The flight only took about two hours in total and we landed safely in Mistralton. I bid Mike farewell, but not before taking a few more pictures with the jovial man and his plane to commemorate the first plane I ever rode in this second life of mine.
The sun was already starting to set by the time we arrived at Mistralton. The first thing I did was head for the hotel which I had Sebastian help me book a room for before I went on my trip, so that I could deposit my belongings before looking for a place to have my dinner. I knew he went over the top again when I realised he had helped me book the VIP suite when I had told him that just booking a normal room would do, and the hotel which he had helped me reserve a room for was a rather classy one.
Well, whatever. At least there's a lot of space I could use to have most of my pokemon sleep outside instead of in their pokeballs tonight. The VIP suite was so spacious that even Flamel and Bigblue could easily wander around without accidentally knocking over anything.
Mistralton City is a city whose economy thrives on its aviation industry and agriculture industry. Like what Mike had told me, Mistralton is one of the two places in Unova where cargoes can be delivered safely and quickly through the use of planes, and that alone gives it a very strategic economic advantage. Due to the arable land around the city, it is also ideal for agriculture. I had also seen for myself how there are actually fresh vegetables grown around the boundaries of the runway in greenhouses arranged in a systematic fashion. According to Mike, this is so that the crops can be harvested and sent to their destinations quickly.
I was interested in tasting some of Mistralton's local produce, so I ended up dining in a restaurant which serves fresh produce while ordering a sumptuous meal for my pokemon as well. I had to book an entire corner for myself due to the number of pokemon I have and we take up quite a bit of space. Thankfully, even without the little black credit card Vance had given me, I am more than financially capable of affording such luxuries on my own due to my occupation as an interpol agent. The pay we draw is rather generous, especially after all of us, including Looker, had demanded a pay raise after the Zapmolcuno incident.
"Not bad, isn't it?" I asked after Kel had promptly finished her meal. My meal was mainly vegetarian since my main purpose of visiting this restaurant was to taste their local produce and Mistralton is famous for their vegetables. However, some of my pokemon are carnivorous in nature and they would need a meat-based meal. For some, they are omnivorous, so I ordered a mix of both for them.
I popped another slice of tomato into my mouth. It's so crunchy, so juicy, so fresh and just in the right mix of sweet and sour that I absolutely fell in love with it within the first bite. These fresh products would lose their freshness if they were delivered via ships because it will take a long while for ships to travel from region to region, so they wouldn't taste as nice by the time they reach their destination. It probably wouldn't be a problem if these were flown by air because the journey would be much shorter, but it's just too bad that inter-regional travel via air is still a pipedream and probably will remain to be in the next few decades, or maybe even for the next century.
If only these can be flown to Hoenn, I would be able to eat them every single day back home.
Truthfully, there's nothing much to sightsee in Mistralton because the only unique attractions are the planes, its long runway, and the unique arrangements which the locals use to grow their produce. It's not a city that relies on tourism to sustain its economy. In fact, I think I had seen all that I needed to see after just two hours of walking around after we had our dinner.
Unova's laws are a lot stricter about the kinds and types of pokemon we are allowed to release to accompany us, although such restrictions differ from city to city and town to town. Thankfully, due to the rural location of Mistralton City, most of my pokemon were allowed to accompany me per the city's regulations. We must have made quite a sight, a little girl leading a little party of scary looking pokemon that amounted to more than ten in total. Even if Kratos, Chill, and Toothless were kept in their pokeballs, Hulk's imposing figure was more than enough for people to naturally make way for us as we explored the city.
"Not a very touristy place," I concluded after seeing that nothing really caught our interest and my pokemon voiced their agreement as well. We headed back to the hotel and I had a relaxing bath. This is really a VIP suite for a reason, because I saw quite an impressive selection of bath oils for my picking when I was happily soaking myself in the tub and it's obvious that none of those are cheap products. I might have spent too much time relaxing in my tub.
I changed into a simple nightgown and due to the chilly weather, wore a bathrobe over it to keep myself warm. I decided to give my family a call while waiting for my hair to dry. It's been quite a while since I had the time to make a call back because the interpol had been so busy recently with all the back-to-back raids we had to conduct. I'm not too sure if Vance is at home or if he's at the Battle Frontier, so I decided to call Mum's number instead.
"Hi Mum," I greeted when she finally picked up my video call, with Jarvis helpfully holding up my phone for me while I'm busy drying my hair with a hairdryer that's surprisingly silent (again, I attributed this luxury to the fact that I'm in a VIP suite). There were times where I was deciding if I should just cut my hair short to save me the trouble of drying it, but my vanity won out in the end and I decided to keep my hair as it is.
"Hi Vel, how have you been so far? Sebastian told me that you are on a vacation. That reminds me, why didn't you bring him with you? You know how we are now at odds with the Carrillo family."
"It would be weird to have someone keep following me around," I answered. "And Mum, I am an Elite trainer with a charizard, flygon, and a tyranitar, among many others. I have a little ghost army with me too. I will be fine."
I knew Vance had to be at home when Wacky briefly appeared to raise a paw to wave at the camera before swiftly disappearing from view. Cheeky little ghost.
"Oh well, if you say so. It's not like I can be there to nag at you now, can I?" Mum huffed and I watched as she walked to push open the door of the study room of our house where my parents often use to do their work, presumably to find my dad. "Griff, it's Vel."
"Ah, you finally remember to make a call back. If it wasn't for Sebastian giving me regular updates about what is going on in Unova I would have thought you had lost yourself exploring some secluded forest," Dad teased somewhat sarcastically and I playfully stuck my tongue out at him in reply. I could hear Mum hollering for Vance in the background, which further validated my guess that he's home today.
"Where are you now, Mistralton?"
"Yeap," I replied, not at all surprised that Sebastian had dutifully reported to my father about each and every thing he knew about me. Come to think about it, maybe Dad left Sebastian with me so that Sebastian can keep an eye on me in my parents' stead. It's quite a smart yet sneaky move on his part.
"You haven't seen the pictures I took today, have you?" I spoke excitedly and Jarvis helpfully shared the images that I had taken today and pulled it up on screen. It is times like this that I gave my thanks to our dear President of Hoenn that he had given me a porygon-z that can freely interact with and alter cyberspace, because such a thing would be impossible otherwise.
"Very nice," Dad nodded in agreement and I could see him swiping at his screen to view the images, probably a feature that Jarvis had helpfully modified for the purpose of our video call. "Oh, a plane? You boarded a plane?"
"It's so fun. The pilot actually offered to let me sit in the co-pilot's seat," I recounted excitedly. "The engines are a little too loud and the plane vibrates a lot until it takes off, but other than that it was rather enjoyable. My pokemon don't really like planes all that much though."
Fuzzy voiced his agreement with a loud and clear squeak, still trying to squeeze his head into the video frame but Rena easily sent him flying away with a swipe of her paw.
"How are things back home? How are you and Mum doing?" I asked, and Dad simply shrugged his shoulders.
"I mean, same old, same old. The only difference would be that your Mum and I are a little busy with the family's business as of late, especially with how every region is really starting to try and open their borders for real, allowing more interactions between the regions' economy. There's been a huge influx of oversea investors looking to invest in Hoenn and yes, our family's business is one that they are very interested in being a part of. The thing is, the Government and the League wouldn't allow it, because our family's business has a very tight connection with the region's security and there's no way we would allow foreign investors to have a say in how we do things. It's been getting tedious trying to reply to all the overseas emails we have been getting recently."
"Uh, you can try the copy paste function? Create a template for automatic replies?" I offered. I understood what Dad was talking about, because it was something Vance and Sebastian had made sure to impress on me during our lessons. In a way, our family's business also acts like the region's military contractor but instead of firearms, we provide living weapons in the form of pokemon to the League, ensuring that Hoenn will always have a steady supply and reserve of pokemon to use should Hoenn ever found itself in war again. That is our family's duty and responsibility that we had sworn to uphold ever since the region's founding. Due to the historical pact we had with the League, we had even rejected many offers from Hoennian investors to be able to invest and have a pie in our family's business and to help grow it. As such, those overseas investors looking to do the same were simply too ignorant of our family's history, or they were daydreaming.
Thankfully, while the Government forbade any foreign investments to flow into our business, the Government and the League had no qualms about our family trying to use this opportunity to invest overseas as long as we can prove that by doing so we would not be leaking any sensitive and confidential information. Like us, they also see this as an opportunity to be able to bring in other exotic species of pokemon that would be difficult to get in the part of the world where our region is located. Places like Unova and Alola where very unique pokemon species can only be found in such places were our focus, because if we succeeded in importing these pokemon, we would be able to introduce and diversify the pokemon species that can be found in our region.
"It's still very tedious," my father insisted. At this point, I just think that he's too lazy to reply to emails and it is something that I can relate to.
"At least we are making more money, right? I would imagine that we had been selling and exporting more and more pokemon since the opening of borders. Oh, what about the ice enclosure? Is it working as intended?"
"It's fully functional now, but we are still keeping a close eye on it because this is the first time anyone has tried this method of raising ice type pokemon on a farm, or just raising ice types in captivity within Hoenn in general. You never know what might go wrong. Funnily enough, your ghost enclosure is working just fine, and all you did was to have Bigblue raise a few rocks here and there to build a little tower for ghosts to hide and play in with zero costs involved. Even Norman said he had no idea how you made it work."
"Aren't you proud of me?" I asked smugly and my father simply sighed and played along.
"Seriously though, have we managed to successfully breed any ghosts?"
"I wouldn't know. I have no idea if the increase in ghosts there was because some ghosts have successfully breeded within the ghost enclosure you built, or if more ghosts had appeared on the farm somehow and automatically made their homes there. Most of the ghosts nearby tend to gravitate towards that enclosure anyway, so there's no problems as far as I could see. Please help me take a look when you return, because I don't speak to ghosts and nobody has any clue what's going on within the enclosure, only that the ghosts are relatively well behaved."
"Managed to get them on sale?"
"Not yet. We are still trying to finalise a set of safety protocols for our workers to safely approach and interact with those ghosts before we can even think of trying to sell a few of them on the market. Not everyone has a gift like yours, you know?" My father chided with a fond tone as Vance came into the picture right then, poking his face in and I could hear my father's mightyena, Fang, barking in the background as well
"Heyo sister dear, miss me? Have you thought of what to give me for my birthday?"
"Hello, brother dear, and no, I still haven't decided what present to give you for your birthday," I easily lied. I already decided a long time ago what I wanted to give him for his birthday and had been working hard in my free time to make it a reality, I'm just not sure if I would be able to make it in time.
"Oh, I'm so hurt," Vance dramatically put a hand over his chest where his heart was at and I simply rolled my eyes.
"You'll be fine."
"I'm not! My baby sister has refused to give me a birthday gift!"
"Excuse me? I'm already fourteen, I'm not a baby."
"And she blocked all of my messages for the entire day! What did I do?!"
"Oh, that," I paused in the act of trying to dry my hair to swipe at my phone's screen to unblock my brother's contact number. Honestly, I had forgotten all about this until he mentioned it, and I saw the influx of messages suddenly flooding in the moment I did so. He had been spamming my inbox, it seems.
"So enlighten me, o cute little sister of mine. What did I do to deserve my number being blocked?"
"You said it was a bowl."
"It is a bowl. What else could it be?"
"It is a mug."
There was a brief period of silence before Vance roared out in laughter, much to my annoyance and slight embarrassment.
"T-That was a-a mug? Oh sister dear, I finally found something that you are bad at-"
"Not, another, word."
"Yes, a mug, a mug, I get it," Vance raised his hands in surrender, but obviously still trying his best not to laugh and steadily failing to do so. Even I could tell that my parents were trying their best not to laugh.
"In my defence, that was my first ever attempt at pottery. I don't see how you will fare any better."
"Is that a challenge I hear, sister dear?"
"Take it on if you are a man."
"If you put it that way…" Vance took out his phone and started scrolling through it. "Aha! Found it, a pottery workshop at… Fallarbor? It's not too far from where Flan is at, would probably visit it the next time I make a trip to Lavaridge and drag Flan along with me while I'm at it."
"Aren't you glad that your little sister just gave you a brilliant idea for your next date?"
"If you are telling me that this is your birthday present to me I'm going to be so disappointed in you."
"Drats, plan busted," I played along and gave a dramatic sigh.
"So where are you visiting next?" Vance asked.
"There's really nothing much to see here, so I was planning to head for Icirrus City first thing tomorrow morning. We would pass by the Celestial Tower on our way there, so I would be giving it a visit as well," I gestured and traced out my planned route in the air in front of me with my finger. "Afterwards, we would cross Tubeline Bridge and enter Opelucid City, and after that when my vacation is about to end I would just fly down south to return to Nimbasa."
"You sure you can do all that in a week?"
"It's really just a touch and go since I only have a week," I shrugged. "If there's really not enough time then I will just make my return trip from wherever I will be when the time is up."
I continued talking to my family for about an hour before we ended the call. My hair had dried by then, and I reached for my backpack to retrieve the item I had been making in order to give to Vance on his birthday.
It's an unfinished scarf. Hoenn has a tropical climate and because of that scarves are more of a fashion statement rather than a necessary accessory. Still, this is the best idea I managed to come up with to date. Vance had put together a scrapbook for me for my birthday gift and had done everything by hand. I want to do the same for him too, and knitting was what I thought of. I wanted to knit a shirt, but it was soon proven that a shirt was too ambitious a goal for a novice like me so I had to settle for the next best thing, which is to knit a scarf.
I had Sebastian help me order the necessary tools to learn how to knit and I made sure to let him know to choose threads and yarns that are of thinner fabric and size so that Vance wouldn't feel suffocatingly hot when wearing it around his neck. I value practicality above all when it comes to things I use on a daily basis and the same goes for the gift I plan to give my older brother. Maybe when I'm better at knitting I would knit a shirt for everyone, then we would all have matching shirts.
Seriously, knitting something decent is a lot harder than it looks. I'm not sure if knitting was simply that hard or if I simply had no talent in this handicraft. I had accidentally pierced my fingers with those long needles more times than I cared to count.
I chose a dark navy blue yarn to knit because blue is my brother's favourite colour. In my first attempt I was overly ambitious and had tried knitting patterns into it only to have it fail horribly, so I decided against knitting complicated patterns until I got better at this. For this attempt I chose a more simple design for the scarf, but it still doesn't stop me from trying to knit Vance's name on it with a different coloured yarn, a bright yellow, and adding my family's crest at the end of his name. Knitting Vance's name and a five-point star at the end was challenging, but not hard. Trying to knit an opened eye in the middle of said star, however, was really testing the limits of my amateur knitting skills. I really was never good at handicraft, my attempt at pottery earlier today was a very good representation of that.
Vance's birthday is coming soon, and considering the time that it would take to have my present delivered to Hoenn by ship before his birthday, I really do not have much time left due to how little talent I have in this art. I have to complete this latest by the end of next week. I should be able to get it done by then, the problem lies in if the completed product would be as good as Vance's scrapbook. His gift was really beautiful, it was obvious that he spent a lot of time preparing it and I want him to feel the same too when he received my gift. I don't have time to redo and make another scarf so this final and crucial step of knitting his name and my family crest on it cannot go wrong. I need to be very careful every single time I thread and knit.
Knitting is fun if you are not in a rush to get something completed by a certain deadline. I honestly don't mind picking it up as a hobby and maybe one day, I might be able to knit a shirt for everybody in my family; Dad, Mum, Vance, and for myself. It would be nice to have a family shirt that is knitted by my own hands.
That sounds like something nice to look forward to.
Character and pokemon list:
Velda Vera, Age: 14, Female, Pokemon Trainer, Member of the International Police
Pokemon on hand:
1) Rapidash (Flamel), male
2) Swampert (Bigblue), male
3) Banette (Dolly), female
4) Flygon (Snap), male
5) Absol (Kelsa), female
6) Charizard (Toothless), male
7) Cradily (Lily), female
8) Espeon (Rena), female
9) Pachirisu (Fuzzy), male
10) Tyranitar (Kratos), male
11) Clefairy (Joy), female
12) Nidoqueen (Ness), female
13) Pangoro (Hulk), male
14) Porygon-Z (Jarvis), genderless
15) Scizor (Archer), male
16) Lapras (Chill), female
17) Gengar (Wacky), male