"You're being sponsored? By who?" Mom questioned with dad and grandma leaning over her shoulder behind her. Grandpa was behind them somewhere though, I couldn't tell where as mom's vaporeon and espeon were taking up what little space was left on the screen.
It was moments like this that I was made more aware of how different everyone looked. My grandmothers hair was gray and white, though it had been vibrant red when she was younger, but she had gone gray in her thirties and blamed my grandfather for it.
Though I couldn't see him my grandfather was a hulking brute of a man with purple hair that bordered on navy blue. Unlike my grandmother he didn't have any gray hair and barely any wrinkles, neither of them looked as old as they were but fifties were not that old by comparison, though my views on age might be off a bit.
My father however looked nothing like his mother or father. He was some what short with bright blue hair , though he had a swimmers build from his time in the Guard.. Army and now the police.
Mom had pink hair and was a frail beauty from being sick so much when she was younger, but she looked out of place with the rest of my family who all looked like they benched wailords in their spare time compared to her.
Then there was me, a tall lankly ten year old with more muscle than any one expected I could put on and a mat of amber colored hair that didn't match anyone else in my family, not even on moms side that she know of.
"Professor Oak of Pallet town." I offered leaning back in the chair a little Rose was sitting in my lap as i petted her between the ears. She was rather mad that i pulled her back into the ball when i did , but she accepted at least that what was talked about wasn't that important and was just legal nonsense.
"You were sponsored by THE Professor Oak?" my dad questioned
"Well that's what he said to call him and it's what everyone here calls him." I couldn't help but snark.
"Jer'rahd what did you do to get a sponsorship?" Mom asked again, her vaporeon trilling behind her.
"Rose and I beat the fool out of a couple of Rockets trying to steal from the lab." I offered with a nonchalant shrug. Rose rolled her eyes at the tone.
On the other end of the video call my grandmother started cackling at that and i could hear my grandfather call out his approval. Dad simply smirked and shook his head though mom looked mortified.
"Are you serious!?" mom demanded.
"Yup. He said all the paperwork will show up at the house in the next day or two. I can only sign the very basic consent forms at my age and that was mostly to show i agreed to everyone involved, but nothing i sign is considered legal without a parental signature. That's why the bulk of the information will be sent to you." I explained.
"The Gary act." Dad nodded. " Do you know how much the stipend is?"
"Only about 500 a week. That's the basic intern payout. I need to actually raise my reputation on the gym circuit or discovering things in order to raise it. Though I'm already set to do so given I'm going to be raising and training a pokemon they gave me from Sinnoh. What ever I document with Turtwig will likely go into the pokedex as I'm raising him up from just old enough to leave his mother."
"You have a Turtwig?" My grandmother considered. " A grass and a Fairy type, have you caught anything else?"
"Not yet I came down this way towards Pallet because I wanted to catch a grass type before I went after the rock badge. Instead I caught some Rockets." I offered with a smirk smiling as my grandfather continued to cackle in the background.
"So what do you plan to do now?" Dad asked.
"Same I was going to do. Train up turtwig and Rose and get ready for a battle with Brock. I figure a couple of weeks wandering around the forest, maybe swing by the entrance of victory road and see if anything got out side the reserve that might be interesting. Routes 1 through 3 are all pokemon I have no interest in, well maybe a nidoran, but I'm not a fan of poison types, so likely not."
"Let us know if you need anything Jer'rahd." Grandma offered. " I know you've been saving your allowance for a few years for this journey, but you've already made a name for yourself after only a few weeks."
She gave a grin that was almost feral that had my father rolling his eyes.
"If you managed this in a few weeks I can't wait to see what you do in a month or two." Grandmas offered, my grandfather still laughing in the back ground.
I spent three days at the lab, the first was my getting there, the second was more questions and paperwork, and the third was me taking a day to relax and study before getting back on the road. Aside from that first day Professor Oak never brought up the dimensional fuckery.
A lot of that third day was spent on a computer or with my nose in a book. I had to readjust what food I needed for the turtwig in addition to what Rose needed.
I wasn't unfamiliar with meal prep as when Luna and I had kids I did most of the cooking and keeping it something healthy that they liked was tricky. Pip never complained about anything, Paintbrush had certain food he would eat all the time with no variation, Dawn would eat literally anything you put before her including the dinner ware, and Berry was insanely picky. By the time we took in Sunset she was old enough to make food and feed herself, so she hardly counted.
Luna and i adopted a few other kids from bad situations over the course of our lives, sometimes not even pony foals, but we never really settled down again for more than ten or twenty years and there were never any deep connections like there were to our first.
Luna still could barely boil water by the time we left that world. If she was here I hoped she improved. I don't think my stomach is quite as tough as a human as it was when I was a pony.
Still my looking over what was known about turtwig's and their evolutions gave me the perfect name for him.
Tank.
Tanks were a known thing even back in Equestria. They were a minor gremlin creation there, though some races adopted them, they were little protection against magic. Discord's giant turtle monsters however were named before the first mechanical tanks were created. But he was a weird one any way.
Here there were tanks as well, but it was much easier to use pokemon, and tanks were more a support role when there was conflict. Mostly there were just APCs with some guns that they called tanks.
In either case the little guy was rather interesting. He was quicker than he looked, which wasn't saying much, but he had power to spare, small as he was both Rose and I could sit on his shell and he'd carry us around with no trouble. He was already a brute and between him and Rose we would roll over anything that tried to take us head on.
Well once training was done however.
But despite what many in my past thought, I was far from a one trick pony, and building up nothing but direct damage was only going to get me so far. Both of my pokemon were too young to really get into skill over force just yet, though Rose's 'Fairy Punch' was a good start, though the only thing Tank knew how to do was tackle someone, so he needed a good bit more training before he would even learn a grass move.
Still I figured I needed to get back to training and I set out with a few last words with Professor Oak. I promised to keep in touch and he promised to keep an eye out for any of my 'Friends'.
Before I started on the Route again I stopped into the Pallet Town Shop to pick up a few supplies and one item that I wasn't sure they had. I was prepared to make my own as I had done before, but on finding one I bought it immediately even though I spent more than I liked on something that was mostly cheap 'Travel sized' junk.
Once I had walked far enough up route 1 I turned and headed deeper into the woods brushing up against the cliff that protected Victory Road from the rest of the world, and made camp there to start training again. Having two pokemon felt easier for me and I figured by the time I got six I would be back to my old drill sergeant ways, though I vowed to myself not to be as mean as these pokemon were going to be my partners not sent off to be under some one elses command.
Honestly that thought led me down a rabbit hole of possible future employment in training pokemon. Hell if I managed to make it to the elite four with my team I could probably charge anything I wanted and people would still pay it.
I started with the basic training that Rose and I were used to, easing Tank into it, though he didn't seem to have any trouble with anything save the speed and reflex training. He was a tough little thing and he picked up on some of the training quicker than Rose did.
After a time I brought both of them back to the camp and had Tank drag the rock he had been tied to into the middle of camp. Untying him I laid out the flat board on the rock and gestured them both over.
"Alright here's how the training is going to go we're going to do physical then switch to mental to get a bit of rest. Doing one thing all the time will make you very good at that one thing, but I subscribe tot he JOAT school of learning. Jack/Jill of all Trades, I figure you guys didn't know what a JOAT was, anyway.” I pointed out. ”I'm going to be teaching you a game, then once you know how to play that game I'm going to start in on the strategy.”
The pair of them looked at each other then back to me as I held up a bit of plastic carved into a vaguely equine shape tat might have been a ponyta.
“This is a knight it can only move in an L shape.” I set the piece on the board holding up another much taller piece that looked to be modeled after a slowking. “This is a Prince... I mean king... nah lets muddle it. This is a Prince....”