-.-.-Chapter 8-.-.-

My wide eyed stare clued both my parents in that something had my attention.

"What's got you looking like that lad?" My dad grinned seeing me excited, he would be as well if he could see what I was seeing.

"The store, it's absolutely stocked with everything I remember from the games and then some, potions, berries, all the Pokéballs and so much more" I say grinning as I scrolled through the berries after filtering things so it showed the cheapest items first, "oh it's even got fertile berries that can be planted and grow into trees that produce more berries every four days, that's brilliant" 

"What do berries do?" My mum asked.

"They have various effects and uses," I mused as I continued browsing the list, "they can be eaten on their own for various things like HP recovery or healing a status effect like poison, paralysis, burn or so on. Or they can be baked into goods and fed to Pokémon as treats, Poké-blocks or poffins, they have various tastes and textures so there's always a type for every preference."

'General items, Healing items, Pokéballs, Berries, Key items, TMs, everything is here' I thought as I browsed the headers of the sections in the shop

"Oh that could be fun to experiment with," my mum giggled, she always did enough cooking and baking, and she might have roped me in more than a few times in the past for some mother/son bonding time.

"But where do you plan on planting and growing these trees?" My dad inquired, luckily I had already thought up the answer.

"Pokémon Home," I replied instantly, "from it's description it's more than a simple storage space, it's a pocket dimension where my Pokémon will be able to live, I'm sure given enough time I'll be able to set up a berry farm there to get a steady supply of berries to use to feed my Pokémon, speaking of Pokémon feed it's in here too," I said as I noticed the food section under the general items tab before wincing, "Yeah, that looks a bit pricey, five hundred Pokédollars for a kilo, yeah I'm gonna need to set up a berry farm before I get more Pokémon or else I'm going to be constantly grinding just to be able to feed my Pokémon" I said before wondering, 'maybe I could make my own Pokémon food from them' I thought to myself before I began to look to see if there was any recipes in the shop for that.

"Could we go there?" My mum asked curiously.

I pause my browsing at that question, "I'm not sure, maybe if we're touching when I go I could pull you both along" I voice as I think on it for but a single moment before I blink as another screen appears before me.

{confirmed, any who are touching you when you chose to enter Pokémon home can enter with you, however, in the current system version, only you and your Pokémon may enter dungeons}

After reading it I nod, "Hm, it looks like my system is sentient in some form, it just confirmed that you can come with me to Pokémon home if we're in contact" I explain before my eyes widen as I realize what I just said and think, 'Oh shit!' before I quickly open my options menu and begin to scroll through the surprising number of optimization options frantically searching, hoping to find what the one I hoped was there.

"What's wrong lad" my dad asked, seeing my worry written clearly on my face.

I don't respond as I keep scrolling, 'come on, come on, please be here' I thought as I continued scrolling before seeing what I wanted and immediately adjusted the system settings as I let out a sigh of relief and relaxed back into my chair, "Oh thank you whoever gave me this system put that in there and I thought to look now, things could have gotten so bad if I hadn't"

"What is it sweetie," my mum asked in concern.

"My system is sentient or it has some form of intelligence that can respond to my thoughts, and a general theme with almost every system I've ever read about is quests or missions given by the system for the user to progress and gain rewards," I explained.

"I don't see what's so bad about that," my dad said with confusion.

"Generally it is a good thing, however what's to prevent the system from giving me a quest without the ability to decline it or if it gives me a quest where failing it would mean death" I explained, as I browsed through the other options making some changes here and there, "I've read a few stories where stuff like that happened, it's a good thing noticed early on and the system still had the options menu, I was able to opt out of non-declinable missions" 

'Though nothing is stopping whatever higher power it was that gave me the system in the first place from just over riding that and giving me one anyway, but at least this way I don't have to worry about the system just screwing me over on its own' I thought to myself after the fact.

My dad nods in approval, "always read the fine print, at least you noticed now before it came back to bite you"

"Alright," my mum said as she clapped her hands together, "enough of all this gloomy talk," she said as she stood up from her chair, "you said we can go with you to take a look at this Pokémon Home of yours, so I say no time like the present, once we've seen it we can come back and get ready to head out. This morning might have come as a surprise to all of us, but that's no reason not to continue on as we were planning, it's my son's eleventh birthday and I want to spoil him silly!"

My dad and I could only chuckle and smile at her as we both got up, me being careful to take Cyndaquil in my arms before standing.

"Well you heard your mother lad, the lady of the house has spoken. Us mere mortals can do nothing but obey," my dad chuckled, only to get a playful scolding slap on his shoulder as mum glared at him slightly.

I stifled my chuckle and nodded, "Alright then, come place your hands on my shoulders and I'll take us there."

Both my parents came close and placed their hands on my shoulders and I gave the mental command, 'Enter Pokémon Home' and I felt a slight pulling sensation, like someone had grabbed my collar from behind and gave me a slight jerk, and at the same time the world around us just shifted.

I blinked several times as I suddenly found myself somewhere different.

We began to turn and look around to see where we were and I felt a grin come to my face, this was way better than what I had originally been hoping for.

We were on a tall hill overlooking a huge grassland clearing, surrounded by a very thick forest. There was a large lake in the middle of the clearing that I could see had a couple of rivers flowing in and out of it diving up the clearing. Looking beyond the forest I could see various different environments, mountains of various heights with some having snowy tops, deserts and savannas, marsh lands, and what looked to be an actual semi-active volcano, every environment I could think of where Pokémon of various types would live and thrive.

"My word," my dad said as we stared out at the world before us, "I don't know what I was really expecting, but this surpasses anything I could have thought up."

"It goes as far as the eye can see," my mum said with awe in her voice.

"And beyond I would imagine," I said after a moment's thought, "there were over a thousand different species of Pokémon after the latest generation of games came out, and chances are good I'm going to eventually have multiple of each so I'll need as much room as possible for them to move about"

My dad smirked, "Well I think it's safe to say you got it."

"Cyn-da" Cyndaquil chimed in agreement, still in my arms.

I chuckled as I put him on the ground, "Go on and explore some, I'll call you when I'm going to head into the dungeons" I told him.

"Cyn," the small hedgehog nodded before starting to scamper off down the hill.

I smiled watching him go before looking back out at the expansive view once more, "well looks like I've got my work cut out for me now," I mused, thinking about all I would have to do now that I knew what was coming in the future.

My dad placed his hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, "one step at a time lad, you are only just starting, you have your whole life ahead of you again, even if it's just gotten way more complicated."

I nodded, 'yeah, one step at a time, I'll just have to figure things out along the way.' I thought to myself as I smiled.

Chapter word count: 1561