The chess pieces gleamed underneath the sun, and if they could sweat, they would have.

Black and white pieces stood in neat rows, though the board was slightly tilted to the left because we were playing on a hill.

It had been cloudy today and I was worried the wind would blow away our game but it had lied down after our training session in the morning.

It was our fifth day on our journey to Jubilife City and we had woken up early in the morning again to train.

I had taken her on a jog through the woods, carried her on my shoulders when she became exhausted and then returned to the road again.

I had her practice full force Confusion and Disarming Voice against tree barks while trying to manifest and maintain the Double Team clones.

After learning that she could do it according to the Pokédex I had her try to create clones of herself for half a day.

It first resulted in her just sitting and being bored but when the sun went down suddenly two Ralts had appeared.

After that it was way easier, right now she could create four Double Team clones and although it wasn't a lot, I was really glad she could do it in the first place.

I had done some testing to see what Double Team could do and it was kinda underwhelming.

It was literally nothing more than an illusion that would break upon contact. Sure, it was a mind blowing reality breaking power, but it also wasn’t that useful in a fight.

The clones could move independent of Ralts but they relied on Ralts' vision and couldn't affect the world around them.

They could however be used to bait people into attacking if used properly, and they could create a situation where an opponent had to destroy clones while the real Ralts could hide away and heal.

I had created several attack patterns for Ralts that used Double Team, both offensive and defensive.

I had no idea how Ralts created the clones, according to the Pokédex Double Team clones were created by moving so fast that Pokémon created after images, but that didn't seem right.

Ralts was not that fast.

I theorized that maybe they were illusions that were imprinted into the viewer's mind or it could be some kind of physical illusion created by warping space, whatever it was, it was weird.

While Ralts was doing that I tried to teach myself how to fight with a knife.

I watched countless action movies with knife fights and I had seen a few tutorials on youtube that I only watched out of boredom in my past life. And turns out, I couldn't remember anything useful.

After a few minutes of awkwardly trying to remember anything about fighting with a knife I could only remember the phrase: "When you see someone with a knife you run. 99% of all the tricks won't work in a real fight."

After some half assed stabbing motions that could maybe scare away a Ratata, I gave up and decided to read the guidebook Professor Rowan had given me.

I knew I needed to get some offensive powers of my own. If my first week was any indication of my future in this world I don't want to rely on my Pokémon to fight my battles.

I should really start looking into Aura and Psychic Powers; would Sabrina be able to teach me?

I made a few notes in my Pokédex and kept reading.

After 2 hours of Ralts boring herself with training I gave her a hug and fed her salad.

I wasn't sure if she was supposed to eat that stuff but when she didn't spit it out I assumed her stomach could at least endure it.

After that I started with the second part of Ralts' training, the mental part.

I moved the white pawn two spaces forward and the game of chess started, Ralts narrowed her eyes and focused on the board.

The game of chess was only one of many ways I tried to make Ralts smarter than the average Pokémon; I had her try to solve puzzles as fast as possible and even had her play games with me while keeping up Double Team clones which made it really hard for her to focus.

Ralts was a psychic/fairy Pokémon and most of the psychic moves relied on the brainpower, or at least I assumed it works that way, considering how most Pokémon with a higher level of sentience were Psychic in type.

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And just like with any muscle the brain could be trained to perform better.

We were in our 4th game when we were interrupted by someone.

I was just castling my king and rook when he coughed and forced me to pay attention.

Turning around I frowned, honestly I expected to see Chelsea or Barry to challenge me to a duel, instead I met the dark blue eyes of someone else.

He had dark purple hair that had one big strand hanging over the middle of his face and had a scowl on his face that seemed to be permanent.

Unlike almost everyone else I had met he didn't wear short sleeves, instead he wore a purple jacket with long sleeves and a dark blue shirt underneath it.

"Oh, hello there, didn't see you." I smiled kindly at him, knowing he wouldn't appreciate it.

"My name is Paul, I heard about the blue haired trainer that beat Flo's challenge, is that you?" he said, not pausing or returning the smile.

I shrugged, "yeah, that's me."

Flo was a trainer I had encountered on my third day of traveling towards Jubilife City.

She lived in a small town named Riley Town that was on the route towards Jubilife City. It wasn't in the game or in the anime but when I passed through I could easily see why.

Riley Town was small, like smaller-than-Sunbright-Town small.

In fact, it was not much more than a Pokémon Center and a row of houses around a big plaza that featured a concrete fountain with a statue with Palkia on top of it but that was about it.

A trainer named Flo lived in that town and apparently she challenged everyone who passed through to a professional match with the conditions they had to beat her Pokémon within 3 minutes or she would win.

However there was a catch, her Pokémon was a Metapod.

As you could probably guess her Metapod had a ridiculous high defense, even for a Metapod.

Most trainers who passed town accepted the challenge upon seeing her Metapod, thinking they could stack up enough damage within 3 minutes for the shell to crack.

While I was passing the plaza I saw an ongoing match and witnessed with my own eyes how Metapod survived a Seismic toss, flamethrower and a whole barrage of slashes from a Charizard.

Metapod kept using harden and didn't sustain any real damage the entire match.

The clock timed out and Flo had won the match by simply waiting for the clock.

When her opponent had to pay up he didn't look happy.

The people who had gathered, a mix of travelers and town's people didn't look surprised at all because this happened a lot.

After seeing that I couldn't resist the urge to try for myself and an hour later we were at the plaza, our Pokémon in front of us and ready to battle.

The nurse who worked at the local Pokémon Center offered to be the referee and the battle started.

I had given Ralts special instructions before the match and once the signal was given to start she ran towards her opponent.

Metapod used Harden and a silver shine flashed over its entire body.

Ralts didn't attack though instead she grabbed the Metapod and tossed it into the fountain.

Everyone stared in shock as it began drowning in the fountain water.

Flo just stared, her mouth wide open, before she realized her pokémon was drowning.

She recalled her Pokémon and with that I had won the challenge.

It was really shocking to see that no one had thought of drowning the so-called ‘invincible’ Pokémon, I mean it still needs to breathe right?

No matter how hard its skin was, all living things need air.

Having no appendages to swim, Metapod had lost within a minute.

Considering it could talk there had to be a hole air passed through. I had assumed that it either used the nose-like appendage it had to breathe, or spiracles and breathing tubes like cocoons from my world.

Maybe everyone else was just too focused on damaging it and breaking through its hard skin.

Flo bursted out crying and I felt bad for her but when one of the spectators in the crowd had told me how much money she had made with the challenge the guilt faded away quickly.

I gave her the advice to "not be a one trick pony" and left with a shitload of money I had earned, apparently she had a high status in the algorithm because I earned a whole lot more money than I felt I deserved.

And looking at Paul in front of me I guess the word had spread faster than I could travel.

"I am challenging you to a 3 on 3 battle," he said sternly and held out three shrunken Pokéballs clutched between his fingers.

I pointed at Ralts, "Sorry but she is my only Pokémon so it has to be a 1-on-1. If you are up to it of course."

The last part was directed at Ralts who nodded and slammed her two fists together, challenging Paul.

"Fine with me." Paul sneered and I rolled my eyes.

Why did Ash's rival have to bother me? Shouldn't he be somewhere else and bully some poor Pokémon?

Luckily for us the hill we stood on was close to a Pokémon Center so we decided this was a good place to hold our match.

Although I didn't really like Paul in the anime it was a small blessing he had shown up. Ralts and I had practiced some new moves and techniques and we were eager to test them out.

Considering Paul had just experienced a draw against Ash if the anime timeline was at play it meant that he wasn't strong enough to be a real challenge yet.

"Elekid, time to fight." Paul said and he threw his Pokéball.

I raised an eyebrow; Elekid wasn't really the opponent I wanted to face. It could be done but I really wanted to fight his Chimchar to test out a theory I had prepared for my first Gym battle against Roark.

A yellow creature appeared in front of Paul, it had a round body with arms larger than its whole body.

On its head it had two weird horns that made it look like a plug, which was very funny in my opinion.

It cried out its own name like Pokémon do all the time and shot a glare at Ralts who answered the glare with a grin.

"Elekid," Paul began, "Use Thunder."

And the battle began.