Chapter Three
The Breeder and the Beast

"Hello? Is that the, uh… Rainy Day Breeders?"

"Yes, it is. This is Joanne speaking, how can I help you?"

"Y-yeah, hi there. My name's Paul, I'm calling from Cherrygrove. And yeah, um… Well… Look, I'll level with you here. I don't really know much about Pokemon in real life so I don't really know the equivalent… I'm looking for a flawless Riolu."

"A… flawless Riolu?! What do you mean by that?"

"You know, perfect IVs and an ideal nature."

"IV stats…?" The breeder at the other end of the phone replied, bewildered. "Sir, I'm sorry, but with real life Pokemon, we don't do IV stats."

"IV stats aren't a thing?"

"Certainly not. I suspect you've spent a lot of time on Pokemon games, but I'm sorry to tell you those just aren't applicable with real life Pokemon."

"Oh. So what's the equivalent?"

"Not as simple as you think." She replied. "Breeding so-called 'flawless' Pokemon in real life is a lot more… let's just say 'difficult' in real life. There's no stat calculator. It's all in the Pokemon's build, their condition, their health… and even then, you're not guaranteed to maintain those stats if you don't train them right."

"Sorry?"

"Well, think about it. Even a Pokemon built for speed won't be all that fast if it doesn't get regular exercise or eats nothing but junk all the time, will it?"

"Uhh…"

"What you're looking for is possible. For a Pokemon like the one you're describing, you would ensure the breeding parents are in prime physical condition. Often we would use Pokemon that have had a long battle history. We would hope the baby's physical condition would be reminiscent of its parents. But it's very rarely enough for a judge's appraisal to be 'ideal'. The Pokemon needs to be trained and monitored to make sure it stays that way."

"That… sounds like a lot of work."

"Well, of course it is. And with enough hard work and effort, even Pokemon that aren't born in great physical condition can be seen to be 'ideal'. Even to a judge."

Paul made a noise that sounded something like 'complicated'.

"Pokemon breeding in real life isn't as easy as those stupid games suggest." The breeder continued. "The Breeders' Association has been campaigning for ages to get the game mechanics changed to reflect the actual effort we have to go through. We don't get to use fancy items to make Pokemon pass down their natures and we don't just get to input a set of values and have the Pokemon turn out exactly the way we want them to."

"I… I see…"

"And I'm sorry to disappoint you further, but I'm afraid this Breeders doesn't deal with Riolu. You need to get in contact with a Tier 3 Breeder."

"A Tier what now?"

"You mean to tell me you don't even know about Tiered Breeding?"

"No, in a word."

"Well, I assume you know of the way trainers use badges they win from Gym Leaders as a symbol of their status and achievement, right?"

"Of course."

"Breeders use this thing called 'Tiered Breeding'. Each tier represents a different stage in achievement. With each new tier, the breeding company or breeder is able to breed different and more difficult Pokemon."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute." Paul interrupted. "You mean to tell me there's restrictions on breeding? Limitations?"

"Of course there is. If every breeder was allowed to breed anything, there'd be no control over supply and demand. Some Pokemon are very complicated and very dangerous to breed. We can't let amateurs breed things like… I don't know, a Weezing or a Magcargo. And things like baby Pokemon or Pokemon that don't have a specified gender need a very specific approach. You have to be extremely competent."

"So… what are you saying?"

"My breeding company is only Tier 2, what we would call a Novice Breeder. You want to find an Adept Breeder or higher, bearing in mind that the higher the tier, the higher the likelihood you'll find what you want."

"Alright. Well, thank you for you—"

"And one more thing you may have to consider. The Breeders Association has a very strict policy on over-breeding. Things like baby Pokemon and starter Pokemon are often in very high demand. If everyone who could breed those were actually breeding them, we'd have a problem with over-breeding them and nothing else would be bred. So, there's only a select few breeding agencies out there who are currently licensed to breed them."

"So how come in-game I could take a Lucario and Ditto to any Day Care and get a Riolu then?"

"Because the game companies make things too easy." She deadpanned. "Most breeding facilities don't operate the way the ones in the games do. Big breeding companies that have reached the Master Tier will breed any compatible Pokemon they're given – for a fee, of course. Little ones like my company can only breed Pokemon given to us by trainers that correspond to our tier. Oh, and as for the Ditto thing… they're practically gold dust to breeders. They're so rare and valuable, even I'd kill for a good one."

"Well… do you think you could find me the number of a Breeder's that does breed Riolu?"

"I wish I could help you, but unfortunately we're under-staffed at the moment and our computer system is currently down. I can't even access breeding records of the Pokemon we have here, let alone any information about other breeders."

"Oh…"

"Do you have a local breeder's in Cherrygrove City?"

"I… think so?" he replied, some vague memory resurfacing of a tiny breeding centre right on the outskirts of town.

"They'll probably have the number you need. I'd suggest heading over there and talking to whoever's in charge. They'll be able to tell you everything you need to know a lot better than I will over the phone."

"Alright then," Paul said stiffly. "Thanks for your help."

"Bye now."

Paul slammed the phone down. This venture was becoming increasingly complicated. But the memory of his bet with Dest remained firmly at the front of his mind. There was no way he would allow himself to lose to someone like him for the sake of a few phone calls.

The Little Stars Day Care and Breeders was a tiny building on the precipice of Cherrygrove City. It could have easily been mistaken for just an ordinary house, were it not for the expansive back garden smothered in flowers and shrubs. He hesitated at the white gate, running his thumb along the chipped paint until it came off in flakes.

The butter yellow door, pebbled path and cheery "Come on in, we're open!" doormat seemed like something out of a storybook. It reminded him of his grandmother's old house; the kind of house where you would be assaulted with tea and scones the minute you came within a five metre proximity.

While he stood deliberating all this, the front door of the house opened and a girl appeared in the doorway. The first thing Paul noticed about her were her clothes – dungarees equally patterned with giant pink flowers and smeared with grass stains and mud. She was clutching a giant bag of compost that was almost bigger than her, which she almost dropped when she saw Paul.

"Oh! H-hello there!" she cried, struggling with the bag of compost.

Paul stood there as she finally let the bag drop to the ground. "Hi."

"How can I help you?" she asked, smoothing her wrinkled dungarees down.

"Yeah, I'm looking for the head breeder. Do you know when they'll be home?"

"Um…" the girl giggled. "The head breeder? That would be me."

"You?"

"Yep. My name's Annabelle and I run the Little Stars!"

"Oh."

"So, how can I help you?"

"I'm looking for some contact details."

"Contact details? For who?"

"I phoned up a breeder's in Violet City to get a phone number for a… Tier 3 breeder or higher? Their systems are down so they told me to come to a local one."

"Oh…" Annabelle looked strangely disappointed. "Well, you better come in, then."

Annabelle's house was… busy, to say the least. Crammed to the brim with knick-knacks and collectables of every shape and size, her furniture seemed to groan collectively under its weight. Every step he took, something rattled and Paul had visions of something jumping off a shelf to its death on the wooden floor. He smelled fresh bread, the wonderful crusty sort that was a favourite for his sandwiches when he was young. Annabelle invited him to sit on her blue patchwork sofa while she disappeared into the kitchen, and he sat, rigid, like a boy called up in front of a headteacher.

"Can I get you anything to drink? Tea? Lemonade?"

It really was like visiting a grandmother's house, Paul thought in mild amusement. "Lemonade." He called back.

There wasn't a single clock in the room set to the right time, he noticed as he waited. A Noctowl clock sitting over the mantelpiece of a boarded up fire seemed to have stopped altogether, while a larger, rectangular clock above a small television was ten minutes fast. A little alarm clock on top of a desk was ticking along at three minutes slow.

Annabelle returned a few minutes later with two glasses and a plate of biscuits which she sat on the coffee table between the sofa and the armchair. The lemonade tasted fresh and sweet – obviously homemade rather than poured from a tin or a bottle. The biscuits smelled quite strongly of ginger and something else he couldn't identify and they were slightly burnt around the outer edges. Another homemade offering, perhaps.

"So, you're looking for a Tier 3 Breeders?" Annabelle asked, taking a seat opposite him.

"I am, yeah."

"Hmm," Annabelle mused. "Off the top of my head I can think of three Tier 3 or above breeders close to us. Goldenrod City has a Tier 3, Blackthorn has a Tier 6 and Olivine's just upgraded to Tier 4. I think Ecruteak is working on Tier 3, but I don't know if they've achieved them, yet."

Paul nodded. "Alright."

"What kind of Pokemon are you looking for, exactly?"

"Riolu."

"…right." Annabelle's face promptly fell. "Well, I'm afraid Riolu has just come out of breeding circulation. Blackthorn has the license for them and I think they won't come back into circulation until next month."

"So, there's no-one else that's going to be breeding them?"

"Not in Johto, no. As for the other regions, I'm afraid I couldn't tell you."

"Typical…" Paul muttered.

"If you are still interested, though, I could give you the number for Blackthorn's Breeders and you could possibly reserve an egg space?"

"Can that be done?"

"If you can pay for it, yes. Are you interested?"

"Yeah."

"Great. I'll get on that."

There was a desk and filing cabinet in the corner of the room that Paul hadn't previously noticed. Annabelle pulled out a giant folder and began cycling through the pages, muttering to herself.

"You don't have a computer system for this?"

"No computer," Annabelle admitted sheepishly. "We're only a small, Tier 1 Breeders. Well, I say "we"… There's just me here at the moment. I only opened up recently and I haven't had enough business to get a computer set up just yet."

"Maybe that's why you haven't had much business."

"Yes, perhaps," Annabelle laughed sadly. "So, until then, it's old fashioned phone book and filing systems for me. Aha, there we go. Blackthorn's Acrewood Breeders. Tell you what, I'll give them a ring and pass the phone over."

She still had one of those old-fashioned plug-in phones, a world away from the digital cordless phones Paul was used to. He couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her.

"Hi there, this is Annabelle Lawrence from Little Stars Breeders in Cherrygrove. I was wondering if I could speak to someone regarding the booking of a Riolu egg for its next breeding circulation? Yeah, hi there. I have the interested trainer here, if you'd just hold on a moment." Annabelle held the phone out to Paul.

"Hello?"

"Hi there, this is Sam with Acrewood Breeding. Annabelle tells me you're interested in one of our Riolu eggs?"

"I am, yes."

"Alright. Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"I'm looking for an Adamant nature Riolu with perf— uh, ideal… attributes?"

There was a short silence on the other end of the phone. "I'm sorry?"

"Look, I don't know much about this, alright?" Paul muttered into the phone, his face reddening furiously. "I'm looking for a Riolu that's best suited for attacking and would get a judge's appraisal of being… ideal?"

There was a sigh at the other end of the phone. "Very well, but I hope you realise that a Pokemon of that calibre may take additional time to breed to a satisfactory measure."

Paul grimaced. "Yeah, I do…"

"And an additional fee."

"I can imagine that, yes."

"We'll be looking for something in the region of three thousand for a Riolu of that calibre."

After a mental check of what was remaining in his bank account, it was a quick decision. "That'll be fine, thank you."

"Very well. Can I take a record of your name, please?"

"It's Paul Masterson."

"And a contact number?"

Paul reeled off the number of his mobile phone.

"That's lovely, thank you. So, we expect your Riolu to be ready for pick-up in about three to four weeks."

"Ready for… pick-up?"

"Of course. We don't transfer or send eggs or newly bred Pokemon. We have a strict pick-up policy on every Pokemon we breed. No exceptions. You will need to arrive in person to collect your Pokemon and present a valid Pokemon license and trainer ID before payment."

"Sure, whatever."

"Alright then, we'll see you in three to four weeks. We've also got a breeding reference for you as well, the number 603293…"

Paul quickly tapped the number out on his phone as the employee recited it.

"Give that number when you get to the breeder's centre and everything will be handled for you, then. Is that alright?"

"That's great, thanks."

"Is there anything else?"

"I think that's all for the moment, thank you."

"Great. We'll see you soon. Thank you."

"Bye."

When Paul turned around to face Annabelle, her face was marred with annoyance. "'Flawless' Pokemon?"

"Yes. What's wrong with that?"

"Forgive me for being unprofessional, but why so insistent on a so-called 'flawless' Pokemon?"

"You're a breeder. You understand how to get the best out of Pokemon, don't you?"

"Well, yeah… It's kinda my job."

"So, why work with less than the best?"

Annabelle growled. "I care more about the Pokemon than the stats or the nature. Every Pokemon is deserving of love and affection regardless of whether it's considered 'perfect' or not."

"That's a lovely attitude to have… for a breeder. But don't try and tell those of us that like our Pokemon to be the best that they can be that we're wrong. Love doesn't win you a battle. Stats do."

"Ugh. You sound like one of those gamer boys…" she groaned, before a horrible realisation dawned on her. "Oh Arceus… you're not, are you…?"

"I play competitively, yes."

"No!" she wailed. "You don't understand! Training Pokemon in a game… it's nothing compared to training Pokemon in real life!"

"Yes, I do. It's better. And easier."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing. Are you listening to yourself? You can't compare real Pokemon to a pile of pixels on some stupid games console. That's like saying people who… who are more conventionally good looking are better than everyone else."

Paul said nothing.

"You can't be a real trainer. Real trainers wouldn't even dare to talk about Pokemon like this. Are you? Are you even a real trainer?"

"Not… technically."

"What do you mean, not technically?"

"I have a trainer's license, it's just not here yet."

"Do you even own a single Pokemon?"

"No. Not yet."

"And that Riolu? That's supposed to be your first Pokemon?"

"Hopefully, yes."

Annabelle let out a cry of laughter. "You're so naïve. You'll never get to Blackthorn City on your own without at least one Pokemon to help you."

"What do you think I am, stupid?"

"Trust me, there aren't enough words in the English language to describe what I think you are."

"I came here to get my first Pokemon. I don't have any Pokeballs yet and the Pokemon that live around here aren't that good. I thought I could get something here that would help me get to Blackthorn to get what I really want."

Annabelle bristled. "You want a Pokemon? You want one of my Pokemon?"

"Yeah, I do."

"What the hell makes you think I would give you one of my Pokemon, if you're all going to do is just use them to get so-called "better" ones? What happens to that Pokemon afterwards? Do you get rid of it? Abandon it? I won't let you do that to an innocent Pokemon?"

"Aren't all Pokemon just glorified tools, though?"

A look of fury so strong passed over Annabelle's face that Paul carried on talking before she could get a chance to interrupt. "Look, I can pay you. And quite well, at that. You said yourself that your business is pretty… bad. All I want from you is something that isn't from around here. And if possible, something that a judge would consider 'flawless'."

"Well, you are, as we say in this business, Zubatshit out of luck." Annabelle replied. "I'm a Tier 1 breeder, so all I have available to me is local Pokemon. That and a few birds, a few rodents and some bugs. And as for being considered 'flawless', I don't even take that into consideration. A Pokemon is a Pokemon, no matter how weak or small it is, and every single one of them is deserving of love."

"That's nice." He said. "So, what have you got?"

"Very… very little…" Annabelle said, in a noticeably strained voice. "I'm a small breeders and we're not treated with a lot of respect from the Breeders' Association. If you really want to see, I'll take you out the back and show you, but knowing you… you'd just be disappointed."

"Then I shall prepare myself for the inevitable."

Annabelle let out a sigh. "Alright… follow me, then."

And with that, the young breeder led her visitor through the cluttered, colourful rooms of her tiny house and out into the back garden where an unwelcome sight lay in sombre wait for him.

Author's Note

Wow. This is a thing again.

Well... I don't really know what to say here. It's been absolutely forever.

Life has settled down a bit. New flat, new independence, new job. Waiting to hear back from university related stuff and I figured now that I have some semblance of normality going that I'll try and get back into my number one passion.

This chapter hasn't been edited much from when I finished it nearly 8 months or so ago, but the next one and hopefully subsequent ones will be of much higher quality. At some point, I'll redo this chapter and the previous two to bring them in line.

I'll also be working on a non-fanfiction project and dipping between the two of these in my spare time. I'm hoping to reclaim a little bit of my old glory xP

So, uh, yeah. Thanks for reading (if I have any readers left)