*slinks back to fanfiction*
<.< >.>
*awkward wave*
REVENANT
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Penance
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From the safety of Viridian City, people watched smoke rise into the otherwise blue, spotless sky. Murmurs and whispers began to spread as the crowd gathered on the edge of the town, the black plumes were thick and menacing, drifting higher and higher before slowly making their way inland on the ocean breeze. It wouldn’t be long before the entirety of route one was shrouded in darkness.
“What’s happening?” A young nurse had emerged from the pokémon center, concern in her eyes. “What’s going on?”
People began to emerge from the distance – frantic townsfolk who were running as fast as their limbs could carry them. As they drew closer, people of Viridian City could see their wounds. Some only had scratches and scrapes associated with falling over, but others… others had deep gashes and cuts, one woman was carrying her child – a young boy, his entire left arm blackened and blistered by fire, smoke still rising from his singed t-shirt.
“What’s going on?” A native to Vidirian reached out and caught one of those fleeing by the arm– she was much younger then he was, probably just a teenager. Her brown hair smelt of soot and ash, and she was covered in muck. “What happened?”
She slowed and stared at him, perhaps reality hadn’t sunk in until now. She gazed around, confusion and fear swirling in her green irises. She let out a whimper, a tiny gasp of horror and she stared up at him.
“I...” She recalled the terrifying ordeal with astounding clarity. Her limbs shook as she relived whatever had happened, her voice trapped in her throat. “She…”
Gently, he knelt down and stared into her eyes. “Girl, what happened?”
Her tale was a simple one. The day had started off like any other – she was going to go fishing with her father. It wouldn’t have been anything complicated, they would just fish off the edge of the beach, and she would’ve told him about her dreams of becoming a master trainer and venturing off to Cinnabar Island.
She wasn’t sure if he’d approve, but now that seemed like just a stupid thing to worry about. She spoke off how the day had been beautiful, but that something off the coast had caught her attention. A black dot on the horizon, and she had been quick to point it out to her father.
In seconds, their curiosity had turned to dread. As it drew closer, she could make out the orange body of the creature, wings outstretched and catching the updrafts and currents of wind to keep itself high in the sky. It had done one full circle around the town of Pallet before it swooped down.
Her father knocked her to the ground as a shadow rushed over them. She felt the heat of fire hurry past her face, and the slightest twinge of her skin burning before whatever had caused the pain was gone.
As was her father.
He lay dead a fair distance from her, smoke and fire rising from his corpse. She had screamed, and that had seemingly triggered a series of horrible events that had culminated in Pallet Town’s destruction.
An orange dragon landed on the beach, its tail half consumed by a brilliant flame. It hunched over, arching its neck and snarling at the gathering mass as a woman dismounted from its back.
The woman stepped forward, wholly uncaring to the death she had caused on the beach. She had confidence in her stance, wearing a long black coat with a white, raised collar.
“Where’s the Professor?”
Everyone looked at each other, none of them dared move.
But the girl, she had. She ran at the woman, she leapt clean over the dragon’s blazing tail and tried to tackle the one who had murdered her father.
Drawn out of the memory, the girl looked at the kind man. “She… she grabbed me by my throat, she held me at arm’s length. Her hands were gloved, it… hurt…” The girl’s eye broke away. “She stared at me, holding me there for everyone to see…”
The woman stared at the girl; eyes void of any kind emotion, but they also didn’t have the malice in them that she expected. This woman wasn’t a senseless killer or a madman that Kanto Media often painted criminals to be – no, she had thought this all through. She was completely sane, and that frightened the girl even more.
“The only bravery found in this place is from a little girl.” The woman spat the words with acid, glaring back at the populace of Pallet Town. She tossed the girl aside, disregarding the defeated attacker. “Where is the Professor? I won’t ask again.”
The dragon rose up, thicker lines of smoke flushing from its nostrils.
“I’m here,” stepping out from behind those brave enough to still stand before the woman, was an elderly man. He had a stern complexion and grey hair, but he stood with the strength of those far younger then himself. His lab coat was pristine and white, untarnished by dirt, grime or muck.
She stared at him, a small smile playing on her lips. “Hello Professor,”
The girl watched Professor Oak hesitate, shock overcoming his features as he realized who was standing before him.
“Red?” He questioned, barely recognizing the woman.
Her smile stayed, though it held a particular sinister tone to it now. “So you do remember me.”
The girl shook her head, shaking away what happened next. She began to sob, thousands of tears escaping her eyes and pouring down her cheeks as her limbs suddenly became too heavy to move. She leaned against the stranger, trying to banish the pictures from her mind.
“She killed everyone!” The girl cried out, catching people’s attention. “That dragon… monster… thing began lighting everyone on fire! People were screaming and running!” She covered her ears, eyes tightly shut. “I can hear them! Hear it! It rushed up into the sky, leaving the woman there, with Oak… Oh god, it destroyed everything… fire… fire everywhere…”
***
Red stared at the destruction before her with little concern; the screams of innocence fell on deaf ears as she walked through the remains of the flaming town, and she only paused when she reached a house that her charizard had left untouched.
Her old home, something she hadn’t seen or thought about in a decade. Someone had moved in and opted to keep it in its best condition apparently, that or time had been awfully kind to it. It looked sorely out of place now, what with everything else being engulfed in unrelenting flames. Even the Professor’s lab hadn’t been spared from her charizard’s wrath.
“Your mother passed,” Oak’s notably shakier voice broke Red’s train of thought and drew her back to the moment. “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”
“You didn’t look hard enough.” Red replied firmly, leaving no room for argument. She glanced to her side as the massive dragon landed next to her, perhaps he too was reminiscing about the old home. “Burn it.”
Oak wasn’t intimidated easily, he had seen his fair run-ins with various criminal organizations or just bad trainers… but something about the woman standing before him now deeply disturbed him. When she was young, Red had been an ideal trainer candidate – a happy-go-lucky girl that had a love for fire pokémon because they were red, like her eyes.
This woman… she was different. Crimson eyes were like daggers into Oak’s heart, and the messy head of hair that had once blessed the younger Red had been turned into a finely cut and tamed hair as black as night. She had grown into a beautiful, albeit deadly young woman.
“What happened to you?” Oak questioned, horrified by the destruction around him. “Why are you doing this?”
The Professor took a step back as Red smirked and her charizard looked over, eyes pulsating orange. Fire raged behind them like a gruesome backdrop, with the smoke so thick that Pallet Town was cast into darkness.
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*runs off*