shhhh, the big kids are talking

[Crimsen]

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NINE YEARS AGO
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It all started with a snooze button.

The alarm on his watch went off and Tokomaru Sen had only this week mastered pressing the snooze button with his eyes closed.

When it went off the next time, it was accompanied by the sound of the last ferry leaving Cinnabar Island for the day. Speeding through his awakening routine he emerged outside his home and raced down to the port. The ferry's horn was still screaming through the air maybe there was still time to board before it departed.

The young trainer arrived too little too late. It was as if they had just waited for him to arrive in order to leave themselves. "Oh come on!" His still maturing voice cried out at the sea, and the ferry, and the sky, and anyone else who could hear him.

Disappointed but undeterred and afraid to let himself lose his shit on his 'vacation', Sen dumped the contents of his pokeballs before him searching for anyway possible to salvage his missed ride to Tohjo Falls.

He'd only been a trainer for few months now but a growing motif he'd adopted was that if you had the right pokemon for the right task, you could be unstoppable. As for the pokemon he had right now and the problem he had right now he looked over each of them for a potential solution.

"Could I ride Rasen without crushing him?
Could he even sustain my weight?"
"No... just... no."

"I... I don't even..."

For the second time in his young young life, Tokomaru Sen... said a swear. "Dammit!"

[Crimsen]

Watching his magikarp flop and flail about the ground in a way that broke something in the boy. He'd spend weeks training the thing, sparring with the other pokemon (being a punching bag), battles with trainers (which he immediately be swapped out for) and even battles with wild pokemon (which he would be immediately swapped out for, after being a punching bag); none of it had done anything more than enable the unnamed fish to take a bigger beating.

The sixteen-year old liked to have thought it was all going some where but he needed it to get where ever it was going, today; now. He wasn't sure what the fish would evolve into if anything but he'd paid like ₱1000 for that magikarp egg. It had been his first gamble. The man seemed shifty as hell but everything he said made perfect sense. Sen knew he the guy might be playing him but he couldn't figure out how. So, he rolled the dice and bought the egg, going for broke to attain it.

There was no way he was wasn't going to train the damn thing when it hatched.

[Crimsen]

When his silent prayer for forced evolution didn't come to pass the trainer gambler calmly palmed the magikarp by its face and spiked it off the deck and into the water like a scaled football of failure. "You suck and that's why you don't have a name!" He could practically feel the squiggle lines of agitation radiating from his body on the visible spectrum. Returning his charmander to its pokeball the rookie trainer's shoulders slumped as he watched the ship go farther and farther. With the pidgeotto's pokeball aimed to reclaim him as well Sen had a stroke of genius when he saw his magikarp surface from the previous spike.

A grin of deviance spread across his face. "F this."

With a new found drive to not let anything stand in the way of the progression of himself of his pokemon the just-barely-a-teenager charged off the dock. Grabbing at the piedgeotto's talons as it tried to evade him. On instinct Rasen began to flip his wings and only pecked at his trainer's hands once. A gesture that made them even for the abrupt grabbing sen did.

With Rasen's flapping his body didn't fall immediately into water and instead proved light enough for him to plant his feet firmly upon the back of his magikarp, who seemed annoyed but ready to shine in perhaps its first chance to be useful. Tokomaru Sen had never seen a fish so determined.

It wouldn't be winning any fights soon from its amazing power to have this coast on it but he did appreciate the effort the little guy put in. "You keep impressing me like this and I might just give you a Japanese name!" He smiled at his small victory, it seemed he had the right pokemon for the job after all.

[Crimsen]

Shifting his focus to his partner uptop the boy yelled loud enough for his voice to carry past the sonics of Rasen's wings beating against the open air. "RASEN, stay low! I need to keep the fish under my feet! But like! ...catch that boat, yeah!?" Sen was still building trust with his partners and Rasen was definitely his most rebellious soldier but they had been making amazing strides since his evolution and if his only orders were "fly faster, but not too high", the pidgeotto would skillfully oblige.

They caught up with the ferry quite easily although the security didn't look happy with him. In fact they all had their hands on their waists until they saw he was a kid. Strangely enough he felt the most eerie since of foreshadowing watch them reach for their weapons. He made a mental note to stay out of trouble in Johto and once he showed his ferry ticket and passport to the captain and security head the two of them told him the same thing and the latter escorted him to his seat.

Coming aboard he'd given the two pokemon orders, Rasen was to stretch his wings, have some "free time" for a job well done and to return to the ferry when he was ready. The magikarp had to follow the ferry until it docked at Tohjo Falls. His only parting words were "Tough break.." and a ham-faced "I BELIEVE IN YOU!" In truth he would go back to get the guy in twenty minutes or so but he was sure the fish could have followed them the whole trip, swimming was the only thing it did competently.

Funny thing, in all the excitment the boy only remembered sitting down and blinking. When he opened his eyes they had already arrived at the border and his magikarp was no where to be found.

gold (Intro post, 9 years ago, tohjo falls; go)