Hard Enough - Chapter 176 - Family downtime (Patreon)

When the post-match wrapped up I checked my watch and was pleased to see that I still had plenty of time until my booked Teleport transport was due. I glanced up. There was another Ace match booked in but.. I had already gotten my fill of reviewing potential matchups and trainer fights for the day.

I wanted something else. I shot Yolanda a thoughtful look. She looked a bit tired but still had a bounce in her step thanks to the victory.

“Want to head out to the entertainment area for some fun now that the match is done?” I tapped my Xtransceiver. “We still have another hour before we need to leave,” I said.

Yolanda perked up before wilting. “Oh, ummm, won’t the locals still be giving us the cold shoulder?” she said.

I grinned at her. “I think, with how everything eventually played out, they’ll be rather welcoming, you know?”

Yolanda hummed but decided to nod. Missy and A.J. joined us, and I led us all out to the entertainment area of the pier that encompassed the stadium.

I had to give whoever designed this place some credit; the entire pier was rock solid and despite the moves thrown around in the stadium, there wasn’t any shaking going on.

I shook that thought off and turned towards the surrounding entertainment area. A few of the signs still flashed with mine and Corvo’s faces but others had snapped onto showing highlights of our match with a caption of ‘watch on battlecast for replay’ across the bottom.

I hummed and walked into the entertainment area.

A few people glanced in our direction and more than a few gained the light of recognition. Before any bad reactions could form, I tapped two pokeballs and released Gawain and Link. Both of them appeared and blinked in surprise.

“Hey, you two! Great work today!” I said. I waved a hand about us. “We’re going to have some fun, interested in joining us?” I said.

Link and Gawain shared a look with each other. They were each the newest members of my Elite squad. They glanced around and then shared another look before each of them gained goofy smiles before they jumped and shot their arms into the air.

“Vor!” “Fable!”

When they jumped for joy I could only laugh as they acted their ages.

Yolanda perked up, realising what I was doing as the people that had been side-eyeing me perked up.

“Hey! That’s the Clefable that just fought daddy!” said a girl’s voice. “He was really nice!”

I grinned. While Johto was known for their cold shoulders they were also known for recognising kindness more than any other region. Link, without even meaning to, had thawed their response to us.

Thanks to him, all of the vendors that we approached were more than happy to let Yolanda, Missy, Gawain, Link, and I, to play their games.

I had to raise my Xtransciever a few times to take photos of Gawain playing the rubber psyduck game with the tips of his axes instead of the pole and hook provided.

Yolanda dragged the pair of pokemon with her and Terra to a merry-go-round where they all laughed happily. Missy disappeared for a few minutes and came back with an armload of fluffy toys that she shoved into my travel pack.

“You want me to hold these?” I asked curious about what she was doing.

“Hmmm? Oh, no! These are for your little brothers and sisters, don’t worry I have tons of toys like this. There are a few tricks you can learn if you spend a bit of time… and way too much money on these things. Once you work out the tricks you can win pretty big,” she said with a shrug.

Yolanda heard this and shot me a pleading look. I waved a hand. “Care to show us rookies?” I said, handing Yolanda some money to play with.

From there, we spent the rest of our time playing games with the goal of winning prizes. More often than not I ended up with the consolation prizes but by the end, Yolanda had won herself a plush Bulbasaur while Terra had a smaller plush Tyranitar.

Along the way a few locals who had watched the fight paused to take pictures with us. A few people asked for pictures with Selene and Don and I obliged them. Don seemed very pleased to get praise for how ruthless he’d been during the fight.

Selene, while she was out, had spotted a photo booth and nudged me towards it where she demanded some pictures with me and the others.

By the end, everyone had some photos with Selene in various poses.

As I chuckled over a particularly silly pose of Yolanda and me with Selene held between us. Then  I felt my wrist buzz. I checked the time and nodded only to frown as I realised I hadn’t seen one person in our group in a while.

“Hey where’s A.J.?” I said only to roll my eyes. “No, don’t answer that, I know,” I said.

We walked back to the beach and sure enough, we found A.J. locked into what appeared to be a doubles battle that he was rather handily wrapping up with his Beedrill and Butterfree beating out a Staryu and Tentacool.

Yolanda waved her hand. “A.J.! You need to wrap things up! We’re going to leave soon!” she called out.

A.J. waved back. He collected some winnings from the two trainers he’d been facing before marching up to us.

Yolanda stared at him. “You’re… smiling? You never smile.”

A.J. continued to grin, “I smile,” he said undaunted by Yolanda questioning him.

Yolanda tilted her head. “Are you sure? Usually, you just sort of grump,” she said, using her fingers to scowl deeper than she could normally.

A.J. huffed at her. “I just won a lot of really good matches against some decent trainers,” he said. He shot me a look. “I think I like the idea of travelling around like this now!” he said.

I snorted. “Of course, you went and got into some fights, but never mind. Good work finding your own fun. Come on, gang, it’s time to head home,” I said, leading them back to the transport hub where a Hypno would be ready to take us for a multi-legged hop.

As I entered the transport hub, a dark-haired man leaning against the wall kicked off it. “Gym Leader Brock!” he called when he spotted that I’d seen him.

I looked him over and realised that while I’d never met this man, I knew who it was. “Norman right? Or should I call you—”

Norman raised a hand to his lips. “Ah! Sorry, that hasn’t been announced to the public yet! The champion is going to release it soon.”

“Ah,” I said.

Norman waved his hand back and forth. “No worries I thought I’d come meet you before things get too hectic for me.”

“Hmmm yeah, you will be busy soon.” I said.

Norman bobbed his head in a lopesided manner. “Well about that, I checked the logs and goldenrod has already seen a number of challengers but I thought there might be a need to…” Norman rolled his hand about. “Demonstrate my skills to the public at large, I know I’m seen somewhat as an academic to most people so I wanted to ask a favour if possible.”

I nodded, having an idea of what he wanted. “You want to have a friendly match against me?” I said.

Norman nodded  “Gym match? So our typings only?” He asked.

I paused and I considered him.

Hmmmm that would make it a touch tougher but also more interesting. Normal versus Rock.

That wasn’t a bad idea for him.

Heck, I should probably propose it to Visquez. Norman challenging me made sense, he’d be able to demonstrate his skills to the best effect.

“Yeah, I’d like that. I think we can work something out in the coming weeks,” I said, finding myself locking eyes with him and an itch forming as my mind clicked hope that I was facing a challenger.

Norman grinned. “Excellent! I’ll arrange a date! Oh! Maybe bring your family with you! I know my family would love to meet some more kids their age.”

I nodded, that was right, May and Max were going to be of similar ages to Salvadore and Cindy or Tommy, weren’t they? Although they might get on better with Yolanda and Salvadore in truth.

“That sounds nice,” I said. Next to me, Rachel was brimming with energy at the potential showdown that she’d get to work on.

Norman nodded once again, “I won’t hold you up, good match earlier by the way,” he said as he tossed a wave of farewell over his shoulder.

I watched him go feeling an odd stirring in my chest. I’d never gotten to fight the Petalburg Gym during my journey, but in a way… that would be sort of like challenging it. I chuckled and waved my group towards the teleporting berth we’d be using.

It would take another hour or so with the relays that we needed to do with other Teleporting stations, but soon enough, we were back home.

“I’m home!” I announced loudly.

“You were incredible!” shouted Cindy as she stormed towards me.

I raised my hands in readiness for a hug only for Cindy to duck the hug, grab Link’s pokeball from my pokebelt and to release him.

She then slammed herself into him. “Eiii! The commentators were all going on about how mean Goldenrod people were being booing Brock like that but then you just made them love you!” she said while clinging to him.

“Clefable?” said Link with a tilt of his head, the only part of him he could currently move.

“We’re home with gifts!” shouted Yolanda into the house.

Flint, who’d been in the kitchen emerged with a washcloth in his hands. “Ho? Gifts?” he said even as a stampede erupted from deeper in the house.

I shot Flint a look. “I thought the kids would have been in school during the match?”

Flint smiled. “I made sure to record your match. You did wonderful despite Corvo trying to anticipate you.”

I grinned. “Thanks,” I said, only to brace as both sets of twins slammed into me. “Brock!” Brock!” “Big Bro!” “Brother!” they all chimed over the top of each other

I gained the mental image of a Pidgeot returning to a nest of Pidgey and having them chirp at him.

“You brought gifts?” they said, completing the mental imagery. I sighed and shot Yolanda an amused look. She merely grinned as Salvadore walked up.

“Hey bro! Great fight! Gawain was great! So were you Link!” Salvadore said, giving Link a small pat that Link rocked away from with a giggle.

I hummed and released Gawain. He appeared with a flash of light and blinked before perking up when he noticed my siblings cheering his name. I chuckled and toyed with the idea of releasing Don before crushing that idea. He wouldn’t like being praised like this.

He wanted praise, there was no doubt about that. He was a prideful sort, but he didn’t want small grabby hands reaching for him. Him and small children were usually a recipe for tears. Unless Bertha was sitting very close at hand and thumping her club-like tail in warning the entire time.

Hmmmm… I tossed that idea away as Suzie tugged on my pants. “Gifts?” she said with puppy eyes.

I huffed. “Course you heard that,” I said in amusement. I reached into my travel pack and started pulling out a number of cuddle toys and cheap plastic toys that we’d won from the Goldenrod entertainment area.

The kids laughed at the silly toys and ran about playing with them. I handed some of the soft toys to Munchlax and Eevee only to pause and realise Gible was here. I blinked and handed him the most solid looking toy I had.

He took it in his mouth and grinned hugely. “Gible!” he said, turning and running away with the toy hanging out of his mouth by its head. It looked very macabre.

“He’s cute!” said Billy with a laugh, dropping his toy to give chase.

I raised a hand and considered that for a moment before shaking my head, eh, let him enjoy himself. If he thought a tiny pokemon that were mostly teeth looked cute, who was I to judge?. I rubbed my chin in thought. Hmmm, that had potential.

“Hey Flint? Do you want to represent Billy for next weekend’s contest that we’re running? We’re going for a tough theme.”

“But Gible is cute?” Flint said with a tilt of his head.

I sighed. “... Just ask Billy if he wants to do it with you. We have a section that is just for presentation and not part of the display-battle traditional contest style of Hoenn.” I’d gotten the idea of animal displays at local shows that I had sometimes attended as a visitor and a few times as a competitor.

I turned my attention to the rest of my family and spent some time playing with them and the new toys they had.

Sadly, most of them didn’t last very long due to how cheaply made they were. Suzie was the first to come up to me with her plushies’ arm ripped off. I grabbed the sewing kit and reattached the limb before strengthening the rest of the stretches.

“Thank you toy doctor Brock!” chimed Suzie happily as she took her plushie away.

As soon as she was done, Tommy presented himself. “Toy doctor Brock?” he said, presenting his. His toy had the head, and the legs ripped off.

I stared at the toy seriously. I wanted to say, ‘He’s dead, Jim’ but that would never go over well with a child, so instead I nodded. “You brought him to me just in time; I think we can attach him to life support.”

“I’m the Nurse Joy!” said Suzie, claiming the spot next to me. She then took the toy’s arm. “There, there's a little guy, who’s a brave boy?”

She leaned down and gave the paw of the ursaring toy a smooch only for the arm to fall off.

“Ah!” she screamed. “I didn’t do it!” she shouted, leaping over the couch only to trip and faceplant with a heavy thump.

I grimaced. “Oh dear,” I said.

Suzie raised her head, locked eyes with me and started to tear up. ‘

“Walk it off?” I offered hopefully.

She tried, standing heroically lip quivering, only for her hands to shoot to her forehead. “It hurts!” she wailed.

“Yeah I didn’t think that would work,” I said, scoping her up for a hug. I carted her over to the medical kit and became ‘Doctor Brock’ for a few minutes. A small bandage was put on her head to help keep the pain going away along with a lollipop.

She then sat in my lap for the rest of the ‘surgery’ with the Ursaring toy.

“How come you’re stitching up the parts that aren’t broken?” asked Suzie seriously after a few minutes of work.

I tugged on the cheap stitching. “See these here? They’re quite weak, so I’m just strengthening them up with a Ladder stitch.”

Tommy walked up with Timmy, who’d come to see how long the surgery would take, only for Tommy to tilt his head. “How come you’re doing a girl's job Brock? Shouldn’t you get Yolanda to do that?”

I could feel Yolanda’s head turning and her glare settling upon Tommy.

“It’s not a girl or a boy job; it’s just a job,” I said reasonably.

Sadly, reason wasn’t that useful against seven-year-olds. “No, it’s a girl’s job!” he said.

“Hmmm what makes it a girl’s job?”

“It’s stitching! And only girls do that!” he said, crossing his arms and nodding seriously. Timmy copied him, and I felt a small part of me perk up. Ah, this was one of those moments that came along sometimes, and as an older sibling/parent you needed to be watching for them.

Sadly, as I could attest, you weren’t always going to be at your best when such developmental moments reared their heads.

“So only women can be doctors?” I asked.

That got Tommy and Timmy to blink in surprise. I continued the assault to hammer home the point I wanted to make. “What about Leatherworkers? Bookbinders? Quilters? Tailors? Sailmaker? Shoemaker? Dressmakers?”

“Well! Some of those are… girl jobs and some of those are boy jobs!” said Tommy

I shook my head. “That’s not the case, actually. Lots of people do different jobs depending on what they want to or are good at.” Or what they need to do. But I wasn’t going to say that last part as the discussions around economic unfairness weren’t something that would register to young kids. Not unless you had a really simple method which I currently lacked. Maybe I needed to rent out some more parenting books?

It had been a while.

Thank Arceus that Flint had come back when he did otherwise I would have drowned in responsibilities and Will would have easily skated… I paused and played that thought back over in my mind.

Huh, I hadn’t thought of it that way. But, it really had been a good thing having Flint back home. He’d been able to cover a lot of the tasks I typically handled.

I shot Suzie’s dress a quick look over and found that the stitching done there to patch up a tear was actually better than mine. Huh, would you look at that?

“Brock!” said Tommy, stomping his foot to get my attention.

“Hmmm?” I said finishing up the stitch before tying it out, my mind returning from the Furret hole it had been running along.

“Girls are better at stitching! And Boys are better at tough stuff!” he said, stomping his foot.

“So like Trixie and Sabrina? They’re pretty tough, right?” I poked holes in his argument right away. “Agatha, Janine, Sophia, Daisy, Lorelei, and Erika…” I tilted my head. I was probably forgetting people, and that was without getting into Johto Gym Leaders.

“Okay! So…” Tommy tilted his head. “What does that mean?”

“It means there are a lot of jobs and that there is no job that is specifically only done by boys or girls,” I said. I made the Ursaring toy dance in front of them. “Flint and I both needed to know how to stitch to look after you, and it’s not a bad idea to have a good idea how to do things like this. Then you can be the one looking after your toys, or maybe even adding to them.” I said. I then punched the arms forward. “Four armed Ursaring!” I said.

I shrugged. “Or it could be a neat hobby.”

Tommy blinked at this before shaking his head. “I think I need to go lay down and process this.”

I snorted. “Yeah, you do that. It can be tough having your world flipped around like that,” I said, handing the Ursaring toy back to Timmy.

He gave it a cuddle and toddled off without any complaints, so I counted that a win for me, and I’d gotten Tommy to lay down and think, which was also a win considering that my audience was a young boy.

Flint shot me a thumbs up and I shot back a smile before kissing Suzie on the back of the head.   “So, are we watching movies and ordering Rapidash Pizza tonight?” I prompted.

This got a resounding cheer from the kids which I capitalised on by clapping my hands. “You know the drill then! No pizza is to be ordered until everyone’s teeth are brushed, faces and hands are clean and you’re in your pajamas." I said firmly.

This caused another stampede with Gible caught in the middle, thoroughly unsure what to do with himself. He chased one child around only for another to charge past him resulting in him switching targets.

Eventually, Salvadore snatched him up and grabbed a spare toothbrush to brush his teeth. Gible seemed to rather like this but then again, he was generally a very jolly fellow.

When everything was settled and the family assembled on the couch I gave them all a stern expression. “Hmmm, adequate,” I said with a fake haughty sniff. I then drew up the pokenet page for Poliwag’s pizzeria. “So what will we have?” I asked.

The kids started shouting various things at me which I dutifully added to the cart. Munchalx leaned in to whisper things to Suzie which she added resulting in a cart that listed off twenty pizzas. I made a game of pretending to be perplexed by this much to the kids' amusement.

Link and Gawain were still here so I included them on the order with some specialty pizza before shrugging and deciding to get some for my Elite team as a whole, taking the list up for forty pizzas.

Munchlax, who could see things through his christmas had come early only to refute when I told him who the extra pizzas were actually for.

A flash of light made me glance over to find a rather bedraggled-looking Sabrina had just arrived. She grabbed her transceiver and pressed a few buttons before sighing. “I’ll have a meatlover’s with extra onion,” she said.

She then waved to my family. Suzie leapt into a hug for Sabrina and Sabrina accepted it. When Gible leapt at her she telekinetically caught him in the air much to his shock. Sabrina blinked. “Ah, I apologise, when something with that many teeth lunges at me, I have a set response.”

“That makes a lot of sense, I have the same response for Munchlax!” Suzie said with a nod. Munchlax blinked at her and opened his mouth to feel around for how big his teeth were.

He then shrugged and ran at Suzie. Suzie put a hand to her head and pretended to copy Sabrina. “Freeze!” she said, and Munchalx froze dutifully.

Sabrina nodded her head, and I smiled. I’d seen her twitch if Munchlax had committed to a leap but the bond between Suzie and Munchlax meant they didn’t have to worry about hurting each other.

Sabrina hovered Gible into her arms for a quick pat before handing him off to me. “I’ll be having a shower before coming out to watch the movie, I’m done with any League assistance for the next week at least,” she said.

“Perfectly reasonable,” I replied, sending out the order, minus the extra pizza that Suzie had ordered for Munchlax.

Within a few minutes, Sabrina returned with a towel around her hair in her pajamas. She settled in next to me and yawned.

“Hmmm Detective Pikachu and the mystery of the unknown?” she said. I nodded. I’d watched this twice already but the little kids loved it so it was fairly common to see. Sabrina could recognise the scenes as and so she just focussed on getting comfortable and relaxing.

When the pizzas arrived they came with a small herd of Rapidash and Gawain and Link led two of the horse pokemon and their trainers around the back to dish out the pizza to my Elite team with me.

I had to stop a feeding frenzy from occurring with Don being adamant he needed three pizza himself despite the specialty pizza being much bigger than a standard human pizza. I distributed them and returned to my own family to find them in various states of food coma having gorged themselves.

Flint looked far too amused, and Sabrina looked too tired to care that some of the kids had rather swollen stomachs. Munchlax was still working his way through the pizza while Gible was devouring the pizza boxes.

“Should he be eating those?” Flint asked worriedly.

I shrugged. “Eh, it’s mostly paper and pizza oil, he’ll be fine,” I said without too much concern. Only to then have to stop him from eating the next five pizza boxes.

“Thought you said he could eat those?” said Flint as he watched on from the side with a smirk.

“Some of them! I said. Not all of them! Moderation is key cause he’s tiny!” I said, shoving my hand into Gible’s mouth fearlessly to draw out the pizza box.

When that was over and the youngest kids were being sent to bed, Suzie marched up to Sabrina and me. “Can you read the book to me, Sabrina?”

“The book?” Sabrina said, making sure to give the word enough gravitas.

Suzie nodded and presented Sabrina with a very particular book. Sabrina inspected the book seriously. “The great book of poop?” She read aloud.

Suzie grinned. “It’s great!” she said, and I had to smile. She’d recently lost one of her front teeth and it made her look rather cute with the gap in her smile as her.

Sabrina shot me an amused look while Flint facepalmed. “You’ve been reading this to her?”

“Yup!” I said shamelessly. “Readings a good habit to get into, so what if the topic is silly.”

Sabrina nodded and marched off to read a book about poop to a four-year-old. I watched her go and felt my heart swell a little.

When she came back, I led her to the kitchen. The other kids were happy enough watching another movie so I spent some time with her enjoying a cup of cocoa.

“So, the League got pushy again?” I said.

“Yes, and they raised several good points for my assistance, but this time I’ve told them to just do it the old-fashioned way. I was running into walls with how much everyone knew and it was becoming a bit… too much for me.”

“I can’t imagine the conditions would have been good for it, and well… the act itself?”

Sabrina sighed. “It is taxing but it also… it becomes a bit too easy after a while of doing it over and over. I started to reflexively do it on the guards when they stepped in. The situation was getting to me so I told Lance no more.”

“Good,” I said firmly, wrapping my arm around her and kissing her on the temple. She sighed and leaned into me.

She then peered up at me. “I didn’t get to watch your match against Corvo, can we go watch it in your room? I’d like to see how it went.”

I smiled, knowing she’d like seeing Selene do well, and Link’s showing was sure to give her some more energy. “Sure thing,” I said, standing to walk, only for Sabrian to Teleport us both.

I chuckled at that before cueing up the match on my tv.

When the match was over Sabrina pointed out the rough spots and also the good adaptations I’d made to the team and my planning. “You’re getting stronger, and smarter about this,” she said, giving me a kiss.

“It takes a lot of different skills than being a Gym Leader, that’s for sure, it also…” I twirled my hand about. “You need to be more fluid in your thinking and more ready in case things change.” I tapped on my chest. “You can’t just rely on the same pokemon and the same tricks that were great at the Gym circuit, most people have seen those, you really have to start thinking about how people are going to react to your tricks and plan accordingly. It’s.. a lot of fun.”

“I noticed, you were smiling during the match a lot and you’re smiling now,” Sabrina said. “It’s good to see you smiling like this.”

I chuckled. “Well thanks, but now I feel bad because with how tired you’ve been I haven’t seen you smile much lately.”

Sabrina allowed herself a softer smile. “This is how I’ve been smiling. When you ran the bath and left me with it without bothering me, with how you’re happy for snuggles and hugs without pushing me when I’m tired. I know you’ve made me smile a lot.” she kissed me then. “Don’t worry, I’m not helping the League out any more. In fact I will make sure to have some time set aside to come and watch you next week in Celadon.”

“Yeah?” I asked, “That’d be great.”

Sabrina nodded before gaining a much more predatory smile. Her hand on my chest started to glide lower. “Now, I can think other ways you and I can… smile,” she said huskily

I was entirely down for this sort of night time activity.

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In the morning, I stretched luxuriously and kissed Sabrina as we lay entwined.

“Morning,” I said. Sabrina grumbled at me and then rolled over. I huffed and took a shower before heading out. With a later start, I hurried out to feed my elite and check on the reserve.

All of the pokemon were there and looking very pleased with themselves.  They’d really liked their pizza snack after the last two days of a controlled diet for their matches. Zubat looked a bit swollen so I assumed she must have gotten her fill of the pizza and then some.

“Right, sorry to say that you won’t be getting too many more treats like that,” I said, knowing full well that there was an ice creamery in Celadon that served pokemon.

Titan shot me a wink, well aware of said cafe.

I coughed and continued. As long as Bertha didn’t learn about it, I would only have to take the group a few times.

“Now, until next Monday you’re all on light duties, I’ve spoken to you before but we’re going to have to stay fairly dynamic with which pokemon get to fight, when there are restrictions to consider. I will need to blend things pretty well.” I then turned to the single Cradilly and Lileep in the training area.

“That being said I can devote a bit more time to both of you as neither of you are up to the Elite level as I deem it just yet. Everyone else is to go through a light warm up run, then some stretches with light sparing. Tomorrow we’ll have some games to play instead to keep things as risk free as possible.”

Don screeched angrily at this and Bertha pumped her fist. I rolled my eyes. “That does mean the inflatable headgear, yes,” I said. For Zubat that meant she'd become a floating orb that would bounce into people and then off them. I was expecting a comedy of error with her wearing protective gear. 

I then shot Don a look. “You don’t have to take part, remember? You usually just sit on the side and mock everyone!” I said.

Don paused and then grinned realising that was what he usually did. I decided not to bait him into doing something stupid while his daughter watched on but Bertha had no such restraint.

“Rhy Rhy Perior—” she started to say. I didn’t need to speak pokemon to know what she was saying. I lunged over and put my hands in front of her mouth to shut her up.

“AS I WAS SAYING!” I bellowed.

Bertha laughed and thankfully shut up instead of pushing the point. I detailed how things were going to go and then shifted focus onto running through a light session before working Cradily and Lileep. For part of this, I referenced a journal article Erika had written up for me.

It was strange to have to blend Rock type training methods with grass type. A lot of this revolved around strong defence with the potential for quick, vibrant regrowth that started days, if not weeks prior with good pokemon care.

It was a different sort of challenge and I had some doubts that I’d have Cradily ready to enter my Elite team for a while yet, I’d just have to keep her on the fourth badge tier team for a while for some experience. When she started feeling a bit too overpowered I could try otherwise. It was that, ori engaged in some more simple friendly matches just for a bit of pocket change with some of the battleclub locals.

Both ideas had merit.

Then again, everything I did with Cradily that worked I needed to repeat with Steven Stone’s pokemon. I wasn’t about to trade off a pokemon that was weak after all.

Actually, now that I thought about it, it was strange that Steven hadn’t contacted me, or Sabrina at all about her mega evolution.

Perhaps he would when I eventually revealed to the public that Jormungandr was capable of it as well.

For now, I got stuck into work with my grass-rock type ,stretching and bending with them, testing how quickly they could bend and twist themselves to get a feel for their actions before having them lash out their attacks as practice.

When it reached breakfast time Yolanda and Sabrina walked out to meet me.

It felt like a good start to a lazy weekend that would lead into a frantic week.

“Brock, Lance is giving a press conference,” Sabrina said.

I blinked, realising exactly what this would mean.

“Well, I can still have a lazy weekend… but there’s going to be a lot of attention sent our way on Monday, isn’t there?”

Sabrina raised an unimpressed eyebrow and I sighed. “Alright, I’ll call Rachel up and see if we can release our own press statement.” I rolled my shoulders and waved the girls into the lounge room. “Not that it will reduce the attention we get,” I grumbled.

Damn, I’d forgotten about this.

Maybe Lance wouldn’t mention me?

I straight away knew those were short odds.

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A.N. Thanks for my Patreons for your continued support!

Thanks also go to Twmmy for betaing this chapter!