# Pokémon: The Attack On Mount Silver

Author: Aux Chiens
Tags: Action, Clean, Drama, Ethan, Fanfiction, Mount Silver, No-Yiff, Pikachu, Typhlosion, pokemon, red

            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 -
Mount Silver, holy mountain, the resting place of the gods of Kanto and Johto,
where Hoenn and Sinnoh and Unova and Kalos looked to for guidance, the genesis
and the exodus, complete and immaculate. It is, it was, it shall be - what more
could be said of it that the poets of the elder ages, when Ho-Oh streaked its
rainbow across the sky, had not already sang?
            Ethan took a deep breath, his
Typhlosion taking a well-deserved rest at his feet - the air up here was thin,
but refreshing, a purity that he had found nowhere else in his travels - and
looked about him.
            To the west, across the thick
forests around the perfect cornflower-mirror of the Lake of Rage, rose, lofty,
the Bell Tower, its curved roof elegantly tasteful in the architectural idiom
of Johto, as elegant as a Kimono Girl and just as timeless, torches lit on each
of the four corners glowing faintly, beacons in the oncoming night. Beyond that
shimmered, joyous and free, as though it was a great jewel that been flung from
the heavens by some unseen titan hand, Goldenrod City, and beyond that,
brilliant even at this distance, the great lighthouse of Olivine.
            "Johto..." he murmured
to himself as he cast a glance over his shoulder. "...and Kanto."
            A sprawling chryselephantine
light greeted him from an uncountable distance away - Saffron, the hub of
eastern half of the super-region, its pulse of diamondiferous fluorescence dwarfing
the lovely darkness of the floral lagoons in Cerulean, the green-blue riot of
Celadon's department store, the crawling specks of the ships coming to the
harbor at Vermillion, the bare glint of the radio tower in Lavender. It was both
breathtaking and, perhaps, a little frightening...humans had done so much,
accomplished so much, both with and without Pokémon, but all these thousands of
years humanity had strutted about Mount Silver had loomed, disinterested and
yet perpetual. 
            Up here, spanning two regions,
the conqueror of the Pokémon League, the new Champion, victor of Team Rocket,
restorer of peace, The Hero of Two Worlds
Professor Oak and Professor Elm had declared him, hands clasped, in front of
that cheering throng at Goldenrod Station - Ethan still felt very small. Even
after that - all of that, all of his adventures and misadventures that he never
really intended, everything he had learned and everything he had accomplished,
he was still, or so he felt, the gawky lad from New Bark Town with the funny
accent that Whitney and Misty had both teased him for.
            And up here, none of that
mattered.
            He sat on the frost-covered
ground, Typhlosion giving him a happy nuzzle. "This is it boy, ain't it?
The last thing to do afore we go home."
            "Ty, Ty!'
            Ethan chuckled, tickling
Typhlosion under his chin. "Well I guess yer right. Maybe there is other
stuff to do somewhere--"
            But he was interrupted, and
indeed startled, violently, to his feet, by the sound of a slow clap - he
jerked his head, trying to find the source of it, as his Typhlosion snarled in
anticipation.
            From a dim cloud of mist,
snow, and ice, emerged a shadow - a human-shaped shadow, in pants and a scarlet
jacket and a matching scarlet-and white cap. Ethan's eyes tried to focus as
this figure drew nearer, materializing, more and more, until...
            His eyes widened in absolute, flooring
shock, as he breathed the name, immortal from his childhood, mythologized to
the point where it was hard to believe he had ever been a person at all, but
no, here he is, there was, of all people, of all the people that would be up
here, it was:
            "...Red."
            Red - the boy-wonder, the
legend, who Ethan had spent hour upon hour pretending to be back home in New
Bark with Lyra - made one last clap, before smiling at him with what seemed
like a demure, quiet pride. He was rather older than the pictures Ethan had
seen of him, but some years had passed, after all, and the boy-wonder was no
longer a boy but, probably, nearing out of his teenage years. His hair, a
blackish-brown that seemed to have the texture of Murkrow feathers, spilled
shaggy out of his famous cap, and fluttered, slightly, in the icy breeze.
            "Welcome to my
mountain," said Red - his voice seemed oddly hollow, vaguely sinister, a
quality of very quiet ineffable menace that would go almost undetected. 
            "Tyyy..." Typhlosion growled again, the flames on his back
bristling afresh.
            Ethan breathed out a "Red
it's - it's really - you're Red!"
            "That's my name, Ethan -
it's nice to finally meet you in person."
            Ethan's sudden wonder was torn
into at the same of his own name. "How - wait, how do you--?"
            "To be honest with you
I'm surprised it's taken you this long, but - I've been watching you, Ethan.
This whole time - from the day you left New Bark, til now - I've been watching
you."
            "Watch - watching me?" Ethan repeated, numb
from the revelation - everything was so abrupt, so sudden, he had bare seconds
to process it all.
            Red nodded, slowly.
"Watching you."
            Ethan looked at Red in stark
horror, the pair of words ringing at him. "How - how could you possibly--?"
            Red smiled - it was partly
knowing, partly false, and something about it gave Ethan an eerie feeling he
could not place. He threw his arms as though to balance the whole of Johto to
the west and Kanto to the east. 
            "All the things that
Arceus made!" He dropped his arms to his sides. "All the little
creatures, great and small, Bug and Rock and Fire and Water, they tell
me..." The smiled faded. "Everything. Everything you did, every road
you took, and every badge you earned, the little Pidgey and the mighty Pidgeot,
they flew - up here - to tell me what you were doing."
            The eerie feeling Ethan had
sensed before grew into a fresh terror. "I dun - I dun understand--"
            "What's not to
understand? I've been up here--" Red lifted his hands, Kanto in one, Johto
in the other. "--watching you."
            "Ya - ya said that but
why - would you - need to
watch...me?"
            Red did not answer, not at
first - he took another step forward, casting a glance to, over the cliffs and
the snowy forests, what Ethan knew to be Kanto...perhaps, Ethan thought idly, he
was looking for where Pallet Town would be.
            "The plan," Red said
quietly, so quiet that the words were almost lost to the sudden gust of frigid
wind that came with it that made Typhlosion, still guarding Ethan beside him, shiver.
"The plan to--" He tilted his head back, seeming to look for the Sun
that shone weakly through the masses of crawling clouds above them. "Beat
back - Team Rocket, and bring a new champion into the world at last."
            Ethan's mouth fell agape.
"Wait - no - there's no way--"
            Red rolled his eyes, the
emotionless face lit with a sudden annoyance. "Ethan - Ethan...what a little
hayseed you are. Did you not know? Did you really
not know?"
            "Know - know what?"
            Red's annoyance turned to bemusement.
"See? That's what I needed. I needed - some hick, some little redneck from
some town that no one's ever heard of in their lives--" He smiled - a
hideous, slick, unkind smile. "I - needed you."
            Ethan took several long
seconds to try and understand what Red - who he had never, not tomorrow, not
yesterday, not ten years before or hence, ever once expected to meet, and certainly never expected to meet here - was telling him.
            "Ya - needed - someone -
like me? Who was from a - a small town? Like - New Bark? To beat Team Rocket -
and be a new champion." Even as he said it, it made little sense to him,
he shook his head rapidly. "Nah - nah, I still dun understand..."
            Red snickered - unkind, like
his smile. "Let me try to explain it for your little redneck mind to
comprehend." He gestured to himself. "I knew, more than anybody,
that, even with Giovanni gone, and his son, Silver--"
            "What?!" Ethan's
mouth fell open again, and, self-conscious that he really was seeming like the
isolated little country boy that he knew deep in his heart he still was, in
front of Red, Red of all people, shut it, trying, and
failing, to regain his composure.
            Again Red snickered, even
unkinder than before. "Oh ho, oh yes,
Ethan - Silver is Giovanni's son. Why do you think he worked against
Team Rocket so hard? Why do you think he hated them so much?"
            "I--" Ethan shook his
head again. "I jest--"
            "Doesn't matter,"
Red interrupted. "Doesn't matter. Just - understand. Even with him gone,
and even with Silver totally uninterested
in running the family business...I knew it would come back. I knew - I knew that they would come back. And it wouldn't be
in Kanto...it'd be in Johto."
            "Well - yeah, that's what
happened..."
            "I know. I was right -
which was lucky, I guess. And it was lucky, too, that - you - began your
journey..." His eyes trailed to Typhlosion, who let out a low, shuddering
snarl of discomfort. "...with him."
            "Lucky?"
            Red's eyes snapped back to
Ethan. "Very lucky. Because you
were good - better than good."
            Ethan opened his mouth to respond,
but, once more, closed it. "...nah," he finally muttered. "Nah - I
- jest - I'm only as good as my team--"

            "Sure, if you wanna say
that," Red went on. "But getting back to it - someone like you -
someone who nobody had ever heard of, from some place nobody had ever heard of, could defeat Team Rocket for me - because--" He smiled - an
obvious sense of cruel satisfaction. "Had I gone after them, had it been me
- they would have fled. And the cycle would continue."
            A dawn of realization flashed
upon Ethan as he realized the gravity of Red's words. "So...you...had me do it
instead..."
            "And you well surpassed my expectations."
            The same epiphany that had
come to Ethan at once, with Red's self-satisfied smile, went dark - he
realized, in that moment, the cold, thin, pure air of Mount Silver around them,
that this boy, this teenager, this hero of his that he had looked up to and
even idolized was, in fact, a monster - a selfish son of a bitch who had
deceived the world, certain that the terrible ends would justify the means.
            "What - Red - Red - what?"
            Red's face gave nothing away -
and so Ethan pressed.
            "Ya were - growing up I
jest - that's all I heard about! Ya were the one who defeated Team Rocket afore
- why - why would ya wait? For someone - for me? If ya had done it yerself--" He struggled with his words,
he struggled with his worldview. "How could
ya? People died afore - I could help em...if ya had just..." He shook his
head, again, harder than before. "Where's the justice in that--?"
            "Justice?" Red's
eyebrow flicked, and for a moment the lifelessness behind his eyes were
replaced by a sudden fire - a pain that did not have a name. "Justice for
who? For Kanto? Johto? For the people
living there?"
            Ethan shake his head,
realizing this argument he was failing at a debate he didn't even want to have.
"N-nah, not jest K-Kanto--"
            "I saw a Rocket grunt
beat a Marowak to death." Red's
voice was cold - monstrously cold, colder than the air around them, the frost
below them. "Before I could - before I could do anything, I heard her
scream, and scream, and scream, and I
saw her little Cubone try to caress her mangled corpse so that--" He stopped, shutting his eyes, taking a
breath as Ethan held his, seeing the first real emotion Red had shown this
entire time. "S-so that Mr. Fuji had to spend a full hour - bathing the
blood off her--" 
            His eyes flew open - gone was
the sadness, replaced wholly with a rage, a rage that could have only come from
hatred in its purest form, the kind of hatred that warms the human heart when
it should have frozen, the kind of hatred that could be used for food, water,
shelter, and friendship in the absence of all of those. Not once, not even Silver's
brutal, cruel eyes, had he seen such uniform malevolence, such throbbing, primal
rage against humanity and the universe.     
            "Tell me, you little
hayseed - tell me, where - where was the justice for her? And that little Cubone? For all the Pokémon that Team Rocket
murdered in the name of money?!"

            Ethan was gobsmacked, nearly cowering
beside Typhlosion who let out a long warning growl. "I - I--"
            But he stopped, as he watched
the emotion drain from Red's eyes once again, and a smirk - at once cruel,
malicious, and bitter - spread across his face. "But - but. Do you know -
you remember, don't you - the Rocket grunt that was blasted by Lance's
Dragonite? Do you know what he used to be?"
            Ethan shuddered, shaking his
head. "N-no--"
            "He was the lead
lieutenant of the sector that oversaw the operations in Lavender - so in other
words--" He snickered, and Ethan steeled himself against shuddering again
at the memory. "He was the one
who killed the Marowak. Now that--"
He lifted a hand, as those he stood in a godlike reign over the world.
"--is justice." The snicker became louder. "Tell me - I haven't
checked recently, did they finally take him off life support?"
            "He--" Ethan suppressed
a very mild dry heave. "Yes. There was nothing they could do for him, he
was at Goldenrod Medical--"
            "Good," Red cut him
off. "Good. Although I have to say I'm impressed, the human body shouldn't
have withstood that much of a direct
hit from a Hyper Beam. I'm sure they're studying his body right now, for
science - just like how Team Rocket used to experiment on Pokémon..." A
final snicker, darker than the others: "That - that is justice."
            Ethan shook his head
vigorously, trying to remove the dreadful images out of his head. "If this
- if this be yer mountain then there ain't no use me being up here." He
coughed, a single, nervous blast of air that come out like a puff of smoke in
vapor. "C'mon Typhlosion, let's--"
            "Where do
you think you're going, Ethan?"            And then, at once, all expression left his face, and his
hand came to his belt, where he grasped a single Poké Ball - a dread, rising,
clenching, gripped Ethan's very heart as he realized what the other trainer
meant.            "I can't let you leave. You've heard much - much too much."            "Phlosion!"
Typhlosion bared his fangs, the flames shimmering up from his fur - Red
snickered at the display.            "Little boy wants to fight? Fine - so it was in the beginning,
so it shall be in the end."            "Red - stop!" Ethan pleaded with him. "You
were the - the hero that everyone loved! Me, I - I looked up to ya!  You saved Kanto, why - why, why did any of
this - 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
things, we can make things better!" He sighed, nearly out of breath.
"Can't - can't we?"            And again Red's face became expressionless - he never got
an answer, and perhaps he should have never expected one.            A click of his Poké Ball, and in a blinding flash of golden
light, the radiance of Goldenrod, the beacon of Saffron, the light, the
horrible light, that immortal aureate brilliance of Johto and Kanto - came his
Pikachu, what Ethan had heard tell of as a kid, the Pikachu that singlehandedly
brought down Rocket and elevated this boy-wonder to meteoric fame and plunging
psychosis, that joined him in this inscrutable exile and, like him, bore the
same cold emptiness behind his eyes.             Even Typhlosion must have recognized the greatness, and the
danger, before him - the flames rose just an inch higher, his back legs kicking
out further in the same defensive stance that prefaced all his victories, this
long journey together with Ethan, what had led him, perhaps fatally, here.            "Ty! Ty!"            "Pika--"            The Pikachu climbed to Red's shoulder, its jagged tail
bristling - Ethan felt his heart pound so violently he was sure it was going to
burst out of his chest.            "Red - Red don't do this--"            "Tell me, Ethan - tell me..." He took a step
forward - Ethan retreated a step back as Typhlosion moved forward in front of
him. "Were you scared? When you
battled Team Rocket, as I did, and when you saw Ho-Oh rise in front of you and
ventured down to the abyss to summon Lugia?" He raised an eyebrow.
"So much for a boy your age -
and yet - were you ever scared? Even once?"            Ethan swallowed, squaring his jaw, lowering his head as he
steadied himself for what was to come next, willing the courage that had driven
him, after all, here, on a collision course. "No," he said, a firm
finality. "Nah - nah. Never."            "Pity," Red answered with a sneer - his Pikachu
dove to the ground and met Typhlosion's challenge, his little body crackling
with gathering electricity. "Because now - now--" He threw out his arms, his jacket fluttering in a sudden
blast of cold wind. "I will show you true
terror!"

Source: https://sofurry.com/view/801147