Aiden had already worked out the broad outline of his plan.
When it came to Gym challenges, every Trainer had to consider the possibility of losing sooner or later, and plenty of them worried about how to prepare for exactly that.
Which meant there was an obvious opportunity.
If someone made a detailed guide covering which Pokémon to catch for a particular Gym, how to train them, and then demonstrated the entire strategy in an actual Gym battle, that video could keep attracting viewers for a long time.
Trainers who had already challenged Nimbasa Gym might watch out of curiosity, while those preparing to challenge it would have an even stronger reason to click.
And if they were approaching the problem from the most basic angle of type effectiveness, there was an ideal place to start.
South of Nimbasa City, beyond Route 4, lay the Desert Resort, a vast stretch of wilderness inhabited by plenty of Ground-type Pokémon capable of countering Electric-types.
“So here’s the plan,” Aiden explained.
“First, we head to the Desert Resort and film ourselves catching a Ground-type.
Then we come back to Nimbasa City, use the Battle Club to train and build teamwork, challenge Nimbasa Gym, win, edit everything together, and upload the finished video.
Got it?”
Both Pokémon nodded.
Snivy even gave Aiden a faintly disdainful look.
Wasn’t he basically talking about making a complete beginner’s guide?
Who wouldn’t understand something that simple?
Really, who did he think he was looking down on—
Snivy’s aloof expression suddenly froze.
She turned toward Sprigatito, who was nodding along enthusiastically, and fell into thoughtful silence.
“Sni?”
Sprigatito was hiding it fairly well, but Snivy still noticed something was wrong.
After all, those bright eyes of hers had already turned into the same dizzy spirals she got whenever she lost a battle.
Snivy sighed inwardly.
‘How did I end up being caught by an idiot like this?’
Fortunately, Sprigatito wasn’t the Trainer.
Otherwise, Snivy suspected she might eventually follow in the footsteps of certain legendary predecessors and abandon her idiot Trainer altogether.
A vine slipped from the leafy collar around Snivy’s neck and curled gently around the ring finger of Aiden’s right hand.
As she held on, Snivy once again found herself quietly grateful for the choice she had made.
‘Leaving the breeding facility really was the right decision…’
Aiden had no idea what was going through Snivy’s head, but when he noticed the vine loosely hooked around his finger, he understood one thing immediately.
His normally aloof little snake was being affectionate again.
Unlike Sprigatito, who loved rubbing against Aiden’s face whenever she wanted attention, Snivy had firmly established herself as the cool and reserved member of the team.
The most openly affectionate thing she had done so far was gently nuzzle Aiden’s head before falling asleep at night beside Sprigatito, who usually curled up near his pillow.
At any other time, the most Snivy would allow herself was something like this—quietly wrapping a vine around one of Aiden’s fingers.
That shy, stubborn refusal to admit what she wanted was almost unbearably cute.
Unable to resist, Aiden scooped Snivy into his arms and buried his face near the lily-shaped leaves around her neck, taking one exaggerated breath.
“SNI!!”
Snivy’s little face immediately flushed.
She twisted free from his arms, then snapped her vines tight and gave Aiden the full roller-coaster experience by yanking him straight off the ground.
“Waaah—!”
After a single miserable scream, Aiden hung suspended in midair with the tranquil expression of a man who had already accepted death.
This was apparently the inevitable price of teasing a tsundere snake.
Sprigatito, who had just gotten her footing again, stared at the scene with a strange glint in her eyes.
“Spriga!”
With a cry, she launched herself like a missile and transformed into a furry facehugger, landing squarely on Aiden’s head.
Because of her past experience of being abandoned, Sprigatito no longer objected when Aiden caught other Pokémon.
Sometimes she would even actively help him do it.
But that came with a different problem.
Whenever she saw another Pokémon playing affectionately with Aiden, she could never resist inserting herself into the middle.
That applied even when the other Pokémon was Snivy, whom Sprigatito herself had helped bring into the team.
“No, wait—don’t lick there…”
“Spriga!”
“Sni~”
After several minutes of chaos, Aiden finally restored order by holding Sprigatito in one arm and Snivy in the other.
“You two really are…”
A familiar voice suddenly came from behind him.
Aiden instantly remembered the first time he had been arrested.
“Officer Jenny!”
He sprang to his feet at once.
Jenny stood a short distance away with a Herdier beside her.
Seeing Aiden suddenly put on such a serious expression, she instinctively became serious as well.
“What happened?
Is something wrong?”
Aiden looked her straight in the eye.
“We’re running away from home!”
“Huh?!”
Jenny stared strangely at Aiden and the two Pokémon in his arms.
“Unless I heard you wrong…
did you just say you’re running away from home?”
“Yep!”
Aiden immediately put on his most pitiful expression.
They had escaped in such a hurry that he hadn’t brought a single cent.
So before anything else, he needed to squeeze some startup capital out of Officer Jenny.
Otherwise, there was a very real chance that he would enter full wilderness-survival mode before they even reached the Desert Resort.
“Sis Jenny, we’re hungry.
Hungry, hungry.
Food, food.”
Aiden shamelessly weaponized cuteness.
Sprigatito and Snivy, unwilling to be outdone, widened their eyes and unleashed their own sparkling-eyed assault.
Sprigatito, already an expert in the art of looking adorable, was especially vicious.
She flattened her ears to make her eyes seem even larger, padded over to Jenny’s feet, and immediately began rubbing herself against her legs.
“Meow…
Spriga~”
Faced with such overwhelming firepower, Jenny didn’t even get the chance to ask why they were supposedly running away before her resolve began to crumble.
“This…
uh, I…
Fine!”
In the end, Officer Jenny surrendered completely.
“What do you need?”
Aiden’s eyes lit up, and he immediately began rattling off a shopping list.
“Poké Balls, a tent, a phone, camping equipment, enough food for a week, a spatial backpack—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Stop!”
Jenny hurriedly cut him off before he could continue.
“Hold on!
Do you think I’m Jirachi or something?
Am I your personal wishing star?!”
Aiden tilted his head.
“Last time you were patrolling the Pokémon Center, you took something out of the refrigerator—”
“Right.
Sure.
I happen to have some old traveling equipment at home.”
As a transmigrator, Aiden hadn’t been blessed with the familiar [Ding!] that so many people dreamed of hearing after arriving in another world.
What he had discovered, however, was that his luck had become absurdly good ever since coming to the Pokémon world.
He had arrived completely naked and somehow stumbled across both clothes and a phone.
Then Officer Jenny had picked him up, and through that chain of events he had attracted Snivy, who had run away from the breeding facility in search of a Trainer, as well as an unusually curious Sprigatito.