Aberdeen
Viridian Forest - Day 3 - The Stuff That Matters part II
Continuing down the idea that the shiny Caterpie in fact didn't like its trainer, Aberdeen managed to convince Victor that they would not find it by going around in the forest shouting for the pokémon. Instead, they tracked down a Caterpie and Metapod nest, since Victor knew where those normally hung out. Just to make sure they didn't accidentally startle wild pokémon, both Chikorita and Venonat had been returned to their pokéballs for now.
"Really," Victor murmured as they observed the large, bug populated trees from behind some leafage. "You think Caterpie ran back to his kind?"
"Wouldn't you do that?" Deen asked.
"Not really, you don't really understand," Victor sighed. "See, while humans prize the rare variations that are shiny pokémon, in the wild they are sometimes shunned by their normal-colored kind for being different. It's different in different species, of course, but as far as Caterpie go, they need to be able to hide well. Their natural colors have evolved to blend in with Viridian Forest's foliage. My shiny Caterpie, however... He didn't."
"What does he look like?"
"He was like a lantern in the dark, really. So bright, almost golden glowing..."
"Like that one?" Deen suggested and pointed ahead.
On the ground in between the two largest trees that seemed to make up the nest, a new Caterpie had shown up now. But it looked nothing like the others - rather, it was exactly as Victor had described it.
"Yes!" Victor exclaimed and shot up, but Deen shoved him back down.
"Let's see how it goes!" he said enthusiastically.
"What do you mean how it goes? He's right there!"
"He's going to try to talk to his old family," Deen said, focus back on the bugs ahead. "Maybe he prefers to be with them instead of with you."
Victor looked appalled. "They don't want him! You'll see."
On the stems of the trees, plenty of normal green Caterpies started to gather. It wasn't long into their bug chatter before Deen had to admit that Victor's theory was likely true. The Caterpie in the trees didn't seem very happy to see the golden worm return. When he tried to approach them, one of them even fired a String Shot at the shiny pokémon, as a warning. The golden pokémon kept crawling forward though. Deen held his breath. After only a few seconds, just before the yellow bug reached the tree, all the Caterpie above fired their String Shot, this time directly at him. He was engulfed, ensnared, and rooted in the spot. Victor let out a gasp next to Deen.
After what sounded like laughter, the other Caterpie retreated further up into the branches of the large trees, leaving the outcast behind.
Deen let out the breath he had been holding. Victor had been watching him, and nodded slowly now, his mouth a grim shape.
"See? They don't at all appreciate him for what he is."
"That's terrible!" Deen said, visibly upset, and got up from their hiding place with the intent of approaching the shiny Caterpie at last. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe the pokémon didn't exactly dislike Victor, he just missed home and wished that things were different. Who wouldn't want to be accepted by their own family, after all?
Just as he took the first step forward though, a loud noise startled the whole clearing.
"Wahahaha! Come on!" a practically thunderous voice boomed, as its source and something more tumbled into the scene.
It was a woman, a very large one, Deen would say. Not in the unhealthy sense, but in the "excercises more in one day than you do in one year and can lift you with her little finger" kind of way. Her hair was brown and long, flying wildly around her despite partially being tied up with a band to get it out of her face, it seemed. She wasn't exactly wearing armor, but it did kind of look as if she had prepared to tackle a couple of Rhyhorn and Beedrill head on when she prepared to enter the forest.
"No running away! You challenged us, you better stand up for your choices!" the woman roared and pointed at something on the ground in between Caterpie and Aberdeen with a finger as thick as his wrist.
"It's a... Weedle," Victor's analysis reached Deen from behind. "Why is she fighting a poor Weedle?"
Indeed, a new yellowish bug, exhausted from the looks of it, was on the ground, facing the loud new human. Only now did Aberdeen also notice that the woman wasn't alone; a small teal colored pokémon stood before her, feisty and ready to battle. It was a female Nidoran.
"Hey!" Aberdeen said and walked out to make himself known. "I don't mean to disturb your fun, but we were in the middle of something here. Can we just pass by without getting stung or something, please? And you can return to your battle afterwards!"
The woman seemed surprised to see another human here and now. She wasn't upset though. Instead, she grinned towards the boys. "Of course! Terribly sorry to interrupt you fine gentlemen. You don't mind, do you Weedle?"
The bug jumped at the mention of it, and looked nervously from human to human, and then back to the Nidoran who was leering at it. Deen eyed the two pokémon curiously. Maybe they were really just battling to capture the wild pokémon, but the large woman was speaking pretty oddly.
"Come on," Victor said and pulled the entranced Deen along with him.
The Weedle stared helplessly up at Deen as they passed by a few feet from it. As their eyes met, Deen couldn't help but feel as if there was despair in its small, beady pupils. "I don't think it wants to get captured," he said.
"Wild pokémon seldom do," Victor responded, with a small glance at the still smiling woman some ten meters away. "But my Caterpie did! Hi Gildeboy!! I'm so happy to have found you! Oh, what a mess those mean wild pokémon made."
He crouched in front of the shiny pokémon and began untangling the String Shot web. Caterpie didn't fluster or fight against it. In fact, ever since it was sprayed and rooted, it had been staying completely silent and still. It was probably devastated from the rejection, Deen figured. It actually tugged at his heart strings a little bit.
Behind them, the battle was continuing.
"We will show you who's got the toughest Poison Sting!" the woman shouted. "Go, Nidoran! Poison Sting!"
Nidoran shot forward, and the Weedle did too, even though it looked more afraid than eager to fight. Two horns clashed, missed each others tips naturally, but Weedle nimbly avoided to get stung by the edge that slid against its horn. Nidoran was less nimble, and Weedle's tip hit her in the neck when her head twisted from the impact. She came to a halt and groaned.
"Oh, impressive!" the woman said, for once not at an ear-splitting volume.
Deen thought she would just thunder on and command a new move, but instead she walked up to Nidoran, past the terrified Weedle, and crouched beside her. "There there. We can't always hit or win. But we can continue, if you want?"
The Weedle beeped at her, as if to say 'what if I don't want to!!', and she actually turned around to face it with an amused face. "
You attacked us, little mister, you ain't got a say in this. If you start something, you follow it through to the end!"
Yeah, Deen liked this woman. She was cool.
"There we go," Victor said behind him, finally having freed the golden Caterpie on the ground. "Why did you run away, Gildeboy? You were famous! Let's go home now, everybody has missed you so much! We will have a welcome home party with you on display!"
The blue Nidoran glanced past its trainer at the Weedle as well, before she looked up at the woman again with a smile and shook her little blue head. The trainer laughed heartily and picked Nidoran up into a warm hug. "I see. That is fine then! We had fun, no need to push too far. Unless you disagree, Weedle?"
The worm shooked its head frantically, relief practically radiating off it now.
Aberdeen looked back to Victor, who was fumbling around with some pokéballs until he found the right one. "There we go. Return, Gildeboy!"
"Wait!" Deen said and placed himself in between the trainer and the pokémon. The pokéball's red beam hit his belly harmlessly and yielded no results.
"What now?" Victor said, his annoyance clear. "We found my Caterpie!"
"Look at them," Deen said and pointed towards the other group in the clearing.
The sturdy woman and the small Nidoran were laughing together. The Weedle had started to crawl away, but now it hesitated. It was looking back at its previous opponents with an almost longing look. The trainer noticed it.
"Hey, I'm sorry, I almost forgot to say goodbye!" she said and sunk down to her knees. "Thank you for the battle, Weedle! Maybe we'll see you again!"
Nidoran too nodded happily towards the bug, who seemed more and more dreary for each passing second.
"Unless..." the trainer started saying, obviously pretending to be thinking really hard. "Unless you would rather come with us? As a member of our team?"
The change in the Weedle's mood was instant. It shone up with a brilliance that almost made Deen think it was going to evolve there and then.
"Wahaha! It's settled then! Welcome, Weedle! Together we shall practice the strongest Poison Sting the world has ever seen!"
As Weedle was enveloped in the light of a new pokéball, Aberdeen turned, chuckling, back to Victor. The bug catcher had been watching the situation with one eyebrow heavily raised.
"So what?" he asked now. "What's your point, kid?"
"How are you treating, uh, Gildeboy?" Deen asked pointedly. "Like a prized artifact on display, or as your actual trusted buddy and teammate? Like you treat Venonat?"
Victor grew very uncomfortable, and took a step backwards. Especially as the strange, large woman was now also walking up to them to listen in on what Deen had to say, both of her venomous pokémon in happy tow.
"I know that trainers sometimes capture pokémon that don't actually want to leave their wild life. That's just how things are. But regardless of if they joined you because they chose to or not, you should treat them as your friends! Not as your battling tools or possessions to show off. I don't know much about being a trainer yet, I know," Deen admitted and shrugged, "But I've been living with pokémon my whole life. They're my friends, and they have just as real needs for love and friendship as you and I do."
"Hey now, k-kid-"
"Caterpie ran away because you didn't care about him! If you want him to come home with you, you've got to promise him that he won't just be your collectible!"
Victor's cheeks were deeply red and he looked anywhere but at any of the other living beings under the trees. Gildeboy, however, was glancing up at his trainer curiously.
"That's not too much to ask, is it?" the woman said softly behind Deen. "I firmly believe pokémon grow even stronger even faster when they have a great bond with their trainer and other pokémon teammates!"
"You..." Victor swallowed hard, and for a moment it looked as if he was going to spit a curse into Aberdeen's face. Instead, he burst into tears, surprising everybody. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry Gildeboy, uaaaah!" He fell down to the ground with hysterical sobs. "I j-just wanted to be famous! I was s-so lucky to f-find you and finally the others saw me as a good b-bug catcher! I shouldn't have let that matter so much! I should have treated you as a person instead of as an object! I'm s-sorryyy!"
Deen and the woman gave each other a glance and neither could help but smile. "Well done, kid," she whispered.
It took quite a few minutes, but eventually Victor had calmed down enough to pick the golden Caterpie back up and he looked as if he was never going to physically let go of the creature again. Gildeboy didn't seem to mind. The bug beeped happily where it sat wrapped in its trainers arms.
"So where are you heading now?" the large woman asked the boys.
"I'm going to Pewter City!" Deen said. "Am a journeying trainer!"
"Wahaha! You plan on taking on the gym challenge?"
"I guess... Although I didn't battle Blue. This time around."
"Better wait with facing him anyways, kid," the woman advised. "He's been through a lot in his life. He's not for rookies to battle!"
"You're probably right!" Deen laughed.
"I'm heading back to Pewter City as well," Victor said, still sniffling a little bit. "I can find my way around decently in this forest. Care to join me, kid?"
"Actually, I've changed my mind," Deen said, suddenly with a serious look.
"What? You want to go back to Viridian instead?"
"Oh, no not that. About you calling me kid. You don't seem very grown-up at all, compared to an actual grown-up," Deen clarified, gesturing towards the big woman.
She let out a hearty laugh, and Victor was once again pink cheeked and flustered.
"I'm not that much older than any of you, I assure you! But how about I call you both 'kids' and you call me by my name, huh?"
"Sure," Deen smiled. "But my real name is Aberdeen, and this is Victor!"
"Nice to meet you, kids," the woman joked, but shook Aberdeen's outreached hand gladly. "I am Vanire! Vanire Rosso from the Viridian Gym!"
Aberdeen nearly flinched, and forgot to release his grasp on her hand. "You're... You're Farin's big sister?"
"Wahaha! You've met my sis?"
At first, Deen felt happy and relieved. She was alive after all! But then he remembered... She clearly didn't know about the bombing, then. The destruction of her dear gym. And the fate of her Nidorino...
"What's wrong?" Vanire said, picking Deen's cramped hand off of hers finger by finger. "Has something happened?"
He swallowed hard. Oh, how serious emotional situations made him want to crawl out of his own skin. But, he kind of owed Farin this.
"Vanire... We should talk."
