Hard Enough - Pokemon SI

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Brock is going to challenge Flint to a battle. It'll allow them to address the barrier between them and help them get some emotions out.
That actually sounds pretty likely as, thinking back on it, Brock really has been far too passive about the situation between him and Flint so hopefully Brock will realize it's time to bite the bullet and actually DO something about Flint which in the Pokemon world means a Pokemon battle. I do believe, however, that if Brock brings his A game Flint is gonna feel like he got a mountain dropped on him :D which is rather appropriate considering they're both Rock type trainers.
 
Chapter 48 - Training days, sweets
"So we'll be doing this a lot then?" asked Daniel as we walked through the Viridian forest.

I pushed aside a branch that had started to grow over the path. "Yup! We're out here because the routes leading to the city are something that should be checked and maintained as part of the gym charter. Walking them for any strange or unnatural behaviour is something we need to be doing. This is in conjunction with the Rangers. We work with them and help link things together with our jurisdiction," I said from memory.

I'd had to teach this to most of the people that I took on as trainers for the gym. I didn't sigh but I wanted to. Daniel was merely the latest in the line of trainers that didn't like having to patrol the routes. He most likely didn't enjoy being away from the gym, or more specifically his wife I suspected.

"Scyther!" cried my bug pokemon who was more than happy to be out and in his element.

I watched him dart around through the trees like a ninja, his shape blurring and reappearing on different tree branches. I whistled and signalled for him to return. He vanished and returned to me in a show of speed.

"Scyther!" he brandished his blades grin firmly attached to his face.

I gave him a rub on his head. "Enjoying this bud? You're doing well with your speed drills. I've got some balls I want you to keep in the air while staying within ten metres of us. Think you can do that?"

He nodded enthusiastically. I'd lucked out with his personality, as he was an enthusiastic and very upbeat pokemon. This made it a lot easier with motivating him to be a 'great warrior' like his ancestors before him. That had him puffing up in pride.

Daniel and Missy watched him dart around.

"The training brace sure seems to be working on him," Missy said as she watched Scyther work at his drills.

"Yeah, shame he's going to wear it out so quickly. I'll be able to get him strong but if I want to keep him there I'm going to have to keep him training pretty hard."

"Shame," said Daniel. When I raised an eyebrow he continued. "You won't be able to keep his training up when the circuit starts. He's a nice vanity pokemon."

"Eh, I need a pokemon like him that I can dabble with. Either way, he helps to give me more insight into how some of the local pokemon trainers do things with their bug pokemon. He certainly grows in response to the training I give him a lot faster than most of the pokemon I've trained in the past. It also adds a new challenge cause he can take on bad habits faster than others. Bug trainers need to be rather well thought out in their training plan. They also need to have great eyes for detail." I rubbed my chin. "It's interesting stuff and exploring it has made me revisit a lot of what I have my other pokemon do."

Missy nodded slowly. "Huh, I'd never thought of how that would impact a bug specialist. Interesting!" Missy glanced around. "If you don't mind Brock could I catch a caterpie today?"

I gestured for her to go right ahead. "By all means." The sound of voices approaching had me whistle and draw Scyther back to my side. Soon enough a trio of young boys emerged. Each of them had bug nets over their shoulders and the eldest had a trio of pokeballs.

The younger kids held a pokeball each in their hands, holding it like a prize they feared would slip from their grasp if they weren't careful. I raised a hand.

"Hello there!" I said waving in greeting.

The boys' eyes looked to me and bulged only for Scyther to step up and wave a blade in greeting and their eyes to snap to him. "Is that a scyther!?" they cried out as one.

Daniel snorted. "And the prize for the gifted goes to…" Missy coughed and shot him a look to behave but I ignored them.

"Hey kids, out to catch your starter pokemon?" I said drawing them back to me. They blinked and blushed when they realised they'd been staring. The eldest boy bowed his head, then realised he was alone in bowing. He rose, grabbed both of what looked like his younger brothers and dragged them both into a bow.

"Gym Leader Brock! We're sorry for staring sir!" as he did so his hat flopped off his head revealing ginger hair a similar shade to that of Celia.

"Hey, hey no need for that guys," I said, waving them off. They slowly straightened up, eyeing me carefully. "As you noticed, I'm Brock and this is Missy and Daniel," I said pointing at both as I introduced them "What're your names?"

"Mason!" "Blaire!" "Ron!" they said over the top of each other. The elder knocked both his brothers' heads and coughed. "I'm Blaire and these are my younger brothers Mason and Ron. They're going to try and do the circuit this year with me. I've already caught three pokemon and if we go together we'll have a better chance," he said only to wilt.

"That is… we would but the Beedril swarm has moved further north than usual… I don't want to hurt my pokemon by making them fight so many Beedril. I'd try for deeper into the forest, but again my starter is the only one that could handle it and it's too risky with all three of us… So we're heading home for today."

I nodded. "Hmmm, that's a good call. I'll need to check in on the swarm to make sure they're not too large, but we'll probably be turning west to skirt around them for a bit of a check today before heading home. Want to come with us?"

The boys all perked up at that, their eyes sliding to Scyther as they nodded quickly.

I chuckled as they joined us. I kept Scyther close enough to let them fan over him and how cool he was as he traced their steps back up the route. As we did so I probed Blaire. "So how come you're out here and not one of your…" I didn't parent but Blaire understood what I meant.

"Mum works full time. She's been saving up enough to get us these pokeballs for today. But I'm the one with three pokemon so I'm taking my brothers out to catch something."

"Ah, nice work then." I didn't ask after their father. That was something of a faux pas in this world. Sometimes people just left. For good or bad reasons.

Soon enough we came upon the Beedrill swarm and I whistled in appreciation.

"Hmmm, looks like a lot of them are going to be migrating soon." A glance up saw a number of circling Pidgeotto and Pidgeot along with some Fearow. "Not sure how many will make it with the birds waiting for them but another swarm might form up if they make it." I wrote a quick message to the Rangers and shot it off. "Couple more days and things will calm down."

I gestured to the west. "Let's skirt west for a bit. I doubt they'll go that way cause of the sea and the Silver range, but they might be feeling tough enough for it if they don't listen to the older beedrill."

"Older beedrill?" asked Blaire. "I thought most Beedrill only lived a few years?"

I pointed towards a particularly scarred Beedrill near the centre. "See that one? Those scars are from an Ursaring paw. If they have those they went west. That or there's an Ursaring that's moved east."

The boys all shifted at that but I waved it off. "Most of them prefer caves and mountains so it shouldn't be an issue. It's more likely that Beedril went to them than the other way around."

I glanced over Ron and Mason. "What sort of pokemon were you boys looking to get?"

"Heracross!" "Pinsir!" they said together.

I chuckled, "Or a Scyther?"

They nodded and Scyther puffed himself up. "What about Pineco, Spinarak or Venonat?"

"You can find those around here?" asked Daniel in surprise. I glanced at him and found him paying much more attention. It seemed he wasn't immune to 'cooler' bug types.

"They can be found throughout the forests of Kanto with special methods. You'd probably have better odds at night for Venonat or Spinarak but you could find them still. Otherwise checking trees for pineco would be possible." I caught a sweet smell and redirected us towards the smell. "One of which you can find by being clever, come on!"

I led them deeper into the woods and found a tree with leaves that were a deeper red compared to the evergreens that typically made up Viridian forest. I pointed right at it. "Scyther, fury cutter on the tree to scar the bark."

Scyther exploded forward and slashed the tree with speedy strikes. When he hopped away he did so with a pleased expression that he'd suitably marked the tree. I looked at Missy. "Can you mark this as a waypoint to return to for us on your pokenav? I can navigate us in and out of the forest but finding a specific tree is a bit of a tall task."

Missy did that and I waved the group on, much to their confusion.

We continued to trudge through the forest but perhaps with there being so many of us and Scyther being rather loud in his training, we didn't encounter any pokemon the boys were interested in. When we reached a small clearing with a shrine in the middle I called a halt for an early lunch.

The boys approached the shrine tentatively. "What is this? I've spent a lot of time in the Viridian forest and have never seen this shrine before?" said Blaire.

I chuckled. "Technically we're on the western outskirts of Viridian right now. We're fairly close to route twenty-three. We'll soon come into some plains and cliff faces. This is an old site for the guardian of the forest. There are plenty of sites like this that are said to honour the guardian. I know they're more prolific in Johto, but you can still encounter them if you spend enough time roaming the forests."

"Who's the guardian of the forest?" asked the boys.

I smiled. "Who can say," I said whimsically. Then I thought about it some more and decided to make this a little more memorable for them. The pokemon world was all about mystery and wonder after all. "Perhaps it was a strong Shiftry, or a Venusaur, or even something small and friendly like Bellosom, but know what I think?" I said. The boys shook their heads practically hanging off my words. "I think it might have been a Legendary pokemon."

The boys all inhaled and I thought I heard something from Missy and Daniel as they too got caught up in the story.

"Which pokemon is that?" whispered Mason, as though afraid I'd not tell them.

I smiled faintly and looked into the branches of the swaying trees. "They say it's called Celebi, a pokemon that makes trees and grass flourish wherever it goes. It has the ability to fly and is thought to be a psychic grass type pokemon." I let the group inspect the small little shrine for a while longer before opening a pocket on my backpack. "Make sure you leave something sweet for it alright?"

The boys all nodded and deposited a candy that they unwrapped. I deposited a part of my doughnut — an actual doughnut mind you— and even Missy and Daniel joined in. Then we bowed as a group to the shrine.

A wind blew through the clearing as a quiet held between us. Nothing strange or mystical happened however and we finished our lunch after that and began to track back the way we came. The boys all seemed a bit more thoughtful. I smiled and glanced back… but I didn't see anything.

I sighed. A pity, for all that I didn't really expect a pokemon known to inhabit Ilex forest I thought… maybe… just possibly…I glanced around hoping to see it. When nothing came I shrugged it off. Oh well.

We continued our poor showing and the boys, while disappointed, didn't seem to mind much as instead of catching pokemon they spent time with scyther. I traded some pointers with Blaire over how to train bug pokemon and was interested in how he strengthened up his Butterfree's gust without tearing the pokemon's much more delicate wings.

"Push ups with the wings are a good idea," I said, complimenting the young boy. He blushed and rubbed his nose.

"Thanks, it was just something I thought of trying after our teacher got annoyed with us in P.E and made us do jump push-ups."

I nodded along. Missy checked her pokenav, "Should be just over this hill boys."

I nodded and crouched down. "Alright gang from here on out we're going to go slow and quiet so as to not spook any of the pokemon off."

Daniel and Missy nodded while the boys grinned as I made a hand seal like I was playing ninja. Scyther flapped his wings in a quick vibration and then whispered his name adopting the game of ninja happily. Then as one, we all slunk forward to spy the tree I'd had Scyther slash up.

Around it, a number of pokemon were clustered. Some sat up in the branches and others jumped up from the ground, all of them ignored each other so they could focus on licking the leaking tree sap. I could see Pidgey chirping at Spinarak in the branches while a Mankey nudged other pokemon aside. Caterpie and Weedle hung onto the side of the trunk. On the ground a pair of Pichu hopped up and licked the tree one after the other.

"What the?" Missy said quietly. She looked at me. "What did you do?"

I pointed at the tree. "That's a maple, trees like that in forests can be drilled into and the sap is extremely sweet. It draws in pokemon like now." I gestured for the boys to step up.

"Well boys? What pokemon are you going to catch?"

The boys both pointed straight at the Pichu. I waved them onward. As they crawled forward I tapped Blaire and pointed in one direction. "Missy and I will go to the right, you go left with Daniel to stop them if they get away from the boys."

He nodded and plucked a pokeball with a determined expression on his face. "Got it!"

In the end, we needn't have bothered as both boys tossed their pokeballs and both caught the pichus. The other pokemon startled and broke away but we let them escape.

Mason and Ron danced happily with their pokeballs held high. ""We did it! We did it!""

We spent some time congratulating them. Before we left I collected some sap into a container as a treat for my scyther and other pokemon. Titan would enjoy it if I made it into a giant thick taffy syrup for him to enjoy. He'd have gunked up teeth for hours afterwards but he loved the taste of sweet things enough that he'd been one of the first pokemon I'd taken off childminding due to the kids being able to bribe him.

The boys were a bundle of energy the entire way back to Pewter and they announced a thousand and one plans to make their pokemon the strongest of all Pikachu or Raichu ever. I gave them a few suggestions. They thought my idea of giving their pokemon lots of pancakes was a laugh, but agreed that it would be appropriate with how they'd used something sweet to catch their pokemon.

I just smiled. Chances were it wouldn't change anything, but perhaps the old joke might hold just the smallest grain of truth? I had no doubt I'd hear about it in the future if my 'joke' resulted in big news of a new Pikachu evolution.

When we parted ways with the boys I knew I had new converts to the fan club that I'd heard of in Pewter for the gym. They couldn't bow low enough to me and ran into Pewter literally singing my praise still. I watched them go with a fond smile.

They'd been good kids.

When we reached Pewter I gave Daniel and Missy a nod. "And that's about as good a day trip for the local routes as you can get. Think you can do the same for future trips? You'll be doing them alone of course but what we did with checking the route and the pokemon population is the main job. Sometimes helping out young trainers as well."

Missy nodded and bounced back and forth. "It felt nice to do that! I never knew you could attract pokemon using tree sap before either!"

I made a so-so gesture "It's not usually as effective as it was today but with winter coming to an end there were bound to be some hungry pokemon around. You'll notice we didn't stop and camp around there as well. We made the slashes and then left straight away. Wild pokemon can get skittish if you stick around but when you let them gorge themselves on something sweet like that they're easier to catch."

"That's interesting," said Daniel rubbing his chin. Then he looked over to Missy. "Weren't you going to catch a caterpie?"

Missy blinked before groaning. "Shoot! I got too caught up in helping the boys out! Urgh!" She shook her head and sighed "Oh well, I'll have plenty of time."

I nodded at her before waving them on. "Right, now I'll show you how to write a report and file it. You'll copy that report and send it to the Rangers as well so that they're kept in the loop." The rest of the afternoon passed quickly from there with paperwork and scheduling.

I returned home and found my family bouncing around the lounge room. Cindy saw me and cheered. "Yay! Brock's home!"

The rest joined her only for them to stand and begin twisting their hips through their hands. It was rather adorable to see them flossing. When I'd first taught them this it had been in an attempt to get them to look after their teeth and to wash properly with a towel. They'd loved the silly dance immediately. Since then I'd learnt that it'd become very popular throughout Pewter schoolyards. It was even cuter to see Billy and Tilly trying and failing to synchronise their hips with their hands.

They flubbed it horribly but they didn't care. Eevee stared at us all and began to run through our feet barking her name as she did so. Her soft fur tickling legs caused a lot of my siblings to flub the floss. I joined them, a huge grin splitting my face.

Munchlax joined in and soon we were all giggling as he tried to throw his much too wide hips through his arms like the rest of us.

"Ready?" I said.

"Ready!" they chorussed back.

"Three, two, one! What time is it!?" I shouted to them.

""PIZZA TIME!"" they shouted, stopping their dance moves to throw their hands in the air.

Munchlax's eyes bulged and he leapt with glee. He didn't know how to floss but he obviously knew what Pizza meant.

I called up the Pizza company and got our usual orders. Twenty minutes later a huge Rapidash stormed up to the gym with a saddle laden with pizza. I collected our orders, gave the Rapidash a rub on the nose and settled in for the night.

A message on my transceiver from Sabrina had me glancing around. Hmmm she wanted to hang out? I could probably do that. "Hey, you guys okay with a friend coming around?"

I got a general murmur of agreement from everyone. They were more focussed on their pizza slices. I sent off a message, telling her it was pizza night and she was more than welcome to come over.

When Sabrina walked in she got mostly a disinterested greeting apart from Suzie who put her pizza down and waved her hands. "Hi! Hi! Sabrina!"

Sabrina perked up at that and gave a more subdued response, "Hello… Suzie," she said carefully.

Yolanda stared at her only to then turn her gaze towards me.

I gave her a look in return. "What?"

She grinned at me. "Nothing~!" she said before scooching over so there was a space between her and myself. She looked to Sabrina only to find Suzie had already claimed the older girl.

"What do you do with your hair?" Suzie said as she tried to sit up like a big girl and have a proper conversation.

Sabrina smiled at her. "I wash it and brush it out. I also have a silk pillowcase." Sabrina was more than happy to accommodate the younger girl with 'big girl talk'.

"That is so interesting!" said Suzie. "Want… I mean" she coughed. "Would you care for some pizza?"

Yolanda put her hands to her mouth and giggled. I chuckled as I took a bite of my pizza. I shot Yolanda a look. She'd been rather obvious about making space next to me just now. Had Yolanda thought Sabrina and I were dating? It seemed that way. I tapped Yolanda on the shoulder.

"Hey, we're not dating," I said, trying to be clear with her.

Yolanda blinked, glancing from me to Sabrina. Then she gave me a smirk. "Suuuuuure you're not." She then took a big bite of pizza and made a show of obnoxiously eating it.

"We're not!" I said truthfully.

Yolanda continued to chew on her pizza. "Uh-huh!" she said loudly.

I huffed at her and made a face as I chewed my own piece of pizza back at her.

"Urgh! Show a little deck rum!" said Suzie loudly at us from where she was having a 'big girl' dinner with Sabrina.

"Decorum," corrected Sabrina gently before nodding in agreement with Suzie. She lifted her head to look down on us but I could see her lips twitching.

It seemed like she was enjoying herself with how the kids were more focused on their food than different things around us. I picked up the remote and instantly eyes turned upon me.

"Oh! A love story!" said Yolanda smugly. I flicked a piece of Salvadore's pineapple pizza at her.

"Hey! Not my pineapple!" he said, dragging his pizza away from me.

Forrest shrunk into the couch. "Can't believe we're related." Salvadore stuck out his tongue.

"Can we watch the Eevee and friends movie?" asked Cindy. Tilly agreed and I could see Suzie wanted to as well but she was watching Sabrina. Apparently, watching Eevee and friends the movie would seem too 'little girl' for her tastes right now.

Our Eevee chirped up and bounced in excitement which made Suzie's desire to appear older obviously waver.

The boys groaned aloud. "Urgh! Can't we watch Battlecast? They're going to have some good matches on replay!" said Forrest.

I rubbed my chin not really wanting to watch replays. "Hmmm, maybe next time."

Forrest groaned and reached over the couch to grab some gameboys which he handed out to the other boys. I rolled my eyes at him and set up the girls with Eevee and friends. Eevee was rather cute to watch as she darted about the room mimicking the pokemon on the screen with their attacks or how they ran away from certain attacks.

When she eventually settled near Cindy she was close enough for Sabrina to reach over and stroke her fur.

I checked in with Sabrina. She seemed to not be having any issues unlike last time with Erika and Janine. But then again the kids were more relaxed this time around and she seemed to be handling it well. Yolanda caught me checking Sabrina over and shot me a smug, knowing look. I shot her a shake of the head which she ignored.

When the movie was done she watched me escort Sabrina out and I spotted Yolanda and Cindy, and Suzie watching us from a window as I said goodbye.

"Thanks for coming over to hang out… even if we didn't really do that much."

"No we didn't, but I still enjoyed myself, " Sabrina said before inclining her head. "Thank you for inviting me."

When she didn't say anything else I nodded. "Well good night," I said in parting.

Sabrina returned the gesture and then vanished in a teleport. When I walked back in, Yolanda and Cindy both shook their heads at me.

"What?! We're just friends!" I said, trying to correct their assumptions. Both of them just sniffed.

Suzie waved her hand. "Brock how did Sabrina vanish? Is she a ninja-like Janine? Only a better one?" The boys perked up at this.

I bit my lips to not laugh. If Janine heard that comparison she'd be mad. I coughed. "Uhm no, Sabrina's a… she's a psychic so she knows how to teleport."

Suzie blinked. "Oh! Wow, so she's really strong?"

I nodded "Yup! One of the strongest people I know!"

Suzie smiled and bounced to the bathroom at my urging. "I'm friends with her!" she sang.

Yolanda stared after us. "Wait? She can teleport?!"

I grinned, apparently, Yolanda had missed that little fact over her thoughts on our relationship. "Bedtime kids! I have some more work in the morning!" I said aloud.

Forrest glanced over at Yolanda who shifted back and forth as the rest of the kids moved upstairs. Yolanda shot Forrest a pleading look after everyone else was gone.

Forrest grumbled before straightening up. "So, uhm I have to come clean about something…" he started.

I stopped cleaning the room and straightened. "Oh?" I said, expectations lurching to the forefront. Were he and his friends the ones spray painting parts of Pewter? Forrest suddenly looked much more nervous and I realised I wasn't being 'open' like the parenting book suggested. I coughed, "Sorry, I meant, alright, I'm listening?" I sat down and leaned onto my hands and laced my fingers to show I was listening and being neutral as much as possible instead of standing and possibly looming.

Forrest swallowed. "Right well… I've been riding my bike around and trying to… uhm… run into Dad lately?"

I blinked in surprise. "Oh," I said, feeling everything suddenly jerk under me. "What made you…" I rethought what I was going to say here. "Did you get to talk to him?"

Yolanda and Forrest shared a look before shaking their heads. I relaxed a little and then wondered why I was relaxing. "Alright… so do you want me to talk to him?"

Yolanda shifted back and forth. "Well it's… just that!" she bit her lip. "We had seen him around and we thought maybe we'd talk to him." She raised her hands when I turned to look at her. "But we only decided to do that over the last couple of days!"

"Okay, that's…" What was going on here? Did they think I was mad about them seeking out Flint? "I'm not mad."

Yolanda searched my face and relaxed. "Oh… I was worried you might have been cause… Well Dad did make you come back so early from your journey and you might still be mad at him and…"

I rubbed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Suddenly I felt like I was on one side of a divorce with the kids asking to see the other parent… which was pretty much how things were.

"Alright, you wanted to see him. That's fine. I've been mostly waiting for him to approach and talk but… well he hasn't been doing that." I felt that tickled my mind. Something about waiting being a bad thing… who had said that to me recently?

Yolanda looked away, her eyes glimmering with tears. "We noticed that as well." I dismissed what I had been thinking to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder, staying low so she didn't have to look up at me.

"Hey, hey, it's alright. I… I get it. It's fine. Honestly, it's good that you decided to do something like this." Right. Karen had mentioned my waiting being a possible issue. I hadn't expected it to manifest this way however. Although with how Flint was also… hmmmm.

I was starting to get a sneaking suspicion that I wasn't the only Rock aura user in the family. I had adopted a wait-and-see approach but the same could be said about Flint. He was known to have trained exclusively rock types for years before I was even on the scene. So it was technically possible if not highly probable.

Yolana nodded and sniffled to get herself under control as I continued to pat her shoulder.

Forrest coughed. "Well! Anyway, we ummm, have been looking for him, but lately, he hasn't been around… You… didn't happen to say anything to him did you?"

I blinked in surprise. Did they think I had spoken to him? "No?"

Forrest blinked back, just as surprised by my answer. "Oh? We thought you might have gotten angry with him and… chased him off… which now that I say it sounds dumb…"

I opened my mouth before reconsidering what I was going to say and how things might seem to them. "I'm not going to say I'm not mad with him, cause I am!" I said quickly. "He shouldn't have run off like that again. Not with how things were. And a whole host of reasons but I haven't spoken to him at all."

I worked my jaw around before shaking my head. "The last time I saw him was…" The hospital trip with the twins… I'd been pretty annoyed then, hadn't I?

Yolanda wiped her eyes and smiled at me. "Do you think you can just ask him to come home?"

I swallowed down the feelings that wanted to blurt themselves and smiled at her. "Sure, I can do that."

"Sorry," she said, ducking her head.

I rubbed the top of her head before planting a kiss on her forehead. "No, you don't have to be. I'll find him and we'll talk." I looked into her eyes. "I promise."

Yolanda smiled and I felt myself relax. I looked over to Forrest to include him in the promise as well. "If you guys happen to see him first though then by all means. Talk to him and invite him back."

Forrest sighed in relief. "Oh good, That's good. Really good even…" I shot him a glance and he coughed. "We were worried you might reject him."

I snorted. "You guys do know that the bedroom at the end of the hall closest to you is not just an empty guest room right?"

Yolanda beamed at me while Forrest made a slow face of realisation. I shook my head then deliberately rolled my eyes at him. When he rolled his back at me I ruffled his hair making him scowl and splutter. I rolled my eyes at him and signalled for them to come help out with the other kids.

I felt a weight lift. I had a course of action and now I just needed to find Flint and talk.

That shouldn't be too hard right?



A.N. Special thanks goes to my patreons for their support!

Special thanks goes to Raikor, Ab9999 and Elnoorz for betaing and editing this chapter
 
Oh Brock. What happens when Flint tries to parent someone who didn't need him anymore? Someone who grew up way too fast to shoulder all the responsibilities he was abandoned with, and with a bloody heartbreak on top of it. Yeah.

Good luck, Brock. Have a feeling that the Dark type thing's gonna play a real big part in the confrontation. Like real mean and low, hitting the soft spots and not letting up. Someone's gonna get hurt there.

Anyway. The world building and gym responsibilities were very interesting. Turns out, I like them more than Pokemon battles, and I like Pokemon battles.

Thanks for sharing.
 
I am now excited on how Brock and Flint will fix their differences and how Flint will apologize to what happened after he just disappeared without any thing to say
 
Stubbornness and cynicism being bolstered by rock and dark aura probably making this harder than it should be. I would not be surprised if the mom has a strong fairy aligned aura causing her to be flighty.
 
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You know, with the new hyper training from 6 and onward's pikachu's stupid special IV's no longer are bogus. He just got a max special IV every time he leveled up thanks to Flint's supercharge. Which is real funny as Surge would love to swap notes with him about that.
 
Oh Daniel, that Scyther is going to see real use in the League Circuit.....Quick question, has Brock been able to get in contact to search for that Black Augurite he wants? I dont to believe it's only present in Hisui (aka Sinnoh), despite what the wiki may say.
 
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So what are the chances that one of those Pichu was the one that originally became Ash's Pikachu Probably not high, but I don't think it's zero either. :p

Kidding. It's a good "what if" scenario if anything.
 
I've been mostly waiting for him to approach and talk but… well he hasn't been doing that." I felt that tickled my mind. Something about waiting being a bad thing… who had said that to me recently?

The same person that told you to be evil?

I'm pretty sure Karen would be totally on-board with making him suffer...
 
Chapter 49 - Behind the scenes
Life continued from Yolanda and Forrest's heart to heart with me over Flint. I started looking out for him when I walked around Pewter on patrol. When I dropped off the kids I was expecting him to be there, watching them gambol around in glee.

I wasn't alone in looking for him. Just as I had promised to do so, Forrest and Yolanda had also started keeping an eye out with the understanding that they could approach him freely. Now Yolanda had her head on a swivel. When Forrest passed me on his bike he had a focused look on his face.

It bothered me that two days had passed and we had yet to see even a hint of Flint. I couldn't help but find his disappearance strange. He'd been lingering around the gym for… months now? Only to vanish? Strange. Very Strange.

Unfortunately, a disappearing parent was not something that the police, or indeed anyone, would bother themselves with. It was far too common for some parents to simply walk off. Police didn't even consider it 'missing' when parents just… left.

The freedom of the pokemon world was a double-edged sword at times like this.

With Flint not immediately returning, my siblings thankfully hadn't become depressed. However, that didn't stop me from becoming frustrated with the man.

I vowed, once again, that we would have words when I next saw him.

Thankfully the kids and I had outlets. Forrest rode his bike around town more and more, and Yolanda spent more time with Crystal scooting around town. She also dedicated a lot of time talking with her egg. It made for a rather adorable sight.

I had my own pokemon to train. So I threw myself into that.

"No, Scyther you need to parry the strike with your blades not meet it head on!" I said.

In front of me, my newest pokemon once more tried to throw himself into a head-on clash of strength. He didn't stand a chance against Shin, but he was being headstrong and brash.

He stepped out of the crater he'd been tossed into with a loud, "Scyther!" while glaring hatefully at Shin who merely shook his much larger head at the younger pokemon.

Don, who was watching on from the sideline, tore into the flank of meat that I had given him for lunch. He cackled in a degrading manner that had Scyther bristling. I clicked my tongue and flicked a rock at Don who growled at the disruption to his teasing. Bertha, who was sitting up against the rocky plateau, chuffed at Don's antics but the prideful monster rounded on her with a flap of his wings. He often tried to throw his weight around with my team as he could be a prideful pokemon.

Bertha snatched him out of the air and brought him up to her face where she blew a dismissive snort of air into his face. He hated that, clawing and biting at her. I sighed and raised a pokeball.

"Don! Calm yourself down, you know the rules for when we're training new pokemon. If you're not going to be quiet while the new pokemon is getting trained up I won't bring you to these sessions!"

He turned to glower at me but I stared back, unimpressed. When he lowered his head, Bertha let him go and pat him on the head.

"Rhy-Rhyperior," she said soothingly. Don sniffed and strutted off with his head held high. Bertha looked at me and made a show of rolling her eyes. I snorted and nodded. Don pointedly ignored us and tore into his meat once more.

Every now and then I had to lay out the law with the overly proud pokemon. If I wasn't firm with him he'd constantly be pushing for more and more until he either left or I had to give him up. Not that I ever had that issue. It was easy to stand your ground after you'd stood before a Tyranitar and asked for their son. It also helped that every other pokemon on my elite team were powerhouses that Don could respect.

The issue re-emerged however when I had a new candidate for the team.

Scyther shifted nervously from foot to foot. Scyther was literally and metaphorically green. He was a strong pokemon with a lot of potential. I could see as much with how fast he was without having any training, but he was still untested. He was like a young kid that had stepped into the human workout gym only to find himself in the heavyweight lifters and gym junkies section. In his case, he had me urging him on and telling him he would be just as strong one day.

Scyther continued to fidget. I watched him, documenting how he moved and how he reacted when he was nervous. Social cues with body language were important to pick up for any pokemon you wanted to train and it was best to learn them early to ensure a healthy development.

I clicked my teeth and gestured for him to approach Shin. "There's a nuance to it, Scyther. You need to have softer hands rather than stronger, firmer hands. Rigidity is not what I want. I want you to be able to control the exchange of blows. It'll make a lot of difference in close combat exchanges in future." I demonstrated with a few taps and parries as Shin swiped his claws at me at half speed. I made a show of demonstrating movements that were simple.

"While you don't have to worry about 'grip' like the old Kantonian fighters with their swords, you still need to focus on having soft hands. This training session is to show how things will change and give you a feel." I gestured at Shin.

"Shin is, in a sense, an ancient branch of your species. Probably not a direct branch though."

Scyther tilted his head and raised his blades to point at Shin's blades.

"Hmmm he has similar blades?" I said. Scyther nodded letting me know that I had guessed his question correctly.

I chuckled, "Heh yes. There is a theory about that, and I don't think people are wrong, but there is also another potential path that your pokemon species can follow." Scyther looked dubious but interested.

I scratched my chi wondering if I should tell him my plans before shrugging. "Ah, alright, I'll let you in on a secret? There's the possibility that the evolution of the scyther blade is actually a more recent development."

Scyther tilted his head.

"There's a little-known rock type evolution that you can take," I said. Shin shifted into a squat next to us much more interested in this than he had been a moment ago. Scyther stiffened in surprise and then glanced around at the others. Don had perked up from his meal and Bertha was also watching me.

I held up my fingers to my lips. "Shh though, it's a secret. If it works out you'll be super rare as an evolution." I pointed at his blades. "But you won't have scythes anymore, you'll have axes."

Scyther tilted his head again. It took me a moment to realise what he was confused about. "Oh! Axes are more specialised tools that can be used to chop trees or as weapons. They're similar to swords in that you need to have deft hands to use them well, but the edge is typically shorter."

I sketched out an axe in the dirt for him. "You'll have an axe somewhat like this." I indicated the axe shape I had drawn.

"This part is a beard, and you'll also have a reverse point that you can use to use the back of your hand or the butt of your axe. This will allow you better armour penetration and also the ability to catch blades. So you will learn soft hands and then I hope to evolve you if I can find enough of the item you need for this."

Scyther's wings vibrated and he stamped his feet up and down in excitement. "Scy! Scyther!"

Don and Bertha wandered over to look at my sketch. Shin rubbed his chin before shrugging, not at all bothered with the new information. Don sniffed and stalked off after nodding once at Scyther while Bertha rubbed her chin with her huge hand. She then held up her thick fingers and pointed to the butt of the drawn axe.

"Hmmm? Oh yeah girl, we'll get him to learn a bit from you for the armour penetration that your drills offer. Will you be up for it?" I said with a grin.

Bertha shot Scyther a thumbs up and Scyther beamed at her before going back to his happy dance.

"Rhy!" barked Bertha to Scyther causing the bug type to look up at her. Bertha pointed a finger at herself with a grin. "Perior! Rhy! Rhy!"

Scyther nodded seriously and bowed to her, which had her huffing in a pleased manner. I got the impression that she wanted the new pokemon to call her 'big sis' from that interaction. Bertha then formed a grip like she was holding a weapon. She lifted her arm and swung it. "Rrrrr!" she said as she did so with a smile.

Scyther perked up and copied her in his chopping action. I snorted and watched her play around with Scyther. I got the impression that I'd need to think of a good name for him when he reached his potential. I was starting to think he'd well and truly live up to my hopes.

Most of the move pool for Scyther and Kleavor, as far as I could recall, were similar but I'd probably play into Scyther's known strengths with speed and technique over power. I ticked off my fingers: stealth rock, sword dance, rest, psycho cut, sleep talk, aerial ace, stone edge, x-scissor, along with giga impact or hyperbeam were all possible if I wanted to spend the time training up to those.

"Rhy!" shouted Bertha as she 'chopped' a rock in two. Scyther had stars in his eyes.

I shook my head as I rolled my eyes at her. "Did you forget that your tail is a giant club Bertha?"

Bertha whipped her head around and gaped at her tail. She then made a show of presenting it to Scyther like it was something new. Scyther 'clapped' his blades together with a ting sound, like metal hitting together. I facepalmed at her antics before deciding to leave them to their fun for a few more minutes.

I glanced over to find Shin squatting next to Don and sharing his meat. Their long friendship apparently meant Don never begrudged his friend taking food from him. In fact, any of the 'ancient' pokemon I found in Grampa canyon were all like that. Don might be a prideful pokemon, but he never tried to 'lord' it over the other pokemon I'd found with him. From what I had learned, they'd all spent so much time together they'd gone beyond having any hierarchy. Or maybe it had to do with the food scarcity in the Grampa canyons, which may have forced them to share what they had.

They weren't super talkative about the times before I caught them. Even when I'd employed the yes-no method Salvadore liked to use for learning more about them.

"Brooooooooock!" shouted a shrill voice that had me glancing around.

"Celia?" I shouted back.

"Brooooock!" called Celia as her voice began working its way closer to me. I tilted my head and checked my transceiver. I still had another hour before our meeting didn't I?

Celia ran around the plateau and waved. "Brock! Oh, I couldn't find you! Sorry, I'm late!"

I tilted my head. "Uhm you're not though? We didn't have anything scheduled until twelve?"

Celia blinked. Then she blinked again. Then she deflated. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry! I must have written it down wrong!"

A crash of rock breaking behind me made me look back to see Bertha having smashed another rock. I rolled my eyes at her again as Scyther cheered her on before attempting to copy her. He got his blade stuck and Bertha laughed at him before she helped unsheathe his arm.

I turned back to find Celia shifting back and forth. I shook my head and jerked a thumb behind me. "I don't think I'll get any more training out of them for a while. They're in a playful mood, so how about we have that chat?"

Celia perked up, almost lifting off the ground in her excitement. "Sure! That'd be great!"

I nodded at her. "Right, well formally this might be a chat best had indoors…"

Celia shifted from foot to foot. "I'd prefer to just talk here if it's all the same?"

I nodded at her. "Alright then. Well seeing as you're sticking with us for the next year at least." I ignored her muttered 'and beyond' and pushed on, "We need to decide what you'll be doing for that year. Now your options will depend on what you eventually want to explore in the future. If there is a field of work you want to pursue we can set you up with a college study plan?"

Celia hummed and considered that before shaking her head. "I'll pass on that, I think… I think I want to keep working with pokemon specifically. Maybe as a breeder so I can snuggle up to cute pokemon!" I chuckled at her rather typical young girl desires showing through. I suspected if I had her work with Bianca she might not want to work as a breeder, but perhaps she might.

"But honestly…" she chewed her lip, "I don't want to do that right away… I want to keep seeing new sights."

"So perhaps you should be looking to have another journey? Another circuit somewhere else perhaps?" I said thoughtfully.

Celia nodded her head. "Yeah! That'd be great!"

"Hmmm, if you're looking for new experiences… honestly I'd recommend Hoenn as your next circuit. I went there during my journey and I loved the variance that came from learning about new pokemon. Also their climate is completely different from Kantos. They have a desert and a lot of waterways compared to Indigo." I rolled my hand. "Nothing on the waterways in the Sevii or Orange islands of course."

"I doubt anywhere is like that!" Celia said confidently.

I shook my head. "Nah, I think there are plenty of regions that will come out that are similar to the archipelago regions," I said, thinking about Alola. Celia nodded without any argument. I gestured for her to walk with me and we left my pokemon.

"With your showing, you won't be able to bring more than one pokemon with your team for any serious matches such as gym battles," I shot her a questioning look, "unless you're going to go the Ace challenge route?"

Celia shook her head. "No, I'll go into the starter bracket and then build up for the end-of-year conference. I will be able to have a lot of my team by then from this last circuit right?"

I nodded. "Yes, you will be restricted to only one pokemon from this year for the tournaments you take part in for the first three months." I made a circle to indicate that period of time before moving on to the next with hopping action with my hands.

"And then the next three months you will have access to three pokemon for the local tournaments. In the last three months, you'll have complete access to them." I grimaced. "Not that there's typically a lot of tournaments running during the last period of the circuit."

"Huh, how come they do that?" Celia asked.

"So they can give young trainers more of a chance to adapt to an increasing scale of skill. People that are serious will have had six months with their pokemon if not have a full roster by the time six months are up. It gives them time to also adjust to the increase in skill while showcasing strong pokemon at the end of the year tournament. It's something the various Leagues all agreed on."

We reached the perimeter and began to slowly walk around it. "Who will you take with you? Any thoughts?" I already knew who she'd say but she might surprise me.

"I'll be taking Lizzie. As my starter I'm most familiar with her and she'll also offer me the best safety."

"Good call, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that just cause you can't use them for the big tournaments doesn't mean, you can't take other pokemon with you. It'd be good to keep cycling them to get more experience along with giving you a bigger safety net." I grinned. "Also Hoenn is somewhere you'll be able to experience true examples of Co-ordinators with their contests. With some of your pokemon that might be a great way to bond or broaden your own skills."

Celia made a face. It looked like she was disgruntled to be told to try contests while wanting to put on a brave face for me. It made her look kind of grouchy.

I offered her my view. "Just give it a shot. It's something new alright?"

That got a nod from her. "So… when will I need to depart?"

"You'll need to arrange transport to leave at least a week before the start of the circuit. You'll also want to look into what you will need and if any of your friends are going over there. It can be a pretty big deal to link up with friends for a different region."

Celia nodded. "Right, I can do that!"

I hummed, pleased that Celia had made making friends one of her goals. I'd have her try and stay on the route as it was a great way of expanding her horizons and skills as a person. We walked for another few minutes with me detailing a few things to be aware of such as not talking down contests while actually in Hoenn. Or talking badly about pokemon such as Darkrai, Kyogre, Rayquazza, Groudon, or the Eon pokemon. Those pokemon were held up with an almost worship status in Hoenn. Or, in Darkrai and Giratina's case, spoken of in careful whispers and never at night or while the moon was in the sky.

I had never learnt why, but enough people in Hoenn had mentioned it that it was either a shared joke at my expense… or something specifically cultural to Hoenn that had to be mentioned.

When we completed a loop around the pasture Celia looked very thoughtful. "Is there anything I can do while I'm over there to help out at the gym?"

I opened my mouth to say no before I shut it and thought more seriously about her offer. Celia perked up when I didn't say no. "There is?"

I rubbed my chin and looked straight into Celia's eyes. I gestured for her to walk another lap with me. "What do you know about fossils and ancient pokemon?"

And so I gave Celia a job for her circuit. With how fired up she was at receiving a mission I almost expected her to raid a museum. I had laughed at the thought before deciding to outright say very specifically to not do that to her.

I then outlined some other pokemon that I wouldn't mind getting. She looked confused at my descriptions of Dweeble but highly interested in my descriptions of shiny stones that had helix patterns within them and how they potentially unlocked certain pokemon's hidden power.

When we were done Celia looked like she had a goal in mind beyond merely winning the conference. I decided to give her another incentive so she didn't spend all her time in the desert.

"Hey, if you make it to the conference and get through the group stages I'll come over to watch your matches in person, sound good?" She gasped in surprise as I shot her a wink. "I'll be hoping for an excuse for a holiday so give me a reason, yeah?"

She nodded firmly and I mentally blocked out some time in my calendar when the circuit ended. I fully believed she'd follow through on her end and so I would follow through on mine. I wasn't going to say no to revisiting Hoenn. If the showing from this year's tournament was any indication then I wouldn't be surprised if she reached the finals. Barring of course anyone like Tobias from the cartoon showing up.

I honestly had no idea how someone like Tobias would be taken in this world if he existed. Having a full-on Legendary wasn't something that was currently considered possible, let alone a Darkrai. There had to be something going on there.

I rubbed my chin. Although, wasn't there that one trainer that was able to use Articuno for battling purposes? Noland had something going on that actually felt more like the Fiore method of companionship rather than actually capturing the pokemon. There was also Brandon to consider. Brandon had things like Regirock, Registeel and Regice… Was he the person with the most legendaries?

I'd have to keep an eye out for them… or, l could use my connections with the Guardians to ask around after Legendary pokemon. I rubbed my chin in thought. That had potential.

"Anything else you wanted to talk about?" I asked Celia before I marched off.

Celia shook her head. "Nope! I'll set up the tickets and also get the paperwork to you soon!" she clenched her fists. "Expect to be at the Hoenn conference Brock! I'm going to win it all this time!"

I smiled and nodded at her. "I can believe that, now you best run along." A crash from behind the plateau over the cave system made me remember that I still had my pokemon out and playing around. "Looks like I need to stop Bertha and Scyther from wrecking all the rocks just for laughs. The Onix don't like having to push new rocks around too often."

Celia giggled, waving as she left me to my pokemon. I turned and headed for my team before sending the Guardians a few messages. With that done I checked the schedule for the rest of the day. Hmmm, looks like I was patrolling Mt Moon with Daniel and Missy to show them the ropes.

That might be an opportunity for Scyther. I pocketed his pokeball on the way to collect my gear for an overnight camping trip.

Before I departed with the gang I picked up the holopad from my locked drawer. With it in hand I pinged the group, fully expecting to merely leave a message. Instead, Agatha connected, her face appearing in a flash of light above the pad.

"Brock, good to see you, I've been talking with Karen and she's been praising your efforts in developing your aura control."

I made a surprised noise. "Ho? That's news to me, she seemed to be more disparaging of my efforts."

"Hmpf, well don't tell her I told you this but she is. Good work implementing our training methods. Have you begun training any of your own in your methods?"

I shook my head. "Celia is focusing on her training and my own family… they seem too young to grasp it just yet, along with not having pokemon of their own."

"Hmmm it's never too young really. But if you feel that way about them there is still a young man with some potential…"

"I'll consider it," I said, deciding to put it off again for now.

Agatha inclined her head. "Very well, now was there something you wished to discuss or have looked into?"

The previous talk with Karen came to mind about Rock types becoming passive. I'd been accepting a lot of things recently and rolling with the punches. Karen wasn't wrong in her description but I had reflected on it and realised it was an oversimplification.

I might be slow to act, but that didn't mean I wouldn't.

"What can you tell me about the audit? I didn't bring it up with Koga as I mostly agreed with the other gym leaders when we came up with our response. But I still want to understand more about what was going on there."

Agatha nodded. "Koga would be the one with the most information, but he is a rather stoic man. Given to short discussions. Do you have time for a longer talk?"

I checked the clock. "I have time."

Agatha made a flicking gesture to the side and a chair slid into the hologram which she sat in. "Thank you Gengy," she said to a shadow that suddenly had red eyes. She settled in and looked at me.

"Very well, the issue itself started with your Gym demonstrating that you had a lot more resources than they thought you would. Pewter gym was not thought of well despite being the traditional beginning challenge. It has long been a rather shabbily run affair that was only running on a shoestring budget. People hadn't paid much attention to the idea that change could happen so quickly with a new gym leader at the helm. Your expansion and increased tax had been noted but not reviewed. You were perhaps going to be due a review soon, but your announcement and rather gauche demand for such a large prize pool with Lance lit quite a number of fires in people. You became a hot button topic that got many people sitting up and paying attention."

Agatha grinned at me. "Well done there once again." I got the image of her being like a kindly old granny. I could just imagine her praising Karen for beating someone up at school and offering her some candy.

Agatha sniffed. "There are however inner factions within the Indigo League. It was realised that reviewing you would be seen as pragmatic, and justified while pleasing a number of people at League headquarters upper hierarchy."

"That sounds like departmental politics…" I said carefully.

Agatha perked up. "Oh? You do know about that concept then? Good well, that was certainly going on. There were a number of 'young up-and-comers' or people trying to make names for themselves. When you reach a certain position in some organisation politics always comes into play Brock."

I wasn't sure I liked where this was going and Agatha's next words only proved my instincts right. "A young man by the name of Fletcher, who happens to be the son of the Pokeblock CEO, was the original petitioner of the audits. He was able to get ahead of others and get the approval of the secretary of the President. It was quite the feather in his cap I assure you."

I felt dark energies begin to rise up within me. Agatha watched me as she spoke, "His agenda was never about doing right but rather showing himself to his superiors, or more specifically getting praise and earning himself a promotion in the League. I had to intercede with who he was sending where, otherwise people much less caring would have knocked on your door or that of the Cerulean sisters."

"You… sent Timothy at me?" I said incredulously, my dark feelings stuttering in the wake of that revelation. I wasn't sure I could 'thank her' per se but in review, Timothy hadn't been… bad. Just… extremely inconvenient. You couldn't exactly thank someone for their choice in auditor though, it just… no. I shook my head slightly at the thought.

"Yes Brock," Agatha said in a matronly tone of a grandmother being amused by a young man, "I sent Timothy to you. Timothy, even if you had been in error, would have followed the book of rules and pointed out how to correct your oversights and given you a small slap on the wrist unless you had truly dropped the ball. That is how most audits should go. Audits when we, the original Elite Four of Indigo, introduced them were never meant to be tools to break people." Agatha glowered away from me and at something on her side.

Then she grinned. "The Cerulean sisters in turn got that dumb fool, Sven, who they proved up to task, leading him by his nose. I think they're still leading him by the nose so perhaps I did them more than just a favour, but also played matchmaker! Fehehe!" she cackled to herself.

"What about… Fletcher was it?" I said dark emotions and energy rising up at the mention of the man that had caused me and my friends weeks of stress for his ambitions.

Agatha sniffed pointedly. "Thanks to his raise he had also been able to petition to grant corporations, specifically Pokeblock, a small tax break."

"... I really hope you're joking," I said with a flat tone.

Agatha raised an eyebrow at me before scoffing. "Please, I wouldn't joke about this Brock." She held my gaze for a few moments longer only to then grin in a sly manner. "He has since been removed from his position after information was 'leaked' that brought him to the attention of the internal auditors. Timothy is a wonderful man, so clinical by the book." Agatha accepted a cup of tea from the side.

"Thank you Gengy!" she said again before taking a sip. She looked very pleased with herself and I suspect the timing of her getting the drink was no coincidence. A cake sliding into the picture only completed the picture. I snorted in amusement as she literally had her cake and ate it in front of me.

"Ah! Dear Gengy! Always giving me too much sugar in hopes it'll kill me one day so I can become like him! Fehehehe! I'm much too bitter for that to happen any time soon!" Her shadow roiled and I got the impression it was laughing at her very dark joke.

I swallowed. "So is that it then?"

Agatha nodded. "For now… people might get ambitious with my retirement as I had to use some favours to have Fletcher's review accelerated before he could dig in too much. I made sure to let the other ambitious fools know to keep their heads down, but I have no doubt my retirement will embolden others in other ways. It's why it's vital that we get Karen in alongside Koga. With both of them we will actually strengthen our position while apparently losing out due to my retirement."

I nodded at that before realising I should probably say something. "Thank you then, for what you did. I didn't know that was happening."

"The League should mind their business most of the time Brock, and thank you for noticing my efforts. It's good to see a polite young man," She grinned at me teasingly. "Does it make you feel good knowing you didn't take part in destroying a man's house without reason?"

I coughed, glancing to the side. Agatha cackled once more. When she spoke she did so with a leer, "Oh, you young ones! You'll need me and Koga around for a while yet to show you how things actually get done!" she crowed gleefully.

I shook my head at her before settling in. "I had another question about something if you know anything about it?"

Agatha inclined her head. "Certainly, certainly, ask away young man."

"How many people are there that… own Legendary pokemon?" I said carefully.

Agatha's grin vanished and she stared at me. "That… I'm surprised you could even consider such blasphemy…"

"It is possible though, right?" I said, not conceding the point. It was interesting to hear that Agatha considered it 'blasphemy'.

Agatha worked her jaw. "It depends on your definition of 'Legendary'. Trainers such as Young Nurse Joy in Pallet town with her Latios? There are a handful around." She peered at me. "Or were you thinking of other pokemon specifically?"

I sucked on my teeth wondering how to approach the idea of Mewtwo with her. Could I? I decided to tread carefully. I did not want to face an angry Mewtwo. His idle threats of remaking the world didn't seem so hollow when I had spent some time reading the Guardian's unredacted accounts of old pokemon battles and history. A Moltres had torched Fuschia, supposedly in a single pass over the skyline of the city.

"I've been reading up on my history. Have any of the Legendary birds been captured before? Or perhaps the Legendary titans?"

Agatha hummed. "I suppose you wouldn't have met him, but we do have a Ranger that has captured two such pokemon. Specifically Regirock and Regice." she tapped her fingers on her jaw. "You have also been read into the Fiore situation, yes?"

"I know that Fiore has been located and that they supposedly have much of the Indigo biodiversity for pokemon," I said.

"Indeed, the Fiore region itself is directly north-east of Cerulean and Lavender. A land route is still being worked on but the border is contentious. It is technically close enough to Kanto that we should share a land route, but the route itself would only be possible for powerful trainers. The League wants to establish travel, but due to cultural concerns there is a lot of hold-up. They want to have a… shared area where the best of their people can be shown off while screening newcomers into Fiore."

Agatha took a large swig of tea. "And to make matters worse Silph co has been touting they have a 'perfected pokeball' that is capable of capturing any pokemon. They've dubbed it the 'Master ball' creating more tensions as that was one of the first things the Fiore representative heard on the radio when they arrived," she said with a scoff. "Master ball! Please! They delude themselves if they truly think it has a perfect capture rating."

I rubbed my chin. "And Fiore is a region that doesn't capture pokemon… yeah that's gonna be rough."

Agatha nodded. "It's ridiculous we're entertaining their petty demands, but they do have a trainer that has demonstrated a bond with one of our most famous Legendary birds in Articuno. He has other pokemon that are happy to follow him along. He is for all intents a trainer, but he'd never stoop to capturing his pokemon. Feh!" she huffed.

"Hmmm, so like a Battle frontier?" I said remembering something from the cartoons where Ash got to fight an Articuno. Hadn't his Charizard beaten it?

Agatha stiffened. "A battle…frontier?" she said, repeating what I had said.

I coughed. "Well yeah!" Bugger, damn it! I did it again! Stupid mouth! Wait for the brain to catch up! Urgh! Alright damage control or commit? Before I could think I found myself once more speaking, "You know? Have the area as somewhere where highly skilled trainers can meet up? Maybe have a sort of gym challenge for strong trainers?"

Agatha gave me a dubious expression so my mouth continued. "But we wouldn't call them gyms, more challenges or 'sites?" What had they been called in the Anime? "Pyramids? They could be bosses and the positioning or repositioning of them could have trainers moving through the wilderness and fighting back wild pokemon while civilians or transports move back and forth."

Agatha stirred her teacup while looking off to the side thoughtfully. Eventually, she nodded. "That is actually a very good idea, Brock."

I relaxed and coughed. "Just a re-adapted gym system really." It was kind of making me cringe with how I was really just stealing future arcs of the pokemon cartoon and feeding it to Agatha.

"Well, sometimes being able to reinvent the wheel is a good thing," she said with a thoughtful tone. I very much got the impression she didn't truly think it was a good thing and they were mere hollow words. "I think I will mention it to the people looking into how to set up the 'neutral area' between Kanto and Fiore…"

"Hmmm cool," I said, happy to shut myself up now.

Agatha continued to rub her chin. "We could have the Rangers nominate 'Leaders' for two of these Pyramids… Brandon could take over one and the other… someone young, possibly even Koga's apprentice… Lucy should be a good candidate. She's done a number of years with the Rangers… Hmmm."

I blinked, surprised to hear Agatha outlining her plans while recognising the names. Brandon being the trainer that showed up in the cartoon with three of the Titan Legendary pokemon and Lucy… hadn't she been the girl that had actually been receptive of Brock's affections? Then again Lucy was a pretty common name. It was just that she was being put forth as a potential Pyramid boss… much like Lucy in the cartoon.

So… it wouldn't be that strange would it?

Agatha nodded and glanced back at me. "Hmmm this discussion with you is bearing more fruit than I thought!"

She set her teacup aside. "Good to see you young ones have ideas in your heads!" She stood.

"Well this was nice, I'm pleased that you have taken Karen's information about your Rock typing affecting you and you're being more proactive Brock." She smiled before tilting her head, "Was there anything else you needed to talk about before I left you?"

I chewed my lip but decided to take the leap. "What are we doing about Giovanni?"

Agatha stilled but then sighed. "Giovanni… He is a difficult topic and person to deal with. He has ingratiated himself into many different levels of Indigo with his business, his social connections, and also his strength. Koga informed me that you have been suspicious of Giovanni for a while but… he is a necessary evil Brock. He serves a purpose and allows us to act in ways we otherwise couldn't."

"I'm sure that's cold comfort to a lot of people," I said bitingly.

Agatha narrowed her eyes. "Do not deride our understanding of Giovanni Brock. When you were not even a babe he was hard at work forming deals and rebuilding much of Kanto. When your father was but a brat serving as a reserve during the war Giovanni was in the thick of things. He has earned his leeway."

I blinked in surprise. I hadn't ever thought about what Giovanni would have done during the war. But one right in the past didn't mean he should be merely allowed to run free. If he had developed Mewtwo in this world he could be potentially playing with the equivalent of nuclear weapons while people are ignoring him.

"I still don't think you should be giving him a free ride. Just because he did good in the past, doesn't mean he is doing good in the present," I said while feeling a niggle. What had that been about Flint?

"We monitor him and his associates, don't you worry about that Brock," Agatha said firmly as she stood and if she had her cane I could imagine her stamping it to signal the end of this discussion. I narrowed my eyes.

"I'm not ignoring him, Agatha."

"I'm not asking you to. But don't antagonise him needlessly."

"Hmmm, I'm not going to promise anything," I said.

"Feh! Young ones! You've barely wet your toes in the deep end and you're already thinking you know what's best!" She grinned. "Don't lose that drive Brock, just make sure it's used in the right direction!" She nodded one final time before the signal cut out.

I stared at the blank holopad and sighed before toggling a different feature.

I flipped open their files and began to read what I had access to of one Giovanni of Viridian city. I had just opened the file when I got a knock on my door.

"Brock! It's Missy? Are we still doing the patrol of Mt Moon?" she said.

I glanced at the clock and cursed. Apparently, my talk with Agatha had taken longer than I'd planned. "Yes! Sorry! Got stuck on a phone call! Ready to go?"

Missy nodded before adopting a sheepish expression. "I am but Daniel is a bit annoyed, I don't think he realised we were going to be out for the night."

I snorted and grabbed my travel bag. "And he was once a Ranger? I think he got used to living in the city faster than any former ranger I know!"

Missy giggled as I led her out. I ducked back in a moment later and locked away the holopad once more. I didn't want that sitting out in the open. I would be back and I would be learning what I could about Giovanni.

Just because the Guardians weren't going to do anything right now didn't mean I had to sit on my hands. I just had to come up with an idea of what I could do… which I'd have to do while raising my family and running this gym. …And also finding Flint.

I grumbled to myself; so much to do, so little time. I adjusted the pack on my shoulders as I got ready for a night in the wilds.



A.N. Special thanks goes to my patreons for their support!

Special thanks goes to Raikor, Ab9999 and Elnoorz for betaing and editing this chapter
 
"I am but Daniel is a bit annoyed, I don't think he realised we were going to be out for the night."

Long practice has told me that if I'm leaving "the city" pack for overnight whether I plan to or not.

Great chapter, and I love "Brock" introducing stuff from the future stuff early. I loved Agatha picking out mostly the same people for it as would have happened anyway even more. The pokemon playtime was fun to read.
 
So. Who's betting that Brock twisting the knife into his dad, suffering from PTSD and severe depression, might have actually worked?

Dude's homeless, see's that his family is better off after he left, his eldest son and heir downright snubs him when they meet eyes...

I'm not going to go on, but I'm sure people can see what I'm getting at. It would also be a harsh lesson on the need to temper those Dark impulses with wisdom.
 
Chapter 50 - Training days, Mt Moon
Scyther darted up the rocky path to inspect a stone. His head tilted this way and that before nodding his head and slicing a specific section out of the surrounding hill. Then he darted back to me with the rock balanced on top of his blades. Then he darted back down to us.

"Scyther!" He presented the rock to me with a proud grin.

I inspected the rock seriously and nodded to him. "Hmmm this is good. Want me to keep it for you to show the others?" Scyther tilted his head and gave the rock another look before shaking his head. I deposited the rock on the path and patted him on the head.

Slightly behind me, Missy giggled while Daniel coughed. "Why is Scyther bringing you random rocks?"

I shrugged. "I think he's been inspired to start a rock collection," I said innocently.

Scyther rubbed his chin as if giving this some thought before nodding seriously. Then he dashed off in a different direction to find anything else interesting.

"A… rock collection?" Daniel said carefully, his scepticism was obvious to anyone listening in.

Missy strode up level with me as we continued up the mountain path. "I think it's nice! A pokemon with a hobby! It makes him happy so why not! It's sweet! What with Brock having so many rock types it kind of makes sense that Scyther might get some interest in rocks!"

I smiled at her. "Yeah, that's what I thought," I said innocently. In truth, I'd told Scyther to do just this. I'd even told him the reason I wanted him to do it this way. It was all about developing a plausible understanding that my pokemon liked to do this. Established habits and whatnot.

It wasn't me suddenly flying to a volcanic region and strip mining the place for any block of shiny rocks. Which I suspected had something to do with obsidian. I'd done some snooping for rocks known as Augurite and been redirected to augite which was a mineral known for its trace elements of titanium, aluminium and sodium. Augite was known as a common rock but black Augurite wasn't as well known.

I had checked around with my Golem's and Gravellers to see if there was anything they might have been carrying on their body but I'd only gotten small dust particles… which might have been the rock that we were looking for, albeit finely crushed.

Sadly if the evolution was anything like what Scyther's evolution to Scizor was like then it would take a lot of material. One thing they didn't show in the games was the quantity of metal that was needed to make the pokemon evolve.

I was also somewhat tempted to still have Scyther evolve into a Scizor due to knowing that Scizor could mega evolve. Although perhaps Kleavor could as well and I just needed to find the right gem?

Or maybe I could get another scyther… then I'd be seen as extremely eccentric. Scyther darted back with another rock for me. I could tell this one wasn't what we were looking for and once more said as much with the preplanned phrase, "Take it or leave it?"

By leaving it up to Scyther I made it apparent that this wasn't what I was after but that we could still take it if we wanted.

This time he nodded. I inspected the quartz before nodding back, depositing the rock into my pack.

"If he keeps this up the entire time that we're up here you're not going to be able to carry it back home," Daniel said.

I nodded, "Yeah maybe, still it'll be good training nevertheless."

"Urgh! You're a bit too into training, you know that?" Daniel grumbled.

I chuckled. "You realise you applied to a Gym right? Pokemon training and training ourselves is pretty much half of what we do."

"Yeah that's becoming apparent," he said in reply, "I'm just… I was expecting to be fighting pokemon trainers more you know?"

I snorted. "This is the off-circuit period. Just wait until the circuit starts up, then you'll have more than enough trainers to face."

"I kind of like it!" said Missy from my other side. "It's not everything I expected but it's not bad! It's just… different? I've never thought about how much work I need to put in myself to get fit and having the sparring program for the pokemon is great for my team! I think a few of them have gotten stronger than ever!"

I smiled at Missy's more upbeat response. "That's good to hear. Make sure you're not just beefing them up with strength training though. Really look into how they're moving or performing various attacks or moves. It'll make a difference to focus now on skills development while you're on a break. Long term the pay off is better as well."

A rumbling of earth had us stopping as a trio of Graveller appeared on a ridgeline. They glowered at us before pausing to inspect us. I drew up a whistle to my lips and blew into it.

"Daniel, take the one on the left! Missy, the right! Scyther! Take the one in the middle."

A green blur shot from some nearby rocks having returned at my whistle call. Scyther shot forth and made to slam his arm blades into his rocky foe. I clicked my tongue. "Abort! Do a fake out and slash on the way out of close range!"

Scyther did just that, his aborted attack caused the Graveller to raise up his arms only for Scyther to swipe his blades across the pokemon's flank as he retreated.

"Uhm… Brock, that's a rock type?" Daniel said as he released his Raticate took to the field alongside Missy's Rhydon.

"Yup, and this is a good time to test him out. He's not going to always have favourable matchups and he needs to work for some wins. Give us some room if you can please?"

Scyther's wings vibrated in glee at this announcement as the Graveller squared up on him. The other two were forcibly pushed back by Daniel and Missy allowing me to focus on the match in front of me.

A closer inspection showed that this was a decently strong Graveller. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that if I had left them to their business there would have been a Golem rolling around Mt Moon if it could get a big enough pack, or 'avalanche' as they were known, of other Graveller around it. This trio appeared to be the early formation of said avalanche.

Scyther was most likely outmatched along with this being a bad type matching for him. But that wasn't any reason for him to give up.

"Scyther! Boost your speed with Agility!" We'd have to work on getting Swords Dance eventually but as 'low-levelled' as my pokemon was he hadn't yet learned that. Still boosting speed was a good move.

Graveller met this by grasping the earth and throwing rocks with each of its four hands.

"Double team in close and swipe with your blades in but choose your moments!" I said. Scyther buzzed to the side, leaving an after image that the rocks passed through.

"Now!" I said while the Gravller was still adjusting from throwing the rocks. Scyther buzzed in and tried to slash with both blades one after the other causing the Graveller to twitch. Sadly he over-committed by going for two.

"Back out!" I shouted only for Scyther to get clipped with a backhand as Graveller spun on the spot. The spin turned into a burrowing move that saw Graveller vanishing into the ground.

I clicked my tongue. "Keep moving but keep your foot placements as light as you can manage; use your wings to give a little lift!"

"Scy!" grunted Scyther as he did just that.

I watched the hill that we had started this match on. I made sure not to move lest the Graveller's attention be drawn to me instead of my pokemon. While uncommon it was possible for pokemon to target trainers occasionally. They were, after all, wild and not going to stick to rules. Typically they did prefer to beat the trainer's pokemon first.

A head poked out of the ground to the side of the field and peered around making me hold in a snort as I realised Graveller didn't know where to emerge.

"Use the back of your blade! Chop down on him!" I ordered. Scyther sprinted over and chopped down. Then he jumped back as Graveller emerged with an angry bellow.

"Uhm what was that supposed to be?" asked Missy as she approached. I glanced over to see her Rhydon poking the passed-out pokemon she'd faced.

"Setting up the early stages for Scyther to learn Brick Break. If he learns to use the sharp edge he'll associate it with—" I swiped my hand out. "Double team!" I ordered as Graveller tossed out another rock throw against my pokemon. Scyther blurred away but not as quickly as the first time.

I huffed. "Where was I? Oh, right he'll associate with the move as a cutting move. I need him to project energy in a blunt edge to make it slam rather than bite into whatever he's fighting." I watched another barrage of rock sail towards Scyther only this time he jerked the wrong way and ended up getting clipped. He went spiralling before collapsing to the side.

"Scy! Scy…ther!" he tried to stand. His body trembled as he rose up to brandish his blades at the defiant Graveller.

The four armed pokemon snorted and dug into the ground. With Scyther injured from taking so many hits with the super effective type matching being against him I knew he wouldn't be able to dodge this dig.

"Scyther, you've done well for now, return buddy."

He slumped and I could see that he obviously thought he'd failed as I lifted his pokeball from my belt to return him. I stood perfectly still but Missy shifted from foot to foot.

"Oh, poor Scyther…" she said

I hummed and pulled up a little rock energy to feed it into the ground beneath us. I could feel another vibration coming from below growing in strength.

"Hey Missy I'm going to need you to jump backwards in a second."

"Huh?" she said, turning on the spot in confusion.

I pointed to the side. "Jump as far as you can cause Graveller is coming for us now."

Missy's eyes bulged as realisation set in. She threw herself to the side and I twisted on the spot as two arm lunged after her. I caught them and shifted forward as the Graveller pulled me slightly only to lock in as my feet dug into the ground with an aura trick I'd been practising.

I was basically copying the tree walking technique from a cartoon about ninja. Who knew using a different world's training methods might work like this? It hadn't appeared in any of the books from the Guardians but they had good methods of focusing and moving energy around your body. Just not little niche moves like this that were more useful as utility abilities.

I'd started trying to use it against Trixie to improve my push off phase when I ran but Trixie was still too much of a physical beast for me to beat.

This Graveller on the other hand?

It struggled in my grasp for a moment only to still as it realised it had been caught. It twisted slightly and looked around its body to stare at me.

"Grav?!" it said in surprise, testing my grip only for it to basically spasm in my clasp. "Graveller!" It gaped at me.

From this close, I could see the smoother ridges around its eyebrows and above its lower arms which indicated that this was a female Graveller.

I stared her down. "Graveller. You've got a good head for battling on your shoulders and it looks like you were on your way to creating the avalanche that you need to evolve. You can go far if you want but I'm curious if you want to push yourself to see just how far you can go?"

She relaxed and her face scrunched up. "Vel? Gra?" she said.

I nodded. "You have a few options. I can release you and you can head north to rougher parts of the mountain where you'll have to get strong or perish." She glared at me for that and her limbs twitched but once again barely moved. "Or you can be captured by me where you will be fed, trained and able to evolve when the time comes." I quickly offered her the carrot to the proverbial stick.

I continued to stare at her as she stopped and considered that. "You will not be remaining here," I said firmly. I moved my arms and let her turn to face me as I released my grip. "I can make you strong if you want. Today you faced one of my weakest pokemon with a type advantage and he still cut you up. Imagine what I could do if you came with me." I held her gaze.

She lowered herself but her head tilted. If she had continued to lower herself she'd have been readying herself for a rollout but with the tilt of her head she was merely thinking. I knew the pose well from all the other Graveller I owned.

"Grav! Grav!" She stood and made a show of flexing her arms. She then pointed at me.

I tilted my head. I wasn't sure but… "Would I make you the strongest?" I felt this was a safe assumption. Lots of pokemon wanted that before they truly understood the different levels of strength.

She nodded her whole body. I rubbed my chin, relaxing. "... You have potential. Could you beat out my strongest golem, Sanchez?" I continued to rub my chin as the graveller perked up at the mention of my owning a golem already. "Well you could certainly try and take his spot on my best team." I didn't mention that he wasn't actually my strongest pokemon. Titan was a stoic pokemon that enjoyed relaxing after workouts. He wouldn't be amused if some careless words on my part brought a pesky pokemon around after him at all times of the day.

Sanchez would love the attention and probably help train her.

Graveller stomped her feet and jutted her body in a pose that said she accepted the challenge. I selected a pokeball and raised it up towards her. "Get ready to train then Graveller, if you want to be the best you have to beat the best." I lobbed the pokeball at her and she grinned as it hit. It didn't wobble at all but rather dinged to show the pokemon had accepted the capture.

I collected the pokeball and smiled down at her. "I'm looking forward to seeing how far you can go," I said to her. When I got home I'd put a Graveller sticker I had made up with another flat bar sticker on top indicating she wanted to go the distance. How that motivation developed would be something we'd wait on.

I put the pokeball on the belt and turned to find Missy gaping at me. She had her hands out and her eyes bulging at me, Next to her, her Rhydon was equally as stunned.

"I!" She gestured at where Graveller had burrowed out of the ground. "And you just…" She gestured at all of me. "How did you do that?!"

I rubbed my chin in consideration then grinned. "You work with pokemon and train with them long enough you pick up some tricks," I said teasingly.

"... If I train as you do with Trixie will I be able to do that?" she said.

I made a so-so gesture. "It's part of it but you'll need to go a little deeper." I turned so that she knew I was paying all my attention to her. "Work hard and show me what sort of trainer and person you are and I might teach you those tricks one day." Then I gave her a shrug. "Or don't worry about it."

Missy stared as I walked past her to see how Daniel was doing only for him to march over the ridge with a scowl. "Sorry about that, had my Raticate get tossed and had to get more vicious. What are we doing with them now?"

I pulled two khaki green pokeballs with the Ranger motif on them. "These pokemon are a bit strong. I'll send them to the rangers to introduce further north where they can get taken in by another group of Gravellers."

Daniel accepted the pokeball without comment. "Right, standard procedure for clearing the routes then?"

"Yup," I said, tossing the other to Missy who looked confused. "Never heard of this before?"

She shook her head. "No, what do they do?"

"You know how the system came up a few years ago that instantly transports the pokeball over your cap to your registered place of care or home?"

She nodded and I pointed at the specialised balls. "These are balls that capture pokemon and instead send them right to the Rangers for release in an area they won't cause issues."

"Huh, neat." She frowned and I could see the next through forming up. "How come they don't do that to all the routes?"

"Such as with the Beedrill?" I said.

"Yeah, they're a nuisance right?" she said as he tapped the Ranger ball to the downed Graveller. The ball drew in the pokemon and wobbled once before vanishing in a flash of light.

"They're first of all native to Viridian forest so removing them is in a way just kicking them out. There are always developers that want to do just that but the Rangers put a hard stop to that. It doesn't stop them but Beedril are fast growing, fast evolving pokemon. This is to be expected as a bug type but that's not the true reason; it is merely why a small group of trainers haven't cleared them out in the past despite people trying to throw money at the issue."

Missy nodded and I continued, "It's also because there's the risk of creating a huge flux in the ecosystem if you remove so many pokemon at once. The swarm isn't just three or four pokemon that will seek out weak trainers or other pokemon and cause issues like these Graveller you have but actual hundreds if not thousands with an established home. This flux can draw out some pokemon that are much stronger, as well as local pokemon all becoming more hostile as they see humans as potential threats instead of just passing through." I rubbed my chin, when I said it like that, it really was quite a bit like how the fighting of the war had disturbed powerful pokemon.

"What would that mean for Viridian?" Missy asked with a frown.

"The Pikachu groups that roam the forest might evolve into Raichu. The Pidgey and Pidgeotto might evolve into Pidgeot. The Spearow to Fearow. The Spinarak to Ariados, as a territory fight broke out over food." I said ticking off the pokemon that I could think of off the top of my head.

"Huh, that's interesting. I never thought of it that way before," Missy said as we waited for Daniel to trudge back up with his rather scuffed-looking Raticate.

I shrugged. "It's one of the things you don't really get taught as much but you have to consider if you take up a position as a Ranger. We work with the Rangers so therefore we need to know about it. You typically would only encounter it if you caught a large group of one pokemon like an entire beedrill swarm. That's a great way to have the rangers and the police knocking on your door or tapping you on the shoulder if you are on your journey."

Missy made a thoughtful noise as Daniel reached us. I nodded. "An issue?"

"Nope, got him sent off with no issues." He looked down at his pokemon. "Mind if we rest up while I check over Raticate?"

I shook my head and released Scyther who was still looking beaten up. He slumped into a downcast expression and I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, hey buddy none of that. That was a frankly terrible match-up for you. You did great despite that. Don't think of it as a loss but a learning experience. I got a good idea of how you move in rough situations along with areas we can work on. Also don't let it bother you that pokemon had way, way more experience than you. But I know you're going to catch up."

I leaned in. "You cut her you know? Cut right into her rocky defence. A few more of those and you would have emerged the victor. When your attacks get stronger… well you know what we spoke about for my plans."

A small spark of interest glimmered in his eyes as he recalled what we'd discussed. He nodded his head and I patted him on the head.

"That's it boy. Learn from it. You're going to be strong, this is just your starting point." that had him perking up a lot more. His wings vibrated and buzzed as he raised his head.

"Scyther!" he glanced around looking for another pokemon to fight. I tapped him on the snout before he could get too gung-ho.

"Nice bounce back Scyther, but before we go looking for another fight let's get your wounds seen to." I drew out a blue spray bottle and a cloth that I used to rub in the potion. He twitched when I sprayed the potion on him and cried a little as I rubbed at his carapace with the towel.

"Hey, there's a good boy. Just getting this into your rough spots so you're all healed up and can fight again later on alright?" He stood still after that. I still returned him to his pokeball to give him a chance to rest. If everything went right I'd have him ready to go for more fights tomorrow.

Missy watched attentively and when I was done and we continued to move she peppered me with a lot more questions. Apparently, I had sparked an interest in her learning by demonstrating that I didn't need a pokemon to beat that Graveller.

I pat myself on the back for this. It hadn't been ideal but if she proved herself? Maybe I might just take her on and teach her what I knew about aura.

For now, we had to continue our patrol of Mt Moon.

For the rest of the afternoon, we trekked across the top of the mountain. We encountered geodude, sandshrew, paras, and the occasional oddish. But no Onix or any more Graveller. We also encountered only one hiker that was happily camped up at a point on the route. I recognised him due to hiring him to guard this exact point. He glanced our way and made a show of raising up his thermos to nod in our direction.
We stopped to talk.

"Hello there! Are you enjoying the scenery?" I said leadingly. The man blinked in surprise at my tone before noticing my twitch towards Missy and Daniel. What he was guarding for me wasn't something they needed to know about after all.

He grinned, his large beard twitching as he did so. "Indeed! I've got a good camp and the best view in all the land! Also it's quiet!" He nodded. "Care for a cup?"

We shared a cup of tea with him and I made sure to lead the conversation away from any other reason that he might be sitting atop Mt Moon during the colder months. Missy and Daniel didn't seem at all curious but then again you ran into all sorts of people that simply preferred to live in the wilds. When we were done I announced we'd continue on for another hour before setting up our own camp, leaving him to his peace and quiet.

Daniel shook his head as we walked away. "I never quite get those hiker guys. They scale mountains and sometimes just sit up here for weeks or months on end. It's like they don't want to enjoy the good life."

I looked back over the grand vista that the man was having to guard for me. It certainly was a beautiful view. "It takes all sorts." Daniel and Missy didn't say anything more and I was thankful for that. I didn't need to burden them with the knowledge of there being a plot of land with diamonds down a small trail nearby.

It wasn't something they needed to know. If the hiker was bothered or harassed, or it wasn't feasible for him to stop any interested parties he had my direct number. I'd looked into the security company and they were discreet. Lawrence, when I'd mentioned them, had even praised them for their work.

I honestly hoped they never had any reason to call me.

We continued on for another half an hour before the sun began to dip down. In my old world dedicated campers would have pitched a fit over leaving it even that late to set up camp but once we found a good spot we only had to pull out our tents and press a button before they self-assembled.

Then we had a pokemon dig out a campfire pit and another lit a fire and we were set up. Daniel used Raticate to clear the area with tail lashes, while his Rhyhorn stomped down the area where we'd be setting up tents. Missy used her Growlithe to start a fire and her Rhydon to help her hold poles while she assembled her own tent. Within ten minutes I had a stew I'd precooked on the fire heating up. I tossed some more pepper and flavour into it and stirred it around.

Daniel shifted around and I raised an eyebrow at him. "What's wrong? Would have thought you'd be used to roughing it?" I said, alluding to his stints as a ranger.

"Yeah, used to it but I never really enjoyed it. This is sort of the first time in a long while I've actually had to camp out." Then he blinked and rubbed the back of his head. "Also uh… guess I'm kind of missing my wife?" He glanced to the side as he said this like he was ashamed.

"Ah, that makes sense," I said.

Missy giggled. "That's cute! You really love her! Worried about her and the baby?" When he nodded and didn't say anything else Missy prompted him. "How far along are they?"

"Uhmmmmmmm first trimester?" he said.

I stopped stirring the pot and looked up at him. "Have they had an ultrasound yet?"

"Yeeesss?" he said.

"So after five or six then usually it happens around ten if you're willing to leave it." I rattled off some more questions and when Daniel got flustered I hummed. He fidgetted and didn't meet my gaze. "Daniel you… you probably need to read some books on pregnancy you know? This is important stuff."

"I know! I know, I just get really grossed out and I guess I've had other things to deal with! Like getting this job!" he said as he threw his hands up. He leaned back and stared up at the sky. "Guess I've been falling short on that… this is just… well I wasn't expecting it." He glanced at me. "I just wanted to do right by her… we're still working things out really."

Missy chewed her lip and glanced away. I decided to not pry too much.

"Well, that makes sense and for what it's worth I think you're doing a good thing taking responsibility like you are." He flashed me a smile at that and I nodded, deciding to leave it at that.

He coughed as I returned to stirring the pot. When he coughed again I realised he wanted to say something. "Well thanks for that, it means heaps." He once more didn't meet my gaze instead looking away.

I nodded again. "Don't worry about it. If you need I still have my…" swallowed the words and restarted. "I have some books on what to expect when you're expecting that might be good for you to read through with her." I stirred the pot staring into the contents. I couldn't fault their initial preparations as parents because Flint and … Lola had taken all the steps in the lead-up and following the birth of the last two sets of siblings. It had only fallen apart afterwards.

I leaned down and picked up some rocks by my shoe to rub them over each other. I centred myself and pushed the darker emotions away for later.

"Also," Daniel said carefully like he was testing dark waters with his toe as he spoke. "Could I uhmmm… get a bit more heads up on the next time we're going to be camping out like this? Just so I know in advance or if there's a scheduling conflict?"

I nodded as I scooped up some stew. "I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The next session that'll have us out and about was going to be a group training session later towards the end of the off-circuit. I'll give you the dates when we're back if you haven't seen them on the calendar."

"Oh!" he slumped in relief. "Thanks I was worried that'd be an issue?"

"No issue. If you need to skip it cause of family issues," I gave a wry smile. "I more than understand." He smiled at me and leaned back when he got his bowl of stew.

Missy smiled at me as she got hers. We traded some small stories and I got to know that Missy's favourite colour was glitter which sparked the debate of whether it was a colour or not with Daniel. I held my tongue and let them talk instead of just saying that I was in favour of it.

When they prompted me for my opinion I merely nodded and said she could like what she wanted. After that we watched the stars for a while.

When the moon came out and a number of Hoothoot and Zubat flew overhead I stood up.

"I'm going to see if I can find an interesting zubat for myself," I announced.

"A Zubat? They're pests though?" said Daniel.

I shrugged. "I think their final evolution has some worth."

"Gonna try racing it?" Daniel asked with some interest.

I considered that. I did want it to be the fastest of its kind but if I was going to be demanding it be able to give and take some hits it would be likely a little larger than the racing crobat. "I want it to be fast but not something you can ignore when fighting."

Daniel rubbed his chin. "You'll be looking for a female of the species then. They're usually a bit bigger and probably something that's a lone hunter rather than something that operates in a flight of other Zubat."

"Had one before?" I said with some interest.

"Yah, it was one of the first pokemon I caught after my Ratata and Ekans… I don't have those Ekans or Zubat anymore though." He looked away in a manner that loudly said he did not want to talk about it. Missy gave him a commiserating look before standing up.

"Well if it's all the same to you I'm going to leave Rhydon and Growlithe to guard me and go to bed. Goodnight!"

"Alright, just remember that occasionally we'll need to look into doing some night patrols for you to make sure the nocturnal pokemon aren't getting too strong just as the ones we do for the daylight pokemon."

Missy glanced around into the night before shivering. "Brrr not sure I like that idea."

I snorted ."We won't do it during winter but during some of the circuit nights you will have to." I waved to them both and bid them goodnight before tightening up the jacket and gloves as I selected Zephyr's pokeball.

Zephyr emerged, flapping his large wings. Despite the rush of wind, no noise came from him as he adjusted. I scratched at the back of his head. "Ready to fly boy?"

He looked up at the moon and trilled in joy. I mounted up and together we took off. It wouldn't matter if we were actually successful tonight in finding the pokemon we wanted. Instead, I directed Zephyr to just fly around as he wanted while keeping the camp in mind. Unlike the other times when we had places to be and areas to look over, flying with nothing but flying in mind became a much more enjoyable pastime.

Zephyr would fly through canyons to bank and turn like a fighter jet only to then lift up and over the lip of the canyon. His claws sliding through the edges with a ringing scrape that echoed behind us.

Then he flew up high; high enough to see our breath misting despite the slowly turning warmer weather. When a flock of zubat approached us we dove and they wheeled about to give chase only for Zephyr to easily outmanoeuvre them. A small flock of Hoothoot fluttered after Zephyr and he twisted his head, slowing to inspect them each like they were all small chicks and he was the rooster. One landed on his back and hopped up and down his back before shrieking in surprise when it realised I was riding Zephyr.

"No-Noct-noct!" laughed Zephyr as the little Hoothoot returned to its flock. This sparked indignant cries from the smaller pokemon as they tried to weave around him only for him to gently buffet them away with a mighty sweep of his wings that saw them tumbling through the air. They landed and staggered around for a while much to Zephyr's amusement. We stuck around with them for long enough for the Hoothoot to find some Caterpie and snatch them up before returning to their nest.

I smiled at their freedom and merely watched like a silent observer.

When we left the Hoothoot fluttered their little wings in goodbye. I turned Zephyr back to Mt Moon proper. When we got close I spotted a number of small campfires from the sky. I could see our campsite and decided that had been enough for tonight. I patted Zephyr on the back.

"Time for bed I think boy." I gave a final glance around. I hadn't seen any interesting singular zubat but then again I hadn't really been looking. I might make a more serious effort one day but I didn't need to rush things right now.

When we landed we did so on silent wings. I landed near a boulder only to be surprised when I heard Daniel speaking on the other side. "— yeah I know when I'll be away next time so it shouldn't be an issue."

I coughed to announce my presence. He stiffened and shot me a worried look. I waved at him.

"I'll leave you to talk to your wife, have a good night," I decided not to be a creep by hanging around and listening in. Instead, I walked into the camp while Zephyr hopped after me. When I walked past the pot I grumbled. "Urgh they left it out… damn it that's going to take ages to clean."

Zephyr started bunting me and gave me hopeful looks. "No, I'm not reheating the flakes of tonight's dinner!" I said back to him. He gave a sad chirp, his body curling into itself in sadness.
I stuffed the pot into one of my backpack slots only to draw out another, clean pot that had little pokemon running all over it. "No! Instead, I'll just cook you a new meal!" The Growlithe and Rhydon on guard duty shot me hopeful looks.

"You'll get some as well if you stay vigilant!" They immediately began watching the skies with focused eyes. Zephyr hopped up and down on the spot hooting happily. I chuckled and got to work feeding them. I had just scooped up the meal and deposited on a raised rock for Zephyr only to turn back to plate up the other pokemon when a Zubat slammed into the ground next to me.

I blinked. It raised its head and wiggled its ears in a blink of its own. Zephyr tilted his head. Growlithe jumped forward and growled in a manner that sent shivers down my spine. The Zubat flinched and threw itself into the air, taking off as the move took effect.

I raised a hand after it futilely. Growlithe strutted up to me and barked once. Pleased with himself at chasing off the wild pokemon. He shot a look at the pot and I sighed.

"Yeah… good work protecting your trainer Growlithe," I spooned him some food into a bowl amused at how I'd almost had the pokemon falling into my lap.

I fed Rhydon but something kept niggling at me.

Why had that zubat been green? I was forgetting something… something important that made me want to kick myself…. But why?

That thought kept bugging me as I lay down and continued to show Missy and Daniel what would be expected of them throughout the next day. I was halfway off the mountain before I remembered and had to refrain from cursing up a storm or causing an avalanche.

When I got into Pewter my foul mood of letting a shiny zubat through my fingers had mostly dissipated. I made a pass through the pokemon centre to have Joy heal up my pokemon before returning to the gym. When I reached the back free range area I spotted Yolanda holding the egg while a number of pokemon such as Titan and Sanchez stood around her and Cindy. Cindy appeared to be practising her flute.

Sanchez was grinning hugely but Titan was sniffing at the egg with an air of delicacy while smiling softly. When he was done he puffed a playful breath of air at her. The others sat or lazed around as Cindy haltingly practised her song. Yolanda giggled when Titan snorted heavily.

"Titan!' she said with a giggle as she scrunched her neck. Titan rose up to his full height and nodded at her, apparently pleased with how she was looking after his sibling. I felt my heart warm a little and raised up my transceiver to snap a picture.

Sadly the sound made Titan twitch and glance over, ruining the moment. I chuckled as Yolanda waved at me. Cindy stopped playing much to the pokemon's disappointment. She waved at me only to check her watch and run back home. Apparently it was her tv time. I waved at her back and opened up the pokeballs on Selene, Zephyr, Knight, Scyther and the newest Graveller I had acquired.

This new pokemon drew a glance before the others greeted my Elite pokemon and Scyther. Scyther waved at them before he realised he knew the Graveller next to him. He glared at her only to be ignored as she marched forward and hopped onto a small rock to let her look over the area.

As Yolanda and Titan approached me we all watched the coming spectacle.

"GRAV! GRAV! LER! GRA LER! GRAVELLER!" she said emphatically.

Sanchez began bouncing up and down, waving his hands. The new Graveller nodded once then rolled forward, grabbing the rock she'd been standing on as she did so to throw it right at Sanchez.

He caught it and tossed it up into the air cackling as lightning began to arc off it. The female Graveller charged him only for him to spin forward into a ball and knock her flying. When she landed she only had a second before he was upon her. His foot slammed her to the ground where he kept her pinned.

He twizzled his moustache as he grinned hugely at her. "Go! Go! Golem!" He then punched her in the face and knocked her out. He gestured at her downed form and shouted his name before walking off with a pleased expression on his face.

Yolanda tilted her head. "Uhm… what did I just watch?"

"Pokemon greeting and establishing of the hierarchy. Golem and their line are very structured. Graveller wants to be the strongest and I told her about Sanchez. She called him out and he accepted her challenge only to show why he was the strongest. She'll keep challenging him when she feels stronger."

Yolanda frowned. "But… Titan's your strongest pokemon."

Titan leaned down and shook his head. "Ty! Tyran!" he shook his head and held up a claw to his lips.

"Huh?!" Yolanda said, confused by Titan's words.

I sniffed. "He doesn't want to be bothered by pokemon like Graveller constantly coming after him so he doesn't announce himself. He prefers to relax when he's out of training." Titan nodded at this.

Titan stiffened as Bertha approached the slowly waking Graveller. The giant rhino pokemon prodded the Graveller and gestured for the new pokemon to follow her. When the Graveller dismissed her Bertha picked the Graveller up like an unruly child causing the Graveller to squawk in surprise..

Yolanda giggled. "I don't think she was expecting that!"

Titan warbled a groan of annoyance. Yolanda looked to Titan then to me. "What's wrong? Why's he upset?"

"He's not worried, just exasperated cause Bertha's showing the new pokemon how things work."

I pat him on the flank. "Don't worry buddy Bertha won't tell Graveller about how you're the strongest… at least not straight away. She'll be able to settle in and calm down first. If she does learn about you I have another pokemon for her to fight."

Titan tilted his head only to follow as I looked to the side to find Scyther buzzing angrily. I reached out. "Hey Scyther, isn't it nice to have a training buddy to overcome?"

Scyther buzzed once only to stop when he registered my words. He thought about it before nodding slowly. I gave Titan a smirk, "Think you can help me train him up?"

Titan smirked slyly. For all that everyone thought of Psychic pokemon when they thought of smart pokemon, Titan was no fool.

He was the undisputed strongest pokemon I had but he also worked as the best manager for any pokemon I possessed. For Titan, all the Onix, Aron, Lairon, Geodudes, Gravellers, Golems, and more eventually understood and respected that he was the strongest by a long margin. Before that though he had usually won their respect through other means. It was sort of like having a cool big brother that helped you out only to learn he was secretly the biggest and baddest around.

He was the example that all my pokemon came to acknowledge.

Graveller would eventually understand how far she had to go.

I looked forward to working with her just as I did with any of my pokemon. I glanced down to see Yolanda watching me with an inscrutable look. I merely smiled and drew her in for a side hug.



A.N. Special thanks goes to my patreons for their support!

Special thanks goes to Raikor, Ab9999, Kurlinni, and Elnoorz for betaing and editing this chapter
 
Daniel is sus. Worried and scared stiff that his employer is overhearing him talk to his wife? No. That wasn't his wife. I doubt he has a wife. But it's a perfect ruse for someone like Brock who had not one but both parents abandon their children in a world where many parents don't stick together. It's sympathetic. It's a landmine you don't ask too many questions about.

Despite his precautions, I think Team Rocket has infiltrated Pewter Gym.
 
Daniel is sus. Worried and scared stiff that his employer is overhearing him talk to his wife? No. That wasn't his wife. I doubt he has a wife. But it's a perfect ruse for someone like Brock who had not one but both parents abandon their children in a world where many parents don't stick together. It's sympathetic. It's a landmine you don't ask too many questions about.

Despite his precautions, I think Team Rocket has infiltrated Pewter Gym.
Oh good, it wasn't just me that had that exact theory cross their mind. I'm not totally convinced, but something about all of that did seem off to me.
 
Daniel is sus. Worried and scared stiff that his employer is overhearing him talk to his wife? No. That wasn't his wife. I doubt he has a wife. But it's a perfect ruse for someone like Brock who had not one but both parents abandon their children in a world where many parents don't stick together. It's sympathetic. It's a landmine you don't ask too many questions about.

Despite his precautions, I think Team Rocket has infiltrated Pewter Gym.
I reckon Team Rocket has his Zubat and Ekans as collateral, to ensure "Daniel" doesn't run off with their money and secrets.
 
Chapter 51 - Training day tricks
I chewed on my gum as my aviators glinted in the afternoon sun. Before me, my once hopeless baseball team of miscreants and minors were chasing a victory. They were in position for one of the last pitches they'd get a chance at.

I rubbed my chin in thought and made a vaguely stroking gesture. Next to me, my manager made the actual gestures they were supposed to follow. I'd spent a lot of time pushing him to train his body just as hard as his mind and while he put in the effort he was academically brilliant when it came to absorbing and analysing data. Child prodigies in this world seemed to be all over the place if you cared to look. Or maybe I was just lucking out. Two kids like this in the same team did not a trend set.

"What are our odds Manny?" I asked.

"George isn't on point today so I think the batter will have a better chance of getting two of his runners off base." I looked at the kids on first and third base and grimaced.

"Trade him out?"

Manny flicked through his sheets before shaking his head. "He's the best matchup we have. If Tomas was more accurate…" He quickly adjusted his glasses before glancing over his sheets.

"George! Swap it out for Tomas!" I made a sign to the umpire and he nodded his head before signalling we were trading pitchers.

I hummed. Beside me, Manny shifted back and forth. "I said if he was more accurate. Not that we should trade him out!"

"Eh, gotta give him some more experience. I think he's put in some good effort over the season." I patted the top of my head while next to me Manny lifted his right foot to scratch it.

"Really, a fastball?" I asked.

"May as well give him the best chances of a catch or a strike," Manny said.

I nodded and the kid got into position. On the sidelines, parents and siblings called out for their families. In the dugout, Karen was leaning back with her feet kicked up watching on. She'd led no small number of chants with the parents against the opposing team's coach that got them twitching and glowering back at Karen.

Food sellers walked along the lines happily pitching their wares. The more lucrative of them had Machoke to carry their goods. Today's opposing team had an Elekid, their team's namesake, sitting out in front of the crowd stirring up trouble while across from me the opponent's coach glared at me. The Elekid was cute but it had nothing on a fully painted-up Titan as he sat on our side. The kids — both my little siblings and the team— had loved getting the chance to paint his scales in their colours. I rather liked the way the girls had painted some pretty flowers on his flank that he couldn't see but made the girls giggle whenever they saw them.

"She is taking this way too seriously," I said more to myself than anyone else. I eyed the opposite coach as she furiously spoke with the next kid she was going to send out to bat.

"She's not just a coach but also a minor gym leader in Johto," said a husky voice from behind me.

I sighed as I realised Karen had snuck up on me once again. "Oh so this is not just about beating my team but also showing me up?" I said to Karen. Beside me, Manny bristled.

"Hey get back in the dugout! You're only the offensive coordinator, not the coach!" Manny said, trying futilely to push her back. When she flicked him on the forehead he stumbled back and glowered impotently at her.

I merely rolled my eyes. Almost half a season together butting heads and they couldn't play nice. I grabbed the smaller boy and directed him to the other side of me. "Leave it for now Manny," I said.

Manny didn't say anything but he did lean around me to glower at Karen as he made a sign for the next pitch.

"Strike Two!" called the umpire as our catcher tossed to second when the runner on first tried something only to catch the ball again when it was hurled back at him.

"Yooooooou're out!" claimed the umpire as our catcher swatted the oncoming runner.

Manny fist-pumped. Karen punched forward and I nodded. Alright just needed two more… just two more…

"Two more, yeah? And then another few rounds of that and we can hoist the big trophy?" Karen said with a grin.

I nodded. "Yeah, we're in the running for the Indigo Little League trophy…" I rolled my shoulders in agitation. Karen shot me a look.

"What's the matter, think we're not good enough?"

"I think we need to play our best today and a few of the kids are off cause of the trip being sort of rough… Otherwise, I think this would be much more in our favour," I said.

She hummed as she considered what I'd said.

A hard crack sadly followed my words as Tomas's pitch was struck along the ground. Sadly the batter was either skilled or lucky enough to space it into the area of two of our outfielders. Who promptly ran into each other. Manny and I both put our hands to our faces.

"Well it's certainly not our offence that's falling short," she said as the batter made it all the way to third base before they threw the ball in.

I gave her an unimpressed look. Our batting had already been strong before her arrival. All she did was lighten the load slightly. Honestly, with Jamie on the team, I wasn't surprised to have found myself hoisting the Kanto Little League cup a week ago. Now at the next level, things were tougher.

Instead of saying anything of this though I cupped my hands together. "Sally! Crowley! You alright?" They waved at me and I waved back. "Alright walk around a bit and call for the ball as we practised!"

Karen made a K sign at the opposing coach as Tomas threw a ball. Across from me, the other Gym Leader's glower seemed to intensify instead of being happy meaning she'd definitely seen the gesture.

"Why have you been pi—" I shot a look at Manny and he gave me a look as if to say 'I know what you were going to say and don't mind'. I coughed "—poking the Primeape with the opposition Coach? Why the K?" I asked Karen as we watched Tomas strike out the next kid.

I pumped my fist. "Nice Tomas, one more!"

"Well she's our opposition first of all. Second of all she's trying to play herself off as a 'Dark Type' Specialist so you could say it's personal." I could hear the disdain in her voice.

"And the K?"

"Her Daddy fought in the war but fought is a stretch. Her family earned a lot of respect and were looking to establish themselves as one of the big eight of Johto before it was proven her father didn't fight in the battles he claimed and in fact never even stepped foot on a battlefield."

Having half an inkling of how bad that was in my old world I whistled lowly. "Huh," I said intelligently. "So you're going to, what, distract her from coaching her team?"

"That'd be a bonus! But I want her spitting fire like a Magmar when I talk with her." Karen winked "I think it's time I spread my wings and made my run with the Ace Leaderboard. I will set up a match and then make a showing against her that will make it clear who the best Dark type gym is straight up. From there I'll fight some other big name Ace Trainers along with challenging the gyms that have Ace challenges set up in Johto."

"Don't lose," I said simply. It was something lots of gyms wanted to reach but it typically took a number of years or you had to inherit an already set up system and team from a family member to run Ace Challenges. Some gyms like Cerulean didn't offer the Ace challenge but others such as Viridian, Saffron, Fuschia, Vermilion, Cinnabar and of course myself, did for Kanto.

In Johto… I wasn't sure who offered them, but I could probably suspect Blackthorn and Mahogany gyms at least. I'd need to do some research on that.

The drawback for the trainers, if they lost, was that they lost a sizeable down payment as it was expected you were worth the time of the Gym Leader's using their best pokemon against you.
You had to pony up anywhere from ten to thirty times the standard fee for each gym. Against Giovanni? You were measuring an expense of roughly a hundred thousand just to face him once.

Your match would also be televised with Battlecast which could be live or delayed depending on the gym's agreement. Viridian for example always delayed to offer up prime time snippets during the circuit even if the match ran at midday.

This helped the gyms capable of this level of pokemon battle to rake in a lot of money.

"Please!" she threw her hair over her shoulder and lifted her chin at the opposing woman. "Little girl doesn't stand a chance."

"You're Karen from the Indigo League… you placed second against Lance…" Manny stared at Karen while rubbing under his nose.

I blinked in surprise. Wait? Karen had been the other finalist against Lance back when he made his run of the circuit? That was news to me but then again I didn't really chat with Karen all that much. So that meant if she'd challenged at the same time she would have faced Sabrina when Sabrina was back from Hoenn with me… I'd asked Sabrina about Karen and she hadn't even remembered Karen.

"Come on Tomas!" shouted Manny, disrupting my musing.

Tomas sent in a slider and I clicked my tongue when the umpire shook his head. "Ball three!" the batter grunted in annoyance and reset himself. Manny scratched his foot again.

Karen watched Manny hoot and holler. "Got a good memory on you there kid. Usually, people don't remember further back than three years ago, or more specifically the winners."

"It's your hair… you had a really scary Houndoom," Manny said while watching the pitch.

"I still have him." She gave Manny a proud smile only to click her tongue as the next batter got to walk, advancing the first runner onto second base.

The next kid stepped up from their team and I knew from Manny's stiffening we were in trouble.
The kid proved my trust in Manny's analysis right as he smacked a hit deep into the field and I clicked my teeth as they got a solid lead for the first time today. We traded out pitchers after that but started to slowly bleed runs.

By the eighth, we were down six runs. When the kids returned to the dugout I clapped them on the shoulders and directed them to the drinks bucket that I had stashed with juice and waters.

"Jaimie you're in last… but first I want Craig… George… and Manny to get your helmets on."

Manny squawked. "Coach! I'm the manager!?"

"And your mother and father didn't come all the way to Bloomingvale to watch you flip sheets around. Get your helmet on and swing for the stands! Have some fun!" I said.

Manny stumbled off. "I'll need to watch their pitcher and determine the.." He trailed off as he walked away leaving me alone with Karen. I waved to Manny's parents before pointing to their son as he donned a helmet.

"MY BOY! WOOOOOOAAAH!" It turned out Manny's father was the foreman in the local steel mill of Pewter. That meant that by definition he was big, burly, and loud.

However, he was out shouted by his wife who was two heads smaller and a quarter his weight. "YEEEEEEEEAHHHHH MANNY!!!! GO MANNY!! GO GO GO GO!!!" I smirked as I sent Manny out first.

Karen sighed, muttering under her breath. "Making my job to bring us that Trophy a bit hard Brock." I huffed at her as she patted Manny on the helmet a touch roughly.

"Just bunt it and get a run for your stat sheet. Make it on base brat!" That instantly had him refocusing on something other than trying to swing big and something much more reasonable.

He stepped up to the plate and raised his bat into a terrible position. Karen and I both cringed. "Yeah you were the one in charge of him," she said, pushing me under the Tauros stampede.

I rolled my eyes at her but didn't comment. Instead, I watched as he swung out on two pitches before lucking out into a hit. He startled badly before his mother roared at him to run like the wind. He started running while holding his bat over his head. The first baseman didn't know what to do.

It must have looked like Manny was threatening him as he leapt out of the way instead of standing his ground and catching the ball as it was tossed in.

I whistled. "Huh, he did it." I shook myself before nodding seriously. "I mean of course he did!"

Karen snorted into her fist. When the next kid swung out she spoke up. "You free at the end of the week?"

"I have a training session with my trainers. One of the only big sessions I'll be able to get in with most of them before the circuit kicks off."

Karen sniffed. "Leave a Lady in the cold, why don't you? Just dump it on an older trainer. I want to fight to see how you've been going with empowering your pokemon with rock and dark type moves. Or were you lying when you offered me a date?"

I huffed at her. "... I might do that," I said after thinking about it for a bit. I could and should delegate, and it wasn't that important a session. I nodded. "Alright, I'll fight you before the weekend." I might have Celia stick around to watch and instead have Rocko run things. She'd be off soon and Jackson would be back so a high-level match would be a good show for her to motivate her.

"Tomas! Go get us a hit!" I sent out the kid that was easily the worst batter I had on my team. Well, worst now after Manny. He hadn't changed much from day one. He'd gotten better at pitching, fielding and his one skill with the bat.

"It's a bunt!" shouted the opposing team's coach after the fact as Tomas sprinted to first and Manny hurdled towards second.

"Go go go Manny! Go Tomas!" The fielders didn't know who to throw to and I grinned as both of them made it to base. I turned to the rest of the team before pointing at Craig.

"See if we can get a run or bases loaded kay?" He nodded seriously, his face locked in a scowl. "Hey relax your grip a bit as well!" I shouted after him. He did for all of a second before taking a huge swing that hit nothing but air.

"Impressive swing. Shame he didn't hit it," Karen said snarkily.

"Keeps closing his eyes," I said while watching Manny and Tomas who were getting twitchy. "Manny get back!" I shouted. The pitcher twitched and turned to find Manny hadn't moved. He glowered before hurling another pitch straight over the plate.

I clicked my tongue and watched Craig get struck out. I nodded to my ace. "Jaimie."

The girl nodded and marched past her team, getting cheers as she moved to the plate. She took a few experimental swings while her eyes marked where people were on the field. I could almost see her working out the field in her head and matching how and where was safe to hit to.

She watched the first straight over the plate without a twitch. When the umpire called strike one the other team cheered. Karen tilted her head. "She's cool under pressure."

I nodded, watching as the kid lined up for the next shot. She breathed in, resettled her grip, and then let loose.

The park filled with a solid 'crack' as she swung through at just the right time and sent the ball sailing over the back fence. The kids on both sides stood and stared as Jaimie leisurely ran around the field. When Tomas got to Manny he pushed the smaller boy to remind him to get going.

Manny sprinted like he'd been hit with a Weedle's poison sting. He got a loud round of cheers as he crossed home. As did Tomas a few seconds later. Jaimie happily rounded it out to both team's praise, albeit begrudgingly from the home team of Bloomingvale that we were facing.

Karen for once had nothing bad to say merely watching the girl with a thoughtful look. "She really is great isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is. Shame I didn't have another of her. But she's going to be getting a lot of interest from the scouts." I was sadly proven right on the first part of what I said when the next kid was caught in the outfield, resulting in us going down two down. Then we struck out. They then extended their lead and despite Jaimie repeating her homerun with bases loaded, we couldn't catch up in the final round.

I still lead the team in cheers for the winners before having us funnel them off. The other coach worked out what we were doing and reciprocated which I found nice. When we shook hands at the end I grinned at her. "Great game coach!"

She grinned back at me. "Not a problem, You were a good test for my kids. Still doing the whole 'everyone gets a chance to play'?" she said while nodding to Manny who was blushing as Jaimie talked with him. Heh cute, looks like he had a crush on the sporty girl.

I shrugged. "They're a good bunch of kids." Perhaps it was the old health worker in me but I wanted to encourage the kids to keep up their healthy habits. That baseball was the best translation to throwing a Pokeball was widely understood.

Pewter city itself had no less than four teams. We'd beaten the locals and gotten to advance to the regional Kanto league. We'd won that tournament and now were playing in the finals. Which was honestly pretty great. Making the finals in the Indigo Little League was nothing to scoff at. This was my best showing and I was rather pleased to add some small silverware to my office. "Hey, you're the Bloomingvale Gym Leader as well right?" I asked.

She got a bit stiff at that before tilting her head. "Yes, yes I am, Danica Nightfall is my name. Nice to meet you Brock," she said after clenching her jaw for a moment. She extended her hand for another handshake and I clasped it again, amused at the repeated gesture. "We're not one of the big eight but still valid for the League circuit, I'm… happy to know you've heard of us. I know you didn't go for a Johto circuit when you were on your journey."

I nodded. "Yeah, the shared pokemon population and limited timeframe I had made me want to range further afield once I had proven I could handle myself." I tossed a thumb over my shoulder. "Sorry about Karen," I said knowing that Karen wasn't going to be apologising for her antics.

Danica snorted as her eyes shot to where Karen was smirking. And just like that two trainers locked eyes, and I could almost feel the acknowledgement and unwritten statement forming between them. They would be fighting, and soon.

I watched them for a moment more before turning away. I clapped my hands to attract my kids' attention. "Alright, Let's get our medals and celebrate how far we've come! Karen's paying for the local Miltank's Milk bar!"

Karen broke her staredown to splutter at me and I grinned and shot her a wink. Surprisingly she did actually catch the gesture but then again, aura was wonderful for conveying intent. Dark type was particularly good at showing playfulness with slightly malicious undertones such as kicking her in front of the Taurus herd.

The kids all cheered as if they had won the game instead of losing. I grinned only for it to get wider when Manny's mum took up the cheer with the parents.

"Yeah!!! Coaches shout for the arcade games!" This got the kids cheering harder. I blinked as I realised I'd just been kicked after Karen by Manny's mother. Sneaky woman.

I now knew where Manny got his size and smarts from. Before I departed with the kids Karen tapped me on the arm. "Three versus three at your gym. I'm going to go have a chat with Miss Nightfall." A Look of dark amusement played out across Karen's face and I made a note to pencil in some time to watch her and Danica's match. Hopefully, it would be shown live.

I nodded and continued on. Titan carried half the team on his shoulders as we tromped our way down to the local Miltank Milk bar each kid had a medal around their neck for coming second in the tournament and overall things were ending on a high note. Honestly, we'd gone much further than I thought we would have. They were a good group of kids.

I was amused to see the Pokemon Academy official approach Jaimie and her mother for a scholarship and was pleased when they accepted.

When we were done I had to drag Karen with me to the register to pay the bill. The till operator had a megawatt smile that didn't dim at all as thick wads of pokedollars were presented. She gave back a scattering of coins which I let Karen nab.

When we were done the kids all departed with their parents and hopped on the bus for those whose parents couldn't be here. Karen tapped me on the shoulder.

"See you later!"

"You too," I said, finding myself looking forward to the coming match against her. The end of the next week couldn't come fast enough.



I stretched my arms over the top of my head, enjoying the way my muscles felt. It had been a few days since Trixie had last been around, so I was feeling fairly recovered. When the front door buzzed I hopped up and opened it, ignoring the slightly colder wind blowing. Karen and another man stood in the entrance. Karen's glowering look was answered by my raising up a frankly huge cup of coffee.

She stared at it. "Tell me that's straight black right?"

"Yup, it's also the biggest they had… which is apparently called a bucket," I said, glancing at the man accompanying her.

Karen waved her hand back. "This is Tony, my publicist."

"We'll take photos and videos. Add anything good to highlight Karen," he glanced over at me. "We'll have to blur you…"

I frowned, feeling slightly offended. I wasn't 'dressed up' by any measure but I didn't look bad.

Karen snickered into her bucket. "Relax Brock, it's to hide our relationship until I'm ready. I need to make my own name without hitching it to yours right now."

"No one knows about you and Agatha then I take it?" I said as I led them into the arena. I glanced at Tony only to realise just how big this guy actually was. He easily had two heads over me and I could only compare him to Surge, who was the largest man I knew. "Also I will have someone take you to the security wing where you can make use of the cameras in our gym."

Tony perked up at that only to let his glower reclaim his face.

When we got into the arena I waved at Celia who I'd told to stick around so she could watch this match. The same applied to Forrest who I'd gotten to come along as well. Although he wasn't meeting us and had instead claimed a good seat to the side and was sitting with his legs kicked up so he could doze. I whistled at him and he waved back sleepily.

I scowled at him but didn't get any further response, making me shake my head. He'd regret not coming down here in a few months when Karen was announced as an Elite Four member. I had to wonder if he'd remember her.

Karen marched up to me and looked over the field. "Urgh… it's early."

"Nah it's perfect! There's nothing better than having a match in the morning!" I said hopping over the edge before jogging over to my podium where I began setting up the arena. Karen stared after me.

She glowered at me from over the top of her drink. "Brock, when I said you could set something up for us to have a match I didn't mean to schedule it in the morning," she said followed by a giant yawn.

I shrugged and swung my hands about as the podium began to rise up. "Eh, I have things to do today beyond just fighting you. And you know what they say. Early Pidgey gets the Caterpie and all that jazz."

"Urgh! You're a morning person, I should have known…" she said as she walked around to the stairs which she proceeded to stalk down. "Which doesn't fit with you being a partial dark type. I would have thought the rock made you slower to get going in the morning."

I dropped into a leg stretch with a side lunge. "Nah! I've always been something of a morning person!" I blamed my family in my first life.

Growing up in the country demanded that most people get up before the sun. The habit had remained when I'd gotten older and carried through into my second life. "What's the matter? Not up for it now?"

"Urgh, at least you know how to treat a girl." She slurped from her 'bucket' and let out a slightly breathy moan of delight as she reached her podium. I coughed, highly conscious of the watchers in the form of Forrest in the stands and Celia and Tony in the camera room. I did not want to give Karen a video of me checking her out.

"So what's up with Tony?" I said as I twisted about slightly to get more warmed up.

Karen stretched out her neck. "He's my publicist, like he said." When I merely raised an eyebrow she rolled her eyes. "Gyms aren't the only people that have support crews Brock. I also have a small team that helps keep me sharp along with getting me the best things." She took another drink. "Like I deserve."

At my hum of interest she rolled her eyes. "I also have some girls that I spar with over at the Battleclub fleecing some punks. Tony's support is different though cause he sucks in fights.

I huffed at her. "So, how do you want to do this?" I selected a pokeball and enlarged it. It was interesting to watch Karen's entire demeanour change. She went from sleepy to switched on with an intense expression as her eyes roamed over the field once again. This time instead of her eyes merely passing over it they catalogued everything. Then her gaze turned towards me and I felt something ripple over me.

I pulled up some of my own energy and felt my own body firm up as my feet suddenly felt more rooted into the platform underneath me. I felt like I could stand against the world and it would break against me. Karen tossed her coffee cup over her shoulder carelessly. The splatter of wasted coffee merely making her smile wider as I scowled.

"You're cleaning that up," I said firmly.

"Make me Brocky boy~!" she said with a sing-song as she selected her own pokeball.

I grunted and flicked my head. "On three?"

She nodded and we counted down together before unleashing at three. From my pokeball Knight took to the stage with a snort, his heavier weight causing a shudder to cause a rumble through the podium. In the stands, Forrest sat up as the chairs shook slightly. His legs were dislodged from where they rested.

Across from me a much smaller light appeared with a white cat like pokemon. The pokemon bristled as it locked eyes with Knight. "Absol!"

I hummed in consideration. If she had the chance, this would be a wonderful pokemon to use as a stall out pro. I could recall it featuring in the games and online pokemon competitions as they typically had good defense and health pools. Then again that was with specially designed pokemon. Breeding pokemon like that wasn't possible just as IV training wasn't something that actually happened in this world.

I knew it was a Dark type with some ghost moves which suited Karen with her apprenticeship under Agatha.

"Curse!" Karen called out to start things off. Absol's body shimmered with dark purple energy before the energy field tore itself in half. Absol lurched.

I swore.

And she can just do that, I thought to myself. "Damn dark types, Knight return!" I barked, raising his pokeball and returning him which was one of the most convenient ways I had to stop the curse from taking effect.

I selected another pokeball and tossed it out. Karen was obviously making me play games so I would shake things up. "Go Titan!" I shouted releasing the greatball from my neck in a practised gesture.

Titan emerged like an angry god. He roared and the air vibrated at his power.

Karen whistled. "Well hello to you too," she said. "Curse him Absol!"

"Earthquake," I commanded to my pokemon as the energy built up once more around Absol.

"Break off and AA!" Her pokemon crouched low and when Titan stomped her pokemon leapt only to hover in the air and then blur back to a rock as the earthquake ended.

I whistled. That had been an impressive use of aerial ace.

"Sandstorm," I said after considering the field.

"Curse him Absol," Karen said threateningly.

The slowly building sandstorm that had emerged with Titan's appearance whipped up and became a proper storm worth its name. The wind whipped around us and I narrowed my eyes more than usual to ward off the loose sand. I could just make out Karen's form and the shapes of our pokemon.

Absol had a large energy field around it and was once more building up an energy field. I hummed before raising my pokeball. I had at least forced her hand a bit with the field effect this time and while it was anticlimatic there was no need to commit and weaken my pokemon right now. Karen was forcing my hand and I was letting her but that wouldn't be for long. Her pokemon had taken two curses now to force the change out from me. Absol didn't have a ghost typing. Was this Agatha's influence or had Karen trained her pokemon to handle curse better than other pokemon? Still, her use of it was reckless.

Unless her plan was to see what my pokemon choices were now?

Hmmm that wouldn't be a bad idea actually.

I decided to go for something risky. She had wanted to see how I beat Lance hadn't she? So I would show her with a pokemon technically weak to her.

"Go Selene!" I shouted as I whipped her pokeball forward. Selene appeared and wobbled in the sandstorm before floating up and around.

"....!" said Karen, her words lost in the wind as she must have deliberately not spoken up. Her pokemon shifted into a more upright position but that appeared to be it.

"Selene Moonblast!" I shouted. In front of her, a large orb of pink energy built up. I saw Karen stiffen and order something.

Her pokemon twitched and another dark energy built up around Absol from what I could see. Karen slashed her hand and over the howling winds I heard her shout . "No not — one!" to her pokemon.

Had her pokemon just disobeyed? This was one of the issues with having a sight obstructing sandstorm in play. It was strong enough to grind down opposing pokemon but to do that it had to be strong enough to cause issues with sound and sight. I'd have to ask later what she'd been intending.

The pink orb of power slammed into her pokemon and sent her Absol hurtling back. I pumped a fist at that. While Selene might have been a poor choice on typings she made it up in moves that she could pull. A fairy-type move? Perfect for slapping down dark types.

Her Absol stood only to be buffeted in the wind. A red beam of light shot out from Karen and I clicked my tongue. Her pokemon was withdrawn before I could go for the kill.

She must not have been feeling too confident.

Her next pokemon emerged and I could make out the canine shape with the horns on her head. I didn't need to hear to know she had called out her Houndoom.

I wasn't sure which was her starter. The Houndoom or her Umbroen but I suspected I knew why she had sent her pokemon out.

"....!" I heard words on the wind but again could not decipher them.

It didn't stop me from shouting an order of my own. "Psychic!" I shouted to Selene.

From the vague Houndoom like shape a fire lit up the sandstorm before it rapidly expanded and became a literal inferno that exploded outwards. The sand was blown outwards due to the flamethrower Hounddoom had unleashed. The front of my podium and the edges of the arena lit up as the barriers for our safety activated. Around us, rocks were now glassed from the heatwave that had swept the sand away. In front of Selene, a wall of fire pulsed in her psychic grip.

I was about to order her to throw it back before thinking better. "Smother it," I said instead.

Odds were that tossing it back would only empower the fire-type pokemon if it had the ability flashfire. Karen's rather pronounced click of the tongue let me know I was right. She grinned at me. "Thought you might oblige a lady Brock."

I snorted at her in amusement. "I think it's going to take a bit of sandblasting to get the glass off Karen," I said in reply.

Karen eyed my third pokemon. "So Aggron, Tyranitar and Lunatone eh? Hmmmm I'd say the last one is your most deadly so I think I'll be taking her out now! Use Nuuuu!!" she said, dragging out the order in a practised manner.

"Selene, get ready with future sight!" I ordered.

Around both pokemon energy built up and it was only a few seconds later I realised she'd used nasty plot to boost her pokemon. Specifically her 'Special attack' stat.

"Selene build up with Calm Mind!" I ordered, preparing for the next play.

"Use Darkpulse!" called Karen. Her pokemon once more erupted but this time in darkness.

"Fire off Moonblast! Create a passage of safety!" I commanded.

Selene built up her moonblast once again but this time she almost seemed to hold it close to herself as she shot it and herself forward. The attack slammed into the onrushing dark pulse only to open up a passage through for her.

"Crunch!" ordered Karen as suddenly her Hounddoom was emerging from the side. She must be used to having her pokemon fire off a pulse and then change positions. It made sense she would create an opening with opponents losing sight of her pokemon in the small window.

I couldn't copy the trick I used against Lance due to dark pulse stopping teleport dead. I'd done as much the first time I faced off against Sabrina. Her Kadabra's tricks of teleporting and controlling the field was no use in the face of Titan's Dark Pulse. It wasn't something I was going to replicate with my pokemon.

Instead, I had to accept that Selene had been caught out. She was tackled to the side but she'd already passed through the pulse so she couldn't be slammed into it as well. She warbled in pain as the dark energies and fangs of the Houndoom tore into her.

I had to grit my teeth. "Use ROCK TOMB!" I shouted trying to get the order to her through the pain she must have been going through. She responded wonderfully as two rocks shot up out of the ground and caught the Houndoom about the leg.

It wasn't as strong as it should have been but I suspected that had to do with being caught in the jaws of Houndoom.

"Dark Pulse!" shouted Karen.

"Rock Tomb again!" I had hoped that Selena's attack would have forced Houndoom to drop her but sadly he seemed to have a trap for a jaw as it remained locked on my pokemon.

Dark energy erupted once more from Karen's pokemon just as more rocks snapped up around Houndoom's leg. This time the attack reached all the way up to the hip. It made Houndoom cry out in pain and drop my pokemon but instead of floating back upwards she dropped to the ground, too spent to rise.

I made a signal to Karen which she accepted. If we had a referee they'd have announced I was withdrawing Selene from the match.

Overall I was happy with how she'd done. She'd fairly savaged two of Karen's pokemon despite the match up.

Houndoom limped back in front of Karen and growled. It tried to shift positions but I could see it was uncomfortable.

I selected Titan's pokeball from my necklace once more and felt my anticipation build. She'd used her strongest to take out Selene. Now I was going to dunk on her with Titan. I was just winding up to throw his pokeball when an alarm blared out through the gym. I growled at the interference before stiffening.

"Shit! That's a gym alert! The Gym is under attack!"

Karen gave me a look that conveyed how little that meant to her. I threw myself over the podium and began running for the security room, only to pause as the loudspeakers rang out with Celia's voice.

"Brock! The gym's wall has been breached to the west! People are charging in and there seems to be a large… aircraft?" Celia said only for another voice to speak up.

"Zeppelin, an oddly streamlined one at that," said what had to be Tony's —Karen's publicist— voice.

Forrest had bolted down to me. "Brock? What should I do?"

I worked my jaw and considered him. I wanted to storm out with Titan at the front of my team with me ordering them to lay waste. But then I rethought that order. Things started clicking into place. Jenny had mentioned that Team Rocket had been sniffing around and Team Rocket meant Giovanni. Giovanni who had a Legendary. I needed to be careful. But I couldn't let this simply pass without acting.

I just had to not be dumb.

"Forrest, take Knight and lock down our house. If anyone tries to enter there you blast them," I said tossing him Knight's pokeball. He caught it and hurriedly ran to our house. The rest of my family would be safe at school. If Giovanni tried something there he'd draw far too much heat.

At least I assumed he would, the darker part of my mind supplied. I clenched my jaw and cycled my rock energy to keep myself calm as I stormed towards the security room.

Karen hopped down from her podium to join me. When she landed she stumbled. I half turned in concern but she waved me off. "I'm fine, just an awkward landing!"

"Right let's get to the security room and see what we're dealing with," I said to her as we broke into a jog. I opened the normally locked door in advance with a tap of my transceiver before I even reached them. When I reached the security room I still practically slammed into it.

"Report!" I barked to Celia. My eyes swept the room to find her and Tony sitting in front of a set of monitors that showcased Team Rocket. They had grunts and one rather dressed-up man fighting a number of my pokemon. The spread of water and grass types with dewgongs, Starmies, and Victreebels meant they had come ready to fight my pokemon.

They weren't ready for my electric typed pokemon with the variant geodude I had along with the pair of Onix I had that breathed dragon breaths to create limited mobility for Team Rocket to advance. A Rhydon and trio of Tauros emerged and started using rock and earth moves to counter these attacks while reclaiming space for themselves.

I found myself rather pleased with how my pokemon were acting. The newest Graveller had planted herself in front of a number of weaker Geodudes and was using Rock Throw very deftly. Scyther was on the field blitzing in and out to harry Team Rocket like we'd been practising. He was getting a good deal of attention as a rare and popular pokemon, but so far whenever he was in danger he either buzzed away or another of my pokemon was able to block for him.

These Team Rocket members were having to work for each step they gained but they were still advancing. These were obviously not the Team Rocket that most people from my world initially thought of with Jessie and James. These were the professional hardened criminals.

That didn't mean I wouldn't be keeping an eye out for them, however. Jessie and James were names that now jumped to the top of my list to research with the looming circuit.

That was for later. Right now I was facing off against a criminal organisation that had set its sights on my gym. I narrowed my eyes and considered everything I knew. Next to me, Karen leaned forward.

"We gonna get em?"

"I plan to do more than just get these ones," I said as I felt a plan form in my mind.




"What the hell's the hold up?" shouted one of the Rocket Grunts only to duck as a rock hurtled through where his head was.

Another grunt that was squatting down behind a boulder nodded to the newcomer. "Welcome to the trenches boyo."

"What the hell was that?" said the first grunt.

"That was a Geodude," said the second grunt, now lighting a cigarette.

"A what?"

"Geodude," said the second as he puffed out a ring of smoke.

"No fecken way that was a geodude! Those pokemon are weak as hell!" claimed the newcomer only to lean out to look.

He threw himself into the wall as another rock ripped its way through the air. "That's a feckin Geodude!"

The squatting man nodded his head. "Makes sense why management wanted us to take a run at the Pewter gym's pokemon if this is how strong they are. Damn well trained." He plucked a pokeball from his belt and nodded behind himself. "Gonna gas it up then blow it up. You got the capture device?"

The younger grunt grabbed another device that was more like a lantern with a circle opening where a black pokeball with green marking on it rested. "Yup! Knock it out then I'll capture it."

"Koffing gas it up!" A pokeball was tossed out and from it a Koffing arose, trails of smoke beginning to billow out of the purple pokemon.

"Kooff—" The pokemon's cry was cut off sharply as it took a rock to the face. It was blasted back towards the grunts who scrambled over themselves to get away from the gas the toxic pokemon was spewing out.

"Damn it Boxer! I told you that wasn't going to work!" squealed the man with the capture device.

"The shit you did!" shouted 'Boxer' as he ran swallowing his cigarette as he did so lest the flame ignite the koffing gas.

From atop the nearby plateau, I chuckled while Quirrina hovered next to me. He'd given Karen a pointed glower when we'd arrived via the hidden tunnel from the medical bay. It was unfortunate timing that Selene was knocked out but I'd deposited her with Chansey before looking things down. Celia was now holding the back entrance of the gym.

I glanced around to see another pair of Rockets being bodied by the small herd of Rhyhorn I had. Shin and Scyther shot in and knocked them down with the back of their blades. The Rocket's cried out. "Damn it where are the electric pokemon we were promised against these ones?!" cried out one.

I hummed in interest. Now that was— An electrical surge shot up over the wall on the southern side where the swamp was only to cut out quickly.

I smirked while Karen frowned. "What was that?" she said.

Before I could reply an Electrabuzz and a Voltorb were hurled through the wall making me sigh as a loud ribbit sounded from the swamp. A trio of Rocket grunts ran through the break only to book it to the west and out of the fight, ignoring the others' cries for them to come back and fight.

From the swamp a large blue pokemon emerged on all fours.

"SWAMPERT!" cried out Shrek as he lined up on the earth pokemon and began blasting with Hydro Pumps. The impact of having one of my Elite pokemon joining the fight was immediate with Rocket pokemon going flying.

Karen rubbed her chin. "I'd heard that you had one of those but never saw you use it… Thought you didn't have very long in Hoenn?"

I smirked. "I'm very efficient," I said smugly, turning my attention elsewhere.

With that area taken care of and a number of the grunts looking frazzled, it didn't seem like it'd take much more for them to run away. Scyther and Shin were cleaning up with my Rhyhorn working well with the Aron I had to harass a group that had come in from the north. The western group that had entered had been stalled and were being pushed back.

Which left only another group that was trying to sneak towards my sheds where I kept the food for my pokemon. I decided I didn't want any of that.

I was just about to order Quiirina to carry me down when I heard something. I tilted my head and glanced around. This time I looked up and spotted a small dark spot in the sky. I narrowed my eyes.

…That shape.

"Don! Take out the Fearow!" Don appeared with a screech that had all the rockets looking up and spotting me on the edge of the plateau.

"Go Arbok!" "Growlithe!" "Raticate!" "Machoke!" "Weezing!" "Magnemite!" "Venomoth!" "Purugly!" cried out a number of Rocket grunts and the one rather stylishly dressed man.

That last pokemon had me snapping my head to the cat pokemon. That wasn't from a region that was open to anyone. I hadn't even heard of the Sinnoh region being discovered and I had a secret society feeding me information. How did a Rocket Executive have that pokemon?

It being here had quite a few implications. None of them good.

I glanced at the trainers before me as they unleashed their pokemon. I raised another pokeball. "Sanchez go!"

My moustached pokemon landed on the side of the slope and instead of allowing his toes to dig in he allowed himself to slide with his hands crossed over. It… actually looked pretty cool.

"Thunder," I ordered. Sanchez tweaked his moustache and winked before punching the sky and unleashing lightning bolts upon the pokemon. Instantly the Venomoth, Growlithe and Raticate dropped as paralysis took hold.

Sanchez continued to slide forward.

"Arbok, use Toxic!" shouted one of the grunts.

"Leap over it and shake them up!" I said in response.

Sanchez bent at the knees before throwing himself up and over the sizzling poison. "Go-lem! Lem! Go!" He raised his hand and I grinned knowing what was to come.

Sanchez leaned forward just enough to allow his hand to reach the ground as he slammed into the ground in a picture-perfect three-point landing. A classic for any person that had watched a superhero movie. Sanchez just so happened to love movie night and with younger siblings Superheroes were a safe bet to regularly feature.

The fingers slashed across his eye as he winked with a sideways V made me think he'd been spending a bit of time watching the girls' choices in superheroes. It didn't make him any less dangerous as a huge ripple of earth flexed outward from his landing point sending pokemon flying. The only pokemon left unmolested was the Magnemite that hovered forward with its eyes locked in a glare.

"Quirina, take it out with Flamethrower," I ordered my Solrock.

Quirina hovered forward and spat a gout of flame that stopped the Magnemite dead in its tracks.

"Hey you can't use more than one pokemon!" shouted one of the grunts.

I snorted down at him before looking at all the pokemon that I was facing. I could probably have Sanchez continue to body them but I wanted this wrapped up cleanly. "Turn about's more than fair. Shrek, small area of effect Rainy Day. Sanchez use thunder. "

Rain poured down and Sanchez grinned as he threw his hand up to the skies theatrically. Then from the rain five bolts of lightning shot down onto pokemon to lay them out. The Rocket grunts all took steps back at that.

"Signal for the blimp! We need to get out of here!" shouted one of them. Another raised a clicker and pressed a button. Instantly a whirring noise filled the air as a large metal zeppelin rose from the west. I opened my mouth to shout an order to blow it from the sky before remembering the plan.

Instead, I pointed to the trainers. "Sanchez, take them out!" but I didn't order any more Pokemon forward. I was surprised when the back door of the gym opened and Bianca and Stephen stormed out with pokeballs in hand.

"Stay away from the gym!" they both shouted.

From Bianca, a Ditto and a Pidgeot emerged and from Stepehen a Porygon and Swablu took to the field. The Ditto glanced around and grinned when it spotted Purugly causing Bianca to gasp in surprise. A red pokedex emerged from her hip and I saw her mouth beginning to dictate something to it. Stephen spared the new pokemon a glance before ordering his pokemon to attack with tri-attack and aerial ace.

Celia emerged trying to grab an obviously enraged Selene as she hovered out. Behind Celia, Chansey stalked out with an annoyed look only to stop when she noticed the number of injured pokemon hiding behind rocks. She ducked back into the gym and then sprinted out to start administering care.

"Luuuunatone!" cried Selene as she started to throw rocks at the now thoroughly fleeing Team Rocket members.

I whistled to catch her attention "Celia! Let her go! Se—" before I could order her to Selene teleported to my side and nuzzled up to me. I frowned at the feeling of something circling around Karen spike up.

"Are you passively emitting?" I asked, eying the 'zone' she was emitting. Goosebumps rose over my skin as I felt her energy. "So that's a common trick?" I said.

She gave me a look like I'd just said something very stupid. I coughed into my fist.

"Right, forget I said anything." In front of us the Rocket Grunts were being hurled around. The Magnemite was trying to absorb any stray electrical attacks from Sanchez even as the metal zeppelin closed in. I nodded as the zeppelin closed in.

"Want to follow after that and take it down when it reaches their base?"

Karen tilted her head. "I was wondering why you weren't blowing that out of the sky… it didn't make any sense to me."

"Ah, I wouldn't have been able to get away with it if I didn't have Don blinding them." I pointed up at two now very, very distant dots that were trading attacks.

"They had watchers?" Karren bit her thumb and scowled. "Hmmm I didn't want to openly advertise our connection but it might be for the best." She shot me a look. "Would you mind letting me take point on the raid of their base?"

I considered what she was asking me. She hadn't wanted to advertise our connection and that was probably not a bad idea. It did reek of duplicity but it also took into account that if people knew of our connections they'd think less of her or expect her to act on my behalf in future. Karen entering the Elite Four would potentially offer a lot of benefits to me as an unknown.

Or maybe I was looking into it too much… I scratched my head. Life had gotten a lot more complicated since Lance's challenge.

"Sure, you take point and deal with the authorities." Perhaps the smartest thing would be to let her handle it. I waved towards the Zeppelin that the Rocket grunts were piling into. "After you?"

Karen grasped two pokeballs and enlarged them before sending them both out. "Crobat! Murkrow! Track that zeppelin and when it lands send Murkrow back to lead us there!" I watched as Team Rocket fled with their tails between their legs. I felt a sting of envy at her Crobat, especially after having a shiny zubat slip through my fingers on my last trip up to Mt Moon.

Celia glanced up and waved. "Brock! Sorry I couldn't stop Stephen or Bianca from running out as they wanted to help out!" I gave her a wry smile. I had no doubt she did as well. She glanced down at the ground and coughed.

"Uhm otherwise the Gym is secure with no pokemon or pokeballs missing! I have called Rocko and he's coming back now with the others!" she said.

I nodded, proud she'd thought of that step on her own. "Alright when he gets home inform him he's in charge and that I want them to patrol around the gym and city for the next few hours. We'll check the pokemon that were outside. I'll call Dennis to join me."

Celia hopped from foot to foot "What are you going to be doing?"

I nodded towards the fleeing zeppelin. "We're going hunting."



A.N. Special thanks goes to my patreons for their support!

Special thanks goes to Raikor, Ab9999, Kurlinni, and Elnoorz for betaing and editing this chapter
 
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