Adventure's Past

Chapter 7 - Discovery

"I'm requesting that you get all helicopters out to the location I've sent you, Officer Jenny," Clemont spoke into his phone. "Yes, I'm aware that this is abrupt, but there are Team Rocket grunts that need to be detained!" Goh stood by awkwardly as he watched Clemont speak with the police. Being a gym leader lets you do whatever you want, Goh thought, even though he knew that wasn't the case.

"Thank you again," Clemont said respectfully before hanging up. He turned to Goh and said, "The police are on their way. They should be dealing with these five buffoons." Goh nodded and looked at the grunts in disgust. "Still... I wonder why they were setting the forest ablaze. The only other thing that was here besides the journal was a bunch of Pokemon," Goh explained.

Clemont suddenly looked at Goh. "You said there's Pokemon here?" He asked curiously. "Yeah, why?" Goh answered. Clemont dropped his backpack and began digging rapidly, seemingly searching for something. "It's a prototype for my company," he began explaining while pulling out a small device that had an antenna on it. "We could test it in this situation."

"What does it do?" Goh asked, watching as Clemont began pressing a few buttons and twisting a few knobs. "It's a machine that takes what Pokemon are saying and loosely translates it into whatever language you want," Clemont explained. Goh's eyes lit up with stars. "Really?! You've invented a Pokemon translator?!" He exclaimed excitedly.

Clemont held up a finger. "I said loosely, so don't get your hopes up," he said, calming Goh down. "We'll be honestly lucky to get a few words out of this." Goh was disappointed, but still thought it was a cool concept that he knew Clemont would surely expand upon in the future. "Now," Clemont spoke, grabbing his Aipom Arm backpack and standing up. "Where are these Pokemon?"

Goh shrugged and explained, "They ran away when I approached them, but I'm sure if we can find one, then we can use it to our advantage." Clemont nodded and looked towards the burnt forest. "I suggest we start over there," Clemont said, pointing towards a path that led further into the center of the island. Goh nodded in agreement and the two began walking along the path.

"So, you're still the head of that company, huh?" Goh spoke up as they walked. Clemont nodded silently, not saying a word. "You said you wanted to pass the head position to someone else a while ago, so why haven't you?" Goh asked. Clemont sighed as the leaves crunched beneath their feet. "I haven't found the right person. That's all, to be honest," Clemont answered.

"I get that," Goh responded. Clemont had managed to start up his company, Clemology, soon after the last time all of them had truly met up together, which was over that video call 5 years ago. Since then, his interest in running it had been waning, but a suitable replacement had yet to present itself to Clemont, leading him to tiredly maintain everything.

"What about you?" Clemont asked. "Still doing research work at Cerise Labs?" Goh nodded in return. "That, and filling up the Pokédex. I've only got 30 Pokemon left, but some of them are ones that I'd wish not to catch," he answered honestly. Clemont was curious as to which Pokemon he was avoiding, but they had just come across a group of wild Pokemon.

"Shhh... look," Clemont suddenly whispered, pointing at a group of Tangela that were resting with each other. "I wonder if we can ask them about what happened here?" Goh whispered, approaching the group. "What are you doing?" Clemont asked as Goh continued towards the sleeping Tangela.

"I'm gonna catch one," Goh said back to Clemont, reaching for an empty Pokeball. He slowly made his way over to a Tangela that was slightly separated from the group and lightly tossed his Pokeball onto it, causing it to start wiggling inside the Pokeball.

"Did he catch it?" Clemont whispered to himself, watching as Goh gritted his teeth. He knew that this was 1 of the 30 Pokemon he had to catch every Pokemon but had discovered that his tactic of simply catching Pokemon at will had recently begun getting proven wrong.