Articuno was a fearsome beast.

Resting in the large, open, cavern that Red found himself in was an ice-blue bird of prey with a piercing gaze. Every heave of its chest sent out a chilling puff of wind that instantly froze over any surface it touched, and its long tail flicked lazily in the air. It sat on a nest of various feathers, small rocks, and chunks of ice, seemingly cobbled together from whatever it found nearby.

The beast was also- thank Arceus- asleep. But despite that, it was no less intimidating, and Red had very little doubt that even at rest, it was aware of his presence.

Well, this certainly explained why it hadn’t been found until now- while he was sure there was another way out of this cave, else there would have been no way for the bird to get in here in the first place, he didn’t see it, and the small crevice he had entered through was just barely big enough for him to fit in, and located in a rather concealed position, at that.

“Th- wh- really?” Ritchie sputtered, after a stunned silence. “It’s really here?”

“Y-yeah…” Red whispered, paranoid that the legendary would wake up and flash-freeze him before he even had a chance to do anything about it.

“Green! He found it!” Ritchie called, turning away from him. A second later, a Pikachu with a tuft of unruly fur atop its head appeared from the other side of the hole, peering down at him curiously.

“Great!” Green shouted. “Just give me a moment, I’m wait what?!”

“Red found Articuno!”

“I- how- just like that? What? All right, give me a moment to deal with these things and I’ll be right over. Don’t move an inch, alright? If you scare it off, even by accident, you’re never seeing the light of day again!”

‘I don’t think I’m going to be scaring it off…’ Red thought, watching the beast’s feathers ruffle in the breeze.

“Wait, Red!” Ritchie called down to him. “Your pokédex! Scan it!”

“Oh, right,” he murmured, “that’s a good idea.”

Tired of constantly reaching into his bag, Red had begun to carry both his pokédex and balls in his coat’s myriad pockets- which made retrieving the device a much simpler task. He pressed the power button, waited a couple of seconds for it to boot up, then pressed the scanning button. Halfway through the loading animation, however, a loud beeping sound blared out of the machine, and the screen blinked red with a message in all caps:

! ABORTING PROCEDURE. ERROR A17: ENERGY OVERLOAD. !

In a panic, Red scrambled to cover the pokédex’s speakers, trying his best to muffle the disruptive sound. To his abject horror, one of Articuno’s eyes cracked open, but the beast let out a heavy breath and closed it almost immediately after.

“Everything okay?” Ritchie hissed down at him, while trying to get as much of a glimpse of Articuno as he could without falling into the crevice himself.

“I- I- uh-” Red stammered, before taking a deep breath and continuing. “The ‘dex didn’t work. It said there was an energy overload.”

Ritchie grimaced, then turned back around to look at Green. “Come on!” he shouted.

“Yeah, I know. Give it a moment,” came the response, which was accompanied by a sharp trill and the sound of bone cracking. “These guys are bulky.”

For a scant few seconds, all Red could hear were force impacts, bubbles popping, and other signs of blows being traded. Then there was a pause, and he heard Green shout “Ritchie! I’m gonna need a bit of help with this!”

“Right,” Ritchie grunted, stepping away from the hole to help her. Now that Red was alone, the paralyzing fear of what was in front of him returned, but he tried his best to ignore it and wait patiently. He began to idly rub his thumb around the button on one of his pokéballs, his brow furrowed.

Then a thought came to him.

Articuno was in the same room as him. It was asleep. If he were to throw a pokéball, could he… catch it?

‘No, no. Definitely not,’ he thought, shaking his head. Maybe if he had an ultra ball, but he had no doubts that the legendary pokémon could easily break free of a standard ball. And that was if he even hit it. It looked asleep, but it wasn’t, he knew that. It was just ignoring him. The fact that it thought that little of his presence was telling in that he didn’t have a Snover’s chance in Hoenn if he did anything it didn’t like.

“Okay, that’s finally done with,” Green said. Her voice was drawing closer to Red, and a quiet but excited hum filled the air. “Time for the fun bit! I’m going to be loaded after this.”

“You don’t say,” Red muttered.

“Yeah, well. We need to coordinate this a bit first, so, uh… Red? Do you think you can get back up through there?”

Red let in a sharp breath, realizing to his dismay that he had not thought of that already, then stared at the hole for a couple of seconds, trying to do some rudimentary calculations in his head. “I… think so…?” he said uncertainly.

“Well, I suppose that’ll have to do,” Green grunted, gently pushing Ritchie back in front of the crevice. “You go first, Ritchie. There’s enough room for all three of us, right?”

“Should be,” Red responded, making space for Ritchie, who was sliding down as gracefully as he could manage. Green followed shortly after, with a frightening eagerness in her eyes. She hummed a little as she pulled a small portable camera out of her bag, alongside a couple other devices.

“Ritchie, can you hold the camera?” Green asked, handing it over to him. “I just need to grab something. Maybe try looking for a good angle?”

Ritchie nodded, looking the camera over and then turning it on. “Sure.” He began to move forwards, looking at Articuno through the screen from various positions. As he did so, Red noticed him leaning further and further forward, squinting at the screen in scrutiny.

While Ritchie leaned forward, trying to hold the camera steady, a rock underneath his foot crumbled, and he immediately pitched forward, shouting out in alarm as he fell down towards the cave floor. Red looked over to him, his eyes widening as he ran over and tried to grab him, but was forced to step back before he, too, fell off the edge. Ritchie fell down to the floor, sliding across a silvery patch of ice before coming to a slow stop. He rubbed his head, letting out a harsh groan- though, thankfully, he looked relatively unharmed.

“Oof,” Ritchie grunted, picking himself up from the floor and rubbing his head. “That… ouch.”

And then, finally, Articuno’s eyes snapped open.

“Oh no,” Red muttered, backing away in fear.

“Oh no’s right,” Green said, looking at the situation nervously. “We’ll have to get down and help him. You go first, I just need to put this away.”

“Mm,” he grunted, inching closer to the edge of the overlook, making sure he was in a safe position before letting go and cautiously sliding down towards the bottom of the cave, trying as best he could to control his fall. He hissed as bare rock scraped against his palm, but tried to ignore the pain and move closer to Ritchie, who was standing stock still, staring at Articuno in silence. The beast returned his gaze, looking at him with ambivalence.

Then Red heard a loud click, and Articuno immediately whipped back around to glare at Green, who was still on the platform trying to take a picture seriously?!

“Ahahaha…” Green chuckled, looking around nervously. “I didn’t realize turning off the flash would make a noise…”

Articuno began to flap its wings, rising from its perch with an aura of menace, and Green immediately shouted “ok thanks for having me bye!” and hurtled down the platform, running towards them with an awkward smile on her face.

“Sorry about that?” she said, in between ragged breaths.

Red simply groaned, and responded with, “Doesn’t matter now, we just need to figure out a way to get out of here.”

“Right-” Green began, but then her eyes widened as she realized that Articuno was still moving towards her, and she quickly began to move away. Though its expression was unreadable, no one wanted to risk an altercation with it, so a brief moment later, Red and Ritchie dashed off in different directions. After a second of indecision, Red decided to head towards a strangely shiny corner of the cave. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it stood out to him, and they didn’t have much time to figure things out.

Once he was up close, he sucked in a deep breath, seeing the mismatched portion of the cave for it was- a large patch of thick, cloudy ice stretched out over part of the cavern’s wall, packed so tightly that it had seemed almost like bare rock when he was further away. This must be the entrance to a tunnel that Articuno could enter and exit its nest from- it was frozen over like this so that no person, or pokémon, would stumble across it.

“Coming through!” Green shouted, diving past Red with Articuno close behind. His eyes widened in alarm as the winged beast came soaring in above him, and he scrambled out of the way as fast as he could.

Green glanced back at him, concerned. and he mouthed ‘break the wall,’ pointing up at the large barrier of ice. She looked up at it, then down towards him again, and nodded, making a sudden sharp turn towards the center of the cave. As Articuno tried to adjust its course, making a wide turn to follow her, its wing tore through the ice wall, leaving a large gouge that left a small opening into the tunnel beyond it. Seeing the opportunity to escape, Red shouted “Through there! Quickly!” before dashing off towards it.

As he got closer, he noticed, to his annoyance, that the hole wasn’t quite as big as it had first seemed, and rested just above his head- making it difficult, though not impossible, to get into. He watched as drops of water glistened on the edges of the opening, slowly sliding down towards him.

The brief moment of calm was broken, however, when Green came hurtling past him, jumping up into the hole and grunting as she forced herself through. Ritchie came by a scant second later, and Red spurred himself back into action as he saw Articuno once again heading straight for them, a look of slight displeasure in its eyes as it seemed intent on chasing them away. Or killing them. He wasn’t sure which, and he didn’t want to find out.

“Crud,” he muttered, pulling himself up and into the opening, which had been widened slightly by Green’s passing. He popped out the other side and tumbled down onto the stony floor, feeling a slight breeze blow across his face.

“Wait a moment,” he said, pushing himself up towards a standing position. “If there’s air going through this tunnel, and it’s not coming from Articuno…”

“Then there’s a way out,” Green said, taking a deep breath. “Come on, then.”

Red nodded, then looked back to see Ritchie all but launching himself out of the hole, tearing down the tunnel like an Ember had been held up to his rear. Red blinked in surprise only to get showered with ice shavings. He grimaced and shielded his face in his elbow, trying to turn around and run after Ritchie. There was only one thing that could have demolished that wall.

Well, there were quite a lot of things, actually, but only one currently in their vicinity and that was besides the point anyway-

“Faster, dammit!” Green yelled, shoving him forwards. “Sorry, just. Don’t want you dying, okay?”

“Uh, right,” Red said, dashing forwards hurriedly after hazarding a quick glance back to see that Articuno was indeed chasing them.

Though, really, it was only entertaining itself. Once again, he suspected that it could easily kill them if it wanted to. It was called a legendary for a reason, after all- he could see streaks of small rocks peeling off the tunnel wall from the tips of Articuno’s wings, falling down in a cloud of dust behind it. Not even the cave itself could withstand the pokémon's might, it seemed.

And so they continued to run, in a flight that felt like hours, though probably only lasted four or five minutes- still, Red’s muscles were burning in complaint of the stress they had been put under. Actually, he wasn’t sure how he hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion yet, even before this. He really wanted to just sit on a beach and take a nice long rest after all this was over.

Why had he wanted to become a trainer in the first place, again? Cause this sure hadn’t seemed worth the trouble so far.

After a suspiciously long lapse of silence, Red checked over his shoulder, but, to his despair, Articuno was still there. Ritchie had fallen back, ending up right behind him with the gap between them slowly growing, so he grabbed onto the boy’s arm and pulled him forward. He received a short ‘thanks’, but they were all too out of breath to say anything more. Hopefully they had gone far enough out of Articuno’s territory that it would soon leave them alone.

It was at that point, however, that the stress of the chase had finally grown to be too much for the cave system, and with a massive boom, the ceiling began to give way. Articuno instinctively reared back, the fire in its eyes fading away as it snapped out of its ‘predatory mode’. It looked them over again, paused for a moment, then turned around and flew back down the hall, a new wall of ice forming behind it as if to say ‘don’t even think about following me’. A request that Red was all too happy to oblige with.

Before he could grant himself respite, however, a large boulder crashed down next to him, and his attention was drawn back to the new threat. He took a deep breath, then began to run down the cave, looking around for a side passage to escape into. A second later, Ritchie and Green followed behind him, as they too snapped back into action.

“Well…” Ritchie said, his chest heaving, “that kind of puts a stopper on the whole ‘photo’ thing.”

“Man, and I really could have used that money, too,” Green complained.

Red sighed. “You don’t have enough already?”

“You can never have too much!”

“Right,” he muttered- but cut himself off as a falling piece of debris forced him to jump to the side, taking away what little breath he had left to talk. This, however, was only the prelude to something larger- with a final, resounding boom, the ceiling began to drop like a sack of potatoes.

Shouting out in alarm, Red dived into the closest divot in the wall he saw, rocks falling behind him and rapidly blocking off the way back. He noted with dismay that Phoenix and Ritchie hadn’t followed him in time, but he was too hurried to do anything about it, instead focusing solely on getting out alive. After realizing that he had found his way into a side passageway, he looked around for someplace to shelter him. He noticed a small niche in a nearby wall that- he hoped, at least- would keep him safe, and he ran over to it, staying crouched in a fetal position as the dust settled.

Red sat there for a few minutes, taking deep breaths as he tried to come to grips with the situation. When that didn’t work, however, he began to shakily stand up, realizing with relief that light was pouring into the hallway he was in from a small crevice near the top of an otherwise dead end. It didn’t take long for him to reach the crack and attempt to fit through, and he blinked a couple of times as his head popped through the hole, struggling to adjust to the glaring afternoon sun.

Once his vision had adjusted, he looked around to see that he was close to the mountain’s base- clearly they had run pretty far, because he had somehow made it from what was presumably close to the center of the mountain to the very edge.

That was good, though. He could work with that.

Red struggled to fit the rest of his body through the hole, but after a bit of work, he managed to clamber out from underneath the mountain’s surface. Scanning the nearby terrain, he saw a sprawling evergreen forest spread out not too far below him, and decided to head to it- the trees could give him some cover from wild pokémon, which he was sure would be very dangerous to encounter without Green nearby. Wild pokémon attacks weren’t too common nowadays, but it still happened, and he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of one.

Two hours later, and Red was finally far enough away from the mountain to pause and collect his thoughts.

Okay. He was on his own, and Green had never had a chance to return his badges.

Shoot. Why hadn’t he thought to ask her for them earlier? He supposed getting separated wasn’t a forgone conclusion, though, so it was doubtful she would have agreed anyway.

While he was sure he wasn’t totally screwed, as the league should have his two gym battles on record, they certainly wouldn’t give his badges back to him just because he asked, and- at least, he was pretty sure- you needed to present the physical ones to enter the league tournament.

It was fine. Everything was fine.

They weren't dead, right? They couldn't be dead. They'd be okay, he was sure they could...

Could...

Red shook his head. He was only ten, he didn't have the capability to help in this situation. The best he could do was make sure he was safe, then report what had happened to the police. That, however, would necessitate getting to a town or city of some sort. His original plan had been to go to Vermilion City after Cerulean, and at this point it would certainly be easier to head there rather than back through the mountains.

Well. That decided it, then.

Next stop, Vermilion City. He would fight Lieutenant Surge, then figure out where to go from there. No sense getting caught up over these things, right? He could deal with...He could deal with it later. It was fine, he was fine, everything was fine.

After all, he had to keep pushing forwards.