A/N: I see in your eyes, the same annoyance that would take the heart of me. A day may come, when the laziness of mine fails! When I forsake my mediocre work and break all bonds of delays, but it is not this day! An hour of work shattered writing comes when the age of this site comes crashing down, but is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear, on this good site, I bid you read, writers of the fan fiction! …yeeeeeeah

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon, Pokemon Special, or Lord of the Rings (if you got the reference)

Chapter 10

Once the movie was over, everyone stretched and started to discuss the movie amongst themselves and gave their opinions on the it. Their actions were quickly cut short, as the lights suddenly came back on and blinded everyone temporally. Everyone shouted at the sudden pain and Jay was laughing happily, since he was the one who turned on the lights suddenly.

"Ow…where was the warning on that?" Soul asked, keeping her eyes shut as she waddled around trying to get used to the brightness of eight suns. She slowly opened her eyes and got used to the new light in the room. She looked over at Silver, who had also just recently gotten used to the lights.

"Alright everyone, lunch is served. Enjoy our fine cuisine!" Jay said. All the kids suddenly shot out of their seats and rushed over to the lunch line like a pack of wild animals. "Hey slow down, don't want you to trample anyone one to death or anything that might get us sued! Because that would result in bad things and bad things are bad! Guys, seriously!" Jay started to follow the campers in an attempt to create a line and establish order, or at least something similar to it.

Silver and Soul got up to also get lunch, being one of last to get up from their seats. In the pack of madness that was trying to be a line to the food everyone bumped into everyone, which began to annoy Silver a little but he kept it to himself since it wasn't worth actually getting emotional. Soul was constantly talking to some of the kids in her cabin about the film while bumping into some of the campers, apologizing every time. After seemingly 25 apologies from Soul, Silver noted that they were somewhat in the middle of the line. The line was moving really slowly too. By this point Soul and Silver were standing near one of the doors to the gymnasium. Soul peered through the windows and saw that it was still raining, but not nearly as bad as it once was. She started to feel awkward since she was standing beside Silver, not saying anything. She wanted to get to know him better, so this was a pretty good time to start a friendly conversation.

"So um…yeah" Soul started. 'This feels so weird'

Silver didn't notice, "Hmm?"

"Umm…so…what do you like to do?" Soul asked. It was the first thing that came to her.

Silver looked at her, "Why do you want to know?"

"Well…just starting conversation. Plus, I'd like to get to know you a little better." Soul said, a little nervous.

Silver exhaled, "Well…I don't actually do much except train and travel"

That somewhat surprised Soul. Not the training part, but the fact that it was the ONLY thing he did. "Really? Nothing else? No hobbies?"

"Nothing really."

"Maybe you should try a sport…or something creative like drawing or…uh…

"Well what do you like to do then?" Silver asked.

Soul looked at him, "What? Why do you want to know?"

"Just continuing the conversation, since it seems to help pass the time"

"Oh, um, weeeell." Soul took a deep breath, "I like to shop, be with friends, listen to music, sometimes sing and dance while listening to music but I'm too good at either. Well I mean I'm alright but not professional or anything. I also love playing with my pokémon. I really like being outside and stuff like that." Soul kept on talking about what she liked to do, which could go on for hours, maybe even a few days.

Silver held up a hand, making Soul pause, "I think I got it, Soul"

Soul flushed a little, "Oh yeah, sorry about that. I sometimes go a little overboard with talking. I just ramble on…" Soul looked down, "Sorry if it annoyed you…"

"It didn't really annoy me, mostly just caught me off guard is all. Besides if you get to know Gold the way I do, a lot of talking doesn't bother you that much." Silver said. "I could remove his mouth and he'd still find some way to keep talking."

Soul giggled, "So Gold's the one who annoys you and not me?"

"Pretty much."

"Well he seems like a nice guy"

Silver was silent for a few moments, "He is…for the most part. He's also been a good friend…for the most part." Silver looked at Soul, "Yeah, he's alright. I guess he kind of sticks on to you. Sometimes I want to tear him apart but that's just the way he is I suppose."

"Hehe" Soul laughed nervously. She thought for a few more moments, "So why'd you come to camp this year?"

Silver was silent, "Well I was actually forced into going here by Gold"

"How did he force you?"

"To be perfectly honest…I don't even know. One minute I was going around, with my own free will. Next thing I know, Gold comes out of nowhere trying to convince me to come here. I think the only reason I came here was to see my friends again, since I haven't seen them in awhile."

"So, I guess that means you don't really want to be here, huh?" Soul asked, sounding a little sad.

"Well…" Silver thought for a few seconds, "It's not all bad I guess."

Soul turned to Silver, "I mean, there's not much else I could be doing. Other than training but I'm getting some in so it's not a total loss. Plus this whole camp thing has kind of been entertaining…"

"So…are you happy you came then?" Soul asked.

"Suppose I am…" Silver said.

Soul smiled, "Me too"

Silver looked at her curiously, making Soul bush a little and look down at the ground, "Well…you know…"

Silver had a confused look on his face. He looked in front of him and saw that they were finally at the front of the line. "Hey, Soul. Grab a tray"

Soul snapped out her little trance and followed Silver's request, still feeling a little awkward after saying what she said. When they both got to the cooks that were handing out the food, they noticed that they were Gold and Crystal.

"Crystal? Hey!" Soul said when it was their turn.

Gold and Crystal turned to their next campers to feed to see that Silver and Soul were next.

"Oh hi guys" Crystal said cheerfully.

"Sup? Want some good ol' PokéCamp homemade pizza?" Gold said as he threw a piece of pizza on both their plates.

"Only one slice?" Silver said as he looked at his plate.

"Well there are a lot of campers to feed. Besides, there's the salad bar and you could always get seconds." Soul pointed out. "So how long are you two here for?" Soul asked Gold and Crystal.

"Well after lunch is over we still have help clean up the kitchen for dinner." Crystal said.

"Do you have to work in the kitchen at dinner too?" Soul asked.

"Nah, they're only making us work during lunch today." Gold said.

"Only because you begged the cooks to let us off the hook…" Crystal added.

Gold turned to Crystal, "I didn't beg!"

"You were on your knees!"

"I was…ehh…I dropped…uhh…my glasses…" Gold said, looking away.

"You don't wear glasses" Crystal said.

"As far as you know…" Gold said.

"Well Gold I must admit, seeing you actually being forced to work as punishment for once is pretty nice" Silver said.

"Silver, you should watch you're saying. Otherwise you might not wake up in the cabin tomorrow morning" Gold said, narrowing his eyes.

Silver returned the look, "Do you really want to go through this again, Gold?"

"Hey! Quit holding up the line!" a voice came from behind Silver and Soul.

"Oops, sorry!" Soul said, "We'll see you guys later then!"

Crystal waved goodbye to them, and Gold gave a salute or something.

Silver got a cup of water while he waited on Soul to finish getting the rest of her lunch. She got a huge salad, so much in fact you could barely see anything but lettuce on her tray. When they got to the table, Soul put her tray on it, making some lettuce fall off. She then had to start digging into the salad to find her pizza. "It's sort of like digging for buried treasure isn't it?" Soul laughed as he 'dug' her way to the pizza, humming a tune.

"Uhhh…sure" Silver said

.

Gold and Crystal then got bored. Ever since their little chat with Silver and Soul, they went straight back to work. The line of kids seemed to be never ending. Once the line seemed to finally die down, more kids would appear to make the line longer.

"Where are they coming from? Is their like some portal to a horrible dimension full of hungry children in the back of the line?" Gold said as he arrived with more pizza.

"Stop complaining, they have to stop coming eventually" Crystal said, serving another child their pizza.

"Hopefully" Gold said. He looked over and dreaded what he saw, "Oh goodie"

"What?" Crystal asked. Gold pointed to who they would have to serve next. Crystal recognized them as the two guys Gold said he didn't like. Crystal didn't really like them that much either to be honest. They seemed like a couple of jerks. Crystal overheard them making suggestive comments about various counselors as they made their way to them.

They walked up to them and dropped their trays in front them. "What's for lunch?"

"Pizza" Crystal said.

Both Chase and Logan turned to Crystal and smirked. "Hey, why don't you hang out with us later?"

"That's alright, no thanks" she said as she put a slice of pizza on both their trays.

"Oh come on" Chase said, leaning towards Crystal.

"Yeah, you mean you'd hang out with this loser than us?" Logan said.

Crystal didn't like the situation and wanted to kick them out of the line…quite literally. She might have had to, if there wasn't a chance she might get in more trouble. So she just endured it.

"Well, at least give us another slice of pizza" Chase said.

"Yeah come on, we're hard working counselors! So we should get special privileges" Logan said, moving his gaze away from Crystal's eyes, down a little lower…

Crystal realizing this, turned away, to help restrain from grabbing his throat. Gold also saw this and ran back in the kitchen. Crystal wondered what he was doing leaving her alone with these two.

"Come on! We're starving here!" a kid said.

"Shut up kid" Logan yelled back.

"Well so much for a boyfriend that guy was, huh? Leaving you all alone?" Chase said.

"He's not my boyfriend!" Crystal half yelled.

"Oh good, then you're available" Chase said.

"Not to you" Crystal said.

Logan laughed at Chase, "Shut up"

"So are you going to give us some more food or what?"

"No, everybody just gets one slice" Crystal said.

"Oh come on! Can't you do your two new friends a favor?"

"They're absolutely right, Super Serious Girl!" Gold said from behind Crystal.

Crystal turned around to see Gold holding two slices of pizza. He had a smile on his face that Crystal knew well. That smile was usually followed by some mischief from Gold.

"Here you go guys. Two brand new, fresh pizza slices just for you!" Gold said, handing Chase and Logan their pizza, still smiling.

The pizzas that Gold carried out had many toppings on them, pepperoni, sausage, onion, bacon, all kinds of stuff.

"Hey, hey! There we go, throw some more of that our way, man!" Logan said, taking both slices.

"Hey! Stop that! Gold you can't-" said Crystal trying to stop Gold.

"Well then take the whole thing then!" Gold said smiling as he handed a whole pizza with many toppings on it.

Chase and Logan were thrilled about this and left without so much as a "thank you".

"Wait! Stop!" Crystal turned to Gold, "What do think you're-"

Crystal stopped because Gold had an expression on his face. She recognized the expression because she had seen it and was one her least favorite expressions. Gold had a sly smile, trying to keep it looking innocent but failing at it. His eyes were fixated on the Chase and Logan who just walked out the kitchen. Gold always had that expression when he had done something bad and was waiting for the aftermath to hit. It was the face Gold wore when he always got in trouble.

Crystal looked at him sternly, "Gold…what did you do?"

"I fed our fellow counsellors of course"

"Gold…"

"Come now, Super Serious Girl…they've been working very hard and deserved some quality food."

"Gold…"

"It just makes me tingly all over to do such a good thing like that!"

"…What did you put in it" said Crystal sighing.

Gold looked up recalling his ingredients, "Let's see heeeere…there was sauce and cheese of course. Peperoni, sausage, onion, bacon, black olives, croutons, pickles, expired meat, lemons, green peppers, barbecue sauce, some lint, and something weird and hairy I found under the fridge…come to think of it I'm quite sure whether it was alive or not. Oh well, life goes on."

Crystal stood there in shock, "You what?" Gold smiled in triumph. "How did you put-"

"I'm pretty proud of my handiwork. You couldn't tell what was in because the nastiness was hidden under the peperoni or under the cheese"

Crystal wanted to berate Gold and warn Chase and Logan, "On second thought…karma sure can come and haunt you." She looked over in the direction of where Chase and Logan left, implying she didn't care what happened to them if they ate the pizza.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Gold said, putting his arms against the back of his head, smiling that ever so evil smile.

"Soooooo, can we get our food now?" asked a kid from the line.

.

The noise from the rain pounding the ceiling of the gymnasium that gotten quieter, Silver noticed this and figured the rain must have died down a bit. He confirmed his suspicions by going to one of the doors and checked it for himself. It was still raining, well sort of. It was raining less and that's what mattered to Silver. Soul had followed him to the door, wondering what he was doing.

"Still raining hard, huh?" Soul said.

"Seems to have lightened" Silver muttered. An idea popped in Silver's head. "That reminds me, I left something back at the cabin, I need to go get it"

"What did you forget?"

Silver blinked to save time to come up with something, "My coat" It was the first thing to come to Silver's mind.

"Oh well I guess that makes sense. After all you don't want to get your clothes wet 'cause that'll make your clothes stick to your skin and it's a bit weird how it feels, you know? Like this one time…"

5 minutes later

Silver got lost somewhere in that, "Yep"

Silver walked outside, "I'll be right back. Gotta get my coat"

"Okay! See you when you get back!" Soul said cheerfully.

Silver actually walked in the direction of the forest because he was once again behind on his training so he decided to dedicate most of the day to it. The rain was a minor setback. It would build conditioning. Silver knew Soul would want to train with him but he didn't wasn't her to. Not because he found her annoying but he didn't want her to get all wet or the possibility of her getting sick in the rain. It turned out to be a good move since Soul had a history with getting wet in the rain.

He didn't go too far in the woods, in fact he just went to where he trained with Soul. The trees helped keep most of the rain from hitting him but most of it just slid down the leaves. It was however better than bein gout in the open. Silver released his Rhyperior and had him rip a tree out of the ground and start swinging it around. Then Silver himself climbed a tree, and started to jump for branch to branch with ease.

"Might as well train myself out here."

.

Chase and Logan continued to take bites out of the pizza trying to figure it out.

"Why does it taste so weird?"

"Yeah, and like" Logan took another bite, "Why do some bites taste even weirder?"

They continued eating it and just looked at each other.

"Oh well, right?"

"Can't pass free food…"

"…"

"…"

"I'm going to the bathroom!"

"Me too!"

.

The line of kids had almost ended, meaning that Gold and Crystal would soon be free. Although it was a little annoying every time a new kid got in line. It just didn't seem to end.

"Where are they all coming from?" asked Gold. "Like I said! It's like they're coming out of the ground or something. It's an infinite cycle!"

"Don't be ridiculous. They'll stop coming eventually" assured Crystal as she handed another plate to another camper.

"That's what you said twenty minutes ago!"

A huge explosion of laughter came from the line, "Well look who it is!"

Gold and Crystal looked over to see who was laughing so hard, it was Jay.

"Gold doin' manual labor 'cause he's in trouble!" Jay patted his stomach as he laughed, probably because it was hurting him to laugh so much. Crystal felt a little uncomfortable because of this but Gold began smiling.

"Like the good old days, right?" Gold said.

"This happened before?" Crystal asked. She realized it was a little silly to ask Gold if he had ever gotten in trouble. She rephrased her question, "How often?"

"What was it? Once or twice a week?" Jay recalled.

"More like every other day!" Gold said laughing.

"I don't remember getting complaints about you that often"

"It's because the trouble I caused wasn't always led back to me! Remember the year Cabin 3's suitcases were taped to the ceiling on the gymnasium?" Gold pointed to himself.

Jay laughed, "I knew it! I knew it!" His laughing might've broken the walls had they been a little more unstable.

"Things really sometimes don't change after all, huh?" Jay said as he left the kitchen, waving goodbye to both Gold and Crystal, still laughing as he left, "Have a good one!"

"Well in your case Gold I don't expect you to mature at all" Crystal said.

"Oh come on. Now that I'm older I'm much more clever than I was as a mere boy. I'm also better at covering my tracks so I don't get in trouble." Gold said, handing another plate out.

"Says the idiot who's on kitchen duty because he's in trouble…"

"I think I have also become much more handsome"

Crystal shoved his hat over his eyes, "Cool it"

.

It had at least an hour since Silver had left for his jacket. It had been even longer since Gold and Crystal were abducted too. Soul was just sitting there in front of the stage in the gymnasium all alone. There were multiple conversations going on around her, far too many to actually concentrate on one. She was trying to think on why Silver was taking so long. Soul wasn't used to being by herself but she wanted to keep a look out by the door so she knew when Silver came back so she could spend more time with him.

'Is he still trying to find his jacket? Maybe he misplaced it or maybe he just forgot to pack it and didn't remember that he didn't? Why would you bring a jacket to a summer camp at all, right? Then again…Silver wears that black jacket a lot…maybe he was….WAIT! I get it now! He was already wearing his jacket and simply didn't notice it.'

Soul got up, proud of her skills of deduction, to wait by the door. She peeked in the kitchen where Crystal and Gold were still working hard as ever. Soul couldn't help but giggle at the scene. They were certainly cute together.Crystal was complaining that Gold wasn't doing it right while he tried to defend himself.

As she waited, she still didn't see Silver coming down from the hill toward the gymnasium or anything. The minutes just came by quickly too. Was he alright, well of course he was. He was an amazing pokémon trainer and pretty strong in general. Surely he was fine, but she still couldn't but feel a little worried. She came kept coming up with situations Silver might have ran into on his way to his cabin. Like lightning striking him or hundreds of spearow coming and taking him to feed to their young. She eventually came to twenty-two different scenarios that could have happened to Silver, and twenty of them involved Silver being really hurt.

As she was watching, Soul heard a loud noise coming from outside. It made a huge noise and it seems as though Soul was the only one who heard since she was just beside the doors and the noise the children were making made it so almost everyone couldn't hear, and the ones who slightly heard it just assumed it was thunder or something.

Soul was curious enough to take a peek outside when she heard the loud noise again. She looked outside to try and figure out where it was coming from. She waited, wondering if the noise would happen again. A big 'wham' louder than any other of the noises before sounded off and it came from the woods. She assumed it might have been a wild pokémon having fun in the wild. Then a thought popped up.

'Wait….I wonder if Silver is…..'

Soul found an umbrella close to the door and decided to investigate. She didn't even really think really, she just made her way towards the woods. The outside was wet and cold, even colder since she forgot her own jacket. She avoided the puddles by happily hoping over them. As she got closer to the woods and where the noises came from, she realized that she was going towards where Silver had helped her train.

When she got really close to the area she started to hear something like grunting, only it wasn't human. It sounded more like a monster…or at the least a big pokémon. She looked behind a tree to where the noise was, which took a lot of courage on her part, and saw a big blue pokémon lifting an even bigger tree like he was benching it and a big brown one doing the same. Soul was speechless, mainly because all of color and breath flew out of her immediately out of terror. She stood there blankly, not even aware of where she was anymore.

Silver was actually on a tree doing sit-ups with a branch while upside down very close to where Soul was. In fact, Silver was right above her. Silver actually noticed and jumped down to talk to her, mildly annoyed at Soul being in the rain.

"What are you doing out here in the rain?!" He didn't yell, but he wasn't soft spoken either. He wasn't mean about it, but he wasn't kind about it either. He was annoyed, but wasn't unhappy to see her. He was mainly just concerned that she could get hurt with all the extreme training going on or sick since she was lightly dressed in the rain. Silver noticed that Soul wasn't her peppy self, or looked alive.

"Hey…uh…Soul….Soul" Silver asked her, "You awake?"

Silver laid his hand on her shoulder and shook her a little bit. She seemed to be in shock a little. Silver looked into her eyes to see if she had fainted or something. She hadn't, in fact she was conscious. He felt a little weird being so close to Soul's face though so he backed off.

"Soul?" Silver asked. No reply. He was surprised she was still standing to be honest. Silver's pokémon seemed concerned about her too. "Don't worry, she'll be fine"

He returned them to their respective pokéballs and almost immediately the color came back to her face. Silver suspected the shock of seeing his large pokémon who were seemingly wild to her put Soul in a bit of a minor shock. As she came to, Silver was beginning to lie her down against a tree, avoiding some muddy spots to keep her clean and dry. He actually lost his footing in the slippery mud, resulting in him almost landing on Soul. He caught himself before he could but his face was very close Soul's face. He backed up immediately, not wanting to look like a creep as she was waking up.

"Wait…where am I? The woods I guess, but how did I get here?" Soul asked herself. "Okay, let's see…I was at uhh…the gymnasium! And I uhh, something about noise and the woods. I went to check because Silver might have been hurt and I checked…and then", Soul noticed that Silver was right in front of her.

"Welcome back" Silver said.

Soul grabbed Silver's arm, "No wait! SILVER!"

"Here"

"Silver…you are here" Soul touched his face to make sure, "Good, we need to get out of here right now! There's like big, muscle-ley, ugly, monster pokémon here ripping out trees and using them and stuff so let's go!"

She tried pulling Silver but he wasn't moving. Soul tried harder using most of her might until Silver spoke up, "They're mine"

Soul stopped, "Huh?"

"They're my pokémon. My feraligatr and my rhyperior."

"…Do whaaa?"

"I was getting some training with them since I was…"

"You said you were getting your jacket you liar!" Soul pointed at him, so close that her flinger almost hit his noise when she extended her arm to accuse him. She didn't look too mad but she was a little upset. Silver guessed she was upset because that he lied but he suspected it was mainly because he scared the ever loving crap out of her. He hoped that he just didn't give her a phobia or something. In his defense she had previously seen his feraligatr during the first day of this camp so she should have already been used to his pokémon by this point, at least one of them anyway.

"Well I'm sorry." Silver said, half-heartedly. He still didn't think he didn't do anything too wrong. All he did was tell a little lie. "Is this worth getting mad over?"

"I'm not mad, but it feels like you're avoiding me is all." She put down her hand. "Plus, aren't we supposed to be training together?"

"I'm not avoiding you, I like being around you but I like being by myself sometimes."

Soul jumped a little by what Silver had said. 'He likes being around me? He…likes….being around…me….He likes…me?'

Soul's face began to be too colorful as it went really red. Silver grabbed her hand so she wouldn't fall down in the mud. Soul might have been in a worse state if she had even noticed it, she was still lost in embarrassing thought. Silver started to shake her gently, trying to get her to wake up. After a minute she seemed to have returned to normal. Soul looked up to see Silver looking down at her.

"I swear most of my interactions with you involve your head being in la-la land."

Soul got back on her feet, a little light headed. Silver was about to grab her again but she seemed to be able to handle herself. Silver pointed to her umbrella that she had dropped when she arrived. "Shall we go?"

The rain didn't hit the hit Silver or Soul too much thanks to the trees above their heads but it was still muddy so the umbrella was pretty filthy but Silver was able to clean it in the rain just outside of the tree line. He handed it back to Soul since it was her umbrella. She opened it up and invited Silver to be under it with her, blushing a bit while asking. Silver didn't feel like getting wet again that day so he bent down a little bit to be able to be partially covered by the umbrella. He didn't want to hog the umbrella so he kept her space and he kept his. Only half of his space was dry, though. The other half was exposed in the rain and was getting wet.

'Better half-wet than fully wet I suppose' Silver thought to himself, still bending down to be able to fit under the umbrella.

Soul realized Silver bending down like that and realized that Silver was taller than her so he was having trouble walking around to keep under the umbrella at the height Soul had it at. She poked Silver's arm.

"Here, you hold it." She handed it to him, "It'll be easier this way."

Silver was able to stand fully but was still getting one-half of his body wet. Silver noted that Soul was being quiet and her face was red. He figured she was still light headed. It was a quiet trip despite the rain hitting the umbrella and Silver's arm. As they walked back down towards the gymnasium, Silver's mind began to wonder. He thought of Blue first, and wondered how she was. Then he thought of Soul suddenly. A bit surprised that she had popped in his head so quickly he looked down at her. She was looking at him and when their eyes met she quickly looked away. As Silver turned away, he remembered being so close to Soul's face a few minutes prior. The thought made his face feel hot.

.

Gold fell on his back completely while the biggest smile crept across face, "It's over! It's done!" Gold yelled as he laid there on the dirty kitchen floor. He was covered in sauce, grease, and victory. As Gold continued smiling to himself Crystal walked up to him and looked down at him.

"You know that we're still not done, right?"

Gold raised his head a little bit, "Please don't ruin the moment. Just let me pretend for a moment longer."

Even though that they were done serving kids and lunch was over, they still had to clean the kitchen for dinner. Gold stood up, "I'd hate to do this for a living."

"It's not so bad" an annoyed voice came from behind Gold. He looked behind him to see the head cook looking at him.

Gold began to defend himself, "Hey I mean it must be great because you can cook all the time! And umm, I like the hairnets! Those are pretty cool! Sorta."

The cook looked at him, "I bet I can think of a worse job." She said as she handed him a mop and a rag. "Cleaning"

Gold laughed nervously and quickly followed her instructions. She looked to Crystal, "You can wash dishes. You'll free to go afterwards."

Crystal made her way to the back of the kitchen and saw the sink filled with water and dirty dishes of to the side. There were enough dishes to keep her busy for at least two hours. "Fantastic"

Gold very quickly poured water on the ground and opened two of his pokéballs to reveal his ambipom and his politoad. "Alright, let's get through this fast you guys." The two nodded and began to help him clean everywhere. Gold and ambipom, with its tails, were able to wipe down everything quickly while politoad spread the water. The trio all used several mops to clean the floors. After it was done Gold returned his pokémon and was quite pleased with himself. It only took him about twenty minutes for a job that should have lasted an hour at the least. After wards he put the mop against a wall and looked around for Crystal. He found her in the very back doing the dishes. She had built up quite the pitiful stack of actual clean dishes while the pile of dirty dishes seemed like it hadn't been touched.

"You almost done?" Gold asked as he walked up next to her.

"I don't need sarcasm right now, Gold" Crystal said as she very slowly cleaned a tray. Gold watched as she closely analyzed every detail of the tray before wiping it down, putting it in the water, wiping it down again, looking at It again, noticing there is a tiny mark on the tray, and so on.

"At this rate, you'll be done right after they bury you form dying of old age." Gold joked.

"Well I'm not going to use pokémon to help me get this done, Gold. Some of us can do hard work without cheating."

"Hey it's not cheating! And I never cheat!" Crystal looked at him like he was crazy, "And don't get mad at me for being smart enough to actually be creative. Maybe if ya weren't always cooked up in the lab all day you'd be able to handle stuff like this. Aren't all girls good at this stuff?"

Crystal remained silent for a moment before pointing a big pot, "Can you hand me that please?"

Gold looked down at it, "Oh sure, yeah. So anyway-"

As soon as Gold handed over the pot to Crystal, she slammed it over Gold's head and began to take a tray and beat the pot on his head with it, making a loud noise. Gold fell down after the assault and sat there for a moment as Crystal went back to cleaning dishes.

"I'm going to die at this camp, I swear I am going to die." Gold said as he removed the pot. His ears were ringing and his eyes shaking, not to mention the new bump on the top of his head.

"Then keep stupid comments like that to yourself" Crystal said not looking at Gold.

Gold stood back up and stuck his fingers in his ears to see if it would help pop them. "Alright sorry, jeez. Didn't know you would go psycho on me. What, are you on your per-"

Gold stopped himself before Crystal glared at him, "I beg your pardon?" Crystal asked.

Gold backed away, "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just me and my stupidity is all."

"Good, you're learning."

"Well I have to stay on your good side if we're gonna get married someday."

Gold had already ducked down just enough to avoid Crystal kick coming at his head.

"And I also gotta learn to avoid those nice legs of yours so that I can keep using my body before you paralyze it."

Crystal felt anger and embarrassment over the marriage comment. She didn't want to try to go for a second kick, since he was expecting it. She went back to dishes once again. "Gold, go away. I'm trying to finish and I'll never get done with you distracting me like this, she said not looking at him at all due to her blushing pretty hard.

Gold laughed mischievously at his antics and stood back up. He picked up a big pile of dishes and put them in the section of the sink that had no water. He then quickly reached for the faucet hose and began to spray the dirty dishes.

Crystal grabbed the hose as well, "HEY! What are you doing?"

Gold struggled to maintain his grip on it, "Helping you out! C'mon! Let go already!"

"I told you! I don't need help! I can do this on my own!"

"No, you said you don't need help from your pokémon! I'm not a pokémon, I'm a man!"

Crystal smirked at Gold's description of himself, "Uh-huh"

"Hey I saw that! Besides if you don't let me help you I'll just annoy you so that way you'll never get done!" Gold said as he finally let go of the hose and looked at Crystal, "Even if you beat me up I'll just lay behind you and sing show-tunes all day and all night."

Crystal saw that Gold was pretty serious about him helping her so she just sighed and handed over the faucet hose back to Gold. He took it back and resumed just simply spraying the dirty dishes. "You're welcome by the way"

"Gold! You're not cleaning them correctly! You have to sanitize them first, you're just getting them wet!"

"You're welcome by the way"

Despite Crystal's objections to Gold's method, he continued and it resulted in the dishes getting down much faster. "Just a little longer and we'll finally be done" Gold said happily and tiredly.

"Hey Gold. Can I ask you something?" Crystal asked.

"Hey the guy is supposed to propose!" Gold laughed.

"Will you quit talking about that?!" Crystal said steaming.

"Can't help it. That's all I can think about when I'm around you" Gold said, still laughing.

Crystal just sighed and asked her original question, "Did you follow me to this camp, Gold?"

Gold's laughing died immediately, "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Did you follow me to this camp?" Crystal asked, continuing to wash dishes while not looking at Gold.

"Well, the thing about that is…" Gold started, also not looking at Crystal, "It's not like I'm stalking you so get that idea out of your head! I went to Old Man Oak's place to see you again since it had been awhile. But Oak said you were going on vacation and he told where you went and I remembered how awesome this place is, that is when you're not doing dishes. Anyway, I pulled some strings to be able to be a counselor for this year along with Silver."

Crystal looked up, "You pulled some strings?" Having doubts Gold could be so crafty.

"Or rather Blue did. I told her that I was going to share the whole summer with you and she couldn't resist. I like to think that this was the first time someone manipulated her, and was me of all people." Gold said, patting his chest with pride.

"So, you just wanted to spend time with me this summer?" Crystal asked.

"Yeah of course, you're one of my best friends Super Serious Girl. You and Silver. We never see each other, and when we do there's that whole stability of the world being threatened thing that keeps getting in the way of our socializing. So I think I'll enjoy this summer a lot. Wouldn't you agree?" Gold said, finally looking at her smiling.

Crystal also looked at him and smiled warmly. "Sometimes I forget you can be a bearable person Gold."

Before Gold could say anything, Crystal looked at him, smile now replaced with a serious look, "Say anything about marriage and I'll stuff you in the pot."

Gold managed to keep comments like that to himself long enough for them to finally complete the dishes and thus, complete their punishment. Cleaning the dishes took only just under an hour, and once they were finally done, Gold got the tanks he wanted from Crystal. Gold and Crystal high-fived each other and hung their aprons on the nearby wall. Gold hurried Crystal along so they could just get out of the kitchen in general.

Gold sniffed the air of freedom and saw that all the campers were still just literally everywhere due to the rain. It had picked back up so the idea of getting back outside seemed like it was impossible. Everyone was just either sitting and talking or just playing games like basketball or four-square. Either that or play with pokémon but battling wasn't allowed due to how everyone was packed in the gymnasium and they didn't want to get anyone hurt.

"Well how are we going to find Silver and Soul in this nonsense?" asked Gold.

A/N: The long awaited chapter 10 finally came. Seriously, I bet some of you found actual pokémon by the time it took for this thing to finally come out, right? No excuses, flail me if you will.