Ohey, Mareep. Those were pretty cute. In fact, she’d sometimes wished that her big oaf of an Ampharos was still of that lesser evolution, but that couldn’t be helped. She’d caught him that way, after almost running him over in a way, while chasing a different Pokemon. Meg still kind of felt like she owed him some niceness because of that. Hence, she released him so he could at least watch that herd of his brethren. Not like this was the kind of situation where one would release a Pokemon to the wild in order to be with their brethren. This was a domesticated heard, clearly, which was now crossing their path. But she would wait for it to pass anyway. Since getting her first badge recently, Meg was in no rush to reach a new town or anything like that.

A break had most certainly been earned. Though, apparently, it was not meant to be. At least when it came to having a full break here. Ah, well, couldn’t exactly turn an old man away, now could she? Megan shrugged. Fortunately, the other girl around there asked the pertinent question. Though, admittedly, Meg would have helped without compensation, too. “Hmm, I guess the Ampharos can make do? I don’t really have a lot of herding pokemon, come to think of it?” She basically mused to herself, though she did intend to involve the other as well, just giving her an in there.

Ah, well, at least the Buffolant seemed more used to these sorts of things. Ampharos, on her direction, tried to keep its smaller brethren in line but had some obvious troubles with that. It was decidedly not made to grab small fluff like this and push them back into the herds. Yet, there it was, doing exactly that. Not like it had much of a choice.

“Same here. I kind of ran into the big guy while chasing a thieving Meowth and more or less picked him up right there. But he’s a reliable sort.” Actually, was he even male? She always had some difficulty telling that at a glance. A certain gym leader would scold her for that, but he wasn’t here. “I actually didn’t start properly training until recently. Always had some Pokemon, sure, but we never did too much aside from random training and stuff. But now I am going at it for real! I even earned my first badge by now!”

Heh. It felt weird, but she probably had good reason to show some pride now. So why not? In a way, she quite deserved that after all. It had been a rather stressful fight in the end. Especially given how weird the gym leader turned out to be. Not that she hated him or anything like that. But he’d been anything but conventional, that much was for sure. “Heh, thanks,” she hence replied, with a slightly fake note of humility. She wasn’t quite that kind of person yet. Maybe she should become that? Certainly, a bit of a dignified aura was probably good for a gym leader. Then again, the bug guy definitely didn’t have that at all.

Her Ampharos was still doing its best gently pushing stragglers back into formation, so she did not have a whole lot to do herself. After all, that was what Pokemon were for in the end. “Hmm, I am not quite sure yet. I might go around doing some catching of my own, as well as training. That fight back then had revealed a few issues I still got to work on before I can become a proper ace, after all.” She laughed, but she was serious about that still. There was still a lot that she would need to learn. Just as she had said in that office. And not just about the weird strengths and weaknesses of the bug type.
“I put off tackling gyms for years, to be honest. Then, one day I just decided to start doing it and here I am.”

Well, couldn’t argue with that. It was pretty straightforward, after all, and she could not have a rebuke for this, even if she wanted to. The girl was just right, in the end. Nothing more to be said, really. Most things in life only started to matter once one did them, and until one resolved to do them, they would just remain fantasies. At least that was how she took all this, of course.

However, the conversation soon took a turn more towards team composition, which was always a bit tricky for her. “Hmm, Arcanine and Lucario will be on it for sure. They are my oldest companions, after all. Aside from that, there is Swampert. Though I kind of want to have a proper theme of sorts, if that makes sense? I mean, I could technically just go with Pokemon I like, but I feel like having something connecting them would be nice, too. I definitely want something big and badass, though!”

Meg threw back her head and laughed. While that was true, she had to admit that it sounded at least a little bit silly in the end. “Just always moving forward, I guess,” she replied, somewhat mechanically, since she was not entirely sure if the last part had been directed at her – and whether or not it had actually been a question to begin with.

“I never got into cats. Way too demanding when you got a proper job,” she replied, though she knew that it probably sounded odd. Usually, people saw it the other way around, with dogs requiring more walkies and the like, while Cat-like Pokemon were a bit more self-sufficient. Yet, to her, it was more the emotional aspect of it. An Arcanine was a loving companion that would always look up to you. It required your attention, certainly, but it didn’t demand it. A lot of cats instead acted like they were your boss – and she got enough of that at work, really. She didn’t need that from a Pokemon, too.

Hence, she’d stuck with dogs. “I have actually been thinking about being steel heavy, really. Those Pokemon are usually pretty cool and tough. Though dragons are also neat. I always wanted an Hydreigon, for example.” And one day, she would get one. She was quite sure of that.
Not that day, though. That day, they were bringing back Mareep to a place that looked somewhat ill-equipped for holding them. Then again, that man himself had seemed that way. And yet, he’d had a flock like this in general. That probably meant that he was at least capable of dealing with these mon’s to a certain extent.

“Not our problem. We’re just helping out. And besides, this is probably not his first rodeo. It’s going to work out somehow, I guess.”