John's Team

Tyrant - Slaking

Vordt - Ursaluna

Smough - Snorlax

Klee - Blissey

Port - Mantine

Zephyr - Pidgeot

Klaus - Wyrdeer

Luna - Clefable

Pixel - Porygon

Euphie - Eevee

Ornstein - D-Zigzagoon

The New Normal – 4-14 – An Upgrade

Ultimately, after a back-and-forth discussion between myself and Giovanni, we both decided on a potential course of action. With my limited influence in the committee, we both understood that I would not be the deciding vote here. Instead, we would rely on our influence with Lance, and his likely desire to try to appeal to his new Elite Four members, to leverage our political position within the committee.

In other words, we would be looking to 'sell' our influence. Since neither of us cared who was chosen between Will or Shin, it mattered not what the final outcome was. They were both equally inoffensive to our plans. Thus, the most important thing was what we could gain out of leveraging our position from the other members of the committee.

Giovanni asked that I 'sell' a public endorsement to whoever was chosen, so that that person could gain an immediate boost in status and at least extend their duration within the Elite Four, but I hesitated to agree. I argued that my greatest asset right now was my pristine and heroic reputation, and that to squander that for something like this was a terrible idea and wholly short-sighted. Giovanni eventually came over to my way of thinking, and we limited our 'sellable' actions to just our influence with Lance.

For the same reason, I would not be making any agreements in exchange for boosting my family's business. I felt that would inch too close to corruption for my tastes and would risk destroying the reputation of my family's business. Furthermore, I did not want to gain a reputation amongst the political circles for being able to be bought; my deal with Lance was the singular exception since that deal was too important to pass up.

Therefore, Giovanni and I agreed that any kind of deals would likely be limited to gaining their political support for my policies. I brought up my desire to reduce the 4-badge policy, and Giovanni said that was a good one to barter with since it was inoffensive enough to not drive off any potential 'customers'. I had already gotten Lance on board with our previous agreement, so just getting a few extra votes should be able to ensure that it gets passed through.

These kinds of actions rubbed me the wrong way, but I understood the necessity of it. If I was unwilling to play politics like this, then any number of people could use that against me. I could not allow that, so I was forced to sink to their level since this kind of thing was what everyone did.

But I vowed to never sink any further than that.

On that note, Giovanni asked me if I had any further political ambitions that I wanted to pursue, or any other new policies that I wanted implemented. I knew the unasked question involved whether I wanted to push Kanto's supremacy even further and start implementing policies that would favour Kanto over Johto, such as tax cuts.

But I thought that would be going too far in the other direction, and it may lead to Kanto oppressing Johto in the future, something that I didn't want to happen. Some inequality between the two regions were inevitable, but I only wanted to bring balance, not the supremacy of Kanto. Unlike Giovanni, I advocated for the unity of Indigo. And I didn't want to make unnecessary enemies in Johto if I could avoid it.

Still, I did have a few more ideas.

"I did have a proposal to have Gym Leaders be able to be selected from both regions. I think that'll be a great way to promote unity between our two regions." I told Giovanni, and it says a lot of his respect for me that he didn't immediately lash out in anger at my proposal.

Gym Leaders were an important part of a region's defenses, and to employ a 'foreigner' in the position suggested a big deal of trust in that individual.

"…and what makes you want to implement such a suggestion?" Giovanni asked diplomatically, obviously restraining the comment at the tip of his tongue.

"I won't deny that it's an ambitious plan that won't likely be passed, certainly not right now, but I think that having such a policy in place would be an enormous step, a true rapprochement between the regions." I replied, "It'll show that Kantonians and Johtonians no longer hate each other, and that they can be trusted to aid in the defence of the region. Likewise, it'll be a big step in removing the regional identities of 'Kanto' and 'Johto', and just turning it into 'Indigo'."

"It's not going to be passed easily." Giovanni remarked, and I nodded in agreement. Such a thing was going to receive plenty of backlash from the nationalists, like Giovanni. Thus, I knew I had to bring Giovanni on board before I could hope to make such an announcement to the public.

"After the attacks at Olivine from Team Rocket in Indigo, the entire region rose up as one to fight back against the common enemy of Team Rocket. It shows that we are able to work together, and we could leverage this sense of unity into support for such a policy." I explained, "Besides, I'm sure that the increasing unity of these two regions will only be beneficial financially and economically, which many should appreciate."

Giovanni hummed thoughtfully at my explanation, and I waited patiently for his response. After some time, he spoke up. "Let's table this discussion for now. I'm not going to outright disagree with you, even though I'm wary of how successful such a policy would be, but I will say that it is too soon to announce something like this. If we were going to announce something of this scale, we would have to build up towards it first with smaller proposals that are more easily palatable to whet the public's appetite for unity."

I nodded in agreement. Pushing something like this would definitely be too soon, and I was at least pleased to see that Giovanni wasn't immediately disagreeing with me. I hoped to eventually be able to sway him into my way of thinking.

I truly believed that a united Indigo would be a great thing for everyone involved.

After that, we moved away from foreign politics to something more local. Giovanni brought up something I hadn't previously considered but, in hindsight, really should have. He asked me if I wanted to entrench the Smith family as a pillar of Cerulean City.

He pointed out that with the family business rapidly growing in success as it was, we were being a household name in it of itself. Eventually, the business would grow so profitable that it would actually make business sense to make donations for tax reasons. He explained that this was how he got started in investing and influencing Viridian City, and he advised me to do to the same with Cerulean.

Furthermore, he also explained that, with my massive political influence, I could start making connections with the movers and shakers of Cerulean and nudge them into the direction that I wanted. Coupled with the future economic power of the family business, Giovanni said that he foresaw us being able to be a huge part of the politics of Cerulean in the future.

It was a very interesting thought, and it brought me back to my memories of Cerulean city from canon. I thought back to how the Waterflower sisters, whether out of wilful negligence or not, mishandled and neglected the Cerulean Gym and plummeted its reputation. This led to Cerulean City being nothing more than just a cultural and tourist hotspot for their, admittedly popular, performances.

Cerulean City in canon was far from poor or unsuccessful, but I agreed with Giovanni that there was no reason why I couldn't use my influence to make it better. For example, if the Cerulean Gym would eventually be known for its performances, then why couldn't we turn the entire city into one big city for festivals and tourists, becoming THE tourist hotspot for Kanto? Furthermore, with things like the undeveloped and entirely unsafe Cerulean Cave; there was much that could be done with that, especially given the relative strength of the wild Pokémon within and how relatively unexplored it was.

Snapping out of my thoughts, I replied to Giovanni that I thought it was a great idea, and that I would get started on thinking up some plans for now. Giovanni nodded with a pleased smile, and advised me to speak to my parents, since they would likely be familiar with handling this kind of stuff, before doing anything. I easily accepted and thanked him for his advice.

At this point, it was already getting late into the evening, and I did want to spend a bit of time with Whitney before she had to leave again, so I apologized and told Giovanni I wanted to spend time with my sister. He was understanding and told me to thank my parents for the meal once again before he made his way out of the house, so I escorted him to the front yard.

"Before you head off, have you found out anything about Team Rocket in Hoenn?" I whispered to him.

He shook his head, "No, not a whisper. Unfortunately, we might have to rely on the Hoenn League to deal with Team Rocket or until Proton resurfaces with whatever idiotic scheme he has cooked up in that violent mind of his."

I grimaced but thanked Giovanni for the information anyways. Then with another spark of light, I watched as he Teleported out of our yard with his Claydol.

As soon as Giovanni left, I managed to eke out some time with Whitney before she had to leave again. I listened as she talked about a whole host of topics, including describing her first experiences with camping in the wild, how she failed to catch a Pidgey, her intentions to capture more Pokémon, her victory over Flint, and how she had made a new friend during her journey.

She spoke with such speed that I had a hard time actually listening to what she was saying, but I could tell that she was both excited and happy during her journey so far, which was all I really cared about, in the end. Still, I was happy to listen to Whitney talk about things, and she showed off how much her Whismur had improved since the start of her journey, having far more confidence that when she was first caught.

The time flew by as she spoke, and after dinner she told us that she had to make her way back to the Pokécenter to sleep.

My parents and I obviously invited her to stay the night, but she insisted that she had to be more independent and that she couldn't leave her friend alone. That shut us all up, but I could tell that we were all proud of her.

Before she left, I reminded Whitney that she could call me up anytime if she needed help. She said she would but said that she wanted to try to be independent, and then left.

Seeing my little sister grow up was a bittersweet thing, but I could tell that her journey was going to be remarkably rewarding for her. Just like it was for me.

The next day, I found myself at the Viridian Branch of Devon Corp once more. I had gotten a text from Shelly saying that she had exciting news and for me to come over as soon as possible. I was intrigued enough that I ended up cancelling the training session with Karen, saying that I had something urgent to do. Karen was more than understanding.

I also informed Karen to tell Agatha about my wishes to push through my proposed reduction of the 4-badge policy, and that I hoped for her support in the matter. Karen told me she would pass it through.

I was escorted to Shelly's office without much fuss and was promptly greeted by a very excited Shelly.

"John, it's good to see you again! It looks like we've both been busy the past few weeks!" She said with a wide smile. "Congratulations on your success with the egg and developing the PIT technique! It was very interesting to read about! I've read that scientists all over the world are trying to emulate your actions! Even this branch office is building a new facility so that my team and I can conduct our own experiments!"

"Oh, wow, thank you." I responded slightly embarrassedly, "I admit that I had gotten lucky with the egg. I didn't realize how much of a big deal this was going to be. Though, you do seem very excited today. What's that about?"

"We've finally discovered and tested the Porygon2 evolution!" The words came tumbling out of her mouth, and while I did suspect this, it was still a minor shock to have it confirmed. "We remembered what you said about making sure that there were no side-effects with the evolution, which delayed this announcement slightly so that we could do more testing, but now we're confident that it is a safe process!"

I clapped my hands impressively, "That's amazing, Shelly! Wow! Would you pass my congratulations over to your team in Hoenn as well?"

She waved me off, "I didn't do much, I was only responsible for getting some extra data from your Pixel and sending it over to them. The ones in the joint-research facility did the bulk of the work." She answered humbly, before she then turned around and started digging something out of her cupboard, eventually taking out a small rectangular disk.

I could feel Pixel's Premier Ball shake on my belt as she took it out, and I placed a hand on its ball to calm Pixel down.

"This is what we called an 'Up-Grade'. It's a box of specially crafted data that we use to evolve Porygon into their evolution, Porygon2. It's a terrible name, but apparently the people in Hoenn shared your terrible naming sense, so we're stuck with this name now." She mock-grumbled, eliciting a chuckle from me.

"Anyways, we followed your advice and tested this thoroughly, though we are obviously still unsure of any long-term effects. It's yours to use if you accept." I almost grabbed the Up-Grade out of excitement, but then my worries about inflicting Pixel with potential insanity held me back. Shelly read the hesitation on my face before she then clicked through her computer for and brought up a few video files. "Would you like to have a look at how the evolutions went, just so that you know things won't go wrong?"

I nodded, and then she played the video. It contained clips where a Porygon scanned the data in the Up-Grade, before starting to glow brightly as they evolved into a Porygon2. The scientist then commented a bunch of things that all basically pointed to the fact that the evolution was stable and that they could detect no other side effects.

They even had the Porygon2 execute a few moves from TMs, like Thunderbolt and Psychic, and saw no problems.

"We couldn't really run too many test evolutions because the supply of Porygon is still limited at the moment." Shelly admitted, "It's been a much bigger struggle finding ways of mass producing Porygon, unfortunately."

I waved her off, still focused on the video. "It's fine. I'm more concerned about the evolution at the moment, to be honest. Just want to make sure that nothing would go wrong after I evolve Pixel." I confessed.

Luckily, Shelly was not offended at my paranoia, and she just gave me a smile before passing me a highlighted document.

"If you want to look at something more detailed, you can read through this summary of the evolutions. The highlighted bits are the important parts if you can't make sense of the scientific terms." She told me, and I thanked her before inspecting the document.

If I trusted the document, then nothing seemed out of order and the process should be entirely safe. At this point, if I still demanded more proof, then that would be going too far in indulging my paranoia. So, I eventually relaxed and passed the document back before releasing Pixel.

Pixel emerged whirling excitedly as it almost leapt up to scan the Up-Grade, only holding itself back because of my ingrained training.

"Pixel, you know what that is, right?" I asked to confirm, and it nodded its head rapidly. "Then, it's up to you if you want to evolve or –"

I didn't even get to finish my sentence as Pixel leapt up onto the table and scanned the Up-Grade, immediately triggering a bright flash of light that engulfed Shelly's office, causing me to step backwards instinctively. After a moment, the white light receded and a newly evolved Porygon2 appeared in the room.

"Pory! Pory, Pory, Porygon!" Pixel whirled happily, spinning around as if to inspect its own new evolution. I shared its happiness, both because I was happy that Pixel was rewarded for all of its hard training, as well as because now Pixel was actually a viable Pokémon to use in high-level battles as a long-range special attacker with surprisingly good bulk.

And with Pixel's new evolution, it opened up many different training paths that I could go down with it. While it was still a Porygon, it was too weak to engage in any recovery tactics, but it was a whole different story as a Porygon2. I foresaw Pixel being able to take on a very similar role to Luna in my team in the future, which was excellent.

I turned to Shelly, "Thank you very much for this. You've made Pixel and I very happy." And there doesn't seem to be any trace of insanity, which was good.

Shelly waved me off, "Not a problem. Besides, you did help with making this discovery, since you were the reason why we could work together with Viridian in the first place and also because you contributed that data. We're more thankful than you know." She insisted, and I gave her another round of thanks in response.

Pixel in the meanwhile kept buzzing around the room looking like it wanted to test its newfound power, and it was slowly infecting me with its excitement. Shelly noticed the obvious excitement on my face and spoke up, "If you don't mind, John, would you like to throw around a couple of attacks to test out Pixel's new power? We want to monitor that data as well and compare it to the ones we already have from our own Porygon2's."

Pixel buzzed in agreement before I could respond, so I relayed that to Shelly and the three of us made our way to our usual testing room, though I noticed there were a few more additions since last time. Perhaps they had gotten some extra equipment since last time? I did notice the reception looked a lot fancier than before when I came in.

As soon as we arrived, Pixel was strapped into the machine once again before Shelly directed it to firing off some moves. Even without reading the data from the machine, I could tell with my bare eyes that Pixel's Thunderbolts were far stronger than they used to be and struck the ground with a far louder bang. This increase in power was maintained as Pixel cycled through its moves, and overall, I was very pleased with the increase in power from the evolution.

"…And we're done." Shelly remarked as she began detaching Pixel from the machine, and then looked down at her notes with mild surprise.

"Wow! The numbers here are really impressive. It's very different from the results that we got back in Hoenn with the untrained Porygon2's. The leap in power is far greater than we had anticipated." She commented fascinatingly.

"Is that a bad thing?" I asked with some concern, but she just shook her head.

"Nope. None of the tests revealed any instability in your Pixel, just as we hoped for. So, the fact that your Pixel got so much stronger is only going to be a good thing." She replied.

"That's good. You feel good as well, Pixel?" I asked it, and it quickly spun around and gave me a happy nod, causing me to relax and smile. I was glad that my paranoia about Pixel being inflicted with insanity was unfounded. Looking at my new Porygon2 though, I had a question.

"Have you published this discovery yet?" I asked.

"Not yet, we were waiting for more data to guarantee as much as possible that the data was as safe as it was going to be." She answered, "But, I think they're going to do a reveal with Gym Leader Giovanni soon. To show off our cooperation or something."

I didn't know that Giovanni would be heading over to Hoenn, but I supposed that he didn't feel the need to tell me. That was fine; it wasn't like this was some big secret.

Out of the corner of my eye, despite being able to fire off a few moves during the tests, I noticed that Pixel was still buzzing in excitement as he wanted to get into a proper spar to accurately test out his new strength. I realized that I was the same.

"Hey, Shelly, is there anything else you needed us for? I think Pixel here wants to spar with my team as soon as possible." I said with a chuckle, one that she shared.

"Not at the moment. Perhaps Mr. Stone might have a few new business deals for you, but not for now. As for me personally, I was very interested with your discovery of the PIT technique, and I'd love to work with you on a future project like that. As I mentioned before, we're looking into inventing new Pokémon ball designs, and you seem to be a font of new ideas."

"I just get lucky sometimes." I said humbly, "Though I'll let you know if I think of anything. But, considering we just got a new Champion, I might be a busy dealing with politics to handle the science stuff for the time being." I replied, though obviously I still had my meta-knowledge to dig into as a crutch if needed.

"That's fine." She said as Pixel continued to buzz impatiently, causing Shelly to smile, "Okay, it looks like your Pixel is getting impatient, so I won't keep you. Thanks for coming!"

"No, thank you for the Up-Grade. I'll certainly put it to good use." I thanked her in return, then we exchanged goodbyes before I left the building. I couldn't wait to start properly training up my new Porygon2.

But as I was flying home from Port, my phone pinged an alert. It was a message from Lance. Reading through it, my eyebrows shot up. Then he sent another text saying that the committee meeting to decide the next member of the Elite Four had been pushed up.

Lorelei had officially challenged Walker to take his place in the Elite Four.

A.N. AND PIXEL HAS EVOLVED! Finally, it's got the stats to be a part of the Elite Team, though it still needs the training. Also, with Lance finally Champion, it's open season on the Elite Four, and Lorelei has finally decided to strike. Technically, the challenge could have come at any time, but she was still training up and its standard practice for big changes to happen when a Champion changes, so it just looks better this way to the public.

This chapter has been BETAed by Allute! Thanks! And to anyone who wants to support me, please check out my p atreon at CartecTNN where you can read 8 advanced chapters! Thanks to those who have supported me already!