4 Making Pokeplans

Asmond, now a full three and half years old, was marching himself towards his parents, who were sitting in the living room. While he had plenty of training and play space to keep him and Espiria occupied, he wasn't about to spend four years straight cooped up inside this cave and so he decided he would have to force his hand in this matter. Not a single time had his parents even hinted that they were considering taking him outside and his mother also never left the cave. 'What the hell is wrong with these people? It's called sunlight people! Get some! It's actually good for you if you don't go overboard!'

     "Mama, Papa?"

     His parents looked his way as he approached them. "What is it, son?" His father probed.

     "I want to go outside."

     "...you mean outside the cave? Well, as a clan rule we usually don't let children under five outside the cave for any reason. It can be incredibly dangerous out there at times and you never know when that danger might strike." Gunder responded.

     "I still want to go. I'm not afraid of danger, as long as you and your Pokemon are with me. Plus, I have Espiria with me."

     "Hahaha, I suppose that's true. Alright well, if you insist, then I suppose I could take you out for an hour or two and then we'll come straight back."

     "Sweet! Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

     "Hahaha! Slow down now you little brat. We'll get there soon enough."

     Espiria sat on Asmond's shoulder, as Gunder led them past each of his Pokemon's individual rooms and gathered them all for the trip. As far as Asmond could tell, these people didn't have anything like Pokeballs, Pokemarts, or Pokegear. All of the Pokemon they trained had to be either tamed or hatched. Not only that, but they also had to provide food, rooms, and transportation for those Pokemon.

     The food part was understandable but the rooms part meant that more than half of the rooms in their cave city were Pokemon rooms. That's a lot of space that doesn't even include the rooms for Pokemon food and the larger exclusive roads, accessible only to trainers. Trainers, needing to walk along with all of their Pokemon some of whom were quite enormous, used very large caves, dug out especially for the purpose of allowing trainers to access both the city and the surface.

     After gathering Charizard, Dragonite, Altaria, Garchomp, Kingdra, and Salamence, Gunder led them and Asmond to one of these exclusive cave roads and towards the surface. As they continued to walk through this cave, Asmond began to detect the sounds of falling water in the distance and noticed that there were fewer and fewer torches lighting the path. This was because the ambient light was slowly but surely increasing.

     They eventually came to the end of the cave and upon exiting he saw that they were in a massive cavernous room with two waterfalls one on each side of the cave they just left. There were bridges leading across each stream at the bottom of the waterfalls, that were clearly built by the trainers.

     They crossed the bridge on the right and then entered another cave. Going through a few more of those waterfall caverns, they eventually ended up in a cave with a bright light at the end. 'Finally! Sunlight!' Asmond began sprinting towards the exit, as soon as he saw it, but he was held back by Gunder.

     "Not so fast. I already told you that it's dangerous out there. If you ever want me to bring you back here again, before you're five you had better do as I say." Gunder reprimanded him. He then instructed his Pokemon.

     "Charizard, Altaria, go check out the entrance." The two Pokemon then rushed towards the caves exit to check for any immediate dangers. Once they had confirmed there were no immediate threats, the two of them posted up at the exit waiting for the others to arrive.

     It had taken them the better part of an hour to get here but it was well worth it. Finally being able to breathe fresh air and feel the sun on his skin, Asmond took a deep breath and caught the distinct scent of an ocean breeze. Walking a little further past all of the raised earth and rocks that surrounded him, he looked out upon the vast churning ocean in front of him.

     'Yep, it definitely looks like I'm in Hoenn and this must be Meteor Falls. Of course, that would naturally mean that our city is actually Meteor Village. At least this much seems to line up with what I know of the game lore.' He thought, as Gunder walked up behind him.

     "So, son, whaddya think?"

     "It's beautiful and it smells wonderful!"

     "Haha, you're right about that much. You really can't beat that smell."

     "Is it all just rocks and water, though? Isn't there anything else?"

     "Hahaha, of course, there is. Come on I'll show you."

     Placing Asmond on Altaria and then climbing onto Salamence, the two Pokemon flew into the air, with Charizard and Dragonite following behind them, leaving the other two behind to guard the cave entrance.

     It was obvious to Asmond that they were flying fairly slow for his sake. But even so it was still quite exhilarating. Looking around he could see the extent of the small mountains they had stood on, Mt. Chimney in the distance, and the forested valley to the south.

     "Let's go over there." Asmond said, pointing at the forest.

     Gunder directed his Pokemon slightly southwards, while slowly descending. Dragonite and Charizard picked up the pace and landed before them, to make sure the coast was clear. As soon as they landed, Altaria set Asmond gently down on the forest floor. 

     Asmond and Espiria had been talking about this moment for a while, before actually confronting his parents. They had already cooked up a little scheme to help Asmond further his Pokeplans. Immediately after Asmond set foot on the ground, Espiria took off into the forest. 

     Seeing this Gunder told Asmond to order her back but, of course, she didn't listen. Asmond told his Father not to worry about it, that she was probably just restless and would definitely return before they left. Gunder didn't like this idea at all so he sent Altaria and Charizard to keep an eye on her from above. 

     Asmond ended up talking his Father into letting him stay out for an extra hour, giving him a total of three full hours of fresh air and sunshine out of almost four years. Whenever Gunder told him it was time to go back, Asmond started calling for Espiria and less than two minutes later she arrived and jumped onto Asmond's shoulder.

     Gunder reassembled his four Pokemon and flew back to the cave entrance, where Kingdra and Garchomp were waiting for them. They all went back to their residence and Asmond quickly made the excuse of being tired after a long day's play and went straight to his room.

     Finally, alone together, after sending Espiria on her mission, Asmond popped the question.

     *So, how did it go?*

     *I'd say it went about as well as expected. I was able to contact a few of the Pokemon you were looking for and some of them actually responded fairly well. However, it's probably going to take quite some time before you're able to attract all the ones you're looking for.*

     *That's fine. I didn't expect that I'd be able to round up everyone that I was looking for on the first try. At this point I'll take what I can get when I can get it. If, after I turn ten, I still don't have at least six Pokemon, then I'll start to take some more drastic measures. At the moment though pacing is not a problem. Slow and steady wins the race as they say.*

     *Don't you want to know which ones agreed?*

     *No, I'll leave it as a surprise for tomorrow evening.*

     Asmond and Espiria went directly into their meditations, after discussing their little adventure today. After waking up the following morning, they both jumped right back into their routine, until evening came around.

     Espiria snuck out of the cave early in the afternoon and went to the location she had discussed with the other Pokemon. When she arrived she saw all three of them standing there waiting for her. Torchic, Eevee, and Seedot were there, looking a bit uncomfortable, as they tried to sit comfortably around Pokemon that they would normally be fighting to the death with.

     The place they were sitting in was a small overhang that was slightly off of the path leading up the mountain to the entrance to Meteor Falls. Espiria announced her presence to them and stepped into the overhang.

     Asmond had told her to seek out certain Pokemon that he wanted on his team. He wanted her to speak with them about the harshness of this world and how important it was to become powerful and so she did so. The result being the trio gathered before her. This evening she had brought news of Asmond's training regime and battling strategies that they could use to survive and grow stronger.

     The message he sent with her was basically to work and train together as best they could. As long as they did so, he would continue to support them as best he could from inside his cave. If they continued to train hard and work together, until he was old enough to leave the cave on his own, he would take them in as part of his team.

     Each of them were almost fully grown and, despite Espiria being born already evolved, due to her age, Torchic insisted that they battle it out to determine whether following this human would actually be worth it.

     While Espiria hadn't yet fought in any real battles, Asmond's training had prepared her quite thoroughly in anticipation of such an event. As such, she calmed her mind and focused on the Torchic before her, as the other two Pokemon made room for them.

     Espiria and Torchic stared each other down for a few seconds, before Torchic rushed at her with a headbutt. Espiria easily dodged this attack and as she did so sent her tail, wrapped in her psychic power, into Torchic's trajectory.

     Torchic, having ran head first into Espiria's Tail Whip, had his head knocked back and fell over on his back. Seeing her opponent vulnerable, Espiria dashed at him with a quick attack.

     Torchic, despite being knocked down, was still fully aware of his surroundings and rolled over several times, narrowly avoiding her attack. Espiria took a quick jump backwards.

     As Torchic was getting back on his feet, she used Sand Attack and Double Team. Not wasting any time after her Double Team, Espiria rushed forward and dodged through the handful of Embers that Torchic had spit at her.

     Once she was in range, she used Quick Attack and landed a headbutt directly into Torchic's head sending him flying backwards into the wall of the overhang. As soon as Torchic went flying, Espiria used Quick Attack again just as a speed boost and rushed towards him. Landing her forepaws and her psychic power against Torchic's body less than a second after he hit the wall, she stared into his slightly dazed eyes and commanded him to concede.

     Torchic, having clearly met his match, conceded and none of the others made a fuss about following Asmond's Pokeplans. They were all thoroughly convinced that this was the best path forward for them, despite how strange it may initially be to work together.

     Having accomplished her mission, Espiria darted back up the mountain and back down the trainer's path towards Asmond. Arriving back in his room, she reported everything that had happened and then joined Asmond in finishing up their meditations.

     Asmond was quite excited about having acquired, or at least acquaintanced, another Eevee. He wasn't certain how the Pokemon distribution worked in this world but the more he learned the more he suspected that it might be determined by their logical environment. 

     He suspected that normal type Pokemon of all shapes and sizes would appear in nearly every region. Furthermore, he reasoned that a region like Hoenn would most likely never see a Pokemon like Snorunt, unless there was actually ice in the very bottom floor of Shoal Cave and he didn't see why there would be.

     Asmond conjectured that insect types, no matter their ingame regional distribution, would appear anywhere insects would normally appear. As long as Hoen had insect friendly environments, then most if not all pure insect types could potentially appear there.

     According to this logic, a Pokemon like Skymory, would most likely only ever appear near the tops of volcanoes since steel can only occur after other rocks have been heated to extreme temperatures and birds obviously prefer places closer to the sky. This would make Skymory's cannon appearance at Mt. Chimney seem very reasonable and made him suspect that if he ever wanted one he could probably find one there.

     This was the hypothesis he had constructed to try and explain why there were Eevees and other non Hoenn Pokemon, here around what he was certain was Meteor Falls.

     The only explanation he could come up with, as to why his Eevee had been born as an Espeon, was that it was connected somehow to him sending his psychic power into the egg during its gestation period. This was why he was thrilled that he had come across a second Eevee so soon and a Seedot to boot. These two would allow him to test his hypothesis even further. Torchic would also be helpful but just not as much since he wasn't a dual type.

     As of Asmond's fifth birthday, Espiria had only managed to rope in one more Pokemon but it was a very important one. A shiny Happiny had joined the Overhang Gang and was now training according to Asmond's instructions. The three of them had, at Asmond direction, began digging a small cave into the wall of the overhang, while keeping a large rock outside to serve as a type of door.

     This task, of course, wasn't easy for the still very tiny Pokemon and so it took them almost a week to construct. With the addition of Happiny, who was much stronger than she appeared, the four of them had been able to expand the cave with a bit more ease.

     Happiny followed Asmond's instructions and focused all of her training on learning healing abilities and improving the quality of those abilities. Now that the gang had a healer, they could train for longer and more vigorously.

     Not only was the gang's training going well but Asmond and Espiria had also made significant progress with their own abilities.

     Espiria was now nine inches tall and could orbit a tennis ball sized rock for ten revolutions and could hold four small rocks in simultaneous orbit around her body.

     Asmond had only worked his way up to a golf ball sized rock but could maintain five simultaneous orbits. While the potency of his psychic power was substantially less than Espiria's, he seemed to have slightly greater control over it.

     Asmond, however, had more than just his psychic power. He also had his magic and he could do some fairly impressive things with it at this point.

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