A Leaf, Still Growing

(. For Juneedes for Yuletide. Disclaimer I have never played Masters)



"So, you're both leaving tomorrow?" Leaf asked, more into the wind than to the friends at her side.

They were on the hillcrest overlooking Pallet, the slow sunset casting the scene in a golden glow, the vibrant light of day still playing around the edges.

Red was still on his bike, sitting on the seat sideways like a bench, watching out over the farmland and forests below. His response was a slow nod, with just a glance towards her.

Green was more active, perched on the top of the overlook's barrier, facing his friends. "Yeah, been planning for a while now. You know that."

Leaf sighed. "I know. Just hoping for some miracle that I could go with you."

"We're splitting up anyway. Gonna take on the league ourselves."

"Yeah, but you're still GOING together, you know?" She turned towards them both. "It's always been us three, ever since we were kids, and it's just not gonna be the same around here without you."

Red pulled his bike over a little closer. "It's just bad timing."

"He speaks!" Green exclaimed with a laugh, bending backwards on the metal piping. "But yeah, he speaks the truth too. It's nothing you did bad or anything. If anything it'll be good for you to stick around the lab."

"Working there was your dream, more than being a trainer, right?" Red still hadn't left his bike, but this time he was at least looking in her direction as he talked.

She laughed. "Yeah. I mean, I wanna be a trainer too, but...Aah..." With a sigh, she patted Green's arm. "I think your grandpa would rather it be you that stays instead of me. He's always wanted you to be a scholar like him."

"Yeeeeah..." he drew out with a long exhale, "but I'm not like him much at all. I'm still helping though so there's that. Being a field researcher is more my bag."

"Your bag?" Leaf sputtered. Red rolled his eyes at the phrase. "Your bag! Haha you talk like an old man enough. Maybe being away from your grandpa will be good for you! You'll lose some of his bad habits!"

"You'll be picking them right up where I left them then!" Green cackled, swaying across the piping as if he was on a swing. "You'll be talking like some old coot next I see you."

"He's only fifty," Red muttered but this only led his friends to laugh harder.

"I'm eleven!" Green sputtered with a snort. "We're all eleven! Fifty's an eternity and he knows it. That's why he's always pulling that 'what was my grandson's name again' act. He's gonna do it to you tomorrow," he reminded them, pointing at Red, "and probably ask you" pointing at Leaf "a dozen times a day. Just because he knows it gets on my nerves."

Leaf grinned at Red. "You're gonna say something hilarious, aren't you?"

Red gave a thumbs up, with a smirk at Green, but kept the answer to himself.

Green stretched back on the rail in that way that always made his friends nervous. "Ugh, great."

"Would be a shame if some new lab assistant added it to your official league file or something," Leaf teased, brandishing a stick and prodding the air towards Green with it. "Yep, be a biii~iig shame if something like that happened."

"You'd better not!" Green snapped upright and lunged at the stick as if it had been the source of the playful threat.

"Your name's already 'Green'. I don't think Red is going to be able to come up with anything funnier than that."

Red shrugged, a conspiratorial smile across his face.

"Oh-ho, big words from someone named 'Leaf'!"

"Big words from someone within grapple range!" she laughed back. His move to grab the stick had put him far closer, and more importantly on flat land, and she was able to grab him by the wrist and deliver a playful shove.

He staggered backwards, narrowly missing Red's bike. "Hahaha, get your kicks now! This time tomorrow I'll be in Viridian already!"

But that just deflated her jovial attitude. The idea of distance brought her down and she slumped, leaning against the barrier with a sigh. "...Really gonna miss you two. Pallet won't be as bright without you."

"The lab'll be more fun with you there," Red told her. "So it's not a total loss."

"Yeah, gramps could use some youthful exuberance around the place."

Leaf toyed with a loose branch of a bush on the other side of the barrier, breaking a twig off between her fingers. "I guess. You'll have to call me though. Green, you'll be calling your family anyway, so just ask him to put me on. Red, call me after you call your mom, ok?"

The boys nodded. "Makes sense," Red affirmed, but his gaze was out at the horizon. "This time tomorrow, huh? I'll set up camp for a while. Want to take things slow, build up a good team."

"Well it's not like I'm /not/ building up a good team!" Green fumbled. "What I want to go for is closer to Viridian though!"

Leaf was breaking down the elements of the twig, and peeled a leaf away from its base. "Relax, no one said you weren't."

He sighed. "Yeah, I'm just nervous."

"Me too," Red admitted. "Mom is too. Never been away like this before."

"But hey, Gramps won't be alone if you're there!" Green seemed to be skipping ahead in his thought process as he patted Leaf on the back, but she could still follow it. It had been just the two of them for a while, and while the man was a nationally respected professor, Green was still deeply concerned for how he would handle being without his remaining family. He seemed to pick up on the shift in mood this could carry, however, and laughed heartily. "I've got a lot riding on this, and you babysitting my grandpa is gonna take a load off."

She giggled. "Yeah, that's true. All that trouble he gets into, huh?"

"You laugh, but he does. He got set on fire just last month. A Charmander blew an ember at him and it got on his lab coat."

Red smirked. "I decided on my partner then."

"I thought you were going with Charmander anyway because something something your name something firey heart," Leaf asked with a grin.

"Double decided." He stood up and stretched his back before going to lean against the railing between Leaf and Green. "Had an idea. Let's come back here in a year."

"I hope we'll be done by then! Eight badges usually takes a few months," Green reminded him with a playful swat to the back of the head, disrupting Red's baseball cap ever so slightly.

Leaf shook her head. "Dream big! Either of you could end up the champion! Heck, by that point maybe you could both be!" She nudged Red's hat closer into place. "I like that idea. /Here/ here, up on this ridge, right?"

He nodded, putting his hat back where it had started.

"Yeah, that's a fun idea. We'll ride our bikes up here again and tell each other all about everything that's been happening in our lives. Even if you guys come back early and everything went back to normal a long time ago--"

"What happened to dreaming big?" Green interjected with a chuckle.

"--It'll still be fun to do. Treat everything super special, right?"

"Sure, I'm game." Green held his hand out in front of them. "Let's make it official."

Leaf and Red put their hands on top of his. "One year from today," Leaf declared.

"One year from right now," Red added, with a glance at his watch.

"Ooh, right," she laughed, switching hands to look at her own watch. "Gotcha."

"Give or take a few minutes," Green chuckled. "Now, everyone ready?"

"Ready!"

"Ready."

The three of them pumped their hands in unison, releasing the pile at the highest point in a sort of three-way high five. Leaf laughed again and drew the other two into a hug. "Haha...I'm really going to miss you guys."

"Mmph. Me too." Red didn't return the hug but his grin was warm.

Green did return it, patting them both on the back. "Just watch. This time next year, you'll be sitting here with the Kanto champion!"

"Gonna bring Lance back here with you, huh?" Leaf deadpanned as she took a step back. "I guess you could but I think the idea was just the three of us."

He snorted and brought his hands up in denial. "You're really gonna let her talk to me like that, Red?"

Red just sat back on his bike, his grin a little more sarcastic than before.

"Well fine then!" he laughed. "I'll just go home then!" His expression softened. "I gotta go anyway. Gramps is gonna help me pack and we're gonna have dinner."

"Yeah," Red agreed, "Mom wants to make dinner with me tonight, and then we're going to watch a movie." He swung a leg over the side of the bike to move into a riding position. "Uh. ...See ya." But he didn't leave yet, waiting for a response from the other two."

Green just waved, knowing he'd see Red at the lab in the morning. But Leaf smiled and put her hand over his on the handlebar. "Take care, ok? Call me."

He nodded and snapped the strap of his helmet into place. "Will do." A moment later and he started down the hill.

"He's never been one for goodbyes, has he?" she mused with some disappointment.

"Not really. But, uh..." Green looked away from her, out over the view of the town. "Neither have I, really. Or you." But when he looked back, he smiled broadly, cockily, as he secured his own helmet over his piled hair. "Smell ya later, Leaf."

She nearly choked laughing. "WHAT?"

"You heard me! Talk to ya soon." And with that, he hopped back to his bike and sped down the trail, cackling with laughter.

Leaf, though, stayed where she was, and sat back on the railing with a sigh. She'd always been with them before, and now she was going to be left behind them. She slumped, wondering if she could ever really be with them again. A long, low exhale was really all she could muster as she leaned back, looking at the town and forest beyond upside down, the orange evening sky flooding where the land should be. Their lives were always going to be different now.

If she thought they would be away for a few weeks and give up, as so many kids did, it wouldn't be a problem. But she had the utmost faith in them. They could go the distance. Maybe even be champion, maybe. If she didn't believe that they could do it, it wouldn't feel half as bad.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. She had no way of knowing.







The three of them had made sure to meet at the hill the following year, Red even skipping out on a league meeting to be there, but the change in their relationship dynamic was hard to miss. They'd all gone their own ways, and even then, they couldn't avoid the consequences.

Eventually, Green was named the Viridian gym leader, and Red eschewed his champion title to continue his training. Leaf continued her work at the Oak lab, and when a litter of Eevees went unclaimed, she made sure to ask her friends if they wanted to adopt a new partner.

But then things took a strange turn. First Green had stopped showing up for work, and nobody could track him down. Then Leaf herself found herself pulled into a strange portal.

Her own arrival in Pasio had been met with a bit of disinterest. After all, she was a scientist, not a famous trainer, so why had Hoopa even bothered? But on her way up to her hotel room, she'd been surprised with a hug from a very enthusiastic Green. "Everyone's been worried sick!" she told him with a playful slap.

"Hey, hey, it's not for lack of trying. This stupid place only has local communications. It's run by some egomaniac prince with a Hoopa, and he's got his weird enforcers everywhere." The bile at talking about their mysterious captor faded as soon as it had risen, and he looked at her with a soft expression. "I've been trying. I figured you'd all be...Haha, you all just can't get enough of me, can you?" he laughed. "Anyway, I'll show you around. Really good to see you." His voice faded off, his eyes averted. "...Missed you a lot. You and Red and everyone..."

She smiled and hugged him in return. "Missed you too."



There was a crowd gathering on the Pasio beach. This happened every so often, when some famous newcomer arrived. Leaf, Eevee perched on her head like a jaunty hat, peered off from the boardwalk to catch a glimpse of whoever it could be.

She'd only been there a short time, and it was only starting to catch up with her that she was stuck there. Plenty existed in Pasio to distract her, many things to do and people to talk to, but it was laden with the overhanging knowledge that none of them were permitted to leave. Even the most bold and powerful among them seemed to simply end up back where they started, snatched up by Hoopa as Lear's followers monitored the island.

So someone new was both a shuffling in the order of the place as well as something a bit unfortunate, but people tried their best to think brightly. Oak himself, who had recently shown up, had reminded her of the importance of that.

Whoever this newcomer was seemed to have a Charizard, and Leaf could make out a red cap over the tops of the gathered heads. Dare she hope? She gripped the rail that lined the boardwalk and chided herself for letting her imagination get the best of her. It wasn't as though she had gotten a clear view of whoever it was.

But the crowd around the newcomer shifted just enough that she could finally make out his face.

It couldn't be. It was a one in a million, in a billion chance, but that was unmistakably...

"Red!" She nearly flung herself over the railing, waving enthusiastically with both arms. Only her Eevee alerting her with a sharp cry brought her out of her impassioned rush. "Oh, sorry," she laughed, and took Eevee under her arm as she ran for the nearest stairs, dashing a beeline towards her friend.

He hadn't noticed her at first, seeming to be trying to gather together what had happened, and everyone around him was trying to address him by name. He was the most famous trainer in the world, or it seemed like that with the greeting he was getting, and he wanted to clear them all out but he still wasn't sure where he *was* or how he had gotten there and--

"REEEEEEEED!"

The insistence of his name this time set it apart from the others, shouted over the wind in a familiar voice. He looked up, past the crowd, and took a step to clear them out even just a little bit.

Leaf knew she must have been a wild sight, kicking up loose sand as she ran, carrying Eevee like a football with one arm and waving wildly with the other, screaming herself raw at the sight of her friend.

And in the distance came the reply, as he called her name in return. The crowd seemed shocked, some of them expressing their disbelief that the famously quiet trainer had spoken. But his intent was made clear, and they cleared a way for him.

It probably wasn't a good idea to running tackle hug someone from full speed, but Leaf did it anyway, leaping at Red as Eevee gleefully jumped onto the sand and spun in a circle in happiness. "Red!" she exclaimed as they fell to the sand, hugging. "Red, this place is weird!" Her explanation was hampered by her delighted laughter. "This place, it's not--"

He shook his head and hugged her closer. "You vanished. You've been gone for a month. A month!" The exclamation was sharper than she was used to from him. "You and Green, and Oak, and--"

"They're here! They're both here!" She could feel his arms tense around her. "We don't know how to get off this island, but they're here and they're safe." Leaf laughed nervously and tried to pull Red back up. "I think now that we're all together, maybe we have a chance to stop this Lear punk once and for all."

But in truth, she didn't care so much about that at the moment. Right then and there, she felt like she had gotten a bit of her childhood back, and wherever they were, and whatever they were up against, they could do it all together.