Ron silently rubbed the Rabbit's Foot in his pocket, unable to figure out what exactly the problem was even after a long ti.
After a while, Ron let out a long sigh and pulled his attention back to making money.
The farm was officially running smoothly in all aspects. In less than half a month of hard work, he would be able to head to Kalos to start planting tea. Add to that the spring tea yield from the farm, which he could presell for a while—
As Ron pondered this, he looked up at the TV.
"The Coordinators who have passed the screening are—"
Photos began to appear on the screen one after another.
Haley was placed at the very end. The mont her photo appeared on the screen, the room erupted in cheers.
"Our family is going to have a Pokémon soon too!" Vincent said with a smug look on his face. "A Pokémon egg this big—"
He gestured exaggeratedly with his hands, trying to spot a look of envy on Jas and Leo's faces.
"Oh, cool." Jas replied lazily. She then leaned against Penny and asked softly, "Miss Penny, are you going to take Pokémon to travel in Kalos in the future?"
"?" Penny thought for a mont. "Probably not."
Saying this, she looked at Haley's face on the screen. After a while, she added, "Even if I do decide to go to Kalos one day, I'll wait until you've all grown up and don't need a teacher anymore."
"I see." Jas leaned against Penny's legs. "I really want to go, though. I heard that kids in Kalos can go on journeys by themselves when they turn ten."
She looked at the TV with a touch of longing. "Being able to travel all over a region with a group of Pokémon all by yourself—entering competitions, eting tons of people you've never seen before, and making friends with them."
"You need to have Pokémon first, though," Vincent chid in. "Our family is getting one soon, rember?"
"..." Jas shot Vincent a glance and ignored him.
To be honest, she had been envious when he first ntioned it. The problem was that Vincent kept bringing it up over and over again. At this point, Jas's ears were practically getting calluses from hearing about it.
She pondered for a mont, quietly excused herself to Penny, and jogged over to Shane.
"When are you going to catch a Pokémon too?" Jas looked up at Shane, her face full of longing. "That way, when I turn ten, I'll have a Pokémon to go to Kalos with !"
"When you're ten?" Shane rejected the idea without even thinking. "Kalos rules don't apply in Pelican Town. Even if you want to travel to Kalos, you'll have to wait until you're an adult. At the very least, you'll have to be as old as Abigail."
"Hmph!"
Jas ran back to Penny indignantly.
Vincent, who was standing to the side, hastily repeated himself: "Our family is—"
"We know your family is getting a Pokémon!" Jas yelled.
This outburst caught Indeedee's attention from nearby. It carefully shuffled over to eavesdrop for a mont, and then couldn't help but sneak back over to Ron's side looking incredibly sneaky.
"Indeedee—"
'Such bad luck. They really did pick it up.'
Indeedee thought, feeling a mix of panic and guilt.
"Have you been hiding sothing from lately?" Ron couldn't help but ask.
"Indeedee, In." Indeedee jumped in fright and shook its head vigorously.
Ron, however, wasn't taking no for an answer and was about to use his move to read Indeedee's mind. Foreseeing Ron's actions, Indeedee panicked and looked around wildly, trying to latch onto soone else's thoughts. Struck by a sudden inspiration, it quickly tuned into Penny's thoughts instead.
"..."
Caught completely off guard by Penny's thoughts, Ron panicked and instantly shut off his Mind Reader.
He fell silent for a long while, looking at the sowhat smug Indeedee.
"You didn't do anything bad, did you?"
"Indeedee." Indeedee hesitated for a mont. After racking its brain for an excuse, it shook its head at Ron.
"And you didn't do anything to wrong the farm or ?" Ron asked again.
This ti, Indeedee answered very decisively.
Ron pondered for a mont before asking one last question: "And you're not planning to do anything weird, are you?"
"Indeedee!"
Indeedee looked at Ron with a hint of anger, acting as if it had been wronged.
With that, Ron dropped the subject.
The reason he rarely used this move on the farm, especially when Indeedee was around, was precisely because of Indeedee's unique ability, which indirectly turned it into a tool for Ron to eavesdrop on other people's thoughts.
If he used it for business, it would be perfect, but in Pelican Town, it was completely useless—
Ron froze for a second and looked down at Indeedee.
"Indeedee?"
Indeedee tilted its head, glanced at Ron, and then nodded, readily agreeing to Ron's future plans to take it along to Kalos for business.
"—Alright." Ron turned his gaze back to the TV, his mind still occupied with the upcoming Kalos trip.
When taking Indeedee to Kalos, it would actually be the perfect ti to have Team Rocket look after the farm's Pokémon.
He just wasn't entirely sure if they could handle it all. But since it would only be for a few days, they probably wouldn't cause any major issues.
"Next up is the battle order for the second round of screening—" the host yelled. On the screen, the Coordinators who had passed were shuffled and paired up for their battles.
Luckily, Haley didn't get paired up against Serena this round.
"If both of them plan to participate in Pokémon Contests, they'll have to enter over ten of them, right?" Nurse Joy suddenly spoke up from the side. "It's pretty rare to see a traveling group paired up like this."
Although there were plenty of trainers who traveled together across the regions, most of the ti it was a mix of people doing Gym battles and people doing Contests. At the very least, they were usually all doing Gym battles together.
After all, to get badges for the Pokémon League, you just had to challenge Gyms. The Gyms weren't going anywhere, so everyone in the group could challenge them until they all got their badges.
Contests, however, were a bit more complicated. They were events held irregularly across various locations, and in a single contest, no matter how hard both sides tried, only one person could walk away with a Ribbon.
Calculating it like that, just to get enough Ribbons for two people to enter the Grand Festival, they would need to participate in at least ten contests.
"True." Ron nodded. "But they should have plenty of ti."
"Let's hope so." Nurse Joy rested her chin in her hands, looking at the girls on the screen with a hint of worry.
This was just the nature of these kinds of competitions: where there were winners, there were losers. But for people in the sa traveling group, it made things slightly complicated.
It wouldn't be surprising if it even caused a rift between them.
anwhile, in Kalos, at the contest venue.
Serena looked at her reflection in the mirror, fixing her hair while psyching herself up.
"It's okay, Serena."
She murmured to herself.
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