As much as I wanted to spend the next few days doing nothing, there were things to do. Thankfully, Emma was more than willing to take the workload. Honestly, it was a bit concerning how eager she was. While the Joys were taking care of all the Pokemon, she was doing all the logistics. And I mean all of it. Every time she had a task to complete, or a new problem, she’d get a certain gleam in her eye that definitely would have worried me if she wasn’t working on my side.

  It wasn’t long before I discovered what her motivation really was.

  All it took was a single conversation, and everything was completely understood. Really I should have expected it.

  It was spite.

  The Association had done so much against her. Mind controlling her was only one thing on a very long list of the things they had done to her. And then they had not only ruined her career, accused her of quite a number of things, and tried to have her arrested - which was the first time I had heard about that - they also got her blacklisted. She was considered unhirable in any place that she could put her skills to use.

  That’s why she was so eager to come work for me when I offered. No one would hire her with those bastards dragging her name through the mud. They blamed her for being unable to control me or reporting on my actions, despite her literally being in a coma.

  With how annoyed I was about that, it was easy to imagine just how pissed she was. But from what I could see, using New Hope to spite the Association was very therapeutic for her.

  The Aether Foundation was quick to leave. Like, kind of scary quick. They were gone and flying back to Alola before I even woke up after our wrap up meeting. Shame that I hadn’t gotten the chance to give them a farewell.

  Four days had passed before I was finally confident the whole thing wouldn’t collapse the moment I left. I made one more shopping trip, buying two months of food and pokeblock supplies.

  “It’s still going to be a struggle with funding,” Rebecca said with a sigh, talking with Delphine.

  “We can last a few weeks…” she replied, typing things on the computer.

  “And then what?” she said with a bit of a huff. “A lot of them can scavenge, but there are too many domesticated Pokemon out there. They don’t know how to forage.”

  “Could teach them agriculture," I suggested, leaning against the desk.

  Both of them stared at me for a moment before looking at each other. “That…could work,” Rebecca said slowly. “There have been documented events of Pokemon doing that. But mostly it’s cultivating berry trees…”

  I rubbed my chin, brow furrowing. There was something I was forgetting…

  “That still costs capital to get set up, and a lot of time,” Delphine rebuffed, not in a malicious way but more to remind us. “The pokebean trees are at least six months from producing anything, and they’re only growing that fast because of all the grass types helping. The Aether Foundation left us with a lot of pokebeans, which is the only reason we can struggle along.”

  It was something… I had thought about it a long time ago, but was struggling to remember…

  “We really just need seeds, right?” Rebecca said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “The Pokemon can till the ground and all that stuff without tools.”

  “I guess we can ask Diantha for some funds to set up a farm?” the other Joy questioned. The two of them didn’t want to bother the Champion and beg for handouts.

  I snapped my fingers. “Right!” I reached into my bag as the two Joys turned their attention to me. In response to their questioning gaze, I dumped a small pile of pink diamonds on the table. “Are these worth anything?”

  They stared at them for a moment before Delphine was suddenly on her feet, and Rebecca had grabbed a hold of my coat. “Where did you get those?!” they both shouted.

  “Diancie,” I said with a bit of a shrug. I had been absentmindedly collecting them whenever she used Diamond Storm and left a few. My intention had been to sell them, but it had completely escaped my mind.

  Both of them just stared at me for a moment before looking at the pile. “That…”

  “Makes sense,” Delphine finished Rebecca’s sentence.

  “Are they worth anything, though? Since they were made by a Pokemon?” I asked, picking up one of the little gems.

  “Of course!” Rebecca shouted, shaking me. “They’re freaking diamonds!”

  “How many more do you have?” the other Joy hurriedly asked, looking around as if she was scared someone was watching.

  “Well, that’s all I have right now…” They stared at me. “She can… make more,” I said slowly.

  Poor Delphine collapsed into her seat, nearly having fainted. “No wonder the Association wants her so bad… If she can just…. Make them… They could corner the market on pink diamonds…”

  “How much would it take to crash the market?” I asked, rubbing my chin.

  Both of them looked at me, wide eyed. “Why would you want to do that?”

  My brow furrowed a bit. “I don’t? That’s why I asked?”

  “Oh, right,” Delphine said, patting her chest. “Right. Okay.” She started to type at her computer again, occasionally glancing at the diamonds. Suddenly she looked very pale, staring at the screen.

  A bit concerned, Rebecca and I leaned over to see the screen. “Oh,” came the soft voice of the other Joy.

  “So, about two thousand for a rough cut of this size,” I muttered as I picked up one of the diamonds. They weren’t flawless diamonds, but they were decently sized. An actual jeweler could work this into quite an impressive piece.

  I reached into my coat and both Joys stared at me as I retrieved a pokeball, and then summoned Diancie, who stretched and yawned lightly. Apparently she had been napping. Unlike what I had initially thought, the large rock Pokemon did indeed need sleep.

  “Hey there,” I said, reaching up and rubbing the diamond on her head.

  She giggled, pressing her head into my hand, reaching up to grab hold of it. “Are we going to train soon?”

  “Not yet,” I replied, smiling at her. “I wanted to ask if you could use Diamond Storm, and then not absorb any diamonds.”

  She frowned a bit. “I’m gonna be super tired all day…”

  “That’s fine, it’ll probably be a day or two before we can start doing Gravity training again,” I explained, glancing at the Joys. I couldn’t remember if one or both of them knew about my training methods. Or was it neither? There was a Joy that had seen it, right? Honestly it was so difficult to keep them separated in my head.

  “Okay,” she said with an over exaggerated sigh. She raised a hand out into the empty room, and before either Joy could protest or tell her she should use a room, she pelted the absolute shit out of the wall and floor with diamonds. Thankfully she hadn’t aimed at the window.

  I winced slightly as I looked over the damage, watching as Diancie then used her control to yank out all the little gems and leave them in a heap on the floor.

  It was silent for a moment, the Joys unable to decide whether to be angry or shocked at the amount of jewels in front of them. So they seemed to settle on just being dumbstruck.

  “Can I go back in my ball now?” Diancie said with a huff, and I wondered where she got that sass from, or if sleepy rock meant sassy rock.

  But I nodded, holding the ball out. “Of course. Thank you, my little gem,” I said as I rubbed her head again.

  That seemed to please her, as she smiled before disappearing back into the pokeball.

  “If…” Rebecca started, still staring at the pile. “If you could just… have all that… Then why do you dress like a hobo?”

  I blinked at her and looked down at myself. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?” I asked, a bit confused. Everything was in good shape; my pants didn’t even have any holes in them. And Mikyu had done a fantastic job keeping my coat looking good.

  “You dress like… that.” Delphine added, gesturing to me vaguely.

  “I like this coat,” I said with a frown, brushing off some imaginary dust.

  “It’s your only coat,” she continued with a deadpan expression.

  I was about to disagree before I remembered that I’d given my other coat to Cara. “It is my only coat,” I agreed, still not really seeing the argument she was making. “Doesn’t mean it can’t also be my favorite.”

  “All you’re missing is a beard, and you’d look homeless,” Rebecca said, sounding incredibly done for some reason.

  I reached up and rubbed my chin. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to grow one out again, but for some reason can’t? Kinda weird. I haven’t shaved in almost a year.”

  They looked at each other before sighing in unison and shaking their heads.

  “I just don’t understand,” the Joy continued with another shared sigh with her counterpart.

  “Why do you dress like a homeless man?” Delphine continued.

  “I just don’t really care about fashion? I just wear what’s comfortable and functional.” I looked at them for a moment, my brow furrowed. “And I mean, technically speaking, I am homeless.”

  Both of them stared at me, blinking several times. It was a bit weird how they were getting more and more in sync as the conversation progressed. That had to be on purpose.

  “I don’t have a home. Therefore, I am homeless,” I elaborated. I rubbed my chin for a moment in thought. “If I wanted to stretch the definition, this facility could be considered a home. But I don’t plan to live here, so that isn’t quite right.”

  “Where…do you usually sleep?” one of them asked, and I missed which one.

  I shrugged. “I take full advantage of the Pokecenter accommodations, and I’ve spent the last few months staying in one of Valerie’s training rooms. Worst case, I have a really nice tent. It’s honestly fascinating at how much infrastructure has been set up to facilitate a rather comfortable homeless life.” Mentally, I considered that was probably how AZ had been fine. Although he might also just live in a cave. Or he could have a house and just dress like he’s homeless.

  It was quiet for a moment as the two digested this information. “Sorry,” Delphine suddenly said. “I guess it just never occurred to me that you didn’t have a place to live…” Rebecca nodded in agreement.

  A thought struck me. “Do you two have homes?”

  That question seemed to baffle them. Rebecca was the first to recover. “Yes?” Then it was like realization suddenly dawned on her. “Oh, yes. Of course, you probably wouldn’t know. All Joys are given housing after graduation.”

  “Wow. That sounds nice,” I said, contemplating the logistics of it.

  “It’s just a small apartment near the Center,” Delphine explained with a shrug. “Mostly it’s because we’re not allowed on site unless there’s an emergency. To prevent burnout. But it’s close enough that we can come running if there’s an all hands call.”

  “That means New Hope probably complicates things a bit,” I mused, thinking about how out of the way the place is.

  Delphine waved a hand vaguely. “That was taken into consideration during construction. We have little apartments in building.”

  Rebecca frowned a bit. “We didn’t even consider you,” she said, actually sounding a bit upset. “It just…never crossed our minds that you…didn’t have a home.”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine. Having a place means people can find me.”

  Both of them frowned. “That sounds like…some unhealthy paranoia.”

  “It’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you,” I countered with a smile.

  They exchanged looks before sighing. “That’s fair,” Rebecca commented.

  “Back on topic,” Delphine said, looking at the pile. “We’ll have to do some testing on these. Make sure they don’t like… explode.”

  That was something I hadn’t considered. “Well, I’ve had a handful of them in my bag for months without issue… But it’s a good idea to check them.”

  “Also shouldn’t do this often. Both for the health of Diancie, and the market,” Rebecca mused, tapping her chin. “Getting them checked over shouldn’t take too long, and we’ll sell them slowly and only as needed. That way, in case there’s some sort of adverse effect on Diancie, we can have her absorb the majority back.”

  “How likely is that?” I asked, only really thinking now about all the different consequences this could have. It was a good thing that it had escaped my mind until now.

  “Not very,” Rebecca assured. “Doing this once should be fine, but doing it again, especially anytime soon, could have some detriment to her energy usage. She seemed a bit lethargic, but that was already the case when you had brought her out.”

  I nodded slowly. “I’ll keep an eye on her. I don’t think there was anything different, aside from her being a bit sassy because I woke her up.”

  Both Joys giggled a bit at that, the exact same tone and timing. Their mirroring was starting to get creepy. “Okay, well, we should get these tested…”

  Again I nodded. “You do that. I’m going to go start training for the League. I’ll stay in cell range.”

  And then, much to the baffled looks of the Joys, I simply walked into the woods.

  Clearly they had thought I had been exaggerating, which was really funny.

  Quite a lot of Pokemon followed me as well, questioning what I was doing. It was kind of nice to explain that I was going to be training my Pokemon for the League. Which got a lot of them excited. They knew what the League was, and a lot of the pets had watched it with their old Trainers.

  All of my family was walking as well, talking and playing with the followers as we walked. Well, Cara wasn’t walking. She was riding on top of Scoly. It was fine to take our time right now and de-stress with a long walk.

  We were heading to a spot I’d seen back when I was helping with the survey. It was almost exactly like our old training grounds, but a bit smaller. Not that that would be a problem.

  It took two days to get there. It probably would have taken less time, but Cara was still injured, and I wasn’t in a rush. We still had over four months till the League, and all of that was for getting stronger, and dealing with any problems that cropped up.

  Thinking about it as I came up to the small clearing, I probably would never have been able to find the place again if it wasn’t for the river.

  Most of the following Pokemon had drifted back. They wanted to be close to the building, so that they could be fed and hopefully adopted. Some of the ones that wanted to join Trainers to battle did follow along, as did a few permanent residents.

  “Right, first order of business.” I turned to the group of Pokemon, a bit nervous that there were so many of them hanging around. I would feel bad for not feeding them if they stayed, which would be quite detrimental to my food stores. “We need to open this area up more.”

  A lot of the larger and stronger Pokemon seemed to get excited about this. “How big are we making the area?” Cara asked. She’d gotten so much better, but standing was still a struggle and she often leaned on Dee.

  “You’re not doing a damn thing,” I said flatly before turning to the rest of the Pokemon. She huffed at me in response. “About double the current area.”

  “Yeah!” Rio shouted and then just leapt at a tree and absolutely obliterated it.

  It was silent for a moment, the only noise was the tree slowly falling and crashing to the ground. She looked back, a big grin on her face. I sighed, wondering what exactly we were going to do with all the wood before another cheer went up. Some random Pokemon decided that Rio was a good role model and suddenly a ton of different Pokemon flew at the trees.

  “Clear over here first,” I said as I tried to direct them to an area near the river. I wanted a place to set up my tent. They all seemed more than eager to do so. As I watched them destroy the area and a few of the larger Pokemon drag trees away, I really wondered how humans survived.

  The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. These things are intelligent and ridiculously powerful. Sure, the humans in this world are very unlike the ones from my old one, but it still didn’t make sense. Technology could only go so far when there are creatures that can topple buildings. How do you build a city? That sounded like a question to ask a Professor.

  Which reminded me of Sycamore. He had apparently been cleared of any involvement with Team Flare, but I didn’t know if I trusted that. Really I didn’t know if I could trust him at all. Him tricking me into becoming a Pokemon Expert left such a bad taste in my mouth.

  I found out that there is a sort of late graduation test. All I had to do was go to a Pokemon School, say that I wanted to re-register as a Trainer, take a test, and as long as I passed I’d be a Trainer. That was it. It was so disgustingly simple.

  But while I definitely couldn't trust him, I couldn’t be mad at him. Just annoyed that he lied. But if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have Primarina. I probably wouldn’t have most of the Pokemon that I do, and would have been struggling a lot more than I was now.

  My attention snapped back to what was in front of me when something leaned against me. I looked over to find Cara using me to keep herself upright as she watched. “You looked bothered,” she said softly.

  “Thinking about Sycamore,” I said with a sigh.

  She frowned. I had shared my frustrations with her over what he had done, and she was in agreement that we couldn’t trust him. Especially after the Mega Stone incident. I still wasn’t sure what to think about that situation. From his reaction, Sycamore hadn’t been expecting it. So it was either Lysandre, or it was because my Key Stone was upgraded. Or it could have just been a faulty stone. I wouldn’t know. It wasn’t in any of the documentation.

  Cara leaned more heavily into me with a sigh. “He is untrustworthy.”

  I looked at her for a moment and then looked up to see if I could spot Dee. The pink Pokemon was easy to spot. Carrying an entire tree. Several other Pokemon were gawking at her. She was wearing the new weighted equipment, and was almost at two hundred pounds already. Which reminded me, I needed to figure out who wanted to wear the old one.

  It took an hour before the area for the tent was cleared to my liking. Even with several Pokemon helping, there were a lot of really large trees. They had to break apart the larger ones. There was a pile of wood and trunks. Those would actually be really good for targets. And obstacles and cover. That was something I hadn’t trained them for, taking cover and using the terrain to their advantage. Granted that wasn’t really something I really knew outside of videogames.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, I decided to start setting up the tent. Amusingly, I realized this was going to be where I lived for the next few months.

  Only about half the clearing was expanded by the time we stopped for the night. All of the Pokemon that had followed had left, leaving only those that were part of my family. I was both relieved and a bit annoyed. A lot more progress would have been made if they stayed, but now I didn’t have to feed them.

  “Mewtwo?” I asked the air as I set up the kitchen.

  “Yes?” they asked. I was starting to get used to them popping in whenever their name was mentioned.

  “This is the place that I mentioned,” I said, gesturing around. I had vaguely explained that I would be in the woods for a long time training all the Pokemon and they had been vaguely interested. They weren’t interested in participating in the training, but they said they wanted to watch.

  “You have not started,” they said, not posing it as a question.

  “Not yet,” I said with a nod, deciding that I was going to make full use of my new pasta maker to celebrate the beginning of our training. I’d only made pasta twice since getting it, and was working on tuning everything. It was nowhere near as good as when I had it back in Alola, but I was confident I could get there.

  “You are making the noodle stuff again?” they asked.

  Their eyes were always so intense. Thankfully Mikyu and Banette were used to them being around. The first few times they had been really scared. Or at least Mikyu had been. “Yup. I need to practice it a lot.”

  They mulled that over before nodding, seemingly satisfied with that answer.

  The next morning, the clearing of trees continued. It would probably take another full day for them to finish, especially since I had them do more than just pile up the logs. I set up targets and even had a number of them positioned as obstacles.

  Scoly was extremely pleased to have things to potentially bounce off of when she got going. Everyone else that was part of Team Speed Shell was really getting into moving the logs, as they could see it as clearly good training. Essy was doing her best to help, but the little cat did not have the strength to even make any of the logs budge.

  I had also had to admonish Bungle and Disaster for trying to just set the trees on fire. Primarina had her work cut out for her trying to keep their fire from spreading. Which was honestly good practice for the seal. That little team also had Immodest and Absol, working to try and keep the two fire dogs from burning everything down.

  Keo was working on using Iron Tail to batter the trees like a blunt axe in order to get them to fall, and then use them to drag the trees. She was focusing quite a lot on her tail strength, which was a good idea.

  The biggest problem I was having was with Diancie. She was still a bit tired from not absorbing her gems back, which was kind of worrying. So I had assigned her and Goodra to set up the targets and obstacles instead.

  Liar had officially joined Team Noncombatant. She got along quite well with Mikyu and Eevee apparently. When I went to check on them, I found the three of them napping together while Banette was more focused on taking care of Cara. The concern the little ghost doll had for her was something I hadn’t expected.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Thankfully Cara had really warmed up to the two ghosts, and didn’t mind Banette’s attention. Dee must have been teaching her some basic nurse things, as she seemed to be quite skilled.

  My thoughts drifted to Bit. They had remembered the skills they had in life… Maybe Banette was the same? Maybe all ghosts were like that. Several ghosts I had met seemed to have vague memories or skills. Mikyu was such a skilled seamstress, as if she had decades of practice, which made me think she actually might.

  I guess it didn’t really matter who they were, as long as they were happy now. And judging by the look Banette had, she was at least content with her life now.

  By the end of the day they were almost done. Mewtwo had gone off for the day, only returning when it was dinner time. I had no idea what the feline did all day, but they seemed to enjoy themselves.

  At the end of the third day, everything was finally ready. “Okay. Tomorrow we start training,” I said, getting everyone's attention. The excited grin on Rio’s face was a bit concerning, but quite a few of them had similar expressions so I ignored it. “We have a little less than five months, and I want everyone to train as if they’re going to participate, because you just might.”

  “Wait, not me though, right?” Liar asked, blinking at me.

  I looked at her for a moment and then smirked a bit before continuing. “All of you are pretty strong, so I expect you to do your best. That means running yourself ragged every day. From sun up to sundown, six days out of the week.”

  Quite a few of them had apprehensive looks on their face, and Liar just looked absolutely distraught.

  “The only ones who aren’t going to train are Cara, Eevee, and Bit. Liar and Mikyu don’t have to train if they really don’t want to,” I said while petting the top of the cats head.

  She huffed. “Don’t scare me like that…”

  “Cara will join once Dee clears her.” I looked around at everyone. “Be prepared for it getting rough tomorrow.”

  There was a general sense of anticipation for the rest of the night, and before going to bed I did a nature test on Absol. I had an inkling of what she would like, from what her curry preference had been, but it was always good to check so that I had a mental comparison. She liked dry, and hated spicy, so a modest nature just like Dee.

  In the morning, I set most of them to training. The gravity in the field increased suddenly before it erupted into chaos. It was amusing to see, but I had another task.

  I had a small group of Pokemon in front of me: Banette, Essy, Bungle, Disaster, Immodest, and Absol. “Alright. So, I need for you all to pick what sort of defense you would like.” They all looked a bit confused. “Dodge, block and deflect, or tank. I think I know what Banette wants to do. Dodge, right?”

  She had a big smile on her face and nodded.

  With that, I went into explaining what the differences between the three categories were, and a general sort of overview of how their training would look depending on what they chose. Essy, Bungle and Disaster all chose dodge. Surprisingly, Immodest chose tank, and Absol wanted to learn to block and deflect. From what I had seen of them I had expected them all to choose dodge.

  But I nodded and assigned them what they were going to do. Absol and Essy were still doing laps, but the others could start to actually train. Of course I told everyone to ease them into it, but I was worried Diancie wasn’t going to. Thankfully she only used the training balls and not rocks against them.

  Halfway through the day, Absol approached me. “What…are they doing?” she asked, a bit confused.

  “Training?” I questioned back, looking down at her.

  Her brow scrunched. “It looks more like…a game?”

  “Technically it is,” I said with a shrug. “Where I’m from it’s called Dodgeball. Although this is taken to quite the extreme and could hardly be compared.”

  “What a violent game…” she said softly.

  I laughed. “Okay, well, I mean you’re technically not supposed to try and attack each other during Dodgeball, and there’s usually two teams. It was more just the inspiration for the main training regime.” It had just seemed like the best way to train them. I always liked Dodgeball when I was back in school, although some kids take the game way too damn seriously and I couldn’t just have them do that every day back when I was a teacher…

  “So you made the game more violent,” she said rather flatly.

  I laughed, nodding. “Indeed I did. But that’s the best way to train. You make it a game, so you have fun with it. That’s how you keep a kid’s interest. You have to make it fun, or most of them won’t do it.”

  “I can see why Rio always gets excited at the thought of training,” Absol grumbled.

  “Nah she’s just a training junky. Now, don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. If you need a break, you can take one,” I said, glancing down at her.

  Her face went a bit red before she quickly started to run. Or at least started to run.

  That was when I heard another voice, this one much smaller. “Bean?” I looked down to see Essy clinging to my leg, rubbing against it.

  A snort escaped me as I crouched down, which my legs did not like. I was still in the Gravity after all. Maybe I should start working out a bit? “Here,” I said as I gave her a pokebean.

  She leaned against me as she began to eat, staring at the other Pokemon. I absentmindedly began to pet her, sitting down. The moment I did, she crawled into my lap. It was surprising how easily she was adjusting to the training. Since finding out she had barely come out of her infant stage before meeting me, that meant she was the youngest. Not including Alma.

  But she was growing at a rather rapid pace. The only reason I hadn’t had her join the battling was because she was so small and had no experience. I wanted Cara to be the one to teach her, since the dog would know how to do it better than me. Honestly, I missed having Cara a lot with training. She had such a good way of correcting things that I had missed. I could train them to be stronger, but she could train them how to fight.

  Days started to blur together.

  I started to join in with the training a bit, mostly just occasionally jogging around the perimeter. It was good to see how things were going from different angles. Absol had joined in the fighting pretty quickly, and despite my apprehension, so had Essy. I was glad that everyone was taking it easy on the little cat, and very willing to teach her.

  Rio and Scoly had definitely claimed her as a member of Team Speed Shell. Unfortunately the canine was trying to teach her to throw punches. And much to my dismay, so was Dee. I thought she would be the reasonable one in this situation, but no. She was eager to teach her. I bet it was because they were both pink.

  Diancie had also fully recovered. It had taken several days before she said she felt back to normal. Just in case, I decided that I wouldn’t keep any of her diamonds unless it was an emergency.

  Something that was extremely interesting to me was how much Keo and Banette seemed to be teaming up. The two of them had become incredibly close without my notice, and the large fox had even started to hang out with Mikyu. So it was unsurprising when the next masterpiece the little seamstress produced was for her.

  Suddenly Keo had a hat.

  Specifically, it was a light blue beret, with a matching little scarf. They were just off color enough to stand out from the blue tints of her fur, without being overly eye catching. She was absolutely stunned when Mikyu shyly handed them over, and nearly cried. She was so happy, and that day everyone else got to experience what an energized ice monster could do.

  But that wasn’t the end of surprises considering the fox.

  Apparently there was a reason Keo had sought out the two ghosts, and I found out why when she suddenly asked if she could do laps instead of training. Curious, I agreed.

  She did a few laps rather slowly, before stopping and talking with Mikyu about something. When she came back, she stood very still. My entire focus was on her as something began to drip from her stump. Immediately I panicked, thinking that she had injured herself, but it was too dark to be blood.

  Slowly it took shape, the little pool reaching up to connect until her shoulder was entirely covered.

  I was just stunned as I realized what she had done.

  She had taken Shadow Claw and applied it the same way Mikyu does. Since the little ghost doesn’t have actual arms, she applies the move as a substitute. So Keo used that to recreate her missing limb, or at least an approximation to it.

  From the shocked expression on her face, and the way that she immediately lost concentration, causing the leg to dissipate, it seemed that was the first time she had ever succeeded. Her entire body then suddenly seemed to bristle as a large grin formed on her face. She looked over at me and only seemed to grin larger.

  I guess she really didn’t need a prosthetic from Clemont after all.

  Despite that, it still took her two weeks to even be able to walk properly for any real distance. She didn’t have a lot of ghost energy, and Shadow Claw wasn’t even a move that Ninetales learned. I had asked her why she didn’t make it out of ice, and she gave me such a look and told me that ice doesn’t bend.

  As hilarious as that was, I was really glad that she had come up with her own solution.

  Cara’s recovery was going well, in that she could now walk around just fine, but she still wasn’t allowed to train or even get close to the Gravity area. Much to her annoyance.

  The next surprise was another outfit. Another hat, but this one was for Goodra. It was a rather wide straw hat that sat perfectly on top of her head even with her horns. What really caught me off guard though was the sundress. It was a rather plain shade of white, but had a flower pattern along the hems.

  She was so pleased with how it turned out, and was constantly twirling and showing off the entire time. She had thanked Mikyu, saying it was exactly how she wanted. I had to admit that it was quite a lovely dress, and I really was surprised that is what she wanted, but it worked.

  Suddenly one night, I was awoken by a soft beeping. Frowning a bit, my eyes tried to find the source, eventually locking onto the portable incubator.

  I shot up, tossing Pokemon off of me as I rushed over. There was quite a lot of noise and complaints as I looked at the screen. It was alerting me that the egg would be close to hatching within twenty four hours and I should make my way to a Pokecenter.

  The excitement that I was having was suddenly drained as I huffed. I had specifically not been watching the time, but I didn’t realize that much had passed.

  I rubbed my face before stretching. Checking my phone, it was very early in the morning.

  There was also a message from Gaston.

  That caused me to frown. He had been much better about only occasionally checking in, but this was actually a job. ‘Hey, since you’re close, can you go check in on the pokeball factory North of Laverre? They’ve been requesting assistance for something from an Expert, but won’t give specifics. Official request from the Association.’

  Reading over the message a second time, I sighed and just decided that I might as well do my job. But what was even more concerning, was this might be an event. In the games, Team Flare took over. And in the anime it was Team Rocket. From the wording of the text, it sounded more like a Pokemon problem, so hopefully it wasn’t either of those. Of course it could also be a trap. ‘Yes. I have business to take care of today anyways, so I can do that. Considering they want a Pokemon Expert, it has to do with a Pokemon. Can you try and wring out some information from them?’

  Tucking my phone away, I rubbed my face again and looked at the pile of Pokemon. Some of them had gone back to sleep, while others were looking at me. “What’s going on?” Dee asked.

  “Got a job,” I said with a sigh. “And the egg is close to hatching, so it looks like I’ll be heading back into town with a few of you. Probably won’t be back until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  Rio groaned, rolling away. “So they’re interrupting our training again?”

  “It is my job, Rio,” I said with a slight chuckle. “I don’t think I’ll need many, so if you really want to stay you can. We’ll need people to guard.”

  “I would prefer she go with you,” Cara said, watching her daughter out of the corner of her eyes. “It would make me feel better about it.”

  “If she doesn’t want to go, I’m not going to force her,” I said with a bit of a huff as I started to examine the incubator. It had a few little dings and some scuffs, but didn’t look too bad.

  “He doesn’t need all of us,” Rio started to argue. “He probably won’t even need anyone beside Scoly.”

  “Hey! I don’t want to go either,” the large bug said quickly.

  “You’re my ride there and back,” I said with a laugh. “Sorry buggo, you’ve got to go.”

  She grumbled a bit.

  “I’ll go,” Goodra said, raising her hand.

  “Me too!” Primarina excitedly added, jumping onto the large slug and using her to get more height.

  “I need either Dee or Banette to come, too,” I said, leaving the choice up to them. With Dee teaching Banette some things about nursing, I felt alright leaving one of them here for emergencies. “And Cara needs to come, so that she can get a check from the Joys.” I paused. “Which means Dee is staying here, because otherwise ya’ll are gonna get into trouble.”

  I could see the way that Rio slumped, clearly having already been ready to cause problems.

  “Mikyu, be sure to help Dee cook, okay?” I said softly as I rubbed the little costume ghost. Dee’s face went very red, clearly remembering when she had wasted all of the food I had left them.

  Shouldering the incubator, I looked at the group. Scoly, Primarina, Goodra, Banette, and Cara. Of course, Eevee was coming along as well. She would be getting a checkup as well. If two of the six members weren’t out of commission right now, this would be a pretty good team. Something that I might actually have in one of the games.

  All of them went back into their pokeballs aside from Scoly. Even Cara, since we would only be traveling for a few hours. What took two days on foot, was done just after the sun came up.

  There were quite a lot of Pokemon that joined - or tried to join - in on the bugs running. From what I could see they seemed to be settling in.

  We didn’t slow down until we came across a field. I had to really slow down and look over what was acres of farm land. Apparently, the Joys had quite a lot of success teaching the Pokemon how to farm, since I could already see quite a number of them out there.

  Really I should have expected how fast they would get everything set up, considering how important it was. But dang had they done a lot.

  Maybe I should have checked in more than twice in the last month. Then I probably wouldn’t have been so caught off guard. But Evelyne never really went into details. All she would say is that things are going great. There had been a bit of a problem with the Association throwing a fit, but they hadn’t done anything aside from complain. Gaston didn’t even text me about it.

  Walking along the edge of the field, to my left was a similarly altered landscape, but this one was full of berry trees. After a bit of travel I realized something interesting. The path I was walking was the same that I used when I left. They had marked the route I traveled before they set this all up, because I highly doubted this was a coincidence.

  Several Pokemon were walking with us, excitedly talking at me or Scoly. It didn’t seem like they wanted to actually talk to me, they were just happy to see me. And that honestly made me feel really good about everything that I had done.

  I asked them about the fields, and when they were expecting harvest. They were more than happy to chatter about it. From what I found out, they finished the fields two weeks ago, but it would be two more months before they had anything to harvest. Like the Joys had mentioned, grass Pokemon could speed up the growth.

  And there were quite a lot of grass types. Glooms were probably the most common grass type that I had noticed, which did make the certain areas a bit pungent. But it was something that I found pretty easy to get used to after the first few. There were even a few Vileplume.

  The berry trees were a different case, though. They would start producing in a couple weeks. Berry trees grew fast if they were planted right and nurtured. One of the confiscated Pokemon was a Leavanny who had been a part of some sort of illegal grow operation.

  There was another area of thick trees once we finally made it out of the farm area, and when we came out of it I could see the New Hope building. Shockingly I actually saw a few people. Young Trainers attempting to find partners, and a few that were a bit more humbly dressed focused on the Pokemon that wanted to be pets.

  I got quite a few curious glances, and looking behind me I realized why. There were signs posted saying guests are advised not to wander past this point, as the ones outside of this grove did not want human companions and may be hostile. Not a really threatening sign, but definitely a warning.

  Spotting a Joy near one of the doors, I made my way over. It took a moment for me to figure out which one this was. “Marie?” I asked.

  She gave me a rather large smile. “Wow, I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to tell which one I was.”

  I laughed as I dismounted Scoly before returning her to her pokeball. “Well I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure.”

  Her eyes wandered over me for a moment, and I realized I probably looked pretty thrashed. “Everything alright?” she asked a bit hesitantly, then spotted the incubator. “Oh! Right! It should be about time!”

  With another laugh I nodded. “Exactly.” I had to shift and struggle a bit to get the thing off. Looking at the timer, it was estimating twenty hours left. Which was weird because I was certain that it said twenty two when we had left, and it was definitely more than two hours to get here.

  As if knowing my question, Marie spoke up, “As it gets closer to hatching time, the timer will get more accurate. Come on, we have egg rooms.”

  I nodded at her explanation and followed. It was…actually busy. “What’s with all the people?” I asked as I looked around.

  Marie practically beamed at me. “Diantha, the Elite Four, and several gym leaders promoted us. We have commercials. Actual commercials, with the Diantha in them. It’s been amazingly busy.”

  That was really surprising. How long had Diantha been planning for that? “I guess I have to thank Diantha. Again.”

  She giggled. “And Malva. It was a great idea for you to make her our first adopter. Having a literal Elite Four member use the program pretty much shut down everything the Association was trying. You getting her to do that pretty much announced to the world that we had the League’s support.”

  I had to bite my lip from not immediately saying that I didn’t do that on purpose and just nod. Instead I had to ask, “What is the League’s official stance on us?” I had to keep my voice low.

  Marie didn’t answer until we were through a door and out of the public eye. Then she sighed. “They’re remaining neutral for now. While they haven’t admonished anyone for supporting us, they haven’t actually shown official support.” She rubbed her face, clearly annoyed at that.

  We kept walking through the halls. “What about the Clans?”

  “I don’t know about the Jennys, but the Joys are split. Majority is in our favor, but there are a lot of vocal leaders arguing over the long term impact. They’re arguing that we can’t sustain it. That there was a reason we put them down. That all we’re doing is prolonging their suffering by giving them hope.” She shoved the door open, clearly frustrated. “The fact that almost half the Elders agree with that in some way pisses me the fuck off.”

  Okay, way more than just frustrated.

  “What possible reason could they have for putting them down that they would argue that’s a good thing?” I asked, focusing on something that I had never managed to find out. Why had that been their choice?

  “It varies. Some say it’s population control. Others say it’s to prevent wild Pokemon from being overwhelmed by actually trained Pokemon. Or that those from villain teams are just as bad as their Trainer and should be treated as such. Bunch of bullshit,” she grumbled. I was quickly realizing that this Joy really didn’t have much of a filter when in private.

  “They’re treating them like animals, or tools, rather than living, thinking beings,” I said with a sigh as I put the incubator down where she gestured.

  “Exactly! And it’s so dumb. I always felt like it was a bit weird.” She started to fiddle with the machine and I actually looked around the room. It was extremely warm, with padding all over the floor and what appeared to be a much larger version of the incubator against the back wall. The walls were painted to make it look like we were outside, and it reminded me of a nursery. Which made sense. “Especially after seeing how easy it was to set up New Hope,” she continued.

  “Well, not easy. We really just got lucky that the Association was busy and couldn’t pay attention,” I said with a shrug.

  There was a scowl on her face as she looked back. “But that’s exactly the point. Why are they so against it? You’d think they would love the opportunity to control thousands of Pokemon.”

  “But that’s the thing.” I leaned against the wall, watching as she was opening the portable incubator. “They can’t control it. And honestly, what are they going to do with a thousand Caterpie?”

  She paused for a moment and then sighed before nodding. “Right. There’s a lot of weak Pokemon out there, or ones that have never even been in a battle. They would just brush those off as useless…”

  “Which none of them are. That’s something that really bothers me.” I shook my head, watching as she returned to work, laying the egg gently onto padding inside the machine before closing it. After a moment of silence, I decided to ask something that I was wondering about. “Is growing berry trees illegal?"

  I watched as he entire body stiffened and she didn’t move for several seconds. “Uh… Well, not illegal per se…” She tried to go back to work, but kept glancing at me.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I said with a chuckle and shook my head. “I’m the one who’ll get in trouble, not you. Although we can just say it was the Pokemon and feign innocence.”

  She frowned a bit as she started to dial things in. “I don’t see how anyone would believe that.”

  “Then we just make sure they don’t find out. Or when they do, that it doesn’t matter.”

  The woman looked at me for a moment before taking a deep breath and turned her attention back to the machine. “Alright. So, looks like you’ve got about twenty hours of waiting.”

  I sighed as I moved over to look. There were tons of different diagnostic things, clearly paying close attention to every detail of the egg and what was inside it. And there was the timer, vaguely saying twenty hours.

  “You’ll want to be in here for when it hatches. That way it will bond with you,” she said, oddly firmly.

  I scoffed a bit as I looked at her. “There’s no way that I wouldn’t be here.”

  Her rather stern expression softened and she smiled. “Good.”

  The next few minutes were spent with Marie explaining what was going on with the egg and what all the numbers at stats meant. It was honestly way too much. This was just an egg and definitely did not need all this. I just didn’t understand all the effort, so I asked, “Doesn’t this seem like a bit much?”

  She paused and her brow furrowed. “This is important to assure a successful hatch.”

  Well with the way she said that I was definitely paying full attention. “You mean there’s a chance it could fail?”

  “Yes,” she said, rather softly. “Eggs in the wild only have around a fifty percent chance of hatching, depending on type it can be higher or lower. Bug types have around seventy percent, but a fire type like this…” She hesitated. “Maybe thirty to forty.”

  “That is… very low…” I found my tone matching hers. “So that’s why an incubator is needed.”

  She nodded. “Yes. It raises the chance by a lot. But there’s… still a chance. But judging from these readouts, there’s no problem.”

  I stared at the screen for several moments, and then looked at the egg. Immediately I got a feeling that everything was going to be alright. It seemed that my ability worked on eggs. “Okay. Well, I have work to do, so I’ll be back after.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Work?”

  “The Association wants me to check what the Pokeball Factory wants. They called for a Pokemon Expert,” I explained before shrugging. “But I want the ones I have with me checked over first.”

  It was quite quick to have everyone checked. And much to my - and Cara’s - relief, the blue canine was almost fully recovered. Because she had been forced to be very careful and rest practically all day every day, she would be fully recovered in just three or four days. Marie explained that she could do some light battling and training, but wouldn’t be at peak strength.

  Cara was absolutely ecstatic, and it took a bit of convincing her that she should still take it easy. But now she was back on her feet, and was apparently just building up her energy stores. The damage she had taken was all healed now, although she still had obvious scars. She said she didn’t mind them, but I saw the way she looked at her reflection.

  Eevee was also on the way to recovery. Her energy channels were still mending, but she was starting to store it and was even able to manipulate it a little. She could use moves now if she focused really hard, but they were extremely weak. Marie had quite a complex expression on her face when examining the little fox and I couldn’t quite place it. There was this little tickling feeling that I was missing something.

  But for now I brushed it out of my mind. I would ask later if it still bothered me.

  Heading into Laverre, my first stop was the gym. Valerie and I had been texting quite a lot, discussing quite a lot of different topics. I definitely considered her a close friend, probably in a best friend slot if I thought about it. She definitely knew more about my old life than anyone else, that was for sure. And thankfully with Bit in my phone I didn’t have to worry about anyone snooping.

  Needless to say, she would have been so pissed if I came back and didn’t stop by.

  And the gym was absolutely packed. Dozens of Trainers milling about, discussing things or just hanging around. This was definitely the best hangout spot in Laverre, or at least the most popular.

  I made my way over to Allie, who startled slightly when she saw me. “Jace?”

  “Yo,” I replied with a bit of a wave. “Valerie in a battle?”

  She nodded, clearly quite stunned to see me. A lot of nearby people looked at me quite confused. “She is.”

  I sighed, frowning a bit. “Dang.”

  “She’s really busy today. This is about the time of year she sees a big spike of challengers,” Allie explained with a bit of a smile. “She’s going to be so mad she missed you.”

  With a chuckle, I nodded. “Well, I’ll stop by later tonight. Hopefully she doesn’t get too mad.” I laughed a bit before waving to her and leaving.

  Releasing Scoly and getting onto her, we headed north.

  I had considered visiting the Pokeball Factory since it was so close, but just never really saw a reason besides curiosity.

  Suddenly Scoly slowed and I was broken by my thoughts, looking up at the rather large facility. My first question was, “Why is it so big?”

  “We’re the largest producer of pokeballs in the world,” a voice suddenly said.

  Looking to the side, I could see a security guard. “Ah, well, I guess that makes sense then.” I got off of Scoly, returning her before approaching the guard station. “I’m Pokemon Expert Jason, and my assistance was requested?”

  He blinked at me for a moment. “Ah, right. Sorry, I thought you were here for a tour. One moment.” Reaching down, he pulled a radio from his belt. “I’ve got a Pokemon Expert here,” he said into the radio. “Why do we need an Expert?”

  “He’s here?!” screamed a voice from the other side, causing the guard to pull the radio away from himself, frowning.

  “Yes,” he replied flatly.

  “Send him in! Send him in! I’ll meet him at the door!” came the oddly excited voice.

  The guard stared at the radio for a moment before shrugging and clipping it back to his belt. “Well, you heard him. I guess you can go in.” He gave a rather interesting laugh before waving me towards the building.

  I nodded at him before walking up the path. “Thanks.”

  The actual factory really was a large building, with pokeball statues everywhere. I could even see them in the brickwork of the path I was walking, painted on the building, and there was even a mosaic of stained glass over the main entrance of a pokeball. Whoever built this place had an unhealthy obsession with balls.

  The large doors ahead of me opened before I even got close, revealing a rather disheveled scientist looking man with an almost manic grin on his face. His coat was decorated with pokeballs of all sorts, and even the glasses on his face were apparently pokeball themed. Although his grin faltered as he took in my appearance. “You’re the Expert?”

  Without really reacting to him I pulled out my ID and held it out to him. “Pokemon Expert Jason, but I prefer Jace. The Association requested that I come and assist with whatever mysterious problem you seem to be having.”

  He stared at the card a moment, adjusting the comically massive glasses on his face. “Yes. Okay. I’m Dr. Spherule, head of the Pokeball Factory.”

  Seems I found the one with the obsession. “Good to meet you. Now, what’s the problem that you’re so cagey about?”

  Now he was frowning, staring at my ID for a moment longer, as if trying to determine if it was fake or if there was some sort of mistake. Eventually he cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses again. “Right. Well, please come with me.” He turned and began to walk inside.

  I rolled my eyes as I slipped my card back into my bag and followed after. He could at least try to hide his disappointment.

  It was silent for several minutes as he led me through the facility. Eventually we reached a room and he finally spoke. “Three days ago there was an incident involving our Porygon. Ah- a Porygon is-”

  “The first artificially created Pokemon. I am aware,” I said with a nod, gesturing for him to continue.

  Clearly he didn’t like being interrupted, but if he was going to be rude to me I was not going to be very nice in turn. He adjusted his glasses before continuing. “Yes, well you see, we had gotten our Porygon quite a number of years ago, and it has been running most of the factory.”

  I glanced at the door, quite aware that he wasn’t opening it for some reason. “I’m assuming you had it evolve?”

  He stared at me for a moment before nodding. “Yes. Three days ago, we had it upgraded into Porygon2. It’s a far more capable model, heightened intelligence and capabilities. But now it also seems… lethargic? I think that’s the best way to put it.”

  “Melancholy?” I suggested and he blinked at me. “From what I know of Porygon and Porygon2, I can make some assumptions of the problem, but I would have to see them to know for sure.”

  There was a moment of silence before he sighed and nodded. “Alright.” He turned and punched in a code into the keypad by the door, which then opened with a hiss. The room beyond looked like a control room, dozens of keyboards and monitors set up and viewing the factory floor where robotic arms were in the process of making pokeballs.

  The weird part was there was no one in here, and Dr. Spherule did not enter.

  Cautiously I walked inside, very much aware that he was not following, and made my way to the closest work space. Sitting down, I looked back at the man who looked very nervous. “Well? Either come in or close the door.”

  He jolted slightly at my comment before hitting something on the control panel and the door closed.

  All I could do was shake my head and turn my attention to the screen. On the display was a pink head with a blue bill, and large eyes staring at me. “Hey there,” I said with a smile. “I’m Jason, but I prefer Jace, are you okay?”

  Lucario - The group mom, battered and out of action

  Lucario - This dog wants to own things.

  Scolipede - Pokemon transport unit

  Primarina - Doing big seal things

  Audino - Trained Nurse Pokemon

  Diancie - Big sparkly that just wants to throw rocks at people

  Eevee - Living that sleepy hood life

  Goodra - Big slug

  Mimikyu - Very skilled seamstress

  Banette - Silent but powerful.

  Ninetales (Alolan) - Big fox

  Espurr - Little cat that likes pokebeans.

  Liepard - Big hungry cat

  Houndour - Just a little pup

  Houndoom - Bit of a space case

  Mightyena - Super serious

  Fennekin) - Not up to too much yet.

  Rotom - Hacker-mans

  Absol - Future problems