Salad 2.1

Aaron Fulan

Route 117, Hoenn Region

I stood at the edge of Mauville and Route 117, my two pokémon by my side. Mauville had been good to us, but it was time to move on. I smiled knowingly. Most trainers following the gym circuit ignored Verdanturf as a town with nothing worthy of note, but I knew better. By going there, I could lay claim to a gardevoirite, the single most precious thing Artoria could ever possess, the key to letting her achieve her dreams.

But first, the route.

It was something I'd noticed about Hoenn and, I suspected, the entire pokémon world. Every single route was distinct form the city. There was a stark divide between the municipality of Mauville and Route 117, as if someone took a permanent marker, drew a circle around the city, and said, "Urban influence ends here."

That wasn't to say the route was just woodland of course. In fact, it was mostly low meadows filled with some of the best weather and soil available in the region. Ranches, farms, orchards, and more dotted the route and a clear path of hardpacked dirt made getting lost all but impossible. It just lacked the trappings of any road coming out of a city that I'd come to expect on Earth. No separate road for cars, no street signs, no lights, no asphalt, and certainly no gas station attached to a greasy bed and breakfast. Just a blend of nature and human cohabitation that took my breath away.

It was beautiful. Hoenn was a largely tropical region so the planting and growing season for berries was abnormally long. Even though this was mid-February, I could smell the aromas of flowers on the breeze, the distinct Sweet Scent of roselia helping out with the orchards, and the pungent sting of recently upturned soil.

"Ready to go?"

Beside me, Jeanne was as peppy as ever, her emotions forming a kaleidoscope vibrant colors. Joy. Peace. Excitement. I could imagine her being a shonen protagonist in another life, always upbeat, always optimistic, always ready to laugh along. I'd never met anyone half as naturally happy before and it was refreshing.

"Ma-mareeeeep!" she bleated, eager to see the world. I'd promised her that she could participate in the Verdanturf contest coming up in ten days, plenty of time to get there and work on a routine. It was something for her to look forward to while Artoria and I searched for the gardevoirite.

'Always, my lord,' Artoria's voice rang clearly in my mind. With it came a wave of emotions and associations. Schemas, I thought they were called in psychology. Love. Loyalty. Resolve. There was no need to try to interpret her emotions by looking at the corona surrounding her because her emotions were as much my own.

My partner sat atop the mareep, her trademark silver spoon slung over her back like a great claymore. I looked at my two pokémon and just had to snap off a picture with my PokéNav. I made a new chatroom and posted the picture so the twins and Lisia could see it.

[Welcome to the PokéNet BBS. The chatroom "Family and Friends" has been created by Sir_Aaron.]

[Mossdeep_Moon has been invited.]

[Mossdeep_Sun has been invited.]

[XO-CloudDancer-OX has been invited.]

Sir_Aaron: Dame Artoria and her noble steed Jeanne off on their new [adventure].

She looked at me curiously. 'What is it?'

'I thought you hated being held.' I thought at her. Ever since her evolution, our bond had deepened. No longer did I have to voice my thoughts aloud for her to hear me. It was an exhilarating experience, an intimacy I'd come to see as an extension of myself. It was remarkable how naturally the habit of maintaining a private channel came to me.

'I am astride my noble steed,' she sniffed. 'B-Besides, I do not dislike being held in your arms, merely, it is improper for a knight to be coddled by her lord.'

'Of course, of course. What was I thinking?'

'That I look noble and splendid and how lucky you are to have a magnificent knight such as myself in your service.'

I suppressed a laugh, just in time to feel my PokéNav vibrate. I saw the twins' response.

Mossdeep_Sun: That's pretty cute, not gonna lie. Liza's squealing and it's hurting my ears.

Mossdeep_Moon: ASDFGHJKEWREWGTHYU Send. More. Pictures. Now.

XO-CloudDancer-OX: Woah, are these your siblings? Hi, everyone, I'm a friend your big bro met. And wow your kirlia is adorable. Why sun and moon? Which one's which?

Mossdeep_Moon: I'm Liza, the older, cool one.

Mossdeep_Sun: Psh, she wishes. I'm Tate, the actual cool one.

Sir_Aaron: They're both brats but I love them anyway. Btw, keep an eye on Lisia, you two. I promised her she can have one of you if she wins the grand festival.

Mossdeep_Moon: What? You're just giving us away? What kind of big brother are you?

Mossdeep_Sun: Yeah! That's cruel, big bro!

Sir_Aaron: Ah, but then you wouldn't bicker so much.

Mossdeep_Moon: Ooh, now that you mention it… Sorry, Tate, guess you're leaving.

Mossdeep_Sun: Me? Why me? Maybe Lisia wants a little sister instead, huh?

I chuckled as they devolved into inane bickering and sent Artoria their reactions through our bond. I wasn't nearly as good at this as she was so the psychic image was a bit hazy, but for a moment, Artoria saw what I saw. Her face went cherry-red.

'M-My lord! We are not adorable! Jeanne and I are gallant!'

'You can't be both?'

'Knights are not adorable,' she sulked. She reached forward and tugged on Jeanne's wool, letting out a command. "Kir, kirlia!"

My mareep just let out another happy bleat and started to trot forward, off to conquer Route 117.

We set off, with the three of us doing as much training as we could. There were no pokémon I wanted that I was likely to find here, so I didn't feel the need to stop for much. The next week or so on the road would be a week of conditioning.

Artoria's evolution into a kirlia was welcome, not least for the extra opportunities to tease her, but it meant she'd need to get used to her newfound growth. After indulging in my little knight's dreams of a mounted joust for about fifteen minutes, I had her step off her mount and follow along on foot.

"Artoria, I want you to execute every shikake waza as we go in sequence. Step into each strike as you perform renzoku-waza: kote, do, men, then end with tsuki. The goal is to get you used to your new body and make your transitions seamless."

'Yes, my lord!'

"Jeanne, you're going to charge as much electricity as you can and store it in your horns while we move. The goal is to keep the charge as long as you can, as bright as you can. Don't expend, just hold."

"Mareep?"

I looked at Artoria and waited for her to translate. 'She asked why she would not practice any moves.'

I nodded in thanks. I'd done a bit of reading on mareep. The Summers library didn't have any information on the species, but there was plenty of information available online for the general public, them being very common pokémon in Johto. "That's because the most important thing for a young electric type is to learn to store a charge. This is especially true of mareep. Most of your electricity is generated through your wool, so it's not something you store inside your body. That's why a mareep's electric attacks tend to be a little slower in charge time than say, a pikachu's. But it's not like a mareep can't store electricity internally; it's just not something you do naturally until you evolve and lose a lot of wool. I want you to get a head start on that. Make sense?"

"Ma… ree…?" She cocked her head to the side as if in deep thought.

It was… perhaps not my best idea trying to explain biology to a mareep. Jeanne wasn't dumb, but she definitely was more about the show than the study.

"It'll make you a stronger ampharos," I said simply.

"Reep!"

'That was not a difficult explanation. Is Jeanne slow?'

"Hush, Artoria. Everyone learns at a different pace. She's a much more tactile learner."

'As you say, my lord.'

"Now both of you, start!" I shouted as I began to jog along the dirt path.

Training went both ways as far as I was concerned. I was a modern-day swordmaster, a man who worked with his body all his life. This, the body of Aaron Fulan, fell short of my expectations on every level and I refused to tolerate it a second longer than I had to.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Thus, conditioning. More than anything else, stamina was what made an athlete so I started off on a slow, methodical jog. It was slow enough that even my two pokémon, barely two feet tall, could match my strides. No matter. I'd be feeling it soon enough. Hefting my bag, I mentally readied myself for a slog.

X

The three of us breathed heavily as we sat by the side of the road on one of several rest stops we'd passed today. It boasted a wooden table and chairs as well as a small signpost, roofed as to protect the paper contents from light rain. Next to it was an oran berry bush that hadn't matured quite yet as well as a basket of water bottles and individually wrapped mini-muffins. A dirt path led away from the rest stop, presumably to the ones who set up this stop.

"Refreshments free. Please take one. Courtesy of the Loverose Orchard," the signboard said. It also contained a list of jobs that a passing trainer might be interested in taking in exchange for some spare change or a roof to sleep under.

It wasn't a bad way to attract trainers, I figured, especially not for a small orchard like this one. Perhaps it wasn't reliable, but to handle some non-urgent work like painting a shed? Not bad at all. Many traveling trainers were effectively gig workers; they couldn't all be lucky enough to have a sponsor like me.

I looked over the job postings: Guard work to chase away a persistent gang of nincada from eating the tree sap, chopping wood, spreading more fertilizer… basic stuff.

'Will we be taking a job, my lord?' Artoria asked. She was breathing heaviest of all of us, the adorable training-nut.

'No, no we won't be. We have plenty of funds at the moment.'

It was true. Despite what mom said about not showing favoritism, I found another three grand in my bankbook the next morning. She clearly thought that whatever favor I'd ask for in exchange for the alakazite wouldn't be enough on its own and decided to tide me over until then by padding my wallet.

Of course, I knew she'd deny it to her dying breath if confronted. I'd just miscounted, that's all.

The three of us lazed around and recovered our stamina while snacking on the muffins left out for passerby. The sun warmed the picnic table and I found my eyes drooping just a bit. A few minutes of shut-eye before returning to the road couldn't hurt…

"Hey, you!" I heard a voice call. "Did you eat all the food here?"

I turned to look her way. Our guest was a girl about my age, perhaps a bit older. She was taller than me, with black hair and gray eyes. She wore a set of overalls and a red bandana to keep her bangs from her eyes. Her overalls were clearly well-used, with dirt and grass stains all along her lower legs.

I looked towards the basket she was pointing at. It was now empty of those delectable mini-muffins. I glanced down at the most likely culprits. Artoria and Jeanne looked back at me with guilty smiles, their lips smudged with crumbs.

"Ah… sorry, guess my pokémon were a bit hungrier from training than I thought."

'Hunger is the enemy,' Artoria responded, nodding as if she'd spoken the truth of the universe. Sometimes, I regretted enthralling her with tales of her British counterpart… and was grateful that no one else could understand my utterly unrepentant kirlia beyond the usual vocalizations.

"Reep," came Jeanne's concurrent reply.

"Man, I was hoping I could grab a bite before going back to work. The Loveroses always have good stuff."

I dug around in my backpack and pulled out some trail mix. "It's not muffins, but they're pretty good."

"Sure, thanks. Lydia, by the way. Breeder-in-training."

"Aaron," I said, shaking her hand as she took a seat by me. "Traveling trainer."

"Yeah, I can tell. A kirlia and mareep aren't exactly from these parts. Got any badges?"

"Just Dynamo."

"Huh. And you're not headed north to Lavaridge?"

"I've got business in Verdanturf. Jeanne, my mareep, wants to try out the contest scene, see?"

"Ooh, so you want to be the next Wallace? You know most people only succeed with one or the other, right? If they succeed at all?"

I shrugged. "If that's what my pokémon want. As far as I'm concerned, I'll consider my journey a success if my pokémon achieve all that they set out to do. In the end, the badges and ribbons are secondary to that."

"That's a good way to look at things."

"Thanks. How about you? Why a breeder?"

"Family ranch," she said with a wry smile. "It's not much, but it's home. I guess I just never had the wanderlust other people have. When mom asked me if I wanted to go on a journey, I turned her down."

"That's alright. As romanticized as a journey is, it's not the be all end all. Sounds like you're getting plenty of experience with pokémon anyway right where you are."

"Heh, anyone ever tell you that you talk like an old man? Who says 'romanticized' in normal conversation?"

"A man of higher culture and class," I sniffed. "You might even say a higher breeding."

"Ha, oh really? Breeding jokes for the breeder? Funny."

The two of us sat around comfortably. We chatted about our lives. I told her about my pokémon's strange dreams and antics and Lydia told me about the chores of a life on the farm. It sounded idyllic, like a countryside paradise I read about in my old life. Tolkien's hobbits, but with more emphasis on magic creatures.

"So… How does it all work?" I asked.

She stared at me incredulously then adopted a sly smirk. "What? Well, when a mother and father get really horny…"

"I think I'm good on the sex, thanks," I said, voice dry as a sandshrew's asscrack. "I meant the business. What pokémon do you breed? And why? Like, who buys them all?"

"You're no fun. Well… Our ranch is one of the smaller ones, but we're subsidized by the League. So I guess we breed whatever the League tells us to. Like, right now, we have a bunch of shroomish and goldeen. None of them are fighters if that's what you're wondering. Shroomish can be really good for the environment and are naturally excellent at assisting in decomposition, making soils more fertile and all that. Goldeen are scavengers too so they do basically the same thing but in water."

"So the League commissions your work, buys the batch each generation, and… releases them into the wild?"

"Or farms, fisheries, and the like. We occasionally even breed zigzagoon and such just so trainer schools all over the region have a class set for teaching purposes."

"That's kind of cool. So I guess the zigzagoon I saw in Mossdeep could have come from your ranch."

"Yup," she stood, dusting herself off. "Thanks for the snack. I'm going to go head back before mom chews my ear off again for slacking. Later!"

"Yeah, nice meeting you, Lydia," I called back. I looked down at my pokémon. "Shall we go? I think we've rested enough."

X

We stopped twice more by the time lunch came around. All of us were breathing heavily, though I heard not a word of complaint from even Jeanne. Artoria had gotten accustomed to her longer legs and her strikes looked crisper than ever. She'd even taken to channeling Mana Edge along her spoon, leaving trails of blue-violet light along the arcs of her swings.

This stop was more substantial than the Loveroses' with several fire pits and grills for trainers to prep their own food. It was also occupied by half a dozen people milling around. I saw several pokémon sent out to play and mingle, most intimidating of all being a fearow with a wicked-sharp beak.

I didn't like the way that bird was looking at Jeanne, so I kept her close.

Lunch was pokéchow for them and a sandwich for me. Anything more complicated could wait 'til I'd settled in for the evening. I held up the electric and psychic type-specific pokéchow and wondered what the difference was. Judging by the ingredient list, the nutritional value seemed similar, though a handful of spices and dried berries used were different.

'The difference is mostly in flavoring, my lord,' Artoria explained as she took the brown kibble-like pebble in her mouth. 'Jeanne's food tastes like cardboard to me.'

'Huh. Guess it helps to have a telepath I can just ask. How so?'

'Her food is a little bit sour, as if acidic It also has a pulpy consistency that I find unpleasant.'

'I thought you liked sweet-sour things.'

'That is that and this is this.'

I ruffled her green hair to her annoyance. "Fine, fine. Does Jeanne like your food?"

"Mareep," the sheep in question bleated with a methodical shake of her head.

'No, she says it leaves a chalky aftertaste in her mouth. I have no idea what she is referring to.'

"Weird."

Lunch passed leisurely to allow us to recover from our morning workout. I took the chance to speak with a few other trainers, one a triathlete like Wanda and another a local day care worker who dropped by looking for commissions. Seeing how a lot of it was done online these days and most trainers passing through wouldn't be very strong, I didn't think he was looking very hard, probably just using it as an excuse to chill out.

After a while, we began our trip anew. This time, we took it slow. It was an elevation of the training Wanda showed me concerning doduo. Artoria had quickly learned to respond to my emotions and so I decided that the best way to progress would be to share senses with one another.

I gamely ignored all the laughing and whispering and pulled the paper bag down over my head. "Ready, Artoria?"

'They are mocking you, my lord.' I could practically hear her teeth clench, my proud, proud kirlia. At least she wasn't challenging them all to honor duels anymore…

'They are, and I don't care. Now are you ready?'

'Surely there is a better way to train?'

'Not while on the move there isn't.'

'Very well, my lord. I am ready.'

Then I felt my mind lurch for lack of a better word. There was a pull on her end and a push on mine and I was suddenly two feet tall and brandishing a spoon like a longsword.

Looking at the world from her point of view was… surprisingly normal. I wasn't sure what I was expecting now that we were doing it voluntarily and outside of battle, but I just felt like an extremely short person.

'I'm not short,' I heard her grumble in my mind. 'Humans are just unnecessarily tall.'

'Whatever you say, my adorkable knight.'

Even this telepathy felt different, as though we'd finally entered the same room to speak rather than shout at each other from across the hall. Normally, there was her usual vocalization of "Kirlia-kir" or somesuch, but this kind of mental transmission came with no physical accompaniments. There was something intimate about the clarity of this connection that I found difficult to describe.

'Adorkable is not a word.'

'Words exist to convey meanings. You know precisely what I mean, especially with telepathy. Ergo it is now a word,' I teased. I couldn't see her blushing up a storm with the paper bag over my head, but I could feel the fire in her cheeks.

'Unfair…'

I decided I'd had enough of teasing Artoria and began walking. This was the whole point of our exercise. I would spend some of our trip in her head before trading off so she could spend some time in mine. By sharing headspace and senses, I hoped to accustom us both to this intimacy so we could coordinate better in battle.

Shouting Kantoan kendo techniques was good, great even, but when the two of us had the option to communicate at the speed of thought? No contest.

If we could swap to using each other's senses like this, it would also mean that Artoria couldn't be blinded or deafened because she could just hop into my head for a bit. We'd done it before in Slateport against that poochyena, but I wanted this transition to be seamless, for her to be as good at manipulating her body even while using my senses to perceive the world.

There was one last reason for this: Psychic power stacked. Stacked like Legos. I knew this for a proven fact. I saw it with Liza and Tate, and even the two doduo heads, for what little psychic power they held. I wanted Artoria and I to artificially create the bond my twin siblings had with each other. If I succeeded, I would be able to draw on her power to supplement my own lacking reserves and she could draw on my experience with the sword.

Two bodies, but a single, unified mind.

It was theoretical. I couldn't find a single book in the Summers family library that talked about artificially creating a twin bond, but if it worked…

Yes, for that, I'd happily put up with being the route's laughingstock.

The moment I finished that thought, I misjudged the location of a pebble from my body's foot while looking through Artoria's eyes and landed on my face.

Author's Note

Renzoku-waza just means "in sequence" or "continuous strikes." In this case, it's like a boxer who shadow-boxes while on a jog.

Breeder Lydia is one of the characters you can find on the route. Thought it'd be fitting to have her cameo here since I used to beat her up every ten minutes in Pokémon Emerald for exp.

Decided to italicize mental speech from now on to distinguish between that and spoken words. Poor formatting on my part.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.