The kimono girl turned first. Then the fisherman. One by one, the crowd dissolved back into the fog.
“We don’t eat that here,” he said flatly, though they absolutely did.
A fisherman spat. “You helped create it. We don’t want your kind here.” 4780 - Pokemon Heartgold -u--xenophobia-
But Lyra noticed the whispers. The way Mr. Pokemon locked his door when Gold passed. How the Day-Care couple charged him triple. The ugly curl of a fisherman’s lip as Gold fished on Route 42: “Go back to your Celadon City high-rises, city boy. These waters are for Johto blood.”
Lyra grabbed his wrist. “No.”
“I stopped it,” Gold said, rising. His voice cracked. “I helped .”
They didn’t fix Johto that night. The old wounds didn’t heal. But as they walked back through the dark forest, Gold’s Typhlosion lighting the path, Lyra realized something: xenophobia isn’t a monster you defeat in a single battle. It’s a wild Pokemon you have to raise—slowly, patiently, with more failures than successes. The kimono girl turned first
That was when the locals arrived. A dozen of them—fishermen, berry farmers, a kimono girl with cold eyes.
The breaking point came at the Lake of Rage. “We don’t eat that here,” he said flatly,
“Only when you steal my experience points,” she said. And for the first time, he smiled like he meant it.
Gold had just defeated the Red Gyarados—a monstrous, shimmering thing driven mad by forced evolution. Exhausted, he knelt at the water’s edge, washing the crimson scales from his arms. Lance, the Dragon Master, clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve got the heart of a true Johto trainer.”