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FR Nuzlocke V1-02

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Alizara, Azure, and their pokemon finally arrived in Viridian City a few hours before sunset.  Inferno had been returned to his pokeball about a mile before reaching town, having taken a hard hit from a pidgey.  Phyton was dragging his feet, and nuzzled up to Alizara as soon as they reached the protected city limits.  It might not have looked very far on the map, but Route 1 was a long way to walk on the short legs of a bulbasaur.  

“Do you want to go look around?” Azure asked.  

“I want to go straight to the pokemon center,” Alizara said.  The last few miles had been the worst.  “Besides, Inferno and Phyton will want to look around too, and they need to be healed first.”

“Good,” Azure said, so quietly that Alizara could barely hear.  Inferno wasn’t too badly hurt, but Alizara could see that he worried about his charmander.  

The pokemon center was in the middle of the town square, in a section with buildings for pokemon trainers.  It was larger than Alizara had expected, though she’d known they were three floors.  League Pokemon Centers were all built around the same design, for easy use by pokemon trainers who would need to get around dozens of them.

Alizara and Azure entered the red roofed building.  The ground floor was open, a massive room of pale yellow tiles and thick wooden beams.  Sturdy tables and chairs lined the walls, though the main aisle to the back was kept clear for emergencies.  Trainers sat at the tables, eating or feeding their pokemon.  Many looked exotic and tough.  A dragonair coiled around the chair of its trainer, a strong woman in a leather suit that looked like armor.  A ninetales and a hitmonchan watched as two men played chess.  Route 22, to the west of Viridian City, was the way to the pokemon league.  Strong trainers would come here on their way to the Indigo Plateau.  

At the back of the room was the hospital area.  A massive rejuvenation machine was manned by a pink-haired nurse.  They walked up and handed their pokemon to her.  She placed them in the machine and looked at their status on the monitor.  “You’re brand new trainers, aren’t you?” the nurse asked.

When they nodded, she continued.  “From Pallet, I see.  Welcome to the Viridian City Pokemon Center.  The ground floor is a rest area.  You can talk to other trainers here, but remember that challenging and battles are forbidden.  Second floor is the hospital for serious illness.  Third is where the rooms for sleeping are.  You can get assigned room keys at the kiosk by the stairs there, next to the processing center input.”

“Thank you,” Alizara said, doing her best to memorize the torrent of information.  The machine beeped a moment later, and the nurse handed them back their pokemon.  

“I don’t think I’m up to exploring tonight,” Alizara said.  

“Fine,” Azure sighed, as if disappointed.  He had to be at least as tired as she was.  “But we’re going into town first thing tomorrow.”  He lead the way to the staircase.

The rooms were tiny.  They were large enough to not count as closets, but only barely.  A narrow bed fit inside, along with a table and a hook for her bag.  Still, it wasn’t dingy.  The pale blue walls had a strip of wallpaper in cloud patterns.  A landscape painting hung on one wall, with a mirror across from it to create the illusion of space.  Alizara had gotten an inner room, so no window.  The light came from a wall lamp in the shape of a snorlax with a light-up belly, the pull cord extending from its hand and ending in a tiny plastic apple.  

She looked into the mirror.  Her long hair had gotten thoroughly tangled, and it took several minutes to straighten out.  Dark red eyes looked back at her.  They weren’t her natural color, but the result of cosmetic surgery when she was fifteen.  She’d suggested it as a joke at first – red to match her namesake color, instead of having Azure’s deep blue eyes – but her grandfather had taken to the idea.  She still found it odd of him.  Professor Oak didn’t usually agree to that sort of thing.  Perhaps it was just because she had already been in the hospital, and one more surgery wouldn’t hurt?

Shrugging her bag off, she prepared for sleep.  How had Leaf managed to always look so full of energy when she came to visit, after travelling miles from the last town? Alizara wondered as she pulled off her shoes.  I guess it’s just something I’ll have to get used to.  She decided against changing into a night gown, and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

-------------------

Alizara felt fine until she tried to move.  Her legs felt as if she’d let a pack of growlithe chew on them overnight.  Luckily, the sensation didn’t last too long once she stood up and took the few steps she could manage in the tiny space.  How could simply walking hurt?  She’d been doing it every day of her life, even if never quite as far.  

After dressing and making sure she didn’t leave anything behind, Alizara stepped out of the bed cubicle and went downstairs.  It looked as if most of the trainers were already awake, and the room was even more crowded than it had been the night before.  Most of the pokemon were in their pokeballs, at least, or there wouldn’t be space to walk even through the wide aisle.  Those that were out were small, freshly caught pidgey and rattata bonding with their trainers.

Azure was already in a booth, sharing it with another trainer who had just started.  They appeared to be comparing charmander.  After an entire day of traveling with him, Alizara was able to tell Inferno from the other lizard, though they were nearly identical.  Inferno glanced nervously at the other charmander, scooting away as much as possible from it.  

“Good morning,” Alizara said, and sat in the empty chair by her brother.  

“Finally you wake up,” Azure said.  “We’ve been waiting forever.  This is Will and Cola.  Now, as the most honest person I know, can you say which of these charmander looks strongest?”

Alizara looked at the two lizards again.  Inferno had a few spots on his snout, and a sharper line to his nostrils, but they were so alike.  They might have even been biological brothers, though they didn’t seem to recognize one another.  “They’re the same height, their tail flames look to be the same size…” It was hard to look at the flames for long.  “Inferno and Cola look pretty much the same.”  Maybe their grandfather could have told which one was stronger.  

“So we’d have to fight to figure out who’d win,” Azure concluded.

“Challenging trainers in a Pokemon Center –“ Alizara began, but was cut off.

“ ‘Is a violation of rule something-or-another.’ Yeah, I know,” Azure grumbled.  “Besides, it would come down to luck.  I only got one pokemon.”

“So do I,” the other trainer chimed in.  “The pokemart has been out of pokeballs for a few days now.”

“Are you from Viridian?” she asked.  

“Yes.  I got Cola from the trainer’s school down the road.”

“Isn’t giving new trainers their starter something that gyms are supposed to do?” Pallet obviously didn’t have a gym, but Viridian had one.

“The gym’s been closed for a while,” Will said.  “Or, closed to us, at least.  Sometimes powerful trainers are seen hanging around it, usually at night, but there aren’t any tournaments or battles.”

“Is everyone working there sworn to secrecy or something?”  

“As far as I know, no one works there.  It’s basically abandoned.”  Alizara found that troubling.  Why hadn’t the Pokemon League intervened?

“Aww, I wanted to fight a gym,” Azure complained.  

They left soon after, parting ways with Will.  He had decided to head through the forest towards Pewter.  Azure hoped that they’d meet again, though Alizara did not.  It wasn’t that she disliked Will, but if they met again they would likely have to fight.  That was just how being a trainer worked.

Viridian looked so much brighter in the morning.  Perhaps it was just no longer being exhausted from a day of travel.  The air wasn’t quite as clean as that of Pallet, but it was still a town surrounded by nature.  The green rooftops of the houses blended amongst the verdant trees, and colorful shutters looked like massive tropical flowers.  Pokemon were everywhere, at least in the area around the pokecenter and pokemart.  Professor Oak had a few pokemon, and the aides would sometimes be seen walking them or going with them on some task or another, but a single glance here held more pokemon than his entire team.

Most of the pokemon they saw were those of trainers.  A trainer could have one of their pokemon out in city limits as long as they were below a certain size, with a few exceptions.  Grimer, for example.  Other than that, Viridian had a fleet of pokemon organized to perform specific duties, owned either by the League or independent businesses.  Trained pidgeotto in green harnesses flew over the crowd, delivering packages.  Squirtle watered plants along the side of the road.

The store was close by.  Like the Pokemon Center, it was an official Pokemon League building.  It’s bright blue roof made it stand out.  The League’s stylized pokeball symbol glowed above the door.  

“We’re out of pokeballs,” the shopkeeper called in a tired, exasperated voice as the siblings entered the store.  “We won’t have any in until tomorrow.”  His words had the quality of something that had been repeated many times.  He was an older man, though his brown hair wasn’t graying yet.  

“Professor Oak sent us to get a package for him,” Azure said.  

The shopkeeper audibly sighed in relief.  “That I can manage,” he said, ducking into the back room.  He returned a moment later carrying a brown paper parcel.

“Do you know what’s inside?” Alizara asked.  The man shook his head.  Alizara nodded farewell and followed Azure out.

Getting back to Pallet was actually easier than the other way around.  There were sections of the path that could be hopped down, but not safely climbed.  Inferno and Phyton were a bit stronger this time as well, and the few pokemon they encountered were taken out quickly.  They stopped for a quick lunch when they hit the halfway point, though it was still early.  

The sun was still quite high in the sky when they reached the outskirts of Pallet.  It had been their entire world before leaving.  Did it seem smaller now?  They had only gone to a single city, and not even one of the really large ones like Celadon.  

“Hey, we got the thing,” Azure yelled into the lab when they got in.  

“What?” Tyle asked, glancing up at them.  

“Gramps sent us to get something for him,” he explained to the aide.  Azure waved the package that he’d been holding under his arm.  Since they hadn’t known what it contained, Alizara had insisted on carrying it outside of their bags.  If it had been something that stored matter as energy, putting it into another device like it could have caused damage to one or the other.

Professor Oak stepped into the room, likely having heard Azure’s shouting.  “What is this?”  He grabbed the parcel.  “Ah, thank you.”

“What was it, anyway?” Azure asked.  

“Batteries,” Oak said.  “Now that I have these, there’s something I’ve been meaning to give you.”  They followed him to the back room.  The evidence of their first battle had been cleaned up completely.  Walking to a back table, he opened the parcel and removed two of the tiny batteries and placed them in red devices.  “This is my invention, the Pokedex.  It will record information about the types of pokemon you see and catch.”  

Alizara flipped her Pokedex open and pointed it at Phyton.  This was harder than it sounded, as the bulbasaur was scurrying around the room wildly.  After a moment of scanning, the device spoke in a computerized voice.  “Bulbasaur.  There is a plant seed on its back right from the day this Pokemon is born.  The seed slowly grows larger.”  There was an irritating echo as Azure flipped his Pokedex open and scanned the bulbasaur, getting the same voice overlapping itself.  It wasn’t the most useful of information, but perhaps it would come in handy if they encountered a pokemon neither of them could identify on their own.  

“Did you catch a pokemon from Route 1?” their grandfather asked.

“The Viridian Pokemart was out of pokeballs,” Azure said.  Alizara was focused entirely on the pokedex.  She would be busy examining that for hours if no one interrupted her.

“That’s not good,” Oak said.  “You’ll need to catch some more pokemon soon, or you’ll end up with unbalanced teams.  I have a few lying around here somewhere…”  He went to rummage around in the many drawers of the lab.  In the distance, Alizara had gotten around to scanning Inferno, and the pokedex’s information on charmander was playing. “Ah, here’s where I put these.”

Azure accepted the pokeballs.  “I’ll give Liz hers when she snaps out of it.”  His sister was still sitting on the floor, pressing buttons.  She only had two pokemon seen in her pokedex.  Azure wondered what she could possibly be doing with it.  

“I suggest you two go out and catch something on Route 1 as soon as possible, then spend the rest of the day training around here.”

“Fine,” Azure said.  Alizara had apparently finished with the pokedex for the moment and stood up.  Azure handed her five of the pokeballs and walked out.  She looked a bit confused, but waved to her grandfather and followed her brother.  

“We’re catching a pokemon on Route 1?” Alizara asked when she caught up.

“Nah, let’s go catch one in the Seafoam Islands,” Azure said, rolling his eyes. Alizara sighed and followed.

Version 1 of a failed nuzlocke run, put in Scraps because I hate when things are deleted permanantly.  

This was an Alizara POV chapter, but the last few paragraphs ended up more as Azure’s, since Alizara was distracted by a shiny new machine.  I couldn’t really find a way to rewrite it without making it confusing or awkward. 

 

Pokemon is owned by Nintendo

 

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    Alizara’s Pokemon

Phyton the Bulbasaur                M, Hasty                      Pallet Town

 

    Azure’s Pokemon

Inferno the Charmander            M, Timid                      Pallet Town

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