Disclaimer: Some nice people in white coats told me that I don't own Pokémon. Pfft. Next they'll probably be telling me that Santa Clause doesn't exist either.
A/N *crawls out from under rock* Okay, I can explain the lack of updates. I had SUMMER SCHOOL. *horror music plays in background* But now that's over, and I have two weeks to recover before the fall semester. Yay.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter very much, or at least kinda like it! If there are any grammar mistakes in this, please point them out so I can fix them!
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Chapter 10: What We Learn
After Silver got his breath back (he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him, after all), he stared for several moments to take in some key details, just to make sure of the other boy's identity. Untidy black hair that made him look like a wannabe goth? Check. Long-sleeved red jacket that could not be comfortable in this heat? Check. Tattered and faded baseball cap that looked to be about ten years old? Check. Yep, definitely Gold. Silver wasn't sure whether to feel pissed off or simply surprised. Because seriously, why the hell did they keep bumping into one another?
Silver, deciding to break the silence, spoke up. "Why the hell do you keep turning up?" he demanded. Okay, pissed off it was.
A scowl formed on Gold's face, but he looked slightly confused as well.
"Oh, come on! You can't possibly have not noticed," he nearly shouted, then held up a finger. "One: you run into me just as I'm leaving New Bark." Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned that, he realized, but quickly plowed on, and held up a second finger. "Two: you're there when Team Rocket is in Violet City." He threw up his hands in exasperation. "And now you're here! Where the hell are you not?"
Looking as though he was beginning to wonder about Silver's mental health, Gold simply stared at him, completely silent, and for the first time, Silver realized that, though they had met up three times now, the other trainer had never actually spoken to him. Silver had no idea what his voice even sounded like, and for some inexplicable reason, that disturbed him.
When Gold's expression slowly morphed from concerned to cold, Silver's temper, already particularly short that morning, was finally lost. He snarled and roughly grabbed the front of Gold's jacket, jerking him forward. "For Arceus' sake, say something!"
Gold, quickly recovering from the shock of being borderline assaulted, responded with a lightning-fast uppercut to Silver's chin.
Luckily for Silver, the force of the blow was impeded by his own arms getting in the way, but that didn't stop him from stumbling back, releasing his grip on Gold in the process. As Silver hastily righted himself, he felt blood, warm and tasting of copper, coat the front of his mouth—he'd just bitten his tongue. He was about to retaliate when Gold spoke for the first time, stopping him in his tracks.
"I," he ground out. "Nuh. Whud. You. Did." His voice was slightly breathy, and surprisingly deep for someone his age and size. It was also completely monotone, which contrasted strangely with the angry expression on his face. Though he had mispronounced some of his words, Silver had little trouble figuring out what he'd said: I know what you did.
After a short moment of wondering whether or not Gold was having some sort of stroke (he didn't appear ready to collapse, so he ruled that out), Silver replied, "Oh yeah? And what exactly did I do?"
Gold walked closer to Silver and jabbed a finger at his chest. "Yuhr. Uh. Theev," he said, slowly pronouncing each word, and still failing to say them correctly. Still, it was easy enough to interpret: You're a thief.
Silver glared at the trainer, grinding his teeth. Well, that proved his hypothesis that Gold knew about the incident at the lab. What now?
Gold was still staring at him (though he had lowered his hand), and was obviously expecting an answer. So Silver, trying to look unconcerned about the possibility of being arrested thanks to his acquaintance-slash-adversary, rolled his eyes and said nonchalantly, "'Thief' is such a strong word. If anything, I'm a Good Samaritan for taking that pokémon off their hands. The thing's more trouble than it's worth."
Gold snarled. "Give id bag," he said, talking more quickly this time, slurring the words together.
Silver looked at him imperiously. "I'm not giving it back. You're an idiot if you think I'd listen to you."
To Silver's surprise, Gold actually backed up, and for a second, he thought he was going to leave. But then he withdrew a pokéball from his pocket, and Silver suddenly understood.
"You want to battle over the pokémon, then?" When Gold nodded curtly, Silver smirked slightly. "Fine by me. If you win, I'll give it back." When Gold didn't argue, he continued, "But if I win, you'll leave me alone. Got it?" When Gold gave another unhesitant nod, Silver spun on his heel and walked away until there was about fifteen feet of space between them. Turning around, he grabbed his own pokéball. Without further ado, he tossed it, releasing Gastly.
Gold had thrown out a pokéball at around the same time Silver had, apparently, because there was already an aipom standing opposite to them. It looked back at Gold questionably. Gold replied by briefly pointing at Gastly (or maybe Silver; it was hard to tell). That was apparently a signal to turn around, because the aipom did just that.
Suddenly, Silver mentally kicked himself for being so stupid. This whole time, he had been thinking that Gold could telekinetically command his pokémon or some crap like that. Now it was obvious why he stay silent; his pokémon could probably barely understand him with his weird accent (or was it a speech impediment?). Shaking off his embarrassment, Silver snapped out a short order. "Curse!"
Gastly hesitated just a moment before forming a dark gray spike out of the gas surrounding it and jamming it into itself. It let out a pained gasp as it did so, which almost made Silver cringe. I wonder what that feels like.
Meanwhile, the aipom was running toward them. Just as Gastly was finishing its attack, Gold's pokémon jumped up and hit it square in the face with its tail. Whatever the aipom had done was obviously not a normal or fighting type move, because Gastly recoiled from it, though only a little.
"Idiot," Silver muttered, not entirely sure if he was referring to his pokémon or himself. "Just dodge around until it faints."
The battle didn't last long after that. The aipom chased Gastly around for a few minutes, landing the occasional weak hit, but soon succumbed to the curse attack, fainting after being stabbed with a ghostly nail for the fourth time.
Gold returned the fainted aipom and immediately sent out a quilava. The quilava stole a quick glance at it trainer before lunging at Gastly with a quick attack. Almost before Silver could blink and well before he could give an order, the quick attack turned into a flame wheel, hitting Gastly hard and knocking it out instantly.
Cursing inwardly, Silver withdrew Gastly and sent out his zubat. "Hurry up and use astonish!"
The quilava, caught off guard, recoiled from the hit and barely managed to move away from the supersonic Zubat fired at it. After that, though, the quilava proved to be obnoxiously fast, easily dodging every move sent towards it. In what had to have been less than a minute later, Zubat was down.
Dammit. Well, he still had an ace up his sleeve. Silver threw his final pokéball, releasing Croconaw. As the light from the pokéball faded, Silver muttered, "You had a lot of nerve, challenging me." Not wasting any more time, he shouted, "Use water gun, now!"
But Croconaw had frozen in place, and was simply staring at its opponent. Gold's quilava was equally still. Silver suddenly realized that the quilava must have been the same pokémon Gold had used in their first battle. The two starters clearly recognized each other, and both seemed unwilling to make the first move.
"Dammit, Croconaw! Attack already!"
Silver's words seemed to snap Croconaw out of its stupor. It fired a powerful blast of water at the quilava, who managed to jump out of the way just in time. It quickly sent a flurry of sharp yellow stars Croconaw's way. Silver ordered another water gun to block the swift attack (which actually worked, much to Silver's surprise). The quilava raced towards them—ducking under another water gun along the way—and used another swift, send Croconaw reeling. Silver's pokémon used yet another water gun, which hit the quilava dead on.
The fire-type skidded across the dirt several feet, but was up again in seconds. It released a smokescreen as Croconaw sent out another blast of water. The battleground was immediately filled with smoke, but that didn't stop Croconaw's attack from hitting its target, if the fire-type's cry of pain was anything to go by.
Silver wasn't entirely sure how the next several minutes of battling went, thanks to all the smoke. Judging from all the noise, though, it seemed to be rather intense. Suddenly, he noticed that not only was the area smoking, but steaming as well—the quilava's fire attacks were boiling Croconaw's water moves.
Eventually, the smoke and steam dissipated enough for Silver to see what was going on. Both pokémon had completely abandoned their elemental moves in favor of brute force, and were now viciously biting and clawing one another, neither showing any sign of flagging.
Silver wracked his brains for a strategy. He couldn't let the quilava get to far away; the thing was clearly too fast to easily get hit with long range moves. But how could he keep it close? He made a snap decision. "Pin it down!" he called.
Easier said than done. The quilava proved to not only be fast, but slippery as hell, and it kept wriggling from Croconaw's grasp. Silver cursed loudly. Gold, whose eyes were still on the battle, ignored him completely.
Well, screw that plan. "Just keep using water gun!" Silver ordered, and Croconaw immediately complied and blasted more water at the quilava, once again sending it sliding backwards. Before it could get reoriented, it was hit again. Silver smirked triumphantly. The tide was turned.
Gold's pokémon barely avoided the next water gun, and got skimmed by the next. Before Croconaw could aim again, he received a smokescreen to the face, followed quickly by a molten hot ember. The water-type reeled back in pain, but remained standing. He sent another rush of water the quilava's way. Once again, Croconaw missed, but only just. The quilava was tiring quickly, Silver noted. But so was Croconaw. The battle would end soon.
And end soon it did. As Silver was formulating another plan in his head, he realized the quilava was no longer on its feet, and looked dazed. It looked solemnly at the pair of them, then closed its eyes. It didn't get up after that.
Silver stared uncomprehendingly at the fallen pokémon before a stony-faced Gold withdrew it. Even after that, he simply looked at the spot of ground where it was just a moment before as he waited for Gold to release another pokémon. When Gold failed to send out another one, he realized the quilava must have been his last. Which meant . . .
Silver had won.
It took a moment to get over the shock (why was he surprised, anyway? He was the one with the water-type!). After his surprise wore off (and after he returned Croconaw), he looked up at Gold, who was staring at the pokéball in his hand, face partially obscured by the brim of his hat. But while his expression was impossible to read from where Silver was, his slumped shoulders gave away what he was feeling. Silver smirked.
"Got a little cocky, didn't you?" he called out, but Gold didn't seem to hear him. Silver gave a small huff through his nose. He wasn't fond of being ignored. "Hey! I'm talking to you!" He began to walk towards him, and only then did the other trainer look up.
Silver crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "You realize what this means, don't you? I won, so you have to keep your mouth shut, got it?"
Gold glared at Silver as he stuffed the pokéball in his pocket. He then proceeded to make several odd hand gestures at him. Silver was pretty sure he'd just been cussed out in sign language.
He furrowed his brows as his brain finally began to make connections. "Wait a minute. Don't tell me you've been deaf all this time." When Gold rolled his eyes, as though he should have known, Silver scowled. "Don't give me that," he said in exasperation. "I'm not a damn psychic. This is the first time you've even talked to me." Silver vaguely wondered how much of that Gold managed to process; lip-reading couldn't be all that reliable.
"Anyway," he continued, changing the subject, "let me remind you. You keep quiet about this whole thing. At least I'm making good use of the pokémon I have. Can you say the same?"
For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed Gold's features, and he didn't answer.
He looked at him disdainfully. "Yeah, I didn't think so. You're just like everyone else." Silver took several steps closer to Gold, until their faces were little more than a foot apart. "I hate the weak," he said slowly, carefully annunciating each word. "Pokémon, trainers. It doesn't matter who or what. I hate to see them hanging around." Silver's mind flashed back to his most recent encounter with Team Rocket, where he'd been hopelessly outnumbered. He gritted his teeth. "That goes for Team Rocket, too. They think they're so damn tough as long as they're in a group. But get them alone, and they're weak." He pointed a threatening finger at Gold. "You stay away from me. Don't think you'll be an exception if you get in my way." He examined Gold's face, which was once again impassive. Silver cast him one final haughty look before turning away and walking back into town.
"Oh, and Gold . . ." Silver began, before remembering he wouldn't be heard, and turned back around. He found himself unsurprised that Gold had been watching him as he'd been walking away. Silver opened his mouth to say some final threatening words, but realized he couldn't think of anything suitable. So he said the first thing that came to mind:
"Be careful out there."
Silver didn't wait to see Gold's reaction. Instead, he turned swiftly around and began his trek back to Azalea. And this time, he didn't look back.
As he walked away, he felt fine droplets of water hit his face as it started to rain.
OoOoOoOoO
"And . . . we . . . are . . . out!" Lyra announced as she stepped triumphantly out of Union Cave, clutching the egg she'd been carrying with her all day. "Aaaaand it's raining," she added as an afterthought. Chris, who was just behind her, couldn't tell if Lyra considered that good news or not.
"I've heard it does that a lot here," she replied, wondering if her companion was going to go off on a digression of sorts about the rain or the weather in general or how much water certain plants needed in order to thrive or the average annual rainfall in Route 33 or how fast food was bad for you or whatever else Lyra deemed relevant to their current situation.
To be completely honest, Chris hoped that Lyra would choose to stay quiet for just a little while longer. While it wasn't quite fair to say that Lyra talked constantly, it was certainly something she spent a good deal of time doing, and it would be nice to have a bit of a break from that. So far, Lyra had managed to stay relatively quiet for about three hours now, which just had to be a new record for her. Her silence, Chris thought, probably had something to do to Heracross having decided to return to New Bark Town just before they began their trek through the cave. Lyra probably missed the bug-type.
When Lyra responded with little more than an absent "Hmm," to Chris' statement, she couldn't help but feel a little relieved. But when Lyra turned to face her and ask if she was ready to keep going, Chris suddenly wanted her to start chattering away again, because at least that was Lyra's normal behavior.
Now that they were out of the darker part of the cave, Chris could properly see her traveling partner. Lyra, she noticed, looked exhausted. Her eyes seemed duller than before, and the skin underneath them was gray. Her entire face was paler than it should have been, and the smile she sent her way looked weary.
"Ready to brave the storm?" she asked, trying to sound like her normal self (and to her credit, nearly succeeding).
Chris considered her options. Azalea Town was about a mile off now, but the heavy rain would probably make the trek downright miserable. Add that to the fact that they had spent all day either walking or battling, heading to Azalea right away seemed like a bad idea.
"I say we stay put for a few hours," she decided, and gauged Lyra for her reaction.
Lyra seemed to consider it for a moment. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I mean, I'm ready to go whenever you are . . ."
"Well, I'm not ready to go until this storm stops," Crys said firmly, and she didn't miss the brief flash of relief on Lyra's face. "Also, you might want to step out of the rain now. . . ."
"What?" Lyra asked, looking confused, until she looked around realized she was still standing just outside. "Ah," she said, stepping inside, "that would explain why I'm dripping all over the place." When Chris rolled her eyes (something she did very rarely), Lyra smiled ruefully. "Well, at least it's not cold out, right?"
"True," Chris replied, "but you should still probably change into some dry clothes."
"Oh, right. Well, I'll be right back! Stay there!" And with that, Lyra passed her egg off to Chris and ran off into a deeper part of the cave. That left Chris alone with nothing but her thoughts (and the egg) to keep her company.
She sat cross-legged on the ground, leaning against the wall of the cave and staring off into the distance. She pondered over the enigma that was Lyra. During their short time together, the girl had proven to be one of the . . . oddest people she'd ever met. Chris had quickly learned it was hard to keep up with Lyra when it came to conversations—not only did she talk extremely fast and never seemed to need to catch her breath, but she jumped from subject to subject so suddenly it left Chris' head spinning. One moment she would be telling her about different battle strategies she'd thought up, and the next she'd be happily prattling on about how many trainers their age died each year. It was both amusing and unsettling at the same time.
And for someone who gave off such a carefree vibe, Lyra was surprisingly serious about her training schedule. Every morning before breakfast, she'd leave her egg near the campfire and take her pokémon (along with Herecross, who had liked to tag along) out for a jog along whatever path they were currently traveling on, with Marill running alongside her and Pidgey flying above them with a small rock grasped in her claws. When a very winded and red-faced Lyra returned around a half hour later, Chris, who had decided to take a leaf out of Lyra's book, would take her own turn to jog, bringing Butterfree along with her and leaving Bayleef behind as an extra bodyguard (which Marill seemed to find very insulting). Chris would generally return to find Lyra with the egg in her lap with an expression of unease on her face; the egg, as of yet, had shown no sign of being ready to hatch. Chris didn't have the heart to tell her she doubted it ever would.
She was yanked out of her dark thoughts when she noticed a hand waving in front of her face, causing her to flinch in surprise. "Geez, Lyra! A little warning would be nice! I could have pulled a 'crouching tiger, hidden dragon' on you."
Lyra, who was now looking marginally better now that she was in dry clothes, smiled broadly. "Wow, you're getting less and less careful with your words the more time I get to know you. I like it."
Chris felt the side of her mouth twitch upward slightly as she handed the egg back to Lyra. "I suppose I have. Should I be concerned?"
"Probably not," Lyra replied. "Unless you end up like me, of course, and start getting weird looks from almost everyone you meet. Did I ever tell you about the time I asked an unpregnant lady if she was pregnant? Or when I told a random guy on a motorcycle that he was being dumb by not wearing a helmet? Or when I—you know what? I'm gonna shut up now, because I could go on and on about this all day."
Chris felt herself actually grin at that. "Normally, I'd be tempted to demand you tell me more, but you look ready to fall asleep standing, so I'm going to politely order you to sit down."
Lyra rolled her eyes, but slowly eased herself onto the ground nonetheless. "You should be a CEO of something when you grow up," she said. "You're good at giving orders." That last sentence would have sounded rudely sarcastic had anyone else Chris knew said it, but Lyra managed to make it sound like she approved.
"Thank you, Lyra."
"You're welcome, Crystal. And for the record, I really do thi—hey!" Lyra gasped, and looked down at the egg cradled in her arms. "I felt it move! Do you think it's hatching?"
Chris looked dubiously at the egg. "I didn't see anything. When was the due date for it, anyway?"
"No clue. I saw it for the first time about two month ago, and I don't know how long it'd been around before that," she admitted. "And seeing as I don't even know what species is supposed to hatch from here, I'm pretty clueless about the whole thing."
Chris bit her lip. Two months was a long time. "We'll see what happens, I suppose."
"Yeah," Lyra replied distantly, staring off into space as she held her cargo. Suddenly, her face split into a huge smile. "I felt it again! Hurry, put your hand on it!"
Chris reached out an arm and placed her flat palm on top of the egg. She waited several seconds.
"Do you feel it?"
"No," Chris said, drawing back. "Are you sure it moved at all?"
"Yeah, and it's moving right now!" Lyra insisted. "And you didn't feel anything?"
Chris was on the verge of telling Lyra it was probably just her imagination when she heard a tiny crack resonate from the egg.
That almost imperceptible sound was apparently enough to startle Lyra quite a bit, if her sudden flinch was anything to go by. She looked questionably at Chris.
"Yeah," Chris said, not needing to be asked, "I heard it." She leaned forward and pointed to a spot on the shell. "And there," she continued, "is where it cracked."
Lyra carefully turned it around to look, and her eyes widened. "Dang, that baby kicks hard! I can see the inside now!"
Chris moved over to sit beside her. "What does it look like? Can you tell what it is yet?"
"Not yet, no, but it looks like a light color." She tapped the egg gently. "Come on out, baby! Come see Mommy Lyra and Auntie Chris!"
Maybe the unborn pokémon had heard her, because it hit the inside of the shell again, breaking off a small piece.
This continued on for another fifteen minutes or so. The egg would crack a little more, Lyra would cheer it on, and Chris would try to figure out just what pokémon it was. Chris was just checking her watch (7:30 p.m., it read) when she heard a small, distinctly nonhuman squeal. She looked back towards Lyra, and her eyebrows shot up.
There Lyra sat, looking just as surprised as Chris felt, holding the small, round pokémon in her arms. A very rare pokémon.
Chris smiled widely as she patted her friend's shoulder. "Congratulations. Lyra. It's a togepi."
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The rain was going on for way too long, Silver decided, looking out the window and observing the storm. It was ten o' clock now—too late to be traveling—which meant Silver would be stuck at the pokémon center until tomorrow morning. But hey, at least he had internet access.
He turned back to the computer screen in front of him. Out of boredom, he'd looked up online videos on how to use sign language. True, he'd probably never see Gold again, but if he did, he wanted to be able to tell if he was being insulted or something. And then, of course, he could insult him back.
What Silver hadn't anticipated was how much he could get sucked into watching these stupid video clips. At first, he'd just wanted to look up a couple insulting terms. Then he'd decided it would hurt to learn the signs for words like 'hello' and 'goodbye.' Then he'd thought that he might as well learn the alphabet while he was at it—that way, he could basically say anything he wanted. Before he knew it, he'd been watching those stupid videos for two hours straight.
But at least it'd been slightly productive. He was pretty sure he could recite the alphabet now, and he knew seven or so words that would not be used in polite conversations (and learned that Gold had indeed been swearing at him earlier). He had a feeling he would forget a fair amount by morning, though. But he'd keep practicing—knowing sign language was too bad a skill, after all, even if he never did run into Gold again. And, Silver thought, he'd made some good progress in the space of two hours; he couldn't give up already. He was pretty damn good at learning this stuff, if he did say so himself.
It was funny, Silver thought, that he felt more accomplished after learning a few new words than he had after winning a pokémon battle.
And here he thought he knew himself better than that. Since when had he ever been interested in languages, anyway?
Suddenly, his mind flashed back to five years ago, when he was ten. He'd been talking to his mother one evening at the kitchen table. He'd forgotten what they'd been talking about that night, and why, but he remembered a handful of her words:
Sometimes, just when we think we completely know ourselves, we learn something totally new that changes everything. That's not always a bad thing, Silver.
He hoped she'd been right.
OoOoOoOoO
"Well, Proton? What do you have to say for yourself?" a teal-haired, sharp-featured man said nastily. He put his hands on the small wooden table in front of him and leaned forward, glaring down at Proton, who looked like he rather be somewhere else.
Proton scowled as he leaned back in his chair and inspected his fingernails. "There was nothing I could do about it," he replied flatly, not even bothering to look up. "Besides, we procured a decent amount of slowpoke tails despite the circumstances. If you had sent more competent grunts with me, we wouldn't have been impeded in the first place. Honestly, Archer, one would think you had more initiative than that. . . ."
"Spare me the flowery language," Archer snapped. "Honestly, were you a theater geek in high school or something?"
"Well, actually—"
"Be quiet, Proton," a curvy red-haired woman sitting to his right said dryly, which caused Proton to look at her in an exaggeratedly hurt manner. Completely ignoring Proton after that, she turned to Archer, who was pacing restlessly around. "I haven't seen Petrel."
Archer scowled. "I sent him and some grunts off to Mahogany Town to get some things situated. I wanted to be practical."
"You mean you wanted him out of your hair," Proton said.
Petrel snarled "I have heard just about enough from you for today!"
"But I didn't use any 'flowery language' that time!" Proton said innocently. "Why are you angry with me?"
"Because you're being insubordinate!" Archer shouted, his face slowly turning red.
For the first time, Proton looked slightly wary. Pushing Executive Archer to his breaking point was never a good idea. "My apologies, Archer," sounding more cautious than sincere.
The man in question gave him a look of disgust before turning to the woman, who had been silently observing them. "Ariana, would you like to add anything else to this discussion?"
"Yes," she replied. "I would like to head to Mahogany myself. I can take over for Petrel."
Archer considered this for a moment, but then shook his head. "No. No, that wouldn't work. That would leave me alone with Proton," he said, as if that explained everything (and really, it did). "You stay with me. I'll send Proton ahead. Petrel will have to put up with him for a while."
Proton looked dourly at Archer. "I'm still here, you know."
"Yes, and I really wish you weren't," Archer replied. "I think that wraps up our meeting. Ariana, you can take a break until tomorrow. We'll meet here again at eight."
Ariana gave a tiny nod. "Of course," she said levelly. "And what will tomorrow's meeting be about?"
"We'll need to send more grunts to Mahogany soon, and I need to decide which ones. Unfortunately, that also means Proton will need to be here with us again."
Proton smiled serenely, which Archer found somewhat annoying. "And what shall I be doing until then?" he asked.
Archer waved a dismissive hand. "Go drown a sack of kittens, or whatever else you do in your spare time."
"Your wish is my command, Archer," Proton said, still wearing that irritating smile. "Would that be all?"
"Yes, that would be all," Archer snapped. "Now get out of my sight."
Proton rose from his chair and strolled out, winking at an uninterested Ariana as he passed her by. As walked out the door, he called out over his shoulder, "Have a good night!"
As the sound of Proton's footsteps faded away, Archer turned to Ariana. "Please keep him in line tomorrow. You're the only one he ever willingly obeys." He paused. "Well, you and Giovanni," he added quietly.
There was a short silence.
Ariana was the first to break it. "He'll come back," she said, her voice sounding neither hopeless nor optimistic.
Archer let out a quiet, weary sigh. "Of course he will."
Neither spoke again for the rest of the night.
OoOoOoOoO
A/N So, what do you think? Like it? Hate it? Skipped the whole thing and just read the author's notes?
Notes on the story:
Yes, Gold can talk out loud. He just generally chooses not to. I also based the way he speaks off my experience with deaf people, so it should be reasonably accurate. How strong a deaf person's 'accent' is varies a lot. Gold hasn't had a lot of practice speaking aloud, so I made his a little on the stronger side.
I hope you were satisfied with Silver's reaction to finally learning about Gold's deafness. I purposely made it a pretty small deal for him. I just wanted him to feel momentarily surprised as he figured it out, then feel kinda dumb, then just go with it after that, not really caring all that much. I really didn't want it to be all like, "Omg he's deaf?! Omg wow, I am in complete shock, like omg!" Hopefully I pulled it off pretty well. If you disagree, please let me know and tell me why, so I can go back and fix it! :)
How 'bout the Lyra and Chris scene? I'm still trying to get Chris' personality to shine through, but she's being kinda difficult, possibly because I've never written such a polite-yet-unintentionally-uptight character before. Chris has trouble letting herself relax around other people, though she's trying, and I'm doing my best to show that. Lyra is also liable to give me a little trouble; she's supposed to be a tad eccentric, but definitely not a ditz. Hopefully, I'm doing okay at showing that. If not (or if so!), let me know!
Also, I freaking love writing anything with Proton in it. And yes, he was totally a theater geek when he was younger. I bet he got all the lead roles in his school plays! :D Anyway, what do you think about the Rocket scene as a whole?
And yes, I have finally added a cover image to this story. Hopefully, I'll be able to make a better one at some point (because this guy doesn't look much like Gold, does he?), but I thought this cover was a decent placeholder. It was meant to be a picture of Yiruma (the best pianist/composer ever, whom you should totally check out soon), but it didn't end up looking like him. But now I know how to make a picture of Gold! Here are the steps:
1. Try to draw Yiruma.
2. Fail.
3. Upload the picture to your computer and abuse Fanfiction's editing tool.
4. Post your masterpiece! :D
Also, while I'm thinking about it, manga-neko-96 (one of my reviewers) is super awesome. Why, you ask? Because she'd drawn pictures of Gold (and put them on DeviantArt) after I published this story. In other words, she made fanart of fanfiction, causing a fanception! She'd actually drawn them a long time ago, but I forgot to mention it until now, so yeah. Also, you should read her stuff, because yeah. Also, I'm beta-ing one of her stories. Also, my brain is shutting down, so I'mma post this before it goes totally blank. And before this A/N becomes novella-length.
If you have any questions and/or comments and/or critiques, feel free to review!
Thanks for reading!
Geek