Hong Meiling Sleepwalks Through the Heavens

There were food bowls made for Pokémon stored inside a wooden cupboard inside the room. Cynthia released her Pokémon one after another, and filled out five bowls, accounting for Hong Meiling’s Heatran, of Pokémon food.

Heatran trudged around the room and would glare at Meiling with resentful eyes. However, as soon as Meiling pushed the food bowl towards it, it seemed to forget its resentment and began to eat.

1kg of Pokémon food costs 280 Pokémon Dollars, which seemed relatively expensive. Plus, Cynthia mentioned that it was high-quality, so likewise, it should be better than ordinary Pokémon food.

Eating cheap meals while your pet eats the best food… Meiling reminisces. No matter the world, this fact remains true.

Pokémon food somewhat resembled dog food. Meiling eyed it with curiosity, but physically held her hand back from taking a few pellets from Heatran’s bowl.

The room also contained a bathroom. While the Pokémon were munching on their food, Cynthia and Meiling took turns taking a bath.

After the two were done with their relaxing baths, their Pokémon were done with their dinner as well. Meiling returned Heatran back into her Poké Ball, while Cynthia returned her Gabite and Gastrodon into her own Poké Balls. She then gingerly carried her Roserade and Eevee and set them inside the ‘crib’ for them to sleep in.

Roserade looked somewhat humanoid. She is fully green, with blue and red flowers on her left and right hand respectively. Like Gardevoir, Roserades can be male or female. Cynthia’s Roserade is female, as with all her Pokémon.

(Some fans claim that Cynthia’s Pokémon are exclusive female, which is not true. Cynthia owned some male Pokémon, which include Lucario, Togekiss, and Braviary.)

On the other hand, Eevee resembles a fox with rabbit-like ears, and Eevees possess big eyes and soft brown fur, with patches of white on its neck and on the end of its tail.

Roserade laid down on the bed elegantly, while Eevee leapt up and down on the crib like an excited pet, which greatly amused the two girls.

Meiling immediately squatted in front of the crib, stretching out her hand to gently stroke through Eevee’s fur. Eevee immediately curled up into her touch and stroked its head on Meiling’s palm.

Ah, I feel like my heart is melting.

Roserade couldn’t help but feel a little jealous seeing Eevee get all the attention, even though Meiling wasn’t her Trainer to begin with.

Seeing Roserade’s jealous glances, Meiling moved over to the other side and patted Roserade’s silver, bud-like hair.

Roserade immediately closed her eyes and leaned into Meiling’s touch, and when Cynthia’s Eevee saw this, it immediately jumped up and down on the spot of its bed and called out to Meiling, “Eevee! Eevee!”

Cynthia smiled as she sat down on the bed. She was happy to see that her new friend was getting along with her Pokémon.

Meiling patted through Roserade’s hair for a bit, then went back to stroking Eevee’s fur. After all, it’s hard to ignore such a cute Pokémon like Eevee.

“Cynthia?” Meiling asked as Eevee curled up to her touch once again. “Say, if I want to make some money, do you know any way to do so?”

Cynthia, being the granddaughter of Professor Carolina, has money transferred to her card every month. Cynthia never had to worry about monetary issues.

However, that doesn’t mean that Cynthia is spoiled or closed-off from the world. Hearing Meiling’s question, she pondered before answering, “Well, you could always work part-time at a shop, or participate in some battles held by the Pokémon League to compete for prize money. However, you need badges to join these competitions.”

“Some rich people or politicians hold their own competitions too, but…” she continued. “Only official Pokémon Trainers are allowed to join, and you’re only awarded money if you’re top eight, or at least top four in other competitions.”

The highest-stakes competition, naturally, is the Sinnoh League. Pokémon Trainers need eight Gym Badges to participate, and the winner is granted the opportunity to challenge the Sinnoh Elite Four, along with the Champion. Of course, there are lower-stakes competitions held, which only require two or three badges to participate.

Like Cynthia mentioned, private competitions may also be held, but they may hold unique rules. For example, only Pokémon of a certain type can be used, or only Pokémon of a certain size can be used.

Smaller and private competitions are relatively common, and the rewards range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of Pokémon Dollars, which may also increase depending on how rich the organizers are.

Joining a competition… Meiling thought. That’s a good idea.

Although she needs to achieve a certain ranking to obtain rewards, she is also blessed by the grace of Heatran. The moment she puts Heatran out on the field, the opponent might as well surrender if they do not have other stronger Pokémon.

“You could also collect stones or other rare items to sell,” Cynthia explained, taking out a Fire Stone from her pocket. “I picked this up by the cave earlier.”

Fire Stones allow Fire-type Pokémon to evolve; Water Stones allow Water-type Pokémon to evolve, so on, so forth.

“You can find Fire Stones by volcanoes, or Water Stones by rivers,” Cynthia explained. “It’s pretty hard to find them, but they make good money if you don’t want to use them to evolve your own Pokémon. Generally, stores will buy it at 50% of retail price – for example, Fire Stones are about 2,000 to 3,000 Pokémon Dollars, so you will get about 1,000 to 1,500 in return.”

(In the original games, the price of stones like these are at 2,100 Pokémon Dollars. However, starting from Pokémon Sun and Moon, this has increased to 3,000 Pokémon Dollar. 2,000 to 3,000 Pokémon Dollars are set as the floating price in this story.)

“And,” she continued. “If you’re lucky, you might come across fossils, and you can get tens of thousands of dollars by selling them to research institutions. If you find rare ones, you might even be rewarded with thousands, no, millions of dollars! Some research centers do fossil mining in known sites, and ordinary Trainers are also encouraged to find fossils themselves, though they are paid much less.”

Cynthia’s thorough explanation gave Meiling a clear idea on how to make money, but all that explaining made the two sleepy. Cynthia’s eyes groggily shut, and immediately began to snore softly. Meiling stroke Eevee’s head one last time before retiring to bed herself.

…

The next morning, the two got up, and after washing up, they released their Pokémon and fed them some food.

There’s only less than 500g of Pokémon food left from the 1kg of food they bought yesterday.

After feeding them, they were returned to their Poké Balls. Then, Cynthia and Meiling went to the restaurant to enjoy their breakfast.

Cynthia bought two breakfast sets for 45 Pokémon Dollars each. Each set contains a hard-boiled egg, a sandwich, and a glass of milk.

After they were done, they returned to their room to pick up their belongings. Cynthia stuffed the remaining bag of Pokémon food into her bag, returned the room key, and left the Pokémon Center with Meiling.

The two walked over to a bus stop by the entrance to Stark Mountain. Cynthia reminded Meiling about their journey, and that they would be travelling to the south-west.

“The journey itself takes 45 minutes, but…” Cynthia sighed and glanced at the schedule by the bus stop. “I guess we’ll have to wait another 30 minutes.”

Soon, the bus arrived, and the two got on the bus. Immediately, Meiling was visibly confused at the Monferno greeting them as they entered the bus.

When the two sat down on their seats, Cynthia explained that the Monferno was hired to protect the bus.

It is rare for wild Pokémon to leave their confines of grass and wood to leap onto the roads where vehicles would cross, but to practice risk management, one can never rule out the possibility that they would attack the bus.

Hence, buses are equipped with a tamed Pokémon acting as a bodyguard of some sort. If, Arceus forbid, a wild Pokémon tries to attack the bus, the Pokémon in the bus will be sent out to deal with them.

The Pokémons provided inside the bus are relatively strong and are able to deal with most wild Pokémon. If they happen to encounter a wild Pokémon even they cannot handle, the bus driver will have no choice but to contact the police and seek aid from Officer Jenny. However, who knows what would happen to the passengers while waiting for the police to arrive?

Thankfully, Meiling and Cynthia’s bus ride was peaceful. Meiling enjoyed and studied the scenery of a world foreign to hers, and the two arrived at their destination with no incident.