Chapter 7
Gold had just beaten Falkner to hold on to his freedom. The angry Falkner supporters filed into the battlefield. One of them ran up to him and lifted Gold by his collar. Another one came up and grabbed him by his dangling feet.
"Come on you can't let this kid beat you like that! He destroyed the Sprout Tower! He's a criminal! What's stopping him from destroying someone else's tower?"
"If this guy wasn't holding me down I'd kick you in the nuts! If you had to fight ten on one wouldn't you want to run away, even if you had to mow down everything in your path?" He raised hand and balled it into a fist. Falkner didn't do anything. He wasn't worrying about Gold's safety at all. He was looking at him like he was a semi-interesting TV show.
"DADDY STOP!" Gold leaned his head to the side to see the girl in a wheelchair that he saw at the hospital Walking toward them.
"ANGIE! How are you-?" Angie pointed to the back. Crystal was standing beside her Chansey. Hiro was sitting cross-legged in the wheelchair. Chansey's egg had a single bite mark on its surface.
The man let go of Gold to hug his daughter. The man who held on to Gold's legs hugged her too. The two men let go of Angie and kissed each other.
"AHH MY EYES! I THOUGHT GAY PEOPLE DID THAT IN PRIVATE!" Gold covered his eyes. All the other men in the group covered their eyes while the women looked on at them with amazement. One woman asked her husband why he doesn't kiss her the same way and smacked him. Angie separated her dads and walked over to Gold. She leaned closer to him and whispered in his ear.
"Uh-huh. Eww... gross... don't wanna know that," Gold yammered. "EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW! FALKNER USED TO BE-!" The girl slapped her hand across his mouth. She whispered the final thing she needed to say. She let go of Gold and shook his hand. She turned on her heel and walked out of the gym with her fathers trailing behind her. Gold walked over to his companions. Hiro looked as confused as ever and Crystal was trying her hardest not to meet Gold's gaze.
"What'd she say to you?"
"I'd rather not talk about it..."
"Come on tell me, please," Hiro begged.
"Fine but listen closely because I'm only gonna say this once," Gold said. "Falkner is an ex-lover of theirs that had gone straight. Those two are deranged psychopaths who will come after me no matter what to avenge Falkner's defeat but Angie will stop them if Hiro becomes her boyfriend and takes her along on his journey," he said breathlessly. Hiro's jaw dropped and Crystal chuckled at him.
"Why me?"
"She said it was your idea to fix her legs with Chansey's egg and she likes you're bu- never mind."
The group said their goodbyes to Falkner and followed Hiro back to the pokemon center. Crystal didn't say a word to Gold and vice-versa. Hiro detected this silence and decided to talk to them.
"Come on, you two can't stay mad at each other forever."
"Not if you try hard enough," Crystal muttered.
"Humph." Gold answered.
"Gold where exactly is Angie, anyway?"
"Up my asshole..."
"You say that for everything!" Crystal yelled.
"Name one time when I said that!" Gold yelled back at her.
"Last week!"
"At least I don't have an anger problem!"
"I DO NOT HAVE AN ANGER PROBLEM!"
Crystal's outburst had attracted a police officer. He wrote something on his notepad and gave Crystal a ticket.
"What the heck is this for?"
"Disturbing the peace," he walked away from her and entered a donut shop. Silence fell over the group again. Angie greeted them at the door of the pokemon center. She dragged into a fancy restaurant nearby leaving Gold and Crystal alone together. Crystal picked out a table instead of healing her pokemon. Gold walked up to Nurse Joy.
"Can you heal these three?" Gold asked placing all three of his pokeballs on the counter.
"Certainly," Nurse Joy said. She placed them on the healing machine and pressed a button. The machine hummed and flashed for about three seconds and then stopped. Nurse Joy gave the pokeballs back to Gold.
"Thanks. Hey, is it true that-?"
"everybody in my family look alike," she finished his sentence annoyedly. "If I had a pokedollar for every time someone asked me that..."
Gold walked off while Nurse Joy was mumbling to herself.
"Note to self: Don't ask the Nurse Joys that question ever again." Gold released Pyro, Trunks and Kazam from their pokeballs. "You three hang loose for a bit. I'm gonna go talk to Crystal."
(I'm hungry.) said Trunks.
(Me too.) added Kazam
(We could try that human food over there.) suggested Pyro. He pointed to a vending machine.
They trotted toward it and looked inside of it. It was filled with chips and candy.
(How do we get whatever those things are out here?) asked Trunks. He lifted the slot where food comes out and tried to climb in but failed.
(I've seen Gold do it before.) Kazam said. (You press buttons until something comes out down there.) The Kadabra started pressing random buttons on the machine.
Pyro looked away from the vending machine and saw a familiar man with glasses walk through the front door. He was carrying a heavy burlap sack on his back (heheh that rhymed). Pyro recognized him as the man who caught him in the first place: Prof. Elm.
Pyro ran after him leaving the other two to work on cracking open the vending machine. He jumped into his former master's arms. Prof. Elm didn't recognize it at first but when it singed his hair with a fireball he recognized Pyro.
"Pyro how've you been?"
"Pyro get down!" Gold ordered. He was watching his pokemon the whole time and wondered why Professor Elm was here.
"Nice to see you again Gold." He extended his hand out to shake. Gold shook it.
"What brings you here Professor Dork?"
"I thought I told you stop calling me that..." he said as Gold led him back to Crystal's table. After greeted him, he put the sack on the table and took out a pokemon egg.
"I need one of you to take care of this egg for me," he said lifting the egg and putting it in his lap.
"Why?" Gold and Crystal asked simultaneously.
"My research shows that when an egg is around other pokemon it will hatch faster. And after seeing all four of your performances at Violet Gym I say that you all are capable of handling it."
"I think you counted wrong Professor Dork. There are only three of us," Gold said.
"He means Silver too you boob!" Crystal retorted.
"I don't think you're in a position to talk about boobs here Crystal!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked looking down at her chest.
"Enough! Is something going on between you two?"
"Yes!"
"No!"
The bickering teens stared at each other disbelievingly.
"I don't get you Crystal," Gold said. "First you hate me, then you love me and then you hate me again, are you bipolar or on your period or what?"
Crystal buried her face in her hands out of embarrassment. That was the second time in a row that he talked about her body in front of Prof. Elm. Gold explained what had happened ever since they left home to Prof Elm. How he found Trunks on the first day of the journey, the fight against Silver, how he saved Crystal's life, the fight he had with Hiro, how he broke his back. Crystal didn't say a word until Gold got to the part about when he was in jail and argument they had there.
"Gold I... I'm sorry," she said.
"Sorry? But I was the one who-."
"I know. I shouldn't have nagged you back there. It's just that I worry about you a lot. And I only do it to you because most of the decisions you make get you hurt."
Gold was silent. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He was starting to get the impression that she really was bipolar.
"Ahem," Prof. Elm cleared his throat thus breaking the silence. "If you two are done reconciling with each other I would like to get back to the egg. Which one of you is taking it?"
"Not me," Gold said.
"Why not?"
"There are three reasons over there by the vending machine."
Gold's pokemon were still desperately trying to break open the vending machine. Trunks rolled into a ball with Pyro backing up from behind it. Pyro used tackle on Trunks. Trunks smashed through the glass and started bouncing around the inside of the machine. All the candy that wasn't smashed by the mini elephant flew into the air and were caught by Kazam's psychic power.
"Imagine what those three will do to an egg."
"Um... good point. Crystal; the egg is yours."
"Okay." She put the egg into her backpack. Nurse Joy came from behind her counter.
"Whoever owns these pokemon has to pay for that vending machine!" Gold returned his pokemon and grabbed Crystal and the Professor.
"Run for it!" Gold escaped from the pokemon center. Nurse Joy called the police on the group.
"Yes. An idiot, a nerd and a blue-haired girl with anger issues just broke a vending machine and just escaped from the pokemon center."
Gold didn't stick around to hear the rest. He tore down the street and into the place of Hiro's date. Gold ran past the waiters and couples and found Hiro making out with Angie.
"Dude this is like your first date and you're already making out?" Gold asked. Crystal covered her eyes and Prof. Elm looked somber.
"When is the last time I did that with my wife?"
"Whatever. Hiro, Angie we're being chased by the police again," Gold explained.
"Again? This is like the third time in two weeks," Hiro said getting away from his new girlfriend.
"Professor Dork stay here while the four of us escape," Gold ordered. The teens were almost through the door when Prof. Elm called Gold.
"Gold wait."
"What?"
"Quit calling me Professor Dork!"
Gold laughed to himself as he ran outside with the others. Police sirens went off and flashed against the night sky. An officer Jenny on a motorcycle came whizzing by with a megaphone in her hand. Gold remembered Nurse Joy's descriptions of them. She called him an idiot so they wouldn't come after him or Professor Dork I mean Elm... But Crystal might've been found.
"Crystal cover your hair!"
"With what?" Gold didn't know what to do. If Crystal got caught he wouldn't forgive himself. He took off his own hat and gave it to her. He only wore that hat to stop his from falling in front of his eyes. Crystal took it and covered her ponytails with it. Officer Jenny stopped in front of them.
"Have any of you seen a girl with blue hair accompanied by a man with glasses and a boy with a hat and idiotic expression (hmm sounds like Billy from Billy and Mandy)?
"They went that way!"
"Never heard of 'em.
"Someone caught them already!"
"They're dead!"
"Um never mind. Oh and you," she pointed at Gold. "cut your hair."
"Yes sir." With that she left the group in the darkness. The four left town immediately afterward. They stopped walking when they came to area outside of the Ruins of Alph.
"Does anyone want to tell me why we were running from the police?" Angie asked.
"My pokemon blew up a vending machine. Now tell us why you were trying to eat his face off." Gold pointed to Hiro.
"Because we're in love! Isn't that right snuggle booty?"
"Uh..." Hiro mumbled. Gold and Crystal were on the ground laughing at that 'snuggle booty'.
"You love me right?" she asked again this time stomping on Hiro's foot.
"OW! Of course I love you..." he said meekly. The four slept there not knowing that a certain red head was watching them.