Violet City was a lot different than Cherrygrove City. It was one of the most traditional cities in Johto, if not the most. There were many unfamiliar smells, which is probably why they called it the city of nostalgic scents, though thinking of it now the scents weren’t exactly nostalgic. Whatever.

The city was on the smaller side, only a little bit bigger than Cherrygrove. Most of the buildings had a traditional, or, maybe older design to them? Most of their buildings were built of only wood, with pretty much no metal except for centers and other official league buildings. But they were one of the only cities with a wood Pokémon Center. It was hard to describe how the buildings looked though.

Most of them had purple roofs or motifs for some reason, and I didn’t have an explanation for that. Probably had something to do with its name being “Violet” but I still wasn’t sure. I think I’d been told some other time—maybe in school?—, but I’d long forgotten now.

Some of the people were wearing old clothing that I couldn’t name. There were a bunch of trainers who were here too, Falkner was one of the most common to fight first. Not exactly because he was the easiest, but…

I’d think about Falkner later. There were other things here that were interesting, like the trainers’ school. It wasn’t the only trainers’ school in the region, but it was presumably the first, most accessible, and the most popular.

Most schools only had a required class or two about Pokémon unless you were getting into higher education while all the other classes were about… the boring stuff. But a trainers’ school only provided a minimum amount of non-Pokemon related education whilst the bulk was about Pokemon. The name was pretty controversial, with a lot of people wanting it to be changed to the Pokémon School or something, since they taught other Pokémon career paths. But trainers used to be the only Pokémon profession back in the day, so the name stuck.

Anyways, I had passed by that building on my way to the Pokémon Center. It was big, larger than most of the others. Of course, it was purple. It reminded me that it was currently lunchtime, and I wanted to just find someplace to eat or something. But there was lunch at the Pokémon Center, I just needed to make it there.

Guess I’d starve myself a little more. I was quickly distracted from my hunger by Gal, though.

Amazement. Look.

Gal had been generally emitting excitement at being in a new city for awhile. I turned my head to see what he was amazed at this time and as soon as it entered my vision it was obvious.

The tall structure itself towered over us. We weren’t in front of it, but we were close, and I can’t believe it’d snuck up on us like that. Bell Tower—all ten floors of it—

stood tall as it swayed. It was a magnificent building, with every single roof being painted a violet purple.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” I said, before checking my pokegear. That wasn’t even necessary, because the Pokémon Center entered my sights a second later.

“These are the Pokémon Centers I told you about.”

That seemed to snap Sol out of his sleep like state, “Finally. Are we gonna battle soon?”

“You need a hobby that’s not battling. We’ll go later, maybe not even today. We’ve got other stuff to do, y’know.”

“Everything else is really boring.”

I shook my head, but didn’t respond because we were now inside the Pokémon Center. This one was a modern one, and the insides were pretty much the same as Cherrygrove City. Although there was a lot more hustle and bustle, alongside more trainers. Probably because there was a gym in this city.

I walked towards the front desk and showed Nurse Joy my trainer’s card. Before anything else, she took my Pokémon for a checkup. It was only for a few minutes or so, but it felt longer without my Pokémon. After that, she gave me access to a room and the various other Pokémon Center uses.

I know I said I was hungry before, but I was more tired than hungry. So instead of going to the cafeteria, I went straight to my room.

“This is our room.” I said as I scanned it over. I’d heard about what Pokémon Center rooms were like, and it was exactly what I expected. A room about the size of my bedroom, if not a bit smaller, with a smaller bathroom. The main room had a bed, a drawer, a TV, etc.

After I was done looking, I put Gal on the bed before falling onto the bed myself. Being back in civilization felt so good. I hadn’t really missed it while traveling but now that I’m here it was like a wave of tiredness was just washing over me. …I just wanted to fall asleep and never wake up. I didn’t think traveling would take so much out of me, especially considering I didn’t really feel it before. The. Again, Sol and Gal really distracted me from basically anything else.

“Ah… I’ve gotta say, traveling with you guys is probably way better than traveling alone,” I admitted as I stared up at the wall.

“Well, duh. I’m awesome to be around,” Sol boasted. “Not sure about Gal though.”

Gal shot back with something along the lines of Shut up or so, before he said something continued, Traveling alone was depressing. Both of you make it… better, somehow.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I guess Gal had traveled alone for a while on whatever his journey had been. I’d never really adventured alone before, so I wouldn’t know. But that did sound pretty lonely. …Ugh, thinking about this was going to make me even more mentally exhausted.

“So… When are we gonna battle?” Sol asked, interrupting the moment.

Okay. Really needed to get Sol a hobby. “I dunno. Maybe later today, I’m tired and hungry right now.”

Hungry. Gal agreed, sending his feelings towards me.

“Sorry, Gal. Uh…” I didn’t want to go downstairs right now. So I guess I’d just take the food from my backpack and eat it in here. I’d eat out for dinner, but I was just too lazy to do anything right now.

As I take off my backpack and retrieve lunch, Sol takes the opportunity to complain some more. “You guys get hungry way too many times. Like, three times a day. Solosis are an awesome species. Way better than yours.”

“Shut up, and isn’t that racist or something?” I retaliated. Gal agreed with me apparently. At least it sounded like he did, I couldn’t tell too well still.

“Pfft. Like I know. When are we learning new moves? I’m pretty much good with Rollout, and Gal’s still too weak to train with.”

“I’m working on it. We’ll start on new moves tomorrow,” I said noncommittally. I had ideas on what we should try next, but I wasn’t interested in thinking about it. “Now shut up and let us eat,” I added for good measure.

He did shut up, for all of a few seconds. Then he and Gal started to bicker again, but whatever. I focused on eating my food, but there was a feeling I was forgetting something. Uh…

I rummaged in my satchel to see if it was something in there. And I felt my pokegear and instantly remembered. I had to check my messages, Melissa was probably expecting one for when I got back.

I sighed and moved to a better position on my bed. That hybrid of standing and lying was getting uncomfortable. Lying sideways, facing the rest of the room, I opened up my pokegear to see that I already had a bunch of messages.

Because she couldn’t just leave it at one.

…

Melissa

———————————————— March 18th ————————————————

Are you in Violet City yet?

tell me when you get there

———————————————— March 19th ————————————————

Are you there yet?

———————————————— March 20th ————————————————

Did you die or something? To like a bunch of Rattata?

where the hell are you

———————————————— March 21th ————————————————

If you died on the first route that’d be really stupid so I’m choosing to believe you didn’t

but you’re still taking like a really long time

———————————————— March 22th ————————————————

HI

I stared at the screen with amusement. Generally Melissa liked to text me when we were apart, but I couldn’t really respond on route. So I guess instead, she just decided to check everyday until I return. Slightly smiling, I sent a response.

Stop being stupid

I said I was gonna text you when I got here. Maybe? I'm not really sure actually

Anyways I’m here now

After responding to that, I glanced over towards Sol and Gal, who had stopped arguing. Also, I couldn’t hear Sol, so I guess he got that I wasn’t listening. They were talking about something else, but I didn’t care to participate in the conversation. I focused back on my pokegear and exited my texts with Melissa. There was a text from Ryan saying that he had begun his journey to Violet. I chuckled at his username before sending a good luck message but there was a good chance he wouldn’t see it until he got here.

There were no other messages, but I remembered that I forgot to respond to my parents. They had offered to send me an amount of money as I progressed, and originally I was going to decline but…

I glanced over at Gal, who would need a Dawn Stone if he were ever to evolve to his final stage. They were so rare in the wild that many would say they were impossible to find or didn’t exist. But there was a good amount of Dawn Stones in the market, so buying one was my only option. I’d need the money, so it was a good thing I hadn’t already declined before.

I responded to both of them with an appreciation message and a love you before rolling over in bed. That was everything I had to do for now. There seemed to be something playing in the background, but now that I was comfortable in my bed I didn’t really care. Sleep was inevitable at this point…

…

I blinked my eyes heavily before fully waking up. I groaned, not feeling completely rested. I couldn’t have been out for that long, then. I sat up and looked out the window, and yeah… it obviously hasn’t been too long, considering how bright it still was.

“You’re finally awake.” Sol said, causing me to look over to that part of the room. Gal was still on the foot of my bed, so I could feel his enjoyment a little, but I didn’t really think much of it. Apparently it was because he was watching a show on TV.

Sol must have seen me looking, “I was bored. So I picked up the remote and went through the channels, but there’s nothing good on there. Gal liked this superhero show though, so I put it on for him.”

That made sense, the show was one I didn’t recognize, though. “Cool, cool.”

“Can we go battle now?”

“Bleh,” I replied. “I really need to get you to watch like… reruns of league battles or something, if they’re still playing that. Maybe Pokeathlon events?”

“What’s the Pokeathlon?”

“Uh- Nevermind, I’ll explain it to you later. Yeah, we can battle, just wait a second…” I said, before realizing that Gal also needed to be informed, “Yo, Gal. We’re gonna go down to the facility to battle.”

Gal gave off a surprised vibe of some sorts. I wasn’t paying complete attention to him as I put my pokegear back into my satchel, before realizing that I’d need it for navigation and took it back out. I put my backpack in a better area before standing up and stretching a bit.

My god, did it feel better to have no weight on my back. It felt like a burden had been lifted right off me. I looked around the room and was about to leave before I remembered to clean myself up.

I was definitely dirty from all that traveling. I needed to clean myself.

“One moment.”

…

“That was not one moment.” Sol complained as I stepped out of the Pokémon Center.

I sighed internally, “I obviously didn’t mean it literally. Do you know how sayings work Sol?”

“I know. I’m just being an extra asshole because it took too long,” He responded, causing an external sigh this time. “Don’t I know it….”

Before we could continue bickering, I noticed that Gal was nervous. That was already evident by how he wasn’t talking, but again… I could feel him. Actually, always feeling Gal’s emotions was kind of… annoying? I didn’t think I’d ever describe it like that, but whenever he was close it just feels like something distracting my mind at all times. In any case…

“Yo Gal, what’s up?” I asked, before realizing it was obvious. “Oh, you’re nervous about your first battle, right? Ha, forgot you haven’t officially battled yet.”

Have battled. Never official. Yes.

“Uh…” So he was probably nervous about battling with me. And this was his first official battle, so yeah. “Don’t worry about it. Hopefully I’ll find a two on two battle for you so you can get used to it. So Sol will have your back, it’ll be fine.”

“Won’t matter how well he does, I’ll still win.” Sol chimed in.

I scoffed, “You lost your first battle.”

“Not my fault.”

“Okay, it was mostly my fault, but whatever. The point is Gal will do fine.” I finished.

Gal still felt nervous, but was kinda assured with that? Despite our shit pep talk. In any case, I’d been walking in a random direction since I’d gotten outside, so I focused more on navigating after that. It wasn’t long until we made it to the battle facility, which looked pretty much the same in this city as in Cherrygrove.

Now that we had had that conversation, it made me realize that I should probably search for two on two matches. It probably wouldn’t be hard but that did mean I would have to adjust my strategies to match two Pokémon. Not that I exactly had a strategy, or a type of fighting. But I still had to be conscious that I needed to account for two Pokémon. I don’t think that meant much at this stage, not like I could alter the terrain much or whatever. But I still had to be aware.

Other than that, I still hadn’t decided if I should bet on my battles. I’d observe the specifics of how I’d handle my money… tomorrow, or something. Better to start now so I can get used to it.

“Are you going to find us a battle?” Sol said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I noticed that I was walking idly while I thought, “Yeah. Just going to take a second…” Our next battle would be our first with money on it. We weren’t going to lose.

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

I faced off against my opponent, a tall, brown-haired guy with bad posture, a yellow outfit and blue sandals. They didn’t have any Pokémon outside of their balls, so I decided I should send Gal out first. Better to have my more experienced Pokémon to clean up if he didn’t do well (though I’m sure he will).

I readied his pokeball—I put him in there since he still couldn’t walk too fast—and waited until the referee signaled that the battle had started. I threw Gal’s pokeball forward and he appeared in a flash of light.

“You got this, Gal!” I shouted, just in case he was still feeling nervous. Then I looked at who our opponent’s Pokemon was. On the other side of the battlefield stood a tan cartoonish hippo like Pokémon with brown splotches. It was a hippopotas, a ground type. I didn’t exactly know it’s movepool though, so I’d have to look out.

My opponent took the first move before I could, “Sand Attack!”

“Teleport!” I responded, hoping that I wouldn’t stay on the defensive.

Hippopotas did have to charge forward to get close enough to Gal. I noticed that Gal had a hesitation to react to my commands. Before I thought it was just because he was new, but Sol hadn’t done that. In any case, it didn’t matter because he was able to avoid the Sand Attack. I ordered for a Confusion next, which caused my opponent to order a Sand Tomb.

That was sort of a problem. Hippopotas seemed to be bulkier than any other Pokémon I’d faced before. Maybe people with two Pokémon were just that much stronger? In any case, it took a Confusion with minimal reaction. But the ground under Gal started to cave in on itself and with Gal in the center, it sucked him in.

It happened quicker than I thought it would, but of course, Gal could teleport. It kept happening though, and Gal had his limitations. The Hippopotas also had Bite, which was fine, neutral because Gal was part fairy. But getting stuck in his teeth would be an issue if Gal couldn’t focus and Teleport out. It was even more alarming that it was able to wade through the sinking sound at a quicker rate than it could run. So with Gal’s hesitation, there was always a window of opportunity. Sometimes I lowkey panicked…

Uh, I needed a different strategy. Gal couldn’t Teleport farther away, and if Hippopotas wasn’t so slow at turning I’m pretty sure I’d just lose. Now that we were in the heat of the battle, Gal’s reflexes were better, but so was Hippopotas. We’d stopped dealing damage because stopping to attack would mean defeat.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

If I could use Sol, then it would trivialize this match. Sol could negate Sand Tomb and attack from farther away, and he could also move quickly. Did that mean I made the wrong choice when choosing? How could I have—

My thoughts were cut off by Gal’s cry. I had settled into a pattern, but that was obviously foolish when my opponent could still change it up. He had used Tackle instead of Bite, and him barreling towards Gal at full speed had taken advantage of his hesitation and had gotten him.

“Gal?” I called out. “Are you—? Shit, Teleport!”

I hoped Gal was still well enough to follow my command. Because the Hippopotas has been told to follow up with Bite and it might’ve been over if that happened. Sand Tomb and Tackle damage was adding up and Gal wasn’t the greatest at taking hits, or endurance.

Luckily, he’d been able to get out of there unscathed. Well, not exactly, but he was still in fighting condition. I apologized to him for my poor performance—couldn’t I do like, anything right?—and fell back into the same routine. However, I realized that we couldn’t keep doing this.

What if that other trainer had another trick card? I could see that they weren’t the most strategic, seeing as it took them long enough to implement Tackle in the first place. But we could both see Gal getting tired, Hippopotas would be able to Tackle and then Bite him.

Shit. I hadn’t realized it, but they had us in a trap. Gal would teleport until he grew tired, because Confusion would be a negative damage deal for us, and running wouldn’t work due to Sand Tomb.

The more I thought about it—while trying to pay attention, it was hard—the more I realized we probably had to go for a Hail Mary. Sort of like with Rollout, except I didn’t really know if an all out attack would work at all. We had to go in, take advantage of Hippopotas’ poor turning skills and hit ‘em from behind. If we kept going like this we’d lose definitely.

So I went for it. In the moment I thought would get Hippopotas and his trainer off guard, I gave the order, “Go in close and rapid Confusion!”

Gal apparently was not ready to switch from the routine we had been doing for the past few… however long this battle was taking. It took him longer to get to Hippopotas, which I hope didn’t cause him to take extra damage.

My plan worked in that he was able to get behind Hippopotas and start doing damage. He hadn’t been able do that since the start of the battle, so it was going good, until my opponent reacted.

“Roll over and Yawn!” He commanded. I was confused as to what exactly that meant but the move Yawn was bad no matter what. Hippopotas tipped itself towards Gal as I called for a Teleport. His hesitation was still holding him back—seriously getting to be annoying—and as Hippopotas fell onto his side, he was able to let out a huge yawn.

That was a smart move. Hippopotas had never been close enough to effectively use Yawn. But they were able to sacrifice his mobility to overcome that, and also Hippopotas’ inability to turn quickly. This might’ve been bad for them if Gal was strong enough to knock Hippopotas out before he fell asleep, because that left him vulnerable.

But Gal wasn’t, and he was also very tired, contributing to not being able to dodge. He fell asleep without much resistance, and I already knew the outcome, so I returned Gal before he could take more damage.

“Genesis forfeits Ralts from the battle!” The referee said, before announcing I had thirty seconds to choose my next Pokémon.

Of course, I only had one option. I turned to Sol, who was obviously ready and had been waiting for this, “You ready?”

“Dude. I’ve been starved of battles, do you honestly ever think I’d say no?” Sol retorted, slowly floating forward.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But we are one Pokémon behind. You’ll need to defeat Hippopotas and whatever’s next, so be careful.”

“It’ll be easy,”

Our conversation ceased before we went over the time limit, and Sol entered the field. Fortunately, when I said this fight would be easier with Sol… I was actually correct! Nice to have that happen this battle.

Sol could stay out of range of Hippopotas’ Yawns and Sand Tombs, and he could move fast and y’know… float. So Hippopotas really couldn’t even hit him. Sol really made this fight a lot easier, as long as Hippopotas didn’t have any more tricks up its sleeves.

And like, really. This Hippopotas had a pretty good moveset, if it had anymore that’d be bullshit. Sol wasn’t really able to fight like how he wanted to, because getting close might put him in danger of a Yawn. There was no reason to go in close when he could just hammer away out of the sand hippo’s reach.

Sol’s Confusion proved to be a lot stronger than Gal’s. After just a few the Hipppopotas was showing heavy exhaustion. Though that was actually quite impressive considering how much skill with type energy it takes to manipulate large areas of sand like it did.

In any case, Hippopotas was knocked out a few moments later without ever getting a hit on Sol.

“Man, I am good,” Sol bragged as he returned to my side of the battlefield in anticipation for the next Pokémon.

I rolled my eyes, “You can’t win against a dark type though.”

“I have Rollout! And that’s not my fault any—“

Our conversation was cut short when I heard the sound of a pokeball opening. On the other side of the field, there was a purplish pink bat-like creature with a round body, pointed ears, and scorpion claws, as well as a scorpion-like tail and feet. It also had blue wing-like appendages that allowed it to glide. It was a Gligar, which we had seen before, in Union Cave.

This wasn't the same one though, and I guess Sol’s thoughts were somewhat aligned with mine because he said, “Would’ve been cool if this was the same Gligar from the cave.”

I didn't respond—I needed to keep my voice open for commands. The one thing good about this was that there were no cave walls or obstacles for Gligar to jump off of. He couldn’t make use of his—

My opponent’s calm voice interrupted my thoughts, “Tailwind!”

A small wind picked up, flowing from behind Gligar and directly against me and Sol. It increased its intensity, growing into a moderate breeze. This inconvenienced heavily, considering it seemed to take a minuscule amount of effort for Sol not to be blown away. But the biggest thing was that Gligar would have wind to work with as long as the Tailwind landed. Wai—

“Quick Attack!” the brown-haired trainer commanded.

Shit. There was definitely no time to think, I started off by telling Sol to dodge but stay close. We couldn’t stay away because Gligar would always try and rush us, and with the aid of Tailwind, he definitely could. But that was fine, because Sol’s style suited staying close. It was unlucky to get a flying opponent though, we wouldn’t be able to use Rollout unless…

There was an inkling of a plan. But there was still no time to think.

Gligar came at us fast, and even when the wind was against it, it knew how to use it to its advantage. Gligar definitely didn’t learn that naturally, at least not this early. Had to be a TM, and probably one of the smartest ones you could buy.

Gligar came at us with Quick Attack more often than not. Even with the wind, it was slower than the Taillow we battled before. But there were other factors that still caused a lot of close calls and damage to Sol.

We were able to hit him with a few Confusions too. It was hard to tell who was in lower health, but I’d have to wager it was Gligar. Whenever he got close enough, he used frickin’ Knock Off. That was an actual decent dark type move that professionals used! It did massive damage to Sol anytime it hit, which was concerning.

I couldn’t say for sure who’d faint first if this continued. But I was definitely taken more damage despite Sol trying to get a Confusion off whenever he could.

I couldn’t hurt Gligar in an all out assault like with Hippopotas. He was too fast in the wind and would strike back too quickly to make the trade off worth it. I had to try a different strategy, and this time I could see a plan. Instead of going for damage, I kept back and tried stalling, to preserve Sol’s life. I could tell Sol was annoyed by this, mostly because it meant he didn’t get to fight Gligar head on as much, but I kept doing it even as the wind dwindled.

Gligar was pretty fast, but if we focused on defense then we could dodge most of his attacks. Sol had gotten used to the wind and was able to use it whenever it was on his side. Though Gligar was literally made for navigating winds with his winged arms, we could still dodge him mostly. He couldn’t hit Sol with any Knock Offs at least.

The wind continued to dwindle and I could tell Gligar was slowing down. I could also tell Sol really wanted to take the opportunity to get Gligar. And maybe I should’ve, but if my plan worked then it wouldn’t matter. Finally, the moment I was waiting for arrived and I could tell the wind was about to stop.

“Rollout!”

Sol didn’t hesitate for a second, dropping down to the ground. He charged up his rock type energy as my opponent saw an opportunity and sent his Gligar in for an attack. In trying to make the most of that opportunity, he didn’t notice the wind tucker out which provided a much slower glide. Sol rushed forward, though we still needed to clear the gap between the two.

“Up!” I commanded, hoping Sol could give himself a boost upwards. It should be able to work, but y’know… sometimes I second guess my strategies. This time, it works, and Sol collides with Gligar in midair. Even though he hadn’t been rolling for long, he rolled right over Gligar, knocking the Fly Scorpion Pokémon down. Gligar wasn’t completely down, but getting higher would prove to be difficult without the wind and before he could set up Tailwind again…

Sol came in with another Rollout, this one being stronger and knocking down the Gligar completely. He was still conscious though, and my opponent didn’t look like he was going to forfeit him…

Actually, he was pretty panicked. It was evident that he didn’t know if attacking or using Tailwind was the right option. I probably should look at my opponent more often to see if they gave anything away.

Another thing to learn from my battles. I looked back at the battle—I needed to stop getting distracted—to see Sol still dominating. In a few more hits, the battle was over.

…

After that, we kept battling. It was really easy to get back into another battle because this battle facility had a nurse right inside of it. They didn’t completely heal your Pokémon, but could tell you if they were ready for a battle and do basic healing. It was pretty nice, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t present in Cherrygrove.

In any case, the next few battles weren’t eventful. I was a little stressed on keeping my wins higher than my losses, which I managed to do by only one. People with two Pokémon seemed to have their shit together.

Or maybe it’s just because I was worrying about money. And I hadn’t even had my big think about what I’d do about money yet. I’d definitely do that tomorrow, but in any case I figured I should also think about what I had to learn from my battles. I wasn’t the best analyst, but I could figure out some stuff that I did wrong.

I lost a battle to a Nickit purely because I was still unprepared for dark types. And also I sort of panicked? I beat my enemy’s Zigzagoon fairly easily but Gal didn’t have a way to touch dark types. Annoyed the shit out of it with Flashes before I recalled him. Sol might’ve won but Nickit was fast and I didn’t have time to think. In previous battles there was a sort of a cycle where I could think without being interrupted but Nickit kept us on our toes even when Sol played defensive.

We had some good battles too, but that was the standout for me. I’d thought about what I had to do to be more prepared for those battles later, because after I finished waiting for Sol and Gal to heal, I got a call from Melissa, which of course I answered.

“I just saw your text Gen!” She immediately started, “You’re finally at Violet City? I was beginning to think you actually were killed by Rattata. Or something at least.”

I almost frowned at how almost correct she was, “I didn’t even take that long.”

“At least you’re finally here now! How’s Violet City? Or scratch that. How was the journey? It probably wasn’t too exciting or anything, actually…”

“Well! I did catch a second Pokémon.” I cut her off.

She was immediately responsive to that. “A second Pokémon? Oh my… Why didn’t you—? Woops, yeah. What is it?”

And so, I explained everything regarding Gal. I couldn’t show her Gal on a regular call, but she was still pretty enthusiastic about my second Pokémon. Maybe even more than I was.

I asked about her, but apparently nothing had changed about Cherrygrove since I’d left. I wasn’t really one to care about news or rumors going around Cherrygrove, but Melissa did keep up with that stuff. So it was a bit surprising, but then again… I didn’t really care about that stuff.

After a good while of talking, we agreed to talk tomorrow and we said goodbyes again. It was at this point that I realized it was getting late, so I decided we should stop battling and go home. We could definitely fit in some more battles, but I just got to Violet City. …And believe it or not, I wanted today to be a break day, but Sol did his thing or whatever.

Also, I was hungry. I found the nearest restaurant, not really bothering to check if it was good or any other details. I just had to eat and get back to the Pokémon Center, I was feeling sleepy again.

In any case, the restaurant happened to be Paldean. From the looks of it it was a new one too, but that also meant that I didn’t know most of the food. It all looked good though.

“I’ll have a… Paella de Paldea.” I decided, for no reason in particular. It was a big enough dish that I could share with Gal and Sol. And if neither me or Gal liked it, Sol would just finish it anyways. So… yeah.

“That was a pretty eventful day,” I said as we got settled into a seat. After saying that, I did realize that the only technically eventful thing that happened was arriving in Violet City. Fighting trainers was a pretty daily occurrence at this point.

Gal communicated a word to me right then though, Fight.

Oh yeah, for Gal it was a pretty eventful day. He fought his first battle today, against the Hippopotas. His first knockout… Well, that came later. “You did pretty good today, though you’ve still got a lot to learn.”

“I’m just glad we got to battle today, I think I would’ve died if we wouldn’t. Next Pokémon we catch has to be good at fighting, please,” Sol chimed in.

“Stop slandering Gal,” I responded, hopefully putting a stop to another argument. “But yeah, battling did feel good. Tomorrow we have actual stuff to do, though. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you’re gonna learn next… And you’ll see what that is tomorrow.” I finished, before Gal could inevitably ask. He was pretty eager about getting stronger, which was a good thing.

“Sweet.” Sol responded, with Gal echoing with similar sentiments.

I nodded to myself and actually started to eat. The food was good, but very different from what I was used to eating. Gal seemed to like it too, but Sol finished the dish off for us still. We had some light banter before leaving the restaurant, and I realized we had one last place to go to before I went to bed.

I strolled through the seat with Sol by my side and Gal on my shoulder still. He had weighed more than I thought he would when I first put him there, but I’d adjusted pretty well. The colors and architecture of the city were obscured a little now that it was darker, but that was fine. I was looking at my pokegear a lot so that I could see where I was going.

“Where are we going?” Sol asked, as if responding to my thoughts.

“You’ll find out in a second, we’re almost there.”

Soon enough, the small tower of the Pokémon Gym appeared in our vision. It was the only gym to have a structure like that, because the gym leader Falkner liked to have high level battles take place high up in an open area, which was where the tower led to.

I would probably never battle in that space since I was battling the gym for my first badge, but it was still cool to see. Wasn’t what I came here for though, I made my way to the gym proper which was a pretty standard building. All the gyms pretty much looked the same on the exterior for recognizability, but gym leaders could customize the insides and whatnot, and Falkner clearly had with that tower.

I entered through the door located under the half pokeball icon and went inside. It was a pretty standard inside too, similar to the layout of a Pokémon Center. There were some trainers inside here too, but definitely not as much as the battle facility or Pokémon Center. They were probably waiting for their battles or something, I wasn’t sure if the gym took battles this late. In any case, I had to register for mine.

“Uh… is this where I can register for a gym battle?” I asked the receptionist. It most definitely was, so I don’t know why I asked.

The receptionist nodded, responding in a bored voice. “Yes, it is. Would you like to register for one?”

“Uh…” Okay, now maybe I was having second thoughts. If I registered now I’d be basically putting myself on a time limit right? I knew that before, but now I was questioning if I’d be able to get myself ready in time. I’d have about one or two weeks before the gym battle and…

Yeah, I could do this. I wasn’t going to lose to the first gym. “Yes,” I finally decided, hoping the receptionist didn’t take note of my pause and ultimately realized that it probably didn’t matter.

“I’m gonna need your trainer card,” he requested. I gave it to him and he scanned it with some computer or something. After a minute or so he gave it back. “You’ll receive the details on your pokegear since you have one of those. Unless you want a paper copy?”

I shook my head, and that was that. I walked out of the gym and opened up my pokegear. I had a message from the official Violet City Gym detailing the time and day of two trainer battles you needed to fight, and then finally… the gym battle.

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

“Okay, so we have three days before battling the first gym trainer, another three days before battling the next, and then tw—no, another three before we battle the gym leader,” I announced to Sol and Gal the next day.

The way I had three days inbetween all of that was quite nice actually. It turned out that we had nine days to prepare before battling Falkner. That made sense, I assumed it might be longer considering it was still the start of the circuit. But I had set out like a month after it had started.

In any case, I did have to start using my time efficiently. I couldn’t spend too much time on just one thing otherwise I wouldn’t be prepared. “Don’t stress about the gym trainers, they shouldn’t be too harder than some of the trainers we face normally.”

I said that mostly to reassure Gal, who was sometimes nervous about battling despite his eagerness to get better. The gym trainers really shouldn’t be that hard though, according to all of the research I’d done. Anyone who was serious about battling should get through them, at least the first badge ones.

But I couldn’t start training right now. I should probably sort out my money situation first…

At the mention that we weren’t going to battle or train, Sol immediately floated off. I sighed and sat at the desk that I was provided. How was I going to do this?

“Guess I should count up all my income or whatever,” I said to myself, well, technically Gal was here. But he had no idea what I was doing… I think? Pokémon couldn’t read without being taught so I doubted he knew what I was doing.

In any case, I did exactly that. Like all registered trainers did, I got money from the government for most basic necessities for my Pokémon. I was also getting—or going to get—money from my parents, which pretty much covered a bunch of the stuff I was going to need.

Pokémon food, equipment, gear, and like… a bunch of stuff. I did have to account for any future Pokémon I may get, though. Sol didn’t need that much food now, but apparently his evolved form processed two times as much food due to actually having… two heads, or minds?

I hadn’t given much thought to it. Maybe I should talk to Sol about it, or do some more research on it.

Later. Other than Sol and Gal it was really kinda hard to map out the expenses and how much I would need. I mean, the last four members of my team could be basically anything? God forbid it’d be a Munchlax, but it could range pretty heavily. I just hope I didn’t catch any Pokémon that needed massive amounts of food. That’d be horror.

Or an expensive item for their growth. Gal was already enough, but if I caught a Pokémon that required a dusk stone or something. I probably just wouldn’t be able to evolve them, not that evolution made a Pokémon irrelevant, but only the best of the best could bring out the potential of an unevolved Pokémon.

But surprise surprise, this topic had already been discussed to hell and back on forums. Lots of trainers had done the same kind of shit I was doing right now, usually before their journey started, which was admittedly a smart idea. I don’t know why I waited until now. Sometimes I just forget to do important things.

Being online also made me realize that I needed to put my Pokémon on some sort of like… diet or something? I dunno what the word was for it. But Pokémon grew very quickly and there were vitamins and such that could aid their growth. Calcium, protein, etc.

But all those vitamins were also very expensive. So I had to spend some time searching for alternatives that would hopefully get my Pokémon some benefits. I really wanted to just skip over this or something, but a lot of the top trainers did have their Pokémon on these vitamins. The next best thing was berries, surprise surprise. I’d have to buy different kinds than I’d bought before though. And I’d also need to rearrange my backpack to make space.

Ugh…

In any case, there were a lot of estimates and whatnot I could use to try and make sure that my planning wasn’t totally inaccurate. It was now that I wished I had a laptop or something. That would make this much easier than using my pokegear, I probably could’ve gotten one in the past but… I’m just stupid like that I guess.

That sort of brought me to my next thing. Most of what I’d been doing so far were “necessities”, but I’d also need money to do like… fun stuff as well. Like buying stuff for my Pokémon—still needed to get Sol a hobby—or going out somewhere fun. That would stretch the amount of money I was currently getting, like—a lot.

That’s where battles would come in, hopefully. As long as I earned a pretty good income from those, I would be able to buy some luxury items. At the top of that list was a laptop.

Hm. I’d add to the list of stuff I want later. Though, that did mean I would need to start betting higher. Battles did typically have more money on them when you get stronger, so I guess that evened out. I put some of my money into getting a moon stone for Gal and would continue to do so… probably eighth gym or even the Pokémon League if I ever got there.

Damn this shit was expensive.

I put my head on the wooden desk —which did not feel particularly comfortable—, and groaned, “Being a trainer sucks.”

“Upsides too.” Ralts communicated, alerting me to the fact that he was probably watching me the entire time despite not understanding most of it. God, I had spent an ungodly amount of time on this.

I painfully turned my head to face him, “Yeah. I’m just whining because this is complicated, and boring. Being a trainer is mostly pretty good…”

“Wish I could.”

“You wish you could be a trainer?” I asked, “Why’s that, for the battles or something?”

“Trainers do stuff. Have money, health… Pokemon are not serious unless they are strong.” Gal responded.

“You’re saying trainers are taken more seriously and have resources, huh? Well, you’re definitely right about that… Is that why you wanted a trainer?”

Gal gave a nod, “A trainer can help me get stronger. And I can help people.”

“Damn, you put a lot more thought into this hero thing than I thought. I’ll help you become strong, or try at least. I’ll do my best to help you become a hero.”

“Thank you.”

…

There really wasn’t much to do after that. I just hoped I wasn’t missing anything and checked over a bunch of stuff. I figure I might need to try and get more money in Violet City at least. I could always try and research my opponent a tiny bit before fighting. That was a fair strategy that I could use to see how easily I might be able to win and get more out of a match. If all went well, I’d probably buy a laptop when I went to the next town. I just needed to get a feel for how I’d do here.

After that whole shebang, I woke up Sol and we went to a training ground of sorts. It was just a mostly empty sand battlefield, suitable for training. There were a few people around, but I didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I was gonna teach my Pokémon a trade secret or something.

“Okay, so both of you are hopefully gonna be learning a new move before the gym battle,” I told my team once we got there. “There are still some other things that I want to do, but I think it’s fine to tell you right now. Sol, you’ll be learning Hidden Power. If it’s a decent type I think you’ll be able to use it pretty effectively in close contact with enemies.”

“Cool.”

“And Gal, you’ll be learning Disarming Voice. It’s a really basic move for most Ralts and I’m sort of surprised you don’t have it already, there’s also a bunch of other stuff that you need to work on, but I’ll tell you about that in a bit.”

Excitement.

“Nice, alright everyone. Let’s start with our warm ups!”

And so our training resumed. I watched Gal to see if there was any improvement in his stamina since our last warmup on Route 31. He did seem to last longer, which was probably a result of our battling yesterday.

I gave him a few more minutes of warm ups so I could tell Sol what he needed to do. Hidden Power was a move that almost every Pokémon could learn. This was because along with their innate typing, most Pokémon had another type that they could tap into easily. Of course, most high level Pokémon could learn moves of other types quite easily (and the Solosis line seemed to learn moves of other types pretty early actually. Scientists have researched that but haven’t found a reason). At this level though, Sol didn’t have a wide variety of types to choose from though, so it should be useful.

And it could help high level Pokémon that didn’t learn a certain type of moves. That all depended on how lucky you were, since the type you could channel was random. People have tried to link it to personality or genetic traits, but it never really worked. In any case, Hidden Power just channeled that type energy and sent it out. It was a pretty basic move, though most Pokémon couldn’t learn it because they couldn’t channel a type other than their own. So usually it was learned via TM.

Solosis could learn it naturally though, which no one really knew why again. But again, it’s a pretty basic move, so I figure Sol should be able to learn it within a few days or so, he had already used rock type energy. Wouldn’t it be lucky if that was his Hidden Power? Technically you could also use your original typing for Hidden Power, but that was sort of redundant.

After I told Sol about how to learn it, he got to work. And by work, I mean meditating, just like how he had done when learning Rollout. I watched for a moment before figuring it’d take awhile before anything happened.

So I moved onto Gal.

“Okay, so I know I said you’d be learning Disarming Voice, but… we still gotta deal with some other stuff before we get there.”

Gal’s reaction time to my commands was terrible. We might’ve been able to win that Hippopotas fight and others if it were better. A lot of those losses were still my fault, but I’d still have to fix whatever was happening with Gal.

Used to call my own commands. Parents did too. Heroes do. Creates confusion sometimes, didn’t think it was noticeable.

—was Gal’s response when I asked. So it was just him getting used to having a trainer now, though I doubted most Pokémon called out their own attacks. Didn’t they just… do it? That was a common trope in media though, maybe Gal’s parents also wanted to be heroes or something.

That didn’t really matter though, I could ask later. For now I just had to fix the problem and that basically just meant really boring practice. I just told Gal commmands and he executed them until he started to instinctively follow them. I tried to throw him for a few loops here and there to make sure he could handle multiple consecutive commands or me changing my mind in the middle of one—hopefully that last one didn’t happen too often. But it might.

So yeah, that was boring as hell. By the end of it Gal was carrying out attacks with little to no downtime which satisfying considering how long I just spent on that. We took a short break at that point because Gal’s stamina still sucked. We’d have to work on that too, but I thought this was the more pressing issue. The gym battles shouldn’t be too long that Gal’s stamina would drag us down.

We decided to test Gal’s reaction time in a serious situation where we needed Sol. And after that I wanted to fully have Sol strengthen Gal’s Confusion. It was fine, but it could be better, and more damage could always help.

So Sol’s training was cut off short. From what it sounded like, he hadn’t been making much progress anyways. It was hard to use other kinds of energy, especially when they weren't simple things like grass or ground such as when they were mostly concepts, or a state of mind like dragons or the dark type. Maybe he'll make more progress tomorrow.

In any case, I didn’t have to do much for the last bit of training. Sol said that Gal’s Confusion was pretty much up to par and that it’d be “perfect” with just some more use. And at that point I realized how hungry I was and that lunch had passed us by.

We finished up training and then had our late lunch, and then we went to the battle facility. It looks like we were going to shift into another sort of routine where I did some thinking in the morning, we trained until… whenever and then battled until we went to sleep.

Thinking about doing that everyday made me feel like that could get tiring or boring. But right now I was excited to be doing some battling. We didn’t actually get that much done today, we had some improvements with Gal’s general battling skill, but Sol hadn’t really learned anything today.

So the few battles we had weren’t that much different from yesterday’s. Gal seemed to win more of the first matchups he was pit up against though, a stark contrast from yesterday where he lost most and Sol had to carry the win. Unless it was a dark type, then we lost.

Maybe Disarming Voice was more of a necessity than I thought. Rollout wasn’t cutting it when dealing with dark types.

In any case, we lost to a dark type before deciding to go eat dinner. It had only been hours since our late lunch, but hey—food. We went to some fast food place and discussed our battles a bit. Melissa also called, just to check up on me and see how I was doing. I told her about all the stuff I’d done today, but Melissa was never really into training Pokemon.

It was nice to talk to her though.

We went straight back towards the battle facility after that. Now that I think of it, maybe we should choose a different way to choose our battles. I have been just randomly talking to people—which was a terrible experience—so far, hanging around the areas where you would find trainers for a battle.

But I could also search for people who were actually good on forums. If I wanted an actual challenge and a great battle. I could also prepare a little if I knew my opponent was, like what I was thinking be—

“Hey, isn’t that that one guy?” Sol interjected.

I sighed, “Gonna have to be more specific.”

“The guy who beat us in Cherrywhatever. In our first battle?”

“Matthew?” I said, a little surprised. I turned around to see where he was, and sure enough, he was here. The guy who beat us in our first battle.