The next morning, Ethan was sitting with Chatot perched on his shoulder near the large pond in the meadows. Jennifer and Joyce had stayed the night, but instead of using his guest room, they’d stayed in some rooms in the Pokemon center. After last night's sudden festivities, their animosity towards one other slowly faded into the background. He still didn’t completely understand why their two clans were at each other's throats, but he was glad to see that it had faded somewhat.

  Mindlessly and with little effort, Ethan sang along to the songs playing on his small pill-like speaker, swapping with Chatot when a new song came on. They’ve been through the majority of his songs, and since they were on his phone in the first place, he basically knew the lyrics to each of them by heart.

  Chatot, he could tell, loved their little singing sessions. Together, they’ve both grown in leaps and bounds in their singing ability. While he was never a good singer back on Earth, he wasn’t bad, per se. Now? Now he was actually pretty good. He wouldn’t be winning any awards, but he’d surprise some people for sure.

  To test Chatot’s memory, Ethan had asked the Porygon who lived in his laptop to duplicate and then remove the original vocals from all of his tracks. So far, she’d been doing pretty well with remembering the words. He’d been trying his best to have her not copy, and sing for herself.

  As his song ended, he waited to see what Chatot’s song would be as he fished out some berries from his bucket to feed the pond pokemon. They’ve long since swum near the shore, waiting and watching for the eventual food and listening in to their singing. It was a very pleasant morning, all things considered. Although, with winter approaching, it was growing colder and colder each day.

  When the first notes swept through the speakers, Chatot swooped down and grabbed the speaker before flying off towards Ursaring’s cave, leaving him behind without a word. It took Ethan a second or two to realize what she was doing, but once she landed and began copying Marvin Gaye’s voice, he facepalmed and felt bad for what was about to happen.

  Even from this distance, he could hear her words clearly as she sang loudly into the cave. A slight echo bounding back through the wide opening.

  “? Baaaaaaabbbyy! I’m hot just like an oven! ?”

  Ethan rose from his cross-legged position and stomped over toward his colorful bird before—

  “? When I get that feelin’, I want sexual healin’ ?”

  “Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-”

  Like a missile, one of the Teddiursa flew out of the cave with flailing limbs, crashing straight into Chatot and bowling her over like a domino, shutting her up. Both of them were fine after untangling themselves from one another, but Ethan couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that Ursaring threw her child like a weapon.

  As he scooped up the pouty teddi, another pokemon was launched out of the opening of the cave—This one, much larger and obviously thrown with less care. Landing on his face and etching a comically large groove into the ground with his feet nearly touching the back of his head, Champ the Incineroar came to a slow and rough stop right near Ethan’s feet.

  Having never properly interacted with the large starter pokemon, Ethan wasn’t sure what to do. He chose to simply kneel down after placing Teddiura on his hip to pat the large feline with sympathy.

  —--------------------------------------------

  “So, what do you think?” Joyce asked, standing in between two large Sitris berry trees alongside Jennifer. They had been watching Ethan for a few minutes at this point as he first sang with his Chatot and then roped in Jennifer’s Incineroar into a bout of singing as well.

  For all of their differences, Joyce wanted her fellow kantoians opinion.

  Jennifer wasn’t completely up to date on everything regarding Ethan, but from what she did know, there was a glaring and obvious question that needed to be asked before she could answer back. “He said he is an American, but you haven’t reached out to Surge? Why?”

  Lt. Surge, electric type specialist and Vermillion City Gym leader for the past two decades, was a well known figure, even to Ethan, if he was to be believed. It was surprising to her that he’d never asked about him, considering he was well known as the ‘Lightning American’. Looker had contacted the gym leader regarding this surprising bit of information that linked the two together, but Joyce hadn’t heard anything other than that.

  If Lt. Surge was like Ethan, he’d kept it hidden for well over the two decades of his tenure, considering his life prior to being a gym leader and his ramblings of war. Everyone thought it was a well crafted persona, but maybe he had been fooling them with the truth all along.

  Joyce shrugged. “We have. That’s not really my job. Interpol is on the job. So, what do you think of him?”

  With a huff, Jennifer crossed her arms as her eyes stared ahead, watching her pokemon sit next to Ethan. “He’s nice?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Being a Joy wasn’t about violence, but she could have strangled Jennifer for such a weak and bland answer. “Wow… How verbose.”

  “What?!” Jennifer bit back, annoyed. “I don’t even know the guy. I mean, he's good with pokemon and what not. He’s fairly friendly if you aren’t on his shit list. He’s average? What else do you want me to say?”

  “? Chuuu... Chuuuuuuuu! ?”

  Both J’s looked down to the plump Pikachu as she puckered her lips and kissed her invisible recipient all lovingly. The fat rat’s eyes glanced mischievously towards her trainer in an all knowing, smug look. Jennifer’s jaw dropped to the floor as Joyce’s cheeks flared brightly. “Stop that! We’re just friends!”

  Joyce went to scoop up her Pikachu, but the electric type known for its speed easily evaded and scampered off with giggles. After giving up her chase, Joyce turned around, face burning in both anger and embarrassment.

  Seeing the chance for what it was, Jennifer just had to prod. “Oh…” She saddled up next to Joyce. “That’s what you wanted to know…” She smirked and elbowed her lightly and teasingly.

  “Stop…”

  “He’s not bad looking, don’t get me wrong. Not my cup of tea, but to each their own…” Jennifer laid it on thick, enjoying this for what it was. “Lots of space here to build a lovely little home, and all these trees remind me of Kanto. Don’t know how your folks would appreciate your choice though.”

  Deciding to take this one step further, Jennifer grabbed Joyce’s arm and began dragging her forward. “Hey! Ethan! Good Morning!”

  Joyce dug in her heels, but Jennifer had enough practice dragging those who didn’t want to be dragged somewhere. “I swear to Arceus I will haunt you after death. STOP!”

  “Too late, he's coming over.” Jennifer replied easily, a bright smile plastered over her shit-eating grin.

  “Good morning. Did you guys have breakfast already?” Ethan shouted as he grew closer, his Chatot, her Incineroar, and two Maril followed at his heel.

  “Oh look, he’ll even make you breakfast.” Jennifer said, knowing that Ethan couldn’t understand their language.

  “I am going to ruin you.” Joyce muttered, before smiling toward Ethan and swapping languages. “Good Morning, Ethan. And yes, we ate at the center.”

  “Hey, before you head back to Eterna City, can you check over the Pichu Egg? Also, I think one of the Marils is pregnant…?”

  After jerking to a start, Joyce nodded and shifted into her role as a Nurse Joy, ending Jennifer’s teasing.

  It didn’t take a lot of skill to tell that the duo of Maril were a couple. Their tails were intertwined, and they held hands as they looked up at her with large and curious eyes. After some simple feeling around on the slightly larger than normal belly of the female, Joyce could already tell a little Azurill was on its way. “Yup. She’s pregnant.”

  Joyce watched as Ethan smiled and congratulated the two wild Maril who called his ranch home. The two pokemon were enthusiastic and chatted to one another at the news. After taking a handful of berries from Ethan’s bucket, the two blue balls wandered off to the pond and jumped into it, causing two small splashes.

  After a short walk, they all walked into Ethan’s very rustic and charming home. Not a minute later, Ethan walked out of his spare room with a bundle of blankets and his Pachirisu, who stuck his small head out of one of the opening folds. Once he unwrapped the bundle, Joyce’s heart melted seeing that Pachirisu wrapped the Pichu egg with his large, fluffy tail.

  While she wasn’t an expert of checking the health of eggs, she knew enough to tell that this one was growing nicely—The slight shakes and wobbles were also thrilling news. “It’s going to hatch soon. Within the next few days.”

  Instantly, worried chittering poured out of Pachirisu’s mouth as he turned and gestured as fast as he could toward Ethan, who simply waited until his pokemon calmed down. “You’ll be fine.” He eventually stated while bundling up the egg again. Pachirisu, the worried father, quickly dove into the fold, rejoining the bundle amalgamation.

  After placing the egg back into his spare room, Ethan rejoined them and began to sit down at his dining room table, then a voice spoke—a voice from none of the humans. “How utterly sorry your pantry appears—an assembly of meager provisions scarcely fit for a pauper, let alone for one who dares call this place home. Such barren shelves… I witness neglect draped in shame.”

  —-------------------------------

  Before his butt even got into his seat, Ethan shoved himself back up and wandered into the kitchen. He knelt down and pulled open his bottom drawers, finding just who he expected.

  With no shame at all, Ralts was searching through his pantry—which was basically always empty—except for today. Without needing to really check, as he knew the answer but was wanting to be wrong anyway, Ethan reached in, ignoring the little fairy, and pulled the wooden bowl placed within forward.

  His supply of candy was gone.

  Ralts hopped out of his cupboard as she wiped the sticky sweet blue remains of her treasure hunt from her mouth—completely unbothered by the fact that she just ate his food. After a hefty sigh, knowing that Munchlax wasn’t going to be happy, he finally asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Ralts shrugged, unconcerned. “Just wanted to visit.”

  “Does your mom know you’re here?” Ethan picked up Ralts and threw her over his shoulder like a tiny sack of potatoes, much to her displeasure.

  “Rude! Unhand me plebian!” Ralts flailed, tiny hands banging on his shoulder and feet kicking air.

  Once he ungracefully deposited her onto the table, she hastily stood and smothered her body down like it was a fine set of ruffled clothes. “... no.”

  “Great…” Ethan began, but Ralts finally noticed the stranger in the room. She backed up a few steps, back bouncing into Ethan’s elbows where they rested on the table.

  It took her a second or two of inspection—wary inspection, before she relaxed and frowned. “Ah… a knight, cloaked in authority and bound by duty. I recognize the bearing, the polished badge in place of a crest, the watchful amber gaze ever seeking fault. Wherever they tread, law follows like a silent herald—though, in this case, not always with the grace or honor such a title once implied.”

  “Excuse me?” Jennifer practically growled with legitimate and heated offence. She stood so quickly that her chair skid across the floor for a solid foot.

  “Two minutes… I can’t even get two minutes without you causing trouble…” Ethan picked up Ralts before she could speak again and went outside. Ralts was screaming and kicking again from being manhandled, but she’d have to deal with it. Entering his barn and following the noise of bashing metal, Ethan opened up Tinkatink’s workshop and tossed Ralts in.

  Tinkatink raised her head from where she was… just banging two pieces of metal together like a child and stared at Ralts as she landed with a tiny ‘oomph’. “Tinkatink, I brought you a friend. Have fun!”

  Ethan promptly shut the door and walked back to his home.

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