Annnnnd the shitstorm arrives. Ethan thought as several red notifications popped up on Joyce’s monitor as she attempted to register Meloetta. They were all in the lobby, with it being the only place large enough to comfortably fit all of his pokemon at once. Joyce didn’t seem bothered by the blinking red notifications, but she sighed as she started typing again. Cynthia was by her side, silently giving advice. If Ethan had to guess, the Champion had some bypass codes or something? He didn’t know what the notifications were, so he was just guessing.
Not thirty seconds passed before Cynthia’s watch gave him a jumpscare. The dreadful piano music rang out from her wrist as she was being called. She had the gall to smile at his flat face as she answered. “Hello?” “Yes, I am aware.” “Because I am here.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Just get it done. If Unova wants to cause an incident, they’re more than happy to try.”
She promptly ended the call and then pretended that none of that conversation even happened.
Meloetta had already flown off to talk more with his pokemon. Meloetta, Chatot, Ralts, and Shuckle were inspecting the lobby, exploring around every nook and cranny for fun. Seeing as he wasn’t going to be much help with getting through the red-tape of the Pokemon League, he walked over to join them.
“Whatcha looking for?” He asked as they all inspected the Global Trade Link machine. The same one Ethan had been visiting every week to talk to other trainers to see if they’d be interested in hosting their pokemon at his ranch.
The interesting thing about the GTL, was that it wasn’t only for trading pokemon, although that was it’s main focus. Many people listed their pokemon for temporary placements or jobs as well. Many Miltank, Wooloo, Mareep, and other farm-like pokemon were listed for temporary placements and work. Some trainers needed to leave their homes for trips and the like and wanted to make sure their pokemon were well taken care of. It wasn’t common, but it was there nonetheless.
Ethan wouldn’t own the pokemon, but he’d be taking care of them for payment. He’d done it before without the machine, with Dunsparce, Gogoat, and Blitzle.
He’d also been focusing on any breeding pairs of pokemon, but this was much harder than it seemed. For one, Ethan felt strongly about not… forcing was the wrong word, but incentivising the pokemon to breed. His listings were always sorted for pokemon already in a relationship who wanted somewhere to raise children. As you might expect, that list wasn’t very long. The closest he’d come to making a deal was with a Pulse and Minum. Their trainer still needed to speak with their pokemon to see if this was something they wanted. Instead of payment in pokedollars, he’d asked for one in every three eggs or live births.
It was a big decision to make.
“Just exploring.” Ralts simply surmised, not in her acting mood. Maybe she felt self-conscious around the much stronger psychic, Meloetta?
“Did you decide on what moves you wanted to learn?” Ethan probed, kneeling down to their levels.
“Hmmm.” Ralts paused, raising her hand to rub her chin. Her bangs covered her eyes fully, giving her a vibe of seriousness. “Moonblast and whatever the strongest hitting psychic move in existence is.”
Ethan simply stared at her, but she didn’t stop rubbing her chin… for several awkward silence seconds. “I don’t think you can learn Genesis Supernova.” He stated blandly.
“Genesis Supernova?! That move was named for me!” Ralts dropped her hand, then shuffled up to his knee giving it a loving hug.
Sadly for her, Ethan had lived with young pokemon long enough to become immune to her wiles. “Not going to happen. It’s a Z-Move anyway. We don’t have Z-crystals here in Sinnoh… I think?”
Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t really ever looked into Z-moves. Once he realized he was in Sinnoh, he kinda deflated to writing it off as a lost cause. Maybe you could get Z-Moves out of Alola in the real world? He’d have to look into it.
Sensing his questioning tone, Ralts latched onto the topic. “What is a Z-Move?”
“How do I explain this…” Ethan started, noticing several of his other pokemon coming closer to listen. “Z-Moves are very special moves that can only be used once per battle. From what I remember, you need a very special bond between pokemon and trainer to even use one. They require a Z-Crystal and a… ring-braclet thing I forget the name of for the trainer.”
Looking around, Ethan noticed he was now surrounded by his curious pokemon. Seeing that this wasn’t going to be a simple discussion, he moved to a nearby seat and began his impromptu lecture. “There’s three types of Z-Moves. The type-based ones, which require a pokemon to know a move as the same type of the Z-Crystal. Status-based ones, which normally only powers up non-damaging moves… and pokemon Specific Z-Moves, which are very special and only work with a specific pokemon who knows a specific move.”
“Genesis Supernova, the move I told you about Ralts, is the exclusive Z-Move of the pokemon Mew. So, even if you had the crystal, you wouldn’t be able to use it.” Ethan explained.
“What’s my special move then?” She asked, nearly bouncing on her feet in excitement.
“I don’t know what your exclusive move is, or if you even have one.” Ethan softly broke the news to her. “Z-Moves are from Alola, an island nation. I’ve never been there, obviously.” He gave her a pat on the head, much to her disgruntlement. “You can use Shattered Psyche, though! It’s the type-based move for psychic pokemon.”
“♪ Do I have a move? Chat-toooooot? ♪” Chatot asked next.
“I know that Litten, once he eventually evolves into an Incineroar, can use Malicious Moonsault; Snorlax, can use Pulverizing Pancake; and Pichu, when he’s a Pikachu, can use Catastropika… and maybe another one called Ten-Million Volt Thunderbolt.” Ethan nodded, happy that he remembered the uncommon names. Sun and Moon was the last game in the series that he’d played. “But the most powerful Z-Move, in my opinion, is Eevee’s Extreme Evoboost!”
Ethan wasn’t very good at online battles in the games, but he did win some! Extreme Evoboost Eevee into Baton Pass was a very simple, hard to beat strategy. It carried him through many matches.
“We’ll have to ask Cynthia to wait for some free time to do some research on the crystals, to even see if we can have any. Even if we can, I probably can’t afford a single one. Don’t get your hopes up.” Ethan didn’t want to hype his pokemon too much, trying to break the bad news. Thankfully they seemed to understand.
“Well that’s not fair! I want an exclusive move! Why does Pikachu get two?!” Ralts complained, sulking as she crossed her arms.
“Be thankful you can Mega Evolve. Not every pokemon can do that either. Life is not fair.” Ethan waved off her complaint, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he made a mistake.
“Oh…?” Gone was the sulking psychic fairy. In her place, a sweet and adorable knee hugging, begging, gremlin came into being. “What is Mega Evolving?” She looked up at him, bangs falling to the side to flash him a sweet, soft, and inquisitive look.
“Something you will never do because I can’t afford it.” Ethan matched her sweet look with one of his own, instantly causing Ralts to grimace and kick his shin.
Ralts turned and hopped onto Skiddo’s back, kicked her heels, and pointed off towards Cynthia and Joyce. “Ralts!!!” She cried aloud.
Skiddo, completely unbothered at the sudden mounting, slowly sauntered forward. If Ralts cared that Skiddo wasn’t running as a gallant steed, she didn’t show it. Ethan and his pokemon just watched on as they slowly traveled across the room. Meloetta looked between Ralts and Ethan, before raising an eyebrow.
He simply shrugged. There was nothing he could really say about Ralts. She was who she was. Meloetta would learn in time.
Ethan relaxed back into his seat as Litten hopped into his lap to kneed hit little mitts into his legs. Pachirisu clambered up the chair and then slid onto his left shoulder, wrapping his fluffy tail around Ethan’s neck like usual, which tickled Chatot on his right, to her annoyance. Tinkatuff hopped up onto the chair next to him, plopping her hammer down beside her like she was his bodyguard. He passed around some of his pocket-berries to his friends as he watched a conversation happen between Ralts and Cynthia.
Cynthia looked amused, eyes flickering over towards where he sat to see his reaction. Ralts’ eyes glowed as she sat atop Skiddo, who plopped herself down to rest on her tummy.
“♪ Dreams last so long… Even after you’re gone. ♪” Chatot’s mimicry voice of Jewel suddenly started singing. He flashed her a look, but she just happily sang aloud to fill the silence. No instruments, all ah cappella. “♪ I know that you love me and sooooon you will see. ♪” “♫ You were meant for me… and I was meant for you. ♫” Meloetta finished off the chorus to the song. Swaying to the music that wasn’t there.
Ethan suspected that Chatot and Meloetta had listened to his songs without him noticing. That moment on the roof was suspicious in hindsight. Chatot wasn’t normally the type of bird to steal his phone without his permission, afterall. He simply sat and listened as they sang songs, relaxing in the pokemon center lobby.
His relaxation ended when Cynthia and Joyce started walking towards him. He sat up a bit, waiting to hear the news.
Cynthia spoke first. “Registrations done. Looker will be coming by soon to verify that Meloetta is here on her own volition and wants to be your pokemon. Besides that, someone from Unova might ask to talk to you. You technically have one of their region's mythical pokemon, so it’s hard for me, even as Champion, to stonewall them at least that much. There shouldn’t be any problems in the official capacity past that.”
Ethan nodded as Joyce started where Cynthia left off. “Unoffically, lots of people are going to eventually hear about Meloetta being a shiny. It won’t be for awhile, as most who see her will just assume that she’s a normal one, but it will come out eventually. Your Oddish will handle most untrustworthy trainers trying to sneak onto the ranch, but the non-troublemakers will come to investigate and hope to catch a look.”
She pinned him with a serious glare. “This is either a great thing or a bad thing. Many people will come by just for a glimpse of a mythical pokemon, regardless of if they’re shiny or not. This could mean business, or trouble. Team Rocket could cause issues…”
While the threat of Team Rocket was indeed a thing he needed to worry about, his plan with his note and the warnings to Giovanni about his knowledge of Silver should hold out. He vaguely recalled Giovanni had captured a Meloetta in a movie or something, but that wouldn’t have been for a long while yet according to the timeline of things.
His more pressing concern would be Hunter J. Hunter J would one-hundred percent cause trouble if he became well known. Hopefully she didn’t have flying ships and other wacky things from the anime, but if she did he was in trouble regardless. Hunter J was one of the most vile villains in pokemon, and if she came for him or his pokemon, he should shoot before asking any questions. He knew what she looked like, knew what she could do… There wouldn’t be any hesitation.
It was borderline pre-meditated murder, because the moment he saw her, he already knew what he was going to do.
Pachirisu chittered softly, his fluffy tail squeezing his neck in comfort. Chatot pecked his temple, which hurt. He blinked and looked around, having lost himself in his thoughts. All of his pokemon looked at him with both a mix of concern and acceptance. They must have felt his anger.
“What’s done is done,” He said to Joyce and Cynthia. “We can’t change the past. I’ll deal with any trouble that comes from this the best I can.”
“Excellent.” Cynthia spoke as she tucked a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. “Now, how are you feeling about a trip to Celestic Town? There’s some ruins I’d like you to see, and potential mega stones on offer.”