This one made it to just 15 pages. I normally aim for 10. Oh well, the last one was a little short. Oh yeah I added Ruby's and a personal update in the rare event any of my original readers still follow me. Go back and read it if you haven't. Well Gold's was the hardest so far because I couldn't think of anything for him. I had the idea to do a story about him just spending the day with his mom but it didn't work. Eventually inspiration struck, and now Gold seems more indirectly involved in his. That wasn't intentional, it just happened. Well anyway, let's just jump into this.

/

Gold felt a tickling on his face, "Not today Ataro." The tickling started again, "Go away let me sleep for the love of-" Tickled again, "Is it mom?" He asked, opening one eye, Ataro nodded, "Okay, give me the usual."

An Oddish helped him up, a Kakuna fixed his hair, the "usual". They did this every other morning. Gold lived in a house with several Pokémon. They had been with him since birth, and were an extended family. Once dressed and cleaned up Gold proceeded down stairs to the kitchen where his mother was.

"Morning Mom."

"Morning. How'd you sleep?" She asked.

"Fine." He replied taking a seat at the table.

"Did you want to go somewhere?"

"I didn't think of anything besides what I had planned so I guess not."

"So, we'll just figure something out as we go along?" She said putting the finishing touches on the food she was preparing.

"Like every other year?"

"Sure, you have your own money?"

"We gonna spoil ourselves?"

"Why, did you get me a present?"

"You should know better by now." Gold said with a sarcasm that was both honest but meant no real condescension.

"It's fine," She said, placing a plate with a hamburger and some cut up carrots in front of her son with a small bowl of rice, "nothing'll ever top my twenty-seventh." She finished, putting her arms around her son's neck and hugging him.

"Twenty-seventh? Oh, right... You're welcome." Gold said jokingly.

His mother lightly smacked the back of his head, so light in fact it was more like a gentle push. She walked around to the other side of the table and took her own seat with another plate of food that resembled Gold's but had more on it, like bread and asparagus.

"Eat those carrots."

"Aw come on Ma, it's my birthday." Gold pleaded.

"Mine too. Now eat."

"Whatever." Gold gave in, putting one of the cut up carrots in his mouth with apathy.

/

"Hey Mom, I'm gonna go see what Silver and Crystal are doing, I wanna see if they remembered my birthday." Gold called from the front yard, preparing to leave.

"They know, I called them a few days ago." She replied, standing in the doorway.

"Aw Ma, I wanted to see if they knew, well whatever, can't be helped now." He said with his arms behind his head, "So I'll be back around eight. Sound good?"

"Behave yourself."

"That's not happening either Ma." He quipped as his Mantine, "Mantaro" swooped down with a small school of Remoraid under it.

Gold held out his extendable billiard cue and as two Remoraid clutched to ends in their mouths he was off. The way they flew off it looked like Gold was hang gliding.

"Happy Birthday Mom!" Gold cried before he got very far away.

"Happy Birthday Gold!" She called back. She looked after him for a moment before turning back to her thoughts, verbally reciting her plans to herself, "Okay, Gold's away 'til eight he says, knowing him, he'll be back by eleven. I've got enough time and money to get myself something new and nice, maybe go out to eat," She lowered her voice and said under her breath; "Of course I may have to pick up a man first." She chuckled to herself as she started to walk off while putting her coat on.

/

The Pokémon school in Violet City, in the judgement of Crystal at least, was the best possible place on earth. Well, it was for her anyway. It doubled as a foster home, and Crystal was the kind of person who, upon hearing this, couldn't not look into it. Typically she was the only volunteer. Others would come and go, usually on some trip.

She seemed to be the only one who stayed with it. Her kindness was rewarded, the children loved her for one, and for two, as tired as it may've sounded she just liked knowing she did some very nice things and gave so much to this place. If nothing else went her way it gave her comfort and kept her warm at night. That aside, they were still children. And like all children, they would eventually tire someone out, even if that someone was as used to it as Crystal was. And as awful as she may've felt about it later she wanted to be anywhere else but the greatest place on earth right now.

"I sacrifice, 'Alpha the Magnet Warrior' and 'Time Wizard' to summon my 'Dark Magician', and attack you for 2500 life points. Your turn." Said a young boy fiddling with with some cards in his hands sitting across from Crystal.

She scratched her head and looked at the cards she had with a puzzled expression, "Um... G-... Go fish." She blurted.

The boy, who couldn't be older than six, laughed happily, "No really, what's your move?"

It took some effort on Crystal's part to keep from groaning. But a personal savior arrived in the form of Earl, the head of the school.

"Crystal. That boy you asked me to look out for arrived just now."

She resisted the urge to blurt "oh thank god" as she turned her attention back to the child, "Well, sorry, looks like I have to go, does someone wanna take over?"

A volunteer from the small group of the children that had been watching was eager to take her place and she was out the door with the repeated use of "bye Crystal" trailing behind her. She made it a few yards away from the school to where Silver was.

"Hey Silver." He waved in response, "You ready?" She asked.

"As I'm ever gonna get." He answered.

A voice coming from the area of the door to the school yelled out; "Crystal is that your boyfriend!"

Crystal was visibly annoyed, "Go back to class Violet!" She commanded.

"Kay!" She shouted back, scampering indoors.

"Why does she always ask me that when I'm with a boy?"

"Because she's a little girl?" Silver replied.

"I know, it just gets irritating after a while." She perked up immediately after saying that, "But, I'm not gonna worry about it until tomorrow, when I'm good and rested."

"Shall we go then?"

"We shall."

"I think you forgot your hat." Silver pointed out as they began to walk.

"Oh well, I'll come back for it." Crystal said after patting her head to make sure it was really gone.

"You sure? Personally I'd like to hold this off." Silver said.

"Oh come on, it won't be that bad."

"I don't know, I still think the whole 'we'll be unfailingly nice to you on your birthday' thing was a dumb idea. I don't know if I can honestly put up with Gold's... antics for a whole day." Silver explained, finding the nicest possible word for said antics.

"I meant it won't be that bad on your part. Just don't mention Blue, he won't get any ideas and this whole thing will be over before you know it."

"That's a nice thought but we know better."

"Silver, let's not make this glass half empty versus glass half full. Let's just get through this. Gold's a bit of jerk but it's not like he'd take advantage of us."

Suddenly from behind, "You know I wish I had a joke to go with what you just said but I can't think of one."

Silver and Crystal turned around and who should be standing there but; "Gold." Crystal said.

"We aren't even where you said to meet." Silver pointed out.

"Eh, I got here early." Gold shrugged, he had his hands hanging by the wrist over his cue perched on his neck, "So, I was gonna ask if you guys remembered what today was but-"

"Your mom called and told us." Silver and Crystal said in unison, hijacking Gold's sentence.

Their eyes widened slightly with surprise and then they turned to each other with a look that could only be described as "didn't see that coming".

"That was weird. We need to hang out more, you guys turn into robots when I'm gone." Gold said, "But as long as you remember, remember what you promised?"

"Yeah Gold. 'Let you be you.'" Crystal replied.

"Yeah but I gotta make sure you guys hold to it. Hey Crystal have I ever said you have a nice butt? I mean a really nice butt?" Gold teased, Crystal lit up like a Christmas light and Silver looked back and forth between the two of them awkwardly, wondering if Crystal was going to backlash against this and if so, how bad it was going to be, "It's tight, round, it looks soft. Just layin' that out there."

Crystal kept her eyes closed, her eyebrows furrowed and had a scowl that looked like it could kill someone. Silver watched them in concern and maybe anticipation. He almost wanted to hit Gold for being such an insensitive idiot but he was actually scared for what Crystal might do to him. She didn't say a word; she didn't move either. She chose to keep that scowl and try and ignore what Gold had just said, against her better judgement.

"Hey Crys, you got anything to say?" He asked.

"No comment." She growled immediately after he finished, almost cutting him off.

"Wow, you're pretty dedicated to this." Gold put his hand to his chin, "I thought I had you with that one." He shrugged, "Well okay. Have fun with that knowledge, let's get going." He said, walking past them.

Crystal and Silver trailed behind, Crystal's face brimming with contempt, "So, still optimistic?" Silver asked.

"Shut up Silver." Crystal said in an uncharacteristically irritated voice.

/

Gold took a bite out of his vanilla cone with a look of satisfaction on his face, "Ah man. Mm. Thanks for paying you guys. Seriously, appreciate it." He said while Silver and Crystal quietly minded their confectioneries, "Hey Crys, about that whole 'butt' thing. I just said that as soon as I thought of it, I haven't actually been looking. Or have I? You would never know." Gold teased, Crystal ignored him, "Come on, say something, you guys are boring me."

Crystal slipped her spoon out of her mouth, "How was your day?"

"I haven't had a day yet, try harder." He pleaded.

Crystal tried again, "Well, okay, lately I've been-"

"Wait, I seem to have stopped caring." Gold cut her off, "Hey Silver, I was thinking about Blue the other day and-"

"Gold please don't." Silver stopped him.

"What, it's not like I groped her anything. Wait." Gold began, Silver's face wasn't angry looking necessarily but rather it looked like that of a madman at his wits end, "No, no I totally did that... I feel uncomfortable," He stood up, "guys I have to get something I'll be right back."

And with that he left, walking past them. Silver's expression became blank. He sat for a moment doing nothing, Crystal wondered if he was okay. It was sort of like the way he had been worried earlier when Gold mentioned Crystal's apparently nice backside. Silver reached for the knife on the counter, not caring at the moment about who the hell uses a steel steak knife in an ice cream parlor and started to turn as he stood up.

Crystal grabbed his left hand, the one clutching the knife just as he got out of his chair, "Silver no."

"I just wanna talk to him."

"It's not worth it."

"I just wanna talk to him."

"It would cause more problems than it would solve."

Silver paused, after a second he turned back to Crystal and tossed the knife on the table, "I wasn't gonna do it anyway." He said as he sat back down, "If I were I'd be better off using Pokémon."

They returned to eating ice cream when Gold came back, his Aipom clutched onto his shoulder with it's tail holding up a large bag that had something rectangular in it, "Okay so like I was saying, Silver, you've known Blue since you were two right?"

"Yeah." Silver reluctantly replied.

"So were you toilet-trained by then or did she have to change your diapers for a while?" Gold asked.

Silver put an elbow on the table and put his forehead to his hand with an annoyed look.

/

In regions like Johto, most towns were a short walk away from each other. Violet City for example wasn't very far from Goldenrod. So naturally it didn't take Gold long to drag Silver and Crystal with him to his next destination. In this case not just Goldenrod city but Goldenrod Game Corner.

"I thought you said they kicked you out of this place." Silver mentioned.

"Ah they won't remember me." Gold ensured.

"What if we don't want to gamble?" Crystal asked.

"Then don't. They have arcade machines, just waste some time on those." Gold said as he put his arms behind his head and walked through the door as relaxed as someone could possibly look.

Crystal rolled her eyes, having no choice but to follow him, "Well how bad could it be?" She asked herself walking in through the door.

"You'd be surprised." Silver interjected, being only a few steps behind her.

Crystal raised an eyebrow. Silver told her of a time just last month when he was over at Gold's house. They were playing some kind of game. He couldn't remember what it was off the top of his head but Gold had apparently won and was whooping and hollering like a chimp. Silver had tried to ignore it and just let his overenthusiastic friend wear himself out. But that got harder because that same friend was chanting "in your face, in your face, in your face" with no end in sight.

"And then he started pelvic thrusting the air." Silver explained.

"That sounds like something Gold would do sadly." She replied, "If I knew he was gonna leave us to do our own thing I would've brought a book."

"Well he said there was an arcade somewhere in here. Let's just hope it's not too close to the pool tables."

/

Silver and Crystal were at one of the machines that they were ever so slightly surprised to learn Gold was telling the truth about, "No offense Silver, but you're not very good at this game."

"It's the last boss." He replied.

"And you've been at him for," She checked the clock on her Pokégear quick before finishing, "fifteen minutes."

"Sorry." He said, trying not to break his concentration, "Okay what, does the block button on this thing not work?"

"You can't block the laser." Crystal explained.

"So do I have to beat him before he does it?"

"I think he does it at random." She replied just before that same laser was used again.

"K.O! YOU LOSE!" The in game voice cried.

"Really I hadn't noticed." Silver said, "So how do you beat him?" Silver asked no one in particular.

"I can show you." Crystal offered.

Silver looked at her. He moved away from the from the machine while the "you lose" cutscene played. He flipped the coin he was planning to use to go again in Crystal's direction. She tried to catch it but missed, but before it fell to the floor she kicked as she would a Poké Ball. The coin flew back up to eye level where Crystal caught it and put it in the coin slot before the "Continue?" countdown finished.

"Nice save." Silver complimented.

"Thanks."

It was hardly two minutes later when; "K.O! YOU, SAVED THE EARTH!"

Silver's eyebrows were raised slightly, "Not bad. How did you know to do that?"

"I have this game at home." She answered.

"Excuse me." A man said, coming up behind them, "Are your names Silver and Crystal?"

"Yes." Crystal replied.

"I'm sorry but you have to leave."

/

"Yeah well your food sucks anyway!" Gold yelled from just outside the Game Corner.

"I can't believe you got kicked out again for doing the exact same thing." Silver said, rubbing his temples.

"So what? I wasn't betting. They can't take a joke." Gold claimed with his arms folded, "Whatever. Hey Crys let's go to your house."

"What? Why?"

"I've never seen it, besides, it'd be pretty mean if we all got together and I didn't let Bakutaro see his friends." He explained, holding up Bakutaro's Poké Ball, the Pokémon inside lying down and resting if not just sleeping, "Come on, be nice like you said and lead the way."

Crystal grabbed Silver by his shoulders and moved him in front of her before turning around, likely because of Gold's earlier comments on things she didn't want him looking at, though what she liked even less was the idea of Gold being in her house, "Someone kill me now." She said as the idea sunk in.

"An entire school of children would be completely destroyed if that happened." Silver reminded her.

Crystal just let that conversation go.

/

Crystal opened the door to her home with Silver and Gold close behind her. She and Silver had sickly looking faces on them.

"So it took like, a week to get it all off the wall. Hey Crys, where's your kitchen?" Gold asked, Crystal stopped to try and think of a nice way to say "you're not getting into my fridge and eating my food" but she didn't have to, "I need to put this bag down." He told her, holding up the bag with the rectangular item in it he and his Pokémon had been carrying the whole way. Crystal pointed to her kitchen which was just next to the living room hardly separated by half a wall that had a staircase jutting out of it, "Thanks." He finished, walking in.

Crystal walked over to her couch and let herself fall face down onto the cushions.

Silver walked over to where she was, "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'm gonna go check on the Pokémon then." He told her.

Referring to his Feraligatr, Crystal's Meganium "Megapyon", and Gold's Typhlosion, the aforementioned Bakutaro. They were all originally Pokémon in Professor Elm's lab, and through that, later coincidence and the eventual closeness of their trainers, these Pokémon more or less grew up together. To keep them happy, Gold, Silver and Crystal would come together and let them out of their Poké Balls to socialize. It helped that they were friends anyway, given all they'd been through. But as Silver turned to "check on them", Crystal sat up and grabbed his arm.

"No you're not." She insisted.

Silver didn't even want to hear why Crystal was objecting, his immediate reaction was to object to her objection. Words from both of them just flew into the air with no regard for what the other was saying. You could hardly understand them over each other talking at once. Something like "you can't leave me alone with him" worries about him bringing up Blue, being too tired and needing to get away, needing to be there because he can't be left alone in Crystal's house and basically every worry either one could possibly conceive of plausible or not. They started raising their voices and getting louder.

Eventually one of them, that one being Silver, had to snap, "Let go!"

"Don't yell at me!" She shouted standing up from the couch, they stopped and looked at each other, collecting themselves, "I'm sorry." Crystal was the first to apologize, "Why are we getting so mad?"

Silver turned his eyes to the area Gold was and back as if to point with them, and that was the only answer he could give her.

"Hey what with all the yelling." Gold said, coming up to them, they didn't say anything, "Since it's my birthday, can I ask you guys a favor? Go into the kitchen but wait until after I'm gone."

"After you're gone?" Crystal was confused.

"Yeah, I got some stuff I gotta do. But seriously, chill out you two." He told them, "Going now." He finished as he walked quickly out the door, from inside they could hear him shout; "I'm going Bakutaro but I'll leave you here to play for a while, be back!"

There were a few seconds of silence, "If he messed up my kitchen I'm gonna kill him."

"I noticed he didn't have that bag with him."

They looked back at each other and were briefly silent, "Okay." Crystal began, "I'll go in, and let's prepare for the worst." She walked with caution into her kitchen, once there Silver saw her eyes widen and her mouth drop open.

"What is it?" Silver asked in a tone that sounded half annoyed half unsurprised.

"You might wanna come in and see this." She replied.

Silver walked in and his face soon matched Crystal's. There was a chocolate cake sitting on Crystal's table. The bag it had come in was rolled up into a ball and had been tossed away from the cake, and there was a plastic covering placed behind the cake, having been taken off. There were two candles on the cake, a red one and a blue one that were lit somehow, knowing Gold he probably found a way to do it with a Pokémon, even in the absence of his one fire-type. And quite noticeably, in the middle of the cake were large words written in blue frosting that read "THANKS GUYS". Before the cake was a folded piece of paper.

"What is all this?" Crystal wondered aloud, Silver walked forward and picked up the note, Crystal walked up to him as he opened it, "What is it, what's it say?"

Silver read it out loud; "Hey guys. If you're reading this then my cake idea must've gone off without a hitch. I wrote this after I ditched you at the Game Corner so you wouldn't see me and I could figure this stuff out. I'm not the kinda guy who likes to get all sappy in person, I wouldn't have a whole lot I could bring myself to say so I wrote down what I wanted you to hear. If I've been driving you guys extra crazy it's not just because you can't give me crap back today, I've been trying really hard today to drive you guys insane. Yeah that's not very nice but it's me. I'm selfish, I don't usually care much about other peoples misfortunes. Sometimes though, I'd like to think I'm not completely selfish. That underneath the jerk who only thinks or cares for himself and does whatever he feels like there's something worth having around and caring about. I guess you guys see that, whatever it is. I tried to test that today. So thanks guys. Also, if you ever tell anyone I did this, even Blue, Silver, I will kill you both in your sleep."

Silver looked it over, "Is there more?" Crystal asked.

"There is on the back. 'And I swear they don't sell grey candles anywhere. That and what color is crystal supposed to be anyway? Then I remembered Crys dyed her hair blue again so I figured, red hair-blue hair, red candle-blue candle.'" Silver stayed silent for a few seconds, "Wow he actually put thought into this."

"So, somewhere under all the jerk he has a heart of gold?" Crystal quipped.

Silver raised an eyebrow and smiled, "Really?"

"I couldn't help myself." She replied, they turned their attention back to the cake quietly, still a bit disbelieving, "...I guess." She paused, "We should eat it, since he went to the trouble."

"Red hair-blue hair." Silver repeated.

They glanced in each other's direction briefly and bent over the table, inhaled, and swiftly blew out their respective candles.

/

Gold and Mantaro swooped down from the sky, having just come back from having more or less bought his own presents. Down there was Bakutaro to greet him, watching it's trainer getting progressively closer. He returned Mantaro and his numerous Remoraid to their Poké Balls before actually getting to the ground. He fell and landed a few feet down. When he stood up he saw Crystal and Silver coming up to him with small smiles on their faces.

"Hey guys. You go in the kitchen like I asked?"

"Red hair-blue hair." Crystal repeated.

Gold gave them a knowing smile, "Yeah you seem happy now but how do you know I didn't put something in the cake? Like laxatives or something?" Silver and Crystal darted the eyes away, they knew better than to think Gold would do that but they were still trying to be nice, which Gold noticed, "Alright it's kinda weird when you guys just take that crap you'd never take so if you want we could just drop the whole nice thi-"

Before he could even finish Silver and Crystal were in flurry. Yelling at him about privacy, what he does and doesn't have the right to look at, how some things are best kept to one's self, people he is not allowed to talk or even think about, etcetera. He could hardly hear them over one and another. He just smiled with a raised eyebrow in acceptance.

/

"Why are we going to your house?" Silver shouted.

Gold had challenged them to a race with their flying Pokémon. The finish line being Gold's house. He took off without much explanation as to why they were racing and got a head start. Silver and Crystal considered staying and letting Gold take off but it was still his birthday technically. Besides he would probably just come back and bug them for not chasing him so they figured "what the heck." It was only now that Silver got the chance to ask.

Gold landed before Silver did and then answered; "I just felt like it. Huh, I actually did get back at eight." She said looking at his Pokégear, "Oh, and it's my mom's birthday so if she's there when we go in tell her 'happy birthday' and, hey where did Crystal go."

Silver turned around and looked for her, "I don't know, she couldn't have been that far behind me."

"I wasn't." Said Crystal from behind them both.

They turned around and saw her standing by the wall of Gold's house, "Crys?" Gold was shocked.

"What took you so long?"

"How did you get here ahead of us?" Gold asked.

"Secret." She replied, "Shall we go in then." She turned around and turned the knob as she said that and she shrieked as soon as the door was open, "Aah!" She whipped around, "I'm sorry! Leaving now!"

But her scream had alerted Gold and Silver who came running to see what startled her, and by the time she'd turned around Gold was staring through the door with horror on his face, "Mom!"

"Dad!" Silver exclaimed immediately after Gold, almost cutting him off.

The weight of those words and their implications hit Crystal, "Mom, Dad?" She turned back, "Wait what?... Oh my god no."

/

Gold, Silver and Crystal sat at the table in Gold's kitchen with noticeably disheveled, unsettled, maybe even slightly off-put looks. They had been sitting saying nothing to each other. They had nothing to say. They just sat, absorbing and contemplating what they saw. Crystal's mother walked in but could do nothing to make the scene less awkward.

She was hesitant, unsure of what she should say, "Well this is an unusual way to introduce everyone's parents." None of the children reacted, "...Wow this is really awkward, Crystal," She walked behind her daughter's chair and put her hands on her shoulders, "we'll talk about this when we get home just... Let me know when you're ready to go." And with that she took her leave, Crystal had taken the time to look her mother's way before going right back to looking into space but other than that the three didn't even move.

After a few more seconds of silence Gold looked upward and said, "Worst, Birthday, ever!"

Silver and Crystal's only response was to move their eyes and look at their friend.

/

Poor Johto trio. Don't feel too bad for them though, one day they'll look back on this and laugh. Gold's present is that everyone accepts that he's selfish, but that's not all he is either. For those of you with bad memory, the Pokémon helping Gold out of bed comes from the manga, remember his introduction in volume 8? Sharing his birthday with his mother doesn't, I just thought would be kinda cool for Gold and his mom to both have the same birthday, and I chose 27th at random. And the burger for breakfast was a quirk I thought of based on a throw away line at the end of the GSC chapter.

I'm never sure what I should do with the dialogue of the characters so I just do what comes naturally. This has the result of giving the characters, who are for all intents and purposes Japanese, American-Canadian accents. Have you ever heard Americans and Canadians talk? We sound exactly the same. Well mostly, the more north you get in the US the more similar it is. But I think it works out okay. But the point I'm trying to bring up here is while there's no basis in it in either translation(Viz or Chuang Yi) to the best of my knowledge, Gold just strikes me as the kind of person to call his mom "Ma". And for the brief moments I get to write her, so long as she's loving and lenient I can write Gold's mom however I want for how ever briefly she appears.

"Silver, let's not make this glass half empty versus glass half full. Let's just get through this. Gold's a bit of jerk but it's not like he'd take advantage of us."

When I wrote this I was tempted to make Gold yell "surprise buttsex" but that wouldn't've worked. So I had him be my mouth briefly and say I wish I had joke to follow into what Crystal said but I didn't. The idea of Crystal failing to catch something with her hands and then catching it with her foot is carried over from my other story "Beach Day" it's just a charming little scenario. And you may've noticed the "YOU SAVED THE EARTH" K.O lines are from Marvel vs Capcom 3. I don't actually have that game. As a matter of fact I don't care much at all for Capcom. And I prefer DC to Marvel. But I do think Galactus is awesome. Granted that's not the game they're supposed to be playing but I got the sounds in my head from there.

The red hair-blue hair combo is something I noticed. There's actually a red-blue theme for the first three generations that I think is unintentional. Red and Blue, red haired boy-blue haired girl, Ruby and Sapphire, you see where I'm going with this? And I'll leave what Crystal found to your imagination. But don't say it was something generic think of something really off the wall and insane that would have been such WTF moment it would've either ruined or made the story legendary if I showed it. Was Crystal's mom involved or did she just come by later? You decide. My closing notes are getting longer. I guess I just have a lot to talk about.

And the cake is not a lie. There, I beat you to it. XD