Sol should be okay, if my research was accurate. A leak should heal by itself, actually, but I had to be sure.

After explaining the situation to Nurse Joy, I handed Sol’s pokeball over to her. Damn, this sucked. The tiredness I had felt from Sol right before I put him back was… terrible. And I still felt like my body was aching. It was fun, when I was controlling the battle.

I could still feel my bond with Sol, though the pokeball dulled it a little. If I focused on it, I’d feel it. I didn’t really want to focus on that, so I sat down on a nearby bench and opened my pokegear. I felt the urge to look up my battle, but I didn’t really want to see that disaster again.

I hope my sister, or Mom and Dad didn’t see it. Maybe I could keep it a secret forever. I decided to check my trainer card and sure enough, there was one loss. I decided not to make it private, it was just one loss.

Instead, I started to scroll through the forums. Maybe I should look for battling advice, or something. …I really did think I had that battle in the bag. Or maybe I never did.

Come to think of it, was I ever in control of that battle? Matt could’ve broken my reflect whenever he wanted to, at least I think he could. He seemed pretty sure when he ordered Nidoran to break Reflect and get to Solosis.

He also specifically told Nidoran to puncture. Did he know about Solosis’ life juice? Wasn’t that kind of immoral?

Wait. That was off topic, if Matt knew about that. Then that meant he did research on Solosis beforehand, considering he didn’t know what Sol was the first time he met him.

So did he research specifically in preparation for this battle? He was really determined when he challenged me. That meant that he had this battle planned out before it even started. He baited me into coming close by acting powerless, then…

That didn’t make feel better at all. I sunk further into my seat and sighed, putting my pokegear back into my pocket. I decided not to think about that anymore. Instead I watched the bustling of the Pokémon Center. It was still technically morning, but already there were lots of trainers here.

Some of these guys I recognized, though I didn’t know the names of most. Really, almost no powerful trainers came out of Cherrygrove. I wonder how strong these guys were since they weren’t taking the gym challenge.

I never considered casual Pokémon training. If you take the league challenge three times then you get to keep your license and all the perks that come along with that. You could, become a trainer without taking the league challenge, but it’d be much more expensive.

The current “champion” was still Lance, technically. And he encouraged most people to take the challenge to get stronger. The league was a way to make money and find strong trainers to work for him, so that made sense.

My mind had wandered drastically. I glanced over towards the front desk, was Sol okay? The information I’d gotten said he would, but I couldn’t help but worry…

…

“Genesis Carter, please come and get your Solosis.”

My eyes blinked open. It felt like they hadn’t even closed, I must have dozed off. How long…? Wait, that didn’t matter. The intercom said I could pick up Solosis!

I got on my feet quickly and hurried towards the front desk where Nurse Joy was holding a tray that had one pokeball on it. I could see the holographic depiction of Solosis within.

“Is he alright?” I asked.

Nurse Joy nodded, “Yep, they’ll just need some rest before they get back to full health. But their leak has been fully healed. There should be no issues.”

It was just like I thought, that was a relief. Looks like training for today was off the table, not that I was going to. I thanked Nurse Joy, and grabbed Sol’s pokeball. I deliberated on letting him out when we got him or sometime else. I decided to do it outside of the Pokémon Center.

As soon as I released him, I could feel our bond more clearly. Like Nurse Joy said, he seemed fine, if not a bit tired. That was good.

“We lost, didn’t we?” Sol immediately asked.

“Uh… yeah.”

Sol seemed to pout…? Though it was hard to tell… “I totally thought I had that, what an asshole. That felt terrible!”

“Yeah, after thinking about it. I think he was better than we originally thought.” I started to walk as I talked, finding a sidewalk that led back to our home. Sol followed.

After seemingly thinking it over, Solosis nodded with its whole body. “You’re right, I guess. That was just… a bad first experience, I think. Maybe we need to rethink our strategy, or get a strategy at all.”

“That’s on me,” I admitted. If we had a strategy in the first place, things might’ve went differently. “I definitely should’ve planned ahead.”

“Don’t take all the blame, just because you’re the trainer doesn’t mean I can’t think of plans too.”

I nodded along, still feeling like I hadn’t done as much as I could. It was an interesting thought, me and Solosis could communicate much more clearly than most because of telepathy. Typically, coming up with strategies was still the trainers’ job though. They had advantages in battles that trainers didn’t…

“Speaking of plans, what are we doing right now?”

“We’re going home. Can’t really train right now… guess I’ll just mope for the rest of the day.”

“Don’t be such a downer after one loss, dude.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know…”

…

“This show is sucky, it sucks. I hate it.”

“I really remember liking it when I was a kid..”

We were in the living room watching a show. It was about five humans gaining Pokémon powers and fighting alien monsters from space. It was a little deeper than that, it had an overarching plot. I’d thought I showed Sol it while we did nothing, but…

Sol had some pretty strong opinions about it. “Well maybe you were a dumb kid. This show really isn’t that great.”

“Okay, now, it might not seem that great. But it gets better…”

“These fight scenes aren’t even good. They feel off…”

“It was made a long time ago! It was hard to capture Pokémon attacks used by humans, and also, I think it was shot in a different region and they just copied the footage over…” I trailed off, this wasn’t really helping, was it?

Sol floated over the couch, clearly not interested in continuing this conversation. He stopped through, turning back towards the television. “Why don’t we play more video games? Those were psychically stimulating and fun.”

“Whatever. Fine.” I grabbed a controller and a porybox, my only console. It was only made three years ago but most people considered it to be the best since it used digital Porygon that updates games and fixes bugs. Multiple versions had been released since this one with better Porygon—in fact, mine barely worked, but it was a birthday gift. So I decided to keep using it. Also, I couldn’t really afford another unless I asked my family for one…

Apparently Sol enjoyed psychically pressing buttons and moving around joysticks. And also, the fact that he beat me most of the time made it fun. Solosis wasn’t known for its intelligence, but it was still on average smarter than humans. And he had really good memory too. He memorized all of my plays on the fighting game we were playing.

He also complained about there being no Reuniclus a lot.

I managed to squeak out a win here and there, it was still fun. We played for hours until my sister came home her job. After that, we called it quits and started to set up for dinner.

“So, Genesis,” my sister said in between bites. “You got into a battle today?”

I swallowed my food quicker than I should’ve, almost choking. “Shit, you saw that?”

“Well, I didn’t actually see it, but I saw your profile and you had one loss, so…”

“You… you follow my account?” Okay, maybe that shouldn’t have been as surprising as I made it out to be.

Melissa blinked. “Uh… yeah. Your username is Genesis, it’s kinda obvious. Am I… not allowed to?”

“Uh…”

Okay, thinking of it now it was pretty obvious. But with my unusual name I figured I could just call myself Genesis and people would think it was just a normal name? I mean who would actually figure who I really was? I didn’t even think about anyone who actually knew me…

“What are you doing checking forums in the middle of work anyway?”

Melissa replied quickly, “Hey, don’t change the topic! You got into a battle and lost, right?”

“You don’t have to say it like that…”

“Yeah yeah whatever. You’re probably feeling down, right? Or something.”

I didn’t really want to admit it, but… “I guess I am.”

“Yeah!” Melissa said, more cheerful than I was feeling. “So you need to some encouragement. Okay? I bet what you’ve been doing is playing video games all day. But what you should be doing is thinking how you can improve.”

I gave a nod, shoving more food into my mouth before it could reveal how right her prediction was.

“It’s like when I was in High School swim class. I pretty much lost all the time for the first half of the year. My swimming position was terrible, but you know, I fixed it and practiced a lot and I got faster,” Melissa paused before chuckling. “Course I didn’t make it next year and decided to quit forever. But y’know…”

“Mel, that sucked.” I said, exhaling heavily. I got up with my empty plate and headed for the sink, adding one more comment for emphasis. “You suck.”

Melissa giggled, “Okay. I know the ending of that story wasn’t very uplifting, but the point is you had to improve. What did you learn from that battle?”

I finished washing my plate quickly and put it on its plate. “Like I’m telling you, c’mon Sol, let’s go!”

Sol rose from his position on the couch. He had finished… absorbing his food quickly and had been sleeping, or something. I quickly made my way up the stairs, and hopped on my bed. Sol joined shortly after, also taking up residence on the bed.

“She has a point, you know.” Solosis said telepathically, “breaking” the silence.

“Yeah, she does. I know.” I agreed, in fact, I was still thinking about it.

Sol turned towards me. “So what’s the takeaway from the battle? What do we have to improve? You are the trainer.”

“I thought you said you’d help too,” I huffed, before thinking for a moment. “I do have a few ideas, though…”

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

I was nearing the battle facility once again. I had figured that the only way to grow faster was to battle. A million dollar idea, right? For some reason, I was hesitant to battle before, but now that I have already lost…

Anyways, I had made a few mistakes in that battle. I’d overestimated my Reflect, thinking that it’d make Sol invincible to physical attacks when in reality it’d break in just two. That was bad. And it was also my fault, if I battled earlier and tested Sol’s

Reflect out in a real environment, I'd known its limits.

And I was overconfident too. I like to think that I’m usually not, but as soon as I thought I had the upper hand, I didn’t focus on anything else. I might’ve realized the trap if I had been looking at Matt, or been focusing on the overarching battle.

So to remedy this, I needed to strengthen Sol’s Reflect. I’d battle a few times so Sol could reinforce it while it was under attack, and then… I’d find another way to test it. I’m sure.

Fortunately, the forums had a place where you could post specific battle requests.

Battles → Requests

Topic: Need help with Sol’s Reflect, would like battles that using mostly physical moves, just got my trainer card, Cherrygrove City

Original Poster: Genesis (Verified Trainer)

…

►WingullsStopItNow (Verified Trainer)

I can help, please tell me when you are available and where we’ll meet

My post had gotten more posts than I thought it would. I had scheduled battles for the whole day, so I was going to be busy. I hoped Sol wouldn’t get too injured though.

I looked around the area. I was right outside the battle facility, standing near a bench. I could see multiple other modern buildings, including the nearby Pokémon Center. I turned right, and saw a tall, blonde guy wearing a blue sweater and dark blue jeans jogging up to me.

“You’re Genesis, right?” The blonde asked.

I nodded, “Are you… ‘WingullsStopItNow?’” I asked back. The stranger nodded back before stopping his jog in front of me and taking a second to catch his breath.

“My actual name is Tyler,” he said, extending a hand for a handshake. I accept it, but see his questioning look and introduce myself as well.

“My name’s the same, I mean. My actual name is Genesis, like online.”

“Huh…” the blonde murmured, looking slightly perplexed. It doesn’t last long and he gestures his head towards the building. “I guess we should battle now, let’s get in there.”

I nod, and we both head inside the battle facility. It’s the exact same as yesterday, trainers battling even though it was pretty early. Many of these were trainers preparing themselves before going on their journeys.

That got me thinking when I would leave to go on my journey… I hadn’t decided yet. But the circuit had started a bit ago. If I left too late, I wouldn’t be able to collect all eight badges… if I was ever gonna get to that level.

No time to think about that, I thought. My body had moved automatically while I thinked. We had checked small battlefield that had nothing on the battlefield. And it was time to send out our Pokémon.

“Taillow, go!” Tyler shouts, tossing his pokeball straight up with the button pressed. It released Taillow in midair and fell back down into his hand. That was pretty cool, I must admit.

I glanced over at Sol and nodded towards the battlefield. “You’re up Sol.”

“This better not be like the last time,” Sol commented as he floated towards the battlefield.

The referee signaled the start of the battle, and we both sent out our commands.

“Reflect!”

“Quick Attack!”

Tyler had waited before using his attack, maybe specifically for me to set up Reflect. Technically that’s what this was all about, though I knew some trainers would’ve attacked immediately if it was to their advantage.

In any case, despite Taillow’s quickness, Sol was able to set up his reflect in time. Taillow’s whole body barreled towards Sol with wreckless abandon. And I could barely see the white flash of the Reflect before Taillow crashed into it.

It almost completely cracked, making me flinch. Shoot, that Taillow was stronger than I thought it was. I watched as the Taillow struggled to fly after the attack and realized I was missing a chance.

“Confusion!” I shouted out, and Sol obeyed. But it was too late, Tyler gave a command for Taillow to fall back and Taillow evade the attack.

I should’ve-

“Quick Attack!”

“Focus-!” I managed to tell Sol, though I wanted to say more, that’s all there was time to. I knew another one of those would break the Reflect and Tyler had known too, immediately going on the offense.

No time to think.

Despite my lackluster command, Sol knew what I meant. He focused his psychic energies into the Reflect, but still this time when Taillow crashed into it, it broke into pieces that faded away.

The good news was that it was strong enough that it had still stopped the attack. And Taillow couldn’t do Quick Attack again.

“Reflect and Confusion!” I shouted out, knowing I couldn’t spend so much time thinking.

“Peck-!” Tyler said, his voice getting more abrupt as he hesitated, “No, wait. Stay back!”

Sol was able to set up another Reflect and blast Taillow with rings of psychic energy that nicked it, making it wobble in the air before going soaring back up. Taillow started to fly in circles around Sol. It looked like Tyler was resting from offense for a second.

Good. I needed to get my bearings.

…Hmmm. Sol’s Reflect could only handle two of those, meaning we had to be careful. It could fluctuate on how hard Taillow attacks were too. I could try for the offensive, but Taillow could take it back anytime considering how fast it was.

“Quick Attack, multiple times!”

I looked back towards the battle to see Taillow streaking towards Sol once again. The Reflect flashed as Taillow’s beak clashed with it, but less forcefully. This allowed Taillow to go in for another just as quickly, and hit Sol the protective barrier again before either of us could react.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Confusion!” I shouted out, as Taillow attacked again. The barrier broke, but the psychic rings hit Taillow. It went flying backwards at the head on attack. Being so small, I thought that would do it…

Taillow was struggling to get up. I couldn’t let this chance go to waste either, “Confusion!” I commanded.

“You can get up, Taillow! Use Quick Attack!”

Taillow gained a sudden second wind, sweeping past the Confusion and heading towards Sol. I was shocked, I’d of thought he’d stay back after Taillow got hit. But maybe that’s why it was the perfect time to attack.

“Reflect!” I shouted, too late.

Taillow got in between Sol and the screen of protectiveness, and before he could reapply the Reflect, Taillow started his onslaught.

“Multiple Pecks, get em!” Tyler added, making Taillow switch from Quick Attack.

Damn it, the damage was stacking up now. It was only a matter of time before Sol fainted. I could feel it.

“Aim carefully, focus and Confusion!” I ordered, making sure to have Sol focus before using the move. Unlike with Nidoran.

Tyler immediately reacted, “Get away!”

Taillow quickly moved away from Sol, taking to the skies once again. Shoot. This was just going to keep happening, if I couldn’t go on the offensive, I needed to make my defense better.

Defense is the best offense and all that, yeah?

Tyler seemed content on keeping this strategy going. Just keep chipping away at me, I tried not to show it on my face that I had a plan. I probably failed, but Tyler wasn’t looking anyways.

The order came, “Quick Attack!” Tyler called out.

I’d been preparing for this moment, almost cutting Tyler off with my own command, “Dodge!”

Solosis wasn’t fast enough to completely dodge a Quick Attack. But Reflect was still up, and it wouldn’t break just yet. I watched as Solosis tried to move out of the way. Taillow smashed into the Reflect at an angle that didn’t completely kill its momentum. It crashed into the ground and struggled to get up,

“Confusion!” I shouted, maybe a little too desperately once I saw my chance. “Confusion! Just keep doing it!”

“I get it,” Sol rebutted, surprising me that he had chosen to talk in battle. Was that allowed in Pokémon battles? I needed to check…

In any case, Sol’s psychic powers repeatedly slammed into Taillow at any sign of movement. Tyler tried encouraging the tiny bird again, but anytime Taillow opened its eyes I could see it was dazed.

It was confused. At one point, it stopped moving. I was actually quite surprised at how many Confusions it had taken to down the bird. It was quite the Pokémon, speed and durability. Luckily I’d been able to think of a way to beat it.

A few more moments and… the win was actually mine?

I took a deep breath, not being able to hold a smile. Not that I wouldn’t want to. My first battle won! I celebrated internally as Sol floated back towards the trainers’ box. I could feel exhaustion through his bond.

“You okay, Sol?” I asked, still smiling as I pulled him close.

Sol did the equivalent of rolling his eyes. “Of course I am, I just WON! I’m never losing again from this point on, this feels awesome.”

“I bet it does,” I agreed, before stepping out onto the battlefield to do the mandatory handshake at the end of a battle.

Well, technically it wasn’t mandatory, but it was rude not to. I didn’t want to get a bad rep before I even started.

Tyler didn’t seem to be too miffed by his loss. I was thrilled as all hell though, that battle was awesome! The rush, the feelings of that battle… Man, it was exciting. I hoped my next battle would be like that.

The next trainer I was supposed to meet would be by the battle arena in thirty minutes or so. I had Nurse Joy check Sol—despite his insistence that he was fine—, and he was fine. I just wanted to check, after him getting cut the day before. Maybe it was still affecting him.

I mostly stayed near the Pokémon Center while I waited though. I checked my trainer card and saw that my win loss ratio was 1 win and 1 loss.

Technically that wasn’t good. 50%. But it was better than zero, so, hey.

My next challenger was a bug catcher. Not sure why so many bug specialists called themselves bug catchers, but whatever.

I stepped on the battlefield once again, sending Sol onto the field. My opponent sent out a Venipede. I watched the referee intensely until he finally ordered the start.

“Reflect!”

…

That bug catcher was more skilled than I thought. It knew an actual Rollout and Poison Tail. Without Reflect, most of its hits would have knocked out Sol pretty fast. I think the Pokémon was more so hindered by the trainer, they didn’t seem to know what they were doing and couldn’t use Venipede’s skill. Also, I wasn’t familiar with this Pokémon at all.

I got pretty lucky. But I also still got the win, so how mad could I be?

The next fight was, thankfully, easier. They used a Ratatta, which was very common, but usually they packed a punch. Reflect helped big time with this one, since it was very fast and I could usually catch it off guard after it came close and got blocked by Reflect.

There was kind of a problem with this, though… I noticed in the heat of the battle Sol didn’t actually get to practice with Reflect.

Sure, it got hit by strong moves all the time, which is what I wanted, but it wasn’t getting stronger because Sol and I had to focus on actually winning. We might need to try something else.

But I couldn’t cancel all the battles for today, and besides. This was fun. So I kept battling until it was nearing noon. Sol and I went to a restaurant for lunch, he then got right back into the battling scene.

I did get two losses, from trainers who seemed a lot more experienced than me. Their Pokémon knew more than two freakin’ moves, which kinda limited me. But the fact that I’d said I was so new in my post probably attracted a lot of other newbies.

But by almost noon, I was dominating most of the people I’d battled. Which felt good, especially towards the latter half when I knew what I was doing. I still didn’t get much good training for Sol’s Reflect though. Oh well.

Only one fight left, against someone who called themselves ThunderPrinceRyan. Despite the goofy name, they were pretty serious in person. And their Pokémon was outside of their ball. It was a Shinx, which made sense with their name.

They were also pretty good, their Shinx could break my Reflect in just one hit. Even with Tackle, which made me regret not focusing on actually training my Reflect more. That sucked, and also they used Thunder Shock to sometimes completely forego my Reflect.

I mean, technically they could. They didn’t have to only use physical moves, but it almost always hit me. Sol was on his last legs, but Shinx still seemed fresh despite us nailing it with a few Confusions. It was well trained.

However, we did still have a Reflect up. Shinx was getting dangerously close, though. Had to keep away from it.

“Back away from it!” I yelled, with Sol doing so. Shinx was tiny but faster, but able to float. We should be able to stay away.

Ryan notably wasn’t worried, which made me worried. “Charge: Speed! Then Spark!”

Before I had time to process what he was saying, Shinx started speeding towards Sol. I could see tiny electric charges building in its far. Could Charge do that? I literally had no idea. Then again, Shinx was a Pokemon I didn’t see too often.

I’d gotten distracted again, shoot!

Shinx jumped towards Sol as its energy reached its climax. The little electricity around its fur crackled as it made contact with Reflect, broke through, and kept going.

It crashed into Sol, taking him to the floor. I tried searching through our bond, hoping for him to get back up. But I knew the verdict before the referee, we’d lost.

I returned Sol to his pokeball, at least it wasn’t like yesterday. When I lost, I felt like running towards the Pokémon Center to get Sol up and running as fast as possible. But instead, I walked towards the center of the battlefield.

Ryan extended his hand towards me, his eyes brown—but a peculiar kind that made it look yellow—looking down on me. He was taller, and if I had to guess, probably a few years older. He had jet black hair, too.

“Good battle,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it. I wasn’t particularly eager to stay here.

Ryan nodded, “Good battle. I think your Reflect still needs work though.”

“Yeah, it definitely still needs some work. I guess I haven’t been working on it as hard as I’d like to…” I trailed off, my hands dropping to my sides. I was about to take off, but Ryan started talking again.

“I could help,” he said with the smallest of smiles. “My Shinx needs a moving target to help with accuracy while running. It’d also be a good exercise… But yeah, I’ll help with your Reflect. If that’s what you need.”

That sounded… kinda perfect to me. I bobbed my head in agreement, “Ummm yeah, sure. We should do that. I can meet… tomorrow? Here, at like…”

“Let’s do it at 7 a.m. I need time to warm up before.” Ryan suggested, and I nodded. Wait, warm up? How early did this guy wake up? Well, typically a trainer woke up early for training, but still.

And like that, I had some sort of training plan. Maybe this is what I should’ve done first, actually. Oh well.

I rushed to the Pokémon Center after that. And a short while later, Sol was a-okay.

…

“So… it looks like

you won a battle today! Multiple, actually…” Melissa commented over dinner.

I grinned, swallowing the piece of pizza I was eating. “Yup, I’m pretty fucking awesome.” I felt pretty proud to have won, but it was still concerning to me that Melissa already knew about that. Was checking my profile just a daily thing?

“I was glorious.” Sol boasted, but Melissa couldn’t hear him.

Melissa smirked, “Well congrats on your first wins, but you also lost like four times, so you’re not THAT good.”

“Can’t you pander to my ego a little bit more?” I complained.

“Well, hey. It looks like you’re a lot more interested in battling than I am in swimming. Maybe you’ll even go far.”

“Uh huh, thanks.”

“Speaking of going far, when are you finally going on your journey?”

“So eager to get me out of the house, huh?”

“You know me!” Melissa giggled, though…

Teasing aside, I hadn’t really thought about it too much. I figured I should have time to train before going, and also I needed supplies. If I didn’t actually go on a journey, that’d be fraud, considering I was getting some supplies from the league and I had registered as a trainer who was going to take on the league, so…

I had to get a move on, and couldn't stay here forever. I was practically ready, all I needed was supplies. I should just pick a date to leave and get it over with…

“I’ll leave like… the end of the week?” I said, still unsure.

Melissa seemed more shocked than I would’ve thought, “The end of the week? That’s a lot sooner than I expected.”

I thought about it again and nodded, “Yeah. If I take too long, I won’t be able to get all the badges. Especially cause I’ve never actually traveled before…”

Melissa nodded, understanding my reasoning. “I guess we’ll have to get you ready quickly, then! You know what that means! We get to go shopping! And… other things.”

“My favorite…” I groaned, as I finished my slices of pizza.

“All that aside, how are you planning to improve with the days you have left?”

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

Me and Ryan stood around the outskirts of town. It wasn’t the spot I used to train at, but apparently Ryan tried here a lot. Both of our Pokémon were raring for training, at least, Shinx was. Sol was never that excited to train.

“Um…” I mumbled, not really sure how I wanted this to go. “Do we just have Shinx attack Sol’s Reflect?”

That felt dumb. Was that dumb?

Ryan nodded slowly, “That’s the simple version of it. But you need to improve your Reflect and help us with target practice, too.”

“Yeah…” I trailed off, hoping Ryan would take the lead. “Okay, Sol, use Reflect.”

Sol set up his Reflect and training began. I told Sol to increase his distance from the floor so it was harder for Shinx to hit him. Then Sol also had to move around so he was a moving target, but after a few Reflect breaks, Ryan said we needed to go faster.

Apparently, levitating farther up than he usually did was already a stretch for him. So moving around so fast and using Reflect on top of that was a workout. I felt sort of bad for Sol, we never did this sort of training before. It was bound to be hard on him.

I’d like to say he didn’t complain, but he did. A lot.

It worked for Ryan, though. Shinx was starting to miss some of its attacks, which let it train its accuracy. That was the whole reason Ryan was here, so now, we could finally get to work on why we were hee.

At this point, Shinx’s Spark could always break through Sol’s Reflect in one hit. But as Sol started to focus on keeping it together, it could survive a few Tackles at least.

So we weren’t that pathetic.

I tried to give Sol some advice on how to reinforce his Reflect and focus. But Ryan took over in the advice department after an hour or so. Despite not having a psychic Pokémon, he could do this a lot better than I could. I made sure to listen to what he was saying as well.

Ryan told Sol that a mind was like a muscle, even more so in a psychic Pokémon’s case. The more you exercised it—doing multiple things at once like Sol was currently doing. The more it would get stronger. So Sol’s Reflect would get stronger, even if I didn’t train it, as long as I made sure I did train Sol.

Poor Sol. This kind of training was going to happen a lot more.

Anyways, Sol could still strengthen his Reflect via manual training like what we were doing. It just took a lot of work, and control over his psychic type energy. He had to make a psychically well built Reflect, which took practice.

So we kept going. We took a few breaks, mostly for Sol’s benefit, and Ryan told me a little bit about himself. Apparently, Shinx and him did this kind of training everyday. Nonstop except for food, which was… frightening.

He seemed more like an athlete than a Pokémon Trainer, even. Ryan was planning to leave Cherrygrove soon, after me, but soon.

I wondered if we would see each other again, it was likely. Maybe even at the league, if I got that far.

When Shinx finally started to show signs of getting tired—honestly I didn’t even think it could happen—, we took a break for lunch. I ate with Ryan, and we discussed the terms of training. I was leaving soon, so we decided that two more days of training would be sufficient for both of us.

We’d train in the morning, and would separate at lunchtime. That sounded good to me, I had to do some over stuff as well. And also, Sol would probably be completely exhausted after. Which he was, right now.

On the bright side, his Reflect could handle a lot of Shinx’s Tackles. It’s Sparks were something else though. Could break through every time. Hopefully that will change.

I decided to return home after lunch. There was a time for battling, and as much as it pained me to say it. Today there was no time for it. I logged onto forums and started to compile a list of everything I needed.

Camping gear, training gear, food supplies, literally anything. I didn’t want to be underprepared for going out into the wild.

Technically, Route 30 was one of the safest routes in the region. Someone even lived there, but you get what I mean.

So that’s what I spent the rest of the day doing. If I got it done then, I wouldn’t have to worry about it later. The internet sucks, by the way. People couldn’t even decide on the best brands of tents, or Pokémon food. Didn’t even know there could be so many types of food for one type, but…

…

Tomorrow, training continued.

So did Sol’s complaining, but it wasn’t as much this time. Sol was already adapting to the new training regiment. Pokémon tended to adapt a lot quicker than humans.

And they tended to get stronger faster too. Near the tail end of training, Sol managed to block a single Spark. The Reflect had been very cracked, but Sol was able to repair it. I didn’t teach him to do that, but apparently his mastery over Reflect was getting better, because he was using it so much. Shinx didn’t use Tackle anymore because of that, he couldn’t hit faster than Sol could repair.

It made me think about how a rematch would go. Ryan would still win, probably. His Pokémon were in way better shape, and better trained too. I needed more practice to train and command my Pokémon to the fullest.

I asked to have lunch with him, and he shared some tips. Ryan was pretty alright too, if not a little strict and intense. He told me to train with my Pokémon as well, I’d kind of forgotten about doing that. I’d try, considering how hard Sol was working.

Ryan shared his training regimen for Shinx. It was very strict, and somehow Shinx and Ryan did laps around the whole town before coming to meet us. That was actually insane, I wouldn’t even be able to make a quarter without breaking down.

It wasn’t that useful, actually. But maybe if I had a Pokémon similar to Shinx in the future…

Anyways, after lunch I went back down to the Battle Facility. I only had a limited amount of days to use it, with how I was going to leave soon. So I tried to make full use of it.

While I was searching for battle, I learned that Matthew left town yesterday. If he had that much of a head start, I doubt I was going to meet him in Violet. I wanted to battle him again, unlike Ryan, I thought I could actually win.

That wasn’t accounting for the amount of growth he’d had. So I decided not to think about it anymore. A chance would arise, probably.

I managed to get four wins and two defeats before Sol couldn’t fight anymore. Shit, that was a terrible mistake on my part. I overestimated Sol’s endurance, and somehow missed when he’d reached his limit even with my emotional bond.

After getting him healed up, we played video games for the rest of the day.

…

The third and final day of training with Ryan. We were really starting to see some improvement on Reflect. After just a few hours, it could take a few Sparks before going down. It was hard to repair the Reflect after it was hit so many times, I discovered. One or two Sparks, easy repair, but after that, it started to get cracked permanently.

Supposedly, that could be fixed with better control over psychic powers. Aside from that, nothing new happened.

Well, Ryan told me that his Shinx’s accuracy on moving targets was better now. I wasn’t keeping track, but it did seem to hit its attacks more. Ryan said he would have used himself as a target for training, but that could end in disaster, especially with Spark.

Jeez.

Solosis was a good target, he was small, and could float, Ryan told me, right before his alarm rang. Time for him to go.

“It was good training with you. You could use a bit of work, but you may go far,” Ryan said as he got up from his chair.

The praise was appreciated, “Um, yep, you too. It was fun training with you, and Shinx. Really appreciate it.”

I never really knew how to give praise to people. But it really was a beneficial experience.

We exchanged phone numbers after that, and Ryan went on his way. Having that friendly conversation with someone was pretty nice. Apart from Sol, I didn’t have too many friends.

I’d never actually seen Ryan before the day I’d battled him. I’d never seen most of the people in the battle facility, actually. I really didn’t venture out far from home, so that made sense…

Speaking of the battle facility, there were fewer people than before here. A lot of trainers had set out on their journeys by now, or others had just gone home. I don’t know.

…

“It’s time to go shopping, Sol!”

I announced, early in the day. My departure from Cherrygrove was growing ever nearer, so I decided to take the first freeish day I had to finally gather my supplies.

“Woo.” Solosis replied, unenthusiastically. He’d never gone shopping before, so he probably didn’t understand the hype.

Well, I didn’t either. I kind of hate going shopping—or outside in general, before getting my trainer card. But now that I was going for something I actually wanted, I was sort of pumped. We were getting all sorts of stuff today, and checking stuff off of a list was going to be pretty satisfying. At least, I think.

Despite not being the biggest city in Johto, Cherrygrove did have a mall. That’s where we would be doing most of our shopping, but first I had to go to a Pokémon Mart.

That’s where you could find most of the good items related to Pokémon. The mall did have its own Mart, technically, but it was way smaller and didn’t have as much as the actual one. The Pokémon Mart had a blue and white aesthetic to it, which meant the battle facility had stolen its colors—white and orange could’ve worked for it! And why was it all white? Wasn’t that weird?—but whatever. It was pretty big on the inside, sections divided neatly with most of the Pokémon food being in freezers or bags set aside.

“First thing on our Pokémon related list is… food.” I said out loud to Sol, who seemed to be spacing out.

I headed towards my objective, skimming over my options. There were boxes of meals that were meant to be cooked for Pokémon. Bags full of Pokémon food that were just, like… blocks of food.

I turned to Sol, “Do you have a preference or anything?”

“Nope. I don’t give a shit. I can just not taste it if it’s not good.” Sol responded, though he still gave a glance over his options.

Yeah, I thought so. Sol wasn’t much of an eater, since he usually finished food pretty quickly and only superficially tasted it. That was kind of odd…

Anyways, I immediately started looking for the kind of food I had researched. Food pellets or blocks made from ‘MunchlaxFoods’, they apparently made the cheapest, healthy food. They made other dishes you could make for your Pokémon, but while on the road, pellets or blocks were most efficient.

Also, those kinds of foods cost more, and I was on a budget. Me, my parents, and sister had chipped in to give me said budget which made me feel bad. But I was going to need a lot of stuff for my journey. Also, my parents said they would give me money throughout my journey.

I was probably going to have to decline that offer. Pride goeth before fall and whatnot but I think I can survive without their money.

Anyways, after putting a sufficient amount of food into my cart. I grabbed a bunch of mashed berries and all of that jazz. These would have a more immediate effect on a Pokémon’s health, so I would need them in case of emergency. Whole berries would take a lot of space though, so I tried for mashed ones instead like a lot of people online suggested. They would still work.

Next was potions and… other related items. These were gonna take a shit ton of space in the backpack I was planning to buy. There were choices I could choose from here, too, but I had already made my decision.

Silph Co.’s potions were a lot cheaper than most alternatives. Namely PokeCo., they said their potions were better because they integrated Life Dew into them. And tests had proved that there were a lot more benefits to their potions. But the extra ingredients diluted the original product using just Oran berries so made for less efficient healing.

So even though PokeCo,’s potions were getting pretty popular, I decided to go with the former.

I gathered a few more Pokémon related items like pokeballs—everyone pretty much agreed that Silph Co. made the best ones. They pretty much had a monopoly over pokeballs and different kinds. Apparently a big company in Hoenn had made some rather strange types of pokeballs, though.

After that, I left and then left; It was time to go to the frickin’ mall.

…

The mall was one of the biggest buildings in Cherrygrove. It was nothing compared to the one in Goldenrod, but to me, it was a daunting building that I didn’t go in very much. When I did go in… I was amazed by how big it was. There were a ton of stores here, where did I start?

Camping gear, I immediately decided. That was most of my list, so I headed towards a camping store, of which there were multiple.

First, I grabbed a backpack. It was frickin’ huge, but it still fit me, and I could carry it. Well, when it wasn’t full of stuff. I’d have to see…

“Hey, Sol. Which color tent should we get?” I asked, after having found the type of tent I wanted.

“Green. Duh.” He said immediately. That was my bad, Sol’s eyesight was like putting a green filter over anything. More intense colors could get through, and he could kinda sense colors, but…

Of course he’d pick green.

I tried to tick off everything on the list as fast as I could after that. Flashlight, human food, sleeping bag, water bottle, matches, etc.

All in all, it was a pretty successful and uneventful trip. Which was… good, I think.

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

“Come on Gen, let’s do something together!” Melissa said, as she dragged me towards the door.

For some reason, she was insistent on doing something together today. Actually, it wasn’t “for some reason”. It was “because you’re going on a journey tomorrow and we haven’t done anything together in like… weeks!”

Actually, she made a pretty good point. I would’ve just preferred to do stuff inside or something. I dunno.

“Where are we even going?” I asked, “I’m hungry. We should get breakfast first.”

Melissa rolled her eyes, “That’s exactly what we’re doing, idiot! C’mon and hurry up. Sol, you agree with me, right?”

Sol nodded, for some reason, “You should do what your sister says.”

“Why are you on her side?”

“Because it makes you agitated. Stop being lazy and let’s go already.”

“Yeah! Thanks, Sol!” Melissa cheered, despite not being able to hear him. Well, whatever. At least we were getting food.

We ate at some breakfast place, which was pretty good, actually. Then we sort of just… walked around? I hated walking—though I’d have to get used to it if I wanted to be a trainer—and walking aimlessly sucked. I complained a lot, I guess I’m kinda like Sol after all.

We went to the movies after that, it was about a bunch of different Porygon battling in a digital world, or something. The only good thing about it was the action, even if some of it was a little inexplicable. Sol had a lot to say about his first movie viewing, which was annoying, because he didn’t get that you shouldn’t talk in a movie theater.

But, you know, since he talks telepathically, no one shushed him. And when I tried to tell him to shut up, people shushed me. And Melissa had no idea what Sol was saying again.

It was still pretty fun, actually. After that we went to a burger place for lunch and we talked about a lot of nothing. Mostly about Pokémon, since I was about to leave on my journey. Melissa was definitely right, we hadn’t done outings like this in awhile, we probably should’ve done them a lot more.

Then we went to a bowling alley, and it was… more fun than the movie, I’d have to stay. They let Sol bowl with his psychic powers, but with games like these, he won every time without fail. Despite that, Melissa praised him with every strike.

His ego rose way too much that night.

We went to the park after, the one I was at the day after I got Sol. We stayed and basically did… anything, talked, played—whatever, until the sun started to set. It was a pretty sight, even Sol had to admit.

And then we went home, and had dinner. And I went to sleep so I could be well rested for the start of my journey. I had trouble falling asleep, I was really excited to get started.

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

I woke up the next day with Sol by my side. I hadn’t even done anything yet and my heart felt heavy with all my excitement. It was time.

I dressed myself quickly, throwing on a purple shirt that had an even lighter purple pokeball symbol on it. I put on black trousers, purple shoes and a sweater that was fern green on top and… Solosis green on bottom. I left my sweater open, it might’ve been a little chilly when league season started. But it was already March, almost a month after. It wasn’t too cold.

“You ready, Sol?” I asked, still feeling thrilled. My constant excitement was actually a bit too much, even for me.

Sol rolled his eyes to the best of his ability. “Gen, we’re only going downstairs. We aren’t even outside yet.”

“Whatever, I was like… Okay, yeah, whatever Sol.” I replied lamely as I headed downstairs. I could smell the scents of bacon and eggs cooking from upstairs, and it had become amplified as soon as I got downstairs. I saw Melissa, who was setting the table.

“You’re finally down,” she said, even though I don’t think I even took that long. “I thought I’d have to come get you myself. Hurry up and eat so we can get going.”

…

After I ate, I double checked my whole backpack to make sure everything was there. My tent took up most of it, and also supplies like potions. But I managed to make everything fit, for now…

When I catch more Pokémon, I might need to have one of them carry my bag. Or maybe Sol could levitate it? In any case, I still needed more space. So I bought a blue and purple satchel, too. It had my more personal items, and some supplies I might need in an emergency. I slung it over my right shoulder as we set out from the house. The backpack was heavy, but it was pretty doable. Might even be good for me to travel with a heavy backpack, or something.

Melissa and I made our way towards the edge of town, to the path that led to Route 30. I checked my pokegear on the way there, I had a few new messages.

ThunderPrinceRyan

————————————————————— March 12th —————————————————————

You said you were leaving today. Good luck.

I smiled. The other messages were from my parents, I was never really sure how to answer them over text. I’d figure it out, or something.

“We’re here.” Melissa said, interrupting my daydream. I looked around, seeing lots of trees and a dirt path ahead. Looking back, Cherrygrove was still very visible, but a good ways away.

“Guess it’s goodbye now.” I said, kicking the dirt. I’d never really left home like this before, so…

Melissa pulled out something from her bag. “I got you a gift, here.”

It was a flute, a black one. I looked up at Melissa, confused. “How is this supposed to be useful? I don’t know how to play.”

“Well, I mean… I dunno. They say it repels wild Pokémon, and you don’t even need to know how to play… that well? I thought it’d kind of be useful.”

Melissa paused for a few seconds, an awkward smile on her face. “I mean, maybe you could just wear it around your neck or something and it’ll look cool?”

“Mel, this gift sucks.”

“It was your birthday two weeks ago. Shut up.”

We both laugh, and I smile. Guess this really was goodbye, then… Melissa seems to recognize it too, and we pull in for a hug.

“Well… I guess I’ll see you. You better call when you get to Violet, it’s not like you’re leaving permanently.” Melissa reminded me.

I nodded, turning around. “Will do. …Bye, Mel.”

“Bye Gen.”

And just like that, I’ve left Cherrygrove City. Literally. I passed a sign saying I was now on Route 30. And just like that, I’ve started my journey.

“Hey, Sol. Are you ready now? To become a champion?” I asked with a smile.

This time, Sol sent over positive feedback into our emotional bond. “Heck yeah. I’m awesome.”