Queen Of The Forest
With everything in viridian city done and nothing left to do within the small town Steven decided that now was as good a time as any to head towards viridian forest. So after briefly sending a message to professor Oaks Inbox about his progress in training his pokemon Steven left the pokemon center and started heading to the forest. While he was walking with Queen he was thinking about his future plans and the technology of the world. He was currently working on one of his projects, which was to prove the existence of pokemon natures. Now, to Steven, he knew for a fact that every pokemon that was ever born will have a nature that is instilled into them upon birth and usually only very serious trauma could truly change a pokemon's nature. Take his growlithe Smoker for this instance, after speaking to the growlithe he was able to figure out that his growlithe used to be a very outgoing and happy pooch, with a similar attitude to Queens, so Steven assumed that before his father and previous trainer were killed he most likely had a jolly nature and it was because of this event that smokers nature changed and he naturally took to a defensive or neutral style. This could be said to be an outlier with pokemon natures but it was nonetheless different from what steven knew so he had been researching different pokemon as well as conversing with his pokemon to get a better grasp of this research of his. Currently he was writing a thesis paper on the existence of these natures and he was still on the rough draft, where all his notes and choices about how to explain natures were written down. On the rough draft was the actual explanation of how natures work within pokemon and how they help with training pokemon and how it can help if a trainer focuses on either training the stat that corresponds to the nature or training the stats that the nature is effecting in a negative way. Another example of this is Queen, since she was likely a jolly nature pokemon it meant that her speed was naturally better than other bagons but it also meant that she took a hit when it came to empowering special attacks, which is why alot of her training is focused on honing speed and special attacks. This makes her already naturally high speed go up another level and her special attacks that are lacking are always at a normal attack level, which helps tremendously with staying consistent across the board. This was one of the reasons that he had instructed smoker to show queen to properly form fireballs and how to temper the flames and condense the fire energy so that her special attack was not as affected. However knowing about it and explaining it on a basic level was a much harder thing said then done and steven was currently trying to show the effects of this kind of specialized training. He included percentage increases and how different training effected his pokemon in different ways. He wanted to prove that natures were not a single pokemons specialty and wasn't any one pokemon's ability which was something that would be even harder to explain.
Another thing that Steven was researching was of course pokemon abilities. This one was much harder to prove, but after releasing this first thesis, which with stevens speed should be released in about 3- 5 months, steven believed that other researchers would take pokemon abilities seriously even if it was only a suggestion given by him. After all, much like earth, when geniuses are born other people tend to follow that person and take whatever he says in their chosen field of study. Even though this kind of work was tedious and time consuming steven liked it quite abit, because one of stevens passions is training pokemon he considered this as him doing mental training and since it is training steven felt like this was a challenge that only he could tackle and it excited his warrior spirit. Steven knew that with the way he was going, he would probably be called a god or prodigal son by people who would look to his future achievements. This kind of thing wasn't what Steven wanted at all though, he could easily lead the charge and uncover all the secrets that lie in the world all the way until generation 8. For instance a good way to narrow down what type of pokemon nature your pokemon had was to feed it poffins, this actually helped with friendship and other stats.
As Steven was still about a 45 minute walk away from the entrance of the forest, Queen suddenly spoke up,'My lord, I have a question!' she thought to him in a voice full of joy.
Steven looked down at her as they continued walking, pulling hin out of his thoughts on his thesis he replied,'Of course Queen, go ahead'.
Queen continued,'Well the others and me have been talking and we have all come to a conclusion that we do not quite understand with one thing on our adventure my lord' she thought to him in a less joyful tone.
Steven looked at her in surprise and thought to her,'Oh? Whats that?'
Queen stopped and looked at him,'Well, even though we have seen plenty of strong pokemon in the wild, the ones that are at the top of the packs in the wild, they are all perfect for training with us as team members, so why do we not catch them and have join us? Surely that would make us stronger overall correct?'
Steven took on a serious expression and didn't say anything for a minute, having stopped walking completely at this point. He called out the other two team members from their stasis in the pokeballs and looked at them with a serious face and thought to them,'Queen has let me know that you have a problem with the fact that I am not adding more members to the team as we are adventuring, and while I don't like the idea of just catching pokemon and training them without even asking them how they feel. First these pokemon all have pride as leaders in the wild areas. They have fought for possible years among all the other pokemon in the area and they somehow rose to the top because of their own skill and pride. Even if I defeated them in battle they would not easily yield! These pokemon only know how to dominate, they would hate to be oppressed by me and I'm not the type of trainer to oppress my pokemon just for my own sake. Also, I am not going for alot of pokemon, as a normal trainer i can only carry 6 pokemon, and while I will most likely have all the other team members soon, I am choosing very specific pokemon who i think will give us enough combat power to properly defend or attack anyone we come across!' Steven said all this and finally remembered to breath again, taking long breaths to stabilize himself. It had been a long time since steven had gotten truly angry and he sighed loudly and looked at his pokemon.
His pokemon were looking at him stunned as if they were in a daze. Suddenly Prince snapped out of it and suddenly thought out loud,'My lord! I never thought about it like this! You are going for quality over quantity! I Agree! I have no more doubts!'
'Me too!'
'Me three'
Steven nodded his head and looked ahead at the forest that had loomed closer and suddenly excitement filled his heart. This was it, this was what he was missing in his last life, something he could completely throw himself into! This was what he wanted on a spiritual level, and although he would miss his family, he would rather be here enjoying life like they always wanted for him. He knew his parents would be very proud of him so he enjoyed every moment he was here. Steven had lofty goals and he knew no one in this world could stop him, so why not spend every day happy? Steven looked at his pokemon and thought to them,' Come on, lets go and see if we can find a new member here.' Everyone cheered and chased after steven into the forest.
—5 days later—
Steven punched out and blue energy shot out of his fists just barely missing the tree as it dissipated before touching it. Steven then gathered more energy in his core and moved the energy up his body before cutting off the rest as reserves, then he gathered the energy in his fists and punched out once more. Steven was currently doing an aura training method he thought of the other day, he surmised that aura was like a muscle that covered both the mind and body. This figurative muscle was very weak right now, so it couldn't do much but after gathering more aura, training the body to use the aura, and training the mind to properly understand aura, only then would the muscle then truly get stronger. Steven figured this out a couple of days ago when he was thinking about if ralts could ever get a telekenesis power that didn't require him to use confusion magic when he suddenly had this thought about the mind and body being a unified muscle when it came to aura training.
Suddenly Prince thought to him,'Master, I really must say your aura is truly pristine in terms of quality! Your constant training and unique method with cultivation is truly impressive.'
Steven thought to him,'oh be quiet, just because you won today doesn't mean that get to act all cocky haha!' Currently they were in the middle of the forest and they had a campsite next to the area where they were training. Everyday they were fighting each other and training, then moving the campsite a little further into the jungle while fighting trainers and wild pokemon, however they were having more fun with training so they started moving alot slower, and if they kept this speed they would get out of this forest in about 2 months, which steven figured was good enough. They were about a third through the forest, which is why steven started to move slower while training more, to keep up with daily things he wished his team to practice. Steven figured since he retained his youth he might as well take things slow and not try to rush the badges.
As steven was thinking about this and talking with Prince, suddenly Smoker comes running up screaming in their minds,' Lord! Danger! Injury! Rockets!'
Steven and Prince didn't question smoker for a second and quickly ran after him to where the incident was taking place. Steven was hoping that Queen was ok since he was letting these two do their own independent training right now! What was worse what the team rocket and injury warnings that smoker had called out. Steven was just glad that even though smoker was panicking, he was able to remain calm enough to properly relay all the important details.
Steven and his two pokemon ran up to a large tree in the center of a packed forest as smoker showed them where to go. As they got closer to the tree steven could see Queen sitting there, looking like she was trying to pet another pokemon! Steven and his other two teammates ran up to the pair and steven thought to her,'Queen! Report!'
Queen quickly turned around and took a knee and thought back in gleeful tone,'My lord! I was training near this tree when this weird bug came up to me. At first i thought it was trying to attack me so i got in a defensive stance like you taught me to do in ambushes. But then the pokemon cried out and fainted, it looks very injured so while looked over this pokemon and made sure she didn't parish smoker scouted out the area, approximately 10 mins later he found the rockets sneaking around the forest setting nesting enclosures of pokemon on fire with other pokemon like sir smoker. He then came back, relayed the message to me and went and retrieved you my lord!'
Steven nodded in confirmation,'Un.. Yes this is good, I am very happy with this report, let's see what this pokemon is n-'. This was when steven stopped and saw the horrendous states the pokemon was in. This was a scyther that was injured! It was extremely bad too, this scyther had extreme burns wounds and her blades, they were now chipped and they formed a scythe with alot of sharp teeth instead of one smooth blade. A scyther blade was like a bone in the body for the creatures so the fact the pokemon was this badly injured and still was holding on was miraculous to say the least. Steven quickly stopped his examination of the pokemon and qiuicly thought to them,'Prince! Quickly go and grab the medicine bag from the tent! I need all of it!'
Prince nodded in confirmation and quickly ran to the campsite. Steven the took out a map and located the map position they were at, then he located the area where smoker had seen the rocket goons and pinned a marker down where it was and looked at the general terrain of the area according to the map. Something wasn't right, scyther shouldn't be in this part of the forest, they were usually in the very core, something was very wrong.
Suddenly Prince ran back up to him and thought,'My lord! The bag is here!'
Steven grabbed the bag from and took out the super potion, revive, burn heals, and a couple of rawst berries. This was everything he needed for this pokemon, and he knew that this pokemon would never mentally recover from this event. First he applied 3 burn heals to different areas of the scythers body, after that he sprayed the super potion on different parts of her body and around but not on the burn wounds that were slowly healing. Then he took out a small bowl and mashed the rawst berries into a thin past and stuck the revive into the rawst berry paste. Then he took rawst revive and force into the scythers mouth and helped it swallow it.
Suddenly the scyther woke up! It saw the pokemon around it and quickly shot up and took a defensive stance and then she also noticed steven and started to get aggressive. After it growled and got a bearing on its surroundings it started to get a bearing on what was happening. Then it noticed Queen standing next to the other pokemon and the human, it had a very confused look on its face.
Steven looked at the scyther and thought,'Hello scyther, my name is Steven, I am a trainer and my pokemon says you tried to attack her but fainted from your injuries. I went ahead and healed you, but I would like to know what happened, can you tell me?'
Scyther looked at steven and thought back to him,'Yes please! I am the Queen of the Forest and I am begging you to save my people!'