Bck Knight of Paldea

  Chapter 5

  ****BKP***

  Discimer: Do not own anything.

  ****BKP***

  September 30, 190 – Turffield

  “Happy birthday, happy birthday to me~” a dark-haired boy sung dully to himself as he stared bnkly at a small campfire. On his p, was a rge book, spread open haphazardly.

  “Quack?” a brown feathered duck carrying a rge green leek, roosting next to him quacked in curiosity. On his head, a floating ball of gas bobbed up and down, “Gas gas…”

  “Are you two asking me what I’m singing?” The dark-haired boy asked the Farfetch’d and the Gastly in return.

  In the games and the anime, there was a lot of in-story emphasis on a Trainer’s bond with his Pokémon. And a certain expression of those bonds, were the Trainer’s ability to understand what his Pokémon were saying.

  To a certain extent, that was true right now as well.

  He didn’t exactly understand what Farfetch’d was saying, it was more of a feeling? A fleeting curiosity and confusion.

  He suspected that all Pokémon had a certain level of Psychic abilities, and they were using it to communicate with their Trainers. It wasn’t strong enough for most of them to use actively, but transferring simple images, impressions or emotions seemed to be perfectly possible.

  And the closer they got to their Trainer, the easier it was for them to establish a channel, of sorts that allowed them to transfer more complex questions or emotions.

  For example, when he first started talking to Farfetch’d and Gastly two days ago, forget emotions, the three of them barely knew what the other was saying. The best he could do was guess what they wanted based on their tone and their expressions.

  But after he had spent two days with them, he had bathed with them, ate with them and exercised with them, he had started getting fshes of emotions and thoughts that weren’t his.

  A few more questions ter, and he had identified the source of those emotions and thoughts as Farfetch’d and Gastly’s.

  “Today is my tenth birthday.” He informed his two Pokémon.

  “Quack?” “Gas?” another fleeting shred of confusion.

  Pokémon apparently didn’t keep track of their age.

  Caln just smiled as he ran one hand through Farfetch’d’s glossy feathers, “It’s a human tradition. We celebrate our birthdays, once a year.”

  Gastly floated off his head and sort of danced around his face for a bit, causing Caln to smile, “Are you wishing me Happy Birthday?”

  The grinning purple ball made a tittering sound and nodded. Gastly didn’t really understand what or why humans celebrated their birthday. He just knew that they did, so he followed them while Farfetch’d was simply confused about the entire concept of birthdays.

  Too bad he wasn’t a Psychic or Aura wielder, it would’ve certainly made communicating with his Pokémon a lot easier, but those kinds of abilities were reserved for MCs or important NPCs.

  A bit more expining, he finally closed his book and set it aside.

  “I wanted to ask the two of you something.” He started seriously, “I’ve been staying at the Pokémon centre to get ready for our journey, but I haven’t really decided where to go yet. Do you two have any opinions?”

  The confused expressions on their faces were more than enough to answer that question.

  “Alright. What if I asked you if you want to battle or just travel?”

  “Quack.” His Farfetch’d gave him the equivalent of an ambivalent shrug.

  Once again, Caln was reminded about how unsuited he was to being the MC.

  Even his Pokémon were like him.

  Neither Farfetch’d nor Gastly were particurly interested in battle. Neither of them had any secret hidden abilities, talents or special traits. They were the average kind of Pokémon any random Trainer could find running around the pce.

  They had joined him on his morning runs and exercises, more Farfetch’d than Gastly who wasn’t a morning Pokémon at all, but it was more out of obligation than any real interest in getting stronger.

  He could only ugh to himself somewhat helplessly.

  Well, they had only known each other for two days.

  Maybe it was a little too early to decide he knew everything about them.

  The reason he had been staying here at the Pokémon Centre was severalfold.

  Taking the time to get acquainted with Farfetch’d and Gastly was just one reason, but more than that, it was cheap because there was a substantial discount for room and board here as a trainer.

  He was allowed to use the facilities freely while he stayed here, including the rge computer in the main hall. Whenever he wasn’t scouring and memorizing his Field Manual, he had been on the computer whenever he wasn’t doing his daily routines.

  There were many things he wanted to know, current events for example. What was Kanto doing right now? Was the Pokedex a thing yet? Where was Professor Oak now?

  There was no Google here, considering the internet was still in its infancy, but there were forums avaible for him to peruse, like the one for PokeManiacs. From those forums, he had established that forget Fairy types, even Dark types weren’t officially recognized yet.

  That said, people already knew that Dark types existed. The type had first surfaced when an Eevee from Johto had evolved into a brand new Eeveelution that had yet to be named, but he had recognized as an Umbreon, it was said that Researchers were still identifying its exact attributes, moves and the Pokémon of that type, compared to Fairy types which were still completely unknown.

  On a completely unreted note, in the game, most PokeManiacs ever only seemed to idolise cute Pokémon like Pikachu, Eevee and Clefairy, but here in the real world, their interests were a little more… diverse.

  Put simply, the majority of the PokeManiacs, roughly 60% - 70% by his estimate, consisted of people who loved cute Pokémon, while the remaining 30% - 40% was evenly spread among the more extreme PokeManiacs such as the furry lovers, the feminine lovers and even reptile lovers.

  This had gained them such a reputation that it was to the point where the PokeManiacs’ general website was being treated like it was the local equivalent of 4chan and the forums had a significant number of sub-forums solely for people who glorified and worshipped other types of Pokémon; he had seen pictures of Kirlias and Gardevoirs being uploaded pretty frequently. He had even seen a sub-forum for Milotic.

  At least there hadn’t been any outright porn.

  None he had found at any rate.

  Maybe SafeSearch had been installed on the computer?

  Something to figure out another time.

  Anyway, back to his reasons for staying at the Pokémon centre for now.

  The third and st reason he was still sitting nice and pretty in the Pokémon Centre was simple.

  He had no idea where to go.

  He had mentioned this before, but there was no Gym Marathon or anything of the sort right now. You could go and earn badges, sure, but there was no Elite Four to challenge, just the local Champion. And honestly, he didn’t feel like doing that. He didn’t even recognize the Champion; it was some drunk white dude who spent more time flirting with girls than he did having battles.

  So, he had been sort of waffling between just challenging Gyms for the fun of it, or travel to see the sights, with his first goal being Postwick, Gar’s Beginner vilge.

  Since Milo was already born and older than him by two years, Leon and Sonia should be around as well, no?

  Maybe he could say go hi or something…

  That appealed to him a lot more than challenging some unknown Champion.

  And then after that… he’d probably go look for… Nessa?

  Shit, he was totally sounding like a pervert here.

  People transmigrated into the Pokémon world got excited about Pokémon, but here he was perving out on pretty girls.

  Girls who currently hadn’t even hit puberty yet, he reminded himself. Was he trying to be some sort of professional lolicon right now?

  Fuck… alright, fine. He wouldn’t talk to them, he’d just gnce at them from a far, then move on.

  That should be safe right?

  Reaching out, he grabbed Farfetch’d and heft the duck Pokémon on to his p, prompting a loud and undignified squawk. He could feel the duck Pokémon’s embarrassment, but strangely, it wasn’t actually against skin ship. There was no resentment there, just some shyness and resignation. Mostly resignation.

  Caln ughed and fluffed up Farfetch’d even more, then buried his face in the warm feathers.

  “Bme yourself for being so huggable, it’s not like I can hug Gastly right?”

  The duck looked at him with pure disdain.

  “Tomorrow, we make for Motostoke!” Caln cheered softly.

  “Quack!”

  ****BKP***

  The next day, the trio set out early.

  No training was done, simply because Caln judged that walking the whole day would more than enough training on its own.

  Unfortunately, he had misjudged Farfetch’d and Gastly’s stamina.

  They hadn’t even gone an hour south of Turffield when Farfetch’d was already face pnted in the ground and sweating, Farfetch’d had long since abandoned its Leek and threw it back into its Poke ball.

  As for Gastly… there was no Gastly. Just a purple puddle of ooze next to Farfetch’d.

  “Come on, you two.” Caln said in exasperation, “It’s only been an hour and you guys are already tired? And you, Gastly, you were just floating, why are you even tired?!”

  “…Bwack.” A muffled quack rang out.

  “…” The puddle next to Farfetch’d quivered once before a small lump stood up, and then it flipped him off.

  “…”

  Why do Pokémon even know what that means?

  “Bwah?”

  Caln felt Farfetch’ds curiosity and amazement.

  “Why am I not exhausted like you two?” the raven-haired boy confirmed before continuing, “I’m a farm boy okay? I can carry heavy equipment and work from sun up to sun down, walking all day long is practically a vacation for me.” He replied matter-of-factly.

  Granted, if it was him with his original body from his past life, forget one hour, he’d probably be dead within ten minutes. But in this life, he was a legitimate born, bred and raised farm boy.

  With no choice, Caln was forced to set up a campfire and start preparing for lunch.

  At 8 am in the morning.

  This couldn’t continue, it looked like he would have to insist on having his two Pokémon do his daily routine with him, even if it meant that he had to set out te each day.

  And so, his grand journey through Gar started in fits and starts, two hours of exercise running and training in whatever roughly ft ground they could fine, travelling for one to two hours hour, then resting until lunch.

  During their travel, he had hoped for a few battles to gain some experience at least. If not for Farfetch’d and Gastly, then for himself because he had zero experience actually conducting a Pokémon battle from this side of reality.

  Unfortunately, Pokémon or trainer battles were surprisingly sparse.

  The few battles he had were so low level, they were practically turn based battles.

  He would give an order, then the inexperienced Farfetch’d or Gastly would run over and poke them opponent. Whenever he was thinking, the opponent would take its time to hit them back. There was very little running and dodging involved.

  It wasn’t that there was no one else on the road. On the contrary, this route was apparently one of the bigger ones that the miners that lived in Turffield used to travel to the Gar Mine and he had seen a lot of people on the road. Most of them looked like dejected workers, none of them had the time or energy to battle. Even the wild Pokémon were too wary and cautious to poke their heads out of their holes for too long.

  His real life Pokémon journey had gone seriously wrong, as he had expected.

  Then 3 days ter, he finally arrived at the Gar Mine.

  In the game, Turffield was connected to Motostoke via Route 3 and 4. In the middle of Route 3, one would find the Gar Mine. During the game proper, the mine was essentially vacated, you could only find a few miners inside and many wild Pokémon. It was also where you would have your first battle with one of your rivals, that fluffy Fairy guy if he wasn’t remembering wrong.

  The reason he was thinking about all those now, wasn’t because he was just reminiscing about the game.

  It was because in the current day, Gar Mine was currently fully operational and no one was allowed entry other than site personnel. With all the bustling miners, workers, security people and high wired fences surrounding the area, he doubted he could enter even if he wanted to.

  The minerals and resources mined from the Gar Mine were transported directly to Engine City via railway, however, with his minimal budget, Caln couldn’t really afford to spend money on a train ride.

  Therefore, Caln, Farfetch’d and Gastly had been forced to take another route, cutting through the Wilderness.

  To be fair, it didn’t look far. He could even see Motostoke on the horizon, with a strange bck cloud hovering over it that didn’t particurly inspire a lot of confidence in him. But it seemed preferable to following the long road around Gar Mine and then walking even more until he arrived.

  He had been wrong.

  The three of them travelled through underbrush, forests and had to cut across a river before they arrived, dusty and travel worn. Once more, there hadn’t actually been all that many battles with wild Pokémon.

  He had chalked it up to the rge number of workers cutting down trees and working in the fields he had seen.

  Caln, Farfetch’d and Gastly fell into a routine. Morning training, walking in the afternoon then resting early in the evening, until one day Gastly noticed that they had a tag along.

  During one evening when Caln had been setting up dinner and Farfetch’d had been swinging his leek to get in some training before the food was ready, Gastly felt another Pokémon approach them from the edge of the clearing and floated over to Caln to inform him.

  Caln nodded, but didn’t take any special action. He just kept an ear strained to see if he could detect its movements himself.

  He wasn’t the type to go and challenge people. If they wanted to battle, fine, if not, he’d just continue whatever he was doing. The same applied for wild Pokémon battles, and there was no indication whatsoever that this Pokémon approaching them wanted a battle. In fact, it was being so quiet and sneaky, Caln got the impression it was scared, but still curious enough to come closer.

  The slightly rustling bushes stopped short of the clearing, closest to where Farfetch’d was still swinging his leek, blissfully unaware, then there was no further movement

  Even after food was finally served, there was still no movement except a slight rustle, as if the Pokémon hiding there was swallowing hungrily. Caln was even tempted to throw some Poke snacks over to their little stalker seeing how it was hiding there so pitifully.

  That night, when Farfetch’d was already sleeping, seeing him sleep so happily, Caln couldn’t help but wonder if he needed to help the duck Pokémon train up his spatial awareness as well, but then Gastly and Caln noticed their stalker was finally moving.

  The two of them crept over to the edge of the clearing where their follower had been hiding, then moving around the grass to prevent any rustling, they followed their follower to a smaller clearing some distance away.

  “Ra-ralts!”

  It was a Ralts. Caln was surprised to see one, those were pretty rare in Gar weren’t they? Even the Field Manual said they were ever only found on the Wilderness of Gar, or more specifically, the pces that would eventually come to be called the Wild Area. Even more surprising, was the fact that this Ralts was swinging a small twig, clearly mimicking Farfetch’d’s actions from earlier. From that, it was obvious that the reason it had been silent for long was because it had been trying to quietly learn from Farfetch’d.

  “Ra-ralts!”

  The twig went up and down.

  “Ra-ralts!”

  It was adorable.

  “Ra-ah!”

  Then the twig fell and both Caln and Gastly sweat dropped to see the Ralts already panting and sweating after swinging that twig no more than ten times.

  Caln slowly stood up, hoping to help the Ralts when it saw them.

  “Eek!” but the Ralts squeaked in shock and promptly teleported away with a blue fsh.

  “Thud.”

  It had been so shocked, it hadn’t paid attention to where it was teleporting, so it teleported right into a tree and knocked itself out.

  “…”

  The two of them silently stared at the fainted Ralts before they shared a look.

  Caln went over to the Ralts and gingerly picked the tiny Feeling Pokémon up, it was barely rge enough to fit in his palm. He looked it over a couple of times. Other than a small bump on its red horn, it seemed fine.

  Back in the tent, Caln swaddled up some spare clothes to form a little nest for the Ralts and let it rest there. Then he and Gastly went to sleep, there was nothing they could do until the Ralts woke up anyway, and who knew when that would be. And if it ran before they woke up, then so be it.

  When the next morning arrived, Caln was relieved to find that the Ralts was still out cold.

  Farfetch’d however, was somewhat less fine. It had just woken up when it found that there was a stranger in the tent it shared with Caln and Gastly. It almost quacked, but Caln had swiftly pinched the Duck Pokémon’s beak together, forcing it to swallow its quack back in.

  The Duck Pokémon stared in resentment, but Caln just smiled, “You watch over this little guy while I make breakfast alright?”

  As it turned out, Ralts didn’t wake up even after breakfast. By the time it did, the three of them were already deep into their morning exercise routine.

  ****BKP***

  “Ra…” Ralts moaned softly as it woke up. Its horn, the softest and most important part on it’s body, felt like it had been trampled on by one of those rude Mightyenas that were always fighting with its cn, and it felt really sore all over, like it had gone through a whole night of exer-.

  That’s right! It had seen another Pokémon training, and it had gotten curious, so it had hid close by in order to learn.

  “Rau…” Ralts slumped sadly, just thinking about why it needed to quietly steal lessons from another Pokémon made it feel sad. It had been one of the few male Ralts in his cn, the youngest one in fact, so he hadn’t even matured enough to fight yet, thus his mother had always refused to let him train.

  Unfortunately, she would never have the chance to teach him anymore.

  Life with the encve wasn’t perfect, there were Mightyenas and other Pokémon around always trying to chase them away from their little delve, and humans always building something nearer and nearer, but up till then, it had been his home and the leader of their encve, his mother, the strongest Gardevoir he knew, had kept them all safe.

  Until one day, many moons and sun ago, humans radiating a sickening greed and ambition had found their encve and had captured every one of them. Then strangely, the human had let go of all the male Ralts, including himself, outside of the city.

  Lost in a strange pce, with no protection, no strength and no food, Ralts and his brothers had wandered around aimlessly, until he had been the only one left.

  Tears threatened to fall, but Ralts pushed them back and slowly got to his feet.

  Where was this? The Ralts wondered to himself, he was in a strange cave, a cave that was made of… fabric…

  The Ralts swallowed. He had seen these kinds of caves before; they were always used by humans.

  He headed straight for the exit as quietly as he could manage, ignoring the pain in his horn and slowly peeked outside. He could see the two Pokémon from st night and their human.

  Ralts immediately shrank back warily and tried to teleport away, but his horn throbbed in pain, it still hurt too much.

  Then a sound came from outside the cave and Ralts promptly dived under the small bundle of clothes he had been sleeping in, but no one came into the cave. It stayed there, quivering under the bundle of clothes, until a sweet and savory smile wafted over to his nose.

  Drool immediately began leaking but Ralts spped himself with his tiny hands angrily, he would never accept food from a human who had taken away his entire family!

  He stayed hidden in the tent, waiting for the pain in its horn to ease so he could escape, refusing to eat for hours out of sheer tenacity until a Gastly floated in through the fabric with a confused expression.

  “Why do you not eat?” the Gastly asked the small quivering bundle. If it had hands, it would have scratched its head, “Caln put it outside for you.”

  “Human food. Never. They hurt my family.” Ralts chirped back obstinately.

  If anything, Gastly’s confusion only deepened, “But Caln didn’t do anything to you.”

  “All humans.” Was the stubborn reply.

  Gastly gave up on understanding, “Just eat.” It insisted, “You need strength. Caln promises not to stop you from leaving. I promise you.”

  Even if he couldn’t trust the human… he could trust this Gastly right? It seemed to be friends with the Farfetch’d, so that would mean it was a good Pokémon right?

  Warily, Ralts slowly crept out where it found the Farfetch’d patiently sitting next to a pte of berries and small cubes of neatly cut meat, just rge enough for it to eat.

  It solemnly pushed the pte closer to the tent, it had hurt everything from outside the tent, and although Ralts hadn’t mentioned any details, it had been a wild Farfetch’d once, he could more or less guess what had happened.

  “Eat.” Was all it said.

  Tears threatened to fall again, but Ralts sniffed them back stubbornly and climbed out of the cloth cave with a small tumble.

  Ralts looked around warily, but Farfetch’d just shook its head, “Caln has left. He knows you are worried about him.”

  “I’m not scared.” Ralts chirped out stubbornly, even as it grabbed the closest meat cube.

  Farfetch’d and Gastly shared a look but stayed silent.

  By the time Ralts was done eating, its tiny white tummy was bulging. This was the first time it had a full meal since it had been caught and then released. At this point, it couldn’t run even if it wanted to.

  So it felt right back asleep.

  Farfetch’d shared another look with Gastly, before it bundled Ralts back up in its little nest while Gastly went looking for Caln to tell him what had happened.

  The same thing repeated during dinner. Ralts didn’t leave, and Caln didn’t enter the tent, but a pte of food was provided anyway. Farfetch’d and Gastly joined Ralts for dinner this time and had brought the little Psychic type Pokémon a small gift.

  Farfetch’d presented the small spoon sized leek to Ralts, “Gastly said you wanted to be stronger. Leeks are best.”

  Ralts’ pinkish red eyes went wide under its hood, before it clutched the leek to its chest and began crying softly.

  From that day, Caln’s journey had an additional member.

  He acted like Ralts simply wasn’t there, but didn’t comment when Gastly told him to stop every so often, to wait for Ralts to catch up.

  Every morning, it would watch Farfetch’d training, then try to do the same at night, when Caln wasn’t there, until Farfetch’d itself told it to stop wasting time and just join them in their morning training.

  And so, it did. Granted, it could barely run for more than ten minutes, but every time it got exhausted, Farfetch’d would carry it on its back like a little white backpack, until it felt well enough to run again. It barely had enough strength for one or two push-ups, then one or two sit-ups and it couldn’t squat at all.

  But no one said anything, Gastly just said that Caln had told it that it was normal. All you had to do was keep trying.

  By then, Ralts was no longer so wary of the rge human.

  Its horns had healed a while ago, and it could feel nothing but concern and… affection from Caln, that st part was especially easy to sense whenever it was swinging its little baby leek, but the human insisted on not talking to Ralts first.

  Gastly said that he wanted Ralts to feel more comfortable first.

  On the second week of their travel, Ralts finally felt safe enough to sleep in the tent with Caln. Up till now, the human had been sleeping out in the open with nothing but his sleeping bag and a bundle of clothes as a pillow, something that had touched Ralts quite a bit. Then one day, Ralts had silently grabbed his sleeping bag and tugged at it uselessly.

  It was far too rge for the tiny Pokémon to move.

  Smiling at the cute little Ralts, Caln had picked it up and followed Ralts over to the tent, “You’re okay with me sleeping inside?”

  The Ralts hesitated and looked around for help, before nodding with a quiet, “Rau!”

  It took Caln another week before Ralts finally agreed to officially become his Pokémon.

  There was no big emotional moment or anything. He had never even mentioned joining the team. He had made it clear that he didn’t mind if Ralts just followed them as long as it liked, it would still be fed, and it could train with Farfetch’d as long as it liked.

  It just decided to tap on a Poke ball one day, and that was it.

  At that point, Caln could only sigh mentally.

  A Pokémon this emo/ goofy… it was practically inevitable it would join his team.

  But he still couldn’t help but compin.

  Other MCs caught their legendary pokemon by being nice to it, and it would instantly join them. But him? He had to slowly persuade the Ralts for nearly 2 weeks before it would even let him stay in the same tent as it.

  If he really was in a fanfiction, the title of that fanfiction was probably, “My Pokémon journey is wrong, as I expected”.

  ****BKP***

  And on October 270, 198, nearly a full month after he had first set out from Turffield, he finally arrived at Motostoke, centre of the Industrial Revolution in Gar.

  The Motostoke he remembered from the games was clean and beautiful, but at the same time, you could see marks left behind from the Industrial Revolution. Giant cogs, factories, warehouses. Of course, the majority of those were shut in the game, but right now, in front of his very eyes, they were all open and churning forward at full speed.

  There was a reason it was known as Engine City.

  And then, just like with Gar Mine, Caln was stuck standing outside with a complicated expression.

  Was this going to be a pattern with him every time he arrived at a town or something?

  The current Engine City was a complete mess. It was filled with warehouses and factories, every single one of them actively spewing smog into the air, to the point where a heavy air hung over the entire city.

  But most importantly, the streets were utterly filthy.

  There were beggars, carriages and workers all using the same road, and all of them piss and shat on that same road in broad daylight.

  Fuck, was there no toilets or something?

  He could see an auntie over there literally hike up her skirt and squat down!

  As a modern person, Caln didn’t even want to step foot in that pce if at all possible. Typically, he wasn’t really considered a germaphobe, as long as the minimum level of hygiene was maintained, his OCD wouldn’t bother him.

  But you’re a farm boy right? Didn’t you grow up rolling in dirt?

  He did! He really did! And even that wasn’t enough to trigger his OCD this badly.

  That was how filthy this pce was.

  Didn’t the people in your farm do their business in the open?

  Strangely enough, no they didn’t.

  They had fucking toilets, and the common sense to use them.

  Granted, there was only a maximum of about fifteen people on the farm at all times, including family members, so there was no rush for toilets, compared to this pce. There were probably thousands all stuffed in there, all forced to share toilets.

  *Shiver*

  This pce was ringing all sorts of bells and arms in his head. Just the mere thought of entering was enough for chills and shivers to run up and down his spine as the intrusive thoughts in his head got louder and louder with every centimetre, he inched closer to Motorstoke.

  He wasn’t even sure if he could survive a single day in that city; forget having a meal in civilization, he’d probably puke rainbows every minute he stayed within those walls.

  And so, Caln promptly about faced, much to Farfetch’d, Gastly and Ralts’ confusion, and immediately set off back on the road. He’d go directly to Postwick if he had to.

  Then his logic and rationality kicked in and he remembered his empty backpack, and the fact that even if he didn’t mind starving for a while, he wouldn’t let Farfetch’d. Gastly and Ralts do the same and did another about face.

  His three Pokémon exchanged confused looks, wondering what weird thing their Trainer was doing again, dancing left and right in the middle of the road like a crazy person.

  Ultimately, he ended up squaring his shoulders and recalled his Pokémon into their Poke balls. It all boiled down to the simple fact that, he didn’t have enough good stocked up. Who knew how long he would end up wandering in the Wilderness until he arrived in Wedgehurst, and he refused outright to let his Pokémon starve or take the chance that they could find enough Berries to eat out in the wild.

  “I’m just going to run and buy and run back out. In, buy, out.” Caln repeated chanted like a mantra as he stalked towards the nearest Poke mart with a wild look in his eyes, there was one near the western and eastern exits if he remembered correctly, “In, buy, out. In, buy, out.”

  When he finally found one, he was so happy, he practically bumrushed the door.

  And promptly ran into someone.

  “Da hell?” Someone with dark skin and was wearing soccer shorts.

  “Ah! Hey! Careful!” And another someone with a orange pony tail.

  Already off bance in his rush, Caln promptly fell on his butt.

  He immediately felt something wet and squishy in his hand.

  The intrusive thoughts in his head finally won out.

  “BLEERGGH!”

  His first meeting with Leon and Sonia involved puking on them.

  ****BKP***

  July 1, 1998 – Medali

  Caln’s eyes snapped open.

  Then he blinked blearily, and clutched his stomach.

  It was roiling and it… hurt.

  Why the hell did it hurt?

  Suddenly, he was surrounded by a Psychic glow and pushed back into bed.

  Caln blinked rapidly before he realized that Galde had been sitting cross legged next to his bed, “Gal..de?” He croaked out, his throat feeling like a dry dessert.

  A jug of water slowly came floating over as Galde kept sitting there expressionlessly.

  Caln clutched the jug gratefully and began drinking big gulps of water.

  “Well at least you’re awake.” Someone said with humour clearly audible in their voice.

  Caln gnced over at the speaker, although he didn’t stop gulping water.

  One eyebrow went up curiously.

  Orange curly hair flounced as their owner sighed with sagging shoulders, “Your Pokémon here went all the way to the nearest city all by themselves and called your Pokémon back in Gar. They came looking for me. I was already worried when you went completely off the grid for nearly a week, so I brought them with me here.” Milo answered the unasked question in Caln’s eyes.

  Caln just smiled weakly, “Was Chansey here as well?”

  “Yep.” Milo replied casually.

  That expined why his stomach hurt.

  She had probably just waltzed in, took one look at him and Mega Punched him straight to oblivion.

  It wasn’t the first time she had done so.

  His brother squinted at him, “You look even worse than I expected you too.”

  Caln colpsed back in bed and squeezed his eyes shut for a bit, “Yeah, got too excited about something new to research in a while. The bad thoughts sort of won for a while there.”

  “Your research binges aren’t exactly new.” Milo noted dryly, “I’ve seen you then, this feels different.”

  Caln paused and considered, “Seeing you probably triggered something. Had a dream I haven’t had in a while.”

  “That’s probably it.” Milo nodded, “Chansey’s decided to stay for now, she says you need sleep.”

  “I do-“

  “Proper sleep.”

  “I got no space for her to stay.” Caln tried again helplessly.

  “You can put her in her Poke ball until your new home is ready. The contractors already sent the contract, and I’ve answered to them on your behalf.” Milo noted with finality in his voice, “I’ve also asked them to prioritize the cabin first, and not the fence.”

  Caln waved one hand zily, “Alright, alright. You got everything in order. You win, soldier.”

  Milo smiled at that, “I’m going back out. Eldergoss and I have started tilling the ground. You can come take a look when you can walk again, warrior.”

  Caln let himself sag into his bed but immediately bounced back up again, “Wait, my notebooks?”

  “Galde has them. I trust him to keep them until you’re well enough to read.” Milo called back casually.

  Caln swallowed thickly and gnced at Galde who was still facing the wall sternly. Only now did he notice that in addition to his two swords that he was always hugging, there were also two messy looking notebooks.

  “Uh… Galde?”

  The tall Pokémon faced him and seemed to scan him for a moment before it floated the two notebooks over with a resigned twist of the lips. He knew that if he refused to hand them over, his Trainer would just bug him and refuse to rest until he did. At least he could lie down while he read.

  Opening the first notebook, the one documenting the original composition and formus for each Poke block, while the other was filled with his observations of the Poke block themselves. The end of each formu in the first book was cross referenced to the results in the second book.

  Both of them were filled to the brim with neat writing and observations he didn’t actually remember writing, but Caln still managed to skim through them with practiced efficiency.

  Like Milo had said, this wasn’t the first time he had gone on one of his benders. Only instead of alcohol, it was numbers and data.

  The majority of his experiments were as expected.

  Using the same Berries, no matter how they were blended, sliced, diced or mashed only had a marginal effect on the final result, at best it was a + 1 or – 1.

  For example, the description for using three standard Oran Berries were as follows:

  Simply made Blue Poke block

  Quality: Low

  Fvour: Spicy and Bitter

  Affinity: Normal

  Effects: Condensed nutrition from Oran Berries. Favoured by Normal Pokémon who enjoy Spicy or Bitter fvours. Fixes malnutrition slightly for malnourished Pokémon and slightly improves physical growth for healthy Pokémon.

  He compared this to the formu with 3 peeled Oran Berries:

  Simply made Blue Poke block

  Quality: Low

  Fvour: Spicy and Bitter

  Affinity: Normal

  Effects: Condensed nutrition from Oran Berries. Favoured by Normal Pokémon who enjoy Spicy or Bitter fvours. Fixes malnutrition for malnourished Pokémon and improves physical growth for healthy Pokémon.

  Essentially, the “slightly” had been removed, but the final effect did not change. That said, it was still a far cry from the original Poke block and the 10 hp recovery from the Oran Berries.

  Besides that… improves physical growth, it didn’t specify stat growth like the Occa Berry one, nor did it expin what was included in that “physical growth”. It just sounded like it would make great vitamin supplements, something nice to have for young Pokémon in the midst of their growth phases.

  Out of all his Pokémon right now, only Gabite would probably benefit from this. No, not even Gabite, this one was restricted to Normal Pokémon.

  In other words, it was a failure.

  Undeterred, Caln kept reading until he found the Poke block made from 3 peeled Haban Berries:

  Simply made Red Poke block

  Quality: Low

  Fvour: Bittersweet

  Affinity: Normal

  Effects: Condensed nutrition from Haban Berries. Favoured by Dragon Pokémon who enjoy bittersweet fvours. Fixes malnutrition for malnourished Pokémon and improves physical growth for healthy Pokémon.

  Alright, this was the one for Gabite then.

  He kept reading and then noted something surprising.

  Mid way through the book, a new type of Poke blocks began appearing.

  Handcrafted Red Poke block

  Quality: Medium

  Fvour: Bittersweet

  Effects: Condensed nutrition from Haban Berries. Favoured by Pokémon who enjoy bittersweet fvours. Fixes malnutrition for malnourished Pokémon and improves physical growth for healthy Pokémon.

  Caln almost jumped up in excitement.

  The affinity had been removed. The poke block was no longer restricted to Dragon type Pokémon after the quality increased by one level, merely Pokémon who enjoyed bittersweet fvours.

  Presumably his skill with blending had increased after a point, because he started seeing “Handcrafted” Poke blocks appear more and more often, but it wasn’t guaranteed.

  It was almost near the back of the page, when he saw it.

  Handcrafted Rainbow Poke block

  Quality: Medium

  Effects: Condensed nutrition from Sitrus Berries. Favoured by all Pokémon who enjoy mild fvours. Fixes malnutrition for malnourished Pokémon, promotes recovery from injury for injured Pokémon and improves physical growth for healthy Pokémon.

  Caln almost felt his shoulders sag as if a weight had been removed from his shoulders upon reading that description. The fvour restriction was removed. Instead, there was a restriction for Pokémon who preferred “mild” fvours.

  What was even a mild fvour?

  No, more importantly, he needed to check if it would work on Sirfetch’d.

  He jumped out from the bed, ignoring Galde’s protests and immediately followed his cross-referencing system to where a stack of Poke blocks was located.

  He grabbed a handful and immediately went looking for Sirfetch’d.

  The shocked and confused Sirfetch’d didn’t even know what was going on when its half-crazed Trainer burst out of the cabin and promptly shoved a Poke block down its beak. Caln even went as far as to manually move the utterly confused Pokémon’s beaks, crushing the Poke block until it had no option but to swallow the mush.

  Then Sirfetch’d blinked as it felt a warmth spreading across its chest.

  “Q-quack?”

  All at once, Caln fell to his knees, his shoulders sagging with relief.

  This was the first time since Sirfetch’d had been injured, that it had managed a quack this loud.

  Caln weakly stared at the small yellow cube left in his hands with a complicated expression.

  He was not blind to what it represented. With enough resources, he could heal anyone, he could heal Sirfetch’d.

  And although he didn’t see a recipe for it yet, he believed he could now help his Pokémon who had long since pteau’d at the Elite Four level and below become even stronger.

  Caln had heard a saying before, though he had long since forgotten where.

  “Before heaven bestows great responsibilities on a person, it must first exhaust their mind, wear down their body, starve their flesh, and confuse their actions.”

  Was this the ‘great responsibility’ it was referring to?

  Was this the real reason why he had never been able to unlock it until now?

  To be mentally exhausted, to be physically worn down, to starve and be confused.

  Indeed, his Pokémon Journey had been pretty fucked up until now.

  “Do you mind expining to me, little brother, what hell do you think you’re doing out here when I just left you behind in bed not even an hour ago?”

  “Cha-Chans!”

  Oops.

  “Chansey, Mega Punch!”

  “GEBOWAH!”

  Caln was thus forcibly returned to his bed and would stay there impatiently for another two days before he was finally allowed to resume his daily routine.

  If you thought it was too fast to go from bedridden to exercising once more within three days, then it was probably because he had already slept three days before he had first woken up.

  Milo stayed another week, only leaving after he had made sure that Caln wouldn’t go on another crazy blender or faint standing upright. He had also used that time to bury sticks and ropes in the ground, marking each plot with the type of Berry to be pnted there and even tilled the ground with his Pokémon.

  For his part, Caln couldn’t go on another blender even if he wanted to.

  He had already used up all the Berries, and Chansey straight up refused to let him restock until their new cabin was completed, the room was already filled up with Poke blocks. Even the two Indeedee’s cots had been filled up with Poke blocks, and the two of them had been forced to sleep in their Poke balls each night for the past two weeks.

  Caln genuinely felt remorse for that and thus quietly accepted Chansey’s orders, although he had managed to negotiate her down to at least allowing him to buy more Sitrus Berries for Sirfetch’d.

  All he could do was devote all his time and strength to training in the morning and tiling the ground in the afternoon, whenever it didn’t rain at least.

  And then… just as his cabin was about to be completed, Caln walked out one fine morning to find someone standing outside his cabin.

  Glowing dark skin, shaggy bck hair, a soccer uniform and cap.

  No cloak yet, he noted absentmindedly.

  The two of them stared at each other silently.

  “Are you two done making lovey dovey eyes at each other yet? Do I get a turn at saying hi?” someone snarked.

  Caln’s eyes shifted to the woman behind the first person.

  Yep. He knew that orange ponytail and the Yamper being hugged.

  “This is Milo’s fault, isn’t it?”

  Caln had zero doubt his brother had gone and squealed to these two, arguably his two best friends, the moment he nded back down in Gar.

  “Yep.” The peppy woman chirped.

  Caln sighed softly, “It’s been a while, Leon, Sonia.”

  It seemed like he was going get more dreams tonight.

  ****BKP****

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