Red looked up the scaling front wall of the Pokemon Tower. The roof of the building obscured by the omnipresent fog just as much as his teardrop was by the bill of his ball cap, giving the first ever mass-mausoleum for Pokemon the effect of climbing up endlessly into the heavens above. For some reason, the trainer likened to his desolate surroundings. Perhaps they were just as he. Desolate. Never-mind the fact that his Pikachu, as good a friend as anyone could ask for, was practically about to spew bolts from it's cheeks in rage attempting to gain Red's attention. This lonesomeness was different. Eventually the Mouse-Pokemon got the silent message. The event that transpired here was just to monumental for Red to emit any response. Wordless or otherwise.
"What's the matter, Red? You afraid of a big scary purple ball of gas?" Leaf asked some six years before. Her conservative plainness couldn't have been so bright to anyone other than her crimson-clad counterpart. The boy said nothing, and followed her into the Pokemon Tower. The forays with odd Psychics and elderly trainers that mourned over their previous partners and needed the two trainers to rekindle their adventurous sides had been a good experience...until Team Rocket came and ruined everything.
From the top of the tower, the pair had their hands entwined for the first time. Leaf blushed feverishly, Red was again rendered wordless, much like he was today, but at the time of the memory his previously spoken words..."Wow, the view is beautiful up here..." were still reverberating in the four ears stationed on the highest floor. Seconds passed as the sightseeing turned into a romantic embrace. The girl in the white hat smiled in tomboyish victory, as if she had been waiting for Red to allow her into his arms for what seemed like an eternity. To Red, he was liberated from his insecurities. While his voice was frail, and he only exchanged it with Leaf, his mother, and the Oaks next door, it was pealing loudly in his head. Loud enough to bring the memories of Pokemon past and the building that held them to the ground.
He managed to convey those words to Leaf. The "I love you" would be the last thing he would he would ever actually say to another person. What happened next however caused his vocal cords, and the rest of him, to grow cold as the days, months, and years passed.
Rocket grunts seized Red's new soul partner away from him, and somehow, they managed to escape the enraged Pikachu's electrical discharges. It and it's trainer gave furious chase to the wrongdoers as Leaf screamed loudly for them to come to her rescue. The grunt that held her captive was kissing her leg while she was thrown over his shoulder, as he were a fireman rescuing her from Pokemon Tower's non-existent arson case. Whatever the Rockets wanted with Leaf, Red was sure that it wasn't going to be pretty. Suddenly he was stopped in his tracks when he ran into more grunts in the middle of the town. He stopped and looked over the mob of oppressors, brows shot up. Fear entered the space under the baseball cap's brim. He was staring into what would become the center of his own personal Hell.
A Marowak was tied to a guillotine stationed on a platform. The man with Leaf over his shoulder walked up the stairs. A question Red couldn't hear was asked to his newly dubbed "girlfriend". Leaf's reply made Red figure out what was asked of her anyways, and he had no chance to intervene.
"NO! I would rather you stop torturing Pokemon!"
"Fine, grunts...Off with it's head anyways. Then clear the table for this girl. She's next."
…
Red still held the scars from the beating he had suffered in protest of that decision made six years ago. Her family had her buried with that Marowak in the Pokemon Tower, but a Cubone and a Trainer that called her his friend would never be able to be happy again. One would cry until it's Mother's skull was reflective of the child's agony. The other would refuse to make any voice known to anyone he would run into from that point onward.
He couldn't bring himself to allow more than one tear a year. Mt. Silver once again beckoned. Maybe next year he would bring himself up to going back to the top, or at least to her grave.
Perhaps, he was just supposed to be in the position he was. All he and his Pokemon accepted was life at it's worst. People and Pokemon who found joy in what they did were left vulnerable to disappointment and despair anyways. Naïve wasn't an adjective anyone was going to use for him.
His only other place to be was at the base of this tower, in a town where most of the people had left or moved on, and the leaves either fell off of the foliage or were the color of his jacket. He however, repeated his last words annually at this particular spot.
"I love you..."