Primary: Silver & Soul.
First Meeting:
Silver sat in the shade of a large tree, taking a break from his training. Route 45 was the perfect training spot for his Feraligatr and Kingdra, thus his training so far had gone very well. He didn't wander too far away from Blackthorn City, in case there was some emergency he had to take care of (such as, getting food). If he went too far into Route 45, then there was no easy way to the nearest city. Sure he could Fly, but just staying close to Blackthorn was less bothersome. Suddenly, his Pokégear started to ring.
"Hello?" he answered.
"Hi Silver, it's me," came Blue's voice.
"Oh, hey sis. I got the password booklet like you asked me to."
"Great. Where was it? It wasn't anywhere in Pallet Town, as far as I know."
"It was in Violet City," Silver replied. "… With Crys. I had to break into her house at night to find it. And… the sheet was in the bedroom, underneath the bed. I had to make sure that Crys didn't wake up while I searched the room, and believe me, I had to make a hard decision… Her head's going to hurt for the next couple of days…"
"You didn't hit her, did you?"
"Of course not. I came prepared with a particularly strong Sleep Powder. It pays to be prepared… I think you know that better than me. She'll wake up later today, but she'll have a serious headache for a while. Anyways," he said with a sigh. "I got the booklet…"
"Good. Get ready, Silver. I can't break into the secret room in Viridian Gym without it, you know."
Silver sighed again. He dug into his bag and withdrew a thick booklet. "Alright, I'm ready."
"Okay…" Silver heard some beeps coming from the other side. "Okay, I need password A217."
"A217… The password is, in one word, alternating capital letters, 'Sevii Pesky'." (password: SeViIpEsKy)
"It's so nice of him to make a password after me," Blue said after a short giggle. "Okay, now I need password S259…"
"S259 is… again, in one word, but alternate alternating capitals, 'Lock Breaker'." (password: lOcKbReAkEr)
"Got it. I'm inside the secret room, and I see the door to the inner room… I suppose that password is also after me, huh?"
"Seems like it. Who else breaks Green's locks?" Silver said with a laugh.
"Say, are all 26000 passwords after me?"
Silver scanned the booklet. "Uh… no. Only few of them are. The rest are random letters. I think they're just to throw people off, you know? I mean, if someone were to try to hack into the keypad and saw it asking for password A217, they'll be discouraged, thinking there are 26000 passwords, out of which one at random will be asked for. I'm pretty sure a vast majority of these passwords are never asked for."
"So the only passwords that are asked for are named after me? That's sweet. Hm? Hold on for a sec… where's that Silph Scope… Ah, here it is… … Hmm… I see a gyrating laser grid, three hidden security cameras and a motion detector… I'm flattered that Green went through all this trouble just to keep me out of the secret room."
"A laser grid?"
"Yep. I'm pretty sure that once I step into the laser, the inner door will be locked down, and I'm also fairly sure that the outer door will also lock down, sealing me inside until Green returns. I think the cameras and the motion detectors do the same thing. If I get caught by them, the doors will probably lock down… I have to be careful… I need full focus for this one, so I'll talk to you afterwards, okay?"
"Alright. Good luck, sis."
Silver put his Pokégear back in his pocket. He stuffed the password booklet back into his bad and chuckled while shaking his head.
"Seriously, a key pad asking for two of 26000 passwords, a gyrating laser grid, three security cameras and a motion detector… Just how many times did sis break into that Gym? And the password booklet was hidden in a different region… So much security and Green probably doesn't even have anything worth that much value in there."
Silver soon stood back up and stretched. His Weavile, had been sitting next to him, also stood up and stretched. "Anyways, time to continue with our trai-" he suddenly trailed off when he heard something. "Did you hear that?" he asked. His Weavile nodded. "It sounded like a scream…"
He heard it again, louder this time. It definitely was a scream. Deciding to check it out, he silently made his way towards the source of the scream. In the distance, he could see someone running away while being chased by several Gravelers.
From the distance, Silver watched with slight amusement before deciding to help. He quickly ran towards the group of Gravelers while making sure that they didn't see him coming. Before long he managed to catch up with the group.
The group of Gravelers had surrounded the person they were chasing, and from his position, Silver could see that it was a girl being chased. She was in the middle of the angry group, her Marill trying to fend off some of the attacking Pokémon, but to no avail. From what he could see, the girl had brown hair, a huge white hat, some red and blue attire (can't see well from the distance), and ridiculously high-reaching stockings.
Silver shook his head. 'Fashion nowadays…' He continued to watch the scene unfold.
One of the Gravelers used Stone Edge, and the girl started to run to avoid the attack. But one rock 'shrapnel' hit her in the knee, making her fall. Silver looked at the girl again, having noticed something… she looked rather similar to Crystal. But he knew it wasn't her, because for one, she should still be under the effect of the particularly strong Sleep Powder, two, she doesn't have a Marill in her active team, and three, if it was Crystal, then those Gravelers should be lying in an unconscious heap or caught in some Pokéball; Crystal doesn't need rescuing… And four, she would never wear the clothes that this other girl had. Unless, of course, she was threatened or forced to.
Silver sent out his Feraligatr. 'One shot, extermination,' he thought to himself. When the Gravelers were in a tight group while advancing towards the fallen girl, Silver gave the order. "Hydro Cannon."
A few seconds later, Silver slowly walked towards the fallen girl, walking past all the knocked out Gravelers. The girl looked back and forth between Silver and the defeated Gravelers, amazed by the power of Feraligatr's attack.
"Thank you," the girl said as he crouched in front of her.
Silver simply looked at the girl's knee and dug in his bag for the first aid kit. The girl looked at him curiously.
"Roll your sock down," Silver commanded, holding a medicine bottle in his hand.
After a moment of shock (at the abrupt order), she rolled her stocking down, gingerly over the knee. Without warning, Silver poured iodine (the 'medicine') over the wound. The girl gasped and winced from the horribly stinging pain.
"Ah! … Ungh… Who uses iodine nowadays?" she complained. "What are you, like 80 years old?"
Silver narrowed his eyes at the comment. He took out a roll of bandage and tightly wrapped it over the wound.
"I was just joking," the girl said with a smile. "Again, thank you."
Silver looked into her brown eyes for a split second before he put his first aid kit back into his bag. Again, he made no reply to the girl's thanks.
"You know," the girl started with a pout. "When a pretty girl like me says 'thanks', you say 'you're welcome'."
Silver raised an eyebrow at the last statement before he shook his head and rose to his feet. Much to the girl's surprise, he slung his bag over his shoulder and started to walk away.
"Hey! Are you just going to leave me here?" the girl shouted.
Silver turned around. "What do you expect me to do? Take you home?"
"That would be very nice. I mean… I did hurt my knee, after all."
Silver sent out his Honchkrow after staring at her for a long time. "Fine. Where do you live?"
"You're just going to air-lift me home?" the girl said with a surprised tone. "How very cold of you… Looks like you really don't like me, huh, Mr. Hero?"
The girl looked sad. Very sad, as if she was going to cry any moment. She had the expression that Blue used against the likes of Red and Green. Silver always knew that this kind of sad face wouldn't affect him at all, but somehow, it was working. He returned his Honchkrow back into its Pokéball.
"Fine," he said. "I'll take you there myself. Now where do you live?" 'Damn… where's Gold when you need him?'
"That's better!" the girl said happily, her sad expression nowhere to be found. "Thank you, Mr. Hero!"
Two hours later…
'How did I get myself into this?' Silver thought to himself as he carried the injured girl on his back. The girl had told him to take her to Cherrygrove City… and that was quite far away.
"Um…" the girl started. "Do you intend to take me to Cherrygrove in complete silence? Say something."
"Like what?" Silver retorted, carefully walking through Route 45 as his Weavile cleared a path through the tall grass.
"Like… tell me what your name is."
"Silver."
"Well, Silver, it's very nice to meet you," the girl said in a sweet voice. "… Aren't you going to ask what my name is?"
Silver sighed. "What's your name?"
"My name is Soul," said the girl. "… No 'nice to meet you, Soul'?"
"Nice to meet you, Soul," Silver said in monotone.
Soul sighed. "I can see that you need some lessons on being social… Where do you live? Maybe I can visit you and we can hang around, you know?"
"I don't really live anywhere. I just roam around Johto."
Soul didn't say anything. Silver glanced back and he could just barely see her face. She looked… hurt? What the hell?
"I'm sorry, Silver…" she said sadly. "I can see that I'm annoying you, and I'm sorry."
'Annoying?' "Who said you were annoying?" Silver asked, shocked.
"You must think so… you're avoiding conversations and you obviously don't want me around."
"Why do you think that?"
"You're not telling me where you live. Everyone lives somewhere, Silver… you clearly don't want me visiting you."
"But… I do roam around Johto. I've been doing that ever since… ever since I escaped…" Silver trailed off at the unpleasant memories of his past.
"Escaped?" Soul asked with worry. "Did you run away from home?"
"No." Silver sighed. "It's a long story…"
"We have time," Soul said. "We can't get to Cherrygrove today anyways. And it looks like it'll rain soon… Silver, we should just take shelter somewhere until tomorrow morning."
Silver looked to his right, where he could see a cave. He signaled his Weavile to go and investigate and followed his first Pokémon closely.
After the cave was deemed uninhabited, Silver set Soul down on the ground and proceeded to making a fireplace. The air was becoming humid, and it really looked like it would rain soon, so he needed to get dry wood as fast as possible.
An hour later…
Silver sat beside Soul, looking into the fire. Outside, it was raining heavily, and it was starting to get cold. The girl was hugging her knees (as much as she could) to stay warm while looking at him with a worried expression.
"So… what happened, Silver?"
Silver sighed. "I… I'm the son of Team Rocket's leader, Giovanni," he started. Seeing the frightened expression on Soul, he hastily continued. "Relax. I'm not like Team Rocket. In fact, I didn't know that Giovanni was my father until… 4 years ago."
"You… didn't know who your father was until 4 years ago?"
"I was kidnapped by Ho-oh when I was two years old. I didn't know where I lived or anything, and I was taken to the Tin Tower in Ecruteak. The one controlling Ho-oh was someone known as the Mask of Ice. You may have heard this name 6 years ago, when the Radio Tower in Goldenrod was taken over and… lots of stuff happened."
"Yes, I remember. I heard of what happened from a friend who was there."
Soul listened patiently as Silver listed all sorts of stuff from his past, from the days of training under the Mask of Ice, escaping, getting frozen solid by the Mask of Ice in Lake of Rage, battling Lugia, the missions by Lance, eventually the aerial combat of Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres vs. Lugia and Ho-oh over the Ilex Forest. Then he continued on talking about how he searched for hints of his roots, getting to Viridian City, the double battle against Team Rocket, stopping the Rocket Airship from crashing into Vermilion City, getting turned into stone, watching helpless of what was happening around him while he was a stone statue, getting freed, learning Hydro Cannon, and eventually blasting the fake Kyogre into bits. THEN he moved on to talk about what happened last year, and a certain someone getting his ass handed to him by a certain Legendary Pokémon.
Soul noticed that Silver didn't give her the full details, such as the names of the 'allies' he worked with during those times, particularly the name of the one who 'had his ass handed to him' by a Legendary. But still, it seemed that he was involved in some chaotic events… again and again.
"Wow… that's… quite a story," Soul said.
"What, you think I'm crazy?" Silver asked, looking at her.
"No, I believe it all," she replied with a smile. "Because I've heard most of it before from a friend."
"You heard all this before?" Silver asked, surprised. "From who?"
Soul giggled. "Despite you not telling me the names of your 'allies' during your… 'adventures' in Johto, I know who they are, because this friend of mine is one of them."
'… Something tells me that I'm not going to like this…' "Who's your friend?"
"Maybe you know him. He always goes around telling people that he's Gold of New Bark Town. I believe he's the one who, as you said, got his rear-end handed to him by Arceus. He's my neighbor and we've been friends for nearly 10 years. I actually live in New Bark; I only told you to take me to Cherrygrove because I wanted to go to the Pokémon Center there."
Silver leaned against the wall of the cave, staring at the opposite wall in despair. 'Soul is a childhood friend of Gold? No… Now she's going to tell him that I rescued her from danger, and he'll tell sis…'
"Silver? You okay?"
'Gold… why did it have to be Gold? Out of all the people in Johto…'
"Silver!"
Silver snapped out of his trance and turned to look at Soul. She was looking at him, but very close, her face merely inches away from his.
"Are you okay, Silver? You seem sort of… shaken," she said with hints of worry in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm… I'm fine," Silver replied, backing away slightly. He could feel his cheeks heating from the uncomfortable proximity.
"Hmm… could it be that you're jealous that Gold's a close friend of mine?" Soul asked with a laugh.
"I – I'm not!"
"You're blushing!" she squealed in delight. "Aww… how cute!"
Silver looked away. He desperately tried to calm the (he admits) blushing, but his attempt was made futile when Soul leaned against his arm. If his face wasn't red before, it was now. He sheepishly put an arm around her… she felt cold. So Silver took off his coat and put it over her as a blanket. Soul thanked him and gave him a smile once again before leaning on him once more. Before long, she fell asleep.
Silver looked at the sleeping girl. She had called herself a pretty girl, and she wasn't lying, it seemed. Silver noticed that Soul was… quite… … what's that word… cute. He shook his head and closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep as well.
Two days later, Route 29…
"How's your knee?" Silver asked, while still carrying Soul on his back.
"Much better, thanks to you and your iodine."
Before long, Silver and Soul arrived in Cherrygrove Pokémon Center. Soul carefully got off of Silver and limped towards the door.
"Could you wait a little bit? I'll be right back."
Once Soul disappeared inside the building, Silver took out his Pokégear and called Blue. He wanted to know if she successfully broke into Green's secret room in Viridian. She hadn't called the previous day, so he was getting curious.
"Hi, Silver," came Blue's voice before long.
"Hey sis. How'd it go?"
"Perfectly! I gave Green an ultimatum. Either I break into his secret room in Viridian Gym again and again, or he takes me out for dinner today. I'm sure he'll call pretty soon with his answer."
"How'd you get past the gyrating laser grid? And the motion trackers and cameras?" Silver asked curiously.
"Oh, it was really easy. None of those devices were shielded to EMP. It was a good thing that I took a small EMP generator from Bill's lab. Like you said, Silver: it pays to be prepared."
"Bill was using an EMP generator? For what?"
"He was using it for an experiment for something, but I'm sure he doesn't need this particular generator. I'm sure he has a back up one somewhere. Anyways, I'm heading back to his house to return the generator. What are you doing right now?"
"I'm in Cherrygrove," Silver replied. "Just wandering around right now." In the corner of his eye, he could see Soul limping back out of the Pokémon Center. "Anyways, there's something I need to take care of. I'll talk to you later, sis."
Silver hastily hung up, and instantly regretted that decision. Blue would become suspicious, and that wasn't good for anyone she suspected. He shook away the thought as Soul came closer.
"All done! Now, Mr. Hero, if you'd be kind enough to take me home…"
Silver thought for a moment. 'New Bark… well, Gold is probably at the Game Corner in Goldenrod, so… it's safe, I guess…' "… Fine."
He walked towards Route 29, and Soul hopped onto his back. Silver grumbled as he carried her once again, but he couldn't say that he hated it.
New Bark Town…
Silver carefully walked past the big-freaking-house belonging to Gold, and towards where Soul was pointing. But just as he arrived at Soul's house, it happened…
"Yo! Soul!" came an all-too-familiar voice from behind.
Silver hastily dropped Soul onto her feet and tried to run, but it was too late for that.
"And… Silver?"
Silver sighed and slowly turned around. He could see Gold coming towards him while on his skateboard. Gold got off his skateboard in front of Soul and glanced back and forth between her and Silver.
Gold looked at the blood stains on Soul's stockings, the nervous look on the girl's face, and the embarrassed look on Silver's face as well. Then, he understood it all. And he laughed.
"Saving damsels again, are we?" he said, still laughing hard. "And you even took her home!"
Silver shook his head and turned away, pretending to be ridiculing Gold's immature attitude, but trying to hide his blush in reality. Soul approached Gold and stopped his laughs.
"Psst, Gold…" she whispered, making sure that Silver couldn't hear her. "I… I think I like him… and I need your help."
"I get it," the goggled boy whispered back with a smile. "Sure thing."
"Thanks," Soul said with a wink. "I'll see you later, Gold." She turned to Silver's direction. "Thank you for everything, Mr. Hero! I'll see you again!"
Silver turned around just in time to see Soul waving at him before she entered her house. Gold, with a damned grin on his face, slowly walked towards him.
"Well, well, well…" he started.
"Shut up…" Silver said sharply. He walked past him and took a glance at Soul's house. 'Soul… the only one who knows of her existence is Gold… damn it…'
Gold watched with amusement as Silver turned back around and walked towards him.
"What the hell are you doing here, anyways? Shouldn't you be at Goldenrod Game Corner, cheating again?"
"For your information, buddy, I was forced to run an errand for Crys. For some reason, Super Serious Gal told me that she had a super serious headache, and couldn't leave her house. So I had to go over there, and take something to that Professor Elm guy. But the real question is… what are you doing here?"
Silver took a deep breath, and glanced back at Soul's house. After another sigh, he turned to glare at Gold. "You did not see this happen," he said silently, just loud enough that Gold could hear. "You will not tell this to anyone, and you will help me get her."
Gold started to laugh again. "And to think that I thought you were wired a little odd. But if I refuse?"
Silver's eyes twitched. "Then I tell sis that you like Crys, and I tell Crys that you and Soul are particularly close."
"Ouch. Well, Silver, I think we have a deal. We'll talk more after I give that Elm guy this package."
Silver watched as Gold skateboarded away, wondering if he made the right decision. He really hoped that he could trust Gold on this one…
However, as Gold arrived in front of Professor Elm's lab, a thought occurred. After he's done with Crystal's errand, he would call Red and find out Blue's Pokégear number. Then there was some… story-telling to do…
This occurs some time before Surprise Gift. Some time between First Meeting and Surprise Gift, Gold tells Blue of the existence of Soul, and Silver tells Crystal of that same existence as well. Also he tells Blue that Gold has a crush on Crystal, and Blue forces the 'deal' that was mentioned in Surprise Gift.
Anyways, that's the backstory of the connection between Surprise Gift and First Meeting.
Next up: Gold & Crystal. Reviews and suggestions are appreciated.