Once Rune got the hang of flying I rode on his back as he flew us to Littleroot. It was strange being back in this small place after traveling across Hoenn. The air was fresh and humid with a heavy pine scent like I remembered and the place was just as quiet as ever. That changed a little when Rune landed as he kicked up a lot of dust and made a bit of a commotion. The people living here checked to see what was going on before seeing it was me and ignoring it.-

Birch himself walked across the grass with a smile "I see Rune has managed to evolve into a fine specimen of a Charizard since we last spoke face to face." he said looking rune up and down excitedly. "You'll have plenty of time to check out my whole team later , for now though I am curious to know how Tanks doing." I said as I recalled Rune. He shrugged "You can go see for yourself since he should be back shortly." he said casually. "You never told me he evolved." I said taken back by what he said.

Birch shrugged "He didn't want me to , not a hundred percent sure why though." he said honestly. "He probably thought that his weakness after evolving would make him drag down the whole team and wanted to make sure he could pull his weight. He's a prideful fellow after all." I said with a chuckle. "Yeah that tracks , did you know that the little fellow practiced harden constantly and made such massive improvements with it that I mistook him for a rock at one point?" birch said with laugh. "Oh? I wasn't aware that move could be used for camouflage?" I said confused.-

Birch nodded in agreement "Me either , it was an exciting discovery!" he said with a happy smile. "So how's May doing? Last I saw of her was back before I headed to Mt. Chimney and we had that whole fiasco." I asked curiously. "As of about three days ago she got her fifth badge from Winona and is making excellent progress on her pokedex. Normans kid is a better battler according to her though as she hasn't etched out a win against the boy since they started their journeys. Last I heard he just beat the twins , used an Absol with his Grovyle to sweep their teams." Birch said honestly.-

I wasn't surprised at all since if Brendan was half as talented as the games made him appear I didn't expect anything short of a meteoric ascent for him. "It's good to hear that the those two are doing becoming strong in their own rights , it'll make the tournament more interesting." I said with a smirk. "Speaking of that tournament the leagues been wanting to know the venue so they can properly advertise , they also want to know if there are any prizes for the two runner ups as is customary." Birch said turning serious.-

"Slateports not going to be rebuilt anytime soon right?" I asked and Birch shook his head. "Then why not hold it there? A tournament where the prizes are powerful and fresh faced pokemon would be an excellent idea to kick things off there." I said with a grin. Birch looked thoughtful for a moment before smiling "I can see the appeal , a fresh start for Slateport." he said clearly imagining it. "Yeah why don't we call it "THE NEW LEAF TOURNAMENT" Might even be able to have Mr. Stone revive these fossils I picked up on my travels to be used as prizes." I said smiling.-

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"Fossils? Which pokemon are they for?" Birch asked interested. "An ancient Wingull , an ancient Azurill and a Kabuto fossil. I was thinking that the egg will obviously be the first place prize followed by the Kabuto for second place and the Wingull and Azurill for the third and forth places. If I had another fossil I would make it so that the top five all walked away with something but no such luck. Actually now that I think about it you think Mt. Grey has any fossils?" I asked and Birch shook his head. -

"I have no Idea but I suppose you can use the next couple of months to try and find one if you want. Rewarding the top five like this is definitely a good way to help out the new generation of trainers though so I am all for the idea." Birch said giving me a thumbs up. We chatted for a bit after that before I saw a very large and bulky Butterfree fly out of the woods a little scuffed up but fine otherwise. Tank froze when he saw me "Free?" he said which roughly translated to "the fuck"?-

[Pokemon: Butterfree(Tank)

LEVEL:63

Skills: Aura(J)

Moveset: String shot(M) , Tackle(E) , harden(T) , confusion(A) , poison powder(E) , sleep powder(E) , stun spore(E) , gust(A) , supersonic(A) , whirlwind(A) , psybeam(A) , silver wind(A) , tail wind(A) , safeguard(A) , bug buzz(A) , aura sphere(J) , powder bomb(J) , juggernaut(J)

Variations: Defensive stage three

Attack:85

Defense:238

Sp. Atk:112

Sp. Def:215

Speed:150

Ability: Skin sling(A)]

"Gods damn dude what the fuck have they been feeding you?" I blurted out in shock at the status I was looking at. Despite looking bulky and having seriously jagged edged wings Tank looked like a normal Butterfree but this stat spread was anything but. First and foremost the sturdy bug had hit stage three for it's defensive variant and it showed with both it's defensive stats being WAY higher than I thought they would be. Second he was at Journeyman mastery of aura which was mind blowing on it's own but to top it all off his harden was at fucking transcendent mastery. I wasn't surprised about the rest of his masteries.-

Or even his two custom moves since Tank was literally my third pokemon and had seen how we trained and likely just trained on his own to the best of his ability following that scheme. Forget about him holding the team back he was only missing some skill in order to be able to go toe to toe with an elite pokemon. The bulky butterfly pokemon rushed over so fast that I had trouble keeping up with it "FREEEE!" he screamed happily as he bowled me over. "Ugh! Good to see you too buddy." I coughed out as that impact fucking hurt.-

After that Tank spend the next few hours talking about his evolution and what it actually meant to transcend a mastered move as well as filling me in on all the shenanigans he had been up to. As it turned out Transcendent mastery was not exactly different from mastered mastery but was a sort of personal enlightenment if you would about using the move as the foundation for a new superior move. In Tanks case he used harden as the base for his new juggernaut move that basically had the same effect but also raised his special defense by two stages as well.