A random pokemon journey

Chatting with the champion

This earned me a surprised look from both the women. "Do you just carry around berries or was this just a coincidence?" Cynthia asked curiously as she took a spoonful of lemon sherbet into her mouth. "I'm a master chef and expert alchemist, I naturally have many herbs or food ingredients on me at any point in time. It's quite helpful as well since I make the meals for my pokemon personally." I said with a shrug. Cynthia looked pleasantly surprised at this "Really? I knew about the alchemist thing but your file doesn't mention that you are a chef but I suppose that makes sense given the irrelevance to you as a trainer." she said honestly.-

"I can see that, cooking isn't really a skill many trainers have so it's probably not deemed important enough to mention. Out of curiosity how many abilities does my file say I have?" I asked curiously. "I believe it was seven last I looked?" she said unsure. I nodded at that while noting it down mentally. Depending on her answer I was going to need to figure out how closely the league was watching me.-

Obviously I had more than seven abilities but as I don't use some of them it would be very concerning if the league knew about them. "My turn, how many abilities do you actually have?" she asked with a smile. "More than seven." I say vaguely with a grin. "Pardon? Did you say MORE than seven? The gods must be quite unfair to bless a single person so much. It also raises the question about why there is no information on someone like you before last year." she said with a bit of suspicion slipping out.-

"So what's your current favorite flavor icecream?" I asked changing the subject in a way as to let her know I'd rather not talk about it. She picked up on it easily and chose not to press the issue "I suppose I'd have to say the oran chocolate chip is my current favorite but the almond fudge is also quite good." she said eagerly talking about her icecream. "I was never much of a fan of fudge icecream since the flavor tends to be rather overwhelming and lingering. If you ate nothing else afterwards perhaps it would be fine but I've found the flavor bothersome otherwise." I said honestly.-

She thought about it for a moment before nodding in agreement "I have had similar experiences in the past but never really thought much about it until now. Leave it to a chef to point out something like that I guess." she said with a laugh. We casually chatted until we were done eating our frozen treats and I took out a piece of paper and pencil that I used to write down the alchemical process to create the cleaning solution before handing it to Mary. "Any alchemist worth the name should be able to make more using this recipe and the ingredients are all quite cheap as well." I said with a friendly smile.-

"Can't say I've ever heard of an alchemist handing over one of their formulas for icecream before." Cynthia said curiously. "It's hardly a loss on my part as the entire thing was in truth a failed product of an experiment that had applications that I simply didn't need. Plus the solution isn't so much better than the alternative that it was really worth patenting." I said honestly with a shrug. "I see, say by chance do you have any interest in history?" she asked with a hopeful look.-

I was hardly surprised by this question as her fascination with ancient history was a publicly known thing. If anything I was surprised that she had waited this long to bring it up but I suppose it was possible that she was getting a feel for me before now. "It depends on the history I suppose. Like I have no real interest in the more mundane day to day aspects of the past but recipes, legendary tales and heavy impact historical events interest me. It was why I went to Orre in fact, to discover what happened to cause it to be the way it is." I said honestly.-n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Her eyes lit up "Yes! I read your research paper on the subject and I must say it was most fascinating! I noticed that you seemed to have intentionally left out some details however, can I ask why?" she asked excitedly. "Oh? I had thought I hid that little detail quite well, what gave it away?" I asked not particularly bothered that she noticed. "It was the way it all connected together, in my experience the historical texts of the ancient past rarely have any issue flowing from one point to the next unless parts of it were missing for whatever reason."-

"Your paper however has parts that don't quite fit together which meant you either left stuff out intentionally or you simply lacked the details to add." she explained seriously. I clapped genuinely impressed at how she sniffed out the truth based on her experience and expertise on the subject of historical research. "You truly are an expert in your field. The parts I left out were the details that may have given the criminal side of our society ideas that are best left alone." I explained seriously.-

"I see, yes that makes sense. You really do hate criminals for some reason so you keeping them from learning something dangerous only fits." she said with an understanding look. I sighed at that though "I don't hate criminals despite how it may seem. What I hate is the damage they cause with no care that they did it. They are like a cancer that causes only harm and no good and thus should be cut out. Sad as it is my methods are the only ones I can think of to make these people stop and genuinely consider not taking that route anymore, scared straight if you'd like." I said honestly.-

"An unusual way of seeing things I must admit. Removing the cause to remove the effect that you hate, oddly noble in a way." she said lightly. "Don't you go starting with that saintly nonsense too, I get enough of that from the media. Theres nothing noble about what I do, merely dirty work that needs doing. In the end I'm just another blood soaked figure carving his way through history in my own way, nothing more or less." I said seriously.