sorry it got random this chapter

i swear like i have no clue what the plot is doing sometimes its like y u do dis

the story writes itself... or the vocab writes the story...

161. fitful: occurring in irregular outbursts; occurring in spurts

Green slowly eased into new clothes for the day as he checked his phone for the time and any new messages. There were none - that didn't really bother him since he never really used his phone to talk to people anyway, but he had expected some onslaught of spam from Leaf to make up for her not calling him the day before. Leaf had not bothered him for a record time, and he could only wonder what she was doing - her interests and hobbies changed fitfully, and while one day she might be bored enough to become substitute gym leader, the next day she could easily be back to watching bad dramas.

162. novice: a person new to a field or activity; a beginner

Even if Leaf had not messaged him, she could still probably have various ways to check on what he was doing; she was no novice at computer hacking, as he found out the hard way. When Green had quit training to go study, she'd been so pissed that she had gotten onto the desktop he had then shared with his grandpa, and then downloaded almost four gigabytes worth of porn (1000 pictures!). Prof. Oak had been fairly lenient, probably thinking that was normal for boys (the professor thought everything was normal for boys), and had ignored it.

163. underscore: to emphasize

Green hadn't even been able to think of a reasonable explanation, besides "Leaf did it." He also could have said that he was gay, but he had a bad feeling about his grandpa knowing; Prof. Oak had no qualms about spreading his personal life on the news, and probably wouldn't realize that Green'd get a whole lot of attention of newspapers found out his sexuality and underscored it for the whole world to see...

164. ode: a long, lyrical poem, usually serious or meditative in nature

Either way, Green was finding that Viridian had several perks despite being such a shady, creepy, back-alley robbers kind of place. Firstly, the breakfast tables were replete with actually soft, moist muffins (not the dry, crappy stuff) and Green was mentally skipping in a field of flowers and singing an ode to all Kalosian chefs.

Another perk was that the scientists studying the Tanoby Ruins at the Sevii Islands had just come back on the ferry a couple nights before, and Leaf had probably known this already from connections or something because she'd arranged a casual lunch meeting with them at some nice seafood restaurant. Green had worked with quite a few of them, though he hadn't kept in touch with any, and he was quite eager to hear about how studies of the Unown were developing.

165. wry: dryly humorous, with a touch of irony

Leaf hadn't planned anything for that morning, so he returned to his room and got into bed with his laptop and continued typing up the analysis papers for his grandpa. The professor had included some wry puns in his notes; "Unovans now resisting Plasma that are still trying to e-Raticate trainer culture. Unown when internal conflicts cease." Maybe it was his way of apologizing for making Green write up reports, but it did work in making Green groan at the banality. He really did see those same puns waaay too much.

166. dreary: depressing and boring

Writing was becoming increasingly dreary as the sun rose outside, bathing the room in brilliant light from glorious blue skies. Wingulls cawed outside, and Green let his mind wander. Last time he'd challenged Surge, he'd depended on his Machamp's earthquake to KO all of Surge's pokemon. Of Red's pokemon, only Aerodactyl knew earthquake, and he prayed that Aerodactyl would have high enough defense to maybe last a few thunderbolts.

167. placate: to make less angry

Green finally got up to placate his stomach, which asked for something more substantial than just sweets. He munched on an apple he'd carried back from the breakfast tables downstairs as he ironed his kind of nice and casual button-up shirt and his wrinkled pants. At least he was making some effort to look decent, not that he usually cared.

168. correlate: to correspond; to be mutually related

The map on his phone apparently could not correlate Green's location with the GPS system (according to the GPS, he was currently out in the middle of the ocean), so he was stuck wandering the streets, asking for directions. He blamed Surge for being careless with the electric fields or whatever signal obstructions he blasted from the gym every single day.

169. valiant: courageous, brave as in battle

After some valiant struggles with the odd accents and bad directions, he spotted the distant signs down the street advertising the restaurant's name. It was actually only a couple buildings away from the gym; when Green walked past the gym, something caught his eye. Posters, taped on the walls. With puns.

170. fathom: to measure the depth of; to understand

Green honestly could not fathom why Surge would allow such bad puns. He just did not know what to say when he saw the enormous poster outside the gym, with "I'm not gonna (Raichu) a love song." Surge's own Raichu was posing at the center of the poster, and Green felt the most amazing urge to face palm arising in his arm.

And it got worse. Besides the poster, there was another one with "Ash," the totally unlike Red cartoon character that was supposed to be based off his life. It was followed by another one with a Nidoran. All together it ran something like, "I'm not gonna (Raichu) a love song, 'cause you (Ash)'d for it, 'cause you (Nidoran)..."

Maybe it was an old man thing. Maybe Surge would get along with Prof. Oak better than he'd imagined.