aah
what happened to daily updates T-T
im sorry
but i love reviews
they unfortunately dont give me more time to write faster
but they do make me very happy and happiness is motivation :)
891. pretext: an excuse; a strategy intended to conceal something
Green woke up to his phone buzzing. Blearily opening an eye, he glanced at the window curtains – as far as he could tell, it was still dark outside, and thus an inhumane hour to be receiving phone calls. He answered the insistent buzzing.
"Hello?"
"Green! You finally picked up!"
Green sat up and rubbed his eyes with his left hand. "Leaf. It's 3:30 AM."
"Hey! I was supposed to get to Kanto last night but my plane got delayed, and I landed just an hour ago and well, I just wanted to let you know I'm ok."
Green sighed. "Ok. Can I sleep now?"
Leaf snorted. "You know what? I bet you totally forgot I was even coming over."
Green had no pretext to cover that truth up. "Mhm."
892. endorse: to give approval or support to
"You really forgot? You little sonuva-" Green leaned away from the speaker as a string of curse words flew out. After he heard the angry buzzing die down, he put the speaker back to his ear.
"Uh, sorry." Green tried to convince his brain to think of something else to say. "…I'm a little preoccupied, you see, Gold's challenging Red tomorrow."
There was silence on the other side of the phone – Green double checked to see if Leaf was still listening. After a long pause, she whispered in a subdued voice. "I don't know if I want Red to win or not. Of course, he should win. But I just want him to come down."
Green felt his heart squeeze a little. "Yeah." He'd endorse any way to get Red down the mountain.
893. flotsam: wreckage of a ship or its cargo floating on the sea
Leaf sighed. "I'm really glad my stay was short this time – the clue for the ruins was actually just flotsam from a shipwreck." She paused. "When are you leaving to go up the mountain? Gold is with you, right?"
"We're leaving at 5:30. We, as in me and Gold and Silver."
"Ok." She hummed across the line. "I think I'll fly straight to the bottom of the mountain then. Meet you at 6?"
"Ugh. Ok, whatever." He groaned. "You know, if I fall back asleep now I might just not wake up for another twelve and something hours."
"What happened to the legendary Oak insomnia, eh?"
"Got over that ages ago. By the way, if you get to a PC box, see if you have anybody that can help set up barriers. Exeggutor does a pretty good job but, well, you never know."
894. recalcitrant: marked by stubborn defiance of authority or guidance
"Ok, ok. Why don't you go and watch the sunrise or something, it'll make today feel even more epic."
Green face palmed. "Seriously? Nah, I'm going to try to sleep another hour, you can go ahead and take pictures of the sunrise for me or something. … G'night."
"Fine then. Good morning." She sniffed.
Green snorted and then ended the call.
He drew open the curtains so as to see if the sun had started lightening up just yet. The sky was still an inky, navy blue, with no hints of sunrise quite yet. He could clearly remember how, on graduation day, all the graduates had sneaked onto the school library's roof to watch the sunrise. Of course, just to be a little more recalcitrant, the students had made sure no teachers were present – the graduates designed and tied a banner to the flagpole while waiting for the sun to rise. The whole setup and excitement about breaking the rules had been a whole lot more interesting than the actual sunrise (clouds along the horizon made the dramatic event quite boring, if not depressing).
895. gingerly: very carefully, cautiously
Green gingerly leaned on the narrow windowsill, making sure not to disturb the little pots of cacti. Outside, the street lamps glowed and flickered, scattering warm, golden light all over the streets and apartments and houses. A couple stars and a lot of airplanes could be seen twinkling in the dark blue sky.
896. discrete: individually distinct or separate
Finding nothing unusual, Green decided to flop back onto bed. Although he'd be delighted and excited to see something odd or suspicious or interesting, it was also quite nice to simply have everything be peaceful.
3:40 AM is a mysterious, almost magical time of day – it is when it the normally discrete night and day mixes into really really late night and really really early morning. Green made sure his phone's volume was on maximum and decided to catch an extra couple hours before having to wake up.
897. prevaricate: to speak or write evasively in order to avoid telling the truth
5:00 AM came a whole lot earlier than he would have liked, and his alarm sharply jarred him awake. He rubbed his eyes and looked out the still window to see still dark skies.
Green took a little sadistic pleasure in jerking the blankets of off Gold, who was happily hugging Silver. The sudden drop in temperature made Gold squeeze Silver even tighter, causing the redhead to groan in discomfort, wake up, and bop the other on the head in an attempt to escape.
Gold nursed a bump on his head. "I've been getting hit by you non-stop – is this going to be our kinda thing?"
Silver flicked him on the forehead and moved away.
Green began folding the blankets he'd snatched. He looked over at the two. "I'm assuming you two cleared up what happened in the bathroom last night? No prevarication or awkward topic avoiding right? Or did Gold not wake up?"
898. prodigious: wonderful; amazing; very big
"Pshaw." Gold sniffed. "He didn't even hit me that hard. We talked about it and stuff so yeah."
Silver slowly nodded.
Gold laughed. "Basically I love him. That was it."
The redhead, still in an early morning daze, blushed and covered his face wordlessly.
Green plopped the folded blankets down on the sofa. Satisfied with his handiwork, he turned to face the two boys. "Ok. Pack your stuff, we're leaving in half an hour."
Silver rolled his eyes, and Gold called out in monotone, "Ok mom," before narrowly dodging a flying pillow from Green. Thus ensued a pillow fight, and each employed his own prodigious pillow battling skills, which involved rapid firing small pillows or simply going for a good, solid whack.
899. impregnable: invincible; unconquerable
Although chaotic, it was fought in near silence except for chuckling and whumping of pillows. After a good five minutes, the three were spread-eagled on the carpet, breathing hard. Latias yawned and peeked out from her cocoon of blankets, and squawked at the state of disarray. Green and Gold and Silver started laughing again, this time at the squawk, and after finally calming himself, Green noted the time and hurried to the kitchen.
Green got to work making breakfast, and the other two boys packed their few belongings and then proceeded to build a castle from tables and chairs and blankets and pillows. It was far from the impregnable fortress Green and Red had constructed in the Oak laboratory, but Green smiled fondly at the attempt. And then he kicked it over and handed them each an omelet.
900. modulate: to adjust or regulate
At 5:40 AM the three waved to Latias before stepping out the door into the dark sky. Preliminary tinges of blue were appearing over the horizon, but it was still a long ways from sunrise. Pidgeot, Crobat, and Togekiss chattered to each other as their respective owners prepared to make the flight west. For the humans, after modulating their eyes to the dark, it wasn't too hard to see. Green and Pidgeot took off first, followed by Crobat and Togekiss, and they zipped on over Route 22 and the Indigo Plateau to the tiny, run down Pokecenter at the base of Mt. Silver.
Leaf, who had been waiting by the window, came running out and seized Silver in a crushing hug before patting Green and Gold on the head. The flying pokemon were recalled, and Green switched on his flashlight and led the way through the tortuous caverns.