Chapter Four: Slacker to King Someday

…

The countryside of far northern Johto was beautiful, of course, being one I didn't even know existed while playing the video games and watching the anime.

Tucked inbetween the mountains well north of Blackthorn City and Mahogany town, lay acres of farmland in all directions, a few villages, and apparently, an ultra important temple and mountain, Takujimi.

It was honestly a bit interesting to see just how much of northern Johto looked like Gunma, a moderately rural prefecture of Japan with a low population count, and a gorgeous countryside.

Stalks of corn fields seemed to dot the landscape, followed by rice fields as well. Everything seemed to be farmland in all directions, or more mountains, and the closer we got to Kamarino, the more houses I saw.

Which made me wonder, how come I never heard of this area of the Pokémon world prior? It clearly had some importance to it right?"

I asked the truck driver, a calm and aged man well into his thirties with a frizzled beard and cargo shorts. "Why is this part of the country so unpopulated?"

He shrugged. "Well decades ago this actually used to be a pretty popular tourist attraction for trainers and ordinary people alike. Everyone wanted to pay their respects at Takujimi temple, and the villages around all profited."

"Then the Pokémon on the mountain started to act very aggressively, and the myth behind the mountain started to fade away. One thing led to another, and Kamarino's train station only sees a few new passengers every couple of months or so."

The meat delivery truck driver threw his nose upwards a little. "Alright. There's the town."

It was the largest village I'd seen so far, wasn't saying much, it was a total of two here in Johto. But it was fairly decently sized.

Between the mountains separating Johto from the roads to the Pasio region, lay this massive valley where a couple villages were built. The largest of them all it seemed was Kamarino, which had a population above 70,000 according to the sign we passed.

Kamarino didn't appear like a village completely out of time like the one I had just passed through. It had a high speed rail station going right through it and the mountainside on the other end.

It was large enough to have cobbled roads, even a few large sections of farm land cultivated into a school and such.

I passed the train station and watched about four people standing there getting off the mono rail.

A businessman, a married couple, as well as a teenager clearly getting back from high school in I assumed Blackthorn City.

Young children chased a tiny Rattata with very loud laughs, the Pokémon had stolen one of their sandwiches during what I assumed was lunchtime. So three of them ran and tripped a little bit after the Rattata all around the schoolyard.

The truck driver hit the brakes in front of the butcher's shop. "Alright boys. End of the road."

"I'll never forget this, thank you."

He shrugged. "All I did was save you hiking for a day and a half, maybe a bit more."

"No I mean." I stuck my hand out. "Here."

Inoru and I bowed deeply to him. We all shook hands, I got his cousin's name, Violet, in case we needed someone to ask for specifics on Pokémon battling, and we were on our way.

"Alright let's go."

"Let's go where?" asked Inoru, clutching his Bellsprout to his chest, scooping it up from the ground with one hand.

"Find out how to start training our team."

…

In the village center, I read a small paper pinned to a large cork bulletin board.

Kamarino Youngster Matches - All ages and ranks allowed to compete.

Then there was a symbol of the World Competitive Pokémon League, a Pokéball with the golden letters WCPL was printed on it.

On the first Saturday of each month, Youngsters will be permitted to battle in the town square for official WCPL Youngster medals. Rules will follow modified League competition, and follow a tournament bracket format. All competing Pokémon must be cleared for combat by Doctor Yuu, 57-11 Iorina Lane.

Interesting. This village was so large it had actual addresses.

"So we have to find this Doctor Yuu, get our Pokémon checked, then-"

"Uh. Nico?"

I turned. "Yeah?"

Everyone buying some clothes or food in the village center was staring at us. I had no idea what was going on. Was my robe really messy or something?

I felt a bit weirded out and then asked an elderly lady sitting down holding her cane near a clothes shop.

"Why is everyone staring?"

She shrugged with a wrinkled smile. "No one's seen a monk of the Sprout Order for almost seventy years. I quite frankly can't remember seeing one outside of a shrine ever."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I turned around, smiling and waving at everyone. "Hey guys, we'll be moving on shortly in just a bit." I chuckled, seeing them all awkwardly return to their business. "Yeah."

I smiled at the old woman who helped me. "I'm sorry, obviously, we're new in town. How can we find Doctor Yuu?"

"You see that inn over there across the street from a café? Follow the road between them up the hill for a few blocks. When you see the school house, you're going to turn right and walk for almost twenty minutes. His house will be in a small neighborhood, nearest a closed newspaper station."

I was surprised by how detailed her directions were. "You know it?"

"Everyone knows it." she shrugged. "Pokémon help us all in our daily lives, with farm work and work of all sorts, even the occasional Rapidash race. We go to him all the time in case they get hurt or sick."

I was confused. How did people race Rapidash without getting, seriously burned?

"We should get going, thank you for your help." Inoru appeared quickly and said, before bowing to the old lady who nodded back.

…

Yuu was a man with white hair in his late fifties who ran a licensed medical practice for both Pokémon and people in the northern end of town. He had a calm, kind look and the kind of glasses that hung off his neck by a string for easier use.

"Hello there." He was done with another patient as I walked in with my Slakoth, and Inoru as always carrying his Bellsprout on his shoulder. "How can I-"

He must've noticed we were monks, shaking his head and continuing. "How can I help you today?"

"I'm here to compete next month. How do I get my Pokémon cleared for the tournament?"

"Well step into my office, and I'll take a quick look."

…

"Hm." Yuu sat Slakoth down on his patient's table and ran through the basic tests, going through a normal check up like he would on a person.

He seemed to be interested in measuring Slakoth's arms and legs, and total height with a measuring tape he took out of his desk, confusing me, but ultimately not bothering me, he was a doctor.

"How old is he?" Yuu asked as he checked Slakoth's pulse.

"Um." I blinked. "The Elder from my shrine found him as a two week old newborn out in the woods around. I think a month and a half ago?"

"A two month old Slakoth, and he's." he was clearly seeing something I didn't. "This tall. Odd, and curious, but certainly nothing dangerous."

Yuu pointed to a small machine in his office. "That's a Bio Scanner, helps me determine if there's anything wrong with your Pokémon at all in terms of physiology. Can he stand over there for me?"

"It's okay buddy follow the doctor."

Yuu helped the Slakoth off the table, and even held his hand, knowing he was still a baby as he waddled around, following him to the Bio Scanner.

A decently loud beep filled the room for a moment, there was a short red light and a spin of an X-Ray looking panel, and then Yuu checked his computer.

It took him about five minutes but Yuu pulled a paper file out of his desk, seemed to be considering something, and then nodded. "Alright, as I thought." he said.

"Your Slakoth has one and a half times the height, strength, and potential battle ability than even the above average species his age. He's in perfect fighting shape, and fully grown into Slaking, will likely accrue the skill and size of even highly ranked WCPL fighters."

Inoru looked at me in confusion. "I'm sorry, what?" I asked with a slight chuckle.

"It's quite common for Pokémon around your shrine, we've never been able to determine why Pokémon around places like Mount Silver and Mount Takujimi are naturally so much more powerful than their counterparts elsewhere."

Yuu took off his glasses by merely sliding them off his nose. "Tell me what you can about Slakoth's behavior."

"Um, he's a fairly normal Slakoth. He just, eats and sleeps all day mostly, hangs around on my shoulder constantly since I don't have a Pokéball for him."

"No but, during an altercation, during training. How does he usually act?"

"I wouldn't know about training him since I was going to start doing that right after we were done today. But we've only been in one altercation."

Yuu clicked his pen with a nod, raising his clipboard. "Describe it to me."

"Well in the village at the bottom of our mountain, a small child threw fruit at my head. I wasn't remotely hurt or even insulted, but Slakoth got down off my shoulders, and he threw fruit right back at him too."

Yuu paused, his pen froze. "I'm sorry what?"

"He threw fruit at the kid."

"And then what happened?"

"Nothing, but Slakoth looked just about ready to fight this kid, and the Pokémon him and the other kids had with him too."

Yuu blinked rapidly, shaking his head for a moment.

I was curious. "What?"

"The Slakoth line are among the laziest, if not the laziest Pokémon in existence. For one to try to defend you without you specifically asking it to, especially at such a young age, is very odd."

Now Inoru piped up. "Isn't it common for baby Pokémon to grow such a strong attachment to their trainers though?"

"Absolutely, but not enough to go against the behavior of their own species most often. It basically never happens." Yuu tore off one of the pages he had on his clipboard. "This might be explained by the fact that your Slakoth is extremely unique, coming from Mount Takujimi's forests."

"So wait." I looked at the paper. "I passed?"

"Slakoth is more than ready to begin WCPL Youngster training. Granted I don't think it'll be easy, even at the pace for baby Pokémon, several of them simply don't understand nor like it. In case of any injury or stoppage, I'm always right near the ring, so you'll be seeing me next month."

Yuu looked about done with me, not even asking if I had more questions. "You there," he said softly to Inoru. "Want to get your Bellsprout cleared for sparring?"

"Oh no." he smiled a bit. "I'm much too old to being competing, I'm twenty six."

"I know trainers who started in their thirties, it's your call, but you won't get another chance to start off on the same foot as your traveling companions." he nodded towards myself and the baby Slakoth Yuu placed back in my arms.

Inoru shrugged. "That doesn't really bother me."

"Well then if you don't mind me asking. What brings you out to Kamarino? The monks haven't tried competing in anything here in Kama Valley for the past. Three, four, thousand years? What's changed?"

I smiled. Yes, I had a name for this part of the country I like traveling through so much, thank you Doctor Yuu for an otherwise meaningless name to anyone else.

"Well," said Inoru. "Most of it is private Temple affairs. But we were put on a special mission to help Nico here become a Pokémon trainer."

"Really? I thought monks didn't believe in fighting for sport, or even fighting in general."

"They made an exception for me." I said.

"Then you are one extremely unique sage in my opinion." said Yuu. "Since you're new in town, I can give you some tips."

I listened carefully.

"Your Pokémon should maintain regular hygiene after training every day, it's just a health thing. Secondly, you are going to need to be extremely patient when training him, I can't tell you how many times kids have brought their team to me wondering if something was wrong with them. When they simply were trying to push their Pokémon too hard or too slowly."

"Alright, thank you."

"This will be the most important advice I can give you. There is a great space in town to train your Slakoth, there is a large grass courtyard next to the community garden, I'll give you the address." he said, likely writing it down. "It's completely open and free for you to use most hours of the day, there's some shade and water if you want to take a rest. And I wouldn't worry about your Pokémon making a mess of things, you're training a baby Slakoth not a Slaking, you can train him as much as you like over there."

He passed me the address on a slip of paper and spoke. "Will that be all gentlemen?"

We both nodded.

"Pretty much yeah." I said.

"Thank you so much Doctor Yuu."

"My pleasure, I look forward to seeing what you and your Slakoth can do next month."

I smiled, I did too, I'm sure Slakoth would do great. All I had to do was get to training him.

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