"You know, Wally, I think I'd like to stick to some basic routes after this."

Wally hummed in response to my statement as he, Ernest, and I continued to travel through the desert.

"Are you sure, Alex?” he asked. “I thought you wanted to travel off route."

I shrugged, repositioning the backpack and the egg case attached to it to be more comfortable. I was thankful that the egg was in a sealed, temperature controlled container, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go on this expedition.

"Well, I've been through a lot recently,” I said. “Lost a Gym Battle, got haunted by ghosts, was a part of an interregional incident, fought Team Magma, lived underground for a few days, and most recently I was attacked by your Flygon."

Ernest stumbled in his step but kept walking, but Wally froze, falling behind. After taking a moment to recover, he then hurriedly caught back up.

"You were a part of an interregional incident?!" he shouted next to me.

I ignored his question.

"While the training opportunities have been plentiful, something low stakes would be nice, too. That was my goal for this expedition, but getting separated from everyone else kind of threw that on its head. I got a taste of easy times when I traveled from Petalburg to Verdanturf, but that also included the stress of traveling off-route for the first time. I wouldn’t mind another period just to relax and train my Pokémon."

There were a few moments of silence as Ernest finally gathered enough courage to speak up.

"Ex-excuse me, Alex. D-did you say you fought Team Magma?"

"Well, Wally and I both did but that's hardly my point,” I replied.

Ernest didn’t respond.

I brought my hand up to cover my eyes and tried to peer further ahead. “How much farther do we have to go?"

Wally pulled out his PokéNav to check the map.

"We're about a few hours out. We should see the ruins soon."

"I’m looking forward to it. I want to experience shade again."

After dealing with Wally's new Flygon, we were able to head almost directly to the ruins. With Altaria now evolved and Wally possessing a flier, we had enough Pokémon to carry us, but Altaria was still getting used to his larger body and Flygon would only rarely follow Wally's orders. The Dragon Type had agreed to join Wally’s team, but didn’t bother to listen most of the time. I had a feeling that Wally was in for a tough time to train that Dragon.

As we traveled further south, deeper into the desert, more and more large rocks appeared sticking out of the sand, and there were even patches of gravel instead of sand. The cliffs of the valley narrowed enough for us to see both sides in the distance, which made it obvious this desert wasn’t endless.

Since we were in the Hoenn desert, I was still hung up on the idea that there was some mythical Togepi kingdom somewhere nearby, but saw no signs of it. It was a little disappointing, but Altaria was already a valued member of my team so I had no need to go out of my way to train a Togekiss as well.

The wild Pokémon around us were stronger than ones we encountered before, and since the terrain contained less dunes and more boulders, we were starting to see more Rock Types. The most impressive specimen we saw was an Onix that was traveling parallel to us in the opposite direction. While it was just a normal Onix, I didn't know there were any in Hoenn at all so I was caught off guard when I saw it.

In the far distance, we started to see the tips of ancient stone buildings poking up above the horizon, and as we got closer, we started to see signs of the fabled expedition camp next to it. As much as all of us would have liked to, we didn't suddenly rush to get close since it was still a ways away and we didn't want to exhaust ourselves at the last minute.

However, we slowly and carefully made our way there, and eventually, after days of travel, we had finally met back up with the rest of the expedition.

"...And that's when we found out the tower was rigged to collapse when an item was removed from the top floor," Professor Birch explained.

We had arrived back at the camp without much fanfare since most of the people were out in the ruins. Professor Birch met us at the edge, Ernest having sent updates with his tablet during our travels. There wasn't much to explain to Birch because of that, so he filled us in on the generally uneventful trip the rest of the expedition had to reach the ruins and set up a camp.

The camp was set up like the camp from the expedition back in Sea Mauville, but with significantly less machines in the center. Our time in the ruins would be the longest stationary period for the expedition, lasting a full week. We managed to arrive only a day late, so we still had six day to do what we wished. Once the week was over, the rest of the expedition would be spent leaving the desert, except rather than traveling over desert hills we would follow alongside the cliffs of the valley.

Professor Birch finished his story of what had happened while we were gone (it was just a bunch of walking) and we reached the machines in the center. Ernest plugged his tablet into the satellite uplink device and all of the data, pictures, recordings, and notes he had taken around Mirage Tower was sent to the lab's server back in Littleroot. With that sent, our discovery of wild fossil Pokémon under Mirage Tower was now official, and all three of us were eligible to choose a reward for our discovery. Both Wally and I had the option to select a fossil to be revived for free, but I turned it down in favor of a cash reward since there were no Fairy Type fossils. Wally surprisingly turned his option down as well, citing the fact that he wanted to find the next member of his team naturally, rather than to be given it. However, he did say to let his cousin, Wanda, choose one if she wanted a fossil for herself.

I spent the rest of the day under a large canopy tent Professor Birch's assistants had set up and enjoyed being in the shade with my Pokémon. Wally hung out with me for a while before leaving to see if he could get his Flygon to listen to him. Honestly, I think Wally was less motivated to train it, and more motivated to convince it to let him ride it.

But once that day ended, the rest of the expedition passed uneventfully.

Since Ernest was too busy going through everything he discovered under Mirage Tower, Wally and I were able to explore the ruins by ourselves. The ruins lined up with the position of the ruins for Regirock in the games, and I half wanted to explore to find it. However, asking around revealed that Pyramid King Brandon of the Battle Frontier had already caught it. In fact, according to Professor Birch, he had found and caught every member of the Regi Trio in Hoenn.

However, that didn't mean the ruins were completely empty. Instead of a cave in a rock like in the games, the desert ruins were actually the remains of a massive stone city half buried by the desert. The buildings were made of dark stone and connected to each other through back alleys while the major roads followed a radial design.

As for the wild Pokémon, there were less pure ground Types and more Pokémon that liked to hang out in ruins. The most interesting ones I saw were Bronzor and Chingling. As for Ghosts, there were supposed to be some in small numbers but we didn't encounter many of them. The few we saw were Yamask that couldn't run away in time, and some Golett that mostly ignored us. I imagined that Banette was scaring away the stronger ones, but the other groups didn't encounter many Ghosts either. I was thankful it seemed that the Ghosts of these ruins were much more timid than in other places.

I chose to keep Mawile out with me for the majority of the time Wally and I explored since she knew several Dark Type moves that would have been effective against any aggressive Ghosts. While wild Ground Types could threaten her Steel Typing, her advantage against Ghosts was worth the risk. Mawile was a little smug that she was sent out and not Azumarill, but that smugness faded into boredom when nothing that interesting happened. She spent most of her time playing with her rock as she walked alongside us.

When there were only about three days still scheduled for our stay in the ruins, the egg started to move around occasionally. I realized that meant it would hatch soon and started to spend more time with it. I claimed a house on the edge of the ruins, and stayed in it when I wasn't camping with everyone else or searching the ruins with Wally. I made sure it wasn't one of the ones filled with sand, and spent time talking to it with my Pokémon.

Other than that, now that we were staying in one place, I used the harsh conditions of the desert to continue to train my Pokémon. Training was pretty lax for my team since we had just gone through a lot under Mirage Tower and the desert, and I wanted everyone to take it easy, but still didn’t want the next few days to be a complete waste.

Ninetales ended up finally learning Moonblast, the move taking a while since her species couldn’t naturally learn it. I remembered that back in Shoal Cave the other Ninetales, the one that fought off Glalie, used Moonblast, which made me question how exactly it had learned that moves. Since Ninetales finished that goal, we shifted her focus on general move practice and improving her efficiency afterwards.

Florges, once done tutoring Ninetales for Moonblast, still hadn’t learned Dazzling Gleam. Instead of having her continue to try to learn that move, I shifted her goal to be to learn Synthesis instead. Synthesis was a move that took in sunlight and used the flowers that grew alongside her body to transform that energy into a self-heal. Without the harsh sunlight condition, it would heal less than Wish, but the healing effect could be activated far quicker than Wish. However, she wasn’t able to learn it herself, so Wally spent some time tutoring Florges with the help of Roserade, who knew the move.

Yes, Wally’s Roserade, not Roselia. At this point, Roselia had already been training for several months, and had spent two full weeks preparing herself for evolution. Since we had a few days of staying in the same place, we thought it was best to evolve her now with the Shiny Stone I got from Steven. Tutoring Florges for Synthesis let Roserade get used to her new form, too.

Altaria spent the time getting used to his new body, since his strength had massively increased in his evolved state, and because I wanted him to become strong enough for me to ride. Well, "ride" was the wrong term, since he was not large enough for anyone larger than a child to sit on. Instead, I would need to purchase something for me to be in for him to lift up and carry when I wanted him to bring me places. I planned to acquire something like that when Wally and I returned to Mauville.

And then for the last two members of my team, Azumarill and Mawile continued to practice with each other. Azumarill was still preparing herself for Belly Drum, but was able to do so while helping Mawile pick up Play Rough. Mawile wasn’t able to master it in one day like Azumarill had, but still picked it up relatively quickly and due to her drive to compete with Azumarill, was able to get the move battle ready by the time we left the ruins. It wasn’t mastered, but was still quick enough to pull out in a pinch.

Once the rest of the week in the ruins passed, Birch’s researchers managed to finish gathering the data they wanted and the expedition packed up. We left the ruins in a better state than we had arrived, and started to travel to leave the desert.

The expedition stuck to the edge of the valley the desert was in, and walked almost directly underneath the cliffside. This area was essentially its own habitat, so Professor Birch and his researchers were motivated to gather data while we walked.

The Pokémon we saw most often was Geodude, followed by the several species of Pokémon that nested in the cliffs. A decent number of Mandibuzz and Vullaby made their homes there, and there was even the uncommon Braviary or two. Additionally, Sigilyph were known to be present here, although they were far rarer than the other birds. At one point, there was a Skarmory that perched on the rock and watched the expedition warily as we passed by. Skarmory didn’t often visit the desert, so it was unusual to see one in this environment.

The various Flying Types within the cliffs didn’t bother us, but a few trainers went out of their way to catch a Mandibuzz, and one trainer even managed to catch a Sigilyph, although no one saw that battle. Neither Wally nor I bothered since none were Fairy Types, and Wally was far more focused on his struggle to get Flygon to listen to him.

Due to the lack of sand dunes and Trapinch traps next to the cliffs, exiting the desert was far faster than entering it. The path we followed was slightly less winding since we didn't need to return to Mirage Tower, so the walk only took us five days. A few trainers actually split off from the expedition towards the end, aiming to go north through the desert and to Fallarbor Town to train, which made me question why they even came if they were going to travel through Route 111 on their own anyway.

Once we were out, everyone else parted from the lab group to return to either Lavaridge or Mauville. Some trainers sent out Flying Types to ride on to leave, but most walked. Birch’s lab stayed behind to process the data a little more before they returned to Littleroot, so Wally and I started to head back to Mauville to plan out our next steps and eventually take on the last three Gyms.

Two days into our return journey, the egg cracked.

I immediately took it off my pack and placed it on the ground, then removed the egg from its glass case. I grabbed the Pokéballs at my waist and sent my entire team out. Ninetales was the most excited, unable to sit still and basically bouncing in place while the Pokémon within the egg tried to escape the shell. Florges looked on lovingly, and both Azumarill and Mawile pretended not to care. Altaria watched as well, but whatever he was feeling was an enigma.

The crack on the shell extended and we all held our breath. Something pushed and a piece fell off the side, giving the Pokémon room to break off more of the egg.

Slowly, the opening widened as more and more pieces broke off until the Pokémon was able to completely push out and fell to the ground next to it. Shakily, it stood up and shook itself off, then opened its eyes to look around.

To put it in plain words, the freshly hatched Galarian Ponyta was a small horse. Or more accurately, a unicorn, considering the tiny, black and white horn on its head. Its head was larger than its counterpart from Kanto, and its entire body was far more compact. Its eyes literally sparkled when it opened them after it left the egg, and its pastel mane flowed in the wind, contrasting with the pale white hair on its body. Right now, it was a pure Psychic Type, but would gain a secondary Fairy Type once it evolved.

Ponyta twisted its body while blinking, getting a look over itself, and tried to walk forward. It stopped when its vision adjusted to the world outside the egg and saw us for the first time. Its eyes were wide in curiosity, and Ninetales whined in an adoring manner. I had to agree with the emotion conveyed in her voice. It was really cute.

Ponyta glanced around at each of us, and instead of getting scared, it simply smiled. I took out the grooming kit that I had received all the way back in Petalburg, and kneeled down and motioned it to come over. Without resistance or hesitation, Ponyta walked over to me. I was happy to see it had a glimmer of recognition in its eyes when I made soothing sounds, confirming to me that my strategy to talk to the egg had succeeded at least somewhat.

I ran a brush through its hair and motioned for the team to bring the egg shell over. Wally stood to the side to watch, having released his team to witness the egg hatching while I was too focused on the process.

Ponyta laid down as I brushed its hair, relaxing as I cleaned it up from its time in the egg. With my other hand, I tried my best to break up the eggshell that had been left behind, but had to eventually call over Azumarill to help. Once Ponyta had relaxed enough, I started to set up its first meal.

While I personally thought it was a little gross, it helped a newly hatched Pokémon grow if they ate their eggshell. Right now, Ponyta was smaller than the rest of its species, but would quickly grow and reach its full size in a few weeks. Pokémon matured far faster than animals back home, and if I really wanted, Ponyta could be battle ready within a month.

However, I didn't care about getting Ponyta ready for battle right now. Ponyta was a child, and I wouldn’t have it fight unless I judged it completely ready. My focus was to make sure it had a happy and comfortable childhood, and to ensure it knew how much the entire team already loved it.

My Pokémon didn't approach Ponyta just yet, since it had just hatched and I had already talked to them about the importance of giving it space back in the desert. Ponyta was happily eating its food while resting and I stood up to stretch.

While it was focused on eating, I set out an array of Pokéballs for it to choose from. It was a big decision for a newly hatched Pokémon to make, but I needed a way to bring it with me so it couldn’t wait. Luckily, Ponyta understood what I was doing after a few helpful yips from Ninetales. It quickly chose a Dream Ball, a purple and pink ball with a red circle at its top. I made sure to catch it in the Dream Ball before it fell asleep after its first meal. Since Ponyta was so young, it would likely be sleeping quite often.

We stood up and continued our journey back to Mauville. With the help of Wally’s Pokédex, I was able to keep track of Ponyta’s status and send it out to walk alongside us when it wasn’t sleeping. I always made sure at least one of my Pokémon was out with it at all times to ensure it always had another Pokémon with it. Since Ponyta could only stay awake for so long, I rotated whoever was out pretty frequently so everyone had a chance to interact with it. I wanted to make sure it spent some time with every member of my team at least once.

Everyone approached Ponyta in a different way. Ninetales basically spent the entire time with it chatting, and Ponyta calmly listened to her without making any noises. Florges stayed near it nervously, seemingly scared of harming a freshly hatched Pokémon, but she also kept smiling whenever she looked at it. Ponyta started to smile back towards the end of her turn. Azumarill pretended not to care, but even though she clearly wanted to spar with Ponyta as soon as possible, she was extremely gentle around Ponyta to make sure she didn’t accidentally hurt it. Altaria was more interested in smothering me with his feathers than doing anything with Ponyta, and Mawile simply walked alongside it. Mawile didn't say anything to Ponyta, but I noticed she would pet its mane when she thought no one was looking.

It took us only a single day from Ponyta’s hatching to return to Mauville, so the amount of time everyone spent with it was limited. Wally and I planned to split up for a few days while we were in Mauville to take care of different errands. However, before we split up, we stopped at the Pokémon Center to make sure Ponyta was in good health and to see its summary.

I think we were both curious to see what Ponyta’s moves were. Since Steven had sent me an egg, I half expected it to know some egg moves. After I received Ponyta’s Dream Ball back from Nurse Joy (it was in perfect health with no complications), I slotted its Dream Ball into one of the Pokémon Center’s computers to have it be scanned so I could see its summary.

Ponyta was male and had no abilities, as expected. The moves he knew were Tackle, Charm, Double-Edge, and Morning Sun. The only move that wasn’t an egg move was Tackle, which meant Ponyta had exceptional parentage. He wouldn’t be able to use the moves for a while due to his age, but practicing them would be much easier than other moves since he already had an instinctual understanding of how they worked.

"Huh, Morning Sun is actually quite interesting for Ponyta to know," I said to Wally. "It's a self-healing move that gets stronger in harsh sunlight. Honestly, seeing that just let me decide what I want my final team member to be."

"Huh? How does Ponyta knowing Morning Sun let you make that decision?" Wally asked.

"Well, it essentially gives me more of a reason to get a third weather effect on my team. I like having multiple weather effects since it messes with my opponent’s strategies, and I can use them to empower my own team when appropriate. Altaria is great for that strategy, too, since his ability Cloud Nine would let him cancel any weather effects out if they started to hurt my team.

“As for my seventh team member, since Ponyta won’t count for a bit thanks to Steven, there’s one Pokemon that would combo with both Azumarill’s rain, and the harsh sunlight from whoever learns Sunny Day. It both has the hidden ability, Chlorophyll, which would double its speed in sunlight, and it can learn Hurricane, which is a powerful Flying Type move that becomes almost impossible to dodge in the rain. It also fulfills my goal of having a utility move-heavy Pokémon on my team thanks to its potential Prankster ability, so I’m pretty excited about getting one.”

Wally let out a frustrated sigh.

“Alex, you can’t just list off the reasons you want a Pokémon without naming it. Not all of us have every Pokémon memorized like you do,” he said.

I chuckled at Wally’s complaint.

Well not everyone grew up playing all of the Pokémon games like I did.

“I’m talking about Whimsicott,” I said. “It’s one of the two most common Fairy Types I could catch in Hoenn, the other being Ralts. I’d actually have to get it in its pre-evolved state, Cottonee, since wild Whimsicott are hard to find because they evolve with a Sun Stone.

"I needed to get a Grass Type since Florges pairs so well with that Type, and if I wanted a synergy, my choice was between it and Shiinotic. Shiinotic can develop the hidden ability, Rain Dish, to heal in the rain, but I would have had to use the Global Trade Service to get one since it’s not in this region normally. Since Ponyta’s Morning Sun would benefit from Sunny Day as well, I can’t think of an option better than Cottonee.”

After taking a minute to collect my thoughts about Ponyta and the potential power a Cottonee would add, I stood up and stretched, then retrieved Ponyta's Dream Ball and turned off the PC. Since Wally and I needed to take care of errands, we started to walk out of the Pokemon Center to split up then meet back up in a few days. However, Wally stopped walking and paused before we both exited.

"Um, Alex," Wally said nervously, "I know most people go to Fortree next, but would you be interested in going to Sootopolis instead?"

I shrugged nonchalantly.

"I don't see why not. It'd be interesting to go in a different order for the Gyms."

Wally pumped his fist in excitement.

"Great! I'll go buy a swimsuit and we can stop at Slateport's beach along the way! I'll see you in a few days, Alex!" he shouted, then ran off before I could say anything else.

I shook my head.

I can't believe he just changed the entire course of our journey just to go to the beach. Oh well, at least he'll be happy.

I went ahead to browse and shop at all the various stores the mall of Mauville had to offer now that I had a significant amount of money to spend. Considering how much I had earned both from my assistance with Team Magma and my help in the discovery under Mirage Tower, I actually had more than enough money to last me the rest of the season. Now that I had plenty of spare cash, I wanted to spend what I could in Mauville, where so many different items were available.

The first set of items I bought was Pokémon food recommended by Marty for freshly hatched Pokémon, as well as a few tools to help prepare meals for young Pokémon. I still needed to check what Ponyta’s favorite flavor was, and while Ponyta could eat normal Pokémon food, it was better for newly hatched Pokémon to eat berries ground into mush rather than anything solid.

I also browsed items that would let Altaria carry me once he got strong enough for Fly, and bought what was essentially a hot air balloon basket. It was the most expensive purchase I’d ever made, but it was worth it. It had a large handle on top for him to grab onto when he flew, and even used Pokéball technology to fold up and let me carry it even though the basket was twice my size. I looked forward to using it, and was excited to see how completely ridiculous it would look to see a bird carrying something far larger than it.

I also browsed held items, but found the selection was lacking, so I decided to check Slateport Market when Wally and I visited in a few days.

After purchasing my miscellaneous items, I continued onwards to enter the store I was looking forward to the most: a TM store. It was finally time to expand my team’s movesets past what they could learn on their own without needing to spend weeks in training.

The TM store was laid out almost like a record store, but all of the move-containing discs were protected by glass cases to protect them from thieves. There were a number of solid colored discs that could be reused multiple times to teach moves, but there were also a number of black discs that had a single solid colored ring around the center. The solid colored discs were TMs, and TMs could be used multiple times. The black discs, however, were different. Those were TRs, or technical records, that were essentially single use TMs that generally contained powerful attacking moves.

Both TMs and TRs cost approximately the same, expensive amount. The price was high for TMs since they were reusable, and the price was high for TRs as well since the movies they contained were so powerful. While I had money to spare, it wasn’t an infinite amount. I couldn’t just buy anything I wanted, so I had to be clever in my selection.

The first TM I bought was easy: Sunny Day. Since I didn’t have any Fire Types, it would be difficult for my Pokémon to learn the move, and if I had a reusable TM I could teach Florges, Ponyta, and my future Cottonee the move. I also bought a TR for Solarbeam to go alongside it, since it was cheaper than the TM and Florges could teach that move to my other Pokemon.

I also went ahead and bought a Calm Mind TM for both Ninetales and Florges. It was a great move to help with both their offense and survivability, since the move enhanced their focus in battle to let them both position their ranged attacks better to be more damaging and dodge other Pokemon’s ranged attacks a lot more easily.

After those three, I bought three more TRs. The first was Flamethrower, to give Altaria a way to fight back against Ice Types and to let him help the rest of the team take on Steel Types. The next two were the last I bought, and were both TRs for Mawile. The first was Psychic Fangs, a powerful bite-based Psychic Type move that could destroy Psychic constructs like Reflect and Light Screen, and the second was Thunder Fang, a slightly weaker bite-based Electric Type move that could paralyze her opponents. I chose those two moves since they gave her more options in battle, and to let her deal extra damage to Water Types, which would be useful in the upcoming battle in the Sootopolis Gym.

I didn’t want to spend any more money than that since it was expensive to purchase new moves like this, and also because using too many TMs too quickly could overwhelm a Pokémon. I also didn’t want to expand the number of moves my Pokémon knew by too much, since each move still needed to be practiced, and the more moves a Pokémon had to practice meant the less time it spent on each move. While my Pokémon weren’t limited to four moves like in the games, I still had to be careful to make sure they didn’t have a moveset that was too large.

However, since I had completed the shopping I needed to get done within the first day, I had the rest of the week to relax with Ponyta and train my team, which sounded like a great way to relax after spending so long in a hot desert.