let's talk business

After everyone did what they needed to, they all stepped outside to get ready to head back to town.

Brock already released Rhyhorn and was preparing the saddle from before, and Misty was dreading the thought of having to ride the Rock Rhino all the way back.

Brock hopped onto Rhyhorn's head and looked towards everyone, "Alright hop on everyone, I think I got this down,"

Yellow hopped on and Misty begrudgingly followed, leaving only Ash on the ground, "Ash you coming?"

"Well actually I have some business I need to take care of so you guys go ahead," Ash said as Abra appeared on his shoulder, "Don't worry, as long as you're not too far away I can find you."

As he said that Ash raised his arm into the air, everyone realized what he was going to do so Brock and Yellow braced themselves and Misty tried getting close, but by the time she did Ash's hand went down

And gave Rhyhorn a hard slap causing him to start running, the last thing he heard was Misty yelling, "Let us go with youuuu!!!"

Ash laughed seeing Misty's distressed face run into the distance, he turned to see Abra and said, "Alright Abra let's go find them."

And in the next moment, they were also gone.

–

{In a large field on an island off the coast of Kanto}

Damian finally had a chance to sit down after all the Bulls left and started exploring the land, he took a breath and felt a sharp poking feeling in his chest. He looked down and saw that he probably broke a rib.

'I should probably get that checked out,' Damian thought to himself as he looked towards the computer.

He mumbled under his breath, "I should probably send the location to Ash,"

But as soon as he said that he heard a voice, "No need I'm already here." looking behind him he saw Ash standing over his shoulder, which made him fall off his chair.

"Wow you don't look good you should be more careful, but don't worry I'm here to make it all better, Clefairy!" Ash said as a pink Pokemon jumped out of his hood and went over to Damian's side.

"Yeah, thanks I guess, but how did you get here? I haven't told you about this place." Damian said as Clefairy was healing him.

Ash looked at the Abra that was on his shoulder, "You know teleporting is really useful."

Damian got up, "Of course, well whatever, do you want to talk business or should we end this now."

In a blur, Ash appeared at the table with his hands crossed covering his face as he gave a serious expression, "Yes, we need to talk business."

Damian took the seat across, "Alright then, this is a small private island, it's about 80-85 acres, I got it as a 'gift' from my old man, I really don't care about this place but it's remote."

Ash nodded, "That's quite a bit, alright then, on my side, there are a lot of Tauros, 40 to be exact, my offer is that I will take the leader with me and train him, then when I can I'll send him back along with Pokeblocks I will also prepare myself."

"My Tauros will train up all of the other Tauros to become, let's call it 'High-quality specimen', and with them, we can send them to those poor neglected farms with Miltank, and they can be used to help with labor, also I hear Tauros hair is quite valuable in certain places."

Damian nodded along and started seeing the plan, "Ok, then on my side, I can hire employees to feed and groom the Tauros, and with my father's connections I can rent them out across the regions."

"Exactly, and in Paldea they don't have these Tauros so if you can get some connections there I'm sure we can get requests from farms wanting to use them for breeding purposes," Ash said 

Damian nodded, "OK, I can see the idea, but now we should discuss income and labor costs."

But Ash held his hand out indicating for Damian to stop, "I'll leave that to you, currently I don't need money at the moment so I want you to take all the credit and money, along with becoming the overall face of the business."

Damian looked shocked, "Are you sure, if I do that you won't get any recognition, and I can't guarantee its success."

Ash just shook his head, "It's fine. Besides if you take credit your father is more likely to see you as a Prodigy who started this from nothing by yourself, so he might decide to retire earlier, consider this an investment."

Damian took a moment to think, until he held out his hand, "Alright, it's a deal, I'll take care of the business side."

Then Ash took his hand, "I'll take care of the physical, so let's make some money."

As they shook they discussed some final details on how it should work, potential hires, and overall quality of the land.

After everything was finished they were about to part ways but Ash remembered that he wanted to ask something, "Hey, you know how Paldea has different Tauros."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are 3 kinds, why?" Damian asked.

"Well, consider this a secondary goal, but after you form good connections in Paldea, could you see if you could get some?"

Damian looked confused, but he understood the value, "OK but it will probably take a while and some convincing, do you have a preference on how?"

"Egg, calf, or a full adult, it doesn't matter, even if we may need to trade one of ours it would be worth it," Ash said, and Damian nodded, so Ash finally took Abra and his Tauros then teleported away.

–

Ash arrived back in Fuchsia City. Sure, sure he could have gone back to meet up with his friends …. Were you expecting some reasoning on why he didn't? He just didn't want to go.

So his current plan was to enjoy himself and stop them from dying when they got here.

Abra poked him on the shoulder, and when he looked over to her he noticed her pointing at the food stalls, Ash laughed knowing Abra's antics so he went over to buy an exorbitant amount.

After he got settled and sat down with his Pokemon to enjoy the snacks he felt his dex ring, when he looked at it he saw that Green texted him.

Leavesonthevine: Hey, Mr. Medical student, you think you can help me out with something :)

Ash raised his eyebrow and texted back.

Pokemonenjoyer: Depends, what do you want to know?

—

{In an undisclosed area}

Candela was running through the building, she could only grit her teeth as she remembered what happened here, looking down at her Pokeballs she could see most of the ones she brought were just barely still up.

"Where do you think you're going little girl," A loud and rough voice echoed through the halls.

A second more feminine voice sounded out, "I think she thinks she can escape,"

"Ha, sure she can leave as soon as we get what we want, Tyranitar Stone edge now!"

From behind Candela a pillar of spikes shot from the ground blocking off half of the building, but she couldn't stop so she kept running.

She continued running looking, her only goal at the moment was to find Arlo and then get out.

Candela continued moving her eyes across the room trying to do anything, as she did she noticed an opening between the walls next to the doors, which made her choice clear.

As Candela disappeared Cliff and Sierra appeared in the area and looked around, almost immediately Cliff noticed the opening, "Tyranitar break the wall!"

The large green dinosaur shattered the wall making the opening much bigger, Cliff looked at the empty debris as Sierra looked at him.

"Can you be more subtle even a little."

"So what, it's faster like this,"

Sierra rolled her eyes, "Let's go the more we talk the farther she gets"

As Cliff and Sierra ran through the opening, Candela was hidden to the side, she just barely avoided getting buried in rubble but her bet paid off and she had access to the area they came from.

As she retraced her steps she started thinking about why they would want her to be here, this was clearly a trap, and she fell for it hook line, and sinker but at the moment she couldn't afford to waste time with caution.

Moving through the halls she eventually got close to the center of the building, and in the center, there was a room that was cut off from everything else.

So with no better Idea, she pushed the door open revealing a dark room, and in the center, she saw him, Arlo, he was tied up and his face was bruised, his red and black hair was disheveled and he was missing his glasses.

Without hesitation, she ran over and started untying him, "Thank goodness you're safe,"

With a groggy voice, Arlo looked up, "Candela? What are you doing here?"

"Saving you you idiot," Candela said as she finished removing the ropes and helped Arlo to his feet, "Come on we need to get out of here, we can catch up later."

Candela and Arlo moved through the hallway slowly due to Arlo, "Candela, I'm sorry."

Candela punched Arlo in the shoulder, "C'mon don't get mushy on me, we're friends of course I came for you."

"No not for that," Arlo said

Then a light glowed from behind Candela, when she turned around a red metallic bug blitzed to her and used its claw to push Candela and force her to the wall.

Arlo went into his pocket and pulled out some glasses, "I'm sorry for what I need to do, but it's part of the job,"

As Arlo put on his glasses Cliff and Sierra walked up from behind him, 

"Not a bad kid, I didn't think this would work," Cliff said

"Shut up old man, I'm still not over you punching me for real," Arlo said as he pulled out a hair band and tied his hair.

"Then stop calling me old!" Cliff yelled.

Candela frowned at this, she knew this was a trap but not like this, she had a claw holding her onto the wall but she could still speak and move everything else. So she went for a button on her belt.

It wasn't a Hail Mary technique or anything, it was an emergency release for any Pokemon you had on you, as she pressed it the Pokeballs she had broken opened, and the Pokemon she had ran away.

Sierra looked at the running Pokemon, "Releasing your Pokemon when you're trapped just so they couldn't be taken, how noble."

Candela smiled, "What can I say, I'm a fool for my friends."

Arlo stepped up, "But I know you still have one Pokemon you don't need a Pokeball for, Summon it."

Candela frowned and spat on the ground, "So that's what you're after, I'll never let you have it."

"Oh good, we were worried, this would get boring too fast, don't worry we have ways to force it out," Sierra said as she looked towards Candela's hand, "As long as you're here we have all the time we need."

Candela flinched as she hid her right hand behind her back, but Cliff went over and grabbed it, "So it's on this hand, alright thanks for making this easy."

In the next moment, Cliff tore off Candela's glove revealing her hand, and on her hand, there was a burn pattern in the shape of fire.

Arlo got close and inspected the pattern, "So this is it, the thing that should have been mine but was stolen under my nose."

"Is that what this is about, you're just salty I was chosen, what kinda of motive is that?!" Candela yelled at Arlo.

Arlo scoffed and turned around, "Come on, we need to find a new place of operation, this place is unusable now."

Scizor released his claw as Cliff grabbed Candela, and then they started moving to a new location.

[Stage 1 complete.]

[Commencing step 2]