So I've read multiple pokemon fanfics, some good, some bad, and others being meh.
I had this thought that might work but idk how good it'll be and the idea is having only one pokemon and no others. Just the mc their pokemon and maybe a possible companion. This is an idea I've though might be interesting for someone to try out.
Alternatively one could make it so there is no pokemon companion and the mc just travels around helping trainers and wild pokemon alike with out any pokemon that he owns.
In both these ideas I assume you would want to make it so the mc is powerful so you could do this by either buffing the stats of the pokemon (1) making the characters intelligent (2) or making the supernatural involved example psychic abilities(3)