"Wait let me guess , you want me to deliver the goods I recovered from the thief and deliver something else as well?" I offered. "Damn good guesses! You nailed it on the head in a single stroke. The goods need to reach Captain Stern in Slateport while I also need to get a letter delivered to my son Steven in Dewford. I can pay pretty well for your help in advance if you'd like?" Mr. Stone said honestly. I thought about it and couldn't really think of anything off the top of my head that I needed at the moment.-

"Judging from your expression you can't think of anything you want but I can based on what I can see at this very moment." Mr. Stone said with a smirk. "What could I want that even I don't know about?" I asked curiously. "How about some top quality supplements for your Caterpie , that is why you have it holding an everstone correct?" Mr. stone asked with a wide smile. "That totally slipped my mind!" I said finally remembering that I had planned on doing that while I was in the city.-

"I assumed so considering what Birch told me when I called him about his recommendation for the star badge challenge. Suddenly learning that your challenge is much harder than anticipated would probably make most people at least a little forgetful. How did that go by the way?" Mr. stone asked curiously. I fished out my badge and showed it to him "So you won then , congratulations are in order it seems. I will go out on a hunch and assume Birch hasn't told you how to access the benefits of that badge right?" he asked and I nodded.-

"I'm not surprised since he can be quite careless sometimes despite his intellect. Well the method to access your benefits is as simple as registering your trainer i.d on the leagues elite site and then getting the card updated at the pokecenter. Hand me you pokenav and i.d and I'll show you what I mean." he said while holding out his hand. I took out my pokenav and i.d and handed them over curiously. Mr. Stone frowned a little when he saw the state the pokenav was in but didn't say anything as he expertly navigated the browser to get to the leagues homepage.-

He then showed me the elite tab that required verification to enter which he punched in from my i.d and after a few moments for the server to process it loaded up the page. "If you look here you can see other elites as well as their accounts. These is the leagues jobs available to someone at your level here and this spot lets you book entrance to the training grounds exclusively available to elites like you as well as the gym leaders offering training." Mr. Stone explained the various parts of the page to me before putting his number into my pokenav.-

"Feel free to call if you find any interesting stones or you have a business idea. As for the matter of transport that we discussed previously I have arranged for an old friend of mine by the name of Briney to sail you to Dewford and then Slateport afterwards." Mr. stone said and I was surprised to hear this. "What a coincidence , I actually saved a pokemon taken by the thief that took the goods earlier named Peeko that belonged to an old man by the name of Briney." I said and Mr. Stone laughed.-

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"My that really is quite the coincidence! In that case you are all set then and I can only wish you a pleasant and boring journey." he said before I left. It was getting late by this point and after receiving my supplements I started to head towards the training ground to sleep there for the night after I gave Gaia a bit of healing. It wasn't much but I imagine it would let her recover before the time that the Joy told me. It might seem like the joy clan member was being a bit harsh to me earlier but I understood that she was probably just busy with pokemon that needed urgent treatment.-

Doctors back on earth acted the same way when they were swamped with work and someone that didn't really need a doctor for anything beyond confirmation on something showed up. Gaia didn't need medicine or anything like that just time to recover so the Joy was a little short with me. Anyways Gaia woke up while I was healing her and and I told her of our victory while Vulcan gloated at being able to beat it's opponent without injury.-

This sparked a whole back and forth argument that I didn't feel like getting involved in since it was harmless. "Think you are ready to evolve Tank?" I asked the little dude on my shoulder while that was going on and he paused mid bite on his berry to think about it. "Pi! Pi! Cater!" he said after a moment which I roughly translated to "not there yet." which I assumed he was referring to his maximum nutrition storage with. "Alright , well let me know when you are ready so we can try and get you past the Metapod stage as soon as possible." I said and he nodded.-

I took out my new portable cooking station from my bag after that and was quite impressed with it. The cooking station included a rechargeable gas and electric outlet , a cooking utensil set , a full set of pots and pans and even a processing board for anything we hunted that doubled as a cutting board. All of this fit into a cube the size of an apple that sat in the bag nice and neatly. Like any man with a new toy I put the station through it's paces with a large dinner comprised of a huge pot of stew.-

After dinner with Vulcan and Rune I used the aura I recovered in that time to give Gaia a bit more healing before calling it a night. The next day I woke up nice and early as per my usual and healed Gaia some more before taking care of my daily workout. At the end of which I earned my five item tickets that I left for later. I hadn't forgotten about that ability ticket I got previously but wanted to wait until I was well away from anyone else before I used it.-

Recalling all of my pokemon into their balls I left the training area and made my way out of the city. I don't know why exactly but I was simply more at home out in the wilds than in the city and it showed as I could feel myself relaxing the further I got from the city. Once I was far enough away to not need to care about it i released my pokemon from their balls so we could travel together. We moved a bit slower than normal since Gaia was a bit sore around some of her vents and was floating a little less freely than normal.