CH37 (98), The Talk And Cyan City

That evening, after dinner, while we were lounging on the couch I took out Lotad's ball and showed it to my parents when the topic of our day came up. They were naturally curious about my behavior, even if they looked a bit exasperated. "What did you do this time?" My father asked, and I put on an obviously fake hurt look, wouldn't want the old man thinking that he really hurt my feelings.

"Whatever do you mean? I did nothing." I opposed and he got that "really" look on his face while looking at the ball in my hands. "Well, okay, not nothing." I conceded but still contended the question. "This time it's not for me," I told them.

"Boys, boys, no need to get agitated," came from my mother, who played the mediator. "Now how about you guys stop your comedy session, so that Mikail can tell us why he pulled out a Pokeball." She said while shooting my father a look.

"So, honey. Why did you pull out that ball?" She asked while turning her focus towards me. "Well, I was walking along Route 3 today," I began and told them a short version of my day since that was what started the thing. My parents quietly listened to me, only occasionally throwing in remarks like "Well done" and "Good job" or simply nodding.

"The Lotad gave me a pretty good feeling, so I caught it for dad." I ended my narrative with the capture of Lotad. "Your dad, not yourself?" Came from my mother and I nodded at her question. "Yeah, I'm not really interested in having more Pokemon for now," I answered, even if that was not the whole truth.

"Okay, but why your dad?" She asked curiously, while my father just nodded along. He seemed content with leaving the talking to my mother for now. "I once saw a Ludicolo fight while visiting the Battle Club in Viridian City. It looked pretty strong, so it left a good impression on me at the time." I began my explanation.

My parents looked content with simply letting me speak, so I continued. "I learned that the line has the grass/water typing, and you already have water and grass Pokemon." I clarified why I chose to not give the Lotad to her.

My mother just smiled at my justification. "Dad on the other hand has only one water Pokemon that can't really leave the water and no grass type. So, I decided to catch the Lotad for him, since Ludicolo is a pretty strong Pokemon that covers those shortcomings." I clarified why I chose to capture it for my father.

After listening to my full explanation my mother hugged me and turned to face my father. "Did you hear that honey? Our baby boy is already trying to take care of us. Isn't that just precious?" She said in a sweet tone that showed how proud she was of me and my action. I just smiled when she said that, even if I mentally cringed a bit when she called me her baby boy.

"Yeah, that's great." My father answered her while ruffling my hair. I silently complained about that. Never liked it when someone ruffled my hair, but he had parent privileges, so I didn't complain out loud about something so minor.

"Son, you said Lotad gave you a good feeling, right? How would you rate it?" He asked curiously. I paused a bit before I answered him. Making it seem as if I was contemplating the answer. "Well, I would say worse than the feeling Ponyta, sorry, Epona gave me, but slightly better than Sneasel," I told him.

He mused after hearing my answer. "So, either 5-star potential or 4-star potential at the upper echelon. That's great! Good job, son." He said while patting my head. "Thanks, dad. Here," I simply replied while passing him Lotad's ball. My father smiled and just pocketed the ball for now. He was most likely going to talk with Lotad later on.

My mother, who had been smiling heartily and just listening while we were talking, asked me a question after she released from her hug. "Honey, you said you're going to arrive at Cyan City tomorrow, right?" I agreed since it was true.

"In that case could keep an eye out for any good water-type evolution materials?" I tilted my head a bit at her request. She seemed to consider that as me asking why, so she started to explain the reason for her request.

"I want to evolve Star into a Starmie, and I want to use this chance to raise its potential as much as I can. Cyan City is one of the Major Cities near the coast, so they should have some of the rarer water-type materials available." She explained, and my father agreed with her but decided to elaborate, most likely to impress me with his knowledge.

"You can ignore the normal Water Stone because it won't be good enough for your mom's plan. The highest class Star can use without wasting the material is C, so we need something in that class that is much stronger. Don't worry about the cost, just look around and tell us if you find anything useful." He told me and I conveyed my understanding.

"Sure, I'll do it. I'll find the best stuff for you, mom." I assured my mother. "I'm sure you'll do, honey." She said while pinching my cheeks. We talked a bit more before we decided to watch a movie. We chose to watch "PokeRanger and the Temple of Spirits". The movie was pretty interesting and was most likely supposed to interest kids in the profession of (Pokemon) Rangers.

Well, I had to admit the movie was pretty good and they most likely succeeded. The movie was about a Pokemon Ranger that stumbles upon a half-buried temple during one of his missions in the area between routes.

Surprisingly he calls for backup from the headquarters, most likely because the alliance did not want to encourage reckless behavior, and then a team of 10 Rangers explores the temple full of Ghost and Ground Pokemon.

The movie ends with the capture of a Spiritomb that had been brutally ruling over the tomb and wanted to kill the humans after learning about them. After the movie ended I wished my parents goodnight and left for my room.

The next morning I made my way towards Cyan City. It took me less than an hour to cover the last 8 km and see the periphery of the city. Once I had covered more than half of the outer area I fell into my by now routine of just exploring the city for a few hours while occasionally talking with the pedestrians.

Well, the most important thing I learned during my jaunt was the information on the classics. Cyan City was a Tier 6 city, with an Ice Gym and 3 Halls, those being the Water-, Flying-, and Normal-type Hall. In addition to that, there were also a Battle Club and a sailor's hang-out called "Call of the Sea" that stood out to me.

From what I had heard sailors that wanted to spend their time further inland at a Major City liked to visit that place. The reason why this was important to me was that multiple people assured me that if there was word of any rare water material around, I would hear it there. Besides, they apparently occasionally gave out tips on training water types as well and they supposedly sold the best seafood too.

Another really important thing I learned is that apparently, Cyan City was not the last large city I would find on my way to the coast. No, there actually was a Tier-5 Major City called Coast City just 5-10 km away from the coast itself and around 150 km from Cyan City. So, if I really wanted to get some rare water-type materials, I was likely to find some there.

The reason I did not know about Coast City was that it was not on any of the maps I had previously looked at, since it was not part of the main Route-system. Well, at least this meant I would have practically reached my goal once I arrived at Coast City, and I would also have a nearby city to rest between explorations of the coast itself.

Anyway, back to Cyan City. After hearing the name of the current Gym Leader of the Ice Gym I could not believe the number of coincidences I was encountering. Her name was Elsa and her ace Pokemon was a Vanilluxe. The descriptions of her that I had been given portrayed her as a beautiful blonde woman, that was apparently also an Ice Elementalist.

Hearing about someone with a special talent was pretty cool, especially one that was neither aura nor psionic in nature. On top of that, she had a pretty important position, since she was a Gym Leader. This once more confirmed what my parents said about the alliance supporting/safeguarding people with special talents.

At least I thought that this supported that, or she would not have gained such an illustrious position. I would have to visit the gym itself to learn more, but this was already enough for now. I had to look around the stores some more first before I could visit the Gym or the Halls, or more like I wanted to get that out of the way first.

On the topic of Halls, it looked like there was another Flying Hall here, despite there already being one in Dew City. Now many would think that this was unnecessary, but I would disagree. First of all, there was a large enough distance between the cities that the argument became pretty weak.

Furthermore, the most common species around Cyan City were of either water-, flying-, or normal-type Pokemon, so it made sense that the Halls were specialized in those types. I was going to visit them to see if they had any offers that were useful to us. Pidgey had benefited from learning Roost, so I was curious about what else I could gain from them, especially the Normal Hall.

As for the Battle Club, I was planning to visit that one tomorrow since I had too much to do today. The first thing I did after I finished my preliminary scouting was visit the "Call of the Sea". I just stayed there for an hour talking to some of the sailors and other customers that were there and I got some good information.

Many of the sailors recommended me some stores after I brought up the topic, and the two stores that came up the most were "Deep Sea Treasury" as well as "Ocean's Fortune". I made sure that I got the route description for those two.

Furthermore, one of the sailors told me about a place near the coast and Coast City where I could find some Feebas. Another one told me that it may be possible to see a pod of Lapras near the coast in a month or so. When I asked about their safety since I had heard in my last life that Lapras were endangered and I quite liked the species.

The sailor said that the alliance sent some high-ranking agents to supervise their passing, to make sure no illegal hunting happened. Apparently, they did not interfere with trainers that got the permission of the pod to challenge one of them for capture but simply made sure that criminals did not interfere with their migration.

The alliance normally did not interfere too much but known migration routes were being supervised so that the events did not get disrupted by greed or criminal organizations. After spending that hour collecting information, I decided to eat my lunch there.

Their baked fish with sauce was awesome and I would definitely recommend it. Maybe I'll bring my parents here when they came over to Cyan City to buy the item my mother wanted. Once I was done with eating I left the "Call of the Sea" and made my way to the "Ocean's Fortune" since that store was closer to my current position.

I leisurely walked towards the store and I must say the first impression I got was cool and classic. The front of the store looked like wood and the decorations gave one the impression of it being part of a ship. I entered the place and walked up to the information desk to ask about their assortment of evolution materials.

The man employee was of the friendly sort and politely asked if I wanted to be led to the section of the store or if I wanted to see their catalog first. I decided to take a look at their catalog first because that one was usually more extensive than the store displays. The employee politely accepted my request and brought out a pad from under his desk that he handed over to me.

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