531. steadfast: loyal; faithful

Green thanked Arceus for being able to have such steadfast coworkers. He showed them the official news article, and then they upped and left for the day. Green employed his sore muscles to sweep up the gym (Koga's cleaning was inspiring). At first, he used the booby traps to his advantage to carry him around, but then got ridiculously dizzy and deactivated them.

After cleaning up the place, Green boxed up the desktop in his office to carry to his apartment. Exeggutor helped to carry things over (Tyranitar and Arcanine volunteered, but Green didn't trust either with transporting fragile stuff) and then Green locked up the looted place. He'd check in on it every once in a while to make sure the traps still functioned, but until Janine came back and sent trainers hurdling his direction, he'd keep the place closed.

532. decorum: polite behavior

Normally, maintaining decorum around his neighbors came naturally, but Green couldn't find it in himself to bother about disturbing neighbors while he was trying to lug boxes into his apartment. A couple curious people poked heads around doors to check what was going on (Exeggutor made quite a bit of noise, chattering to itself while slowly lumbering up the stairs) and groan. Green spent the rest of the morning trying to move things around his desk and clean up his bedroom to place the desktop on his desk. When it buzzed to life, Green cheered along with his growling stomach.

533. repine: to be discontented or unhappy; to long for something

He checked his pantry, found it devoid of chocolate, repined, and settle for ice cream. His refrigerator was pretty empty too, so he decided to drop by the supermarket for something to actually eat.

The only people wandering the aisles were middle aged ladies, and Green felt vaguely out of place waiting in line. He was fairly tall, five foot ten, but in the midst of elderly ladies he was essentially towering over them. He ignored the cashier's stare (was seeing a young male at the supermarket that rare?) and carried two paper bags of vegetables and fruits and eggs and meat out the door, hoping the handles wouldn't pop off in the walk home.

534. authoritarian: demanding unquestioning obedience

Green had been an authoritarian trainer in his traveling days, but he'd lightened up a ton and completely changed his techniques after his loss. So right now, as he was walking home, he was tossing apples to Umbreon, who was juggling them, practicing her psychic powers. Before evolving, she'd dabbled in moves of all types, so she had surprising skill in types outside her natural realm. Green winced each time an apple came dangerously close to smashing on the ground, but each time, Umbreon would sweep it back up into the air. She was barely managing three apples; or, she was just looking as if she was struggling to mess with Green, who stumbled every time Umbreon let an apple come centimeters from the sidewalk.

535. charlatan: a fake; one who pretends to have expert knowledge

Once Green realized that Umbreon was playing with him, he tossed another apple into her juggling circle, and she took it easily. Green tossed in another one experimentally, and then realized that Umbreon was actually struggling to walk, so he put down a bag, took a picture, laughed, and then had Umbreon toss the apples into the paper bag. Green had half a mind to post the picture on the Internet to brush all the charlatan psychics off.

536. tribulation: great misery or distress

He decided against it (privacy was important) and settled for just hurrying home before he got any more weird stares from passers by. Back at his apartment, he again played with Umbreon, tossing groceries into the refrigerator and pantry, and wincing after each none too gentle slam when Umbreon got careless. After improvising and making an omelette, he returned to his bedroom to begin the tribulation of research and convincing Brock to give him the Enigma Stone. Not an easy task, considering how they'd never been on friendly terms.

537. telltale: indicating or revealing information

There was a crazy amount of myths from Hoenn talking about the Eon duo, and even more stories and reports of sighting all over. Filtering through fact and fiction was incredibly difficult, and the afternoon passed quickly, searching for actual evidence. Bringing Latias to the Enigma Stone would be a pretty darn effective way to prove to Brock just what he had in the museum. Albeit showy, he couldn't think of anything much more conclusive that that, so he emailed the Hoenn champion, Sapphire, for the details on Latias' location.

538. adverse: opposed, difficult

Sapphire apparently still recalled who he was, and although not entirely adverse to his plan, she didn't really help, as she gave vague comments about how Latias didn't stay in a single location, and the only thing that was regular about her travels was the fact that Latias was constantly on the move, searching for Latios. With legendary level psychic powers, it was strange that the Enigma Stone hadn't received attention yet. Were that few people acquainted with Brock and Steven? They were both rock enthusiasts, so it wouldn't be surprising for them to have met up before.

Green dug around and with a little bit of hacking help from Porygon-Z, he found that the museum also had a high level psychic barrier set up around it to detect people coming in and out. The psychic barrier also prevented the psychic energy from leaking out, and nullified the energy radiation in the zone so that psychic pokemon passing by could only sense a bubble of emptiness and not see inside.

539. astute: showing clever awareness, especially with respect to one's own concerns

Green excitedly hopped outside and released Pidgeot, taking only the bird and Exeggutor with him. They flew on over to Pewter (ah, flying with Pidgeot was really a treat) to drop by and test out the effectiveness of the barrier with Exeggutor. His results proved consistent with the research - and upon entering the museum, there was only a faint, blurry buzzing of psychic energy. Exeggutor could sense the source of the field, but the area was still blocked off and he wasn't exactly the sneakiest pokemon.

Pidgeot popped them back off at Viridian, and Green thanked Arceus that he had such opportune timing to check the Enigma stone out with Espeon, easily one of the strongest and most astute psychic pokemon in Kanto (even Sabrina's weren't up to par with Red's pokemon).

540. conjugal: pertaining to marriage relationships

Talking about strong psychics in Kanto, there was also Mewtwo (Mew probably would vanish before he even got within a hundred miles of the legendary). Getting help from the pokemon would be a wholly different deal from just casually walking in a museum with Exeggutor. He'd have to find a bargaining tool to convince Mewtwo to help him find Latias.

Green briefly weighed the conjugal loyalty of Janine and Falkner. Falkner was a pretty serious dude, so he might just keep Janine a little more than two months. Green crossed his fingers and hoped that Falkner could delay Janine a bit longer so he could get his job from Steven before challengers arrived.

Two months was pretty long for Green, who was known in the scientific community for pumping out work at inhuman speeds, but he had no clue whether he'd be able to befriend the monstrously powerful pokemon in two months. The current plan being, become buddies with Mewtwo, find Latias, prove the existence of Latios' soul, maybe revive Latios, amaze Steven, and get hired. A bit extreme and amazing, but hey, Green was all for going to extremes and it took him twelve years to work things out with Red.