Author's Note: So I've got four arcs planned before I count this as "completed". Intro/St Anne arc which we are currently in. New Island Prep/New Island Arc. Indigo League Arc. And the Thesis Arc which will involve a lot of the speculation on Hisuan form rediscovery and such.

Chapter 9: Cast Off

Thanks to our earlier arrival Ash ended up being a lot less overwhelmed and excitable. Well he was still extremely excitable but he didn't jump into making any exceptionally dumb trades. So I'll call that a win.

I hadn't spotted anyone that stuck out as a Rocket like a sore thumb yet, however. Which concerned me. It meant they were very good at hiding, not here yet for some reason, or I was extremely lucky and they weren't coming at all.

I knew for a fact I was not an extremely lucky person.

Alexei my piloswine and Alberich my rhyhorn were the two pokemon I had sent back to the ranch my family rented to care for my not in use pokemon. They both had limited mobility on the ship and I wanted to acclimate Rum Tum, the new Galarian meowth, to my team and style. He wasn't quite all sharp edges like he would be once he evolved, currently it was almost like his fur was made of steel wool.

Still not the most comfy of materials.

He had Tough Claws and knew Fake Out, Hone Claws, Metal Claw, Pay Day, and Taunt so that put him near level twenty on average. Though again, levels were like IQ scores, poor generalizations of greater and more complex phenomena.

We were to cast off this afternoon, and Samson Oak had left this morning, much bemoaning that he'd have to teleport instead of enjoying the cruise due to something that came up at his cousin's lab.

So as Brock chaperoned Ash through a few friendly battles and Misty socialized with trainers she knew from interactions at her family's gym I scrolled through the trades seeing if there was anything more that interested me.

Unfortunately there was not. I had hoped maybe with the proximity a larvitar might be available, while most stayed around Mount Silver some did relatively often wander down into the lowlands of Johto, and there were always breeders for rare pokemon at these events wanting to show off.

And truly, there were, just not for my type specialties. Quite a few breeders had the regional starters, eevees, and even one trading and selling mime jrs. But alas, the earth types were still mostly just onix, sandshrews, and the nidoran line. There was one swinub but I already had Alexei. No one even had a gligar or phanpy to offer unfortunately. Sighing I closed my device and made my way over to where Ash was battling.

He was having his charmander kite around a rather frustrated looking drowzee who seemed loath to drop its Light Screen to go on the attack and risk the flames.

I knew Ash was just waiting for an opening to break through with Brick Break, however I would have stayed and watched to the end anyways except for a shock of purple hair I noticed through the crowd.

Peeling away from the match I as stealthily as possible began following them along. Unfortunately while I was able to catch a glint of gold that just had to be Meowth, I quickly lost track of them in the crowd.

Team Rocket was already here. And who knew how many other trainers on the ship were Rockets as well?

I'm not sure if it was the early arrival or what, but this was definitely different than canon. In the same way the fight at the school had been, it was more realistic and less bombastic and cartoonish. Now it was not as bad as that Adventures manga or anything, but it was still worrying nonetheless. Didn't that manga kill people on this ship? Or was that a gritty grimdark fanfic? Point being, even in a semi-realistic version of this universe I had to be careful, because both Rockets and gyarados would be deadly without even having active intent to kill.

Though…hmm yes that might work.

I made my way back through the crowd to Ash's battle, which was now wrapping up with many cheers. I wove through and placed myself next to Brock, "I saw James and Meowth but lost them in the crowd, you guys should keep your guards up."

He…well his eyes sort of moved up and down so I am going to count that as a processing blink, "Hmm…thanks for the warning, Isaac. We'll be casting off soon so this is about to get a whole lot tighter in here."

I nodded, "I don't suppose you managed to evolve that kabuto the League gave you?" As the Rock-type gym leader he had received a resurrected kabuto from the League and my father's lab to raise, train, and develop knowledge of. Misty as the Water-type gym leader had an omanyte for the same reason.

Lance was the only one who had an aerodactyl, the things were nigh uncontrollable. Of course. I was planning to perhaps change that shortly.

With that thought in mind I went back to my cabin to go over some of my future plans.

I knew the locations of a good number of pokemon that would be compatible with my team and training.

Scribbling through my notebook I listed some of the more important, rare, and powerful ones.

A giant golurk, hidden in some ruins at the Desert Resort in Unova. A very strong choice and very possibly one that could help greatly against Mewtwo.

I knew where meltan could eventually be found, though I was unsure if they would be there currently, which made it a poor choice to hunt after, even with how powerful a melmetal would be.

I knew where the Diamond Domain was…but that was insanely dangerous. Same with the Tree of Life and the possible lucario acquisition there. On top of that I didn't know if I could even activate that storage crystal.

Similarly to both the previous examples, I knew where genesects would be once they were revived, but something told me that was years off as it would no doubt be based on an experimental expansion of my own father's research. And also they would definitely kill me.

If I didn't already have Alberich I would try stopping by Fairchild Isle and catching an Alpha rhydon.

Hmm…I could probably catch that Alpha magcargo near Blackthorn City before that character of the day trainer got it. Honestly I only knew about this one because there were public reports about it already, and it had retriggered a memory. Actually most of these were memories retriggered from reading Pokedex or travel guide entries.

There was an Alpha claydol and whiscash in Hoenn. The claydol especially would be a strong addition. And I think there was a shiny donphan out that way? But I don't remember her being especially powerful.

Sinnoh apparently had a wild metagross living alone outside of Snowpoint. There were rumors treating it like a cryptid actually.

Magearna is out for similar reasons to Diancie. I have no confidence in my ability to take on even the relatively calm legends and convince them to join my side.

Didn't that weird pink island have a rather powerful nidoking? Something to think about if Cleo ever wants a mate I suppose.

I wonder if the Zygarde cores have been released and exposed yet? That would actually be the most reasonable legend to get a hold of. Working through the twenty-five percent form (I think that was the number) would definitely be manageable and hopefully ingratiate it to me, but I had no idea if the timeline was that far advanced yet. I hadn't seen any rumors of Team Flare yet.

I wasn't ready to make a play on either of the two Regis I might be able to work with either.

Yeah, legends were off the table. Especially as I had no idea whether they were just high base stat pokemon with cool abilities, or literal forces of nature and god-like creatures. Or something in between.

If I had to pick for a training journey before the Conference…Unova offered me an ancient giant golurk and a large list of standard wild pokemon that fit my specialty all near the target. Hoenn offered me multiple lesser but still well above average pokemon as well. Sinnoh though…I'm not sure I could pull off that metagross without the help of the golurk or other similar high power catches. If I evolved Artagnan and worked Estella to the bone I could maybe pull it off.

I'd heard the fog horn and felt us cast off about ten minutes into my note-taking and research checking. It was now an hour past that and probably time I show my face downstairs for dinner.

I just had to hope awareness of the problem let us handle Team Rocket without a complete shipwreck this time.