After a mild psychotic break, which included many screams of ‘OH MY ARCEUS!’ ‘I’M POISONED! HELP!’ ‘I’M GOING TO DIE!’ The good professor eventually heard Ethan’s reassuring words. “Profess—ELM! It’s just Sweet Scent…”

The man stopped rolling on the grass, turned his head to peek over toward Ethan, looked down at himself to find himself coated in the pink perfume, then sat upright at a speed not meant for a man his age. “Oh.”

He pushed himself up off the ground and patted down his now dirt covered lab coat, pretending the total panic attack that literally just happened not five seconds ago never occurred.

Ethan wanted to not bother the professor, but he felt that if he walked away to go do things on his ranch, that the professor would somehow find something else to blow out of complete proportion.

“Munch-Munch-Munchlax.”

Turning at the sound of the talkative berry-muncher, Ethan saw the two aides of the professor being guided and showed the ranch. As they followed along after the Munchlax who looked like he owned the place, they looked extremely confused, but upon seeing the professor and Ethan, they relaxed.

Both aides wore lab coats similar to their boss. One was a very short petite woman in her mid twenties with black colored hair styled in a pixie cut, shaved down on the sides and layered up high. She looked professional with a look of focus. The other was a man similar in height to Ethan, with sun-kissed skin and a blonde flattop from the 90’s… He was also missing an arm, cut off just above his elbow going by his tied off and knotted sleeve.

“Adrian… Please don’t run off and leave us to fend for ourselves deep in the Eterna Forest. It would be a shame if you got lost, never to do any research again… Maybe you need a break, hmm?” The five foot tall woman wasn’t pleased in the slightest, and judging by Elm’s wince, she was a taskmaster.

“Bleh, leave the man alone. You didn’t even introduce yourself to our host.” The man nudged the woman with what remained of his arm, then stuck it out towards Ethan for a handshake. “Chase Bennet, a pleasure to meet you Mr. Reed.”

Ethan looked down at the open air where a hand was supposed to be. He shifted his eyes to the woman, then to the professor, trying to glean any help, but Chase’s laugh freed him of the awkwardness. Thankfully, it was just a gag.

Chase extended his other arm, this one very much having a hand, as he finished chuckling. “Sorry, I do that to everyone I first meet.”

Ethan shook his hand, a wry smile on his face at being the butt of the joke. “Ethan Reed. Welcome to Berry Falls.”

The woman shoved Chase forward, causing him to stumble as she spoke. “Why don’t you give Adrian a hand.”

Chase tsk’d mockingly, then went to the briefcase the professor had and started to take out several scientific instruments one by one. “I already did!” He finished by waving his nub around.

The woman then walked up to Ethan and introduced herself. “Justine Brand, thank you for having us. Don’t mind Chase, he’s nearly as bad as Adri—Professor Elm.”

Ethan shook her hand as well. “Make yourselves at home. Do you need me for anything? Or should I be leaving you guys to do what you do?”

Professor Adrian Elm stopped with the assembly of whatever his scientific device he was building. “You can stay around and observe, make sure everything is okay and up to standards, but you don’t need to do anything specifically. We got this handled. All you needed to do was let us in!” He smiled as he projected his confidence and eagerness on the research ahead.

Justine started to help with the assembly, and Ethan felt like a fourth wheel. “Okay then… Well, feel free to let out your pokemon for some relaxation if you want. They’re free to eat the berries in my fields, just no fighting any of the pokemon around unless it’s consensual and on the training field.”

All three researchers paused and looked sheepish, like they had forgotten all about their own pokemon in their balls—too focused on the data in front of them.

Chase was the first to release his singular pokemon, and it wasn’t from out of a pokeball. From his pocket, he retrieved a bright orange phone. He tossed it up into the air, and it… hovered?

“Bzzzzt! I heard! May I leave the phone?” The phone itself said, causing Ethan to put two and two together—It was a Rotom.

“Go right ahead! Go and explore! Come check on us in an hour and I’ll let ya know if we need your help.” Chase said as held his hand out right beneath the phone.

With what Ethan amounted to a reality defying spectacle, an entity of energy zoomed out of the phone like a spirit, causing the phone to drop into the waiting hand below. An orange top-like body with two arms of solid plasma-esque electricity spun through the air as its large blue eyes scanned out its surroundings as its tiny mouth curved up in a small smile.

Munchlax was staring at the new pokemon with just as much surprise as Ethan, but his surprise quickly turned into amazement as he jumped up and down, shouting at the levitating ghost pokemon. Rotom floated down in front of Munchlax, and entered into a small conversation of poke-speak before Munchlax ran off toward Ethan’s house with the ghost hovering behind.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Justine watched them go off to play, then dug into her overly large lab coat and flicked out two pokeballs, revealing two pokemon Ethan was thankfully familiar with. The first to emerge was a floating mass of steel, weighing what must have been hundreds of pounds. It had magnets for appendages and a large yellow rod sticking out the top of its shiny oval center above its large red central eye.

“Wah-wah-wah-wah-waaah-Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz!” Was the sound it made, sounding like a mix of an 8-bit video game and the static of a broken television. This was one of the rare moments when he’d heard pokemon make sounds other than their name. Which happened, albeit rarely in actual speech.

The next was a very familiar pokemon. It was actually one of the pokemon Ethan had first thought of when he decided he wanted to be a breeder. The little pinkish-purple glob of goop had a cheerful smile beneath its tiny, beady black dots for eyes—It was a Ditto.

Before the Ditto could even glance around to inspect its surroundings, Justine gave it a warning. “No pranks! We’re here as guests. Be nice, and do not confuse anyone. AND I swear to all that is good, if you make me search for you among the pokemon later then you won’t get to come with us on another trip.”

The globby Ditto smirked and nodded—not reassuring Justine at all. Then, without warning, It quickly morphed. Although it was roughly the same size, its colors shifted and ebbed from pinkish-purple to a lime green. At the tip of its head, a large darkened leaf sprouted, and within seconds, a Chikorita stood in its place—With no derpy Ditto face to be found.

“Chiko-Chiii!” It said in a bratty tone, before sticking its new tongue out at Justine and running away through the tall grass.

“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz-Wahhhhh-wah-ZONE!” The Magnezone raised up higher off the ground, above their heads, then floated off towards the rocky outcropping of Ursaring’s cave in the distance. Ethan felt like it was his duty to warn the steel titan. “Be careful over there! My Ursaring lives there and she has her kids with her!”

As soon as he finished yelling out his warning, the Magnezone swiftly changed course, obviously smart enough to know how bad of an idea the cave was, and floated off toward the distant blue pond.

Ethan debated warning him of the Krabby as well, but figured floating solved that problem before it began. The little grumpy crab didn’t have any ranged attacks as far as he could tell.

Before he left to go about his business, Ethan asked the professor for a favor. “When you’re done and ready for lunch, would you mind checking over the two eggs I have? Just to make sure everything is alright?”

The professor, who was kneeling down to affix some weird metallic antenna to what was now a half built sensor array or some sort, immediately stood and twirled to face him. “You have eggs?!”

Ethan nodded with a smile. “I have two. One is a Skiddo egg, and the other is a surprise. I don’t actually know what it is and Joyce—Nurse Joy, who introduced you to my ranch, wasn’t entirely sure of its species either. Although, she did have a guess, not that she told me what it was.” He shrugged, but could already see the eagerness in Elm’s eyes. More knowledge to be consumed.

“Of course! Why don’t we let these two get everything in order here as I inspect them right now?!” Elm quickly abandoned his aides once again as he joined Ethan in a walk to his home.

As they entered inside, Ethan watched with curiosity as Professor Elm glanced around his humble and rustic home. The small, nearly imperceptive approval caused Ethan to swell with pride. He loved his home, but it still needed a lot of improvement. He led Elm back to the guest room, opening the door to find Smeargle painting on his easel with the two eggs bundled up in their mound of blankets on the dresser.

Elm gave a surprised eyebrow raise upon seeing Smeargle, distracted yet again from his original task. “Oh?! A Smeargle! How rare to find one outside of Johto!”

Smeargle flicked his orange-tipped tail in a final flourish, finishing his masterful stroke, and then turned, tongue out, towards the professor. He gave a wave and a nod with crinkled eyes of joy as he walked over to Ethan to hold his hand—an action Ethan seamlessly allowed. “Smeargle is a great friend of the ranch. One that I hope to be permanent someday.” He finished, giving the smiling dog-painter a wink. Hint sufficiently dropped. Time to move to business.

Ethan walked over to the eggs with Smeargle in hand and the professor in tow, then gestured toward them. “Here they are. As you can probably tell, the one with green is Skiddo, conceived on my ranch so that’s not in question. The other… Well, it started to shake every two or three hours recently. Please don’t tell me If you know what pokemon it is. I want it to be a surprise, but I’d also like a heads up on what I would need to prepare for.”

Elm surged forward, a gleam glinting off his glasses as he got his hands on the eggs in question. He trusted that they were still in good health, but it never hurt to get a second opinion—especially if the original opinioneer never got to hear about this. If she did, well, Ethan would just lie.

Elm twisted and turned the eggs one by one, “Oh, most definitely a Skiddo. Going by rough weight, thickness of shell… It’s healthy.” He placed the Skiddo egg back into the mound of blankets. “Do you not have environmental habitats? An Incubator?”

Ethan shrugged. “As for habitats, not yet. I still need to learn more and find a means to build them. Incubators… The big scientific capsules?”

“Precisely,” Elm picked up the pink star egg and ran his fingers over the streaks of silver with a tilted, curious head. “They would decrease hatching times. You can adjust the environment inside the capsule to suit your needs.”

“That sounds extremely useful, but also exorbitantly expensive.” Ethan commented, earning a snort and a nod.

“You would be correct. No matter, what you have now is more than sufficient for health. It’s just speed at this point. Not everyone needs speed to suit their needs.” Elm said as he still held the pink star egg with wonder. “I have a guess as to this pokemon, but I can’t be sure. Do you happen to have… ore deposits nearby? Metal?”

Ever since that helpful Geodude way back when, Ethan hadn’t seen or even heard about any rocky or mountainous pokemon nearby that would indicate any ore. He wasn’t too far away from a section of Mt. Coronet, but it was a more raised plateau than the mountain itself, and he had never wandered over to explore, as civilization had been his goal in the past.

“Not that I am aware of…” Ethan murmured as he thought.

“Hmm. If my guess is correct, you’ll want to get some. Let’s just say you’ll have a handful with this pokemon if you don’t have any.” Elm placed the egg back down, twisting it when it landed to cause the blankets beneath to twist around the base with practiced ease. “Well, it will hatch… Tomorrow? The day after? What you have will have to suffice.”

Elm clapped as he turned with a smile. “The Skiddo should hatch within the week. Now, let’s go release the rest of my friends before I return to the Oddish!”