Day 31 of the journey to Kanto. Cloudy.
Early that morning, Reiji yawned, got up, and started packing. Today was the day he was leaving Fuchsia City.
He had been too excited after getting Forretress the night before, so he had slept badly and was still drowsy now.
After feeding the Pokémon, he sent Staryu back to Mikan Gym. Staryu had helped a lot with Pineco's grinding and tempering, so before sending it off, he reminded it not to slack off on its gravity training. This time he did not bother Senta. A maid received the Poké Ball for him instead.
It still was not time to bring Staryu back into active use. Once he finished the Indigo Conference, the little ones would be ready for harder training too, including gravity drills.
After sending Staryu off, he checked out at the front desk, said goodbye to Nurse Joy, left the Pokémon Center, crossed the city, and headed out into the countryside.
Only then did he release Tauros. He patted it on the head, and the big bull lowered its horns in submission. It was docile enough now, which made it easy for him to climb on.
He stepped into the stirrups, settled onto Tauros's back, took the reins, and had it head into the forest ahead.
From now on, he had Tauros for land travel, Pelipper for the sky, and Gyarados for the sea. Then again, Sharpedo had Aqua Jet and moved like a speedboat in water, so it would actually be faster offshore.
He was going to catch one sooner or later anyway. Once he finished the Indigo Conference, he could ask Sou to help him catch one.
So he set off at an easy sway on Tauros, heading for his fourth Gym challenge: Celadon Gym.
At Tauros's pace, the trip would take at least a week. If he got tired of riding, he could always fly instead. Travel was travel. There was no need to rush. As long as he secured his tournament qualification before the league began, eight official Gym Badges would be enough.
An Arcanine would have been nice. A horse would have worked too. Honestly, even a donkey would have done. The problem was that Arcanine were hard to get, practically Officer Jenny's signature Pokémon. Blaine had one, but Reiji had no intention of asking that old man for anything.
Besides, he liked donkeys better than horses, and definitely better than dogs. Unfortunately, the Safari Zone only had cattle. No horses, no deer, no sheep. So a bull was the best he could do for a mount.
Tauros was not as flashy as Arcanine, but its stamina was outstanding. It could keep going from morning to night without issue. Compared with plowing fields, carrying a rider was light work.
By late morning, they reached a river and stopped for lunch. Tauros had already been unsaddled and was standing in the water to cool off.
Reiji let the others out as well. He stationed Spinarak nearby as a lookout. If anyone unfamiliar came close, it was to sound the alarm.
After a quiet lunch, they set off again and kept moving through the forest. The path they followed was little more than a dirt trail. Out in the wild like this, there was no asphalt road to be found.
Once he climbed back onto Tauros, they resumed their slow, rocking pace. Poliwhirl and Scyther were let out too. They wanted to train while they traveled, and Reiji let them.
It was only running practice, so with how fast they were, Poliwhirl and Scyther would just wait for them farther ahead.
By the time evening came, Poliwhirl had already found a campsite. Reiji had to get the fire going and start cooking again. Making meals twice a day for more than ten Pokémon was a hassle, but it had to be done.
"Poli! Poli!" Poliwhirl was scooping water from the river when it suddenly spotted an electric mouse on the far bank staring at their camp. It called out at once, all excited.
"Poliwhirl? What did you find?" Reiji looked up from cooking, startled by the sudden shout, and glanced toward the river.
"Poli, poli." Poliwhirl pointed across the water. It had found some wild Pokémon.
"What kind of Pokémon? Darkrai, go take a look." Once things got too complicated, Darkrai was still the one he had to rely on to translate.
A shadow slipped away. After a brief exchange with Poliwhirl, Darkrai crossed into the woods on the far side and found a whole group of cute yellow Pokémon: Pikachu.
"It's Pikachu. A lot of Pikachu," Darkrai reported when it came back. Poliwhirl had found a Pikachu colony.
"Pikachu? Wild Pikachu?" The moment Reiji heard that, his interest dropped.
He already had Zapdos and Magnemite as Electric-types. There was no point catching a Pikachu too.
With Pikachu, only Ash could get away with that nonsense where it could go even with practically anyone. Other people's Pikachu were usually just average.
Pikachu's base stats were only a little over three hundred. In terms of combat ability and resistances, it was nowhere near Magnezone or Zapdos. He had no intention of catching one for himself.
After dinner, he decided to camp here for the night and leave in the morning. He even took the Pokémon down to the river for a wash before heading back into the tent to sleep.
But once he was lying there, he thought back to the Pikachu from earlier, and then to Amber leaving without saying goodbye. He had no idea whether she would be angry with him. He could always catch a Pikachu for her, though. She would probably like that.
Once that thought took hold, he could not sleep anymore. He got up, took Poliwhirl and Darkrai with him, and slipped away from camp.
The three of them quietly made their way to the forest where the Pikachu colony lived. He had Darkrai put the Pikachu to sleep so he could sort through them faster.
In the end, he picked out one Pikachu from the twenty or thirty there with 49 potential. Not bad at all.
After catching it, he returned to the camp by the river. Once he reached the next city, he planned to send the Pikachu to Blaine at Cinnabar Gym.
There were so many Pikachu in that colony that they probably would not even notice one missing.
Back in the tent, he hugged Zapdos, put away Pikachu's Poké Ball, then took out Shelmet's Poké Ball and opened its panel.
[Shelmet (shiny)]
[Type: Bug]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: 51%]
[Level: 39.87%]
[Ability: Hydration/22.23%][Hidden Ability: Overcoat/21.13%]
[Bug-type Moves: (Bug Buzz/32.34%)(Leech Life/32.23%)(Struggle Bug/12.53%)]
[Normal-type Moves: (Protect/36.14%)(Recover/18.82%)(Baton Pass/15.62%)]
[Grass-type Moves: (Absorb/25.11%)(Mega Drain/28.42%)(Energy Ball/16.14%)]
[Poison-type Moves: (Acid/31.27%)(Venoshock/13.21%)]
[Other: (Hidden Power (Electric)/24.23%)(Mud Shot/35.22%)(Rest/15.12%)]
It had been more than a month since he last checked Shelmet's panel, and its potential had barely changed.
Originally, Shelmet had been part of his first team lineup. It was only because it had gone so long without evolving that he had kicked it out of that group, and once that happened, its level growth had slowed as well.
If Shelmet could evolve, it could rejoin the first team lineup, right near the back alongside Gyarados and Forretress.
That would give him eight core Pokémon fit to compete at the Indigo Conference. Enough to make a serious run at the finals.
Shelmet's abilities had not changed much, though their proficiency had gone up a little. Better than nothing.
Since it had not evolved yet, Reiji had not paid much attention to its abilities. He would worry about that after evolution.
Its move pool was still the same set as before. Since leaving the Gym, it had not learned anything new.
Still, because it had been eating Electric-type Pokéblocks, its Electric-type Hidden Power had been getting trained, and its other moves had all improved to varying degrees.
After checking the panel, Reiji let out a quiet sigh. Shelmet's evolution really did need to be moved up the priority list.
He had considered revealing Shelmet's evolution before. After all, Shelmet and Karrablast were part of the same food-chain relationship. Eventually, some Pokémon researcher was bound to discover how the evolution worked.
Besides, neither species was especially rare, and both had extremely lopsided stat spreads, so exposing the method would not matter much.
Once Shelmet evolved, its stats were basically all poured into Speed and Special Attack. Once Karrablast evolved, its Attack and both defenses all shot past one hundred.
Karrablast would evolve into Escavalier, another Bug/Steel, and he already had Forretress, so he did not need it nearly as much anymore.
Once it evolved, he could just leave it at Mikan Gym. If no one wanted it, it could stay there. If somebody did, he could give it away. He had no intention of raising a Karrablast himself.
That brought him back to Shelmet's evolution. What he needed was a greedy Pokémon researcher. If he sent multiple submissions about Shelmet's evolution to people like that and let them publish it, he could stay out of the mess entirely.
League researchers needed to be chosen carefully. Most of them had decent ethics. They would not simply claim the research as their own. They would try to track down the original author.
Only researchers tied to underground organizations could really make this plan work. He needed someone willing to run with it, but he also needed a safeguard in case anyone tried to keep the discovery to themselves and use Shelmet's evolution method for blackmail.
If they refused to publish it after receiving the submission, then he would just release the evolution method himself and let everyone know.
He had already picked three candidates. Opening up a black-market laptop, he connected it through an old phone SIM card. He had no idea who the card originally belonged to. He had never used it after pulling it out, and he was honestly surprised it still had service.
Once the laptop was online, he opened the League's academic forum and found Researcher Juniper listed there. She was the woman who, in Unova, would one day become the professor responsible for handing out the region's starter Pokémon.
But not yet. That was in the future. Right now she was still just a researcher struggling to settle on a subject.
She also happened to be the person who would discover that Shelmet and Karrablast could evolve through trading. She deserved one copy of this submission.
If she could turn this topic into a real research project, it would probably be enough to establish her in the field. Reiji had no personal connection to her and was not doing this to help her. The point was that underground researchers might not publish the results at all. Researcher Juniper definitely would.
When the time came, it would not matter whether the underground side or the League published first. The League would never acknowledge underground research anyway. It would just make sure one of its own took the credit.
Then whether it turned into the League plagiarizing the underground, or the underground plagiarizing the League, they could fight that battle themselves. It had nothing to do with him.
Of course, if Researcher Juniper enjoyed the reputation that came with publishing the paper, she would also have to carry the burden that came with it. She would end up as the focal point in the clash between the League and the underground.
After settling on his first target, he immediately drafted an email titled:
Shelmet and Karrablast: On the Feasibility of Food-Chain Trade Evolution
After checking it over for typos, he sent it anonymously to Researcher Juniper's mailbox. He had no idea when she would see it, but he had added a note asking her to verify it as soon as possible, along with the warning that the submission had been sent to multiple recipients.
His second choice was Researcher Gideon in Kanto, whose email was also listed on the League forum.
Reiji chose him because the man was greedy, had a terrible reputation online, and was known for squeezing his assistants dry. Most of the negative stories about him were probably leaked by those same assistants.
On top of that, he had ties to Team Rocket, which made him a perfect second option. Whether he published the research himself or Team Rocket stole it from him, either outcome still served Reiji's purpose.
The third choice was Colress in Unova, who at the moment was still a League researcher. Later, he would work with Team Plasma and even become one of its leaders.
Reiji knew who he was because of the games. In his previous life, he had battled that scientist during the story. He had run into Gideon, in the games too.
The moment he saw the familiar name Colress, he picked him as the third candidate.
Even if he had guessed wrong, it did not matter. If it was not the same person, then it was not. From beginning to end, his goal had simply been to use someone else's hands to reveal Shelmet's evolution.
Once he had all three researchers picked out, he sent off two more emails in quick succession. This time he did not mention the group send. He wanted to leave Researcher Juniper some time to react and hoped she would seize the chance.
After all three emails were sent, he formatted the laptop, removed the SIM card, stepped outside the tent to the camp stove, threw both the laptop and the card into the fire, and fed in a few extra pieces of dry wood to make sure everything was destroyed beyond recovery.
By morning, it would all be ash.
Once the cleanup was done, he went back into the tent, hugged Zapdos, and fell straight into a deep sleep.
What Reiji did not know was that while he slept peacefully, the three researchers still awake that night were about to lose sleep over his submission.
…
In Unova, Researcher Juniper was sitting at home in front of her computer, bored out of her mind, when a window suddenly popped up in the lower-right corner to tell her she had new mail.
Since she had nothing better to do, she clicked it and found Reiji's submission about Shelmet and Karrablast and their food-chain trade evolution.
The deeper she got into it, the more absorbed she became. Then she reached the end and saw Reiji's note: group send.
"Group send?" Juniper's eyes widened. She immediately checked the sender. The account name was Spider. When she opened the profile, there was nothing there at all. It was a brand-new account created that very day.
A moment later, she closed the email and ignored the contents. Most mass emails were treated as spam.
But once she was in bed, she tossed and turned without being able to sleep. Her mind kept circling back to that message. What if it was real?
She did not even have a proper research subject right now. So why not test it? If trade evolution really worked, then she could establish herself as a serious researcher, maybe even take a big step forward in the field with this alone.
The moment she decided, she acted. Since sleep was out of the question, she got dressed, hurried downstairs, drove to the lab, and pulled the two Pokémon mentioned in the submission.
Then she found a trading machine, set both Poké Balls on it, and pressed the exchange button. Under the machine's effect, the two Poké Balls began the trade.
And then Juniper saw it happen.
Her eyes went wide. She could hardly believe it. Trade evolution really worked. She had stumbled right onto it.
Holding the two newly evolved Pokémon in her hands, Juniper's heart pounded so hard it nearly hurt. She fought to keep her excitement under control. What she was holding was not one research result, but two.
If she published everything, that would mean two heavyweight papers on Pokémon evolution, plus the food-chain relationship between the two species, plus the relationship after evolution. Four major papers, all at once.
The moment that sank in, Juniper gave up on sleep entirely. She rushed to the lab archives, dug up every scrap of information on Shelmet and Karrablast, bundled it all together, and hauled it back home. By the time she finished, it was already morning.
She did not even stop for breakfast. She sorted the materials, sent out the two newly evolved Pokémon for further verification, and then started writing. By the time the papers were ready to publish, three days had passed.
…
In Kanto, Researcher Gideon did not receive the email until the next morning, and only because his assistant found it first.
The moment Gideon excitedly ordered that assistant to go to the League branch and fetch the required Pokémon, the assistant stabbed him in the back on the spot, told other researchers about the email, and started looking for someone else to collaborate with.
When the assistant still had not returned hours later, and Gideon could not get through by phone either, he realized things had gone seriously wrong. He stormed out of the lab in a fury.
…
In Unova, Researcher Colress never even read Reiji's email. He selected every message from unknown senders in one sweep and deleted them.
His research focus was the hidden power and potential of Pokémon. Drawing out all of that power without reserve was the subject he cared about.
As for Shelmet and Karrablast and their half-suspect trade evolution, he had no interest in it at all.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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