Battling was a big thing culturally. It was why most towns worth the name had a gym, even if it was an unofficial one. It's why most of them had battlefields, shops for training equipment and more and more and more. It made perfect sense thus that most towns also had public training fields which youngsters and trainers could use when they were feeling too lazy to go out of town.
Of course, one was limited in what one was allowed to do in those fields. Generally, it was frowned upon if one completely wrecked them, so it was smarter to decide on training schedules that weren't that destructive.
Those people who were working on mastering Thunder or Fire Blast generally had a flying or a psychic time that could get them out of the city real quick anyway.
Considering that Saffron was the biggest city in Kanto, it naturally had such facilities as well. The problem naturally was that with the Arbok scare currently going around, it was sort of hard to find any sort of privacy at the moment.
"So what's your new Pokemon?" Mia asked curiously from where she entered the public training field they'd booked together. It wasn't because he really felt the need to train with Mia, but simply because it was only possible to get a field if you were two applicants signing up for joint training.
While he did understand the desire from the league administration to try and give as many trainers as possible the opportunity to use the facilities, thus preferring double sign-ups over single, he wondered if that was so smart considering how small the fields really were. Right behind the league facility, there was a grid of about twenty grey cement boxes, in them one could generally find a tree or two, surrounded by brown grass.
Occasionally there would be a large boulder smack-dab in the middle, or an artificial stream for water Pokemon.
He looked around the 30 square metre space, somewhat doubtful if it was enough to get anything done, but then shook his head. It was good to even have the opportunity to train inside a city. In his previous life, real estate in these mega-cities was so expensive that no way would anyone bust out publicly available training facilities.
In a way, the government of the Pokemon world was much more benign than the one in his previous world. Perhaps because one got respect and power from bonding with very powerful magical creatures, which was generally easier to do if one was a good guy.
Humans and Pokemon kept each other in check, by existing in a context in which one's ability to develop meaningful connections and friendships determined one's overall success. A human psychopath serial killer wouldn't really be able to do much against the supernatural help that the police used in terms of Growlithe and psychic Pokemon. The likelihood of a wannabe serial killer stumbling upon a similarly crazy Pokemon was sort of low.
"I caught a Metapod, believe it or not," Joey said drily, throwing his backpack full of food and training equipment in the middle of the field.
"What?" Mia asked, her voice tinged with clear confusion. She didn't know the whole story about the Arbok and Metapod saving him. Nobody but the nurse Joys, the rangers, and Theresa did.
Joey looked at the brown-haired girl with a slight smile. Today she'd opted for jogging pants and a tank top, perhaps in preparation for the training session. She looked better than she usually did, in her summer dresses. More serious perhaps.
Should he tell her about the incident? She was technically a friend. But, he'd always hated the faces people made when you told them something horrible happened. Already there was a look of concern on her face due to the long silence.
"You know," he started. "I think I'm the kind of trainer that likes to train Pokemon that have guts and willpower, no matter the species. This Metapod, I saw her jump into an Arbok's maw to contribute to beating it. That's the sort of attitude that you can't train. You either have it, or you don't. I knew I had to have her from that moment onwards, no matter the difficulties."
Rather than prodding at the story, Mia focused on a completely different part of what he'd just said. "You don't think the attitude can be developed?" she asked. If she had used a different tone Joey might have suspected that she was hurt by his words, perhaps working off the belief that her Rattata wasn't as gutsy as his. However, it was factual, the question.
"I think it's harder to develop the attitude than to develop strength. Also, it's much more emotionally exhausting having to fix attitudes, rather than working with motivated Pokemon to fix the gaps in their repertoire. Trainers sometimes forget that they have to prevent themselves from getting burned out too. And an uncooperative Pokemon sounds incredibly frustrating," he explained, while Mia nodded along.
"Interesting," she mumbled, with twitching fingers. It almost seemed like she wanted to write his words down, but didn't have any material to do so with. "Can me and Lil Mouse meet her?" she asked suddenly, causing Joey to blink.
"I don't see why not," he muttered. "But let me tell Rattata what to do first. That way he can get started. He has a long road ahead of him."
"You just won the gym badge two days ago, though?" Mia asked, as if she wasn't there, and at the after-party.
Joey just shook his head as he released his starter onto the ground. As always, the rat was vibrating with excitement and didn't even seem to care about their new environment, immediately starting to run circles around Joey's feat, asking for a regime. The trainer knelt down, causing the rat to stop running and sit on its haunches. "Alright," he started seriously. "What we need for this next gym is similar to what we needed for the previous. As we already discussed. Detect, Hyper Fang and Quick Attack will win the day. Master that and maybe we'll start on something ranged. We have a Metapod now so we can train Detect even more reliably. For that purpose go meditate while using Detect. Try to feel the fighting-type energy in the move and become familiar with it," he said. Like a good little soldier, Rattata ran off towards the tree and started meditating under its crown in the lotus position it had learned by watching Joey. Legs folded with paws on his knees, one claw touching another. Eyes closed serenely.
"Wow, he's so calm," Mia muttered.
From experience, Joey knew that by the time he would go to Rattata to start the next step of their training, it was a 50/50 if the rat was meditating, or asleep. "It's a work in progress," he replied, before unclipping Metapod's pokeball from his belt. "Ready to meet a friend?" he asked the ball as he enlarged it. It seemed to shake in his hand, but not noticeably enough that he would be able to distinguish between a real sensation and an imagined one.
The large green crescent materialised on the ground in front of the two youngsters, at the same time as Mia released Lil Mouse.
"Hey, Metapod," Joey greeted as he crouched down to pet the bug-type on its head. The one eye pointed in his direction crinkled in a smile. Evolution had changed the angry Caterpie into a more calm Metapod. Or maybe the Pokemon just couldn't express the anger as well.
"It's sooooo biggg, Joey!" Mia gasped, getting on her knees to inspect the Metapod along with her starter to get a proper look.
"That's what she said," Joey muttered to himself, but his words thankfully went ignored as Mia continued gaping at his large, hard, Metapod. "It was already a large Caterpie beforehand, and now it's an even larger Metapod. Maybe it's genetic, or maybe it just waited a bit longer to evolve. Pokemon that do it too quickly generally stay a bit smaller," he explained while Mia nodded along.
"It's going to be an absolutely huge Butterfree then. Maybe even taller than me," she said. Lil Mouse chittered in agreement.
That was the point where a tick mark developed on Metapod's brow and she opened her mouth to cover the innocent twelve-year-old in sticky white fluid.
Having predicted this would happen the moment Mia had mentioned the possibility of evolution, Joey simply grabbed Metapod's horn and tilted her body so that her mouth wasn't pointed at his friend.
A small fountain of String Shot, shot into the sky, accompanied by an annoyed, "Meta, meta, pod!"
"Let's not talk about evolution," Joey cautioned. "She can't evolve at the moment, but we're working on it."
"Right," Mia nodded. "You need to get three badges to be allowed tier-two Pokemon."
Joey didn't bother correcting her. Maybe he'd tell her the full story once they were alone, divested of their Pokeballs for once. Now just wasn't the time. "We should use some of that energy for training," he said, turning to his Pokemon. "So are you ready to get started?" he asked and received a series of enthusiastic cries. He recalled his Pokemon and went to his half of the clearing. "Have a good session, Mia," he said with a nod towards his friend. The girl nodded back and turned to her Rattata, seemingly explaining something, while Joey released Metapod and started focusing on his own Pokemon.
"Alright, I've contacted some people who might have a better idea on how we can best train," he said, leaving unsaid that @Metapod master race, probably wasn't a real expert by anyone's means. "So, while I know you're frustrated that you'll only start on the poison TE in a week, there's loads we can do until then. And by loads, I mean String Shot. We'll have an important battle in a few weeks, and it's going to be a grass-type expert. He'll most likely use an Oddish and a Bellsprout. Preferred moves being status effect powders, Razor Leaf and Vine Whip," he explained, before standing up.
"I want to show you something, but first, can you make as wide a String Shot as possible?" he asked.
Caterpie had already gotten quite good at the move when she had been helping train Rattata's Detect, so it wasn't surprising that after its evolution she was able to spit out a surface-covering sheet of String Shot that looked a bit like a Spider Web.
"Good job," Joey praised. "Now, I'm going to throw something at you, and you have to hit it out of the air with a String Shot, are you ready?" he asked.
"Metapod!" his Pokemon replied. Rummaging in his pockets, Joey grasped a few pebbles, and continuing the tradition, hurled them at the bug-type.
Metapod reacted perfectly, a large stream of String Shot exiting her mouth at high velocity. All the pebbles were caught in the sticky liquid. A sort of sack was created, with the pebbles in the middle. It fell to the ground with a light thump.
"You see what I mean?" Joey asked. "I'm pretty sure you could already perfectly counter a Bullet Seed barrage with that. Maybe we need to make the string harder for it to counter a Razor Leaf, but once we've done that the Oddish will basically be out of options. Maybe it will use absorb, but since at low levels of proficiency the move kind of locks the user in place, that would be the opportunity for you to get close."
"Metapod?"
"Remember what you did with Arbok? You somehow managed to shoot a String Shot where you wanted to go, and then you pulled yourself along it to land in its mouth. If you did that with an Oddish, it would either get pulled towards you or you towards it. No matter which, you could use the opportunity to hit it with a Bug Bite. You have an advantage as a bug-type, so two or three moves like that and we could maybe win off just that. Honestly, you're almost the perfect Pokemon to take on the grass-type gym. You're bug-typed, you have shed skin and you know bug-type moves. You can counter all the ranged moves, and then beat them when they get desperate!" Joey said convincingly, and by the shining light in Metapod's eye, he had her hooked.
Metapod was arguably not a great Pokemon to have. But for the grass-type gym, it wasn't that bad. Worst case she'd cover the Oddish with so much String Shot that Rattata wouldn't have to expend any energy on beating it, leaving him fresh for the second Pokemon. Usually a Bellsprout. Sometimes a Tangela or a Bulbasaur.
"For the moment we'll continue working on accuracy with Rattata's help. Tandem training. Then we will have a short lunch break, you have to replenish your material storage to continue using String Shot. After lunch we can work on creating different types of String Shot, while Rattata focuses on Hyper Fang," Joey explained. There was excitement in Metapod's eyes. He was sure if his Pokemon was capable of movement, she would have moved towards Rattata, but, as it was, he had to recall her again and release her at an appropriate distance from the rat.
Looking at the rodent in the lotus position one would almost think that it was meditating. Its little claws closed in circles on its knees and its head bent wisely. However, Joey was the trainer, and he knew what signs to look for. There was a little bubble of snot expanding and getting smaller again out of Rattata's left nostril. He was sleeping.
Joey was starting to build a case for the possibility that his starter had some sort of off switch and that meditating was that off-switch. He was going to have to start looking for different possibilities of training TE. Maybe meditating had worked for him, but it wasn't necessarily one method that fit all kinds of situations.
"Wake him up," he ordered Metapod.
Just because meditation didn't suit the rat didn't mean he couldn't be a bit salty about the falling asleep part.
Metapod was all too happy to oblige and took aim at her comrade, a thin line of String Shot blasting forth at quite high speeds, aimed directly at Rattata's new Everstone necklace. There was definitely some underlying resentment there. Joey's eyes widened however when Rattata managed to sway out of the way of the String Shot. Had he not been sleeping? He asked himself, right before Rattata swayed too far and tipped over onto the floor, spilling all his spaghetti as he woke up with a startled scream and thrashed around himself, kicking up grass and dust.
Seemingly not appreciating the fact that her training partner wasn't taking her seriously, which is what it must have looked like to Metapod, she started rapid firing with a tick mark on her brow. Rattata commenced a series of odd movements on the floor, which a more generous person would have described as interpretive break-dance, but which just looked like a series of full-limb spastic twitches to Joey. He couldn't argue with the results, as the rat managed to somehow dodge all the String Shot, but he could roll his eyes at the sheer gracelessness of it.
Apparently, Rattata was surprised by his own capacity in this regard. When the barrage stopped, he just lay there, contorted like he wanted to be painted like one of your French girls, with wide eyes. Then he crowed triumphantly, standing up to thump himself on his over-inflated chest, which was a metaphor for his ego. It was in that moment of letting his guard down that a String Shot hit him right in the face. Hard enough to make him spin in the air and land belly-down, nose in the ground, starfish position.
"You alright?" Joey asked with a long-suffering tone. A trembling arm was slowly raised, extending a thump up against the sky.
"Well, get to training then, just get me when you're covered in too much String Shot to continue," the youngster said and turned away from his sometimes embarrassing pair of Pokemon.
As he heard cries of "Metapod!" along with betrayed whines of "Rattata?" behind him, he went over to his backpack to already prepare lunch. He glanced over to see what Mia was doing and caught the girl and her Pokemon looking at his own Rattata's training session instead of doing anything on their own.
She blushed when she saw him looking and started her drills again. They seemed to involve Lil Mouse jumping as high up in the air as they could and then coming down with a Quick Attack. It didn't look very effective to Joey. The Quick Attack seemed quite weak without any way to propel one's self forward, but, the move did affect one's momentum somewhat, so maybe it would be a good feint. Go in the air to dodge, have an enemy commit because they thought you couldn't manoeuvre. He'd consider the strategy.
Maybe it had some potential.
His mixing of Rattata's food was instinctual by this point. Pellet's heavy in protein for Pokemon with a normal biology, mixed with eggshells and calcium supplements for stronger teeth and bones. All of that topped off with oran berry shavings for taste. It was working too, as Rattata had grown quite some muscle, and his incisors in particular had become sharper and more dense since he'd started being put on this diet. The rat had gained almost 300 grams in the past two months, which would probably plateau soon.
Initial gains were always the largest.
Metapod's food was a bit more complicated as it involved a lot of things prescribed by Nurse Joy and Doctor Jeys. There were of course the normal bug-type pellets which provided the base, but there were also many supplements. Fibroin and Sericin for String Shot production, the first providing the material, the second the stickiness. Then there was some chitin, to strengthen Metapod's carapace and to retain its flexibility and some poison powder, a very small amount. Metapod had to get used to having poison in her stomach, and that was best done with exposure therapy. He'd been told to start off with one pinch for now, which was what he did. Two oran berries to cover the taste, instead of one.
It wasn't like Metapod would become incapable of producing string without this diet, or that its carapace would turn liquid if it didn't have the chitin. But, proper nutrition and good sleep went a long way in any training endeavour. If you could have 20% better results from just eating the correct food, why wouldn't you do it? While Metapod didn't digest the food as would normally be the case. All the useless leftover material would be converted in String Shot and ejected in that manner. Kind of gross, when you thought about it.
After he'd set aside the two bowls, Joey pulled out his notebook and took some beginning notes on Metapod so that he could keep track of her development the same as he did with Rattata. He wasn't completely anal about the thing. For example, he didn't weigh his Pokemon daily like some training books recommended, but he wrote down the current diet, what had changed in terms of energy mastery, and move breakthroughs since the last time. It had been this tracking that had made him confident in winning the battle against Kong. He'd seen Rattata's dodge chance go up from 30% to 50%, and from there all the way to 95% once he'd finally learned the move, instead of just developing his instincts. The last 5% were what he wanted to eliminate before he got to Celadon and challenged that gym. The issue wasn't in Rattata's use of detect, but rather in the fact that due to typing incompatibility the fighting-type energy sometimes glitched, which is why he'd been trying meditation to nail it down.
Perhaps it was worth considering getting Rattata a TM for Rock Smash? Just so that he could grow his experience with fighting TE? But, Joey wasn't made out of money, and he'd already determined that the best move to buy, in case he beat the Celadon gym was Dig. That would give him a pretty good move to use against Surge. Alternatively, Swift would finally give his starter a ranged option and wouldn't confuse him with any new TE. It was a tough choice and there wasn't really any correct answer. Each move had its advantages and disadvantages. It wasn't like having more money would fix the issue either, as a young Pokemon like Rattata wasn't supposed to consume that many technical machines that early in his battling career. Generally, it was recommended to wait a few months after using a TM that taught a foreign TE. For those that held an already known TE, the recommendation was less, but still...
So, it was a big choice. Whatever Joey picked, it likely wouldn't be advisable to use another until after he'd faced Surge. It would depend on Rattata's integration though.
Metapod at least was easier in that regard. There really weren't many moves that the Pokemon could learn via technical machine. Iron Defence probably made the most sense.
The second possible move was Supersonic, something that a Butterfree could learn naturally. It was just a particular sound frequency, so it made sense for Metapod to be able to learn it. It did have a functioning mouth and voice box after all.
Joey looked up from his musings when he heard some cries coming from where his Pokemon were training. He stood up and turned around, only to sweatdrop at the scene. Metapod lay there, menacing, cackling. A String Shot was connected from her mouth to Rattata, who wasn't visible the way he was stuck in a white cocoon, only his snout peeking out. Metapod was slowly reeling in her prey, like some sort of demented spider.
"I was only gone for 15 minutes," Joey muttered, shaking his head as he went over to resolve the situation.
-/-
They continued training for a few more hours and by lunch Mia had already left, saying that since it was a weekend she was supposed to eat at home with her parents. Joey declined to join and simply ate an apple and some nuts next to his Pokemon as they ravenously munched down on their food, the training having completely exhausted them.
After the break, which also involved some digestion time, Joey sent Rattata off to alternate training Hyper Fang and Bite, before working closely together with Metapod to develop different String Shot shapes to have an answer for all kinds of attacks. For example, shooting a String Shot at an Ember only required a small ball of the material, while blocking a Flamethrower required a longer and thicker string to really give the fire something to eat away at. Most important for the grass-type gym though, Metapod needed to master wide coverage String Shot nets, to catch Bullet Seeds, Razor Leaves and a variety of different powders. It was half problematic because this wide coverage meant that more material would be expanded, however, none of the moves could inherently harm the String Shot so it meant it would remain on the field, potentially entrapping an opponent.
In the end, the first battle would likely end up going to whoever ended up managing their resources better. If Metapod hadn't managed to frustrate or tire out her enemy by the time she ran out of String Shot material, she would lose. If she still had it by that time, she would win.
Metapod seemingly understood the importance of this foundational move and worked on it incredibly hard, which meant that the after-lunch session was just as productive as the one before, which wasn't necessarily always the case.
After the training was done Joey didn't go out to look for a battle as he usually would, knowing that Metapod at least still needed to build some synergy with him. In a week, after the meeting with the poison TE expert, it would maybe be time to go out and look for two versus two battles. Everything was a skill, even the decision-making process of which Pokemon to send out first. And when something was a skill, you couldn't avoid having to practise.