“Oh.” Apparently, she had misjudged the situation. The boy was not fighting this Seviper in order to catch it, but for more…altruistic reasons. That certainly was very nice of him. But he might have gotten a squashed plant turtle for his troubles, had he not thought this quickly.
Eve sighed. Clearly, this one wasn’t the one either. The heart of a prince, certainly, but not the wisdom of a king. He did not give her the flutter of the heart she was seeking. Though his earnestness did tug her strings a little, at the very least.

But that just meant she would be honest here. “You should not pick fights you are not certain you can win.” Especially when he was struggling two on one, too. But his heart was in the right place. He just had to be smarter about it. Like Ghastly. That one didn’t bother trying to fight the hissing snake, rather than floating just out of reach, creating lights and mirages to confuse and disorient it. “Snakes are cunning, agile and they always look for weaknesses to exploit. You have to either goad them into a position they don’t want to be in, or you overwhelm them with strength. Think you can do either?”

Honestly, while some might consider it work, Eve really did not. Especially not when her Pokemon was doing all the work. And, really, Lapras just liked pulling things from one place to another. ‘Transport’ Pokemon was probably not just a randomly picked name or something like that, but rather a calling. That old gal loved doing this, Eve liked half lazing on her back in the sun and they were getting paid for it, too. Sure, she did not really need the money all that much. But she liked being productive, too. As long as it wasn’t too strenuous.

This here though, it certainly wasn’t. Someone nearby was calling for wood, so she nudged Lapras towards the direction of that sound without looking. Seated hallway on the Pokemon’s back, she had her own to the ‘saddle’ it naturally sported and was looking up through sunglasses. Though, as they neared, she did turn slightly without getting up to see the other person. He was wearing an Alolan shirt, so she lazily gave the typical Alolan greeting. If she was wrong, so what? She was a tourist here, too. One could easily see it from her not exactly wearing pragmatic clothes today, more or less just a slightly baggy – though still finely embroidered, hence not cheap – white shirt over her swimsuit. The vacation vibe was coming from her quite strongly.
“You need wood? We got wood. Lots of the stuff.” She briefly nodded towards the float trailing Lapras. “How much do you need?”

Ah, well, she probably should have done something to help the Pokemon, too. That had slipped her mind, hadn’t it? Sure, she would have loved to say that she had simply trusted this boy to save his friend there and such, but honestly, that would have been a lie. With winds blowing in her face and visibility low, she hadn’t really considered doing much to catch the Turtwig. Mostly because her only Pokemon capable of doing that was the one she was riding. And they wouldn’t have made it in time. Probably.

Eve discarded the thought, given that it would not help anyone anyway. For the time being, she concentrated on landing, while Ghastly was playing pranks on the Seviper. That little ball of gas couldn’t have helped catch the Turtwig either, but she naturally hadn’t even tried. The ghost had…different priorities in life (?). Eve sighed, but out of the corner of her eyes, she saw that the boy had apparently caught his Pokemon.
Good on him. She gave a gentle smile as the Noivern came to ground, carefully crouching down so that she could disembark easily. “You earned yourself a rest,” she told it after a pat on the hand, before recalling it.

Then, she turned towards the awestruck teen. Honestly, she did not feel particularly heroic-looking. She was wearing something akin to a biking garb with purple accents, a pragmatic choice for riding a Pokemon at higher speeds. Though she had not yet eaten enough bugs mid-flight to really settle for a helmet. “Uh, hello. Are you trying to catch that one or something? I did not mean to intrude on your battle but you seemed, um, preoccupied.”

Huh. A flying turtle. Now she’d seen everything.
Well, probably not. But flying turtles were rather rare. Especially Turtwigs, if she made this out correctly. Those usually could not learn any flying moves, though given that regional variants could have all kinds of odd idiosyncrasies, she did not want to completely rule that out just yet. Instead, Eve nudged the Noivern she was riding to close in a little more, towards the commotion they had heard on their flight. To her surprise, she did spot the Wooloo farm that she’d been looking for due to this, along with a trainer that seemingly was in distress.

She sighed, softly. Not liking to fight with the Pokemon she was currently riding, Eve instead reached for her bell and threw a different ball. Well dropped it, more like. But with intent. Mid-air, it released its Ghastly contents. “Give these guys a….well, just help them, okay?” She had remembered that this one lacked hands in this form. Which was odd, but that never stopped that little gaseous ball of energy. Wasting no time, Ghastly rushed down and towards the Seviper, Sucker Punching it right in the head by all but ramming it from behind. That one really did love fighting, didn’t it? If it scored a hit, it would follow that up with a Confuse Ray before disengaging once more, having way too much fun toying with its opponents once more.

Hopefully though, this would not end up becoming a headache. Eve and Noivern in the meantime, started circling down in the hopes of finding a proper place to land in without disturbing more Wooloos.

Was it really that interesting? She reckoned that there were a lot of tourists. Then again, was very much distracted in that moment, as she caught the ball that now contained the Noivern. It was one of her favourite Pokemon, after all. It was a complete surprise to run into one now, so the joy of having finally caught one was catching up to her now. Briefly, she held it to her chest. Then, she allowed to really think about what he’d just said – and swiftly turned towards him again, her gaze somewhat intense, but mot incredulous, rather than angry or so. Had he just made a pass at her? It was hardly a new thing for her, of course, given her career and travels so far. But she never reacted that well to it.

Not that she grew angry or anything, no. She just didn’t really know what to make of it. Eve did want to find love, but she didn’t really know the first thing about it, aside from what the novels told her. And this didn’t seem like it came from any such novel. “I…no, I am not looking to settle down. I am just trying to see the world, looking for various things. And usually I just book a place in a hotel. People in Hoenn seem….used to travelling trainers needing a place on short….notice….” Once again, Eve seemed distracted – and she quickly turned to boot, seeing something else flying in the sky. Small, blue and white, it looked a lot like the sky itself. A Swablu.
She wanted it.
“Ice Beam, again,” she ordered, and Lapras used the small one as target practice a bit. That was it’s go-to move, after all, so it had gotten reasonably good at that. Once the move connected and once again a Pokemon seemed to fall from the sky, it was time for her to show accuracy, as she flung one of her remaining balls at the Swablu.

---

Attempts to capture Swablu

Wonderful. The ball wobbled a bit, but ultimately the Ghastly was caught. As far as she knew, this one had an absolutely wonderful final evolution, so she’d actually train it for a change. It was already worth coming out here for sure.
Eve stored the ball away for the time being, a bit lost in thought, before turning back towards the little girl. Last she’d noticed on the periphery, that one had been trying to befriend the Magby, which certainly was a rather nice was to go about it. Eve usually went with the battling route, but she knew that it was more for her own convenience. She had a lot of respect for those who could just talk Pokemon into joining them.

And those who at least tried, even if it mean the Pokemon would run away. Which kind of seemed to be happening there, sadly. Sighing a bit dejectedly, Evette watched the shy Magby turn and run – but after a few moments, she grew alarmed instead. Not contend with just running away, the little Pokemon cried out its name in a fashion that, at first, she did not understand.
But then a mighty Magmortar emerged from atop of another boulder – and it immediately shot a lavish lava plume at the nearest threat to the Magby it perceived.

Luckily for the humans in attendance, that was a nearby Foongus, which was pretending to be a normal mushroom nearby, but was set ablaze almost immediately. Then, the Magmortar turned it’s arm cannon towards the young girl. Acting quickly and not waiting for anything else to happen, Eve acted on her own. “Noivern, Dragon Pulse!” she ordered, while throwing a ball at the Foongus, hoping that it would accept at least a temporary capture in order to not, well, burn to a crisp. But that was up to the little one. Eve’s main attention was on the Magmortar, hoping that she could keep the little girl safe, presumptuous as that might have been.

---

tries to capture the fuungos

Flobebe

mhm

She did not know who would want to eat such a thing, but these Pokemon certainly kind of looked like spiky cucumbers. Then again, they probably looked that way so people would not eat them, despite the colour. Though some of them were black, which in that analogy probably meant they’d gone bad already. Even more reason not to eat them.



Though Eve figured that these things did poise a rather interesting conundrum: those were living beings looking like vegetables. So would a vegetarian be tempted by them? Certainly a possibility. And while she did not exactly eat a lot of meat – mother always complained about that for some reason – she was not completely against that on principle, so she was no authority on the matter.

Ah, well. One way or another, she didn’t want to eat them. She just picked them up with this lasso-staff-contraption – whatever it might be called properly – and flung them back into the sea. All in a day’s work, after all.



8eIreS0i

Exploration was on everyone’s mind, apparently. Evette, too, was still exploring the Hoenn region in general. Coming across an opportunity to gain some insight into how the people here brought up their Pokemon played well into her hands there. Granted, she was a singer, not a nurse, but that ad had been posted without requirements, so she figured that she would be able to do it one way or another.

She had done similar stuff in Alola, too, so it figured that it would work the same way here. Plus, she got to spend a day with cute baby Pokemon, so there was that. Could never quite have enough of those, now could she?
There was someone else too, a man with a more…stately aura. Yes, that was what she settled on. Clearly, someone with eyes like this was at least used to some authority, though he did not look overly bossy at first glance. Just like the more serious kind. She decided to approach him in a similar way, while carrying a little Oddish back to its cradle. “Ah, good morning. Are you a customer picking up your Pokemon, or are you here to help out as well?” Her accent clearly denoted her as a Kalosian, of course.

“My, like that one over there?” Evette nodded towards the side, where a small Magby was investigating some rocks. It was half hidden behind that, she’d only gotten somewhat lucky in noticing it earlier, so she pointed it out to the girl. That one was certainly cute, but she didn’t think it would fit her too well, so she’d decided against approaching it.

But it would fit the little girl in red quite nicely, she figured. Plus, while the girl was probably distracted by that, she had time to quietly call forth her Noivern, which she pointed towards a Ghastly that was coming hovering down from the mountain. Granted, she didn’t know for a fact that this girl might be scared of ghosts, but she took no risks with that. Hence, her Noivern would swiftly glide over and hit the other Pokemon with a gust, which Eve followed up with a Pokeball. These ghosts were much more fitting to her, she felt, so she wanted that one.

This was dangerous. But also pretty. Eve was glad that she’d taken a closer look after hearing the commotion. These were the kinds of sights one could only stumble over during a long journey like this. Eve was grateful for it. She had always liked the Gardevoir line for being as pretty as they were. They were the kind of Pokemon that she felt were closest to humans. Not just because of their form being at least vaguely humanoid.

It was in how they moved. There was an ease to it, an elegance that made even their casual exploration of their abilities akin to a dance. It wasn’t choreographed like the dying swan, but there was a beauty to it that, in her eyes, could not be denied. Hence, she kept her distance, watched and captured them – on film. Trying to fight and capture one felt like a waste. But if one came to her she might try to befriend it at least. Peacefully.

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