Chapter 33: Training montage from the beyond

Thank you to my new Patrons: Ryan, Desert Mango, Jeffrey Smith, Stephen, Brian, Mika Artus, Dafu, Seadrake, Mr Obricos, Burr, john, TheSlavicFool, Ryan Sanford, Tikihut, JourneyManMike, Southmonk

-/-

Having decided to go to Cerulean for the gym challenge and to then participate in the youngster tournament three weeks after meant that the relaxed schedule that Joey had been anticipating suddenly turned hellish.

The issue was mostly that with the gym challenge being a randomly chosen task and with the youngster tournament being a knockout elimination bracket, Joey had to prepare for two very separate things.

However, while he gathered his thoughts on the subject, there was one single thing that both scenarios had in common. Mainly, while tasks and battles required a different application of force, both of them in the end benefited from being able to exert more of it.

No matter the task at hand, one could never go wrong with some basic training.

That was why, on the day after Joey had booked his gym challenge over the phone, he was setting out onto route 8. 

He had checked the job postings that morning and hadn't found anything particularly enticing.

This left him with the advice given to him by Bruno, which had been to let Rattata smash rocks to train the aptly named fighting-type move.

Naturally, there were not particularly many rocks in the city of Saffron that Joey had the privilege of being able to destroy for his training, which had reminded him once again of a particular clearing on route 8 where he had captured a large group of mankey recently,

The group of rage monkeys had inhabited a large rocky outcropping at the base of a series of hills which then turned into smaller mountains. Considering that Joey had also seen these monkeys smashing the rocks in the area it might even be the case that the stones were already infused with a sort of fighting-type history that Rattata could profit from.

He thus exited the city onto Route 8 which had at this point featured heavily in a variety of fateful encounters. For example Joey's capture of Metapod and the death of the Arbok, his capture of the mankeys and his training for Kong back in the day. Route 8 once again became the haunt of the youngster.

Entering the wild after greeting and briefly chatting with the gate guard Bob, Joey quickly reoriented himself in nature which was slowly starting to show signs of autumn by turning yellow and red.

He identified the grasslands to the north that he had to traverse to gain access to the clearing of the mankey and began his walk with the hope that some of the fighting-type Pokemon were still present there. They would also make great practice for Metapod whose Iron Defence technical machine had arrived this morning.

Joey hadn't wasted any time in applying the move technology to his bug type and was now looking forward to training the new addition to her arsenal.

There weren't many ways in which a Metapod could diversify their move set, so any little bit counted, even if it was just an improvement of Harden.

Pushing aside tall grass that he had already grown somewhat familiar with, he passed the borough of the Vulpix into which he had once puked and came to the stop where a large hole had been dug into the ground to capture the group of mankey all those weeks ago. The grass had once again started to grow over the upturned earth and it seemed like the shade provided by the indent of the hole was helping create a special little ecosystem.

It reminded Joey of the digging technique used in deserts to turn them a bit more habitable. One would dig a crescent hole in the ground, with the big indent facing east, which would cause the indentation to be protected from the harsh sun for longer by the creation of shade. This meant that grass would grow inside and eventually spread out further as the grass itself then also provided shade and cooling to its surroundings.

Joey patted himself on the back for the fact that he was essentially saving the environment even if it wasn't really necessary in this world.

A few more steps carried his relatively short legs forward until he heard a cacophony of sounds coming from the clearing where the mankey resided.

It was a mixture of grunts, yips and screeching. Some whooshing, reminiscent of type energy being used to cut air, closely followed by pained screams and the impact of fists or legs on the ground.

Pulling up his concentration just in case he needed to shadow sneak away from some sort of danger Joey approached more cautiously, bending down at the knees to reduce his profile and to disappear into the grass completely. Whereas before his head had been peeking out allowing him to orient himself more easily, now he had become a shadow, a traverser of jungles.

Slowly getting closer, taking care to also minimise the sound of his feet on the ground Joey eventually pushed aside the last large bushel of grass to peek with one eye at the rocky outcropping which had by now become familiar.

He was unsurprised to find a fight going on, although he was surprised at the participants.

Jumping in between the rocks and gravel, was a single mankey panting with exertion and missing large tufts of hair. Chasing it were a trio of howling meowth, with their claws extended who were hissing and spitting angrily.

Joey easily recognized a territorial dispute, but considering that he wanted the clearing for himself for the day he simply leaned back and waited for two sides to exhaust themselves fighting each other. He grabbed a sturdy looking stick just in case he'd have to defend himself.

The mankey ran behind rocks to dodge a series of sharp Fury Swipes, briefly emerged to aim a Low Kick at a meowth before back-flipping on the rock and engaging in a series of acrobatic dodges again. Tired but filled with a sort of honourable determination, Joey was surprised to see that as time slowly passed it was the mankey gaining the upper hand over the meowth.

In an inspired use of guerilla tactics, a fight that should have been lost due to the single mankey being outnumbered three to one ended differently than expected. All four participants were huffing and puffing, covered in bruises and scratches.

The three meowth suddenly stopped, the cream-coloured cats sharing looks before glaring at the mankey and in unison turning around and scampering away. Joey gained a first-row seat to this spectacle as the fight had finished right in front of him where the tall grass ended. Mankey's back was turned to him so he saw from up close how the tension left the Pokemon's shoulders as the meowth turned tail and ran. 

Busted and beaten the fighting type fell forwards to its knees as it successfully managed to defend its clearing.

Suddenly however a shadow fell on the mankey from behind, providing a cooling effect to the adrenaline-pumped Pokemon. Mankey just got the chance to turn its head slightly to see what was throwing the shadow, glimpsing a shaded figure standing over it with a large heavy stick raised in its hand.

The stick whizzed down in a meaty thwack and the mankey fell to the ground unconscious.

Joey put down his improvised weapon and called out Metapod to properly restrain the fighting type.

Adjusting his blue hat he looked down at the mankey with a complicated smile.

"Nothing personal, kid," he said before looking at the scratched-up clearing that he'd gained for the day. There were a variety of brown and grey rocks littering the fields, going from sizes that reached Joey's knees to ones that dwarfed him completely.

This place had clearly been inhabited by fighting types for a very long time. There were scratch and punch marks on every single one of the rocks as well as on the ground, as well as on the singular tree that stood in declaring to provide some shade.

Joey cracked his knuckles as Metapod silently buzzed beside him, covering the mankey in a prodigious amount of sticky goo to restrict its movements.

"Let's see how this works," Joey muttered to himself and called out the rest of his team. It was time to train. 

-/-

The easiest regime that Joey had to devise was for rattata. He had specifically taken over this clearing for the day for the single purpose of having the little purple rat smash rocks.

"Start with this one," Joey said, pointing to a very brittle-looking brown rock that reached up to his knees and was about twice the size of his head.

His starter nodded seriously, walked up to the rock and raised his right paw clenched into a fist which was glowing a burnt orange energy.

A thwack resounded through the clearing as the fist smashed into the rock and crushed it in a very satisfying manner, pieces of it flying into the air and onto the ground, leaving nothing behind.

Joey nodded and then led his starter to a rock that reached up to his navel. It had a similar consistency as the previous one, but due to its size rattatas initial Rock Smash only managed to chip away about a fourth of it. Three more Rock Smashes followed, leaving behind nothing but broken shards, stones and gravel.

"I see," Joey muttered. They continued their search until they eventually reached a large monolith which looked less brittle because it was made entirely out of a grey material, which was just as big as Joey was tall. A boulder, essentially.

"Use Rock Smash on this one," the youngster ordered.

The purple rat nodded seriously and raised its fist, taking a bit more time to charge up the attack this time. A "Kyaaa" sound disturbed the non-peace of the clearing and the monolith remained standing. A small splinter of stone chipped away from the large boulder.

However, the impact hadn't been hard enough to harm Rattata who was already charging up again.

"Pace yourself, this is a good stone for you to destroy. I think that if you can manage to wreck this, then you will have progressed the move significantly. Do take things slowly and focus more on executing the move perfectly rather than quickly. You're not in a rush at the moment," the trainer advised, staying long enough to make sure that his starter had listened before turning around to make his way to his other two Pokemon.

Metapod had used the time that Joey had taken to instruct Rattata to start creating poison in her stomach, while Diglett was simply exploring the area curiously, occasionally sneaking a glance at the very angry-looking monkey wrapped up in a white cocoon. Its mouth was similarly covered and it was taped to the trunk of the only tree in the clearing. It was glaring at them with murderous intent.

"Diglett," Joey called out, getting the attention of his newest acquisition. "You've been progressing very well considering I only had you for a week," he started by praising. It was true as well.

While Diglett only knew three moves, all of them ground typed, and was in this way just as tactically limited as metapod, the little mole had managed to win most of the battles that Joey had sent him out in.

Of course, Joey had paid particular attention to make the first few matches easier rather than harder so as to ease the Pokemon into a life of battling, but the mole was very tactically disciplined and obedient which made things easier.

Diglett could beat most low-level Pokemon by using the advantage of hiding underground and striking from below. The others that knew how to fly he could now reliably have a chance against with his newly learned Mud Slap.

Sand Attack turned into Mud Slap, and Mud Slap would eventually turn into Mud Bomb. Mud Bomb was one of the best-ranged options that the Diglett line had. Due to this, it was important to get there as quickly as possible to increase familiarity with the move which would then become a profitable venture for the rest of Diglett's career. The only issue was that at the moment Diglett was not necessarily yet powerful and experienced enough to transform Mud Slap into Mud Bomb.

The transition from the now highly developed Sand Attack into the more powerful Sandstorm which would trigger Diglett's ability seemed more reasonable. However, even that would be a longer work in progress and would only increase Diglett's repertoire of ground-type moves from three to four.

There were two moves that Joey wanted to work on instead at the moment to increase the move variety.

He knew from his reading that the Diglett line naturally learned Growl and Astonish at some point. Astonish in particular would be a good addition considering that it would provide Diglett with a move super effective against ghosts and psychics. Considering that ground was super effective against fire, electric, steel, rock and poison, this would give Diglett a good answer to almost half of the typings. It was ridiculous coverage for such a young Pokemon. The only issue was naturally how to train those moves.

Growl was very simple. Joey would have Diglett use his voice in an attempt to intimidate another Pokemon. Astonish however was a bit more difficult since it introduced a relatively obscure type of energy that Diglett had never worked with before. 

Thankfully what helped in this case was the fact that Joey himself was ghost-typed. Thus he could help Diglett familiarise himself with the energy with a variety of tactics. This would have to wait though and Growl could be attempted first.

"You see that Mankey?" Joey asked Diglett who slowly nodded seemingly afraid that this was a trick question of some kind. "One of the moves that you can learn is used to intimidate other Pokemon into losing a bit of their attack power. Just like how Sand Attack can lower accuracy, Growl can make an opponent less threatening even when they do hit the move. I don't think it will be an important addition to your arsenal for the rest of your career, but a sound-based attack is always good to have because it is harder to dodge than all the other abilities. Now for Growl you have to try to utilise normal energy which is thankfully one of the easiest energies to use and concentrate it in your throat. Then you release it in an intimidating manner along with a shout at an opponent. Do you think you could try that with the mankey?" he asked.

Diglett nodded once before travelling a bit closer to the mankey. Once it arrived a few metres away from the struggling fighting type, he concentrated for a few seconds before releasing what Joey could only describe as a sneeze.

The mankey froze in its attempts at escape to stare at Diglett in confusion before starting to struggle even more harshly now that it had been made fun of.

"Continue trying Diglett just for a bit then I'll come to help you try to learn a different move," Joey promised then turned his attention to Metapod.

"Have you managed to get a feel for the new memories of Iron Defense?" he asked his Pokemon as he approached. The green crescent spat out a bright purple blob of acid onto the floor as she saw that a different kind of training was about to commence. She wrinkled her eyes in what Joey was able to perceive as a shrug.

"Well, regardless, I think that at this stage of the move, it would be most important to simply use it as often as possible and try to hold the steel-type energy as much as you can. Perhaps at the end of the day, we can release our new friend," he said, nodding towards the cocooned mankey who was raging at the cute intimidation attempts of Diglett. "Then we can see how well you defend against the weaker wild Pokemon attacking you physically. I think Iron Defence will be a great move when it can be mastered to the level where you can use it in between String Shots. When someone does get close to you they'll just break their fists trying to crack your shell," Joey said with a cackle.

Metapod did her best approximation of a nod, before closing her eyes and suddenly shining a bright white light. However, rather than the white light of hardening, this one had a bit of a more steely glint to it.

Joey approached his Pokemon knowing that there was an easy way to test if Iron Defence had been used instead of Harden. Whereas Harden simply improved the organic defence capabilities of the user, Iron Defence added a layer of steel to the whole mess. Therefore when he gently tapped his knuckles on Metapod's head, he could feel a slight reverberating gong of striking steel run up his body and also enter his ear.

He nodded in satisfaction. "Just like that," he praised. "Use it as much as you can and switch it up with training the poison which you can then expel with String Shot," he said. "I think that our next goal for that particular combination would be to create poisonous balls which we can hit people with. Rather than with the string which does no physical damage we could poison someone while also giving them a bit of blunt force trauma, that would be for the best," he said. The idea had recently come to him when he had seen the legitimately useful effect of bullet string shot on Surge's Raichu. It hadn't been a lot but it had perhaps contributed to the fact that the Raichu had fallen after only facing two of Joey's Pokemon. 

If they could combine kinetic force with poisoning, then it would remove the need to use so much string. It would increase their efficiency while also decreasing their material usage. Good things.

Also, bullet string strong tended to stick to the opponent, just like String Shot did. It was easier to remove due to the shape though. A tradeoff that had to at least be available as an option. It wasn't like Metapod could work on many things currently.

Once he saw that Metapod was well on her way to getting Iron Defence to a usable level, Joey turned around to see that Diglett was still not making much progress with Growl.

He stood back and watched the little brown Pokemon helplessly yell at the tied-up mankey before stepping forward and reassuringly patting Diglett on the head, feeling the coarse hair on top.

"Don't worry about it," Joey said. "As long as you know that you're trying to do it it will eventually work, most likely in the heat of battle. Now let's focus on familiarising you with ghost-type energy so that we can similarly create an opportunity for the awakening of Astonish."

Standing with Diglett underneath the shade of the tree that the mankey was tied to, Joey remained in his kneeling position with his hand on Diglett's head. He had thought of several methods to familiarise Diglett with ghost-type energy. However, even if it would be easier for him and his energy reserves, it would not be very nice to simply pelt the very young Pokemon with Shadow Balls until he dropped. Instead of this Joey had decided that he was going to take Diglett with him on a Shadow Sneak journey.

Using Shadow Sneak just by himself was incredibly demanding and exhausted his reserves very quickly, let alone taking someone else with him. However, Joey assumed that he could still undertake the journey three times while leaving enough energy to escape a wild Pokemon attack if it happened. Three times, then Diglett could Growl at the mankey again until Joey recovered. Everything was efficient and planned out. Joey didn't have the time for bad training.

"I'd try to sturdy my stomach if I were you," Joey warned his Pokemon before calling up the powers of distortion and connecting them to the shadow cast by him, Diglett and the crown of the tree. After a few seconds that Joey used to tighten his control of the move, the two of them sank into the earth, but rather than digging under it as a ground-type move would have, they disappeared into their own shadows.

They reappeared slowly from the ground twenty metres away next to the monolith that Rattata was training with. The little rat was very consistent in his attempts and had already managed to chip away a tenth of the stone. However, Joey could immediately tell that his starter was starting to become tired.

He glanced down at Diglett whose fur he was still ruffling to see that the ground type had swirls in his eyes and was wiggling around uncomfortably.

"Let's recover for a bit huh?" Joey muttered as he felt inwardly at the energy he had available. Taking his time and not completing the move as quickly as possible had actually helped not completely deplete his reserves. This meant that he would be able to use the move four more times.

A few minutes passed before Diglett came to with a shake of his head and nodded resolutely with flinty eyes indicating that he was prepared for a second trip.

They sank into the shadows again and reappeared next to the mankey who was looking at them with a disturbed gaze.

Two more such trips and Joey left Diglett to continue growling unsuccessfully at the fighting type. He himself sat down and started meditating to recover his reserves.

An hour or so should allow him to do the trip two more times at which point it would be time to start wrapping up the training.

-/- George the mankey.

George the mankey watched with hateful eyes as the devil boy and his team of demons occupied his clearing destroying it as they did so. The purple rat demon was going around destroying the stones that his family had used to train their moves before they had all been taken by the devil.

The stupid mole demon growling at him a variety of weird and disturbing threats was destroying the clearing by digging through it, creating unsightly burrowing trails.

The only demon that could be forgiven was the green crescent Pokemon that George had seen often enough in the forest when he and his family had gone there in search of berries. It was simply sitting there, occasionally glowing a steely white light. But, considering how the material entrapping George to the tree had come from its mouth, and how he remembered that that very same string had been instrumental in taking away everyone he knew, he would never forgive it regardless.

The amount of anger and hatred that George felt for this troop of devils had surpassed the hotness inherent to his species and had ascended into a cold-blooded bloodlust. He knew perfectly well that if he had the opportunity he would tear apart the whole group.

Unfortunately, he was forced to hang there with no chance of escaping. He could see very well that the intruders who had, of all things, come here to train, were much stronger than him. This released in him a simmering frustration that was hard to repress.

"Digle, digle," the mole-like Pokemon growled at him unsuccessfully and George hung his head knowing that this torture was not going to end anytime soon.

-/-

The training lasted for around two hours and Joey was happy to note that all of his team members had made visible progress. Ratata had chipped away at the original stone successfully, the destruction he was inflicting on it with each punch growing larger and larger until the effect had doubled.

Diglett's growling had become less comical and had even made Mankey flinch a few times at the end there. The Pokemon had also gotten a bit more used to the Shadow Sneaks, not being as disoriented after a journey.

There had been no real more achievements made in that regard, but Joey counted it as a success anyway.

Metapod had started shining a brighter and brighter gleam of steel in her usage of the move which indicated to the youngster that it was moving away from the properties that were shared with the move Harden and that it was coming more into its identity as Iron Defence. Joey nodded, satisfied and decided to end the session right there.

From the corner of his eye, he glanced at the mankey glaring at him in cold rage and decided that he didn't necessarily feel like letting the Pokemon free to wail on Metapod to test the Iron Defence. For some reason, he got the feeling that the mankey didn't like him and his team particularly much.

In that sense, he simply sprayed the mankey with a potion a few times to heal the wounds it had recieved from the Meowth, before recalling his team and turning his back on the clearing. From his experience with Metapod's String Shot the mankey's bindings would dissolve soon.

He left the clearing, his mind already on the Pokemon Technical Institute job that he had picked up. It was going to be a good challenge that would mirror the battles of the youngster tournament where he would face a bunch of people he'd never heard of who had a bunch of Pokemon he'd never battled against.

What slipped his mind as he made his way back home was the fact that due to Metapod having created the string shot for mankey with the distinct intent of restraining it as effectively as possible, she had created a long-lasting version of the move.

This meant that the mankey was stuck on the tree for an entirety of nine days and nine nights. The only thing saving it from dehydration was the rain that fell on the second, fifth and seventh day. 

It truly was an indicator of the danger posed by allowing children to run around with creatures that could use a variety of supernatural moves. It was hard to be responsible and never harm anyone when even a slight error of judgement, or slip of mind, could lead to death.

After Mankey finally got free from the string attaching it to the tree it fell gasping for life and kissing the earth. George had been afraid that he would die stuck on that piece of wood and in a bout of anger, as weak as he was from starvation and dehydration, he punched the tree into submission until it cracked and fell.

Having attained a sort of meditative nirvana of waiting for death when being tied to the tree, George swore the kind of revenge that made the one he had sworn two weeks ago when all his family had been taken seem like a joke in comparison.

That devil and his three demons were going to die painfully.

-/-

AN: I am having way to much fun torturing this poor mankey, unfortunately it is important for, uh, plot reasons.

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