Percy still had a job. But he wanted to notify Xavier of the sudden change in the situation. He called Xavier on his Pokédex. After 5 rings, he picked up. 'I'm in a meeting. Is it important?' He said immediately.
"It's important, but telling you won't change anything," Percy said.
Xavier paused for a moment, 'Dammit.' The older man said. Percy heard Xavier start moving. 'Talk.'
"I've been democratically kicked from the group. It sounds bad, but listen. This one kid, Aiden, had it out for me since the start. He used his pull to have me kicked. The vote was close at least." Percy explained.
'How does that not completely compromise your mission?!' Xavier raised his voice slightly.
"I'm just gonna stalk them. Protect them from the shadows, you know?" Percy said.
'How effective is that gonna be?' Xavier asked.
"It'll be harder to protect them, but they're starting to outgrow the worst of the stupidity. Their Pokémon are losing their softness. I think they'll be totally good after their first month. That's when most trainers die anyway." Percy explained.
On the other side of the line, Xavier was nodding along. 'Do you need anything to make these last couple of weeks easier?' Xavier asked.
"No, I'll be fine. Actually, random question-" Percy started but was quickly interrupted.
'I don't have time for random questions. I'm still in the meeting. Thankfully, this call didn't come during a more important one. Oh, sorry.' Xavier apologized to the honey clan member he was meeting with and abruptly hung up on Percy.
Percy shrugged and looked at his Pokédex. He hadn't looked at the device much while with the group. If one of the clan kids looked closely at it, they would see it was a different version. He took his backpack and the things he had been physically carrying and stored them inside the space in his Pokédex.
It had been a minute since he walked around with nothing on his back. Jormun made some small hissing sounds as if trying to comfort Percy. He smiled and began scratching her head. Now, what was the plan? He climbed up a tree just in case anyone was around.
The number one rule was not to be caught following them. That would result in some uncomfortable questions that Percy didn't wanna face. The trees were pretty dense, and Percy bet he could walk around on the canopy and be almost invisible to anything on the ground.
Many Pokémon in the area traveled like that to avoid the floor. Noctowl was a good option for some stalking. He was good at watching silently and out of sight. It was probably wise to just keep tabs on them with Noctowl. They weren't gonna get killed by any random group of wild Pokémon anymore.
They were on course for Viridian City and were heading back to the main path. They would arrive in about four days of consistent travel. Most of the group just wanted to get to the city as fast as possible.
The storm had shaken them up a little more than they liked. Percy checked his Pokédex for news on the storm. Half a day ago, there were a bunch of different weather stations and news sources documenting what was happening.
Apparently, there was a group of raging Gyarados that came from the ocean by Pallet City. It was rare, but there were times were groups of angry Gyarados could create these freak storms. Many times, the anger comes from some sort of human interaction.
Experts predicted it to be a group of 20 Gyarados that had enough power to make it a little north of Viridian City. There were millions of pokedollars in damages, and the death count was still going up. There are 150 confirmed deaths as of when Percy checked, with thousands missing and unaccounted for.
There were still rangers and members of the gym searching through their surrounding areas. The storm had hit about 10 cities, and the gyms were on overtime, saving people both in the city and outside of it. The highest-ranking members in these gyms were out searching for the powerful Gyarados that had been dropped all along the storm's path.
The general message in the news was for people to go to a city and hunker down for a little. The disturbed ecosystem meant Pokémon were more unpredictable. The Gyarados were also threats that were easily capable of wiping out the average trainer.
The gym needed time to get things under control. Percy set down his Pokédex and let out Noctowl. "Alright. Since you don't exactly know the backstory, let me fill you in. Actually-" Percy paused and released all his Pokémon into the branches with him. Shroomish looked down warily and clung to Fúria. The monkey rubbed its younger sibling on the head.
"I'll say this to all of you. The situation has changed slightly, but we still have a goal. Protect Fay is the primary goal. Protecting the group is the secondary goal. We will also be using this time to train; it's mostly going to be combat-less training. I feel bad for the local Pokemon, so we're just gonna defend ourselves.
We're going back to the basics. I know for a long time, Pokemon training has not been happening much. Just a lot of battles. Now, while I love battling and it definitely helps, we need a strong base. There's Pokemon that can battle incredibly from great experience. And there's Pokemon that look great on paper. They have well-practiced moves and a strong physique and intellect. We're gonna be good at everything.
Now's the time to catch up with our true rivals. So I'm going to start making personal training regiments. But we also need to keep an eye on the Honey Clan group. The problem is Noctowl is our only stealthy Pokémon." Percy said. He was deeply embroiled in talking to his Pokemon. And as he said his final words, Cascoon began glowing blue.
It was evolving! This made sense as it was a couple of levels above where the average Cascoon evolved. It hadn't had much of a chance to evolve as Percy couldn't do much with a cocoon. But the speech was beginning to inspire it. Its large circular body began to morph behind the blue glowing light.
Percy turned away as the bright light burned his eyes. He tossed a decent evolution item he got from the honey clan next to Cascoon and watched the energy get sucked out of the eyeball. Energy swirled around Cascoon as its new form appeared.
Percy stood on the branch and clapped his hands lightly. The other Pokemon congratulated as Dustox flexed its new wings. It looked around with its new powerful eyes and began flapping away into the trees. He silently coasted around on his green wings and tested them out.
Percy smiled and turned to the rest of the Pokémon. "Okay, well, Noctowl and Dustox are gonna be our watching Pokemon. They'll switch off 12-hour shifts. Noctowl, is it cool if you take the day? You handle it better than Dustox." Percy asked.
Noctowl cooed slightly, which Percy understood as agreement. "Alright. I'll be up 16 hours a day. I'll spend 8 hours in one of your shifts and 8 hours in the next. So when should I wake up? Oh shit, I should've studied math more." Percy watched Dustox have fun in its new body while thinking.
"If the sun comes up at 7 and lasts until about 7…that'll be Noctowls shift. So if I wake up at 11 am, that'll be 8 hours to train with Dustox, not that we need all that time. And then 8 hours into Dustoxs shift, which is…" Percy paused.
"3 am. Gives me 8 hours to sleep. This is confusing." He sighed and gestured to Noctowl. "You should go now. Don't get caught, and if you do, just run. I doubt they could catch you. If something's happening, you come back here and let me know. You're smart, you can do it." Percy gave the Noctowl a little hug, and it took off into the forest.
There was going to be some delay in Percy's reaction to what was happening with them. But they weren't children, and Percy genuinely didn't think anything could happen before they got to Viridian. It'll be much easier to stalk them when they get to the giant Viridian city.
He rubbed his hands together as he began to craft training regiments for his Pokémon. He would stop adding Pokemon to the team for a little while. He still has a Beedrill that he had to figure out what to do with. His dreams of a Pokemon army were achievable, but he had heard horror stories where trainers with a huge number of Pokemon many times lose the love of their Pokemon.
By making the army too fast, he could risk each of his Pokémon not feeling connected to him. Although the goal was to lead more than 50 Pokemon, he simply couldn't do that if they didn't like him. Another problem many trainers who have large groups run into is that Pokémon feel as though they are not being treated fairly. Many times, they only come out of the pokeball for a battle, and they spend more time than they want in the ball.
Distrust is built, and eventually the Pokémon revolt, run away, or just don't listen. Percy's Pokémon were like his children to him. It was like a bad dream to even imagine him and his Pokémon becoming like that.