Barking up a New Tree

It was a beautiful afternoon as Death, Mukuro, Valerie and Serena approached the New Bark Town Pokémon Center, where Death was planning to register for the Johto League. In Death's arms was his youngest Pokémon that had hatched only a couple weeks back, which was an absolutely adorable little girl named Zarya, which means 'Water Priestess' and has a Slavic origin. This seemed an appropriate name for a Shiny Manaphy.

Death was not surprised to see that the young Nurse that was present was not Nurse Joy, since apart from the Nurse in Viridian City, the Nurse in Fuschia City, and a third triplet that lived in the Orange Isles, each of the nurses and doctors encountered on his journey at the various Pokémon Centers were different people.

The third originally identical triplet in the Orange Isles ended up being more tanned and buff, and highly active, but that wasn't crucial. He only knew about her from his avatar that had followed Ash on his Journey in the Orange Isles.

The Nurse before him now had green hair in a ponytail and had a very nice figure. Death, though, had many lovers and wives, and was somewhat immune to a pretty face, so he wasn't really affected by her charm.

He noticed some guys glaring at him as he approached their apparent idol.

"Hello, I am here to register for the Johto Pokémon League." Death said as he greeted the Nurse "My name is Death Rose." he presented to her his Pokédex.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Rose. I am Nurse Mint. I am happy to assist you with the registration process." The Nurse answered cheerfully, radiating warmth and kindness, which made it pretty obvious why she had so many admirers. Her charisma was extraordinary. Even so, Death didn't reach much.

"Thank you" Death agreed while passing her his Pokédex to scan his information.

Nurse Mint quickly scanned the information and then passed the device back to Death with a warm smile on her face "You are now registered for the Pokémon League, Mr. Rose. Did you need anything else?"

"Nah, I'm fine. Thank you very much, though." Death agreed.

"Very well. I hope that you and your friends, whether human or Pokémon, have a wonderful day."

"Thanks, we will." Death agreed before turning to leave, still ignoring the glares from the other men in the Pokémon Center.

While Nurse Mint seemed like an innocent and naive beauty, and reminded him a lot of a younger version of Ruby, that wasn't enough to get him to pursue a relationship with her. She just wasn't that unique to him and he did not feel any special connection to her.

He had only briefly considered asking her out because the guys glaring at him were annoying and a part of him just wanted to piss them off, but he wasn't going to toy with the emotions of a girl that reminded him or Ruby for such a stupid reason. All he had to think to dissuade him from such stupidity was what would be think if some guy treated one of his daughters that way?

He would, of course, kill the fool that did that to one of his precious daughters, so he was not going to do that to someone else's daughter. This was called just not being a jackass.

After leaving the Pokémon Center, Death headed to Professor Elm's laboratory. In the anime, Team Rocket would have stolen a Totodile there, but Team Rocket was presently locked up in Kanto so that wouldn't happen now.

"Where are we heading?" Serena asked with curiosity while they were all following his lead.

Death chuckled and glanced towards Serena "Well, love, we are dropping by to visit Professor Elm before we begin out journey. I need to update my Pokédex for the Johto region while I am there as well. And there is one more reason, but that is...maybe a surprise..."

His system had been giving him random things when he visited locations that Team Rocket would have committed crimes, though they hadn't been anything exceptional yet. the most common item he seemed to get was an everstone, which he guessed had to do with the fact that Ash never evolved his Pikachu.

It was a bit frustrating since after he got one everstone he could make as many copies of it as he wanted with the law of nihility, but he kept visiting these places in the hopes that he would get something useful this time rather then just an everstone or an oran berry.

As he approached the door to the laboratory Death sprouted a huge grin because he got something useful this time! So it was possible. Now, though, he had to come up with a name for his Articuno as well as the totodile egg he had just received.

Just like the Articuno egg he received, it did not appear to be a shiny variation, which meant that it probably had multiple egg moves to make it special. While his system did not guarantee that the eggs would be shiny, there was always something special about them, with Rasu being the only odd one out, having both egg moves and a second characteristic when he hatched called Gigantamax.

He still did not know what that was, but had heard from Weiss that it was related to the Galar region. He, however, had chosen not to inquire further to avoid spoilers for when the likely game associated with that region became available within his system.

He was very curious about what it meant, but did not act on his curiosity and continued heading inside to meet Professor Elm.

------

After updating his Pokédex and sitting through what was practically a lecture on Pokémon breeding and reproduction, Death and the girls could finally escape the lab and started to leave New Bark Town "Well, he seemed...a bit weird..." Mukuru observed.

"Yeah, but just by stepping inside there I got another Pokémon egg, so it was worth enduring the lecture. At least it wasn't another Everstone or Oran Berry." Death insisted with a chuckle.

"So do we teleport from town to town and complete the gym circuit?" Mukuro asked with curiosity, well aware that Death had already visited every city in Johto while dealing with Team Rocket so that he could easily conquer all 16 gyms in a week or two. Technically there was a grass-type gym as well, which would have been the 17th gym, though it remained closed at the moment with no gym leader in it. It was this gym that Erica had tried to recruit Leaf to fill when they were at the Celadon Gym.

"Mukuro, dear. While technically I could do that, there is no adventure to it." Death chuckled "I want to at least travel around and collect eight badges the proper way with the three of you, just like I did in Kanto."

"Understood" Mukuro agreed.

Together they walked away from the laboratory and out of New Bark Town, and then Death spotted a cute girl with brown hair appear in tree near their path with an angry Poochyena barking up at her "Greetings travelers." the girl, who he recognized as Lyra, greeted them with a chikorita on her shoulder "Did one of you collect the Cyndaquil? My friend Khoury should be getting the totodile from Professor Elm tomorrow, but I'm not sure whose coming for that Cyndaquil. Do you think you can help me out a bit?"

Death looked at the Poochyena and analyzed it, only to find that it had an incredible purple potential rating, which was incredible for a low-level Pokemon that still had an evolution. If he caught it, Death knew that he could easily help it raise up to White potential.

"I did not get the Cyndaquil, but I will help you out and deal with this for you." Death agreed "Zarya, are you ready for your first battle?" he asked his shiny Manaphy.

"Feee" Zarya leapt out of Death's arms and levitated in front of him.

"Dazzling gleam!" Death instructed Zarya, immediately going with a super-effective fairy-type move.

The Poochyena had keen instincts, and in spite of having been singlemindedly harassing Lyra before, it was still able to react fast enough to dodge the attack.

Attention now directed at the levitating Manaphy, the Pochyena started using Poison Fang to attack

"Block the attack with protect and counter with Supersonic!" Death ordered.

Manaphy obeyed, unleashing Protect and Supersonic at the same time, having trained Zarya to modify protect at will to allow sound-based attacks to pass through it, which meant that regardless of how good the Poochyena's instincts may have been, it still couldn't help being caught off guard.

"Dazzling Gleam" Death ordered once the Poochyena was stunned temperarilly and confused.

"Feeeeee!" Zarya called out while unleashing the attack and blasting the Poochyena back to crash into a tree. Death then pulled out a Luxury Ball and threw it at the Pokémon.

After blinking and shaking three times, the Luxury Ball succeeded at capturing the Pokémon and Lyra started climbing down out of the tree.

"That was amazing." Lyra commented as she came to stand before the group "That Poochyena was really strong. I couldn't beat it at all."

"You just got your Chikorita recently, right?" Death asked Lyra "So you are a rookie. I'm sure you'll get stronger in the future."

"I sure hope so." Lyra answered "My name is Lyra, by the way." she watched as Death walked over and picked up Poochyena's Pokéball.

"My name is Death." Death answered while attaching the Pokéball to his belt.

"Serena." "Valerie." "Mururo" the trio of girls each gave their names.

"Are you just starting to collect gym badges?" Death guessed.

"I have't decided yet if I'll do that." Lyra confessed. "I do want to go on a journey with Khoury, but that wont be for a few months yet. We want to take a while to bond with our new Pokémon before we begin."

"Well, try not to get into more trouble then. Maybe wait until your friend can join you and back you up in case you encounter a situation like this again." Death suggested to her "It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lyra, but our journey awaits, so we'll be leaving now."

Lyra nodded in understanding "Thanks. I learned a valuable lesson. Good luck on your journey!" she moved her Chikorita from her shoulder to her arms and jogged towards town.

------

In the Kalos region, at this time, an avatar of Death had just apprehended an actor that had once hurt Diantha. He had used the Law of Nothingness/Nihility to create a fake duplicate and staged a drug overdose so that the world would believe he died.

Oh, he would still die for real before the end of the night. but Death had no mercy for such scum. He just didn't want to have Diantha feel responsible for his demise, so he elected a roundabout manner to make him suffer before the end.

He still had one more target to go after once he finished punishing this scum, but he'd have to wait a few months at least to make sure that Diantha wouldn't be suspicious of the timing.

------

Since Team Rocket did not steal what would become Khoury's Totodile, Nurse Joy was not late in returning to the Pokémon Center so he had no issue with registering for the Johto League, and he had no cause to go to Professor Elm's laboratory.

They ended up staying overnight in New Bark Town while Death and the others traveled a couple more hours before setting up camp for the night. They would train their Pokémon for a couple hours before sleeping the night away. Serena would share Death's tent tonight, so she actually ended up getting less sleep then Valerie and Mukuro, though he still made sure she fell asleep at a reasonable hour.