Chapter Text
Hiding inside a patch of tall grass, Rei was preparing to aim at the wild mothim, a pokeball already in his palm. Watching from a distance to not disturb the boy’s current target, Akari was standing next to Ingo, holding on his coat’s sleeve, as if to stop him to make another step. As always Pasha, Akari’s dear pocket-sized pachirisu, was on her shoulder mimicking Akari, half-hearty hiding in her wielder’s scarf. In all honestly he didn’t mind the way the girl tended to reach out for him, he was familiar with the need to keep hands occupied.
He can feel Akari hold her breath in anticipation as her friend made the throw, the pokeball hits the pokemon in the back, taking the mothim by surprise! The pokemon enter the pokeball right away.
“Get his ass!”.
The pokeball jumps up a couples of times, until it stops. The wild mothim was captured! Ingo can’t help clapping; Akari and Pasha loudly cheering right beside him, freeing his coat.
“Bravo! Congratulations Rei! You caught mothim without being spotted!”, he praises the boy, who gives the man a nod with a meek smile in response.
Rei picks up the pokeball from the ground as he spoke, “What does that even means, Akari? You keep saying that!”
She shrugs, despite being out of Rei’s vision range for the boy to catch her expression, “I don’t know”.
Rei exasperated looks at her, pokeball on his hand, “you get his ass!”.
“No swearing on this station, please!”, Ingo loudly interjected as he arranges his hat to have something to do with his own hands.
“Sorry Warden Ingo”.
“Sorry Ingo!”.
Lady, who had been watching the interaction while resting against a nearby tree, laughs at them, a long clawed paw covering her mouth. Before shoving her single feather out of her face with the same paw.
“So he was right, Akari. It is more effective to hit a pokemon on its back”.
“I never doubted him for a second! He would never lie to me!”.
“This back strike technique... I am quite curious if it gives any advantage when you start a battle with a wild pokemon, as well”.
“It does! I’ve tried before!”, she turns cheerfully at him, Little Pasha climbing on the girl's head.
Rei open his pokedex to jot down the task, as he mumbled to himself “that will be 6 for catching without being spotted and 11 being caught”.
Akari also open her own pokedex, on the page of mothim. Pasha lying on her head looking at the journal with mild interest, tail flicking in the air. Ingo leans down to read, although he is unable decipher the small characters this close. “How many times are you required to catch a pokemon to complete the task?”.
“It’s not the same number for every pokemon! For mothim its 15 times! And catching without being spotted is 10. But we don’t have to complete all the tasks, just until we have enough research points. But I don’t really understand how the points system works”.
“I see, should we resume, Rei?”.
“No need, I think I have enough to finish the mothim page”.
Akari puts away her pokedex to take out a pokeball. “My turn then! Instead of trying to catch them, I want to defeat them using rock moves! I have just the pokemon for the job! Where can we find more mothim, Ingo?”.
He considers the options carefully before answering, a hand on his chin. “Hmm, we could enter deeper into Wayward Wood. We might cross paths with the resident alpha mothim-”. He stops midway through his sentence at her delighted gasp. Akari seemed quite pleased at the words, unlike Rei who was clearly frowning upon the idea. Pasha was jumping up on the shoulders of her trainer, matching the girl’s enthusiasm.
“Please lead the way, Ingo!”.
Lady stands up then, picking up her basket to rest at her shoulders once more. Ingo takes out his hat to push his hair back. His hair is getting longer, he will have to ask Melli next time he sees the other warden. He puts the hat firmly on place before announcing, his body doing his customary pose.
“The next stop is Wayward Woods. All aboard!”.