I was meant to mention this last chapter but forgot. I just wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone who reviewed this story so far, whether it was a one-off anon or regular signed reviews. Coming out of this pretty long hiatus, seeing people's comments and thoughts throughout has kept me motivated to keep going even when I was stuck. I hope I can keep this story interesting/funny/cool or whatever attracted you to read it up to this point. Thanks for being patient as a slowly introduce OCs. Thanks for being patient with me generally. You always make me smile :)

Super Training Wheels

Morning came, heralding a new day in Verdanturf Town while the early sun shone boldly from over the grasslands. Everyone was up fresh and early after a good night's sleep and despite the recent turmoils their breakfast table atmosphere was calm and relaxed.

"Verdanturf's effect on people," Mari declared. "Small town with the cleanest air in the region, friendly people, and easy-going pace—just can't help but feel your best here."

"Whatever," Tyson grouched, sitting back after stuffing himself with three tray's worth of food. He was still disgruntled about their sudden stall but it couldn't be helped. "We're still left with the question of what we're going to do to train up our Pokémon."

"Still think going back into Rusturf Tunnel is a good idea," Mari replied.

"How is that a good idea?" Max argued. "Besides, when we were looking around town yesterday the tunnel had a sign that said the road was closed."

"Could still go in, though. Maybe just can't get all the way through because they're fixing it."

"What would be the point, though?" Ray asked. "Going in there and beating up wild Pokémon until we feel stronger? That sounds stupid even coming out of my own mouth."

"It might make Zubat feel better," Hilary supplied. The Pokémon hadn't taken well to being released in a brightly lit hostel room either. Nurse Joy put some food for him in a different room where they let him stay in complete darkness all night. "He could get used to you better if he was in a dark and familiar place."

"I guess so." Ray took out Zubat's Pokéball and examined it thoughtfully. It was a good suggestion.

"Why are you so insistent on making us go back in that dumb cave anyway?" Daichi grumbled. "Surely there's gotta be somewhere better. The yard here would be totally better."

"Can only get so much stronger just fighting each other," Mari said but with a disquieting smile that made it seem like she was hiding a big secret or a prank.

"Well, good luck figuring it out," Hilary said. She gulped down the last of her breakfast juice, politely wiped her mouth with a napkin and then stood up, stretching her arms up high. "I don't want to waste time that I could be using to train my Pokémon."

"I didn't wanna waste time that we could be using to find Possygon P but here we are," Tyson griped.

"Porygon Z, Arceus be damned!" Mari snapped at him.

"I'm going training," Kai piped up. He stood up as well, picking up his tray and his Togepi to leave. Hilary followed suit.

"What are you planning to do, Kai?" Max asked.

"I'm going into Rusturf Tunnel."

"Um, good luck?" Hilary said in puzzlement. "I'm just going to be in the training yard."

They both headed towards the kitchen to deal with their dishes before they went back upstairs to retrieve whatever they needed for training.

"That's where we should be," Daichi insisted. "In the training yard."

"But Kai's going to the tunnel," Mari pointed out.

"Kai can do what he wants," Tyson refuted. "You guys said we need to be serious, so let's think of a training regime that's actually serious."

"Maybe Daichi's right," Ray finally conceded. "Why don't we start off by practising basic things with our Pokémon that we might do ourselves to train?"

"Basic strength training," Max summarised thoughtfully. "That's a good start. Let's get to it."

"Okay," Mari pouted. "But we can go to the tunnel later, right?"

"Why do you want to go to the tunnel?!" Daichi screamed, tugging fistfuls of his hair.

Strength training with Pokémon turned out to be a lot more awkward than they had thought. Most of all was the fact that not all of their Pokémon had the same body parts; not all of them could run, lift, or jump (and not all of them would do any of those things, even if they could). Unhelpfully, Mari had skipped out on their morning training session under the excuse that there was someone in town she had to meet if they were going to stay longer than planned. So they were left on their own to try to figure it out.

There were ways that they could sometimes trick their Pokémon into doing exercises. Ray could make Skitty run around the low ropes course in pursuit of his beyblade, even Taillow was curious enough about the quick, spinning gizmo to hang around and try to beat Skitty to it. Zubat flew around the course too, squealing and hissing at the strange and irritating sounds Drigger made but as soon as the sun climbed higher he retreated into one of the trees, ears still twitching at the sounds. Geodude was the only Pokémon Daichi could coerce into strength training (Slakoth was too slow and lazy while Lotad was too dopey to understand the instructions) but he couldn't quite understand that kettlebells were not supposed to be thrown. Max tried to convince Wingull and Mudkip to try dragging a power sled but Mudkip was too unnerved by the strange device and Wingull just sat on the stack pole investigating the weights with his beak. At that point, Combusken ran past and stole them both.

"Hey!" Tyson yelled, trying to run after him. "Put those down and hit the punching bag like I told you to!"

Combusken let out a raucous caw that sounded like a laugh, running through the training yard with the power sleds as if they weighed nothing. Then he tripped over Wurmple's String Shot. The cables on the sleds jerked, sending them up in the air and then crashing down on his back.

"Hey!" Hilary snapped, turning to Tyson angrily. "We're trying to practise here! Wurmple has been working all morning to make a shot that good and your stupid Combusken just ruined it."

"It's not my fault," Tyson said sheepishly.

Ray sighed and came up beside him and Max with his hands on his hips. "You know, this isn't working as well as I thought it would." He glared at the jungle gym where Grovyle was leisurely hanging on the monkey bars. Having already seen Drigger several times, he didn't really care for chasing it around and was having much more fun watching the smaller Pokémon.

"I don't understand," Max said, sitting on the ground and folding his hands over his knees. Wingull flapped over to perch on his head. "Do they just not get it or do they actually suck? I swear we didn't have this much trouble before."

"I feel like that's the case," Ray agreed, running a hand over his hair. "Tyson, do you have any tips?"

"Eh?" Tyson responded unintelligently. "Why me?"

"You seem to be doing okay. I mean, aside from your Combusken misbehaving. It didn't look like Shroomish and Whismur gave you any grief. Where are they now?"

Ray looked around the training yard but couldn't spot either of them. Not that he was complaining, nor did he expect any different. Whismur's whines, whimpers and wheezes got really annoying after a while and Tyson was always grouching back and forth with Shroomish.

"Well, when I was training with Elena she told me that it was best to train with one Pokémon at a time," Tyson said.

"Really? Why's that?" asked Max.

"According to her, not only is it easier to keep your Pokémon disciplined if you're focussed on it all the time, you can also focus on specific weaknesses or training outcomes that way."

"That makes heaps of sense."

Ray nodded in agreement. "Were there any other training tips or tricks she gave you?"

Before Tyson could answer all three boys were thrown by Hilary's bloodcurdling scream. Max jumped back to his feet while Ray and Tyson both tensed in preparation to fight as they all turned to her.

There were two kettlebells hanging in the air, suspended by Ralts' power. Hilary had fallen over, most likely out of shock and fear at the weights that were no longer careening her way. The kettlebells wobbled in the air and Ralts couldn't last a second more. They dropped to the ground with two heavy thunks as Ralts collapsed and fell on her face. All eyes turned to Daichi. He and all of his Pokémon stared at the almost-accident wide eyed. His feet were braced against the ground and he had a hand on each of Geodude's biceps trying to hold him back.

"I tried to stop him," Daichi squeaked, aware of the fury emanating from Hilary like tongues of fire.

"ARE YOU TRYING TO GET ME KILLED?!" she screeched, breathing heavily. "WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU AND YOUR POKÉMON?!"

Tyson, Max and Ray all cringed and eyed the kettlebells anxiously as if she would pick them up and throw them back.

"Hilary is really scary when she's mad," Max remarked in a low voice, as if he'd just realised that for the first time.

"She seems to also be faring well at training multiple Pokémon at once," Ray said, scratching his cheek. "I wonder if there's a secret to it."

"Pfft, Hilary can do it because she's not really training," Tyson scoffed. "She's just playing around to win a Pokémon beauty pageant."

"I AM TRAINING! YOU'RE JUST BITTER BECAUSE MY POKÉMON BEHAVE THEMSELVES OUT OF THEIR POKÉBALLS, UNLIKE YOURS!"

"Let's get out of her space," Max suggested, sweating at the irrational thought that she might turn her ire onto the next person who even dared to breathe in her direction. "Tyson, teach us some training tricks."

They took a short break for the benefit of their Pokémon and then followed Tyson's earlier advice to choose just one to focus their training effort on. Naturally they all just selected their starter. They moved off the grass in the yard (away from Hilary) and to the covered veranda where Tyson had been previously trying to make Combusken hit a punching bag that was hung from the ceiling by a chain and swivel hook. Ray and Max couldn't help but notice that the ceiling had several of those swivel hooks spaced at regular intervals, although given how much other weirdly specific training gear all Pokémon Centres seemed to have it shouldn't be surprising that they also had a prime setup for multiple punching bags. Combusken hobbled over to them, rubbing his still aching back and dragging the two power sleds along with him.

"Now that you've learned your lesson," Tyson chided with his arms folded, "are you gonna train properly?"

Combusken cooed sheepishly. He straightened up and cracked his back before turning to the grey and yellow bag. Tyson picked up a stopwatch he'd dropped on the floor when Combusken ran off and stood at the ready. Combusken put his fists up and dropped into a fighting position. As soon as he threw the first punch Tyson started the watch. The other bladers watched in perplexed silence.

"Seriously?" Daichi deadpanned. "This is all you've been doing?"

"This is most of what we did when we were training with Elena," Tyson shrugged, not taking his eyes off Combusken, "and then we beat Roxanne so it probably worked."

"Can you talk us through this a bit more?" Max asked. "What exactly are you doing?"

"This is just one of the exercises for the punching bag," Tyson explained. The stopwatch beeped and on cue Combusken stopped attacking the bag and hopped away from it. "Hey, that was way more than last time. Up top, buddy!"

He high-fived his Pokémon before continuing to explain: "The idea is that you want to keep count of how many hits your Pokémon lands in a minute."

"Okay, so you just set the timer to count down from a minute and keep count," Max summarised. It sounded easy.

"No, you're supposed to time how long it takes your Pokémon to land a hundred hits and then calculate the hits per minute rate from the time but that involves maths so I do it the other way instead."

Ray and Max both sighed. "Typical Tyson," Ray muttered and Max nodded in agreement.

"Besides, most of the time Elena didn't do manual calculations. She had an app for it on her Pokégear."

"An app?" Ray hummed, pulling the PokéNav off the waist of his pants where he'd clipped it. "I wonder if the app is available for the PokéNav as well."

"If you find it, let us know," Max said. He turned to Tyson. "There are more punching bags, right?"

"Yeah, in the store room," Tyson replied, pointing to the door at the end of the veranda where they'd gotten all of their training equipment from. "Just gotta let you know, there are a bunch of different bags so you have to pick carefully."

"Different how?"

"Some of them are tougher than others and some of them have weird tech in them that makes them react to strikes."

"Punching bags that react?" Daichi gaped, amazed by such a novel idea.

Tyson nodded. "Yep. I think there are different combos of tech and toughness but you're supposed to be able to tell by the skin the bag has. Like, this one…" Tyson gave the bag he'd already set up a kick, "has a lattice in it that gives it high resistance to physical hits, so it's good for training your Pokémon to hit hard."

"Ah, I see," Ray uttered, although he was engrossed by what was on the PokéNav's screen. "And there are also varieties that can target different aspects like speed and defence."

"Um, yeah," Tyson responded with a raised eyebrow. "That's what the different tech is for. How'd you know that?"

Ray looked up and turned the screen towards them. "There's a key in the app that explains all of the skins and the different bags."

"What?! You downloaded it already?" Max exclaimed. "Man, I don't know if I'll be able to get over how fast the internet is in this world. It wasn't expensive, was it?"

"Don't worry, it was very affordable. It has all of the workouts spelled out, a timer and counter – it even has some sample training regimens. This is amazing! If only we'd known about this earlier this morning."

The back door clicked as it opened and someone stepped onto the veranda. The bladers turned to give them a cursory glance but they all paused and stared when they saw who it was.

"Kai!" Tyson greeted, waving at despite how unnecessary it was. "Why'd you come back? Tunnel too lame?"

Kai shook his head. "My Pokémon didn't do well, so I came back to train." He glanced at each of his teammates and the single Pokémon they had out with them. "What are you doing?"

"We're training with punching bags!" Daichi declared, pumping a fist. Geodude copied him.

"The app calls it Super Training," Ray informed them.

Kai's eyes flicked to the one punching bag that was currently hanging. He raised an eyebrow.

"Well, obviously we're gonna get more punching bags," Daichi said defensively.

"And there are a bunch of different types," Max added for Kai's benefit. "Let's see what kinds this Pokémon Centre has. Do you want to join us, Kai?"

Kai made a quiet noise that might have been an affirmation. It apparently was since he followed Ray, Max and Daichi to the store room to pick a bag of their own. With the info from the app, Ray advised them to pick a light bag to start with. They each found their preferred training bag (except for Daichi because Tyson already had the bag he wanted, so he settled for a blue one with pink and white spots and a zigzag along the bottom) and set it up on one of the swivel hooks.

"Hey, Ray, there's no chance that that app can keep track of multiple Pokémon, is there?' Max asked.

"Unfortunately, I don't think so," Ray answered, pausing his explanation of their new training regime to Kai. "Perhaps we can take turns trying out a regimen on the PokéNav and use the manual method in the time between." However, Ray wasn't keen on his own rational suggestion. He looked at the PokéNav as if he didn't want to part with it.

"Okay, but can the app explain how the other punching bags work?" Daichi wondered, scratching his head and looking at the bag he had for Geodude. "If Tyson's bag is the lettuce one—"

"Lattice," Ray corrected.

"—then what does this one do?"

Geodude wasn't quite patient enough to wait for Ray to look it up, he couldn't wait to start hitting it. After all, Geodudes love punching things. He swung an experimental punch at it and croaked in surprise when there was no resistance—it felt like punching a big bag full of slime. The punching bag rippled a bit and then stilled.

"The gimmick on that one is shock absorption," Ray elucidated, smirking playfully at Geodude's shocked expression. "Evidently. According to the description, by absorbing all of the energy from a hit the punching bag is more tiring to hit than the others, making it good for training up endurance."

"Hm, maybe I should try that one at some point," Max mumbled, looking at the endurance bag thoughtfully with his knuckles over his lips. He turned to Ray and jerked his thumb at the white and grey bag he'd picked. "How about the defence bag? How does this one work?"

Ray perused the app. "Uh, defence bag… it's really stiff and has two points of 'friction reduced pendulum motion' on the chain. So basically, when it's hit it swings out freely and then swings back with momentum."

"Then the only option is to dodge or defend," Max surmised. "Sounds like it could also be a speed trainer. What does the speed bag do, then?"

"It's the opposite. It's really light and the chain is stiff so it swings faster and faster the more it's hit. You either have to keep up with it or get smacked in the face."

"Yikes." Max looked at Grovyle sympathetically. "Good luck."

Grovyle narrowed his eyes in offence. As if he needed luck. He glared at the speed bag and pounded a fist into his palm. If he could keep up with Drigger he could keep up with a bag. He turned to Ray for instructions, eager to prove Max wrong but Ray was looking at Kai, who had already gotten Magikarp started. She looked a bit silly with the way she threw herself at the bag to strike it and then flopped back to the floor.

"You know, Kai, that bag is a bit different," Ray explained.

Kai gave him only a cursory side-glance and then went back to focussing on Magikarp and making sure he was counting hits correctly.

"That's a special attack bag. It doesn't do anything special for physical hits but it absorbs energy from non-physical attacks really well, making it tougher to use that kind of move."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kai said dismissively. He didn't stop Magikarp or tell her to do anything different.

Ray sighed. Kai could do as he pleased, if only because he wouldn't let anybody tell him otherwise. In the meantime, Grovyle was still waiting for his cue to start attacking and everybody else was already in the swing of an exercise. Ray still had the PokéNav so he scrolled through the list of regimens for an appropriate one and started to give out instructions.

Following the Super Training regimens was smooth, easy and efficient and by lunchtime the bladers could all say that they had made progress they could be proud of. Hilary was also happy with the results of her Pokémon's training and joined the boys to take a break for lunch. They all convened in the lobby to eat together after picking what they wanted from the sandwich bar in the kitchen while their Pokémon sat around them to eat as well. Most of them were absolutely ravenous after spending the whole morning running around and training. Skitty had his whole face in a bowl of food and only lifted it up occasionally to chew when his mouth was too full. Slakoth ate two leaves in half an hour and had another that he was protecting with both hands, even though he'd already eaten a leaf in the morning so this was more than he usually ate. Mudkip, however, glumly picked at his food one piece at a time, whining and moaning as he ate. Then he squealed as Magikarp floundered over and tipped all of his food onto the floor, gulping down several pieces at once as she flopped around.

"Kai! Control your Magikarp!" Max scolded, looking at her with a disgruntled frown. "She's being really mean again."

Kai shrugged and looked Max right in the eye, challenging him to do something about it.

"To be fair, Magikarp is technically the weakest Pokémon in all the Pokémon we have," Daichi said, "and Kai can't do anything about Mudkip being a huge wuss."

"That's not fair!" Hilary rebuked. "That's even meaner! Like throwing two kettlebells at me!"

"But they didn't hit you!"

"They would've if Ralts hadn't knocked herself out saving me!"

Max sighed and stood up from his seat. "I'm going to get more food for Mudkip. Tyson, Daichi, don't steal my food or I'll put mustard all over everything on your tray."

"Kai and Daichi are right, y'know," Tyson called after him. "Magikarp wouldn't slap Mudkip around so much if he wasn't such a wuss!"

"Your Whismur cried more in one morning than Mudkip did in a month!" Max yelled from the kitchen.

"That's because Whismurs are supposed to do that!" Tyson argued.

"Tyson, stop being childish," Ray remanded.

"I'm not being childish, it's the truth! Besides, isn't Max being childish too for arguing with me?"

Ray sighed and gave Tyson a deadpan glare. Tyson pouted but just went back to scarfing down his lunch. If he finished it before Max came back he could steal Max's food and get away with it because there'd be nothing left on his tray to ruin. In the meantime, Mudkip jumped onto Max's vacated chair to seek refuge from Magikarp's flailing.

The group had been the only visitors at the Pokémon Centre for two nights so it subtly caught their attention when a new guest entered the lobby. She was a girl (perhaps more of a woman, actually) with pale skin and long brown hair with violet-dyed ends. She was dressed simply and sensibly in a green shirt, dark blue jeans, brown boots and a brown belt with all of her Pokéballs at the ready. Her gaze panned the lobby and settled for a moment on Hilary and the bladers but she didn't stop on her way to the reception desk. Wigglytuff was manning the desk and chewing on an eraser when she approached. She was quiet and patient as Wigglytuff clicked around on the computer and then handed her a key, which she took and then headed straight to the stairs, giving the group at the table another curious glance before she was out of sight.

"Who was that?" Max asked as he returned with Mudkip's food bowl refilled.

"We didn't really talk," Hilary replied. "She kinda walked in here with a purpose and I guess she's gone to fulfil it."

"Do you think she's just passing through? Or maybe she's come for a Contest too."

"You think that's possible?" Hilary wondered, looking over to the stairs with more interest.

Thankfully Magikarp seemed to have eaten her fill and had calmed down and Whismur waddled around the floor picking up the stray pieces of discarded food pellets. However, Mudkip still refused to get down on the floor where he'd be near Magikarp. Even when Max tried to physically move him from the chair to the floor Mudkip latched onto his wrist with all four limbs. Max relented, lifting Mudkip onto his lap and putting the food bowl on the table.

"Mudkip is such a baby," Tyson snickered.

"Shut up!" Max cried. "He was already tired out from all the training and now everyone's being horrible to him."

"I guess it's really tiring to be terrified of a punching bag after it hit him in the face the first time."

"This is exactly what I mean! If you guys tried to be positive maybe he'd feel better about himself and wouldn't be so afraid of trying," Max pouted. He picked a piece of Mudkip's food and held it to him. "Don't worry about them. You just keep trying your best, okay?"

Mudkip whined and turned away.

"Aw, don't be like that. If you don't eat you won't be able to train. How about you try it with mustard? That makes everything better."

Max picked up the condiment bottle from the middle of the table and squirted it generously over the food pellet. Mudkip looked at the offering. He gingerly took it with his front paws and gave it an experimental lick. Then he threw it on the floor and went back to looking sadly at nothing. It landed near Poochyena's dish and she sniffed at it curiously before scarfing it down. Max pursed his lips.

"Well, if you don't like mustard, then try mayonnaise!"

He lifted a huge bottle – one entire litre – of mayonnaise from under the table. Everyone suddenly paused and stared at him.

"Did you steal that out of the kitchen?" Hilary asked.

"Nobody else wanted to use it."

"The cook will notice that it's gone! You should put it back."

"Fine, but not before Mudkip learns about the creamy goodness that is mayonnaise," Max said, covering a pellet with the dressing. Mudkip sniffed it, licked it and then eventually chomped it down. "That's the spirit! Feel better with mayo."

He smothered the rest of Mudkip's food and this time Mudkip was enthused enough to climb up onto the table and eat. As he did, Poochyena let out a whine to get her trainer's attention. She tapped what was left of her food with a paw and exchanged glances between Kai and the mustard bottle Max had left on the edge of the table. Kai shook his head. Poochyena barked defiantly at the refusal and hit the edge of her dish hard enough to flip it over. The loud clatter startled Whismur so much that she squealed. She startled herself so much her ears stood on end and she began to scream.

"Seriously?" Tyson grumbled with a hand over his face.

"Ha! Whose Pokémon is a baby now?" Max re-joined.

"Tyson, calm her down!" Hilary snapped.

Tyson threw his head back and groaned. The legs of his chair squealed on the floor as he pushed it out and got up to chase down Whismur. Skitty saw the chase scene and began to run around excitedly himself, tripping up Tyson and zipping through the furniture legs. Zubat had found a roost under the table where he was decently comfortable until Skitty zoomed past. He screeched and his sudden flapping rocked the table. Ray and Hilary both jumped up to stabilise it and everyone else still at the table had to grab a tray or two to stop their lunch from spilling. Meanwhile, Poochyena imploringly pawed Kai's leg, whining. Kai glared at Max as if to say: 'look what you've done.' Max shrugged and stared back with a smug smirk challenging him to do something about it.

This was the chaotic scene that the new guest walked in on when she came back downstairs. Her jaw dropped as she stared in disbelief at the boy in a red shirt chasing a Whismur while the only girl of the group was yelling at a black-haired boy to do something about a Zubat and a blond boy tried to comfort a Mudkip that was crying on the floor with food and a creamy substance all over its face. She closed her mouth and tore her eyes away, making a beeline to the kitchen.

Ray decided on returning Zubat, just like Taillow when he'd tried to fly away after eating his food and crashed into a window because he still didn't understand that just because he could see through it didn't mean he could fly through it. Tyson managed to catch Whismur and immediately stuck a finger in her mouth. He'd discovered during the morning that it was the quickest way to quiet her. Her cries abruptly ceased and her lips tightened around Tyson's finger, sucking gently.

"Hey Tyson, why don't you buy your baby a dummy?" Daichi teased, sporting a large grin.

"Shut up, Daichi!" Tyson retorted. "Your Lotad's on his back."

"Eh?"

Daichi looked around for Lotad and sure enough he was stuck on his back with his stumpy legs waving around in the air. Ray's Skitty had tripped over him and face-planted the linoleum floor. Ray and Daichi went to help their Pokémon while Max cleaned up Mudkip's face and Hilary and Kai tidied the eating area. Poochyena stared longingly up at the mustard bottle that had fallen on its side but stopped short of rolling off the table. Since Kai was distracted with sweeping Pokémon food back into bowls, Togepi looked over the edge of the table at Poochyena. She smiled and happily cheered to herself as she came up with the brilliant idea of sitting on the mustard bottle. It squirted out over a metre and splattered onto Slakoth, who just kept chewing his last leaf and didn't pay any mind. Poochyena happily started to lap it up. Kai growled in irritation but couldn't be bothered with that after all that had just happened.

By the time the new guest returned to the lobby with a tray of human food in one hand and bowls of Pokémon food balanced in the other the group and their Pokémon were sitting and eating calmly again. She gawked at them, quite amazed that the chaos had resolved itself in the time it took her to shovel food into compartments. Everything was just as orderly as it was when she first walked in, except for that Poochyena licking mustard off a Slakoth. She shook her head and looked away from the weird sight to go and find the corner-most chair on the corner-most table and occupy it.

Tyson leaned back and patted his distended belly. "Phew! I'm stuffed."

"Really? And you only ate that much?" was Hilary's snarky reply.

"Well, I'm done too," Max said, stretching his arms. "Hey, Tyson, I didn't eat everything. Do you want some?"

"Do I!"

"You just said you were full!" Hilary snapped.

"Why'd you only offer to Tyson?" Daichi whinged.

Hilary rolled her eyes and pushed her tray towards him. "Here, eat my leftovers."

"If everyone's finished we should get back to training but…" Ray trailed off.

"But what?" Tyson asked around his fork.

"I just thought that Mari's been gone a long time."

"Should we look for her?" Hilary wondered worriedly.

Tyson scoffed. "That's rich coming from you two." Hilary and Ray both blushed.

"But usually she lets us know when she's gone," Max pointed out, "unless she's really upset about something. Maybe we should at least send her a message and see if she replies."

Ray agreed, bringing out the PokéNav and opening it up but when he saw the screen he blinked in surprise. "Oh? It looks like she already messaged us… over an hour ago."

"Oh yeah, a message came," Daichi informed them. Everybody looked at him with a low brow expression for pointing out something that was now so painfully obvious. He shrugged. "It came while I was using the training app but I don't know how to answer messages so I left it alone. But it wasn't from Mari, it was from someone called 'Em-Kay'."

"Em-Kay is Mari's TSS screen name," Ray said.

"TSS?" Max echoed.

"Trainer Search System—it's a social app."

"Why 'Em-Kay'?" Tyson murmured.

"I don't know, she probably has reasons," said Ray, opening the message.

"So if she can contact us on this PSS does that mean we have a screen name too? What did you call us, Ray?"

Ray gasped, ignoring Tyson's question. "She's at the hospital."

"What?!" the others exclaimed, except for Kai who just raised his eyebrows.

"Uh, don't worry, she's not in any trouble herself," Ray explained. "It seems that the friend she went out to meet had a medical emergency while they were hanging out so she accompanied him to hospital. She must still be there since she hasn't returned."

"That's awful!" Hilary commiserated. "We should go and support her."

"I don't know," Max thought aloud. "Would she appreciate us crowding around while her friend is unwell?"

"Let's at least go and see if she's feeling okay," Ray suggested. He and Max knew best out of all of them that Mari would probably do something terribly reckless during an emotional low. "And if everything's fine, well, it would be a good idea to see Ryan too. I haven't been able to see him since we parted at the hospital."

"This sounds like a great idea, so it's settled," Hilary declared, standing up and taking her now empty tray from Daichi. "Let's clear this up and get going."

"You can't be the only one who decides what we do," Daichi argued.

"Oh? You have an objection to visiting our friends in hospital?"

"No!" Daichi pouted but he didn't have a better comeback. Everyone else was already packing up their trays and their Pokémon's dishes so Daichi didn't really have any option but to follow suit. On their way to the kitchen they had to pass by the Centre's new guest and the four Pokémon that were eating beside her. Daichi stopped and gawked at them – a lavender cat-like creature with long ears and a pronged tail, a red fox with six curly tails, a huge green-winged nymph, and the most enormous pigeon Daichi had ever seen in his life.

"Whoa! Those Pokémon are so cool!" he exclaimed, startling the older girl. "I've never seen any of them before."

She looked at him in disbelief. She glanced at each of her Pokémon. So half of them were quite rare but surely there couldn't be someone who'd never seen a Pidgeot. He took his Pokédex out of his pocket but before he could look up a single one Hilary pinched his ear.

"Stop being rude and finish putting your dishes away!" she snapped. She turned to the new girl and smiled apologetically. "Sorry for disturbing your meal. I'll get this guy out of your hair."

"Don't worry about it," was what she wanted to say but instead she impassively turned back to her food.

"Yikes," Hilary thought, dragging Daichi away. "She's as cold as Kai."

"Ehe, Daichi's a bit loud but he doesn't mean to be rude."

She looked up again at the apologetic tone. It was the black-haired boy looking kindly at her. "Since you came to the Pokémon Centre, am I right in assuming you're a Pokémon trainer?"

She opened her mouth as if she was going to speak but then nodded and made a small noise of affirmation instead.

"We all are too, I guess. Nice to meet you, I'm Ray." He held his hand out to shake hers.

"What do you mean by 'I guess'?" she wondered but couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. Instead she shook his hand and replied in a soft voice: "Violet."

"I was just admiring your Pokémon too. We're pretty new at this and we're not from around here so we haven't seen any of these Pokémon yet—that's why Daichi got so excited."

Violet glanced at her Pidgeot again and then back at Ray with an eyebrow raised in disbelief. Surely, surely, there couldn't be anyone in this world who had never seen a Pidgeot, even if they were new trainers. "Um… so… where are you from?" she asked, mentally tacking on: "Where are you from that doesn't have Pidgeots?"

"Well… ah…" Ray stammered.

Violet examined his face as his eyes darted around nervously. She wondered what location could be so classified that he would be so nervous to tell her but if it had to be a secret she wouldn't probe. But then the indigo-haired boy in the red shirt sidled up beside his friend and blurted out:

"We came from a different dimension where Pokémon don't exist, randomly brought here by a magic Dorykon Key!"

Violet's eyes widened in confusion. "… Dorykon Key?"

"Tyson!" Ray exclaimed, looking at him in shock.

"What? Elena said not to worry about telling people 'cuz apparently everyone around here expects Pokémon to do weird stuff all the time."

"Is that so?" Ray muttered, eyebrow twitching.

Violet stared at Tyson like he'd grown two extra heads. Words completely escaped her. Then the blond suddenly popped out from behind Ray and Tyson, startling her again.

"Hi! Violet, right?" he greeted with a grin. "Sorry, I was eavesdropping a bit. We've been the only people here for a little while so we noticed right away when you came in. I'm Max. I guess you met Ray and Tyson. That guy's Kai." He pointed to a boy with dual-toned hair and a long scarf who was taking his time piling Pokémon dishes on top of his tray so he could easily carry them and his Togepi at the same time. Max added behind his hand: "I'm letting you know now because he probably won't introduce himself. He's pretty shy."

"Hmm," Violet muttered, looking at Kai interestedly.

Tyson blew a raspberry. "Kai's not shy! He's just… above people."

"I still say he's shy." Suddenly his expression looked embarrassed as he turned his attention back to Violet. "Hey, so, I didn't really think about this because we were the only ones here but did you want mayonnaise?" He suddenly showed her a large bottle of it.

Violet responded with a small noise and shook her head.

"Geez, you guys!" Hilary yelled at them from behind. Tyson, Ray and Max nearly fell forward in alarm. "Can't you just let someone eat in peace?"

"We're just introducing ourselves," Tyson explained, "since she might be staying here with us for a while. Don't you like making new friends?"

Violet made her negative noise again.

"What? You're not staying?"

She nodded. "Just passing through."

"Oh, so you do talk," Daichi remarked, unceremoniously inserting himself back into the conversation.

"Daichi, that's such a rude thing to say!" Hilary scolded.

"Um, you weren't going to Rustboro City, were you?" Ray inquired. Violet nodded, wondering why they all suddenly got uncomfortable looks on their faces.

"You can't," Kai interrupted bluntly. Everyone turned to him.

"Why not?" Violet asked.

"Two days ago there was a cave-in," he told her. "The road is blocked so you can't go."

"You don't have to be so blunt about it," Hilary said.

"Just tell the truth and don't waste time," Kai rebuked, continuing on his way to the kitchen. They all stared at him in stunned silence.

"Well, that's Kai," Tyson piped up perkily. "As you can see he doesn't do people. Don't get me wrong, he's great and all, he just doesn't do people."

"Oh…" Violet put her cutlery down at the edge of her tray and stared into her lap.

"Sorry," Ray said. "Were you really hoping to go to Rustboro Gym?"

She nodded. "Ah…" she hesitated but then continued: "Was up at Lavaridge Town and thought about going the long way through Fallabor Town and Meteor Falls, since I heard they were both nice. But got excited and wanted my next badge as soon as possible."

"Ah, so you're collecting badges too," Max remarked. "We've each got one and we'll get our next one at Mauville City when we get there… eventually."

"Mauville Gym is difficult," Violet told them frankly. "So be prepared."

"What? Do you already have that badge?"

She nodded. Then as an afterthought she reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded gold handkerchief with a hemmed edge. Violet held it by the corners and flapped it open to show them the two badges pinned to it, one shaped like a coiled wire and the other like a wisp of flame.

"We've never seen either of those badges," Daichi gushed. "I can't wait to get the fire one."

"You don't blow your nose on that, do you?" Tyson asked.

Violet raised an eyebrow. "Er… no."

Togepi chirped goodbye as Kai briskly walked past them. Ray, Max and Tyson all started as they realised what they were supposed to be doing.

"Shit! Hold up, Kai! I'm doing my dishes already!" Tyson shouted, running towards the kitchen.

"Don't leave us behind!" Max added, leaving the mayonnaise bottle on Violet's table and running his dishes to the kitchen as well.

Ray sighed exasperatedly. "That Kai…"

"Don't worry, Daichi and I will hold him back while you finish up," Hilary assured him, sending him on his way. Daichi dashed off to go and hold Kai back by the scarf tails if he had to and Hilary was right behind him until she heard:

"Wait!"

She froze. That one word sent a chill through her body. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before. She hadn't really heard it (at least, she didn't think so), rather she'd thought it without having thought it and a pang of foreign emotion pricked through her mind. She slowly turned around. Violet sat rigid in her chair with wide eyes and hands over her mouth as if she had just blurted something awful.

"Was that… your voice?" Hilary asked quietly.

"Sorry…" Violet said, muffled behind her hands. "Sorry! Just… didn't get your name…"

"My name?" Hilary let out a breath and some of the tension eased out of her muscles. "W-was that all? I-it's Hilary."

"Sorry. I scared you."

"No, no! It's fine! I just didn't expect it, that's all. Um, you didn't really need to hold me back. I'll be back later; we're just going to visit some friends. So we can talk more then, if you like."

"Uh… sure."

"Cool. So… see ya." Hilary waved awkwardly and turned around to keep following her friends.

Violet lowered her hands into her lap where she'd dropped her handkerchief. She hardly registered the other boys bidding her goodbye, though Max stopped to chat only to get pulled away by Tyson. Despite the positive words, there was a tremble deep inside. After that, she wasn't sure that Hilary would want to speak to her again. Espeon nuzzled the side of her thigh, sending a thrum of soothing psychic waves that were meaningless to anyone who didn't have the perception for them. Violet stroked his head and smiled. At least she would always have them.

They'd left it late so by the time they got to the hospital they had less than an hour of visiting time. Nonetheless they decided to make the most of it. Predictably, the man at the reception desk couldn't help them find Mari but he could give the group directions to Ryan's ward. When they got there a nurse told them that she had let Ryan go outside and gave them directions to the roof garden she'd sent him to.

The roof garden was like a very well-kept park that was so pleasant to walk through that they almost forgot why they came. If they didn't know any better they might have thought it was still on the ground. Not only did it have grass, it had shrubs and flowers and even small trees with raised wooden paths winding around all of the major beds. Every now and then there was a larger area along the path with seating and enough space for a couple of wheelchairs to park. Most of those spots were empty – the hospital was so small and there were so few people in town there were rarely any inpatients – but in roughly the middle of the garden the bladers and Hilary came across one that was a bit crowded and, to their surprise, occupied by many recognisable faces.

A Lucario searched around the gardens until he found a plant in flower and snapped the flower stem. He brought it over to a Skitty that had found a sunny spot on the boards to lie in and presented it to her with a gentlemanly bow. The Skitty stared at it critically and then glanced at her own tail. Lucario leaned over and arranged it in her fluffy tail among her whiskers, a gesture that made her mewl happily before she dropped her head to start napping, causing Lucario to groan disappointedly. A Raichu was enjoying himself rolling around between the plants and a large, red, bipedal insect stood out on a patch of lawn scraping its pincers together like it was sharpening them.

Mari and Ryan sat at either end of the single bench in this area. Ryan let a huge, grey cocoon with eyes lean against him dozily while Mari chatted to an unfamiliar green-haired boy. He was in a wheelchair, parked close to her, that was loaded at the back with portable oxygen generator feeding air to him through a nasal cannula. His skin was pale and his body must have been very thin since the dress shirt and slacks he wore were correctly proportioned to the length of his torso and limbs yet they fit loosely. They all heard footsteps on the boards and looked up.

"Hey everyone," Mari greeted, giving them a small wave. "Didn't expect you to show up. Nobody returned my message."

"Sorry, we didn't see your message until recently," Ray explained, eyeing Daichi critically.

"We were worried about you and your friend," Hilary added, moving forward to get a better look at him. She didn't recognise that frail face but she thought the hairstyle was familiar. "We also wanted to visit Ryan."

"Aw, didn't have to," Ryan said but going by the smile on his face he was very touched anyway.

"But we did," Daichi blurted out and slid over to him, pointing at the giant pupa. "What's that?"

"This is a Pupitar," Ryan replied, glancing at his Pokémon and then back to Daichi. "Quite a rare species to see so not surprised you haven't heard of it."

"It's cool!" Daichi exclaimed, taking out his Pokédex to look it up.

"Pupitar, the hard shell Pokémon. It has a highly durable shell that is as hard as bedrock. Despite being sedentary, it can be highly mobile by compressing gas in its body and venting it to propel itself like a rocket."

Daichi stared at the Pokédex entry in awe and then looked up at Pupitar again. "Where'd you find it?"

"Well, didn't find him in the wild so can't help you there," Ryan told him apologetically. "Circumstances were a bit exceptional. Place I did work experience placement at sent me to a construction site to catch him back when he was a Larvitar. Someone abandoned him and he was really sick from eating concrete and mortar."

"How terrible," Mari's friend interjected sympathetically. "Why?"

"Suspicion is that he was taken there to dig for fossils and rare stones before the site was developed but the previous trainer got angry at him either for eating them or not finding any. Common problem for lithovores to get abused like that for illegal mining."

"Yuck!" Hilary gagged.

"Some people are super gross," Mari agreed angrily.

"What's a lithovore?" Tyson asked.

"Literally 'rock eater'. Larvitar consumes a lot of minerals and rocks in preparation to evolve."

"Whoa, this thing eats rocks?" Daichi pointed at Pupitar.

"No, Larvitar eats rocks. Pupitar doesn't have a mouth." Ryan patted Pupitar's face to demonstrate.

"Then how does it eat?"

"Doesn't. Larvitar already ate everything Pupitar needed. Inside Pupitar's body is like a huge chemistry lab mixing and remixing atoms and molecules to form the body it'll have when it evolves."

Daichi gawked at Pupitar for a few beats in silence. "Pokémon are awesome. How come you never showed him before? Or that one?" He pointed to the red bug examining its claws. "Does it not eat either?"

"Scizor? She eats but not as frequently as other Pokémon. Though by now she's probably done digesting the last thing she ate, hence she's whetting her pincers." He looked at his Scizor. "Need to tell someone here that I need to feed a Scizor."

"Mari, are all of your Pokémon around here too?" Tyson prodded, looking around as if he might find them. "What about your friend? I bet you've got a bunch of Pokémon we've never seen."

"Sorry, all of our Pokémon are still at my uncle's house," Mari's friend answered.

"Sure Wanda and your uncle are looking after them really well," Mari interjected. Then she turned to Hilary and the bladers. "So, this is the guy I went to meet today, Wally. Wally, these are the new friends I was telling you about." She went through the obligatory list of names, even adding Togepi at the end. Wally smiled and greeted them in return.

"Wally… as in, Wally Chartreuse?" Hilary asked. Everyone gawked at her in surprise, even Wally.

"Oh?" Mari gasped. "Already heard of him?"

"He was one of the judges at the Contest yesterday," Hilary told them. "But it's not like I recognised him after that or anything, it's just that the MC mentioned something about him being a really great trainer and some of the people we met kind of dropped hints about you being pretty famous so I just wondered if the two were related."

"Wow, Hilary, you have some weird intuition," Max remarked.

"Sort of like that," said Mari but she had a confused, inward-looking expression as if she was still trying to figure out how the connection worked. "Wally and Emerald were friends before I met Emerald. Emerald told me about Wally but we didn't properly meet until a long time later."

"Yeah, little more than four years ago, wasn't it?" Wally reminisced. "Got tired of only battling in Hoenn so I wanted to travel. Picked the Unova region kinda naïvely—bit of a tourist trap destination—and despite my family getting over me travelling alone in Hoenn they went ballistic over the idea of me going to Unova. Gets pretty cold there and there's a much higher density of people so the air quality and pollution are a bit of a problem. Both of those things are really difficult for me to deal with due to my condition." He clutched the front of his shirt and grimaced in annoyance, then resumed looking at everyone with that fragile but cheery expression. "At that time, Emerald had just come back from Johto and told my parents that he knew a trainer who might be interested in accompanying me and we managed to convince everyone that it would be okay if I wasn't travelling alone."

"We made an agreement to meet up at the port in Castelia City," Mari added to the story. She chuckled. "Remember that, Wally? Both got lost and spent the whole day trying to find each other."

"Only to end up literally bumping into each other by accident in the Pokémon Centre," Wally laughed. He suddenly choked and a fit of wet coughs erupted from his throat.

"Is it alright for us to be here?' Ray asked, looking at Wally in concern. "We can go if you need rest."

"I'm fine, fine." Wally waved off the concern. He coughed a couple more times and then leaned back to take a few deep breaths.

"No, seriously, it's cool," Tyson said, "we can get out of your space. We'll just go back to the 'Super Training' biz or whatever."

"Oh, already discovered ST?" Mari raised her eyebrows, impressed.

"What!? You knew about it already?" Tyson growled. "Why didn't you tell us that this morning instead of telling us to go to the stupid tunnel?"

"ST is pretty great but you should search Rusturf Tunnel too," Wally advised. "You'll find an experience that no good trainer should miss."

"We were just in that tunnel two days ago and had an experience," Tyson deadpanned.

"It can't be safe to go there now, can it?" Ryan inquired.

"It'll be fine," Mari shrugged.

"You can't just say 'it'll be fine' and expect us to be okay with that!" Hilary snapped. "The tunnel caved in!"

"Heard about that on the news," Wally commented. "Seems like a miracle that you all survived."

"Tell us about it," Ray said, looking pointedly at Ryan. "Are you still hurting?"

"Nah, I'm good," he replied. "Doctors just want me to stay here another night."

"Hang on, it's already been on the news?" Max clarified. "But we haven't seen any journalists around here or even heard anything from authorities."

"Probably get around to us eventually," Ryan assured them. "Officer Jenny's priority right now is most likely getting forensic evidence and keeping people off the site."

"Officer Jenny?" Ray mused quietly. Had she travelled all the way from Oldale Town? Or had she been transferred since he saw her?

"Don't worry about it," said Mari, folding her arms. "She's probably left you alone because you're in hospital but don't think she'll follow up more witness statements. Already gave her mine."

"You did? When?" Hilary inquired.

"On the first day. Everyone was sleeping through the morning and Nurse Joy was busy so I went out for a little while and stopped by the police station. That guy was there with his little sister too – purple stripe guy. Shido had an account of what happened on the other side too so think Officer Jenny's pretty happy with that. If you're still concerned you could just go and offer your statement. Not like she'll reject it."

"Things are a bit loose around here," Max muttered, exchanging a worried glance with Ray.

A ping rang out over the garden, sounding distant, signalling an announcement. It was a bit muffled by all the vegetation in the way but Wally and Ryan knew what it was.

"Patient rest period's starting soon," Wally said. "Afraid you'll all have to go. Wish we could have had a longer first meeting. Hopefully I'll be clear to leave tomorrow."

Ryan nodded. "Nice to see you all again. Thanks for thinking of me." He turned to Pupitar, his nearest Pokémon. "And you guys will have to go too."

"Come see us at the Pokémon Centre," Mari invited. "We'll still be there." She stood up and stretched. "Gotta go back to Wanda's place and get my Pokémon. Then see what improvement you guys have made, if any."

"I'll have you know that we made heaps of improvement," Tyson retorted, making Mari snicker. "Even ask Kai! He went to the tunnel and said it wasn't that great. Isn't that right, Kai?"

Tyson turned to where he thought Kai was still lingering at the back but had to search a bit to find him backed up against a tree trunk with climbing vines creeping up its length. An odd, light brown creature with a crescent moon halo hovered in front of him curiously. The shape of its eyes and body gave it an insectoid appearance but it didn't move like an insect. Rather, it didn't move at all and from the angle of everyone other than Kai there was a very noticeable dark hole in its back.

"Holy crap! What is that?" Daichi exclaimed, holding his Pokédex out to it.

"Shedinja, the shed Pokémon. A discarded bug shell that came to life, appearing often unsought after Nincada's evolution. The inside of its body is hollow and dark. It fights and levitates despite not moving at all – it doesn't even twitch."

"Ah, wondered where it had gotten to," Ryan said.

Shedinja floated forward, closing a bit of distance and tilting forward to lock gazes with Togepi. Kai's fist flew out and socked it right in the face. The hit made a light, dull sound as if he'd merely bopped a cardboard box and Shedinja didn't shift. A shiver violently rippled through Kai's body and he pushed against the tree at his back like he was trying to uproot it. Thankfully, Ryan returned it before he could get anywhere close to succeeding.

"Take it Kai doesn't like the idea of Shedinja," Ryan guessed.

"Kai's just afraid of bugs across the board," Hilary corrected.

"I'm not scared of bugs," Kai insisted, although his voice was a little shaky. "It snuck up on me."

"If you have that then you must have had a Nincada," Max supposed. "What did it evolve into? Did it evolve into Scizor?"

Ryan and Mari snorted as they tried to hold back a laugh. Wally's attempt to not laugh ended in a long bout of hacking coughs. Realising that he'd just said something really dumb, Max blushed vibrantly. Mari couldn't hold it in.

"Scizor?!" she guffawed.

"No, Nincada doesn't evolve into Scizor," Ryan told him patiently. "Didn't even have the Nincada this Shedinja came from. Got it from another one of my old workplaces. It was abandoned quite deliberately." A troubled look came over his face as he revealed that. "Old trainer got spooked when it appeared and tried to release it into the wild but it still had all of Nincada's old feelings and wouldn't leave. Police had to catch it when it stalked the trainer into town and since they didn't want it the police gave it to us."

"Do all of your Pokémon have such sad stories?" Wally asked as Mari pushed his wheelchair. Everyone else followed their lead.

"Not all of them… though as I say that I suddenly realised that I've only ever had two Pokémon that I didn't adopt and one of them was a trade for a Pokémon I did adopt. Girl I traded with was really understanding when I explained the Pokémon's history and still accepted her, which is good. Rehoming abandoned Pokémon is great but wish they wouldn't get abandoned in the first place."

"Maybe things will change soon," Mari said hopefully. "Noticed that the latest update for the Pokédex removed the more negative myths about some Pokémon from the shorthand recall, so they're only available from the full database online."

"Huge step forward," Ryan grinned, very pleased with the news.

"Uh, why does the Pokédex have myths?" Tyson asked demandingly, taking his out and waving it in front of the experienced trainers. "Isn't this supposed to be informative?"

"Myths are informative," Wally argued. "Culturally informative. But some of them leave pretty bad impressions."

"Remember the talkback on Togepi's entry was pretty much all myth and proverb," Mari reminded them. "But cute myth and proverb."

"Shedinja's shorthand entry used to include a myth that if you looked into the crack in its back it would steal your soul," Ryan said.

"Ack! But we saw its back!" Hilary gasped. She patted herself. "So now my soul's gone?"

"No, Hilary, it's a myth," Tyson retorted obnoxiously. "That means it isn't real."

"Sh-shut up!"

Ryan looked at Mari quizzically. She just smiled and shrugged.

Everyone escorted Wally to the nurses' station on his floor and from there Ryan insisted that he could get back to his ward on his own. After that the rest of them were hurried out of the building by another warning announcement insisting that they had to leave immediately. On the way out Mari got them to explain how their morning training had gone.

"Core training, huh?" she hummed as they all stepped out of the hospital into the sunny afternoon. "Pretty basic but it's a good step. If you like core training, you'll love balloon bots. But before you tire your Pokémon out with heaps of training, should really check out Rusturf Tunnel. Still early in the afternoon so there's plenty of time left. Coming with as soon as I pick up my Pokémon from Wanda's place."

She ran off towards the residential area before anyone could ask her to provide more details. They all exchanged glances sceptically, except for Kai. Having already found the surprise waiting in the tunnel, his lips quirked into the barest of smirks. They had literally no idea what they were about to get into.

A/N: "This is the chapter that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friends. This author starting writing it not knowing what it was and now she'll keep on writing it forever just because" - this is how I feel about this chapter. I wanted it to be done 5 days ago but it refused to be done. It really went off the rails. I mean that in a kind of literal way because you may or may not know that I plan this story chapter-by-chapter so there are some defined 'rails' to go off of. And there's so much content crammed into it that I feel like it's a bit of a mess and needs some unpacking/explanation.

First of all, there were going to be quite a lot of characters introduced in the next chapter but when I thought about it a bit harder I realised that that might be very unfeasible if I wanted there to be any other content than character introductions. So I moved Wally and Violet into this chapter. Wally, that lovable rival from R/S/E + OR/AS and Violet is an OC from Laet-lyre. I thought "oh yeah, I'll just quickly introduce her in this chapter and then we'll know her name for next chapter" but it turned out to be harder than that because upon re-reading her profile I realised she's shy and probably won't talk to the main characters. So, getting Violet and everybody else to have a conversation and start being friends took way more words than I wanted it to take. But it's worth it and was the right decision because this would have been hell if it had been in the next chapter.

This chapter is also where I decided to sink my fangs a little deeper into my Pokemon science headcanons. Not only for trying to translate Super Training and PSS into something that makes some semblance of sense outside of game-logic (I changed it to TSS because I thought it would be a bit weird for people who are not playing video games to call each other 'players' but Tyson called it PSS because he's a dumbass) but also to make it look like the Pokemon World is a fully functional reality with social science (including illegal trade/black market), ecology and biology, physics, etc. that don't get portrayed in the limits of game-logic yet get neglected in the anime/manga. Like, in the games Pupitar eats. You can feed it Pokeblocks and poffins and whatever but I'm sitting here thinking: "this thing doesn't have a mouth". I'm also being more careful about how I portray the dex entries than I was in the first few chapters because a lot of that info is clearly BS or is just very difficult to work with in a reasonable way. Like, if Shedinja really did steal your soul/spirit if you looked into its back there would be a whole lotta people out there who don't have souls and as someone who has a rudimentary understanding of epidemiology that seemed a bit concerning to me. Why would anybody have this thing near them willingly if it did this? Some Pokedex entries make training Pokemon sound like a horrible idea. Granted, even with some of the adjustments I'm making, training some Pokemon still seems like a pretty terrible idea.

Anyway, I'm going to go work on the next chapter. It won't be up super soon because I'm doing an intensive subject over the next fortnight but with any luck it won't be five months away.