A/N: Hey people......sorry that took me ages to update, it certainly took longer than I expected to write. Meaning that an entire day barley did it justice and that editing is going to take ages. Anyways, I'm glad that it is finally up, but I have an announcement to make.
First off, I am thinking about entering this book into the pokemon wattys but I have no clue what category it should go in, so read some chapters and then tell me what you think.
Second off, I am going to make maybe an extra content book for this book. Meaning: other points of view, side stories, and a rather interesting list that you will burst out laughing at. Now, it's only currently an idea since I have to make a cover and all but if you like the idea say something to me.
Third off, I'm going to make a surprise for @serena_daniels because of her help thus far but I want to 1) announce it publicly because I need to remember, 2)want to tell you guys that it's going to be awesome and you are encouraged heavily to read and use it when it comes up , 3)I also wanted to thank Serena again for all the help she has given and that I really, truly appreciate it.
Without further ado (let's) just beat it, beat it.......
Warning: there will be references to Michael Jackson in this chapter and to fully understand it is recommended the reader is familiar with the song Thriller and it's famous music video before the chapter (although it is not needed, it recommended)
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Chapter 1
Red is the absolute color of passion. Whether it be hate, love, infatuation, jealousy, anger, or frustration, they all having something in common: passion. See, the color red happened to be something that had always filled my heart and soul. I had always been a person who was very emotionally invested with all kinds of different emotions. However, only one of the red emotions happened to fill my heart at the particular moment in time, and that emotion was pure and sheer rage.
Red was always the kind of guy to make an entrance. When we happened have a chance meeting for the first time after the pokemon league and me becoming champion, he certainly made his presence known. See, what happened was, as I was walking down the street to go into a cafe, I accidentally bumped into Red. What he then proceeded to do, was to literally shout and get everybody's attention. Once he had a large crowd, he then proceeded to say that I was his ex girlfriend and that we were going to get back together. Of course, many pictures were taken since people recognized me as the champion, and I somehow managed to restrain myself from slapping and/or strangling the trainer in front of everyone.
After that incident, Red and I became friends. I became smart after our first meeting, and only invited him over to my house to avoid having public shame again. After all, I would rather him destroy my house than him embarrass me time and time again in public, and I was right about it, because destroy my house, he did. The stupid trainer vandalized every space of my house that there is possible to vandalize. I even had a list of what his top five vandalisms and/or intrusions were. Of course, I knew that it would be expected that since I invited Red over, he would come up some way to prank me, and he did.
I was sitting at my desk in my study, attempting to write the start of resolutions to pass on at the next press conference I would host, that Red struck. After my first press conference that was directly after my ceremony as a beginning champion, I had decided I wanted to have one every week. Simple enough, as after that first week of being champion I had gotten through all the questions easily. After another one occurred on my second week, where I had announced a new national holiday of sorts in the middle of summer to encourage time spent among the family and better work life balance for both workers and trainers. I had said that even Nurse Joy would work shorter regular hours on that day, unless an emergency was to occur. Surprisingly even business owners were okay with agreeing to such a policy, as they believed that a day of rest and time with family would increase the output rate and moral in the future. The next day was to be the third weekly press conference that I would have.
However, for the tenth time that day, I found myself staring at that small number 1 on the paper that I had tried to make some sort of masterpiece on, but failed miserably. What I did, like all the previous times was scribble and draw gibberish all over the paper. I then proceeded to crumple it into a ball, which was shaped more like an egg because of the uneven crinkles that were jutting from it. When I heard a sharply shilling, obnoxious ding from the oven downstairs I set the paper creation on my dark, wooden desk unlike the others that I had tried to throw into the bin, only to miss miserably.
When I had went down into my kitchen, I gazed at the stainless steel oven and got out my oven mitts, which were colored like blue, white, and brown similar to my strongest pokemon, frosslass. The mitts ironically, were the reason I got frosslass when she was simply a snowrunt.
The day I had gotten my snowrunt had been a rather dark one as dark clouds had covered everything and the smell of rain to come was ever present. This weather was rather unfamiliar to the citizens of Cerulean, as the ocean was colder there and did not make storms like the sea that was north of Pallet town which was warm and pleasant to swim in without a water suit. However, it was clear that Pewter city got it's fair share of rain as Pallet town was directly to the south and there wasn't mountains to buffer storms coming in like there was for Cerulean. Additionally, Mt. Moon acted as a natural buffer from anything coming from the south-east. So, naturally 10 year old me, who left Cerulean and went to a new city for the first time ever, was rather confused at the weather that the city had.
I had already visited the museum with my starter pokemon, squirtle. However, we had already had a slight fallout, as the tiny blue turtle wanted to challenge the gym while I wanted to train some more. He of course argued and protested until I told him that we should split and that I would meet him at the pokemon center after some time. Hence, me walking around the city with nothing to do.
What finally caught my attention though, was a small, hastily set up traveling shop. The shop itself was simply a brown tent that looked like it had seen its better days. The cloth was ragged and thinned, and had holes that were covered by endless patchwork. The physical rusty metal supports of the tent looked like they were unstable and could snap at any second, rousing a feeling of my pity for the inhabitant of it. From the outside, the tent looked like it could hold a migrant who had fled a war of some sort, if you didn't notice the glints of something shiny on the inside.
As I had in fact noticed the glints of something inside, I decided to step into the tent. An old lady sat in a chair and I could feel her icicle blue eyes evaluating my presence. I was surprised that I even knew the color of her eyes, as I had only stolen a small gaze at her. Though, I only had two seconds looking at her, I could see her paled, wrinkled skin which looked as pure as snow as well as her hair that was gray like the storm clouds outside. Then there was her stare. Her eyes were like beautiful daggers that would watch your every move. Maybe she had been stolen from before.....?
None of that mattered though, when I looked at the treasures that were stored in the run down shop. It was all amazing, and I couldn't believe such beautiful things could be in such a place. The strange thing though, was that if I didn't look at the tent long enough to spot the glinting, I wouldn't have even thought to come in. It was almost like a test in a way. I guess that's why the cooking mittens that were casually shoved behind a blue and white porcelain vase from jhoto caught my eye.
As I moved closer to the mittens the woman seemed to notice this action and became increasingly perked up as I neared the Nordic-designed things. When I was directly in front of them she probed curiously, "Is there something here you like my dear?"
I looked at the cooking mitts to the lady's now sparkling blue eyes and responded, "Yes, please m'am, how much are these blue mittens?"
The old woman smiled, almost smirked, and announced, "You tell me dear, what do you think the mittens are worth. I shall give you them for the price you are willing to pay."
I didn't know how to respond to the question. I wanted to give the woman money because it would be wrong to take the mittens for free, and I didn't want to spend all of the money that I had tried to earn so hard and battle so many trainers for. So I decided to simply claim, "I'm sorry m'am but I don't know what to answer you on that."
She looked at me with interest in her eyes and questioned, "Why don't you just take it for free then, my dear?"
I widened my eyes in shock as soon as the question came out of her mouth, "Oh m'am I couldn't-"
The strange old woman raised her eyebrow and those eyes stared into my own, boring into my soul. She then closed them and looked down as she interrupted me, "why dearest, yes you can. In fact, have them, and take this gift from me as bonus."
The old lady excitedly hopped off her chair and shooed me out of the way to get the mittens. She was rather short, as she only came down to my chest. I watched as she maneuvered her hands through all of the treasures to fetch the two objects without knocking anything over. The whole feat was very impressive. I certainly wouldn't have been able to do that, but then again, I had other skill sets.
Once she grabbed the mittens, she went to the sleeping area of the tent and grabbed a bag to put them in. Afterwards, she handed the white plastic bag to me to put in my classic yellow backpack. The backpack itself had of course been mine forever. It stood out against the cute neon pink v-neck shirt I wore with jean shorts. It had a white pokeball on it that rivaled the black shoes I wore with pink lightning bolts in them. Of course, it would remain forever my absolute favorite bag, and I would always be careful not to break it.
After I had stuffed the two cooking tools in my backpack, I looked back up to the old woman to thank her. Though before I could do that, she sharply snatched something from inside her pocket. I observed that it was a pokeball. Once she opened the ball she announced rather suddenly, "Dearest snowrunt, I have found someone who is to be your new owner. She is a nice girl."
I was flabbergasted as the small black and orange creature hopped into my arms lovingly and took it's time to examine my face. It was because of this action that I couldn't say no. After I managed to get to stay on the ground I put it back in the pokeball and said, "Thank you for everything thing m'am, I appreciate everything but I don't know why you would want me to take it."
The woman shook her head and replied, "No worries dear, I've been looking for somebody who will take care of snowrunt properly and train her properly. Speaking of which, I have something else for you since you have snowrunt with you. When the time comes, you can evolve her."
After she said that, she removed necklace around her neck which had a beautiful blue-green stone. Any respectable trainer would recognize it as a dawn stone. Once I had it properly in my hands I put the necklace with the dawn stone on and left the tent with a new partner and new drive for my journey.
That was a long time ago from where I was at the moment though, and at that moment, I had to make sure the cupcakes that were just in the oven were perfect. If they weren't perfect, well, it would be a tremendous waste of my favorite flavor of cupcakes, red velvet. Red velvet cupcake mix was just too expensive, maybe that's something I should have done with my champion duties instead of all of that political stuff about eliminating extremist groups like team rocket.
I was just finishing the classic cream cheese icing on the cupcakes when I heard a loud booming outside that was my cue to Red's approaching presence.....oh well, the peace had to end sooner or later. I braced as I heard the booming of what sounded like a speaker coming closer to the house. I cringed as I moved a stool from the island located in my kitchen to the front door.
After a short bit of waiting, I heard the doorbell ring and prepared for all hell to break loose. I was most certainly correct, as when I opened the door, the music started. There was Red, standing on my porch like a total idiot. The strange thing though, was the presence of my neighbors and their phones with the recording light on.
It was then, that the onslaught started. An ostinato began to play as red took a step in place and tilted his head to the right. He then took a few more steps and repeated the head tilt twice. After that though, Red broke out into full MJ dance mode on my porch, which brought me to where I was.
All I could do is watch as Red danced his way towards towards me. The song was stating it perfectly as Michael Jackson sung, you're paralyzed, and I could only widen my eyes in shock at Red's craziness and his guts to let people potentially televise this later. When I finally snapped out of shock the chorus came on.
'Cuz this is thriller, thriller night.
And no one's about to save you from the beast about to strike.
The beast meaning Red and his antics. He knew that I realized the fact that he was slowly edging closer as I saw a mischievous glint in his eyes.
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer
Thriller tonight...
I inwardly laughed at the irony of the lyrics as Red was almost at the house, and I wonder if this is really all he had planned. However, knowing Red, it probably wasn't all unless he had gone soft or something. I watched as Red finished swinging hands wildly in the air in the shape of claws as the chorus died down and the song started to transition into the second verse. I already knew this song well, so I took the cue that I could get out of this nonsense was coming in a few seconds.
You hear the door slam....
WHAM!
As soon the line finished I slammed the door, right in Red's face. After that I slid down so I was scrunched in ball against the door, so I would prevent Red from getting in. Not that Red could get in anyways, I had most certainly learned not to keep a spare key anywhere precisely for this reason. Good thing too, because Red started slamming his fist on the front door. I decided that it was time to put my counter-attack-strategy-plan thing into order. I guess the one benefit of all of this is that I was able to start developing new strategies against attack plans. I probably should have known how as champion, but hey, I was learning.
The first step of my plan was to hide in my office and wait for Red to come into the house. It took a good ten minutes until I heard the front door open, surprisingly without a slam or breaking noises though. The second step was the waiting. That part was easy, as it only took about a minute to hear the wailing noises that cued the start of part 3. Part 3 was simply to bask in my successful revenge and glory, while waiting for Red. I was correct in assuming that he would come after me as soon as part 3 was started.
Once Red came upstairs, it was time for part 4, be just plain out snide.Which was rather hard, considering his face was so red that it was funny to look at. However, as he stormed into my messy office I stated just like the plan, "Looks like you're feeling rather red, Red. Did you enjoy those red velvet cupcakes?"
Red closed his eyes and put on his best "I'm angry smile" and replied sarcastically, "Yes, I liked them so much, I want to know what you put in them specially?"
I smirked and laughed while saying, "Red paprika of course."
Red grimaced and looked at the trash can with the 9 crinkled up paper balls surrounding it. When he saw this, the curious side of him began to surface as he probed, "So, what's with the mess in here, Mrs. Champion Divine?"
I sighed while looking at the paper on my desk and answered honestly, "Well, you know how tomorrow is the three week press conference......well, I haven't come up with anything to present to the public."
Red smirked and laughed with a slightly insightful look, "So, little Mrs. Perfect leader is having troubles and she needs Red for help?"
I sent him a hostile glance as I grabbed the paper ball on the table and squeezed it in my hand. "Yeah, and it's not funny, I've been looking at this all week and still nothing!" I shouted, the frustration seeping deeply into every word.
Red then stared at the papers on the floor, uncrumpling one of them. His eyes looked up and down at the scribbles on the page and then he asked, "What's been giving you such an issue? I know you went out and looked and asked around all that stuff, so what's stopping production so badly?"
I put the paper ball back down on the desk and looked at him saying with utmost sincerity, "I honestly am having a problem with myself. I mean, everybody recognizes me as the champion and well, they hide. I can't get anything done because I don't know where and how to stop all of it. The problem is that people recognize me and they hide. I can't do the job properly as champion."
Red then probed with what sounded like a rhetorical question, "What if you stopped being champion though? Would you be able to get what you need?"
I looked at him with utmost curiosity and questioned, "How would I even do that? I mean, I don't want to give up my spot, so what have you got in mind?"
"Well, you go into disguise....I mean, you can learn all about everything from a regular trainer's point of view. I mean, it's a new idea of sure," retorted Red.
I laughed so hard at when Red said that. As if I would've actually be successful in disguise. Oh wow, I may have well have fallen in love or something like that if I was going to go covert. At that point I told Red, "You're kidding right? Me? Undercover? You can't be serious....."
Red glanced at the desk and walked over. "I'm dead serious. In fact," he decided while picking up the tenth paper ball, "if I throw the ball in the bin, then you have to try it out, and don't worry, I'll pay for everything."
I sighed, knowing that he was right and that it gave me something to do for the next while, so I agreed, "Yeah, fine, whatever. Only for a bit though, and if I don't like it, I get to quit doing it."
Red smirked as he picked up the paper ball. As he lightly threw it, my heart started beating a million miles a minute. Time seemed to go in slow motion as the ball swiftly moved towards the intended target.
With the ball going down the plastic tube, so did my fate.
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Shopping with Red was certainly an interesting experience. We ended up flying south to Saffron City and then taking the magnet train to Goldenrod. After doing that he ended up dragging me into the department store, into the clothes shops. Now, unlike most girls, I absolutely hate shopping. So that's why I cringed when he grabbed all of the clothes in a girly type manner and shoved me into a dressing room to start picking out my trainer outfit.
After an hour of changing tops, Red finally decided upon a royal blue top that had a collar and was button down. I personally didn't like the color though, I thought it clashed with my eye color. It was cotton, which according to Red was best because I typically liked to wear silkier for dressy shirts or maybe polyester mesh for something sporty, so naturally I cringed at what gave to me. He knew it though and gave me the "don't you dare argue" look. He then proceeded to pick out a pair of jean shorts and tennis shoes to match the outfit.
Red paid for what he wanted me to wear on my new "journey". Then, he got out his pokegear and started talking as he lead me to the next place. I could barely understand what he was talking about, as it was mostly mumbles that came from his mouth. Judging by the speed of the conversation though, I could tell that Red was trying to get all things that were required to officially "start" my journey such as a new trainer card and badge case.
When Red was finished he started jogging towards what looked like a glasses store......? When we were inside he went immediately to one of the workers and chit-chatted animatedly with her. I watched as she handed Red a giant case and small cardboard box with tape all around it. The lady put the two in a plastic bag and Red was already on his way.
After we left the mall Red boarded his charizard, I my pidgeot, and we left for my house. Once there, Red pulled out what was in the bags. In the small cardboard box was my new trainer card and a badge case. My new name was supposed to be "Lucy Greene"; however, in the picture my eyes were tinted blue instead of green, which was really strange. Which, brought us to the second case. Inside the big, blue the case was a smaller one that was empty, with a bunch of holders for something that was behind a thin, but strong sheet of tin foil.
Turns out they were blue eye color contacts, and once I got them on, my hair in a high bun, and my training outfit plus original yellow bag, I would be ready to hit the world with a bang.