Chapter 018

'The problem is the moveset.'

Arthur frowned upon thinking about the predicament that was plaguing his mind.

A Pokemon's move set was equally important as level and experience. Even if a Pokemon is high leveled, he won't be able to do much with a bad moveset.

And this was the problem for his Pokemon too.

Excluding Murkrow who was still recovering, his other two Pokemon didn't have many useful moves. Moreover, most of the moves they know won't be much effective in his first gym battle.

His first gym battle still has some time, but Arthur had already started planning for it.

Although Mankey was a fighting type and he would be effective against rock Pokemon, he still knew only one fighting type move and that was karate chop.

Aside from that, there were no moves which could help him defend himself.

He was basically open to all attacks and his endurance wasn't that high. In the first place, Mankeys were Pokemon that depended more on speed and attack rather than defense and endurance.

But Arthur knew that having a defensive move was a vital thing in this world. It could save your life in many critical situations, but sadly Mankey can't learn a defensive move unless it's taught by a TM (Technical machine).

He could try to teach him a move like 'Protect' manually, but Arthur was pretty sure it wouldn't be that easy and he didn't know how to do it correctly anyway.

'Well, Mankey will still be fine. After all, he isn't weak to rock Pokemon, but the real problem would be Charmander!'

Arthur thought bitterly.

In every way, Charmander was going to be his main Pokemon. Not only it has the potential to become one of the strongest Pokemon in the world, it was also a red aptitude Pokemon.

Just he won't be able to do much against rock types with his current moveset.

After leveling up a bit, Charmander had learned a new move which was smokescreen. It had replaced growl in his moveset and even Arthur knew that it can be really effective depending on how he used it.

But the problem was that it wasn't an attacking move. His only fire type move — Ember won't do much damage against the sturdy body of rock Pokemon and scratch was something that was completely useless.

Dragon tail was his only salvation as it would do at least a little amount of damage, but a super effective move was necessary if he really wanted to defeat Brock.

'I don't have any money to buy a TM.'

The only way to deal with this situation was to buy a TM, but these high technology machines were really expensive and rare and it was hard for novice trainers to get their hands on one.

Arthur didn't have any money to buy one and he could only sigh thinking about it.

'Ugh, Leave it. I will think about it after I reach Pewter city. The first thing to do is to continue the training, then move to the Scyther territory.'

Arthur decided to stop thinking about this topic for now. The more he thinks about it, the more his brain hurts.

It was better to leave it for later.

With that set aside, he sighed for one last time and began cooking. The evening breeze ruffled his air as he wondered about the future.

* * *

The next day, Arthur again went to the Beedrill territory to continue his training. He knew that he had already alarmed the Beedrills, so this time he was even more careful than before.

For an entire afternoon, he took his Pokemon to different places in the Beedrill territory and annihilated the Kakunas and Weedles. This time, he was not wasting much time, instead using guerrilla tactics to attack.

After every attack, he would flee.

Thanks to the enormous size of the territory, he was easily able to hide from the Beedrills. His actions were responsible for the deaths of a large number of Pokemon and although he felt guilty about it, Arthur knew that it was just something necessary for his growth.

Living two lives had made him far more mentally strong than other people.

At the same time, he noticed things that helped him understand the value of aptitude more. As he was constantly scanning the Kakunas, he was able to see that higher aptitude Kakunas were able to stand for a longer time against Charmander.

For example, it would just take one single ember attack to kill a Kakuna of white or yellow aptitude, but things would change if it's a Kakuna of an orange aptitude.

It would take at least two ember attacks for an orange aptitude Kakuna to die, signifying the gap between the low aptitude Kakunas and the high aptitude ones.

These orange aptitude Kakunas were also the ones closest to becoming a Beedrill, so sometimes some of them would evolve between battles and pose a danger.

But it was still not a significant one.

After all, a newly evolved Pokemon would take time to understand his new body and abilities and Charmander would easily finish him before that.

The more major threats were the other Beedrills who would sometimes come to attack Arthur.

Arthur had already noticed that the Beedrills were getting more and more ferocious against him. He was still able to defeat them, but with time, more and more groups of Beedrills were attacking him.

Even if he fled to other places, Beedrills would find him and start to attack, displaying all intention to kill him and his Pokemon.

This strange behavior of Beedrills made Arthur anxious.

'What's happening? Have I somehow alarmed the Queen bee?'

He thought with a grim expression.

That was the only reason he was able to attach to the strange behavior of the Beedrills.

According to his original plan, he would have continued with his tactics till tomorrow and then, he would have made his way to the Scyther territory with the intention of catching one for himself.

But it seemed like he had alarmed the queen sooner than he had thought and it was not a good situation for him.

'It's getting dangerous. If I stay here for longer, there's a chance that the queen would find me.'

Arthur thought as he made the decision to escape, but before he could move even an inch, he suddenly heard a loud sound.

"Bzzzzzz!"

More than 30 Beedrills suddenly flew out from behind the trees, blocking Arthur's way to escape. He looked at the Beedrills in front of him with a shocked expression and moved his gaze to the one in the middle.

It was a Beedrill that was bigger than the others and he already has a gut feeling of who she was.

'Fuck!'

He couldn't help, but curse at his luck as he found himself standing in front of the queen Beedrill.