After retrieving Machop from the beach Ash let everyone eat and then went to bed early since he was still sleep-deprived. Abra, Machop, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Pikachu hadn't even returned yet, so they just seeped into the room and onto the bed with Ash.
In the morning Pikachu woke him up since he slept past his alarm, with a shock of course. So he woke up begrudgingly and gave in to the electric mouse's demands and fed him, he also made himself some coffee, in secret because Brock is still adamant about him not drinking so much caffeine.
Speaking of him he hasn't come out of his room, so after getting permission from Joy and getting a spare key, he walked in and saw he was sore from pushing himself so hard yesterday.
"Hey Ash, you mind giving me a little help?" Brock said sheepishly.
"Why do you do this to Your body, I've heard living for the grind but that doesn't involve you destroying your body," Ash said as he put Brock on his shoulder and took him down. To which the girls looked worried about him.
"Are you alright?" Yellow was the first to speak.
"Do you want the real answer or the answer you want to hear?" Brock said as Ash put him on a chair.
"That answers most of our questions," Misty said.
Honestly, during normal circumstances, Ash would let Brock live with the consequences of his actions, but if he didn't help him he would be out of commission for probably 3 days, and he needed him to train, so he decided to fix it.
"Here, I'll give you a massage, I would always give one to my mom, and she always said it helped her after a long day at work," Ash said as he went behind Brock and put his hands over his shoulders.
Everyone thought it was just Ash's mother being nice and Ash just being a kid so they didn't say anything until Brock started feeling a shocking feeling of relief shock his body. Satisfying cracks came from his back until Brock only felt the sweet relief.
Yes, Ash used aura to give him a massage, Don't look at me like that's telling me you wouldn't want that, besides it was the only way he could practice Aura healing as a kid.
"How did you do that," Brock said as he got up, surprising both Misty and Yellow, "I feel better than before like I could go and put in twice the effort than last time."
"Firstly I told you I would give my mother a massage every day, I got pretty good at it. Secondly, don't, everybody gets one and I'm not going to give you another one." Ash said.
"Heyyyyy Ash,"
"No"
—
After breakfast everyone went out back to train, The Pokemon that Ash was planning on using for Surge were Weepinbell, Gloom, Nidoran♂, and either Machop or potentially Pikachu but also potentially not since if he loses the chances of him evolving are zero, but if he thinks that he wasn't used because he thought he was weaker than the Riachu then he also won't evolve.
Either way, he can think about that later but as for Weepinbell and Gloom, now that he has Bulbasaur their usefulness is going to start falling off, There are still plans for them later but once Bulbasaur evolved he might send them to Oak, and pull them out during specific battles.
Nidoran♂ and Machop were also close to evolving they just needed a push. As for his two stubborn Pokemon, he still has no idea why they haven't evolved. Sure, sure Yellow's Caterpie hasn't evolved but he has only trained for a day. Well, he'll continue training it and if it evolves before Weedle then we have a problem.
Ash still released all of his Pokemon to explain their situation, "OK everyone we are going to prepare for the next gym, now Before you start screaming, you know who you are, This is an electric gym so unfortunately Fearow, Pidgeotto you two are out again, don't worry I promise the next gym is all yours."
Fearow was getting mad again since he was itching for a good fight, he likes beating up Pidgeotto but even you'd get tired of your favorite food if you eat it every day, his last good fight was back with AJ. Since then the only thing he has been battling was some random wild Pokemon. But he also wasn't stupid he knew he was a liability in a battle with an electric expert.
Seeing that Fearow wasn't going to make a fuss Ash continued, "Alright you guys know the drill by now You can go do your usual and I'll teach you some moves when you're ready, You want to battle, find someone, and bash heads."
Everyone did their usual Ev training along with the Gravity from Clefairy. Ash pulled the newcomers aside, Abra would practice Teleporting fast and teleporting large groups, You may be wondering why she is not training in anything else, and that is because Ash isn't planning on using Abra in Kanto, she is going to be used over in Johto so for now she would practice Teleport for his plan.
Bulbasaur would work on Special Attack and HP as well, finally giving Poliwhirl someone to share the pain with, speaking of which Poliwhirl started working on physical Attack as well.
Squirtle on the other hand had the same problem the Nidoran♂ line has, where Nidoking has slightly better Physical attack but better Special moves, Blastoise has the opposite problem but unlike Nidoking using both is viable, unlike Nidoking's worthless physical moves.
So Squirtle would join Poliwhirl and Bulbasaur, meanwhile focusing on Special Attack for now.
During their training Machop and Brock's Geodude wanted to Spar, so everyone wanted to watch their duel of fate to see who the superior bro was, Brock chose to supervise the match, which they chose to be a mock battle.
Brock counted down, "3,2,1 Begin." As soon as Brock said that the two Pokemon immediately dashed towards each other throwing a punch at each other, both hitting each other in the cheek but neither let that stop them.
Almost in unison, they jumped back, Geodude had also been training with Brock and had made him a bulky physical defender, so they still managed to deal equal damage to each other.
Geodude grabbed into the dirt and pulled out some Rocks using Rock Throw throwing them at Machop and then going into a rollout.
Machop didn't even think about dodging, whether because of No-guard or his honor he instead got ready and punched through the first, grabbed the second, and used it as a bat to ram into the Geodude.
Geodude just sped up and as he did that he broke through the rock in Machop's hands, so Machop was forced to hold on to Geodude, although the constant spinning was starting to give him contact burn.
Machop refused to let him continue and used a seismic toss to launch Geodude about 15 feet into the air, Meanwhile, he started coating his hands, both of them in Ice, whether to hit Geodude or to cool them down didn't matter but he got ready.
Geodude released the spin and started bracing himself and tensed his arms They both knew what was going to happen and they both wanted it this way, as Geodude fell he started revving up his arms and launched a punch as Machop also sent another punch.
They both could feel the recoil behind the other punch but they refused to give up so they launched with the other, then the other, again and again and again. Both of them were punching so fast their fists were getting hard to see although it was obvious Geodude was the one getting pushed back. Until Geodude started glowing, and growing and during which he never stopped punching as he then grew 2 more arms, evolving into a Graveler.
Graveler did not waste a second and started using the other 2 arms to start fighting back against Machop, which was working Although Machop was faster and stronger the extra fists were pushing him back, and he did not like going onto the defensive he could feel his blood start boiling until he also started glowing growing to be taller than Graveler, evolving into a Machoke.
As soon as he evolved he also started putting more pressure, As they they were evenly matched, their fists continued flying and clashing by this point the ice was off of Machoke's fist so they were both also doing more or less the same damage to each other.
They continued fighting like that, with no technique just pure strength, It was poetic in a way, however, everything had to come to an end, so Machoke side his open palms to Push Graveler back about 5 feet However Machoke jumped towards him and used a new move Cross Chop in an X motion. Graveler refused to just go down so decided to try to counter with a Brick Break with all 4 arms.
They both landed the moves and Machoke landed on the other side on one knee and no one moved until Graveler fell over. Machop walked over to Gravler's body, raised his arm, and held it out so that he could get up, which he took. Gravler then took Machoke's arm and raised it and Brock called it Machoke's win.
"You both did great, you guys even evolved, Now both of you get some rest it's almost lunchtime," Machoke and Graveler helped each other back to the sidelines to rest, and Ash scanned them both.
—-
[Machoke(M)]
[Ability: No Guard/Guts Hidden ability:???]
[Moves: Rolling Kick, Bullet Punch, Seismic Toss, Bulk Up, Power-up punch, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Knock Off, Cross Chop]
[Champion mutation]
—-
[Graveler(M)]
[Ability: Sturdy ]
[Current moves: Defense curl, Rollout, Rock tomb, Stone Edge, Brick Break, Rock Throw, Rock Blast, Sandstorm]
—-
'Both not bad upgrades and Brock sure hasn't been lacking in his training,' Ash thought as he put it away to prepare food and Pokeblocks for all of his Pokemon, and just like that the first day of training came to an end.
For the next few days, there was training Pokemon and some more battles but no one evolved after that, and yet his big worm and fish also refused to evolve, but they were getting closer.
Of course, Yellow and Misty were also training with them which did help most of their progress.
Green was nowhere to be seen over the few days they were training presumably on the other side of the city scamming some more people, he did meet up with Gary but the talks basically boiled down to Ash teasing him about losing and Gary refusing to receive any help.
By the end of the training he had had his Pokemon learn some moves, Firstly everyone had to learn Protect, because why not? Poliwhirl learned Substitute. Gloom learned Energy Ball, Sunny Day, and Solar Beam, and Weepinbell learned the same but with the addition of Knock off. Weepinbell also created his combo move called Fly Trap (Mega Drain + Wrap).
(A/N Shout out to SmilingReader99 for the idea)
Nidoran♂ and Squirtle both learned Ice Beam, with the help of Misty of course, and Ash helped Squirtle learn Aura Sphere and Scald. Meanwhile, Nidoran♂ learn Toxic spikes, Stealth Rock, Thunderbolt, Sludge Bomb, and Dig. He also tried but failed at learning earth power or Earthquake.
Pikachu, Scyther, Fearow, and Pidgeotto learned Agility. Both Fearow and Pidgeotto learned Whirlwind and Wing Attack.
Anyway by the end of the day, he was going to let his Pokemon rest for a day, mainly because Gary reserved the rest of the Day to battle Surge. Misty and Brock decided they would go to the other side of the town to see if they could find anything for the journey to the next town and to restock on supplies.
So that left Ash and Yellow alone at the Pokemon center with nothing to do really, Yellow was playing with her Pokemon and Clefairy was sitting on her lap with no real care.
Ash then remembered something that he could do in the city, so he turned to Yellow, "Hey Yellow, you want to go visit Chloe?"