Chapter 42

"...This place is a shit hole." Jord snorted as he looked around the street they were walking down. They'd been travelling together for a week now, and they'd finally arrived in Hollywood.

The crap side of town at least. The side of town with all the buildings in disarray and boarded up. They'd walked four blocks now since entering the city and literally only came across one actual open building in working order. And it was just a crappy little motel.

"Don't be such a party pooper!" Hilda waved him off. She unlike him couldn't wipe the massive smile off of her face, she was eagerly looking around at all the buildings, "Can't you just feel the movie industry history here? I can practically smell it!"

"I can smell something alright, but I don't think it's the same as what you've deluded yourself into believing." Jord rolled his eyes. He was half tempted to bring out Bellossom and have her ride on his shoulder and give off some faint Sweet Scent. He'd evolved her just yesterday alongside Weepinbell. They'd evolved really quick under the intense double gravity training and after a few days of letting them get used to their new forms and strength, he used the Sun Stone and the Leaf Stone he bought in Cerulean before leaving for a whopping ten grand. God that hurt to even think about.

Either way, it was mighty tempting, because all he could smell right now was rotting garbage.

He really didn't get it.

'Why the hell has half of an entire city just basically been deserted?' he shook his head. It really didn't make sense to him. Sure, the main attraction of this city was apparently the movie industry before shit hit the fan, but c'mon seriously?

They really honestly couldn't be telling him that it had nothing else to offer than movies. Even if there were like a theatre on every block. All closed of course.

All that this land. All this space. And it was just being ignored? It really didn't make any fucking sense to him at all.

He was half of a mind to believe that some criminal syndicate like Team Rocket caused the city to fall the way it did and just bought everything up and are using the abandoned place as an underground crime ring.

After all, Meowth had to have run in to Team Rocket somehow, right?

'Note to self, don't go digging to deep in here.' he told himself. He was awesome, but he didn't fancy poking his nose into a possible Team Rocket op.

Unless it involved Jessie and her absurdly voluptuous boner inducing out of this world body. 'I wonder if she's still locked up or if the three of them have broken out yet?' Jord wondered.

On the other hand. If this city really did just go to shit, and it didn't have anything to do with Team Rocket or anything like that, it meant there was a lot of property up for grabs. A lot of most likely very cheap property.

Jord wasn't an idiot. Well, not a stupid mentally retarded idiot at least. He had looked up and taken stock of everything he was entitled to as a trainer. And there was surprisingly quite a lot of benefits open to trainers.

The one that mattered right now though. Was that upon gaining a trainer license, trainers were considered adults. His case was very uncommon and didn't appear all that often so it wasn't looked into much. But, he could legally drink, have sex, drive a car, get married and legally own his own property.

Now, why did that matter? Well, he was a sponsored trainer of Viridian City, so his pokemon were all entitled to be taken care of at Viridian City and the Pokemon Centre that sponsored him. They even got benefits given or paid to them for each individual pokemon of a trainer they were looking after and the higher ranked the trainer, the higher the proceeds they would receive.

But, eventually, in the future, he would have to settle down would he not? His sponsorship wouldn't last forever. It wasn't like he was a family friend to Professor Oak or anything like that.

And even with just a month of being a trainer, he had a lot of pokemon. fifteen in total currently, and he planned on catching a lot more. Heck, it was a wonder he didn't have more already. He'd had to hold himself back from taking down a bunch of pokemon he caught sight of over the passed week, like a passing Pelipper that flew overhead.

In the future, he was going to need a lot of space for all his pokemon. 'How many are on that island just off of Cinnabar Island?' Jord mused. There was a single Blastoise, and like thirty in total between the Squirtle and Wartortle.

And now that he was here he was planning on catching a Persian and its gang of Meowth.

So yes, he would need his own place with a lot of space in the future. 'And this place might not be a bad idea to look into.' he nodded to himself.

Property rates had to be tiny here. Especially considering from all that Jord had found from researching society in general of this world, that the league government actually pushed people to become trainers and to increase the population.

Everything he saw basically said that even just on land alone, pokemon outnumbered humans ten to one, with as much as a single powerful pokemon controlling entire islands to themselves.

The raising of trainers was vital to this society and highly encouraged. And it was also a reason why those who captured powerful pokemon and tamed them tended to be highly regarded. The league wanted to increase the human population, because they literally had more space than they had people to occupy it apparently, and the more powerful trainers they raised who captured pokemon, the more space they would gain.

A lot of it totally flew over Jord's head, he wasn't big on sociology or that crap after all. And he'd have been a total introvert if it wasn't detrimental to getting laid.

What he did understand though. Was the simple fact that it was legal to have multiple spouses in this world because the league were pushing to increase the population. Or at least in Kanto, he didn't know if it applied to the other Regions. He wouldn't be surprised if it was just Kanto, anyone who saw the initial anime could tell you the place was fucked up and full of crazies.

It also all made a bizarre sort of twisted sense to him. Just why teenagers could become trainers and with any sort of competence make quite a bit of money through league funding, why they could have sex, get married and own their own properties. Why teens specifically, walking balls of hormones were basically pushed to become trainers.

'Because a bunch of them will obviously fuck and get pregnant early on and dip out of the trainer life for a family life, probably with enough cash to start a small business like a cafe or something.' Jord mused.

Yeah, it was all coming together. What a fucking wonderful world!