Sunday, October 8th, 2017
Since I didn't know what time Al normally started work, the previous night I had opted to set an alarm so at exactly six-thirty my Poryphone started playing soft chirping noises. Back home I had never been one to use nature sounds for my alarm, but it felt right after a month of hiking through the wilderness. Despite my half-hearted attempts to recreate my mornings for the last month, I definitely didn't miss sleeping on the ground or waking up to the cold fall air.
The futon was so comfortable compared to what I was used to that I was tempted to ignore the alarm I'd set and go right back to sleep. The only thing that stopped me from doing so was that I wanted to make sure that I wasn't asleep when Al arrived given that I didn't want to give a bad impression on my first day. I slowly pulled myself to my feet with a groan and started pacing around the lab in an effort to fully wake up.
As I walked around the lab, I peered out the window and saw that while the sun hadn't fully risen yet, I could tell that it was going to be another beautiful day. The cold weather that had accompanied the pack's attack had disappeared midday yesterday so I'd spent the afternoon touring Aitkin with my Pokemon. Interestingly, Peren's coat had shifted back to its summer colorings so it had been easy to forget the terrors of the previous day as we had checked out our temporary home.
As Al had mentioned, there were several nice parks around town that we had taken our time to stroll through while meandering around the town. We had also stopped by the gym to see what the facility was like, which turned out to have a battlefield that was slightly smaller than the one in Aeric's gym along with plenty of additional space for training. There had also been a decently sized group of what looked like middle and high school aged kids, though I didn't stick around to talk to any of them. The other important place that I had investigated was the city's library, which I was pleased to see had a much more extensive collection than I'd expected.
Overall, it would be an understatement to say that I was pleased with what would be my living situation for the next month or so. Everything that I would need in town was easily walkable from the lab and I had plenty of space for training my Pokemon between the parks and gyms. I still had no intention of sticking around in this world long enough to become a famous trainer, but at the same time, I fully intended to make sure my Pokemon stayed healthy and in good shape. With the slight exception of Peren, all of them had chosen to leave their homes to come with me so to do anything else would be wildly irresponsible of me.
I ended up having plenty of time to review yesterday's events and get started on my newest book since there were almost two hours between the time when I'd woken up and when Al finally arrived at the lab. As soon as I heard his keys rattle in the front door, I snapped my book shut and stood up so I was awkwardly standing when he opened the door.
"Good morning," Al said with a wry smile as he gave my stiff posture a discerning look. "Ready for your first day?"
I took a second to force myself to relax before nodding, "Yeah, I'm ready. What are we doing today?"
"I'll explain on the way. I just stopped by to pick you up so we can head out right away."
I had to stop myself from apologizing for the fact that he'd had to come to get me, instead nodding again and following him outside to his parked truck. As I'd thought, it was another decently warm fall day so I was more than comfortable without having to wear my jacket. Once we'd both gotten situated in the truck, Al started driving west out of town before asking, "So how's staying in the lab so far?"
"It's good," I instantly replied and after a second added the thought that I'd already had several times that morning. "A lot more comfortable than sleeping on the ground."
Al chuckled and then finally started explaining what I'd signed myself up for, "So my research is primarily focused around Pokemon habitats and how Pokemon react to seasonal changes. It's still a bit too early for any changes other than their eating habits, but that means that it's a great opportunity to get some baseline measurements. The first of those is to census a number of the nearby lakes. Depending on the weather, it's possible that you could leave before turnover happens, which is when the bulk of my actual research takes place."
Al had mentioned the term when he'd picked me up on Friday and I hadn't thought to look into it since then. It was apparently critical to what we would be doing so I asked, "What's turnover?"
"When the water on the surface of a lake cools down, that water becomes denser than the rest of the lake and starts to sink. That means that the oxygen-rich water at the surface displaces the water that was at the bottom of the lake, bringing the whole system closer to equilibrium. That gives us a unique opportunity to get insights into the health of the lake as a whole and of the Pokemon that live in it."
All of this was new information to me so I did my best to absorb it, though one thing that he'd mentioned was nagging me. "You said that I might be gone by the time turnover actually happens. Will I actually be any use then?"
Al momentarily took his right hand off the steering wheel to wave away my concerns, "Don't worry about that. Without a good baseline, any information I gather during turnover isn't nearly as useful, so you'll be a big help regardless. Besides, turnover happens when the lake surface hits about fifty degrees and it would be one unusual fall if that doesn't happen until mid-November."
Sufficiently mollified, I checked to confirm, "So we're just doing censuses then today?"
"Yep, we're heading to a few lakes that I've already set up some traps in so we can start seeing what Pokemon live there. The cage traps are scattered around the lake at different depths so we can get a good idea of which and how many Pokemon are there."
I was a little surprised to learn that Pokemon would fall for simple cage traps, but upon reflection realized that I shouldn't have been. With a few exceptions, mostly my own team, the Pokemon that I had met in the wild had acted fairly similarly to animals back home. Sure, they were a lot stronger and seemingly more intelligent, but that didn't preclude you from baiting them with food.
While I had been considering that, Al had likewise stayed silent as he mulled over something. After about a minute of silence, he hesitantly spoke back up. "Now, I know you're a trainer and all, but I would appreciate it if you didn't catch any Pokemon from the lakes that we're surveying. I know it seems like it would be an incredibly minor change, but there's already so much uncertainty that I'd prefer not to introduce one more variable."
"That's fine," I quickly assured him and it was Al's turn to relax. As an afterthought, I added, "I'm out of Pokeballs anyway."
At Al's prompting, I ended up spending the rest of the car ride telling stories about my journey so far as a trainer. Ultimately that meant that I gave him detailed retellings of the two gym battles that I'd had so far. Almost everything else that was interesting had been caused by wild Pokemon attacking, which was a topic a bit too fresh to lightly discuss.
About twenty minutes after we left Aitkin, Al turned off of the highway and into a regional park. Once he'd parked the truck in the most-empty parking lot, he resumed his previous explanation while we walked to the first lake, "There's a large chain of lakes in this park, though not all of them are connected. In fact, there's a good range for us here since there's some small ones, some big ones, and a few that eventually flow into the Mississippi. The closest one is one of the big ones so we'll head there first."
As promised, our destination was barely a hundred yards from the parking lot. All things considered, it didn't really look any different from every other lake that I'd walked past since leaving Brainerd, which I supposed was the point. The one notable difference was that there were bright orange buoys scattered across the surface of the lake.
While I'd paused to take in the sights, Al continued to the lake's shore and used one of his Pokeballs to send out what looked like an extremely large blue and green slug. He turned back to face me with a large smile, though after a moment it was replaced with a small frown as he turned back to look at his Gastrodon. There was another couple seconds pause before he scratched the back of his head and announced, "Huh, guess I didn't think this one through. There's not room for both of us on Grond's back so we'll have to take turns. Tell ya what, I'll take the first one to show you how it's done, and then you can go."
"Sounds good," I said as I jogged down to stand next to him on the shore and inspect the Pokemon that would be our ride. Grond was a bit smaller than I'd imagined Gastrodon being, but to be fair, I'd never looked too closely at Pokedex entries back home. The other unexpected thing was that Grond's skin wasn't slimy like I would have thought, though that wasn't an unwelcome surprise.
"I'll check with some of my colleagues and see if I can't get you a loaner Pokemon for the next month," Al said as he climbed onto Grond's back. Once he'd gotten situated and taken a few seconds to affectionately rub the top of his Pokemon's head, the two of them slowly started swimming over towards a buoy that was fairly close to shore. It turned out that there was one thing that did meet my expectations about the Gastrodon species, which was they weren't particularly fast. Even though Al and Grond had a straight shot across the water, I was easily able to keep pace from the shore and was ready to observe when they reached the first buoy which was only a few yards from the shore.
Al slowly started to pull up the rope that was attached to the buoy with Grond helping by holding it in his mouth. It didn't take Al long to pull a large cage up to the surface, revealing the three Pokemon that were inside. He took several seconds to examine the Goldeen, Poliwag, and Slowpoke in the trap before entering some notes into a tablet that I hoped was waterproof. Once that was done Al flipped a lever on the side of the cage, allowing the three Pokemon to swim out the side when it lifted up.
"And that's all there is to it!" Al called out to me as he relatched the cage's side and let it sink back into the lake. "You ready to give it a shot now?"
"Sure!" I called back. It didn't look like it was going to be the most exciting work in the world, but if nothing else it would be cool to get up-close looks at a bunch of different Pokemon.
A minute later, Al and Grond were back at the shore and Al handed me the tablet that he'd been using. "When you pull up a trap, find the section that matches the number on the marker. Then jot down all of the Pokemon that were inside along with your best guess of their sizes. It doesn't have to be exact so don't worry if you're off by an inch or two."
"Got it," I said absently and scrolled through the contents that were on the screen. It was a large form split up into sections with each having room for six Pokemon along with a field for their size and any other notes. "Looks straightforward enough, but uh, what's with the name?" The only odd thing about the form was that the header at the top listed the lake that we were censusing as 'The Long Weird One Lake.'
"Don't worry about that," Al said with a chuckle, "Not all of the lakes that I use in my research have official names so I like to come up with my own memorable names. Let me know if you come up with a good one though; I'm definitely open to suggestions."
I returned his smile, "Will do. Anything else?"
"Nope! Let's get you up on Grond and we can see how you do!" With that, he lightly pushed me on my back to guide me to the large slug that was still floating at the edge of the lake. "Now, just pull yourself onto his back and he'll take care of the rest. Grond, how about you two head over to marker fifteen?"
Once Grond had stopped nodding, I slowly climbed onto his back, doing my best to ignore the unnerving sensation of how his squishy skin pushed in when I touched it. Thankfully, the section on his back where Al had sat was much firmer than the rest of the Pokemon's body so it didn't feel nearly as weird to touch. Grond craned his head back to watch me climb on and once he determined that I was situated, turned back to face front and started swimming out onto the lake.
I immediately discovered that a Gastrodon's skin was far from the most disconcerting thing about riding on one. That honor went to the weird undulating that I could feel beneath me as Grond swam farther into the lake. Our growing distance from the shore also made me realize that at no point did Al offer me a life jacket or even ask if I could swim. I was a fairly decent swimmer so it wasn't actually much of a concern, but it did strike me as odd unless he had full faith in his Pokemon to save me in the event that I did fall off.
We arrived at our destination within a couple of minutes and I was more than happy to get to work rather than continuing to focus on the odd feeling beneath me. I hadn't even spent five minutes on Grond's back and was already looking forward to switching to whatever loaner Pokemon Al managed to find for me. Putting that aside, I carefully set the tablet on Grond's back and slowly started to pull on the rope that was attached to the number fifteen buoy.
Pulling up the cage was a lot harder than Al made it look, but I was eventually able to pull it to the surface with Grond's help. I couldn't even put too much blame for my difficulties on the Pokemon that were inside the cage when it was revealed to contain Wimpod, Magikarp, Finneon, and another Slowpoke, which I estimated had a total weight similar to the ones that Al had pulled up. There was only a small pile of food at the bottom of the cage which served only to further taunt my complete lack of arm strength.
My musings were suddenly broken when a jet of water shot out of the Finneon's mouth and blasted me right in the face. The surprise made me lose my grip on the rope, but thankfully Grond was still holding a section of it in his mouth so the cage only dipped a few inches back into the water.
"Oh yeah! You'll want to watch out for that!" Al called helpfully from the shore.
"Thanks for the heads-up!" I blithely replied while wiping the water off of my face. I remembered with sudden panic that Al's tablet was right next to me on Grond's back but a quick look confirmed that nothing seemed wrong with it. I did realize that I didn't know if my Poryphone was likewise waterproof and I made a mental note to leave it on the shore until I'd found out one way or the other.
Once I finally started entering data, the task went smoothly and within a few minutes, all four Pokemon were swimming out of the cage. Grond and I dropped the reclosed cage back into the water and began the slow swim back to the shore where Al waited with a wide smile.
"So what'd you think? Easy right?" Al asked when we'd gotten close enough and I replied with a shrug and a short verbal agreement, which only made his grin grow wider. "Well alright then! We just need to do this for the next six hours and we'll be done for the day!"
The two of us spent the next hour alternating turns taking Grond out to investigate the contents of the traps scattered around the aptly named Long Weird Lake. The lake curved at several points and changed its depth and width almost on a dime, which meant that the range of Pokemon that we saw was surprisingly varied. Eventually, Al finished checking the last trap that was on the list but instead of riding Grond all the way back, he stopped his Pokemon ten feet from the shoreline.
"Good news!" He called over to me as I waited near the water. "It looks like there aren't any ground types in this lake which means we get to take the easy approach!"
"Wait, what was the last hour then?" I called back.
"To get an accurate count of the lake's population, we would need to come back a couple more times. Since there's no ground types, we get to do this instead!" As he spoke, Al grabbed another Pokeball from his satchel. He hesitated before pressing the button to add, "Oh, you should probably step away from the water to be on the safe side."
Once I'd dutifully done so, Al finally sent out his second Pokemon which turned out to be a blobby-looking blue fish with several yellow spots. Almost immediately after it appeared, the Lanturn dove beneath. Nothing happened for a good ten seconds and then some bubbles started to break the surface of the lake, followed shortly by a stunned Magikarp and then a Goldeen a moment later.
"This'll take a bit so you might as well relax!" Al called over to me as Grond slowly started to swim after the trail of electrified water-type Pokemon breaking the surface of the lake. I watched for a few more seconds as Al dutifully noted down the Pokemon as they appeared, holding back my urge to ask Al if the Pokemon would be alright. If he was concerned enough about the validity of data that he didn't want me to catch anything, then I highly doubted that he would be willing to risk killing off the entire population of a lake.
With nothing else to do, I took a seat on the grass and then sent out my Pokemon so they could also enjoy the beautiful fall day. After all of his hard work against the pack, I decided while touring Aitkin that Ekans more than deserved a nickname, but for most of the day I'd been unable to come up with one that was any good. Eventually, I had settled on Nin, short for ninja based on his fighting style and general looks, and had been mildly surprised when he had agreed to the name without hesitation.
Nin seemed particularly happy as my four Pokemon sprawled out on the grass next to me to enjoy some time relaxing in the sun. Even Blitz seemed glad for the chance to simply relax outside after being cooped up in his ball, though I did have to pointedly tell him that he wasn't allowed to eat any of the Pokemon floating on the lake when I caught him staring at one of the Magikarp.
After about twenty minutes, Al and his two Pokemon swam back into sight and they were joined by a Clauncher, which was a species I hadn't seen in any of the traps. The third water Pokemon turned out to also be Al's since he gave the pair some extra directions from atop Grond. "Yep, looks like we got them all. Now you two go around and patch everyone up!"
The two Pokemon promptly nodded and turned their attention to the mess of Pokemon scattered on the lake's surface. Clauncher began firing rings of pure white energy out of its larger claw which made the Pokemon that it touched stir and then dive back underwater. At the same time, Lanturn swam around on the surface of the lake as it swung its lantern back and forth, which somehow made the sound of a bell chiming.
"You ready to get back to it?" Al asked as Grond swam back to where I was waiting with my Pokemon. "We can get started on the next lake while those two clean up here."
"Sounds good," I said with a smile which Al returned. He returned Grond once he was back on land and we made our way over to the next lake where the process was started all over again.
Wednesday, October 11th, 2017
After a bit more than an hour of walking, Cait arrived at the Coon Rapids Dam and decided that she had no idea how both of her rivals put up with hiking everywhere. Granted, she didn't know what John's situation was and from what she knew about Thomas's, he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Feelings of guilt started bubbling to the surface but Cait quickly stamped them down.
She couldn't waste any time feeling bad. Today she had a mission.
The only upside to her hike was that the weather was fairly nice as it was in the mid-fifties, but that didn't stop her from dreading the return journey when she hadn't even reached her destination yet. Not for the first time, she wished that the newspaper article that had prompted her to set out had come either a few days earlier or later. If it had been over the weekend then she would have been able to borrow her dad's car, but since it was a Wednesday morning there weren't any other good options.
The article in question had been a report stating that there was a group of Machop and Machoke that were felling trees not far from the old Coon Rapids Dam. Rangers were working to push the group northwest so that the Pokemon wouldn't risk dropping trees into the river, which could cause all sorts of problems downstream. Within three minutes of reading the article, Cait had been fully dressed and rushed out the door hoping to catch a straggler.
Despite her excitement, Cait's initially fast speed had slowly lessened over the course of the hour to the point where calling her pace a brisk walk would have been a bit of an over-exaggeration. She eagerly drank from the first water fountain that she found in the park, still peeved that she had forgotten to grab her water bottle before leaving. After taking a large gulp, she filled up the bowl that was on the ground next to the fountain and watched with a smile as Houndy lapped up the water with equal gusto.
A few minutes later, they both had their fill and resumed their hike by crossing the dam and then turning to head north towards where the newspaper said the problematic Pokemon had been. As they walked, Cait decided that it was time to lock in what her plans would be for the next month.
She knew that she wanted to be in the amateur league by the time that the Blizzard Brawl started, which meant that she had just under five weeks to earn two more badges. It had taken less than three weeks for her to earn her first two, so she wasn't concerned about the timing constraint. Rather, she wanted to make sure that she earned them in the optimal order.
Assuming that she caught a Machop today, then Duluth would by far make the most sense for her promotion match. Joined by the fighting Pokemon, Houndy, Poli, and Keter shouldn't have any issues taking down the steel-typed gym. That meant that she just had to decide which gym to challenge for her third badge. After eliminating several of the gyms as possibilities due to their location, type, or challenge, the remaining options were St Cloud, St Paul, and Minneapolis.
Even though she didn't have much of a type advantage against the St Cloud gym, Cait had initially wanted to get it out of the way early on. She'd frequently heard that Aeric liked to come up with the weirdest formats for his battles that the league rules would allow which wasn't something she was interested in. Cait had initially thought that she wouldn't have to worry about that if she challenged him early since she figured that there wouldn't be much he could change up versus a novice rank trainer. John's story of his and Thomas's challenge had disproven that theory so any urgency in challenging St Cloud had gone down significantly.
Other than their typing, the St Paul and Minneapolis gyms were basically identical since the two gyms shared the same challenge, despite its ridiculousness. Getting one of the twin gyms out of the way would be ideal so that she wouldn't get stuck waiting at both of them in a row. With type being the only factor, the Minneapolis gym would be the better choice since Flit and her soon-to-be Machop should be able to steamroll it.
Cait lightly shook her head knowing that she was getting ahead of herself again. While all of those plans sounded good, they were dependent on actually catching a Machop, which wasn't a sure thing. Sure, any other fighting type would slot into her plans just as well as a Machop, but she couldn't think of any other that would fit the concept that she had in mind for her team. With that reminder refocusing her, Cait picked her pace back up as she headed closer to where the Machop and Machoke had been reported to be.
It didn't take too much longer before the thick forest that she had been walking through began to thin, not because it was ending, but because an increasing number of trees had been cut down. From the look of it, all of the downed trees were recent and it was clearly because of the group that she was hunting. A number of the trees had cleaner cuts, meaning that they had been chopped down by a Machoke, but the vast majority were splintered rather than cut through, which was clearly the work of Machop.
With her target hopefully close and Houndy being such a bad matchup for the upcoming battle, Cait reached into her bag and grabbed the Pokeball that contained her most recent capture. A moment later a yellow fish-looking Pokemon appeared in the air in front of her. Even though it didn't sound like there were any Machop nearby, Cait still spoke softly as she addressed her Pokemon, "Alright Keter, when I tell you, I want you to use Charge Beam."
The Tynamo bounced up and down eagerly so Cait flashed him a quick smile and continued forward with her two Pokemon following close behind. Charge Beam was really the only move that Keter could use due to his species' unfortunately limited movepool before they evolved. Half of his moves were immediately eliminated since she had no intention of allowing the fragile Pokemon to get into melee range with a Machop. There was also a decent chance that a Machop would have Guts, which meant that Thunder Wave shouldn't be used except to secure a catch. That said, Cait didn't have any issues with the limitation. If you had to be stuck using one move repeatedly, then it might as well be one that got stronger with each use.
It was only a few minutes after she sent out Keter when Cait started to hear rhythmic thumping noises up ahead. She paused to turn back to face her Pokemon with one finger over her lips before pressing onward towards the noise. Cait wasn't used to moving quietly through the woods, so she quickly broke her own request for silence when she stepped on a branch hidden under a small pile of leaves. As they pressed forward, Cait winced every time that she or Houndy made unnecessary noise and was just glad that Keter was able to stay fully silent because of his ability.
Despite their lack of stealth, the thumping noise from up ahead continued unabated and they quickly reached their destination, which turned out to host two Machop, each chopping at their own tree. Somehow Cait had neglected to plan what she would do if she found more than a single Machop, which in retrospect was ridiculous given that she knew that there was an entire group here. After a terse moment of thought, she decided that having Poli put one of the two to sleep would be the best plan and started to reach into her bag to retrieve the tadpole Pokemon's ball.
Unfortunately, Keter thought that moving her hand down was the signal to attack. A thin beam of electricity shot out of his mouth and struck one of the Machop in the back as it pulled its arm back to take another swing at its tree. The Pokemon halted and spun around to bellow a challenge at whoever attacked it. The other Machop likewise stopped attacking its own tree and the pair deliberately started walking towards Cait and her Pokemon.
Swearing under her breath, Cait fumbled for Poli's Pokeball and sent out her Pokemon as soon as she found the right ball. Before Poli could get her bearings after being sent out, Cait quickly said, "Icy Wind to slow them down. Keter, keep using Charge Beam!"
Poli took a deep breath to inflate herself and then let all of the air out to create a strong gust of wind that buffeted both Machop. At the same time, Keter fired off another Charge Beam that was marginally wider than the previous, hitting the same Machop directly in the chest. The cold wind made the two Machop slow down slightly but they continued their advance with a dangerous glint in their eyes.
Poli and Keter hesitated for a moment at the seeming ineffectiveness of their attacks before redoubling their efforts and attacking again. Now that the Machop were closer, Poli had to angle her attacks upward which meant that Icy Wind continued up into the trees after hitting her targets. The wind caught the branches of one of the trees that had been under attack seconds before, which was enough to cause the tree to fall to the ground with a loud crash.
Seemingly emboldened by their handiwork being completed, the Machop put on an extra burst of speed and finished closing the distance before Cait or her Pokemon could react. The Machop that Keter had been attacking hit the electric fish with a punch while the other one wound back and kicked at Poli. Both Pokemon were knocked backward from the blows and Houndy whined sympathetically at Cait's side, but she held back her starter. Using Ember was too dangerous in the middle of a forest, and if Houndy was hit by a Machop it would be even worse for him than for the other two.
"Hypnosis!" Cait ordered, reverting back to her original plan as her Pokemon recovered and fired off another pair of attacks. The slowdown of Icy Wind clearly wasn't doing enough and she hoped that a status condition would do the job. The upside of sleep over paralysis was that even if one of the Machop had Guts, it wouldn't help them unless they somehow also knew Sleep Talk.
Poli's eyes began to glow slightly and Cait had to remind herself not to watch, instead turning her attention to how the Machop were affected. One of the two was instantly entranced and stopped in its place, but it was roused when a Charge Beam the size of a quarter hit it in the chest.
"Again Poli. Switch targets Keter," Cait quickly said, though she wasn't thrilled by the idea of calling off attacks on a Pokemon that had already been hit five times. However, with how quickly the Machop had fallen asleep, she guessed that it had No Guard and her suspicion was confirmed when it immediately went back to sleep. As instructed, Keter switched to attacking the Machop that was in front of Poli and the Pokemon flinched slightly as the beam of electricity struck it.
Despite the hit, the Machop pressed forward and once again kicked at Poli who was still busy using Hypnosis. Cait winced and made a note to work on Poli's awareness during the attack as the water type was once again knocked backward. Instead of quickly bouncing back like last time, Poli sailed through the air before colliding with a tree and landing unmoving on the ground.
The only move that Cait could think of that a Machop could use that would knock out Poli with only two hits was Revenge. That particular move choice meant that not being hit at all suddenly became much more important than unintentionally powering it up. After ordering the Thunder Wave attack that she'd been putting off, Keter's body started to oscillate as he floated in the air and a moment later several lines of electricity shot out of him that matched the wave pattern that he'd formed.
Machop stiffened slightly when the electricity washed over it but started making its way to Keter, loudly snapping a branch that was underfoot. Keter fired off one more Charge Beam at the fighting type, making it wince but still taking the final step to reach him. Cait once again hurriedly searched through her bag, this time finding an empty Pokeball and immediately tossing it.
Machop was winding back for another short-ranged punch on Keter when it locked up because of the paralysis and a second later a Pokeball hit it in the head. Cait didn't watch the Pokeball shake on the ground, instead returning Poli and quickly telling Keter to back up just in case the capture failed. The extra caution turned out to be unnecessary since there was a familiar ding of a Pokemon being captured.
Cait breathed a sigh of relief before darting forward to retrieve the ball off of the ground. She gave the asleep Machop a wary look, but thankfully the other Pokemon didn't wake up for a second time when its companion was captured. After checking to make sure that Keter didn't need to be returned, Cait turned around and booked it back south before any rangers showed up. Given that they were looking for Machop and Machoke, there was no doubt in her mind that a falling tree would attract their attention.
She technically hadn't broken any laws, but she was sure that if any rangers did find her, she would get a stern talking to about interfering with an official mission. Cait had absolutely no interest in sticking around for that, and as far as she was concerned, she had done them a favor by capturing one of the Pokemon they were looking for and immobilizing another.
All in all, Cait decided that it had been a very good day, though her positive feelings only lasted the ten seconds that it took her to remember that she had more than an hour walk home to look forward to. With a groan, she slowly walked back towards the Dam with her Pokemon frolicking behind her.
A/N: Wanted to thank my good friend Dosidicus for his suggestions on what to do with the research assistant mini-arc that I stumbled into. I won't be going into too much detail about the actual research topics, but the help was invaluable nonetheless.
Also, thank you to Star for betaing. Next up is Chapter 14: The New Normal.
