It's been four hours since the sun rose, and an and half hour since Lazarus arrived back home from the arena.
His pokemon are playing a game of tag among themselves in the garden. And so far Kamish has won every single game, because he can fly. Eidolon came close to beating him a couple of times but the Beldum isn't as fast him.
Aurora has already rage quit the game. And from now on she will not be playing tag with pokemon who can fly. She made Sol join in on her little rebellion, and they are playing their own fair game of tag on the ground.
Lazarus is inside his living room and is looking through the list of supplies they will be taking on their journey. They are set to leave in a few hours.
He is wearing his new trainer gear. Black compression shirt and a white jacket with lots of pockets on his upper body. Cargo pants with even more pockets on his lower body. Magnetic gloves for his hands and utility belt on his waist. The tactical boots he is wearing are optimized for durability and grip. And visor over his eyes is the best money can buy.
"Hmm, Everything's good here" He mutters after double checking the list, "Just need to wait for the food now."
A shipment of nutrient packs and pokemon food is supposed to arrive at his doorstep in a few hours. So, he decides to go and check up on his pokemon until it arrives.
Stepping out onto the porch, the finds them playing.
"Eidolon!" He shouts to get his steel and psychic pokemon's attention.
Eidolon looks towards him and sees him wave. The momentary distraction lets Kamish catch up to him and tag him with his tail, which makes the steel pokemon lose again.
"Come." Lazarus says.
Eidolon floats towards his trainer with Kamish following behind.
"We will be leaving in a few hours. I want to check if you guys are used to the psychic link. Connect me to everyone."
Eidolon does as he is told, and flares his psychic energy. He locates the unique mental signature of each of his siblings and his trainer and reaches out to them.
Lazarus first and then Kamish.
Aurora and Sol are surprised by the sudden feeling of something intruding into their mind but they know it's Eidolon so they don't resist.
Lazarus can feel what each of his pokemon is feeling, Sol is nervous at being able to feel so many pokemon's feelings, Aurora and Kamish are excited. Eidolon is curious what Lazarus is going to say next.
"Make it a habit to always be connected to me whenever you are outside your pokeball. Out there we might find pokemon who decides to attack my mind, so I'll need you to protect me."
Eidolon conveys his understanding to Lazarus.
Lazarus smiles, then psychically says, 'Aurora, Sol, can you guys hear me?'
Lazarus continues after he gets a yes, 'I know this is new to you guys, but you need to get used to this. We will be talking like this from now on whenever possible. It will let each of us actually talk to each other and also help me understand how you guys are feeling. Psychic links work by communicating intent, if you wish to say something, convey that to me and the link will help me understand. The more we do this the better we'll be able to communicate.'
He feels he excitement from every one of his pokemon, especially Kamish and Aurora. They have been with him the longest and being able to talk so intimately to him makes both of them very happy.
'Alright so any questions?'
Right after he says that his mind is barraged with all kinds of information. Most of it makes no sense, his pokemon are still learning how to do this, eventually they'll be able to say what they want to say but for now only Eidolon makes any sense.
Lazarus chuckles, 'One by one guys. I can't focus when all of you do it at the same time. Eidolon you go first.'
Eidolon tries to project his question into Lazarus's mind.
And from what Lazarus can understand, his steel pokemon is asking him where they are going? or something along those lines. The communication is never crystal clear, and ultimately it all comes down to how well the pokemon and trainer know each other.
'Trust me you are going to love that place. I've never been there myself but from what I have seen, it's beautiful. We will be adventuring and training for an entire month, it's going to be fun, but also dangerous so we'll all need to be vigilant.'
Lazarus spends the next hour and half teaching his pokemon how to use the psychic link.
They stop when the food delivery arrives. Lazarus picks it up from the security and brings it inside.
He takes the huge boxes filled with ready to eat food food packs and pokeblocks and places it on top of the table, there is already another black box there.
Lazarus sighs when he sees he black box. It's from his father, the 'extra equipment' he told Lazarus to take with him.
He opens the black box, inside is a stun gun, some cartilages and a charger for it, and an obsidian knife.
The knife is pure black in color, it has the edge thickness of just 3 nanometers. It comes with a sheath for the utility belt.
The gun shoots out electrical charges and uses the cartilages that are charged by solar energy. It is also the most lethal man made weapon that a human can legally own. Still need a license from the league for it, but that's not a problem for Arthur Hawke.
He wears stun gun inside his jacket, it comes with a sling to hold the gun to the left of his obliques so he can quickly reach it with his right hand.
'So, you guys ready' He asks his pokemon, and smiles when he gets his answer, "Then let's go."
Inside his garage, Lazarus loads the last box of food into the back of his off road vehicle.
The Hawke Cruiser is an expensive piece of machinery, it is made for off road terrain. It comes with 4 doors with a spacious cargo bay. The metallic roof rack can deploy drones on top of being great for storage. The tires on it are built for maximum grip. Retractable metal grills protect the window.
The cruiser is loaded with everything Lazarus needs, medication, food, tent, water filter, a spare tire on the back and more.
"All locked and loaded." Lazarus says as he gets into the driver's seat.
Aurora has claimed the seat next to him, so Sol, Kamish and Eidolon are sitting in the back.
Sol is in the middle, with Kamish and Eidolon both looking out of the window. One the way back here Eidolon loved the scenery, he's never seen anything beyond the Battle Arena and the house so he doesn't want to miss anything.
The cruiser leaves the house behind and joins the hundreds of thousands of cars and motorbikes driving on the roads of the city. Their destination lies south west of Jubilife City.
Lazarus puts the cruiser on autodrive, he doesn't want to cause an accident due to being distracted by the constant questions his pokemon are asking about what they see outside, especially Eidolon, he wants to know about everything.
"That's a church dedicated to Arceus, people believe that he created the world."
Eidolon projects another question.
"No, we can't visit it today. This church is pretty small compared to the cathedrals of Hearthome City. I'll take you to visit the biggest one when we go there."
The tall buildings decrease in size and grandeur the more time they spend on the road, more and more greenery can be seen the further away from the heart of Jubilife they get.
Jubilife City is big, it takes them almost four hours to get to the outskirts of the city. And the highway they are on splits into two possible paths. One is an official route to Canalave City, it's protected by pokemon rangers constantly patrolling it, the other leads to a ranger outpost that falls just before the Obsidian Fields.
Lazarus takes the road that leads to the outpost. It will be sun down soon, they'll spend the night at the outpost before leaving for the fields in the morning.