Winning It Over

In this situation, Heiduo could only try to reason with Weedle.

But Weedle clearly hadn't listened to him. It stubbornly twisted its body and crawled forward inch by inch.

"...Sigh." Heiduo stopped Weedle. Weedle raised its head, glanced at him, and tried to go around him, but ultimately drooped weakly.

It had fainted.

"Figures. If a few words could make you change your mind, you wouldn't have pushed yourself this far." Heiduo took out some Potion, applied it to Weedle's body, then wrapped it in gauze.

This was only first aid. It would need to be taken to a Pokémon Center before it could fully recover.

Shuangye came over to Heiduo's side, lowered her head, and stared directly at Weedle's gauze-wrapped body.

"...Releasing Pokémon has become an extremely common occurrence. Before relevant laws are enacted, there's nothing we can do."

It was the first thing she had said of her own accord all day.

Heiduo glanced at her. It wasn't hard to understand the actions of those trainers who released Pokémon.

Not everyone had the financial means to support training six or more Pokémon.

When money was tight, most trainers chose to release the weaker Pokémon in their teams, the ones with less potential.

These Pokémon were generally Raticate, Caterpie, and the like.

Yet although they were weak, they had extremely strong reproductive abilities. They could disrupt the forest's ecosystem, forcing certain once-common Pokémon to become rare and valuable.

Eevee was one such victim.

Although the Pokémon League's vigorous breeding efforts in recent years had expanded the population of Eevee, which struggled to reproduce, the territory continuously claimed by Pokémon like Rattata was no joke.

Maybe in seventy or eighty years, this world would no longer be called the Pokémon world. It would be renamed the Rattata world.

And the root cause of it all was humanity.

"Enough. You don't need to explain it to me." Heiduo picked up Weedle, intending to take it to the Pokémon Center.

Before relevant laws were officially enacted, every explanation sounded like an excuse.

"Goodness, another abandoned Pokémon?"

At East Gate Town's Pokémon Center, Joy said this the moment she saw the wound after unwrapping the gauze.

Heiduo paused, then asked, "Miss Joy, are there many abandoned Pokémon?"

"There have indeed been quite a few more in recent years." Joy carefully treated Weedle's wound, her movements far more professional than Heiduo's amateur efforts.

"Why has it become like this?" Heiduo didn't understand. The times were advancing, technology was improving, and people's ways of thinking should have risen to the next level too. Why were they still capable of such cruel things?

Without turning around, Miss Joy said, "Maybe because the laws are too strict."

"Too strict?" Heiduo was baffled. Laws were supposed to be strict.

"Yes. In the past, trainers could earn money through battles, so raising Pokémon wasn't so expensive. But now, the Pokémon League has classified such behavior as gambling and prohibited trainers from profiting off Pokémon..."

Heiduo could no longer take in what she said afterward.

He had never expected the Pokémon world to have so many twists and turns, completely lacking the utopian atmosphere it had in the anime.

He sat on a sofa in the Pokémon Center lobby. Beside him was the worried Elekid. Though it had known Heiduo for less than a day, this brief time had been enough for it to understand that Heiduo was someone who truly cared about it.

Someone who cared about it even more than Captain Lan did.

Before long, Joy emerged pushing a cart with Weedle lying atop it.

But unlike when he had first seen it, Weedle now looked listless and drained of energy.

"Miss Joy, what happened?" Heiduo asked in astonishment.

Joy showed a troubled expression and sighed helplessly. "After being chased, Pokémon are usually like this."

Heiduo reached out his hand, only to see Weedle shrink back fearfully.

It looked so much like those abandoned Pokémon in the Magearna movie.

That Gulpin seemed to have been like this too.

Heiduo placed his hand on Weedle's horn and gently stroked it.

Of all the parts of Weedle's body, the horn on its forehead was the only place it wouldn't attack when touched.

Sure enough, Weedle didn't attack Heiduo. Instead, it rubbed against his palm.

"Being abandoned must be painful, huh?" Heiduo murmured softly. Weedle's body stiffened, and it lowered its head.

No one wanted to be the one abandoned. Pokémon were no exception.

"Do you know why you were abandoned?" Without any hesitation, Heiduo tore open Weedle's "scar." "Because you're weak. Did you see that Pinsir earlier? It may be an enemy you'll never be able to defeat in your life. It has a pair of huge pincers, while you only have a tiny horn that's barely emerged. Its energy level is around level twenty, while you haven't even reached the level needed for Evolution."

The more Heiduo spoke, the sadder Weedle became. It pressed its head deeply into the white bedding, too ashamed to show its face.

It understood. It had understood the moment that boy chose it. A Weedle too weak even for Evolution, compared to a Pinsir that could give the boy combat strength...

The answer was so simple that it wasn't even multiple choice. It was true or false.

No one would choose the former. No one's money came from the wind.

Even if it scrimped and saved as much as possible, it would still be a burden to the boy.

After all, Beedrill wasn't some rare Pokémon. If someone wanted one, they could catch a whole bunch.

"Are you willing to accept that?" Heiduo asked. Pokémon like Beedrill had never been the wrong choice.

Even if they were, with the system's bonus of two hundred extra stat points, they could stand shoulder to shoulder with Legendary Pokémon!

It was nothing more than food. Once Heiduo learned the knowledge of a Breeder, money would be easy to come by!

Weedle raised its head, clearly not understanding why Heiduo would ask such a question.

Willing? How could it possibly be willing?

No one willingly accepted being abandoned. Self-loathing was merely a word used to escape reality.

If a human had been abandoned, they would probably be thinking about how to get revenge on the person who abandoned them.

But Pokémon were different. They didn't have as many complicated thoughts as humans. Even after being steeped in the great dye vat of human society's Xun, they rarely changed themselves. They would only do one thing—quietly leave.

There were very few cases of abandoned Pokémon attacking their owners. But in the vast majority of cases, it was the owners who abandoned their Pokémon and beat them viciously.

Even if they were unwilling, they would only swallow their broken teeth and endure.

Some people asked why there were such innocent lives in this world.

Heiduo wanted to spit right in that person's face. Just because you're dirty doesn't mean you can't allow others to be clean.

There were no people who were purely black or white, but there were absolutely loyal Pokémon.

"Would you be interested in following me?" Heiduo placed his hand beneath Weedle, signaling for it to climb on if it agreed.

Wariness and confusion appeared in Weedle's eyes.

Having been hurt once, it was only natural for it to be cautious.

"I think you have a lot of potential. I rather like your final Evolution." Heiduo had always had a fair amount of affection for "villainous" Pokémon like Beedrill. It had little to do with Giovanni's Beedrill; mainly, Beedrill's Mega Evolution was simply too cool.

Weedle tilted its head. Its meager mind had a hard time understanding why, after being abandoned by one person, someone else was extending an olive branch to it.

"Everyone has the right to choose. I won't force you." Heiduo withdrew his hand and smiled faintly. "I'll stay here until tomorrow morning. If you're willing, then when I come to find you tomorrow, crawl onto my hand."

To be honest, even if Weedle didn't choose him, Heiduo wouldn't be disappointed. Inviting Weedle had been entirely a spur-of-the-moment decision. If he truly wanted to catch a Beedrill, he only needed to take a stroll in the wild.

Beedrill had never been a rare Pokémon.

"I don't dare make any promises to you, but there is one thing I will never do, and disdain doing." Looking at Weedle's bewildered expression, Heiduo said solemnly, "I will never abandon any Pokémon that belongs to me. If I ever become someone who casually abandons Pokémon, you can take my life! I mean every word!"

If he directly told Weedle that he could make it the strongest Beedrill in the world, that would be far too boastful. Besides, it had only just been abandoned. Rather than speak of such vague and intangible things, it was better to tell it directly that he would stake his life on never abandoning it again.

With that said, Heiduo gave Miss Joy a slight bow.

But before he could leave, Weedle jumped down from the cart and wriggled its way onto Heiduo's arm.

"Buzz."

It let out a soft hum. In truth, it had only understood the general meaning of many things Heiduo said, but that didn't stop it from knowing that this person before it cherished it more than the previous one had.

Unlike its previous position of merely making up the numbers on a team, Heiduo's gaze told Weedle that it was important, not trash casually tossed onto the ground.

And for some reason, a voice in the depths of its heart kept urging it—Follow him! Your future! Everything you have is right before you! Catch up to him!

So it caught up, even though its mind was a complete mess and it had no idea what it had just done.

"Great! I won't let you be disappointed or regret it!" Heiduo pressed his lips together in a smile. This was the best possible outcome.

[ Ding! Achievement "Weedle's Path Home" completed! ]

Nearby, Shuangye looked at Heiduo and Weedle with a somewhat complicated expression.

She truly couldn't understand this person. In her limited life experience, this was the first time she had met someone as complicated as Heiduo.

You could say he was good, but he could ignore laws and regulations to buy rare and valuable Pokémon. You could say he was bad, but the way he treated Weedle didn't seem fake.

Sigh. When would she be able to return to Unova...

Shuangye looked out the window. Since becoming an undercover agent for the International Police, she had not returned to her hometown for five years.

Becoming a police officer at seven might have sounded absurd on Earth, but in this world, it was naked reality.

The simplest example was the protagonist of Pokémon Adventures Black 2, Blake. At only twelve years old, he had even become Looker's superior.

P.S. The sudden surge in views has given me motivation! Love you guys, dear readers! Mwah mwah mwah! (*╯3╰)