Chapter 4: Throwing rocks at your starter for fun and profit; mostly fun

It was a warm day, and Joey found himself already sweating as he exited the north gate of Saffron. He knew that the league started in the spring because this was when most new pokemon hatched in the wild, giving new trainers a leg up in completing their teams with young pokemon eager to go out into the world. The other reason being that if the league lasted ten months, starting in spring, then it could go on break in winter.

The thing was that Kanto, as an island, did not have particularly strong winters. Exhibited by the fact that there were essentially no ice-types to be found on the main-land, unless one wanted to scale mount-silver or go to one of the winter islands.

Anyway, while there were certainly advantages to starting in spring, he wondered about the validity of sending off a bunch of kids too dumb to properly hydrate into a cross-country tour in the hottest time-period of the year. On that note, he took out a water-bottle from his backpack and guzzled down some of the life-saving liquid.

"I'm probably just weak in sun-light due to my typing," Joey muttered as arrived as far as he was allowed to go with his current licence. He was in a field, at the end of which, towards Cerulean, he saw a breeding and day-care farm. Looking to the left and to the right, he didn't see any ace-trainers, so he could only assume that the person was training in the forest in either of the directions.

Not having any indication of which direction he should pick, Joey simply went towards the west, assuming it would be safer to go into the forest between Saffron and Celadon, rather than the forest between Saffron and Lavender. When choosing between walking towards the territory of grass, or ghost pokemon, it was generally safer to go towards the former. Even if one was ghost-typed themselves.

Aura was an interesting phenomenon, and one that Joey's mind kept reverting to. It was a power that suffused all life-forms. Its expression could be divided into different types, but in essence it was life energy. It coursed through the body at all times, and a certain amount was necessary for the organism to function properly. If one had an abundance of the energy, one could suffuse their body with a higher than normal amount to achieve superhuman feats. In humans this generally expressed itself in higher perception, or in the strengthening of the body. However, humans were funnily enough, when one considered that the pokemon ditto existed, the most adaptable creature on the planet. In terms of aura, at least. Or type energy, TE. The TE expressed by humans adapted to their environment, but generally needed the symbiotic relationship with pokemon to grow. That was why fire-type trainers generally were not harmed by high temperatures which their pokemon often exuded, and why rock-type trainers might have more resilient than average bodies.

Joey's TE was ghost-typed not because he had trained any ghost pokemon, but because of his special status as a reincarnated individual. He had been dead before, and the experience had marred him in some way. Attuned him to distortion. It was also because of his reincarnation that he was so well-versed in feeling the power inside of him and using it for his purposes. After all he hadn't had aura in his previous life, so the now present life-force lit up to his senses like the sun at night. Manipulating it was a bit more challenging, but as a baby, one usually didn't have anything but time.

He heard the clap of thunder from his left. It was muted, but impossible to miss. Joey had only ever heard it through bad speakers of the television in the library and the orphanage, but he would recognize the sound of the move thunder anywhere. Perhaps Michael had actually lost to an ace-trainer, he mused as he started making his way towards the sound. Thunder was incredibly powerful and difficult to master. It wasn't something just anyone could try and teach their pokemon. Or, well, it wasn't a move just anyone should try and teach their pokemon. Some trainers probably tried anyway.

Walking through the trees Joey's view eventually opened up into a large field in which the grass had been systemically burned away. It was a common precaution trainers took when wanting to train in an environment prone to forest fires. As the clearing opened before him he saw an entire team of pokemon all focused on their own specific tasks. A stunning rapidash and a girafarig were standing completely still and facing each other in the middle of the clearing, alternating attacks at each other with their respective weapons of flamethrower and psybeam, which the other had to block with protect. Protect was known to be a completely exhausting move, which often needed a significant cool-down period, but both of them had already successfully used the move twice since Joey had arrived.

Another flash of light illuminated the clearing, more than the harsh sun was already doing.

Surprisingly the attack was coming from a well-groomed Persian rather than any type of electric pokemon. Joey quite frankly, was astounded. While he knew that the technical machines were widening the possible move pools of pokemon as Silph Co. developed more and more of them, and he knew that most normal-types could be taught some electric moves, he never expected to see thunder from a Persian.

He sighed. In a way, it had already worth coming here just to see how far he really had to go. Rattata hadn't even learned a ranged move yet, and something like thunder, or any equivalent was still at least a year off.

Not particularly interested in walking into the field in which he could spontaneously die, Joey focused his gaze on the back of the trainer who was currently working with a trio consisting of a nine-tales, a tyrogue, and an ekans. He could only see her back, so he couldn't do anything but wait until they turned around and noticed him. But he admired her confident form, clad in running shorts and a red tank-top, as she commanded her pokemon.

The goal of the exercise they were doing seemed to be to teach the ekans and the tyrogue how to break out of a psychic hold, as ninetales alternated between lifting one of the two up, surrounding them in her psychic powers, until they managed to struggle free with the use of some dark-type moves. Ekans seemed to be using bite to work against the attack, while tyrogue was using sucker-punch.

It was quite clear that both the non-evolved pokemon were beyond Joey's starter, and he could only hope that if the trainer accepted his challenge, she would content herself to beating his ass with one of the two, rather than with one of her evolved pokemon.

Contentedly standing there and watching the training session, Joey was a bit sad to see the trainer turn around at some point and start. She furrowed her brows and bid him to come over, after checking on the three pokemon she wasn't personally conducting the training of at the moment.

Joey walked over to the girl who must have been in her late teens, and whose purple pony-tail reached her butt.

"Hey, I'm Joey," he said as a greeting as he was sized up by the trainer and all the three pokemon whose session he'd interrupted. The tyrogue seemed a bit angry, whereas the ekans simply stared at him with dead eyes. The ninetales used the break to lay down.

"I'm Michelle," the trainer, seemingly confused at his presence.

Joey cracked a grin at the woman's name. "You beat an idiot named Michael yesterday, he had a badly trained pidgey. Came crying to me after and challenged me to a battle, saying that he needed an easy win to bolster up his ego," he said.

Michelle's eyes lit up with some sort of remembrance and she enthusiastically hit the palm of her hand with her fist. "Ah, I get it, you're here to avenge your friend," she concluded, before looking back to her persian training thunder and the slugfest between her girafarig and her rapidash. The duo was starting to flag, and were taking flamethrowers and psybeams to the face whenever their protects failed. "You're quite brave, the sound of thunder usually scares trainers away, rather than attracts them."

"Well, if you wanted real privacy you would have gone further out," Joey commented, before shaking his head. "As for why I'm here, I'm not avenging anyone. I'm just looking for a battle. Michael told me you had a tyrogue and I thought it would be good training for Kong. He looks angry that I interrupted his training session, so motivation on his part probably isn't an issue," he joked, pointing at the purple fighting type.

"Hmm, alright, I have time for another pidgey. Although, tyrogue isn't really my pokemon, I'm just helping him out in return for some insight into how fighting types function. He'll have to choose if he wants to battle or not."

"Ty, ty!" the little dark purple pokemon shouted and jumped in front of his non-trainer.

"Well, that's that I guess, although, are you sure you want to battle me here with only one pokemon?" Michelle asked while looking at his belt.

It was a valid question. It was generally inadvisable to battle in the wilds and be left with no pokemon to protect one's self on the way back. However, Joey was in a special position where he was still more dangerous to fight for any wild-pokemon than his starter was, so it was a bit moot.

"I'll be fine," he thus said and pulled out his poke-nav, sending out a battle request to Michelle. He was asked if he was sure by the UI, as Michelle was an ace-trainer, but responded with a yes.

"Which conference did you win?" Joey asked curiously as he walked backwards so that more space opened up in between them. He thumbed at rattata's poke-ball.

"Silver conference, last-year," Michelle responded as she also took her place, hand on hip, tyrogue shadow-boxing in front of her.

"Ah, I only watched the Kanto finals. I guess you're here to use Kong as a whetstone before challenging Bruno?" Joey asked, causing Michelle to do a double-take.

"How did you know?" she asked curiously.

The youngster could only shrug. "It's what I would do. Kong is currently a gym-leader, which means he has to give you a private match if you ask for it. Bruno won't know how you're preparing for him, but you can still try out some strategies against a fighting type-specialist. I guess that's why you have your little purple buddy with you at the moment," he mused.

"That's very astute of you," Michelle complimented, before cringing. "Please don't tell anyone," she asked.

"Only if you beat me," Joey said with a grin and sent out rattata, who took an aggressive position on all fours and sized up his foe. The tyrogue paused in its shadow-boxing and tilted his head in surprise.

"Don't underestimate a foe, ever!" Michelle barked as their poke-nav's started the countdown to the battle. The tyrogue refocused at Michelle's words, but Joey could see that it wasn't taking his starter seriously.

"Lesson one on fighting-type psychology, they tend to dismiss those they consider weaker than themselves," Joey said with a grin as the battle started. "Go for the legs," Joey shouted, eyes laser focused on the top-heavy stance of the tyrogue. Unless it was a faint, he could already tell that the little guy wanted to evolve into a hitmonchan.

Rattata surged forward with speed that surprised his opponent, but Michelle was already reacting. "Brick break," she ordered, and the tyrogue struck downwards at the approaching rat with a glowing fist. However, before the fist and rat could meet, the latter dug his feet into the soil, halting its momentum. The brick-break slammed into the ground, throwing up a small cloud of dust.

Joey didn't have to say anything, rattata was already surging forward with a quick attack while Tyrogue was mispositioned. His starter's whole body impacted the tyrogue's torso and head. "Rebound!" Joey shouted and rattata pushed himself into a backwards flip before another brick break could slam into his stomach.

Tyrogue stumbled a few steps backwards from the impact, but looked more mad than hurt.

"Attack," Joey ordered, before the enemy had time to regather their focus, and white energy built up around rattata, before he shot forward again.

"Focus energy, retaliate," Michelle said calmly. Joey sighed as tyrogue managed to use the move once before rattata smashed into him with a quick attack, barely avoiding a brick break in the face in return. While the tyrogue looked worse for wear from the two attacks, focus energy had managed to put its head back into the game. A damaged but calm opponent was always more dangerous than a fresh angry one in Joey's opinion, so he wasn't particularly happy about the trade-off.

A dangerous dance commenced between the two battlers, as rattata ran circles around tyrogue, weaving in and around brick-breaks, hitting the occasional tackle or quick attack. It looked like the little rat was winning, but unfortunately it was a mismatched battle from the beginning. Due to its type-advantage, the tyrogue only needed to hit the fragile rat once, while rattata wasn't dealing enough damage to not make that lucky strike inevitable.

"Stop attacking, only counter," Michelle suddenly ordered, causing the tyrogue to stop attempting to attack rattata, who was just faster than it, and was able to dodge everything it was throwing out. The two entered the second stage of the dance, one in which rattata couldn't harm the tyrogue because the latter didn't provide an opening.

"It seems we've reached an impasse," Joey commented clinically. "If we attack then your tyrogue will just meet us head-on and we lose that battle due to the type advantage you have. But you can't attack, or else rattata will use its superior speed to dodge and hit you in return."

"If that were true it would be a draw," Michelle said. "But it's not. Weave focus energy, tyrogue," she ordered, and the battle evolved further. Now, with every little break it had, tyrogue used focus energy, increasing its battle awareness and likeliness of badly hitting rattata when it decided to switch to the attack.

"Weave, tail whip," Joey ordered with a scowl, suspecting already how this battle was going to end. Rattata started sending out probes of defence-weakening normal TE into Tyrogue's body, while the latter continued focusing. During all of this the two continued dancing around each other, looking for an opening. It was here that tyrogue's likely experience shifted the battle. It simply found more opportunities to use its own buff than rattata did its debuff.

Joey's plan had been to lower the tyrogue's defence so much that it would faint as well if both the pokemon met head on, but he didn't think that that stage had come yet when Michelle shouted, "sucker punch!"

It was in a situation like this that Joey had lost his first battle. He'd gambled on rattata knocking out the pidgey instead of the other way around, instead of trusting his pokemon to dodge and counter. While he could do the same here, hoping that rattata's momentum would carry him through the incoming punch and knock out Tyrogue, he decided to take a different kind of gamble. A gamble of trust.

"Dodge and counter," he ordered calmly as Tyrogue blitzed forward unerringly with an outstretched fist glowing with dark-type energy. Rattata squared himself waiting for the last second, but it was his inexperience that lost him the battle. Sucker punch was a move that added a level of quickness to its user, and the fist sped up in the last second, hitting rattata before he could dodge and retaliate. Destabilised, Tyrogue was able to finally land a, "brick break!", thus knocking out Joey's pokemon.

The youngster recalled his knocked out rattata, leaving a panting and shaking Tyrogue as the only pokemon on the impromptu battlefield. Joey sighed and glanced at his poke-nav. He hadn't lose any money with the defeat. A chuckle forced his way past his lips.

"You did great," he told the poke-ball before clipping it onto his belt, he looked up to meet the eyes of a frowning Michelle, who had walked over to him while he'd been distracted.

"I don't think I've ever had such a tough time beating a rattata," she said, and probably meant it as a compliment, but it showed the general attitude that existed against the species.

"He's going to go all the way to the top one day," Joey said with a nod.

"You were also impressive, I don't think you made a single bad decision during the entire battle. You were just limited by the move-pool you had available," she said and clapped him on the shoulder. "What's the next item on your training agenda?" she asked.

"Currently rattata insta-loses if the opponent throws out a rock or a steel-type. I know he can learn rock-smash, so I'm going to try and work on that next. If that doesn't work then iron-tail, which at least solves the rock problem. Not like there are many steel-types running around," he said, causing Michelle to bring up a hand to scratch at her chin.

"Do you want my advice?" she asked.

Joey blinked. "Of course, whatever you can share."

"Good, the boy from yesterday didn't want to hear it," Michelle murmured, before pausing to collect herself. "While rattata can, I think, learn both of the moves you mentioned, I'd suggest you forget about it at the moment. Let me explain: Rock-smash is a fighting-type move, so you would have to teach your rattata to wield the type energy diametrically opposite of normal. It would take a ridiculous amount of time. Time in which you could probably teach it four moves it's actually attuned too. I would suggest either forgetting about it or splurging on TM. Iron tail is more feasible. However, what I noticed when teaching it to persian," she said, nodding towards the cat which had slinked over to watch the battle, "is that the pokemon needs to be at its peak physical fitness before starting to work on the move. Your rattata isn't the biggest and most muscular one I've ever seen, so I would personally wait."

"What do I do against rock or steel types though?" Joey asked, at which Michelle simply shrugged.

"Honestly, I would just accept the type-check. Sometimes matches are so unfavourable it's not worth bothering. Better use one of your switches, you'll probably have more than one pokemon by the time you get to Flint, and he's the only one you really need to worry about until the conference."

Joey considered Michelle's words, hating the fact that he was just supposed to let himself get stat-checked by any chump with a geodude. However, she had actually won a conference, so she knew more than him. He wasn't qualified to debate her yet. His general attitude towards those more experienced than him was just to accept their advice as long as it wasn't stupid.

"I guess it makes sense, better work on moves that will increase my chances of winning battles that are actually winnable," he agreed with a sigh. "But what should I work on then?" he asked, listlessly cataloguing the possibilities. Hyper fang would allow him to win battles that were already possible to win more easily, while bite would increase his coverage due to its typing.

"What I always did during my journey was to prioritise the move that would have let me win the battle I just lost if I'd known it," Michelle mused. "In your case, I see three probabilities. There's swift, which is a good normal type-ranged move. This would have allowed you to force Tyrogue to come to you. The second one is endure, it would have allowed your rattata to not flinch at the sucker punch. The third one is detect. It's a fighting type move, but your suggestion of rock smash tells me you don't shy away from a challenge. It would probably be easier to learn it as well, because it requires less fighting type energy than rock smash while also functioning with a rattata's instincts more efficiently. After all, they're a species that usually has the ability to run away, while also being quite fragile."

"I didn't really know rattata could learn detect," Joey admitted.

"No one really knows what specific moves a pokemon can learn. It's a work in progress figuring it out and there's always a prodigy hiding somewhere. What I do know is that persian can learn detect. Since the two of them are normal types, whose species focus more on dodging than taking hits, it makes sense that rattata coule learn it too." Michelle paused. "Makes sense to me at least, I don't know if everyone would agree."

"I'm more willing to trust your instinct on this than mine. You're more experienced."

Michelle huffed. "You calling me old?"

Joey laughed. "Anyway, I think I'd like to try teaching rattata detect. Being able to dodge is going to be the only thing keeping his battling career alive. It's more important than a ranged type move, since he can't use that if he's knocked out anyway," he theorised. "And endeavour would just go against the instincts I'm trying to instil in him."

"Do you know how to train the moves?" Michelle asked curiously and Joey nodded.

"Dodge attacks blindfolded while trying to develop fighting TE for detect. Endure attacks with normal TE flowing through the body for endure. I think I'll work on detect, endure sounds like it would be easier to learn when he's more physically mature. It is on my list, just not right now"

"You integrated that quite fast, huh," Michelle said, before pulling out her poke-nav again and tapping away at it. "How about you give me a call when you're about to face Kong. I'm interested to see how it will go," she suggested, and Joey similarly held out his device, the numbers being exchanged.

"I always thought I'd get a girl's number for being cool, not because she wants to see me get my ass beaten by a gym-leader," Joey said with faux-disappointment, causing Michelle to giggle.

"Well, girls like competent men, so just keep training. Once you get some stronger pokemon I'm sure you'll do fine," she said.

Joey glared at her, not appreciating the jab. She smiled apologetically, but shrugged, as if trying to say, 'what can you do.'

"Are you here for a rematch in a week? I'd appreciate the opportunity to put your tyrogue in the dirt," he said, at which she shook her head.

"Battling Kong in two days, then I'm flying off to Johto."

"Chuck, I guess."

Michelle winced. "Am I really that transparent?" she asked.

Joey put up a hand and waved it up and down. "I'd say so-so. Consider going to Hoenn as well, they also have a fighting gym," he offered, getting a queer look.

"They just opened up a few months ago and nobody I know is planning on going. How do you know about it?" she asked curiously.

"I read," was the answer. "Anyway, I should get rattata to the centre, maybe we can still train a bit today. Thanks for the match and the advice, I'll call you when I decide to challenge Kong. You tell me when you do the same for Bruno, I'll cheer you on."

"With little pom-poms?" Michelle asked curiously, looking him up and down as if checking how he would look in a cheer-leaders outfit.

Joey rolled his eyes and waved her off. "I'll do that if you get to Blaine, good luck," he said and made to leave.

"Stay safe!" Michelle shouted after him.

Joey exited the clearing. His place in the world and his path forward looking clearer than when he'd entered it. It was time he revised his notes on detect while rattata got treated, he decided.

-/-

"Any chansey eggs you want to get rid of, nurse Joy?" Joey asked as he handed over rattata's poke-ball to the woman behind the counter. He had gone and challenged Michelle quite early in the day, and had lost very quickly, so the centre was quite empty for the moment. He'd only seen trainers going out on the route on his way back. Some had tried to challenge him, but he'd told them he only had one fainted pokemon and they'd left him alone.

"Joey, please. I don't and I won't. It's a restricted pokemon due to rarity, I'm not just going to hand them out. I think I already told you this during our first-aid class six months ago?" she said, having time to chit-chat a bit. She put rattata's pokeball on the scanner and twirled at her pink braids with a finger.

"A class which I aced, by the way," Joey reminded her.

She simply rolled her eyes. "You know, I completely agree with you. It would severely lessen the burden of pokemon centres if all trainers had a pokemon that knew healing moves on their team. However, we barely have enough Chansey to station one at every poke-centre. Their population is growing just as fast as our human one. It's just not in the cards, unless you pay a ridiculous amount of money to a breeder, or win a tournament which has a rare egg as a reward."

"Ah, it's always worth asking. At least people will know what you're looking for. Any excuse really, to talk to a woman as beautiful and distinguished as you," Joey said, but nurse Joy had grown serious after looking at the screen connected to the scanner.

"What happened with your rattata, he's quite hurt," she said, before looking closer at the screen. "It looks like you challenged Kong's gym. I thought you were smarter than that," she tutted.

"Hey, I challenged some trainer on the road. They just happened to have a tyrogue," he defended himself, causing the glare that Joy was sending him to lessen.

"Youngsters should stick to fighting youngsters before they get their first badge, then they actually know where they stand and can pick their battles appropriately."

"No worries here, I'm still a few weeks off from going for the badge."

"Good," Joy said with a nod. "Anyway, this will take a bit longer, so do sit down somewhere. I'll call you on the intercom when he's ready."

Joey nodded and walked towards the computer terminals lined up against the wall. They were all free, so he could actually get a spot for once. Usually he had to go to the library.

Booting up the PC Joey navigated his way towards the League Circuit forums, logging in with his youngster ID. There were some threads he was following that he wanted to check. Some specialist forums, and some specific trainers. The former didn't update that much at season start since most people were busy battling, but he went back to some threads he'd followed to quickly read up on how most people trained detect. After having confirmed that he'd remembered everything he went to the page of a certain trainer, who should have battled in the lily of the valley conference yesterday.

-/-

Welcome to the League Circuit Forums! The best place to discuss with other battle enthusiasts and exchange training tips.

Sinnoh → Trainers → Cynthia_Shirona → Megathread

Topic: Everything about our blonde queen and saviour Cynthia

Original Poster: League_Account_Official

(Showing page 89/102)

►BlondeMenace

I don't care what anyone says. The finals were absolutely sublime, best battle of the year, and that's including all the elite challenges we've had. Cynthia vs. Lucian will go down in history as the most hype sh** ever. Both of them are good enough to take on the elite four and its crazy that we got two prodigies like that in the same conference.

►Bor902

I think y'all are missing the big picture. Cynthia has only had her trainer's license for three years and now she's won it all. She's the fastest generalist to have ever done so. Last record was five years. She didn't just break that, she absolutely smashed it.

►King (Verified Trainer)

bor902 to be fair, the battle could have gone either way. The last moment when garchomp and alakazam faced off and it was the alakazam that collapsed… Absolutely crazy, but what I'm trying to say is that a small burst of wind could have given us Lucian as the winner. I'm sure Cynthia would have absolutely crushed it next year doe, and still broken the record. So, doesn't really matter I guess? Without Lucian there nobody could have contested her and it would have been an easy win.

►JFK

I would legit give an arm and a leg to have a gible descended from that garchomp. Cynthia's going straight to the top. Pedigree will be insane soon.

►NOPEISNOPE (Verified Trainer)

@JFK Giving an arm and a leg would be horrible deal, since the gible would eat up your other two once you tried to train it. Dragon's aren't no joke man. You need to have a serious boss starter on your team to keep them in line for the first few months.

►+Webb

Marry me Cynthia!

(User received infraction for this post)

►Grapejuice

@+Webb She's 17 years old you freak.

(User received infraction for this post) (Don't engage!)

►LILnix

@BlondeMenace Bertha is going to crush her. Like she has been everyone for the past few years. Elite four is too stacked at the moment. Better to wait for some of the oldies to retire, lol.

►Dangerzone (Verified Trainer)

I'm curious how she trained garchomp to fire off two rapid-fire draco-meteors like that. Also, can we talk about how ridiculous it is that you have to manage that sort of bull**** to deal with teleportation? Psychics too op, pls nerf.

►Friendly ghost (Verified Youngster)

Hmm, I see. With Cynthia getting the three-year record my time-line moved up a bit. I guess two years as a generalist is still manageable.

At least I'm not a specialist. Lance the dragon-type specialist from Johto just won the Indigo conference at age 14, after only one year of having a license. Would be a bit harder to top that.

Several people are typing…

Kanto → Gyms → Kong

Topic: Everything about Saffron's fighting type gym

Original Poster: League_Account_Official (Bot)

(Showing page 119/120)

►King of the skies (Verified Youngster)

Why is Kong going so hard? Does his pay-check depend on how many trainer's he crushes? No way was that machop first-badge level. We should file a complaint. I had a type-advantage as well.

►Hesss (Verified Trainer)

Who is this "we" you speak of. I trained for a month and beat his hitmonchan and hitmonlee combo for my seventh badge a few years ago without whining about it. It's meant to be a challenge. Season opened a few days ago so it's completely clear to all of us that you just didn't train at all, took a pidgey (with that cringe user-name), and expected the type-advantage to carry you.

►Cissmyzss

@King of the skies I saw your battle, I think. There's too many kids running around with pidgeys to really say.

Anyway the method for beating Kong is as clear as it has been ten years ago. He's the gym-leader that is supposed to teach you how to utilize ranged attacks to keep purely physical threats off of you. This is why his pokemon never use any ranged moves until the fifth badge level, even though I'm sure they know some. Just teach your pidgey gust or something, or at least wing-attack. WTF is the point of a type-advantage if you only know tackle?

►King of the skies (Verified Youngster)

@Cissmyzss How do I teach a pidgey gust?

►Cissmyzss

Man get the hell out of there if you're not planning on talking about Kong.

►Hitorhit (Verified Trainer)

You guys should be glad Kong only uses machop or mankey for his first-badge matches. He specialises in the tyrogue evolution chain. If he used a tyrogue he'd be unbeatable.

►Lil_Mouse (Verified Youngster)

Does anyone know how to beat machop if all I have is a rattata?

►Fletchgod (Verified Trainer)

Who's going to break it to the poor kid? Honestly no idea why they even give out that starter.

►Dissmypokeanddie (Verified Ace-Trainer)

@Lil_Mouse I would suggest taking one of the buses that the league organises now and again to go to Celadon and try the grass-type gym. As long as you can avoid status effect powder moves it's an easy win. Usually a bell-sprout or an oddish. Pretty chill actually.

►Friendly Ghost (Verified Youngster)

Anyone willing to bet on me beating the machop with a rattata? Kinda strapped for cash right now so would appreciated some suckas.

Several people are typing…

-/-

"Pick up your starter Joey," a crackly voice blared out over the inter-com and Joey logged out of the forums, after doing a bit of trolling of course, and went over to pick up his poke-ball.

"You haven't been battling much, have you?" the nurse asked once she handed that over.

The youngster shrugged, "I've had three. Mostly training, but I plan on battling more now."

"I'd suggest you leave older trainers alone for now. They'll all be tough battles, and too many losses can be demotivating in the beginning. Have you considered going to the arena and trying to see how you match up to other youngsters?" she asked, causing Joey to consider her words.

He didn't really think that other youngsters would be much of a challenge. But it would maybe be a way to get some easy money for training equipment and higher quality food for his lil bud. Mostly he would appreciate the opportunity to continue challenging older trainers. But for that he'd first had to find them. Joey didn't really know how people who'd already competed in a conference but lost, did their next circuit. Did they just do the same route, but challenged the gym-leaders 8-badge teams from the get go?

Well, in any case, he could beat on some youngsters and see if he found more trainers in the evenings, while taking a walk around the routes. He understood what worried nurse Joy, that he would lose his motivation if he lost too much.

But, his loss with Michelle had been highly instructive, so even if he was feeling bad about it, he kind of doubted that he would be able to make himself stop challenging the people above his weight-class.

"I'll think about it. Is that all?" he asked.

"No battling and no intensive training for rattata for the rest of the day," she said. "Otherwise, that's all. Do have fun and watch Kong's public battles before you challenge him. It's impressive how many people don't even think to do that," she mused.

"Thanks nurse Joy, have a nice day and be blessed," Joey said as he left the centre and waved good-bye to the kind woman. Nurse Joys really were angelic.

-/-

"How do you feel?" Joey asked as he let out his rat on to the small clearing behind his orphanage. Most of the kids were still in school, or kindergarten, or, if they were youngsters, they were out there somewhere getting beaten up for their lunch money by those with a trainer-licence, and thus a more powerful starter. It was empty, and nice.

The only other person present was Theresa, but she was sitting on a bench on the other side and reading a book, occasionally being pestered by bellsprout.

Rattata gently touched the top of his head with a paw and winced at the big bruise it had there, where the brick break had smashed into him with the fury of a thousand suns.

"You did incredibly well, you know. You were dodging everything that the tyrogue was throwing at you," Joey complimented, which caused the pokemon to puff up his chest and wag its tail from where it was sitting on its behind.

"Nurse Joy told us to maybe lay off challenging older trainers for the moment-" Joey began.

Rattata began chittering in protest and waving his little paws around.

"-but considering how valuable of an experience that was, I think we should just do it when we get the opportunity," he finished, calming down his starter. "Anyway, I think I know what to work on next, and how we should try to accomplish it. I talked to Michelle, the trainer of the tyrogue. She told me that we could have won had we been able to dodge that sucker punch. Of course the issue is that sucker punch is a move specifically designed to be hard to dodge. So she suggested we counter stuff like that with a move specifically designed to predict attacks and to dodge them. Have you heard of detect?"

Rattata shook his head, before cutely tilting it.

"It's a move that allows you, in the highest stages, to basically see into the future. The only issue, it's very hard to learn. Harder for you since it's a fighting-type move. You're not really seeing the future, or reading your opponent's mind, you're just hyper-charging your brain and your senses with fighting-type energy, letting it subconsciously feed you data on what is about to happen, rather than why it's about to happen. The latter would fry your synapses, energy or no energy," Joey explained.

Rattata nodded once, twice, three times. "Tatta," he said confidently.

Knowing his pokemon at this point, Joey just rolled his eyes. "You didn't understand a word I just said, did you?" he asked, receiving another nod. "Basically, I'll put a blind-fold on you and you'll try to dodge to develop some sort of ultra instinct. Once you manage to make this into a move, you will have done so with fighting-type energy. Then we can work on that as well. Very similar to our dodge training really," he explained and took out a piece of cloth, tying it around his starter's eyes, who'd now gotten down on all fours and was warily twitching his ears.

Joey took off his shoes so that he was bare-foot. This wasn't training for his starter's hearing, although that probably wasn't a bad idea either. His skin would make less sound as he stalked around his starter, hefting the little pile of stones that he'd collected, he gave his last instruction.

"Bring up your energy into your body, but mostly your head. Like you do mostly for your legs when you use quick attack. But try to make it more punchy, if you know what I mean. Maybe imagine yourself practising martial arts katas on a cliff surrounded by crashing waves or being honourable or something," he said, waited a bit and threw a stone.

It flew wide, Joey wasn't that accurate. Rattata twitched his whiskers, jumped to the side in a heroic dodge, right into the projectile. It bounced off the bruise on his head, causing them both to wince.

Joey threw the second small rock, and so began, the most boring and dumb training session over. One boy throwing stones at his starter, reminiscent of some TV depictions of pokemon abuse, while the starter in question jumped around erratically trying to dodge projectiles it clearly didn't know were coming.

This was going to take a while.