Kleavor is surprisingly chill when he's not roided out on space juice.

  Joshua dusts his hands off. One down, four more to go. But instead of hopping on Jophiel, he just walks back to the entrance.

  He's not in a rush, he isn't entirely sure if the ‘rules' of this world are aligned with the game, but he at least wanted to get Kleavor done so the Time Distortion bubbles start popping up.

  And to be honest… he could see himself living here. Not that he will, he still wants to go to the Pokemon straight up. But it isn't like he's on a time limit, so…

  It's a beautiful world, might as well enjoy it, right?

  “Hey Lian! Do you want to join us for dinner?”

  The young Warden perks up from behind the rock, a bit startled but he eventually just shakes his head.

  “Sorry, Mr. Joshua. I have to report this back to the Pearl Cn. Thank you for the offer though!”

  Aw, dang.

  …

  “You have a Pokemon that… talks?”

  They sit around at camp, at Height's Camp to be exact. It was still a distance away, as it was at the center of the Obsidian Fieldnds and the Grandtree Arena is around the bottom right.

  It seems to be a ‘free’ campsite, with preset tents and solid dirt ground, overall it's very cozy.

  Sunlight starts to creep into dusk, basking the sky in a hue of orange and dark blue as the stars begin to appear.

  “Yo” The Vaporeon waves, eating her meal.

  “Yeah that's Ace, she's the non-combatant I mentioned. She's still part of the team though”

  “Heyo~ I'm just here to chill and freeload, at least until Joshy finally falls to my charms, then I'll start taking loads!”

  Akari raises an eyebrow, confused at the statement. Joshua is so gd she can't understand that…

  Jophiel scrunches her nose and turns to him.

  (“Beloved…”)

  Yeah, he knows.

  Eventually, he'll have to do… something, about Ace. Her lewd jokes are fine, but it's hard to call them jokes whenever Jophiel- and by extension HIM- can practically smell the frustration wafting off her.

  He knows that she's currently going through a six plus year dry spell, but it's getting to the point where she might actually jump someone. With her past notes, he wonders if she was just constantly in heat.

  …do Pokemon go into heat?

  (“...not in the same way you are thinking, I believe”)

  He can save that conversation for ter.

  “So, Akari”

  Joshua gets the young trainers attention.

  “I know I'm supposed to be teaching you something. But I'm not sure where exactly you're cking. So… do you have any questions you want to ask?”

  “Um…”

  She stammers, not expecting the admittedly direct approach.

  “Yes… why is Captain Cyllene so… upset? At you. Professor Laventon didn't say anything about it, but she seemed… angry”

  “I meant questions about Pokemon, Akari…”

  Can't bme her for wanting the gossip though.

  “Sorry…” At least she seems embarrassed about it.

  “But to answer that, it's a lot more boring than you think” Joshua reaches down, picking up another piece of cooked Magikarp.

  Eating Pokemon is… weird, feels taboo, but chat reassured him that it's actually not bad as long as you pay attention.

  To paraphrase, Pokemon have a level of sentience and sapience to them that goes from “basically a wild animal” to “straight up a person”. Much like literally everything else about Pokemon, there are exceptions and it's more complicated than how he expined it.

  People need to eat, and as you would guess, eating a sapient creature is kinda horrifying. But some Pokemon are generally just… how does he say this without being rude…

  Less… there?

  A Magikarp can be smart, but generally they are just slightly above intelligence fish. Bidoofs and bird Pokemon are simir.

  Most interestingly, Steven expined that if you catch a ‘feral’ Pokemon and bring it to a domestic setting, it actually starts to grow it's own ‘sapience’ and personality.

  Pokemon are weird man.

  “I was trying to join the Survey Corps, Laventon recommend it but Captain Cyllene decided from the moment she id eyes on me that I was just some… I don't know, criminal? She was acting like I had to prove my innocence for a crime only she knew about. So I left, and I've told her that if she wants to talk like an adult then she knows where to find me”

  “...wow”

  Akari just blinks, but she does look over his suit and his Pokemon.

  Yes, he's weird, he knows.

  (“You are not”) Jophiel pipes up.

  Joshua smirks. Even now, she's quick on shooting down on his self-deprecation, even when he's obviously joking.

  (“If I don't, who will?”)

  Jophiel sits behind him. While she used to sit on his shoulders as a Ponyta, she's adapted to her rge size and just opted to loom over his right shoulder while curled slightly as he ys against her barrel.

  He suddenly has a primal need to mess with her.

  She smiles affectionately at him as he looks over.

  (“What?”) She giggles at his raised eyebrow.

  “You're my own little cheerleader, aren't you? Hmmmm?”

  (“Of course I a- what?”) She stops as he leans closer.

  “Hmmmmmmm?”

  Jophiel watches his smiling face get closer, leaning ever so closer, she does lean away slightly, but not nearly as much as she could.

  (“Please cease”) She tries to sound serious, but struggles to hide the amusement in her tone.

  “Hmmmmmmmmmm?”

  He leans in close, face almost touching hers as his smug face draws closer.

  She breaks, ughing that sounds like bells chiming ring in his head. The smile that crawls up her lips is tall and bright, and her eyes are hard lidded in amusement.

  (“Pft- Stop! Stop staring at me like that!”) She puts a hoof on his chest but that doesn't stop him from cupping his hands under her head.

  “Hey”

  (“What?”)

  “Love you” He gives a very chaste kiss atop her muzzle.

  Her ears burn crimson, and her eyes widened, but she just leans forward to bury her face into the crook of his neck, pressing into him like she's trying to hide away, but her response is clear as day.

  (“I love you too”)

  Joshua makes sure to hug her for a moment, just to solidify the moment. The feedback loop of affection through the link makes it difficult when he eventually pulls away and turns back to Akari.

  She's bright red.

  “Akari?”

  She recoils like she's been physically struck.

  “O-Oh! Um… you uh… you are certainly close with… Rapidash, was it?”

  “Jophiel. And yes, she's been with me since the beginning, so we're quite close”

  He scratches under the alicorn's chin.

  Uriel, who's been nearby, stares at him with intense eyes. With a quick gesture she's ying her head on his leg as he scratches the spots she likes.

  “Ace, you wanna join?”

  “Join wha?” She says, still munching on her food.

  “The uh… the little pile thing we got going on here. Warmer than the ground at least”

  She chews as she looks over, then just shrugs and walks to his other leg and plops down, continuing her meal.

  Cyndaquil, unfortunately, has no idea what to really do so she just sits nearby. Poor girl. He doesn't know much about her, but she seems a bit hands-off at least.

  “Any more questions?”

  Her lips thin, hesitant, she looks up at the sky.

  “Um… no, I think I'm going to head to bed now…”

  “...sure, goodnight then”

  She heads off into her own tent, as Joshua watches with a confused look.

  “Why isn't she asking for help…?”

  (“Maybe she is nervous?”)

  “I don't get it, but… whatever, I guess”

  Again, he's failed at actually ‘teaching’ her anything.

  But now that he's alone, he can finally turn his attention to the VERY QUICKLY moving chat.

  Oh.

  [AWWWWWWWWW]

  [AWWWWWWW]

  [AAAAWWWWWWWWW!!!!]

  [<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3]

  [IonoZone: YOINK]

  [Clipped]

  [Ooookay not checking Battlenet for a while lmao]

  [CUTE]

  [White Horse is truly violent to my heart…]

  [Screenshotted for future use]

  [Wallpaper inbound lol]

  [YYOOOOIIINNNKKK]

  Maybe he should've turned off the stream for that.

  “Please don't make me your wallpaper…”

  [StevenStoneOffical: Do you really expect them to listen to that?]

  [I<3Gible: not a chance lmao]

  [IonoZone: NOOOOOOPE (*???*)]

  He sighs, and just lets chat run for a few minutes to blow off steam.

  “Just realized something”

  (“What is it?”)

  “We haven't tried chess yet”

  She raises an eyebrow, before her memory clicks.

  (“Oh that's right! We never got the time for that, did we?”)

  “I'll make sure to teach all my Pokemon how to py chess, so we can have our own chess tournament”

  (“With bckjack, and hookers”)

  How in the hell did she manage to pick Futurama out of his memories?

  (“You watched some of it before you…”)

  Ended up in the Nightmare World, yeah.

  The mood turns dark for a moment, before Joshua tries to steer it away into something else.

  But before he can do it, Cynthia pops up.

  [I<3Gible: Can you expin the Noble Pokemon?]

  [I<3Gible: In detail, please]

  Alright, well that's an excuse as ever. Taking a deep breath, he organizes his thoughts and continues.

  “The Noble Pokemon are descendants of five out of the ten Pokemon that the ‘Ancient Hero’ had in his party. They were blessed by Arceus and protect the Hisui region from big threats”

  [I<3Gible: Ancient Hero? Eborate]

  “The Ancient Hero is an unnamed but renowned figure that traveled around Hisui to search for eighteen ‘ptes’ that were special sbs that were imbued with type-essence in order to meet the ‘Almighty Sinnoh’. Whenever he found them all, he climbed Mount Coronet to meet them”

  [I<3Gible: Almighty Sinnoh?]

  “Arceus, they didn't know of her yet”

  [I<3Gible: Noted. Continue, please]

  “The Ancient Hero had ten Pokemon companions. Whenever he met Sinnoh- Arceus- they fought, and defeated her. She was impressed and blessed his Pokemon with power to protect Hisui. Five of their descendants became Noble Pokemon, the other became Ride Pokemon”

  [I<3Gible: What's the difference between them?]

  “In terms of strength? None. They can't be caught, and are WAY bigger and stronger as you saw with Kleavor. The only real difference is how they act. Noble Pokemon are generally hermits and like to stay in one general area unless needed. Ride Pokemon like to wander, and they're called that because if they like you they'll allow you to ride them around”

  [StevenStoneOffical: What about those ptes?]

  Joshua pulls out the Insect Pte, it glows slightly green in his hand.

  “They boost power from moves of their type by about… 20%? This one doesn't do much for me, but as long as Volo's bitcha-BEHIND doesn't get his hands on it, then it's fine”

  [IonoZone: LOL Cynthia is writing notes]

  [IonoZone: What's wrong with Volo?]

  Oh hey Iono.

  “He betrays you at the end of the journey”

  [What?!]

  [Really???]

  [Why?]

  “Volo was the one who opened the rift”

  He points to the distant space-time rift.

  “He contacted Giratina and had them open the rift in order to meet Arceus so he could capture her and make the world change to his whim”

  [...Giratina?]

  “Middle child of Palkia and Dialga”

  [I<3Gible: best way you could describe it]

  [I<3Gible: How do you pn on stopping it?]

  “Luckily, Arceus doesn't really care about Volo, and sure as hell wouldn't let him capture one of her avatars. Same as the other three. So the biggest threat is Giratina themselves, which is why I need a team so I can beat them up”

  “Man if I wasn't given a crash course of this shit by the alpaca I would be TOTALLY lost” Ace whines.

  “Surprised you're taking this so well”

  “Beats the shithole we crawled out of” She shrugs.

  “What did you even do before the Nightmare World?”

  She looks over at him, mouth open mid-might.

  “...Deep-sea Lead Engineer and Heavy Weapons Maintenance”

  Joshua just stares.

  Ace snorts.

  “What? Never said my old world WASN'T shit either. Went from css:fuck-you leviathans to parasitic overlords”

  “...leviathans?”

  “You know Subnautica?”

  He preferred five seconds ago where he didn't hear that.

  “Fuck”

  “Yeah”

  [IonoZone: Now that I think about it… how old is Ace?]

  “Twenty-five” Ace says pinly.

  “You're older than me?” Joshua blinks.

  “Call me onee-san”

  “I will not”

  “One day…” Ace sighs.

  [What do you pn on doing?]

  “For now, rest. Then I keep exploring”

  Now what should he do…

  Woodcarving seems fun.

  …

  Joshua has discovered something neat about the Arc Phone.

  It has YouTube.

  Or “PokeTube”, in this case. It's not live, just an archive of videos he wants to watch that the phone downloads for him.

  So now it's night.

  >”So now you want to find a wet cloth. Luckily a Cyndaquil’s fur is quite dense, so a lot of grime tends to fall off due to its natural oils, what you do is-”<

  Joshua feels like he's back in middle school. He's been watching videos on medical care and proper grooming of different Pokemon for the past few hours.

  It's fascinating.

  His Vet Brain is loving every second of it.

  Jophiel watches over his shoulder, eyes half-lidded and blinking slowly.

  (“Beloved. Please…”)

  “Just one more”

  Jophiel watches, her neck slightly sore and tiredness settling in.

  She knows he's not stopping anytime soon.

  The alicorn chuffs and her horn ignites.

  >”-fire types tend to have a-”< *CLICK*

  The phone turns off.

  “What are y-”

  A pink aura grabs the back of his suit colr and yanks him backwards.

  (“Bed”)

  “You don't have to wait for me, y'know”

  (“No”)