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18.96% Pokemon: A life worth living / Chapter 18: C018 - Fighting a team battle in the wild

Chapter 18: C018 - Fighting a team battle in the wild

"Here boy, have some tea," Isabelle said with a kind smile as she handed Pete a mug with a fragrant green tea.

Pete was still sitting on the hill they had arrived at, a hill with a giant mansion even bigger than the professor's lab on it. He was still a little overwhelmed from the teleport, but Herbert had insisted it was better like that.

One teleport in a day was fine, but if you needed to do several and for the first time, it was better to do them quickly. Like ripping a bandaid off.

Pete had no reference because his story didn't have much teleporting, so he accepted Herbert's excuse if it was one.

Isabelle had also calmed down after trying a bit of Pete's food that Herbert had secretly snatched in a box. And she wasn't an unpleasant person to begin with, so she didn't take it out on Pete.

"Thanks, Isabelle."

Pete cooled down the tea a little with his breath and took a sip. It was a pleasant tea to drink. A little bitter at the start, but sweet at the end. He'd have to ask if he could get the bushes for the tea leaves later.

Isabelle went back to the giant garden on the hill and dragged a chair over. Herbert had hurriedly run down the hill when he was excused. Down the hill was a smaller hill, and behind the hill was what Pete supposed was Violet City. All around them was forest. Even the horizon from the vantage point he was on was nothing but forest.

"Down that hill is the heart of Herbert's company HF&P. Herbert Feelgood and Partners. He has several small gardens and favourable environments to keep the seeds healthy. That hill is actually three pretty large warehouses with different climates that were built into the hill. Their silo doors are on the other side," Isabelle calmly explained as she sat down.

By then, Pete would have been good to go, but Isabelle's pleasant voice and kind gesture of explaining had kept him seated.

"His dad ran a pretty big farm here in Violet City, but before he inherited it, Herbert decided he wanted more. So, in the year before his father wanted to give him the farm, Herbert took his Exeggutor and traveled the world. He eventually brought back seeds from all over the world and me," she gently smiled at the end of the sentence.

Herbert had already told him during the dinner at Elm's place that his petite wife, who was even shorter than he was, was originally from Sinnoh.

"The seeds themselves started selling for more than the grown crops, well if you counted growth, time and labor into it, so Herbert kept up his crazy busy schedule for a long time until HF&P grew to be one of the biggest suppliers of plants, seeds and in some regions even the grown food itself," Isabelle continued.

"He must be crazy rich then, no? Why does he sell seeds on a market all the way in New Bark?"

"You said you were Professor Elm's assistant, right? Well, his first customer buying non-native berries at the exorbitant premium he had tried to sell them at at the time was actually Professor Elm's predecessor Professor Steyox. He's become a lot more business savvy since he managed to woo me and asked me to run the company with him. And except for when he's not in Johto, he's always made time for the New Bark Town market at least every second week. Helps keep him honest he always says," Isabelle narrated with a nostalgic smile.

"That's admirable," Pete mumbled under his breath.

"Hey, Pete! I collected you one seed or sapling of every berry we sell, compliments to the chef if you will. I don't want to guilt trip you, but this comes with hoping you could make some lunch tomorrow," Herbert said as he placed a wooden case and a burlap sack with a few saplings in it in front of the still seated Pete.

"Yeah, I'll gladly accept. But I should probably get going before it's too late to get to the city now," Pete said as he finally stood up.

"What are you saying? Obviously, I'll house my future star model when he is in the city. Look at that giant mansion behind you. We had six kids, and four of them are old enough to live on their own. We have room to spare," Herbert offered, leaving no way to refuse.

"Uh, are you sure? We only just met this morning," Pete awkwardly replied. There was no way people in his old world would just keep offering free lodging left and right. It had stumped Pete even with Professor Elm.

"Vivian vouched for me, no? And you were hired by Elm only a day after meeting him. Clearly, he vouched for you, too," Herbert nonchalantly answered.

After thanking Herbert once more, he still only accepted half of the offer. He used the bathroom and would use the kitchen tomorrow, but he would sleep outside on the edge of the forest. He had promised Blitzle and Ponyta to spend the night in a tent close to them after all.

And the comfort wasn't even lacking to begin with. Tent was fixed by Vivian who sewed the holes shut and Pete had his luxurious sleeping bag. By now, Pete had plenty of chats with Valentino and Elm and knew not to fear Noctowls, so he would sleep much better, too.

Pete was much more relaxed since gaining Elm's backing in general.

He had first thought of everything that could go wrong and then about every consequence lying could bring, and then he feared what he could even do if it all failed. But the best case scenario happened, and he was glad for having met them all like he did.

So after releasing all his pokemon with Herbert's permission, Pete made an impromptu camp at the start of the treeline of the property. Since dinner already happened, he only offered a few treats and asked for two buckets worth of fresh water from Isabelle.

Isabelle herself had called over her three Sunflora and they kind of kidnapped Sunkern for some serious sunflower talk it seemed. Pete hoped his pokemon would gain something from this chance encounter and let him go. The derpy sentient corn did have a bright smile on his face.

When the camp was set up and the sun was about to disappear fully, Pete had asked his pokemon if they wanted to check out the immediate forest for a moment before bed.

Pete did bring his bag with poke gear and an empty one with him in hopes of finding some of the moss he had been eying. Herbert had provided him some sacks that could make sure the moss would survive for a few days inside a bag.

After running in a straight line for almost 30 minutes with most of his smaller pokemon in his hoodie, Pete found his first tree covered in Scarlet Moss. He happily gathered a whole bunch of the needed moss and noticed that the bugs he was thinking about were just about teeming in the moss.

These bugs looked like slightly smaller, chubby cockroaches with thin red shells, and at night, they were slower than even a snail. Pete knew that most bug and flying pokemon absolutely loved eating them.

He had harvested a good chunk of moss from almost 20 trees when Rapidash suddenly turned her head in one direction.

Seeing as the 'prey' had noticed them, three large Mightyena about the size of a tiger growled and stepped closer to their group from behind some trees.

Two Poochyena were following them with similar growling sounds. Pete had thought they would look cute even growling, but these Poochyena looked pretty intidimating despite their size. Having dried blood in the fur around their maws would do that, Pete guessed.

"Guys, get ready for battle. Solosis. Psychic attacks won't do much damage to these guys. Minccino, if you two have to enter the battle, remember what I taught you. Blitzle and Ponyta, stay close so Rapidash can fight without worry," Pete ordered calmly.

If he didn't have Golett as a trump card, Pete might be a bit worried. But Rapidash had proven herself very intidimating on several occasions. If they tried their best not to inflict any status effects on the Mightyena, enabling their Quick Feet ability, Pete thought they could easily drive them away.

"Ponyta, hit Rapidash with an Ember, aim for the tail. Rapidash, if they come closer, prepare Fire Spin but aim away from the trees. We don't want to cause a forest fire," Pete ordered next, trying to activate Rapidash's ability Flash Fire that increases the damage of fire moves after Rapidash was hit with a fire attack.

As the Mightyena stepped closer, one of the attackers took a small Poochyena with him to circle their prey.

"Stay sharp, guys. Solosis, look for some loose rocks you can throw with psychic power to inflict damage. As best as possible, aim for weak spots like the eyes and the throat," Pete whispered next. He could have thought Solosis' order but chose to speak up so the others would hear.

The Minccino, who Pete thought would turn intimidated, instead looked kinda angry.

"Hey Minccinos, if you want to handle that Poochyena, how about one of you uses Helping Hand and the other uses Double Slap. If the Poochyena still stands and your positions are favorable, change up and use the other move. Always get some distance after you got a hit in. The Poochyena line mostly knows melee attacks. I'll let Golett watch over the fight. Solosis, you help out Rapidash," Pete ordered last.

This wasn't the pokemon game where you would get one attack a turn, and the trainer decided it all.

Even in league matches, the pokemon would fight based on training and instinct and only use certain moves when cued in by the trainer. No self-respecting pokemon would wait on their trainer to shout 'dodge' or 'use double-team to avoid the attack' to get away from taking damage. And no battle-hardened pokemon would just wait around in a fight to hear the next attack it was supposed to use.

Once the Mightyena from the back howled loudly, the other two from the front used that as the start of the attack. Clearly, they had hoped everyone of their prey would be distracted by the howl, but that didn't happen.

One of the Mightyena from the front lunged forward, using a rock as a jumpboard, but was instead caught in a devastatingly hot Fire Spin by Rapidash.

The one from the back jumped in too, but suddenly a Golett appeared in front of it and punted it into the ground with a Heavy Slam - a steel type attack that deals more damage the more you weighed compared to the enemy.

And while Mightyena weighed a good amount, he didn't come close an actual mud golem. If it didn't use its ghost influence to lighten its steps, Golett actually weighed a good amount more than Pete. It weighed roughly as much as Rapidash, and Rapidash was a giant compared to Pete.

Seeing the Mightyena from the back slammed into the ground, the two Minccino angrily rushed forward and implemented Pete's strategy to repeatedly attack the Poochyena.

Meanwhile, while the first Mightyena to attack from the front was yowling from inside the Fire Spin, the second Mightyena was about to jump in to attack but was hit in the head with a rapidly spinning stone. Another training method Pete had taught Solosis: applying spin to items and moving them in different directions. Solosis was a natural at that particular move.

Rapidash ran toward the Mightyena stuck inside the Fire Spin and used Headbutt, followed by Stomp to Mightyena's shoulder blade, which took out the first enemy of the battle. Blitzle meanwhile listened to Pete but still attacked from the very back next to their trainer.

It was a short beam from her lightning shaped horn on the head. It took a while for him to think about what move it was, but Pete thought it most likely for the attack to be Charge Beam. It didn't look all too impressive compared to Rapidash's Fire Spin, but it still hit the other Mightyena that Solosis had hit with the rock on the same spot as the psychic pokemon's attack. Right in the head.

The last Poochyena that had stood behind the two Mightyena from the front was gobsmacked. These pokemon from the other side all looked so weak and peaceful, except for the Rapidash. But it turned out they were completely outclassed in every way.

Rapidash strutted over to the other Mightyena that Solosis and Blitzle had attacked and arrogantly used another Stomp to plant it into the ground with an extra broken bone or two.

At the back, Golett had finished off the other Mightyena with a Mega Punch.

And where was Zorua all this time? The Illusion fox had snuck up behind the other Poochyena that the Minccino weren't bullying and used Scratch after Scratch followed by Bite and a Pursuit once Poochyena tried to flee from the battle. Well, Pursuit deals more damage if you were fleeing a battle - rookie move on Poochyena's part.

"Alright, amazing job all around. Come back, everyone. These five attacked us and got what they deserved. There's no reason to be too heavy-handed here. You won't attack us again, right?" Pete first praised his pokemon and then menacingly looked toward the Mightyena who was least damaged.

With a whimper, it nodded so hard it actually hurt its cracked shoulder once more and whimpered even louder.

Pete and his team retreated from the clearing and went back towards Herbert's house. All three Pokemon in his hoodie had their eyes at the back of the team. Zorua, however, was getting carried in Pete's arm. He had received a Scratch and a Tackle in retaliation and was bleeding a little on the left front leg.

Pete had already fed him an Oran berry to promote healing but would still clean the wound once they get back.

And when they came back, it was time for a short battle recap. It wasn't long because Pete was very content with how that fight turned out.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Nuclide Nuclide

Chapter is slightly longer once more because I "only" wrote two instead of three chapters today.

Chapter 19: C019 - Herbert's warehouse

"You're really clingy. Are you sure you're good?"

Pete was sitting at the opening of his tent sitting with all his pokemon close by. Zorua, the only one who got hurt, was cradled in his lap with clean of blood and with his wounds properly tended to.

"Zoruuuu~" the pokemon whined without looking up from his curles up position.

Pete had already told everyone what they did good and what they could improve from his point of view, and Zorua had come out with the most things to improve upon. The fox was being a little pouty.

"It was your first real battle, no? Getting told what you can improve upon is an opportunity. Next time, you'll make less mistakes. You'll likely get hurt again and again, but if you survive a fight, you'll get a chance to be better next time," Pete softly spoke as he brushed Zorua's fur lightly.

Zorua stayed on his lap but stopped pouting at that. Pete was really enjoying all these interactions with his pokemon. It was crazy how much they understood and how much they could communicate with just gestures and facial expressions.

Before he was ready to sleep, Pete once more placed his hand on the ground to expend this ground affinity in order to get a better grasp on it as well as increase his limit. His range had effectively doubled already compared to the last time. Pete was no expert, but it felt like his talent for ground energy was rather high.

"Okay, it's getting a little late. Are we good to sleep? And Golett, are you sure you're fine with staying up to watch? I mean, you did tell me in your way that you don't require sleep... but if it's too boring?"

Golett shook his head left and right and moved between the forest's edge and Pete's pokemon.

Pete could only shrug his shoulders as he slipped into his sleeping bag inside the open tent. He was plenty tired after training his ground affinity. Blitzle and Ponyta stayed really close to the tent, Rapidash looked on in amusement and settled nearby as well, and all his other pokemon were spread all over Pete's sleeping bag.

Nothing happened this night, and even the hooting Hoothoots and Noctowls didn't bother Pete this night.

Well rested, Pete slipped out of his tent under the watchful gaze of Rapidash and Golett, the only pokemon of his team already up.

"Good morning, you two. I'll go to the house to wash up and start with the breakfast," Pete whispered as he stepped close to the large flaming unicorn to scratch the spots between her horn and her ears.

With a last thumbs up to Golett, Pete grabbed a bag and went into Herbert's house for his morning business.

Breakfast was just a salad with very small fried yoseban cubes mixed in, and Isabelle and Herbert were immediate fans - from smell all the way to taste.

Pete had still not met the two children still living in the house, but Isabelle told him their two daughters were lazy cats in the morning and didn't have school today, so they might most likely sleep in.

After his own breakfast, Pete left out a handful of bowls for the still sleeping juniors and followed Herbert to his warehouses with an empty bag of holding and his tablet in his hands.

Pete had written a list that was likely a little too ambitious for a start, but he'd see how far he could go with the money he had.

"Okay, we'll start with berries. You said one of each isn't enough for you. What specifically were you looking for?" Herbert said as he led Pete into the first warehouse.

Pete didn't answer immediately because he was too astonished by what he saw. He knew for sure there was a hill on top of the warehouse, but the sky looked like the outside. There was no sun, but the ceiling still looked like it was a sunny day outside.

"Ah, special lamps and a special kind of glass I paid a pretty penny for," Herbert explained with a proud smile when he saw Pete looking up in astonishment.

"I'll have to copy that for my living room, haha. Don't want to live in an actual glass house, but this is really tough to beat," Pete praised.

"It really is, isn't it? I'll send you the details for the glass guy. He made the lightbulbs and the ceiling finish. Lives in Cianwood City across the Goldenrod bay. He's the second son of the chief ranger of the Johto safari zone," Herbert said as he led Pete toward giant shelves that somehow still made it so the bottom row still had plenty of light from the top.

"Oh right, your question from before. I was lucky enough to find a few saplings for Oran and Leppa trees. I also got a good haul of Rawst berry shrugs, but I'm dearly lacking Cheri , Persim, Aspear, Sitrus, and Lum tree saplings," Pete spoke with an awkward smile. Saplings for five clearly sought-after berry trees were going to cost him everything he had.

"What's your budget for these?" Herbert calmly asked.

"5- no P$60.000," Pete answered.

"Hmm, if you're going for quantity, you'll only get very small sprouts for that. Are you okay with that?"

"Yeah, it was very ambitious to begin with. And would it be possible to get one sapling of each that's possibly going to give berries in the next ten to twenty weeks? What berry is going to cost me the most out of these? "

"The Lum berry saplings by a lot. The berries aren't the most expensive, but the tree grows beautiful white flowers, and they have a unique, calming smell to them. It's the most requested sapling or tree in our catalogue," Herbert instantly answered like he knew the question was coming.

"Oh, yeah, it's true," Pete said as they stepped closer to the shelves for the Lum Berry trees and saplings. The smell was indeed extremely pleasant.

A few workers were currently cutting up a few branches at the far hand and disposing them in black sacks.

"What are they doing back there?"

"Oh, there's this batch of trees whose roots got infected by some kind of rot fungus. We had to uproot and cut them all up to get the spores out of the warehouse before even more trees get infected."

"Hmm, you sure only the roots are infected?"

"Yep, had our resident biologist look it over," Herbert said with a shrug. "Nothing you can really do. We just got unlucky."

"Have you ever heard of tree grafting? You could graft all those healthy branches on to existing, healthy trees. They'd grow leaves, flowers, and fruits for their original branch but grow on a foreign tree. Like an organ or limb transplant. I've only ever seen it work for regular trees, but it might work for berry trees, too," Pete explained with unusual fervor. His grandfather, brother, and him had learned how to graft branches together in one of their last summers together.

Even though it was his brother who got into agriculture in the end, grafting held a special place in Pete's heart.

"Explain more."

Herbert didn't fully understand yet, but what he heard could be a potential way to permanently reduce loses due to unforeseen issues like this infection.

It took Pete a good half an hour to fully explain what to look out for, how to graft, and even how to identify branches that would work especially well and those that wouldn't.

Pete requested a particularly sharp and thin knife and the help of a grass type pokemon and got to work to show Herbert's workers and the man himself what he was trying to do. One of the Oran berry trees that had a declining number of berries each harvest because of unfortunate twig and bud placement was chosen as the tree to receive the grafts.

The branch to be grafted on to the tree had to be cut in a wedge at the end to be attached, while the branch or trunk to receive the new branch had to get a proportionate cut to receive the wedge. Once done, you would usually seal the area with tape or wax, but since they had a twenty year old Exeggutor with unparalleled control over his typing energies, this graft was healed almost immediately.

The Oran tree looked a little loaded at the end because Pete used his long experience in the craft to probably graft one too many branches on to the tree as an example for different angles and wedge cuts, but if these trees can grow miracle berries, they can handle a few extra branches.

Herbert looked on with a serious expression. Isabelle and a young woman who looked like a senior year high-school girl version of Isabelle had eventually joined them. All three Feelgoods quickly recognized the potential of this technique shown by Pete.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you, Pete?" Isabelle asked with an unreadable expression once Pete was done grafting and answering all the questions from the workers he could.

"Huh? Oh hi, Isabelle. Well, you see, I grafted berry tree branches to a berry tree. I don't know if that works, to be honest. I only ever seen it work on regular trees that don't grow berries," Pete explained.

"Hmm, we'll have to monitor closely. Move that tree outside, I'll get my Sunfloras to study the changes as they hurry along the maturation," Isabelle mumbled as she ordered a bunch of workers around who hurriedly complied.

"Who else knows this technique, Pete?"

"Hmm, why do you ask Isabelle?"

"Please answer."

"Well... uh, in Johto? If you guys didn't know, I don't think anybody did. Before Herbert asked earlier, I thought this was a common practice, sooo I might not be the best to ask, haha," Pete deflected with a wry smirk. He had done it again, spouting wisdom that didn't exist in this world like it was common sense.

Good thing he claimed to be from a region so far away - people would find their own reasoning for his knowledge and believe it.

"Herbert, when was the last time you had your Exeggutor check for corporate spies?"

"I don't know honey, two or three months ago?"

"Do it again, subtly," Isabelle said in a whisper.

"Well, since my mom won't introduce me, guess I will. Hi, I'm Sophie. You must be Pete?"

The young woman that looked just like Isabelle stepped forward with a bright smile and an extended hand. She was just as short and had long, light-brown hair all they way down to her knees with a braided ponytail.

"Hey, Sophie! Yeah, guessed it right in one go. Hmm, being Sophie makes you the older of the two twins, right?"

"Yeah, mom must have told you. Technically the youngest yet still a middle child. Just couldn't catch a break, you know," Sophie said with a cute snort and a wink.

"Your baby sister still asleep then?"

"Pfft, haha. We're twenty minutes apart, nobody ever called her my baby sister," Sophie said with a huge grin on her face. "But no, she's out trying to become a professional pokemon trainer and since we slept in, she needs to do extra well in her training now."

"Oh? Your mom didn't mention that. Does Jasmine have a specific goal?"

"Yeah, in three months the new leader of the Olivine gym will be selected by the league. She's had excellent grades in school and the advanced trainer program. Her Onix and Corsola are pretty strong, I hope she makes it," Sophie answered.

"So... is Olivine a rock type gym?" Pete asked with a weird expression.

"Huh? Yeah, it is. Oh, you're not from here? Where are you from?"


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