CH12 (35), Mock Fight and Lessons Begin

Natu and Rattata stood opposite each other, waiting for the starting signal.

Mikail picked up a stone from the ground and addressed them both.

"I am going to throw this into the air, its landing on the ground is the start signal.

Are both of you ready?"

Both Pokemon nodded and Mikail threw the stone upwards somewhere between the two.

As soon as the stone fell to the ground both Pokemon burst into motion.

Rattata began running towards Natu trying to get into close range.

On the other side, Natu began with his opening move stirring up the dust and dirt around the place to obscure Rattata's vision and distract it.

Rattata was forced to slow down and squint its eyes to avoid tripping, running against something, or getting something into its eyes.

Mikail, who saw that Natu's opening move went without a hitch decided to use the backseat command.

What he saw from Rattata's initial burst told him that Natu should be able to more or less maintain the distance between them once he opened it up.

"Backseat open."

Natu who heard Mikail's instruction directly started widening the gap between his foe and himself.

Once he felt that he had retreated enough he started a full-power Gust.

While Natu was initiating his Gust the dust cloud he had caused settled and Rattata had gotten back its unobstructed vision once more.

Rattata resumed its run towards Natu who was already performing his Gust.

Because of its momentum, it had no chance to evade the attack.

It was hit by the move and not only was it damaged by the move, but it could no longer run forward.

Rattata was doing its best to maintain a grip on the ground to avoid getting blown backward.

Once Natu witnessed his attack successfully hitting the opponent and that the Rattata was trying to not get blown away, he squeezed as much power as it could into his Gust.

Just as Natu could no longer maintain his Gust and had to stop flapping his wings the Rattata lost its grip and tumbled backward.

Natu happy with his success adjusted his position and aim a bit before initiating another Gust hitting his foe while it was down, causing the Rattata to roll around the ground some more before it was lifted off the ground by the current caused by his Gust.

The current finally blew it towards a tree that stood behind it and it slammed into the tree.

*Bang*

Mikail, who heard the volume of the collision knew that Rattata would be unable to recover fast enough to dodge the next attack and gave Natu a new command.

"Natu, Front seat."

Natu flew towards the downed Rattata as fast as he could and used Leer at his fallen foe that was currently trying to stand up and shake off its dizziness.

After his successful Leer, he flew above the Rattata and performed Peck aimed at Rattata's head.

The poor Pokemon was hit on the head before it could shake off the dizziness and damage from its earlier intimate moment with the tree and collapsed.

It was knocked out.

Natu saw that his adversary could no longer fight and stopped preparing the second Peck he had initiated.

Mikail, who saw the Rattata slumping over made whooping sounds before he rushed over to Natu and hugged him while congratulating him.

"Good job, Natu.

You won and you performed perfectly.

You beat the Rattata without allowing it to reach you and without taking any damage.

This was great for our first battle and hopefully just the first of many more, but no matter how great this victory was we can't let it get to our heads.

We are still weak and our opponent was a bit weaker than us.

There will be a day when we will be one of the strong but we have to stay humble.

Understood?"

Natu nodded his head indicating he understood but that did not stop him from feeling happy with his first win.

After showering the happy Natu with praises and giving a small warning Mikail focused on their downed opponent.

Mikail saw that the Rattata was still out and went over to check up on it.

He saw that it was not seriously injured and only had small nicks here and there either from the Gust, or from the tumble on the floor as well as a bruise at its back from the collision with the tree.

Otherwise, it was okay when you ignored the fact that it was knocked out.

He had prepared a few salves and he wouldn't call them potions but mixed berry juices that would help the Rattata recover to peak condition in a few moments.

He took out one of the salves and one of the liquids and started applying the salve on the nicks and the bruise on Rattata's body.

After he was sure that all injuries were covered he carefully fed the fluid to the downed Pokemon.

The Rattata started coming to after drinking the liquid and instantly became alert.

Feeling itself recovering and seeing that it had not been captured, it relaxed slightly before focusing on Mikail and Natu.

Mikail, who had silently observed Rattata from the side after noticing it regaining consciousness addressed it after seeing it focused on them.

"I have helped you recover as I said I would and in a minute or two at the latest you should be fully healed.

Now before I give you the berries I promised you as a reward I have a question for you."

Rattata nodded when it heard the first part but gained a vigilant look as soon as Mikail said the second part.

Mikail who saw Rattata's reaction tried to pacify the Pokemon.

"Relax, you will get your reward either way.

That is something you have earned yourself and I am a man of my word."

The Rattata relaxed its vigilance slightly after Mikail said that but Natu started to snicker when Mikail called himself a man.

He chose to ignore Natu's snickering and continued.

"My question is simple, I want to ask you if you would like to join me?

You would get more than enough to eat, a place to sleep and we would help you get stronger.

What do you think, would you be willing to join us?"

Rattata seemed to ponder when it heard his offer.

If it was really considering his offer, or if it was speculating if Mikail would go back on his word in case it refused him, he didn't know but in the end, it shook its head in denial.

"Ra. Ta. Rata."

After expressing its rejection Rattata asked for its berries.

Moving its paws towards its mouth.

Seeing and hearing its request Mikail took out the berries he had promised the Rattata for its participation.

4 Oran berries, 3 Sitrus berries, and 1 Leppa berry.

He did not plan to force the issue because of 2 reasons.

One, there currently were a few Pokemon, that he had previously asked to participate, watching them and he did not want to make a bad impression.

He would have an easier time finding a willing opponent the next time if they saw him standing by his words.

Two, the potential of the Rattata was Yellow, which was not good enough to really arouse his greed.

If it had Light Green potential he would have maybe hesitated but yellow isn't enough to even consider bending his word, which he didn't plan to do anyway, ever.

For real.

"Okay, I can only accept your choice.

Here is your reward.

It was nice to collaborate with you and I hope we can repeat this another time against my Caterpie.

That is if you want to of course.

Have a good day."

After saying his piece Mikail observed how the Rattata planned to transport so many berries at once and if it was going to ask for his help.

It couldn't transport all of them at once and if it tried to transfer a few before returning for the rest it couldn't guarantee that its berries won't get robbed by others while it was away.

To his amusement, Ratata solved the problem in a way he had not considered.

It called over two of their spectators, another two Rattata.

The first Rattata seemed to know the others because they were communicating with each other.

They had apparently come to an agreement because the two Rattata ate an oran berry each before they helped the first Rattata carry two berries each.

Each of the two took one of the remaining oran berries and a sitrus berry while the first Rattata took the leftover sitrus berry and the leppa berry before walking away.

Mikail laughed a little at the Rattata's clever solution.

The smart way it had solved its problem showed him to not underestimate others.

He nearly regretted not insisting a bit more on it joining him but only nearly.

Mikail addressed the Pokemon that had followed the happenings.

"I will return the day after tomorrow for another mock fight and I hope that some of you agree to participate if I ask you to do so."

He waved them goodbye before turning to Natu.

"Let's go home."

They returned home, where they briefly went over the fight again.

Afterward, they relaxed until dinner spending some time with Mikail's mother.

After dinner, Mikail's parents brought over some exercise books to the coffee table.

"Mikail we think that it is time for you to start learning how to read and write."

Began his father before his mother continued.

"We will start with the alphabet.

We will first go through the whole alphabet once and after that, we will add an example to every letter.

After that, you will learn how to write each letter legible in lower case as well as in capital letters.

The exercise books have some pages reserved for each letter so you have enough space to practice.

Every time you start writing a new letter you will have to vocalize the letter so that we know that you understand what each letter sounds like.

Besides that, if you need some more paper just ask us and we will give you some."

His mother paused here and his father resumed talking.

"Did you keep up with what we said until now?"

Edward asked Mikail, who nodded at his father's inquiry.

Natu snickered when he heard the question thinking how the tables had turned.

Mikail's father began talking again after receiving an assurance.

"Good now listen closely.

I will go over the alphabet once.

A, B, C, D, ...., X, Y, Z.

There are quite a few, right?

Now I will go over the alphabet once again, but I will add an example to each letter.

'A' like in Arcanine.

'B' like in Butterfree.

'C' like in Caterpie.

.....

'K' like in Krabby.

'L' like in Lapras.

.....

'R' like in Rhydon.

'S' like in Staryu.

....

'X' like in Xatu.

'Y' like in Yanma.

'Z' like in Zubat."

Mikail had a smile while he was listening to his father.

'It is funny how they had to add Pokemon from Gen 2 to complete the list.

Simply because there are no Pokemon starting with some of the letters in Gen 1.

There were no Gen 1 Pokemon starting with 'Q' for example.

So they used Quilava.

Well, there is no differentiation between the generations here because this is not a game.

They divide them according to the population distribution, so Beldum is seen as a Hoenn Pokemon because the biggest known population is here.

Finding Hoenn or Johto Pokemon in Kanto is not unbelievable simply because they are part of the same continent.'

Arya seeing her son smiling while listening to her husband was feeling content.

She was happy that she could experience these moments.

After Edward was done, she addressed her son.

"Now that your daddy has gone through the alphabet again, we will go through it together, okay?

I will say a line and you will repeat after me, alright?"

Mikail nodded at his mother, who promptly began.

"'A' like in Arcanine."

Arya would say.

"'A' like in Arcanine."

Mikail would repeat.

They went through the whole alphabet thrice before his parents seemed to be satisfied.

"Now that we have gone through the alphabet, you will start your writing exercises.

You only have to write the letter 'A' today.

This exercise book has a few pages that alternate between capital 'A' and lower case 'a'.

We don't want to force you to write too much if you don't want to but it would make us happy if you managed to fill a page for each.

We will do the first line together and then you can do the rest on your own."

His father said to him.

"When you want to stop because you think you have written enough or don't feel like it anymore, come to us and we will look over it to make sure everything is fine.

Alright, honey?"

His mother added once he was done.

"Yes, mommy.

I will."

Mikail answered his mother.

Afterward, they began his writing exercise.

Even though Mikail already knew all of this, he still did the writing exercises as his parents wanted him to.

He simply took it as a chance to beautify his handwriting and to train his dexterity.

He filled a page for each form of 'A' and gave the exercise book to his parents so they could look over it.

They praised him and they did a group hug.

His mother showered his cheeks with kisses.

Mikail was happy with the affectionate atmosphere in his family.

The rest of the time before Mikail went to bed, they played memory and his parents read to him some stories from one of the children's books they had.

"Goodnight, son.

Goodnight, darling.

Sweet dreams."

Came from his parents before they left his room.

Mikail felt that everything was great and that even the writing lessons were not too bad with the right motivation.

With these positive thoughts, he fell asleep