Green leaned against a tree with a rock in his hand. It had been a boring morning without his best friend, Red, there. Although Red hardly ever spoke more than a sentence if you were lucky, the boy provided a source of entertainment no one else could match. Green tossed the rock, shipping it across the lake in front of him. He sunk down to the dirt, sighing in boredom.

From behind, Green heard the thump-thump-thump of feet running down the hill toward him. He looked back to see Red thundering down to where he sat. "Red? What's up?" Green asked as Red crawled up the tree and pulled on a branch. The black-haired boy jumped down from the tree with a branch in hand. "…Red?"

"Sh!" Red held a finger up to his lips, the kindergarten signal to be silent. He took Green's hand and tugged him to his feet, forcing the older boy to follow. Red pulled Green along until they were in the woods while using his tree branch like a walking stick.

"Uh, we ain't 'posed to be in the woods without Gramps, Red…" Green reminded the other boy, looking around at the caterpie watching them.

"Sh!" Red spun around and tapped the end of the stick to Green's mouth.

Green huffed, puffing his cheeks in irritation as he swatted the branch away from his face. Suddenly, Red yanked him into a bush and forced him to squat. Red took a hoodie string and a peanut butter cracker out of his jacket pocket. He tied the cracker to one end of the string and the tree branch to the other end. "What're you doing?"

"Shhh!" Red silenced him again and tossed the cracker out on the trail. The two boys sat in silence for a few minutes. Red seemed to be concentrating very hard on whatever this was for. After what felt like ages, something started shaking a bush on the other side of the path. A rattata jumped out and staggered over to the cracker, snatching it in his mouth. Red jumped up and quickly grabbed the pokemon before it had time to react.

"What are you doing, Red?!" Green yelled. He ran over to Red who was trying to restrain the rattata. Red grabbed its foot to show Green, who whimpered in sympathy at the sight. The poor pokemon had part of its fur bitten off and the skin was bloodied and hot to the touch. Green looked through his bangs at Red, who was trying to untangle the string from Rattata's paws and teeth.

"He got bit bad," Red explained, taking the string out finally.

"Let's get him to Gramps then, yeah?" Green tugged Red's arm and the two took off to Professor Oak's lab, the little pokemon wiggling despite Red and Green's best efforts to explain to it what they were doing.


Green nudged the door to the exam room to see Red curled up on the table beside the rattata who was appropriately named Cracker. Red had decided on the name somewhere between the forest and the lab. Now he laid beside Cracker coloring the bandages on its hind paw with neon highlighters found in the pencil cup on Professor Oak's desk.

"Red?" Green called. Red looked up from his "artwork" to see his best friend, "Your mommy said you could stay the night 'nd make sure Cracker's OK."

Red smiled, petting Cracker on the head. Green could tell Red was ready to burst with how happy he was even if the little boy didn't seem to give much hint toward it.

"Let's go get food; Gramps ordered pizza!" Green took Red's hand and yanked him off the table. The boys ran down to get food, only to bring it back and stay with their rattata as well as feed it. They stayed up most of the night teaching Cracker tricks and feeding it peanut butter, not that Professor Oak minded.

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