Sorry for the slight delay, had a bit of a crazy week

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-/-

Joey stood in front of the job posting board, an honestly quite simple, but large, cork wall put up in the less busy part of the poke-centre, away from the computers, the desk, the cafeteria. There were too many tasks to choose from, and with his two badges he was now qualified for quite a lot of them. As he was taking in the information on the board, he considered his main secondary objective as well.

He'd recently freed up a third slot on his team. Considering that in Vermillion he wouldn't get any concessions for having two, instead of three pokemon, facing the same Raichu, it was thus strategically important to find a third team-member as soon as possible so that he could train them up.

The issue was that Joey didn't really rush these things. In terms of long-term planning, it was better to lose the gym-battle, if winning meant that he'd caught a long-term incompatible pokemon.

On the other hand, simply because he didn't like rushing things didn't mean that he didn't want to hit two pidgey with one stone. While he was open to the idea of any pokemon if they had the correct attitude, he didn't necessarily want a second rattata or a second metapod. So this already removed three jobs from the consideration, all of them from some sort of food storage companies which were having issues with the crafty rats breaking through the security and nibbling at the supplies. While the pay was decent, the likeliness of Joey finding a third team-member was minimal. It was a similar case when one looked at the job posted by a certain Dr. Jenkins, which involved taking the man's caterpie for a walk once a day. While the caterpie was most assuredly an awesome pokemon and probably very friendly, Joey didn't think that taking it to the local park was going to really net him a third team-member.

Several jobs were excluded thus due to this list of criteria. Either they weren't paid enough, didn't involve him exploring an area that had wild pokemon, didn't involve pokemon he was interested in, or were simply above his level; like the catching of a beedrill for the pokemon technical institute. 'An exclusive trainers school where trainers learn everything there is to know about pokemon!'

There was also a job from the same employer looking for a trainer with three badges to come in and battle some of the students as a way to test their mettle. That one Joey might consider doing in the future. While the school was a bit of a joke, after all, they claimed that their graduates were as good as someone with eight-badges. Weirdly enough, the league apparently agreed, as they allowed them entry to the conference.

Or more likely, the league was funding and investigating models of training that didn't involve going into the wild and potentially dying, which was a thing that did actually happen, so good on them.

Joey still wasn't going to suggest anything but the traditional route to anyone who actually wanted to succeed.

Anyway, all of this left Joey with a pick of three jobs. The first option consisted of going through the east gate of Saffron to route seven and trying to find a group of aggressive oddish who were challenging, and badly beating young trainers in the wild before stealing their berry supplies. Nobody was really harmed, mostly humiliated really, so this didn't necessitate a ranger response. However, the oddish were apparently slippery and blended in very well with the foliage, which had resulted in the city official sent to flush them out being unable to find them. The money was decent, but nothing special. Also, Joey was sick of dealing with oddish. The only pokemon he was really interested in on that route were the vulpix and the growlithe, but considering that he'd be chasing oddish, it was unlikely he'd meet any. Also, he had bad experiences with vulpix and growlithe were decisively pack animals. Abra were, of course, impossible to catch, and probably impossible to train for Joey who was ghost-typed. There was also the possibility of finding a mankey, which Joey didn't feel like dealing with at the moment, and a heracross. He was probably more likely to find a random fist-sized diamond on the floor than finding a heracross however. Also, he already had a bug-type.

The second mission involved finding a watch that an older gentleman had lost in the forest while traversing route six around the south Saffron gate. While this was principally interesting and Joey's restrictions on how far from the gates he could walk had been loosened, and route six had more pokemon he was interested in, such as magnemite, psyduck and poliwag, he didn't really know how he would go about finding a watch. Considering the existence of pidgey, who sometimes liked to pick up shiny things, it was entirely possible that the thing was in Fuschia by now. He might end up finding a third team-member, but fulfilling the mission sounded nearly impossible.

The third mission was perhaps the most doable. All that Joey needed to do was deliver an offering to an abandoned church close to the east gate on route eight, which connected Saffron and Lavender. He'd never actually been on route eight, mostly due to the issue that it was one of the few routes in the region where one could find ghosts. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it did make it the most dangerous route going out of Saffron. However, now that he himself knew how to use shadow ball, his rattata had a rudimentary usage of bite and he had a metapod with bug-bite, Joey was less scared than before. Also the route held the vulpix and growlithe he was interested in, while also having sandshrew, which he wouldn't say no to, hoothoot, which had recently become available due to migration patterns, and ekans, which he didn't want. Not even because he was still mad at the species, but because it would probably hurt team spirit to have one on the team. There was also the possibility of catching a jigglypuff, but considering those things tended to put one to sleep before one even got close, Joey was rather hoping on not meeting one.

The choice was quite clear in the end. The first mission was doable, but didn't involve pokemon Joey was interested in. He was kinda sick of battling oddish at this point, and was alright with letting someone else have the privilege. The second mission had more interesting pokemon, and maybe it would be nice to get a water-type so he could surf in the future, but trying to find a watch in a forest was probably a gigantic waste of time.

Joey pulled off the briefing of the third mission, the one with the abandoned church. It was only possible to be consigned to one mission at a time, otherwise he might also take the oddish one to be honest, simply for the sake of money. But, there would probably be more missions in by tomorrow, and maybe the oddish one would still be there. He looked at the piece of paper, recognizing the street that the address of the mission giver was on and promptly turned around to leave, only to stop when he saw Mia walking towards him, brown hair set in a pair of twintails with oddish hair-bands.

"Cute hair," he complimented as the girl came to a stop next to him, seemingly focused on the board.

"Thanks. Are you also looking for jobs?" she asked.

"Yeah, I spent all I had on technical machines. I need to replenish my wallet."

"Me too," the girl said with a sigh. "So expensive. Also, I forgot that my battle rating would change. I lost a battle to someone without any badges and I ended up paying them a lot of money."

Joey nodded. "Yeah, I got two badges now. Means I have to take every match quite seriously if I don't want to lose what little I have. But, well, most of the hobby trainers still give good odds."

He pointed to the oddish job that he himself hadn't chosen. "This might be interesting for you, you did say you wanted an oddish, and they'd be good against Surge, King, and then even Flint."

Mia looked at the piece of paper more closely, before ripping it off the board with a nod. "I have a second slot on my team now, but there's too many possibilities!" she exclaimed. "Also, I don't know if I want to battle Surge. Maybe it would be smarter to just skip him and aim straight for the cascade badge. Then I'd have more time to train."

Joey raised an eyebrow, not necessarily approving of not at least trying the gym. The ride there was free, and Surge would probably never be as nice again. He couldn't imagine he was such a hardass against youngsters. "What's your plan?" he asked, receiving a shrug.

"I picked up the TM for shock wave, but lil mouse has been struggling with the move."

"Maybe it would have been better to start with thunder wave, get her used to the TE first," Joey mused. "Although, in six months when it's time for Cerulean it should be ready no problem."

"I don't have infinite money," Mia said with a pout. "I only had enough for one TM and I made it count."

It was funny how between the two of them it was Joey, the orphan, who had more liquidity. It made sense though. Pokemon battling was a very lucrative career, and Joey had been battling a lot, had increased his stipend by beating Kong a while ago, and even increased the likelihood of winning it big by challenging trainers way beyond his pay-grade. It was very likely that he was earning a similar salary as Mia's father, who naturally couldn't spend all the money on buying his daughter technical machines. The man had other expenses, whereas Joey didn't. He lived in the orphanage for free, got food for free, healthcare for free… The only thing he had to pay for himself were his training-related expenses, and those were more than covered by his stipend. All his victory money had essentially gone into buying TMs, of which he'd gotten three himself.

"Want a rematch with Kong at some point?" Joey asked. Mia simply grimaced, which answered that question. There probably wasn't really a point in even thinking about it while she still had only a rattata. Her battle in Celadon had already been hard-fought, and Kong's second badge challenge wasn't going to be any easier. "I'll leave you to your oddish-catching then," Joey said and clapped the girl on the shoulder. "Do come get me after you have two team-members, we could have a proper match."

"As if, after seeing what you did to that poor oddish at the Celadon gym," Mia muttered and waved him goodbye.

Joey exited the poke-centre after inputting into the system which job he'd taken, then, without really waiting for any excuse to delay, he immediately went over to the address described in the mission statement. It was conveniently placed on the very east side of Saffron, close to the poke-centre, close to the gym and to the gate.

He ended up in front of a modest two story family home done in the typical yellow brick and green roof style of the city. He rang the door-bell, already preparing his badge case on the off-chance that people wouldn't believe he was qualified for the task. It was a tiny old woman who opened the door, leaning on a cane and looking at him from the same height he occupied.

"Hello dearie, how can I help you?" she asked in that sweet old lady voice that made probably made people want to help her cross the street, but then run away immediately after as they started oversharing details about her grandchildren, cats, and the state of the garden.

Joey wasn't that interested, so he just held up his trainer licence close to the woman's face, so that she could read it with her presumably weakening eye-sight. "Trainer-licence Jonathan Joestar, two badges, here for the route eight mission. Are you Ellie Rogers?" he asked clearly.

The old lady nodded enthusiastically. "Wonderful! I was worried that nobody would come in time," she said, before slowly shaking his head. "Route 8 has become so deserted since the fighting-type gym has been established. Everyone is afraid of the ghosts, but just look at Lavender town, they live with them in harmony. My son works at Silph Co., he's working on some sort of ghost detection goggles, perhaps that will help people be less scared one day."

Joey nodded along, filling away the information for later. One skill that made ghost-pokemon particularly dangerous was their ability to hide from sight, whether it was by entering the shadows, or by putting themselves partially into the distorted world. "Sounds good," he said. "Can I get more clear instructions on how to come to the mission objective building, also, what's the offering?" he asked.

The old lady chuckled and stepped back. "Won't you come inside for a cup of tea?" she asked. "Then I can tell you the full story."

Joey mimed looking at his poke-nav, as if to check the time. "I don't drink tea, unfortunately," he eventually lied.

"I also have coffee," the old lady prompted.

"Allergic to caffeine."

"Orange juice?"

"No thank you, just brushed my teeth."

"Milk."

"Lactose intolerant."

"Beer?"

"Underage."

"Cookies."

Joey hesitated, it seemed that he wouldn't be getting anywhere without staying over for a snack. He sighed in resignation and accepted the offer of cookies. One minute later he'd been led through a corridor with more pictures than wall and into the living room where he'd sat down on a couch next to a napping meowth. The youngster sat down next to it, not wanting to get scratched for the disturbance, but also not wanting to sit in any of the rickety wooden chairs surrounding the coffee table. They looked uncomfortable.

Ellie came back quickly, carrying a platter of suspiciously oven-fresh looking chocolate chip cookies, along with a pitcher of lemonade. She puttered about, shoving both in his face until he accepted it, and sat down herself. Joey leaned back, starting to nibble on one of the cookies, in preparation for a longer conversation.

"It all started when I was born," Ellie began. "84 years ago in the small village of Constance, just outside what is now Saffron. It used to be just a simple mining town, if you'll believe, then they discovered new uses for the ore they were mining. Technological uses. Silph Co. was founded. The fighting types and the humans commanding them partially moved out into the fresh air, now tasked with freeing up enough ground for a city, and company expansion. The process of town to city only lasted a decade or so, enough for me to become a teenager. However, while Saffron was flourishing, Constance was just trudging by as it always had been. We were culturally more close to Lavender, which was exhibited most clearly by the church we had in our town square. We didn't see a point in keeping up with the times, preferring to focus on the Bonds instead."

The Bonds in this case referred to an older belief that man did not need to create tools and further technology, since everything that needed to be achieved, could be achieved by symbiotically co-existing with pokemon.

"However, this meant that when the great storm hit, sixty years ago to the day, our village was small enough to get flattened in its entirety. Except for the church. Saffron, meanwhile, had simply lost a district. The broken bodies of zubat, pidgeotto and spearow littered the ground in Constance along with the eviscerated corpses of rattata and nidoran. Cut up by the winds, they said. Or, rather, nobody said. People who'd survived with their pokemon and families by hiding in the cellars didn't bother rebuilding, they moved away. Centuries of tradition forgotten, traded in for convenience. I was amongst them, I had a child on the way and no midwife had stayed to bring it to term."

"This great storm," Joey interjected, suspicious. "Where did it come from?"

The old lady shrugged whimsically. "Nobody knows. Some hikers told tales of great gusts of fire, lightning and ice above the dark clouds. Three titanic bird-like figures fighting over territory.

But… Pokemon capable of such power might as well have been gods, and I refuse to believe that beings of such power would have caused such wanton destruction. It was a freak weather phenomena, my grandson says, and I prefer to agree."

The youngster filed away the possibility that the storm had been caused by a battle between the three birds, Articuno, Moltres and Zapdos. He had noted upon arriving in this world that legendary pokemon were more myth than reality. Perhaps this would change soon. The human population was undergoing an explosion. This meant that more and more trainers ventured into the wild thus increasing the chances of glimpsing a legendary. At the same time, cameras were becoming more common, thus making it inevitable that soon, one of these legendary pokemon would be captured on tape, after which point their existence could not be denied anymore.

"However, not everyone left for Saffron. After all, not all buildings had been flattened. The church stood, and the priestess refused to go. She saw it as a challenge from a higher power to restore the village to its former glory. To rebuild it. She tried and failed to convince people to stay. There were jobs in Saffron, and newly built houses which could be bought with very little money."

"If this all happened sixty years ago…" Joey muttered. "Then the priestess is likely dead, no? Is she the person I'm bringing an offering to?"

Ellie nodded. "Yes, Maria Rogers, my mother. She stayed in the village for a decade, rebuilding houses, mending fences, praying. All her children were grown up, gone. There was nothing preventing her from following her divine task. We kept a room free here, in Saffron, for when she decided to join us. Bring the word to the people in Saffron, who also desperately need to hear it."

"She never made it," Joey guessed from the bitter tone the story had taken.

"She didn't. A fever. She died with her golduck at her bedside. All the chansey which back then were spread around villages to heal ailments and wandered the wilds in search of pains to cure, had been gathered to be distributed in the poke-centres of the region. We came to visit, as we often did, only to find her dead. She'd managed to rebuild ten houses, one for each year of her life after the catastrophe. Just that she'd never found anyone to live in them again. They remained empty. Except for the rattatas, the zubats and other assortments of wild pokemon."

"She sounds like an admirable woman," Joey complimented, actually impressed by the story. Did it matter if the priestess had died unaccomplished, if she had spent her life working towards her goals? Ten years of solitude indeed.

"A fool," Ellie spat, her wrinkled face pulled together by a grimace. "Fifty years to this day she died. I send a different trainer to her grave every year with the candles and the flowers. I can't bear to look at that wretched corpse of a village again and my battling days are over anyway."

Joey looked at her doubtfully, wondering if there ever had been battling days to speak of.

The old lady grinned at him with bright eyes and nodded towards the sleeping meowth. "He used to be a terror, until he grew old." Upon closer inspection the meowth had more grey hair than white, and seemed a bit thin. A sign of age apparently.

"Well, I'll be honoured to bring the offerings to your mother's grave," Joey said. "Just give me the directions and I'll see it done," he promised.

Ellie pierced him with her gaze at his proclamation, as if testing his resolve. Joey, for his part, didn't falter. There was no real resolve or higher stakes involved in this deal from what he could glean. He was just being paid to do something and since he wanted the money, he would do it. Of course it was nice that he was delivering flowers to a grave instead of cleaning out the muk from the sewers, but that was about it.

The old woman eventually nodded, seemingly pleased by what she'd seen and pulled out a large piece of folded brown paper which she unravelled to reveal a map of route 8. It was quite old, but maybe it had to be, as it still showed Constance, circled in red on the north side of the route. The route itself was several times as long as its symmetrical counterpart leading to Celadon, a winding path which bordered both north and south into a large forest which remained to this day mostly unexplored. Constance was in a way the first exit on the side of Saffron. One could reach it by just taking the first left after one exited the gate. They were supposed to be building some sort of underground tunnel system to connect the cities better for non-battlers, but it was still under construction. It seemed like Joey would have to go through the active construction site actually, to get to the marked path.

"It really is quite close. If I'm reading the dimensions correctly, then what is this? Five kilometres away from the outer edges of Saffron?" he asked.

"The city has gotten larger, but eventually they had to put up a wall, put a stop to it," Ellie said, hinting at the end of expansion which had stopped two decades ago. The endangerment of pokemon habitats had gotten too serious, the rangers and the trainers had become unable to deal with all the issues this caused. The league and the city governing body had decided that this was as good a point as any to stop and to be content with what one had. Joey wasn't really exposed to the real-estate market, considering he lived in the orphanage, but he had heard that the prices had been getting worse ever since. After all, there was nowhere to build and people from big cities were usually quite reluctant to move to smaller towns, such as silver town, which lay between Saffron and Lavender.

Any mobility usually happened from families who wanted to raise their children somewhere quieter, and thus moved out, freeing up space for someone new to move in.

"Maybe in today's climate there would have been some people interested in moving to Constance," Joey mused.

Ellie simply shrugged. "Who knows. In the end what's done is done." She stood up, relying on her cane to do so, and went into another room.

Joey looked down at his plate, noticing that he'd somehow eaten all the cookies. He grimaced. Ever since he'd started playing around with ghost-type energy he'd started needing less and less sustenance. The dough lay heavy in his stomach. But, at least it tasted good. While he waited for the mission giver to come back, he continued playing with the map, laying his compass in the requisite position to check the directions he would need to keep in mind as he went.

The mission seemed quite simple, fitting for someone with only two badges. It wasn't far enough to encounter any seriously dangerous pokemon like those that slumbered and fought amongst each other in the great forests of the region. The worst he'd encounter would be an ekans, or maybe a haunter. All the actually dangerous pokemon roaming those parts, such as alakazam, or arcanine, maybe a ninetails, weren't really known for being overly aggressive against random human children.

So, he would probably be fine, he concluded. It was exciting. He was finally about to leave and start exploring more of the region. Kanto wasn't big, perhaps taking up as much space as a smaller country like Switzerland did in his previous life, but the pokemon inhabiting it made the environment much more inaccessible. In a way, this world hadn't been fully explored yet, which meant that there was still some excitement in going off route.

Of course he wasn't allowed to do proper wilding yet, but after his seventh badge he would be qualified to do so, with a full team, all of them evolved. Constance was on the route, still, sort of, so it didn't count.

Ellie eventually came back with a wicker basket, one of those that looked handmade, she handed it over to Joey who had stood up to receive it. There was the usual assortment of some incense sticks, flowers, a ground of sake, a bottle of water and some nori rice crackers. All of it was quite self-explanatory and Joey nodded. "I'll be on my way then, it's not even mid-day yet so I can probably be back for dinner," he said.

"Do take it slow dearie, it's a beautiful walk of about two hours there and two hours back. You're not in any rush," Ellie said and accompanied him to the door. After a final goodbye, Joey was finally ready to go on his first mission.

-/-

Joey has gotten his range of leaving expanded again, so he can go out further. Still no inter-city travel, but he can hike around a bit. Red zones he can't enter, but there aren't that many around Saffron.

We are not starting a new arc before the next gym battle, which I'd call the job arc. Joey will be exploring the authentic pokemon adventurer vibe including the stereotypical pin up wall with requests. Exciting.

Battle with Surge and between Bruno and Lance has officially concluded over on patreon for the highest tier, so if you want to treat yourself, or support me, you can head on over to read up to ten chapters in advance. No pressure though, everything will be public eventually.