#he doesn’t have an Eevee in R/G/B

[warlordess]

An Alternate Journey (Pokeshipping; part two)

Authors - @warlordess and @miyatoriaka

 Notes - Welcome to the next part of the major motion fanfic of the century! MiyaToriaka has beta-ed both the prologue as well as chapter one and given them both her personal seal of approval, so I guess that means we’re good to post!

Part one/prologue can be read here.

Part three can be read here.

Anyway, here’s hoping you all enjoy!

 OoO

 Title - “An Alternate Journey”

 Summary - Eleven year old novice trainer Misty starts her Pokemon adventure, best friends Gary and Ash by her side. But will she withstand every test her travels throw at her and become the greatest master trainer of all time? Fic co-crafted with famous fan-artist, Miyatoriaka!

 Ages - Misty and Leaf are eleven years old, Ash and Gary are thirteen, and the adults are adult-aged so who cares about ‘em? Lol.

Chapter One - Gastly

 OoOoO

 Four days. Four days and five nights. That’s how long their group had been trapped in the god-forsaken Viridian Forest.

 Ash sighed in resignation, grabbing his faded and dusty backpack and tossing it over one shoulder, eyeing a nearby Caterpie as it wriggled its way up the fir pine tree stretching to the sky before it, then began to kick dirt onto the campfire he and Gary had made the night before.

 He’d walked through this very same forest a hundred times before over the course of the past few years, trekked the same path, saw the same cluster upon cluster of trees… Ash Ketchum knew Viridian Forest like the back of his hand and one thing he could say about this place was that it was b-o-r-i-n-g.

 The place was a natural breeding center for bug-type Pokemon, which he couldn’t help but resent with a passion due to their advantage against grass-type Pokemon; his favorite type. However this information didn’t stop Misty from trying to keep their group there as long as possible while she attempted to catch them all, almost constantly switching paths on a dime and getting them turned around and confused.

 Did he say he knew this forest like the back of his hand? Well, he meant he knew the relatively straight path connecting Viridian to Pewter City. As for all of the other ones that slowly formed after decades had passed, he had no idea. The map was a little outdated and pretty rough and generalized to begin with. It was almost impossible to read sometimes unless one of them (Gary) woke up early enough to catch which way the sun was rising from and used that knowledge to decipher which direction was North.

 “Please, please tell me today is the day we finally get out of here,” Ash groaned, halfheartedly gazing in the direction of his friends.

 “Who knows?” Gary replied cryptically, averting his gaze to the sky.

 “No way! That bug catcher I battled last night had a Pinsir and he said he caught it around here!” Misty practically shouted in exuberance, twisting on her heel and facing a nearby group of bushes as if expecting the very same Pokemon species to come leaping out of them, ripe for the catching.

 “Misty, c’moooon…” Ash whined, “We’ve been stuck here for over half a week! You’re already a year or so behind your class of licensed trainers! Are you really going to spend a whole nother one weeding out Viridian Forest?!”

[keep reading] 

The redhead merely pouted in return, causing Ash to avert his gaze to avoid any slight pinch of guilt she was pressuring him to feel. The moment was interrupted almost immediately by a nearby tree rustling, and the whole lot of them stiffened in expectation, Misty and Eevee ready to hop on the offensive at a moment’s notice.

 A Rattata scrambled down the trunk and wound itself in the opposite direction of the group of adolescents with a bramble covered in leaves and berries clenched in its teeth.

 Misty sighed, disappointed, kneeling to pat Eevee, ruffling her fringe in thanks for her effort in being proactive towards their goals.

 “Just a Rattata, huh…? Well we’ve already caught one of those anyway.”

 “As much as I hate to admit it, Ashy-boy may be on to something,” Gary chimed in from the background.

 “Wha’d’ya mean?”

 “We should have arrived in Pewter City last night at the latest. We’re running low on food and Pokemon supplies. If we don’t get out of here by tomorrow morning, we’ll probably be completely out,” the auburn-haired gym trainer warned them all, sobering up Misty’s former mood rather impressively.

 “Ah… okay, fine then, I guess we’ll try and figure something out.”

 “I mean, no matter what, we’re still lost, right?” Ash asked, choosing to ignore his old friend’s jab from before.

 “Hmm…” The redhead responded cautiously, deep in thought. “Maybe Pidgey would be able to fly high enough to see which way we should go?” And she removed the Pokeball from her belt and showed it to her friends.

 “Maybe,” Gary begrudgingly agreed, “but, then again, you caught him just outside of Pallet Town so he doesn’t know this area well, plus you’ve barely bonded with him so he might be unwilling to help you out with something like this, and he might have trouble tracking his way back to us. Not to mention Pidgey aren’t very fast until after they’ve grown some or evolved and yours is pretty young.”

 “Okay, but that’s our only real option other than wandering around and hoping to find the exit or running into another trainer who can help us out, right? So…” Ash wondered aloud.

 “Well, I’m okay with staying here!” Misty replied, hands clasped before her and then she punched one enthusiastically up into the air.

 “Of course you are,” the raven-haired trainer deadpanned.

 “I guess we’ll go with Plan B, which is terrible but still somehow slightly better than Plan A.”

 “So should we bother stopping for lunch when the time comes or keep walking?” Misty asked.

 “Like I said, we’re kinda low on supplies. It would probably be best to skip lunch if we can and just have a slightly early dinner. Then we might have some leftovers to snack on in the morning if we’re still lost and haven’t found anyone to help us out.”

 “Yeah, maybe I’ll be able to get some training in with Pidgey and Rattata while we look around! We gotta beef up for our first gym match anyway, right? And maybe I’ll catch a Pinsir after all!”

 So, settled on that plan, the group of four began ambling around, mostly sticking to the current path unless they happened to run into another that traveled straighter, since that one would more likely get them further faster. Every once in awhile one of them would step a short distance away to see if they’d run into another trainer but there didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

 Evening fell swiftly, the wind picking up enough to rustle the trees and distract them from their mission. When the group decided there was too little sunlight left to tell where they were going, they finally chose to set up camp instead.

 “Hey, guys, I think I’m gonna keep training nearby. I’ll come back right away if I run into someone who can help us find a way out of here,” Misty took the opportunity to say.

 “By the way,” Ash brought up after exchanging a particular knowing glance with Gary, “it’s great and all that you wanna get to know and train up your Pokemon and I get that your choices have been kinda limited so far, but you might wanna think about expanding your team beyond normal and bug types. The first gym uses rock-type Pokemon so nothing you’ve caught so far is gonna stand much chance.”

 “Yeah, a water or fighting type would do you some good but they’re kinda scarce in this area. Maybe you can find a grass-type?”

 “See?” Ash said smugly, “This is why you should have bred your starter using my Ivysaur instead of his Eevee! That woulda given you a good head start, huh?”

 “But your Bulbasaur is so picky!” Misty replied skeptically, hands on her hips. “If I’d chosen to breed my first Pokemon with you, I would have probably been stuck waiting five years instead of one!” A moment later and she knelt down to Eevee, who was sitting beside her, patting and scratching her affectionately behind the ears. “Plus I wouldn’t trade my Eevee for anything!”

 Ash, put out somehow for reasons he couldn’t quite place by her response, turned away and plopped his backpack on the ground.

 “Anyway, we’ll start working on dinner--”

 “--Who’s ‘we’?” Gary replied dryly, “You can’t cook any better than her--”

 “--so just head back in about an hour or so.”

 “Gotcha!”

 And she and her Pokemon disappeared further into the woods.

 The rest of the evening went by rather smoothly. Misty returned at the given time with no luck of finding them an escape route and she and Ash joined Gary for dinner, before taking on their responsibility of washing the pot and dishware they’d used. Dusk turned to complete dark and, with a few attempts at rekindling the fire, the group prepared to turn in for the night, hoping against hope that they’d indeed find their way to Pewter City by the next afternoon.

 However there was one thing Misty had to ask before the night was through.

 “Hey, Ash?” Misty asked curiously as she drew her hairbrush through a thick lock of red.

 “Hmm…?” The response sounded somewhat lethargic from the other side of the fire.

 “Can we have a practice battle?”

 “Wait, what?” He seemed much more alert in retaliation to that question. “Do you mean right now?”

 “Well, maybe not now,” she corrected, sitting down in her sleeping bag and tossing the brush unceremoniously back into her bag. “But tomorrow? I’ve beaten every bug catcher and wild Pokemon I’ve come up against. I - we - could use some more challenging experience,” she finished, eyeing Eevee asleep beside her as she skillfully maneuvered herself into her sleeping bag without jostling the Pokemon awake. “We should be in town by tomorrow afternoon and then I’ll be having… my first gym battle, right…?” she finished with a yawn, laying back and blinking blearily up at the crescent moon shining above her.

 She could barely make it out beyond the canopy of the forest.

 “Well, I mean, I am a gym trainer myself, and you wouldn’t usually fight me until later on,” he told her proudly, sitting up and puffing out his chest. “If you’re worried about having a hard time against your first gym leader, I doubt battling me is gonna help make matters easier for ya!”

 The raven-haired gym trainer laughed egotistically to himself for the next minute or so, Gary choosing to ignore him in lieu of throwing himself into his own sleeping bag for the night. Of course, after enough time had passed, Ash realized he hadn’t garnered any response and craned his neck to try and get a look at his female companion from across the campfire.

 “Misty…?”

 Still nothing.

 “Hey, Misty!” he tried again, tone sharp. There was no way she was already--

 “--Asleep,” Gary noted with a shrug. “Such a shame too, Ashy-boy. She missed your oh-so chivalrous moment of braggery.”

 “Whatever,” the other boy scoffed, turning his nose up and hoping the flickering fire didn’t do anything to highlight the awkward flush on his face, and both of them laid back and tried to sleep.

 It was some time later when Misty snapped awake, the light of the full moon too much to ignore… or maybe it was the pearl white of the fog that had set in during the couple of hours she’d been asleep…?

 She sat up in her sleeping bag, the zipper coming automatically undone as she did so. Eevee felt her trainer stir and began to wake as well, rising up onto all fours and stretching, leaning in and licking the human’s hand.

 “Eevee eev?”

 “Ah, sorry to wake you, girl. I just… I’m just thirsty, I guess,” the redhead said, licking her dry lips and clearing her throat as she looked around for her canteen.

 Something in the air seemed strange. Different. She couldn’t make out much of anything definitive in her surroundings. The smoldering of the cinders in the campfire seemed to fade right before her eyes as she stood up, slipping on her sneakers and bending down to tie them.

 Where was it…? Where was her canteen? Where was her bag of supplies and her Pokebelt and… where was…

 The question faded from her head, evaporating like the white of the fog before her.

 “Eevee, let’s look around some, okay?” she asked warily of her Pokemon partner.

 “Eevee!” the normal-type responded confidently and the two of them began their trek.

 It seemed the world grew a degree colder with every step and their unknown destination farther, their sights dimmer. They were getting everywhere and nowhere at once, walking neck deep in white nothingness looking for the first thing they could find that would indicate a change.

 “I - it’s really cold now…” Misty murmured from between chattering teeth. “Shoulda brought my jacket with me.”

 Right, her jacket, which had been sitting folded next to her shoes when she slept. So she could just turn around and walk back the way she’d come from to find it, she figured, turning on her heel, then coming to a sudden stop at the sight before her.

 It was her sleeping bag, laid out just as it had been before, barely two feet away.

 Something didn’t add up. Something wasn’t right.

 Misty sighed, growing agitated, throwing her head back as she groaned, the full moon above her shining so clearly and nothing - no trees, no clouds, nothing at all - blocking it from view. The same with her sleeping bag, it was the only clear item she could make out for miles, and it seemed almost hypnotic because of that contrast.

 “Eevee…” Misty whispered, though she trailed off almost immediately.

 “Eevee? Eev eevee eev!”

 The cries of her Pokemon seemed so far away, and it took too much effort to look down. She just kept staring at that smoky full moon.

 Wait… smoky…?

 “... isty…?”

 And why was the moon... suddenly full…?

 “Misty?”

 “Eevee?” her Pokemon chirped from far away.

 Wasn’t it a quarter moon when she’d first fallen asleep?

 “Eevee, have you seen my… my bag? And do you hear that? Who’s calling my name?”

 “Misty, snap out... it!”

 “Why does the moon look… so… so full?”

 As soon as the final word left her lips, all of the vibrant white and cold and fog whirled away, sucked instantaneously into an invisible rift. Everything became much louder all at once, disorienting her, and she realized the fogginess had been inside her own head, as though she were ailing with fever.

 She inhaled sharply, swaying on her feet, but everything that had been missing, that she’d been looking for, that she otherwise hadn’t been able to figure out, came back to her so swiftly that it almost hurt.

 “Eevee! Ash! Gary! My--”

 “You finally woke up!” Ash exclaimed in relief, at her side and a hand on her shoulder. “We were worried. You’ve been staring at the sky for the past twenty minutes. We didn’t know what was happening!”

 “I was what?” the redhead replied tiredly, holding a hand up to her forehead and drawing away a sheer layer of sweat. It had felt at the time like she’d jogged an entire marathon…

 “What happened to me?”

 “Don’t know,” Gary told her, on her other side and handing her canteen over so she could sip some water. It was at this point that Misty noticed her backpack and jacket sitting just where she’d left them beside her sleeping bag. “Like Ash said, you got up a little while ago, I heard you do that and woke up to you putting your shoes on, and then you just stopped and started staring at the moon. Eevee and I tried calling out to you but you didn’t seem to hear us. That’s what woke Ash up. It was almost like you were hypnotized.”

 “Hypnotized…” the other two trainers quoted unanimously, though Ash sounded a lot tenser all of a sudden.

 “That wasn’t the moon! I think that was a--”

 And Misty dived for her bag, fishing out her Pokedex and flipping it open by pushing the small button on the side.

 “Pokedex searching… Pokedex searching…” the mechanical voice tweeted, and the digital display indicated via arrows which direction she should face with it.

 “Misty, you think it was a Pokemon that did… whatever it did to you?”

 “Eevee eev eev eevee!” her starter shouted, leaning onto her haunches as if to say she was ready for a fight.

 “Well it’s not like I usually just stand still and stare indefinitely into space, is it?” the redhead bit back more harshly than she meant to.

 “One unknown Pokemon found,” her Pokedex chimed in before Ash could come up with his own witty retort to her comment.

 “Unknown, huh? Doesn’t really help us much, does it?”

 “Unknown Pokemon in Viridian Forest in the middle of the night? Well, I doubt it’s a legendary…” Gary commented, leaning forward and taking her Pokedex into his hands.

 “A legendary?” she replied blankly.

 “A really, really strong Pokemon,” Ash explained warily. “Usually having to do with local folklore and usually very rare, like one-of-a-kind rare.”

 “Ooh…”

 “But it’s probably definitely not one of those. The chances that they’d just show themselves to a bunch of random trainers like this are highly unlikely. More likely it’s a Pokemon you haven’t seen yet and that’s hiding its identity from us for whatever reason, like maybe a ghost-type?” Gary concluded.

 “A ghost-type?!” Misty shouted in glee, on her feet again so quickly that both of her male companions were blown backwards by the maneuver.

 As soon as Ash made it to his feet again, he scurried back to his sleeping bag, peeking his head out at the others as sweat began to pour from his brow.

 “A g - ghost-type Pokemon?! You’re joking, right?!” he yelped, shaking like a leaf, creeping away from their group in sudden obvious terror.

 “Uuh… okay…?” Misty commented in confusion at his response to the possibility.

 “You didn’t know?” Gary asked absently, still flipping through her Pokedex from his spot on the ground. “Ash is scared of ghost-type Pokemon.”

 “He is?”

 “I - I’m not! I just…” And, with much more effort than it should have taken, the raven-haired trainer slithered his way out of his sleeping bag, ambling shakily to a standing position, “... don’t like them! Everyone’s allowed to have something they don’t like, aren’t they?”

 “Well, yeah, but…”

 “While I’m impressed that you’ve been able to hide your phobia from Misty for the past three years or so… here ya go,” Gary finished with a proud smirk, tossing Misty’s Pokedex back into her arms. “These are the only ghost-types native to Kanto. Chances are it’s one of them.”

 “Really? Thanks!” Misty replied, looking over the profile photos one after another. “Let’s see… Gengar…”

 Flip.

 “... Haunter…”

 Flip.

 “... And Gastly.”

 She paused on the last image on her screen, taking in the Pokemon’s perfectly round physical form and the dark, poisonous smog floating around it.

 “I think this is it!” she exclaimed, brows furrowing as her lips curled into a smirk, belying her confidence.

 “Gastly, come out of hiding already! It’s game over!” she shouted, picking up her Pokebelt and snapping it into place behind her waist, smashing her cap onto her head and preparing for battle.

 There was a poof of smoldering dark and a hollow echoing chuckle from above her, the small gassy Pokemon floating down to eye level with the trainer who’d unraveled his ruse.

 “Gastly gaaas…!” he howled in laughter.

 “Let’s see what the Pokedex has to say…” she murmured, ignoring Ash as he tiptoed stealthily behind her.

 There was a high-pitched ping followed by, “Gastly, the gas Pokemon. It is usually invisible to the human eye. Its specialty is its hypnosis.”

 “Sounds familiar…” the redhead begrudgingly admitted to herself, doing her best (and failing) to ignore Ash’s fingernails digging into her arms every time the ghost-type Pokemon floated to and fro. “Wait, is that all you have to say?!” she screeched at her Pokedex, shaking it hard, frantic tears running from her squinting eyes.

 “By enveloping larger opponents with gas, Gastly is able to defeat them.”

 “Okaaay…” Misty ground out, withdrawing the small device for the time being. “I guess we’re just gonna have to figure it out as we go, right, Eevee?” And she smiled confidently at her Pokemon before throwing out an arm and pointing forward. “Let’s battle! Eevee, tackle!”

 Her Pokemon barked its own name in agreement, leaping into the fray, but the moment was interrupted almost immediately by Gary’s wisdom.

 “Actually, normal-type moves won’t have any effect on ghost-type Pokemon.”

 “Wait, what?” the redhead squeaked.

 Eevee, who’d already began dashing full speed at her opponent, attempted her straight-forward assault only to pass completely through Gastly and land on all fours in a patch of dirt behind it.

 “So what do I do?”

 “Run away really fast and never get involved with a ghost Pokemon again?” Ash practically whimpered into her ear, leading Misty to scoff and shake him off.

 There was another familiar ping from her pocket. She scrambled to remove her Pokedex from within, watching as her Eevee leapt to and fro around a still jovial Gastly, which was poofing in and out of sight, sometimes creeping up from behind.

 “Although Gastly’s amorphous body allows it to sneak around almost anywhere, it’s practically weightless physique means it can be easily blown away by the wind.”

 “Yeah, that! Let’s do that!” Ash shouted emphatically.

 “I don’t wanna blow it away, I wanna catch it!”

 “Still, seems like flying attacks are your best bet either way,” Gary sagely advised. “Now might be a good time to call out your Pidgey. You said you wanted to train him up some, right?”

 “Okay, okay…” Misty sighed, putting her Pokedex away one last time and grasping to the left of her belt for that particular Pokeball. “Eevee, come back! Come on out, Pidgey!”

 A lot of things seemed to happen all at once. Eevee indeed returned to her side just as Pidgey took swiftly to the air in a flash of red light. Misty naturally thanked her starter for keeping the ghost-type busy while she came up with her next strategy, and Gastly… Gastly, rather than looking even mildly wary or panicked over having to face an opponent that could potentially do some damage, seemed instead to be despondent over the fact that its original playmate had retreated.

 “Pidgey, use your gust!”

 The flying-type Pokemon dived down then swooped back into a vertical stance, using his wings to suspend himself in mid-air. His flapping grew more and more intense until the campfire light began to flicker and dirt bellowed up into a gritty smog.

 Gastly did its best to stand its ground against its adversary but to no avail, its gaseous cover beginning to fade into the dark of the night, and even its orb-like body starting to spin on its axis as it began blowing away.

 Finally, with one last wrenching rotation of its core and a few attempts of phasing out from between the windy gusts, Gastly vanished with a final decidedly less jolly wail of its name.

 “Aaah, no! I said I wanted to catch it!” Misty cried with a stomp of her foot, fists clenched at her sides. “Shoot! Who knows when o - or even if I’ll see another ghost-type!”

 Pidgey flew back to his trainer, who offered him a half-hearted thanks, and Ash finally seemed to calm down and regain his steady footing. Gary stepped forward too with some surprisingly wise words.

 “Well, whether you caught it or chased it off, coming out on top of a ghost-type Pokemon this early in your career as a trainer says a lot about your skill.”

 “And I’m just glad you took my advice and blew that thing away!”

 Misty, originally smiling in kind to Gary’s compliment, scowled and muttered, “I wasn’t trying to! I didn’t know Pidgey’s gust would be so strong…”

 And, grim expression set upon her face, she took one firm step forward and cupped her hands around her mouth before shouting into the very early morning sky…

 “I wish you’d come back, Gastly!”

 “Gaaaastly…” the Pokemon in question drawled from out of nowhere, popping into existence beside the group of trainers.

 “Ah! You really came back!” Misty yelped, equal parts shocked and excited.

 “Gaaaas…” the ghost Pokemon continued to sulk, not looking at her, floating stiffly away.

 Ash, who’d done well standing like a granite statue with his lips pursed over the past several seconds, began tiptoeing away from the group again.

 “This is pretty surprising. Either Gastly is stronger than we thought or else maybe he just really didn’t wanna leave,” Gary noted, hand to his chin in thought.

 “Hmm… Or maybe both...”

 Misty sucked in a breath then cautiously took a step towards the ghost Pokemon.

 “Hey, um, Gastly, were you just trying to have fun with Eevee earlier?”

 “Gaaas…!” it replied with a subtle nod, barely looking in her direction.

 “And, ‘cause it’s kinda important for me to know, did you mean to hurt me when you used your hypnosis?”

 Gastly seemed downright aghast at the accusation.

 “Gastly! Gaaastly!” it wailed ashamedly, shaking its round body back and forth as if to say ‘no’.

 “So you were just trying to play games and make new friends?”

 “Gastly!” was accompanied by another nod.

 “Okay then!” the redhead responded with a chipper grin while her audience of a loyal Pidgey, suspicious Ash, and mildly impressed Gary stood in the background. “So, now that I know we’re on the same page, I was thinking…”

 “No,” Ash ground out between gritted teeth from somewhere behind her but she ignored him.

 “... How about if you…”

 “I said no!” the raven-haired gym leader stated more vehemently.

 “... join me and my other friends on our journey? I promise you’ll have all sorts of fun and meet tons of new people and Pokemon!” the redheaded novice finished offering.

 Gastly blinked at the female human standing before him with everything shy of open arms. Instead she held up a device that he’d seen capture many a wild Pokemon and take them away in the past, though he had to admit that the overall proposition seemed rather inviting… He looked at the Eevee on all fours at her master’s feet, alternating between nuzzling the human’s leg and sitting back, tail wagging affectionately.

 Next his eyes were automatically drawn to the other two humans standing behind the first, the brown-haired one sporting a smug grin while the last one had the air that many other humans had expressed when he’d snuck up on them for a game of peek-a-boo in the past…

 Altogether they seemed like a well-rounded and diverse group… Yes, he might like to call it home, a place at their sides.

 “Gastly!” he finally responded with a nod and a toothy smile.

 “Really? You’ll come?” Misty gasped in glee, holding up the empty Pokeball she’d been carrying. “Yay! So do you mind if I catch you now?”

 The ghost-type shook his head and waited willingly for his own capture, disappearing with a poof and a residual red light. The Pokeball shook once… twice… before the button at its center blinked from scarlet to white and it went still.

 “Oh my gosh, I did it! I caught a Gastly!” the redhead shouted, dancing forward on the balls of her feet before leaning down to pick up her newest team acquisition. “And without further ado, Gastly, I choose you!”

 The ghost-type reappeared in another flash of red and he, his trainer, Pidgey, and Eevee all jumped up and down together in excitement. Afterwards Misty decided to start the formal introductions.

 “So you’ve already met Eevee and Pidgey, and there’s Weedle, Metapod, and Rattata too but it might be better to meet them during breakfast later. This guy over here is Gary,” and respective guy offered the new group member a smile before Misty moved on, “aaand that’s Ash over there. Oh, but you might wanna--”

 Too late. Misty was going to suggest taking it slow but Gastly had gotten so worked up at the sight of all his new friends that he just couldn’t help himself, vanishing from her side and popping up in Ash’s face with an adoring (or so he was going for, though it came out looking somewhat malicious) expression.

 “Gastly!” he said in greeting, and Ash, who’d been petrified in not-fear-nope-definitely-not, leapt first into the air and then back away from the ghost-type.

 “Yaaagh! Misty!” the boy yelled at the top of his lungs, scurrying up behind his most recent favorite hiding spot (AKA: Misty’s back). “Make this thing stay away from me or else I swear someone’s gonna die!”

 It was unclear if his final statement was a threat or else a paranoid exaggeration of the ghost-type’s powers.

 “Hmm…? But he’s so cute!” Misty cooed, blushing with both hands to her cheeks. In response, the ghost-type’s formerly heartbroken expression at Ash’s slights against him mended into something forgiving and tender. “And I’m just so happy that he’s coming with us! Why can’t you be, Ash?”

 “What?! This is the exact opposite of what I wanted! Why should I be happy?! I didn’t ask for anything like this!”

 “But I’m sure Gastly will be really useful, won’t he?” the redhead continued simpering, “I bet he could easily show us out of this forest!”

 The ghost-type nodded affirmatively but anymore conversation was cut short by more wise words a la Gary.

 “Yeah, but it might be better to get some more sleep first then head out after the sun comes up. We’ve all only gotten two or three hours.”

 “I guess… you’ve got a point!” Misty guffawed before holding up two Pokeballs. “Then we’ll get back to this in a little while! Have a good rest, Pidgey; Gastly!”

 After both Pokemon had been successfully returned, Gary stepped up and clapped a hand to her shoulder.

 “You did good. I think this may have qualified as your first real tough experience as a trainer. A ghost-type is a good start to building a solid team.”

 “Uuh, excuse me?” Ash called out to them, his voice oddly muffled. “I thought we were going to sleep?”

 Apparently he’d dived for his sleeping bag as soon as the opportunity was granted to him.

 “They guy sure does move fast when he needs to,” Gary lamented with a teasing grin.

 OoOoO

 Notes - Gastly has a habit of trying to make friends with the Pokemon of random trainers who wander into Viridian Forest. At least, that’s what I was going for. When he used hypnosis on Misty, he meant to just make her fall back into a deep sleep for the rest of the night but there were some unforeseen side-effects. Luckily, he ended up making human friends as well!

 The next chapter will be posted within the month. Not sure if it’s gonna be one of the planned chapters to do with the comic or a bonus chapter. Either way, I hope everyone looks forward to it!

 Likes are nice and commentary is kind!

[purify-orre-blog]

Addendum: Michael’s Video Logs - CH. 5 Section

TL:DR; Hi, here’s the last video log Michael made during his time in the Killing Game. This is Michael basically saying “I’m moving in with my new (past?) boyfriend and giving up on trying to be more than a player in this killing game”. This one is in the Main Folder, titled “1Intro_Only.mp4”. It is ordered before the first chronological video, “2Gamma_Suspended.mp4” which posted under the Prologue tag. These will also be under the “VideoLog” tag. Check Navigation or Here for the chronological order!

TW/CW : (Unintentional) Self-Injury, Plans of Murder-Suicide (Via Fighting The Mastermind Should An Opportunity Arise And Inevitably Losing)

Accompanying Music: Theme of Suspense (You Know What You Must Do, Even If You Don’t Want To)

The lights are on, and the sound of splashing liquid can be heard from the bedroom area. The Wii by the TV and all the games are gone. Perhaps Michael moved them to Yori’s room?

The living room coffee table is littered with little metal rats. They are stacked up in piles, and it looks like they might be in the process of forming a pyramid. There are over a hundred of them, maybe even over two hundred. On the couch is 5 separate pairs of the remnants of scorched Disney-themed oven mitts.

The carpeted floor is much more scorched than before, and fresh blood stains splatter the ground.

The sound of splashing liquid can be heard for several more minutes, and then it’s silent.

Slowly, quietly, Michael shuffles back into the room, holding a rat with metal tongs. It’s smoking. Michael seems unfazed as he moves to add the rat to the pile.

He’s wrapped a fire blanket over the front of his person, suspended in rope. It looks kind of like a red Snuggie minus the sleeves. And if Snuggies were partly melted through. And also smoking. He’s wearing oven mitts and 4 black-and-white checkered headbands. One is around his neck like a collar, one is over his mouth, another over his nose, and another holding up his hair. His hair is also all tied up in a short ponytail. He’s wearing Oswald-themed Safety-goggles. Fittingly, they are rose-tinted.

He sets the metal tongs into a bucket of water that starts to hiss. He unwraps the fire blanket and folds it the best he can, setting it on the couch.

Michael looks to the camera, his eyes tired, and he sighs. He pulls the two headbands over his face down to make two more collars.

“Project Epsilon has been suspended on account of me, pardon the language, not giving two shakes of a Eevee’s tail. Being the villain like Wes and Gonzap was a dumb idea and just hurt everyone around me. I thought it was the right thing to do, but I know better now.”

He looks over to the pile of rats and sighs, then back to the camera.

“After I typed up my last confession, I rounded up all my bombs and all the… firearms around the park.”

He says, pulling off the latest pair of Oswald oven mitts, tossing them to the ground.

“And turned them into rats.”

His hands are covered in scratches and burn marks, more than from the electrocution, but they seem to be clotting and healing supernaturally. He seems tired by this too.

“I synthesized all my TMs I had stored on my USB to hack and create a sort of super WISH move. That’s a move that rewards extreme faith in yourself for an HP boost over the duration of the turn or as long as it takes to heal to full health. I’ve modified it to boost everyone around within the nearest 45 foot radius, too. If nothing else, I’ll be able to help a little bit this way. I replaced Encore, because I used it all up on Caelum last trial.”

He looks the the camera for the first time, and his irises are completely green. Any blue that was there is gone.

“It can’t heal me any further than after I regained the ability to speak. And it’s incredibly draining. I can’t use any moves for the next three turns. It also altered my being. But Jovi, you probably knew that.”

He looks to the camera sadly.

“And if I use it all up, if I don’t restore my PP? If I run out of moves entirely?”

His hands are scratch-free now. They are just as scarred as before, but no longer bleeding.

“I won’t STRUGGLE, but instead enter a sort of HYPER REVERSE MODE. Chances are I’ll go straight for the first person that isn’t my trainer… In the 15 seconds of consciousness I have left, I’ll have to go for Oswald.”

He gives a calm smile.

“And my USB says Yogi and Yori are my OT, so at least he’ll be safe.”

The smile thins.

“But headbands used this way only restore HP so… It’s not looking great.”

It settles to something ashamed. His hands curl into fists.

“I’m running out of time. And if something happens to him, I know that’ll set me off too.”

He hugs himself and just takes a few deep breaths.

“Move Count. Wish, 4 of 5. Baton Pass, 23 of 64. Spark 9 of 32. Fake Tears, 12 of 32.”

He lets go of the hug, looking at the camera with a serious expression.

“I’m not coming back to this room unless Yori or Yogi make me. I’m also leaving the USB with my logs at the center of the rat pile, near the front of the table next to my laptop with my newest password ‘Y-O-R-G-I-0-4-B-U-S-T’. Said like ‘Yogi or Bust’. Because I love him.”

He looks away for a second and clears his throat.

“Not the smartest password, I know, but he’s cute and…” He covers his face in his hands, blushing fast and bright red. “I just said I love him, didn’t I? Great going, Michael! Tell the world you love the Ultimate Mascot, genius plan!”

He stands there for five seconds, before pulling his hands away and attempting to regain composure, face still beet-red like his hair.

“So the logs broadcasted live for Jovi’s sake, but I figure maybe some of Project Curiousity’s speculations might help the other Ultimates? You’ll find them all in files labeled accordingly. This one is the intro video. Or it will be. I wish I knew how to edit things out…”

He looks back to the camera, blush fading. “Project Curiousity. That’s the list of people with probable motives and connections I know about. So mostly you Ultimates, and former members of Cipher and Snagem.”

The blush is gone. “Most probably still active suspects are me and Jovi. Jovi and I?”

Michael scowls.

“Grammar’s not important, neither of us would do this.”

And he settles on another serious expression.

“Sure, anyone with basic motor skills, parts, and a blueprint could assemble a rabbot, but something like this requires tons of money, connections, years of planning, and I don’t…”

Realization dawns on his face.

“We’re all missing at least two years of memories or more, only one if I’m being really generous. And with the backing of that World Ender organization, literally any of us could have done this. It could be me, or Jovi, or Yogi, or Yori or anyone…”

Michael looks sad. He shakes his head once dismissively, and looks right into the camera.

“I can’t claim to understand why anyone would do this, or how they could have got to this point, be it alone or under the influence of someone like how I was blackmailed, but… I forgive you.“

Michael’s not hiding his feelings anymore.

“You’ve fallen for Hope the way I did, and it betrayed you. That’s the feeling I get.”

He clasps his hands together in a show of bravery, or stupidity.

“Mastermind, whoever you are… I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to take the brunt of their aggression. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be your friend fast enough. You said I’ll never understand you and you’re right.”

He’s beaming.

“But that doesn’t mean we aren’t friends. I’ll always be your friend, even if you kill me. Even if I kill you.”

Michael looks back towards the bedroom, a soft smile on his face.

“I still have 20 more rats to bring over. They should be cool by now.”

Michael seems at peace.

The video feed cuts off.