"Their cores?"  Almond blinked and scratched his lower lip.  "You know, that makes sense.  Maybe there weren't any cores back in our world so those shadow things were free to walk around wherever they wanted since there wasn't anything important that could be destroyed?  Which would make sense here since there's a fairly good chance the shadow things don't want anyone to know of their presence."  He paused as something came to mind.  "But then why kill if their not in the optimal position to do so?  Wouldn't it be better to just move the cores to somewhere safe and then go balls out on whatever world you wanted to destroy?  I don't get the logical."  His eyes narrowed.  "Ugh!  It's like the start of a detective novel, but with pokemon.  You have a crime, and what looks like the method, but its glaring how much information is missing."

"Yes sir."  Almond nodded at the old man, trying his best to hide the excitement he felt with finally getting his own pokemon.  "We really appreciated."  He watched the old man leave.  Poor guy looked physically shaken.  Perhaps he'd gone too far too fast, but there wasn't a lot of time.  Who knows how much damage those things could've done by now.  Taking any more time than what was absolutely necessary would've been morally repugnant.  Knowing that didn't make him feel any better.  Neither did Haruki's lecture.  It was tempting to snap at her, but he swallowed his agitation.  "I know.  I know.  It's just those things.  I don't like the thought of them running around what's basically a childhood home, perverting it, or whatever it is they do, you know?"  

He turned his attention to the pokeballs on the table, with Haruki.  "So here we are, the toughest decision most children in a first world country ever have to make."  He watched Haruki highlight Squirtle's ball.  "How long do you think we'll be here?"  He touched the section above the first ball and bulbasuar appeared.  "I mean, Pewter city has a gym, and lots of the trainers there specialize in rock.  So it would figure there's a lot of rock pokemon moving around.  So if we're just going to be here till we fix what's going on there Squirtle and bulbasaur would be the best choices, but if we're going further into the world..."  His eye moved to the last ball, the one without any readings over it.  "If we're going to go in further then something like fire type that can lay the smack down on quiet a few types would be better."