Who did this?" I could hear the anger in Lance's voice. He wasn't alone in this though. Kanto had erupted into chaos, and as a native, I felt more than a fair amount of anger at the situation. A dead Gym leader. Not of old age or anything so simple.
A gym leader dead at the hands of wild pokemon. There wasn't a worse time for something like this to happen. The people's faith in the league was already at all-time lows. I could already see the headlines. 'If even a gym leader isn't safe, how can we be' the headlines would proudly proclaim. They'd ignore the fact that we lived in the safest times known to mad. They'd ignore that the league had managed to prevent dozens of similar attacks in the last decade. They'd ignore all that to point at a freak occurrence.
"Who? Lance, my boy, it was the pokemon" The President spoke out in that titter of his. Charles Goodshow was an idiot. A statement like that showcased his stupidity to everyone in the room. Not like we hadn't already been aware of it. It was obvious that this wasn't a regular pokemon attack.
Hundreds of magnemites gathered in the same place? Seeking a common purpose? It was impossible. All my research on the species confirmed it. They could form swarms but never in numbers like that, and never with more than one Magnezone. The attack was reported to have involved over ten of the infernal things.
"Ace trainers have been dispatched. So far, they have not managed to find anything, but I have no doubts that we will receive a report within the week." Koga's voice spoke out. He never shouted but his self-assured tone ensured he was heard loud and clear.
"That isn't enough." Lance was seething. The boy could battle with the best of the best, but he had close to zero control over his emotions. Maybe a layman wouldn't recognise his failings, but here in a meeting with experienced politicians, he might as well be screaming his anger for us to hear.
"Apart from who, a good question would also be how" Sandor, the cerulean gym leader spoke next. A reasonable man in most situations. His only failings were his daughters. Bright trainers, but with more interest in performing for crowds than doing anything useful with their talents.
"That is something I find myself curious about. To think that hundreds of pokemon could be corralled and guided for such an attack. A truly scary thought." Koga spoke again. He was clearly rattled. I'd never heard him speak more than once in one of these meetings. The rest of us shared looks as we considered his words. Whoever organized the attack on Vermillion could do the same to a different city. To any of our cities.
"Moving on from that train of thought, what will be happening to Vermillion?" Erica finally felt the need to speak. The girl raised a good point though. Vermillion just lost a gym leader and Surge didn't have any clear heirs.
"One of his gym trainers has taken control of the gym for now. The question is if we confirm him as the new gym leader, or if we send someone else to fill the role" Koga again with the answers. His command over the ace trainers was useful for situations like this. Even if I hadn't supported his appointment, he performed his duties exceptionally well.
"Who is this gym trainer?" I asked. Gym trainers rarely ever became gym leaders in turn, and there was good reason for that. Trainers who became gym trainers were often those who had hit plateaus in their strength and sought stable employment.
"Zolt. An eight-badge trainer. He completed the circuit five years ago and has participated in the league conference twice. He was eliminated before reaching the top 16 on both those instances."
Unimpressive. That highlighted everything wrong with the gym trainer program. It was useless for building truly impressive trainers.
"He doesn't have the required pedigree to hold the position. Why are we considering this?" There had to be some reason he was even allowed to take charge of the city in the meantime.
"Vermillion just suffered a tragedy. Zolt is a familiar face to the populace. He would be more useful for establishing order in the city than any imposition the league makes"
"This doesn't mean we should grant him one of the most revered positions in our society. Gym leaders are bastions of the league. A gym leader must be strong, above all else. His strength must be beyond impeachment."
"We've heard your views on the matter, Lorelei. I would ordinarily agree with you, but this situation would present an exception to the matter. Vermillion is in a precarious situation. All in favour of granting him the position of Interim gym leader?" I watched as the screens lit up green. Fucking Goodshow. He made a good point, I recognised that but where would it end?
We of the Sevii Islands have seen where a weak gym leader can take a society. It's not pretty. Kanto would learn though. Eventually. I clicked the red button on my desk to show my protest, even though it was a token effort. Lance abstained as he usually did. I'm sure he stopped paying attention the moment we told him we didn't have a target for him to go fight. Fucking brute.
Goodshow ended the meeting after we finalised the rewards that would be given to the trainers that stepped up to ward off the attack. I felt 5,000 pokes to be an excessive reward for doing their duty but I was, once again, overruled on the matter.
The Magnezone was officially the most difficult pokemon I'd ever attempted to train. It was arguably even worse than the Dusknoir. Where the ghost type would attempt to attack me, the Magnezone did nothing like that. It spoke to Ino when she telepathically conversed with it and had expressed its desire to stay with the team.
Good news right? Yes, but no. It was interested in being with the team but it was horrible at taking orders or even simple battling. For a fully evolved pokemon, it was quite weak and I honestly just didn't know where to begin with its training.
Trying to increase the power of its moves didn't work since whenever I had it practice a move more than twice, it got bored and drifted off to do something else. If a pokemon could have ADHD, then this would be it. It never stayed in one place and was absolutely shit at staying focused on any single task. Even choosing a name was difficult since it barely stayed still enough for that.
I'd have pulled my hair out in frustration if the Magnezone wasn't so cute and such a good fit for the team. It had become fast friends with Hashirama and Kenpachi. The only time it even did any training was when it got to train with either of them.
We'd left Vermillion a week ago and were making good time to Celadon. If my calculations were right, we'd be in Celadon in about two more weeks at our present speed. As I thought that, I had to duck out of the way of a piece of stone that got sent from Kenpachi's direction. I looked at him. Kenpachi tossed another rock towards Magnezone and he blasted it to pieces with a thunderbolt.
I admired the training that Kenpachi was able to convince Magnezone to do but I almost had my head taken off. "Kenpachi, Magnezone stop that. You're sending rocks everywhere." Kenpachi had the decency to look contrite at my scolding but Magnezone simply let out what I'd begun to interpret as a cackle and flew off to a different part of the clearing.
I swallowed my scream of frustration and started walking towards Broly and Snorlax's training area. I'd taught Broly Giga Impact, and he was doing his part to spread the knowledge to other members of the team.
I stayed at a distance and watched the orange glow cover both Broly and Snorlax and as they began to approach each other, I figured out their plan. This was the kind of stupid idea Kenpachi would come up with. They rushed at each other with the same move and it ended as you'd expect. Most of the trees around them had been blown away and they remained locked in a stalemate after the move died down.
Snorlax's physical strength was enough to match Broly's control of the move and vice versa. I was sure that when Snorlax eventually gets better at the move, he'd probably send Broly flying. Broly also recognised that and I could sense his frustration through our aura bond.
It was at that moment that I realised how much I'd neglected my starter. He was the first on the team, and teammates who'd joined the team after him were already stronger than him or close to getting there. I started pushing my brain to come up with a way for Broly to get even stronger. It might be ridiculous, but I firmly wanted Broly to be one of the strongest on the team. With the kind of ridiculously powerful pokemon I'd gathered, he'd need something impressive to allow him to keep up. His Terrakinesis was good, but not good enough.
I picked up my Pokedex to browse through moves and battle styles, looking for something that would fit him. I didn't quite regret Broly's evolution, but he'd lost his speed which was arguably his greatest advantage. That thought brought the spark of an idea to my mind. There was a move that should help bridge that gap.
I started looking up extreme speed. The description of the move was unique, and it was definitely everything I needed. The only problem was that I couldn't figure out whether Broly could learn the move or not. Kleavor obviously wasn't on the list of pokemon that could learn it.
From what I could figure out, the only requirements were a body strong enough to resist the effects of hitting that kind of speed and a high amount of speed to start with. Another issue I encountered was that there was no TM for the move. The pokemon that knew it either learned it as a result of their evolution- Arcanine or figured it out when they got enough experience- Dragonite.
The barriers to teaching Broly the move were numerous. It was going to be hard. That had never stopped me before though. This would allow Broly to move forward and keep pace with the rest of the team. I went back to the clearing and helped Ino with her training. We were working on her psychic-type moves. I had her teleporting around to places within my eyesight but out of hers.
There were two main goals to this form of training. We'd hopefully improve her endurance and deepen our mental bond. She'd gotten tired very quickly in the battle against Surge's Raichu. The thought of Surge made my heart beat faster. His death was my fault, there was no denying that.
He'd originally lived through canon, so his death even before that had to be due to something I'd changed. It wasn't rocket science to figure out what it was. Raichu hadn't fully recovered from my challenge when the attack happened. It wasn't a young pokemon like my team was. It had been getting on in years and while pokemon medicine was incredible, it had its limits.
Raichu and Surge's deaths were on my head. I'd accept that though. There was no way I could have known about the attack. There was no way I would have had my teammates lose to spare an old pokemon the pain. It was as much on Surge as it was on me. He'd sent out Raichu to sweep my team. He'd sent out his starter against a fourth badge trainer. If it wasn't for Snorlax, I had no doubts that Raichu would have torn through my team easily.
What happened to him was my fault, yes. It was also Surge's though. Ino detected some sign of my thoughts and sent me feelings of reassurance through our bond. I decided to call off training for today at that moment. It was already getting dark and there was no need to continue into the night.
We settled down and ate dinner together. While we ate, I started coming up with a strategy for facing Erica. She was unique amongst gym leaders. Her six-badge challenge was a one-on-one battle against her Venesaur. The pokemon was a monster.
Snorlax was the strongest member of my team but I'd be using Igneel for this battle. It's true that type advantage mattered less and less as you got to the higher levels but Igneel had other advantages that would allow him to match up pretty well to a high-level grass type like that. The first among those would be aerial superiority. That reminded me that we needed to work on Igneel's flying skills.
He was already strong enough to be able to carry me around. All I needed to do was some extra training to make sure his agility was up to par and that his skills would be sufficient.
After dinner, I leaned against my bedroll with the team around me. We just relaxed, watching Magnezone zoom around the clearing. He eventually burned himself out and we went to bed together.
We got to Celadon a day before my gym challenge was set to take place. It was when I walked into the city that I remembered the main attraction of the city. The department store. The game corner that I knew should have been here wasn't built yet. It wasn't too much of a hindrance though. My luck was nowhere good enough to gamble my way into any good rewards.
I got to the pokemon centre and handed my Pokedex to the nurse so she could check me in. "Are you here for the tournament, young man? It's a bit early isn't it" She spoke as she entered my details into the computer in front of her.
"Tournament?" What tournament?
"Oh, you don't know? Silph Co. is sponsoring a tournament for trainers with less than eight badges in a few weeks from now" She reached into the drawer below her desk and handed me the flyer for the tournament. I looked at it and felt my heart beat faster as I looked at the rewards.
An unspecified pokemon, five ultra-balls, Thirty thousand pokedollars, and a voucher for three TMs from the Celadon Department store for first place. I let out a whistle at that. Talk about a sweet pot. Rewards like that would attract trainers from all over the region. I was definitely signing up.
"Where do I sign up?" I asked the nurse who'd been watching me with a smile.
"Oh, don't worry about that. I signed you up while I was checking you in. You look like the type of trainer who wouldn't pass up an opportunity like this" I returned her smile, thanked her, and went up to the room. The tournament was slated to start in three weeks' time. What I needed to do in the time I had before then was obvious.
Tomorrow, I'd get my sixth badge and I'd head back to the grasslands around Celadon. With a tournament like this coming up, I couldn't do my training in the pokemon centre. Trainers would never hesitate to spy on their competition. It was the smart thing to do. #
I went to bed thinking of the pokemon that the tournament would reward me with when I won. Would it be something like a Dragonite or a Salamence? Maybe even something exotic like a Metagross. I didn't bother considering any of the common pokemon around Kanto. A tournament like this wouldn't have one of those as the final prize. It would be something special. I was sure of that.
The next morning, I dressed up and took the scenic route to the gym. It was the third largest building in the city, so it wasn't difficult to find at all. I got there about an hour before my battle was due to start and I watched Erica battle a trainer for her first badge.
Erica's first badge team seemed to consist of an Oddish, and a Tangela. The girl used a pidgey and growlithe. Both of those pokemon made my heart twist. I watched with interest. The battle was a simple one and the trainer was able to secure victory by a very close margin. Her Growlithe was just strong enough to overpower the Tangela with a fire fang. Being distant from the battle allowed me to see several instances where Erica hesitated to give out orders or even just allowed her pokemon to take hits.
She was a relatively new gym leader and clearly hadn't gotten the hang of the right amount of holding back she had to do. I watched the girl come out of the arena with a massive grin on her face. I walked up to her with a smile on my face. "Hello, I'm Donnell Oak. I enjoyed watching your battle. Congratulations."
She introduced herself as Sarah and thanked me. She turned to leave but I stopped her. "I noticed you have a pidgey. May I have your phone number?" She looked at me askance. "No, not like that. I just wanted to send you the training routine I used for mine."
She still looked suspicious but gave me her number. I sent her the original routine I'd used for Quicksilver along with several tips on what to do when training a member of that line. I didn't know how useful it would be to her but something was pushing me to help her out.
After I finished, I went in for my own battle. Erica didn't even bother leaving the arena. "Good, you're already here. May we begin the battle now?" Her voice had a quality I couldn't quite place. I liked it though.
I nodded and the referee came forward to announce the rules. I sent out Igneel on the field. There was no need for a coin toss. This was a one-on-one battle, and I already knew what pokemon Erica would use.
She sent out her Venesuar. It was a beautiful specimen. Its leaves had a healthy green glow and the bud on its back was gigantic. "Begin" The referee shouted and things got started very quickly.
Igneel took to the skies the moment the battle began. The Venesuar already opened up its bud and started sending out gas through the arena. It was blue and thick. If Erica was anyone else, I'd have Igneel send some fire into the cloud to check if it was flammable. Against a gym leader though, that kind of tactic would be a waste of time. She'd obviously have trained her pokemon to produce poisons that wouldn't be a hindrance to them.
'Whirlwind' I thought at Igneel. He used one of the moves we'd been working on during our journey. The winds picked up and dispersed the poisonous cloud. The Venesuar wasn't deterred and started sending out vines to hit Igneel. Vine whip my brain supplied instantly.
Igneel started dodging around them but they didn't stop coming. Igneel's agility had improved by leaps and bounds in the last few weeks but he wouldn't be able to keep this up for too long. 'Fireball' I thought at him and he sent a gigantic ball of flame at the Venesuar.
It didn't take a second to tap one of its paws on the ground and create a wall of earth that blocked Igneel's move. Ancient power? This would be troublesome. The whips kept moving at Igneel and he kept dodging around. Every few minutes, he'd get enough space to send out a fireball that the Venesuar blocked with ease.
I had him fly even higher and use sunny day. That stalemate hadn't been in his favour. I had him fly back down in a few seconds though. There were strict rules for flying types in professional battles, and one of them was that a flying type couldn't remain above a certain height for too long. The punishment for breaking that particular rule was a quick disqualification.
With the sun empowering his moves, Igneel sent out a volley of fireballs at the Venesuar. I was shocked when the pokemon actually jumped over one of the fireballs and started running around the arena to dodge the rest. I narrowed my eyes at it. It was fast. Too fast for a Venesuar.
It practically zoomed around the arena dodging Igneel's fireballs. I looked at it in amazement. I'd watched dozens of Erica's battles, this speed had never come into play in all those battles. Why was it now beginning to matter? What was different about this battle?
Could it be? The Venesuar had chlorophyll as an ability? Impressive. I couldn't just dismiss the sunny day because Igneel would quickly find himself in the same stalemate he had been in before using the move. I also couldn't leave it up. The Venesuar was outspeeding all Igneel's attacks.
'phoenix flames', I commanded with my aura. I felt it as Igneel spat out about a dozen fireballs, each as big as my head, and sent them flying at the Venesuar. It was still somehow able to dodge and block all of them. The difference between phoenix flames and swift was becoming more glaring as we moved forward. Swift homed in on the target and so never missed. Phoenix flames was just Igneel using his developing pyrokinesis to emulate the same effect.
The Venesuar was still moving and I took a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart. I needed to do some deep thinking. The Venesuar was fast. Fast enough to dodge any one of Igneel's attacks that weren't large enough to cover a full quarter of the arena and those attacks it couldn't dodge, it could block with rocks. How do I get out of this?
The idea that came to me was less than ideal but it would work. I relayed my plan to Igneel and I watched him implement it. Igneel sent an enormous fireball at the Venesuar and it lifted up a portion of the arena to block it. As the explosion began to die down, Igneel sent out the largest flamethrower he ever had straight at the Venesuar's shield. With the flames curving around the shield and licking at the Venesuar's body it had no choice but to surround itself with a dome.
I recognised that if this Venesuar knew dig, then my plan would be fucked sixty ways to Friday I had Igneel stop the move after some time to feign tiredness, and then the Venesuar left its shield, zooming towards the other end of the arena. It was noticeably slower and Igneel swept into a dive straight at the Venesuar. I watched him spit out a fireball and wrap it around himself.
He hit with devastating effect. Flame Dive, one of Igneel's new moves. A combination of aerial ace and flame charge. The Venesuar was down. I watched it begin to twitch as if trying to get back up and had Igneel prepare a fireball in his mouth. I looked at Erica, silently telling her that Igneel wouldn't hesitate to fire. She returned her Venesuar and sent me a polite smile.
Igneel reared up and roared to the heavens, He sent out the fireball in his mouth towards the skies, where it exploded in an impressive display. The audience was clearly impressed and I allowed Igneel to bask in that for a few minutes.
"Donnell Oak" I heard Erica's voice as she walked straight at me.
"Gym Leader Erica" I replied with a bow. The cities in Kanto were different in a lot of ways. One difference between Celadon and the rest was that they were still ruled by a monarchy. Erica's family might have chosen to take the title of Gym leader but she still ruled Celadon as its Queen.
"Oh, that is unnecessary. I quite enjoyed our battle. Venesuar needed a battle like that. Here's your badge and please accept my congratulations. You are now a six-badge trainer with all the responsibilities and privileges."
I thanked her and took my leave from the gym. Igneel's battle had taken longer than I'd thought and it was already almost noon. I went back to the centre to grab breakfast for my team and myself. I had to head up to my room to add the rare candies to my team's breakfast.
I couldn't actually tell if they were having any effect on my team's growth but I didn't want to risk it if they were having some effect. After breakfast, I went straight to the department store. I had a TM to pick up. Igneel's phoenix flames technique was incomplete. The TM for swift would be a quick fix for that. I also picked up a TM for Earthquake. For some reason, Oak had sent me my monthly allowance for all the time I'd spent on my journey.
He claimed that he'd just been forgetting to send it, but I had a feeling it was a bribe of some sort. He also told me about how he was interested in the pokemon being awarded in the tournament. Apparently, it was to be a pokemon he hadn't ever seen before and he didn't have enough connections in Silph to get a look at the pokemon before it got rewarded.
Some part of me wanted to decide against participating in the tournament just to stick it to him but that would be stupid. Very stupid. I'd already wanted to participate in the tournament so Oak wasn't making me do anything I wasn't already going to and even when I won, there was nothing forcing me to give him access to the pokemon.
While there, I grabbed the TM for Blast burn as well. Even belly drum. This department store was really the shit. They had everything. I looked around for something for Ino and I ended up choosing Draining kiss.
With my hunger for new moves thoroughly sated, I went back to the centre and packed up my things. I'd have waited an extra day to rest but with the number of new moves I had to teach my pokemon, it would be better to start sooner than later. I grabbed Igneel's ball from the Nurse's counter on my way out.
I'd almost made it to the outskirts of town when I realized I'd forgotten something. My stores of potions had been almost depleted. I'd never bought more since Oak gave me my first set. I'd just never need more. Right now though, we were training for a very competitive tournament.
I went back to the department store and bought as many full restores as I could, along with a good amount of burn heals, poison antidotes, and just general healing potions. I left the city with an account well in the red. I wasn't worried though. The next time I'd come in here would be to win a tournament that would fill my pockets to the brim.
As I walked in to find a good place to start, I started planning out the training routine in my mind.
A week after I'd entered the grasslands, I watched one of my goals finally become accomplished. Igneel had managed to use swift as a base for his phoenix flames. They curved around targets with a new accuracy and precision. The best part was that he didn't need to maintain such a close focus on his target to use the move. It was a weakness that I was glad no one had managed to intuit before we got around to fixing it.
The rest of the training was also going well. Both Broly and Ino had managed to figure out their moves. Ino was still training her endurance with constant teleports. Broly had taught both Snorlax and Kenpachi how to use earthquake. Now, he was in the next stage of his training.
Extreme Speed. The move had no TM and only theories on how it was used. My training for Broly to learn the move had been to show him the move multiple times on my Pokedex and then have him weighed down by Ino's Gravity and battle Kenpachi, Snorlax, and Hashirama at the same time.
He was getting faster to be sure but his frustration at not figuring out the move was apparent. I wasn't too worried though. Broly would figure it out. I had no doubts in my mind.
Kisame was in an entirely different section. Ino could put out Igneel's accidental fires with psychic power so they didn't need to train together anymore. That was good since she was practicing a move that being anywhere close to would probably do more than inconvenience him. She was improving her use of the move, Blizzard.
She'd learned the move a while ago through a TM but she hadn't gotten many opportunities to improve on it in the forest. Now, she had as much space as she needed. It pissed off quite a few grass-type pokemon that had been hiding in the grass but there was nothing they could do. None of them were strong enough to hurt her and since all they needed to do to escape the move was moving a bit, I wasn't motivated to stop her training for their comfort.
A week more of training and Igneel had been getting the basics of Blast burn down. The move was powerful. 'The most powerful fire type move in existence' some called it. Even with the TM, Igneel still had to put in a lot of effort to get the move down. And this time, he had to train near Kisame. I wasn't going to take the risk of seeing what would happen if Igneel managed to set the entire field on fire with a move like that.
I could already imagine it. The rangers would swoop in to stop the fire. If I was lucky, I'd only lose my licence. If I wasn't, then I'd find myself without a fire type. I had no illusions about that though, if a thing like that happened, then I'd rather be a fugitive from the law than lose any member of my team.
I spoke like it would be some big sacrifice. It really wouldn't. The wilds in the pokemon world weren't as unappealing as those in my home world. Not because they were any less dangerous or uncomfortable, but simply because we had created so much technology as a society just to make the lives of trainers in the wild much easier. Besides, I had no doubts that if I found myself on the run from the law, Oak would interfere to get me off the hook.
He'd probably make me trade my freedom for some information but that was just par for the course with the man. I abandoned that train of thought to go watch Broly's training. When this started a bit over a week ago, it was a complete beat down. Don't get me wrong, it was still a beat down, but Broly had begun to manage to trade blows here and there.
He'd still need some potions to recover when he finished but that was alright. He'd figure it out.
For the final week of our training, I did something different. We engaged in one-on-one battles. I had my teammates battle against those who they had type disadvantages against. Igneel absolutely hated being soaked by Kisame's water-type moves. They got better though, very quickly. I didn't have any fighting-type pokemon to battle against Snorlax, for now at least. The battles were a fun way to end the week. Fun for the winners that is. No winner remained a winner for too long though. Kisame would beat Igneel and then lose to Hashirama. Her joy evaporated very quickly when that happened.
The day before the tournament was set to start, I called my team over for a pep talk. "Hey, guys. You all know what we're going back to Celadon for. Some of the strongest trainers will be there. You'll do battle against some of the strongest pokemon in the region. That's nothing for you though. They might be some of the strongest, but we stand at the pinnacle. We're the best, and this tournament will be our unveiling to the rest of the world"
Igneel let out a roar and a bolt of fire into the sky. He wasn't the only one that was excited though. Magnezone was off doing something on his own. I'd tried my best to get him to do any training at all but it was a bust. Ino had also done her best to convince him, and he'd agreed. He'd trained for a few minutes and then wandered off on his own.
I was ashamed to admit it, but I had already given up on training him. I'd be sending him to the lab after the tournament. My carry limit was still eight after all and I was sure the pokemon being rewarded in the tournament would be less difficult.
I know how this sounds, but I wasn't completely heartless. Magnezone didn't care much about being on the team. He cared about being fed and having people to play with. I'd be sending him to the Oak ranch, a place with virtually unlimited pokemon food and an abundance of pokemon to play with. He'd be thanking me.
"The next time most of you come out of your balls, It will be to do battle in front of the whole world. You've all made me proud already. This tournament is ours. They just don't know it yet." After my pep talk, I returned every one to their pokeballs with the exception of Ino.
She was able to easily teleport me back to the city. I went to the centre to check in and I was surprised to hear something that I hadn't ever expected. "Sorry young man, but we're fully booked already. There are a lot of trainers here for the tournament and very few of them would choose to turn down the free accommodation of the pokemon centre." She sounded apologetic even though it wasn't her fault. It was mine. I hadn't even considered the possibility of the centre being at capacity.
"Do you have enough space to give my team a check though?" I'd used as many potions as was safe on my team during training but potions weren't miracle cures. There might be something I'd missed. Oak always told me how he lost his Machoke to negligence by not taking it to a pokemon centre when he was younger. It's why I was so insistent on having my teammates get check-ups whenever we were in a centre.
"Oh definitely. Just hand over the pokeballs." Her smile had returned. I dropped off every single one of my pokeballs. They all needed to be in top shape for tomorrow. I walked out of the centre to search for a hotel to stay in. I still had cash to burn so the cost shouldn't really matter.