Misty Peaks

He walked around the entirety of Verdant Vale to see if there was anything like a hotel or an inn, however there did not seem to be anything even remotely similar. He decided that it was best to just sleep in a cocoon of his shadow tendrils to make sure nothing could attack him despite being outdoors.

He found a relatively soft looking bush and rolled underneath it with Pyro before encasing them both inside of the shadow tendril cocoon.

This created a relatively comfortable and warm place to sleep, especially when paired with the natural warmth of Pyro. This allowed for Damian to get a good night's sleep, arguably better than what he used to get in his bed.

When he woke up in the morning, he immediately began trying to find the directions to Misty Peaks as he wanted to beat all of the gyms as quickly as possible.

Rather than asking anyone this time for directions like he had for the first gym, he decided to check the map in the Poke Centre.

It only took a few minutes to get there, walk through the large doors and approach the map on the wall. He looked for his current location, and saw that Misty Peaks was incredibly close, although it was at the top of the mountain that formed the back of Verdant Vale which meant the hike up the mountain would probably take a while, especially with Pyro following behind him.

There was basically no distance between the mountain and the Poke Centre, as it was only about one hundred metres to the base of it, and despite not being by the path, Damian began to scale it while holding Pyro in his arms.

Damian used his shadow tendrils to climb quickly and efficiently up the mountain, as it was not too steep at the bottom, but this also meant that quite a few Pokemon inhabited this area, such as Geodude, Onix, Rhyhorn, and Sandshrew. Although these were just a few of the Pokemon which attacked Damian and Pyro as they climbed.

Damian used this as an opportunity for Pyro to try and increase the power and heat of his fire attacks, by getting him to defend them from incoming attacks, and knocking the enemy Pokemon out in the process. As most of the wild Pokemon were rock type, they naturally were resistant to Pyro's attacks, which made him adapt and increase the heat of the fire attacks which occasionally, if the attack was especially hot, melted the rock type Pokemon into magma.

Obviously while the journey was going on, both Pyro's and Damian's levels increased which would mean the gym would be even easier than it would have been before. Damian was wondering if Pyro would evolve sometime soon, as most Pokemon would have evolved by now, although some did evolve late, normally the most powerful ones which wasn't by any means a bad thing.

As they got further up the mountain, it became steeper and steeper until it was almost vertical, and Damian felt like Doc Oc in Spiderman 2 scaling the buildings to chase Spiderman. Speaking of Spiderman, Damian thought that Marvel could be a good universe to go to, as there would be a lot of opportunities to grow stronger than he already was.

After a while of scaling the almost vertical surface, it levelled out a bit more until Damian reached an almost flat surface of a small village atop the mountain.

There were nowhere near as many houses as in the Verdant Vale, and they seemed to be older and of higher quality with better materials. The people seemed to be more tribe like, as they were wearing unusual clothing and had tattoos covering their bodies.

Damian thought they looked quite cool, but he had not time to admire as he wanted to find the gym and beat it quickly.

It was obvious after looking for more than a second of which building was the gym, as there was a multi-floored tower that looked incredibly extravagant.

Damian approached it, him and Pyro now both level 42 which he felt may have been a bit too high for the gym seeing as it was only the second, but better safe than sorry.

He entered the gym, and was greeted by a dark skinned man covered in tattoos and sat on top of a Graveler.

"I'm here to challenge the gym, you aren't the gym leader are you?"

"No, but I will test you to ensure you are worthy to battle the Chief."

The man jumped up, and his Graveler rolled out from beneath him ready to fight.

"Go on Pyro, do what you've been doing the whole way up the mountain and melt that overgrown rock."

Pyro stood its ground and let the Graveler approach him, it used rollout and began moving forward, only to miss its attack due to Pyro's quick dodge. In mid-air, Pyro charged up a very hot ember and compressed it down to increase the heat even more. This was then released and made direct contact with the Graveler which caused part of its body to turn bright orange, as it turned into molten rock.

This obviously caused a lot of damage, as the trainer recalled the Graveler, "You can move on to the next floor, but the next trainer will be even more difficult than me so be ready."

Damian walked past the defeated trainer, and climbed the ladder to the next floor. The trainer on this floor was an old woman sat with a Wooper and Golbat by her side.

"Pyro, you haven't fought a water type yet, so be wary of your enemy."

"Your fire type stands no match against my team. You go first Wooper."

The Wooper waddled forward and shot a water gun at Pyro who was already in a battle stance. Wanting to test his own strength and prove to himself that he was strong enough to go against Pokemon he was naturally weak to, Pyro used ember and pushed the water gun backwards before running straight for the Wooper.

Despite his low physical attack, Pyro used a regular attack with his claws and slashed into the Wooper's stomach which caused it to immediately faint.

Without warning, the old lady sent Golbat forward and it used air slash without giving Pyro a chance to react. Although slightly underhanded, this only led to a small gash on Pyro which did not slow down the pace of the battle room much, as he retaliated with a fire spin and trapped the Golbat inside of the fiery prison. Rather than his regular combination of fire spin and ember, Pyro opted for a second smaller fire spin which exploded inside of Golbat's mouth, knocking it out immediately.

This ended the battle, and without a word from the old woman, Damian travelled upwards to the next and final level of the tower where he would face the gym leader. Pyro seemed to be in good condition despite his small injury, so he was confident in his win.

The gym leader was stood on top of a large boulder with a stone pillar running through it which he was punching without any display of pain. He was dark skinned like the man from the first floor, but he was covered in much more intricate tattoos than he was. The gym leader was tall and muscular, looking as though he had trained his entire life.

He noticed that Damian had entered his level, and jumped down from the top of the boulder and, without so much as a sound, landed gracefully on the floor, "I am Terra, the gym leader of Misty Peaks. Your loss is guaranteed."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

The first Pokemon that Terra threw out was Geodude, and this was a walk in the park for Pyro, who simply doubled up on the fire spins and created an extra strong prison for it to burn inside of until it fainted.

The next Pokemon that was sent out was an Onix, which despite the large size of was difficult for Pyro to hit, as it seemed to be very agile. To deal with this, Pyro set up a sunny day to strengthen his own attacks, and then used morning sun to recover the health he had lost in the previous battles from the attack he received, as well as the health he had lost from his ability. He then ran around in circles around the Onix to try and get behind it, and when he succeeded he ran up the enemies tail and with his accuracy guaranteed, trapped the Onix's head in a fire spin.

"You're my last chance, go Tyranitar."

Despite being too low level, a Tyranitar entered the field and opened with a dark pulse which made contact with Pyro due to the incredible speed of it. However, it didn't deal too much damage so he was able to continue with the battle.

Pyro knew that despite being a higher level than the Tyranitar, it was a fully evolved Pokemon and would not be easy to beat. Therefore, he tried to use a triple fire spin which span around itself, with each individual fire spin being increased in heat due to the others. This also caused the speed of it to increase, as the heat was being turned into speed due to the waste energy that was being created.

Once this attack connected with the Tyranitar, it was unable to even dodge slightly due to the incredible speed of the fire spin ball. It blasted the Tyranitar backwards into the boulder, and a crater was burned into its chest which won Pyro and Damian the battle.

"You put up a good fight, but I'm not surprised that I won."

"I did not expect you to win, let alone with a single Pokemon. I wish to reward you for this battle, if you meet me at the Ink House then you may receive our village's blessing."

"Sounds good with me, when do you want me to go there?"

"Later tonight but, for now, we must hold a feast for the great warrior who has bested myself, Terra, the chief of Misty Peaks. Follow me my new friend."

Terra turned around and proceeded to push the boulder out of the way, revealing a staircase down to the back of the gym. He led Damian down the stairs and shouted out to the village, "I have been bested, prepare a feast for the victor!"

The speed at which the village members put together the feast was impressive, as within a few minutes, a large table was filled with food and everyone was sat at the table ready to eat, but first Terra needed to make a speech, "It has been too long since someone has bested my team, no warriors have faced me that have been able to beat me in over a year, but now, this man has beaten me with only a single Pokemon at his side. I have respect for this man as a true warrior, and pledge that I will come to his aid if ever needs be. Feast in celebration my friends, feast I tell you!"

After this, everyone began to devour the food which was put in front of them, and Damian had to admit that it was the best food he had eaten in a long time. He assumed it was made from Pokemon, as the meat was unlike anything he had eaten before, and the flavour was out of this world or, more accurately, out of his world.

The feast lasted for around an hour, before Terra motioned for Damian to follow him. He did as he was told, and Terra led him to a house where a woman was sat with a sharp needle which looked as though it was made from a Sandslash's claw and a pot of ink in front of her.

Terra patted him on the shoulder, "This is the greatest honour of our tribe, the village inker will create a unique tattoo for you based on the feeling she gets from your soul."

Damian had thought the tattoos looked cool when he had seen them, and he was happy to be receiving one as he could tell he was greatly respected by Terra and knew that he had made a comrade already, "It is an honour to receive this tattoo, I'll let you start whenever you want to."

Terra left the building, as it seemed as though the interaction needed to be one on one. The woman across from him was silent, but Damian did not mind, as he was relaxing his entire body to make sure the needle would be able to penetrate his skin properly.

Without even being able to feel anything, Damian watched as the needle which had been dipped in ink was used gracefully to create the tattoo which would be with him for life.

After around an hour, the tattoo was done, and the woman held up a primitive looking mirror to show Damian the tattoo properly. It spanned over his entire back, and had a relatively simple design. There were eight pure black circles evenly spaced and evenly positioned on either side of his back, to make a total of sixteen circles. In between these circles, going from the top of his back to the bottom was a mass of swirls which made a shadowy shape which seemed to almost create a face in the centre from the shadowy swirls overlapping on one another.

Damian was a big fan of the tattoo, as he felt like it represented his new self well, especially because it seemed to incorporate his new power of shadow tendrils.

"Thank you, I will cherish this for life."

With that, Damian turned around and left the building, looking for Terra to ask about the next gym.

He found him dancing with a woman, but he stopped to speak to Damian, "How was it my friend?"

Damian responded with a smile, "Its great, I'm a big fan of it. Thank you for the opportunity. Do you know where the next gym is? I plan to become the strongest in the region, and I want to do it quickly."

"Of course I know brother, it is on Ripplestream Beach. You need to go East from this mountain and travel through the jungle and you will arrive, it should not take you too long though. I look forward to the news of you becoming the strongest in the region."

"I will make sure to deliver the news myself, I will see you soon. Would you mind if I stayed here for tonight though?"

"Of course I don't mind, you can stay at my house, it is humble but it should do the job just fine. I can find you a lady friend if you'd like as well, I'm sure a lot of the women here would love a chance to be with a great warrior, what do you say?"

Damian shook his head, "I'm alright, thanks for the offer though. If I wasn't so preoccupied with my goal of becoming the strongest then I might have taken you up on the offer."

After this, Damian continued to celebrate with Terra and the rest of the villagers until the dark of night before sleeping soundly in Terra's home collapsed on the floor next to his new friend due to their collective exhaustion.