serperiority | [S1 Trip and younger Gold, closed to gold

The warm colours of autumnal leaves and the crisp, cool air of the changing season was similar, but not the same as it was in Unova, but even if it was, without him here, it simply wasn’t going be the same. The festival, too, for all the nostalgia it invoked in him, if it wasn’t going to lead him any closer to Alder or defeating him, it wasn’t something he should concern himself with now. He needed to train.
Things like eating sweets or enjoying the sights and sounds of a festival was for children and had no place on an adult’s world, Trip decided, and walked on.

… even with these thoughts, he still paused, briefly, here and there, to take photographs. The beauty of this season was ephemeral and while he no longer had any place here, he couldn’t ignore it or the way it made him feel, even as pursuing his goal overtook anything else…

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From:

serperiority

He didn't expect Gold to take it so literally! He won't notice until Gold starts to writhe or make sounds... he was too focused on the battle.

"Right! Return."

Trip tossed a pokeball to capture Paraspor and recalled Tranquill to its pokeball.

He coughed a little into his sleeve, but otherwise... it didn't look like they could clear this all away, so it was best to escape!

From:

gold_drum

Gold can't take it anymore, but he has an idea. He tugs at Trip's clothes, covering his face with cloth, and takes a gasping breath of air through it, figuring it'd probably filter enough. He coughs, then shuts his mouth, holding his breath again.

The Pokeball jiggles once, twice, thrice... and poof! Congratulations! Trip has caught a Paraspor! (Male, level 6, knows Scratch, Poisonpowder and Stun Spore.) Would you like to nickname it?

From:

serperiority

That. Is uncomfortable and bizarre, but he hadn’t expected Gold to take his advice not to breathe it in as to not breathe period.

He was impressed by the resourcefulness, though. It would make a fairly decent filter, especially for something as large as spores. Gold’s clever. Trip appreciates clever. He’s intelligent, well-read, and rational to a fault, which isn’t quite the same as being clever and resourceful!

“It’s caught, let’s get out of here.”

Trip quickly seized the pokeball and ran, half-carrying Gold (… if he’s as light as he looked, Trip could possibly carry him properly for the paces until they cleared the area).

Gold can name Paraspor later if he wanted to, most important thing now was to get out of here!

From:

gold_drum

"Bwah!" Gold is indeed light enough to be carried, but he's pretty surprised to suddenly get picked up and carried off. So, if they're running away from the spores, it's safe to breathe, right? Well, he'll catch his breath then, while holding onto Trip and letting himself be carried. He glances at the Pokeball in Trip's other hand. So that's his Pokemon now? Huh.

Once he's let down a safe distance away, he'll reluctantly let go of Trip and hold out his hands for the Pokeball.

From:

serperiority

Trip stopped to catch his breath then, too, but handed over the pokeball when Gold reached for it.
“It’s yours to take care of. Officially, I caught it, but it’s yours. It should keep you safe and someday, you can go on your own journey together.”

He paused, then smiled at Gold.
“You can call Paraspor out. This its hone, so it should know the place well. You can get to know each other, it’ll make it easier to command…”

Edited Date: 2022-12-06 08:04 pm (UTC)

From:

gold_drum

Gold accepts the Pokeball, then stares at it, blinking in surprise. This is a weird Pokeball, he thinks, turning it around in his hands. Isn't he supposed to be able to see the Pokemon inside? Trip's words take his mind off of that, though, and he looks awed.

"I can really go on a journey with it?" he asks. And it'll keep him safe... That sounds great. If he had this back in Johto, he could've left home and survived on his own. And now he can still do that, in case Trip abandons him.

That thought gives Gold a bit of a pause. Trip came back for him already, so maybe he won't abandon him at all? ...No, life can't be that convenient and easy. He'll definitely abandon Gold some day, once he's gotten tired of him. But Gold will keep Paraspor. No matter what happens.

Then Trip smiles, and Gold wonders if maybe life can be that convenient and easy. Maybe Trip is too nice to abandon Gold even if he's annoying. And maybe Gold will find a million in cash lying around. Yeah, right.

"Okay," he says, and tries to copy what he's seen Trip do. "Um, Paraspor, come out!"

And Paraspor appears, looks around in surprise, then at Gold. Well, this kid's looking better than before, he thinks, and waves a claw. Gold waves back, and crouches to look at him closer.

"What's your name?" he asks. Paraspor chitters, and Gold nods. "Uh-huh," he says, not understanding a word. "I'll call you Mycen!" The newly named Mycen the Paraspor raises his claws up with a loud, surprised-sounding chittering sound, but doesn't seem threatening. More like an exaggerated expression of surprise, and it makes Gold giggle a bit. "You're gonna be with me from now on, Mycen!"

From:

serperiority

“Sure,” Trip said simply and leaned back, still gathering his strength.

Might be time to get going soon, but for now… he watched Gold and Paraspor.

He liked to name Pokemon, Trip noted. But it wasn’t a simple, childish name…

“That’s unusual. What does it mean?”

From:

gold_drum

"Huh? I dunno," Gold says, surprised that Trip would even ask. "It's just his name. Right?" Gold reaches his hand to Mycen, who nods and sets his claw on it gently. They shake hands on it.

Gold doesn't consciously realize it, but he's got an innate sense of what Pokemon want to be called. To him, it was just the first word that came to mind when he looked at the Paraspor.

From:

serperiority

“It doesn’t sound like an ordinary name….”

Maybe it was just a coincidence? But it was going to bother Trip, so he had to look it up when he got to the city. Something about it reminded him vaguely of something…

He gave Gold and Mycen a few more minutes to become better accustomed to each other, before rising to his feet.
“Alright, you two, we keep moving. Shouldn’t be too long. We want to travel by daylight, after all.”

From:

gold_drum

"It's a Pokemon name," Gold says with a shrug, taking Mycen in his hands by the mushroom and standing up.

He then proceeds to have a one-sided conversation with Mycen, where Gold asks questions, Mycen responds in Pokemon language, and Gold nods, uncomprehending, then asks another question. This goes on until Trip tells them the keep moving.

"Oh! Okay, let's go," Gold says, and moves to follow Trip. He pauses, hesitant, before saying, timidly: "Umm, sorry I lost you before... I'll try not to do that again." So don't leave me behind, he doesn't say out loud.

From:

serperiority

“Why are you apologizing?” he asked in too sharp a tone, then, added more gently: “I should have been paying more attention. It’s all my fault, you didn’t do anything wrong… I’m not used to travelling with anyone else. I’ll try not to lose you again. If you can’t see me, call out. I’ll find you.”

He thought for a while, then, took out his camera.

“Gold. Can I take your picture? I need to remember this.”

From:

gold_drum

Gold flinches at the sudden sharp tone, hugging Mycen (who also got startled) closer to himself, but relaxes when Trip's voice softens.

"...It is my fault though," Gold mutters. "I shoulda been following you, but I fell asleep." Gold wonders why he's telling Trip this, when Trip seems so ready to let him off the hook. He just doesn't like Trip blaming himself.

"A picture?" Gold asks, surprised. "Why? I mean, sure, yeah." He's still clearly confused, even as he agrees.

From:

serperiority

Trip felt a pang of guilt at making them afraid, thinking again that he couldn’t actually protect anyone. He wasn’t the right person to take care of Gold. Gold needed a good family…

Trip quietly took a few pictures, zooming in for a closeup, then stated simply as he turned away.

“So I don’t forget how I failed to keep to keep you by my side… and so I don’t forget how I feel right now.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he wordlessly extended a hand for Gold to take.

((Fun fact: Trip taking a picture after a defeat so he won’t forget the frustration he felt then was the scene that made me pick Trip up as a character and stop ignoring him as just Paul 2.0))

From:

gold_drum

Gold doesn't really know how to pose for pictures, so he just kind of blankly stares at the camera. Mycen raises his claws for a bit of a pose, though, but whether he knows what a camera actually is is debatable.

"Oh..." Gold scrunches his face up a bit at that, not sure what to say. Something about that bugs him.

He takes Trip's hand, making sure to keep a good hold on Mycen. After they've walked a bit, Gold speaks up again.

"...Do you take pictures when you're happy too?"

((one of these days I'm going to end up watching the BW anime, or at least the episodes with Trip in them))

From:

serperiority

Trip went quiet a moment, wondering how he made such an impression. The camera isn’t solely to punish himself with, he used it ti record his journey; it helped him remember good times and bad.

“… yes, of course.”

Should he show them one? Right from the start of the gallery—

“Here, this is my Serperior when it was a Snivy, on the day I began my journey.”

((Not too difficult a task, Best Wishes! is fun and varied and has great seiyuu (Iris has the voice of Madoka and Victorique, etc., Dent/Cilan has Yagami Light from Death Note and Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club’s VA… personality-wise, he’s dramatic, flowery, dorky, PG-rated host club Tamaki cranked up to eleven!) in the original.

~~It just has a weak league, but there’s a lot of fun tournament arcs throughout where you meet all the colourful rival characters again and again before it.~~

But if you want to see just Trip’s episodes, he’s only in like 17 episodes and an opening and ending animation. o/ He also recently made a silent cameo that shows him doing better (actually watching others’ battles, standing alongside the other rivals and his childhood hero, it’s really nice!).

He is… a very minor character, even if he’s framed as the main rival for that series, ffff.))

From:

gold_drum

"Huh..." Gold looks at the photo Trip shows him, and any others Trip might show him. It's interesting to see them, and all the different places Trip's taken photos of, but... Something bitter keeps crawling in Gold's thoughts.

Did Trip ever take photos of Gold in happy moments? Or was that photo just now the first one Trip had taken of him? Gold couldn't remember. He doesn't recall Trip asking to take a picture before, so maybe it was the first time something happened with Gold that Trip wanted to remember.

...In the future, would Gold only be a bad memory to Trip? ...Maybe that's all he is to everyone.

He doesn't want to say any of that out loud, though. If Trip only wants to remember bad things about Gold, it's better if Gold doesn't know that for sure. So he won't ask.

((tbh what's mostly keeping me from watching it is Team Rocket, I don't really want to see their boring and serious phase XD

17 episodes sounds watchable! I don't really have the time or patience to keep watching long shows these days, unless they really grab me, so I think I'll just watch the Trip episodes and any others that seem interesting enough!))

From:

serperiority

Trip wouldn’t want him to just be a bad memory, but perhaps he had other reasons for not taking his picture earlier. Like the fact that he looked worse for wear or that he was a thief and Trip assumed he wouldn’t want his picture taken.
Now… it might simply be that Trip was hoping Gold won’t be too permanent a presence in his life, as he couldn’t see himself as a good enough travelling companion or caretaker…

He mostly took pictures of places he’d been, Pokemon battles, and trainers he’d met. He seemed to take more pictures of Pokemon and scenery than people in general… he did seem to favour candid pictures, not posed ones, the only photographs where the subjects seemed aware, aside from some of his pictures of his own Pokemon, seemed to be pictures of a spiky-haired boy with a cap and a Pikachu on his shoulder, eagerly waving at the camera. Those pictures didn’t seem to fit Trip’s style and he would pass over them quickly to get to the ones he did want to share.

Interestingly, among the most recent pictures, there were pictures of the Glitterrace Town Pokemon Center, including the room they shared. That might be a start. But still, no other pictures of Gold, unless he had gone over them entirely.

“… Mycen’s not a Pokemon I’ve ever seen before. So, I’d like to take its picture too, if you wouldn’t mind,” Trip said. “Maybe once we’re outside, the lighting will be better.”

They should be nearing the exit!

From:

gold_drum

Gold watches the photos, appreciating them, but not really talking much. He wonders what kind of a dark past Trip's got with the boy with the cap, but makes no comment on it. Nothing Gold sees really changes his preconception of why Trip hasn't taken many pictures of him. But... maybe he'd like to take some photos himself, some day. Maybe even get his own camera. Not that he could afford anything like that any time soon...

Mycen looks up at the sound of his name, chittering questioningly.

"Oh, yeah, that's fine," Gold says. Huh, so Trip likes Mycen more than him. No wonder, Mycen's cute.

The exit already! The walk through the cave was shorter than he'd expected. Of course, seeing Trip's photos helped pass the time a lot. Gold speeds up his last few steps to get to sunlight quickly. Finally some warmth!

"Hey, Mycen, let's take some pictures of you!" he tells the Pokemon, and goes to set him down on the grass. Mycen looks around, curious, and scratches at the ground experimentally. What a strange place, all green and sunny and warm, but he can sense the roots of mushrooms below him, so he's at ease.

From:

serperiority

Dark past! Nothing as dramatic as all that, Trip just found Ash to be an utter nuisance, overly friendly, rough-mannered, simple and painfully idealistic. All things that repel Trip, but Ash never stopped trying to be his friend. But learning anything in detail about Trip was likely to take a long, long time... he wasn't chatty.

(Trip liking Pokemon a bit more than the people they're attached to isn't too surprising either, he seemed to have some deliberate close-ups of the Pikachu, early on, while the boy seemed only to eagerly butt into frame.)

~~Perhaps Trip's just a misanthrope, Gold, and it isn't that you, yourself, are detestable!~~

Trip smiled faintly at the sight of Gold running into the light.

Well, if Gold didn't mind pictures and Trip had his camera handy, then... he took another shot before Gold went to set Mycen down. He could hear the shutter, but would Gold realize he hadn't begun taking pictures of Mycen yet?

Mycen exploring its surroundings and settling down when feeling the earth earned several photographs, taken from different angles and heights, some zoomed in as Trip moved closer to Mycen too, studying it.

From:

gold_drum

~~Not Gold's fault? Absolutely impossible, completely unrealistic.~~

Gold doesn't, in fact, notice Trip took a picture of him. He even tries to move out of the way of some of the photos so Trip wouldn't be bothered. (He may have noticed some of Ash's pictures were him butting into frame, so he figures Trip doesn't like that.) Gold watches Trip take photos with interest though, trying to see how he makes the pictures look so nice. Not that it really helps him, when he's never even held a camera...

Mycen pauses exploring when Trip moves too close, and looks at the camera, and at Trip, making a curious noise and trying to poke at the strange device. Hopefully he won't scratch the lens!

From:

serperiority

~~The tendency to self-blame makes a lot of things harder, isn't it...~~

His camera—!!

Trip quickly withdrew his camera with a sharp intake of breath through gritted teeth, to quickly examine it for damage (none, fortunately) and pocket it.

"That's enough!"

From:

gold_drum

Mycen's claws fly up and he chirrups in shock, and Gold rushes to calm him.

"It's fine, it's just an important thing, Mycen," he says, lifting Mycen up by the mushroom and petting his head with a finger. "It's expensive, so don't touch it, okay."

Mycen nods, calming down, and chittering a bit.

"Umm, do we keep walking now?" Gold asks Trip. Though his legs are grateful for the rest, he's worried that he's already slowed down their journey too much, with everything that happened in the cave.

From:

serperiority

“Yeah. We should make it to the market easily, but maybe we’ll spend the night here and head back to town tomorrow, depending on how long we take. I don’t mind… I like hotels more than Pokemon Centers, anyway. It’ll be a good learning opportunity for you too.”

The truth was, Trip hated any kind of delay, but he didn’t want Gold to feel rushed and not take his time choosing things to wear… and Trip really did dislike communal spaces, so Pokemon Centers weren’t his usual choice of accomodation.

Cities are much larger and take more time to travel anyway!

“If you’re hungry, you can have something to eat. Otherwise, we’ll just eat when we’re there.”

It might have been better to offer food to Gold rather than say it first, but… Trip was figuring things out along the way. He wasn’t the best at navigating social situations, much less ones with a child who was treated the way Gold was.

From:

gold_drum

"Oh, okay!" Gold says. His interested is piqued a bit. Hotels... He's only seen them on TV commercials. They looked way too fancy, but Trip seems suited to them. Maybe with Trip even Gold could be allowed in? That's kind of exciting. And since Trip said he likes hotels, Gold doesn't feel bad about taking too long anymore.

"No, I'm fine. I can eat when we're there," Gold says. Actually, he's feeling a little hungry after all that walking, but he can take it a bit longer, no problem. That, and he's not sure he's got anything Mycen can eat, and he doesn't want to eat while leaving him hungry.

From:

serperiority

Just as planned!

When they head to the markets, there'll be all sorts of shops, including those that sell Pokemon food.

"We should probably buy some food for Mycen too, while we're here," Trip commented.

((🎁))