I rushed back to the Pokemon Center to get my team looked at. Upon arriving I immediately went up to the counter.

“Hello, who can I help you?” came the familiar question from nurse Joy.

“Hello nurse joy. Can you look over my Pokemon? Poochyena got hit by a powerful Takedown from one of Roxanne’s tier three Nosepass and my Absol hurt her leg while getting hid by a Rock tomb from the same.” I explain the situation to her.

“Certainly. Please put your Pokeballs on the tray, I will look after them right away.” said nurse Joy professionally. Upon receiving my Pokeballs a Chansey bustled away with them and nurse Joy turned to me again.

“Will you be waiting in the lobby?”

“No, I want to run a quick errand to the mart. I promised treats after the match.” I explained while scratching my head. Nurse Joy looked disapproving towards me so I hastily added. “Of course after that I will be in the lobby.” Mollified nurse Joy nodded and shooed me away.

At the mart there were quite a few customers and it took me a while to find the right treats for the three of them. It wouldn’t be right to leave out Seedot after all. After also stocking up on Pokemon food and berries I hurried back to the Center.

My Pokemon were still under nurse Joy’s care so I had time to kill. Looking around I saw the video phones on the wall and decided to call the lab.

Ring.

Ri-”Hello, Birch speaking.” came the voice of Professor Birch through the speaker.

“Hello Professor, Iruni here. I just wanted to call to give you guys an update.” I spoke.

“Oh hello Iruni. Yes, we were waiting for you to call. Wait a second while I get your father.” Birch answered. A short while later the video feed activated and I saw my father and Professor Birch on screen.

“Hello son, how are you doing? Caught any Pokemon yet?” My dad greeted me with a joking tone.

“Hello dad, actually yes. Wait a second.” I unclipped my Pokeball and opened it to reveal my now much healthier looking Seedot. He blinked around, searching for the reason he was called out.

“Ah Seedot, I want you to meet my father and Professor Birch.” I explained to my Pokemon while pointing to the screen. Seedot just gave me a deadpan glare that I needed a second to figure out. He couldn’t see the screen. “Oh, yes I will help you up.” I picked my Seedot up and put him in my lap.

“So guys this is Seedot.”

“You sure start collecting future dark types son.” chuckled my father while Birch narrowed his eyes. “Why does that Seedot looks like it starved a while ago?” Birch asked in a tone that demanded an answer.

“He found my camp starved in the middle of the night.” Seedot nodded along. “He is currently on special food by orders of nurse Joy.” I explained to them.

“See that he returns to his full strength before you start training him.” ordered Birch.

“That was the plan Professor, but I have something else to tell you. That’s why you don’t see Absol or Poochyena with me.” I build some tension. They both just looked at me intrigued.

“I won the Rustboro gym badge an hour ago, those two are still getting treated.” I smiled and presented the badge to them.

“That’s amazing Iruni.” said Birch while my father exclaimed in his NOT in house voice ‘That’s my son!’ in the background. My father leaned in after his moment. “Tell us everything!” he demanded. So I narrated the whole battle for the two, after I was done Birch wanted to speak up but was interrupted by the Center’s intercom.

“Iruni Inei. Please come to the counter.” came the voice of nurse Joy.

“Well, that’s me. I will need to see my Pokemon, see ya!” I said and hung up before they could say anything.

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“Well let’s see how the two are doing.” I said to Seedot and shifted him in my arms as he nodded.

“Nurse Joy you wanted to see me?” I asked her upon arriving at the counter.

“Ah Iruni, yes. First here are your Pokemon.” She handed me their Pokeballs. “Now, both of them are not allowed to train or battle for at least three days. I would recommend your Absol doesn’t put pressure on her legs for five.” She more or less commanded me.

“That seems kind of long?” I ask in confusion, Pokemon are resilient after all.

“Well you took on a Pokemon that was stronger then them and your Absol had bad luck with her taking the attack. But something must have happened to worsen the injury after that.” She looked at me with the expectation to explain it.

“Ah yes, she launched a Knock off in the last second and secured her stance with that leg.” I explained. Nurse Joy nodded.

“Yes that would do it. Again, no training or battles for both of them. And don’t even think of training your Seedot in the meantime, he will need about the same time.” Seedot smirked and giggled the whole time while I was getting told off by nurse Joy.

‘She deals with kids and teenagers more often than not. Makes sense that she needs to over explain everything.’ I realized after a while.

“I will take care nurse Joy and come to you if something happens.” I said sincerely.

“See that you do, now shoo. I need to work.” She said with a smile. After picking up my Seedot, who couldn’t stop snickering, I moved to our room.

“I will recall you to prepare the food ok? I want it to be a surprise.” I ask my Seedot, who reluctantly nods. He certainly wanted that food fast.

Setting out the three bowls and preparing the individual treats, meat for Poochyena and Absol and a special grass treat for Seedot, I released all three of my Pokemon.

“Congratulations team, eat up!” I call out to them. They only had eyes for their bowls though and totally ignored me. Chuckling I made myself a cup of coffee in the meantime, they hopefully savour their treats. After they were done with their feast I placed a chair in front of them and took a seat. They looked at me with varying expressions.

“So, good job in the gym battle.” I began, Absol preened and Poochyena puffed out his chest. “Yes, as I said good job. But we did not fight our best did we?” I asked them, causing them to throw me confused expressions.

“Don’t get me wrong, you did great. But think about your battle, we more or less brute forced it. Which is something that is more or less my fault.” I continued. Ignoring their expression of slight disbelieve I pushed on.

“I got excited at the prospect of bypassing a three week wait for the battle. That time could have been used to train more and importantly would have allowed Seedot to battle. And don’t you protest, he would have had the best match up.” I explained to them. They looked a bit mollified but clearly wondering where I was going with this.

“So we will do things differently for the next gym. We will still push fast to the location but train there for some time. Since it is a quaint little island, it is better suited for that than this bustling city.” My Pokemon nodded, Absol looked especially glad to be out of the city. She did have to deal with looks and people trying to pet her before being recalled upon entering the city.

“Which brings me to my next point. The next gym is a fighting type gym, by far our worst match up. To go through each of you, let’s start with Poochyena. You don’t get any moves that let you deal with fighting types for a long time and then you will be a Mightyena. You won’t be able to really use Iron Tail or Bite on them because they will just shrug that of. I really don’t need to explain tackling a fighting type right?” I chuckled at the end. Poochyena dropped all the way to the floor during my speech. “Pooch…” he whined.

“Hey, it’s ok. That what team mates are for buddy.” I console him and turned to Absol.

“Now you have a similar problem, while you do get a few options for targeting fighting types I doubt you will be able to develop them till then.” Absol looked a bit insulted at that. “Now don’t give me that look and let me explain. One is a flying type move that I don’t have a single clue on how to develop, the same goes for the other move although we may gain a teammate that can help in the future. The last one is called Psycho Cut and I would wager you would first need to master Night Slash, and not just use it, before branching out. Can you see why I don’t think it will be on time for the fighting gym?” I explained at length to her, to which she reluctantly nodded.

“Good, now on to Seedot.” I said and turned to my last Pokemon. “While his match up is not that much better he has way more ways to deal with it once he evolves. Leech Seed and Fake out will be important to that. Still that does not leave us with many options.” I conclude. All three of my Pokemon looked down and I felt like a dick. They just won the first badge and now I sat here and told them off.

“Now, now, no need to feel down. I already have the solution, two solutions in fact.” I tried lifting their moods. It helped, at least a bit. “We will need to catch new teammates. In fact in Dewford Islands Granite Cave lives the perfect counter for those pesky fighting types.” I explained to them, causing them to perk up a bit.

“Sadly they are rare and hard to find. But since we want to train anyway it won’t matter, the species is called Sableye and they are a ghost / dark dual type. They mostly learn status and supporting moves but can become extremely disruptive. Perfect for our team, don’t you think?” All three nodded at that.

“Good, now that this is over we will turn in for the night. We have five days of rest and research for me before us.” I concluded the team meeting and stowed away the chair.

In the five days we mostly stayed in the room, because Absol and Seedot didn’t like the city and Poochyena was liable to get lost chasing something. After restocking, checking out and saying goodbye to nurse Joy it was onto the routes once more.