It was exceedingly unusual, Red thought, for Pikachu to be any kind of friendly. To strangers, it stayed away, sticking close to Red, growling and sparking in agitation and sometimes biting when a stranger’s hand came too close; even to Red’s friends, it only reluctantly let them pet it, and stayed away from them if it could.
So it was decidedly odd that now, of all times, Pikachu suddenly bounced up to a stranger and tugged on their pants leg, searching for a pat on the head or a scratch by the ear, if Red’s experience taught him anything. Maybe it was because the stranger looked somewhat like him– but with a combination of tall and pale separating him from Red, he doubted that was the reason.
“Sorry about that!” Red rushed to scoop Pikachu up, and held it in one arm, using his free hand to fix his hat. “I don’t know what got into Pikachu, this doesn’t generally happen…” He slightly bowed his head in apology; and in doing so, caught a glimpse of a strange bracelet around the other’s wrist. (A fitness tracker, probably…?) All the while, Pikachu wriggled in Red’s arms in discontent, though the Trainer failed to notice, or at least pretended not to.
↳ ❂ ↰ It looked like something out of a video game, but considering he’d never played them as a child, Kaeto couldn’t tell which one. Either way, being accosted by a chubby yellow rabbit with a lightning bolt tail didn’t occur to him when he decided to go for a walk, so excuse him for being weirded out by the whole thing.
And then someone else came along and scooped the thing up, apologising for its behaviour, and the teen didn’t know what to do about that. Was he still on Earth? Was the limiter malfunctioning and his ability going wonky without him being aware of it? Perhaps there was a reason he’d been advised not to stray too far from the city, but his classes were so boring that sometimes he couldn’t help but skip them.
“Uh, that’s fine? It didn’t hurt me, so I’m good. It looks a bit unhappy, though.” He nodded towards the creature, noting how it writhed around in an attempt to free itself from its owner’s grasp. What did it want with Kaeto? On second thought, he should probably just dismiss the entire situation as a figure of his imagination. The researchers were screwing around with their tech was all.
