After taking down four titans, one I should not have been able to beat but scraped through because my pelipper is a god and I am really glad it had soak, I had completed my loop of Paldea and arrived at Artazon, the town of art and flowers.
After a long road trip mostly seeing sights and darting past pokemon I could not challenge - including several painful experiences on a lake, I decided to take things slow. Take photos using the rotom phone instead of just taking screenshots. Walk with the B-Team I had assembled to tackle the gym to build some trust.
I clearly can't use pelipper here. In South Province (Area One) there was a TM I wasn't supposed to get - if I recall correctly the TM for Air Slash is out on a small island in a pond, and you need to have either bested the titan of sky or titan of steel to nab it. Maybe you could make due with the titan of stone. But with Let's Go mode, I sent a flying pokemon to fight the pokemon on that island, and they brought the TM back with them... on my way to university in the prologue. For water and flying coverage, I caught a wingull with the hydration ability (because rain teams are cool and I'll figure out what pokemon has drizzle later,) and meant to teach it the more readily accessible Air Cutter TM... but mixed up my names.
Either way, tinkatink and I are going for a walk. I take a picture of her next to the stretching sunflora statues. While bashful, she's somewhat quick tempered and urges me forward, even though if I run at a full clip she can't keep up.
There's Blossoming Infinity, a work by an unknown artist. According to the nearby art enthusist, this is apparently a famous piece, even if she doesn't get it. A TM for Fling sits in front of the flower shaped statue, the glow giving the flower it's stamen when viewed from the viewing platform - which the artist is not on, looking at it from the wrong angle. Brassius's pieces have his names attached to them, so this work isn't his - or at least not all his. I like to think the work was his originally, but a passerby tried tossing something into the opening - either as a game or mistaking it as a trash can. Brassius had it left as is, but changed the credit on the plaque because his contributions to the piece are miniscule compared to that of the unknown passerby.
I pull up my rotom phone, wanting to get a picture of this thing. But, one small wrinkle. How do I know that the TM contains Fling? Well, when I pulled out my rotom phone tinkatink was still dashing to catch up with me. I saw tinkatink in the corner of the pixelated rotom phone screen screen slide off the viewing platform and walk over to the item, picking it up and holding it up for me on her metaphorical tip toes, unable to clamber back onto the platform with both her hands occupied.
"Tinkatink, we just defaced artwork, in Artazon of all places! We gotta get outta here, the gym leader's gonna kill us if he figures out what we did!"
Tinkatink makes a 'weh' noise.
