OMG MY COMPUTER CRASHED AND I LOST LIKE AN HOUR OF WORK UGH

71. herald: to bear news; to announce

Green gestured with his rolled up newspaper as he tried to list the moves of all of Red's pokemon while he walked to the gym. He'd battled and tried to strategize enough against Red to have a pretty good idea of each pokemon's moved and stats; with some observation, he'd probably be able to figure out their personalities and favorite poffin flavors (he hadn't interned at Professor Oak's lab for two summers for nothing).

Normally, Green would be the first to arrive to get a head start in paperwork so he wouldn't have to stay late after closing hours. The days had been growing shorter, heralding the arrival of autumn. So when he arrived, he was surprised to see Ada and Ivan's bikes leaning against the bike rack. He glanced at his watch. 7:13. He wasn't any later than usual?

72. confiscate: to seize private property by or as if by someone in authority

Ada and Ivan were fraternal twins, and the youngest of the trainers at fourteen. Their parents were extremely successful doctors, but they'd run away to become trainers to escape the confines of their parents' names. Green was fairly fond of them, as they were like younger siblings to him. They told Green that they'd run off without a single penny from their parents and had narrowly escaped the orphanage. They'd amassed a considerable amount of money and experience, before their parents had found them and tried to take them home. Their parents had confiscated their trainer IDs and pokemon, and they'd had to start from square one to get new ones. Green really admired their determination, and could empathize with the whole "relatives overshadowing anything you do" circumstances.

73. remiss: careless in, or negligent about, attending to a task

When Green opened the already unlocked door to see complete emptiness and silence, he felt something was amiss. Carefully navigating the maze of arrows, he reached his office. Hearing whispering inside, he raised an eyebrow before swinging the door open.

The twins jumped and shoved the paper they'd been looked at into the middle of another pile lying on his desk. Way to be suspicious?

Green sighed. "What're you two doing in here?"

Ada glanced at her brother before responding. "Uh... we were looking for information about you, like your hobbies and stuff...?" Ivan looked nonplussed as the Ada's voice rose at the end of her 'assertion', as if she was asking a question. He tried to make it a little more believable. "Your birthday's in a couple months, so..."

"Four months." Green rubbed his temples. "Look, I don't know what you were looking for but I honestly don't care because nothing in here really should be of any interest to you guys. Just don't do it again, ok?" He shooed them away and mentally berated himself for being remiss in getting a lock for the office. It was fairly surprising that neither Giovanni nor Lorelei had installed one, both being secretive people. Well, it wasn't like either really every worked from the office anyways.

74. evoke: to call forth or call to mind

Green tried to flip through the stack of papers he'd seen the twins shove the paper into, but didn't catch anything interesting among the bills and notices and insurance policies. He sat down in the swivel chair and leaned back while opening the newspaper. He skimmed over the business and technology section (and there was Gramps again, this time with Prof. Juniper...) before flipping to the last pages. Shots of yesterday's "interesting" battles were laid out over the page, and Green was disappointed by the lack of recent strong trainers. As he flipped to the backside of the newspaper, he was greeted by an enlarged photo of a teenager, whose black hair poked out of a backwards cap in an impossible fashion. The kid was posing proudly in front of an enormous Typhlosion, who looked hardly injured in its battle with... was that a Gyarados?

Green scanned the caption below the photo. "Gold, despite the type disadvantage, beats pro fisherman Larry!" Ah. The Gold kid.

He looked back to Gold's face, and could now understand why Leaf had thought him similar to Red. Though Gold's huge grin was so different from Red's default expression (or lack thereof), Green could sense a likeness; maybe it was the hat. Something about Gold evoked old, old memories of a smiling Red, a Red that laughed when he saw pokemon and actually talked and spoke. Green pursed his lips, then put the newspaper away determinedly. There was work to do.

75. sacrosanct: very sacred, holy, or inviolable

Green began researching locksmiths online, but none of them were even close to Viridian; most were in Saffron and Fuchsia. He started looking up DIY locks, but soon became distracted by flashing ads and Ivan's lingering words. Birthday. Red's birthday was in a little over two weeks, August 8th. Red, Green, and Leaf had a tradition going on, where birthdays were sacrosanct and gifts always exchanged. Even when Red had been gone for years, odd gifts (sketchbooks of his pokemon and wild pokemon and mountains) always found their way to Green and Leaf, sometimes by mail but more often by pidgeot. After finding Red, Leaf had reciprocated with scrapbooks of her travels complete with notes and descriptions of new pokemon in faraway regions. Green had started sending up art supplies after discovering Red's hobby, but it was tough figuring out what to get.

76. nurture: to nourish, educate, or encourage

He began by looking for pens and pencils - those were pretty cheap and easy to get. After catching himself trying to buy bargain-price pencils, he felt a wave of guilt and then proceeded to look at cold-resistant paints. He found a blog by a Sinnohese painter, and skimmed through the posts. Oil paints didn't freeze in the cold, but then those and canvas were all pretty expensive. Artists in Kalos occasionally imported vodka from rural towns to keep watercolors from freezing over. He kept looking, and eventually decided on a couple oil paints and smaller canvases. Though Green had always been more of a science-oriented person, he found that skimming through blogs had nurtured his interest in arts, and he promised himself a set of art materials to work with for his own birthday.

77. scintillate: to give off sparks; to be animated or brilliant

The sound of Salma pound on his door pulled him out of his reverie as she curtly informed him that he had a challenger. Green glanced at his desktop screen and then back out the door and ran a hand through his bangs in irritation.

His challenger was a redhead (wow was that an unicorn's horn coming out of his hair?) who looked fairly irritated. As Green stepped out of his office, their eyes met, and the red head frowned. Well isn't his attitude just scintillating.

78. purvey: to supply

Green didn't bother introducing himself, as the redhead immediately got into battle stance with his arm raised and pokeball ready. Shrugging, Green sent out Espeon. The redhead sent out a Golbat, but appeared slightly confused. Espeon was a good strategic type (unusual for Red, whose team was mostly brutally powerful pokemon that didn't need strategy to win), with a moveset of Substitute, Calm Mind, Psychic, and Shadow ball.

Green smirked when the redhead recalled his sneasel in frustration. He looked at Green in anger and confusion. Espeon had used substitute and calm mind until it was able to one-hit KO nearly all his pokemon; the sheer difference in level was probably also a factor.

"...I'm Silver." What, was this kid Gold's sidekick? "I'm trying to beat Gold in gathering the Kanto badges."

Oh.

"Are these really your pokemon? I've researched your battles and none of the data said you had an Espeon."

Green pursed his lips. He decided to purvey an answer when Silver stared at him unblinking. Wow his eyes were... familiar? "I'm training my friends pokemon and he's training mine for a while."

"...I'll come back once you've gotten your own pokemon back. Don't let Gold beat you." Silver turned on his heel and stormed out.

"Good job getting your Golbat to evolve," Green called out. Silver halted for a moment, his shoulders rising and stiffening, and then all but sprinted out.

79. palette: a board which an artist can hold while painting and on which colors can be mixed; the range of colors used in a particular painting or by a particular artist

With no other challenger to bother him, Green retreated to his office, searching for palettes. He was at a loss over whether to choose disposable wax paper palettes or actual traditional wood or plastic palettes. He ended up ordering both - heck, if Red didn't want the traditional palette, Green would gladly take it. As he proceeded to the online checkout, he grimaced a little at the total sum (three digits?) and submitted his order.

80. entropy: a steady decline in the order within a system; disorder, chaos

The time was nearing 3 in the afternoon when Green noticed shouting in the gym. He shook his cramping hand as he strolled over to the office door and opened it.

Some seven or eight kids were running all over the booby traps, screaming and giggling as they were sent rocketing all over the gym. Bonita called out to him.

"The Viridian trainer's school was supposed to have a field trip here; they called a couple days ago when you were out on your lunch break, and I thought you'd be ok with it... They're kind of crazy but at least nobody's getting hurt?" Salma, Ada, and Ivan were busy catching the flying kids as Arabella spoke with the teacher that looked completely embarrassed. All in all, the place had undergone entropy and become a playground for terrifyingly hyper children. Green placed his hand over his eyes and sighed. According to Leaf, he'd be leaving the very next day; how in the world were his trainers going to function while he was gone? (They couldn't even handle some rowdy six year olds!) Most of them were living alone and needed their paychecks soon too, so he couldn't exactly close the gym for two weeks...