A/N: Guess who's back super early! I mean, it's still been a couple months since I last updated, but I finally got my own laptop. Which means I'll be able to start updating again. Maybe if I'm really at it, I'll be able to develop some kind of proper upload schedule.
It was day two of Red's trek through Viridian Forest, and everything looked exactly the same as before. If it weren't for the existence of the path he was walking on, he would've been sure they were all walking in circles. Actually, he still wasn't entirely sold on the idea that they weren't walking in circles. All of the path looked the same too.
"This is taking forever," he grumbled, annoyed with the whole situation. The three Pokemon with him as well seemed bored and restless, except for Piyo, who was probably asleep. Their last battle with pretty much anything had been ages ago. Even though he had known coming in that the walk through Viridian Forest would take a few days, he hadn't really gotten it until he had to experience it himself. He really hoped that the rest of his journey wouldn't be like this, though he had no reason to think it wouldn't. He found himself wishing for something to break the endless expanse of green and brown. As if in response to that, he felt a buzzing in his pocket. Not exactly what he'd been hoping for, but he'd take it. A quick look at his Pokegear showed that someone had messaged him. He vaguely wondered for a second if it had been Kendrah, the girl from yesterday. After all, he hadn't found the strange missing friend yet, so maybe they'd done it without his help. He clicked open the message to read.
"Rampaging Kangaskhan in the area? Looks like we'd better be careful," he muttered, looking at who the sender might be, which wasn't a person but rather the emergency alert system run by the Pokemon Rangers, which meant that it was a reliable source too. The emergency alert system was actually a surprisingly recent development, created by the Pokemon Rangers as a response to rising numbers of accidents caused by dangerous conditions in the wild. If something happened in a particular area, like a rock slide or an overly aggressive Pokemon, the Rangers would send out a message to everyone with a Pokegear who was located in that particular area. It had quickly become useful, though some trainers didn't like the idea of the Rangers keeping track of their locations. It had been awhile since Red had gotten one of those sorts of messages, since not much really happened in Pallet Town, though he vaguely remembered seeing a missed message about the severe thunderstorm where Green had been injured after he'd gotten to Viridian City. That had taught him to pay better attention to his messages.
Riza looked at Red with a questioning look right after he said his words. Knowing her, she was probably wondering why they would pass up a good opportunity to battle or something along those lines. It was tough to tell with Pokemon since they couldn't talk.
"Well, Kangaskhan is usually a pretty strong Pokemon, even at low levels. I'm not entirely sure you guys have enough experience to handle something like that," Red explained to her. She lowered her head in disappointment at the reason, but at least she seemed to accept it. He'd heard too many stories of Kangaskhan mothers dangerously injuring trainers to protect their children. Even Professor Oak warned not to make a mother Kangaskhan think their baby was in danger, and for some reason, every picture of one he'd ever seen showed them with a baby in their pouch. It seemed odd that a Kangaskhan would even be in Viridian Forest, since they were mostly found in other parts of Kanto, but that didn't make the danger any less. In fact, that probably made the danger greater. They'd have to be more careful. Red sighed in disappointment before going on, slightly more quickly than before. He'd been thinking of going back off the path for some more battles, but now it was probably safer to just keep going on the path until the Kangaskhan calmed down again. Red knew that once the Rangers knew the threat had been ended, they would send another message to say something about it.
"Piyo, why don't you scout around? Just to make sure we don't run into it," Red said to his bird Pokemon. She took a few seconds before taking off, probably sad to be displaced from the nest she'd made out of Red's hair.
"Thank you," he said as she flew away through the trees. He wasn't majorly concerned about her not being able to find him again, since the path was pretty obvious to anyone who went over it. Riza and Furi would be able to handle wild battles until she got back.
"I hope someone manages to calm down that Kangaskhan. An upset Pokemon is never a happy sight," he said again, making sure Riza and Furi were still in view. It was upsetting to think about considering he loved Pokemon so much. He wished he could do something to help but didn't want to go looking for danger again. However, a few minutes later, the unmistakable sound of a scream sounded out through the forest. As if the place wasn't creepy enough. For a second, he stood shock still, unsure of what to do. If that was the doing of the Kangaskhan, then that only solidified it as a dangerous Pokemon. A raging Pokemon was one thing, but now someone was actually in danger. Which also meant that if Red went to go do something, he would be in danger too. Still, he couldn't bear the thought of anyone being in trouble.
"Dammit, I'm going to go find them. Come on Riza," Red ran off into the woods, only checking to see if Riza was following. Furi wasn't an issue considering he was attached to Red's arm. Though as he ran, he could feel Furi crawling to his shoulder to avoid being tossed around when his arms moved. He ran in the direction of the screaming for a good few minutes before he realized he was not only getting tired out but also had no idea where he was going. Though he had started out going in the general right direction, he was going to need to reorient himself, which meant he needed some sound clues.
"Riza, can you hear anything?" he asked, knowing his partner probably had a better sense of smell as a carnivore and all.
Riza stopped and stood up, moving her head from side to side. After a few seconds of that, she faced somewhat to the right, growling at something Red couldn't perceive.
"That way?"
She nodded, and they set off again. Before long Red could hear it too, a loud crashing and roaring that echoed somewhat, making it difficult to follow. Sometimes, the sound of an attack could be heard. It wasn't until Red was almost hit by one of said attacks did he realize that they'd made it.
"Woah," he stumbled backwards, staring a very big, very angry Pokemon directly in the face. Not exactly his best moment.
"Get out of the way!" shouted someone off to the left, and Red started scrambling in that direction. He felt Riza's claws gripping at his clothes and saw Kangaskhan trample through the space where they'd been standing. As he went, he saw several Pokemon that were surrounding the Kangaskhan, firing weak attacks. Two of them were species that Red didn't recognize, but one of them was a Pidgey. In fact, it was Otto, Green's Pidgey, which meant that Green must've been nearby as well.
"Up here!" the person shouted again, a female voice. Red looked up briefly to see Green sitting in the branches of a tree next to a girl he didn't recognize. Then he looked back at the Kangaskhan, distracted by the Pokemon surrounding it.
"Come on slowpoke, we haven't got all day," Green snapped, getting Red's attention back to escaping the raging mama monster that had nearly hurt him. Red ran over to the tree and jumped up, catching the first branch with his hand. He felt someone grab his other and help to haul him up. Once his feet met the branch, he let himself relax somewhat. He was out of danger for now.
"What's going on?" he asked, looking at the group of Pokemon on the ground. The two he didn't recognize probably belonged to the girl. One of them was a small, fox-like Pokemon that kept teleporting around, while the other was a green and brown, circle shaped owl. Neither of them looked very powerful when they sent attacks.
"This idiot decided to try and capture that Kangaskhan over there," the girl said with outrage in her voice. She shoved at Green as she spoke, almost causing him to topple from the branch he was on.
"Hey, don't do that," Green grumbled back, regaining his balance. Upon closer observation, Red realized that she might be the person he was looking for. She definitely had a loud appearance, with wacky clothes, her hair dyed in several different colors and piercings in her ears, nose and eyebrow.
"Anyway, the Kangaskhan baby in the pouch is sick, which is why she reacted so violently. I tried to get close to try and help, but she kind of stepped on my hand," the girl motioned to one of her arms, which she was holding to her side to keep it from moving much. It was pretty obvious that several bones were probably broken, as her fingers were sticking out at odd angles, and there was just something malformed looking about the whole hand.
"So, the plan is to distract crazy mama over there until we come up with a real plan, or until she gets to one of our Pokemon," Green finished, clearly overjoyed to be working with someone who had called him an idiot… not really, but that was a more pleasant thought than his current mood.
"Calm down Kangaskhan maybe?" Red asked.
"Oh, yes, that's a brilliant idea. Maybe while we're at it, we can serve her tea and crumpets as well," Green said, looking suspiciously at Kangaskhan.
"What if we try something like a String Shot? That'll slow her down a lot. I caught a Caterpie recently," Red suggested. He felt Furi crawl up around his front, happy at the prospect of being helpful.
"That might work. If she's slowed down, she won't be able to rage as much. I don't have any Bug-types, so I won't be much help in this department," the girl said.
"Sure, sure. I guess that's an ok plan," Green pulled out a Pokeball. "Supia come out." the Pokeball opened to reveal a Kakuna. "Supia here can help even better. Just evolved from a Weedle actually." Of course Green could never pass up opportunity to gloat.
"Soren, Archer, come back. Don't want you guys in the line of fire," the girl called out to her Pokemon, both of which vacated the area quickly.
"Right, Furi, use String Shot," Red called to his Pokemon, who crawled down onto the branch to get a better shot.
"Supia, you too," Green apparently decided to have his Pokemon help out. As the two Bug-types sent out their webbing, Otto finally decided to fly back towards the tree, long after his allies had left. Confused about where all her opponents had gone, Kangaskhan let out a great roar. She was quickly ensnared by the webbing and thrashed about, trying her hardest to escape. However, she hadn't reacted in time to get out of the worst of it, already finding it hard to move by the time she realized enough to react. Red noticed that as much as she moved about, she always kept one of her arms hovering over her pouch to protect the baby inside. Soon, there was enough webbing to keep her from moving much at all.
"Thank you Furi. You did good," Red said as they finished up. The small Pokemon brightened considerably from the praise, even from an already good mood.
"So we stopped her from moving. Now what?" Green asked.
"Do you think it's safe to go down?" Red asked, picking up Furi again. In response, the caterpillar wiggled around in Red's grip. Green merely returned Supia to the Pokeball.
"I'll go down. That baby still needs help," the girl jumped down from the branch to the ground, with her Pokemon right with her. There was a hint of a wince on her face when she landed, but other than that her wrist didn't seem to be bothering her. "You two, keep an eye out."
She pulled a Pecha Berry from a pouch on her belt as she approached Kangaskhan. Those sorts of berries were well known for curing illnesses brought on by poison. Red thought it was strange that the sick baby might have been poisoned. Strange and disturbing as well. He really hoped that it had been an accident because the thought of someone intentionally poisoning a Pokemon was hard to think about. He saw that she was still going, caerphilly moving closer. Her hand with the berry was outstretched towards Kangaskhan, who growled but otherwise seemed at least slightly calmer.
"Hey there big girl. It's ok, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm here to help. There's some berries right here for you guys. You've just gotta stay calm," she said in a far more calming voice than before, rolling the berry the rest of the way towards the angry mother, quickly replacing it with another. Kangaskhan could reach just far enough to pick up the berry. She sniffed it a few times before stuffing it in her pouch.
"That's good, you're doing fine. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you," the girl moved a bit closer, offering the next berry straight from her hand. Though Kangaskhan tensed slightly, she didn't try and attack, which was probably good. Red felt the tension in the air just from watching the whole ordeal happen. He couldn't imagine how it felt for the girl down there. Soon, Kangaskhan had snatched the berry from the girl's hand, once again sniffing it before putting it with the other. "There you go. Now your baby can get all better. I brought some extras for you so that you don't get sick either." The girl pulled out a few more, dropping them into Kangaskhan's now outstretched hand. "Soren, cut the threads."
The fox-like Pokemon used a Scratch attack to cut through some of the threads binding Kangaskhan. With fewer of them there, she was now easily able to break free from the rest. She looked back at the humans and their Pokemon, giving them a nod, before walking away, far calmer than before. With the danger now gone, Red and Green came down from the tree as well.
"How did you even do that?" Green whined, probably butthurt about not being able to catch Kangaskhan. Then again, capturing that particular Pokemon species was always on the controversial side, considering the mother baby came together. For some reason, they were counted by the systems in a Pokeball as a single Pokemon, and Kangaskhan babies had been observed to never grow past the stage at which they were captured. However, those with babies were more sought after, as only those Kangaskhan could mega evolve for some reason. Red had heard that mega Kangaskhan was especially powerful in battle, but he'd never seen one in action. Mega evolution wasn't very common in the Kanto region.
"She was kind about it, unlike you," Red shot at his friend. Though he hadn't been there to see Green's interaction with Kangaskhan, but he knew his friend well enough to guess.
"Kindness is overrated. I'm outta here," Green waved, turning to walk away.
"He's kind of a jerk," the girl approached Red, both of her Pokemon by her side.
"Yea, well it was him as a friend or crippling loneliness. We come from Pallet Town," Red explained.
"That's gotta suck. My name is Serra by the way, and these guys are Soren and Archer," she pointed to the fox and the owl in turn. Both Pokemon nodded their heads as Serra introduced them, though Soren only seemed to be doing it out of obligation.
"Well, I'm Red. My Pokemon are Riza and Furi. I also have a Pidgey named Piyo, but she isn't here right now. I don't actually know where she is," Red introduced his own Pokemon as well. Riza waved from his shoulder while Furi kind of just squirmed around a bit. It was probably hard to be expressive as someone who could do nothing but wiggle and crawl all the time. "Are you going to be ok?" he motioned towards her hurt hand.
"Oh, I'll be fine. I know someone who can fix it," Serra brushed it off, surprisingly unconcerned about how broken her hand and wrist were.
"Aright… oh, I think I met someone who was looking for you," Red decided to mention.
"Kenny and Ed probably? Figures. I have been gone for a few days. They worry too much," she muttered to herself as Soren climbed up to her shoulder. He was a rather odd looking Pokemon with black and lavender fur and strange markings on his face. Around his neck, there was an odd purple-pink mist that seemed to ooze from his fur. It gathered together almost like a ruff. Archer on the other hand had a far simpler appearance. In fact, the most complicated thing about him was the little leaf bowtie that he had. It was kind of cute.
"Will you let me accompany you on your way? I don't want anything else bad to happen," Red said. Even though Serra could probably take care of herself, he couldn't help but worry. After all, she was already injured. Typically those kinds of things are incapacitating on their own.
"Of course you can come! I love making new friends," Serra smiled widely, clapping her hands together. Though it was an act of joy, the loud noise made the Pokemon on her shoulder jump. "Oops. Sorry Soren."
"Thanks," Red grinned at her happiness. She seemed to just glow with joy, not even concerned that she was hurt.
"No, I should be thanking you. It's not every day that I get company as good as you," she smiled as well, skipping ahead along with her partners. Grabbing his Pokedex from his pocket, Red rushed to catch up.
"Do you mind if I scan your Pokemon? I'm completing the Pokedex for Professor Oak," Red asked her, knowing that the more data he could get, the happier the professor would be.
"You have a Pokedex?" Serra looked back at him, interest flooding her face. She looked at it as if it was something she'd never seen before, which was probably true. Though there was a bit of publicity around the Pokedex, not very many people had seen one in person.
"Yea, from the Professor," Red replied.
"Do Soren! I wanna see what it says about my little darling," she grabbed the Pokemon from her shoulder, holding him out for Red.
"Sure," Red pressed the button to scan Soren.
Zorua, the Tricky Fox Pokemon (Kalos var.)
Gender: Male
Type: Ghost
Level: 15
Ability: Illusion
Moves: Shadow Sneak, Fake Tears, Astonish, Teleport
Red thought it was odd that it only listed a few of Soren's moves. He had seen the Pokemon use Scratch earlier to help free Kangaskhan.
"This is an interesting Pokemon you've got there. What region is he from?" Red showed Serra the screen.
"That's so cool! Oh, Zorua originally came from the Unova region, but Soren is a Kalosian variant," Serra said, grinning widely. She was weirdly excited over the Pokedex. "What about Archer? Can you do him too?"
Red was finding it difficult to keep up with her neverending excitement, but he still tried anyway, pointing his Dex at the flying owl Pokemon. It took a few adjustments, since Archer kept moving in the air, but he got it.
Rowlet, the Grass Quill Pokemon
Gender: Male
Type: Grass/Flying
Level: 14
Ability: Overgrow
Moves: Razor Leaf, Astonish, Peck, Growl
Once again, it only listed four moves, even though Archer was definitely a high enough level to know a few more than that. He showed it to Serra again, who was still extremely excited.
"I dunno why it only lists four moves," he said with a shrug. As he'd said before, it wasn't like the Pokedex came with an instruction manual.
"It looks like the four most recently learned moves. Archer and Soren both know six of them. I mean, high level Pokemon know a lot. It would take a lot of space to list all of them," Serra suggested to him.
"That would make sense," Red muttered, thinking that the Pokedex should probably come with a freaking instruction manual. He was getting pretty salty about that whole situation. The rest of the walk went fairly well. Serra did most of the talking, and she kept switching topics every five minutes. It was hard to keep up, though with her driving the conversation, Red didn't have to say much of anything. She did get really excited when Piyo got back, insisting in properly introducing Archer to the fellow bird Pokemon. Red could've sworn she was trying to set them up on a date or something. He had to admit it was cute, though. Soon after that, they reached a rather large cleared out area. There was a house looking building in the center, with a lot of fencing surrounding the clearing behind it. The fences looked like they were keeping in a whole lot of playing Pokemon. Though a few of them, like an Onix he saw, were large enough that the fences probably didn't do much.
"Welcome to Murphy Farm. It's not actually a real farm. We just call it that. The real name is the Murphy family rescue and adoption center. We take in abandoned Pokemon that don't know how to survive in the wild," Serra explained the place to Red. By the way she talked, it sounded like she worked there.
"People really abandon this many Pokemon?" Red saw so many in the fenced in area, many of which were species he didn't recognize. He noticed that the proportion of non-native Pokemon to Kanto Pokemon was oddly high for some reason.
"People have a bad habit of getting Pokemon eggs imported from other regions and then abandoning the Pokemon in the wild when it doesn't turn out to be what they expected. We do rescues all over Kanto. That's what I do here," she explained, somewhat sadly. It was the first time yet that Red had heard her speak in anything other than a jovial tone of voice. As they walked, Archer flew over to one of the fences with the other Pokemon. Serra grinned at him, pulling out two Pokeballs, "Finnegale, Missy, come on out," she released two more Pokemon, one of which Red recognized as a Trapinch. The other was a small, black and white lizard with reddish glowing icicles sticking up from its back.
"What's that one?" Red asked, pointing at the lizard.
"That's Missy. She's a Salandit, also from Kalos. Normally, they're from Alola though," Serra said, watching the the recently let out Pokemon run off towards the fenced in area. Only Soren stayed behind.
"Are the Pokemon here happy?" he wondered out loud, looking at his own partners. It baffled him how anyone could abandon their Pokemon. It was common knowledge that Pokemon were capable of immense trust and loyalty. Betraying that was one of the most cruel things he could think of.
"Most of them are… Now come on. The people here are great, especially Grannie Murphy," Serra's tone made it obvious that what Red had asked about wasn't something she wanted to talk about. She took off for the door, letting herself in, while Red followed a bit more slowly. It was a nice place, and the door opened into a large area that seemed to house far more miserable Pokemon than were outside. Many were being cared for by what looked like employees. There was some kind of reception counter on the wall directly opposite the door with Kandrah of all people standing behind it.
"Serra, you're back," she grinned at the sight of her friend. Beside her on the counter was a Swablu that also seemed to brighten up.
"Hi Kenny! Is Ed home?" Serra asked, tickling the Swablu on the belly. Red looked over at the Pokemon that were in the larger area to the side. There weren't as many as there had been outside, and many of the ones that he could see had some kind of comfort object with them or were wrapped in blankets. It this was the outcome of someone abandoning their Pokemon, then it merely cemented in his mind that abandoning them had only caused harm. There was food and water that seemed readily available to all of the Pokemon there along one wall, and the far wall seemed to have barn like doors that were wide open, probably to let the Pokemon in and out. Indeed, he could see that some Pokemon came inside to eat some food or to take a drink before heading back outside. Piyo and Furi both seemed to want to get a closer look, while Riza stayed with Red. Thankfully the workers didn't seem to mind them.
"Not yet. I'll message him," Kendrah pulled out her own Pokegear before spotting Red. "Well, well. Look who didn't message me when he found my missing friend."
"Sorry about that. Things have been a bit hectic today," Red tried to explain, hearing Riza make a hissing noise that seemed to be akin to laughing. Of course she would think something like this was funny. Riza always thought Red's misfortune was funny.
"Don't get mad at him. He saved me!" Serra suddenly wrapped her good arm around Red's shoulders in an awkward, sideways approximation of a hug. The fact that she was shorter than him only made it worse, as she dragged him down to her level. He was sure it was a comical scene to Kendrah, who seemed to be finding it hard not to grin.
"I guess I'll let it slide then," the black haired girl picked up her Swablu and walked around to the front of the counter. "How did the Kangaskhan go? I'm assuming that's why you disappeared after all."
"Not as well as it could've. I need to see Shelly," Serra motioned towards her injured hand, which was still very broken. In fact, it looked worse than before, all purple and swollen to twice the size of her uninjured limb. On the bright side, the intense swelling made it far more difficult to tell that the fingers were pointing in the wrong directions.
"Come on then. You might as well come too, since you're here and all," Kendrah said, the second part referring to Red. She placed a sign on the counter that read, 'be back in 5 minutes' in pretty terrible handwriting before leading them into another room. In there, it almost looked like a clinic where a small, badly bruised Rattata was being treated by a teenage girl and a Gardevoir. Upon their entrance, the girl looked over, leaving the Rattata to the Gardevoir.
"What did you do this time?" the doctor girl asked, looking over the group with a mixture of concern and annoyance. She looked both tired and bothered.
"A Kangaskhan stepped on my wrist," Serra explained. "Sorry Shelly."
Shelly sighed, walking over to look. "Amaranth, finish up with the patient," she looked at Serra's broken hand, with the concern growing on her face. Serra winced as the other girl poked and prodded at it. "The bones are going to have to be shifted back into place. That's difficult without a proper x-ray machine… I don't know if I can do this. Are you sure you don't want to go to Viridian City for this because I might make it worse."
"I'll be fine! You've fixed me up before. You can do it again," Serra brushed off Shelly's concerns like they were dust in the air, but it didn't seem to help the mood.
"Alright, I'll try…" she relented. "The rest of you should go back to the lobby. I'm going to need to focus, and this isn't going to be pretty."
"No problem," Kendrah gave a thumbs up before leaving the room.
"Bye. I hope it goes well," Red said a bit awkwardly while waving before following her out. He let out a breath once he was out there. He could see that Piyo was being fed by an employee, while Furi was trying to cheer up one of the more sad looking Pokemon.
"I swear, someday she's gonna get herself killed," Kendrah sighed, squeezing her Swablu as if for comfort. "Shelly is in training to be a Pokemon doctor, so her human related training is minimal. Then Serra comes along and gets herself injured, thinking everything is just hunky dory. I dunno what she'd do without the rest of us."
"That's gotta suck. Maybe you should tell her?" it was a pretty bad suggestion, but it was all he had.
"You think we haven't tried that? She may have some smarts, but nothing is getting through that thick skull of hers," Kendrah sighed.
"As I said, suckish. Anyway, I probably have to go. Riza gets restless when she hasn't had a battle in awhile, and I don't want to intrude," Red prepared to call for his Pokemon to come back.
"Nonsense. You should at least stay until Ed gets back so he can properly thank you for rescuing Serra. You basically did his job for him," Kendrah insisted. The people here seemed to do a lot of insisting.
"Really? Sure then. I'd love to stay," Red grinned, finally actually calling his two Pokemon back. Piyo flew quickly into the air, landing on his head, while Furi came a bit more slowly.
"The family lives upstairs. You can put your stuff up there. Ed's room is probably fine. He won't mind. I'd come with you, but I have to get back to work," Kendrah pointed towards the staircase that led up to the upper level of the building.
"Thanks," Red looked up the stairs, waiting for Furi to reach him before going up. He went up to the upper level, going through a door at the top into what looked like the living room of a house. There were already a few people in there, two middle aged looking adults and an elderly grandmother looking lady.
"Are you one of Ed's friends? Ya gotta put your Pokemon in at the door," the only man in the room said, probably Ed's dad from the sound of it.
"Oh, I do? Sorry about that sir," Red apologetically returned his Furi and Piyo to their Pokeballs, looking at them curling up inside. He was glad for the transparent tops because he'd at lease still get to talk to them. "Riza doesn't have a Pokeball. Is that ok?"
"Sir? I like that. You can keep the lizard out, as long as she behaves," Ed's dad looked back at the television in the room, which was playing some kind of monster movie. Something about a gigantic Swalot. At least that's what he thought it was called. Sometimes he got a bit fuzzy on Hoenn Pokemon. With the two middle aged adults both doing that, it left the grandmother lady, who was sitting by the open window, smoking a cigarette. She seemed to be watching the Pokemon playing outside. Wondering if he'd be able to spot Serra's three Pokemon, he walked over to the next window over, just outside of the range of smoke. Now that he was close, he could tell that whatever she was smoking definitely wasn't tobacco. It didn't have the right smell for that. Living in a small town like Pallet, there were a lot more smokers than people would think, so he had a pretty intimate relationship with the awful smell of tobacco. Riza wrinkled her nose at the smell of whatever this was, probably stronger for her than it was for Red.
"They're wonderful, aren't they?" the lady noticed Red walking up.
"Yea, they are, Mrs… er…" he wasn't sure what her name was.
"You can call me Grannie Murphy. Almost all the children here do, and I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again," she gave him a sweet smile. It was nice really. Red had never met his own grandparents, and here was someone else's grandmother already making him feel welcome. The closest he'd ever gotten to a grandparent of his own was Professor Oak, since he didn't have much family at all other than his mother and brothers.
"Thank you. But yea, the Pokemon are wonderful. There's nothing better than being alongside them," Red said, reaching up to stroke Riza gently. Grannie Murphy didn't say anything else, but there already seemed to be an unspoken understanding between them, stemming from the Pokemon that were indeed so wonderful. It was no wonder he lost track of time as he just watched the Pokemon that were playing outside.