Mystery

Now that they were prepared to battle, with Cinder standing on the clearing he just encountered, on the opposite end was the trainer. 'Uvuvevugwham- Fuck that, I'll just call him Ossas.' He thought in frustration. The dude in front of him really had an odd name.

"Are you ready, Ossas?" Cinder asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be." The odd-named teenager responded.

Now that both trainers are ready to commence the battle. It was time for a pokemon battle.

'And some income.' Cinder thought to himself. With Gible in his team, he may slowly become a money-grubber for the sake of his companions. "Alright, I'll start it off then. Poliwag, I choose you!"

Poliwag was already outside of his pokeball, as the tadpole leisurely hopped and skipped its way towards his position.

"Go, Metapod!"

With a flash of bright light. The greenish hardened cocoon, which was the evolved form of Caterpie, stood on the grassy ground, warily staring at the tadpole in front of him.

'What... A Metapod? In a battle?' Cinder couldn't stop himself but pointed out the obvious. "You do know that... Metapod could only use Harden at that stage, right?"

A single thing resonated between the minds of the Metapod and its trainer. 'Crap'

"I trust my pokemon!" Cinder was not at all impressed at his flamboyant words.

He sighed. 'I thought I was going to have some fun time before doing some training in... Welp, easy money for me I guess...'

He might as well get this over with faster. "Poliwag, test out the opponent's defense with Pound."

"Metapod, Harden!"

Poliwag darted towards Metapod and jumped, high enough so the trajectory where he would land was where Metapod was in position. Poliwag swings its long, thin tail surrounded by a light-blue, semitransparent fin mid air and hits the opponent with it.

Just in time, Metapod glows a greenish-whitish color and becomes hard as steel.

The move, Harden, enables Metapod to increase its exoskeleton density temporarily. It was a defensive measure whenever the pokemon was attacked in battle.

Poliwag's pound successfully made contact with the bug pokemon's cocoon body. Carried by the momentum of his attack, he flipped back and, as expected, it did not do any damage at all.

"Hah! See that! That was my strategy all along, you better prepare yourself." Ossas jeered as he saw his pokemon was fine and was not in any way hurt by the attack.

Cinder got annoyed, he thought sneeringly. 'Oh really? That isn't strategic at all, duffos. This is.' He commanded. "Poliwag use Hypnosis!"

"Hehehe, Harden Metapod!"

'Idiot.' Cinder criticized his tauroscrap brain.

"Poli!" Poliwag's eyes glow light blue. The swirl on his belly was slowly rotating as the Metapod hardened its cocoon body once again while keeping his eyes in preparation for what Poliwag was up to. The bug pokemon slowly got confused as he saw the swirl on Poliwag's belly growing bigger and bigger, he also noticed multiple multicolored circles from it that slowly headed towards his way.

Metapod felt sluggish, as its eyes slowly began to close. The greenish-white shine on its body disappeared as the bug pokemon fell asleep.

"Finish this, Poliwag use Bubble Beam!"

Poliwag released a continuous stream of bubbles from its mouth that, upon impact exploded continuously on the now vulnerable Metapod.

Obviously, the pokemon fainted from the attack, Metapod are quite well known for being fragile, as are all bug-types. Especially bug-types like Metapod, who had a cocoon stage.

"I suppose... I lost that round." Ossas wept.

'Well, duuuuh...' Cinder rolled his eyes at the downhearted trainer.

The weird and odd trainer seemed to have gained back some of his confidence. "This time." He stood up, expanding a pokeball. "I am going to win."

"Go, Magicarp!"

A piscine pokemon appeared on the ground. It flops around while calling out the name of its species. It kept flopping and flopping, until Cinder had enough staring.

"Water Gun."

With a fierce turret jet of water... It fainted.

...

"I had no idea you were such a sore loser." Cinder deadpanned. His opponent was refusing to pay him with the monetary bet.

Ossas frowned, before looking away. "It's not my fault! I had only been starting as a trainer for a couple of days! You should be a trainer who already has months of experience. I didn't expect you had such a rare pokemon like Poliwag." He gave Cinder a stink eye.

"Poli." The 'rare pokemon' made his opinion known with pride.

"I wasn't complimenting you." Ossas warned, giving the little thing a stink eye.

"Poli?" Poliwag glared back at him.

"Ignore him, He's just sore because they lost to us." Cinder rubbed Poliwag on the head. With a Pokedex aiming at Ossas, he grinned. "I don't care if you want to pay up or not. Just know that you would get in trouble with the League with the video I have with me as evidence."

"And I'm sure that, by that time, you would compensate me with much more money than what we agreed with." Cinder sounded like an antagonist doing this, but he doesn't care, he was in need of cash. Money can get you to do all sorts of things, Cinder experienced that firsthand now.

"Wh-wh-why youuuu!" Ossas gnashed his teeth with fury. He took out all the money he had in his pockets, not at all mindful as he threw it at Cinder. "I'll make you pay for this someday! The moment my Magicarp evolves into a Gyarados is the day of your doom!"

"Yeah! Good luck with that!" On the contrary, Cinder wasn't at all fazed as he happily waved at the trainer like they were the best of friends, rivals or family. A classic dramatic scene of separation where someday they would meet all emotional and teary.

He chuckled at the trainer, he took his Pokedex away as he began to pick up the money. Fafnir was kind enough to help him do so, Storm and Poliwag too.

He counted the money, as he exclaimed when he counted it all in his hand. "2000 Pokedollars? Is that guy really an idiot or what? Oh well, lucky me I guess." With this money, he could purchase Fafnir and his team as a whole two weeks of pokemon food supply, with a spare for himself to spend. Although, he had to also take TMs and other essential stuff into consideration.

He sighed. 'Life is hard...'

....

After the battle, both the pokemon he had that were able to fight weren't able to show their full capabilities. Although unfortunate, since Cinder was expecting a good battle, not a comedically confusing one, nevertheless, he was happy that his pokemon wasn't wounded, Poliwag had done all the battling but he wasn't even given a proper fight, which greatly disappointed the pokemon.

He shook that thought off as he began to prepare his sleeping bag and equipment for their camp for the night. He decided against his prior plan of training, because of all the walking they had done, not to mention the dirt road wasn't particularly even too. So he decided to have his pokemon rest the whole evening.

"We'll set up camp here." Cinder said. He looked over to his starter who nodded in approval.

"Rep."

Cinder prepared a campfire and got his sleeping bag out. He took out some of the food he had packed for this trip.

He had a couple of sandwiches, while he had given Storm and Poliwag a classic pokemon food. While for Fafnir, he gave the infant a Moomoo Milk and his especially, carnivores-prefer, pokemon food.

Storm, Fafnir, and Poliwag. An electric, a dragon, and now a water-type. Not a bad team composition so far, Storm was slowly gaining experience with all the training and battles they had done so far, while Fafnir wasn't able to even be allowed to train yet, since it is still an infant. Give or take, a few weeks to a month, by then Cinder would consider training the dragon, maybe even sooner if they keep sustaining Fafnir with the nutritious diet he has. While the new addition, Poliwag, made Cinder take out his Pokedex to learn more about the creature. He watched a couple of videos of his secondary-stage, Poliwhirl, battle. While even watching some of the two evolutions he could potentially evolve on to, Poliwrath and Politoed.

He also looked through the moves the Poliwag could learn in its stage, additionally reading some training guides posted on the media publicly.

He wanted to get as much knowledge over the pokemon as possible, so that tomorrow morning. Both Storm and Poliwag would then be able to train, maybe train them together. With that thought, Cinder realized that a problem with training Storm's Double Team was resolved now that he had a new pokemon Storm could spar with.

Increasing his mastery over the move would certainly be helpful in the Mareep's evasiveness that would be a factor added to his battling style. At the same time, Poliwag would also gain experience over some moves he has low-mastery over at the moment. Additionally, before they reached Pewter to purchase TMs for his pokemon, he also decided to teach them moves they could learn at their current stage without the help of the Technical Machine.

He also had to think of a nickname for his Poliwag if he wanted to have one. With that thought, Cinder began to think of some names that would fit the water-type.

He was slowly getting fond of giving his pokemon nicknames. It gave each of them their own uniqueness, Diana really was right about this.

With the thought of Diana, he began to wonder how she and her brother were doing right now.

Had they already challenged the Pewter Gym?

Or are they still in Viridian Forest?

He also began to wonder what pokemon both his childhood friends have managed to catch.

...

Storm walked around the campsite, looking at his trainer, who was in his sleeping bag, getting shut eye for tomorrow's training and travel. Fafnir was slumbering beside the trainer, with a content grin on the dragon's face.

Dinner had been rather uneventful, with the four mostly eating with silence, although Cinder did fill Poliwag in about where they are heading and why.

Poliwag had expressed some extreme interest towards their upcoming battle against the gym, and Storm recalled the tadpole's intrigue when Cinder brought up they were going to challenge more of such a gym and hopefully participate in a much bigger stage.

Looking up, Storm saw the full moon overhead, surrounded by the beautiful stars of the night.

He silently wished to himself that all nights would be like this. No rain, no harsh winds, just clear spotless skies with a beautiful view.

The fireplace was warm, although Storm focused on some other things.

Namely, the sounds of the forest that filled his ears, it was somewhat disturbing.

Different types of chatter, all coming from different directions. Just how many different types of pokemon reside here?

He glances towards where their new companion was resting. He was peacefully dozing off.

Storm wondered what the transition between 'wild pokemon' and 'teammate' was supposed to be like.

Did he just accept it? Did he have a choice? How did this work exactly?

Did he resent him for being the one who defeated him?

Looking over at Cinder's sleeping bag, Storm found himself frowning. His new trainer was very clearly putting in the effort. When they had first met, it was average, but as they got to spend some time together, he realized Cinder wasn't so bad. He got along with him quite well, additionally he took care of them very meticulously. He could tell the human boy meant well. Also, he gave any pokemon he encountered a chance to join him or leave if they didn't want to, that made Storm respect his trainer.

But nevertheless, he hoped that one day, in the near future, this life he was living right now would continue. Not to mention that, he also should work hard as the leader figure of Cinder's team. A bright bluish light flickered all over Storm's body for a moment, before disappearing entirely. As if it hadn't happened, even Storm did not notice what occurred, but even if he did, he wouldn't know what it was.

Shortly after, the sheep pokemon joined his companions to dreamland.