"Wartortle, come on, shake it off!"
A boy around Leaf and Blue's age was having a battle with the Celadon city Gym Leader.
His name was Red, he came from Leaf and Blue's hometown but they didn't know each other too well. Like both of them, he also had the goal of being a champion.
But unlike Blue, he wasn't an arrogant jerk about it.
His Pokémon picked itself up from the ground and readied into position, waiting for Erika to make a move.
Erika simply tutted.
"Now do you understand, boy?"
Red raised his head at her in confusion. Erika smiled smugly and continued, "It's hopeless to send out Pokémon that are weak against grass types, especially against my Vileplume. Grass types may look fragile, but they are filled with many surprises".
Red shook his head in denial and commanded Wartortle to attack.
"Just ignore her, buddy! Hit Vileplume with Bite!"
"Tut, tut Red."
"Huh?"
Erika smirked at him and motioned towards Vileplume.
"How arrogant of you. In the heat of this battle, Vileplume was gathering light for a special attack to defeat you. Use Solar Beam!"
Vileplume's flower began to flow and a devastating beam of light was shot straight out and headed straight towards Wartortle.
Red widened his eyes in fear but carried on battling.
"Try to counter it with Water Gun!"
The weak shot of water was too weak to push the energy back, soon the light had hit Wartortle and knocked it out.
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Red sat on a bench with his Wartortle, this was the second time he had lost to Erika, what was he doing wrong? He knew the type advantage would be hard but he never leaves Wartortle out of a battle. Ever.
He grabbed his Pokéballs and let his other Pokémon out. Inside them was a Victreebel, an Arcanine, an Electabuzz, a Fearow and a Beedrill.
He had tried using Beedrill against her grass types but his bugs type moves weren't strong enough, Twineedle only did a small amount of damage and Poison Sting didn't work either.
He turned his head to see a girl and boy talking to each other, he sort of recognised them but only vaguely. Maybe they came from his home town, but he didn't interact with many people at Pallet Town. Red didn't consider himself as a people person.
Yet something about them fascinated him, he could sense something from the girl: talent.
Raw talent was hard to find in many people these days.
Red only travelled with the best, so nobody yet. But maybe he could travel with these two? He could study how they battled, work from their ideals and eventually become the champion.
The problem was that those two probably wanted to be champion too.
Despite all that, Red shyly walked over to them.
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How did he get into this?
All he asked was "may I have a battle?" And he said it politely! But then the boy with the weird girl started getting angry with me talking to her, now he was in a battle with him instead of the girl!
They were on their last Pokémon and it looked like the spiky haired weirdo was winning.
That was another problem, Red felt like he was losing his touch with battling. More practice would also help.
Spiky kid had beat him and the happy girl started cheering him on. Maybe they're a couple? Red assumed.
Red approached them.
"I have to admit, you both seem like extremely capable battlers."
The happy girl seemed embarrassed by this and blushed while the spiky kid scowled at him.
The happy girl piped up; "Thank you! I guess you wanna be champion too, huh?"
Before Red could reply, she carried on; "Anyway, my name is Leaf and spiky over here is Blue. And you are..." She thought for a second, "Red, right? I sorta recognised you from Pallet town elementary. You didn't talk much though."
Red nodded and turned to Blue.
"Blue, is it? I would like to ask you both a question."
Blue scowled at him more but let him continue.
"I would like to travel with yo-"
Blue pulled Leaf away and started whispering to her.
"Leaf! That guy was obviously stalking you, we can't let him come with us!"
"Oh would you calm down? We already know him!"
"Barely! I can't even remember his last name. So that means we can't trust him."
"Look, let him join us. He seems like a nice guy."
"Do you have to be nice to every stranger ever? You were like this in school too."
"You guys are really bad at whispering."
They both turned to see Red raising an eyebrow at them. Leaf approached him and smiled.
"Red, after much deliberation, we have decided to let you join us!"
Blue grabbed Leaf's hand again.
"No we didn't-"
Leaf slapped him.
"I apologise, my friend didn't get enough attention from his parents when he was a kid, just humour him when he starts whining."
Red looked at Blue, if looks could kill, Red would be a dead man.
Red turned to Leaf and nodded.
"Thank you for letting me join you. And thank your boyfriend too."
"BOYFRIEND?"
Leaf and Blue yelled at the same time.
A/N: So, yeah. We have a new character and he's a little anti-social. Sort of linking to Red's in-game permanent silence.
Also, I'm sorry for the late update, I've tried this new thing called Procrastination where you spend your time doing anything else besides work.
Short term, you feel happy.
Long term, you've let down everyone.
I'll try and be quicker next time.
