Thomas: Peren (Deerling), Blitz (Fletchinder), Scout (Pachirisu), Nin (Minnesotan Arbok), Shadow (Galarian Ponyta), Winter (Minnesotan Mightyena)

John: Lycanroc, Quagsire, Nidorino, Drilbur, Swinub


Thursday, May 3rd, 2018

"I thought you were in a hurry," John commented dryly.

"Huh? What gave you that idea?" I asked, looking up from the model train in the display case in front of me.

"You did when you demanded that we leave Duluth right away!" John said with a bit of exasperation that reminded me of Cait.

"Yeah, 'cause I'd been there like a week at that point. With all that extra time I looked up places that looked interesting to stop at, and now here we are," I explained, gesturing around the depot museum we were in.

John glanced around the room. "Alright, sure, but trains?"

"What's wrong with trains? I thought your whole thing was rocks. They need some way to move all of that ore."

John snorted and raised his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. Trains are cool. So what other fascinating activities do you have on the itinerary?"

I make a big show of pulling out my Poryphone and looking for the notes I'd made for the trip up the North Shore. "Let's see here… we're in Two Harbors so we've got a manufacturing museum, a couple parks that looked cool, and Superior itself. Oh, and a brewery."

John had looked increasingly distraught as I listed things off until I reached the last item and his eyes lit up. When he saw my sudden grin, he laughed again. "Alright, alright, I think that's enough payback for being late. So what are we actually doing to kill time until we head to the brewery?"

I shrug, "Whatever you're up for really. Honestly, I thought the other museum looked cool too but we can skip it if you want. We might be able to find some battles at one of the parks if you want to go that route."

"Yeah, I guess we could go for that," John said but then hesitated. "Two Harbors is the biggest town before Grand Marais, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I could definitely use a trip to the store then. I'm not sure if I've got enough stuff for the full trip up there, especially if you've got a whole itinerary planned. I was planning on restocking back in Duluth, but somebody wanted to leave right away."

"Fair enough," I answered with a chuckle. "Meet you at the park later?"

"Yeah, I'll head over there when I'm done. You mind if I leave my Pokemon with you? I probably shouldn't take them shopping."

"Yeah, that's fine," I said, smiling as I considered the odd looks that I would get walking through town with eleven Pokemon following me around.

"Cool, see you there," John said, and gave a quick wave before heading out of the museum.

I returned the gesture and turned my attention back to reading the plaques that were scattered around the room. The historical information that was on them was largely similar to what I was familiar with, but at the same time, there were a decent number of notable differences. Like in my world, most of the ore that was mined in this version of Minnesota was shipped across Lake Superior. Adding wild Pokemon into the mix made the process much more complicated though. One of the most lucrative ways of making money as a trainer back then was to guard shipments from angered Pokemon. There were stories about trainers who had dealt with everything from Dugtrio destroying train tracks to a cargo ship being attacked by a pod of territorial Gyarados.

I stopped for a while after reading that last story, trying to put myself in their shoes. I'd already had a couple of encounters with overly aggressive Pokemon and it wasn't a situation that I was eager to repeat. Thankfully, most parts of the region with a decent amount of human activity were mostly devoid of aggressive Pokemon nowadays, so most trainers were spared the experience. In fact, it had gotten to the point where rangers in the modern world spend more of their time protecting Pokemon from humans rather than the reverse.

After spending another fifteen minutes or so in the small museum, I made my way back outside to thankfully find our Pokemon right where we had left them. Peren, Lycanroc, and, surprisingly, Winter had taken it upon themselves to keep the more distractible members of our teams from getting into mischief. Their job was made slightly easier given that Nin, Quagsire, and Swinub were all perfectly content lounging around. On the other hand, it only took me a glance to see that Blitz was being more of a pain than usual as he flew around the Pokemon on the ground as if to show the more responsible ones that there was nothing they could do to rein him in.

That being my cue, I raised my voice to be heard over the chattering Pokemon. "Hey everyone, we're going to head down to the bay!" I'd told John that I would bring everyone to a park, but on second thought I didn't relish the idea of wrangling everyone to get them through town. Agate Bay was much closer and would require a lot less work. Plus, I was pretty sure that there were some picnic tables by the bay which made it close enough to a park in my mind.

The trip down to the bay only took a few minutes, and at first, I was surprised to see that there was no one else there. That surprise only lasted the few seconds that it took for me to get battered by a blast of cold wind coming off Lake Superior. I briefly considered looking for a different spot, but since none of the Pokemon seemed phased by the gust I decided that I would just put up with the wind. "We're going to hang out here for a bit. As long as you don't break anything, you can all do whatever you want." There were cheers in reply and I sent John a text to let him know where we were as the Pokemon began to disperse.

Scout, Shadow, and Quagsire made their way to the shore with the latter jumping right into the cold lake while the other two moved around, checking out everything that caught their eye. Blitz loudly challenged Nidorino to a fight, which he eagerly accepted, only for Drillbur to step up next to his teammate. That seemed to cause some confusion among them until Blitz somehow convinced Peren to join him, and the four of them began battling. The rest of the Pokemon and I watched the four of them go at it. John's Pokemon didn't have much that they could use to attack Blitz, but he ended up having to spend most of the fight at close range so that Peren wouldn't be overwhelmed.

The battle was still ongoing a few minutes later when I heard John's voice behind me. "So who's winning?"

"Hard to say," I hedged without taking my eyes off the Pokemon. "I don't think any of them are trying their hardest. Nidorino and Drilbur are breaking off their attacks on Peren more than they should have to since Blitz really isn't that big of a threat to either of them. And Peren hasn't used Leech Seed, which he definitely would have if he was taking it seriously."

John hummed in agreement and we silently watched for a few seconds before he asked, "So what do you think those two are talking about?"

I didn't immediately know who he was referring to until I noticed Winter and Lycanroc sitting on their haunches next to each other. The two canine Pokemon were watching the battle but were frequently looking away from it to say something to the other. "No clue," I said with a shrug, unable to think of much that the two would have to discuss.

When John didn't put forth any theories, we silently watched the conclusion of the battle. Surprisingly, Blitz was the first to go down when Drilbur showed off Rock Slide, which he definitely hadn't known back at the Brawl. Peren returned the favor by hitting him with a flurry of Bullet Seeds followed by a much larger Seed Bomb. Unfortunately, Nidorino was a particularly poor matchup for him in a one-on-one fight, so he ended up yielding when even Camouflage didn't do much to protect him against the onslaught of attacks from the other Pokemon.

As soon as the battle was done, John and I walked down the small hill to the Pokemon to make sure that none of them needed any healing. As I'd thought, they'd all been pulling their punches so an immediate trip to the Pokemon Center wasn't necessary. We were in the process of finishing that up when I got an excited mental ping from Shadow. Realizing that I hadn't seen her or Scout for a while, I looked up and eventually spotted them standing next to a large pile of rocks.

"What did you guys find?" I called over to the pair, ignoring the bewildered look that John gave me. Shadow responded by sending me a mental image of what looked like a perfectly average rock. I would have somewhat understood the reaction if it had been an agate or something else impressive, but the image didn't look any different from any of the other rocks that lined the shore. Slightly confused, I called, "Why don't you bring it over here?" John was still giving me a weird look so I shrugged. "They found a rock."

My yell had attracted the rest of our Pokemon's attention so everyone silently watched as Scout and Shadow walked back to the group. Scout was holding the rock in her front paws and even from the distance I could tell that it was a bit larger than I'd thought. Other than its unexpected size, I still couldn't see anything special about it when they stopped in front of me and Scout proudly held it up for me.

"It's very nice," I told her as I bent down to take the rock. I flipped it over, looking at it all over but was at a loss for why they had thought it was so interesting. I was still trying to think of a way to diplomatically ask them that when I heard a loud grunt from one of the other Pokemon. I looked up and found that Nidorino was stomping forward with an excited gleam in his eyes.

"Wait, let me see that," John said and practically snatched the rock out of my hands when I held it out to him. He squinted at it for a few seconds before grinning. "I'm pretty sure it's a Moon Stone!" Nidorino barked out eagerly with what sounded like agreement. Matching his Pokemon's mood, John turned back to me and asked, "Can we have it? I'll buy it off you if you want."

I looked down to check with my Pokemon before answering. Scout took a second to consider before she nodded, while Shadow immediately echoed her agreement with an image of a checkmark. I gave John a smile and said, "Looks like it's all yours. Nidorino did win that battle so to the victor goes the spoils and all that."

John gave me an appreciative nod, then looked down at the two Pokemon that had found the evolution stone. "Thank you two. I'd been planning on finding a Moon Stone while we were up north, but this is way better than I could have hoped." Scout cheered at the thanks and while Shadow maintained her impassive gaze, I could tell that she appreciated it as well. Turning to Nidorino, John asked, "Ready?" When the Pokemon quickly nodded, John leaned down and touched the stone against Nidorino's head, right above his horn.

All of the evolutions that I'd seen had involved fairly minor physiological changes other than simply growing larger. While Nidorino definitely got bigger, there were a lot more changes to keep track of as he began to glow bright white at contact with the Moon Stone. The most obvious change was the large tail that erupted from his behind, which gave him the balance necessary to stand up on his back two legs. At the same time, his nubby front legs extended to become powerful long arms. His ears grew slightly and all of the spines on his back became sharp spikes.

A fully evolved Nidoking stood in front of us when the light faded. His growth spurt had brought him from just a couple of feet tall to the point where he was almost as tall as John and me, and I was pretty sure that he would be taller if he wasn't slouching. All of us were at a loss for words at the transformation and just stared at him for a few seconds in wonder. Nidoking seemed equally transfixed, examining his arms as he held them out in front of him.

John was the first to find his voice. "Congratulations buddy!" Clearly pleased, Nidoking gave his trainer a frankly scary smile and lightly stomped one of his feet into the ground. Or at least, it would have been light if he'd still been a Nidorino. As a Nidoking, it made the ground shake slightly and a couple of nearby Pokemon cried out in alarm. John paused, making sure that everyone was alright before adding, "Maybe we should spend some time training today after all. Sheer Force is going to take some getting used to." Nidoking nodded, looking somewhat chagrined.

"Well, the shore is as good of a place as any for that. Not much to accidentally damage around here," I said with a smile. "I can stay with everyone else while you two work."

"Thanks, I think we're going to need some time," John said with a grateful nod. "Here, catch," he added, passing me the Moon Stone with an underhand toss.

I almost fumbled the unexpected catch but managed to snatch it out of the air. Surprisingly, the Moon Stone looked the exact same as it had before it'd been used for Nidoking's evolution. "Huh, I thought these got used up after evolution."

John shrugged. "Yeah, me too. Cait probably knows if you want to check with her." With that suggestion, John jerked his head toward the shore and Nidoking nodded. The pair started walking down to the lake with everyone else stepping back to give them plenty of room.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out by Lake Superior with everyone doing whatever activity they felt like, which mostly fell into the usual buckets of training, exploring, or relaxing. I ended up taking John's suggestion to text Cait to ask about the Moon Stone as well as give her updates about the things I'd neglected to tell her since we'd last seen each other. It turned out that, as it had with John, the lack of updates had been reciprocal as both Houndy and Poli had evolved. The only advice she had in terms of the Moon Stone was to find a store or museum near us to ask about it since she wasn't entirely sure how evolution stones worked either.


Monday, May 7th, 2018

Like the last few days, I woke up before John and left our shared secret base as quietly as I could to try not to wake him up. The base we were using made that a bit more difficult since there was a decent amount of echo in the cave. Thankfully, I was able to get outside without disturbing anyone, a task that was made a bit easier because of the muffling sounds of Pokemon softly snoring.

When I exited the secret base, I turned my eyes up toward the lighthouse that towered above us. We'd managed to find a spot suitable for a secret base only a few hundred feet down the shore from Split Rock Lighthouse. Like it was at home, the lighthouse was no longer in use and nowadays just served as a museum and centerpiece of a park. Unlike home, back when it had been in use it had been powered by electric Pokemon, primarily Raichu and Luxray.

We'd spent the previous day checking out Gooseberry Falls on the way up and then the lighthouse in the late afternoon. The former had been particularly fun because for some reason what was an extremely popular state park back home was relatively unknown here. That meant that I'd been able to show off one of my favorite places to John and all our Pokemon in relative peace.

I took a deep breath, enjoying the crisp morning air coming off of the lake and patiently waited for everyone else to get up. Pokemon slowly began to make their way out of the secret base to join me on the shore with John and Swinub being the last to emerge. Everyone seemed perfectly fine with the slow morning so it was a few more hours before breakfast had been finished and we were ready to go.

A nice change to our trip had happened the previous day when we'd reached the trailhead for a bike path which meant that we no longer needed to travel along the highway. All of the major roads that I'd come across in the region had been fairly bike-friendly, but biking through the woods was a much more enjoyable experience. We didn't have a real schedule that we were trying to keep to so it didn't even matter that it was a bit slower than biking by the road.

The one thing that was unfortunate was that none of John's Pokemon other than Lycanroc could move fast enough to keep up with the bikes, while all of mine other than Nin could experience the path along us. Part of the reason for our frequent stops was to give them some of the experience everyone else was getting. Even still, I was still a bit surprised when John suggested that we stop when we arrived in Bibarel Bay shortly after noon.

"There's a rock museum here," he said when I asked him. "There's a couple things that I wanted to get their opinion on and maybe you could ask about the Moon Stone."

It wasn't exactly a burning question so I'd been planning on waiting to ask Dianne about the Moon Stone after our gym battle. That said, I didn't have anything against the suggestion so I shrugged and let John lead the way there. When we arrived at the small museum, we left our Pokemon to watch our bikes and made our way inside, promising them that we wouldn't be long.

The fairly small store took full advantage of its floorspace, with the room being completely packed with display cases, jewelry, and small polished rocks that were for sale. Other than a Minnesotan Dwebble that was resting on the counter, there was no one to be seen inside. I figured that the owner would come back eventually and made my way over to check out a large quartz crystal in one of the cases. John was a bit less patient and walked right over to the counter to ring the bell sitting next to the Dwebble, earning him an annoyed look from the small Pokemon.

"I'll be out in just one minute!" A woman's voice came from behind a door labeled 'Employees Only.' I returned my attention to the display cases until I heard the door creak open, revealing an elderly woman with a kind smile. "Good afternoon, what can I do for you boys?"

"We had a couple questions that we were hoping you could help with," John answered. He looked over at me expectantly and seemed surprised to find that I was still on the other side of the store. He turned back to the woman with a weak smile. "Well, I guess it was mostly me."

"Of course, dearie. What do you want to know?"

"Well, the first thing is I was hoping to find an Aron and a Larvitar. I know they eat iron ore and dirt so I have some ideas on where to look, but was hoping you might have suggestions."

As I examined a massive block of mica, I saw the woman smile out of the corner of my eye before she answered. "You're far from the first to ask me about one of those Pokemon but only a few have asked about both. I wouldn't worry too much about finding an Aron. People get it in their heads that they're rare because there aren't many in other regions, but once you get deeper into the Iron Range you can barely go five feet without tripping over one. Finding a Larvitar is a bit trickier. They like to tunnel their way through big hills and there aren't too many of those around. Braviary Mountain would be your best bet."

I assumed that she was talking about what was Eagle Mountain in my world, which, if I remembered correctly, wasn't technically even a mountain despite being the highest point in the state. Nonetheless, John nodded eagerly at the suggestion. "Braviary Mountain. Got it." His enthusiasm flagged slightly and he sounded a bit embarrassed as he added, "What about fossils? Any suggestions on where to find those?"

The woman laughed heartily at that. "You do aim high! Finding a fossil isn't terribly hard, but you have to be lucky to find one that's capable of being revived. In fact, there's a Tirtouga fossil in the case right next to your friend." Surprised, I looked over at the block of sandstone next to me and immediately spotted what looked like a large turtle shell embedded in the rock. John nodded and eagerly moved over to examine it. With a warm smile, she turned to look at me and asked, "What about you dear? Anything I can help you with?"

I decided to leave John to his eager examination of the fossil and stepped toward the woman, pausing just long enough to retrieve the Moon Stone from my bag. "We used this Moon Stone a couple days ago and, well, it's still here. We both thought they got used up so we weren't sure what it meant."

The woman took the offered Moon Stone from me and spent the next few minutes humming to herself as she inspected it using several instruments that she pulled from behind the counter. John walked back over while she was working, his curiosity about the Moon Stone evidently trumping his interest in the fossils. Eventually, she looked up from her work and gave me an even more earnest smile than last time. "It looks like you got quite the find here. This Moon Stone is eighty-three percent depleted, a perfect candidate for turning into a Mega Stone someday."

John seemed as shocked as me by the news so I wasn't at all apprehensive about expressing my disbelief. "Seriously? I didn't think the two were related at all." However, as I said the words, I realized that it wasn't exactly a stretch that one evolution rock could turn into a different one.

Nonetheless, she hummed agreeably in response. "This is one of the lesser known ways of getting a Mega Stone since it's so luck dependent and takes time. You need to get an evolutionary stone that is just the right amount depleted and then have it successfully attune to one of your Pokemon. Since it was a Moon Stone, you'll have the easiest time getting a Mega Stone for a fairy Pokemon, but dark or psychic types aren't unheard of." She offered the rock back to me and when I took it, it almost felt like it was softly pulsing in my hand, though I was pretty sure that was my imagination.

John whistled appreciatively. "I guess that's one more thing that I should keep an eye out for out there. Having a Mega Stone ready to go for when we win our Key Stones will really give us a leg up on everyone else."

"Well, now you've given me something to watch out for! I'm looking forward to seeing you boys battle it out in the Grandstand. Now, was there anything else that you needed?"

Neither of us had any other questions, but we both stayed in the shop long enough to purchase something. I ended up buying a paperweight sized chunk of quartz, moreso as thanks for the information than an actual interest in the piece. John's purchase was a bit larger, getting a bracelet that was made up of smooth, polished rocks. It took more than a bit of willpower to resist teasing him by asking him who it was for.

After thanking the shopkeeper once again, we made our way back outside and within a few minutes were back on the trail north.


Friday, May 11h, 2018

I wasn't particularly surprised when John made a beeline for the gym the moment that we reached the end of the trail in Grand Marias. On our way north we'd stopped at Tettegouche, Temperance, Cascade, and just about every other park that we'd come across. He hadn't complained at any of the many stops, but I could tell that he was getting a little restless to earn his seventh badge so he would be free to start looking for everything we'd learned about in Bibarel Bay.

Luckily for him, the process of registering ourselves for the gym challenge only took a few minutes. The Grand Marias gym had the laxest gym challenge out of the twelve, with it consisting of just finding a nice agate to show Dianne. It was even on the honor system, with nothing stopping trainers from buying one or borrowing one that someone else had used for their own challenge.

"So do you want to head down to the beach then?" I asked John as we walked out of the gym.

I was expecting him to nod right away so I was a bit surprised when he hesitated before answering. "Actually, I think I'm going to go do my agate hunt on my own if that's cool. Maybe meet back here around noon for our matches?"

"Uh, sure. I guess that works."

"Awesome! See you then," John said before jumping back on his bike and started pedaling away with Lycanroc loping beside him. To make things even more confusing, he'd gone off biking north which was the only direction where there wasn't a beach.

I eventually shrugged, deciding that he'd found out about some lesser-known spot where you could still easily find the sought-after rocks. Even back home where people weren't incentivized by the gym challenge to find agates, it could take a decent amount of searching to find one on any of the rocky shores of Lake Superior. However, it didn't really matter to me how slim the pickings were since I was confident that Scout would be able to find one. Previously, Scout's Pickup finds had largely been limited to berries, but over the week and a half journey up the North Shore, she'd managed to find a variety of useful things, ranging from a half-full Potion bottle to a slightly damaged Silk Scarf. Nothing had topped the Moon Stone, but it seemed like she was extra motivated since that find.

With that in mind, I wasn't in a rush to start the hunt for the needed agate. Instead, I led my Pokemon to a cafe in the center of town to enjoy something other than trail food for the first time in more than a week. Once everyone had eaten their fill, I made a few errands around town, restocking my supplies for the next leg of my planned trip across northern Minnesota.

When everything else had been taken care of, I got back on my bike and made my way over to a long beach on the western edge of town. It wasn't far enough away for me to think that agates would be any more plentiful, but there was a campground nearby which would make for a good place to set up camp for the night.

Scout and Shadow were more than happy to do the work looking for the agate, so I left them to their own devices and instead enjoyed my time simply walking on the rocky beach with Peren and Winter at my side. Blitz had his usual fun chasing the local Wingull population while Nin floated on the surface of Lake Superior, riding up and down on the small waves. I'd been fairly surprised a few days prior when I found that he enjoyed swimming in the lake given his previous disdain for the cold and the fact that the water was far from warm.

By the time we reached the other side of the beach, Scout and Shadow had already found six beautiful agates and I had to convince them to leave some behind for other people.


A/N: Apologies to the city of Beaver Bay for renaming it.

Thanks to Star (quarknova on this site) for betaing. Next up is Chapter 35: Bouldering