An interesting difference between this world and the one from the anime is the difference between pokemon centers. To be more specific, the training grounds. I didn't notice it in Pewter and Viridian, but it became very clear in Cerulean. The training grounds seemed to be designed to prepare you for the challenges of the City's gym. In a city like Cerulean where the gym was a water-type one, the training grounds were halfway submerged.
This meant the grounds weren't really grounds. More like large platforms surrounded by water for the trainers and even smaller platforms for the pokemon. Fortunately for me, my team wouldn't be as disadvantaged by this arena as others. Both Quicksilver and Broly could fly (even if Broly couldn't do that for long), and Milotic was a water type.
Speaking of my team, it's time to introduce them to their newest teammate. I released Quicksilver on one of the smaller stands and he squawked in offence before rising in the air and taking a few laps around the training grounds. I released Broly next to me and when I was sure they were both settled, I released Milotic into the water.
I could waste time introducing them to each other or I could let them handle it themselves. Pokemon was smart. It didn't take long before all three of them were conversing in poke-speak. They seemed to be getting along so I took my attention of them for a bit.
I opened my dex and opened up Milotic's entry. She was indeed female and knew the moves water gun, bubble beam, dragon pulse and dragon breath. She had Marvel Scale as her ability. Looking through her move set reminded me of something I'd noticed in the mountain but left till later since I was running for my life. My team was made of physical attackers and both Broly and Quicksilver knew mostly physical moves.
They were close combat specialists. Bruisers. I could spend time trying to train them out of this but working with their strengths was more likely to get me results for the now. I had Milotic to bridge that gap though. She'd be my long-range special attacker. I was going to pump her full of as many TMs I could get my hands on and make her the best long-range specialist in the fucking world.
I received a light tap on my chest from Broly. He seemed to have become adept at noticing when I got lost in my own thoughts and had taken upon himself the duty of bringing me back. I cleared my head and went to speak to my newest acquisition.
"Hey girl, remember all we spoke about?" Her nod was good news. I didn't have to repeat myself. In case you haven't noticed yet, I despise talking. I'd always been more of a thinker and new this voice of mine only made me hate it more.
"You'll need a name. Here, we are family, and family have special names for each other. The green hunk over here is Broly and the egotistical bird above you is Quicksilver." The caw he let out at hearing my description of him only made me smile. He had truly gotten more prideful since his evolution a few weeks ago. His defeat of Flint's Rhydon had only sent his pride to new heights.
Broly's loss to the Rhydon had been a wakeup call we both sorely needed but Quicksilver wasn't able to experience that devastating disgrace with us, so his pride remained unchecked. I ignored it for now though since Broly's hand blade was tapping my shoulder again.
"We'll come up with a name for you. I have a few ideas. I'll list them out one time so you can hear all of them and then again so you can decide which one." She nodded her comprehension which made me curious as to how a snake could nod. Wasn't their whole body just one long neck. How did that work? I'd leave that till later- didn't want another tap from Broly. He was being gentle, but love taps from a pokemon as strong as him with blades as sharp as his still stung quite a bit.
"Jean, Storm, Wanda, Dinah, Mei, and Rukia". Unfortunately, she didn't like any of those, so I started listing names and hoping she'd pick one eventually. My wish was granted but I almost wish it hadn't been. She ended up accepting a name I threw in as a joke after she seemed keen on rejecting everything I said. Her chosen name was Kisame.
The name was badass, and I loved it. The only problem was it was a male name. Well, it's not like anyone will ever be able to tell and if she likes the name, she likes the name.
That's how my Milotic became christened as Kisame. She'd be every much the monster he was, this I swore.
We started training at once after that. I helped Broly and Quicksilver attach their gravity braces and had them spar after that. They had gotten impressive in such a short time. I could tell, even from down here, that Quicksilver held the advantage. It was slight but the benefits of his evolution were becoming more and more apparent as time went on.
I left them to their devices and went to train Kisame. I began by having her use her moves to see how they looked. She spent a shamefully long time to charge up everything except bubble beam. The power in the moves though. It was amazing. Her water gun looked more like a hydro pump and her dragon type moves were even more impressive.
Her dragon pulse had boiled a huge portion of the 'grounds' and her dragon breath had reached almost gotten to Broly who was fighting all the way at the end. I had her continuously practice the three moves she was having difficulties with. Over and over again while I timed her. She got bored very quickly but when I told her how much improvement she'd made, she became even more interested.
I kept timing her till she managed to get each move to under a minute of charge time. I had to try something. I sunk into my meditating posture and searched for my aura once again. It had gotten easier to find as I practiced. It took me less than a minute to find my core and immerse myself in it. Sadly, I could not do this without meditating. I could manipulate the tethers heading out to Broly and Quicksilver but the core itself was different.
After basking in the sheer welcome, I felt from my core for a bit. I felt around for the tendril heading out to Broly and Quicksilver. I reached out to the tendril and created a third branch. I sent it straight towards where I could hear Kisame training. It took a minute, but when I felt the connection settle in place, I stopped my meditation and continued to monitor Kisame's training.
After an hour of this, when Broly and Quicksilver were finally too exhausted to continue their training, I sat them all together to plan for this battle. The battle was two days from now and there was a lot to do. Milotic was a joy. She had gotten a lot out of this one session. She could prep and fire her water gun in less than 5 seconds. The dragon type moves took quite a bit more time, but she'd master even that with time. I'd get her TMs to work with.
"Alright guys, this gym is going to be a water type one. Broly, that means you won't get as much of a chance to shine in this one but don't worry. I'll need you for our next two challenges. Kisame and Quicksilver, you guys will have your work cut out for you but don't worry. We've got this."
They both signaled their assent. Broly was a bit dissatisfied but even he couldn't stay pissed off in the face of Kisame's enthusiasm. She felt like a constant reassuring presence. I could see why Milotic were known as the calmness pokemon.
"I'll get you both of couple of TMs to get you some new moves" All of them became really confused at that and I became really confused at that. I cursed my hate for talking. I hadn't explained TMs to any of them- not even Broly and Quicksilver, who I'd already used TMs on. "Alright, TMs are short for Technical Machines. They're human technology that helps to teach pokemon new moves." It wasn't a very good explanation, but they seemed to understand the gist of it.
I returned them and headed to Cerulean's resident department store. Every large city had one. They all had respectable TM catalogues, but I'd heard the one in Celadon put everyone else's to shame. I went straight to the TM section on getting to the store. I started browsing. This store seemed to be more focused on moves for water types and moves effective against water types.
I checked my dex to see how much I had in my account. I had enough for four low level moves or three respectable ones. I started shopping and I saw so many moves with so many possibilities, but I had to get only three, so I went with Brine, and Ice beam for Milotic. Hydro pump looked tempting, but I was sure I could teach her that myself. I picked up thunderbolt for Quicksilver. I got to the counter and paid for all my purchases before heading back to the center.
I still had the training ground booked for today, but you couldn't book a training ground more than once without paying for it. The free try was more or less like a Netflix free trial. Much like the free trial, most people used it and then didn't bother paying for it because it was simply too expensive and there were alternatives.
On the way to the center, I noticed a store selling something I had overlooked. Rare candies. They weren't actually candies- more like growth supplements for pokemon. They were dead useful. Incredibly expensive though, and most people on the internet viewed them as an unnecessary expense. Those people didn't have Oak as a father. I had seen studies done with them so I knew how useful they could be.
They didn't just automatically make pokemon strong. But if two of the same species of pokemon were trained in the exact same regiment by the same trainer, one took rare candies and the other didn't, the one who took rare candies ended up objectively stronger 95% of the time. Like I'd said though, they were expensive, so I walked past the stores. I really regretted not asking for money in addition to my increased carry limit from Oak, but I had no idea he'd grant my request so easily. I really needed to up my negation skills.
Enough crying over spilled milk though. I got to my TM machine in my rooms and taught Kisame and Quicksilver their moves.
Once I was in the training grounds again, I had them both practicing their moves constantly. TMs were absolutely broken. Sure, I could probably teach them the moves myself but that would take so much more time. In what was essentially an hour, they'd both gotten new moves that they could use with barely any difficulty.
I didn't neglect Broly's training though. I had him jumping across the platforms to train his balance and improve his ground speed. He also had to dodge moves from both Kisame and Quicksilver as they didn't stop practicing because of his presence. He got hit by quite a few moves at first but luckily for him, they still hadn't got them fully down yet, so the moves were weak.
By the time I left the training grounds, they had both become masters of their new moves and Broly had become a master at dodging them. He still got hit once in a while, but they were all glancing blows. I suspected he'd begun using some early variation of detect since he made a lot of dodges without even looking.
We had a hearty dinner and went to bed.
The next day we were up bright and early again. After breakfast, we went to the pokemon battle grounds where we waited for possible challengers. Eventually, a trainer with four badges came along. He was a bit older than I was in this body, so this promised to be an interesting bout. He introduced himself as Gregory and I replied with a terse 'Donnell'.
Much like Sarah, he spoke way too much. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice.
We agreed to a bet of 700 pokedollars which was above the standard bet by a fair margin. That should have been my first warning. I started the battle by releasing Quicksilver into the field. He smirked and released a bulky Electabuzz. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. I pinched myself. We could handle this. What was type advantage to we who would be champions. Nothing. Less than nothing.
With my confidence restored, I had Quicksilver take to the skies instantly. It was a good idea since a thunderbolt hit the ground where he was, a few seconds after I gave my order. He flew incredibly quickly and was a blur in the skies.
The electabuzz was also impressive in the way he constantly fired. He was clearly well-trained and barely took a second between firing electric type moves in an attempt to catch out my flying type.
He paused for a bit and charged to large electro balls in each of his hands before firing them at my speedster. He seemed to have tried to predict where Quicksilver would dodge to. If this was a few days earlier, he might have won with that one, but Broly and Quicksilver's constant spars had trained my speedster to react in seconds. The ball of electricity was fast by was nothing compared to Broly.
Quicksilver dodged the first ball and cut the second one in half with a steel wing. He used the lull in firing to let off one of his favourite moves. Hyper voice. There were barely any barriers in the center's arena, so Gregory also suffered from the attack quite a bit. My bird only kept up the move for a few seconds before swooping down in an aerial ace.
The electabuzz went down but got back up almost as quickly and started firing again. He was a bit slower this time, so Quicksilver's dodges were even smoother. He kept going but then my opponent spoke for the first time in this battle. "Electabuzz, use Swift". Fuck. Swift, the move that never missed. The stars went blurring at my speedster and I ordered him to use Steel wing to block them all. This was my opponents plan though, since a thunderbolt hit him center mass the moment he blocked.
The thunderbolt hurt. I felt the pain as Quicksilver did and I almost fell to my knees as he started falling towards the ground. I couldn't let this end in a loss though. I twisted and pulled the aura heading towards Quicksilver in as many ways as I could, and he finally woke up as he headed for the ground. He managed to stabilize his flight and I spoke out an order for the first time in this battle. "Brave bird" I called out. It was both a description and an order.
My bird was incredibly brave, and a red aura enveloped him before he zoomed towards the Electabuzz at a slightly diminished speed. The electric type was able to hit my bird with a single thunder shock as he approached but my bird struck with the force of a thousand wings. They both instantly went down- knocked out. The recoil damage was too much for my battered bird. I recalled him quickly and waited for my opponent to send out his next pokemon.
He sent out a Rhydon, my least favourite rock type. He'd enjoyed type advantage in the first round, but it was my turn. I released Kisame and she was nothing short of excited. I explained what we were here for quickly and she nodded before turning straight ahead at the battle. Our 'referee' started the match, and I wasted no time issuing orders.
Water gun, I told her with my aura. Our training from yesterday seemed to have done the job. She hit the Rhydon with the super effective move instantly. I had her spam the attack in a continuous barrage that disoriented the pokemon before I had her switch to ice beams. She got him everywhere she could and then I had her use Dragon pulse. The battle was done.
My opponent looked shocked. He looked between me and my pokemon in surprise. He wasted no time in taking out his pokedex to scan her and then approached me. "A Milotic, bro! I was so surprised I could barely issue out any order and your pokemon took mine apart in minutes. Nice battle, bro"
He was polite at least. I replied with my own "Nice battle". He transferred my money and left to take his pokemon to the nurse. I followed him to drop off Quicksilver. I was a disheartened when she told me he wouldn't be at a 100% till at least the day after tomorrow, which was after the day of the challenge. Brave bird was just too much for him in his condition.
I left the center and went out to one of the lakes at the outskirts of town to continue training with Kisame and Broly. I spent the day teaching her Hydro pump which seemed to be a bit of a formality. She got it down in seconds and all I spent time on was helping her improve the speed of her moves. Broly was her partner in that. I had him dodge her moves with the gravity brace at first but as she got better I had him take it off.
I trained till the sun went down before I went into the center with my tired and hungry pokemon. We all forgot out manners at dinner and I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
AN; The gym battle comes up next. How'd it go? Be sure to point out any errors you see and tell me what you think. I also decided to start a trainer profile so you can keep track of this.
Name; Donnell Oak
Age; 15
Hometown; Pallet
Next of Kin; Samuel Oak
Account balance; 2,170 Pokedollars
Pokemon;
Scyther (Nickname; Broly)- Male. Bug/Flying type
Moves; Signal beam, agility, steel wing, fury cutter, quick attack, slash, swords dance, and wing attack.
Pidgeot (Nickname; Quicksilver)- Male. Flying/Normal type
Moves; Brave bird, aerial ace, steel wing, agility, roost, hypervoice, gust, whirlwind, and thunderbolt
Milotic (Nickname; Kisame)- Female. Water type.
Moves; Brine, ice beam, hydro pump, dragon breath, dragon pulse, water gun, and bubble beam.