Once everything was settled, Penny felt she had to inform them about hacking the LP Management system, but was actually given a job offer for the future instead of being punished. Though she did have to do some volunteer engineering first, with Ashleyndeciding to Volunteer as well to keep her company.
The next weekend they were heading to the Lurking Steel Titan and headed to East Province Area 3 with Penny and Chloe in Ashley's bag when Arven called.
"Yo, Chloe, Ashley Penny!" He said. "So somewhere in one of the mines around here, we should find the Lurking Steel Titan. Rumor has it that the things staggeringly huge and reeeaaal long. You'd think a pokemon like that would be easy to spot. I wonder how it stays hidden...maybe it's super fast? If so riding that pokemon I gave Ashley might help catch up to it."
With that he hung up, and they continued the search, eventually finding it by the East Province Area 3 Watch Tower. Making them chase it around until it revealed itself as a giant Orthworm, With Ceruledge, Skeledirge, and Flareon it was quickly forced to flea, as they chased it again, as it led them to the cave where it started eating the Herba Mystica, as Arven showed up, not suprised about Ashley and Penny, due to sharing a cooking class with Chloe where she infor,led him kf the change.
"You three managed to pin down the Titan?!" He said, looking at it in suprise. "THAT's the Lurking Steel Titan?! It's, uh...well, it sure is long! I think our little friend might be even feistier now, after eating those Herbs!"
"Let us deal with this." Penny and Ashley smirked wanting to try out a new TM they had learned for a very powerful fire type move. With that there generators pumped extra fire through their body before they both released a powerful Blast Burn each, easily knocking the Lurking Steel Titan out, but leaving them starving.
"You did it!" Arven said, "Way to go little buddies! I didn't expect two cuties like you to have such power. I bet if we go in here well find more of that Herba Mystica it ate before. Let's go find it before that thing can regroup!"
Inside they found the Salty Herba Mystica, supposedly good for aching hands and feet, neuropathy, numbness, and muscle weakness.
When eating the sandwhich with them Miraidon, Ashley and Penny glowed brightly again, restoring Miraidons jumping ability. While Ashley and Penny felt their stomach engine burn it into energy far faster then before, it didn't do anything with Penny, but Ashley's eyes glowed as streams of data appeared as the illusion organ it was focused on fixing was no longer there, but reacted with the leftover energy of the other sandwiches still there with nothing to repair, and gave her a code to let her scan things and turn into them, as well as a code for her to change back to the human form she had been using when the organ was damaged.
While Arven fed Mabostiff, and waited the few minutes for him to be healed, Ashley used their hatches and ports to give Penny the code as well, and Penny had a picture of herself she used so both of them could take human form once more. They regained consciousness just as Chloe got off Ashley's phone with Professor Turo, who wanted Arven to let them into the lab on poco path and so they headed there.
•••
When they arrived they saw Arven running up.
"Seriously, you beat me here?" Arven said before heading to the door. "Well, this is the lab. I used to come here to play all the time when I was a kid. There'd better be a good reason for calling us here like this… let's find out. Everyone always says… he's some kinda genius. Absolutely brilliant as a Pokemon Professor… my dad that is. But let me tell you-as a parent? He's the worst. All he ever does is work. He never comes home. I don't have a single memory of him ever even playing with me-his own kid. Mabosstiff's the only one who was there for me. Always."
With that he opened the door and they headed inside. With Ashley and Penny following in their newly restored human forms, which looked alot more realistic then their pokemon forms. Which made it so Professor Turo did not realize what they now were, despite seeing them on the screen when asking them to come to Area Zero.
"Area Zero," Arven said, "that place is bad news. It was down in Area Zeromthat Mabosstiff got wounded in the first place… down in the Great Crater of Paldea. In all,Honesty, I'd be perfectly happy to never see that place again… are you gonna go?"
"He asked for help," Ashley said, "and I have trouble saying no to those that need help."
"She's my mate," Penny added," I'll help as well."
"Same she's my sister after all." Chloe said.
"…I suppose he did ask," Arven said, "and I can't just stand by and watch while my friends head off into danger. So I guess I'm going too! 'Sides, I'd love to give Dad a piece of my mind. All right then, outside! We're gonna have a pokemon battle to see if we'rereally ready to head into Area Zero or not! Mostly to see if I'm ready or not! Let's go!"
While outside they were expecting to battle each other, but Arven had another idea. He said that both Iron Valiant, Iron Trickster and Iron Soul were similar to some of pokemon in Area Zero, thus fighting the four of them would be more useful to see if they were ready. In the end the four won, though it was a hard battle. "We were so close," Arven sighed. "Dang… looks like need to get a little stronger. Penny and Ashley can deal with the tech, but what about battle… I got it. You three are almost done the gym challenge. We can go once you reach champion rank. That will give some last minute training to get up to speed."
"Sounds good to me!" they agreed, getting the feeling it was more for him and willing to give him the time he needed as they headed back to the academy.