For nearly three weeks, we walked to the beach every day and trained, with the weekends being days of rest. Since it was the city beach, it was well guarded and protected, so there was not much need to look out for wild pokemon. As such, Magikarp kept pulling the barrel with sand, with me slowly increasing the volume of sand inside and also practicing her Tackle against Squirtle, who in turn was training his toughness by taking it, and practicing how to take hits in a way that would minimize the damage. I often joined them in the water, at times being pulled myself or pulling me and the barrel at the same time.
We also would try pushing against me. I would hold her face in such a way that I wasn’t touching her eyes with both my hands and push against her. We tried it with my feet touching the sandy ground and while swimming. It was hard on my arms and back, but it was fun.
Magikarp had a surprising amount of enthusiasm for training and would persist even when Eevee and Squirtle started settling down. I had to stop her a few times, and I felt like if I let her, she would have continued until she had spent every last speck of energy she had, which was, of course, not great for training and her health.
I guess she really wanted the evolution to Gyrados, which, fair enough, that’s something I also wanted, but that would take quite some time. There was the unfortunate truth that while any Magikarp could evolve, not every single one would, and that was sometimes despite trying.
I hadn’t raised that point with her, because that was just too early to tell, not that I knew there was a way to tell beforehand. We would simply have to train and see. She was a hard worker, though, that’s for sure.
Which is why it had been fun when I had asked around the local fishermen if anyone knew of a boat that had sunk in the last few years relatively close to the shore, and there had been one. Locating it had only taken like twenty minutes for Squirtle and Magikarp, which had been rather fortunate since it was somewhat close to our normal training place.
I had shown both of them a picture of an anchor and told them to tell me if they saw anything close to it. When they signaled to me that they did, I instructed them to lead me there. Thankfully, it wasn’t too deep down, but by holding onto Magikarp and Squirtle, they both dragged me to the sunken fisher boat, right to the anchor. Magikarp was already wearing her harness, so I tied it to the loop of the anchor.
Because that was the next step of her training. Her job had been to drag that anchor to the shore and it had taken her over a week to do so, with me periodically swimming to her to untie her for breaks. It had been good training for both of us, but I was certain that she had gotten stronger. My notes did not lie, as they were showing a steady improvement. The instances where the anchor got stuck in a piece of rock or coral she usually was able to pull it out with enough force, although once she got stuck for over an hour.
It hadn’t helped that two Krabby’s had made fun of her which had led to a small squabble that Squirtle had to break up, much to his chagrin.
Outside of the water, when not running interference for his teammates, Squirtle had still practiced his dashing and Water Gun since the more we improved his stamina, accuracy, and power to use it effectively for the whole duration of the fight, the better off we would be.
We also practiced a few strategies, where we trained how to fake exhaustion, bait the enemy into attacking and lure them into a range where the Water Gun would be hard to avoid and deal a lot more damage.
Knowing that there are a lot of pokemon who would dodge by jumping in the air and leaping away, we also practiced shooting short bursts of water to make them commit to a jump and then immediately fire a full force Water Gun and try to hit them in the air.
Eevee had been the partner for that, and it had taken a few days to really get that down, but we also substituted her with Magikarp at times, who could jump rather high from the water. We entertained a few children who liked watching Squirtle try and hit the leaping Magikarp and Magikarp seemed to be the one to enjoy it the most afterward. Being pushed a few meters in the air by the water beams had been a source of joy for her.
Lastly, Squirtle learned Bite and Rapid Spin. Bite had been easy enough as an action, but it required channeling dark energy into his mouth, which had been the tricky part. It had been the lowest priority attack to learn, so he had only devoted the last hour of the day to it in those days, but he had ultimately learned it well enough that it would do some damage if it hit, which was of course the concern with such a close combat move.
Rapid Spin, on the other hand, would be his second main weapon, and this had taken the biggest chunk of time. By retreating in his shell, starting to spin, and then hitting your enemy with it was rather intuitive for Squirtle, but it wasn’t that easy to gain the necessary momentum, and it was even harder to actually aim while doing so. He couldn’t see while doing it, his hearing wasn’t that great and his sense of smell was also not the best. As such, we needed to practice using the move where he wouldn’t be easily dodged.
One thing that mitigated that huge disadvantage, was the fact that missing didn’t necessarily put Squirtle in a bad position. Since he was in his shell, which itself was spinning rather fast, he was well protected when using it. While hitting the enemy was obviously the most desired outcome of using that move, hit or miss, Rapid Spin did increase Squirtle’s speed. Moving and reacting faster was an advantage, and it ensured that his next Rapid Spin would have a higher chance of hitting. Not to mention that even missing can put pressure on the enemy, forcing them to make mistakes that we could exploit.
If nothing else, it was also a move that could be used to dodge and move about the battlefield in a faster and more agile fashion than sprinting.
We had only devoted a relatively short time to the Bubbles attack, mostly because it was a technique that came very easily to the Squirtle line. It did less damage than the Water Gun, had less range, and was a tad bit slower, but in return it could be spread a bit a more to cover a wider area, and it could reduce a pokemon’s movement speed. It wasn’t guaranteed, but it could happen.
Unfortunately, it didn’t have any battlefield applications, as the bubbles generated by the attack popped and disappeared really quickly, but it was still an option, even if Water Gun would be better in most cases.
We also practiced falling a bit, and for that, I had simply hurled Squirtle into the air, and he would try to land on his feet or at least pull back into his shell and start spinning. That had been quite entertaining, although my arms had been hurting after a while and I had needed some cold compresses.
The stern talking to by the resident Nurse Joy had been an unpleasant experience.
In other words, Squirtle had been going through very intense training, and at the end, the poor guy was rather exhausted, and he had more than deserved the two-day break I had granted him afterward, which he again spent mostly eating, sleeping, and playing in the Pokemon Center pool.
Eevee had also been rather busy. She had learned Baby-Doll Eyes, which had been particularly important to me, as it was a fairy type move, which would allow her to evolve into a Sylveon if she so chooses. Personally, I would be happy with either Espeon or Sylveon, and while one could try and tip the scale, it wasn’t a 100% guarantee either way, unless I managed to find a Sun Shard, which were exceedingly rare and expensive and not really an option. Unlike its elemental versions for the fire, water and electric evolutions, which might not be common and cheap, but at least you could find one in every big city, and it was at least affordable.
There were no bad eevolutions though, so I didn’t particularly worry about it. Flareon, Glaceon, and Vaporeon were also very desirable picks. Even the others weren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination.
By itself, Baby-Doll Eyes wasn’t that special. It was basically a Growl that required eye contact, which could be faster against pokemon who could see, which was most of them, or worse against pokemon who could not, and there were a few. The one advantage was that it was a fast move and the enemy couldn’t generally do anything about it, and they would suffer a reduction in their attack power. They could do something immediately after, though.
What we needed to practice was that if the enemy decided to blitz Eevee when she was using that move, she would be able to dodge that incoming attack. Even if the attack was weaker, Eevee was still not exactly a tank. Ideally, if the enemy was coming close, that would be the moment where Eevee would be greeting them with a Sand Attack, but it can be difficult to swap from one attack to the next, especially while facing the pressure of a fast opponent rapidly approaching. So, for now, jumping to the side or even over the enemy were options we needed to pursue.
So, during their joint practice hours, Eevee would try to dodge Squirtle’s physical attacks and ranged attacks. Once she got the hand of it, we even tried to combine it with Squirtle’s Rapid Spin training, which had been a lot more difficult, for both of them. For Squirtle, before the attack got going, he needed to retreat into his shell and gain the necessary momentum, which would give Eevee enough time to dodge. On the other hand, once Squirtle had that momentum, it became a lot harder for Eevee to get away, and we had a few visits to the Pokemon Center to heal the bruising.
During her solo training, we kept increasing her general stamina, speed and accuracy, while also improving her proficiency with Sand Attack.
She also improved her Quick Attack, and it took a while to really get that down. Quick Attack was one of those core-moves that was considered one of the more dangerous, especially since it was so common and accessible to a lot of pokemon. True to its name, it was very fast and the pokemon using it usually stuck first, unless both pokemon used it, in which case, the faster pokemon managed to connect first.
The problem for Eevee was that while reasonably fast, Eevee was still not exactly a speed demon, like Espeon would be. The bigger issue was that Eevee weighed six or seven kg. A small creature like that, going fast to hit the enemy with their body weight, well, there were a lot of pokemon who would mostly shrug that off. A bigger or faster pokemon could gain enough momentum so that a Quick Attack would really hurt and against enemies roughly the same size, that would also be true for Eevee, but she didn’t really have an answer for bigger enemies.
So, our training had also involved trying to learn Iron Tail and Swift, but so far, she hadn’t gotten either move down. I know that Eevee’s can naturally learn Swift once they are ready and strong enough, so it might just be too soon for her. Iron Tail was a bit of a different beast, but hardening your tail was not the best instruction. We had put the practice mittens to good use, and had Eevee hit it with her tail, and later on with Tackle and Quick Attack also, and while she was small, she was still a pokemon, and it wasn’t exactly easy for me to take the attacks like that. Still, I managed, and it was good training for Eevee, especially as I kept moving the glove, which also improved her aim and reaction speed.
It was rough but rewarding.
I had checked the prices for TMs and both, Iron Tail and Shadow Ball were a bit out of my price range for now. That would also have to wait. While we both had been a bit disappointed, the weeks of training had improved her speed and stamina considerably.
Another issue I wanted to correct, something that I had only considered a bit too late, was that my pokemon, for all their training, were still woefully inexperienced in actual combat. They fought each other a lot, so they got some experience, but training was not the same as real battle. Not to mention, that there are so many different types and attacks out there, that they need to fight as many as possible, so that in matches where winning really matters, they know how to best react to the situation and are not overwhelmed by something they have no frame of reference to deal with.
The same applied to me, of course. The trainer was hardly a passive observer.
And lastly, the final aspect of the training we needed to tackle was the actual strategies. They needed physical strength, speed, and stamina, that was true. They needed to use and wield their attacks and skills, the better they could use them, the more dangerous they would be. And of course, experience in order to know how to best approach various enemies.
But once those foundations were laid, or at least, we were actually trying to lay, we needed actual strategies and tactics.
Shouting attack names or giving brief orders at the moment was all fine and good, but there was only so much you could do during the heat of battle.
The fact was, 70% of a pokemon battle was fought before the pokemon set a paw inside the ring. Raw strength and shouting attacks would only get you so far. It could get you very far, to be fair, but only until you ran into someone who knew how to work around the strengths of your pokemon beyond shouting an attack of the type your pokemon is weak to.
So, we had some things to plan. While it was possible to plan concrete strategies against specific pokemon, like those of the Gym Leaders, Elite Four, Champion and a few of the higher level battlers, simply since theirs were well known, there were hundreds of pokemon and having plans for each one would be…ambitious, to say the least.
As such, what we were doing was to go for certain strategies against certain types of pokemon. As in, if a pokemon we were facing was X, we would do Y and Z. It wouldn’t be awe-inspiring genius, but it would mean that in most cases, we would always have something to do that might overcome the enemy.
Of course, that might not work every time. Quite often, trainers weren’t idiots and would train against the obvious counters to their pokemon. Which is also something we would incorporate into our training schedule. Squirtle needed a way to deal with electric attacks, for example, or pokemon who primarily inflicted status effects. Don’t get hit, as an idea, could only get you so far, after all.
The best way to do this was to have my team huddle around at the beach, with a carefully flattened part of the sand ready to be drawn on. Eevee and Squirtle were watching carefully, while Magikarp was sitting in a bucket filled with water I had borrowed and was peering over its edges.
I had a stick in my hand to draw, and I tried my best to not overcomplicate things. “So, first things first, Magikarp. I’m sorry to say, you will mostly be using the oldest attack stratagem in the world, but thankfully, it is the type of old that makes it a timeless classic rather than outdated. You have one job and one job only. You will rush the enemy in a direct line as fast as possible and slam your body, the upper part of your head, where your body is at its hardest, into the enemy. Nothing more, nothing less. It is the exact kind of play that is unfortunately easy to counter, but I’m not gonna lie, buddy, but you don’t have many other options. Naturally, if the enemy attacks, if you are not committing to an attack, you should dodge by swimming in a zigzag. If you are committing to an attack, well, then this is gonna be your judgment call, because I won’t be able to see underwater. It will be your decision whether you take the hit, power through, and slam into the enemy, or you dodge and abort the attack and swim around for a bit before you once again try to attack by gaining speed.”
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Magikarp let out a questioning howl and jumped a bit, splashing a bit of water out of the bucket. It was enough that Squirtle felt the need to add a bit again with his Water Gun.
“Are you asking why you have to abort the attack?”
She nodded energetically, once again splashing water, which made Eevee move to my other side, after shooting Magikarp a cross look.
“Well, you won’t have enough oomph to hurt most enemies otherwise. Honestly, even with it, might be cutting it close. Besides, a lot of pokemon you will fight will also be a lot more dangerous at close range, so you don’t want to be within the reach of a Tentacruel’s tentacles or a Goldeen’s horn. You will need the speed.”
Magikarp looked a bit sad, as she let out a whine and slipped back into her bucket.
I gave her a smile and gave her a soft pat on her hard and wet head. “Don’t worry, girl. You know this is only temporary. Once you evolve, all the pokemon we have to very carefully approach for now will be significantly easier for you to deal with. I know that’s not that much of a consolation right now, but that’s what we have to do. So for you, it’s all about speed and strength, so that when you do hit the enemy, it deals enough damage. Do pay attention, though. I want you to also learn what the others are going to do because once you evolve, this will be important as well. The strength of a Gyrados is tremendous, but it’s not invincible and if you don’t use it correctly, it will mean our defeat.”
Magikarp gave a nod and managed another splash inside her bucket, making Squirtle sigh and top it up again.
“Thanks, buddy. Well, as to you two, you know that you are different types of fighters for now, but you will still need to know all the tactics and tricks we will employ. So, firstly…”
And the next two hours were spent hunched over our little piece of sand, hoping my pokemon will be able to memorize keywords which then will make them act and move in certain ways.
It won’t be easy, and we will have to train to actually execute those moves later on, but making them understand the theory first was the hard part.
xxx
A few days later, we mingled a lot with trainers outside the Pokemon Center. While there wasn’t that big of a training scene in Hop Hop Hop Town, there was no place in Kanto that was completely devoid of pokemon trainers looking to battle. So, finding trainers who wanted to fight was often as simple as making eye contact.
While it was fun, our record was not as good as I would have liked. We lost pretty hard against a trainer who used a Magnemite who really ruined our day. Its metal body had been hard to hurt with the techniques available to us, and its electric attacks had been powerful enough to put Squirtle down uncomfortably fast. While Eevee had been able to avoid most Lighting Bolts, she had not been able to keep dodging forever. There had been a trainer using two surprisingly annoying Zubats, and another trainer who had used Pidgeotto, and we had to learn that for now, we were not that good at dealing with flying types, at least those who had ranged attacks.
Waiting and countering when they came close was a risky option, and unfortunately, in these cases, our gambles had not paid off.
Those three losses had cost me a big chunk of my money, which had made me worried about not having enough for supplies. I had taken one more match, though, and that had been the turning point. Both Eevee and Squirtle had been pretty angry about the losses, and had thrown themselves into the next battles with an extreme fervor. So, when the new trainer had opened with Farfetch’d against Eevee, she had been able to perfectly dance around him, lowering his attack, defenses, and accuracy, and then whittling it down with Quick-Attacks and Tackles. Squirtle had lucked out and faced a Vulpix. While the type advantage had helped, the trainer had not been ready for the Water Gun hitting Vulpix hard and fast enough that it was too dazed to do anything about the Rapid Spin that hit it right in the side, sending it flying and knocking it out.
That had given us the much-needed boost in confidence, motivation, and cash. We had won two more matches, lost one, and then won three more. Overall, it wasn’t the perfect match-history of my dreams, and I wasn’t swimming in money which would allow me to buy the TMs I wanted, but we had rebuilt our wallet to the point that it would be more than enough for supplies and food, and give us time to look for quick, well-paying jobs that might provide enough funds for the TMs.
More importantly, my pokemon had come out of this with more battle experience and knowledge of a few more pokemon types and the sorts of attacks they might use. Even Magikarp had managed a mock duel against a Goldeen with another trainer in the Pokemon Center pool, even if he unfortunately lost. No money was bet, since it had been more of a cooperative training exercise disguised as a duel than an actual trainer battle, but that had been nice of the older trainer. We were still at the beginning of our journey, but now, after the three weeks stop in Hop Hop Hop Town, I felt we could continue, with our foundation being firm enough to build upon.
Of course, training and battling hadn’t been the only things we had been doing. I also had taken the occasional job. It had mostly been about getting rid of minor pokemon who were annoying local shop- and restaurant owners, who wanted rookie trainers like myself to do so for cheap. Those had been mostly boring and didn’t really offer much training. Most Raticate were scared away easily and didn’t usually fight. The one notable instance had been a battle against a rather enthusiastic Muk, who hadn’t so much wanted to fight as it had wanted to play. The smell had been terrible, and it had taken an immediate wash cycle and shower to feel clean afterward, but honestly, it had been kinda fun. I had thought about catching it, but they were just so difficult to keep, and I am rather sure Eevee would have revolted if I had done so.
The other kind of job had been courier work, and my bike had been rather useful for that. It hadn’t been stressful, which had been a worry I had. Since I didn’t know the city at all, it took me a bit longer than it would have taken a resident, but no one had any complaints. The pay was decent as well, and I felt that after winning a Gym battle, I would have enough money to buy a TM or two and still have enough money left over for supplies and losing battles for a bit.
I also had done a favor to Professor Oak, who had wanted me to check up on a researcher who was living in the outskirts of Hop Hop Hop Town, who apparently had been two weeks overdue with reporting in. The professor hadn’t seemed too worried though, since that was apparently par for the course for the guy, who fell into these research holes where he forgot the whole world existed and was only able to sustain himself with the help of his neighbors who had taken it up to themselves to make sure the guy didn’t kill himself.
It had been an uncomplicated visit, and it had taken only an hour to solve the issue, which is that he had apparently misplaced his pokecom ages ago and had been unable to find it. So while the professor and he had talked by using my pokemon, me and Eevee had combed through the whole house, only to find the damn thing in a half-empty cereal box.
I was just glad it was something so trivial and nothing more drastic. The whole thing took only a few hours, but the professor had been grateful and told me he would definitely be shooting me more of these sorts of jobs.
I used the opportunity to tell him that I would be interested into courier missions to other regions where one has to simply go to deliver something or pick something up and back to Kanto, especially if the transportation was taken care of. There wouldn’t be many of those, but even just one might give me the chance to capture a pokemon in a different region.
Still, I was happy with things as they were. I even had kept Florinda Showers updated with regard to Eevee’s training, and while there hadn’t been any new information, she had been content enough to receive it if the small 500 pokedollars she sent over were any indication.
xxx
The dangerous thing with a bit of surplus money was that you were very tempted to immediately spend it in very unwise ways. Especially when you were calculating future winnings which you did not yet have and which were very much not guaranteed.
I knew this, and I was still eying TMs in the high-end shop which had the biggest selection of TMs in the city. Hop Hop Hop Town was no Saffron, which was rumored to have a store that had a copy of every TM, but the selection was still rather generous. Unfortunately, the prices were rather hefty as well.
6000 for the cheapest TM. That was the price for 30 pokeballs, or two full restores, and the TMs I was interested in were over 10 000.
This was also, unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of being a generalist. Generally speaking, pokemon of one type had a lot more overlap with regard to what kind of moves they could learn, so any TM you bought, you were guaranteed to get some value out of it by being able to apply it to several of your pokemon, if not all of them.
I was aiming for variety, which had its advantages, but there was a reason that a lot of the best trainers were type specialists. A skilled generalist was a nightmare to face, but it took them longer to reach that level. Not that being a type specialist was easy, far from it, but it had advantages for the earlier and mid-stages of one’s development.
Which was all well and good, but didn’t quite help me resist the impulse to buy Shadow Ball right then and there. Eevee would really benefit from a ranged attack, and it was such a good one. But it was so expensive, and it was literally only useful to Eevee right now, and it was such a bad idea.
Apparently, the inner conflict was playing out on my face, because that’s when I was approached by an older girl.
Taller than me by a head and a year older, with short, black hair, wearing red and blue shorts and a t-shirt, with a rucksack slung over her right shoulder. And, of course, she had four pokeballs attached to her belt.
She had walked up to me, with an easy grin on her face. “You do know these are rip-off prices, right?”
“Don’t think other stores are that much cheaper,” I replied, turning to face her.
“Oh, not shops. You should always buy these from other trainers who won’t need theirs anymore. They always demand less, and quite often you can get away with trading TMs, unless the price difference is too big, in which case there is some additional payment.”
I perked up at that because I had heard of exchanges between trainers and that wasn’t forbidden or anything, but there was always a risk because you could only use a TM so many times before the memory imprinted on it faded away. Oh, you could absolutely use it on your whole team if you so wanted, but as far as I knew, after eight or ten uses, or after a year or so, the TMs lost their power.
That’s why you’d time your purchase of a TM correctly. The good thing was, the pokemon never forgot the move they learned. That’s why getting it from another trainer was risky. For all you know, you might get one or two uses out of it, if at that, and there would be no recourse. And that wasn’t the kind of cheating that got you put on a blacklist, simply because most of the time, the trainers themselves didn’t know, because they had bought the TM themselves from another trainer, and so on. You might get a perfectly good TM for half the price, or even less, or you might get some that wouldn’t work or only work once.
But I guess, for me, that could work, since for now, I would need for the Shadow Ball TM to only work once.
“Are you trying to sell me something?” I finally asked, not sure where else this conversation was going.
“Ah, not quite,” she replied. “Well, first thing, the name’s Mint. And I was less trying to sell you something and more scouting out if you were open to maybe purchase a TM together? We would be splitting the cost, then we teach all the pokemon we have who can learn the TM, and afterward we sell it back to a store and split the money we get. How about it?”
Oh, that was of course a different matter, and quite a good proposal. Sure, I wouldn’t own the TM afterward, but unless I was willing to pay outrageous sums for the permanent models, that wouldn’t have applied to me anyway. Teaching my pokemon essential moves for half the price was a fantastic deal.
“Which TM did you have in mind? Oh, I’m Green, by the way.” With that, I extended my hand and Mint shook it, a relieved grin on her face.
“That’s cool. Well, I approached you because you were looking at Shadow Ball, and that’s a move I’m interested in as well, since I have two pokemon who can learn it.”
“I have only one, so far, which is why I was mostly just looking at the prices. Wasn’t actually planning on getting one right now.”
Mint nodded, her smile not faltering, “I get that, don’t want to pressure you or anything. It’s just that not many people are open to this kind of thing, preferring to buy them on their own, so even if you don’t want to buy one right now, how about we trade numbers, so we can do so in the future, maybe?”
I had no objection to that, so exchanging numbers was done quickly enough.
“Nice,” Mint said, putting away her pokecom. “So, where are you going next? I take it you are also on your journey?”
“Yeah, just stared a few weeks ago. I’m going to go to Celadon next, but not sure if I will go to Saffron or Fuchsia after that.”
“Well, that works for me, since I’m also going to leave for Celadon in a week or so. Still have some business to take care of here, and then I’ll be leaving for Saffron City. Maybe we can make things work around there?”
“Sure, would be great.” I paused for a second, “any other TMs you are interested in?”
“Protect,” she immediately answered, and yeah, made sense. Protect was one of those no-brainer moves. It wasn’t always super useful, but most pokemon would be better off having learned it, since there are always situations where you can’t dodge, and being able to negate one enemy attack could invaluable, even if the power of Protect strongly diminishes with each use in one battle, so you could only really count on it once.
I would also love Protect, but that would be foolish to get now as well since Squirtle could learn it on his own, Magikarp couldn’t learn it at all, and it would once again be something just for Eevee whereas it would be better to wait until I had more pokemon, so I could teach it to my whole team.
“That’s a good one, and I would be open for that as well, once I have at least a full team. Although the problem there might be, that it might just not last for the teams of two trainers.”
“Eh, it should still work out, but we might be unable to sell it once we are done with it since it would most likely be used up. Would still mean saving money while also improving our pokemon.”
There was that, of course.
“Yeah, it’s something I would at least try. Still means saving money. We could take turns, and see how far that takes us.”
She nodded, “Exactly,” she said, “Well, this was cool. I will call you in a few weeks or so? To see where we are and stuff.”
“Sure, sounds good.” With that, and after a bit of small talk, I left the store, with my new…contact, I guess was the best word, choosing to remain behind, probably wanting to find another person or two for this.
It made sense, not everyone would want the same TMs, so the more people you had for this, the more TMs would be open to you.
I don’t think I would be looking for others, but I would be open if I was approached. Maybe Mint would have a sort of network or already had it, so that could be useful.
That was something to keep in mind, but it was nice to know that buying TMs had gotten a bit easier. I would have to time and plan my journey accordingly, but it was at least an option. Shadow Ball would be particularly useful, and it would be the one I would have to work towards first, since Saffron was a gym I’d have to conquer in a month or two, and when I did, I wanted Eevee to have mastered Shadow Ball already. Sabrina was not known to hold back that much, and ghost-type attacks were an obvious but effective strategy.
I released Eevee from her pokeball, and knelt down, allowing her to jump into my arms, and I gave her a quick cuddle. I could tell how people walking past me were giving us amused looks, but I didn’t quite care.
“Hey, girl, you have to wait a bit for Shadow Ball, but I promise you, it will happen sooner rather than later.”
Eevee gave a happy squeal, burrowing her face into my chest. I stood up, Eevee still in my arms, and started to walk back to the Pokemon Center. I needed to grab a few more jobs, since now that money might yield more TMs than I had initially planned for.
The Pokemon Center wasn’t very far away. Only a roughly ten-minute walk which had extended to a twenty-minute one, because we had stopped to grab some ice cream. Thankfully, there was such a thing as ice cream for pokemon, so while I unfortunately couldn’t offer any to Magikarp right now, at least Squirtle and Eevee enjoyed a bit each.
In the following days, I did many more courier missions, and on one of those courier missions, I learned something that corrected a piece of misinformation I had initially believed. Well, kinda.
I had thought there wasn’t a gym here, and I was sort of right, in that there is no gym that rewards a badge that qualifies one for the Indigo Conference and access to certain areas and jobs. However, there is a former official gym, that had been able to do that until it had lost that privilege to the new coming Gym Leader Surge nearly a decade back. I hadn’t known that these places were still operating and were actually getting a bit of funding from the League.
They weren’t official Gym Leaders anymore, but they still helped the city with wild pokemon and still had a position of authority in their communities, even if it was a diminished one, compared to the eight official ones. They were certainly less in the limelight and didn’t get nearly as much attention, but they were still operating, and you could challenge them in order to get a badge. Only, the badge was mostly symbolic, but it did look good when you had them, but only if it was in addition to the main badges. If you only collected these side badges, people would regard you as someone too weak and cowardly to go for the main ones.
That was a bit unfortunate, but since I was already here, fighting the resident gym, even if it wasn’t a main gym, was rather tempting, since that would just mean more experience for my pokemon.
They were also giving out reward money. It wasn’t much, only 2000 pokedollars compared to the 5000 of official gyms, but that was still enough that it would make a difference to me.
I had decided to do so at the end of my stay, so, after another two-day break, freshly supplied and everyone in perfect condition, we left for what was once the normal type gym, in order to win the Steppe Badge.