My life as a youngster with a top percentage Rattata was much more successful than I expected? - Pokemon SI

Metapod was healthy soon enough, her Shed Skin having already rid her of all status conditions immediately after the battle. Neither Joey nor Erika really minded the small wait anyway, as they were too busy discussing the upcoming match.

"Lance is going to wreck Bruno so hard, I'm just sad I won't be there to see it in person," Joey lamented, feeling weird with only one team member on his belt now that he'd gotten used to having two.

"The match is supposed to happen in Indigo stadium in three months. Maybe I could convince my dad to teleport us there. But, he usually doesn't feel up for things like that during the season. Also, Lance winning? Check your brain damage, did you see the muscles on Bruno?" Erika replied easily.

"What does muscle size have to do with his Pokemon being able to beat Lance," Joey asked while scratching his head.

Erika simply rolled her eyes. "Well, obviously he's a fighting-type master. The bigger his muscles are, the bigger the muscles of his Pokemon will be."

"Is Kong an incompetent then? Never saw anything bulging out of his gi," Joey said and noticed his mistake as his friend cracked up.

"I hope you haven't," she taunted.

"Says the girl looking at Bruno's muscles. Don't tell me you have a poster of him in your bedroom."

She blushed and looked away from where they were traversing the more traditionally built Celadon streets. The city had more traditions in the direction of agriculture, dancing and scents. Very much unlike the newly developed industrial giant that was Saffron.

"The way he won his way into the Elite Four was super inspiring, ok," she mumbled. "He came from nowhere, no conference wins, just relentlessly working his way up the ranks until he got the right to challenge the Elite Four. He's even working on taking Blaine's spot and pushing the old man down, good riddance, I say."

Was that why Bruno had caught two Onix in the games? Specifically to beat Blaine and take his spot? It would make sense. However, Agatha would probably forever remain beyond him. It was just too hard of a match-up. "You just don't like Blaine because he's a fire-type expert?" Joey asked, somewhat amused.

Erika recoiled, before puffing up her chest. "Of course not! He's just an ass. My dad says so."

"At his age, I wonder if he's going to be ok with just being demoted. He might quit altogether. Hasn't Cinnabar been on the lookout for a new gym leader?" Joey wondered aloud.

"The last gym leader suffered a burn-out," she elaborated, causing Joey to chuckle. "It's not funny, it's a serious health risk for gym leaders," she chided with a reproachful look.

Joey waved her off. "No, it's just. You'd think that as a fire-type gym leader, he would have had a burn heal on hand," he guffawed.

"You're a weirdo, I hope you know that."

"Born and raised, baby," Joey replied as they arrived back in front of the gigantic glasshouse-esque gym.

"Well, anyway. I'm sure that if Bruno can't oust him, then Lance can."

"Wow," Joey mumbled. "You sure switched sides fast.”

Erika simply sniffed as they walked through the tall grass towards the sounds of battle in the distance. "There's too many old men in the Elite Four right now. Blaine, Pryce. Both of them can go for all I care. Not cute at all."

"Both of them specialise in typings super-effective against grass," Joey mused.

"I'm not like that," Erika grumbled as they reached the sight of the battle area, where a beaten-up Bulbasaur and a poisoned Tyrogue covered in Leech Seeds were standing facing each other. Despite the contrary expectation that Joey had considering Hitoshi's overall behaviour and competency, it was the Bulbasaur that collapsed, and the boy in a karate gi collected his badge.

"Good job on your fourth badge," Joey commented sarcastically as Hitoshi recalled his Pokemon and walked past him, probably also towards the centre. The boy glared at him but didn't say anything as he left.

"What do you mean? He was challenging for his second," Mia said as Joey and Erika joined her in watching as Michael took the field, releasing Pidgey high into the air.

"Just a little inside joke," the youngster said with a wink, before focusing back on the match. "Sky King, whoop whoop!" he shouted in support of the youngster. If nothing else, one had to admire Michael's tenacity. He seemingly wasn't talented, good-looking, smart, gifted, personable, charismatic or even really worthy of his very dumb Pidgey, but… he was still out here trying to make stuff happen, unlike a lot of other trainers.

The boy shot them a thumbs up by punching his arm sideways, not taking his eyes off the riveting battle which consisted of Tangela throwing powders, rocks and vines in the air and Pidgey dodging everything with seeming ease. Eventually, the bird responded with a few well-directed Gusts, which quickly knocked out the Tangela, which as a last resort tried to use Absorb on the flying menace. The attack didn't do much, ergo the result.

Michael happily walked off with a badge. From the gym leader's perspective, it had probably looked like the boy had prepared well, and hadn't taken any unnecessary risks by getting up close for style-points. In reality, Michael always battled like his opponent had a 100% likelihood of one-shotting him if Pidgey ever got even slightly close to the ground.

Someone had traumatised him at some point.

Joey wasn't sure who.

Next up was Sabrina, who, to Joey's amusement, fielded two Abra. She'd dared laugh at his Metapod when she'd literally just caught the same Pokemon again. Some people really didn't have any shame. She won easily enough, and while Joey felt that the gym leader raised the bar in the middle just like he had with him, it didn't seem to impact the psychic human at all. Her two Abra teleported away from all danger, spammed Psybeams, confusions and other such things and that was that, really. The girl promptly left after her battle, prompting to not stick around like Michael had. But to be fair, her Abra had gotten poisoned at some point, while Michael's Pidgey had remained almost completely unharmed and untouched throughout the entirety of the match.

It seemed that in Joey's absence, Mia had made a deal to go last, because after Sabrina the bug-catcher stepped up and predictably sent out a Caterpie. However, for all that the boy had an interesting gimmick, having created a sort of String Shot variant in which the string was jumbled into hard and sticky balls and used like a sort of Bullet Seed, Tadghsiobhan seemed to be done with losing to the Caterpie-line for the day. An Oddish shut down all String Shot attempts with Acid and eventually won the match with a Tackle of all things.

The bug-catcher left, dejected. Joey thought the boy had a pretty good chance at winning a rematch.

The last match of the day was Mia, and it was nice to see the wariness on Tadghsiobhan's face when the girl sent out her Rattata. Never again would the Celadon gym underestimate the power of the humble rat or the steadiness of a well-trained Metapod.

Tadghsiobhan sent out an Oddish, and even though the battle was hardly anything truly interesting in terms of tactics, Joey nevertheless paid close attention. If for no other reason than to advise his friend afterwards.

The match started simply, quickly entering a stalemate. Lil Mouse tried to advance via Quick Attack but failed to properly close in due to Oddish's high Acid accuracy. Joey's Rattata was better at break-and-run manoeuvres and might have been able to break through with sheer speed and power. But, Joey had kept track of how often Mia trained, and it turned out that she, and other youngsters all only trained about 15% as much as Joey did. There wasn't really a comparison.

Nevertheless, the battle was far from over, as Mia then ordered Lil Mouse to stand back and harass the Oddish with Tail Whip while dodging its attacks.

There was no escape from Tadghsiobhan however, the man simply ordered a Poison Powder rain barrage, and while it did seem exhausting, there was too much poison in the air for Rattata to avoid. But Mia had been learning from Joey, and even if Lil Mouse got poisoned, it was potentially worth it if the loss of stamina on the side of the Oddish could be capitalised on. Lil Mouse Quick Attacked the grass-type’s space once again and was subsequently attacked frontally with Acid. However, instead of dodging left or right and abandoning its trajectory, this time Lil Mouse jumped in the air, letting go of the normal-type energy.

"That's not good," Erika muttered from next to Joey. "Rattata can't dodge in mid-air."

And, as expected Tadghsiobhan ordered an Acid to strike down on the incoming rat missile, which was falling at a predictable speed towards the Oddish.

Joey simply furrowed his brow and tried not to blink. If he had he would have missed it, against the glare of the sun amplified by the glass of the ceiling. Lil Mouse trailed white. The youngster thought back to the exercise he'd seen Mia doing back in Saffron. Rattata using a Quick Attack in the air. He hadn't thought much about it back then. Quick Attack functioned by channelling energy through the body of the Pokemon to give it the physical power boost to propel itself forward. During this process energy was ejected backwards, pushing the Pokemon forward in addition to its muscular efforts. In the air, the initial burst was more of a spurt due to Lil Mouse not having anything to jump off of. However, with white trailing behind her, the rat flew down faster, accelerating its downward momentum and thus dodging the large acid glob by a hair's width. The Oddish was too surprised by its own miss, and potentially also too tired to retaliate again so quickly, and a Rattata missile struck it right in the face, knocking it to the ground.

It was over then. Rattata was close enough to run circles around Oddish, and the battle promptly ended after a few more Quick Attacks. Mia got her badge and seemed slightly dumbfounded by her own victory.

"I didn't think I'd win, to be honest," she admitted to Joey afterwards, as everyone shuffled out of the gym to stand in front of it.

Everyone had won, other than the bug-catcher. Even Michael had managed, although that had mostly been due to the type mismatch, not any actual strategy on the boy's part.

"You trained towards a specific goal and strategy for two months, knowing exactly what to expect, and what you were capable of. Why would you have lost?" Joey asked.

All he got from Mia at that was a weak chuckle. "I guess you wouldn't get it," she muttered. She seemed to be oddly down considering her victory, and Joey wondered what was wrong. He'd initiate a conversation if she wasn't out of her funk tomorrow, but for now, he still had something to do.

"I have to go to the department store. It's not anywhere near closing time, but I have to see what they have to make a strategic decision on how to spend my money," the boy eventually said to his friend and Erika, who'd stayed close to him throughout most of the day.

"I'm going to go to the Pokecentre to get Rattata rid of the poison. Then I'll go as well. I want a technical machine," she said before pulling up a map of Celadon on her PokeNav and going towards the white and red building.

"I actually have to go back inside and help clean up the battlefield more thoroughly," Erika said.

"I'll battle you in next year's conference if we don't meet again before then," Joey replied. The girl considered his words, before nodding and turning back around. By the time he looked back, Ruth had also left, probably to enjoy what to her must have been a vacation day in a nice new city. The only one left was Michael, who was just standing there, lost in thought. Occasionally the boy took out his badge case, opened it, and looked at the rainbow badge before putting it away again.

He seemed to notice everyone's absence because he looked up and smiled cockily. "I guess it's just the two of us now, huh, Joey. That gym leader didn't really wind me up too much. You wanna battle and become reacquainted with your place in the pecking order?" he asked, fingering the sleeves of his puffy white shirt.

Joey simply stared at him, before turning around and walking off.

"Hey, where are you going?" Michael asked as he started following him.

Joey broke out into a run, Michael screaming for him to wait as he ran after him. However, Joey actually trained his body with his Pokemon sometimes, and even if ghost-type energy wasn't the best for enhancing one's physique, it was better than nothing. He left the kid in the dust, literally, and metaphorically, as his battling career was actually going somewhere.

He ran a bit more before pulling to a stop in the Celadon main square, which was dwarfed by the gigantic six-story department story absolutely dominating the space and casting a large shadow.

It had been an exhausting day full of social interaction and battling, but now it was time to spend some of his hard-earned money and get himself a fighting chance against Surge.

-/-

If Joey had thought that the department store was huge from the outside, a hulking giant taking up most of the space in Celadon's city centre, then being inside the beast was a whole different story. Perhaps it was because he was still in a brat's body, but the ceilings were incredibly tall, and he couldn't even reach the uppermost shelves on the first floor. He'd taken the elevator stairs up, just to check what the layout was. He remembered vaguely that in some versions of the games, different TM's had been available on every floor. However, it seemed that this wasn't the case here, as the second floor mostly held items for healing, different types of repel and some basic Pokeballs.

Joey didn't really need any of that, as he kept himself upped on the basic Potions which were enough for his team at the moment, wasn't going into any dangerous places that would require a Repel, and was fine with the league-issued basic Pokeballs he had gotten when passing his licensing exam and won his first badge. He knew that by winning his second badge he would get a third Pokeball for his third team member.

With his next badge, he would finally be qualified to train tier-2 Pokemon, and thus evolve Rattata if his starter wanted that.

Anyway, looking around, impressed at the variety of trainers mingling around, from rangers to older hobby trainers, he went a floor up, getting himself a lemonade from one of the many vending machines that were littering the corridors in front of the stairs.

It was on the third floor that he finally got to where he wanted to be. He had to wipe his mouth to prevent himself from salivating as he looked at the floor, lined with high shelves containing technical machines of all kinds. Not wasting any time he quickly started walking around and cataloguing what was available. He noted that there were two different kinds of technical machines available. Those for single use, and those for multiple use. The price hike between the two different products was insane.

One of the technical machines that he definitely needed for multiple uses at some point for example was TM17 Protect. An indispensable tool for any professional battler, this move was valuable as a reusable TM because almost every Pokemon could learn it. The single-use machine cost a solid 50k poke dollars, a lot, but manageable. However, the reusable machine cost a whopping 250k Pokedollars, which was ridiculous.

Thankfully it wasn't time yet for Joey to invest in the move, but he'd probably have to do so before he competed in the conference.

Drooling his way past a few more moves that he couldn't afford, or that were too expensive to justify, Joey quickly found the three technical machines he was most interested in. TM28 Dig, TM39 Swift and TM8 Rock Smash. Now it was in a way seductive to try and get a reusable version of either Dig or Swift since they had quite a wide coverage. It was incredibly likely that his next Pokemon would be able to learn one of those two moves. Also, it would be an investment, having the move now would mean he'd never have to use it again, right? But, there was one issue, namely that this investment would be too long-term. If he beat Surge on his first try, then that would give him an immediate cash infusion with which he could buy another TM. But, was it likely that he was going to beat Surge with just Dig, or with just Swift? Or was it more likely that he'd only win if he had both?

The thing about completionists was that they tended to think too long-term. By the time they finally bought every single reusable TM, they would have already lost a bunch of battles they could have won if they had access to the correct move. Joey had a success philosophy that depended a lot on momentum. Keeping one's self in a winning position from an earlier time-point would give him more rewards down the line than if he scrounged for longer with the aim of some future benefit. Who knew what the future would bring anyway?

In other words, Joey was going to get the single-use TMs, because they'd increase his chances against Surge now. He didn't want to waste his mental energy on figuring out finances. In a world where a teenager could have a team of six dragons the old adage of money being power wasn't true anymore. Power was power and money was only good when it was giving the user access to more power. Unfortunately, technical machines were keyed to a trainer identity when bought, which meant that someone owning a reusable one couldn't undercut Silph. Co. by charging low prices for external usage.

"How can I help you?" someone said from beside Joey suddenly. The boy turned around to muster the clerk who'd walked up to him. Dressed as usual in the yellow apron the man didn't look like much, but he was exactly who the youngster needed right now.

"I just beat the gym so I have money burning its way out of my pocket. I'd like a single-use copy of Dig, Swift, and Rock Smash," he quickly explained. The clerk considered him with dull brown eyes, perhaps recognizing Joey's status as a youngster and thus questioning where he was getting the money from.

The man's eyes lit up and he smiled. "I recognize you," he said suddenly, putting a finger to his right temple. "You're that kid who beat Kong with a Rattata. I watched your match on the TV, it was a joy to see."

Taken slightly off guard by the sudden compliment Joey blushed and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "Aw, thanks. I didn't know anyone cared."

"And now you beat Celadon as well, I'll have to catch one of those repeats!" the man exclaimed, pulling a key from somewhere and starting to unlock the barred technical machines and putting together Joey's order. "It was really nice to see a Rattata win over a Mankey. My Raticate was super excited. You know, it's just about time we youngsters got some recognition. I've hung up the hat years ago, but I still follow the battling scene."

Following the battling scene wasn't really saying much considering almost everyone did, but Joey wasn't about to be mean to his first fan.

"Thanks for your kind words," he instead said humbly as the two of them went to the counter and the clerk ran up the bill. It was about half of Joey's budget, but there would be more chances to earn money in the future. With Lance's match against Bruno coming up, and people generally acting quite surprised that the dragon trainer dared make the challenge with his relative inexperience, the odds were likely going to be quite stacked against Lance. Probably worse than 1-5, which meant that Joey could potentially quintuple the amount of money in his bank account. He still had another three months or so to earn as much cash as possible, which, with the fact that he liked challenging higher-level trainers and could even start doing jobs now, would mean quite a lot of money would be flowing his way. Joey swiped his trainer card in the terminal and absent-mindedly put an arm around the technical machine cases to pull them into his backpack. He froze when he noted that there were five boxes in his arm, instead of three. He looked up at the clerk who smiled at him.

"I get a few of those every year. Benefits of working in the department store I guess. The thing is, I don't really battle anymore and I only have my Raticate. TM18 Counter and TM03 Helping Hand, I think you can use those better than me," the older man said.

Joey nodded seriously, not about to refuse a free lunch. He looked at the man's name tag. "Thanks, Zuka. Next year's Indigo Conference. Come watch me. I'll show you some magic," he promised before leaving with a wave and a small. He went up the escalator to the next floor as he considered the gift. He didn't have a Pokemon that could learn counter, but helping hand was a move that had quite some potential. It increased the overall power of the Pokemon afflicted, which suggested some interesting dynamics. Perhaps Rattata could use it on himself. Perhaps he could use it on Metapod during training and see if it had any good long-term benefits. Maybe it was even usable on an opponent during a match to make them overcommit to an attack.

The world was Joey's tactical oyster, and in a time where most trainers seemed to be functioning under the misbelief that a bigger Flamethrower was a better Flamethrower, unconventional tactics would likely end up being his tool for victory. For some odd reason not many fighting-type Pokemon actually used Detect, and not many people had ever tried to win much of anything with a Metapod. Joey was already on his second badge, so what he was doing was obviously working for the moment. With the new technical machines he'd purchased more possibilities would open up and he would manage to have even more routes all leading to the same goal. The conference.

He considered the oddity of trainers preferring quite simple tactics over anything requiring real brain power, and why a culture so steeped in battling oftentimes didn't seem so good at it. Perhaps it was just necessary to look at these things from the outside sometimes. It was always inside a system that one got the most stuck.

All thoughts of tactics and other such things fled his mind however as he entered the fourth floor. It wasn't that he necessarily needed anything from here, but it was the region's largest collection of evolution stones. It would have been a waste had he come here without at least taking a look.

It glittered, it shined, and the price tags made him wince. In other words, no.

The fire stones seemed to glow with an unseen fire and exuded a warmth even through the protective glass. It made him want to own one, just for the sake of owning one. However, this was definitely a thing that could perhaps wait until after Lance had won the championship. All the money spent now was less money coming in later. He reluctantly left the floor behind, going one more up. He knew that if he'd had a Pokemon that needed an evolution stone, he wouldn't have been able to prevent himself from buying one right there, right now.

It was weird actually, how much his sense of money had already become skewed after a few months of being a trainer. On the stipend, and with his strategy of challenging higher-level trainers he was making an insane amount of money. Although, that would probably change now after he'd won his second badge. The losses would be harsher and the wins would be less profitable, but still. Joey had money. A surprising amount of money. Perhaps it helped that he wasn't training something like a Snorlax, which would have bankrupted him in a week.

Rather than wait completely for the end of the betting pool, there was one thing that Joey really wanted to get at the department store. And what he wanted was to be found on the fifth floor. He stepped off the escalator and looked around, sighing once again at the beauty of his surroundings. A different beauty now. The beauty of efficacy. The diet he gave his Pokemon was well thought out and probably more precise than 80% of other trainers, but Celadon, once again, had the largest collection of dietary supplements. And by default then, the highest quality. Joey walked around the aisles, frowning at the prices, which at times were higher than technical machines, but he ended up collecting some protein and some calcium for Rattata, the high-grade stuff this time. Supposedly the bottles would last him for a few months with such a small Pokemon. For Metapod he got some iron, as preparation for perhaps teaching her Iron Defence at some point. He hadn't found the technical machine for the move downstairs but it wasn't like supplementing would hurt, considering that Harden was a move that took advantage of a specific material being available as well.

Despite how he'd told himself that he wouldn't spend all his money in the department store Joey almost ended up wiping his bank account by the time he actually left the building. Still, it had been a fruitful trip. With the gym badge in his pocket and his money spent he'd essentially done the two things he'd come here to do. Now, it was time to relax a bit and worry about the bus ride back and the money-gathering action he'd have to commit to some other time.

-/-

Now normally the things that Joey would have done upon arriving in a new city would have been different. However, unfortunately, he wasn’t an adult anymore, and thus this closed off bars, clubs and gambling. Not gambling actually, since he was allowed to go to the game corner, however, he knew that the house always won, and he had a much safer bet coming up shortly.

So, instead of doing any of that, Joey got himself a few sticks of yakitori and walked around town, going into art galleries and museums as he pleased. One of the advantages of being young was that entry was free. The art scene was admittedly a bit dead in comparison to his old world, mostly because of the smaller population size, but there were still interesting things to see.

There had been an exhibition of poke-painting in the modern museum which had been fairly interesting, trying to guess which Pokemon had been painted by the emotion infused into the piece. But, his favourite art piece of the day had been a large installation consisting of several walls painted a bright blue with golden swirls. Coral reefs were attached to the bricks and it was supposed to mimic a sunken archipelago. It was magical walking amongst it and it reminded him of his visits to Art Basel and the Venice Biennale in his past life.

However, everything in the Pokemon world eventually led back to one thing in particular. Battling. Without actually intending to, and snacking on street food on the way, Joey ended up at the public battling fields. Perhaps it was a waste of time to do so considering he was in a new city and these places always looked the same. But, for better or worse Joey had been conditioned into a battling fanatic during his tenure in this new world. The bond between trainer and Pokemon, the way they synergised in battle, the awesome visual impressions and the fast-paced tactics. It all mesmerised him. Before he knew it he was sitting down, spectating the local battling scene and writing notes as he took it all in. The way that a Hypno teleported on top of an Ivysaur to deliver a Fire Punch. How a Machop dodged its way into a Bulk Up induced rampage and finished off its opponent with one Low Kick. There was gold to be found in moments like these, and even if he’d been prospecting for his whole life, his sieve pan never came up empty.

“Didn’t have enough battling for the day yet?” a voice asked from behind Joey, causing the boy to glance back and lock eyes with the green-haired Elio.

“I’m not taking any challenges, but there’s just something about it that forces you to sit down and watch,” he said as the older teen sat down next to him.

“It’s quaint,” he eventually said. “But it gets tough to enjoy these things after you’ve participated in your first conference. The competition there is so elevated, that everything public like this starts to look a bit like a joke. You can’t help but notice the inefficacy, and if you actually accept a challenge it's just as likely that your Pokemon will fall into bad patterns due to bad opponents as they are to gain anything out of it.”

“What do you do when you want to battle then?” Joey asked.

A shrug. “You know about the ranking system, I presume. After participating in a conference and getting far enough you get to inscribe yourself in the region’s ranking system and start challenging people. Those that end the year in the top 3 get to challenge the lowest-ranking Elite Four. Getting into the top fifty even for a day gets you the title of Ace Trainer. Not everyone can win the conference, it only happens once a year. That’s where I get most of my battles. Otherwise, I also challenge gym trainers quite regularly, they’re very good in their chosen type. The days of battling once a day are definitely behind me though, it’s more like once a week now.”

“Doesn’t that give older trainers an additional advantage, having access to such a system?” Joey wondered.

“The conference is usually split up in two brackets. One for older and one for younger trainers. It’s only in the top 8 or 4 that they meet depending on the turn-out. Get there and you can be on the other side next year.”

“I have to admit I haven’t thought about the conference much yet, I’m focusing on doing things step by step at the moment. Surge is my next goal.”

“You won the rainbow badge, right?” Elio clarified.

Joey nodded. “Yeah, pulled through in the end.”

“Were you already at the department store?”

“Yep, got myself Dig. It’s probably my only chance against the Raichu that Surge will field.”

“Just don’t make your exit point too predictable, he’ll punch down with Mega Punch and then you’re toast just as well as if you’d been hit by a Thunder,” Elio mused out loud. The youngster nodded.

“It’s going to be a tough match, but I’m more scared of King, to be honest. I don’t have a method to get those water types out of their habitat,” Joey admitted.

The older trainer pressed out a non-committed hum. “Well, poisoning the water or learning Thundershock are probably your only options. It is a very annoying gym. Perhaps even the most annoying one in Kanto.”

“I thought that honour belonged to Koga or maybe Giovanni.”

“Koga is complex and tough, but possible. Giovanni is a psycho, yes, but his Pokemon are straight-forward,” Elio said with a grimace, before looking at his watch. “Anyway, you should probably get going, it's getting close to dark”

“You’re not coming?” Joey wondered.

“Nah, I have my own accommodation. Good job at the gym.” That was all Elio seemingly had to say and the two of them parted ways.

It was on the way back to the house they were being hosted at that Joey walked past the game corner, just in time to see the bug-catcher they’d come with being literally kicked out the front door. The kid looked like he was about to cry. Joey kept walking. Maybe it would be a lesson. Gambling was bad unless one knew the odds in advance.

Everybody had to learn that lesson at some point.

It was back in front of the traditional-looking house that he met up with Mia again. There was no Pokeball at her belt so he assumed that Lil Mouse would also be spending the night at the Pokecentre.

“Didn’t see you in the department store,” Joey greeted the girl, who frowned and crossed her arms.

“Lil Mouse ended up needing to stay at the centre so I also stayed longer. Did you know that Lance was making a challenge for Bruno’s spot?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Joey replied, as the two of them entered the house, the sun setting behind them. “It’s going to be an interesting thing to watch.”