Salad 2.4

Aaron FulanVerdanturf Town, Hoenn Region

My alarm rang. I woke up. I opened my eyes and my world remained dark. There was a warm, sweaty weight over my face that I found distinctly unpleasant. I reached up to wipe it off and my fingers sank deeply into Jeanne's wool. I grumbled as I rolled my soggy lamb off my face.

"Must you sleep on my face, Jeanne?" I asked as I tried to wipe the sweat from my face. Jeanne didn't sweat; ovines didn't have any sweat glands. I sure as hell did though and spending the night with a warm, wool pillow over my face left me drenched. That, and wet wool just didn't smell nice.

"Maaa," she bleated. It sounded distinctly like a chortle.

"You're lucky I don't shave you bald."

"Maareep."

I couldn't understand precisely what she said, but I could recognize snark when it was given. If I did shave her, she'd probably grow it back that very day out of spite. I reached over and gave her nose a chiding flick. In the end, I decided a shower could wait until after our morning run and turned to wake Artoria.

My starter had acquired another pillow from the pokémon center staff and claimed it like a conquering hero. Or a dragon. Artoria was draconic, right? I couldn't quite remember, but mine certainly seemed that way with her gluttony sometimes. She slept on that pillow like Smaug on his hoard, unwilling to let even a single coin out of sight. Her green bangs were splayed over her face, rising and falling with her breath.

"Artoria, wake up," I nudged.

"Kii…" she mumbled. It wasn't even a fully formed thought, just the first rumblings of consciousness.

Honestly, I wondered how someone could both be so diligent and so against mornings. It took her several minutes to wake up properly, but once roused, I knew she'd train herself into the ground with a smile. She didn't work hard to play hard; she worked hard so she could work even harder. In that light, perhaps her love of food and sleep made some sense.

If I were an anime character, I'd probably have Jeanne jolt her awake for comedic effect. Rather than force the issue, I instead picked her up, pillow-bed and all, and began to walk outside. The rhythmic rocking of my footsteps slowly started to coax her from Cresselia's realm.

I led Jeanne to the canteen. Like most places in Verdanturf, there was an abundance of flowers even indoors. One entire wall was dedicated to planters and flowerpots tended by an energetic bellossom. Only a few of them were herbs I recognized. In fact, I doubted more than half of these were edible at all; a fair number seemed to only be there for the aroma. Truly, the town was a flower enthusiast's paradise and an allergic's worst nightmare.

I got in line to grab a light breakfast, yogurt and granola to tide us over until lunch. Jeanne happily settled for grass supplements made of hay, local foliage, dried berries, and bamboo shoots. As for Artoria, seeing how she was currently in no position to claim her food, I decided to get her what I was getting.

"Aww, your kirlia is just waking up. She's sooo cuutttee~" I heard a voice croon behind me. It belonged to a chubby lunch lady… or was it breakfast lady? She was pushing along a cart full of more breakfast goodies to stock the self-serve station. There were usual staples like sausage and scrambled eggs, but I noticed that a disproportionate amount of dishes were vegetarian or vegan, all the better to show off the season's harvest. As I'd read, Verdanturf had a long history of agriculture, particularly orchards, and they were justly proud of it.

That did it. Artoria was wide awake. Her eyes snapped open and she reached inside the pillowcase as though drawing Caliburn from its rocky sheath. She teleported to the ground and slung her spoon over her shoulder before strutting stiffly by my side, ready to conquer her ever-distant utopia.

"Hehe, thanks for waking her. She's pretty bad at getting up in the morning but she really hates being called cute."

"Aww, why?"

'It is unknightly,' I heard my partner grumble in my mind.

"She's a very proud pokémon. She doesn't even like letting me carry her normally."

"Well, I think she's adorable."

"Me too. Her pouting just makes her cuter. Thanks for breakfast, ma'am."

"Oh, you three are very welcome."

After breakfast, we briefly dropped by our room to put Artoria's pillow back before heading out for a jog. In the games, three mega stones could be acquired in Verdanturf: the mawilite, pidgeotite, and gardevoirite.

The mawilite was somewhere in the wild, buried in the southeast edge of town, just bordering Route 117. The pidgeotite was given by a girl who didn't know what she was holding in exchange for finding her lost shroomish. If there was a more lopsided trade in the setting, I didn't know of it. The gardevoirite was given by Wanda, Wally's cousin who lived to the southwest, for clearing a path through Rusturf Tunnel. She also had access to a galladite if I remembered right, but it was reserved for her shy cousin.

Assuming Wanda did not have the gardevoirite somewhere in her cabinet already, it seemed like a fair assumption to say that she found it somewhere near her house in the southern part of town, if not past its outer limits. The problem was, it was only available after the player captured Groudon or Kyogre. Was that a quirk of game development or was it something more mystical?

If mystical, it would most stones were unavailable to me and would remain so for years. It would also suggest that some sort of energy resonance existed between the Land, Sea, Sky, and these mysterious relics… which in hindsight wouldn't be too surprising considering Rayquaza was the only pokémon who didn't need a partnered human to mega evolve.

I certainly hoped this wasn't the case, otherwise I'd be spending a lot of time here for nothing.

But just to be thorough, if I couldn't find it in Verdanturf, I'd be forced to pay a visit to Petalburg to see if I'd have more luck in Wally's neck of the woods. And then Rustboro after that.

Since both the mawilite and gardevoirite were in the south, as far as I knew, that was where we would begin our search. I planned to do a grid-pattern jog through the southern half of town for the next few days to see if Artoria could sense the fairy type aura.

I was practically salivating at the thought of not just gardevoirite, but mawilite as well. And if I was particularly fortunate, a pidgeotite, though Artoria couldn't search for that one.

I was brought out of my musings by my partner. 'Did you have to carry me, my lord?'

'I wanted you to have as much time in bed as possible. You do like to cozy up for a bit before you really get focused. Just be glad I didn't have Jeanne jolt you awake.'

'I think I'd prefer the shock,' she grumbled. 'A knight should not be ferried by her lord.'

'Don't worry about what is and is not "knightly." It's got nothing to do with being a good swordsman anyway.' It was an old argument between us. I felt that Artoria placed far too much value in the code of chivalry, perhaps even to her detriment.

'My father-'

'Quinn adheres to the knight's code because he decided to after traveling, growing, and experiencing the world. To him, that code isn't just something he read in a book; it's something he developed and internalized for himself after pondering over right and wrong, justice and injustice. Quinn is a knight because his experiences forged him into a knight.'

'Then surely it is a code worth following.'

'It is,' I agreed. I waved as we passed a fruit stand that had just started to open. 'For him. A code of ethics is truly valuable when you wholeheartedly believe in it, not just in your head or because you were taught, but because you have experiential knowledge that shaped your identity to follow said code. That's why this journey is so important, Artoria. Not just because it will make you a better swordsman, but because it will help you discover yourself.'

'If… If you say so, my lord. I don't know where to start. How does one discover oneself?'

'Slowly, with patience, diligence, and an open mind. It's going to be a lot of work, but that's okay. Baby steps. Now look alive and see if you notice any fairy or psychic type aura.'

'Yes!'

To neither of our surprise, we found nothing but false positives. There was a brief moment when Artoria thought she might have felt something, but it turned out to be a girl and her snubbull practicing Charm in her backyard. Several times, natu, spoink, and even an espeon managed to fool her senses. That was fine. The jog was more about eliminating where the mega stones weren't so we could narrow down possibilities rather than actually finding the stones.

After our jog, the three of us split to do our individual training. Jeanne practiced her routine, trying to make her spores more targeted. Artoria meditated more on her sword and the nature of ghost type energy. When she got bored of that, she watched over Jeanne's practice and tried to predict which spores would land where in an attempt to hone her precognition.

As for me, I settled in my best approximation of a meditative posture next to her. It was time to work on my lackluster psychic affinity.

Psychic energy was… interesting.

Back home, one of mom's gym trainers held free guided meditation sessions every evening for anyone who wanted to drop by. It was almost disgustingly, stereotypically hippie. Deep breaths, incense sticks, ASMR background noises, the whole shebang.

I attended a few of those sessions before and found it to be more or less what I expected. Breathe in. Out. Clear the mind. Way back when I was six, I asked her why we hosted sessions like this. She told me that it was a good way to find hidden talent, and just as important, find those who might be willing and interested in developing said talent.

It was also unfortunately as much description as was generally possible when guiding others to train. After all, how did one describe something where physical sensations were totally absent?

Fortunately, I had a fellow psychic to guide me. This was the major reason why psychics grew exponentially faster when in the company of other psychics. Experience and example could succeed where words fell short. The bond between Artoria and I was an ever-pulsing source of warmth in my mind. It spoke of loyalty and love, passion and ambition.

It was this bond I used as my guiding light. Or perhaps, the better description was that of a whetstone to sharpen my own mind against.

Little by little, I could feel my mind adapting, slowly changing to fill in the blanks of all those lessons I'd failed to grasp with mom. It was an agonizingly slow process, like trying to wear down marble using a single sheet of sandpaper, but I hoped to one day be capable of all the things Artoria could do.

We stayed in our separate routines until lunch. The pokémon center canteen provided us a healthy meal of fruit salad, chicken, and some kind of bread that reminded me of sourdough. Pokémon could be consumed for food, and often enough were, but the pokémon center refrained for obvious reasons. The lunch was a simple, healthy fare that Jeanne supplemented with some newly sprouted shoots of grass.

That was another oddity I'd noticed about having a sheep pokémon to take care of: She chewed cud. For hours. She chewed cud while she practiced. She chewed while we jogged. Sometimes, I thought she chewed even while she napped. It wasn't disruptive or anything, but I wondered if it was okay for her to be doing this while training.

When I asked, the nurse laughed and handed Jeanne some kind of plant-based jerky. It smelled of fresh hay, fibrous mushrooms, and some kind of flower I couldn't quite place. She took one bite and literally lit up like a light bulb with delight. "Oh, don't worry about that. That's perfectly normal among bovine and ovine pokémon. Miltank, tauros, wooloo, and dubwool all do it too. It's because they have multi-chambered stomachs and regurgitate food to chew. It helps them get more nutrients out of their meals."

"Huh. I mean, I think I've read about cows doing that, but never thought pokémon similar to them had the same habit."

"Pokémon share a lot of biological traits with their more animalistic counterparts. For example, a treecko's fingers look remarkably similar to a gecko's under a microscope. Though pokémon have seemingly miraculous powers, that doesn't mean natural selection for optimal biological phenotypes isn't a thing. In fact, some pokémon share similar instincts to their duller cousins such as a desire to build nests in certain places, confront predators a certain way, that sort of thing."

"That sounds like a fascinating field of study," I told her sincerely. I was never much of a scholar, but I knew there were plenty of engineers and biologists who made a career of cross-disciplinary studies, drawing inspiration for machine designs by observing biology. Biomimicry, it was called. It made sense that in the pokémon world, scientists would sometimes compare pokémon and standard animal evolution to discern parallels. "Is it okay for her to train while chewing though? I don't need to wait a full four hours for her to fully digest her meals, do I?"

She snorted daintily. "Four hours? Try the whole day. Pokémon and animals that chew cud do it for most of the day. But don't worry, it won't have any negative effects on her training. It's something they do that's almost as instinctual as breathing."

"Oh, that's convenient. Thank you nurse."

"No problem. It's great to see young people interested in biology, even if only to make sure their pokémon are doing well."

X

After lunch, the three of us found ourselves wandering the south side of the town once more, hoping to get a hint as to the location of the mega stones. Verdanturf was small in population, but like many rural towns, once you got outside the town center, which consisted of buildings of municipal importance and a small business district, buildings tended to spread themselves out noticeably. The town covered a bigger geographic area than one might expect and it was taking some time to scan the whole thing.

I wasn't complaining though. It really was a beautiful place and watching volbeat and illumise flirt with one another over a garden of flowers was oddly soothing. We were halfway through the section of town I'd parsed out for the day when we came across the Verdant Meadows Trainers' School.

That alone wouldn't have drawn my eye if not for the sceptile and shiftry locking Leaf Blades.

Unova had battle clubs sponsored by some veteran-turned-entrepreneur called Don George. They were basically YMCAs from my past life, except dedicated to pokémon battling and hardcore workouts. Weights, wave pools, treadmills. Whatever a pokémon might conceivably need to get stronger, they had them.

Most other regions had far more modest arrangements. The majority of pokémon centers had at least one battlefield where traveling trainers could network and test each other for fun or quick cash. It was often not enough. There just wasn't enough room for everyone to battle, especially with a team of six, so people often looked for other solutions.

In less notable towns like Verdanturf with fewer travelers, it was often the trainer schools that were the stars of the training scene. Locals and rangers often availed themselves of the facilities after classes were finished for the day.

This connected up and coming trainers with the local community and gave students the chance to see different types of trainers and learn more about their career paths from those currently in the field. If a kid was especially lucky and caught the right eye, even a starter or a more formal internship wasn't out of the question.

That certainly explained why two fully evolved pokémon were duking it out in a school meant for little tykes. But the nuances of human social circles and pseudo career fairs weren't of any interest to Artoria.

'My lord, look! Look!' she shouted excitedly in my mind. The bond practically oozed delight as she watched two "swordsmen" clash. She swung her spoon around, miming some of the slashes the sceptile performed. Her vocalizations were just "Kirlia-kir-kirlia," but that was enough to get several people to turn around.

I got to see her flush with embarrassment, but even that wasn't enough to quell her enthusiasm. She rushed off to the bleachers for ringside seats.

Judging by their uniforms, both trainers were rangers here to spar during their off time, or perhaps a teacher had called in a favor to hold a demonstration for the students. The sceptile's partner was a woman in her late twenties and a large, ten-gallon hat to beat the sun. The shiftry's partner was a man of about the same age who fiddled with a whistle around his neck. They both wore mirror smirks.

The sceptile and shiftry were evenly matched, or near enough that it wasn't immediately obvious which was the better fighter. The sceptile was noticeably faster. It used a mix of Quick Attack, Leaf Blade, and Double Team to seemingly strike from every direction at once. The ranger had obviously worked hard on training her partner, because it could even use Quick Attack in midair to change directions by "double-jumping" like a videogame character.

If I got a pokémon who could learn that, I as going to call it Geppo for sure.

The shiftry was also blisteringly fast, but slower in comparison. It made up for that by using its entire body and more to fight. Its wild, silver mane shone in the light as it whipped its head around, lashing it like a whip. That same turn became a full-body rotation, sending an aura-clad foot through one clone's head. Since nothing stopped its momentum, its fanned fingers came down in a wide arc, whipping up a flurry of wind blades around itself.

"Air Slash? The kick… Mega Kick? Leaf Blade with the other hand obviously… What's making its mane spiky?" I wondered.

"Harden," a man spoke up next to me. I was so caught up in the show that I didn't see him arrive. He wore a green polo with the school logo on his left breast and khaki shorts. He also had a truly spectacular beard-fro that made his jaw look large enough to swallow a melon. I hadn't realized I had spoken aloud.

"Ah, you're right. A seedot learns it naturally, right?"

"That's right, young man. It's impressive that you could identify the Mega Kick though. Most people don't know shiftry can learn that one."

"I'm guessing that's because most shiftry don't bother fighting with their feet."

"Yup. Most shiftry fight using their blades and hurricane-force winds at range."

"But how can a shiftry know Harden? I get that seedot learn it naturally because they're seeds and all, but… It doesn't make sense that they'd keep the move even after evolution."

"You'd normally be right. It's not unusual for pokémon to change their movesets as they evolve to suit their newfound bodies, or simply to replace a weaker move with a more advanced, powerful variant. For example, a poliwag is actually oftentimes better at using Hypnosis than a politoed because of the way its stomach pattern becomes less pronounced upon evolution."

I turned to face him fully. Artoria could watch the two swordsmen. This guy was fascinating. "I'm assuming that 'normally' isn't 'always.'"

"Of course not. Few things concerning pokémon are truly absolute. A pokémon can sometimes retain their prior evolution's moves through either circumstance or training. In the case of the politoed example, it might use an auditory illusion to put its opponents in a trance instead of a purely visual one. It's difficult to train, but I've seen it done.

"That shiftry over there? It retained Harden through a whole lot of practice until it could harden its mane on the fly to use as a whip. It's not quite as effective as an Iron Tail, but it's good for turning away lighter assaults. Ranger Calico is pretty well-known in certain circles for creative training methos with extraordinary results like that."

"Ranger Calico, huh? I'll have to see if I can talk to him. Is it hard getting a pokémon to use a different move in each limb? Mega Kick. Leaf Blade. Air Slash."

"Very. It's definitely a lot more advanced than you're likely to see from your average trainer. It might not eve be worthwhile because it necessitates that each move is weaker. Multitasking like that is only really useful if your pokémon has the right temperament, combat style, and a wide range of move choices. Otherwise, it might just be a waste of time."

"Jack of all trades, master of none. It's still worth thinking about. Thanks, Mr…"

"Mr. Thrush. I teach pokémon evolutionary theory here. Nice to meet you, kid. You coming in from 117?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

He chuckled mirthlessly. "Something out west has been stirring up the whismur in Rusturf Tunnel. The whole area's been cordoned off by the rangers because of it. If you were planning on heading west to Rustboro, you're going to have to take the long way around the mountain."

I clicked my tongue. "Crap. Alright, that's good to know."

"Your kirlia looks like she's enjoying herself. Now is that spoon meant to be a psychic focus or a club?"

"Why not both? Artoria's a bit odd. She refuses to use any ranged attacks whatsoever until she becomes a powerful knight."

"She knows that-"

"That she can't become a gallade? Yup. She wants to be like her dad though, so I decided to teach her kendo and adopt Confusion into a physical move."

"Hoh? You're already making custom moves? Ambitious, aren't you?"

I smiled winningly at him. "Yup. Artoria's already a stellar swordsman and she's very light on her feet. Really what she's missing is the psychic power that comes with being a gardevoir but that'll come in time."

"Most people would say that's a waste of potential for a gardevoir."

"Most people are idiots. Pokémon really live up to their potential when they find what they're passionate about. People too. You wouldn't tell a kid he has to be a farmer just 'cause he's got a green thumb if he says he wants to be a doctor, right? Why wouldn't it be the same for pokémon?"

"Heh, well said, kid. I like you; you seem like a kid with his head on straight. You here for a battle?"

"Not particularly. I just happened to get drawn in by those two over there."

"Well how 'bout a job then? If you come back tomorrow morning, you can go a few rounds with my students. Win or lose, I'll pay you 100 LC per battle."

I considered it. At about $10 per battle, it wasn't a bad deal, especially since students wouldn't be expected to give me any prize money. On the field, the battle was wrapping up. The sceptile had pulled out a Dual Chop, using the raw power of draconic aura to rip through the shiftry's wind-based defenses. After that, a single, well-placed Leaf Blade ended it all.

"What do you think, Jeanne, Artoria?"

"Kir?"

"Maa?"

I explained to them the offer. "We can have a lighter jog in the morning then come here to battle."

'Wouldn't that mean it would take longer to scan the town for my mega stone?' Artoria asked. She didn't say it, but she was almost pouting.

'We can do a quick jog in the evening to stay on schedule.'

'Then I have no objections, my lord. Instructing the next generation is also a worthy cause.'

'Hehe, "next generation" already? My, how you've grown.'

'You know what I meant.'

"We'll take it," I told the teacher.

"Happy doing business with you…"

"Oh, sorry. It's Aaron, Mr. Thrush."

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow morning. 9 AM."

Author's Note

Fabled's random animal fact: Sheep, cows, pigs, and goats do not sweat. However, horses do, making them the odd ones out in this grouping of farm animals.