Author's Notes: So, for this chapter, I listened to a couple of songs to help me get motivated. One was a suggestion from my sister, called "Run Rabbit Run" by The Hoosiers, and "Army of Angels" by Nedeshda Brennicke. Feel free to listen to either of those songs. If you're bored or need something to listen to while you read. Like me. Because I get distracted easily.

Sorry for OOC characters. Derp.

Chapter Ten

"So, I say we-"

"No. No more parties."

Blue stuck out her bottom lip, apparently pouting at Green's answer. "…I wasn't even going to say that. But, anyways! I wonder why Red didn't come by last night… I was expecting him to."

"Even stalkers take breaks once in a while."

Blue had no response to this, instead opting to tap her chin and grumble to herself. "…I guess… no… Maybe we should… no, not that either…"

"Listen…" Green began, snapping Blue out of her mumbling. "…I went to talk to Gramps yesterday."

"Oh… yeah, you did mention something like that… what about it?"

"I asked him a couple of questions about Red. For one thing, he hasn't seen Red in a while. When I asked him if it was possible to locate where a Pokédex… well, he said no. But he mentioned that the resonance system should work if Red had his Pokédex with him…"

Blue frowned. "…Then shouldn't it be start beeping whenever Red got close to us?"

"Exactly. It didn't. So I told the professor that."

"And? What then?"

"Aside from the possibility that Red simply didn't have his Pokédex with him all those times… the Pokédex's resonance system won't work if…" Green paused for a moment, and then shook his head. "Never mind."

"Don't say never mind! Tell me! What else would make the resonance system malfunction?"

Green sighed. "…It won't work if the owner of the Pokédex… is dead."

Blue went silent.

It wouldn't work if the Pokédex holder in particular was dead?

"If the owner of the Pokédex dies, the entire Pokédex stops functioning," Green added. He glanced at Blue, whose eyes had widened and was looking down at the ground. "…Blue?"

Blue looked back up, blinking a couple of times. "But… that's… that's impossible. For one thing, dead people just don't go walking around…"

"Yeah. Tell me something I don't know."

"So… obviously, Red must've just left the Pokédex at home, right? That's it!"

"…Yeah."

"Um… well…"

Green frowned. Something was up with Blue. Why was she acting so odd about this? That wasn't like her at all.

"…I'm going to go visit Silver!" Blue abruptly announced, clapping her hands together. "Maybe you should visit him later, too!"

"…Yeah. I'll do that sometime."

"Okay! Bye-bye!"

Waving, Blue quickly started walking away, leaving Green behind. Once she was gone, Green could only sigh and scratch his head.

What should he do now?

As Yellow walked towards Viridian City's hospital with a plastic bag in hand, she thought about the sleepover they'd had at her home last night. Sure, it was fun, but it didn't take a genius to figure out why Blue had wanted them all over there. Sure, at least Yellow was able to silently find out the reason, but did her other friends figure it out as well?

Either way, now she was going to visit Silver. And she'd bought him some chocolate, because Yellow was sure that the hospital food was bad. Well, would the doctors get mad at her for giving him chocolate? It didn't really matter, did it?

"-llow. Yellow!"

Yellow blinked a couple of times, and abruptly noticed that someone was walking next to her, and jumped back. "W… Wait, Red?"

Sure enough, it was Red. Walking alongside her without a care in the world.

"Um, yeah?" Red tilted his head to the side. "What's the matter?"

Yellow quickly looked down at the ground and resumed walking. "…Nothing."

"So, where're you going today?"

"I'm visiting Silver."

"…Oh. Well, afterwards, you wanna come with me somewhere? Maybe we can go to Pewter and check out the museum? I'm sure we can get Brock to let us go in for free."

As much as Yellow wanted to ask Red what was wrong with him, she didn't. Keeping her eyes down on the sidewalk, she didn't answer him.

Yellow felt Red's hand brush against hers, and quickly glanced up. He was smiling down at her. "So," he said, "it's a date?"

"I… um… I dunno…"

Red's hand tightened around Yellow's, their fingers wrapping together. "That's okay," he said, "there's always tomorrow, right?"

…Red's hand was cold.

It was freezing. Not like the kind of cold of someone's hand when it was cold outside, but… something else. Even though his hand was moving, holding her hand, something was wrong. His hand wouldn't be that cold.

Yellow suddenly jerked away, yanking her hand away from Red's. "I'm, uh, sorry!" she exclaimed, and started running off. "I'll see you soon! Um, sorry!"

She glanced back over her shoulder after having run a good distance from him. He hadn't followed.

"Aw, you got me a necklace?" Crystal opened up the small box she'd received from Silver. Sure enough, a necklace was inside: a gold chain with a crystal hanging from it. "Thank you!"

"It's… not a problem. Happy birthday." Silver opted to avoiding eye contact with Crystal, staring down at the bed sheets.

"…So, are you doing okay? Are your injuries healing?"

Silver nodded. "…The doctor said I'm healing fine. So I'll probably be out of here in a couple of days."

"That's great!"

The door to the room opened just then, and Gold practically ran on inside. "Yo, Silvie! Oh, and Crys."

Crystal frowned, narrowing her eyes at Gold. "What do you mean by that? And have you ever heard of knocking?"

Gold just blinked a couple of times. "…Knocking? What's that?" Not waiting for an answer, Gold ran over to sit on the other side of the bed Silver was in. He put a plastic bag on it and started rummaging through it. "You didn't forget about Crystal's present, did you? What'd you get her anyways?"

"He got me this," Crystal answered instead of Silver, holding up the box with the necklace inside. "See? This is a present, not a bra!"

"…He got you a bra?" Silver asked, turning to stare at Gold.

Gold, however, was immune to Silver's stare. He took something out of the bag and held it in front of Silver. "SWEET POTATOOOO," he said in an Oprah-like voice.

Silver smacked the sweet potato away from his face.

"Don't be hatin' the potato, Silvie. Don't be hatin' it."

Someone knocked on the door then, and Gold, for some reason, shouted, "COME IN!" before Silver could. Naturally, Silver glared at him, and Crystal sighed and shook her head.

"Heyyyy, Gold and Crystal are here already?" Blue asked as she peeked inside the room before walking on in. "Hi, Silver! You doing okay?"

Silver didn't answer. He could only stare at the doorway as Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and Green came on into the room after her.

"Woohoo, the gang's all here!" Gold shouted, hopping up from his seat. "Here! I'll let the lady sit down… and by lady, I mean you, Ruby."

Sapphire covered her mouth and tried not to laugh. "See, Ruby? I'm not the only one who thinks you're like a woman."

"Better than being a barbarian."

"Excuse me?"

And as Ruby and Sapphire started arguing, Blue opted to sit down in the seat Gold had gotten up from. Green walked over to the window and leaned against the wall it was on, and Emerald simply stood there and covered his ears so he didn't have to listen to Ruby and Sapphire fighting.

"Ooh, Crystal, that's a nice necklace!"

"Silver got it for me. Can you help me put it on?"

"Hey. You weren't so eager to put on my present."

"Gee, I wonder why?"

"I AM NOT A BARBARIAN!"

"Anyone want a sweet potato?"

"Gold, get that thing out of my face."

"Why? You don't like the smell of a sweet potato? Here, sniff it."

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK, SAPPHIRE BIRCH!"

"I'll sniff that sweet potato."

"Ha! I knew I could rely on you, Emerald! Here you go, sniff it all you'd like!"

"This is weird."

And as all of this happened, Yellow finally arrived at the room Silver was in. She could hear everyone's voices, even with the door shut. Nonetheless, Yellow reached up to knock on the door, but before she even touched it, the door opened up by itself.

"Hey, Yellow's here too!" Blue said, having been the one that opened the door.

"YELLOW!" Gold and Emerald shouted in unison.

Yellow laughed quietly, but asked, "How'd you know I was at the door?"

"I dunno… I just had a feeling, that's all."

"I GOTTA FEELING.~" Gold sang.

Green sighed and mumbled, "You're all annoying."

"Then you didn't have to come, honey," Blue answered, shutting the door and hurrying back over to Silver's bed with Yellow in tow.

"Stop calling me that."

"Um… Silver… I got you some chocolate," Yellow quietly said, glancing down at the bag in her hands.

"Oh… thanks," Silver mumbled in response. He looked at Yellow, and then back down at the bed. "…Are you okay, Yellow? You seem a little… er…"

Blue put a hand on Yellow's forehead, bending down to look at her. "Hey, yeah, he's right! You look kind of sick… "

Ruby and Sapphire abruptly stopped arguing to look over at Yellow, who seemed to be in a bit of daze.

"…Yellow?"

Yellow finally spoke then. "I… ran into Red on my way here."

"What? Red?"

"What'd he say? Did he do anything to you?"

"And, hey, if the police are looking for him, then…"

Yellow shook her head. "He… didn't do anything bad to me. He acted like there was nothing wrong. He asked me if I wanted to go on a date with him."

"…And?"

"Well, it's just… he held my hand, and…" Yellow looked down at her hand, the one Red had held. "…Something was wrong. With him, I mean. His hand was… it was really…" Yellow went silent, looking down at the ground instead.

Everyone else had gone silent as well. The only sounds were from the noises outside, and the occasional footsteps in the hallway outside.

Yellow sighed, nodded to herself a couple of times, and looked up at all of her friends.

"I think… I think I know how to stop Red."

Author's Notes: I had a sweet potato once. It was sweet. I didn't particularly like it. My mom made french fries out of sweet potatoes once, too. Those were also sweet. My dad makes french fries using regular potatoes. They tasted good.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I like potatoes.