The next week wasn't honestly all that worth mentioning to be honest as I merely trained Sly in the same manner as before with move , movement and battle training while alternating between Vulcan and Gaia as his opponent. This meant I definitely completed the quest as he reached level twenty six and had gotten to adept in the three moves he had been training. I hadn't taught how to manipulate move energy though as I was leaving that card hidden up my sleeve. I still had four days until the quest deadline so I decided to focus on Slys impending evolution.-
His body had began to show the signs of an evolution that was specific to his species which in this case was a shinier and more vibrant fur. The scared racoon pokemon had come a long way under my training as it was now bold and eager to throw down with the likes of both Gaia and Vulcan now. I had also instructed Sly in keeping an eye on Birch at all times so that he was always protected. To add on to this teaching I had hidden it's pokeball so that recalling it was impossible.-
Knowing Birch as I have come to within this time told me that if I didn't do this the man might recall Sly and then leave without him on accident. For a researcher Birch was rather forgetful about things not related to pokemon science. I kid you not when I say I saw the man forget a pen to take notes no less than three times in a single afternoon. I suppose the only thing of real note was the completion of my weekly task of exercising that had increased in intensity to accommodate my new strength.-
This gave me five new items , a black belt , a kings rock , an odd incense , a pink scarf and a grade 3 thunderstone. The black belt was much like the expert belt in function except that it boosted all fighting type moves all the time. The king's rock gave me a couple of benefits depending on how RNGESUS treats me. The first was that if I got a Slowpoke or Poliwhirl I could evolve them into a Slowking or Politoed respectively. The later of which I definitely wouldn't do since Poliwrath is simply better and I will die on this hill.-
Slowking on the other hand is a beast of a pokemon that also fills out the water type weakness of my party nicely. If I didn't get either of those though I could simply give the rock to Vulcan for some chaos as it gained the ability to possibly flinch it's opponent per hit. No one knows why the strange crown shaped rock worked like this but it did and I was perfectly happy exploiting the hell out of it. The odd incense was a funky smelling incense not bad or anything but just weird in that it had two effects that made no sense.-
First was that it boosted psychic type moves somehow , I have no clue how to be honest. The second ability at least made some sense as it was that if a mr. mime was bred in captivity then a mr. mime was what would hatch from the egg unless this incense was around the breeding pokemon. Then a mime jr would hatch instead , it was something to do with the incense making the mr. mimes inbuilt survival method of hatching only final stage pokemon turn off somehow. It was weird to me but I didn't question it.-
The pink scarf was just a plain scarf that happened to be pink so It wasn't useful at all right now. The thunderstone though gave me all sorts of electric type options that left me giddy just thinking about. Oh right I also learned something nifty about stone evolved pokemon that had an elemental variation in that the stone they needs switches over to whatever the element was. So like a Lombre with with an ice elemental variation would need an icestone to evolve into a Ludicolo instead of a leaf stone which was neat in my opinion.-
As I said though other than these items the rest of that time was uneventful but on the fourth to last day that changed. See I woke up on this day nice and early and got my daily workout in which was perfectly normal and routine. The difference came in the form of Birch deciding to head over to Mt grey to grab that Treecko I told him about. "That works out perfectly as Sly here was in need of a real challenge in order to evolve." I said once Birch told me what was up. Sly seemed eager at the idea which made sense to a degree with how much pokemon inherently desire evolution normally.-
There were exceptions to that of course but Sly was not amongst those so it didn't matter. "You think he's ready?" Birch asked with a worried look. "I GARUNTEE that unless you get jumped by like half a dozen pokemon at once or some sort of anomaly there is nothing between here and Mt. grey that can beat him without one hell of a fight. If that's not ready then he never will be." I said with certainty. Sly puffed out it's chest pridefully at that but I chose to leave it alone.-
"I suppose you're right but I'm still a little worried." Birch said with a sigh. I shrugged "If it helps my team and I can follow along to make sure that even if one of those scenarios plays out everything'll be fine." I offed and Birch agreed immediately. "That reminds me for whatever reason but whats the status on that fertilizer and grass seed you ordered awhile back?" I asked just remembering the matter. "Lee says it should be here in a day or so. No need to worry about you leaving first." Birch said reassuringly.-
I used Birches kitchen before we left to make and pack us some lunch in the form of lettuce , tomato , pickle and pulled cajun Pidgey on wheat bread sandwiches. I made enough for both of us and wrapped them up before storing them in my bags refrigerated section. We were slightly delayed in our departure though because Mrs. Birch also wanted a couple of sandwiches for her and May. After that we set off along the path as far North as it would take us with my team and I trailing behind while Sly took point.-
I was quite happy with the mons performance along the way as any pokemon that got too close got a warning before he attacked so they could decide whether it was worth staying or not , it usually wasn't. There were two times when some ballsy Poochyena didn't feel like listening to the warning and got fed their teeth by Sly. An adept level tackle hurts like a bitch when you don't have any training yourself and don't dodge out of the way. "Oh right! In a day or so the new leader of the Petalburg gym , Norman , is having his family move into the empty house in the village from Johto." Birch says suddenly seeming to remember this very important piece of information.