Pokémon: Starting with a Pokémon Ranch.

End of Chapter 61 (3,000 words)

"The leader of crows!"

Seeing that the crow leader was seriously injured by the tropical dragon in just one move, the man in sunglasses was very anxious.

He quickly ran over, sprayed some medicine on the crow's head, and then put the crow's head into its Poké Ball.

Seeing this, Su Yu also said:

"Since your Pokémon is also severely injured, you might as well surrender obediently. By the way, since you were in charge of hunting down my Tropius last time, you should know where its people are being held, right?"

However, after hearing Su Yu's words, the man in sunglasses did not actually consider surrendering.

He looked at Su Yu's tropical dragon. Since it could defeat his own crow leader in one move, it meant that the tropical dragon's strength had far surpassed that of before.

"In that case, my own Pokémon definitely can't beat it, so I'll have to use the Pokémon the captain gave me a few days ago..."

The man in sunglasses thought to himself.

He solemnly took out a Poké Ball that looked somewhat special, and while tossing it, he said to Su Yu:

"If you can defeat this Pokémon, then we can talk about surrendering. This is my captain's Pokémon, and this isn't over yet!"

Upon hearing this, Su Yu was somewhat surprised. There was actually a backup plan?

But when he saw clearly the Pokémon the man in sunglasses had thrown, most of his worries disappeared, and he breathed a sigh of relief:

"What? It's just mantle rock. I thought it was some kind of powerful Pokémon."

Using other Pokémon is bad; using a Pokémon that's only twice as weak to Grass against Tropius is ridiculous. Do you think you're Ash Ketchum, guaranteed to win every type-reversal battle?

Moreover, Su Yu possesses the "reconnaissance" function provided by the system, which allows him to roughly assess the opponent's strength based on the moves their Pokémon has learned, as detected by the system.

In Su Yu's view, this mantle rock's strength was probably not much different from that of the current tropical dragon. Therefore, Su Yu calmly said to the tropical dragon:

"Just use Leaf Blade directly, beat them until they're unconscious."

Upon hearing this, Tropius also unleashed its four-bladed blades, transforming all four enormous blades on its back into blades. These blades were so large that when fully unfolded on Tropius's back, they resembled 50% of Zygarde's form.

After all the leaves on its back turned into leaf blades, Tropius rushed forward and, using the leaf blade move, unleashed a series of very high-speed "Ora" attacks on Mantle Rock, stunning it on the spot.

With such a fast attack speed, and facing Grass-type moves that are super effective against Mantle Rock, even Su Yu didn't know how Mantle Rock could possibly survive. Especially since Tropius was using Four-Leaf Blade, which directly gave it four times the attack speed.

After the mantle rock was hit by the tropical dragon's "Ora" attack, the man in sunglasses seemed to realize that things were going badly and decided to sneak away.

But what he didn't expect was that his actions had been under the watchful eye of the caterpillar, and Su Yu was not so negligent as to ignore him completely.

Seeing that the man in sunglasses was trying to run away, the caterpillar used a move called "Electric Net" to tie him to the ground.

"Hiss~!" Hmph, trying to escape?

Seeing the man in sunglasses trying to escape, the green caterpillar snorted arrogantly.

Meanwhile, Officer Jenny's battle seemed to have ended. She grabbed a poacher leader by the clothes and dragged him over.

Seeing that Su Yu seemed to have made some gains as well, Miss Officer Jenny raised an eyebrow in surprise and said:

"You did all of this?"

Officer Jenny's lips twitched as she glanced at the unconscious Mantle Rock. She recognized it; it was the Pokémon of a wanted poacher leader.

How long has it been? How did Su Yu's tropical dragon become so strong? Just over a month ago, it was struggling to even defeat that crow leader over there.

"With your talent as a trainer, your grandfather still made you a rancher. It's such a waste of your talent..." Officer Jenny muttered.

"Huh? What did you say?"

At this moment, Su Yu was still picking up the rock fragments that the mantle rock had just been knocked down by the tropical dragon.

These rock fragments seem rather special and would make excellent collectibles. The trainer of this mantle rock may have provided it with many rare minerals during its upbringing.

Therefore, Su Yu plans to collect more rock fragments and make a special display case for them, hoping to attract some rock enthusiasts like Daigo in the future.

"No, she didn't say anything," Officer Jenny replied.

"Oh, okay." Hearing this, Su Yu nodded, picked up a few rock fragments, and then continued:

"By the way, I just interrogated that guy in sunglasses over there, and he confessed to giving me the blueprints for this poacher base. Now I know where the tropical dragons are being held."

"Should we go and rescue them directly?"

"Yes." Officer Jenny nodded in agreement. "Let's go, let's go rescue them now."

……

……

When Su Yu and Officer Jenny arrived at the place where the Pokémon were being held...

The teams that broke in from other entrances also cleared out the poachers in the base and rushed to meet up with Officer Jenny.

Officer Jenny directed Arcanine to break the iron gate that held the Pokémon, releasing them all. Among them were quite a few members of the Tropius tribe.

"Roar!" The tropical dragon was overjoyed to see its people. After waiting for so long, it had finally rescued its people.

It ran forward, and its people were quite surprised when they saw it.

"Hey..." So it was you who helped them save us?

The tropical dragons asked in confusion.

Meanwhile, many more tropical dragons came up and touched necks with Su Yu's tropical dragon as a sign of affection, and for a moment, both sides were filled with tears.

Su Yu noticed the wounds on many of the rescued tropical dragons, some of which were quite severe. It seemed these poachers had abused them frequently.

"These poachers actually abuse the Pokémon they capture? Shouldn't the Pokémon be in good condition to fetch a better price?" Su Yu asked in confusion.

Upon hearing this, Miss Officer Jenny sneered:

"If they don't mistreat them, how can they possibly make these Pokémon behave? That's why I hate poachers. I can't do anything about the other leagues, but at least with the Eastern League, I will do everything in my power to eliminate these poachers."

This surprised Su Yu greatly. So... did this Miss Officer Jenny have such lofty ideals?

Perhaps... it is precisely because of the efforts of people like Officer Jenny that the Eastern Alliance has been able to improve and become better as it is now.

In his previous life, when Su Yu read novels, he never thought that the Pokémon world was a utopian world.

If such a world truly exists, it would undoubtedly be inseparable from the continuous efforts of its founders. After all, utopia doesn't simply appear out of thin air.

If we really want to bring utopia to life through imagination, then we might as well just dream about it.

Just as Su Yu was witnessing this touching scene of the tropical dragon reuniting with its brethren, Officer Jenny suddenly said:

"By the way... after this mission is over, I should be transferred back to headquarters, and I probably won't be operating in this area anymore."

"If you need anything later, just contact this person. He'll help you with anything."

As she spoke, Miss Officer Jenny handed Su Yu a slip of paper with a phone number written on it.

Taking the note, Su Yu was quite surprised. He wasn't surprised by the note itself, but rather by why this Miss Officer Jenny was being so kind to him.

Although they knew each other, they weren't close enough that Miss Officer Jenny would have to ask a friend to help her when she was about to leave.

Seeing how serious Miss Officer Jenny was, Su Yu realized that this friend's strength and status were probably extraordinary. This made Su Yu even more surprised.

Could it be...?

As expected, Officer Jenny's next sentence confirmed Su Yu's guess.

"If you have time, take your Growlithe back to Officer Jenny. I'll be waiting for you there."

Officer Jenny's Territory is a region dominated by the Officer Jenny family, who are the lords there. The rights the Officer Jenny family holds there are similar to Su Yu's ownership of his ranch; they can dispose of their territory at will.

It can also be understood as a large-scale ranch.

The implication of Officer Jenny's suggestion to bring Growlithe back to Officer Jenny's territory is self-evident.

"So... I really am a member of the Officer Jenny family?" Su Yu asked in surprise.

However, the shock only lasted for a moment before Su Yu immediately collapsed again. Wait a minute, so what if I'm a member of the Officer Jenny family? I don't want to join the security system.

Having spent so much time in his past life, in this life, Su Yu only wants to manage his own ranch properly and naturally doesn't want to get involved in those complicated matters.

As a rancher, Officer Jenny's family identity wasn't particularly important; at most, it just added some background information to Su Yu.

However, the green caterpillar on his shoulder didn't think so. The green caterpillar was really afraid that Su Yu would actually follow this Officer Jenny to that so-called Officer Jenny territory and never come back.

Immediately, the caterpillar began to hiss and hiss, appearing very anxious.

Seeing this, Su Yu smiled and said:

"It's alright, don't worry, I won't leave the ranch."

"After all, you are there, and right now, you are the most important people to me."

Su Yu has always believed that humans and Pokémon should perhaps be like family.

Aside from the bonds and synergy that are valued and pursued in battles, the most important bond between humans and Pokémon is family.

The so-called trainer and Pokémon, the so-called partners, the so-called friendship—those relationships are all too superficial. Su Yu believes that none of these can describe his relationship with the Pokémon on the ranch.

We've lived together, experienced spring, summer, autumn, and winter together, and run a ranch together. Even years or decades from now, when I'm old, we'll still live together, knowing each other well and helping one another.

How could such a relationship be described by words like friendship?

We... should be family.

(End of this chapter)