farawayplace | [in which the rich brat has to work for the first time in his life, probably]

Serperior's gaze narrowed at Nerica's words and he looked greatly offended. It took great effort not to move into a striking position. He did not want to sink so low as to be goaded into a fight like this, but Nerica made it quite challenging.

Trip blinked, watching him warily. "Y... yeah, something seems off. Did they say something to make him mad? Or maybe Serperior set them off somehow... what kind of Pokemon do you train? I wonder if they might be natural enemies. He never acts like this, my Pokemon get a little threatening when they're trying to keep me safe, but you didn't even do anything..."

But before he could set his meal down to recall them, Elena's scolding and placating turned the situation around before it could worsen, so it no longer seemed necessary. Serperior seemed to be appeased.

'I'll forgive you both on account of our masters' friendship and your good manners... but if Nerica insults my master again, I will not overlook it.'

Tranquill blinked. 'Did our master catch new Pokemon?'

'... no, their master is Gold. The one who is sharing his meal with us.'

This seemed to confuse Tranquill further, because Trip is clearly sharing his meal with them, so Serperior had to explain the meal that Trip was sharing with them, was first bought for him by Gold, and only then did Tranquill understand.

((The Pidove line is... slow on the uptake.))

Edited (I didn't complete a sentence, apparently!) 2023-01-04 20:31 (UTC)

"Yes. They'd keep climbing until they just fell off of buildings. It was a little unsettling at first, but you get used to it, especially because they were absolutely everywhere and we kept trying to burn them."

Trip went through his gallery and showed pictures he took of the city covered in Venipede. They really were on everything, even climbing up the faces of buildings and scaling towers.

"... the whole city was at a standstill and the mayor was desperate, so he had any passing trainer who wanted to help, try to take them down. I didn't think there was any other way to defeat them... but Ash and Mr. Burgh, the Castelia City Gym Leader, who specialized in Bug types, saw it differently."

"Uh, I dunno? I guess they were probably goading Serperior." Gold looks at Serperior nervously, but when he hears Elena start talking he relaxes, figuring she's probably got things under control. He looks at Trip again. "My Pokemon are... I guess they've got strong personalities? Nerica's super prideful and Mateo's just generally aggressive and protective, so they pick fights sometimes... Usually just because they're protective of me, or each other."

And then Serperior calms down, and Gold smiles.

"But my other Pokemon can keep them chill. They're a pretty good team," he says, and takes Elena's Pokeball in hand. "Thanks, Elena."

'No problem!' Elena chirps, then turns to Serperior and bows. 'Thank you very much. She's very young, so I hope you won't hold it against her.'

'Not that young,' Nerica mutters, offended.

Seeing Serperior explain things to his teammate does make the snake seem less threatening, so Nerica will be less likely to antagonize him! Not that she'd admit it.

"Oh, wow," Gold says as he leans in closer to look at Trip's photos. "They really were everywhere. That's kinda creepy."

He frowns slightly as he listens to Trip. It's reminding him of the situation in Goldenrod City, which... Well, he doesn't know how serious it is, since he never made it there, but he hopes it's not that desperate. The Gym Leader's probably helping people out there too, so things should be fine... he hopes.

"Ash was there too? Huh, he's been everywhere." No wonder he's so famous. "Lucky you guys had a Bug-type Gym Leader there. What'd he do?"

"It does sound like a well-balanced team, even if they do sound like they can be a handful."

He finished his meal and lowered his bowl, gaze fixed on some indeterminate point at the ground.

Trip nodded. "... yes. Ash and Mr. Burgh wanted to deal with the situation peacefully... at the time, I believed violence was necessary. I called Ash naive. I believed strength was everything... they wanted to reason with them, Mr. Burgh wanted to corral them into a specific area away from people, he was worried about how our fighting would just make the Venipede fight back too, and how there could be losses on both sides... like we didn't know that going in. I guess it was enough to convince the others who were following me to leave, but not me."

"Yeah! They're great," Gold says with a big smile, putting Elena's Pokeball away again.

He's still got some broth left, so he sips on it while listening to Trip talk.

"The way you're talking, it sounds like you were wrong?" Gold guesses. He thinks if he was there when that was going on, he'd probably have listened to Burgh, and either helped him or evacuated the city, depending on how things were going. But that kind of thinking's probably no use since it wasn't him there.

Tranquill climbed higher up his shoulder, making a soft, cooing sound.

"... yeah. Didn't get convinced that easily. While they tried to resolve things peacefully, want to guess what I did?"

"Punched a bug in the face," Gold says without missing a beat, not entirely serious.

A small smirk, because it was funny.

"No, actually, I was using Lampent for most of it, so no punches, only fire... and one Shadow Ball Ash took the gut. He threw himself in harm's way trying to stop me... it knocked him back a good distance and kind of singed his hoodie, but he he was fine."

~~Because Gold needed more strange, out-of-context stories of Ash's feats to add to his list, apparently.~~

"I listened in on their plans to negotiate peace, secretly followed them, and attacked the head of the swarm, before they could. Only partly because I thought their little peace treaty wasn't going to work, but also because I liked the challenge and they said it'd be the biggest and strongest."

"Really?! Dang, Ash is kinda hardcore," Gold exclaims in awe. He can't imagine just walking off being attacked by a Pokemon. Hell, he's still got nightmares about that one time he got bitten by a Houndoom sometimes. If Ash really was just fine after that, he's got to be built different.

"Huh. So you kinda screwed up," Gold says bluntly. "But I'm guessing the city's still standing, so the others managed to fix things up anyway?"

Gold's not judging, he's screwed things up back in his day, too. He's wondering if maybe he should share the story of how he helped stop the Magikarp and Gyarados problem, once Trip's finished with this story.

~~And Trip didn't even know he was poisoned earlier that very same day!~~

"He's something else, definitely. It's hard to figure out what he's thinking, but he's really kind and strong... he'd go out of his way to help anyone, even people or Pokemon he just met. I didn't doubt Alder sir's words from back then until I met him... that winning battles isn't everything, that there's other kinds of strength."

Not that he'd admit this to Ash...

He made a face at Gold's word choice, Serperior also looked a tad offended, but Trip nodded.

"Yeah... I pitched in when I saw Ash's Pokemon in trouble, sending Tranquill here to save his... I came around eventually, but I spent most of it making things worse because I couldn't believe it'd wprk."

If Gold could share his story, that'd be great! He'd probably feel better...

"Yeah, no kidding. He helped me out before too. I dunno why, but there's something about him. Anybody else was that nice and helpful I'd think they were up to something. But Ash just feels like he's for real, you know? Genuine. Easy to get along with."

Not that Gold would trust him with his deepest secrets or anything. He still keeps guys like Ash who seem too nice at an arm's length, emotionally, but he'd probably trust Ash with his life if he had to.

"Eh, as long as you came around and things ended well then it's fine. Things don't always end that well." Gold makes a face as he thinks about a memory. Yeah, he might as well share that story.

"Speaking of that, that Magikarp and Gyarados thing I told you about? Lance was investigating that same thing when I was around the area, with this other Trainer, Cal, who I'd met before, and he was all 'Hey, that's Gold, he can help us'. I dunno why, but I guess I'd caught his eye before?" Gold shrugs. He's never thought of himself as especially strong or impressive.

"Anyway, Cal decided I should help them out with storming the Team Rocket hideout in Mahogany Town and stop their radio wave schemes and stuff, and I was like 'sure' and went with them... I didn't think I'd be that useful, but then as soon as I got there, Lance was ordering his Dragonite to Hyperbeam a Rocket guy, so I figured I'd make my role trying to keep the damage to a minimum." Gold grimaces. Now that he thinks about it, he was kind of on the opposite side of his story than Trip was in his, wasn't he?

((ooc: BTW Cal is an obscure game character who I decided to make more relevant in my AU))

"I know exactly what you mean. I didn't get him at first, so all his friendliness felt weird coming from a stranger, but he's just... genuinely like that. Just a really nice guy."

"... I've never battled you, but it sounds like he saw something in you, if he acted like you could be relied on."

From the sound of it, Gold was the one trying to keep the peace, so it did sound like the opposite end of a bad situation...

"... a Venipede had gotten hurt—not directly my fault, but still... I knew they probably had their reasons and didn't care, and I was prepared to burn their spirits if that's what it came down to, so... it could've gone ugly and I knew it too, but that didn't stop me... so for what it's worth, I think you did the best you could and you're still a better person than me, even if all you could do was minimize the damage, at least you weren't making things worse or being selfish about it."

((I hadn't heard of him before! Thank you. ^^))

"He's a rare kind of guy," Gold nods, crossing his arms. "No wonder so many people like him."

"I dunno, I never battled Cal either. And I dunno if I really wanna be somebody he'd take notice of... He's cut from the same kinda cloth as Lance, like I noticed later, when we were storming that Rocket hideout... They were both kinda ruthless about taking out Team Rocket. We had to find these passwords to get into a room where their radio wave machine was. I warned some Rocket lady about Lance and convinced her to tell me the password without a fight, and Cal kept complaining when I let her leave... He was so gung-ho about punishing 'evil-doers' that it was kinda uncomfortable." Gold looks a bit uncomfortable as he talks about it too. Cal's the exact type of person he can't get along with, but for some reason Cal decided he gets along with Gold, so all Gold could do was pretend.

"...I dunno if I can call myself a better person," Gold says, regretful. "Like I guess I didn't make things worse, but I didn't really do enough to make 'em better... In the end, we... No, wait, I should tell the story in order." Gold shakes his head, then frowns thoughtfully. "Okay, so after that, um... Hmm..."

Telling a story is hard! Which parts should he tell, and which parts can he leave out? Gold is quiet for a short moment as he wonders how to continue.

"...I guess we met Team Rocket's... boss? But not like, the real boss, he was a temporary boss because their real boss wasn't there... I dunno, it was complicated."

"Yeah, kind of a dream-like person, right?"

He listened quietly to Gold's story, frowning a bit.

"... the self-righteous sort, huh? It's different when you know you're doing something bad... doing bad things while thinking it's all justified, because you think you're a force of good, so you never call yourself into question... that kind's trouble."

Tranquill inched down Trip's arm, then hopped onto Gold, cooing a bit. He seemed concerned, but was also trying to encourage Gold to take his time to tell his story. Remembering everything—and in sequence—was very difficult for Tranquill too, after all!

Gold nods. Well, 'dream-like' is maybe a bit much, but maybe Trip's a big fan of Ash or something.

"Yeah, people who do bad things while thinking they're doing good are dangerous." ...Kind of like Trip in his story, but Gold's sure Trip already knows that so pointing that out wouldn't help anything.

Gold blinks when Tranquill hops onto him. "Oh, hey," he says with a bit of a surprised laugh. "You wanna hang out, uh-" he turns to Trip, "What was this guy's name again?"

"So where was I... Right, the boss went on a long monologue about how Team Rocket had gathered again after their old boss... Joe-vanny or something? Had disbanded the Team and everyone wanted to get Joe-man back to lead them, but the temp-boss didn't want that... And about how they'd built an Electrode-powered radio wave machine that could evolve Magikarps into Gyarados... And then at the end he revealed he'd been stalling for time so his underlings could escape. Lance and Cal thought he was lying, that he was actually stalling for something else, but I dunno. I feel like it could've been true." Gold shrugs. "After that he escaped too, and... the place was pretty deserted. I hope all the Rockets managed to escape, since after that..."

Gold makes a face, hesitant. He takes a sip of milk, his throat having gotten dry.

"Me and Cal went to find that Electrode-powered machine, and Lance had captured some Rockets who helped the boss escape, and was bringing them out of there to be arrested, I guess? And we figured we should destroy the machine... And it exploded. And... the whole hideout was destroyed."

Gold looks into the distance, a pained look in his eyes.

Far from it! He found him quite aggravating and was often put off by him, but... he undeniably had respect for him now.

Would you believe Trip didn't fully consider himself that sort? He knew it was evil, he just believed it was necessary.

"Tranquill," Trip said. "Ash has one too, although it may have evolved into Unfezant by now. You might want to see it, the males and females have very different plumage. The males are more showy, and the females more dull, a brown colour to better hide their nests and eggs."

He could show Gold pictures of male and female Unfezant later, it was Gold's turn to continue his story.

"... Giovanni?" Trip offered. "Like the Viridian Gym Leader?"

Like. Assuming this is a different person...?

"Forcing Magikarp to evolve early... hold on, I think I might have heard of this before. Or at least, something similar to this happened in my world. Can you tell me more about the result...?"

For the rest of that story, however... that did sound bleak. He could easily see it Lance and Cal's way, that it was a cover for something else, maybe some kind of fail-safe, but seeing how troubled Gold looked by it...

"... I hope they made it out alive too."

He was too cynical to believe it, but he wanted it to be true, for Gold's sake.

"... they're an old organization, right? Mafia-like. Maybe there's some honour among thieves..."

Tranquill gently nudged Gold's chest with the flat of his beak, nestling closer, trying to offer some comfort, even if he didn't fully understand the whole story.

"You did what you could. The fact that you care about them this much already shows you're better than those guys."

((Alas, if the two-parter had aired, that would have meant Giovanni would be known, at least to Unova's socialites and politicians at that masquerade party, buuut... dubious canonicity / dropped out of continuity...))

"Huh, really?" Gold turns to Tranquill with a smile. "So you're gonna be a pretty bird, huh?" What a sweet bird. Gold's not sure if it's okay to pet a bird Pokemon or not, so he just kind of... awkwardly holds his hand near him.

"Oh yeah, I think it was Giovanni!" Gold says, snapping his fingers. "So he's a Gym Leader in your world? I dunno if he is in mine, I don't really know about that stuff."

"Huh, really? Your world too?" Well, he supposes it's not that big of a surprise for two worlds with Team Rocket to have similar Team Rocket plans happening. If that's the case, maybe there's a Trip in his world too? "I guess at least one of the Magikarp evolved into a red Gyarados. Did that happen in your world too?"

"Yeah... I want to believe everyone made it out alive. That Rocket boss guy seemed... He acted casual, but I couldn't read his expressions. Maybe he was telling the truth but wanted us to think he was lying... Or maybe he was lying." Gold shakes his head slowly. "I wanna believe he's actually a pretty good guy who cares about his underlings. Because if he wasn't, and they didn't escape, then it was my fault that they..."

Gold screws his eyes shut, and takes a deep, shaky breath. Then he feels Tranquill nudging him, and opens his eyes. Slowly, he gives the bird a slight smile. Then he steels himself to keep talking.

"Just caring isn't worth anything if I don't do anything with it. I ran away after that," Gold admits, not looking at Trip. "I was too afraid to find out if anyone was caught up in the destruction or not. So I made an excuse and left the other two to handle the fallout of it. I'm not a good person."

"Y-yes... Champion Lance was in the Masters 8 Ash took part in. I watched him use a red Gyarados in battle..." Trip said quietly, looking somewhat troubled.

Was the Lance in his world like that too?

Tranquill cooed softly and bent his neck, offering it for a scratch or pet. Tranquill is definitely one of the more animal (or bird-like) Pokemon, he certainly didn't mind being pet or handled like a bird, generally!

But, Gold's repeated self-blame was aggravating Trip, perhaps because it sounded too much like the way he blamed himself, so that he hated it. It was like looking at a very ugly reflection with flaws magnified.

He rather roughly shoved his empty bowl back at Gold.

"So what? So what if you are a bad person?" he asked, tone taking on an edge, his expression disgusted, as if looking down on him. "You there, are you going to continue like that, for the rest of your life, because of one mistake, no matter how great? You know it haunts you, disgusts you, so why identify with it? Why make it who you are if everything that you are rejects it? Can you not aspire to anything higher? What was the meaning in sharing a meal with me? Was it guilt? Was it kindness? Don't tell me it was pity... someone truly evil lacks those qualities. Will you crawl on your knees, begging forgiveness, for the rest of your life?!"

The impassioned rant was draining and prompted a pounding headache again, but he didn't care, he was this close to trying to grab Gold by the collar. Maybe the pain was making it harder to restrain himself, he wasn't even the sort to start physical fights or roughly shake people trying to make himself heard...

But before he could do anything at all, a red, lion cub-like Pokemon leapt in between them, circled, and settled against Gold's leg to sleep, tail curled around itself.

"Huh, Lance wasn't the one who caught the red Gyarados in my world, so that's not the same at least... But I guess he dealt with that problem himself in yours."

That is kind of a troubling thought. Things probably could've turned out worse in his world if he hadn't been around, but maybe there's a version of him in Trip's world too? Like that "Ethan" guy in Lear's world...

Well, since Tranquill seems fine with it, Gold carefully - and gratefully - scritches his head.

And then Trip explodes on him, startling Gold, who looks at him wide-eyed, then adopts a completely blank expression as he listens to him rant.

And when Trip is finished...

...Gold laughs.

"I didn't say I was a bad person, man, I said I wasn't a good person," he says, a wide, only partially fake smile on his face. "It's not that black and white. I'm not truly evil. Nobody is. I mean, why do you think I hate guys like Cal so much? It's 'cos he thinks everyone's good or evil, nothing inbetween."

He takes the bowl Trip shoved at him, and stacks it on his own empty bowl, still smiling, seemingly completely unaffected by Trip's aggressiveness.

"I gave you food because I wanted to feed you. I told you my story 'cos you told me yours. Sorry you hated it I guess, but I feel a lot better about it now that you told me accidentally getting people killed isn't worth moping about!"

Okay, so some bitter sarcasm leaks into that last sentence. His smile's a bit uglier too.

But then a strange Pokemon pops up out of nowhere to take a nap on Gold's legs, and he blinks in surprise... then smiles more genuinely.

"I guess I'm not moving from here," he says, then glances at Trip, noticing he looks pained. He's not sure what to do about that, so he just... hands the stacked cardboard bowls to Trip. "Can you throw these away?"

...They should probably do something here to recoincile, but this kind of normality is all he can share right now. Even with the sleepy Pokemon calming him down, he's feeling a bit tense. He's used to masking in the face of aggressiveness, but it's always a bit draining.

Gold's laughter seemed to confuse Trip, but his response was... reassuring, at least at first.

Then, Gold's attitude just got him irritated and angry again. A hurt look crossed his eyes at the nasty smile, though, and he quickly grew more defensive.

"I didn't mean it that way! You—"

Throw them away? What, like he's some kind of... well, that's fine, Gold can't throw them himself. Fuming, he stormed off moodily to throw them away, considered leaving Gold like that, but then came back, significantly calmer, just apathetic.

"I have a job to do, so hold still."

He took out his camera, hoping to snap pictures of the Pokemon. Sorry, Gold, you're presently being ignored in favuor of the mysterious Pokemon sleeping comfortably there.

Gold notices Trip's changes in expression, but ignores them. He's not in a mental state where he can attend to others' hurt feelings.

When Trip takes out the trash, it gives them both a chance to calm down. Gold smiles softly at Tranquill in Trip's abscence.

"Sorry you got in the middle of that, buddy..." He also turns to his Pokeballs, kind of getting the feeling they're probably worried about him. "I'm fine, guys. We're talking things out. It's cool."

Well, he figures he got on Trip's nerves a lot there, and getting mad himself didn't help... He's not going to apologize, though. He didn't do anything wrong there. But he'll explain himself.

And once Trip does get back, and ignores Gold, he just shrugs that off, scritching Tranquill's head. After Trip's taken a couple of photos, Gold speaks up.

"I don't dwell on things like that," he says. "You decided I do based on one story, but I never really... faced what happened back then until now, when I talked about it. It happened almost right before I drifted into Ultern, so I shoved it down under all the other stuff I gotta deal with. So all the things I'd been avoiding kinda leaked out back to the surface when I told you about it."

Finished talking, Gold exhales slowly. Now that he's put it out there, he waits for Trip's response. At least he knows Trip's not just going to walk away on him, not as long Tranquill is on Gold.

Tranquill was confused, cooing a little, but accepted the scratches and waited for Trip. He held his wings out a bit away from his body when he returned, happy to see him return.

Serperior merely quietly followed him, to and from disposing of the trash.

Trip listened to Gold’s explanation and his apathetic look quickly gave way to one of dawning realization, then, remorse.

“… oh.”

(The Cubburn stretched a bit and purred in its sleep.)

This helped Trip make sense of things and realized he’d been projecting on Gold.

“… I’m sorry. So, it was… I shouldn’t have said those things. I guess I just didn’t know—I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m…”
It’s hard to apologize, but, he’d have to swallow down his pride and do it, he’s clearly the one in the wrong here.

He put his camera away, after fidgeting with it a bit, then bowed.

“Forgive me. You told me something that you’d kept to yourself and I had to go and act like that… I completely misunderstood you. Even after you’d been this kind to me, too… I’m sorry for always troubling you.”

He didn’t actually know how far to take the apology and was worried he would end up making it all about himself, more than he already had before, so he tried to keep quiet and wait for a response.

Gold's relieved when it looks like Trip understands. He lets Trip finish his apology without interruptions.

"It's fine," he says with a soft smile. "I mean, your rant missed the mark so much it was kinda confusing, but you got mad 'cos you thought I was hating myself and you wanted better for me, right? Thanks."

Well, Gold does kind of hate himself, but that's beside the point. He's accepted it and doesn't dwell on it unnecessarily, so everything's fine! (Not.)

"Anyway, I feel kinda lighter after I told you all that, so thanks for listening, too! But I guess I'm gonna have to sit here a while longer," he says, gesturing at the sleeping Cubburn, "so, wanna sit with me?"

Gold gets the feeling there was probably something deeper, something personal that got Trip so aggravated and on edge, to rant like that. He's not going to pry, but he does want to chat a bit longer to clear the air.

[in which the rich brat has to work for the first time in his life, probably]

[1/2; oh deaaaar]

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[Gold's storytelling skills... ^^;;]

[do your best, Gold!]

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[I apologize in advance for Trip being..... Trip, but Gold hit a nerve (again)]

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[fortunately, Trip didn't hit much of a nerve]

[-50 social skills, this isn't a reconcilation, ffff]

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[Gold, no...]

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