Agatha led me to a black car that already had a driver in the front seat, so she ushered me into the back and then we were off. It was comfy, but wasn’t an Arcanine.
"Melaney is going to meet us at the association. Hah! You should have seen her face when the Association came sniffing for information about your Pokemon. She was rightfully furious."
"Oh Gram Gram is going to be there... That’s a relief."
"Oh not good enough for ya am I?" The old woman chuckles but I shake my head.
"No way you’re super reliable, but Gram Gram is family."
"Hah you think highly of this old woman. Reliable she says!" Agatha spoke but I finally caught it, she wasn’t just repeating my words.
"Oh, were you just talking to your Gengar?" I ask, realizing that her tendency to repeat amusing words wasn’t for herself, but a joke between her and her companion.
Of course my words caused a spark as the woman stared at me. "How did you know I had a Gengar?"
"Your shadow." I answered looking down into the shadow at her feet, which was currently staring at me. I waved hello which had a little purple arm slip out of the darkness to wave back.
Realizing I had a Pokemon in front of me I did what my instincts always demanded. I reached into my pocket and pulled out some berries. "Hungry?"
"Geng!" The ghost rose up quickly snatching the berries before munching on them happily.
"Bah don’t give him snacks. He overeats enough as it is. Lazy ghost."
"Geng, Gengar!"
"Aww I’m sure he is just starving. Want some more berries?"
"Geng!"
The old woman gave me one of those looks. Which I grinned even as I put my hands back in my pockets. Gengar and I both knew the moment Agatha looked away he would have a treat.
Agatha knew it too.
"Trouble."
"Yeah Papa calls me that too."
"Figures."
—--
Driving through Kanto was a different experience than riding. It was slower, but also faster, because Kanto does have some freeways which are kept Pokemon free so traveling to Viridian and then up the road to Indigo Plateau. I guess Agatha was serious. The Pokemon Association themselves wanted to talk. This wasn’t just where the Elite Four hung out, or the Indigo League took place, but the HQ of the Association.
We drove up mountain roads that were marked no walking. Trainers had to go up the walking path after all. But they still needed a way for people who work up here to get here without relying on them all being strong battlers.
We pulled into the Plateau town, it was mostly quiet. The League matches were over, had been for about a month since before the yearly Journey begins. So it was a quiet period, but the buildings we passed were numerous, just empty for now. Waiting for League season where thousands of people would come through wanting to see the matches live.
We pulled into a parking lot outside a fancy marble style building with a big Pokemon League symbol on the front showing this was the League HQ.
"C’mon girl. Remember don’t say anything. Melaney and I will be speaking for you." Agatha orders stepping out Gengar sneaking a last berry out of my hand as she turned her back. I clambered out and followed her towards the building.
Inside a large reception area was ignored by Agatha she turned and headed down the hall which I dutifully followed. A few men in suits were obviously security but they made no move to stop Agatha or me.
She led me deep into the building taking an elevator up to another floor and then into a small room that already had Gram Gram sitting on a couch.
"Gram Gram!" I called out happily, earning a smile from the older woman as I rushed in, settled into the couch and accepted a warm hug.
"How is my favorite Grandchild doing?"
"Better than my cousins if I am the favorite." I say instantly, earning a round of laughs from Gram Gram and Agatha.
"Thank you Agatha." Gram Gram says then turning to her friend.
"Bah, It was me, or some of the goons, and knowing the girls’ Pokemon she likely would have knocked them all out and continued her journey without a care." Agatha offered and I couldn’t help but shrug at that.
If a bunch of men in suits came up to me and told me to go with them, that is likely what would have happened to be fair.
"Alright. Now that you are here Victoria. Let’s get this over with." Gram Gram utters as she rises tugging me along with her.
"I doubt the officials will be ready for you so quickly, Melaney."
"Do I look as if I care? They drag me all the way out here, and pull my beloved Granddaughter from her Journey? They are lucky I left Persian at home otherwise I would have him give them all a scratch!"
"Heh." Agatha chuckles dryly before shrugging. "Alright, let’s go push some stupid fools to get on with it and stop wasting our time." Agatha grinned Gengar shimmering in her shadow smiling evilly for a moment.
I just gave him a wave as I followed.
The two women marched down the hall, back into the elevator, and then to a floor that had another reception.
It reminded me of a CEO meeting room, there was even a pretty woman sitting at the reception filing her nails.
Hilarious.
"Apologies, the members of the Association are in a meeting right now- Ma’am! You can not e-" The poor Receptionist tried to stop Agatha, but was literally walked right past as if she didn’t exist.
Ouch, Agatha.
She pushed the door of the room open without a care and we all walked into a meeting room split in two.
One side was obviously the Kanto side of the Association, the other Johto. It reminded me of the British house, with the two sides arguing with each other and everything.
But the room went silent when Agatha marched us in.
"Agatha. What is the meaning of this? We haven’t called for you yet." An older man with a large mustache spoke up first from the Kanto section, but another from across the way rose immediately.
"Is this how the Kanto delegation wishes to handle this? Interrupt our demands when we are proving our point?"
"Shut up." Agatha orders and the room goes silent, mostly because Gengar was causing Agathas shadow to distort and shift, his big grin showing behind her. "You wanted Victoria Ferrous and her Dragonair here for an inspection. Here she is. Inspect. A trainer on her first Journey has more priority over whatever dick waving you are all getting up to in here." Agatha demands and waves me forward which I do without any issue.
Listen if I was actually ten I might be intimidated by all the powerful people. But adult brain was like pfft. That man is super fat. And hahaha that guys mustache makes him look like a biker in a suit.
You know mature stuff.
"Fine." A third man, one that sat between the two groups said, interrupting the grumbles from both sides. "This board’s purpose is to ensure young trainers are safe to grow on their Journey. Let’s not waste the child’s time anymore than we must. Is there a representative from Clan Blackthorne here today?"
"There is." And who else entered the room from the Johto section than Lance Wataru. The Champion of the Indigo league. Also a Dragon Master.
"Very well. The inspection will commence to determine if the Dragon captured by this trainer is a member of the Blackthorne clans brood."
"Super compatible." I answer with a tired look as I pat the egg. Earning a laugh from Papa.
"But an entire island of Dragonite."
"Dragonite Island." I answered, earning looks from all three adults.
"Yes. Well what are we going to do?"
"Nothing." I answer, cutting off the adults. "They don’t want to be bothered. They help everyone who runs into trouble around the island, but they are happy in peace. So I won’t ever tell anyone where it is. Or how to get to it." I answer causing a bit of a silent conversation with the adults.
"Vicky..."
"No." I shake my head. "They are happy there, and frankly I don’t want to know what will happen if someone goes and starts trying to capture them. There were a lot of Dragonite on that island. A brood of Dragonites all coming to rescue their children? Yeah that is a disaster none of us want."
"Besides. Milotic and Dragonair will probably supply us with lots of little Dratini. I doubt they are happy with just one... If you catch my drift."
Papa snorted at my joke but Mama gave me a look.
"Alright." Papa said standing up and patting me on the head. "I’m proud of you Vicky. If you think keeping the Island a secret then of course we will support you. I never thought we would have so much money just from the Milotic. We leave it at that." He said and despite Gram Gram usually bossing him around she nodded at his decision.
"Right! So I need to go check on the flock and say hello. And where is Arcany? I don’t see him."
"We have a dog house by the stream for him now... He broke our couch." Mama said looking grumpy, and glaring at Papa who did his best not to look at her as he smiled and patted my head. "C’mon I’m sure he will be happy to see you."
"Yeah!" I laughed out. I rushed outside ahead of Papa to see my Pokemon. The Flock started up a musical trill as I approached Milotic head poking out of the river at the noise to greet me until all ten of the Flock were there begging for attention.
"Hey guys!" I couldn’t help but call out as I approached reaching out to rub heads and fins. "Look at this! Milotic found a girlfriend, and now he is a father!" I tell them showing off the egg which had many happy trills from the group as they all looked it over like happy siblings.
"Bark!"
"Arcany!" I called out looking behind me as the utterly massive Arcanine charged over only stopping at the last moment from bowling me over when he noticed the Egg. Instead I got slobbered all over as he licked and licked and licked.
"Pffft! Arcany! I give!" I cried out but he had no mercy in his heart, only lick. "Ack! Was your father a Lickitung!?" I demanded through the shower which only seemed to irritate him and then the licking picked up, his tongue was nearly as wide as my entire face so it was an unbeatable assault.
"Miii!" The Milotic laughed at my defeat as they all gave little fish chuckles.
"Yeah yeah! Laugh it up!" I grumble at them as I wipe slobber off my face and with an evil grin I flick it at the Milotic, earning little eeps from them as they quickly ducked into the river to avoid the slobber.
A rumble from my belt told me that Arcanine wanted out, so I quickly released her. Seeing her standing next to Arcany was always a trip. It really showed the difference between the much older Arcany and Arcanine.
Arcany was still a good bit taller and wider.
But as usual Arcanine wanted to train, and cared little about how he was bigger. So with a crouched leap she jumped onto Arcany, which I hastily moved away from as the two Pokemon started play fighting. With fireballs and attacks.
It was nice to be home. I released Milotic and Dragonair as well, much to her surprise when she saw all the other Milotic. Although she could easily tell which one was ’hers’ somehow. Maybe he was just stronger looking?
Anyway it was a nice evening hanging out with my friends talking with Papa and Mama and just enjoying being home for a night.
Unfortunately in the morning I saddled up Arcanine and left. I wasn’t giving up on my Journey, so I wasn’t going to stay at home. No, I needed to take my pokemon up in the mountains for some training.
I had rather stupidly challenged the Champion after all. I might not reach him, but I was going to prove to everyone that my challenge had teeth.
—-
With Arcanine it didn’t take us long to return to the camp we had set up in the mountains above Vermillion city. I could have gone into town and started on taking out Surge, but I had learned my Pokemon had an issue against Brock, and hadn’t really taken the time to solve it.
So I settled in, really making camp this time. Using my Pokemons help to make it much more comfortable, we were probably staying here for a while.
Once everything was settled and food started cooking my Pokemon got to work. Arcanine and Milotic faced off in the Gravity field, both of them were working on enhancing their special attack. Blasting Flamethrower into Water Pulse to keep enhancing their core strength. Chansey there to keep the gravity field active and to heal the inevitable mess ups.
But me and Dragonair once the Egg was settled in the tent, nice and warm and safe away from the training, went to work.
While Dragonair exercised. I taught her Iron Tail. And started her on learning how to Thunder Rod.
The rocks tied to her tail made the motion to work Iron Tail even sharper thanks to the Gravity. Over and over Dragonair hammered her tail thinking thoughts of steel.
—-
Every few days I would wake up and take Arcanine into Vermillion in order to buy more food, and supplies. I would usually stop at the Pokemon center to do some laundry and take a non-Milotic water shower as well. Although between Milotic and Arcanine hot water wasn’t hard to come by.
I of course called home as well to let everyone know I was alive. But for a good month that was my life. You would think ’how boring’ if I broke it down like that, but it really wasn’t. I was training giant monsters to become more powerful.
It was fucking awesome.
And all of us kept busy when we were on down time. Dragonair and Milotic obviously had their own thing. Arcanine was more than happy with just training all day every day. This was probably the greatest time of her entire life. Chansey of course spent all of her time taking care of the egg, and I had never seen her happier.
Meanwhile I was coming up with moves, and other ideas to enhance my Pokemon’s power. One of them came to me when I realized Dragonair was starting to catch up to the immense physical strength of the others. As she grew physically stronger, it made me want to give her a special attack worthy of her, and well.
I did remember how to train a Pokemon for one. So one morning while Milotic and Arcanine continued their competition to see whose special attacks were stronger. I brought Dragonair a good way away.
"This move is going to take patience. It will drain you when you use it. So we will learn it slowly. First, your dragon energy. You need to raise it to the absolute maximum you can, until it fills every inch of your body. Then bring it all right to your chest. Condense it down. Then release it. It’s called Draco Meteor. There isn’t a stronger Dragon Type move that exists." I promised her, and that idea got her fired up.
The attempts wore out her special attack making her dragon powers weaker for a time. But that just gave us an excuse to refocus on the physical. The fact was after a month it was starting to activate. Draco Meteor shattering huge chunks of the mountain side when it activated only made her train herself harder to reach that power.
And thankfully trust me more.
In fact, since Dragonair was with me so much out of her Pokeball and just living with me and the team, we started actually bonding over our experiences. Arcanine being annoying and waking up the team at the crack of dawn?
Dragonair and I would roll our eyes at each other. Milotic found napping, when he was supposed to be practicing? Dragonair and I would drag him back to training.
It was nice.
"Okay Dragonair! One more time! Fill your whole body with energy, raise it up and up and up until you can’t possibly raise it anymore! And then condense it all into a ball in your chest, and fire!"
"Preeee!" Dragonair cried out as the power flowed through her, I could practically feel it gathering and then she rose her head into the sky and cried out as a ball of energy was launched skyward.
For a moment I wasn’t sure if it worked but then finally it rose up and came down not as a single projectile but as a barrage of energy.
Huh it really did kinda look like meteors.
When they landed the explosion was immense, rocking the whole mountain and probably sending up smoke and dust that could be seen for miles.
And then it was over. Dragonair sighed, feeling tired as she looked over her work and I nodded.
"That. That was Draco Meteor."
"Drag, Dragonair!"
"Yep. I think... I think we should move on. We have been making enough noise on these mountains for a while. I don’t want someone to come snooping. Great job Dragonair."
"Pree!"