When the light reverted I stared in awe.

It was like a scene straight out of an epic. A towering orange scaled dragon of pure power standing triumphantly over a fallen foe, that of a pterodactyl with a body of the hardest and sturdiest of granite.

Charizard…was mine now.

Elation, excitement and more rushed through my veins, liquid joy sparked through my heart, the sparks of my brain danced a drunken happy jig. I was so happy, my very limbs shook.

…That was ten minutes ago. Yet, even as I traversed through the undergrounds of Grandpa Canyon after getting myself under control, every few seconds I found my head looking over my shoulder instinctually just to make sure it was real.

Charizard, terrifying and massive, well above the average height the pokedex claimed a Charizard was, gave me a goofy grin every time my eyes met his own.

I replied in kind, flashing my newly evolved dragon god a thumbs up as I did, before turning back around and focusing on my surroundings.

…I was still hundreds of feet below ground after all. Though, much of the trepidation had disappeared now.

After all, what did I have to fear? I have a Charizard now.

Plus, you know…I currently have the ancient fossil pokemon stuck in pokeballs attached to my belt.

Well, two of them at least. the male Kabutops and Aerodactyl, the rest I'd sent back to the Pokemon Centre already.

Honestly, I would have probably called it quits after catching them, if not for the fact that after evolving, Charizard seemed to have gained a second wind of stamina.

Or had the evolution just increased his overall abilities by that much that the sheer amount of work he'd put in today prior to evolving, wasn't close to using up all the fuel in his shiny newly evolved tank?

Either way, Charizard was still ready and raring to go and capable of providing me light to search the underground area. I'd returned Bellossom, Victreebel and Dragonite though. The first two, simple for more space….but Dragonite had taken a real beating fighting Aerodactyl and needed a good rest.

As we walked, we came to a cross in the tunnel and I paused, and blinked, "Huh." I noted, a bit surprised.

There was a small…pond I want to say? The crossroad led into a narrow tunnel with a plunging area of water and what appeared to be a nest of some kind of the bank right before it.

It wouldn't really have caught me interest, if not for one particular thing.

…Or rather, many.

Bones.

A lot of them. Piled up more or less in the corner, out of the way.

At first glance, they'd look like the bones of killed and devoured prey. But, with a closer look.

I could see the hollowed out shells of Omastar and Omanyte, the degraded blades of Kabutops, the upturned bodies of what used to be Kabuto.

'Are these all…fossils?' I blinked.

There had to be multiple dozens of them.

For a moment I just stared and debated internally, while Charizard waited silently.

…It made sense. No pokemon beyond the true blue legendaries could live for this long. The fossil pokemon I captured, weren't actually fossil pokemon. But in actuality, the descendants of a long line of pokemon that had managed to survive since those ancient days by birthing each new generation.

What I don't understand though….is how they're all part rock type still according to my pokedex. Many fossils only gained the rock typing because of them being revived from fossilized remains that had become one with the earth.

'I suppose the Kabuto and Omanyte lines could have always been rock types, that at least makes a bit of sense considering what they're based on.' I mused internally.

It did not explain Aerodactyl though.

…Unless, living underground for so long had made this Aerodactyl line in particular adapt to the area they lived in as the generations went on and gained the rock typing, almost like a regional variant?

Well, either way, it didn't matter, that was a question for the likes of Professor Oak or the like to ponder.

The question that remained to me though was-

"To take or not to take." I hummed, crossing my arms and eyeing the remains of the dead pokemon.

Morbid as it might be, fossils were probably worth quite a bit here going by how many criminals always wanted to steal them. And these particular fossils would most likely in the future, of I took them…be revived and brought back to life.

I mean, I'd cleared out a small islands population not long ago and then just earlier today did the same to a small forest.

But grave robbing now?

"Fuck it." I shrugged and cracked my neck. Not like I'm the only one that would do it. Roark and his dad had a full on family business of mining and digging up fossils.

If he can do it, so can I.

Decision made, I shrugged my backpack off and reached into it to retrieve some containers to keep them in.

Before getting to work, "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go," I cheerily hummed to myself, "With a bucket and spade and a hand grenade, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho."

I wasn't sure exactly how many complete fossils there were, but by my estimation, I ended up scooping up what amounted to around sixty of them, maybe a little more.

I had Milotic search within the pond, but she didn't really find anything of note in there either.

So, my best guess was that the fossils I found, were the only ones still left in tact that hadn't literally become part of the cave itself.

There were probably thousands of fossils within the area in total spread about and within the earth itself.

But I simply wasn't going to waste time with that, I'd gotten enough booty on this route, so back out out of the tunnel I went alongside Charizard and we continued on down the other path, my newly evolved behemoth of orange scales lighting the way.

As we traversed through it, I noticed it quickly opening up wider and wider and before long, I found myself entering into a large cavernous area filled with stalagmites jutting from both the ground and ceiling high above.

They were so tightly packed together and wide, that I could barely fit through the gaps between them and made it all but impossible for Charizard to.

Luckily, he could now fly.

At my order, Charizard flapped his wings and took into the air above the stalagmites, albeit a little shakily.

Honestly, I couldn't help but stare after him as I did. It was amazing how quickly he adapted to such a new form and ability. It was almost mystical really how quickly he did adapt to having what amounted to new limbs.

Anyway, with his sheer size, and it was very abundant and the blazing massive flame atop his tail, he lit up much of the cavernous area easily as he flew up.

And as he did, I caught sight of something. A huge pillar of rock jutting up above the rest of the stalagmites, easily twice as long and looking like over twenty of them stuck together in width.

Atop the pillar, I could see what looked like a wall of jagged boulders placed in a circular fashion around it, as if to block anything or anyone from peering into the centre of it.

Pretty suspicious.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that was Aerodactyl's nest, roost….house?

I quickly squeezed my way through the stalagmites and made my way closer towards the pillar and reached it after a few moments. "Can you give me a lift up buddy?" I looked up and asked.

Charizard nodded and swooped down, grabbing me beneath the arms and with a mighty flap of his wings, each double the size of me, he ascended into the air, lifting me up with him and promptly set me down atop the pillar of rock a moment later.

It was…pretty barren to be honest. There was nothing in it that could even be remotely likened to bedding.

Just dusty rocky fragments.

Oh, and an egg.

A familiar egg. It was large, about ten inches in size with a pure white shell dotted with blue and red triangle shapes.

"What….?" I just stared.

Why?

How….how did Togepi's egg get down here? I thought some trainer had dropped it, but no…Aerodactyl had it all along? But, the anime never showed it being carried by the fossil pokemon.

Putting that aside, how did it even survive down here? How long has it been here?

I'd say it couldn't have been long, but Aerodactyl has never been to the surface I'm sure, if it had, it would surely have found somewhere better to live. Which means, Togepi's egg had to have been down here for a very, very long time.

Which was impossible…it should have hatched a long time ago or simply died.

Yet…hadn't Ash's Riolu literally refused to let itself hatch for years? Could Togepi have been doing the same?

'Fuck it, doesn't matter.' I decided and repressed all those questions. I was curious, but not curious enough to get myself worked up into a tizzy pondering all the what if's and how's.

What mattered was…I had a free Togepi egg sitting right in front of me. Sorry Misty, but it was never really yours to begin with and it wasn't like you ever trained Togepi to be anything of note, you just babied it then let it leave when it evolved.

"Mine now." I declared with a grin, reaching down and picking up the egg. As I did though, I once again found myself pausing and blinking in surprise, "Huh…that I wasn't expecting."

Because right behind the egg, being hidden by its shiny white and decorated bulk was a small glimmering purple sphere with what almost looked like a cross between a helix symbol and a flame of darker shades of purple and grey.

An Aerodacatylite.

Egg in hand I just stared.

I pursed my lips and sucked at them for a few moments, before releasing with a sigh, "I suppose if I'd find one anywhere, it would be here." I mused.

I'd half jokingly expected it actually.

Honestly, I'm hyped, but at the same time, I've accrued so much today alone already, that I'm pretty much tapped out for excitement.

So I didn't feel anything like my heart leaping into my throat from spastic joy. Though, I'm still happy I guess.

It's pretty much the rarest of three ingredients I need for a Mega Aerodactyl after all. The second rarest I already know where to get, roughly. And the easiest would be taming the wild beast that beat the shit out of my Dragonite all the while trolling the ever lobing crap out of him and make it love me.

Well, one thing's for sure, I don't have any immediate plans for punching it out like Dragonite. I literally broke my hands on Dragonite's scales, I'm not punching a giant pterodactyl made out of rock.

And I don't think trying to choke it out when its neck is made of rock as well will go so well.

Maybe if I learned how to use aura?

I shook my head, putting the sheer silliness of my thoughts out of mind for the moment and shimmied the egg into the crook of one arm, before bending down and grabbing the mega stone sitting on the ground and slipped it into my pocket.

With that taken care of, I set my bag down, before pulling out a cover to carefully wrap Togepi's egg in, before storing it safely in my backpack as well.

'I'll need to see about getting one of those glass container things Ash always got when he and his pals carried eggs around.' I mused, holstering my bag over my shoulder.

And with that taken care of, I called for Charizard to come pick me up and set me back down again so we could leave.

Our business is done here and it was about time to go face the music.

And by that I mean getting yelled at by Nurse Joy.

And then Hilda.

Or the other way around, it didn't matter really. I was going to get yelled at by both of them for sure.

It was a lot easier exiting the tunnel Charizard had made prior to evolving than it was on the way down.

On me at least.

Charizard…had grown way too big to fit in it with his new size. Which, according to my pokedex app was over ten feet. To be exact, he was 10'9.

Almost double the size of an average Charizard. I knew they could get massive, since by estimates a lot of the Charizard in the Charicific Valley were over twenty feet tall.

I just wasn't expecting my Charizard to be so damn big…so quickly. Not that I'm complaining all.

He's a freaking beast.

The intense Gravity and Heal Pulse training truly did the body good.

Even now, as I fly atop the back of Fearow I stared at my Charizard's immense bulk in awe while I fiddled with my phone.

Debating on who to call and get yelled at by first.

I'd let him back out for our journey back towards Viridian City now that I've taken care of the most important things I wanted to in Kanto for the time being so he could get a little more used to flying.

'…Honestly, it's probably better to call Nurse Joy first.' I decided after debating for a bit.

Hilda will just yell at me about fighting Dragonite and Gyarados. But, I've kind of went a bit back on my word about letting Joy know in advance about pokemon I'm catching.

Even if it's not been that long all things considered. It didn't change the fact that since I last called her, I'd captured a Gyarados, two Dragonite, a Blastoise, a bunch of Wartortle, a bunch of Squirtle, a bunch of Exeggutor and nine living, breathing fossil pokemon capable of breeding.

Even my freaking pokedex has listed them as having genders. They were all breeding pairs, though I'm not sure how that worked considering there was a distinct lack of them so wouldn't there be inbreeding?

Either way, they were hella strong so it didn't impact their strength at least.

And Aerodactyl was a boy. Which was a bit disappointing. Since as far as I know, when pokemon had interspecies breeding, it was the female's species that was born from the laid eggs.

'Yeah, definitely Joy first.' I laughed to myself and went to the contact list on my phone.

I hit the call button and waited.

For all of six seconds before the screen lit up and the face of a not so amused pink haired nurse stared back at me balefully.

"Hello, Jord." Nurse Joy greeted me with a sweet smile that did not at all match the gaze of her eyes.

"…Hey," I greeted with a sheepish laugh, "How've you been?" I asked.

A bit lamely. But it was all that came to mind right now.

"Oh just peachy, I've just got back from making sure a whole herd of above average sized Exeggutor got settled in well after some irresponsible trainer captured them all and dropped them on me without a hint of warning, the same trainer I might add who dumped a whole bale of Squirtle and Wartortle on me just the other day as well," she replied, voice full of saccharine peppiness, "It's a good thing that idiot boy left a few sweetheart pokemon here who managed to smooth things over or they'd have all been forced to stay in their pokeballs. Then, imagine my shock, when while I'm in the middle of that, every contact point in the Pokemon Centre went absolutely haywire, because this silly little trainer somehow managed to get his hands on extremely rare and valuable fossil pokemon and everyone wants to know where he got them from."

Oh….

I winced, "…It's barely been an hour." I noted, feebly.

"They've already been calling for days on end looking for you," Nurse Joy replied, sweet smile and tone still in place, "After all, it's not everyday a young man who's only been a trainer for a couple of months suddenly has two Dragonite under his ownership. Then literally over thirty of a species of rare starter pokemon and that's not even counting the Gyarados either, which by the way, would caught attention alone because not just anyone can handle one of them and their temperaments."

Ah right….The league itself, alongside the likes of Silph Co had access to the records of pokemon trainers and kept an eye on them and I'd already stood out before by capturing those Smeargle.

"And imagine my surprise, when it turns out, the fossil pokemon you somehow captured aren't your simple garden variety fossil pokemon revived from fossils, which are already excruciatingly rare, but according to our scanning system, are capable of breeding," Nurse Joy continued on, "In the last hour, I've spoken to Professor Oak, Giovanni the gym leader of Viridian City, Professor Elm of Johto, all manner of scientists, officials from Silph Co, the Kanto news and even Champion Lance. And all I could tell them is that I have no idea how you did this and that I would have to contact them later when you finally decided to call back whenever that would be."

"….Ah." was all I could say in response to that. That was it, my brain was blank when it came to finding something to respond with.

"What were you thinking!" Nurse Joy finally exploded, "Capturing all these pokemon? And why? The fossil pokemon I've no idea how you found and won't blame you, but why did you capture all these extra pokemon? What will you even do with them? You have been a trainer for less than three months and own over a hundred pokemon! We've never had a trainer in the history of this Pokemon Centre having even close to that amount! And you dumped over sixty of them here in just a few days! What was the point of them all, could you not be satisfied with just one of each, perhaps a male and female of each to breed?"

"….Strategic value?" I hesitantly offered.

She raised one pink eyebrow at me.

"Look, people can check my trainer profile and see my pokemon at the League right, so I decided to catch a bunch of pokemon and train them to completely throw off any counter they could make for my teams," I rushed to explain, "On top of that, not only are they rare and powerful pokemon, but me having them all means nobody could ever capture them to use against me. Plus I wanted them."

Nurse Joy took a deep shuddering breath, "….That is rather selfish logic, but I'll hold myself partly accountable for enabling you and not berating you enough when you captured all those Meowth," she responded, "Tell me though, how did you find these pokemon? You cannot tell me it was just coincidence."

Luckily, I've long since prepared a lie in advance for this.

"I asked my pokemon," I shrugged, "I asked them if they ever found interesting places with strong pokemon, or had Pidgeot and Fearow searching the sky's for any that stood out. We found the Fossils by mistake though when we were flying over Grandpa Canyon and got into a battle, we ended up opening a hole into the underground and the fossil pokemon got angry when we checked it out for waking them up I think and attacked us."

"…In the end you're just telling me the most crazy of all of your captures, was coincidence." she noted, deadpan.

"I'm not a psychic or anything, it really was just luck," I shrugged, honestly everything I've managed so far is just luck, if I ended up in this place later down the line, like after Ash had finished up Kanto, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as great a haul, "Still, how are they all settling in?"

"They're fine, like I told you, your sweethearts like Shiftry, Poliwrath and Raticate had everyone settling in, only a few of the Squirtle and Wartortle were a bit rowdy, but they calmed down pretty quick after you sent your Golem back and the Exeggutor are very docile," she explained with a sigh and rub of her forehead, "The strength of your pokemon helped as well. Your Raboot and Snivy have been training a lot with your other pokemon every day, a bit too hard in my opinion."

"Well, that's good at least," I smiled, "I'm actually heading back your way now, I'll probably be there by tomorrow, I need your help anyway. When I was down where the where I found the fossil pokemon, I came across what I'm pretty sure is a Togepi egg."

"…Of course you did," Nurse Joy shook her head, "How in the world did a Togepi egg get down there?"

"No idea, though you remember Ash Ketchum? He recently got a Riolu that refused to hatch from its egg for years, so I'm thinking this might be a similar case, who knows how long this egg was down there," I mused, "Either way I just want to get you to give it a looksie over."

"That's fine," she shrugged, "I expected I'd be working more the second you returned, you're a headache like that. Though tell me, what did you do with the second Dragonite you captured? Did you release it?"

"Nah, I gave it to a….friend." I replied.

"You gave….it to a friend?" Nurse Joy repeated slowly, trailing off, "You…who just admitted to wanting to capture pokemon so none could use them against you, gave away one of the rarest and most powerful not to mention expensive species of pokemon at all…to a friend?"

"Yes." I replied simply, with a nod.

"Oh no…you gave it to a girl who seduced you," Nurse Joy groaned, "I can't believe this. How could you be so dumb?"

"Hey, I seduced her actually!" I retorted, "And I caught the Dragonite after we parted ways, she was just involved in some stuff that might have been dangerous so I gave her the Dragonite for protection."

"You gave a Dragonite to a girl for protection," Nurse Joy repeated once more, giving me a dry look, "Is she picking a fight with a criminal orginazation like Team Rocket? Because otherwise, there is nothing outside of being targeted by the likes of a Gym Leader or a legendary pokemon that would require such an overreaction!"

…She just might be. She was one of the protagonists that would usually deal with Team Plasma depending on the continuity after all. And Rosa, her apparent cousin would be one to deal with Team Neo Plasma.

Or be part of them, either or. But considering she grew up in this world as Hilda's cousin and not a member of Team Plasma, I'm pretty sure I can rule that out.

But I didn't tell her that.

"I'm a generous guy." I shrugged.

"No, no you are not, remember who's been handling your deals with Silph Co?" Nurse Joy snorted, "Is she a princess you're trying to marry or something? Because that's the only time I'd say gifting a Dragonite of all things is even close to being a proper gift and even then it would be too much."

Actually, now that she mentioned it, there was quite a lot of royalty in the Pokemon World wasn't there? From Princess Salvia, Dawn's dead ringer to that little bitch in Kalos, to the likes of Ilene, that chick Sara to even that Kimia chick who was the princess of that city I planned on heading to Kalos for to mug an old man.

Beyond that though…

"Why does everyone keep talking about marriage," I groaned, I've seriously, seriously underestimated my own actions in this world and it makes a lot of actions people took in the anime and the like shine in a particularly bad light. Even Misty mentioned the Squirtle gift being akin to an engagement gift, yet in the normal timeline she'd try and steal Ash's Totodile and cheat him out of it, not to mention Togepi, "Honestly, putting that aside there's something else I want to ask you."

"Well I'm apparently at your beck and call," Nurse Joy rolled her eyes, "So I may have the answer."

I snorted, "So…how much would you say pokemon fossils are worth if they're in pretty good condition?"

Nurse Joy stared back at me, before nodding, "Goodbye Jord, I'll see you when you get here." she replied.

And the screen went dark as she hung up on me.

"Rude." I huffed.