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"Grawr~awr," Gruff barked happily.
"Hello Gruff," Nurse Joy said. She picked up Starly's pokéball and handed it to Chansey. "And hello to you too Glint."
"Hi Nurse Joy. How are things?"
"Very well, thank you. I had Chansey fix up some food. It's laid out in the canteen. Just help yourself. There are a few other trainers already in there. When you're ready here's the key to the room you'll be staying in tonight.
"Thanks Nurse Joy," Glint smiled, taking the key she offered. "Would you mind taking a look at this oddish too? It hatched just this morning and it was touch and go as to whether it was going to make it, but we helped it to pull through. I'd be grateful if you could make sure it's okay and keep it comfortable overnight."
"Of course. I'd be glad to," Nurse Joy nodded happily. "Just leave it to me."

"They certainly are," Glint nodded. He moved along the bench a little and put his bike and his satchel down next to him. "Grampa got the designs from a daycare couple in the Hoenn region. He said theirs were the best, so we should use them too."
Gruff sat down at the end of the table and waited patiently for Glint to scatter some of his pokémon food into his blue bowl and put it in front of him.
"There you go Gruff. Looks good, huh?"
"Gruff ruff!" Gruff agreed. When Glint put his bowl in front of him he chowed down on the big, brown pellets.
"It's good to sit down. Will be good to sleep too. I guess we're sharing a bunk," Glint said, sliding the key across the table to Mezame, sat opposite him. "If it's okay I'll take the bottom, so I can be closer to Gruff."

"Oh, that's an oddish that Gran named Conifer. I call her Coni for short. She hatched prematurely this morning. Like I keep saying, it was touch and go for a while but we got her some nutrients and sunshine, and Moddish and Noddish - two other oddish we have - used synthesis to help her to recover," Glint explained. "Oddish are fairly common here in Kanto. You'll probably run into a few for yourself if you go into any gardens or fields. Moddish and Noddish were wild originally but they found our garden and liked it so much they decided to stay, so Grampa convinced them to help out."
Glint finished off his food and patted his stomach contently. "Ahh that was good. I think we're gonna call it soon. We should make an early start tomorrow because we've got to go through Mt. Moon and I want to get as much of it out of the way before this time tomorrow as possible. It might take us two or three days to get through though. Gruff and I will probably leave at about five."

Glint facepalmed himself--he'd totally forgotten about getting a bike for Mezame. All that talk about Coni got Glint thinking about getting her to her trainer as quickly as possible, and that got him thinking about tackling Mt. Moon alone, and from there he thought they should set off as early as possible. He had promised Mezame to help her get a bicycle though, and he wasn't one for breaking promises.
"You all finished, Gruff?" Glint asked. He picked up the empty bowl and put it back into his satchel. He could wash it out same time as he was giving himself a wash before going to bed.
"Grawr?" Gruff asked.
"Yeah," Glint sighed. "Time to head upstairs and get ready for bed."

Glint led the way upstairs and straight into the communal bathrooms. There he washed himself and Gruff down and got ready to climb straight into bed--he didn't want to disturb Mezame by messing around in the bedroom if she was already trying to sleep. "I'm thinking about leaving my bike for Mezame, Gruff. What do you think?"
"Grawr?" Gruff asked.
"Well I'm probably not going to be able to use it while we're going through Mt. Moon - it'll be too rocky - and if we're going to set off early we won't be able to get to the bike shop. So rather than leave Mezame in the lurch, I thought it'd be nice to leave her my bike."
"Gruff ruff," Gruff nodded. Clearly he thought it was a good idea too.
"Then it's decided. I'll write out a note and pin it to the bike. Then we can leave as soon as we're ready in the morning," Glint said. He packed away his washcloth and soap and hung his clothes up on a peg in the corner, ready for him to change into in the morning, then headed to the room to sleep.

Come first light Glint sneaked out of the room, leaving his bike behind with a note for Mezame, and went to the bathroom to get ready to leave. It was strange to not have any eggs to look after or any real chores to do. Glint and Gruff were both used to heading straight out into the garden to check on the eggs in the hutches, and then to check on the other pokémon, before going back to polish the eggs. "You're probably worried about the slugma, aren't you Gruff?" Glint asked.
"Grawr," Gruff whined.
"Well we have a different job to do now," Glint said. "We have to get Coni to her trainer. I guess the sooner we get on with it the sooner we can get back to normality."
Glint gathered up his things into his satchel and headed downstairs, where the chansey were just opening up the blinds and turning off the lights.
"Hey chansey, can I get that oddish back?" Glint asked. He went behind the counter and into the room where the trainers' pokéballs were kept on shelves in a big, comptuerised, bookshelf-like machine.
"Gruff ruff," Gruff barked.
"This is it," Glint picked out a pokéball from the shelf. He could tell it was the oddish's because it had one of the daycare's stickers on the top. "Now I'll just leave a note for Nurse Joy and we can set off."
"Grawr?"
"It won't take a minute," Glint said. He went back to the counter and scribbled onto a notepad:

Nurse Joy, thank you for putting a room aside for us. Thanks to Chansey too for the food. Tell Mezame good luck from me, I'm sure she'll do well with her starly. I'll pop in and see you on my way back--hopefully won't be too long from now.

Thanks again. Glint

"Ready to head to Mt. Moon?" Glint asked, looking down at Gruff.
"Ruff gruff ruff!" Gruff barked.
Glint smiled, then headed to the front door. A chansey ran to it and unlocked it, then pulled it open for Glint to walk through.
"Thank you Chansey. See you soon," Glint said.
"Chansey~"
Glint nodded to the nurse pokémon, then stepped out into the warm Cerulean morning.

Dogwood left Wilmslow's home and made his way up the street to the Pokemon Center. The city was finally starting to get a little spunk in it as people woke up and started going about their business.
Dogwood entered and was welcomed by Nurse Joy and her assistant, Chansey. He walked over to the counter and placed his five Pokeballs in front of the nurse.
"I'll have your Pokemon healed up in a jiffy," Nurse Joy smiled. She placed all five Pokeballs on the machine to her right and flipped a switch. The machine hummed, and a light pulsed beneath the Pokeballs every so often.
"Oh, I see your egg is hatching soon. Would you like a room here at the Pokemon Center?" Nurse Joy asked politely. She must have seen it glowing over his shoulder.
"No thank you," he replied, "I'm going to the daycare over on Route 5. Right after I'm done here."

A moment passed, and Nurse Joy flipped the machine off, saying, "That should do the trick." She removed each Pokeball and sat them gently on the counter in front of Dogwood. She went to grab the last one, the great ball, and halted.
"Oh, I'm afraid this Pokemon took some serious damage. I don't think the machine here will be enough. We're going to have to give it a more thorough treatment."
Dogwood wasn't surprised. Pluto put up a hell of a fight. Most Pokemon would've fainted or fled after taking that much damage. But even after taking that Megahorn, it was prepared to fight to it's last breath.
He followed Nurse Joy down the hall and into another patient room. Nurse Joy set the great ball in the machine and tapped a few keys. Pluto appeared in the middle of the tube of liquid, in stasis. He had no visible injuries, like Charon had that time. Maybe he had internal injuries, though. Dogwood hated to think his Pokemon might have broken one of it's bones, or worse.
"Are you sure I can't interest you in staying here to wait for the egg to hatch? Your Crawdaunt won't be fully healed for several hours, and that's at least how long the egg will take to hatch. Look, you can use that room right there," she said, pointing to a door in the room.
Dogwood hadn't expected Pluto to end up in the stasis room like this. And he'd feel bad about leaving him here, while he took off to Route 5. It just didn't seem like the right thing to do. "Alright, I'll stay here with the egg," Dogwood sighed, "It doesn't seem like I can afford to leave any time soon, anyway."

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