Candy

Because I wanted this episode out within my birthday but I knew I wouldn't make it in time to have edited pics. So it'd be paragraphs over paragraphs of writing (yikes) which I wouldn't want to read, so I figured if I added indents it'd be slightly more convenient to read idk. At least that was what someone on Pixiv recommended when writing a long story in Japanese, and I assume it applies to English too lol. And thanks~ hope you enjoyed my birthday present to y'all :yoomtah:

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 79 It's muh birthday! So have this hastily-written episode to celebrate uwu Also I'm trying out this new thing called "indents" lmao The “training”, or at least the first part of it, consisted of sitting down on the grass surrounded by all of my pokemon, and hugging them one after another, or brushing their fur or massaging their shoulders. In essence, it was a skinship exercise. I didn’t understand the point of it, and felt silly doing it, as though I were back in school being tricked to do something only to be mocked and laughed at after. This, of course, wasn’t the case because I knew Candy and she was the type to be unironically into this sort of thing. She released her lopunny and started playing hopscotch with her while I did my bonding exercises. She also released the rest of her team, of which some members sat down to sunbathe, like her grass pokemon and her florges, real-bathe like her milotic, or play with other pokemon in the daycare like her delphox. The delphox later joined Candy and lopunny to play hopscotch as well. When Candy came back to check on my progress, she frowned at me. “You gotta do it with enthusiasm, silly. Your pokemon aren’t going to feel the bond if you give them hypocritical affection.” “It’s not hypocritical. I just don’t do this sort of thing with my comrades,” I replied. “There’s always a first time. Stop looking at them like animals that do the fighting for you, but as friends,” Candy said and hugged me tightly. “Friends, like this.” “That’s not friends, that’s family,” I said, pushing her away. “Sure about that? Haven’t you hugged anyone outside your family? I don’t believe you.” I thought about it. On the top of my head, I remembered hugging Pikachu and Shelly, and Wolfie in her lifetime. I instantly stopped thinking about hugs, however, when my mind flashed Aladdin’s face. “Fine, fine. I’ll try again.” I waved so that she’d leave me alone with my pokemon. I started hugging each of them once again, this time taking more time like I’d done with Pikachu and Shelly. It turned out that hugging soft, warm, furry pokemon is quite comfortable. The same couldn’t be said about hugging Golden Key (klefki) which was cold and hard to the touch, or Kame (blastoise) with his hard shell and Prince (seismitoad) with his wet gelatinous skin, but they seemed to enjoy the hug so it was all good. The morning turned into noon, and my arms were getting cramps from the excessive hairbrushing, patting, hugging and whatnot. I was relieved when Cookie called us all to have lunch. I was preparing to call my pokemon back into pokeballs, when Candy caught me in the act and took the pokeballs away from me. “Placing pokemon into the PC does nourish them automatically, but this is also part of the training. We’ll have a picnic with all your pokemon.” So instead of me going to the food, the food came to where I was already sitting. Candy brought my pokemon and me food, went to get some for her and her pokemon, and at last sat down on the lawn. Cookie came also, with Pikachu, who was looking quite exhausted himself. I’d caught glimpses of his training earlier, but more often than not I saw him gazing in my direction when I had looked at him. “Hey bud, fighting pokemon in the grass is tiring, right?” I said and reached to give him a pat on the disguise’s head, but he turned away from me. “What’s wrong?” I asked, puzzled by the cold shoulder. “Perhaps little Pikachu is jealous that all the other pokemon get to relax and get hugged, while he has to train physically,” Cookie said. Pikachu unwillingly confirmed his supposition when he jumped on his chest and lightly slapped Cookie’s face with his long arms. “Ah, so that’s what. I told you to come with me, but you insisted to go with Cookie,” I said snarkily, but in my mind I was thinking of a way in which I could fix Pikachu’s issue. So far, I hadn’t an idea other than to take Pikachu from Cookie and do both the bonding and training by myself. All of us ate, most of the time listening to Candy talk about friendship between people and pokemon, about her day-long search of a zorua that probably kept using illusion on her, and her interesting finds around the city thanks to her long search. She told me she found Julia returning to her Gym, and that she had accidentally squandered an hour of search time by talking with her. “She told me you met her near Celestinine Cascade? And that you’d fought Team Meteor alongside Titania, Florinia and her? When did that even happen?” “When you were busy talking to Taka. I suppose your conversation didn’t induce him to call off the mission to collect the Sapphire bracelets from Titania.” “Oooh, true, I did leave you that time. So that’s when. Well, I don’t know. Taka seemed to make up his mind, but he didn’t tell me what he’d finally decided. I’d only stayed with him so I could cheer him up, so I didn’t inquire into it much.” “It doesn’t matter what he decided on. Even if he left Team Meteor, I wouldn’t trust him to be loyal to our missions. It is best if he just leaves both sides alone, for his own good.” Candy didn’t stay on this subject for too long and jumped to the subject of the city renovations. She talked about wanting to help out the people in the slums and ex-gang members, but not being sure how. She talked about how the renovation of the slums was an area that was lagging behind on donations. Since 7th Street was still a thing, even when she donated some money directly to the people that lived there, she found that they tended to use it up to buy and make more “Rare Candy”. “I’m a rare Candy, but you know it’s not me I’m talking about, do you?” “Yeah.” She kept venting about this topic for the rest of our lunch, but frankly I didn’t know how to help solve this problem either. When lunch was over, Candy told me about the next bonding exercise on my schedule. “I think you’ve made progress with the friendship-maintenance skills, so now we will work on friendship-building skills. Just as people form stronger friendships when doing things they like together, pokemon like to be part of activities their trainer likes to do,” Candy explained. “Now, Vanilla. What do you like doing? Do you still like playing hide-and-seek? Or re-enacting plays or fairy tales?” “Candy, I’m 18 years old. I don’t play those games anymore,” I said, blushing a little. “Then what do you do?” I thought for a moment. Actually, not for a moment, because it took me a solid few minutes of intense thinking to answer this question. At last, I remembered Pikachu, who had gone off to train with Cookie again, and thus I changed my aim from finding an activity I enjoyed doing, to an activity that would allow Pikachu to join me and the rest of my team. “I haven’t physically trained for months now, since I’d focused on training my pokemon instead,” I prefaced. “I’d enjoy something like a boot camp. And since I’d be exercising, I think we can all agree Pikachu can join the training.” “What? You like exercising for fun?” Candy seemed almost dizzy. “But I’m not here to judge you on lame hobbies. I’ll go call Cookie and Pikachu back.” While Candy was out of sight, I started warming up with leg and arm stretches. “Fun is over, guys,” I told my team. “It’s time to get down to business. Now, stretch all your muscles before you get so sore you won’t be able to move an inch tomorrow.” When Candy was back with Pikachu, I told her that she was welcome to go play hide and seek with her pokemon. “I don’t think you’d enjoy my lame hobby,” I said. She took my advice, and only reminded me not to over-exert myself or my teammates. “All right, everyone. Listen up. We’re going to do intense training that I’m not sure will be useful to you all, but will certainly help me get back in shape. At least it’s an activity that fits Candy’s requirements and will be useful to me. Do your best to keep up to my speed.” The first thing that I told them to do was to run one lap around the Obsidia Park, which I estimated was about 10 km and thus would take something like an hour to complete. Endurance training was one of my least favorite exercises, and thus I always started it first to get it done. I told my team to “do their best to keep up to my speed”, but I realized that was ironic within the first minute of starting the race. My fastest pokemon, Wolfie (lycanroc) quickly took the lead and as far as I knew kept it until the end. I say this because she finished the lap just as I was crossing the halfway point, and so I couldn’t see who finished first. Other four-legged folks, Bambi (sawsbuck), Anna and Elsa (ninetales), also ran fast enough that I couldn’t keep up with them. Golden Key (klefki) was also surprisingly fast, but I couldn’t count it as being a fast runner, since it just floated the whole time. Cinderella (gourgeist) was in this sense more admirable, since even though she was quite capable of floating like Golden Key, she insisted on running and bouncing instead. Kame (blastoise) and Prince (seismitoad) kept her company, since they also weren’t fast runners. I was pretty equally matched with Aladdin (medicham) and Queen of Hearts (tsareena), though keeping up with the latter was more of a challenge. Pikachu, Cheshire (furret) and Gretel (slurpuff) were slower than my little group but were constantly ahead of Cinderella and co. When we were all done with the running, it was clear who were the ones that lacked endurance the most. Wolfie jumped up and down, as though the 10 km run was nothing to her, while many of the slower pokemon rolled on the ground almost knocked out. It was a little embarrassing, but it took me a lot of discipline not to give in and lie on the ground like them. “We’ll take a 15 minute break. Then we will do our next exercise,” I told them and went inside Candy’s house/shop/daycare to get some water out of my bag. Candy was chatting with Cookie when I went in. “Wow Vanilla, you’re so sweaty! Do you want me to fetch you a towel?” she asked. “No, thanks. I have one in here,” I said, running my hands through my bag. There were a lot of unnecessary stuff like empty potions, which I had used up yesterday in my futile attempts to win against Adrienn. There were also quite a few wrinkly papers, mostly advertisements and job applications that I had accumulated over my stay in Obsidia. I asked Candy if she didn’t mind me throwing my trash into her garbage bin. “Ah, no worries, but give me those spray bottles. Adrienn and I have recently started a recycling movement that involves collecting these kinds of battle items. The department store is now fully selling potions in refillable bottles and we are in the process of installing refill stations around the city.” I shrugged and handed her my spray bottles. “Oh, and those papers don’t go in that trash bin,” she said, taking them also. “I have a recycling bin in my room.” “I guess Sandy wouldn’t need to worry about the environment that much, if she knew there was another environmentalist among Reborn’s renovation team,” I murmured. “Sandy?” asked Candy, but I shook my head. I only knew Sandy for only a day, but the events that happened on that day were too much to relate to her in a 15-minute break. I drank some water and wiped my sweat, and was ready for more intensive workouts. I went outside, and called everyone to give the next instructions. “We are going to do 100 each of the following: push ups, curl ups, lunges, air bicycles, and jumping jacks,” I said this while demonstrating the movements. Needless to say that once the day was over, everyone, including myself, was happy it was. The same could not be said about the next day, however. Despite my caution to stretch muscles thoroughly, everyone, again including myself, was sore from head to toe. “Do you think this helped build friendship?” I asked Candy incredulously. “Well, I think it built many things like stamina and strength, so maybe it built friendship too? A girl can hope,” Candy said while helping me apply an ointment to all my pokemon. “Do you think I’m ready to fight Adrienn now?” “Did you come here thinking friendship would be built in a day?” Candy smiled. “I think you already know the answer. But don’t worry, I have a good idea for an activity that you all will enjoy together and that doesn’t involve a near-death experience.” “And what’s that idea?” “It’s an idea you gave me,” she said, but when I looked at her with confusion, she smiled with satisfaction. “But you’ll see what I mean a little later. I need to go do some preparations for it. So for now, just repeat the hugging exercises from yesterday.” She patted my head and went running in the direction of Opal Ward. I wondered what she had planned for me, and whether she was correct or just optimistic when she said we would all enjoy said activity. When we were done with lunch, Candy stood up from the table and announced that she had everything ready to unveil the secret activity. “Come follow me,” she said smiling from ear to ear. We headed out of the daycare and walked the path she had taken earlier in the morning. However, she walked past Opal Ward and made a 90-degree turn when we entered Lower Peridot. I wondered if we were headed to Julia’s gym or she had intentions of guiding us to Jasper; however, my thoughts were soon answered when she halted her step in front of Julia’s gym. “Julia and I teamed up for this, and she was so kind as to lend us her gym,” explained Candy. We entered the gym. The gates that blocked off the gym leader from the league challengers were all open, and I saw Julia waving her pom-poms at us from the room in the back. “Vanini! Hey! Welcome everyone!” she shouted and greeted us midway. “I’m sooo excited to do the stuffs. Has Candy told you what we’re doing yet?” “No, she hasn’t,” I replied. “Ooooh, Candy! Can I tell her? Pleasepleaseplease,” Julia begged. “Sure, Julia. I’m sure you can tell it better than I could.” I wasn’t sure about that since Julia always struck me as Candy on steroids. “Alrighty!” Julia jumped and then coughed. “So, you see all this setup here?” I looked around the room. There were 3 lines of long tables with pen and papers that reminded me of a classroom. I instantly panicked that we might be about to take an exam... but on what? “Sure, I see it all right,” I said for the time being. “So, these tables have tons of copies of job applications, much like the ones you gave Candy,” Julia explained. “And and! We will bring a lot of people who need jobs like the people who are in the slums and people who were laid off once the renovation works decreased. Then, we’ll help them fill in these applications and that’ll help them, or at least some of them, to get jobs. Doesn’t that sound a-may-zing?” “I told you that you gave me the idea with your job applications,” Candy added. “I see, and how exactly is this a friendship-building activity again?” I asked Candy, but Julia replied in her stead. “How could it not be a friendship-building activity? Your pokemon will help out keeping the queues in order, bringing people into my gym, and keeping the filled-in applications organized. Candy, you and I will help the people fill out the forms because we know how to read and write,” she said. “This is the definition of teamwork, AKA friends!” I wasn’t sure I bought into the idea, but helping people get jobs wasn’t something I’d be against, so I told them I was up for the task. We started by advertising our job application workshop to people who expressed interest in Peridot and Obsidia Wards. Some people didn’t budge no matter how much we insisted, but others were at least curious to know what a gym leader, a breeder/daycare worker, and… I don’t know, someone that beats Team Meteor’s ass 90% of the time(?) were doing together. Our efforts didn’t receive “a-may-zing” response at first, but as we helped the few that came with us to the gym, those went out and told the news to their friends, and the gossip about our workshop ran from mouth to mouth faster than even Wolfie (lycanroc) could’ve relayed it. By the third hour, the gym was full of people, and we even needed some of the applicants to turn into impromptu volunteers to keep everything organized and running. All three of us now had our pokemon helping out by handing out empty applications, getting pens, keeping the queues together, handing out cups of water to those who needed them, and in return received words of thanks and headpats from friendly applicants. It was mostly thanks to them that we had a working station rather than a room full of chaos. All the while I helped people, some of whom recognized me from fights that I had early on in Opal and Obsidia, and from the fight I had in 7th Street, I realized that Candy wasn’t just optimistic. “How do you like this? Better than lame exercise?” Candy asked me when we sat down for a little break. “Yeah. I like it, thanks.” I sipped on a cup of water that Prince poured for me. I looked at everyone working assiduously, and the applicants sometimes breaking their usual frown to show smiles. “You know, this is what I want to see in our hometown,” I told her. “Everyone coming together to make everyone’s lives better. The people with plenty of resources sharing them to help people who don’t have any.” Pikachu, who had been picking up pens and papers from the floor, also came to where we were taking a break and asked Prince for a cup of water. I stood up from my chair to let him sit on the chair a bit. “This is the vision I want to achieve,” I continued. “And I don’t care how many people I will have to fight. How many things I’ll have to sacrifice. I’ll give my life, even, if I can make it happen.” Candy listened to me, but other than directing me a pair of worried eyes and a nervous smile, just sat there in silence. At the end of the day, we agreed on doing this again tomorrow as well, but this time starting earlier in the morning. There were quite a few people who didn’t get to fill applications because we’d run out of papers. When we were exiting the gym, Julia asked me if I had already beaten Adrienn, to which I had to reply that I hadn’t and was on the process of training for the battle. “Wowow! Then I’ll be able to watch your battle,” she said. “You fight so well, I’m super happy I get that opportunity.” She talked to me about how she liked our double battle when we fought Team Meteor in Fiore Mansion. She noticed how I strategized well so as to minimize collateral damage to her pokemon, and switched in pokemon immune to electric moves when it was most effective. I was rather surprised that she had noticed this much in the few minutes that we fought together under so much stress. “And I’m assuming you’ll travel the desert to reach Tania’s gym? I heard her gym is now open to challengers, but given the League is all messy and her gym is so far away, she must be bored out of her mind waiting for challengers.” Julia waved one of the advertisements of Titania’s gym that Ynnie (leavanny) and Maxwell had been handing out. “Yeah, I’m planning to fight her when I’m done with Adrienn,” I said. “Great news! Because I’m planning to go see her as well. We can go together! It’ll be a merry party, for sure.” “You can head there already,” I said, meaning to dissuade her from going together. “I still have at least a day of training, and I don’t think the gym battle with Adrienn will be any different from what you’ve watched in Fiore Mansion.” “Nope! You see, there’s a reason I need an escort. I’m an electric type trainer, so deserts aren’t my element. I’d die from thirst and my pokemon would be beaten to pulp by the ground types that live there.” Julia begged me to allow her to wait for me, and I felt I ran out of excuses to not let her. Therefore, it was decided that my journey through the desert would be a lot noisier than planned. The next day, Candy still insisted that I do a little of the hugging exercises and we parted to Julia’s gym after that. When we arrived, there was already a line of people waiting for the gym to open. Some of them I recognized from their blue uniforms: they were the disbanded Aqua Gang members, but without their ex-leader. Razzy was with them, and he winced like he apparently couldn’t avoid doing whenever he saw me. “Hey Vanilla,” Razzy said. “I didn’t know you were hosting the workshop. The guys only told me Candy’s name, so.” “Julia and Vanilla are helping me but this wouldn’t have happened if Vanilla didn’t give me her unwanted job applications at the right time so that my brain went click,” Candy said. “Well, I guess we’ll have to thank you too then,” Razzy said, not really looking at me. “The volunteer work I did these couple days has kind of motivated me to do something other than sit and drink with the guys. I probably wouldn’t even be lining up to get a job application now, if I didn’t have that experience. Ironic how the tables turn, don’t ya think? One time ya be breaking my nose and the other ya be giving me a purpose.” “Yeah, we really weren’t feeling the job prospects when Archer insisted we find some jobs,” added one of the other members, whose name I’d forgotten. “But Razzy tested the volunteer thing out and told us it’s not as bad as it sounds so we’re giving it a go. I think some ex-magma members will be coming in too if they already haven’t, but they daren’t show up while we were in here.” Really interesting how the tables turned for sure. I wondered whether Archer would be happy that his ex-comrades got their lazy butts to find jobs, or whether he’d be butthurt that I was helping them out. Something gave me the feeling that the latter would be most likely. Another day of work ended, and we had apparently helped all that requested help, so the workshop closed for the time being. I spent two more days doing friendship-building exercises, which also involved physical training, and by the end of the week, everyone, myself included, were in better shape than we had been in the last couple of months. Candy authorized me, though no such authorization was really necessary, to go fight Adrienn at last, and Julia escorted me all the way from Obsidia to Coral Ward talking about how excited she was to watch our battle. Adrienn was in xyr gym, writing on some documents when we came in. “Hihi, Adrienn! I came to watch Vanini’s epic showdown against you,” Julia said as we entered. “Oh if it isn’t Julia. It’s been a while since we saw each other. Where did you go again?” “It’s a long story. We saw Tania and Vanini going up the Celestinine cascade and-” “And it definitely is a long story, which you might want to have over some tea and cookies,” I said. “But I came to have my battle. I hope you don’t mind me getting my rematch as soon as possible so I can clear my name.” “Clear your name? Of what?” asked Adrienn. “Of having lost to you.” “My. And this is whom Victoria wants to be our new Champion,” Adrienn smirked. “Well, this at least shows that you’re not easily discouraged. Let’s go, I will accept your challenge.” “Victoria wants Vanini to be champion? That’s great,” Julia jumped while holding both my hands. She was definitely more excited than I was on receiving this news. “But of course she’ll have to beat the league to become it,” Adrienn said. “It’s not like we can hand the status arbitrarily. There’s a proper order to these things.” Julia frowned and stuck out her tongue. “Yuck, order and laws. Everything should just go kaboom, and Vanini is champion, don’t you think?” “I didn’t come to Reborn to be handed the champion status like candy,” I replied. “I came here to form a strong team, and if that culminates in me becoming champion, that will be done.” Julia didn’t seem to find my answer all that exciting, and went to sit in the audience seat. “I like your expression today, Vanilla,” Adrienn said when I took my spot opposite xem. “You’ve come determined to win. Let’s see what the future champion will be like!” VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS TEAM RECAP QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

Umm I don't know if I were you I'd play now because we don't know when E19 is going to drop and you might forget about the game before you even get to play

I like most cute bipedal mons like lopunny, leavanny and florges, but I also like cool bipedals like lucario. But also ninetales, both types. I guess my likes are all over the place lol

lmao I gave up when I got 20 from memory I also made a Reborn quiz a while back that tests your knowledge of Reborn story and the "league days" lore, if you're interested to take it lol https://www.quotev.com/quiz/10718289/Reborn-Comprehensive-Exam

I'm ready to trade, if you are. Just have a trashmon on you and request trade me (ID: Candy).

I can trade you one in a few minutes I don't need anything in return no worries

it do be like that sometimes when you have smol brain yay thx~ idk how much of a montage it’ll be but I think it’ll be pretty fun. And maybe I’ll finally have the gym battle lol ya I left the earlier chapters a lil mysterious so you might think the traitor is Candy... so I could say “gotcha” in this episode ✌ I had hax-Lin in mind when I wrote this so I imagined rayquaza taking the hit but still hitting Candy somehow (her hydreigon is special I think). Also rayquaza isn’t Candy’s Pokémon, but helps her when she needs a ride (because Candy also doesn’t have a Pokémon that can fly her places lol). I don’t know if I’ll get to it but I might write a Hoenn “play through” someday detailing Candy’s own adventure in the region that led to her befriending rayquaza and marrying Cookie. But if I get to it, that won’t be for a longass time lmao And bingo, added that parentheses to emphasize Vanini’s pride being hurt, cause from you and Mindlack’s comment I realized I didn’t do a particularly good job showing that she gave in to Adrienn’s advice because she thought xe had a point but that still hurt her pride. This is pretty similar to the time when she was annoyed at losing against Charlotte and almost swallowed her pride and asked Saphira for help. But I think Vanini has less reason to hate Adrienn than Saphira... Candy’s the type to put herself in danger without realizing she’s putting herself in danger lol Her being a strong trainer doesn’t help her cause she falls pray to a false sense of security. This is why she agrees to do stuff like infiltrate a cult to save Vanini’s friends, go to 7th Street and befriend people that might as well attack people, and go check what’s up with the WTC even when she sees that it’s been colonized by terrorists. In simple words, smol brain, kind heart, big muscle/Pokémon. Vanilla doesn’t buy into the “friendship increasing strength” narrative, while Candy’s all about it. And Candy’s disposition is berry different to Vanilla’s so she can imagine what sort of stuff a “friendship training” will involve. I will accommodate to E19, but yeah not knowing what comes next is hard because this is a fanfic and I’d like not to deviate too much from the original story (I’m one to talk ). If Ame writes about how Lin knew of our coming to Devon, then that’ll probably make it into the story. If she doesn’t, or if the reason is that Lin is an all-knowing entity, then I think I’ll leave the “Candy being a silly spy” hypothesis as most likely true lol

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 78 I wouldn’t jump to conclusions this time around. That’s what I had promised myself, but whether I could keep it at all was a different question. It seemed that the less I wanted to think about it, the more it intruded in my mind, and the more everything eerily fit into a narrative that I didn’t wish to believe. I didn’t need to talk with Candy to know that she must have had a conversation with Lin. That explained why Lin had ordered her grunts not to hurt me, and why the cage she enclosed me in had no booby trap. It might also explain why Candy insisted she had to win our battle in Lin’s battle royale: why suffer a thundershock or superheat when she knew I would get neither of those or anything worse if I stayed caged in? However, that made me wonder to what extent Candy could trust that Lin would keep her side of the bargain, despite the supposed Everish intervention if she didn’t. Perhaps Candy sold our secret mission to Lin, just so she could guarantee my safety, a voice whispered in the back of my head, and that was enough to make me shiver. Not from the cold but from fear. An hour passed, and with it came the sunset. I patiently waited for Candy to come back, barely sane from the thoughts that plagued me. I hadn’t been able to motivate myself to finish picking up the mess from the floor, but Pikachu had done it slowly but steadily, until the carpeted floor was mostly clean. Another hour passed, and Cookie asked me if I’d like to eat something, to which I replied with a negative. Pikachu however heartily consented to go with him and came back after a while with a full stomach. About half an hour after that, I finally heard the front door swing open and Candy’s voice fill the previously-silent house. “It’s no use,” she sighed. “The zorua must’ve used illusion to disguise himself, for I couldn’t find him anywhere. Oh, honey, I’m starving!” “That’s a bummer, but yeah those pokemon aren’t really my idea of an easy find.” I was desperate to speak with her, but I wasn’t so selfish as to keep her from her dinner. Hence, I waited some more for her to finish eating and to come upstairs. I pulled my head upright when I heard her footsteps coming up the stairs with speed. “Hello, Vanilla! I was so happy when Cookie told me you were staying-” she said upon entering the room I was in, but fell abruptly silent when she saw me holding the envelope. “Oh yikes. I smell trouble. You’ve read it?” she asked, wrinkling her forehead. “Yeah. Sorry to intrude on your privacy.” “It’s ok. I just worried you might get angry with me if you read it,” she said. “But I suppose you’re waiting for me to explain myself, so that you can judge whether to get angry or not.” “Excellent deductive work,” I said. “Now tell me. Why does the Queen want to keep me safe? Why has she asked you to bargain with Lin, and have you done it?” “Wait, hold on, one sec. One question at a time, please, remember how smol my brain is. Honestly, I think I’ll disappoint you because I don’t have that many answers. I only know how that letter got into my hands and what I did then.” “You’re telling me that the Queen confided in you for something like this, and you don’t know what her motives are?” I said, now fully suspicious of my cousin. “I swear, Vanilla. I literally went up the stairs to brush my teeth one day and found a falcon holding a letter on my windowsill. I never even spoke to the Queen once in my life.” “Well, this isn’t exactly speaking,” I waved the envelope. “You get my meaning,” Candy pouted. “Alright then, tell me more about how this letter got into your hands and what you did then.” Candy asked me to hold on and went down the stairs for a bit. She then returned with a bucketful of candies, chocolate and gum, and placed it on my lap. “Have this. This might be a long story.” She then grabbed a chocolate for herself and started talking between chews. “How should I start this… Once upon a time, there was a girl running her shop. Suddenly, the door opened, and! It was a hooded man. However, she knew exactly who he was, for it wasn’t the first time he’d shown up. He’d been coming occasionally to deposit eggs or return stolen pokemon or pokemon that needed some kind of attention. Anyway, in this particular case, he’d come to ask that I nurture a zorua back to health, for he’d found it lying lifeless in the Tourmaline Desert.” “Is this Taka?” I interrupted, remembering that she had mentioned in the Water Treatment Center something about Taka bringing a zorua to her. “Correcto! Well, the girl and him talked a bit of many things, for, you know, the girl loved to talk. We talked about the city renovations, his having met you several times, the status of the eggs and pokemon he’d brought in before, I think some stuff about Team Meteor and their plan to erase everyone and rewrite the world… but that last one we didn’t talk much about because it seemed a sensitive topic for him. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, you know how it is. Anyway, that same night, like two hours since Taka’s visit, the girl received a letter. At first, she thought it was from Aladd- err this birdtamer guy again, for an Everish bird had brought it here.” “You can say his name. It’s not like it’s a secret now.” “Oops, you’re right. Anyway, she soon realized that it wasn’t, first because it had a weird red gooey thing sealing it, and then because Aladdin’s handwriting couldn’t be this neat, and lastly, because it was signed by the Queen of Everland! You can scarcely imagine how surprised she was to get a letter from her out of nowhere. She thought, did I do something wrong or did I receive a prize of some sort? But it was neither. You know, cause you read the same letter. The contents were nothing short of bizarre, but she agreed with the Queen that we must protecc dear Vanilla at all costs. So yes, I did meet Lin.” I was about to ask something but she cut right through me. “But! You might be wondering, how in the world did the girl know where to find Lin? Well, this was about the time when Ame had told me in private that something something Devon corp something Lin something. So I said, oh! Maybe Lin is in the Devon corp, so I can wait for her to come out. I mean, I’m sure she wasn’t the kind to quarantine herself in the building forever, right? It’s not like we’re in a pandemic. So I waited, hidden, in the underground railnet for her to show up. It took a day or two. And you might be asking, how did she survive all that time without eating or sleeping?” “I wasn’t wondering that,” I interrupted her. “Well,” she carried on, ignoring me. “The answer to that is that she took turns with her trusty pokemon to keep watch, and asked them to bring food from home when necessary. Very clever, this girl could be, sometimes. Anyway, the point is that she saw Lin leave, and chased after her because she didn’t want Lin to know that we were suspecting Devon corp to be their headquarters. So she sneakily chased after Lin on her trusty rayquaza-” At this moment, I started to wonder how sneaky my cousin could really be, when she had chosen a humongous green dragon as her vehicle of choice. A new possibility that explained Lin knowing of our plan to infiltrate Devon emerged in my mind: that of there being no traitors at all, but only a very clumsy comrade among us. “-Until Lin somehow noticed her and stopped mid-sky. This happened over Azurine lake.” “Can you hurry the story up? I can guess more or less what you two talked about.” “Well, you might guess, but in reality it wasn’t as pretty as you imagine,” Candy looked a little sorrowful. “I, of course, did as the Queen instructed me. I told Lin that I was a messenger from the Queen of Everland, and that she must not harm my lil cousin if she didn’t want Everland to invade Reborn and kick Team Meteor's ass... maybe just her ass, that part wasn’t clear in the letter. Anyway, but Lin said that she did not care for any insignificant war that Everland may wage on Reborn, but that she had her own reasons to keep Vanilla alive for the time being. I thought, well that went way easier than I expected, given I didn't even have to come all the way here, but then…” Candy shivered. “Then… she said, ‘but you aren’t safe in the same way, are you, Candy?’ and she commanded her hydreigon to use Flash Cannon on me.” She shivered again. “Oh those thingies hurt. I thought I might do a die right there. I fell off Rayquaza cause even my hands and legs hurt too much to keep my balance, and I thought I might get slapped by the water surface and become crushed Candy, I really did believe that! But my friend Rayquaza caught me before I hit the water, and cousin, you won’t believe what happened next!” She shook my shoulders but that didn’t help me think of something. “I don’t know, but you clearly didn’t die, and I’m really glad you didn’t. What were you thinking, putting yourself in danger like that.” “Yeah, yeah, scold me all you want later, but this is a very important part in the story. So I was caught by Rayquaza, and all of a sudden, my wounds didn’t hurt anymore and my mind wasn’t hazy anymore. For reals, it was a blink of an eye. I checked my body, and it was like those sharp thingies never cut through my skin at all. It was so bizarre that I could title this whole affair Candy’s Bizarre Adventure*.” “And do you know how that happened?” Candy looked as though she had a thought but then shook her head. “At first, I thought Lin must’ve done it. I thought maybe she meant to scare me but not actually kill me, because she couldn’t be that bad,” she said calmly. “But I’ve since changed my mind 180 degrees. She really could’ve killed me. I only realized that when I saw her pokemon chomp Ame…” For a second there, I thought Candy might have a panic attack like the one she had in Devon corp, so I quickly unwrapped a chocolate bar and stuck it into her mouth. That seemed to relax her facial muscles, and she chomped the whole thing like I imagined Lin’s hydreigon must’ve done Ame’s head… but perhaps that was a distasteful joke. “Had I known Lin was that dangerous, I might’ve chickened out of the mission,” Candy sighed. “I could live with the Flash Cannon pain if I could get healed back to health, but if she did me a kill, I couldn’t live with that because I’d be dead, you know how it is.” Candy then looked at me and wrinkled her eyebrows. “I’m sorry again, Vanilla, for what I did to you during the mission.” “What you did?” “Yeah. I won our battle, when I really should’ve lost on purpose. That would’ve been the noble thing to do, but instead I got scared and thought of my own safety before yours.” I wasn’t sure why she was apologizing, but I imagined she was alluding to what she said about being cowardly when she won our battle. “I knew from Lin that she wouldn’t harm you, but I was scared of what she might do to me if I were the one to get a punishment,” she shivered. “What if those metal bars turned into Flash Cannon shards? But it was a dangerous bet on my side, and I put you in danger, even if it all turned out fine.” “Don’t worry about that, Candy. You’re human too and it’s natural for you to look after yourself before anyone else. I’m glad things happened the way they did. I would’ve hated it if you’d put yourself in danger for my sake.” Candy’s eyes clouded with tears so I unwrapped a lollipop and stuck it into her mouth. “But I’m still curious as to why Lin is so determined to keep me sound and safe,” I said but corrected myself. “Both Lin and the Queen of Everland. I don’t know what to do with this information. I can’t think of any reason for either of them.” “Yeah, I wish I could relieve your curiosity, but alas it’s outside my knowledge.” The conversation appeared to be reaching its end, so I confirmed with her that she had told me everything. “I swear I have told you the absolute truth of what I know and was hiding from you,” she said while raising a hand as though making an oath. “Alright, stop exaggerating. I believe you,” I said, hand down. “But why didn’t you tell me this? Why did I have to find it out by reading a personal letter, which, mind you, I shouldn’t have read? I know the Queen told you not to tell me anything, but I thought our bond was stronger than whatever the Queen might request of you.” “I know, but I thought the Queen must have her reasons for keeping her activity secret. I didn’t want to ruin her plans if she had any, since whatever reason she had to ask that you be kept safe must be favorable to you,” she explained. “That was when I didn’t know you, um, had issues with her monarchy. Once I learned that, I thought to keep it secret all the more, so that she may be able to do good deeds toward you without you getting angry-” “No good can come from my enemy,” I snapped and stood up, forgetting that I was holding a bucket of candies. They all fell to the ground and Pikachu quickly started picking them up. Candy and I also crouched and picked them up, and I apologized to both of them. At least, the exercise had the effect of cooling my head before I took my anger out on Candy. “I’m itching to demand explanations from the Queen,” I sighed as I picked up the last handful of candies. “But I’m not going back to Everland yet. I can’t leave Reborn’s situation while it’s incomplete. I have something to protect here.” Saying that reminded me of Shelly. She wasn’t in spirits when I left her in Calcenon. I wondered whether her friends may have had success cheering her up, and if she would accept my apologies for making her cry. “I love this region, all the more now that it’s looking so pretty. I look forward to seeing it free from terrorism,” Candy smiled. “Until I’m done here, the Queen can do whatever she pleases, and I’ll make her regret her ‘good deeds’ later on,” I concluded. The conversation with Candy about the serious stuff ended there, but she wouldn’t leave me alone until I told her how my day had gone since we parted ways. I told her about meeting Archer’s archnemesis and a hardcore environmentalist, and almost burning down a forest in the attempts to rescue it. I also told her, begrudgingly, that Adrienn had beaten my ass during our Gym battle(s). When I told Candy that I couldn’t beat Adrienn, and that xe (had the audacity to) recommend me that I train with her, she instantly told me that I must go to sleep. It was barely 9pm, but she insisted I must have energy for training. “You missed dinner, I hear,” she said, shaking her head sideways. “A strong trainer should always keep up with their basic physical needs.” She lent me a change of clothes and practically pushed me to lie down on the sofa bed. The next morning, I woke up to an aroma of something buttery being baked. Pikachu was sitting on my stomach, patiently waiting for me to get up and go downstairs. “Good morning, dear,” said Candy when she saw me coming down. “I hope you had a nice relaxing sweet night of sleep.” “Yeah, the sofa bed wasn’t that bad.” Candy waved at me to sit down next to her. Her husband brought me a plate that had a cinnamon roll and a cup of yogurt, and a mug that contained very milky coffee when I sat down. I tasted the coffee. It appeared that these two had left Everland but never their traditional gastronomy. While I ate the sugary breakfast, Candy explained that we would get on to the training once we were done eating. She also answered Adrienn’s question about why she hadn’t bothered to teach me her ways without being asked. “I didn’t think I should stick my nose in your business, because I know you dislike being told what to do,” she explained. “It’s a little surprising, not gonna lie, that you followed Adrienn’s advice to come talk to me about training. I was under the impression that you didn’t get along with xem.” “You’re not wrong about any of that. I like to do things my way, and Adrienn still isn’t on the top of my list of trustworthy people. I still am not completely sure that xe is on our side,” I saw Candy about to speak in Adrienn’s defense, but I made her hold her tongue by continuing to speak loudly. “But that is beside the point. I do have to accept that xe is a stronger trainer than I am right now. Otherwise I wouldn’t keep on losing the battles against him. Once or twice could be a coincidence, but five times? Even I can get a hint. It’d be foolish to ignore the advice under that circumstance.” Candy shook her head sideways. “At this point in your training, the difference between victory and defeat isn’t determined by how strong your pokemon are or how brilliant your strategies are. In this case, both Adrienn and you have strong pokemon and have great minds. If this were a person-to-person combat, I’m sure victory would be left to chance because both have equally maxed out your stats.” “What are you trying to say? If it were left to chance, how could I have lost five battles in a row? Could I have that much bad luck?” “I haven’t finished talking, silly. This isn’t a person-to-person combat: it’s a pokemon battle. You have one more stat that you can max out before leaving it up to chance.” “Friendship?” I said, rolling my eyes. “Essentially. The strength of bond between pokemon and human. Lin might’ve ridiculed the bond between people, but I hope you’ll take it seriously because it does exist,” Candy scolded me. “Just like we are motivated to reciprocate the good treatment we receive, or to protect the ones we love, pokemon also perform their best when they feel close to their trainer. If you can make them feel close to you, not as a trainer, but as an equal, I’m sure you’ll be matched with Adrienn.” Candy drank up the rest of her coffee. “I battled you, so I know that your pokemon respect you like an employee might respect their employer. However, there’s still a wall, you know, the wall that it seems you’ve kept up but for your lil friend on your shoulder. What was his name again?” “Pikachu.” Pikachu tilted his head upon being called. “Right, I remember. Looks like you’ve caught him after all,” Candy said. “I’m assuming you’ve kept your stubborn decision to not have him battle. He will need the opposite training, for he’ll need to build up strength if he’s to join your team. Leave it up to Cookie. In one week’s time I’m sure he’ll be at least in shape to stand on the Gym’s field.” “WHat? Why, I can train him myself,” I said, directing a sharp gaze to Cookie, who was cleaning the table. “Dear Vanilla, you can’t divide yourself in two, you know. I need you to come with me so we can develop friendship between you and your other pokemon. Cookie will be sweet to little Pikachu, am I right or am I right, honey?” “Of course, Candy. I promise I won’t do anything even remotely as scary as that look you’re giving me, Vanilla.” His comment didn’t make me look at him any less sharply, however, Pikachu rubbed his disguise’s head against my cheek and jumped onto Cookie’s chest, only to slide down to his apron’s big pocket. “You always do what you want, don’t you, Pikachu?” I sighed. “He’s always peer-pressuring me to do or let him do things I’m unsure about.” “It’s proof that you’re actually a softy, Vanilla,” Candy pinched my cheek. “Even if you carry that snubbull face wherever you go.” Candy stood up from the table, kissed her husband on the cheek and waved at me to follow her. We walked over to the Daycare’s counter. To the side of it were a couple of computer monitors that allowed pokemon to be taken out of the virtual box. “Now, log into your account and take out all of your pokemon.” “All? All twelve at once?” “Yep. It’ll save us time if we train all of them at once.” I did as instructed. I didn’t have enough hands to hold a dozen pokeballs, so Candy helped me hold half of them… but that was all pretense and she let all of them drop, releasing all the pokemon out. “Release the other six too,” she said. “We have no use for the pokeballs.” She grabbed the remaining six from my hands and dropped them as well. Some of my pokemon were confused about being released in a non-battle environment, while others, mainly Wolfie (lycanroc), Anna (K-ninetales) and Elsa (A-ninetales) snuggled with my legs. “Oh? It seems those three are pretty friendly already,” Candy noted. “Are they the ones that you’ve used most in battle?” She had a point. These three were admittedly my strongest trio, the ones who had been in my battles most of the time. In my battle(s) against Adrienn, I didn’t include Wolfie or Anna because they wouldn’t fit in my strategy, which was perhaps a big reason I was struggling more than usual. “Let’s head out to the garden. That’s where we’ll do our training.” I had no reason at all to doubt that whatever Candy had planned for the “training” would not be pleasant, at least for me, but I followed her to the garden without saying a word. *IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE? Yes it is Here, have another one: You thought the one who snitched the Devon mission to Lin was Candy, but it was me, Dio! Except it isn't Dio either... Real talk tho, I don't even know for sure lmao Edit: also imagine having 60k reads on a thread VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

I like the gradients berry pretty~

And your opinion is fair. Stories are meant to be understood as each reader understands it, and I think that's what makes it more fun for readers and writers, cause each person will interpret something in a way that another didn't, and even writers can be like "ooo I wrote it with something in my mind, but that's a cool interpretation too". This particular case is a part that can be interpreted in many ways, I think, because as you said Vanilla never says "Adrienn was right" or "let's do it because Adrienn knows best" or "let's ignore Adrienn because I'd rather die than do what xe suggests". One can only judge from her actions and ambiguous thoughts to come to conclusions. For reals this is exactly how I imagine it is with Vanini. She's selfish all right, but I'm sure she means well. Power of Friendship banzai

This story is known for irregular posting schedule xD I don’t know how but the months pass by me before I realize it Good theory. This is only an indirect introduction to Vanilla’s real enemy (for Lin is Reborn’s not her particular foe). It’ll be fun to watch how these snippets come together. If you didn’t read Vanilla’s mom chapter, some clues are hidden in it too. I wanted to have the gym battle in this episode but real-life me struggled against Adrienn. It’s why I took long to post (although at this point it’s more rare when I post within a noice timeframe lmao), but in the end it wasn’t necessary to beat Adrienn to post a new chapter xD Although I did beat xem and without Pikachu, but I felt it’d be cool if Adrienn and xyr focus on Pokémon frenship convinced Vanini to finally catch her traveling companion. lmao it’s a throw back to me struggling with Adrienn and thinking “Vanini would be pissing her pants at the humiliation”. Fali echoed my thoughts in the mafia server lol In idk-which-episode, when Vanini was fighting and losing against Charlotte, Saphira iirc said that her Pokémon didn’t lack strength, but that she lacked strategy. Then Vanilla started to be more strategic and won against Charlotte. This chapter is similar in that Adrienn can teach the power of frenship to Vanini and xe doesn’t hesitate to do so. Vanini did hesitate to put his advice into practice, but Pikachu had been waiting for the opportunity to be caught (which is why he wouldn’t let go of the Friendship ball) and ended up having a stronger will than his companion. Tl;dr What I tried to show wasn’t weakness in Vanilla, but a decrease in animosity towards Adrienn (the sole reason she still didn’t like xem was because she’s too proud to accept that xe is a better person than she originally thought), and increase in open-mindedness and trust on her peers, in this case Pikachu. PS. I’ve followed your advice. A reason the Gym battle didn’t happen this episode was to build hype on Pikachu’s debut battle lmao. But I’m not sure if the deviation will allow me to write the gym battle in the next episode...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nt3HYcezYIg/VhfF0DTDNZI/AAAAAAAADEA/oHPy5n8Djqk/s172/tumblr_lp0mal7AcQ1qg3clto1_250.gifFrom Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 77http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nt3HYcezYIg/VhfF0DTDNZI/AAAAAAAADEA/oHPy5n8Djqk/s172/tumblr_lp0mal7AcQ1qg3clto1_250.gif Things I could've done: Have the Gym battle be on this chapter Not end on a cliff hanger The reaction from Adrienn upon our entering xyr gym was just as I had hoped. Xyr face contorted when xe saw with whom I was entering. “You really know how to get on one’s nerves,” xe said to me. “Oh, no no I wouldn’t want to get on your nerves,” Sandy said. “I only want a tiny amount of your time. I have so many ideas to share with you to help Reborn’s wildlife.” “I did my due, 10 volunteers. We can battle now, can’t we?” “Sure, give me one second.” Adrienn proceeded to give Sandy instructions as to what xe needed her to do. Something about mopping the floors and checking the turbines in the Water Treatment Center. Sandy heartily agreed to do the job and ran out of the gym. “Shall we?” xe bobbed xyr head to the stairs that led to his overly-perfumed flowery field. For this battle, I didn’t have many pokemon I could rely on. Fairy type was a pain because I had no poison types, and the steel type I had, Golden Key (klefki) was not an offensive player. Thus, I chose my team to play head on, neither of us having type advantage over the other. However, even knowing that I wasn’t going to have an easy battle wasn’t enough to prepare me for the challenge I was facing. “This can’t be. My luck must’ve been uncommonly bad this time,” I said when I lost. “I request a rematch.” “You can go change your team or train and come back, you know,” my opponent said. However, I shook my head. I fathomed I hadn’t considered xe would change the field from Misty Field to Fairytale Field mid-battle, and that was why I had lost. Now that I had also ran an eye through the Fairytale Field field notes, I was sure I could use it to my advantage too. Yet, when the battle concluded a second time, the result was the same. And so was a third, fourth and fifth time. I gritted my teeth. Out of all people I could lose to, Adrienn was second to Fern in making me feel humiliated. I was supposed to win and laugh at xem for ever thinking me capable of dishonesty… and here I was, having my ass handed to me. I begged for a rematch one more time, before Adrienn told me to breathe and relax, because me getting worked up was visibly inhibiting my performance. “Your pokemon are well-trained,” xe said. “They all have great skill, and you have good strategy. I’m honestly surprised that you excel in that, since I’ve always thought of you as an impulsive person. You are a great trainer, Vanilla.” “What do you mean to tell me?” “There’s always something you can improve on, and in this case I think that you should focus on building a stronger bond between you and your pokemon. Friendship, if you’d like.” “I’ve already strengthened the bond between us. I’ve trained these pokemon pretty much since they were hatched.” “Sure, they must have taken a liking to you because of that, but you could definitely build upon that strong bond. Have you spent time brushing their fur? Have you ever patted their heads when they won a battle? Pokemon are interesting creatures, and research shows they react positively to such things. Candy is a master of that. She should’ve guided you more.” “I have strengthened a bond. Our trust I’m sure is unbreakable. However, I don’t believe in making friends with one’s comrades. How can you train them with exhausting workouts if you are partial to them like that? I’ve only experienced battling alongside a friend once, and that didn’t turn out well.” I said this remembering the impact Wolfie’s death had on me. “Perhaps it’s difficult to battle alongside friends, because there is a greater risk of emotional injury. However, it is also the only way to reach a team’s full potential, I believe,” Adrienn said. “Vanilla, why don’t you allow your mimikyu to fight? From the looks of it, you wouldn’t have to become friends with him because he already is. It’s scary how much potential I see in him, and it’s not because I’m biased towards fairy types.” Pikachu tilted his cloth head at suddenly being addressed. “I have trained hard for a very specific purpose, Adrienn,” I said. “And that purpose is one that I wouldn’t want to involve Pikachu in. That’s why I don’t wish to train him up.” “Whatever your purpose, I think Pikachu would enjoy reaching his full potential. I’m sure the greatest happiness for a pokemon is to get stronger with their trainer. Do sleep on that thought, alright?” At that moment, a person wearing a helmet bursted into the Gym and requested that Adrienn go check the Water Treatment Center immediately. Apparently, Sandy hadn’t taken to simply following xyr orders. Thus, any further gym rematches were called off for the day, and xe rushed out of the Gym, not before returning once to give something to me. “Ah, here, you might need this,” xe said and put a round thing on my palm. “And if you do decide to train your mimikyu, you should ask Candy or Cookie for pointers. Their breeding shop requires training pokemon to hatch healthy and strong babies, you see.” What Adrienn had given me was a Friendship ball. “So, Adrienn says you’d make a good addition to my team. What do you say to that?” I asked Pikachu. Instead of an answer, he stretched his arms to get a hold of the pokeball I was holding, so I had to pull it away from him. That is, until he got hold of it and then we were tugging the small orb, carefully avoiding pressing the button that would open the ball. “I was asking a question, Pikachu. But I’m not sure that’s the way,” I said, pulling strongly. In the end, I had to give in and Pikachu went into the pokeball. I picked it up and released him again. “Listen. I must learn from past mistakes. I can’t let you battle with me... not when I know the pain of battling alongside a friend and losing her. It’s too much of a risk for both you and me.” Pikachu seemed to think about this for a moment, but not long enough to give up apparently. He formed his hands like the head of a dinosaur or monster and moved them in a chomping motion. It seemed as though he was alluding to Solaris’ garchomp, for he then fell to the ground, playing dead. “Yeah, that was one such instance that I regretted bringing you with me,” I said. “Thanks for bringing that traumatic memory up.” He then pointed to the Friendship ball and shook his finger. It took me a while to understand what he was trying to say, but in essence, it appeared that he was telling me that whether or not he battled as part of my team, the fact that we walk a dangerous path together wouldn’t change. Pikachu then hugged me, and I reckoned he wouldn’t let me go unless I agreed to have him join my team. A sly trick, if you asked me. “Alright,” I said. “I hope I don’t have to regret this decision.” I placed the empty pokeball in my backpack’s pocket, and headed out of Adrienn’s gym. As per Adrienn’s suggestion, I went to Candy’s daycare. More than for training, I went there to have a place to rest for the night. The city had changed so much and the lodging was so scarce that I figured it would be best to stay with her for the time being. When I entered Candy’s shop, only her husband was inside. He was cooking something, so he said “Welcome back” without realizing to whom he was speaking. When he rested his spatula on the range and looked at me, he jumped a little but tried to carry a natural conversation with me. “It’s been a while since we last saw each other. How are you, Vanilla?” “I’m good.” “If you’re looking for Candy, I’m afraid she isn’t here at the moment. She went out in the afternoon and hasn’t come back yet.” “Where has she gone off to?” “Well,” he said, looking a little embarrassed. “We had this pokemon recovering from dehydration and starvation upstairs, but early this morning I found that he was gone. I couldn’t go search for him myself, because I was taking care of the daycare, but Candy’s gone to look for him.” I remembered Candy mentioning something about a rowdy pokemon. It seemed that the pokemon had given as much pain in the neck as Candy anticipated it to give. Adrienn had said that Cookie could also help with Pikachu’s training, but I wasn’t particularly fond of him, so instead I asked him if they had some space I could borrow to spend the night. “The spare room we had is a little messy right now because that’s where we were keeping the zorua,” Cookie said. “I could clean it up for you but it might take a while.” “No, don’t bother. I only need any place with a ceiling to stay in. I can clean up, too, since you seem busy.” Only when I said this, Cookie noticed that whatever was in the pan was starting to smell like it had burnt. He quickly mixed the food with the spatula, and laughed as he told me to make myself easy upstairs. The room that didn’t contain a king-sized bed was indeed in quite a disarray. There were books, papers, blankets, pokemon food, all scattered about on the carpeted floor, so that I couldn’t step inside without stepping on at least one of those things. However, there was a sofa bed, and that was all that I needed. “Let’s clean up a bit, Pikachu. I think Candy would appreciate that.” I started picking up the books and placing them into the book shelf. Pikachu moved the blankets over to the corner, which had a fence, probably meant to keep the pokemon within it but failing terribly at it. While he picked up the pokemon food- probably sneakily eating some himself in the process- I gathered the papers and envelopes. On one such instance, I caught a peculiarity on one of the envelopes. I thought I recognized the seal on it, but had to really make sure it really was what I thought it was. However, there was no mistaking what had always sealed several of the envelopes on my dad’s work desk. I forgot all social decorum about not opening envelopes that aren’t addressed to me, and took out the letter. It was dated a couple of weeks ago, and the royal insignia that matched the seal adorned the top of the page. “Dear Candy Leiderhosen,” I read aloud. “Greetings. I hope this letter finds you well. My motive for personally addressing a letter to you is as follows. It has come to my attention that the Reborn region where you and your cousin Vanilla currently reside is under looming doom due to a power that seeks to rewrite the very essence of the universe. The details escape me at the moment, and though I believe it is founded on falsehood, I have reached out to you to be my ambassador to prevent calamity if it turns out to be true. I wish to assign you the task of speaking to the commander of this power, and to request that Vanilla not be harmed. Tell her that if she does not comply with my request, I shall not hesitate to wage war on Reborn. I trust that you will obey my order, for our interests must be aligned on this front. Do not tell Vanilla of my involvement in her affairs, but do store this letter. I know why I instruct you thus. Yours sincerely, Yveneas XXXIV, Queen of Everland” “What can be the meaning of this,” I said, barely able to contain my bewilderment. “Candy received a letter from the Queen. That is unbelievable enough. Then, there’s the content of it.” I re-read the 1-page long letter once through again. “The Queen knows I’m in this region. I shouldn’t be surprised about that, for, it is true that I did not take precautions in staying low key. But what could she mean by requesting that I not be harmed? She must know by now that I was part of the Defiance group that her men captured... or could her detectives and policemen be that incompetent?” Whatever the reason for such an odd request, Candy must have complied with the Queen’s orders. It coincided too well with what ZEL had been instructed to do, or not do. By extension, it also made sense that Lin would have me gassed to sleep in the fake Devon corp building, and later have me enclosed in a cage that did not have any nasty tricks to it. I read the letter once more for good measure, and tried to think of a reason the Queen would take the trouble to send a letter to Candy in order to save me from Lin. “If she didn’t know that I was a criminal under her law, I could easily comprehend that she was acting on behalf of my aristocratic parents. However, I’m convinced she must know. There just isn’t a chance, for I surely left enough evidence in my base to make it quite obvious.” Maybe Candy knows, I heard my voice whisper on the back of my mind. My stomach sunk at the thought that this may not be the only letter she had received from the Queen. Could I be so insensible to the years we spent together, as the family member whom I could trust the most, as to suspect her of colluding with my enemy? I shook my head. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions this time around. I had too high an esteem for my cousin as to do that without hearing her defense. VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

henlo~ and welcome

I'm not a good reader but I'm impressed you've gone so far with a single mon on one of the most difficult (imo) fangames

links are browoken but nice to meet you~

Welcome~ and your art is cool I wanted to do something on RPG Maker but it was too complex for a smol brain candy Good luck with it!

I have mac too, and can use mods :3 I use Wine/Wine bottler. If you can find your game folders, the mods work by downloading the file and adding a couple or so folders into an existing one called "Data" iirc.

Otherwise there’s a mod for the game that allows your moms to learn their egg moves using the move relearner

Lol I hate reading and had to read a bit to find the chapters I had to link xD I just write and write but am always amazed by peepos who keep on reading cause I could never bruh donut bother checking the word count, it's not a super secret but I'm berry slowly transferring a better-written version (that is, one that's actually proof-read lmao) to my Quotev account just for funsies. In a distant future when I get all the chapters on there, I'll be able to add up individual chapter wordcounts. https://www.quotev.com/story/11686214/From-Everland-to-Reborn I could've given the story a better title but I stuck with the one. it do be like that sometiems. Ya Sandy be as rough as sand. Her intentions are noble but the ways she chooses to get what she wants ain't berry noble xD But that might be said for Vanilla too. And I added the disclaimer but hecc I should add a disclaimer for everything all these psycho characters do. Imagine someone suing me cause they tried to hang off a cliff from their dress while getting avalanche'd

berry tru

If you stain one side with ice cream, because it’s liquid you’ll be able to see the stain seeping through to the other side. And yah I imagined Pikachu eating inside his disguise I donut think of ghost Pokémon like souls. I think of them as Pokémon that have mass and have a digestive track, just that they have a spooky aura giving them the typing. Some may have ability to absorb energy, but as long as they have a mouth, I think they can eat (otherwise they’d have no use for a mouth evolutionarily me thinks)

You forget it's a magical bubblegum dress that stretches infinitely fren This dress so far has been used: - to wrap Pikachu's pachirisu corpse - to hang Vanini and Aladdin from a cliff that was getting avalanche'd - to make a parachute for Vanini to fall down the cliff without doing a die - to wrap naked Pikachu

Sandy has a side quest in E18 I think. I haven’t done the side quest yet but I felt she’d fit well in this episode. Pikachu was like “nooo don’t take me clothes” and then “yay clean clothes” I think helping Nina and Ynnie get their home back is a good return gift for the pachirisu disguise in the first place. It’s not all tears and edginess around these lands

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 76 This might literally be the longest episode ever and it's just a feel-good/chill one. I wonder what my word count for all of FEtR is so far lol Also, donut tri burning forests if you ain't authorized! Tbh donut do anything Sandy in game or in this fanfic suggests but prolly that goes for most of what Vanini does too lol I accepted helping out in city restorations, but I later realized that I chose the wrong job to help out with. Going out of my way to talk with strangers and convince them to do volunteer work was something that required carisma, and I had none of that. Perhaps that’s why Candy asked me if I’d need help, but she was too subtle about it for me to get her meaning. Complaining about my task led me nowhere, so I started walking aimlessly around the city. I approached people who, first of all, looked approachable, and second, looked like they had nothing better to do. I found a few sitting on park benches individually. Surprisingly some of them agreed to help out, but they didn’t add up to the quota of 10 people. I went to many of the wards, including Onyx, to which I hadn’t gone on my first tour of the renovated city. Onyx Ward had never been a site of PULSE damage and had been far enough from the earthquake’s epicenter so I wasn’t surprised to find it pretty much the same as I remembered it. The only things that were obviously different were the cleanliness of the streets and that most buildings had received a fresh coating of paint. However, I soon found that it had been altered more than I imagined. “Hey, isn’t that Vanilla? The albino girl who’s beating Team Meteor up?” “OMG why is she here? Is she giving a speech at school?” These were the kinds of conversations I heard as I approached OTS. Apparently students were the most impressionable by the recent events, and welcomed me as a celebrity of sorts, which felt both flattering and annoying at the same time. “I battled her when she had just arrived in Reborn,” boasted one of the guys to his friends, and then he looked at me. “Do you remember we did, Vanilla?” I remembered he was the blondie that had once collaborated with Fern to keep me out of Florinia’s Gym. “Yeah I remember you. Hope you no longer need to kiss Fern’s ass.” The kids laughed and teased him and he countered by pointing out that they had also been cowards with regards to Fern because he was the headmaster’s brother. I left the kids to argue among themselves who had been the biggest coward and carried on with my search of volunteers. I couldn’t get a single student to help out with the restoration, because apparently they were just days from final exam week and had no time to do much other than study, and apparently sit in groups to gossip. I didn’t press them much and left the Ward behind. When I was walking south through Obsidia, I noticed a small group of men smoking. I approached them, even though they didn’t see me with friendly eyes. “Hey, I’m looking for volunteers to help out in the city restorations. Would you be willing to give a hand?” The men looked at each other and laughed. “Lil girl thinks we can waste time helpin’ out for free,” said one of them. “Well, you seemed to have time to waste around smoking. Excuse me for assuming,” I said. “Ya know, people like us in the slums also gotta take a break like ya wealthy folk.” “Besides they be sayin’ they gonna fix the slums, and look they ain’t done anything yet. They be sayin’ Obsidia slums is next, but that’s all a load of bull. Why’d we wanna help people who give no sh*ts about us, eh?” “It takes a lot of money to fix any place, and all of you living here got no money to donate. People are donating to fix the slums, I assume, just that it’ll take longer than a place that gets a lot of funding from companies and wealthy people,” I said, even though I wasn’t too knowledgeable of the topic to go in depth about it. “However, if you’d help out in the restoration, we might finish the on-going projects faster and get to work on the slums faster as well.” “Ya may got a point but we ain’t got time to be working for free. Sorry lass, ya gotta find people with the luxury to volunteer.” I gave up on trying to convince these people since it appeared to be a waste of everyone’s time. Yet, when I was about to leave, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. The familiar face also recognized me, but froze as though he had seen a truck about to hit him. “I’m no longer Aqua Gang,” said the guy whose nose I’d broken once, and who had also witnessed me steal a bunch of Aqua and Magma gang bikes a long while ago. “Please don’t hit me again.” “You’re no longer in Aqua Gang? Did Archer kick you out because I stole your bikes?” “No. I got a scolding for that, though. Thanks for asking.” “Razzy, you know the lil girl?” said one of the smokers. “Yeah, she’s Vanilla. Ya know, the girl who beat Maxwell in battle and disbanded the Magma gang.” “What? Brooo. We got a celebrity here huh? So Maxwell lost to this girlie, eh? No wonder he drinks like a sore loser.” “Do you think you could do better?” I snickered. “Maxwell wasn’t half as strong a pokemon trainer as any of the gym leaders I’ve defeated.” “The Magma gang getting dismantled was a matter of time. You just sped things up for us,” said Razzy. “The Aqua gang will also get dismantled in no time,” I said. “Its leader is an ass after all.” Razzy was quiet and bit his lips after I said this. He seemed to be at a loss on what to say, which I thought was odd, for he struck me as the type to speak as soon as a thought crossed his mind. “Don’t tell me,” I laughed. “He already sank his gang, didn’t he?” I half-meant it as a joke, for I had seen Archer only a few days ago, and didn’t think he looked any different from how he had looked before. At least, he didn’t seem to be as distressed as I hear Maxwell is, for losing his gang. “Kind of, yeah,” replied Razzy at last. “Ever since the city began to be renewed, we knew that it was a death sentence for us. They got us out of our hideout and the alleyway is now a little park. Our chief is trying to get us jobs to lead lives like everyone else, so even though he hasn’t openly said we’re done with Aqua gang, we kind of are, in practice.” “He lectured me on morality, judged me for having my gang, and yet he led one himself. He’s a hypocrite. It’s no wonder he got what he deserved.” “I don’t know about your gang, but we weren’t just any gang,” Razzy snapped. “Chief is a great man. He gave us a place to call home. We were doing good for the city, in our unique way, too. We fought the Magma gang that was robbing innocent people and doing all sorts of messed up stuff. We also fought this old woman that treated everyone like trash just cause she had lots of money, and now she’s a little more docile and doesn’t support illegal pokemon dealers. We did lots of stuff, even though people thought ill of us just for being a group of uneducated folk.” “Sounds similar enough to my own gang back in my hometown that I’ll still call Archer a hypocrite.” “Do what you want, fam. But in my opinion, you’re dead wrong about him.” “So he’s getting y’all jobs? What’s yours, Razz? I haven’t seen you dressed up with a necktie yet.” One of his smoker friends teased and pushed him playfully. “Cut that out,” Razzy said. “It ain’t chief’s fault that I’m a good-for-nothin’. He’s doing his best but last time, he tried to get me a job cutting trees and I accidentally annoyed a rattata that ended up scratching his arm. They also fired me the same day they hired me cause I let the tree fall down close to our supervisor and this obnoxious girl that was trying to negotiate with him. I think he wasn’t happy about me not dropping the tree on her. Anyhow, I don’t know if chief’s still trying to get me a job, but I ran from 7th Street so that I could avoid troubling him.” “So that’s why I’ve been seeing you around so often these days,” laughed his friend. “And wouldn’t you be interested in volunteering for the city restoration?” I asked, very casually. “You might learn a skill or two that might help you get a paying job in the future.” I was sounding like my father when he tried to convince me to work in his gunball factory for free when I was fifteen, but I didn’t think it would be a bad idea in this case. “Do you think they could give me free food? I’m sort of starving.” “I don’t know but I’m sure I can work something out with Adrienn.” “Alright then. I don’t know how I’ll mess up this time but count me in.” I was glad that this long conversation didn’t end up completely wasting my time. I told Razzy to meet Adrienn at the Grand Hall and to tell xem about his free food condition. If xe didn’t acquiescence immediately, I’d make xem when I met xem later. Since South Obsidia didn’t appear likely to get me any more volunteers, I visited the wards on the other side of the Opal Bridge. I was becoming tired of walking so I told Pikachu that we’d take a break and eat some ice cream. I remembered once getting a blue moon ice cream from Terra and giving it to Titania when we found her nearly starving in the water treatment center. Unfortunately, the ice cream lady didn’t have that flavor, kind of supporting what Titania had said about it being a rare flavor. I wasn’t picky when it came to sweets anyway. The only flavor I refused to eat was vanilla, because classmates teased me as a kid whenever I ate a vanilla flavored thing with “Vanilla eating Vanilla” jokes. Pikachu, however, appeared to prefer vanilla, so I happily bought one cone for him. I chose chocolate. We sat down on a bench in Opal ward to eat our ice cream while we watched the blue lake water reflecting sunlight and a few yachts coming and going. “It’s crazy that we were captured by the enemy only this morning,” I said. “Look at everyone just carrying on with their lives, blissfully unaware that this region’s champion lost her life to the terrorists’ boss.” It was apparently time for school children to go home, and I saw a bunch of families passing by us. One of the kids had a balloon, which he let go of, but Pikachu extended a hand and grabbed it before it went away to the sky. The kid wiped away the tears that were only seconds away from falling, and thanked Pikachu and me for saving his balloon. He skipped all the way until he and his mother turned on a corner and went out of our sight. “If only someone could come help us, don’t you think sometimes? Yet, it’s us that’s always doing the helping. Ame died because we couldn’t go save her, and no one else could do the saving... I wish the weight on my shoulders were a little lighter, but I guess I chose to be a heavy lifter when I decided to go down a rabbithole.” I licked some more of my ice cream, which slightly melted as soon as it touched my tongue. “This ice cream is lovely. How’s yours?” Pikachu tilted his disguise’s head and squealed loudly. I saw that he had stained the chest part of his cloak, but he didn’t appear to mind too much. We stayed sitting on the bench until I finished eating. Not long after, we stood up to get going. We still needed a couple more people to join the volunteers team. However, we were stopped in our tracks when we saw a sky blue-colored nidoran rush out of the ornate bush next to us. She made a quick turn and jumped onto Pikachu. At first, I thought it was a wild pokemon attack, but I judged, from the way she was burrowing her face in Pikachu’s disguise, this was not the case. “What’s this? A girlfriend of yours, Pikachu?” I said, but then frowned. I had unwittingly imitated sixth-sense Hazel. Pikachu shook his disguise’s head but allowed the nidoran to keep close to him. After another round of warm hugs, the nidoran separated from him, and noticing the stain on his disguise, said something to him in a language I couldn’t understand. Then, she ran in front of us and looked back and hopped, signaling us to follow her. Pikachu pulled onto the hem of my skirt and walked after her, so I followed suit. We walked all through Peridot ward up north to Jasper. We had already been there once, but it was still amazing to me how great a job the restoration had done in this ward. In the end, the nidoran led us to a leavanny who was handing out advertisements in a corner. I thought she looked out of spirit, for her antennae were droopy and her smile that always adorned Candy’s leavanny wasn’t on her face. She cheered up a little, though, when she saw her friend bringing us near her. (“Ynnie! Remember Pikachu? You made his one-of-a-kind disguise a while back,” said Nina. “Of course I do. His clothes are one of my proudest works,” Ynnie said. “But look at how dirty it is now. I can tell you’ve walked miles with just a look at your hem. And the yellow-ish stain, is it ice cream? I can’t let you go walk around like that now that I’ve seen you.”) I couldn’t understand anything they said, but the leavanny pulled on Pikachu’s disguise and Pikachu did his best to keep her from pulling up his clothes. I stepped in to help separate them, but the leavanny wasn’t happy about that. She shrieked some more to me, and pointed at the stain on Pikachu’s disguise. “What, you don’t like the stain, do you?” The leavanny nodded. “And you want to clean it?” The leavanny nodded again. I looked at Pikachu, who shook his body profusely, sending the disguise’s head flinging around. It would seem that Pikachu didn’t want to take off his disguise, though I didn’t know why until I took a peek at the Pokedex. Mimikyus are apparently self-conscious about their appearance under their cloaks. Something about some researcher dying from shock yadda-yadda. Even though I doubted my friend could look hideous enough to scare me, I chose not to push him to do what he wasn’t comfortable doing. “Give me a second,” I said to the leavanny, and started stretching my dress’ hem. Once I had gotten it to a good size, I ripped it apart and covered Pikachu with it. “Now no one can see you beneath that pink blanket,” I said to him. “Could you take off your disguise so she can clean it for you?” Pikachu didn’t answer, but the pink blanket shook once, twice, and moved to the left, leaving the skin of a pachirisu-looking mimikyu behind. The leavanny leaped on top of the cloak as though it were her prey, and ran away from us with incredible speed. Where she went to, I had no idea. I also didn’t know whether we were supposed to wait for her standing there, but really, couldn’t go anywhere else until she returned Pikachu’s cloak. We waited there for about ten minutes, when we saw someone heading towards us. It wasn’t the leavanny, and I wouldn’t have remembered who he was, had I not had a passing conversation about him with Razzy and his friends earlier. The ex-leader of the Magma gang seemed to recognize me too, for he stopped for a moment and hesitated whether or not to continue walking. Eventually, he decided to continue. “Vanilla. Long time no see,” he said. “I’ve come to replace my co-worker. Has she given you one of these?” He handed me an advertisement. I read it silently. The advertisement was for Titania’s gym, which was apparently going to start accepting challengers two weeks from now. Judging from the minimalistic design, I presumed Titania herself made it. “You’ve become quite the celebrity around these parts,” he said snarkily. “But I’ve also become famous in my own way as the Magma gang leader who was forced to dismantle his gang. Ironically, now your gang is dismantled too, what with the increased policing in Lapis Ward.” It appeared that this guy still believed that I had been part of Aqua gang, so I spoke to clear my name. I explained to him that I had never been part of the gang, but that had struck a forceful deal with Archer, which my side of the bargain involved defeating him in battle. Maxwell was surprised by this revelation. “You should’ve questioned my being part of Aqua gang,” I said. “I wasn’t even wearing a uniform. We both fell right into Archer’s trap.” “That annoying police-wannabe. Yet, even if I went to get revenge on him, nothing would change. Neither of our gangs can return.” “You’re surprisingly calm,” I said without irony. Had I been in his shoes, I surely would have chased Archer to the depths of Hell at once. “When I’m not under the influence of alcohol, I try to keep calm by reminding me that I want to be a different kind of person,” he said. “Once my fire was extinguished by you, I sought a lifestyle that didn’t rely on robbery or violence. I thought that maybe I could be happier that way, without having to worry about the police or the Aqua gang threatening my peace.” He raised the bunch of advertisements in his hand and laughed from his nose. “So far, I haven’t had much success. At least the money I get paid from handing these papers gets me alcohol. And I’ve made some new friends along the way, so maybe it’s not as bad as it could be.” Maxwell nodded to the nidoran and she ran around his legs in the path of an infinity symbol. “Nina and Ynnie lost their homes in Malchous Forest due to the deforestation. I think we can all relate to one another’s homelessness.” Since there still were no signs of Ynnie, the leavanny, Maxwell and I stood for some more time talking while he handed adverts to the occasional passerby. He was much more of a likeable character than Archer, which made me slightly remorseful that I gave a hand to the latter and became the reason his gang dismantled. Alas, I unfortunately had no choice: it was Shelly and Luna, or the gang of someone I didn’t know. My bias was clear. I also wasted no time in asking him whether he would be interested in volunteering for the city. He didn’t even think about it before he laughed and refused. “I don’t have anything against volunteering,” he said. “But now that I don’t steal, I need to make a living out of something, even if it’s this mind-numbing job. I have some loans I gotta pay off.” He also said that he had gotten this advertising job thanks to a connection he had, because otherwise no one would hire him. He was too known as a thief and troublemaker to be given a chance. However, he also clearly stated that he did not regret one bit about his lawless past. “Sure, the law dictates that stealing is wrong. Archer and his gang came down on mine like rabid dogs mainly due to that,” he said. “But what’s the law? A bunch of rules written by privileged people who know nothing about not having anything to eat or a roof to sleep under. And then, they say everyone’s got to follow those rules or they’ll get beaten. I don’t think I did wrong leading a gang that stole for a living. If I no longer steal it is because, well, you forced me to lose my gang, and also because they got me tired of running.” What irony! Had I accidentally happened by the Magma gang instead of the Aqua gang, I might’ve formed a better alliance with them. If I told them about our similar backgrounds as people who fought against the oppression of the law, I am sure that at least they would have shown me kindness that wasn’t in Archer’s vocabulary. I would’ve even helped them get rid of the Aqua gang without asking anything in return. Yet, I kept this information to myself, for it came in too late for it to do any good. At last, Ynnie came back with a bigger smile than before. She whistled a tune and showed all of us her proud work. Pikachu’s cloak had been thoroughly repaired, starting with the stains and ending with the stitchwork on the neck, which was starting to snap under the weight of the head. Pikachu shuffled in the pink bubble gum cloth, and changed into his disguise at once. He jumped, Nina jumped, Ynnie whistled and all were very delighted. It unknowingly brought a smile to my face. “So you said these two lost their homes due to deforestation?” I asked Maxwell. “They’re not the only ones. Ever since constructions started all over the city, people have been cutting a lot of trees in Malchous Forest and Rhodochrine Jungle, causing many wild pokemon to relocate to the Jasper and Beryl Wards. The other day, I heard a massive amount of kecleon took over Beryl Ward, and people kept bumping into or tripping over them because they’re invisible.” “That’s odd. I haven’t seen that many wild pokemon around.” “That’s because there have been a lot of new trainers coming in from all over the world, now that Reborn City’s restoration has made it to international news. They’ve been the main people fighting and catching the pokemon that came into the wards.” “Oh? So they opened the train station?” “Yeah, like about a week or two ago.” I fell silent. That meant I could technically return to Everland now, if I was ready. I knew my team had grown quite strong, so I felt quite confident that we’d be ready in that regard. “If you’re thinking about leaving the Reborn region, you might want to head to the station soon to book a ticket. There’s been a massive wave of people leaving the city, quite matching the number of trainers that have flooded in to challenge the League. The international trips outbound are all booked up for at least a month.” I looked down at Pikachu, who looked back up at me. “No, I wasn’t thinking of leaving,” I said. “I wouldn’t judge you if you were. Team Meteor is still occupying Labradorra and you never know what their next move will be,” he said but then corrected himself. “What am I saying. I’m sure you know the situation better than me. After all, you’re the savior of this region. So, maybe I should judge you, if you were to leave us.” “No one should call me a savior. I didn’t begin fighting Team Meteor with noble causes,” I said, remembering the conversation I had with Florinia right after our Gym battle. “Noble or not, we’d probably be all dead or enslaved by now if you weren’t fighting them,” he said. “Thanks.” I broke eye contact with him and shrugged. “I have to continue looking for volunteers, so I’ll take my leave now. Pikachu, say bye to your friends, we’re going.” Pikachu held both of his friends hands and waved them goodbye. Maxwell also waved at me, but I didn’t wave back. I planned on heading North from Jasper to see if any of the Beryl ward residents would be interested in volunteering; however, Pikachu pulled me back. “What’s the matter?” I asked him. He kept pulling on my dress’ hem and with his other arm, pointed in the direction of Malchous Forest. “You want to go to to Malchous Forest? There probably aren’t that many people we can ask to volunteer there.” However, Pikachu insisted that we go, so I granted his wish. We headed into the forest, although it was so cleared of trees that I believed we should start calling it park. I had come here once already, but was surprised to find that the girl with the placard that was demonstrating against deforestation was still there marching and shouting. “Pokemon are losing their homes! Stop deforestation! The Earth is crying! Stop deforestation!” Pikachu ran towards her and started walking behind her. What he wanted me to do was pretty clear. I walked up to the girl and made her shut up for a minute. “I don’t think that’s going to work,” I told her. “Don’t you have pokemon on you? Everything in this region is solved by battling.” “I thought about that, but look. There’s way too many people we’d have to battle.” “I’m sure they’re weaker than Team Meteor grunts,” I said, and started engaging one person in battle. The girl had no choice but to agree with my methods, because another woodcutter came to her to battle. I defeated woodcutters at twice the rate she did, until we had to stop because one of them brought someone to deal with us. “That’s them. Those are the ones causing a disturbance,” said the man wearing a hard hat. The person he’d brought with him was Adrienn. Xe was surprised to see me there, but the girl started talking to xem before xe had time to ask me what I was doing. “Mx. Flores! It’s great seeing you. I just need a moment of your time to talk about the deforestation of Malchous and other environmental concerns following the city’s restoration.” “You must be the Reserve Ground Leader, Sandy,” Adrienn said. “I read that you were like this.” “That’s right, but what’s important is that you take action to ensure the safety of our world. I’ve submitted several petitions-” “Yes, yes. I’ve read them. I understand your concerns, but in each case, it’s not as simple as just immediately throwing people at the issue. We’ll keep working towards a satisfactory solution, but in the meantime… Could I ask you not to accost the city workers?” “Yeah, we’re just working to get paid. It’s not our decision to cut down these trees, ya know,” said one of the woodcutters I defeated. “Most of these trees were generated artificially by the PULSE that was set here, too. We haven’t actually cut into the trees that were part of the forest before that incident,” added Adrienn. “Well, a lot of pokemon had made those trees their homes after the PULSE was taken down,” I said. “Now they have to find new homes because of the deforestation.” “I wish there was an easy fix to this issue, Vanilla. We need trees for the construction works, so I can’t negotiate on that front. The pokemon that lost their homes have mostly been captured by trainers to make pokeballs their new homes. I think that will have to do while we finish up the work around the city. Once that is done, I will start a project to improve the conditions of this forest, much like we’ve done with Azurine Island.” Adrienn then said to me that xe had taken care of sending a search group to the fake Devon corp building and the house we exited from earlier today. Xe asked me if I had gotten the 10 volunteers, to which I had to give a negative answer. “I’ll be in my Gym now. Come when you’ve finished your task, alright? I look forward to battling you.” Saying this, xe turned around and left us there. “Welp, I guess battling the woodcutters didn’t work too well, but I’m going to mark it as a partial success. At least I got to get acquainted with Mx. Flores. That’s gotta get me somewhere.” “Do you have any idea what we could do now? I have a couple of friends who’d like to have their homes back, and waiting isn’t my style.” Sandy thought about this for a moment. “Well, I guess we could plant new trees so that they start growing meanwhile,” she suggested. “How long would it take for them to grow?” “Hmmm, about 10 years, perhaps?” I shook my head. That was way too much time. “Isn’t there a way to speed up the process? We could use pokemon to grow them faster, can we not?” “Well, maybe, but I don’t think this soil would help us speed up the process.” she squatted down and scooped up some soil. She explained that the deforestation had left the soil with little nutrients to support new growth. Over time, the grass and leaves would die and decay, providing nutrients for new growth, but that would obviously take a long time. “One thing that could help would be to burn part of the forest and then plant over it,” she thought aloud. “However, that’d have to be done by fire type pokemon, because they can control fires better than we could. I’m scared of burning down the whole forest.” “I have one fire type. Would that be enough?” Sandy touched the grass and shook her head. The grass was too humid for one fire type’s flames to be strong enough. “If we can get a team of fire type and grass type Pokémon, I think we could make it work,” she said. I had three grass type Pokémon: Bambi, Cinderella and Queen of Hearts. To them, I could maybe volunteer Ynnie. I saw that Sandy had a ludicolo and a torterra as well, so that would make a group of six. As for fire, I only had Anna, and Sandy had no fire types. I thought of fire type users who could help. Charlotte was in Calcenon which was too far from here, and Cal, well, I had no idea where he could be at the present moment. Right then, I remembered that I didn't necessarily need a Gym leader or ex-leader. “Wait. I think I literally just passed a person who can help,” I said. “Give me a second.” I exited the forest and ran over to the corner where Maxwell was standing. “Oh, what’s up?” he asked. “You have fire type Pokémon, don’t you? Would you help Ynnie and Nina get their home back?” He was confused as to where I was going with this, but said that he had and he would. “Good. Follow me. Both of you too. I’ll introduce you to someone.” I passed by the Pokémon center to take out my three grass types, and we headed back to Malchous Forest. Sandy was waiting for us and squealed excitedly when she saw three more helpers. She explained on my behalf what we were trying to do. “Easy. Burning things down was always my Pokémon’s talent.” “Please don’t burn more than we need to,” scolded Sandy. “If we burn even the healthy trees, that’s just making things worse.” “Ditto.” We moved over to a part of the forest where the woodcutters had already cut down all of the trees, leaving behind the stumps all over the place. I sent out Anna and Maxwell sent out another ninetales, a charizard and a houndoom. We placed our pokemon to form a square over the area we wanted to fertilize. That was Maxwell’s idea; he told me each pair at the ends of each side could cooperate to control the fire, if the flames attempted to leave the square. Sandy also sent out her water pokemon to keep the grass on the outside of the square sufficiently wet so that fire wouldn’t easily catch. That way, we were able to burn the grass and tree stumps without jeopardizing the rest of the forest. After the area was burnt, we sent out our grass pokemon. I sent my three pokemon and Sandy sent out a ludicolo and a torterra. All the pokemon used their affinity for grass to speed up the growth of trees from fertile land. The most they could grow was about 10 juvenile trees and a bunch of bushes, but that was better than what we had before. “Good work, you two,” said Sandy to her pokemon. “Your pokemon too, Vanilla and Maxwell. I’ll keep coming here everyday to check on the progress. I’ll protect the trees we’ve grown from anyone who tries to cut them down.” “Call me if you need help. I hand out advertisements in the Jasper ward,” Maxwell said. “I surely will! Thanks a lot.” Maxwell said his goodbyes and returned to his work. As for the wild pokemon, Ynnie and Nina were ecstatic about having bushes to hide and trees to play on. They were already climbing trees and jumping from branch to branch with Pikachu. “It’s great seeing them happy like that,” said Sandy. “I’ll keep working hard to rehabilitate the forest. I have a lot of plans to make Reborn a more environmentally friendly place.” “That’s a noble goal,” I said. “You’ll probably want to keep pestering Adrienn, though. The environment doesn’t seem to be in xyr priorities.” “Yeah. Mx. Flores has done so much. It’s crazy to think how hard-working xe’s been. However, that’s something xe has lagged behind on. If only xe’d team up with me, I’d definitely do great as an environment ambassador, don’t you think?” I wasn’t sure about the answer to her question, but I knew exactly what I could do to bring her hopes a little closer to reality. “I know something you could do to keep pestering xem,” I said with a mischievous smile. “Xe is looking for volunteers to help around in some projects. I’m sure you’d have plenty of time to propose to him all your ideas, if you joined the group.” Yes, maybe I was acting on my own interests, but whatever. “That’s a great idea! I’m heading to Coral ward right now.” “I’ll escort you there. I also have business with xem.” “Your Gym match, right? Good luck!” I called Pikachu back and he jumped from a tree branch onto my shoulder. We waved goodbye to Nina and Ynnie, and followed ecstatic Sandy out of Malchous Forest. I would be lying if I said I didn’t look forward to seeing Adrienn’s face when xe sees who I brought to volunteer with xem. VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE