New Beginnings – A Pokemon Slice of Life. [OC/Isekai/Move Tutor/Breeder]

With another two hours to spare for his city outing, Ethan moved towards the small park he remembered from his original stay in Eterna City. Most of his pokemon had never seen a human city, and he wanted to spend some bonding time showing them what it was like.

The park wasn’t large, but it was functional for any age range. In the center, children filled a small colorful jungle gym, metallic slides, and sandbox. Off on benches, much like the one he sat on, parents chatted with one another as they stole glances to make sure their kids weren’t creating trouble or running off. Several pokemon played with the children in games of tag, going down slides, or even building things in the sand. The most notable and unfamiliar pokemon was in the sand-pit. The pokemon itself appeared as a mound of sand, with a small red shovel sticking out of its head.

Ralts physically recoiled upon seeing it, so Ethan did his due diligence to scan the pokemon with his phone. The PocketDex was invaluable.

Sandygast - The Sand Heap Pokemon: Sandygast is a Ghost Pokemon who possesses a mound of sand. It can control other creatures by luring them to touch the shovel on its head, draining their life force. Sandygast grows larger by absorbing sand and debris, often using its eerie cries to draw in unsuspecting prey. When threatened, it can shift its form to hide or trap attackers in the sand.

Instantly, Ethan felt alarmed. But as he looked back at the sandbox, the small mound-like pokemon gurgled with laughter as it helped a small girl, roughly four or five years old, complete her sand castle. The girl even grabbed the shovel off the top of Sandygast’s head and used it to shovel more sand into her bucket before sticking it back where it belonged.

Ethan let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding before relaxing back into his seat. If nobody else was making a fuss over it, he doubted the young girl was in any trouble. Ralts was still tense on his shoulder, obviously wary about the pokemon. “Do you know that pokemon?”

Ralts shook her head, but kept her focus on Sandygast. “No, but it is distorted. Did it escape the building of man?” She murmured.

Not wanting to pry, Ethan left her to her observation. After looking around, he saw other people had released their pokemon. Some only had one out and about, and others had three or four. Seeing as he wouldn’t be committing any social faux-pas, he released the rest of his family.

As planned, Chatot was the first one to come out. While all of his personal pokemon were in the standard pokeballs, he always arranged them on his belt in a specific order. It was the order in which he captured them. Chatot appeared, scanned around, realized where she was, then fluttered off to perch atop the jungle-gym, much to the glee of the nearby children.

A few of the parents looked from Chatot to Ethan, and seeing his reassuring smile, they returned to their conversations.

Next out was Smeargle, who looked ten-thousand percent better than he had the last time he was out. He clasped a hand on Ethan's thigh in thanks, then plopped himself down next to him on the bench. Before Ethan could release the next, Smeargle tugged on his shirt and pointed to the white Silph Co bag around his torso.

“Do you want to paint?” He asked, getting a nod and smile in return.

Seeing as the artist earned his supplies, Ethan wasn’t going to say no. After more than a few awkward attempts at pulling out the supplies from what Ethan was still going to call his magic bag, Smeargle was set-up for his relaxation.

Next, came the pokemon who would need some time to acclimate themselves to their new environment. First, and the most likely not to make an enormous scene, was Pachirisu. He landed on the ground in front of Ethan on his hind legs. With a face full of awe, surprise, and wonder, he scanned around at all the people and pokemon out and about. “Bet you’ve never seen this many people before, have you?” Ethan joked, earning him a tiny nod in return. “Go about and explore, play with some of the kids or pokemon. Just, no moves and no fighting. I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”

Pachirisu needed no further encouragement. He basically squealed his name as he charged forward, joining the game of tag being played by a group of kids, a Zigzagoon, and most surprisingly, an Eevee.

Next out was Emolga, who landed in his lap and didn’t seem bothered about where she was, only that he was there. He spared a glance around, disregarded everything, then climbed his chest to be thrown into the air for playtime. After a few throws, he signaled for a break to let out his final pokemon. Emolga, deciding that a two-second break was far too long, simply jumped off the bench and glided down in circles by herself, before climbing back up and repeating the motions again.

When Shuckle appeared from his pokeball, he was in his shell. Ethan bent forward and picked up his berry bud, who was getting heavier by the day, and set him in his lap. “It’s okay Shuckle, just look around.”

Ever so slowly, the yellow, noodle-like head peeked out of the vibrant red shell. Ethan watched as Shuckle’s fearful face shifted to one of awe. His gummy jaws opened, gaping at the scene of pokemon and humans playing. He spotted Chatot singing to children, Pachirisu playing tag, and at Smearlge, Ethan, Emolga, and Ralts sitting on the bench.

Ethan smiled and ran a hand down his shell. “I wouldn’t let you out if I thought you’d be in danger. Well, unless I was in danger and needed my strong pokemon to defend me.” Ethan winked.

“Oh! A Shuckle!” A voice rang out from behind.

Shuckle retreated back into his shell as Ethan twisted around to see who spoke. Behind him, a young man, in his early twenties with long grayish-blue hair and a red trench coat, likely a trainer, smiled as he gazed over Ethan’s shoulder.

“He’s very shy. It’s his first time in a city.” Ethan explained as Ralts hopped off his shoulder to land on top of Shuckle. They murmured to each other as Ethan focused his attention on the trainer. By his side, a pokemon he was vaguely familiar with stood at attention. He knew its name, and its gender by its appearance, but didn’t know much about it. Pyroar was a graceful lioness with brilliant blue sapphire eyes and had a long, trailing ponytail mane of red and yellow. Her tail flicked back and forth as she glanced around and up at her trainer.

“You don’t see Shuckle’s very often! I once wanted one for my team!” The trainer said as stuck his hands in his pockets. The man looked pleasant enough—confident for sure, given his posture, but not aggressive.

“I got lucky. Found him on my ranch snooping around my berries. Didn’t I?” Ethan knocked on Shuckle’s shell, earning a “Shuuuu!” filled with embarrassment to echo outwards.

“You have quite a few rare pokemon. Smeargles aren’t found in Sinnoh, Ralts are notoriously rare, Emolgas are nearly impossible to find, and Chatot’s aren’t usually something a trainer picks up.”

Ethan shrugged and didn’t feel like correcting the assumption that all of these pokemon were his. He turned back around to watch his pokemon play. “Is that so? I’m not a trainer. I don’t really worry about strength or teams.”

“Not a trainer, I see. How did you do on your journey? What made you quit?” The tilting, questioning tone was putting Ethan’s guard up. Why would some random trainer come up to him and ask these questions?

“I never went on one. I would say I would rank near the bottom when it comes to my strength in a one-on-one battle.” Ethan answered as Ralts shifted to look at Ethan with narrowed eye concern.

“Yet, you battled championed Cynthia?” The man walked around the bench to come into Ethan’s view as he finished speaking.

Ahh. It seems some of those videos have finally gotten around… Ethan thought with a frown as he remembered the battle from the past. It wasn’t a good showing on his part, not even close. It wasn’t surprising that someone could recognise him from the video… He still had his long hair and even wore the same clothes.

“She and I are acquainted, and it was a friendly spar. I’m afraid I am here relaxing with my pokemon. So, I would prefer not to be grilled for information.” Ethan said, slightly forced to get the point across.

To the trainer’s credit, he did seem to let the topic go. “I’ve heard about you and saw the battle. When I saw you sitting here, I couldn’t help but come over. You’re still a Tutor, right? Do you have any openings?”

Ethan flicked his gaze over and looked the man up and down. Now that he got a good look, the man was vaguely familiar. The style, at least. “I have a website if you’d like to register an appointment. Currently, I have openings. What was your name, again?”

The man blinked and shifted some of the long hair out of his face. “Tobias. I’m tackling the gyms and hoping to challenge Cynthia at the Lily of the Valley at the end of this circuit. My team is quite capable, so we’re mostly training while we kill time between gyms.”

Ethan thought back to the games and tried to remember anybody named Tobias with a Pyroar. Nothing came to mind, but the nagging feeling that this was someone of importance stayed. “Hmm, Tobias. I’ll remember the name and watch out for it when I look over applicants. Out of curiosity, since you’ve seen mine, which pokemon do you have?”

Tobias patted his Pyroar on her back. “I’d like for Pyroar to get some tutoring. As for the rest of my team… I’d like to keep that a secret for the conference.”

Although he wasn’t too sure about when the conference was, Ethan had thought that this circuit had just started not too long ago. Either this guy was a very capable trainer, or his ego was out of this world. “Sounds reasonable. Well, I’ll look out for your name if you decide to accept the contract for tutoring.”

Taking the polite dismissal with grace, Tobias nodded and went on his way. Ethan watched him leave before watching his pokemon play again. The nagging feeling that Tobais was someone he should have recognized was eating him alive, so he dialed up Looker.

“Looker speaking.”

“Hey Looker, random question. When we did that memory thing, do you remember anyone with the name Tobias?” Ethan craned his neck to hold the phone in the nook of his shoulder as he tossed Emolga up and down, smiling at her joy.

There was silence on the other end of the call, and Ethan was growing worried. Not a second later, Looker finally responded. “Yes. A man who fought and defeated Ash Ketchum in what you call the anime in the conference. He had… two very powerful pokemon.”

“Oh…” Was Ethan’s brilliantly thought out response as the memories clicked into place. Tobias wasn’t from the games. He was from the anime. He also had two legendary pokemon. If he was in Sinnoh and going for the win in the conference this year… that meant…

“Well… I just met him. Uhh, I thought Ash was in Hoenn? I looked him up on the computer.”

“Is he at your ranch right now?” Looker asked, no nonsense or care given to Ethan’s other, probably more dire concern.

“I’m not at my ranch,” Ethan said. “I’m in Eterna City. I was picking up some supplies. So, about Ash…”

“I have to go Ethan. Thank you for bringing this to my attention…”

Ethan was about to complain, but Looker seemed to have heard his worried tone. “If you looked at previous battle records, it wouldn’t have recorded anything official from the off-season. Ash Ketchum is in Sinnoh.”

*Click*

Ethan kept the phone in the nook of his neck for a few seconds as he closed his eyes and sighed. He really didn’t want to deal with Ash Ketchum and see if the anime and explosions were the real deal. It wasn’t like there was a very high chance of them meeting, but even a slim one was worrying.

After calling his pokemon back after another ten minutes of worrying thoughts, Ethan decided that he’d call his little trip early and return home. He recalled his pokemon, minus Smeargle, then made sure he had everything ready. “Okay, Smeargle. Take us home.”

With a blip, twirl, and a flash, Smeargle and Ethan spewed in front of the now furious group of Oddish.