Red frowns. Time was easy to lose track of up on Mt. Silver.
“Guess it’s time for lunch then.”
The mention of food gets Gold eyes off the sun and his feet off the ground near instantaneously. “Now that!” he says, pointing at Red with a flourish. “That sounds like a plan.”
Now it’s Red's turn to roll his eyes. “What happened to getting your hat ‘in a minute’?”
“How about you go get my hat, while I go get started on lunch?” Gold's overly wide smile reveals to Red that really this was his plan all along. Damn him and his bleeding heart.
“Also, quick question,” Gold says as he returns his Sunflora to its pokéball, and stretches. “…You haven't, I dunno, come down with a cold today right?”
“No?” Red raises an eyebrow, before narrowing his eyes. “Why?”
“Oh, so you’re just crazy then,” Gold responds, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why? Because we’ve been out in this goddamn blizzard for five hours and you haven’t been wearing a coat this entire time! You look like a vampire for Arceus’ sake!”
Oh.
Red pats his bare arms, taking in Gold who sports a thick winter coat and has even exchanged his iconic yellow shorts for a thick pair of similarly coloured trousers. Red wonders where one finds such trousers. By comparison, Red’s jeans and short-sleeved shirt look unbearably thin. The realisation brings a sudden wave of cold over Red’s body and he begins to shiver uncontrollably.
“I mean now that you mention it, I am a bit cold.”
Gold throws his arms up incredulously. “If that’s what training in this place does to you, then maybe I should take my chances and get the hell out of this place now.” He shrugs his coat off and chucks it at Red.
“Thanks,” Red says, pulling on the coat gratefully. “But, uh, are you sure?”
“Are you sure?” Gold parrots, mockingly, before he stalks off in the direction of the cave, muttering under his breath about crazy seniors and their crazy electric rats.
Red rubs his head sheepishly, before mounting Aero and flying off in pursuit of Gold’s hat, which he just manages to keep in his line of sight, the yellow dot standing out starkly against the endless white of snow. Red thinks maybe he should be more worried– it’s not everyday you forget to wear a coat in near sub-zero conditions and don’t notice. For five hours.
Except currently he’s trying to focus on not freezing his ass off in said sub-zero conditions, chasing after his junior’s quickly disappearing hat, so he decides he’ll worry about it later.
He doesn't end up worrying about it later. Looking back on it, he wishes he had. It would only be the beginning.
—
Red isn’t scared of fire, but he is afraid of dying.
The flames press in, in all directions backing him against a wall that’s far too solid to break through without the help of a pokémon. The searing heat scorches his exposed skin and soaks the rest of his body in sweat. His bangs are slicked to his forehead and keep falling in his eyes annoyingly, so much so that Red vows that if, when he gets out of here he’ll finally listen to Blue and get a haircut.
The heat is the least of his worries though. He can’t even remember what he’s doing here, or where here even is. Jumping out of the window above him will be no good if he doesn't know that he’s actually three stories up and he’ll die anyway. He has the urge to jump regardless but an invisible force keeps his limbs locked to the ground.
It starts to become impossible to breathe, and with each wheeze and rasp, Red watches the fire creep closer.
Red isn’t scared of fire, but he is afraid of dying. And he’s pretty sure he’s about to die.
The realisation sends his heart stuttering to a stop and no amount of thumping on his chest can seem to get it to start again.
A cold feeling envelops his entire body, which he’s sure is just a sign it’s shutting down, but the sensation is so similar to being encased in ice that suddenly he’s transported back to that moment on Mt. Moon with Lorelei and the manacles of ice around his wrists and god he doesn’t want to die again—
Red awakes with a start, his entire body drenched with sweat just like in his nightmare. Unlike his nightmare however, the temperature in his room is icy. Cold enough that he can see frost building on his windows and watch his breath visibly float away from him. Next to Red, Pika lets out a soft growl to tell him off for moving and shifts away, curling in on himself for warmth.
“Sorry, buddy,” he whispers. “Sorry.”
Red waits, one, two minutes for his breathing to return to normal before padding softly downstairs, careful not to disturb his sleeping pokémon, and switching the heating on. Instead of returning to his room, he sinks onto the couch in his living room and wraps himself tight in the blankets left strewn across it. Slowly, the cold recedes and Red sleeps and forgets.
—
“You know, I really have better things to be doing than taking a day off to ‘train’ with you and Gold.”
“Things like what?”
The summer truly does the beauty of Viridian Forest justice. As he and Green make their way through the forest on a worn path, Red can’t help getting distracted by the nature around him. The leaves on the trees are fuller than ever, showing off their viridian colour proudly, alongside the dozens of different berries nestled between them. Red has already counted a dozen different types— cheri, chesto, pecha, oran— and lots of others he doesn’t know the names of.
The light dappled forest floor is alive with Weedle and Caterpie scuttling along and the branches above rustle with the weight of Pidgey flitting between them. It’s overwhelmingly peaceful and Red sighs contentedly, taking in the sweet scent of fresh air and finally notices Green giving him an irritated look out of the corner of his eye.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“Oh, so you’re back on earth now?” Green says sarcastically. “I said things like dealing with the line of trainers waiting to battle me.”
“Really?” Red asks, cocking his head to the side, raising his eyebrows deliberately. “Because the last time I checked, no one’s won the Earth Badge in three months. Apparently, no one can even get past the gym trainers.”
Green lets out an unimpressed snort and looks away.
Determined to prove his point, Red jogs ahead and spins round to face Green. With his arms crossed over his chest and a smug grin on his face, he leans forward. “Admit it. You haven’t had a real challenge in months. Years, even,” he says, accentuating each word with a jab to Green’s chest that he can tell annoys him from the way his right eye twitches. “Not since you fought me anyway.”
Green swats Red’s hand away irritably and keeps walking. “Maybe.”
Red smirks, confident he’s won and runs to catch up. “Maybe you’ve been itching to fight me again all this time and you're actually glad I’ve given you the perfect chance to.”
“Don’t test me, Champion.”
“Oh, don’t call me that,” Red retorts, placing a hand over his heart and leaning over Green’s shoulder with exaggerated despair. “I didn’t even get to fight for the title this time.”
Green just sighs at Red’s dramatics. “Were you planning to carry on defending it?”
Red pauses to consider this, his arm still looped around Green’s neck, their faces so close Green’s hair tickles his face with every step they take. Outside of becoming Champion and the Viridian Gym Leader, he hadn’t really had any plans for his life; an unfortunate byproduct of achieving a dream most spent their entire lives chasing at the ripe old age of eleven.
Not that you can really plan for being frozen alive and left to die anyway.
“Maybe.”
“Don’t mock me,” Green snaps, shrugging Red’s arm off his shoulder. They carry on walking in silence for a few moments, before Green speaks again. “So you still keep up with the news about Viridian Gym?”
Red shrugs. “Old habits die hard, I guess.” He had spent two years wanting to become the Viridian Gym Leader, after all. Keeping up with the city’s news had only been natural.
“Well, then. I just wanted to remind you that I’m technically just a replacement.” Red opens his mouth to protest, but Green raises a hand. “Don’t bother. We both know half the reason they picked me is because of Gramps. There’s no point denying it.” Red frowns at this but let’s Green continue.
“What I wanted to say is, if you ever find yourself wanting to be a gym leader again… Viridian City is all yours.”
Red blinks, surprised at the sincerity of Green words. They’re considerate in a way that the Red of three years ago wouldn’t have thought his rival to be possible of. One of the many ways Green would rather die than admit he has grown similar to Red.
As touched as Red is however, he can’t bring himself to accept the offer. Not if it means taking Viridian City from Green. Not when he can tell that, behind his mask of indifference, Green has come to care a lot about the city and its people.
It’s why there isn’t a hint of regret in Red’s voice when he answers. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
He raises his palms to his face, flexing his fingers experimentally. It’s hard to think that two years ago, he could hardly get them to grip clumsily around his bike handles, let alone toss a pokéball. Lorelei and her ice may have thrown Red’s dreams off kilter, but he’s far from giving up.
“Besides, I think the whole Viridian thing suits you better. You know, you being Green and all.”
Green, to his credit, seems unfazed at his answer, but Red doesn’t miss the way all the tension drains out of his body. “If you say so, Champion. Also, that better not be an awful pun on my name.”
Red grins back wickedly. “Maybe it is—”
A panicked yell cuts across the forest, silencing the two. It’s followed quickly by the ear-splitting groan of the earth cracking open as the entire forest begins to shudder under the force of an earthquake.
One look at Green tells Red they’ve reached the same conclusion. Gold.
Wordlessly, the two take off running into the overgrowth of the forest, the earth still trembling beneath their feet. By the time they reach the clearing they were supposed to meet Gold at, the ground has stopped shaking and they’re met with the sight of the aforementioned boy on his knees being stared down by an angry looking Raichu and Nidoking. Halfway between them, a small yellow body lays among the cracked earth, unmoving.
Red gulps and rushes to Gold’s side, pulling his shaken junior to his feet. “Gold! What happened?”
Red’s words seemed to snap Gold out whatever daze he’s in. He swallows hard and speaks. “T-Those two jumped out of nowhere and started attacking us, and Pibu— that crazy little guy didn’t even wait for me to say anything and just charged straight into battle—”
“Sounds a lot like you,” Green says drily.
“Very funny,” Gold snaps back, but without much of his usual bite. His eyes stay fixed to the prone form of his Pichu lying motionless across the clearing. “But then that Raichu it, it—”
Without waiting for Gold to finish, Green tosses a pokéball in the direction of the Raichu and his Rhydon bursts out, sending a torrent of boulders careening towards its opponent. Already, it seems the battle will be a short one.
But just when doom seems inevitable and the boulders are seconds away from smashing into it, the Raichu leaps up and roars, shooting out a geyser that shreds the rocks to pieces and blasts Green’s Rhydon with a torrent of water so powerful, he’s sent crashing into the trees on the far end of the clearing.
Green curses, hastily recalling the fainted pokémon and sends out his Machamp, who bursts out with a roar, eager to avenge his teammate. But before Green can even utter a command, the world warps and bends with an invisible force that sends all three trainers to their knees, clutching their heads in pain. By the time they recover, Machamp is on the floor, unconscious.
Across the clearing, Red swears he can see the Raichu smirking.
“Hydro Beam, Psychic… I thought Earthquake was bad enough…” Gold murmurs in disbelief. “But…”
Red turns to Gold, alarmed. “You mean the earthquake before was—”
“Uh huh.” Gold twirls his pool cue around, jabbing it in the direction of the Raichu as he bounces a pokéball up and down in his palm. Inside, Red spots the familiar form of his Aipom. “It was that thing, too. Not the Nidoking. That’s why I was so freaked out when you guys got here—”
Gold is interrupted when the Nidoking, which Red had nearly forgotten was there at all, lets out a sudden roar that sends Pidgey scattering from the trees and leaves tumbling to the ground.
“...And now it seems its friend is ready to join the fight.” Sighing, Gold cracks his knuckles and crouches, positioning his pool cue for a perfect shot at the Raichu. “Well, Red?”
Red assesses the situation, biting his lip nervously. “Green?” he asks.
“Ground, water, psychic… but nothing electric. Yet. I’ll bet that Nidoking is just as unpredictable,” Green answers, glancing at Red with a hard look in his eyes. “One of Giovanni’s experiments, no doubt.”
Any doubt left in his mind vanishes and Red grits his teeth in determination. “All the more reason for us to win then. Gold, you and Aibo distract them and focus on getting Pibu. Green—”
“I’m gonna deal with that Raichu,” Green interrupts, already facing the Raichu with another pokéball in hand. He turns back to Red with an eyebrow raised in defiance. “Unless you have any objections?”
Red rolls his eyes fondly and shakes his head. Nothing damages Green’s pride and gets away with it. “Nah. That just leaves the Nidoking to me then.” He levels his gaze at their two opponents and does his best impression of Green’s smirk. It has its desired effect when the two pokémon bare their teeth and roar back at him. “Well then, Gold, would you like to do the honours?”
There’s a hard click, and in the blink of an eye Aibo’s pokéball is across the clearing, three inches from the Raichu’s face and the Aipom scores a Swift directly to the startled pokémon’s face.
“Good shot,” Green acknowledges, over the Raichu’s screech of pain.
“Oh, please, that was nothing!” Gold calls over his shoulder with a confident grin as he takes off towards Pibu. “Aibo, dodge!”
Red grins back. The battle is on.
The Raichu screeches again but this time in fury, swinging its body around for an Iron Tail which Aibo swiftly dodges, instead landing neatly on his opponent's head. The monkey shrieks in laughter and begins to taunt the Raichu from above with his tail. The Raichu whips its head around furiously, swaying from side to side clumsily as it tries, and fails, to shake Aibo off and Green takes his chance to step in.
In one quick movement, Green’s Scizor is out of his pokéball and in front of the Raichu. At the last second, Aibo flips off the Raichu’s head as Scizor delivers a devastating slash across its chest that reverberates through the air and sends the Raichu tumbling head over heels.
Roaring, the Nidoking makes a move to defend its partner but Red is already waiting with Saur. “Hey, your opponent is me! Saur, Solarbeam!”
The beam of light hits the Nidoking at point-blank range, meaning Red isn’t prepared for the Flamethrower it shoots back almost instantaneously. Thanks to the Solarbeam however, the Nidoking’s aim is slightly off and it's Gold who has to dive to the floor with a yelp as the column of fire just barely grazes his hat.
“Oi, watch the hat! Aibo, Double Team!”
Multiple copies of the Aipom materialise in front of the Nidoking who begins to rampage, swatting at the fakes angrily. Gold takes this chance to scramble past the distracted Nidoking and reaches Pibu, who he scoops protectively into his arms. He gives Red a quick thumbs up, and Red turns triumphantly back to the battle only to watch the real Aibo get blasted by a second Flamethrower.
The monkey lets out a shriek and is sent crashing into Scizor who is busy dodging repeated blasts of water from the Raichu. The two crash to the ground and while Scizor recovers quickly, Aibo remains motionless on the ground. Gold returns him to his pokéball with a grimace.
“Red!” Green’s shout startles Red out of his stupor. “You two need to stop it from using Flamethrower before it sets the whole forest on fire!”
“Any ideas?” Red yells back, as he and Gold dive in opposite directions to avoid another two columns of fire. Each shot brings them closer to becoming roasted Psyduck and Red is quickly tiring of the smell of singed hair.
“You need to plug its mouth!”
An idea clicks into Red’s head but, instead of acting on it, he yells out a warning to Green and tosses a pokéball his way. Green catches it deftly, sending a confused look Red’s way once he notices the pokémon inside.
“Yeah, I know electric attacks aren’t very effective against electric types!” Red yells. “Just send out Charizard! You’ll be able to dodge easier in the air and Pika can deal with any electric attacks!”
Green catches on quickly with a smirk, withdrawing Scizor and sending out Charizard and Pika instead. The two take to the air with Pika perched nimbly on Charizard’s back, chattering noisily into the dragon’s ear.
Satisfied, Red turns back to the Nidoking prepared to carry out his plan but stops dead in his tracks. The Nidoking stands scarily still in the middle of the battlefield with its eyes fixed on him, ignoring even Gold who creeps nervously past it and scrambles back to Red’s side.
“That’s not…” Gold pants, still exhausted from dodging all the Flamethrowers. “Normal… right?”
“…No.”
A note of panic creeps into Gold’s voice. “So then… this isn’t normal either, right?”
Nervously, Gold points at Red’s right arm, where all the hair is beginning to stand on end and then at his own hair which is standing up so aggressively, his hat is beginning to slip off.
Red would know the signs of an electric attack anywhere.
His pulse quickens, suspicions falling straight to the Raichu, but there’s no tell-tale electricity crackling in its cheeks as it dodges blasts of fire from Charizard in the air, shooting back Hydro Beams just as aggressively. Which means…
Slowly, Red’s head turns back to the Nidoking whose gaze is still fixed unnervingly on him. He tilts his head to the sky and is met unsurprisingly with storm clouds gathering rapidly above.
“Thunder,” he breathes out.
“Shouldn’t we be like, I dunno,” Gold whisper shouts, yanking on Red’s arm. “Running then?”
“It’s fine,” Red whispers back excitedly, his eyes fixed on the Nidoking who looks more smug by the second. “My gloves are rubber. As long as you hold onto me it can’t shock us. But since it thinks it can, we can—” Red cuts himself off suddenly, paling.
“…What? What?”
But Red doesn't hear Gold as he notices the Nidoking’s eyes flick from him to focus on something— someone behind him. He doesn't hear anything over the rushing in his head as he watches the Nidoking’s smile grow when it catches him watching.
No.
“Green! Watch—”
Red’s warning comes a second too late. Lightning strikes the Nidoking and a bolt of electricity blasts past him, just misses Gold and collides with Green head-on. For a second, his rival's entire body is lit up with electricity as he writhes in pain before he flops to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
“Oh—” Whatever Gold says next is drowned out by the victorious roar of the Nidoking.
Enraged, Charizard dives from the sky to crash into the Nidoking and Pika leaps swiftly from his back to meet the Raichu, newly ignited with passion, head-on in battle.
A stray blast of electricity sends Gold skittering away but Red remains rooted to the spot, staring at Green’s unmoving body and feels something snap inside of him.
Technically, he knows Green’s not dead.
It takes way more than a hundred thousand volts of electricity to kill a guy, surprisingly. Anyone who fought Lt. Surge during his prime Rocket days could tell you that— Red included. He’d taken shocks three times as powerful back when he was eleven.
Besides, he knows Green, meaning he knows that it takes far more than a few thousand volts to the heart to kill someone as strong as him.
So really, Red knows Green’s not dead.
So then why is he so worried and why is Green’s body so still, why is Green's chest so still and why is it suddenly so hard to breathe and why, why, why…
A fire begins to burn in Red’s heart, brighter and brighter, and more importantly hotter, until he’s so warm it’s like the fire is feeding off whatever oxygen is left in his lungs because, try as he might, he can’t seem to just breathe. Instead, he wheezes and chokes on an invisible smoke that rises up his throat, suffocating him from the inside.
The fire burns so hot his chest begins to hurt, his skin begins to sizzle, no amount of blinking seems to put moisture back into his eyes and he wonders, for a crazy second, if his burning heart will be the death of him, scorching him away into nothing but red-hot ash… when his heart goes cold.
So cold, in fact, that the air turns frigid and suddenly Red can see each of his heaving breaths as they mist in front of his eyes. The forest floor begins to frost and a thin, icy fog settles in the air around him.
He hardly takes any of this in, though, because Green’s dead-not-dead body is still lying awfully still on the ground and he still can't breathe and the cold anger in his heart continues to grow uncontrollably.
It spreads from his chest across to his arms, down his legs, and up his neck to his face, where it leeches the colour out of his cheeks and makes his dark hair stand out starkly against now pale skin. The temperature drops, first one, ten, then twenty degrees until Red’s body is so cold he thinks his heart might just stop beating and maybe he’ll die of hypothermia instead of heatstroke.
But then the cold clutching his heart finds it can reach no further. And it wants out.
His panic increases tenfold, and see, Red is no quitter, but any good pokémon trainer knows when it’s time to back down from a fight and now is definitely a time to back down and run, because whatever is happening to him isn’t right, isn’t normal, and he just wants to breathe. Desperately, he tries to call out to Gold, but to speak he needs air that he doesn't have, so instead his calls come out as weak whines, lost through his chattering teeth.
As if sensing his trainer’s distress, Pika freezes suddenly in his fierce battle against the rampaging Raichu, cocking his head from side to side, listening, waiting, before turning expectantly towards Red, awaiting command.
Even through the dizzying lack of oxygen to his brain, Red manages a shaky laugh and nod because, even now, it seems Pika knows him too well.
Vaguely, he recognises whatever this cold is. It's the same feeling of icy dread from a battle that seems almost a lifetime ago now– a battle amongst the crumbling remains of the Silph Co. Headquarters against an elusive ninja and a bird so legendary that, before Team Rocket, most had dared to doubt its very existence.
The same icy dread wittles away his bones, gnaws into his very being and pulses under the surface of his skin, ominous and foreboding, threatening to crush anyone and anything in its path, including him, if he doesn’t let it out. But Red can’t afford to do that; not if it means putting his friends in any more danger.
He hesitates for one second more, before mouthing one word to his awaiting Pikachu.
Run.
Less than a beat later, Pika reacts leaping into action.
Calling out to Charizard, the electric mouse makes a mad, quick-attack-charged leap towards Gold, barreling into his chest and earning a shout of pain from the boy, but knocking him away from the clearing.
At the same time, Charizard dives sharply to the ground and grabs crazily for Green’s unconscious body, soaring high for the canopy of the forest, not a moment too soon.
Seconds later, the cold claws its way out of Red and, in a blinding flash, the world freezes over.
—
When Red finally manages to blink the dark spots out of his eyes, he’s not sure how long he’s been unconscious for. His body seems to weigh ten tonnes as he heaves himself up into a sitting position, groaning weakly. Time moves sluggishly as he blinks around at his surroundings which he’s sure weren’t so… well, blue before.
He squints furiously trying to see further than the ice covering everything within a few feet of him and—
He pauses. Ice?
Rubbing frantically at his eyes, he realises said ice is really covering everything around him and Viridian Forest has transformed into an impromptu winter wonderland.
The grass surrounding him is frozen under a thick sheet of black ice and the trees around the edge of the clearing, having met a similar fate, no longer sport their famous viridian green leaves but instead icy blue ones that match their frozen trunks and branches. An icy mist clings to the clearing, further obscuring Red’s already patchy vision.
Most uncharacteristically of all, however, the entire forest is silent.
Silent enough that Red can hear himself breathing and the crunch of the ice underfoot as he takes what feels like his first steps in hours. A frigid wind whistles through his ears, as it rattles the trees’ frozen leaves. It’s almost as if the pokémon of the forest are cowering away with bated breath, waiting for the beast that caused the mess to reappear and continue his wrath.
As for the pokémon caught within the freeze? Red knocks lightly on the blocks of ice in his path and cringes. Yep. Frozen solid. The raging Raichu and Nidoking duo are solid ice, their faces contorted in the rage of a battle that was far from over when it had been cut short by what Red decides must be a freak weather incident.
Freak weather incidents don’t just sweep through forests, his brain supplies unhelpfully, but he chooses to ignore the thought.
Seeing them frozen like that, he begins to feel slightly sorry for the duo. The genetically-altered pokémon were known to be prone to random attacks and it wasn’t exactly their fault they’d ended up that way.
Yellow had been busy trying to round them up (just capture, no violence as usual) to take back to Professor Oak for help for nearly two years, although so far the man’s efforts to reverse the effects of Giovanni’s meddling had remained unsuccessful.
Red lets out an involuntary shiver, though it isn’t from the cold. Even now it seems impossible for him to escape the Rocket leader and his schemes.
He’s pretty sure both pokémon will be okay with the help of— well, a little more than a few aspear berries, but still. The Professor will probably know what to do. Probably.
However, seeing them suddenly reminds him of something else and, oh, god—
Green and Gold.
Apart from him and the conveniently placed circle of grass he’d collapsed on, he can’t see anything living that has escaped the sudden flash freeze. His heart leaps into his throat as he remembers his best friend and the younger dexholder, who could be both frozen solid and, unlike the Raichu and Nidoking, were unlikely to survive their icy fate.
Panicking, he ignores the world beginning to spin around him, in favour of staggering around searching for any sign of them— a frozen hand, an iced foot, anything— when—
“Red.”
He turns, or more accurately stumbles, towards the sound of Gold's voice. Once his vision rights itself, he finds the boy standing among the trees clutching his injured Pichu and Pika to his chest, still panting heavily from the battle.
Apart from his cracked goggles and a streak of dirt across his cheek, he appears largely unhurt. Except, he’s wearing an expression Red has never seen on him before; a strange mix of terror and awe. And even worse, it seems to be directed at him.
Behind him, Red spots Green’s unconscious form propped up against a tree being guarded diligently by his Charizard, who inspects his claws leisurely, yawning all the while.
Gingerly, Gold steps onto the frozen grass, gazing around warily at the wintery clearing as he slowly begins to make his way across the ice. It’s a far cry from his usual brazen behaviour and he’s still wearing that odd expression on his face but—
They’re okay.
The sudden relief causes all the fight to drain from his body and then his head is pounding, his ears start ringing, the dark spots return to his vision, he’s starting to sway when—
“Red!”
His eyes flit back to Gold, who in seconds seems to have crossed the distance between them and is clutching at Red’s arm with one hand to keep him upright. Gold’s other hand still cradles Pibu to his chest, while Pika perches off one of his shoulders, snuffing at his trainer in concern.
“Phew!” He shifts slightly to adjust his hold on Red, shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t think I could’ve dealt with two dead bodies all by myself.” He gives Pika a look as if to say ‘Can you believe the two of them?’ and really, Red wants to point out that neither him nor Green are exactly anywhere near dead right now, but before he can get a word out Gold leans in close, peering hard at his senior’s face and blurts out–
“Jeez, you look like you just rose from the dead.”
Red blinks.
Then Gold blinks.
The dumbfounded silence continues before suddenly Red finds himself snorting and then so does Gold and both boys dissolve into a fit of laughter that carries their voices far in the unnaturally quiet forest.
Over Gold’s shoulder, Red sees Green’s Charizard giving the two a distinctly unimpressed look so uncannily similar to his trainer, it only makes Red laugh harder until he begins to feel dizzy again.
“Okay, whoa! Maybe lay off on the whole laughing thing for a while.” The concern in Gold’s voice is undermined by the fact that it still has a slight hysterical edge and the wide grin he’s trying hard to smother. He has the gall to look slightly sheepish though. “Sorry. It was an—”
“Impulsive thought?” Red finishes with a smirk.
“Yeah. One of the many things Crys says I need to work on.”
“So I assume that also includes recklessness, immaturity, bad manners—”
“Okay! Okay! I get it, lots of things for me to work on.” However, Gold leans in close once more and his face scrunches up in concern. “Seriously though, have you seen how you look? You weren’t even this pale up on Mt. Silver that time you forgot your coat…”
Intrigued and now slightly alarmed, Red glances down to peer at his reflection. The ice acts as a perfect mirror and he finds himself unsettled by the pale, pale face and gleaming red eyes peering back at him. He looks away hastily.
“...Which I guess you didn’t need because,” Gold gestures round at the frozen clearing, though with one arm full of Pichu and the other concentrated on holding Red upright and balancing Pika on his shoulder, the gesture comes out as more of a strange shoulder wiggle. “Dude, what the actual hell?”
When Red doesn’t answer immediately, the grin slips from Gold’s face and is replaced by the same odd expression from earlier, as understanding dawns in his eyes. His voice is barely a whisper when he speaks again. “You actually did this. Holy shit. You actually did this. You have fucking superpowers.”
“…Language.”
“Really, Red?” Gold retorts, in an exasperated tone. “I mean, I wake up after being sent flying into a tree to find out you’ve got superpowers like some character out of Silver’s fuckass— ow!” An angry Pika scampers up Red’s arm and glares distastefully at Gold, electricity still crackling from his cheeks. Gold grits his teeth and corrects himself. “Lovely cartoons and the first thing you have to say is… language?”
“Okay, sorry,” Red sighs. “But—”
“I mean, half of Viridian Forest is frozen under three layers of ice that you created and you’re talking about language?” He shakes Red hard with each syllable of his last words, “I mean, really Red?”
Red groans weakly. “Gold, please…you know about to collapse and everything…”
“Oh. Sorry.” He lets out a sheepish laugh and releases his hold on Red’s arm, only to immediately re-grab it when Red nearly topples over. “It's just all this ice— in the middle of a forest— it kinda reminded me of Pryce. So I’m kinda relieved, y’know, that it was just you.”
There’s a slight flush to Gold’s face as he admits this, as if it’s something to be embarrassed about, but really— Red gets it. Because he also remembers being eleven years old, fighting against adults who definitely wanted him dead and wondering if each battle would be his last. Unlike Team Rocket though, he’ll make sure the Mask of Ice stays down for good.
“You know he’s gone for good right?” he says earnestly, placing his free hand on Gold’s head reassuringly. “There’s no way I’d ever let him hurt any of you guys again.”
Gold sighs and rolls his eyes. “That would’ve been more convincing if you didn’t look two seconds away from collapsing.” He leans into the touch anyway. “But yeah, yeah I do. Still, what the hell are we going to do?”
Red gazes around at the icy mess of his creation, a dazzling tundra of a juxtaposition to the harsh sunlight of Kanto summer, then down at his hands and truly wonders. He shakes his head. “I wish I knew.”
—
When Green stalks into Professor Oak’s Lab five hours later, Red thinks it’s an understatement to say he looks pissed. Truthfully, he looks ready to burn a hole through someone with his eyes. However, he doesn’t look like someone suffering from being struck by lightning a few hours ago so Red takes it as a win.
Still, his expression is enough to make Red sit up straighter, stop Gold goofing off with one of the lab’s spinny chairs and even get the Professor to look up from where he’s been tapping away at a computer for the last hour.
“Green!” Professor Oak leaps up nervously from his seat at the sight of his grandson. “It’s good to see that you're awake…”
The Professor trails off with uncertainty as Green stalks past him and without a word to his grandfather, Red or Gold, snatches the TV remote off one of the lab counters and clicks straight onto the news.
The TV shows a crowd gathered on the outskirts of the Viridian Forest, straining against barriers set up by the Viridian Police Force to stop curious bystanders and news reporters from entering the forest.
“…Currently, I am outside Viridian Forest reporting on a curious incident that, according to local residents, occurred around two pm this afternoon. They say there was a flash of lightning and a sudden light before half of the forest was… frozen solid!”
The scene changes to a news anchor in a studio staring into the camera intently. “And is that true, Cindy?”
The camera flips back to the on-the-scene-reporter, who Red vaguely recognises as one of the dozens of reporters to interview him after his win at the Pokemon League; her ridiculous poof of mint green hair wasn’t exactly easy to forget. From what he remembers, she was blunt, entitled and seemed to know just a tad too much about him.
So, you know, your average reporter.
‘Cindy’ steps aside for the cameraman to pan across the full view of the frozen trees of the Viridian Forest behind the surging crowd. “It would appear so, Peter! Although currently the local police force are not letting citizens in as they carry out their investigation into the incident. From what our helicopter crew can tell us, however, it seems that residents are correct and roughly half the forest has been frozen solid.”
“Have there been any official statements at all about what is believed to have happened?”
“Unfortunately no, none from the police themselves, however the Champion and esteemed Pokémon Professor Samuel Oak have both commented on the situation, after arriving on the scene a few hours ago as of now.”
The footage cuts to a shaky video of Red trying to make his way through the crowd, avoiding the numerous cameras and microphones being shoved in his face. A precariously balanced Pika struggles to keep his hold on Red’s shoulder and looks dangerously close to shocking anything that gets too near.
Unsurprisingly, Cindy’s voice manages to carry over the chaos, calling out to him. “Champion Red! Cindy from KBC reporting! Any words on the situation?”
Red’s head turns sharply in her direction but his answer is lost to the din of the crowd. However, the words freak weather incident begin making their way around the crowd in little whispers, like an extreme game of telephone. The thought nearly makes Red snort, until he remembers the currently murderous expression on Green’s face that he would like to keep directed away from him as long as possible.
“You!”
The camera whips round to face a surprised Gold, who seems to be unsuccessfully trying to push his way through the crowd after Red. “Aren’t you the boy who was involved in the Mask of Ice incident— Gold of New Bark Town? What exactly is your involvement in this situation?”
Gold’s face lights up at being recognised.
Like a flock of vultures, the crowd of reporters, Cindy included, surge towards Gold, pushing, shoving, squawking, though Gold remains unperturbed and puffs out his chest proudly to answer… before a hand reaches out and he’s yanked back by the collar, disappearing into the mass of the crowd.
Having lost their prey, the bird-like reporters squawk at each other in confusion and anger, twisting and turning this way and that, calling out for the ‘boy with the yellow cap’ to come back, not to know that he had long since been dragged past the police barriers by an exasperated Red.
“That hurt, y’know,” Gold mutters, rubbing his neck and Red rolls his eyes.
“You don’t want them after you. Trust me.”
“Professor Oak!” Once again the camera whips round, but this time to face the Professor also pushing his way through the crowd. “Professor!”
The reporters make to surge towards him but the man in question is quick to raise his hands in protest. “Stand back! Stand back, I say! You people are insufferable! I would be perfectly willing to answer your questions if you would all just step back for a moment!”
Surprisingly, they comply. Anyone actually willing to answer their questions deserves a smidge of respect in the reporters’ eyes, it seems.
“Currently, I have no further comments on exactly what’s going on. As you can see, it seems Viridian Forest is frozen under several layers of ice. When, why and how, I do not know. What I do know right now, however, is that it is important we ensure the safety of any pokémon living in the forest affected by the ice. Something I will not be able to do unless you let me through this crowd.”
The reporters grumble unhappily, having gained no new information from the Professor’s words, but there’s a sense of authority to his voice that seems to make them nervous to disobey him and they reluctantly part to let him through.
“And there you have it!” The screen flicks back to the news anchor who shuffles his papers and nods at the camera. “Currently, we have no further updates on the situation while we wait on a statement from the Mayor of Viridian City and Viridian Gym Leader, Green Oak.” Green twitches at this. “However, KBC will continue to update you with the latest news.”
Remaining silent, Green raises the remote and clicks through the rest of the news channels, all with the same headline to varying degrees. Viridian Forest currently under ice. Freak weather incident at Viridian Forest. Ice age at Viridian Forest due to freak weather incident? With each click, Green’s hand grips the remote harder and harder until Red’s pretty sure the thing may just snap in two. Finally, he breaks his silence.
“So you’re telling me,” Green’s eyes flick from his grandfather to Red to Gold. “Out of the most well-known Pokémon Professor in the world, the Kanto Champion and…” he shoots a disgruntled look in Gold’s direction. “...you—”
“Hey!”
“—The best excuse you could come up with, for whatever this is, was… a freak weather incident?”
None of the three answer immediately because Green is smiling. Not just his usual smirk or a slight quirk of the lips but a full blown grin which looks especially dangerous on him. It’s a smile of all sharp teeth that is just a tad too wide to the point of feeling uncomfortable. The type of smile that makes you squirm guiltily and want to confess even when there’s nothing to confess because you haven’t done anything wrong. Yet.
The type of smile that means it takes Gold less than three seconds to crack.
“Technically, those were Red’s words.”
“Gold!”
“Hey, it’s the truth. I would have said it was a ‘pokémon battle gone wrong’, if, y’know, you’d actually let them interview me.”
“Still! Shifting the blame all on me, really? What are you, five?!”
“Now, now boys. In Gold’s defence, his answer is probably the closest to the truth—”
“Yes.”
“And a battle between what? Don’t tell me a Rattata and fucking Articuno because—”
“—seeing as the Nidoking and Raichu attacked—”
“Ooh, language. But sure, why not.”
“What do you mean sure, why not—”
Green bangs his fist hard on one of the lab counters and the three fall silent. His already wide smile has only grown dangerously wider. When he turns towards his grandfather, his voice is low with hardly contained fury.
“You mentioned something about the truth, Grandpa.” As he turns to address all three of them again, Green’s smile is so wide he can hardly keep his eyes open. “What exactly is the truth?”
It takes another minute of Red and Gold eyeing each other awkwardly, before finally the Professor relents tiredly with a sigh, motioning with a hand towards the lab kitchen. “Gold.”
Gold leaps up eagerly and rushes off to the kitchen, muttering something under his breath about finally before returning a minute later with a glass of water, sloshing it around recklessly in anticipation. He grins at Red expectantly. “You ready?”
With all eyes in the room on him, Red stands up feeling like something of a lab rattata; it’s a rather unsettling feeling he knows he’ll probably have to get used to in the next few days. Professor Elm had been on the phone almost immediately, after all.
Gold does a countdown, before chucking the contents of the glass high in the air. There’s a blinding white flash, the teeth-grinding crackle of ice expanding and when the light clears a mess of icicles stretch from Red's fingertips, crawling across the room like a spider, fanning out against the far wall of the lab and vaguely mirroring the shape of Red’s outstretched palm.
One unfortunately placed icicle ends mere inches from Green’s face, close enough to poke his eyes out and has done little to improve the murderous expression on his face.
Uh oh. Red gulps nervously and smiles. “Sorry. That, uh, really wasn’t intentional.”
Green is still for a few moments, gaze fixed on the floor as if just noticing all the water from their earlier experiments. When he finally does look up, in spectacularly Green fashion, his face has returned to its usual look of stoic disinterest as if all Red has caused him is a minor inconvenience.
“So, what,” he says finally, looking Red up and down with an unimpressed glare. “You’ve got superpowers now?”
“Yes,” Red deadpans in reply, because there’s really no better way to explain it.
“And you’ve buried my forest under three layers of ice with them?”
“...Yes.”
Green jabs a thumb at him sharply. “Remind me to never spend my day off with you ever again.”
Without another word, he stalks out of the lab, slamming the door hard behind him. A few seconds later there’s the flap of wings outside as Charizard takes off with Green in tandem, no doubt already on his way to Viridian City to do damage control.
Red stares after them long after Charizard becomes nothing more than an orange speck in the sky.
When he finally turns around to face Gold and the Professor there’s a look of grim acceptance in his eyes. “Oh, he’s so going to sick Charizard on me again.”
—
Viridian City is an apocalypse.
Decimated buildings lay in ruins amongst cars strewn across the streets like toys and despite the pouring rain, scattered fires burn stubbornly amongst the rubble, giving off an acrid smoke that sears Red’s lungs with every one of his rattling breaths.
Citizens crowd the streets in an uproar— children wailing for their parents, adults screaming for help, pokémon scuttling around in a frenzy searching for their owners and families. Everything oozes a fear and panic that creates a dark, oppressive atmosphere almost as suffocating as the aggressively grey clouds that promise to add thunder and lightning to the chaos.
One wailing kid stumbles to his knees close enough for Red to hear the coughs racking his chest between his gut-wrenching sobs for his mother. Red feels his heart seize as he crouches down beside the hysterical child, trying and failing to console him.
Red doesn’t know where his mother is, or what happened to his Teddiursa, but he reassures him all the same that it’ll be okay, you’ll be okay as he ties the bandana from around his thigh across the kid’s mouth to at least stop him inhaling all the smoke because it's the best he can do for him right now.
Red doesn’t ask the kid to stop crying, though. He feels a lot like crying himself.
Gripping the kid’s hand, he continues pushing his way through the sea of moving bodies, jostled back and forth continuously by people rushing in the opposite direction. As usual, it seems Red is heading straight for the danger.
It’s here that he finds Green’s face again among the chaos. He stands stock still a distance away, gaze locked on the sky. If Red concentrates, he can just about make out Green’s mouth moving silently to himself. It’s unsettling enough that even the crowd of citizens give him a wide berth as they rush past, as if even they can tell something isn’t quite right.
Adding more shouting to the chaos probably isn’t the brightest thing to do right now, but Red is far beyond rational thought at this point so he shrieks Green’s name through the crowd anyway, willing his best friend to blink, to scream back, to do anything other than stand there and watch his city burn to the ground. This was his city, after all, wasn’t it— he’d called it that once, almost affectionately— so why wasn't he doing anything?
As his anger grows, Red feels ice begin to crawl into veins and he panics, pushing the feeling down, down, down because he can’t lose control again, not here, not now. Last time he’d let his burning heart control him, Viridian Forest had ended up under three feet of ice.
Instead, he focuses on following the line of Green’s transfixed gaze to a helicopter rising unsteadily through the hazy sky. At first, Red doesn’t spot anything particularly remarkable about it. It could be a news helicopter, police aid, anything really except— except Red would recognise that symbol anywhere which means—
Boom!
A crash of lightning splits the sky, striking the helicopter and in its place a meteor of metal and flame begins plummeting its way to the earth. Horrified, Red lets out a slightly hysterical laugh as he watches the helicopter’s, or what’s left of it, dizzying descent towards the ground and–
He feels the exact moment Green’s gaze falls on him.
The sudden pressure on his chest halts Red’s breathing and his laughter dies unexpectedly in his throat at the exact moment all the hair on his arms stands on end. Besides him, the wailing child chokes abruptly on his sobs, inhaling sharply and his clutch on Red’s hand becomes a death grip.
Red’s skin crawls with electricity and the echo of thunder roars impossibly in his ears. In the split second he glances up to meet Green’s eyes, the smell of smoke is replaced by the pungent odour of ozone.
Electric green eyes bore into Red’s own. It’s the craziest Red has ever seen Green look.
He doesn’t resist when the ice overtakes his veins this time. He glances up and—
Boom!