Chapter 69: C069 - Nice (conclusion to his stay in Slateport City)

"Okay, guys. Uh, sorry for springing it all on you once again so soon, but we have another new member. Milotic and Arcanine, I want you two especially to keep an eye on him. Everyone, this is Applin," Pete said as he released the grass/dragon pokemon that looked like a watermelon-sized apple with a stubby lizard tail and two eyes that looked like green leaves.

The pokemon looked bizarre, close to immobile, and even now, it barely moved. Duosion immediately talked to it via a psychic bond, which was the first time the pokemon perked up since Pete saw it.

The reason Pete was so eager to buy it for such an exorbitant price was its ability. To Pete's knowledge, Applin and the two known evolutions Flapple and Appletun were the only pokemon with the ability Ripen. Pete was positively screaming in his mind, eager to find out if this ability would help his berries at the farm ripen faster because that was exactly what it did in the game. Well, it doubled the effect of a consumed berry, but the flavor text read 'ripens berries and doubles their effect'.

Pete also knew exactly why this pokemon was so 'lazy' and unresponsive. Since it looked nothing like a dragon, no normal person would know about its surprising typing, and the original owner of Applin was lucky not to have been attacked by the apple pokemon. And he was super lucky to even find it, though Pete wasn't sure how these particular lived compared to other 'normal' dragon pokemon.

Applin didn't do much on their first meeting, but the small pokemon actively looked at everyone, so it wasn't as withdrawn in its... shell? skin? peel? as before.

After that, Pete once more spend some time at the beach with his pokemon until he got a video call from Jasmine - a few hours earlier than usual.

"*Hey Pete! Today is a total egg day, hehe,*" Jasmine greeted with a wide grin.

"Oh? I'm guessing Gible just hatched?"

"*Yep! And your second Miltank hatched as well! Look, my Gible! There he is playing with Gliscor!*" Jasmine more or less shouted out of happiness as she turned the camera around.

"Cool! He looks like he's fitting in already. Congratulations!"

"*Hehe, thank you~ But he and Miltank aren't the reason I'm calling this an egg day. Guess what else happened?*"

"I dunno, you tell me? Is it the Smeargles? Did the adventure group loot a mountain of Ariados eggs?"

"*Nope, funny guess, though. Your Milotic brought an egg over during breakfast. I'm guessing it's hers by how she behaved, but I looked it up. It's not a Feebas egg.*"

"Okay? Uh... let's see. It could be almost anything from the first water egg group. Plenty to choose from in the lake. Or that asshole Dragonite knocked up my Milotic and ditched, leaving us to raise his newest offspring," Pete pondered out loud.

"*Hehe, I knew you'd guess it. I compared it to pictures on the league forums, and it's indeed a Dratini egg. Congratulations to you as well,*" Jasmine playfully confirmed.

"Huh, no wonder she agreed so easily to the other Milotic coming along to Hoenn instead of herself. She had an egg growing inside her. That meant it was somewhere around three weeks before the egg formed if she laid it and brought it over immediately... hmm, I'll have to write that down and compare it to other works," Pete mumbled under his breath, and Jasmine's grin slowly formed into an exasperated smirk.

"*Pete, I'm still on the call. Come on, tell me about your day. I miss you,*" Jasmine eventually spoke with a sigh.

And so Pete and Jasmine spoke for almost two hours on the call as Pete told her about his new plants, which resulted in some teasing because Pete still had a herb in his mouth, his new pokemon Applin, who Jasmine could only call cute, and his haul of TMs.

Jasmine, in turn, explained the latest training results with Pete's playful approach during farm work and how her family was doing. Lily looked for the shiny Jumpluff on a daily basis, but the pokemon started to hide from her since a few days ago. Sophie got a job offer in Kalos she was discussing with their mom right now.

The next morning, Pete wanted to go out of the city and enjoy route 110 a bit. Rangers were waiting at the city gates, telling everyone to be extra careful or not go out at all while they get rid of the drastically increased poison pokemon population.

And the rangers were not joking. He saw a good ten rangers with mainly ground pokemon like Sandslash, Graveler, Rhydon, and the occasional Onix fighting hordes of hundreds of Gulpin and at other spots hundreds of Trubbishs. The ground pokemon were, of course, a great choice because ground moves were very effective against pure poison type pokemon.

Pete was interested in reading the report later on to tell him what caused this outbreak, but for the moment, he simply helped out getting rid of these poison pokemon who were disturbing everyone around.

Nidoking was having a field day one-shotting the little poisonous troublemakers left and right with his ground moves, while the two Azumarills made sure to keep Misty Terrain active so the team won't get poisoned.

Duosion used this opportunity to show Espeon and Beldum some more psychic moves, and they took out almost as many pokemon as Nidoking with their super effective psychic moves.

The Farfetch'd and their newest recruit Torchic were on the frontlines as the three older bird pokemon showed off their moves, and Minccino stuck with them to bolster their numbers.

Mudkip and Milotic stayed behind and shot Water Gun and Scald respectively from a save distance. It looked like Mudkip didn't know any ranged ground moves, not that there were a huge selection of them, so it didn't follow Nidoking into battle like Torchic had.

Applin stayed behind, next to Pete, and simply looked at the battle. Pete did, however, notice that it slowly began to change the way it looked at Pete's group of pokemon. A hint of respect in its gaze grew with every batch of pokemon they took out.

Especially Arcanine, who had Marill on its back using Safeguard to save them from getting poisoned for the two of them garnered Applin's respect. The fire dog pokemon sprinted in between the horde of poison pokemon and spread burns on most of them with a continuous use of Fire Wheel. It didn't look like it cared about the minor wounds the poison pokemon could inflict in retaliation.

Pete honestly wanted Arcanine to fight a ranged battle, but if he had a stat screen for the pokemon, it would surely tell him that her attack was higher than her special attack. Additionally, she seemed to enjoy physical battle much more, so Pete let her do as she wished.

If she does get poisoned, not only did Pete still have Pecha Berries. He also had Duosion and the Marill family for healing, AND Arcanine knew Rest.

They helped out the rangers for almost three hours, and Pete barely found any other wild pokemon besides the poison pokemon. He saw a small group of rare Chatot singing from a tree, far away from the poison pokemon. A few Zigzagoon were hiding in underground burrows. He even saw two Seedot, but they were swiftly taken away by a Shiftry and a Nuzleaf when they saw a trainer coming closer.

Some rangers had apparently seen him work and reported the number of pokemon he took out. The rangers started looking at him the same way the trainers had looked at him after he helped out in the poke center.

He did that for two days until it was almost time for his scheduled return. He had a ticket for a speedboat ride back to Evergrande City at the Eastern edge of Hoenn the following day from where he could decide to take a boat to Goldenrod or get back on his own.

"Hey Pete, the lady you were waiting for has arrived an hour ago. She's currently resting in the cafe opposite the center," Nurse Joy said as he stepped through the doors of the poke center. Pete had asked her to keep an eye out on a certain someone because the poke center was their meeting spot. Well, the one Pete offered in the second mysterious letter to her.

"Oh? I was already ready to depart without seeing her."

He thanked Joy and walked over after telling his pokemon to go rest in the room he had occupied. Only Minccino 'followed' him by continuing to sleep in his hoodie.

When Pete walked into the cafe, he immediately saw the lavender haired girl he had anticipated. Her face looked to be resting in a permanently bored, almost frown, almost pout. She was dressed in hiking boots, a black shirt and hooded vest combo, and a short, lavender colored skirt that matched her hair and eyes.

"Hey, you're Courtney, right? I'm Pete, the guy who sent you those Luxury Balls," Pete introduced as he stepped closer to the table. Instead of saying anything, she pointed to the chair opposite her.

Courtney and Pete looked at each other for a few moments after Pete ordered something, one with a frown, the other with a warm smile.

"I don't get it. Whatever you wrote in the note wasn't the full truth, was it?"

"Uhhh, I guess not? But I truly do believe you have a way with pokemon and wanted to help out. You're not the only person who was shafted by one of these villainous organizations," Pete explained by being vague. Let her think he was one of those victims, too. Or someone who was sympathetic to their victims because of a personal reason.

They ate and drank their orders in silence until both were done eating and drinking. Courtney kept looking at Pete, hoping he would mess up or whatever she was looking for.

"I found you two Shroomish and three Cottonee. The Lotads on the road belonged to giant tribes. I did not meet any Roselia, and the Sewaddles I saw did not agree with getting caught," Courtney said as she pulled out five of the luxury balls Pete had sent her and placed them in front of her on the table.

"I can work with that, thanks."

"Not so fast. The Cottonee especially only allowed themselves to get caught because they judged me to be a good person. How do I know you won't mistreat them? You're the guy who walked into the poke center with all those exhausted pokemon, right? Your Minccino didn't wake up in the thirty minutes we have spent here despite the food smells," Courtney inquired with a stony expression.

"Uh, I could introduce myself and what I do fully, and then we go over to the poke center. Would you trust the word of a Nurse Joy?"

Courtney nodded, her frown receding a great deal.

"Alright, my name is Pete Lang. I'm a newly hired assistant professor of Johto's Professor Elm. I have several research topics at the moment from rare and conditional evolutions to pokemon diet and training. To that extent, I built a farm south of Goldenrod City with various berry trees and other food plants. I have a roster of around 30 pokemon, and when I contacted you, I was looking for pokemon that could help me out on my farm. The Cottonee, for example, I was hoping could help me out with pollination. The Sewaddle would have been on leaf care duty, among other things, and I built a mushroom cave near a waterfall. I was hoping the Shroomish would like tending to those mushrooms I'm growing in there," Pete explained, his smile never slipping from his face.

Courtney lost the scowl completely at this point and agreed to follow Pete to the poke center. When Nurse Joy wouldn't stop praising the young assistant professor for his heart of gold, Courtney handed over five luxury balls to him.

"I... I did find a wounded Swadloon, the evolved form of Sewaddle, and caught it. But I want to keep her. When I cared for her, we formed a sort of bond, not an actual bond, but a bond nonetheless," Courtney admitted when Pete received the balls.

"That's no problem! Say, I know you'd have to think it over, but would you mind a job? I kind of overshot my ambitions a little and could really use an extra pair of hands on the farm. You could even try your hand at becoming my personal pokemon breeder. If you're interested, I want to breed Eevee for a long-term project in the future. Not so much that I can sell hundreds of eggs a month, but enough to try out all the different evolutions, you know. Of course, you can decide at a later date. But if you want to follow along with me, I'd have to know after breakfast tomorrow. My boat to Evergrande City leaves an hour before noon, and I'd need some time to buy the ticket," Pete offered with his trademark good-natured smile.

And for the first time, Courtney smiled in return. She didn't know it and it was so small that Pete didn't see it. Still, she would look at his pokemon first and press Nurse Joy for every nugget of information first before she would follow him to a different region.