| Team IGNIS:
Ivysaur ("Basil", Lv25); Golbat ("Krow", Lv27); Pikachu (Lv25); Wishiwashi ("Wallow", Lv13);
| Team TERRA:
Wartortle ("Squirty", Lv19); Butterfree ("Petal", Lv12); NidoranF ("Ranne", Lv13); NidoranM (?, Lv9)
| Team HANA:
Charmeleon ("Emma", Lv21); Beedrill ("Mel", Lv18); Abra ("Yellow", Lv15); Bellsprout ("Bell", Lv15)
"So, lassy," a certain, tall and strong-looking lieutenant began as he took a huge bite off of a cartoon-like, cylindrical meat. "Whmthrh yhhghndhh nhwwh?" He asked with his mouth closed, then swallowed the meat inside his mouth, having not spoken with an open mouth like a slob and avoided displaying poor table manners. "You're heading to left, right? Lavender? Fuchsia? Diglett Cave?"
Ignis blinked. Going by the context of the later parts of his question, she could guess what he intended to ask when he was chewing. "Well... I was thinking of checking out Lavender Town, actually." The girl paused to take a bite from her breakfast - a plate of spaghetti.
Supposedly, the sauce was partially made with a Cheri Berry. She didn't really keep track much of berries - or at all, actually - but it was a relief to finally learn of some form of cuisine that didn't shatter her childhood memories of Pokémon being, well, Pokémon rather than food.
After swallowing her portion, the girl jolted and turned to Phoebe. "Oh, wait. You wanted to visit Pewter, right? I guess I could go through Diglett Cave... if that really takes me back to Pewter."
"Oh, it does," Hana said and took a sip of her drink - some light pink colored smoothie.
...what is that? Ignis had to wonder, but refrained from derailing the conversation. (Not that it was a serious conference to begin with, it's just a friendly group breakfast with Vermilion's Gym Leader.)
"Ahaha, it's alright, you don't have to change courses for me!" Phoebe reassured. "I don't mind taking the long way to Pewter. We can go through Lavender, then back to Cerulean, and finally, Pewter! Besides, I'd love to check out the Pokémon Tower again - bet I'd be a great tour guide!"
"Well, I guess we have all the time in the world," Terra noted. "What's so special about the Pokémon Tower though? It's just a graveyard tower, isn't it?"
At that, Hana froze as she came upon a realization. Phoebe snickered, taking delight in it. "Well, it's not only a place to respect the deceased, but obviously it's a natural hotspot of Ghost-type 'mons! Isn't that just exciting?"
The group's female blonde slowly turned away, her face turning blue. "Um... not necessarily..."
"Oh yeah, you're not good with ghosts... but hey, I'm sure it'll be fine," Ignis said. "I mean, Phoebe's the master of Ghost-types. Nothing bad will happen! ...probably."
"Bwahaha! So you're scared stiff of ghosts, eh, lassy?" Lt. Surge remarked, highly amused. "Don't worry your noggin off! In my time as a soldier, if there's anything I've learnt, it's to charge ahead no matter what the situation is!"
"What about stealth?" Terra asked.
"We soldiers. We don't need no stealth! Those are for spies and stuff," the lieutenant said.
Ignis frowned. "Don't you have missions where you have to stealth invade some kind of territory or something?"
The blonde man blinked before scratching his head. "Why, now you're asking me to remember all the small stuff back then. That's hard, lassy. That's hard."
"More importantly," Hana said, "are you sure you won't battle Mr. Surge again?" she asked. "You did have to battle using only Pikachu yesterday, I thought you might want to battle with your full team today."
"Hm. Nah. Kinda tempting, but..." Ignis smiled and glanced at a small table away from the dining area, near the relaxation area in front of the counter, where her and the other girls' Pokémon were out of their devices and relaxing, and... chatting? Eh. "I kinda like the challenge. Battling the lieutenant with only Pikachu? That's something I never thought I'd be forced to do. Of course, I'll come back and challenge you with a stronger team," she said to the man with a grin. "But I'd like to have a stronger connection with Pikachu too, I suppose. Show you both the result of our improved bonds and team."
"Heh. If that's what you want, lassy, you do you. I ain't forcing you to choose any option." Lt. Surge nodded. "Now if any of you girls want to battle me too, you can do it now or later."
"Nnnno thanks. I'm not really into the Gym Challenge," Terra said. "Maybe some other time."
"I'm just here to look into something and also visiting Ignis," Phoebe said. "Besides, I'm an Elite Four. No need, really."
"...I might take you up on your offer later," Hana said with a smile. "I'm thinking maybe I could wait until my Pokémon are powerful, and then go all out at all the gyms to get the best of battling experiences!"
"Well, at least someone's enthusiastic," Lt. Surge noted. "That's good, though! The doors are always open for you girls anytime, so don't hesitate to drop by again, aight?"
"Aightight!" Ignis cheered.
"...wait, so where are we heading to first?" Terra asked.
Ignis and Phoebe exchanged glances. The Ghost-type expert shrugged, so the ravenette smiled. "Well, I suppose... Lavender Town it is!"
"Yay!" the Hoenn girl cheered.
"...yay," Hana murmured, not as thrilled.
Far past the entrance to the Diglett Cave, a long route stretched on for some distance, until it stopped short in front of ocean.
The remainder of the route lied on long, narrow bridges that carried dwellers over the water body.
And of course... right in the middle of an intersection on these bridges, a huge, resting Pokémon blocked the path.
Its eyes shut peacefully, its humongous belly blocking the view of many, the Snorlax that many gamers came to love became an obstacle that authorities stopped having anything to do with - it simply kept returning after being lured away with food.
And before the titanic creature... four girls stood, watching in awe at its immense height despite lying down and resting.
"...our path seems to be blocked," Hana said.
"It sure seems like it, huh," Terra said in agreement.
"Aww, man. Does this mean we can't go to the Pokémon Tower?" Phoebe asked.
While the Kantonian brunette shrugged and the blonde tried to hold back a smile, Ignis rubbed her chin.
You needed some sort of flute, right? she thought, recalling her childhood playthroughs of Pokémon FireRed. Drats, and I don't even remember where to get that thing.
"H...haha, I guess we're left with no options," Hana said. "Perhaps we should traverse through the Diglett Cave and head to Pewter City first?"
Terra rolled her eyes, having detected that hint of joy in the blonde's voice. "Since we have no other options, I guess so. That alright with you, Ms. Phoebe?"
"Oh, please, just call me Phoebe." The Ghost-type expert sighed. "But sure... taking the long way to the Pokémon Tower, I guess... but well, I guess on the other hand I get to see Carmen faster!"
Ignis raised an eyebrow. Wait, can't I just... capture this Snorlax? she thought. I mean, yeah, game convenience doesn't let us battle it, but... this isn't a game anymore, so... The girl dug through her bag and pulled out an empty Pokéball, glancing at the Snorlax.
"...Iggy, what're you doing?" Terra asked.
"I mean... gotta catch 'em all, am I right?" the ravenette remarked before throwing the Pokéball at the Snorlax.
Within seconds, it disappeared into the device.
The others stared, speechless.
"Ms. Ignis, that's... wow," Hana said. "To capture a sleeping, unconscious Pokémon... that's..."
"Hey, putting a Pokémon to sleep during battle isn't that different," Ignis replied. As she expected, the Pokéball only shook twice before bursting open, its separated parts scattering into the ocean. "Uh oh, littering."
"Forget that! The Snorlax is..." Terra stopped running away and stared. The giant Normal-type didn't even seem angry - it just went back to sleep. "...huh?"
"Seems like it's a heavy sleeper," Phoebe noted. "Guess we won't have to worry about it going on a rampage."
"That's a free pass to catch it!" Ignis cheered and pulled out another Pokéball, aiming it at the Snorlax. "Hyah!"
What ensued was a string of consecutive Pokéball throws and failed capturing attempts, lasting around four to five minutes, resulting in several scattered Pokéball laying around the bridge and floating adrift in the ocean. One last threw gave Ignis hope again, as the Snorlax failed to break out this time.
"Victory for Ignis!" the ravenette cheered, panting tiredly while showing off her newest capture.
"I wouldn't exactly call that a victory," Terra mused.
"And to make matters worse, look at all these broken Pokéball parts..." Hana said, looking around disapprovingly. "We're like... litterers."
Phoebe glanced at the parts floating in the ocean. "Yeah, I'd be more worried about the ones over there."
Ignis smiled. "Nah, I'm sure you won't have to worry about that," she said. The others stared at her, appalled. Their accompanying Pikachu, especially, scowled. "Oh, no, no, we're not leaving these here. I've just thought of it some time earlier, but Pokéballs can store items too, right?"
Terra nodded. "Well, yeah. It's not exactly uncommon knowledge, although people don't really talk about it as much as... wait. You're not thinking..."
"Right! I'll use a spare Pokéball to store these littered parts!" the ravenette said.
"Ooooh... that's... actually a great idea?" Hana mused, unsure of how to feel about this.
"But assuming it's one item per ball," Phoebe interrupted, "wouldn't you still require a lot of Pokéball to clear all these parts?"
Terra nodded. "Yeah, that's a good point. Each ball becomes two parts, so... you'd need two Pokéball to contain each full set of defunct ball. That's... a lot of Pokéballs made unavailable for use, and cluttering up that bag."
"Hmm. That's a good point..." Ignis said, her shoulders drooping slightly. If only Pokéballs could s tore multiple items together... She sighed, and then, a recollection came to her. Wait a second... Her eyes slowly grew. "...hey, Terra. You know the egg-like Pokémon, Exeggutor?"
The brunette blinked. "Uh... oh. No, that's the tree-like evolution. You're thinking of its previous form, Exeggcute."
"Yeah, that. They travel in groups of five or six, right?" Ignis asked.
"Yyyyyyyeah... yeah, they do. Why?"
The ravenette rubbed her chin. "Correct me if I'm wrong..." she began. And this is assuming it goes like this only because of game convenience in the real world... "...but do trainers keep one egg each in one Pokéball, or do they keep all six or five in one Pokéball?"
Terra frowned. "Um... well, it's not like I specifically ever took note of that, but I believe they keep all six in one Pokéball..."
"...wait, you're not thinking of..." Hana trailed off.
"You're going to... store all these parts in one Pokéball!?" Phoebe asked.
Ignis slowly nodded. "This is just me speculating, but... if it's possible for six Pokémon to be grouped into one, then shouldn't... shouldn't it be possible for all these parts too?"
"If... if you put it like that..." Terra said. "Then basically... you can group all these broken parts together, store t hem into one Pokéball... and it'll be as convenient as carrying one unusable ball... and then we can easily drop it off at the Pokémon Center's recycling corner... and then..." Her eyes widened. "Holy shit. That's... actually not a bad idea, crazy as it seems."
Hana blinked, turning to the ravenette. "Ms. Ignis, did you just... come up with a solution to the issue of littering as a whole?"
"And thought of a way to make recycling even easier!?" Phoebe said.
Ignis scratched her head. "W-well, hey, remember. This is only speculation, we're still not sure yet..." She grabbed another Pokéball and let out her Wishiwashi onto the water below the bridge. "Hey, Wallow. Could you help me gather all the broken Pokéball parts in the water? I want to try something to keep the pollution to a minimum."
Wallow blinked, its eyes wavering as if it were about to cry, but it nodded and began swimming around to bring back all the parts its trainer had lost in her attempt to catch Snorlax.
For a moment I thought the little guy was going to cry and disapprove of me, but... Ignis smiled. This fella sure is nice. ...now I wish I didn't hold off on watching Pokémon Sun-Moon spoilers. I could use a lot of real life game knowledge on the region it came from. Aloha? Alola? Yeah.
While the group began gathering around all the parts that hadn't fallen into the water, Wallow continued doing its job in the ocean, and soon enough, all the parts were gathered together and piled up on the ground, some dripping wet, some dry as the ground.
"Alright, that's... probably all of them," Ignis sighed with relief.
"But the next part is what's confusing," Hana said. "Will the Pokéball really register all these parts together as one big entity?" she asked.
"Who knows? We just have to try and see, I guess."
Terra stared at all the parts laying together. "The least we could do is at least put all the broken top parts onto the broken bottom parts and make it look like one Pokéball," she said. "At least I'm sure that'd account for it being one item, if it's any help."
"That's... a good idea," Ignis noted. The group then took a few minutes to put all the broken parts together, halving the amount of items they needed to store.
"Wow, that was a lot less work than I expected," Phoebe said.
"And now, I guess... we'll try using a Pokéball to get everything in?" Ignis suggested. The others nodded, so the girl pulled out a free Pokéball and aimed it towards the clump of defunct devices. With a click of the button, red light shot out onto the mound, and...
click
One Pokéball disappeared. One full pair, of a broken top part and a broken bottom part, disappeared.
The four blinked and felt their shoulders drooping a bit.
Well, I guess I shouldn't have hoped too much, Ignis thought, releasing the content of her Pokéball out once more.
"It was a good idea, at least, I guess," Terra said.
"I suppose we'll have to carry all these parts by ourselves," Hana noted. "Although, if I recall, the distance from here to Lavender Town shouldn't be too much, so... perhaps each of us can carry a certain amount?"
Ignis rubbed her chin. "It seems like it..." she said, but something within her wasn't willing to back down. I'm lazy and I don't want to carry all these stuff, damn it, so there must be a way... Several more ridiculous ideas flashed through her head. Damn, I can't think of anything... if only these were powder, we could just mix them into the ground and be done with it...
...wait, powder...? The girl raised an eyebrow. There are powder items within the games, weren't there? Soft Powder... or White Powder... or something.
Items were not her forte. As a player, the girl had never taken items into consideration for strategy devising, except for the common 'hold a berry to heal when damaged' waste of a strategy. But now that she thought about it, there really had been powder items in the games at some point, and... although she doesn't have a perfect grasp on remembering their in-game appearances, they were usually depicted as powder contained within...
"A bag!" the girl thought. "If we had a bag to put all these things in... it might work and be considered as one item!" the ravenette blurted.
Terra blinked. "Wow, you sure are determined not to carry all these parts, aren't you?" the brunette mused. "I'd judge you for that, but considering how any solution to this could tackle the problem of pollution on our region..."
"I suppose it's best we try whatever method we can before giving up on it," Hana said.
Nodding, Ignis rubbed her chin again. "Of course, there's something I'd like to try, but it might be painful for Basil..."
Phoebe frowned. "What do you have in mind?" she asked.
The Grass-type reptilians tilted his head, as Ignis stared at him. "See, with how huge this pile of broken parts is, I was thinking we could wrap Basil's vines all over it. But to get it to be its own separate item, we'd have to... cut off the vines after it's fully wrapped around them."
"Ooooh... that doesn't sound nice," Terra said.
"Ms. Ignis, I don't think-" Hana began, but Ignis nodded.
"I know, I don't want to either. The other option would be to just stuff them in one of our bags and put the bag into a Pokéball. That's the least painful way to go about it," she said, "but it also makes a whole bag's worth of storage space unavailable for use."
Basil stared at the pile, before stepping up to it. "Dhah!" he chirped, determined.
Her Golbat, floating Wishiwashi, and accompanying Pikachu, all exchanged glances. The Poison-type nodded and lifted its wing slightly, prepared to release air blades ready to slice of its comrade's vines. Pikachu's eyes narrowed a bit, clearly disapproving of the idea, while the Wishiwashi... looked the same as always - about to cry.
Everyone watched as Ignis stared at her Grass-type starter, her mouth opening, and as she began to command him... "Basil..."
Basil nodded.
Suddenly, a hand was put on the Pokémon's head. Basil blinked, looking up confusedly as Ignis pet her Ivysaur. "Bahh?"
The ravenette smiled. "Stupid. There's no way I could make you do something that will hurt yourself, just for us," she said. Several sighs of relief were exhaled from her friends and Pokémon. "Even if it's only a bit and temporary, once one crosses that line, they gradually feel less bad about it until they stop caring and become a heartless moron. That's why... even if you're willing to," the girl paused and continued to pet her Pokémon, "which makes me really happy... there's no way I can make you do that," she said.
"...bwah." Touched, the Ivysaur smiled and nuzzled the girl's hand lovingly.
Ignis grinned and stood upright. "You know what? It's not like I'm in need of items right now," she said, "and we're about to reach Lavender Town anyways. We can just heal everyone there and fill our stomachs, so... let's stuff them all in my bag." The girl put down her bag and unzipped it once more, picking up the broken pieces and stuffing them within. "This won't really affect anything much anyways, asides from being a nice way to avoid polluting the environment."
Hana smiled. "Ms. Ignis..."
"I suppose we've been thinking too hard about this," Terra said.
"I'll help!" Phoebe said, and the other two quickly went to help out the ravenette.
Minutes later, the group all watched as a free Pokéball's light covered Ignis' bag, converting it into light and data completely. In a second, everything disappeared into the Pokéball. Ignis smiled and attached the Pokéball onto her belt's fifth slot, behind where her newly-caught Snorlax was.
"...well? I'd say that's a huge success, isn't it?" the ravenette said. The others nodded with bright smiles on their faces, feeling like they had just discovered a wonderful achievement. Which, it kinda is in a way, I guess... the girl supposed. "Now, what say we get to Lavender Town!"
"Yeah!" Terra cheered.
"And explore the Pokémon Tower!" Ignis added.
"Yeah!" all three of her companions cheered.
"And see all the ghosts!" Phoebe chimed.
"Yeah!" Ignis and Terra cheered.
Hana stopped herself. "...oh, right... uh oh."
Thus, they finally continued on their way to the noble purple town of Lavender Town.
| Team IGNIS:
Ivysaur ("Basil", Lv26); Golbat ("Krow", Lv28); Pikachu (Lv25?); Wishiwashi ("Wallow", Lv16); Snorlax (?, Lv30);
| Team TERRA:
Wartortle ("Squirty", Lv20); Butterfree ("Petal", Lv13); NidoranF ("Ranne", Lv14); NidoranM (?, Lv9?)
| Team HANA:
Charmeleon ("Emma", Lv23); Beedrill ("Mel", Lv19); Abra ("Yellow", Lv16); Bellsprout ("Bell", Lv16)