"Sure, that sounds fair to me." Aleron shrugged. "Like I said, any of those three I can re-teach him later if I have to."

"Alrighty, then," Margaret said, grinning. "Then I'll do that, win myself my last badge for the region, and then come home for a while to see what's going on with the Ralts. Sound like a plan?"

"Sure. Sounds good to me." Aleron grinned briefly. "See you in a while, then. Good luck with the gym."

"Thanks," Margaret said. With that, she hung up and looked at the pokeball. She headed outside with it, to the lake that lay between the town and Dragon's Den. "Alright, you," she said, letting Gyarados out, "we need to have a bit of a chat here, because I need your help to take down a dragon-type gym and I need you to agree to learn Ice Beam to do it."

Gyarados rumbled, but he didn't really sound threatening. He didn't mind so much, since it would give him a new move to use to terrorize his trainer, so he lowered himself down closer to her level.

Margaret didn't need to be able to understand him to know he was mostly grumbling for show.

"That's what I thought," she said. She rolled her eyes a bit. "You really shouldn't rebel against Aleron so much, it's hard enough for her with you being a water-type." Not that Gyarados cared, she was sure, but she wanted to say it anyways. Digging into her bag, she pulled out the TM for Ice Beam. "Alright, this is going to replace Strength, since Strength won't do too much good against dragon-types, anyways."

Gyarados rumbled again to show he understood. And really it was far too much fun pestering his trainer to give that up. Especially since he couldn't terrorize the legendaries.

Margaret just rolled her eyes and used the TM on him.

"There," she said. "Feel like taking down a bunch of dragons?"

If it was possible for Gyarados to grin, he would have. Instead, he just rumbled, twitching his tail to send a nice little wave crashing off to the side.

"I'll take that as a yes," Margaret said. She recalled the Gyarados, and headed towards the gym. Time to get her last badge. The battle was longer than she thought it would be, and she hadn't expected the dragon-types to be quite so Thunder-happy, but Gyarados seemed to have fun regardless. Once she'd earned her badge, Margaret headed straight back to the ranch. It was time to go home for a little while.

Aleron was just lounging around most of the time, making sure everyone behaved properly. Which was harder than she expected sometimes, but she managed to make them behave well enough anyway.

Finally, Margaret got back to the ranch.

"I'm home!" she called, releasing her group and heading inside.

"I'm out back!" Aleron called back. She had Torchic in her lap, checking him over and grooming him while she was at it. He looked like he was in bliss.

"Natu has been looking after the Ralts."

"Alright," Margaret replied when she saw her friend. "I brought Big Red back with minimal bumps and bruises." She grinned. "And apparently he'll respond to that fun little nickname, although he might react differently to it for you." She glanced around, but didn't see her Natu or the new Ralts. "Are they inside?"

Aleron snorted. Oh she could just see him soaking her because she tried to call him that.

"Yeah, I sent them inside when they started talking too much for Shaymin and Suicune. Those two are napping." She nodded to the lump of the two off to the side. "I figured it would be better to avert disaster and just herd your two inside."

"Good plan," Margaret said. "Alright, I'll head inside to see what they're up to." She blinked when she remembered something. "Oh, and the Celebi egg is in my bag." Getting up, she went to get it. It didn't seem any closer to hatching than before, although it was still a bit warm under her hands. She went and set it in the cave with the others, and then went to see what Natu and Ralts were up to.

Natu was chattering away, like usual, but as soon as Margaret came into the room, the Ralts seemed to go silent and become very shy. It shrank back a little even as Natu hopped over to Margaret and fluttered up to her shoulder to nuzzle her face.

"Hey, sweetie," she said affectionately to the little bird. Natu chirped more, and fluttered back down to Ralts. Margaret could hear Natu trying to convince Ralts to get closer, that the trainer was nice and friendly and loved them, but the little Ralts just shook its head and backed up a bit. That was a little worrisome to Margaret; psychic-types were usually reserved, but typically not outright timid. She knew better than to try to force it, though, and instead settled onto the couch. Almost as soon as she did, Mew appeared out of nowhere and glomped onto her head.

"Mew!" it squeaked joyfully, hugging the side of her head.

"Hey!" Margaret said, trying to pry the pokemon off of her. "Mew, really, I wasn't gone that long! Come on, let go, please?"

"Mew!" Mew said stubbornly, holding on. After a few more futile tries, Margaret sighed and got up again and went to the back door. "Aleron, help me get him off, he's attached himself to my head!"

Aleron laughed. "Are you kidding me? I'm not getting between you two!" She grinned at the sight of them. "Besides, he's just so cute all glommed onto your head like that!"

Vulpix snorted and looked over at Suicune, who snorted as well and trotted over casually to knock Aleron flat on her butt. And then pin her down by sitting on her.

"Ack! Help, heavy legendary! Can't breathe!"

"I'm sorry, I can't see what happened, I have a Mew on my head," Margaret replied, grinning. She moved Mew's arm a bit so she could see out of both eyes, but didn't move to help Aleron. No, this was fun to watch.

Aleron flailed until Suicune decided that was enough and moved off her. Then Aleron grumbled as she got up, panting a bit, and went to go help pry Mew off Margaret.

Between the two of them, they managed to get Mew to sit on her shoulders, rather than clinging to half of her face.

"Thanks," she said. She glanced around the yard, and grinned a bit when she saw both Espeon and Jolteon watching over a little Eevee pup. "Aww, look at them," she said, nodding to them.

Aleron grinned. "I know. Jolteon's been very protective of the little Eevee in Espeon's absence. They make a darling little family." She grinned as she watched them.

"Although I don't know what we're going to do if we get too many more little Eevees."

"...Maybe we could give a few to the Professors to give out to newbies?" Margaret suggested. "We're within a day of both Professor Elm and Professor Oak, and just a phone call from Birch, Rowan, and Juniper." She shrugged. "I mean, we've been to every region and at least met all the Professors. And Eevees are rare even in Kanto, and they're native to the region."

Aleron nodded. "Yeah, that's a good idea. That would be great, actually. And Eevees are rare enough that the newbie would have a somewhat easier time of it, and we wouldn't have to worry about overbreeding or anything."

"We can start with Oak and Elm," Margaret said. "To see how well it would go over, if we do end up with more Eevees."

Aleron nodded. "Yeah. i don't think we'll have to worry about that for a little while at least." She shrugged and moved over into the kitchen to make some coffee.

"So, how did things go?"