Alongside their new Pokemon, Alden and May left the lab and walked north until they reached the row of residential homes where they lived. Since May's house was a bit closer to the main road despite only being a couple houses down from his, Alden walked her to her door while.
Stopping at her front door, May faced him and asked, "So, want to go together? I need to prepare a few things, but I should be ready to go in a half hour or so."
Lips rising into a grin, Alden replied, "Definitely. My bad for not suggesting it sooner since I just assumed that was the plan from the start."
"Oh, I see. Um, I'll come get you when I'm ready, if that's alright?" May suggested.
"Yup. Sounds good. I'll wait at my place, then."
With that, Alden waved goodbye and walked over to his house a few doors down. May watched him leave for several seconds before turning to open her front door. The moment she did, she found herself face-to-face with her mother.
Chin resting on her palm and lips maintaining a teasing smirk, May's mother asked, "So, who was that? Your mother wants details."
May froze in place, then blushed, then dashed past her mom and up the stairs to her room.
"Nobody! I gotta go!"
May's mother simply giggled, closed the door, and ambled back over to the sofa. She sat down and resumed watching a show alongside a small tan-furred sloth Pokemon with bags under its eyes. Scratching its head made it look even lazier than before.
"Ah, Slakoth. Our little May is growing up, isn't she?"
Slakoth yawned in response.
Meanwhile, Alden stepped back inside his own house. Mudkip skipped ahead of him into the living room and looked around at everything with curiosity.
"Welcome to your new home, Murk."
"Mudkip!" Murk responded happily before bouncing around the room.
So this is our territory. I'll defend it with honor!
Catching onto Murk's feelings, Alden chuckled. He then walked over to the couch, plopped down, and sighed.
As exciting as all of this had been, he found it difficult to fully invest himself just yet. Hoping to bite any worries or hesitation in the bud, he pulled up his save state menu and saved the current moment in the second slot. Then, he navigated to the logout option but paused just before pressing it.
'Pokemon option is available now. Let's check that first.'
Following his thoughts, he mentally navigated through the menu to the Pokemon option. The more he navigated the menu, the more he felt a twinge in his mind similar to when he tested his Psychic abilities earlier, albeit on a much smaller scale. He made a mental note of that fact while opening the Pokemon option.
From there, another screen opened showing six slots that seemingly combined elements of both Emerald and the ORAS remakes. It combined the quaint and nostalgic pixelated art of the original third generation games with the sleek and convenient UI of the remakes. Aside from the first slot showing a Mudkip avatar with a green and mostly full HP bar, the other five slots remained empty.
Behind him, he heard some excited yips from Murk. Upon turning his head, he saw the little guy staring at a potted Cheri bush full of berries.
Chuckling, Alden said, "You can eat a few if you want."
Mudkip turned to face him with a hint of surprise.
Really?!
"Yeah. Go for it," Alden responded to the incredibly obvious excited emotions.
"Mud!"
Smiling gently at the little guy's simple and straightforward mindset, Alden returned his attention to Murk's info on his screen. Like with the initial party screen, it seemed to combine elements from both the original games and the remakes. The info there prompted him to raise a brow while looking at the pages, however.
The first page showed general information like his Mudkip's nickname, his gender, his trainer name, where he was obtained on Route 101, and his Torrent ability combined with a Damp hidden ability…
'Wait. Both? Isn't that kinda broken? Well, I guess it's not too broken considering how rare it is for Torrent to actually come in handy, but still, I wonder how common that is to have multiple abilities?'
While pondering that, he also confirmed his suspicions about Murk's nature after discovering his taste preferences. Like he thought, it had a Brave nature.
Aside from those things, he also noticed a '~' mark in front of Murk's level indicator. He didn't see an experience bar anywhere, though. Curious about how that might translate to stats, he swiped over to the next page.
"Huh," Alden subconsciously muttered to himself.
The noise briefly drawing a puzzled look from Murk, though only for a moment before the little guy resumed gobbling the handful of berries it had picked.
Rather than static stats, it showed another '~' symbol similar to its level indicator, though the numbers still fell in line with a level 5 Mudkip next to some numbers in parentheses.
"I get to see the IV's up front, eh? That's convenient."
On top of that, Murk's IV's gave him a pleasant surprise on top of the dual Abilities.
[HP: ~21] (25)
[Atk: ~14] (20)
[Def: ~11] (28)
[Sp. Atk: ~11] (31)
[Sp. Def: ~10] (19)
[Spd: ~9] (30)
"Hm. Not perfect, but definitely not bad. May's Torchic seemed pretty good, too, so maybe Birch specifically prepared starters bred from strong parents."
Initially, a thought flickered in the back of his mind to try resetting to see if he could get a perfect Mudkip, or even a shiny one, but Murk's stats completely erased that thought in the back of his mind. Resetting and potentially losing the little buddy who suddenly hopped onto the couch and cuddled up next to him after finishing his Cheri berries…
'Yeah, not happening. I'm already attached.'
He then moved over to the known moves and widened his eyes. It showed a scrollable list of moves not dissimilar to the swappable movelists in the most recent Pokemon game versions, but that wasn't what surprised him the most. No, it was a fourth move available in Murk's known moves.
"You know Wide Guard?!"
"Muh?" Murk responded with a tilt of its head.
After thinking for a moment, the little guy happily nodded, hopped off the couch, showed a determined expression, and glowed with a slightly brown aura. A short and wide barrier composed of blue interconnected hexagons shimmered into existence in front of Murk.
Jumping to his feet, Alden gave a thumbs up and exclaimed, "Someone put some serious effort into breeding you, huh? Awesome!"
Beaming a happy smile at the praise, Murk hopped in a circle while yipping bubbly noises.
Gazing upon his new friend, Alden felt like he had just reaped the efforts of somebody else's painstaking labor. Surely, Murk had a sibling with better base stats or something for him to have been given away like this. That, or Birch was really just that generous as somebody who was a researcher who didn't have much need for strong Pokemon bred for battle.
'Ya know what, it might be the latter, considering he probably plans to have us send back some Pokedex data during our adventures, if the games are anything to go by.'
Just to be safe, he saved over his second save slot again. Then he saved over it a second time just to make sure it stuck. A completely unnecessary measure, but at least it satisfied his gamer instincts.
"Well, I guess I've procrastinated long enough," Alden said while plopping back down on the couch.
Murk hopped on the cushions next to Alden and looked up with curiosity.
In response, Alden chuckled, rested a hand on the little guy's head, and murmured, "Let's really figure this out now. Can't rest easy until I do."
With that, he pressed the logout option.
[Would you like to Log Out from the game?]
>[ Yes ] [ No ]
He mentally selected the 'Yes' option.
[Would you like to save your progress before you Log Out?]
>[ Yes ] [ No ]
Again, he selected 'Yes'.
The next moment, he heard the familiar *Ding* sound effect of a saved game.
[Would you like to bring anything with you?]
>[Pokémon] [Items]
Raising a brow, Alden fell into thought for a brief moment. Unsure of the full functions of this option at this point in time, he navigated to his bag and selected a single Oran Berry in order to test the feature.
[Would you like to finalize your selection?]
>[ Yes ] [ No ]
Once more, he selected 'Yes'. The moment he did, he felt like his soul was yanked out of his body. He blacked out.