After a quick delicious dinner at the cafeteria with his pokemon(not as delicious as his mom's cooking), Clan headed to the Pokemart immediately after.
When they were eating earlier, Clan and Solaris were gobsmack to witness Anguisa's food eating manners. He had ordered several types of foods, to give Solaris some comfort and him from the loss and to prove to Anguisa that, food wouldn't be a problem for them. Well... she seemed to have no taste other than to shove it all down her throat, which, according to Nurse Joy, was a common staple of wild pokemon and especially, rescued pokemon. Eventually, he hoped to reign in the instict to gorge herself as if she'd never get to eat food again, but that would be for a while, because he didn't really liked to stop her, he quite of understood her behavior.
Besides, the more she eats, the less time it would take for her to recover from her malnutrition condition. Also, with the light training that she would be going through in the days they would be staying in the city, she would gain some muscle mass because of training. It's a work in progress already, Clan was confident that she would start training seriously in no time.
Clan could make good use of the training facility of the Pokemon Center, he will challenge through trainers that would be willing to have a pokemon battle. That way, they can see the effectiveness of their efforts through the sessions they had, make good use to hone and refine the skills in battle and see whether there is some more aspects they could improve on. Importantly, through winning battles, they will be earning money! It's very convenient!
Or, in a more uncomplicated and shorts words, their plan for this upcoming few days is to - train, battle, improve, and win money, repeat.
Well, at least that's what Clan outlined it to be, he hoped it would turn out as he would expect.
It didn't take him that long to arrive at the City's Pokemart. Clan had returned Solaris and Anguisa in their pokeballs, so he was alone now. In front of Clan, he was once again subjected to amazement to the magnificence of the Pokemart building, are marts supposed to even be this luxurious looking?
His approach activated the motion tracker from the double doors.
"Welcome." Said a voice. The owner was a woman, standing behind the counter wearing the salesman uniform. "What can we get for you today?"
Clan gave out a humble smile and voiced his purpose. "I'd like to purchase pokemon foods please. Also, can I see the prices of your potions?"
The Pokemart, a convenience store that sells supplies necessary for every pokemon trainers. All Pokemarts will sell standard adventure supplies (such as healing potions and status condition healing items and pokeballs), but some stores will also sell special items that are often unique to the store, Clan heared there was something unique about Jubilife's pokemart, which was, they sell more variety of pokemon foods and equipments, additionally, they would be selling soon the famously anticipated Poketch, a watch invented by the Poketch Corporation. Much of the other merchandise sold at pokemarts is produced by either Silph Co. or the Devon Corporation. Pokemarts will also buy many items from customers, usually at half their normal sale price.
"Certainly!" The saleswoman happily agreed. The woman led Clan to the section - General Medicine. As they walked, Clan's astounded gazes wondered all over the section they are passing through. He saw so many varieties of potions: health potions for recovery, status heals for status conditions, etc. His expression turned in to fright whenever he saw some products being sold for quite a bit too much in his scale.
"May I know what you are specifically looking for?" The woman said with her service smile and gesture.
"I'm... kinda short on healing potions supplies right now. How much does your Super Potion, Antidote and Burn Heal costs?" Clan inquired after a bit of thinking. Super Potion and Antidote would be essential in their venture through routes, since there would be a lot of poison-type pokemons around the forest area, and pokemon battles that they would be having through, without the medical care of a Pokemon Center. Burn Heal would be for the sparring partner of Solaris, which means, for now, is Anguisa. Friendly sparring between pokemons was something Clan would do, since for him, this would be a way for his pokemon to have more ways of interaction.
"Seven-hundred ₽ for Super Potion each, A hundred ₽ for the Antidote and Two-hundred and fifty ₽ for Burn Heal. Lucky for you, we do have a promo still available till midnight. If you purchased a total of three or more products here in this sections, your total amount would be discounted for five percent along with your other purchases." The woman smiled gently and answered Clan.
'Oh Arceus. They were that expensive?' Well Clan learned something important upon hearing that. His parents must have took out some of their personal savings to buy all of the stuff they bought for him. All the more reasons as to not disappoint them.
...
The shopping trip had used up most of his allowance money and it only netted him a few items: A Super Potion(₽700), and Two Burn Heal(₽500), which was now currently sitting at the compartments of his warp sling bag. He posponed on buying the pokemon food and Antidote for now, he left a sufficient amount of money for his pokemon battles, which would be his main money making method.
When he exited the building, Clan was now really looking forward to tomorrow, almost desperate, he is almost broke. He couldn't just ask his parents for more, he don't want to trouble them. He wanted to make them proud and, besides, he wasn't that shameless, he's an adult now, legally, the moment he had gained his trainer ID, the League would consider every trainer an adult even if they haven't reach the age yet.
Ohhhhh, Clan was so fucking looking forward to earning money tomorrow. However... he would make sure his opponent would be a rookie or a year seasoned older that he was, lest he would lose to a more experience trainer and pokemon that would be in a level way beyond for them now.
...
When Clan returned to his room, he had expected that Barry had immediately left after their battle, but he was a little confused when he saw the purple-haired guy he had seen in the room sharing together with them was nowhere to be found, it was Paul, the first placer of this year's PLRE. His belongings also wasn't present in the room, on the contrary different trainers were now on the bed they were at earlier. Maybe he also had decided to continue his travel like Barry had? Then, that's good for Clan. He hadn't like that guy even at the first time they interacted with each other.
Clan then got ready to go to bed, he released Torchic and Anguisa out of their pokeballs, the bed had enough space on to fit the human and two little pokemons. After saying his goodnights towards his pokemon, Clan doze off tiredly, his light snores sounded out as he peacefully slept.
...
Two days had now passed rather quickly, Clan's plan of actions were fortunately on spot within his objectives.
Currently, Clan sat down on the training field with his exhausted partners. They had spent the last two days doing nothing but grinding Solaris and Anguisa, both of whom had worked ultra hard to improve and were now totally burned out.
They had been only focusing mainly on two things: Making Solaris and Anguisa stronger in general on their repertoire, and making money. They had not yet started on learning different kinds of moves for Solaris and Anguisa because they had still a lot to improve on with their current move set. This was seen as important to Clan, because their mastery would act as a foundation when they would upgrade his pokemon's moves someday, especially the special attack moves.
Solaris's Ember were now larger than before, his bullet sized embers when he initiates the attack, with the constant training of his accuracy and expertise of the move, he had managed to upped the force and power of the attack, now it looks more than an orb of flames unleashed out of his beak, blazing and hot. It had enough force that when it strucked a head sized rock, it would obligerate it and with the explosion of fire and smoke, the attack was evidently more powerful than ever before. The accuracy of this all out Ember was still a work in progress, so whenever they battle with other trainers, they will only use it in close range and a counter measure as a surprise attack.
Anguisa was no slacker either, she had spent the whole time than just light training. The dragon was furious that she couldn't start her training properly yet because of her condition, but she had put her frustration to good use by training relentlessly. Her stamina needed a lot of work, that's for sure. But, it was only because she was pushing herself too hard. It had eased Clan's nerves when he heard from Nurse Joy that her training didn't at any way affect her malnutrition, but had speed up the healing process, the only thing that really concerned Clan was her humongous eating capacity, Clan's wallet was greatly affected because of this.
He knew that dragon's appetite were huge, but experiencing it first hand were a sight, one could see the impressed looks from Clan and the other watching trainers when they would dine at the Pokemon Center's cafeteria.
Today, Clan had Anguisa start a more different training session than normal, firstly she had shown Clan her current mastery of her moves, and Clan was really excited about it because dragon-type moves were such a cool looking attack to glance at. He was more amazed on her techinques of her Dragon Claw. It was already on par with Solaris's strength and her Dragon Claw were even more destructive than Solaris's when it struck a boulder. Anguisa's face was so smug about it when she had seen the awestruck of her trainer and team mate's face.
Their hard work was already bearing fruit. He couldn't confidently say he would be knocking out Oreburgh City's rock types anytime soon, but his matches with other pokemon trainers were something Clan was happy about.
A few were powerful, with six pokeballs on their belt and a look that suggest that they'd rather use Clan for target practice than battle him, but the rest were just as eager as him. Solaris spectacularly performed well with his matches against their opponents, though, a horsea brought him close because of type advantage, Solaris ended it with a more refined than before, Night Slash, which was powered up by Focus Energy.
Clan also had Anguisa her fair share of battles today, the team were pleased to see that she also had dominated most of her opponents because of their opponent's cluelessness on Anguisa's species and typing. She had also improved, but evidently had too much to learn and work on. Her Bite move was such a miserable thing to look at when Anguisa used it, it was barely recognized as a Bite, the darkness outline on her fangs would flicker out of existence if she would be distracted. Clan had Solaris teach her how to properly use Dark-type energy since he was clearly more adept at it.
After numerous battles, Clan earned with his team a ton of money from the constant wins of their battles. His Pokecredits now totaled to a balance of - 2,600 ₽, and a few papers of tens Pokedollars, which he mainly used for their meals.
For now, Clan and his Pokemon were sprawled out on the dirt in the training facility of the Pokemon Center, getting their breath back as the moon started ro rise in the sky.
Clan felt the cold breezes of Sinnoh, blowing over their skin/feather/scales and finally sat up, looking at Solaris's and Anguisa's adorable exhausted frames. Clan planned to buy a camera soon, to have some memorial pics to look on to when he grows older. The young trainer pulled out their pokeballs and called to them softly. "Both of you really worked hard. Take a break now, okay? We'll heal you up, go grab some quick grub and then we can go to sleep afterwards."
His pokemon just nodded. Even Solaris was too tired to croon a response to him. Clan recalled them to their pokeballs and forced himself to get up, wincing at the soreness of his legs. He trudged his way back to the Pokemon Center, too tired to be watched.
He was too tired to focus on anything else and hadn't notice an old man watching them for a period of long time from a bench not far from where they trained.
"Ohohohohoho! That kid's spirit is full of cheesy passion, how remarkable. It reminded me of the day of how I've met Leon my boy..." The old man was rubbed his goatee habitually. His eyes trailing the back of Clan's trail. "I was about to go back at the hotel and finally leave this region with the family tomorrow... but, that kid really interested me, such fighting spirit and talent. His battle against that Horsea with his Torchic was spectacular in little old me's eyes. As well as his battle days ago with that Rhyhorn. Even when faced with an unfair challenge, he gave it his best, rising back up when beaten down and had triumphed, which most trainers failed to do. How remarkable indeed..."
With that said, the old man with the coolest eyebrows got up from where he sat and followed the faint outline of Clan's silhouette with his hands on the pockets of his jacket.
...
(Cliffhanger alert! HAHAHA. I'm sorry, but I had to, I'll rest for a few days. Also, for those who knew this old man. Don't spoil it to others yet!! I still had a lot of ideas to put in to words for ongoing chapters.)