38 C038 - The construction begins

A Machamp, four Machoke, and six Machop were organizing timber, metal beams, sacks of what looked like unmixed cement, and other building materials. Carl and the two young Timburr were helping out, too, but were kind of just messing up the rhythm of the Machops and others.

Luna was going over the plan with Pete next to the flattened ground. She looked right in her element with a Lairon and a Magneton floating around her in her safety gear that did nothing to hide her muscular physique.

Two Magnemite were working together floating around the site and dropping markers for distance all over the place, apparently making accurate judgment based on their magnetic powers from their ability Magnet Pull.

"Alright, so a small basement room here below the hill, that's doable. What's that the second room for?"

"I was thinking I'd put the water tank in there. It can't be too high because then I won't be able to comfortably hook it up to the stream without a powerful pump and I want it away from the sun so it won't be too hot if I don't want it to be," Pete suggested with an unsure smile.

"Yeah, sure. I mean, that's usually what people without water pokemon will do when building a home outside the city, so I guess I thought you had the water source covered," Luna responded with a shrug.

That got Pete thinking, but he would do this just in case anyway. No need to overly rely on pokemon when he could get it done with clever engineering in a pinch.

"What will we do about waste water?"

"We could lay down a pipe and introduce it back to the river or maybe even into the lake. If you want it filtered, there's two options. A filtration system, or you look for a few Grimer to do it for you. Both have pros and cons, but I'd prefer the filtration system for a single building. You'll know why if you ever smelled a Grimer," Luna explained with a scrunched nose.

"I mean, technically, it's just me and a few guests at times, so it shouldn't be enough waste to 'feed' the Grimer anyway, right? Is the filtration system able to get the soap out of the water before it's sent back into the river or lake? I don't want to mess up the ecosystem around here," Pete asked in concern.

"Yeah, most cities filter waste water in a filtration system after the Grimer, too, because of that reason. Not many people know about that, though. No wonder you're an assistant professor, you little egg-head," Luna jokingly said as she nudged Pete's shoulder.

"Alright, with that decided, we cleared up everything, right? How long do you think it's gonna take?"

"Hmm, basic structure in four or five days. Wiring and piping another two days minimum. Finishing touches like flooring and windows and stuff will take the longest unless your cutie Rapidash helps out drying the material a little faster. Though she needs perfect control. Drying it too fast would mean it doesn't settle properly, and it's gonna leave cracks und imperfections behind," Luna counted with both hands.

"That's much faster than I would have thought," Pete responded in wonder.

"Well, it would take much much longer if you wanted more floors or had some weird restrictions for the materials, but this is all pretty standard stuff and my good buddy Lairon here has perfect control over steel typing energy. Combine that with a few Machamp and Machoke that can lift a ton casually, and you're golden," Luna answered with shrug.

"Could you start with the part that's built into the hill? I'll lend you Golurk and Nidoking for the ground-work, too. The tent is nice and all, but if one room was ready to live in, that would be amazing," Pete suggested with a shy smile. He really felt like an ignorant young master with excessive demands.

"Yeah, sure. Why would you not just come back with us to Goldenrod when Exeggutor sends us back for the night?"

"Oh, yeah. I guess I could. Hmm, I guess there's two reasons. Probably a few more if I was honest with myself. One, I want to be here in case the Ariados retaliate this night, and two, I... this is going to be my home. I want to connect with everything around here," Pete explained with a bright smile at the end that Luna found way too blinding for someone who wanted to do his business out in the open for a few days.

As Pete watched Carl argue with the Machamp in his karate gi, he suddenly felt this man looked a little like a certain famous trainer.

"Hey Luna, last question. Is your dad related to Bruno, the elite four member?"

"Huh? I mean, my uncle's name is Bruno, but he's a gym leader in Kanto's Saffron City, not an Elite Four," Luna said with furrowed brows.

"Ah, I misspoke, yeah, that's probably who I mean. How come you're live so far from him?"

"Well, Goldenrod and Saffron are connected by the cross-region Magnet Train, so we're just a day away if we truly wanted to meet... but my dad and uncle don't really talk," Luna explained with a shake of her head.

'So this is before Bruno becomes an Elite Four, thereby avoiding the struggle that the corrupt League officials wanted to close one of Saffron City's gyms. I never really understood why they would do that, since every region has more than 8 badge-certified gyms anyway,' Pete thought as he watched Machamp wildly argue with all four arms.

'Makes sense that he's into fighting pokemon then. Maybe they are not on speaking terms because Bruno takes practice really serious, and Carl is a bit of a loon,' Pete mused when Carl tried to win the argument against Machamp with an arm wrestling contest.

Pete ordered Golurk and Nidoking to help out with the construction and started to busy himself by creating a vegetable garden with the help of his own ground affinity. Since Golurk's evolution and his own training, Pete had increased his ground typing reserves tremendously.

With Sunkern on his shoulder, a bag with seeds with him, and a few of his pokemon following him, Pete walked in the direction of the lake before starting with his project.

Flexing his ground typing affinity, Pete shoved dirt to the side and piled it on to create raised bed vegetable fields roughly the size of a long but narrow dinner table. He raised it roughly to a height somewhere between his knees and his waist before placing some granite-wood boards upright into the ground on all four sides to make sure they kept their form.

Granite-wood is a specialty of Granturio Town on Route 45 south of Blackthorn City and comes from a forest where trees nourished by rock type energy over centuries mutated their species to grow wood that once dried was impervious to water damage and super hard, making it the ideal wood for raised bed vegetable banks.

The town and the trees didn't exist in the game or anime to his knowledge, but Pete knew about this city and the trees because that was where his MC had fought a group of Sudowoodo that had nearly cost him his newly hatched Swablu.

The granite-wood wasn't used in construction much because these panels were cut into form before the moisture was drawn out of the wood. Once dried, the wood behaved pretty much like rocks and would rather break and chip before being pliable like wood.

Once Pete was done with one row of five raised beds, he left a path between them for him to comfortably walk on and made another five raised beds. His reserves by now were pretty much completely empty, so he gave a pack of seeds to his two Minccino and showed them where to place the seeds and how to place them.

The two didn't appreciate getting the dirt in their fur, but they still helped regardless.

The Marill and their Azurill were much more eager to help and also directly helped water these seeds. Pete really enjoyed this tranquil time.

"Good job, everyone! Now, if you would do the honors Sunkern and help them sprout? Can you do that?"

Sunkern heard the question and narrowed its eyes. Pete placed the pokemon down on a raised bed and watched it work as the faint green grass energy enveloped the seeds.

Pete was very surprised when he noticed the green hue on two other raised beds as well. He had recently used the Solar Beam TM on Solosis and Zorua. He more or less figured out they wouldn't learn the move anytime soon, but apparently, they managed to learn using grass type energy.

"You really got the hang of it? Amazing! Good job, you two! You're going to have so many opportunities to train grass type energy in the future, too!"

Both pokemon happily accepted the praise and tried even harder to do what Sunkern was doing. The seeds in his raised bed had by now already sprouted and showed small green stalks and leaves that were coming out of the ground.

"Hey, Growlithe. Rapidash mentioned to me that she taught you the move Sunny Day. Care to help out Sunkern and the veggies to grow a little?"

Growlithe gave Pete a happy yap and scrunched its face together as Pete, Rapidash, and the other pokemon looked to Growlithe with encouraging gazes.

Suddenly, the already sunny day got a little brighter. Like the clock turned back a little, and it was noon once more when the sun was highest and therefore shone brightest.

"Nice job! You're such a good girl! Come here, you earned some good scratches," Pete suggested as he sat down on the ground and opened his arms wide for Growlithe to come over and lay on his lap.