-A Heart of Gold-
Note: This has nothing todo with Glitchipedia's Heart of Gold: The Kris/Soul Story.
Author's Note: This idea came to my head when I fished out one of my old attempts at Fanfiction; a badly written Prologue for a fic. I opened it up and was surprised to find that I thought the idea was okay so I've rewritten the chapter to see what you guys think! Anyway this fic is, as usual, a cannon one. It is based roughly on the events of Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver and focuses on the character Ethan and what he gets up to on his travels. Now, that is a very rough plot. A big part of the story will be from my imagination and changes will be quite obvious, some small and some larger. To summarise it, it is based on the game but quite loosely. You will understand it if you read it. Oh and one more thing, the prologue is very short, but I didn't want to add it to the first chapter so I'm throwing it up there on its own. Enjoy!
Red looked at the man sleeping on the sofa for a moment.
He wasn’t a stranger; far from it. In fact, Red had known this man for most of his life. But something about seeing the man so exhausted to the extent that he had fallen asleep unintentionaly worried Red. The man was getting old, something that the fourteen year old was intelligent enough to understand. People lived, they got old and they died. It was called a cycle, and Red didn’t like to think that this man was now entering the end of it.
‘Professor,’ he said quietly, giving the man a gentle shove. The professor continued to snore quietly, oblivious to the teenager.
‘Professor, Oak!’
‘Hm? Wha...?’ Professor Oak shot up off the sofa like a rocket, before groaning and rubbing his back vigorously.
Red sighed. The man was looking at him, weary eyed and tired, like he had been sleeping for a long time.
‘Red, is that you?’
He nodded.
‘Oh,’ the Professor mumbled, confused, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening. ‘You woke me up?’
‘Yes, you told me to come over. Remember?’
‘Ah... yes I did, didn’t I? Uh, what time it, again?’
Instinctively, Red turned to the clock on the right wall. In three years, the clock still hadn’t moved from the same location. Actually, the more Red thought about it, he realised that not much had changed in the lab at all. From the time he had entered at the building for the first time, at the tender age of eleven, to now- very little had differed. It was like a game of spot the difference.
There were the several bookcases, all neatly filled with different books and volumes, now gathering dust. There was the large table where he had received his first ever Pokémon. The large green mystery machine was also there, and still Red did not know its purpose or when the Professor had received it in the first place. Finally there was the sofa, red and battered. Red didn’t know why the professor even had the old thing anymore; he could easily afford a new one. But for some reason he didn’t and the sofa remained as a signature part of furniture in the lab.
‘It’s ten ‘o’ clock, Professor. Pm.’
The old man looked gob-smacked. ‘Yikes,’ he gasped loudly. ‘I must have dozed off- no wonder it’s so dark!’
He yawned loudly, before walking slowly towards the table in the middle of the room, his white lab coat trailing behind him.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Red, really I am. I’ve just been so tired recently! Anyway, I asked you to come here so I could tell you I’m going way for a little while.’
Red patiently nodded.
‘I’m going back to the Johto region! It’s been requested that I continue my radio show there, in Goldenrod city! How exciting! I must say that I adore the Johto region; so quiet and peaceful. You should know; you have been there.’
‘Yes,’ Red confirmed, pleased that the professor was back to his old self. The old man was fiddling with a modern coffee machine, one of the newer items for the lab.
‘Anyway, I’m going to be visiting an old and close friend, Mr. Pokémon! Have you heard of him?’
Red nodded. ‘Yes, I read his autobiography once, he’s a collector, isn’t he?’
‘In a sense, yes.’ He gestured to the coffee machine. ‘Coffee?’
Red shook his head.
‘Well Mr. Pokémon would be absolutely delighted if he was to meet you in person! So I said I would ask you to come with me. Plus, you would also get to see the sights of Johto. Again,’ he added. ‘What do you say?’
Red bit his lip. He had received the message to visit the professor the day before; while he was doing his usual training on the peaks of Mt. Silver. On one hand he wanted to get back to training as soon as possible, but he also didn’t want to disappoint the man he respected so much.
‘Okay,’ Red said at last. Maybe the change of scenery would be good for him. What could go wrong?
‘Excellent, Red,’ Oak said happily, sipping at his mug. ‘Connor will be so pleased! I was thinking we could catch the magnet train, but apparently it is out of service at the moment.’
Red nodded again. He had heard about that too.
‘So It seems we will have to board the S.S. Aqua at Vermilion City; a very efficient form of transport!’
‘When are we going, Professor,’ Red asked, and despite himself he found that he was getting excited about the trip.
‘In two days,’ Oak answered happily. ‘So you have plenty of days to pack for the trip. It won’t be for very long. About two weeks, maybe a little more. You will get to use the benefits of the Pokémon centres, of course.’
Red decided it would be good to get back on the road again. Hell, he might even be able to squeeze in some training on the way. He had enjoyed his trip to the johto region two years ago so he didn’t see what could go wrong. ‘Sure,’ he said, smiling at the old man.’
‘It’s sorted, then! Thank you Red; you really are doing me a favour here.’
Red just grinned in reply
So Red was going back to johto once more and his Pokémon journey was continuing, but what he didn’t know was that far away, in a place Named New Bark town three people were about to begin theirs.
Chapter End
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