"Cmon kid, wake up!" I heard a voice annoyingly kick me out of dreamland and back to reality. My eyes fluttering open to spot a middle aged woman standing in 'my' doorway. It was finally the day I would go on an adventure and leave this orphanage for good. I groaned, picking myself up and out of the bed I had slept in for 8 years, counting down the days until today.
"I'm up, I'll be gone by 12" I dismissed her as I collected my belongings. I had gotten most of my things together yesterday so there wasn't much I needed to get done. I went and spent some time in the shower before fixing my hair up into a ponytatail. Lastly, after getting dressed I decided to check to make sure I was truly ready for the journey.
I went through my mental checklist one last time: Backpack, extra set of clothes, socks, sleeping bag. "Oops, almost forgot one thing." I went over to my nightstand and opened the top drawer to grab my necklace. The light blue teardrop shaped stone glimmered as I put it over my head. Now, I was ready to go.
Putting on my backpack, I made sure to grab Snorunt's pokeball from atop it and fasten it to my belt. Past that I walked out of my room, giving it one last look before closing the doors for what would be the last time. I then walked down the stairs and exited the orphanage, my plan being to go to the Pokecenter.
It's not an exceptionally long walk, Sandgem had recently became a city but everything was still small in scale. Right next to the Pokecenter, there was an ongoing battle on the dirt field between a Steelix and a Tentacruel. Though I fought my instincts and passed by it in entering the Pokecenter. Luckily, there wasn't a line to the front desk.
"Can I register for the gym circuit?" I went up and asked the nurse joy at the counter, me eager for the process to be complete.
"Sure! I'll just need an ID and to see your Pokémon." I handed over my fresh trainer ID and the pokeball containing Snorunt. The process went by quickly and I was handed a new case for any gym badges I may obtain.
"Thank you!" I waved at the nurse and proceeded to leave the Pokecenter. One item richer than I was before. Yet now I had something I had to think through. I did the first step to starting the journey, but I hadn't trained at all and should really get the badge from Sandgem before going north.
"I might as well consult my team member on this." I had left Snorunt out of the process so far, and I should of made sure my teammate was included. Seeing this, I walked over the the practice area next to the pokecenter. After finding a location not taken up by any trainers, I opened up my pokeball and released Snorunt from its confines.
"Hey dude! Sorry I haven't talked to you since we reached the orphanag-" My apology to Snorunt got rudely interrupted by a snowball to the face.
"Sno Sno Sno!" The pokemon was laughing after doing such a devious act.
"Ha Ha. Anyway, we're already on the same page on taking down the league. Yet we need to fact the first hurdle: Sandgem Gym." I explained to the pokemon who seemed to of started taking this seriously.
"We are not strong enough to beat the Gym yet, so we need to get stronger. I'm going to have you decide what we do, stay in town and train, or go into the wilds and get some experience first." I spoke, watching the pokemon ponder the two choices it had been given before holding up one arm.
"Option one then?" I got a nod in response and smiled before pulling out my pokedex. 'I should of done this earlier.'
I used my Pokedex and had it scan Snorunt for all of its information and trust me, there's a lot.
Species: Snorunt
Gender: Female
Strength: ☆
Abilities: Ice Body [Possible: Inner Focus, (Hidden) Moody]
Moves: Leer, Double Team, Powder Snow, Headbutt, Astonish, Spikes (Egg Move)
"You're a female huh?" I thought aloud and was met with another snowball in the face. 'I deserved that one.' I gave out a sigh and started coming up with a training strategy.
"Okay, Leer is pretty useless for us right now, Double Team and Spikes are a ferocious duo though..." Snorunt seemed to of gotten bored while I was thinking and started messing around with her moves. Though this did prove very helpful for my planing.
"Snorunt!" I called her attention away from the mess she was making with the snow. "I think the most important moves for beating the gym are Double Team and Spikes. Let's see those moves from you before I make any final decision." I told Snorunt to use the two moves that should be taking us to victory. Though they were somewhat underwhelming.
Spikes proved to put 4 different spikes onto the field before the move had to be reused to get the max damage from 8. Any more uses after that and 4 previous ones essentially evaporate. Double Team was a bit better as 3 other copies were created in the first use. After that, an infinite amount of uses seemed possible. Power points definitely got in the way and there was a diminishing amount of returns.
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This did prove to be enough to complete my training plans. Spikes could be better, yet it and Double Team weren't especially weak. Especially as we would only be fighting a zero stared Pokémon and a one stared Pokémon in the battle. Powdered Snow is the only direct attacking move that Snorunt knows and is also super effective against ground types.
"Alrighty, I've got it down. Snorunt, you will be training Powdered Snow. Work on bringing the temperature down to increase the likelihood of Freezing the opponent." I gave out my explaination to Snorunt, and within a few seconds I saw her vigilantly working on Powdered Snow and Spikes in-between recharging Powdered Snow. 'I guess I'll do some exercises, I don't want to just watch without doing any work myself.'
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"Lord, that was too much." I was sitting down now, watching Snorunt work on her moves. There had been a visible increase in power from when we started. Powdered Snow had increased in its size. It had started at covering around 3 feet of space infront of Snorunt, now being about 4 feet of space. Spikes as well, had gotten more powerful with it now creating 5 spikes per use.
Snorunt's progress was admirable compared to my pitiful attempt at exercise. 'I'm going to stick with researching the types of Pokémon I'd want for my team.' Breaking this cycle of me besting myself up, I decided that it was around lunchtime and we might as well eat up.
"Hey, Snorunt, let's eat a bit before we continue training." Snorunt ran over from her training at the mention of food. Reaching into my bag, I pulled out a bowl and some Pokéfood, me portioning out food before letting Snorunt eat her food. Though she did seem somewhat bummed out at the sight of Pokéfood.
In interest of saving money, I pulled out some cheap rations I had bought for the journey. 'Might as well get used to them now.' Luckily, they were essentially filled with salt so a bottle of water let me finish eating that monstrosity. Looking around after my 'meal' I saw that the training fields were filling up. Interestingly, a good amount of my fellow graduates had gathered in a corner and were battling it out.
"We should go over there and get some battling in, how about it Snorunt?" Getting an enthusiastic response, I packed everything into my bag, returned Snorunt to her ball, and started to walk over. There were a few smaller battlefields that they had drawn out, they were even taking turns refereeing. 'It would be best to battle opponents that are similar in strength.'
"Hey Flor!" I heard a familiar voice calling out to me. I was able to spot Albert coming out from a group of the students.
"Hello! Didn't expect to see you here." I called back, us meeting next to one of the battlefields.
"Me neither, though now that we've met, how about we have a battle between us!" Albert rushed out his intentions fairly quickly. 'I was looking for a fight anyway.'
"Sure, got an open field?" I responded, looking around to see about 10 trainers just loitering around, watching the battles.
"Yep, those guys are just waiting around for their pokemon to heal." He motioned me to follow him and proceeded to grab one of the people sitting around to referee.
"One on One friendly?" I asked him as we got into position.
"Yup, normal rules besides that." Getting that dealt with, the referee went into the middle of the field.
"All parties ready? Begin!" We both released our Pokémon, telling them to ready for battle.
"Spikes!" I commanded Snorunt to set up the stage hazard, the Spikes spreading around snorunt, acting as a defence against his Pokémon. Looking across the field, I saw a Cubone ready to battle.
"Rush in, start with some Leers." The Cubone followed suit, visibly using power to decrease Snorunt's physical defences.
"Double Team then finish Spiking the field!" I gave my commands and multiple Snorunt clones formed on the field, Snorunt began to charge up the second move as Cubone started to get dangerously close to her.
"Use Leer, then Skull Bash" Snorunt's defence decreased once again, though we both freaked out at hearing the egg move Skull Bash. Luckily, the second Spikes went off before Cubone could attack, and it then disrupted the charging of the move when it formed a defensive wall.
"Spread out, be ready to freeze!" Snorunt and her copies began to take up shelter between the first set of spikes. Cubone had just then gotten around the wall and used Skull bash immediately on one of the clones.
"Damn, start rushing down the clones with mudslap." Albert changed his orders and Cubone complied, though Cubone was stuck in place after using Skull Bash.
"Reveal yourself and use Powdered Snow!" Snorunt came out from behind the spike that had been closest to Cubone and fired off its ice type move. 'We're both going for the K.O. now...' I grimaced as I saw Cubone still standing after the Powdered Snow and now it wasn't impacted by Skull Bash.
"Skull Bash!" The Cubone began to charge the stronger move up a bit, giving us some time.
"Headbutt!" I called out, Snorunt glowed white and jumped at Cubone, both of them colliding. A plume of dust then surrounded the area as the ref went onto the field to see both Snorunt and Cubone knocked out.
"Damn, that was close!" Albert withdrew his Cubone while I recalled Snorunt. Us then meeting in the middle to shake hands.
"I certainly didn't expect Skull Bash." Skull Bash is rare, especially as an egg move.
"I didn't expect Spikes either, while we're at it, let's go heal up so we continue training." We went over to the Pokécenter, talking about the battle and what we could've done better.
"I should've seen that you were trying something with those leers, False Swipe was definitely not the move you were going for." Hindsight is 2020, it is difficult to try and plan for an impulsive friendly anyway.
"It's certainly not a move you would expect in your situation, can't blame yourself for that." We collectively analyzed the battle and before we knew it, we had given our Pokémon to nurse joy to heal.
"I guess this is why we make such good friends." I commented on how we had picked up a conversation just like that.
"We've known that! Besides that, I'm interested on whether you are going to specialize or not." Albert came at me with some terms I hadn't reflected on much.
"Maybe, specializing in ice types has been something I've dreamt of before." I had always liked the cold and this reflected on my type preferences.
"You might just come around to it, with the sponsorship and all the help I get. I'm planning to specialize as a ground type trainer. Though most of the other trainers haven't chosen that route." Once again, Albert made me jealous of the sponsorship that he got.
"I didn't prepare as well as I could for the journey as well, things could change. Yet if I were to specialize I would likely add a Shelder to my team from the beach and use a Cloyster." It wasn't a bad idea to get a water type as well before hitting the Gym.
"If you go there wanting to specialize, I'd look out for Crabrawler, Seel, and Spheal down on the beach." He easily rattled off three pokemon that I was now interested in
"Damnit, you got me! It would be so cool to have a Cloyster and a Crabominable!" I gushed over the possible teammates. Albert gave ne smug grin as he 'converted me' into becoming a type specialist. 'Alls well that ends well I guess.'
Sinnoh is about to get colder.