Now that… That broke Folly’s heart. Here was someone she had looked up
to for a long time now. He had done so much in his time as a trainer and
she thought he was the greatest for a long time.
To be disappointed by someone you considered a role model was surprisingly
hard to deal with. Folly could physically feel it crash in her heart with each word.
Stressed 11-year old? Did he really not believe in what Red said?
About the investigations by the police? She frowned, stood up, and
placed her hands firmly on her hips.
“I am… disappointed in you,” Her words held no malice, no real will to argue or
yell or fight. Just sadness, completely directed at the gym leader sitting before her.
“How could you say this when Team Rocket has already come back in the
years after it was supposedly over? They hurt people—-
They killed pokemon! He wasn’t stressed— he was traumatized!
Just like my friends were in my home region! It happened there too, you know.
They wanted to abuse and torture legendary pokemon in order to wipe
out everyone that stood in the way of their goals. You’re talking to me as
if it was some scene caused by a little kid, but Red was so deeply upset by it…
His hands were nearly shaking by how upset he was just talking about it.”
“I always looked at you as the best…”
Folly’s shoulders slumped. The sadness in her voice was only getting heavier.
Were those tears in her eyes?
She took out her notepad nonetheless and started to write
down ‘just a theory’ under Green’s name.
And there it came: the same counterargument that EVERYONE always brought up. The same BASELESS CLAIMS that people always made when he corrected them, EVERY SINGLE TIME, as if they somehow knew the situation better than he did, as if he somehow WASN’T fully educated about the weight of the situation.
Because RED’S WORD always held more weight than his own, because RED was so much smarter than him, because RED dealt with it first-hand, right? Because people who DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW Red will always assume he has the higher ground, because they don’t understand what he’s like or how he feels. Because they NEVER DO.
Because RED is some kind of idolized hero-enigma who is NEVER WRONG, who has a LEVEL-HEAD, who is CUNNING and CAREFUL, right? Except no one ever stops and realizes that he’s NONE OF THOSE THINGS, and NO ONE HAS ANY RIGHT TO MAKE THOSE TYPES OF CLAIMS EXCEPT FOR HIM: GREEN.
After she stands, he does the same.
“Listen, I understand it’s difficult to take in, especially when you weren’t HERE when it was happening and you rely mostly on news casters to relay information to other regions. I never said ANYTHING to demean the level of atrocity that is Team Rocket; all I said is that Team Rocket has NOTHING to do with this Gym. Investigators found nothing here except an 11-year-old with a VIGILANTE COMPLEX and a missing gym leader— which makes sense considering there was a completely valid chance that this Gym could have been a place for sleazy, disgusting, vile, terrible, gross, EVIL THINGS.”
“But there WASN’T. There were NO LEADS, there were no CLUES, there was NOTHING IN THIS GYM. Red’s trail ran cold at Silph Co., and it is NO ONE’S FAULT that he took the logical jump to conclusions when he came here. But at the end of the day, the Giovanni that worked here was NOT the Giovanni that attacked MY friend or my region; it isn’t his fault that it’s difficult to accept that he couldn’t help the Police track the ACTUAL Giovanni down.”
“So I ask two things of you—” He pointed his thumb to his chest. “PLEASE don’t put words into my mouth or make extraneous assumptions about my thoughts, and DON’T do the same thing to Red; not in MY gym, not to MY face. I tolerate idolization and assumptions from news reporters and children, but NOT from people who claim to have a job in research and investigation. Don’t come to me acting like you know more about what happened here than I do, and don’t come to me acting like I’m SHRUGGING OFF Team Rocket because I corrected your misinformed mistakes.”
How disappointing. A pretty girl who seemed to put so much love and care into these types of things, yet she’s just like EVERY OTHER curious child or eager journalist. If there was anything Green regret today, it was... well, a tie between having high expectations for this girl, and having milk during breakfast instead of coffee.
