C071 - Pete's farm (End of Volume 1)

A week later, Isabelle accompanied Lily and Emily back home to the Orange Islands. And, whatever Isabelle whispered in her daughter's ear at the time made it so Jasmine couldn't look Pete in the eyes without turning as red as a Tamato Berry for the rest of the day.

The distribution of his TMs was going rather well. All his pokemon were somehow very eager to learn new moves so they could be smug when helping the rest figure it out.

He was even able to evolve three Yanma into Yanmega this week. His Vibrava was building herself a sort of reverse harem of a few strong Yanma in the area, and they gladly learned the move Ancient Power through Pete's TM.

Elm was over the moon at the discovery and was close to coming over once more.

Vivian didn't mind, but she also didn't want to impose on Pete, who had guests over non-stop ever since he built his farm. So she talked her husband down to buying the TM from Steven instead to experiment on his own. There were a few Tangela in the forests near New Bark Town, after all.

This week also had some evolutions once more when all of his pokemon became more powerful. Both Minccino, though with one day in between, evolved into Cinccino. Ponyta finally followed in Zebstrika's foot-, no hoofsteps, and evolved into Pete's second Rapidash. The mother Rapidash was both proud and sad that day.

For the Cinccino Pete noted with furrowed brows that it should have taken a 'Shiny Stone' for them to evolve, but somehow they didn't hold anything during their evolution. Whatever a shiny stone even was, Pete had no idea at this point. Was it a polished gold nugget? A polished marble egg? So he was kind of glad it worked out in the end without needing such a stone.

Out of Pete's expectations, Applin evolved once it opened up a little to him and his pokemon, and promptly ate half of Pete's ripened Leppa Berries on the farm like he was starved all his life. Pete could have stopped it since Applin was rather slow, but he saw no reason to do it.

In the games, the evolution was decided by which kind of apple the pokemon ate last though Pete was honest with himself that he didn't know which was which. But in this reality, it was clearly something else that decided the evolution. If Applin, no, Flapple now, ever had any offspring on his farm, he would need to investigate.

After it ate its fill, it even bonded to Pete, once more bolstering his grass affinity. Though it did not open his dragon affinity, which didn't surprise Pete much because Vibrava was also bonded to him and did not open his dragon affinity. Four affinities with ground, psychic, grass, and water were enough to train anyway. The dragon pokemon must have started respecting Pete for some reason. Maybe it was all his happy, powerful pokemon or his big farm with many fruit.

Zorua was still not evolving, but Pete recognised he probably neglected the little pokemon a little in the past few weeks even before his trip to Hoenn without him. He would start working on that in the coming days and weeks.

On Jasmin's side, her little Phanpy evolved into Donphan. It was also a little earlier than they had suspected based on the breeder's info, but Jasmine gave Phanpy plenty of opportunities to become stronger through spars, actual battles, TMs and guidance from stronger pokemon since she got the pokemon from the breeder.

She had also caught a shiny Wooper in the Evergreen River during Pete's trip to Hoenn, and the little girl evolved into a shiny Quagsire. Lily was threatening another visit if her sister didn't send her a picture a day for a week straight when she heard about the derpy pink water/ground pokemon.

And while neither her two Rhyhorn or her Numel evolved, Numel got a new 'big sister' on the farm. Courtney's Numel was a little bit of a battle maniac and loved sparring with Pete's and Jasmine's pokemon. Pete even secretly taught the fire camel a TM, not yet ready to reveal his special TM to the Numel's trainer yet.

The newly evolved Camerupt did wonders for Jasmine's Numel's self-esteem and lit a literal and figurative fire under her butt.

"Are you sure you want to start building a guest house? Can't you stay a little idle for a while? I fear you take on too much at the same time," Jasmine suggested with a concerned smile as the two stood in a clearing close to the farm.

"Duosion and I only gathered some materials in Goldenrod this morning. It's not like I want to be done in two weeks. This is just for whenever I feel like working on it. And it's good practice for Klink and Beldum, as well as my Timburr. Sure, they have this crazy form of baseball tennis now that they know Detect, but I think they might be a little bored of it sometime soon," Pete explained with a wry smile.

"So when they evolve twice, you'll keep building cities on a monthly basis so that your poor, poor Conkeldurr aren't bored? I think you're already doing quite a lot for them with all those games you showed them, Pete. Just let them battle or roam the forest like the adventure group when they are bored. It sounds wasteful to a trainer, but that's what you brought to yourself by being a trainer to almost fourty of them," Jasmine chided her boyfriend with a pout.

"Yeah... okay you made your point. This will wait a while. I should spend more time with Zorua anyway. I think he's hiding from me for some reason. He does at least still spend time with the two Cinccino like he used to, so he isn't alone," Pete agreed with a sigh.

"Ask him for a swim, I don't think he's been to the hot spring once since you built it. He might be missing out, but you can find out if that's true or not," Jasmine suggested with a smile, glad that Pete was reasonable about the whole guest house thing.

She was sure he would start building it soon anyway, but tomorrow he was already fully booked by a visiting Devon Corp scientist who would record Twin Beam from his Farigiraf and then he still had all those research papers he had still not finished writing... his life certainly wasn't that of an idle person who had some time on their hands for a renovation project.

"Sure, I need to smell nice for our special night anyway," Pete joked with a wink, gave the blushing Jasmine a kiss, and ran off.

When Pete found Zorua, it took some time to convince him to join Pete in the spring. It turned out that Zorua had two reasons for not going there. One was that he had a fear of water because he was caught by the 'bad men' who came to his tribe's territory by submarine, and two was that he did not know how to swim.

Pete quickly called Arcanine over since both pokemon had a similar build, even if one of them was much, much larger and the two of them, trainer and fire pokemon taught Zorua how to swim that evening.

After dinner, Sophie and Courtney got the feeling that the atmosphere between Pete and Jasmine was a little weird, so the two of them left them some space. Both girls could guess what it was, though, and were sporting blushes almost as red as Jasmine's.

When Pete woke up the next morning with Jasmine next to him, his tired smile instantly bloomed into a fully content smile. A beautiful, smart girl with the same interests... now that was already at least half the recipe for a life worth living. It was nice knowing the two even had good chemistry between the sheets.

Usually, he would stand up at this point, but on this day, he stayed in bed and pressed his girlfriend against his chest. While still deep in her dreams, she reciprocated the hug and pressed her face against his neck to breathe in his calming scent.

Later around noon, Pete had his appointment with the Devon Corp people, so he hopped over to Goldenrod City in four hops with Farigiraf's help.

Under Steven's urging, Devon Corp had won the bid for the Twin Beam rights for a certain amount of time. As the one who 'discovered' Girafarig's evolution, he was granted certain favors he could cash in, and he asked for something even Steven didn't consider.

All Pete asked for as a signing bonus apart from future league mandated royalties were a female Combee and any number of male Combee they considered fair up to six as well as a non-enforceable priority for future inventions by the company. Be it for testing prototypes with them to advance technology or being among the first who receives a new invention.

When he arrived at the Devon Corp boat with the 'mobile' TM creation device, all the people present were very polite to Pete. Steven had handed them a box of things he apparently still owed Pete, so they rightfully thought that Pete was someone on very good terms with the son of their CEO.

Inside the box, Pete found a letter personally penned by Steven, a keystone inside a bracelet for mega evolutions and eight pokeballs.

['Hello Pete, I'm writing this to you after coming back from cleaning up some dirt in Unova and after I have taken care of the Team Aqua and Magma admins in my father's company. You'll likely read about a mass termination of certain employees soon enough, though I wonder if I should handle these grunts differently.

I fear their resentment would only grow, and they become even more dependent on their respective villanous organizations.

On a more positive note, I found someone I had least expected at the Mt Pyre guardian's stronghold. She tells me you knew all along, so a little headsup would have been nice. The two of us will start going after the leaders, the other admins and their hidden bases soon. Who better to sniff out all their secrets than two trainers with overpowered psychic pokemon, am I right?

In any case, I read that even female Combee don't always evolve into their Vespiquen form, so I took the liberty of getting you two of them. I hope you don't mind. Your friend Steven']

Pete gained a warm smile when he finished reading it and turned back to the TM creation that was in session. The machine was an entire rack of computer equipment connected to a generator or battery, Pete couldn't tell which, which was almost half the size of the boat and a halo connected with four thick wires.

How they would record a TM from a pokemon as small as Minccino, for example, was a question that Pete was asking himself the entire time he watched the process. With the halo on its head, Farigiraf was asked to use the move three times but when she did, it didn't fire off and punch a hole or two in the boat.

When these operators were satisfied, ten TM-CDs popped out of the machine. One was given to Pete, and the other nine were kept to teach to the company's pokemon, and other copies could be made from there.

Pete hopped back to the farm after that and tended to his new herb patch among the raised beds. Most of them already started growing nicely after Pete asked the Vileplume farm if they could focus their Grassy Terrain blessing on them for a while, even the lone Mirror Herb had sprouted a few extra twigs on them.

He had not built any guest houses yet, but he did build the foundations of a hive that he could potentially walk into the mountain at the crops field during the last week.

It was supported and reinforced with ground type energy and wooden pillars made of dried granite-wood, and the roof were simple granite-wood boards cleverly layered so it won't drip inside when it rains. It was the same wood as the boards he used to keep the raised beds for his plants in shape.

The Combee were a little miffed by getting caught by a bug catcher on an outing and then kept in ball for so long, but they didn't take it out on Pete.

Instead, they were very happy with the house he had built them and the giant field he had offered them as a habitat. Pete feared they might want to clash with all the Hoppip-line pokemon, but that wasn't the case. They happily buzzed and floated around in the field together.

At the field, Pete also found his three new Cottonee who were playing hide and seek almost every hour of every day. They only ate sweet things, and all three of them bonded to Pete when he gave them half a cookie each from his own 'cookies for humans' stash.

His grass affinity was quickly balooning ahead of all his other affinities, especially water. He could already sprout a seed in an hour, which took him a full day before.

With the farm in order, a beautiful girlfriend by his side and most of the immediate threats through Team Rocket, Aqua, and Magma addressed, Pete was ready to spend some time in peace while spending meaningful time with his pokemon and his new friends.

His new assistant, who he teased with the title assistant to the assistant professor, was opening up to him and the twins with each passing day. Instead of looking like the world owed her money, she actually looked happy most of the time.

She even adopted a few more pokemon since Pete didn't mind and unlocked her flying affinity with a bonded Gligar in addition to her ice and fire affinity. She truly was meant to be a major character.

And, her streak of unlocking affinities thanks to ground pokemon continued. She was apparently meant to either become Jasmine's best friend or biggest rival.

The name Pete Lang was in every professor's and elite trainer's mouth for the next two months as the young assistant proved obscure evolutions and evolution conditions one after another, rediscovered and recorded a few moves that were unknown or forgotten, and he popularized Mirror Herb in the three regions closest to him with the help of Herbert and his company.

Under the name Tutor Herb, elite trainers, trainer schools and gym leaders with a decent following, the miracle plant was sold to as THE plant to teach a pokemon new moves. By taking it, a pokemon would more than double its speed learning a move from another pokemon.

Pete also published recipe books for pokemon and humans, a lot of them with berries as an ingredient. Housewives all over the world liked the last point the most. This world did not know what a lasagna was before he arrived!

_______________________

AN: Well, this is Vol 1, and I finished it during my week of vacation like planned. The next chapter is gonna take a while because I'll have to consider all I want to do in Vol 2. Its name will be "Professor Lang" and starts with a time skip. The first plot line will be Jasmine's audition to become the Olivine Gym Leader.

Please keep in mind that 1 month (Poke) = 1 year (Real) in the poke world, because I really wrote myself into a hole with that one. Should have called them something else like 4 weeks = 1 quarter; 12 quarters = 1 cycle ( = 3 dollars); 12 cycles = 1 year (which would be a decade in my sick, twisted cluster of bad writing) or something like that.

In any case, the timeskip will be around 700 normal days.

There will be a visit to both Unova and Alola! Maybe a short visit to smaller regions like anime exclusive regions or from DLC or sidegames (like Orre from XD Mystery Dungeon, if I remember that one correctly)

Team Rocket might be defeated, but their leader Giovanni was not apprehended! Team Aqua Leader Archie also escaped (underwater, can you believe it). Let's see what I will do with that.

And of course, we have Pete becoming a pokemon professor way earlier than he could have imagined at the end of the volume! Because the name would not make sense otherwise.

If you have suggestions, name them here.

Also, I will change how I will list Pete's pokemon and only consider those he actively trains and/or takes on vacations. He will have too many pokemon on his farm for me to list them with all evolutions, genders, and chapter references. Especially since the time skip will see most if not all of the pokemon he hatched already be at the the end of their evolution line.