CH82 (696), Arrival

The next morning we resumed our journey toward Hardfort City. Spending half of Palkiday on Hestia's evolution did not have any real impact on our trip, so I did not bother with speeding up to make up for it or anything like that. Hence, the journey resumed without any change, and we continued to come across wild Pokemon, some of whom I challenged, most of whom we ignored. Naturally, I continued to catch any wild Wurmple we came across as well.

Aside from wild Pokemon we also continued to come across people, though at this point they were all trainers with no civilians in sight, which was no surprise since I had long left the patrolled civilian road behind, traveling through the "wild" parts of the route. Most trainers did the same unless they were in a hurry, and I handled the trainers I came across just like I did the wild Pokemon. I fought with some of them, mostly using my first impression of them to decide whether to accept the battle or not, and ignored the rest. 

Well, I did not outright ignore them if someone tried to talk to me, but I declined any challenges if I did not feel like battling. Honestly, due to the number of times, I ended up getting challenged by random trainers we came across, I did not bother issuing any challenges myself.

Anyway, time just seemed to flow past unchecked, and before I knew it multiple days had passed. Arcday came and went, starting off the new week, and without notice we already had Giratiday. After a productive morning, I was once again having lunch outside of Utopia with Mothra/Butterfree, Thor/Raichu, as well as Hades/Gengar, and just like it did every time so far our lunch ended up attracting some wild Pokemon. As usual, I used bribes to persuade the Wurmple who came over to join me, and like always the Wurmple all agreed. 

Honestly, it was surprising that not a single one of the Wurmple I bribed during lunch so far had declined my invitation to Utopia. I mean, it was great for me since it gave me a greater harvest, but did these guys really have that much trouble getting food, or were they all just lazy? Well, to be honest, calling them lazy for agreeing to my proposal was not really fair since the offer secured them a steady food supply along with security from any would-be predators, so I guess I kind of understood why they all ended up agreeing to my offer, with them being at the bottom of the totem pole and all that.

Regardless of the reason, thanks to my capture efforts so far, both during lunch and on the road, I managed to capture a total of 304 Wurmple in just 9 days, which was impressive since I was doing it as some kind of side quest. Interestingly enough, though not surprising, none of the "new" Wurmple ended up unlocking any modifiers, showing that the Shiny Wurmple on day 2 was just a rare lucky coincidence. There were however one or two interesting talents that got unlocked, though that did not change my plan of having the Wurmple with those talents take part in the Pinkan project.

Leaving that aside, I brought out the map and took another look at it to gauge how long it would take us to arrive in Hardfort City if we kept up the current pace. I had made sure to always mark our progress, so I roughly knew where we currently were. It was not that hard to make an approximation using that, especially not with there being notes on how many kilometers we covered each day so far. 

I came to the conclusion that we should arrive at our destination in another 4 days, so if nothing went wrong, we would be in Hardfort City on Kyoday. We might even arrive a day early since I was no longer going to bother catching any Wurmple we met on the road. With 304 Wurmple already secure, I was only going to add those that offered themselves up during lunch. That alone should be enough to comfortably raise the number of Wurmple past 350 before we made it to Hardfort City.

Satisfied, I put away the map and called out to Thor, who had laid down in the shadow of one of the trees, to inform him that we were moving on. I saw Thor's ears twitch a bit at my shout, but he simply changed his posture and continued to sleep. Mothra and Hades giggled at that, before offering to wake Thor up. Hades was rather eager in his offer, but I told them to leave it to me before using my telekinesis to tickle Raichu. 

I first tickled his nose, making him scrunch it before hitting it while sleeping. I moved on to his right ear, and his tail flickered towards it. The small pain of his tail hitting the tip of his ear made Raichu release an instinctive yelp, and it obviously also woke him up. He saw all three of us laughing and smiled at us before releasing sparks from his cheek pouches. 

I braced myself for a Thundershock, but it never came. Instead, Thor teased us and asked why we were so tense since I was not the only one who had expected a shocking retaliation. He leisurely walked to my side and asked what I was waiting for. Hades threw me a look that screamed good luck before he quickly entered my shadow, while Mothra patted my head but still remained seated there, showing no intention of leaving her favorite spot.

Shelving the worry about Thor's eventual revenge, I continued my walk toward Hardfort City. After an hour without any moves from Thor, I finally let go of my worry and continued on my way with lighter steps. Shortly before 7 p.m. I ended up being challenged by someone with gold-stage Pokemon and we agreed on a 4-vs-4 battle. 

I let Hades go first and my opponent was quite startled when Hades emerged from my shadow instead of a PokeBall. I stifled the laughter that bubbled up at his reaction, but Hades had no reservations and began to laugh quite happily. Gustaf took Hades' laughter in strides and cleared his throat while regaining his cool. He apologized for his reaction and thanked me for waiting instead of directly attacking since both our Pokemon were already on the field. 

Gustaf shared that he had an unfortunate encounter with some ghost types a few days ago while traveling close to Mt.Pyre, which was why Gengar's unconventional appearance startled him so much. He also warned me about possibly encountering both mischievous and malevolent ghosts while passing through or close to Mt.Pyre, though he added that I would likely be fine if I continued to let Hades stay in my shadow like that. He recommended that I should keep either a dark, psychic, or ghost type at my side while in that area since those were the best suited to keep any would-be prankers and aggressors away from me.

We started our battle after I thanked him for the advice, and Hades smoothly beat Gustaf's Ludicolo. I allowed him to continue with the second fight since he was still rearing to go, and he beat the Mightyena that got sent out next as well. I finally decided to switch him out after his second victory. Not because he couldn't fight anymore, I was sure he could easily handle another fight, but because I wanted to give Thor a chance to stretch his muscles as well. I might have also wanted to avoid beating Gustaf's entire team with a ghost type.

Anyway, Thor had no problem beating Gustaf's Breloom and Whiscash. He happily ran up to me after beating Whiscash and jumped into my arms. I saw a mischievous smile appear once he was there, and a second later Thor Nuzzled me while snickering. He kept the charge minimal so all it did was cause me to twitch a bit without any real pain, but the charge also caused my hair to puff up, turning into a pseudo afro. My hair puffed up so fast that it hurled away Mothra who had been chilling there, causing her to flail in the air for a moment at the sudden displacement before she began to use her wings to fly.

Thor snickered, happy to have taken his revenge, and Gustaf also broke out into laughter after seeing my hair. He tried to apologize for laughing but I waved him off knowing full well that I looked funny right now. Gustaf thanked Thor for making him laugh before he left quite cheerily despite having lost our battle. Once he was gone Mothra flew down to Thor's side and stared at him with narrowed eyes, which had Thor breaking out in a cold sweat.

He looked quite nervous until Mothra spoke up and warned him about not messing with her roost spot again even if it was funny. Thor literally sagged in relief seeing that she was not planning to teach him a lesson and promised to leave my hair alone in the future. I amusedly watched their byplay while taking out a comb and some hair products to deal with the mess my hair had become.

Once I was done restoring my hair to its previous glory, I told Thor and Mothra that we were moving on. Mothra gave Thor a final warning look before settling back on my hair. Thor wiped off the sweat from his forehead before shooting me a grateful look. I just smiled in amusement at his antics before I resumed my walk toward Hardfort City, and the day continued like usual. The following days went by in a similar vein, and before I knew it I managed to step foot onto Hardfort City.

My previous assumption proved to be right and I ended up making it to Hardfort City on Kyoday, specifically around two hours after lunch. Naturally, my first course of action was going to be a visit to the Hardfort Gym to sign up for a Gym Battle. I was hoping that I would be able to schedule a fight as early as possible. It would be great if I managed to get a date within the next few days.

Anyway, while I had not bought a map of Hardfort City, I did download a map of the city on my phone, so after opening said map and figuring out where exactly I was right now, I made my way toward the Gym. On the way there I once more went over the data I had gathered on the Hardfort Gym. 

The Gym Leader of the Hardfort Gym, Daniel Home, was a ghost specialist. Due to him being the Gym Leader of a Minor Gym, the strength of the Pokemon he used for challenges was vastly different compared to Major Gym Leaders like Stephanie. From what I had found out, Daniel used 2 Pokemon for challengers with up to 2 Badges, 3 against those with 3-4 Badges, and 4 against those with 5 or more Badges. 

Moreover, Daniel utilized only bronze stage Pokemon for 1-star challenges of Senior Circuit participants unless they had more than 6 Badges. If that was the case, he changed two of the four Pokemon he used for 1-star challenges with (low) to (mid) silver stage Pokemon. 2-star challengers of Senior Circuit had to face silver-stage Pokemon regardless of how many Badges they had, while 3-star challengers not only had to face one gold-stage Pokemon, but they also had to battle against 6 Pokemon instead of 4.

Obviously, Daniel's true team was much stronger than the Pokemon he used for Gym Battles since the Alliance required a certain level of competence/strength of all their Gym Leaders, including minor ones, but that was not important for me this time around since I was not planning to go for a high star challenge. I was going to use the Minor Gyms to train my weaker Pokemon, which meant going for either 1 or 2-star challenges depending on the gym.

My plan for the Hardfort Gym was to go for a 2-star challenge, and since my S-rank Badge was worth as much as 4 B-Rank Badges from Minor Gyms, I would be assigned a 4-badge 2-star challenge, which was fine with me. Anyway, I eventually arrived at my destination, and after entering the building I headed straight for the reception to request the arrangement of my Gym Battle.

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