[PKMN FULL] Hoenn: Square One [IC]

budube · Jun 6, 2022

[PokeCommunity.com] Hoenn: Square One [IC]

Jordie "Jo" Hughes

Tuesday, September 29

Chapter 4: Part 2 - vs. Merry

15:00 - 15:10, Littledale's Gym... Apparently
"You the new challenger?" The short farmer–apparently Gym Leader– standing in front of me says. "I'm Leader Merry Richtide. My pronouns are they n' them."

"Oh, that's a nice coincidence," I say, extending my arm at them. "Jordie Hughes. Going by they and them too."

"Aye," Merry nods, accepting my handshake. "Lemme explain the rules b'fore we begin. I battle exclusively in singles. We gonna use up to 4 Pokémon, n' once one goes down both of us are choosin' another one, 'kay? If you manage to take down three of my Pokémon, you win."

"Understood."

"Aye. Now follow me." Merry starts walking towards an open field, away from all the wild Skiddo and Wooloo walking around the old Route 101, and each time getting further away from the building the gym is supposed to be at. In the middle of a dirt patch stands another person, who nods at the Gym Leader as soon as he sees us. That must be the referee. "As you might've noticed, I like havin' my battles in the open. Gives Pokémon more freedom to move."

"Challenger… Jordie Hughes, right?" the referee asks as soon as we arrive, checking the notepad on his hands, while Merry starts walking a few feet past the dirt patch. "Frank Douglas… Erhm... He and Him. I'll be your referee for this battle."

I nod, accepting his handshake.

"Three badges, alright," he mutters as he reads and then looks back at me. "Can I ask your…" he looks at his notepad and starts doing some maneuver with his left hand.

"Pronouns? They and them."

"Yeah, that, thanks. Sorry this whole thing is a bit new for me. Don't wanna make anyone-"

"No, you're good."

"Okay. Know the rules, right? Three Pokémon, single battles, once one faints-"

"I know." I nod again, and after he nods back, I start walking towards the other edge of the dirt patch, trying to calculate the area between Merry and I, since there's no marked battlefield here.

The referee looks at both of us to make sure we are ready and then clears his throat. "Starting the battle between Leader Merry Richtide and Challenger Jordie Hughes!"

The moment he says that, people start gathering around us. Most of them are kids. This is just like Brawly's battle, alright.

"Your first Pokémon, if you will."

"Right." I carefully choose one of my Dusk Balls. I don't have too many choices really, it's either Bane, Gabby, Dewey or Maroon. I think I'll keep Gabby out of this battle though, she's not a single battler herself. "Dewey, you're up!"

The Dusk Ball opens, and the Dewpider manifests, the green sparks from the seal flying upwards.

"Heh. Flashy. Y'like showin' off, don't ya?" Merry says and then stops to think for a bit before sending out their first Pokémon. "Skiddo! Go get 'em!"

The Skiddo lands on the dirt patch, and as soon as the referee says "Begin!", grass and flowers start growing from around its hooves.

"Not this shit again…" I complain to myself, and that complaint gains more relevance when I see the leaves around Skiddo's mane growing larger, to the point of covering its body.

It's not all that bad, though, y'see? The grass is tall enough for Dewey to camouflage on it, and regarding typing I also have a slight advantage here. This shouldn't be too difficult to deal with if I'm able to keep Dewey on the ground.

Soon after setting up the Grassy Terrain, Skiddo raises its head and charges a green Energy Ball from its mouth. It flies through the battlefield, cleanly mowing through the grass with it. Dewey tries to jump somewhere else to hide, but is too slow to dodge efficiently, getting struck by Skiddo's attack and bouncing backwards.

The Dewpider lands on her three legs, and as the grass grows back to its previous height she looks at Skiddo and shakes her head from the surprise attack she received.

Dewey starts to erratically zig-zag across the grassy field, trying to get closer and closer to Skiddo, who, on Merry's command, sets its hooves to circle around the battlefield, jumping at great speed.

"Dewey, stay where you are…" Seeing the jolts of electricity coming out from Skiddo's hooves, is only the implication of an upcoming attack, and I have to be ready to counter it. If Merry wants me to be in a safe spot so they can strike Dewey, that's exactly what they'll have.

Skiddo has run a bit too far away from the Grassy Terrain it had set, meaning it's not even in the battlefield anymore, in fact, some of the kids have walked away from us, yet they are still watching.

Giving the Pokémon more freedom to move, right. That's what this is all about.

Merry raises their hand and gives a signal, that's when I notice Skiddo running towards us. It's far away, but still comes here at blinding speed. I have enough time to make Dewey dodge, but that won't stop the Pokémon from building up speed, I just have to stop it on its tracks somehow.

"Dewey, shoot a Spider Web at its hooves!"

I'm not sure, but I believe I see Dewey nod after I say that, and then use her front legs to lean back and aim her spider web at Skiddo's hooves. The Spider Web sticks both of its hooves together, making it trip and fall headlong over Dewey .

Skiddo battles hard against the web around its hooves, ultimately using its hind legs to kick it off. Meanwhile, Dewey is battling to get out from under the Mount Pokémon, verifying if her Water Bubble is untouched first after making it.

"Infestation!" the fact Skiddo takes more time than Dewey to get up gives me an extra shot here. Infestation is a deteriorative move, almost in the same vein as Poison Gas, except it's just temporary. Against a Pokémon that likes exploiting the regenerative properties of Grassy Terrain, having this move up to do some extra damage is necessary.

Dewey once again lifts her body and shoots some yellow-ish gas at Skiddo as it's getting up, forcing it to stop moving as the burning sensation pierces through its leaf shield. It's a bit of a painful sight to bear, but it's a Gym Leader's Pokémon, it'll be fine.

"Grass Knot 'em!"

Two vines coming from Skiddo's mane start following Dewey. They are fast and have no problem maneuvering around the Grassy Field, in fact, it makes it easier for them to be unseen. Dewey tries her best to knock them off, shooting a series of Water Guns at them, but it's useless, she's still too slow to dodge once they retaliate after being hit.

One of the vines holds her body, while the other one holds her legs, making it impossible for her to turn upside down and try to escape. Merry calls for a Horn Leech, and Skiddo pulls Dewey, dragging her throughout the ground, lowering its head and lifting her upwards with her horns on impact.

Dewey tries to get up, her six legs on the ground, squirming after having her Water Balloon suddenly bursted by the hit.

Skiddo Wild Charges at her at great speed once again, and Dewey is having too many problems right now to even try to dodge. She starts getting beaten up really hard, and I have no idea what to do now. I don't want to retire her now that she's all pumped up.

I could–or should– request a time out, but that would be drowning out the flow of the battle, plus there's no really need to do that now that apparently Dewey is starting to use her Bubble Beam to send small bubbles towards herself in the form of a ring, in what seems to be a new defensive way to use the move. The bubbles start growing bigger and bigger, until they completely fuse with each other around Dewey's head, also forming another ring of bubbles around her head.

"Heh. Aqua Ring, I'm guessing." I smile. "Dewey, start charging a Water Gun!"

Dewey nods, once again with only three legs on the ground, and starts blowing perhaps the biggest water balloon she's done so far. It acts as a cushion for her to sit on, as she raises above the tall grass, appearing once again on Skiddo's visual area.

"Skiddo, hit 'em with Nature Power!"

Skiddo charges its attack faster, of course, being standing in grass and all. Another Energy Ball forms in her mouth and flies at full speed towards Dewey, who extends her legs vertically and jumps backwards, sending the heavy water balloon rolling a very disappointing distance, yet enough to block the Grass-type's attack.

"Skiddo, Grass Knot 'em again!" Merry calls immediately.

The vines come crawling really quick through the increasingly growing grass.

"As if I'm falling for that same trick twice!" I mutter "Dewey, Spider Web!"

Dewey manages to shoot down one of Skiddo's vines with her web, but the other one is capable of dodging the attack and grabbing her, restraining her as Skiddo tries to liberate her other vine.

The Dewpider tries walking away from Skiddo, but without Bubblebeam anymore to gain some impulse, it's impossible for her to do so. So she takes another risk by using one of her upper legs to pop her Water Bubble and use Bug Bite on the vine before the Aqua Ring around her head grows big enough to cover her again. Skiddo bleats in agony after being forced to let Dewey free.

"Skiddo, retire!"

The grass-type escapes the battlefield, once again running far away from us as soon as Dewey tries to use Infestation against it a second time. Skiddo doesn't start building up speed this time, though, it just stands there raising its head upwards.

"What's going on?"

"Synthesis. She's healin'," Merry answers.

Added up with Grassy Terrain, Skiddo might be recovering her lost energy really fast, while Dewey is clearly having more trouble to keep up.

"Dewey, heal with Aqua Ring!"

"Not gonna go after 'er?" Merry asks.

I stare at the Skiddo and consider that option carefully, there's nothing good that could happen from it, so I shake my head. "You'd love that, wouldn't you."

Merry just lowers the tip of their hat without giving an answer.

Synthesis, Grass Knot, Grassy Terrain, Wild Charge, Horn Leech, Nature Power. Now that I know what Skiddo can do, it's easier for me to make predictions.

I take a quick look at my XT. Despite all that's happened so far during this battle, it hasn't even been two minutes we've been battling. Terrain and space altering moves like Trick Room normally have an average duration of three minutes, which means that in one minute or so, the shield that grew from Skiddo's mane might lose power. I probably won't be able to defeat Skiddo before that, considering all the healing done and Dewey's current state, so stalling for time is the best option I have now.

"One minute…," I mutter, before putting my shades on.

I think that Merry would prefer keeping distance between Skiddo and Dewey, or at least, that's what I would've done, but instead they take a different approach.

Skiddo charges again, sparks coming out of her hooves and tries to strike Dewey directly, really easy for her to dodge. The goat Pokémon drifts with her hind legs, building up momentum and speeding up against Dewey once again.

"Climb up with Spider Web!"

Dewey quickly raises her lower body and shoots a thread of her Spider Web at one of Skiddo's horns. She manages to dodge her second blow, but is dragged through the floor as Merry's Pokémon runs away.

"Don't let go…," I whisper, clenching my fist and feeling my chest full of air seeing how Dewey tries her best to hold from her thread with her three legs, but exhale in relief once I see her getting a hold of herself as the Skiddo forcefully tries to shake her off. "Keep it up, Dewey, don't let go!"

The Dewpider keeps climbing up, until after a few more forceful shakes done by Skiddo, she manages to stick on her horn.

"Jump to the back of her head!"

Dewey wraps her two front legs around Skiddo's horn, tries rotating around it to shoot another Spider Web, this time at Skiddo's nape, using her hind leg as an aim, but Merry orders Skiddo to drag her horn against the ground, interrupting her and forcing her to climb back up.

"Don't let go."

Merry looks at me with certain disbelief, as if telling me that won't work, but I just grin at them. It's almost been one minute, and as long as Dewey doesn't fall, this works perfectly.

Skiddo starts jumping and shaking her head wildly, all to try to make Dewey fall, who is still sticking to her horn without even budging after using another load of Spider Web to keep her body there. It's really just a matter of time Skiddo gets tired, Merry definitely didn't count with Dewey's stubbornness.

Skiddo's energy starts draining out and her legs start becoming slower, but before falling from exhaustion, she lays down to rest in the middle of the battlefield. Synthesis starts recovering some of her energy, but at the same time the Grassy Terrain starts disappearing, and since Skiddo is immobile right now, it gives Dewey time to jump to her nape and attack with Infestation once again, which forces Merry to call their Pokémon back.

"Good one, ain't nothing I can do against that Dewpider of yours now that Grassy Terrain is down."

"Leader Richtide withdraws their Pokémon, Jordie Huges wins the first round!"

"Great job, Dewey! Come back," I smile, recalling Dewey back to her Dusk Ball, and getting ready to choose my other Pokémon. "Bane boy, it's your turn now!"

Merry stops to think about their next choice after seeing the Aron jump out of the Dusk Ball. They pick a PokéBall but before sending out the Pokémon inside it, they start walking to a different part of the field, Frank following behind them, who tells me to come with them as well. We don't walk too far away, though, just take enough distance from the dirt patch we battled in before to a more grassy battlefield, which makes me think Merry might have something planned here. After they take enough distance from me once again, they finally send out their next Pokémon, a Wooloo. The kids seem to love that one, but I don't blame them, y'know? Who doesn't love a round Pokémon?

Before Frank asks us to begin, I request some time to check on Bane, more to check if the Eviolite I put around his leg is placed properly, just so it doesn't fall during the battle, and also make sure Frank notices it and writes it down. Once that's done, I go back to my position.

"Wooloo, Grassy Glide!" Merry orders, making the first move again. I'll take it this time, though, I need Wooloo to get closer.

The sheep Pokémon bleats and lowers its head, to hide it inside that huge coat of wool before it starts spinning in circles around the grass before storming against Bane at great speed. It's clear, by the way they look at the battle, that the kids love watching that big ball of fluff roll around, and I'm so sorry, but this is my battle, y'know? I won't give them the pleasure of enjoying themselves if it means it puts me at a disadvantage.

"Bane boy, Protect!"

Bane stands still, slightly tilting his head forward before stopping Wooloo on its tracks with a barrier surrounding him, also stunning it for a bit, giving him extra time to jump at Wooloo with a headbutt, which sends it rolling back a bit. Wooloo retaliates, rolling back and then oscillating to strike Bane from his right side. The Aron is slightly pushed away, but is barely affected by that move, so he doesn't have trouble blocking Wooloo's almost consecutive Double Kick with another Protect.

Bane attempts another Iron Head, but Wooloo sorta bounces his attack back by pumping up the wool covering its body.

"Oh, shit… Cotton Guard, right?"

"Aye. Y'know yer moves don't ya'?"

"I-I g-... y-yeah, I do."

Cotton Guard is but one of the best physically defensive moves out there, y'see? Most of the few Pokémon that learn it have a lot of fluff, just like Wooloo or Altaria, and they are capable of pumping it up even more to protect themselves from any kind of physical harm. It's like Protect except it's just difficult to get through, but not impossible. This is going to take longer than I thought, though.

"Change of plans. Bane, use Curse!"

Merry holds the tip of their hat before calling for another Double Kick. Wooloo rolls towards Bane, swiftly maneuvering through the grass, bouncing and supporting itself with its front legs while landing two consecutive kicks with its hind legs at Bane's face, who tries to block the move with Iron Head with little success, but allows for a direct counter attack. Despite being hit by a Fighting-type move, Bane is still capable of holding on with no issue, that Eviolite really does wonders.

"Great job, Bane boy!" He turns his head at me and then hops to turn around and face me with a joyful bark, but I click my tongue and shake a finger at him once he does that. "No, no. Not now. Eyes on the battle."

Wooloo resumes its attack, starting once again to maneuver across the grassy field at great speed. Bane blocks the attack with Protect, and just as before, Wooloo attempts a second direct hit at him, but this time it attacks from the front. It's easier for Bane to block with Iron Head and push Wooloo back this way, but the sheep Pokémon uses that momentum to retaliate with another increased speed Grassy Glide after being pushed and attack from Bane's left side. The attack is too fast for Bane to react accordingly, and he's pushed to his right a bit, almost losing his balance and falling.

Bane manages to stand correctly, looking at Wooloo roll away from him and growls with irritation, releasing a short yelp after bulking up and strengthening the armor around him with a second Curse.

Wooloo builds up momentum once again, and attempts another Grassy Glide towards Bane. My first instinct is blocking with another Iron Head, but that's proven not to work. Bane comes up with something, though. He stands on his hind legs and growls, he might think he looks like a fearsome grizzly bear, but he's actually looking like a kitty trying to hit its toy. I keep forgetting Metal Claw is a move, Aron themselves don't have really sharp claws, y'know, so I've kept using Iron Head all this time. Despite all that, it's quite effective, Metal Claw not only damages Wooloo, but it also stops it from rolling back as it falls down.

It's still not a really strong move on its own, a bit of extra bulk might be good for Bane.

"Curse."

Merry's Wooloo takes a different approach now. It pumps the wool covering its body, and instead of rolling, it starts bouncing towards Bane, rolling in the air as it goes. It tries another Double Kick, but it's easily blocked with Protect, which in turn makes the sheep Pokémon fall down. Bane takes that time to charge at it and swipe another Metal Claw at it.

Wooloo rolls away before Bane is able to connect the second Metal Claw coming after her and approaches him from his right side. Bane, apparently losing any sense of where he's standing on, takes time to react to the move and is unable to do anything about it, allowing Wooloo to roll over him with Grassy Glide, pushing him to his left while also turning him upside down.

Bane tries turning around and getting back on his feet to no avail, that's when I realize, he's gotten too heavy with the extra bulk after the third Curse for him to move easily, and that metal thing coming out of his back apparently got him stuck on the ground.

I make a signal with both hands at Frank to request a time-out, and after he nods I rush to help Bane. He starts shaking violently and screeching once he feels I touch him, nearly scratching my hands with his claws.

"Bane boy, calm down! It's me!"

Bane glares at me, really pissed off, definitely, but after a few seconds he seems to recognize me. I put my hands behind his back and try to pull him up.

"Y-yep… Heavy." The Aron starts growling again, but it's not against me this time, since his glare is now directed at Merry's Wooloo. "Calm… down, okay? No need to make a scene out of this, we are winning still, despite what happened just now… Shit you're really heavy, y'kn- There!"

I grab Bane in my arms, but I can't really take his current weight much. He's already pretty heavy despite his size, even more with all those three times he used Curse. I manage to put him back on the ground safely, though, and give Frank a thumbs up before he resumes the battle.

Bane growls, full of rage, as he starts walking at a slow pace around the battlefield with his glance still stuck on the sheep Pokémon who just gets ready to deliver another Grassy Glide. I tell Bane to get there and prepare another Metal Claw to receive Merry's Pokémon, but he completely ignores my command by using Curse a fourth time and then starts following Wooloo as it keeps rolling in circles around him.

Bane is, obviously, unable to catch up with her. She's just too fast and he's too heavy to move around freely, however, it's clear he is unable to think straight. In the end, Bane grows tired and gives up by standing still in a single place. Good.

Wooloo comes rolling with all of her might and once again, Bane stands on both of his hind legs, except that this time he's unable to stay up much time and ends up falling due to his own added weight in in a strange kind of body slam that would normally hurt him more, but when he gets up he just shakes his head and keeps going.

Bane charges at Wooloo again, ready to go for another direct attack, trying to slam it with his whole body just like he did before, but again, he's just too slow to do that effectively. It's clear that he's growing more desperate to attack Wooloo, but there's no way he's doing that in his current situation.

Wooloo dodges Bane's next attack with ease and Bane once again follows it as it rolls away from him until he gets tired. The sheep Pokémon crashes against Bane once again, and he manages to connect another Take Down on it, not only leaving the Pokémon stunned, but also being visibly shaken by that attack, which allows for an Iron Head to Bane's own satisfaction, sending Wooloo rolling away violently.

Merry's Pokémon, visibly weakened from Bane's last few attacks, rolls away from the battlefield and starts resting. This time Bane stays on his own place and brutally slams the floor with both front legs, materializing a batch of stones above the sheep Pokémon. Merry calls for Wooloo to use Sleep Talk, and while it manages to use the move successfully, turning it into Cotton Guard, at this point Bane's strength has grown so much, the stones pierce through with no problem.

"Wooloo can't keep battling anymore, Jordie Huges wins-!"

"Bane! What the hell do you think you're doing!? You won already!"

Merry is the first one to get their Pokéball once both of us see Bane charging towards Wooloo with the intent of delivering another blow. My instinct is the same as the Gym Leader, as I quickly grab Bane's DuskBall and send him back inside.

"Shit… S-sorry about that." How embarrassing. "Anyways. Final round, right?"

"Depends." Frank nods.

Dewey forgot Bubblebeam and learned Aqua Ring!
Bane forgot Metal Claw and learned Take Down!

Jordie's Party:

Battle Subway:

Inventory:

Spoiler:

Jo's portrait made with: https://picrew.me/image_maker/1140610/

Juno · Jun 7, 2022

4-6: A Quiet Day

🚣 Cottage Grove 🕙 Sept. 29th, Noon

That's not much left. She thinks to herself after paying for the boat ride. She needs to figure out her money situation soon.

Soon, but not now.

If Oldale-Littleroot is a hick town—and it is—then Cottage Grove is the hick town's adjacent little speck of a hick village, and there's certainly nothing better to do here for some cash.

Nothing to do, and it smells like fish everywhere.

It gives Marcella a little time to... spend more money. Which might seem counterintuitive, but she does have to prepare a bit for the road.

So another chunk of her dwindling cash is spent on provisions at a dingy little corner store she finds, possibly the only one out here—trail mix, jerky, instant oats, and anything with "just add hot water" on the packaging goes in her shopping basket, as well as a small lidded pot that might come in handy. It's not the healthiest diet but it's only going to be for a few days, and she'll be working it off with all the walking she'll be doing. So it balances out, she reasons. It'll be fine.

By 5 pm, she is finished with her shopping, and overall done with her tour of Cottage Grove already; there aren't too many sights to see here and she does not feel like fishing. It's too early to sleep, but too late in the day to power straight through to Route 103, so she figures she will have to hang around a bit longer and probably spend a night here in the village. This place is so small they don't even have a Pokémon Center, though as she was boated through 103 Crossing, she was told most of the residents are more than happy to open their doors to journeying trainers. The prospect is unappealing, but then she remembers she has a few nights in a tent from here on out, so one evening in some musty cabin is not going to be the worst of what she will be enduring for the next couple of days.

She finds a cabin with a good view of the water, thinking Pearly might appreciate that, and knocks on the door to seek shelter for the night. The inhabitants are an older couple, probably around Josie's age, and Marcella tries to present her Trainer ID to them so they know she is a trainer, but apparently they are so used to travellers dropping in to stay the night they just wave her ID away and open the door to let her in. Hm, guess it's safe to do that out here. She raises her eyebrow and snaps her wallet shut as she enters their home.

They must be quite bored out here, and she doesn't say that just based on where they live; they are quite chatty with her, a virtual stranger, and very interested to hear about her journey so far even though they must hear the same stories of the same cities and gym leaders all the time. All told, very nice people, and they offer her a place at their dinner table as well. It's steamed Basculin, naturally. A little bland, but not bad.

After dinner, Marcella lies and says she's quite tired—they are kind, but she doesn't feel like entertaining the old couple's questions about where she's from, where she's going and so on all night. So she thanks them for the meal and retires to their guest bedroom early, shutting the door behind her.

Inside, she lets Midas and Pearly out of their Luxury Balls—of the two cats, she only trusted Bijou to walk through the store with her without pickpocketing anyone, so the Meowth gets to stretch out now and check out their new surroundings. She props Pearly up on the desk next to the window so she can look out, and the Clamperl hums quietly to herself as she takes in the view.

With a few hours left until what would be considered even an early bedtime, she decides to be a little more productive with her time than just scrolling through social media. Getting out her notebook and PokéDex, she opens the database to Clamperl's entry to do a bit of research on Pearly's evolutionary line.

She learns that the Clamperl is a branched evolution Pokémon, meaning it can take different forms depending on various factors. That's exciting. In her case, Pearly could evolve into one of two forms.

One of which is pretty scary-looking. "Huntail. Don't really like the look of that," She mutters quietly to herself. She can't imagine her sweet Pearly turning into this thing. Gorebyss, though... maybe. That's kind of pretty.

They are both Water-type still, so that doesn't change with Pearly, but it seems as a Huntail she could learn more Dark-type moves, and as a Gorebyss she would have more access to Psychic moves. The latter of which would be more handy on their team currently, since Bijou is rounding out the Dark area on their team nicely.

"What do you think, Pearly, do you want to be a Gorebyss or a Huntail?" She holds the Pokédex in front of the bivalve. The Clamperl stops humming to investigate the images presented to her, but she waves her little blue appendages vaguely, unconcerned. Marcella smiles. She really is just a baby still.

Scrolling down the page, she blanches when she gets to some of the Pokédex entries for Gorebyss, most of which entail draining their prey of fluids and other grisly practices they are apparently capable of. She glances back at the happy Clamperl.

Even with her limited knowledge, she's known some Pokémon to change drastically in behaviour once they evolve, not unlike a human child growing into a teenager and then slamming doors and being a general pain in the ass around their parents. Will Pearly be capable of draining me of my bodily fluids if I make her angry one day? A lot of these entries are user-compiled or something, so maybe they don't know what they're talking about.

She lightly tosses her Pokédex on top of her open suitcase and flops down on the bed, done with her research for the night. As the Clamperl resumes her humming and Bijou jumps up to lay next to her, Marcella closes her eyes.

Maybe... she'll just be my baby for a little while longer. What's the rush? She doesn't know where to get a Deep Sea Scale, anyway.

Marcella spent ₽4000 at 103 Crossing.

Marcella spent ₽3200 at the corner store.

Party

Purrloin ♀ // Bijou

Sucker Punch
Fake Out
Sand Attack
Play Rough
Torment
Hone Claws

Art

Clamperl ♀ // Pearly

Clamp
Water Gun
Whirlpool
Iron Defense
Scald

Art

Meowth ♂ // Midas

Pay Day
Scratch
Growl
Feint
Fake Out

Dear Diary

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

2-1: M.I.A.
2-2: Footwear Filchers
2-3: Cut Off
2-4: Bijou Bootcamp
2-5: Beached
2-6: Pearly
2-7: Showtime - ft. Avril, June, Tsu, Robynn, Shuna
2-8: Natsuko vs. Marcella - ft. Tsu
2-9: The Three C's
2-10: In/Dependent
2-11: Connections - ft. Avril, Hikaru

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

3-1: Fiancé
3-2: Promise
3-3: Roughing It
3-4: Feline Friends
3-5: For Tuna
3-6: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3-7: Unruly
3-8: Tough Call
3-9: In Your Shadow
3-10: Renewed Resolve

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

4-1: Ranger's Regret
4-2: Creative Outlet
4-3: Homework
4-4: Ghosts of the Past
4-5: Direction
4-6: A Quiet Day

Inventory

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

Fanclub Membership Card (Annual)

Contest Pass

HELD ITEMS

Silk Scarf (

)

Safety Goggles (

)

CONSUMABLES

Luxury Balls x 3

Lum Berry x 2

Razz Berry x 2

Sitrus Berry

MISC. GEAR

Medium-sized leather suitcase of clothes
Rotom Phone (Sky Blue)
Family-sized tent
Inflatable mattress
Inflatable stools x 2
Electric air pump
Binoculars
Small lidded pot

Trainer Info

Badges

Groc · Jun 8, 2022

Edison Kintobor
Tuesday, October 6th; midday
Mauville City

Returning to the Ranger Station again, Ed drops off the garbage satchel before he recovers his team and his gear.

"Thank you for returning for this. We appreciate your efforts in keeping our natural areas clean." Ranger Lake gives a curt nod.

"Of course." Ed responds in kind, though truthfully he's not interested in formal pleasantries. He's ready to finally get to Mauville City.

"Mr. Kintobor, if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion?" The Ranger speaks up just as he's about to leave. "I know what you do with your time is none of my business, but I recommend stopping by the Pokémon Center first thing. You may wish to properly rest and refresh yourself after your excursion."

Mention of the Pokémon Center reminds Ed that he'll need to return his borrowed tent as well. "An excellent suggestion. Thank you, Ranger. I'll take care of that straight away." He hesitates for just a moment, making sure Lady Bug is secured in her ball before he fishes out the Ultra Ball he'd actually gone back for.

"I think you should have this, Ranger Lake. I found it near that abandoned facility."

Ranger Lake is confused, but accepts it anyway, looking it over curiously. "Another discarded Poké Ball? No, wait... this is a model of one. Why are you giving me this, and more importantly, why were you near the ruins of New Mauville? That site is condemned and off-limits."

Oh. Edison is glad he said near and not inside.

"I'm traveling, so a trinket like this isn't practical to haul around. But you? You're doing a valuable service, and I don't think Rangers like you get the respect you deserve." He reaches out, closing her fingers around the fake Ultra Ball. "You're the Ultra one here."

Lake blushes slightly, though her composure doesn't falter. "I see. This is... very forward of you, Mr. Kintobor, but also very thoughtful. I appreciate the sentiment, and the wordplay. But you're still a bit young for all this, don't you think?"

Now it's Ed's turn to be surprised. "Wait, what? Too young?" Does she mean too young to be exploring old ruins like he did? Had she seen through his thinly veiled lie and is now concerned for him?

Lake sighs, and smiles gently at him. "You have a long road ahead of you, Edison. Don't rush these things. I believe you have a good heart, and a beautiful mind, but save matters like this for when you have more experience. I hope we meet again some day, perhaps in a more official capacity, and I can call you a friend." She pats his hands gently, taking the fake Ultra Ball as she pulls away.

"I see." Ed nods, not truly understanding. "Thank you... Ranger? I don't know your name."

Lake taps her Ranger badge with a smile. "When I'm on duty, 'Ranger' will suffice. Although my friends call me Cali. Have a nice day, Mr. Kintobor."

So Ed leaves, taking the path up toward Mauville. One of the Cherish Balls shakes on his belt, and he sighs as he opens it. Lady Bug emerges into his open hand, squeaking furiously. "I know you're upset, but hold on."

Electricity crackles around Bug as she glares at him, as though warning him to choose his words wisely.

"The Ball was fake. Bupkis. Completely useless to us. It would be illogical to carry it with us, and doing something nice for that Ranger is a better use of it than stroking your ego with a trophy collection."

Bug leaps onto his shoulder, stomping on his satchel strap indignantly.

"Everything I've collected has some use. Maybe not to me, but that just means I haven't found who it goes to yet. That Bulldoze TM served little purpose until I met you and Automaton. But look what we were able to do with it, given enough time. Besides, I already have a real Ultra Ball, can you imagine if I'd grabbed the fake by mistake one day? I'd throw your precious trophy at a Pokémon and look like a fool, and we'd both be feeling bad."

She huffs out a breath and crosses her front limbs, pouting adorably.

Ed chuckles as he boards the tram. "You'll learn there's more to life up here on the surface, little Lady. Luckily I'm an excellent teacher."

"Me?" A small girl speaks up, looking at him curiously.

"Oh! No, I was talking to my Pokémon. Sorry." Ed pulls Bug off his shoulder to show the girl.

"Aww! She's cute! Can I pet her?" Without waiting for permission, the girl reaches for Bug, who squeaks in alarm. Automaton bursts from his ball in a flash, surprising Ed and the little girl both as he interposes himself between them.

The girl shrieks in fear and cowers behind her mother, who shoots Ed a dirty look. He steps back, hastily returning both Pokémon to their balls. "Sorry! They're new, I'm still training them!"

🚊 🚊 Later... 🚊 🚊

Ed checks his Pokémon in mostly out of habit, as most of them had been resting with the Rangers, but it never hurts to have them looked at. While they're getting their check-ups, he returns his tent, paying the additional ₽2000 without complaint. Thinking about Sunny and Marie, he advises the clerk that they should consider working with the Rangers to collect tents at the entrance to Mauport, but the clerk just smiles and says they'll bring it up with their supervisor. Ed suspects that they won't, but sees no point in arguing.

Just as he considers going to the Café for some real food, his name is called to collect his Pokémon. He goes and gathers the six Poké Balls, and someone approaches him as he steps away from the counter.

"Whoa, hey! Six Pokémon, huh? That's impressive!" A man in his late teens approaches Ed, wearing far too much denim, a ball cap turned sideways with the bill over his left ear, and dark sunglasses despite being inside. "Let me guess, you're heading up to the Gym next, right?"

"No, actually, I was going to get something to eat. Who are you?"

"Edibles, huh? Well look no further, my man, 'cuz I got what you're looking for right here!"

Ed looks around, but no one seems to be paying attention to them. "Unless you have a sandwich in those jacket pockets, I'm skeptical of that claim. Excuse me."

He starts walking, but the man cuts him off before he takes a second step. "Whoa, what's the rush, my friend? You're not even gonna listen to my sales pitch? I've got all kinds of cool stuff in these pockets, man! That's why they call me Pockets!"

"That is an unfortunate nickname."

"Yeah, well... I used to go by Peacey-P, but I ran into some issues with that one." He removes his hat, nervously scratching the back of his head. "But enough about names, man, I can hook you up! I got the newest stuff, fresh from the lab and the first one's free!"

Lab? New? Free? He really should have led with those. "I'm sorry, what do you sell, exactly?"

"Vitamins and supplements!" Pockets proudly declares. "Not just for Pokémon, but for people, too! I got Pep-Up Mints, with all the punch of a Bang in one easy mint! I got Chai-risma, makes you a smooth talker and it tastes like a latte! And I got Shuckle-Berry in red or blue! It's the new hotness, a gen-u-ine power-up pill for Pokémon! So what'll it be?"

Ed puts his hand to his chin, considering his options. Free vitamins sounds like a good idea, but deciphering Pockets's sales pitch is difficult. The Chai-risma sounds sketchy, and he's never cared much for coffee anyway. He's heard rumors of Shuckle producing Rare Candy, but science had debunked that urban legend years ago. Which leaves the mints. "Well, I do like mint, so I'll take the peppermints, I suppose."

"That's what I'm talking 'bout! Put some pep in your step, my man!" He pulls a small bag from his jacket, handing it to Ed. "You sure you're not heading to the Gym? Miss V runs crazy late hours, you know?"

Ed tries the mint, letting it dissolve in his cheek so the flavor lasts longer. "I don't know, actually. I just got here."

"What? Man, you gotta check out the Game Corner! They got like, the latest VR and shit, they got laser tag, fuckin' bowling? You look like a man who bowls!"

Ed shrugs, chewing the peppermint thoughtfully. "What does this have to do with the Gym?"

"That's the cool part! The Gym's inside the Game Corner! You get to like, hook up to the VR and battle in like cyberspace, man!"

Ed nods, swallowing the crunched up mint. "That does indeed sound cool. How late is that available? You said 'crazy late', was it?"

"Man, you ask a lot of questions, what do I look like, a tour guide? I'm trying to run a business here!"

Ed sighs, pulling out his wallet. "I'll buy a pack of the mints if you tell me what you know."

"Oh, you're in for the long haul! Here you go, six pack of Pep, don't eat 'em all at once!" He hands Ed another bag, this one with six mints, for just ₽3000.

"So, Gym's open from 6 to like 2 in the morning, you dig? But there's the whole arcade to check out while you wait. Play some games, win a prize and shit. Or just go to town on the old retro games and laser tag and all the actual fun stuff. Then the Gym Leader takes you to cyberspace and you like, get to fight her Vaporygon or whatever. I hear they got all kinds of crazy moves they shouldn't have, and she's got like a hundred of these things, 'cuz they show the matches on the big screen and they got something new every time. And if you win she let's you keep one or something, so there's gotta be a ton of them."

Ed was skeptical at first, but the more Pockets talks, the more excited Ed gets. For the first time since he's arrived, he's actually excited to visit a Gym! It's a good feeling, and he feels his heart beat just a little faster as the excitement and the energy spreads through his body.

"That sounds astounding! I'm glad you stopped me, I'm heading there right now! ...where am I going, exactly?"

Pockets claps a hand on Ed's shoulder, grinning happily. "My man! So what you want to do is head on over to the lower four, right? Looking for TVH Tower. And from there..."

budube · Jun 8, 2022

Jordie "Jo" Hughes

Tuesday, September 29

Chapter 4: Part 3 - vs. Merry, Part 2

15:10 - 15:13, Littledale's Gym... Apparently
"I-" Frank hits his forehead and shakes his head. "Sorry for that I didn't mean to…"

"What?"

"I… I messed 'em up. The… pronouns, y'know?"

"Oh… y-yeah sure. D-don't worry about it." I wasn't even listening, been thinking about Bane's recent actions. Seems like his wild self from Granite Cave is still there, despite him acting like a puppy most of the time.

"You good?" Merry asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Merry nods. "Next Pokémon, right? That's what Frank said?"

"Jordie is about to send their next Pokémon!" the referee calls.

I sigh and nod. Next DuskBall in my hand is… "Maroon, your turn!"

Anchor falls, makes the ground shake, and the kids look both amazed and confused at what the hell is that thing from ships doing inside a PokéBall. 'Wow so cool!' 'Is that a real Pokémon?', I hear. Do I want to tell them the actual Pokémon is just the red seaweed?

I won't bother.

Merry nods with a smile, not even stopping to think about the terrain or what Pokémon to use. As soon as they saw Maroon, they knew what they had to send out. And I'm just confused, because…

It's a Miltank.

There's very little I know about Miltank. In fact, I just know they are all female, they are normal-type Pokémon, and… they roll. Yes. There's a lot of Pokémon that roll, but for some reason, Miltank is the most popular rolling Pokémon out there.

Why would you send a normal-type against a ghost, though? Sure, immunity is one thing, but it applies to both sides, y'know? Maybe she got good coverage? Regardless, Merry seems to be pretty sure about their choice here, so I gotta thread carefully.

Miltank starts by wagging her finger–if you can call it that–. Metronome, of course. Can't make predictions against that. Miltank starts running towards Maroon, both arms pointing back, and without any care at all, she starts flexing an arm the moment she jumps. Is she going to punch Maroon? That shouldn't do anything to them, yet still Miltank is coming at them with all their might.

Out of instinct more than anything, Maroon drags their anchor to the front before Miltank connects her attack. The interesting part here is that it does manage to make them budge a bit. Not too much, Maroon is a sturdy defender and Iron Defense just adds to it, but this attack shouldn't do any kind of damage to them.

Scrappy?

It's possible, I would have to see it a second time, though. Foresight is also an option, if Miltank is able to learn it. I didn't see the eye glint Brawly's Hariyama had, though.

Maroon Wraps around Miltank using their helm and starts weakening her with Giga Drain. In an attempt to break free, Miltank lets herself fall and starts rolling away from the anchor. The Dhelmise just tries to hold her where she is, but Miltank starts adding more power to her Rollout, ultimately forcing Maroon to extend their body to their highest length before letting her go. Miltank is blasted forward at great speed, and with all the power she gathered, she flies up a hill and it looks like she's going to fall and take massive damage, but instead she keeps rolling in the air then rolls down the same hill until she forces herself to stop.

Miltank slowly gets back on her two feet and shakes her head before stopping to take a breath, allowing Maroon to shoot their helm at her in an attempt to Wrap her up again, but the cow Pokémon dodges by jumping on top of it and Stomping it against the ground. Miltank starts running towards Maroon now, tilts her upper body forward, showing her small horns at Maroon and strikes the anchor directly with a Headbutt. No Foresight, definitely, this is a natural ability of hers.

"So that's how it is," I chuckle, then smile back at Merry. "Scrappy, Cotton Guard, and a really solid healing strat. This is a nice set of Pokémon you got with you, y'know?"

Merry smiles back, holding the tip of their hat. Miltank also takes the compliment quite well. "Heh. Thank you. Yours are not too shabby either."

"Can't allow this battle to get past three rounds sadly. Just know I'm starting to have fun," I add, with a grin, putting my shades back on. "Maroon, Wrap!"

Maroon quickly retrieves their helm from the ground, trying to impact Miltank from behind, but she takes notice of it easily, jumping and Stomping it to the ground again. Before Miltank tries another Headbutt, Maroon uses their helm as the axis of rotation to swing a weak but quick Gyro Ball at Miltank, which sends her falling back.

Miltank casts another Metronome from the ground as Maroon attempts to Wrap around her another time, manifesting a pair of wings, which allows her to fly up really high like a Braviary, while also holding Maroon's helm on her arms. Maroon tries holding Miltank back and taking her back to the ground, but she is able to pull their strength with no issue until they extend the seaweed to its limit, even dragging Maroon through the ground a little bit before taking a backwards turn and Sky Dropping on their anchor.

Merry's Pokémon seems to be more affected by that move than Maroon themselves, which makes sense, she just hit her head with an anchor. However, she manages to identify where she's standing quicker than the red Dhelmise, rolling back near the hill from before at Merry's orders to start drinking some of her own… I never thought I would see that.

Maroon's helm flies swiftly through the grassy field, in yet another attempt to attack Miltank as she heals, but once again, she's able to Stomp them with no issue before finishing her move, also rolling away to avoid the anchor that comes falling from the air like a guillotine.

I take a quick breath and clench my fist before adjusting my shirt and my shades. Miltank is just too fast for Maroon, hitting her is almost impossible, y'see? I have to try something different, but what, exactly?

Maroon keeps following Miltank, except this time they open with an anchor shot first. She dodges the move again, of course, while at the same time casting another Metronome which's energy materializes into some kind of magnet. The magnet instantly flies away from Miltank's hand, sticking itself to Maroon's anchor, letting out a faint beeping sound before blowing up.

With the anchor down, the helm makes its movement, once again being shot directly towards Miltank. Merry's Pokémon jumps to Stomp on it once again, but this time the anchor takes a lift as well, making the helm change its direction upwards, dodging Miltank's attack and managing to Wrap around her after what seems like a million tries.

In an initial attempt to break free, Miltank tries another Metronome, but it only becomes a water-powered uppercut of some kind that is unable to do anything for her, so she grunts with annoyance before she starts rolling her way out of Maroon's grip.

This time Maroon counter acts, using Gyro Ball to spin the other way around and have her decelerate. Miltank starts losing speed and is about to stop due to Maroon putting up more force, but instead of giving up, she opts to take a u-turn and keep rolling the same way the Dhelmise spins, trying her best to expand the radius between herself and the anchor, which acts like the axis of rotation this time.

Now Maroon is the one battling to not let go, with the helm still around Miltank, yet unable to change directions without losing speed and quickly reaching their limit length until a group of bubbles suddenly start bursting from the top of the anchor. They quickly climb their way across the rest of the red seaweed, and then they rapidly turn into streams of water and foam. A Whirlpool suddenly forms in the battlefield with the anchor as the origin, and paired up with Maroon's Gyro Ball, it adds centrifugal force, forcing Miltank to stop rolling as she's violently sucked inside the Whirlpool, ending up tied to Maroon's anchor.

The anchor falls down thanks to the added weight of Miltank, and Merry's Pokémon has no means to escape now. The Gym Leader already has their PokéBall in hand, but they don't want to give up until Miltank tries a final Metronome. Miltank waggles her finger and suddenly takes in a lot of air before she-

"You gotta be shitting me… What the fuck is this!?" I actually can't help but take out my shades because of what I'm seeing now. Is what I'm seeing right? All of a sudden, Miltank started floating. Not flying, floating. Levitating. Like a balloon, y'know? And she's taking Maroon with her! Behind her back! It's like she's being abducted by aliens or something, it's crazy! "Maroon, anchor down, pull her back! Don't let her float higher!"

Big mistake.

I should've thought, Miltank couldn't keep floating higher with Maroon on her back, but now that she has that weight down, she can pull her strength with no issue. It's still really crazy, though, it looks like she weighs as much as a balloon, yet still manages to not be pulled down by a Pokémon capable of carrying and shooting an anchor almost all the time.

Maroon tries pulling her back with another Whirlpool, this time using a horizontal axis to suck her in like a vacuum cleaner, but before it manages to stop her, Miltank turns around, grimaces at Maroon with what seems like a grin before allowing herself to be sucked into the Whirlpool by diving at full force, striking with a full force headbutt and knocking the anchor down.

Maroon has still energy left after all the Giga Drain they used while Miltank tried breaking away from their grip, but was still really stunned by the sudden attack. In fact, the tired one is Miltank, who tries rolling away to the hill once again to use Milk Drink once more, however, this time she's actually dragged back by Maroon's Whirlpool time, coiling around her once again to restrain her. Maroon tries Gyro Ball once again, this time with the intent to attack. The anchor swings forward, it oscillates and takes a turn backwards, and comes back again like a boomerang, delivering the final blow on Miltank from behind.

I've been holding my shades above my head all this time since Miltank started floating and just now do I feel relieved to let them go as I crouch with my hands on my knees and let go all the air I had stuck in my chest. This last battle certainly was something.

"You pulled up a good battle over here." Merry walks to me, hands in their pockets and nods at me moving a hand to the tip of their hat before offering me another handshake. "You still gotta work on some stuff, though. Y'know what it is, that Aron of yours"

I grimace at the mention of Bane, and my first thought is certainly to lash out at Merry for it, but I swallow my own words just this time. What happened there was embarrassing, really, and I can't have that happen again, y'see? So I just nod to agree with Merry on this one.

"Y'earned this, by the way. The Dell Badge. And…" Merry searches their pockets, for a while, looking for something, but there's nothing apparently, other than the money, which they also give me. "Frank, you got them discs with you?"

Frank nods, handing the Gym Leader a small box with ground and grass TMs inside.

"That Dhelmise of yours got me a bit on the edge there with them grappling tactics. Hopefully this here move results useful. It can be learned by many others too, so have no worries about havin' it limited to them only."

Jordie got the Dell Badge!
Jordie got the Grass Knot TM!
Maroon forgot Wrap and learned Whirlpool!

Jordie's Party:

Battle Subway:

Inventory:

Spoiler:

Jo's portrait made with: https://picrew.me/image_maker/1140610/

Aquacorde · Jun 9, 2022

Marie Rachelle Mocinno

Knuckle, Dell

₽23,500

Wed Oct 7, Evening

Mauville

Chapter 6 #1 - Gym Corner?

The tram drags them upward at a clip, rising high into the dense towers of Mauville with hardly a shake, winding past balconies and skyways as it makes its way into the heart of the metropolis in the glare of the setting sun. Marie's face would be glued to the window if not for the dizzying rush her head spins with when she compares the thin, delicate tram rails with the distance to the ground below. She's never been particularly afraid of heights, and she hopes the feeling is more to do with the unfamiliar motion of the tram than anything. This fantastical city can not be experienced from the ground, after all.

But Marie isn't quite able to experience it from the windows of a tram, either, so she spends some time registering herself for the Winstrate's tournament (much to Sunny's irritation), and then reviewing the information on Mauville's current gym and leader.

Marie sighs deeply at the webpage open on her phone. Sunny really had been doing well at slowing down. If only she'd accepted Brawly's badge- then there would be no trouble at all! But she will not let the tournament pass Sunny by. So it is with much reluctance that she admits: "It turns out that the gym is open until two in the morning."

"What? Hell yeah!" Sunny had been glowering out the window for most of the ride, but now eagerly leans closer to see Marie's screen. "That's kinda late, but I'm not complaining!"

"That leaves us plenty of time to check into our rooms. Look- this is the stop, get ready."

The tram dives into the shadowed belly of a building, but Marie's eyes adjust quickly from natural to artificial light and Central Hub sprawls out beneath them, all winding stairs and bustling bodies weaving in between tracks and trams briefly stopping before speeding away again in all directions. Their own tram shudders to a halt and the girls stream out in pace with a good bunch of the passengers, all dispersing into the vast transit network.

"We have to find an elevator," Marie says above the muddled roar of thousands of people. "The Pokémon Center should be right above us."

Sunny looks around at all the people, stepping a little closer to Marie so they don't get separated. They follow bold signs and arrows to a busy elevator bay, and Marie jabs "23-PC" because she sees it first. They and several others tumble out into the clean floors and quiet hum of a Pokémon Center, a respite from the whirlwind of Central Hub.

"Two rooms, please," Marie says a little breathlessly to the attendant. "And oh- we need to return a tent. Sunny, hand it over."

"Huh? Oh, right." Sunny shakes herself out of wherever her mind was and slides the tent across the desk. "Here you go, one slightly used tent."

"Thank you," the attendant says cheerfully, scanning the poorly-packed tent bag. "₽2,500 please."

"Ah." Marie blinks. "Huh?"

"You paid for two nights out of Oldale, but you've had it for seven. You two owe ₽2,500."

She'd forgotten about that. That's a dent in the funds she's so carefully padded out.

But you two- ah, that's helpful. "Splitting the ₽500 is annoying, isn't it? Tell you what- I'll pay ₽1500, and Sunny, you only have to pitch in ₽1000." The alleged altruism should make it easy for Sunny to forget that the tent is in fact Marie's sole responsibility, despite Sunny sharing it. And it may also ease the burden of Sunny being the one to have carried it since their last night with Edison- why would Marie have asked for it back, after all?

"But we didn't even use it!" Sunny complains, but eventually relents and pulls out her wallet. "Damn it, I only have ₽1500 left. Here, bleed me dry, why don't you." She passes over the thousand, but glares at the attendant as though trying to light them on fire with her mind. They remain unflinchingly neutral as Marie pays her own ₽1500 with not nearly so much feeling, and hands a key to each in return. Conveniently, their rooms are right next to each other, and it takes no time at all for Marie to repack her city bag and meet Sunny back in the hallway.

"Gym, then?"

Back down to Central Hub, busy still. Some muddling out of directions, though Marie is quickly tracking the tram patterns. A quick jaunt to TVH-10, past shops filled with a colorful explosion of branded media merchandise. A packed elevator down to 4-GC, tumbling out into a chaotic visual experience lit by splashes of buzzing neon and ropes of ever-shifting color.

Marie sure hopes the gym leader is here like the reviews claim, because she doesn't want to leave.

Even Sunny seems taken by the atmosphere here, but a large TV on the wall advertises the Up-and-Coming Cup (sponsored by Kevin) and she redoubles her efforts to find the leader. Marie trails unhelpfully, fascinated by the sheer amount of equipment. The fourth floor seems to be focused around, perhaps, technology in motion, with dance games and virtual reality zones taking up large swaths of floorspace, big screens above broadcasting their players' every move. The entry line for lazer tag almost draws Marie away from Sunny, but her friend's sudden outburst has her veering back.

"What are yo- oh?"

The girls stare together at the paper taped to the wall next to a windowless door. The lighting is poor, both in the hallway lined with more VR spaces and in the printed picture, but there's no mistaking whose face is under a big, bold NO ADMITTANCE statement.

"Oh, that is fascinating." Marie's lips curl up in a delighted grin. "How in the world did he manage this?"

Sunny shakes her head in disbelief. "He better not have gotten arrested again. Wait, maybe that's why he didn't call?"

"Arrested? No, sorry, arrested again?"

"It's a long story, but basically he shouldn't go anywhere by himself. As you can see." Sunny grins, clearly relishing the moment.

"Apparently not!" Marie huffs, eyebrows raised to the dark ceiling above. "You'd think he'd at least be fine at a gym. I didn't realize leaders could kick people out."

"Wait, Gym? In this arcade?"

"Mm. There's a little plaque, see?" Marie taps it, mounted right next to the more distracting mug shot of Edison Kintobor. "Eiddon Roth is Mauville's gym leader. I assume he's in there. Go on, knock!"

Sunny hesitates just a moment before knocking on the door. She waits impatiently, and a burst of static comes over an intercom. "Welcome to the gym! Before we get started, do you want to make yourself a costume?"

"Uh… no?" Sunny looks at Marie, mouthing "costume?" Marie shrugs in return. She hadn't seen any mention of dressing up.

"Alright, that's fine! Come on in, take a seat, and the Leader will be with you shortly."

"Well, there you have it!" Marie claps her hands together and leaves them touching, fingertips tapping gently to the smirk curving her lips. "Now. You do your battle- I'm off to find out how the hell Edison managed to get himself kicked out. And hopefully- where he went afterward. I'm sure the staff here will have some of the juicy details~"

"You're not coming in?" Sunny looks at Marie in surprise, but one look at Marie's expression is all she needs. "Fine. I'm gonna win, let me know what you find out. Good luck." She offers Marie a fist bump for morale.

"Same to you." Marie knocks her knuckles against Sunny's delicately, then gleefully spins on her heel and dashes away to the concessions booth. Information and snacks- that's a two for one in her book!

featuring Groc as Sunny Dey ⟡

Spoiler: Team

Spoiler: Inventory

Spoiler: Contacts

Juno · Jun 9, 2022

4-7: Long Road Ahead

🌲 Route 103 🕙 Sept. 30th, Late Morning

This trunk has got to go.

Two hours into her walk, and it's the only thing she can think about.

Marcella left the kind couple's home bright and early in the morning—by her standards, at least—thinking she could get a good distance ahead through Route 103 today. Her recollection of her time on Route 102 was that the hiking portion was fine. The most uncomfortable part, in her opinion, was trying to sleep on the air mattress.

But she also didn't have to carry everything herself. This leather trunk must weigh at least ten pounds empty. But it's not empty. And she's also carrying her tent. The big one she was told not to purchase, on account of it being so heavy.

The weight of it all is starting to add up now.

She makes a mental note to replace the suitcase with a lighter, easier-to-carry pack as soon as she gets to Mauville. If she gets to Mauville, she finds herself thinking bitterly a lot on this hike. She shakes her head. Stop it. Toughen up.

Her back and arms do need a bit of a break, though. So for now, she tries to pawn the trunk off on Midas and Bijou, touting it as a part of their "strength training". Shouldn't be too bad, even though they're small; Pokémon are strong. They carry it without much complaint for a bit, even if it's just for the novelty of it. But they get tired of doing a decent job pretty quickly, letting her suitcase scrape against the ground and smack into rocks and trees as they move through the route. After a short while of that, she puts an end to it and goes back to carrying it herself.

And then, it starts to rain.

Marcella does have a compact umbrella in her suitcase somewhere, but she doesn't know if she really wants to stop in the middle of the rain, put her stuff down on the muddy ground to dig it out and then find a free hand to hold the umbrella, all while carrying everything else still, so—

She sighs.

"We're stopping here," She announces to the drenched cats. They didn't get very far today, but she's not going on in this weather, with all this stuff on her. Bijou quickly lurks under a tree as she waits for shelter to be put up, and Midas busies himself with pawing at a pale bug Pokémon skittering up a branch. She's not getting any help with this today.

Setting up the tent looks so easy in the video. It looked so easy when Parker did it, too.

"This pole goes where?" She mutters, skipping back in the video and putting it on 0.75x speed to watch it back more closely. Why do they speed these things up mid-video? It makes the overall runtime of the video shorter so at a glance, it looks like this tent can be set up in five minutes, but in practice following all these steps takes much longer. She clicks her tongue. Deceptive.

But even then, she doesn't remember it taking Parker this long to set up. And it actually looked like a tent when he did it.

Twenty minutes of fussing around with it in the rain later, she's too tired, hungry and fed up to keep trying. She'd put her Rotom phone away because she doesn't want to drain all the battery replaying the video; although she has a power bank, she is going to have to stretch her battery out a few days, and the video isn't helping much anyway. She keeps it on long enough to send a quick series of texts before shutting it off for the night, though.

Wordy as ever. In any case, the tent has enough structure to it that the "outside" is separated from the "inside", and that will have to do for now.

Pearly is thriving in the rain, at least. She leaves the Clamperl outside with their new pot and two packs of instant noodles while she goes to change into some dry clothes. There's nowhere to hang the wet ones, but she does her best to make use of some of the 'loose' tent poles she couldn't quite figure out what to do with to prop the clothing. They are probably going to smell mildew-y tomorrow anyway, but at least they will be dry enough to travel with.

When she checks in on Pearly again, she's glad to see the noodles have been thoroughly cooked with Scald. "Good job, my little chef!" She coos, poking the contents of the pot with her fork. They're maybe a little too thoroughly cooked and a bit mushy, but that's her fault for not checking in sooner.

"Ow!" Marcella exclaims as she reaches for the pot on the ground. It's boiling water. What did she expect?

As she waits for the noodles to cool a bit, she gets out the trail mix and jerky, too. It's some protein, at least. She rounds up the Pokémon and rations out their portions of the food. Bijou takes one look at what is being served and hops up on the stool that Marcella inflated to use as a surface to eat off of. She meows in her face to protest the meal.

"This is all we have for now." Marcella says flatly. She doesn't want to eat mushy noodles either, but she's not in the mood to deal with this diva behaviour. Another insistent meow. "You get nuts." She tells the dissatisfied Purrloin firmly, plonking a few more cashews in front of her.

Bijou makes an indignant little hmph noise, but eats it all anyway. At least Midas appreciates it. There are some pros to the Meowth being plucked off the streets; he's not picky about food.

As they finish up their meals inside, Marcella pokes her head out to check on Pearly. "You still want to play in the rain?" Her shell is wide open, and she's blissfully flailing around the water. "Alright, ten more minutes, then we're coming inside." She tells her. "Bijou, what are you looking for?" Marcella returns to her tent to find the Purrloin's muddy claws digging through her purse. "What is it?"

She roots around a few seconds more before drawing her paw back out, and a Luxury Ball rolls out.

"Oh, you little—"

But before she could finish that sentiment, Bijou shoots her a slightly guilty expression and clicks the button on the shiny, black capsule. She disappears in a flash of red light.

Marcella scoffs. Unbelievable. "Whatever, princess." She mutters to no one in particular.

She can't really blame her, though. Whatever the conditions inside a Luxury Ball are like, apparently it's better than her tent. If she could do the same thing right now, she probably would, too.

She punches the air mattress lightly to see if it's fully inflated yet. Firm enough. Pearly isn't too happy about being dragged back inside, but Marcella doesn't feel good about leaving her outside all night, so she sleeps in the corner of their shelter as Marcella settles in.

Unlike the first night she spent outdoors, she is out cold immediately this time.

Party

BIJOU
Purrloin, F

Ability: Prankster

Sucker Punch
Fake Out
Sand Attack
Play Rough
Torment
Hone Claws

PEARLY
Clamperl, F

Ability: Rattled

Clamp
Water Gun
Whirlpool
Iron Defense
Scald
-----

MIDAS
Meowth, M

Ability: Technician

Pay Day
Scratch
Growl
Feint
Fake Out
-----

Dear Diary

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

2-1: M.I.A.
2-2: Footwear Filchers
2-3: Cut Off
2-4: Bijou Bootcamp
2-5: Beached
2-6: Pearly
2-7: Showtime - ft. Avril, June, Tsu, Robynn, Shuna
2-8: Natsuko vs. Marcella - ft. Tsu
2-9: The Three C's
2-10: In/Dependent
2-11: Connections - ft. Avril, Hikaru

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

3-1: Fiancé
3-2: Promise
3-3: Roughing It
3-4: Feline Friends
3-5: For Tuna
3-6: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3-7: Unruly
3-8: Tough Call
3-9: In Your Shadow
3-10: Renewed Resolve

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

4-1: Ranger's Regret
4-2: Creative Outlet
4-3: Homework
4-4: Ghosts of the Past
4-5: Direction
4-6: A Quiet Day
4-7: Long Road Ahead

Inventory

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

Fanclub Membership Card (Annual)

Contest Pass

HELD ITEMS

Silk Scarf (

)

Safety Goggles (

)

CONSUMABLES

Luxury Balls x 3

Lum Berry x 2

Razz Berry x 2

Sitrus Berry

MISC. GEAR

Medium-sized leather suitcase of clothes
Rotom Phone (Sky Blue)
Family-sized tent
Inflatable mattress
Inflatable stools x 2
Electric air pump
Binoculars
Small lidded pot

Trainer Info

Badges

Juno · Jun 19, 2022

4-8: Observations

🌲 Route 103 🕙 Oct. 1st, Morning

Marcella wakes to the sound of a child screaming. The piercing noise is followed by muffled footsteps, then a woman laughing.

"Oh, sweetie. Come closer, look. It's just someone's abandoned tent."

"But it's moving, mom!"

"Shh, a wild Pokémon is probably inside. We'll tell one of the rangers at the land bridge station to come pick this up when we get there. Come on, keep moving."

Marcella is starving, but she waits until she's certain absolutely nobody is nearby to escape what could have been a very embarrassing encounter. The wind must have knocked it over in the night and one of the poles is lying flat, so the only structure the tent has now is being held up by its tallest resident: Marcella. Once she gets it off her, she makes a quick breakfast of instant oats with Pearly; they do it outside, to give them a little more space so she doesn't end up with third-degree burns if the Clamperl's Scald isn't perfectly aimed at the little pot.

To her dismay, the rain has still not let up. She can't stay here all day though, nor does she particularly want to—it's not too much more comfortable 'inside' the tent than it is outside. And she'd wasted enough time yesterday, so they have to keep moving. After breakfast, she digs out a light, water-resistant jacket and pulls her hair up before getting to work putting things away. She packs up her camp as quickly as she can in the weather, but comes across a new issue soon enough.

"It doesn't fit. Why doesn't it fit?" Marcella mutters, trying to jam the neatly folded tent back in its bag. Well, it's neatly folded to her, but apparently not folded well enough to go back in the container it came out of just the night before. Fifteen minutes of trying to stuff the tent away later, she decides to just move on. It's hanging out of its bag a little, but who cares? It's coming out again in a couple hours, anyway.

"I wish I shared your love of the rain." She tells her Clamperl with a sigh. "But it's time to go. I know, baby. But I can't carry you, too." Pearly pouts as she's returned to her Luxury Ball, and Marcella has a feeling Bijou is perfectly content staying in hers for the time being, so that leaves only Midas to walk alongside her for the day.

It's a largely uneventful hike and more of the same. Dreary, wet and weighed down by all her stuff. Occasionally, Midas darts off to pounce at or chase a new small critter in their path. Most of the time it's more of that white bug Pokémon they saw yesterday; Nincada, her Pokedex tells her—she's getting better at remembering to use that for identification—but sometimes, they see a flash of larger Pokémon obscured by the trees moving deeper within the woods on either side of the path.

Late into the afternoon, Marcella notes that Midas had been walking next to her suspiciously quietly for a fairly long stretch of time. Is something wrong, or...? She studies the Meowth padding along silently with his head down. No, it's definitely suspicious.

As she watches, a squeak comes out of him. Or under him, rather; that was definitely not a sound Midas had made before.

"Hey, what was that? Midas, look at me." The Meowth continues walking like he didn't hear her. "Look at me!"

Reluctantly, Midas lifts his head. Hanging from his mouth is what appears to be a large ball of leaves, but as she puts her gear down and kneels closer to inspect it, some of the plant matter shifts aside to reveal a little face. It blinks at her with little, yellow eyes. Marcella shrieks in surprise.

"What is that? Is it alive? Drop it, drop it!"

Her cry must have startled Midas quite a bit for him to let go of his new friend so quickly. As the small, green Pokémon rolls to the ground, it appears briefly stunned; just long enough for Marcella to scan the creature. Seconds later, legs sprout from within the leafy cloak and it scurries up the nearest tree, blending in with the foliage.

"Ugh. Burmy?" She reads off her screen with a groan. Bug Pokémon. Gross. Looks like these things just kind of hang out in the trees and you can't really see them. Marcella looks up at the greenery surrounding her warily now, as if one is about to drop on her back and attack. She shakes her head, turning her attention back to the Meowth. "No more of that, got it? If you want a friend to walk with, here." She fishes out a Luxury Ball and tosses it out.

The rain is tapering off a bit now, so she figures it's time for Bijou to keep walking. Not that they would be walking for too much longer, as it's getting a bit late in the day. The Purrloin appears in a flash of light, stretching and yawning a bit before Midas rushes over to greet her. She doesn't look any happier to be out, but that's probably the case rain or shine, with all the walking they have been doing.

"Hey, I know one of your teammate would love to be out right now, so consider yourself lucky you have the ability to walk around and enjoy the fresh air. Now come on, little princess."

🌲 Route 103 🕙 Oct. 1st, Evening

As the sun starts to set, Marcella finds a good enough spot to set up for the night. She dumps her things on the ground and roughly pulls the tent out of its bag—since it hadn't been packed away properly anyway, all the parts tumble out with little effort. She gets to work putting the thing up again with a sigh.

As the tent starts to take shape, the sharp ringing of her phone in the quiet forest makes her jump a little. She pulls it out of her pocket, annoyed. It's her brother. Terrible timing. "Oh, fuck off, Ave." She mutters under her breath as she switches the ringer to silent. "Not now."

A few more minutes later, she takes a step back to evaluate her work. It's definitely sagging in more areas than it should, but it looks... fine. Better than yesterday, so that's progress.

"Great, good. We're getting the hang of this! See?" Marcella exclaims proudly, but it's a short-lived victory as Midas hops up on a stool, waving one of the shorter poles in her face. "Oh. Where did this come from?"

Maybe it's a spare part. But she didn't remember any spares when Miles set up the tent proper, nor was it mentioned at the store.

"Well. The tent is standing, so I'm sure it's not that important." She shrugs, tossing it in the bag and lightly kicking it out of the way. "Alright, let's get Pearly out here and get some dinner going."

Since it's no longer raining, she sets the stools up and eats outside of the tent. Marcella goes through her messages and emails quickly as she scarfs down a cup of instant noodles. Even though she'd received the "gift" his Pidove unceremoniously dropped on her head, she hadn't really gone through Brendan's email yet, so she opens it now.

Subject: Re: Birch Research Institute Assistance

From: Brendan Birch <[email protected]>

To: Marcella MacMillan <[email protected]>

Nice to meet you, Marcella! Happy to have you on board!

I'm sure Miles gave you the rundown on what is expected in this project, but I'll clarify just to be sure- my research focuses on numbers, habitat, and behavior of wild Pokémon. Preferably the observer goes unobserved and the Pokémon go undisturbed. You are not wrong to assess that we can still learn much from our domesticated Pokémon, but it is not my personal focus. Professor Oak of Kanto spent most of his years delving into just such things, if you are interested in further reading!

Poochyena are fascinating creatures, and the range and adaptability they display outpaces many Pokémon. Please see if you are able to observe more in the wild! I will be sending a small pair of binoculars via Pidove delivery to facilitate your further reports!

Cheers,

Brendan Birch

Hm. Guess I could give this another shot now. Not like she has anything better to do at the moment. She digs out the binoculars and scans the horizon with them as she pops a pretzel into her mouth. It's getting a little dark now, so anything in the forest isn't super visible. She looks up towards the northern trails instead. It's brighter up there, but just bare, rocky terrain from what she can tell. She fiddles with the zoom wheel multiple times as she looks around, until—

"Oh—woah!" She jolts upright, quickly zooming in on what appears to be an altercation between some Pokémon. It's a bird Pokémon, one of the many she'd seen at Cottage Grove, fighting a smaller creature that looked a lot like the Burmy Midas picked up earlier. It's not much of a fight, really—looks more like a predator toying with its prey. It's a completely different colour though, the Burmy; if Marcella didn't have the binoculars, she might not have even noticed it, as it looks like it's covered in sandy debris rather than leaves this time around.

She grabs her phone and starts hastily typing as much as she can of what she's seeing, without putting down the binoculars. She can clean it up a bit and do some research to fill in the gaps later.

Bird attack on dusty burmy
- Blue/white plumage
- Red feather on head
- Short wide beak
Time of encounter 5:34
Burmy's body is black under the cloak
Throws string at bird; slows it down a little
Yellowish winged creature swoops in to save the day
- Bears resemblance to burmy. Mom? Dad?
Taken back to safety
Hangs it on tree
Turns green!! Back to the leafy exterior we saw earlier

As the sky darkens, she retreats inside her tent to turn the notes into a report. After scrolling through the Pokedex to find the best matches for the other Pokémon she had seen, she's confident she has all the important bits down and starts composing her email to Brendan.

Subject: Birch Research Institute Assistance

From: Marcella MacMillan <[email protected]>

To: Brendan Birch <[email protected]>

Hello again Mr. Birch,

Thanks for your feedback, I will be sure to be mindful of this going forward! Attached is my next report, I hope you will find this creature as interesting as I did.

Burmy: The Bagworm Pokémon

Route 103 is home to many different kinds of bug Pokémon, but the Burmy is one of the most remarkable kind I encountered on my way through this area. At a glance, there is nothing special about the bagworm Pokémon, but what grabbed my attention about it was its exceptional camouflaging skills—I was lucky enough to see it in action as it shifted from its sandy cloak to its plant cloak!

They are tough to spot in the wild and can easily be passed if one is not paying attention, but I made use of the binoculars you sent me last time (thank you!) to observe this species. Up on the northern rocky trails and just as the sun was beginning to set (at the time of the encounter, it was around 5:34 pm), I witnessed a Rufflet attacking one in its sandy cloak form; the disguise is very convincing, but as the Pokémon itself appears to have a black body that stands out quite a bit when it peeks out of its cloak, I think it is generally more effective hiding among foliage in plant form than in the rockier plains, and that is likely how it was spotted and attacked in the first place.

On its own, I don't think the Burmy would have faired well against this predator, but not long after it was attacked, a Mothim bravely swoops in to rescue its young—even though in its adult form it is also disadvantaged against the bird, it fights off the Rufflet just enough to be able to pick up the Burmy and move it to safety. I watched them fly back down towards the forested areas of Route 103, and the sandy speck in the tree the Mothim landed on quickly shifts back into a green, leafy colour, hiding it from sight once again.

A fascinating species to learn about! In my own research, I also found that they have a third type of cloak, useful for hiding in urban cityscapes and I hope to see this one day as well. I will keep you posted if I do!

Best regards,

Marcella MacMillan

And now, we wait. She thinks to herself as she hits send. Hopefully she gets something good this time. For now, she switches her phone off to preserve the little battery remaining and goes back outside to see what her Pokémon are up to.

Party

BIJOU
Purrloin, F

Ability: Prankster

Sucker Punch
Fake Out
Sand Attack
Play Rough
Torment
Hone Claws

PEARLY
Clamperl, F

Ability: Rattled

Clamp
Water Gun
Whirlpool
Iron Defense
Scald
-----

MIDAS
Meowth, M

Ability: Technician

Pay Day
Scratch
Growl
Feint
Fake Out
-----

Dear Diary

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

2-1: M.I.A.
2-2: Footwear Filchers
2-3: Cut Off
2-4: Bijou Bootcamp
2-5: Beached
2-6: Pearly
2-7: Showtime - ft. Avril, June, Tsu, Robynn, Shuna
2-8: Natsuko vs. Marcella - ft. Tsu
2-9: The Three C's
2-10: In/Dependent
2-11: Connections - ft. Avril, Hikaru

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

3-1: Fiancé
3-2: Promise
3-3: Roughing It
3-4: Feline Friends
3-5: For Tuna
3-6: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3-7: Unruly
3-8: Tough Call
3-9: In Your Shadow
3-10: Renewed Resolve

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

4-1: Ranger's Regret
4-2: Creative Outlet
4-3: Homework
4-4: Ghosts of the Past
4-5: Direction
4-6: A Quiet Day
4-7: Long Road Ahead
4-8: Observations

Inventory

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

Fanclub Membership Card (Annual)

Contest Pass

HELD ITEMS

Silk Scarf (

)

Safety Goggles (

)

CONSUMABLES

Luxury Balls x 3

Lum Berry x 2

Razz Berry x 2

Sitrus Berry

MISC. GEAR

Medium-sized leather suitcase of clothes
Rotom Phone (Sky Blue)
Family-sized tent
Inflatable mattress
Inflatable stools x 2
Electric air pump
Binoculars
Small lidded pot

Trainer Info

Badges

Groc · Jun 20, 2022

Edison Kintobor
Tuesday, October 6th; midday
Mauville City

Pockets had been kind enough to inform Ed that the Game Corner would open at 4, which gave Ed a chance to grab a bite to eat at the Pokémon Center before heading out. He pulls his team out so they can all have some food together, and realizes just how big his team is now.

Automaton stands between him and the door, Lady Bug perched on his head, keeping a watch to make sure no one gets close to them. Aster stands idly by, Neo hovering overhead, both of them awaiting instructions. Addie sits by Ed on the seat, smiling up at him (no doubt hoping for a bite of sandwich, which Ed obliges), while Gremlin reclines under the table in the shade.

"So. We have a few hours to kill. Any of you have any ideas?"

🎰 🎰 Later... 🎰 🎰

None of them had any ideas. Or rather, they spent so long discussing and arguing that they didn't actually go do anything. Ed feels like he may have taken a nap at one point, but more accurately he just zoned out for a bit, real sleep eluding him for the moment.

He pops the last of the mints into his mouth before stepping off the tram. He honestly regrets buying them, finding them not worth the price he paid for them. He'd never been so careless with his money before, and replacing his damaged Holotch will cost quite a bit. The Gym sounds fascinating and fun, but the monetary reward holds an appeal to him now. That's a new feeling.

He arrives at the front door five full minutes before the Game Corner opens. A small group of other people start to form, but they're all talking amongst themselves and paying Ed no mind. He taps his foot impatiently, idly toying with Addie's Poké Ball while he waits.

That's unusual... he thinks as he looks at his hands. He's never been jittery or nervous before, especially not while waiting a mere five minutes. But now he seems to be filled with an excess of energy, to the point his hands are actually shaking. "How bizarre..."

So what's different? Something in the air? A Gym he's actually excited for? Being away from his companions? ...the mints? Thinking back, Pockets had said they had "all the punch of a Bang", whatever that means, and had warned him not to eat them all at once. Sure, he'd only eaten one at a time, but he'd eaten them all. What exactly was in those?

The door opens, a blast of cool air pulling Ed from his thoughts. The others eagerly push past him to enter, and he follows out of pure herd instinct. With neon lights and purple blacklights illuminating the area, his vision takes a moment to adjust and take in the gaudy amenities surrounding him. Spoiled for choice, he spends a good fifteen minutes just wandering around and looking at everything, his previous concerns pushed to the back of his mind and excitement overtakes him.

He stops by an area selling cheap fast foods to make a plan. He has well over an hour to spend, might as well make the most of it. Feeling a bit dry mouthed, he goes to ask for a water, pausing as the person ahead of him shifts nervously in place.

"I don't know, man, maybe this was a dumb idea? I mean, Laser Tag is kind of a weird third date, right?"

His friend sighs, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Dude, relax, she already said yes, right? Just have fun!"

"Yeah, but..."

"Look, you get way too worked up over these things. Let's head downstairs, grab something to calm your nerves." He leads his friend away from the food court, toward the stairs.

Something to calm nerves? Ed moves his hand to his chin, but seeing it quiver in his peripheral vision is all the thinking he needs, and discreetly follows the pair to the stairwell. Giving them a head start means they reach their destination before him, and he watches from the landing above as they present IDs to a man by the door.

Fantastic, it's Akurnai City all over again... Ed curses his luck as he watches the two get waved through the door. Last time he'd tried to get past a guard, it was to get into a bar. This must be something similar. Going back to consult a directory confirms that the lower two floors are a casino and bar.

He grimaces at the memory, not keen to repeat that experience. It hadn't exactly calmed his nerves back then, either. Had it? He doesn't really remember much of that night. But his jitters and slight headache are starting to get distracting. Had Pockets poisoned him? Would a second poison counteract the first?

Only one way to find out.

🚫 🚫 Soon... 🚫 🚫

Lady Bug lurks in a corner, staring intently at the door below. One human stands between her and her target, but her human has forbidden her from attacking him. This will require stealth and speed, like when she had to survive on her own. But she's not alone now, as the faint glimmer of green eyes beside her reminds her.

She watches as the child, Addie, waddles down the stairs toward the door, drawing the human's attention. He steps away for a moment, talking down to Addie like he's... well, a child. She makes her move, rushing down the stairs to the corner by the door.

Ed comes down right behind her, drawing the stationary human's attention. He pretends to admonish Addie, making small talk with the guard. Bug moves forward, knowing she won't be able to open the door.

That's the shadow's job. Gremlin pushes the door open from the other side, having already slid through the shadows to get past. Bug respects her skill, but hates her smug grin.

Once inside, she makes a mad dash for the wall, climbing up to the top to avoid being spotted. Gremlin just sinks into the floor like a show-off, leaving her to do the hard part. She quickly heads over to the bar, spotting her prey already there. Hopefully she isn't too late!

The two humans are having a debate of some kind, and she manages to catch part of it.

"You want to be buzzed, man, not plastered. You don't need a double!"

"I'll be fine! This was your idea anyway, so you're paying."

"Another reason you don't need a double..."

She watches the human woman behind the counter. This is the one she needs to observe. This one has her real target. When the two finally decide what they want, the woman grabs a bottle from the shelf and pours some for the men. When she returns it to the shelf, Bug strikes when her back is turned! She hits the bottle the woman grabbed with a String Shot, marking it with her silk. Then she drops to the bar, startling the three humans.

One of the men jumps in fear, knocking over his stool. The other swats at Bug, but she easily dodges his clumsy swipe. The woman grabs a rag, bringing it down like an Electroweb, but Bug scurries away faster than the human can react. Really, it's embarrassing that they think they're the top of the food chain, they're so slow and clumsy.

She catches sight of Gremlin emerging from the shadows, grabbing the marked bottle and dropping to the floor behind the counter. She slinks back into the shadows, only her arm holding the bottle visible. Bug runs as fast as she can for the door, her job done. With the door still partially ajar, she slips through with ease, heading for the corner and scurrying up to the top.

There's a thump as Gremlin doesn't make it through as smoothly, and the guard turns to look. Bug sees Ed's eyes widen in surprise, but the child swiftly rams into the guard's legs, pulling his attention away again. Ed grabs Addie, pulling him off the guard, who huffs out a breath in annoyance as he looks around. Ed returns Addie to his ball, making excuses to leave. From her perch, Bug watches the human look around in confusion for a moment before shrugging it off.

Very slow, humans. Even in the head. Bug is glad she threw in with one of the smart ones. She heads back to the top of the stairs at a leisurely pace, finding her human accepting the bottle from Gremlin. He takes a drink, making a face like it's really bad. Then he drinks again, making a face like it's even worse.

Maybe he isn't so smart.

🍾 ... 🍾

Ed quickly downs the rest of the bottle, his throat burning and stomach twisting in discomfort. "This better work like they said. People drink this for fun?"

He sees Lady Bug drop to the floor, grinning happily. "There you are! How was that for an adventure? Better than scrounging for trash, right?"

She puffs up in annoyance, but Ed raises a hand to forestall any argument she might make. He wouldn't understand her anyway. "Sorry, I shouldn't have called your collection trash. Let's head back up, let this stuff take effect, and find something to do before the Gym opens."

He returns Gremlin and Bug to their Balls, taking the stairs only one at a time. He can already feel himself moving a bit slower, getting excited to already be accruing evidence for his theory. He thinks he'll go to the arcade first.

Groc · Jun 22, 2022

Natsuko Soyokaze
Monday, October 5th; evening
Mauport Bridge

The rest of the afternoon is a blur to Tsu. She can remember specific details if she tries, but mostly she kept engaging in Sky Battles, which started to become routine. Besides, in her head it's a music video montage set to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".

Stacy Tackles a Pikipek, her sheer mass knocking the tiny bird from the sky. A Dustox fills the air with Poison Powder, but a single roar from Stacy causes a Twister that sends the Bug tumbling back to Earth. Even going against a flock of Taillow at the same time just results in five victories at once. She pouts in annoyance when asked to leave the school, and has to start battling somewhere else for a while.

She continues to dominate, as onlookers take bets on who can take her out. Someone with a Magnemite nearly does so, but Stacy dodges a Thunder Wave with Splash, then follows up with a Waterfall tail slap that sends the tiny robot crashing into a nearby produce stand. Tsu sheepishly pays out her winnings to the angry cabbage merchant, and hurries along her way with Stacy following overhead.

But the good times can't last forever, and Tsu starts to notice Stacy moving slower, flying lower, and in general looking tired. While battling a Gastly, it puts a Curse on her, one eye going completely dark and similar darkness spreading across Stacy's corresponding eye. She winces in pain as the Curse takes its toll, and she claims a traditional victory by knocking it out with a Crunch, but lands heavily on the bridge before she can spit it out, resulting in a Sky Battle loss.

Tsu rushes over in concern, but Stacy roars softly, leaning down to nuzzle Tsu affectionately. She's breathing heavily, and can't seem to get herself back into the air. Tsu looks up at the setting sun, realizing that they've been at this for hours. "You were amazing, Stacy. You really earned your title today. Grand Duchess of Sky Battles! I can't remember the last time we got such a workout! Go ahead and rest now, you earned it."

She returns Stacy to her ball, offering a smile and some money to the Gastly's trainer. "Congratulations, you managed to beat me. But I still had fun, so I think we both won."

"Yeah, but I'm the one getting money out of this, so really I won." The woman grins smugly as she takes her pay, turning to look at the spectators. "Hey boys! Who wants to buy me a drink?"

Tsu frowns as she walks back to her bike, set gently against a wall with her Egg secured in the basket. "Can you believe that lady, Eggy? Some people are just poor sports, you know?" She *tsk*'s dismissively as she hops on the bike, heading for the end of the bridge. "Sun's getting real low, so we'll have to stay another night, but we should make it to Mauville by noon tomorrow."

🛏 🛏 Later... 🛏 🛏

"That's enough, you two!" Tsu has to physically grab Riptide and Adagio to pull them off each other, holding them at arm's length. Rip spits up a stream of water at Dagi, but misses and most of it hits Tsu in the face.

"Hey! No using Water Gun indoors! Unless I tell you to in an official battle capacity!" Dagi sticks her tongue out at Rip, earning a scolding herself. "And stop antagonizing each other all the time! I can't sleep if I have to stay up all night keeping you two from killing each other!"

The two Water types look away from each other, mumbling half-hearted apologies. Tsu sets them down, grabbing a towel from her bag as the two head to opposite sides of the room. She dries her face and is sopping up some water from the floor when her phone rings. She quickly tosses the towel over the back of a chair as she checks the name.

"Hey, Lucy! What's up?"

"Hello, Natsuko dear! I met a delightful young lady today who wanted to join the Fan Club, and she says that you were the one who encouraged her to join! So I just wanted to call you and say thank you for sending your friend our way!"

Tsu twists open a bottle of water as she sits down on the bed. "Oh, you mean Sam? That's great! I was hoping she'd join. She really likes Pokémon."

"So I noticed! And while I was giving her Geodude a polish, she told me that the two of you were in a relationship!"

Tsu nearly chokes on her water, coughing and sputtering water back onto the floor. "She said what?!"

"The two of you are going to be rivals!" Lucy continues as though she hadn't heard Tsu's spit take. "Although she didn't specify what kind. Will she be a Contest star, like you? Or are you competing for Badges? Perhaps just a little friendly competition in general?"

Tsu stares at her phone in disbelief. Why would she say it like that? Does she think we're dating? Did Sam say it like that? She puts the phone back to her ear as Lucy keeps talking.

"And to show my appreciation, I'm sending you a present! It's not much, just a little something I've been working on that I think will look just dazzling on Adagio! I've sent it to the Mauville Pokémon Center, it should arrive before you do."

"You made me a present? Lucy, you don't have to do that!" Honestly, she isn't sure she can afford another of Lucy's designs. She just finished paying off the first one.

Lucy scoffs, and Tsu can practically see her dismissive wave. "It's a gift, darling. I know I don't have to make it, I just wanted to. You'll have to show me how it looks when you get to Mauville."

"Haha, yeah. Color me stoked." Tsu tries to pay attention as Lucy starts talking about something else, but her mind keeps wandering. She's almost grateful when Lucy bids her goodbye, unfair to her friend as that may be.

Deciding to phone another friend, she focuses on Stacy and the questions she has about her. Unfortunately, when she calls Sir Bill it goes straight to voice mail. He must be busy. She'd call Edison, but she doesn't have his number, and she doubts he'd answer if she did. He's kind of weird anyway.

So instead she turns to the smartest person she knows, aside from her Aunts, and writes an email to Professor Brendan.

Dear Professor Birch:

Hello! It's Natsuko. I don't have a report for you this week, because I'm on Mauport Bridge and don't see any wild Pokémon up here. I know this isn't your area of expertise, but could you help me with my Gyarados? She's recently learned how to fly, but she gets tired easily and has to land. This is weird, since the first time it happened she was so happy and swam through the rain like it was real water. If you can't help, I completely understand, but I'd be a lousy trainer if I didn't at least try.

Love, Natsuko Soyokaze

P.S.: Any tips for raising a baby? I have this Egg and am a bit nervous for when it hatches. It doesn't seem close to hatching, but I just want to learn as much as I can before it does.

With that done, and Rip and Dagi on separate sides of her so they don't fight, she settles in to sleep, content with the work she did today and looking forward to tomorrow.

Aquacorde · Jun 22, 2022

Marie Rachelle Mocinno

Knuckle, Dell

₽23,000

Wed Oct 7, Evening

Mauville

Chapter 6 #2 - Testimonial

It doesn't take long.

It never does.

Marie perches on the counter of the fourth floor concession booth- a round, open, neon blue thing in the center of what her new minions have informed her is the Multiplayer Room. The scrawny purple-haired girl keeping Marie's icee filled has told her all the VR systems in this room are tied to a single world where people may play and compete in a frankly overwhelming amount of games, and many others congregate to cheer for the free entertainment in between their own rounds of games. Apparently the gym leader had a huge hand in all of this, and has for quite some time- she's been told he even makes most of the virtual costumes she can see people bouncing around in on the screens suspended from every beam of the ceiling. Marie knows little of programming, but the sheer variety presented even to her untrained eyes is impressive.

But the gym leader's career isn't what she's here to discuss, and the collection of clamoring voices is both an intriguing delight and a pain to sort through. Marie gives a sharp clap of her hands, and the assorted arcade regulars turn to look up at her.

"One at a time, please? Who saw him earliest?"

A lanky guy raises his hand, and a tiny child in a Beartic costume copies him immediately and perfectly. "I actually kinda looked at him when they opened the place; he looked nervous. And was dressed kinda weird." The guy winces, which tells Marie he is fully aware that his little sister is in fact wearing a complete Pokémon suit to an arcade, but he plows on regardless. "Like, his clothes were nice and stuff but they were a mess, like he'd been out in the woods for a week." He kind of had been. Maybe not exclusively the woods, but- that certainly tells her Edison hadn't even taken any downtime at the Pokémon Center before marching straight to the gym.

And she'd thought Sunny needed slowing! Well, she still did, but perhaps Edison could be just as bad when he put his mind to it. Marie gestures for the guy to continue.

"Then we saw him at the Project: Pokémon cabinet later- it's Mina's favorite, but it was broken, so we hadn't been playing… the screen was showing something but it wasn't the game, so I looked closer and he was checking his emails?" Marie chokes a laugh into her icee at the poor man's absolute bafflement. "I still don't get why or how. All he said was 'I have to make sure the birds aren't coming for me.' So, uh, I walked away. Quickly. We went back later and the game was working properly though, right, Mina?"

Mina roars a delighted affirmation. The Beartic theme seems to permeate her life.

"That was- what time was it? I remember your watch going off around then. And not stopping. For way too long." The pain on his face is not shared by Mina, who proudly declares that it was around five-roars-o'clock while brandishing her plastic Beartic watch with her own roar.

"Thank you," Marie says politely, smile rather rigid. The brother's resigned gaze meets her own in sympathy. "Anyone catch him just after five, then?"

"I… yeah, I think that's when I got off one of the VR machines." A short girl with one side of her head shaved waves uncertainly. "He got on my machine right after, so I kinda watched him from here. He went in and turned his head kinda fast a few times and had to go throw up… VR does that sometimes if you're not used to it. But, um, he just went right back and did it again? I had to stop watching after that. It's hard to eat when you're watching someone barf."

Marie scrunches her nose. "Yes, that's… I imagine so. Then-"

"He came over here," the girl interrupts. "He wanted food, I don't know what. But he was trying to haggle with Kaden, and they don't ever take any shit, do they?" She directs that question at Marie's icee-filler, who suddenly looks very shifty, but both affirms the girl and hands Marie a refill. "So they told him to get lost in, in a variety of ways. I watched him again 'cause he looked like he wasn't gonna hurl again and… a Munchlax dragged him over to the trash cans over that way. And he just, reached in and pulled some berries out and ate one. I really had to stop watching him then…"

Marie exhales a disappointed sigh into her new icee. Maybe all boys are just gross when they're left alone. Her brothers certainly are. Though, this was all in public. She was under the impression Edison handled himself better under such conditions. Was he… okay? "Fair enough. Next?"

A group of four athletic-looking adults in matching jerseys nudge each other and whisper urgently until Marie raps her knuckles on the counter below her. "Excuse me! We have something to share?"

Some frantic hissing results in a blushing redhead being shoved forward. "Uh! Yes! Um! We, our team, we all needed someone to fill out our lazer tag game and, and he was around, so."

Well that, at least, sounds like a normal interaction. Unfortunately, at this point, Marie has collected many reasons for suspicion. "And did he perform well?"

"Um, no, not at all. He ran around like a panicked Sentret for the first three minutes and then holed up in a corner at the top of a ramp and just kept shooting. Shooting us, too, not even just the other team. We, uh, left him alone mostly. But- but he didn't come out at the end of the match? The staff had to turn on the lights and drag him out. He was like… kinda confused."

So is Marie. "So is that why he is on a poster by the gym office?"

Her collected witnesses shake their heads, redhead speaking for all of them. "No, no, they wouldn't put up a sign for that. They just didn't let him back into lazer tag."

Marie slurps her icee thoughtfully. A little boy shuffles his way to the front of the pack and taps her on the knee. "Yes?"

"He was being weird in the VR again right before I went home."

"Oh? How so?"

"He said he was so tired but he couldn't sleep so he went in the VR and laid down. He said maybe if he napped in the VR it would make him feel better in real life."

Marie has no idea what to say to the revelation that her friend had completely lost his grip on reality.

"Someone in charge came to make sure he was okay. I think he yelled at them. But they made him go downstairs for a while. He wasn't happy in the elevator so I didn't talk to him and he got off at level two."

"Thank you," Marie tells the boy, and hands him a ring pop from the candy selection. Her attendant wisely chooses not to say anything.

"Oh, dudes, I must've seen 'im next, then!" A butch girl waves her hand in the air with maniacal energy. "By the coin machines on two- he's got a Magnemite, right?" Marie affirms. "Right! Yeah! He was usin' it to pull quarters back out the machines! So smart! Kaden woulda kicked his ass if they saw that! They got me the other day for doin' the string trick again! But your guy gave me some quarters 'cause- he 'knows money is tight sometimes', or somethin'. I tried to find him again after I ran out but he took off again! Or got caught. Is that why he got a poster? I've never gotten a poster." The girl seems put out by this. Marie wonders how many petty crimes she commits on a daily basis. And also wonders what in the world Edison is doing worrying about money.

"Would they put it by the gym if it was for quarter games, though?" one of the lazer tag teammates asks. "They'd put it at the ticket exchanges, right?"

The purple-haired snack attendant agrees quietly. "He must have gotten in trouble with Eiddon, right?"

The group goes quiet at that.

"Is Eiddon… scary?" Marie prods.

A collection of shrugs and hand wiggles tell her no, not really. "It's more like… he's really cool," from the VR-focused girl receives a wave of bobbing heads.

And nobody likes the idea of messing up in front of him, Marie fills in. "Well. Does anyone here have any further information? No? Ah. I appreciate your help, then. I suppose I must see how my friend is getting on with her battle. Ta!" She slaps ₽500 on the counter, which most certainly doesn't pay for three icees, a ring pop, and a bag of popcorn. But the girl attending is swiftly distracted by orders as soon as Marie no longer occupies the counter.

Easy.

Makes her a little uneasy to so blatantly steal, but then again- it was never made clear if the icees cost to refill. And the popcorn was offered to her. And she never said she would pay for the ring pop. So. She'll keep the money she's earned, and nobody can call her out on it.

The Game Corner seems to have bigger problems, anyway.

Spoiler: Team

Spoiler: Inventory

Spoiler: Contacts

Juno · Jun 23, 2022

5-1: A Crossroads

🌲 Route 110, Ranger Station (South) 🕙 Oct. 2nd, Evening

"Marcella? Marcella! Heeey! Hey! Over here!"

Perking up at the sound of a man's voice, she scans the area for whomever is calling to her. She'd seen a fair few hikers and other campers along the way so far, but no more than a passing "hi" was usually exchanged, and certainly nobody knew her by name.

Is... is it over? She thinks to herself hopefully. Maybe she'd somehow made it closer to Mauville than she thought; that's the only place nearby she would have run into someone she knows. It's not... quite civilization over here, but there is a structure of some sort, which tells her she's close to something resembling civilization. Probably. She approaches the energetic young man flailing his arms in the air, waving her over to the small building.

"Yes, hi! Hello!" She greets him with a big smile. He bounces on his heels, looking back at her expectantly, as if she should know why she was called over. Her smile wavers.

There's an awkward silence, but when she doesn't speak again, he takes his cue to keep the conversation going. "Ah, made your decision yet?" Marcella reflexively furrows her brows in confusion. What? "Route 110 or Mauport, I mean."

"Oh! I have been advised to take Route 110?" She voices it like a question—she understands all the words he's saying to her, but the situation is still not making sense yet. Who is he?

"Cool, cool—come, I'll get you set up right over here, don't you worry about a thing."

"Oh, thank you." She wouldn't have followed him otherwise, but as they approach the building, she can see the signage declaring it the 'Southern Ranger Station', and through the windows she can see other rangers inside, so there's that, at least.

But at this point, the familiarity with which he is treating her is getting a little weird, especially since she does not recognize him at all. She was hoping her memory would be jogged as they interact, but she is drawing a complete blank. She didn't really want to ask, but for her sanity, she has to. "I am so sorry, but have we met before?"

"Nope!" He says cheerily as he makes his way over to a check-in point attached to the building and takes his place behind the desk. Looking up and noticing her baffled expression, he finally elaborates a bit more on the nature of their interaction. "Ah, Parker said a pretty tall girl with long brown hair will be coming through. So, looks like that's you!"

Ah. Ugh, she doesn't know about 'pretty' right now, self-consciously tucking a loose strand of hair back into her messy ponytail. If she knew she would be encountering people who were actually going to talk to her, she would have made a little effort to present herself better.

"Don't ask how many pretty tall women Dillon's flagged down before you arrived." Another ranger inside the station snickers. "You're lucky Cali got sent to the other station, she woulda reported you for misconduct or something."

Dillon just waves his hand dismissively as he shows her a series of texts.

So he did. She narrows her eyes at his comment about Route 110.

"Anyway, sorry if I freaked you out there, I just assumed Parker would have said something about someone waiting for you over here, but silly me to expect that of him." Dillon continues, putting his phone away. "O-kay! So, a quick rundown of what goes on here—no Poke Balls on the land bridge, empty or otherwise; if you want to bring your Pokémon with you, max is two and they gotta walk with ya. And absolutely no battling on the route." He fires the information at her rapidly, but she catches that she will have to hand over at least one of her Pokémon. A fairly easy decision to make, if they are going to be walking.

"Well, this one can't walk, so I will leave her with you." Marcella hands over Pearly's Luxury Ball, along with her empty ones.

"Why, what did you do to her?"

The accusation throws her off guard. "I—what? She's a Clamperl—"

"Just fuckin' with ya." Dillon giggles, oblivious to Marcella's waning patience. He rolls the capsule around in his hands. "Ooh, Luxury. Fancy. Don't worry, she'll be in good hands. We'll return her right back to you at the northern station. Safe travels! Oh, and before I forget—" He disappears under the counter and pops back up shortly, holding something else.

"Oh, what are you doing?" Marcella wrinkles her nose and instinctively jerks away as he shoves the musty-looking canvas bag with a smiling Trubbish printed on it in her hands.

"Well, we're encouraged to, uh, encourage travelers to take one and help keep the bridge clean and tidy and all that."

Is he asking me to pick up garbage? After what I've already been through? "Oh, I—don't want to do that." She says a bit more bluntly than she was wanting to. She's tired and grumpy and had apparently used the last of her diplomacy and brainpower for the day trying to figure out what the hell was happening in the beginning of this conversation.

"Eh." Dillon shrugs. "Then use it to carry your supplies, store your snacks on the road, or you can put your Purrloin in it and tote it across the land bridge, I don't care—" Bijou perks up hopefully at this last suggestion as he continues to prattle on. "Purely optional if you want to do any of that or not, but just take the bag so nobody can say I didn't do my job, heh. Make sure it makes it back to the next station, please. Oh, and watch out for the creepy old new Mauville place."

"New... old... pardon?" Remarkably, Parker's friend seems to have the complete opposite problem that he does—this man sure says a lot without saying anything.

"Stay away from the creepy building, you won't miss it. I mean, you should miss it, but I mean like, you'll see it, just don't go in—"

"I think I got it. Thank you, Dillon."

With that, she hands the canvas bag off to Midas, who seems to appreciate it much more than she does, then heads through the gates with her cats in tow. She's already composing a strongly-worded text in her head for Parker the next time she switches her phone back on to ask what the hell he was thinking, assigning this complete scatterbrain to help guide her through the checkpoint.

It was already getting late when she had made it to the station, so they don't get very far before they have to set up camp again for the night. Although she's getting better at setting up the tent every time, it really is such a chore. Why did she get such a large tent again? Why didn't anyone stop her?

Oh, right.

Additionally, maybe it's just the exhaustion doing things to her, but she can't help feeling like something or someone is watching her as she sets up the campsite. Does fatigue cause paranoia? There's wild Pokémon all around, just as there were wild Pokémon around them on Route 103, but they largely felt like they were just minding their own business. This feels different, somehow. If it even is a Pokémon that's watching her. Or anything at all.

"Who's there?" She calls out cautiously.

No response. Of course not.

She feels stupid.

So she carries on with the rest of her night routine. She hadn't thought ahead to dinnertime when she was at the station, so now they don't have anybody to generate boiling water with. Not that she was about to haul the Clamperl through Route 110 anyway, but it looks like they are eating just jerky and trail mix for now.

"Yeah, bet you miss the soggy noodles now, huh?" She teases an unamused Bijou, tossing her a few more pretzels. "At least it's not raining tonight. You'll keep me company, right?" The Purrloin's been through it the last few days, and given how they came from the same cushy lifestyle, Marcella can empathize with her and why she has her little diva fits. But despite the hardships, the new experiences—good and bad—and the unsatisfactory menu, Bijou still jumps up onto the mattress to cuddle next to her trainer. Marcella smiles warmly, wrapping an arm around her.

Their peace is quickly disrupted by a loud squawk, followed by a yowling noise from Midas. The tent rustles as something knocks into it. Bijou bristles, and Marcella stands up. "What—" Her heart is beating fast, but she'd left her Meowth to play outside and she has to investigate. Opening the tent's entrance, a flurry of claws and feathers greet her as Midas tumbles in with a Pidove under him.

"Oh my god, up—get up!" She quickly pulls the Meowth off of the familiar grey bird. It ruffles its feathers indignantly, glaring at the both of them. "I am so sorry, it will never happen again. Please don't tell Brendan."

The Pidove's beady yellow eyes are still on her, but it drops the package it was holding at her feet before hopping out of the tent and taking flight. Marcella sighs, picking it up and putting it near her luggage without opening it. A false alarm, but the little run-in still startled the crap out of her and she just wants to sleep now. She'll check it out tomorrow.

At least that cleared up the mystery of what's been watching her.

Or so she thought. She was hoping the strange feeling from earlier would go away as she settles in, but it doesn't. As the day draws to a close and Marcella climbs into bed with Midas and Bijou flanking her, she falls into an uneasy slumber.

Party

BIJOU
Purrloin, F

Ability: Prankster

Sucker Punch
Fake Out
Sand Attack
Play Rough
Torment
Hone Claws

PEARLY
Clamperl, F

Ability: Rattled

Clamp
Water Gun
Whirlpool
Iron Defense
Scald
-----

MIDAS
Meowth, M

Ability: Technician

Pay Day
Scratch
Growl
Feint
Fake Out
-----

Dear Diary

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

2-1: M.I.A.
2-2: Footwear Filchers
2-3: Cut Off
2-4: Bijou Bootcamp
2-5: Beached
2-6: Pearly
2-7: Showtime - ft. Avril, June, Tsu, Robynn, Shuna
2-8: Natsuko vs. Marcella - ft. Tsu
2-9: The Three C's
2-10: In/Dependent
2-11: Connections - ft. Avril, Hikaru

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

3-1: Fiancé
3-2: Promise
3-3: Roughing It
3-4: Feline Friends
3-5: For Tuna
3-6: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3-7: Unruly
3-8: Tough Call
3-9: In Your Shadow
3-10: Renewed Resolve

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

4-1: Ranger's Regret
4-2: Creative Outlet
4-3: Homework
4-4: Ghosts of the Past
4-5: Direction
4-6: A Quiet Day
4-7: Long Road Ahead
4-8: Observations

CHAPTER 5: YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DON'T GO

5-1: A Crossroads

Inventory

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

Fanclub Membership Card (Annual)

Contest Pass

HELD ITEMS

Silk Scarf (

)

Safety Goggles (

)

CONSUMABLES

Luxury Balls x 3

Lum Berry x 2

Razz Berry x 2

Sitrus Berry

MISC. GEAR

Medium-sized leather suitcase of clothes
Rotom Phone (Sky Blue)
Family-sized tent
Inflatable mattress
Inflatable stools x 2
Electric air pump
Binoculars
Small lidded pot
Unopened parcel from Brendan

Trainer Info

Badges

Juno · Jun 25, 2022

5-2: Lurker

🌲 Route 110 🕙 Oct. 3rd, Morning

Sunlight trickles in through the half-zipped entrance of her tent, and Marcella opens her eyes as a new day begins. She looks around, bleary-eyed, taking in the state of her surroundings. Oh, right. I'm here. This is Route 110.

Midas had migrated to the floor at some point during the night—it was probably getting a little hot on the mattress with all of them on it. So with him over there and Bijou tucked under her arm, she and her three Pokémon are all accounted for.

Three.

I have three Pokémon. Pearly's at the station. She pieces together slowly as her groggy mind catches up with reality. She looks at the third Pokémon in her tent, sitting by her suitcase.

...That's not Pearly.

"H-hey..." Marcella draws herself up and calls out to the small, green figure. It jumps at the sound of her voice and whirls around, startled. The first thing she notices about it is the jade pendant hanging around its neck. Her jade pendant.

"Wait, are you... wearing my jewelry—who do you think you are?" She rubs her eyes as she moves closer, sounding a bit angry now as she makes her way over to her stuff.

Wide-eyed, the Pokémon turns to flee. As it moves away from her luggage, she can now see the full extent of the damage it had done. Some of the skincare products she had used the night before were pulled out of her toiletries bag, her jewelry case is, unsurprisingly, sitting wide open and the package from Brendan is also torn apart. It looks like it held a jar with translucent, golden liquid inside, but unless he'd sent her a container missing a quarter of its contents, it seems like this intruder had gotten its sticky hands in it as well.

But she can worry about that later. The Pokémon is running out of her tent now, still wearing her pendant.

"You—that's imperial jade, come back!" Fully awake now, Marcella heads after it. She glances back to see if her Pokémon would be of any help, but Midas and Bijou are just now stirring from the commotion. Oh, useless! She tsks at them before going after the intruder by herself.

The fresh, cool air outside greets her as she steps out. She looks around to get her bearings, but by the time she's located the little thief, the leaves on its head are already blending in with the tall grass around them. Marcella tries to give chase, but it quickly disappears from view.

A few minutes later, she gives up and returns to her campsite in a huff, not wanting to get lost. Before she can get too upset, though, she notices something shiny and green in the gravelly area just outside of her tent. In her haste to follow the Pokémon, she hadn't even noticed that the jade pendant had just been dropped here before it fled into the grass. Marcella picks it up to inspect it, lightly dusting the dirt off. Still in good condition. Thankfully scratch-free, but it must not have dropped a big enough distance to leave a mark since the lurker was so small in stature.

Hm. In any case, it seems theft wasn't the goal of the little green Pokémon after all, and it was genuinely just startled when she yelled at it. It just... wanted to try my things on?

What a strange little creature.

Back inside her tent, she shoots her Pokémon a look. "Thank you for your help, guys." She says sarcastically, and Bijou yawns while Midas shrugs indifferently, licking his paw. Not that they would have been able to do much, since there is apparently no battling allowed here, but she wonders if a case for 'self defense' could be made if they had fought in that situation. It came into her tent!

Sighing, she gets to work putting away the things the intruder pulled out, and packing up the rest of their supplies. When she gets to the jar from Brendan, she unscrews the top to get a whiff. Honey. She wonders if this is what drew the Petilil out. But she sensed its presence even before the Pidove scuffle, so it couldn't have been just that. Still, she screws the lid back on extra tightly and wraps it back up to be sure it doesn't attract any more unwanted wildlife for the time being.

Honey (¾-full jar) has been added to Marcella's inventory.

🌲 Route 110 🕙 Oct. 3rd, Noon

Petilil.

Marcella scrolls through the Pokédex as they traverse through the route, trying to narrow down the Pokémon from earlier based on its physical appearance. She's fairly certain it was a Petilil she encountered. A Grass-type. Evolves only using a special kind of stone. The leaves on its head can be boiled for a myriad of beneficial uses.

...Not that she's planning on finding the thing and plucking the leaves off its head anytime soon, but it's good to know. She's brushing up on her Pokémon knowledge whenever she can.

Mrraooow. A drawn out, muffled noise from Bijou pulls her attention away from her Pokédex. She turns around to watch Midas spinning like a top on his hind legs with the canvas bag gripped tightly between his front paws. A flash of purple peeks out. Oh. Bijou is in the bag.

"Midas! Stop! What are you doing?" Marcella rushes over, wrestling the bag out of his grasp. The Meowth grins back so innocently she almost believes he doesn't know he's doing anything wrong, but Bijou is very clearly not having as much fun as he is.

"Come now, out of the bag." She coaxes gently, laying the bag down. Bijou teeters out dizzily. "Well, that'll teach you to stop getting in bags hoping to be carried." Marcella says, watching the Purrloin with her hands on her hips.

"And you. Quit being such a little devil." She snaps, swatting Midas lightly with the canvas bag. "If you want to put something in this, go pick up garb—treasures! We're going treasure hunting. Go, fill this to your heart's content. Don't put anything else... alive in it." Even before this Bijou incident, she recalls the Burmy he tried to take with him on Route 103, so it had to be said. The Meowth snatches the bag back and scampers off with it.

But with Midas, she really doesn't know if her wording there is enough to prevent him from putting something even worse than a live creature in the bag, and she fears the alternative if she doesn't clarify further right now.

"Or dead!" She calls after him hastily. "No dead creatures in the canvas bag either, please!"

Party

BIJOU
Purrloin, F

Ability: Prankster

Sucker Punch
Fake Out
Sand Attack
Play Rough
Torment
Hone Claws

PEARLY
Clamperl, F

Ability: Rattled

Clamp
Water Gun
Whirlpool
Iron Defense
Scald
-----

MIDAS
Meowth, M

Ability: Technician

Pay Day
Scratch
Growl
Feint
Fake Out
-----

Dear Diary

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

2-1: M.I.A.
2-2: Footwear Filchers
2-3: Cut Off
2-4: Bijou Bootcamp
2-5: Beached
2-6: Pearly
2-7: Showtime - ft. Avril, June, Tsu, Robynn, Shuna
2-8: Natsuko vs. Marcella - ft. Tsu
2-9: The Three C's
2-10: In/Dependent
2-11: Connections - ft. Avril, Hikaru

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

3-1: Fiancé
3-2: Promise
3-3: Roughing It
3-4: Feline Friends
3-5: For Tuna
3-6: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3-7: Unruly
3-8: Tough Call
3-9: In Your Shadow
3-10: Renewed Resolve

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

4-1: Ranger's Regret
4-2: Creative Outlet
4-3: Homework
4-4: Ghosts of the Past
4-5: Direction
4-6: A Quiet Day
4-7: Long Road Ahead
4-8: Observations

CHAPTER 5: YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DON'T GO

5-1: A Crossroads
5-2: Lurker

Inventory

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

Fanclub Membership Card (Annual)

Contest Pass

HELD ITEMS

Silk Scarf (

)

Safety Goggles (

)

CONSUMABLES

Luxury Balls x 3

Lum Berry x 2

Razz Berry x 2

Sitrus Berry

Honey (¾ of jar left)

MISC. GEAR

Medium-sized leather suitcase of clothes
Rotom Phone (Sky Blue)
Family-sized tent
Inflatable mattress
Inflatable stools x 2
Electric air pump
Binoculars
Small lidded pot

Trainer Info

Badges

budube · Jun 26, 2022

Jordie "Jo" Hughes

Tuesday, September 29

Chapter 4: Part 4 - That Oldbag That Never Stops Talking

16:40 - Oldale's Pokémon Center
"Disc goes here… DuskBall here… and…"

Initiating…

Reading Pokémon information…

NAME: Maroon
SPECIES: Dhelmise
GENDER: None
ABILITY: Steelworker
MOVES: Astonish, Iron Defense, Gyro Ball, Metal Sound, Giga Drain, Whirlpool

Are you sure you want to teach your Pokémon the move GRASS KNOT?

"Yup. Confirm."

Wait a moment…

Your Pokémon already knows 6 moves. Select what move you want to replace…

"I…" This is the ugly part of using TMs, y'see? Ignoring the one minute older machines like this usually take to read the Pokémon's information, of course. The normal thing to do would be to remove Astonish from Maroon's moveset; it's the weakest attack they have right now, but it's also the only ghost type move they know, and I'm lacking coverage against ghosts. I guess Dewey knows how to use Bite, but at her current size, Dewey isn't a fighter, but she can be annoying on the battlefield with how hard she is to take down due to her size and Infestation. It's an easier choice than it looks like.

Your Pokémon has replaced the move METAL SOUND with GRASS KNOT

Should I teach Quinn the move as well? I don't know how useful it's going to be on a support Pokémon, though, that's still the role I want her to fulfill. I'd rather have her learn the moves I want her to know first, then see what else I can teach her.

After getting my Pokémon back to full health and spending a few minutes packing my stuff, I make my way north. I get to Route 103, at that time of the day in which the sun is slowly starting to go down with all the sun rays hitting your face directly. Annoying, especially because there is also a fair share of clouds blocking the sun, so I'm not feeling the whole sun directly, just two or three sunrays that chose to point directly at my eyes.

My next stop before going to Mauville is Cottage Grove. That's the place mentioned by that old lady from the day I met Brendan. The idea is to just walk through and get to Route 103 in just a matter of hours. But it depends on what time it is when I get there, which will probably be not early enough since I have to do a whole boat journey first.

Honestly, I'd rather sit down and have someone take me on a motor boat trip to the other side, but apparently there's no motor boats here for some reason. Unless I want to pay an extra 4k to have someone take me to the other side, I'll have to do the whole thing myself, which is perfectly fine! I know how to travel by boat well enough for me to get to the other side without drowning or taking more than 3 hours, y'know? If anything, the main debate here is whether I'd like a pedal boat or a rowboat, both pretty okay choices, and while I think the pedal boat is easier to control, I think I've done more than enough leg work these past few days, it's time to give my legs some rest and my arms some love. Regular canoes are pretty boring, though, but it is what it is.

Getting into the boat is the most uncomfortable part of everything. You gotta do it quick, y'see? The canoe is just tied to a wooden stick, so when you put your first foot inside, it'll start moving from one side to another until all of your weight is set in one spot, sure it'll keep shaking for a bit more, but at least it won't feel like you'll fall out of the boat anymore. After that, I pick up the oars, and I'm off.

18:20

Sun is nearly hidden in its entirety, and I'm still in the boat, but have stopped rowing to take some rest, with Maroon's helm by my side, who has laid anchor somewhere underwater, to keep the canoe from going out of track because of the water current while I rest.

Quinn is out here as well, I figured she might need some air and would probably appreciate being near the water, which she does. She's been resting half of her body on one of the wooden boards this whole time, while the other half is leaning to the boat's edge as she looks at the flowing water below her. At times, she would look really excited and would create a bubble using her psychic powers, moving it above her. Then, after it pops, she would keep looking up for a few seconds with a smile, just to go back to resting her head on the edge, with disappointment after realizing her bubble burst. I even stopped rowing for a bit at some point just to look at the water and see what had her so excited coming from there, but I didn't see anything at all. Was it a fish that caught her attention and was long gone when she started making the bubble? I thought Slowpoke were herbivores.

Whatever, there's some lights at almost the same distance the lights from the rental shop are, which means I'm halfway there. Give me up to an hour and a half more and I reach Cottage Grove.

That is, once I feel like moving my arms again.

I don't know what's going on with me, but as soon as I resumed rowing, I started to feel really exhausted. I don't feel dizzy or feel any sort of nausea, so it's not because of the boat– I would know if I'm prone to seasickness after taking four ferries, if anything–, I just have no energy at all, y'know?

It might have to do with all the moving around I've done these past few days. Petalburg, Route 102, Littledale… all of that, non-stop. The crazy thing is that I was pretty fine until now. Sure, my legs hurt, but I could still move without an issue.

It might be emotional.

I don't know, but I think I've been going too fast after the sudden message from my brother. It was just so…I just said hi, and he says he saw me typing? What are the odds? It makes zero sense!

Maybe it's not even that, but whatever it is, it feels like I'm escaping from it.

Or maybe I'm looking for something? What does Mauville have that these other places don't? Sure, Littledale wasn't my cup of tea, but Petalburg wasn't all that bad, y'know? It just felt… empty? Slateport had Tsu and Avril, while in Dewford I met with Hui and later on I met Reed, I guess. Petalburg just had Hui's asshole brother and a really bad loss. Unimportant loss, but still really bad.

Pop!

"I- Quinn!" I shake my head, annoyed and take off my shades to wipe away all the water that just fell on them. It wasn't just a bubble this time, it was a whole water ball. What a way to wake someone up.

Quinn is just smiling at the other side of the boat, with her head turning at me, and after she realizes her stunt worked, her smile grows bigger as she rolls on her back, falling from the board she was resting on, shaking the entire boat in the process.

I sigh, and slowly get up. Quinn raises her head, completely clueless of what just happened as I pick her up to put her back on top of the board and then I lean to the front edge of the boat.

"Maroon, come back, we're off!"

Maroon let's go from the ring that had the boat tied at first and wraps their seaweed tentacle in a way that looks like a really weird thumbs up before diving.

I walk back to the other side of the canoe, pick Maroon's helm up, and stare at it as I wait for them to come pick it up. Just now I realize that the compass is still fully functional, despite having a dent in its glass. Sure, it's old, and the glass is blurry, making it difficult to look at the cardinal directions on it, but it's good to know that despite all that, it still works.

"Here." I hand over the helm to Maroon as soon as I feel their tentacle rising from the water, and they do some maneuver with it, before wrapping themselves around it. "You have a lot of energy, did you eat something down there?"

The compass needle wiggles from side to side, and another pair of tentacles rises. Maroon shrugs, which makes me laugh a little bit.

"Do you want to swim with us until we get there, or-?" Maroon instantly goes underwater again, just to re-appear behind the boat, putting their helm afloat. "Ha, ha. Right. Shouldn't have even asked."

19:30 - Boat Rental Shop

"How was the journey?" the shop's caretaker asks as soon as he helps me jump out of the boat, holding a rope he uses to pull the canoe back to him and tie it around.

"It was… calm." I nod with a lighthearted smile. "It gets a bit cold here in the evening, though. I mean, I gotta keep walking so it won't matter much."

"Gonna keep walkin'? Leavin' right away?"

I nod.

The caretaker just stares at me for a second before sighing and going back to tie the boat. "Got a tent?"

"Do I need one? A sleeping bag isn't enough?"

"No, not at all." He heaves a sigh as he gets up, putting his hands inside his pockets, thumbs on his belt. "Probably a better idea to stay here for a day or two, see if it's possible to get one. Need somewhere to stay? I can help with that if there's no problem."

"I don't… Hm. I do, actually. But I need directions."

19:55 - Cottage Grove

I'm pretty sure I followed these directions right. Go north, then keep walking until the trees start disappearing and it starts getting more rocky. Hilda– that's her name, apparently– lives in a small cabin at the foot of the mountainous area. I can see some lights are on, but the curtains are closed, so I can only see a dim light getting through them and not what's inside, so I can't see if it's even her living here.

However, looking to my right, I see an empty plate with dog food remains on it and a bowl with water next to it. Those must be her Herdier's, now I just gotta be hopeful that she didn't fall asleep while watching a soap opera on her couch or something.

I knock three times and a dog instantly starts barking from inside, running excitedly towards the door as its claws hit the wood.

"Now, now, Harry, it's just someone at the door. Now get your paws off the door so I can open it." Hilda's voice calls, calming Harry down, then she opens the door. "Oh, it's you. I thought you would be going straight to the city. Come in."

"Thank you," I say with a smile, cleaning my shoes on the worn out 'Welcome' mat at the entrance before walking in.

"I thought it was a neighbor, most tourists don't pick the cabins closer to the mountains. Maybe they are too far away from the coast, or they worry a Graveler will demolish their cabin as it rolls down the mountain while they are asleep." She makes a long pause as she walks to her table, picking up a dish and an empty cup. "It's happened."

"Ah… I can deal with a Graveler."

Hilda chuckles. "Want something to eat? I just finished my dinner, but I could prepare you something."

"I don't eat too much in the evening, thank you."

Hilda walks to her cupboard and takes out another cup from the same set as the one she picked up before, together with a glass dish.

"I said I was fine…"

"You said you didn't eat too much, that's different than nothing at all. I'll leave the bread, butter, cheese–all that– on the table. Eat as you do at home, don't be shy," she answers back. "Sorry for that dish, though. The other ones from the Gossifleur set broke years ago."

"Don't… worry."

"Wanna drink something? I only got green tea and coffee."

"Tea."

"Nice choice, it's good for sleep," she says, grabbing a kettle in one hand and filling it with water. "You know what? I think I'm going to get another cup for myself too."

Hilda puts the water to boil and turns around to grab the cup from before, taking it back on the table.

"I'm assuming you asked at the boat rental where I was."

"Right. He knew right away who it was, like you said."

She laughs. "Well he's got to know where his best client lives. Cottage Grove isn't too big."

We both stay in silence for a bit, until Hilda starts talking again.

"So, did you find lil' Brendan?"

"Um… yes! I did! I didn't uh…" I put a hand in front of me, as I finish swallowing the bite of bread I had in my mouth before I keep talking. "I didn't get the battling advice I wanted, but I got a nice… job offer? Now I have to find interesting Pokémon to write a report about."

"Interesting how?"

"Something… big? I don't know exactly what, but I don't want my first report to be about your average Normal-type, y'see? It's wrongfully taken as weak from a competitive standpoint, but at the same time, they are really common, I bet people write about those all the time, so I want something different."

"Oh, don't say that in front of Harry," Hilda jokes, looking back at her dog, but then looks to her left side. I turn my head to the same side as her just to see two fishing rods hanging on the wall, there's also five wooden boards on one corner. "Do you fish? If you want something big, try Wishiwashi. It's easy to fish up once it's on the hook, but might take some effort to make it worth writing about."

I think about it, going back to the two fishing experiences I had before. They were not great, and I'd rather not have to fish ever again. But if it's as Hilda says, and Wishiwashi aren't difficult to find, then I could give it a shot.

"I could."

"There's this kid– maybe three or four years older than you–, his name is Kyle; he works near Flynn from the boat rental. Good kid, but maybe a bit too cautious. Really afraid of taking risks," she explains. "Twice a week, I ask Kyle to go fish something and bring it here for lunch. He's made it part of his routine now, and he's coming tomorrow, around 9 in the morning. You can go with him, he'll show you around. Sounds good?"

"Sure," I nod.

"Great! Now, let's wait for you to finish eating, I'll show you your room after that."

Jordie replaced Maroon's Metal Sound with Grass Knot!

Jordie's Party:

Battle Subway:

Inventory:

Spoiler:

Jo's portrait made with: https://picrew.me/image_maker/1140610/

Juno · Jun 27, 2022

5-3: Peace Offering

🌲 Route 110 🕙 Oct. 3rd, Evening

In addition to shiny things, Midas is apparently also quite proficient in collecting round objects.

When Marcella checks in on him, she sees that he has developed a system of putting coins and his most treasured finds in his own Silk Scarf satchel, and anything else of note in the canvas bag. This includes everything from smooth pebbles and loose buttons, to colourful marbles and even an assortment of Poké Balls.

"Very good, dear." She drawls, peering into the bag. No critters, dead or alive. Wonderful. The Poké Balls he's gathered are not really her style, but maybe she could gift or even resell them later on for a quick profit.

Midas has collected

2x Quick Balls

3x Net Balls and

2x Poké Balls.

As they wind down for the day, she turns her phone on for a bit to distract herself from the fact they are all desperately wishing they had something other than jerky and trail mix to eat. She is immediately inundated with missed calls and texts from her brother.

God, he's annoying. In retrospect, she should have answered his call that time she'd actually seen it ringing, or at least called him back much sooner because she knows the longer she waits, the longer the impending "lecture" is going to be. And she doesn't have the battery left for that right now, so she's just going to keep ignoring him for the time being. Just until she can charge her phone, she tells herself. We're past the point of no return now, anyway. He's going to be mad whether I call him right now or in another day or two.

So for now, instead of dealing with Avery, she checks her emails.

Subject: Re: Report: Burmy

From: Brendan Birch <[email protected]>
To: Marcella MacMillan <[email protected]>

Hey Marcella!

Burmy is a fascinating species in regards to environmental adaptability! Their ability to quickly camouflage and protect themselves in any environment is incredibly beneficial to their survival. Though not as much when a predator already has a hold on them!

You were right to observe that sometimes their usual camouflage is not the best suited for specific areas. Some Burmy, with experience, are able to supplement their cloaks with additional material to better blend in- making them much harder to observe! We will often resort to using fragrant honey or nectar to lure such Pokémon into an area where we can more easily observe them- though we must take care to place such bait somewhere it would be naturally found, such as the bark of specific trees or on certain flowers.

Keep an eye out for more Burmy! And a Pidove- I'll go ahead and send you a jar of honey- it should last you a few applications. You might see more than Burmy when using it, so keep alert!

Cheers,

Brendan Birch

Well, great. That explains some things. Maybe she should actually read these sooner next time so she knows what's inside the Pidove Care Packages.

As the sun sets, something outside is casting a strange silhouette up against the side of her tent. It approaches the entrance and stops, making a shuffling noise. Marcella probably should be more cautious, but the shadow is small and unassuming enough that she curiously reaches out and unzips the tent entrance without thinking.

"You! What do you want?"

As she towers over it, the Petilil from this morning fumbles with and almost drops what she's holding. The small, woven grass basket in her short arms is overflowing with berries, and a few tumble to the ground. Mortified, she gathers them up quickly before holding up the basket. Marcella is not sure what to say, or what this means.

"Oh! Is this—did you... pick these for me?" Her tone softens as it dawns on her that this appears to be a peace offering of some sort, for the earlier... misunderstanding, if you can call it that. She feels a little bad for yelling at it this morning and the less than warm greeting just now, but how could she have known someone breaking into her tent and going through her stuff didn't have bad intentions?

The Petilil holds it up higher, confirming the berries are, indeed, for her. Marcella accepts the gift. "Um. Thank you. I appreciate it." She looks down at the small plant Pokémon. The Petilil looks back up hopefully, dawdling at the entrance like she expects to be invited inside.

Marcella sighs. "...Would you like to come in?" You apparently know how to let yourself in, anyway. Might as well make nice with the locals.

As the Petilil follows her inside, Bijou and Midas quickly swarm her, sniffing and prodding the guest with interest. "It's okay! Calm down. Look what she brought us." Marcella sets the little basket of berries down. Excited to add a different flavour to their meal, the visitor is quickly forgotten by both cats in favour of chowing down on the fruits.

"Alright, have a seat if you'd like." Marcella gestures to one of the inflatable stools. What am I doing? Why am I treating her like a... a house guest? She seems harmless enough, but Marcella still wants to ask a few questions. She allows the plant Pokémon a few minutes to settle in and eat some of the berries she brought before speaking up again.

"Hey, so," She begins, taking one of the stools herself. The Petilil has not taken the seat offered to her yet, still walking around the tent and looking around. "I'm glad you didn't take my things, and I do appreciate the gift, but what is it you actually want from me? Why are you following us?"

The Petilil shrugs, climbing up on her air mattress and bouncing on it lightly.

"Oh, hey, now—" We're getting a little too familiar over there. "It's great we sorted out the misunderstanding from earlier, and thank you for dropping by, but it's—getting late and maybe you should—I mean, where are your... parents?" I don't know! What the hell do wild Pokémon do in the wild? Who takes care of them?! Guess she does know how to pick her own berries and is familiar with the area, so maybe she's just on her own.

As the Petilil senses she is being asked to leave, she looks at Marcella so sadly that she starts to feel bad again. She sighs. What is happening? Why is this happening to me? "Okay, well, if you don't have anywhere else to go, you can stay in here. Tonight."

The Petilil lets out a happy trilling noise. Marcella didn't have to ask twice—she immediately makes herself at home. The little Grass Pokémon apparently takes this to mean please, resume poking around my stuff like you were doing this morning. In particular, she seems drawn to her jewelry, silks, and anything and everything fancy that she owns. Marcella is both amused and a little wary, though her dropping the jade pendant earlier and coming back with a little gift gives her a bit more confidence she did not return to rob her blind. She'd never seen a Pokémon so interested in human clothes and fineries before. Not that I've met so many Pokémon, I guess. But this does seem out of the ordinary.

She continues to keep an eye on the strange Pokémon, but lets her guard down a bit as she continues with the rest of her night routine. As she pulls out her toiletries bag to wash her face and apply her skincare products, though, the Petilil seems fascinated by this; she puts down the brooch she was inspecting to climb up next to Marcella, watching her use a cotton pad to apply her toner.

It's kind of cute, sort of like a little sister admiring an older sister. Marcella smiles.

"Do you want to try it?"

The Petilil nods, and she looks delighted as Marcella takes out a clean cotton pad for her. She gently rubs it against the Pokémon's little cheeks. Marcella doesn't want to put any actual products on her, not knowing if it would cause any kind of strange reaction, but the Petilil seems content just mimicking her actions. After a few seconds, she reaches up to take the cotton pad from Marcella and starts rubbing it on her forehead herself. Marcella giggles, applying toner to the rest of her own face as well.

As they finish up their skincare routine, Marcella invites the Petilil to sleep on a stool. Before she turns in for the night herself, she puts the remaining berries gifted to them in the same container as the ones she'd received from the Fanclub Ranch.

Her eyelids are heavy when she finally gets into bed, and she drifts off to sleep quickly. She's not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point in the night she feels weight shifting on the air mattress. Cracking one eye open, she watches the Petilil jump over from the stool, and as it curls up, she could hear the soft, rhythmic breathing from it, indicating it has fallen asleep at the edge of her bed. Marcella lets her stay there.

8x Oran

6x Occa and

10x Yache Berries have been added to Marcella's inventory.

Party

BIJOU
Purrloin, F

Ability: Prankster

Sucker Punch
Fake Out
Sand Attack
Play Rough
Torment
Hone Claws

PEARLY
Clamperl, F

Ability: Rattled

Clamp
Water Gun
Whirlpool
Iron Defense
Scald
-----

MIDAS
Meowth, M

Ability: Technician

Pay Day
Scratch
Growl
Feint
Fake Out
-----

Dear Diary

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

2-1: M.I.A.
2-2: Footwear Filchers
2-3: Cut Off
2-4: Bijou Bootcamp
2-5: Beached
2-6: Pearly
2-7: Showtime - ft. Avril, June, Tsu, Robynn, Shuna
2-8: Natsuko vs. Marcella - ft. Tsu
2-9: The Three C's
2-10: In/Dependent
2-11: Connections - ft. Avril, Hikaru

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

3-1: Fiancé
3-2: Promise
3-3: Roughing It
3-4: Feline Friends
3-5: For Tuna
3-6: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3-7: Unruly
3-8: Tough Call
3-9: In Your Shadow
3-10: Renewed Resolve

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

4-1: Ranger's Regret
4-2: Creative Outlet
4-3: Homework
4-4: Ghosts of the Past
4-5: Direction
4-6: A Quiet Day
4-7: Long Road Ahead
4-8: Observations

CHAPTER 5: YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DON'T GO

5-1: A Crossroads
5-2: Lurker
5-3: Peace Offering

Inventory

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

Fanclub Membership Card (Annual)

Contest Pass

HELD ITEMS

Silk Scarf (

)

Safety Goggles (

)

CONSUMABLES

Luxury Balls x 3 [Currently at Ranger Station]

Quick Balls x 2

Net Balls x 3

Poké Balls x 2

Lum Berry x 2

Razz Berry x 2

Sitrus Berry

Oran Berry x 8

Occa Berry x 6

Yache Berry x 10

Honey (¾ of jar left)

MISC. GEAR

Medium-sized leather suitcase of clothes
Rotom Phone (Sky Blue)
Family-sized tent
Inflatable mattress
Inflatable stools x 2
Electric air pump
Binoculars
Small lidded pot

Trainer Info

Badges

Caesar · Jul 1, 2022

Tuesday, October 6th @ 0830 - Mauville

Here Clint was, forced into an environment very unfamiliar to him, the big city dream as some called it, although for a born and raised on the farm cowboy, it was more of a big city nightmare. Just his luck, his hands were tied metaphorically for the next few days, as this battling tournament Sergei told him about wasn't for a couple more days, means he was left to his own devices in a city with devices everywhere.

Clint hadn't quite worked up the courage to venture outside the Pokemon center again quite yet, so he sat at his table in the corner of the cafeteria, sipping on his cup of coffee. One thing he did have to give Mauville credit for, was they made better coffee than Dewford, Petalburg or Littledale. The huevos rancheros he was eating admittedly were a step above the survival rations he had been eating out on the road. Guess a few days of warm meals and a real bed wasn't the worst thing in the world, if only Clint could get over the sheer amount of people in Mauville. It was still unnerving to him, Clint still preferred the open road any day of the week. But part of heading out into the world meant seeing all it had to offer, even places like this had to be checked off the list.

He watched from a distance a couple of trainers fumbling around with Pokeballs and TM's over by some computer. Guess he should figure out how those things work, considering how many of them he has. Clint continued to watch in a totally non-creepy way as he finished his breakfast.

After his breakfast was all done, Clint returned to his room to grab his collection of TM's, before returning to the computer he had been eyeing up. Should be simple enough, Clint thought to himself. He stood awkwardly in front of the computer, not sure where to put what. All of the sudden, he was interrupted by a familiar voice,

"A farm boy trying to use a computer, I could watch this all day," it was his cousin Ruby, who had made her way to Mauville as well.

"I got this thing all figured out cousin," Clint replied.

Ruby shook her head, and pressed a button revealing a spot to put a Pokeball.

"That's where you put your Pokeball, you do use those right," Ruby snarked.

Clint scoffed at that last remark, before looking to decide which Pokemon he was going to put into the machine. He thought about each team members movesets, before concluding that the best way to do this was to look at the TM's he had, and decide from there.

He noticed he had a couple green discs, which should in a perfect world be grass type moves, which Grovyle would be able to learn. Bullet Seed - Grass Type, is what the case said. 'The user forcefully shoots seeds at the target two to five times in a row'. Clint had heard of these types of moves before, even rumours of a way to make it so the move uses five attacks everytime. Without knowing a way to do that, Clint was stuck with a chance of the move dealing a lot of damage, or just a bit of damage. The other one was Grass Knot - Grass Type. The description read 'the user snares the target with grass and trips it. The heavier the target, the greater the move's power'. Seems like no matter what, he was stuck playing the odds. Hope the move lands five consecutive moves or hope he battles a lot of fat Pokemon.

Clint leaned towards Bullet Seed and placed Grovyle's Pokeball into the slot on the computer, and then put the TM in the desk drive, and let the little gremlins in the computer handle the rest.

"Are you sure you want Grovyle to learn Bullet Seed."

Clint clicked yes, and the computer screen showed a spinning Pokeball in the middle of the screen, as well as a progress bar on teaching Grovyle the move. Finally the bar completed, and the message lit up across the screen,

"Grovyle has learned the move Bullet Seed!"

Clint wasn't entirely sure if he believed the computer, but nevertheless retrieved the Pokeball and the TM from the computer. He turned around to face his cousin who was waiting for him.

"So how have you fared since we last saw each other cousin," Clint asked, as the two walked through the center.

"Alright I suppose, never ended up beating the Petalburg Gym, but I still have my Dewford and Slateport Badges," Ruby answered,

"How about you Clint, how are you liking Hoenn?"

"It's alright I guess," Clint replied.

"Guess you must be entering that Winstrate Cup happening this weekend, unless you already have too many badges," Ruby asked.

"How many is too many?"

"Anywhere between two and four and you're set."

"Lucky me I have three," Clint said, rubbing in the fact that he has more badges than his cousin.

"Well I was going to head over to the Winstrate Manor and sign up, you should come with," Ruby suggested.

"Lead the way then."

...

The two cousins were now at the north end of town, hopping off of one of those tram stations to a more open area of the city, where the road north was surrounded by big estate properties. One of these estates belonged to the Winstrates, who were the ones holding the tournament. They found the estate, and made their way up to the gate. Ruby handled the talking, asking where to sign up for the tournament.

From the gate they were led to a clubhouse in the corner of the property, which was attached to a bigger building, presumably the arena. They were given a seat at a table inside the clubhouse, and told to wait for the Winstrates' battling coach to make his way over to the clubhouse. Being in a big city was bad enough for Clint, now he was stuck in a stuffy clubhouse on a big fancy estate. In the meantime, they were given clipboards with an application form on it, with details to fill in such as your name, trainer ID and so on. Clint and Ruby started filling their applications out, and shortly after a man, looked to be in his mid-twenties and wearing a backwards ball cap, red vest with a Pokeball design and khakis walked into the clubhouse with a Jolteon tailing him, and over to the table where Clint and Ruby were sitting at.

"So we got a couple more sign-ups I hear," the coach started off,

"We're glad to have ya then, I'm Saburo, and I help out the family with these events. I'll take your forms, and check your badges and give ya' a rundown on the rules, sounds good uh.. Clint and.. Ruby?"

Clint grabbed his three badges out of the bag, and showed them to Saburo.

"Knuckle, Balance and Dell Badges, looks good to me Clint, welcome to the show."

Saburo checked Ruby's two badges in the same way, before he began breaking down the way the event is going to go.

"So its a thirty-two team bracket, win and you advance until there's only one winner left. Battle format is single battle, each trainer picks a team of three out of whatever Pokemon you have available before the match. You won't find out who your opponent has until the battle starts. In battle, you're only allowed one swap per match, any other time you pull your Pokemon out of battle it is considered defeated in battle. Healing items are banned, berries may be thrown into the field of battle, where they are considered fair game for both combatants. Revives are also off the table. Each Pokemon may head into battle with one held item. There is on-site healing for your Pokemon between matches. There will also be a referee in each match, who knows I might even ref one of your matches."

Rules seemed simple enough for Clint, it was just a matter of winning each matchup as they came up.

"With all that out of the way, we have spots open for the two of you, good luck this weekend. The staff will show you out, I've got to run, Miss Vivi appreciates punctuality."

Saburo jogged out of the clubhouse, and one of the security members showed back up, and led Clint and Ruby back outside. Now walking back towards the city, Ruby was buried in her phone, while Clint was looking at all the mansions, trying to speculate how all these people got their money. Ruby took her eyes off the device for a second, and turned to Clint.

"I'm going to meet up with some of my friends and go shopping, you're welcome to tag along, we need someone to carry our bags around."

"I'd rather fall directly into a pit of Seviper, if we're being completely honest cousin," Clint replied.

"Suit yourself then, but maybe next time you're at a fancy clubhouse like the Winstrate's, you should be dressed a little nicer then the worn out rags you've been parading through the bush in," Ruby teased,

"I'm going to hop on the tram into the city, we'll have to run into each other again cousin."

Clint waved bye to his cousin, and stared out into the city, now that he was signed up, the next step was to find a place to do some training.

- Grovyle learned Bullet Seed!

Team & Inventory:

Spoiler:

Blaze|Brave| Moves: Ember|Dragon Breath|Bite|Smokescreen|Fire Fang|Slash

Overgrow|Sassy| Moves: Leaf-age|Detect|Quick Attack|Double Kick|Assurance|Bullet Seed

Water Absorb|Quiet| Moves: Hypnosis|Water Gun|Pound|Mud Shot

Synchronize|Gentle| Moves: Confusion|Double Team|Teleport|Growl|Draining Kiss
Inventory:

$28,500
2x Potions
1x Pokeballs
5x Iapapa Berries
10x Oran Berries
4x Normal Gem
Sceptilite
Gengarite
Thunder Stone
Water Stone
TM Protect
TM Bullet Seed
TM Rock Smash
TM Low Kick
TM Grass Knot
TR Sludge Bomb

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Groc · Jul 8, 2022

Edison Kintobor
Wednesday, October 7th; afternoon
Mauville City

Ed returns to the Game Corner shortly after they open. He vaguely remembers going to the arcade and looking at the game cabinets yesterday, then he woke up in the Pokémon Center. He has no idea what happened in the interim, so returning to his last known location and retracing his steps is his best option. He at least took the time to clean himself up and change clothes, so he should get fewer odd looks from the other patrons today.

Or, that was the plan. In reality, he feels watched wherever he goes. As soon as he entered, he noticed someone look his way and talk into a headset. And now, despite the dark and cramped space, he can feel eyes on him, following him.

"If you're going to follow me, could you at least help me out?" He calls to the employee attempting to stealthily follow him. "I'm trying to remember where I went yesterday and it's a little distracting."

A gasp is heard from behind a wall, and the employee nervously reveals herself, a tall girl with her brown hair up in a ponytail. "W-was I that noticeable?" She moans, adjusting her round glasses. "Oh no, what will they do when they learn I failed my task… But, um, I'm sorry for being distracting, I really wasn't intending to!"

Ed sighs, massaging his temples slowly. "There's no need to apologize. As a scientist, I'm more observant than most. I doubt many of the common rabble here would have noticed you, if that makes you feel better." He offers her his hand. "Edison Kintobor, nice to meet you. You can call me Ed if you prefer brevity."

"Um," The girl briefly hesitates before returning the gesture. "I'm Junko Enomoto. But I prefer to be called June. And… scientist, you say? What field, if I may ask?"

"You may ask." Ed says with a smile. "I study Pokémon hoplology, which is combat and techniques, with a focus on practical applications for improving quality of life. Things like utilizing Magnemite's sonic and magnetic abilities to locate objects, or a Joltik drawing electricity from a live wire to allow humans to safely interact with it."

June's face lights up. "My, that is quite interesting! You know, I'm something of a scientist myself- well, scientist might be a little generous, but I'm sure you understand what I mean." She chuckles. "Pokemon are definitely a specific focus of mine… um, more specifically bug Pokemon, I've always thought they were somewhat interesting. But I think it's interesting you mention Joltik as an example, you know I've never actually heard of them using their ability to absorb external electricity into their bodies for good, I've always been under the impression that ability was exclusively detrimental, being a parasitic species and all, but I suppose any ability can be put to good use. It's not dissimilar to how Charjabug-" June pauses, embarrassed to realize what she's done. "I-I mean, um…" She blushes. "They're somewhat interesting, yes."

Ed is surprised by her reaction. Most people simply accept his words and move on, they don't usually add on to the topic. "Nice to meet a fellow enthusiast. Finding alternative uses for abilities and techniques is my particular focus, and I suppose I have Joltik on the mind because, well…" Here he triggers Lady Bug's Cherish Ball and calls her out onto his hand, "I recently captured one."

Bug looks at June warily, but offers a reluctant squeak of greeting.

"Oh my gosh!" June gasps, eyes sparkling. "It's so adorable! I have a Joltik of my own, but well, I can't exactly have her out considering I'm currently on the clock, so to speak. Which is probably for the best, I don't trust her around all these electronics. But still, they're so cute!"

Bug squeaks happily, giving Ed a smug grin at being called cute. He rolls his eyes at her, but grins a bit himself. "Yes, you're adorable. But she's right, we shouldn't let anyone see you." He reaches for her ball, but she jumps off his hand and onto his head, hiding amongst his blond hair. "Ah. That works, I suppose. Anyway, Miss June, you work here, yes?"

June nods. "That is what the uniform is for, afterall."

"Right. I was hoping to retrace my steps, maybe jog my memory a bit, yesterday was such a blur. Is there somewhere I could go to watch my Gym battle from yesterday? I'm afraid they wouldn't let me in."

"Well…" June taps her lip. "I believe we have a room where that can be viewed, I'd just have to ask if customers are allowed. But um. Yes, I was told to not allow you in the Gym. Sorry."

"That would be something, at least. Thank you. Lead the way."

When there aren't any battles going on, or the VR rooms aren't as full, the big screens in the arcade show footage of old battles that have been recorded and saved. That all happens in this room, which required a key from someone higher up the ladder than June to access. The room is smaller, tucked away in a corner, and most of the work is apparently done at one computer on a desk here. June sits at that desk now, while Ed stands by idly sipping at an oversized and overpriced novelty cup she'd convinced him to buy.

"Um, you know," June says, preparing the video. "I plan on challenging the gym here myself at some point, so I could have a lot to learn from this."

"Hmm." Ed nods, finding the situation familiar. "Always happy to provide a sneak peek for a friend, I suppose."

The usage of the word "friend" has June freeze a little before she grins to herself.

After quickly figuring out how the program works, June is able to pull up the video in question. "Come to think of it really, I actually know little about the gym, despite working here. I haven't really had the time, but now is as good of a time as any."

There isn't a second chair, so Ed gets down on one knee and leans on June's armrest as he watches the screen. "Hopefully I did well enough to be informative and entertaining."

The video starts, showing the Gym Leader Miss Virtua engaging in some pre-fight banter with Ed's body scanned avatar. "Back again, honey? It is rare that I get to see the same man three times in one night."

Digital Ed smiles, bowing slightly. "I aim to please. And you just make it so fun, I can't help but come again."

Virtua laughs, a Poké Ball materializing in her hand. "Let's hope you last longer than last time, because frankly that was just embarrassing for you. Let's go, my lovelies!" With that, she opens the ball, sending out her first Porygon. It shimmers as data flows along its body, a small screen near Virtua filling with text.

Digital Ed taps on his wrist, where his avatar has a Holotch, and a digital Cherish Ball appears, sending out Automaton. The floor around them shimmers and shifts, changing to a playground in a park. Virtua dips her head slightly at the choice. "Interesting venue. Nostalgic, but with options."

The Pokémon take their places, and the battle begins.

"Wh-what's going on?" June asks. "I remember hearing in passing that the gym battle took place in virtual reality, but to be honest I didn't really believe it. But to see it with my own eyes… how is this even possible?"

"Technology has come a long way." Ed taps his chin as he tries to remember. "We humans make do with VR headsets to emulate sight and sound, but Pokémon have the ability to be converted into data for transfer and storage. Eiddon is a pioneer in virtual reality, his program simulates a Pokémon's mind in a holographic body, allowing them to react in the virtual world as though it were the material one. It's why he insists on breaks between matches, the Pokémon need time to recover from the experience."

"Oh, wow. That'll be a lot to adapt to…"

Tom starts with Defense Curl, tucking his limbs into his torso and revving his engine. Virtua calls out for Porygon to turn up the Charm, sending pink hearts floating delicately like bubbles toward Tom.

Tom dashes forward on his wheeled feet, his arms emerging from his core to grab Porygon, clamping down and shoving it into the ground. Virtua pouts as she calls for more Charm, bombarding Tom with bubble hearts.

Digital Ed strokes his chin in thought. "We'll keep accelerating, so your attacks are more annoying than effective so far. What are you hiding over there?"

Virtua copies his pose, though with far more flair. "More than you know, but why spoil the surprise? There's no fun in that."

Tom continues to Rollout, dragging Porygon through the manicured grass of the park, but another Charm weakens his grip enough to where Porygon can float up slightly and not get shoved so hard into the ground.

"That's enough for this play date," Virtua recalls Porygon, sending out another in its place. "Time to strut your stuff, Number Three!"

Tom races toward this new target, clamp hands raised threateningly as he snatches it from the air. He drags this one as he did the first, tactics unchanged until he knows what he's dealing with.

He quickly finds out, as Virtua calls for Fusion Flare. Rings of fire surround Porygon as a massive flaming orb appears in front of it, blasting Tom backwards without giving him a chance to dodge. But still he holds on, despite the smoke rising from his body, and he drags Porygon through the dirt again.

"Your little friend is remarkably resilient, I'll give him that much." Virtua concedes with a tilt of her head. "But I think we know who the real star is, here." Another Fusion Flare lights up the field, blasting Tom back and knocking him out.

Digital Ed flashes a grin as he returns Tom. "Oh, star, because it's a miniature sun. I get it, that's funny."

He queues up his next Poké Ball, raising his hand to the sky as though throwing the ball straight up. But instead, Gremlin materializes behind Porygon, slapping the back of its head in a Fake Out. She glitches through the ground to reappear by Ed's side.

"It even got her color right, that's a nice touch." Digital Ed reaches out for Gremlin, but his avatar can't actually interact with the Shiny Sableye like she can with Porygon.

Virtua *tsk*'s at the implication. "Honey, my system scans a human body and makes a perfect replica, apart from the things you want changed, of course. You think it can't detect a change in color when sending a Pokémon to cyberspace?"

"Fair enough, no disrespect to your program." Ed concedes, but hasn't forgotten they're in a match. "Gremlin, Disable that Fire attack!" Gremlin smiles wide as her green eyes flash blue, then Porygon makes a sound like a computer crashing as its eyes turn a similar blue. Apparently it was about to use that very move, bit Gremlin's interference results in a 404 error: technique not found.

"Oh, she is a rude little virus!" Virtua almost loses her composure, until a fan appears in her hand, which she waves at her face to help her keep her cool.

"Does that… actually do anything for you?" Digital Ed points to the fan in confusion.

"Physically, no. But it's all about looks, and it feels right to me."

"Well, you still look good, I suppose." He says with a shrug before returning his attention to the battle. "Follow that up with Confuse Ray!" Gremlin just appears in front of Porygon, her eyes flashing white.

Porygon twitches, sparks coming from its head as the eerie light messes with its code. Virtua calls for Bulldoze to level the playing field, literally, while Gremlin goes for the Low Sweep. Easier said than done, but she manages to ride out the tremors as Porygon repeatedly hits the ground, waiting for the right moment to strike.

After weathering a second Bulldoze, Gremlin goes for the Sweep again, knocking Porygon out. She scowls for a moment before slinking back toward Ed, her trademark smile back in place when she gets there.

"Oh my, very strong!" Virtua gives a half bow. "I can't let you keep that advantage. Come on back, Number One!" Her first Porygon returns to the field.

"So Miss Virtua uses multiple Pokemon of the same species?" June taps her lip. "Hm. I've never actually seen a Porygon before, but they seem to have an incredibly diverse selection of moves it can utilize. It reminds me of Wally Greene in Petalburg."

"Yes…" Ed ponders her team, thinking back to Wally. "Although hers have a much larger set of moves than his team did. Less focused, too. But Porygon is her signature Pokémon."

"Less focus? I sort of assumed focus was important for a gym leader. Is there any benefit to that?"

"Well… more versatility, I suppose. Wally's team excels at what it was designed to do, but put them in a situation where their strategy doesn't work and they fall apart. Or they would, if he hadn't crafted a Champion level team."

With Porygon Number One back on the field, Digital Ed recalls Gremlin to her ball, swapping her out for his third Pokémon, Neo. "Not just strong, my lady, but tough as well. You'll find your charms, plentiful as they are, are no use against N.D."

Miss Virtua playfully wags her finger while *tsk*-ing Ed. "Flattery only gets you so far, honey. We're past that point. Show me your moves, Number One!" Porygon glows with light as its blocky body sharpens and smooths out into the more aerodynamic Porygon-2.

"Yes, show me some moves!" Digital Ed cheers as Porygon evolves, watching as it performs a bizarre dance that ends with it firing a white laser from its beak. Neo takes the hit without flinching, and Ed calls for Thunder Shock. It's objectively their weakest attack, as though Ed is stalling for time, but it does manage to paralyze Porygon-2.

With its speed advantage negated, Porygon-2 evolves again into Porygon-Z, a more chaotic and jumbled form, with limbs and head floating disconnected from its body. Digital Ed calls for a Light Screen, which Neo projects just in time to intercept another light ray from Porygon-Z, the new form making the dance harder to read. The beam is projected not only from the beak, but the orbiting limbs as well, as though they were floating turrets.

Digital Ed seems to realize the situation has changed, and instructs Neo to use Supersonic. The sound waves cause visible distortions in Porygon-Z's corrupted body, and it is momentarily unable to attack. Neo capitalizes on the opportunity by unleashing a Mirror Shot from their eye, finishing off Porygon-Z.

"I'm confused- how did Miss Virtua's Pokemon evolve during battle twice? That doesn't make any sense… I suppose if Porygon is similar to Pokemon such as Wurmple that grow quickly due to their on-average shorter lifespans there is sense to make of it, but even most larva Pokemon don't evolve that quickly!"

Ed had wondered that too, and remembers asking during his first fight. "Something about her specific Porygon having an unstable code that allows them to freely shift between forms while inside the virtual space. She usually leaves them in their base form, but their second form is much faster and more durable, at the expense of offensive ability. Similarly, their Z form is slower and more fragile, but with a higher attack due to their hovering limbs being converted into weapons."

"Is that… even allowed?" June asks, despite the answer being quite obvious.

"It's her Gym, and she's the Queen around here." Ed chuckles at his own joke.

Virtua taps out a quick code in midair, likely Eiddon typing in the real world, and Porygon-Z reverts to its base form as it is recalled. "Down to the wire now, Mister Ed. You did your homework after our last match, didn't you?"

Digital Ed smiles and shrugs. "Nothing that fun, I just got lucky, and my Pokémon are good at adapting on the fly."

"Well I don't intend to go down easy, so say hello to Number Two!" Virtua calls out her final Porygon, which immediately transforms into Porygon-Z. Its beak and limbs start spinning like a drill as it rockets forward, slicing through Neo's Light Screen and knocking them out of the air. The physical attack isn't hindered by the barrier, and exploiting Neo's elemental weakness removes them from the fight entirely.

"Down to the wire, indeed…" Digital Ed returns Neo to his Holotch, pausing before sending Gremlin back out. "No, that would never work. Unless…"

He sends Gremlin back out, and she immediately leaps out from Porygon-Z's shadow, delivering a brutal uppercut that sends it spiraling up into the air. With her ghostly speed, she shines an eerie light on Porygon-Z that confuses it and prevents it from catching itself mid-air. It crashes to the ground, where Gremlin waits to deliver a Low Sweep that knocks it back up into the air. Confusion prevents it from catching itself, and Gremlin proceeds to air juggle Porygon-Z like a fighting game character catching their opponent in a stunlock.

Porygon-Z's emphasis on offense sacrifices defense and speed, so it doesn't take long before Gremlin's vicious assault knocks it out, unable to get a single hit in against the shiny Dark type. Virtua looks at Ed in disapproval. "I can't say I'm happy about that, but technically that counts as a win. That's a cheap strategy."

Digital Ed recalls Gremlin to his Holotch, smiling apologetically. "It was her idea. We played a bit of Project: Pokémon before we came here, and when she saw Heavy Steel's Meteor Mash against a cornered opponent…"

Virtua holds up a hand to stop him. "We are not having this discussion here. Congratulations on your victory, feel free to tell Eiddon all about it." She points to Ed and swipes her hand left, and the virtual world goes dark.

Even after the video has ended, all June does is stare at the monitor, completely dumbfounded. "That was certainly interesting… I knew gym leaders were supposed to be some of the most talented trainers but that was, well, more chaotic than anything. There really is more to Pokemon battles than I initially thought, it seems."

Ed is distracted with digging through his pockets, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper and a shiny Glitter Dynamo Badge. Indeed, the Badge shines from all the glitter on it, which unfortunately now means Ed's waistcoat pocket is full of glitter.

"My, how flashy." June comments, peeking from over her seat. "I'd make an appointment to battle the leader but, well, I already have four badges, and one more would disqualify me from the Winstrate Cup."

"The Winstrate Cup?" Ed thinks back, recalling a flyer in the Pokémon Center. "That's the Up-and-Coming tournament here in Mauville, right? I remember seeing something about that…" He puts his hand to his chin, muttering to himself. "With a prize amount that high, it would attract competitors from all across Hoenn, but with the Badge limitation, they'd all be roughly my level. I could make some good progress, and the sheer volume of styles on display would give plenty of data for my research… I've decided! I should enter that tournament!" He smacks his fist into his palm.

"Well it seems I'll have some competition." June giggles somewhat forcibly. "Honestly I'm not sure if I stand a chance after seeing your match. I definitely have a lot to learn from you."

"Happy to help teach, I suppose. But there's no reason to limit ourselves to just battles, is there? I do appreciate you helping me today, and you're one of the few who has actually taken interest in my studies. Would you like to get together sometime, when you're not working, I mean. We could discuss tactics, or talk about our Pokémon, or maybe just let our Joltik have a play date."

He retrieves the paper from his pocket, along with a pen, offering them to June. "I guess what I'm asking is… can I get your number? I'm between phones right now, but I could call you later, set something up?"

June blushes at the offer. Clearly she's not often asked this question. "O-oh, um, I think that sounds swell! I haven't had anyone to discuss my interests with either- well, not anyone who feels the same about them anyways." Slowly and carefully, she writes out her phone number below her name, which she's penned in-full in kanji. After painstakingly detailing her information, she takes one last look at the paper before freezing in disbelief.

"Oh…?" June mutters to herself, focusing on a detail of the paper, then looks to Ed. "I'm sure it must be a coincidence, but… well, I noticed you had another name here that someone I know happens to share, that being 'Marie'. If it's alright, could I ask more about her?"

"Oh. Uh…" Ed thinks for a moment, but decides it'll be fine, especially if June does already know her. "Perhaps it is coincidence, but this number is for Marie Rachelle Mocinno." He recites her name precisely as she herself usually does, as though it's her standard greeting. "Do you know her? About my height, usually has a Natu or a Slowpoke with her? Somewhat dark hair, usually in a bandanna, but not so much last I saw her…" He glances down at his hand, at the faint scars between his thumb and index finger. "She's a friend."

"Oh." June's face goes pale as her voice drops. "That's definitely the same Marie I know… you don't happen to know if she's in Mauville currently, do you?"

Ed has to think about that, and comes to the conclusion that he's forgotten something important. "She might be. We were traveling together, but split up at the Ranger Station. She took the Mauport Bridge, while I took the land bridge. I was going to call her as soon as I got my new phone, but that didn't pan out. She could still be in Mauport, or maybe she arrived today. I honestly don't know."

"I see. She is collecting badges, so it makes sense…"

"I have an idea." Ed lightly places his hand over June's, retrieving his paper and pen. "I'm going to go shopping for a new phone. Afterwards, I'll call Marie and ask where she is, and if she's in town, I'll call you and let you know. Sound fair?"

"I… I think that sounds fair, yes." June says, looking more upbeat. "And if we do meet up again, I'd absolutely love to see more of your Joltik!"

"Wonderful. It's a date." Ed rises, making sure he has everything. "I'll let you get back to work now. It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Junko. Thank you again for your help." He bows his head, tipping a nonexistent hat to her. "I'll see you around, hopefully soon!"

A joint post between Groc and QueenNothing.

Groc · Jul 11, 2022

Natsuko Soyokaze
Tuesday, October 6th; midday
Route 110

Rather than head straight into Mauville, Tsu had taken a detour down to the Ranger Station. She'd already returned her bike, and unfortunately didn't win the raffle, so she probably won't be going back to Mauport any time soon. She might return someday, but not this day. The Rangers had a whole spiel for her about crossing the bridge, but Tsu had cheerfully interrupted that she didn't intend to cross, she just wanted to do some training.

That started a whole other conversation, about how battling and capturing Pokémon was strictly prohibited on the land bridge, which again Tsu interrupted that she didn't want to battle or catch anything, she just wanted to train. The Ranger on duty (whose name tag read "Marion", though he introduced himself as John) seemed at first confused, then delighted, and offered to help Tsu himself. There was apparently no shortage of Rangers, and with just a phone call he was able to get someone to cover desk duty while he went with Tsu.

Tsu can't help but feel a little rebellious as John leads her out onto Route 110, all of her Pokémon and Poké Balls still in her possession. A part of her wonders what kind if mischief she could cause, but ultimately she can't think of anything worthwhile. Not with a Ranger so close, eager to help her as he is.

So instead she calls out Stacy, which is the main point of coming out here. Stacy lands on the ground nearby, which John notes is odd.

"Most Gyarados have no problems flying." He looks her over carefully, which Stacy doesn't appreciate, although she stays quiet. "It's actually the most common method of evolution for Magikarp, attaining enough height to experience the sensation and trigger their ancient instincts. She should have been flying from the moment she evolved, but you say she just started?"

"Well, yesterday was the first time she's done it on command. She flew once before, when it was raining, but usually she just kinda rests on the ground."

"Maybe she's just lazy." John pats her side as he says it, and Stacy roars at him in annoyance.

"Hey! You don't have to be rude!" Tsu takes Stacy's side, but John doesn't flinch at either woman yelling at him, merely looking up at Stacy expectantly. She tilts her head in confusion, glancing over at Tsu uncertainly.

"Mm-hmm, just as I thought." John pats Stacy's side as he steps away. "She's all bark and no bite. She's never had to push herself since she's evolved, has she?"

"What do you mean? She struggled when she first evolved, like against Gym Leaders and stuff."

"But other than that?" John presses, but Tsu's expression tells him what he needs to know. "Let me guess, she usually stays in her ball until it's time to battle? It's a common problem new trainers have with Gyarados. They're notoriously strong, but all that power is just a crutch. Stacy here isn't good at flying because she's never had to be, and without proper exercise, she never will be."

"So, what do you suggest?" Tsu moves to Stacy's side, hugging her in concern. "Should I have her out of her ball more, letting her practice?"

John pats Stacy's side, smiling gently. "That's a good start, but remember she can't fly all the time. She needs water as well, and should be swimming more. I understand your concerns, it's hard to keep a Gyarados when you're in town, or if you're traveling. But she has needs that need to be addressed. You don't want her getting fat and lazy, do you? Any more than she already is?"

Stacy growls angrily at the Ranger, trying to intimidate him. Tsu hugs her tighter, again giving John a mean look. "You need to watch what you say about the Duchess, Ranger. You'll make her mad."

John shrugs as he steps back. "Consider it motivation. Prove me wrong and I'll stop. Are you two ready? Your training begins now." He heads off at a light jog, calling back over his shoulder for them to keep up with him.

"Let's do this, Stacy! I believe in you!" Tsu cheers, and Stacy puffs out a sigh before leaping into the air to give chase.

"You're falling behind, Tsu! Pick up the pace!"

"Wait, me?!" Tsu jumps in surprise, pointing to herself incredulously.

"Well, I'm not going to do all the work for you! She's your Pokémon, you need to train her! So you need to be able to keep up with her."

Tsu makes a half-formed sound of protest, but starts jogging after the Ranger so she doesn't get scolded again.

👟 👟 Later... 👟 👟

"Giving up already, Tsu? It's only been an hour." John jogs in place next to Tsu, who now lays facedown in the sand by the water. She wishes it was soft like Slateport Beach, but this sand is coarse, rough, and irritating, and it got everywhere: in her shoes, her shirt, her hair... she has sand in her everything.

More sand is kicked up as Stacy lands next to Tsu, causing her to quickly look away and sputter as some gets in her face. Stacy roars softly in concern, so Tsu pushes heself up. "Lay off, Marion, I'm not really built for this kind of thing! No one told me this was a marathon!"

He stops running, looking away in embarrassment, and Tsu feels bad for snapping at him. "Hey, John, I'm sorry. I don't know why I yelled at you..."

"It's fine, Miss Natsuko." He says brusquely. "Emotions can run high during training, that's all. Go ahead and get in the water, please."

"Oh... okay..." Tsu pats Stacy on the side, taken aback by his abrupt change of demeanor. She'd argue about going into the water, but she's already drenched in sweat, maybe it'll make her feel better? Stacy jumps back into the air, splashing down a little further from the shore. It's almost scary how easily she disappears from view, despite her size. How deep is the water here?

John stops her as she wades in, apparently having similar thoughts. "Wait, I just meant her! The water is deep enough for her to swim around for a bit, but the tides are a bit strong for humans!"

Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.

She almost complains, but then figures wet socks will just have to be her punishment for calling him the wrong name. At least she didn't get swept away or go all the way in. What a day to wear a white shirt...

She puts that from her mind as Stacy pops her head back out of the water. She roars at Tsu, bobbing up and down, making her smile. "I see you, Stacy! Don't scare the local fish too much!"

John actually laughs, which makes Tsu feel better. At least she didn't put him too out of sorts. "Introducing an apex predator to the area? Yeah, that'll scare the locals just a bit. Luckily we're just passing through. Please don't eat anyone down there, Stacy!"

Stacy snorts, and sinks back below the water with a small grin. Tsu can practically hear her thinking man, I'm gonna. She laughs sheepishly as she steps out of the water. "She'll be fine. She won't cause too much fuss, I promise."

John scoffs. He probably saw her expression, too. He pulls a water bottle from his bag, cracking it open and sipping at it slowly. It makes Tsu realize how thirsty she is, but she'd left her bag back at the Ranger Station, so she doesn't have any. She fidgets a little, then just asks, "Got any more of those? It's kinda hot out here."

"Yeah, and we've been running. Gotta stay hydrated." He pours the other half of the water over his face, crumples the bottle and tucks it back into his bag. "But that was all I had."

Wha- rude! Tsu's cheeks puff up as she tries not to scowl at him. She can't very well demand he hand over his water, but he didn't have to torment her like that!

John laughs at her expression, pulling out a second bottle. "I'm just fucking with you, of course I have more! You should see your face right now, you're cute when you're mad."

Tsu blushes as she snatches the bottle from his hand, gulping the water down as she refuses to make eye contact. Why do people keep calling me cute?

"Whoa, slow down, don't hurt yourself. Take it easy, let your body properly absorb the water- aaaand it's gone."

Tsu gasps as she finishes the bottle in one long pull. "Hah! ...sorry, what were you saying?"

John shakes his head and starts walking again, allowing Tsu to keep pace with him. "I get it, it's hot. And you're sweating. That's how humans keep cool, but you don't want to drink too fast, that's not going to help. All that water's just gonna go to your stomach and not actually rehydrate you. You can make yourself sick if you drink too much water too fast."

"Oh..." Tsu looks away from him. She really should learn these kinds of things if she's going to be walking everywhere. "I'm not that sweaty, am I?"

John glances at her torso, then back forward. "It's kinda noticeable, yeah. But working up a good sweat is nothing to be ashamed of! Means you've put in some honest work today! It's a good start to Stacy's training."

Tsu is only half listening, feeling flustered over her appearance, but that last part perks her ears up. "Start? You mean this isn't it?"

John chuckles at that. "Well, yeah. You're just getting started. We've got a ways to go before she's in top shape. And that's just physical training, I'm not including any techniques we want to help her develop. ...how long did you think this was going to take?"

"Like... an afternoon? Couple hours at most?" Tsu realizes how silly that sounds as soon as she says it.

"Ha! You're cute. Uh, I mean, you're funny! No, that's funny! I mean..." John stumbles over his words, which just embarrasses them both. "It's gonna take some time. And I don't recommend trying to train her in the city. You could take her to SkyPark, if you don't mind paying ₽3000 to get in, but that's more for relaxation than recreation."

Tsu winces at the price tag. After her recent string of victories, she's feeling pretty comfortable financially, but that's a lot of pocket change for a walk in the park. She looks out over the water, surprised to see Stacy at the shore, looking back at her. She hadn't even heard her emerge, that's actually scary to think about.

"Guess you heard all that, huh?" Tsu forces a smile, and Stacy exhales loudly. "We can keep coming here, right John? I can schedule some time to come train every day, and I'll stay until it's done."

"That's... one option, sure. Are you sure you're willing to stay in the city for that long? Most traveling trainers aren't."

Tsu chuckles, reaching out for Stacy. Stacy leans in to nuzzle Tsu's hand. "I don't have anywhere I need to be. And it's worth it, for her."

"That's a good attitude to have..." John nods slowly, taking off his hat to scratch the back of his head. "Hey, here's an idea: what if you left her with me?"

Stacy and Tsu turn their heads to look at him simultaneously. "Huh?"

"Hear me out. I'm out here just about every day, unless I'm stuck on desk duty. But there are enough of us that I can easily swap with someone, especially if I'm working with a Pokémon. We have Rangers out on side projects all the time! I can work with Stacy, do some real one on one stuff, and we can focus on that while you're in the city. That way you don't have to disrupt your travel plans, and the time that you were going to set aside for training, you can instead come visit her out here! I'll even give you my number so you can call me and find me wherever I go. What do you think? Sound like a plan?"

Tsu had stepped closer to Stacy during this, hugging the Duchess' face while processing the idea. She's willing to stay for as long as it takes, but this sounds like more dedicated training for Stacy than Tsu simply putting aside a few hours every day. She knows she still has to think about her other four, but they're easier to work with inside the city.

"Cottage Grove is sounding real nice right about now." Tsu speaks softly into Stacy's ear. "Plenty of space, get to hear stories from people, friendly neighbors... maybe we should retire there?"

Stacy nudges Tsu with her head, nearly knocking her over. Tsu holds on tight, really not wanting to get pushed over into the water. "I'm joking! Of course we're gonna keep traveling. But... I don't know, do you want to train with the Ranger?"

Stacy looks back at John, and narrows her eyes grumpily before looking back to Tsu with an inquisitive grunt.

Tsu grins, but shakes her head. "No, you can't eat him if he insults you again. That would only prove him right, and we don't want to give him the satisfaction."

Stacy huffs out a breath, and John looks concerned for the first time. "Can you actually understand her, or are you just fucking with me?"

"Why don't you call her fat again and find out?" Tsu smiles coyly, while Stacy snarls. John looks between the two before barking out a laugh.

"See, I know you're playing me, but you're right. I meant no disrespect, Duchess Stacy. I should have chosen my words better."

Stacy considers this, then roars in acquiescence.

"Stacy says she'll train with you." Tsu helpfully translates, stepping away from the water. "But I'll be back to check on her, every day. I'm trusting you, which I don't do lightly. Give me your phone number."

John doesn't argue, but looks at her differently as they exchange information. "You got serious all of a sudden. It's a good look for you."

"Let's keep this professional, okay?" Tsu blushes slightly, which just makes John grin. "You know... my girlfriend might not like the way you keep looking at me."

That wipes the smile off his face. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give you the wrong idea, forgive me if I was being too forward..."

Tsu fights not to smile, giving a curt nod in response. "Apology accepted. Now, I'm going back. It'll be dinner time by the time I get back to the city. Are you coming with?"

"I'm legally obligated to." John sighs, which makes Stacy chuckle as she hops onto shore. "But only to the Station. Then Stacy and I are staying out here."

"That's... fair, I suppose. Thank you. For doing this. I didn't realize I wasn't treating her right."

"Hey, you clearly care about her. And she cares about you. So you must be doing something right. You just need to be a bit more health conscious."

Tsu chuckles at that. "Sure, I'll work on that."

Eleanor · Jul 12, 2022

Avril Reese

16 - ♀ - Laverre City

Pokémon / Inventory:

AVRIL'S MONEY: $37 000

AVRIL'S TEAM:
🌼 Poppy (Flabébé) ♀
Flower Veil
Synthesis, Fairy Wind, Grassy Terrain, Aromatherapy, Wish, Petal Blizzard

🌼 Hydrangea (Shellos) ♀
Storm Drain
Water Pulse, Mud Bomb, Recover, Rain Dance, Mud Sport, Hidden Power (?)

🌼 Wisteria (Inkay) ♂
Infiltrator
Night Slash, Hypnosis, Topsy-Turvy, Pluck, Reflect, Psybeam

🌼 Thistle (Wooloo) ♀
Bulletproof
Tackle, Growl, Defense Curl, Copycat, Guard Split, Double Kick

Away:
🌼 Venus (Mawile) ♀ - at Littleroot Research Lab

AVRIL'S INVENTORY:
🌼 1 Empty Pokéball
🌼 2 Potions
🌼 Eviolite
🌼 Silk Scarf
🌼 TM for Ally Switch (from Wally)
🌼 5 Rare berries
🌼 Sea Incense
🌼 Pink Scarf
🌼 TM for ??? (from the Trick House)
🌼 Light Clay

🌼 Holotch (phone version)
🌼 Fanclub Membership card - valid until October 17^th
🌼 Ophelia's stamp
🌼 Various clothes and commodities
🌼 Pink Woolen Hat
🌼 Binoculars

🌼 Rental skates ~~again~~

AVRIL'S CONTACTS:
Jordie, Shuna, Natsuko, June, Marcella, Hikaru

AVRIL'S BADGES AND RIBBONS:
🥊 ➕

🎀• 1

🌼 Avril's birth date is April 25^th, 2010
🌼 Character art made with [SPAN="color:rgb(40,180,40);"]https://picrew.me/image_maker/338886[/SPAN]

Ruiner of Peace

Tuesday, October 6^th - around 10 a.m. - Verdanturf Parkway

"Look, I could never join those lunat- I mean, it's really not my cup of tea!" I protest. "I was just spending some time with my Pokémon…"

"Oh, I see. But… what is your cup of tea then? Is it contests maybe?"

I look up at whoever interrupted me, and of course, it's just that skater. The one that I saw practicing a few advanced moves before. Tall, quite slender, sunglasses on her face (or his? I'm not entirely sure), and dark hair fading into bright purple ends. That's quite unique - and easier to spot if I need to hide from this girl. She does look a bit older than me, but not by much.

"You good?"

"Ehhh? Sure…" I must've got distracted…"I like, well… cooking, that's it!"

"Uh-uh, that's interesting. If not for that, I would've never guessed." The skater chuckles, pointing at the berry print kerchief on my head. "What are those little four for, then?"

"Well… no, wait. What do you mean?"

"Hm… you know what, let's start from the beginning. Wanna come sit down for a bit?"

I follow her until the nearest bench. "Right! Name's Paulie, gender's up in the air, I use he or she but not they," she announces. "And I'm a beginner trainer looking to improve! That's why I got interested in what you were doing."

I see Poppy floating towards me, while the rest of my team keeps playing in the grass. "Oh, I'm Avril! From Kalos. And that's Poppy, my first Pokémon."

Paulie watches me as if I need to continue talking. "I'm… a trainer too! On paper." I mutter. "More than anything I'm trying to be a good friend for my Pokémon and… travel together for a bit?"

"Aw, come on, you've got to have a dream you're chasing after! You can be a great trainer, or a gym leader…"

I evidently roll my eyes. Not more of the same, please. "Fine, whatever… what about you then?"

"Oh this will be interesting! The person in front of you, Avril, will be on all the big screens near you!" She laughs. "I'm into acting, 'specially with Pokémon. There's just so much you can do with them and I'm all for it!"

After a basic rundown of that and a shout out to these 'PokéWood Studios' somewhere far away - which honestly was interesting to listen to, but not enough to get me right into that field, Paulie changes topic. "Wanna skate together in the meantime?"

"I'm not going to keep up with you, I'm afraid…"

The other girl shakes her head. "Do you know how many times you fell today? Zero!" She chuckles. "You're not so bad at it, you got the balance part down."

For how long has she been watching me!?

I'm still feeling uneasy about this. "I've only been skating with my Pokémon because they asked me to and… in fact I'd better go see how the others are doing."

"Fine, I'll be around here for a bit longer…!" I hear behind me as I just get up and skate back to where Angie, Wisteria and Thistle are. I find them enjoying themselves quite a lot in the puddles that Shellos has created, but I still have to make sure that Wooloo is doing fine. That ends up in Wisteria pushing her against me, making me fall down and forcing me to sit on the parkway for a few minutes with a Pokémon nearly on top of me… but we don't talk about that.

Now… I get wanting to find out what your Pokémon can do for you, but isn't Paulie thinking about it too much? All I'm happy with is to see my Pokémon happy, that's the most important thing. That's why I've been skating again today - because Poppy wanted me to… and that's fine.

Wait… Poppy?

"Thistle, please let me get up! I have to…"

I roll back to the bench where me and Paulie sat down, change into my sandals, and start looking for Poppy in the vicinity, walking into the grass and kneeling to check into the few flower bushes. Only when I hear the sound of wheels on the pavement, do I realize I got it all wrong.

"Avril? Everything alright?"

I can barely utter the name of my Pokémon when I hear her chirp. And it comes from above, just like the voice of the person looking down at me… who of course is none other than Paulie. Poppy's right there in her hair.

"What're you doing there!?" I ask, sort of outraged. Poppy just laughs at that, while Paulie apologizes. "I literally found out now that your Pokémon was in my hair… I swear. That must've been a crazy ride too…"

"Uh?" Poppy nods happily as I look at her, flabbergasted. With her flower, she points down at Paulie's skates.

"I mean sure, she's better than me, but…"

The purple haired girl tries to calm me down. "You said it's your Pokémon who wanted you to skate, right?"

"Why, yes…" I answer, trying to predict where she's going. She hits right back. "What if she just wanted to stay on someone who's skating? As if, it doesn't have to be you."

Ok, that's the opposite of what you should say to calm me down.

"So that's why she came to you, uh?" To my dismay, Poppy nods again.

Paulie slowly takes off her sunglasses. "It's just about how far you'll go for each other, how many challenges you'll endure for each other… but it's like that for all friendships, every time you and someone else wanna do something together." She tries to put a hand on my shoulder, making me wobble in the process.

"Years ago I used to skate with a bunch of friends, but only me and another boy decided to practice seriously and learn all the tricks you see me do. When we started going to the rink in the city for dance nights and whatever, our friends didn't want to come because it was too much for them. That was the best outcome for everyone, even if we don't see each other as often."

I raise an eyebrow. "What are you trying to say?"

"I don't know, something helpful I hope." Paulie winks. "Something to the effect of… in a friendship, all the parties need to be happy."

"H-have I not done enough for Poppy? Is she unhappy with me?" I get all defensive.

"Nah… what if you're the unhappy one? You worry too much about her if it's true you went skating only because she asked."

"I mean… I'm happy to see her happy, that's enough, right?" I say, falling into Paulie's trap. "With that face, Avril?"

"Uff…" I look to the ground in defeat.

"You gotta like skating a bit yourself, don't you?"

"I guess so. I've felt kinda nice just cruising along these paths, you know?"

Paulie smiles. "You know what, let's get back to the city for now. If you ever wanna skate together, you'll know where to find me anyways! And…"

She seems to blush slightly beneath the sunglasses she's put on once again. "We can take it easy next time."

Eleanor · Jul 18, 2022

Avril Reese

16 - ♀ - Laverre City

Pokémon / Inventory:

AVRIL'S MONEY: $37 000

AVRIL'S TEAM:
🌼 Poppy (Flabébé) ♀
Flower Veil
Synthesis, Fairy Wind, Grassy Terrain, Aromatherapy, Wish, Petal Blizzard

🌼 Hydrangea (Shellos) ♀
Storm Drain
Water Pulse, Mud Bomb, Recover, Rain Dance, Mud Sport, Hidden Power (?)

🌼 Wisteria (Inkay) ♂
Infiltrator
Night Slash, Hypnosis, Topsy-Turvy, Pluck, Reflect, Psybeam

🌼 Thistle (Wooloo) ♀
Bulletproof
Tackle, Growl, Defense Curl, Copycat, Guard Split, Double Kick

Away:
🌼 Venus (Mawile) ♀ - at Littleroot Research Lab

AVRIL'S INVENTORY:
🌼 1 Empty Pokéball
🌼 2 Potions
🌼 Eviolite
🌼 Silk Scarf
🌼 TM for Ally Switch (from Wally)
🌼 5 Rare berries
🌼 Sea Incense
🌼 Pink Scarf
🌼 TM for ??? (from the Trick House)
🌼 Light Clay

🌼 Holotch (phone version)
🌼 Fanclub Membership card - valid until October 17^th
🌼 Ophelia's stamp
🌼 Various clothes and commodities
🌼 Pink Woolen Hat
🌼 Binoculars

🌼 Rental skates ~~again~~

AVRIL'S CONTACTS:
Jordie, Shuna, Natsuko, June, Marcella, Hikaru

AVRIL'S BADGES AND RIBBONS:
🥊 ➕

🎀• 1

🌼 Avril's birth date is April 25^th, 2010
🌼 Character art made with [SPAN="color:rgb(40,180,40);"]https://picrew.me/image_maker/338886[/SPAN]

Your turn to decide

Tuesday, October 6^th - 11:30 a.m. - Mauville Pokémon Center

With Paulie now busy with a training session of her own, Avril has some time all for herself before lunch time comes around. She's decided to spend it in her Pokémon Center room, making some sense of what the other skater told her before, but for the first few minutes, her mind seems to be elsewhere.

"Ok, this dress is good to go, this shirt is fine too, this goes in the washing machine…" Poppy hears her trainer's mumbling as she's kneeling down beside her bag. "Skates were 1.5k for three days so I'll have to decide if I need them again and look at my money count…" and then "Goodness, where's the case with my sunglasses?"

It doesn't take her long before she gets tired of that. Soon, she's flying in front of Avril, trying to catch her attention. It works, and Avril is soon sitting at her room's small table, again looking at that Mauville promotional pamphlet. "Is there anything else you want me to see here?" She asks, casually turning the pages.

Poppy points her flower in her direction, then at the table, chirping excitedly.

"Hm?"

Poppy nods, still pointing the flower stem towards Avril. Then she crosses her tiny arms, and her face gets more smug.

"Should I just… read it all again?"

Soon enough, that's precisely what Avril finds herself doing. She skims through the pages again, finding out that she didn't find much information about Mauville's gym leader because… there was actually very little of it to begin with. She smiles when she sees the SkyPark and the Verdanturf Parkway being mentioned, and a tiny note she didn't see the first time informs her that skating around Mauville City proper is also perfectly fine. She raises an eyebrow when she lands on the Game Corner page, and promptly shuts down any interest Poppy may have had for that facility by turning the page.

That lands her onto some pictures of Mauville Beach and Mauville Hills. Further ahead, the "Contest Hall" gets some spotlight. Avril sits on this page for quite a while, and raises her head only to see Poppy staring intently at her from up close.

"Have you found anything else you wanna do, Poppy?"

She showers Avril with Fairy Wind particles in response.

"Are you just saying... it's my turn?"

Poppy twirls in the air approvingly, before having her go through most of the pamphlet again and trying to get her opinion on everything that's in there. Her trainer has not many positive things to say about things like the Gym or the Game Corner, but…

"You know, if we're going to stay here for a few days, I'd be happy to visit the Hill Station area, it looks so nice! The beach too actually," Avril mutters. "That could bring back some nice memories." Poppy nods, relieved to hear those answers.

"I might go back to the fanclub and chill with you, or cook some more stuff if they still have the kitchenware available. I guess… skating on the parkway is something we could do more often, though I'm not sure about doing that in the city since it seemed kinda crowded."

Poppy shrugs, while still keeping up her playful smile. "Contests… right. I know that you really like them and they are quite nice at first, it's the second round that gets me…" Avril sighs. She's genuine here, and from her voice, Poppy can tell that she means everything she's said. The Flabébé does her best to lay down on the pamphlet and point her arm towards the grandstand of the contest hall, visible in one picture.

"I thought you wanted to participate in more contests, not just spectate…?" The blonde girl questions, but Poppy tries to reassure her. "I have to say, I'm not very keen on letting you battle after what happened with that evolution attempt… I-I know now that you also wanted to spend time with me in this form and a-all…"

Poppy smiles, but then dismisses Avril with a chuckle. She points towards the rest of her Pokéballs, which are comfortably staying inside of the girl's cloth bag. She seems very excited about it.

"So you want to spend more time with your teammates, uh Poppy? Is that the plan for this afternoon?"

More Fairy Wind comes the girl's way. But as the particles fade, Pokémon and trainer are just smiling at each other. "You know, let's just have lunch, call them out, and see what they say too. I'm getting a lot of ideas."

Aquacorde · Jul 21, 2022

Marie Rachelle Mocinno

Knuckle, Dell

₽23,000

Wed Oct 7, Night

Mauville

Chapter 6 #3 - Intervention / Interrogation

Marie occupies herself only momentarily with a VR station before Sunny bursts from the little office in a huff, holding a delirious Sputter in her arms. She stops when she sees Marie, Sputter waving happily, and returns the Ghost to her ball.

"Not yet tournament-ready, then?"

Sunny just scowls back at the door. "I don't know how anyone's supposed to win when the leader cheats like that. He was all 'oh, it's random, better luck next time!' But my team are all exhausted because apparently VR does weird stuff to Pokémon! They need time to rest, and I can't challenge again for at least a half hour!" She sighs, a little drained after that rant. "How about you, any luck?"

VR? It makes sense that Leader Eiddon would use some kind of VR something in his battles, but Marie can't imagine how it would exhaust a Pokémon more than just battling normally. But! To be honest, she doesn't care to speculate at the moment- far more interesting is regaling Sunny with tales of Edison's chaotic night as they wander toward the exit.

Sunny keeps looking at Marie suspiciously, or shaking her head in disbelief. "...are you sure we're talking about the same guy? I can't believe Eddie would do even half of all that. What happened to him out there?"

And that's the question, isn't it? As much as Marie is entertained by these stories and loves to get right into the gossip- this is Edison. This is a strange yet polite teenager that had always come off as meek and relatively easy to push around. Both Sunny and Marie herself had done so without much concern. He'd always been reasonable and knowledgeable and thoughtful- what the hell could have unleashed this unhinged terror on Mauville?

And with Sunny, a girl who has known him far longer than Marie has, asking the same question…

"I suppose we'd best track him down and find out, hm?"

"Probably. Do you know where he is? I don't like the idea of him being all alone in a city this large."

"It certainly seems like he shouldn't be left alone anywhere." Marie slips her phone out of her pocket and stares at it. "He's not got a new phone yet, I'm sure. Not if he's lost his mind." She swipes through apps vaguely anyway. "What does he like? Where would he go?"

Sunny checks her own phone, putting it away after a glance. "He promised he'd call. Why didn't he call? If he doesn't have a phone yet, maybe he's at the store getting a new one? If they're even open this late."

"Mauville is a- a twenty-four-hour city," Marie parrots her father from a long-ago conversation. "So perhaps they are. I suppose we could call them."

Some directory searching and a few calls later, they receive confirmation from the only purveyor of Holotch products in the city- no, they have not seen anyone of that description during their shift, thank you.

"No phone, then." Marie hums. "And we're a day behind him, aren't we?"

"Dammit!" Sunny angrily knocks over a bowl of popcorn on the counter, spilling kernels everywhere. "Fine, everyone we've talked to is useless. What do we know about Eddie, my Eddie, not this crazy man everyone here met? He's tidy, always in his head… he's a creature of habit. Where would he be this late at night?"

"This- oh, it's nearly eleven…" Marie suppresses a yawn that apparently has been waiting for an opportune moment. "I personally would be asleep, if not for all this terribly interesting information."

"Perfect, then that's where we'll look. Unless he really likes camping now, he'd find a Pokémon Center and get a room. Let's head back, it's literally the first stop on the tram."

"Ah. Not a bad thought, Sunny Dey," Marie allows, and they make their way into and out of a still-busy tram situation with much more ease than their first two attempts.

And yet, there is still a problem.

"This Pokémon Center is massive." Marie can't quite keep the awe out of her voice, not now that she actually is taking in the layout and therefore the true scale of the building. Even only a single floor has a maze of dormitories, and to multiply such by three? Astonishing. And also, impossible. "We are absolutely not going to knock on every single door in this facility."

"Then we ask someone! Apparently he hasn't been very subtle, maybe some of the staff have seen him." Sunny heads for the nearest help desk. "Hi, I'm looking for my friend? His phone is broken and I wanted to make sure we're at the right Pokémon Center." She pulls his photo up on her phone for reference. Marie cranes her neck to see the photo- a shot of Ed, looking at his Holotch while Neo hovers nearby. He doesn't seem aware Sunny took this. It's very cute, and makes some things almost painfully obvious.

The attendant meets Sunny's demand with a level gaze. "Must be at the right one, 'cause this's the only one."

"Great! So have you seen him?"

"Nope."

"Well, who has?!" Sunny pounds her fist on the counter. "He showed up yesterday, someone has to have seen him!"

"Maybe. I didn't work yesterday. Find someone who did."

Sunny growls in frustration, knocking over a little cup of pens. "Some help desk! That's false advertising! You're actively lying to people!"

This is the point where Marie delicately inserts two fingers into the back of Sunny's collar and draws her away. "My apologies. She is volatile, though not as much as you were unhelpful. We'll be going."

Going to this floor's cafeteria, as it is the nearest area with more staff that they can flash the picture of Edison at. Eventually, a custodial worker directs them up one level, where they then strike gold- a soft-spoken older man, who had indeed been working the previous night.

"Ah, this boy… he seemed troubled. Struggling. Perhaps he was simply tired, though."

"What do you mean, 'struggling'? Was he hurt? Where'd he go?" Sunny goes to grab him, but Marie deftly holds her back.

"Mm… I would describe him as 'wobbly', with a side of 'twitchy'. Too young for alcohol, certainly, or I would think… no, no. Simply tired, I must assume." The man gestures toward the nearest dormitory hall. "I made sure he got in, at least. Room #227. I suppose you could go knock. But if he doesn't answer, I wouldn't persist. Let him rest."

Sunny barely lets him finish before heading in the direction he pointed. "Ah- your help is appreciated, thank you-" Marie gets out before quickening her stride to easily catch up to Sunny, nearly at the referenced door already. "Inconsiderate," she huffs. Not that Sunny cares.

"Huh?" Sunny barely registers Marie's words, knocking at the door. "Eddie, are you in there?" She goes to jiggle the handle, but the door simply opens. She doesn't question it, and just heads inside.

"Wh- wait, hey-" Isn't this exactly what Edison had complained about, back in Littledale? The assumption that Sunny has a right to his privacy, a right to his things- but…

Perhaps this qualifies as an emergency?

Marie doesn't hesitate long, with that thought.

Despite the size of the Center itself, the room is fairly standard, perhaps even smaller than some other rooms they've been to. It seems designed to make optimal use of the space, being little more than a closet with a bed. Edison's backpack and satchel lie on the floor, his shirt and shoes haphazardly tossed beside them, and the boy himself is sprawled on the bed, lifting himself up in alarm at the sudden light and sound.

"Wha-" is all Edison can say before Sunny tackles him, wrapping her arms around him with a shout of "Eddie!"

She grabs him by the shoulders, now frowning at him. "What's wrong with you? Do you know how worried about you we've been?!"

"Apologies for the late-night intrusion." Marie folds her arms and sits primly at the foot of the bed. "But you do have some explaining to do."

"How did you…" Edison looks between the two, then at the open door behind them. He sighs, putting a hand to Sunny's chest and pushing her off of him. She chooses instead to stand by the bed, looking down at him in disapproval. "Fine. I've been putting things together myself. What do you want to know?"

"Well. I've been speaking to some Game Corner regulars." At that, even in the dim light from only the hallway, she can see his eyes widen slightly as his face turn a bit red, and he looks down with a sigh. "So we do have a good collection of facts, but not much in the way of understanding."

"Would you believe that I was… not in my right mind?" Edison takes a moment to collect his thoughts before looking up at them. "I was not prepared to go off on my own. That was my first mistake, but not my biggest one. When I arrived here in Mauville, I got some good advice from a local merchant, who in hindsight I should not have trusted, and I think I might have been poisoned. I… tried to self-medicate, and after that I don't remember much. I spent some time inside, I imagine, before heading to the Gym."

"The Gym? That was the first thing you did?" Sunny shakes her head at him.

"Can we please backtrack to suspected poisoning?" Marie requests, a bit pitchily but certainly not unreasonably.

Edison tilts his head slightly at her reaction, but complies. "I bought what I thought were simple mints from this man, but… they did something to me, physically. I was shaking, my mind was racing and my heart even moreso. I heard someone talk of a drink to calm their nerves-" Sunny slaps the wall behind her, shaking her head, but lets him continue. "...and followed them to a bar. Suffice to say, it didn't help, and from there it's all a bit of a blur."

"...Pep-Ups. You mixed Pep-Ups with alcohol." Marie says flatly.

"Technically, I didn't mix them. I had one, then the other, thinking they would counteract each other."

"And they mixed in your stomach, you idiot!" Sunny chimes in.

"And aren't you underage?"

Edison averts his eyes from Marie's. "Yes, I'm only fifteen, but I didn't actually go into the bar this time. I sent my Pokémon in instead."

"Aren't they underage?" Marie immediately cuts that train of thought and Edison's attempted retaliation off with more pressing concerns. "No, actually, no- this is all a problem. Are you insane?"

"I've never been diagnosed as such."

"You could have been arrested," Marie huffs.

"That is a possibility that I hadn't considered." Edison at least looks concerned about that. "Last time, I was simply given a warning not to go into any more bars until I came of age. I technically complied with the letter of the law."

"Is that what you got arrested for before? And you- okay, I can respect some delicate loophole work, but- Edison." Marie, astonishingly, finds herself at a loss for words and resorts to channeling her concern, disappointment, shock, and all other swirling emotions into the tone with which she says his name.

"I made some mistakes, I know. I don't know what came over me, but I wasn't myself."

"People saw you." Sunny says simply. "You acted weird, you broke the law, and people saw you. How can someone so smart be so dumb?"

Edison looks at her, a bit confused perhaps. "Sunny… are you alright? Why do you care so much about my… misadventures? Why are you so worried?"

"Because I lo- uh, you lost your mind, by the sounds of it." Sunny trips over her words, but catches herself. "You don't remember? People say you were curled up in corners and eating out of trash cans. They said they had to drag you out of the Game Corner, and you got banned from the Gym! That's why I'm worried! Because you're my friend!"

Sunny pushes past Marie on her way to the door. "You're stressing me out, and this room is smaller than our tent. I'll be in the hall."

Silence settles over the tiny room and its two remaining occupants.

Marie flexes her fingers against her upper arm. Sunny does love him, doesn't she? Now that she's fully admitted it to herself, it is barely contained- the girl is no good at keeping her emotions a secret, really. But this isn't the moment to be involving such emotions. This isn't the conversation that should lead to such a confession of feelings. Her own emotions, too, should remain contained. Edison is clearly going through something, so her agenda should be to find out what that something is. Not chastise him for making her feel…

She'll go with worried, as well.

"I think you'll have to be resigned to being babysat for the foreseeable future." Marie flashes a smile that is slightly too brittle. "All that talk about needing agency and space and look what happens when you have it."

Ah, that's- that's not keeping her emotions contained.

"Now, hold on." Edison protests, reaching for her hands. "Yesterday was a fluke, you can't seriously judge my behavior by my worst day. I did quite well out there on the land bridge, and inside the restricted area."

Marie allows her hands to be pulled towards Edison, and her arms to uncross with the motion. His placating gesture, though, doesn't override the additional information presented. "And what business did you have inside a restricted area?"

"I was running from a flock of birds." He looks her in the eye as he says this with complete seriousness. "Also, looking to recharge my batteries to feed N.D., and while I was there I caught some Pokémon. In my defense, no one told me it was off-limits until after I'd gone inside."

Marie shakes her head. It just keeps getting worse. "You should have gone over Mauport with us."

His grip on her hands tightens momentarily as he looks away from her eyes, then relaxes as he breathes out. "...perhaps. I thought I needed to make a decision, to do something for me for once, but every decision I've made after that has been the wrong one. I was not prepared, but I will do better." He looks back at her, and there's determination in his eyes, despite the bags under them.

Can she trust that?

Should she?

It's not uncommon, people being overzealous with newfound freedom. Perhaps Edison's chaotic experiences were simply a result of that, and he now has learned restraint. She has little reason to disbelieve him here, based on her own experiences. Except that… he's done this before. He's been arrested before, for similar things, for things he should certainly know better about- and now…

Marie closes her eyes for a moment. "Meet me for breakfast, hm? At eight, on this floor." She squeezes his hands gently, eyes still closed, and smiles when he squeezes them back.

"Breakfast sounds lovely. I'll see you at eight."

Marie opens her eyes and lets out a breath. That will do, for now. "Goodnight then, Edison. Sleep well." His hands slip easily from hers as she rises from the little bed.

"I'll try. I'll sleep better now. Good night, Marie." Edison watches Marie go, giving a little wave as she closes the door.

The latch clicks in time with her exhausted sigh.

"So am I invited too, or is breakfast an exclusive thing?" Sunny leans against the wall, arms crossed. Clearly she'd been listening. Of course she had.

"I suppose I would be remiss to exclude someone who loves him, wouldn't I?" Marie must be more tired than she thought, to be so blunt. It is what it is, and she'll just have to deal with what comes out of her mouth at this point. She can do that.

Even with Sunny's volatility.

Sunny's eyes go wide, and she grabs Marie's arm to pull her away from the door. "Don't say that so loud!" She hisses, looking around the empty hall. "I never said that, what's wrong with you?"

"You almost did, though." Marie allows herself to be led away, but needling at Sunny is still on the table. "You almost did, and you do, and it's not much of a secret to anyone that so much as looks at you two."

"No, it just slipped! He's my best friend, that would be weird, and he wouldn't understand. I-I mean, if it were true, he wouldn't. Because it's not."

"It isn't that strange to be in love with your best friend. Very common, in fact. I don't know why you think yourself exempt. Especially not with the way you behave with him, goodness. You know this, I know you do."

"He's not ready to hear it." Sunny holds her head in her hands, staring at the floor. "I'm not ready to say it." She looks up at Marie, glaring daggers like she hasn't in days. "This isn't the time, and I don't think you should be there when it is."

Ah, too sensitive yet. "No, I wouldn't want you to be there if I said such either."

Sunny's glare vanishes, replaced with surprise. "Wait, if you said it? You're not in love with Eddie too, are you?"

"Ooh, look who said it!"

"So you admit it!" Sunny points an accusing finger at Marie, but pauses at the other girl's gleeful expression. "Wait, what did I say?"

"You're not in love with Eddie too, are you?" Marie parrots, the hard emphasis on "too" taking away the odd feeling of calling Edison by a nickname. "Look at you! You can say it."

"I- Ah-" Sunny's mouth opens and closes as unintelligible squeaks escape her lips. She's caught, and she knows it, and words that were pent up for too long finally escape. "Just not to him! I don't know how to tell him, or when to say it! What if he rejects me? Or worse, what if he feels the same? What do I do then?!"

Sunny might be having emotions about it all, but Marie is far too entertained to either knock it off or give real advice. "I don't think you should be worried in the latter case. You'd just be dating, yes? Going out to eat. To the movies. For romantic walks. And very likely doing some kissing. That's the point of dating, is it not?"

Sunny seems surprised at Marie's words. Then contemplative. Then disturbed. She shakes her head quickly. "No no no no no! None of that stuff! Maybe dinners. But do you really think Eddie would go to the movies? Or for walks? That I would want to kiss.. uh… no!" She finishes rather lamely, but her blush gives her away.

"Well, what would you do on a date with Edison, then? If you're so disgusted by the idea of kissing him."

"Have you even been paying attention?" Sunny slumps and scowls. "I can't even walk to the next town with him anymore. My idea of a romantic walk would be hiking up a mountain trail. Eddie would want to stop and look for Furret to get bit by. The idiot."

"Yes, that does seem accurate." Marie tugs thoughtfully at a springy lock of hair. "I suppose you've gotten yourself in a predicament, then."

"See? I'm right." Sunny nods in satisfaction, then realizes what she just said. "So why do I feel so frustrated about it? Do I need to change something?"

"I think…" Marie doesn't have much on hand for this, actually. She never enters an interaction with intent to give any useful advice. "You must be frustrated because your romantic inclinations are not being fulfilled. Yes? That's clear. You want something- someone- that you can't have."

"Okay, that feels weird to hear. He's my best friend, you know? I didn't think there was anything more until I started losing him. And now… I don't like this. Can we talk about something else?"

"How are you going to achieve a satisfactory resolution by avoiding the issue?" Marie asks, head tilted.

"Same way I always do. Same way I'm gonna get into that tournament. I'm gonna throw myself at it until I can't do that anymore, and then I'll run away and do something else." Her breath catches after that. "I don't know what else to do. I think… I think I'm gonna go for a walk."

"It's well past bedtime-"

"Going for a walk!" Sunny yells over her shoulder, walking away from this conversation.

Ah well. One can only get so far at such a late hour, and she's had some fun. She, too, will sleep well tonight.

featuring Groc as Edison Kintobor & Sunny Dey ⟡

Spoiler: Team

Spoiler: Inventory

Spoiler: Contacts

[PKMN FULL] Hoenn: Square One [IC]

Hi I'm Cube

4-6: A Quiet Day

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

HELD ITEMS

CONSUMABLES

MISC. GEAR

Hi I'm Cube

♫ following where my arrow goes ♫

4-7: Long Road Ahead

Ability: Prankster

Ability: Rattled

Ability: Technician

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

HELD ITEMS

CONSUMABLES

MISC. GEAR

4-8: Observations

Ability: Prankster

Ability: Rattled

Ability: Technician

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

HELD ITEMS

CONSUMABLES

MISC. GEAR

♫ following where my arrow goes ♫

5-1: A Crossroads

Ability: Prankster

Ability: Rattled

Ability: Technician

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

CHAPTER 5: YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DON'T GO

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

HELD ITEMS

CONSUMABLES

MISC. GEAR

5-2: Lurker

Ability: Prankster

Ability: Rattled

Ability: Technician

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

CHAPTER 5: YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DON'T GO

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

HELD ITEMS

CONSUMABLES

MISC. GEAR

Hi I'm Cube

5-3: Peace Offering

Ability: Prankster

Ability: Rattled

Ability: Technician

CHAPTER 2: LIVE FOR FUN

CHAPTER 3: YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART

CHAPTER 4: SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO SEE

CHAPTER 5: YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU DON'T GO

WALLET: ₽6,200

KEY ITEMS

HELD ITEMS

CONSUMABLES

MISC. GEAR

Tuesday, October 6th @ 0830 - Mauville

Perish Song?