Chapter 40: Return to Mt. Silver
After a whirlwind of a meal, Will's first order of business was to take Iris to change her clothes. He bundled her up in some of Liz's thick, old childhood garments until she was so puffy she could barely swing her arms. Only then did he nod in satisfaction.
He coiled Iris onto the top of his head and then flew out of the palace. Hestia assumed he was just flying himself to the Primal Beast Academy, so she wasn't surprised. After all, with Will's current size, he no longer fit in a carriage.
But Hestia seemed to have forgotten: Will was not the kind of good little beast who would obediently go to school. He was the problem child who had been fighting since his very first day.
In the sky.
"Wow! We're flying!"
Iris gripped the feathery wings on the side of Will's head with her small hands, her legs kicking with excitement. Children truly are fearless. Despite being dozens of meters in the air, she wasn't scared at all.
"Don't move around, or I might drop you," Will said, shaking his head.
"Lan, Lan, where are we going? Aren't we going to the academy?" Iris asked curiously, watching as Will flew right past the academy and left the capital of the Dragonite Kingdom behind.
In her entire life, Iris had rarely left the capital. The few times she had, it was under the protection of many Beast-Callers, heading to other towns within the kingdom. An experience like this, heading out alone with just a single beast, was a first for her. But Iris wasn't the least bit afraid. Or rather, she trusted Will completely.
Will didn't answer her; the little girl wouldn't understand him anyway. He guessed that Iris had probably never been to Mt. Silver. After all, it was still the territory of primal beasts; only Beast-Callers dared to enter and explore it. Moreover, Mt. Silver was the only place where the people of the Dragonite and Land Kingdoms would meet. Encounters there almost always led to conflict. A child like Iris would never be allowed to go there.
About half an hour passed. Will finally arrived at the outskirts of Mt. Silver with Iris.
"My butt hurts from sitting," Iris said, rubbing her rear as she slid down from Will's head.
"Stop complaining. Today, you're going to get your very own Pokémon," Will said, slithering into the forest ahead of her. Although he could fly now, that didn't mean he had lost the ability to move on the ground. He certainly wasn't as fast as he was in the air or water, but it was still a massive improvement over his Dratini days.
"Lan, wait for me! Are we going into the forest? My teacher said the forest is very dangerous, that there are beasts everywhere," Iris said, hurrying to catch up. She glanced cautiously into the depths of the woods. The fearless little rascal was finally starting to feel scared.
Rustle, rustle.
Suddenly, a nearby bush rustled, and an angry Rattata shot out. The Rattata had been sleeping soundly, but the noise had woken it up. It had charged out without a second thought, ready to teach a lesson to whoever had disturbed its beautiful dream.
"Rattata!"
"Ah! A giant rat!"
The charging Rattata startled Iris, but the Rattata itself was startled by Will. To it, Will's form was more like a snake than a dragon, and snakes were the natural enemies of rats.
This little rat is about to get wrecked today, the Rattata thought, its very soul scared out of its body the moment it saw Will.
"Lan!" Iris cried out, also frightened, and quickly hugged Will.
She wasn't truly a stoic, emotionless girl, at least not in front of Will. She just had a bit of a deadpan face and wasn't very expressive. She wasn't dumb at all; in fact, Will had already noticed that she was very smart. The reason she had been so bold when they first met was that she knew that any beast inside the royal palace would not threaten her safety.
But this was different. This was the forest, the wild. The Pokémon here were wild and would attack her, even kill her. And for a little girl who was only 1.25 meters tall, a Rattata from this era, which averaged 0.6 meters, was indeed a very large rat. To put it bluntly, a Rattata that had just matured could easily snap her in two with a single bite.
"Ying~ (Get lost,)" Will said, not even bothering to attack such a weakling, just giving the Rattata a glance.
The Rattata froze, then scurried back into the bushes in a panic. It was moving! It was never coming back here again!
Will watched the Rattata leave and continued deeper into the forest with Iris. It wasn't that a Pokémon like Rattata was weak. In this era, even owning a single Rattata could make one a high-status Beast-Caller. But Will looked down on it. For Liz and Iris's Pokémon, he had more suitable choices in mind. Rattata didn't even make the list of backups.
"Phew, that scared me. You're amazing, Lan," Iris said with a sigh of relief as the Rattata ran off. She stuck close to Will's side.
A few more similar situations occurred. Most wild Pokémon had strong territorial instincts and would inevitably come to investigate when they sensed intruders. After being scared a few times, Iris gradually calmed down. She discovered that with Will by her side, the wild beasts didn't dare to act out of line. Most of them would just take one look and immediately turn and run.
Gradually, Iris's mentality changed.
"Me and Lan, we're invincible," Iris declared, strutting proudly in front of Will, her chest puffed out and her head held high. She was like a proud little hen, patrolling her territory.
"...I remember it was around here," Will said, rolling his eyes as he scanned the area.
Because of the memories from his first life, he was not unfamiliar with the terrain and layout of this area. But it had been twenty years since the Mt. Silver of his memory. Many things had changed that he didn't know about, so he still needed to search carefully.
Did they die? Or did they move deeper in? But they should have at least left some descendants...
Will crawled slowly through the forest, his eyes scanning the large trees around him. He was looking for a specific Pokémon, called... Scyther.
He remembered from his past life, when he was exploring the map as a Beedrill, that he had once seen a Scyther swarm in this area. That swarm had been incredible, occupying a huge piece of the outer territory, an area equivalent to his old land plus the Poliwrath's territory combined.
But twenty years had passed, and the Scyther swarm seemed to be gone. He didn't know if they had migrated or been wiped out.
"A pity."
After searching for a while and finding nothing, Will sighed. There were quite a few Pokémon worth raising in the Kanto and Johto regions, but not many could be found in the outer areas of Mt. Silver. Will only had three or four main targets in mind, and Scyther was one of them.
It had a base stat total of 500, with a good distribution focused on high attack and speed. It could also fly, allowing it to advance and retreat freely. It was a Pokémon you could use right after catching it.
Moreover, Will had to consider some practical issues, like evolution conditions. Even if he knew the evolution conditions for some Pokémon, he couldn't help them evolve. He had no idea where to get those evolution items, and the Dragonite Kingdom might not have them.
So, the Pokémon he needed to catch had to be one of two types.
First, a Pokémon that could evolve to its final stage just by leveling up. For this type, it didn't matter how weak its earlier forms were; as long as its final stage was strong, it could be a primary target.
The second type was a Pokémon that was still worth raising and had high potential even without evolving. This type was extremely rare.
Scyther was the latter.
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