Chapter 5

It's the next day now and I am excited as hell to get my starter!

Will they be male or female? What ability would they have? What personality would they have? What moves do they have?

In my excitement, i quickly got up, finished getting ready, woke up Misty in her room and immediately went to the gym, we opened the door to mom's office and she was there just like yesterday.

But there was one difference, there were two Pokeballs on her desk, looking new and shiny.

"Oh you both are early, looks like someones are excited to get their starter", she said this in a surprised but amused tone.

Then she continued," well here Misty your starter, staryu, is in the ball on the right and lia, your slowpoke is in the other one."

We took the Pokeballs of our respective starters, Misty looked eager to open hers while I gave mine a excited but considering look, I hope we get along.

"Alright, I know you both are excited to get to know your starters and I won't stop you, you can use the space where the gym Pokemon are kept, before you go though I will give you some advice on training them, start with the basics, train the moves they already know first and their body before moving to more complex things" , she said this and we both listened carefully, especially that advice, now i atleast know where to start.

Mom also added in,"if you need help then me a s your sisters are all in the gym, but the training of YOUR Pokemon is YOUR responsibility.", i nodded seriously to that before leaving with Misty.

"My staryu is gonna be the best! We will become the best ever together! You will see! Wanna battle ?", Misty somehow said this all in one breath while we were going to the gym Pokemon space.

I shook my head in reply to the battle part, I don't even know what moves slowpoke has let alone battle.

We reached the area and split up to introduce ourselves to our starters alone.

I opened up slowpoke's pokeball by pressing the white button on its front, the ball opened up and a bright red light came out of it releasing slowpoke.

Slowpoke turned to me and I started my introduction.

"Hello...i am lia... Your new trainer...you know about this?", probably not the best introduction but I did my best with my voice.

I need to find someway to get past this speech disability or it will hinder my battling capability.

Maybe I can do something with my empathy? It's pretty much the only option I can think of other than gestures and sound.

My slow speaking didn't bother slowpoke as it took time to reply.

"Slowww pokee"

[Greetings, curiosity, affirmative: hello, yes Mary told me about it]

"About my ability?...did she say?", I asked and slowpoke nodded at that, so my ability is already explained to him.

Then we just sat in silence awkwardly for a bit, I had no idea how to continue this conversation, umm, maybe desires and goals? That's a good start point I think

"You have any... Dream? Desire?", I asked.

{A/N: i will just directly show the intentions now rather than add slooww every time}

[Desire: strong , king], slowpoke answered, quicker than before, his tone sounded rather yearning, it seems like he really wants to be strong.

"Wanna be a ... Slowking?", I asked and slowpoke nodded while looking straight into my eyes

I gave a small grin at that," can work with that", I said with a nod.

I wanted to train him to be super strong and evolve into a slowking from the beginning so it works works for me.

maybe we should get started on training? If he wants to be stronger then that would probably be a better activity than simply chatting, like we are right now, it would be more fun too.

"Wanna train immediately?", slowpoke's quickly nodded to that, well as fast as a relatively untrained slowpoke can atleast, seems like this may be the best choice for bonding too

This gym Pokemon area is essentially a artificially created living space for all sorts of water types, there is some greenery, trees and stuff for the ones that can move on land but it is mainly dominated by ponds.

We went to a corner of the pond were close to, where there were no Pokemon resting and began with the basics.

"Ok, show me... All your moves" , slowpoke nodded and first tackled a tree.

So he can use tackle, ok, nothing much to improve on there, tackle is just covering themselves in normal type energy and tackling the target with their full power. Anything else?

Why am I so sure that there is nothing else to improve in tackle?

Next, he growled at the same tree, the growl also came out perfectly, i don't know why I know this but my ... Intuition, I think is the word, is telling me that it's perfect.

Next, he did something that caused some purplish energy to spout out of him and do something, this must be curse, it isn't perfect though, the effect is too weak.

WHY DO I KNOW THIS?!! it just feels like a fact of life! Roses are red, violets are blue and slowpoke's curse move is not mastered yet!

Screw it, it's been helpful so far so I will think about it later, maybe it's the second part of my ability or something, actually that is probably what it is.

Finally, slowpoke shot out what was likely an attempt at water gun from his mouth, it seemed to be unmastered too.

It was unfocused, some of the water fell on the ground or to the side in the middle of it, it should be faster that this and thus stronger too.

Oh, slowpoke is looking at me,i say with a smile, " that was great ...slowpoke... and i think ... We need to... work on water gun... Give me a minute...", slowpoke nods at me.

speaking so much in one go makes my throat feel like it's gonna go die somewhere, i really need to figure out if I can send my intentions to my Pokemon, actually why not try that while training"

First thing though, water gun, it's his only long range move for now so mastering it is important, how will we go about it though.

I hum in thought before an idea strikes my head, PRESSURE, that is the key to most water type moves like this, probably for hydro pump too though that is a endeavour for the future.

This WILL work, that same feeling from before is telling me so atleast.

And testing time,"slowpoke...i will try...to transfer... my own intentions... To you", who knew speaking is so tiring, anyway, slowpoke looks curious at that but gives an affirmative.

'can you use a water gun with more water and adding more pressure before shooting?' , i wait a bit but no reply.

That didn't work, from the same feeling as before i know that I am going in the right direction but why wouldn't it work then.

Let's take another perspective, whatbare intentions, they I think, are a statement as to what action we want to take next, I intend to ask a question, i intend to do that, etc.

That's it! A statement! I was trying to send a request over to slowpoke but intentions are more like a statement.

[Curious: what are you thinking]

That startled me! I replied,"sorry, thinking ... How to transfer ... Intentions", slowpoke just nodded and went to just ... Lying on the stone beside the lake?

When did he get there? Well, i get lost in thought easily so it's understandable i guess.

'use water gun, increase the amount of water, increase the pressure' , slowpoke perked up once he registered that and shot a water gun at the tree, but he did it the exact same way as before.

I don't think he ignored the other part so it probably wasn't transferred, maybe gestures would help?

I repeat the previous intention while adding in a gesture of swinging my hands out and then rotating them around each other in a circle.

Slowpoke again gets up, this time focusing more on the quantity of water and pressure on it, eventually he shoots out a much better stream of water, it's still a bit ... Unsteady? U unstable? Nothing some training won't fix.

I need more practice with this particular facet of my empathy but i should've able to reduce the amount of gesturing.

I tell him to keep practicing while I think more on how to go about the curse move and ... Stat? Let's call it stat training.

When he used curse the ghostly aura around him seemed very light, maybe having him condense more ghost energy will help strengthen the effect? YES , yes , it will, the feeling is back.

For attack, defense and speed, healthy diet combined with intense physical activity.

Yes, that will increase physical stats.

For special, move training maybe? I imagine the better he is at handling the various type energies the higher his special attack and defense.

Yes, my theory IS accurate, or so my intuition says.

Finally, the greatest weakness of his species, slow response speed, i already have an idea for this.

What is response speed related to? The mind, what is deeply related to both the mind and the slowpoke species? Psychic powers of course!

I assume their response is due to their scattered psychic powers or something like that and they will become more responsive as their proficiency with psychic moves increases.

Am I right intuition!? Yes , yes i absolutely am.

How would I go about it though, maybe meditation? Yes, i have a weak but positive response at that so I am in going in the right direction.

Next, have him scrounge up any psychic powers he can and use them? Yes, but there is something missing. Oh right, a move, I need to start him up on a psychic moves as well.

And , yes , a complete positive response.

[Satisfied: i am finished], slowpoke pulled me out of my thoughts and told me so.

I saw him shoot a steady, stable and FAST water gun at the tree, it caused some focused damage to the bark too and gouged a small chunk of the tree, increasing the power is now simply a matter of practice.

Oh, it's already been an hour, he has worked hard but can he go for more? We still have time before lunch.

'can you go for more'

[Affirmative: yes!], he looks excited at that, i suppose he might like training? Maybe battles too?

'master curse, increase the amount of energy, condense it more to enhance the effect' , slowpoke gives another affirmative and moves to practice.

He continues on for another two hours to master it. The colour of the ghostly aura produced by the move is now a deep, spooky purple.

We have lunch together, i have some sandwiches for myself and mom gave me some pokepellets for water type Pokemon that was kept in the gym.

We eat up and decide to go for a swim after a short rest, it makes for good physical training, i join in as well after changing and it ends up like a small friendly competition between us.

I lose of course, you don't challenge a water type to a swimming competition expecting to win, I still managed to keep up with him for a while ,though i doubt it will stay that way.

We did some meditation together, i gave him some extra instructions on bringing out his psychic powers, i myself just did regular meditation.

We went back home once it was eight in the evening, while having dinner I asked mom about the intuition thing.

She said that it seems like a very useful ability and is most likely the 2nd part of my ability like i thought.

After returning to my room,we nearly immediately went to sleep, me on my bed and slowpoke was beside me, he was surprisingly soft as I pet him for a bit before yawning and going to sleep.