CRAYON WARRIOR RED

HEY, EVERYONE!

[ Here's Shooter, loud and chipper as ever. The boy's sitting on the back of a rather disgruntled-looking Venasaur, a small blue egg in his arms, faithful Rattata perched in his hair. The rat is holding and nuzzling something shiny-- a brightly-colored pin. Shooter's got about half a dozen more decorating the (somewhat tattered and a bit small) orange-and-purple jacket he first arrived in. ]

Check it out-- I got back all my Tin Pin stuff! My whole pin collection, and (old) Red Kaiser, too! Now that I've got another Solid Slammer, Operation Teach Pokemon To Slam is READY TO GO!

[ He looks so excited. And painfully earnest. But wait, it gets better! ]

The Operation is in super secret testing mode right now, so I can't release any video footage yet-- [ Shooter none of your Pokemon have opposable thumbs they can't play your Beyblade ripoff ] --but I made a diagram and everything to help you guys picture it!

[ At this point, the cameraman camera Charmeleon holds this masterpiece up in front of the 'gear. ]

( cut for image )

SUPER COOL, right? I got all kinds of awesome stuff over Christmas-- the team's getting huge! We've been busy training all the new members, so it's taking a while to get all the Gyms, but we're still on the road to Champion-dom. No doubts about it.

Pretty soon, I'll have been here for a whole year.

So, um. Doc is gone again. Doctor Pin, I mean.

[ Shooter, sitting on a National Park bench with a Rattata perched on his shoulder, looks gloomy. Sounds it, too. ]

He left once before and it was a long time before he came back, but he did come back, so that's... that's pretty cool, right? Maybe it won't be as long this time. I still wanna challenge the Ecruteak Gym, even if he won't be here to see. And I want to find some new members for the team -- if you have stuff to trade, you should totally talk to me.

[ He makes an effort to sound more chipper. On his shoulder, Purple chitters encouragingly. ]

And Halloween was fun! I heard there are more ghosts at the Ecruteak Gym, right? Me and Purple can take 'em down, no problem. I bet I've got something super-effective against ghosts.

Doc'll be back in no time. He's gotta be here to see me take on the Elite Four.

[[ Shooter has a Lopunny and (evolveable) Graveler to trade, probably for something ridiculously common like a Nidoran or Tentacool; it's first-come, first-served. If anyone's interested, drop me a PM. c: ]]

A. [ Ridiculously early in the morning, all of Johto gets a shaky close-up of a Zephyr badge, and this call goes out: ]

HI JOHTO IT'S SHOOTER HOW ARE YOU I'M GOOD GUESS WHAT MY RATTATA IS SO COOL HE'S THE BEST RATTATA AND TODAY WE HAD TO FACE OFF AGAINST A REALLY TOUGH PIDGEY BUT THEN WE WON AND WE GOT A BADGE BYE.

[ Click.

... yes, that just happened. ]

B. [ A few minutes later, the feed starts back up, and something else is happening! Something quieter, thank god, and now there's a Lopunny standing behind the boy. Shooter's got no idea how to filter this away from Claire, so he'll just keep his voice down and then maybe she won't notice. Brilliant. ]

Hey, is 'Playboy' a cool name, or is it too girly? A girl suggested it and I think it's kinda weird, but then Playboy could be his name-name and Tan could be his codename, and I could use his codename just for battles, and that would be sweet! And, like, secret.

What do you think?

TESTING, ONE TWO THREE! Testingestinestingesting!

[ Hope you missed having your eardrums threatened, Route; Shooter's voice seems pitched oddly, the sound on the 'gear fluctuating, but he's as loud as ever. Things steady out after a moment, and twitching static gives way to a stable video feed. ]

Is it working? I think it's working. HEY, EVERYONE! My Pokegear got all messed up when it, uh, kind of got lit on fire, but it's all better now. Some guy in town fixed it. Me and the Doc are in Violet, getting ready to fight Falkner! And I know rock Pokemon beat bird Pokemon, so look– look who I went out and got–

[ He turns the 'gear to show a Geodude at his feet, staring grumpily up at the camera. Purple the Rattata is perched on its head, cheerfully sniffing at the Rock-type, apparently unaware of the thing's bad mood. ]

His name's Grey and he's the newest addition to my team of Kindred Spirits! He's so cool and strong and really really friendly.

[ Grey the friendly Geodude takes this opportunity to make an angry gravelly sound, grab Purple by the tail, and fling the squealing rat offscreen. Shooter jumps and stares for a moment, before: ]

WHOA! Nice move, bro! You guys are right – we're wasting training time!