Ethan discovered that making the Junior Battle Team created a new problem.
He had less free time.
This seemed unfair.
Wednesday had been their first full team practice.
Thursday meant Trainer Foundations.
Friday meant another Junior Team session.
Then homework.
Then orchard work.
Then Houndour’s normal training.
Somehow, the Secret Realm still expected to fit into all of that.
Ethan sat at the kitchen table Thursday evening staring at his schedule.
“This is impossible.”
Arthur looked over from the counter.
“What is?”
“Everything.”
“Useful answer.”
Ethan turned the tablet around.
“School.
Team practice.
Houndour training.
Homework.
Realm exploration.”
Arthur looked at it.
“You forgot chores.”
Ethan stared.
“You’re making it worse.”
“Trying to help.”
“You’re not.”
Houndour lay under the table, chewing on a toy.
Delcatty was asleep nearby.
Arthur poured himself coffee despite the time.
Ethan pointed.
“You’re not supposed to drink that at night.”
Arthur looked at him.
“You’re twelve.”
“So?”
“Mind your business.”
Ethan sighed.
Then he noticed another Poké Ball sitting on the counter.
Not Houndour’s.
The captured Poochyena.
“You still haven’t sold him.”
“No.”
“When?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
Arthur gave him a look.
They had already discussed this.
The Blue-Potential Caterpie had sold for forty-two thousand dollars.
Then Ethan had caught a Blue-Potential Poochyena only a short time later.
Selling both immediately would create exactly the pattern Arthur wanted to avoid.
One lucky find?
Normal.
Two unusually talented wild Pokémon in quick succession?
Still possible.
Then another?
Then another?
Eventually someone started asking questions.
Ethan understood.
He simply didn’t like understanding.
“So what are we doing with him?”
“Feeding him.”
“That’s expensive.”
“Welcome to Pokémon ownership.”
“He’s not ours.”
Arthur looked toward the ball.
“Until we sell him, he is.”
That was annoying too.
Ethan leaned back.
“What if we don’t sell Pokémon?”
Arthur looked at him.
“What?”
“The Realm.” Ethan gestured vaguely toward the northern orchard.
“We keep talking about how selling too many Pokémon is suspicious.”
“Yes.”
“What about everything else?”
Arthur didn’t answer immediately.
That meant Ethan had asked a decent question.
He sat straighter.
“The berries were easier.”
Arthur nodded.
“They were.”
“Because you own an orchard.”
“Correct.”
“So if we find more berries—”
“We still need to know what they are.”
“Right.”
“And whether they’re legal to sell.”
“Right.”
“And whether growing or selling them would be unusual enough to attract attention.”
Ethan frowned.
“Everything attracts attention.”
“Only if you’re careless.”
Arthur looked toward the window.
“Tomorrow after practice, we’re going back.”
Ethan smiled immediately.
“Exploring?”
“Collecting.”
“That’s basically exploring.”
“No.”
“It’s definitely exploring.”
Arthur picked up his coffee.
“We’re going to revisit several areas we’ve already mapped.”
Ethan’s smile weakened.
“That’s less exciting.”
“Good.”
Friday’s team practice was not less exciting.
It was terrible.
“Again!”
Maya Chen stood near the center of the field.
Ethan and Houndour were on one side.
Chloe and Budew were on the other.
The exercise sounded simple.
Protect the marker.
A padded yellow cone sat behind Ethan.
Another behind Chloe.
Each Trainer had to defend their own marker while trying to touch the opponent’s.
No knocking Pokémon unconscious.
No full-power attacks.
Mostly movement, positioning, and commands.
Ethan hated it.
“Houndour, right!”
Houndour moved.
Budew immediately shifted.
“Absorb!”
“Houndour, dodge!”
He avoided the attack.
“There!”
Ethan pointed toward Chloe’s marker.
Houndour charged.
“Budew, cut him off!”
Budew moved into his path.
Houndour tried to go around.
Chloe adjusted.
Every time Ethan found an opening, Budew seemed to be there.
“Ember!”
“Stop!”
Maya’s voice cut through the field.
Houndour stopped before firing.
Good.
Ethan looked toward Maya.
“What?”
“What is the objective?”
“Touch her marker.”
“And what were you about to do?”
“Use Ember.”
“Why?”
Ethan opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Because Budew was annoying him.
Maya waited.
“She was blocking Houndour.”
“So?”
“So I move her.”
“With Ember?”
“Yes.”
Maya pointed at Chloe.
“Mercer wants you attacking Budew.”
Ethan frowned.
Chloe smiled.
That was suspicious.
“Why?”
“Because every second you spend trying to beat Budew is a second you’re not going toward the objective.”
Ethan looked at Chloe.
“You did that on purpose?”
“Obviously.”
“You suck.”
“Thank you.”
Maya laughed.
“Again.”
Ethan returned to position.
This time he watched Chloe instead of Budew.
That helped.
A little.
They still lost.
After practice, Ethan climbed into Arthur’s truck with Houndour safely inside his Poké Ball.
Arthur looked over.
“How’d it go?”
“We lost.”
“Battle?”
“Exercise.”
“Then you didn’t lose.”
“We absolutely lost.”
Arthur pulled away from the school.
“What was the exercise?”
Ethan explained.
Arthur listened.
“And what did you learn?”
“Chloe is annoying.”
Arthur waited.
Ethan sighed.
“The objective matters more than attacking.”
“Better.”
“Maya said the same thing.”
“Smart girl.”
“You don’t even know her.”
“I know she said something smart.”
Ethan looked out the window.
“Lucas did better.”
“Of course.”
“Can you stop saying things like that?”
“Would you prefer I lie?”
“Sometimes.”
Arthur smiled.
They drove toward Bennett Orchards.
Once they reached private property, Ethan released Houndour.
The Dark-type immediately ran beside the truck until Arthur slowed and Ethan shouted at him to stop being an idiot.
Normal.
Home.
They entered the Realm an hour later.
Stoutland came with them.
The captured Poochyena did not.
Arthur had been very clear about that.
“We’re not releasing a recently captured wild Pokémon back into the place we caught it.”
“Why?”
“Because I enjoy having all my fingers.”
Ethan accepted that.
They followed one of their older mapped routes — not the newest path, but one they already knew well, the route where they’d found the Lansat tree, then another, then a stream.
Arthur wasn’t interested in Pokémon today.
At least not primarily.
He kept stopping for plants.
Soil.
Berries.
Small stones.
Ethan carried sample bags.
“This is your job.”
Arthur didn’t look up.
“You wanted to know what else the Realm could provide.”
“I meant valuable things.”
“So did I.”
“This is dirt.”
“Good dirt can be valuable.”
“It’s dirt.”
Arthur handed him the bag.
Ethan labeled it.
SITE B-4 — DARK SOIL NEAR STREAM
“Very exciting.”
Houndour sniffed it.
“Don’t.”
Houndour sneezed.
Ethan laughed.
“See?
Even he thinks it’s boring.”
They continued.
The first interesting discovery came near a grove they’d previously ignored.
Arthur stopped beside a low shrub with narrow, almost black leaves.
Small violet berries grew beneath them.
Ethan frowned.
“Do we know that?”
“No.”
“Appraisal?”
Arthur looked at him.
Ethan sighed.
“Right.”
He focused anyway.
Nothing.
Appraisal worked on Pokémon.
Not plants.
Not berries.
Not stones.
Not Mega Stones.
Not Key Stones.
Not anything convenient.
Arthur took photographs.
Then put on gloves.
“Why gloves?”
“Because I don’t know what it is.”
“Could be poisonous?”
“Could be irritating.”
“Could be worth ten thousand dollars.”
Arthur looked at him.
“Everything is money with you now.”
“The Caterpie changed me.”
“I noticed.”
Arthur collected three berries and several leaves.
Then a small soil sample.
Houndour approached.
He sniffed.
Then sniffed again.
His tail moved.
Ethan noticed.
“Houndour likes it.”
Arthur looked over.
Houndour moved closer to the shrub.
“Don’t eat it.”
“Hound.”
Ethan pulled him back.
“He really likes it.”
Arthur studied the plant.
“Record that.”
Ethan opened his notebook.
Unknown black-leaf shrub.
Purple berries.
Houndour strongly interested.
He paused.
“Should I write Dark-type?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know.”
Ethan rolled his eyes.
Grandpa and his evidence.
They found three more patches of the same shrub over the next kilometer.
Every time, Houndour reacted.
Not wildly.
He simply liked being near them.
At the third patch, Ethan noticed something else.
A Nickit was eating the berries.
He focused.
Species: Nickit
Type: Dark
Grade: Normal
Potential: Green
Ability: Unburden
Moves: Quick Attack, Tail Whip, Beat Up, Hone Claws, Snarl
“Nickit’s eating them.”
Arthur watched.
The Nickit noticed them.
Stoutland stood nearby.
The wild Pokémon immediately grabbed one last berry and disappeared into the brush.
Ethan smiled.
“That’s evidence.”
Arthur nodded.
“Better evidence.”
Ethan wrote it down.
Then a Murkrow landed in the shrub.
It ate one too.
Ethan stared.
“Okay.”
Arthur smiled slightly.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Dark-type Pokémon repeatedly feeding on the same unknown berry.
Houndour attracted to it.
Several patches deeper inside the Realm.
That didn’t prove the plant was specifically beneficial to Dark-types.
But it was something.
They returned home with sixteen samples.
Arthur spread them across one of the old worktables inside a small storage room.
Ethan stared.
“So how do we identify them?”
“Databases first.”
“And if that fails?”
“Lab.”
“What do we tell the lab?”
Arthur looked at him.
“We own an orchard.”
Ethan smiled.
“Right.”
That had become increasingly useful.
Arthur could submit plant, soil, berry, and mineral samples as part of agricultural research.
Nothing about that was unusual for Bennett Orchards.
They couldn’t send something obviously impossible.
But soil?
Plants?
Berries?
Easy.
Arthur sat at the computer.
Ethan took the other chair.
Houndour lay underneath the table.
The search took almost an hour.
Most of the samples were boring.
One berry was a wild regional variety Arthur already knew under a different name.
Two plants were medicinal but common.
One mineral sample appeared to be useless.
Then they reached the black-leaf shrub.
Arthur uploaded a photograph to a botanical database.
Several possibilities appeared.
Ethan leaned forward.
“That one.”
“Wait.”
“It looks exactly the same.”
“Pictures lie.”
Arthur compared leaf shape.
Berry structure.
Stem color.
Growing conditions.
Finally he leaned back.
“Nightbloom.”
Ethan frowned.
“That’s a real thing?”
“Apparently.”
He opened the entry.
Nightbloom was not exceptionally rare.
That disappointed Ethan immediately.
Then Arthur kept reading.
The plant preferred environments with high concentrations of Dark-type energy.
Its berries weren’t particularly valuable as food.
But the leaves and fruit were used in some specialized Dark-type Pokémon diets and supplements.
Ethan smiled.
“There.”
Arthur nodded slowly.
“That’s significant.”
“How much?”
Arthur stared.
Ethan sighed.
“Fine.
What does it mean?”
“It means we’re probably right.”
Ethan looked at the screen.
Nightbloom.
A plant associated with Dark-type environments.
Growing naturally all over the deeper route.
Dark Pokémon eating it.
Houndour attracted to it.
Another piece.
Not Federation survey equipment.
Not an official classification.
But another piece.
“It’s a Dark Realm.”
“Working assumption.”
“Grandpa.”
Arthur smiled.
“Yes.”
They sent several other samples to an ordinary agricultural laboratory the following Monday.
Arthur used Bennett Orchards’ business account.
Nothing secretive.
Nothing illegal.
Testing soil was normal.
Testing berries was normal.
Trying to determine whether unfamiliar plants could grow on orchard property was normal.
The results took several days.
Ethan nearly forgot about them because Junior Team practice became increasingly brutal.
Then Arthur handed him the report after dinner.
“Soil?”
Arthur nodded.
Ethan skimmed.
He understood perhaps half.
Organic content.
Minerals.
Moisture retention.
Trace compounds.
Then one section.
“What’s this?”
Arthur pointed.
“The soil around the Nightbloom has unusually high concentrations of several compounds associated with Dark-energy-tolerant vegetation.”
Ethan frowned.
“So Dark soil.”
“No.”
“Basically Dark soil.”
“No.”
“It literally grows Dark plants.”
“That does not make ‘Dark soil’ a scientific term.”
Ethan smiled.
“It is now.”
Arthur ignored him.
The more important result was simpler.
When they transplanted one Nightbloom cutting into ordinary Bennett soil—
it survived.
But poorly.
The leaves dulled within days.
Growth slowed.
A second cutting placed into soil they’d brought from the Realm did much better.
Ethan stared at the two plants inside the greenhouse.
Same water.
Same light.
Same temperature.
Different soil.
“That’s huge.”
Arthur crouched beside the healthier plant.
“It’s interesting.”
“Grandpa.”
“Fine.
Very interesting.”
Houndour wandered toward the healthier Nightbloom.
He sniffed the leaves.
Then lay down beside the pot.
Ethan looked at him.
Then the plant.
Then around the greenhouse.
An idea appeared.
Not a Gym.
Not even close.
Something simpler.
“What if we made a place for him?”
Arthur looked over.
“What?”
“Here.”
Ethan gestured around the greenhouse.
“Not here here.”
Arthur waited.
“A section of the orchard.”
“For Houndour?”
“For Dark-types.”
Arthur’s expression changed.
Ethan kept talking.
“Plants like this.”
He pointed toward Nightbloom.
“Maybe the right soil.
Trees.
Shade.
Whatever they like.”
“A habitat.”
“Yeah.”
Ethan imagined it.
Not huge.
A few acres someday.
Houndour running without having to enter the portal.
Dark-type plants.
Berry trees.
Training space.
Maybe other Dark Pokémon eventually.
“You want to build a Dark-type ecological zone.”
Ethan liked the sound of that.
“Something like that.”
Arthur looked toward the greenhouse windows.
“That would cost money.”
“We have forty-two thousand dollars.”
“We do not have forty-two thousand dollars.”
“Fine.
You have it.”
“The orchard has it.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Ethan ignored that.
“We don’t have to build it now.”
That surprised Arthur.
Ethan smiled.
“I’m learning.”
“Terrifying.”
“But someday.”
Arthur looked at Houndour, still resting beside the healthier plant.
“Someday.”
That was enough.
That evening, Ethan walked through the orchard with Houndour.
No Poké Ball.
No public restrictions.
Home.
The sun was almost down.
Rows of berry trees stretched across the property.
Greenhouses.
Old fields.
Unused sections farther north.
Ethan looked at one of them.
Years ago it had been productive.
Now weeds and young trees were taking over.
He imagined Houndour there.
Not today.
Maybe not next year.
But eventually.
A place designed for him.
A place Ethan could show people.
That thought made him stop.
Show people.
The Secret Realm had to stay hidden.
But an ecological garden?
That could exist openly.
A legitimate Dark-type habitat on Bennett property.
People would see Houndour thriving and assume—
Ethan frowned.
He wasn’t sure what they’d assume.
He was twelve.
The idea wasn’t complete.
He didn’t need it to be.
“Houndour.”
“Hound?”
“Would you like your own forest?”
Houndour’s tail moved.
“That means yes.”
“Hound!”
Ethan smiled.
Somewhere beneath them was an entire Dark-aligned world.
They couldn’t bring that world outside.
But maybe one day they could bring a little piece of its environment home — not a Gym, not followers, nothing that grand.
Just somewhere Houndour could actually stretch his legs without needing a portal first.
Houndour flopped down in the grass like the decision was already made.
“Not yet.”
Houndour didn’t move.