My planned exploration finally began, and thankfully, weren’t interrupted. For once. Really felt like the world did not want me to expose Team Flare. Maybe this was some sort of fate nonsense? Like this is supposed to be something for Ash to take care of? I never really gave much credence to fate. Was it fate that I got my head bashed in with a bat and ended up in a world full of Pokemon? Besides, I’m sure by the time he gets to Kalos, he’s going to need a well deserved break.

  Actually, now that I was thinking about it, with Arceus involved it might have been some sort of forced destiny nonsense. I guess that would depend on if Arceus was the type to do that. From the little I knew, he never really seemed like the type to long term plan. More of a see problem, fix problem type.

  Either way, nothing bothered me in the morning as I set out from the gym. Thirty two bases to find and confirm was going to take a while. Especially because I didn’t just have game locations. Since anime and movie locations also existed, that meant there were over thirty towns and cities in Kalos to check. And that wasn’t including possible bases in the wild. This was going to take months.

  At least, that’s what I thought.

  “I’d ask if you were sure, but it’s… uh… really obvious,” I mumbled down to Hate, who was sitting at my feet. We were currently outside a small cafe in Laverre, as I decided to start my search here since I was practically living in this city for the time being.

  And we’d found the place practically immediately. It was a clothing store called Flare for the Dramatic and it was like they weren’t even hiding. In the last half hour I’d seen two clearly dressed Team Flare members walk in.

  “Are they all like this?” I asked.

  “All like what?” she questioned back at me.

  “This obvious.” I tried not to gesture at the place. I was trying to be subtle after all.

  Her brow seemed to furrow a bit as she looked up at me. “I’m not sure about all of them, but I think so?”

  I sighed a bit as I stopped the recording on my phone. Already had more than enough evidence of this place with Team Flare just brazenly walking in. “I guess with the more powerful Trainers knowing Team Flare belonged to Lysandre, there was no need to be subtle…”

  That raised so many more damn questions though. The police didn’t know somehow? How did Sycamore not know? Damn, no wonder this group was brought down by a couple of kids. But the real question was… were they all going to be this easy?

  They were, in fact, all that easy.

  I had thought that Flare for the Dramatic would have been the outlier, but it was in fact the norm. Sure, there were a few locations that were actually hard to find, but with Hate, Smug, and Impulsive, there wasn’t any true difficulty to it. The problem is that it still took time.

  We had been at this for three weeks and had twenty five locations so far. Most of them were super obvious once you knew what to look for, such as a lot of people wearing red tinted shades and skulking about. Heck, we’d even come across two that no one in my group knew about.

  We’d only truly run into any sort of difficulty six times.

  The first difficult one had been someone's residence. I wasn’t sure if we had the location right, and I felt weird just watching some random house. That was probably the location I spent the longest at, trying to figure out what its angle was. Until I gave up and went up onto the porch and just knocked. Thankfully no one answered, but it gave me a better look at what it was going for. From the street it looked normal, but up close I realized the windows had metal shutters on the inside. And from the way my knuckles felt after knocking, the door was clearly made of metal.

  It was a safe house of some kind.

  That was good enough information for me and I moved on. Now that I knew what to look out for, there were two other safehouses on the long list of known locations.

  The second trip up was a gym in Lagoon Town, one of the places that didn’t exist in the game. It was a minor one, but it was still a gym. I didn’t want to get close, but damn was it obvious. They even called their badge the Flare Badge. Practically hung up a sign.

  There was also another gym in Cyllage City that was clearly under Team Flare control. At least they were more subtle about the badge name; the Flicker Badge was honestly a pretty cool name. Kinda wanted it, but wouldn’t dare to consciously step into a place run by Team Flare.

  Unfortunately, simply stepping into such a place is how the fourth difficulty arose. I had stopped into a cafe in Calanthe Town, and without even meaning to, found myself in line behind three Team Flare members. One of which was an Admin. They weren’t even hiding. Two of them in those red suits, while the third was in white. I really did not understand how they were able to function when so many of their members were so brazen. And to make matters worse, they were there for some sort of transfer. The Admin handed over a pokeball, and the barista handed over something that I couldn’t see.

  And to make things worse, their drinks suck. I don’t know how you can mess up a hot chocolate that bad. It had the consistency of a warm milkshake. I couldn’t even finish it. Thankfully Dee was more than happy to down the unholy thick syrupy concoction, so it wasn’t wasted. The heathen even had the audacity to ask for another.

  The fifth little problem we had was with the ninjas. While I knew there was a Ninja Village, and I knew roughly where it was - somewhere between Anistar and Snowbelle - I had no way of actually finding it. Although when I thought about it, I doubted the ninjas would let Team Flare anywhere near them so I decided to not press the issue. But I was disappointed; I wanted to see French ninjas.

  The last difficulty was with Orsay. It didn’t exist. Just straight up, not a place. It was absolutely baffling, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. A city that was in a movie didn’t exist. Other movie locations existed, but not this one. And I had no idea why. Logically there was no reason that it had to exist, but I still found it odd that it seemed to be the only one missing.

  Shockingly, I hadn't been interrupted during my explorations. Diantha did text me back, ‘I’ll help in whatever way you need. It’s not like I’m short on money.’ I was definitely going to push that quite a bit and see how serious she was about that. She also wouldn’t tell me what name she picked out, though she assured me that she had decided on one.

  Valerie was also being rather secretive. Especially about her date. I had pestered her multiple times to spill what happened, but she would immediately clam up. Though the way she mumbled about it going well, and the way her face would go red, was a good indication. I had been tempted to spy on them, but that could have easily ruined the whole scheme. I did manage to get out of her that they had two more dates in the three weeks of my exploration.

  I had been able to keep a rather nice schedule. Spend most of the day visiting a few towns, then return back to the gym and spend several hours training Pokemon. Maybe it was a bit of a waste of time to return to the gym every day, but it was safe there. Valerie had even allowed me to use another training room, essentially giving the wolf pack free reign of the initial room.

  Everyone was so happy to get back to training, especially Keo. She had practically danced. Although it was quite annoying to get her back into the training rhythm with the others. She seemed reluctant to listen to my instructions, and I kept having to correct the bad habits she was constantly defaulting back into. I thought that I’d gotten her out of most of them, but apparently she’d gone right back to doing what she always did. It was hard to not get frustrated with her. We seemed to be stuck in this little dance of two steps forward, three steps back.

  I had thought we were getting along better, but apparently I was wrong. Maybe she was just frustrated at the lack of visible progress? That certainly could be the case. At least by the end of the second week she was more on board with following my instructions after getting trounced in every single training exercise we did. It also helped that the members of Team Speed Shell had a talk with her between week two and three. Not sure what was said, but it helped.

  The three new canine members were much less enthused at the training process. Right now I only had them running laps, getting used to the Gravity. Immodest seemed absolutely miserable, but also refused to even entertain the thought of giving up. Although she complained loudly. Bungle and Disaster had been in the same boat at the start, but became much more enthusiastic after watching the rest of the Pokemon train for that first week.

  They all knew there was a forever advancing goal post that no one ever reached. It was a simple matter of continuing forward. That was how someone got strong. Liar had shown zero feeling on the matter, like training was just something that was expected. She didn’t complain, or show any signs she enjoyed it. It was just something she had to do for her next meal; that hadn’t changed. But the quality of meals sure did. Especially when I did a nature test on all of them.

  Liar liked dry and was extremely vocal about not liking sour things. So that would make her a mild nature? That was honestly a bit surprising, but natures didn’t really seem to mean anything. Also a surprise was Immodest, who liked spicy and disliked dry. Which was an adamant nature. And then both Bungle and Disaster liked dry, and hated bitter, which made them both rash natures. It was honestly unfortunate that natures weren’t really a quantifiable thing, because those would have been pretty good ones to have. Still, I was honestly glad I had all the natures memorized, because for some reasons it really made remembering what flavors everyone liked and disliked a lot easier when I cooked up meals.

  I hadn’t done a large meal for the wolf pack since that first time, letting them eat good pokechow and pokebeans instead. On the topic of pokebeans, I had decided that if the area obtained was large enough, a place would be built to grow more. Not for my use, but for the reserve's. With the soothing and positive effect pokebeans had on the mental state of a Pokemon, they would be an extremely valuable resource.

  But that was for the future. Probably the far future. Right now, I was running myself ragged around Kalos looking for- well I can’t call it a needle in a haystack. More like… spotting the elephant in the room. Or would it be Phanpy? No, not large enough… Copperajah maybe? Those were big and hard to miss. Even more of a shame was that I couldn’t even enjoy the cities. It was just… hunting. That was really the only way to describe it. A man and his three loyal hounds finding the dens of some froofed up abruti.

  But that was fine. I could see them when I finished my circuit. Right now, I was heading towards Dahara, which was one of the four places I still needed to check. The mess with Hoopa shouldn’t happen for a while, since that involved Ash. I should still avoid Baraz and Meray. Although they should still be in Arche Valley, right? So as long as I didn’t cause a scene there I should be fine.

  Man is it hard to keep track of stuff.

  I do need to check Arche Valley for Team Flare bases… Damn was it really hard to not get involved with things. While I had been more willing to step in and get involved, I already had too much on my plate.

  As I was disembarking the train my phone rang, and I had the suspicion something else was about to get dropped on my plate.

  Moving to a more secluded area, I answered. “Hello, Valerie. What’s up?”

  “He’s here!” she announced excitedly.

  For a moment I worried she meant her uncle, but she was in far too much of a good mood for that to be the case. “Who?”

  She stared silently at me for a moment, before seemingly remembering that she hadn’t told me anything. “Oh! Right! Anyways! Come back as soon as you're done with your current location.” Valerie knew that what I was doing was important, and would help us out immensely in the long run. It was also where we were going to get the vast majority of the Pokemon that filled the reserve, so she didn’t tell me to drop everything and head back now.

  “I just got to Dahara,” I said and immediately her expression soured. She knew that the city was huge, one of the largest in Kalos.

  “So you’re going to be there all day?” she asked dejectedly.

  I nodded as I looked up at the large rings at the top of Dahara Tower. “Pretty much. My plan was to sweep Dahara, then go to Arche Valley. I have to go there on foot, since there’s no train there.” This was probably going to be one of the few times in the last three weeks that I didn’t return to the gym that night.

  Her face scrunched a bit and she looked deep in thought. “Can you put it off?” she finally asked.

  My eyebrow arched a bit as I looked at her. “If it’s important, and has some kind of time restriction, yeah. I’m still at the train station.”

  Again she seemed to deliberate on this, and then nodded. “Yes. I don’t think I can manage the explanation on my own.”

  That was interesting. Whoever she had gotten to help hadn’t had the situation explained to him. With a sigh, I nodded as I walked over to the train that ran the opposite direction. “I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

  “Great!” She suddenly exclaimed, immediately brightening. “If this goes well, most of all our problems will be solved!”

  With those words she hung up, not even bothering to say goodbye. Did this world not have that etiquette or something? I feel like I’m hung up on a lot. People just say what they need to say, sometimes chat for a bit, and then bam. It was a bit annoying, but I supposed that it did save time.

  What didn’t save time was having to get on another damn train.

  ~

  Stepping back into the gym the mood of the place seemed to have shifted. It was more… lively. Before I had too much of a chance to investigate, Allie quickly waved me over. “Jason!” she called out. That drew almost the entire room's attention towards me as I made my way over to the counter. It was similar to the first time that I came in, but this time it was a lot more positive. “Valerie told me you should head to the tea room as soon as you arrived.”

  I nodded slowly. “Alright…” I wanted to ask her what was going on, but from the look she was giving me, I wasn’t going to get an answer. So rather than waste more time, I made my way through the back door.

  The tea room was a place I hadn’t been that often, but I was familiar enough with it to be able to find it in this massive building. When I opened the door, I could easily spot Valerie, laughing with a man I didn’t recognize. “Ah! Jace, you’re here!” She said with a large smile.

  The man immediately rose to his feet in an almost unnaturally smooth movement. He had blue hair that was sort of spiky and swooped out to either side. His clothing was rather heavy duty, and I noted the massive cloak that was on the ground beside were he was sitting. But what really caught my attention was the red headband, and matching short sleeved open vest jacket. “You’re Jace? I’ve heard so much about you,” the man said as he approached, a large smile on his face. “I’m Ezekiel.”

  His hand was outstretched and I took it with a bit of a smile. “Yes, I’m Jace. Nice to meet you, Ezekiel.” His hand was extremely calloused, and covered in scars. In fact, practically every inch of his arms were covered in scars.

  “If it wasn’t obvious, I’m a Ranger.” He opened his vest a bit to show the badge. I recognized it from books that I had read, and he was…advanced rank? If I was reading the markings right. That meant he was equivalent to an Elite Trainer.

  “Right. I’m a Pokemon Expert. But we don’t have badges,” I said with a bit more of a genuine smile on my face.

  He laughed, finally releasing my hand. “Well, considering how few there are, I don’t think the Association sees a need.”

  “I dunno… Would make a lot of things a lot easier for me,” I said with a bit of a chuckle.

  “Ah. Yes. Seems like some sort of problem arose that even an Expert couldn’t handle.” He gestured for us to move back to the table and I followed. “I was absolutely shocked to get back in signal range and have a message from Valerie begging for a meeting.”

  “I did not beg,” Valerie snapped. “It was a request.”

  He nodded a bit, sitting down. “Yes, yes. So, explain to me what you need help with.”

  Valerie looked at me, and I nodded to her as I took a seat. “Land,” she said and he immediately frowned. “And a lot of it.”

  He sighed. “Well, that is more than a little complicated…”

  “It’s not for settling,” she explained hurriedly. “In fact, it’s kind of the opposite.”

  His eyebrow rose quite a bit as he looked at her, I wasn’t sure how high it went since it disappeared under his headband. He glanced at me for a second. “Alright? Then what’s it for?”

  “A Pokemon Reserve,” I said calmly.

  Now both of his eyebrows were up somewhere under his headband. “A reserve? Like that nature reserve they have in Unova?”

  “Sort of. But you can think of it more like the Safari Zone,” I explained.

  His brows had reappeared, but were now furrowed. This man was quite expressive with his facial features. “I see… That would require a lot of land.” He looked thoughtful for a few moments. “I’m guessing you would want it near here?”

  We both nodded. “Preferably,” I replied.

  “As much as we can,” Valerie added.

  Ezekiel gave Valerie quite a harsh look. “This is a big request. If you’re talking about the size of land I think you are…”

  “Hundreds of acres,” I interjected.

  He sighed. “Okay… Yeah that is a lot. I’ll have to discuss this with the Ranger Union.”

  “We’re going through proper channels,” Valerie said with a huff, folding her arms. She wasn’t wearing her costume right now.

  “Proper channels would be through the Association,” he said almost exasperated.

  “But this has nothing to do with them,” Valerie snapped, and I wondered if she had spoken with Evelyne and had her head filled up with all that conspiracy nonsense.

  “Right. I’d still have to talk with the higher ups; I can’t just make this sort of decision on my own.” He put up his hands when it looked like Valerie was about to push the issue more. “Val, I don’t have that much authority. I have some pull, but you’re talking about taking wilderness. Land reclamation, even if it’s not going to be changed, still means someone will be taking ownership of it. That is above me.”

  Valerie seemed unconvinced, but nodded begrudgingly. “Okay, I get that. But you can convince them.”

  “I don’t think I can,” he admitted. “This is… This is something really big. I don’t know if anyone would ever approve it, let alone even look at the request knowing what it was.”

  I suddenly pulled out my phone. “Well, I think I know someone that will make this easier.”

  Valerie suddenly had a smug look, but Ezekiel just let out another sigh. “I know you’re an Expert, but even Professor Sycamore would-”

  “Hello hello~ My, Jace… You’ve not called me before. And never text. I was starting to think you’d forgotten about little ol’ me,” the very clear voice of Diantha came from my phone.

  I snorted in response. “Right. I should have expected an actress to be needy for attention.”

  She scoffed. “Rude,” she retorted, annoyance clear in her voice. But she broke soon after with a soft giggle. “Alright, so, something happen?”

  “We’ll talk more when you tell me what name you want to give the reserve.” I gave her a pointed look through the phone, but she just smiled at me. “Anyways, not important right now. We’re discussing with the Ranger’s about getting land-”

  “Ooohhh, fun,” she interrupted.

  “Right.” I tilted the phone so that Ezekiel could see the screen and the way he went rigid at seeing Diantha on the screen was oddly satisfying. “This is Ezekiel, and he’s going to bring our proposal to the Rangers Union.”

  “And you need me to give it a helpful push, hm?” She had a rather mischievous smile on her face. “Well, that sounds good to me. I’ve got time today, so I’ll head over. See you there, Ezekiel.”

  There was a moment of silence after she hung up. The poor Ranger looked to have gone several shades paler. “She… Did she mean… Right now?”

  “I think she did,” I said as I put away my phone.

  In an instant he was on his feet, throwing on his cloak. “I gotta go. I have to… I have to beat her there. Oh Arceus, why me?” He started running for the door. “Thanks for the tea, Val!” he called back, and then was gone.

  There were a few moments of silence as we both simply looked at the door. “Well, that’s that problem solved,” I said with a bit of a laugh.

  “One solved, and a bunch added,” Valerie grumbled into her teacup. “Getting the Champion involved is going to draw a ton of eyes on this project.”

  I shrugged slightly. “I dunno, I think I should throw her at more problems.”

  “She’s always sticking her nose in things,” Valerie said with a heavy sigh, looking down at her teacup.

  “Sounds like she’s a menace.” I nodded a bit. “Are all Champions like that?”

  Valerie just sighed heavily again. “Yes. Mostly.” She paused. “At least, the ones I’ve met.”

  We both sort of laughed at that, and started to discuss other things. She wanted to know how my training was going, and how far along I was in my reconnaissance. “I’m almost done. I have Dahara, Arche Valley, Lumiose, and Snowbelle left.”

  “I understand why you put off the other three, since they’re massive cities and the Valley doesn’t have a train connection, but why put off Snowbelle?” she questioned.

  “Lots more to do in Snowbelle. From what I’ve gathered from the dogs, there’s two bases that are in the snowy place, but only one is in the city,” I explained. “And there’s some things I want to look for in the mountains. And there’s the gym.”

  “You’re planning to challenge Wulfric while you’re there?” She looked a bit puzzled. “You’ve been skipping over all the other gyms.”

  I nodded. “I want to get back to running my circuit. I have seven months, but I don’t want to wait till the last minute.” It felt like time was going by both very quickly, and very slowly. It was only a month ago that I’d had my conflict with ex-Director Yellow, but it sure felt like much longer. With that whole conflict I had been worried that I wouldn’t be paid this month, but my account received my monthly salary yesterday without issue. Now my account was sitting at eighty thousand, which felt like so much money, but at the same time it didn’t. There was no way it was going to be enough for the reserve.

  That was another reason to challenge Wulfric and run the circuit. I’d get paid for each win.

  We didn’t talk for much longer. Valerie had pushed back her schedule, again, in order to have this meeting with Ezekiel, and had to get back to work.

  Which was fine by me. I made my way back towards the room with the wolf pack, returning Hate, Smug, and Impulsive to that room before heading to the other training room. Part of me wanted to be annoyed that I was interrupted, but honestly it was to be expected, and it’s not like I really had a strict timeline. Seven months was more than enough time.

  The moment I entered the training room, there was a little figure running towards me. It was Banette, and it took me a moment to realize that she was now wearing a coat. A coat that was strikingly similar to mine. “Oh? Well now, looking good, Banette.”

  She had such an immense grin on her face that her zipper stretched from one side to the other. I knelt down to get a better look at her, and she did a twirl to show it off. Mikyu had done a very good job.

  I scooped her up off the ground and cradled her in one arm while releasing all the other Pokemon that had come with me. The only ones I hadn’t taken with me when I went out were the four newest members, Essy, Eevee, Banette, and Mikyu. The little Lucario costumed ghost Pokemon was currently fussing with fabrics in the sitting area. I had no idea what her next project was going to be, but it apparently had something to do with Liar, as the two of them were talking.

  With my plans for today and tomorrow ruined, I decided to start training early. Almost everyone was annoyed at that, as I had been making them train late into the night since they’d be resting in their pokeballs practically all day.

  Since I had made certain discoveries about energy - I guess it would be more appropriate to say that I found out some stuff - my training design had changed a bit. There was still the Gravity, but now I was having everyone focus on using their energies. Not just on moves, but in general. I wasn’t sure if it was more efficient than what I was already doing, but time would tell.

  ~

  The next day I was, once again, on a train to Dahara. The only real difference was that this time, it was snowing, reminding me that it was the middle of winter. Everything had been often dusted with snow, but this was the first time that I was aware that it was actively snowing during the day. It made the whole world seem so much more peaceful. Even the noise from the train seemed dampened.

  It made the eventual walk through the city almost surreal. People on the street were all bundled up, doing their best to quickly get to their destinations.

  Then a store display caught my attention, and I had a realization. “Oh… It’s almost Christmas…” I mumbled to myself. My students would be on winter break right about now. I wonder if they'd replaced me? Or just let Tony take over completely. He never really was good at the actual class part of being a teacher, but he was a really good coach.

  As I wondered what exactly the origins of this particular holiday were in this world, I suddenly had another thought. When was the last time I had even celebrated Christmas? It was never really… a good time. I stopped getting invited to holidays when I changed majors. My father practically disowned me, and my mother went along with whatever he said. I never did understand what it was about my choice that made that man hate me so much.

  A nudge against my leg pulled my attention back to the present and I looked down at Hate. She was looking at me curiously, asking if I was alright with her eyes. “It’s nothing,” I said with a shake of my head. “Just remembering things.”

  Just like I thought, it took two days to fully explore Dahara City, but we did find four bases. Well, more specifically we found one safe house, and two places that seemed to be some sort of trade locations. What nearly got me in trouble was the actual base on the third day of searching.

  It was the first place that actually had security. I had hardly been paying attention, so imagine my surprise when I turned the corner and nearly ran into a poorly disguised Flare member. Poorly disguised because he still had his shades. He gave me a look that said to go somewhere else, and I listened. Especially when I saw the building, and the camera positioned to watch the front.

  Thankfully it wasn’t looking down the street or they would have gotten me on video. It was just watching the street directly out front. Said street was also swarming with Team Flare, most disguised, some not.

  I just took note of it in my phone and didn’t push my luck in getting closer as they had apparently blocked off the whole street. It was good that the grunt didn’t recognize me, or at least didn’t react if he did. Pretty sure he didn’t. But I didn’t leave as quickly as I should have. Too curious for my own good.

  Well… it didn’t take long to see what the fuss was about. The building looked like some sort of laboratory as far as I could tell. Out front of the building was a very nice looking car, and Lysandre was getting out of it. And standing across from him was a rather rotund man, with pale skin, red goggles, red hair that looked like three triangles pointed forward with a tuft pointing up that looked like fire, and a little red beard. Xerosic was very hard not to recognise.

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  It took quite a bit of willpower to not start sprinting. I had no idea how strong the two of them were, but considering Lysandre had Malva under him, and she was part of the Elite Four, he had to at least be on par with her. Thankfully I was around the next corner almost immediately after I spotted the two of them, and they seemed too engrossed in their conversation to notice me.

  That was a bit too close. But thankfully that seemed to be the last place in Dahura, so I made my way out of the city. The only reason I even knew the direction to Arche Valley was there was a sign pointing to it. When I kicked a bit of snow to get a better look at the ground, the road was just compact dirt. Apparently not enough people went there for it to be worth an actual road.

  Not like I actually planned on walking. It had been quite a while since I rode on Scoly, but she seemed more than eager for me to ride her. As I did so I took note that she had gotten quite a bit bigger. She’d gained about a foot in height, putting her at over ten feet tall. And damn, she got even faster.

  I probably would have fallen off, but she was actually using her tails to keep me propped up. It was a bit weird that I had to ride so far back, but it was actually very stable. She may have been a big bug horse, but she sure didn’t run like a horse. And she just kept picking up more and more speed thanks to her Speed Boost ability. I just held on and let her run.

  The most interesting thing about the run was finding out the Speed Boost apparently had a limit. Eventually Scoly stopped picking up speed. What that speed was, I had no idea, but it was damn fast. Felt like I was on the highway in a convertible. She probably could have gone a little faster if I hadn’t been on her back, throwing off her aerodynamics.

  We reached Arche before the sun had even started to set, and Scoly started to slow down. We had stopped just outside of town and I asked the dogs about it. Nothing looked familiar, so we didn’t linger. Just a quick sweep.

  However, I got a phone call in the middle of town. It wasn’t a number that I recognized, but I guessed it was someone from the Association finally checking in on me. “Hello?”

  “Ah, Jason. It’s Ezekiel.”

  “I can see that,” I said, looking at the man now on my phone screen.

  “Right. Anyways, Val gave me your number,” he answered the unasked question before continuing, “I have a few things to discuss, but first I want to know what the hell kind of relationship do you have with Diantha?”

  A puzzled expression came over my face. “Cordial? Budding friendship, maybe? We’ve only really talked once."

  He stared incredulously at me for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh. “Well, she must be really invested in this reserve thing. She practically forced them to sell her all the land between Laverre and the Meuse River.”

  I frowned a bit, trying to puzzle out what river that was. “How much of an area is that?”

  A sort of scoffing noise escaped him. “A couple hundred kilometers.”

  Suddenly I felt tense. “And… How much is that going to cost?”

  “About fifty billion?” I choked on my own spit at that number. “I never heard the final number, but that’s probably pretty close.”

  I was still coughing and hacking, trying to take in what he was saying while he just completely ignored my struggling to breathe.

  “There were also some stipulations. Less than one percent of the land can actually have any sort of buildings or structures on them.” This bastard actually seemed amused by my reaction.

  “Okay,” I managed, coughing a bit more before managing to get myself back under control.

  “And then she had it all put in your name.”

  I hung up on him. I didn’t mean to, but I nearly fumbled my phone from that revelation. What the hell was Diantha thinking? Why would she do that? My heart was hammering in my chest as I was coming to grips with the consequences of what all of this implied.

  And my phone started ringing again.

  I answered it. “Sorry… Almost dropped my phone,” I said, staring blankly off into the distance.

  He laughed. “Yeah that was the reaction I was expecting. She caught everyone off guard.”

  “Why would she do that?” I asked, absolutely flabbergasted that she would just… do that.

  “Dunno. You’ll have to ask her about it,” he responded with a shrug. “Anyways. Since I’m familiar with the area, I’ve been assigned to do an inspection. Which is going to take weeks because of the sheer volume of land.”

  “Can I tag along?” I suddenly asked, and he gave me a rather odd look. “Not for the whole time, but I want to see some of it. Get a feel for what… well, has essentially been thrown in my lap.”

  He seemed to take a moment to think over my request before he nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Although, since you own it, you don’t really need me there.”

  “I also want to ask you about it, since as you said, you’re familiar with it,” I explained.

  To that he nodded. “Alright. No big deal there… You got a mount Pokemon, or do you need to borrow one?”

  “Nah.” I shook my head. “I’ve got a Scolipede.”

  Clearly that was not the answer he was expecting. “You mean the huge, hyper aggressive, and extremely poisonous bug Pokemon?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yeah. A Scolipede,” I said, trying to keep the grin off of my face. “She’s like a big bug horse.”

  “How…” he paused as if trying to organize his thoughts. “How do you ride something that’s poisonous to touch?”

  “By having one that doesn’t have the Poison Point ability,” I explained, but he just looked more confused. Rather than wait for him to ask, I decided to explain. “She has Speed Boost.”

  His brow practically collapsed in on itself as it furrowed. “Scolipedes can have Speed Boost? I thought that was just the Yanma line?”

  “Have you ever heard of hidden abilities?” From the way his head tilted slightly before shaking indicated that he had not. “Well, that’s not surprising to me, honestly. I haven’t read anything about them, or heard them mentioned. Hidden abilities are just as their name sake would suggest. They are extremely rare.”

  “How have I never heard of this before?” he immediately asked, almost sounding annoyed. “I’m a damn Ranger. This is extremely important information.”

  That was a very good question. Information was so… stifled. Suffocated. It was like knowledge was being purposefully suppressed. And unfortunately, the moment I questioned who would do something like that, the first ones to come to mind were the Association.

  But I just didn’t understand why… What was the end goal? Was it just to keep the masses ignorant so that they were easier to control? And if it wasn’t the Association, could it be some sort of villain team? Was it Arceus?

  “I don’t know,” was all I could really say.

  There was a moment of silence, Ezekiel looking thoughtfully at something in the distance. “I’m going to have to tell the Union about this… Hidden abilities… That’s huge. How has no one figured this out?”

  “I don’t know,” I repeated. “But I have a theory…” I had started walking again, wanting to finish exploring Arche before it got too dark. If I managed to scour the entire city at a good enough speed, I might be able to make it back to Dahara and catch a train.

  His eyes slowly came back to the screen and he studied me for a moment. “You sound a bit reluctant.”

  I sighed and shrugged a bit. “The only thing I can think of, is that some organization is suppressing the information. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across something like this, either.”

  “Something like this? Where information is being hidden?” he asked, frowning as he suddenly started looking around. “Who?”

  Immediately I shook my head. “I can only guess. I haven’t seen any real evidence. Just… finding things out, and then wondering how no one has discovered it.”

  “So this means that all those rare cases of a Pokemon not having an ability, are actually those with hidden ones… And we don’t know about them because we don’t test for that.” His brow was furrowing again. “This explains so much… I’d always wondered why sometimes a Pokemon didn’t have an ability…”

  “Haven’t you ever noticed Pokemon displaying strange things?” I asked. Since he was a Ranger, he must have seen a ton of different Pokemon.

  “Well, yeah, sure. But I’ve seen that in Pokemon that have known abilities, too. It’s just a quirk of how energy works.” He paused. “Or at least…that’s what I’ve always thought.”

  “Considering that abilities most likely exist because of energy, that’s not technically wrong,” I said with a bit of a smile.

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair. But… damn. You really derailed my line of thought with that one…” He shook his head a bit in an attempt to clear his head of unimportant thoughts. “If you want to come and check out your new property a bit, I’m leaving in two days. I have a ton of things to stock up on if I’m going to cover an area that large.”

  “You make it sound like this isn’t something Rangers normally do?” I was honestly curious about that profession. From the sound of it, and the explanation of it in the books I’d read, it seemed like a much more appropriate profession for me. Rangers focus on wilderness travel, survival, and exploration. The biggest roadblock for me is that you have to be an Elite Trainer in order to become a Ranger.

  “Not usually,” he answered. “Usually it’s point A to B. Destination is pretty important when you’re trekking through the wilderness. On the rare occasion we have large areas to search, but this is the first time I’ve personally been sent on a survey. But I’m the closest Ranger that’s familiar with the area, so…” He shrugged.

  “Alright. Two days…” I paused as I thought. With how long Dahara took me… “Any chance you can leave in four?” I asked, leaving a spare day just in case things took longer than I expected. “I’ve business to take care of in Lumiose tomorrow, and that’s going to take me multiple days.”

  He frowned a bit as he thought. “Normally I would probably say no, but since you’re the owner, I’m sure the Union would be fine with it.”

  That made me uncomfortable. “Okay. Thank you. I’m going to yell at Diantha now.”

  There was a smirk on his face as he gave me a nod, and then hung up.

  Immediately after the call disconnected, I called Diantha. It rang several times before finally being answered. “Why, hello~ What do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”

  “What the fuck Diantha?!” I practically shouted, and only didn’t because I realized I was still in public.

  She laughed. She actually had the nerve to laugh. “Seems you found out. That’s a shame… I wanted to be the one to tell you so I could see your expression.”

  “Well you’re seeing it now!” I responded, my face was some kind of mixture of bewildered and pissed off. “Fifty billion?!”

  “It was more like forty nine, but yeah pretty much,” she said with a shrug.

  I just stared at her expression on the phone screen. She looked so smug. Like she’d won something. Like I was the one who just spent nearly fifty billion pokedollars on something for her. Okay, sure, I guess I was thinking more in terms of dollars, and if I roughly converted the currency - since pokedollars were based off yen - it was more like three hundred and fifty million, but still. That was an insane amount of money.

  Apparently the face I was making must have been hilarious, because she started laughing again. It took almost a full minute for her to stop laughing. “Look, don’t worry about it. I make more money than I know what to do with. Champion, high profile actress, the money is practically endless.”

  I would never call myself a jealous man, but damn did I sure feel like one at that moment.

  “And I’m not like other Champions, who have organizations or are running Clans,” she mused in an almost… nostalgic way? “Even Cynthia has her little projects… This just sounded like a good thing to throw money at.”

  “But…” Even though I had finally found my voice, it was difficult to form words. “But why did you give it all to me?”

  She suddenly had the cheekiest of cheeky grins I had ever seen. “Because that way if your reserve idea fails, it won’t be my responsibility.”

  I was once again rendered silent at her response, and this just got her laughing again. My mouth was hanging open slightly, but I couldn’t muster the strength to close it.

  “It’s like paying for the meal at a restaurant someone else recommended. If the food sucks, it’s not my fault,” she said in an almost sagely way.

  “What the heck kind of idiom is that?” I asked. “It barely even makes sense. It wouldn’t be my fault, either. It would be the chef's fault.”

  “But you recommended the restaurant,” she immediately defended, frowning a bit at the way I immediately rebuked her strange idiom.

  “It’s not like I forced you to go,” I rebuked in our hypothetical.

  That actually caused her to pause. “But…why would you recommend it?” she tried, clearly losing steam.

  “Maybe because I like the food? Or maybe it’s been a long time since I’ve been and the food had been really good, but they got a new cook or something.” I started listing off varying reasons. “Or maybe it was a place suggested to me?”

  She seemed a bit too stunned at my aggressive rebuttal to come up with a response, and eventually just huffed. “Alright. Fine. Whatever. But my argument still stands.”

  “I get it,” I said with a sigh. “You don’t want to be the one left holding the baby at the end of the day.”

  The noise that escaped her was a mixture of a suppressed snort and a cough, which eventually devolved into giggles. “Yes. I like that one,” she managed to say through her little giggle fit. It was honestly a nice surprise that Diantha was a rather happy person. I might even call her bubbly.

  “Well, it’s a good thing I won’t fail. Otherwise I’ll have to flee the country,” I said with a chuckle.

  She nodded, making an attempt to put on a serious expression but failing. “You’d have to change your name. Your appearance. Maybe grow a beard?”

  A sigh escaped me. “I have been trying. I haven’t shaved in months, yet my cheeks are as smooth as a fresh shave.”

  Another round of laughter escaped her, and I partially joined in. She probably thought I was joking. “Shame. Guess it’ll have to be a fake beard.”

  I nodded, managing a rather grim expression. “You’re an actress, know a good place I could get one?”

  It was amazing how she immediately schooled her expression. “I may know some people. But it’ll cost you.”

  My hand raised up and I pretended to stroke an imaginary beard. “Are they trustworthy?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend them if they weren’t,” she replied. We both managed to hold our serious expressions for a moment longer before breaking into laughter. I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed this much. “You’re not a bad actor.”

  “I’m a teacher. Gotta be able to fake it in front of kids. They’ll go after any sort of weakness they can get their grubby little fingers on.” Her eyebrow raised at my statement, and I continued before she could question, “Before I became an Expert.”

  “A Pokemon teacher, eh?” she mused a moment, getting a rather distant look. “Not a Professor… but you did teach about Pokemon.”

  I shrugged. “Not really. Pokemon have always just been a hobby for me, up until I ended up… well, here.”

  She seemed to puzzle over that for a moment. “Are you gonna tell me about your Journey?” she asked.

  “Depends,” I said slowly. “You gonna tell me the name of my reserve?”

  “Nope.” And then she promptly hung up.

  A soft snort escaped me and I shook my head. Diantha sure wasn’t what I expected, but she was pleasant to talk with. And I would win out in the end in our little game, since it wasn’t like we could open without her telling me the name.

  I spent a couple more hours in Arche before mounting Scoly and heading back to Dahara. There hadn’t been even a hint of Team Flare in Arche that I could find. I guess it was too small or remote to put effort into. A base just…somewhere out in the wilderness would be more appropriate, but Lysandre was apparently too cocky for that.

  The base outside of Geosenge was apparently the farthest away from any city, aside from Lysandre’s actual laboratory. But the Geosenge base wasn’t even that far out, and I suspected it was more a matter of being put there because that’s where the Ultimate Weapon was hidden and they didn’t want to move it. The only other base I could locate in Geosenge when I went there had been abandoned, probably because of the massive spike in police presence.

  As I boarded the train, I mentally noted the total number of Team Flare bases I had marked. We were now up to twenty nine, with just two places to look. And I really needed to get some warmer clothes before heading to Snowbelle.

  ~

  Surprisingly, there was only one Flare base in Lumiose. The Red Cafe. Sure, technically Lysandre’s laboratory was also in Lumiose, but it was actually pretty far outside the city. In the game, Red Cafe had been a laboratory, but I honestly had no idea what it was in this world. I never even went anywhere near Lysandre’s lab, because it was too risky. Of course, it went in the photo file I was making on my phone anyways. Not all of the locations had photos, some were just notes depending on how dangerous it would be to actually get evidence.

  It was kinda weird that there were only two places, but I probably missed several. Even though I spent two days combing the city for any sort of Flare activity, I came up with nothing. It felt like such a waste of time, because I already knew both locations.

  Returning back to Laverre, I decided that tomorrow I would go shopping as I walked back into the gym. Immediately I noticed there were a lot more people here. A lot of older people, who were dressed in a similar manner to Ezekiel. I did not want any part of whatever nonsense was going on, so I quickly slipped through a side door and took the long way to the training rooms.

  I quickly deposited the few members of the wolf pack before slipping into my room. As that is honestly what it felt like at this point; my room.

  When I released everyone, both Rio and Disaster struck similar poses and shouted, “Freedom!” in almost perfect harmony, before laughing and sprinting off into the room. The sight made me laugh, especially when Cara and Immodest both let out exasperated sighs simultaneously.

  The rest of Team Speed Shell was quick to join them in running. Bungle and Disaster had been enthusiastically added to the team, while Liar and Immodest had turned them down.

  It was interesting how they all seemed to have split into three groups. There was Team Speed Shell, obviously. Team Adult, as I liked to call them, consisted of Cara, Dee, Liar, and Immodest, and Team Noncombattant, consisting of Eevee, Mikyu, Banette, and Essy. Diancie was a wild card and hopped between groups frequently. And while I classified Banette in Team Noncombattant, she also switched occasionally, but mostly just stayed around Mikyu.

  Technically I was also on Team Adult, but that was because I wasn’t allowed to join Team Speed Shell. The weird part is they all seemed to be in agreement. “Papa isn’t allowed,” is what they had said, and wouldn’t tell me why.

  My only solace was that Cara and Dee were also not allowed. Cara seemed indifferent to it, but Dee was actually a bit sad when she was rejected. When she had asked why, they all sort of just… looked at each other for a moment and refused to give an answer. Which kinda confused all of us. But they had clearly discussed it amongst themselves in depth at some point.

  But that was a while ago, and right now I was having them all train. Even Mikyu was training. Essy was curious about the training, and had kinda sorta joined in. Mostly she was just standing under the Gravity, periodically exiting and then going back in. Eevee was doing the same, despite me cautioning her. But she had done it before, so I knew she could handle a bit of it. She was honestly getting a lot stronger, even though she couldn’t use much energy. Honestly I wasn’t sure if she could use any energy at all yet.

  Suddenly, near the start of training, I got a text from Valerie. ‘Is it true that Allie saw you sprinting away from the Ranger Union members??????’

  ‘I wasn’t sprinting.’ I replied, a bit of a smile pulling at the corner of my mouth.

  ‘Jace!!! They are here to talk to YOU!!!!’ came the almost immediate reply.

  I snorted. ‘Well, maybe I don’t want to talk to them? Ever think of that?’

  There was a long pause before I got the next text. ‘Someone has to talk to them.’

  ‘Tell them that any problems or concerns can go to Diantha. She is my mediator.’ I responded, and then sent a message to Diantha, ‘You’re going to be the mediator between me and the Ranger Union.’

  Diantha responded with a single ‘?’ which I did not respond to.

  ‘Ugh. okay. I’ll tell them.’ Valerie replied.

  With that settled, I went back to focusing on the training of Pokemon. Although I was distracted a bit thinking about the texting culture of this world. No one used emojis, not even text ones as far as I had seen. It was odd, but I kind of missed them.

  The next day, I allowed everyone some free time as I went shopping. The first thing I did was buy Dee a new training harness. And then I made the most expensive purchase. Food and pokeblock materials. Adding in the cost of so many Pokemon, and since I used so much feeding the wolf pack, I spent thirty two thousand just to have enough to feed everyone for two months.

  I could really see why people said raising Pokemon was expensive.

  Then I made probably the most impulsive purchase I have ever done. It was a portable, pop up, dimensional storage compatible, ultra compact, Wilderness Kitchen. At least that’s what it said on the box. It was on sale, marked down as some sort of Christmas promotional. Originally fifty thousand, marked all the way down to twenty.

  It only caught my attention because quite a few people were making a fuss over it, and trying to grab one. From snippets of conversation, it was apparently last year's model, and so they were trying to get rid of the little stock they had.

  I managed to snag a box without really thinking about it and started reading over details. Compatibility with storage bags was interesting, and I read more about that. Apparently it wasn’t an actual storage space like the bag, but instead you rolled it out and it projected a hard light simulation of a fully functional kitchen.

  Seeing the term hard light made me think of Doctor Yung and his Mirage Pokemon… I wondered if those were a thing.

  Either way, something like this sounded perfect for me, so I threw it into my shopping cart. It was a bit expensive, but seeing it actually included dozens of cookware utensils, including pots and pans of various sizes, it meant I didn’t need to keep all those anymore, or put together my makeshift kitchen. Plates, bowls, and utensils weren’t included, and there was a two meter range before the constructs would fail. But this would be so extremely helpful.

  At least, if it worked as advertised.

  I was a bit skeptical of it, since I saw that it was made by Lysandre Labs, but I wasn’t sure how this would be able to spy on people like that Holo Caster did. Maybe it had some sort of tracker? That would be a lot of effort, and didn’t feel like it would be Lysandre’s style. With how expensive it was, only Elite Trainers would have it, and since the Admins I’d fought weren’t even at that level, going after the types of Trainers that would use this thing sounded like a bad idea. Although there was a potential of great rewards, the risk felt way too high.

  With those thoughts bouncing around in my head, I spent the next few hours Christmas shopping for all of my Pokemon, as well as getting Valerie, Evelyne, and Adria gifts. I thought about getting Diantha something, but that quickly became a case of ‘What do you buy the woman who has everything?’ Sycamore also came to mind, but that felt dumb. If I was going to give him any gift at all, it would be knowledge. But I was still annoyed at him, and he had made no attempt to contact me. Was I being petty? Yeah, definitely. Did I feel justified? Yeah, pretty much.

  Christmas was still a week away, so I had time to change my mind depending on what happened.

  When I got back to the gym, there weren’t any Ranger Union members. I wondered if they were off bothering Diantha, or if just sending them towards her had made them think twice. Diantha not messaging me made me think they hadn’t contacted her. They had probably wanted to pressure me or something.

  Either way, they weren’t my problem for now.

  I went a bit easier on the training this night, since I had no idea what to expect tomorrow. But no matter what happened, I was looking forward to what I could learn from Ezekiel.

  And that night I got to try out my new Wilderness Kitchen, and by Arceus, it was better than advertised. Firstly, the kitchen was huge. I was expecting something smaller, maybe just a few meters, but this was well beyond that. The entire hard light mat and four transmitters took a few minutes to set up, but offered a total space of four meters by six meters. All of it customizable. It had an interchangeable cooking space that you could either place a fire in, hook up gas, or have a fire Pokemon fuel it.

  If there was a limit to how many pots and pans it could generate, I never found it. The technology of this was mind boggling. I had to be completely honest; Lysandre truly was a genius, and so were those in his employ. My only complaint was that the hard light constructs were pretty rough. They couldn’t do smaller complex things, like a whisk, but pots and pans were easy.

  Everyone who witnessed the spectacle had their jaws on the floor; myself included. It didn’t take nearly as long to get dinner finished, and we didn’t even have to wash anything that was made from the hard light. Still had to do our normal dishes, but there was a setting to make a dish pit that made even that faster.

  And this was the old model. How much better was the newer model? Was it more like Doctor Yung’s? The transmitters that I remembered from the special that had Mirage Pokemon in it were a third of the size as these ones, and had much better range. There was also the large distinction of these not having holographic Pokemon to move and deal with. Doctor Yung must be brilliant to make them so complex but so compact.

  ~

  I was awoken by a strange noise, and it took me a moment to realize it was my phone. With a bit of grogginess, I gave a rather unamused answer, “Hello?”

  “Well, goodmorning to you, too. I’m on my way over to the gym right now, so I wanted to make sure you were ready to go,” came a rather amused, or unamused tone. I couldn’t quite tell.

  It took me a moment to realize that it was Ezekiel on the screen. “Ah. Right.” I looked at the clock on the phone. No wonder I wasn’t awake; it was three in the morning. “If you’d told me what time, I would have been up,” I responded as I started to unceremoniously shove Pokemon off of me. Cara was already awake, having been woken up by the phone as well. Everyone else was still dead asleep.

  “Had a bit of… change of plans. Short end of it, the Union is pissed I delayed the start of my survey, and using you as an excuse did not go over as well as I’d hoped.” From the background of his screen, I could immediately tell that he just entered the gym.

  “Ah,” was the noise of response I made as I started to gather everything up, assuring I had everything. “Is it because I shoved responsibilities at Diantha?”

  “Yes,” he said, heaving a rather exasperated sigh. “They don’t dare go after her, so I’m the next punching bag in line.”

  “Sucks to be you,” I said with a slight chuckle, returning everyone to their pokeballs. I wasn’t going to leave anyone here, because I didn’t know if I’d return today. Might spend a whole week or month out there. Eevee was last, and got tucked into my hood.

  When I realized Ezekiel hadn’t responded, I looked over at my phone and realized he’d hung up on me. That got a good laugh at me, and I realized that was the way most of my phone calls ended. Either I got hung up on, or I hung up on them.

  I met Ezekiel in the hall, as he hadn’t been aware of which room I was in and was waiting for me outside. “Ready?” he asked as he looked me up and down. I couldn’t tell if it was a disapproving or approving look at my choice of attire, but it was certainly a look.

  “Ready,” I agreed easily. As the two of us made our way to the edge of town, I asked him a question that had been at the back of my mind, “What does this survey entail?”

  He grunted a bit as his first response. Clearly, despite having woken me up at this hour, he was not a morning person. “It’s nothing too precise. Mostly I just need to make sure no humans have taken up residence, and none of the Pokemon have become overly territorial, or certain types haven’t overly expanded.”

  My brow furrowed a bit. “I see…”

  “Usually a survey doesn’t go out this far,” he continued. “I’ve only been out to Meuse twice, and the first time was when I was still apprenticing. It’s too far out to be worried about.”

  “So you’ve never been to the mountains out that way?” I asked, looking into the distance. Unfortunately because of the weather, they weren’t visible.

  “Not this far North,” he said with a shake of his head. “That range goes really far South, and you can get to it from Dendemille a lot easier.”

  I nodded a bit and we stopped at the edge of town. The forest around had gotten quite a lot thicker, and buildings became sparse. He reached to his belt suddenly, and tossed a pokeball. In a flash there was a large hooved Pokemon, with a green mane that extended down its back and massive horns in its head. It was a Gogoat. But what really caught my attention was the harnesses and saddle it was wearing.

  Ezekiel didn’t pause as he started to check straps. He glanced at me, seeing me study the goat. “I’m going to be exploring for months,” he said rather defensively. “I’m not walking all that distance.”

  I put up my hands, chuckling a bit. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Right…” he mumbled before turning back to the Pokemon.

  To its credit, the Gogoat looked eager. It had heard the word months and immediately got excited. “Runnin’ for months, huh? Must be a real big gig,” it said, its voice completely catching me off guard. It had a Jersey accent.

  “Survey,” Ezekiel explained simply, clearly being quite close with his Pokemon and able to understand them. “This is Francis,” he said back to me. “Francis, meet Jason.”

  The goat looked me up and down. “Eh, he don’ look like much, y’know? What’s he comin’ for?”

  “I own the land that’s going to be surveyed,” I said as I reached into my coat to grab a certain pokeball.

  Both of them stared at me for a moment. “You can understand him?” Ezekiel asked.

  I actually laughed, as I hadn’t had to explain this to anyone for quite a while now. “Yes. I have some sort of special talent for it.”

  “Dat’s interestin’,” Francis said.

  “That’s interesting,” Ezekiel said at the same time.

  Again I laughed as I pulled out the pokeball and threw it, releasing Scoly. The way that both of them tensed at the sight of her. I just reached over and she pressed her head against my hand. And then proceeded to knock me over with her horn. “I was sleeping,” she grumbled.

  I had a bit of a smile on my face as I grabbed hold of her horn, using it to get myself back to my feet. She grunted a bit at the sudden tugging of her horn, but did help me back up. “I told you we would be doing a lot of exploring.”

  “But it’s eeeeaaaaarlyyyyy,” she whined, stomping one of her feet, which sent up a little puff of snow. “You didn’t say anything about it being early.”

  “I know, I know,” I soothed as I rubbed her head and neck. “I didn’t expect it to be this early, either.” She huffed and then looked over at the other two. To their credit, Ezekiel had seemed to relax a bit, though he was clearly on edge. Francis had not. The poor goat was clearly trying to decide whether to fight the massive bug or run. The only reason it did neither was probably Ezekiel going back to working on the straps.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Ezekiel said with a shake of his head.

  “This is Scoly,” I said with a pat on her neck, and she proceeded to bump into me, nearly taking me off my feet again. “Scoly, this is Francis, and Ezekiel.” The goat bristled when I gestured at him and Scoly’s attention turned to him.

  With introductions out of the way, it wasn’t long before we started moving. Ezekiel was absolutely incensed by the fact I didn’t have a saddle, and was just using a blanket to pad the bugs back to sit on. As we moved deeper into the forest, I explained my troubles with getting one, which he found hilarious.

  We spent two days wandering into the forest, seeing probably hundreds of Pokemon. Some of them tried fighting us, but most of them avoided us. Ezekiel wouldn’t let me fight anything, and I noticed he had quite a strange way of battling. It was all about subduing, rather than doing anything else.

  Two of Ezekiel’s Pokemon were an Ariados and a Butterfree, who both worked together with scary efficiency to immobilize and incapacitate any Pokemon that got close. I hadn’t seen any of his others yet.

  We had spent the time mostly in silence, as to not attract wild Pokemon, though he did explain things. He knew quite a bit about what Pokemon held what territory, and would always point it out when we entered a new one. How he knew was a mystery to me, but he was quite confident and I had no way of disputing him.

  The first night he had complained that my diner setup was excessive and would draw too much attention. And then he actually tasted the food, and his complaining turned to wondering aloud how he could get one of these Wilderness Kitchens.

  “We’re leaving service range,” he said suddenly on the third day.

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “Communication service,” he said as he pulled out his phone for emphasis.

  Pulling out my own phone, I was met with quite an interesting alert saying that I was out of service range, and to head back immediately as I was entering uncharted wilderness. I dismissed the warning before putting my phone back away. That felt… really weird. We were barely two days' ride away from town.

  The rest of the day was spent similarly to the last two. It wasn’t until day four that something happened. It started with an odd tickle at my nose. Something…familiar on the wind. I had Scoly stop so that I could better try and figure out what it was.

  Ezekiel stopped after a moment and looked back at me. He was about to ask something when he caught it as well.

  And then we both realized what it was, practically at the same time. “Smoke,” he voiced the realization.

  Both of us immediately urged our mounts to move. Despite being ahead of me, Scoly easily caught up to Francis and surpassed him as she gained more and more speed. The smell of smoke got stronger and stronger the further we traveled.

  Until we suddenly burst into a massive clearing of scorched earth and trees blackened to burnt toothpicks, some of which were still on fire or smouldering.

  Scoly stumbled a bit to a stop at the sight that met us. Bodies. Both human and Pokemon were scattered around the clearing. I leapt from Scoly, who had frozen at the sight, and started sprinting the last of the distance.

  Everything in my head was fuzzy, and I was struggling to comprehend all the different things I could see. My brain registered the outfit of Team Flare. The partial remains of Mightyena and some other Pokemon that I refused to look at well enough to figure out what they were.

  Francis and Ezekiel passed me at some point, rushing to the larger group of- whatever to the right. To the left was a lone figure on the ground that I was rushing towards. I was kneeling beside them before I even registered what I was doing. My brain supplied that I was looking at a Delphox, but there was just… so much blood. It’s chest was heaving, desperately trying to take in whatever air that it could.

  My hand went into my coat, fumbling for Dee’s pokeball but suddenly my hand stopped. It had grabbed hold of my wrist. Its eyes shot open, fear and panic in them until it met mine. Then relief washed over its expression. It looked like they were trying to speak, but couldn’t form words with part of their throat torn.

  They pulled my hand down towards them, and placed it against something that they had tucked against their chest. It was large and completely covered in blood and…other things. Slowly I brought my other hand to hold it properly as they tried to force me to take whatever it was. I stared at it, wiping away some of the blood from it, and seeing a shell.

  It was warm.

  So warm.

  My hands were shaking and I was doing my best to hold onto what I knew was an egg.

  The Delphox managed a weak smile, gazing at the egg in my hands. So many emotions raced across her face. Regret. Relief. Longing. Sadness. But eventually it settled into a soft, loving expression, placing her hand gently against the shell.

  Slowly, her eyes dimmed, and soon her hand slipped. Yet her expression remained, her eyes never leaving what I was holding, a soft and loving gaze now forever unchanging. The ragged rising of her chest ceased, and she laid still.

  I couldn’t look at her, but my eyes wouldn’t leave her and what she had given me. There was a feeling. It was intense. Indescribable. And it was like I knew. I knew so much, and my eyes finally pulled away to focus on the egg in my hands. My eyes burned, and I could feel the tears slowly running down my face.

  I knew.

  I don’t know how I knew…

  But I knew…

  Like a whisper in the back of my mind.

  Gently, I wiped a bit more of the blood from the egg, whispering softly, “Hello Alma…”

  Lucario - The group mom

  Lucario - Craves violence

  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

  Sliggoo - Deadly chew toy

  Mimikyu - Very skilled seamstress

  Banette - Silent but persuasive?

  Vulpix (Alolan) - A bit too battle hungry

  Espurr - Little cat that likes pokebeans.

  Liepard - Big hungry cat

  Houndour - Just a little pup

  Houndoom - Bit of a space case

  Mightyena - Super serious

  Houndour

  Guff

  Bleak

  Rascal

  Dilly

  Fret

  False

  Grubby

  Muddle

  Gabby

  Dwindle

  Crass

  Houndoom

  Poochyena

  Mightyena

  Sneasel