I laid there on the floor, staring up at the false sky painted on the ceiling. My mind was going over the last few hours, the things I had done or said. Things that I could have done better, or where I had messed up. Thankfully it had all gone fairly well, and there weren’t many places to improve upon considering all of the circumstances. The only real improvement was having some place specifically for this.

  Valerie entering my peripheral vision caused me to refocus a bit. “Are you okay?” she asked, looking down on me.

  “Just taking a few minutes to recenter,” I replied. She gave me a puzzled look, but I ignored her for a moment, closing my eyes and taking a few deep breaths.

  For her part, Valerie remained silent for a few moments before speaking up again. “That uhm… Looked rather stressful.”

  I had to think about that for a moment before nodding, opening my eyes as I got up. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” I said as I dusted myself off.

  “But… They’re all good now, right?” She was looking around at the different groups of Pokemon.

  A humorous chuckle escaped me. “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “Some of them are in better shape than others, but this was just the first step in a long road to recovery.”

  She had quite a frown on her face as she was thinking it over. “But they’re going to get better, right?” She sounded quite concerned as she looked around again.

  “Whether they want to or not,” I said with a bit of a smile, joining her in looking around. Most of the Pokemon were watching television. It made me think about the scene in One Hundred and One Dalmatians when all the little pups were crowding around in the living room and watching that old western movie… What would be the equivalent to that movie in this world? Especially because Pokemon laid eggs… I couldn’t think of a comparison.

  “You make helping them sound like a threat,” she said with a giggle.

  “And it is.” I nodded a few times.

  That just made her giggle more. “Well, at least they all seem to be comfortable here…” She had a rather thoughtful expression. “They’re all going to need homes, huh?”

  Again I nodded. “Yeah. I want them to go to Trainers, or people that will treat them well. Treat them like the intelligent beings they are.”

  She had a rather contemplative look on her face. “Yanno… When I first heard about Team Flare, I thought they were like Team Rocket… But the only thing they seem to have in common is that they’re villain teams. And I guess that they steal stuff,” she waved one of her wings vaguely. “I just… I don’t even know where I’m going with this. I think I’m just a bit overwhelmed at… all this…”

  “That’s understandable,” I said calmly. It was pretty obvious she was in some kind of distress. “It’s a lot.”

  “I just never even considered their Pokemon,” she continued. “Even though I can… Even though I can talk to Pokemon, the thought that a villain’s Pokemon might not also be a villain never even crossed my mind.” She choked a bit on her own words. “Does that make me a bad Trainer?”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but hesitated. Her eyes snapped to me when I didn’t immediately respond. “I wouldn’t say that you’re a bad Trainer. It’s… not just you. Everyone thinks that.”

  “But you didn’t,” she retorted, almost like it was an insult.

  “No. I didn’t.” I sighed. “But we have lived very different lives. And have very different perspectives.”

  “I just don’t understand why you’re the only one who looked at how things were going and claimed them to be wrong,” she said, frowning. She was clearly just getting more frustrated.

  I gave a short, soft laugh. “But I wasn’t. There’s several failed programs that have been tried in the past.” I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I was still working to calm my mind from all the stress. “But they all failed.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “I just… That’s not… That’s not fair.” She shifted, folding her arms inside her costume, or it would be more correct to say that she was hugging herself. “They weren’t given a chance. That’s not fair…”

  “No. It isn’t. It really isn’t. But it’s because so many people don’t see it that way that those programs fail. To the majority, Pokemon are just animals. Or worse, tools.” As I spoke I was watching her. She was clearly extremely upset over this, but I wasn’t entirely sure why it was to this extent. She was on the brink of tears.

  And then I realized why. Even before she spoke again.

  “They didn’t have to die…” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

  There was a story there. A heavy story that I couldn’t begin to unpack right now. I needed to do something else. Something to soften the situation. “Valerie,” I said in a low but firm voice in order to get her attention back on me and out of whatever spiral she was having. “All you can do… All that we can do is do better. Be better.” I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. “That feeling you’re having right now. That gut wrenching feeling deep inside… Is something you can’t let consume you. And it will try. Arceus it will try. But you can’t let it. Because if you do, you won’t be able to help.”

  She was shaking a bit, a few tears were running down her face. Her hand came out from her costume, rubbing away the tears. “Right…” She took a few deep breaths. “I just… We have to help them.”

  I nodded. “And we can. It’s difficult, but not impossible.” I smiled a bit as I pat her shoulder.

  She nodded a few times, taking more deep breaths. “Right.”

  “There’s a saying that I really like,” I said as I pulled my hand away. “The road is long, and rough.”

  Again she nodded. “Right. I just have to-” There was suddenly a ping noise from her costume. She blinked a few times and then she scrambled for a moment before pulling out her phone. “Oh shit! My next battle!” She spun and sprinted for the door.

  I couldn’t help but laugh as she struggled with it for a moment before dashing off down the hall, the door slowly closing itself in her wake.

  Closing my eyes, I stood there for a few more moments, doing my best to recenter. “Right… the road is long…”

  “And rough,” Cara added, coming up beside me.

  “And rough,” I agreed.

  We both made our way over to the large group of Pokemon watching television. All of the dog's attention snapped to me when I entered within ten meters. It was interesting that they could sense my odd aura, but it was probably more that they could feel my presence.

  I considered making food, but there were over forty Pokemon here… Could I even make that much food? Did I even have that much food? I folded my arms, closing my arms as I tried to calculate. Since I had two months for twelve, that meant I could feed all of them curry for two weeks.

  That would be a ton of food. I didn’t have enough pots and pans to cook it all efficiently, so I would be cooking batches for the next… two hours? No, maybe more like an hour since I wouldn’t be making specific flavored batches for most of them, so I could make more generic curry. That would save on time.

  “Right.” I said with a nod as I looked over the group. “Dee, Mikyu, Banette. We’re going to be making dinner.”

  Every single Pokemon perked up immediately, and there were probably enough tails wagging to change the air pressure if the room was smaller.

  As I started to get out all of my cooking supplies, I was a bit surprised when Malevolence came over. “We are all getting more food?”

  There was that ache in my chest again as I turned to her. “Of course. Food is important, and helps you get stronger. If you’re hungry, it slows your progress.”

  She seemed to mull that over for a bit, thinking.

  “Hey, do you want to help?” I asked with a smile.

  Her brow furrowed. “Help?”

  I nodded. “Yes, since you can breathe fire, you can help me cook.” I turned to continue pulling things out. I needed to make so much food… “And any of the other Houndoom and Houndour that want can. It’ll be good training for controlling your fire's intensity and longevity.”

  Rio and Cara were helping to get everything ready while Mikyu and Banette were starting to prepare ingredients. As they were doing that, Malevolence returned with Hazard and Fear. “We wish to help,” Malevolence said slowly, unsure. It was a bit funny since she always seemed so confident.

  “Alright.” I started to explain to them what they were going to do. It took a few minutes of trial and error for me to get them to lower the heat of their flames and keep them at a consistent temperature. But they were very good at using the fire energy, so they picked it up rather quickly.

  And like I thought, it was an hour of cooking. I needed more plates and bowls… I had to pretty much continually reuse them almost the moment they were empty. Unfortunately the three Houndoom could only keep up their flames for twenty minutes, which really seemed to frustrate Malevolence and Hazard. But I didn’t expect them to be able to keep up with it the whole time.

  The wolf pack got fed first, and many of them also got fed second, as I assured them that they could have more if they wanted. Some just asked for more pokebeans, which I was more than happy to give them. After the first one, Fret, had built up the courage to ask, it was like opening a floodgate. Practically all of them wanted more pokebeans.

  The whole hour was honestly good for me to settle down, and I ended up exhausted at the end. But it was worth it. Everyone looked so happy. Even Detach seemed to be far more present, though he was mostly just watching television now and still hadn’t spoken, he had at least eaten.

  As I was making the last bit for myself and Cara, Valerie came back. “Oh goodness, what smells so good?”

  “Curry,” I said with a bit of a laugh. “Do you want some? I’m just making up the last bit.”

  “I- uh… If it’s not too much trouble,” she replied, hesitant.

  “Oh please. You’re letting all of us stay here, pretty much indefinitely, the least I can do is offer food.” I held out a plate towards her.

  She still seemed hesitant, but eventually her hand escaped from the confines of her costume and accepted the plate, and she took it to a nearby table. She waited until Cara and I were plated and sitting as well before even trying her food. However she stopped when she noticed Cara had the same thing as me. “You feed this to your Pokemon?” she asked.

  I looked up, fork in the air. “Ah? Yeah? Oh, I should probably warn you that there’s some pokechow in this. But it’s the higher grade stuff, so it’s perfectly fine for humans to eat.”

  She actually snorted at that. “I haven’t eaten pokechow since my Journey, but thanks for the warning.” She froze immediately at that first bite, her eyes taking on an odd sort of far off look.

  Cara and I just started eating. I really needed to get that pasta machine… Maybe after battling Valerie I’d go shopping? I was going to need more food anyways. Maybe some kind of portable kitchen set to help speed things along? Did those exist? With the sort of pocket technology that this world had, surely they would have a portable kitchen?

  “This is… really good,” Valerie said softly, which broke me back from my thoughts.

  “Hm?” It still took me a few seconds to register what she said. “Ah, thank you. I’ve been working on perfecting the recipe, and I think I’m pretty close. It’s better with pasta, but I don’t have a pasta maker or the ingredients for it.”

  “It can be better?” she asked incredulously.

  I laughed. “Maybe. Probably? Honestly I don’t know. Just as things can always get worse, there’s also the chance for them to be better. Someday I might make the best curry the world has ever known, and be unable to surpass it, but it would never be that good again.”

  She stopped eating for a moment, head tilted to the side and her brow a bit furrowed. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I could never have it for the first time again,” I said with a chuckle. Her expression remained one of confusion so I decided to elaborate further. “What’s your favorite food?”

  Suddenly she seemed to brighten a bit and smile. “Mochi.”

  I returned the smile. “Do you remember the first time you had mochi?”

  It took her a moment of thinking but then she nodded. “Yeah. That was a really long time ago.”

  “Do you remember the second time you had mochi?” I asked, still smiling.

  Again it took her a moment, though her brow furrowed. “I think so? Wait, so that’s what you mean?”

  I nodded. “That first time sticks with you. Now, when was the time you had the best mochi?”

  Her hand went up and she put a finger on her chin in thought. “I think the best mochi I’ve ever had was during my celebration after the League. Even if I didn’t win, we celebrated just how far I got. It wasn’t a big party, but it was nice.”

  “Where was the mochi from?” I prompted.

  “Oh from this little shop. It was so good, but every time I tried it again-” she stopped, her brow suddenly furrowing.

  “It was never as good, right?” I said with a smile.

  “It was still really good,” she defended. “But… No, it wasn’t as good. It was still the best, but that first time- yeah okay, I get what you’re saying now. But, why is that?”

  “It’s a very interesting thing, right?” I said with a chuckle, looking down at my food for a moment. “I could get into all the little nuances of it, but basically it’s because your brain is saying that that was the best. And something just as good isn’t better, therefore it’s not as good.”

  Her brow was still furrowed, and she was frowning. “Yeah, I don’t get that.”

  That caused me to laugh, shaking my head a bit. “That’s fine. You don’t have to understand everything.”

  There was a moment of silence as we all simply ate, before she asked, “Is there something you don’t understand?”

  “Relationships,” I responded immediately.

  She scoffed. “I mean besides that.”

  “A lot of things,” I said, vaguely waving my fork in the air. “Too many to list.”

  “That’s a pretty lazy excuse,” she said with a bit of a giggle.

  “Understanding stuff is hard,” Rio’s voice suddenly chimed in from behind before she quite unceremoniously draped herself over my shoulder, practically folding herself over me like a towel. “Like, I don’t understand why you won’t let me fight that.” She was pointing at the Sylveon, who was sitting on Valerie’s lap.

  Ren just made a scoffing noise in response. “You hardly seem a challenge.”

  Rio didn’t move, but glared down at him. “Big words from something so small.”

  “Size hardly means anything.”

  “Lame ass retort.”

  The two of them started going back and forth, and I did my best to ignore them and finish my meal. Which was a bit difficult considering that Rio refused to get off from over my shoulder. While I couldn’t immediately be sure of how Ren was feeling about the verbal altercation, I could tell from Rio’s tone and slightly wagging tail that she was having fun. I made a mental note that denying the battle hungry canine physical combat enjoys verbal sparring.

  After watching the Sylveon for a bit, it was clear that Ren didn’t really feel strongly about it, and wasn’t putting in the effort. Probably in hopes that Rio would grow bored and leave him alone. I was actually curious if that was possible.

  Valerie just seemed amused by the interaction. I knew she could understand Ren, but how much of what Rio was saying could she understand? I figured I’d ask, “Can you understand this limp noodle?” I asked, gesturing at said noodle draped over me.

  Rio made an offended scoffing noise, but didn’t move.

  “A bit,” Valerie said, trying to hide a smile.

  I gave Rio’s hand a slight slap as she tried to reach for my plate. “Excuse me, little lady. That is my dinner.”

  “But it looks good,” she grumbled.

  Suddenly there was a shadow looming over us. “Jace is eating,” Scoly said, causing both of us to look up. “You shouldn’t bother people when they’re eating.”

  “Quite right,” Cara said with a nod.

  Before I had a chance to say it was fine, Scoly had leaned down, and hooked Rio with her horns before lifting her off of me. “Oi. I was comfortable,” she complained.

  In response, the massive bug simply lowered her head as if going to put her down, before using a considerable amount of strength to yeet the canine away and off across the room. We all watched as she flew, hit the ground a few times, rolled a bit, and then came to a sudden stop on her feet. She was standing nearly at the other end of the room, glaring at Scoly. After a moment she simply dusted herself off and started to make her way back over like nothing happened.

  However the big bug just laid down, putting her head on my lap with a soft little huff. “Was she bothering you?” I asked softly, reaching down to rub at the top of her head.

  “She absolutely refuses to even consider that Cinnamin is a good rescue member,” she grumbled.

  “They have been arguing about this for hours,” Primarina added, sounding absolutely exasperated.

  “Oh? And who does she think is better?” I asked, mildly amused. It seemed they were having arguments about their favorite characters from Mystery Dungeon.

  “Baklava!” she said, exasperated.

  I took a moment to think. “That’s the Cinderace from team Hot Cross Buns, right?”

  “Yeah! And they’re hardly even there. They teamed up once with Team Loud, and it was cool watching them fight the sky pirates, but then they left on a job to Nori and hardly even get mentioned anymore,” she explained.

  I nodded slowly, remembering bits of what she was talking about. I couldn’t quite remember seeing any battles against sky pirates, but that sounded cool. “Ah and you like Team Loud more, hm?” Team Loud was Cinnamin’s team, and they got that name because the lazy Raichu is quite the rock-n-roller. In fact, from what I’d seen, the only reason they even go on rescue missions is because Rigatoni, their Snivy partner, drags them out for jobs.

  “Of course,” Scoly said confidently.

  “I like Rigatoni,” Primarina chimed in with a large smile. She had come over and put her head in my lap next to Scoly.

  “You are obsessed with the noodleboy,” Rio said with a huff as she flopped over Scoly. “You didn’t have to throw me…”

  “You look like you needed a walk,” she retorted with a bit of a snort.

  I rolled my eyes as the two devolved into bickering and I continued eating. The lack of training was starting to make a lot of them antsy, I could tell. They got so used to it that not doing it was starting to frustrate them.

  “Right. Enough of that,” I said as I pat them both on their heads. “You want to train so badly, then how about some stamina training.” I looked around for a moment before spotting the pink diamond crown I was looking for. “Diancie, do you want to help out with some training?”

  She practically flew at me, hovering over the table. “Oh yes! Can I throw boulders?”

  I snorted and shook my head. “Not boulders, but you can use the weight balls.” She seemed a bit disappointed, but nodded. I had to lift Scoly’s head off my lap before I could get up.

  “I’m interested in what sort of training you do,” Valerie said as she stood up as well.

  With a smile, I went over to the other side of the room followed by several Pokemon: Diancie, Cara, Rio, Scoly, Dee, Primarina, Sliggoo, and Keo. As well as Banette, to my surprise. “You might want to back up, Valerie,” I warned as I took a look around. She eyed me questioningly, but did so. I gave her a nod when she and Ren were far enough away. “Diancie.”

  Her hand swiped down and Gravity spiked. It was an odd feeling, but almost comfortingly familiar. Rio and Scoly both looked super excited. “So. So. What’s the training?” Primarina said.

  “Like I said, stamina training.” I pulled all of the weighted training balls out of my bag and let them fall with heavy thuds before walking from one side of the affected field to the other, putting down a marker with a few meters as a gap. As I did so, I explained, “You’re all going to be playing defense. No energy use. You’re all going to go back and forth between these two markers as fast as you can. The only one who isn’t will be Diancie, who will be throwing out attacks.”

  “Wait, me too?” Dee asked, a bit surprised to not be on the attack team for once.

  “Yes, you too,” I said as I pat her head. “You’re one of the slower members, so you need to work on that.”

  “Can we attack each other?” Keo asked.

  I thought about it for a moment. Usually I was reliant on the curry for after training healing, but now that I was thinking about it… “Sure.” Immediately I saw the competitive look that Rio and Scoly gave each other. “Just remember that your focus is to be on running. I want at least five hundred laps from Cara, Rio, Scoly, and Keo. And a hundred from Dee, Primarina, and Sliggoo.” I hesitated, looking down at Banette. Her head tilted in response. “Do you want to run laps, or help Diancie attack?”

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  Her head flopped to the other side as she thought about it. Honestly the adorable little stuffed toy was quite an enigma to me. She’d yet to say a single word to me, but I had picked up that she spoke to the others occasionally.

  Kneeling down in front of her, I gave her a smile. “I’m not sure what you want to do,” I said softly. “I know you’re really strong, but you don’t have to fight or train if you don’t want to.” I reached out and rubbed the side of her face, smiling a bit more as she closed her eyes and leaned into my touch as she reached up to grab hold of my arm.

  Did she just want some attention? But then she let go of me and joined the rest of the group who were gathering over at one of the edges. They all looked excited.

  I moved out of the way, off more towards Valerie. I didn’t want to be anywhere near what was about to happen. “Go!” I announced, and all hell broke loose. They weren’t even halfway across the area when they started to fight. I rolled my eyes as I stepped over to Valerie.

  “Is this how you train?” she questioned, clearly confused at the nonsense that was going on behind me.

  “Well, it’s a bit different than normal. But if we did what we normally did, I don’t know how damaged the room would be,” I said with a chuckle.

  Ren reached out with one of his ribbons, caught off guard when its weight increased as it passed into the gravity field. I watched as he experimented with it, tested it, and observed the others that were training under it. “They’re all under this?” he muttered.

  “Ren,” I said down to him, catching the attention of the Pokemon who looked up at me with a quizzical expression. “I’m only going to say this once-” I held up a finger for emphasis. “If you think for a moment… That you can go easy on Dee in the battle tomorrow…” I glanced back in time to see her use Scoly’s own momentum to throw her at Rio. “She’s gonna beat the shit out of you.”

  He gulped, but nodded, a determined expression on his face. And also excitement. I was hoping that this would be a challenging battle for Dee. So far, in the few battles she had been in, no one took her seriously until it was too late. I wouldn’t say that I wanted the pink Pokemon to lose, but she needed to work for it.

  “Those are some pretty harsh words,” Valerie said with a bit of a nervous giggle.

  “But true,” I said with a chuckle. “She hasn’t been in many fights, but she always gets underestimated. It’s honestly frustrating for me to watch, because I watched the way she struggled to get to the level she’s on now.”

  Valerie seemed to think this over for a moment. “Is she your strongest Pokemon?”

  I smirked a bit and looked over at her. “What would you do if I said yes?”

  She frowned a bit at me. “I’m just curious. Your Pokemon seem really strong, but I’m curious who's the strongest.”

  “Physically speaking, I would say yes. I’m fairly certain she is the strongest in terms of pure strength.” I gestured over to the training Pokemon, Cara and Rio were in a scuffle while the others were still running. “But that’s what she’s focused on. Most of them are focused differently.”

  “That must get really complicated in training… I know training so many Pokemon makes my head spin sometimes,” Valerie complained a bit, heaving a heavy sigh.

  I laughed. “It helps that I was a teacher for so long. Makes dealing with a bunch of unruly kids a lot easier.”

  She laughed along with me for a moment before going silent. For a few moments we just stood in silence, watching as a group of ‘unruly kids’ tried to batter each other and run laps at the same time. “Do you miss it? Being a teacher?”

  I glanced at her, and then sighed. “Of course. I liked what I did. But if I was still doing that, I wouldn’t be doing this. I try not to think about what if’s and that sort of nonsense. It’ll just drive you crazy.”

  She was frowning again, her eyes looking off into the distance. “I wish I could just stop thinking about the what if’s.”

  “It’s not an easy thing to do,” I admitted with a nod. “It helps to focus on what you have now, and think about the things you have that you wouldn’t in those what if’s.” A bit of a smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Like your little crush. Would you have met them in your little what if?”

  Her face went a bit red. “Okay. Point taken.”

  “And when you get the courage to actually ask them out, and become a couple, you can look back at those what if’s and be like, wow I’m glad that things went this way! And then you’ll be like, wow Jace, you were right, this is-” I stopped as I was suddenly slapped by a cloth wing.

  “Stop! Okay! I get it!” Valerie exclaimed, her face beat red. “You can stop.”

  I laughed, reaching over and patting her on the head. “What’s wrong, Valerie? Can’t take a little teasing?”

  She huffed a bit in response, and I could tell that she just folded her arms. “Mean.”

  I just laughed more. It took a moment for me to calm down. “Just don’t wait too long, okay?” I said with a smile. “I may not be an expert on the whole relationship thing, but waiting and worrying about how they might react, or what they might say, isn’t good for anyone.”

  “That sounds like actual advice,” she said, sounding quite skeptical.

  I snorted. “If you want, we can make a bet.” She just arched an eyebrow at me. “For the battle tomorrow. If you lose, you go and confess.”

  Her face, which had just started returning to its normal color, started to go red again. “And- and what if you lose?”

  I shrugged. “That’s up to you.”

  Her brow furrowed a bit as she thought. It took a moment before she sighed. “I can’t think of anything…”

  “Well it’s a good thing I don’t plan to lose, then,” I said with a laugh.

  She huffed a bit. “I’ll think of something. And it’ll be something ridiculous and embarrassing.”

  I laughed a bit more. It was good that my mood had come up so much from today's events. “Well, then we can make it a sort of IOU thing.”

  “I guess that works,” she said, clearly annoyed that she couldn’t think of anything and I wasn’t offering suggestions.

  “Don’t think too hard, I’ll win and you won’t have to think about it.” I got lightly slapped by a cloth wing again for that comment.

  She made an interesting, exasperated sounding noise at me. “Alright. Well, it’s getting late. So I’ll show you to one of the rooms.”

  “Oh don’t worry about that,” I said as I waved a hand. “I’ll just be staying in here.”

  Her brow arched a bit as she looked at me. “I… Okay, well I guess I should expect that from you considering the rumors I’ve heard.”

  “Rumors?” I questioned, glancing at her for a moment.

  She had a bit of a smirk on her face. “That you live in the woods like a wild Pokemon.”

  A soft snort escaped me. “Well, not much of a rumor if it’s true.”

  The smirk on her face faltered and turned into a slight frown. “What?”

  “I mean…” I waved vaguely. “I do spend pretty much all of my time in the woods, training this lot. Or at a Pokecenter. It’s not like I have a specific place where I live exactly.”

  Her frown deepened. “You’re… homeless?” Her eyes scanned me, as if taking in my details for the first time.

  “Technically?” I mused, rubbing my chin. I honestly hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose I technically was. It hadn’t seemed important. “I have my tent, and Pokecenters are all over the place and accommodating.”

  However that seemed to be the wrong response as Valerie looked horrified. “You’re homeless,” she repeated, this time it was a statement rather than a question.

  “Yeah. It just didn’t seem important,” I explained.

  “That’s why you asked if I had space,” she muttered as a hand escaped her costume, rubbing her face. “I thought that it was just inconvenient for you to go home, or your place wasn’t big enough…”

  My brow furrowed. I really couldn’t see what the big deal was. I had lived most of my life in a tiny studio apartment. Honestly the tent was bigger than my old place, but that wasn’t important either. “Why’s that a big deal?”

  She flinched at my words, and suddenly put up her hands. “No, no. It’s… Okay I can’t say it’s not a big deal. I just didn’t realize you were homeless, and… ugh sorry. It was just a really big surprise. I guess you don’t need a house, being a Pokemon Expert and all.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a bit inconvenient sometimes, but honestly I don’t really think about it.”

  “Wait.” She seemed to have some sort of realization. “Does that mean you’re not part of the Joy Clan?”

  I blinked at her a few times. “No? Why would you think that?”

  Slowly her expression seemed to morph into one of pure shock. Like I had just completely destroyed her entire view on how the world works. It took almost a full minute before she finally spoke again. “But… you’re endorsed by the Joy Clan?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed with a nod. “I’m not entirely sure how or why that happened, but I really appreciated it.

  That was apparently not the answer she wanted, as she looked even more confused. “That… That doesn’t make sense. I just… Everyone was sure that you were- wait, then where were you a teacher?”

  “Unova,” I replied. Since it was the closest thing to where I was from, and was actually really far away.

  She actually took a step back. “What the hell are you doing in Kalos, then?” she practically demanded. Then quickly added, “Sorry, I just… I’ve never met anyone from Unova. They’re very… closed off.”

  I waved my hand vaguely in the air dismissively. “It’s fine. I actually don’t know why. I was going home one evening, got beaten near to death with a bat, and then woke up in the woods of Kalos.”

  There was a moment of silence. “That rumor is true, too?!” she exclaimed. “How many of these rumors are true?!”

  I laughed. “Well, what other rumors are there about me?”

  “Like…” She paused, clearly trying to think of the most outrageous rumor she’s heard. “Like, that you’re some disguised Pokemon walking among humans.”

  I snorted. “Well, I don’t know about that. And I would think I would know, since it’s me.”

  “Okay…” She seemed to think again for a moment. “What about the one that you fought a legendary Pokemon?”

  My brow furrowed a bit. “I mean, you could say that I did on a technicality. Technically the legendary was controlling Cara, and I was fighting her.”

  Her gaze immediately snapped over to the canine mentioned, who was duking it out with Rio. “That- uh… Okay I guess that is pretty close to accurate,” she mumbled.

  “I did punch ex-Director Yellow, though,” I said as I flexed my fingers a bit. That had honestly been the best punch I’d ever thrown. Was it because of my dark energy, and the fact that it was technically a move? Something to experiment on someday, I think.

  “Arceus I wish I had been able to see that,” she grumbled, kicking at the ground. “That guy was such a creep. I wish he’d actually gone to jail, but no. They just stripped him of his title and sent him back to Kanto to face punishment from his Clan.”

  I frowned at that. I hadn’t thought about what happened to the former Director before now, but I suppose it was good to know that he was still around. Someone to watch out for. “That’s annoying.”

  Valerie huffed. “Right? But that’s kind of to be expected. The Clans are just like that,” she grumbled that last part before shaking her head. “Well, if you’re going to stay in here, I’m going back to my room. I’ll see you tomorrow at about noon for our battle, alright?”

  “Alright,” I said, giving her a smile. “Just come and get me when you have the time. Otherwise I’ll completely lose track.”

  She giggled a bit and turned, giving me a light slap with her cloth wing as she did. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Be seeing you,” I said as I mussed up her hair.

  She huffed and gave me a sort of mock pout over her shoulder as she made her way out of the room.

  I chuckled as I turned my attention back to the Pokemon training. “You’re supposed to be running laps!” I called out, seeing as how they had devolved into just fighting each other. “You can fight, but keep moving! You won’t be going to bed until you’ve finished your laps!”

  That seemed to be enough to refocus them. I didn’t really want to threaten them, but sometimes that was necessary in order to get someone to remember what they’re supposed to be doing.

  “Jace.” A voice from my side got my attention and I turned to see Hate. She seemed a bit cautious, but looked like she had something she needed to say.

  “Yes?” I said softly, giving her a reassuring smile.

  “Some of the others are… still hungry,” she said hesitantly.

  It hurt a bit that she was so unsure about asking me for things. “Alright.” I turned, looking over at the group of Pokemon. A lot of them were doing that thing where they were looking at me, but trying to appear that they weren’t. “I’ll give out some more pokebeans,” I said and reached down, gently rubbing the top of her head.

  Her tail wagged and she visibly relaxed. We made our way back towards the group, a lot of which seemed to tense as I got closer. This was going to be such a long process.

  Passing out pokebeans to those that were still hungry took a long time. Not because it was a lengthy process, but because so many were reluctant to approach for more food. I had to give Hate a lot of the beans so that she could give them out. Eventually I decided to just start putting beans around, though I had to scoop up Essy shortly after starting as she had been going around and collecting them.

  She didn’t seem too upset that I had stopped her, just letting out a questioning, “Beans?” before I explained to her that she could only have one at a time. And while she agreed to those terms, I was unsure if she actually knew what I meant.

  Once more beans were passed out, I stood nearby the area, looking over the hoard of Pokemon. Menagerie? Is that a more appropriate term? Although menagerie would imply a varied amount of species, I suppose this group could count as one. There were seventeen different species of Pokemon in this room, after all.

  “Alright…” I looked down at Hate, who had been sort of following me around to reassure everyone that everything was alright. “I want to ask everyone a question.”

  This got the attention of every single Pokemon in the area. It was almost unnerving to have over thirty pairs of eyes on me.

  After taking a deep breath, I spoke, “I want all of you to be comfortable. I want you all to be safe, and do what you want. So I want to know… how many of you want to battle?” I saw some of them flinch. “None of you need to, ever again. You never have to fight again if you don’t want to, and I will find somewhere for you that you can live comfortably without having to worry. But it’s something that I need to know so that I know how to help you.”

  There was silence, and some of them fidgeted.

  “You don’t need to decide now.” I looked down at Hate, who looked contemplative. “But I do need an answer eventually. But that can be weeks, or even months from now. And you can change your mind at any time.” I smiled a bit, amused at how serious her expression was. “No matter what you choose, I’ll still take care of you.”

  I moved over to the table that those who didn’t go for training were sitting on. Eevee was still curled up on my coat. Liar was there as well, laying beside her. And while Eevee was asleep, the feline was staring at me with a rather odd expression. Like she was trying to figure out what I was. “So you really mean that none of us have to fight?” she asked as I sat down.

  “Of course,” I said as I checked on Eevee, picking her up to put her on my lap. “There are already a few Pokemon that I have that are non-combatants. Mikyu doesn’t want to fight.” The little Lucario costumed ghost was busy stitching up the part of my coat the Liar had shredded. “Eevee is too sick to fight. And Essy is…” I hesitated for a moment. “Essy is too young,” I decided was the best way to word it.

  Liar looked at the three of them. “So I don’t have to fight if I don’t want to?”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  She seemed thoughtful for a moment. “And what if I do?”

  “Well, then I’ll try and find a Trainer that will take care of you,” I explained.

  “And what if we want to stay with you?” Hate asked, having followed me.

  I hesitated a moment as I thought that over. I was a bit surprised to hear that from Hate. “That would be fine,” I decided. “Although you’d have to start training.” I gestured over to the others on the other side of the room. “Like them.”

  Both Hate and Liar looked over, watching for a moment how rough their training was. “They’re really strong,” Hate mused, wearing a thoughtful expression.

  “To stay with me, means to be part of my family,” I said, which immediately got their attention. “It means that we all care for each other. We watch out for each other. Protect each other.”

  There was silence as the two of them thought it over. I was thinking about what else to say when there was a sudden shout. “I want to fight!” When I looked over, it was Hazard, shouting at Malevolence. Apparently an argument had broken out, and Hazard appeared to be crying.

  I put Eevee down, just in case I needed to move to interject. “It is not that simple, Hazard,” Malevolence responded coldly. “We cannot just-”

  “We can fight them! We can… We can get others! We can take them back!” Hazard was continuing to shout. Dwindle was between the two of them, clearly trying her best to keep the two separated but not entirely sure how to go about it.

  “And what then?!” Malevolence snapped, shouting back. “What are you going to do if we save them?!”

  Hazard recoiled a moment from the reaction, but quickly regained her stance. “We can help them! Our new Trainer saved us, he can save more! And we know where places are!”

  That immediately caught my attention. I had thought that some of these Pokemon might know the location to more bases, but I didn’t want to pressure them into telling me before they settled. It might have given them the wrong idea; that they were only alive because I wanted information.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Malevolence had calmed down from her outburst, her tone returning to a more manageable level. “He has treated us well. So far.”

  As I was watching, I could see how the crowd was shifting. A lot of the Pokemon were staying out of it, shifting away. But as more time passed, more and more of them were moving to Hazard’s side.

  “You’ve always been a coward, Malevolence,” Immodest interjected, adding herself to the argument. “Look at us all. Really look at us. For once in your life, look at someone else with something besides your self perceived superiority. There’s no hierarchy here. You’re not above anyone anymore.”

  I could see the way that Malevolence bristled, smoke leaking from her mouth as she tried to form a retort. “That’s enough,” I said, stepping up beside Malevolence. “You can discuss this as much as you want, but please don’t fight each other.”

  “She-” Malevolence started, but I put a hand on her back. That seemed to snuff out any sort of argument in her.

  Slowly I knelt down beside her. “I know,” I said softly, rubbing her back. “It’s okay, Mal…” There were little pricks of tears at the corners of her eyes. She was overwhelmed, and hiding behind her bravado in order to not break down. I’d seen the same thing with a lot of teenagers. No one was on her side now. “I know you’re scared,” I kept my voice soft and low to try and keep the others from hearing.

  “I’m-” she tried to argue, but choked on the words.

  “And that’s okay… You’re scared that if we go after them, they’re going to get you…” I kept rubbing her back, running my hands over the bony ridges. “They’re not going to get you. I’m not going to let them, Mal.”

  Her head drooped a bit, and she couldn’t fight the tears anymore. I moved a bit to block sight of her so that the other Pokemon wouldn’t see her crying.

  “I’m not going to let them get you,” I repeated, rubbing my hands up and down her neck. She shifted forward in response, pressing her face into my chest.

  It took a few minutes before she managed to regain her composure, pulling away from me. “There are so many… And they’re so strong,” she said, shuddering slightly. “I know I’m pretty strong, but I couldn’t even get to the level that Admin’s would want me… And there’s so many of them…”

  “Well, there’s five less of them,” I said with a smile, rubbing the spot between her horns. “I know it’s scary, but you don’t have to fight.”

  She huffed out a bit of flame. “Like hell I can do that. If I don’t keep this riffraff in line, then it’ll just be more work for you.”

  I smiled a bit, patting her on the head before standing up. “Alright.” I turned back at the group that had been silently watching. “We’re all in the same boat. So we have to work together to keep afloat, alright?”

  “What’s a boat got to do with it?” Bungle muttered to Disaster, who shrugged in response.

  I had to try and not laugh at that response, and continue, “Since some of you seem to have decided, I want to know who wants to battle.”

  I was actually floored at the response. It was easier to make a list of who didn’t want to fight: Rascal, Fret, Detach, Aloof, Brisk and Brash. Even after I reassured them that they didn’t have to fight, they seemed adamant. Before accepting, I reminded them that they could always change their mind.

  The next question was… should I train them? Since so many want to fight, maybe a few training sessions would help them. Maybe at least build up their strength by subjecting them to Gravity and making them run laps? That would definitely weed out any that didn’t actually want to fight and were just getting caught up with the crowd.

  Speaking of training, I decided that it was time to check on how they were doing. Dee was collapsed to one side, having barely passed one of the lines, breathing heavily on the ground. She had quite a number of bruises and marks.

  Slowly I made my way over to her, looking down at her. “Dee?”

  She made a grunt of response, forcing her eyes open to look up at me.

  “I said one hundred laps.” She flinched at my words, immediately confirming that she wasn’t done yet.

  “I- I’m just… Just catching… Catching my breath,” she managed to say. She really needed a lot more stamina training.

  “Sliggoo is going to finish before you.” I noticed how the little slug was actually having no difficulty at all in her laps. She wasn’t attacking, simply letting every hit strike her and bounce off. Primarina was fairly far behind in lap count, since she was just as fast as the slug, but was actively fighting and attacking the others.

  Actually, as I was looking, I was fairly certain Sliggoo would be the first one to finish in general. Thankfully my words seemed to have the appropriate response, as Dee finally got up, and started to try and run laps again. I felt a little bad at how absolutely exhausted she looked, but she needed to do this.

  As I watched, I took note that there was a crowd forming. They weren’t anywhere near the area affected by Gravity, but they’d moved close enough to watch. I guess a live show was more interesting than the television.

  Eventually the first one finished, and as I thought, it was Sliggoo. And it was adorable as she crossed the line, turned to do another and then stopped before she crossed the line. She then just stood there, clearly counting in her head. Then she suddenly held up her little arms as she realized she was done.

  I scooped her up off the ground, which got her to let out quite an interesting squeak noise. “Good job,” I said with a smile.

  She gave me a big smile as she started to rub her face against me. I noticed that she was specifically rubbing the little green spots on the side of her head and neck. Studying her for a moment, I wondered how accurate the pokedex entry was. Clearly her mucus wasn’t extremely acidic, otherwise I would have lost a shirt by now. She also didn’t seem to have gone blind.

  To test this, I raised a hand, and waved it side to side. She had a puzzled look on her face, but judging by the movements of her head, she was able to track it. “Can you see?” I asked.

  She twisted a bit to look at me, now looking completely confused. “Yes?” She paused. “I mean, my eyes aren’t… uhm… Things are a bit more blurry? But I can see stuff. Stuff far away is really hard to make out, and I can’t tell Cara and Rio apart anymore…”

  I blinked at her. That was the most she had ever said at one time. I smiled as I rubbed the top of her head. “That’ll go away when you evolve again. Your middle evolution has poor eyesight.” Which was… odd. Why would a Pokemon go from being able to see just fine, to blind, and then having great eyesight again was confusing… Maybe it had something to do with the eyes changing in such a drastic way? Evolution is weird.

  “I’m excited to evolve!” she said, wiggling in my arm. “I’ve never seen the final evolution of my species. I’m probably the first to… ever reach second stage…” Her voice faltered a bit as she spoke, and her gaze drifted towards the floor.

  It was good that she didn’t have acidic mucus, otherwise the hug I was giving her would have been really bad for me. She had made so much progress in recovering from her trauma, and I was so happy to hear her speaking. I started to gently rub the side of her head and neck, passing my hands over those green spots. They seemed to be…maybe some sort of sensory organ? Ah, no. They’re mucus organs… my hand was now covered in slime. As was my shirt.

  I was going to need Primarina to wash me off now.

  Speaking of Primarina, she was the second one to finish her laps. She was battered and bruised, throwing herself over the line. “Done!” she exclaimed into the ground.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Good job.”

  “Praise me?” she questioned, looking up at me.

  A mischievous smirk appeared on my face. “As you wish.” I stepped over, and much to her horrified realization, I started to pet her hair with my slime coated hand.

  “Ack! No!” She flailed, slapping at me with her flippers. “Slimey!”

  Sliggoo huffed. “And what’s wrong with slime?”

  “I don’t want it in my hair!” Primarina whined. “It feels weird!”

  I laughed as I continued to pet her. “You’re just going to have to get used to it,” I said with a smirk.

  Immediately I could tell that she very much thought about water gunning me, but thought better of it. Unfortunately, the decision she did make would not turn out in her favor either as she promptly tackled me. “Ack! You’re covered in slime!” she exclaimed, realizing far too late.

  I laughed even harder as I put my arms around her. “And now, so are you.”

  She tried to wiggle out of my grasp, eventually succeeding due to the consistency of the slime. “Ugh…” She grumbled as she tried to scrape off the slime. “That feels weird…”

  Sliggoo made a few annoyed noises, since she had been squished between us in Primarina’s attempted tackling. “Rude. Papa and I were having a moment,” the little slug huffed.

  That brought a big smile to my face. I wasn’t sure what it was about being referred to like that that made me so happy, but it really did. “I just wanted papa to praise me,” Primarina complained. “And instead he rubbed your slime into my hair!”

  I still had a big smile on my face as I stood back up. “C’mon, let’s go wash up,” I suggested, and we all made our way over to the artificial pond.

  It was a fairly nice feature, and actually looked fairly natural. I honestly would have assumed it was if we weren’t in a building, and I could clearly see the pipe that was feeding the artificial waterfall.

  The first thing I did was start to clean the slime from my bag, before promptly getting drenched as Primarina cannonballed into the water. I huffed a bit, watching as she giggled and swam away before I could say anything. I just decided that it was fair revenge for putting slime in her hair.

  Sliggoo decided to explore the bank of the pond, making her way off towards the waterfall.

  I got out a few of the supplies that I used for bathing when out in the woods, and began washing off the slime and sweat from the day. I was still a bit self conscious about bathing in front of Pokemon. Not because there was any reason, because they seemed completely nonplussed by it, but it was still a bit uncomfortable being watched.

  Thankfully I wasn’t the only one. Dee was even more shy about it. Scoly was the complete opposite, and practically demanded assistance. Which honestly was fair, considering that she was a bug without hands. Usually Cara or Dee helped me scrub the bug's shell, or the two of them did it on their own if I was occupied.

  It was a good thing that Sliggoo had only slimed my shirt. I would have been extremely self conscious if I had to also wash my pants.

  After that was done, I returned to watching the training. It took a long time for anyone else to finish, but eventually Dee collapsed across the line. I tried to tell her she’d done a good job, but she just glared at me and complained that I was the reason that everything hurt. I just chuckled because she wasn’t wrong.

  Eventually the others finished as well, all of them tired and battered. Dee hadn’t moved from her spot on the ground, and I was fairly certain that she had fallen asleep. It was getting quite late, after all.

  I had Rio and Cara drag Dee over to the pond so that they could all clean up before bed. They just tossed her on Scoly as they all went off to wash.

  While they all did that I went over to the fort that I had made. I wasn’t going to set up the tent right now, so I shifted the table to be leaning on its side and pulled out the rest of the pillows and blankets, setting up a sort of nest.

  Satisfied with that, I went and retrieved Eevee, Mikyu, and Essy, bringing them over to the pile. I set the three down before flopping into the mess of it all and let out a deep sigh. There were quite a few of the wolf pack watching me curiously, but none of them approached. Eventually, everyone else returned. Although Diancie had decided she’d rather float around the room and do… whatever it was that she did. The mythic was still quite a mystery to me.

  Another mystery I had on my hands is where Banette went. I was fairly certain that she finished her laps, but once she had finished, she’d gone off somewhere. As I was getting comfortable, I was startled as she crawled out from somewhere in the mess of blankets before settling on top of me. Such a sneaky little thing. Her and Mikyu were…talking, or communicating I think, as the two of them sort of leaned against each other. Or maybe they were just leaning against each other, I couldn’t be sure.

  Eventually everyone came over and settled down around me, and it felt like the stress of the day was all gone. Pokemon quickly started to drift off to sleep on or around me, and Diancie came over to lay down, grasping my hand to let me know that she was done for the day.

  “Today was a lot,” Cara mumbled into my shoulder.

  I smiled a bit, wanting to give her some reassuring pets, but both of my hands were occupied. Curse my genetics for only having two arms. “Yeah,” I said softly. “But I think it went well.”

  She pressed her face harder into my shoulder. “We’re going to get them, aren’t we? Team Flare… I want to get them.”

  My smile widened a bit. This silly dog was so obsessed with revenge. “If they want to… I wouldn’t be against knocking Lysandre down a peg, or ten.”

  Lucario - The group mom

  Lucario - Craves violence

  Scolipede - Pokemon transport unit

  Primarina - Doing big seal things

  Audino - Trained Nurse Pokemon

  Diancie - Big sparkly that just wants to throw rocks at people

  Eevee - Living that sleepy hood life

  Sliggoo - Deadly chew toy

  Mimikyu - Very skilled seamstress

  Banette - Silent but persuasive?

  Vulpix (Alolan) - A bit too battle hungry

  Espurr - Little cat that likes pokebeans.

  Houndour

  Guff

  Bleak

  Rascal

  Dilly

  Fret

  False

  Grubby

  Muddle

  Gabby

  Bungle

  Dwindle

  Crass

  Houndoom

  Poochyena

  Mightyena

  Sneasel

  Liepard - Big hungry cat