381. skeptical: tending to question or doubt

"Red doesn't want people to know where he is." Actually, quite a few challengers knew where he was. But they'd all been crushed so badly, somehow word never got out that Red was on top of Mt. Silver. Nobody wanted to admit such a defeat. They claimed that nobody was up there. Which was believable.

But Gold was skeptical. "Naw, If I were him, I'd be hella bored and waiting for a good challenge. Dude, I've already narrowed it down to that he's either travelling so fast nobody can even notice him, living the hermit life on top of Mt. Silver, or dead. And you've got his pokemon so he's probably not traveling and challenging anybody right now, which means he's not moving around and I still haven't heard anything. Which means he's on Mt. Silver. Cause you just pretty much said he's not dead."

382. veneer: an attractive, ultimately misleading outward show; thin layer

Green's confident veneer faded. This kid was unbelievably sharp. "...ok I give. He's really up Mt. Silver. How'd you figure that out so fast? It took me two whole years to go up the mountain."

Gold's grin stretched wide across his face. "He's pretty famous here, even so long after he rose to the top. Anybody'd make a ruckus if they saw the mythical master trainer. There's only two ways he could avoid discovery - by going into disguise, which seems kind of unlikely for a guy like him, or going into places that aren't scoured daily by satellites. That limits places in Kanto to Mt. Silver and Mt. Moon cause mountains are riddled with caves and stuff. But tons of people, ok maybe not tons, but a lot of people go through Mt. Moon, so Red probably wouldn't be there. So he'd be on Mt. Silver. If he did go into disguise, then he'd have to forge identities and crap and that's really not champion type stuff, and he'd probably have to be moving so fast between cities with false aliases and what not to remain undetected." Gold paused. "And then he could be dead. But he's strong, so he's not allowed to die."

383. illuminate: to light up

Green's opinion of Gold climbed a couple notches at the last comment. That someone else besides Red's mom and Leaf recognized Red's fortitude made him happy. The thought must have illuminated his face, because Gold started laughing.

"And here's another theory: you like Red. He trusts you with his pokemon, so he must like you too."

384. fluent: easy; graceful

Gold had Arceus-given talent - he'd just fluently stated Green's two important secrets.

"Dude Green, don't look that surprised, you and Red have like a fanbase that ships you. Of course, the fanbase is mostly twenty something year old women or teenagers studying up on Kanto's champions, but it exists. You don't even know how many people thought you two were in a relationship when they interviewed your grandpa and people found out about the whole Pallet geniuses thing."

385. cascade: a waterfall or series of small waterfalls; a succession of stages, processes, or units

The whole cascade of information was kind of surpassing Green's comprehension level. Total strangers had figured out his relationship.

Gold did not relent. "Of course, some people prefer shipping Red with Leaf since an interviewer once caught Leaf and she said that she had nothing for you, despite being caught coming out of your house." Green remembered that - but he'd thought Porygon2 had done a fair job cleaning that up from the Internet. "You three are hot gossip material; seven years is not enough time for determined shippers to forget."

386. curb: to restrain or control

Green curbed his embarrassment and dug out his phone and flipped to the photo album.

"You have your own fair share of fans too, and probably larger. Look what I found." He pulled up the picture he took at Saffron, with Gold and Silver on the billboard, and then tossed his phone to Gold.

387. civic: pertaining to a city or citizen

"Oho! This, oh my gosh, I thought the dude was kidding! Haha, this is great, can I send this to myself?" Gold didn't seem the slightest bit fazed. "What? I like Silver. Well, this pic is fake, I mean you can tell it's photoshopped cause the lighting is a bit off, but it is pretty good right?"

"You let somebody broadcast your relationship in the second most populous city of Kanto?"

Gold tapped his chin. "Well, not really. Silver's a tsundere and won't admit that he likes me. So we're not officially in a relationship. But I love him. Some pokemon fanclub president person caught me when I was training right outside Saffron on Route 6, and asked me to lend him Togetaro for a photoshoot. Well, Togetaro was like, hell no, but then the dude threatened to blackmail me with scandals, and I was like go ahead I don't give a flyin- ok, well yeah, he actually made a pretty cute pic." Gold's phone dinged, and he tossed Green back his phone.

After clicking a bit, he waved his phone screen at Green. "Lookit, it's my background now~"

388. binge: a period of uncontrolled self-indulgence

Green had been mind blown so many times in half an hour that he just wanted to crawl up next to Eevee and binge eat ice cream and become flabby and screw society and his love life. As he turned to sulk on the couch, Gold continued to follow, spouting out alternate gossip, BS, and secrets. Gold tossed secrets into the air so blatantly, it almost hurt to hear some said so plainly.

389. pittance: a small amount, especially of money

"So I found out that Lance really is a pedophile cause I browsed around Claire's gym and found some blackmail she had stored up of Lance hugging kids - not his kids, duh, cause his dragonites are hella protective. But yeah, and he's what, thirty something now? D'ya think he'll ever get married? He paid me a pittance to shut up about it, but man is that weird or what?"

390. dilemma: a situation in which one must choose between two equally bad alternatives

Green was in a serious dilemma. He could either agree and continue Gold's excitement, or fake sleeping and try to deter the chatterbox. He tried the latter, but Gold walked over, glanced at him, and then sighed.

"I know you're awake man. Sorry about Umbreon, I forgot she was lactose intolerant. You know, most Eeveelutions are lactose tolerant now, Elm's done a survey and... ok I'll shut up, I need to go feed everybody on the ranch. Later!"