"What do you mean that they would be difficult?", asked Axel.
"Axel, you must have heard that Kanto and Johto region don't have a good relationship. Actually, both of the regions are competing. Like, Koga is the Elite 4 member of the Johto region but he is only a gym leader of Kanto region.
This clearly showed that Kanto region has more power. There are some islands that the Kanto region is buying from the Johto region. Due to this, the Johto region had made strict rules that if a trainer wants to register in Johto, he would have to use completely new Pokemons in the gym battle. This is done to decrease the influence of other regions, especially Kanto region."
"So, you are saying that the Johto region gym leaders would go hard on Kanto region trainers.", said Axel.
"Yes, but you are a special case."
"How come?"
"Axel, you are the successor of the Pokemon master, and the Pokemon master is from Kanto region. You are also the most talented young trainer in Kanto region. You might not be proud of it but the people and the trainers of the Kanto region definitely are.
Since you are so influential, the Johto region gym leaders would not want you to be the next champion of the Johto region. They also know that you have the talent and the capacity to become the next champion of the Johto region in the future.
So, do you really think that they would go easy on you?"
"This is not fair. I mean, I don't mean any harm to them."
"Of course, it is not fair. Life is not fair. They would give their best and would not treat you like a normal challenger. Gym leaders have decades of experience in gym battles and it would not be easy for you to win."
"Can you tell him what Pokemon would the gym leader use against me?"
"Roy Falkner is an old and experienced gym leader. I think he is over 50 years old and he specializes in bird Pokemons.
There are a lot of flying-type Pokemons in the Johto region but for you, he will only use bird Pokemons cause that is his specialty.
He would definitely use Pidgeot and Fearow. He might also use Noctowl and Murkrow. Those are the Pokemons that he might use. But he could also play you and use other Pokemons like Gyarados and Dragonite. But if you are asking me, I will tell you to focus on bird-type Pokemons."
"Thanks, that would help me a lot."
"Don't worry, that is why I am here and now we need to start your aura training."
"Ok, just give me an hour and I will be right back."
###
Axel was not feeling good about this. He thought that the first gym battle would be easy but now the gym leader would fight with all of his power. Of course, he could not break the rules and he could only use rare-rank Pokemons but fighting an experienced gym leader at full power would be extremely hard.
The gym battles that Axel had against the Kanto gym leaders were different. They just want to check if Axel was a good trainer and if he had trained his Pokemons well. Except for one gym leader, none of the other Kanto gym leaders had fought with full power.
Axel went towards Togetic, Aerodactyl, and Primeape. He started to tell his plans to them. They didn't have much time to focus on the strategy of all the 19 flying-type Pokemons. So, they would concentrate on 4 bird type Pokemons, their strength, and their weakness.
###
After planning about the strategy of all 4 bird-type Pokemons, Axel went to Red for his aura training.
"Axel, you already know about the 7 ways of aura and you also know that it is easier to train all of them in steps.", said Red.
Axel nodded his head. There were 7 ways of aura:
Red- deals with the physical nature of the body. Orange- deals with emotions. Yellow- deals with self-energy and willpower. Green- deals with healing. Blue- deals with intelligence Indigo- deals with mental communication. Violet- deals with awareness of illusions and obtaining a higher consciousness.
"You have already dealt with the first stage and sixth stage. Now, it is time for you to learn the second stage.
Dealing with emotions means first you will have to control your emotions. Dealing it with sheer willpower and with aura techniques are very different. This will be very essential to you during gym battles and also during tide battles.", said Red.
"Red, you have studied the aura stone. Does it have any additional things?"
"Yes, it does. There are a couple of techniques that even I didn't know about and it also tells you to manipulate your aura. When you are able to manipulate it as an extension of your body and also able to give it new forms, then you will have completely mastered aura.
It also goes to great lengths about your aura signature. Every people, every Pokemons has different aura signatures. Till now, we thought that it was like DNA or a fingerprint that is different between every human and Pokemons. But the stone says that since we have different aura signatures, we could also specialize in 1 way of aura as per our signature. Doing so will give us good results.
The stone doesn't tell on how to do it or how could we know about our specialty. However, I have not read all of Aura Stone, I don't have full information."
"Okay. But the stone tells us about the step-wise process. So, first I think we should concentrate on the second step of aura."
"Yes, let's do that."
###
A week passed just like that. Axel was close to learning a new aura technique but he would still need time. In the meantime, Aerodactyl had finally ranked up to rare rank.
He looked at its stats:
---
Pokemon's name: Aerodactyl (Age- 6 months)
Pokemon Nickname: NA
Pokemon Rank: Rare rank
Ability: Pressure (60%)
Hidden ability: Unnerve (45%)
Potential: Black (Monstrous)
Health: 2800/2800 Attack: F
Agility: F Defense: F
Sp. Atk: F Sp. Def: F
Moves: Sandstorm (E) (Lvl 42), Dragon breath (G) (Lvl 39), Assurance (G) (Lvl 37), Wide guard (G) (Lvl 35), Bite (G) (Lvl 33), Stone edge (G) (Lvl 34), Rock polish (G) (Lvl 36), Stealth rock (E) (Lvl 40), Hyper beam (G) (Lvl 35), Iron tail (G) (Lvl 37), Crunch (C) (Lvl 27), Wing attack (G) (Lvl 31), Tail Wind (G) (Lvl 31), Rock Slide (U) (Lvl 18), Fire Fang (C) (Lvl 25), Meteor beam (U) (Lvl 19), Dragon pulse (C) (Lvl 29), Ancient power (U) (Lvl 14)
Hidden Power: Flying (15%)
---
It had reached rare rank and there were massive changes in its stats. First of all, it had learned all the moves that Axel had told it to learn. It had also learned 'Ancient power'.
Axel thought to capitalize on this after the gym battle. 'Sandstorm' and 'Stealth rock' had reached level 40 and both of them had become stronger.
---
Sandstorm (Aerodactyl) (Level 40): The storm is more fierce and it becomes more difficult to open eyes and see the user.
Stealth rock (Aerodactyl) (Level 40): Can use this move for 7 minutes. The rocks are more pointy and it is more hidden than before. Normally, a same-rank Pokemon would not be able to see it.
---
Axel believed that Aerodactyl might be crucial in the gym battles due to the set of its moves. They were going to fight against flying-type Pokemons and 'Sandstorm' was the best counter for them.
After it had ranked up, Axel had a small party with his Pokemons. He could see that Togetic, Aerodactyl, and Primeape were doing well against Pidgeot. After fighting it for some time, they started to notice the strengths and weaknesses of Pidgeot. However, they were still too weak for Pidgeot.
It was finally time for Axel to talk about different types of energies of different typings with Red. Charizard was now close to reaching tier 3 and it needed to specialize on something.
###
"Axel, this is what we have found while training. I am not sure that these are the only types of energies of a selected typing. If we are talking about the fire type, there are 4 of them:
Smoke. Ash. Heat. Flame heart."
"Ok, I have a lot of questions."
"Don't worry, let me first explain. A Pokemon could only reach champion rank if it could have a certain level of mastery over one of these types of energies and if it wants to reach master rank, it needs to master one of these types of energies.
This is one of the conditions for reaching champion and master rank.
Now, you might ask, what if a Pokemon masters all types of energies of the said typing? Like Marcus is doing it. So, would it be better for Charles to do it too?
The answer is simple. It is obvious that if a Pokemon masters all types of energies of the said typing, it would naturally be more powerful than those that have only mastered one typing. There is no question about it.
However, the thing that we have to consider here is time. It takes a huge amount of time for a Pokemon to even have a certain level of mastery over said energy. That is also one of the reasons why most of the Pokemons could reach the champion rank. You must know how many trainers have a champion-rank Pokemon. You could figure it out how hard it is.
Mastering the said energy is extra hard. So, if you want your Charizard to master all types of energies, then think carefully whether it could do all of it in time.", said Red.
"What would you suggest me to do?", asked Axel.
"Axel, you are different from other trainers. You also have a cheat. If you were a normal trainer, then I would not suggest you do it. However, you don't fall in the normal category. I also don't want to encourage you to let your Pokemon master all types of energies. Some of them are not even needed if you look at their battle strategies.
So, it all depends on you. I cannot force you to do it cause they are your Pokemons. I am just telling you the consequences of both of them."
"Thanks for the info. I want to know something. What is the difference between flame heart and heat? They both look the same to me.", asked Axel.
"Good question. You can say that Flame Heart is the upgraded version of Heat. Flame heart means that Pokemon would have a heart of flame. Not in the literal sense, obviously.
If a Pokemon could master flame heart, the fire-type moves would become very deadly. The fire-type moves would start to affect the enemy at the cellular level. This also means that the defense of the Pokemon would become concentrated due to flames. I have even heard that the complete mastery of flame heart could also affect the soul of the enemy."
"Is it that OP?"
"Of course, do you really think that master-rank Pokemons are easy to deal with?"