"What?! Staying at a Pokémon Center costs money?!"
When Asher arrived at the Rustboro Pokémon Center, he could hardly believe Nurse Joy's explanation.
She replied in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, "I'm so sorry, but since you're registered with the Kanto League, your free-service coverage only applies in Kanto. Our Hoenn Pokémon Centers only provide free service to trainers registered in Hoenn."
"..."
Asher's hand trembled around his trainer license. He had thought becoming a trainer meant he'd finally made it in life. Instead, it turned out that "made it" only applied inside Kanto. The moment he stepped outside the region, lodging became a daily expense.
Damn it.
Now he finally understood why all the lucky locals at the drawing ceremony had been celebrating, while the poor souls sent overseas had all looked like their lives were over.
Just as Asher was sinking into awkward silence over his empty wallet, a cold-faced young man walked in with a permanent scowl on his face.
Asher turned around. It was none other than the Sinnoh trainer Paul.
One look at the bulging bag Paul was carrying, and Asher knew the guy had hit it big.
Seeing Asher still planted in front of the counter, Paul was smart enough to guess exactly what kind of trouble he was in. He jerked a thumb toward the door and, in his own special way, offered some helpful guidance.
"What's wrong, red-hat? Money problems? When I passed Devon's headquarters, I noticed there was an overpass nearby. Looked like it'd suit you."
Asher smiled politely and thanked him.
"Oh, thanks. By the way, how did you know my name? And you can drop the 'red-hat' part. Just call me Asher."
Asher?
For some reason, hearing that name made Paul zone out for a second.
By the time he came back to himself, Asher was already gone from the Pokémon Center.
And after leaving, Asher actually headed in the direction of Devon Corporation. Even more amazingly, he really did find an overpass. More miraculous still, he unrolled his sleeping bag underneath it and actually spent the night there.
If you had no money, this was just how you lived.
Thankfully, Asher had Flare, his personal walking space heater. With Flare in his arms, even sleeping out in the open beneath an overpass wasn't all that cold.
"Flare, hang in there for one night, okay? We're gonna hit it big tomorrow. For now, this'll have to do. Night."
"Gah~"
The next day, same place as always.
Looking at the pale red cubes in his hand, Asher said in surprise, "You actually managed to get your hands on this stuff too?"
The things in his hand were called Pokéblocks, a type of Pokémon food developed by Pokémon Breeders.
The formulas used to make Pokéblocks were a breeder's livelihood.
Behind every single variety were countless failures, experiments, wasted ingredients, and mountains of effort.
So naturally, Pokéblocks carried beautifully painful price tags.
What ordinary people could buy was usually just low- to mid-grade stuff.
The truly wealthy families all had dedicated breeders making custom Pokéblocks tailored to their Pokémon.
And the Pokéblocks Professor Oak had given him had all been eaten by Officer Jenny.
So even though these were only some lower-grade goods Silver had somehow scraped together from who-knew-where, Asher was still thrilled just to have something to keep them going.
Silver folded his arms and leaned against a tree, flashing a smug, seasoned grin.
"Hah, this is nothing. My connections are way beyond what an amateur like you could imagine. So? Stick with me and I guarantee you'll make it big."
Wildbloom kept staring at the Pokéblocks in Asher's hand.
It knew Silver had gone to a ton of trouble to get those from an incredibly chaotic place.
And now Silver had just handed them over to this red-hat!
"Jiglo!"
[Rotom! You received a gift from Silver. Wildbloom is angry! Affection -69! Your relationship has dropped to: "that red-hatted jerk I really hate"!]
Asher looked down at the Pokéblocks in his hand.
Apparently, the better things went between him and Silver, the worse things got between him and that sour radish.
What kind of emotional math was this?
"Come on, little Asher. Today's another perfect day to do something big!"
Silver seemed to have an endless supply of treasure maps.
Viridian Power let him communicate with the Pokémon in the forest, and he could get plenty of information straight from them.
On top of that, he had vision far beyond that of ordinary people.
His eyes were as sharp as a bird Pokémon's.
After going through it once, Asher had learned that following this guy around usually worked out just fine.
Probably.
...
Three days later, on the outskirts of Petalburg Woods.
A Charmander was leaping back and forth while spitting fire.
Not far away, a red-capped trainer was shouting instructions.
"Good! Flare, hold on to that feeling. Gather elemental power while you're moving!"
"Gah!"
The pair training there were, of course, Asher and Flare.
These past few days, with the help of his bargain-bin version of Viridian Power, Asher and Flare had been training day and night without stopping.
During the fight against Pinsir, Asher had realized Flare had a major limitation when it came to using moves.
Whenever its body was in motion, it became much harder to use elemental moves like Ember.
So over the past few days, he'd been training Flare to move and gather elemental energy at the same time.
But a trick like splitting your focus in two wasn't something you mastered easily.
Luckily, the two of them just happened to have two hearts between them, which meant they could be of one mind while using two minds at once.
One focused entirely on controlling movement, while the other focused entirely on building up elemental power.
After three straight days of practice, they were finally starting to get the hang of it.
Flare could now attempt to jump around while using Ember at the same time.
The downside was that Ember's power dropped by about half, and pulling off a revelation-based Secret Art like Secret Art: Ember Jet was still extremely difficult.
Even so, results like that were enough to leave veteran trainers speechless.
Seeing the progress they'd made, Asher raised a hand and called out, "All right, take a break. I'll help you recover some stamina."
"Gah!"
Flare bounced happily over to him.
Asher placed both hands on Flare's big head. A faint green glow flowed out, converting Asher's mental energy into power and feeding it into Flare's body.
Besides training Flare, Asher and Silver had also pulled off two more big scores these last few days.
The first was the usual forest resource collection.
Working together, they defeated a level-sixteen Nuzleaf and gathered a Durin Berry from the tree it had been guarding.
According to BondUp, the thing was supposed to help with brainpower, though Asher had no idea whether that was actually true.
The second haul had been a lot more exciting.
They got into an all-out fight with a Zigzagoon thief gang in the forest and looted a pile of shiny spoils from their hideout.
Most of it turned out to be cheap glass junk, but there were a few pieces of actual jewelry mixed in too.
Asher handed all of it over to Silver to deal with, hoping he could sell it for a good price and finally make them rich.
As for challenging the Gym...
Rustboro Gym was Rock-type. Sending a Fire-type like Flare in there would basically be asking for a concussion.
Asher definitely felt the urge to become one of those lunatics who won despite horrible type matchups, but common sense told him to act like a normal person.
He planned to stick around Petalburg Woods with Silver, his built-in treasure finder, and grind the early area until Flare turned into a Charizard that could flatten scrubs before he started steamrolling rookies.
Right then, Asher sensed something.
Someone was watching.
"Who's there? Come out!"
The moment the words left his mouth, a wild purple-haired girl shyly stepped out from behind a tree...