When the rain of milk started, Michiko was driving.

The first drop hit her windshield with a wet white splatter, leaving a cringeworthy smudge on the glass. She didn't say anything-- the older woman just assumed it was a passing Taillow, inconsiderate as always. 

But the shower continued, and the sky was clear of winged assailants. What could this be? she wondered, startled by the strange effect. She could see it splashing in puddles on the side of the road, dripping off streetlights. Michiko turned on her wipers, smearing cups of dewy white liquid across her vision. 

Needless to say, she had to pull over.

She got out, turning her face upwards to meet the rain of sweet-smelling milk. 

Amazed, delighted, she laughed out loud.

A short time later, the little woman came up the overgrown driveway to Zac's house, a bowl of freshly-picked rawst berries from their shared garden clutched safely beneath a pink umbrella. She rang the doorbell several times, straddling a patch of daffodils which had erupted from the cement, then began to wonder if the gym leader simply wasn't home today.

She walked around the side of the reclaimed shed and spotted him immediately, the back of his wild red head as overgrown as his back yard. He needs a haircut, she thought, then raised one hand, raising her voice. "Zac! Hello!" she tried again, louder, while hurrying towards him. "Zac, it is amazing! The weather is..."

Michiko trailed off, having reached him at last. She tried to stretch up on her tiptoes to help cover Zac with her umbrella, barely able to get it over his head. "Aaah, you are all wet!" she cried, distressed. 

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[attr="class","wildtemp"]

The ground rumbled. A dull roar of broken slumber, of hundreds of beasts answering the call-- no, the promise-- of sustenance.

There was already no shortage of greenery in Hoenn. With cherry blossom season over, there was plenty of foraging to be done between budding new leaves and fresh, young grasses on the volcanic plains. But there was no denying that Zac Ramsay's back yard was, to a wild Pokemon's eyes, irresistible. Ripe with budding fruits long before their normal season, lush with foliage for food and shelter. And of course, the rain of life-giving milk carried on. Nourishing. Strengthening.

Milk collected in the bowl of Rawst berries Michi held and she tentatively brought it to her lips in wonder, taking an experimental sip. It was sweet and cold, wonderfully fresh, and Michi felt a rush of vitality settle in her bones. She didn't have Zumba scheduled until that afternoon, but she already felt energized as if she'd just completed a workout. Color bloomed in her cheeks as Tapu Bulu's energy flowed through her, spurring her to action. But... what was there to be done?

"We must protect the--" She trailed off, looking back and forth. "The..." Everywhere she looked, bears. And more Pokemon were still arriving-- burrows opened in the ground as Watchog and Patrat appeared, following behind the destructive Ursaring. They emerged and scampered along at foot-level alongside the ursine Pokemon. They pounced on roots and seeds, berries, using their sharp eyes to track down the smaller things the bears had missed in their rampage.

Michi held her umbrella higher, mystified by the sudden stampede.

"What do we do?"

The more Michi looked, the more shocked she was-- not by the number of Pokemon or the devastation they were wreaking, but by how different their surroundings were than she remembered.

Wasn't I just here a few months ago...?

Tropical fruit trees speared from the ground, towering over the garden of abundance Zac had (willingly or not) created. Michi had done her fair share of gardening, some of it with the redhead himself-- and this was like no garden she'd ever seen.

It was sprawling. Unkempt. Bursting with life, even if that life was shortly devoured and trampled. She had thought there were no true jungles in her home region, apart from some remote islands off the southern coast-- in the space of months, Zac had proven her wrong.

As unexpected as the Pokemon swarm was, the Ursaring and Patrat seemed at home here. They were not invaders of a tame place, an urban backyard-- they were wild Pokemon, and this was the wild.  

She was so transfixed by her own thoughts and the spectacle she came to belatedly, still holding her half-filled bowl of Rawst berries. She let out a startled cry as she looked around for Zac, then saw him a short distance away. A new Rawst Berry tree was already bursting from a pit in the ground, twisting towards the sky the same way the plum tree in Oldale Town had the night Zac Ramsay had become an Avatar.

"Zac, how did you--" A pair of bright red, bulbous eyes appeared over the rim of the bowl and Michi jumped, leaning back away from the Watchog who'd come close, sniffing at her few remaining berries. "Eek! No!" Considering the competition already swarming over the new tree, this one had decided to look somewhere else for food.

"Petalburg catch!" Michi waited for it to come in close and then unleashed her secret technique-- the Pokeball keychain on her handbag. She swung it in a perfect arc, whipping the Rawst berries out of the way and pegging the Watchog in the side of the head with a crack and a cheerful jingle.

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[attr="class","wildtemp"]

Michi's handbag sat on a moss-covered side table, her new Watchog Pokeball keychain draped carefully over one side. She'd let the Pokemon out in the kitchen, deciding it should learn better manners, and the tall Pokemon was now meekly helping Zac carry milk bottles back and forth to the fridge and back. Its stripes glowed faintly in the dim light.

"Would you like me to go to the convenience store for more PET bottles?" the little woman asked, concerned that Zac seemed to have run dry on suitable milk vessels. "It is not so far by car..."

She'd taken off her shoes in the entryway but regretted the impulse-- walking inside the Ursaring-rampaged, foliage-covered house was little different from exploring Zac's garden. As she took a seat at the kitchen table, grateful for his offer of tea, she could feel blades of grass poking between her toes.

Past the initial discomfort, she decided she liked the feeling and wiggled her toes in the grass. 

"I wonder where the Pokemon trainers are?" she said aloud, turning her gaze out the window. The rain of milk continued outside. "Usually, they come quickly to catch Pokemon." Was the news more preoccupied reporting the strange weather than the Ursaring? Normally, this kind of phenomenon was minimized by helpful trainers catching most of the Pokemon before major damages were incurred.

"You seem... very calm," she said gently, her hands in her lap.

She nodded, reflecting ruefully on all the times in recent years her mother had woken up from a nap in a worse mood than when she'd started. It was an easy metaphor to understand-- mundane, everyday, simple problems. Problems for people like her.

But Zac... he was an Avatar. And Avatars were not people like Michi. 

When Michi had backyard problems, it was just sculling Lotad out of her mother's koi pond after a rainstorm, or Salamence trying to nest in her garden shed. When Zac had garden problems, it was a living jungle growing up through his floorboards and a hundred-strong army of starving Ursaring. The two were hardly comparable. 

Yet, as Zac served her the mug of tea and the milky rain pattered on outside the open window, Michi found it all strangely comforting. 

"It is good to relax, I think," she said honestly, looking out the window towards the overgrown garden. "When I feel tired after work, I always take a long bath. It helps me refresh." Her hands curled around the mug, wedding rings clinking softly against the ceramic.

"But perhaps, I think too much relaxing is not good. This is why it is good to have a hobby." She looked up at Zac, contemplative. "When I enjoy doing my hobby, I feel as if I have so much energy. Zac, you are a Gym Leader and Avatar also, and that is hard work... so I think it must be very tough for you."

Michi was quiet for a moment. "Now that you are so busy, maybe fun things before are like work now. But... maybe I am mistaken."

She cut off her train of thought, self-conscious of her rambling, and quietly sipped her tea instead.

Of course, Michiko understood how tedious chores could be. Who didn't? Between work, hobbies, and taking care of her mother, she could barely keep on top of the housework on her own. She missed when she'd had her daughters around to tell to do things-- now, she had to organize entire house-cleaning events to get anything done.

"Ooh," she said to Zac, "These are good ideas! I can help..."

She almost offered to organize another event to help the red-haired man, but realized it would be fruitless. Zac wanted to do these things himself-- he didn't need help. He had plenty of motivation. And now that he had energy, there was nothing stopping him from accomplishing his plans! Michi was happy for him.

She was curious about the cutlery, but had been too polite to ask why she'd been stirring her tea with a chopstick.

There was a knock at the door and Michi stood up to get it, seeing Zac was busy pouring himself a glass of milk. "Don't worry, don't worry," she assured him, flapping a hand at the Gym Leader as she quickly hurried to the doorway. "I will check and see who it is! Oh, perhaps trainers have come to catch Ursaring now, but it is too late."

She returned a moment later, looking a little pale. "Oh, you have visitors," she said faintly. "I am not sure what to do..."

At a nearby window, her Watchog (who she'd named Ichigo) stood up on its toes to see a family of Rhydon, seven strong, standing at Zac's doorstep. <ROWOWOAGHHH!> the one who'd knocked called.