After feeding and giving Zubat medicine, Anthony played around with it a little before going back to his reading, what will he read right now is the general books for the Pokemon Breeder Profession as it was said by his mother Hana that this is one of the requirements to become an associate field researcher, and besides that, this knowledge will be a very good foundation to become a good Pokemon trainer.
The book contains great Pokémon breeders as well as the Pokémon professors who have contributed to Pokémon breeding, which Anthony just gleaned through. What he's interested in is the very start of the Pokémon profession's explanation.
As every other Pokémon fan might speculate, Pokémon breeders, unlike Pokémon trainers who groom pokemons through battles, these professionals use food and hands-on grooming to train and nourish Pokémon. They are also the ones responsible for making Pokemons mate and create strong offspring.
The Pokémon Breeders are under the centralized organization called Breeder's Organization that caters to all Pokémon grooming matters, including food concoction, selective breeding, Pokémon Daycare rearing, as well as recording of the foods of rare pokemons. They created a guideline on what types are harder to raise than the other, Rock and Ghost being the hardest food-wise wise and Normal being the easiest.
To be a qualified Pokémon Breeder, one needs to pass the qualifying exam at the Breeder's headquarters in their respective region. The main headquarters of this organization is in the Hoenn region, and there are tiers of a Pokémon Breeder that can be acquired with experience and a corresponding qualifying exam.
Rank:
Breeder 1: Have theoretical knowledge and small experience in applications of them. These breeders are not allowed to take positions in Pokémon gym breeder teams and will either apply for apprenticeship in Pokémon Daycares and/or become an apprentice of their family if they are a breeder family.
Breeder 2: Have some experience in applying their theoretical Knowledge, they can become part of a gym's breeder team. This is the rank that Day Care owners, or the ones who want to become Day Care owners, have to achieve at the very least.
Master Breeder 1-2: This Rank is for those who are direct apprentices of Doctor Breeder. They are rare and mostly can be seen exploring the world as associate Breeders of Senior breeders for their research.
Doctor Breeder: The Pinnacle, pillar of the Pokémon world. One can only become a Doctor breeder if they have come to have a prospective model of any theories about Pokémon. These Doctors are automatically affiliated with the league for further improvement of the system.
There is a shortage in the middle to high ranks of these professions all over the world because the very first qualifying exams required knowledge in combined Pokémon medicine and Pokémon biology of the two Indigo regions and Hoenn, making studying troublesome.
And by Pokémon biology, there's egg group knowledge, the different species knowledge, their evolution line, as well as their long-term evolutions. These biologies have to be known, one by one, because no Pokémon species, even of the same egg group or the same type, are the same.
In an example of one of the previous Anthony's favorite pokemons, even though a Shroomish and a Breloom are of the same evolution line with the same signature ability "Effect Spore", Shroomish is more inclined to use spores while Breloom is less inclined because of its growing fighting type typing.
Or a Charmander and Charizard having very different nutritional needs because of size, and again, a new typing.
If Anthony is to compute, if the exam requires all knowledge in the whole Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn, then he would need to study 365 different Pokémon species, and if it's up to the Paldea region, then it would be about 954. Thankfully, the exam requirements are just the Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn regions, as the pokemons of these regions are the ones that migrate from each other.
_Man, this will be hard..._
Anthony thought so; however, he, of course, seeks a concrete foundation, the reason why his mother and father can become great trainers.
_Now that I think about it, regional champions in the game, Blue included, are part of the scientific side of things. Like Steven being a geologist... apparently Wallace is a coordinator, so he must also be a breeder, and Lance having 3 Dragonites also proves that he might be dabbling in this knowledge..._
It seems that to become a truly exceptional trainer that can compete on the top level using non-pseudo-legendary like Blue, Wallace, or even the faraway regional champions (in the future) like Geeta and Alder of Paldea and Unova, respectively, one needs to have a certain amount of clout in being a breeder.
_Also, to become a strong enough trainer to be able to train pseudos properly and use them to their full potential like Steven, Cynthia, or Iris, one also needs to become a breeder at some point in their lives, huh..._
Anthony sighed at this and elevated his respect for his mother for having a Breeder 1 license.
_It seems like I'm even the reason why mom didn't challenge the Elite 4 during her later years of training pokemons._
"Zuu! Zuu!"
Anthony, who was deeply immersed in his studies, suddenly heard the voice of the Zubat. He looked at it, its mouth wide open, and into the clock of the living room, it was already 3 pm, time for another meal for the Pokémon and another dosage of the potion. Anthony was also confused as to why his mom didn't give him lunch; however, upon seeing the already cold Curry rice on the coffee table in the middle of the sofa set in the living room, he sighed, thinking how his mother enjoys seeing him doing things on his own.
_I was too absorbed in reading..._
Anthony hurried to make another portion of food for Zubat and made it drink another dosage of the potion, and just when Anthony was about to continued reading, now the content of Zubat's whole biology, the pokemon, as if unsatisfied with the caressing of its head used its right wing and made furling and unfurling motion from its mouth to its right body where no injuries are present.
Anthony looked at it for a second, confused; however, soon he was able to understand what the Zubat was doing, or rather, wanted to do.
"Do you want to... play with me more?"
Anthony smiled a little at this and remembered that in one of the gens' Pokémon entries of Zubat, it was said that they are social pokemons who formed packs, so it was quite understandable for the Zubats to find affection really comforting, especially since it was unable to see without crying. Also, bats in the previous world are very affectionate too, in ways that Anthony would rather not say.
The Zubat nodded at such a question while making "Zuu! Zuu!" sound as if to confirm Anthony's notion.
_Social animals are very easy to befriend... like dogs..._
Anthony went to grab the Dex entry of Zubat and then immediately put his two fingers in front of it. The Zubat, which was slowly gaining its strength, leaned forward and snuggled its head towards Anthony's fingers. Anthony looked at this scene for a moment, noting that at this rate, the chances of him being able to truly have Zubat as his partner would be high.
Now, if this is the game, Anthony won't be happy; it's a damn Zubat, and it has fixed stats. However, in this world, stats do not exist, and even though race differences do, he can work with that somehow. Of course, if Zubat allows itself to be caught by him.
"Zhu... zhu... zhm..."
The Pokémon started biting and chewing the gloved hand of Anthony while letting the human caress its head using the other.
_Isn't it dangerous if they easily get attached to humans? What if I'm a Team Rocket Grunt who catches pokemons all over the world like any other people does?_
Anthony sighed, though he was just thankful that he seemed to be doing a good job in making Zubat recover fast and also support its mental health by not letting it grasp in the dark, as it doesn't have eyes. Anthony started to peruse the book the book where cave pokemons are in, and because Zubats are the menace of the caves of Kanto up to Sinnoh, it was only normal for it to be on the first page.
Generally, Zubats that are not trained by trainers under sunlight have the tendency to become restless and unhealthy during the day. This Zubat seems to be one of them, as it needed a playmate in the day while it scans the house using ultrasonic waves at night.
However, the Zubat in Anthony's house, which adapted to the life of a fruit bat instead of a cave bat, was able to resist daylight more, so Anthony doesn't need to worry about that. These Zubats are social pokemons, known to form groups to harass anyone who enters their territory. Their poison are not that potent, and only the poison of their final evolved form, Crobat, can be considered dangerous in an immediate situation.
This pack-forming survival strategy made Zubat quite weak in solo, making it an unpopular choice of Pokémon among trainers. Zubat fights using the combination of Supersonic, Leech Life, and some Flying-type moves as the most common features of them in the wild.
However, those who have tried to train Zubat and succeeded in doing so reported that it can learn quite a lot of sound based moves given that they specialized in perceiving sound as Golbat and Crobat have eyes which might indicate gradual lowering in sound control proficiency if not trained right, and Flying type moves if the trainer wanted to abandon the sound specialty while naturally, as its synthesis of poison increased, moves like Toxic, Venoshock and more will also become available.
_As expected, generally speaking, the Zubat line is not that impressive, however, the success in training them indicated that they're not inherently weak, it's just that their wild Supersonic + Leech Life combo is more of a group combo and will almost not work in one on one situations, so if the Zubat is not intensively trained until it learned more moves, it won't really become a good pokemon in battle and at best, only good at navigation._
Anthony is not that concerned about the potential for him, as long as the foundation is reinforced, the potential will naturally increase, so if, and only if, Zubat wants to become his partner Pokémon, he will do his best to train what Zubat is best at doing, flying and emitting supersonic sounds.
As for its poison, some proteins can make that potent; in short, breeding knowledge will come in handy.
_Or being an adult who watches random animal facts is the true handy thing here._
Anthony smirked a little at this and continued his reading while also playing with Zubat's small, adorable body.
_________
The days went by as such, every day, Anthony would give Zubat its food while playing with it, and as he had predicted, soon, the already healed Zubat with only a little bit of limping left wing to heal started playing with him all day, making him unable to advance on his studies. However, because of the cheerful and friendly personality of Zubat, Anthony didn't mind.
In these 3 remaining days, Baby Kangaskhan was also forced by Anthony to ask for forgiveness. Even though Baby Kangaskhan struggled with guilt and embarrassment, the baby Kangaskhan managed to apologize, and the social and forgiving heart of Zubat accepted the apology, which made it so that Zubat will have 2 playmates.
Anthony also noticed that his mom is no longer monitoring his way of healing Zubat, which is understandable for Anthony.
Just like that, it was now time for Zubat to get out of its temporary captivity.
Anthony, Baby, and Mama Kangaskhan looked at the little flying blue Zubat who was looking at two Golbats, seemingly its parents. The mama and papa Golbats already forgave the Baby Kangaskhan, too, so no animosity between the two species can be seen.
Instead, the two looked at each other, sadness and reluctance present on their faces, while Anthony, even though his face right now is not exactly the most expressive, also shows a hint of reluctance and, somehow, nervousness on his face.
_I have to ask it..._
Anthony thought, after all, he knew, or inferred what his mom really wanted when she let him take care of Zubat alone, Hana, his mother wanted him to have the Zubat as his first pokemon, and of course, Anthony was already preparing about this moment all this while, even having a little bit of plan about the Pokémon's training direction, yet the words he have to say was seemingly stuck on his throat.
Anthony felt nervous for some reason. After all, Pokemons of his world are just data that you can catch after beating them up, while in this world, Pokemons are intelligent creatures who can understand what he was saying, even though he might not be able to understand them.
Anthony knew that the Zubat wanted to stay with him; this is the reason why he was confident before.
"Zuu..."
Zubat cried out silently towards Anthony, who heaved a deep breath as he firmed his resolve and looked at the two Golbats in front of Zubat and into the Zubat itself.
"Do you want to be my Pokémon?"