The next few days in the lead-up to Ran’s match against Jasmine are, in truth, uneventful. Ran and his friends spend their mornings on their various work-out routines, which range in intensity from Ran’s easygoing approach of continuing to try and make progress on Dig with most of the team, to Doro’s ludicrously demanding physical work-outs. Then they explore the city, go and watch some matches at one of the many public fields and end up in a few battles of their own.

  Between Josie, Grady, Doro and himself, Ran considers himself the most even tempered of the bunch, which is probably why he ends up in the fewest battles along the way, as he goes two and one over a three day span, only engaging in a single battle every day. He could have had more battles of course, but there’s four of them and only so many trainers who are roughly in their tier who are available and interested in a battle at any given time.

  Considering Josie’s outspoken nature, Grady’s cheerful energy and Doro’s single minded determination, one of the three usually manages to issue a challenge to an interesting trainer before Ran can himself. As for the trainers that challenge one of them, rather than the other way around, they too end up gravitating more towards one of his companions than towards Ran himself. Which is fair enough as well. After all, Grady is clearly sponsored, which immediately makes him interesting to an outsider. Doro’s muscles and outfit declare her chosen specialty to the world, which makes her a favored opponent, as fighting-types are notorious for offering straightforward and fun battles. As for Josie… Well, her challengers end up being near-exclusively male and, in more than one case, attempting to offer stakes that go beyond the standard financial wagers. She’s a pretty girl of course, but never is Ran made as painfully aware of that as when their group walks up to a public field that’s got multiple waiting trainers milling about.

  She easily handles the situations herself of course, refusing any stakes that involve dates or handing out her number, but it’s easy to see that Josie quite enjoys the attention at the same time. Not that her enjoyment of the (predominantly) male attention keeps her from putting on a few very fine showings, as Josie, whilst getting into ten matches over a three day span, only loses a single battle as well, giving her a glowing record that none of their group can match. Though both Grady and Doro get decently close, both getting into a slightly less impressive eight matches and both losing two, to go along with six wins.

  Ran, by far the least solicited of the group, ends up watching a lot as a consequence. Through said watching, he finally comes to a conclusion that he probably should have reached far sooner. That being, just how absolutely stacked his group of friends is, relative to the average group of rookies. Especially considering that between the four of them, they’ve only got a single sponsored trainer in their group.

  It’s after those battles that they retreat to their various pokécenters, turn in their teams for treatment, freshen up and then go out for dinner. Thanks to the win rates they all manage to maintain, those dinners are all in proper restaurants, rather than having to settle for take-out or other cheaper fare. Instead, they invariably end up at the idyllic yacht harbor Doro dragged Ran to during their first evening’s walk through Olivine City. Which ironically is mostly to Doro’s disappointment, as her attempts to get them all to return to the Sailors’ Café fail night after night.

  Though quite different from how Ran pictured his journey upon setting out, as his ideas of traveling back then included a lot more hardship, surviving in the outdoors and general setbacks, he finds himself quite enjoying the routine they all fall into. With the prospect of his battle with Jasmine in just a few days, he doesn’t even mind the limited number of battles he gets into, as he and his team learn from spectating his friends’ battles as much as they do from their own battles. Still, it’s as he thinks back on what he used to think his journey would be like, back when he was still stuck in Azalea Town, that one rather large glaring omission rears its head.

  He’s grateful for Josie, Grady and Doro, but he’d always expected Spencer to be part of his journey. Not that he’s particularly missing his childhood friend, but in a moment of introspection, as he glances around the table to see Grady and Doro laughing at something Josie just said, he can’t help but wonder just what the other trainer is up to at that moment. With a very different approach to training and journeying, Ran can’t help but wonder if Spencer’s still meeting with the same successes he experienced early on, or whether he’s hit a wall yet.

  After dinner, Doro goes for an evening run, which on a full stomach is just utterly incomprehensible not just to Ran, but to the rest of the group as well. Grady rushes off to the pokécenter he’s staying at because he wants to go and video call his family, because apparently one of his cousins is turning eight. Which leaves Ran and Josie to start wandering more tranquilly towards the pokécenters they are staying at. Josie’s is closer and essentially just a five minute detour for Ran, so he offers to accompany her there, something she happily accepts.

  At which point an awkward silence descends upon them both, as Ran suddenly realizes that this is the first time they’ve truly been alone, just the two of them, since… saying goodbye, back in Goldenrod. From the way the usually brash Josie is also quiet, he figures he’s not the only one to have that particular thought running through his mind, either.

  Unsure how to handle things and in the part of the city where they’re not just allowed to freely let out their teams, Ran awkwardly looks around for some kind of topic to discuss, before settling, out of sheer desperation, for the stars.

  “Lovely evening we’re having, right? With how clear the sky is here, you can really see a lot of stars.” He offers awkwardly, finally breaking the silence as he gestures up towards the admittedly pretty night sky to help stress his point.

  Josie seems to startle for a moment, before hurriedly looking up as well and agreeing, “Yeah, it’s nice. Reminds me of home, actually. The ranch is a fair way out of town, so we don’t get a lot of light pollution, which means there’s usually a lot of stars visible back home. When it’s not too cloudy, of course.”

  There’s something wistful in Josie’s voice as she talks, which is a lot better than the awkwardness Ran was feeling earlier, so he eagerly takes the potentially more interesting topic of Josie’s home over the stars, of all things.

  “You haven’t told me too much about the ranch, yet. How many Ponyta and Rapidash does your dad have, anyways?” Ran asks curiously, looking at the girl walking by his side as he does so. Josie doesn’t seem to notice, still looking up at the night sky, clearly lost in thought.

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  “It depends on a lot of stuff,” She answers patiently, “Generally something in the range of four hundred, but it’s really situational, depending on stuff like how many sales he’s had any month, how much breeding is going on, what time of year it is, that kind of stuff.”

  “I get the first two,” Ran agrees, “But why does the time of year matter?”

  “There’s a few major points in time where we know we’ll be getting a lot of interested buyers,” Josie explains easily, “The offseason is one, for example, as Ponyta make for a pretty popular starter for unsponsored kids whose parents can afford a good starter, but not to fully sponsor the whole journey. Then there’s the fourth month of the season, when Celadon tends to see its largest spike in challengers every year. Once one of our Ponyta or Rapidash helps a trainer get past Erika in front of a large crowd, a bunch of interested customers start to show up. Then, around months eight and nine, Blaine gets his major spike in challengers and he’s got some very impressive Rapidash himself, so at that point, we get another major influx. Those are the ones that come to mind off the top of my head, at least.”

  Ran hums thoughtfully, “So you sell to trainers a lot, then? Don’t people want to, you know, catch their pokémon themselves?”

  “You realize that you’ve got two gift pokémon on your own team, right?” Josie teases him, finally meeting his eyes for a moment, before they both break eye contact, as she hurriedly carries on, “Anyways, yeah, which is why we offer two options. Of course people can just buy a Ponyta or Rapidash straight up, we have a whole catalog of all the pokémon on our ranch for precisely that purpose. People who come to us because they need a Ponyta or Rapidash for commercial use go for that approach near-exclusively. But trainers tend to go for the Safari-option instead, which gets them a full day’s access to the grounds and the permission to battle and capture one pokémon of their choice, barring a few specific ones who have a collar to show they’re off-limits. Those are either reserved for a future sale or they’re some of the best breeders we’ve got.”

  “It sounds as if you could just as easily have transitioned into working full-time at the ranch and taking over for your dad at some point in the future,” Ran notes neutrally, “If it’s really that big of an operation. Why take the risk of setting out as an unsponsored trainer?”

  Josie huffs, arms crossing in front of her chest for a moment in displeasure, clearly not particularly enjoying his line of questioning, but she still answers, “It would’ve felt bad to go for a sponsorship when other kids actually need those in order to be able to give training a proper go, when I’ve got the support system not to need it. It’s not as if I couldn’t have earned a sponsorship if I wanted to.”

  Ran raises his hands apologetically, “Sorry, that’s my bad, that isn’t what I meant to imply.”

  “I know, I know,” Josie waves him off, still clearly a bit irked even as she continues on, “Anyways, I like the ranch, I liked living there and, who knows, maybe I will end up running it at some point in my life. But much as I love Ginger, there’s more to life than just Ponyta and Rapidash. There’s a whole world out there to be found! Besides, and this is the point that got my dad to accept the whole situation in the first place, can you really picture me stuck on a single ranch my whole life? I need to travel, to experience, to burn bright first! Let me live my life first. Worst case, I burn out and come home richer in experience and calmed down by the realities of being a trainer.”

  Josie ends her explanation there, but Ran isn’t quite willing to leave it at that, so he asks the obvious question, “And best case?”

  “Well I didn’t discuss that part with my dad,” She admits with a cheeky smile, “Because I reckon he and I have very different ideas on that front. But for my own best case, I become a big name and properly successful trainer in my own right who’ll have the freedom to choose her own future, rather than having to follow in my dad’s footsteps for lack of other options. Maybe I still end up at the ranch, because, again, I do like it there. But I’d like it to be a deliberate choice, knowing that I’ve got other options, rather than because it’s the safe, or convenient or only choice.”

  “Honestly, that’s pretty cool.” Ran admits, “I don’t know if I’d have done the same in your position. If I had a comfortable future lined up, there’s a real shot I’d have just gone with the flow.”

  “You’re selling yourself short,” Josie disagrees, “You could’ve given up after not getting your sponsorship, but you didn’t!”

  Ran shakes his head in disagreement, “That’s not the same thing. I’m saying in a hypothetical where I had a comfortable future lined up, where I’d still get to work with pokémon and where money wouldn’t ever be an issue. That’s not what going back to school and settling for a ‘normal’ life in Azalea would’ve gotten me.”

  “Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?” Josie asks curiously, “I visited your dad’s house and I joined for dinner. He seemed plenty comfortable to me.”

  “Sure,” Ran agrees, “Because I’d been contributing a bit every month for three years, because he doesn’t have anybody else to support and because, right after the war, houses were cheap as can be. Plus he’s been in his job for years and there was a labor shortage back when he started out, so he’s making a decent wage, relative to his position. But he’s not comfortable in the sense that money’s something he doesn’t have to worry about at all and that’s with a few extenuating circumstances going for him that hopefully won’t ever be relevant again. So I don’t think that getting to emulate that is a comparable prospect to inheriting a ranch.”

  Josie clearly has to digest that for a while, as they walk in silence for a few minutes. When she finally speaks up once more, her tone is carefully neutral, “So did you become a trainer purely for the money, then?”

  “I didn’t,” Ran disagrees immediately, “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor at all. But it’s a bit like you said. I wanted, I still want, to see the world. I especially didn’t want to be stuck in Azalea Town my whole life. Live two streets down from my father, work some kind of menial job, marry a girl I went to school with, have a regular order at the cheap restaurant we go to once every few months and just do that forever as some instantly forgettable guy? No thanks.”

  Ran pauses for a moment, one hand falling to the pokéballs on his belt as his expression lightens, “And besides, that’d mean I wouldn’t be able to support a full team. If I’d given up after failing to earn the sponsorship, I’d have just had Caesar, or Ekans, I guess. He’d probably have stayed unevolved forever, not to mention that I wouldn’t have ever gotten to meet the others, let alone add them to my team. So even if that wasn’t a factor at the time, by now, I’m definitely not into training just for the money.”

  “No, you’re in it so you don’t have to marry someone you went to school with.” Josie grins teasingly, “What, did Azalea not have any pretty girls around?”

  As she asks her question, they’re approaching the pokécenter Josie’s staying at, just turning the corner so that the red roof is visible down the road. Which means salvation from the many potential pitfalls that come with talking to Josie without witnesses is incredibly near. Yet they’ve clearly navigated back into dangerous territory, which leaves the final minute or so of walking as a minefield of possible disasters.

  “Uh, I guess,” Ran tries to avoid giving a hard answer, “I didn’t go back to school after turning twelve, I wouldn’t really know.”

  “Really? No hometown crush waiting for you? No childhood friend gazing forlornly at the sky each night wondering where you are?” Josie presses melodramatically, the back of one hand against her forehead as she swoons exaggeratedly.

  “Nope,” Ran insists, “I really only had Spencer, back in Azalea Town. You’re really the first girl I’ve ever been close to.”

  From the way Josie stiffens, Ran just knows he’s stumbled into one of those pitfalls he was fearing.