Divine Plan? But I'm a Pokémon trainer.

Chapter 22: The Poké Ball Management System and the Significance of Twigs
The incident in which a fire fox that ate fruit residue almost caused a fire was quickly dealt with, and the Pokémon Center, which experienced similar incidents on a daily basis, was quickly repaired, but Link and the Fire Fox still had to learn a lesson - they must be careful inside the building!
As Joey was talking to Link, Junsha (the Duskwater lookalike) found the latter.

"Did the Elf Center report the case so quickly?" Link was a little surprised by Yu Junsha's speed in responding to the police.

"what?"

Junsha was stunned for a moment, then immediately explained her purpose: "Xiaolin, we were still dealing with the cruise ship hijacking case the day before yesterday and didn't have time to tell you, did you get your Poké Ball from the Ocean Team?"

Link nodded. The items he searched from the rooms of the Marine Team members included 10 red and white balls.

It is naturally impossible for newly born Pokémon in the real world to inherit the Poké Ball of their parents, so the Poké Ball that Fire Fox used was the Poké Ball that he picked up at that time.

By the way, he also secretly kept the Marine team's uniform and waist bag, because he thought he might need them in future activities in Hoenn.

"As expected, no wonder Joey said your Poké Ball couldn't read the information."

Link was a little confused. Can the Poké Ball read information?
“Currently, all Poké Balls on the market have built-in chips that can send and receive information in places with an Internet connection, and interact with Poké Center, the Alliance, and the police station’s computers in real time, including information such as Pokémon status, trainer intelligence, and Poké Ball location.

"This is to be able to determine the trainer's location, to prevent smuggling, crime and the like, and to determine the trainer's situation and provide the necessary assistance in times of crisis."

In short, if the Poké Ball reads that a trainer's Pokémon is in a dying state and the trainer is in the wild, local League staff, police officers from the police station, and one of the gym trainers will provide rescue.

If the trainer's physical location is too different from the physical location of the Poké Ball, the police will judge that the Poké Ball is lost or stolen.

By the way, the function of the Poké Ball to read the internal Pokémon's status will also be applied to regular battles. This is to prevent trainers from cheating by rotating the Pokémon in the ball to take medicine or strengthen it.

"It sounds like a really convenient feature that can give people peace of mind."

Link didn't expect that the Alliance already had this kind of technology at this time. No wonder bounty hunters, criminal gangs and the like didn't put the captured Pokémon into the ball. It turned out to be because of the positioning.

but……

Due to the existence of the Poké Ball management system, once a trainer's Poké Ball is locked by the system like in TV (BW) and Deep in Area Zero, they will be unable to release Pokémon.

There are pros and cons, I guess. If it is used by criminals, it will cause trouble.

What's more, some alliances have been penetrated by evil organizations, which is extremely dangerous for trainers.

"Well, the Poké Ball management system exists to serve trainers, so people like the Pirates and the Marines use old Poké Balls (and some Black Workshop Poké Balls), or use special equipment to destroy the built-in chips."

There are policies and measures to counter.

According to Junsa, the Poké Ball that Link found from the Marine Team was the version in which they used special equipment to interfere with the chip.

She came here today just to reclaim these Poké Balls.

After all, Link is a man of integrity and will certainly cooperate with Junsha's work.

After handing in all the Poké Balls, I got 10 red and white Poké Balls + 1 commemorative ball.

The fire fox picked out a red and white ball that he liked and moved it to his new home.

But it soon returned outside.

There's nothing to do in the Poké Ball, so you might as well go outside and breathe some fresh air.

Seeing that the weather outside was not bad, the man and the fox said goodbye to Junsha and went to the orchard to pick fruits and branches. The fire fox has the habit of carrying small branches as snacks, and after eating small branches, it will be full of energy and spray more than 200 degrees of hot air from its big ears to intimidate the opponent.

This made Link wonder - it would be nice if the Fire Fox also had the "Intimidate" trait.

Unfortunately, this threat is not the same as that other "threat" and is not of much use.

The picking was finished near noon, and Link was preparing to go to the Pokémon Fans Club today.

"Fu~"

While still on the way, the fire fox began to think about the branches that Link had washed and put away to be dried.

"Are you in such a hurry? Here."

As a branch was thrown to the fire fox, it immediately became excited as it ate the food with a crunch.

Link was very curious about the origin of this habit, so he asked the animal what it felt.

As a result, Firefox thought for a long time but couldn't figure it out.

It is not for grinding teeth, improving digestion or supplementing nutrition, but it is very happy just chewing on the twigs, as if this thing is very important to it.

It seems to be an instinct.

Seeing that the little fox itself was not clear, Link subconsciously recalled the information in the illustrated book of its evolution... He could still remember a rough idea of his favorite fire-attribute Pokémon.

[Long-Tailed Fire Fox, a fox Pokémon; a branch is stuck in its tail, and when it is pulled out, it catches fire due to friction. It can use this flame as a fire starter to perform powerful moves. 】

[Fox, a fox Pokémon; it can use telekinesis to manipulate a 3000 degree Celsius vortex of flames to burn its opponents to ashes. If you stare at the flames burning at the front of the wooden staff and concentrate, you can see what will happen in the future. ]

Judging from the illustrations, the Fire Fox family is a kind of elves similar to "magicians". The wooden stick in their hands is both a medium for releasing moves and a tool for predicting the future.

Elves certainly don't know magic (probably, but judging from the original series, magic and alchemy do exist in the TV worldview), and the natural selection pressure will not help organisms inherit skills that are useless for reproduction and survival.

Since all fire foxes can use branches, it means that in the long process of evolution, those fire foxes that failed to master this skill were eliminated in various forms.

Branches are to the fire fox what family members are to Caracalla, and are extremely important tools.

But why?

Why do tree branches play such a huge role?

On the way to the audiophile club, Link pondered and finally came up with a guess -

The main fighting method of the evolved Fire Fox is to manipulate flames through "telekinesis" to attack in various forms.

However, using two moves at the same time consumes a lot of physical and mental strength, and the pre-attack time will become longer than life.

This has caused the fire fox to learn the skill of pre-creating fire as a medium for its moves under the selection pressure brought by nature.
The role of the medium is likely to allow them to more easily call upon the fire energy in themselves or the environment, thereby increasing the power of their moves, reducing the difficulty and lead time of manipulating flames with "telekinesis", and exerting combat power far beyond their own abilities in battle.

It is for this reason that the fire fox has engraved external objects such as branches into its genes.

(End of this chapter)