In the pitch-black night, two Toxel frantically ran hand-in-hand through the forest. They were brothers.
Not long ago, they had caused an explosion — to be precise, it was the younger brother who caused it.
They were Pokémon from a circus. Today was the circus's first visit to a nearby town. The daytime performance had been successful, so the ringmaster held a celebration banquet that evening.
At the banquet, the ringmaster drank too much and was stumbling back to his tent in a daze when the younger Toxel spotted him. He sneaked into the ringmaster's tent and used his weak electric current to damage the electrical circuits.
The circus ringmaster was the person the younger Toxel hated most. He had sworn that one day he would kill this man!
After completing his sabotage, the younger Toxel was terrified. He returned to the shack he shared with his brother looking visibly panicked, which his brother immediately noticed.
Just as the older brother was about to ask what had happened, the ringmaster's tent exploded violently. Flames shot into the sky, and the entire circus fell into chaos, with screams coming from everywhere.
Connecting his brother's suspicious behavior to the explosion, the older brother wasted no time, grabbing his younger brother and fleeing.
At that moment, everyone in the circus was focused on the ringmaster's exploding tent — who had time to notice the two brothers? They successfully escaped from the circus.
The brothers charged into the night without looking back. The older brother pulled along his dazed younger sibling, running and running, even though they couldn't see the path ahead in the darkness.
Crossing meadows and passing through forests, the brothers ran for an unknown amount of time until a golden light began to rise faintly on the horizon.
Dawn had arrived.
A mountain appeared before them, and without hesitation, the older brother led his younger sibling into it.
Having run all night, the brothers were completely exhausted. They found a small, inconspicuous cave and squeezed inside. The older brother held his younger brother tightly, and soon the little one fell asleep in his embrace.
Seeing that his brother was asleep, the older Toxel's eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he unconsciously drifted off as well.
The older Toxel had a beautiful dream where he met their idol, the Brionne Band. Not only did the brothers attend their concert in person, but they were also invited by Brionne to become members of the band.
Brionne even praised the brothers as musical geniuses.
The older brother couldn't help but chuckle, and as he laughed, he woke up from his dream.
Ah~ It was just a dream!
The older brother felt disappointed.
Looking around at the unfamiliar environment, the older Toxel suddenly remembered that they had escaped from the circus the night before.
Wait... where was his brother?
The older brother searched around the cave but couldn't find his younger brother. Panicking, he crawled out of the cave just in time to see his brother returning from outside, arms full of leaves.
"Brother!"
The older brother ran over and hugged his sibling. The younger brother grinned and said, "Brother, look at all the food I found! We won't have to go hungry now."
Originally, the younger brother had hoped to find berries in the mountains, but since he couldn't find any, he had to settle for gathering some edible leaves instead.
The leaves didn't taste good, but the brothers still devoured them heartily. They weren't afraid of poison since they were Poison-type Pokémon — toxins that entered their bodies would be automatically filtered and stored in their specialized poison sacs.
Back at the circus, they were often punished by not being allowed to eat. When starving, they would secretly drink sewage water. Their poison sacs could filter out toxins from the sewage, store them, and absorb nutrients from the water.
They could also convert poison into electrical energy stored in their electric sacs. These weak electric currents powered their circus performances.
After their "feast", the brothers ventured deeper into the mountains, fearing recapture by the circus people.
Before they knew it, they had been wandering in the deep mountains for over ten days. When hungry, they ate leaves, roots, grass, or mushrooms — being immune to toxins, they consumed whatever they found.
Occasionally, predators would try to hunt them. Though weak and usually unable to escape, the brothers had a natural defense — as soon as predators took them into their mouths, the poison and electricity in their bodies caused a strong, tingling paralysis, forcing the predators to spit them back out.
So despite being caught by predators several times over these ten-plus days, they always remained safe.
One day, the younger Toxel spotted a berry tree on a steep cliff with several delicious-looking berries hanging from it.
His face lit up with joy, and he quickly climbed the cliff to pick the berries. After subsisting on leaves and roots for so long, he naturally wanted to improve their diet.
But as he climbed, he discovered a cave next to the berry tree, and a huge head slowly emerged from it.
It was a Steelix!
"ROAR!!!"
The Steelix roared and lunged to bite the younger brother. Fortunately, he let go in time and jumped down from the cliff. Though he avoided the Steelix's attack, he injured his leg in the fall.
The older brother, having already seen what was happening, ran over to pick up his sibling before fleeing.
The massive Steelix descended from the cliff in the blink of an eye and pursued them. Being a Steel and Ground-type Pokémon, it was immune to poison and electricity. To the Steelix, the brothers were just tasty little snacks.
Small and slow, the brothers were about to be caught when they fortunately came upon a river.
Without hesitation, the older brother jumped in while carrying his younger sibling. The Steelix stared at the turbulent river surface for a while before finally turning away.
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Meanwhile, a Larvitar had made significant progress in strength after a month of training.
The experience of being bullied by Corviknight had left a lasting impression. Whenever he had time, he would go to the cliff where the Corviknights nested and secretly use his Sandstorm ability.
As a result, sandstorms occurred almost daily around the cliff. The sandstorms didn't much affect the Steel-type Corviknights, but the Rookidee and Corvisquire suffered terribly.
Without the Steel type to defend against the sandstorms, they would be hit as soon as they flew out of their nests, losing their ability to fight before flying very far.
The entire Corviknight group became quite miserable.
On this day, after teasing the Corviknight group again, Larvitar was heading back to his cave with satisfaction when he suddenly spotted two unfamiliar Pokémon lying by the river.
Upon closer inspection, he saw that the two Pokémon were unconscious in the water and appeared to be badly injured.
Feeling a flash of compassion, Larvitar couldn't resist and dragged the two Pokémon back to his cave, one in each hand.
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When the older Toxel woke up, he found himself in a dimly lit cave. Twinkling lights on the walls, however, allowed him to see his surroundings clearly.
To his surprise, both his and his brother's injuries had been treated, with medicine even applied to their wounds.
Crunch~ Crunch~ Crunch~
A strange sound caught his attention. The older Toxel turned to look and saw a small figure in the darkness constantly stuffing stones into its mouth.
At first, he was startled, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was an unfamiliar Pokémon about the same size as himself.
At that moment, Larvitar also noticed that the older Toxel had awakened.
"You're awake!" He got up, wiggling his little bottom.
Seeing Larvitar approach, the older Toxel instinctively hugged his brother and backed away a couple of steps. This gesture infuriated Larvitar.
"What do you mean? I saved you guys, and this is how you treat me?"
Larvitar stomped his little feet, waving his small hands at the older Toxel, his little mouth chattering away with accusations.
The older Toxel was completely bewildered by his rapid-fire words and instinctively replied, "S-sorry."
Seeing the older Toxel apologize, Larvitar nodded with satisfaction.
"Are you hungry?"
He asked, holding up a piece of lapis lazuli in his hand.
Looking at the stone, the older Toxel shook his head. Though he wasn't particularly picky about food, eating stones... that was a bit too much even for him.
At that moment, Larvitar seemed to remember something. He ran to the corner and pulled out a stylish backpack, the kind the older Toxel had seen on spectators at the circus before. They were said to cost quite a lot of money.
Seeing the older Toxel staring at his backpack, Larvitar couldn't help but boast:
"Nice, isn't it? Cole gave it to me."
Although the older Toxel had no idea who Cole was, he could tell that Larvitar really liked this person, just as he himself loved his brother.
Larvitar rummaged through the backpack for a moment before pulling out a jar, from which he poured several crystal-clear Poké Puffs.
Poké Puffs!
The older Toxel couldn't help but swallow. He had only ever seen the ringmaster's Kingler eat these, and Kingler's definitely didn't look as high-quality as these.
Larvitar ran to the older Toxel's side and offered him the Poké Puffs. "Would you like some? Cole left them for me. They're delicious!"
For a moment, the older Toxel didn't know whether to envy or pity this guy. He was abandoned by his trainer, wasn't he? Yet his trainer had left him all these nice things.
"Can... can I really have some?" Faced with such premium items, the older Toxel hesitated, not daring to reach out for them.
Just then, the younger Toxel woke up. Without saying a word, he snatched the Poké Puffs from Larvitar's hand, stuffed two into his brother's mouth, and then two into his own.
The moment the Poké Puffs entered his mouth, the older Toxel felt like he was tasting the most delicious thing in the world. Tears unconsciously streamed down his face.
Seeing his brother cry, the younger Toxel quickly hugged him.
Having eaten Larvitar's food, the older Toxel felt quite embarrassed, so he decided to stay with his brother and keep the lonely Larvitar company. After all, they had nowhere else to go.
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Meanwhile, after nearly a month of careful cultivation by Cole and Bayleef, the sapling that had sprouted from the Starf tree root had finally grown taller than a person. Cole had finished organizing its internal energy, completely repairing its tree diagram.
Through energy detection instruments, it was confirmed that this recently sprouted berry tree was indeed an S-class tree.
The 50 million hadn't been wasted! He was now someone who owned an S-class berry tree.
Through continuous refinement of the tree's energy, Cole discovered something interesting: the core of this S-class berry tree's diagram contained intricate patterns that differed from other trees of the same species.
He had more than one Starf tree, but the other one's diagram didn't have similar patterns.
This reminded Cole of the energy circuit differences between Carbink and Diancie; there seemed to be parallels between the two. Could this special pattern be the key to a berry tree growing to S-class?
Unfortunately, without a second S-class berry tree, Cole had insufficient samples and couldn't verify his hypothesis.
Nevertheless, he still spent time each day analyzing that pattern. If his guess was correct, decoding the secret of this pattern might enable him to cultivate more S-class berry trees earlier than expected.
On this day, just as Cole returned from the Starf tree, his phone suddenly rang. He picked it up and saw a notification that his account had received a transfer of nearly two million.
The source of the payment was the streaming platform where the Brionne Band conducted their live broadcasts.
Cole was surprised; he hadn't expected that in less than a month, Brionne and the others would earn so much money.
The little princess had registered the platform account using his identity, so naturally the money was transferred to his account.
Just then, Brionne returned home, so Cole shared the good news. It was so happy that it almost started dancing.
Who wouldn't be happy about making money?
Cole said, "Go get everyone from the band. I have something to discuss with you all."
Although Brionne was curious, it followed the instructions. Soon, all five members of the band had assembled.
"Today, we received the payment from the platform." Cole said, looking at everyone, "I presume you've already heard about it from Brionne."
The Pokémon all nodded simultaneously, their faces beaming with joy. They knew he wouldn't take their money; it would all be theirs. They had earned money through live streaming before, but never this much.
"Regarding the distribution of this money, I'd like to explain something first. You were able to earn such a large sum thanks to Piers's music, which played a crucial role. So I think we should give one-fifth of this money to him. Although we don't have a formal contract, we should act with integrity. Now I want to ask for your opinions, since this money belongs to you."
After speaking, Cole looked at the Pokémon, waiting for their response.
The Pokémon glanced at each other, and finally Brionne, as the leader and lead vocalist, was the first to speak up.
"Bri~ Brionne~" — I have no objections!
With the leader having spoken, the other Pokémon also expressed their agreement. They couldn't be Pokémon without integrity!
"Excellent!" Cole nodded with satisfaction. "Then it's settled. From now on, whenever you perform Piers's songs, you'll need to share one-fifth of the income with him."
The Pokémon all indicated they had no objections.
"Next is the internal distribution among yourselves. It will remain the same as before: after deducting Piers's share, the remainder will be split equally among the five of you. However, since the leader and lead vocalist contribute the most to the band, you should each give 10% of your earnings to the leader.
I'll keep all your earnings safe with me and won't touch a single cent. If you need anything, you can come to me anytime.
Does anyone have any objections to what I've said? If you do, speak up now, because it won't count if you bring it up later!"
{T/N: To help you better understand how the distribution will work, here's the breakdown using the earned amount as an example: P$2,000,000
→ Piers (only when his music is used) = P$400,000 (1/5)
→ P$1,600,000/5 = P$320,000 (for each member)
→ Brionne (leader & singer) = P$320,000 + P$32,000×4 = P$448,000}
"Bri~ Bri~" — No objections!
Once again, Brionne took the lead.
Seeing that no one had any objections, Cole nodded, "That's all I wanted to say. You can all go now if you don't have anything else."
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