Golden Rivals, Silver Friends

Chapter Three:

Pretending

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Early the next morning, I woke up and got ready to set off toward my next destination. As much as I loved traveling, home was always best. I quickly ran my Pokémon by Joi, who pronounced everyone in top condition, and strode out the door, ready to make the most of the day.

The trail from Mt. Silver was pretty rocky terrain, even if you were traveling on the route set out by the Pokémon League. However, in the midst of the trodden earth, I spotted a single tuft of grass, growing where nothing else would--

I stopped, dead still.

Grass.

A field. A tall field, where the grass came up above my waist.

That was where Satoshi had been.

But where was there a field like that? Was it somewhere that I had played as a kid?

I sighed, then slowly started walking again, not wanting to pause too long so that I could get most of this hike done before noontime.

As my feet mechanically plodded on, my mind started wandering, back to my childhood...

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A typical day for me started with getting up as early as I could. Then, I'd brush my teeth, get dressed, run downstairs to eat my breakfast, and then go out to play...

But somehow, every memory I had seemed to have Satoshi somewhere in it.

Almost every summer day, I remembered walking down the road to his house, bounding up the front stairs, past the flower pots Hanako always had sitting outside in Masara's warm weather, letting myself in the front door (which was always unlocked), and shouting, "Good morning!" From there, the day would unfold itself and the adventures would begin.

Sometimes, I'd decide that we should walk to the edge of the forest and play among the trees. Or maybe I thought we'd head north to Route 1 and gaze longingly at the world that awaited us. Or we'd even ask Hanako, Grandpa, or Nanami to take us to the southern edge of Masara, near the ocean.

But I remember Satoshi's favorite place to play; Grandpa's Pokémon corrals.

I don't think that the stacks upon stacks of books in the lab ever interested him at the time - we were, after all, only about four and five years old - and Grandpa didn't allow us near his research or Poké Ball storage area unsupervised. Even then, the shelves of plain red-and-white spheres weren't of any real interest to us, since we couldn't open them up and see what was inside.

Plus, they were usually empty. Grandpa always let the Trainers' Pokémon roam free. Most of the ones we saw on a regular basis were common ones, like Pidgey and Rattata, ones that we could see easily in Route 1 and even in Masara itself. But sometimes, we'd see Pokémon from far away in Kanto, like Ponyta or Rhyhorn.

That was what we lived for. That was what we loved to do.

And together, we dreamed of one day going out and finding wild Pokémon just like those, and catching them for our own.

And someday, we'd become the greatest Pokémon Masters ever.

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A Pokémon Master...

Yeah... that's what every kid wants to be when they grow up, and we were no exception.

I guess going through life has changed me a little bit. I've changed from wanting to have the strongest Pokémon in the world to wanting to learn more about them.

When you're little, you have a completely pure view of the world. You don't realize how few people make it to the top and are able to stay there. You just think that you'll be able to do it, when you're a little older, a little taller, and a little bit stronger.

So you practice. And that's what Satoshi and I did, almost every day for nearly ten years.

No one under the age of ten is allowed to have a Pokémon Trainer's license, of course. And even though you're allowed to have Pokémon as pets, neither of us did. Grandpa had enough Pokémon living in the laboratory as it was, and I think Hanako was a little bit too sheltering of Satoshi to let him have one. So we played pretend.

Satoshi's never been really good at remembering things, so he couldn't ever recall a Pokémon's name when he was little. So he'd pick up rocks, yell "go!", and pretend something came out of it.

I, on the other hand, had a pretty good memory. Plus, I knew the basics of how Trainers started off... after all, I'd seen it plenty of times before.

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"You can have one of these three Pokémon... Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle," I said, repeating what I'd heard so many times from Grandpa.

"One?" Satoshi frowned.

I sighed. "Yes! Just one!"

"How come not all?"

"That's mean! If you take them all, there's none left for anybody else!"

"Oh..." Satoshi stared hard at the three rocks I was holding, though in his mind, I knew he was seeing real Poké Balls. "Um... what they?"

I just about dropped the 'Poké Balls' right then and there. "Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle!"

"Oh!" Satoshi smiled. Then he asked, "Which one best?"

I shook my head. "Grandpa says they're the same. But, Bulbasaur is good against Squirtle, and Squirtle's good against Charmander..."

"... and Charmander good 'gainst Bulbasaur!" Satoshi finished.

"Yup. So, which one?" I asked, getting a little impatient with my best friend.

"... why not all? Just make-believe!"

"Satoshi!" I yelled. Then I smirked at him.

"... Shigeru?"

"Go, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle! Attack!"

"Eeeyaaa!" Satoshi ducked as I tossed the rocks at him, laughing.

"And here's some Poké Balls," I shouted as I threw more rocks and some dirt, "and here's a PokéDex!" I yelled, throwing a piece of tree bark for good measure.

Satoshi looked up. "What's... 'PokéDex'?"

"I don't know!" I yelled, throwing another one at him.

After a few more minutes of play-battles, we both ended up flopping down on the grass. I sighed and said, "Satoshi, I'm gonna be the best Trainer in the world..."

"Me too..."

"And I know which Pokémon I want, too!" I said.

"Me too!"

"Huh?" I looked at Satoshi, a little surprised. After all, this was the kid who couldn't even remember the names and types of the three starter Pokémon. "Which one do you want?"

"Don't know." I rolled my eyes. "But it gonna be the best! Better than the others!"

"Silly. Grandpa says there's no such thing as a Pokémon that's stronger than all of the others."

"... I find one. One that is!"

"Whatever..."

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After I started out on my journey, I of course found out that he'd ended up starting with Pikachu. Not with Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle (although all three ended up in his possession, after all). That same memory had found its way to my mind, both on that day and this one.

I sighed as I looked up. The sun was starting to reach its highest point again. It'd been one day since I'd left Mt. Silver...

... and I wasn't any closer to remembering what I was trying to forget.

Sitting down by the side of the road, I vaguely wondered why I was trying to remember now, of all times. What had happened between now and... then, whenever it was?

Oh well. As I kept going that day, following the path down the mountain, I noticed the grass getting taller. In fact, it sort of reminded me of Grandpa's fields, back home...

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The fields...