บท 124: Bill's Lighthouse

"Chop!"

"That's it!"

"Chop!"

"Keep it up!"

"Chop!"

"Almost there!"

"Chop!"

"One more!"

"Machop!"

"And done!" I exclaimed as Machop finished his last rep, before setting Graveler down and then collapsing from his first intense workout.

"That was excellent." I told him proudly.

"Chop chop, Machop." He responded tiredly, but with a satisfied smile.

It had been a couple days since we departed the Pokemon Center for Bill's lighthouse, and today was the first intense workout Machop had undergone since he hatched. Normally it would take longer for a pokemon to start seriously training after they hatched, but Machop was an exception like Lucario had been back when he was a Riolu. Fighting type pokemon truly were built different.

Of course he hasn't started Gravity training with the rest of us yet, but he should be soon enough based on his performance so far. After all, he did just finish doing twenty squats with Graveler riding on his shoulders, which were easily at least five times the weight of a typical Machop. Even more than that when he had just hatched.

As Machop rested from his workout, I glanced around at the two other newest members of my team.

Absol was currently sparring with Weavile since they were both dark types, and had pretty good speed. Thankfully she wasn't as adverse to fighting as other Absol, though of course her biggest asset was her ability to detect disasters. Just yesterday when a dry storm rolled in she warmed us about a bolt of lightning that would ignite a forest fire, which we promptly managed to put out with Blastoise's cannons. In the end only a single tree had caught fire, and it hadn't even burned completely before we put said fire out.

And then there was Snorlax...

Contrary to the other night, Snorlax was as gentle and mellow as could be now that he'd been able to eat. It honestly made me wonder just how hungry he had been to act like that...

But, thanks to the professor's Pokeblock recipe, we could now keep Snorlax fattened and happy anytime he was with us. And thankfully the ingredients for the recipe could almost all be found in our greenhouse, while there were only a few that we needed to buy. He did however need two Pokeblocks a day instead of one due to all of the energy he'd burn during training.

And man had THAT been a chore the first time I had to convince him to participate.

All Snorlax were incredibly fat, with the smallest recorded still weighing in at well over a thousand pounds, as well as lazy since they would promptly go to sleep after eating their fill. But what a lot of people tended to forget was that they were also incredibly powerful due to lugging their own fat asses around all the time. They would be highly sought after for everyone's teams if not for the insane amount of food needed to keep them happy.

A Snorlax that trained regularly however? I couldn't wait to see just how powerful he would become.

Even now, I watched as Onix charged Snorlax to deliver a powerful Headbutt, only for Snorlax to readily stop the alpha in his tracks with nothing but his sheer mass and strength.

"Machop..."

"Maybe someday." I told Machop as he too watched Snorlax in awe, wanting to try and bench press the great fatass. It wasn't feasible now, but definitely a possibility in the future once he was strong enough.

We watched Snorlax and Onix duke it out for a few minutes, before the former apparently decided he'd had enough for the day. I know he'd have gone to sleep right then and there in the middle of battle, but instead he simply sat back on his ass to indicate he was finished fighting, and looked at me expectantly.

"Yeah yeah, I'm coming." I told him while pulling out my Pokeblock case, and grabbing one of the pink ones we made specifically for Snorlax.

"Here you go."

"Snore!" Snorlax exclaimed excitedly, before proceeding to swallow the small cube in an instant. And it seemed like the second the cube hit his stomach, Snorlax's entire body suddenly swelled up as the Pokeblock took effect.

"Snore..." He groaned sluggishly, before rolling onto his back and promptly falling asleep now that he was full.

"Seriously..." I uttered while shaking my head.

According to the professor, Snorlax should only need one of these Pokeblocks a day to keep him full and satisfied. Yet he ate one after training this morning, along with our leftovers from breakfast, ate the leftovers from dinner after spending the day in his pokeball, and then had a second one now after sparring with Onix. And this was all AFTER the professor adjusted the recipe to match the size of my Snorlax.

Well, I suppose he needs to make up the extra calories from training somehow.

"Ohhhhn." Onix groaned beside me.

"Here, you have one too." I said while pulling out a brown Pokeblock, and tossing directly into his mouth.

"Ohhhhn." Onix groaned in contentment, before he also went to find a place to settle down for the night.

Together Machop, Graveler and I returned to our camp for the night along with Absol and weavile when they finished sparring, after I gave the four of them a Pokeblock as well when they looked at me expectantly. Seriously, I spoil my pokemon too much.

And there was a prime example right as we reentered camp.

Laying in the middle of camp was Tauros, who apparently decided to sneak one of the pokeblocks from my case this morning, and ended up eating one of the ones I made for Snorlax. Now Tauros was literally too fat to even move around that much, leaving him to lay there and moo pitifully.

Thankfully professor Oak said that it'll wear off in the next day or two, even quicker when he was able to move around to burn the calories. But that didn't stop Miltank from kicking his ass earlier, or me from using a marker to mark the different cuts of meat on his body now that he was 'perfectly marbled'.

Hopefully he learned his lesson about sneaking things from me.

"Now Luxio!"

"XIO!"

Dawn and Luxio both suddenly cried, drawing my attention to them just in time to see a small explosion of sparks in the air that turned into a shower of sparkling electricity.

And as the sparks rained down around them, both Dawn and Luxio bowed to their audience that consisted of May, Misty, and several of their pokemon.

"Amazing!"

"That was awesome!"

The girls cheered for Dawn along with their pokemon as the display came to an end, making her smile widely.

"Thank you." She said, before looking towards another of her pokemon. "Come on Litwick, it's your turn!"

"Wick!"

The small candle hopped over to Dawn's side while Luxio went to take a seat and rest, enough I could sense its emotions were still running high after the previous display.

As we got closer to Vermillion city, and the SS. Anne, Dawn was also preparing for the contest that was planned to take place aboard the cruise liner. It would be an exhibition competition with no bearing with any of the contest halls in any of the regions, but the exposure it would give its contestants would be amazing. Plus it would make a good practice stage for Dawn before she started entering the real thing.

I watched for a little bit along with Misty and May as Dawn went through several of the different displays and entrances she had been working on with her pokemon.

Litwick created a show of hypnotic light-blue flames that twinkled and shimmered eerily in the evening light, before ending by joining them all together above us to create a giant pokeball. After it came Prinplup, who leapt up into the air and sprayed water everywhere before freezing it all into tiny water droplets that rained down around us while shimmering as they caught the light from our fire pit.

"And next up-"

*DING DING DING DING!*

"Ah! My fishing pole!" Misty exclaimed, accidentally cutting Dawn off as she hurried to where her fishing pole was resting, the bell on it ringing relentlessly.

"I guess I can take a quick breather." Dawn said as she waited for Misty to come back, which I could tell she was getting a bit tired from all of the performances she was practicing for. Prinplup even lightly sprayed her with cold water to help freshen her up.

With them all taking a quick break from practice, I decided to go check in on Joy over at her Pokemon Center.

Outside of it I found a gathering of small pokemon that were all either sick or injured in some way, along with Joy as she carefully wrapped the wing of a Spearow.

"All done! Now you just stay grounded for a few days, and your wing will be as good as new!"

"Spearow!"

Chirping at her in thanks, the Spearow hopped down from Joy's lap to join the group of pokemon that she had already treated.

"Next!" Joy called out, allowing a young Sandshrew to step forward that was cradling its paw.

"Oh dear... You've been digging through too many sharp rocks, haven't you?"

"Shrew..."

"Well that won't do at all! Chansey, can you bring me..."

I watched with a smile as Joy continued treating the pokemon that were here, though I also couldn't help wondering how they all knew to come to her for treatment in the first place.

My unasked question was soon answered as Lucario hurriedly approached camp with an Oddish in his arms.

"This one was burned and kicked by a passing herd of Ponyta and Rapidash." He explained while setting the Oddish down beside Joy.

"Oh no! Chansey, can you see to Oddish right away while I finish up with this one?"

"See see!" Chansey responded, taking Oddish into the Pokemon Center to begin its treatment.

"You've been going and getting them?" I asked Lucario curiously.

"It makes for excellent training in honing my aura sense." Lucario stated as a matter of factually, before going to scoop up several of the pokemon Joy had already treated. Probably to return them to their homes.

"Sol."

"Much appreciated." Lucario said as Absol offered to help by carrying several of them on her back.

He then pretended not to notice my shit eating grin as the two of them took off into the brush, though I did call after them, "we wont wait up!"

"..."

Lucario didn't respond, but I could feel through our connection that he would've flipped me off if he was still here or could.

Still snickering, I called out my own Chansey to give Joy and hers a hand with all of their patients, which she was more than happy to do since all Chansey loved to help others.

I then went back to watch Dawn's practice, which had resumed after Misty reeled in her catch, which was just a Magikarp. Dawn continued going through her different routines with all of her pokemon, each of which she had worked out a specific number of entrances, before we finally headed to bed. And even then, I could tell that Lucario and Absol hadn't returned for much, MUCH, later.

...

The next day we hiked as quickly as we could since we could see the lighthouse past the first ridge we crossed, and we could see some rain clouds coming in from the other direction. Normally we would just make camp right before it would start raining to keep ourselves dry and warm, but this time we kept pushing to try and reach the lighthouse before it started coming down on us.

And then, right as a few big fat drops started to come down on us, we reached the base of the lighthouse.

"Just in the nick of time..." Misty sighed in relief as we took cover in the eave.

"Thank Mew..." May said as she used the knocker on the door.

*BANG! BANG! BANG!*

We could hear the sound of it echoing around us with each knock, followed by one of the numerous auras within swiftly approaching us.

"Hello?" Came a voice as the door began to open, revealing the only human resident. "Oh Ace! I was just wondering when you would show up!" Bill exclaimed when he saw me, his gaze traveled over each of the girls as well before settling on Lucario and Absol.

"Oh my!"

"Hello Bill. It's good to see you again." I said while quickly taking his hand to shake it, turning his attention back to me.

"Yes, please come in out of that horrible weather." Bill said, ushering is inside.

From what I saw the base of the lighthouse doubled as Bill's lab and his home, containing a mixture of regular furniture and laboratory equipment scattered about. Also inside were numerous different pokemon from the Eevee line, Flareon, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Espeon, Umbreon, Glaceon, Leafeon, Sylveon, and of course more Eevee than any others.

"Please, make yourselves at home. Flareon, Espeon?"

At Bill's prompt, several of the two aforementioned pokemon stepped forward to assist us. With one Flareon apiece, they proceeded to blow hot air at us to dry the slight dampness of our clothes, though thankfully none of us were completely wet since the rain had just started. The same number of Espeon however used their psychic powers to take our coats and our bags, before hanging them on the hooks beside the door.

"Nifty." Misty said to the sudden service.

"Yes, they are." Bill said as he led the way inside, with us following behind after we removed our shoes.

As we entered the living room I noticed two distinct things right away. The first was Bill's partner pokemon, an alpha Vaporeon that was resting peacefully on the couch, and the other was Gary Oak.

"Humph! Shoulda figured you'd be following along behind me, Ace the waste." Gary sneered the second he saw me with an air of superiority, though I could also feel bitterness in his aura from our last meeting. Apparently he was still sore after losing to me.

"Sup Gary. I didn't see your car outside. Finally ditch the entourage?" I asked while taking a seat on one of the chairs.

"..."

Gary just narrowed his eyes at me in irritation before saying, "Unlike YOU, I don't plan to invade Bill's home with an entire party. I left them all in Vermillion since I'm only waiting here until the SS. Anne comes."

"I see..." I said to his biting comment, before saying to Bill, "If you want Bill, we can stay in our own lodgings for tonight. We also plan to leave tomorrow since I still need to challenge Surge before the SS. Anne arrives."

"Oh no! I insist you stay here with me tonight! I can't possibly let a guest sleep in a tent!" Bill exclaimed, as if worried about my offer.

"It's no trouble.And we havent stayed in a tent for a while." I told him, before producing two of my Capsules for him and Gary to see. Joy had the third since it technically was hers.

""!!!""

Both Bill and Gary's eyes went wide when they saw what I had, before the latter demanded, "How did YOU get THAT!?!"

"I did a favor for the president of Silph co, and got three Capsules in return. A house, a greenhouse, and a portable Pokemon Center for Joy."

Gary could only gape at me with his mouth open like a Magikarp when I told him that. But then again, the only real advantage he ever had over me as a trainer was the near endless funds he had access to via his grandfather. If I were more of a vain braggart, then I would've told Gary the truth about how I partially owned Capsules. But I doubt he'd take directly contributing to my growing wealth very well, as I fully believed that he had ordered his own Capsule or two already.

"Must've been quite the favor to get three Capsules out of it. I've got some on order myself, and they're comparable to buying a fairly expensive house." Bill said in amazement.

"It was nothing much, but the Capsules themselves are very useful when you spend as much time on the road as we do." I told him with a shrug.

"Speaking of..." Bill said suddenly while gesturing to some of the pokemon around us.

"""Eevee!"""

Suddenly we were all surrounded by little brown balls of fluff as the Eevee swarmed our legs and feet. One even leapt into my lap while looking up at me expectantly with its tail shaking back and forth.

"I don't know what Ace or professor Oak may have told each of you about me..." Bill began as the girls also got swarmed by Eevee.

"But I am known as a collector of interesting pokemon, and I put the focus on the majority of my research on the evolution of certain pokemon. As I'm sure the assistants of the great professors Rowen and Birch may already know, there are several pokemon that do not have specific evolutions they are able to undergo. Instead, they can branch out to any one of several different forms, or even entirely different typings!

"Eevee is the most extreme example of this phenomenon, which is why I continuously breed and research them and their different evolutionary forms. Not only can they be found in almost every single region, but they are able to evolve specifically to adapt to nearly every single environment! This in turn brings me to my request/offer. How would all of you like an Eevee?"

Though it was pretty obvious where Bill was going with this entire story, it was still fairly surprising to hear him ask us to take an Eevee for ourselves. Even though they WERE found in nearly every single region, Eevee were extremely rare due to their tendency to evolve into different forms based on their environment from a young age.

"I-I mean, I would LOVE to have a Vaporeon for myself, but is it really ok?" Misty asked hesitantly while eyeing a specific Eevee.

"Of course." Bill answered without hesitation.

"Regardless of if you evolve them here with a stone, or let them evolve naturally on your travels, each Eevee that you take and train will provide me with extremely valuable data for my research. All I ask is to be kept updated on how they are doing as you go, which shouldn't be too hard since I'll also give each of you my number to contact me with. I even gave one to Gary shortly after he arrived."

"Humph!" Gary snorted while also adopting a sneer. "Mine already evolved naturally into the best form out of the lot the day I got it."

As he said that, Gary tossed out a pokeball that opened to reveal an impressive looking Umbreon.

"Umbreon!" It declared while looking all of us over curiously.

"So cool!" May exclaimed as she got down on her knees to look at Umbreon more closely.

"Right? It's not entirely up to par with the rest of my team just yet, but soon enough Umbreon will be a major player with the rest of them!"

I fought the urge to roll my eyes since any one form wasn't automatically better than the rest, but more or less depended on what your team was lacking. The only other Eevee evolution that would have made sense for Gary would've been Sylveon, but I highly doubt he'd want one of those over an Umbreon.

I looked back to Bill and said while scratching the Eevee in my lap behind the ears, "If you're offering, then I'll be more than happy to accept. And I also have my breeders license, so we can try to breed some of them in the future while on the road as well."

"Excellent idea! I hope to hear more from you in the future if you discover anything about your Eevee! I would also like to hear more about some of your other 'interesting' pokemon when you've got the time." Bill exclaimed with a wide smile and a twinkle in his eye. Something told me the professor probably told Bill about some of my pokemon to pique his interest as a collector, and fellow researcher.

Thankfully the Eevee in my lap was a male, while the ones the girls were going gaga over were all female. I just hoped they all weren't from the same batch of eggs, but even if that was the case I still had Ditto whenever I did get around to breeding them. (A.N. oddly enough, looking at the statistics as I'm writing this, nearly ninty percent of Eevee are male for some reason. Also, if anyone has a specific request for Ace's Eevee then feel free to comment it, but remember that I don't use friendship as an evolution mechanic. I'll even consider a brand new evolution form, if it makes sense.)

"Do you have a water stone on hand?" Misty asked shyly while holding onto a specific Eevee.

"Of course! I also have several other stones for my research if the rest of you want to use one. You can use a fire stone for Flareon, water stone for Vaporeon, thunder stone for Jolteon, leaf stone for Leafeon, ice stone for Glaceon, dusk stone for Umbreon, and sun stone for Espeon. Sadly we don't know the actual requirments for Sylveon just yet... BUT that's what this research and data is for!"

Saying so, Bill departed to fetch the aformenetioned stones for Misty and anyone else who wanted one. As tempted as I was to use one on my own Eevee, I decided to let mine evolve naturally.

"Oh! I can't wait to have my own cute Vaporeon!" Misty squealed while snuggling her chosen Eevee.

"You know Misty, they say that out of human to pokemon compatibility...."

"One more word out of you, and I'll turn your balls into a diving bag Ace Ketchum!"

"..."

I promptly shut up while resisting the urge to cover the aforementioned balls. Apparently Gary had a harder time doing as his legs crossed protectively, and he actually had a look of horror on his face.

But even more shocking was the way Bill's Vaporeon was reacting to my earlier comment, her blue cheeks turning purple in what almost looked like a blush.

No.....

I mean, human and pokemon relationships weren't exactly banned in this world, but they were very rarely practiced. Much less openly.

Even as I tried to dismiss the sneaking suspicion about Bill's potential...interests, I also happened to recall his hobby of dressing in elaborate pokemon costumes as a part of his research. 'Getting inside it's skin is like getting inside it's mind' he used to say when the professor would bring it up.

*BANG! BANG! BANG!*

A sudden loud knocking stirred me from the disturbing thoughts, and I leapt up while still holding the little Eevee in my arms.

"I'll get it Bill!" I called out to him while heading to the door.

"Thank you Ace!" Bill called back, still getting the evolution stones that Misty needed.

I was so distracted with my disturbing suspisions, that I didn't even bother checking to see who was at the door before opening it, only to be surprised by who nearly barreled into me when they hurried inside.

"Excuse me! Do you have a- Aniki?!"