Act I: Chapter 14

Hello everyone,

Reminder of pokemon and names:

Hashi - Hariyama.

Minato - Hypno.

Madara - Growlithe.

Shika - Absol.

Teddiursa - ???

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Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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I sat up quickly, looking for the source of the weight against my legs.

Panic seized my heart and my hands reached forward to defend myself against my attacker.

Madara sat on his haunches, staring at me with his tongue out and looking happy. I let my body fall back onto the bed and my hands went to cover my eyes.

'Fuck, you're not in Mt. Moon Brawly. Get your shit together.' I chastised myself as I laid there and tried to get my heart to slow down.

Madara shuffled on the bed and I could hear him sniffing around my chest, towards a certain area. My right hand fell from my face and landed on his head so that I could start petting him and giving him the attention he deserved.

He didn't even notice my hand. Instead, his attention was firmly directed towards the spot on my chest.

I sat up again, curious as to what he saw.

It was a feather.

I would have liked to call it a red feather, but that would be massively inaccurate. The way it sat on my chest, the rays of light from the window behind me threw it into a rainbow of different colors. I knew what it was immediately.

'Rainbow Feather. A feather from the legendary pokemon Ho-oh himself.' I deduced as soon as I realized what I was looking at.

My brain short-circuited.

"What the fuck!?" The words flew out of my mouth without me thinking. My hand that wasn't petting Madara went to the feather and I grabbed it before bringing it up to my eye.

My outburst had caused the rest of my pokemon to jump awake and ready to fight before they saw that there was no danger. My psychic link to Minato told me that they didn't have to look at the feather to know that it was there.

It was giving off a very unique pattern of energy. But it spoke of fire, an unimaginably powerful flame, unending and unrelenting.

I knew that my pokemon were learning way more than I was about the feather, just because of their connection to the mystical energy that gave them their abilities. My understanding was muted, and tainted by my own experiences and second hand feelings of it.

When I looked up from the flame next, Shika had propped herself on the bed, and was staring at the feather just like Madara was. Hashi stood on the left side of the bed, holding my new teddiursa in his left hand. Both of them were also staring at the feather I was holding. Minato stood on the right side of the bed, mimicking them.

I took a good look at all of them, and moved the feather around a bit. All of their eyes stayed glued on to the object.

"Guys?" I asked, to get their attention.

Minato was the first to snap out of it, and looked towards me. Then his eyes scrunched together and he shook his head. Then he looked at his teammates and I felt him do something through our link.

Everyone looked towards him, and then me before mirroring his actions and shaking their heads. Everyone but Madara. My growlithe continued to look at the feather, and sniff at it. He wasn't in the trance like state that everyone else was, but he was even more interested in it.

I moved it to him, to touch him with it.

He yelped and moved backwards. He would've fallen off of the bed, had Minato not caught him before that could happen. Madara looked at me, and then back to the feather curiously.

"It won't hurt you." I said, trying to calm him down.

He wiggled out of Minato's arms and flopped back onto the bed before finally approaching the feather again. I smacked him across the nose with it, before he could react.

Nothing happened.

"See." I told him. He calmed down after that demonstration, and I rolled my left shoulder. There was a twinge of pain, but it disappeared after I stretched it out a bit.

'Torn apart by a skarmory, and now shot. I'll be lucky to see eighteen.' I thought as I shoo'd my pokemon off of the bed before swinging my legs over and onto the floor.

An hour later, I walked out of the Pokemon Center completely dressed, and with a full stomach. Madara was the only one outside of his pokeball because of the city's regulations. Pokemon of the first stage evolutions were allowed outside of pokeballs, but they had to have an evolution. So Shika couldn't walk around because she didn't evolve.

My newly acquired teddiursa could have, but it was still new to the team and I didn't want to overwhelm it. So new, that I hadn't had a chance to name the little guy yet, even if I had scanned him already. I was still considering names, and I wanted the whole team to be present and aware, unlike this morning when they were barely functional because of the feather.

Speaking of which, the Rainbow Feather was now safe inside of my bag, and would stay there until I knew what to do about the fact that a feather of Ho-oh showed up on my chest, in the middle of a pokemon center, with all of my pokemon there watching over me. Not to mention that at least three of my pokemon had strong predictive moves.

No one should have been able to sneak in and place it there. And I didn't even want to think about the possibility of Ho-oh dropping it off itself. That just didn't compute.

So I was trying to distract myself by what I knew best, battling. And according to Brock, I was fit to take on my next two gyms fairly quickly, and that is exactly what I am doing.

My eyes tracked the signs along the road in front of me, looking for a sign to point me in the right direction.

Cerulean City was a bustling city. People of all trades roamed the streets looking at one of the more touristy destinations that Kanto had to offer. Shops lined the main road of the city, mostly selling merchandise unique to the area.

The road bisected the city, and ran all the way to the gulf, north of the city. This was one of the main attractions of the city, the beaches. Because it was so far north, compared to the Sevii Islands and some of the more tropical destinations this world had to offer, water pokemon were aplenty because of the decrease in fishing over the years.

In fact, the gulf has had more sightings of gyarados than any other location in the world. Cerulean alone, has had upwards of fifty gyarados attacks in the last one-hundred years. The rest of the world couldn't boast half of that combined.

Between that and hurricanes, which were also rumored to be started when two gyarados fought, Cerulean had its fair share of ups and downs. Nowadays, with the overall competency and strength of trainers, it was mainly prospering.

The roar of a crowd met my ears, and instantly, I knew which direction to head towards immediately, and so I did.

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The stadium's size took me by surprise, it was significantly larger than Pewter Cities. And there was what looked to be like a waterpark connected to it. I filed the information away in my mind and headed towards the stadium.

There was actually a line at the door, but most were there to watch, and not schedule a challenge to the trio of sisters that ran the gym.

I walked right past that line, and weathered the looks from the others that assumed I was skipping. After the last few days I'd had, they didn't do shit to bother me.

When I got inside, I was correct in thinking that there would be a separate desk for registering a battle, and I walked right up to it.

"Here to schedule a challenge?" The girl, who looked to be about my age, asked.

"Yep. When is your soonest slot available?" I asked her, getting straight to the point. I looked behind me at the line, and saw a couple of trainers who hadn't realized there were two lines were now leaving their spots to line up behind me. All of them looked at me with frowns, upset with themselves or me, I didn't care.

'Sad part is that they're all at least three years older.' I couldn't help myself as I turned back to the girl.

"Ummmm we have one in two days at nine in the morning." The girl said as she finally found one.

That caught me off guard, two days from now? I brushed it off as I had gotten lucky with my first two gyms.

"I'll take it." I told her. "Do y'all have a lot of reschedules?" I asked, thinking ahead.

"No, not normally. And if we do, the sisters take the opportunity to rest instead of letting someone fill in." The girl answered, as someone had obviously already tried my trick before.

I nodded to her. "Ok, that's fine." I accepted it, maybe it would be good to be in the city for longer than a day.

"Can I see your I.D.?" The girl said as she started typing away at the screen in front of her.

I already had it in my hand and was offering it before she finished her sentence. She flashed a smile in appreciation and took it before filling out the information and handing it back.

"Third badge huh? The girls will have their hands full with you." She said with a smirk. I knew she was looking over my registered pokemon with appreciation. I had some rarer breeds, and some fully evolved lines also. I had come to terms with the fact that I was more advanced than the average two badge trainer.

"I'm sure it'll be fun." I said, going along with the conversation.

"Not everyday you get a son of a Gym Leader as a challenger, and from Hoenn no less. Your dad's strict isn't he?" The receptionist asked as she looked over my trainer information.

"Still have the note on there does he?" I asked, knowing where she was going with it.

"Sure does." She said with a smile.

"Fucking foreigners, can't stay in their own region." I heard someone say behind me.

"Blue-haired weirdo."

I turned around almost immediately.

A blonde haired, twenty-year old looking trainer stood behind me. On his belt were three pokeballs. He looked like the type of college kid willing to run their mouths to someone who they were confident in being able to take on in a fight. He just happened to make a vital mistake in judging me by my age, he should have judged me by my physique.

On his side were two fat boys, the kind that would do anything for friendship with one of the cool kids.

All three didn't back down from my glare.

"Watch your language, it hurts my foreign ears." The words came out quickly, and without thought.

My heart raced a little faster, and the world became a little more clear as the adrenaline started to run through my system.

"Or what?" The blonde haired boy said cockily.

"Or I'll make sure everyone here watches you get your shit rocked by a sixteen year old." I said, completely ignoring my own order to watch my language.

"That's enough, boys." The receptionist said, finally getting done typing and deciding to intervene before a fight broke out. "Go to the beach if you wanna battle it out, otherwise I'll have every one of you scheduled for next month."

I turned around immediately, and gave her my attention. The last thing I wanted was to have to wait a month to try for this badge. In reality, it wasn't that big of a deal, because I could just head on to Saffron and challenge Sabrina in that amount of time, but still.

"Sorry about that." I told her as I tried to get my blood to calm down. The prospect of a fight has started to excite me more and more nowadays.

'You would think that would go away after Mt. Moon.'

She gave me a look that told me she really directed it towards the trainers behind me, who I knew were just sitting there letting their anger build.

A 'ding' sounded out from the computer.

"Alright you're good to go. Two days from now at nine a.m." She said, her perky attitude coming back out.

"Thanks, have a good day." I said as I turned around to leave the gym and go train.

The boy had enough nerve to put his hand on my shoulder as I passed him.

"I'll see you at the beach later, yea?" He asked with a glare towards me.

My hand instinctively went to the bowie knife on my lower back, although I had enough control not to draw it immediately.

His eyes tracked the movement, and when they saw what I grabbed, he lifted his hand off of me.

"Never touch me again." I hissed out, and the adrenaline returned stronger than before.

The boy's eyes widened for a moment and his eyebrows frowned at me. Then he seemed to know that he looked scared, and his look got even angrier from before. Objectively, I knew how it must look. We must have looked like two boys having a dick-measuring contest. At the moment, I decided I didn't care.

"Beach marker twenty-six." The boy said.

And then he walked forward to the receptionist, who glared at him like she hated him.

'Biggest mistake, kid. '

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Beach marker twenty-six was one of the farthest from the entrances if you traveled east. The beach probably had over fifty. If the signs were to be believed, then this was where the more experience trainers would come to battle.

I didn't believe for a moment that the kid was one of the more experienced trainers, so I called his bluff and stopped at the marker.

I passed many many battles traveling to this specific marker. Most were common pokemon found in Kanto, but I did see a charmander playing around under the supervision of a stern looking trainer. Something told me that it would grow into a monster in a few years.

My pokemon hovered around me at my mental command, and I grabbed a pokeball on my belt before releasing it.

Teddiursa materialized into the world with a shy look, and brought one of its hands up in front of its eyes, blocking the sun. As soon as it caught sight of Hashi, it raced over to his leg where it latched on to him.

Shika stared the little bear down, and it shied away from her gaze. I smiled at the interaction. Hashi just reached down and patted the little guy's head.

I brought out my pokegear and pulled up his information page. I went through the information I had already read earlier in the day once more.

'Male

Ability: Quick Feet.

Move set: Lick, Scratch, Baby-Doll Eyes.'

I frowned at the lack of moveset or really anything to work with, before realizing that even though it didn't know a lot, it just provided me an opportunity to mold the pokemon how I saw fit. Once evolved, it would become a tank with amazing physical type offensive moves.

'So he fits right in with the rest of the team.' I deduced. 'We're pretty much all offense. Minato is the only one with any advantage in defense.'

'And yet, I attack.' Minato said in my mind.

I turned to him and saw that he was levitating above the ground, instead of walking like he normally did. I had thought it would be a good opportunity to constantly train his psychic abilities, when we tended to focus on his physicality. He had to be one of the physically strongest of his race out there already.

So now he floated around, like an alakazam would. Really I had realized how much I was neglecting his psychic abilities. But the fight with Mt. Moon had shown me just how invaluable a really strong psychic could be.

"Alright gang. It's time we name our newest member." I told them, with Minato relaying the information to the teddiursa wrapped around Hashi.

I had thought long and hard on the subject for a while now. My current theme of using Naruto characters made it a hard choice. Only one character ever really gave off the bear vibe, and even then, his clan was more associated with monkeys because of his father.

"Asuma." I revealed to the group. In the end, nobody would ever know how inaccurate the name really is, so I decided to just pull the trigger. Asuma was one of my favorite characters in the anime. I just hoped the daddy issues didn't come with the name.

Minato sent a series of pictures and feelings toward the bear. Madara ran around him playfully. Shika walked up and licked him across the head. Hashi just continued to pat him on the head with his massive hands.

"Stupid fucking name, if you ask me."

I smiled as I recognized the voice behind me from earlier.

"I didn't." I said as I turned around to face the boy.

I was met with a surprise, and it wasn't the two tag alongs from earlier. He was hopping off of a corviknight, a massively impressive one at that. On his shoulder, sat a weavile, another impressive pokemon.

The weavile also explained how they had managed to sneak up on us. I had a theory running that dark types were able to hide themselves from the predictive abilities of some pokemon. My biggest evidence was the Team Rocket Grunt that had managed to get a gun to my head at the entrance to Mt. Moon.

And a weavile was a step above it's beginning evolution. I was sure that Madara would be the one to go up against it. He was my fastest pokemon, and held a type advantage against it.

"Are you planning on battling, or fighting? Cause I'm good for either one." I told him as I stretched for the coming altercation.

"Is your kind so uncivilised? Battling, idiot." The cocky boy said.

I smiled at the validation that he was indeed a pussy and didn't want the smoke.

"Hiding behind daddy's pokemon?" I teased him.

The look on the kids face turned murderous and I knew that was exactly the case. He talked a big game that his dad normally backed up by buying him pokemon.

"Three on three? Standard league rules." The boy asked, deciding to let his pokemon do the talking. That much I could respect.

"Sounds good."

Before I even confirmed he was grabbing a pokeball and releasing his third pokemon. An absolutely mean looking wartortle materialized into the world.

'Allow me.' Minato spoke, deciding that he wanted to be the one to ruin this kids day. I gave him mental confirmation and he floated in front of me.

The rest of my pokemon shuffled behind me, as my opponents did too. His two lackeys looked on with interest at the battle that was about to ensue.

"Water pulse." The boy commanded his wartortle.

Compared to the high-level training I had been going up against, his wartortle was slow to obey the order. By the time it even took a deep breath to launch the attack, a psybeam was impacting its shell.

Water sputtered out of the wartortles mouth as the attack failed to finish developing.

Minato was in front of him with a teleport and a fist cocked back, through our link I could tell he was going to finish the fight with an electric punch because of the type advantage, but I didn't let him.

Instead, he channeled fighting type energy, one of the newest techniques we had been working on, and brought his hand down in a chop onto the wartortles forehead.

I didn't expect it to faze the wartortle, but it changed the entire turtle's momentum and sent his head to the ground.

"Aqua tail."

That was when I realized that it was intentional and the boy across from me at least had good tactics. The wartortle used the momentum to swing his tail around to Minato's face. It's just too bad that we had a counter to that also.

The thunder punch connected with the tail, and the wartortle seized up immediately. It was almost exactly how the fight with Brock's alolan golem and Shika had gone.

He recalled his wartortle before it could hit the sand.

"Lucky shot." The boy said. I rolled my eyes and Minato teleported in front of me, waiting for our opponent.

The boy looked to the corviknight behind him expectantly. The corviknight glared back for a moment before finally flapping its wings and landing in front of him.

Minato's memories of a steel bird impaling his mother flashed in front of my eyes. I hadn't even made the correlation.

'Do you still want to continue?' I asked him.

'Of course.' Minato told me and I relayed plans to him.

'We're not wasting any time on this one. Take him down quickly.' I commanded and relayed a couple of strategies that he could use. All of them involved thunder or fire punches. There was no telling how much extra training this bird had and I didn't want to test it with the type advantage against Minato.

"Night slash."

A wave of dark type energy ran across the battle field towards us. I didn't have time to ponder on the rarity of the corviknight knowing that move. That was when I realized what this little shit was pulling. If Minato dodged, then I would be in the path of the attack, and that could be deadly.

Mental commands were sent to my pokemon very quickly.

Hashirama was in front of me immediately with a palm covered in fighting type energy outstretched. Minato teleported above the corviknight with a fist covered in flames.

The night slash impacted Hashi's palm the same time that Minato's fist impacted the skull of the corviknight.

Hashi barely moved as he tanked the move for me. The corviknight dropped to the ground with a dent in its metal head. When I walked around Hashi and looked at the bird on the ground, I assumed Minato had killed it.

Luckily when the boy across from me pushed the recall button on his pokeball, it actually dematerialized the corviknight proving me wrong. I let out a breath of air I didn't know I had been holding. Team Rocket pokemon were one thing, but a cocky kids pokemon was another.

"Fuck you." The boy raged and motioned for his weavile to take the stage.

I had already made the decision for Madara to have this fight, but Minato had other ideas.

'No. I will win.' Minato said confidently.

'He'll try to get even for the corviknight. Might try to kill you.' I argued for a moment.

'He will fail.' Minato retorted immediately.

I sighed, before giving him the confirmation mentally. Minato appeared in front of me, once again.

The boy across from me smiled wide now that he had a type advantage. Apparently, Minato's skill with the different elemental punches didn't faze him. The incompetency of the trainer reared its head again. Maybe he didn't know that weavile had a four times weakness to fighting type moves? Which Minato had already used in the first battle?

'Is this why most trainers don't make it past four badges?' I wondered as I analyzed the boy in front of me.

'If he uses Ice moves, memorize it.' I commanded. So far, it had saved me a lot of money by having a psychic on the team and there was no way I would let the opportunity to have another elemental punch or fang be added to my pokemon's movesets.

That was exactly what happened.

"Ice beam."

I rolled my eyes as Minato was able to find the weaviles mind because he was too focused on ice type moves instead of his dark typing. If it was better trained, it would have been able to block Minato out even while using a different type, like Shika could. But alas, the trainer was proven incompetent once again.

The beam fired. It reached halfway, and Minato shot into the air above him as he memorized the feeling of the energy. I moved to the side, and the beam whizzed past me. The cold air made the hair on my arms stand up. The weavile moved it's head to follow Minato, and made another mistake. He continued with the ice type attack.

It didn't even react when Minato disappeared behind it. A fighting type punch to the back of the head, and the ice beam stopped immediately. The weavile dropped to the ground.

'Most of my battles with trainers end with one attack. Is this what Brock meant? I'll have to stop accepting battles from anything less than four or five badge trainers soon.'

Minato was back in front of me. He hadn't even broken a sweat.

"Fuck you, dude! I'm not paying you shit." The boy raged as he returned his last pokemon.

I walked forward in front of my pokemon, towards the boy. I had enough of his shit, and was about to teach him a valuable lesson.

"You either pay, or you take an ass-whooping. Simple as that." I said simply as I continued forward. My hands went to the bottom of my shirt and I pulled it off, not willing to ruin another one like I had in Mt. Moon.

He took one look at my tanned and muscled body before he turned to the two guys behind him. "Let me borrow your pokemon!"

They looked at him like he was crazy and I didn't blame them. If he couldn't beat me with his own pokemon, what would theirs do. And it wouldn't be a legal match considering we had agreed on three versus three. A simple mental scan from a psychic would confirm that.

"No way dude." One said. "Hell no!" The other agreed.

It didn't matter because I had closed the distance.

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Hariyama

Name: Hashirama (Hashi)

Ability: Thick Fat

Moves recognized by pokedex: Arm Thrust, Sand Attack, Focus Energy, Detect, Thunder Punch, Fire Punch, Bullet Punch, Iron Head, Cross Chop.

Skill set: Advanced body technique with running, fighting, wrestling. Very physically strong because of weight training and constantly using focus energy during training and battle. Fatherly instincts.

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Hypno

Name: Minato

Ability: Inner Focus (I will explain this later)

Moves recognized by pokedex: Barrier, Pound, Teleport, Hypnosis, Confusion, Dream Eater (Weakened), Thunder Punch, Fire Punch, Psybeam, Cross chop (Weakened)

Skill Set: Advanced body technique with running and throwing punches and kicks. Mentally advanced due to always being outside of pokeball and near an intelligent trainer. Confusion has morphed into telekinesis, and very strong for age. Physically stronger than almost all of its kind, and most other psychics.

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Growlithe

Name: Madara

Ability: Flash Fire

Moves recognized by pokedex: Quick Attack, Ember, Flame Wheel, Bite, Thunder Fang, Fire Fang.

Skill set: Very well-behaved. Very fast although not near to the point of its father or other Arcanine. Bigger than most it's age.

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Absol

Name: Shika

Ability: Pressure

Moves recognized by pokedex: Future Sight, Quick Attack, Pursuit, Bite, Night Slash, Iron Tail, Fire Fang, Thunder Fang.

Skill set: Natural disaster sensing, hiding mind of itself and trainer against psychics at any time. Increased physical abilities from most of its kind.

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Teddiursa

Name: Asuma

Ability: Quick Feet.

Move set: Lick, Scratch, Baby-Doll Eyes.

Skill set: Cute af. Not a lot of other training from Brawly.

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A/N: Boom!

So before you all say that the last fight was useless and really didn't do anything, hear me out. I'm gonna lay it out for you.

I literally only did it to show the disparity between him and where he should be. There are still a lot of trainers that will give him a run for his money. I also did it to show his mindset after Mt. Moon. He may not have kicked this kids ass before the battle. He might have just let it go. But I want to show a bit of a personality change.

Also, just because a pokemon has evolved all the way like the corviknight and the weavile, that does not mean it is strong. Although it is typically a good indicator, a weak or inexperienced trainer can ruin it.

So anyway, not that the explanation is out of the way. What do you guys think? Everyone is progressing rapidly huh? Asuma has a long way to go!

Let's talk in the reviews!