Back on the Road

After waking up bright and early, our Protagonist and his friends are heading out of Pewter City to get an early start on road towards the next stop, Cerulean City. In all honesty with how poor the Waterflower sisters are until Misty returns and gives them a reality check they aren't even worth batting an eye at battle-wise. Grayson even has a thought that it may be for the best that when he arrives they are still in their giving out badges for free stage as he sees training as a more productive effort to get stronger than batting some half-baked Gym Leaders.

With this thought he starts heading to his destination, slow enough to be able to relax and train with peace of mind, but still keeping up enough pace so that Ash and crew are still lagging behind him at a safe distance.

'To think of it Ash should be meeting Flint right about now...' Grayson thinks as he glances at the direction he traversed all morning.

And there goes the continuous cycle of travelling and training throughout Mt.Moon where Grayson found that it was rather mundane experience passing through there due to the fact it didn't serve him any purpose. He already has a Moon Stone for when Nidoran is ready to use it. No matter how hard he looked he couldn't find fossils, guess other novel Protagonists just have better luck it seems, and also he wasn't looking to add any of the Pokemon there to his team. Crobat would have been good but he eventually chose against it. And thus he made it out the other end of Mt.Moon.

"Gary was here, Ash is a loser huh" Grayson reads aloud the message on the board in front of him. 'Well Gary is is a bit ahead, this means those sisters will hopefully get beat and be be just about ready to start giving hand out badges.'

As Grayson was walking down the path toward Cerulean City he noticed a small bobble in the water. Deciding to check it out he walks closer to the water and can see a pair of big, innocent eyes curiously looking at any and everything it can identify. When it locked eyes with Grayson it let out a little shrill voice of happiness.

"Horseea" the tiny Pokemon was not even 1 foot tall, it must have hatched from an egg not longer than a few hours. Given the situation Grayson moved closer and brought out some of Prinplup's favorite food flavor. Assuming that it was based on the type he decided to test his luck and carefully came closer and handed a piece to the baby Horsea. As it ate the foot stars were in it's eyes with reverence at the deity who bestowed upon itself with such a divine taste. Together with the lack of parental affection it has gained with it's few hour long life, she decided to follow Grayson.

Grayson knew this and was in a dilemma. He could catch this Horsea and add her to the team but the water type is already covered with Prinplup taking the task. After thinking it over he came to a decision. He would catch this cute like aquatic horse, but not use her in serious battles. This was what Grayson came up with as with Prinplup as the main Water type that spot isn't gonna be free any time soon, but then he thought of Kingdra and went against logic.

Also with the fact that she will take quite a bit of time to evolve into Seadra as they evolve at Level 32, she can also be part of the family as is. She is cute, so that basically over turned any argument against taking her in. Especially with the fact that all of his team so far are all Male and 2/3 of them are training maniacs and the other is completely oblivious to the majority of situations, it would do the team and his life some good getting a cute little sea horse to take care of.

"Would you like to join our family Horsea?" He asks calmly as not to sound too much like a kidnapper. As soon as she heard this she tilted her head slightly as she had already decided to follow him, she didn't need permission. But she was still happy with the offer as that made her feel a sort of familial bond that she was not used to so decided to ignore it for now.

After gaining a new family member, they continued on towards Cerulean City. Grayson was leisurely walking when a young man who was obviously also a trainer came up and challenged him to a battle, and so Grayson agreed as this was the perfect opportunity to get Nidoran the final little push he needed to evolve, as long as everything goes as planned of course.

"Alright, I'm Fabian from Lavender Town I only have 2 Pokemon and one is tired from a battle earlier so would a 1 on 1 battle be okay?" The young trainer asked nervously as he just realized that he ran up to a random person and proposed to have a battle, but only had 1 Pokemon available for battle.

"Yeah that's fine with me" 'I really don't get why these kids give so much information to strangers they just met, everything bar a postcode and boom I know where you live, it do be kinda worrying'

"Good! Okay Raticate I choose you!" Out came a large, yellowish rat. Grayson was somewhat shocked by this pick as he did not expect an evolved Pokemon from this random trainer. Still he wasn't worried as his Nidoran is on the cusp of evolving and just the final push should get it there.

"Nidoran come on out" "Nido-Nidoran" Nidoran is very excited about this battle as Grayson has already explained the situation he is in right now. This means that after this battle he could get a massive strength boost which makes him happy to both help become stronger for his trainer and also that it is one step closer to being strong enough no one looks down on him anymore.

"You seem in good spirits Nidoran, let's get this started with a Poison Sting followed by a Focus Energy" Nidoran shoots poison lathered needles that quickly come down towards the rat Pokemon. Then as soon as he has shot these needles he begins to use Focus Energy.

"Raticate dodge quick!" Raticate narrowly dodges the onslaught bright upon itself but as soon as both the Pokemon and the trainer got complacent with dodging the attack, they heard the opposite trainer give another order.

"Nidoran quick use peck" Nidoran quickly rushes towards the Raticate. The young trainer instead of asking to dodge decides to counter attack this time. "Raticate Sucker Punch!" He was already confident in his win with this move as it had been his finishing move in many battles previous.

"Nidoran Leer" Nidoran skillfully changed mid-move to give an eerie look toward Raticate, at least to him it was eerie. In the split second of hesitation garnered by the Leer, it opened an opportunity for Nidoran and he was for sure going to take it. "Double Kick" Grayson calmly says in the background as if everything so far has been in his expectations.

One kick gave massive damage due to type effectiveness and also Nidorans ability, which brought even more tension to the second kick, swiftly Nidoran released the second and connected to the Raticate almost sealing his fate. Grayson seeing that Nidoran controlled his bodily poisons to not affect the opponent gave him even more confidence to the fact that the Raticate was not going to stay up from that.

And to everyone's expectations they indeed came true. Raticate was thrown like a rag doll, and hit the ground, leaving a dust storm in his path. When the dust cleared to an extent, it was clear to everyone there that the Raticate was not getting back up from that. "Ahhh damn, Raticate return, you did your best, hey thanks for the battle you-" The young trainer was cut off by a shining light covering the body of the small purple Pokemon that was his opponent just now. He knew what this was and felt mixed emotions being used a whetstone but he has no bad emotions towards the duo as he was the one to offer the battle so he must live with the consequences.

Nidoran grew slightly more than double the size and became slightly larger than the average Nidorino, when in comparison to his runt status before in his tribe is completely unexpected.

"Nidoorrrinoo" A euphoric yell befell the clearing where the battle took place. Happiness mixed with anticipation were one as Nidorino was both happy with his current strength and believes that it would be hard to look down on him now, especially his old tribesman, but also he anticipates the hard task it will be to become a worthy Nidoking, even though he could become one right now with the help of the Moon Stone, both him and Grayson are in agreement that he will only evolve once he reaches a certain point where he is struggling to improve, this way he will have the strongest foundation and is able to bring out the most potential.