Mum and dad returned home just two days later. mum was more than willing to take up my suggestion for us to spend some mother-daughter bonding time together. We headed for a luxurious spa resort the next day and opted to enjoy the full course: soaking in the hot springs, eating good food, facial treatments, massages; it was a very enjoyable day for us. We really pampered ourselves from head to toe and from dawn to dusk.

I've actually never really been a fan of massages, but mum brought me to a very luxurious resort that serves only high-end clients and mum was apparently one of their VIP clients as I learnt that day. Their products and services are top-notch and they have a very high degree of privacy. We ended up in the spa room where we undressed from our robes and lay face down on the beds. The room was scented and the incense pot was quietly burning at a corner. I couldn't really quite identify the smell but it had a really relaxing scent that could lull people to sleep after a tired day. It really made me want to purchase some for myself and burn it in my own bedroom and who knows, it might actually help me with my insomnia problem.

Mum and I made some inane conversations while the female massage therapists did their work and kneaded all the kinks from our muscles. It was halfway through our conversation that I decided to ask mum something that I really wanted to ask a long time ago, especially after Sebastian had let slip a little about grandpa during the conversation we had before we headed for the Battle of Castelia.

"Your grandparents?"

"Sebastian told me a little about my grandparents on dad's side and I only just realised that both you and dad rarely talked about them. I'm sure you have your own reasons why you never talked about them so if it's a topic that's kind of taboo it's actually fine–"

"It wasn't a taboo to begin with, at least for me," mum corrected me before I could finish my sentence. The massage therapists were done with their jobs by now and had already left the room, which was why I decided to broach the topic now since there's nobody else that would listen in. The last part of our treatment is aromatherapy, where we would just lie here on our beds and relax after the massage and enjoy the pleasant aroma that filled the room.

"It's not that I'm unwilling to broach this topic with you and Vance, there just wasn't the right opportunity to bring it up and I wasn't sure how to talk about it to the both of you when the both of you were so young. And by the time the both of you grew up none of you had ever asked us about it so…"

Mum's voice trailed off towards the end but she didn't take long to carry on where she left off.

"Let's just put it this way, I didn't recall if I ever had a mother, but I do have vague memories of my father. So at the very least, both of you have a maternal grandfather– assuming he's still alive– and… I think, the emphasis is on the word think, he should be in the medical industry, or at least was in the medical industry."

"Medical industry?"

"I'm very certain that he's involved in the medical field or at the very least, had a very strong interest in it. Trying to search for your grandfather was one reason why I decided to pursue nursing when I was younger," mum elaborated. "Well, I became a full time housewife after I was pregnant with Vance and I didn't make any headway in my search, but at least I tried. I was only about three to five years old when your grandfather left me in the care of the local orphanage so there's really very little that I could recall about him. The funny thing is, even after I was married to your father and he allowed me to use the family's resources to assist me in my search, we still were unable to track down your grandfather. Your father and I, we both suspected that if your grandfather really decided to leave me in the care of an orphanage, it probably was due to something out of his control."

"There are things that even our family could not get to the bottom of?" I asked with a slight frown. Our family had been here in Hoenn for more than five centuries, our family's history predates even the existence of the Hoenn League. While we had faded out from the public's memory in the past few decades and only started to make a comeback now, our power and influence is very deeply entrenched into this region and just a single word from us could easily create a ripple effect across the pokemon industry in Hoenn. Considering the connections and political weight that my family holds, it's unthinkable that there are things that could elude even my family's investigation right in our homeland.

"That was the same surprised look your father and I shared," mum remarked in mild amusement upon seeing my reaction. "Strangely enough, we had collected enough evidence to convince us that my ancestors from my side definitely had their roots in Hoenn, we could at least confirm that they were already here from about two to three hundred years ago, so I am definitely a Hoenn native if we are talking about the topic of my ancestry. What we could not figure out was the fact that the last hundred years or so was a complete blank, almost like somebody had purposefully erased everything about my ancestry during that time period. Our search persevered for a few years but any and all investigations about my ancestry during that period all eventually reached a dead end. Both your dad and I eventually gave up."

"For some reason this sounded like the plot from the TV serial Fuzzy and Kel was watching the other day. An ancient and powerful family were being hunted by their archenemies and in order to preserve their bloodline, they scattered their descendents to hide them from their enemies and even erased any and all history about them so nobody would figure out that they are descendents from a powerful family."

"Factually speaking, it's not like something like that had never happened before. The plot of the TV serial your pokemon are watching is not entirely inaccurate."

"It happened before?!"

"Our family was a member of the six great founding families but there are only three of us left now, including us and even the main family, our family, had dwindled to only four members today. You probably had never found it odd before because you had been living in this carefully constructed protective bubble that your father and I created for you, but I'm sure you were already starting to harbour questions once you had broadened your worldview during your travels to other regions. Do you think it's normal for a family with a history as ancient as ours to only have four members today?"

"It's far from normal," I answered without hesitation. "Unova has their own equivalent of Hoenn's founding families, the Five Weapons and the Twenty Assisting Houses, and I'm only largely acquainted with the Dandolos but if I have to compare our families, our numbers are still unusually small when compared to theirs."

"There are a few reasons why things turned out that way for us, but I will let your father or Vance fill you in on the details when they have the time. They are more suited to explain this to you than I am," mum replied. "It's not like your father and I did not consider such a possibility when it comes to your mysterious grandfather but if that was true, it didn't tally with any of the known historical events that took place in Hoenn during the time period where I was placed in the orphanage. So, no, I don't think that I was from some ancient mysterious family that was on the run from our archenemies."

"In that case, is there anything in particular that you remembered about grandpa? Any other striking features besides his interest in medicine?"

"There is one. I'm very certain he had a tattoo."

"A tattoo? What kind?"

"It's… how do I describe it? I vaguely recalled that the tattoo was inked on his chest. It looked something like a sword with a thorny vine wrapped around its blade."

It was like somebody hit the pause button that made everything around me freeze for a moment. A tattoo, inked on the chest, a sword that's wrapped with a thorny vine? I've only seen one tattoo that perfectly matched each and every description that mum just mentioned but it's… it's impossible! That's the same tattoo that I saw that was inked on Dr Lott's chest and he's around the same age as my parents!

I've even asked Dr Lott about his tattoo because it's very nicely done. He told me that his tattoo was something that's unique to him and his lover, it was their special something. Logically speaking that meant that there's only one such tattoo in this entire world that's inked on a man's chest but…

I'm just so confused right now.

"Vel. Vel?"

"Y-Yeah?"

"What's wrong? You looked rather out of it."

"Nothing, just trying to imagine what that tattoo might look like," I easily lied through my teeth and decided against telling mum about the ridiculous suspicion that I had. My common sense was telling me that the person that mum had been searching for so long couldn't be the doctor, but there's another part of me that's trying to figure out how the doctor managed to appear youthful if we were working on the assumption that he's indeed my maternal grandfather.

I knew that he's an ability holder. He had asked me to keep this a secret from others and I don't think he had ever revealed to my parents that he was an ability holder although they might have their own suspicions, or already learnt about it from their own sources. He told me that his ability was to "draw power from the sun" and he told me that he named his ability "Protosynthesis". He had only mentioned that physical augmentation was one of its visible effects and I had also witnessed for myself how he could instantly heal fatal wounds through this same ability.

But what if… his ability could do more than just that?

Furthermore, wasn't it concluded that the abilities that ability holders wield can only be passed down through inheritance of blood? After it was verified that I am an ability holder my parents and Vance had immediately gone over our entire family tree and concluded that none of our known ancestors were ability holders. The logical explanation we first arrived at was that one of our ancestors had to be an ability holder but it had always expressed itself as a recessive gene and thus never detected until I was born.

But then we tried seeing this from a different perspective, that my abilities were actually inherited from our mother's side of the family, and that line of thought is now being further supported by everything that mum just revealed. Didn't she also mention that the past hundred years of her ancestry was somehow purposefully erased by an unknown party? Perhaps it had something to do with the gift that I had inherited?

I don't want to speculate or overthink too much but things would actually add up if my suspicions were true. Why the doctor always appeared to be doting on me, Zades' warning back on the ship that the doctor seemed to have an ulterior motive for getting closer to me that goes beyond the normal relationship between doctor and patient, why he took that fatal blow for me without any hesitation at the risk of his life and blowing his cover as an ability holder… it felt almost as if unrelated pieces of a puzzle had suddenly fallen into place to create a full picture.

And if the doctor really is my maternal grandfather it would explain why and how I was born with an ability, because I had inherited it from him. If my guess turns out to be true it would also beg the question of why he had never come clean with us that we are actually related by blood.

At this juncture it would be foolish to not try and verify if the doctor had any blood relations to us, but how am I going to go about doing it? If I want to conduct a DNA test I would have to either take a blood sample or get some hair samples from him. It would be too difficult to make him bleed and make it look like an accident, it also wouldn't feel right to me to do this to him. I could try and steal some hair from him but you couldn't just use any hair for DNA tests using hair samples. Hair analysis is done by evaluating hair structure and DNA from cells attached to the root of the hair, so the hair follicle is the actual component I would need to extract from the doctor if I want to conduct a DNA test with him.

But hair that your body naturally sheds or falls out from your head doesn't usually come with the hair follicle. If I want to take a hair sample from the doctor I would need to literally pluck it from him and how am I going to do that without him noticing?

"Don't concern yourself too much about my father, trying to search for him is like trying to find a needle in a haystack," mum's voice pulled me out from my train of thoughts before she gave me a teasing look. "Well since this is supposed to be mother-daughter bonding time where we have our ladies talk, and since both your father and Vance had been nagging my ears off ever since you returned home to get me to ask you this question, what kind of boys are you interested in?"

"Both of them need to stop overreacting when it comes to the matters of my non-existent love life," I deadpanned. I had experienced how ridiculous and over the top their reactions could get when it came to this topic and I don't wish to experience it another time if possible.

"But you have to have a preferred type, don't you?" Mum pressed further and I fell into thought. I don't think she's going to let me go until I give her some answers. She's probably curious about my thoughts on this matter just like how dad and Vance are and at the end of the day, they are family. I don't see a real need to be secretive about my preferences for the opposite sex.

"I think I would prefer someone older than me, probably like three years or older cos they would more likely be more mature than I am," I started off and started to think a little deeper about what kind of guys would probably catch my attention. "I don't need him to be super good looking, but I have always been a superficial person so good looks are definitely a plus. At the very least, he needs to be easy on the eyes. It doesn't really matter if he's a pokemon trainer or not but it would be nice if he has something that he's passionate about. I would give him bonus points if he enjoys travelling like I do. If he has none of the above, that's actually okay too as long as I like him because strictly speaking I only have one request from him, and it's that he understands the need to give me some alone time occasionally and understand that we do not have to revolve around each other all the time to prove that our relationship is going strong, if that makes any sense?"

"That's a much more mature outlook about relationships than I had when I was your age," mum gave me a look that I had no idea how to interpret. "Anyway, you know better than I do what your father and Vance's stance is on this issue. To them, you are forever too young to start dating but I've always been a believer that it's better to start a little earlier, so that you would learn sooner what you want or do not want from your other half."

"Dad and Vance don't think that way."

"Because both of them had very different experiences from mine. They were lucky enough in the sense that their Mrs Right happened to be their first love, but are most people really that lucky? I started dating at around your age, actually, and had two other relationships before I met your father and I was glad that I experienced two other relationships before I met him, because it was through my experience with them that I knew what kind of guys I do not want to date and what kinds of behaviours or traits I would prefer my other half to have. Does that make sense to you?"

"It does," I nodded. "Does dad know about your previous relationships though?"

"Of course he did. You should always be honest to your other half where your relationship is concerned, and that includes whatever "dark past" you might have experienced before meeting him," mum freely admitted. "Why I had such a different opinion from your father and brother was because I had friends with very controlling parents who did not allow them to be in a relationship until they were adults and by then, it was too late for them. Either the good ones were already taken or their social circle was too limited to their workplace colleagues such that it's so difficult for them to search for a partner. So what's their next best alternative? For my era it was attending matchmaking sessions via dating agencies. For your era it would be through dating sites and apps, but how many really found their other half through this method? Like I always told your father, most people do not have the luck to be married to their first love. You don't suddenly or magically know what you want in a relationship, what to do for your other half as a romantic partner, or what to expect from your partner until you have had a few experiences. In life, you often need to attempt, experience, and fail at least a few times before you know what you really want. The same goes for relationships."

"Can you repeat all of that so that I can do a voice recording and send it to dad and Vance?"

"Oh forget it, they wouldn't listen," mum released a soft huff of fond exasperation. "I had given up convincing your father and your brother to allow you to date if you ever found someone you want to try starting a relationship with, but just know that if you really started one, you have my support. I trust that you are mature and sensible enough to pick a guy that's… not utter trash, for the lack of a better word."

"Okay," I agreed. I have faith in my own judgement. It wouldn't be hard to meet mum's expectations of me.

"I just need you to promise me one thing," mum's voice suddenly turned serious and it made me subconsciously straighten my back after hearing it. "If you found a guy you like and you decide to go all the way to the last base, just promise me that you will use protection."

Cue the awkward silence and then–

"Muuuuum."

"I carried you in my tummy for ten months, I could tell what you think just by looking at how your eyes blink. I'm actually not too worried about Vance or Flannery suddenly giving me a grandson out of wedlock, I'm more concerned about you."

"Oh come on mum, have more faith in me-"

"You are the type to do first and think about the consequences later whenever you feel impulsive and yes, you are already a legal adult the moment you received your pokedex and yes, the laws regarding what constitutes a legal adult for a pokemon trainer is purposely left vague and that gave a lot of wriggle room for what constitutes the legal age of consent for sex for pokemon trainers. The legal age for other regions is usually above sixteen or eighteen but in Hoenn, it's fifteen, a little too low for my liking. You are also less than one year away from reaching that age. You would definitely be curious enough to try doing it the moment you hit that age so please, if you really want to go to the last base, use protection."

"I'm not too sure if I should consider this an act of concern on your part or be hurt by your lack of faith in me."

"Then we'll just see who will have the last laugh. It's not going to be that long of a wait," mum replied and I rolled my eyes. "And don't think I missed that. Don't roll your eyes at others."

"How did you and dad first meet anyway?" I decided to quickly change the topic. "I knew that both of you first met at the pokemon centre, but I don't think either of you really went into the specifics."

"Your father claimed it was love at first sight. For me, I only started to notice him after he started to purposely increase my workload to grab my attention. I wasn't pleased with him at first, let me tell you," mum started to rant but I could tell that it was a fond memory for her too with the way the edge of her lips curled up slightly at the mention of how they first met.

"We first met when your father came to the pokemon centre to give both Fang and tropius a checkup. I happened to be the nurse on duty that was assigned to handle his case, that's where he experienced his "love at first sight". Technology wasn't as advanced then, a full body checkup that now lasted only for half an hour to two hours used to span across a few days, so your dad purposely visited everyday using his pokemon as an excuse. To me, he's just one of those irritating trainers that I had to force myself to put a smile on my face and patiently entertain."

I laughed. That really wasn't the way I expected my parents to have met.

"Your father would visit under the pretence of weird reasons. Even after his pokemon's checkups have ended he would revisit under the excuse of booking follow-up appointments. It's a really pathetic excuse. I knew he was a Vera because I learnt of his name when I registered Fang's and tropius' very first checkup. Why would a Vera keep coming back to the pokemon centre to book subsequent checkups for their pokemon when they have the money and resources to go to a private clinic for a better and more comprehensive checkup? I already started to have my suspicions then but I was too busy to really care and he's also a client. I have to be professional in my work and he didn't do anything too unreasonable, so I let it be."

"So when and how did dad ask you out?"

"There was one day he came into the pokemon centre knowing that it was my shift. He knew that my shift that day was during the period of the day where we usually had lower traffic and we were able to take things easier. He came in hurriedly through the front door looking like he had just scaled Meteor Falls, saying that Fang had hurt his leg during training and wanted me to check on it. Fang came in limping on his front left paw and I initially believed he was really injured with the way he was walking. It really looked like the injury was pretty bad. Then a beautifly suddenly flew in between us and it caught Fang's attention and he went to chase after it excitedly. Oh Fang was a very great actor alright, he remembered to continue limping as he went chasing after the beautifly but this time he was limping on his front right paw. That's when I knew everything was just an act."

I burst out laughing and even my mother had a few chuckles at the fond memory.

"I was a little displeased because your father was wasting my time. Yes, he took the effort to choose a time where he knew patient traffic was low so it wouldn't inconvenience others but I didn't feel that it was right for him to do this just to grab my attention. If there happened to be another patient who genuinely needed urgent medical attention what he did would have taken up precious manpower resources that could be allocated elsewhere. I told him that I'm not happy with how he's wasting my time, and I'm not pleased at how he's needlessly increasing my workload with all the little things that he did to try and grab my attention since the first day we were acquainted. I told him that if he really wanted my number he should have just asked for it and I gave him my number that day on the promise that he would stop with his antics. He asked me out for dinner when my shift ended that day and I took him up on his offer. He asked me out on a date after that dinner and to be honest, I was this close to rejecting him because of the huge difference between our social status. He's a Vera, I'm just another ordinary person. We live in two different worlds."

"But things eventually worked out, didn't they?"

"Yes, it eventually worked out, but the process wasn't easy," mum continued with her story and I continued to listen with rapt attention. "You have to understand that we were both very young and your father, he was still a little immature then and he had the occasional mood swings because he had also only just experienced the loss of two thirds of his pokemon team that forced him to retire from ACE. He's actually still in the midst of grieving. When our relationship started to stabilise and we both decided to really try dating with the goal of marriage in mind, that's also where the pressure started to set in for me. He's the heir of the Vera family. If I were to be married to your father it would make me the matriarch of the family but could I really live up to the expectations and really manage everything that a matriarch of an ancient family is expected to manage? People keep thinking that I'm so fortunate to be dating your father because he's a Vera, he's rich, I will live a life without worries. Just leave everything to him."

Mum took a short pause before continuing.

"Wrong, very wrong. I love your father but with love comes responsibilities. He is going to be my husband, I am going to be his wife. As his wife, I have my responsibilities that are expected from me. These are responsibilities to live up to if I want to stand alongside him as his wife and equal. There are many many things that I have to learn to enter the same social circle that your father is in by the virtue of him being a Vera. I have to get used to acting like I'm part of the social elites during their gatherings that I attended with him as his plus one. I have to quickly learn how to manage the finances, the people working under us, building relationships with others and knowing who are our political and business allies and rivals and how to deal with them… I think you already had a taste of it when Sebastian was giving you those lessons when you were at Unova. Were they easy?"

"No. Not at all," I immediately replied. Mum's recount allowed me to better understand the things she must have experienced before she married into this family. She had never talked to us about this before and I'm sure it wasn't easy for her. Yet, she never once complained about it.

"I had less than two years to learn. Your grandma was the one giving me lessons. Things got worse when your grandma abruptly passed away in her sleep about half a year after your father and I decided to really treat our relationship seriously. I had to quit my job to spare the time to learn, sacrificing everything that I had already built up for my career in the process, placing my trust in your father and in our relationship, trusting that he wouldn't suddenly just break up with me for whatever reasons. Your grandpa, I mean your paternal grandpa, he was really supportive and I'm grateful to him for it, but he really wasn't exactly in the best of health after your grandma passed away so your father was also under a lot of pressure to quickly learn the ropes from him before your grandfather's health could no longer permit it. We had help, of course, especially from Sebastian and he's one major factor why we could tide over that trying period but it still wasn't easy. It was a very stressful period for both your father and I but we made it work somehow. That shared experience also made us closer and in a way, it made me certain that yes, despite his flaws this is the person that I'm looking for in my other half and who I would want to spend the rest of my life with. This is the person who I want to be the wife to. I think your father felt the same way too."

"It's a very inspirational love story."

"Stressful, you mean," mum disagreed. "It didn't help that I suddenly found myself one month into my pregnancy with Vance. Your grandfather was ecstatic– I could still remember how he never stopped smiling from ear to ear for the entire week after we broke the news to him. Your father and I immediately decided to register our marriage after we learnt that I was pregnant, quickly held our wedding before my stomach started to show and, yeah, that's it. That's how your father and I met."

"Wait, you and dad had Vance out of wedlock?" My attention was entirely fixated upon the unexpected information that I learnt from my parents' love story. I had no idea that Vance was created before my parents got married and I had a sneaking suspicion that he's unaware of it too.

"Well, yes, we just never found it necessary to let you both know and it slipped our mind," mum shrugged. "And since we were on this topic…"

"Can we not have the talk now?"

"Request denied. You are my daughter, Vel. You inherited more than just my looks and we are very similar in several aspects of our character. I'm not stopping you for being curious and trying to learn what sex is like, you kind of brushed it off when I told you to use protection if you ever decided to have sex. That's fine but I need you to remember that I said this with your best interests in mind. While I don't want to encourage such behaviour, I also won't be too harsh with my children if they had children out of wedlock because your father and I were not the best role models either, but I do hope that it's Vance who made me a grandmother instead of you at this juncture. I'm your mother, if you have relationship problems you can always come and find me, or if you really are curious about sex, you can even talk to me about it if you don't feel like talking about it to your father and Vance."

"This doesn't sound like you, mum. You are always the more–"

"Conservative? Traditional? Yes, I know. I know I sound a little out of character here, but I think a different approach is needed when it comes to the issue of boys and sex and other things that girls your age will be curious about at this stage of your life. We have to be frank and factual with such discussions for it to be meaningful, there's nothing to be shameful about. I was once your age, Vel. I know what girls think about at your age, I don't think it's that much different from what boys think about when they are at this age too. People your age are called teenagers for a reason; young, impulsive, and reckless. Your father prefers for you to only start dating after you officially become an adult but in my opinion, if it comes, it comes. Restricting you from exploring and learning what you would want from a romantic partner would only do more harm than good when you are already sensible and mature enough to know what you want. I'm always of the belief that it would be better to be able to get you to trust me enough to divulge to me about your relationship problems rather than keeping you on a tight leash that might instead push you away. Does that… Does that make sense to you?"

"Uh huh," I nodded, suddenly hitting the realisation that all mum was trying to do with this long roundabout talk was to let me know that I could always come to her if I have problems, that she's just trying her best to be a supportive mother. It suddenly hit me that this was her first time handling a daughter who is now suddenly a teenager and she's also just as clueless as to how she should go about broaching the sensitive topics that most people tend to avoid talking about unless necessary.

Personally, I think she did very well, but my mind was still wondering about something which I deemed to be more important than my non-existent love life.

Dr Lott, is he my maternal grandfather? If so, just what on earth happened for him to leave mum alone at the orphanage like that?

Character and pokemon list:

Velda Vera, Age: 14, Female, Pokemon Trainer

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