The parlour looked unusually crowded with a few newcomers when Gold walked in. The spot he chose at the bar was between a man with a faded blue trench-coat and a girl fiddling with her pink scarf. A little to his right, someone wearing a cap with a Pikachu perched on his shoulder was talking animatedly with another boy who wore a similar hat but with an Emolga rather than its first generation counterpart. While on his left, a standing brunette wearing a green bandana was talking with the man in the trenchcoat about the most powerful trainers they had faced. Gold listened in.
"For me, I think fighting both Team Magma and Aqua and climbing a freaking tower to summon a dragon to end a conflict between two Poke-gods on the same day was probably as hard as it got." The green-bandana brunette sipped her drink. "What about you?"
"A full list of trainers bought out by an evil organization and took down the biggest, meanest looking Tyranitar I've ever seen in my life." This was from the one in the coat. "I've fought numerous Grunts at once but it's not an issue when you've got partners who can easily do crowd control. The trainer with the Tyranitar was the head of the organization so at least it was a climatic finish."
"I won all of my eight badges, overthrew an entire organization, beat down the entire Elite Four and took away the Kanto Champion title from my childhood rival all before I turned eleven," said the one with a Pikachu.
There was a quiet 'oooooh' of appreciation from those surrounding him and then a collective swig from their drinks. Pink-scarf ordered another ice tea.
Gold turned his attention to those on the left.
"So wait…you catch your Pokemon from other trainers? That's against League regulations, isn't it?" Green-bandana girl asked Blue-Coat.
The man shrugged. "Wild Pokemon are really rare where I come from. To be fair, they had been stolen from their original trainers."
"And then you got rid of their…Shadow?" Green-bandana frowned a little. "What did you do with them after you turned back to normal?"
"Some of them stayed." Blue-Coat took two Pokeballs from his belt and Gold noticed that the two Pokemon were from the Eevee family; Espeon and Umbreon. "I tracked down their original trainers and gave them back. Some I released so they could go back to the region they came from. These two have been with me since the very beginning."
"How did you catch the Pokemon from other trainers? I thought the ID thing was supposed to make it impossible."
Blue-Coat pointed to the machinery attached to his arm. "With this."
"…that piece of junk?" Green-bandana asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Hey, this piece of junk has helped me catch more Pokemon that I could throw a Voltorb at. Remember those three dogs that I told you about?" Blue-Coat retorted.
Gold remembered the days of just having a feather and a lot of Repels just to find that bird. Now he sort of envied how easily Pokemon came to this trainer (even if it was for all of the wrong reasons).
The group to the right of him had taken an interest in the conversation. "Oh man, don't even get me started on catching Legendaries. Ever tried hunting a Psychic that could manifest a 'spoon' as a baseball bat to hit back Pokeballs you threw at it? Not fun," commented Pikachu-boy.
"That's nothing. My Legendaries could warp time and space," Pink-scarf girl laughed.
"Hey, the leader of the terrorist group that I fought didn't even need to use a Pokeball to take control of his Legendary," Emolga-boy compared.
Pikachu-boy frowned. "At least it wasn't living near the town of where your girlfriend lived. I think I win."
The rest of the group winced collectively. "Nah, yeah, that's pretty bad," the pink-scarf girl said with sympathy.
"My boyfriend got into Pokemon Contests and has even more female friends than I do…" Green-bandana girl grumbled. "At least they know not to mess with the partner of a Region Champion."
"My girlfriend was a seer of sorts. She was the one that helped me picked out the Pokemon that had been kidnapped but she wasn't very good company after she saw one. Zoned out on me completely," Blue-Coat looked a bit annoyed by this fact.
"I haven't really been thinking about romance lately," Pink-scarf girl mumbled to herself.
Emolga-boy stirred his drink thoughtfully, "I'm too busy hunting down the terrorist leader who jumped ship from my home."
Eventually the group started leaving for reasons of matches to attend, phone calls to make, dinner with friends (or rivals), etc until it was just Gold and the Pikachu-boy sitting at the bar.
"You've been pretty quiet this whole time," Pikachu-boy commented as the mouse jumped off his shoulder onto the table and looked at Gold curiously.
Gold smiled at the Pikachu.
"Does it feel like we've met before?"
"Not really," Gold answered.
Shrug. "My mistake." As he got up to go, he dug something out of his jacket; a business card, which he handed to Gold.
Gold had seen a lot of trainers' cards, ranging from red to black to gold, and seen some of the most horrific uses of decorating and fonts known to man. This card, on the other hand, was white only had the face of a faded Pikachu printed on it, the name "Red" and a number.
Red smirked at Gold's puzzled expression as his Pokemon jumped off the table. "If you don't know me by my name, you don't need to call me. I'll see you around, Gold."
Gold started to say something but the boy and his Pikachu were already gone. He looked out at the doorway, then turned back and ordered another drink.