On the desolate, frozen peak of Mt. Silver, there sat a boy named Red.

He was clothed in only jeans, a t-shirt, a red summer jacket, and a red hat despite the blizzard-like conditions around him. Off to the side there was a light brown backpack that showed hints of once being a more yellow colour, but the colouring had obviously not lived through the harsh conditions existing on the mountain.

In Red's arms he held a small but fierce-looking Pikachu, whose bright yellow colouring had clearly not been dulled like the backpack's was. The Pikachu had snuggled into Red as best as it could manage, enjoying the absent-minded petting Red was giving it.

Red's attention was focused on something else entirely. For the last hour, the fourteen year-old had been watching a young girl make her way up the mountain. He was looking forward to seeing his new challenger; from his perch above he could make out her white hat and and pigtails, but that was all. Red enjoyed spying on his challengers in this way—he knew that, while he could see them clearly, the glare from the sun reflected off the snow made him completely invisible. Not that anyone ever cared to look up.

She looks like a good battler, he thought, watching the girl easily defeating all the powerful wild Pokémon living on the mountain who dared challenge her. Though, not as good as me. This should be a pretty quick battle. But she definitely has her technique right, and she looks to be doing everything she should be doing. She just needed to train her Pokémon a bit more before attempting to come up here.

Or maybe I'm wrong, and I'm about to get my ass whooped. But I'm pretty sure I'm right.

He leaned back a bit, and tried to think of how he should act when she reached the summit and they met. While Red loved the solitude of the mountain, and the great peace it provided to him, he couldn't help but admit it got boring up there sometimes. So, his version of "entertainment" was to act in some sort of way to provoke a reaction from whoever his current challenger was for his own amusement. The most common act he did—which wasn't entirely an act sometimes—was to be utterly serious and silent and intimidating. The sight of a young, pale-faced teenager living on the top of a mountain wearing jeans and a t-shirt and owning impossibly powerful Pokémon...well, it was more than enough for people to nearly believe he was a ghost. And it was amusing. Again, this "act" wasn't entirely false—he really didn't like talking much, and was a serious boy by nature, but he exaggerated his own traits to see others' (usually rather funny) reactions.

This wasn't his only act, of course. He had tons. Whenever some sort of serious-looking manly man came up the mountain expecting some sort of wise old guy at the top that would teach him the secrets of Pokémon training, Red made sure to act like as much of a bratty little kid as he possibly could because the reaction of initial shock, followed by raging annoyance was always way too fun to pass up.

Yeah, I know doing that makes me kind of a jerk, but I don't do it often, he told himself. I'm good most of the time. I'm not like Blue, that jerk's a jerk full-time.

Not long ago the girl below entered the final cave that would lead her to him. He didn't have any ideas for what kind of act would be the most entertaining for him, so he supposed that he'd just go for his old stand-by and act like a ghost. That always provoked some sort of reaction out of people.

He stood up, setting his Pikachu down on the ground, to its annoyance after enjoying all the petting. The girl would be here any moment now, and the ghost act worked better if her first sight of him was him facing away from her, staring blankly into space. So he began to do so.

Right on cue, Red heard faint sounds of clothes rustling, fast breathing, snow crumpling under feet. He knew she was gazing up at him, sizing up her final challenge. He turned, meeting her eyes before she tried walking up to meet him. Wow, she's even younger than me.

The one issue with Mt. Silver's peak is that it was small. A Pokémon battle could never be held up there. To the right of the summit's cave entrance was a short path that would lead to a big, wide-open, snowy area to hold battles in, but Red couldn't help but feel that it would be much more awesome if battles were held on the mountain's peak. Oh well.

Anyway, the girl. Ooh, she has a heavy winter coat on. Haven't worn one of those for a while. I'd probably melt. She was standing at the cave exit, looking up at him with determined, but slightly hesitant eyes. Red was always good with body language, it was how he knew how to communicate with Pokémon so well—they expressed themselves mostly through body language. He obviously could tell that the girl was a bit scared, but also proud of herself for making it to this point and was convinced she was going to beat him. Everyone was like that. He also decided that she was an outgoing type of person. Definitely an extravert. Definitely talks a lot. Definitely my exact opposite, he thought. Then: Superficially, at least, reminding himself that anyone that could make it to this point, and so young, was more like him then he cared to admit.

She started to speak. "My name's Lyra. I guess you're Red." He nodded. "I'm here for a battle," she said in a semi-confident voice.

Straight and to the point. Red liked that. He made a quick, lazy gesture to the path to the right of the cave exit, basically saying "We're going down that path. That's where our battle will be," and then walked down to lead her.

As he was nearing her, he saw something he honestly wasn't expecting, something he can't remember ever happening to him before. His challenger blushed. Lightly, but it was there.

Red brushed it off. Well, of course. I'm a young teenage male celebrity, basically, he thought, even though he had never thought of himself as one before, until now. And this is a young girl who, well, I guess might think of me as her idol, even though she's never seen me before. And young girls having faux-crushes on young male teen celebs is so common it's a cliché. Despite this justification, he was feeling mighty proud of himself. Of course, his body language stayed stoic, indicating nothing of his thoughts.

Just as he started leading her away from the cave exit and to the "arena", he had a brainwave.Blushing. I can use this.

Then the sane part of his brain said, No you can't.

He ignored the sane part of his brain.

Blushing. She likes me, in some way that probably has to do with celeb and idol status. Or maybe I look hotter than I think I do. Or maybe I'm just kidding myself. It doesn't matter. The point is...here's my entertainment! Yes! I have no idea what I'm doing, but what does that matter? I'm winging it.

Red turned around and looked at Lyra. The ghost act was gone, now he had a strange sort of sly grin on his face. "Oh, you're blushing. I'm flattered."

Immediately whatever light hint of a blush there was on her face turned into a full-on deep flush. Red noticed from her body language that she no longer looked like the type that liked to talk a lot, she now looked like she would rather never have to say a word again. She looked down and muttered something that might have sounded like an apology if Red had bothered to strain his ears to listen to it. This exchange obviously wasn't what she had in mind when she came up to battle him. It was probably a lot more epic than this. Well, if the amusement-deprived part of Red's brain got its way, it was about to get worse.

He started advancing toward her. Slightly intimidated, she subconsciously took a few steps back, away from him. Which lead her into backing up straight into the cave wall, which she forgot was there.

He grinned at this. Wow, I can't believe it, that's just perfect, he thought. Also: I'm an ass.

He walked up to her and, deliberately mimicking the guys in those terrible TV shows, propped his arm against the cave wall above her head and leaned forward, looking down at her, noses nearly touching. He did that sly grin again, hoping it wasn't creepy. Apparently it wasn't, because Lyra didn't look afraid at all during this, just supremely uncomfortable, looking up at him slightly wide-eyed and blushing more. Oh, I am such a douche. I'm glad Blue isn't seeing this.

"So, why are you blushing? It couldn't possibly be because of me," he said coolly. Well, of course I said it coolly! How else would I say it? Certainly nothing is ever warm up in this mountain! he joked to himself. If he ever said anything that stupid out loud, of course, he might have ended his sorry existence by jumping off said mountain.

Lyra was squirming, knees buckling slightly to lower herself from Red's gaze. I cannot believe I'm actually finding this fun.

Still without having moved position, Red continued. "It must be because of the cold weather. Your cheeks are trying to keep warm. There's better ways of keeping warm, y'know," he said, as their closeness and Red's breath actually succeeding in warming the space between them up a bit. I can't believe it, this is so cheesy. Like, aged, rotten cheddar cheesy.

Lyra hadn't moved either, but she looked down and blubbered something Red couldn't make out. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that his Pikachu had been looking at him strangely throughout this entire proceeding. The corner of his mouth twitched, thinking about it. This whole thing must look pretty ridiculous. In fact, this whole thing is pretty ridiculous. Red was about to continue, but he was cut off by a different thought:

Now what?

He hadn't thought this far ahead. In fact, he hadn't thought even a few seconds ahead for this whole time, he had just been doing whatever came to mind. Because this was different, and when have minimal human contact, you like for different things to happen so that it becomes a fun memory to look back on when things are repetitive and dull. But the fact of the matter was that Red didn't know what he was doing, and so he had backed himself into a corner—Hey, kinda like the corner I've backed this girl into—without quite realizing it.

In all those terrible TV shows, this was when the guy would kiss the girl and they would make out or something. Red had absolutely no sexual ideas in mind when he started this, he just did it because it was something different and might be fun, Which it has been, not because he had anything in mind.

And now he was stuck. Stuck, leaning into and arm propped up above a young, blushing girl who may-or-may-not be liking this and with no plans to actually do anything. "Now what?" is right.Seriously, what's wrong with me? Have I been going out of my mind up here without realizing it?

The solution to his predicament came to him quickly. He realized he was still thinking as if he wanted to get out of this mess while keeping his current façade intact. Why bother doing that? This façade was what got him into the mess, why bother try to salvage it?

So Red ended up doing what's probably the most confusing thing he could have done: he went straight back into ghost mode. He pulled himself from the wall, a straight face replacing the sly grin, and said "Let's go battle now," in the most neutral and monotonous voice he could manage. Then he started walking down the path. Lyra at first just looked at him in a curious state of relief and complete bewilderment, then followed. She still wasn't talking, it seemed. Heh, I'm rubbing off on her. Except for all the wrong reasons.

They made it to the field. Determination returning to Lyra's eyes, they battled.

—

It was over pretty quickly. As Red had thought, Lyra still needed more training to do. Most of her Pokémon were knocked out by his Pikachu, utilizing its deadly combination of volt tackles and iron tails. After Pikachu fainted, Charizard took care of the rest.

Red was proud of her. He knew she had revives and hyper potions and such in her bag, but she chose not to use them even when she was being beaten badly. He liked that. He always thought that being able to use healing items on your Pokémon during battle ruined the entire "skill" aspect of battling and replaced it with "who's richer?" He was glad the girl seemed to agree with him on this.

Speaking of the girl, she was looking at him with a mixture of awe and some sort of anger. Anger? Oh yes, right, to get to this point so young, you'd have to be exceptionally talented. So talented you've probably never lost a battle before. So I guess being beaten so badly by me has got to sting a little.

"You were awesome," he told her. "Come back and we'll battle again, you'll do better." And, for the hell of it, he put a sly grin back on his face when he said this, causing her to lightly blush again, and with a look on her face that said that she wanted to kill her body for always doing that. Oh, hormones. What can you do? This is so fun. I'm such a jerk.

But what he said, he meant it. She was outstanding compared to pretty much every other trainer in the league. But he was just as talented as she was, plus he had the advantages of being on home turf and having trained his Pokémon for far longer.

But she'd have learned from this battle. She'd do better when they fought again, no question.

Before Lyra had the chance to say anything, Red made a gesture to Charizard. It immediately flew toward Lyra and scooped her onto its back, eliciting a surprised yelp out of the girl. Then it began to fly her and her Pokémon down the mountain to the Pokémon Centre at the base, not bothering to listen to the protests from Lyra saying that she was totally fine and could get down the mountainby herself! Red didn't listen to them either.

The boy watched them disappear into the clouds below, chuckling slightly at the irony that the girl he thought was talkative had talked significantly less than he had during their short time up there. He then picked up his Pikachu and walked back to his place on the peak, sitting down again. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it, Pikachu?" he asked the electric rodent. Pikachu seemed more concerned with being scratched behind the ears than listening, though.

Red, perched from his spot high above the clouds, gazed out to the horizon, the sun preforming a light show on the clouds and the late-afternoon sky. There really wasn't a more beautiful place than here. He had found his perfect place of solitude, of peace. And with just enough amusement from his challengers to keep him from ever becoming too bored. Someday he'd get off this rock, but that day wouldn't be for a while, he knew that.

He gazed down, seeing if he could spot Charizard, who he knew would be back soon. What he saw surprised him.

Trekking up the mountain was another challenger. Two in one day. Unbelievable.

"Think you can fight some more, Pikachu?" he asked as he spied on the new challenger from high above. It, as Red knew it would, happily nodded yes.

So, this new challenger. It was another kid, a young boy. Black hair was covered by a golden-coloured baseball cap that looked like an Ultra Ball when seen from above. Interesting.

So, what act would he put on for this kid? After what he did to Lyra, he couldn't just do the ghost routine again. That would be anti-climatic. But what could he do?

Hell, maybe he could try doing the exact same thing as he did to Lyra to this boy.

Now that would be amusing.

FIN

A/N: This entire fic is inspired by a pic I saw on DeviantART: kaoruaichan(period)deviantart(period)com/art/Polishipping-180774061

The train of thought that led from seeing that pic produced this.