Red followed Phoenix down an offbeat mountain path, looking around nervously.

“This is pretty out of the way,” he said.

“Well I can’t just leave this thing out in the open,” the older girl responds, rounding a corner. Red took a deep breath, then immediately coughed as dust filled his lungs. He marched onwards, but after turning the corner, he stopped in surprise. A large, flat area spread out in front of him, and right in the center laid an RV.

“Here it is!” Phoenix gestured behind her at the vehicle.

“It… uh… looks nice, I guess?” Red wasn’t even sure why he had followed her here- he thought she had wanted to battle him, but instead she led him around a long, winding road for two hours.

“Come on in!” Phoenix yelled, opening the door of the RV, and stepping inside. He paused, uncertain, but curiosity got the better of him, and he walked towards it.

The first thing he noticed when he stepped inside was the abundance of lab equipment. There were countless bags of odd materials, beakers, test tubes, and pots with glass domes and pipes on top of them. He was confused for a moment, then he realized- Phoenix made bombs. Of course she would need equipment like this. But, if that was the case, then…

“Uh… None of this is going to blow up right?”

“What? No. Thought I told you, I’ve been doing this for years.”

That didn’t calm him down much, given how she also seemed to take pleasure in frightening people. “Why did you take me here, again?” he asked.

Phoenix walked over to a metal tray, examining whatever was inside, then turned back towards him. “I need you to test a new product,” she told him, showing him a sheet of translucent blue shards that rested on the tray. He looked at it for a while, trying to figure out what they were, but he didn’t recognize them at all.

“Uh… what are they?”

“XP candies. My own recipe. They give pokémon a massive power increase.”

Red looked at the candies incredulously. “Like Rare Candies?” he asked.

“Sort of,” Phoenix answered, looking to the side. “Try it.”

The young trainer wasn’t sure whether or not to trust her, but he tentatively lifted a piece to his mouth. “Stop, stop!” Phoenix yelled, panicked. “It’s not for you, it’s for your pokémon.”

“Oh, right,” he mumbled, taking out his pokéball and releasing Bulbasaur. He held out the candy to the seed pokémon, who gobbled it up in short measure. It didn’t take long for the effects to show; Bulbasaur was soon prancing around cheerfully, croaking. Something about it seemed off, however. Red couldn’t quite put his finger on what.

‘Is it really stronger?’ he mused. ‘It doesn’t look any more powerful.’

“Do you have anything to practice with?”

“Hmm? Yeah, I have this.” Phoenix pulled out a small punching bag, and handed it to Red, who walked outside of the RV and put it on the ground. He motioned for Bulbasaur to attack it, which it did with gusto. It ran headfirst into the bag, and it ripped apart, pieces of fabric falling to the ground.

“Wow, it really does work!” he said, surprised.

“Yeah,” Phoenix called from inside the vehicle. “But it’s only temporary.”

Red then noticed smoke coming out from the top of the RV. “Why’s there smoke?” he asked. Phoenix looked behind at the plume of dark clouds, and appeared surprisingly unfazed.

She glanced to the side. “Oh, just… running some tests.” she said, walking back inside. Red followed suit, but she stopped him from entering the back room. “I have to take a call,” she explained, walking over to a phone, and lifting the handset to her ear.

“What is it, Saul?”

“Phoenix! It’s good to talk to you. See, I wanted to talk about the-”

“Hang on, I left the phone on speaker.”

Phoenix pressed a button, then continued talking through the phone. Red stopped listening, and passed the time by examining the vehicle. He had never actually been in an RV before- Professor Oak had offered to take him and some other kids in one on a camping trip one summer, but there hadn’t been enough room for everyone to come along, so he reluctantly stayed behind.

Red noticed Phoenix’s eyes widen, and he tuned back in on the conversation. “Uhh, sure. I’ll get right on that,” she said, looking rather panicked. She hung up, then quickly moved towards Red, grabbing a handful of XP candies and dropping them into a ziploc bag.

“Take this and go. I’ve got stuff to do,” she said, tossing him the bag and shooing him away. He looked at her, confused, but he got the sense that staying any longer would be a bad idea. It seemed like there was even more to Phoenix than what met the eye, and he didn’t want to stick around and get sucked into whatever trouble she was part of. He hurriedly exited the RV, and looked at Bulbasaur, who was sitting outside- it was staring off into the distance, numb to the world.

Red recalled Bulbasaur, and walked back down the mountain path. He would need to travel fast if he wanted to get to the Route 3 Pokécenter- it was already past midday. As he left, he thought over what had just happened.

To be honest, he couldn’t really make any sense of it.