CH227 (841), In The Most Unexpected Places

A thought suddenly flashed through my mind and I could not help but wonder if our meeting was truly coincidental or not. Honestly, even if Jeff, if that was truly his name, was not a Legend(ary Master) Class Trainer but a Veteran Master Class Trainer instead; How high were the chances of me randomly stumbling across someone like that in the wild? The odds had to be miniscule. Actually, they had to be extremely miniscule.

Granted, the Meteor Falls was one of the most valuable and strong areas in Hoenn, so that probably raised the odds from extremely minuscule back to "just" minuscule, but those odds were still so low that I could not help but wonder if I had truly managed to hit the wonder jackpot or if this was premeditated instead. Kanto had 30 registered Master-Class trainers and 4 known Legendary-Class trainers, while Hoenn had a bit less than that with 23 registered Masters and 2 known Legendary-Class trainers.

There might be some not-known ones that I was unable to access information on or some that had reached the stage but did not register for whatever reason. However, even then those numbers would probably not change too much, which illustrated the low probability of me running across one of them. The reason I was putting in the last bit was that Jeff was not among any of the globally known 33 Legendary or 287 Master Class trainers I had looked up, and I was referring to the whole alliance here and not just Hoenn, so unless Jeff was so bored that he put on a disguise, he was not among the registered ones.

Hence, I could not help but wonder if our meeting had been set up by the alliance, or if I had been just that lucky. Did the alliance want to investigate my situation, or rather the strength of my Pokemon without having to rely on present records or opinions of others such as the Professor? OR was it possible that I had stumbled upon one of the even more elusive unregistered Legends or an unregistered Master close to that level? Was that why Jeff called himself Super Elite instead of Champion or Master?

These thoughts crossed through my mind like a herd of stampeding Tauros, before I forcefully pushed them down. I decided to address the issue in the simplest/most straightforward fashion possible; Namely by just asking Jeff why he was calling himself a Super Elite with the strength of his Pokemon instead of a Super Champion or a Super Master. When he heard that, Jeff let out a nonchalant laugh and casually said that he had not bothered with those bureaucrats over at the alliance for a long time.

He actually complained that he could not be assed to bother with all those additional advancement requirements once he became a registered Elite, so he did not bother doing so after his Pokemon became strong enough to rival Champions and then Masters. He laughingly said that calling himself a Super Elite was enough since those were just titles anyway, the important thing was the strength of one's Pokemon.

Jeff then added that he was spending most of his time in the danger zones anyway and that he was able to get everything he needed to train his Pokemon and survive there. Since he was away from the alliance and the settlements for decades or more at a time, being a registered Elite was enough to meet any of his needs whenever he made a trip to civilization. Hence, he could not be bothered ranking up or dealing with the alliance's nitpicking.

He followed the last bit up with some more carefree laughter, and having felt his feelings during his rant/reply, mostly because he did not bother concealing them, I was certain that I had somehow truly met an unregistered Master, so I could not help but regard Jeff with some admiration. That seemed to put Jeff in a rather good mood since he began to add on top of his previous explanation.

He said/bragged that he and his Pokemon were about to meet the strength criteria to become Legend(ary Master) Class trainers, but that he was still not planning to sign up since he did not want to bother dealing with all the questions and hubbub that would surely follow if he went through with the registration. In his words, the benefits he would get were not worth the hassle, and I could not help but be conflicted about whether to be impressed by his indifference to fame and benefits or be worried at his disinterest in the alliance.

Thankfully, he just genuinely seemed to not want to bother with any headaches and did not harbor disdain or dissatisfaction with the alliance since a prospective Legend with that attitude would not be a good thing for humanity. That had me wonder if I was worrying about unnecessary stuff, but even if I thought that worries like that were better left for the higher-ups to worry about, I could not help but feel that way anyway.

Still, worry or not, I had apparently managed to come across a wild Master Class trainer, a prospective Legend at that, so I knew that I could not let this chance slip through my fingers. Jeff's disdain for trouble and regulations aside, it was a fact that he was one of the forerunners of humanity, one without any seemingly meaningful connection to any family or organization, so I obviously had to establish some kind of contact with the guy.

The fact that he was here and that he mentioned visits to civilization/cities meant that he had to have a phone (number) since everything was easier if one had easy access to communication and the net, so I asked him if we could exchange numbers, and he stared at me thoughtfully before smiling at me. He said "Why not? You've certainly impressed me enough, so sharing numbers seems fine" while pulling out a phone from his pocket.

"Don't go around spreading my number though," Jeff added while staring me dead in the eye, and it was clear that he meant that. I nodded in acknowledgment, and he gave me a satisfied nod before he handed me his unlocked phone. He told me to save my number, and once I did, he took the phone. I saw him press call, and when my phone began to vibrate, he told me to save the number. Once I had done that he patted me on the shoulder and declared that he had to go to the city to stock up.

I still had to continue my exploration of the Meteor Falls, so I just asked him if he wanted some restaurant recommendations since things had to have changed since his last visit whenever that was. Jeff began to laugh when he heard my question, and it took a few moments for him to stop. Once he did, he said that he would love to hear some good recommendations, so I chose to ignore his previous laughter and gave him the names of the best restaurants in Fallabor City since I assumed that was the place he referred to when he said city.

He began to head for the exit after that but after taking only a few steps he stopped and told me that he would be leaving Hoenn in 2 to 3 days to head for another danger zone. He added that I might not be able to reach him then since those places tended to have either no signal or shitty signal and that I should just write him a message if I wanted to ask/tell him anything. He would send me a reply once he reached a place with a signal if he thought my message warranted a reply, though according to him doing so might take months or even years.

That was a rather obvious but indirect way to say that he wouldn't bother replying if he thought my message was crap. Actually, given the time frames he gave on how long it might take him to send a reply, I would have a hard time discerning if he thought my message was crap or if he had just not seen it yet. Still, having the number and establishing a connection was better than not having it or doing so, so I just said that that was fine. Jeff nodded at that and continued to leave after telling me to have fun exploring.

I watched him leave, and even though I had the urge to call Professor Oak to ask him if he had heard about someone like Jeff once Jeff was gone, I did not do so. Instead, I put my phone away and told my exploration group that we were continuing our walk around the platform. Just 10 minutes later we had completed the circle and returned to the "stairs" leading to the next/elevated area, but we did not head up there yet since I still wanted to head from one corner of the platform to another.

I chose to go to the upper right corner and from there we began to head toward the bottom left corner. Doing this allowed us to roughly check most of the inner area of the platform without doing a more comprehensive walk/search. We did not see anything that stood out during that walk or the one straight back to the semi-natural stairs. Still, it allowed me to cross off this part of the first platform on my mental map, and since I deemed this step complete, we began to walk up the stairs to the next "level".

It took just a few moments to ascend the 7-8 meters to reach the next area of the platform, and the map I had seen indicated that this part was roughly 5% smaller than the lower one. Our subsequent stroll confirmed that, and aside from the one Machop we saw coming down from the third level/area, the place was pretty much the same if we disregarded the missing crater. Unlike the Geodude, Diglett, and Sandshrew we saw, I actually checked the Machop to see if I could add him to Utopia to give Tyson/Machamp a follower.

Unfortunately for Machop, a champ had to maintain a certain standard, and an orange Machop definitely did not pass scrutiny. Nonetheless, aside from not making an effort to recruit the Machop I did not treat it with disdain, and I even managed to learn from it that there was a little group of Marill and Azumarill living in an obscured area at the back/end of the final/third level. It seemed that there was a small hidden path there that led to a little pond, which likely formed due to the place's proximity to the third waterfall.

Anyway, Machop and some of his fellow fighters occasionally went there to challenge the dragonslayers to train themselves. He literally said dragonslayer, which took me off guard since we jokingly called them that due to their typing. For Machop to call them like that as well, at least one of the Azumarill or Marill had to have taken down a dragon in front of witnesses/other Pokemon. Curious as I was, I obviously asked Machop why he called them dragonslayers, and Machop shared something quite incredible.

Apparently, sometime in the past, a Druddigon had for some reason left the inner area and come to this outermost part of the Meteor Falls. It then began to tyrannically attack/torment the Pokemon living here to establish itself. From Machop's description, Druddigon had been rather brutal in its approach and quite a few Pokemon had died as a result. Still, its reign of terror did not last long since just two days into it an Azumarill leader stood up to it and took it down after a long battle despite being weaker than the dragon.

Machop was only able to tell me that the two were much much stronger than him, but by referencing some of his comparisons, I estimated the Druddigon to be at the (mid) or (high) gold stage while the Azumarill had been at the (low) gold stage at most. That was not particularly strong and probably explained why Druddigon had come/been pushed to the outermost area.

Anyway, ever since that feat a long time ago, the fighting types, which included the Machop, Tyrogue, and Scraggy lines, that called this area their home respected the dragonslayers and visited some of the groups that lived in the area to challenge them in their quests for growth. While this particular place was not the one the real dragonslayer came from, they still belonged to the same species which was why Machop had visited them.

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