omg longish chapter
Victini is not manly
If you're confused about the timeline don't worry its fuzzy in my head too
Red and green traveled for 2 years, beat lance 5 years, sapphire became champ a couple years ago, gold beat lance but is collecting kanto badges, unova crew is still on their journey, and I have no friggin clue about kalos I just know they have fairies and it's based off of france
If you didn't catch any of that it doesn't really matter cos ill probably screw something up whoops
791. endemic: native to a particular country
The recipe was something of an Unovan and Kalosian cultural mix – the vegetable was endemic to a region near Kalos, and the recipe was from Unova. Green picked up the cake with his spatula, and plopped it on a plate alongside a scoop of white rice. He brought over the dish to Latias, who eyed it happily. Green brought over his food to eat on the sofa with her.
"Hey Grreen… you know, rrice has been around a very long time, and people are always changing it – the brreed or something. And I've eaten a lot of rrice, but this is rreallly good!"
792. exalt: to raise in status or character; to increase
Green smiled. "It's just rice though. Well, I wouldn't know how it was like before, but it's still not that interesting." And no need to exalt my cooking ability. Praise the rice cooker.
"Oh, this vegetable, zu-zucchinii," she stuttered on the word, carefully mouthing it out, "is very good! Name sounds like, Victini, you know, cute fire-psychic from Unova?"
"Thanks!" Green bit into the veggie cake – it really was pretty good. "I've seen pictures of Victini, in fact she recently appeared on the news with some kid who's been actively protesting Plasma activity."
793. imperative: urgently necessary; impossible to deter or evade
"Plasma?" Latias scrunched her eyes shut and fought to recall something – she hadn't been travelling a ton recently, but the name sounded familiar.
"Yeah, apparently some organization in Unova that's all like, pokemon happiness is imperative, trainers make pokemon unhappy, stuff like that."
"Hn."
Green took that as a cue to elaborate. Some kid, just another boy trying to be the region champ, was exposing more and more information about the dark dealings of Team Plasma. Really quite a heroic story, reminiscent of Red and Team Rocket.
794. incognito: in disguise
Story telling went on for half an hour, and Green wrapped up after finishing the last bite of rice. "So right now, this kid, Black, is probably still collecting badges. Or he could be incognito, just keeping low to avoid creepers and the media. But either way, something big is happening over there."
"Wow…" Latias stifled a yawn and levitated her plate over to him, and Green wondered when he'd gotten so used to watching her eat by levitating utensils. He grabbed the plate and carried his own to the sink, and got to work scrubbing the dishes and the oily frying pan.
795. maintain: to provide support; to declare to be true; to defend against criticism
Green was a little in awe of Gold's determination to love Silver. Of course, Green had maintained his emotions and feelings for Red for a long time, but it wasn't the same as chasing him and bugging him all the time.
Red and Green and Leaf were always together. Green didn't like Leaf, in the way little boys dislike little girls. But the three of them had played together until they were five. Then, Leaf had left for over four years. Red cried. In those years, Green had tried to fill up the empty space, but when Leaf came back right before Red turned ten, Red fell for her. They hung out together a lot in the days before leaving on their journeys, and it was then that Green began to think of himself as the third wheel. Leaf was undoubtedly smart and pretty, and it was obvious that Red liked her. And like the dense kid he was, he openly gave her flowers and embarrassed smiles.
And then the day before they got their pokemon, Red was sleeping over with Green. Red had told him his feelings for Leaf, and Green got mad, so mad, but he didn't quite get why. Green didn't understand; he hadn't thought of his feelings for Red as jealousy, but more as a kind of betrayal. He'd tried so hard to make Red happy, but then Red had gone and set his heart for someone else.
796. adjudicate: to judge; to preside
It was hard to adjudicate his feelings then, so when they started their journey, Green was unsure how to face or feel with Red. He decided on anger. He trained hard to be noticed, and wondered if Red ever wondered what he felt. He wondered if Red ever realized that their meetings weren't coincidences – the real coincidences were times when Red saw Leaf on the way to the Pokecenter in Vermilion.
Leaf avoided the two of them on their journey, and Green had appreciated it – he'd only recently realized that Leaf was trying to push them together. But when Red confessed to Leaf after the championship, Green didn't know what to think. She hadn't competed – she was only collecting badges and traveling, not aiming to become region champion – but she had come with the professor to congratulate them.
797. perjury: lying under oath
Throughout their journey, Red had spoken less and less. He still talked, but rarely. He'd said there was no reason to, since nobody, namely Team Rocket, listened to him anyway. Green had given him a noogie for thinking too much about the Rockets, but Red still got quieter. After Leaf rejected him, he'd just stopped talking in general. Of course, when Leaf wrote him letters asking why he stopped talking, he never blamed her.
Green didn't even notice when Red had stopped talking. After the championship, Green had left to sulk, and had gone back to school to study, graduate, and find a job in the research community. He'd tried to forget about Red. He tried to date girls, to love someone else, but they all accused him of perjury, saying that Green never took them seriously. That Green didn't really love him even though he promised to do so.
798. flora: plants as a group, especially of a specified region or time
Green lost it two years later, when rumors of the impossibly strong, red-eyed trainer living on Mt. Silver drifted around. He'd ditched school on finals week to climb the mountain for the first time, to find Red.
He'd gotten lost so many times that he didn't even sleep for his first forty eight hours on the mountain. Green had crashed through the flora, stirring up powerful pokemon and engaging in exhausting battles. Every rock, tree, and cliff looked different, yet the same – everything was washed in cold light and what wasn't blindingly white was dyed in blues and purples and splashes of faded green. Eevee and Arcanine were unable to help him with finding clues are smelling traces of Red, as Green made them spend every moment recuperating to prepare for the next encounter.
799. lout: an awkward, stupid person
Even in June, the peaks were coated with snow. Green had eventually passed out in the mouth of a cave, partly from exhaustion, hunger, and oxygen deprivation, and partly from resignation. He'd not seen a single trace of human existence, and his pokemon had all fainted and he was out of revives. There was no way he could get off the mountain alive anyway in that state, clumsy and incoherent as a lout. He could become food for the golbats for all he cared; they'd make better use of his body than he would himself. He didn't care. He couldn't care.
800. abate: to lessen in amount, intensity or strength
He'd woken up, limbs numb and fingers frozen, to the sound of the crackling of a fire. The blaze hardly abated the cold that seeped into his very bones, but nonetheless it was a huge improvement from lying on Arceus-forsaken stones that chilled the life out of his body.
And that was the first time he saw red in almost fifty hours, red as in warmth, red as in human, red as in Red.