Ch.5

Taking out my Pokédex which has a GPS in it, Leo and I begin to slow down our jog once we are a few miles from the city. We then begin to walk northwest deeper into the forest while still heading towards Pewter City slightly. Leo entered the Common Rank before we went on our Journey, as he is currently level fifteen. Plus with my psychic abilities, we should be relatively safe in the forest as long as we do not venture outside the explored areas. 

The Pokédex tells me what part of the forest we are in and suggests what Rank Trainer should enter where. It also shows where the dangerous parts of the forest are and what common types of Pokémon are found in the area we are in. Currently, we are still in the 'Rookie' part of the forest where only Rookie ranked Pokémon, that are found and they are usually bug types or flying types. Leo has the type advantage over both, so we should be fine as long as we do not venture past the Rookie area. 

"Grow-growlithe!" Leo says barking in a direction since he smells something, his extremely good sense of smell can smell up to several miles away. This is another reason why I also feel safe since he can smell danger before it comes to us. 

I put my Pokédex away since we shouldn't be entering any dangerous areas for miles and it might be a battle coming up now. We both then sneak our way in the direction of what Leo smelled. As we speak, I use my psychic ability to mask our scent and the noise we make though I can only do this for up to ten minutes, and is not a hundred percent perfect. 

Approaching the area, we see half a dozen Caterpies munching on berries. Slowly and sneakily pulling out my Pokédex I scan the Caterpies, each is in the rookie rank. I can not tell their potential unless I catch them. Though I have no interest in catching them, however battling them is another story.

"Want to battle them?" I ask Leo who looks at the Caterpies one more time before looking at me with a determined look nodding his head. 

"Let's do this… Leo use Howl and then leer on them all," I say as Leo jumps out howling and then leers at the Capterpies who are caught off guard by us. 

"Now ember!" I say as Leo uses the stunned looks of the Capterpies to use three moves before they react. 

Small sparks of fire fly out of Leo's mouth towards the Caterpies. With two reacting in time to dodge as the others are hit directly. The four hit cry out in pain as the other two begin to use string shots at Leo, but are not well trained enough to use the move as Leo easily dodges it. 

"Ember again!" I say as Leo shoots more fire at the two caterpies that are unhurt as the others are slowly getting up. 

The two caterpies are charging up another string shot as they are hit by Leo's ember. They both cry in pain as the pain cancels the moves they are about to use. 

"Now finish them all with one more round of Ember!" I shout to Leo who once again releases another wave of ember at them all. 

This finally knocks them all out as Leo howls in victory and I praise him giving him his favorite treat. 

"Good job Leo," I say petting him as he wags his tail happily. 

I then gathered some of the oran berries they were eating. Some to keep for myself, while using the remaining to heal the fallen capterpies. I didn't want to kill them as I had no reason to, nor did I want to capture them. As I had more than enough money, plus I only wanted to catch the Pokémon I plan on keeping and using in my main team.

I am fortunate enough to have a father who is a gym leader who can provide me support, and once I start challenging gyms and other trainers I will be getting a steady side income from the league. For now, I want to focus all my time and energy on training Leo to be his best. My Dad told me to get Leo's Stats all the way to AA Rank before evolving him as that will give him the best chance at getting crazy good stats after evolving. Pokémon's stats reset once they evolve back to F Rank and a trainer needs to reraise them. So it is better to train your Pokémon as high as they can get before evolving them. 

After helping the caterpies heal up a bit, enough to wake up, they all looked at me warily. I just put my hands up showing I meant no harm, then I left them with Leo as they watched us leave still wary of us. 

Leo and I then spent the next few hours battling any wild Pokémon we came across, with Leo easily beating them all. Though his level still hasn't gone up, as they were all extremely low Ranked Pokémon.

"Leo, I want you to start absorbing the fire scale from Margmar every night for an hour before bed," I say handing Leo the King Ranked Fire scale my Dad gave me Leo nodded his head taking the scale and placing it in his mane. 

Like that a for a week, Leo and I explored the Rookie recommended area of Viridian Forest. Leo slowly absorbed the Fire Scale, though, from the looks of it, it would take him the rest of the planned time we would be spending in the forest to absorb it all. My plans followed my Dad's advice, two hours of meditation in the morning to help my Psychic powers. With Leo doing exercises while I meditated, then we would head out to battle wild Pokémon. 

"Leo we are gonna enter the 'Competent' Rank area of the forest now. You ready?" I ask him as I pack up our things from camp last night. 

"Growlithe!" Leo says nodding his head and we then begin to make our way there. 

The Competent Ranked area of the forest wasn't that different than the Rookie area, it was just a larger area, and the Pokémon here were in the Commoner Rank. This means Leo and I should now have some challenges since he is still only level fifteen and in the Commoer Rank too. However, it also means we should try to avoid groups of Pokémon since they are now in the same Rank as Leo it would be an almost impossible fight to win.

The first few hours we spent in the new area were quiet and uneventful. Leo alerted me that a wild Pokémon was nearby after we walked deeper into the Competent area. Like last time I hid our scent and noise as we slowly made our way to the area Leo smelled. Walking over there we see an Ariados sitting in a tree very well hidden. We've not noticed it, if not for Leo's nose. 

My Pokédex confirmed it was still in the commoner Rank, which is lucky since it was alone and not a Rank higher than Leo. It was still a few levels higher than him, but since they were still the same Rank, Leo has a high chance of victory due to his duel-type advantage. Type advantage plays a big part if the Pokémon are in the same Rank, otherwise, type advantage wouldn't matter if the Pokémon are in different Ranks, and the higher the rank the less of a chance the Pokémon would be even affected by a weaker Pokémon. 

"You ready?" I whisper to Leo who nods his head not taking his eyes off the Ariados. 

The Ariados and Leo appear the same size, though Leo should be able to dodge being directly hit with his superior speed. 

"Ok, remember Howl and then leer at it before using Ember," I say since I taught Leo to always use Howl and Leer immediately when entering any fight. As that will automatically give us the advantage in most battles. Though for now it only works in surprise battles, since Leo's mastery is low, and has to charge the moves before we begin the fight. 

Like our usual plan, Leo jumps out having prepared his howl and leer. While the Ariados almost immediately react to seeing us, since unlike Rookie Pokémon commoners learn to survive the harsh wilds. Before Leo can use ember, the Ariados uses Sword Dance and then dodges Leo's ember. Then it uses Scary Face as Leo finished using Ember missing his attack. 

"Use Ember again," I say as the Ariados jumps directly towards Leo with its two front legs shining in a dull white light. 

It intends to use fury swipes on Leo. The ember hits the Ariados but the Pokémon powers through the attack hitting Leo Twice before Leo is able to jump out of its reach. They are now both slightly injured as I grumble at my mistake. Ariados doesn't wait and charges Leo again looking to use Fury Swipes once again. 

"Use Flame Charge meet it head-on!" I shout as Leo gathers flames around his body and runs toward the Aridaos which tries to cancel its move to dodge the attack. 

The Aridaos can't dodge in time as Leo crashes into the Pokémon with a loud bang and Aridaos is sent flying back a few feet. The Pokémon cries in pain as it crashes against a tree. With a few burn marks on it now and looks very hurt from that last attack. 

"Don't let it escape! Use Flame Charge again!" I say as Leo charges it again, though his last attack increased his speed back to normal after scary face lowered it. 

Ariados looked to be trying to use Shadow sneak to escape. Just as it was about to escape Leo reached it and crashed into it again with his flaming charge. This time the attack directly killed Aridaos as Leo was not holding back to only knock it out. The sound of crunching and a dying cry could be heard as the Ariados fell to the ground dead. Leo let out a howl of victory again, while I patted his head and gave him a treat for winning. 

"Good job Leo, once again you prove that you are getting stronger. Though next time do not kill the Pokémon, unless I tell you to," I say as Leo looks happy at my praise, but then nods his head seriously at my command. Growlithes are one of the easiest the train as they are extremely loyal to their trainer and will do anything the trainer commands without question. 

"Good… Now let's see what we can gather from its corpse," I say taking out my knife and looking up what items sell from an Ariados body. Normally I would wake the Pokémon up and go separate ways, but it's dead, and I might as well make use of its corpse. 

After grabbing the parts from the Ariados's body, Leo and I continued our journey through the forest. We came across a few more Ariadoses and thankfully they were alone. Making the battles against them easier each time as we learned the best way to take them down. By the end of the Day Leo finally leveled up, to level sixteen, once again showing how difficult being a trainer in this world is.