C032 - 'Talks' with the Vileplume tribe

'Man, am I hoping that Vileplume and Bellossom are actually as chill as I wrote them to be,' Pete thought with a small frown as his pokemon followed a Gloom.

They tried talking to a few of the Oddish in the area but never really got any reaction until the three Farfetch'd found a Gloom who had tried to eat a leek of theirs while walking past each other. The Gloom, therefore, made an immediately terrible impression on the Farfetch'd who loudly complained.

When Pete came over, he was able to calm down the three Farfetch'd and managed to tell the Gloom to lead it to some of the leaders of their tribe.

A little bit upstream, the river had a small island, which they used to cross the stream with two fallen over trees hanging over the water on each side of the island. The Marill family immediately fell in love with the place, and it looked like they wanted to stay here in the future.

Even the Farfetch'd wanted to make this their home. They had seen the holy grail of all Farfetch'd appropriate weapons: bamboo. They might change their opinions once they realise it wasn't really edible if it grew too long, but when they saw the flexible, long, green stalk the size of Pete, they fell in love at first sight. All three of them.

When they finally reached the first Vileplume, they had walked for almost two hours, river crossing included. As nice as the air was with the warm coastal climate, the sun at noon was really pressing down on them.

The Vileplume and the Gloom talked for a while as the Vileplume eyed them with an eery smile the entire time. When they were done, the Vileplume led the group even further into the meadow and away from the river.

On top of a hill, where the sun shone brightest, a large circle of Vileplume and Bellossom was present. There were at least eighty of the two last in line for Oddish evolutions on this hill. Pete had to take a big gulp once he realised their numbers.

When he was close enough, his pokemon were made to stop while Pete stepped forward with only Solosis following him.

"Uh, hello, Vileplumes and Bellossoms. I wish you all a nice, sunny day, haha," Pete greeted the pokemon awkwardly.

The greeting was apparently enough to earn him some more eery smiles from the Vileplumes and warm smiles with a short dancing performance from the Bellossoms.

"You guys probably want to hear from my mouth why my pokemon and I decided to come here?"

A few of the pokemon present here nodded their flowers.

"Okay, that's easy enough," Pete started as he opened the bag he had prepared for this and took out a patch of Scarlett Moss. His Golett carried seven bags for this trip while Pete only carried the three most important.

"See this right here? We humans call it Scarlett Moss. It grows on trees, and if you cultivate it just right, some very small non-pokemon bugs will live inside it. Bugs that can be eaten by most pokemon. I brought a few bags worth of this stuff here, and I was hoping I could offer them to the Ariados for a ceasefire between you and them. Have them cultivate it at the edge of the forest or for all I care have them cultivate this moss deep inside it, so they can feast on these bugs instead of you and the pokemon you protect."

Pete looked around to see if he had hit the right mood.

"In return, I was hoping that you guys would allow me to live here. I don't want to create a big, ugly city with rocks. I want to open a farm and cultivate food and berries here so that I can live in peace with my pokemon," Pete explained and tried really hard to sound appealing to the Vileplumes and Bellossoms.

"I promise you, I would only ever try to enrich the nature here and bring different kinds of plants over to grow. This side of the river where we are on now, I would obviously leave untouched as much as possible. It's yours, and I don't want to steal your living space. But that land behind the river next to the lake, I would like to build a house, a berry orchard, and some vegetable fields there."

Pete looked to the pokemon one by one. But they all dodged his eye-line to look at each other or Solosis, except for the Bellossom, who all just kinda kept swaying their leaf skirts left and right. Through his psychic affinity, Pete knew that they were talking with Solosis, and he was hoping his girl would come through for him.

He really didn't know how to sound more appealing to the leading pacifist tribe here in this meadow, and he refrained from saying more lest he blew his chances.

A few minutes passed like this when suddenly the Bellossom danced toward Pete, and some of the Vileplume stepped closer, too. They, especially the Bellossom, were making happy sounds while doing it, so neither Pete nor his pokemon felt threatened.

Solosis widened their psychic link to better explain what was happening. First and foremost. They agreed with Pete living here. Secondly, they weren't on board with a full cease-fire. The Ariados had taken lives close to this meadow unchecked for decades now and killed too many pokemon.

So what the Vileplume and Bellossom wanted was to first cull their numbers and then offer them a cease fire. For that to happen, they would have to fight the next time the spider pokemon came to raid the meadow for food.

Solosis explained through imagery and simple meanings that they wanted to push them back for a long time now but the Ariados had the typing advantage and they mostly attacked at dusk or at night when they couldn't rely on their strongest weapon, Solar Beam.

Taking the fight to the Ariados didn't work either because they roamed the forest with no real housing, and their webs made it impossible to sneak up on them during the day. Also the trees they lived in were huge. Attacking from the ground did nothing.

And, lastly, the group would follow Pete to the cliff with the waterfall right now. From on top of it, they could see the edge of Ilex Forest and begin to affix some moss for the 'negotiations' later if they simply cross the river.

Surrounded by tens of strong grass pokemon, Pete and his team slowly made their way back to the land past the river where Pete was planning to build his farm. He learned that these almost hundred strong Vileplume weren't the only Vileplume in the area, just the oldest and most powerful.

There were quite a few more guarding pokemon in this vast grassland. The pokemon didn't give him an estimate, because they weren't quite sure. All they mentioned was that it was twice their number right now minium.

When they were walking along the river toward the overturned trees at the river 'island' to cross the water, Pete got a notification on his tablet.

'*Phanpy agreed to join! Meeting with the ranger now to take a look at Gligar. How's it going on your end?*'

A text message from Jasmine greeted him. Attached to it was a picture of a Phanpy getting his ears rubbed by Jasmine while sitting in her lap.

"*Met like 100 Vileplume and Bellossom. About to go to war to send a message, ya know?*"

Pete sent back a selfie with the camera showing mostly the background with countless Vileplume marching in the same direction, Pete was clearly right in the thick of it.

'*...what? (´⊙ω⊙`)!*'

"*Yep, reread that message. It's more or less what happened..*"

'*Uhhh, good luck? Good luck! (ง'̀-'́)ง *'

"*Yeah, same for you! Tell Exeggutor we got the okay for the farm from the Vileplume tribe, so he can start moving over the tree and saplings to the spot he dropped us off... ugh, if he's fine with it, of course. I'm eager, but not enough to run him ragged,*" Pete texted back, but clearly noticed he fumbled at the end. He wished he could take the message back and rewrite it.

'*Will dooo~ ꒰･‿･๑꒱ *'

Jasmine was, at this moment, feeling the same. Why did she have to type it so weird! And what was that emoticon!

"*Thanks a bunch! When you come over, I'm sure you'll love it here. But I'd suggest you only come tomorrow morning. So around noon for you two ;) *"

'*Why? Can't we help out? My Onix is plenty strong and could use a nice all-out battle! He might evolve soon!*'

"*I didn't mean it like that, but the Vileplume said the Ariados come at dusk or in the middle of the night. Are you sure you want to come over and possibly stay outside and awake while fighting a dangerous Ariados tribe at midnight?*"

'*Hmph, Sophie might stay back at the hotel. But I'll definitely come. That's what I'm training my pokemon for after all!*'

"*Uh, didn't you do it to become a gym leader and eventually champion?*"

'*Why are you being so difficult? I'm coming, you won't stop me! ლ(́◉◞౪◟◉‵ლ) *'

"*Gotcha. Don't forget your own tent then, else we'll have to share one :P *"

Jasmine no longer replied, so Pete eventually put away the tablet and crossed the river with over a hundred pokemon doing the same. He didn't know that Sophie had read the last message over her sister's shoulder and was planning some mischief based on Pete's reminder.

Another hour later, the group had passed the spot arrived at, and they were looking at a cliff about eight stories high.

One of the oldest looking Vileplume with a wrinkled flower on his top stomped one of its feet, and several Geodude and a Graveler appeared on the cliff and got to work.

They moved a few boulders, used rock type energy to bend them into shape a little, and eventually created a sort of staircase at the side of the cliff.

"That's absolutely amazing! But if you could order them to do that, why not do it once and keep the stairs? Clearly, this wasn't the first time?"

Pete turned to the old Vileplume, who lifted one of his stubby arms and did a sort of arm curl motion repeatedly.

"Uh, training? For the Geodude?" Pete asked incredulously.

The Vileplume nodded.

"That's... honestly mindblowing. I should call Valentino to ask if he's ever seen anything like that during his field trips," Pete mused to himself while climbing the stairs.

On top of the cliff, the wind was a little stiff and smelled like the ocean. Due to its direction, it also carried the loud crashing sounds of the waterfall from the river that was a rock throw away from the cliff. There was no vegetation all the way from the edge of the cliff to the river. It was all just rocky terrain.

But past the river, Pete could see what the Vileplume meant when they said the trees were too tall to realistically attack the Ariados. A forest with gigantic trees rivaling 15-story high-rises in height. At least two fully grown Onix would be needed to fully hug these tree trunks fully. Pete wondered if the three bags full of moss were even enough for his plans.