Follow Me Ch 23: Uproar

Follow Me

A Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver Story


Chapter Twenty-Three
Uproar


    "I thought that was you, Sil-Sil!" the blue-haired girl said with a grin.  "Do you remember me?  Well," she said with a meek smile, "I guess it's been a few years..."

    Silver wasn't even paying the girl any mind.  His whole focus was on Soul, who looked back with tense, quaking eyes.

    "I mean, we only met the one time, and that was almost, what, five years ago?" the girl continued, shrugging.  "It would be natural for you to forget me."

    "We need to talk, Soul," Silver said, taking a step toward her.  He watched her edge away from him, as if she was frightened.  What was she doing?

    "I'm actually a bit surprised I remembered you, to be honest," the girl said with a grin.  "Then again, with a head of hair like yours, it's hard to forget, you know?"

    Soul stepped backward.  Should she run again?  The image of Silver's rejection from her nightmare repeated over and over in her mind, numbing her senses and filling her with fear.  She didn't want to hear it.  She couldn't hear it.  She couldn't hear it again!

    "...Don't mind me, I'll just be standing right here, talking to myself.  Feel free to continue ignoring me," the girl said with a deadpan expression.

    "Soul," Silver said with a tense gaze, "don't run again; I just want to talk."

    "So this is what it's like to be ignored," the girl said, folding her arms.  "Huh, what a funny feeling..."

    "Crystal, would you shut up?!" Silver snapped, finally acknowledging the girl.

    "Oh, so you do remember me?" Crystal said with a snarky air of surprise.  "I was beginning to wonder if I was invisible, what with the whole ignoring someone who's talking directly to you thing."

    Soul felt her feet sliding backward on their own...She had to get away.  She couldn't face him; she didn't want to be rejected, not for real.  Why couldn't she have let the truth slip at a more romantic time??  Why did her head and chest feel so heavy, yet her feet felt so light, as if she could sprint forever?  She was going to run and never look back.  Seizing the moment of distraction, she tried to make a break for it.

    "Oh no you don't!" Silver shouted, snatching Soul's arm.  "I'm not chasing you again!"

    "Hey, hey, hey, what's with the forceful grabbing?" Crystal said with furrowed eyebrows, stepping between the two.  "I can see five years still hasn't taught you any manners, Sil-Sil!"

    "This is none of your business, Crystal, and would you stop calling me that?!" Silver spat, the last part even more furious than the rest.

    "Oh, it's none of my business that you're chasing this girl and trying to drag her off when she obviously doesn't want anything to do with you?  For all I know, you could be trying to take her off to do God knows what to her in some alley!"  Crystal took Soul's hand and made a rude face at Silver.  "Not on my watch, bub!  She's coming with me, to keep her safe from perverts like you!"  She stomped away with a confused Soul in tow, her Charizard following faithfully behind them.

    Silver stood, completely flabbergasted, his mouth hanging open.  "Wh...What the hell just happened?!"

    "Honestly, you think you know a guy!" Crystal said with disgust as she pulled Soul along, all the while fuming to herself.  She continued to grouse under her breath as they passed the docks and approached the Pokémon Center that faced the ocean.

    "Now hold on a second!" Silver demanded as he caught up to them, his eyes blazing.  "You don't even know what's going on, and you're making all these wild assumptions about me and my character!  All of which, by the way, are completely wrong!"

    "Even a blind man could see she didn't want to talk to you!" Crystal said, sticking her tongue out at him.  "We're going inside, and you'd better not follow!  As a matter of fact," she said as she dug in her inner coat pocket, retrieved a Pokéball, and released a Raichu from it, "Rai-Rai, you stand guard out here under the pavilion.  If he even so much as thinks of trying to get past you, Thunderbolt him, okay?"

    The electric mouse gave her a salute, and Silver made a mortified face.

    "You expect me to stay out here when a storm's about to hit??" Silver exclaimed.  "Are you insane??!"

    Turning, Crystal pulled off her sling backpack, rummaged in the main pocket, extracted a collapsible umbrella, and tossed it at him.  "Have fun!" she said with evil cheeriness as she, Soul, Chocobo, and Charizard disappeared into the Center.

    He stood there, holding the pink umbrella, unable to speak.  Growling, he marched toward the Center, remarking, "Like hell some fat rat is going to keep me—"  But with two steps, Rai-Rai's cheeks started to spark, causing Silver to hesitate.  Cupping his head in his hands, he leaned back and yelled at the sky.  "Can this day possibly get any worse?!"  A fat raindrop, the first of many, landed in his eye.  "...Eff my life..."

---

    "So that's what happened," Crystal said later as she and Soul sat on the bed in their room in the Center, rain beating heavily against their window.  "I kind of figured I was way off base with the whole pervert thing, but wow...I can't imagine what it must feel like to accidentally confess to someone you like.  That's rough, Soul."

    "I was going to wait until I figured out how he feels a bit better," Soul said with a sigh.  "But now...now I just don't know.  I don't know how he's going to react, or what to do..."

    Crystal nodded while a chocolate-covered biscuit stick dangled from her lip.  "It's a tough situation."

    "...Do you think he'll be okay out there in the storm?"

    "Oh, Rai-Rai loves to watch storms up close," Crystal said with a dismissive wave.  "He's probably in hog heaven right now."  When Soul turned to her with a puzzled expression, she added, "Oh, you mean Sil-Sil.  Yeah, I guess he'll be okay.  A little rain never killed anybody."

    "I've been meaning to ask you about that," said Soul.  "How do you know Silver?"

    "Hm?  Oh, I met him five years ago, back when I was living in New Bark Town."

    "You used to live in New Bark Town?"

    "Yeah, you heard of it?"

    "I live there!  Or, well, my house is there."

    "Really?  I used to live in this small house near the water on the east side of town."

    "That's where I live!" Soul gasped.  "We moved there a little over four years ago!"

    "Ah!  So you must be living in my old house!  What a small world!"  Crystal laughed.  "Yeah, I moved to Kanto five years ago, and it was on the day I moved that I met Sil-Sil..."

---

    "You!  Can't!  Gooooooooo!" the black-haired boy gasped between sobs, his tears dribbling down his chin onto his red tee shirt.

    "Gold, I have to," the blue-haired girl with short pigtails said.  "My mom and dad are moving to Kanto, so I have no choice but to go with them, you know."

    "But..." the nine-year-old boy hiccuped, "who will I play with when you're gone??"

    "You'll make new friends, and I can write letters to you!" Crystal assured him, her white sundress fluttering as she stepped closer to him and grabbed his wrists.  "And in two years, we'll be Pokémon trainers!  That means we'll be able to travel the whole world!  So we can always meet up then!"

    Gold sniffled and rubbed some tears from his eyes.  "You promise?"

    Crystal smiled.  "I promise!  Once I have some Pokémon of my own, I'll come back to visit you, you can count on it."

    Gold wiped his tear-soaked hands on his yellow shorts and perked up a bit.  "Okay!  It's a promise!"

    The two walked along the sandy coast of the water front, back toward the walkway up the hill to Crystal's old house, where her parents were busy loading the remainder of their things onto the moving van.  A balmy June breeze washed over them, and bug Pokémon chirped faintly in the distance.

    "Is Kanto really far away?" Gold asked.

    "Not as far as Hoenn or Sinnoh," Crystal shook her head.  "We can actually drive there, although we're going to have to cross some mountains, Dad said.  He also said trainers go from Johto to Kanto all the time, so it'll be no problem for us to visit each other once we're Pokémon trainers."

    "That's good," Gold said with relief.  Looking ahead, he stopped.  "Hey...what's that?"

    Crystal followed his pointing hand, and she squinted a bit.  "Something must have washed up on shore...Let's go see!"

    Their feet crunched on the wet sand as they approached the small figure.  Lying unconscious on the beach, the lower half of his body still submerged in the shallows, was a boy, probably their age, with bright red hair.

---

Selected quote from the next chapter:
"I think he's dead."