"Well, I'm sure he'll get along fine at the farm." Aleron grinned before she switched her attention to Trent.

"And that right there is why I have Jolteon." She pointed at Trent and the Squirtle.

"A Jolteon?" Trent asked. He looked at her as if reassessing her. "...I guess I need to hurry up and train Wooper, then. Electric-types give me problems. But I thought you said you train fire-types?"

"I do. Most of mine are fire-types. But I have my Jolteon and a Pikachu. Jolteon is the stronger of the two." Aleron smirked.

"That..." Was actually kind of a brilliant way to defend against water-types, Trent had to give her that, "...is really kind of weird, but whatever works, I guess."

Aleron snorted. "Uh huh. Odd. If you say so. I've found it works very well." She watched Professor Oak putter around for a few more minutes before he signaled he was ready to go.

"Alright, off we go. Unless you two need longer or want to take that little Squirtle with you?" She raised her eyebrows at them.

The Squirtle promptly hugged Trent's leg again, but he managed to shake it off.

"I've already got six with me," he said. "I can't take on another." He knelt down next to the pokemon. "Besides," he said softly to it, "Someone needs to take care of the other water-types around here, and you must be capable of it."

The Squirtle puffed up a bit with pride and gave a nod. It didn't even need Trent to tell it to go to the pond, it went on its own and jumped in.

Aleron chuckled as she watched the two and set Charmander down to walk next to her as they left. Vulpix jumped up to lay across her shoulders, her tails danging lazily.

"Someone looks spoiled," Quen muttered to Trent.

"She's not spoiled, this is how I always treat her. Besides, I doubt she'd tolerate anything less than this by now." Aleron grinned and rubbed Vulpix's ears.

"Meaning you've spoiled her," Trent said, grinning a bit. Of course, he spoiled his pokemon a bit, too, especially Blastoise and Lady. Of course, Lady needed some spoiling; female Gyarados were fearsome, and oddly still liked to be considered beautiful.

Aleron grinned back at him before she kept walking.

"Alright, it gets a little harder here, so just yell if you need me to slow down." Aleron picked up Charmander and started climbing, putting him up at the top first before making her way up and starting to walk along the fairly even path up there.

Trent nodded and started to climb. It wasn't too bad, yet. He and Quen had definitely been through worse than this.

The rest of the road wasn't bad, although they had to do a bit more climbing. Finally, Aleron stopped when the road curved.

"Alright. If you two head down the path, you'll get to the Falls, and from there it's quite easy to get to Johto."

"Awesome," Trent said as he got to the top of the ledge and helped his brother up. "Thanks for the directions."

"My pleasure. Good luck to both of you." Aleron smiled a little at them and dipped her head to them, starting down a gentle slope towards the farm, which wasn't quite visible from there.

"Brother, you're thinking something," Quen said quietly, watching the other two go.

"Is it just me, or does she seem kind of familiar?" Trent asked his brother finally. "Like, I don't know, we should know her from somewhere?"

Quen shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like we've been here before, and she said she was only in Hoenn briefly. Maybe you just saw her somewhere, or someone who looks like her?"

"Dunno," Trent replied doubtfully. "I swear, I feel like I should know her. I have no idea why."

Quen shrugged, just looking after her for a few moments. He blinked when he noticed some wild Growlithe and Ponyta heading in that direction too, looking quite relaxed.

"Hey. Maybe she's like us, somehow?"

Trent blinked, and looked at his brother.

"You think?" he asked. Thinking back, it made sense.

"Maybe. I mean, that Charmander just latched onto her, and she did have a Vulpix with her. She even admitted she liked fire-types." Quen shrugged. "I guess it's possible. It can't just be us, right?"

"She also admitted to a Jolteon and a Pikachu," Trent pointed out. "I mean, it's possible, but just how likely is it?"

"She also has wild pokemon following her." Quen nodded to the Ponyta and Growlithe. Aleron appeared again briefly to flap her hands at them, but the littlest Ponyta just went over and cuddled against her legs, and she heaved a sigh before she gave up and let them go invade the farm. "See?"

"Kind of like that time we were on the shore, and we were just swarmed by Carvhana and Sharpedo," Trent mused, watching the Ponyta and Growlithe.

"Yeah. It's very much like that." Quen glanced over at him. "Do you want to go check for ourselves?"

"You know, I kind of do," Trent replied, watching after the girl. "It could be interesting."

"Alright, then." Quen started down the hill, keeping a ways behind the girl and the fire-types. He was very curious now.