Joey ended his trip to Constance with a fully unconscious team and no Misdreavus to show for it. Not because she wouldn't join him on his journey eventually, but because he'd sat down and talked with Golduck instead of running away.

While talk was perhaps a bit of a misnomer, there had been a lot more shouting and wildly gesticulating involved, the conclusions they had come to had nevertheless been logical.

Currently, Joey did not have a team slot for Misdreavus. Considering that he wouldn't be challenging King in Cerulean, the upcoming winter break of the season and the time he would then later require to get to Pallet and then Pewter where he planned on starting his journey, meant that he wouldn't be able to catch her for another five months to half a year.

Restrictions imposed on trainers would have no meaning if they could simply get around them by carrying or bringing Pokemon with them that hadn't officially been caught in a Pokeball. That was an act strictly punishable by the law.

Pokemon were potentially dangerous weapons and even clumsiness could result in human death. This caused the league to enforce a high amount of personal accountability for knowing which trainer had which Pokemon.

In other words, it would be very unfortunate for Joey if he was caught with a fourth Pokemon despite not having the allowance to have one. The result could be anything from a monetary fine, to a temporary licence suspension.

Considering that fines in the Pokemon world were adjustable to one's income as well, he didn't particularly feel like doing anything illegal at the moment and potentially losing hundreds of thousands of Pokedollars.

He would once again consider criminal activities once Lance had finished his run and Joey had reinvested his money into things that did not count in the wealth tax calculation (Like one's first real estate property).

The other reason why it was better for Misdreavus to stay in Constance at the moment was because she was very attached to Golduck and Golduck was very attached to her. The water Pokemon had been the companion of the priest whose grief over the fallen village had spawned Misdreavus.

Then, in a reversal after her death, Misdreavus had become the child figure of Golduck and he, her father figure.

It was a complex web of relationships and suffice it to say Joey did not currently feel entitled to taking the ghost away from her home. In a way, it was odd as the whole conversation had made him feel like a divorced parent fighting over custody, but such was life sometimes.

"I'm not even 13 yet," Joey complained to himself as his feet ate away at the grass of the forest. As always there were no Pokemon around to challenge him. Just a silent boring walk. Made even worse by his team being knocked out.

It had been a weird day, if Joey had thought winning such a financially monumental bet and beating Surge with only two Pokemon was weird, then he had been completely unprepared for meeting an actual current member of the Elite Four on one of his strolls in the forest and then having his ass kicked by the man in a battle.

Of course, the weird part wasn't that he lost the battle, that was always going to be the case, but what was weird was that Bruno had even challenged in the first place. Did he really remind the man of Agatha enough for him to gain an interest?

That was likely a question that he couldn't answer until he met the old crone. Although, considering some of the things he'd heard about her, he didn't quite know if he wanted to. Of course, if he ever got the opportunity it would be very stupid of him to not engage considering that he was going to officially be a ghost-type trainer in a few months, he sighed.

Pragmatically, he guessed he would just have to do it.

Bruno had given him a good tip for Rock Smash.

If Agatha had any good tips for him, then he'd gladly take them and use them to beat her ass one day when he came for the heads of the Kanto elite four and their champion.

He was just exiting the forest when his Pokenav suddenly rang. Fishing it out of his pocket he looked at the caller ID and saw that it was the number associated with Koga. The gym leader of Fuchsia. The man hadn't allowed him to save him by name and had just told him to remember the number combination.

Joey wondered what the gym leader wanted. It had been a while since they'd last met to discuss Metapod's training. Back then he'd taught his girl how to use poison-type energy and ever since then she'd been diligently carving away at the Everstone in her stomach.

Joey pressed the accept call button and held the Pokenav to his left ear.

He casually waved with his right at the construction crew still hard at work making the underground tunnel and spoke a greeting into the device. "Future Champion Joey on the line, who's calling?" he asked.

"It's me," Koga's rough voice resounded, mysteriously. "Checking up for an update on the situation. Was originally intending to call in a week, but I saw your match against Surge. Impressive."

"Thank you for the praise," Joey said. "In a way, I couldn't have done it without the training you gave Metapod. It was the poisoning that was integral to winning the battle," he said as a warm feeling swelled in his chest. Getting compliments was always nice. "As you can probably deduce Metapod's ability to produce poison qualitatively and quantitatively has increased since you last saw her. However, it has slowed down in the last weeks as the initial gains were seemingly the largest," he continued factually. "She's been sticking to the regime of stomach poison production for stone degradation, but I obviously can't tell how well it's been working. She is quite understandably in a bad mood a lot of the time due to the fact that producing poison in one's stomach when one isn't the poison-type oneself can be a bit strenuous, but she's been taking it like a real champ."

Silence on the other line for a few seconds. "That's good to hear, day by day training is what will get her to her evolution, not any singular amazing magical effort. Tell her to keep going. I'm calling you mainly to tell you that it's about time to get another scan made of her stomach and the size of the stone. I contacted Dr Heys on this matter and he should have reached out to you by email to decide on a time that would work for both of you."

Joey absent-mindedly clicked out of the call and saw that indeed an email had entered his mailbox around an hour ago. He didn't have a sound associated with the delivery considering that anyone who needed some urgently could just call him like Koga was doing right now.

"Dr Heys is an expert in bug-type Pokemon and his lab has all the required material to make the scan and to suggest nutritional steps that can aid metapod in poison production and other such things. Regardless, the reason why I set myself a timer to call around today was the fact that at the beginning of being forwarded your case, I had my Muk use Toxic to attempt degrading an Everstone to see how long it would take. Considering that Muk is quite prodigious in his use of the move, it only took about a week. But that was relatively constant exposure since I just had him drop Toxic into a bowl with the stone where it then rested. I only thought to perhaps tell you this now because I noticed that you were using the poison to weave it into the String Shot which technically might be delaying the process of degradation. If the poison were to stay within the stomach for longer it might speed things up," Koga said.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The youngster nodded as he walked into the gate separating Saffron from the route to its east. It made sense that the Koga had tried the process he was supposed to consult on and that Muk had been able to degrade the thing faster, the only issue was that Metapod couldn't keep the poison in her stomach for any extended period of time before she was forced to cough it up or use Poison String Shot. He couldn't imagine it was overly pleasant.

"Regardless, Metapod will certainly need longer, but it's feasible. Allors, courage. I just wanted to tell you this, reach out to Dr Heys and settle on a time. He will tell me the results, you don't have to reach out to me after."

"All right, that sounds like a good plan. I have been feeling a bit bored lately, not a lot of stuff going on," Joey joked.

Koga chuckled over the line, a random bout of static making It sound more ominous than it had likely been intended.

"Such is the life of a trainer. Once you have six team members or more, you will feel like you'll never have another free moment in your life at first. Good luck in Cerulean," he said and was just about to say goodbye and hang up when Joey interrupted him.

"I'm not going to do Cerulean," Joey said, causing a surprised silence to resound from the other side of the Pokenav.

"Why not? You did great against Surge," Koga asked rather coldly. The man didn't seem like he would have a lot of patience for dawdling.

Nevertheless, Joey was sure that his thinking was relatively logical on this.

"It's a matter of priorities I guess. There's a youngster tournament coming up as you might perhaps know which means that I can either prepare badly for two separate events or prepare well for either. Considering that Metapod and Rattata will find it quite difficult to battle on the floating devices that King offers his challengers and my third Pokemon is a Diglett... Anyway, I decided to focus on the youngster tournament," Joey quickly explained.

The line remained silent for a few seconds before Koga spoke again. "I understand your reasoning. But I would like to remind you that people and trainers in particular grow most when they are forced to go beyond what they think is possible. You'll find yourself in many situations in the future where you will have to prepare for separate events. This could be good practice before things start becoming more hectic for you."

Joey naturally respected the advice and opinions of his more experienced contemporaries. He had listened to Bruno and planned on implementing what the man had suggested. He had listened to Michelle all the way back at the start of his youngster tenure. He had even listened to Hitoshi when the boy had said something that actually made sense and hadn't been just a random angry screeching monkey.

But this piece of advice? He didn't know. Did he feel like going to Cerulean only to lose? Perhaps it would be useful to get a layout of the gym for his next attempt, but it mostly just sounded like an effort in frustration. He didn't mind losing battles, but he felt a bit stupid travelling to another city to do so.

"I respect your opinion a lot, Koga," Joey said into his phone. "And I will consider your words carefully. You have given me something to ponder." He was being diplomatic, which the man picked up on. But he was also being incredibly polite and respectful.

"I have to go, I have a challenger waiting for me. Just don't put all your eggs in one basket, I also have a youngster I sponsored participating in the tournament, and he's not going to make it easy for you. The following will be my last words. Just because you're afraid to drown doesn't mean you shouldn't try to learn how to swim," Koga said and hung up.

Joey was left to his contemplations as he made his way to the Pokecentre where he dropped off his entire team for what felt like the first time in a very long time. He regularly had them checked out, even when they hadn't suffered any large injuries recently. Usually after long training days. To have all of them beaten so soundly had not happened in a very long time.

He left his team there under the observation of Nurse Joy and her ever-cheerful assistant Chansey and went towards the orphanage with a contemplative look on his face.

It was just around the rush hour when everyone was leaving work, but somehow he managed to create an island of solitude around himself as he traversed the grey streets. Everyone gave him a wide berth. He had won three badges now. If one counted only trainers attempting badges, and not those who went on to participate in conferences and those who went on to participate in the ace ranking challenges, he had now reached the top 50% of trainers. This was how little it took.

Not because trainers were incompetent necessarily, but because the league encouraged everyone who listened to go on a journey. They wanted people to be more aware and more interconnected with the magical creatures they shared the planet with, and also more capable of defending humanity if it ever came to that. That meant that most trainers went out on journeys because of cultural significance, not because of any interest in winning the conference or whatnot. Even if they perhaps dreamt about it.

But, dreaming about something but then not pursuing it with any meaningful work was the same as being delusional. Reaching the top 50% of trainers, simply meant that Joey had become an actual contender instead of just another dumb kid with a Rattata.

Every step from now onwards would become more difficult. Most trainers didn't make it past the fourth badge. That was when gym leaders stopped holding back tactically for the most part, even if they were still using weaker Pokemon. While most powered through by taking several years to finish the entire gym challenge, without developing tactically, Joey didn't have that option.

He was on a timeline, not out of any real necessity, but simply because of pride.

Lance was set on becoming a champion at age 18 depending on the schedule. Cynthia had won her conference as a generalist at age 17, and many others had accomplished similar feats and were now occupying positions in the Elite Four of their respective regions.

Joey knew from the depth of his heart that while he certainly wasn't better than any of these people, he was way more prepared than any of them had ever been.

It would be a shame if the advantage he had over his peers didn't result in him becoming at least a contender for the greatest of all-time debate.

The small fire that had been growing inside of him with every victory sputtered and roared as his thinking followed the logical reasoning of life.

Nobody won anything without trying, which was already the biggest hurdle where most people failed. The competition afterwards was the real challenge. Joey loved the challenge.

The orphanage came into view, streamers of brightly coloured ribbons hanging out of windows to decorate the usually drab-looking building made to accommodate as many children as possible rather than be aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

The sound of excited children resounded out of the windows and out of the backyard.

Joey stopped outside of the fence looking in as his fellow orphans ran around and played with some new toys that had recently come in. This morning, in fact.

A large cake was occupying the large wooden garden table in the middle of the backyard, where a Bellsprout covered in white frosting was trying to stealthily steal a few more crumbs.

Joey did not doubt that by tomorrow most of the children would be utterly sick of cake. Literally, probably.

"Joey, why are you waiting outside? Come in here and have some cake!" Theresa shouted at him when she noticed him looking from the outside as he usually was. She smiled at him beatifically, her red hair framing her face as if it were that of an angel. She started walking towards him. "We recently got a very generous donation and the donor specified that some of the money should be used for new toys and a small party."

"That's a very smart move," Joey replied with closed eyes. "It might seem stupid to those who have too much, but every moment of joy and abundance must be cherished by those with nothing," he said, gaining a queer look from his caretaker who came over to ruffle his hair over the white picket fence.

"My little philosopher," she crooned and bent over the fence to put her hands under his armpits. "Come over here my little special boy," she said with a laugh and quite easily lifted him despite his struggle and protest.

"I am a grown-ass man, officially a trainer, let me down woman, I will not be patronised," Joey obligatorily complained while Theresa lifted him over the fence and squashed him against her body in an impromptu hug.

She was laughing onto his baseball cap, obviously high on the joy of something nice happening for once, instead of just more shit raining from above.

It was hard not to get excited about a letter from a friend when one's letterbox was usually only occupied by demands for money from various government institutions and subscription services.

"Eat some cake, Joey. You know damn well that we all watched your battle against Surge. You deserve to relax too. And to be happy," she whispered into his ear before letting him down and patting him off, noticing the dirt and the leaves that had gotten stuck to him during his hike to Constance.

Joey rubbed a finger under his nose in embarrassment at the childish treatment he was getting. Unfortunately, he was a child. The one thing preventing him from having a meaningful bond with his peers was the age of his body. Other twelve-year-olds just weren't mature enough yet for them to stand on anything resembling equal ground.

He looked at Theresa who was looking at him with eyes shining so bright with happiness that they were leaking the occasional tear. She looked like she'd get a facial muscle cramp from smiling so hard.

Well, he thought to himself. Now he'd already donated hundreds of thousands to the orphanage. Wasn't going over and telling these kids with no parents and no hope that they can make something out of themselves and play with them a bit not just an extension of his generosity?

"The cake does look yummy," Joey said reluctantly despite the fact that he quite frankly hated cake.

Ice cream was obviously the superior choice. He gave Theresa an impromptu hug at which she froze in surprise before joining some of the other orphans gorging themselves at the table.

He took a slice and started regaling them with the tales of the outside world that he'd started accumulating since becoming a youngster.

As the sun started setting and Joey continued weaving his tales he realised that this was the first time that he hadn't in some way rejected the loving advances of another person.

Did he need a mother?

Most definitely not.

But perhaps Theresa needed a son and until now he'd just been too selfish to realise it.

In an ocean of traumatised children, he could be a rock and he could steady other people.

He was independent, successful, and rich. He guessed now was the time to experience the biggest joy of life. To become a provider instead of the taker in a relationship.

He sighed after he finished the story of his travels with his eyes looking into the distance, towards the sun slowly setting behind the faraway mountains. Perhaps being in a child's body had affected him more than he'd thought.

He'd been a father once, and losing his children by dying had been one of the most hurtful things that had ever happened to him.

But the Pokemon world was beautiful, and he had three new awkward kids to take care of.

Kids who needed training, guidance, medical care even.

He also had a mother, despite being an orphan.

In some ways, he had 27 brothers and 19 sisters.

In one way he'd already been the richest man alive before even winning that bet.