{"sf1_id":801147,"sf2_id":null,"title":"Pokémon: The Attack On Mount Silver","author":"Aux Chiens","words":3094,"posted_at":"2014-12-29T07:49:00.000Z","tags":["Action","Clean","Drama","Ethan","Fanfiction","Mount Silver","No-Yiff","Pikachu","Typhlosion","pokemon","red"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/801147-pokemon-the-attack-on-mount-silver","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/801147","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=801147\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"            There was diamond-dust in the sky -- slivers of ice that danced in the wind as the Sun began its final descent in the west.                        The view was incomparable -\nMount Silver, holy mountain, the resting place of the gods of Kanto and Johto,\nwhere Hoenn and Sinnoh and Unova and Kalos looked to for guidance, the genesis\nand the exodus, complete and immaculate. It is, it was, it shall be - what more\ncould be said of it that the poets of the elder ages, when Ho-Oh streaked its\nrainbow across the sky, had not already sang?\n            Ethan took a deep breath, his\nTyphlosion taking a well-deserved rest at his feet - the air up here was thin,\nbut refreshing, a purity that he had found nowhere else in his travels - and\nlooked about him.\n            To the west, across the thick\nforests around the perfect cornflower-mirror of the Lake of Rage, rose, lofty,\nthe Bell Tower, its curved roof elegantly tasteful in the architectural idiom\nof Johto, as elegant as a Kimono Girl and just as timeless, torches lit on each\nof the four corners glowing faintly, beacons in the oncoming night. Beyond that\nshimmered, joyous and free, as though it was a great jewel that been flung from\nthe heavens by some unseen titan hand, Goldenrod City, and beyond that,\nbrilliant even at this distance, the great lighthouse of Olivine.\n            \"Johto...\" he murmured\nto himself as he cast a glance over his shoulder. \"...and Kanto.\"\n            A sprawling chryselephantine\nlight greeted him from an uncountable distance away - Saffron, the hub of\neastern half of the super-region, its pulse of diamondiferous fluorescence dwarfing\nthe lovely darkness of the floral lagoons in Cerulean, the green-blue riot of\nCeladon's department store, the crawling specks of the ships coming to the\nharbor at Vermillion, the bare glint of the radio tower in Lavender. It was both\nbreathtaking and, perhaps, a little frightening...humans had done so much,\naccomplished so much, both with and without Pokémon, but all these thousands of\nyears humanity had strutted about Mount Silver had loomed, disinterested and\nyet perpetual. \n            Up here, spanning two regions,\nthe conqueror of the Pokémon League, the new Champion, victor of Team Rocket,\nrestorer of peace, The Hero of Two Worlds\nProfessor Oak and Professor Elm had declared him, hands clasped, in front of\nthat cheering throng at Goldenrod Station - Ethan still felt very small. Even\nafter that - all of that, all of his adventures and misadventures that he never\nreally intended, everything he had learned and everything he had accomplished,\nhe was still, or so he felt, the gawky lad from New Bark Town with the funny\naccent that Whitney and Misty had both teased him for.\n            And up here, none of that\nmattered.\n            He sat on the frost-covered\nground, Typhlosion giving him a happy nuzzle. \"This is it boy, ain't it?\nThe last thing to do afore we go home.\"\n            \"Ty, Ty!'\n            Ethan chuckled, tickling\nTyphlosion under his chin. \"Well I guess yer right. Maybe there is other\nstuff to do somewhere--\"\n            But he was interrupted, and\nindeed startled, violently, to his feet, by the sound of a slow clap - he\njerked his head, trying to find the source of it, as his Typhlosion snarled in\nanticipation.\n            From a dim cloud of mist,\nsnow, and ice, emerged a shadow - a human-shaped shadow, in pants and a scarlet\njacket and a matching scarlet-and white cap. Ethan's eyes tried to focus as\nthis figure drew nearer, materializing, more and more, until...\n            His eyes widened in absolute, flooring\nshock, as he breathed the name, immortal from his childhood, mythologized to\nthe point where it was hard to believe he had ever been a person at all, but\nno, here he is, there was, of all people, of all the people that would be up\nhere, it was:\n            \"...Red.\"\n            Red - the boy-wonder, the\nlegend, who Ethan had spent hour upon hour pretending to be back home in New\nBark with Lyra - made one last clap, before smiling at him with what seemed\nlike a demure, quiet pride. He was rather older than the pictures Ethan had\nseen of him, but some years had passed, after all, and the boy-wonder was no\nlonger a boy but, probably, nearing out of his teenage years. His hair, a\nblackish-brown that seemed to have the texture of Murkrow feathers, spilled\nshaggy out of his famous cap, and fluttered, slightly, in the icy breeze.\n            \"Welcome to my\nmountain,\" said Red - his voice seemed oddly hollow, vaguely sinister, a\nquality of very quiet ineffable menace that would go almost undetected. \n            \"Tyyy...\" Typhlosion growled again, the flames on his back\nbristling afresh.\n            Ethan breathed out a \"Red\nit's - it's really - you're Red!\"\n            \"That's my name, Ethan -\nit's nice to finally meet you in person.\"\n            Ethan's sudden wonder was torn\ninto at the same of his own name. \"How - wait, how do you--?\"\n            \"To be honest with you\nI'm surprised it's taken you this long, but - I've been watching you, Ethan.\nThis whole time - from the day you left New Bark, til now - I've been watching\nyou.\"\n            \"Watch - watching me?\" Ethan repeated, numb\nfrom the revelation - everything was so abrupt, so sudden, he had bare seconds\nto process it all.\n            Red nodded, slowly.\n\"Watching you.\"\n            Ethan looked at Red in stark\nhorror, the pair of words ringing at him. \"How - how could you possibly--?\"\n            Red smiled - it was partly\nknowing, partly false, and something about it gave Ethan an eerie feeling he\ncould not place. He threw his arms as though to balance the whole of Johto to\nthe west and Kanto to the east. \n            \"All the things that\nArceus made!\" He dropped his arms to his sides. \"All the little\ncreatures, great and small, Bug and Rock and Fire and Water, they tell\nme...\" The smiled faded. \"Everything. Everything you did, every road\nyou took, and every badge you earned, the little Pidgey and the mighty Pidgeot,\nthey flew - up here - to tell me what you were doing.\"\n            The eerie feeling Ethan had\nsensed before grew into a fresh terror. \"I dun - I dun understand--\"\n            \"What's not to\nunderstand? I've been up here--\" Red lifted his hands, Kanto in one, Johto\nin the other. \"--watching you.\"\n            \"Ya - ya said that but\nwhy - would you - need to\nwatch...me?\"\n            Red did not answer, not at\nfirst - he took another step forward, casting a glance to, over the cliffs and\nthe snowy forests, what Ethan knew to be Kanto...perhaps, Ethan thought idly, he\nwas looking for where Pallet Town would be.\n            \"The plan,\" Red said\nquietly, so quiet that the words were almost lost to the sudden gust of frigid\nwind that came with it that made Typhlosion, still guarding Ethan beside him, shiver.\n\"The plan to--\" He tilted his head back, seeming to look for the Sun\nthat shone weakly through the masses of crawling clouds above them. \"Beat\nback - Team Rocket, and bring a new champion into the world at last.\"\n            Ethan's mouth fell agape.\n\"Wait - no - there's no way--\"\n            Red rolled his eyes, the\nemotionless face lit with a sudden annoyance. \"Ethan - Ethan...what a little\nhayseed you are. Did you not know? Did you really\nnot know?\"\n            \"Know - know what?\"\n            Red's annoyance turned to bemusement.\n\"See? That's what I needed. I needed - some hick, some little redneck from\nsome town that no one's ever heard of in their lives--\" He smiled - a\nhideous, slick, unkind smile. \"I - needed you.\"\n            Ethan took several long\nseconds to try and understand what Red - who he had never, not tomorrow, not\nyesterday, not ten years before or hence, ever once expected to meet, and certainly never expected to meet here - was telling him.\n            \"Ya - needed - someone -\nlike me? Who was from a - a small town? Like - New Bark? To beat Team Rocket -\nand be a new champion.\" Even as he said it, it made little sense to him,\nhe shook his head rapidly. \"Nah - nah, I still dun understand...\"\n            Red snickered - unkind, like\nhis smile. \"Let me try to explain it for your little redneck mind to\ncomprehend.\" He gestured to himself. \"I knew, more than anybody,\nthat, even with Giovanni gone, and his son, Silver--\"\n            \"What?!\" Ethan's\nmouth fell open again, and, self-conscious that he really was seeming like the\nisolated little country boy that he knew deep in his heart he still was, in\nfront of Red, Red of all people, shut it, trying, and\nfailing, to regain his composure.\n            Again Red snickered, even\nunkinder than before. \"Oh ho, oh yes,\nEthan - Silver is Giovanni's son. Why do you think he worked against\nTeam Rocket so hard? Why do you think he hated them so much?\"\n            \"I--\" Ethan shook his\nhead again. \"I jest--\"\n            \"Doesn't matter,\"\nRed interrupted. \"Doesn't matter. Just - understand. Even with him gone,\nand even with Silver totally uninterested\nin running the family business...I knew it would come back. I knew - I knew that they would come back. And it wouldn't be\nin Kanto...it'd be in Johto.\"\n            \"Well - yeah, that's what\nhappened...\"\n            \"I know. I was right -\nwhich was lucky, I guess. And it was lucky, too, that - you - began your\njourney...\" His eyes trailed to Typhlosion, who let out a low, shuddering\nsnarl of discomfort. \"...with him.\"\n            \"Lucky?\"\n            Red's eyes snapped back to\nEthan. \"Very lucky. Because you\nwere good - better than good.\"\n            Ethan opened his mouth to respond,\nbut, once more, closed it. \"...nah,\" he finally muttered. \"Nah - I\n- jest - I'm only as good as my team--\"\n\n            \"Sure, if you wanna say\nthat,\" Red went on. \"But getting back to it - someone like you -\nsomeone who nobody had ever heard of, from some place nobody had ever heard of, could defeat Team Rocket for me - because--\" He smiled - an\nobvious sense of cruel satisfaction. \"Had I gone after them, had it been me\n- they would have fled. And the cycle would continue.\"\n            A dawn of realization flashed\nupon Ethan as he realized the gravity of Red's words. \"So...you...had me do it\ninstead...\"\n            \"And you well surpassed my expectations.\"\n            The same epiphany that had\ncome to Ethan at once, with Red's self-satisfied smile, went dark - he\nrealized, in that moment, the cold, thin, pure air of Mount Silver around them,\nthat this boy, this teenager, this hero of his that he had looked up to and\neven idolized was, in fact, a monster - a selfish son of a bitch who had\ndeceived the world, certain that the terrible ends would justify the means.\n            \"What - Red - Red - what?\"\n            Red's face gave nothing away -\nand so Ethan pressed.\n            \"Ya were - growing up I\njest - that's all I heard about! Ya were the one who defeated Team Rocket afore\n- why - why would ya wait? For someone - for me? If ya had done it yerself--\" He struggled with his words,\nhe struggled with his worldview. \"How could\nya? People died afore - I could help em...if ya had just...\" He shook his\nhead, again, harder than before. \"Where's the justice in that--?\"\n            \"Justice?\" Red's\neyebrow flicked, and for a moment the lifelessness behind his eyes were\nreplaced by a sudden fire - a pain that did not have a name. \"Justice for\nwho? For Kanto? Johto? For the people\nliving there?\"\n            Ethan shake his head,\nrealizing this argument he was failing at a debate he didn't even want to have.\n\"N-nah, not jest K-Kanto--\"\n            \"I saw a Rocket grunt\nbeat a Marowak to death.\" Red's\nvoice was cold - monstrously cold, colder than the air around them, the frost\nbelow them. \"Before I could - before I could do anything, I heard her\nscream, and scream, and scream, and I\nsaw her little Cubone try to caress her mangled corpse so that--\" He stopped, shutting his eyes, taking a\nbreath as Ethan held his, seeing the first real emotion Red had shown this\nentire time. \"S-so that Mr. Fuji had to spend a full hour - bathing the\nblood off her--\" \n            His eyes flew open - gone was\nthe sadness, replaced wholly with a rage, a rage that could have only come from\nhatred in its purest form, the kind of hatred that warms the human heart when\nit should have frozen, the kind of hatred that could be used for food, water,\nshelter, and friendship in the absence of all of those. Not once, not even Silver's\nbrutal, cruel eyes, had he seen such uniform malevolence, such throbbing, primal\nrage against humanity and the universe.     \n            \"Tell me, you little\nhayseed - tell me, where - where was the justice for her? And that little Cubone? For all the Pokémon that Team Rocket\nmurdered in the name of money?!\"\n\n            Ethan was gobsmacked, nearly cowering\nbeside Typhlosion who let out a long warning growl. \"I - I--\"\n            But he stopped, as he watched\nthe emotion drain from Red's eyes once again, and a smirk - at once cruel,\nmalicious, and bitter - spread across his face. \"But - but. Do you know -\nyou remember, don't you - the Rocket grunt that was blasted by Lance's\nDragonite? Do you know what he used to be?\"\n            Ethan shuddered, shaking his\nhead. \"N-no--\"\n            \"He was the lead\nlieutenant of the sector that oversaw the operations in Lavender - so in other\nwords--\" He snickered, and Ethan steeled himself against shuddering again\nat the memory. \"He was the one\nwho killed the Marowak. Now that--\"\nHe lifted a hand, as those he stood in a godlike reign over the world.\n\"--is justice.\" The snicker became louder. \"Tell me - I haven't\nchecked recently, did they finally take him off life support?\"\n            \"He--\" Ethan suppressed\na very mild dry heave. \"Yes. There was nothing they could do for him, he\nwas at Goldenrod Medical--\"\n            \"Good,\" Red cut him\noff. \"Good. Although I have to say I'm impressed, the human body shouldn't\nhave withstood that much of a direct\nhit from a Hyper Beam. I'm sure they're studying his body right now, for\nscience - just like how Team Rocket used to experiment on Pokémon...\" A\nfinal snicker, darker than the others: \"That - that is justice.\"\n            Ethan shook his head\nvigorously, trying to remove the dreadful images out of his head. \"If this\n- if this be yer mountain then there ain't no use me being up here.\" He\ncoughed, a single, nervous blast of air that come out like a puff of smoke in\nvapor. \"C'mon Typhlosion, let's--\"\n            \"Where do\nyou think you're going, Ethan?\"            And then, at once, all expression left his face, and his\nhand came to his belt, where he grasped a single Poké Ball - a dread, rising,\nclenching, gripped Ethan's very heart as he realized what the other trainer\nmeant.            \"I can't let you leave. You've heard much - much too much.\"            \"Phlosion!\"\nTyphlosion bared his fangs, the flames shimmering up from his fur - Red\nsnickered at the display.            \"Little boy wants to fight? Fine - so it was in the beginning,\nso it shall be in the end.\"            \"Red - stop!\" Ethan pleaded with him. \"You\nwere the - the hero that everyone loved! Me, I - I looked up to ya!  You saved Kanto, why - why, why did any of\nthis - all of this - why did it have to happen this way? Ya can't - ya can't give up on humans, ya - ya are human! We can - we can change\nthings, we can make things better!\" He sighed, nearly out of breath.\n\"Can't - can't we?\"            And again Red's face became expressionless - he never got\nan answer, and perhaps he should have never expected one.            A click of his Poké Ball, and in a blinding flash of golden\nlight, the radiance of Goldenrod, the beacon of Saffron, the light, the\nhorrible light, that immortal aureate brilliance of Johto and Kanto - came his\nPikachu, what Ethan had heard tell of as a kid, the Pikachu that singlehandedly\nbrought down Rocket and elevated this boy-wonder to meteoric fame and plunging\npsychosis, that joined him in this inscrutable exile and, like him, bore the\nsame cold emptiness behind his eyes.             Even Typhlosion must have recognized the greatness, and the\ndanger, before him - the flames rose just an inch higher, his back legs kicking\nout further in the same defensive stance that prefaced all his victories, this\nlong journey together with Ethan, what had led him, perhaps fatally, here.            \"Ty! Ty!\"            \"Pika--\"            The Pikachu climbed to Red's shoulder, its jagged tail\nbristling - Ethan felt his heart pound so violently he was sure it was going to\nburst out of his chest.            \"Red - Red don't do this--\"            \"Tell me, Ethan - tell me...\" He took a step\nforward - Ethan retreated a step back as Typhlosion moved forward in front of\nhim. \"Were you scared? When you\nbattled Team Rocket, as I did, and when you saw Ho-Oh rise in front of you and\nventured down to the abyss to summon Lugia?\" He raised an eyebrow.\n\"So much for a boy your age -\nand yet - were you ever scared? Even once?\"            Ethan swallowed, squaring his jaw, lowering his head as he\nsteadied himself for what was to come next, willing the courage that had driven\nhim, after all, here, on a collision course. \"No,\" he said, a firm\nfinality. \"Nah - nah. Never.\"            \"Pity,\" Red answered with a sneer - his Pikachu\ndove to the ground and met Typhlosion's challenge, his little body crackling\nwith gathering electricity. \"Because now - now--\" He threw out his arms, his jacket fluttering in a sudden\nblast of cold wind. \"I will show you true\nterror!\""}