Chapter Text
It would have been easier, had she disappeared suddenly.
Instead, it was subtle, in degrees. She was always off somewhere - chasing storms across regions, smiling politely through championship exhibitions, disappearing into the wild without so much as a forwarded itinerary.
A few weeks without contact wasn't strange; Silver had never been the one to reach out first, between the two of them. Even after they had fallen into a begrudgingly mutual...partnership, her presence in his life remained a quiet but persistent hum at the back of his mind, a radio left on in the background.
But the silence stretched. Weeks became months. Tabloid whispers escalated into press releases, into strained pokegear calls from mutual acquaintances and organized search efforts that buzzed through Johto like static.
This wasn’t like Red, who had the courtesy to leave crumbs before secluding himself off to a desolate part of the world—a note to his mother, a heads-up to the professor. A trail for his rival, if only to make himself challenging to get to.
The news of Crystal's absence creaked slowly across the region, the closing of a door he never realized was open.
Silver couldn't trick himself into thinking that he didn't care; he was long past that point when it came to her. But he also respected her, trusted her enough to not fret. Why should he worry about what corner of the planet she was inevitably saving right now? She, and her team for that matter, could take care of themselves as much as she could take care of others.
But his flippant, practiced indifference can only hold against the weight of time for so long. It cracked, then curdled, and before long rotted into something sick and familiar: the ache of being left behind. Again. The awful realization that he, more than anyone else, was still holding his breath for her return, his lungs paralyzed by helplessness.
It was pathetic- after everything, Silver was still the same desperate kid on Route 22 watching the shadow of a man he once called his father vanish up the mountain, too far gone to turn around, too far gone to care. He could only stand there, young and vindictive and powerless, throat raw from shouting about how he didn't get it.
Now Silver was left alone yet again, screaming at the unfairness of a world that didn't allow him to understand, deluding himself into believing that could make a difference if he only knew the cause.
He could only assume that the worst happened, in a sense—she was swept off the face of the planet by some drastic circumstance, some unknowable force. Her spirit so bright and dense the world had no choice but to simply fold in around her, tucking her into some unreachable corner. The possibility that the same stubborn trainer who faced a terrorist organization head-on at 11 years of age would have anything to run away from never even crossed his mind. His rival wasn’t soft enough for fear—wasn't selfish enough to vanish just because she wanted to.
The real truth of the matter is if Crystal, of all people-- the most powerful trainer he knew, his goal, was defeated, gone: what chance does he have of doing anything about it?
There was no grave to visit, no letters to reread. Silver mourned Crystal in his own way, by carrying her with him in the ways that mattered. In the way he doesn't think twice about feeding his team before eating himself, taking his time letting them walk alongside him even if it slows him down. In double-checking that Weavile’s fur was brushed out before sleep, Honchkrow’s feathers stayed oiled, that Crobat got the space he needed to fly. She had been the one to teach him that Pokémon weren’t just tools you sharpened against the world, that strength didn’t have to be cruel.
How ironically cruel of her, he thinks, to teach him how to care and then punish him for it. Maybe it wasn’t fair, holding that against her. She hadn’t promised to stay. She hadn’t promised him anything, really. But she’d made him better, damn it. He can't hate her for it, as much as he wants to.
Silver never stuck around long enough to hear how people talked about her — the ones who claimed they knew her, or wanted to believe they had. There were too many of them, all speaking with a kind of false familiarity, white noise grating on his ears. He avoided them on principle. Not out of fear, exactly, but something adjacent. He didn’t want to hear their theories, didn’t want to field their questions. Not about her, and especially not about what she meant to him.
What he couldn't stand more was the unavoidable way she was occasionally resurrected for entertainment, dressed up for dramatics by podcast hosts with over-enunciated voices and too much time. It itched under his skin, her name spoken like folklore— as if she hadn't been real, as if she hadn't left imprints in the warm shape of compassion into his conscience.
The night he overheard her name dropped in “Johto’s Top Ten Unsolved Mysteries” right alongside the other ghost sightings at the Brass and Burned towers, Silver booked a one way flight to Hoenn on impulse.
Six years on and the world had the audacity to keep turning, her shape eroding more with every passing rotation. The lack of her presence still echoed an unanswered question, always felt, but never truly addressed. Even the stupid few who clung to hope had long since run out of excuses.
He learned how to tune out the static on the radio that echoed her name, and carried on pretending he wasn't haunted.
☾
If he’d known the bureaucratic hellscape that came with Blue Oak's glowing recommendation for the new Viridian Gym Leader position, Silver would’ve hung up the moment it was offered. It should've read like a warning sign, but he'd agreed against his better judgement, desperately craving some change to the monotony that was eating him alive, even if it meant stepping foot in his hometown for the first time in years. Of course, that smug bastard had his way of omitting the fine print until Silver was in too deep to backpedal.
Talent-wise, he measured up- That was never the issue. Viridian's population had exploded over the last decade, but the city had a long memory, and needless to say the decision for him to lead this gym of all places had been a controversial one.
While Blue inherited the kind of name and charisma that allowed him to skate around the rules, Silver made entire committees squint and exchange whispered glances across boardroom tables after walking through the door.
"He had a son?"
'Not a daughter?' wasn’t voiced, but it might as well have been. Really, they acted like it was news to them. Silver guesses the League had a habit of pretending things didn’t exist if it meant they didn’t have to deal with them, especially when it came to sweeping the country's most infamous terrorist under the rug.
He didn't expect it to be a walk in the park, sure, but Silver was used to proving his worth and skill in the heat of a battle arena, not under fluorescent lights in too-stiff clothes, reading off memorized, meaningless platitudes.
He didn't sign up for wasting his hours in municipal buildings convincing local officials that he had no plans to resurrect Team Rocket from the foundations of the Viridian Gym, trying to reassure people thrice his age that his existence was not, in itself, a threat.
And he definitely did not sign up for some marketing genius to advertise him as a—"brooding dark-type bad boy with a tragic backstory"—slapping the promotion on every youth-facing campaign they could get their hands on.
Weavile snickered so hard she fell over, the first time she saw the eye-sore of a flier. So much for wanting to be taken seriously. His face, shadow-drenched and solemn, was framed dramatically behind some watered-down tagline about redemption splashed in bold across his chest. As if social esteem could be manufactured with the right font. Maybe it could, he was never good at caring about that sort of thing.
Being a Gym Leader was half a popularity contest now, whether he liked it or not. With how publicly televised the sport was– not just region-wide anymore, but across the globe– a trainer's image and relationship with their community was, unfortunately, equally as important as their battle prowess.
How he laments not being born a few decades earlier, where all a teenager had to do to secure their own Gym was to beat everyone else to prove they deserved it. No endorsement forms, no media circuits, just a reputation and a team to back it.
Though, he supposes, giving a kid that much responsibility comes with its own caveats. Maybe fewer champions would’ve gone missing, had someone put more red tape in the way.
In spite of- or perhaps even due to- the rampant discourse and discussion surrounding his potential title, his appointment had been made official last month: The Viridian Gym had gone dark-type, with Silver at the helm.
The announcement had come and gone in a blur, Silver almost struggling to absorb the gravity of the situation when his phone buzzed with a message from Blue: 'told u itd be fine 🎉 also ur welcome btw' to which Silver replied suitably with an obscene gesture, feeling lighter for the first time in months.
He found out later, secondhand, that a few Johto names had spoken of his character on his behalf. Elm, to his surprise. Lance, even more so. Neither of whom he’d reached out to, or spoken with, (despite their attempts) in half a decade. The gesture left something restless curling in his chest—faint and unfamiliar, like the way Crystal used to shove things in his bag when Silver wasn't looking only for him to find later, right when he needed it. Even now, the threads of her connections were still tangible and tangling forever in the seams of Silver's life, stuck in his pockets forgotten about until the right moment, leaving him speechless. Gratitude had always been a language he struggled to translate.
Public reception was... about as mixed as expected. The younger crowd leaned in his favor, advertisements be damned, but otherwise it was split across the board, with equally outrageous conspiracies from every angle. One columnist even suggested the League had chosen Silver out of 'legacy bias'. As if nepotism was ever in his favor. Another suggested he was chosen out of pity, of which he found significantly less funny.
Silver was no stranger to dealing with the double edged sword that was expectation, and like every other challenge in his life, he met it with defiance on instinct. A deep seated spite, the familiar fire of wanting to prove something that allowed him to endure the ridiculous theatrics that accompanied it.The city had a track record of having an absentee Gym Leader for too long- screw his dad, he was going to be the best fucking Leader Viridian's seen in decades, his unconventional typing choice notwithstanding. He was going to actually do his damn job, make the younger Oak look like an unreliable flake in comparison.
Because he did want it, really. It's not something that he realized when the opportunity came to his door in the form of Blue's sarcastic voice, but for the first time in 6 years, Silver actually feels tethered to a goal again. An actual goal, not to a person, or a grudge, or some unresolved past—but to something forward-facing, something that was his, for maybe the first time in his life.
Just two weeks away, and he could actually show the world what he's made of.
Unfortunately for him, that still meant two weeks of interviews, floor plan revisions, League-mandated seminars on “community engagement.” And meetings. Always, inevitably, more meetings.
One of which he was currently running late for, at this very moment.
Silver weaved through the morning traffic of Viridian's streets, his eyes cast downward for a flash of black fur or a yellow-ringed tail while ignoring obvious glances thrown at his frantic pace. He was already ten minutes behind thanks to his alarm not going off—or more accurately, him slamming snooze three times and pretending it hadn’t. It felt like they were hazing him, forcing a Dark-type leader to report in before 8am could only be a deliberate act of malice.
Between his coffee yet to kick in and the 4 rough hours of sleep Silver was running on, Lucky spontaneously breaking out of her poke ball was the last thing he needed this morning. He was mid-ascent on Crobat when it happened, forcing him to make a rough landing and lose even more time he didn’t have to double-checking his wings for injury.
While his Umbreon had a mischievous streak, she was well-trained and had never been directly disobedient- not even when she was first traded to him. Confusion overshadowed his frazzled annoyance of the situation and Silver’s steps slowed just a little, the hesitation catching up to his momentum.
She wouldn't have run off like that without good reason. Had he been working his partners too hard? He was so exhausted lately, him and his team both- but they surely would have let him know if they needed a break instead of just bolting on him?
Or maybe they had, he just hadn’t been listening.
The thought that he might be falling back into bad habits without realizing caused a pit of dread to sit heavy in Silver's gut. A caw overhead cut clean through his spiral, Honchkrow circling to get his attention.
Silver took a breath to steady himself before following his reliable bird with newfound vigor, concern over tardiness forgotten. If something really was wrong with his partner, there was still time to fix it.
Honchkrow drew him out towards the southwest of Viridian, where nature bled and blurred edges of the concrete jungle into the road leading to the Indigo Plateau.
He quickly spotted Lucky at a large pond thick with overgrowth, pacing the rim like she’d lost something important in the sludge. Silver returned Honchkrow to his ball with a quiet thanks, not wanting to spook his agitated partner.
"Hey, hey," he coaxed, leaning down. "What's wrong?" She wasn't paying him any mind, attention laser-focused at the edge of the filmy, stagnant water. Silver was at a loss, until ripples of movement drew his eyes across the surface.
Squinting towards the middle of the viridescent pond, he could make out the vague shape of a....person? He couldn't tell from the distance, or the grime that covered their figure.
It wasn't any of Silver's business, frankly. Lucky let out a low, sharp bark, one paw breaching the muck before he caught her by the scruff on reflex, more out of shock than any potential danger. He’s bathed her enough to know how picky she was about water. If whatever this person was doing worked her up enough to willingly wade into this, something was up.
"Hey, Jackass!" Silver's voice carried across the bank, sharp and impatient. "Does this look like a public pool to you?"
"There was a storm recently, right?" A presumably male voice called back, too calm for someone neck-deep in slime. "A big one?"
"What?" Silver, mouth already open to yell back something less-than-pleasant, was thrown by the question. He considers for a beat. "...Yeah?"
They offered Silver a grimy thumbs up, only to dive back down, to his frustration.
Public nuisances, let alone cryptid-like ones, weren’t supposed to be his problem yet. But Lucky was squirming in his arms, claws digging uncomfortably through his jacket, and Silver knew there was no way she would stay in her poke ball in this state.
He could only back away slowly while she whined, regretting that he didn't have Feraligatr or his usual equipment to field the situation better. The whirlwind of appointments and social fatigue had him leaving his bag at home more days than not. His younger self would've chastised him for it.
While wracking his brain for solutions, a low tremor rumbles through the soles of Silver's boots. It was the only warning before the pond split open before his eyes, clouds of green on the surface lurching like an inhale before a massive shape broke from the water. Silver fell flat on his ass in surprise, barely registering the skid of Lucky's claws as she slipped off his chest.
It was a tree, a fallen one- slow and creaking, choked with mossy veins attempting to keep it submerged. The reanimated corpse continued to fight against physics, until the tension snapped all at once and the trunk pitched forward in a violent lurch, sending a few startled Magikarp airborne before they splashed clumsily back into the water. The log kept going, inertia eventually slamming it into the rocks near the opposite bank with a splintering thud that reverberated through the ground and up Silver's spine. The aftermath rippled in lazy, widening circles as he sat agape, searching for the shape of a person between the chips of wood dancing across the water.
It wasn't until the pond stilled again and Silver found himself frantically trying to recall if he ever actually learned CPR when something bobbed to the surface- Small, round, with beady eyes.
"Poli!"
Another. Then another.
In the span of seconds, the pond came alive — scattered with dozens upon dozens of happy Poliwag bursting up from the stirred depths. Their ribbon-like tails twirled figure-eight's as they swarmed and nipped at the exposed algae.
At last, a larger splash broke the surface in a gasp. The person- a man, he's pretty sure now- was half-draped over the round, buoyant shape of an Azumarill as it easily shouldered his weight. Silver could make out the shape of goggles on his face, though it was still contorted in what Silver assumed was an effort not to inhale pond scum.
As Azumarill ferried over in their direction with practiced ease, Silver gave an effort to compose himself. Lucky was still -thankfully- at his side, no longer rigid with tension but still keyed up nonetheless, ears flicking in restless ticks. He reached for her out of habit more than comfort as they watched the pair slowly return to land.
The guy looked about Silver’s age, give or take. Hard to tell with the dark hair flattened to his skull like wet kelp and muck obscuring his features.
"That was...something." Silver spoke up as the man dragged himself upright onto the bank, dripping. Sportswear clung to him in sodden patches—shirt and shorts heavy and shapeless with water weight.
He grimaced, watching the trainer scrub a hand down his face, dragging sediment with it. Silver felt for him, kind of, but liked his own jacket too much to ruin it for a stranger, no matter how altruistic they may be. Lucky outstretched her muzzle towards him curiously with her paws rooted to the ground, nose twitching. Her head tilted one way, then the other, inspecting him as if asking a question she hadn’t decided how to phrase yet.
"Yeah, sorry about that." He said, laughing—rueful and hoarse, the kind of laugh that came after doing something you didn’t quite think through. He must, Silver thinks, do this sort of thing often.
Azumarill, now free of its human cargo, gave a well-meaning Water Gun straight to his face. The man sputtered through the spray, removing his goggles to hang on his neck after sludge no longer threatened to drip into his eyes. "Thanks for-" His grin faltered slightly as he took in Silver's figure standing there.
Silver raised both brows, noncommittal. Recognition was common these days, though it always felt a bit like being mistaken for someone else.
The man stares at him another moment, then shakes his head, droplets and mossy slurry spattering across the rocks and Silver's shoes, to his displeasure. Lucky darted safely out of the splash radius, tail thwapping against Silver’s leg.
"Ah, thanks for helping out." He finally said, like it just occurred to him he had been talking before.
"You’re the one who played hero," Silver scoffed. "I just stood here."
"Nah, you stuck around and helped me figure out when the tree fell! I wasn't sure how hard it would be to move, otherwise. Could've been trouble."
"Yeah, well. She didn't give me much of a choice," Silver muttered, looking down at Lucky, who had taken to investigating his Azumarill. The water type, apparently satisfied with its task as impromptu eye-washer, greeted the fellow rabbit-eared pokemon with a bounce of its tail. The stranger retrieved a great ball, somehow still attached to his person- the surface beading and shiny from water-retardant wax buffed into the scratches. He gave Azumarrill's ears an affectionate scritch before it disappeared in a blink of red light.
"Besides," He added, a teasing tilt to his voice that confused Silver, "you looked like you were about to come in after me if I didn’t resurface. Sounds pretty heroic to me, Mr. Gym Leader.”
"You mean ‘what kind of Leader would I be, letting reckless idiots drown before I fought my first trainer?’" Silver replied dryly. "I shouldn't be held responsible for your lack of self-preservation."
The man’s only response was a low hum, amused and unconvinced, like he was humoring him. Silver would usually snap at someone for that, but he was distracted, still caught somewhere in the undertow of the last five minutes’ events.
"How did you know?" Silver asked, before he could stop himself.
The man faltered again, and his gray eyes reminded Silver of the pond, reflective and unreadable. He'd narrowed them like he’d been bracing for a different question entirely.
"That they were trapped?" Silver clarified.
"Oh!" He exclaimed, "The moss! Poliwag ponds are usually really clear this time of year, because the newborns eat up all the nutrients from the algae. But this one was suuuper overgrown."
He turned back towards the water, and Silver followed his gaze, surface now freckled with blue shapes and wagging tails.
"It didn't add up, so I figured it was worth checking." His hands worked absently at the fabric of his shirt, wringing out excess murky water. The garment was completely saturated, rendering whatever previous color it had been unrecognizable. "Glad I did. They provide a lot of important fresh water for Pokemon in this area, especially with how industrialized it's become."
Silver was still speechless. People walked by this self-maintained pond every day for years without thinking twice about its sudden decline. After enough time and complaints it probably would've been paved over, citizens none the wiser if this guy hadn't come along. Lucky gave a sharp yap at Silver's side, drawing their attention.
"Trying to find the log wasn't easy though, I'm sure it probably looked like I was drowning or something from out here." The stranger crouched down to meet Lucky at eye level. "Your Umbreon was probably doing its due-diligence and making sure I wasn't in danger or anything." Her ears drooped, and the man poked affectionately at her nose, leaving a green slime stuck behind. She flinched back, shaking her head vigorously in an attempt to dislodge it. "Right, girl?"
"Sure," Silver replied, not fully convinced. He's not sure why- the logic adds up, it's just... "So you're, what? A ranger?" He guessed.
The smile he got back didn't meet his eyes. "Not quite." He replied, unhelpfully.
Silver's next question never came, cut off by the shrill ring of his phone splitting the tranquil moment. Several nearby Poliwag were startled, vanishing beneath the surface to escape the noise. Silver had half a mind to join them. Instead, he grit his teeth and pulled the phone halfway from his pocket, staring at the screen like his glare might will it into silence.
The man was already heaving himself out of the bank while Silver weighed the sunk-cost fallacy of ignoring it. “Looks like you’ve got somewhere to be,” He said, tone too casual to be anything but an exit cue.
“I wish I didn’t.” The words left him before he could file them down into something less honest. The guy was probably right, but there was a gut instinct that stilled Silver's thumb from pressing the green button, the sense that something important was getting lost in the noise.
“I promise I’ll try to stay out of any more heroics for the rest of the day,” he said cheekily, backing away while still facing Silver, “If you promise to take it easy. Maybe a few extra hours of sleep wouldn't kill you, yeah?"
Regardless of how correct he was, the audacity of a stranger assuming anything about Silver's well being or habits caused him to bristle. “Does it look like I need your advice?” He snapped.
"You look exhausted enough to keel over. Not exactly the poster boy for peak performance.”
Forget it. "Why should it matter to you?" Refusing to wait for another ridiculous response, Silver thumbed the answer button mid-sentence and turned away, bracing himself for getting inevitably chewed out by his reps.
"I know what you’re capable of," he called back, something deliberate in the man’s tone causing Silver's breath to catch in his throat. "hate to think everyone else might miss out."
It wasn’t just the words—it was the way they curled around his name without using it, the familiarity that shuddered electricity down Silver's spine.
The shrill, tinny protest in the speaker forgotten, Silver turned back sharply, eyes searching—but the strange trainer was already halfway into the treeline, figure obscured by branches and shade. At his side, Lucky gave a quiet whine, low and restless. Silver glanced at her briefly, but she didn’t seem frightened, just unsettled,—like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this either.
"Silver? Hello? Are you even there?" The call crackled from his hand, another layer of noise adding to the growing static in his brain.
Silver gave his team the rest of the day off, unable to shake the paranoia of overworking them. The same couldn't be said for himself, for better or worse, and he could practically feel the accusation of hypocrisy through the narrowed gaze of his partners when he said as much.
He was still rattled from that morning, not that he’d admit it to anyone who mattered. Even after he cobbled together an excuse for arriving 2 hours late to the stuffy boardroom, they sent him home after it was clear Silver's mind was somewhere else entirely, every discussion going in one ear and out the other.
They advised him in a patronizing tone he didn't appreciate to go over the rest of their notes at home and respond with his own proposal at a later date. A mercy, technically. Though it didn’t feel like one now, hunched over his desk with a blooming headache pulsing behind his eyes and an echoing taunt in his head.
'I know what you’re capable of.'
He’d fought that guy before. He had to have. Silver remembered every trainer he had ever fought in a serious capacity, anyone who had actually caught his attention- and the man's presence alone should've been enough to jog his brain, but his mind keeps drawing blanks.
He only remembers fighting one trainer who had an Azumarill. And...
Silver took a deep breath to clear his thoughts, and turned back to the same notes he had been half-heartedly scanning the last several hours, as if a miraculous answer might appear out of sheer stubborn repetition.
There were only two real decisions left to finalize—everything else was just filler dressed up to look important. Both had been the subject of a quiet tug-of-war with the League board ever since his appointment was announced:
- the final Pokemon on his 8-badge team roster, and 2. his designated ace.
His typing of choice, as limited as it was, posed a few problems. Silver already had an Absol in his team rotation during testing matches, but was repeatedly stonewalled on expanding his pool with more out-of-region candidates, despite his attempts to sway them otherwise. They were in Kanto anyways, why should it matter if his Pokemon are from Johto or Alola? There were only so many Houndour and Murkrow he could train without it getting boring.
Silver's self-aware enough to know that probably makes him look pretentious, and he doesn't care. If he has to sit through the monotony of pacifying higher ups and playing socialite, he at least was going to stand his ground on his expertise in battling. He deserved that much respect.
There wasn't any precedent or statistics to go off, but he had a reasonable idea of what would come his way early on, already accounting for the threats of common bug and fighting types in the surrounding areas. It's the later-badge teams that could curve-ball him.
If Silver's lucky, maybe more than a few trainers he fights will offer him something worth calling a real match, an actual challenge.
A challenge. The image of the man at the pond surfaced at the edge of the thought, unbidden, and Silver shook his head once sharply, pushing it back down.
His ace was still a toss-up. Weavile or Houndoom were the current debated options- the former discouraged due to his unethical acquisition of the Pokemon (even though it had been over 10 years now really, come on .) While the latter was a safer option, safe was half the problem in itself- he didn't use Houndoom often, not in serious matches. Honchkrow had been out of the question from the start for "image reasons". It'd almost be funny, how afraid they are to say Giovanni's name, if it hadn't been at the expense of every decision Silver wasn’t allowed to make.
Whatever. It was clear no one was going to make this easy for him.
In the end, it didn't look like Silver was going to get out of this any other way than digging his heels and trying to fight for his case, like always. The chair creaked as he leaned back and let out another long suffering sigh, the ceiling blurring overhead.
As if reading his troubled thoughts, Lucky burst out of her ball unprompted for the second time that day, meeting his tired gaze with red, piercing eyes.
This morning aside, she’s acted relatively normal- at least, normal enough for Silver to trust that her runaway stunt was more out of instinct than harboring some passive-aggressive malice. She was still restless, he could tell- but after that encounter with the off-putting man, so was he.
“You've had a big day today, huh?” He barely lifted a hand before she moved into it, headbutting his fingers with enough force to send his pen clattering to the desk.
“Subtle,” he muttered, letting the utensil lie. Sometimes, it feels like his team took care of him more than he takes care of them. She pushed at his hand affectionately again, insistent.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s a full moon tonight. I know." He rises, a dull ache in his back. "We can walk.” She trills, spilling a few papers off the desk while jumping to the floor. He leaves them be, someone will pick them up later. Probably.
His representative's first choice for his ace was actually Lucky, insistent that the popular Umbreon was by far the best for marketing, great for his image- but Silver held his ground on a hard no. Lucky was a reliable core to his team, a defensive wall he's depended on numerous occasions, but she wasn't Silver's to claim- not really.
Her poke ball always felt heavier to hold, his only nicknamed Pokemon carrying the weight of its previous trainer. Silver doesn’t have it in himself to wonder where his own Gengar ended up. The idea of overwriting any part of Crystal's legacy - or forbid, hedging it as leverage, made the knot in his stomach that he's been trying to ignore twist uncomfortably.
His mind has been wandering to his rival with increasing frequency, as per usual when bridging a new crux of his life. He recognizes, regretfully, that he has yet to achieve a new milestone without feeling the hollow space where she should be there to witness it. He doesn't know if he ever will.
It was easier to imagine what Crystal might say, finding him in the quiet shell of the half-renovated Viridian Gym— his Gym, than to wonder what his father might’ve felt standing in the very same building some 20 odd years ago instead.
Easier still than thinking about the sheer volume of paperwork still sitting on his desk, waiting for his reluctant signature.
Being inside this building clearly isn’t doing him any favors. Silver shrugged on his jacket and pushed through the heavy industrial black doors, their hinges groaning like they resented the effort as much as he did. Outside, the brisk air welcomed him with relief he hadn’t earned—sharper than expected for late spring. Lucky weaved between his ankles as he took his time locking up, fingers clumsy with the large, unfamiliar brass key.
Their midnight walk north of Viridian was fairly empty — the cold too biting and hour too late for anyone without reason to wander. The last of the stragglers had vanished by the time Silver veered off on Route 2 towards the woods, leaving him and Lucky. The moon provided plenty of visibility, even as the yellowed street-lamps gave way to foliage overhead. Lucky had a skip in her step, flourishing in her element. It loosened the lingering anxiety in Silver's chest, present since the morning's events.
The road curved into something more manicured than he remembered—almost garden-like now, with wide streets and too many benches, vaguely reminiscent of Goldenrod’s National Park minus the well-kept flowers. Probably due to the abundance of bugs, if he had to guess. Despite the vacancy, the night was far from quiet, alive with the hum of insects and the occasional wingbeat in the underbrush. And something else, apparently.
Silver slows his pace the moment Lucky’s ears swivel toward the sound of footsteps—heavier now, no longer pretending to be casual. He doesn’t turn until the rhythm closes in behind him, already preparing for another headache before the voice even cuts across the quiet park streets, the cadence a dull blade scraping against concrete.
“You strut around like you own Viridian now, huh? Gym Leader punk,” The man spits, knuckles whitening around the Net Ball in his grip. He has a towering frame, teal hair buzzed short under a ridiculous bug-catching tournament cap. Something piqued Silver's memory, but he couldn't bring himself to care or recall if they had met before, it wouldn't change his response regardless.
"Any trainer is welcome to challenge the Gym once the season starts. Two weeks." Silver's usual monotone sounded irritated even to his own ears. There’s no such thing as off-hours when your name’s been stapled to a legacy most people think you didn’t earn, when your past follows you into every city, every conversation, every goddamn moonlit walk meant to be quiet.
He scoffs in lieu of a response, arm snapping out to release a large Heracross that lands heavy, threatening to crack the pavement. The bug-type has weathered more than its fair share of battles, a scarred carapace, frayed wing edges, a chip in the horn. The kind of damage that doesn’t come from normal sparring but from someone who doesn’t know when to stop, or doesn’t care. The familiar sight strikes a sickening chord in Silver's gut that reverberates throughout his whole body.
Lucky steps forward with a low growl, rings dimming to a defensive pulse. The Heracross buzzes its wings in warning, and the sound needles straight into Silver’s skull. He's so fucking tired.
“Viridian should’ve been a bug-type gym,” the man mutters, more to himself than Silver. “Being next to the forest and all. It would’ve made sense. But instead, they hand it off to some brooding brat.” Then it clicks- one of the other final candidates for his Gym was a bug type leader. One that, despite his impressive resume and extensive PR team, was ultimately denied due to “concerns about temperament,” which was just the polite way of saying you scare the people you’re supposed to inspire.
This man was wasting Silver's time because his flashy medals and expensive publicity was passed over in favor of the snarky kid who didn’t smile enough in press conferences and had the wrong last name. And now he wanted to take it out on him. Great.
“Take it up with the League,” Silver grits through his teeth. He steps forward, wanting to be done with this already, but Lucky's body was still rigid and locked on the Heracross who had yet to be recalled.
“Especially,” He hisses, matching Silver's stride like it’s a game, and the unmistakable metallic sound of a blade slipping from its sheath causes Silver to freeze. “when that brat’s bound to run this city into the ground with Rockets, just like his old man did.”
Silver tracked the arc of moonlight along the blade’s edge, the sound of his own quickening pulse pressing in behind his ears. It was the edge of panic, the full realization of how little control he held over his current circumstances.
There are five more Poke Balls at the man's waist, five more chances for this to go very, very badly. The rest of Silver's team is sleeping, safely, a few miles away. No contact device on his person. All he's got is Lucky, loyal but far outmatched in these circumstances, and his brain is screaming this isn’t a battle—it’s bait, a trap dressed in League regulation boots and bruised pride.
“Misplaced anger’s not going to get you anything but arrested,” Silver replies carefully, tone even and cold and as far from scared as he can manage, hoping the flatness of his delivery hides the weight in his chest.
The man laughs as if the situation is funny, like he’s funny. "Jail? Oh that's rich, coming from you." Silver forced himself to keep his head trained forward on the man, on the knife, despite Lucky's yelp of surprise and audible scuffling to the side. "Where's the sentences you had to serve after you stole a starter from the lab, huh? Your daddy pay them all off for you?"
There’s heat blooming low in Silver’s chest, bright and dangerous, the kind of anger that eats through rationality like acid, and he grits his teeth because he’s better than this now, or he’s supposed to be, and yet the young relentless child inside with something to prove is urging him to do something incredibly stupid.
Before he could bite back something he’d probably regret, light flared just off his periphery, heat blooming in its wake. Silver threw an arm across his face on instinct as Heracross suddenly crashed backward into its trainer through a cloud of smog, the knife slipping from his fingers and swiveling across the street as he scrambled to orient himself. Silver’s heel found it before he could, pocketing it in a smooth motion as a new voice rings through the moment.
"At least this guy had the excuse of being a kid when committing his felonies."
Silver doesn’t know whether to be grateful or furious, his treacherous pride unraveling and tangling in his chest, choking off any thanks before it can take shape. Whatever trivial sentiment on his tongue dies in the back of his throat, forgotten, because—
It's been a while since he's witnessed the confidence, the absolute certainty of a trainer who knows exactly when they’ve turned the tide of a battle. The same mysterious man from the pond steps forward, dark blue hair sticking up in defiance of gravity, but what has Silver speechless is the pokemon beside him — a Typhlosion. It spares Silver a single, measuring glance, and then it returns its gaze to the would-be criminal, eyes unwavering.
The scent of campfire floods Silver's senses, and he's suspended in the moment. The vision before his eyes flickers in the firelight, and his mind is grasping at the edges of a burning polaroid, his fingers slipping through smoke as if trying to shape it into something he could name.
"Must be rough, getting shown up by someone half your age. Is that why you brought a knife instead of a strategy?" His words were measured and calm, but the threat in them was unmistakable. “Battle with your team or get lost. I'd be happy to remind you how it feels to lose in a fair fight.”
The Heracross vanishes in a flash of red, and its trainer hesitates, fingers twitching toward the rest of his belt, but it’s over before it can start. Typhlosion doesn’t move, doesn’t need to—just spits a narrow arc of flame that licks too close to the man’s boots, and the resulting yelp is as undignified as it is satisfying. He bolts as Typhlosion let out a triumphant roar, stumbling over his own feet as a final flash of its mane consumed his cowering shadow.
The ringing in Silver’s ears and trembling in his hands had little to do with the noise or adrenaline pounding through him and everything to do with the person, the trainer- his friend, his Rival- in front of him.
There was no room for doubt anymore, not with the surety in his gut and the way Lucky keened in recognition, noise high and trembling as she ran laps around Typhlosion and its trainer. He dropped to a crouch to meet her as she crashed into him full-force, and he caught her like he’d done it a thousand times before.
All Silver could do was stand there, caught in the widening gulf between memory and reality of trying to process dissonance between the man in front of him and the person that forever changed him. He’s older—of course he’s older—His face longer, cheeks shadowed with stubble, his shape rougher around the edges. But his smile was the same, same creases under deep, gray eyes. Clothes well worn, patched in places, the colors still obnoxious despite being muted by wear and travel.
He didn’t look like a ghost. He looked real.
And Silver didn’t know what to do with that, either.
“Looked like you needed some help there," Contrast to the booming display before, the voice addressing him was turned away entirely now, almost sheepishly so. "as much as i would've loved to watch you kick that guys ass. Uh, better safe than sorry?” He didn’t look at Silver. Just kept his eyes on Lucky, now curled up contentedly in his lap, purring faintly against his ribs as if it was the most natural thing in the world, like he hadn’t disappeared off the face of it.
Silver's shadow split the streetlight clean down the middle as he stepped forward, casting his rival's face into obscurity. He couldn’t make out his expression, only the careful way Lucky was set aside before rising to his feet. The motion was slow and deliberate, the kind that drew in breath like storm tide, rising to meet something you weren’t ready to admit.
The words remain unsaid, Silver's body moving of its own accord before he had the chance.
The embrace is rough and graceless, more collision than contact. Silver was drowning and grabbing onto him like he could anchor himself that way, like if he held on tight enough, the world might stop spinning. He held on until his lungs burned and knuckles ached, until his body stopped shaking in the aftermath of fear and adrenaline, of quiet, shattering relief.
Real, this was real.
“I’m...a guy now,” the voice muffles against his shoulder, and Silver let out a choked laugh in the form of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. “In case you haven’t noticed. I figured you’d—”
“I can tell.” Silver’s hands unclenched slightly where they’d gripped at his shoulders, and he leaned back to look at him.
"You... promised no more heroics," Silver chagrined, voice thick, "Asshole."
"Hey, I said for the rest of the day. Technically, this is tomorrow." His grin was crooked, brittle around the edges. "And I wasn’t the one walking straight into trouble this time, was I? Getting jumped on midnight walks doesn’t exactly count as 'taking it easy.' That’s on you, too."
"You..." His throat was dry. He was real, and Silver was holding him, he was holding- "Crys-"
“Ethan," He was quick to cut him off. "I go by Ethan.”
“Ethan.” Silver echoed with conviction, with meaning. Ethan’s shoulders eased, just barely, and their eyes finally met again, Silver felt something shift in his chest—the crack of a closed door.
“Yeah,” Ethan was quieter this time, smiling softly. “Hi.”
A foggy chill settled at Silver's back, contrasting the sudden warmth in his face. Before he could react, a gleeful cackling echoed in his ears and Gengar- his Gengar, curled incorporeal arms beneath his own before lifting him bodily into the amber spill of the streetlamps.
His coat fluttered in the breeze stirred by the ascent, Silver’s expression cracked in spite of himself, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.“Hey, old friend,” he called, dry amusement coloring his voice.
“Gengar! Put him down,” Ethan called out, more entertained than stern. The ghost gave a flat, obscene raspberry in reply, spinning lazily in a wide arc before doubling back toward the earth.
Silver, a being largely composed of solid bones and poor life choices unlike the amorphous ghost steering him, braced far too late for the abrupt descent. Gengar phased clean through him on landing, letting physics handle the rest—namely, knocking Silver straight into Ethan.
They hit the grass in a tangle and Ethan let out a bright, easy laugh after collapsing halfway into a shrub. Gengar collected into a pool of shadow at Silver's feet, seemingly content to sit there mockingly as he detangled a branch from his hair with a groan.
"Always full of surprises, that one.” Ethan chuckled, hand outstretched towards Silver as he brushed a few leaves off his coat.
"I would say he got it from you, if I hadn't known he was always such a menace." Silver groaned and took it, steadying himself. “You-“
“I know you want answers,” Ethan cut straight to the point of it- emboldened by their Pokemon lightening the atmosphere. “And I can try to explain what I can, but it’s pretty late, and I don't feel like dealing with any other passerby threats on your life right now." He frowned. "Which is a... recent development?"
Silver only shrugged. Wouldn’t be the first time someone came at him with a personal vendetta, even before his leader title- this was the first that had caught him off guard, however. It wasn’t just irritating. It was humiliating, how fatigue had started to dull the instincts he used to take for granted.
"That's...reassuring." Ethan passed Silver to lean down into a bush several meters away, reaching into the leaves to gently pull out an enormous, battered duffle. The tenderness in the motion surprised Silver, considering its condition. He adjusted the strap with the kind of attention that suggested the thing held more than just spare clothes.
"We can talk while we walk tooo…- uh,” His arms stilled mid-motion, fingers paused just shy of the buckle.
"What?"
"IIIII don't exactly have a place to stay considering the, um. Circumstances." He chewed on his lip in thought as the belt gave a soft click between his fingers, bag secured snugly to his front. "Of me. Technically not existing right now. Can’t exactly roll into a Pokécenter- even if my ID didn’t flag my record, it's definitely expired. And possibly in a ravine somewh-“
"We're staying at mine." Silver cut in. Whether Ethan was hesitating from embarrassment or lost in a tangent didn’t matter—he didn’t have the patience to care.
“Glad to know you're still direct,” Ethan snickered behind him.
“You can stay, If-" Silver was already walking a straight shot back to his residence through the trees instead of the winding park paths. He didn’t slow his pace or turn around, though he heard the soft telltale zing of a poke ball's beam as he recalled Typhlosion. "You give a good enough reason for 'technically not existing right now'."
“Always with the interrogating," Ethan gave a long suffering sigh, as if he was the one inconvenienced. Footsteps followed quickly after, crunching grass in rhythm with Silver's own. “Can’t we ease into this? I was hoping for at least a 'hey, how are you' before the third degree.”
"Better start talking, or you’re sleeping outside.” Silver called over his shoulder, only half-joking. Lucky followed dutifully in his steps, a glowing ringed tail swishing contentedly in the corner of Silver's eye, along with the too-dark shadow of Gengar under his feet.
“That’s where I was gonna sleep,” Ethan huffed, catching up until they walked shoulder to shoulder. “before I jumped in to save your ass. There are nicer ways to say thanks, y’know."
“Ethan,” Silver warned, still getting used to the name on his tongue.
“Alright, alright,” He inhaled slowly, the seconds ticking by painfully for Silver.
“Have you heard of Celebi?"