What should you do when your newly joined Latias and your veteran Floragato don't get along?
Asking for a friend. Urgent.
After logging out of Randomized Emerald, Hakuya sat at a dining table in the Pokémon Center. He glanced at Floragato, who was puffing her cheeks on his left, and then at Latias, who was also puffing her cheeks on his right. He couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.
—It was supposed to be a normal dinner, but being sandwiched between them like this, he felt like he had stumbled into a highly volatile, life-or-death battlefield. He was starting to sweat bullets.
And as for why he was "sandwiched" between them?
That was because...
"By the way, Latias, why did you choose to take on this specific appearance?"
Compared to figuring out how to defuse the tension, Hakuya, unable to find a solution anyway, was currently much more curious about something else.
—Latias had actually transformed into Rosa.
Her face was delicate and white as porcelain, and her long brown hair was styled into twin-tail buns resting on her shoulders.
Even though she was wearing relatively ordinary travel clothes, they looked exceptionally stunning on her. Her smooth, slender legs clad in black pantyhose were slightly visible beneath her skirt, while her high-collared sweater clung tightly to her graceful curves, particularly emphasizing the full, generous proportions of her chest.
Although he had seen the movies and knew Latias had the ability to shapeshift into a human, seeing it in person, Hakuya had to admit he genuinely couldn't tell the difference between a real human and a disguised Pokémon.
Just like the games, Randomized Emerald had its own built-in system interface, featuring menus for the party, Pokédex, Trainer Card, time, and so on. The developer had even thoughtfully included hundreds of pictures of cute anime girls to choose from as background wallpapers.
Upon discovering this easter egg, Hakuya had debated for a long time before ultimately choosing the "statistically superior" Rosa.
The Rosa in that background image looked exactly identical to Latias's current human form.
But regarding this matter, aside from Hakuya himself, not even his starter Pokémon, Floragato, who had been with him the longest, knew about it. Let alone Latias, who had only just joined the team.
Unless... she had read his mind with her psychic powers.
[I-I did not! I'm full. I'm going back to the room to rest.]
Dropping a single line via telepathy, the "Rosa-fied" Latias turned her flushed face away, stood up, and hurried toward the Pokémon Center's residential wing as if trying to hide something.
Following right behind Latias, Floragato also stood up, preparing to head back to the room and rest.
"Sigh, having too many Pokémon on the team really makes them hard to manage..."
Watching the two figures walking away one after the other, Hakuya sighed instinctively.
If these two were actually fighting, he could fulfill his duty as a Trainer and intervene. But this kind of non-violent, purely mutual disdain was truly a headache that left him completely clueless on what to do.
Shaking his head helplessly, he accepted the whipped cream Berry treat Milcery offered to his mouth.
"Mmm... This is delicious, Milcery~"
Taking a bite and feeling the silky smoothness of the whipped cream perfectly blend with the fresh sweetness of the Oran Berry, Hakuya's eyes lit up.
As expected, the sweet, soft Milcery is an absolute angel!
"Nai~"
At this moment, walking down the hallway, Floragato was calculating how to negotiate with the little jet plane.
As her Trainer's starter Pokémon and the "big sister" of the team, no matter how much she disliked Latias, she couldn't let her personal feelings cloud her judgment. She had to try her best to maintain harmony within the team.
The best solution was to completely crush any romantic thoughts Latias had toward their Trainer.
As for Milcery, Floragato felt her threat level was nowhere near as high as a Latias who could transform into a human girl.
Rather than becoming "bedding material," it was more accurate to say Milcery would eventually become "food material" to satisfy hunger.
"Meowha~"
However, just as she was preparing to pull rank as the senior member and initiate negotiations, a telepathic message was thrown her way.
[Don't worry, I would never like your Trainer anyway!]
Latias puffed out her cheeks and declared.
"Meowha?"
Floragato, who had assumed she'd have to waste a lot of breath, or even get into a fight to determine ownership of their Trainer, was stunned.
A bit skeptical, she even asked a few more probing questions, but only received stubborn, defensive replies from the little jet plane.
Then, not long after, once her underlying 'tsundere' code finished processing and her pride as a Legendary Pokémon took over, Latias peeked out from behind the door. Watching Floragato walk away looking satisfied, she suddenly felt a pang of regret.
Hiss... the Trainer clearly belongs to me too! Why should I have to give him up?
Shaking her head, another voice immediately argued back.
But the Trainer already signed a contract with that green cat using a Poké Ball first. It's not right to butt in.
—Oh no, I feel like my left brain is starting to attack my right brain!
Latias clutched her head and let out a sorrowful wail.
—Spending the days in the Pokémon Center, and grinding levels in the tall grass at night—
[All party Pokémon have leveled up to Lv 25.]
[Milcery learned Substitute.]
[Latias learned Tailwind, Dragon Breath, and Chilling Water.]
[Floragato learned Seed Bomb and U-turn.]
Over the next few days, Hakuya didn't know if Floragato and Latias had reached some sort of secret agreement, but the atmosphere within the team was noticeably more harmonious than when they first met. This allowed Hakuya to stop worrying and shift his focus elsewhere.
"I feel like I need to go make some money again..."
Hakuya looked at his currently rather light backpack and fell deep into thought.
Due to capturing Latias, the savings he had painstakingly scraped together were nearly gone. He needed to replenish his funds as soon as possible.
And as for making money, aside from violently elbowing Trainers on the road, another option was to accept commissions at the Pokémon Center.
In the Pokémon world, aside from the management provided by the Officer Jenny police force and the local Gyms, a significant portion of social order and problem-solving relied on traveling Pokémon Trainers. For example, in the Alola region, villages suffering severe crop damage from Alolan Rattata infestations, lacking the manpower to solve the issue themselves, would post commissions at the local Pokémon Center.
Accepting commissions was simple; you just had to browse and refresh the machine in the Pokémon Center lobby.
"Seeking a lost pearl for a Spoink at the museum. Reward: 2,000 League Dollars."
"Rustboro City's Alley No. 2 has accumulated excessive garbage, attracting a large number of Muk and Trubbish, causing severe environmental damage. Seeking a Trainer to handle the situation. Reward: 10,000 League Dollars."
"..."
"Wait... why is there a Team Rocket bounty poster pinned all the way out here in Hoenn?"
Scrolling further down, Hakuya was surprised to find a commission offering a staggering reward of 1,000,000 League Dollars.
[Following a preliminary investigation by the International Police regarding the robbery of Devon Corporation employees in Petalburg Woods last month, the suspected organizations have been tentatively identified as the evil syndicates Team Aqua and Team Rocket. Their exact base of operations remains unknown. We are urgently seeking capable Trainers to recover the stolen crucial documents...]
After reading the description below, he scratched his head in confusion.
"This isn't right. How is the Devon Corporation robbery connected to Team Rocket?"
As a Pokémon fanatic, Hakuya naturally knew exactly why Team Aqua wanted to rob the Devon Corporation employee of those documents.
Those documents contained the latest intelligence regarding the Devon Corporation's newly developed "Submarine Explorer 1." With that machine, they could scout underwater caverns that current equipment couldn't reach. For Team Aqua, whose ultimate goal was the super-ancient Pokémon Kyogre—but who were struggling to locate it—this was an absolutely critical piece of technology.
But whether in the anime or the games, this plotline had absolutely nothing to do with Team Rocket, who were based far away in the Kanto region.
Unless... please don't tell him this was the Rainbow Rocket version of Giovanni—
Making a sudden connection, Hakuya couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath of cold air.
Although, based on the current plot progression, let alone Team Aqua or Team Magma achieving their ideals of expanding the sea or land, even Team Rocket hadn't seemingly finished developing their own Mewtwo yet...
But given Giovanni's ambition and grand vision, making an early investment like this to gather intel and recruit talent wasn't entirely incomprehensible, right?
Of course, regardless of which version of Giovanni this was, a bounty mission of this caliber was not something Hakuya could accept right now.
Unlike battling Sabrina—where, as long as the icy Psychic Queen was in a good mood and didn't resort to no-rules, real-world psychic combat, he could easily elbow her out of the way like in Viridian Forest—and unlike battling Brock or Misty, whose strengths hadn't yet reached the heights they would during the Sun & Moon era, making them relatively easy to defeat...
...the difficulty of a mission to eradicate Team Rocket was exponentially higher.
Firstly, as the ultimate villainous organization entrenched in the Kanto region for decades, Team Rocket boasted tens of thousands of low-level grunts and countless elite Trainers. Secondly, their leader, known as Giovanni of the Earth, possessed strength second only to an Elite Four Champion.
More importantly, having made that terrifying deduction just now, Hakuya was genuinely starting to doubt whether this was the vanilla version of Giovanni.
If he casually waltzed up to their front door to elbow them like Red did, only for Giovanni to casually pull some bizarre, otherworldly monstrosities out of an Ultra Wormhole, that wouldn't be fun at all.
"Forget it. I'd better look for other commissions that pay well but are a bit less suicidal."
Hakuya shook his head and chose to keep scrolling down.
Before long, he actually found one.
[Temporary Commission: Rustboro City Trainers' School — 100,000 League Dollars]
[We are in urgent need of a temporary Battle Instructor. Primary duties include assisting with teaching activities and lecturing students on Pokémon battle theory. Total employment duration: two weeks. If you meet the qualifications, please come to the school for an assessment.]