Chapter 13 – Hidden Reasons
Sassy vs. Naughty, Round 2: Food Fuss
Sleeping on a problem helps in finding solutions that were hard to see the day before. When your brain eases into idle mode, it internalizes information – especially anything important – and 'digests' it, freeing up 'storage space' for new ideas. Sometimes these ideas come in the form of dreams, but not always. Sometimes it's just the result of a mental vacuum wanting to be filled.
Though she didn't know it, Amber experienced this particular quirk of biology the morning after her argument with Ex. A good idea had come to her soon after she woke up – an idea for getting even with Ex – and she had no clue where the idea had come from.
Her dream had been about something else entirely – a dark tunnel, a light that got brighter as she floated towards it, a purple pokémon...
The dream reminded her why she'd become a Trainer in the first place. It reminded her why she hadn't asked Officer Jenny to take her home, why she'd chosen a Trainer name that wasn't her real name, and why she'd asked Professor Oak to keep what she's doing a secret.
Because if her father caught wind of her, her journey would end. That would bring her to one of the things she was looking for, but if it happened that way, she'd probably never find the other thing.
It was that simple.
So she'd chosen the anonymous option, which was "unusual for young girls to do" according to Professor Oak. She kept her old name "Amber" a secret from everyone except him and Ex. She kept her new name "Ambertwo" a secret from everyone.
Now all Ambertwo had to do was figure out where to start looking... and try not to lose her sanity along the way. Stupid Ex.
But again, her dream wasn't related to the idea she'd just had in any way, and again, that part confused her. Eventually, she just decided her idea had come from her annoyance at Ex and her desire to get back at him.
Amber glanced at her traveling companion.
The boy was hunched over, his eyes on his Pokédex.
Well, now was as good a time as any.
After fixing four plucked Pidgey over the firepit for breakfast (she was following a 'Rotisserie' Recipe), and with only a moment to gather her thoughts and her courage, she spoke.
"Ex."
The boy heard her, she knew, but the Pokédex continued captivating his view. Again.
"Yeah?" he asked, not looking up.
Amber tried to hide her ire. "I thought about what you said yesterday," she began, "and I realized something important."
"Oh?" he asked. "What did you realize?"
He didn't sound interested.
"Most Trainers eat rations, not actual meals."
"You said something about that yesterday," Ex said distractedly. "So that's how most Trainers feed themselves?"
"Yes."
How does he NOT know something so BASIC?
"And I realized," she continued, "that I shouldn't be cooking these meals for free."
That got his attention.
"What?" he asked, eyes shooting up.
Here comes the hard part, she thought.
"You were right about one thing," she kept her voice steady. "I need your help to catch Pidgey and get Berries. But that's something your pokémon are doing for you, not something you do. When it comes to cooking, I'm the one doing all the work. This-" she gestured with her hand "-isn't easy. If I were a chef, I would be getting paid for it."
Ex didn't say anything when she paused to let that sink in, but she could tell he wasn't having any trouble understanding her so far.
She rotated the Pidgey, then continued. "It's not fair that you get paid for what you're good at, but I don't get paid for what I'm good at. Professor Oak pays you for your ideas, but nobody pays me for my food. I wouldn't mind if it was just for me, but since you're here too..." she trailed off significantly.
There was silence for some uncounted seconds – the sound of Ex processing her words.
"...Since I'm here too, you're providing a service and you want to be compensated," he finished her sentence, using bigger words than she would have.
She nodded.
"How much?"
It was a simple question, spoken quickly and easily.
"Huh?" Amber asked.
In a clear – almost mechanical – voice, Ex asked, "How much do you think you should be paid for each meal?"
"Um..." she said.
I don't know, she thought. She'd been expecting a big, long argument like yesterday, with shouting and stubbornness and Ex being an idiot, so she hadn't thought this far ahead. She hadn't been expecting him to agree this easily, and now she was facing a question she hadn't prepared for.
How much did she think she should be paid for each meal? Should it be cheap? Should it be expensive? Well, Ex would be able to afford expensive meals now... But how expensive?
"How much money do you have again?" she asked, trying to remember the number she'd seen yesterday.
But Ex shook his head. "It doesn't work like that," he said flatly.
"Work like what?"
"I'm not letting you price the meals based on how much I can afford. I'm also not giving you a percentage of my income," he said scornfully, "because that would be ridiculous, especially if I start making more money. I'm not paying you a food tax."
"Percentage of... what?" she asked, even more confused than before. "What tax?"
She was a ten-year-old girl, after all, and taxes were something that grown-ups did. Even if she was kind of a grown-up now, she'd never done taxes, and she didn't know anything about taxes. All she knew was that she wouldn't have to worry about them until she was old enough to drink and drive (i.e. 18). That's what her parents had told her.
Ex, either conscious of her confusion or ignorant of her ignorance and extremely lucky, put it in a way she could understand. "I'll pay you based on how much I like your meals and how big they are. I am not paying you based on how much money is in my bank account."
"Um..." Amber frowned. That sort of made sense. Most store owners didn't know how much money a customer had when they put a price tag on something. But... "Shouldn't I be paid for how hard it was to cook the meal, not how much you liked it?"
"No," Ex shook his head. "That's also not how it works."
"How what works?" Amber sighed, exasperated.
"The economy," Ex answered.
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
Ex sighed heavily. "It means that we live in a world that values output, not effort. Professor Oak doesn't pay me based on how much work I put into my discoveries. He's paying me based on how much he thinks my discoveries are worth. Of all the things I said about Experience yesterday, the Flawless Victory Mechanic took the least amount of time to figure out and explain, but it ended up being the most valuable because nobody else had ever done it before. I'm getting paid for the value of the discoveries I make, not for effort per discovery."
He paused to take a breath, but continued before Amber could get a word in edgewise.
"There is such a thing as expenditures, but that doesn't apply here. It didn't cost me any money to make my discoveries because I already have a free Pokédex, and it didn't cost you any money to make your meals because I'm getting all the ingredients. We are in the unusual position of only worrying about the quality of the results. Which is why I'll be pricing your meals based on what I think they're worth, not how much effort you put into them or how much it cost to make them, since it doesn't cost anything, money-wise. Just like it didn't cost me any money to make my discoveries beyond my hard work and the hard work of my team."
Ex's eyes didn't return to his Pokédex when he finished talking. They stayed on her, seeing if she understood.
"That doesn't sound fair," she said after she had thought about it for a while. "If I get paid that way, how am I supposed to catch up to you?"
Ex shook his head. "It isn't meant to be fair on the level of equivalent outcomes. It's meant to be fair on an ethical and economical level. If you're worried about catching up to me, just get a Pickup Party of your own, like I suggested yesterday."
Ex had lost her at the word 'equivalent'.
"Um..."
Ex sighed. "Okay, I'll put it this way. If you were a customer at a restaurant, what would you pay more money for: a meal that took the chefs a bunch of effort and ended up tasting bad, or a meal that barely took any effort but tasted great?"
That question made Amber hesitate. She knew the right answer to the question the moment Ex asked it, but she also knew...
"That doesn't sound fair," she repeated. "People should get paid for how hard they work."
"Tough," Ex shrugged. "A restaurant doesn't get paid for effort, it gets paid for making delicious food. People don't get paid for effort, they get paid for results. That's how the world works- well, how it should work, anyway. "
Amber, still frowning, said, "But Mom said that hard work matters most, and Dad works hard all the time, and he has a good job."
Or he had a good job. Does he still have it? She didn't know. She hasn't seen him in a while.
"I didn't say effort is meaningless," Ex allowed. "If you're good at what you do, and people like what you do, more effort means more money. But when you're just starting out, it's better to work smarter, not harder, until you get to the point where people appreciate your work. Work hard at working smart until you know people like what you do. Then work harder."
He had lost her again. "Um... what?"
"Look," Ex sighed, "I'll pay for the backlog of meals, and I'll try to be as honest as I can with the pricing. But I'm not paying for five-star cooking here, and I think I should get a discount for providing all the raw materials. Does that sound fair?"
Amber thought about it now that she could understand him again. At last, she said, "I still think I should decide how much my meals are worth."
"And I still think I should decide how much my discoveries are worth," Ex said with another shrug. "In which case, they'd be worth a million pokédollars each, and I'd be a billionaire by the end of the year. But since Professor Oak decides how much my discoveries are worth, I think it's perfectly fair if I decide how much your meals are worth. I admit I'm biased, but you're just as biased. You have the same amount of incentive to cheat as I do, which is why it should really be a neutral third party deciding the prices. But since we don't have that, the fairest thing to do is what Professor Oak is doing."
Ex must have noticed that Amber was still doubtful, so he interrupted anything she might have said in response.
"Will you at least hear how much I'm going to offer before denying it outright?"
Amber paused, though mostly to take the Pidgey off the fire and set them aside to cool down.
"Fine," she said after she was done.
A minute later, Amber's eyes were wide, and a minute after that, when Amber allowed Ex to taste the Pidgey to 'judge' the price, her eyes were even wider.
"You think my meals are worth that much?"
Amber didn't know if he was being generous or genuine when he generated those prices. He claimed he was using a meal from a train as a "reference point", which must have been really expensive or really bad for him to say "three times the flavor, three times the price."*
Well, he only said that for the meal with Cheri in it, but the amount was still really high, and the amounts of the other meals were still sort-of high, and the total was sky high.
"Keep in mind," Ex cautioned. "That's the total for the entire backlog of meals, this one included, and I haven't taken off the discount I should be getting for fetching the ingredients. I'll let you decide how much that should be, since we're all about being 'fair' here."
It made sense... but Amber hesitated to agree.
If she was in charge of pricing, making future meals more expensive after suckering him in with low prices early on was maybe something she had possibly considered doing. So she could EASILY see Ex making future meals less expensive after suckering her in with a big early paycheck.
"You're not just going to pay me a lot less for the meals I make in the future, are you?"
"Only if the quality goes down," Ex shrugged. "But you should also keep in mind that I might switch to Trainer rations when we reach Viridian, so getting a Pickup Party yourself might still be a good idea."
Why was Ex so insistent on that?
"Now," he said, "what's my discount?"
She blinked. It was hard to keep up with Ex sometimes. He just barged ahead, not caring how fast he was going or how slow others were going.
And then he kept on going. "Keep in mind that restaurants-" then he paused, looked down at his Pokédex, typed something into it, then looked up again "-typically price their meals so the ingredients make up a third of the total. That means the equivalent discount would be 33% off."
Again, Amber had to take some time to think, and this time Ex didn't keep talking, thankfully. She wasn't the best at math, and she wasn't one of those girls that liked shopping, either, so she wasn't familiar with discounts or percentages, but she knew a third off was too high. That meant if her meal was worth three hundred pokédollars, Ex would only be paying two hundred.
Amber didn't even realize she was already agreeing to go by Ex's prices until she asked, "What percentage would it be if the ingredients were a fourth of the whole price?"
"Twenty-five percent discount."
Then Ex began extending a hand, which would seal the deal, but instead of extending it all the way, he brought it to his chin instead, looking thoughtful.
"What?" Amber asked.
"Nothing, it's just... sometimes there are problems when someone suddenly starts getting paid for something they liked to do anyway."
"Like what?"
"Have you ever heard of extrinsic motivation?" he asked in a tone which made it obvious he expected her to answer...
"No."
"Thought not," Ex sighed. "Well, if you ever have motivation or performance problems after this, let me know and I'll explain why it's happening."
"O...kay?" Amber said with a tilt of her head.
"Okay!" Ex said confidently, extending his hand again.
Before extending hers, Amber said, "I still think it's a little selfish you don't let me decide the price."
But she accepted the arrangement anyway.
"It's not selfish to want to keep what you earn," Ex said as they shook. "It's selfish to try and take something someone else has earned.** Like trying to take too much of the money that I earned."
And that was that.
Sassy pokémon, due to their decreased Speed, generally make for bad attackers. Still, when they do go on the offensive, Naughty pokémon must be careful that their own decreased Special Defense is not exploited. This is why Naughty-Natured pokémon prefer offense, and why Sassy pokémon prefer defense.
* "Three times the flavor, three times the price!" is a quote from SpongeBob – the greedy crab competition episode.
** This is based on a quote from the economist Thomas Sowell: "I have never understood why it is 'greed' to want to keep the money you've earned, but not greed to want to take somebody else's money."
Account of Pokémon Trainer Leaf: Deposits – Notes
1. ₽2,000 – Lunch (9 Rattata Stew, Cheri-Flavored)
2. ₽1,750 – Dinner (12 Rattata Stew, Chesto-Flavored)
3. ₽750 – Breakfast (6 Rattata Skillet, Rawst-Flavored)
4. ₽2,000 – Lunch (14 Rattata Stew, Aspear-Flavored)
5. ₽1,000 – Dinner (6 Rattata Skillet, Not-Flavored)
6. ₽1,000 – Breakfast (2 Rotisserie Pidgey, Pecha-Flavored)
Balance:
₽8,675***
*** The original total Ex quoted to Amber prior to the discount was OVER 9,000! Sorry about that, force of habit. It was actually over ₽10,000. Keep in mind the money ratio. If you were ten years old and someone offered to pay you $100 for something you'd already done, how would you feel? Also, the extra 175 came from her battle with that Youngster.
The PC Problem
Ex's second morning on Route One started much like his first: with another email from ProfessorSamuelOak(a)pokéweb(d)net. Well, it had started that way, before Amber's interruption.
Now Ex couldn't remember precisely where he'd been, but since he hadn't gotten far, he simply went back to the top and started over.
Good Morning Ex,
It will take some time to address your latest research, but I can answer your questions.
First, regarding your 'catch them all' question, your perspective on Pokémon Professor priorities is a bit out-of-date, at least here in Kanto. All 150 Kanto natives have already been discovered, most have been thoroughly studied, and all have been Captured except Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and Mew. After every species of pokémon native to a region has been Captured at least once – or examined by a Pokédex at least once, in the case of Legendaries – Professors stop asking Trainers to collect them.
Ex's brain focused on a single part of that paragraph: the second sentence. There were 150 Kanto natives, not 151, meaning they were missing a species. It wondered which one.
Probably Mewtwo, Ex thought. It wasn't listed as one of the Legendaries, and it's an artificial pokémon. If Amber was successfully revived, Dr. Fuji might not have bothered making Mewtwo.
His brain was already attempting to work out all the possibilities, but Ex just kept reading the email.
You may still Capture as many pokémon as you like and you may attempt to complete your Pokédex if you wish, but you needn't worry yourself with the goal of being the first, as Red became the first to complete the Kanto Pokédex – sans Legendaries – a few years ago. You also do not need to fear your pokémon leaving you unless you treat them poorly.
In my experience, pokémon only Release themselves from the ownership of abusive Trainers, not absent ones. Since they are not typically confined to their balls, they do not typically mind being Captured, though the key word there is 'typically'. I must admit that I am at fault for the Pikachu you encountered. He hates Pokéballs because I was testing an experimental ball which would, in theory, grant immediate intelligence. It worked, but an unfortunate side effect was that the ball also granted a great deal of immediate pain, which was NOT expected. When I reported this to Silph, they immediately discontinued that line of research and development.
Until Ash came along, whom I assume you met, Pikachu was staying in my lab, enjoying the free food – which I offered as way of apology – and occasionally helping power equipment, which I asked he do to keep in shape, as he was beginning to get lazy and overweight. But he was not 'confined' in any way. His reason for disliking Pokéballs does not stem from 'confinement'.
I do not know if confining a Pokéball also confines the Pokémon within, but I have notified the International Coalition of Pokémon Professors of the potential problem. I am too busy to test it myself at the moment.
In any case, pokémon are no longer confined when they 'stay in the PC all the time', as you put it. The 'PC Problem' was solved long ago.
Ex quickly tabbed out to a fresh web page, entered 'PC Problem' into the search engine, skimmed the headlines of a few very old articles which demanded something be done about the "many pokémon that are digitally trapped by negligent Trainers", nodded to himself, then went back to the Professor's email.
The PC is now a teleportation mechanism which delivers Pokémon to and from their natural habitats, allowing them to roam freely in the wild until their Trainers need them. Unfortunately, leaving them to their own devices sometimes results in nature taking its course, whether through disease or the circle of life-
Why doesn't he just say 'pokémon you Capture might die' outright? his brain asked.
He thinks we're ten years old, thought Ex.
-but this does not happen often. If a pokémon has been Trained even slightly beyond the level range of its original Route, or has been Captured long enough to become smarter than its peers, it will typically survive any deadly encounters.
If a Trainer's pokémon is too strong relative to its original Route, it is either moved to a new Route with other pokémon of similar level and species, or if no such Route exists, it stays here with me at my Pokémon Ranch, or with other Professors in more appropriate climates. These facts should incentivize Trainers to actually train their pokémon, but unfortunately not all Trainers remember them, or even know about them in the first place. I hope you will keep this in mind going forward.
Ex paused at that.
Hmm...
Maybe he should level Rattata a few times, just to be safe. Then again, a certain strategy required he have a low level Rattata on hand, so maybe he should go with the "smarter than its peers" method...
Ex mentally shrugged. Either way, whether he intended to train Rattata or not, the next PC was in Viridian. His Rattata had already been teleported away from him so there was nothing he could do about it now. That is, unless he miraculously came across his own Rattata again, which his brain informed him (a) was extremely unlikely given the size of Route 1, (b) was extremely unlikely given that Rattata's 'natural habitat' was already behind him, and (c) just plain shouldn't happen in the first place. His brain couldn't imagine Silph teleporting Captured pokémon to places where other Trainers might encounter them. Well, it could imagine it, but it could only see it happening if there was a mechanism in place which prevented Captured pokémon from being Captured again, i.e. stolen, which Origins does address...
Whatever. He'd worry about it later. Again, he couldn't do anything about it until Viridian.
Don't Tell Me the Odds
With all that said, the email continued, even though there are no negative consequences to Capturing excess pokémon, please do not go overboard and Capture 'every Meowth you see', as you joked in my lab. Typical Trainers have PCs with numbers in the hundreds by the time they move on to new careers. Prolific profiles may reach the thousands, and Breeders may reach the tens of thousands. No one has ever reached a million, as you might if you followed through with the sentiment of your joke.
Wow.
Really?
There must be a lot of Wild Meowth if he could reach a million that way.
Or maybe the Professor was referring to Capturing every Wild pokémon in sight. The warning did seem like it was supposed to be taken as a rule of thumb, not just for Meowth. Though come to think of it, a million pokémon in the PC would be an interesting goal... but only in a breeding sense, since breeding perfect pokémon requires a lot of throwaways. Even if Ex had infinite Pokéballs, he wouldn't actually Capture every pokémon in sight because that would be pointless... unless the Let's Go bonuses applied, and he was pretty sure they didn't.
When Capturing pokémon, Ex planned on being extremely selective about Natures and IVs, because breeding and battling perfectionism required it. Maybe he'll Capture every Shiny pokémon he sees, but completing the Shiny Dex is a different kind of perfectionism from battling – one that his brain cared about more than he did.
Regarding your second question, the email continued, I do not know the exact odds of a pokémon being Shiny. It is a rare enough occurrence, not to mention almost purely cosmetic as far as Trainers and battles are concerned, and genetic science is not my forte. Going only by the pokémon that have been Captured here in Kanto, the chances may be somewhere around 1/4000-
So the natural Shiny odds are 1/4096? his brain mused.
-but please take that number with a grain of salt. Though large, the sample I used to calculate that estimate was entirely composed of non-Wild Pokémon, and your own question asked only about Wild Pokémon.
So the full Shiny odds were probably 1/4096, but it wasn't guaranteed? Ex's brain could work with that. Better than 1/8092 at least. Unless breeding and the Matsuda Method brought the overall average down for Captured pokémon, and Wild pokémon really were Shiny at a rate of 1/8092...
In any case, I hope this answered your questions. If you have any further insights or research to share, please wait until after you receive my next email, which should come sometime in the evening, or perhaps tomorrow. Your discoveries on Natures and Sapience have sparked a good deal of interest within me and my colleagues, but even the preliminary findings are taking time to iron out. Your guesses on the remaining multipliers should take less time to confirm or refute, though I will probably respond to everything all at once.
Sincerely,
Prof. Samuel Oak
Plans vs. Strategy
Ex closed the Pokédex, stood up, and stretched out.
So, he addressed his brain. Got any big plans for today?
You mean OTHER than training? his brain asked back. It simulated a shrug. Not really. I don't make plans, I react to input. YOU'RE the one with the plans.
'Like making me wait until Saffron to read Oak's books,' it privately thought to itself.
Really? Ex thought. You seem to have plenty of plans for training. And a plan to complete the Shiny Dex.
Those are STRATEGIES and AMBITIONS, not PLANS. If you want to talk end-goals, or tackle a specific topic, let me know. For example, see if it's possible to ask Meowth to exclusively Pickup Oran. If they CAN exclusively Pickup Oran, have them do it for about an hour, since we'll need about 20 Oran for this morning's training. Otherwise, let me memorize the incoming data from our Pokédex and I'll be happy.
Ex asked his Meowth the question, but even as they nodded their heads, meaning they could exclusively Pick Up certain Items, Ex was still distracted by terminology.
So... according to his brain... plans were long-term, strategies were short-term, and ambitions were end-goals?
Exactly, his brain thought.
Ex wasn't sure how much an English teacher would agree with that, but he supposed it didn't matter.
Oh, and make sure Meowth keep an eye out for bribe-worthy Items, even when they're focusing on Oran. And Shiny Pokémon, too.
Ex nodded decisively. You got it.
Hidden Reasons of Hidden Power
The sun was still low in the sky, not yet mid-morning, when Amber put together enough confidence to ask Ex a question that had been nagging at her. "Hey Ex, do you mind if I teach Bulbasaur Hidden Power?"
Ex's eyes remained glued to his Pokédex when he said, "I don't mind."
They walked a few paces in silence.
"Did you mean right now?" Ex asked, looking up.
It was hard not to reply Sassily. "Now would be good, yes."
"Okay. Let me figure out how to eject TMs."
They walked a few more paces in silence, the only sounds coming from the surrounding wilderness.
"Got it," Ex said, taking the TM from his Pokédex. But he hesitated before handing it over.
"Well?" Amber asked, holding out her hand.
"Is this allowed?" he asked. "Shouldn't there be some sort of law that says we can't share TMs?"
Amber frowned. "I don't know. Why would there be?"
"If TMs are reusable," Ex postulated, "then what's to stop a Trainer from buying just one and then lending it out to all their friends? The people who borrow the TM wouldn't have to buy it themselves, and Silph would lose out on a lot of money. Companies usually don't like losing money, so sometimes they resort to lobbying for law changes. In this case, that would mean making a law to prevent Trainers from trading or sharing TMs."
Amber didn't understand all of that, but she understood enough to ask, "If they did all that, then didn't you already break the law? That TM doesn't belong to you, your Meowth found it on the ground."
There was a pause as Ex considered this. Then he shrugged, handing over the disc. "I guess. But I'm going to look into it while you use it."
"You do that," Amber said as she fed the disc into her own Pokédex, the slot whisking it from her fingers.
But as she was trying to find the TM section, Ex decided now would be the perfect time to not keep his eyes on his Pokédex and mind his own business.
"By the way," he said, looking in her direction. "Why didn't you ask to teach Hidden Power to Bulbasaur right after I taught it to my team? I probably wouldn't have thought twice if you'd asked then."
"Honestly?" she said, briefly looking up. "I was uncomfortable." She looked down again. "I thought maybe Bulbasaur wouldn't like it."
"But you're fine with it now?" Ex asked. "Even though you haven't asked Bulbasaur if he's fine with it?"
Amber paused just as she found the TM section.
"Hey Bulbasaur," she called out to her Starter, "Do you want to learn Hidden Power?"
Bulbasaur, who over the last twenty-four hours had been in the company of five Meowth and one Charmander who used the Move 'Hidden Power' to great effectiveness, immediately shouted "Saur! (Yes!)" when his Trainer asked him if he wanted to learn it too.
When his answer met her ears, Amber nodded. "He's fine with it."
It took time and Ex's help to menu through the options that would teach him the TM, but when she found it, a quick click of a button was all it took for Bulbasaur to learn the Move.
"Bulbasaur!" she called. "Next time you fight a Rattata, use Hidden Power to see what Type it is."
"Okay!" her ears heard.
Ex, still not looking at his Pokédex, tilted his head. "And what about you? You're not uncomfortable about TMs anymore?"
"Nope."
"What changed your mind?"
There was a bit more silence between them.
"I... don't really know," Amber said at last. "I guess since your team didn't mind, I figured Bulbasaur probably wouldn't mind either. I thought TMs would be painful, or something, but... now I just... don't think that anymore."
"So you changed your mind overnight?" Ex asked.
"Pretty much."
Bulbasaur's Hidden Power Typing turned out to be Ice, which made Ex oddly jealous for some reason. By that point, Ex had confirmed with a quick web search that they probably weren't breaking the law.
Hidden Reasons and Rest Stops
"By the way," Amber said as she returned the TM to Ex. "I think we should shoot for the Rest Stop for lunch."
"Rest Stop?"
"The half-way point of Routes," Amber said. "You know, where Trainers stop and rest, usually overnight? And where they restock on supplies for the longer Routes? Shouldn't you already know this?"
"Ah. Yes. Rest Stops. I knew that."
Amber rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Right. Anyway, the map says the Route One Rest Stop is coming up."
"That's what that icon means? I thought it was a sign for public restrooms."
She nodded. "They have those, too. And lots of Trainers."
"Lots of Trainers, eh?" Ex asked, putting a grin on his face. "Sounds like my kind of place."
"I thought you 'knew that' already."
That wiped the grin off his face. "Uh... I did! I was just testing you."
Amber giggled. "Whatever you say."
"Fine," Ex sighed, "you got me. I can admit to my ignorance with dignity." Before Amber could respond, he kept speaking. "That said, would you mind telling me why there would be a lot of Trainers there? Is Route One really that popular?"
"For older Trainers?" She shook her head. "For new Trainers?" She nodded. Amber then brought a finger to her cheek, remembering the date she had entered on her Trainer application two days ago. "This year's Gym challenge opened up to new Trainers a few weeks ago, so there should still be a lot of them here."
"A few weeks ago?!" Ex exclaimed. "Why would there still be Trainers here after weeks?"
"To train?" Amber asked rhetorically, sounding puzzled. "And catch pokémon? You know, the reasons we're here?"
"But shouldn't they have moved on to new Routes by now?"
Amber shook her head. "The older Trainers that know what they're doing would have moved on, yeah, but new Trainers like us should stick to the easier Routes."
Ex's mouth gaped open. Then he shut it.
"New Trainers only stick to the easier Routes?" he asked in a voice that sounded like it didn't want to hear the answer...
"Yes."
Ex groaned. "I was sort-of planning to visit all the Routes this year."
"Oh really?" Amber giggled.
"Yes," he said flatly.
"Wait, really? You're serious?"
"Yes."
"You don't think that's too ambitious?"
"No."
Amber gave a mental sigh. Boys. "Not everyone can be Red, you know," she said, wagging a finger.
"Well, I think I can do it," he huffed. "What about you, then? What's your goal?"
"I was only planning on visiting all the cities and towns." And searching all the nooks and crannies for...
"And you don't think that's ambitious?"
"Nope. We have trains and buses and highways for a reason, you know."
Ex sighed. "I don't think you're getting into the spirit of this at all."
"I don't care," she shrugged.
"And just why do you want to go to all the towns and cities in the first place?"
She shrugged again. "I have my reasons."
Reasons that involved finding her memory place in real life, and finding a certain, purple pokémon...
They walked in the pseudo-silence of nature for a few more seconds.
"Say," Ex said after a time, his voice sounding strangely static. "Just how many Trainers would be at the Rest Stop? And what species/level of Pokémon would they have?"