3 hours after the challenge Grant and horsea limped into the village outside Viridian Forest. Horsea needed to see a nurse at the pokemon center as soon as possible, and in truth so did Grant. Several of the cuts Grant had gotten in his fight against the tangela weren’t looking so good, and Grant worried they might be infected. Despite this, Grant paused 100 feet away from the village.
“We’ll be going inside for a couple days, but then we’ll come back out here to train, before entering the forest in a week.” Grant talked overly loudly, letting his voice carry. Horsea gave Grant an odd look, not really sure why Grant was acting so weird. After delivering the message though, Grant and horsea headed into the village.
Tangela had never stopped following the trainer and his horsea even though she knew the human knew she was there. If her interfering after the challenge wasn’t enough, the grass had gotten a lot patchier as they approached the village. Tangela was confident the trainer had spotted her more than once. Still, he did not act, and even stopped to inform her of his plans.
Tangela was conflicted and had been for the last several hours. She wasn’t sure what prompted her to stop the boy from punching the human, but she didn’t regret that decision. In truth if she had any regrets, it was attacking the human in the first place. She hadn’t wanted to, but it had been a while since she had eaten her fill. Picking off a stray rattata here and there helped ease her hunger, but it had been days since her last good meal. The horsea had looked weak, the trainer hadn’t been paying attention, and in a moment of weakness tangela went for it. She felt bad, but more than that she was starting to feel drawn to the human. Part of her wanted to be walking into the village with him, but another part balked at leaving her home behind. She had lived in the grass lands for her whole life, and the prospect of leaving both terrified and excited her. She could sort through her tangled emotions later, for now the human was in the village, and tangela was free to hunt.
Grant exited the pokemon center alone. Horsea had been more injured than Grant had suspected and would need to stay overnight in the center. Grant’s cuts had been treated and should heal up completely in a couple days. The problem was Grant really didn’t have much to do in the small village. The pokemon center took up most of the ground inside the walls, small as they were. There were some stores, houses, and new trainers walking around like Grant. If horsea was with him, Grant might try to get into a couple challenges, but without horsea he was a little lost.
Grant ended up at a pokemon food store, which was a problem Grant was hoping to resolve as quickly as possible. Horsea hated the food Grant had been giving him, and really Grant couldn’t blame him. The inside of the store smelled like dirt and herbs thick earthy aromas.
“Hello young man.” An elderly woman said from behind a large wooden table. She was in the process of mixing together several herbs.
“Give me just a moment I am almost finished here, feel free to look around.” Grant started to look through the different shelves. When Grant bought horsea’s current food it had been at the Pallet Town pokemart. This village was too small to have a pokemart, but Grant after looking through a few shelves thought that might not be such a bad thing. None of the food was prepackaged or generic brand name. The shelves just contained vitamins, berries, and different herbs. Grant was inspecting a jar of oran slices priced at 30 pokedollars and wondering if he should buy it when the elderly woman stepped up next to him.
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“Alright then, what can I do for you?” She asked and looked at the jar Grant was holding.
“Don’t bother with those. Walk twenty feet inside the forest and you’ll be stepping on oran berries every other second. The forest is covered in the damn things.” She said. Grant shrugged and set the jar back down.
“I was hoping to get some food for my horsea. He doesn’t like what I have been giving him so far.” Grant said. The woman held out her hand.
“Let me see what you are feeding him now.” Grant nodded and dug out the bag of food from his pack. Immediately upon seeing the bag her nose wrinkled in distaste.
“You were smart to come in here. If your horsea ate too much of this food for too long, it would impact his development. I hate this kind of brand name garbage the pokemart tries to sell young trainers who don’t know any better.” Grant took a step back as a stream of curses aimed at the pokemart followed. Still, cursing up a storm, the woman, whose name Grant hadn’t caught, started throwing herbs and berries into a large mixing bowl. Once she was happy with the contents, she poured in some water, took a big spoon, and started stirring. Grant finally interrupted her grumbling about companies taking advantage of kids.
“What are you doing?” Grant asked. She rolled her eyes.
“I’m making your horsea’s food. I’ll give you the recipe before you leave so you can have it made wherever you go or make it yourself. This batch will cost you 120 pokedollars though. If you came with the recipe, it would cost 80.” Grant nearly choked at the price. 120 pokedollars for what Grant estimated couldn’t be more than a couple weeks of food seemed outrageous. However, if the woman was right and feeding horsea the cheap stuff long term could hamper his growth then perhaps it was worth it. Grant had always known training was expensive, but he had never realized he would need to drop hundreds of pokedollars on food. Plus, Grant only had horsea who was small and didn’t eat a lot, what if Grant caught something like an onix could he even afford to feed something that massive? Probably not.
After stirring the mixture, the woman poured the mix into some kind of machine. She powered it on, and the machine slowly started spitting out blue and green food pellets.
“Now, that should get your horsea through the next two weeks. Your 120 pokedollars also includes a vitamin selection. Did anything catch your eye?” She asked. Grant shrugged he had seen a couple interesting vitamins, but he wasn’t sure if he was the best person to make this choice.
“What would you recommend? Horsea is a mobile ranged attacker. We have been working mostly on speed and upping the range and power of his water gun.” I explained. What I left unsaid was that I hoped to really lean into this style for horsea. I wanted to turn horsea into a true sniper, but that was a long time from now.
“Probably best to go with a rust supplement then. It has water and iron elements giving your horsea more strength with his water control, and a little more durability. Mind you, these changes won’t become apparent unless you stick with it for several months, and there will be very little, short-term benefit.” Grant shrugged, he hadn’t seen that vitamin, but it sounded pretty good.
“Would it be possible to pay a little extra and get a bigger bottle if this is something I need to stick to for a while?” Grant asked. She nodded and bagged up the food that had finished spewing from the machine.
“Sure, give me 140 and I’ll give you a bottle for a month instead of two weeks like you would get otherwise.” With a thought to his now greatly diminished bank account Grant agreed to the exchange.