บท 78: C078 - Clair's Mega Altaria
AN: As it is written right now, the next chapter would include Pete and Jasmine talking about their relationship and possibly including others - for now physically and just to try once while they are still young and unmarried. I won't lie, it feels out of place but maybe I just suck writting it. Which means you'll get to decide whether or not I rewrite the next chapter. (There will be no lemons.)
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Klinklang used a lowpowered Flash to light up the surroundings at the lake and floated above the crowd gathering at the shore. Clair and her Altaria were currently checking if the mega stone was compatible with her. It would be the third mega evolution Pete got the chance to see in his lifetime.
First was Steven's Metagross. Second was Jasmine's Torterra. It had surprised Pete by quite a bit when that happened. The unprecedented mega evolution of the 'continent' pokemon that wasn't part of the games came to be when the stone Pete gifted his girlfriend did not react to Steelix, Gligar, and Garchomp.
Now, Mega Torterra stands at twice the regular height with 4.7m and almost one ton of weight, over three times its regular weight. As far as Pete could tell, the typing didn't change from grass/ground, and the pokemon didn't gain some niche new ability. If anything, the grass pokemon's ability Overgrow that powers up grass type moves at low HP, the ability of a regular Torterra, was simply overcharged by quite a bit.
Clair's Charizard watched his trainer and battle partner, too. The giant, battle-hardened Charizard lit up its tail flame in a giant fire to help out with the lighting and looked at the process with proud approval in its eyes. Some other pokemon like her Kingra, Gyarados, and Dragonite looked a bit miffed while Aerodactyl looked like it was sleeping. Clair's smaller Dratini and Dragonair simply watched on curiously.
Pete saw that both the keystone and the mega stone began to pulse as Altaria came closer together, and he started grinning.
'Wait! Shit, it'll turn into dragon/fairy typing! Fairy typing!!! What if her other dragon pokemon take that as a challenge and isolate or worse, non-stop fight the Mega Altaria! Ugh! I can't stop it because I couldn't possibly know about the mega evolution!'
Pete's grin faded and turned into a worried frown, but nobody paid him any attention as the process of the mega evolution started. With the help of Klinklang's Flash and Charizard's tail flame, Pete's tablet had decent lighting to record this process for all the professors, Elm and Sycamore, especially.
When the megastone turned to dust and floated toward Altaria as the light of the evolution stopped, Clair suddenly gripped her head and groaned out.
'Oh Arceus, no! Don't tell me it's the worst-case scenario, and Clair actually unlocked a fairy affinity,' Pete inwardly groaned.
Their relationship was already a bit contentious after he dodged her repeatedly and insulted her outfit. He didn't need 'making one of her cute dragons a fairy and unlocking an unwanted affinity to the list'.
When Clair's headache was apparently over, she started laughing uproariously.
"Oh no, did she lose her marbles?" Sophie whispered to Whitney just loud enough that Jasmine and Pete heard it, too.
"Mhm, looks like it," Whitney answered with a serious expression before starting to giggle. "But Mega Altaria looks super fluffy and cute. I think I'm in love."
Jasmine looked to Pete in worry, but he just shrugged. This was technically their second meeting. How could he know what went through Clair's head?
"Pete! Call Sycamore! We found a new mega evolution, and it has dragon/fairy typing, hahaha!"
Pete had already pinged Sycamore's lab and uploaded the video to him, so the call was imminent. Either tomorrow or in a few minutes depending on whether or not the professor was currently out chasing skirts or getting drunk on berry cider. Pete had more or less accidentally created a recipe for with unexpected typing energy help. Originally, Pete just wanted to find out if he could use his own affinity on food as a form of training and more benefits when that happened.
So far, grass, psychic, and fairy typing could be used in various differing amounts in place of fermenting and aging. He didn't find a use for ground and water yet, while he could tell that fire typing energy wasn't helping. The other energies he didn't have an affinity for or he simply lacked time to make and the appetite to drink all of his experiments. People all over the world have started making low alcohol containing, sparkling cider out of berries after Pete released another recipe book. He would get more answers from them.
Clair walked over to Pete, gave him a crushing hug, and patted him on the head as if he was a child.
"With this, I'll finally beat Lance! Let's see how he wants to beat a dragon/fairy pokemon, hahaha!"
"Uh, yeah, sure. Mind if I take a look at Altaria and ask her a few questions before you bounce with Iris?"
"Go ahead, it was your genius egghead that made me use this opportunity on my Altaria," Clair waved off with a wide grin.
Ten minutes later, as everyone continued patting and fussing over the fluffy cloud dragon, Pete was done with his recordings and questions. His ever-growing psychic affinity had by now allowed him to talk to pokemon he wasn't bonded to. It wasn't on the level of a conversation with words, but it didn't need to be since Pete knew what questions to ask.
"I can see from your eyes that you want to go and take over my pokemon's Dragon's Peak with Mega Altaria. I'd appreciate it if you didn't. Uh, Jasmine or Courtney showed you the guest houses, right? Just pick either of the three and tell Iris to do the same... and please don't bully my Flygon and the other dragon pokemon too much. I could do without waking up to the Dragonite partriarch making an unexpected visit and obliterating the meadow with a Hyper Beam," Pete instructed with a sigh when he saw Clair's expression.
Instead of building a second house on the level of the main house during the long period after his Hoenn visit, Pete had built three little bungalows into the hill near his house with barely a single room, a small kitchenette and a bathroom. They were a little spartan, but Pete didn't run a hotel business. He just needed a place to sleep in case he had too many guests like today. Food, the lab, and entertainment were provided in his main house anyway.
The dragon gym leader barely listened to Pete's words and eventually hopped on Mega Altaria's back to fly over to the peak one could clearly see in the distance on the nearest shore on the opposite side of the lake.
Pete just shook his head as all of Clair's pokemon followed the trainer either through the air or on the water and hoped for the best. Dragon pokemon were weird. And prideful. Anything could happen.
"I'll relax in the hotspring. Anybody else coming?"
All the girls excitedly agreed and followed him back to the house. On the way, Pete made a quick detour to his raised beds to pick up a pokemon-world vegetable that smelled particularly nice, 'Fransa'. They looked like baseball-sized pumpkins and smelled like safran with a hint of lemon. Maybe this rare smell would help Valerie's Spritzee if she didn't evolve in the bath yet.
Whitney and the twins ran to Sophie's permanent room in the house to decide on their bathing suits because Whitney didn't bring a 'cute enough bikini', so Pete was the first to enter the hotspring.
The first thing he saw was his Arcanine chilling with her head on the edge.
"Hey girl. You really are trying your hardest to find if there is a fire/water type Arcanine evolution, huh?" Pete jokingly whispered as he kneeled down to gently brush the pokemon's wet ears. In turn, the pokemon kept her eyes closed but leaned into his hand with a content whimper.
Arcanine broke her species barrier a few weeks after Pete's Hoenn trip and managed to learn a water move: Scald. So far his Arcanine is the only one in recorded history that managed to learn a water type move and since he didn't have the time to research this phenomenon he had to attribute it to the girl's love for hot baths.
Pete then gingerly stepped into the bath and saw that uncharacteristically little pokemon were currently enjoying the hot bath. Usually a few Azurill line pokemon were up here and his Farfetch'd discovered the hot springs as a great way to relax after training, too. Having less than 20 pokemon present was quite rare.
Spritzee was resting alone on a perch in the middle of the bath. Then there were three more Sylveon, two of his and Valerie's, Pete's Espeon, and his five Miltank who were currently relaxing in the water. The Miltank all circled the shiny one as they floated on the surface belly-up. This formation always managed to make Pete smile.
As he sat down in the water next to Arcanine to brush her hair a little more, Pete used his water affinity that he learned to use in a kind of echolocation in water during his affinity training. Two more people he didn't know were here still got his attention, so he got up and walked over to them who were sitting near the wall and slightly hidden from view behind a natural boulder.
"Hey Courtney, Valerie. Didn't know you were-"
Pete stopped, gained an embarrassed smile, and turned around.
"Sorry, Courtney. Maybe we can create a system where you hang up a flag or something so I don't keep interrupting you while you're kissing girls."
As Pete started walking back toward Arcanine, Courtney quickly tried to explain, "It isn't what it looks like! Ugh, okay, it is! But I didn't plan for this to happen! And I didn't make out with Jasmine! It was one brush of our lips while drunk and lightheaded!"
Pete, with his back still turned to the girls, waved his hand, "No worries. You do you. Or well, her. I don't mind either way."
"Peeeete, catch!" Whitney shouted moments later as the three girls who were in the house before made their way to the water in their robes.
Goldenrod City's gym leader ditched her robe and ran to where Pete was currently in the water, which barely reached his waist. With a leap, the young woman in a pink and red one-piece bathing suit jumped toward him with open arms, and Pete barely managed to catch her as they both fell.
As they both got back to the surface, Pete saw Arcanine turning her head to give Whitney a disapproving look, so he swam back toward the wall with Whitney still in his arms to give his fire pokemon a little more space and quiet. Jasmine and Sophie soon joined them with a wry smile and knowing grin, respectively. Courtney and Valerie had stopped making out and joined the group to relax and talk about everything and nothing.
Pete stood up while the girls' topic turned to nail polish and picked up the Fransa he plucked before he got here. There was an indentation on a boulder in the middle of the water that more or less acted like a bird bath and a perch for his more airborne pokemon. Spritzee was currently enjoying a warm bath on her own inside as Pete walked over.
Valerie saw what he was doing and stood up also which slowly prompted all girls to swim or walk over out of curiosity. After a short explanation of what it was that he held in his hand, Pete turned to Spritzee, who curiously looked at all the people surrounding her bath.
"Hey, I was thinking that maybe it has to be your favorite smell, or even just a new smell and not just a flowery smell that helps you evolve. I'm pretty sure this is a pretty rare smell, so it might not be your favorite, but it's decidedly different from what you're used to, I would bet. Wanna give this a short smell?"
Spritzee hopped over to Pete's hand as he used his thumbs to dig into the flesh and twisted his hands in different directions. The orange ball came apart in two even halves to reveal bright red 'flesh' with orange and earthen beige marbeling, and Spritzee started immersing herself in the smell.
"Mmmh, this smells super nice," Valerie commented with closed eyes similarly to her pokemon.
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