Noon, Mikan Island.
After flying under the blazing sun all morning, Reiji finally reached Mikan Island. He had Pelipper descend right in front of Mikan Gym's main gate.
The first thing he wanted to do was check on the Pokémon he had left here. The lakeside cabins only held the cloned Pokémon, so there was no rush to visit them. Butterfree and the others came first.
"Rai-nii? You're back?" Senta was dressed for the heat in bright floral shorts. The moment he saw Reiji walk into the Gym, he stopped training. Even his Wartortle had evolved into Blastoise.
"Senta. Long time no see." Reiji greeted him with a smile, then looked toward Cissy, who was training nearby in a short-sleeved top and skirt. Mikan Island's heat probably made anything heavier unbearable. Cissy's father was there too, wearing sleepwear while supervising the two of them.
Reiji quickly greeted them as well. "Cissy. Gym Leader."
"You little brat. Gone for two months again?" Cissy's father took one look at Reiji's windblown hair and travel-worn state and knew he had flown here. He had definitely eaten a faceful of sea wind along the way. "If you stayed away any longer, we were going to call you ourselves."
"Sorry, Gym Leader. Things came up on the road." Reiji could only stand there and laugh awkwardly.
This trip alone had kept him in Johto for fifty days. After that, he had spent several more days handling things on Mandarin Island North. Today was already his fifth day back in the Orange Archipelago.
Add it all together, and yeah, it had basically been two months.
Who knew one leave request could turn into that? At this rate, his wages were probably gone. Docked clean.
"It's fine. The tournament is almost here anyway." Cissy's father waved it off. "Stay for lunch later. We'll talk at the table."
Then he noticed Reiji glancing toward the rear garden and immediately understood what he was worried about.
"Your Slowpoke evolved into Slowking. It used the Shellder you sent back. Right now, it's fishing with the old man in the back hills."
"Thanks, Gym Leader. I'll go see it now."
Reiji nodded and hurried toward the back garden. After two months away, he wanted to know how Butterfree and the others were doing.
The moment he entered the garden, he saw Butterfree lounging under a parasol.
There was a glass of honey water beside it. Little beads of water floated up from the cup one by one and drifted neatly into Butterfree's mouth. Two other Pokémon stood nearby, fanning it.
It had learned how to live well.
"Butterfree," Reiji called.
Butterfree's antennae twitched. The honey water it was controlling with Confusion splashed aside as it shot up from the chair. Its compound eyes found Reiji in an instant, and it flew straight at him.
"Fweee! Fwee-fwee!"
Butterfree had missed him badly. The Indigo Plateau Conference had already kept them apart for more than two months, and this trip had done it again. It buried its whole head against Reiji's chest and breathed in his scent, as if afraid it had almost forgotten him.
"Haha, long time no see, everyone."
Reiji held Butterfree and looked over the Pokémon behind it: Forretress, Tauros, Tentacruel, Whiscash, Wishiwashi, Magikarp…
Farfetch'd was probably in the orchard, so it was not here. Aside from his Pokémon, there were also Pokémon belonging to Cissy, Senta, and Cissy's father.
"Krrr! Krrr!" Forretress's eyes narrowed into happy slits when it saw him. It bounced in place, delighted.
"Moooh…" Tauros came over and rubbed against him. Life after being caught by Reiji had not been bad at all. It liked this place. The grass by the lake was fat and sweet.
"Grrr-lu-lu!" Tentacruel burst out of the pool, its black tentacles whipping around in excitement like it had been shocked.
"Whrrr!" Whiscash leapt from the water too, bouncing toward him again and again.
Splash, splash!
Magikarp and Wishiwashi could not leave the water, so they could only keep jumping up and flopping back down in the pool.
Seeing them all crowd around, Reiji smiled and patted each one. He had not left many Pokémon at the Gym, only about ten. Most of his main team stayed with him.
Once he had greeted them all, he calmed everyone down and brought out food to share. He also released the partners he had with him, including Pelipper and the others, though he left Toxicroak's group in their Poké Balls. Everyone gathered together for a while, and he handed out some Pokéblocks to the other Pokémon too.
After they ate, Reiji soothed them a little longer and let them stay there to catch up. Then he took Butterfree and headed into the back hills to find Cissy's grandfather and his Slowking.
Past the hills, by the lake, stood several old wooden cabins. Cissy's grandfather sat at the water's edge in a straw hat, fishing beside two Slowking.
"Slowpoke?"
The moment Reiji called out, Slowking stirred from its meditation. A flash of Teleport brought it straight to his side.
"Rai? You're back?" Slowking's eyes glowed blue as it floated in front of him, speaking directly into his mind.
"I'm back. And look at you, you evolved." Reiji smiled and reached up to touch the crown on Slowking's head. It looked like a white shell with a red jewel set in the center. "Is this telepathy?"
"Yes. Boss taught me." Slowking's mouth curled into a faint smile. "Now we can talk."
It was clearly pleased with itself. This was a huge change, and it knew Reiji had been surprised.
"Fwee…" Butterfree pouted.
It had Psychic power too, so why couldn't it learn telepathy no matter how hard it tried? Now this smug river hippo got to show off.
"You brat. Took you long enough to come back." Cissy's grandfather did not even turn around. "Ran into trouble?"
"A little." Reiji gave him a brief version of the Johto trip and the Team Rocket incident.
He left out the Elite Four-tier Trainer sent by the older cousin's family. He also said nothing about Giovanni personally stepping in.
"You really are hard to kill." Cissy's grandfather gave a dry laugh. "You went bouncing around Team Rocket's backyard and still made it back in one piece."
Then he asked, "So? Happy with your Slowking?"
"Very happy. Thank you for teaching it." Reiji meant it sincerely.
The old man, however, found his serious tone amusing.
"Oh, drop the act. Everyone knows what kind of brat you are. Don't get all proper with me." After teasing him, Cissy's grandfather smiled again. "Still, you made it back. That Pokémon hiding in your shadow must have helped a lot. Its dark aura is stronger than before. It reached Elite Four tier, didn't it?"
"Nothing gets past you. Yes, it did."
Reiji nodded quietly. Cissy's grandfather had probably mistaken Gengar for Darkrai.
That was fine. Team Rocket and Mikan Gym both knew he had Darkrai, not Gengar. That meant they would not connect him to Spider.
His Spider identity used Gengar. Keeping those two identities apart made it much harder for anyone to link them. No one would assume those two dark-aura Pokémon belonged to the same Trainer.
"Elite Four tier already?" the old man muttered. "You really don't know how to slow down, do you? If Senta had even half that fire in him, I'd die with a smile on my face."
The old man really did sound jealous of someone else's kid. Reiji knew when to bow his head, when to shut up, and when to push his luck. Better yet, he had dragged himself all the way to Elite Four tier without a family propping him up.
Why couldn't that have been his own grandson?
Well, a grandson-in-law would work too.
He was not picky.
"Senta's not slacking either," Reiji said at once. "His Squirtle's already a Blastoise now."
The second the old man praised him, Reiji's guard went up. No way was he walking into an old fox's trap, so he immediately put in a good word for Senta.
"Don't cover for him. I know exactly what that brat is made of." Cissy's grandfather sounded so annoyed his beard might have twisted on its own.
After all that training, Senta had barely touched the threshold of Advanced tier. If his father had not been watching him every day, he would have run off to slack somewhere ages ago.
"He looked pretty hardworking to me." What else could Reiji say? He was not going to badmouth the old man's own grandson right in front of him.
"Both of those brats are hopeless troublemakers." Cissy's grandfather sighed and clearly did not want to keep talking about his grandchildren.
"Luu-ba! Lu-ba-ba!"
Reiji was about to say something when a dark-green Pokémon with a lily pad on its head came sprinting toward them, shouting all the way.
"What's this?" Reiji looked at the Ludicolo.
It kicked up a little trail of dust, then ducked behind Cissy's grandfather and stuck its tongue out at the Pokémon chasing it. Its face practically said, Come on, I'm right here. Hit me if you dare.
"Greenie, causing trouble again?" Cissy's grandfather lightly knocked Ludicolo on the head, then waved away the other Pokémon grumbling after it.
He was clearly used to this.
Reiji said nothing. It was someone else's Pokémon.
Still, he looked at Ludicolo's color for an extra second.
A shiny Ludicolo. He had not expected the old man to have something that good.
Click.
Just as Reiji was thinking that, a Poké Ball opened. A red beam pulled Ludicolo inside, and Cissy's grandfather tossed the ball to him.
"This kid only causes trouble if it stays with me. Everyone here is sick of it. Take it."
"Huh? You're giving it to me?" Reiji stood there with the Poké Ball in his hand, completely thrown.
One moment he had been thinking about a shiny Pokémon. The next, the old man had shoved it into his hands.
That turn came a little too fast.
"What? Don't want it? Give it back." Cissy's grandfather glanced at him from the corner of his eye.
When he saw Reiji's mouth twitch, he almost laughed. What Trainer didn't like shiny Pokémon?
"It's not that I don't want it. It's just sudden." Reiji did not even know what to say.
The old man had become so generous out of nowhere that Reiji's first reaction was suspicion. There had to be a pit somewhere, right?
"Then hold on to it." Cissy's grandfather set down his fishing rod and started back toward the Gym. "Special Pokémon usually have special talents. That Accelgor of yours, for example, should carry electricity. Come on. We'll head back for lunch, and I'll tell you what makes this Ludicolo special on the way."
"I spent some time studying it. Its talent seems tied to that darker green color on its body. The deeper color strengthens its photosynthesis. Compared with an ordinary Ludicolo, its effect is about twice as strong."
"If its talent is that good, shouldn't Senta have it?" Reiji asked, still holding the Poké Ball.
"I wanted to give it to him." Cissy's grandfather laughed helplessly. "That brat likes Bug types. He said this kappa was too ugly. He looks like a mess himself and still has the nerve to call someone else ugly. His father beat him again for that one."
He did not bother hiding the fact that Senta had rejected this Pokémon.
"I remember Senta saying he liked Bug and Water types." Reiji had not expected Ludicolo to come this cheaply.
Free was free. Of course he would take it. Otherwise, what was the point of being Reiji the Professional Freeloader?
Senta did not understand what double photosynthesis efficiency meant.
Reiji absolutely did.
If its light-conversion efficiency was doubled, Synthesis became absurd. Under normal weather, Synthesis restored half of the user's HP. Under bad weather, it restored one quarter. With this Ludicolo's doubled effect, even without favorable weather, it could heal itself back to full.
Solar Beam was even crazier.
No charging. Just fire.
Even without Sunny Day, Ludicolo would have absurd sustain and could spam high-power Solar Beams one after another. Who was supposed to stand in front of that?
On the field, it would be a walking turret. Solar Beam after Solar Beam. Unless the opponent resisted Grass, even neutral hits would be hard to endure.
"That brat doesn't know good stuff when he sees it. His loss, your gain." Cissy's grandfather sighed as they walked, then added, "It's good in every way except one. Its personality is awful. Too playful, too wild, too good at making everyone hate it. You'll have to straighten it out."
"I will." Reiji tightened his grip on the Poké Ball and opened Ludicolo's proficiency panel.
In theory, shiny Pokémon usually had decent potential. If this one turned out bad, that would be a real letdown.
[Ludicolo (shiny)]
[Type: Water + Grass]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: 71.19%]
[Level: 52.21%]
[Ability: Swift Swim/44.63%][Hidden Ability: Own Tempo/50.13%]
[Moves]
Water-type: [(Water Gun/38.34%) (Bubble Beam/24.53%) (Hydro Pump/22.23%) (Rain Dance/34.67%) (Waterfall/21.33%) (Surf/26.62%) (Whirlpool/21.71%) (Muddy Water/23.14%) (Dive/29.14%) (Scald/23.88%)]
Grass-type: [(Absorb/24.82%) (Mega Drain/25.11%) (Leech Seed/26.92%) (Giga Drain/21.57%) (Energy Ball/25.55%) (Razor Leaf/24.15%) (Synthesis/26.41%) (Magical Leaf/24.34%) (Bullet Seed/33.23%) (Seed Bomb/35.63%) (Grass Knot/24.56%) (Grassy Terrain/18.13%) (Leaf Storm/19.13%) (Solar Beam/14.66%)]
Normal-type: [(Growl/35.84%) (Nature Power/21.52%) (Teeter Dance/23.21%) (Fake Out/22.15%) (Take Down/36.54%) (Protect/38.35%) (Body Slam/31.14%) (Sleep Talk/44.55%) (Swords Dance/23.21%) (Substitute/13.14%) (Hyper Voice/11.22%) (Giga Impact/12.72%) (Hyper Beam/13.82%) (Double-Edge/8.11%) (Double Team/34.88%) (Mega Kick/23.77%) (Mega Punch/21.17%) (Strength/28.27%)]
Ice-type: [(Mist/13.34%) (Ice Punch/26.62%) (Ice Beam/21.81%) (Icy Wind/12.14%) (Blizzard/13.55%)]
Fighting-type: [(Counter/13.14%) (Brick Break/12.22%) (Drain Punch/18.27%) (Power-Up Punch/19.88%) (Rock Smash/15.34%)]
Psychic-type: [(Zen Headbutt/15.27%) (Rest/35.21%) (Amnesia/24.28%)]
Dark-type: [(Knock Off/31.44%) (Fling/30.53%)]
Fire-type: [(Sunny Day/28.82%) (Fire Punch/18.12%)]
Other: [(Mud Shot/32.33%) (Thunder Punch/23.47%)]
Seventy-one potential.
Not bad at all.
The old man must have used a high-grade Leaf Stone when he evolved it. He had clearly raised this Ludicolo seriously.
Then Reiji looked at its level.
Level 52.
That was not low. It was about the same as his second-string Pokémon. With a little discipline and a bit of time to sync with him, it could fight right away.
Swift Swim was good too. In rain, its speed doubled.
Compared with Rain Dish, Swift Swim fit this Ludicolo much better. Rain Dish restored one-sixteenth of the user's HP at the end of each turn in rain.
But Ludicolo's light-conversion efficiency was doubled. Even in rain, which normally weakened Synthesis, that doubled effect could still restore half its HP. That was already far better than Rain Dish.
What would he even need Rain Dish for?
"And Own Tempo too?" Reiji saw the hidden ability and immediately understood why Ludicolo was such a menace.
Own Tempo prevented confusion. If a Pokémon was already confused and gained the ability, the confusion disappeared. Moves like Petal Dance and Outrage, which normally caused confusion afterward, would still have their confusion cleared. It also ignored Intimidate.
No wonder Ludicolo caused trouble everywhere.
With an ability like that, of course it acted like the rules did not apply to it.
As a shiny Pokémon that had been pushed aside, Ludicolo probably caused trouble for more than one reason. Own Tempo was part of it, but loneliness might be too. It probably wanted attention, wanted the other Pokémon to notice it, accept it, and play with it.
Unfortunately, it had chosen the worst possible method and only made everyone dislike it more.
Maybe it had been too lonely for too long and ended up like this.
Of course, it was also possible the thing really was just shameless.
Winning over a Pokémon like this would not be easy. Reiji would start with the gentle plan first. If Ludicolo was only lonely and friendless, that could be fixed.
If it turned out to be shameless to the bone, then he would beat obedience into it.
Then he checked Ludicolo's moves.
Its Water and Grass-type move pools were stacked. As expected of a Pokémon trained by a veteran Elite Four-tier Trainer. Even its coverage against types that resisted it had already been patched up.
This was not just being handed a meal.
This was having the food placed in his mouth. All he had to do was chew.
After reading through the move list, Reiji felt that among Ludicolo, this one was basically untouchable.
The more Reiji looked at it, the more he liked it.
Now all it needed was time to sync with him, and it could go straight onto the battlefield.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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