Green's Free Use Journey

Lavender Town - Part 5

In the early hours of twilight, the once-raging bonfire built by Abby had died away, leaving only chunks of black charcoal and a carpet of grey ash inside the fire pit. A cliff loomed over the dead fire pit, covered in a thick curtain of moss. Vines, tangled and long, hung down from the top of the cliff, stopping but a few inches from the ground below. Hidden behind the vines was a cave entrance, round and big enough to walk into standing tall. Deep within the cave was the camp Abby had made while she waited for Green to arrive. Three sleeping bags surrounded a small dead cook fire. While Abby and Jackson were fast asleep within their sleeping bags, Green was awake, wide awake.

While she had managed to get a few hours of sleep, her sleep had not come easy. Her night within the cave had been plagued by fears and doubts. Not her usual fears and doubts either. Her anxieties to do with sex and pleasure seemed quite trivial in comparison. Capture and battle were what tormented her utterly exhausted mind. Even in the little sleep she had gotten, she could not escape. Despite not knowing what this Tiberius looked like, his formless silhouette had invaded her dreams to mock her. Or was it a threat? Green did not know but either way, he had reached out for her with his large hand of dark shadow, reaching and grasping. She had run from it but she was not fast enough and it had wrapped its shadowy fingers around her body. She struggled as she was lifted but it did no good, the grip was strong. Inescapable and unbreakable. Is that was she was faced with?

“Get stronger,” Abby had said.

But what use would that be?

Sure, she had defeated three gym leaders but only one the first time. The weakest of them all no less. Even then it had been in a controlled fight with rules, referees and guidelines. The fight was mock, not a real fight, Brock and the other gym leaders weren’t trying to capture her. They only fought to protect their gym badges, things they had no real investment in safeguarding. Otherwise, they would have fought at full strength. She was little more than a rookie trainer. Green knew it well enough she wasn’t a fool. How could she possibly hope to stand up to a seasoned ranger like Tiberius or any of the other Lieutenants Abby had reasoned would most likely be after them too? What were her two weeks of experience to their years, to their decades most likely?

“Red could, he beat a crime lord and he was five years younger than you,” A voice long-suppressed mocked from the recesses of her mind.

A voice that had tormented her for years after Red’s disappearance.

“He hates you,” It had whispered, “Why else would he leave? If he valued the admiration you hold for him he wouldn’t have left, or at the very least he would have said goodbye.”

It had taken years of effort to force it away, to silence its taunts until only whips of its presence remained within her mind. Little inklings of doubt that had convinced her she would make a fool of herself if she ever tried to make friends, or try to flirt. It had taken her getting a dose of reality from Brock, from Misty, from Surge as well as Machoke and the others she had been with since her journey began to convince her otherwise. The voice was singing now.

“Give up! Go home! Leave Abby to deal with her own problems! You’re not even real friends, just strangers who pretend to be! A burden, that’s what you are! You slow her down and make things harder than they need to be!” It bellowed.

Green clutched the sides of her head and rocked back and forth with her knees tucked up to her chest. She took tight handfuls of her long brown hair, gripping so tight that it felt like she might tear it from her scalp. Her face tightened and scrunched as she fought off the singing bellows of doubt, as she had done many times before. By now it was easy as breathing to force that voice away, to put a muzzle on its pestering. Sure enough, the voice went away, partially lifting away the tight pressure in her head. Although no matter how hard she tried, her fear of fighting Tiberius and his rangers remained. If just a tad weaker now. Fending off the voice of doubt had given her just a tiny inkling of confidence again. A mere ember in an inferno but still, it was enough. Green took that ember of confidence and kindled it, keeping it safe so it might grow into ablaze. She wriggled out from her sleeping bag determined. As quietly as she could as to not wake Abby and Jackson, she reached for her pokéball belt. She fastened it around her waist over the top of her sleeping clothes. A brown, long sleeve top that rolled down over her hips and a pair of warm, white sweat pants. There was no time to change, not even enough to put her hiking boots on. Each moment she spent here was a moment she risked her ember of confidence fizzling and dying.