Hm... It seemed a bit too easy, honestly, to get the Splash Plate. However, it's still a Pokemon fic, and RPG laws do tend to dictate the early quest items are fairly simple to get.

But this actually raised a question for me I meant to ask before. You've made references to Ash and Gary, from the anime, and Wes and Michael, of the games. Does this fic take place in the universe of the games or the anime? The battles so far seem turn-based enough to make me think the former, but the lack of people named after colors and the addition of Ash and Gary seem to point to the latter. Can you shed some light on this?