To Reach Your Potential (Pokemon OC Isekai)

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 1

Second Chance​

I snuck into my parent's bedroom, ignoring the hammering of my heart.

The room was a disaster area, dirty clothes strewn everywhere and beer cans littering the surface of both the bedside tables and the chest of drawers.

Dad's snores reverberated loudly, and I began the search for his wallet. It wasn't in the kitchen or living room, so it had to be in his room. However, it also wasn't on the chest of drawers it would usually be, probably haps because cans and other junk were already spilling over the edge of it, so there wasn't any room for it there anyway.

I crept closer to the bed where several days of clothes lay crumpled, slowly and quietly checking for the wallet. I gently lifted a pair of jeans at the top of a pile, and felt the extra weight in them immediately.

Bingo.

I rifled through the pockets and found the wallet quickly, pulling it out and seeing how much cash he had. I found a $20 note and a few singles, but that was all. It would be enough to buy ingredients for the twins' 9th birthday cake, but if I wanted snacks for their friends I would need to check for more tomorrow, because otherwise there would be nothing left for dinner that night, a far cry from the pizza's I hoped to get for them. That would be a terrible end to their birthday.

I suppose getting a cake at all would still beat my birthday back in March though.

I couldn't help but send the man on the bed a glare. Why did you have four kids if you couldn't look after them? Damn irresponsible… I guess it wasn't all his fault, it was probably a joint decision with Mum, but seeing she was dead, he had to take the blame for two.

I looked back at the wallet, and saw the picture he had in it from happier times not so long ago. Mum and Dad were smiling, and my brother and sisters looked so carefree. I also looked happy, I noted with some surprise. I'd always overthought stuff, and I can remember trying to get my hair right because it had been cut just before the photos and I liked it long, and I'd thought it still looked weird so I'd worn my favourite pokemon cap over the top of it... Such a stupid thing to worry about.

"Rob, the twins are ready!"

I startled as Rosie's voice rang out through the room, then froze, waiting to see if Dad would wake up.

His head was facing towards me, and his snoring had paused. I stared at his closed eyelids with bated breath, hearing my heartbeats. They stayed shut. His snoring resumed as he rolled over, and I started breathing again.

I put the wallet on top of his clothes, not bothering to put it back in his pocket, and left the room to walk my siblings to elementary school which was on the way to my middle school.

I didn't know if he would notice the money missing, but I doubted he would care either way. After all, that was his problem these days.

He just didn't seem to care about anything.

-break-​

12 years later

I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, on a bed that was far too big.

I frowned. Did I have a medical episode last night… because this wasn't the palliative care ward?

Frowning, I tried to sit up, but my body had other plans. Pain coursed through my chest like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my ribs, and my head throbbed like… I laid back down with a groan.

It was too painful to think.

As if on queue the door opened. I tilted my head to see a young pink-haired woman in a nurse uniform walk in. Even in my disoriented state, I noted that the uniform was unlike anything that I'd ever seen back in my usual ward.

I tried to shake the thoughts out of my mind, but aborted the effort as pain shot through my head. I closed my eyes and gently laid my head back down. Staying still was good. Movement was bad.

"It's good to see you awake," the nurse said. "We almost lost you when you first came in. How do you feel?"

Made sense I suppose, my body was so riddled with cancer that I knew any time I went to sleep that I might not wake back up.

"I feel-" I started, before realising my voice had come out like a squeak. I gave a cough, then tried again.

"I feel like I got run over by a truck." My voice was still a bit weird. "Could I have some water?"

I heard the nurse murmur something, and I heard a set of footsteps walk away. I hadn't seen her partner walk in. I opened my eyes to check to see a pink blur just as it went around the doorway. I looked back at the nurse, who was somewhat familiar even though I couldn't quite place her.

"She will be right back with some water." she assured me.

"Thank you." I replied. Once again my voice was an oddly high pitch, but then again my throat was feeling rough. Perhaps some water would help.

"So Oliver, what's the last thing you remember?"

I frowned as I tried to think of a response to the question, but my mind was unusually sluggish.

"Well, before I went to sleep I was coughing up blood again, and I haven't had any appetite for a few days-"

The nurse jolted and looked at me worriedly.

"When we checked your condition we didn't see anything wrong with your lungs or digestive tract… I'll have Chansey check you over again, you just relax here." She shot me a smile that was likely meant to reassure me and briskly left the room.

Nothing wrong with my lungs or stomach? I'm riddled with cancer, mate. And how weird of a name is Chansey? Shaking my head in bewilderment as I was now alone, I finally looked around the room, then the large bed, and then myself.

It was then I realised - the bed wasn't too big, I was just too small.

It was with that realisation that the memories started flooding in. I wasn't just Oliver Kane, I was also Oliver Blincoe of the Pokémon World. For some reason I felt more like I was Oliver Kane than Oliver Blincoe, as though my life on Earth had happened more recently, even though I was in the child's body now.

All my memories as David Blincoe were still there though, and I was just starting to piece things together when the door opened, and a Chansey followed by Nurse Joy(?) all but ran in. Above her head were words

Chansey (F)
Current Strength: 60.88 / 65.43
Expected Potential: 5.47 -(7.01*)

Before I could make sense of the random words and numbers hanging over the Chansey's head, they were by my side and she impatiently passed me a cup of water to drink. She then touched her stubby arm to my head. A moment later a foreign sensation unlike anything I'd ever felt went through my mind, and while I still felt exhausted, my headache steadily receded until it was all but gone.

"Chansey." She said tiredly as she removed her arm, and I could tell the healing had taken a lot out of her.

Chansey (F)
Current Strength: 47.27 / 65.43
Expected Potential:5.47 -(7.01*)

"How do you feel now?" Nurse Joy asked cautiously.

"My head feels so much better." I replied, my mouth on autopilot while I tried to make sense of what was going on. "Why didn't you do that earlier?"

"Chansey needs to remain prepared for emergencies, so if the patient's condition isn't critical, then we usually let them heal naturally with a few berries and some medicine. If Chansey had been tired when you came in a few days ago, then likely you wouldn't be here with us, given the state of your body at that time."

As she replied to me, Chansey rifled through the nurses pockets and then quickly started munching on said berries, already working to replenish her energy stores.

"I'm going to repeat the question I asked earlier." Joy continued. "What is the last thing you remember?"

I tore my gaze away from the information hovering above Chansey and searched my memories. While they felt like they happened years ago, they were still there.

"Umm... let me think." I replied slowly. "I remember something happened to Mum, and then I had to live in the orphanage. It was supposed to be temporary…"

As the memories became clear, I felt my heart clench.

"She died… no went missing. But eventually there had to be a funeral anyway."

Joy had stopped writing.

"So I tried to find her." I finished.

I was crying before I even realised. I felt a bit awkward to be honest, and tried to control myself. My memories of this world were getting blended in with the memories of my own, and my body was responding spontaneously. As I looked back at the memories of her on this world, it was obvious she had been a kind and loving mother to this world's Oliver, just like mine was to me.

Nurse Joy didn't press me as I wept.

A while later, when I wiped the last few tears from my eyes, I saw Joy waiting for me.

"I'm sorry, I still have to ask a few more questions. Is that ok?" She asked gently.

I nodded, still wiping tears.

"Do you know where we are?" She started.

"Cerulean Pokécenter." I replied numbly.

"Cerulean Hospital. You aren't a Pokémon as far as I can tell." She corrected gently, trying to inject a bit of levity, "What is your name?"

I paused. My name was Robert Kane, but now it was… "Oliver Blincoe."

"Good, that's correct. How old are you?"

This was actually the most difficult question to be honest. It was ever changing, and the memories of my life on Earth blended in with my memories as Oliver here. I knew my Birthday on the 17th of March was the same in both lives. However, even as my mind struggled for the answer my mouth acted on instinct.

"Thirteen, nearly fourteen."

Ah, I was truly in a kid's body.

"That's correct, you won't be fourteen for another few weeks..."

For a moment the only sound was the scratching of her pen, and Chancy's munching of berries. The pen stopped moving, and Joy looked back at me.

"Now, I know you said you remember some of it, but do you have any idea what happened after you went into the caves underneath Mount Moon?"

I was found in the Mount Moon caves?

"No." I replied honestly.

"So you don't remember straying well away from the cleared path recommended for inexperienced Pokémon trainers?" She asked rhetorically with a raised eyebrow, before sighing. "You were found unconscious and poisoned in Mount Moon by a Pokémon Trainer who was searching for mushrooms. A friendly wild Paras led her to your body, which had been poisoned by a Zubat's bite... Does that jog your memory at all?"

"No… sorry." I said lamely. I didn't remember that, which was likely for the best to be honest.

She looked hard at me, then sighed.

"I guess I should give you a bit more information, to make sure you don't do something so foolish again. After your mother went missing nine weeks ago while finding geological samples for Bill's research, search parties were sent out, high priority as she was privy to some knowledge critical for the Indigo League's national security. They saw evidence of her Pokémon fighting, namely some… whiskers of your mother's Raticate, as well as some spores and leaves of her Bellossom. The investigation isn't concluded yet, but there might be criminal syndicate activity involved. You were never going to find anything but trouble by going down there."

She gave me a stern look, but it softened before continuing.

"...when the Trainer found you, she quickly used an antidote and both her potions, but your condition kept worsening as she couldn't make you properly ingest them fully. By the time you were brought back here, your heart had stopped, and you needed to be resuscitated. It's hard to confirm whether your memory loss is due to Mental or Physical trauma, but you should feel more yourself over time."

I nodded numbly. Even the original Oliver hadn't known about there being anything suspicious about his mothers disappearance. Did that mean it was Team Rocket? Or something else?

It was a lot to process, even without taking into consideration the fact that I was now in a completely different world.

Over the next half hour I was made familiar with my current situation.

I was to go back to the orphanage. It had originally been set up for War Orphans as a consequence of the Kanto-Johto War when the two human controlled territories had expanded into each other half a century ago. Those children had all aged out in the time since the conflict, and though there was a small but steady influx due to Pokemon incursions, there was still more than enough space for me. I had been temporarily excused from classes, but they were considered incredibly important and so the sooner I could get back to school the better.

After she had finished explaining my situation to me, and confirmed that I had no other questions, she let me know a light meal would be brought to my room and left. For the first time since waking up in this world, I finally had some space to take a few deep breaths and consider my situation.

I was in the Pokemon world, which was… interesting. I hadn't played many games since Mum in my previous life died, but occasionally I'd played either of the first three generations while cooking and caring for my younger siblings. There had always been a strong feeling of nostalgia, as it reminded me of a time when life was so much more simple, and grinding to get my Dragonite to level 100 seemed like the best use of my time.

Years later, once the life insurance payout was guaranteed, I had also played a little PokéRogue to distract my mind while my body deteriorated. Despite that, I was still ignorant of many Pokemon, and nearly all lore, post-gen 3.

My thoughts then moved to my family. Rosie had almost finished her degree now, while Ron and Roxy had both headed off to the same university together on an athletics scholarship. Combined with the life insurance payout, they should have every chance of achieving their dreams, and would have degrees to use as a backup.

Having to basically be a parent since Elementary school had sucked, I'd had to sacrifice a lot and it had robbed me of my childhood, but I had been looking forward to the next stage of my relationships with them as we continued to grow. They didn't need me anymore… but I missed them already.

My eyes moistened, and I quickly distracted myself, directing my thoughts to what the window above Chansey meant.

It had said 'Current Strength' and 'Expected Potential', and also let me know that Chansey was a girl, but the numbers were all completely unrelated to things in the game, and the current strength had gone down further when she healed me. Was it like, some combined stats average and fatigue ratings or something?

I mulled it over for a bit, but came to the conclusion that the sample size of one pokemon was too small. If I wasn't completely delusional and I was still here when I woke up, then I would figure it out later.

I gave out a yawn, and relaxed deeper into bed as I thought about lighter topics, like what Pokémon would I want on my team? I got more comfortable as I considered it. Something like a Dratini would be good to start with, as it would eventually become a Dragonite. Growlithe's seemed friendly and were strong, and an Eevee would also be nice, all the eeveelutions are strong, a Vaporeon would be indestructible to water types, while I've always thought Jolteon would be cool… Perhaps also a Larvitar…

- break -​

I was well rested and honestly a bit bored by the next time Nurse Joy entered. The meal I'd woken up to had been nice, but after eating it there was literally nothing to do, and while I'd felt awkward about it, I had ended up ringing the bell beside my bed.

"Ah, hey, sorry about this. I was wondering when it is alright for me to leave, or if there is something I have to do first?"

"First, I have to know whether you plan to go back to Mount Moon?" she asked, sending me a piercing gaze.

"No." I answered immediately.

To do so without pokemon was suicidal… which was likely a part of the reason Oliver had done it, if unconsciously.

She kept looking into my eyes, then nodded, seemingly finding what she was looking for.

"You are mending well, we just want to keep you under observation until tomorrow morning. Though unlikely, sometimes poison type energy can cause a delayed immune response."

I nodded back, but then asked. "Makes sense. Then is it possible I could have my phone back? There is nothing really for me to do here, and I don't like wasting time."

In my last life I had nearly always been doing something, whether it be working, cooking, cleaning or studying (before I had to drop out of school to support my siblings). The only times that changed was when my illness had progressed too far, and I had been forced to slow down. For the last few months I'd idled more time away than I had in the decade prior combined, and now my situation wasn't hopeless, I was raring to be productive again.

At my question she smiled.

"Of course there are no issues, we have some PCs in the communal areas. You should have it mostly to yourself, early Spring is the safest time of the year after all, though that will change when all you youngsters start travelling the routes."

That triggered something in Oliver's memories, sending a spike of anxiousness into my gut.

"What is the date today again?" I asked hesitantly.

Nurse Joy winced briefly, realising she had misspoke.

"Don't worry Oliver," she said with a consoling smile. "It has been a tumultuous couple of months, so I just wanted to let you know that I have raised your case with the League, and that due to your unique circumstances you will be permitted to undergo the trainer exam next year even if you fail this year.

"If you are selected next year, you would also be permitted to participate in the first year and second year conferences, although you would only get the first year of your Journey sponsored instead of the usual two by the League."

Everyone was allowed to go on a Journey, but the only way an orphan like me could go would be through an indigo league sponsorship. However, getting a sponsorship was a competitive process.

The research Oliver had done before his mother had passed all flooded back to me.

The region of Kanto had about 7 million people, and in my age group there would be somewhere in the region of 100,000 people. Of this cohort, only about 20,000 would be able to go on a sponsored Journey in their first year.

This meant ~80% of kids couldn't qualify. The prerequisites for going on a Journey entailed:

A high grade on the trainer exam.

Aura awareness and control.

A further 5,000 spots would be up for grabs for his cohort next year, but it would be even more competitive.

The reason why this year was the time to go was because the majority of kids only gained Aura awareness after the age fourteen. This meant that while there were ~100,000 in the cohort, only ~30,000 would be valid competitors competing for the 20,000 spots. However, if you wanted to compete for one of the 5,000 spots a year later, you would be competing against perhaps 65,000 others, which wasmuchtougher competition.

Those who missed out could do their own journey later, but they would be funding it themselves, and there were far fewer tournaments that they could compete in for prize-money unless they were entering the open division.

"Thanks for that, I appreciate it… but when is it again?" I asked again, trying to keep my rising panic from my voice.

Oliver had been in a position to blitz the exam before, and had planned to spend the last few months putting in work to gain Aura awareness… but it hadn't gone to plan, for obvious reasons. I knew the exam was on the 31st of March, but I had no idea how far away that was.

This wasn't just the previous Oliver's feelings, though it had always been his dream as well. Now that I was here, I'd been almost taking it for granted that I'd become a trainer, and make up for my lost childhood on Earth by living out childhood dreams that weren't just out of my previous life, but out of everyone else's as well.

"It's three weeks away tomorrow, on Monday the 19th of March." Joy replied with a sigh.

It was going to be difficult to grasp.

"Cool, thanks for letting me know" I said, plastering a smile onto my face to hide the urgency I felt as I sat up. "If you could lead me to one of the PCs, then that would be very much appreciated."

---

Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed the first chapter!

Thereare rules behind my power system, but I want you to know its not static, and values change over time based on whether the individual exceeds or fails to live up to their potential.

For example a young Lionel Messi may have had merely decent Potential until his growth hormone deficiency was cured, and then he bloomed into one of the all-time greats. Our MC will find Pokemon with surprisingly high potential despite their limitations, and look to unleash them.

Meanwhile, someone like Muggsy Bogues would never have had the highest potential in the league, but would have banged his head against his potential ceiling until it broke and he was well and truly world-class, despite it being a harder path than anyone else. Similar to this, our MC will more easily be able to find what increases a Pokemon's potential, so even those less gifted can rise to greater heights than most thought possible through supreme effort.

Of course, the easiest pickings will be finding baby Lebron the Caterpie that no one else realises is destined for greatness yet, and nurturing it so it flourishes into its full potential. After all, everyone gives a baby Dratini whatever it needs in order to thrive, but 'common' Pokemon are unlikely to ever receive that same treatment, so even if they have a high potential, it's still unlikely that they can ever reach it.

Our MC will take a while to realise this, so if you think he's acting a bit slow, give him a chapter or two, yeah? He just died after all

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 2

First Day of School​

My phone's alarm went off, bringing me out of my meditation session.

Today I was back to school for the first time since the incident, and I had spent the rest of yesterday reviewing what I would need to do going forward.

I hadn't been able to sleep since 4am, so had decided to practise my aura awareness through meditation, which was one of the methods recommended by the league. I had some previous experience with it, both in this life and my previous one, as it had been a good way to unwind and stop hyper-fixating on the problems of my life, and come back to it later with a fresh gaze.

I scowled despite myself, not having reached 'acceptance' with my current circumstances.

I'd been trying to remain focussed and relaxed during my meditation session, as there was no point to it otherwise, but now the session was over, I couldn't keep myself from engaging with my suspicion that there had to be a better way!

Throughout the day yesterday, I'd been doing research on Aura, which was still mysterious despite it being incredibly widespread.

The clan kids, like the Takeshi Clan in Pewter, the Kyou clan in Fuschia or the Blackthorn clan in Johto, always gained Aura awareness before the age of 12, with rumours stating it may be even earlier, and I was confident that the League knew information that they were holding back from the public. If publicly available methods like meditation were what they were doing, then why were 50% of those that get sponsored by the League also from such backgrounds, despite them only being about 10% of the population?

That wasn't even taking into account Youngster licences which let some trainers start their journey up to two years early, at the age of 12 or 13, with ~95% of the people who received Youngster licences being from the clans.

Something I'd learnt in my last life is that you will learn a lot more about what's really happening by looking past the words people say, and looking deeper into the actions and circumstances that go behind it - and there was obviously more going on here than met the eye.

I jumped out of bed and went straight to the shower. I'd been allowed to get my school bag and clothes from the orphanage whilst under hospital supervision yesterday afternoon, and now that my observation period was over, this would (hopefully) be the last time I was in a hospital for a while.

Ten or so minutes later I was dressed, and I headed over to the reception to say goodbye to Doctor Madeline Joy. (Turns out not all Nurses Joys were called 'Joy', or were even Nurses, though it was the usual title in the Pokecenter to help Pokemon feel more comfortable with treatment by making it consistent everywhere). Usually she would be more busy, and in the coming months she most likely would be, so I had been lucky to have received her treatment.

I smiled when I saw her.

"Hi Maddy, thanks for everything the last few days, don't know where I would be without you… Or I do know where I would be, and I'm really glad I'm here." I said with a laugh.

She rolled her eyes at me, but then smiled back.

"Look after yourself kid, and I'm glad you're looking better than when you came in, both physically and mentally."

While I had come over to give my thanks, I would be lying if I said I had no ulterior motive… After all, although anyone could join the Joy clan so she wasn't necessarily born into it, it was still a clan.

"Maddy, I was wondering if there was any advice you could give me about sensing Aura? I'm pretty confident in my academics-" a slight exaggeration "-but I still don't have any aura awareness, despite practising meditation regularly."

She shot me a piercing stare that made it feel like she was looking into my soul, then asked. "What is the advice given by the League?"

I counted the main four pieces of advice on my fingers.

"1. Develop your ability to focus and remain calm through regular meditation. 2. Strengthen your body and will through regular exercise. 3. Undergo new experiences to broaden your horizons. 4. Challenge yourself."

"And tell me - have you been doing all of those?"

I couldn't look her directly in the eye as I responded.

"I have been trying to meditate regularly, and I was certainly exercising regularly… until recently… and I'm not really in a position to go anywhere to broaden my horizons." I replied, though the excuses rang hollow even to myself.

Maddy frowned, tapping her foot on the ground as she looked at me. I raised my head and met her gaze, and after a moment she sighed.

"While the advice the League gives is a bit cryptic, it is good advice." she stated eventually. "Without meditation you won't be able to progress quickly - simple as that. Everyone has Aura, even if you don't know it, so train hard and push yourself a bit further each day. Aura depletion can occur, but usually it's impossible barring life threatening circumstances, so checking in regularly with an adult to see if you are overdoing it should be enough to prevent you from overdoing it. Broadening horizons is more about being challenged and understanding others than going sight-seeing, so you can do more -and have done more- than you think."

At this she paused, and seemed to think hard about something. I waited patiently.

"I have another piece of advice, but I need to know you are not going to act rashly. Can you promise to stay safe?" asked Maddy.

"Yes" I immediately responded.

Once again she gave me a piercing gaze for several seconds, before nodding.

"Alright, my last piece of advice is to spend as much time around others as possible, both human and pokemon. So much about Aura is connection, so being with others will only help you grow faster. Is that understood?"

"Understood." I said, bowing my head, even as I considered whether she said that just to stop me from isolating myself.

In any case, it would, so it worked.

She waved me off.

"Think nothing of it, this is far from hidden knowledge, any experienced trainer would be able to tell you this. I'm sure the orphanage has some pokemon around, but expose yourself to others too."

"Thanks for that, and once again, thanks for everything."

We said our goodbyes, and then I was off for my first day of school.

-break-​

I flopped onto my bed in the orphanage, and massaged my aching temples as I sighed into my pillow.

School had sucked.

I had also been keeping an eye out for other Pokemon to see what the numbers I'd seen above Chansey's head had meant. On the way I'd seen a few Pidgey and Spearow in the sky, but they had been much too high up for me to get a read on them. The only pokemon I saw was a Rattata that cautiously peeked out of an alley that was on my way to school.

Rattata (F)
Current Strength: 3.78 / 4.01
Expected Potential: 1.03 - (3.77*)

I'd just written down the values on my phone and resolved to try to understand them more later, and then I was at school.

The other kids honestly weren't that bad. Rumours had obviously spread over the weekend, and while a few of the nicer ones had reached out, most kept their distance. However, while I knew them all, there was no instant recall, so I would always be delayed on remembering their names which made everything even more awkward than it needed to be.

That delay on instant recall also extended to the lessons, so even though IknewI should know everything, it felt like I was always half a step behind most of the lessons and playing catch-up. Would three weeks be enough to jog my memory?

It would have to be.

That said, there had been a few easy classes.

MathematicsandSciencehad been pretty easy, andEconomics of a Journeyhad made a lot of sense and felt similar to when I was running the household back on Earth. HoweverBattle Tactics,History,GeographyandPokemon Habits and Habitatshad been a completely different story, and as they were all on the trainer exam I knew I would have to do a lot of revision.

Questions like 'What are visual indications differences that a Light Screen has ended when compared to a Reflect?' and 'What is the best way to train a pokemon to resist hypnosis?' showed that battling was going to be very different to how it was in the games. The only thing I did have on the public education system was the existence of Fairy typing, but even that was questionable seeing it was likely common knowledge for the clans, unless it was simply a game mechanic.

I sighed into my pillow one last time, then peeled myself off my bed and started changing into some workout clothes.

I didn't have time to be miserable.

I thought of the four things I had to do to develop Aura:

Develop your ability to focus and remain calm through regular meditation.

Strengthen your body and will through regular exercise.

Undergo new experiences to broaden your horizons.

Challenge yourself.

Connect with others* (Apparently very important)

I had done a three hour meditation session at 4am when I couldn't fall asleep, so I could tick that off. I felt like 3 and 4 were happening by default, as I'd been thrown into another world and body, so my horizons were pretty broad imo, and the next few weeks would be a challenge regardless of my preferences. I was going for a run, and 5 was… a problem for future me.

I was nearly ready, and grabbed my earphones while I searched for a recommended podcast that detailed the history of Kanto. It would be more fitting to jog my memory while I jogged, instead of during class.

"Going for a run?" A voice at the door asked as I was putting on my shoes.

I looked up and saw a fellow orphan at the door. While I hadn't remembered everyone at school, there were only a few 'inmates' at the orphanage. Marcus was a ginger haired boy that was tall for his age, and was best known for his prickly personality. Oliver hadn't had much to do with him before I had come along, but it wasn't really a bad relationship, just neutral.

"Yeah, strengthening the body and will, you know the drill."

"You seemed a bit out of it today." He noted.

"Big weekend." I replied, wanting to shut down that avenue of conversation. "Catch you later."

"Later."

-break-​

It was incredibly easy for me to push Oliver's body… because it was incredibly out of shape.

It only took about five minutes before I was huffing and puffing and my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. He'd obviously neglected working out the last few months, and eating properly seemed to have fallen by the wayside as well. I'd felt surprisingly good at the start, but endurance wasn't his strong suit.

I slowed down to a walk, and decided to work some other muscles. Give my heart a break for a bit.

I started with pushups. They began to get difficult once I reached 15 or so, and I managed to reach 24 before collapsing.

Not a bad start… if this was Earth. I'm sure with the power of Aura there was a lot of room for improvement. After that I did squats, then lunges. I then jogged for another few minutes to a nearby park and found some pull-up bars so I could work my back and biceps more. I could do seven, which once again was surprisingly good considering how much exercise had been neglected recently. On the grass nearby I did crunches, then cycled between the different exercises and cardio for the next hour.

It wasn't fun.

When I was done I was a wreck, and I wobbled my way back to the orphanage, having to use the handrails to heave myself up the steps on the way back, as my mutinous legs didn't seem up to the task.

I managed to spot an adult trainer going for a run with their Growlithe, and got some more data.

Growlithe (M)
Current Strength: 19.42 / 22.63
Expected Potential: 4.51 - (7.89*)

Like with the Rattata that morning I wrote everything down, and then continued on my way home.

I stopped by the kitchen and had a few berries with a few glasses of milk to hit the so-called anabolic window, then had to go up another flight of stairs to get to my room, which was a battle, but finally I could have a shower to wash-up.

I walked back to my room with a towel around my waist, and looked around my living space.

It looked like depression.

With a sigh, even though it was the last thing I felt like doing, I started organising the belongings, knowing it was a task that couldn't be completed in just the hour before dinner. As I worked through the task, I located previous workbooks that the old Oliver had filled in, and resolved to read back through them to freshen up that knowledge. I also found a week's worth of dirty clothes that he had obviously not been in the mood to deal with as well, and found a bunch of mementos that he had received throughout his childhood.

There were pictures of him, very young, with both of his parents. Now that I was looking at a picture and not my memories, it was easy to tell they were different from my parents on Earth, even though Oliver himself looked like a dead ringer of me. His Dad passed away when he was young, leaving his Mum a widow.

Oliver had idolised his Dad, a very different story when compared to me.

There was also a classic pokemon cap, and a few little pokemon figurines, including a Geodude, Pidgey, Pikachu, Staryu, and a Machop. Cute.

I was still tidying when I was called down for dinner.

For most of my life if I wanted a meal I'd have to cook it myself, so it was a refreshing feeling having a meal cooked for me.

I went downstairs to the dining hall, my legs having improved from feeling like jelly to now merely feeling like noodles, and entered the room.

There were about 12 other children already sitting at the dining table, so a few more must have still been on their way, as well as several pokemon who fulfilled a mix of being playmates, companions and caretakers.

It wasn't uncommon for pokemon to retire from the field. One of the many ways pokemon trainers could tempt pokemon to their side was by guaranteeing a safe retirement for them when they were past their prime, as the wilds were a rough place for an ageing pokemon. One of the key reforms Professor Oak had made as the inaugural League Champion was giving all Pokemon legal status in Kanto, which had helped foster a symbiotic relationship between Humans and Pokemon, and had allowed both to thrive in the 60 years since that resolution.

Yes, 60 years.

Professor Oak was a living legend, though most of the people in Kanto weren't even born yet when he was making waves. Those that cultivated Aura to a high degree gained many benefits, and two of those included improved cognition and increased life expectancy. Oak, one of the most powerful aura cultivators across any region, was over a hundred years old, and even though he was now showing clear signs of ageing, most were gambling that he would be around for a hundred more.

Anyway, back to the orphanage.

Pokemon with an agreeable temperament were allowed to choose their place of retirement, and some had chosen here.

There was an old Persian that showed some battle scars and acted as a guard incase anything unwelcome tried to enter, a Pidgey that was often used to do shopping and deliveries that had retired young after losing its desire to battle, a Machoke that had a prosthetic foot that helped around the house (right now he was setting up the table), an Azurill who had arrived around the same time I had, who was the child of a frontier farmer's Azumarill and who was a very popular playmate with the younger orphans, and lastly a Jigglypuff that helped ensure some of the more rambunctious children went to bed on time… I might actually ask for its help tonight, insomnia was a bitch.

Their profiles were as follows:

Persian (M)
Current Strength: 42.42 / 43.34
Expected Potential: 4.39

Pidgey (M)
Current Strength: 7.12 / 9.19
Expected Potential: 2.01 - (3.67*) - (5.89*)

Machoke (F)
Current Strength: 33.13 / 37.21
Expected Potential: 4.63 - (6.34*)

Azurill (F)
Current Strength: 2.04 / 2.43
Expected Potential: 2.22 - (3.24*) - (6.15*)

Jigglypuff (F)
Current Strength: 13.12 / 13.63
Expected Potential: 2.35 - (5.15*)

For the first time since coming to this world I could compare multiple profiles at the same time, and I came to a few quick conclusions, a few of which I had already suspected:

The values in brackets took into consideration the potential for evolution.

Older pokemon generally had a lower Expected Potential than younger Pokemon, especially when their Current Strength was taken into consideration.

While Current Strength seemed to increase exponentially, Expected Potential did not.

"Look who's back! How was your adventure?"

I turned around to see Ivy grinning widely at me. She was one of the few kids here who wasn't an orphan. While her Mum had passed away, her Dad just worked full-time as a League official which meant he was out of town more often than not, rotating between Celadon, Saffron, the Indigo Plateau, and Goldenrod.

Why he chose to leave his kid at Cerulean I had no clue.

Like me, Ivy was going to have a crack at the trainer exam. Unlike me, she had already awakened her Aura, so grades were the only thing she had to worry about.

"I wouldn't have called it an adventure to be honest." I said wryly.

"What? Why not? You went looking for your Mum in Mt Moon without Pokemon - incredibly brave - nearly died - but didn't! And now you are home acting like nothing happened as though you are too cool for us."

I gave in to her persistence.

"2 out of 5 stars, would not recommend."

She thought for a second, then shrugged. "Fair enough. Mind helping in the kitchen?"

I didn't mind, so I went and helped move the dishes to the table, and served for the younger ones.

Just as the dinner ended Marcus entered from outside, red faced and breathing hard, obviously just having gone for a run. He looked at the food on the table, then as he scanned the room he found me and raised an eyebrow.

"You did a hard workout in the end." He noted.

I frowned.

"I did, yes, but how do you know?"

"I can tell by your Aura. Duh."

I sighed despondently and rested my head onto the table. Only one in five non-clan kids managed to awaken Aura by the time of their first Trainer exam, and here I was with two of them. Comparison was the thief of joy, and getting thieved it was.

"That's impressive you can do that already." I replied into the table.

"Well, seeing you've finally gotten serious, you're a small chance to make it too if you keep it up."

I lifted my head in surprise. Marcus being supportive was rare, I knew that instinctively.

"Thanks man, that's the plan."

"What's the plan if you earn a scholarship?" He asked, sitting at the table across from me and leaned forward.

I paused in thought for a moment while the kids that had been packed next to him gave him a bit more space. Who needed a Repel when you were a sweaty teen boy?

"I haven't thought about it that seriously to be honest, taking it one step at a time. Would love to start with an Eevee though, seeing they are super flexible and I can choose their evolution."

"Wow, what's the payout of your Mum's life insurance?" Marcus asked bluntly, leaning back on his chair, gaze dismissive again like usual.

I found myself standing up.

"Excuse me?"

"Eevee's are incredibly expensive, usually going around for $20,000, and then a stone would be just as much again. You can evolve them without a stone, but that means you won't have any of your precious flexibility that you seemingly value. Also investing that much into an Eevee means you won't have nearly as much for the rest of your team, so you must really be rolling in cash to consider it. Or you're just stupid."

He looked around the dining hall, which had gone silent, then turned to Ivy.

"Let Roseanne know that I'll eat after my shower, if that's alright?" he asked, then without waiting for a response he went upstairs.

I stared aimlessly in front of me, then slowly sat back down in my seat. I noticed my fists were clenched, and relaxed them as Ivy slipped in by my side.

"Yeah, that's the thing about Marcus, he can be a fucking asshole sometimes." Ivy said casually. "He's not a bad person, but it's like that filter that most people have isn't there, you know? So what you see is the real him, unfortunately."

I let out a snort, the tension bleeding away.

"Yeah, he is 100% an asshole." I replied. A few seconds later I continued. "The thing is, he is also 100%right. Nothing is worse than an insufferable prick being right, you know?"

She nodded sagely. "I understand. I've gotten better at not telling people they are stupid myself. But he's not usually this bad, it's just that he's stressed at the moment."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Why's he stressed?"

"Because no one wants to go on their Journey with him. He's too much of a prick and burnt too many bridges. He might've thought you were a chance and gotten his hopes up, but you're too stupid."

"What happens if he can't find travel partners?" I asked curiously, ignoring the jabs that kept on coming.

"Then he will have to wait until trainers from other towns and cities come, and try to join their party. He could also join trainers not doing their first circuit, but then they'd have to stick to the safe zones because at maximum he'll have only one badge, so they won't be too keen on that."

I nodded thoughtfully. This was all stuff that Oliver had already known, but it was mixed in with all the other assumptions I had from playing the games and watching the anime, and my brain wasn't picking out the right information. It was like how if you hadn't read a book for a while you might not remember where you were at or the last things that happened, but as soon as you started reading it your brain begins reminding you of everything that was happening and what had happened.

"I see, thanks for enlightening this poor stupid soul. Appreciate it." I said, suddenly feeling tired.

"Any time!" she replied enthusiastically.

Dinner was ready to eat by now, and I ate while I thought about his question, this time tinged with more realism. What were the common pokemon that were around here? Bellsprout, Oddish, Rattata, Abra, Caterpie, Weedle, Mankey, Meowth, Sandshrew, Ekans, Spearow and Pidgey? In Mt Moon there would also be Geodude, Zubat and Paras… There would be other Pokemon floating around, but it wouldn't be wise for me to bank on it, so at least my first 2-3 Pokemon would have to come from this pool. I pulled out my phone as I decided to make a tier list of the pokemon, ones I wouldn't mind having.

A: Abra

B: Geodude, Caterpie

C: Zubat, Pidgey, Poliwag, Oddish, Rattata, Mankey, Bellsprout, Sandshrew, Spearow

D: Meowth, Ekans, Weedle

E: Paras

I knew Zubat had the potential to be pretty much the strongest on this list, but at the same time one had nearly killed me so I gave myself some permission to have some bias. That said, a Paras had saved my life, and it was still at the bottom of the list… sorry Paras, You're cute and I wouldn't mind you in the early-game, but I want to be with my team of Pokemon for the long haul.

I wrote 'Keep in mind that a plan only lasts until first contact with reality' down the bottom, then screen-shotted my list and waved Ivy over.

"Can you send that to Marcus when you get a chance? Let him know that he was right. He was a dick about it, but he was still right."

"Why do I have to act as an inbetween? Are you really so immature that you don't want to talk to him yourself?"

She asked, giving me an eye roll, but held out her phone so I could send it to her over bluetooth nonetheless.

"Nah, I'm just tired because I've been up since 4am." I replied as I stood up. "Catch you tomorrow."

"$1 dollar."

Was this girl serious? I turned and saw her holding out her hand.

"50 cents?"

"Deal!"

Apparently she was, and apparently I'd given in too easily. I was too tired for this shit.

I headed over to Jigglypuff, asked if it could help put me to sleep, and headed up stairs with it. Perhaps there was a bit of cleaning or planning that I could do before bed, but it had been a big day and I was ready to call quits.

Besides, sleep was always a productive use of time, in my opinion. With the 21 day deadline looming large in my mind, it would have been hard to find without assistance.

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 3

Survival Mode​

Over the next 10 days I fell into a routine.

Wake up and meditate, do some callisthenics, eat breakfast, then head off to school for the day. The cobwebs in my memories were getting blown away, and I was starting to feel confident that the exam wouldn't hold me back, though that hadn't stopped me from revising notes or past exams each night just to make sure.

Everything was going well… except Aura training.

Aura training was a slog. My training was progressing, and even though I went to bed each day exhausted, I seemed to recover in time for the next day's workout with no issue. I'd been young before, but I was pretty sure it wasn't just that.

I'd just hit 40 consecutive pushups, and could also do 12 pull-ups. I could still make myself winded after running for 5 minutes, but while before I was struggling to run a kilometre in that time, now I was running about 1.3km, or just over three quarters of a mile.

The gains were real… but I wasn't sure it would be enough.

I'd also tried spending more time with my peers to work on the task of building connections that Maddy Joy had left me with, but while most of them were perfectly friendly, it seemed that they didn't want to have anything to do with me or my issues, and I didn't care to force it.

I got along with Ivy, enjoyed playing with most of the other kids at the orphanage when I wasn't too busy, and surprisingly didn't seem to have any bad blood with Marcus, but my social network was still far from thriving. I'd barely had time to think, and for some reason trying to connect with peers that were a decade younger than me was more tiring than any of the other tasks that I had penned in my schedule.

It was Thursday the 8th of March now, 11 days until the trainer exam, and I had just arrived back from school. I'd made a decision earlier that I needed to try something new, so I walked straight to the kitchen where I found Elizabeth the Headmistress of the orphanage, and Mary the Machoke preparing the dinner which would be ready in a few hours.

"Headmistress, I was wondering if I could take one of the Pokemon to the outskirts of Cerulean? I'll be doing my normal training session, but I also want to interact with a few wild Pokemon to see if it can help me work on my Aura… I need a breakthrough, after all."

Elizabeth paused chopping onions and turned to me.

"First, I've told you a thousand times you can just call me Rose. Second, can you first promise you aren't going to do anything rash?"

"I promise I will be careful, and stick to the cleared routes." I said earnestly.

She inspected me for a moment, then nodded. Idly I wondered whether you could tell fibs by looking at someone's Aura, which would be a superpower for someone responsible for a bunch of troublesome kids.

"That should be alright then. I'm working with Mary, but see if Whiskers, Tunes, or Feathers wants to go with you."

Giving my thanks, I looked for a Pokemon to accompany me. Whiskers the Persian was snoozing in the living room, so I moved to find one of the other two.

Both the Jigglypuff and the Pidgey were outside playing with the younger children who had also finished school. The Tunes the Jigglypuff was doing magic tricks with sleight of hand, while Feathers was doing a mix of aerial acrobatics, and challenging the children to try to hit him with sticks or stones and either dodging or knocking them out of the air with well-timed gusts. The latter seemed a bit violent, but I'm sure anything the kids could do was nothing compared to a real fight in the wild

I got the Pokemon's attention and called them over.

"Sorry about this, I need to borrow one of you for an hour or two. Is that ok?"

While the children complained about me stealing one of their playmates, the Pokemon looked at each other and talked for a moment, before coming to a decision. Feathers flew to the gate, while Tunes sung out a challenge to all the remaining kids, who began to dogpile the Jigglypuff. I knew that she had a move called Disarming Voice, and I imagined it was the exact opposite of whatever she just did.

Yeah, pastimes are definitely a lot more violent here then they were on Earth.

I walked out the gate and Feather landed on my shoulder, and I told him my plan.

"What I want to do is grab some berries, then interact with some wild Pokemon and see if I can bribe a few to stick around while I meditate. I still can't sense Aura, and if I don't learn it within 11 days I won't be able to go on my Journey… which would really suck."

Pokemon could understand humans, but without Aura, humans couldn't really understand Pokemon. The way that Pokemon communicated was with Aura, so when they listened to you, they weren't really listening to you speak, but instead understood what you were trying to communicate by the thoughts and intentions that your Aura showed while you talked to them. Pokemon could learn to understand speech, and a select few could even learn to read, but most never bothered because they had a form of communication that was superior in every way (as long as you weren't doing a video call), and it didn't take years of dedication to do so.

He crowed softly, and I looked at him, trying to understand his meaning, then I smiled.

"Do I have enough budget for an extra berry to go with my bribes?" I asked with a grin, to which he happily chirped an affirmative. "I think I can squeeze it in."

-break-​

I breathed in slowly and deeply.

7.

I breathed out slowly and deeply.

8.

I breathed in slowly and deeply.

1.

I breathed out slowly and deeply.

2.

I breathed in slowly and de-

I felt a burst of fear, and something shifted on my leg. I opened my eyes to see the Caterpie that had been resting on my right thigh had turned around, and was staring towards the treeline.

I lifted my gaze and saw a Spearow staring back at me. Or likely not at me, but on the small bug pokemon that was resting on my thigh.

It was then that I remembered what had brought me out of my meditation session, and I tried to sense its emotions again.

However, even though I was certain I had felt it just a moment earlier, its thoughts and feelings were as opaque as ever.

I gave out a disappointed sigh, but then smiled despite myself. It was progress, and the first real sign that I was moving in the right direction.

I could do this!

I looked towards the Rattata I'd bribed on my other leg, and saw that while it too was looking at the Spearow, it didn't seem as afraid. It must have also known it wasn't the target. With a thought I activated their profiles, something I realised I could do a few days ago because more often than not the profiles were more distracting than helpful.

Rattata (F)
Current Strength: 4.37 / 4.53
Expected Potential: 2.0346 - (4.7698*)

Caterpie (M)
Current Strength: 2.01 / 2.18
Expected Potential:0.7832 - (0.9542*) - (4.2022*)

The Caterpie squirmed again, and I checked the time and saw I had spent about 50 minutes meditating. That should be plenty, seeing I had already done a session before school.

I gave a stretch, and briefly appreciated how quiet and calm my mind was after a good meditation session.

"Alright Feathers, I'm finishing up now." I called, and the Pidgey that had been gliding above us keeping guard flew down to the ground as I turned to the two Pokemon on my lap.

"And you two are free to go after you take a berry of your choosing."

The Rattata nodded, while the Caterpie shook its head wildly, seeming agitated.

"Don't worry, I can see the Spearow. If you want, you can stay with us for the night?" I offered, and the Caterpie immediately relaxed, though pointedly looked at Feathers.

Feathers rolled his eyes and looked away, and I just laughed. "Don't worry about him, we feed him too well for him to be interested in bugs."

Feather's gave a weighing look as though he might not mind the occasional snack, but I made eye contact with the few berries I had left, then back at him, and he got the message. I spent the next hour and a half doing my usual physical training, and surpassed all the benchmarks I set yesterday, getting an extra 2 pushups on my first set, managing another pull-up on my max, and wiping another few seconds on my time per kilometre.

I was finding as I went on that as my body strengthened, it was taking longer to tire myself out. In the first few days I'd been told I was toeing the line on what even my Aura enhanced body could handle, but it was adapting quickly and the load it could take had already increased slightly even as I upped the intensity.

That said, it didn't stop me from having to walk home like I was a toddler that was just taking his first steps, but it also didn't stop me from appreciating that Aura truly was one hell of a drug.

-break-​

I was just reentering the orphanage when I happened to run into Marcus, who was just as sweaty as I was.

"What's up with the bug?" he asked, nodding towards Caterpie

"He was a training partner today, but there was a Spearow that had its eye on him so I thought I would look for now. I'll probably drop him off tomorrow when it's safer."

"Makes sense." He said. After a moment of hesitation he continued. "Also, sorry about what I said the other day. I had a point, but I also crossed the line in what I said."

"Uh... Thanks man. Appreciate it. Ivy said you've been stressed lately, so I kinda get it."

I thought that would be the end of the conversation and went to walk through the door, but he surprised me.

"I should be better than that." he said, causing me to turn back to him. "I used to care what everyone thought, but it held me back and limited me. Eventually I stopped caring, and said if they had a problem then they can fuck off, and to be honest it went pretty well for a while." His voice went bitter. "But now I am on the doorstep of achieving my goals, and everyone is telling me to fuck off, so obviously my logic went wrong somewhere along the way, and I had overcorrected."

There were a few seconds of silence before he coughed awkwardly.

"Alright. So, also on Saturday I'll be leaving for a training session at 7:45am. Meet me out here at that time if you wanna join, and maybe I can give you some tips for your Aura." He said, turning towards the door.

"I'll be there." I answered, and the only response received was a barely perceptible nod as he walked through the doorway.

As he disappeared I smiled. Looks like I had something to look forward to.

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 4

Trainer Exam Results​

It was Saturday morning, and I met Marcus outside our home at 7:40am, five minutes early. In the two weeks I'd been here I'd noticed the sun rising a little earlier, and the weather getting a little warmer, though it hadn't stopped the mornings feeling a little chilly. I also had the Caterpie on my shoulder that had joined me Thursday, because after not having to fear for his life for a single day, he had decided that civilization was the best and begged me to let him stay. His living expenses were coming out of my allowance, and yesterday I'd been forced to grab extra leaves after school so he wasn't eating through my savings too much.

When I arrived he looked at his watch, nodded, then set off.

"We can talk while we walk." said Marcus, and I nodded. After 20 seconds though, he still hadn't said anything, so I asked first.

"So, what will we be doing?"

"We will be doing a form of Aura awareness training. It doesn't help strengthen your Aura or anything, but for simple Aura awareness I believe it's much more effective than meditation. Although you're Aura is still weak, it should be strong enough for you to gain awareness"

"Cool, so what is it?"

He looked around, and even though nobody was there, still said in hushed tones. "I'll tell you when we get there."

I rolled my eyes.

"Can you at least tell me where we're going?"

"The Cerulean Gardens." He replied, before adding. "This is too slow. Let's jog"

I couldn't really get a read on Marcus if I was being honest. In some ways it would have been better if he was more mouthy, because then you could at least talk about stuff, but instead he seemed to operate on a need-to-say basis, so if he wasn't interested in talking, then every word needed to be pried out of him.

If we went on a Journey together that could get old real quick… but I would gain Aura awareness first. Besides, there was a good chance that we would be going with Ivy, and she talked enough for two.

We made our way there quickly, and while I was running too hard to really talk anyway, to Marcus it seemed like an easy jog.

Cerulean was quieter on Weekends. It had around 300,000 people, so it wasn't a true Metropolis like Saffron or Celedon, and neither was it an industrial hub like Pewter, or an important port city like Vermillion. It was an important frontier city, and served as an important checkpoint to allow agriculture to flourish towards the interior of Kanto without wild pokemon completely destroying the harvests.

When we got to the gardens we beelined straight for a deserted but cosy corner of it, which made me quite confident that it wasn't the first time that Marcus had been here.

We stopped, and he let me put my hands on my knees to catch my breath while he pulled a small packet out of his backpack. He handed it to me and I took it, and I noticed it had no identifying marks.

"What is it?" I huffed out between breaths.

"Stun spores." He said, and I looked back to the packet with newfound interest, and even Caterpie moved closer for a better view. I wasn't sure if it was legal for him to carry it around, but at this point I wasn't about to ask.

"The trouble with Aura awareness is that the easiest Aura to sense is your own Aura, but as your Aura reflects your own emotional state, it's easy to dismiss sensations of your Aura as sensations of your own emotional state. Does that make sense?"

When I nodded he continued.

"Personally, I suspect that this is one of the main training methods that Clans use, though it only works if the Aura has already reached a certain threshold. I've also heard rumours on the internet that Poison Powder works even better, but even I didn't do that, and given your history… yeah."

"Thanks for your consideration." I said with a smile. "To be honest, while I wouldn't be that against it, I'm pretty sure if I ended up in hospital due to self-inflicted poison, the Doctor that treated me would finish the job herself." I then looked towards the packet I was holding. "I take it that paralysis isn't as bad."

He grimaced.

"It's not dangerous, but most certainly not pleasant. I wouldn't recommend it…"

I raised an eyebrow.

"In most circumstances." He amended.

I gave a laugh, then asked. "So how do I take it? Do I just rub it on some skin, or do I have to eat it or something?"

"Don't eat it, just rubbing it on some skin will be enough to disrupt your natural Aura flow, especially seeing you're nowhere near as strong as a Pokemon. However, I recommend meditating first so that you're more sensitive to the sensations in your body."

"Sounds good, I'll get started now." I said with a nod as I started to get myself comfortable then paused. "What about you, what are you going to do while you wait?"

He shrugged.

"I'll find something to keep myself busy. Even though I've gained Aura awareness, meditation still helps with Aura control, as well as clearing the mind in general. Once we get our own Pokemon, having greater control will allow us to better cleanse their Aura, which is a fundamental skill for a trainer's pokemon to get stronger." He suddenly grimaced. "It's also why Clan kids are at such a large advantage. Cleansing all the different types of energy is difficult and each one takes some getting used to, so being able to practise on a bunch of different Pokemon before you even start your Journey is a massive advantage."

"How do you know all this?" I asked, curious about the source of all this information.

"I gained my Aura awareness over a year ago, so I've been practising on the Pokemon we have at the orphanage."

My eyes widened in shock. "You've had Aura awareness for ayear! Why didn't you get a Youngster License?"

He winced. "The standards of getting a Youngster License are actually harder than getting a normal Trainer License, as you don't need to just pass the Trainer exam, but also exceed the average score of those older than you that passed the normal Trainer exam that year. If you don't, but your score exceeds the minimum pass-rate of those that earned a sponsorship that year, you can still get people to vouch for you… But the only person I could get to vouch for me was Elizabeth, which didn't count because she was my Guardian, and it didn't help that I had no one prepared to travel with if I'd passed."

It obviously still bothered him, so I tried comforting. "Hey man, it's honestly amazing you've done as well as you have. The stats say that 95% of the people that earn the Youngster License are from Clans, and not only are you not from a Clan, you don't even have parents to support you. The fact that you got so close purely by your own effort is impressive, and something to be proud of. I'm sure you'll destroy the circuit this year!"

Halfway through my spiel his gaze had turned to the ground, and when I finished speaking he didn't respond. After a few moments he looked back up.

"You should start meditating, and you of all people don't have any time to waste." He stated, making it obvious he wanted to brush the previous topic aside. "I want to try cleansing the Caterpie, I haven't worked a lot with Bug energy before. Is that ok?"

I shot a questioning gaze to Caterpie who nodded enthusiastically. I checked his profile briefly which stated:

Caterpie (M)
Current Strength: 2.29 / 2.48
Expected Potential: 0.8284 - (0.9994*) - (4.2475*)

His strength had increased a bit, but the thing that surprised me most was his potential. Before it had stated:

0.7832 - (0.9542*) - (4.2022*)

That meant, after just a few days of good food and no real training, it had already increased by about 5%. After Caterpie had pleaded to stay, I'd looked into Caterpie survival rates in the wild, and had been astounded. According to experts, they estimated 96% of Weedle, and 98.5% of Caterpie that hatched never reached their final evolution. I thought that when Caterpie had been scared of that Spearow that perhaps it was being a little bit of a drama queen, but after reading that example I'd had a change of heart and decided that I would look after it until it became a Butterfree. Nature was pretty metal here.

While it was eating a lot now, it would be pretty low-maintenance once it became a Metapod, and it could earn its keep and maybe do me a few favours when it fully evolved into a Butterfree

I turned back to Marcus. "Sure, feel free too."

I was also interested to see how cleansing would affect its stats as well, but first I had to meditate.

-break-​

Some time later I felt something gently shake me out of my session.

"How long was it?" I asked.

"About 30 minutes. You were pretty quick, I could tell by your Aura you'd gone deep enough."

I nodded, then glanced at the Caterpie. My eyes widened.

Caterpie (M)
Current Strength: 2.35 / 2.49
Expected Potential: 0.8728 - (1.0439*) - (4.2919*)

In only half an hour, the Caterpie's potential had increased by 0.05! That was insane!

I tried to maintain a facade of calm, and turned back to Marcus.

"So… how did your session go?"

He shrugged.

"I got all the low hanging fruit. I'm pretty good with Normal, Fighting, and Flying energy, and decent with Water energy as well, so I've removed most of that. I'd have to dig deeper though if I wanted to remove the Grass, Rock, Ground and Fire type energy as well, as it seems to still have plenty of that."

I calmed down a little when I realised that meant he couldn't increase potential by a point per day… That would have been a little too unbelievable.

"It also helps that he's weak. We're not bonded, so usually their Aura resistance would be pretty tough, but because it's just a Caterpie I could still do it with little issue." He turned to the Caterpie. "No offense."

The Caterpie just gave a little wiggle, and Marcus nodded. Then turned back to me and frowned.

"It looks like you gain focus quickly, but lose it pretty quickly as well. We had better get started then."

Even though the last time I'd been inflicted with a non-volatile status condition it had not been a good time, I was actually really excited for this. I'd been pushing myself to the limit non-stop for the last few weeks, and it would be a massive relief if I could finally get this monkey off my back. Or was it Mankey in this world? There were normal animals in this world, like cows, and sheep and goats, and humans as well as Pokemon farmed them apparently. I wondered…

"I can tell by your Aura you are completely distracted, do another meditation session and then we will jump into it while you're still focussed."

"Sorry Marcus."

-break-​

My body was battered and bruised, and every movement of my body reminded me of another ache or pain. I glared at Marcus as I lay crumpled on the ground, but he looked back unrepentant.

"I'm certain this is the best method of practise, it makes a lot of sense to me." He said simply. "We don't have a lot of time, and the paralysis effect on your Aura is much more obvious when you try to move."

Apparently I was no prodigy at sensing Aura. He said he had gotten the hang of it after just several hours of meditation under the effects of Paralysis, but when Saturday evening arrived and I still hadn't gotten the hang of it, he had cured me and we'd done some exercise together, and said we would pick up where we left off Sunday.

He had come back this morning filled to the brim with new ideas. While yesterday I had just been meditating, today I was supposed to try doing my normal workouts while Paralysed after starting the day with a meditation session.

"It's just like riding a bike." He continued straight-faced. "You'll have to fall a few times, but you'll get the hang of it eventually."

He took a look at his watch. "I'll run back to the orphanage and grab some lunch for us. Just continue exercising until I get back."

Without waiting for a response he ran off, leaving me and the Caterpie. I didn't know why, but it seemed happy watching me suffer.

Caterpie (M)
Current Strength: 2.50 / 2.61
Expected Potential: 1.043 - (1.214*) - (4.4621*)

It had continued getting cleansed, and now its potential had increased by 0.2 since we first started. I knew that Potential increased differently to Strength, so I was interested to know just how much it had benefited from the dozen hours of cleansing Marcus had done for it. Was it 10% stronger in the long run? 20%? More? I didn't know.

I sighed as I shakily got back to my feet. Trying to run while paralysed was terrifying. One moment you would be fine, and the next you would completely lock up, unable to do anything about it, and crash onto the ground. At the start I was still fine with it, and pushed through it, but it steadily accumulated until you were more paralysed by fear than you were by the Paralysis itself.

I stood there stockstill, mentally preparing myself to move when I had an idea. Back on Earth my younger twin brother Ron had started picking up injuries while training and playing soccer, and the physio had said that practising yoga would be a good way to improve his strength at extended ranges of motion, and also improve his mind-body connection. To be honest, I kinda thought it was hogwash, but then a bit of research showed studies supporting it, as well as anecdotal evidence from a lot of professional athletes, so I had dished out the money required to enroll him and Roxy in a local course, and also found some online youtube courses that seemed highly rated.

At the twin's encouragement I'd joined in occasionally, and with them kinda acting as my instructor I grew to enjoy it. I don't know whether I would have called it a 'Mind-Body connection', but it certainly increased your awareness of your own body, and that would be really useful right now.

Of course, the fact that I wouldn't be moving around would mean it wouldn't hurt myself so much when Paralysis struck, but that was totally just an added bonus.

I couldn't remember most of the poses, and also didn't want to overextend myself, so I focussed on making my breathing steady and went into a basic lunge with my hands extended above my head, and drawing my hands towards my chest as I breathed in. I can't remember what it was actually called by the online instructor, but I focussed on the sensations of my body as I moved slowly and deliberately in a controlled fashion. I was just going into a side lunge when -LOCK.

Slowly and steadily I toppled over to the ground. While the landing wasn't soft, it wasn't too hard either, and I smiled as I felt more clearly than before where the Paralysis had struck. When the Paralysis subsided I stood back up and picked up where I left off, much more relaxed than before.

I could do this.

-break-​

When Marcus arrived back he had been doubtful of my method, but after observing for a few minutes he decided to join in, minus the Paralysis and falling over. I did my best to instruct him, trying my best to channel the serenity of the instructors I'd seen online, but that image was pretty tarnished by my dirty, bloodied appearance as well as the frequent collapses. We had been going slowly for over an three hours now, with only a short break when I said I was famished

"So this pose here is a balancing pose, where you stand on one leg like a Flamigo." I said, raising my right leg off the ground. I'd already shown him all the easy poses, and had now moved onto a few that might hurt if I failed, but wouldn't really injure me. "You lay your raised foot on your opposite thigh, then pivot the hip externally and press your hands-"

I locked up, and started tilting towards the right. I focussed on my traitorous leg, and I could sense the flow of energy frozen, preventing me from re-extending my right leg to regain my balance. And then, without really being aware of how I did it, I released that tension and my right leg stabbed out and steadied myself.

"I did it!" I screamed out.

"You did it?" Marcus asked, eyes wide.

"Yes!" I said happily, before subduing myself. "At least I think so?"

"Let me see." He stared hard at me. "Try concentrating your Aura in your right hand."

I did as he asked, closing my eyes and visualising the energy that I'd noticed locking up shifting to my right hand. When Marcus didn't say anything I continued doing so, deciding that I would continue trying until he said stop. Five minutes passed.

"Stop."

I released my concentration, and I felt the energy in my hand disperse. Or at least I was pretty sure it did, unless I had become fully delusional. I opened my eyes to see Marcus smiling, and my worries eased.

"Congratulations, you did it."

-break-​

After I had learnt how to sense my Aura, the priority immediately became the theoretical part of the trainer exam. I would still do a quick meditation each morning, but exercise went from over an hour a day to just 45 minutes every two days, with every spare moment spent studying.

Ivy joined the study sessions as well, and I was surprised to find out that despite her care-free attitude, her grades were actually better than my own. It made me wonder whether the personality she showed was just a facade, because it was clear that she had more going on than what met the eye.

My birthday was coming up this Saturday, but I asked Elizabeth if it could wait until after the Exam. If I was in Marcus or Ivy's position and was confident of my success, then I would have been happy to enjoy it on Saturday, but I was cutting it a lot closer than them.

When I needed a break from studying, because it simply wasn't possible for me to study more than 12 hours a day, Marcus showed me the first step on how to cleanse Pokemon, which was interesting.

I worked with Dot the Azurill as well as Caterpie, as due to their weak Auras I could observe them through their resistance, and so I became familiar with Bug-type Aura and Water-type Aura.

The week ended, and I became so stressed about the exam that I couldn't sleep properly, and so I spent most of Friday night studying. For the rest of the weekend I became dependant on Jigglypuff for sleep, she would help me get to sleep at night, and also supplement that with a few ~2 hour naps throughout the day. Elizabeth insisted that once I'd taken the exam that was to end immediately, but let me rely on it for the time being.

Finally Monday arrived.

I'd been put to sleep early in the afternoon on Sunday, then woken up and snuck in an hour of revision before dinner, then after dinner Jigglypuff had put me to sleep for the last time. I'd managed to sleep until 2am, had studied until 6:30am, which was when I decided to go for a 5km run to clear my mind and freshen up, had breakfast, did some last minute studying, and at last took the Trainer Exam at 9am.

After all the time, effort, and stress, the exam itself felt underwhelming. It was a 3 hour exam, and all the parts that weren't unique to the Pokemon world were a breeze, so even though that composed of 50% of the exam I finished it within less than an hour. That left two hours for the rest, and even though there were a few questions that I answered more with educated guesses rather than certainty, on the whole I felt like I had done a good job. I was confident I'd done the best I could, and in the end that was all that mattered.

-break-​

Marcus, Ivy and I were all walking back to Trainer School that Friday. We'd had the rest of the week off, but today was the day we got our results back.

"How fucking funny would it be if after putting in all that work you still failed." Ivy was saying. "I mean don't get me wrong, like it would be devastating! But also pretty fucking funny."

I glared at her, but somehow it was eclipsed by Marcus's glare. The thing was, Marcus had no doubts that he would pass.

I knew how bad I wanted it, and how hard I had pushed for it, so it was actually crazy that it somehow felt like he wanted me to pass more than I did myself.

"Alright, maybe it won't be so funny." She conceded, raising her hands in surrender.

Marcus turned to me. "How confident are you that you passed?"

"Pretty confident." I responded, trying to shove down my nerves.

"On Monday you said you were really happy with how you went."

"Yeah well on Monday I hadn't pored over the exam sheet with you, so I didn't know I'd misread 1 question completely, and with another 3 I'll be lucky if I got half marks!" I snapped.

I took a deep breath, then released it slowly.

"Sorry."

"It's alright. I'm 90% sure that even if you got four questions completely wrong, you should still pass." said Marcus.

And that was the thing. I was pretty sure I hadn't made mistakes outside those 4 questions… but what if I was wrong? What if I'd written down the wrong thing, even if I meant something else? Back on Earth I'd usually done well in school before I had to get a job, but I'd still always been prone to stupid mistakes. No teacher ever called me stupid… too much, but many of them had called me careless, and while I knew I cared, I couldn't eliminate the errors so I couldn't deny it.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, and I'm not sure if I was grateful or not of the fact.

-break-​

Ivy ripped open the envelope containing her results.

"Pass!" She cried, waving the sheet in the air.

Marcus finished opening his own.

"Pass." He read aloud, then turned to me. I stared at, paralysed despite the absence of spores.

"Need help opening it?" asked Ivy, scooting closer. "I can read it for you if you want."

My jaw clenched. This was ridiculous. These were literal teenagers, barely out of their tweens, while I was an adult nearly a decade older than them… I should be better than this!

5 seconds passed in silence, then 10, and I finally handed over the letter.

I immediately regretted it.

She held it up to a light and tried to read it through the envelope. Then she asked if I wanted to make any prayers to a Mythical pokemon of my choice. She continued this song and dance until I was just about ready to take it back, then finally ripped it open and unfolded the sheet of paper inside with a flourish.

Oh dear…" she said, her face a mask of disappointment. However, I was elated, because no matter how convincingly she acted, she couldn't stop her Aura from telling the truth.

 

[darkphysicist]

You have my attention. Our main character isn't a genius with anything and according to your description of the story you don't just plan on him having or trying to obtain the highest potential at the start for the Pokemon you're going to actually have them raise and train the Pokemon he has to have them keep up with those who have naturally higher potential values. Sounds good so far everything is well written no major spelling or grammar issues kind of curious if the anime or the game universe is taking place here. And also if there's going to be romance because I'm just a sucker for that sort of thing. Looking forward to the next update

 

[CagedHawky]

You have my attention. Our main character isn't a genius with anything and according to your description of the story you don't just plan on him having or trying to obtain the highest potential at the start for the Pokemon you're going to actually have them raise and train the Pokemon he has to have them keep up with those who have naturally higher potential values. Sounds good so far everything is well written no major spelling or grammar issues kind of curious if the anime or the game universe is taking place here. And also if there's going to be romance because I'm just a sucker for that sort of thing. Looking forward to the next update

Click to shrink...

He won't be making things unnecessarily hard for himself by picking low potential pokemon, but many of these trainers will be from clans, and they will be getting a lot of support in the background with being able to have a two of their pokemon specially bred from Ace-level pokemon (Or pokemon that have completed the open-divison Gym challenge for all the 8 gyms). For wild pokemon they will have exceptional potential, but compared to the pokemon from breeding programs they will be nothing special.

I also like my romance, but I don't plan for the MC to be romantically interested in someone at this stage unless they are at least a bit older than him. Won't stop him from having girls crush on him, but right now he's not going to act unless the girl is at least 2 or 3 years older than him, and not many 16-17 years old are interested in a 14 year old boy haha.

As an aside, what type of romance do you like reading? This is the first fanfic I've written and I don't know whether I should ham it up, tone it down, or write my usual style, which is probably a bit tame haha.

I would also say it's closer to anime universe, my original second chapter timeskipped until post trainer exam and it mentioned Oak, Ash and Gary, but I'm not quite there yet in this version... but maybe thats because in my head I had already mentioned it haha. The characters are different though, and Ash won't start his journey until next year.

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 5

Birthday Present​

All of my earliest memories are of my big brother.

He was so smart, so strong, so brave, and always knew what to do.

I don't know why he decided to keep me with him… after all, we weren't even clutchmates, and I just held him back.

Anything I could do, he could do better.

But he said I was special, knew I was special, and told me that one day I would repay the trust he put in me.

'What if I can't?' I asked. He'd paused for only a moment.

'Do you believe in me?' He'd asked instead of answering.

When I said I did with my whole heart, his aura had shone in joy and mischief, before replying. 'Good, because I believe in you, so if you really believe in me, then you have to believe in yourself!'

When I said that's not how this worked, he'd just laughed, and I knew that no matter what, everything was going to be ok as long as we were together.

However, now that he had been taken from me, and it was all my fault, I didn't know how anything could ever be ok again.

-break-​

The relief that came with receiving the League Sponsorship was immeasurable.

Immediately afterwards we had photos taken and received our Trainer Licenses. I'd gone first and thought it was like Earth where you weren't allowed to smile, so on my ID I looked like I was a psychopath, but Ivy and Marcus learned from my mistakes and their's turned out alright.

That night Elizabeth threw a feast worthy of Kings and Queens, celebrating the fact that not one, not two, but all three of her charges had obtained a trainer sponsorship from the League.

After three weeks of putting my nose to the grindstone, I could finally relax and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

Later, Ivy might've managed to sneak some alcohol into the orphanage, and both Marcus and I might've had a sip or two.

It need not be said that I fell asleep without any help from Jigglypuff that night.

-break-​

The parties weren't over with just that, however.

I woke up well-rested for probably the first time since I'd entered this world. It was after 10am, so despite my late night, I'd still slept for at least 9 hours straight.

Hangover? All I could presume was that Aura was one hell of a drug.

I went down for breakfast, and was surprised to find Marcus sitting despondently at the table, eating mechanically.

He turned to me bleary-eyed.

"Are you… sick?" I asked, concerned. His Aura should be much stronger than mine.

He shook his head.

"No, I had a nightmare that I'd failed the test. It woke me up in the middle of the night, and even though I knew it was a dream I had to go and double check the acceptance letter, and I couldn't fall back asleep afterwards."

"I see, maybe you should try to ask Jigglypuff to give you a nap?"

"She's hungover."

I snorted despite, or perhaps because of, his extremely unamused expression. "Fair enough."

I got myself some cereal and sat down across from him.

"By the way, what's your plan of attack for the Gyms?" I asked. "Surely you've got it all mapped out?"

His eyes glazed over as he went through his thoughts, then they snapped back to lock eyes with me.

"First, do you know how the Gym tiering system works?"

I nodded. "Are you going to stick to the Big 8?"

There were 3 tiers of Gyms.

Tier 1 Gyms were the 8 main Gyms from the games, colloquially known as the 'Big 8'. They could be done in any order, but Giovanni was infamous for battling harder than the level required if you didn't do him last - Not necessarily fielding stronger teams, just outskilling you due to his decades of experience. In order to complete the Circuit, at least 6 of a trainer's 8 Badges had to be from Big 8 Gyms, so with proper planning a Trainer could dodge two if necessary and still complete a circuit.

Tier 2 Gyms were the Gyms that allowed up to 5th Badge challenges. This included the Fighting Gym in Saffron, but there were gyms not mentioned as well, such as a Steel type gym in Celadon, a Ghost type Gym in Lavender, and a Flying type Gym here in Cerulean.

Tier 3 Gyms were the Gyms that allowed up to 3rd Badge challenges. This included a Bug type Gym in Viridian, a Fire type Gym in Pewter, and an array of other ones scattered around Kanto.

These lower tier Gyms were especially useful early on in a season as they relieved a lot of the pressure on the Big 8 Gyms, because if every single trainer had to go to the Big 8 Gyms, then trainers would have to wait for months to finally get their battle. As it was, many trainers never surpassed the 5th Badge challenge, so these lower tier Gyms could give the big ones some breathing space, and help trainers that wanted to run on a fast schedule.

He looked at me for a moment, then sighed.

"I'm not sure, to be honest." He admitted. "To make the Autumn cup in 6 months we just need 2 badges, 4 badges for next year's Spring Cup, and for the first-years Indigo Conference in 15 months we still only need 5 badges for automatic qualification which seems achievable. However, if we want to compete in the second-years Indigo Conference we will need a set of 8 badges… We could go to Johto, or even Hoenn or Sinnoh to collect the last 3, but that's considered pretty bad taste because usually it's done to dodge harder domestic badges… and I've heard they ramp up the difficulty against foreigners as well."

He turned to me.

"What are your thoughts?"

While I had a blank expression, I couldn't help but admire his audacity. Only ~5% of Trainers could qualify for the Indigo conference, so naturally it was incredibly competitive. Yet here he was, already having put time and thought into schedules for our party with the expectation that we would be competing in them.

"At the end of the day the main thing is making sure our teams are strong, and improving our skills as a trainer. It doesn't matter if we skip Big 8 gyms in my opinion, and taking on a few small gyms will give us more flexibility."

It wasn't very romantic of me, but facts were facts. Personally I didn't want to be forced to face Giovanni if I didn't have to… On that topic, I wonder if my anonymous email found Professor Oak? Ash and Gary existed, and would be eligible for the Youngster License next year.

"If there's one thing I know about you, it's that you love your flexibility."

Marcus's words threw me out of my thoughts. "Sorry? Wasn't paying attention."

"Doesn't matter, it wasn't anything important anyway." He replied, shooting me a tired grin before continuing. "Something that does matter though is I was wondering if you wanted to watch a few Gym Battles in Cerulean Gym? It's getting late in the season so there are some 5th Badge to 8th Badge battles, and I thought you might want to check it out? My shout for your Birthday Party Day."

"Yeah, I'm keen!" I said honestly. That sounded awesome.

Also, if him getting him tired is what it took to bring out his sass, then it was almost a shame his sleep wasn't ruined more often.

-break-​

Eight-Badge fights were another level, and it was almost crazy to think that this time in two years I would (hopefully) be one of the people standing in the arena.

Misty wasn't Gym Leader yet, but I heard that she was in one of the outer stadiums already acting as one of the Gym's trainers, despite the fact she was nearly a year younger than me.

However, unlike in the anime, her sisters were certainly not pushovers.

"Icefang." Violet said imperiously, and her Gyrados flew through the air and delivered the final blow to the second-year trainer's Venusaur, which had been on its last legs.

Gyrados (F)
Current Strength: 43.37 / 124.53
Expected Potential: 7.1001

Venusaur (M)
Current Strength: 2.01 / 98.01
Expected Potential: 7.4996

"Trainer Megan's Venusaur is no longer able to battle. You have 10 seconds to send out another Pokemon, or you forfeit the battle."

While the referee's announcement rang through the stadium the Gyarados roared, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This was, by far, the most powerful pokemon I had ever seen.

I didn't realise it would only barely scrape into the top 10 I saw today.

Violet's first pokemon had been a Starmie with a potential of 6.6 and a Strength of 85, and Megan's first pokemon had been a Scyther. Scyther had narrowly lost out the battle despite its Bug-typing, as its strength had only been 74, though it had left Starmie at ~20/85 at the conclusion, which allowed it to be quickly dismantled by Megan's Venusaur. Gyrados had then been sent out, and although it was both leech-seeded and poisoned, it had ultimately taken out the Venusaur.

Judging by how Megan was still frozen as the umpire counted down, she had been hoping for more from the Kanto starter line.

When the umpire said '1' the trainer finally threw out his third pokemon, a Magneton. Immediately two voices sounded out at the same time.

"Thunderbolt!"/"Flamethrower!"

The Thunderbolt struck first, but unbelievably, despite what must have been a double weakness, it tanked the shot and still managed to release its own Flamethrower before going down.

Gyrados (F)
Current Strength: 0.00 / 122.13
Expected Potential: 7.0637

Magneton
Current Strength: 12.01 / 60.71
Expected Potential: 5.6091 - (6.8057*)

My eyes widened as I saw that not only had the Gyarados hit 0.00, which I thought might only happen when it was dead, but from one moment to the next 0.035 or so had been wiped out from its potential!

Before I could fully consider the implications, Violet withdrew her Gyarados and then immediately threw out another pokeball, and a Quagsire appeared on her side of the field.

Quagsire (F)
Current Strength: 78.79 / 81.19
Expected Potential: 6.0102

"Mud shot!" Violet called, but before the shot could connect Magneton disappeared into motes of light, and returned to the 2nd year trainer's pokeball

"I resign from this battle." Megan announced loudly, and although there were a few jeers, most of the crowd clapped supportively, which was nice of them. I pointedly ignored the fact that Ivy was not one of the nice ones. Said she wanted her money's worth, which was a bit rich seeing she'd gotten in for free after begging us to pay for her.

"That Gyarados was a monster." Marcus breathed. "Taking out the Venusaur is one thing, but almost taking out the Magneton as well? It ended the challenge with that play."

"Agreed, but why didn't the trainer send out the Magneton earlier?" I asked. "It should have been able to toast the Gyarados, or at least trade even? There was a good chance the Venusaur could sweep with that out of the picture."

"Well the Magneton was the one toasted in the end, wasn't it?" Marcus said with a smirk, before getting serious. "You are only allowed one swap per battle as the trainer, seeing you already have an advantage in knowing the Gym Leaders type and most of their pokemon, and on top of that you are incentivised to hold onto it because then the Gym Leader isn't allowed to swap either. The Scyther should have been able to hold its own against the Starmie, it's a good matchup for it, but there was a Trainer difference and it show-"

"Of course there was a trainer difference!" Ivy interjected. "Just because Violet's fucking adorable and has a heart of gold doesn't mean she hasn't got ice in her veins!"

Marcus and I both stared at her in response to her sudden outburst, and she stared right back at us.

"What? Don't stop." She said, making a 'go on' gesture with her hands.

Marcus cleared his throat and continued. "Also, I think that the Magneton was a bit undertrained, the trainer probably just picked it up for the type advantage, or if it is a core member then it has only recently replaced one of her usual party members." He then gave a shrug. "She still has another 2 months to qualify for the second-year conference, and so if she comes back then with her team a bit more polished she should be able to turn some of those pivotal moments that went against her in her favour next time."

I nodded in agreement as I watched Violet and Megan walk towards each other and shake hands, then move out of the stadium through a side door that connected the gym directly with a Pokemon Centre.

As they left Violet's sister Daisy took the stage in preparation to defend a 5th Badge challenge, but I couldn't get that Gyarados out of my mind. What had gone on when it tanked that Thunderbolt? Was it because it got that badly hurt from the Thunderbolt? Or could Pokemon burn their potential to temporarily push past their limits? A mixture of both, or something else? The way I trained my pokemon - and myself - would change a lot depending on that answer.

-break-​

We watched battles for another two hours, with the strength of Pokemon ranging from 40-75 for 5 star battles, and 65-120 for the 8 star battles, and then I found out why Marcus had been so keen to come to the gym today.

After the Gyarados the strongest pokemon we had seen until now was an Exeggutor with a Strength of 120 and a Potential of 7.36. It came to the field as the challenger's last pokemon, set up a Trick Room, then swept the remaining 4 pokemon of the Gym, as its only weakness was alleviated and it could take full advantage of the typing mismatch.

However that wasn't even the highest potential I'd seen so far today. There had been an Arcanine and a Lapras with lower Strengths, but they had even higher Potentials, and it made me very curious to where they would be in a few years, as well as what the Strengths and Potentials were of Pokemon partnered with the Elite Four.

Also, the Lapras had been a Gym Pokemon, and there had been half a dozen other Gym pokemon with a higher potential than the Gyarados, so I was starting to wonder if it was possible that the Gym had pokemon in reserve that were too powerful for even the 8 Badge challenge.

That question was answered right at the very end, as the last challenge was an Open-Division challenger. Daisy took the podium at one end, and a man who looked to be in his early thirties stood at the other end. The lineups shown in this battle blew all the previous ones out of the water - likely quite literally if given the chance.

Gym Leader Daisy

Lanturn (M)
Current Strength: 133.65 / 135.19
Expected Potential: 7.50

Tentacruel (M)
Current Strength: 165.16 / 168.66
Expected Potential: 7.84

Starmie
Current Strength: 173.65 / 174.60
Expected Potential: 8.03

Gyarados (F)
Current Strength: 195.24 / 200.57
Expected Potential: 8.14

Lapras (F)
Current Strength: 187.21 / 193.73
Expected Potential: 8.18

Kingdra (F)
Current Strength: 179.91 / 187.57
Expected Potential: 8.27

vs

Trainer Simon

Lanturn (M)
Current Strength: 113.82 / 115.13
Expected Potential: 7.13

Crobat (F)
Current Strength: 190.59 / 193.73
Expected Potential: 8.21

Umbreon (F)
Current Strength: 178.79 / 180.76
Expected Potential: 8.04

Breloom (M)
Current Strength: 109.18 / 111.91
Expected Potential: 7.11

Ninjask (F)
Current Strength: 131.11 / 131.29
Expected Potential: 7.42

Electivire (M)
Current Strength: 159.81 / 161.29
Expected Potential: 7.79

Both Daisy and Simon sent out their Lanturns first, but Simon winced and immediately pivoted and sent out his Breloom instead.

"Is he that unconfident in his Pokemon?" I asked, surprised he didn't even try to battle the mirror matchup.

It was Ivy who answered.

"It must have had the Water Absorb genetic trait, not Volt Absorb." she said.

Ah. Made sense then. While in the games abilities were black and white, here that was no always the case. A Rattata could have both Guts and Runaway, or a Pidgey have both Keen Eye and Tangled Feet. However, some were black and white, and Lanturn was one of those examples.

Daisy immediately responded by swapping to her Tentacruel, and Breloom managed to avoid getting hit with a super effective Sludge Wave during the minimum 10 second before it was swapped out for Electivire, so Daisy sent out her Lanturn again. Eventually they reached a stalemate with Electivire vs Kingdra, with Daisy keeping a switch up her sleeve, and finally the battle was on.

-break-​

Challenger Simon won, but it was incredibly close. The MVP of the match was Umbreon, as it managed to get a few critical Mean Looks off which delayed Daisy from continuing to chase his switches, and caused her Pokemon to be put into unfavourable matchups. She had been protecting her Lanturn to use as a pivot, and eventually her Tentacruel was caught by a mean look, and then locked into a battle with the Electivire. Tentacruel didn't go down without a fight however, and managed to badly poison both Umbreon and Electivire before it went down. In the end both trainers were reduced to a single Pokemon, and it came down to a fatigued Kingdra vs Simon's fresh Ninjask.

Kingdra was the stronger Pokemon, but it had to end the battle quickly becaus Ninjask was getting faster and faster, and if Kingdra lost tempo Ninjask would happily take the time to buff itself with Sword Dance. Although Kingdra managed to clip it with a few moves, including an Ice Beam early on, Ninjask outlasted it, then tore Kingdra apart as it became too fatigued.

"She must be seething." Marcus said suddenly

"Huh?" I turned to him, heart still thumping from the spectacle. "Why would she be mad? She fought well!"

"Until now Kanto had eight new Ace trainers this season, and four- now five - of them have qualified through this Gym." Marcus explained. "Since the scandal seven years ago, Cerulean Gym has been seen as the easiest Gym to target, so it gets the most Open-Division challenges. The pass rate isn't much higher than the other Gyms these days, but because they continue to get so many Open-Division challenges it's inevitable that more will get through here than anywhere else."

"What scandal?" I asked. This was obviously something different to the anime.

"You haven't heard about it?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, then continued. "The Cerulean sister's uncle actually used to run the Gym, and was considered the head of the Kasumi Clan in all but name because his father had basically retired, but he was found to have engaged in Match-fixing and had taken bribes to act as a wall for specific trainers, and so was stripped of his position. Marlin, their Grandfather who had helped set up and unify the League, was given back the title due to goodwill for his previous services, but by then he was too old to battle, so he set the daughters of his deceased second son as joint heirs to the Gym. The older Cerulean sisters, while competent battlers in their own right as Youngsters, had been preparing for a different career path, and so were unprepared for the sudden responsibility, and there were some... growing pains, so to speak. For a few years the Cerulean Gym was a laughing stock, and the League had to step in and limit the number of Open-Division challengers while the sisters trained their pokemon and themselves.

"Two years ago they told the League that they could handle it, and that they no longer needed to limit the number of challengers. Since then they receive nearly as many challenges as the other 7 Gyms put together due to their perceived weakness, though it's very debatable that it even exists." He smiled suddenly. "Lucky for me though, means I get to watch battles like this more often."

-break-​

That was the last match of the day, so afterwards we trickled out with the rest of the crowd, and went to a restaurant where Headmistress Elizabeth had booked out three full tables for a dinner party. It wasn't just for my birthday, but she let me know I had a vanilla birthday cake waiting for me at home. One of the younger boys was turning 7 as well, but the main reason was that it was a good time to throw a going away party as any, and while most years it would be a bit awkward because someone or everyone missed out on a scholarship, this year everyone received one so she really wanted to commemorate the occasion.

It was a good party, but at some point I could no longer enjoy it.

My mood started dropping, and after a while I began to feel irritated by the whole ordeal.

I looked at all the other kids having fun and enjoying themselves, wearing the silly hats, and it hit me what was missing - it was nothing like any of my Birthdays back on Earth.

It should have been obvious, but since coming to this world just four weeks ago I'd had barely any time to think, going non-stop from one task to the next, with any time that could have been spent thinking instead being put to better use doing something.

The fact was, this didn't feel like my birthday, and it only highlighted what I was missing.

My Dad's gift for my birthday would be making himself scarce, but it was my siblings that truly made it memorable.

My Birthdays had always involved my younger siblings treating me like a Princess, if on a tight budget. They would cook all the meals, give me breakfast in bed if it was a weekend, pool together some of their meagre savings for a gift, and bake me a cake.

The cake might not always be the best cake in the world, but it always had the correct number of candles. They'd then do all the tidying up, and we'd bundle into the TV room to watch a movie I liked or had shown interest in.

In the present, the party continued around me unabated, and I tried not to ruin the occasion. Eventually it was time for presents to be given, and I received a sweat band, a proper hiking backpack… and a mountain bike.

It wasn't a new bicycle, it had obviously seen some use judging by the scratches on the frame, but I could see the chain glistening with oil, the brake pads had been replaced, there was no wear on the tires, and the seat had been patched up.

For the last several days since the exam I had been looking to purchase a Bike for the journey. I'd talked to Ivy and Marcus about it, getting their advice and expertise, and we had planned to go to the Bike store Monday and see what they had in stock. It would have cost $350-$500, because even if it was second hand you needed to be able to rely on it.

What they had just gotten me was the perfect gift, and on a completely unrelated note somehow I'd gotten some dust in my eyes.

Once I got the dust out of my eyes I managed to choke out a few words of thanks, and Marcus blushed and turned away.

"It's not like I paid for it or anything, I just pointed Elizabeth in the right direction."

"You did offer to pay a share though, in order to guarantee his bike had all the features you deemed necessary. I had to repeatedly insist that you didn't need to." Elizabeth remarked, a teasing smirk on her face.

"Well- that's just because - My travel companions need to be able to keep up with me is all!"

"Even Ivy offered to chip in," added Elizabeth, "and she's a tight-fisted, shameless, miserely daughter of a bastard if I've ever seen one."

I raised my eyebrow and looked towards Ivy, but she just sniffed at me proudly as if to say; 'Wot, you sayin' I'm not?'

She's built different, she is - and Elizabeth knows her charges well too.

Next up Ivy and Marcus were also told to stand up, and it was the presentation of a Pokebelt and our first Pokeball. I'd somewhat known these were coming, as I'd been advised to avoid buying those yesterday. Our first sponsorship stipend wouldn't be received until Monday anyway, and I hadn't really wanted to touch Oliver's savings unless it was really necessary.

Elizabeth stood up the front with a solemn expression, and started speaking

"It has been tradition over the last 57 years for the Head of Cerulean's Hope Spring Sanctuary to provide those who graduate from this institution with the Pokebelt and first Pokeball. This year I am honoured to provide Marcus Johnson, Ivy Groves, and Oliver Blincoe with these symbols of adulthood and independence. May these serve you faithfully and reliably throughout the duration of your Journey, and well into the future beyond."

Then she put on a cheeky grin, and with the formal part over continued. "And while you aren't leaving any time soon, I want you all to know that once you leave you will be welcome back for a warm meal and a place to stay at any and all times, though if you could give a few hours notice that would be appreciated."

The belt was handed to me, and it felt noticeably high quality, while the Pokeball was a newer model that included up to 48 hours of stasis if your pokemon was seriously hurt, as well as single use healing factors that you could use in an emergency. Both functions could be replenished at a Pokecenter, but it was expensive and so to be avoided whenever possible.

The three of us thanked Elizabeth, and now the gift giving was over, the party resumed in full force.

A few of the kids insisted I wear the Pokebelt and show it off, making poses and suggesting what cool Pokemon I should catch. It distracted me for a while, but when the interest subsided and I was left to my own thoughts, I slowly fell back into my funk. My birthday, while well celebrated, had only made it more apparent what I had lost, and also that my place on Earth was gone, and never coming back.

I stood up and walked to Elizabeth.

"I need to go for a walk"

"I understand." She said, not asking for an explanation. "You're a legal adult now, you can come back as late as you like - as long as it's before midnight."

I smiled despite myself, and made sure to wave goodbye to Ivy and Marcus, and told anyone who asked that I just needed some air.

Once I was out on the streets I walked aimlessly. Eventually I looked at the sky, and saw that the city was too bright for the stars. Were they even the same in this world?

Suddenly I had to know.

I started heading north, and soon found the Golden Ball Bridge. I crossed its span and the city steadily disappeared behind me. I reached the far end, it was nearly a mile wide, and mustered my courage. I looked up again and could see what must be hundreds of constellations.

I recognised not a single one of them.

No Orion. No Aquila. No Scorpius or Aquarius. No North star, or even Southern Cross.

The night sky was filled with stars, and I had never felt further from home.

-break-​

I sat hunched over on the northern bank of the Aurora River, tears long since dried.

The moon had risen to my left at some point, and I could see its reflection shimmering across the river surface.

It was probably a different moon too.

I knew I should get up, if there was one skill I had picked up in my last life it was that you couldn't wallow in self-pity if you stayed busy enough, but back on Earth life had merely sucked. Here I'd lost everything.

I felt something, emotions that felt like mine but weren't mine, and looked around.

Standing on the edge of the riverbank was a Poliwag. It had been staring at Cerulean as well, but it turned a moment after I did. Hopelessness and despair radiating off it, so thick I could practically taste it. As we made eye-contact something clicked, and I felt it all.

Loneliness. Uselessness. Loss. Guilt.

I jerked back, and the sensation ended abruptly. I stared at it, and it stared at me.

Some protective instinct came over me, and I patted the ground by my side. "Come over here, tell me what's happened."

It stared at me for a second, then walked over and plopped down. It wasn't because they particularly trusted me, it was because they just didn't care anymore.

I was gonna try helping this little guy, I decided.

After all, while we both felt like shit, I knew that there was at least a chance that his situation wasn't hopeless.

-break-​

Over the next 20 minutes, I steadily gained a picture of what had happened, and found out he'd been on quite the adventure.

The little Poliwag's closest friend had been kidnapped by humans, and it was because they threatened the little Poliwag beside me which was why he felt so much guilt. He didn't know how far south he had travelled to get here, but it had taken him multiple weeks, much of it over water but some of it over land after asking other wild pokemon where the humans lived.

"Is that right?" I asked, after communicating my understanding.

The little Poliwag hesitated, then nodded.

"Well, I don't want to give you false hope, but there is a chance we can find them." I said.

At the little Pokemon's disbelief, communicated both by face and expression, I explained.

"First, what they did is against the law. Humans absolutely cannot coerce a Pokemon into joining their team by threatening them or their loved ones. If they do that and it is found out, they could go to jail for a long time. Jail is not a good place to be." Seeing the little Poliwag nod, I continued. "While you were telling the story, it got me wondering wonder why they picked a young Poliwag, when they could have picked a more mature and developed pokemon. My belief is they know that a lot of new Trainers, like myself, would want a starting pokemon, and they want to sell it to one of these new trainers because there is a limit on how old a pokemon can be on the first-year circuit. It's also possible that they are training it themselves as well to give their potential buyer a head-start on the rest of the circuit, which once again is illegal. However, seeing they've already committed a much greater crime, it wouldn't surprise me to find out they are doing a smaller crime as well.

"However, it would have been against the rules to catch a wild pokemon until yesterday… but they've already broken the law once, so these people are not good people.

"There is good news however, because there are only 20,000 new trainers. Assuming 10% of them have a Poliwag as one of their first few pokemon, that limits the number of trainers we have to check to 2000. It's doable."

I felt the Pokemon's mind balk at a number that was so big its mind struggled to comprehend it, and sensed their hopelessness begin to surge once more. It pissed me off.

"Hey man, yeah it's a lot, but your friend's worth the effort, aren't they? Do you think your friend would give up if you were in their position!? Your situation isn't hopeless yet, so why are you giving up so easily?!"

I glared at the Poliwag, then realised I had a finger right in their face. He had inched back during my tirade, and I realised I had been practically jabbing it with my finger as I had berated it. I slowly retracted my hand, and swivelled my gaze back to the river.

I took a deep breath. "Sorry about that, I know it's scary to get your hopes up. I'll still-"

I was interrupted as I felt the Poliwag headbutt me, and when I turned to it I could immediately tell the difference. Resolve and Determination blazed so strongly it was impossible to mistake for anything else.

"Now there you go, that's what I'm talking about." I said with a smile, before continuing. "Do you think you would be able to recognise that Poliwag?"

They signalled an affirmative with their Aura.

"Even if it evolves before we find it? Perhaps even twice? After all, your final form evolves using a water stone, so as soon as your kind evolves the first time, it's possible for the trainer to push through a second evolution near immediately, and so they might have a Poliwrath as soon as Autumn."

There was a slight pause, but I could tell through its Aura it somewhat understood the situation.

"Alright, I will raise your case with Cerulean Law Enforcement, and when battles start happening you will have an opportunity to review them on a video- what's a video?"

I pulled out my phone, and looked up a recent battle vid.

"This is a video."

It stared at the screen, and I felt its confidence plummet. I felt it brush my Aura, and it showed how it saw me, and I realised only a part of that was due to my physical appearance, and a large part was my Aura. Perhaps it could recognise his friend as a Poliwag, but after evolution they had no confidence.

I nodded in understanding. That complicated things.

It was a pretty smart Poliwag, and I suddenly became interested in its profile. I froze when I saw it.

Poliwag (M)
Current Strength: 2.31 / 4.02
Expected Potential: 4.083 - (5.536*) - (7.6729**)

This Poliwag was a prodigy. He had the third highest Potential out of any pokemon I'd ever seen - bar the pokemon used in the Open-Division match. The only ones greater were a Lapras that had been sent out by Cerulean Gym with a potential of 7.91, though it was obviously still young and had been used in a 5th badge challenge, and later a challenger had brought out an Arcanine with a Potential of 7.94 in response to the Gym sending out a Dewgong during an 8th badge challenge. I'd saved the latter's trainer ID in my phone, and I knew I would be watching the Arcanine's career with great interest.

I thought about the problem of needing to see Aura, and now that I knew what the little guy in front of me could be capable of in the future, it gave me more options to help it… and myself.

"You're pretty special little guy, do you know that?" I asked him. "Just so you know, earlier today I saw a bunch of incredibly powerful pokemon, many of which I'm sure will be competing at the national stage in just a few months… and yet I'm pretty sure that if you reach the level you're capable of, Pokemon like them will be left in your shadow.

"New plan: We are pretty sure that your friend will be competing in the Circuit, but even if they are, it will be hard for you to see them face-to-face. So instead of just keeping an eye out for them, how about we make you so famous that they can't help but hear about you?"

I looked down, then thought about what I was going to say next. Even though this Pokemon could be incredibly useful to me, I knew its pain, and I wasn't going to stand in its way.

"I can't promise I'm the best Trainer in the world, but with your talent I can be certain that you will end up as a Pokemon that every trainer in Kanto will be keeping an eye on. I will raise you as high as I can myself, and once you start attracting attention, I'm sure better trainers will come flocking to see what you are capable of, and I'll make sure you go to a Trainer that will be able to put you on the front stage in front of the whole of Kanto. I'm not sure whether I can reach the national stage, but I'm confident you can."

"Pol?" At his question I focussed on his Aura, and felt doubt, hope, and fear all warring in equal measure inside the little pokemon.

"What if you can't? If you don't try, you can't. That is the only way to gain certainty. You can always obtain certainty of failure by giving up, but you can never gain certainty of success by persisting. That's the honest truth. However, for most Pokemon I meet, I don't have confidence. For you I do. You are special, and I truly believe you can achieve it."

I held onto the sensation of his Aura, and felt as the doubt and fear subsided and hope won out, and then I smiled as his Aura shone golden as it filled to bursting with determination and resolve. I let him soak in those feelings, and laid on my back as I looked towards the stars again. Those foreign, unfamiliar stars.

It was a few minutes later when I felt a nudge at my hip, and I turned to see him prodding my single Pokeball at my belt with his foot, and then he gave me a meaningful look.

"Sounds like you're committed." I said with a smile. I unclipped the ball, and changed the setting so that it would remain unlocked allowing the occupant to leave at any time, then held it out so the button was facing him. While in the games and anime there was usually a battle involved in catching pokemon, in reality it was more like a friendship or a partnership… with what happened with this Poliwag's friend being the exception that proves the rule. Perhaps a battle could happen, but that would be more to make sure that each party had a better idea of the capabilities of the other party, and forcing an unwilling Pokemon to join your party was incredibly impractical, if not outright impossible.

The Poliwag headbutted the button, and was beamed into the ball. A few seconds later the ball chimed, and his individualised information was registered. Once I obtained my Pokenav on Monday it would be synced and kept up to date, and if I ever handed it over to a Pokecenter they would have all the information on hand in an instant. This was also used by the League to make sure that at least 4 of the pokemon used by a trainer were wild Pokemon, as otherwise trainers from clans would never catch a new pokemon in the duration of their Journey.

After a few seconds I pressed the button on the Ball, and he was beamed back out beside me.

"Thanks for your show of trust, I'll do my best not to disappoint you." I said, then smiled. "And now that you are here, we need a name. If I bring you back to the orphanage, then by this time tomorrow they will be calling you something childish, like Swirly, or Flippers."

I sensed vehement denial from the Poliwag, likely more from my feelings about the names than anything else. I tried to think of suitable names, and after several minutes I looked to the night sky, and was struck by an idea.

"Pollux."

Castor and Pollux were not just a constellation on Earth, but were also mythical Greek figures. I turned to the Poliwag.

"Pollux was a mythical figure that symbolised Loyalty, Strength, Courage and Resilience. He had immortality, but his brother whom he deeply cared for did not, and when his brother died he begged the gods to let him share his immortality with his brother, which they accepted. What do you think?"

He sent admiration and affirmation through his Aura, as well as pride that I thought him worthy of the name, then sent something else that it took me a few minutes to understand.

It was a denial that he'd leave me for a better trainer, because…

"As long as I don't give up on helping you find your loved one, you won't give up on helping me find mine?" I asked, surprised. "I've got to be honest with you, my loved ones are more out of reach than you could believe. They're in a different time and space, and I will have to be like the mythical Pollux, and get into a position to negotiate with the Gods of this world if I want a chance to see them again. It very well may not be possible, if I'm being realistic."

Pollux may not have understood the meaning of everything I said, but he understood the feelings and immediately struck the crux of the matter.

Was I going to give up because of that?

"No. It may take years, decades, or even a century, but I will never give up."

Pollux sent a burst of vindication that seemed to say "That's what I thought!"

Later, as I walked back across the Golden Ball Bridge to Cerulean with my starter, I looked up at the sky. I was closer to the city, and couldn't see as many stars, but found the unfamiliar sky didn't fill me with the same melancholy as it did earlier.

After all, even if I'd lost all my connections from Earth, there was no certainty that they were lost forever unless I gave up, and there was nothing stopping me from making new ones here in the meantime.

---

Thanks for reading the story so far! I just wanted to say in advance that the reason communication was so smooth is because of a Resonance Phenomena, as in a sense they were quite literally Trauma Bonded. Communication, trust and recruitment will not be so smooth sailing in future additions as it was in this instance. It is rare and will stay rare.

Also, if you don't like the emotions in this chapter, sorry about that. I don't want to write melodrama, but I do want my characters to be realistic and have emotions, so let me know if I'm striking the balance alright. Or, if you think I'm not showing enough emotion, let me know too!

 

[cazador]

So is 10 the max potential

 

[Snakespm]

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Bossbeast302]

i think we're still early enough in the story that progressing the plot with a normal chapter would be best.

 

[CagedHawky]

So is 10 the max potential

Click to shrink...

Disclaimer that it is very early days of this story, so I don't want to Pidgeon-hole myself. But...

Barring Legendaries almost certainly. Legendaries are hard because some are effectively immortal, and thus their Potential is difficult to quantify, or their potential/strength ratio might be a bit different. Haven't decided yet exactly, because I have been using some game data as a measuring stick but I want the Articuno to be much stronger than a Dragonite. In a fanfic called 'Route to Power' (that I hope hasn't been dropped despite the 7 month hiatus), Legendaries could have offspring, leaving something like demi-Legendaries. Don't know how common that is in other fanfic, but I might do something like that.

An analogy I literally just came up with on the spot is that it's like Long Jump. If your PB is 8m and you could almost go to the Olympics. Over 8.5m and you could win it, and over 9m you are pretty much a different species. It's really early days, but I don't plan to have many pokemon breaking 9, perhaps half a dozen or so combined across the Indigo Elite 4 rosters.

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 6

Recruitment Drive​

Pollux and I had nearly finished crossing the bridge when I saw a girl coming the other way. She was holding a Staryu, and had an Eevee padding along behind her. She looked young, but I couldn't get a good look at her because the light of the city was casting her face in shadow.

I'd passed a few other people on the bridge, both walking away from Cerulean and now on the way back, so I didn't think much of it… until I got a good look at the profiles of her two pokemon which made me pause mid-stride.

Staryu
Current Strength: 3.01 / 3.26
Expected Potential: 5.0167 - (8.0939*)

Eevee (M)
Current Strength: 2.71 / 3.37
Expected Potential: 4.3988 - (7.8478*)

Sorry Pollux, you've just been demoted from the 3rd highest Potential I'd ever seen outside the Open-Div challenge to the 5th highest in an instant.

"Hey, you ok?" The girl asked, and I realised I'd been zoned out for the last 10 seconds.

I threw the random thoughts to the back of my mind.

"Yeah, sorry, I was just admiring your Staryu." I admitted with a sheepish grin. "It's going to be a monster when it grows up."

"Good eye," she acknowledged, then turned her eyes to Pollux. "And right back at you, your Poliwag looks pretty good as well." Then she frowned. "But why haven't you been cleansing its Aura? That's really important during their growth phase."

"I will, the plan's to do it tonight. I only just caught him half an hour ago." I answered with a laugh.

She got a better look at the Poliwag. "You just caught him?" She then let out a low whistle. "Lucky you, he's a good one."

Even as I felt Pollux puff up in pride, it felt a bit humbling that this girl could tell all this at just a glance, without a system or any external help.

"Hey, don't stroke his ego too much, he'll get an even bigger head, and it's already 90% of his body as is." I joked, then extended my hand. "Name's Oliver by the way."

She extended hers in response.

"Nice to meet you, my name's Misty."

I tried not to overreact, but she must have felt something in my body or my Aura shift. It would be a few more months of training before I could trust my Aura not to give away my emotions.

"Ah, so you know me?" She asked, slightly more guarded.

I waved her off.

"Not really, this is the first time I've met you, but I did just watch your sisters battle earlier today. It was exhilarating to watch, especially the Open-Div battle. I can't imagine how it felt to be the one on the podium." I said with a laugh. "They're good battlers, and that Gyarados was the strongest Pokemon I've ever seen in my life. That said, I think the pokemon we have here will grow to be a good match for it in time."

She stared at me for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.

"Huh, you really seem to believe that." She said in a disbelieving tone.

I shrugged in response, then realised this was as good of an opportunity I was ever going to get to ask about the Gyarados that I'd seen hit 0.00 earlier. "How was Gyarados from the Eighth Badge challenge after his fight by the way? He tanked a pretty big hit as he went for the Flamethrower?"

"Oh, you mean the old Gyarados?" she asked. "I didn't see it live, but watched the replay afterwards."

"I think so, he's the only other one that fought today right?" I said hesitantly. "How old is he?"

"He was my grandpa's, so he's somewhere in his 80s… tsk, wants to die on the battlefield, that one does." Misty answered with a click of her tongue, then grimaced. "He'll be feeling that one for a while, didn't focus on defence at all, the stubborn bast…" her eyes flicked to me then she coughed slightly before continuing. "He should be better in a week or so."

"Ahh, that's a relief… so no long term damage?" I asked. I was pretty sure there had been, but wanted to see her opinion.

"Not really, but he's not doing himself any favours…" she grumbled.

She looked north, and I saw she was ready to keep going on her way, but I wanted to take advantage of the expert while I still had her.

"One last thing, how did you know my Poliwag is so good?" I asked. If I wanted to ever use my potential scouting in public, I needed a plausible reason for my judgement, especially if I wanted to advise Marcus and Ivy when they had to choose between a pool of candidates.

She paused in thought for a moment.

"He's very young, but despite that seems to have good awareness of everything going around him, such as reading our Auras well enough to keep up with the conversation, and on top of that his Water Aura also has a nice quality to it - although there are a lot of impurities to be cleansed." She explained, punctuating the end of her statement with a significant look. I felt another burst of smugness from Pollux, but I pressed on, ignoring the jab about cleansing.

"And how long until I can tell those things myself?" I asked hopefully.

"It took me 4 years until I started getting good at it - but water Aura is my speciality. Most career trainers have a good grasp after a few decades, but type-specialists tend to learn faster for their type."

I nodded gratefully at her for giving me the information, and knowing that I'd held her up long enough, I said my goodbyes.

"Have a nice night, and good luck… doing whatever it is that you're doing." I said with a smile.

"Thanks, have a good night too, and maybe I'll see you on the circuit." she replied with a wave, and then she turned north to do whatever 13 year-old trainers did at 11pm on a Saturday night.

-break-​

The very first thing I did the next morning was bring Poliwag down to the Cerulean Police station.

When I got there I told the receptionist what Pollux had told me, then filled out some paperwork while waiting for someone higher up the chain.

A dozen or so minutes later we were met by an 'Officer Jenny', as once again there was standardisation for the sake of young or unsocialised pokemon, whose actual name and title was Detective Penelope, though she went by Penny.

She brought us into a different room, where she talked to us for the better part of an hour about the incident, sometimes talking to me and sometimes talking directly to Pollux.

"And you are sure that he didn't leave voluntarily?" she asked, her face carefully neutral. Pollux denied it vehemently, and she wrote some more notes down her notepad.

"I see. I have all the necessary details to open a case file, but this will be slow going in the meantime. We catch a few cases of this every year, but we haven't been able to root out the culprits. We believe the Rocket Syndicate is behind it, but all they're doing is acting as a go-between between supply and demand… the real problem is all the buyers that enable it to happen." she looked up from her notepad and towards me. "Have you got any other questions?"

"Yes, if we find his friend, what should we do?" I asked.

"Good question, let me think." she wrote a few more things in her notebook then responded. "If you can, keep what you know under wraps and come straight back to us. Depending who it is, we might be able to dig a bit deeper into the Rocket Syndicate if we manage to turn one of them into a double-agent… Arceus knows they have plenty of their agents infiltrating us."

"You've been infiltrated!?" I blurted out before I could help myself. I lowered my voice again. "Won't this mean if we log a captured Poliwag that we will be giving them a warning?"

She sighed and rubbed her forehead, then opened her eyes again. "Do you think you are the only person reporting an enslaved Pokemon this season? It's always bad around this time of year, with over 50 cases already, two of whom are also Poliwag. The other two are more circumstantial, with this one being the first Poliwag case where we are certain humans are involved with a kidnapping." She paused, then took a calming breath.

"What I am saying is that you won't raise any alarms. The alarms have already been raised, but they nearly always do Hypno-therapy to confuse the stolen Pokemon, so they don't even realise what had happened, and we don't have the ability to muster up every recently caught Abra, Poliwag, Charmander, or what have you in front of every Pokemon that says their friend, sibling or child went missing.

"What I can do is give you a list of every tournament that will have a recently caught Poliwag competing, so you can decide if you want to watch and participate. Your identity will be kept anonymous, but the rest is up to you."

That… was both more and less than I was expecting. Less helpful than I hoped, and I would be doing more to solve this case than I was expecting to. Very different to how law enforcement on Earth worked, where you were told to mind your own business while the authorities investigated in your stead.

Whether the way here was for better or for worse, I wasn't sure.

"I see." I said slowly. "Do you think there's much of a chance to catch the bigger fish?"

She paused as she formulated her response.

"In this case, seeing it took nearly a month for the Poliwag to come this far south, they seemed to have gone pretty out of their way to make sure this couldn't come back to bite them on the ass.

"At the same time, they are a very compartmentalised group, with many members of teams not even realising they were even working for Rocket until after they got caught. If five coincidences happen that created an opportunity for Rocket to exploit, half the time the five coincidences happened because a proxy of a proxy of Rocket influenced actions for reasons they don't even know.

"They will also cut off a finger to save the hand, cut off the hand to save the arm, and cut off the arm to save the body. It is an insidious organisation that continues to pop up over Kanto and Johto like a malignant cancer, and when you whack it down in one area, it will be sprouting again in three others."

"Is there anything I should keep in mind?" I asked after a moment, not knowing what else I could say.

I saw something flash in Detective Penny's eye for a moment, then she blinked and it was gone.

"Yep. Stay safe kid."

-break-​

"I can't believe you just caught the very first pokemon you saw from the moment you had a pokeball on your belt." said Marcus with a shake of his head. "These kinds of decisions can't be made too rashly, you do know it's alright to take your time with them."

"Don't listen to him, he's only saying that because he's jealous I caught you first." I whispered to Pollux as we walked, while Marcus just rolled his eyes.

It was Sunday morning, and because I'd already caught my first Pokemon Marcus and Ivy were keen to get their own balls rolling - or filled to put it more aptly. We had already stopped by the shops and bought a few extra Pokeballs each (The first three we bought were all subsidised by the league), some pokechow, as well as a very large assortment of berries, while Ivy had also picked up a delivery of her own.

Now we were heading north to route 24 her backpack jingled and jangled with each step, as it had about fifty 100% pure silver spoons that she had gotten shipped from Pewter. She said it was to help with negotiations.

'I don't just want any Abra as my starter,' she had said, 'I want a business partner. Not every Abra will leap at the opportunity I'm providing today, but if they don't then we wouldn't be suited for each other anyway. We have to make sure our long-term goals and values align if we are to have a fruitful relationship.'

It was a surprisingly well-reasoned and mature outlook for the girl, if a little transactional.

We also had Feathers the Pidgey with us flying overhead, Whiskers the Persian was napping in their ball, and lastly we had Crawler the Caterpie, who had been named by the children of the orphanage despite his mild protests. While the two orphanage pokemon were much the same as when I'd met them, Crawler had continued to grow in the last few weeks.

Caterpie (M)
Current Strength: 3.24 / 3.41
Expected Potential: 1.043 - (1.214*) - (4.4621*)

Only two weeks ago when he was first cleansed he'd had an Expected Potential of 4.2919* as a Butterfree, but it had been steadily climbing by ~0.01 a day and showed no sign of slowing down. Even though I wasn't interested in having Crawler as one of my Pokemon, I was quite interested in how he was developing. Were we really looking after him that well? I didn't think we were doing anything special after all.

We arrived at the edge of the clearing, and then Ivy turned to Feathers. "Alright Feathers, for every Abra you can bring over here, you'll get two berries… You don't think two is enough? Then I'll give you three… four!? Alright for the first couple, then you can call quits… You want them all to be worth four? Who do you think I am, Miss Moneybags? I live at an orphanage, Feathers, don't you have a soul? How about four for the first batch of Abra you bring, and then we can renegotiate then? Deal? Shake on it."

Today was the day that Ivy and Marcus would catch their starter, and with a bit of luck I would add a second member to my team as well.

It took about half an hour for Feathers to return, bringing two Abra in tow. Ivy stepped forward, rubbing her hands together as she looked at them with an enthusiastic smile on her face.

"Before I start, let me ask you an important question - Do you want to be rich?"

-break-​

Ivy had given them a pre-prepared but passionate speech about forming partnerships to fully utilise each other's competitive advantages, outlined several potential synergies they could develop with each other, stated her commitment to employee satisfaction and retention, and continued on with other key points that followed a similar vein. It centred around an initial opportunity to sell the silver spoons, and whatever other goods the Abra and other nearby Pokemon deemed useful, to those that lived near Cerulean. Ivy would provide the initial capital and deal with all the paperwork, while the Abra that wanted to form a partnership with her would use their social network and ability to teleport to make sales. The spoons would merely be the start of it, and they would try to identify other opportunities and break into those markets. It would be a partnership, profits would be split evenly, and while she hoped they could battle together as well, it wouldn't necessarily have to be the core part of their relationship, and she would never force them to battle if they didn't wish to do so..

It was actually pretty interesting in my opinion, completely different from my own experience with my starter.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to interest those two specific Abra very much. However, when they were told they would get a Berry for every Abra they brought they suddenly became more interested. There was some quick chattering exchanged between them, and then they both quickly teleported away. Feathers, who had been munching happily on the eight berries he'd earned, shot a look towards Ivy when his job was stolen, but Ivy kept reputational damage to a minimum by offering a 3 berry bonus if she ended up catching an Abra today.

Over the next few hours more and more Abra were being brought over to listen to Ivy's sales pitch, with Feathers now seemingly extolling Ivy's virtues to them as well, and Marcus also stepped forward and started his own recruitment drive. Their styles were pretty different, with Ivy's seeming to be something I would have expected to find at a business leadership seminar, while Marcus's lacked that polish but made up for it in passion.

I had also contributed towards the berries required for this plan and so was allowed to try to recruit my own as well, but as I looked at the Abra I'd changed my mind. It was a lot like being excited to see a movie at the cinema, but then checking the reviews before you went. Their strengths ranged between 6 and 10, which was fine, but all their Potentials seemed… a bit lower than I would have expected? So far the average Potential for their final evolution was 6.5, and none of them exceeded 6.9 in that regard.

Perhaps I would have been willing to chalk it up to an idiosyncrasy of the Abra line if I didn't know better, but I had seen a Kadabra with a potential of 7.4 just the day before in the Gym battles.

While I knew a Potential of 6.85 was plenty enough for the Gym Circuit, as there had been trainers doing the Eighth Badge challenge with much less… But it just felt bad knowing that would probably be the end of the road for them. They grew more slowly than a lot of other Pokemon, so it would take years of time and effort for them to reach their potential… and then their Strength would top out at what? 100? 120 at best? Either way, they would be the weakest Pokemon standing on the stage at any Open Division Gym battle, without much use at all unless they were at a type advantage.

Was there any point in me trying to convince them to completely turn their life upside down if I didn't see them having a long-term future in battling? Ivy's pitch was fine, seeing she was valuing them for more than just their battling prowess, but what about Marcus and myself? I wasn't so sure, especially seeing as the Abra seemed happy enough with their lives out here, judging by how readily they were rebuffing the advances of both my companions.

"Is everything ok?"

Ivy had taken a break from her recruiting, and was showing a rare concerned expression on her face. I looked past her as all ten Abra all blinked away, likely to earn another berry. All of them doing so meant that she had likely been unsuccessful in finding a partner again, however she didn't seem too fussed, and was instead more concerned about me.

I let out a sigh.

"I was just worrying about what would happen if we picked a Pokemon that wasn't suited to battling. What if we feed them all these hopes and dreams, and then they aren't strong enough?" then I snorted. "Not that it looks like we'll be having trouble with that if this keeps up"

"Do you see us forcing any of these Abra to join us?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "I don't think we'd be having so much trouble recruiting if we were, would we? Then that means that if they join us it's of their own free will, and as long as we have been honest with them, then we have nothing to feel guilty about. After all, is it better to try pursuing your dreams and fail, or never pursue them at all?"

I stared at Ivy. "You know, I never thought I would say this, but you might be the most mature 14 year-old girl I've ever met. You know that?"

"Don't make me blush." she replied, without a hint of colouring on her cheeks. "If you keep saying things like that, then I might be forced to prune your expectations of me so that they can remain reasonable. In my 14 years of experience, I've learned it's always better to exceed expectations than fail to meet them, even if it means being the one to lower the bar in the first place."

She then looked at Crawler the Caterpie which was snoozing in the sun, then turned back to me. "You and Marcus might as well get started on the bugs, and I'll send any Abra that show even an iota of interest in battling your way. No point having three people here to do a one-woman job, after all."

-break-​

At some point, I had my first thought.

I don't know what it was that I thought, but I was eating leaves with my kin, driven by the desire to increase my size from smaller than a blossom's bud to… I'm not sure, but I knew I had to get bigger.

I could sense them, but even though we were kin, they didn't seem to be able to sense me, at least not in the same way I could sense them. They could see me, but they couldn't see the essence of my being like I could see theirs, couldn't understand me like I understood them.

While I thought, they ate, and I realised I was falling behind. Above all else, I knew I couldn't afford that.

-break-​

It was a disaster.

A massacre.

A giant flying beast, larger than any 20 leaves laid side by side, flew through my kin, devouring them and eating them whole.

I saw my kin scatter, some falling to the ground, others trying to hide in the cracks in the bark. I was farther from the the trunk where I might find refuge than the others, so I looked down instead.

There I saw another beast on the ground, one that couldn't fly. It also ate my kin. I reached out with my essence, trying to understand it.

It suddenly looked up, as if it had felt my touch. I instinctively retreated within myself. I felt its essence brush mine, but it seemed to flow over me. I saw the flying beast still distracted with my kin, and crawled towards the tree trunk, certain I wouldn't make it.

However, as I crawled away, it never once turned to me, and I realised why.

My kin didn't know how to go within themselves. Few had 'awakened', and even if they had, they hadn't learnt this trick. I lived due to this advantage, and the relief I felt for the fact only served to exacerbate my guilt.

-break-​

Eventually the sky went dark.

I knew it was normal, and I knew it wasn't the first time I'd seen it, but it would be the first night I would remember.

It was safer now, I knew instinctively. I reached out tentatively with my essence before I left my crack in the bark, and there were no threats nearby. I could already tell other of my kin were out, feeding, so I joined them.

I ate for a time, then noticed a presence approach. It was a large beast, the same size or perhaps even larger than the one I encountered earlier, and yet it was somehow comforting and familiar at the same time.

I reached out with my essence, and made a startling discovery. It was my kin.

It looked at me, and felt my awe, and my hope. I felt it register surprise, and then it indicated the nearby tree.

He had left it for me, and he would come back for me.

He shared some wisdom with me. It was a race. There were many predators, and many of our kin wouldn't make it, so there was no time to waste.

It wanted me to join his pack, but it also wanted me to know:

Although there was safety in numbers, but even greater safety in size.

So I must grow.

 

[Lillie Jones]

Watching

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 7

New Teammates and Generous Donations​

Marcus and I left Ivy to her work as we made our way to the place where I first found Crawler. Marcus had the now quite heavy Caterpie resting on his shoulder, and Pollux toddled along beside me. While we were carrying some berries, the main thing weighing us down was pokechow, which was required for the a second round of recruitment amongst the bug pokemon we were on our way to do.

Due to their low survival rate in the wild, bug pokemon considered finding a trainer a blessing. This was also a reason why it was so common for junior trainers to become bug trainers - for those with limited influence or financial backing, bug pokemon may be the only ones that were willing to join their party.

We had left Feathers with Ivy as the bug pokemon likely wouldn't appreciate his presence, but took Whiskers with us just to be safe. While I had Pollux now, he was still far from being able to guarantee our safety all by himself. Oh, I guess there was Crawler, but the point still stood.

I thought back to Ivy. She had more to her than she let on, that was for sure. Even though she was usually joking and never took anything seriously, she had obviously made plans for her Journey well in advance to today, though her goals were still opaque to me. Marcus's plan for his entire journey revolved around battling, and I was happy to follow suit. However, it looked like we would have to have a discussion with Ivy about her own goals, because they were likely different from our own and it wasn't fair to her if we made plans without her input.

"Are you still thinking about grabbing a Caterpie?" asked Marcus, and I realised he was talking about the list I made on my first day back at the orphanage.

I thought briefly. "Yeah if I see one that catches my eye." I answered, knowing if I found one with good potential then I'd be interested, but I wasn't going to try forcing anything. "What about you?".

"I'm thinking of getting a Weedle. It should develop quickly and help with the earlier tournaments, and it can sweep if I train it well."

I smirked. "Are you sure it isn't just because you are scared of getting teased, because some people think Butterfree are a girly pokemon?"

He scoffed. "Do you really think I'm that immature?"

"I was just making sure." I replied. "Everyone knows that a man with a Butterfree must be incredibly secure in his masculinity, because they know he has nothing to prove."

That made Marcus pause for a moment, but only a moment. "I'm still getting a Weedle."

Not long later we arrived at our destination, and Marcus immediately let Crawler down.

"Alright, go get them Crawler!" Marcus called out, and despite Crawler's aura giving out a flicker of irritation at the name, he made his way into the forest. He didn't mind when the kids said it, but he could easily sense if you were mocking him… but what's a little bullying between friends, right?

Pollux nudged me, and gave me a disapproving look, obviously disagreeing with my thoughts. I felt a flicker of shame, and I imagined this was how a parent felt when they didn't live up to their kid's expectations.

The plan was for Crawler to go in and find as many bug pokemon as he could, and then bring them out so we could take our pick of the litter. After all, we were looking after him, he might as well make himself useful to pay his board.

To motivate Crawler we had told him for every ten he gathered, he would get a berry. As for the bug pokemon themselves, in return for coming to our inspection they would all get as much pokechow as they wanted in the form of a limited time buffet. While pokechow was not the most nutritious food in the world, it certainly had more calories than the leaves they were eating, and Crawler had insisted most would be fine with that.

To be honest, I was excited about the bugs. While the Abra had been disappointing, the numbers of bug pokemon we would be able to check out should be a lot higher, and I also knew from Crawler that their potential could continue to increase just by being with us, at least prior to evolution. Combine that with the fact that I knew they would mature a lot quicker than the Abra, and so should be stronger for at least the first year or two even if their potential was a bit lower.

While we waited for him I decided to cleanse Pollux's aura some more, and Marcus offered to watch and give some feedback on how I was going. I'd done it for about an hour last night, but eventually I was getting too tired and called it a night. However, despite the short time frame, there had already been some results.

Pollux (M)
Current Strength: 3.71 / 4.08
Expected Potential: 4.175 - (5.628*) - (7.765*) [+0.092]

I'd also learned how to customise the profiles, so I could manually change the name of any Pokemon I interacted with, and I could set checkpoints in a Pokemon's stats to see changes over time as well.

Before we started Marcus released Whiskers, to keep us safe on the off chance we ran into trouble while we were distracted. He lazily opened an eye and looked around, and after getting told what we were doing, closed it again and seemed to go back to his cat nap.

Well, if he felt safe enough to relax, then I should be safe enough to start cleansing..

-break-​

After receiving Marcus's constructive criticism for the better part of an hour, he let a compliment slip.

"You're quicker than I expected." Marcus noted.

I raised an eyebrow. "You just told me I'm doing it at about half the pace you would be doing it at, and that's after you'd given me a ton of advice on what I could be doing better."

"Yeah, that's what I mean. With your terrible technique I would have expected you to be half as slow again, but you're not. Let me do it for a moment."

I drew back my Aura, and then let him have a go. He seemed to do exactly what I had been doing, which was drawing out the bits of Aura that weren't Water and removing it from Pollux, with the only difference being the speed he did so. After a minute or so he stopped.

"Yep. I wasn't wrong." He said matter-of-factly.

"Wrong about what." I asked.

"You must have already developed a decent bond between you and that Poliwag. It's obvious that his resistance isn't affecting you as much as it was me."

My eyes widened. "Does it make that much of a difference?"

"Yes… but not usually after just a day. I revoke what I said this morning, you and this Poliwag are a good match."

The situation felt like a girl whose boyfriend had been given my father's approval, and laughed despite myself.

"Thanks," I said. "But I didn't need you to tell me that. I knew it already, and we'll stick with each other for the long haul."

It was then that Crawler finally decided to return.

We might have been bullying Crawler for a while, but it looked like he would be getting the last laugh on this occasion.

Like when we sent out Feathers to find the Abra, there was quite the long wait as Crawler gathered his fellow bugs, but now that he had come back about an hour later, he had amassed quite the crowd.

Crawler was going to be eating well for a while, and he'd even included bug pokemon that weren't Caterpie or Weedle as well. There were a few Paras, Venonat, Ledyba, Spinarak, and even a Pineco that had been specifically brought over by Crawler, with him letting it rest on his head.

There were at least a hundred bug pokemon in total, and I realised that Marcus and I had made an error on two parts;

One. We probably should have specified a minimum size for the pokemon, or at the very least renegotiated the rates for the smaller ones, because they weren't going to help us in Gym Battles any time soon.

Two. We underestimated Crawler.

With the pokemon sizes, while some seemed to be around the size of a small pet like I'd expected from looking them up, more than 2/3rds of them were significantly smaller, with the smallest ones not being that much bigger than my pinkie finger.

I honestly did wonder if spite had factored into his enthusiastic searching, but in the end I was grateful for it regardless.

"A bit more than we were expecting, right?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

Marcus just sighed.

"We'll sort it out when Ivy gets here."

-break-​

After spending about a quarter of an hour looking through their profiles, and also having a glance at their Auras so I had plausible reasons for when I made my selection, I concluded that most of their Potentials were around the 4 to 5.5 mark.

They ranged from an incredibly low 3.46, which belonged to a small Weedle whose stinger on their head was broken, all the way up to a Caterpie that had caught my attention with a potential of 6.37.

I would have 100% added it to my party, but there was only one teeny tiny problem…

Caterpie (M)
Current Strength: 0.15 / 0.19
Expected Potential: 2.85 - (3.02*) - (6.17*)

… and that was that the Caterpie itself was teeny and tiny. Perhaps I would have just picked a different one, but it was ~0.1 Potential higher than the next best Caterpie, which happened to be the one whose head it was resting atop of.

In the end I thought I would still go with it, because I was still aware of the fact that Crawler's Potential had been growing by the day, so perhaps a younger Caterpie was even better than an older one, because it would be in that growth phase for longer? We had also just been feeding Crawler randomly, and letting him laze around most of the day, so what would happen if we hit up the publicly available information released by Bugsy's Gym and really aimed to optimise his growth and training, which should fully allow me to take advantage of his young age.

If I said I was playing the long game it would also give me an excuse for picking him.

It was so small that I had to use my Aura to completely check that it was actually a pokemon, and not just a big caterpillar. As I inspected it with my Aura and confirmed what the profile said, which was that it was indeed a baby bug pokemon, it seemed to notice me and turned its head towards me, then my eyes widened in surprise as I felt it inspect my Aura itself. None of its compatriots of a similar size - and even some that were slightly older - could do that.

Interesting. I would come back to him later.

I was just checking out other pokemon when I heard a voice behind me.

"Hey there, is it ok if we join you?"

I turned around to see a group of three people, two boys and a girl that all appeared about our age.

Marcus and I exchanged a look, not sure how to respond. Eventually I stepped forward.

"Umm, we're waiting for our third companion to get here. After she gets here and takes her pick, then it would probably be alright?" I responded hesitantly.

"And what's to stop us from picking one now?" asked the bigger boy in their group, standing forward.

I pushed my hesitance aside and I didn't back down. "We'll tell this group of bug pokemon that if a single one joins your group, then we aren't going to feed any of them."

Seeing the heavy bags of pokechow we were lugging around, and noticing how many of the bug pokemon were now glaring at him, he immediately deflated.

"Ah, fair enough, I suppose." He said sheepishly.

There was a *pop* sound, and suddenly Ivy was standing in between us with two Abra.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold it right there!" she said, holding both her hands out like stop signs. She locked eyes with me. "What did I miss?"

"They were just asking if they could catch some of the bug pokemon we gathered, but I said they would have to wait until after you had your pick at least."

She nodded. "I see. Let me handle the negotiations, alright?" Then she turned back to the trio. "Do you know how much time, money and effort we've spent putting this together? We've bought them food and berries, spent the last few weeks developing a relationship with a friendly Caterpie, and have done so much other hard work all for this specific occasion… and then you want to just swoop in like a Spearow and try to benefit from our actions for free? How is that fair for us?"

Ivy was pretty impressive when she was in her element.

"Look, we will wait until you are done. Is that ok?" the girl asked.

"Is that ok? How is that ok?! You will still be benefiting from our actions, our investment. You can afford to pay what's fair, right? You all have a league sponsorship after all."

The girl and shorter boy winced, while their taller companion averted their gaze, and a few things started clicking into place. Instead of it being a group of three sponsored trainers, it was two sponsored trainers and an older trainer school graduate who still wanted to go on his Journey. Money would be a lot tighter in their group than it was in ours, and I gained some respect for the two that passed for sticking with their friend.

Seeing the reaction Ivy lost a lot of her steam. "I was planning to call some acquaintances in the city and let them have first dibs, but… We'll take our pick and then decide what to do." She said with a sigh, before turning to Marcus and myself. "Do you two know what you want at least?"

Before either of us could respond, a voice rang out.

"Hah, it's always such a relief when I remember half the trainers out there are guys like you, peasants that fight over who gets to catch bugs first."

I turned around to find another group of two boys and a girl observing from ten metres away. A few of the group looked a bit younger though, so perhaps they were Youngsters. They were wearing flashy brand name clothes, and all three were smirking, with the shortest of the three seemed to be the one who had just spoken.

He looked towards Ivy. "How much to catch some bugs?"

Ivy frowned, but still responded. "$200 each, but we pick first, and they still have to agree to go with you."

Without batting an eyelid their ringleader responded. "Sounds good. Nice doing business with you." Ivy obviously expected him to haggle, because she was stunned into silence for a moment. The ringleader smirked as he continued. "Well? Get going, we don't have all day."

Ivy nodded, then turned and immediately went to the solitary Pineco that arrived on Crawlers back earlier, and asked if she could have the honour of being her trainer. I raised my eyebrow at her decisiveness, seeing she had only been here a moment.

The Pineco accepted - then Ivy made eye contact with me and Marcus.

Marcus nodded immediately, and moved to one of the best Weedles in the bunch. It had a Potential of 5.97, and though it wasn't the highest, it was still quite young and small and so would likely improve. Seeing as he couldn't know about the fact that Potential seemed to increase as they got older, I guessed he must have felt it meshed well with his personality which was even better.

I nodded as well, and moved to the little guy I'd seen earlier who was on another Caterpie's head. I offered to be his trainer, and he looked between me and then back down towards the Caterpie he was riding… then denied me.

The rich pricks behind us burst out laughing, and I had to grit my teeth to avoid telling them to shut up. I'd taken it completely for granted that the Caterpie would join me. They almost never denied the opportunity to be raised, because we could guarentee protection until they reached a decent level of strength. Even the Caterpie it was riding seemed surprised, and they started chittering at each other.

"Why?" I asked it, knowing that despite its small size it could understand Aura. The chittering ceased and it immediately sent the feelings of camaraderie with the Caterpie it was riding and a strong sense of loyalty, and I knew I wasn't going to separate them.

I thought for a moment. These were the best two Caterpie, with the larger one still having a potential of 6.01, so it wouldn't be too much of a loss running two of them in my lineup to start with… It was just that I didn't really want to have to swap Pokemon out of my lineup later, and I didn't know how one would react if I removed the other from my lineup.

Ivy, who had been watching the exchange, stepped in and faced the two Caterpie. "I'll take you myself and make sure you're well cared for. Is that alright?" Then she turned to the little one. "We are Journey companions, so you can still stay together even if you're on different teams."

The two Caterpie seemed to discuss it among themselves, and then they walked out of the group of bug pokemon and towards me and Ivy. She was a pretty good wingwoman.

By this stage Marcus had taken his Weedle as well, so we were all finished.

It was a bit abrupt, but I guess I now had two pokemon? Our relationship seemed pretty shallow, but hopefully it could grow at the same rate a Caterpie did, which was pretty damn fast.

"You didn't even grab the biggest ones, which means you must be in it for the long-haul." Mr Moneybags said with a shake of his head as he saw our selection. "It's kinda sad to be honest, if you really think about it."

Pollux sent me a feeling of revulsion of the second trio through our bond, and I sent the same feeling right back.

As soon as we were out of the way Mr Asshole and his cronies immediately went closer to the bugs, and began asking the biggest ones if they would like to join their parties, promising freedom at the end of the first-year circuit in exchange for their services in the meantime. Their primary purpose would be early Tournaments and Badges, but once those were over they might be free to leave early.

Amusingly, one tried to recruit Crawler, but it seemed that even the big Caterpie had too much self-respect to consider going with them. On our side there were our jokes and banter about him being a freeloader, but on their side it was complete and blatant disrespect..

For better or for worse, they had little trouble taking their pick, and ended up walking away with two Weedle, two Caterpie, a Spinarak and a Ledyba.

Easiest $1200 I'd ever made… or ever seen made, seeing it was actually Ivy who made it.

After they were out of earshot the girl from the first trio spoke up.

"So… what now?"

"Well, thanks to the generous donations of those rich idiots who paid 5 times as much as I'd been counting on, I think I can let you take your pick." Ivy replied, still staring at the cash in her hand. "During their selection I called some people in town who might be interested, and said as long as they bring some Pokechow they could catch a Pokemon for free.

"As much as I love money, I hate smug, entitled, condescending pricks like them more. Lets spread the love."

Both Marcus and I looked at each other. Was Ivy really turning down an opportunity to make more money?

She went on to explain that she would leave the rest of the bug Pokemon to their group to look after, along with the Pokechow needed to feed them, and then the three of us walked off with all our pokemon all in tow.

It wasn't until we were a few hundred meters away that Ivy let out a few fist pumps.

"That was an overwhelming success!" she stated happily. "With this I've made great connections to not just the local bug population, but also with a bunch of trainers who will feel indebted to me for my favour! I got to fleece a few rich kids too, and it doesn't even seem they will hold it against me, or if they even realised!"

She laughed maniacally, while Marcus and I just exchanges a look.

Yep, that explains it. She settled down as she continued.

"I'm interested in knowing if there is a way to harvest the silk many bug pokemon make, but I don't have the funds to set up my own plantation at the moment so I'm hoping to make a positive impression with the local populace. Because older and more powerful bug pokemon are constantly cleared from the safe routes, most corporations don't bother forming business connections with the young bug pokemon there due to the high turnover and constant reinvestment needed, which is an opportunity I can hopefully exploit."

Ivy seemed to look at the world at a completely different level to me, and I still couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

It was then that I finally remembered to the Abra that had popped in beside us with Ivy during the encounter with the other trainers, and I decided to check their profiles.

Abra (M)
Current Strength: 8.51 / 9.79
3.4241 - (4.9627*) - (6.6722*)

Abra (F)
Current Strength: 5.34 / 7.21
3.309 - (4.8476*) - (6.5571*)

"So Ivy, sorry to take you off topic, but what's the story with the two Abra? Are they both for you, or is one for us?" I asked.

Ivy didn't seem to mind my interruption as she moved to the closer Abra.

"I've found my starter and my partner! She's young, but she's got the right attitude!" She said, hugging the one standing closer to her. "Aurena, meet my lackeys Marcus and Oliver! Marcus and Oliver, meet Aurena, your new boss!"

I rolled my eyes at here introduction, and even though I was disappointed in thei lucklustre potentials, I tried to be happy for Ivy. I'd held out hope that the first dozen Abra we'd seen had just been unusually bad, but that didn't seem to be the case. They weren't the highest out of the Abra I'd seen before I left, and even the stronger one not being that amazing, though they were both decent I guess.

I honestly found their lack of Potential to be very surprising, because this was one of the first times I felt a Pokemon's potential significantly differed from my expectations.

It was Marcus who brought me out of my thoughts.

"So… who gets the second Abra?"

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[LukewarmBison]

Thanks for the chapter!

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 8

The Good​

'...47, 48, 49, 50!'

Misty finished her last set of pushups and crumpled to the ground, then proceeded to roll onto her back to better heap in breaths of fresh air.

While it would have felt great to take a nice, easy day off after staying up late the night before, that wouldn't be what's required to help her achieve her goals.

After recovering for a few minutes she sat back up, and checked the fishing rod that was set up next to her. Still no bites.

She looked at her pokemon lazing beside her, and failed to suppress a yawn. She was tired, but at least her expedition last night had been successful. She had managed to add an Oddish to her party - and she was pretty sure it was a good one at that.

Oddish are nocturnal, which was why she had slept in yesterday in preparation for the late night. It had taken inspecting and talking to dozens of them before she found one that looked like it could be a nice addition to her run at this year's circuit.

She didn't have the same feel for Grass or Poison types as she did for Water type pokemon, but the one she found seemed not only intelligent, but also very ambitious, which was the most important trait on any Pokemon she was looking for.

After all, she was ambitious too.

She felt a bite on the line, and immediately reached over and reeled it in.

A Magikarp, which was what she expected and hoped for.

No other pokemon would be stupid enough to bite the line, after all.

She quickly judged its Aura, and frowned. It was barely aware, more like an animal than a pokemon.

This one wouldn't do, like the other seventeen she'd caught so far today.

She released the Magikarp back into the river, then started packing up her rod to move further upstream. No point having the same fish eat even more of her bait.

"Silky, Diamond, Nightshade. Wake up, we're moving again."

Diamond, her Staryu, dutifully spun itself into the river without complaint, and Nightshade - her new Oddish - got up as well, but Silky let out a whiny yowl, letting Misty know he'd just gotten comfortable.

Misty responded by ruthlessly summoning him back into his pokeball. She couldn't afford to let her future Vaporeon become spoiled, not when he was destined to be a cornerstone of her Gym team in the many years ahead.

She let out another yawn, then looked west towards the Golden Ball Bridge downstream of her. There were plenty of new trainers going to and fro across the Bridge, not even waiting for Monday to start their Journey. Couldn't blame them though, seeing she was the same when she'd gone to route 24. She'd even come across another group of trainers in the middle of the night last night, a group who were doing the same thing as her.

The girl who seemed to be their leader had been a concerned for her, obviously not recognising her, but when Misty released her father's old Starmie - the Starmie that sometimes represented the Gym in Open Division battles - she'd apologised pretty quick and they left Misty to her own devices.

She frowned as she thought she recognised one of the people crossing the Bridge, and condensed her Aura on her eyes. The clarity of her vision improved, and she confirmed it was the first boy she'd met last night.

His Poliwag was trotting beside him, and he seemed to be with a few friends. There were two Abra in his group, and a couple of bug pokemon as well, including an absolutely tiny Caterpie riding on the boy's head. As she stared at the Caterpie, she confirmed her suspicions from last night that the boy was incredibly lucky to find the Poliwag he had the day before.

Sure, she understood that some people needed to start with bug pokemon, but why wouldn't you at least search for one that was a bit bigger, because there was no way that little one had even developed Aura awareness yet, so it was like the Magikarp she had been catching and releasing.

Perhaps that was all he could find? She shook the thoughts out of her mind. He wasn't her concern.

She hadn't been planning to start her Journey this year, because she knew the only reason her stupid cousin had delayed his own Journey was to try sniping her, the immature ass. She knew he'd already forgone getting a Youngster license to be in her cohort, but had been certain that if she had delayed getting her Youngster license again there was no way he'd wait until 15 to get his license, and then she could halve the amount of drama she could expect on her Journey.

It wasn't like spending her time at the Gym would've been a waste of time in any case.

That had been her plan… but then her sisters told her the Professor Oak wanted to speak to her.

He had asked whether she could accompany one of his Lab-sponsored trainers next season, as he might need protection and guidance… due to a tip-off that Rocket may be targeting him and his Pokemon. She had said yes.

After all, one did not say 'No' to Professor Oak.

She asked who else might be accompanying her, and he said he was looking at other capable, young trainers that wouldn't stand out too much if they went out on a Journey, but the most important criteria was trust.

The message was clear: There had better not be any leaked details on this.

The trainer he was talking about was talented, but sheltered. He also said he was the living embodiment of his research - that which delved into the relationships between Humans and Pokemon. Some thought it was a waste of time for such a great man to give up everything to do research, having known him at the height of his power and influence.

Misty was in the camp that if he was as great of a man as they all said, then that said a lot about the research he'd given it all up for.

'Is it Gary?' she'd asked. 'He's smart, but I didn't think he was… that type of Trainer. No offence.'

Gary was two years younger than her and they travelled in the same circles, so she knew a bit about his personality.

'No, you're right, it's not my Grandson. He's too clever for his own good unfortunately, and thinks with his brain a little too much.' He'd replied with a chuckle, and then had refused to elaborate further on the topic of who'd she be escorting in a year's time. It wasn't until the end of his conversation that he'd said he'd feel his charge was more safe if she had a year of Journey experience herself, and she couldn't disagree.

Thus her last minute change of plans... Finn would be happy.

She set up her fishing line again, then released Silky so he could go back to relaxing in the sun after a time. He whined piteously, and she responded by sending him her most unimpressed look.

She went back to fishing Magikcarp, hoping to find one that could go the distance. Her three sisters had all caught one, but only Daisy's so far had been able to evolve, which was why she always took the Open-Division challenges. Their Grandfather's elderly Gyarados listened to all four of them, but he was too weak these days, as getting battered and bruised repeatedly when they first took over the Gym had taken a lot out of him.

It would have been a lot easier if their father's Gyarados had listened to them, but he didn't. Right now three out of the four Kasumi Gym Leaders didn't have a Gyarados, and a Kasumi without a Gyarados was hardly a Kasumi at all.

There was a theory that because Gyarados couldn't reproduce, over time the genetic stock of Magikarp was decreasing, making it more and more difficult to breed a Gyarados. If true, it would at least give them some excuses.

Both Violet's and Lily's were still Magikarp, and as 99.99% of them lived their whole life as a Magikarp and never leapt over the Dragon Gate, it wasn't certain theirs would ever evolve either.

She could have caught her own Magikarp years ago, but she had decided to wait until she started her Journey.

After all, can you imagine what would happen if she brought a Gyarados to the Conference Finals?

She shook her head. She didn't have time to get sucked into daydreams.

She heard a pitiful whimper, and looked back towards Silky looking at her with a desolate expression.

She couldn't afford to spoil him, so she wouldn't be moved by his puppy dog eyes.

She wouldn't.

She… offered to buy him his favourite snack later, as long as he was on his very best behaviour for the rest of the day.

He nodded happily.

…she vowed she would stand firm with him next time.

The Bad​

My Mother was one of Kanto's Autumn Cup champions, and an Indigo Conference finalist.

My Father was one of Kanto's Spring Cup champions, and an Indigo Conference finalist.

I will go one step further, and make them proud by being an Indigo Conference champion.

It has been my destiny, my reason for being, from the very moment of my birth.

My trainer will give me the opportunity to win him glory, and I will not fail him.

That was what I had always thought, had always known, with unwavering belief.

However…

Now I live in a retirement home for the weak, the crippled, the old.

The forgotten.

'It is not so bad,' they said. 'You are the progeny of champions, and your progeny can be champions as well. You will always have value due to that, and so you will never know hard times. You are very fortunate.'

'Stop being so difficult. While it is good to show determination, it is an important lesson to know when to face reality. It could be worse.'

'Stop creating tension amongst the party, it is unbecoming of you. You have to accept your circumstances and move on.'

But why should I give up my position in the party without a fight? .

'Recovery should take about a year to 15 months, with a ban on battling for the first four months,' the nurse had said. 'The surgery was successful, so with time and rehabilitation her leg will mend most of the way, and then evolution will take care of the rest.'

I can still come back, so why are you giving up on me?

That wound shouldn't mark the end of my heartfelt dreams, and instead should be a battle scar that I can wear with pride.

I earned it saving your life, after all.

The Ugly​

Finn had gone far to the east of Cerulean to the dead drop location as his father told him to, and then followed instructions in the envolope he received there to the letter, allowing him to arrive on the exact coordinates at the appointed time. He had found an underground facility waiting for him there, one that hadn't existed on any map. For what he had been about to negotiate, that level of invisibility had seemed entirely appropriate.

Currently, he was inspecting the pokemon that had been arrayed in front of him through the one-way mirrors and knew he had made a good decision.

Most of them were at least decent, having obviously been getting trained for at least a few weeks, and they all must have been pretty close to the six-month old age limit imposed on pokemon you could catch for the first few badges and the Autumn Cup. Still not as good as pokemon that had been professionally bred, but you were only allowed two of those, and seeing wild pokemon that you caught were allowed to be a few months older, it would make-do until the first-year Conference.

He could have started his Journey last year or even the year before with a Youngster license, but if he had then he wouldn't have been able to compete directly against Misty. Growing up in the Gym, he knew she would have every advantage going into the circuit this year, which was why he had made sure to prepare everything he could to reduce the odds stacked against him.

He could still remember the shame he felt when his father had been stripped of the title of Gym Leader of the Cerulean Gym, and they were all but exiled from the Kasumi Clan. And for what? Making life a little harder for some nobodies that weren't ever going to get into the top 128 of the Conference, and helping a few clan kids that had more money than sense instead? They just wanted the life-long bragging rights of making it to a Conference, and were just going to be knocked out in the first round anyway, so what was the harm in that?

It wasn't anything all the other Gyms weren't doing as well..

However, at the time there had been allegations of widespread corruption around Kanto, most of which were probably true, and so when the Cerulean Gym scandal broke, it had come at a perfect time for the League to make an example of someone… They had chosen Levi, his father, and the legacy of the Cerulean Gym was destroyed in that instant.

It was disgusting to see how much trainers disrespected the Gym he had grown up in these days, due to the incompetence of those Cerulean sisters and their willingness to be pawns of the League. It became such a joke that the League had to step in and limit Open Division challenges, something that had never happened in the history of the Cerulean Gym.

If he showed Misty up hard enough, the supposed prodigy of the famous Cerulean Sisters, then it would give his father's new… allies enough sway to petition the league for his reinstatement.

It's all about how you frame the narrative. His only rare pokemon was an Eevee, which many Clan trainers have. His other starter was a Slowpoke, an almost universally mocked pokemon, suitably humble to make up for the Eevee.

However, the Slowpoke was an offspring of his father's very own Slowking, so any that dared underestimate him would be sure to regret it.

He'd also wanted a Magnemite, and had been lucky enough to already catch one his very first day of searching for one yesterday, even though they weren't supposed to be such a common pokemon. Not only that, but the one he'd caught seemed to be a strong one too - though of course he expected nothing less from himself.

The other two pokemon his list would be an Exeggcute and an Onix, which while not as common as the others, were far from exclusive to clans. Between Slowpoke and Slowking, he would have two pokemon that can set up Trick Room, but they were also strong enough not to be dependent on it.

Perhaps certain opponents would be able to deal with a Trick Room strat, but there was nothing stopping him from limiting his squad to just six pokemon, he could train a few flex-picks as well. However, for the conference he wanted one more pokemon, and hopefully one that wasn't too uncommon as well - so he didn't look like some spoiled rich kid, as that would make it harder for his allies to push the agenda that could get him reinstated.

Even with his new allies, reinstatement was by no means certain, no matter how well he did. It was much too convenient for the League to have a puppet that was dependent on them at the head of one of the Big 8 Gyms, rather than someone that could actually challenge the League's political agenda.

What worked in Finn's favour was that some of the Gyms in both Kanto and Johto were trying to regain their independence and reduce the League's authority over them after their display of power at Cerulean, and it was a battle that became more difficult to fight each year with one of them effectively a puppet, so there was a surprising amount of support.

However, the sisters being a puppet for the League did come with some advantages for him personally.

He knew Misty would have to do everything by the book. The Gym was still getting audited each year, and if they weren't squeaky clean then it could be seized back by the League and handed over to another Clan. It had been in Kasumi hands for over a hundred years, long before the Indigo League was established, and even if he felt like his cousins were a disgrace, they wouldn't dare take risks that put the Gym at risk.

The only thing worse than having his cousins run the Gym, would be having anyone else run it instead.

It meant there was no chance that Misty was doing what he and many other people were doing, which was… bending the rules, to say the least. The rule for wild pokemon was that they had to be under half a year old, and could only be caught and trained from the day you received your Trainer ID onwards. To make sure they were wild, all pokemon were recorded in the Pokecenter database and lineages could easily be checked, and if the mother was a registered pokemon, then the offspring would only be allowed to fill one of the trainer's 'bred pokemon' slots, and could only be three months old instead of the usual six allowed for wild pokemon.

Many commoners did actually use the offspring of their parent's pokemon, despite their subpar genetics, because professionally bred pokemon were expensive. However, anyone who took this seriously knew that the expense was worth it, and there was no point wasting your bred pokemon slots on anything but the best.

However, that still left four slots that needed to be filled with Wilds, and this is where the rule-bending common amongst those from clans came into play... though Finn had to admit he was bending them more than most.

He didn't know how he felt about dealing with the Rocket syndicate, but if his father deemed it necessary due to their disadvantageous position, then there was nothing to be done but make the most of it.

"This is a fine specimen you've caught." He said as he inspected a Poliwag. As a Kasumi, his speciality would always lie with Water, and he could tell by its Aura that although it was younger than some of the others, it had progressed further and would likely continue to do so.

The Rocket operative, a short and wiry man wearing a mask who appeared anywhere between 30 and 45 years old, gave an ingratiating smile. "I see you have good eyes, I'm pretty proud of this one. Our Hypno liaison saw an opportunity to make use of a strong friendship that was making him uncooperative, and twist it in our favour."

"There is a pokemon out there that knows this guy exists? What if it gets reported to the League?"

Finn would hate to let go of such a good candidate, it even reached its final evolution with a stone which would give him a massive advantage over Pokemon that evolved naturally, as he could make sure it was fully evolved for the Conference.

"Don't worry, I caught this little guy myself a month ago. These are pokemon for VIPs, so we went over 200km north of Pewter and Cerulean to get them. No way that catches up with us here."

Finn nodded appreciatively. "So it was by itself."

"Well, it had the other little Poliwag with it, but it couldn't have been over a month or two old."

Finn frowned.

"You catch it... or kill it?" Finn asked.

The operative frowned right back. "What? Do you think I am evil or something? Nah, it ran away and we left it. What were we gonna do if we caught it? Sell it here as well and hope they never meet on the circuit? Yeah, like that'd be wise." Finn clenched his jaw, and the operative seemed to realise he'd gone too far. "Look, it had probably never seen a human in its life, and probably never will again, living way up there in the boonies. Even odds it's already dead as well because the ecosystem can only support so many Poliwhirl, so most don't make it."

"You'll be the first person I rat out if this catches up with me." Finn stated, sending out his Aura to get a read on him. The man had to be a Ranger, and his punishment would be much worse than Finn's if he got caught.

To his surprise, the operative seemed to relax at the threat.

"That's fine then." He replied with a smile, then looked at the Poliwag through the glass. "The Hypno-therapy that he's undergone was highly effective, as the one we've got here really is a miracle worker. The Poliwag and his friend must've had a close encounter with a Gloom before he met us, and the Hypno managed to push that experience to the extreme, so now the Poliwag thinks that they killed his friend, and that we were the ones that managed to save him at the last minute. Since then he has been blaming himself for being too weak to stop it, and has been training non-stop since. I'm sure if we'd killed the little Poliwag ourselves, making those mental connections would have been impossible."

The operative smiled as though he expected a pat on the back, but Finn wasn't going to give it to him.

"You don't know how impressive that is, it's literally the best case scenario…" He grumbled, before getting back to business. "Anyway, it's impossible to bond him with people he doesn't know, so how about you introduce yourself, and then over the next few hours we can slightly alter his perception of the order of events, so he'll thinks you only just recently saved him from another Gloom and caught him. Having the Gloom there will allow us to tie a lot of the memories we want together. If he ever sees us again then it may awaken some memories and cause us some issues… but we're professionals, so that won't happen. What do you think?"

The Poliwag was a good pokemon for his purposes, should be able to become a Poliwrath in time for the first year Conference in 15 months which was perfect. It was also motivated, close to the maximum age, and the operative seemed to think the risk of getting found out was negligible as well.

"I want him."

The operative nodded, then got serious.

"First impressions matter. Remember that." He started walking to the back of the room, giving Finn some space. "Think about what you want to say, think about the emotions that you want to convey through Aura, then let me know when you're ready."

What would he say to the Poliwag? He sat down in a nearby chair as he rubbed the few hairs that were just starting to grow on his chin in thought.

The Poliwag thought he'd lost his best friend due to his own weakness, and Finn had lost the Gym, his birthright, and his honour. The Poliwag wanted vengeance, as did Finn. The Poliwag wanted to get strong… and Finn would do everything in his power to enable it, as doing so would help him achieve his own desires.

Their goals aligned, and Finn was sure that they could come to an understanding with each other.

He could work with this.

"I'm ready."

The operative nodded, then waved Finn towards him, towards the back of the room.

"Why are we moving away from the Poliwag?" Finn asked, confused.

"You won't be able to form a proper relationship with the Poliwag as you are now," the operative said casually, "so of course you've got to see the Hypno first."

Finn stopped. "Excuse me?"

The Rocket operative stopped walking as well and turned back to face him, a seemingly genuine look of surprise on his face.

"What? Didn't you know that?"

 

[LukewarmBison]

Thank you for the chapter!

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapter

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 9

Battle Record​

As I looked into Marcus's pleading puppy-dog eyes, it was impossible for me to keep the Abra from him.

I probably would have done it anyway, after seeing how low their potential was. I doubted it was a good idea to bond with a pokemon that could feel how much they failed to meet my expectations, but obviously Marcus couldn't see that.

"Thank you so so much Ollie! If there's ever a Pokemon we both want going forward, then you can keep it, promise!"

"Ah, no worries at all, don't stress about it." I said, waving him off. I honestly felt a bit guilty. His Abra was a bit of a dud, but Marcus wouldn't be able to find that out until the distant future…

Oh well, it was still a pretty good Pokemon for someone with no connections, and it was good to see the Abra have a trainer that appreciated him much more than I would have.

-break-​

"... and Stinger would be a decent name, if that wasn't what half the bug-catchers in Kanto were going to call their Weedle." Marcus was saying, as Marcus's Weedle nodded in agreement. "So instead I think we're going to go with Boxer. After all, when he grows into a Beedrill he will be knocking pokemon out left, right, and centre with his two stingers"

We were discussing the names of our recent additions, but it was more of a brainstorming session than anything too serious. While Crawler and Feathers were resting in their balls, we had all our new additions walking out in the open around us, taking in the cleared part of route 24 where pokemon encounters were unlikely as we walked back to Cerulean.

Pollux was trying to get a read of our new Caterpie, but seemed unimpressed. The Caterpie was still very young, and apparently didn't really know anything and had quite the limited world-view. I didn't blame it, it was probably less than a week old after all.

We were walking back to Cerulean when Ivy suddenly spoke up.

"Hey, is that Misty!?"

I looked towards Ivy, and saw her pointing with her eyes towards the East. I turned to look, but Ivy's hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder like a vice, and I turned back to see a strained smile on her face.

"Don't just stare at her, be subtle about it!" she hissed through her teeth.

I almost couldn't help but laugh. The calm collected business woman that had fleeced $1200 from some rich kids just a moment ago was nowhere to be seen, and instead it was incredibly obvious that she was just a girl seeing her idol.

"Alright, alright." I said placatingly, and checked out of the corner of my eye. I saw a girl with an Eevee, Staryu, and Oddish, and nodded.

"I think so, when I talked to her last night she had the Eevee and Staryu already. She didn't have the Oddish, but that might have been why-"

"You talked to Misty!" Ivy exclaimed. "Don't you know it's rude to bother celebrities? I can't believe you've done that…" She covered her face in her hands. "Dear Arceus that's so embarrassing."

"Hey, in my defence I didn't know it was Misty when I started talking to her." I said, trying to calm her down.

Marcus, who so far had been staying out of it, also looked at me with a disbelieving look, while Ivy facepalmed.

"You didn't know it was Misty? And you think that somehow makes it better?" Ivy said with a dumbfounded expression. "They are basically nobility in Cerulean, how didn't you recognise her?"

I held my hands up placatingly. "It was night time, and the city was to her back..."

Darcy and Ivy begrudgingly accepted my excuses, but the thing was, the original Oliver would have almost certainly been able to tell it was Misty from before then, seeing he had been interested. It was just another example of me having the memories, but never being able to access them until it was too late.

Yeah her Staryu looked incredibly impressive, and her Eevee also seemed pretty good. Now I'm kinda interested to see that Oddish…

-break-​

Now we all had a few pokemon, it was time to do what every boy that played Pokemon dreamed of doing - actually training and battling Pokemon.

The first thing I had done when I came to this world was look at the guides on how to do so, in part due to personal interest, but also because there had been no way I'd pass the Trainer Exam if I hadn't, and I'd come up with a few key points.

Pokemon needed to consistently improve the density of their Aura to get stronger, and there were two main ways to do so:

- Cleansing; and

- Training

Cleansing pokemon was what allowed them to cultivate more of their specific type of Aura, as it removed the impurities in their Aura that they were ill-suited to weilding, and created more 'space' for the type of Aura that the Pokemon was suited to weilding, which resulted in improved smoothness of their energy flow when they use moves, and also greater Aura reserves.

Even wild pokemon had their Aura cleansed. However, it was incredibly difficult for them to do due to their inability to manipulate the Type-Energy that they didn't naturally wield. In the wild this led to alliances between different species of Pokemon, as they needed to work together to cleanse their Auras.

If a location was entirely desolate of Pokemon of a certain Type-Energy, and yet the location was abundant enough in that Type-Energy to give the pokemon there non-trivial amounts of those impurities, then they may be unable to cleanse themselves and so pokemon of that type would be welcomed back in and looked after by other pokemon in the region.

However, that would only be the case if that type of Energy was abundant enough for it to become an issue in the first place. In a desert for example, the amount of water type energy that could cause impurities for the local pokemon would be negligible, so even if there were none there they were unlikely to be welcomed into the area.

As for training, exercising Aura was like exercising the body, so the more it was used, the stronger it would get. However, just like there were different muscles and movements the body could train and improve in, so were there different uses of Aura. A Ninetales training their Flamethrower all day may develop a fearsome Flamethrower, but it wouldn't fully translate to help it use other Projection moves that use a different Type-Energy like Extrasensory, or other Internal Energy moves even if they use the same Type-Energy, like Flame Charge.

Lastly, the training would do nothing altogether for Internal Energy moves that used a different Type-Energy, like Quick Attack.

However, this was where nutritional needs came in, and though it was obvious in hindsight, and I'd also always heard that rich trainers had an advantage, I now truly understood exactly why it was the case.

Training a Caterpie? Completely fine, especially seeing that you could always supplement their diet with leaves if you were on a tight budget.

Training an Arcanine? Weighing in at 150kg and standing nearly 2m tall, their energy expenditure was immense even if they were sedentary, let alone when they were training the multiple hours a day necessary to grow stronger.

I'd learnt that berries were basically magic, having an impossible amount of nutrition and calories pumped into a little piece of fruit. Unfortunately, they were correspondingly expensive - So while a kilogram of corn flour might just cost a single dollar, a kilogram of berries would be at least 100 times more expensive… which was why Crawler was going to be eating like a king for a fair while, even if we got the cheapest berries. Conversely, pokechow was a lot cheaper, could handle the caloric expenditures of training, and was advertised as being reinforced with all 'the micronutrients that were necessary for optimal growth and development of your beloved pokemon companions!'.

It also tasted bland, and there was an abundance of anecdotal evidence online that pokemon that subsisted on it tended to eventually become lethargic and depressed, and also failed to thrive, which was why high level trainers swore off the stuff.

Despite that, for less affluent trainers like me and my companions it was a necessary evil. Without pokechow it would be impossible for our pokemon to train at an intensity that would properly stimulate their Aura, so all we could do would be also be making sure that it was balanced with both plenty of real food and berries.

After spending most of the day out north of Cerulean it was getting towards dusk, so Feathers decided to head home, communicating that he'd reassure Elizabeth that we were all safe, and that our first day out and about had gone well.

However we weren't quite done, and as all the Gym battles were finished for the day, it meant the training rooms were open for public use so it was a perfect opportunity to use one if we wanted to. Marcus led the way, seeming like he had been preparing for this moment his entire life, while Ivy and I merely followed his lead.

"Alright, so what do we do now?" I asked once we had found a vacant room.

"I read trainer blogs, and they said that one of the smartest things you can do when you first start training pokemon is to do it at a Gym or near a Pokecenter. This is because you as a trainer do not know their limits, and the pokemon themselves may not know it as well because fighting to unconsciousness is relatively rare in the wild, so here is the perfect environment to find out those limits. There are emergency medical supplies in the cabinet, but you will have to log and pay for it if you use it, so I've found one of the closest rooms in the Gym to the Pokecenter which will hopefully stop us from having to use any funds, which should be good."

He'd been looking around the room, but then he turned back to us, a hungry expression on his face.

"Now, I want to have a battle with Boxer and see what we're made of! Who's first?"

I swapped a glance with Ivy, then stepped forward.

"Pollux and I will answer your challenge." I answered with mock seriousness.

We stepped to opposite sides of the arena and arrayed our selected pokemon in front of us while Ivy and the rest of the pokemon watched.

Boxer (M)
Current Strength: 2.27 / 2.35
Expected Potential: 2.538 - (2.709*) - (5.957**)

Pollux (M)
Current Strength: 4.26 / 4.91
Expected Potential: 4.201 - (5.659*) - (7.796**) [+0.031]

My Poliwag vs his Weedle, a battle for the ages…

And I was quietly confident I would come out on top.

-break-​

It was a close battle so far, worthy to be sung in the halls of valhalla.

Pollux had gotten a good Pound off early, and also caused Boxer trouble with his Water Gun throughout the duel… However, Marcus had his Weedle fight with cunning and cleverness.

At the very start of the battle the only thing he used was String Shot. Once a few had landed it was impossible to dodge more, and Poliwag slowly became increasingly immobilised, and then started sending needles of Poison Sting.

Pollux wasn't just going to resign himself to getting hit though, and so matched the Weedle's needles with his own Water Guns, sometimes managing to catch Boxer in the shot as well. However, just as some of his shots were getting through, so were the Weedles, and eventually it became apparent that Pollux was poisoned.

If it remained a battle of attrition, I would lose, so I had to do something drastic.

"Pollux, tank the Poison Stings and get him with Hypnosis!" I called.

"Stay focussed Boxer, keep him on the edge of your vision and get shots in where you can! You just have to outlast him!" Marcus called back, a hint of desperation in his voice

My heart was thumping in my chest, and I could feel my hands jittering. Even though logically I knew this was as much of a low stakes battle as I was ever going to have, it still felt more intense than any sports pressure or video game clutch moment I'd ever had.

"Pollux, mix in Water Guns if he's not looking at you properly, but focus on landing a Hypnosis!"

Pollux tanked several more Poison Stings, but hit Boxer with one Water Gun in return which caused Boxer to be too scared, as he looked and was put to sleep with a Hypnosis.

Pollux (M)
Current Strength: 0.89 / 4.91

Boxer (M)
Current Strength: 0.74 / 2.35

"You've got one shot Pollux, put everything into your Water Gun and make sure this finishes it!" I ordered. I drew a breath, preparing to react to whatever Marcus might do in response…

"Draw!" Marcus half-shouted, half-screamed. "I offer a Draw!"

I was about to turn down his offer, but as I turned to Marcus I saw he looked more desperate than I'd ever seen him.

"Draw accepted." I said instead, and I saw Pollux struggle through the String Shot to look back at me with disbelief in his eyes. Without using words I tried to convey both apology for denying him the victory he deserved on his debut, but at the same time the immense gratitude I had towards Marcus, as without him I wouldn't have been able to pass the Trainer Exam, and if I hadn't passed that then we would never have met.

I felt the tension drain out of the little Poliwag as it was replaced with no small sense of disappointment. Then he let me know he felt absolutely terrible, he wanted to go into his ball, he now hated bugs, and that I'd better make him feel better ASAP.

I swiftly recalled Pollux as Marcus collapsed to his knees. He was now staring blankly at his sleeping Weedle, but whether it was with relief or disappointment I didn't know.

I walked over to him, past Boxer, then offered out my hand.

"Well done." I said. "I'm pretty sure Pollux is a bit stronger at the moment, but you still nearly got the win. We will have to battle again some time, but for now do you wanna head to the Pokecenter."

Marcus nodded without looking at me and recalled his still sleeping Weedle, and then once he'd clipped the pokeball back on his belt he started rubbing at his eyes.

My eyes widened. Was he… crying?

In that case I was glad I'd accepted the draw… I didn't want to see how he'd be reacting if his first battle had been a loss.

I looked away and turned to Ivy.

"Mind running some training for the other pokemon?" I asked. "We won't be back for a little bit, and they might as well see what it's all about." I glanced at the still downcast expression Marcus wore then looked back to her. "We'll try not to keep you waiting too long."

-break-​

I turned in our pokemon to the nurse on duty, who besides the pink hair (which may have even been a wig), looked very little like the Nurse Joys from the anime.

I had tried talking to Marcus, broaching topics he was usually interested in such as training, nutrition, and battling, but he seemed to be in a monosyllabic mood.

"No stress man, just letting you know I'm here if you want to talk." I said, deciding to stop pushing. If he wanted to talk he could talk.

We were sitting in one of the corridors near where they checked our pokemon, away from the reception. I pulled out my phone, and started browsing nutritional information for both my latest pickups. Pollux in the wild would eat insects like snails, spiders and worms, but could also eat algae and other plant matter. My Caterpie, whom I didn't have a name for yet, had a unique physiology suited to eating vast amounts of plant matter and benefitting from that. Pokechow could be fine on occasion, but only if he was training, and only as a supplement to the rest of its diet. They both would love berries and could benefit from them, but our budget couldn't accommodate that.

"I'm sorry, I thought I'd be better than that." Marcus said suddenly.

I turned to him. "It's alright, you can't expect to win ever-"

"Not at battling." He interrupted. "At losing. Of course I knew I could lose, your Poliwag is probably a few months older and you've already developed a strong bond, I'm not that naive."

He sighed, then a few seconds later continued.

"You know how I said that I had my Aura for over a year?" I nodded. "Last year I was supposed to start my Journey with an old friend from Hope Spring Sanctuary. He was a year older than me, and we were- I thought we were best friends. He was the person that taught me the trick I showed you with the powder, and he'd told me that if I passed then he wanted me to Journey with him, even though I was a year younger. Two years ago he passed the Youngster Exam, and set off on his Journey."

"The day before the Exam last year, he told me that he'd changed his mind. It would be difficult carrying a newbie, I probably couldn't pull my weight, I would slow them down too much on the bike, my pokemon wouldn't be able to train with theirs, and a million other reasons… including the fact that he had made friends that were better companions than I would ever be anyway, ones that would help him fulfil his ambitions."

His voice had turned lifeless.

"He managed to get five Gym Badges in his first year, qualifying for the first-year Indigo Conference, and actually managed to make it to the round of 128. That basically means he outperformed ~99.5% of his cohort, as a Youngster with no backing.

"We haven't talked for a year, he blocked my number after the Youngster Exam, but during the battle we just had, I remembered talking to him on the phone, talking to him before- before everything happened, and I mentioned I had enjoyed reading his battle records online, seeing how he and his pokemon were progressing you know? And he said he was glad he would be able to watch a lot of mine in person, and added that even when he left after his second year he would do the same as me and follow my battle records, and he was confident it would be impressive.

"So in the middle of the battle I just started thinking, he's going to see my first battle, a Weedle vs a Poliwag, and he's going to see that I lost, and he's-" Marcus's voice choked "-he's going to know he was right!"

Marcus, who'd I'd never seen so much as let out a tear, started sobbing, the full-on ugly crying where every breath in was a desperate gasp before getting forced out again with his anguish. I embraced him, and started patting on his back consolingly. With how mature and serious he was, it was easy to forget he was a 14 year old kid, a kid without a Mum or Dad, a kid that through pure determination had managed to get into the position he was in today all on his own.

"Hey man, it's fine, I'm not judging you, you're one of the coolest people I know." I comforted, then tried to give him some of the wisdom I'd learned from my extra decade of life experience. "You've just gotta remember, the way that people treat you has almost everything to do with them, and so little to do with you. I don't know what happened during his Journey, what made your ex-friend become such a dick, but the fact is you were ready to go on the Journey, you didn't change, and he did. He doesn't matter anymore, what he thinks doesn't matter, what he says doesn't matter. He betrayed you at the time it would hurt you most, and that says everything you need to know about him.

"Good riddance, it's lucky that trash took itself out of your life."

Marcus sobbed harder into my chest, and I felt a resolution form in my heart.

My power, or secret ability, or whatever it was, did help me significantly. But there was no reason it had to just help me, as it would be able to help others just as much. Right now I didn't have the ability to justify my findings from using it, and I hadn't really had much opportunity to use it, but going forward that had to change.

Marcus and Ivy were the only reason I'd been able to start my Journey, without them I'd still be doing another year at Trainer School. I didn't know what Ivy's dreams were, though I was sure I could still help her. Marcus's dreams were obvious though. He wanted to be able to compete at the highest level, and prove his ex-friend wrong.

I was going to help Marcus, and make the fact that he'd been forced to wait an extra year be one of the best things that could have ever happened to him.

The Pokecentre nurse came around the corner holding two pokeballs, and then saw the situation. She gave me a questioning look and I shook my head, to which she nodded then turned back around.

I doubted Marcus would need a shoulder to cry on often, so I wasn't about to hurry him up during possibly the only moment he would ever need it.

I let him take his time as he wept onto my shoulder, and tried to be a friend he could rely on. It was something he had obviously sorely missed for the last year.

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[ThinkingSlowly]

Marcus, poor guy. That was expertly written.

 

[CagedHawky]

Hey y'all, just a quick update: Since I last posted I proposed to my girlfriend, who is now my Fiancee! In other news though I'll be moving places and so will have to go job-hunting again, which always sucks, though I want to get back into a routine with writing this because I am enjoying it and have plans, so expect the next chapter before Friday evening.

Cheers!

 

[Bossbeast302]

ow my Fiancee! In other news though I'll be moving places and so will have to go job-hunting again, which always sucks, though I want to get back into a routine with writing this because I am enjoying it and have plans, so expect the next chapter before Friday evening.

Click to shrink...

thanks friend, glad you're still writing Have fun with the fiancee!

 

[CagedHawky]

Chapter 10

Journey Send-off​

Marcus, Ivy and I steadily made our way to the front of a massive line inside Cerulean Gym, getting ready for our official send-off to start our Journey. It was Monday the 26th of March, only four weeks and two days since I woke up in this world. It was crazy - while it didn't sound like a lot of time, I was already starting to consider this my home now.

I don't think there was a single person whose life had changed more in the last month than mine.

I looked at the person in front of me, who was basically vibrating with nervousness. Earlier on when we were further from the stage we had talked a little, but now she was shaking from her fingers to her toes.

I looked towards the stage, where the three older Cerulean sisters were talking to different groups of new trainers simultaneously, and then posing for photos. We were getting close to the front now, and even though I didn't really know the girl, I wondered if I should do… something?

I breathed a sigh of relief as one of her teammates turned around and noticed her, and he quickly gave her a hug and started whispering into her ear. The girl's shaking subsided somewhat, then returned in full force when they were called to the stage.

We were next.

I turned around and looked at my own party. Marcus was a bit nervous judging by his rigid face, but seemed to mainly be determined as usual, while Ivy looked excited, but not too nervous. Nothing to worry about.

It was a week since we all took the exam, and today was a public holiday so parents and loved ones could watch the ceremony and attend the official send-off. For this first week, both rangers and sponsored trainers would be on call to help those that had just passed the trainer exam, and if you wanted to you could ask more experienced Trainers to join your party of to help you and your companions catch your first pokemon, as they would be compensated by the League to help you do so.

I'm sure that Marcus had envisioned going through this with his former friend at the very least, even if he couldn't join their party, before the betrayal.

Getting help wasn't necessary for us though, as we could borrow the pokemon at the orphanage to go scouting in the safer zones, and we had already caught our first pokemon as many others had done as well. With seven pokemon between us, we should be relatively safe as long as we stuck to the safe zones on each route, though early on we were planning to take one of the orphanage pokemon just to be safe.

It also helped that pokemon were also aware that this was happening, so those that wanted trainers would be more likely to roam in these safe areas, and just as trainers would court pokemon that they wanted to join their party, pokemon would court trainers as well.

"Hope Spring Party, please step forward and receive your trainer bundles." The announcer's voice read out, and we stepped forward. We had decided to name our group after the Hope Spring Sanctuary, as they had done so much for us already and it was a nice way to show our gratitude.

We stepped forward onto the stage to receive the goods from the second oldest Cerulean Sister, Violet. When we arrived in front of her she shook our hands, then picked up three small packs and handed one to each of us.

"Congratulations on your sponsorship, it's good to see Cerulean's Hope Spring Sanctuary has produced another promising batch of trainers! Maybe there is something in the water there." Violet said with a laugh. "Jackson already made waves in the first-year Conference last year, and he already has the eight badges to qualify for the second-year conference this year which is a promising sign. I hope you can take inspiration from his achievements, and follow in his footsteps."

I saw Marcus freeze, and after exchanging a quick glance with Ivy, I stepped forward to respond.

"Thank you Gym Leader Violet, we will try our best to make both the Hope Spring Sanctuary and Cerulean City proud."

She nodded, but her eyes were on Marcus. It seemed his reaction didn't go unnoticed, and she hesitated briefly before she responded.

"I look forward to it. What you have achieved so far is admirable in its own right, and I can't wait to see the path the three of you forge in the future."

She obviously had prepared to say something else, but had been forced to improvise when she hadn't received the reaction she expected. Surprisingly thoughtful of her, seeing we were just one of the couple hundred groups she and her sisters would be sending off today.

Marcus composed himself and we gave our thanks, then we made our way off the stage

We had all received the Starter pack that all new trainers received. Inside we received a Pokenav, 3 potions, one antidote, two full heals, and one safe ball each. A 'safe ball' was a pokeball that had two additional functions to the basic pokeball. One was that it could hold one of your own pokemon in stasis for about 24 hours, which was similar to the pokeball that we had received from Elizabeth on Saturday.

However, it had an additional function; you could also throw it at a hostile pokemon, and depending on the strength of the wild pokemon it could restrain it for several minutes or even up to an hour, which should be enough time to treat your own pokemon's wounds and hopefully get away from the threat

The next thing we received was the monthly sponsorship stipend, which was $800 each to start with. The condition for receiving the monthly stipend was making sure you had all your essential supplies topped up. If you didn't, because for example you had used an antidote, a potion, and a full heal, then the cost would be taken out of your monthly stipend to replace them, and you would receive the ~$550 remaining dollars instead.

If you had used all your supplies, then it was possible that the entirety of your stipend may be spent replenishing them, and you might be forced to put your Journey on hold and do some of the job requests that were posted at the local pokecenter until you had enough funds to continue your journey.

It was unacceptable to the League that young trainers would be going out to the wilderness unprepared, because even with all their precautions ~2% of sponsored trainers perished each year on their Journey. Most of these were trainers that had pushed into areas that were too dangerous for their authorisation level permitted by their number of badges, or other trainers that had let their supplies get depleted and were caught out, but nearly a quarter of them were plain unlucky, and were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps some poachers had raided a Scyther nest causing them to swarm, or some migrating Onix caused other strong pokemon to respond by moving into areas they shouldn't be in.

It was nearly midday by the time the ceremony finished, and while I didn't recognise the majority of the people that went to the stage, I did see the group of trainers we had helped with the bug pokemon. Even though the bigger boy hadn't gotten high enough grades to receive a scholarship, he had still passed the exam and had been permitted to receive an initial trainer bundle. There would be no stipend for him however, so the three of them would likely be hitting up the requests board a lot in order to keep their supplies topped up.

It was then that Daisy stepped in front of her other two sisters and took the microphone.

"Congratulations to the 753 trainers who will be starting your Journey this year. We wish all of you the best of luck, whether you have a sponsorship, or are embarking on this endeavour independently. It is worth noting that over a third of non-sponsored trainers manage to earn a sponsorship at the Autumn Cup in six months, so despite your circumstances, I encourage you to strive your hardest to achieve your dreams.

"That said, it would be remiss of me to inform you that this is not without risk. Statistically speaking, 15 of you will no longer be with us by this time next year. I encourage you to always put the safety of not just yourself, but also your party members and your pokemon as your very first priority. The Journey to be an elite trainer lasts more than just a year, or even five years. It is a life-long endeavour, so make sure to see it through, so you can offer protection to the wider community, and pay the benefits and opportunities that have been afforded to you forward to the next generation.

"In case goodwill and common sense aren't enough of a motivation, any trainers seen willfully ignoring the safety precautions set by the league will have their Trainer license stripped indefinitely. There are always a few each year, though I hope it will not be any of you."

She punctuated this by flaring her Aura and sending a hard glare at the audience, and even though I knew she wasn't looking at me directly, I couldn't help but swallow. Although she was usually gentle, you would have to be a fool to think that she was closer to prey than predator.

Daisy seemingly got the response she was hoping for, and she let out a smile before continuing.

"Lastly, make sure to make the most of this opportunity that has been granted to you. Both people and pokemon thrive when exploring new environments, meeting and understanding others, and working together to solve different challenges. There will also be lessons that you can learn on this adventure that would be impossible to teach in any classroom, as long as you maintain the correct mindset. I caution you to stay safe, because you will be challenged out there whether you look to be or not, so don't be impatient.

"Remember that this Journey is more than just a competition or a path to fame. It is a chance to discover who you are, to grow alongside your Pokémon, and to contribute to the world in a meaningful way. Cherish the bonds you forge, learn from every trial, and above all, stay true to the ideals of respect, courage, and perseverance that define what it means to be a trainer.

"Go forth with confidence, train with passion, and return with stories that will ignite the hearts of those who follow. Good luck, and may this year's cohort show us the very best of what it means to be a Pokémon trainer!"

The crowd of assembled trainers, their families and their friends all roared in approval, and it felt like fire was running through my veins.

I could see why she had been compared to royalty now - her behaviour seemed more befitting of a monarch compared to anything else.

"She's so fucking awesome." Ivy breathed quietly, eyes intense.

"Yes," I agreed. "She sure is."

After the ceremony we made our way back to Elizabeth and our fellow orphans who had attended to support us and wish us luck.

We had already had a going away party with those from the orphanage, so I expected the farewell to be more of a formality than anything else. However, I was surprised to find out that Marcus was more of a popular figure for the children than I'd realised, and many of the younger children got emotional and started crying when he said he was going.

I'd only been there for about three months, and for much of that time I'd been either grieving, or incredibly busy training to qualify myself to go on the Journey, and Ivy had only been there for about a year herself. However Marcus had been there since he was very young, and so had a much deeper connection to the younger kids. He showed a much softer side of himself than usual as he gave them all hugs, asked them what souvenirs they'd like, and promised them he'd be back soon.

When he was done, Elizabeth stepped forward. "Remember what the Gym Leader said, that some 2% of you won't be back here in a year's time. I know you're ambitious-" She sent a pointed look at Marcus. "-but this is how much they're crying because they won't see you for a week, so imagine how they would take it if you were never coming back."

I saw Marcus stiffen, and I knew he'd gotten the message. Elizabeth saw it too and nodded, then gave us all a hug. "I'm sure you'll still get yourself into some mischief even with my warnings, so take Feathers. He knows all the Ranger Outposts between here and Saffron, can scout to see if anything is going wrong, and he should be strong enough to take on anything you should come across in the safe zones."

As if on cue, Feathers hopped forward until he was beside us, and Elizabeth held out his pokeball. After exchanging a glance with my companions Marcus nudged me forward. "You take it, right now you only have one battle-ready pokemon, while I have two and Ivy has three."

I nodded, and stepped forward to take Feather's pokeball, and after saying our final goodbyes, we officially set off on our Journey.

-break-​

Our first trip was an easy one to Saffron City, and on our bikes we likely could have done it in a single day, if we hadn't started the trip in the afternoon and were staying in the centre of the route.

As it was, we were going on one of the trails that straddled the edge of Zone 1 and Zone 2, which was as far away from the centre of the route we were allowed. The Zones worked as follows:

Zone 0: This follows the centre of each route. You are unlikely to come across any dangerous pokemon, and it is where the roads are and vehicles such as cars and trucks can drive. Even if you come across pokemon, they will almost certainly not be hostile, and the areas are regularly patrolled by Rangers. There will also be smaller towns that are built in these zones, and they number from several hundred people to several thousand, and they primarily work in agriculture.

Zone 1: These are areas that are shared with pokemon, and unless you have an experienced pokemon accompanying you or you have a training license you will not be permitted to travel in these areas. You are still unlikely to come across hostile pokemon, and some individuals have set up their homes there. Much of Kanto's agriculture is done in Zone 1 areas.

Zone 2: Slightly stronger wild pokemon, and at least one badge is needed to travel through these areas. Pokemon will be less likely to be familiar with human contact and so should be treated with caution, but the area should still be relatively safe. Some agriculture is still done in these areas in conjunction with local pokemon.

Zone 3: Three badges are required to travel through these areas. You can expect to find much stronger pokemon than you would find in Zone 2, and they may be more territorial. Caution is recommended as Rangers may not be able to respond as quickly because Zone 3 is at least several kilometres away from the centre of a route.

Zone 4: Five Badges are required to travel through these areas. It is recommended that pokemon are kept out at all times because wild pokemon may not give a trainer a chance to summon them otherwise.

Zone 5: Eight Badges are required to travel through these areas. It permits travel through nearly all internal areas of Kanto, though respect to the local pokemon's territory is still necessary as humans are only guests in these areas, so trainer discretion is necessary.

Zone 6: Open Division Badge required. This allows travel through areas such as Mount Silver and the wilderness between regions to be possible, but communication with the League and the pokemon that rule those territories is necessary prior to travel, otherwise it could be considered trespassing.

In a few months we would challenge our first badge and zone 2 areas would open to us, but until then we would be staying in zone 1, and our assigned Pokenavs would notify us if we strayed too far.

"Marcus, Ivy, I have something I want to tell you."

We had finished travelling for the day, and were setting up camp and gathering some dead wood for a fire. They had already picked five of their 12 pokemon with little of my input, but if I was going to make the most of my special ability to help my companions, then I needed to lay some groundwork.

Ivy looked up from where she was banging in some pegs to set up the tents, while Marcus shot me a quick nod without stopping as he continued picking up firewood.

"Yeah, what's up?" Ivy asked.

"Can we walk a bit away? It's a bit awkward to say in front of everyone."

Most of the pokemon were helping with camp, with the caterpillar pokemon using String Shot to drag sticks and kindling, and the two Abra arguing with each other about the correct way to set up the tents. Marcus shrugged and quickly dumped his firewood in the pile, and I led them half a minute away from the camp, before turning back to them.

"I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I'm pretty sure I can see how much talent a Pokemon has." At their blank expressions I continued. "I mean I think I can tell how likely they are to become strong like those in the open division battle we saw on Saturday. This made me wonder if you wanted me to… inspect future pokemon before you caught them?"

"What do you mean, and how can you tell?" Marcus asked, a frown on his face.

I thought back to how Misty had explained it, and decided to use her as my scapegoat.

"When I see the aura of a pokemon, it feels like I can see how the Aura flows, and during communication you can feel how quickly it understands you. I actually had this feeling with Pollux when I first met him, that I intuitively knew he was quite special, and then later when I ran into Misty the only reason I first started talking to her was because her Staryu and Eevee also seemed to have this same high quality, much better than any other wild pokemon I'd met besides Pollux. She also seemed surprised by how good my Poliwag was, and didn't expect it to be a wild pokemon.

"This is also the reason I chose my specific Caterpie, unlike the other ones his age he seemed aware of what was going on, and I felt that same special quality in him too, so even though he's a few weeks younger than most of the others I chose him."

Ivy raised an eyebrow. "I see, what about Chrysantha?"

Chrysantha was the name she had decided for her Caterpie. It was inspired by Chrysalis which would be relevant during the Metapod stage, and then Chrysanthemum when she bloomed into a Butterfree.

"She was the second best Caterpie I saw out of all those assembled." I replied. "That was the reason why I was honestly considering getting them both, despite the fact it wouldn't have been that good for my team composition. I'm not sure about your Pineco because I didn't have another one to compare it to."

"And what about Boxer?" Marcus asked.

I decided to go for full honesty, seeing that they could probably tell if I was lying anyway.

"Boxer was one of the best Weedles I noticed, though there was one a bit older that I felt might have been better, but that could also have just been because it was older."

"I think I know the one that you are talking about…" Marcus murmured under his breath, and I inwardly let out a sigh of relief seeing that what I was saying didn't seem too unbelievable to them.

However, Ivy spoke up a moment later, putting me back on notice.

"Even if you can tell talent, which is known to be a skill that can take a dozen or so years to develop, not a dozen or so days, then what does that mean we should do? It's common knowledge that compatibility is the most important thing for a fruitful partnership between a trainer and their pokemon"

I nodded awkwardly. "Yeah, that's how come I just wanted to let you know, and if you wanted to get my opinion on it then you could feel free to ask. I'm not going to give unsolicited advice, but I do think I've got a knack for it." While I talked I realised this might be a good time to broach another topic. "Also, while I know that in Marcus's case he wants team members that can go the distance in the Cups and Conferences, I'm not sure what your own goals for the Journey are? If you let us know, then maybe Marcus and I can work your plans into our own and even help you out, because right now you seem to be working around us?"

Ivy kept her face carefully blank.

"For now I'm pretty happy with the direction we are going. If that changes I'll let you know," she replied eventually, before exchanging a look with Marcus. "As for the pokemon? Well I guess there's no harm in running it by you first, but of course I'll reserve the right to make a final judgement."

She turned back to go and help the Abra with the tents, but Marcus held her shoulder.

"I've got an idea," he told her, before turning back to me. "You're pretty happy with the bugs we've caught right? There is a 3rd tier Bug-type Gym in Saffron, so we can show the bug pokemon we've caught to the Leader, and he can make a final judgement and we can see whether you do actually have a talent for picking pokemon by looking at the ones we picked."

I immediately nodded. "Sounds good to me."

Marcus nodded. "Sweet."

-break-​

"We're finally here." Marcus exclaimed with a heavy sigh.

"Indeed, hopefully after this we can stop being pokemon spectators, and finally start being pokemon trainers!" Ivy said happily.

It was just after noon on Wednesday by the time we arrived in Saffron, and while they were only joking, I knew that Marcus and Ivy were pretty sick of me, especially Marcus. It had started yesterday morning when Marcus had found a young Pidgey that was seeking a trainer, and Ivy also found a Meowth and was considering adding it to her party… until I had dissuaded them both from doing so.

The Pidgey had a Potential of 6.21, while the Meowth had a Potential of 5.87, which were both significantly lower than nearly all of the pokemon that I'd seen in the high level battles at Cerulean Gym. Perhaps they wouldn't have gotten short with me if that had been the only time it happened, but it occurred several more times over the course of the day, and Marcus had become increasingly frustrated, until last night he said we might as well get to the centre of the route and ride straight for Saffron, because there was 'no point in us slowly winding our way through the dirt tracks keeping our eyes peeled for pokemon, if none of them are going to get Ollie's nod of approval anyway.'

So this morning after we had our morning training session and finished breakfast, we put all our pokemon in their pokeballs and rode straight for Saffron.

The situation felt a bit unfair to be honest. It honestly seemed like all the pokemon actively seeking trainers were weak, and I knew that Marcus at the very least wanted the strongest pokemon that he could get his hands on… It also made clear how much of an advantage trainers like Misty, or trainers that had connections to other type specialists, had compared to the average trainer.

As we walked through the streets of the biggest city in Kanto, I admired the skyscrapers that towered over us. Something that was equally apparent here as it had been in Cerulean was that in this world free land was incredibly scarce, and so rather than cities sprawling outwards, instead they built upwards.

"Looks like it's still open." I said, letting out a sigh of relief when we arrived at the Bug-type Gym. It was awkward dealing with this uncomfortable atmosphere for half a day, so I was glad I wouldn't have to wait for tomorrow.

"Alright, let's get this over and done with." said Marcus brusquely, throwing open the doors to the Gym.

Due to the fact that it was only a Tier 3 Gym, it was not too busy at the moment. There was only one person working the reception, a bored looking man in his late 20s, and from the fragments of conversation that I overheard it seemed some were trainers from the year before us who were trying to get their 3rd badge, as well as a few trainers from our own cohort who seemed to think that the bug type Gym would be easy pickings.

I didn't expect anyone in our cohort would have much luck this early in the circuit.

Finally we reached the front, and the receptionist looked us up and down.

"Although I can't stop you, I strongly recommend you wait a few months before challenging a Gym Leader, rather than a few days," he said laconically. "So far we've had eighteen first badge challenges, and guess how many have won so far."

"None?" Marcus guessed.

The receptionist smiled. "Correct." He then looked at us again, then raised an eyebrow. "So then why are you here?"

"We caught some Bug-type pokemon, and we wanted to ask if the Gym leader could check them and see if they had talent." Marcus responded.

His face went neutral. "Why, are you going to throw them away if they aren't any good?"

"Of course not!" Marcus replied strongly, before turning and patting me on the shoulder. "One of our party members thinks that he has an eye for identifying talent, and has been stopping us from catching any pokemon that don't meet his lofty standards. He is happy with our two Caterpie and my Weedle, but hasn't been happy with much else, so our third party member and I are wondering whether we have turned away half a dozen good pokemon for nothing."

The receptionist looked at me. "Picky with your bug-types, are you?"

Before I could respond, Ivy interrupted.

"He is." She replied, confirming Marcus's statement, leaving me to give a nod.

The receptionist looked back to his computer and started typing away. A moment later he looked back up.

"Alright, Gym Leader Silas has an opening at 2pm and I've booked you in. Might be a good idea to come early because he only has a 1st Badge challenge, and I doubt it will go for the full allotted 20 minutes. I'll need one of your numbers in case something comes up, but I should see you in a few hours."

Ivy gave him her number, then we gave our thanks and walked out of the Gym. When Marcus had suggested the course of action I'd been happy with it, but now that the moment of truth would occur in just a few hours I was starting to get nervous.

What if he looked at the three bug pokemon I was happy with and said they were average, or worse than average? I had fobbed off half a dozen pokemon from my companions based on the fact that Misty thought Pollux had high potential, and I'd extrapolated that fact to mean that any pokemon that caught my eye would probably be special too.

I was still confident it did matter, but I wasn't sure whether the connection would always be obvious.

Once we were on the street I turned to my companions. "Hey, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about stopping you both from recruiting more pokemon. If nothing comes up from this little escapade, then I will never mention it again."

Marcus sighed.

"It's fine, and I honestly hope you're right. It just sucks." I saw Marcus exchange a look with Ivy, then he turned back to me. "If you are wrong, we've wasted a day or so, but that's not really the end of the world. However, if you are right, then how is that even fair? I've been able to sense Aura for a year, and I can't really tell anything," he then gestured towards Ivy. "And Ivy has been able to do it since she came to the orphanage too, while we literally saw you be unable to even feel Aura until about two weeks ago!"

I held my hands up defensively. "I'm just trying to help."

"I know!" Marcus took a deep breath to calm back down, then repeated more softly. "I know. I'm sorry." He looked around. "I'll meet you back here in a few hours, I'm going to do some shopping and sightseeing. You can have lunch without me."

Ivy and I watched him throw a leg over his bicycle and ride off, then she turned to me. "I know a good place to eat in Saffron that isn't too expensive. Hungry?"

I nodded, then glanced towards Marcus as he rode around a corner. I really hoped I was right.

-break-​

"Marcus is worried because he knows he will have to compete against people like you. Even though we all know some people have natural abilities, it's easy to dismiss when no one we know personally has one. However, when one of your close acquaintances develops a talent instantly after gaining Aura awareness… it's a different story"

We had ridden for fifteen minutes to a cosy ramen restaurant on the east side of Saffron which, like she said, was tasty despite not breaking my budget.

"And you?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, I'm on your team so I can benefit, can't I?" She replied rhetorically. "People with natural talents are rare, and they usually come from clans, but there are always a few new trainers with special abilities each year. If your talent proves true, then it will benefit me, but there could be some clans looking to recruit a commoner into the fold."

I blinked in surprise.

"What, like try to force me to go with their kids on their Journey?"

"No, more than that." Ivy replied, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"... adopt me?"

"No." She wore a sly smile now. "They'll throw their daughters at you. After all, breeding isn't only limited to pokemon."

I grimaced.

"No thanks, I'll pass." I answered, but Ivy just seemed to enjoy my discomfort.

I very much doubted the ability I had was genetic anyway.

After a moment I realised something. "What happens if word gets out there that I can tell talent? I don't want that kind of attention, especially if that is the reward."

Ivy dropped the smile and adopted a more thoughtful expression, drumming her fingers on the table.

"If you can tell talent, you should claim your ability is limited to Bug-types." she answered, and I remembered her answering for me to the receptionist, and I realised she had already been taking this into consideration. "Though there are some clans that specialise in bug pokemon, there are also a lot of commoners that specialise in bug pokemon as they are the most accessible, so the competition for talent is not too fierce." She then eyed me. "What do you know about the political landscape of Kanto and the League?"

I thought for a moment, first wondering why she would know so much about politics, and then about how I could respond without looking too ignorant. It was a hopeless endeavour.

"Not much." I admitted.

Ivy shrugged. "Guess that's normal. You know the rules for the pokemon that trainers can compete with during their Journey?"

I nodded, before listing off all the rules I'd read and discussed with Marcus. "In your first year you are allowed two pokemon that have been professionally bred, and after the first year Indigo Conference you are allowed to trade in an additional two pokemon that were originally wild pokemon from other trainers. You can substitute your bred pokemon slots for traded pokemon slots, but not vice-versa. You are also allowed pokemon from other regions, as long as the majority of pokemon you field in any given battle are native to the Indigo League. Bred pokemon mustn't be older than 3 months old at the start of the Journey, while wild pokemon are allowed to be an additional three months older than bred pokemon." I tried to remember if I'd forgotten anything and remembered something else. "Two of your wild pokemon are allowed to be up to a month older per Gym you complete as well, so if you catch a pokemon that's a bit older, or if pokemon that was born between late Spring and early Autumn and wants to join a trainer on a Journey, they will be allowed to battle eventually as long as you complete a few Gyms, but you won't be able to use them in tournaments against other trainers until after the first-year conference." I think I'd gotten everything, so finished with. "Everything requires the pokemon's consent, of course."

To be honest it reminded me a lot of how professional soccer, football or NBA players were traded around. There were exorbitant transfer fees that wealthy trainers would often pay to convince commoners to give up a talented wild pokemon they caught, and they would often promise amazing conditions to the pokemon themselves so even if the trainer was unwilling, the pokemon themselves would demand to leave.

"Everything you said is correct, those are the rules - but do you know why they are like that?"

This gave me pause. "I assume it's because that makes everything a bit fairer?"

"That is a part of the reason, but only a small part." Ivy answered with a knowing smile. "There are other more significant factors at play.

"Firstly, by having the majority of pokemon on a given team need to be wild pokemon, it encourages the integration of pokemon into our society, as trainers constantly and enthusiastically recruit wild pokemon into their teams, as well as increasing the familiarity and goodwill of humans into theirs. It's estimated that about 70% of wild pokemon that take part in the Indigo League eventually decide to go back into the wild, whether straight after the second year conference or years afterwards, and because pokemon that are professionally trained tend to grow stronger, it has meant that many of the territories surrounding Kanto are ruled by pokemon that were formerly trained by humans. Fifty years ago it was only about 1 in 15, while now that ratio has increased to over 2 in 5, and it's continuing to trend upwards.

"The league is much less likely to have problems or disputes with those territories, such as pokemon incursions and raids, or rampages due to poaching, and we have even been able to step in and mitigate natural disasters early and prevent situations where pokemon would flood out of a region into neighbouring ones, which would disrupt those territories as well and cause knock-on effects. We also benefit from increased trade as we can help organise berry farming or mining operations, as humans are much stronger at organising logistics when compared to pokemon so we can form mutually beneficial relationships. It has even caused less problems with the territories that aren't run by previously trained pokemon, because even if the ruler wasn't trained, then many of the pokemon under them - or even some of their relatives - were.

"It also encourages genetic diversity for domestic breeding, as due to surrogacy it requires minimal time investment from both parents, and the parenting culture for most pokemon is significantly different when compared to humans, in that it isn't considered abnormal for them to be left to themselves from the moment they are born or hatch. However, it can require a significant Aura investment by both parents for conception to occur, so there is some investment, it just occurs at a different time.

"So while the reason is ostensibly for fairness, there are good political reasons for these policies as well. Why are pokemon from other regions discouraged? Because those side benefits will be relatively negligible. Why allow trading and transfers if that creates a huge advantage for rich trainers? Because it looks bad if the bred pokemon are nearly always stronger than wild pokemon in the top teams. Every year there are success stories in the first year conference of incredibly talented wild pokemon carrying an unknown trainer with no backing into the round of 128 or 64, or even round of 32. These pokemon then get picked up by the scions of powerful clans for the second year of the circuit, and dominate as key figures of the top teams, earning lots of money and fame in the process, which encourages more wild pokemon to join trainers in the following years.

"Lastly, why allow breeding at all, if there are so many benefits to training wild pokemon? It is because breeding steadily improves the strength of the Indigo League itself, and the progeny are much more likely to be powerful pokemon when compared to the average wild pokemon. It is no coincidence that Ace Trainers, who have no such limitations on team composition, often have four or more members of their team that are professionally bred."

Thinking about Misty, it was pretty obvious her Eevee and Staru were bred pokemon, and started to see how unfair it was.

"It feels like people from clans have a pretty massive advantage. I assume that 90% of people going on the Journey are like us, and can't afford a bred pokemon."

Ivy shrugged. "That's why they put a stricter age limit on them, isn't it? The loss of those three months of development isn't insignificant in the First-Year conference, and in the Second-Year Conference they are competing against the cream of the crop of wild pokemon that has been concentrated amongst the elite, so it can still be difficult for them to stand out then as well. However, they are much less of a gamble, and allow a trainer to start planning their lineup much earlier, and be reasonably certain that they will develop correctly.

"There is also one more thing leveling the playing field amongst players - do you know what it is?"

I scrunched my brow in thought, but came up blank so shook my head.

"Pokemon Researchers. In Kanto professor Samuel Oak is the most famous, and the amount of information that he has released to the public has allowed those without connections to develop their pokemon so much more effectively than it would have been previously.

"It is easy to take it for granted, seeing he has been doing it for decades now, but in the past Clans were special due to knowledge passed down from generation to generation, as well as the connections their family had developed with the local pokemon. For a long time Clans were the only reason humanity could survive in a world with intelligent beings so much more powerful than ourselves, so their role in society as both leaders and benefactors was revered and respected. With Oak and other professors are working tirelessly to learn the best ways to help raise pokemon and help them reach their full potential, with much of this knowledge previously being restricted to clans that specialised in those certain types of pokemon, reducing their competitive advantage. However, it is far from doom and gloom for them. With the stability created by Samual Oak, many of these clans have been effective at leveraging their power and knowledge into earning wealth, and so still sit at the top of society."

I had learned a little about this during my research into the Gen 1 Gym Leader, and seeing a chance to flex my meagre knowledge, I jumped at the opportunity.

"I think I know something about this. The Evercrest family, Leaders of the Celadon Gym, are most famous for this, as they also have billions of dollars and own the Celadon Shopping Centre, which is the largest Shopping Centre in Kanto. I believe Erika is expected to be the next Gym Leader when the current Leader retires."

"Yes, they are planning to dump the responsibility on Erika." Ivy replied with unexpected bitterness. "For the mighty Evercrest family, running one of the Tier-1 Kanto Gym is no great honour, merely a tiresome burden that distracts them from their more prestigious commercial empire. No matter-"

Ivy was interrupted by her phone. She took a deep breath, then answered with a smile. "Hello, Ivy speaking?" As she listened her eyebrows rose. "…Now? …Yes, we can be there in half an hour… OK, see you soon."

"What happened?" I asked as soon as she hung up.

"One sec, texting Marcus." A few seconds later her phone chimed, and she turned to me. "The trainer that was scheduled for 1:40pm has realised his folly, and cancelled his booking." My heart started thumping as she continued with a smile. "Better finish your ramen quick, because it looks like you'll be up early."

---

Hi everyone, sorry for not delivering on Friday like I hoped, that's my bad. Most of my distractions are out of the way, so I am planning to be a bit more consistent with this. You can expect at least one more chapter this week, maybe two. Cheers!

 

[AshtonGray]

Thanks for the chapter, I was already starting to miss this story!

I love how complex and thought out your world building is, and how ready you are to go outside the established 'safe zones' of most Pokemon stories. It makes the story feel like a breath of fresh air.

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[TheHoneyPot]

I know he means well, but he did interfere with their natural journey. If he keeps doing so hes going to cause them to become dependant on him and not trust their own judgement along with a whole host of other psychological issues.

By not allowing them to make their own mistakes, he is essentially clipping their wings.

 

[ThinkingSlowly]

I know he means well, but he did interfere with their natural journey. If he keeps doing so hes going to cause them to become dependant on him and not trust their own judgement along with a whole host of other psychological issues.

By not allowing them to make their own mistakes, he is essentially clipping their wings.

Click to shrink...

I see your point, but I disagree. They are orphans and should use all the resources they can, because they are already at a disadvantage. They are not the main protagonist *ahem Ash*, destined to only meet strong Pokémon.

 

[CagedHawky]

I know he means well, but he did interfere with their natural journey. If he keeps doing so hes going to cause them to become dependant on him and not trust their own judgement along with a whole host of other psychological issues.

By not allowing them to make their own mistakes, he is essentially clipping their wings.

Click to shrink...

You do have a good point, and I will be careful.

I had a big response prepared for this, but in the end all I will say is that as some stage he will realise that while the numbers are incredibly useful, they aren't the be-all and end-all. The purpose of the Journey is to push your boundaries, experience new things, and broaden your world-view, and there is a good reason why it a universal part of this world's culture.

His companions have their own strengths, and they will rely on each other for different things, so I don't plan for this to become a one-man show.