As Max browsed over the offered items the old lady and the young man she was with started talking. "He is the one you have been going on about? I thought that your Pokémon were good seers. That thin boy barely won his challenge and his only talent per say is in that Swablu. There is no creativity from real talents to be seen" the old lady belittles.
"Oh yes, this is one of the last times the seers will be able to see him directly. Just tomorrow he will get attacked by a night slash from a weak Corphish and from there any number of futures could occur while the lesser seers predict him finding the tomb of the Tyrant. Once he reaches the Colosseum he'll be fully invisible until his gym battle in my city" the young man spoke. "The real question is what to do with him. Conan doesn't believe my seer's future telling but that's only because he'll never be in any of the futures they predict."
"A fair point if you ask me. Almost none of the others are able to be seen at all either and we might be able to fix this by ourselves or have the roamers deal with it. It's not even confirmed at this point if he'll be critical at all by the high seers, simply involved with Rays of Dawn" the old lady released a Sylveon who she proceeded to shower with love.
"We don't know much and that is the problem. The crime is happening too far in the future from when the criminals dropped off the grid. The way I see this is that we have a chance now to eliminate a young Rotom who we know will be somehow involved in a burning house incident or possibly stopping the spark that burns it. The only question is what will we do" the young man also released a Pokémon an Abra who prepared to teleport, "Take your time, I need to finish this conversation."
"I would see if I can work with it. Ensure its actions if not its loyalty by making reasonable demands" the old lady said.
"That is where you and I differ. I don't like it when I can't control something, like an itch I can't scratch. The only reason I'm even hesitating is because of my trust in Conan and that new group that Gold is associated with. With those boosters they give their Pokémon, I bet they could take me, especially the fox girl. If they remove me, or really any of us, it makes the situation even worse since they'll gain more allies. Two of the elite four are already covering for them, Mark and that new lady Ida, a few of the roamers have interacted with them, and the counsel won't speak to me about him for some reason. But I can't get behind helping Max either as who knows what he'll do with that help" the young man scratched his hair and sighed.
"Better help offered than help forced. But if even that is too much just watch him. With a little more spying we may be able to figure more out rather than chasing the grunts Dawn is working with."
"That could work, I'll let Maggy take care of setting that up. It seems we will just have to trust Conan's judgement and wait after all. I can't believe I ended up losing my conviction after getting here" he says holding his hand out to the Abra.
"Your want is still struggling to find itself, spend more time with your Gardevior, it will help clear your mind a bit."
"It's not that, he looks so pitiful now, and yet we can't even tell what he'll do in one day let alone months like normal. Just a common and scrawny Rattata that Max Bo, and we've all been feeding into the reason why this is happening for decades. The experiment your generation started turned out a success but here we are. See you in the future madam Claire" the young man disappeared along with the Abra.
The old lady kept petting and stroking her Sylveon. Softly, she speaks to it as if to an old friend "The gods are letting this happen just as much as we ever did. Sitting and watching like us. Pray to gods and blame people..."
Back with Max...
There are weapons, TMs, items, vitamins, berries, potions, pokeballs, tools, gadgets, mega stones, dynamax bands, Z crystals, tera balls, evolution materials, and plain money too. I'm looking at everything and when the guy working the counter finishes up with the other trainer he calls me over "Max right? You have 1360 gym points to use or save for later gyms, I'll ring you up once you get everything you want."
I can get 13 pokeballs for that much. Cheaper than buying them in store that's for sure since challenging the gym was free. Most of the items and other special things are out of that price range, one of those dynamax bands was 5000 points and that didn't even include the specialty pokeball needed to work with it either. Frustrated but understanding, I decide to save some of my points, purchasing only 2 regular pokeballs for 200 and a small variety bottle of vitamins for 600. Normally a lot more expensive since they sped up the growth of certain muscle groups and bodily structures in Pokemon. I would mostly train the hard way to earn that growth but it wouldn't hurt to have a little help early on as a little could go a long way. There were probably 50 pills of different types within the bottle and could last me a while on a once a week basis.
Figuring out how Ian would use them would be a chore but we would figure something out. The man was slow at ringing me up but I waited patiently "Would you like to participate in our records program and receive 10 pokedollars or receive a copy of your battle for 10 pokedollars as well?" I didn't know they did that but was weary of allowing myself to be recorded. I didn't want to help this gym at all and if they were paying me they were making more somewhere else. I did get the recording though as my family would like to see that next time I saw them. They deserved much more than that but I could do this for them now.
He had me plug in my pokedex and told me to press the blue orb to be able to select each recording in 3D. Ok the pokedex is crazy useful, I've given it too little credit for such an amazing device. Once he was done I ran out to my friends and saw them waiting, talking between themselves.
Hannah was the first to see me "Great job Max, you did it first try and everything."
"That smiley though man, that was funny as hell" Zac clapped me on the shoulder.
"That was clutch for sure, hopefully my battle will be easier" Hannah replied.
"Be prepared to steal everything. That Carbink making the mist shine was unexpected and almost cost me the badge if it weren't for that Florges idea. Only thing I will ever thank Claire for is engraving that snooty image of her and her main Pokemon into my brain a couple years back from that magazine Houston brought in" I advised.
"The one advertising her new clothing line? Yeah that was so overpriced. I mean come on 100,000 for neckwear, that's crazy" Zac said.
"Let's talk and walk guys, I'm tired after all that stress and its late" I started walking towards our campsite.
We stopped by the center to get Puff in better shape, even having to stay the night because of a more serious head injury from Carbink's drilling. They said it was nothing to worry about, just a more focused attacks can pierce through a mon's natural protective field. Like Ian's cutting edge I thought.
I traded centers to one closer to our campsite before telling her that we won and leaving to hit the hay.
I slept like the dead that night and woke up at 7, I could count on my hand the number of times that has happened since I turned 10. Shaking off the disgust that filled me for that, I went to pick up Puff with Ian. It's a personal choice to wake up late, I realize that and yet I don't want to be like that.
It was then that something snapped in me and suddenly I felt like I could see and feel things I hadn't before. I saw steel and ghost TE ooze off Ian along with some rock, bug, and normal type TE hovering around him.
He looked at me with his eye "I can't believe kids these days. Memory of a Magikarp this one." He started pulling me towards the center with his arm before I sputtered and he looked back.
"Kids these days? You're younger than I am." His eye widened a bit.
"Oh, that's what happened. Well congrats kid, now lets go get that bird before our battle. Monster was good training for my sword skills and it will help me kill that Sanzu when I see that bastard again." I started understanding less and less of what he said near the end but it was still amazing. I felt Ian's main type energy running through my veins to make me more resistant, weaker than Ian's but still there and felt amazing, like I was tough as nails.
I questioned Ian about this Sanzu and he just went on and on about how he despised him.
"I'm going to kill that corrupt bastard. My whole team and squadron got mowed down like some Morelull in front of a Mow Rotom. I was supposed to get a special brandy that night too from the ABC store!" he cursed and rambled some more.
From the tidbits that were less rant I understood that Sanzu was a corrupt captain in some army that got Ian killed, probably long ago from the references he was making.
When we got to the center I was just happy to have someone interrupt Ian enough for me to escape. Ghost TE leaked even more aggressively towards me while he was speaking and I felt my body getting heavier as my soul took on the extra energy. If I ever got good enough at using ghost energy I could be like a ghost and phase through things but the process at the moment was lacking in, well, positive emotions. It was a skill I considered trying to get, one amongst many though as I had yet to decide what type I might want to dive into.
Puff was able to get Ian to move onto other topics than what he would do to Sanzu when he saw him again. I got to know that Ian didn't remember his name from his past life or what skill he had, only the feelings he had towards things and the last 5 minutes of his life. When he got to my cleaning skills of him he was very positive but it was kind of creepy how he talked about it, how I 'oiled him down’ and ‘slathered the lubricant all over.’
I shudder at the thought of tonight's ‘session.’
