C047 - Whitney's first visit to the farm

Before nightfall, the first bathroom and most of the rooms of the house were finished. Some decorations, the lighting panels, the second bathroom and the finishing touches of the two-story glass dome with Pete's future lab and study were still missing, but Luna and Carl assured Pete before leaving that they would be finished with his house tomorrow.

Seeing as the house was now liveable, Sophie decided to spend her first night in the meadow, too. Before, she didn't want to intrude in on the 'tent life' that Jasmine and Pete shared, and it really wasn't for her either.

And the night before that, Sophie had an appointment in Goldenrod City and decided it was safer to be already there, in the hotel.

The two Milotic had followed Pete up the house earlier in the day so that they could both learn TM moves and they also topped off the watertank. Pete had enjoyed a nice warm shower and a comforting, stressfree sleep in his new home for the first time that night.

Almost a full week later, Luna and Carl arrived with the remaining glass panels from Cianwood City to install the completed fake sky light system, and they brought an extra guest with them, Whitney.

A lot has happened this past week. The Vileplume and especially the Bellossom were spread all over Pete's farm and constantly used Grassy Terrain as they hung out in the sun and enjoyed the pristine sunlight in the meadow. That lead to most of his vegetables being ready for a first harvest in record speed, as well as Pete being able to get berries from the 'heart tree' he had planted in front of his house.

So far, they seemed to have the same effect as the their regular 'look-alikes' despite all growing on the same Oran Berry tree, but Pete noticed very faintly that they might all share the healing, nurturing Oran Berry effect despite being different kinds of berries. He needed to absolutely observe this in the future.

For his pokemon, Pete was quite astonished to note down some evolutions. With Celebi's blessing, it was no wonder that Girafarig quickly got the psychic move Twin Beam down when she concentrated on it for a few days. She had learned Psy Beam during the last fight with the Ariados, so it was only a matter of time.

Weirdly enough, the tail head that was missing the eye moved up the Farigiraf's neck and formed a sort of 'hoodie' over the pokemon's head, and it was still missing that eye. Pete would have thought the evolution would fix it, but that wasn't the case.

Professor Elm was intrigued, too, and had asked Pete to write notes and observations down for him. Same as his wife, he also mentioned the surprise visit in a few days but asked Pete not to tell Vivian that he spilled the beans. Naturally, Pete agreed while inwardly laughing at the antics of the married couple.

The next evolutions were the two Marill parents who had learned Life Dew suspiciously fast before evolving to Azumarill in a rare double evolution at the exact same time.

Watching them with longing eyes was Solosis. Pete was sure the evolution of all his newly hatched pokemon would take quite some time, but Solosis evolved into Duosion the same day.

Professor Elm actually cursed in the live video chat at the time and promised he will move the visit up by a day when he saw through the blinding light of the evolution that Solosis from inside her skin-sack actually split in two before fusing into one pokemon once more. His theory about the pokemon having two brains was likely true.

And just the day before, Sunkern, for the first time, didn't simply hang out in the meadow to enjoy the sun, but asked Pete to use a Sun Stone on him. Pete had since read up that Sunkern, as weak as they were, usually had a shorter time before evolving, so he agreed to the request and was now the trainer of a Sunflora. The newfound smile as the sun pokemon waddled along the orchard among the Vileplume and Bellossom and cast Sunny Day every so often was truly infectious.

Three more eggs have hatched, too. Trapinch, Eevee, and one of the Miltank eggs have joined the pokemon on his farm. No shinies, sadly, but the odds were never in his favor with how lucky he had gotten in the past weeks.

That left Pete with one Miltank egg and two Oddish eggs the Vileplume had given him to fill up the incubators before he was done hatching eggs for the first time since coming to this world.

Coming back to the day of Whitney's visit.

Whitney, surrounded by her Miltank, a father and daughter pair of Girafarig, a Clefable and a young Lickitung that only joined her recently, walked all over the farm with glittering eyes.

She had asked Pete for the 'favor' he owed her, so Pete called over Nidoking and Rapidash so they could show off Hyper Beam and explain it to the gym leader's pokemon. His two Milotic joined as they were taught the move through TM the other day but didn't get to use it yet.

The older Girafarig, however, was pulled aside with his daughter so that Pete's Farigiraf could explain Twin Beam to the pokemon. Pete still needed definite proof that the evolution after knowing Twin Beam wasn't a fluke after all.

"Suddenly, I'm feeling I didn't bring enough compensation," Whitney mumbled with red cheeks as she watched the exotic pokemon teach her two Girafarig a move previously unknown for an undocumented evolution.

"Huh? Didn't you already pretty much pay for my house? As far as I'm concerned, we're even," Pete waved off. Luna had by now told Pete that Whitney did a little more than pay the P$280.000 down-payment, she had also pretty much sprung for all the expensive furniture Pete had chosen and used personal connections to speed up the delivery processes. All materials and pieces of furniture were of the highest quality.

"Money is a tacky gift. I have always wanted to do more. Hyper Beam is, after all, way too precious," Whitney stubbornly argued as she pulled out a stack of TM CDs from her bag.

"My uncle, during his time as gym leader, recorded quite a lot of TMs for Silph Co and always asked for his own copies. These are some of the more rare moves you don't usually find in stores. Especially 'Hidden Power'. My uncle told me that it was the hardest move to make a TM out of among all the TMs he had created," Whitney said as she handed over the five TM CDs.

"Hidden Power, Rest, Dig, Surf, and... wait, you're seriously giving me a TM of Dragon Claw? Aren't dragon type move TMs super rare? Shouldn't this alone more than pay for an afternoon of Hyper Beam demonstrations?" Pete asked with a weirded out expression as he read the labels on the TMs.

"Hmph! You may think me shallow and brash, but I felt bad about how I got this opportunity from a new acquaintance. I realised I may have been fast friends with the twins, but you don't owe me anything," Whitney spoke confidently but with a bright blush.

"Okay... I mean, don't worry, I didn't think that at all. But wasn't your uncle a normal type gym leader, same as you? None of these moves are normal type moves. You could argue Hidden Power is, maybe," Pete inquired with a raised brow as he mumbled the last sentence.

"Well, these were all moves my uncle's pokemon knew. Versatility is what I like most about my cute pokemon anyway," Whitney replied with a shrug and brought the conversation to a short stop.

He would accept the TMs now because three of them were TMs for typings he couldn't yet teach with TMs. His pokemon were doing a good job helping each other out in that regard, but it wouldn't hurt to teach new moves through some TMs to broaden their foundations.

"Pete, I decided I want to raise a pokemon," Sophie spoke as she walked closer to the two who were watching their pokemon train with determined steps.

"Uh, okay?"

"Yeah, I was wondering if you could show me how you got those ugly Feebas to evolve into those super pretty Milotic!"

"You sure? I get that they are very pretty, but you didn't strike me as someone who wanted to be a pokemon trainer."

"But you don't get it! If I want to work in fashion, having a pokemon as pretty as that would make it so much easier to get my career going," Sophie argued.

"You want to raise your pokemon as a fashion statement?" Pete furrowed his brows. He did not see much hope for Milotic to be happy and stay with her if that was true.

"Of course not! Ugh, how do I explain this... Some of your pokemon like the Minccino, Eevee and Growlithe are super, super cute, right?"

Whitney nodded with a weirdly serious glint in her eyes at Sophie's try to explain.

"But I don't want cute, I don't even want powerful. I want a pretty pokemon! And no pokemon I've ever seen is as pretty as your two Milotic," Sophie finished.

"You'll have to take good care of it every day, though. A Milotic is very powerful. It could hurt you if you're a bad trainer. It could even simply walk away if it's unsatisfied," Pete explained unsurely.

"That's what my sis and I talked about the whole week. We researched how to best take care of a Milotic! I've been the one to take care of her Corsola these days in preparation. The cutey was down a little anyway because she didn't fit in with the new ground pokemon sis decided to raise. Maybe... uh maybe I'll take care of Corsola and Milotic both so they have each other," Sophie answered with a fluster.

"Uh, sure. Let's wait until my two Milotic are done with the training and have them call over some Feebas. You see, to get them to evolve, I had to..."