Before I can leave Celadon I have one thing left to do and that is to enter the Celadon Department Store to obtain groceries and TM's.

...So I guess I have two things left to do before I leave. Oh, also, Elian is here as well and he's really giddy about his win against Erika. He forgot to get a travel pillow and some other stuff for traveling.

Walking towards the building I can easily see why Celadon is prideful of this building, I mean it's gotta have at least ten floors.

[Mom, do you think I should buy a shirt or something?] I text her.

I wasn't really expecting an answer but she sent a cute baby sticker with the word yes so I guess I kinda have to now.

Entering in there seems to be the regular grocery store but a sign says that if we go down a floor we can find kids clothing so Elian and I promise to meet up on the fifth floor were the TM's are.

...I guess I now have three things to do. Me and my big head.

We are allowed to keep out small Pokemon inside, so long as they aren't fire types or rowdy, so I keep Tabs and Ralts out to spend some time with the two of them on account of the fact that Professor Oak needed Tabs for some research and how I was training Beedrill and Chardon together and needed Leaf for my winning team.

Tabs seems to take a liking to all the clothes I pick but Ralts wants me to choose something in a pink or purple tones so I put a couple different shirts over my chest before we collectively decide to take a white and pink striped shirt with an Audino over it just cuz. Mainly because it's on sale and I probably really need to save cash for the TM's I'm gonna choose. I also take a cap that can be altered to fit Ralts head or my own and a little cape for Leaf, even if she is at home right now.

Putting it all into a shopping bag after heading to the checkout, I head over to the fifth floor using the stairs mainly to talk with Ralts and Tabs since it had been a while since I saw either of them.

Once I stepped got off the stairs and looked around, I was immediately gobsmacked by the sheer selection of TM's here, entire rows were filled with moves ranging from most popular like Flamethrower or Surf or the highly coveted Giga Impact and Hyper Beam. Though my three picks wouldn't be any of those it was still interesting to browse and see what the moves were, some were really cool like Protect or Detect while others were interesting like Rain Dance or Misty Terrain.

I currently need either power, utility, or a wildcard for some of my Pokemon.

Once Elian arrived with a bag holding some thick gloves and other stuff we picked the TM's we wanted. He picked Protect which was really smart of him while I picked up Agility, Double Team, and Thunder Punch. All my TM's were reusable aside from Agility so they cost more than the quintessential move that Elian picked, it's probably for Dill or maybe a Pokemon he has an eye out for.

He payed for his and I paid for my own before we went downstairs to the ground floor to pick some ingredients up, those and emergency rations in case we run out.

Only after that was finished did we begin to leave the building, heading over to Elian's house cuz his friends wanted to give a farewell/celebration party for him that I was invited to.

It's a really fun party and even the reserved Beedrill and Lupa were having fun hanging out with some of the more solitary Pokemon though it took a bit before people were comfortable petting and playing with Tabitha, on account of her being a bug type, but other then that little kerfuffle it was a very nice party.

The cake is nice. It's an ice cream cake, the cherries on top were my favorite part.

After the party though we headed off and began walking over to Route 7 so that we could challenge the really dangerous Lt. Surge, a monstrous trainer who doesn't hold back any punches even against newbie trainers and a man who's entire battle style is based around power. I couldn't wait to get off the route so that we could take a short cut towards Vermillion city mainly because my grandpa lives in Fuchsia city.

The walk is probably gonna take a week at any rate so I made sure to input the TM for Grass Knot for Leaf so that she could practice it and speed up the activation time of her other moves with and without combining them, though at this rate we'll only have really fast trios and quads for like really weak moves like Growl and Baby-Doll Eyes which can be useful for debuffs.

Pearl is also gonna be with Leaf, mainly to practice Confuse Ray and Aqua Ring and training up her general control and power so that she could learn moves like Muddy Water or Hydro Pump.

Once we leave the check post and enter the actual beaten path do I notice Elian slightly shaking after looking at the abundant trees in front of us.

"It's gonna be okay dude," He nearly snaps his head to look at me. "remember that you can send out Dill here if you want, I was thinking of keeping out Beedrill, Ralts, and Tabs."

Those words seemed to ease him as he immediately palmed his red and white colored ball and released the little Oddish.

I released my three and put Ralts on my backpack to do some general psychic training. I'm probably gonna have to research what general fairy training might be but for now I'm thinking on focusing her psychic powers to learn the aptly named Psychic which can allow a Pokemon to pick up any other Pokemon that isn't a dark type.

Tabs meanwhile is just gonna practice Bug Bite and Struggle Bug since she got Bug Buzz down and doesn't really need more practice on her other moves. Beedrill is mainly here to coach my bug type even though their relationship is somewhat cordial at best.

The bug type is my only evolved Pokemon and he knows Bug Bite so he's bound to help now that he knows I can make him stronger, he doesn't even complain about training anymore now that he's not a Kakuna which was a major upside that I'm still getting kinda used to.

As we start walking a little bit off the beaten path, to train on the go, we start meeting tons of trainers throughout the day and a lot were willing to battle against me. The toughest battles at most were people with two badges this early on but there was a girl who got her third badge this season and, other than that girl, I won all my battles while Elian had around a 50/50 win rate. Though, he was starting to get his groove in battling and won most his battles in the later parts of the day.

By the time the moon was shining in the sky I called for dinner and some night training, making sure to train with my team, before we have dinner.

It was relatively simple; I just did some push-ups, some jogging, jumping jacks, and a bit of tree climbing while the team was practicing their moves. Dill was by herself since she needed to get Mega Drain down before she could practice Giga Drain and judging by the green light that was barely getting brighter the more she practiced it seems like she's gonna get it down relatively soon, maybe not until we reach the next town.

Ralts is practicing with Beedrill and Lupa to get down Double Team since my psychic type can make one illusionary clone that doesn't look too wonky while the other two can barely make even a blob in their relative shape come out. Double Team is gonna be super important so that's their main priority before learning any extra moves, but Ralts has a bit of a head start from when we first arrived in Celadon so I'm fine with giving her Grass Knot to practice with Woody and Thunder Punch to practice with Chardon.

Speaking of Chardon, he's over by himself, like Dill, practicing Metal Claw and perfecting Dragon Rage which is a bit difficult since the moves takes a really long time before you can use a different dragon type move naturally so unless we made it a finishing move it probably won't see much use; I also made him challenge himself by using Dragon Rage on nearby marked stones and Metal Claw on marked bark so even if he doesn't master those moves he might learn Cut or Slash or maybe Dragon Pulse hehe. The last one is probably unattainable but who knows.

A loud crash just behind me makes turn my body around, from where I was doing squats, and witness Tabs dropped on the floor with a worried Woody next to her. Those two are meant to practice Rollout which is a pretty difficult move for most Pokemon that aren't rock types... which explains why Tabs has a bruise with a relative size to the tree bark that's indented next to her. I take a minute from my exercise to console and cheer up Tabs and before you know it, she's up and rolling again. Woody also seems to be enthusiastic especially since I think after this he's gonna try to learn Grass Knot and Mimic to finally evolve.

Once my training is done, I do some cooldown stretches that mom taught me before relaxing for a couple minutes. Taking my mind off the exhaustion I'm just texting friends and playing chess online, I keep losing whenever my elo goes past 700 but that's okay, all while listening to some dnb music.

Once some time has passed I make Ralts continue practicing her 'sky tactic' while Beedrill tries to get Agility down and Lupa tries to learn Bite. Woody stays near Ralts so that they could practice Grass Knot together and Tabitha is with them practicing Reflect, more for future plans than anything. Chardon meanwhile is with me so that I can actually cook meals with his tail acting like a stove while he tries to breathe fire out his mouth and get Thunder Punch down. His fire coming from his tail doesn't have the intensity to shoot out powerful moves like Flamethrower or Fire Blast so I'm trying to come up with exercises for him to use his flame sac, it seems like a mental block thing so I might have to wait for him to evolve.

I'm thinking soup.

Elian then approached me with a kind of questioning gaze.

So I gazed back.

He blinked so I win. "Hah winner, winner we'll be eating chicken for dinner. Since I'm making soup, I already have it precut."

His expression then turns confused as he say the eloquent word "What?"

I blink a bit before realizing who I was facing. "Oh sorry, I thought we were doing a staring contest, my bff Amy and I would randomly do them and if I won she had to eat whatever I make but if she wins I have to make whatever she wants or it could be for turns on who uses her dads gaming pc or whatever else the winner decides. Sorry, I know you're not her but, like, I have muscle memory to keep my eyes open whenever somebody pays extra attention."

Elian shifted a little, one boot rubbing the other, before saying "...Well I did come over to ask about what you're cooking but I also wanted to know how you do it."

"How I do what?"

"How do you like take care of your Pokemon and train them up and remember their moves," me tilting my head clearly doesn't work as he then looks at me and say" like I know that you have that notebook where you write down movesandstuffofyourteambutIwasalsowonderingbecauseyouclearlydon'tplanonnotcatchingmorePokemonandwiththewayyourgoingaboutthingsitwouldseemlikeitwouldbenearlyimpossibletowinontypedisadvantageeverysingletimebutyoudoitinboththegymbattlesbutalsoagainstregulartrainersand, like *Gasp*, youcouldhavewonagainstthatgirlwiththethreebadgesifyouhadtypeadvantagebutyoudon'tandit'sstillworkingforyousoIguessmybigquestionis; how do you handle training up so many Pokemon when I could barely keep up with training Krabby and Dill?" By the end of it Elian was taking big breathes from talking so fast but clearly it has the attention of everyone present as my team all stop practicing to look at me.

I put the spoon I was about to stir the pot with on my chin "I guess its cuz I'm pretty good at multitasking like, uh, before my journey I was part of this karate club after school, the gaming club during lunch, I went to school early as a member of the agriculture club and it was our duty to water the plants around our school and the crops at the roof of it, I learnt cooking in my free time and I still found time to play with Leaf and my friends. So I thought that if I could do all that and still find time to relax by reading or taking naps, then I was sure that I could handle taking care of multiple Pokemon at least more than the traditional team of six you're supposed to have for the league championship. But when I tried to train wild Pidgey and Rattata or my mom's Pokemon- well- none would listen to me.

So I went to Professor Oak- because he's basically, like, the Pokemon guru- and I tried asking why they wouldn't listen and he said "Pokemon listen to people they are willing to spend their lives maybe traveling or staying at the same place until they both grow old." and then got an idea for a haiku. Soon afterwards he started showing up to school and showed us how different trainers had different varying strengths and sizes of teams that they had. I then had the idea to train as many interesting Pokemon I met and to train them up to be as strong as champions if I ever did the gym run.

So I guess you kinda have to find out exactly how many Pokemon you can take care of by yourself. It's just a matter of when not how."

Elian was mindlessly rubbing Dill's little belly as he digested my words. I have to add the veggies in the soup and as I put mushrooms in it Elian nodded before heading a bit away to continue training with his partner, Dill was taken away after giving me the stink eye about the mushrooms.

My Pokemon all do the same, Ralts took some carrots and Chardon roasted some corn, and once more we all do what we need to.

"Hey, did you read the newest comic of detective danger?"

Elian nods and smiles "Yeah it was sooo cool how they introduced Shan the conqueror and then they decide that he's actually helping them out, I mean that's crazy cus for the last thirty issues Shan has been villain numero uno and like its absolutely bonkers with epilog-"

----------------------------------------

I should say that the next couple of days were boring, mainly cuz of the walking, but they did have interesting bits in between.

Because I didn't have any gyms or tournaments planned, still have that Everstone, I could take as many battles as I wanted which half the team was ecstatic about; even if Beedrill, Chardon, and Lupa didn't like to really show it. I think they have a rivalry thing going on.

My entire team was racking up wins with more and more ease as we continued traveling along the road. And with the way that Chardon took to it with more gusto, trying to put more power and energy in his battles, kinda notified me that his evolution was practically any day now. The only issue was that Ralts was being the total opposite and becoming less energetic about battling, which is surprising since she likes battling, any attempts that I try are met with expressions of wanting to still battle so that's honestly an issue for when we get into a city and I can have a heart to heart on it with a Pokemon translator.

Speaking of Ralts and battling, due to the amount of times I've had to send my Pokemon back into their balls to naturally heal I've changed Ralts's (Ralts'? Raltses?) plan to now focus on Life Dew; a great move for double battles, some sustain for her, and helping the team out after battles. Plus Mom's Starmie knows the move and it feels sooo good having the rejuvenating water splash onto your face.

The weather forecast on my Nav says that there's a chance that it might rain today; not heavy rain but like a decent amount, like an inch or two of it.

Elian was even more serious about battling but he knew when pushing Dill into more battles was detrimental so I didn't need to give him any heads up. I think he wants to have Dill evolve but honestly the grass type should only evolve when she starts prepping for her third badge or after the second, somewhere in that line. I said as much but he still wants to try to train her up enough especially considering that Dill is actually like four years old which is practically a teenager in Pokemon terms. Pokemon are classified as babies if they're three months or younger, and some species have even less time as babies due to the rapid maturity that they may obtain with key examples being dragons, ghosts, steel, and psychic types.

Do I want a dragon type? Probably not unless its something calm like a Dratini.

Anyway, my team seems to be getting their new moves down even if they are a bit clunky at times.

The third day of our off-road traveling is the one where I have an idea of what my team is capable of especially with half the team being close to evolution.

So I take a stick and I draw an X on the ground which has the entire present parties attention, except for Beedrill who got sent away to stop a dispute between a Fire type and a group of probably Pidgeotto.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Moving left of the X is a straight line that's parallel to the X, then one more left is a circle, and once more is another parallel line, then circle, line, circle, and a final line before taking out a pokeball.

Sending out Lupa, who got a pretty nasty hit from a grass type, I wait for Beedrill before beginning a debrief of my new and improved 'battle plan 2.0' now with new additions and ideas.

I also give Elian my nav to record my big tactic speech to Leaf and Pearl and any future catches, with Dill on the side practicing Venoshock

Tapping the stick to the X on the ground and maintaining eye contact with my entire team I begin "As you can see this is an X," other a huff from Beedrill and a chuckle from Woody there isn't any talking so I continue "this X represents an opponent in a battle," now I have Beedrill's attention "and these lines and circles are going to represent roles and the type of battlers you guys are going to be when facing off against opponents."

Where I had everyone's interest I now have their attention. Each of them are practically giddy in anticipation of what these roles might be.

Moving the stick to the left once I begin once more "This line here is meant to represent a Pokemon that will be a wall, can take lots of damage, dish some back, and will break any momentum that the opponent may have had previously if she hasn't already been sent." Immediately Chardon and Ralts knew something was up once they heard she "She will stop opponents and her main role will be to ensure that the opposing trainers will have to counter their main plans around her whenever they want a serious battle. She will almost always be sent first and she will almost always make the battle harder for the opponent. She is the tank, the wall, she is Tabitha." I flourish the stick to point at her as I finish.

Suddenly the spotlight is on Tabs, the Pokemon who I unfortunately spent the least time with as she had to be with Professor Oak for a research thing, and immediately she looks at me with a startled expression.

"Now the reason why Tabs is the wall and the reason why you guys and Pearl and Leaf aren't is because Forretress, the evolved form of Tabs, is a known tank and Tabitha herself is pretty tough already; being able to take hits from Chardon and Lupa better than Beedrill before he uses Harden or Ralts before she puts up both screens. With the capability to learn Reflect, Poison Spikes, Spikes, Stealth Rock and Toxic alongside Forretress's natural ability to withstand almost all attacks except for fire type moves; Tabitha will be the Pokemon that I will always trust to start a battle once we go into the conference." By the end Tabitha seems to be happy crying again before giving a big sniff and nodding with determination in her eyes.

I smile before moving the stick to the left again, and now everyone on my team is waiting with anticipation about the circle "This circle is meant to be three Pokemon that are clearly meant to battle up close to their opponents and leave no room for them to prepare or defend themselves," the battling trio are practically giddy about this role and are giving the other two side eyes "these three can have some long range options but they will almost always have speed and strength hand in hand and only use really powerful moves if I, or they, think that they can use them."

"The first is Woody," my starter and his two rivals look at the small rock type in shock but I continue on "Leaf," now the three are exchanging side-eyes since they clearly want this role, despite there being (1,2,3,4-) 7 roles available and they haven't even heard 5 of them yet "and finally Lupa."

The rocky canine is jumping for joy like he won a marathon while Beedrill and Chardon are now sitting in a corner really glum.

"I'll explain this role first before going into Beedrill's role," that causes the poison type to perk up slightly "now the key thing about this role is that the three I mentioned are going to be training so that they are impossible to beat up close but they will also be training so that it's impossible for the opponent to be too far away. They'll use moves to increase their speed and Woody will be the only one with the option to increase his defense. The key thing to note is that Leaf already has a clear cut plan I've already got for her and Woody is not only a close range fighter but he's also a sort of wildcard, uh, but I will need to talk with Lupa about what Lycanroc form he wants to evolve into since one form has speed while the other form has power and gives a lot of dark moves. But that's for later once we're in a town and I can actually research about Sudowoodo and Lycanroc."

Tapping the stick to the second line which Beedrill paid rapt attention to "This is a disruptor which is a Pokemon that severely hinders opponents but also takes their time when doing so. The opponent will typically not suspect the disruptor other than thinking that they're annoying but what they won't realize is that the disruptor is critical in breaking the opponents Pokemon, as many as this role can face off against. Beedrill is in this category since he's currently learning Agility, Double Team, and pretty soon Fell Stinger now that you've evolved. You should also learn Toxic like Tabs and Venoshock like Dill is trying to do but those are plans for later. The disruptor doesn't learn flashy or powerful moves but you will take down the opponent however long it might take, that I can promise." Beedrill nods and even though he's got really a lot of really tiny eyes, it's kinda easy to see the fire in them.

The stick moves onto the second circle "This category is a mid range fighter which is what Chardon and Pearl will be." Chardon nods in understanding but doesn't do much else. "This role can fight from up close and from far away and they have the luxury unlike the past two roles to use really powerful moves such as Solarbeam for Chardon as coverage against rock and water types or Blizzard for Pearl against grass types. But you will also have really strong moves of your typing. The key thing is that you two will be able to have enough space to set the weather and I'll be training you guys so that you can always find time to use a buff and or debuff move. No status moves except for maybe Fire Spin and Toxic cuz I've heard Clamperl can learn that over in Sinnoh."

The stick moves over the third line and instead looms over the third circle. I note that Ralts stiffens up somewhat because she knows that this is addressing her.

...

"That's all for now," she snaps her head up "the last three are long range disruptor which will be a Pokemon that can stand not being close to the opponent like a Whimsicott, the circle is a long range fighter like Gothitelle or Glalie, and the final last is a long range wall like Slowbro who handle hits but mainly stays away. Elian, mind passing the nav over?"

An uncomfortable silence dawns on the group as they realize I skipped over the last three roles and didn't touch on one of my Pokemon. Elian notices the uncomfortable atmosphere but he hands me the nav nonetheless.

"Raltts can I talk to you for a bit? In private please." I specify and now she's shaking slightly, the others start protesting against me doing whatever I'm going to do. She walks to me though, slow steps but they're still taken nonetheless.

I walk a bit away from the others until I know I'm out of their earshot.

I take a deep breath and decide to adress the Copperajah in the room.

"Is something wrong Ralts?" she shakes her head in denial "Then how come you've been scared to battle?" She freezes up.

I sigh a little, more from her thinking that she could hide it "I'd just like to know what I'm doing wrong so I fix it and make things right with you. Am I training you wrong?" She looks at me with wide eyes before rapidly shaking her head "Then do you hate battling because if you do then that's fine, I'll still be your trainer if that's the case, and we could try contests or you could be a companion in our travels." I take care not to say any negative words like 'just' or 'I'm not mad' but she still shakes her head.

This is gonna be a tough pill to swallow "D-do you not wanna be my Pokemon?"

She teleports and tackles into me... crying now but shaking her head nonetheless.

I whisper as soothingly as I can to her, one hand rubbing the blue hair and orange spike thing. "Then what's the problem?"

She takes a few seconds to stop crying before her body is outlined by psychic energy. Slowly something comes into view.

My Pokédex.

Before I can question it she opens the dex and her little hands type away on the keys.

A mechanical blurb is said out loud, she must have toggled the function. 'Kirlia the evolved form of Ralts, the emotion Pokemon. It is said that a Kirlia that is exposed to the positive emotions of its Trainer grows beautiful. This Pokémon controls psychokinetic powers with its highly developed brain.'

It takes a bit before I come up with the correct question.

"Do you not want to evolve?" She nods, rapidly, vigorously, and looking down all the while.

"Okay." I reply nonchalantly.

She snaps her head and looks at me incredulously; which causes me to laugh.

"If you didn't wanna evolve you could've just asked. You saw how I was fine with Leaf not evolving into a Sylveon, I'm fine with you not evolving. Plus it doesn't change your actual battling style at all, instead it makes me prioritize it over other training plans I had for you alongside a couple minor revisions for the future." With every word, Ralts was beginning to look more and more hopeful. "Plus, I wouldn't be a good trainer to you guys if I forced you to evolve, you know. Pearl doesn't wanna be a Huntail even though I could have evolved her in Celadon since Deep-Sea Fangs are wayyy cheaper than Deep-Sea Scales, so I won't evolve her into one. Oh that reminds me, let's head back now." my wording on the last sentence got her curiosity.

When we head back into camp it's like there's pin drop silence. Tabs, Woody and Chardon show the most emotion but to my surprise even Beedrill is worried. Lupa seems to be napping probably to continue recovering from our latest fight so I don't know his opinion.

I look around before saying "False alarm guys, Ralts just doesn't wanna evolve." I then head over to my backpack before retrieving a thin floss and loop it around a little rock, and add a couple other colors into it just for craftings' sake. Once I look away from the project I head back to Ralts who's still looking nervous.

Bending down causes her to shut her eyes and stiffen but when nothing happens she opens them and looks towards her left hand.

A left hand with a friendship bracelet holding an everstone in between.

"Now whenever you want to evolve later down the line, all you have to do is take the bracelet off." It takes a couple seconds for the words to compute inside her head before it snaps up to look at me, but she puts a hand on the back of her neck since she's been doing that a lot lately. Then water falls down her cheeks.

I flail around a bit trying to see what's wrong but it turns out she's doing a Tabitha and giving happy tears because not a moment later she smiles and hugs me.

Oh right "Uhh, if any of you don't wanna evolve then just tell me and I'll get more everstones okay." I say with a thumbs up.

Everyone just looks at me dumbfounded about something, which makes it feel like I made a mistake somewhere. Oh well.

Wait that reminds me "Ralts? Why were you freaking out about our talk anyway, couldn't you have checked my emotions or mind or something?"

She looks at me and slaps a hand on her head before putting signing the numbers one and two. Huh, she could've checked my mind. Sweet. That means silent tactics in my head when she battles. Mondo cool.

Anyway I probably should talk about her role now... since she won't be turning into a Gardevoir and much less a Kirlia I guess she isn't a long range fighter anymore but instead a long range disruptor. She'll probably have to learn Hypnosis, Confuse Ray, Dream Eater, Will-O-Wisp, and a couple other moves like Disable because she won't have as much power in her moves. I say as much to the team and they all decide to look past whatever was the weird thing and started talking with each other. Lupa even woke up when I was talking about Ralts' (What is the plural of Ralts anyway?) role in the team, which kinda makes me think he wasn't sleeping at all.

Her actual training plan hasn't changed but some moves will be harder for her to learn later down the line so I really need her to practice molding type energy once she learns enough to be a menace in the battlefield. She'll also need to increase her durability and running speed since she won't get the natural benefits of evolution to better handle hits in the future plus Double Team works better for Pokemon with speed to their name.

...Dad did have a Ponyta on his team.

He always felt warm.

Anyway, after telling the team and sending the video over to mom, so that she could show the bits for Leaf and Pearl, it was kinda time to begin moving again since we were only gonna rest our feet for half an hour and practice. The Nav says that we're practically right beside the next town so it stood to reason that we could walk even during the night to register to their Pokemon Center.

The walk had us encountering a few other trainers who were willing to battle but they sadly informed us that it's still gonna take half a day to reach HopHopHop town. The battles had Ralts in all of them and she was showing more passion in them than ever before, which was great, and she managed to perfect the 'sky tactic' in the last one which had her win against two different Pokemon and severely weaken the Pidgeotto who managed to find Ralts up in the air and quickly knocked her out with an Aerial Ace. Honestly, everyone on the team was ecstatic about battling once they heard their roles and the only one who didn't get a chance was Beedrill simply because Tabitha knocked out the Pidgeotto and won. Also he needed to sleep early so I kinda forced him to do so beforehand.

Actually my entire team needed rest after the intense battling and the only ones who had enough energy to deny it were Ralts and Chardon. One was happily kicking their legs while sitting atop my backpack and the other decided to walk with me the entire time.

By the time we decided to hunker down and have dinner it had already been midnight. There was a bit of trouble where Pokemon were being scared from a Snubbul but once I explained that that was the way he looked the nearby Pokemon, which were mainly Poliwag and Oddish, tried to befriend him and as thanks we got some neat berries.

It was only when it was time to sleep that I noticed something coming our way and dangerously fast.

"Elian move, somethings nearby." He groggily listened to me and we both sent out kept our Pokemon close to us.

The bush on our right began rustling.

Now our right.

Then out of nowhere powder was suddenly above us.

"Ralts use Reflect and Light Screen and box us in!"

The psychic does so and in a flash purple screens are reflected all around us, illuminating the surrounding field alongside our campfire. Looking at the spores its easy to tell that they're sleep spores by the white and green coloring.

From the light we saw small little orange bugs, each of them having two small mushrooms growing on their backs.

I took out the Pokédex for a second to see confirm in case they were dittos, the dex then showed the information:

Name Paras Type Bug, Grass Ability Dry Skin

The ability was all I really needed listed.

See, Paras typically lose consciousness once they evolve due to their mushroom but it was noticed that Paras and Parasect with the Dry Skin ability would have shriveled mushrooms that were too weak to hijack the evolution process especially in Alola where the climate is extremely hot and humid; that was actually where they found this out. Apparently the mushrooms already knew about it or got tipped off by scientists because it caused a big fight between Parasect that had Dry Skin and Parasect that didn't and even now the Parasect without will, without fail, attack and try to kill the members of their species with that specific ability and attempt to destroy any eggs of those specific members.

Dry Skin means that the Parasect that is leading them has a consciousness but it also means that Chardon can handle them. My rule of not using type effective Pokemon put to the wayside when there is actual danger involved.

"Ralts open up one wall. Chardon head in and fight, fire moves will be really really really effective okay so don't use them a lot since just one hit might knock them down." Any energy he might have expended in the previous battles was seemingly recovered once he noticed he was fighting against a Pokemon he was naturally super strong against. He knew that meant this was serious.

Elian orders Dill out as well to box a Paras, probably to catch it once I relayed the ability to him.

There were a dozen little bugs that were trying to hit Chardon with Scratch or Absorb or something else but they all got knocked to the wayside by uses of Ember or Metal Claw since it could deflect moves better than Fire Punch. Some did hit him and on any other day it wouldn't matter but so soon after a tough battle the shallow injuries were piling up and would lead to exhaustion.

Pretty soon, after Chardon had already demolished all the current Paras and Elian caught the one that Dill successfully used Venoshock on, the big kahuna of the Paras had appeared.

With semi-translucent eyes it was clear that this Parasect had control over its body and could therefore strategize. It looked at Elian and myself before focusing on Ralts, Chardon, and Dill who were the only three out.

It sprayed some powder out, except this was laced with multiple colors, and charged Dill only to immediately disengage due to an impromptu Fire Spin from Chardon's tail.

Ralts could only keep the barriers around Elian and myself because it was too dangerous for us to breathe the spores so Chardon, who was too far away, unfortunately inhaled some of them and looked a little purple. Good thing I have a couple antidote sprays in my bag but I can't actually use them since my starter is too far away.

"Use Acid Spray!"

"Position it and fire an Ember, then get in close and Metal Claw to hook it." The upside of being poisoned was that Chardon couldn't be affected by most other status effects but poison was the deadliest of them all so I had a clock ticking over the fire types head.

The Parasect moved once more with the glow of bug energy and moved in a zig zag formation that caused Dill to miss the globs of poison it fired off while Chardon had a similar experience with Ember; moving close Chardon countered what was likely X-Scissors with his steel move using one fist while the bug type used both its pincers. Being slightly pushed back by the momentum and not being able to put his all into stopping the attack due to the poison in his veins, Chardon got slashed on his chest by the not very effective move. His already bruised body was thrown back with a very deep cut into his scales and it was taking his all just to get back up.

"Finish it off Chardon!"

He snapped open his eyes and roared- the first I've ever heard from him- and raged, orangish aura surrounding his body as he jumped back up. Poisoned and tired all the while but clearly he obtained a second wind.

Blaze. This was Blaze? Vali's Fennekin didn't have nearly as much a change in power or her aura when she obtained it.

Whatever. Fight now, think later.

"Use Fire Spin to cut off an exit then use Fire Punch!" I'm yelling. Why am I yelling? Why am I sweating?

Chardon used Fire Spin, the move flowing above the bug types head before running down and blocking off any escape points for our opponent.

With nowhere to go but forward, Parasect charged Chardon with a normal type move which was probably Scratch yet it looked far stronger. Undeterred, my fire type retaliated the move with a far brighter Fire Punch; the flames a bright red with splashes of orange mixed in between as he matched and subsequently overpowered the opposing Pokemon.

Parasect, noticing that the fire was getting brighter the longer time went on, tried to move back but Chardon grabbed both pincers in his now steel infused claw before letting loose the strongest Flamethrower I've witnessed. His mouth ajar as bright orange flames came barreling out of his throat and straight towards the dry skinned opponent.

When he cut it off, all that was in front of him was a charred and far too damaged Parasect. It had fainted though.

I screamed in delight. He roared in acknowledgment.

Bright light encapsulated his form.

By this point Ralts had let down the barriers protecting us so I ran straight at my starter.

The light had barely faded before I tackled him. Our bodies tumbling down to the charred grass and dirt with us laughing because of the amazing job of my starter.

Eventually we both unraveled from our hug and stood up so that I could take a look at him.

His orange scales became a dark red and his white belly changed into a creamy color.

With a horn on his head and an elongated nostril Chardon had a smirk on his face but his muscles were still clenched... oh right he's poisoned, I'm literally an idiot for forgetting gosh darn it.

I run over to my bag to administer him with some antidote but it was plain to see that the damage had still been done.

So I asked Elian if we could just skip sleeping and jog to the nearest city, which he was perfectly fine with doing most likely due to the incident that almost got us captured and, in a worst case scenario, maybe killed.

I noticed Ralts still standing where she was previously when the Paras infiltration tried attacking us so I motioned for her to come along.

She teleported onto my backpack and Elian and I began walking towards the next town.

"So... what kinda dessert do you wanna eat for catching your first Pokemon?"