Gold walked home from Violet City Regional High School in a great mood. He had just received the news that he would be representing the school at the Prime Cup Tournament at Indigo Plateau, and he was psyched.
He looked like any other high school senior, with black hair and blue-gray eyes. A small sliver of his hair was poking through his black baseball cap, which he always had turned backward. He wore yellow shorts and a red hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off halfway up. Six Poke Balls were set in his belt, each with a different symbol indicating the Pokemon they contained. His Typhlosion, Flare, was in the first slot, his Poke Ball bearing a flame. The other symbols were a slash mark, a rock, a feather, a curved claw, and a bug antenna. On his wrist he had his PokeGear, which he had modified to include the Pokedex software. He had a gold chain, a gift from his neighbor Crystal, around his neck, and he kept his pocket knife attached to his belt.
As he walked home, he noticed a rustling in the bushes, and he quickly stopped and looked around. Seeing nothing, he continued home, and then five teenage boys leaped from the bushes and started towards him. Gold stood staring at them, only recognizing the leader: Butch, a tall, lanky character with green hair and a permanent sneer. His most telling feature, though, was his nose, which had been broken three times. As Gold's hand moved to his belt, he was slammed to the ground by two of the boys.
"Well, Gold, aren't we brave?" sneered Butch, as the two boys pressed Gold's shoulders into the ground. "I would have thought that you'd be too scared to walk home alone with us roaming the streets"
"Oh, no, I'm not brave, I'm just not afraid of you," snarled Gold, and received a punch in the jaw for his quip. "Why don't you pick on someone else for a change, huh? This is getting old." Another punch, this time in the stomach. As Gold coughed, another one of the boys pulled out a knife and held it to Gold's neck.
"Shut your mouth, kid, or my hand might slip," he threatened. Suddenly he looked up, and Gold kicked him in the gut. "Damn it!" the boy hissed, and moved the knife closer again, just as he was tackled by a different group of boys, who proceeded to attack Butch and his gang. Gold was able to look around, and saw that his friends had arrived and were sending the other boys scurrying away in a panic, screaming vengeance.
He looked up, and saw Red standing over him. Red was the oldest of the group of boys known as The Crew, and he looked at Gold with concern.
"What'd they do to you?" he asked worriedly as he noticed the mark where the knife blade had slightly cut Gold's skin.
"Oh, the usual," Gold said thickly, noticing the cut himself. Just as he spoke, Green walked up.
"They didn't hurt you too bad, did they?" he asked, looking at Gold with annoyance. Green always told Gold not to walk home by himself, but Gold never listened.
"They pulled a knife on him," said Ruby, who was also looking at the cut on Gold's neck. "Didn't they, Gold? Did they pull a knife on you?"
"Yeah," Gold responded darkly, as he grabbed a tissue and cleared up the blood on his neck. "Butch and his cronies jumped me, and one of them had a pocket knife."
"Well, there you have it," said a small voice, and Gold noticed that Emerald had joined them. "If those jerks would just stay in their own neighborhood, things would be so much better."
"Don't worry about that, Emerald," growled Red, "because we're gonna have it out with those jerks and kick them out of our neighborhood for good. They can't keep coming over here and expect us to not fight back."
"Well, then, it'd better be soon," said a low voice, and Silver walked up. His long red hair was mussed up in places, and his sweatpants had been torn in several places.
"I see you're out of jail, Silver." Gold remarked. Silver was always being thrown in jail for something or other, ranging from robbing the Poke Mart to jumping small kids in the street.
"What's it to you? Actually, my real question is what are you doing walking alone on the road, Gold?" growled Silver. "Did you ever consider that the reason you get jumped all the time is because you make it easy for them?"
"None of your business, Silver," snapped Gold. Sometimes Silver could wear his patience very thin, and he was in the process of doing so now.
"It is my business, kid, because we're all friends around here, remember?" snarled Silver. "To make a long story short, you'll be dead if you keep letting Butch's gang knock you around. They came close today, and they won't hesitate next time."
"Stop arguing, you two," cried Emerald. "It's no wonder the girls think you two are wrecking the battle team, because all you do is argue."
"When did they tell you that, kid?" said Silver in shock. He was universally distrusted by all four girls in the Crew, because of his mile-long police record and his generally surly nature.
"A few weeks ago, Silver, and why do you care? You don't like any of them, anyway." Emerald, only fourteen, didn't either, but he knew more of the side stories regarding the rest of the Crew than they did. "Yellow noticed that you two argue more often than not, and said that it's not good for team chemistry."
Silver groaned. "Not Yellow's chemistry talk again, please, kid? I've heard it too many times already. She drives me nuts with it."
"I'm just saying..." said Emerald, but Gold cut him off.
"Arguing is a part of life, kid, and it brings us closer together, not farther apart. Let's get out of here," he added to the others, "this place is depressing."
"Fair enough," said Ruby, and they ran off towards New Bark.
